Yalbugha Mosque in Damascus, an Epitaph

The last nail in the coffin of this once proud Mameluke mosque was a decision by the Syrian Awqaf (a ministry charged with the management and upkeeping of religious endowment) to demolish the edifice with the purpose of exploiting its vast area (4500 square meters) for commercial purposes. This travesty was a done deal by the end of 1975 when the last chapter of a 600+ year old book was thus concluded. 

To understand the extent of this loss, a distinction has to be made between a "mosque" and a "great mosque"*. The former is a simple oratory (chapel) to be found in virtually every Muslim quarter whereas the latter is a large and opulent congregational edifice, usually the only one in the city throughout the early Islamic centuries. The prototype of a great mosque in Damascus is unquestionably the Omayyad's. It was to remain one of a kind dominating the spiritual as well as political Damascene landscape for 500 years. The second great mosque was al-Hanabila's in the Salihiyya quarter that was a separate town outside the Syrian metropolis back in 1201-1202 CE, when the edifice was erected. The third great mosque was the Ayyubid al-Tawba (1233-1234 CE), again outside the city walls to the north (Uqayba quarter). Others were to follow such as Tengiz or Tinkiz Mosque (1233-1234 CE) located at what we currently call al-Nasr Street, al-Aqsab, al-Jarrah, etc. in the ever expanding suburbs. 

Yalbugha's was one such great mosque erected outside the city wall to the northwest. The construction works spanned a decade between 1346-1356 and the project was spearheaded at the initiative of Governor Sayf al-Din Yalbugha al-Yahyawi, Damascus viceroy of the Mameluke sultan in Cairo. The location was at the north bank of River Barada, right next to Suq al-Khayl (horses market) and the Citadel. The place is nowadays known as the Marja square but the venerable mosque is no more. 



*A distinction that practically ceased to exist after the Ottoman conquest.




Rihawi, Abdul-Qadir. Yalbugha Mosque in Danascus (Arabic). Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes tome XXIV 1974.

Ernerst Herzfeld. Damascus: Studies in Architecture IV. Ars Islamica 1948.