Persecution and Conquest

Latakia and environs, Syria

So we are halfway up the mountain clambering over huge boulders when Khaled says in his laconic way,’Do you have a gun?”
“What?”
“There are wild boar here....”

Terrific, at least I won’t die alone. Qalat Burzey, or Marza, as it is more commonly known here, looks down over the fertile and heavily cultivated Orontes Plain. Nobody visits, and some local farmers we met on their way down, their donkey laden with wood, asked in blank astonishment why we were climbing to see a “pile of stones”. I know Khaled was wondering exactly the same thing.  In the event we did not get to the top having been provided with only half the information on how to get there- we got the rest when we walked back down defeated....

The Border is Closed; A Legacy of Colonial Treachery

Deir-Ez-Zor, Syria

I have just come back from the Syria/Iraq border near the town of Al-Bukamal and because this is yet one more border I cannot cross - it actually is ‘closed’ and there is no traffic at all on the highway leading to the border - it occurred to me that it was time to tally up the border problems that exist in 2006 versus Ibn Battuta’s trip in 1325/6. It is not encouraging; if lack of war and political co-operation are indicators of the progress of civilization then we are going backwards.

This is the Syrian border town of Al-Bukamal on one of its borders with Iraq.

Castles of the Assassins

Hama to Safita, Syria

My driver/guide Khaled Alloush is a rare gem. He speaks excellent English, does everything he can to make sure I see everything on my list - which is not easy - and more importantly he is also very humorous. He likes Arabic coffee, barely drinks water and can go for hours without eating, but when he does he likes to eat well so he knows all the best places. This pretty much sums up my traveling style so we get along like a house on fire. I long ago discovered that when you are going to be spending entire days together on the road - getting along with your companion whoever he or she is, is imperative to the success of the venture. Anyone wishing to travel independently in Syria can contact him at +963 93567229. (Maximum 6 persons.)

And so today we set off for the ‘Castles of the Assassins’. Khaled has only visited two of them and the rest are remote, so this promises to be interesting.....The Assassins who were Ismaili Muslims, and who formed a dissident Fatimid (Shi’ite) sect among the Sunni orthodoxy, originated in northern Persia in 1090. The English word ‘assassin’ derives from the Arabic “hashasheen” meaning ‘those who eat grass’, because legend has the adherents being drugged then being led to a garden and subsequent visions of paradise, before being sent off on their missions to kill specific targets.

Justinian forts, Insurrection and The Petticoat

Hama to Latakia, Syria

“[Hama is] one of the dignified metropolitan centers and elegant cities of Syria.....surrounded by orchards and gardens supplied by water-wheels like revolving spheres”

Ibn Battuta.

Hama waterwheel at night

I visited what is left of the old city. The norias or water-wheels are still there but during my visit they were silent. I last visited Hama in November 1997 and then they still ran, creaking and groaning with their watery load. Now the river Orontes which flows through the town is reduced to a stagnant stream and is not enough to turn the ancient wheels. It is not just the weather or the season, it is the dams and the water used for irrigation - lack of water, now becoming a worldwide problem. I visited the Geat Mosque recently re-built after having been demolished in the Hama uprising of 1982. Hama is a religiously conservative town and always has been. One visible indicator; despite the presence of Christians and churches (as there are everywhere in the country), the majority of women wear headscarves and long black garments in contrast to the rest of the country. Indeed many of them are fully veiled. The Muslim Brotherhood challenged the government of Hafez Assad in 1982 in an uprising which met with a swift and brutal response. Estimates vary wildly as to the number of dead - anywhere between 10,000-25,000, with whole sections of the town being flattened by military tanks and artillery fire. Syria is a determinedly secular country - mosques and churches sit side by side and although the Christian population numbers only about 10%, religious intolerance which surfaces from time to time in Egypt for example, seems not to exist here, at least not openly.

The 13th century mosque of Abu al-Fida.

Another Middle East Crisis

Damascus, Syria

Readers of this blog will know that I generally steer clear of writing about politics on my trip because that is normally all you get from the Middle East. However there are times when to ignore it would be both futile and pollyannish; one thing obvious as I tramp over mounds of ruins of yet another of the myriad fallen civilizations in this part of the world, is that politics over millennia IS the Middle East and the 21st century is no different.

I have been in Syria for three weeks and it has been an interesting time politically. People are talking about Syria and Iran finally getting involved in trying to help the United States get out of its self-inflicted quagmire in Iraq, and after a visit by Syrian foreign minister to Iraq, the two countries have decided to re-open diplomatic relations for the first time since 1982. This alone is fairly exciting stuff. But there is more - Iran invited both the Syrian and Iraqi leaders to a meeting in Iran this weekend to discuss the Iraqi situation. (The Iraqi leader cannot go now as the airport is closed due to the complete disintegration of security in Baghdad.) It is by now irrelevant if the situation in Iraq is called ‘civil war’ or not - with October the bloodiest month in terms of Iraqi deaths since the US-led invasion, and the death of over 200 people in Sadr City a couple of days ago, what difference does it make to Iraqis what we call it?

The Castle of the Kurds & A Ghostly Colonnade

Damascus to Hama, Syria.

I had an interesting conversation with a waiter at le Jardin restaurant in Hama. Everyone likes to practise their English and being naturally friendly they grab every chance they get to speak to foreigners. So we spoke about the lack of tourists and how life was harder because of it, and how he used to write poetry but now he had no leisure time because he had to work harder to support his family. Eventually he got round to the fact that a good friend of his was living in Wales, married to a Welsh girl. She had come to Syria on a visit and had been drinking rather a lot of vodka one evening whereupon she confessed to having slept with 17 men in her life - not all at one time he hastened to assure me - but she told him this was entirely normal. He wanted to know if this was true - the fact that Western women could possibly sleep with 17 men had clearly been on his mind for some time and could I either dispel or confirm her story.........

The Ummayad Mosque

Damascus, Syria.
This post is devoted to The Ummayad Mosque. Not only is it the fourth holiest Islamic site for many Muslims but Ibn Battuta (deservedly) spends ten pages of his book describing its marvels.

“This is the greatest Mosque on earth in point of magnificence, the most perfect in architecture and the most exquisite in beauty, grace and consummate achievement; no rival is known, no equal to it is in existence.”

Remarkably, given war, fire and earthquake, the building today is quite similar to what he would have seen in 1326.

An Earthly Paradise

Damascus, Syria.
Ibn Battuta made several journeys through Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon but in his ‘rihla’ or journey, he writes as if he visited most of it at one time. His timing is impossible according to his own record; he left Cairo circa July 18, 1326 and arrived in Damascus August 7, 1326 a time frame which suggests he must have gone straight there instead of ‘gallivanting’ around the Levant as he suggests. But whatever he did his route does not make sense and he zigzags all over in a way that is not even possible today. And so I too had to zigzag - not because I was condensing as he did, but because of 21st century politics.

I drove to Damascus in Syria from Amman, a journey of only three and a half hours including border time. Both Jordanian and Syrian immigration and customs are easy to navigate although in the case of Syria, if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport you will be denied entry.