Palestine · Sacred / Ritual / Religious Craft Objects
Qamariyyah (a stucco stained-glass skylight); shamsiyyah (a stucco stained-glass window)
The sculpting of gypsum, wood, plaster (stucco), and stained glass into qamariyyahs (skylights) and shamsiyyahs (windows) for the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, within the 144-acre Haram al-Sharif compound in Jerusalem's Old City, the third-holiest site in Islam. This delicate work falls solely on the shoulders of a small, dedicated department, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock Restoration Committee, which generally works with tile, marble, and mosaics for the wider site, alongside sculpted gypsum, wood, plaster, and stained-glass specifically for the windows. Bassam Hallak, a 67-year-old Jerusalemite, has headed the committee in charge of renovating and replacing the windows and roof for both sacred sites for more than 40 years; as chief architect at the Haram al-Sharil, he is responsible for the entire site's upkeep, conservation, restoration, and decoration, and personally oversees the Haram's most hidden artistic treasure, its gypsum-window workshop, where a large design plan is first mapped out in pencil, then transferred onto the gypsum itself using charcoal. Bashir Muwaswis, who was 62 when interviewed by Al Jazeera in 2014 and has since retired, made and restored the windows of both religious sites for more than 30 years, directly caring for the interior aesthetics of these two adjoining sacred structures for the majority of his working life. The wider ongoing restoration of Jerusalem's Islamic holy sites has been sustained by a total of five major initiatives funded by the Hashemite royal family of Jordan since 1922, spending nearly JOD 1.5 billion (approximately $2.1 billion); a major eight-year project concluding in December 2016 restored approximately 16 million mosaic tiles across the Dome of the Rock and the Qibly Mosque, the first such project in 500 years. Yusuf Said Natsheh, a Palestinian scholar who has served since 1997 as Director of the Department of Islamic Archaeology in al-Haram al-Sharif and lectures at al-Quds University, has documented the site's original construction, dated by a foundation inscription in kufic script to 72 AH / 691 CE, its inner wooden dome considered the oldest wooden structure still extant.
Risk level: Endangered · The Old City of Jerusalem, including the Haram al-Sharif, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
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