The Dome of the Rock, initially completed in 691 A.D., is called this name due to the huge block of limestone rock in the center of its floor. The dimensions of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were used in constructing the shrine. The Dome of the Rock itself is located at the visual center of a platform known as the Temple Mount, one of the summits of a range of hills that went under the general name of Zion. It's shape is that of a Byzantine martyrium, a structure intended for the housing and veneration of saintly relics. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520 to 1566 A.D.) the exterior of the Dome of the Rock was covered with Iznik tiles - a labor which took seven years. Built upon Mount Moriah, the dome of the rock is the place where Abraham was to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God (Genesis 22:1-14). It is also believed the limestone block under the dome formed the elevated threshing floor of Araunah (Ornan) on which King David made an altar in order to save Jerusalem from a plague: "Again the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, 'Go, number Israel and Judah.' "Now when David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, "Go and tell David, 'Thus says the Lord: I offer you three things; choose one of them for yourself, that I may do it to you . . . Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or shall you flee three months before your enemies, while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ plague in your land?' " "So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel . . . And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. "Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, 'Surely I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand, I pray, be against me and against my father’s house.' "And Gad came that day to David and said to him, 'Go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.' So David, according to the word of Gad, went up as the Lord commanded . . . " (2Samuel 24, NKJV)
King Solomon, David's son, built Jerusalem's temple at the place on Mount Moriah where his father erected the altar that stopped God's plague (2Chronicles 3:1). In 1993 the golden covering on the Dome of the Rock was refurbished using a donation of $8.2 million dollars given by King Hussein of Jordan, who sold one of his houses in London to fund the 80 kilograms of gold required. | 