THE HOUSE OF ANANIAS
Yesterday we were slower than usual getting off our mark and, as a result, we had to change our plans as midday prayer-time was approaching and we would not have had time to visit the Tekkiye mosque. So, we went instead to Bab Sharki in the hope of finding the House of St. Ananias open. It was.
To reach the house of Ananias we went down a flight of twenty-three steps. Why did he live in an underground house, you may ask. Actually, two thousand years ago, it was not underground at all but at street level, and it is the accumulation of dust and debris of every kind over the centuries that has left it where it is now - down twenty-three steps. This is not surprising when we remember that the French archaeological expedition found the Roman arch of Bab al-Kanise several metres underground and raised it to the present street level at the end of the Christian stretch of Straight Street.
The house is now a crypt chapel made up of two rooms. The first is a domed structure made of unfaced stone. The small altar faces east and there is space for about six rows of pews. Ventilation is provided by two grilled openings in the roof. Facing the altar, to the right there is another smaller room which, according to tradition, is where Ananias sheltered St. Paul when he was being followed. This room has illustrations of the life of Paul from the incident when he held the coats of the Roman soldiers who stoned St. Stephen until his own demise in Rome. It also has a poster of all the Popes (a little bit out of date as it only goes up to Pope Paul VI) and a map of the Mediterranean which shows the various journeys which Paul made after his conversion. Interestingly, the chronology of the life of Paul recognises James (the Lesser) as the brother of Jesus, something which all oriental Christian churches have always done but which has tied the western branches of the church in knots as they insisted on saying (at least to the ordinary “five-eighths”) that Jesus was an only son! As the custodians of the place are the Franciscans, the official custodians of the Holy Places and therefore not likely to be suspect of subvertion, to find this piece of information on display was quite interesting.
The present structure is, of couse, not the original, dating from around 7A.D., but the site is recognised as being the site of Ananias’s home, and the most basic archaeological evidence certainly dates back to 1AD or thereabouts. The place was turned into a church and later probably desecrated by the Romans who turned it into a temple before adopting Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Then it became a church once more and was known as the Musallabah or Church of the Holy Cross. With the arrival of Islam, it was probably used by both the Islamic and Christian communities as a place of worship, the mihrab facing south and the altar facing east, just as occurred at the Basilica of St. John the Baptist before it was exchanged so that the Moslem ruler could build the Great Umayyad Mosque. The church was venerated by both Christians and Moslems and during the Turkish occupation the Turks kept oil lamps burning there day and night. In fact the other people visiting the church were all Moslems.
The story of Saul’s conversion is displayed before the altar in the crypt and, thanks to this display, I was able to correct a misconception I had earlier. I thought that the reference to “the street called straight” appeared in one of the Gospels but, in fact, it is in the Acts of the Apostles (9,1-26).
Ananias was probably acting as a Christian priest at the time of Saul’s conversion and in a vision Jesus told him to go out to Judas’s house in the “street called straight” where he would find Saul whom he should help regain his sight by placing his hands upon his eyes and convert him because he would be the one to take the new message to the non-Jewish peoples.
The atmosphere in the crypt is similar to that in many ancient buildings of small dimensions - welcoming and enveloping, so we sat there for a while before going upstairs. The little shop is tended by a Franciscan in a tee-shirt from Florida who was brash and nothing like what Franciscans should be in my book. The antidote to his offhand manner was the other Franciscan there, a smiling, agreable young man from Africa - also attired in jeans and a tee-shirt!
After that, we wandered along Straight Street and, as the door was open, we went into the Syrian Catholic church which stands on the left a few hundred metres down the road. I had been in there before and, in terms of architectural merit, it has little to offer. However, this time the sacristan came and took us around. He showed us a copy of the Gospels written in Aramaic and allowed us to take a photograph of it. Apparently in the Syrian Catholic Church the early part of the liturgy is said in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus himself, and then goes over to Arabic.
The interesting thing about the church is the meeting of eastern and western traditions. There are statues of Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Theresa of Lisieux standing side by side with two beautiful icon triptychs. The one on the right hand wall depicts the story of the first Christian martyrs in the oriental church. The sacristan told us the story. One day the prince of the ancient Kingdom of Assur, between Iraq and Iran, was out hunting and lost his way. When night fell he saw a light in the distance and rode towards it. When he reached the house, he found a Christian monk who gave him shelter for the night and, to while a way the time, told him about his God. When the young prince heard of the wonders he had worked, he asked the monk if his God would be able to cure his sister who suffered from an illness which made her whole body itch intolerably. The monk said he should bring his sister and they would pray asking God to help her.
The next day the young prince made his way home and told his father what he had seen. He then returned with his sister and the monk prayed with her and baptised her. The moment she was baptised, her skin became clean. The young prince was amazed and asked to be baptised also. When they returned home, they told their father what they had seen and the young princess showed him how her skin was now unblemished. However, the King was angry and said that what they had done would provoke the ire of his gods. The prince said his gods could have no power over this new wondrous God. The King then hatched a plot to avert the anger of his gods and save his kingdom. He sent his children back to the monk bearing gifts of thanks but, before he sent them away, he stationed his soldiers in a defile with orders to kill both his children when they passed by. They did, making the young prince and princess the first Christian martyrs in the region.
The other icon on the opposite wall depicts St. Ephraim, not the Ephraim of the Jewish tribes but an Egyptian Christian saint from around the sixth century who falls into the same mould as St. Francis of Assisi (strictly speaking that should be the other way around as St. Francis came on the scene later) in the sense that he was the son of a rich family but gave up his claim to earthly goods to live a life of poverty. The other panel depicts St. Moses, again not the biblical Moses, but an Ethiopian saint.
July 12 1998
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
A FASHION SHOW
A FASHION SHOW
Last night we went to the first fashion show ever to be held in Syria, which, in itself, is quite remarkable. ESMOD, the first fashion design school, which was founded in Paris in 1841 by Alexis Lavigne the inventor of the measuring tape and dressmaker’s dummy, has a number of schools throughout the world, and three years ago the Syrian centre was founded because the president’s sister wanted to set one up as her own daughter wished to study fashion design. The first wave of students will graduate this year, and last night they presented their collections at the fashion show. Earlier in the day Robert had been involved as a member of the jury which had been chosen to study not only the final product but also the students’ portfolios, where they showed the development of their designs, the patterns made to turn the fantasy into a real garment and explained the theme underlying the collection. The jury was made up of the Director of the Paris school, other fashion designers invited from France for the purpose, business men involved in the textile industry in Syria and “outsiders” to give their view. Robert was there as the representative of the Syrian European Business Centre
The place chosen for the event was a marvel in itself, the Khan Assad Pasha. This caravanserai was designed and built by the same Ottoman governor of Damascus who built the Azem Palace, and it was his wish that this should be the most magnificent caravanserai in the whole region. Like the palace, the khan is built of alternating horizontal layers of white limestone and black basalt. It had a large central dome surrounded by eight smaller domes. However, the main dome has collapsed and the building is now open to the sky, which was quite an advantage last night as it helped keep the place cool.
Getting into the khan in the first place was quite a feat because, over the last few days, as the catwalk, lighting and sound equipment were all installed, curiosity reached fever pitch in the surrounding spices souq. What was this? Modern clothes? What would this be? Preparations were very professional and no effort was spared to ensure that this would be a real fashion show. A ring of spotlights had been erected around the central dome over the central area of the catwalk with two parallel lighting tracks mirroring the rest of the catwalk from the changing rooms. Loudspeakers made sure that the music reached every corner of the room. That is an understatement!
The show itself was most interesting. Each graduating student had a base theme which inspired his/her collection. In some cases one student did both the design and the pattern-making and, in others, one student did the design and another the pattern-making. The themes were very diverse, from the androgynous “subway” to Byblos, Nefertiti, Chocolate (a potential Paco Rabanne), and Painted Desert. A great deal of imagination was evident. Transparencies were greatly in evidence, but subtly so, and this was one of the incongruities which attracted my attention. Many of the girl students were veiled but their collections were daring and modern. Is this what they would dream of for themselves? Or only for other people on another dimension? Some designers tried to marry west and east with more daring underdresses topped by fine overdresses and garments witih sleeves. Others had hot pants with face veils!!
The prizes were awarded. The first prize for design went to a young Lebanese boy, Ghassan Hoyek, whose underlying theme was the bronze and gold statues of Byblos. First prize for technical skill in pattern-making, transferring the concept of his own designs into workable patterns, went to a young Armenian boy, Hagop Sheumelian, whose designs were based on gypsy themes but highly sophisticated and very wearable. Another prize was awarded for the student with best all-round command of modern technologies in the design field and another prize was given to the student who showed good technical skills but at the same time the best all-round team spirit. This went to a young Syrian, Mohammad Alsalwadi, who had formed part of the pattern-making team for a number of designers.
All in all, the show was an unprecedented success and showed that the tuition provided by the school is solid and professional. Before the graduating students’ collections were shown, the first and second year students had a chance to show their work. The progression was remarkable, from the simple garments of the first year, to the command of tailored garments in the second year and then to the all-round competence of the final year.
July 8th 1998
Last night we went to the first fashion show ever to be held in Syria, which, in itself, is quite remarkable. ESMOD, the first fashion design school, which was founded in Paris in 1841 by Alexis Lavigne the inventor of the measuring tape and dressmaker’s dummy, has a number of schools throughout the world, and three years ago the Syrian centre was founded because the president’s sister wanted to set one up as her own daughter wished to study fashion design. The first wave of students will graduate this year, and last night they presented their collections at the fashion show. Earlier in the day Robert had been involved as a member of the jury which had been chosen to study not only the final product but also the students’ portfolios, where they showed the development of their designs, the patterns made to turn the fantasy into a real garment and explained the theme underlying the collection. The jury was made up of the Director of the Paris school, other fashion designers invited from France for the purpose, business men involved in the textile industry in Syria and “outsiders” to give their view. Robert was there as the representative of the Syrian European Business Centre
The place chosen for the event was a marvel in itself, the Khan Assad Pasha. This caravanserai was designed and built by the same Ottoman governor of Damascus who built the Azem Palace, and it was his wish that this should be the most magnificent caravanserai in the whole region. Like the palace, the khan is built of alternating horizontal layers of white limestone and black basalt. It had a large central dome surrounded by eight smaller domes. However, the main dome has collapsed and the building is now open to the sky, which was quite an advantage last night as it helped keep the place cool.
Getting into the khan in the first place was quite a feat because, over the last few days, as the catwalk, lighting and sound equipment were all installed, curiosity reached fever pitch in the surrounding spices souq. What was this? Modern clothes? What would this be? Preparations were very professional and no effort was spared to ensure that this would be a real fashion show. A ring of spotlights had been erected around the central dome over the central area of the catwalk with two parallel lighting tracks mirroring the rest of the catwalk from the changing rooms. Loudspeakers made sure that the music reached every corner of the room. That is an understatement!
The show itself was most interesting. Each graduating student had a base theme which inspired his/her collection. In some cases one student did both the design and the pattern-making and, in others, one student did the design and another the pattern-making. The themes were very diverse, from the androgynous “subway” to Byblos, Nefertiti, Chocolate (a potential Paco Rabanne), and Painted Desert. A great deal of imagination was evident. Transparencies were greatly in evidence, but subtly so, and this was one of the incongruities which attracted my attention. Many of the girl students were veiled but their collections were daring and modern. Is this what they would dream of for themselves? Or only for other people on another dimension? Some designers tried to marry west and east with more daring underdresses topped by fine overdresses and garments witih sleeves. Others had hot pants with face veils!!
The prizes were awarded. The first prize for design went to a young Lebanese boy, Ghassan Hoyek, whose underlying theme was the bronze and gold statues of Byblos. First prize for technical skill in pattern-making, transferring the concept of his own designs into workable patterns, went to a young Armenian boy, Hagop Sheumelian, whose designs were based on gypsy themes but highly sophisticated and very wearable. Another prize was awarded for the student with best all-round command of modern technologies in the design field and another prize was given to the student who showed good technical skills but at the same time the best all-round team spirit. This went to a young Syrian, Mohammad Alsalwadi, who had formed part of the pattern-making team for a number of designers.
All in all, the show was an unprecedented success and showed that the tuition provided by the school is solid and professional. Before the graduating students’ collections were shown, the first and second year students had a chance to show their work. The progression was remarkable, from the simple garments of the first year, to the command of tailored garments in the second year and then to the all-round competence of the final year.
July 8th 1998
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
WHAT HAS MONTGOMERY
WHAT HAS MONTGOMERY GOT TO DO WITH THE AZEM PALACE?
Today was the Birthday of the Prophet Mohammed, but commercial observance of the holiday was somewhat patchy. Although there was not the usual chaos in the souq, it was not as deserted as it normally is on any Friday. This holiday obviously does not enjoy the mass celebration which its Christian parallel, Christmas, does. In the Islamic calendar the Eid al-fitr to mark the end of Ramadan and the Eid al-adha which commemorates Abraham’s sacrifice are the major celebrations but there is no injunction to celebrate the birth of the Prophet.
We had planned to visit the Azem Palace which is not far from the great Mosque of the Umayyads but, when we reached the vicinity of the medina and were looking for a place to park, it was clear that, despite the diminished commercial activity, there was considerable movement of another sort which was going to prevent us from finding a convenient spot. The police were clearing all the streets and waving away hopeful searchers like ourselves. Eventually we did find a place some way away, but not too far. The security presence was highly conspicuous and the area around the mosque was bristling with armoured vehicles with sophisticated communications equipment and plain-clothes security guards toting sub-machine guns. Clearly, important government officials and the captains of industry would be attending the service in the mosque! People were already beginning to gather in the square to stake their claim to a good vantage point. We continued on our way.
Turning down the right side of the mosque and taking the first street on the right, we soon saw the small square straight ahead where the Azem Palace stands. Before going in, however, Robert’s attention was drawn by an antique shop just beside it which had many beautiful things piled willy-nilly in the window, among them a few icons. We went inside to have a look at the merchandise. A true Aladdin’s cave! Brass and silver and antique Persian rugs and marquetry furniture and paintings and all kinds of things. And in a small room, a shelf full of icons. We sifted through them and came upon a fine example of the Madonna and Child. They wiped it with some oil and the gold leaf gleamed. A real beauty. They told us that this was only a small sample of what they stocked and, if we were really interested, they would take us to their home to show us the full collection. We declined the offer for the moment and continued towards the Azem Palace, though it must be confessed that the icon is a most beautiful piece of religious art and something which it would be a great pleasure to behold.
The Azem Palace jumps one phase in Syrian history, that of the Mamelukes - the slave dynasty which ruled there for two hundred years - and leads us on to the next stage. The Ottoman family emerged as the most powerful family in Turkey in the fourteenth century and, when they captured Constantinople, the ancient Christian capital, in 1453, the family’s claim to the position of spiritual heirs to the caliphs of old was reinforced. The Ottomans possessed modern machinery of war, such as firearms and heavy artillery, and this technological advantage allowed them to conquer the Mamelukes without much difficulty. The Ottoman period is often described as one of the most brilliant civilizations in the Middle East, but power lay outside and for four hunded years the area was ruled from Turkey. When we wonder sometimes about the fiery Arab nationalism often found in the Middle East, we would do well to remember that until recently most countries in the region had been ruled by outsiders for the best part of nine hundred years!
