Twelfth: The synagogue that the Jews still possess today in their own quarter (1); its site is well known, close to the ḥayr, and the people now call it Bustān al-Qaṭ (“the Cat Garden”).

They also had a synagogue on Darb al-Balāgha which was not included in the Pact, so it was later demolished and the place converted into the mosque known as the Mosque of Ibn al-Shahrazūrī (2); today the lane is called Darb al-Shādhūrī.

I add: another synagogue they had recently built—one that none of the historians, neither Ibn ʿAsākir nor anyone else, ever mentioned—was likewise torn down, around the year 717 AH. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir makes no reference at all to the Samaritan synagogue.

Ibn ʿAsākir (3) further says: Among the new constructions—meaning those of the Christians—is a church that Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr built for the Banū Qaṭīṭā in the Furnuq (4). It was later razed and turned into a mosque known as the Mosque of al-Jinīq (5), which is the Mosque of Abū al-Yaman.

He (6) also says: Among the new buildings are the two churches (7) of al-ʿAbbād. One of them, beside the house of Ibn al-Māshilī (8), has been converted into a mosque, and the other, at the head of Darb al-Naqqāshīn, has likewise been made a mosque.

This concludes what al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir of Damascus—may Allah have mercy on him—recorded.

[When was Damascus conquered?]

I say: The apparent wording of the account transmitted by Sayf ibn ʿUmar would indicate that the conquest of Damascus occurred in the year 13 AH; yet Sayf explicitly affirms—just as the majority assert—that it was taken in the middle of Rajab, 14 AH. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir (9) reports the same through the chain of transmission of Muḥammad ibn ʿĀʾidh al-Qurashī al-Dimashqī, from al-Walīd (ibn Muslim) from ʿUthmān ibn