The Holy Land

by John Kelman

It was in 680 A.D. that the first Mohammedan sanctuary was erected on the temple area, but the date of the present building is two hundred years later. It struck us as a curious fact a year ago in Damascus that the burnt mosque was being rebuilt almost entirely by Christian masons. Still more surprising is it to learn that the Mosque of Omar was built by Byzantine architects and modelled on the Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre. Two hundred years later the Crusaders entered Jerusalem, and, according to the dreadful story, “the carnage in the Mosque of Omar swept away the bodies of thousands in a deluge of human blood.”[27] Mistaking the Mosque for the veritable Temple of Solomon, they founded there the Society of the Knights Templars, on whose armorial bearings the dome appears. They converted the building into “Templum Domini,” and planted a large gilded cross upon the summit of it. Traces of their invasion still remain in the cutting of the rock to suit their altar, and in the great wrought-iron enclosing screen. For almost a century the Templum Domini remained in Christian hands, until 1187, when Saladin conquered Jerusalem. His generosity and gentleness contrasted strangely with the “loathsome triumph” of the Crusaders; but the first destination of the triumphal march was the mosque, from whose dome the Cross was hurled to the ground, and for two days dragged about the streets. From that time the mosque has been one of the most exclusive places in the world. Till recent years no Christian was permitted to enter it, and Jews avoid it, lest they should unwittingly tread upon the ground of the ancient Holy of Holies.

The first impressions of the Mosque of Omar are very pleasing. There is a barbaric splendour in its rich colouring and metallic glitter when seen from a short distance, while the more distant view of it is one of rare soft beauty. Its wide courts, too, give it a fresh and open-air character which is very refreshing after the stifling dark heat and closeness of the Holy Sepulchre. Above all it impresses one with its grand simplicity. The sharp-edge angles of the octagon are taken in at a glance; the rock within is bare rock, and infinitely more impressive than the silk and marble in which rock masquerades at Bethlehem. The great number of its pillars, screens, reading-stands, and other furniture, leaves little open room, and it feels rather a crowded than a spacious place for worship. Yet, on the other hand, you are not wearied with the complex symbolism of many of the ancient churches. The meaning of this may be poorer, but at least it is plain. This means just a perfectly shapely and highly coloured octagon, where men have worshipped God for a thousand years in the least complicated way in which worship has been done. Thus the mosque is typical of the faith and the policy that created it. “I do not believe,” says Disraeli’s Tancred, “that anything great is ever effected by management.... You require something more vigorous and more simple.... You must act like Moses and Mohammed.”

On the other hand, the enthusiasm for Mohammedan simplicity is sorely tried when the first moment of almost awestruck feeling ends with the advance of the guide. He is to shew you the wonders of the mosque, and the torrent of mingled absurdity and superstition by which you find yourself swept on is very trying to the would-be admirer of the faith and its monument. First of all, there are the relics—the footprint of Mohammed, and the hairs of his beard; the praying-places of Abraham and Elijah and other “very fine, high-class people,” as our dragoman described

THE WEST SIDE OF THE TEMPLE AREA.

From the barracks near the site of the Tower of Antonia. Above the domed building in the right foreground rises Mount Zion. The rosy hills to the left are the mountains of Judea.

them to us; the round hole where the rock let Mohammed through when he ascended to heaven, the hollow place in the roof of the cavern where it rose to let him stand erect to pray, the tongue with which it spoke, and the mark of the angel Gabriel’s finger when it had to be held down from following him in his ascension. Still more disenchanting is the knot of underground superstitions that desecrate the holy place, and rob it of its freshness and healthy simplicity, like snakes in the garden. The wild imagination of the East has pictured to itself the regions which lie underneath this sanctuary in its own grim way. In spite of a very obvious pillar, and a bit of white-washed wall to be seen in the cavern, the rock is supposed to hover unsupported over the abyss. Beneath is “the well of souls,” where the dead assemble twice weekly to pray. Some think of these departed ones as those who wait for the Resurrection, but a darker fancy holds that the gates of hell are here. The worshipper feels the souls of the dead flitting about him, and prays with the cries of the lost in his ears. Even the open spaces of the court are haunted by unclean legends, and seem to be heavy with the odour of graveyard mould. Here, at St. George’s dome, with the two red granite pillars in front of it, is the place where Solomon tormented the demons; there, by the eastern wall, is the throne whereon he sat when dead, the corpse leaning on his staff to cheat them, until worms gnawed the staff through, the body fell forward, and the demons found out the trick.

In common decency, any place that lays claim to sacredness must have something to say to worshippers regarding conduct; but the ethics of the Mosque of Omar are a match for its impostures, alike in gruesomeness and in impudence. They are all of the nature of magic tests, by which souls are to be tried for their eternal fate. The little arcades at the top of the steps of the platform are called “Balances” because the scales of judgment are to be suspended there on the Great Day. The Dome of the Chain owes its name to the circumstance that there a golden chain hung at David’s place of judgment, which had to be grasped by witnesses and dropped a link when a lie was told. A place in the outer wall is shown from which a wire will be suspended on the Day of Judgment, whose other end will be made fast on the Mount of Olives. Christ will sit on the wall and Mohammed on the mount. Over this wire must all men find their way, but only the good will cross, the wicked falling into the valley beneath. In the El Aksa Mosque a couple of pillars stand very near each other, so worn that they are perceptibly thinned. The space between them bulges, in which a piece of spiked iron-work is now inserted. These were another test for the final award—he who could squeeze himself through the aperture, and he alone, had found the true “narrow way” to heaven.

Frauds such as these force upon every visitor the question how far the Mohammedans themselves believe them. The utter want of earnestness, or anything that to a Western mind bears the resemblance of reality, is painfully evident in the attendants who guide you through the mosque. You are forced to respect its sacredness by purchasing the loan of slippers to cover your boots, and you feel rather like one entering a circus than a place of worship, when you have been transformed into an illuminated caricature by means of one yellow and another red slipper. Your guide, who wears the appearance of a convict in clericals, greatly enjoys your picturesqueness, and makes haste to conduct you to a certain jasper slab into which Mohammed drove nineteen nails of gold (which look, however, indistinguishable from iron). A nail comes out at the end of every epoch, and when all are gone the end of the world will come. One day the devil destroyed all but three and a half of them, when the Angel Gabriel, caught napping for once, stopped the mischief just in time. Here you are invited to lay any coins you may chance to have about you, and assured that if the coin be silver you will save your soul by giving it. As the coins are tabled, the whole body of assistant clergy assembles to count the collection.