Turrets, towers, and temples

by Unknown

MOSQUE OF OMAR, JERUSALEM

Coming nearer, we perceive that these elegant and frail little Saracen buildings are composed of the débris of Christian churches and antique temples; the columns and the marble friezes have all vanished, torn away from a chapel of the Crusaders, from a basilica of the Greek Emperors, from a temple of Venus, or from a synagogue. If the general arrangement is Arab, calm and stamped with the grace of Aladdin’s palace, the detail is full of instruction regarding the frailty of religions and empires; this detail perpetuates the memory of great exterminating wars, of horrible sacks, of days when blood ran here like water and when the wholesale slaughtering “did not end until the soldiers were weary with killing.”

In all this conglomeration only that blue kiosk, neighbour of the blue Mosque, can tell its companion of Jerusalem’s terrible past. Its double row of marble columns is like a museum of débris from all countries; we see Greek, Roman, Byzantine, or Hebraic capitals, others of an undetermined age, of a wild style almost unknown.

Now the tranquillity of death has settled over all; the remnants of so many various sanctuaries at enmity have been grouped, in honour of the God of Islam, in an unexpected harmony, and this will perhaps continue until they crumble into dust. When one recalls the troublous past it is strange to find this silence, this desolation, and this supreme peace in the centre of a court whose white stones are invaded by the daisies and weeds of the field.

Let us enter this mysterious mosque surrounded by death and the desert. At first it seems dark as night: we have a bewildering sense of fairy-like splendour. A very faint light penetrates the panes, which are famed throughout the Orient and which fill the row of little windows above; we fancy that the light is passing through flowers and arabesques of precious stones regularly arranged, and this is the illusion intended by the inimitable glass-workers of old. Gradually, as our eyes grow accustomed to the dim light, the walls, arches, and vaults seem to be covered with some rich embroidered fabric of raised mother-of-pearl and gold on a foundation of green. Perhaps it is an old brocade of flowers and leaves, perhaps precious leather from Cordova, or perhaps something even more beautiful and rare than either, which we shall recognize presently when our eyes have recovered from the blinding effect of the sun on the flags outside and have adjusted themselves to the dusk of this most holy sanctuary. The mosque, octagonal in form, is supported within by two concentric rows of pillars, the first octagonal, and the second circular, sustaining the magnificent dome.

Each column with its gilded capital is composed of a different and priceless material: one of violet marble veined with white; another of red porphyry; another of that marble, for centuries lost, known as antique verde. The entire base of the walls, as high as the line where the green and gold embroideries begin, is cased with marble. Great slabs cut lengthwise are arranged in symmetrical designs like those produced in cabinet-work by inlaid woods.

The little windows placed close to the dome, from which altitude falls the reflected light as though from jewels, are all of different colours and designs; one is shaped like a daisy and composed of ruby glass; another of delicate arabesques of sapphire mingled with the yellow of the topaz; and a third of emerald sprinkled with rose.

What makes the beauty of these, as of all Arabian windows, is that the various colours are not separated, like ours, by lines of lead, but the framework of the window is a plate of thick stucco pierced with an infinite number of little holes, ever changing with the light; the effect is always some new and beautiful design; the pieces of transparent blue, yellow, rose, or green, are inserted deep in the thickness of the setting so that they seem to be surrounded by a kind of nimbus caused by the reflected light along the sides of the thick apertures, and the result is a deep and soft glow over all, and through this light gleam and sparkle the pearl, and precious stones.

Now we begin to distinguish what we supposed was tapestry over the masonry: it consists of marvellous mosaics covering everything and simulating brocades and embroideries, but far more beautiful and durable than any woven tissue, for its lustre and diaper-work have been preserved through long centuries because it is formed of almost imperishable matter,—myriads of fragments of marble, with mother-of-pearl and gold. Throughout the whole, green and gold predominate. The designs are numbers of strange vases holding stiff and symmetrical bouquets: conventional foliage of a bygone period, dream-flowers fashioned in ancient days. Above these are antique vine-branches composed of an infinite variety of green marbles, stems of archaic rigidity bearing grapes of gold and clusters of pearl. Here and there, to break the monotony of the green, twin-petals of great, red flowers, shaded with minute fragments of pink marble and porphyry, are thrown upon a background of gold.