Syria's top Sunni Muslim cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro, has died after a heart attack at the age of 89, officials say.
The grand mufti, who was close to the government, had been in hospital for about a week for a stomach operation.
Sheikh Kuftaro was born in Damascus in 1915 and began preaching there after the death of his father, leading theologian Mohammed Amin Kuftaro.
It was not immediately clear who would succeed him as grand mufti, a post he had held for 40 years.
The day before he died, he issued a statement calling for the release of the two French journalists held hostage in Iraq, as well as urging France to reconsider its ban on girls wearing the Islamic headscarf in state schools.
Sheikh Kuftaro accompanied Pope John Paul II to the revered Omayyad Mosque in the heart of the old part of Damascus during the pontiff's visit to Syria in 2001.
It was the first visit by a pope to a Muslim house of worship.
Sheikh Kuftaro will be buried on Thursday in a Damascus cemetery.
The Associated Press news agency reports that he was married twice and is survived by 11 children.