AMMAN (JT) -- A new carpet has been laid in the Dome of the Rock Mosque in response to His Majesty King Abdullah's recent initiative to renovate the mosque's interior, a Royal Court official said on Friday.
The carpet covers an area of approximately 2,000 square metres and was specially chosen to conform with the mosque's aesthetic and religious qualities.
The Dome of the Rock was built by Umayyad Caliph Abdul Malik and completed in 691AD.
During a recent visit to the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, King Abdullah announced that a fifth minaret would be constructed at Al Aqsa Mosque along with other restoration, preservation and maintenance work.
The work, including the building of the minaret, is estimated to cost around JD5 million and is being undertaken as part of the Hashemites' responsibilities as custodians of Jerusalem's Islamic holy sites.
The King also announced the creation of a special waqf fund to support the holy places and ensure the continuity of maintenance and protection of Islamic shrines, foremost of which is Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
Hashemite custodianship of the holy Islamic places has been ongoing since 1924 when Sharif Hussein Ben Ali contributed 50,000 gold lira to the restoration of Al Aqsa and other mosques in Palestine. King Abdullah I initiated the call for the renovation of the Mihrab Zakariyah and the restoration of the surrounding structures that were damaged during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
During the era of His Majesty the late King Hussein, the Jordanian government in 1952 undertook the first restoration of the Dome of the Rock with a second restoration taking place from 1959-1964. In 1969, the government restored the Minbar Salaheddine (the pulpit of Salaheddine) of Al Aqsa Mosque after it was damaged in a fire.
In the late 1980s, King Hussein gave instructions that the Dome of the Rock's golden dome be recovered with 5,000 gold pieces and that its ceiling and infrastructure be reinforced, with special attention to the renovation of Minbar Salaheddine.
In the 1994 Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty, special recognition was given to the role of Jordan as custodian of the holy sites.
© Jordan Times 2006
