جامع دمشق ١_a .. كتاب العمارة العربية الاسلامية

Damascus Mosque

Building the mosque and its history

After the liberation of Damascus from Byzantine rule in the year 635/514, Muslims chose the spot occupied by the Umayyad Mosque today to perform their prayers. It is a sacred land that has been devoted to worship for thousands of years. A temple to the Aramaic god Hadad was erected there at the beginning of the first millennium BC. Then, during the Roman era, a temple was built for the god Jupiter. It appears from the remains of this temple remaining until now that it occupied a large area, and had an outer wall measuring (380 x 300) meters in length.

The real temple was built inside this wall, where the Umayyad Mosque was later built. This temple was transformed in the late fourth century AD into a church, and then during the reign of Emperor (Theodosius) a church was built in the name of Saint John the Baptist. We believe that it occupied the side of the temple, and it remained until the days of Al-Walid.

The temple consisted of a rectangular wall measuring 156 x 97 metres, with square towers at its four corners, and inside it was a portico surrounding it, similar to the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, with a small temple or structure in the middle. The temple had doors on its four sides, the most important of which was the eastern door. It has three openings, the middle one is wide, and two are small.

The Muslim Arabs divided the temple with the Christians, not the church, as archaeologists understood from what Ibn Asakir said. This misunderstanding caused dilemmas that required a lot of discussion. Thus, the first mosque, the Sahaba Mosque, was erected on the eastern side of the temple. This remained the case from the conquest until the caliphate of Al-Walid bin Abdul-Malik, that is, for nearly seventy years.

There was an urgent need to establish a large mosque worthy of the greatness of the state and the state of development reached by the Arab Islamic society. During the reign of Al-Walid, Damascus became the capital of the greatest Arab country in history. The number of people in Damascus increased, as did the number of Muslims there. The first mosque became crowded with them and could no longer accommodate the large numbers of Muslims.

Then Al-Walid decided to implement his important architectural project and entered into negotiations with the Christian subjects in order to give up half of the temple, not half of the church, through legitimate means. He achieved what he wanted, and everything that was inside the walls of the temple, including Roman and Byzantine structures, was demolished. Then the mosque was built according to a new, innovative plan that responded to the rituals of the Islamic religion and its purposes. It was unique in its engineering, and no other building had been similar to it in previous eras. And with his praise, the principles of mosque architecture were developed. The largest building built after him in the Islamic world. For centuries, architects continued to draw inspiration from him and follow his example. Al-Walid did not spare any effort or money to make his university a masterpiece of architecture and a masterpiece of art. Thus, the Damascus Mosque was a revolution against simplicity and austerity and a new departure in the field of architecture and decoration. Al-Walid’s determination and plan are expressed in his words when he decided to build the mosque: Here I want to build a mosque that no one has built before me, and no one who comes after me will build the likes of it! And so it really was. Al-Walid spent nearly ten years building it, starting in Dhul-Hijjah in the year 86 AH (705 AD).

For several centuries, the Damascus Mosque remained a fascination for onlookers, but it did not escape the calamities of time and was exposed to fires and earthquakes more than once during its long history. The first fire occurred in the year 5460/1067 AD and destroyed the entire sanctuary, so it was restored in a few years.

The last fire occurred in 1893 and destroyed the sanctuary as well. But thanks to the efforts made to restore it and repair what was destroyed. In the best condition, as an immortal relic of Arab civilization. Despite the demolition and restoration that befell it, the Damascus Mosque retained its original plan, its general character, and most of its architectural and decorative elements.

The specialized student can easily distinguish between its first elements and its renewed elements in different eras.

Whole plan

If we take a look at the plan of the mosque, we find that it is rectangular, its length is (97 x 156) meters, and its northern side is occupied by an open courtyard surrounded by covered arcades. Its southern section occupies the sanctuary, or prayer hall. The mosque has three main doors leading to the courtyard, connecting it to the three sides of the city, eastern, western, and northern.

There is a fourth door in the sanctuary on the western side of it, connecting the mosque to the southern side of the city.

The mosque’s sections and architectural elements

A) Walls and doors: The mosque’s wall is built of limestone, large courses, and equipped with wall supports. It is from the Roman era. However, most of its sections were renewed in the Arab era.

The four corners of the wall were occupied by square towers, of which the southern towers remain to this day, and upon them were built the eastern and western minarets (Photo No. 11).

As for the doors of the mosque, the eastern door maintained its original Umayyad status. It was called Bab Jiron, and its name today is Bab Al-Nufra. It consists of a door in the middle with a high arch and two small doors on either side of it. Opposite it is the western door and is called the Post Office. It is also composed of a luxurious vestibule that connects both the eastern and western doors to the corridors surrounding the courtyard and to the scenes on either side of it. As for the northern door, it consists of only one opening, and it was renewed in later Arab eras and was called the Paradise Gate and the Natafani Gate. Today it is called the Gate of Architecture.

As for the open door in the sanctuary, it is called the door of addition, because it was created in