GREAT MOSQUE

OF DAMASCUS
HIsTory OF THE MONUMENT
Great Mosque of Damascus, also called Umayyad Mosque was built on the same site where it was located
a Christian Basilica dedicated to Juan El Bautista. When the muslims conquered the city in 634, they
tranformed into a mosque.

This mosque was built in the old city of Damascus. The city was captured by Muslim Arab forces led by
Khalid ibn al-Walid in 634. In 661, the Islamic Caliphate became ruled by Umayyad dynasty, which chose
Damascus to be the capital of the Muslim world. The sixth Umayyad caliph, al-Walid I ordered the
construction of the mosque in 706; its construction finished in the year 715.

The mosque didn't suffered big changes after its construction, until the Fatimids of Egypt conquered
Damascus in 970. In the year 1069, large sections of the mosque, particularly the northern wall, were
destroyed in a fire by the city's residents against the Fatimid's Berber army. Some years later the Abassid
caliphate reconquered Damascus and initiated the repair of damage caused by the 1069 fire.

After that many tribes, kingdoms and caliphates stayed in Damascus, everyone made his changes to the
mosque, but this changes ended when the mosque's prayer hall was once again destroyed by fire in 1893.

Nowadays, you can find the mosque in a perfect state, due to the repairs that have been made some
years ago

CHARACTERISTICS

The Great mosque of Damascus has a type of decoration in which the wall
mosaics are present, this decoration has a Hellenistic and Byzantine origin

The ground plan of the Great Mosque of Damascus is rectangular in

shape and measures 97 meters by 156 meters. A large courtyard occupies
the northern part of the mosque, while the haram covers the southern
part. The mosque is enclosed by four exterior walls which were part of
the sanctuary of the original Roman temple. Also outside, we can find
two minarets that were used to call for prayer: the Minaret of the Bride
Photo about how is
the Mosque and the Minaret of Jesus.

Prayer hall (haram) occupies the entire south side and measures 136 x 38 m. It has
lots of arches these arches and the countryard ones are round arches.They are
paralel to the direction of prayer which is towards Mecca. The arches are supported
by two rows of stone. Each of the arches contain two levels.

Courtyard: In the courtyard the level of the stone pavement had become uneven
over time due to several repairs throughout the mosque's history. Recent work on
the courtyard has restored it to its consistent Umayyad-era levels. Arches surround
the courtyard supported by alternating stone columns and piers. Inside of there,
there are three small constructions called the Dome of treasury, it is where the
money that the mosque had was stored.

BY Adrian Ibañez, Martina Aguilar and Marcos Piazuelo