The sec­ond old­est mosque in the Cau­ca­sus and Mid­dle East region. An inscrip­tion was found on the wall of the mosque dat­ing its foun­da­tion to the year 743. Con­struc­tion was ini­ti­at­ed by the Abbasid com­man­der Abu Mus­lim, who played an impor­tant role in the Abbasid Rev­o­lu­tion, which led to the col­lapse of the Arab Caliphate in 750. Over such a long his­to­ry, the Juma Mosque was sub­ject­ed to dev­as­ta­tion and destruc­tion dur­ing earth­quakes and fires. The last time the shrine burned was dur­ing the March events of 1918, when eth­nic clash­es occurred between Arme­ni­ans and Azer­bai­ja­nis. Dur­ing the Sovi­et years, the mosque stood idle and grad­u­al­ly col­lapsed, but in the eight­ies the author­i­ties final­ly began to restore it.