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Early Versions of the shahāda 65
Contemporary with ‘Abbasa’s tombstone another version of the shahada can
be found in Jerusalem, specifically in the Dome of the Rock, which is traditionally
dated to 72/692. The Dome of the Rock, a commemorative building rather than a
mosque, was built in the form of an octagon with a double ambulatory. Dominating
the interior are magnificent mosaics of complex images of jeweled vases created
specifically for this building. 10 The second most obvious visual element in
the Dome of the Rock is a series of neutral designs such as geometric patterns that
appear to carry no meaning. Finally there are the inscriptions which were placed
“just below a cornice that supports the ceiling on either side of the octagonal arcade.”
11
The use of long inscriptions in Arabic on this building as on ‘Abbasa’s tombstone
signals a major shift for some Muslims as to what constituted an “Islamic”
symbol, in addition to being a means of transmitting messages. 12 The placement
of these inscriptions in the outer and inner arcade below the ceiling may not have
been an innovation but an adoption of a tradition long practiced in the region by
Christian and Jewish communities. 13 On the other hand the appearance of an extensive
text in Arabic marks a significant break from the first six decades of Muslim
rule where public inscriptions in Arabic were relatively few and short as can
be concluded from the existing archaeological remains, material evidence including
coinage, and textual references.
The inscriptions in the outer arcade of the Dome of the Rock can be divided
into six segments divided by rosettes in which the wording in five of them closely
parallel one another. They all begin with the full basmala or bismi llahi l-rahmani
l-rahim, “In the name of God, the Magnificent, the Merciful”. The sixth segment is
a dedicatory statement which does not begin with the basmala and originally referred
to ^Abd al-Malik as patron of the building with the date 72. The parallel
texts in the outer arcade create what we label as the Syrian “affirmation of faith.”
10 For recent scholarship on the Dome of the Rock with an extensive bibliography see Gülru
Necipoglu, “The Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest: ‘Abd al-Malik’s Grand Narrative and Sultan
Süleyman’s Glosses,” Muqarnas 25 (2008), 19–105. More has been written by Islamic art historians
about the Dome of the Rock than on any other single building while more has been written on
the coinage of ‘Abd al-Malik to the all-epigraphic issues of 77 and 78 than on any Islamic numismatic
topic. The lack of contemporary historical narratives as well as the importance of both
topics for the subsequent history of Muslim sponsored material culture may be the primary reason
for this intensive scholarly interest.
11 Oleg Grabar, Mohammed al-Asad, Abeer Audeh, and Said Nuseibeh, The Shape of the Holy:
Early Islamic Jerusalem. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, 56.
12 Estelle Whelan, “Forgotten Witness: Evidence for the Early Codification of the Qur’an,” JAOS
118 (1998), 1–13.
13 Ibid. 28.