On the authority of al-Walid ibn Muslim:
When al-Walid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ordered the construction of the Mosque of Damascus, the builders came upon a stone tablet set into the southern wall of the mosque bearing an inscription. They forwarded it to al-Walid, who dispatched it to the Byzantines, but they could not decipher it. He then sent it to the remaining ashnān⦗1⦘ residing in Damascus, yet they too failed to read it. He was thereafter directed to Wahb ibn Munabbih; al-Walid summoned him, informed him where the tablet had been found, and they retrieved it from the wall—it is said that this wall had been built by Hud (peace be upon him). Wahb looked at the inscription, nodded, and read aloud:

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm (In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful). O son of Adam, if you could see how little of your lifespan remains, you would disdain the long hopes you entertain. You will feel your regret only after your foot slips. Your family and household will abandon you; the beloved will turn away, the intimate will bid you farewell. You will be called yet give no reply; you will return neither to your family nor add to your deeds. Therefore act for your own soul before the Day of Resurrection, before sorrow and remorse, before your appointed time arrives and your spirit is taken from you. Neither the wealth you amassed will avail you, nor the child you begot, nor the brother you left behind. You will then pass into the isthmus beneath the dust, the neighbourhood of the dead. Seize life before death, strength before weakness, and health before sickness—before you are seized by constriction and the opportunity for action is cut off. Written in the time of Solomon son of David—may Allah have mercy on him.⦗2⦘

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir⦗3⦘ said: I read to Abū Muḥammad al-Sulamī, from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Tamīmī, who related from Tamām al-Rāzī, who said that Ibn al-Barāmī narrated: I heard Abū Marwān ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn ʿUmar al-Māzinī say: During the days of al-Walid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, while the mosque was being built, they excavated a spot and discovered a stone doorway that was sealed. They did not open it until they informed al-Walid, who came from his residence and stood over it. The door was opened in his presence, revealing a cave containing a stone statue of a man on a stone horse. In one hand the statue held the al-durra that had been in the miḥrāb; the other hand was clenched. Al-Walid ordered that the closed hand be broken. When it was smashed, two grains fell out—one of wheat and one of barley. He asked about this, and it was said, “Had you left the hand unopened, wheat and barley in this land would never have been infested.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Aḥmad⦗4⦘ al-Warrāq—who lived to one hundred years—said: I heard some shaykhs relate that when the Muslims first entered Damascus they found, upon the column above the Maqṣalaṭ, on the iron spit at its summit, an idol with its arm extended and its fist closed. They forced the fist open and found within it a single grain of wheat. When they asked about it, they were told, “The sages⦗5⦘ of the Greeks placed this grain in the idol’s hand as a talisman so that the wheat of these lands would never spoil, even after many years.”