THE GREAT MOSQUE OF

THE GREAT MOSQUE OF THE UMAYYADS

At last.  We had passed in front of and by the side of the mosque so many times but always en route to some other destination.  Robert had often said, why don’t we just go in now? but I felt that this was a major monument and it would take some time to visit it.  I was right.

As you walk up the half kilometre or so of the Hamadiyye souq, the covered passage gives on to a large open space, the transition marked by the remains on the right of the monumental Roman arch standing opposite the small perfumery and Koran sellers’ stalls on the left. On the far side of this open square stands the Mosque of the Umayyads, which is not only Damascus’ most outstanding monument but also one of the most oustanding monuments of Islam itself and its first great mosque.  The mosque is not the first religious building to have occupied this site by any means.  As long ago as the 9th. century BC this was already a sacred site and the place where the original Aramaean temple of Haddad was built around the 2nd. century BC.  When the Romans arrived, they assimilated Haddad to the Roman pantheon equating him with Jupiter and on this same site, in the 1st. century AD, the Romans built the temple of Jupiter which followed the Syrian tradition of a huge temple enclosure with a central chamber to house the god and a sacrificial altar much like the Temple of Bel at Palmyra. The outer compound or peribolos of the Roman temple was 305m by 385m and the remains of the arch standing at the end of the souq was the western entrance to the peribolos of the temple of Jupiter.  The mosque today occupies, more or less, the area of the inner section or temenos of the Roman temple and the immense stone blocks at the base of the mosque walls are the original stones of that structure.  

When Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the empire, the inner shrine was torn down and the temple was converted to a Christian church dedicated to St. John the Baptist around the year 379 AD. When Damascus was taken by the Arabs in 636 AD, the mainly Christian population continued to practise their religion and the new Arab settlers were housed in new areas of the city.  For over 70 years the church of John the Baptist remained a Christian place of worship although the area was probably also used as a place of worship by the Moslems, the Christian altar facing east and the Moslems praying facing south towards Mecca.  

Then, with the growth of Islam, the desire to have a prestigious sacred building dedicated to Islam grew stronger, perhaps fired also by the need to “wash away” the memory of Damascus’s original resistance.  So, the Caliph al-Walid negotiated a deal with the Christian community which then left the whole compound free for Islamic worship.  The building of the great mosque was commissioned in 708 AD and completed seven years later in 714-715, the year of al-Walid’s death.

How Islam came to pre-eminence at all when it did is an interesting story.  After its early struggle, during the Byzantine age, Christianity became an arrogant, self-confident religion particularly after it was adopted as the official religion of the Roman empire.  With recognition and officialdom, came control and orthodoxy which the western church tried to impose with an iron hand.  But, Syria, which was after all responsible for giving Christianity to the world in a form which made it acceptable to the Roman empire and not just some offshoot of Judaism, had always enjoyed experimenting with religious and philosophical ideas and continued to do so, nurturing some of the first fathers of the church, such as St. John Chrysostom, Nestorius and many others.  Another facet which found its way into Christianity via Syria was the monastic tradition which began in the deserts of Egypt but became popular in northern Syria which was dotted with monastic communities throughout the Byzantine age, new comunities being founded, thriving and travelling the world. The nestorian seats of learning were to become the repositories of Graeco-Roman learning during the dark ages of medieval European obscurantism when the hordes from the north annihilated the western part of the Roman empire, eliminating all vestiges of culture throughout Europe, and it was from these nestorian universities that the treasures of classical learning were passed on, through the Islamic world, to Spain and Sicily while they were Islamic enclaves in an ocean of medieval ignorance. These were then the seeds from the which the European Renaissance could begin, first in Italy and later spreading elsewhere.


Nestorianism was one of the strands which thrived and it was a nestorian priest who taught the Prophet Mohammed the tenets of Christianity at the church still standing today in Bosra in southern Syria. However, the eastern reaches of Christianity had always been home to a variety of beliefs, and the philosophical debate over whether Christ had a dual nature, both divine and human, or merely human was one which lasted vigorously up to the seventh century and still survives in minority form in some places.  This arcane debate, unlikely as it may seem, was one of the main bones of contention between the eastern elements and western orthodoxy being imposed implacably from Constantinople, and reflected a deeper inability to marry the eastern and  western elements in Syrian society. Added to this, Rome and Persia waged war continuously on one another and Nature dealt heavy blows in the form of a series of earthquakes leaving the country weakened by plague and famine.  Finally, Rome and Persia had fought themselves to a standstill.  There was no energy left and most people could no longer care.

