Damascus to Bosra, Syria
I have been using the same internet cafe the whole time I have been in Damascus because they serve tea and I can plug in my laptop and get a signal...... It is not always possible to get my laptop connected in some internet cafes and I am not sure why. In such places people always want to change things on the computer but when they see it is a Mac they mercifully leave it alone. And so I trundle off to the same place where we are now on first-name terms.
Of late, every afternoon a man comes in talking a million miles a minute in some unintellligible tongue (to me) and every day the crescendo rises until he is positively roaring down the line. I am sure there is a reason but it is very disconcerting. I am told he is talking to his wife. In my mind, he has come to epitomise the world's economic migrants; a million miles from home with the phone as their only link, they hear over broken connections and distorted lines about events and happenings over which they have no control but for which pay - sending money every month to the home they have left behind. There is something infinitely solitary and sad about it.........
And so back to the safety of the 16th century, long after Ibn Battuta had trod the earth. The Tekke Mosque was where the pilgrims gathered to start the journey south to Mecca. The mosque was built by the foremost of Suleiman the Magnificent’s architects, the incomparable Sinan.
Signature pencil minarets of Sinan.
Today the mosque sits in a park that includes workshops and handicraft stores. The pilgrim caravan was an occasion for trading, and goods were bought for trade or barter which is how some pilgrims financed the long and costly venture. However I digress, in Ibn B’ s day the gathering of the pilgrim caravan was the open area near the Bab Saghrir which is now a parking lot for Iranian buses disgorging incoming pilgrims rather than outgoing......
From there it went to the Mosque of the Footprints or Masjid al Aqdam. Ibn Battuta writes;
“Among the sanctuaries of Damascus which are celebrated for their blessed power is the Mosque of the Footprints, (Masjid al-Aqdam) which lies two miles to the south of Damascus alongside the main highway which leads to the illustrious Hejaz, Jerusalem and Egypt. It is a large mosque abundant in blessing and possessing many endowments and the people of Damascus hold it in great veneration. The footprints from which it derives its name are certain footprints impressed upon a rock there which are said to be the print of the foot of Moses (on him be peace). Within this mosque there is a small chamber containing a stone with the following inscription upon it; “A certain saintly man used to see the Chosen (Mohammed) in his sleep and he would say”here is the grave of my brother Moses.”
The mosque I visited, called Mosque of the Footprint, (not plural) was modern, unless the old part was hidden behind the facade - we were not able to find the caretaker with the key. But behind a locked gate outside the mosque there is a stone with a single footprint on it....
One footprint
“When the new moon of Shawal appeared in the above-mentioned year, the Hijaz caravan went out to the outskirts Damascus and encamped at the village called al-Kiswa and I set out on the move with them.”
Ibn Battuta had recently re-married, his third marriage in 15 months although he had divorced wife #1 in Libya a short time after marrying her, following a bitter quarrel with her father. Ibn B. hardly ever gives us a glimpse into his personal affairs so we do not know if he was still married to wife #2 when he married wife #3. In any event he set out alone leaving his newly-married wife behind.
Kisweh means ‘cloth’ and in the old days it was here that the new cloth that covered the Kaaba in Mecca was sewn and taken with the pilgrim caravan to Mecca. It was also where the caravan would wait for a few days for the stragglers to catch up with them. It is now just another dusty town on the southern highway. There is however a rather lovely old caravanserai on the outskirts of town in the throes of renovation. Such caravanserais or khans are dotted along trade routes especially in Turkey and Iran, and can be found in cities all over the Middle East. In the countryside they sheltered traders en route and were usually built a day’s ride apart. In the cities they performed the same function; animals on the ground floor, and small ‘cells’ above for the traders while they were in the city to buy and sell.
“We marched from al-Kiswa to a village called as-Sanamain, a big place, and marched on from there to the township of Zura, a small place in the district of Hawran.”
As-Sanamayn is another missable town on the highway - especially missable after dark until a few years ago according to my driver who told me it was infested with bandits! Now it is one of the main places where recruits are sent to fulfill their obligatory army national service......bandits gone.
Zura or Ezra however is something else indeed. The old part of town is built from black basalt, some of which looks to have been filched from fallen-down buildings, which you might think would give it a very grim aspect, but strangely it doesn’t. The Greek Orthodox church of St. George is still active, and having been built in 515AD is one of the oldest in the country. The English might be surprised but the very modest tomb of their patron saint, St. George, lies behind the altar area under a domed apse.
