home Emigration A mosque in Damascus built by Caliph Al Walid. Umayyad Mosque - Great Mosque of Damascus

A mosque in Damascus built by Caliph Al Walid. Umayyad Mosque - Great Mosque of Damascus

We came across this mosque by chance while walking through old Damascus. The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, or otherwise the Great Mosque in Damascus, is one of the most revered and oldest in the world. From here, sermons are broadcast on television throughout Syria. Tourists can visit the mosque regardless of religion, which we actually took advantage of.

What is the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus

The mosque is huge. It is surrounded by high walls, which can be accessed through one of four gates. When entering, you must take off your shoes, which you can leave here, as we did, or take them with you. There is a small entrance fee for non-Muslims, but as far as I remember, we went through without paying money, although I could be wrong.

Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. Courtyard. Video

Passing through one of the gates, you will find yourself in a courtyard, which is paved with smooth slabs. In the heat, they heat up and it’s hot to walk on them barefoot, but in January, when we visited this place, it was, on the contrary, very cold to walk on these slabs even in socks. In the courtyard there is a fountain for ablution, which is performed before prayer.

Near the wall stands an impressively sized cart: according to some sources, this is a ramming device that remained after Tamerlane’s assault on Damascus; according to others, this is a war chariot from the times of Ancient Rome. By the way, in the Roman era, on the site of this mosque stood the Temple of Jupiter, and in the Byzantine era - a Christian church.

Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. Prayer hall. Video

From the courtyard you enter an impressively sized prayer hall. The floor is covered with patterned carpets, the design of which marks places for prayer.

The relaxed behavior of people is surprising and pleasing: parishioners sit or even lie on the floor, read, take photographs, and communicate. There are cabinets with books near the walls, apparently you can take them out and read them.

One of the mosque's three minarets is named after Jesus. Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet, but do not accept that He is the Son of God. According to the prophecy, Isa (as Muslims call Jesus) will descend along this minaret to earth before the Last Judgment. They are waiting for Jesus, and the imam changes the carpet in front of the minaret every day; His foot must step on this carpet.
In the center of the prayer hall there is the grave of another prophet known to Christians - John the Baptist. Or rather, the head of the Baptist is buried here. They found it when they built this mosque on the site of a Christian temple. Muslims, just like Christians, revere John the Baptist, calling him Yahya. The matter with this relic is unclear to this day: there are several heads of the prophet and their fragments. They are located in France, and in Italy, and in Nagorno-Karabakh, and in Greece on Mount Athos. Researchers count as many as twelve.
The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus is the burial place of the ashes of Salah ad-Din, a famous talented commander and Muslim leader of the 12th century.

Umayyad Mosque, the heart of the Old City of Damascus.
The Umayyad Mosque (in Arabic Jami al-Omawi) is one of the holiest places in Islam, second in holiness only to the mosques of Mecca and Medina, and Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa. But surpassing all of them in grandeur. This place was sacred long before the Prophet preached. In the 9th century BC, a temple to the Aramaic god Haad was built on this site, comparable in size to the Temple of Bel in Palmyra. The Romans rebuilt it into a grandiose Temple of Jupiter, comparable to the one in Baalbek. At the end of the 4th century, Emperor Theodosius turned the pagan temple into the Basilica of St. Zechariah, later renamed in honor of John the Baptist. In 636, Damascus was occupied by the Arabs and the eastern part of the basilica was turned into a mosque. At the same time, its western part remained Christian for another 70 years. Then the Christians were kicked out and the caliphs began a grandiose reconstruction of the mosque, charging it with 7 years of tax collection from the entire state. The resulting devastation of the treasury was one of the reasons for the fall of the Umayyads. Since then, the mosque has remained almost unchanged; the last time it was updated and restored by the Ottomans was in 1893.
There are many roads to the mosque, but usually two are used. From al-Saura, a direct path leads to the mosque through the Hamidiya covered market.

It ends with Koranic shops

at the Corinthian columns of the ancient western gate of the temenos (sacred area) of the Temple of Jupiter.

