Jerusalem: Dome of the Rock

This photograph of the Dome of the Rock shows its octagonal structure and its golden dome. Beneath the dome, at the center of the structure is the bedrock called the Sakhra. For centuries it was misnamed the Mosque of Omar. Omar did erect a simple wooden mosque at the site, but that was replaced by his successor Caliph Abd al-Malik, who commissioned the present octagonal shrine, which was begun in 687 CE and completed in 691 CE.