Evaluating the Dominant Theories on the Genesis of the Mosque Type Dr

The Western interest in studying the artistic patrimony of the Muslim world began as early as the late-nineteenth century. Since then, huge efforts have been made to document, analyse and conserve the gems of Islamic architecture. Nonetheless, mainly drawing on Arabia’s slender architectural heritage in preand early Islamic times, a majority of Western scholars have tended to credit the mosque type to non-Islamic origins. Although most of these theories were put forward about a century ago, they still largely shape the dominant wisdom in Western scholarship. This article tries to look closely into the earliest mosques, particularly those built in the first/seventh century, with the aim of investigating whether and how these mosques were influenced by the local pre-Islamic types. To do so, we will consider the early Arabic sources as well as the findings of the relevant excavation works. It is of interest to note that all hypotheses on the non-Islamic origins of the mosque were too weak to withstand the scrutiny of subsequent research. A typical case in the literature is that a group of scholars adopt a theory which is soon demolished by another group who themselves propose their own that is disproved by a third group and so on. All these views failed to provide convincing answers for such central questions as when, where and how a certain architectural type, or types, inspired the mosque. The stark simplicity of the earliest mosques, and which derived from the simplicity of the Islamic rituals themselves, does not seem to have required, particularly in the earliest phase, the borrowing of any foreign architectural type. Later, the mosque layout, while greatly retaining its distinctive Islamic character, was influenced by some architectural types in the conquered territories. A noted example is the use of transept in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus. The presence of such influences is natural and could well have been dictated by variant climatic conditions, but should not be taken to attribute the mosque type to non-Islamic origins—especially that it was only at a later date when such influences found their way to mosque architecture.


Introduction
The Western interest in studying the artistic patrimony of the Muslim world began as early as the late-nineteenth century.Since then, huge efforts have been made to document, analyse and conserve the gems of Islamic architecture: excavations have been funded; studies and surveys done; photographs taken, methodologies proposed and sketches as well as plans put forth.Nonetheless, mainly drawing on Arabia's slender architectural heritage in pre-and DOI:10.12816/0038057Ziyād's mosque (50/670) was made by Niebuhr who saw it in a ruined condition. 2Later, excavations at the site of the dār al-imāra and the mosque have been made by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities over three seasons, i.e. in 1938, 1953 and 1956. 3Then, Creswell made use of the findings of these excavations, as well as of primary sources, to reconstruct the Umayyad mosque of Kūfa (50/670). 4e Great Umayyad mosque of Damascus (87/706), on the other hand, endured five conflagrations.The first of which took place in 461/1068 and the last was in 1893 in the time of sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd II, to whose reign the actual building (with its columns and general appearance) dates. 5According to a majority of scholars, the mosque continued to retain its original form in spite of the considerable damage and consecutive restorations which it underwent over time. 6On the other hand, most of the Umayyad Aqṣā mosque unluckily collapsed in the aftermath of an earthquake in 130/747-8.The only surviving remnants are the arches, which are supported on marble columns situated to either sides of the copula near the entrance. 7According to Briggs, 'there seems to be little doubt that the lower part of the present walls of the main aisle of the mosque is due to ʿAbd al-Malik, and that the squat marble columns with their stiff Byzantine foliage were taken from Justinian's church.' 8 According to Johns, however, archaeological evidence may be existent for an earlier construction of the Aqṣā mosque (early 40s/660s). 9In addition to these major mosques, recent excavations have presented valuable information on quite a number of smaller mosques which, in many cases, were built in the late Umayyad period.

The mosque in Iraq
The mosque of Baṣra Scholars before K.A.C. Creswell (1879-1974) had argued that there are two types of mosques: the Christian (Syrian) and the Persian (Iraqian), and that the latter derived from the type of the Persian apadānas, namely audience or reception halls in Achaemenid imperial architecture (figs.1, 2 & 3). 10 This argument was resurrected and yet elaborated by Creswell,   who argues that similarity between the Iraqian mosques and the Persian apadānas are represented, alongside the quadrangular layout, in the use of labin, 'mud brick', as well as ājurr, 'kiln-baked brick', stone piers and wooden flat ceilings. 11In order to assess this theory, we need: (first) to keep into account that the similarity of some architectural elements of one building type to those of another should not be safely taken to mean that the former is derived from the latter; (second) to investigate how the first mosques in Iraq looked like in the first/seventh century.