After them we go out to the square in front of the western wall of the mosque, where it is always crowded and full of pigeons.

Another road leads to the same square - from Straight along Shariya Souk al-Bzuriya, past the Azema Palace, to the southern wall of the mosque, turn left.
Why is the square crowded? But because the western gate of the mosque (Bab al-Barid) faces it, through which the faithful go inside.

They go for free, of course. Others must pay a fee and go through another entrance. Which is what the policeman standing at the gate is watching.

Before going inside, it’s worth going around the mosque itself, walking along a powerful wall, more reminiscent of a fortress, and looking at the tall minarets.
The mosque's plan has the shape of a rectangle - accordingly, there are three minarets :) Moreover, they were erected in different eras and in different styles. From the square at the western gate two are visible - in the north the Bride Minaret, the oldest, built in 705, in the south - the Al-Gharbiya Minaret, the most beautiful, in the Mamluk style.

Walking along the southern wall, along Shariya Souq al-Abbasiya (they sell souvenirs), past the closed southern gate (Bab Ziyad), we will see the minaret of Isa (Jesus), built in 1347, from the remains of the tower of the Temple of Jupiter - locals believe that it is on this Jesus will descend on Judgment Day. Of course, this minaret is the tallest.
Having turned the corner, we come out onto the same Kalmania street with cafes. It starts from the spectacularly closed eastern gate of the mosque (Bab al-Nafura). Nearby there is also something antique - the remains of the eastern gate of the temenos of the Temple of Jupiter.

In general, to the east of the temple in ancient times there was an agora - the shopping arcades of ancient Damascus, and here and there you can see ancient columns built into houses.
Okay, it's time to go inside - for this we will return to the western gate. The Umayyad Mosque is open to infidels all days from morning to evening (more precisely, from morning to evening prayer, so if you wish, you can come at 4 in the morning :)), except for the main Friday prayer (from 12:30 to 14:00).
Entering the mosque is a little tricky, because the ticket is sold in the wrong place. So, we go north along the western wall and turn into the gate - there is a small building of the tickit office, above which rises the dome of Zacharias Madras. Tickets cost £50.

Upon receiving it, you should not immediately run to the mosque - you should walk around the small area behind the ticket office. Behind it there is a small park in which there is Saladdin’s mausoleum, as well as the graves of three Turkish pilots who died in 1914 while flying from Istanbul to Cairo. True, the iron bars did not allow entry into the park, it seems that something is being restored here too. Or did I just arrive late?

Further east is the attractive 15th-century Mamluk madrassa Jaqmakiya, which houses the Museum of Arabic Epigraphy (£75 entry), a collection of examples of Arabic writing and writing objects.
Okay, it's time to go to the mosque. We walk along Shariya al-Sadria, past the iron grating of the garden and the madrasa, which we have already visited. Several Roman columns, collected from the surrounding neighborhoods, lie near the grille.

By the way, about the red cat sleeping on the column. I saw typical domestic cats only in the Christian areas of East Beirut. In other places, skinny stray cats constantly caught the eye, feeding from numerous local dumps and hiding from the heat under parked cars. Their natural enemies - dogs - are not found in Arab cities, therefore local cats are not particularly timid.
Gentiles enter the mosque through the northern gate (Bab al-Amara). As you approach them, the remains of the colonnade of the Temple of Jupiter are visible on the right.

You are required to take off your shoes in the mosque. So, it is advisable to choose clean socks that do not have holes when going to the mosque :) Tourists can carry their shoes in their hands, or they can hand them over to the controller in a glass booth.

When returning shoes, they ask for baksheesh, but you can send them :) Locals usually just leave their shoes at the doorstep, or put them in black plastic bags and take them with them. Tourists have to wear abaya capes with a hood and long sleeves of some dirty green color.

The entrances lead to the vast courtyard of the mosque. The polished floor shines brightly, children are playing - here they are allowed to run around, unlike in the prayer hall.
Along the central axis of the courtyard rise a couple of octagonal structures on columns, a couple of antique columns with 19th century lamps on top, and a bathing pool in the rotunda.

