ABSTRACT
When one thinks of who was crossing and controlling Jordan in the early 8th century ce one naturally thinks of the Umayyads, who ruled from 661–749. The Islamic caliphate expanded its authority during the reign of the Umayyads, westward into present-day Portugal, eastward into present-day Pakistan, and northward into present-day Uzbekistan, making the Umayyad caliphate a world empire. The largess gained through the expansion funded, among other things, a considerable amount of monumental building. The official capital was at Damascus, where the Umayyads built the great mosque, which still stands largely intact today. There was further building activity, both urban and rural, throughout Bilad al-Sham (literally the ‘land of the north’, expressed from an Arabian view, consisting of present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine/Israel; it will be used interchangeably with ‘the Levant’ in this chapter). Recent excavated findings in urban contexts in Jordan include the palace city on the ‘Amman citadel and the mosque at the South Tetrapylon in Jarash.
