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Ibn ‘Asákir informs us that the length of the Masjid el Aksa was 755 cubits, and the breadth 465 cubits, the standard employed being the royal cubit. The author of the ‘Muthír el Gharám’ declares that he found on the inner surface of the north wall of the Haram, over the door, which is behind the Báb ed Dowaidáríyeh, a stone tablet, on which the length of the Masjid was recorded as 784 cubits, and its breadth as 455; it did not, however, state whether or no the standard employed was the royal cubit. The same author informs us that he himself measured the Masjid with a rope, and found that in length it was 683 cubits on the east side, and 650 on the west; and in breadth it was 438 cubits, exclusive of the breadth of the wall.

‘Abdallah Yácút el Hamawí, a Christian Arab writer of the twelfth century, tells us that the substructure of the Jewish Temple served for the foundations of ‘Abd el Melik’s edifice, and that that monarch built a wall of smaller stones upon the more massive ancient blocks. The great substructures at the south-west angle are said to be the work of ‘Abd el Melik, who is reported to have made them in order to obtain a platform on which to erect the el Aksa.^[35]