On the eastern side of the mosque's courtyard is the entrance to the sanctuary of Hussein, where the head of the grandson of the Prophet and the main martyr of Shiism is kept. It is her presence here that is the reason for the abundance of Iranian pilgrims in the Umayyad mosque, who killed Ali and Hussein. But when I was there, the sanctuary was closed and fenced with a light green keeper tape.

On the western side of the mosque’s courtyard there is a 37-meter arched covered gallery, in which the main entrance for the faithful is located.
The gallery and main entrance are decorated with wonderful mosaics from the 8th-13th centuries.

They depict either paradise or the Baroda valley in the vicinity of Damascus.

In short, it’s the same thing, if you believe the remark of the Prophet Muhammad, who, according to legend, did not enter Damascus, saying that you can enter paradise only once.
The facade of the prayer hall is also decorated with mosaics (with gilding) and has 22 doors and an eternally closed main gate.

Enter the prayer hall through some of these doors, which are open. Most are through the extreme western ones, which are right next to the main entrance to the mosque for the faithful.
Inside, at the entrance, there is an electronic board that indicates the times of sunrise and sunset, as well as prayers.

The vast and tall prayer hall is divided by two rows of Corinthian columns into three huge naves.

The floor is lined with soft red roofs, and huge chandeliers hang from the ceiling. In the center of the hall, at a height of 36 meters, rises a giant dome, built after a fire in the 11th century.

In the southern wall there are mihrabs - niches indicating the direction to Mecca for worshipers, and in the middle of the southern wall there is a minbar - the imam's pulpit.
In the eastern part of the prayer hall there is a sanctuary of John the Baptist (Prophet Yahya in Islam),

behind the green glass you can see a sarcophagus with the head of John the Baptist.

True, great prophets are not like ordinary people. For example, judging by the number of heads of John the Baptist revered in different places in the Middle East, he had at least a dozen of them :) But the Damascus head is one of the most revered by Muslims.
The place, like everything in the Old Town, is surprisingly atmospheric. It’s nice to leisurely wander around the hall, sit on the soft carpet by one of the columns, watching those gathered. The imam sits next to the minbar, and around him (also sitting) is a small crowd. The voice of the imam is carried throughout the mosque by a loudspeaker - but not too loudly, so it comes as a background sound, intertwining a quiet note with the general atmosphere.

Another group of people sits in the central nave, closer to the sanctuary of John the Baptist, listening to someone else wearing a haji cap. In different places they pray for something one by one. Tourists are wandering around - what especially caught my eye was a crowd of either Japanese or Korean women in abayas.

The largest concentration of people is at the sanctuary of John the Baptist. Someone, placing his forehead against the iron bars and closing his eyes, silently whispers a prayer. And nearby is a group of young and modernly dressed guys and girls, obviously local. They take pictures with their cell phones in front of the sanctuary, chatting loudly.
In general, the quintessence of life. Indeed, it’s worth visiting and seeing - not running around all the sights, but just sitting and relaxing, stopping and looking around.
Next time - a walk around.

And I left Syria, which was still calm at that time. Now I propose to read the story and look at photographs of one of the oldest and largest mosques in the world, located in Damascus.

The Great Mosque of Damascus, better known as the Umayyad Great Mosque, is located in the old part of the Syrian capital, one of the oldest cities in the world. The mosque is a sacred place in Syria, as it contains a treasury with the head of John the Baptist (Yahya), revered as a prophet by both Christians and Muslims. The mosque also contains the tomb of Salah ad-Din, located in a small garden adjacent to the northern wall of the mosque.

1. The mosque is called big for a reason. This is the largest building in old Damascus. The spacious courtyard of the mosque and its 3 minarets are clearly visible.

2. The huge courtyard of the mosque is lined with polished slabs.

4. In the mosque during prayer. You can only walk on carpets without shoes. The pattern of the carpets marks the places of worship.