The tomb of the English patron saint, St. George.
The church is architecturally interesting as externally the building is square and fortified, while inside is an octagon created by lopping off the corners of the square and inserting a semi-cricular niche in the space instead. Nearby is the nearby Greek Catholic church of St. Elias built a mere 27 years later in 542 AD.
The altar of St. George's in Ezra.
“After a halt in its vicinity we traveled on to the town of Bosra; it too is a small place. it is the usual practice of the caravan to stop there for four nights, so that any who have remained behind at Damascus to finish off their business may make up on them.”
From Ezra we made a detour to Bosra. As time passed, the pilgrim route moved westward towards the modern day crossing near Dera’a. This was in response to Bedouin raids from the south, warring factions and the subsequent economic deprivation caused by the lack of security. But Bosra is not to be missed even if you are not on the trail of a 14th century traveler; this UNESCO World Heritage Site has possibly the most intact Roman amphitheater in the world. The reasons are twofold; the Ayyubids built a high-walled defensive citadel around it in the 12th century, and over the centuries as the town’s influence waned, the theater filled up with sand which both hid and protected it.
This part of Syria is known as the Hauran and until recently it was a poor, windswept plateau of treeless, volcanic rock, but its history is rather different. Bosra was capital of the northern Nabatean empire, and when the Romans took over the area in 106AD it became the headquarters of the new province of Arabia. At that time the land was very fertile and the city became a major agriculture and trading center astride the north-south routes. When Christianity was established as the official religion of Rome, Bosra became a bishopric and several cathedrals were built, but like many other areas in Syria Bosra adopted monophysitism and was often at odds with Constantinople. Perhaps because of this the city did not resist the Arab invasion of the early 7th century. (Legend has it that the Prophet Mohammed in Bosra on a trading mission, met a Nestorian monk called Boheira who told him of his future.)
Entering the citadel over a drawbridge over a (dry) moat, one has no idea there is an amphitheater inside. Once inside, you follow the arrows through a series of halls and stairs to suddenly exit a steep stairwell located halfway up the tiered seating of the amphitheater; your immediate field of vision is a massive columned stage and half the steeply banked theater seating - it is breathtaking. Unlike most Roman amphitheaters this one was built from the ground up as the land was flat without the natural incline they were usually built on. It could seat 6000 spectators with added standing room for another 3000. As for the stage, only the lower level remains, but it is still possible to imagine how it must have been with its colored marbles, Corinthian capitals, friezes and statuary.
The columned scenae frons of the stage of Bosra's amphitheater.
Leaving the theater you pass a courtyard museum with carved statues - difficult to achieve in hard basalt rock - then exit the citadel to visit the significant remains of a Roman city incuding a monumental arch, baths, cardo-maximus, the Nabatean gate and the Gate of the Wind. Other remains are the Christian cathedrals and churches, Ummayad and Mamluk mosques and hammams, and in one corner an enormous cistern, now dry.
The 2nd century amphitheater seating and part of the 12th century Ayyubid walls built around it.
“It was at Bosra that the Apostle of God came before his mission, while engaged in trading on Khadija’s account, and in the town there is shown the place where his she-camel couched, over which a great mosque has been erected.”
This mosque is called ‘Mabrak Mosque” or “kneeling mosque” and refers to the legend that says the first copy of the Koran was brought to Syria on a camel who knelt here to rest. The spot where this ostensibly happened is now the mihrab of the mosque.
And so, on to the border. When we left Bosra the driver was very grumpy - I had the feeling he was not happy because we were much later than he had thought we would be. He had thought we would be in Amman by 1600 at the latest - we did not get there until 1845. When my guide left us at the border to go back to Damascus, the driver immediately began to complain, “my headlight does not work, if I get someone else to drive you to Amman and give them some money is it OK?”. I assured him it was out of the question and he was going to drive me to Amman. That having been settled, he was fine. I think he had a plan to sell diesel and he was late for his deal. Diesel in Syria is subsidized by the government and is extremely cheap - much less than either Lebanon or Jordan, so drivers always tank up when they drive over the border to sell some. (The government knowing full well what goes on tries to curtail the practice by limiting the amount you are able to buy at one time. Nonetheless it still goes on.)
Customs and immigration on both sides of the border is perfunctory. The drive to Amman from the border is about an hour. Tomorrow, tombs of the Jordan Valley..........
