- Damascus
- the Umayyad Mosque's city, at the heart of the land of Syria
- al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik
- the Umayyad caliph who built it in Damascus in the year 715
- 715
- the completion year under the caliph al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik
- John the Baptist
- the prophet whose church stood on the mosque's site before it
- the mosaics
- its golden mosaics picturing scenes of paradise and its rivers
- without faces
- its style, which avoided faces and living souls in all the imagery
- the Kufic
- its early Arabic script, in which the founding inscription was written
- the courtyard
- its open courtyard that gathered generations of worshippers across the centuries
- the square minaret
- its square minaret rising over its court, in the old Syrian style
- the fires
- its fires, which destroyed it and saw it rebuilt time and again
- the church
- John's church that stood before it on the very same spot
- the Roman temple
- the Romans' temple that stood before the church, before both
