In 1989, the Syrian government commissioned architect Abdul Rahman Naassan to design the Naissa Mosque in Qardaha, which was named after Naissa Shalish al-Assad, the mother of then-President Hafez al-Assad.[4][5] From then on, Qardaha became the hub for the Assad regime's promotion of the "cult of personality".
In 1994, Bassel al-Assad, the president's eldest son and designated successor, died in a car accident. The Syrian government buried him near the mosque and built a mausoleum. On 10 June 2000, Hafez al-Assad died suddenly of a heart attack. After a state funeral in Damascus, his body was airlifted to the Naissa Mosque and buried in the center of the mausoleum. Since then, the mausoleum of Assad and his son had been guarded and maintained by the Syrian security forces and was open to tourists.[6]Bashar al-Assad, the second son of Hafez and the younger brother of Bassel, became the President of Syria after his father's death.[7][8]
The mausoleum was a mixture of classicalSyrian and modernist architecture. The overall structure was octagonal in shape. The interior design was clean and restrained. The interior space was large and spacious, with multiple arched high-rise structures.[10] The exterior was decorated with excerpts from the Quran in stone in Arabic calligraphy.[6]