Construction of the Azem Palace began in 1749 and the building was completed three years later. This was the residence of the Ottoman governor of Damascus, Assad Pasha al-Azem, and it continued to serve as the seat of government in Syria until Ottoman rule came to an end. The building and inner courtyard are a haven of peace amid the hustle and bustle of the surrounding souqs. Visually, the building is quite striking because it is built using parallel layers of white limestone and black basalt stone and in practical terms the palace is divided into two distint areas: the public reception area, the salamlek, and the family area or haremlek. The main courtyard, around which the public rooms are situated with a covered gallery in front, is a garden with fountains and a profusion of flowers. Under the gallery there are seating corners where people could meet during the warm weather. The interior decoration of the rooms is typically Turkish with elaborately painted wooden ceilings, stucco and carved decoration. Then to the right there is another courtyard belonging to the family area and this part of the palace houses the kitchens, store rooms and other practical places.
The palace is now a museum, and each of the public rooms is set up to show what life would have been like in those days. There is a marriage chamber where the bride is preparing for her wedding with her inlaid chest containing her cosmetics. There is “mother-in-law’s” room where the mother-in-law is looking after the baby in a cradle while two maids play backgammon sitting on the floor. In another room the Pasha himself is dispatching with his minister with whom he is not well pleased! Yet another room shows preparations for the pilgrimage to Mecca and the baldachin used is still preserved there. Elsewhere men sit around drinking coffee, much as they do today! There is a music room too. Then, the rooms in the family quarters are set up to show the various trades: copper engraving, glass blowing, silk weaving, leatherworking and so on. In many cases the techniques used by many of the little artisans in the souq have changed very little.
Once again the human dimension provided an interesting aside. As we stood admiring a huge balance at the entrance to the main courtyard, having managed for the first time to make our residents’ permits gain access to a national monument for the same price as Syrian nationals pay instead of the usual tourist rate, a little man with a bush of white hair began to explain what the weighing machine was used for and how the weights worked. Then he said,
“I lived in Liverpool for fifteen years.” He did indeed have a Liverpudlian accent! “I was with Montgomery during the war, you know. I’m from Aleppo. When I was eight years old my father sent me to northern India to learn how to weave fine silk. When I came back to Aleppo my father bought me a loom and all the things I needed to set up my workshop. Then, one day in 1939, two officers came into my workshop and one of them admired my fine work. He asked me where I had learned. When I told him, he said, ‘Then you must speak Urdu.’ ‘I do’, I told him. Then he said, you must come with me. I am in charge of all the British troops in the Middle East and I don’t understand anything these Gurkhas say. What will you pay me. How much do you want? I asked for thirty guineas. One guinea a day. That was a fortune in those days. He agreed and wanted me to go with him at once. I told him I could not because I would have to roll up my silks and prepare the loom if I was to leave it for a long time. He agreed to come back for me the next day.
My mother was crying. She said, ‘You are only fourteen years old, Hassan. You will go away with this general? I told her I liked him and wanted to go, so she agreed. Next day he came for me, but then my father said, ‘And how much are you going to pay me? They negotiated and Montgomery opened his purse and took out one hundred and fifty guineas which he gave to my father. He was very happy.
We went first to Homs and then to Lebanon and then to Palestine. We stayed there for some time. Then we went to Egypt, El Alamein, and then to Italy. Then we were in Tobrouk and there I was hit by shrapnel.” Here he showed us a shrapnel wound down the side of his jaw. “Many soldiers were killed there. I was lucky. I didn’t die. Just this wound. In 1945 when the war ended, Montgomery said to me, ‘And what are you going to do now, Hassan?’ I told him I wanted to go to England, so he took me there. I was in Liverpool until 1960. I know Glasgow and Dublin and many other places. Then I came back to Aleppo.
I have seven sons. No daughters. Only sons. One of my sons is married in Sweden. He is studying medicine. He will finish in two more years. But I don’t think he will come back to Syria. He is married in Stockholm and they have just had a baby. I went to Sweden to see her. I only had sons so I wanted to see my first grand-daughter. She is lovely. Her name is Anna. I am in Damascus today buying silk kilims for my son‘s shop in Aleppo. The man will come for me at eleven o’clock. I will go to his factory. Do you want to come? ....
How much is true? How much is embellishment? How much is the interweaving of other people’s stories with his own, just as he would have woven the coloured threads of his silk cloth? Does it matter? There was certainly more than a kernel of truth in his tale and he enjoyed telling it, and with such pride that it must surely have become true!
July 6th 1998
Today was the Birthday of the Prophet Mohammed, but commercial observance of the holiday was somewhat patchy. Although there was not the usual chaos in the souq, it was not as deserted as it normally is on any Friday. This holiday obviously does not enjoy the mass celebration which its Christian parallel, Christmas, does. In the Islamic calendar the Eid al-fitr to mark the end of Ramadan and the Eid al-adha which commemorates Abraham’s sacrifice are the major celebrations but there is no injunction to celebrate the birth of the Prophet.
We had planned to visit the Azem Palace which is not far from the great Mosque of the Umayyads but, when we reached the vicinity of the medina and were looking for a place to park, it was clear that, despite the diminished commercial activity, there was considerable movement of another sort which was going to prevent us from finding a convenient spot. The police were clearing all the streets and waving away hopeful searchers like ourselves. Eventually we did find a place some way away, but not too far. The security presence was highly conspicuous and the area around the mosque was bristling with armoured vehicles with sophisticated communications equipment and plain-clothes security guards toting sub-machine guns. Clearly, important government officials and the captains of industry would be attending the service in the mosque! People were already beginning to gather in the square to stake their claim to a good vantage point. We continued on our way.
Turning down the right side of the mosque and taking the first street on the right, we soon saw the small square straight ahead where the Azem Palace stands. Before going in, however, Robert’s attention was drawn by an antique shop just beside it which had many beautiful things piled willy-nilly in the window, among them a few icons. We went inside to have a look at the merchandise. A true Aladdin’s cave! Brass and silver and antique Persian rugs and marquetry furniture and paintings and all kinds of things. And in a small room, a shelf full of icons. We sifted through them and came upon a fine example of the Madonna and Child. They wiped it with some oil and the gold leaf gleamed. A real beauty. They told us that this was only a small sample of what they stocked and, if we were really interested, they would take us to their home to show us the full collection. We declined the offer for the moment and continued towards the Azem Palace, though it must be confessed that the icon is a most beautiful piece of religious art and something which it would be a great pleasure to behold.
The Azem Palace jumps one phase in Syrian history, that of the Mamelukes - the slave dynasty which ruled there for two hundred years - and leads us on to the next stage. The Ottoman family emerged as the most powerful family in Turkey in the fourteenth century and, when they captured Constantinople, the ancient Christian capital, in 1453, the family’s claim to the position of spiritual heirs to the caliphs of old was reinforced. The Ottomans possessed modern machinery of war, such as firearms and heavy artillery, and this technological advantage allowed them to conquer the Mamelukes without much difficulty. The Ottoman period is often described as one of the most brilliant civilizations in the Middle East, but power lay outside and for four hunded years the area was ruled from Turkey. When we wonder sometimes about the fiery Arab nationalism often found in the Middle East, we would do well to remember that until recently most countries in the region had been ruled by outsiders for the best part of nine hundred years!
Construction of the Azem Palace began in 1749 and the building was completed three years later. This was the residence of the Ottoman governor of Damascus, Assad Pasha al-Azem, and it continued to serve as the seat of government in Syria until Ottoman rule came to an end. The building and inner courtyard are a haven of peace amid the hustle and bustle of the surrounding souqs. Visually, the building is quite striking because it is built using parallel layers of white limestone and black basalt stone and in practical terms the palace is divided into two distint areas: the public reception area, the salamlek, and the family area or haremlek. The main courtyard, around which the public rooms are situated with a covered gallery in front, is a garden with fountains and a profusion of flowers. Under the gallery there are seating corners where people could meet during the warm weather. The interior decoration of the rooms is typically Turkish with elaborately painted wooden ceilings, stucco and carved decoration. Then to the right there is another courtyard belonging to the family area and this part of the palace houses the kitchens, store rooms and other practical places.
The palace is now a museum, and each of the public rooms is set up to show what life would have been like in those days. There is a marriage chamber where the bride is preparing for her wedding with her inlaid chest containing her cosmetics. There is “mother-in-law’s” room where the mother-in-law is looking after the baby in a cradle while two maids play backgammon sitting on the floor. In another room the Pasha himself is dispatching with his minister with whom he is not well pleased! Yet another room shows preparations for the pilgrimage to Mecca and the baldachin used is still preserved there. Elsewhere men sit around drinking coffee, much as they do today! There is a music room too. Then, the rooms in the family quarters are set up to show the various trades: copper engraving, glass blowing, silk weaving, leatherworking and so on. In many cases the techniques used by many of the little artisans in the souq have changed very little.
Once again the human dimension provided an interesting aside. As we stood admiring a huge balance at the entrance to the main courtyard, having managed for the first time to make our residents’ permits gain access to a national monument for the same price as Syrian nationals pay instead of the usual tourist rate, a little man with a bush of white hair began to explain what the weighing machine was used for and how the weights worked. Then he said,
“I lived in Liverpool for fifteen years.” He did indeed have a Liverpudlian accent! “I was with Montgomery during the war, you know. I’m from Aleppo. When I was eight years old my father sent me to northern India to learn how to weave fine silk. When I came back to Aleppo my father bought me a loom and all the things I needed to set up my workshop. Then, one day in 1939, two officers came into my workshop and one of them admired my fine work. He asked me where I had learned. When I told him, he said, ‘Then you must speak Urdu.’ ‘I do’, I told him. Then he said, you must come with me. I am in charge of all the British troops in the Middle East and I don’t understand anything these Gurkhas say. What will you pay me. How much do you want? I asked for thirty guineas. One guinea a day. That was a fortune in those days. He agreed and wanted me to go with him at once. I told him I could not because I would have to roll up my silks and prepare the loom if I was to leave it for a long time. He agreed to come back for me the next day.
My mother was crying. She said, ‘You are only fourteen years old, Hassan. You will go away with this general? I told her I liked him and wanted to go, so she agreed. Next day he came for me, but then my father said, ‘And how much are you going to pay me? They negotiated and Montgomery opened his purse and took out one hundred and fifty guineas which he gave to my father. He was very happy.
We went first to Homs and then to Lebanon and then to Palestine. We stayed there for some time. Then we went to Egypt, El Alamein, and then to Italy. Then we were in Tobrouk and there I was hit by shrapnel.” Here he showed us a shrapnel wound down the side of his jaw. “Many soldiers were killed there. I was lucky. I didn’t die. Just this wound. In 1945 when the war ended, Montgomery said to me, ‘And what are you going to do now, Hassan?’ I told him I wanted to go to England, so he took me there. I was in Liverpool until 1960. I know Glasgow and Dublin and many other places. Then I came back to Aleppo.
I have seven sons. No daughters. Only sons. One of my sons is married in Sweden. He is studying medicine. He will finish in two more years. But I don’t think he will come back to Syria. He is married in Stockholm and they have just had a baby. I went to Sweden to see her. I only had sons so I wanted to see my first grand-daughter. She is lovely. Her name is Anna. I am in Damascus today buying silk kilims for my son‘s shop in Aleppo. The man will come for me at eleven o’clock. I will go to his factory. Do you want to come? ....
How much is true? How much is embellishment? How much is the interweaving of other people’s stories with his own, just as he would have woven the coloured threads of his silk cloth? Does it matter? There was certainly more than a kernel of truth in his tale and he enjoyed telling it, and with such pride that it must surely have become true!
July 6th 1998
Sunday, December 11, 2005
THE TOMB OF SALAH AD
THE TOMB OF SALAH AD-DIN
Saladin. The name is familiar to most westerners from childhood, even although we may not always know exactly who he was or what he did, and some may even confuse him with Aladdin of the lamp!
Salah ad-din, whose name means the Righteous One of Religion, though admired as one of the foremost figures of Arab history, was not an Arab at all but a Kurd from Iraq! In 1171 Saladin overthrew the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt, and on the death of his uncle, Nur ad-Din, he stepped into his uncle’s shoes as leader of the fight against the Franks as the Crusaders were known to the Arabs, taking over the succession from Nur ad-Din’s infant son. He then founded his own dynasty, that of the Ayyubids, the name being based on his family name. With the two centres of Arab resistance, Cairo and Damascus, now united under Saladin, he joined battle with the Crusaders at Hittin where the Crusader army was routed and the king of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan, taken prisoner. Gradually Saladin’s forces recaptured most of the Crusader strongholds until only a few isolated fortresses were left, most notably at Tartous, Arwad in Syria and some other places on the Lebanese coast. In contrast to the merciless treatment meted out by the Crusaders to their Arab captives, Moslems and Christian alike, Saladin was lenient and allowed most captives to buy their freedom. The fall of Jerusalem to the Arab forces inspired the legendary Third Crusade which involved some of the most outstanding figures of the age, Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, Philip Augustus of France and Richard the Lionheart of England. Although much has been made of the relationship between Richard and Saladin, the truth is that these two colossi of history never met at all, although they did exchange gifts.
As our entrance fee to the Great Mosque also included the entrance to the tomb of Saladin, we turned the corner of the mosque and made our way to the small garden in which the tomb stands. This is no grandiose monument. The simplicity of the building stands in stark contrast to the greatness of the man whose remains it houses, whose rule, at the height of his power, extended from northern Iraq to Libya. However, it does reflect his own lack of pretentiousness and personal acquisitiveness for, despite the power which he wielded, Saladin died without personal wealth.
The original cenotaph is a humble construction made of wood carved with an inscription which reads. “Oh Allah, be satisfied with this soul and open to him the gates of paradise, the last conquest for which he hoped”. In 1878 the Sultan Hamid ordered a new cenotaph to be made of white marble, and this now stands side by side with the older wooden one. Personally I liked the old one best. Over the centuries the site was neglected to such an extent that in 1898, when he visited the tomb on his way to the Holy Land, Kaiser Wilhelm was so appalled that the tomb of such a great leader should lie in so abject a state of abandonment that he funded the restoration of the mausoleum chamber. Over the marble cenotaph hangs a silver lamp which bears the monograms of both Kaiser Wilhelm and Sultan Hamid.
June 27th 1998
Saladin. The name is familiar to most westerners from childhood, even although we may not always know exactly who he was or what he did, and some may even confuse him with Aladdin of the lamp!
