Z78
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
procession began. Passing under banners of Arab flags, and
waved on by palm leaves, the coffin was borne slowly away.
I was now before the entrance of the Dome of the Rock,
one of Islam's holiest shrines. Standing near by was a short,
plump, round-faced man with a magnificent spade-shaped
white beard and an enormous white turban, who was the
custodian, Sheikh Ismail el Ansary. I asked in Turkish if I
might enter and pay my respects to the Prophet. Fingering his
beads, he led me into the octagonal, exquisitely ornate mosque
that had been built by Byzantine artists on the model of the
Church of the Ascension. In the half-light of latticed and
stained-glass windows, I saw magnificently tinted columns
that had once graced the Temple of Jerusalem in Roman
times. Others were from Christian churches of the Byzantine
era, as attested to by signs of the Cross.
Directly under the enormous dome, enclosed within a high
fence, was a huge black slab of rock, glowing darkly as it reflected the subdued rays streaming through the stained glass.
It was to this rock that Mohammed was supposed to have
arrived in one day from Mecca—hundreds of miles away—
by flying on his winged horse, El Burak. It is said that he
prayed on this rock, then, mounting the steed, flew to heaven.
Historically the rock was actually a jagged slice of Mount
Moriah, the hill on which Abraham offered to sacrifice Isaac.
The Jews prayed on it long before the Moslem dome covered it.
Solomon built his magnificent Temple here and housed in
it the Jewish holy of holies, the Ark of the Covenant. The entire area of the mosque, and the spacious stone courtyard surrounding it, were built on the site of the ancient Tsrael courts,
where Christ preached and drove away the money-changers.
Hardly a square inch here was without some direct connection
to ancient Hebraic or Christian history.
None of these Hebraic-Christian origins, however, could be
mentioned to Sheikh Ansary. He disliked Americans for their
support of the partition of Palestine, but he apparently