Jerusalem — al-Quds in Arabic — is the third holiest city in Islam, revered as the destination of the Prophet Muhammad's miraculous Night Journey (Isra) and Ascension (Mi'raj) and as the original qibla before the direction of prayer was turned toward Mecca. Within the walled Old City stands the Haram al-Sharif, a vast esplanade housing the Dome of the Rock, completed by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik in 691 CE as one of the earliest surviving monuments of Islamic architecture, and the congregational al-Aqsa Mosque, repeatedly rebuilt after earthquakes since the seventh century. Jerusalem flowered under the Umayyads, Ayyubids — under whom Salah al-Din restored Muslim governance in 1187 — and Mamluks, who endowed dozens of madrasas around the Haram. Today the city remains a place of daily Muslim worship, with congregational Friday prayers at al-Aqsa drawing tens of thousands, even as access and political conditions remain deeply contested.