{"id":7382,"date":"2025-08-08T23:53:48","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T23:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/the-basilica-of-saint-nicholas\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T23:58:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T23:58:58","slug":"the-basilica-of-saint-nicholas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/the-basilica-of-saint-nicholas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Basilica of Saint Nicholas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Basilica of Saint Nicholas is a prime example of the transformation of sacred sites in Qalamoun. Dating back to the 6th century AD, the Byzantine building was converted into a mosque in the 13th century while retaining its three-door fa\u00e7ade and original granite columns. Researchers identify the basilica by its side niches, which contain hollow crosses, and a simple marble mihrab indicates the direction of Islamic prayer. Until the 1950s, the basilica-mosque was used as a centre for Qur&#8217;anic education and memorisation, with local families alternating in its upkeep and stewardship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Basilica of Saint Nicholas is a prime example of the transformation of sacred sites in Qalamoun. Dating back to the 6th century AD, the Byzantine building was converted into a mosque in the 13th century while retaining its three-door fa\u00e7ade and original granite columns. Researchers identify the basilica by its side niches, which contain hollow crosses, and a simple marble mihrab indicates the direction of Islamic prayer. Until the 1950s, the basilica-mosque was used as a centre for Qur&#8217;anic education and memorisation, with local families alternating in its upkeep and stewardship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[380,379],"tags":[243],"class_list":["post-7382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religious-monuments-rural-damascus","category-rural-damascus","tag-preserved-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}