This was a close as we got to Dome of the Rock
Who knew there would be that many different Christian costumes?
Old religion meets new technology
Jerusalem is a crowded place filled with people and history. It is like no other city in the world: international and segregated; worldy and religious; anciently decaying and being reborn from the rubble. It's a living myth that's so sacred it cannot help but be profaned simply by the act of existence.
A story from one of the guidebooks: the Dome of the Rock was built by a Muslim caliph who took control of Jerusalem in ~600 AD. The temple had been destroyed in 70 AD so for roughly 500 years the Temple Mount had been nothing but rubble. The Caliph, upon seeing the trash and debris littering the most sacred site, declared his intention to preserve this sacred mountain and erected his shrine. As to why the few Jewish inhabitants had not tried to rebuild or clean up the Temple Mount, the book says that after the temple was destroyed there was no longer any guide as to where the holy of holies had been located. Rather than inadvertantly trespass on that most hallowed ground, they avoided the Temple Mount altogether, preferring to worship at the Western Wall.
Now they are barred from the Temple Mount entirely.
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