Salah ad-din, whose name means the Righteous One of Religion, though admired as one of the foremost figures of Arab history, was not an Arab at all but a Kurd from Iraq! In 1171 Saladin overthrew the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt, and on the death of his uncle, Nur ad-Din, he stepped into his uncle’s shoes as leader of the fight against the Franks as the Crusaders were known to the Arabs, taking over the succession from Nur ad-Din’s infant son. He then founded his own dynasty, that of the Ayyubids, the name being based on his family name. With the two centres of Arab resistance, Cairo and Damascus, now united under Saladin, he joined battle with the Crusaders at Hittin where the Crusader army was routed and the king of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan, taken prisoner. Gradually Saladin’s forces recaptured most of the Crusader strongholds until only a few isolated fortresses were left, most notably at Tartous, Arwad in Syria and some other places on the Lebanese coast. In contrast to the merciless treatment meted out by the Crusaders to their Arab captives, Moslems and Christian alike, Saladin was lenient and allowed most captives to buy their freedom. The fall of Jerusalem to the Arab forces inspired the legendary Third Crusade which involved some of the most outstanding figures of the age, Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, Philip Augustus of France and Richard the Lionheart of England. Although much has been made of the relationship between Richard and Saladin, the truth is that these two colossi of history never met at all, although they did exchange gifts.
As our entrance fee to the Great Mosque also included the entrance to the tomb of Saladin, we turned the corner of the mosque and made our way to the small garden in which the tomb stands. This is no grandiose monument. The simplicity of the building stands in stark contrast to the greatness of the man whose remains it houses, whose rule, at the height of his power, extended from northern Iraq to Libya. However, it does reflect his own lack of pretentiousness and personal acquisitiveness for, despite the power which he wielded, Saladin died without personal wealth.
The original cenotaph is a humble construction made of wood carved with an inscription which reads. “Oh Allah, be satisfied with this soul and open to him the gates of paradise, the last conquest for which he hoped”. In 1878 the Sultan Hamid ordered a new cenotaph to be made of white marble, and this now stands side by side with the older wooden one. Personally I liked the old one best. Over the centuries the site was neglected to such an extent that in 1898, when he visited the tomb on his way to the Holy Land, Kaiser Wilhelm was so appalled that the tomb of such a great leader should lie in so abject a state of abandonment that he funded the restoration of the mausoleum chamber. Over the marble cenotaph hangs a silver lamp which bears the monograms of both Kaiser Wilhelm and Sultan Hamid.
June 27th 1998
Saturday, December 10, 2005
THE GREAT MOSQUE OF
THE GREAT MOSQUE OF THE UMAYYADS
At last. We had passed in front of and by the side of the mosque so many times but always en route to some other destination. Robert had often said, why don’t we just go in now? but I felt that this was a major monument and it would take some time to visit it. I was right.
As you walk up the half kilometre or so of the Hamadiyye souq, the covered passage gives on to a large open space, the transition marked by the remains on the right of the monumental Roman arch standing opposite the small perfumery and Koran sellers’ stalls on the left. On the far side of this open square stands the Mosque of the Umayyads, which is not only Damascus’ most outstanding monument but also one of the most oustanding monuments of Islam itself and its first great mosque. The mosque is not the first religious building to have occupied this site by any means. As long ago as the 9th. century BC this was already a sacred site and the place where the original Aramaean temple of Haddad was built around the 2nd. century BC. When the Romans arrived, they assimilated Haddad to the Roman pantheon equating him with Jupiter and on this same site, in the 1st. century AD, the Romans built the temple of Jupiter which followed the Syrian tradition of a huge temple enclosure with a central chamber to house the god and a sacrificial altar much like the Temple of Bel at Palmyra. The outer compound or peribolos of the Roman temple was 305m by 385m and the remains of the arch standing at the end of the souq was the western entrance to the peribolos of the temple of Jupiter. The mosque today occupies, more or less, the area of the inner section or temenos of the Roman temple and the immense stone blocks at the base of the mosque walls are the original stones of that structure.
When Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the empire, the inner shrine was torn down and the temple was converted to a Christian church dedicated to St. John the Baptist around the year 379 AD. When Damascus was taken by the Arabs in 636 AD, the mainly Christian population continued to practise their religion and the new Arab settlers were housed in new areas of the city. For over 70 years the church of John the Baptist remained a Christian place of worship although the area was probably also used as a place of worship by the Moslems, the Christian altar facing east and the Moslems praying facing south towards Mecca.
Then, with the growth of Islam, the desire to have a prestigious sacred building dedicated to Islam grew stronger, perhaps fired also by the need to “wash away” the memory of Damascus’s original resistance. So, the Caliph al-Walid negotiated a deal with the Christian community which then left the whole compound free for Islamic worship. The building of the great mosque was commissioned in 708 AD and completed seven years later in 714-715, the year of al-Walid’s death.
How Islam came to pre-eminence at all when it did is an interesting story. After its early struggle, during the Byzantine age, Christianity became an arrogant, self-confident religion particularly after it was adopted as the official religion of the Roman empire. With recognition and officialdom, came control and orthodoxy which the western church tried to impose with an iron hand. But, Syria, which was after all responsible for giving Christianity to the world in a form which made it acceptable to the Roman empire and not just some offshoot of Judaism, had always enjoyed experimenting with religious and philosophical ideas and continued to do so, nurturing some of the first fathers of the church, such as St. John Chrysostom, Nestorius and many others. Another facet which found its way into Christianity via Syria was the monastic tradition which began in the deserts of Egypt but became popular in northern Syria which was dotted with monastic communities throughout the Byzantine age, new comunities being founded, thriving and travelling the world. The nestorian seats of learning were to become the repositories of Graeco-Roman learning during the dark ages of medieval European obscurantism when the hordes from the north annihilated the western part of the Roman empire, eliminating all vestiges of culture throughout Europe, and it was from these nestorian universities that the treasures of classical learning were passed on, through the Islamic world, to Spain and Sicily while they were Islamic enclaves in an ocean of medieval ignorance. These were then the seeds from the which the European Renaissance could begin, first in Italy and later spreading elsewhere.
Nestorianism was one of the strands which thrived and it was a nestorian priest who taught the Prophet Mohammed the tenets of Christianity at the church still standing today in Bosra in southern Syria. However, the eastern reaches of Christianity had always been home to a variety of beliefs, and the philosophical debate over whether Christ had a dual nature, both divine and human, or merely human was one which lasted vigorously up to the seventh century and still survives in minority form in some places. This arcane debate, unlikely as it may seem, was one of the main bones of contention between the eastern elements and western orthodoxy being imposed implacably from Constantinople, and reflected a deeper inability to marry the eastern and western elements in Syrian society. Added to this, Rome and Persia waged war continuously on one another and Nature dealt heavy blows in the form of a series of earthquakes leaving the country weakened by plague and famine. Finally, Rome and Persia had fought themselves to a standstill. There was no energy left and most people could no longer care.
Into this near vacuum came the forces of early Islam which, at first, in the context of this ferment of ideas, was regarded as yet another offshoot of Christianity, much as Christianity had been regarded as an offshoot of Judaism. Syria was one of the first conquests of the Islamic forces. After a few initial skirmishes, the Islamic and Byzantine forces met at Yarmouk on the present Syrian-Jordanian border and the Islamic forces won hands down, ending almost a thousand years of Graeco-Roman rule. The defeated Byzantine emperor declared: “Farewell , O Syria, and what an excellent country this is for the enemy”. With the conquest of Syria, the centre of the Moslem world gradually moved north from Mecca to Damascus, the ancient Aramaean centre. The downfall of the seemingly invincible Byzantine forces was a momentous event because it brought the re-awakening of Syria’s semitic roots. Islam then embarked upon a period of expansion the likes of which had not been seen since the days of Alexander the Great. By the beginning of the 8th century, the Moslem empire extended from Spain, Portugal and southern France in the west almost to the borders of China in central Asia, an empire greater than even the might of Rome at its peak.
The western entrance to the mosque from the open square was still closed as the attendants were laying out the carpets in preparation for Friday prayers. In any case, as “infidels” we would not be allowed to enter that way, so we made our way round to a door on the north side leading into small rooms from the Roman period where we paid our 10 Syrian pounds tourist entrance fee (about 15 pence) and I was issued with a horrid black gown with a hood on it to put on over my ankle-length skirt and elbow-length top with a high neck, which seemed pointless somehow. Anyway, I obliged and firmly tied up the four ribbons down the front and clapped the hood on my head presenting an image which must have resembled that of some ghoulish character. This procedure indicates a degree of greater (and indiscriminate) application of rules than I found in Egypt where there was no obligation for non-Moslems to cover their heads and only those tourists whose garb was regarded as unseemly (and there are plenty of those) were asked to cover themselves with a cloak.
The northern entrance, like the western one, gives on to the huge courtyard of the mosque which measures 50 by 122m. It is a strikingly simple place. The floor is paved with white marble slabs which in the nineteenth century replaced the 11th century baked tiles which, in turn, replaced the original Roman mosaic flooring. In the centre of the courtyard is a rather modern roofed ablutions fountain reminiscent of a garden folly with stone benches all around. To the right (west) is a small domed octagonal building whose columns with Corinthian capitals are obviously the result of a recycling process from the Roman temple which stood here. This is, or was, the mosque treasury and the columns were used to raise the treaury room for reasons of security. This is an unusual feature in mosque design and some people believe that it may be a development of the fountain which often stood in the courtyards of Byzantine churches. On the left (east) is another domed pavilion which until 1958 was used to house the mosque’s clock collection. Not unnaturally the building is known as the Dome of the Clocks.
Facing the north entrance we had come in is a partition marking the division between the courtyard and the prayer hall. This is a later addition, because in the original layout there was no physical separation between these two areas. The western and northern sides are surrounded by an arcaded “cloistered” walk made up of tall lower arcades with smaller arcades on top. The lower arcades have slightly horseshoe-shaped arches. This design, which was found in some later Byzantine churches, did not survive in Syrian Islamic architecture but it was maintained and developed by the Moslem culture of Spain giving rise to what must be one of the most splendid examples at the great mosque of Cordoba, when the sole Umayyad survivor of the Iraqi Abbasid overthrow made his way to Spain to found a highly fruitful neo-Umayyad caliphate there.
The walls under the arcades were richly decorated with mosaics depicting the Koranic vision of Paradise: “Such is the Paradise promised to the righteous; streams run through it; its fruits never fail; it never lacks shade”. This verdant panel is known as the Barada mosaic, named after the River Barada which flows through Damascus providing it with water and making the soil fertile. In conformance with the tenets of Islamic art, not once in the vast expanse covered does the human form appear, only trees, streams, pavilions and palaces, flowers and rivers. The mosaics are confined to the upper part of the wall and the lower part was clad with marble panels. Although much of the mosaic has been restored, sometimes badly and mostly without the refinement of the early craftsmanship, and only part of the marble cladding remains, the effect is still stunning and it is not difficult to imagine the splendour of the original made by Byzantine and Persian craftmen contracted specifically for this purpose.
Standing at the door as we came in, two minarets are visible at the western and eastern ends of the prayer hall. The Western Tower was built in 1488 by the Mameluke sultan Qait Bey in the Egyptian style. The eastern tower which is the tallest of the minarets is known as the Tower of Jesus. According to popular Islamic tradition, on the Last Day Jesus will descend from Heaven via this tower to combat the Antichrist. There is a third tower in the middle of the north wall so we had to cross the courtyard to have a look at it. This is the Tower of the Bride. Archeologists are still debating whether these towers were part of the original Umayyad structure or whether they were later additions. In any case, the Tower of Jesus is probably the earliest version of the use of minarets in Islamic religious architecture in Syria and served the useful purpose of proclaiming the presence of the Moslem community in a city which was still mostly Christian at that time. They also forge a link between the new religion of Islam and the ancient semitic tradition of worshipping on high places which is amply recorded in the Bible in such incidents as Abraham going up to a high place to sacrifice his son and Moses receiving the tablets of stone on a high place.
We then removed our shoes in order to enter the prayer hall proper. By this time there were quite a lot of people wandering around, mostly local people out on a family excursion but also small groups of pilgrims from other Islamic countries and one other European couple, she also clad in the dreaded cloak. The prayer hall is lofty with tall columns, but this columnade is a much simpler version of the original Umayyad one which was probably closer to the Cordoba model. We must renew our acquaintance with the mosque at Cordoba now that we have seen the original prototype. Most of this structure was rebuilt after a disastrous fire at the end of the nineteenth century. In the middle of the prayer hall there is a transept oriented north-south, whose purpose now is to help worshippers to direct their prayers south to Mecca and, in the middle of the south wall, is the mihrab, a device which was used for the first time in this mosque and later adopted universally. The transept is crowned in the centre by a dome. The original Umayyad dome which was made of wood was replaced in the 11th. century by a stone dome which was in turn replaced after the fire by a more modern structure based on a Turkish adaptation of European styles. There are still some pieces of the original wooden ceiling panelling and six 8th century windows which managed to escape the 1893 fire.
On the eastern side is a mausoleum which is the legendary site of the burial of the head of St. John the Baptist. The original Byzantine church was dedicated to him but, according to tradition, the head was found when the mosque was being constructed and buried here. The original mausoleum was made of wood and fell prey to the fire, so the present marble extravaganza is a modern affair.
One of the interesting things about mosques, both ancient and modern, is that they are living buildings, places where people go not just to pray but to wander around, sit, chat and even to sleep. Travellers or simply the weary often drop into the mosque and lie down on the floor covered with oriental rugs to recover from their fatigue. So we came across a number of bodies curled up or stretched out by a column sleeping the sleep of the just.
We stepped outside into the sunlight once again and put our shoes on. Earlier, when we were viewing the courtyard and the mosaics, we had noticed that on the eastern side, just behind the Dome of the Clocks there was a small entrance where many Shi’a Moslems were congregating. The guide books say that here is a small shrine to Hussein which has become a site of Shi’a pilgrimage. As it had nothing more to say on the subject, we thought it might not hold anything of interest, so Robert stayed outside while I went in to investigate. True, in terms of monuments and grandiosity, the little building had little to offer: the ceilings were fairly low and the outer rooms were small and bare with just a few carpets and the wooden trestles where people can leave their shoes and other belongings while they pray. However, the human dimension was quite electrifying.
I walked in rather diffidently, unsure as to the reception I might receive in a place of pilgrimage and so obviously not a member of the religious group for whom the place is sacred. An old man was praying kneeling down on the carpet in the first room where some ladies were sitting on the floor too. Most of the people were gravitating to a second inner room and sounds of chanting could be heard. I followed them. There was a man sitting on a chair and two young men dressed in pristine white tunics and pants in the Pakistani style with gold embroidered skullcaps, white socks, carrying white slippers in their hands, were waiting to take a photograph. A cloud of women wearing Irani style chadors, though not all black, were crowding around a small niche in the wall clad in worked silver. They passed their hands over the niche and many bent down to kiss it murmuring prayers. They wiped the hand which had touched the niche all over their face and head. Most of them were crying. Then they left the niche and continued into yet another room separated from the one I was in by a silver grille. When the niche became free for a moment or two one of the young men took a photograph of his companion standing by it, and then his friend did the same.
