Writings: IslamThe Dome of the Rock inscriptions5 of 10

Writings: Islam

The Dome of the Rock inscriptions

The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem carries two Arabic mosaic bands that give the year 72 AH (the Islamic calendar), 691 or 692 CE. They set Quran passages beside prayers that are not in it. Estelle Whelan reported in 1998 that they survive in their entirety apart from one name. Scholars differ on what the year and wording show.

Last reviewed:

Three dates, kept apart

  1. The text's date: the tradition's view

    610 to 650 CE (revelation 610 to 632 CE; the written standard text under Uthman about 650 CE, as David Thomas reports the Muslim account, and under Uthman, who ruled 644 to 656 CE, as Abdullah Saeed writes that Muslim tradition holds)

  2. The text's date: critical scholars' view

    610 to 705 CE (the text's making and its standard written text; two views: Nicolai Sinai holds 650 CE or earlier as the default view for the standard written text, and Stephen Shoemaker argues for 685 to 705 CE, under Abd al-Malik; the strip starts at 610 CE, the year Muslim tradition gives for the first revelations, borrowed here because the sources used here give no historian's year for the start of the text, and ends at the later of the two views)

  3. This copy made

    72 AH, 691 or 692 CE; the year is written in the building's own dedication (Estelle Whelan and the publisher of Marcus Milwright's book print 72/691-92, Britannica gives 691 to 692 CE, and the Museum With No Frontiers gives 691); Britannica says the year is generally considered the date of completion, and Milwright reads it as the date of the building's foundation, with completion in the mid-690s

  4. This copy found

    Never lost, as Estelle Whelan reported in 1998: the inscriptions are part of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Britannica says the year 72 AH (691 or 692 CE) is generally considered the date the building was completed, and Marcus Milwright reads it as the date of its foundation; Whelan reports that the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun's name was put in place of Abd al-Malik's in the dedication and that the year was kept

All four rows share one timeline. A row with no marker says why in words. How ancient texts are dated.

What it is

The Dome of the Rock is a shrine in Jerusalem, at the center of the plaza called the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary.12 Two long Arabic inscriptions run round the building, one on each face of an eight-sided arcade (a row of arches) inside it. They are made of gold glass cubes on a dark blue ground, a technique called mosaic.34

The bands join the shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, to passages from many parts of the Quran as now arranged, as Estelle Whelan traces them. They include 4:171 to 172 and 3:18 to 19, and they name Muhammad as God's servant and messenger.3

Some words in the bands are not verses of the Quran. Whelan's notes show blessings such as The blessing of God be on him and peace be on him, and may God have mercy3 in her translation. In 19:33 the person shifts from first to third, and a line joining 64:1 with 57:2 appears in both bands.3

How the copy was dated

The year is in the dedication, which in Whelan's translation says the builder built this dome in the year two and seventy3. Year 72 AH is 691 or 692 CE, as Whelan, the publisher of Marcus Milwright's book on the inscriptions, and Britannica give it.352

The dedication now names al-Ma'mun, an Abbasid caliph (ruled 813 to 833 CE). Whelan reports that his name replaced that of the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (ruled 685 to 705 CE) and that the year was left as it was, so she reasons that the inscriptions were made in Abd al-Malik's reign.31

Two sources read the year differently. Britannica says it is generally considered the date the building was completed.2 Milwright writes that the general features of the mosaic inscription do not support that, and that 72 more probably marks the foundation, with the building finished in the mid-690s. Only the opening paragraph of his chapter was read here.6

A review of the mosaic decoration said it had been entirely redone4 in the latest restoration. Kessler wrote in 1970 that the review gave no evidence beyond one person's statement. Marguerite van Berchem was told by the Egyptian architect who directed the work that we have corrected all the faults of orthography4. The restoration office's chief architect assured Kessler that the inscription was not altered.4 For the methods, see how ancient texts are dated.

