The vast expense lavished on such a monumental construction project, the care and craftsmanship that went into its decoration, and the very impulse to build it at all are tangible hallmarks of the Umayyad caliphate, which tell a story of ninety critical years in history, during which the dar al-Islam was transformed from a military machine into a full-fledged early medieval empire, infused with elements of the cultures it encountered, yet highly distinctive in its own right.