In the inner chamber was the group of pilgrims to which the two young men belonged. Their features and the men’s apparel would appear to indicate that they were from the Indian sub-continent, but, although the women wore bright colours as Pakistani or Indian women would, the style of their head veil was more similar to that worn in places such as Indonesia, so I was left puzzled as to their origins. The whole group was chanting prayers and the unison chant, together with the crying of the older women, made the atmosphere electric. I stood and watched for quite a long time without daring to enter the inner room. The hair was standing up on my arms which were cold with gooseflesh. Who were these people and what was the reason for their passionate prayers?
The roots of their passion lie in yet another fascinating episode in Islamic history which continues to colour and influence the Moslem believer to this day. Before he died in 632, the Prophet Mohammed appointed Abu Bakr as caliph or leader of the faithful. Under Abu Bakr the first tentative moves towards northward expansion begun under Mohammad himself were continued and expanded, and at the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 the Islamic forces had already reached Syria. Abu Bakr was followed by Othman and then, after the murder of Othman, by Ali who was the cousin of the Prophet and also his son-in-law as Ali married Fatima, the prophet’s daughter. This group is known as the “right-guided caliphs”.
However, Ali’s leadership was contested by Muawiya who thought that Ali had not been categorical enough in disassociating himself from Othman’s murderers. Muawiya was the first of the Umayyad caliphs. In fact, the name of this caliphate is derived from his name because in Arabic they are known as the Umauyeen or the followers of Muawiya. This was a period of great intellectual curiosity which flourished under Muawiya’s moderate and skilful rule which established the supremacy or Arabic and the centrality of Islam and made Damascus a cultural, political and artistic centre
When Muawiya died, the split between the followers of Ali who wished succession to the caliphate to be inherited through Ali’s line and the Umayyads who wished caliphs to be elected could no longer be ignored. Ali’s eldest son, Hassan, showed no interest in pressing his claim to the succession. His younger brother, Hussein, stepped in on the death of his elder brother. Muawiya was succeeded by his son, Yazid. Yazid drew Hussein’s supporters into battle at Kerbala in southern Iraq in 680AD or the year 61 of the Hijra or migration of the Prophet. Hussein and virtually all his followers were slaughtered. Zeinab, Hussein’s sister, was taken captive to Damascus. This event was to rankle for centuries and, if the manifestations of the people visiting the shrine and the opinions of the Syrian Alawites are any barometer, sentiments are still deeply rooted and very much alive. In any case, events at Kerbala were to perpetuate the division between the orthodox followers of the Umayyad caliphate, later to become known as Sunnis, and the defeated supporters of the house of Ali now known as the Shi’ites.
I came back out into the courtyard and told Robert that I thought the atmosphere inside the shrine was so electrifying that it really should be experienced, so he removed his shoes once again and we went back inside. The original group of older ladies had now gone but the group of pilgrims dressed in their white tunics was still in the inner room chanting. This time we went inside too. New arrivals kissed the niche and passed their hand over their face and head. Then they did they same at the silver grille. The niche would appear to mark the orientation of the resting place of the head of Hussein and another silver grille encloses the shrine where the body is said to lie. The women kissed the grille and tied white and green ribbons on it. They cried and prayed and those who had come from afar had their photographs taken, no doubt to be shown to family and friends on their return.
Suddenly the cadence of the chanting changed. It grew more urgent, crescendoing and increasing in pace. “Ali, Ali, Ali. Hussein, Hussein, Hussein!”. First the prayer leader and then the other members of the group began to beat their breasts, some using the right hand only to beat the breast above the heart and others using alternate strokes to beat both sides of the chest. The small children emulated their parents. One child stood up and was silently told to sit down again which he did without a murmur. This was clearly a milder manifestation of the flagellation which many Shi’as carry out beating their bodies on the 10th of the Islamic month of Muharram to commemorate the assassination of Hussein. We were later told by a member of the Shi’a comunity that the reason why the people beat their breasts is a form of mea culpa because, when Hussein was assassinated by the followers of Muawiya, the followers of Ali did not heed Hussein’s pleas for help. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the beating ceased and the rhythm of the chanting became tranquil once gain.
This is the fervour of the people and it rises spontaneously from within them with a passion which few western religions can summon up today. In any case, it was a powerful experience and one which transcends the purely intellectual.
June 26th 1998
At last. We had passed in front of and by the side of the mosque so many times but always en route to some other destination. Robert had often said, why don’t we just go in now? but I felt that this was a major monument and it would take some time to visit it. I was right.
As you walk up the half kilometre or so of the Hamadiyye souq, the covered passage gives on to a large open space, the transition marked by the remains on the right of the monumental Roman arch standing opposite the small perfumery and Koran sellers’ stalls on the left. On the far side of this open square stands the Mosque of the Umayyads, which is not only Damascus’ most outstanding monument but also one of the most oustanding monuments of Islam itself and its first great mosque. The mosque is not the first religious building to have occupied this site by any means. As long ago as the 9th. century BC this was already a sacred site and the place where the original Aramaean temple of Haddad was built around the 2nd. century BC. When the Romans arrived, they assimilated Haddad to the Roman pantheon equating him with Jupiter and on this same site, in the 1st. century AD, the Romans built the temple of Jupiter which followed the Syrian tradition of a huge temple enclosure with a central chamber to house the god and a sacrificial altar much like the Temple of Bel at Palmyra. The outer compound or peribolos of the Roman temple was 305m by 385m and the remains of the arch standing at the end of the souq was the western entrance to the peribolos of the temple of Jupiter. The mosque today occupies, more or less, the area of the inner section or temenos of the Roman temple and the immense stone blocks at the base of the mosque walls are the original stones of that structure.
When Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the empire, the inner shrine was torn down and the temple was converted to a Christian church dedicated to St. John the Baptist around the year 379 AD. When Damascus was taken by the Arabs in 636 AD, the mainly Christian population continued to practise their religion and the new Arab settlers were housed in new areas of the city. For over 70 years the church of John the Baptist remained a Christian place of worship although the area was probably also used as a place of worship by the Moslems, the Christian altar facing east and the Moslems praying facing south towards Mecca.
Then, with the growth of Islam, the desire to have a prestigious sacred building dedicated to Islam grew stronger, perhaps fired also by the need to “wash away” the memory of Damascus’s original resistance. So, the Caliph al-Walid negotiated a deal with the Christian community which then left the whole compound free for Islamic worship. The building of the great mosque was commissioned in 708 AD and completed seven years later in 714-715, the year of al-Walid’s death.
How Islam came to pre-eminence at all when it did is an interesting story. After its early struggle, during the Byzantine age, Christianity became an arrogant, self-confident religion particularly after it was adopted as the official religion of the Roman empire. With recognition and officialdom, came control and orthodoxy which the western church tried to impose with an iron hand. But, Syria, which was after all responsible for giving Christianity to the world in a form which made it acceptable to the Roman empire and not just some offshoot of Judaism, had always enjoyed experimenting with religious and philosophical ideas and continued to do so, nurturing some of the first fathers of the church, such as St. John Chrysostom, Nestorius and many others. Another facet which found its way into Christianity via Syria was the monastic tradition which began in the deserts of Egypt but became popular in northern Syria which was dotted with monastic communities throughout the Byzantine age, new comunities being founded, thriving and travelling the world. The nestorian seats of learning were to become the repositories of Graeco-Roman learning during the dark ages of medieval European obscurantism when the hordes from the north annihilated the western part of the Roman empire, eliminating all vestiges of culture throughout Europe, and it was from these nestorian universities that the treasures of classical learning were passed on, through the Islamic world, to Spain and Sicily while they were Islamic enclaves in an ocean of medieval ignorance. These were then the seeds from the which the European Renaissance could begin, first in Italy and later spreading elsewhere.
Nestorianism was one of the strands which thrived and it was a nestorian priest who taught the Prophet Mohammed the tenets of Christianity at the church still standing today in Bosra in southern Syria. However, the eastern reaches of Christianity had always been home to a variety of beliefs, and the philosophical debate over whether Christ had a dual nature, both divine and human, or merely human was one which lasted vigorously up to the seventh century and still survives in minority form in some places. This arcane debate, unlikely as it may seem, was one of the main bones of contention between the eastern elements and western orthodoxy being imposed implacably from Constantinople, and reflected a deeper inability to marry the eastern and western elements in Syrian society. Added to this, Rome and Persia waged war continuously on one another and Nature dealt heavy blows in the form of a series of earthquakes leaving the country weakened by plague and famine. Finally, Rome and Persia had fought themselves to a standstill. There was no energy left and most people could no longer care.
Into this near vacuum came the forces of early Islam which, at first, in the context of this ferment of ideas, was regarded as yet another offshoot of Christianity, much as Christianity had been regarded as an offshoot of Judaism. Syria was one of the first conquests of the Islamic forces. After a few initial skirmishes, the Islamic and Byzantine forces met at Yarmouk on the present Syrian-Jordanian border and the Islamic forces won hands down, ending almost a thousand years of Graeco-Roman rule. The defeated Byzantine emperor declared: “Farewell , O Syria, and what an excellent country this is for the enemy”. With the conquest of Syria, the centre of the Moslem world gradually moved north from Mecca to Damascus, the ancient Aramaean centre. The downfall of the seemingly invincible Byzantine forces was a momentous event because it brought the re-awakening of Syria’s semitic roots. Islam then embarked upon a period of expansion the likes of which had not been seen since the days of Alexander the Great. By the beginning of the 8th century, the Moslem empire extended from Spain, Portugal and southern France in the west almost to the borders of China in central Asia, an empire greater than even the might of Rome at its peak.
The western entrance to the mosque from the open square was still closed as the attendants were laying out the carpets in preparation for Friday prayers. In any case, as “infidels” we would not be allowed to enter that way, so we made our way round to a door on the north side leading into small rooms from the Roman period where we paid our 10 Syrian pounds tourist entrance fee (about 15 pence) and I was issued with a horrid black gown with a hood on it to put on over my ankle-length skirt and elbow-length top with a high neck, which seemed pointless somehow. Anyway, I obliged and firmly tied up the four ribbons down the front and clapped the hood on my head presenting an image which must have resembled that of some ghoulish character. This procedure indicates a degree of greater (and indiscriminate) application of rules than I found in Egypt where there was no obligation for non-Moslems to cover their heads and only those tourists whose garb was regarded as unseemly (and there are plenty of those) were asked to cover themselves with a cloak.
The northern entrance, like the western one, gives on to the huge courtyard of the mosque which measures 50 by 122m. It is a strikingly simple place. The floor is paved with white marble slabs which in the nineteenth century replaced the 11th century baked tiles which, in turn, replaced the original Roman mosaic flooring. In the centre of the courtyard is a rather modern roofed ablutions fountain reminiscent of a garden folly with stone benches all around. To the right (west) is a small domed octagonal building whose columns with Corinthian capitals are obviously the result of a recycling process from the Roman temple which stood here. This is, or was, the mosque treasury and the columns were used to raise the treaury room for reasons of security. This is an unusual feature in mosque design and some people believe that it may be a development of the fountain which often stood in the courtyards of Byzantine churches. On the left (east) is another domed pavilion which until 1958 was used to house the mosque’s clock collection. Not unnaturally the building is known as the Dome of the Clocks.
Facing the north entrance we had come in is a partition marking the division between the courtyard and the prayer hall. This is a later addition, because in the original layout there was no physical separation between these two areas. The western and northern sides are surrounded by an arcaded “cloistered” walk made up of tall lower arcades with smaller arcades on top. The lower arcades have slightly horseshoe-shaped arches. This design, which was found in some later Byzantine churches, did not survive in Syrian Islamic architecture but it was maintained and developed by the Moslem culture of Spain giving rise to what must be one of the most splendid examples at the great mosque of Cordoba, when the sole Umayyad survivor of the Iraqi Abbasid overthrow made his way to Spain to found a highly fruitful neo-Umayyad caliphate there.
The walls under the arcades were richly decorated with mosaics depicting the Koranic vision of Paradise: “Such is the Paradise promised to the righteous; streams run through it; its fruits never fail; it never lacks shade”. This verdant panel is known as the Barada mosaic, named after the River Barada which flows through Damascus providing it with water and making the soil fertile. In conformance with the tenets of Islamic art, not once in the vast expanse covered does the human form appear, only trees, streams, pavilions and palaces, flowers and rivers. The mosaics are confined to the upper part of the wall and the lower part was clad with marble panels. Although much of the mosaic has been restored, sometimes badly and mostly without the refinement of the early craftsmanship, and only part of the marble cladding remains, the effect is still stunning and it is not difficult to imagine the splendour of the original made by Byzantine and Persian craftmen contracted specifically for this purpose.
Standing at the door as we came in, two minarets are visible at the western and eastern ends of the prayer hall. The Western Tower was built in 1488 by the Mameluke sultan Qait Bey in the Egyptian style. The eastern tower which is the tallest of the minarets is known as the Tower of Jesus. According to popular Islamic tradition, on the Last Day Jesus will descend from Heaven via this tower to combat the Antichrist. There is a third tower in the middle of the north wall so we had to cross the courtyard to have a look at it. This is the Tower of the Bride. Archeologists are still debating whether these towers were part of the original Umayyad structure or whether they were later additions. In any case, the Tower of Jesus is probably the earliest version of the use of minarets in Islamic religious architecture in Syria and served the useful purpose of proclaiming the presence of the Moslem community in a city which was still mostly Christian at that time. They also forge a link between the new religion of Islam and the ancient semitic tradition of worshipping on high places which is amply recorded in the Bible in such incidents as Abraham going up to a high place to sacrifice his son and Moses receiving the tablets of stone on a high place.
We then removed our shoes in order to enter the prayer hall proper. By this time there were quite a lot of people wandering around, mostly local people out on a family excursion but also small groups of pilgrims from other Islamic countries and one other European couple, she also clad in the dreaded cloak. The prayer hall is lofty with tall columns, but this columnade is a much simpler version of the original Umayyad one which was probably closer to the Cordoba model. We must renew our acquaintance with the mosque at Cordoba now that we have seen the original prototype. Most of this structure was rebuilt after a disastrous fire at the end of the nineteenth century. In the middle of the prayer hall there is a transept oriented north-south, whose purpose now is to help worshippers to direct their prayers south to Mecca and, in the middle of the south wall, is the mihrab, a device which was used for the first time in this mosque and later adopted universally. The transept is crowned in the centre by a dome. The original Umayyad dome which was made of wood was replaced in the 11th. century by a stone dome which was in turn replaced after the fire by a more modern structure based on a Turkish adaptation of European styles. There are still some pieces of the original wooden ceiling panelling and six 8th century windows which managed to escape the 1893 fire.
On the eastern side is a mausoleum which is the legendary site of the burial of the head of St. John the Baptist. The original Byzantine church was dedicated to him but, according to tradition, the head was found when the mosque was being constructed and buried here. The original mausoleum was made of wood and fell prey to the fire, so the present marble extravaganza is a modern affair.
