Just a few days after the liberation of Syria, leading to the end of the Assad rule, in December last year, humanitarian worker Saadettin Muvakit fell upon a sorry sight: the neglected state of the symbolic heritage site of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
“Its condition was catastrophic, from the bathrooms to the foul smell of the carpets. The situation was bad,” Saadettin told The New Arab.
Originally from Aleppo, Saadettin is the CEO of HAND (Human Aid and Development), a US-registered NGO founded in 2019 with the mission of providing support and shelter to underserved communities in Syria and Lebanon.
The organisation has completed a Herculean maintenance plan for the Umayyad Mosque, considered Syria’s oldest mosque, which dates back to the 8th century.
“I spoke with the imam of the mosque about what was needed, and he said that there were no employees to maintain the place,” Saadettin continued.
“We studied the mosque and thought of how we could restore its beauty in a way that anyone who wants to visit the ‘New Syria’ would experience it through this civilisational monument.”
The mosque’s long-lasting legacy
A rectangular structure with detailed architectural elements, the Umayyad Mosque was constructed between 705 and 715 CE, at the behest of Caliph Al-Walid I, on the site of a former Byzantine church. Featuring a wide and open courtyard, the stone mosque is also known for its golden mosaic friezes.
“The person who built the mosque had a great vision of building something the size of a shopping mall in today’s context. There was a strategic vision of leaving behind a long-lasting legacy that endures to this day. The Umayyad Mosque is the epicentre for Syrians in all of Syria. No one comes to Syria without visiting the Umayyad Mosque as their first stop in Damascus.”
Working hand-in-hand with the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums and the Ministry of Islamic Endowments, the NGO’s team began on-site operations in early January, which continued for nearly two months until the start of Ramadan.
According to Saadettin, the plan cost around $300,000, which was funded by the organisation itself. With the help of 45 workers and volunteers, the NGO’s team addressed five main sectors of upgrading the mosque: electricity, water, security, cleanliness, and infrastructure.
With 45 workers and volunteers, the NGO team upgraded the mosque’s electricity, water, security, cleanliness, and infrastructure [Photo courtesy of HAND]
The mosque upgrade plan cost approximately $300,000 [Photo courtesy of HAND]
Prior to the NGO’s involvement, the mosque was being filled with piles of waste – its lighting was faulty, its Qur’ans were dirty, observed Saadettin.
Some parts of the mosque were also exposed to stored water, which could lead to damage if it came into contact with electricity. He believes that the mosque was intentionally being neglected.
“It’s as if the mosque’s history was being buried inside of it,” he noted. “I think the previous regime was striving to bury the old history of Syria and for people to be attached only to the regime’s history. Syria’s history is important, but we are not attached to it in the same way that, for example, Palestinians are to Jerusalem and their own history.”
The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, the oldest surviving stone mosque, was built between 705 and 715 CE by Umayyad Caliph al-Walid I [Photo courtesy of HAND]
The maintenance plan was a much-needed facelift, involving several minor and major challenging tasks, such as removing tonnes of waste, installing fire extinguishers and more than 100 security cameras, renewing bathrooms, providing running water for fountains and ablution areas, restoring solar panels, changing the lightbulbs (some of which were last touched in a restoration plan carried out in 1994), perfuming spaces with a system of fresh scents and bakhoor, providing new shoe racks for visitors, untangling and organising electricity cables, as well as painting interior and exterior walls.
Ongoing efforts to restore
One of the highlights of the plan, which was met with some controversy online, was the replacement of the interior carpets in the mosque.
Previously, the interior carpets were provided by Qatar in the early 2000s. According to Saadettin, the new red-coloured wool carpets were made in Turkey but were paid for by the Syrian government. It took 30 workers three sleepless nights to roll out the carpets, ensuring everything was ready for Ramadan.
Saadettin says that more work needs to be done and hopes that, in the future, plans will be made to restore the old artworks of the mosque, as well as to implement a modern sound system and improve its solar panel system.
He has also confirmed that HAND is now managing maintenance operations at the mosque. For the team, restoring the mosque and making it more accessible to Syrians and foreigners, whether they follow Islam or not, has been an eye-opening and humbling experience.
“The mosque is a magical place. You can sit there for a whole day without feeling how time is passing by,” he said.
“You can see all of Syria and its people of different sects and backgrounds in the mosque, which is a beautiful thing. I recall a time when a 70-year-old woman approached me, telling me that she hadn’t entered the mosque in 20 years.
“The number of people who recently visited the mosque was overwhelming, not because of our efforts, but truthfully, all the work that has been done to the mosque made people feel that the mosque had been returned to them. It belongs to them.”
Rawaa Talass is a freelance journalist focusing on art and culture emerging from the Middle East. Her work has been published in Art Dubai, Arab News, Al Arabiya English, Artsy, The Art Newspaper, Kayhan Life, Dubai Collection, and The National
Follow her on Instagram: @byrawaatalass