The Aqsa Mosque earthquake and its rebuilding under the Abbasids

زلزلة المسجد الأقصى وإعمارته في الدولة العباسية

c. 800 CE · c. 184 AH† †

† Hijri date derived by computation from the Gregorian/Julian date; it may differ from the transmitted date by a day or two.

The Abbasid-era earthquake that felled the Aqsa's roofed part save the mihrab: when the treasury pleaded it could not restore it as before, the caliph ordered each provincial amir and commander to rebuild one arcade — raising it stronger and thicker, the repair still legible as a 'seam' in al-Muqaddasi's day — and Abdallah ibn Tahir added marble arcades ¹.

Overview

al-Maqdisi, in "Ahsan al-Taqasim", relates that an earthquake in the Abbasid state brought down the roofed part of the al-Aqsa Mosque, except what lay around the mihrab. ²

The rebuilding

The news reached the caliph, and he was told that the treasury of the Muslims could not cover the cost of rebuilding it. He wrote to the governors of the provinces and to the commanders that each of them should build one portico. They built it more solidly and more substantially than before. ²

al-Maqdisi adds that this section remained a visible mark there up to the marble columns, and that Abd Allah ibn Tahir added porticos on marble columns to it. ²

Note

al-Maqdisi gives neither the year of the earthquake nor the name of the caliph. It needs an additional source.

The Taking of Hisn Kamkh

In al-Baladhuri: Habib ibn Maslama raided the fortress of Kamkh after taking Shimshat without success, as did Safwan; then in year 59 — the year he died — Safwan raided it with Umayr ibn al-Habab al-Sulami, who scaled the wall and fought alone until the Byzantines gave way and the Muslims climbed — it fell to Umayr ibn al-Habab, his lasting glory; the Byzantines retook it, Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik took it again, and it kept changing hands until year 149, when al-Mansur marched from Baghdad to Hadithat al-Mawsil, sent al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba then Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath, and set al-Abbas ibn Muhammad over the expedition against Kamkh — Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath remaining at Amid — al-Abbas and al-Hasan reached Malatya, took provisions, camped on Kamkh, and al-Abbas ordered mangonels set; the defenders hung juniper wood over their fort so the stones would not bite, and stoned the Muslims killing two hundred men, whereupon the Muslims employed armoured shelters and fought bitterly until they took it — Matar al-Warraq was with al-Abbas; the Byzantines re-seized it, and in year 177 Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Amr al-Ansari — Abd al-Malik ibn Salih's governor of Shimshat — took it, entering on the fourteenth of Rabi' II; it stayed Muslim until Muhammad ibn al-Rashid's time when its people fled — or, it is said, Ubaydallah ibn al-Aqta' handed it over — then Abdallah ibn Tahir took it in al-Ma'mun's caliphate, and it remained in Muslim hands until a group of Shimshat's Christians conspired with Yiqala and Baqrat ibn Ashut by way of Khilat to deliver it to the Byzantines over estates in the Shimshat district.

The Aqsa Mosque earthquake and its rebuilding under the Abbasids

At a glance

In time

Overview

The rebuilding

Note

Connections

People and things also explored

Sources

Time

The Taking of Hisn Kamkh