The earliest incarnation of the Aleppo Umayyad Mosque goes back to 715 when it was built in the gardens of the Cathedral of St Helena, the biggest of Aleppo’s 70 churches. “Christian temples” were allowed to flourish until the Crusaders arrived in 1124, burning crops, cutting trees, destroying shrines and plundering tombs to the west of the city. Earlier in 962, Byzantine forces had invaded the city, pillaging then torching the Great Mosque and adjacent souks. Two subsequent waves of Mongol hordes also laid waste to the city and its monuments, led first by Hulagu in 1260, then Tamerlane in 1400. The minaret survived it all. Now, for the first time in its turbulent history, the minaret, the mosque and indeed the city itself has been destroyed by its own rulers.
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Thanks to apolitical cultural heritage websites like
www.apsa2011.com, damage to sites all over Syria has been meticulously catalogued in real-time, offering a clear chronology. Images dated 26 February 2013 show the mosque’s unique 11th century minaret – an exquisite structure whose four sides were covered in Kufic inscriptions and elegant tracery reminiscent of Venetian facades – being hit by a projectile fired from the direction of the regime-held citadel. The 45 metre tall tower long since had a slight lean, the result of blocked drains undermining its foundations. The moment of its collapse in April 2013 was not caught on camera, but immediately afterwards the regime blamed “terrorists” for blowing it up with mines. The rebels counterclaimed that the regime had laid the mines when they controlled the mosque, then repeatedly tried to detonate them with tank shelling once the rebels took the structure over, succeeding finally on 24 April 2013.