The oldest Saracenic structures are in Asia; the next, in Egypt: No sooner had the Arabians subdued Persia than the necessities of sway over a civilized land forced them to become civilized. The rude Omar Must coin moneys, and for this the Sasanians furnished him models. For the reckoning of the year and other factors he employed Persian savants, and, where these did not suffice, Greek Christians. Even the public accounts were kept in Greek until the caliph \Valid at the beginning of the eighth century ordained that they should be in Arabic.
The precursor of Arabian architecture was the tent. Some structures have come down to us from before Mohammed's time. Mecca has in the Kaaba a sanctuary that had been a place of pilgrim age for a long time before his day; Arabian tradition even recounts that Adam made forty pilgrimages there to offer his devotions. What form the structure may have had in Mohammed's time cannot be deter mined. If the form were monumental, it must have been Grecian, since at that period the Greek style had world-wide sway; or it was an echo of the old Persian. After his flight (622 A. D.) Mohammed constructed at Medina a building which served at once as a place of worship and as the residence of his wives. We know nothing of its form; tradition states that it was supported on the trunks of palms.
Christian Occupied by the victorious Arabs became established in Persia and Syria they appropriated to them selves the Christian churches in those places which had been deserted by the inhabitants, and even shared them with the Christians where the latter remained. Thus for seventy years both Christians and Mussnlmans passed through the selfsame door into the Church of St. John the Baptist at Damascus, the eastern part of which church Omar appropriated for the use of the Mohammedans, while he left the western part to the Christians.
Mohammedan Am' iu Syria: the Arabians trace their descent from the patriarchs, since Mohammed upheld the traditions of Judaism, and since even Christ and John the Baptist were counted among the prophets, the cities of Palestine, which were accounted sacred by Jews and Christians, were also reckoned worthy of honor by the Arabians, and, as Palestine had fallen into their power, Omar (63S A. D.) erected a mosque on the site of Solomon's Temple, which, before the Prophet had fixed upon Mecca, had been looked upon by him and his first followers as the place of their devotions. The four chief holy places of the Moham medans were therefore always the Kaaba at Mecca, the Palm at Medina, the Olive at Jerusalem (the Mosque of Omar), and the Eagle at Damascus (St. John the Baptist).
Mosque of caliph Abd-el-Malek built the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem in 688, employing ,Greek architects. The principal part of the existing structure is still adorned with mosaics of that age. (In 1022 '027 the cupola was rebuilt after an earthquake and newly decorated with mosaics; in '187, Saladin adorned the cupola with gilded stucco ornament, and in 1528 windows with pointed arches were inserted, and the archivolts, which before were semicircular, were raised to the pointed form. Brilliant decorations of glazed tiles, stucco ornament, and glass-painting were added at various dates.) Mosque far from the Mosque of Omar, Abd-el-Malek built the Mosque el-Aksa. This was finished in 692, and with numerous later additions and outbuildings now appears as a seven-aisled basilica, many portions of which still recall the Christian works of the period of its erection and the older period of classical architecture.
Mosque of Amru al Old marshal Aniru made a vic torious irruption into Egypt in 643, took the ancient capital, Memphis, and founded there a city which he named Fostat, but which later took the name of Old Cairo. There he built the mosque which still hears his name—a court surrounded by porticoes which are arranged so that there are six rows of arcades upon the side looking toward Mecca, while on the other sides there are one, three, and four respectively. But this also owes its existing condition to the caliphs Abd-el-Malek and Valid at the com mencement of the eighth century.
Church of St. John the _Baptist at Damascus.—After 705, when the caliph \Valid had deprived the Christians of that part of the Church of .St. John the Baptist at Damascus which Omar had left them, he rebuilt it with the aid of artists sent to him from the court of Byzantium. It now formed a three-aisled basilica with a transept, from the centre of which rose a dome the bold spring of which is said to have been a symbol of the eagle. The Holy Place is a small chapel which is famed as the burial place of the head of St. John the Baptist. The materials of the building are Christian, and all the details bespeak the Greek style of the age. The north side opens by a nave into a large rectangular porticoed court. Three minarets are considered the oldest structures of the kind; one of them is named Jesus, because tradition tells us Jesus will upon the last day descend from heaven upon its summit.