One of the interesting things about mosques, both ancient and modern, is that they are living buildings, places where people go not just to pray but to wander around, sit, chat and even to sleep. Travellers or simply the weary often drop into the mosque and lie down on the floor covered with oriental rugs to recover from their fatigue. So we came across a number of bodies curled up or stretched out by a column sleeping the sleep of the just.
We stepped outside into the sunlight once again and put our shoes on. Earlier, when we were viewing the courtyard and the mosaics, we had noticed that on the eastern side, just behind the Dome of the Clocks there was a small entrance where many Shi’a Moslems were congregating. The guide books say that here is a small shrine to Hussein which has become a site of Shi’a pilgrimage. As it had nothing more to say on the subject, we thought it might not hold anything of interest, so Robert stayed outside while I went in to investigate. True, in terms of monuments and grandiosity, the little building had little to offer: the ceilings were fairly low and the outer rooms were small and bare with just a few carpets and the wooden trestles where people can leave their shoes and other belongings while they pray. However, the human dimension was quite electrifying.
I walked in rather diffidently, unsure as to the reception I might receive in a place of pilgrimage and so obviously not a member of the religious group for whom the place is sacred. An old man was praying kneeling down on the carpet in the first room where some ladies were sitting on the floor too. Most of the people were gravitating to a second inner room and sounds of chanting could be heard. I followed them. There was a man sitting on a chair and two young men dressed in pristine white tunics and pants in the Pakistani style with gold embroidered skullcaps, white socks, carrying white slippers in their hands, were waiting to take a photograph. A cloud of women wearing Irani style chadors, though not all black, were crowding around a small niche in the wall clad in worked silver. They passed their hands over the niche and many bent down to kiss it murmuring prayers. They wiped the hand which had touched the niche all over their face and head. Most of them were crying. Then they left the niche and continued into yet another room separated from the one I was in by a silver grille. When the niche became free for a moment or two one of the young men took a photograph of his companion standing by it, and then his friend did the same.
In the inner chamber was the group of pilgrims to which the two young men belonged. Their features and the men’s apparel would appear to indicate that they were from the Indian sub-continent, but, although the women wore bright colours as Pakistani or Indian women would, the style of their head veil was more similar to that worn in places such as Indonesia, so I was left puzzled as to their origins. The whole group was chanting prayers and the unison chant, together with the crying of the older women, made the atmosphere electric. I stood and watched for quite a long time without daring to enter the inner room. The hair was standing up on my arms which were cold with gooseflesh. Who were these people and what was the reason for their passionate prayers?
The roots of their passion lie in yet another fascinating episode in Islamic history which continues to colour and influence the Moslem believer to this day. Before he died in 632, the Prophet Mohammed appointed Abu Bakr as caliph or leader of the faithful. Under Abu Bakr the first tentative moves towards northward expansion begun under Mohammad himself were continued and expanded, and at the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 the Islamic forces had already reached Syria. Abu Bakr was followed by Othman and then, after the murder of Othman, by Ali who was the cousin of the Prophet and also his son-in-law as Ali married Fatima, the prophet’s daughter. This group is known as the “right-guided caliphs”.
However, Ali’s leadership was contested by Muawiya who thought that Ali had not been categorical enough in disassociating himself from Othman’s murderers. Muawiya was the first of the Umayyad caliphs. In fact, the name of this caliphate is derived from his name because in Arabic they are known as the Umauyeen or the followers of Muawiya. This was a period of great intellectual curiosity which flourished under Muawiya’s moderate and skilful rule which established the supremacy or Arabic and the centrality of Islam and made Damascus a cultural, political and artistic centre
When Muawiya died, the split between the followers of Ali who wished succession to the caliphate to be inherited through Ali’s line and the Umayyads who wished caliphs to be elected could no longer be ignored. Ali’s eldest son, Hassan, showed no interest in pressing his claim to the succession. His younger brother, Hussein, stepped in on the death of his elder brother. Muawiya was succeeded by his son, Yazid. Yazid drew Hussein’s supporters into battle at Kerbala in southern Iraq in 680AD or the year 61 of the Hijra or migration of the Prophet. Hussein and virtually all his followers were slaughtered. Zeinab, Hussein’s sister, was taken captive to Damascus. This event was to rankle for centuries and, if the manifestations of the people visiting the shrine and the opinions of the Syrian Alawites are any barometer, sentiments are still deeply rooted and very much alive. In any case, events at Kerbala were to perpetuate the division between the orthodox followers of the Umayyad caliphate, later to become known as Sunnis, and the defeated supporters of the house of Ali now known as the Shi’ites.
I came back out into the courtyard and told Robert that I thought the atmosphere inside the shrine was so electrifying that it really should be experienced, so he removed his shoes once again and we went back inside. The original group of older ladies had now gone but the group of pilgrims dressed in their white tunics was still in the inner room chanting. This time we went inside too. New arrivals kissed the niche and passed their hand over their face and head. Then they did they same at the silver grille. The niche would appear to mark the orientation of the resting place of the head of Hussein and another silver grille encloses the shrine where the body is said to lie. The women kissed the grille and tied white and green ribbons on it. They cried and prayed and those who had come from afar had their photographs taken, no doubt to be shown to family and friends on their return.
Suddenly the cadence of the chanting changed. It grew more urgent, crescendoing and increasing in pace. “Ali, Ali, Ali. Hussein, Hussein, Hussein!”. First the prayer leader and then the other members of the group began to beat their breasts, some using the right hand only to beat the breast above the heart and others using alternate strokes to beat both sides of the chest. The small children emulated their parents. One child stood up and was silently told to sit down again which he did without a murmur. This was clearly a milder manifestation of the flagellation which many Shi’as carry out beating their bodies on the 10th of the Islamic month of Muharram to commemorate the assassination of Hussein. We were later told by a member of the Shi’a comunity that the reason why the people beat their breasts is a form of mea culpa because, when Hussein was assassinated by the followers of Muawiya, the followers of Ali did not heed Hussein’s pleas for help. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the beating ceased and the rhythm of the chanting became tranquil once gain.
This is the fervour of the people and it rises spontaneously from within them with a passion which few western religions can summon up today. In any case, it was a powerful experience and one which transcends the purely intellectual.
June 26th 1998
Friday, December 09, 2005
IZRAA
IZRA’A
Once again we ventured into the Hauran, this time to visit Izra’a, a place we had seen on the signposts as we passed on the way to Bosra and Dara’a but where we had not yet had the chance to stop. The main attractions in Izra’a are two Byzantine churches, the Church of St. George and the Church of St. Elias. In the Byzantine period, this small town, now a languishing provincial backwater, was a bishopric.
After a rather unpromising start to our search when we turned back because the road looked as though it was going nowhere of any interest, we stopped and asked for directions, first at a fruit stall and later from passers-by, and finally we retraced our steps along the unpromising road and even further out through old basalt stone houses dating from the Roman period but which, with the passage of time, are gradually acquiring upper storeys made of cement blocks! Eventually the onion-shaped dome of the Church of St. George appeared against the skyline.
We parked the car and asked a couple of men, from their dress obviously Christians, who would have the key, but they told us that the church would be opened at ten o’clock, so, in the meantime I took the dog out for a walk along what, if it were not for the litter everywhere, could be a beautiful country lane down past the church and a cemetery. Shortly the priest appeared with his black soutane flapping in the breeze and beckoning us to come into the church.
The descriptions in the books were not wrong. This is a little gem. The Church of St. George, which dates from 515A.D., is the oldest continuously used church in Syria, and it is in a remarkably fine state of repair. This may be due to the fact that St. George (he of the dragon) is widely venerated throughout the Middle East so the faithful would be forthcoming with their alms, particularly as, according to tradition, the church marks the spot where St. George was buried. What they did with the dragon I don’t know!
The source of the veneration to St. George in the Middle East apparently stems from the fact that he is identified with an ancient fertility cult. St. George is equivalent to St. Elias (interestingly the other church in the village is dedicated to this saint) and Elijah of the Bible and Khidr of the Moslems, who, in turn, are linked to the popular fertility deity and the cults of Baal of ancient Syria. This form of popular religion has survived, penetrating all the monotheistic religions, undoubtedly due to the importance of fertility in a basic peasant miilieu.
The church was originally a Byzantine martyrium and, in architectural terms, the martyrium was the most original form in early Christian architecture because these buildings were put up specifically to mark a burial place or a particularly holy spot where some venerated person had undergone martyrdom, rather than just convenient places where the faithful could gather to share their religious activities. In the early days that purpose was served by private houses and later the old Roman public buildings, such as the basilicas, were adapted for the purpose.
The Church of St. George, or Mar Georgis as he is known in the Middle East, is an example of one of the styles which developed, the octagon within a square. From the outside the building is a square with an extension forming an apse. From the inside, the shape is octagonal, the octagon being formed by using semi-circular chapels to cut off the corners of the square. The octagon then gradually transforms into a circular shape to allow for the cupola above which is more modern and probably replaces a previous wooden one. The aisle which goes all around the church is roofed with long rectangular basalt stones which fit neatly together. The stone walls were probably once covered with painted plaster and, although that has virtually disappeared over the last 1500 years or so, the impact of the church is still great. Sitting in it gave me the same feeling I get in the small Romanesque churches of northern Spain. There is something intimate about these small, all-embracing buildings. As the Church of St. George belongs to the Greek Orthodox community, there is an iconostasis at the eastern end. The icons on the iconostasis wall are very old. Although it is forbidden to go beyond this point, we managed to peer through at the collection of icons behind, which seemed to vary in age and artistic merit.
The priest led us straight away to his visitors’ book where we were asked to sign and put the date. For some reason which I was unable to fathom, he also wanted us to put the make and registration number of the car! As I couldn’t remember what they were, he rushed out himself to verify this vital piece of information which he hastened to record in the tome sitting on a table beside plans of the church drawn up by an architect/archeologist. When Robert gave him a contribution for the upkeep of the church, he was most disappointed that the cash was in Syrian pounds and not US dollars which, he said, were much better.
As the priest could only speak Arabic, this was an ideal opportunity for me to practise my six words, so I asked him about the community and his own studies. I managed to glean that the community in Izra’a is divided half and half between Christians and Moslems. There are about 1,700 Christians who, in turn, are divided between the Greek Orthodox and Catholic denominations. He studied for the priesthood at the college in Suweida, the provincial capital which we visited a few weeks ago.
Having taken a few photos of the church from the outside (we thought we had better not ask to take any inside) to record the metal covered dome and the horrendous modern concrete bell-tower which now disfigures the ancient building, we then walked up the road about 200 metres to the Church of St. Elias which is the domain of the Greek Catholics. This church, which was built in 542 A.D., was another martyrium, but this one was built on the cross-shaped plan which was to gain increasing popularity as a religious architectural form. However, the building has been extensively rebuilt and, as it was closed, we could not get a view of the interior. Outside the main door there is a walled yard with a metal gate which was padlocked. The original wooden dome has also been replaced by a modern one and the fashion for concrete bell-towers makes itself apparent here too. Why is it that bad taste is virtually universal?
Both churches are surrounded by the homes of the Christian community which are mostly old Roman houses made of basalt stone now being adapted - in the most vandalistic fashion - to the requirements of modern living, cement blocks and satellite dishes included. The crystalline voice of a young girl singing floated on the air. This was quite striking in a country where singing is almost never heard.
On the return journey, we opted not to take the main road but to follow some of the byways through the countryside of the Hauran which, despite the harshness of the climate, is remarkably beautiful. As we rounded a bend, we came upon a long, low building with at least a hundred women standing or sitting outside. As this is Druze country, they were all wearing long black dresses and white veils, although they do not cover their faces, only their heads. I got out of the car to ask what the gathering was about but I did not understand the reply, “ajaar”. A little further down the road, there was a great confusion of cars, mini-buses, buses and tractors full of Druze men who were coming out of an even larger round, roofless enclosure. The black oriental trousers and black jackets worn by the Druze men with their-well fashioned moustaches and white fez-like hats with a red top make a great spectacle, because they create a very elegant and venerable impression and the Druze, both men and women, are always impeccably groomed. We later discovered that “ajaar” means a funeral and Esma’a, one of the secretaries at the office who is herself a Druze, explained that, as the houses are usually too small for large gatherings such as weddings and funerals, two places are taken for such events, one for the women and another for the men so that the community can communicate their condolences to the bereaved family.
The next encounter was with a tortoise which was crossing the road. As it would not have stood a chance against the minibuses hurtling along after the funeral, we stopped the car and lifted her (Was it a her?) across to the other side of the road where she was headed. As he lifted her, Robert saw that the poor thing was covered with ticks on her feet and legs and neck (This is the tick season). Although she drew herself into her shell, he did his best to rid her of the all the ticks he could get a hold of before freeing her once again. Amazingly, there were even ticks on the underside of her shell and, when they were removed, blood came out through the shell!
May 29th 1998
Once again we ventured into the Hauran, this time to visit Izra’a, a place we had seen on the signposts as we passed on the way to Bosra and Dara’a but where we had not yet had the chance to stop. The main attractions in Izra’a are two Byzantine churches, the Church of St. George and the Church of St. Elias. In the Byzantine period, this small town, now a languishing provincial backwater, was a bishopric.
After a rather unpromising start to our search when we turned back because the road looked as though it was going nowhere of any interest, we stopped and asked for directions, first at a fruit stall and later from passers-by, and finally we retraced our steps along the unpromising road and even further out through old basalt stone houses dating from the Roman period but which, with the passage of time, are gradually acquiring upper storeys made of cement blocks! Eventually the onion-shaped dome of the Church of St. George appeared against the skyline.
We parked the car and asked a couple of men, from their dress obviously Christians, who would have the key, but they told us that the church would be opened at ten o’clock, so, in the meantime I took the dog out for a walk along what, if it were not for the litter everywhere, could be a beautiful country lane down past the church and a cemetery. Shortly the priest appeared with his black soutane flapping in the breeze and beckoning us to come into the church.
The descriptions in the books were not wrong. This is a little gem. The Church of St. George, which dates from 515A.D., is the oldest continuously used church in Syria, and it is in a remarkably fine state of repair. This may be due to the fact that St. George (he of the dragon) is widely venerated throughout the Middle East so the faithful would be forthcoming with their alms, particularly as, according to tradition, the church marks the spot where St. George was buried. What they did with the dragon I don’t know!
The source of the veneration to St. George in the Middle East apparently stems from the fact that he is identified with an ancient fertility cult. St. George is equivalent to St. Elias (interestingly the other church in the village is dedicated to this saint) and Elijah of the Bible and Khidr of the Moslems, who, in turn, are linked to the popular fertility deity and the cults of Baal of ancient Syria. This form of popular religion has survived, penetrating all the monotheistic religions, undoubtedly due to the importance of fertility in a basic peasant miilieu.
The church was originally a Byzantine martyrium and, in architectural terms, the martyrium was the most original form in early Christian architecture because these buildings were put up specifically to mark a burial place or a particularly holy spot where some venerated person had undergone martyrdom, rather than just convenient places where the faithful could gather to share their religious activities. In the early days that purpose was served by private houses and later the old Roman public buildings, such as the basilicas, were adapted for the purpose.
