Mosque of Omar (Jerusalem)

Not to be confused with Dome of the Rock .

Not to be confused with Mosque of Omar (Bethlehem).

Mosque of Omar (Arabic: مسجد عمر بن الخطاب‎) in Jerusalem is located opposite the southern courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Muristan. After the Siege of Jerusalem by the Rashidun army under the command of Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah, Patriarch Sophronius refused to surrender except to the Caliph Omar himself. Omar traveled to Jerusalem and accepted the surrender. He then visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Sophronius invited him to pray inside the Church, but Omar declined so as not to set a precedent and thereby endanger the Church's status as a Christian site. Instead he prayed outside in the courtyard, in a place where David had prayed.

According to Gallic bishop Arculf, who lived in Jerusalem from 679 to 688, the first mosque was a rectangular wooden structure built over ruins that could accommodate 3,000 worshippers.

The Mosque of Omar was built in its current shape by the Ayyubid Sultan al-Afdal bin Saladin in 1193 CE in memory of this event. It has a 15-meter high minaret that was built before 1465 CE and was renovated by Ottoman sultan Abdulmecid I (1839-1860).

Gallery

• 

  Minaret of the Mosque in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

• 

  In this 1915 map, the Mosque appears south of the Holy Sepulchre in Muristan, near the vertical middle of the map.

• 

  The Mosque has been reserved for religious activities