Umayyad Mosque

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The spot where the mosque now stands was a temple of Hadad in the Aramaean era. The Aramaean presence was attested by the discovery of a basalt orthostat depicting a sphinx, excavated in the north-east corner of mosque. The site was later a temple of Jupiter in the Roman era, then a Christian church dedicated to John the Baptist in the Byzantine era.

Initially, the Muslim conquest of Damascus in 636 did not affect the church, as the building was shared by Muslim and Christian worshippers. It remained a church although the Muslims built a mud brick structure against the southern wall so that they could pray. Under the Umayyadcaliph Al-Walid I, however, the Christians sold the church. Between 706 and 715 the current mosque was built in its place. At that point in time, Damascus was one of the most important cities in the Middle East and would later become the capital of the Umayyad caliphate.

In the 14th century, one of the most famous Islamic astronomers, Ibn al-Shatir, worked as muwaqqit (موقت, religious timekeeper) at the Umayyad Mosque, where he conducted many of his astronomical observations.