AtlasIslamica

Great Mosque of Aleppo

Housing the remains of Hz. Zakariyyah عليه اسلام, father of Hz. Yahya عليه اسلام, Great Mosque of Aleppo is the largest and one of the oldest mosques in the ancient city of Aleppo

Aleppo, Syria

Coordinates: 36.199492, 37.156911

The Great Mosque of Aleppo or the Banu Umayya Mosque of Aleppo is the largest and one of the oldest mosques in the city of Aleppo, Syria.

It is located in al-Jalloum district of the Ancient City of Aleppo, a World Heritage Site, near the entrance to Al-Madina Souq.

The mosque is home to the remains of Prophet Hz. Zakariyyah عليه اسلام, father of Hz. Yahya عليه اسلام, both of whom are revered in Islam and Christianity.

The tomb containing the remains of Prophet Hz. Zakariyyah عليه اسلام, decorated with silver embroideries containing Quranic verses from the chapter of Mariyam, was located in the center of the room.

The museum’s number of valuable objects, including a box purportedly containing a strand of the Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ hair, were subject to looting during the Syrian War in the 2013 clash. However, rebels claimed they had instead salvaged ancient handwritten Koranic manuscripts and hidden them.

The Mosque was built in the beginning of the 8th century CE. However, the current building dates back to the 11th through 14th centuries.

The mosque today on an area of ​​land with a length of 105 meters from east to west, and a width of approximately 77.75 meters from the south to the north, which is much like the scheme and model of the Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.

The minaret was built in 1090, and was destroyed during fighting in the Syrian civil war in April 2013.

There’s a large courtyard with nice lamps on the side and limited, but nice coloured stone decoration of some of the wall in the direction of the mihrab.