The Great Mosque of Damascus, also called the Umayyad Mosque, is one of the oldest and most influential mosques on earth. Built by the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I between roughly 706 and 715 CE, it was quickly counted among the wonders of the medieval world, admired for the sheer scale of its dimensions and the boldness of its architecture. More than thirteen centuries later it is still a living place of prayer in the heart of the old city.
A sacred site older than Islam
Few buildings anywhere sit on such deep foundations. Long before the mosque, the ground held an Aramaean temple to Hadad, the god of storm and rain, from around the twelfth century BCE. The Romans raised a great temple to Jupiter of Damascus on the same spot in the first century CE. In the late fourth century it became a Christian basilica dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. When al-Walid built his mosque, he wove this history into it rather than erasing it: a shrine traditionally said to contain the head of John the Baptist, venerated in both Christianity and Islam, still stands within the prayer hall. In a city that was then largely Christian, the new mosque announced the confidence of a young civilisation while honouring the sanctity of the place.
Scale and splendour
Al-Walid spared no expense. Contemporary accounts describe a vast rectangular enclosure with a broad open courtyard, roughly 122 by 50 metres, flanked by arcades, and a prayer hall of three long aisles running parallel to the Qibla wall, around 136 by 37 metres, its central nave rising to a great height beneath a dome. The materials were luxurious: marble panelling, columns of stone and, above all, acres of golden mosaic. These mosaics, worked in glass and gold, portray rivers, palaces and leafy trees, an earthly paradise with no human or animal figures, in keeping with the aniconic tradition of mosque decoration. The result was meant to overwhelm, and it did.
The parts of the mosque
Damascus helped fix the template later mosques would follow, keeping the essential elements of the Prophet's own house in Medina, a courtyard building with porticoes on its sides. To this were added the features every visitor still meets today: the Qibla wall facing Mecca; the mihrab, a niche marking the direction of prayer; the minbar, the stepped pulpit from which the imam delivers the Friday sermon; and the minarets, towers from which the call to prayer rings out. Damascus has three, including the Minaret of the Bride and a minaret linked in local tradition to the return of Jesus. To understand each of these elements in turn, see our guide to parts of a mosque explained.
A model for the world
The influence of Damascus is hard to overstate. Its combination of courtyard, arcade and aisled prayer hall, its scale and its mosaic decoration set a standard that echoed from the Great Mosque of Cordoba (Mezquita) in Spain to mosques far to the east. Later empires would develop their own idioms, among them the great domed spaces of the Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, but the lineage runs back through Damascus. You can trace that whole story in our overview of short history of mosques and the pillar on Great mosques of the world, and look up any unfamiliar term in the Glossary.
Visiting
The Umayyad Mosque remains an active mosque and a major landmark of Damascus. Respectful visitors are generally welcome outside prayer times, with modest dress and shoes removed. To find mosques and Muslim-life places wherever you travel, browse the directory of find mosques or open the the interactive map.