The text: its date and authorship

The date strip marks the Quran, the text the inscriptions quote. Both rows start at 610 CE, the year Muslim tradition gives for the first revelations, since the sources used here give no historian's year for the start of the text.7 The tradition row ends at the standard written text under Uthman: about 650 CE for David Thomas, who reports the Muslim account, and 644 to 656 CE, Uthman's years as caliph, for Abdullah Saeed.78 The critical row ends at the later of two views, Nicolai Sinai's 650 CE or earlier and Stephen Shoemaker's 685 to 705 CE, so its bar is longer.910

The tradition's view

Abdullah Saeed, in an encyclopedia article, writes that the standard traditional Muslim view, Sunni and Shia alike, attributes the Quran's composition to God alone. On this view Muhammad passed on, without addition or alteration, what came through the angel of revelation, usually identified as Gabriel. Saeed adds that the Quran was in its final and complete form at Muhammad's death, and that Muslim tradition holds it was compiled under Uthman.8 Yousef Wahb, writing for the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, defines the Quran as God's speech, preserved through both oral and written methods, with oral delivery from memory the primary one, and notes God's promise to preserve it.11

In the Sunni hadith collection of al-Bukhari (a hadith is a report of what Muhammad said or did), Zayd ibn Thabit gathers the text under the caliph Abu Bakr. Uthman later has copies sent to the provinces.121314 The Shia scholar Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei rejects the reports of a collection under Abu Bakr as inconsistent with one another. He holds that the Quran was a complete collection in Muhammad's lifetime and that Uthman united Muslims on one authoritative reading.1516

Scholars of the Quran's history: Whelan, Crone and Cook, Shoemaker, and Sinai

These scholars ask when the text took its form; the passages cited do not take up who wrote it. Estelle Whelan argues that the Quran was codified early. She holds that the small differences in the bands were made to fit each message, and that the Quran was already the community's common property in the 690s. Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, in a book of 1977 that argues one account of Islam's origins, write that it is not unlikely that the Quran was first put together near the end of the seventh century. Whelan answers their note on the copper plaques.317

Stephen Shoemaker argues that the canonical text took shape under Abd al-Malik. He writes that most modern scholarship has placed uncomplicated confidence in a text fixed under Uthman around 650 CE, and he calls that confidence undeserved.10 Nicolai Sinai, in a 2014 article, holds that 650 CE or earlier ought to be the default dating of the standard consonantal text (the skeleton of letters, before dots and vowel signs are added), apart from some features of spelling. He calls the Abd al-Malik date a recent proposal by various scholars.18919

How it was found

Never lost: the inscriptions are part of the building. Max van Berchem published them in 1925 to 1927 as one inscription; Kessler's transcription of 1970, which Whelan follows with a few corrections, shows two.3

Whelan reported in 1998 that both bands are still preserved in their entirety, apart from al-Ma'mun's name.3 Britannica's page of October 2026 says the building's original structure survives and its decoration has been changed several times. Neither it nor the Museum With No Frontiers says whether the bands survive as made.21

What it shows, and what it does not

It shows that passages from many parts of the Quran as now arranged were set up in public in Jerusalem. On Whelan's reasoning from the unchanged year, that was in Abd al-Malik's reign (685 to 705 CE). Prayers that are not in the Quran stand beside the passages. Whelan counts the passages as agreeing with the standard text with minor variations, and Crone and Cook say the text often coincides with ours.317

It does not show the form in which these passages circulated. Crone and Cook make that point, while Whelan reads the same text as a sign that the Quran was already well known. It does not settle whether the differences were choices made to fit a message or signs that the text was not yet fixed. Whelan holds the first view and, in Shoemaker's report, so does Milwright. Shoemaker holds the second and argues that the adaptation reading makes an exception for this one early witness. In Shoemaker's report, Sinai rejects that assessment.1710