Let us start with the earliest congregational mosque in Iraq, namely the mosque of Baṣra.We know from al-Balādhurī that the houses and mosque of Baṣra were first built of qaṣab, 'reed' in 14/635. 12The mosque was laid out by the general of the conquering army and then governor of Baṣra, ʿUtba b.Ghazwān, who also built a dār imāra, 'ruler's residence' in the vicinity. 13Before the Muslim troops went on a military expedition, they usually took off the reed, bundling them and putting them aside until they came back. 14Based on such accounts, the first Baṣra mosque was too simple and distinctive to be compared to any of the Persian apadānas (fig.1).It was not until the time of Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, ʿUmar's governor in Baṣra (r.17-27/638-648), that the mosque and the dār al-imāra were rebuilt of labin instead of reed. 15For the roof, ʿushb, 'grass' was used. 16The minbar was set in the middle of the mosque. 17In 45/665, under Ziyād b.Abīh, the mosque of Baṣra was greatly enlarged.Two side riwāqs were added. 18Kiln-baked bricks and gypsum plaster (jiṣṣ) were used.Teak was used for the roof, which was supported on five rows of stone columns. 19Later on, Ziyād is said to have repositioned the dār al-imāra so that the minbar was moved to the mosque front. 20The mosque layout, nevertheless, remained greatly distinct from any influences of Persian architecture.
The two cases suggested by Creswell to support his theory on the influence of the apadāna style on mosque architecture were from Qazwīn and Iṣṭakhr.His theory on the latter is largely based on a report from a-Muqaddasī that the congregational mosque at Iṣṭakhr had round columns topped with bovine-headed capitals, and that the building was said to have formerly been a fire temple. 21This assumption of Creswell is profoundly weakened by the fact that al-Muqaddasī himself did not speak of any conversion of an apadāna into mosque, but denoted the reuse of a bull-headed capital that could well be no more than spolia taken from an earlier building.The theory on the apadāna origin of the mosque type is further contested by Ettinghausen and Grabar, who convincingly argued why the mere adoption of the hypostyle outline for the early mosques cannot stand by itself as evidence for such a theory.In this regard, they conclude: 'This was no conscious mutation of the old models of Persian apadānas, Roman fora, or Egyptian temples: it arose rather from the combination of the need for large space in the newly created cities and the availability of disused units of construction like columns'.22The mosque of Kūfa Elie Lambert compared the mosque of Kūfa to the synagogue layout and concluded that the mosque type could have derived from the Jewish Temple.However, it is the very plan which he proposed for the latter that betrays the impracticality of his argument (fig.4). 23As relayed by the sources, the first mosque of Kūfa could not be compared to any existent synagogue.
According to al-Ṭabarī, the mosque's quadrangular layout was marked out, at Saʿd's command, by four arrow-shots at four right angles. 24According to traditions, the dimensions of the mosque were gigantic; the caliph ʿUmar asked Saʿd to plan the mosque so that it should accommodate all the Muslim conquerors and new settlers.It was thus built to accommodate 40.000 congregants. 25According to al-Ṭabarī, a ẓulla, 'portico', was built in the front of the mosque and an area of an arrow-cast (400 cubits or 184.8 m) in width was left free at the mosque's four sides. 26This ẓulla, 200 cubits long, was supported upon marble columns in the form of those of the Roman churches. 27These columns were taken from churches without side arcades owned by Kisra, 'the Persian King'. 28It should be noted, however, that the reported use of such antique columns did not make the mosque of Kūfa a Persian building, even if the architect too was reportedly a Persian.
