Great Mosque of Aleppo
الجامع الأموي الكبير بحلب
An Umayyad-era mosque at the entrance to Aleppo's Old City souks, known for its Seljuk-era minaret destroyed in 2013, part of the UNESCO-listed Old City of Aleppo.
The Great Umayyad Mosque of Aleppo (also known simply as the Great Mosque) is a historic mosque at the entrance to Aleppo's covered Old City souks. Tradition attributes its founding to the Umayyad Caliph al-Walid I in the early 8th century, as a sister mosque to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, though the structure standing today is the result of repeated rebuilding and restoration over the centuries.
The mosque was renowned for its freestanding, square-based stone minaret, built in 1090 during the Seljuk period and decorated with intricate geometric bands and Kufic inscriptions, considered one of the finest examples of medieval Islamic minaret architecture in the region. This minaret was destroyed in 2013.
The mosque stands in the al-Jalloum district of Aleppo's Ancient City near the entrance to the Souq al-Madina. Some accounts attribute it to the caliph Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik (715–717), though the present building dates from the 11th to the 14th centuries. In the second half of the 11th century the Mirdasids built a single-domed fountain in its courtyard. The 45-metre minaret at the north-west corner was built by Aleppo's qadi Abu'l-Hasan Muhammad in 1090 under the Seljuk governor Aq Sunqur al-Hajib and finished in 1094 under Tutush; its architect was Hasan ibn Mufarraj al-Sarmini.
The mosque also houses a shrine traditionally believed to hold relics attributed to the prophet Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, which is widely venerated.
The Old City of Aleppo, including the Great Umayyad Mosque, is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1986.
Through the ages
Umayyad: Tradition attributes its founding to Caliph al-Walid I in the early 8th century CE
Abbasid: The freestanding stone minaret was built in 1090 CE
For the visitor
Location: 36.1995, 37.1569 · Open on the map
Photos
Photos: Vyacheslav Argenberg — via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY)
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