UMMAYAD ARCHITECTURE

People didn't build a lot of new buildings during the Umayyad period, mainly because they were busy getting organized after the Islamic conquests, and because the Umayyad dynasty didn't rule very long. One of the first buildings they did build, in the 600's AD, was the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, on the site where the Jewish tempe had been before the Romans destroyed it. Right away you can see that Islamic mosques are very different from Christian churches. Instead of being made like a Roman basilica, long and narrow, the Dome of the Rock is hexagonal (six-sided). The architect may have been thinking of Roman funeral chapels, which were sometimes polygonal (many-sided) like this, or he may have been thinking of early Christian baptistries, which also were polygonal.
Another early Umayyad building was the Great Mosque in the Umayyad capital of Damascus (in modern Syria), which was built about 710 AD. .This was built more like a Christian church but you'll notice there are no pictures of people on it - only plants and buildings.