The Church of St. George, or Mar Georgis as he is known in the Middle East, is an example of one of the styles which developed, the octagon within a square. From the outside the building is a square with an extension forming an apse. From the inside, the shape is octagonal, the octagon being formed by using semi-circular chapels to cut off the corners of the square. The octagon then gradually transforms into a circular shape to allow for the cupola above which is more modern and probably replaces a previous wooden one. The aisle which goes all around the church is roofed with long rectangular basalt stones which fit neatly together. The stone walls were probably once covered with painted plaster and, although that has virtually disappeared over the last 1500 years or so, the impact of the church is still great. Sitting in it gave me the same feeling I get in the small Romanesque churches of northern Spain. There is something intimate about these small, all-embracing buildings. As the Church of St. George belongs to the Greek Orthodox community, there is an iconostasis at the eastern end. The icons on the iconostasis wall are very old. Although it is forbidden to go beyond this point, we managed to peer through at the collection of icons behind, which seemed to vary in age and artistic merit.
The priest led us straight away to his visitors’ book where we were asked to sign and put the date. For some reason which I was unable to fathom, he also wanted us to put the make and registration number of the car! As I couldn’t remember what they were, he rushed out himself to verify this vital piece of information which he hastened to record in the tome sitting on a table beside plans of the church drawn up by an architect/archeologist. When Robert gave him a contribution for the upkeep of the church, he was most disappointed that the cash was in Syrian pounds and not US dollars which, he said, were much better.
As the priest could only speak Arabic, this was an ideal opportunity for me to practise my six words, so I asked him about the community and his own studies. I managed to glean that the community in Izra’a is divided half and half between Christians and Moslems. There are about 1,700 Christians who, in turn, are divided between the Greek Orthodox and Catholic denominations. He studied for the priesthood at the college in Suweida, the provincial capital which we visited a few weeks ago.
Having taken a few photos of the church from the outside (we thought we had better not ask to take any inside) to record the metal covered dome and the horrendous modern concrete bell-tower which now disfigures the ancient building, we then walked up the road about 200 metres to the Church of St. Elias which is the domain of the Greek Catholics. This church, which was built in 542 A.D., was another martyrium, but this one was built on the cross-shaped plan which was to gain increasing popularity as a religious architectural form. However, the building has been extensively rebuilt and, as it was closed, we could not get a view of the interior. Outside the main door there is a walled yard with a metal gate which was padlocked. The original wooden dome has also been replaced by a modern one and the fashion for concrete bell-towers makes itself apparent here too. Why is it that bad taste is virtually universal?
Both churches are surrounded by the homes of the Christian community which are mostly old Roman houses made of basalt stone now being adapted - in the most vandalistic fashion - to the requirements of modern living, cement blocks and satellite dishes included. The crystalline voice of a young girl singing floated on the air. This was quite striking in a country where singing is almost never heard.
On the return journey, we opted not to take the main road but to follow some of the byways through the countryside of the Hauran which, despite the harshness of the climate, is remarkably beautiful. As we rounded a bend, we came upon a long, low building with at least a hundred women standing or sitting outside. As this is Druze country, they were all wearing long black dresses and white veils, although they do not cover their faces, only their heads. I got out of the car to ask what the gathering was about but I did not understand the reply, “ajaar”. A little further down the road, there was a great confusion of cars, mini-buses, buses and tractors full of Druze men who were coming out of an even larger round, roofless enclosure. The black oriental trousers and black jackets worn by the Druze men with their-well fashioned moustaches and white fez-like hats with a red top make a great spectacle, because they create a very elegant and venerable impression and the Druze, both men and women, are always impeccably groomed. We later discovered that “ajaar” means a funeral and Esma’a, one of the secretaries at the office who is herself a Druze, explained that, as the houses are usually too small for large gatherings such as weddings and funerals, two places are taken for such events, one for the women and another for the men so that the community can communicate their condolences to the bereaved family.
The next encounter was with a tortoise which was crossing the road. As it would not have stood a chance against the minibuses hurtling along after the funeral, we stopped the car and lifted her (Was it a her?) across to the other side of the road where she was headed. As he lifted her, Robert saw that the poor thing was covered with ticks on her feet and legs and neck (This is the tick season). Although she drew herself into her shell, he did his best to rid her of the all the ticks he could get a hold of before freeing her once again. Amazingly, there were even ticks on the underside of her shell and, when they were removed, blood came out through the shell!
May 29th 1998
QUNEITRA A BAD TAST
QUNEITRA - A BAD TASTE IN MY MOUTH
Yesterday we went to Quneitra. To go there we had to get a special military pass as Quneitra is, or was, the capital of the Golan Heights and is the emblematic symbol of Israeli occupation, because the town and a great deal of territory nearer to Damascus was taken during the 1973 Six Day War. Subsequently, part of the territory was retaken by Syria but most of the Golan Heights remain in Israeli hands today. To get an idea of just how serious the invasion was, we only have to realize that Quneitra is only forty kilometres from Damascus, and Saasaa, which is as far as the Israeli troops came, is only about 25-30 kilometres from Damascus. The area between Saasaa and Quneitra was later recovered.
We took the same road we have taken on other occasions passing Mount Hermon on our right. However, this time, when we reached the military checkpoint at Saasaa, we did not have to turn around but presented our military pass. Our documentation was checked and our names were registered in a large book. There were several UN buses in front of us as the UN have patrols in the area, manned mainly by Canadians and Scandinavians, to check that no arms are being stockpiled and generally keep an eye on things. The truth of the matter, as far as I could see, is that they drive about and look at maps and not much else. We then carried on to Khan Arnabeh, an old caravanserai where there is now a village, and there our papers were checked once again and the time of our passing recorded in another book. After that we continued to the entrance to Quneitra itself, where were had to present our pass once more and a guide had to get into the car, as no unaccompanied civilians are allowed into the place.
What desolation! Not a house was left standing. The Israeli troops bombarded everything and what was left was razed to the ground. We were taken to the hospital - full of shell holes and bullet holes and a complete ruin. A yellow sign on the wall says “Destructed by the Zionists and used for target practice”. (Their spelling mistakes, not mine). Soldiers guard the ruin (from what I do not know) and the UN have built or rehabilitated some offices next door. While we were there, four Scandinavian soldiers drove in with a flourish and climbed up importantly with ordnance survey maps in their hands. To do what? Swallows were flying in and out of the ruin. From what had been the roof of the hospital we could see the whole panorama. Only the Orthodox Church and the mosque were not bombarded, and these are the only two buildings now standing amid the ruins of lives and homes.
After that we went to the Museum which is open. Downstairs it contains some exhibits from places, such as Banyas, which used to belong to Syria but are now in Israeli hands. Upstairs is a series of photographs of Quneitra before the invasion and the reality of today. The garden around the museum, now overgrown, is full of sweet-smelling roses and, looking down from the rooftop, the olive groves, now untended, stretch out across the land. Only the odd sheep is to be seen grazing among the ruins. On every hill around are modern radar masts and equipment because virtually all of the surrounding countryside now belongs to Israel. I picked a pink rose.
Our last stop on this tour of insanity was the barbed wire fence which marks the present boundary. We looked across at the fields on the other side, well tended with the hay already cut and baled, olive groves and vineyards. The mililtary people at the post were very attentive and were prepared to answer any questions we might have had to ask, but the guide was in a hurry it seems and was not keen on us spending much time there. The Israeli settlement where the people who cultivate the land live is about eight kilometres on the far side of the hill about a mile or two away, and we could see it from the wire fence.
This fence now blocks the road to the Galilee and Tiberias. Banyas, where many of the archeological exhibits at the musem came from, in Greek times was known as Paneas after the god Pan who was worshipped at a sacred grotto there which marked the source of the Jordan River. Later, under Herod and his son Herod Agrippa, Banyas was known as Caesarea Philippae which is how it is referred to in the Gospels. Apparently Banyas is a delightful place with rushing streams and shady trees, but, alas, it is now on the Israeli side and consequently inaccessible to us.
We left Quneitra and drove back to Khan Arneyyeh, dropping our guide off on the way. At Khan Arneyyeh a bedouin festival was under way, the tents set up to form a rectangle and the men dancing in the centre of the rectangle. When we stopped to have a look, we were invited to join the festivities, but I felt so sick from visiting the site of so much destruction and death that I could not stay.
Maybe the feeling I had at Quneitra was the same feeling the dog got at the entrance to the tombs at Palmyra. Death must leave vibrations behind and violent death even more palpable ones. Whatever the reason, I felt ill and the eerie sensation of the peaceful countryside all around the site of so much killing and death and destruction was overwhelming. I have never been able to understand war and, after that experience, I think I understand it even less. What is worse, the amount of indoctrination that goes on in the name of war, poisoning young people’s minds with ideas of patriotism and “might is right”, is totally immoral and, in my view, can only lead to further confrontation in the future. Of course, that is precisely what states seek to do. That way they have eager and willing cannon fodder for their own purposes. In the case of Israel, they can also draw on a ceaseless flow of young Jews from all over the world going to Israel to make aliyeh who are anxious to prove their Jewishness. An example of this I have also seen, and the result of such indoctrination is truly frightening, when a nice young man you have known for years can suddenly turn into a kind of fanatic prepared to do whatever he is ordered to do for the sake of some abstract ideal, because the country he is fighting for gave him nothing. I think humanity is basically stupid. And then, in the midst of such stupidity, there are beautiful things like music and art and all the manifestations which raise humanity out of the mire of its own baseness. However, and despite what we may have been taught about being the “only intelligent beings in creation” (what highminded balderdash!), we have a long way to go to reach the levels of other beings such as whales and dolphins who can also make music and communicate, probably better than we can, if we were only smart enough to be able to understand.
The only consolation was that we did not see a single plastic bag or piece of rubbish in the whole area - because there is nobody there!
Qui seminant in lacrimis
In exsultatione mettent!
May 23 1998
Yesterday we went to Quneitra. To go there we had to get a special military pass as Quneitra is, or was, the capital of the Golan Heights and is the emblematic symbol of Israeli occupation, because the town and a great deal of territory nearer to Damascus was taken during the 1973 Six Day War. Subsequently, part of the territory was retaken by Syria but most of the Golan Heights remain in Israeli hands today. To get an idea of just how serious the invasion was, we only have to realize that Quneitra is only forty kilometres from Damascus, and Saasaa, which is as far as the Israeli troops came, is only about 25-30 kilometres from Damascus. The area between Saasaa and Quneitra was later recovered.
We took the same road we have taken on other occasions passing Mount Hermon on our right. However, this time, when we reached the military checkpoint at Saasaa, we did not have to turn around but presented our military pass. Our documentation was checked and our names were registered in a large book. There were several UN buses in front of us as the UN have patrols in the area, manned mainly by Canadians and Scandinavians, to check that no arms are being stockpiled and generally keep an eye on things. The truth of the matter, as far as I could see, is that they drive about and look at maps and not much else. We then carried on to Khan Arnabeh, an old caravanserai where there is now a village, and there our papers were checked once again and the time of our passing recorded in another book. After that we continued to the entrance to Quneitra itself, where were had to present our pass once more and a guide had to get into the car, as no unaccompanied civilians are allowed into the place.
What desolation! Not a house was left standing. The Israeli troops bombarded everything and what was left was razed to the ground. We were taken to the hospital - full of shell holes and bullet holes and a complete ruin. A yellow sign on the wall says “Destructed by the Zionists and used for target practice”. (Their spelling mistakes, not mine). Soldiers guard the ruin (from what I do not know) and the UN have built or rehabilitated some offices next door. While we were there, four Scandinavian soldiers drove in with a flourish and climbed up importantly with ordnance survey maps in their hands. To do what? Swallows were flying in and out of the ruin. From what had been the roof of the hospital we could see the whole panorama. Only the Orthodox Church and the mosque were not bombarded, and these are the only two buildings now standing amid the ruins of lives and homes.
After that we went to the Museum which is open. Downstairs it contains some exhibits from places, such as Banyas, which used to belong to Syria but are now in Israeli hands. Upstairs is a series of photographs of Quneitra before the invasion and the reality of today. The garden around the museum, now overgrown, is full of sweet-smelling roses and, looking down from the rooftop, the olive groves, now untended, stretch out across the land. Only the odd sheep is to be seen grazing among the ruins. On every hill around are modern radar masts and equipment because virtually all of the surrounding countryside now belongs to Israel. I picked a pink rose.
Our last stop on this tour of insanity was the barbed wire fence which marks the present boundary. We looked across at the fields on the other side, well tended with the hay already cut and baled, olive groves and vineyards. The mililtary people at the post were very attentive and were prepared to answer any questions we might have had to ask, but the guide was in a hurry it seems and was not keen on us spending much time there. The Israeli settlement where the people who cultivate the land live is about eight kilometres on the far side of the hill about a mile or two away, and we could see it from the wire fence.
This fence now blocks the road to the Galilee and Tiberias. Banyas, where many of the archeological exhibits at the musem came from, in Greek times was known as Paneas after the god Pan who was worshipped at a sacred grotto there which marked the source of the Jordan River. Later, under Herod and his son Herod Agrippa, Banyas was known as Caesarea Philippae which is how it is referred to in the Gospels. Apparently Banyas is a delightful place with rushing streams and shady trees, but, alas, it is now on the Israeli side and consequently inaccessible to us.
We left Quneitra and drove back to Khan Arneyyeh, dropping our guide off on the way. At Khan Arneyyeh a bedouin festival was under way, the tents set up to form a rectangle and the men dancing in the centre of the rectangle. When we stopped to have a look, we were invited to join the festivities, but I felt so sick from visiting the site of so much destruction and death that I could not stay.
Maybe the feeling I had at Quneitra was the same feeling the dog got at the entrance to the tombs at Palmyra. Death must leave vibrations behind and violent death even more palpable ones. Whatever the reason, I felt ill and the eerie sensation of the peaceful countryside all around the site of so much killing and death and destruction was overwhelming. I have never been able to understand war and, after that experience, I think I understand it even less. What is worse, the amount of indoctrination that goes on in the name of war, poisoning young people’s minds with ideas of patriotism and “might is right”, is totally immoral and, in my view, can only lead to further confrontation in the future. Of course, that is precisely what states seek to do. That way they have eager and willing cannon fodder for their own purposes. In the case of Israel, they can also draw on a ceaseless flow of young Jews from all over the world going to Israel to make aliyeh who are anxious to prove their Jewishness. An example of this I have also seen, and the result of such indoctrination is truly frightening, when a nice young man you have known for years can suddenly turn into a kind of fanatic prepared to do whatever he is ordered to do for the sake of some abstract ideal, because the country he is fighting for gave him nothing. I think humanity is basically stupid. And then, in the midst of such stupidity, there are beautiful things like music and art and all the manifestations which raise humanity out of the mire of its own baseness. However, and despite what we may have been taught about being the “only intelligent beings in creation” (what highminded balderdash!), we have a long way to go to reach the levels of other beings such as whales and dolphins who can also make music and communicate, probably better than we can, if we were only smart enough to be able to understand.
