Homs - Sana
The inscriptions in the Great Nuri Mosque in Homs occupied researchers for a long time, as Constantine bin Khoury Daoud was the first to talk about them in his manuscript “The History of the Old City of Homs Inside and Out” in 1862 to occupy after that a number of researchers and orientalists up to the present day.
The Roman inscription still in the mosque shows answers about whether the site of the Great Mosque of Homs is the same as the Temple of the Sun
Researcher Abd al-Hadi al-Najjar believes that this controversy over the identity of this unique Roman inscription extends also to the remaining Islamic inscriptions throughout the mosque, which in its entirety go back to the Mamluk period if we go beyond the contemporary writings on the minbar and other places of the mosque.
He pointed out that the loss of the inscriptions documenting the period between the Romans and the Mamluk is undoubtedly linked to the great ruin that affected the mosque due to wars and earthquakes, especially the earthquake of 1169 AD, which caused widespread destruction and was followed by a comprehensive restoration process during the reign of Nur al-Din al-Zanki 1174.
Al-Najjar refers to what was suggested by the well-known archaeologist William Waddington in 1894 that the Great Mosque in Homs is in part an ancient Christian church that in turn contained the remains of a pagan temple and it is possible that this place is the site of the great temple of the sun in which the Roman Emperor El Gabalus was a high priest in The end of the first decade of the third century AD.
Waddington states this opinion in his Encyclopedia of Greek and Latin Inscriptions in Syria, which was published in 1870 as a commentary on the Roman inscription, and Henry Hayman, professor of ancient Greek, confirms the same opinion that this inscription belongs to the sun god in Homs.
According to the carpenter, these opinions include other inscriptions in the mosque dating back to different historical eras, including a Greek inscription on the base of a column, another kufic, a circular inscription on the mosque's mihrab, and inscriptions with multiple dates.
Okay El Hassan
