Located in the Old City at the terminal point of the Prophet Muhammad’s Israa journey. According to Islamic sources, the Qurʾān (17:1) indicates that Muhammad was miraculously transported one night from Mecca (al-masjid al-haram, or “the sacred place of worship”) to this site in Jerusalem (al-masjid al-aqsa, “the farther place of worship”). On that spot he led Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other messengers (rusul) of God in ritual prayer. That same night he was taken up to heaven from the site of the Dome of the Rock for an encounter with God (see Miraj). The term Al-Aqsa Mosque is often extended to denote the entirety of the plaza on which the mosque and the Dome of the Rock stand, although the plaza is known formally as Al-haram al-Sharif (“the Noble Sanctuary”).
The first mosques were modeled on the place of worship of the Prophet Muhammad—the courtyard of his house at Medina—and were simply plots of ground marked out as sacred. Though the mosque as such has undergone many architectural changes, the building remains essentially an open space, generally roofed over, containing a miḥrab and a minbar, with a minaret sometimes attached to it. The mihrab, a semicircular niche reserved for the imam to lead the prayer, points to the qiblah, the direction of Mecca. The minbar, a seat at the top of steps placed at the right of the miḥrab, is used by the preacher (khatib) as a pulpit. In the early days of Islam the rulers delivered their speeches from the minbar. Occasionally there is also a maqsurah, a box or wooden screen near the mihrab, which was originally designed to shield a worshipping ruler from assassins. Mats or carpets cover the floor of the mosque, where the ritual prayer is performed by rows of men who bow and prostrate themselves under the imam’s guidance.
Outside the mosque stands the minaret, which was originally any elevated place but now usually a tower. It is used by the muezzin to proclaim the call to worship.
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