Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/518

502 502 SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. Part liL Stipulated that a spot of ground should be ceded to Omar, in which he might establish a place of prayer. For this purpose the site of the old Temple of the Jews was assigned to him by the patriarch ; that spot being considered sacred by the Moslems, on account of the noc- turnal visit of the Prophet, and because they then wished to concil- iate the Jews, while, at the same time, the spot was held accursed bv the Christians, on account of the Lord's denunciation and Julian's impious attempt to rebuild it. Here Omar built a small mosque, A.,., ^:,^A....:/,i.JMBl 956. Plan of the Mosque el-Aksah at Jerusalem. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in. which still exists ; but all the traditions about the place have become so confused by subsequent interchanges between the Christians and. themselves, that it is difficult to say whether it is the chamber bearing the name, on the east of the Aksah, and so designated in the accom- panying plan (Woodcut No. 956), or that to the west of the same mosque, known as the mosque of the Mogrebins. Most probably it is the former. As might be expected from the simplicity of Omar's character, his poverty, and his hatred of anything like ostentation, his mosque is a very simple building, being merely a plain vaulted cell, about 18 ft. wide by nearly 80 in length ; it may, however, have extended a