Arab media reported on Tuesday that pieces of mosaics containing anti-Christian verses from the Koran began falling off the facade of the Dome of the Rock.

On Tuesday morning, Arab media began posting reports that a mosaic tile was falling off the western facade of the Dome of the Rock located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. On Monday, Jerusalem experienced heavy rain, and the earthquake that devastated Turkey and Syria was also felt in the city. The ceramic tile measured approximately 20 centimeters square. The reports blamed the incident on “the occupation’s [Israel’s] prevention of restoration work inside the mosque.” The media noted similar incidents in June when stones fell in the interior of the Aqsa Mosque, the gray domes structure at the southern end of the Temple Mount. In August, stones fell from a column adjacent to the Prophets Gate, also known as the Double Gate, one of the permanently closed gates along the Southern wall.

The damage has been overall limited.

The tiles on the exterior feature Arabic calligraphy recording Surah Ya-Sin (the ‘Heart of the Quran’) which was commissioned in the 16th century by Suleiman the Magnificent. The Surah relates that after the Mahdi (the Muslim messiah) only the followers of Mohammad will be resurrected, noting specifically that  the apostles of Jesus are “impostors and threatened with stoning.”

While some Muslims claim the Temple Mount is the location of Mohammad’s “Night Journey” described in Surah 17 of the Koran, most Sunni dispute this and there is no mention of this in the calligraphic decorations anywhere on the Temple Mount. The mosaics on the interior of the Dome of the Rock are a Koranic (19:33-35) rejection of the divinity of Jesus. 

Constructed in 692 CE by the Umayyad Caliphate on the orders of Abd al-Malik on the site of the Jewish Temple, the current shrine is the oldest Muslim structure in existence. The architecture and mosaics were patterned after nearby Byzantine Christian churches and palaces and using the measurements of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 and the Dome of the Rock was given to the Augustinians, who turned it into a church. Jerusalem was recaptured by Saladin in 1187, and the Dome of the Rock was reconsecrated as a Muslim shrine. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566), the exterior of the Dome of the Rock was covered with tiles. 

The building was severely damaged by earthquakes in 808 and again in 846. The dome collapsed in an earthquake in 1015 and was rebuilt in 1022–23. The mosaics on the drum were repaired in 1027–28. The earthquake of 1033 resulted in the introduction of wooden beams to enforce the dome. Parts of the Dome of the Rock collapsed during the 11 July 1927 earthquake, and the walls were left badly cracked.

Rabbi Harry Moskoff, the author of The A.R.K Report, explained that the structure is actually built on an ancient underground complex.

“At the center of the Dome of the Rock is a large flat foundation stone,” Rabbi Moskoff explained. “According to Jewish tradition, that is where God sent Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Underneath the stone is an empty chamber called the Well of Souls. In that chamber is a type of manhole that leads down to a tunnel. No one has ever explored that tunnel and it is believed that it was used as part of the Temple.”

“It is even possible that the Ark of the Covenant is in that tunnel,” Moskoff said. 

Rabbi Moskoff explained that before the Dome of the Rock, a temple to the pagan god Jupiter was built at the site of the Jewish temple by the Roman Emperor Hadrian around 130 CE. Tuvia Sagiv, an architect who has studied the Temple Mount extensively, noted that both the Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek, Lebanon which is still standing today, and the Islamic buildings we see on the temple mount were almost an exact match in both design and scale. He theorized that the Muslim structures were based closely on the pagan temple. Though nothing remains of the original pagan temple in Jerusalem, it is believed to have stood until the time of Hadrian’s later successor Constantine in 325 CE.

“It seems strange that the remains of the temple in Lebanon were shaken yesterday in an earthquake and its twin structure in Jerusalem begins falling apart today,” Moskoff said.