Why Did They Become Muslims

Lebanon, famous for its valuable trees, huge lumps of coloured marble
were brought from various parts of the east, and precious stones,
pearls, emeralds and ivory were imported from Iraq and Syria, and all
these materials formed large heaps on the plot. Everything was
extremely beautiful and plentiful. Gradually, the walls of the mosque
began to reach the heights to offer the first glimpses of a magnificent
building. Abd-ur-Rahmân I did not live long enough to see the
completion of the mosque. He passed away in 172 [788 C.E.]. Owing
to the great efforts of Hishâm, his son, and Hakem I, his grandson,
“rahima-humallâhu ta’âlâ’ who succeeded him, respectively, the
mosque was completed in ten years. However, with the annexes added
in the course of years, it was not before 380 [990 C.E.], which means
two hundred and five years later, that the mosque attained its
consummate perfection. In 366 [976 C.E.] Hakem II [1] had a minber
built of gold for the mosque. It cost all those long years of hard work
to bring the mosque to the perfection of a stupendous, resplendent and
extremely pulchritudinous masterpiece. The mosque was in a
rectangular shape, with dimensions 120x135 metres. Two parallel
arms, each 135 metres, extended from the main body to make up an
open yard adjacent to the mosque. There were one thousand, four
hundred and nineteen (1419) pillars, each ten metres tall, in the
mosque. These pillars were made from the world’s best quality marble.
The arches on the pillars were made from pieces of marble cut from
variegated marble. When you entered the mosque your eyes were lost
in the exquisite scenery offered by that forest of pillars.
“The marble captions of the pillars commanded so strong
admiration from the spectators that as soon as a visitor entered the
mosque he would be infatuated with their beauty. It was such beauty
as the world had not seen until that time.
“There were twenty entrances into the mosque. Before each
entrance was a special orange-garden, whereby the mosque was
surrounded with a verdant strip. Around the mosque were other sorts
of gardens, ponds with water jets, and fountains. A number of
shadirwâns (reservoirs with faucets at the sides) were built so that
Muslims could make ablution. The floor of the mosque was of the
most valuable marble ornamented with rare wood. The valuable
Lebanese wood used for the construction of the ceiling provided the
mosque with exceptional beauty and grandeur. There were carvings,
engravings, reliefs, and beautiful writings on the walls and on the
ceiling. If you entered the mosque and took a look around, you would
feel as if there were not an end of that sumptuous jungle of pillars. At
night the interior of the mosque became a dreamland with coloured
lights gushing from the thousands of candles.
[1] Hakem II passed away in 366 [976 C.E.].
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