The building, as it exists,[468] presents a dome supported by white marble Corinthian pillars, and this probably replaced the original dome of the Church of the Virgin. The pillars are of the same character with those in the Dome of the Rock. The north part of the mosque consists of a nave and six aisles, the roof supported by huge Byzantine pillars, which are certainly not in their original position, but have been re-used. Sir Charles Wilson remarks that “some of the building inside is very bad; in several places rough pieces of masonry have been built up by the side of the columns, to gain sufficient support for the piers” of the walls above. One column is enclosed in a polygonal pier, and some capitals are rude plaster imitations of the old Corinthian capitals on other pillars. The shafts of the pillars seem to have been cut shorter, and they thus present clumsy proportions. The arches of the arcades above them are pointed, and the clerestory has two rows of windows one above the other, but this superstructure may belong to the later restoration in 1187 A. D., or even to that recorded in an inscription, on the porch, as effected by ’Aisa, Saladin’s nephew, in 1236 A. D. The pillars are very rudely tied together by heavy wooden beams--as in the Dome of the Rock--and these may have belonged to the original work of El Mahdy. The history of this building, which is a patchwork of various dates, not to be compared for architectural beauty with the more purely Arab Dome of the Rock, seems clearly to be indicated by the preceding statements. The church of Justinian was partly ruined before 770 A. D., and El Mahdy restored it, using up the pillars of its atrium and cloisters to build a long addition to the mosque on the north, which addition was of very inferior workmanship as compared with that of the church to which it was annexed. Each of the six aisles and the nave--running north and south--had a double gate on the north, and each of the six bays had a double gate on the east.[469] [Sidenote: CHRISTIANS AND MOSLEMS]