Damascus Umayyad Mosque

Mosque Name: Jami’a al-Umawi al-Kabir

Country: Syria

City: Damascus

Year of construction (AH): 91 AH

Year of construction (AD): 709 AD

GPS: 33°30’41.98” N 36°18’24.85”E

Gibson Classification: Between

Rebuilt facing Mecca: Never

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Description:

The site of this mosque has been used as a place of worship since the Arameans built a temple there and dedicated it to their god Hadad. Under Roman rule, beginning in 64 CE, it was converted into a temple for the imperial cult of Jupiter, becoming one of the largest temples in Syria. When the empire in Syria transitioned to Christian Byzantine rule, Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379–395) transformed it into a cathedral and the seat of the bishop in the Patriarchate of Antioch.

After the Muslim conquest of Damascus in 634, part of the cathedral was designated as a small prayer house (musalla) for the Muslim conquerors. As the Muslim community grew, the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I (r. 705–715) confiscated the rest of the cathedral for Muslim use. The structure was largely demolished and leveled to the ground and a grand congregational mosque was built in its place. The new structure was built over nine years by thousands of laborers and artisans from across the Islamic and Byzantine empires at considerable expense and was funded by the war booty of Umayyad conquests and taxes on the Arab troops of Damascus.

The new mosque was the most impressive in the Islamic world at the time. The interior walls were covered with fine mosaics considered to depict paradise. This mosque holds a shrine which is said to contain the head of John the Baptist. The head was supposedly found during the excavations for the building of the mosque. There are also many important landmarks within the mosque for the Shi’a. Among them is the place where the head of Husain (the grandson of Muhammad) was kept on display by Yazid I. There is also the tomb of Saladin, (Salah al-Din) which stands in a small garden adjoining the north wall of the mosque.

Following the pattern set by al-Hajjaj and al-Walid I, this mosque has a Between orientation.

This mosque was one of the first mosques (the other being al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem) to be shaped in such a way so that visitors could easily see the mihrab and each other. The interior of the mosque is mainly plain white, although it contains some fragmentary mosaics and other geometric patterns.

It is thought that the mosque used to have the largest golden mosaic in the world at over 4,000 m². The mosque has been rebuilt several times due to fires in 1069, 1401, and 1893 AD. Many of the early mosaics were lost, although some have been restored since. The minaret in the southeast corner is called the Minaret of Jesus, as many Muslims believe that this is where Jesus will appear at the end of the world. The mosque does not face Mecca but rather a point between Petra and Mecca.