The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus bears witness to a thousand years of history and heritage. It is one of the oldest large mosques in the Muslim world. The Umayyad caliph al-Walid began building it and it was completed in AD 715. The mosque holds special importance and standing for both Christians and Muslims.

According to hadith, Isa (AS) will come to this mosque before the Day of Judgement and bring an end to oppression in the world. The mosque also preserves many memories of Husain bin Ali (RA), martyred at Karbala, and of the fighters taken captive there. In a garden beside the mosque lies Sultan Salahuddin Ayyubi, the Muslim ruler who triumphed in the Crusades and recovered Baitul Muqaddas from the Christians.

The site's history as a place of worship is older still. According to historical accounts, the Arameans built a temple to the god Hadad here in the Iron Age. In AD 64 the Roman rulers demolished it and built a temple to Jupiter. After the Christian Byzantines conquered Damascus, they tore down the temple of Jupiter and built a church and cathedral of John the Baptist. According to some historians, John is the Prophet Yahya (AS) named in the Quran.

After the Muslim commander Khalid bin Walid conquered Damascus in AD 634, a small part of the cathedral was set aside as a place for Muslims to pray. Once the Umayyad caliphate was established, Caliph al-Walid planned a large mosque taking in most of the cathedral. In exchange he opened the city's other churches to the Christians, and space for Christian worship was kept in the eastern part of the cathedral.

After about nine years of work, construction was completed in AD 715, in the time of Caliph Sulaiman ibn Abdul Malik. According to the historian Ibn al-Faqih, between six and ten lakh gold coins were spent on building the Umayyad Mosque. About 12,000 workers from Persia, India, Greece and Morocco worked on it. Caliph Walid employed 200 highly skilled Byzantine craftsmen for the mosaic work. The mosque's marble and 43,000 square feet of golden mosaic created a breathtaking beauty.

Every later Muslim ruler made important contributions to developing and preserving the mosque. In the Abbasid period the Qubbat al-Khazna (Dome of the Treasury) and the Minaret of the Bride were built. When fire struck the mosque in the Seljuk period, King Tutush rebuilt it.

The Mamluk Sultan Qaitbay built the Qaitbay minaret at the mosque, named after himself, and the Mamluk sultans adorned various parts of the mosque with marble. The Ottoman Sultan Selim I endowed a large amount of property as waqf in the mosque's name, and 596 staff were appointed to manage it. Syria's former autocrat Hafez al-Assad restored the mosque's Umayyad style through a long renovation.

The Umayyad Mosque measures 318 feet in length and 512 feet in width. A vast courtyard covers the northern part of the complex, and the southern part is called the haram, or sacred precinct. The whole complex is enclosed by a stone boundary wall with several gateways, and between every two columns of the wall stands a paired pillar.

The main prayer hall has three arcades. Above it stands the mosque's largest dome, the Qubbat al-Nasr (Eagle Dome). It was once made of wood; after it was destroyed by a fire in 1893, a stone dome was built. The historic mosque has three minarets in all, each built in a different period.

Source: Staff Correspondent. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.