Into this near vacuum came the forces of early Islam which, at first, in the context of this ferment of ideas, was regarded as yet another offshoot of Christianity, much as Christianity had been regarded as an offshoot of Judaism.  Syria was one of the first conquests of the Islamic forces.  After a few initial skirmishes, the Islamic and Byzantine forces met at Yarmouk on the present Syrian-Jordanian border and the Islamic forces won hands down, ending almost a thousand years of Graeco-Roman rule.  The defeated Byzantine emperor declared: “Farewell , O Syria, and what an excellent country this is for the enemy”.  With the conquest of Syria, the centre of the Moslem world gradually moved north from Mecca to Damascus, the ancient Aramaean centre.  The downfall of the seemingly invincible Byzantine forces was a momentous event because it brought the re-awakening of Syria’s semitic roots. Islam then embarked upon a period of expansion the likes of which had not been seen since the days of Alexander the Great. By the beginning of the 8th century, the Moslem empire extended from Spain, Portugal and southern France in the west almost to the borders of China in central Asia, an empire greater than even the might of Rome at its peak.  

The western entrance to the mosque from the open square was still closed as the attendants were laying out the carpets in preparation for Friday prayers.  In any case, as “infidels” we would not be allowed to enter that way, so we made our way round to a door on the north side leading into small rooms from the Roman period where we paid our 10 Syrian pounds tourist entrance fee (about 15 pence) and I was issued with a horrid black gown with a hood on it to put on over my ankle-length skirt and elbow-length top with a high neck, which seemed pointless somehow. Anyway, I obliged and firmly tied up the four ribbons down the front and clapped the hood on my head presenting an image which must have resembled that of some ghoulish character. This procedure indicates a degree of greater (and indiscriminate) application of rules than I found in Egypt where there was no obligation for non-Moslems to cover their heads and only those tourists whose garb was regarded as unseemly (and there are plenty of those) were asked to cover themselves with a cloak.

The northern entrance, like the western one, gives on to the huge courtyard of the mosque which measures 50 by 122m.  It is a strikingly simple place.  The floor is paved with white marble slabs which in the nineteenth century replaced the 11th century baked tiles which, in turn, replaced the original Roman mosaic flooring.  In the centre of the courtyard is a rather modern roofed ablutions fountain reminiscent of a garden folly with stone benches all around.  To the right (west) is a small domed octagonal building whose columns with Corinthian capitals are obviously the result of a recycling process from the Roman temple which stood here.  This is, or was,  the mosque treasury and the columns were used to raise the treaury room for reasons of security.  This is an unusual  feature in mosque design and some people believe that it may be a development of the fountain which often stood in the courtyards of Byzantine churches. On the left (east) is another domed pavilion which until 1958 was used to house the mosque’s clock collection.  Not unnaturally the building is known as the Dome of the Clocks.

Facing the north entrance we had come in is a partition marking the division between the courtyard and the prayer hall. This is a later addition, because in the original layout there was no physical separation between these two areas.  The western and northern sides are surrounded by an arcaded “cloistered” walk made up of tall lower arcades with smaller arcades on top.  The lower arcades have slightly horseshoe-shaped arches.  This design, which was found in some later Byzantine churches, did not survive in Syrian Islamic architecture but it was maintained and developed by the Moslem culture of Spain  giving rise to what must be one of the most splendid examples at the great mosque of Cordoba, when the sole Umayyad survivor of the Iraqi Abbasid overthrow made his way to Spain to found a highly fruitful neo-Umayyad caliphate there.


The walls under the arcades were richly decorated with mosaics depicting the Koranic vision of Paradise: “Such is the Paradise promised to the righteous; streams run through it; its fruits never fail; it never lacks shade”.  This verdant panel is known as the Barada  mosaic, named after the River Barada which flows through Damascus providing it with water and making the soil fertile. In conformance with the tenets of Islamic art, not once in the vast expanse covered does the human form appear, only trees, streams, pavilions and palaces, flowers and rivers.  The mosaics are confined to the upper part of the wall and the lower part was clad with marble panels.  Although much of the mosaic has been restored, sometimes badly and mostly without the refinement of the early craftsmanship, and only part of the marble cladding remains, the effect is still stunning and it is not difficult to imagine the splendour of the original made by Byzantine and Persian craftmen contracted specifically for this purpose.

