Al-Walid I: the caliph who built Damascus’s Great Mosque and the city of Anjar

In the early eighth century, Damascus was the capital of an empire reaching the greatest extent in its history. From this city, Walid ibn Abdul Malik (al-Walid I) ruled from 705 to 715. Historians remember his reign chiefly for its construction: the Umayyad Great Mosque of Damascus, the rebuilding of the mosque in Medina, the planned city of Anjar in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, and wells along the roads.

Early life

Walid was the eldest son of the Umayyad caliph Abdul Malik ibn Marwan. According to the German historian Julius Wellhausen, his mother was named Wallada. He was born in the 670s; accounts differ on the exact year. Abdul Malik named him first successor in his own lifetime. His brothers Sulaiman and Yazid were next in line after him.

Accession and empire

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Walid became caliph without difficulty after his father’s death in October 705.

During his reign the Umayyad state stretched from Sindh and Transoxiana in the east to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) in the west. In the words of the British historian William Muir, his command ran from the borders of China and the banks of the Indus to the Atlantic.

The Umayyad Great Mosque of Damascus

Walid’s most famous monument is the Great Mosque of Damascus, also called the Umayyad Mosque. According to Britannica, it was built between 705 and 715 and is the oldest surviving stone mosque. According to UNESCO, it was built on the site of an ancient Roman temple, parts of whose walls can still be seen in the city.

According to Britannica, the mosque complex is about 157 metres long and 100 metres wide. A large open courtyard lies at its centre, surrounded by an arcade of arches on slender columns. On the south side, the large prayer hall runs the full length of the complex and is divided into three long aisles by rows of columns and arches. A transept cuts across the aisles in the middle, topped by an octagonal dome that was originally made of wood. The windows of the south wall have marble grilles, which Britannica describes as the earliest example of geometric interlace in Islamic architecture.

The mosque’s walls were once covered with mosaic work spread over more than an acre, depicting an imaginary landscape. According to Britannica, only parts of this work survive. The mosque was badly damaged in Timur’s attack in 1401 and was later rebuilt. A fire damaged it again in 1893.

UNESCO calls the mosque a masterpiece of Umayyad architecture. According to it, the layout of Damascus was based on the straight streets of the Greek and Roman periods, and the presence of the Great Mosque at its centre made Damascus a model for later Arab cities.

Medina and other construction

According to Wellhausen, Walid had a particular fondness for putting up buildings of every kind and for settling and developing rural estates, and this fondness spread to his close circle. Citing the early historian al-Baladhuri, Wellhausen writes that Walid had the mosque in Medina completely rebuilt. His cousin Umar ibn Abdul Aziz was then governor of the Hejaz. According to Muir, Walid visited Medina in 91 AH (709-710) and inspected the building work in detail with Umar.

Anjar: a planned city

The ruins of Anjar in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley are a unique monument of Walid’s reign. According to UNESCO, the city was founded by Caliph Walid I in the early eighth century. It stood at the junction of two important trade routes: one ran from Beirut to Damascus, and the other crossed the Bekaa Valley from Homs to Tiberias.

According to UNESCO, the city was a rectangle of about 385 metres by 350 metres, surrounded by a wall with forty towers. A main street running north to south and a smaller one running east to west divided the city into four equal parts, with large drainage channels beneath the streets. The caliph’s great palace and the mosque were in the south-eastern part. The city was never completed and was abandoned after 744. Its ruins were discovered by archaeologists in the late 1940s and are now on the World Heritage List.

Charity, roads and markets

Citing al-Tabari, Wellhausen writes that Walid fixed allowances for lepers, the blind and the disabled so that they would not have to beg. According to Muir, he made provision for the elderly, the blind and the lame, and set up schools and infirmaries. Modern scholars differ on whether this was a proper hospital or a charitable institution for the disabled and the sick.

According to Muir, Walid often visited the markets himself and encouraged crafts and decorative work so much that people took an interest in them. Roads were built across the empire and wells were dug at suitable distances for the convenience of travellers.

Administration and agriculture

According to Wellhausen, Arabic replaced Coptic in the government office in Egypt during Walid’s reign, carrying forward work begun by his father. On agriculture, Wellhausen writes that the reclamation of the marshy lower lands of the Tigris and Euphrates advanced after Muawiya, particularly in the reigns of Walid and Hisham. Walid allowed his brother Maslama to rebuild the broken embankments there at his own expense.

Death

According to Wellhausen, Walid died on a Saturday in the middle of Jumada al-Thani 96 AH, which corresponds to 23 February 715. He died on the outskirts of Damascus. According to Wellhausen he was then about forty, while Muir gives his age as forty-five. He ruled for about ten years and, in accordance with his father’s will, was succeeded by his brother Sulaiman.

Legacy

The greatest mark of Walid’s reign is the Umayyad Great Mosque of Damascus, which still stands at the centre of the city after thirteen centuries and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site together with the ancient city. The ruins of Anjar are the clearest example of Umayyad urban planning, and UNESCO calls them a unique testimony to the eighth-century city plan. These buildings clearly show the transition from the Roman and Byzantine building tradition to early Islamic architecture.