The Rock - Kanan Makiya

Is it the rock of Moses or Muhammad? Kanan Makiya has assimilated the legends and beliefs that define the Rock - the place where Adam landed when he fell from Paradise and where Abraham attempted to sacrifice his first-born; where Solomon's Temple stood and where Jesus preached; the rock from which Muhammad ascended to heaven - and transformed them. This brilliantly imagined, historically based account of the building of the Dome of the Rock, the first monument of Islam, reconstructs the paths of the real individuals whose spiritual journeys revolved around the seventh-century lore of the Rock.

Makiya gives us a meditation on the common terrain of the world's three great monotheistic religions and a remarkable investigation into what the Rock symbolizes - beyond the myths, beyond even the three faiths at whose heart it sits.