Revisiting the Great Mosque of Damascus, lecture by Alain George (University of Oxford), Silsila Spring 2022 Lecture Series, New York University via Zoom, March 2, 2022, 12:30 pm (EST)

The Great Mosque of Damascus is an iconic monument of world architecture, and the oldest mosque still standing in something close to its original state. It was built at the end of the first Islamic century on a site previously occupied by a Roman temple of Jupiter and a church of John the Baptist. This lecture will explore this pre-Islamic past, the political crisis that erupted with Damascene Christians upon the foundation of the mosque, and the aesthetic values that underpinned the Umayyad monument. It will be followed by a conversation with Finbarr Barry Flood, author of The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture (2000).

Alain Fouad George is I.M. Pei Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College.

Advance registration required.