The Umayyad's Mosque
Regional, History, 5/7/2001

The Umayyad's mosque is the oldest place of worship in Damascus. More than 3000 years ago the Arameans built a temple of Hadad, the God of Thunder. Then the Romans built a temple for Jupiter. With the rise of Christianity a church was built on the western parts of the temple ground. Later in 635 AD the Muslims choose the Eastern part, to build a pulpit for a mosque in that thousands years old worship place.

Muslims and Christians prayed there, each in their part, for around seventy years.

Under the Umayyayd's caliph al-Walid Bin Abdul Malik negotiations were held with the Christian subjects to shed the part of the temple on which they had built their church, to be granted for big churches in Damascus in return, the most important of which was the great St. John church. And the Umayyad mosque was built according to a unique architectural design. The process took ten years. And the mosque turned out to be a glory in beauty and creativity. It became the first Islamic monument.

Today, the mosque is a holy place for Muslims and Christians. It contains the tomb of John the Baptist, known to Muslims as the prophet Yahya.

The mosque was hit by earthquakes and fires, and was always repaired to remain a standing monument of the Islamic civilization.

The last acts of repair were carried out during the days of the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.

Previous Stories:
  The rise of Christianity in Syria   (5/5/2001)
  Zenobia: Queen of valor and chastity   (5/3/2001)
  Syria rules Rome   (5/3/2001)
  Book review: Arts of administrative writing   (1/30/1999)
  Averroes 800th anniversary celebrated, Arabs awaken Europe from Dark Ages   (6/8/1998)
  Collapse of the Umayyad empire   (4/29/1998)
  Haroun al-Rashid and the Golden Abbasid age   (3/31/1998)

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