Standing at the door as we came in, two minarets are visible at the western and eastern ends of the prayer hall.  The Western Tower was built in 1488 by the Mameluke sultan Qait Bey in the Egyptian style. The eastern tower which is the tallest of the minarets is known as the Tower of Jesus.  According to popular Islamic tradition, on the Last Day Jesus will descend from Heaven via this tower to combat the Antichrist.   There is a third tower in the middle of the north wall so we had to cross the courtyard to have a look at it.  This is the Tower of the Bride.  Archeologists are still debating whether these towers  were part of the original Umayyad structure or whether they were later additions.  In any case, the Tower of Jesus is probably the earliest version of the use of minarets in Islamic religious architecture in Syria and served the useful purpose of proclaiming the presence of the Moslem community in a city which was still mostly Christian at that time.  They also forge a link between the new religion of Islam and the ancient semitic tradition of worshipping on high places which is amply recorded in the Bible in such incidents as Abraham going up to a high place to sacrifice his son and Moses receiving the tablets of stone on a high place.

We then removed our shoes in order to enter the prayer hall proper. By this time there were quite a lot of people wandering around, mostly local people out on a family excursion but also small groups of pilgrims from other Islamic countries and one other European couple, she also clad in the dreaded cloak. The prayer hall is lofty with tall columns, but this columnade is a much simpler version of the original Umayyad one which was probably closer to the Cordoba model. We must renew our acquaintance with the mosque at Cordoba now that we have seen the original prototype. Most of this structure was rebuilt after a disastrous fire at the end of the nineteenth century. In the middle of the prayer hall there is a transept oriented north-south, whose purpose now is to help worshippers to direct their prayers south to Mecca and, in the middle of the south wall, is the mihrab, a device which was used for the first time in this mosque and later adopted universally.  The transept is crowned in the centre by a dome.  The original Umayyad dome which was made of wood was replaced in the 11th. century by a stone dome which was in turn replaced after the fire by a more modern structure based on a Turkish adaptation of European styles.  There are still some pieces of the original wooden ceiling panelling and six 8th century windows which managed to escape the 1893 fire.

On the eastern side is a mausoleum which is the legendary site of the burial of the head of St. John the Baptist.  The original Byzantine church was dedicated to him but, according to tradition, the head was found when the mosque was being constructed and buried here.  The original mausoleum was made of wood and fell prey to the fire, so the present marble extravaganza is a modern affair.

One of the interesting things about mosques, both ancient and modern, is that they are living buildings, places where people go not just to pray but to wander around, sit, chat and even to sleep.  Travellers or simply the weary often drop into the mosque and lie down on the floor covered with oriental rugs to recover from their fatigue.  So we came across a number of bodies curled up or stretched out by a column sleeping the sleep of the just.  

We stepped outside into the sunlight once again and put our shoes on.  Earlier, when we were viewing the courtyard and the mosaics, we had noticed that on the eastern side, just behind the Dome of the Clocks there was a small entrance where many Shi’a  Moslems were congregating.  The guide books say that here is a small shrine to Hussein which has become a site of Shi’a pilgrimage.  As it had nothing more to say on the subject, we thought it might not hold anything of interest, so Robert stayed outside while I went in to investigate.  True, in terms of monuments and grandiosity, the little building had little to offer: the ceilings were fairly low and the outer rooms were small and bare with just a few carpets and the wooden trestles where people can leave their shoes and other belongings while they pray.  However, the human dimension was quite electrifying.  


I walked in rather diffidently, unsure as to the reception  I might receive in a place of pilgrimage and so obviously not a member of the religious group for whom the place is sacred.  An old man was praying kneeling down on the carpet in the first room where some ladies were sitting on the floor too. Most of the people were gravitating to a second inner room and sounds of chanting could be heard.  I followed them.  There was a man sitting on a chair and two young men dressed in pristine white tunics and pants in the Pakistani style with gold embroidered skullcaps, white socks, carrying white slippers in their hands, were waiting to take a photograph. A cloud of women wearing Irani style chadors, though not all black, were crowding around a small niche in the wall clad in worked silver.  They passed their hands over the niche and many bent down to kiss it murmuring prayers.  They wiped the hand which had touched the niche all over their face and head.  Most of them were crying. Then they left the niche and continued into yet another room separated from the one I was in by a silver grille.  When the niche became free for a moment or two one of the young men took a photograph of his companion standing by it, and then his friend did the same.

