عمارة زياد لجامع البصرة

عمارة زياد لجامع البصرة

When Mu'awiya made Ziyad governor of Basra he greatly enlarged the mosque — fired brick, gypsum, teak roof — moved the dar al-imara from al-Dahna' to the qibla wall so the imam no longer crossed the worshippers, gave the minbar five steps, built a stone minaret and made the first maqsura; touring the work he asked Basra's notables 'do you see a flaw?' — 'none sounder' — 'yes: these four-load columns should have been thicker', yet none of those columns ever cracked or flawed. Haritha ibn Badr — or al-Ba'ith al-Mujashi'i — sang: 'Ziyad built for God's remembrance a fabric of stone, not of clay; but for the hands of men upholding it, we had called it the work of demons'.