Outside Ukhaiḍir we have no extant example of a vaulted mosque on this plan. We are specifically told that the roof of the mosque at Baṣrah was first of reeds and then of teak; the nature of the roof of the ẓullah at Kûfah is open to doubt. Its ceiling was like the ceiling of Greek churches, a description which does not exclude the possibility of a vault. That the miḥrâb at Ukhaiḍir received no decoration need cause no surprise. Far from being regarded as having any special sanctity, the miḥrâb is defined as the least holy part of the mosque and the Imâm is earnestly warned not to take up his station within it--doubtless, as Professor Becker observes, in order to emphasize the fact that though the miḥrâb was copied from the Christian apse, it shared none of its attributes.[405] Of the minbar it is improbable that any vestige would be found under the ruin heaps at Ukhaiḍir. It was most likely of wood, and has long been destroyed. Nor is it necessary to suppose that the ṣaḥn contained a water-basin for ablutions. No such feature is mentioned in the account of the early mosques, save that at a later date Maqrîzi records the presence in the mosque of ‘Amr of an ancient well appertaining to the gardens in which the mosque was built.[406] It will be convenient to carry this survey a little further in order to include the mosques of Sâmarrâ, which are not far removed, either chronologically or geographically, from the mosque of Ukhaiḍir, but in so doing the early Syrian and North African mosques must be taken into account. The plan of the first mosques in Syria was partly determined by the fact that they were erected on the site of Christian churches. They differ, therefore, from the normal construction of the Medînah type. To the khalif ‘Umar is ascribed the first Mohammadan building upon the site which is now occupied by the Aqṣâ, but it seems probable that his edifice was nothing but a makeshift reparation of the ruined church of the Virgin.[407] Probably the Umayyad khalif ‘Abd al-Malik rebuilt the mosque in the year A.D. 691, but in A.D. 746 it was destroyed by an earthquake. Manṣûr rebuilt it, and it was again destroyed by earthquake. It was restored by al-Mahdi about A.D. 780, but the plan was considerably altered. Even the mosque described by Muqaddasi in A.D. 985 is materially different from the building which exists to-day. I think it exceedingly doubtful whether the mosque retained at any time after the temporary construction of ‘Umar the plan of Justinian’s church, since the necessary alteration in the orientation must have introduced a wide diversity; but the design of the many-aisled church and the presence of a large quantity of columns and capitals may well have influenced the mosque builders. In any case the position of the Aqṣâ would have led to an abnormal plan, inasmuch as the great court of the ḥaram enclosure, in which it stood, rendered it unnecessary to give a separate court, or ṣaḥn, to the mosque.