Syria, the land of Lebanon

by Lewis Gaston Leary

The street called Straight

The Bride’s Minaret of the Omayyade Mosque

The one notable ancient building in Damascus is the great mosque of Neby Yahya or “St. John,” better known to the Western world as the Omayyade Mosque. The site where this stands has probably always been marked by a place of worship, and the present structure is some of those immemorial religious edifices which, so far as we definitely know, was never built, but only rebuilt. It was doubtless here that there stood the House of Rimmon in which Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, bowed down with his royal master.[39] About the year 400 A. D. the then Roman temple was transformed into the Church of St. John the Baptist. When Damascus fell into the hands of the Omayyade Dynasty in the seventh century, the Christian house of worship was converted into a mosque of such miraculous splendor that the vast multitude of human artists and artisans who labored upon it were later believed to have been assisted by the genii. All Syria was ransacked for ancient columns to adorn the new structure. The pavement was of the most expensive marbles, the prayer-niches and pulpits were set with jewels, the carved wooden ceiling was inlaid with precious metals, and six hundred hanging lamps of solid gold cast their mellow light upon the exquisite mosaic decorations. Since then, the building has been burned and burned again, and at each restoration has lost something of its former magnificence. Yet still it ranks with St. Sophia of Constantinople, the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem and the Sacred Mosque of Mecca, as one of the greatest of Moslem sanctuaries.

Time would fail to tell of its size and splendor, its holy impressiveness to Moslem eyes, and the inspiring views from its lofty minarets. In its great court rise the Dome of the Hours and the Dome of the Fountain, which is believed to mark a point on the Pilgrim Route exactly half-way between Constantinople and Mecca, and the Dome of the Treasure, where, hidden jealously from infidel eyes, are kept the sacred books and the records of the mosque. Above tower three minarets, which are known as the Western, the Bride’s and—strange as this name may at first seem—the Minaret of Jesus. The Moslems, however, believe that ʿIsa, as they call Him, was one of the greatest of the prophets, hardly, if at all, inferior to Mohammed himself;[40] and the “Son of Mary” is held in unusual reverence by the inhabitants of Damascus, who say that He will stand upon this minaret at the Last Judgment.

The mosque itself extends along the entire southern side of the court. I know of no other non-Gothic structure which seems so well fitted to uplift one’s thoughts in solemn, spiritual worship of the unseen God. Here are no confusing chapels, no gaudy pictures or distracting statues, no gilded altar lit by smoking candles, no thin blue clouds of slowly rising incense. All is clean, bright, commodious, and yet of an appropriate richness and beauty. A careful inspection shows that the architects used the ground-plan of a basilica with aisles and transepts; but, in spite of the two rows of columns and the heavier pillars which support the central “Dome of the Eagle,” the chief and lasting impression of the mosque is its ample, unbroken spaciousness.

The building is larger even than the visitor first thinks: a hundred and fifty paces will hardly take him from one end of it to the other. Its stone floor is entirely covered by rugs, whose variegated patterns have worn to a dull, somber tint. From the lofty ceiling a multitude of lamps and several gigantic chandeliers are hung by long chains, so low that they just clear the head of a tall man. Between two of the columns stands a lavishly decorated, domed structure which is said to contain the head of John the Baptist, after whom the mosque is named. The shrine is about the size of the Chapel of the Sepulcher at Jerusalem, but it seems smaller on account of the far larger building which surrounds it. In the south wall of the mosque—toward Mecca—are four shallow prayer-niches, and near the middle of this side stands a tall, graceful pulpit, whose minute and elaborate inlays of silver and ivory and mother-of-pearl make it a marvel of chaste richness. Unlike all Oriental churches and most other mosques, there is comparatively little gold used in the decoration of this great building. The prevailing colors are cool white and blue and silver, and the really immense amount of mosaic and inlaid work seems hardly more than delicate tracery upon the broad, unbroken surfaces.

Such is the Great Mosque when it is empty, a fitting place for quiet communion and solemn contemplation of the vastness and unhurried power of the Almighty. But when you behold this same building thronged with strangely garbed, proud, intellectual-looking and intensely devout men—women are seldom seen in mosques—you feel the grip of something portentous, irresistible, relentless. Long lines of turbaned figures facing toward the holy city of Arabia, now bending low together like a field of wheat swept by the summer breeze, now standing erect with arms outstretched toward Allah the Merciful and Compassionate, reciting their confession of faith in shrill, quick tones which lose their individuality in a tremendous momentum of sound like the wave-beat of the sea—these thousands of worshipers have firm hold on a great truth, though it be but a half-truth; they believe in their religion with an impregnable, unquestioning confidence, and they render to its precepts an implicit obedience such as is not enforced by any Christian sect in the world. They would gladly die for the faith of Islam, and nothing but the strong restraint of European armaments holds them back from again raising the standard of the Prophet and setting forth on a new jahâd, or holy war, in obedience to the sacred mandate, “When ye encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads until ye have made a great slaughter among them.... As for the infidels, let them perish, and their works shall God bring to nought.... And their dwelling the hell fire!... Be not faint-hearted then, and invite not the infidels to peace!”[41]

Be he preacher or statesman, that man is a fool and blind who does not realize the tremendous vitality and undiminished strength of Mohammedanism, the power instinct in its half-truths, and the unsleeping menace of its essential antagonism to all the “infidel” world. Politically, Islam is being rapidly shorn of its power; but as a religion—a religion for which men will cheerfully give their lives it has lost no whit of its potency. As the cry of the muezzin echoes across the earth to-day from Japan to Gibraltar, there are, not fewer, but many millions more who obey its call than there were four centuries ago when Mohammed II. hurled his Turkish regiments against the ramparts of a then Christian Constantinople.

The Omayyade Mosque, as has been said, was once a church. In the marble wall beside its most beautiful prayer-niche is set a large mosaic panel, among whose intricate geometric traceries there stand out distinctly three large Maltese crosses. The Moslem artist apparently copied the design from some earlier decoration without realizing that he was including the hated symbol of Christianity. So the worshipers in the Great Mosque who face towards Mecca face also the Cross!