The chequered walls
Black and white stone courses.
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A mosque of chequered black and white stone on the summit of Jabal al-Ashrafieh, the highest hill of old Amman, visible from much of the city. It was built in the early 1960s by a Circassian contractor known as Abu Darwish, whose name it still bears; its minaret rises 36 metres above the roof. Abu Darwish belonged to Amman's Circassian community, which had resettled the town in 1878. He paid for the mosque himself, drew its plans and put a school on its lower floor. He brought the stone from Ruwaished and Ma'an and laid it in alternating dark and light courses, mixing Mamluk and Ottoman features. When the money ran out at the minaret, he sold land and borrowed the rest. His will endowed the mosque, school and library, which grew to some 3,000 books; he lies buried in the courtyard. The prayer hall rests on thirteen marble columns, its walls decorated, most accounts say, by the calligrapher Sami Nimeh, but it is generally open only to Muslims. Other visitors come for the facade and the plaza to its south, laid out by the Greater Amman Municipality in 2007 with lookouts over the city, a library and a cultural centre. It stands in East Amman near Al-Bashir Hospital and the Armenian quarter, and can be picked out from the Amman Citadel across the valley. The Grand Husseini Mosque and the Roman Theatre are each about a kilometre away as the crow flies, but the climb from downtown is long and steep, so a taxi is the easy way up.
Black and white stone courses.
36 metres, finished on borrowed money.
Views from old Amman's highest hill.
Summit of Jabal al-Ashrafieh, near Al-Bashir Hospital, East Amman
Grand Husseini MosqueThe grand Friday mosque of downtown Amman and one of the city's oldest, at the h12 minutes walk
The Jordan MuseumJordan's national museum, holding two objects with no equal in any museum anywhe13 minutes walk4.3
Roman TheatreA Roman theatre cut into the hillside in the middle of downtown, seating six tho14 minutes walk4.6
Rainbow StreetA single street in Jabal Amman between the First Circle and downtown, and the pl16 minutes walk4.4
Amman CitadelThe highest of Amman's seven original hills, where every layer of the city stand18 minutes walk4.6Generally not: the prayer halls are kept for Muslim worshippers, so most visitors admire the mosque from its plaza. Dress modestly and avoid prayer times, above all the Friday midday prayer; women who go in should cover their hair.
A Circassian resident of Amman who worked as a building contractor in Aqaba and later ran maintenance on the Tapline oil pipeline in Jordan. Attempts to rename his mosque the Great Ashrafieh Mosque never caught on.