Based on al-Ṭabarī's account, Creswell assumed that the ẓulla was open on all sides. 29Unlike synagogues, it had no side or rear arcades.The mosque first had no enclosure walls; rather a trench was dug around its proper so that it would not be encroached by further building (fig.5). 30The square courtyard (murabbaʿa) was dedicated for the people's assemblies so that congestions would be avoided. 31The house of Saʿd, which was still standing in the time of Ibn al-Athīr and known as the Qaṣr al-Kūfa, 'the Palace of Kūfa', was connected to the mosque forming a united ensemble. 32This complex was made of ajurr, 'fired bricks' taken from the ruins of a palace attributed to the Persian kings and located in the outskirts of Ḥīra. 33Later in 50/670, the mosque was built by Ziyād b.Abīh, 34 who provided it with two side arcades and a back. 35The bayt al-ṣalāt, 'sanctuary' was composed of five aisles each, while the other riwāqs were made of two aisles each. 36 Yūsuf al-Thaqafī in the middle of Iraq in 83 or 84/703-4. 37According to Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, 38 the mosque was a square-shaped building. 39The qibla wall was 200 cubits long.The bayt alṣalāh was composed of five aisles of equal widths except for the one next to the miḥrāb.
There were 19 vertical aisles of different widths.The widest is the one facing the miḥrāb. 40e back and side riwāqs were one aisle each. 41is puts the mosque of Wāsiṭ in clear association with the other mosques of the early Muslim world.Most of these followed what was later known as the Arab plan, mainly composed of an open courtyards surrounded by four porticoes.In Iraq, as well as in other newly captured territories, the earliest Muslims had, indeed, no time to imitate foreign architectural types, even had they had the willingness to do so.So too in the case of the primitive mosque which was soon put up in the newly conquered Sassanian capital.
According to Ibn al-Faqīh, the first mosque to have been built of sawād, 'twigs and shrubs' was the mosque of al-Madāʾin, or Ctesiphon, which was built by Saʿd and his comrades.
Later, it was expanded and built in a better way by Hudhyfa b. al-Yamān (d.36/656).It was followed by the mosque of Kūfa and that of Anbār. 42However, Hillenbrand states, 'the architectural vocabulary of these early mosques brought further scope for diversity.In the first half-century of Islamic architecture, the system of roofing was still primitive, and even when columns and roof-beams had replaced palm-trunks and thatching, the basic scheme remained trabeate (Baṣrah; Kūfah; and Wāsiṭ, 83/702) whether the roof was flat or pitched'. 43e mosque in Bilād al-Shām The Aqṣā mosque The architectural type of the mosque, in its mature form, has been also considered by some as a descent from that of the church. 44Building on the multilateral arrangement of most mosques, E. Lambert, for example, argued that the Aqṣā mosque was a descent from the church design. 45This judgment of Lambert is based on a comparison between the church layout and the Umayyad Aqṣā mosque.It is, thus, significant for this discussion to cast light on the Aqṣā mosque when it was first built.The first mosque here is attributed to the Caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb when Jerusalem capitulated to him in 16/637.On authority of al-Ṭabarī, after ʿUmar identified the location of the Holy Rock, he cleaned it and then consulted Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, a knowledgeable Companion, about the right place to lay his mosque out. 46While this represents evidence from Arabic sources that ʿUmar built a mosque in Bayt al Maqdis, our information on the mosque is mainly taken from a non-Muslim contemporary eyewitness.
