“Whether this arrangement reflected the ecumenism, magnanimity, or pragmatism of the conquerors is tough to say. What is easy to imagine is how the arrangement eventually unravelled, having became a source of embarrassment for the Umayyads. The Muslims of Damascus—which, by the turn of the eighth century, had become the capital of the greatest empire in the world at the time—were squatting in “rented space,” and what is more, “rented space” belonging to their religious rivals. This had to change. Thus it was that the caliph al-Walid I (r. 705–15) razed the church.12 In its place, he built the most magnificent mosque ever seen, abruptly purging Christianity from the city center and establishing Islam as the main show in town. It remains so today.”