#the umayyad mosque

[postcard-from-the-past]

Interior of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria

Syrian vintage postcard

[drsonnet]

Gate of the Great Umayyad Mosque, Damascus

Gustav Bauernfeind. 1890

Oil painting.

[mothmiso]

Syria, 1993. (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) by jpotto

Via Flickr:

(1) Palmyra. (2) Secluded square off Straight street, Damascus. (3) Ommayed mosque, Damascus. (4) Hama, waterwheels. (5) View from the Citadel. (6) Citadel, Aleppo. (7) Al Azem palace garden, Damascus.        

[covenawhite66]

There appears to have been an extended period of coexistence between Christians and Muslims in the region.

“Christian monasteries and churches were in use in some places until the ninth century,” says Michael. “It’s possible that the mosque we uncovered in Rahat was visited at the same time as Christian places of worship nearby.”

In Israel’s Negev Desert has revealed evidence of the effects of Islam in the region between the seventh and ninth centuries A.D. Researchers discovered multiple buildings dating to the Umayyad (A.D. 661–750) and Abbasid (A.D. 750–1258) periods, including a mosque dating to the seventh or eighth century A.D. Roughly 400 yards away, the team discovered the ruins of a palatial Islamic-style building thought to have belonged to a local ruler, featuring walls decorated with frescoes and stone hallways arranged around a central courtyard. Beneath the courtyard, the team unearthed a 10-foot-deep, rock-hewn cistern system.

[leroibobo]

i don't know, this looks a lot like the umayyad mosque in damascus. (picture from wikimedia commons). where did you get the source on this (if you're still active)?

A quiet mosque in Palestine, 1926.Photograph by Jules Gervais Courtellemont, National Geographic Creative

[thefoxsbookofdays]

4th March

Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb

1193

Are the birds draped in black as a memorial to the great warrior or a premonition of what would engulf Damascus within a few years?

[boltedgarlic]

06/18/2010

[th3surface-blog]

Hello, I haven't used tumblr in a while but I used to be an avid user--

I've been searching online for a way to find out about a few countries but reddit-no dice and I pretty much ran out of ideas after that so here I am on tumblr trying to find some assistance. If you've been or live in one of these countries...Tell me about it :)

1)Yemen (specifically Al-Saleh Mosque)

2)Ughyur (International Bazaar) - I know how unlikely it will be that I find someone on here that knows anything about this country and what's going on but I'm shooting my shot.

3)Al Aqsa Mosque/ Palestine in general

4) Syria (Damascus -Umayyad Mosque)

5)Iran (Nasir Al Mulk Mosque)

6) Somalia (Hargeysa)

Thank you in advance to everyone who is able to help.

[fairuzfan]

you didn't actually answer my question , Temple Mount is the most ancient and holiest site for Jewish people -- the Dome of the Rock & Al-Aqsa Mosque were built hundreds of years later on behalf of the Umayyad dynasty's conquest. you mentioned in your response a massacre that happened centuries later, which does not relate to the fact that Jews cannot pray at this site (their utmost holiest site before even the existence of Christians or Muslims). how is "temple denial" something that I made up when you can research it right now and see what it is and that it exists? I ask because this seems to be actually a blind spot for many non-Jewish people simply because it doesn't affect them. I'm not intending to be argumentative and I am sorry if my English is bad in getting across

I'm sorry for being argumentative but a lot of the time, whenever Palestinians are asked about temple mount, there's an implication that Palestinians are colonizers and don't deserve to be on the land. Israelis, if they could, would completely ban Muslims from AlAqsa despite it being the third holiest site in Islam.

AlAqsa is probably the most important national symbol of Palestinians, often thought to be the last straw for Palestinian heritage. So much of our culture has been robbed from us, and (primarily muslims) believe that the demolition of AlAqsa, which is, as Mohammed ElKurd puts it, is one of the last places in all of Palestine where being Palestinian is not criminalized would be a fundamental loss we would never recover from, equivalent to losing our Balad.

I bring up the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre because there are no restrictions for extremist settlers legally — they operate as an arm of the state and in some cases are encouraged to committ these acts. The "Apartheid Law" basically enshrined that settlements are a national value for Israel. This means that there is no safe haven for Palestinians legally. They're in constant danger of getting kicked out of their home or getting arrested for existing. I cannot emphasize enough how Palestinian freedom is so restricted with the explicit intent of pushing them out of the land.

