Although it has been online for a while, this Virtual Walking Tour of the Temple Mount remains fascinating to watch. It has been produced by the Saudi Aramco World.
Haram al-Sharif, as the Temple Mount is known in Arabic, is the third holiest site for Muslims. On this artificial platform, that was extended by Herod the Great, stands the Dome of Rock, the Al-Aqsa and 40+ other smaller structures.
The site is known as the place to which Abraham was commanded by God to go to sacrifice his son Isaac, the place where Solomon built the First Temple and where, according to Muslim tradition, the prophet Muhammad went to heaven to receive the instruction to pray five times daily.
The narrator is the late Oleg Grabar, Professor Emeritus of Islamic Art and Architecture at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey. He is the author of The Dome of the Rock (2006, Harvard) and The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem (1996, Princeton).
There are 32 stops with stunning panoramic photos. The “Autoplay” setting will take you through all the stops, while in “Manual” you can stop at any time, read the text or zoom in and navigate with your mouse through the stunning spherical panoramic photographs.
There are other tours of the Alhambra in Spain and the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey.
This is super, Leen. Thanks for sharing this with everybody.