According to Arculf, 47 a Frankish bishop who came from Britain to visit Jerusalem in around 670, 'In that famous place where the Temple once stood, near the [city] was on the east, the Saracens [an appellation of the Muslims in the West] now frequent an oblong house of prayer which they pieced together with upright planks and large beams over some ruined remains.It is said that the building can hold up to three thousand people.' 48Caetani's argument that the mosque of ʿUmar rested on the ruins of the church of the Virgin Mary and that it was raised on the platform of Herod's Temple is not supported by any evidence, whether textual or material. 49This account of Arculf, who visited Jerusalem only thirty-three years after its conquest by the Muslims, stands as a compelling evidence for the existence of early custom-built mosques.This means that the Muslims did not generally capture the churches of Jerusalem to use as places for Muslim prayer, as believed by some.Rather, they preferred to erect mosque for this purpose. 50ter the works of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, the Aqṣā mosque was rebuilt in the Umayyad period. 51The mosque itself, combined with other memorials and structures, is part of a grander complex called al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf, which-as maintained by Briggs-still 'represents very nearly the same aspect as when it was laid out by ʿAbd al-Malik'. 52There are two theories regarding to whom the Umayyad reconstruction of the Aqṣā mosque should be attributed.According to a majority of early historians and geographers, it was rebuilt by ʿAbd al-Malik b.Marwān in 65/685.Others believe that it is due to al-Walīd (87/706). 53More recently, Julian Raby, shared later by Hamilton, has attributed the first building of the Umayyad Aqṣā mosque to caliph Muʿāwiya in the early 40s/660s. 54Whoever the builders of the Umayyad mosque was, it was later struck by an earthquake, which destroyed the mughaṭṭā, 'roofed part'.The mosque was, therefore, rebuilt in the Abbasid period. 55 the Umayyad period, the Aqṣā mosque was a rectangular structure composed of an axial nave surmounted by a high wooden dome sheathed with lead.It was flanked with six bays, three on each side. 56Based on a short statement of al-Muqaddasī, 57 Rivoira assumed that the mosque had a T-shaped plan formed by a central nave upheld upon arches resting on isolated piers, and that it had a dome over the miḥrāb. 58Rivoira attempted to use this interpretation to support his theory that the origins of the mosque are to be sought in the Christian architecture in Armenia and the Iberian Peninsula.Nevertheless, a more recent study by Hamilton revealed that in the Umayyad period such a central nave never existed and thus demolished Rivoira's theory (fig.6). 59 60 Creswell's study of this supreme Islamic monument digested almost all previous relevant work. 61He described the structure as 'an annular building and consists in its ultimate analysis of a wooden dome 20.44 m' (fig.7). 62 fact, many aspects coalesced to portray the building-at the time of its foundation-a part of a theological as well as political confrontation between Islam on one side and Judaism and Christianity on another.These aspects are, in addition to the layout of Dome of the Rock itself, the inscriptions on its walls and the mosaics and coins from the time of ʿAbd al-Malik and some historical accounts on the Byzantine emperor Heraclius contemplating upon converting to Islam.F. Shāfiʿī, however, argues that we should not try to generate from the unique case of the Dome of the Rock indiscriminate judgments. 63Shāfiʿī also mentions that the people who lived in Syria at the time of building the Umayyad mosque were mainly of Arabic descent and that when the Dome of the Rock was being built in 72/691, the Syrian population had mainly consisted of Muslims who were either converts or migrants. 64   This is, however, backed by neither textual nor archaeological evidence.Creswell himself admitted that the type of the Umayyad mosque is not comparable to that of any of the Syrian churches.Sauvaget states that the type of the Umayyad mosque is at total odds with the church that once existed in the very location.Nor could it be argued that the church type provided the origins of mosque in general for quite a number of mosques had already been built before the Umayyad mosque.
Even if we accept that the Umayyad mosque was built after the fashion of the church, there is no evidence that other Syrian mosques too followed the church type.Nor could it be argued that such a Christian architectural type, which is said to have exerted influence on the Umayyad mosque, represented the origins of mosque in general, for quite a number of mosques had already been built before the Umayyad mosque.The Umayyad mosque, in particular, was not a straight continuation of the mosques built before it.Nor did it 65 Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra, p. 78. 66Creswell, E.M.A., I. 1. 187-96.
have any influence on the following mosques.
