Walking in the very crowded covered alleyway with visitors from all over the world, listening to so many different languages here and there, I gaze at both sides of this long beautiful corridor, built with exceptional Palestinian rocky stones. On each side of the walkway are small and simple vendors’ stalls. Each vendor has his own fingerprint of Palestinian decoration and goods. Antiques, Palestinian embroideries, candies, and handmade sugar are the most common offerings. The fragrant smell of the Old City insists that I keep inhaling more and my soul wants to fill my lungs nonstop with it.

The roof of the Old City alleyway is arched. On that curved roof there are strings of lights set in a row. The more I walk the more lights I see, as if they are following my footsteps. This long, picturesque corridor ends with four stairs leading to a wide-open green door.  Through that door, there is a breathtaking scene waiting for me to behold it.

The pristine blue octagonal building is centered in the middle of spacious grounds and is full of glory. The upper part of the walls is covered with bright golden inscriptions of Holy Quran verses. That perfectly inscribed octagon wears a solid gold hemispherical crown. That relatively small crown is a very holy dome, which, topped with a small golden crescent, sits on the octagon proudly on the innermost portion of the octagon and makes its eight corners more prominent.  Each corner of the enormous octagon has multiple blue arches. Dome of the Rock, with all its blue and golden details, bewitchingly matches with the brilliant blue sky.

I am 20 years old and after 20 years of dreaming to see this glorious mosque, my tearing eyes do not believe themselves. My heart leaps and flies as if it wants to chase the white doves that are flying around everywhere. I feel that I have achieved the impossible. Time loses all meaning to the extent that I feel the two hours I spend here as two minutes or less. This place is magic. I decide to enter the Dome of the Rock after an unknown portion of time has passed out of the two hours I’ve spent just gazing at the golden dome.

The red moquette is covering all of the floor.  Wide round columns stand in a row on that moquette. In the middle of the mosque, there is a hanging round rock. It is neither set on the ground nor hanging from the concave golden dome. This miracle pushes me to look carefully at the concave golden dome from inside. The charming beauty of the inscriptions that cover the surface makes me forget about the matter of the hanging rock. How can all this beauty just exist in this place! The mosque is full of prayers and visitors, yet I am aware of no one. I feel detached from the outside world and attached with full harmony with the universe inside this mosque.

It is time to say goodbye to this glory, leave Jerusalem, and go back to Gaza, which is the city I live in, and it is just 78 kilometers away. This holy place should not be imprisoned by all of those restrictions that prevent the Gazans to go there and worship. My body leaves Jerusalem, yet my soul remains there.