Occupied Jerusalem- The windows of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied city of Jerusalem, made of plaster and colored glass, illuminate the darkness in the hearts of worshipers and instill tranquility and reassurance in their souls.
The windows were vulnerable to the occupation’s attacks, as were all the contents of the mosque. Tel Aviv Tribune Net toured the place to photograph the beauty of those windows and the lighting, to highlight the skill of their manufacture through a technician who worked on this for 4 decades.
Dozens of the windows of Al-Aqsa Mosque bore the signature of technician and craftsman Bashir Al-Mousous after he began working for the mosque’s reconstruction committee in 1979, training at the hands of those who preceded him in the craft of window making, including his late father, Musa Al-Mousous.
Group effort
With deep experience, the Musos speaks about his profession, in which he says that one of the secrets of his success is his emotional connection to the sacred.
He began his speech with a historical overview of the launch, saying that many of the windows of the Al-Qibli prayer hall were damaged by a fire in 1969, and that during their dismantling in order to restore them, the employees found a name engraved on most of them: Daoud Abdeen Arnaout, a Jerusalemite who was working on restoring the windows before the occupation of Jerusalem in 1967. .
But after the occupation, Arnaout turned to another job. However, he was summoned again to work in Al-Aqsa, and this time he brought with him 3 of his friends, including the father of our speaker Bashir.
Bashir studied with his colleagues, and in 1982 after their retirement he assumed a greater responsibility, but he pointed out that no one can claim that the manufacture of Al-Aqsa windows is an individual work, because a series of technicians, craftsmen, and engineers cooperate in order to produce the windows in their final form.
“We begin with the stage of dismantling the window to be restored, then the wooden frame, plaster clay, and glass are prepared for cutting and drawings, which we are careful not to change into either geometric or floral shapes, or both. This is followed by pouring the plaster within a specific design, hollowing out, and sculpting to edit the main features of the window, then we draw manually.” On the window after printing the drawing on it, we move on to the stage of cutting the stained glass and inlaying it into the plaster,” says Al-Mousous.
The walls of the Al-Qibli Mosque in the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied city of Jerusalem are decorated with about 200 windows on its four sides, each of which has a story of history, decoration and beauty, and forms an artistic painting made more beautiful by sunlight.
Some of the windows of the Al-Qibli prayer hall were attacked by occupation soldiers during their raids into the prayer hall, and every time… pic.twitter.com/4aphUlGKww– Tel Aviv Tribune Net | Jerusalem (@Aljazeeraquds) December 15, 2024
Time and effort
Our interlocutor says that the work is done at specific geometric angles, and the deeper the technician works and the more his experience increases, the more he is able to limit the shadows that appear from behind the window, while installing back and front lighting, thus producing an elaborate piece that pleases the onlookers.
“Whoever looks at the windows enjoys their beautiful colors, but does not know that the details of the work are painstaking and require precision and a long time, ranging between 120 and 140 working hours for one window of two square metres,” Al-Mousous added.
When asked about the method of choosing the colors of the glass from which he cuts each piece to install it in the hollow plaster, he said that it depends on two things. The first is that the colors must be attractive and calm and enhance spirituality, and the second is the craftsman’s taste and touch, and usually blue in its shades, red and yellow are used. In mosques.
In detailing the choice of colors, Al-Mousous said that the windows of the eastern region, which receive sunlight from seven in the morning until one in the afternoon, use dark glass colors, unlike the western region, which receives sunlight in the afternoon, so the craftsmen are keen to use bright colors in their glass.
Double windows
This retired craftsman pointed out the need for everyone to know that the windows of Al-Aqsa Mosque are double, and the outer ones are made of plaster and white glass, and the inner ones are made of plaster and colored glass. Once he started counting the windows in the Al-Qibli prayer hall, he concluded that their number exceeds 100, each of which has an inner and outer side. 25 of them bear his name.
Regarding a window made by the possessed, which has a special place in his heart, he sighed and said, “The first window I made in 1982 had the phrase ‘There is no god but God, Muhammad is the Messenger of God’ written on it, and it consisted of 3 layers. I inlaid it with navy blue, yellow, and turquoise glass. It is located above the mihrab of the Qibli prayer hall, and through it I imposed my style and artistic culture.” I gained the trust of the engineer responsible for me, who left me the freedom to choose and work until my retirement.”
Before we bid him farewell, we asked him how he felt when he saw the windows of Al-Aqsa shattered due to the bullets and bombs thrown by the occupation forces storming the mosque every time. He replied, after a deep sigh of regret, by saying that the storming that took place into the mosque 3 years ago left damage to 9 windows in the Al-Qibli prayer hall, 6 of which were damaged. His signature.
“I sent a letter to the engineer in charge that I was willing to restore the six windows free of charge so that they would continue to carry my name, but unfortunately that did not happen, and despite my retirement, I go at exactly nine o’clock in the morning every day to Al-Aqsa and sit in its spaciousness to read the Qur’an and then perform the noon prayer, and before I leave I organize A tour to inspect the windows before leaving…the windows that have become a part of me.”
An ancient Islamic industry
In turn, Youssef Al-Natsheh, head of the Department of Tourism and Antiquities in the Islamic Endowments Department and former director of the Center for Jerusalem Studies at Al-Quds University, says that Palestine was famous for its stucco decorations in the Umayyad era and the eras that followed, and the best evidence of that is the Hisham Umayyad Palace in Jericho and the Dome of the Rock building, which contains 56 Window, and Al-Aqsa Mosque, both in Jerusalem, are part of the architecture of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Al-Natsheh added in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that Jerusalem was distinguished by the precision of the manufacture of plaster windows, and the layout of the windows had an important role in the planning of Islamic buildings, and they were used to take advantage of natural lighting and to bring air into the buildings.
According to Al-Natsheh, the windows were designed in several shapes, including rectangular, square, longitudinal, and circular. If their height was close to the level of the road, they were covered with metal protection, and if they were high, they were covered with beautiful plaster decorations inlaid with formations of transparent colored glass. This industry continued from the Umayyad period through the Mamluk period. All the way to the Ottoman Empire.