Temple denial as a concept (after looking it up) seeks to paint Palestinians in a fundamentally bigoted and violent light. Palestinians are not allowing Jews in AlAqsa not because they hate Jews, but because that opens the way for settlers to become violent around AlAqsa, which a lot of the time is already happening. I suggest reading "Why Do Palestinians Burn Jewish Holy Sites? The Fraught History of Joseph's Tomb" (sorry the link is not linking, but you can look it up on the palestine institute webpage). It discusses the use of history as a colonial tool. Here's an excerpt:

It is one of many shrines across historic Palestine – now split into Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza – that has been re-invented as exclusively Jewish, despite a long history of shared worship among Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Samaritans that goes back centuries. And the reason it has been attacked has almost nothing to do with religion, and much to do with how the Israeli military and settlement movements have used religion as a way to expand their control over Palestinian land and holy places.

And a second excerpt describing the political use of religion:

But the claims of biblical archaeologists had a strong role in how the Zionist movement would come to understand and conceive of the landscape.6 As European Jews migrated to Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century, they drew upon biblical archeology's claims. They adopted archeologists' claims that Palestinian holy sites were directly linked to ancient biblical figures. In many cases, they focused on occupying those sites in order to legitimize the colonial endeavor by giving it a sense of deeper history. In many cases, this would mean evicting the Palestinians who actually frequented these holy sites.

And what Palestinians are afraid of:

In 1975, the Israeli military banned Palestinians – that is, the Samaritans, Muslims, and Christians living around the site – from visiting, a ban that has remained in place until this day. [...] Unsurprisingly, the ban has ignited intense anger over the years. This is true particularly given that frequent visits by Jewish settlers to the shrine are accompanied by hundreds of Israeli soldiers, who enter the area and run atop the rooftops of local Palestinians to “secure” the tomb. As a result, Joseph's Tomb has increasingly become associated with the Israeli military and settlement movement in the eyes of Palestinians. Its presence has become an excuse for frequent military incursions that provoke clashes and lead to arrests and many injuries in the neighborhood. Some fear that Israelis will attempt to take over the shrine to build an Israeli settlement around it. This fear is not unfounded, given the fact that Israeli settlers have done exactly that all across the West Bank in places they believe are connected in some way to Jewish biblical history. The notoriously violent Jewish settlements in Hebron, for example, were built there due to the location of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in that southern West Bank town. Following the initial years of settlement, settlers even managed to convince Israeli authorities to physically divide the shrine – which is holy to local Palestinians – and turn the whole area into a heavily-militarized complex. Other shrines have become excuses for the Israeli military to build army bases inside Palestinian towns, like Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem – which is surrounded by twenty-foot high concrete walls on three sides to block Palestinian access. The village of Nabi Samwel near Jerusalem, meanwhile, was demolished in its entirety to provide Jewish settlers access to the tomb at its heart.

I'm not denying the temple mount is there. I'm just saying that history has been manipulated to erase centuries worth of cultural heritage through scholarship and Palestinians are protective of their most important symbol of resistance and life. Even you saying "Islam and Christianity came after Judiasm" is a dogwhistle for me, because a lot of the time extremists say that to completely erase AlAqsa as an important site to Muslims and intending to deny the site as a shared worshipping site that is quite important to Muslims. Just because Islam came after Judiasm, does that mean it's not legitimate as a religion itself? Islamically, Islam is a continuation of Judiasm, so we don't deny judiasm is important to AlQuds. We just are so concerned with losing our national symbol that we're so protective over it.

Now I bring up the massacre at ibrahimi mosque because, like mentioned in the excerpt above, Palestinians are afraid something like that will happen again. There's no protections for Palestinians, and most of the time they're denied from praying in AlAqsa themselves by Israeli authorities. Israeli settlers themselves come in and disrespect AlAqsa, and as I mentioned, extremists plan on demolishing AlAqsa to build a Third Temple. The Massacre at the Mosque paved way to the "Jews Only" streets I mentioned, including the militarization and basically a complete upheaval of normal life for Palestinians. I suggest looking into how terrible the situation in AlKhalil is, and that arised directly from the massacre.

You cannot separate this issue from the colonial implications of the last safe haven in all of Palestine being open to Israelis. Now when Palestine is free, I doubt there would be restrictions. But right now, there are and to pretend Israelis don't pose a threat to Palestinians fundamentally, would be erasure of the colonization of Palestine.

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but even if AlAqsa was built hundreds of years after, it doesn't change the fact that RIGHT NOW Israelis have privilege that Palestinians do not. As soon as that privilege is no longer there, then we can talk about allowing Jews there. But until then, Palestinians are constantly in danger of settler violence and to take away a space (which, Ibrahimi Mosque was one of those sites before Palestinians were massacred) is frankly, an insult and a denial that Palestinians themselves are colonized.