5. I was surprised by some of the relaxedness of the parishioners: quite a lot of people read newspapers and magazines during prayer, play mobile phones, discuss pressing problems among themselves, take photographs, and some even sleep.

6. I forgot to say that only Muslims are allowed into the mosque and into the courtyard for free (although at the entrance they ask what country the visitor is from; only visitors from Arab countries and Turkey are allowed in this way). The rest have to pay 50 pounds (at the time of their stay in Syria it was necessary to divide by 1.5 to get the price in rubles).

7. The weather that day was changeable: rain was replaced by sun, then clouds came again. It began to rain 20 minutes before the scheduled time, but it stopped at the right moment. Thanks to him, there was a reflection on the floor, and the sky was not uniformly blue.

8. Syrians are very relaxed about filming on the mosque grounds, including from a tripod. Sometimes people came up and asked what country we were from and what magazine we were shooting for.

9. I was pleasantly surprised by the absence of people, although outside the mosque life was in full swing until late.

10. The mosque was built under the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I between 706 and 715 on the site of a Christian church dedicated to John the Baptist (it is claimed that the head of John, kept in the mosque's treasury, was found during the construction of the mosque).

11. The Umayyads are a dynasty of caliphs founded by Muawiyah in 661. In 750, their dynasty was overthrown by the Abbasids, and all the Umayyads were destroyed, except for the grandson of the caliph Hisham Abd al-Rahman, who founded the dynasty in Spain (Cordoba Caliphate).

12. One of the three minarets of the mosque (the one visible on the left side of the panorama, to the right of the green roof) bears the name Isa ben Mariam, that is, “Jesus, Son of Mary.” According to the prophecy, it is according to it that on the eve of the Last Judgment Jesus Christ will descend from heaven to earth.

13. ...and the clouds come again...

14. Some of the walls and galleries of the mosque are decorated with mosaics, which is clearly visible in this panorama.

That's all for today. I will return to Damascus when I talk about Syrian cities in general. And tomorrow there will be a post about Istanbul bazaars.

Damascus, the capital of Syria, is one of the oldest cities in the world, about 6,000 years old. Over such a long history of its existence, the city has seen many peoples and conquerors: in the 14th century BC. e. The Hittites, who lived in Anatolia and northern Syria, reached this ancient settlement and called it Damashias. A century and a half later, the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III, who waged endless wars with the city-states of Syria, captured Damascus: that was the Egyptian name of this city.

At the beginning of the 10th century BC. e. Damascus became the capital of one of the strongest Aramean kingdoms, and two centuries later the city was captured by the Assyrians, who evicted its inhabitants to Urartu. The rulers of the Achaemenid dynasty, Alexander the Great... - even a short list of the conquerors who attacked Damascus suggests that the fate of this city was not cloudless and prosperous. Conquerors came and went, leaving their traces on the appearance of the city and its history.

The thousand-year connection of Damascus with the Greco-Roman-Byzantine culture, which began after the invasion of Asia by the troops of Alexander the Great, ended as suddenly as it began. In just one assault, the city was captured by the Sassanian Persians, but already in 635 it was conquered by the Arabs, and from that time the history of Damascus as a Muslim city began.

For a long time, after the Arabs captured Damascus, both Christians (in the right wing of the temple) and Muslims (in the left wing) performed their religious rites in the main temple of the city. But, having finally established themselves in Damascus and making the city the capital of their empire, the Umayyads asked Christians to find another place for themselves, but for a long time mutual religious tolerance remained in Syria: the ringing of bells under the giant basilica, originally dedicated to John the Baptist, alternated with the call of the muezzin.

