31. ‘Ammān | عمّان

‘Ammān Governorate

Jāmi‘ Ḥusseini

JADIS no. 2315001

MEGA no. 15089

Coordinates: 31°56'59.0"N 35°56'05.0"E

31.949722, 35.934722

Plan: Rectangular with broad  rectangular praying hall in  the S, approximately square saḥn in N aligning the N, W and E sides with colonnaded riwāq. In front of  N exterior elevation narrow porch with colonnade. Prayer hall divided by each triple transversal arches into nine naves oriented perpendicularly to the qibla wall (fig.31.4). The central nave is widened. Each nave opens via a door to the courtyard. In the W sector of the N outside wall of the riwaq a square minaret accessible by  a spiral stair.

Measurements: 555,8 m²

Exterior: 56.8 x 39.7 m (total); 39.7 x 14.00 m. 

Interior: unknown.

Building Materials: Local limestone, many spolia from  previous buildings.

Construction details: Finely dressed plain limestone  ashlars in courses 0.40-0.50 m deep

Preservation: Demolished and replaced in 1953 by the Jāmi‘ Ḥusseini (Great King al-Ḥussein Mosque).

Inscription(s): Building inscription recorded by E. Littmann (in: PPUAES IV D [1949] no. 2), size ca. 80 x 55 cm, found in a disturbed location of the mosque, no de tails of its precise original position are known:

Translation:“In the name of Allāh the Merciful, the Com passionate | this is among what Allāh who is mighty and | great, and to whom be praise facilitated to be | built under the direction of the Commander | al-Ḥaṣan ibn Ibraḥīm, may Allāh have mercy | upon him and may He  have mercy upon him who says Allāh have mercy | upon him.” (Northedge 1989, 143).

The text gives no date. According to paleographic criteria the origins of the script are either H 4th or 10th centuries, but the possibility of the H 3rd or 9th centuries cannot be excluded.

Date(s): Umayyad.

Traveler Reports: “There is in the area of the market a fine mosque, whose courtyard is ornamented with mosaics” (al-Muqaddasi [ca. H. 37 = 985 AD] ed. De Goeje [1906] 175). “The plan of the mosque is quite distinct, with its miḥrab and minaret; and the brackets which supported the gallery of the Muedhdhen remain intact. The mosque is of the typical form, with large square court to the north, and a broad, short, covered building in the south. The court is 120 feet wide east and west. The court had three entrances, the middle one 10 feet wide, the side ones 7 feet The roof of the mosque was supported by narrow arches which sprung from the wall, and were corbelled out in such a manner as to be apparently - but not structurally - of the Moorish form, or rat-her more than a half circle or ellipse. The miḥrāb in the south and the minaret is described by Lord Linsay as the “lofty steeple” of a church, but this is an  error. The miḥrāb in the south wall is 11 feet 9 inches in diameter, and a smaller miḥrāb has been built up inside it. The arches of the entrance-gates are semicircular in two cases, while the central one is segmental. The segmental arch has a lintel-stone 16 feet long beneath it, and a second lintel lower again forming the head of the door. The west entrance has a lintel 9 feet long, similar to this last. The arrangement of the segmental relieving arch and lintel is similar to that so often found in Byzantine buildings, but is also not uncommon in Arab work. There are four windows in this north wall between the entrances, also with round arches. This wall is standing to its original height, but the others are ruined in parts, the masonry in this structure is smaller than that in the wall, there seems no reason to suppose that the minaret is a later addition. The minaret is square on plan, a tower 10 feet side. A shaft of stone 14 inches in diameter in the center supports the winding stair in cylindrical well about 6 feet in total diameter, the stairs being only 2 feet wide. There are thirty-three steps, with a total height of 33 ½ feet, leading to a platform with four windows, one in each wall. The total height is about 45 feet, and the top is crowned by a dome, which is concealed outside by an elegant octagonal shaft which springs from corbels of the Muedhdhen’s gallery above the windows. The windows are round-arched and partly filled with a balustrade of stone 3 ½ feet high. The minaret stair is reached from a low door in the east wall having a lintel above it, on which is crudely incised an Arab inscription… It is merely the formula: “No God but Allāh; Muhammed is the messenger of God” (Conder 1889).

“The best preserved of the fragments of buildings that are later than the great Roman period, is a fine section of wall, with three portals and four windows in it, that now forms the north side of the courtyard of the mosque. The wall is of great thickness (1.55m), laid dry, in courses of 45-50 cm; the portals are high and spacious, two of them have flat lintels and styled relieving arches, and the other, the middle one has a lintel below a flat segmental arch. The windows are all round headed. The structure is devoid of ornament of any kind. To the north or outer face of the wall, near its west end, is attached a tower, or minaret, of later and poorer work-manship, built in courses 30 to 40 cm wide, laid in mortar. The entrance to this tower has been roughly cut through the ancient wall. The great central portal has been reduced in size by the insertion of new jambs and lintel. The wall, when mentioned by travelers, has always been considered as Mohammedan work, and part of the mosque. It has at  present no further relation to the mosque, which is a smaller structure, and, as I imagine, not very ancient,  further than that it bounds one side of  the court before the mosque. The wall itself  with its portals and windows was built  to form one  side, or the front, of a building; it is not a courtyard wall, and if it formed the front of an earlier mosque than the present one. As it may have done, the mosque was, in all likelihood, the  one  described  in the 10th century by Mukaddasi. But even  so the matter of the date of the wall is not settled. It is difficult  for me to believe that the wall is Mohammedan work … but the character of the wall seems either very late Roman, or early Christian. The wall might easily have  formed the north side of a large church… the typical side wall of Syrian basilicas” (PPUAES).

Bibliography: Conder 1889, 57-59; PPUAES II A. 1 (1907) 60-61 fig.40; Allan 1989, 217-218; Northedge 1989, 140-163; Darakdeh 1998, 38-39 with plan in appendix; Sqour - Abu Ghanimeh 2014, 6-7 fig. 4;  Antun 2016, 99-100; Schumm 2020, 4; For the construction of the Ḥusseini mosque see Shawash 2003, 73-79; Natho 2009, 60.