I suggest looking at the links I provided earlier for more in depth analysis. I'm going to reiterate: the only reason it's illegal is because Palestine is colonized and this is our last safe haven that we even aren't completely allowed from entering ourselves.

Most Palestinians are quite heated about this topic. It genuinely is considered one of our last national symbols (so not just religious but also political and cultural), which means that having that taken away (which extremist settlers plan on demolishing it completely, and if they're allowed in, then there are no restrictions on their behavior) would be tantamount to losing our balad, or nation. I've heard Israelis call AlAqsa terrible names over the years and some fully intend on demolishing the site. Even within Israeli politics, it is a genuine goal for some people, including Ben Gvir, so most believe that opening the door for settlers (who are the ones who want the destruction of AlAqsa) would be equivalent to giving it up. You can't ignore that when talking about AlAqsa and the laws surrounding it. The primary reason for this protectiveness is political and cultural.

[leroibobo]

ruins of the white mosque of ramla, palestine. construction was initiated by umayyad governor sulayman ibn abd al-malik in 715-717 ce, but was completed by his successor umar ii in 720.

an earthquake in january of 1034 destroyed the mosque, and reconstruction was completed 200 years later. it since had several destructions, restorations, and expansions, including one restoration by saladin. the last took place between 1844-1918; since then, it has been mostly destroyed, with only its minaret still intact.

the mosque is reputable in muslim tradition; its minaret is referred to as the tower of forty martyrs, after the belief that forty companions of the prophet muhammad are buried under it. within local muslim tradition, it's believed that the prophet salih was also buried here, and a maqām in his honor is located nearby. a religious celebration of salih used to take place here annually before the nakba.

below the mosque's courtyard also exist three large cisterns (last two pictures) which provided water for worshippers, including for a former pool for wudu.

[whencyclopedia]

Minaret

A Minaret is a feature of Islamic architecture and is the place from where the call to prayer is sent out. They are also known as a manār or manāra in Arabic, meaning place of fire or light (nar or nur). According to scholars, the expression manāra was adapted from the Aramaic language, which when translated means “candlestick”. Another literal Arabic connotation for minaret is Sawma'a -'cloister' or 'cell'- a spiritual reference to the shining light of the lamp in the cloister. The less-often used Arabic phrase mi'dhana more appropriately conveys the purpose of the minaret.

The minaret then, is a tall, slender tower that is a significant feature of every mosque, and is one of the earliest characteristics of Islamic architecture. It is surrounded by one or more projecting galleries from where the muezzin, the person who chants the call for prayer, announces the prayer to worshippers in the Muslim community. The practice of the call for prayer or adhan became a customary part of religious rituals in the second year of the Hijra (623-24 CE).

Scholarly findings trace the origin of the construction of minarets to the Umayyad epoch and offer the explanation that these minarets were a copy of church steeples found in Syria in those times. Nevertheless, other references suggest that these towers in Syria originated from the ziggurats of Babylonian and Assyrian shrines of Mesopotamia. Yet another description associates the manāra to the function of a 'light house', guiding travellers.

In his article on the origins of the minaret, K.A.C. Creswell elucidates that the four Ṣawāmi constructed on the roof of the Umayyad mosque in Fustat were the earliest minarets to be built. Creswel cites the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, constructed with four squat towers in each corner, as the earliest of pre-Islamic temples which used such towers to call for prayer. He, therefore, suggests the minaret was inspired by a Damascan prototype and named Sawma'a due to its stocky appearance and similarity to the hermit cube.

Despite the fact that minarets were not a familiar facet of the earliest mosques, these towers very soon adorned the skylines of Muslim cities and became synonymous with Muslim shrines, and every region developed their own signature styles. The construction of minarets was greatly influenced by the region's society, culture and context which determined their shape, size and form.

Continue reading...

[postcard-from-the-past]

The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria

French vintage postcard

[ashwantsafreepalestine]

Are you aware that Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are built upon the Second Temple? That Arab invaders (Umayyad Dynasty) built over the most sacred site of the Jewish people? Do you condemn them for this?

https://www.britannica.com/place/Temple-Mount

Do you believe that it the site belongs to the Jews who had their Temples there? The Romans who destroyed the Second Temple? The Byzantines who vandalized it? The Christian crusaders who held it in the Kingdom of Jerusalem? Or the Arab Muslims who conquered it and built upon it?

You have so many opinions; I'm curious what you think of this.

What kind of dumb ass fucking logic is this?

