Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The site, revered by both Muslims and Jews, is where Jews believe that Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac, and Muslims believe that Ishmael was nearly the sacrificial victim instead." [Catherwood: The Middle East, p. 88] "The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was built on the ruins of the Temple Mount and around the natural rock where Abraham’s sacrifice of his son was mercifully rejected by Abraham’s God. The building was thus erected by the Umayyads as a monumental version of the Quranic understanding that this is the One God, and that the Muslims are also, and now preeminently, among the Children of Abraham." [Menocal: Ornament of the World, p. 20] The site's great significance for Muslims derives from traditions connecting it to the creation of the world and the belief that the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey to heaven started from the rock at the center of the structure. . . . The Dome of the Rock is situated in the center of the Temple Mount, the site of the Temple of Solomon and the Jewish Second Temple, which had been greatly expanded under Herod the Great in the 1st century BCE. Herod's Temple was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans . . ." [Wikipedia]