ignorance and hypocrisy. This varies according to its inhabitants and their characteristics. The three mosques, by contrast, possess an enduring distinction of which they cannot be divested. As for other mosques, the scholars disagree over whether they may be altered for a beneficial purpose and put to another use, as ‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb—may Allah be pleased with him—did with the mosque of Kufa: he relocated the mosque, and its former site became shops for date sellers. This is the position of Imam Ahmad and others.
Section
With this understood, these Syrian coastal regions remained Muslim frontier outposts until sometime in the fourth century AH. The Muslims had conquered “Cyprus” during the caliphate of ‘Uthmān—may Allah be pleased with him—with Mu‘āwiyah leading its conquest. During the fourth century, however, the affairs of the caliphate fell into turmoil, and the Rāfidah, the hypocrites, and others acquired power and dominion in Egypt, the Maghrib, the eastern lands, and Syria. These people gained control over various parts of Syria, both coastal and inland. They are a forsaken people, possessing neither reason nor revealed evidence, neither sound religion nor success in worldly affairs.
The Christians consequently overran most of the Syrian coast—indeed, most of Syria itself. They subdued the Rāfidah, the hypocrites, and others, and seized from them what they seized, until the way was made easy by