The only consolation was that we did not see a single plastic bag or piece of rubbish in the whole area - because there is nobody there!
Qui seminant in lacrimis
In exsultatione mettent!
May 23 1998
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
THE WATERFALLS
THE WATERFALLS
Another trip southwards. This time we took the old Jordan road towards Dera’a rather than the new highway which we took to go to Bosra. Dera’a is a fairly large market town but we did not go in, branching off westwards in search of the waterfalls at Shallalat. The idea of waterfalls in such a flat landscape seemed rather unlikely but suddenly a deep canyon came into view and the idea became quite plausible. We took a dirt track off the main road and there, at the edge of a bluff, the small stream fell over into the ravine. At the foot of the falls three small lakes formed. It was too difficult to get down into the ravine so we had to be content with looking. The interesting thing about the ravine is that it marks the boundary between Syria and Jordan, so the buildings visible on the other side are in Jordanian territory.
Then we continued along the road in search of the Zeizoun falls which turned out to be right on the edge of the road, surrounded by houses. The land around is swampy. Women were washing the wool from their mattresses on the stones in the river before the waters fell into the abyss. A rock sticking out of the hillside had been hewn by the water into a sculpture of a lion’s head in profile.
Apparently there is another waterfall somewhere else in the district but that one is known only to the people at the French Embassy. The British Embassy only knows the whereabouts of two so, as we were following the instructions given by the British Embassy, we could only visit two.
Next stop on the itinerary was the Mzerieb Lake. To get there we had to double back part of the way to a place called Al-Yeddudeh and then take another road which leads to the lake. We had been looking forward to visiting the lake because we thought it would be a good place for a walk. However, although the lakeside is surrounded by restaurants and children’s playgrounds, it proved not to be conducive to walking because each restaurant is situated right on the shore and fences off its territory making it impossible to walk around the lake. Then, as with all natural beauty spots in Syria, the amount of rubbish lying about everywhere has to be seen to be believed and turns even the most spectacular setting into a dump. However, nobody seems to see the rubbish at all. The final deterrent to walking were the little boys who followed us about trying to hit the dog even as we walked. In the end I gave this lot a mouthful and we opted to end our trip and go home.
May 16 1998
Another trip southwards. This time we took the old Jordan road towards Dera’a rather than the new highway which we took to go to Bosra. Dera’a is a fairly large market town but we did not go in, branching off westwards in search of the waterfalls at Shallalat. The idea of waterfalls in such a flat landscape seemed rather unlikely but suddenly a deep canyon came into view and the idea became quite plausible. We took a dirt track off the main road and there, at the edge of a bluff, the small stream fell over into the ravine. At the foot of the falls three small lakes formed. It was too difficult to get down into the ravine so we had to be content with looking. The interesting thing about the ravine is that it marks the boundary between Syria and Jordan, so the buildings visible on the other side are in Jordanian territory.
Then we continued along the road in search of the Zeizoun falls which turned out to be right on the edge of the road, surrounded by houses. The land around is swampy. Women were washing the wool from their mattresses on the stones in the river before the waters fell into the abyss. A rock sticking out of the hillside had been hewn by the water into a sculpture of a lion’s head in profile.
Apparently there is another waterfall somewhere else in the district but that one is known only to the people at the French Embassy. The British Embassy only knows the whereabouts of two so, as we were following the instructions given by the British Embassy, we could only visit two.
Next stop on the itinerary was the Mzerieb Lake. To get there we had to double back part of the way to a place called Al-Yeddudeh and then take another road which leads to the lake. We had been looking forward to visiting the lake because we thought it would be a good place for a walk. However, although the lakeside is surrounded by restaurants and children’s playgrounds, it proved not to be conducive to walking because each restaurant is situated right on the shore and fences off its territory making it impossible to walk around the lake. Then, as with all natural beauty spots in Syria, the amount of rubbish lying about everywhere has to be seen to be believed and turns even the most spectacular setting into a dump. However, nobody seems to see the rubbish at all. The final deterrent to walking were the little boys who followed us about trying to hit the dog even as we walked. In the end I gave this lot a mouthful and we opted to end our trip and go home.
May 16 1998
Monday, December 05, 2005
SOCIETY AT LARGE
SOCIETY AT LARGE
Syria, as befits its history as a trading nation situated between East and West, is a mixed society. The majority of the population are Sunni Moslems and a minority are Sh’ia Moslems. Apart from the orthodox Sh’ias, the latter are divided into a number of different groups, the Alawites (to which the President belongs), the Druze and the Isma’ilis. The basic tenets of both branches of Islam are the same and the Q’ran is the fundamental religious book, but each branch has its differences both in belief and in practice.
Apart from the Moslem component, Syrian society also includes a number of Christian groups who are no less Syrian for that. The main denominations are the Greek, Syrian and Armenian Orthodox and the Syrian, Greek and Roman Catholic Christians. Protestantism is not so common and, fortunately - in my opinion particularly in view of my experience in Latin America - the evangelical churches have not yet begun to make big inroads in popular belief. The undoubted strength of Islam should serve as protection against that for the time being at least. In the future the Achilles heel might be that evangelical christianity might hold out a tempting image to women, but, until such times as the female population feel that they want to strike out alone, there is little opportunity for these churches here. There is also a Jewish community, although much smaller than it used to be. Until a few years ago, travel restrictions were in place but, when these were lifted, most of the Jewish community sold up and left. Most went to Europe and some to the United States. Virtually none went to Israel because, as I was told, “They are Arabs just like us and they could not live there”. When they did leave, bargains were to be had in the Jewish quarter next to the Christian quarter as families sold off their furniture and other heavy goods prior to leaving. The gold and jewellery trade is still mostly in the hands of the Armenian Jews.
Each community tends to keep itself to itself, and marriages generally take place within the community. The status quo is fostered by the legal situation in the country which forbids marriage between the different communities. Much heartbreak is also caused on account of this situation. A Moslem man, however, may marry a woman of any monotheistic religion. A Moslem woman, on the other hand, may not marry a man from another religion unless he converts to Islam.
Among the Islamic community the social custom of arranged marriages continues. The tradition is strongest among the lower classes and in rural areas but in the cities and even among the upper classes the basic idea still holds strong, although the young man is given the opportunity to choose a prospective wife, and the young people are sometimes given the chance to get to know one another before going ahead with marriage.
I think the most striking thing in Syria - at least it certainly was for Robert - is the virtual absence of women in public life. Of course, women are to be seen in the street dressed in any one of the myriad degrees of traditionalism to modernity. Dress ranges from the total black-out from head to toe with black veil completely covering the face through total cover-up in coloured clothes with a headscarf to no head covering and jeans and t-shirts. It is most unusual to see anyone wearing sleeveless clothes, except perhaps in the Christian quarter. Even the most modern of misses usually covers her arms to just above the elbow. Perhaps the most “shocking” outfit, in the sense that it seems not to comply with any logic at all, is skin tight jeans and clingy T-shirts topped by a head veil or scarf. It would seem that head covering or hijab is being regarded as THE constriction to be fulfilled and compliance seems to ensure conformity with decency”.
My conversations with people who know have confirmed my suspicion that this is a total turnaround of what was really meant. Nowhere in the Q’ran does it say that women should cover their heads or their faces. What it does say is that the parts of the body regarded as “eib” or immodest should be kept covered, namely the armpits, the chest and the genital area. The face and head are not eib and, therefore, need not be covered. In fact, during the hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca, women are specifically told that they MUST NOT cover their heads and faces.Therefore, the whole veil business is a misinterpretation. The idea of “covering” arose from an incident when a prostitute, (presumably in scant dress as would befit her trade), approached the Prophet Muhammad who told her to go away and cover herself. So, insistence on the veil as the last bulwark of decency is quite wrong. Strictly speaking, it would be much more correct to wear loose clothes which do not reveal the shape of the female body but keep the head and face uncovered.
So, the conclusion is that cover-up is a social weapon, encouraged particularly by men, to ensure the virtue of their women. So what’s new? In any case, I kept telling Robert that the situation of women is not a problem until the women themselves feel that they want more freedom. He was quite unconvinced by this until a little episode occurred at a meeting he had to attend. He was introduced to a young woman who works in some official organization, a “cover lady” as the women who cover up are called. When introduced, he stretched out his hand to greet her and she recoiled saying that she could not shake his hand. It was then explained to him that, in her code of ethics, if she touched or was touched by any man outside her immediate family circle, she would immediately be rendered unclean and would have to go away and wash her whole body from head to toe! After that, Robert admits that I was right, but his amazement at this degree of assimilation of a social code designed to constrict has increased one hundredfold. Another slant on this matter is that many women have adopted the hijab as a means of protection which allows them to circulate more freely outside the family circle.
However, the mania of “ritual” cleanliness is not restricted to religious women. Religious men also practise this which basically revolves around the idea that, in order to be clean for praying at the five designated times each day, physical contact with other people must be avoided at all costs. Therefore, no handshakes or other forms of contact. As some Moslems point out, this is a farce, because the stress then comes to lie on “ritual” rather than “cleanliness” with the result that many of these people do not wash their hands after the early morning cleansing which means that by the end of the day cleanliness is certainly more symbolic than real!
Child-rearing practices are interesting too and gender differentiation is all too apparent in that field. Little girls are prepared to be mothers and housekeepers and their demeanour is more withdrawn and timid. Little boys, on the other hand, are reared to be bold and confident which makes them quite impertinent and insolent little devils. I have yet to see a mother chastise a child, although fathers are frequently heard chastising their daughters. However, the little girls clearly also learn to use the weapons they will require to make a space for themselves in society. They are past masters at using tears as a way of wrenching cold hearts and manipulating situations. They also learn how to get what they want by roundabout means all the while maintaining the outward appearance of compliance. Quite an art really. What is amazing is that, when they grow up, many little boys turn into very nice young men.
Schools function six days a week and one of the sights is that of the schoolchildren, because the uniform worn at state schools is essentially a military uniform, either dark green or navy blue. One of the contradictions of this society and one of the areas where the influence of the Eastern bloc is felt is that the same uniform is worn by boys and girls alike: trousers and fatigue jacket. The anomaly is that many girls top their military uniform with a white veil covering their heads and shoulders!
Education is compulsory up to the age of eighteen but I am not so sure that everyone complies with that rule.
May 11th 1998
Syria, as befits its history as a trading nation situated between East and West, is a mixed society. The majority of the population are Sunni Moslems and a minority are Sh’ia Moslems. Apart from the orthodox Sh’ias, the latter are divided into a number of different groups, the Alawites (to which the President belongs), the Druze and the Isma’ilis. The basic tenets of both branches of Islam are the same and the Q’ran is the fundamental religious book, but each branch has its differences both in belief and in practice.
Apart from the Moslem component, Syrian society also includes a number of Christian groups who are no less Syrian for that. The main denominations are the Greek, Syrian and Armenian Orthodox and the Syrian, Greek and Roman Catholic Christians. Protestantism is not so common and, fortunately - in my opinion particularly in view of my experience in Latin America - the evangelical churches have not yet begun to make big inroads in popular belief. The undoubted strength of Islam should serve as protection against that for the time being at least. In the future the Achilles heel might be that evangelical christianity might hold out a tempting image to women, but, until such times as the female population feel that they want to strike out alone, there is little opportunity for these churches here. There is also a Jewish community, although much smaller than it used to be. Until a few years ago, travel restrictions were in place but, when these were lifted, most of the Jewish community sold up and left. Most went to Europe and some to the United States. Virtually none went to Israel because, as I was told, “They are Arabs just like us and they could not live there”. When they did leave, bargains were to be had in the Jewish quarter next to the Christian quarter as families sold off their furniture and other heavy goods prior to leaving. The gold and jewellery trade is still mostly in the hands of the Armenian Jews.
Each community tends to keep itself to itself, and marriages generally take place within the community. The status quo is fostered by the legal situation in the country which forbids marriage between the different communities. Much heartbreak is also caused on account of this situation. A Moslem man, however, may marry a woman of any monotheistic religion. A Moslem woman, on the other hand, may not marry a man from another religion unless he converts to Islam.
Among the Islamic community the social custom of arranged marriages continues. The tradition is strongest among the lower classes and in rural areas but in the cities and even among the upper classes the basic idea still holds strong, although the young man is given the opportunity to choose a prospective wife, and the young people are sometimes given the chance to get to know one another before going ahead with marriage.
I think the most striking thing in Syria - at least it certainly was for Robert - is the virtual absence of women in public life. Of course, women are to be seen in the street dressed in any one of the myriad degrees of traditionalism to modernity. Dress ranges from the total black-out from head to toe with black veil completely covering the face through total cover-up in coloured clothes with a headscarf to no head covering and jeans and t-shirts. It is most unusual to see anyone wearing sleeveless clothes, except perhaps in the Christian quarter. Even the most modern of misses usually covers her arms to just above the elbow. Perhaps the most “shocking” outfit, in the sense that it seems not to comply with any logic at all, is skin tight jeans and clingy T-shirts topped by a head veil or scarf. It would seem that head covering or hijab is being regarded as THE constriction to be fulfilled and compliance seems to ensure conformity with decency”.
My conversations with people who know have confirmed my suspicion that this is a total turnaround of what was really meant. Nowhere in the Q’ran does it say that women should cover their heads or their faces. What it does say is that the parts of the body regarded as “eib” or immodest should be kept covered, namely the armpits, the chest and the genital area. The face and head are not eib and, therefore, need not be covered. In fact, during the hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca, women are specifically told that they MUST NOT cover their heads and faces.Therefore, the whole veil business is a misinterpretation. The idea of “covering” arose from an incident when a prostitute, (presumably in scant dress as would befit her trade), approached the Prophet Muhammad who told her to go away and cover herself. So, insistence on the veil as the last bulwark of decency is quite wrong. Strictly speaking, it would be much more correct to wear loose clothes which do not reveal the shape of the female body but keep the head and face uncovered.
So, the conclusion is that cover-up is a social weapon, encouraged particularly by men, to ensure the virtue of their women. So what’s new? In any case, I kept telling Robert that the situation of women is not a problem until the women themselves feel that they want more freedom. He was quite unconvinced by this until a little episode occurred at a meeting he had to attend. He was introduced to a young woman who works in some official organization, a “cover lady” as the women who cover up are called. When introduced, he stretched out his hand to greet her and she recoiled saying that she could not shake his hand. It was then explained to him that, in her code of ethics, if she touched or was touched by any man outside her immediate family circle, she would immediately be rendered unclean and would have to go away and wash her whole body from head to toe! After that, Robert admits that I was right, but his amazement at this degree of assimilation of a social code designed to constrict has increased one hundredfold. Another slant on this matter is that many women have adopted the hijab as a means of protection which allows them to circulate more freely outside the family circle.
