(8.) The Crusaders called the Dome of the Rock, Templum Domini, the Temple of the Lord, to distinguish it from the Mosque el Aksa, which they called Templum Solomonis, the Palace of Solomon.
With regard to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we have the following data furnished us.
(1.) Constantine decorated the cave, and erected a magnificent Basilica over the site of the Crucifixion.
(2.) All Constantine’s buildings were destroyed by Chosroes; and rebuilt, after a fashion, by Modestus, with the assistance of John Eleemon, Patriarch of Alexandria.
(3.) The Mohammedans at the taking of the city spared the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
(4.) Hakem ordered the destruction of the church. This was done, and collections were made in every part of the Christian world to rebuild it.
(5.) This church was burned down in 1808.
With regard to the discrepancies in the accounts given by pilgrims, and the impossibility of completely harmonizing their descriptions with any theory of sites, this may be remarked: Too much stress must not be laid upon the accuracy or inaccuracies of stories told by early travellers. Why should we look for accuracy in the narrative of a pilgrimage spent in a state of mental exaltation, of which we cold-blooded Christians can have no possible idea? When the pilgrim, arrived at the goal of his journey, was crawling on his knees from site to site, praying and praising, abandoning himself to all the emotions which the memories of the places evoked, was it a time to pull out the measuring tape and to count the paces?
To sum up, next, the historical evidence as regards the Dome of the Rock.
(1.) When Mohammedan writers speak of the Masjid el Aksa, they mean, not the Mosque el Aksa, but the whole Haram Area, including all the oratories, mosques, minarets, &c.