In the mid-eighth century CE, Jerusalem was struck by a violent earthquake that devastated parts of the city and damaged the al-Aqsa Mosque on the southern edge of the Haram al-Sharif. Muslim historians writing over the following centuries preserved accounts of this disaster and of a second earthquake and repairs that reshaped the early mosque.

The first earthquake is best described by Mujir al‑Din, who wrote from Jerusalem in 1495 CE, and preserved three different isnād-based traditions about the this event. His narrators describe a nighttime earthquake accompanied by wind, rain, and terror: “the dome lifted itself up so that the stars were visible in the sky, and then it settled again.” In one version, witnesses heard unseen voices commanding, “Lift it up gently, in the name of God,” and later, “Put it down, put it in place.” Although written seven centuries later, such details suggest that Mujīr al-Dīn’s accounts preserve traces of early oral history, transmitted within the genre of Jerusalem praise literature (Williams, 2024).

al-Dhahabī, also reported on the first earthquake which he dated to A.H. 130 (747–748 CE) and described as the most violent ever felt in Jerusalem, killing many residents—including members of the prominent Aws family —and toppling the house of Shaddād ibn Aws. It should be noted that while most muslim authors dated the first earthquake to A.H. 130 (747–748 CE), Ibn Taghri Birdi and as‑Suyūṭī preserved a dual date tradition of A.H. 130 (747–748 CE) and A.H. 131 (747–748 CE). In al-Dhahabī's account, after the first earthquake, the Caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 754–775 CE) subsequently organized repairs using gold and silver stripped from the mosque’s ornate doors to fund the reconstruction.

Yet this repair was short-lived. Both Jamal ad Din Aḥmad and Mujīr al-Dīn explain that a second earthquake struck not long after the first, bringing down the new structure built by al-Manṣūr. The third Abbasid caliph, al-Mahdī (r. 775–785 CE), then ordered a complete rebuilding of al-Aqsa, instructing that it be made broader and shorter than before to better serve worshippers.

This second earthquake appears to be described in our earliest surviving description by Jerusalemite al‑Maqdisi, who around 985 CE, wrote that “earthquakes threw down most of the main building” of al-Aqsa, leaving standing only the portion surrounding the mihrab. The reigning Abbasid caliph, upon hearing of the destruction, is said to have found the treasury insufficient for a full reconstruction. He therefore ordered the governors of the provinces to each contribute by erecting a colonnade. The rebuilt structure, completed under these instructions, stood “firmer though less elegant” than the original.

Modern synthesis of these and other sources (Williams, 2024) suggests that the first earthquake corresponds to the first of the Sabbatical Year Quakes of January 749 CE (A.H. 131). This shock likely caused the initial destruction of al-Aqsa and much of Jerusalem. A later tremor—perhaps part of the same regional sequence or a By No Means Mild earthquake series reported in 756 CE—may explain the second collapse that led to al-Mahdī’s rebuilding. As for the dual date tradition for the first earthquake, this may hint at other earthquakes in the mid-8th century CE sequence.