Great Umayyad Mosque

The Umayyad Mosque is the prototype for mosques on what is known as the Medinian layout and is perfectly adapted to the prayer ritual for which the whole community gathers on Fridays at midday. Its layout was inspired by that of the Prophet’s house in Medina. As in Jerusalem, the place where the principal shrine of the Umayyad capital is sited is symbolic of the new rulers’ wishes to affirm the superiority of their religion.  The building was erected inside the walls of the temple of Jupiter Dolichenus (1st century), and incorporated several of the existing elements: walls up to a certain height, doors and corner towers. The land, which was partly occupied by a fourth century church dedicated to St John the Baptist, was appropriated by the Muslims in exchange for other holy sites[1]. Three doors – two massive Roman doors on the east and west sides and another smaller one on the north side – give access to the vast marble-paved courtyard, bordered by porticos on three sides. These are of the original elevation on the east and west side: they have an alternating row of one pillar to every two columns, which support full arches, each surmounted by a small arcade with singly alternating pillars and columns. On the north side, which was rebuilt later, the portico only consists of pillars.  There are three small structures in this courtyard: two are relatively modern (fountains) and the Bayt al-Mal, the treasury, where the goods and wealth of the community were kept. This is an octagonal room, crowned with a lead cupola which sits on top of eight columns with Corinthian capitals. A ladder gave access to the small door on the north side[2]. Of the four original minarets, built on the infrastructure of the corner towers, only two remain: that in the south-west corner, whose superstructure was sponsored in 1488 by the Sultan Qâ’it Bay, and that in the south-east corner, known as “Jesus’ Minaret”, a simple tower with twin openings surmounted by an oculus[3]. In the twelfth century, that “of the Betrothed” was built in the centre of the north wall.

In the middle of the south wall, there is a ceremonial entrance in the façade of the prayer hall: this is framed by two square buttresses, and pierced by three openings resting on two marble columns which are surmounted by three windows laid out in a slightly broken arch, the whole crowned by a pediment. The façade is punctuated by twenty-two rounded arch openings resting on pillars and has on its upper part forty-four windows that were once filled with marble claustra. This façade evokes that of a Byzantine palace[4]. The prayer hall is of basilican layout, its roof supported by pillars (hypostyle), comprising three naves parallel to the qibla (direction of Mecca), whose wall holds four modern mihrâb (niche indicating the qibla) and a small door which is reserved for the faithful. The transversal nave, which leads to the principal mihrâb, was originally lit by windows which the roofs, rebuilt in two layers, partly block[5]. Dominated by the “Eagle’s” cupola[6], it constitutes a triumphal aisle. The Caliph’s palace was attached to the south wall[7]. To give the whole a greater elevation, the architect superimposed a second smaller arcade[8] on the large arcades with slightly broken arches, sitting on re-used columns with Corinthian capitals. In the lateral walls of the prayer hall and under the porticos are doors giving access to side rooms.

A great fire ravaged the building in 1893. It is for this reason that little remains of the sumptuous original decorations[9], created by local craftsmen trained in Byzantine techniques and given the same design as that used in the Dome of the Rock: coloured marbles on the lower part of the walls up to a height of about seven metres and then gold and silver based mosaics on the upper parts. The decoration is more realistic than that in Jerusalem and mainly features trees bearing fruit, gently shaken by the wind, with various buildings, both in isolation or grouped; on the long panel in the western portico, which is punctuated by trees, there are sumptuous buildings on the river bank alternating with little hill-top villages and round buildings with conical leaf roofs sitting on columns etc. This decoration, which has its equivalents in Byzantine mosques and wall paintings from Antiquity (in Antioch for example), has sometimes been interpreted as the portrayal of Damascus on the banks of the Baradâ. According to recent studies, which take into account the religious and political context of the period, it is more likely that it is symbolic of the towns conquered by the Arabs, or perhaps an evocation of Paradise. The type of decoration used in Jerusalem and Damascus was also found in the great mosques of the Umayyad period such as those at Aleppo, al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, and Medina (707-709), decorated according to the texts with fruit trees and the mansions of Paradise.

[2] An innovation that would be copied in many mosques, like those of Amr in Fustat, in Harran, in Hama (still in place). Muqadasi in 985, Ibn Jubayr in 1184, evoking his raiment in mosaics with a gold background. From 1970, these have been completely redone.

[3] This is where Jesus reappeared on the day of the Resurrection.  These square minarets served as prototypes for many minarets in the Mediterranean region in later times.

[4] For example, known from the texts, the vestibule (chalke) of the palace of the Augustaeum,(main public square in medieval Constantinople and figuring on the mosaics of the Sant'Apollinare Basilica in Ravenna (519), and the façade of king Theodoric’s palace.

[5] Ibn Jubayr having walked on the roofs, it may reasonably be assumed that they were flat. Furthermore he talks of the cupola as if it had a double skin.

[6]Sponsored in the second half of the eleventh c. by the Seljukid Sultan Malik Shâh. It is not clear that it had one to start with.

[7] The later Great Mosques adopted this combination of religious and civil buildings back to back but there are no traces remaining.

[8]Two small arches over each of the large arches. This is also the arrangement for the courtyard porticos, of which only those on the shorter sides retain the early alternation of the supports. Doubtless it was this superimposition of the arcades and also that used for aqueducts that inspired the elevation of the prayer hall in the Great Mosque of Cordoba (785 – end tenth c.).

[9] Out of all the decoration of the prayer hall and the courtyard only that of part of the transept’s facade still exists and a few vestiges of that of the outer quoins of the arcades, the east and west porticos and in particular, mostly well-preserved, that of the vestibule of the west entrance and portico (34,5 x 7,15 m). The contemporary restorations (there is a workshop within the mosque precincts) are outlined by a red line.