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| Essential
Architecture- Syria Great (Umayyad) Mosque |
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architect |
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location |
Damascus |
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date |
709-15; restored 1970 |
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style |
Islamic |
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construction |
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type |
Mosque |
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| Sanctuary facade and West portico |
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| Mosaics in west portico |
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| Interior and Mosaics in west portico |
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The Umayyad Mosque in the center of Damascus by night
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The courtyard of the Mosque with the ancient Treasury (Beit al Mal)
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| St John's Shrine inside the Mosque | |
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Umayyad Mosque The Grand Mosque of Damascus, also known as the Umayyad Mosque (, transl. Gam' Bani 'Umih al-Kabir), is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. Located in the old city of Damascus, it is of great architectural importance. The mosque holds a shrine which is said to contain the head of John the Baptist, honoured as a prophet by both Christians and Muslims. The head was supposedly found during the excavations for the building of the mosque. The tomb of Saladin stands in a small garden adjoining the north wall of the mosque. In 2001 Pope John Paul II visited the mosque, primarily to visit the relics of John the Baptist. It was the first time a pope paid a visit to a mosque. History The spot where the mosque now stands was a temple of Hadad in the Aramaean era. The Aramaean presence was attested by the discovery of a basalt orthostat depicting a sphinx, excavated in the north-east corner of mosque. The site was later temple of Jupiter in the Roman era, then a Christian church dedicated to John the Baptist in the Byzantine era. Initially, the Muslim conquest of Damascus in 636 did not affect the church, as the building was shared by Muslim and Christian worshippers. It remained a church although the Muslims built a mud brick structure against the southern wall so that they could pray. Under the Umayyad caliph Al-Walid I, however, the church was demolished and between 706 and 715 the current mosque built in its place; an indemnity was paid to the Christians in compensation. According to the legend, Al-Walid himself initiated the demolition by driving a golden spike into the church. At that point in time, Damascus was one of the most important cities in the Middle East and would later become the capital of the Umayyad caliphate. Construction and Architecture Construction of the mosque was based on the house of the Prophet in Medina, which had many functions: it was a place for personal and collective prayer, religious education, political meetings, administration of justice and relief of the sick and homeless. The caliph asked and obtained from the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire 200 skilled workers to decorate the mosque, as evidenced by the partly Byzantine style of the building. The new mosque was the most impressive in the Islamic world at the time, and the interior walls were covered with fine mosaics, considered to depict paradise, or possibly the Ghouta which tradition holds so impressed the prophet Muhammad that he declined to enter it, preferring to taste paradise in the afterlife. The building was considered one of the marvels of the world, because it was one of the largest of its time. The exterior walls were based on the walls of the temple of Jupiter and measure 100 by 157,5 m. The prayer hall consists of three aisles, supported by column of the Corinthian order. It was the first mosque to have such a shape and this way, the visitors could see the mihrab, the alcove indicating the direction of Mecca (the qibla), and each other more easily. The interior of the mosque is reminiscent of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It contains a large number of mosaics and geometric patterns. It is thought that the mosque used to have the largest golden mosaic in the world, at over 4.000 mē. In 1893 a fire damaged the mosque extensively and many mosaics were lost, although some have been restored since. |
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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 in 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, circa 1000 BC, 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. When the project began all remaining fragments on the site from Roman to Byzantine periods were removed to accommodate a large innovative mosque planned according to Islamic principles. The Umayyad Mosque plan articulated the rising political status of the Islamic world as a major world power. Its majestic stature became an Islamic architectural prototype for mosques being built in all the newly established territories. The plan of the mosque is formed by a 97m x 156m rectangle with the sahn on the northern side wrapped around four edges. Because the haram occupies the southern part of the rectangle, the exterior wall has three gates that connect to the city from the northern, eastern and western sides. The southern exterior