The Great Mosque of Damascus: Revisiting a Monument of Early Islam

The Great Mosque of Damascus is an iconic monument of world architecture, and the old mosque still stands in a state closer to its original state. It was built at the end of the first Islamic century on a site previously occupied by a Roman temple of Jupiter and a church of John the Baptist. This lecture explores this pre-Islamic past, the political crisis that erupted with Damascene Christians upon the foundation of the mosque, and the aesthetic values that underpinned the Umayyad monument.

Speaker:
Dr. Alain Fouad George
I.M. Pei Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture
University of Oxford