But time passed, and Damascus turned from a second-rate city, as it was during the time of the Prophet Muhammad and his first successors, into the capital of a huge caliphate. The city grew, flourished and became rich, and the caliphs rightly decided that Damascus should have its own sanctuary. Moreover, by the beginning of the 8th century, the number of adherents of Islam had increased so much that the grandiose Basilica of John the Baptist with its three 140-meter spans-naves could no longer accommodate all the Muslims, and there was no room left for Christians at all. And then the powerful Caliph al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik, whose possessions stretched from China (in the east) to the Atlantic (in the west), began negotiations with representatives of the Christian community of Damascus. He invited them to cede their part of the Basilica of John the Baptist to the Muslims in exchange for permission to freely use five other temples in the city. The Christians became stubborn, and then the Caliph threatened to order the destruction of the Church of St. Thomas, which was even larger in size than the Church of John the Baptist. And the Christian elders had to submit.

Caliph Abd al-Malik ordered the destruction of the basilica and the removal of the remains of the Roman buildings on the site of which it was erected, after which the construction of a mosque began, “which has never been and never will be more beautiful.” Its construction continued throughout the reign of this caliph, who spent seven years of state income on its construction. When papers with bills were delivered to him on 18 camels, he did not even look at them and said: “This was all spent for the sake of Allah, so let’s not regret it.”

The Umayyad Mosque, which became a truly grandiose structure, served as a model for the entire Muslim world for centuries. The Great Mosque has three minarets, each of which has its own name: the Minaret of the Bride, the Minaret of Isa (Jesus Christ) and the Minaret of Muhammad. Muslims believe that on the eve of the Last Judgment, Isa will descend to earth near his minaret to fight the Antichrist. And when this happens, a girl from the Ghassanid tribe will emerge from the minaret of the Bride: she was the bride of Jesus Christ on earth, but the beauty was walled up in the walls of the tower that once stood on the site of the minaret.

In the huge Umayyad mosque, magnificent decorative compositions with unique architectural and landscape images have been preserved to this day, but there are also many mysterious and enigmatic places in it. For example, in the depths of her courtyard, among the columns of the gallery, there is a small door leading to the Hussein Chapel. Everyone in Damascus knows that here, in a capsule under a veil embroidered with verses from the Koran, lies the head of the third Shiite imam, Hussein, killed in the battle of Karbala. His head was cut off and delivered to Damascus to the Syrian ruler Mua-wiya, who ordered it to be hung on the city gates - in the very place where King Herod once ordered the head of John the Baptist to be displayed. The legend says that the nightingales sang so sadly in the gardens of Damascus, that all the inhabitants of the city were crying. And then Caliph Muawiyah repented of his deeds and ordered to place the head of Imam Hussein in a golden sarcophagus and install it in a crypt, which later ended up inside the Great Mosque. They say that the hair of the Prophet Muhammad, which he cut before his last pilgrimage to Mecca, is also kept there. Near the crypt, the mullah reads the Koran day and night, and Persian speech is constantly heard in this corner of the mosque, as the flow of pilgrims from Iran never stops.

The capsule with the head of John the Baptist is also kept in the Umayyad mosque - in a small elegant pavilion with barred windows and a dome, its shape repeating the arch thrown over it. How did the head of John the Baptist end up in the Great Mosque? According to stories, she was always here, but she was found only during the construction of the mosque. The caliph wanted to get rid of it, but as soon as he touched it, he could not move from his place, and decided to leave the relic alone. Both Christians and Muslims come to worship this shrine.

The famous commander Salah ad-Din, the first Sultan of Egypt from the Ay-Yubid dynasty, is buried next to the Great Mosque. His life coincided with a period when there was a conscious need for the unification and defense of Islam. Therefore, throughout his entire life, Salah ad-Din led conquests, but in the Middle Ages he was praised for his nobility and mercy towards the crusaders he defeated. In the middle of the park, in front of the northwest corner of the Umayyad Mosque, stands a beautiful mausoleum with a domed roof. This is the tomb of Salah ad-din, who died in early March 1193. The walls of the mausoleum are covered with magnificent white and blue faience, and the tombstone, made of white marble, is decorated with floral designs and inserted colored stones. At the head of the bed, on a bedspread of green velvet with gold fringe, lies a huge green turban. Nearby, under glass, is a silver wreath, donated in 1898 by Emperor Wilhelm as a sign of admiration for the great Sultan Salah ad-Din. The Emperor also donated a precious silver lamp hanging over the wooden tombstone.

