Umayyad Mosque

The Umayyad Mosque is a massive religious complex in the old city of Damascus, Syria.

It is also known as the Great Mosque of Damascus. This site is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. It is also considered to be the oldest mosque still in use in its original form. The mosque holds immense religious importance for many people. It is tied to various eschatological reports, which are beliefs about the end of the world.

The history of this specific site begins long before the mosque was built. During the Iron Age, the Arameans built a temple there for Hadad, a god of rain. Later, during the Hellenistic period, the site was associated with the Greek god Zeus. After the Romans conquered the area in 64 BCE, they built a massive Temple of Jupiter. This temple was the center of the imperial cult of Jupiter. It was one of the largest temples in all of Syria. The current walls of the mosque are actually the inner walls of that ancient Temple of Jupiter.

As empires changed, the purpose of the site changed too. In 391 CE, the Christian Emperor Theodosius I converted the temple into a cathedral. This cathedral became the seat of a high-ranking bishop. After the Muslim conquest of Damascus in 634, a small prayer house called a musalla was used by Muslims. Eventually, the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I decided to build a grand congregational mosque. He demolished most of the cathedral to make room for it. To compensate the local Christians, he returned other properties in the city to them.

Building the mosque was a monumental task that required immense resources. Construction began in 706 and lasted for about nine years. The project was funded by taxes on Arab troops and war booty from Umayyad conquests. Some historians estimate the cost was between 600,000 and 1,000,000 gold dinars. A massive workforce of 12,000 people helped complete the work. These laborers and artisans came from many places, including Morocco, India, Greece, and Persia. This included Coptic craftsmen as well.

The architecture of the Umayyad Mosque was highly innovative. Earlier mosques were often simple hypostyle structures with flat roofs. The Umayyad Mosque introduced a basilical plan instead. This design features three parallel aisles and a perpendicular central nave. The nave leads from the entrance to the mihrab, which is a prayer niche. This mosque also featured the world's second concave mihrab. This new, organized, and monumental design influenced many later Islamic buildings.

Decoration was a central part of the mosque's beauty. The walls were covered in rich marble paneling. The most famous feature was the extensive gold mosaics. These mosaics covered approximately 2,500 square meters. They depicted landscapes and plants using a naturalistic style. Some scholars believe this was one of the largest collections of gold mosaics in the world. Medieval Muslim writers were so impressed that they called the mosque a "wonder of the world."

Over many centuries, different groups added to the site. During Abbasid rule, the Dome of the Treasury and the Minaret of the Bride were added. Later, the Mamluks added the Minaret of Qaytbay in 1488. The site remains sacred to multiple traditions today. Christian and Muslim traditions both hold that the head of John the Baptist is buried there. There are also two shrines inside for Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad.