Page:A Moslem seeker after God - showing Islam at its best in the life and teaching of al-Ghazali, mystic and theologian of the eleventh century (IA moslemseekeraft00zwem).pdf/121



ernors, uprisings and riots. In 1068 the great Mosque was set on fire. In 1076 the Seljuk gen erals 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 build ings. 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 com plete the building. " When the wondrous work was finished, the Caliph would not look at the ac counts brought to him on eighteen laden mules, but ordered that they should be burned and thus ad dressed 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 Isa (Jesus), and above a gate, long since closed, is the Greek inscrip tion, " THY KINGDOM, O CHRIST, is AN EVERLAST