Baqi, as far as Al-Aqsa is concernd. Here's something from history.
Al-Aqsa Mosque (
Arabic:
المسجد الاقصى al-Masjid al-Aqsa,
IPA: [ʔlˈmsʒɪd lˈʔɑqsˤɑ] (
listen), "
the Farthest Mosque,") also known as al-Aqsa and Bayt al-Muqaddas, is the third
holiest site in Sunni Islam and is located in the
Old City of
Jerusalem. The site on which the silver domed mosque sits, along with the
Dome of the Rock, also referred to as
al-Haram ash-Sharif or "Noble Sanctuary,"[SUP]
[2][/SUP] is the
Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, the place where the
Temple is generally accepted to have stood.
Plus,
Pre-construction
The al-Aqsa Mosque is located on the Temple Mount, referred to by Muslims today as the "Haram al-Sharif" ("The Noble Sanctuary"), an enclosure expanded by King Herod the Great beginning in 20 BCE. The mosque resides on an artificial platform that is supported by arches constructed by Herod's engineers to overcome the difficult topographic conditions resulting from the southward expansion of the enclosure into the Tyropoeon and Kidron valleys. At the time of the Second Temple, the present site of the mosque was occupied by the Royal Stoa, a basilica running the southern wall of the enclosure.[SUP][6][/SUP] The Royal Stoa was destroyed along with the Temple during the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. Emperor Justinian built a Christian church on the site in the 530s which was consecrated to the Virgin Mary and named "Church of Our Lady." The church was later destroyed by Khosrau II, the Sassanid emperor, in the early 7th century and left in ruins.[SUP][7][/SUP]
Analysis of the wooden beams and panels removed from the mosque during renovations in the 1930s shows they are made from
Cedar of Lebanon and
cypress. Radiocarbon dating indicates a large range of ages, some as old as 9th-century BCE, showing that some of the wood had previously been used in older buildings.[SUP]
[8[/SUP]
Construction by the Umayyads
The mosque along the southern wall of The Noble Sanctuary
It is known that the current construction of the al-Aqsa Mosque is dated to the early Ummayad period of rule in
Palestine. Architectural historian
K. A. C. Creswell, referring to a testimony by
Arculf, a
Gallic monk, during his pilgrimage to
Palestine in 679–82, notes the possibility that the second
caliph of the
Rashidun Caliphate,
Umar ibn al-Khattab, erected a primitive quadrangular building for a capacity of 3,000 worshipers somewhere on the Haram ash-Sharif. However, Arculf visited Palestine during the reign of
Mu'awiyah I, and it is possible that Mu'awiyah ordered the construction, not Umar. This latter claim is explicitly supported by the early Muslim scholar al-Muthahhar bin Tahir.[SUP]
[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Aqsa_Mosque
[/SUP]
