Part one of term paper
, admirably situated on the east side of the Holy City, is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated and most remarkable monuments of early Islam, visited every year by thousands of pilgrims and tourists. Completed or begun in 691-92 yet certainly conceived of much earlier, it is not only the earliest remaining major monument of Islam but in al ...

Part two of term paper
... meters in length, is found above the arches of the inner octagonal arcade, on both sides. The Dome of the Rock, the first Muslim masterpiece, was built in 687 A.C., half a century after the death of the Prophet [Muhammad, pbuh]. A careful "reading" of the monument to grasp its inner spiritual meaning reveals that it contains the germ of the major themes in "Islamic art," whose fundamental purpose is to express the faith revealed in the Qur'an. This "art" is decipherable only if one recalls the tene ...