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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The Royal Asiatic Society is indebted to the courtesy of the Royal Institute of British Architects for a copy of the article published in its Journal (vol. iv, 3rd ser., Nos. 2 and 3)—a paper read at a meeting of the Society in November last, by Mr. R. Phene Spiers, F.S.A., on the great mosque of Damascus. The paper offers us an historical account of the building, adescription of the surviving vestiges of the old temple, and of the Christian Church of St. John the Baptist, including the well-known Greek inscription over the Southern Gateway, particulars on the conversion of the building into a mosque by the Omayyad Khalīfahal-Walīd, of the changes the mosque has undergone during the past period of well-nigh twelve centuries, and last, though not least, itgives us a careful and minute description of the building as it existed previous to the fire of 1893. Thenumerous plans and drawings with which the paper is illustrated, whilst attractingnotice by their beauty, are of no small assistance to the reader in studying the text.
page 335 note 1 These are the words of Ibn Iyās, not, as may be seen, entirely free from exaggeration.
page 337 note 1 Kur., xlviii, 18.
page 337 note 2 The enclosed space which comprises the miḥrāb, or prayer-niche of a mosque.
page 337 note 3 The designation of al-Ḥaḍratayn refers, I take it, either to Malikshāh and Tutush, or to the Khalifah and Malikshāh.
page 340 note 1 Al-Bondāri, pp. 
. See also Houtsma, Preface, pp. xv, xvi. It will be remembered that the Bāṭinites or Ismailites are the men who were known to the Crusaders under the name of Assassins.
page 340 note 2 See Houtsma, Preface, pp. viii, ix.
page 342 note 1 P. 
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page 343 note 1 Ibn al-Athīr (vol. xi, p. 176) says that Suleymān used to commit the double sin of drinking wine, and of doing so by day, in the fast month of Bamadan.