A caliph is said to have told the people of Damascus that their city had four blessings, and that this mosque would be the fifth.
It is Al-Jami al-Umawi, the Umayyad Mosque, in Damascus, Syria, built between 705 and 715 by Caliph al-Walid the First.
The ground was already a sacred place. It had held an Aramean temple, then a Roman temple of Jupiter, then a church of John the Baptist.
Accounts say that after the Muslim conquest, Muslims and Christians shared the site for a time. Later, al-Walid acquired the church, and the Christians received other churches in return.
Its walls were once covered with gold and glass mosaics of rivers, trees and buildings, with no people in them. Many read them as a vision of Paradise.
A courtyard leads to a prayer hall of three aisles, crossed by a higher central nave under the Dome of the Eagle.
Inside, a shrine is said to hold the head of John the Baptist, whom Muslims honour as the Prophet Yahya, peace be upon him.
Three minarets rise above it, and the eastern one is called the Minaret of Jesus.
Fires, earthquakes and war struck it again and again. After a fire in 1893, the prayer hall was rebuilt.
UNESCO, which listed the Ancient City of Damascus in 1979, calls it one of the largest mosques in the world, and one of the oldest sites of continuous prayer since the rise of Islam.
The site of the Umayyad Mosque is attested as a place of worship since the Iron Age. Damascus was the capital of the Aramaean state Aram-Damascus and a large temple was dedicated to Hadad-Ramman, the god of thunderstorms and rain, and was erected at the site of the present-day mosque. One stone remains from the Aramaean temple, dated to the rule of King Hazael, and is currently on display in the National Museum of Damascus.
The Temple of Hadad-Ramman continued to serve a central role in the city afterwards. Under the rule of the Seleucids in the Hellenistic period, probably in the 2nd century BC, the temple was formally dedicated to the Greek god Zeus, who was assimilated with Haddad-Ramman. After the Roman Empire conquered Damascus in 64 BC, they introduced worship of the equivalent Roman god, Jupiter. Thus, they engaged in a project to reconfigure and expand the temple, probably beginning in the reign of Augustus (r. 27 BC – 14 AD). The later Damascus-born architect Apollodorus may have been involved in the design.
The new Temple of Jupiter became the center of the imperial cult of Jupiter and was served as a response to the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple of Jupiter would attain further additions during the early Roman period, some funded by contributions from individuals. The temple was further renovated and embellished during the reign of Septimius Severus (r. 193–211). The remains of the western propylaeum visible today most likely date from his time. By the 4th century, the temple was especially renowned for its size and beauty. It was separated from the city by two sets of walls. The first, outer wall spanned a wide area that included a market, and the second inner wall surrounded the actual sanctuary of Jupiter. It was the largest temple in Roman Syria.
In 391, the Temple of Jupiter was converted into a cathedral by the Christian emperor Theodosius I (r. 379–395). The church was likely one of the largest of the time. It served as the seat of the Bishop of Damascus, who ranked second within the Patriarchate of Antioch after the patriarch himself.
Foundation and construction
Damascus was captured by Muslim Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid in 634. In 661, the Islamic Caliphate came under the rule of the Umayyad dynasty, which chose Damascus to be the administrative capital of the Muslim world. The Byzantine cathedral had remained in use by the local Christians, but a prayer room (musalla) for Muslims was constructed on the southeastern part of the building. The musalla did not have the capacity to house the rapidly growing number of Muslim worshippers in Damascus. The city otherwise lacked sufficient free space for a large congregational mosque. The sixth Umayyad caliph, al-Walid I (r. 705–715), resolved to construct such a mosque on the site of the cathedral in 706. Proclaiming:
Inhabitants of Damascus, four things give you marked superiority over the rest of the world: your climate, your water, your fruits, and your baths. To these I wanted to add a fifth: this mosque.” Al-Walid personally supervised the project and had most of the cathedral, including the musalla, demolished. The construction of the mosque completely altered the layout of the building, though it preserved the outer walls of the temenos (sanctuary or inner enclosure) of the Roman-era temple. While the church (and the temples before it) had the main building located at the centre of the rectangular enclosure, the mosque's prayer hall is placed against its south wall. The architect recycled the columns and arcades of the church, dismantling and repositioning them in the new structure. Besides its use as a large congregational mosque for the Damascenes, the new house of worship was meant as a tribute to the city.
