![]() ![]() However, while praising the Umayyads’ architectural efforts to signal Islamic superiority, al-Muqaddasī betrays the appreciation of – and interactions with – Christian buildings that Muslims exhibited for centuries. ![]() As this text suggests, authorities in the first centuries of Islamic rule contested this Christian architectural dominance, imposing their presence upon the physical environment in a variety of ways. The comments of this tenth-century author and his opinionated uncle highlight a reality of the spatial environment within which these Islamic monuments of the Umayyad period were constructed: a Near Eastern landscape dominated by Christian churches and shrines. Elsewhere, al-Muqaddasī claims that ʿAbd al-Malik also had been motivated to beautify the Aqṣā Mosque, “because it was compared with the great Christian church in Jerusalem, so they made it greater than that.” 1 65–86/685–705), similarly had feared that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem would “beguile the hearts of the Muslims,” and was thus spurred to build the Dome of the Rock there. ![]() He saw that Syria was a country of the Christians, and he saw the beautiful churches with their enchanting decorations, renowned far and wide … So, he built a mosque for the Muslims that would divert their attention from and made it one of the wonders of the world.Īl-Muqaddasī’s uncle adds that al-Walīd’s father and caliphal predecessor, ʿAbd al-Malik b. O my little boy, you do not understand! Al-Walīd was right and he undertook a worthy project. 86–96/705–715), had spent “so much of the Muslims’ wealth on the mosque in Damascus,” when that money might have been more responsibly spent on “roads, or water troughs, or the restoration of fortresses.” Disagreeing, his uncle responds: Bemoaning the building’s opulence, al-Muqaddasī complains that its constructor, the caliph al-Walīd b. 380/990) mentions a conversation he had with his uncle about the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. In his geographical text Aḥsān al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm, Shams al-Dīn al-Muqaddasī (d. Keywords: Early Islam Christian-Muslim relations churches mosques relics ḥadīth ![]()
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