A Building for Posterity

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the man who founded and largely molded the United Arb Emirates, built what must be one of the most beautiful and vainglorious buildings of modern times.  No, this isn’t the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.  It’s the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, which sticks out against the modern cityscape like a scimitar of light, like a reborn Taj Mahal.

View from inside the courtyard of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque (gold-tipped minaret gratis)

Technically this building is a mosque, although it is open to tours and serves (in my opinion) more as a vast decoration to the adjacent tomb of the Sheikh himself.  Loaded with the best of old and new worlds — including escalators to bring worshippers and visitors up from the underground parking lots as well as inlays of precious and semi-precious stones on all of its forest of marble columns — the mosque is truly a ‘must see’ for a tourist but also an awe inspiring reminder to Emiratis and other Arabs of the incredible wealth of this oil principality.

The contrast, and perhaps stretching it a bit the NQR moment, comes when thinking of my own country, the US.  What have we built (other than the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium) with anything like the panache and truly lasting beauty of this edifice?

Caliph Omar at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

One of the things that I noticed several times during visits to very different parts of the Middle East and North Africa were examples of early Muslims, Christians and Jews showing a tolerance for each other that has certainly not been the prevailing theme of more recent years, or at least not the theme of media coverage in more recent years.  One such example, in the tomb Morocco’s Moulay Ismail, I mentioned as part of an earlier post.  Yet another example I found in the very heart of the current conflict between Jews, Christians and Muslims:  Jerusalem.

The Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem, across a small courtyard from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

So much has happened in Jerusalem, religiously and historically, that current discussions of Palestinian autonomy tread lightly on the subject of dividing or allowing a shared authority in the City itself.  However, people would be wise to look backwards at the actions of one of the first Caliphs, Omar, when his Rashidun Army conquered the city in the year 637 AD.  The Christian Patriarch Sophranius, upon surrendering, asked as a condition of the city’s capitulation, to be allowed to surrender to the Caliph himself rather than to a military leader.  When Omar reached the city, the Patriarch invited him to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (which is the site of the Cruxifiction, see my separate entry on the subject).  Muslims revere Jesus, not as the Son of God, but still as one of the major prophets in the line from Abraham to Muhammad.  Many Muslim men are named Issa or Aissa, which is the Arabic equivalent of Jesus.  This is not strange.  Just as many Muslims are named Daoud or Sulieman after David and Solomon.

Anyway . . . Omar was both sensitive about keeping the Christian Church autonomous and also didn’t want to set a precedent for Muslims to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  So he prayed, with Sophranius, just a few feet away at a spot where King David was said to have prayed.  Omar then built a mosque on the site so that future Muslims could pray near to, but not violating, the sacred Christian site.

Even more telling, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, is that the church itself has been divided into seven different areas of responsibility, parceled out to seven different Churches (Eastern Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox).  But the keys to the building itself are held by a Muslim family, so as not to cause jealousy among the seven!

This is, truly, an elegant solution.  Though it might seem Not Quite Right to entrust the opening and closing of Christianity’s most important church to a non-Christian, such a solution might be best for the city as a whole.  Maybe a battalion or two of Buddhist peace keepers could be found to enforce whatever solution is finally decided upon for the Holy City.

A Wall Atop the Wailing Wall

The Wailing or Western Wall in Jerusalem is the holiest place in the Jewish religion.  It is supposedly the sole remaining portion of the First Temple.  Prayers offered near to it (or, especially, touching it) are said to be more easily heard by God.  Above the wall, on top of Temple Mount, the third and fourth holiest places in Islam are located:  the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.  The Dome of the Rock contains the rock upon which Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son.  It is also the place from which Mohammad ascended to heaven on his Night Journey.

Control and/or provisions to share these locations are at the crux of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but rarely make the list of discussion topics during peace talks, largely because of the extreme religious sensitivities involved.

Christianity’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Via Dolorosa are not far away, either — both within the Old City Walls.  And the Crusaders once occupied the Temple Mount, making the city a well-known confluence for all three Monotheistic religions.

Men's and women's prayer areas, the newer Ottoman-era portion of the wall, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque itself are all visible in the photo.

What might not be well known is that the Western Wall itself is divided into several distinct layers and sections.  First, male and female prayer areas are separate and distinct, with women crowded into a disproportionately smaller area at the right of the wall.  Then, the stonework of the wall itself displays visibly differing ages and styles of workmanship.  Only the lowest few tiers of stone are from the First Temple.  The next few similar but more roughly-hewn layers date from King Herod’s reconstruction of the Temple (a period known as the Second Temple).  And, most interesting to me — and maybe closet to fitting with my theme of Not Quite Right — is the topmost section of the wall.  Built by the Ottomans (under the direction of Sir Moses Montefiore), its ostensible purpose was “for shade and protection from the rain for all who come to pray by the holy remnant of our Temple.”  However, its more likely purpose was to prevent Muslims who attended Friday prayers in the Al-Aqsa mosque above from tossing stones and other items on Jewish penitents at the base of the wall below!

In any case, a good look at the Wailing/Western Wall provides a tense snapshot of the forces that currently divide people in the Middle East.  It is that division, rather than symbols like walls or churches or mosques, which is truly Not Quite Right.

Glittering Jesus

Jesus' feet barely visible amid a clutter of gold, directly above the rock called "Golgotha" where the crucifixion occured.

Now, I’m not a scholar of Christianity by any means but my understanding has always been that the life of Jesus was filled with humbleness and love and a distinct abhorrence for greed and wordly possessions.   For instance — the episode where he expelled the money-lenders from the Temple.

This scene, on the other hand, which I witnessed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on that very same Temple Mount in Jerusalem (the church was actually built on the spot where Jesus is said to have been crucified) is the antithesis of such plain and unadorned beauty.  In fact, the gold, jewels, marble and incense hangs so thick around the spot that the crucifix itself can barely be seen.  Throngs of sunburned religious tourists do not help, either.

For me, personally, something simple, spare, austere and in accord with the message Jesus preached would be more fitting.  As it stands, this place, this church, with its Byzantine decor, seemed to be far from holy.  In fact, the whole experience of visiting it came off for me as Not Quite Right.