ISLAMIC MUSEUM OF AL AQSA
ISLAMIC MUSEUM OF AL AQSA

Al-Fakhriyya Minaret

Wooden panel from the Musjid

Wooden lintels on display from the Musjid

ISLAMIC MUSEUM OF AL AQSA

Jerusalem
ISLAMIC MUSEUM OF AL AQSA
  • The museum, located adjacent to Al Aqsa Musjid, houses artefacts from ten different periods of Islamic History. It comprises three buildings dating back to Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. These three halls were only converted into a museum much later on in 1923 by the Supreme Muslim Council and now have an exhibition space of 1000m2.
  • Most of the artefacts represent the heritage of al-Haram al-Sharif, Jerusalem and other cities in Palestine.
  • It contains woodwork, metalwork, weapons, coins as well as earthenware.It houses approximately 600 copies of the Qur’an donated to the al-Aqsa Musjid during the Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman eras by caliphs, sultans, emirs, scholars and private individuals. They all differ in size, calligraphy and ornamentation and age with the oldest dating back to the 14th century CE.
  • One of its most prized possessions is the pulpit (mimbar) of Salah al-Din. This pulpit was originally commissioned by Nur ad-Din Zangi in the 1170s and then brought to Jerusalem after its conquest by Salah al-Din.
  • The original pulpit (mimbar), considered one of the most beautiful in the world, was made of over 10,000 interlocking pieces of Cedar wood, ivory and Mother of Pearl all affixed without a drop of glue or a single nail. It is one of the most significant historic mimbars of the Muslim world both for its artistic and symbolic merits and it stood in the Al Aqsa Musjid for eight centuries until it was burned down in 1969 by an Australian who claimed to be acting ‘on the orders of God’. The charred remains of the pulpit lie in the museum. A group of Jordanian woodworkers managed to produce a sort of replica of the mimbar which was installed in 2007.
    • Tagged as: Museum

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