With the exception of the southern wall, which is believed to have been existent even before the Arab conquest of Syria, the whole mosque was built in the time of al-Walīd. 67 is said that al-Walīd wanted to build the mosque with columns without arcades (isṭiwānāt ilā-l-ṭaqāt), just as he did to the mosque of the Prophet.Yet, one of the architects advised him that the roof should rest on arches so that no much pressure would be exerted on the columns. 68According to J. M. Bloom and S. Blair, 'the building does retain much of its original appearance, though it has been damaged, especially in the great fire in 1893.' 69 There is belief amongst a majority of scholars that the actual mosque presents the plan of al-Walīd, 70 and that many parts of the masonry date to his time. 71 the time of al-Walīd, the mosque was a rectangle 160 х 100 m.The bayt al-ṣalāh, whose roof was 11 m.high, consisted of three aisles.The ṣaḥn was surrounded from the other three directions by single-aisled riwāq.The sanctuary had four miḥrābs, the central one of which, and that was not set in the middle of the qibla wall, was connected to the ṣaḥn by means of a wide central nave (22 m. wide). 72Above the bay of the miḥrāb rose three cupolas: one connected to the wall, which surrounded the ṣaḥn, another connected to the miḥrāb to emphasize its significance, 73 and a third one located in between (fig.8). 74Al-Walīd's architects retained the four observation towers at the corner of the older Roman Temenos and used them as minarets. 75According to al-ʿUmarī, the columns were surmounted by arches pierced with small ṭaqāt (recesses or windows).Between each two of them, was a marble pillar or a column. 76Al-Walīd made the roof of the Umayyad mosque in the form of gables whose interiors were adorned with gold. 77To the present, geometric patterns of interlaced circles and other ribbed and lobed patterns can be seen in the Roman part of the Umayyad mosque. 78he church of St. John the Baptist.It is expressly stated by renowned historians, such as Ibn ʿAsākir and Ibn Jubayr, that the church, or a part of it, was appropriated by Walīd to build his mosque.79 This theory, however, has been systematically demolished by Rivoira and Creswell both from historical as well as archaeological perspectives. 80  mosaics. 85is account on the employment of non-Muslim workers in the Umayyad reconstruction of the Prophet's mosque is usually taken by many as evidence for foreign influences on mosque architecture.Nonetheless, the reported design of the Umayyad structure of the Madina (fig.10) mosque proves a direct evolution of the Arab plan that had been already adopted for the mosque by ʿUmar and ʿUthmān and before them by the Prophet himself.There is also historical evidence that the majority of workers, masons and craftsmen who were involved in the Umayyad reconstruction of the mosque were local Arabs, who were also supervised by an Arab architect, Ṣāliḥ b.Kaysān. 86gure 10: Plan of the Prophet's mosque in the time of al-Walīd (Fikrī, 1963)   The mosque in North Africa The mosque of Kairouan (50/670, rebuilt in 84/703 and in 105/723) Some scholars maintained that the type of the mosque, particularly in the Western part of the Muslim world, derived from the Roman basilicas, or reception halls.In his Moslem Architecture, Richmond posited that the mosque evolved from Roman and Byzantine architecture. 87Sauvaget, who already contested the argument that mosque design was based on the church type, accepted and further elaborated on the above theory that the origins of the mosque is to be found in the Roman Basilicas.His contention is that the mosque was used for many purposes, particularly as a formal and public meeting-place, rather than an exclusive place of worship. 88Meanwhile, Georges Marçais et alii suggested that the design of the Kairouan mosque, in particular, derived from some churches of the Byzantine part of Africa, such as Damous el-Karita in Cartagena. 89fore looking into the mosque of Kairouan in the first/seventh century and whether it was similar to Roman and/Christian basilicas, we should note that early Christian basilicas, particularly in Italy and Syria, was mainly a rectangle with a wide central nave running the middle, terminating with an altar and flanked with equally-sized aisles.In most cases, the basilica was preceded by an atrium-sometimes a narthex (fig.12).It is noteworthy that this type, having materialized only two centuries before the rise of Islam, had no influence on the mosque type over the first ten centuries.It was not until the Ottoman period that some influence existed. 90The difficulty for the church with atrium, notwithstanding its perceived eligibility, to have inspired the mosque in its early phase has already been noted by J.
