They serve for the call to prayers to the present day.

They serve for the call to prayers to the present day.” This state of affairs lasted until al-Walid, after bargaining with the Christians, demolished everything except the outer walls and the corner towers and built the present mosque. The mosque had a court (sahn) , an oblong rectangle, surrounded on three sides by a portico. On the South side was the sanctuary nearly 136 m in length and a litter over 37 m in depth, formed by three arcades running parallel to the south wall.

A broad transept, running from north to south, cut these arcades into two nearly equally halves, each half consisting of 11 arches. Above these arcades was a second tier of small arches, there being two of these small arches to every one of the main arches below. The arched openings were filled with stucco lattices, and must be regarded as windows. The interior was adequately lit, even when the doors of the main arches next to the sahn were closed.

The decoration consisted of marble panelling (some parts of the original panelling exist next to the east entrance) above which ran a golden karmah or vine-scroll frieze, and above that was glass mosaic (fusaifisa) right up to the ceiling.

A considerable amount has survived the three fires of 462/1069, 804/1401, and 1311/1893, and may still be seen under the west portico (over 34 m in length and nearly seven metres high), where the famous panorama of the Barada (the river of Damascus) is in full view. When intact the surface of the fusaifisa must have been greater than in any building in existence! The Great Mosque of Damascus was rightly regarded by medieval Muslims as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Al-Walid also enlarged and rebuilt the great Mosque of Medina in 89/708 wherein the concave mihrab appeared for the first time. Another building due to al-Walid was the audience hall and hammam , known today as Qusair ‘Amrah, in Transjordan. It consists of an audience hall about ten metres square, with two slightly pointed transverse arches supporting three tunnel-vaults. There is a vaulted recess on the side opposite the entrance, with a small vaulted room on either side of it.

A door on the east side gives access to the hammam , which consists of three small rooms successively covered by a tunnel vault, a cross vault, and a dome. The latter was the calidarium , or hot chamber, and under the floor are hypocausts exactly as in a Roman bath.