Borrowing the model of the palimpsest, George’s The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus: Art, Faith and Empire in Early Islam takes the reader on a vivid tour of the renowned mosque’s history ...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Sahar Diab had visited Damascus’ famed Umayyad Mosque previously. But as the Syrian lawyer went there to pray during her country’s first Ramadan after the end of the ...