Marks from East to West: The Iconic Buildings 

The biggest legacy of the Umayyad Caliphate was arguably the massive expansion of the Islamic Empire. Under their dynamic leadership, the Muslim Caliphate rapidly grew to rule an area stretching from Damascus to Tashkent in the East and to the Pyrenees mountains in the West, making it one of the largest continuous empires in history. This vast territory spanned continents, reaching from Spain (Al-Andalus) across North Africa and the Middle East, all the way to the borders of modern-day India in the East.  

Looking at the map of the Umayyad Caliphate overwhelms me by the enormous area it had. Such a large and powerful empire. This unprecedented geographical reach presented a question for me: How could one architectural style visually unify a diverse empire? To answer this, I will be exploring the most significant architecture of the Umayyad era across this vast region from East to West, and in different timelines. In the process, I hope to gain the understanding of common traits that bound the empire together. I will be examining three monumental buildings that mark this continental span: the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, a powerful political and religious statement. The Great Mosque of Damascus in Syria, the empire's central place of worship and learning; and the Mosque of Cordoba in Spain, the paramount example of cultural blending that defined the Islamic West.