Speaking as a Hindu, there are many ancient Hindu temples unearthed in countries like Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia, apart from India. Many other parts of the world too. Now destroyed and built upon, or preserved.

So what? Would that give Hindus the right to invade these countries and fight for the land in which their sacred temples had been built upon thousands of years ago? Get the fuck out of here.

[divinum-pacis]

December 20, 2024: Damascus, Syria A plaque bearing the name of the former president Hafez al-Assad is removed from Umayyad mosque after the overthrow of the Ba’ath regime Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

[countriesgame]

Please reblog for a bigger sample size!

If you have any fun fact about Syria, please tell us and I'll reblog it!

Be respectful in your comments. You can criticize a government without offending its people.

[mariacallous]

On Dec. 8, President Bashar al-Assad fled Syria, bringing an end to nearly 54 years of his family’s rule and sending millions of Syrians at home and abroad into a state of euphoria and relief. Over a dramatic 12 days, an armed opposition offensive that had begun west of Aleppo on Nov. 27 triggered the precipitous crumbling of regime front lines, one after the other. As rebels began to advance south, Syrians across the country began to rise up. By the night of Dec. 7, Assad’s defeat had been sealed.

The rapid disintegration of Assad’s regime came as a surprise to everyone. For years, the international community had written off any chance that Syrians’ demand for change would ever be realized, embracing instead the concept of a “frozen conflict” and gradually withdrawing attention and resources away from Syria policy. In 2023, most of the Arab world reembraced Assad, rewarding him with his seat back in the Arab League and granting him and his regime with high-profile public visits across the region.

In truth, the international community has misjudged the situation in Syria in recent years. While lines drawn on maps and the stagnation of diplomacy led to assumptions that Assad was here to stay and was consolidating his rule, the regime had, in fact, been decaying and fragmenting from within. In many ways, the fact that Assad’s regime had not faced a serious military challenge since early 2020 was what created the conditions that allowed the decay to take root.

Events over the past two weeks have turned the entire international approach to Syria on its head. A rapid process of adaptation and reassessment is now underway. In a series of hurriedly organized high-level meetings in Doha, Qatar, this weekend, Arab governments have struggled to adjust to the new reality.

As Syrians were seizing control of Damascus suburbs late on Dec. 7 and Assad was preparing to flee, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Qatar called for a cease-fire and political negotiations—a statement that might have made sense a week earlier but seemed irrelevant within hours. In subsequent side meetings, it was clear that regional states were simply perplexed and outpaced by events on the ground.

Meanwhile, the United Nations and its special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, have surged into action, engaging intensively with the so-called Astana group (Russia, Iran, and Turkey), the Arab states, the United States, and Europe to chart a path forward oriented around U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254.

That mandate, set forth in December 2015, calls for a transitional period, leading eventually to free and fair elections. Plans are already afoot for a return of Syria peace talks in Geneva—but without the Assad regime’s representatives, who had attended only to block any meaningful progress. Nevertheless, despite the rapid call to action, it remains unclear exactly what format the U.N. intends to bring to Geneva, nor who or how many Syrians would be involved.

While deliberations around a political process continue, events are developing fast on the ground. Early on Dec. 8, armed fighters from southern Syria escorted the country’s Prime Minister, Mohammed Ghazi al-Jalali, to the Four Seasons hotel in Damascus amid a purported plan to conduct a swift but nonviolent transition.

Later that day, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—the most powerful armed group that launched the initial offensive—arrived in Damascus and went to Syria’s famed Umayyad Mosque to proclaim victory. In the Assad regime’s coastal heartlands of Tartus and Latakia, locals took to the streets to topple Assad family statues and opposition fighters took over military bases.

According to four sources associated with HTS and its broader military operations coalition, Syria’s political transition is already underway and is being managed internally. Their view is that a U.N.-led process designed and determined abroad is unnecessary, and they reject it. “We welcome the international community’s support, but we do not need them to manufacture a process that we are already implementing,” one of them told me as they arrived in Damascus. “We refuse to step into the traps of the past,” said another.

The divergent visions of internal and external actors represent a significant problem but also a simple reflection of how astonishingly fast developments have occurred.

For now, the priority for the international community needs to be on communication—with as many of the actors on the ground as possible, armed and civilian alike. Many towns and cities across Syria are now being run by long-standing local councils, religious bodies, and state institutions.

How they fit within the transition that is seemingly underway in Damascus or in the U.N.’s plans for talks in Geneva is anyone’s guess. Before devising another internationally-led process to determine Syria’s future, regional and U.N. officials would be wise to listen to and communicate with the forces on the ground that are already shaping it.