Architecture · a Light

The oldest dated Qur'anic text is written on a wall

The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was completed under the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik, and the mosaic inscription running around its inner octagon gives the year 72 of the Hijra, which is 691 to 692 CE. That band of gold on blue, some 240 metres of it, carries Qur'anic verses and is the oldest securely dated Qur'anic text that survives anywhere in the world. It is older than any surviving complete manuscript. The building itself is not a mosque but a shrine over the rock, and its octagonal plan and dome were built by craftsmen working in a late Roman and Byzantine tradition, for a new patron and a new text.

Jerusalem · 72 AH, 691 CE