ninety-six AH. In that very year its builder, al-Walid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, passed away. A few finishing touches were still lacking, and his brother Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik completed them, as we have already noted.

As for the report cited by Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān, he says:
“I asked Hishām ibn ʿAmmār about the Damascus Mosque and the demolition of the church. He replied:
‘Al-Walid said to the Christians: “Choose as you wish: we have seized the Church of Thomas by force and the Inner Church (al-Dākhila) by treaty, so I shall demolish the Church of Thomas.”’ Hishām added, ‘That church was larger than this Inner Church.’ He went on: ‘They agreed, then, that he should demolish the Inner Church and incorporate it into the mosque.
‘Its doorway became the qiblah wall of today’s mosque, and it is the very miḥrāb (prayer niche) in which the people pray.
‘He demolished the church at the start of al-Walid’s caliphate, in the year 86 AH. They then spent seven years building; al-Walid died before it was finished, and Hishām (the caliph) completed it after him.’”

This account contains useful points, but it also contains an error—his claim that they spent seven years on its construction. The correct figure is ten years, for there is no disagreement that al-Walid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik died in this year, that is, the year 96 AH. Abū Jaʿfar ibn Jarīr even records the unanimous agreement of the historians on this.

Likewise, his statement that the structure was not finished in al-Walid’s lifetime is inaccurate; it was in fact completed, with only some decorative elements remaining, and these were finished by his brother Sulaymān, not by Hishām. And Allah—glorified and exalted is He—knows best (1).

This is the biography of al-Walid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (2), builder of the Great Mosque of Damascus, along with a notice of his death in this year.

He is al-Walid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ ibn Umayya ibn ʿAbd Shams ibn ʿAbd Manāf, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Umayyī. He was invested with the caliphate, by his father’s prior designation, in Shawwāl of the year 86 AH. He was his father’s eldest son and the heir apparent. His mother was Walādah bint al-ʿAbbās ibn Juzaʾ (3) ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Zuhayr al-ʿAbsī.

He was born in the year 50 AH. Pampered by his parents, he grew up undisciplined (4), and his command of Arabic was weak. He was tall, dark-complexioned, and bore a faint trace of smallpox. His nose was flat and slightly runny, and when he walked he would yatawakaff in his stride (5)—that is, he would swagger.