Johns. 91It is noteworthy here that the Christian (or genus) basilica was formerly suggested by van Berchem to have inspired the mosques at Jerusalem and Damascus. 92e mosque of Kairouan was first put up by ʿUqba b.Nāfiʿ when he marked out (ikhtaṭṭa) the city in 50-5/670-670.In the beginning, the mosque was no more than a space enclosed by a thick wall of labin.We do not have adequate description of the bayt ṣalāh or any other component.In 80/694, the mosque was renewed by Ḥassān b. al-Nuʿmān, 93 who was ʿAbd al-Malik's ruler of the Maghreb.According to al-Bakrī, the whole mosque but the miḥrāb was pulled down and rebuilt by Ḥassān who provided it with two red columns, spotted with yellow, from an ancient church. 94The anonymous author of Kitāb al-Istibṣār added that these two columns on which the dome is supported faced the miḥrāb. 95is is the only aspect that links the Kairouan mosque to church architecture, and it has palpably nothing to do with plan or layout.In view of our slight information on what the mosque looked like during the first/seventh century, scholars' attempts to propose reconstructed plans of the mosque are only assumptions that are based on neither archaeological nor historical evidence. 96Adequate information is, however, available about the mosque when it was rebuilt in 105/723 by Bishr b.Ṣafwān, at command of the caliph Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik (fig.11). 97After such a review, it becomes quite clear that Roman/Hellenistic architecture did not exert any direct impact upon Islam architecture, taken together.This, however, happened through loans from the Byzantine style, but was more mainly restricted to the use of architectural elements.It never surpassed that to have any substantial effect on design or layout.years afterwards, this hypothesis of Saladin was supported by Louis Hautecoeur and Gaston Wiet. 99 For a number of particulars, Saladin's theory does not seem to be well argued.First, and for considerations related to geographical convenience, it is the earliest mosques of Egypt, not Tunisia, that should rather be considered if a link between the mosque and the Pharaonic temple is to be theorized.Second, and for temporal aspects, it is the first/seventh century mosques that needs to be discussed.This is further challenged by the rarity of our information on the Egyptian mosques in that early period, i.e. the first century AH.
The only salient exception is the mosque of ʿAmr at Fusṭāṭ.Nevertheless, our information of the mosque in the first/seventh century is based on historical rather than   the Aqṣā mosque, whichin turn-was a descent from the church design, where the use of multi-aisles was the ruling architectural element. 103Lambert produced a modified plan for a section of the Cordoba mosque to prove his theory.Five years later, he contested the theories about the church origin of the mosque type and indicated, based on the well-defined discrepancy between the Muslim and Christian rituals, the difference between the mosque components and their counterparts in church architecture.Instead, Lambert tentatively argued a similarity between the mosque and the synagogue and maintained that the minbar in the mosque is comparable to the bimah (or bema), which is a platform from which the Torah is read out in the synagogue.
There is, in fact, neither textual nor archaeological evidence that the early Arabs used to build their mosques after the style of churches.That being said, the case of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, more than others, received much attention from scholars, given the historical accounts that it was built on ruins of the church of St. John the Baptist.Creswell himself admitted that the type of the Umayyad mosque could not be compared to any of the Syrian churches.A noted difference between the mosque and the church is that, while the plan of the former usually lays architectural emphasis on width, the latter does so with depth.In the mosque, the qibla wall usually attains more than 100 m. long.There is no archaeological evidence for a church whose court is 136 m. long (and which is the length of the qibla wall in the Umayyad mosque). 104The front wall of any pre-Islamic church, on the other hand, was definitely less than the shortest qibla wall in any of the above mosques.
Further, the length of the front wall of any of these churches is 'by far' less than that of the side walls of the same church. 105 is from the very start that the earliest Muslims wanted their places of prayer to be different from foreign architectural types.They continued to observe such a scheme even after the Islamic state took the guise of an empire.The reported conversion, whether partial or complete, of some churches into mosque upon the earliest conquests was a short-term practise to meet the importunate need for a place of worship and a headquarters.The earliest Muslims, it seems, were not interested to copy the architectural styles they found in the conquered lands.They only used them as a matter of expedience and impermanency.
This seems to have been done on purpose.According Eutychius: 'ʿUmar visited the Basilica of Constantine and prayed at the top of the flight of steps leading up to the entrance, after which he went to Bethlehem and prayed in the southern apse of the Church of Nativity'. 106mar is said to have refused to pray in the church itself as he was concerned that such a practice of him, albeit intrinsically spontaneous, would be taken by later people as a legal foundation to convert churches into mosques. 107 the course of time, and particularly under the Umayyads, it was natural for some elements of the mosque to be influenced by the architectural types of the conquered lands.
