and I had thought that their dominion would last for a briefer span than this.’ When that statement reached ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz he said, ‘Indeed, this angers the unbelievers; leave it as it is.’

During ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz’s time the Christians asked that a council be convened about what al-Walid had taken from them and incorporated into the mosque. ʿUmar examined the case, and on investigation discovered that the churches lying outside the city had not been included in the covenant of protection written for them by the Companions. Being just, he resolved to restore to them whatever had been taken—such as the church of Dayr Maran (at the foot of Mount Qasioun, in the village of al-Maʿzamiya), the Monk’s Church, the Church of Thomas outside the gate, and all the churches in the villages of al-Ḥawājiz. He offered them a choice: either he would return what they demanded and demolish all those churches, or the churches would remain while they willingly grant that plot to the Muslims. Three days later they unanimously agreed to keep the churches standing, have a writ of safety drawn up for them, and relinquish that area to the Muslims. Accordingly, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz issued them a letter of security (1).

The point is that once the Umayyad Mosque was completed there was nothing on earth to rival its beauty and splendor.

Al-Farazdaq said:
‘The people of Damascus possess in their land
a palace from the palaces of Paradise’—meaning the mosque.

Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī reported—through al-Walīd ibn Muslim, from Ibn Thawbān—that:
‘No one on earth should be more eager for Paradise than the people of Damascus, for they behold the loveliness of their mosque’ (2).

They relate that when the Commander of the Faithful al-Mahdī entered Damascus on his way to visit Jerusalem, he gazed at the Umayyad Mosque and said to his secretary Abū ʿUbayd Allah al-Ashʿarī, ‘The Banū Umayya have outstripped us in three things: this mosque, of which I know no equal on the face of the earth; the marksmanship of their client archers; and ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz—by Allah, we shall never have his like among us.’ When he reached Jerusalem and looked upon the Dome of the Rock—built by ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān—he said to his secretary, ‘And this makes a fourth’ (3).

When al-Maʾmūn entered Damascus he inspected its mosque with his brother al-Muʿtaṣim and his chief judge Yaḥyā ibn Aktham. He asked, ‘What is the most remarkable thing in it?’ His brother replied, ‘The gold that adorns it.’ Yaḥyā ibn Aktham said, ‘The marble and these arches.’ Al-Maʾmūn answered, ‘What amazes me is the excellence of its construction, fashioned after no previous model.’ He then said to Qāsim the date-seller, ‘Suggest a fine name by which I may call this slave-girl of mine.’ Qāsim replied, ‘Name her Masjid Dimashq (the Damascus Mosque), for it is the most beautiful thing’ (4).

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated—through Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam—from al-Shāfiʿī, who said:
‘The marvels of the world are five: the first is this lighthouse of yours—meaning the Lighthouse of Dhū l-Qarnayn in Alexandria; the second are the Companions of the Inscription, twelve men in the land of Byzantium; the third is a mirror in al-Andalus at the city gate: a man may sit beneath it and see his companion in it from one hundred parasangs away—some say one can even see those in Constantinople; the fourth is the Mosque of Damascus and the vast expenditure lavished upon it; and the fifth is marble.’