$7-Million Makeover for Holy Dome : Jerusalem: 7th-Century mosque, built on a site claimed by both Muslims and Jews, will get a new coat of gold.

The graceful, golden roof of the Dome of the Rock--a symbol of Jerusalem and one of the glories of Islam--is being restored by engineers from Northern Ireland at a cost of more than $7 million.

Just the gold to cover the dome will run about $1.4 million, Pat O’Hare, the restoration’s project manager, said recently as the engineers from Mivan Overseas began surveying the 7th-Century mosque.

The restoration is being paid for by Jordan’s King Hussein after a reported squabble with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia over who would pay and how.

O’Hare said his company will do its best to steer clear of the political hassles that seem to dog any restoration project in Jerusalem, with its mixed Jewish and Arab population and arguments over boundaries.

“We’re not interested in politics, only in construction,” O’Hare said. “We have enough problems at home.” Mivan is headquartered in Antrim, just outside Belfast.

A climb up the scaffolding erected for the survey shows how serious are the disagreements over the mosque and its location on what Muslims call the Haram al Sharif and Jews the Temple Mount.

Issam Awad, the Palestinian engineer for the Haram, points out dents in the dome made by bullets. He says the damage is from 1982 when a crazed Israeli soldier opened fire at the mosque and from the Temple Mount riots of 1990 when 17 Palestinians were killed by Israeli police.

The Haram al Sharif, or “noble sanctuary,” is a political and religious minefield. It was the site of Solomon’s Temple, destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC, and the Second Jewish Temple built by Herod and razed by the Romans in AD 70.

A radical Jewish group called the Temple Mount Faithful wants to rebuild the ancient temple on the site and suggests simply moving the Dome of the Rock and the nearby Al Aqsa mosque to Saudi Arabia.

To Muslims, the rock beneath the dome is the place where the Prophet Mohammed made his journey to heaven described in the Koran, Islam’s holy book. It is the third-holiest site in Islam, after the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina.

An indentation in the rock is said to have been left by Mohammed’s footprint and another by the handprints of the angel Gabriel, who held the massive rock down so it would not rise up with the prophet.

The first mosque on the spot was built by Omar, Commander of the Faithful, who conquered Jerusalem in AD 638. The present structure, known for its beautiful mosaics and blue exterior tiles as well as the golden dome, was completed in 691.

Adnan Husseini, who heads the Muslim Trust that manages the Haram al Sharif, says the dome was last restored in the early 1960s and has a problem common to old buildings: The roof leaks.

Kenny Andrew, Mivan’s operations manager, said most of the 18-month project will be taken up with designing plates to cover the dome and completely scaffolding the structure.

The actual restoration will be done between next April and September, the dry season. The octagonal-shaped mosque is covered by a dome 20 yards across and 14 yards high, topped by the crescent moon of Islam.

The dome was originally covered in gold. Its present gold-colored aluminum plates will be replaced by brass plates, covered by a layer of nickel and then by a film of 24-karat gold, O’Hare said.

And after the work, what will be different about the dome that seems to shine forth in every photograph of Jerusalem?

“It will be more golden,” Andrew said.