DamascusPrayer Times in Damascus, Dimashq

Damascus served as the capital of the Umayyad caliphate from 661 to 750 CE, the period in which Islamic rule extended from the Atlantic to the Indus and the basic institutions of the early caliphate took form. At its heart stands the Umayyad Mosque, completed by the caliph al-Walid I in 715 CE on the site of a Byzantine basilica that had itself replaced a temple of Jupiter; its prayer hall, gilded mosaics, and shrine traditionally identified as containing the head of John the Baptist (Yahya) make it one of the oldest continuously used mosques in the world. The city was also a major center of hadith scholarship and Sufi learning under the Ayyubids and Mamluks, and the chronicler and theologian Ibn Taymiyya is buried here. Damascus today retains a dense old-city fabric of mosques, madrasas, and hammams, and despite the recent war its mosque culture, Quranic recitation circles, and Friday gatherings continue.