The Umayyad Mosque

The Pulsing Heart of Damascus And The Link Between Earth And Heaven

 

The Umayyad Mosque is undoubtedly one of early Islam’s most magnificent monuments, stands on a site which has been held sacred for the last three millennia, its chameleonic biography reflecting the monumental shifts in the history of the city.

The compound of the Aramaic temple of “Hadad” and, later, the Roman Temple of Jupiter would have stretched from the grand archway at the eastern end of the Hamidiye Souk right over to the monumental gate that lies half buried beneath the street level, some 120 m beyond the eastern gate of the present day mosque.

 Within this huge enclosure would have been an inner compound corresponding to the dimensions of the mosque today. In the late fourth century AD the temple was converted into a Church dedicated to St. John the Baptist, though to cover roughly the same area as today’s prayer hall.

  When the Arabs took Damascus in 636 the Christian population was initially allowed to continue worshipping here, though in the early eight century Caliph al-Walid negotiated with the Christians the ceding of the site in return for permanent rights to four other church sites in the city (including that of the present day Greek Orthodox Church.

Between 708 and 715, hired Byzantine architects and craftsmen constructed essentially what you see today; it is said that the building work cost a total of four hundred chests of dinars and that eighteen camels were required just to transport the expense sheets.

 This was the first mosque in Syria to feature minarets, a mihrab*, and a minbar** and ablution fountains, and it became the prototype for numerous other monumental.

Umayyad construction including those at Aleppo and Hama (and even the Great Mosque of Cordoba in (Andalus), now Spain, constructed in 786). Over the centuries a number of disasters both natural and man made ,have conspired to diminish the building’s original splendor ,the most serious of which was a major fire in 1893 (said to have been started accidentally by a smoking workman involved in the repair of the dome) which destroyed much of the prayer hall.

The mosque was rebuilt over a period of nine years by the Damascenes themselves, with seven brigades of volunteers being formed to work one day each week, and as such the building has come to embody something of the pride and spirit of the city-something the late president Hafez al Assad was no doubt aware of when he allotted S.P. 300 million for the renovation of the courtyard and minarets, a process completed in the year 2000.

The courtyard and minarets***

The ticket office for the mosque is near its northwestern corner; tourists enter through the mosque’s northern gate, the Bab al-Amara, where the remains of the old arcade that once connected the outer and inner walls of the Roman structure can be seen.

 

From here you enter the marble –covered courtyard facing the magnificent faÁade of the prayer hall; on the right is a small octagonal building ,elevated on eight recycled classical columns, its beautiful mosaics thought to date from a thirteenth century restoration.

The early mosques all included a structure of this type, which functioned as a treasury for the Moslem community, but it’s thought the one here may have been symbolic.

 In the center of the courtyard ,the modern ablution fountain is said to mark the midpoint between Istanbul and Mecca, while on the eastern side is another domed pavilion, dating to the eighteenth century, popularly known as the Dome of the Clocks (until 1958 it housed the mosque’s collection of clocks).

 Shiite pilgrims trend to gather in this part of the courtyard because a room off the eastern arcade contains the legendary burial place of the head of the revered leader al Husein Ibn Ali (the son of the prophet’s cousin).

After Husein was foolishly and savagely slaughtered at the hands of the Umayyads at the Battle of Karbala in 680.

The vast majority of the original mosaics on the prayer hall’s exterior and arcaded walls have been lost in a succession of disasters over the centuries, but what is on show today is still an awe – inspiring sight glistening ostentatiously in the sun.

For the best appreciation of the surviving original work, look at the western arcade and in the darker section s of the transept. In accordance with Moslem prohibition, there are no representations of people or animals in the mosaics, which portray a lush, rolling landscape of orchards, fields and rivers populated by grand palaces and fantastical cities. It’s not certain what is exactly being depicted here –some have suggested it is a representation of the city of Damascus at that time, yet the electric nature of the design makes this unlikely; others say that it is the landscape of the Muslim paradise as referenced in the Holy Koran, but this is anachronistic for the period.

Perhaps a more likely explanation is that it is a subtle combination of the two: a portrayal of an Islamic paradise, which is both physical, n that it represents the Umayyad – held lands, and spiritual, in that it is clearly an idealized representation.

Above the northern arcade’ a ninth century structure to which an upper storey was added in the twelfth century, is the Minaret of the Bride. Its name derives from the story of a merchant who provided lead for the minaret’s roof, and whose daughter subsequently married the caliph.

Rising from the southwest corner of the Prayer Hall is the late fifteenth century Minaret of Qayet Bay, named after the Memlouk Sultan responsible for its construction, while at its southeastern corner is the Minaret of Jesus, built in 1247 on the site of an Umayyad structure.

The prayer hall

You enter the prayer hall by one of the doors at either end, removing your shoes first. It’s really its sheer scale which impresses-the interior is rather plain.

 The building essentially follows the plan of the destroyed Roman triple -aisled basilica, except that the building is oriented not towards the east wall, where the altar would have been, but towards the south wall, in the middle of which is the mihrab, indicating the direction of Mecca.

Recycled columns divide the area into three wide aisles running parallel to the south wall, reflecting the form of a Christian basilica, though in fact these aisles are of equal width ,the entrance in the southern wall would originally have connected to the Umayyad palace (now gone) and been reserved for the Caliph.

The present dome crowning the north – south transept dates from 1893 ,and in fact there is little here that predates the fire of that year, though the supports for the dome are eleventh-century, and some of the transept ceiling’s exquisite original wood paneling can still be seen on the courtyard side, as can fragments of eleventh – century mosaic work on the transept’s work on the transept’s northern wall.

 A lavish marble monument commemorates the legendary burial site of the head of John the Baptist, who is revered by Muslims as one of the prophets; again this structure dates from after 1893,the former wooden mausoleum having been consumed in the flames. During the construction of the mosque in the early eighth century, it is said that workmen came upon a small Christian crypt containing a basket with the head inside.

Today pilgrims shove money, prayer requests and candles into any crack they can find in the edifice.

* Mihrab: Niche in mosque indicating the direction of Mecca.

** Minbar: Mosque pulpit from where the Imam delivers the Friday sermon.

*** Minaret: Tower of a mosque from where the Muezzin gives the call for

prayer .

**** Imam: Some one who leads prayers in the mosque .

Haifaa Mafalani