All through this period of Al-Ghazali’s life Damascus was experiencing the storm and stress of war. Shortly before his time the city was taken by the Karmatians and much of it was destroyed by fire. There were frequent changes of governors, uprisings and riots. In 1068 the great Mosque was set on fire. In 1076 the Seljuk generals seized the city, built anew the citadel and other buildings, among them a famous hospital. This was about fifteen years before Al-Ghazali’s arrival there from Bagdad.
The great Ummayad Mosque of Damascus was said to be the grandest of all Mohammedan buildings. There was praying space for 20,000 men; and it is said to have taken the whole revenue of Syria for forty-seven years, not counting eighteen shiploads of gold and silver from Cyprus to complete the building. “When the wondrous work was finished, the Caliph would not look at the accounts brought to him on eighteen laden mules, but ordered that they should be burned and thus addressed the crowd: ‘Men of Damascus, you possess four glories above other people; you are proud of your water, your air, your fruits, your baths; your mosque shall be your fifth glory.’”
Like other famous places of Moslem worship, this mosque was once the site of a Christian church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, to whom there is still an imposing shrine. For some years the building was shared between Christians and Mohammedans, but in A. D. 708 the Christians were driven out. To this day one of the three minarets is called by the name of ʾIsa (Jesus), and above a gate, long since closed, is the Greek inscription, “Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.”
Al-Ghazali spent many hours for many years under the shadow of this great building, and it was in the minaret of Jesus that he had long meditations. The minaret of Jesus, according to H. Saladin,[37] was built in the eleventh century, shortly before the time of Al-Ghazali’s visit. Did he ever find or understand the inscription on the gate and meditate on that Prophet whose kingdom has no end and no frontier?
IV
Wanderings, Later Years, and Death
“Then came the immediate breaking up of the Seljukian Empire into a number of independent principalities. Syria, Palestine, and all Asia Minor, were partitioned among a dozen different Turkish Emirs. Khorasan and Irak became the scene of a fierce civil war, extending over several years, between two sons of Malek Shah, Barkiaroc and Muhammed. Drought was added to the horrors of war; the people perished by thousands of famine; the incessant marching and counter-marching of the hostile armies destroyed the remnant of food which had survived the want of rain. To crown all, from the borders of Christendom a fresh scourge was beheld preparing for Islam. The hosts of the Red Cross passed the Bosphorus, and fought their way knee-deep in blood to the walls of Jerusalem. The capture of the Holy City struck like the point of a poisoned dagger to the heart of every true Moslem.”
—“Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad,” by Robert Durie Osborn.