The Great Mosque of Hama stands about 400 meters west of the citadel. The site held a third-century Roman temple and later a Byzantine church, probably from the sixth century. When it became a mosque is debated. A fourteenth-century historian linked it to the conquest of 636 and 637, but scholars find that implausibly early, and one suggests the late eighth century under the early Abbasids.
It has five domes, two minarets and a domed treasury in the courtyard, with reused Roman and Byzantine stonework. The square minaret is dated by an inscription to 1124, though other sources say 1153. The Mamluks built the octagonal minaret in 1427. The courtyard holds the tombs of two thirteenth-century Ayyubid kings.
The Syrian government almost completely destroyed it in 1982 during the Hama conflict. It was rebuilt by 2001 following the original design, though not every detail is faithful.
Comments