Much has been written about this work of al-Walīd. In 1893 a great fire destroyed it, and what we see today is a new building, though it keeps the body of the outer walls and follows inside the model of the old building. The Bonfils photographs (attached) reflect the situation before the fire. When Herzfeld saw it for the first time in 1903, it was under construction. Van Berchem had studied it in 1893, right before the fire, and then in 1894, immediately after; his notes, together with unpublished notes of René Dussaud, taken about the same time, are today the main material for the study of the prehistory of the mosque. The problem is infinitely complicated by the circumstance that already the church did not belong to any normal type but was entirely exceptional, just as were the main sanctuaries of the other great Syrian towns, Ḥimṣ, Ḥamā, Aleppo, all antique temples, first converted into churches, then into mosques.
Ernst Herzfeld. Damascus, Studies in Architecture IV. Ars Islamica XIII-XIV 1948 (p. 118-138).
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