<Tr> <Th> Minaret height </Th> <Td> 37 meters (121 ft) (tallest) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Materials </Th> <Td> Limestone (external walls, minaret, facade) stalactite (minaret), Gold, lead and stone (domes), white marble (interior columns) and mosaic </Td> </Tr> <P> Al - Aqsa Mosque (Arabic: المسجد الاقصى ‎ ‎ Al - Masjid al -' Aqṣā, IPA: (ʔælˈmæsdʒɪd ælˈʔɑqsʕɑ) (listen), "the Farthest Mosque"), also known as Al - Aqsa and Bayt al - Maqdis, is the third holiest site in Islam and is located in the Old City of Jerusalem . Whilst the entire site on which the silver - domed mosque sits, along with the Dome of the Rock, seventeen gates, and four minarets, was itself historically known as the Al - Aqsa Mosque, today a narrower definition prevails, and the wider compound is usually referred to as al - Haram ash - Sharif ("the Noble Sanctuary"), or the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism . Muslims believe that Muhammad was transported from the Sacred Mosque in Mecca to al - Aqsa during the Night Journey . Islamic tradition holds that Muhammad led prayers towards this site until the seventeenth month after the emigration, when God directed him to turn towards the Kaaba . </P> <P> The mosque was originally a small prayer house built by Umar the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, 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 . </P>

The great mosque constructed in jerusalem at the site of the old temple is the