- the Levant / Syria
- the region she has been capital of since ancient days
- the Umayyads
- the dynasty that made her the state's heart and its capital
- Mu'awiya
- the caliph who moved the state's capital over to her
- the Umayyad Mosque
- the great mosque carrying the Umayyad dynasty's own name
- the Jesus minaret
- the minaret at which Christ descends, in the Islamic tradition
- John the Baptist's grave
- the prophet John's grave standing in the mosque's wall
- the Hamidiyeh souk
- the long bustling souk standing inside the old city
- the Nuri madrasas
- the schools Nur al-Din built within the city
- the bathhouses
- the old public bathhouses standing in her lanes
- Abd al-Malik
- the caliph who built it in the year 715, in his reign
- Nur al-Din
- the sultan who renewed the city and built her afresh
- the oldest city
- the title she bears — the oldest inhabited city in the world
