Religious significance of Umayyad Mosque. (part VII in the series about the Grand Mosque of Damascus)

The mosque had a pre-islamic religious sacredness and it was explained in short under the title ‘History of the Ground’.

Remains of Prophet Yahia (John the Baptist) were incorporated within the mosque. Zayd Ibn al-Waqid, who was the head in chief of the works on the Mosque, discovered the scull of Prophet Yahia in a nearby cave and Caliph al-Walid ordered it to be reburied in one of the Mosque piers known as Amud al-Sakasik. One legend says that when the church was demolished, his head was found underneath, complete with skin and hair. This head is believed by some to possess magical powers and continues to be the focus of the Mandaeans' annual pilgrimage, when they press their foreheads against the metal grill of the shrine and reportedly experience prophetic visions.Today these relics lay in a Maqsura in the eastern half of the sanctuary.

The black and white marble columns that support the dome of al-Nasr (the dome in front of the mihrab) belonged to the throne of Bilqis, the queen of Saba. There are unsubstantiated claims that the mosque contains a stone belonging to the rock which Moses struck and from which 12 fountains erupted. The eastern minaret (called the white minaret or the Minaret of Issa) is believed to be the place where Prophet Issa (Jesus) will descend.

The presence of the original copy of the Quran, one of the three copies the Caliph Uthman compiled directly from the Prophet's Companions’ recitations is another element of religious importance of the Great Ummayyad Mosque.

The Umayyad mosque is considered to be the fourth holiest sanctuary of Islam, after the three Harams of Makkah, al-Madinah, and Jerusalem. Barry Flood quotes in his article ‘Umayyad revivals and Mamluk survivals’ from MJ. Kister, '"You Shall Only Set Out for Three Mosques': A Study of an Early Tradition," Le Musion 82 (1969): 188-89. ‚The sanctity of the mosque, derived largely from its association with the Islamic conquest of Syria, is reflected in a tradition ascribed to the eighth-century traditionist, Sufyan al-Thauri. According to it, the value of one prayer in Mecca is equal to one

hundred thousand prayers anywhere else, in the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina to fifty thousand prayers, in the Aqsa mosque of Jerusalem to forty thousand prayers, and in the Great Mosque of Damascus to thirty thousand prayers‘.