The Ottomans

According to Ibn Khaldun, empires are forever destined to rise and fall every few hundred years. And such was the case for the Mamluks. By the early 1500s, the new mega-power of the Muslim world was the Ottoman Empire, based in the historic city of Istanbul. In 1513, the Ottoman Sultan Selim I went to war against the Mamluks, and in 1516, he appeared outside the walls of Jerusalem with his Ottoman Turkish army and was given the keys to the city peacefully by its local government.

As part of the world’s most powerful empire in the 1500s, Jerusalem experienced a new resurgence. It was made the capital of the sanjak of Jerusalem, an administrative district of the province of Syria. The Ottomans sent governors, soldiers, and administrators to the city to help manage it.

For the mosque, Ottoman control meant a new era of construction and beautification. Selim’s son, Suleyman al-Kanuni, came to power in 1520. During his reign, the Dome of the Rock was completely renovated magnificentely. The exterior of the building was covered in marble, colored tiles, and calligraphy. Verses from the Quran’s 36th chapter (Surat Yasin) adorned the top of the walls which still can be seen today.

Suleyman also commissioned a fountain near the main entrance of the al-Aqsa Mosque, which is still used by worshipers to do wudu (ritual purification). For the city itself, Suleyman ordered his head architect, Mimar Sinan, to rebuild the walls around the city, which also survive today.

http://300035.dotdothktrade.tech/en/artical/24200/aqsa-mosque-ages-6