See also

Sources

  1. Yusuf al-Natsheh. Dome of the Rock (Discover Islamic Art database entry). Museum With No Frontiers (MWNF), Discover Islamic Art, the whole entry. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  2. Britannica Editors (most recently revised by Adam Zeidan). Dome of the Rock: Historical context and construction. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online), 2026, the article's section 'Historical context and construction' and 'Purpose and significance'. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  3. Estelle Whelan. Forgotten Witness: Evidence for the Early Codification of the Qur'an. Journal of the American Oriental Society 118, no. 1 (January to March 1998), pp. 1 to 14 (JSTOR stable URL http://www.jstor.org/stable/606294); the saved text is a copy of the JSTOR PDF hosted on a Wooster College course site, 1998, pp. 1 to 8 (the Dome of the Rock inscriptions are on pp. 3 to 8). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  4. Christel Kessler. 'Abd al-Malik's Inscription in the Dome of the Rock: A Reconsideration. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 102, no. 1 (January 1970), pp. 2 to 14, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Core page), 1970, first-page extract and notes 1 to 4, 6, and 9. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  5. Edinburgh University Press (publisher's description of Marcus Milwright's book). The Dome of the Rock and its Umayyad Mosaic Inscriptions, by Marcus Milwright (Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art, published March 2016). Edinburgh University Press, 2016, the book description and contents list. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  6. Marcus Milwright. The Dome of the Rock and its Umayyad Mosaic Inscriptions (Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art, 2016), JSTOR book page: the free opening paragraphs of the chapters. Edinburgh University Press, on JSTOR, 2016, chapter 8, The Inscriptions of the Dome of the Rock in their Historical Context (pp. 214 to 250), opening paragraph; chapter 6, Proposing a Sequence (pp. 160 to 171), opening paragraph. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  7. University of Birmingham. Birmingham Qur'an manuscript dated among the oldest in the world. University of Birmingham, 2015. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  8. Abdullah Saeed. Qur'an: Tradition of Scholarship and Interpretation. Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  9. Nicolai Sinai. When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure? Part II. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77, no. 3, 2014, abstract. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  10. Stephen J. Shoemaker. Creating the Qur'an: A Historical-Critical Study. University of California Press (Luminos open access), 2022, introduction (radiocarbon summary; Abd al-Malik, p. 13; pp. 3 and 14 to 15), chapter 1 (p. 17 and pp. 25 to 30), chapter 2 (p. 43), the radiocarbon chapter (pp. 73 to 86), and p. 238 (printed page numbers). Accessed 2026-10-29.
  11. Yousef Wahb. How the Quran Was Preserved During the Prophet's Time: Mechanisms of Oral and Written Transmission. Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, 2022. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  12. Mohammad Hashim Kamali. Hadith. Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  13. Muhammad al-Bukhari (compiler). Sahih al-Bukhari 4986, English translation. Hadith Unlocked, hadith 4986. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  14. Muhammad al-Bukhari (compiler). Sahih al-Bukhari 4987, English translation. Hadith Unlocked, hadith 4987. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  15. Al-Islam.org (Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library Project). Sayyid Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei (biography page, listed under Shia Scholars). Al-Islam.org, the biography paragraph. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  16. Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei, translated by Abdulaziz A. Sachedina. The Prolegomena to the Qur'an, chapter 8: The Collection of the Qur'an. Oxford University Press (1998); online at Al-Islam.org, 1998, chapter 8. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  17. Patricia Crone and Michael Cook. Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press (a scan of the 1977 book on the Internet Archive; the saved text is the Archive's machine-read text of the whole book), 1977, p. 18 (the sentence on the Dome of the Rock) and note 18 on p. 167. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  18. Nicolai Sinai. When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure? Part I. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77, no. 2, pp. 273-292, 2014, abstract. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  19. Nicolai Sinai. Beyond the Cairo Edition: On the Study of Early Quranic Codices (a review article on Asma Hilali, The Sanaa Palimpsest, and Eleonore Cellard, Codex Amrensis 1). Journal of the American Oriental Society 140, no. 1 (2020), pp. 189 to 204, 2020, pp. 189 to 204; the footnotes on pp. 191 to 203. Accessed 2026-11-06.