Magnificant Mosque

The Great Mosque of Damascus is the first monumental work of architecture in Islamic history; the building served as a central gathering point after Mecca to consolidate the Muslims in their faith and conquest to rule the surrounding territories under the Umayyad Caliphate.

The Umayyad mosque's religious significance was reinforced by its renowned medieval manuscripts and ranking as one of the wonders of the world due to is beauty and scale of construction.

The Umayyad Mosque site has housed sacred buildings for thousands of years, in each incarnation transformed to accommodate the faith of the time. An ancient Aramaic temple dedicated to the god Hadad is the oldest layer of architectural use to be uncovered on archeological expeditions.

During the Roman period, the Temple of Jupiter occupied the space.

This edifice was transformed to a church in the fourth century. This church was expanded to form the Cathedral of St. John, situated on the western side of the older temple. After the Islamic conquest of Damascus in 661, during the reign of the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya Ibn Abi Sufyan, the Muslims shared the church with the Christians. The Muslims prayed in the eastern section of the ancient temple structure and the Christians in the western side.

This collective use continued until Walid bin Abdul Malek's reign, when the prayer space became inadequate both in terms of capacity and the need for an architectural monument to represent the new religion. The caliph negotiated with Christian leaders to take over the space, and in return al-Walid promised that all the other churches around the city would be safe, with the addition of a new church dedicated to the Virgin granted to the Christians as compensation.