In the inner chamber was the group of pilgrims to which the two young men belonged.  Their features and the men’s apparel would appear to indicate that they were from the Indian sub-continent, but, although the women wore bright colours as Pakistani or Indian women would, the style of their head veil was more similar to that worn in places such as Indonesia, so I was left puzzled as to their origins.  The whole group was chanting prayers and the unison chant, together with the crying of the older women, made the atmosphere electric.  I stood and watched for quite a long time without daring to enter the inner room.  The hair was standing up on my arms which were cold with gooseflesh. Who were these people and what was the reason for their passionate prayers?

The roots of their passion lie in yet another fascinating episode in Islamic history which continues to colour and influence the Moslem believer to this day.  Before he died in 632, the Prophet Mohammed appointed Abu Bakr as caliph or leader of the faithful.  Under Abu Bakr the first tentative moves towards northward expansion begun under Mohammad himself were continued and expanded, and at the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 the Islamic forces had already reached Syria.  Abu Bakr was followed by Othman and then, after the murder of Othman, by Ali who was the cousin of the Prophet and also his son-in-law as Ali married Fatima, the prophet’s daughter.  This group is known as the “right-guided caliphs”.

However, Ali’s leadership was contested by Muawiya who thought that Ali had not been categorical enough in disassociating himself from Othman’s murderers.  Muawiya was the first of the Umayyad caliphs.  In fact, the name of this caliphate is derived from his name because in Arabic they are known as the Umauyeen or the followers of Muawiya. This was a period of great intellectual curiosity which flourished under Muawiya’s moderate and skilful rule which established the supremacy or Arabic and the centrality of Islam and made Damascus a cultural, political and artistic centre

When Muawiya died, the split between the followers of Ali who wished succession to the caliphate to be inherited through Ali’s line and the Umayyads who wished caliphs to be elected could no longer be ignored.  Ali’s eldest son, Hassan, showed no interest in pressing his claim to the succession. His younger brother, Hussein, stepped in on the death of his elder brother.  Muawiya was succeeded by his son, Yazid.  Yazid drew Hussein’s supporters into battle at Kerbala in southern Iraq in 680AD or the year 61 of the Hijra or migration of the Prophet.  Hussein and virtually all his followers were slaughtered.  Zeinab, Hussein’s sister, was taken captive to Damascus.  This event was to rankle for centuries and, if the manifestations of the people visiting the shrine and the opinions of the Syrian Alawites are any barometer, sentiments are still deeply rooted and very much alive. In any case, events at Kerbala were to perpetuate the division between the orthodox followers of the Umayyad caliphate, later to become known as Sunnis, and the defeated supporters of the house of Ali now known as the Shi’ites.

I came back out into the courtyard and told Robert that I thought the atmosphere inside the shrine was so electrifying that it really should be experienced, so he removed his shoes once again and we went back inside.  The original group of older ladies had now gone but the group of pilgrims dressed in their white tunics was still in the inner room chanting.  This time we went inside too.  New arrivals kissed the niche and passed their hand over their face and head.  Then they did they same at the silver grille.  The niche would appear to mark the orientation of the resting place of the head of Hussein and another silver grille encloses the shrine where the body is said to lie.  The women kissed the grille and tied white and green ribbons on it. They cried and prayed and those who had come from afar had their photographs taken, no doubt to be shown to family and friends on their return.  


Suddenly the cadence of the chanting changed.  It grew more urgent, crescendoing and increasing in pace.  “Ali, Ali, Ali.  Hussein, Hussein, Hussein!”.  First the prayer leader and then the other members of the group began to beat their breasts, some using the right hand only to beat the breast above the heart and others using alternate strokes to beat both sides of the chest. The small children emulated their parents.  One child stood up and was silently told to sit down again which he did without a murmur.  This was clearly a milder manifestation of the flagellation which many Shi’as carry out beating their bodies on the 10th of the Islamic month of Muharram to commemorate the assassination of Hussein.  We were later told by a member of the Shi’a comunity that the reason why the people beat their breasts is a form of mea culpa because, when Hussein was assassinated by the followers of Muawiya, the followers of Ali did not heed Hussein’s pleas for help. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the beating ceased and the rhythm of the chanting became tranquil once gain.

This is the fervour of the people and it rises spontaneously from within them with a passion which few western religions can summon up today. In any case, it was a powerful experience and one which transcends the purely intellectual.

June 26th 1998