Architecture and design
The ground plan of the Umayyad Mosque is rectangular in shape and measures 97 meters (318 ft) by 156 meters (512 ft). A large courtyard occupies the northern part of the mosque complex, while the prayer hall or haram ('sanctuary') covers the southern part. The mosque is enclosed by four exterior walls which were part of the temenos of the original Roman temple.
Sanctuary
Three arcades make up the interior space of the sanctuary. They are parallel to the direction of prayer which is towards Mecca. The arcades are supported by two rows of stone Corinthian columns. Each of the arcades contain two levels. The first level consists of large semi-circular arches, while the second level is made up of double arches. This pattern is the same repeated by the arcades of the courtyard. The three interior arcades intersect in the center of the sanctuary with a larger, higher arcade that is perpendicular to the qibla wall and faces the mihrab and the minbar. The central transept divides the arcades into two halves each with eleven arches. The entire sanctuary measures 136 meters (446 ft) by 37 meters (121 ft) and takes up the southern half of the mosque complex.
Four mihrabs line the sanctuary's rear wall, the main one being the Great Mihrab which is located roughly at the center of the wall. The Mihrab of the Sahaba, named after the sahaba ('companions of Muhammad') is situated in the eastern half. According to the 9th-century Muslim engineer Musa ibn Shakir, the latter mihrab was built during the mosque's initial construction and it became the third niche-formed mihrab in Islam's history.
The central dome of the mosque is known as the 'Dome of the Eagle' (Qubbat an-Nisr) and located atop the center of the prayer hall. The original wooden dome was replaced by one built of stone following the 1893 fire. It receives its name because it is thought to resemble an eagle, with the dome itself being the eagle's head while the eastern and western flanks of the prayer hall represent the wings. With a height of 36 meters (118 ft), the dome rests on an octagonal substructure with two arched windows on each of its sides. It is supported by the central interior arcade and has openings along its parameter.
Courtyard
In the courtyard (sahn), the level of the stone pavement had become uneven over time due to several repairs throughout the mosque's history. Recent work on the courtyard has restored it to its consistent Umayyad-era levels. Arcades (riwaq) surround the courtyard supported by alternating stone columns and piers. There is one pier in between every two columns. Because the northern part of the courtyard had been destroyed in an earthquake in 1759, the arcade is not consistent; when the northern wall was rebuilt the columns that were supporting it were not. The courtyard and its arcades contain the largest preserved remnants of the mosque's Umayyad-era mosaic decoration.
Minarets
Within the Umayyad Mosque complex are three minarets. The Minaret of Isa on the southeast corner, the Minaret of Qaitbay (also called Madhanat al-Gharbiyya) on the southwest corner, and the Minaret of the Bride located along the northern wall.
More to know
According to some, the mosque is the fourth holiest site of Islam. A Christian tradition dating to the 6th century developed an association between the former cathedral structure and John the Baptist. Legend had it that his head was buried there. Ibn al-Faqih relays that during the construction of the mosque, workers found a cave-chapel which had a box containing the head of John the Baptist, known as Yahya ibn Zakariya by Muslims. Upon learning of that and examining it, al-Walid I ordered the head buried under a specific pillar in the mosque that was later inlaid with marble.
According to one hadith reported by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, the Great Mosque of Damascus is the site where Jesus will descend from heaven at his Second Coming, appearing on a "white minaret". Most Muslim theologians interpret this passage as symbolic rather than literal. In a study of Muslim sources, William Richard Oakes suggests that some aspects of this hadith could date from the late Umayyad period, when the mosque was built, rather than from Muhammad's time, when Damascus had not yet been conquered by Muslims.
Two shrines commemorating the Islamic prophet Muhammad's grandson Husayn ibn Ali, whose martyrdom is also compared in Shi'a tradition to that of John the Baptist, exist within the building premises.
The History, Architecture and later sections are adapted from the Wikipedia article “Umayyad Mosque”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full article. Text has been shortened.
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