أقسام هذا الباب
A sundial tells the time from the shadow the sun casts: a fixed rod throws its shadow on engraved lines, which mark the hour as the sun moves. Mosques used them to tell the times of prayer.
Al-Aqsa Mosque has two: the first on the south-western side of the Dome of the Rock, which told the afternoon prayer and dates from the Ottoman era; and the second above the Southern Arcade, which told noon and dates from the British Mandate.
A sundial on the south-western side of the Dome of the Rock, by which the time of the afternoon (Asr) prayer was told.
It was made by Muhammad Tahir Abu Saud in 1224 AH / 1809, in the Ottoman era, and is the older of the two sundials of Al-Aqsa.
A sundial above the Southern Arcade, the arcade by which one climbs from the Qibli Mosque to the Dome of the Rock platform, about eight metres above the ground, by which noon (Dhuhr) was told.
It was made by the engineer Rushdi al-Imam, a member of the Supreme Muslim Council, in 1927, under the British Mandate. Some sources give 1907; 1927 is right, as the Supreme Muslim Council was not founded before the early 1920s.
It is cut into a five-sided marble slab of unequal sides, about 100 × 150 cm, engraved with lines for the hours, with a metal rod about 25 cm long at its centre whose shadow falls on the lines. The time the shadow reads does not match a modern clock directly, and has to be adjusted to it.
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