If time permit we may now retrace our steps to the cemetery Makbâret Bâb es-Sarîr (see above) whence we take a short walk along the City Wall, on the S.E. side of the old town, beyond the Jewish and Christian quarters (p. [485]). Its foundations are Roman, the central part dates from the days of Nûreddîn and the Egyptian sultan El-Ashraf Khalîl (1291), and the upper part from the Turkish period. Passing the camping-ground of the caravans from Bagdad and the Bâb esh-Sherki (E. Gate, originally Roman), we come to the well-preserved Bâb Tûmâ (St. Thomas’s Gate). [About ¾ M. to the S. of the Bâb esh-Sherki are Christian burial-grounds; in one of which Henry Thomas Buckle, the eminent English historian (d. 1862), is interred.]
Near the Bâb Tûmâ on the Aleppo road, beyond the Baradâ, are public gardens and pleasant cafés patronized by Christians. We return thence to the Citadel (p. [486]), passing between the Baradâ and the N. side of the town-wall, here probably Byzantine.
The great *Omaiyade Mosque (Jâmi el-Umawî), the finest monument of that dynasty in Syria next to the Dome of the Rock (p. [477]), deserves close inspection. Entrance by the W. gate (Bâb el-Berîd), at the end of the booksellers’ sûk (p. [486]). Gratuity to the sheikh who acts as guide ca. 1 mejidieh each person; addit. charge for slippers 1–2 pias. each person.
On the site of the mosque there once stood a Roman temple within a large quadrangle. This was succeeded by the church of St. John, a three-aisled basilica built by Emp. Theodosius I. (379–95), and so named from the ‘head of John the Baptist’ (Arabic Yahyâ) preserved in the Confessio, by which the Damascenes still swear. After the conquest of the city by the Arabs (p. [485]) the E. half of the church was assigned to the Moslems. Caliph Welîd (705–15) deprived the Christians of the W. half also; and in 708, with the help, it is said, of 1200 Byzantine artificers, he transformed the church into the present mosque, which was so magnificent that Arabian authors extolled it as one of the wonders of the world. Adjacent to it the earliest school of learning was built by caliph Omar II. (717–20). The mosque was carefully restored after fires in 1069, 1400, and 1893, but its ancient glory has departed for ever.
We enter the great Court, which with the mosque itself forms an immense rectangle of 143 by 104 yds., and is flanked by two-storied arcades in the Byzantine style. Behind these are the sleeping-apartments and studies of the teachers and students. The old marble pavement of the court, the mosaic incrustation of the walls, and the crown of pinnacles have disappeared. The fountain of ablution (Kubbet en-Naufara) and the two smaller domed buildings are modern.
Of the three Towers the ‘bride’s minaret’ (Mâdinet el-Arûs; now being rebuilt) on the N. side of the court is said to date from the time of Welîd. The ‘minaret of Jesus’ (Mâdinet Isâ), at the S.E. angle of the mosque, recalls the Crusaders’ edifices. The Mâdinet el-Rarbîyeh, at the S.W. angle, in the Egypto-Arabian style and famed for its view, was added by Kâït Bey (p. [458]).
The Interior (143 by 41 yds.), with its three span-roofs, still has the form of an early-Christian basilica. Above each of the two rows of columns, 23 ft. high, which separate the aisles, rises a row of ‘colonnettes’ with round-arch openings, to which similar round-arched windows in the outer walls correspond. In the centre a threefold transept, with four huge pillars supporting the dome (Kubbet en-Nisr, eagle’s dome), indicates the direction of Mecca. The Byzantine glass-mosaics of the time of Welîd, the superb timber ceiling, and the mihrâb and mimbar (15th cent.) were all sadly damaged by the fire of 1893. In the central aisle on the E., over the ‘head of John the Baptist’, rises a modern dome in wood.
On the N. side of the mosque, near the Bâb el-Amâra, are the handsome Tomb of Saladin (Kabr Salâheddîn; adm. 6 pias.) and the Medreseh and Tomb Mosque of Sultan Beybars (p. [485]), the latter, according to the inscription, built by his son in 1279.
The suburb of Es-Sâlehîyeh (tramway, see p. [484]), l–1/4 M. to the N.W. of the Serâi Square, has about 25,000 inhab., mostly descended from Seljuks, reinforced later by Kurds and by Moslem refugees from Crete. The finest of the ruinous mosques, but not readily shown, is the tomb-mosque of Muhieddîn ibn el-Arâbi (d. 1240), adjoined by the tomb of Abd el-Kâder (p. [221]).
From the Cretan quarter at the W. end of the suburb we may ascend, past a platform affording a good view, to the (1¼ hr.) top of the Jebel Kâsyûn (3718 ft.). The *View at the small Kubbet en-Nasr (‘dome of victory’) embraces the city, encircled by the broad green belt of the oasis of the Rûta, the barren heights of Anti-Lebanon, with the long chain of Mt. Hermon (9052 ft.; generally snow-capped) to the S.W.; and to the S.E., beyond Jebel Mâni, the distant hill-country of the Haurân.