The mosque was originally a small prayer house built by the Rashidun caliph Umar, but was rebuilt and expanded by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik and finished by his son al-Walid in 705 CE. The mosque was completely destroyed by an earthquake in 746 and rebuilt by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur in 754. His successor al-Mahdi rebuilt it again in 780. Another earthquake destroyed most of al-Aqsa in 1033, but two years later the Fatimid caliph Ali az-Zahir built another mosque which has stood to the present day.
During the periodic renovations undertaken, the various ruling dynasties of the Islamic Caliphate constructed additions to the mosque and its precincts, such as its dome, facade, its minbar, minarets and the interior structure. When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099, they used the mosque as a palace and the Dome of the Rock as a church, but its function as a mosque was restored after its recapture by Saladin in 1187. More renovations, repairs and additions were undertaken in the later centuries by the Ayyubids, Mamluks, Ottomans, the Supreme Muslim Council, and Jordan. Today, the Old City is under Israeli control, but the mosque remains under the administration of the Jordanian/Palestinian-led Islamic Waqf.
Masjid al-Aqsa translates from Arabic into English as "the farthest mosque". The name refers to a chapter of the Quran called "The Night Journey" in which it is said that Muhammad traveled from Mecca to "the farthest mosque", and then up to Heaven on a heavenly creature called al-Buraq al-Sharif. Al-Aqsa Mosque as a whole is confused with a particular building within it, also known as al-Jami' al-Aqsa or al-Qibli or Masjid al-Jumah or al-Mughata; these names refer to the southern building with the silver lead dome.
For centuries, al-Masjid al-Aqsa referred not only to the mosque, but to the entire sacred sanctuary, while al-Jami' al-Aqsa referred to the specific site of the mosque. This changed during the period of Ottoman rule (c. early 16th century to 1917) when the sanctuary complex came to be known as al-Haram al-Sharif.
The al-Aqsa Mosque is located on the Temple Mount, referred to by Muslims today as the "Haram al-Sharif" ("The Noble Sanctuary"), an enclosure expanded by King Herod the Great beginning in 20 BCE. The mosque resides on an artificial platform that is supported by arches constructed by Herod's engineers to overcome the difficult topographic conditions resulting from the southward expansion of the enclosure into the Tyropoeon and Kidron valleys. At the time of the Second Temple, the present site of the mosque was occupied by the Royal Stoa, a basilica running the southern wall of the enclosure. The Royal Stoa was destroyed along with the Temple during the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE.
It was once thought that Emperor Justinian's "Nea Ekklesia of the Theotokos", or the New Church of the God-Bearer, dedicated to the God-bearing Virgin Mary, consecrated in 543 and commonly known as the Nea Church, was situated where al-Aqsa Mosque was later constructed. However, remains identified as those of the Nea Church were uncovered in the south part of the Jewish Quarter in 1973.
Analysis of the wooden beams and panels removed from the mosque during renovations in the 1930s shows they are made from Cedar of Lebanon and cypress. Radiocarbon dating indicates a large range of ages, some as old as 9th-century BCE, showing that some of the wood had previously been used in older buildings.
In 2012, it was reported that Robert Hamilton, an archaeologist who worked on the Temple Mount after the 1927 Jericho earthquake, had discovered remains under al-Aqsa mosque that he did not publish in his book on the excavations. These included a mosaic like those used in Byzantine churches, and a Jewish mikveh from the Second Temple period.
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