Praying hall 5,500 worshipers, outdoor praying area 2,500 worshippers, inaugurated on April 11, 2006, Islamic architectural style prevalent in Bilad Sham, Umayyad-style ornamentation carved in Jordanian stone.[2]
Al-Masjid al-Aqṣá,[4] the former Qiblah,[5] site of the significant event of Al-Isra' wal-Mi'raj, third holiest site in Islam. The term properly refers to the whole Temple Mount compound (seen as a single mosque).[note 1]
The Great Mosque is the largest and one of the oldest mosques in the Gaza Strip and throughout its history it was Philistine temple, a Byzantine church, an Arab mosque, a Crusader cathedral and was finally transformed back to a mosque by the Mamluks.
^According to historian Oleg Grabar, "It is only at a relatively late date that the Muslim holy space in Jerusalem came to be referred to as al-haram al-sharif (literally, the Noble Sacred Precinct or Restricted Enclosure, often translated as the Noble Sanctuary and usually simply referred to as the Haram). While the exact early history of this term is unclear, we know that it only became common in Ottoman times, when administrative order was established over all matters pertaining to the organization of the Muslim faith and the supervision of the holy places, for which the Ottomans took financial and architectural responsibility. Before the Ottomans, the space was usually called al-masjid al-aqsa (the Farthest Mosque), a term now reserved to the covered congregational space on the Haram, or masjid bayt al-maqdis (Mosque of the Holy City) or, even, like Mecca's sanctuary, al-masjid al-ḥarâm,"[6]
^National Geographic Society (U.S.); de Blij, H.J.; Downs, R.; John Wiley & Sons (2007). Wiley/National Geographic College Atlas of the World. Wiley. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-471-74117-6. Retrieved 2022-06-15. Al 'Aqsa is the second oldest mosque in Islam after the Kaaba in Mecca and is third in holiness after the mosques in Mecca and Medina. It holds up to 400,000 worshippers at one time.