This, nonetheless, did not give the mosque the character of an Islamised church, synagogue, fire temple, etc.We should here differentiate between two meanings for architecture: one as how space is to be designed; the other as how space to be occupied.In this article, the discussion has been focused on the former meaning.The borrowing of some architectural elements from non-Muslim types, on the other hand, and that is supported by material evidence, is natural and not decisive for architectural personality.Let us take the parallelism between the miḥrāb in the mosque and the ark in the church or the synagogue as a telling example.Praying towards a certain direction has had its unique impact on the mosque institutional and architectural features.Some scholars, such as Abraham Geiger, Edward Hirschfield and Horowitz, argue that the qibla sign in the mosque is inspired by the ark in the

Figure 6 :
Figure 6: Jerusalem, Hamilton's (1949) plan of the Marwānīd Aqṣā mosque (Johns 1999) different from the Byzantine architecture in Syria and elsewhere.The architectural style of the Dome of the Rock could, accordingly, have been derived from the Byzantine type, but then modified to suit the purpose for which it was erected, namely to commemorate the Holy Rock.65

Figure 7 :
Figure 7: Jerusalem, plan of the Dome of the Rock (Choisy, 1899)The Great Umayyad mosque in Damascus(87/706)   Mainly arguing from some medieval accounts stating that the mosque of Damascus was built on the ruins of the church of St. John the Baptist, quite a number of academics argued that the type of the mosque derived from the Syrian churches.Creswell, while contesting the idea that the Umayyad mosque was built on the foundations of an older church, maintained that the Umayyad mosque and other mosques in Syria at the time derived from the Syrian churches, drawing mainly from the style of the three-way arrangement of the bayt al-ṣalāh.66 It is further argued by Ḥ. Muʾnis that the area of the Jupiter Temple was not entirely occupied by the footprint of the later Church of St. John the Baptist (fig.9).Muʾnis assumes that the Muslims, having seen the vastness of the ancient Temple (which by then was dilapidated) wished to take advantage of the debris which included readily-cut stones, marble and a spacious paved floor.Later on, the masons of ʿAbd al-Malik thought that they could turn the whole edifice into a mosque and so they made a deal with the Christians according to which the latter were compensated with a new bigger church.81

Figure 11 :Figure 12 :
Figure 11: Plan of the great mosque in the time of Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik in 105/723 (Keith Turner after George Michell, 1995) archaeological evidence.Due to numeral successive enlargements and additions, the mosque in its actual form represents a problem as far as dating is concerned.The oldest parts of today's mosque are attributed to ʿAbd Allāh b.Ṭāhir, the ʿAbbāsid emir who pulled down an earlier structure of the mosque and rebuilt it in 212/827 by command of the caliph al-Maʾmūn.100When first built in 21/641-2, however, the mosque was no more than a simple cubic structure, putting it in no link whatsoever with either the Ancient Egyptian or Chaldean temples.Its dimensions (50 x 30 cubits) would have housed a maximum of 700 worshippers.It is true that the mosque underwent a series of improvements and expansions under the Umayyads and later under the Abbasids, but its layout has always retained the Arab plan (fig.13).The mosque of ʿAmr, just like other early mosques in Egypt such as Ibn Ṭulūn and al-Azhar, are mainly composed an open courtyard surrounded by four porticoes.101The dominant constituent elements of a typical Ancient Egyptian temple, on the other hand, are forecourts, massive pylons peristyle halls, and quite a large covered section usually occupied by sanctuaries and shrines for the exclusive use of royalties and priests (fig.14).

Figure 14 :
Figure 14: Plan of the temple of Amon at the Karnak complex in Luxor (Baines and Malek, 2002)
61Creswell's study about the Dome of the Rock was preceded by that of Mauss, Revnue Archéologique, 3rd series, XII, p. 18; Richmond's The Dome of the Rock; Walker; 'Kubbat al-Ṣakhra', in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, II, p. 1089.This is in addition to the works of van Berchem, Lammens, Fergusson and others.62Creswell,E.M.A., I. I, pp 68.63Shāfiʿī, ʿImāra, p. 75.64Ibid.