Along the way, we will tell you that the turbulent history of the first centuries of Islam in Damascus is mainly reminiscent of tombs. So, for example, outside the walls of the old city, on the edge of Guta, there is an outwardly unremarkable squat building surrounded by an ivan. But the interior decoration of the mosque is simply magnificent: the pattern on its walls seems like beautiful lace and is in harmony with a huge chandelier sparkling with crystal pendants. The piercing blue of the mosque’s dome is also striking, making one think of Persian turquoise. And in fact, the mosque was built by Iranian craftsmen and with Iranian funds, but this mosque is special - it is for women, and there are not so many of them in the Muslim world.

The mosque contains a mausoleum in which Zeinab, the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad, is buried. Little is known about her, but it is believed that she was with her brother Hussein on that tragic day in the battle of Karbala. Zeinab was captured by Zaid Ubaydula, the son of Caliph Mu'awiya, and was taken to Damascus in his convoy. And then she died a martyr from 99 stab and cut wounds. Not only Shia women, but also all women who want to ask for the intercession of Allah come to the Zeinab mosque.

Among the other famous tombs of Damascus, the burial of the Ethiopian Balal, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad and the first Muslim muezzin in history, stands out.

The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus is considered the third most important in the Islamic world after the Kaaba in Mecca and the “Mosque of the Rock” in Jerusalem.

The first stone temple on this site was built by the Arameans three thousand years ago. Since then, the temple has only been slightly rebuilt using the same stones and, accordingly, renamed. Under the Arameans it was the Temple of Hadad, under the Romans it was the Temple of Jupiter of Damascus, under the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius it was the Basilica of St. Zechariah, and then the Basilica of John the Baptist. Well, after the arrival of the Arabs in 635, the temple was rebuilt into one of the most magnificent mosques in the world.

On the square in front of the mosque there is a Roman colonnade and a fragment of the portico of the Temple of Jupiter.

An anecdote from life - domestic tourism is quite widely developed in Syria, plus many more religious tourists travel to Damascus from Iran and other surrounding countries. Well, we’re standing in the square, clicking our beaks, and a decent-looking guy comes up and asks to take a picture of him in front of the mosque. Word by word, my uncle asks where we are from. We proudly answer that we are from Russia.
- Oh, Russia - believe the magic! And I'm from Iraq - you know, Iraq - PYSH-PUSH! - Uncle waves his arms.
Here it is worth noting that there are more than 2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, blah blah blah.

We are more accustomed to single-volume Turkish mosques built in the image of Hagia Sophia. Arab mosques look completely different and are more like a spacious open courtyard surrounded by walls, one of which houses a prayer hall.

People come to the mosque not only to pray, but also to take a break from the bustle of the city. The courtyard inside the mosque, in fact, is a kind of “park”, the only free place inside the densely built-up city - in the shade of the galleries you can relax and lie down with a book while the squeals of children rushing across the marble floor. As you can see in the photo, you are not allowed to wear shoes in the mosque, and women are not allowed to wear Muslim uniforms.

Part of the walls of the mosque are covered with gilded mosaics of the 8th-13th centuries, cleared from under a layer of plaster at the beginning of the twentieth century. Early Islam did not prohibit the depiction of landscapes:

One of the corners of the courtyard is occupied by a treasury raised above the ground. Such structures began to be built in mosques after increasing cases of theft of community money, which was kept “under the protection of Allah” =)).

There is an opinion that it was the Umayyads who came up with the idea of building minarets in mosques for the call to prayer. In the Damascus Umayyad Mosque, the most famous is the minaret of Isa - according to legend, it is along it that Jesus Christ will descend to earth on the eve of the Last Judgment. It turns out that the Koran precisely defines the date of the end of the world - it will happen in about 50 thousand years.