However, the mania of “ritual” cleanliness is not restricted to religious women. Religious men also practise this which basically revolves around the idea that, in order to be clean for praying at the five designated times each day, physical contact with other people must be avoided at all costs. Therefore, no handshakes or other forms of contact. As some Moslems point out, this is a farce, because the stress then comes to lie on “ritual” rather than “cleanliness” with the result that many of these people do not wash their hands after the early morning cleansing which means that by the end of the day cleanliness is certainly more symbolic than real!
Child-rearing practices are interesting too and gender differentiation is all too apparent in that field. Little girls are prepared to be mothers and housekeepers and their demeanour is more withdrawn and timid. Little boys, on the other hand, are reared to be bold and confident which makes them quite impertinent and insolent little devils. I have yet to see a mother chastise a child, although fathers are frequently heard chastising their daughters. However, the little girls clearly also learn to use the weapons they will require to make a space for themselves in society. They are past masters at using tears as a way of wrenching cold hearts and manipulating situations. They also learn how to get what they want by roundabout means all the while maintaining the outward appearance of compliance. Quite an art really. What is amazing is that, when they grow up, many little boys turn into very nice young men.
Schools function six days a week and one of the sights is that of the schoolchildren, because the uniform worn at state schools is essentially a military uniform, either dark green or navy blue. One of the contradictions of this society and one of the areas where the influence of the Eastern bloc is felt is that the same uniform is worn by boys and girls alike: trousers and fatigue jacket. The anomaly is that many girls top their military uniform with a white veil covering their heads and shoulders!
Education is compulsory up to the age of eighteen but I am not so sure that everyone complies with that rule.
May 11th 1998
Sunday, December 04, 2005
AN OLD DAMASCENE HOU
AN OLD DAMASCENE HOUSE
Haldoun, the brother-in-law of the owner of our house, had suggested some time ago that we might like to visit the house in old Damascus where his mother was born. However, we had heard nothing more about it until yesterday afternoon when he called to ask whether we were available to go that evening. We arranged to meet him near the office.
The house is in a side street in the Midan quarter which lies just outside the walls of the most ancient part of Damascus. This part of the city developed through the Arab middle ages and the period of Turkish rule to cater for the growing pilgrimage traffic to Mecca. The name “midan” - or “maidan” perhaps a more familiar spelling in the context of British India - which means field, derives from the use of this area as an exercise field, and this open area attracted pilgrims’ caravans from the north keen to stock up and rest before tackling the dangerous desert crossing to Mecca. The main street, called Al-midan, became lined with shops and mosques and schools to cater for this traffic.This trading aspect has not been lost and that same street today is lined with places selling the typical roast meat consumed in most of the Middle East, fruitshops and shops selling a mouthwatering array of sweets and pastries of all kinds.
In typical Arab fashion, the outside of the house is plain. The main door opens onto a reception room or iwan lined with seats. Haldoun’s uncle appeared to meet us wearing his white thoub. Then his two son’s also appeared to greet us and quickly disappeared. We were taken through the iwan out to the patio which is large and full of plants with a fountain in the middle. Although the house is in the centre of all the pandemonium of the old city, not a sound is to be heard in the patio except the call to prayer at the appointed times. During the French occupation the house was burned down and they had to rebuild it in 1925.
Around the patio, doors lead off into various sitting rooms. Upstairs are the bedrooms and other sitting rooms as well as the kitchen and a terrace with an ancient vine growing over to provide shade in summer. In the old days the full extended family would have lived there but now the uncle lives in the house with his wife, two batchelor sons and his daughter with her husband and two small children aged four and one. We were taken to one of the sitting rooms to see the furniture the grandmother brought with her to her marriage. It must be worth a fortune today: a chest of drawers and a dining suite decorated all over in intricate inlay designs of mother-of-pearl. Quite amazing. There were also antique hand decorated glassware ornaments and an antique Damascus glass lamp.
When we had inspected the furniture, chairs were brought and we sat outside in the patio. The brother of the son-in-law appeared with one of the little girls. He then rose to bring a tray with tea and home-made chocolate cake, large portions of which were served. In these circumstances, the secret is to develop the art of eating slowly because, once you are finished, you are immediately served another huge portion which you cannot refuse. Robert had not realized that! After some time, the uncle got up and went inside to appear with another tray of Turkish coffee. After that we left.
You may be asking yourself if only men lived in the house. No. The mother and daughter also live there but, although they prepared the cake and the tea and the coffee, I only caught the briefest of glimpses of a shadowy figure behind one of the upstairs windows. The women kept to their quarters in the presence of an unrelated man. As a foreign woman I am given more or less the status of a man! But no women appeared at any time.
This makes Robert feel very uncomfortable because he rebels against the idea of over fifty per cent of the population disappearing into thin air. However, I suppose it becomes a problem only when the women themselves begin to feel that they do not accept the status quo. Until then business as usual.
May 10th 1998
Haldoun, the brother-in-law of the owner of our house, had suggested some time ago that we might like to visit the house in old Damascus where his mother was born. However, we had heard nothing more about it until yesterday afternoon when he called to ask whether we were available to go that evening. We arranged to meet him near the office.
The house is in a side street in the Midan quarter which lies just outside the walls of the most ancient part of Damascus. This part of the city developed through the Arab middle ages and the period of Turkish rule to cater for the growing pilgrimage traffic to Mecca. The name “midan” - or “maidan” perhaps a more familiar spelling in the context of British India - which means field, derives from the use of this area as an exercise field, and this open area attracted pilgrims’ caravans from the north keen to stock up and rest before tackling the dangerous desert crossing to Mecca. The main street, called Al-midan, became lined with shops and mosques and schools to cater for this traffic.This trading aspect has not been lost and that same street today is lined with places selling the typical roast meat consumed in most of the Middle East, fruitshops and shops selling a mouthwatering array of sweets and pastries of all kinds.
In typical Arab fashion, the outside of the house is plain. The main door opens onto a reception room or iwan lined with seats. Haldoun’s uncle appeared to meet us wearing his white thoub. Then his two son’s also appeared to greet us and quickly disappeared. We were taken through the iwan out to the patio which is large and full of plants with a fountain in the middle. Although the house is in the centre of all the pandemonium of the old city, not a sound is to be heard in the patio except the call to prayer at the appointed times. During the French occupation the house was burned down and they had to rebuild it in 1925.
Around the patio, doors lead off into various sitting rooms. Upstairs are the bedrooms and other sitting rooms as well as the kitchen and a terrace with an ancient vine growing over to provide shade in summer. In the old days the full extended family would have lived there but now the uncle lives in the house with his wife, two batchelor sons and his daughter with her husband and two small children aged four and one. We were taken to one of the sitting rooms to see the furniture the grandmother brought with her to her marriage. It must be worth a fortune today: a chest of drawers and a dining suite decorated all over in intricate inlay designs of mother-of-pearl. Quite amazing. There were also antique hand decorated glassware ornaments and an antique Damascus glass lamp.
When we had inspected the furniture, chairs were brought and we sat outside in the patio. The brother of the son-in-law appeared with one of the little girls. He then rose to bring a tray with tea and home-made chocolate cake, large portions of which were served. In these circumstances, the secret is to develop the art of eating slowly because, once you are finished, you are immediately served another huge portion which you cannot refuse. Robert had not realized that! After some time, the uncle got up and went inside to appear with another tray of Turkish coffee. After that we left.
You may be asking yourself if only men lived in the house. No. The mother and daughter also live there but, although they prepared the cake and the tea and the coffee, I only caught the briefest of glimpses of a shadowy figure behind one of the upstairs windows. The women kept to their quarters in the presence of an unrelated man. As a foreign woman I am given more or less the status of a man! But no women appeared at any time.
This makes Robert feel very uncomfortable because he rebels against the idea of over fifty per cent of the population disappearing into thin air. However, I suppose it becomes a problem only when the women themselves begin to feel that they do not accept the status quo. Until then business as usual.
May 10th 1998
Friday, December 02, 2005
WHIRLING DERVISHES
WHIRLING DERVISHES
A couple of weeks ago the Syrian consul in Madrid who gave us our diplomatic visas to come here arrived in Syria on holiday and invited Robert to lunch. However, there was a mix-up in the times and the upshot was that Robert could not go. Ghassan then went to Hama to visit his family and last night we went out to dinner with him at one of the traditional restaurants in the Old Town called the Omeyyad Palace.
The restaurant is situated up an alley just beside the great mosque and, if you did not know where you were going, I am sure you would just walk straight past. We certainly did. If Ghassan had not been hanging around waiting for us, we might never have found it! The entrance is just as unlikely looking as most things in Damascus, but when you climb up the flight of stairs the restaurant is situated in what must have been the sitting area of a large Damascene house with lots of hanging plants everywhere. It was packed to the gunwhales, mostly with Syrian families out for the evening.
The restaurant offers an open buffet for a fixed price of 350 Syrian pounds at lunchtime and 700 in the evening. The buffet consists of a mezzé or starters section with about twenty different dishes on offer including houmous, felafel and a large variety of salads. For the main course there were fish and meat dishes on offer, but we did not partake of any of those. Then the dessert table included fruit salads of various kinds, traditional Middle Eastern pastries with pistachios and honey and cheese cake, fruit cake and another typical dish made of milk like a blancmange with nuts through it.
The larger tables for big groups are made of wood but the smaller tables are like huge engraved copper trays on wooden legs. Between courses a dwarf waiter came around with a traditional coffee pot to serve Arabic coffee, which is made with lightly toasted coffee beans mixed with cardomom seeds. It is a very good digestive.
Music is played throughout the evening by a group of musicians and their repertoire is traditional Syrian music. There was also a troupe of dancers performing folk dances which were very lively indeed and then the whirling dervishes. This was not a large group but a man and his small son of about five years. They wore their long white swirling skirts with a white waistcoat and a fairly tall brown fez on their heads. It is amazing to watch them do this whirling using a technique which I don’t fully understand but which permits them to whirl for a long time without any sign of dizziness at all. It was interesing for me because during the whirling they raise and lower their hands and place them on different parts of the body and it would seem that they are always placed on chakras and pulse points. Another movement is like forming an “energy ball”. This “dance” is not really a dance at all but part of a religious rite and the music played is special religious music. The idea behind it is similar to meditation and an inducement to the states of ecstasy mentioned by St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. In other words, it is a mystical technique. When you think about it, this link between Oriental and Western mysticism is not at all surprising because both St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila were born in Jewish families which were forced to convert to Christianity during the Inquisition and they would both be familiar with the Jewish book of mysticism, the Zohar. In fact the whirling is practised by the Sufis who are the Islamic counterpart of Christian mysticism (the word “sufi” means mystic). The little boy was quite amazing. He could whirl and whirl and then just walk off without the slightest sign of dizziness.
Of course, there always has to be a buffoon and last night it was in the form of a French tourist sitting just right in front of the musicians and dancers who insisted on getting up and trying to dance the belly dance and clapping out of rhythm and generally making a fool of himself but in the belief that he was the “life and soul of the party”. I always wonder if these people have no sense of how ridiculous they are?
When we had finished eating we went out for walk around the vicinity and Ghassan took us to another restaurant at the other side of the mosque so we would know where to find it and to have a look at the inside. The entrance was just as unlikely as the other, perhaps even more so, because on the ground floor bakers were busy making bread and other things. However, upstairs the decoration of the walls is magnificent and the effect is that of sitting under three bedouin tents. We did not stay long because the decibels of the music were too uncomfortable. However, that did not seem to bother the hundred or more people having dinner there who all seemed to be enjoying themselves enormously.
May 8th 1998
A couple of weeks ago the Syrian consul in Madrid who gave us our diplomatic visas to come here arrived in Syria on holiday and invited Robert to lunch. However, there was a mix-up in the times and the upshot was that Robert could not go. Ghassan then went to Hama to visit his family and last night we went out to dinner with him at one of the traditional restaurants in the Old Town called the Omeyyad Palace.
The restaurant is situated up an alley just beside the great mosque and, if you did not know where you were going, I am sure you would just walk straight past. We certainly did. If Ghassan had not been hanging around waiting for us, we might never have found it! The entrance is just as unlikely looking as most things in Damascus, but when you climb up the flight of stairs the restaurant is situated in what must have been the sitting area of a large Damascene house with lots of hanging plants everywhere. It was packed to the gunwhales, mostly with Syrian families out for the evening.
The restaurant offers an open buffet for a fixed price of 350 Syrian pounds at lunchtime and 700 in the evening. The buffet consists of a mezzé or starters section with about twenty different dishes on offer including houmous, felafel and a large variety of salads. For the main course there were fish and meat dishes on offer, but we did not partake of any of those. Then the dessert table included fruit salads of various kinds, traditional Middle Eastern pastries with pistachios and honey and cheese cake, fruit cake and another typical dish made of milk like a blancmange with nuts through it.
The larger tables for big groups are made of wood but the smaller tables are like huge engraved copper trays on wooden legs. Between courses a dwarf waiter came around with a traditional coffee pot to serve Arabic coffee, which is made with lightly toasted coffee beans mixed with cardomom seeds. It is a very good digestive.
Music is played throughout the evening by a group of musicians and their repertoire is traditional Syrian music. There was also a troupe of dancers performing folk dances which were very lively indeed and then the whirling dervishes. This was not a large group but a man and his small son of about five years. They wore their long white swirling skirts with a white waistcoat and a fairly tall brown fez on their heads. It is amazing to watch them do this whirling using a technique which I don’t fully understand but which permits them to whirl for a long time without any sign of dizziness at all. It was interesing for me because during the whirling they raise and lower their hands and place them on different parts of the body and it would seem that they are always placed on chakras and pulse points. Another movement is like forming an “energy ball”. This “dance” is not really a dance at all but part of a religious rite and the music played is special religious music. The idea behind it is similar to meditation and an inducement to the states of ecstasy mentioned by St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. In other words, it is a mystical technique. When you think about it, this link between Oriental and Western mysticism is not at all surprising because both St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila were born in Jewish families which were forced to convert to Christianity during the Inquisition and they would both be familiar with the Jewish book of mysticism, the Zohar. In fact the whirling is practised by the Sufis who are the Islamic counterpart of Christian mysticism (the word “sufi” means mystic). The little boy was quite amazing. He could whirl and whirl and then just walk off without the slightest sign of dizziness.
Of course, there always has to be a buffoon and last night it was in the form of a French tourist sitting just right in front of the musicians and dancers who insisted on getting up and trying to dance the belly dance and clapping out of rhythm and generally making a fool of himself but in the belief that he was the “life and soul of the party”. I always wonder if these people have no sense of how ridiculous they are?
When we had finished eating we went out for walk around the vicinity and Ghassan took us to another restaurant at the other side of the mosque so we would know where to find it and to have a look at the inside. The entrance was just as unlikely as the other, perhaps even more so, because on the ground floor bakers were busy making bread and other things. However, upstairs the decoration of the walls is magnificent and the effect is that of sitting under three bedouin tents. We did not stay long because the decibels of the music were too uncomfortable. However, that did not seem to bother the hundred or more people having dinner there who all seemed to be enjoying themselves enormously.
May 8th 1998
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