wall that borders the haram has a door that links directly to the outside. The rectangular sahn's stone pavement was repaired throughout the mosque's history so that the level of the sahn became uneven and higher than the original ground. Recently, the original Umayyad level was restored with the stone patterns of the paving. The sahn is punctuated by three major elements: the ablution fountain covered with a dome that is supported by columns, the Khazne Dome on the western side supported by eight Corinthian columns and Zein al-Abidin Dome on the eastern side also supported by eight columns. Alternating stone columns and piers with one pier between every two columns supports the riwaq that surrounds the sahn. The double-height riwaq is not consistent all around the sahn as the northern part was completely destroyed in the earthquake of 1759; it was rebuilt without the columns with another type of stucco ornamenting the stronger supporting piers. Three riwaqs, parallel to the qibla, form the haram's interior space; they are supported by two rows of stone Corinthian columns. Each riwaq has two levels, the first with large semi circular arches and the second with double arches (the same pattern is repeated in the sahn's riwaq also). The three riwaqs intersect in the middle with a larger, higher one that is perpendicular to the qibla wall and faces the mihrab and minbar. The main octagonal dome, the Nisr Dome (Dome of the Eagle) is supported on this wide riwaq and it is 36m high. The dome has apertures around its parameter. In the eastern part of the haram, a small classical marble structure between the columns of the riwaq holds the tomb of St. John the Baptists or as he is known in Quranic tradition, the prophet Yahya. The exterior walls of the mosque were built in the Roman period when the building functioned as a temple. Four defense towers were built at each corner, but only the two southern ones remained when al-Walid began his project. These towers were used as foundations to erect the eastern and western minarets. Then a third square tower shaped minaret known as the Arus Minaret (The Minaret of the Bride) was built near the northern gate. The lower part of this minaret is still in its original form; the middle part was an Ayyubid addition built after the fire of 1174. The eastern minaret, Eesa Minaret (Minaret of Jesus) is also a pastiche of different architectural styles that correspond to changing political environments. It has a Mamluk lower part and an Ottoman top due to its renovation after the earthquake of 1759. The western minaret is the most articulated with its stone carvings and inscriptions that record its restorations in1488 and after Timur's conquest in 1401. Two main materials were used for cladding: fusayfusa'a mosaic and marble. The fusayfusa'a fragments were mixed with colored glass particles and others of gold and silver leaf covered glass in addition bits of stone and marble between to create a unique reflective material that sparkled its geometric and floral patterns. The fusayfusa'a was originally used to cover the top parts of the walls on both the interior and exterior sides in the haram, riwaqs, the arches and undersides of the vaults. The painterly constructed patterns formed scenic panels that symbolized the magnificent natural landscapes of Damascus, like the Barada River flowing alongside the great Umayyad palaces on its banks and orchards of fruit bearing trees that are thought to be an imagined vision of the heavens. Heavily veined marble was used to clad the lower parts of the walls, as it is a stronger, more enduring material than the mother of pearl mosaics. The veins of the marble were used to create patterns because of the way that the panels were joined and attached to the wall about 4 meters above the ground. All that is left of these panels are small holes that map where the marble masons attached them to the wall. A highly ornate band of carved marble separated these two materials on the walls, the vegetation inspired designs were known as the 'great golden vines' because of their resemblance to intertwined grape vines that were common in the Classical (Roman and Byzantine) periods. Some fragments of this famous band still remain today in the mosque. Additional ornamentation includes the Ottoman blue clay tiles that replaced the missing marble panels in the sahn. Textual inscriptions filled the gaps between these materials and ornaments, and added another layer of detail to the artful walls. They declared religious verses, dates and dedications to various patrons to the restorations of specific parts of the mosque. The words were scripted using the fusayfusa'a in two contrasting colors usually gold calligraphic text over a royal blue background. During his 10-year reign as caliph in the beginning of the eighth century al-Walid bin Abd al-Malik addressed the citizens of Damascus: 'Inhabitants of Damascus, four things give you marked superiority over the rest of the world: your climate, your water, your fruits and your baths. To these I wanted to add a fifth: this mosque.' Sources: Flood, Finbarr Barry. 2000. The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Meanings of an Umayyad Visual Culture, Leiden; Boston; Koln: Brill. Rihawi, Abdul Qader. 1979. Arabic Islamic Architecture in Syria. Damascus: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. |
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links |
Special thanks to the Islamic architecture website http://archnet.org/ |
| www.essential-architecture.com | |