Friday, June 01, 2007

Dome of the Chain, Old Jerusalem

I heard about this Muslim hexagram from the 7th century C.E. about a year ago but couldn’t get hold of its photo, and now here it is, courtesy of generous hoyasmeg, who published it on Flickr under “Creative Commons License”, which lets me publish it without asking for a written permission.

What we see here is a small white hexagon inside a larger black hexagon inside a white filled-hexagram, and a white empty-hexagram (only contours), inside a reddish hexagon surrounded by white-black-white-black hexagonal frames. It is old but it looks new.

I reckon this artifact causes some headache to Muslims who are not history experts: they might think this is a Star of David – and ask what is this Jewish main symbol doing in a Muslim sacred place, and why on the floor, where people might walk on it?

P.S.
Chris Josephson:
The time was January 1965 and it was the first trip to Israel... Upon entering the Temple Mount, we were met by a Christian Arab eager to be our guide. He assured us he could point out things usually missed by tourists. Later trips to the Temple Mount attested to the truth of that statement!

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