Welcome to Syria

Syria April, 2008

I am returned from a very un-solo trip to Syria, a country labeled a 'state sponsor of terror' by the US  administration. It did not feel like that as we walked unmolested late at night through the streets of Damascus, or met with scores of teenage girls in Maloula, mingled with thousands of schoolchildren in Bosra, went shopping in Palmyra and had a private visit of the citadel in Aleppo.  Just for good measure we met with Dr. Mohammed Habash, a member of the Syrian parliament and General Director of the Islamic Studies Center in Damascus http://altajdeed.org/en/.

He gave us a very frank talk touching on subjects as diverse as the US invasion of Iraq, the historic link with and involvement of Syria in Lebanon,  reformist and conservative Islam, the evolution of the Shia/Sunni divide and the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli crisis with its attendant rise in militant extremism there and elsewhere.   

We began our tour of the country by driving north. Krak des Chevaliers - supreme expression of medieval castle-building - had a moat again, the first time I have ever seen it.

Reflected blue moat of Krak des Chevaliers abutting its infamous steep glacis.

Hama sits on the banks of the river Orontes; at dusk swallows flitted and darted in and out of the city's ancient eaves, and its waterwheels glowed amber in the floodlights, while in the morning a barrage of twittering avian exuberance filled the yellow limestone and black basalt paved courtyard of the hauntingly lovely Azem Palace – smaller but more refined than its sister palace in Damascus. 

The waterwheels or norias at night.

The highly-decorated windows of Azem Palace in Hama.

 

Houda Al-Ajlani, MP

Damascus, Syria

“We have a great deal to offer each other - why do we spend time discussing only our differences?” so said Houda Alajlani when I met her, speaking of the current chilly US stance towards Syria. We had met through Diana Jabbour, I had asked if I might call her to talk about her work. Houda is a member of the Syrian Parliament and she very kindly invited me to her home where we talked about Syria and its regional and international role, how the ongoing regional problems impact each individual country, and her role as a politician.

She is an electrical engineer by training, the only female graduate in her class, and I was curious to know how and why she had gotten into politics. As a child, she explained, she had always been interested in the news, and from a very young age she was reading newspapers while her friends were reading teen magazines. "Even then I was interested in knowing what was going on - you don’t really choose politics, it’s inside you and it chooses you” she told me.

Her family though not in politics was politically aware, her father was a clothing manufacturer which is where the electrical engineering bit came in. As a child she would visit the plant, fascinated by the machines and how they worked. She believes that her ability in the field of engineering had helped her in politics in that, "you have to be precise and use exact terms and words. When I give a speech I use the only words I need, and logic to carry the point." However she also thinks that regardless of this quality, in general women bring a different perspective to politics and this broadens outlook, stressing that as far as she is concerned there should be no such thing as a gender-specific job saying, “the only thing that counts is ability to do the job”.

Mt. Qassioun and the cave of Blood

Damascus, Syria

So here I am back in Syria. When Ibn Battuta traveled he consolidated several journeys into one trip - I am not so much consolidating, as engaging in obligatory backtracking. When I left Israel and Palestine I flew to Jordan then drove to Syria. I am now on the last day of my search of the obscure and obsurer.

“Qasiyun is a mountain on the north side of Damascus - al-Salihiya lies at its foot - celebrated for its blessedness, being the place of ascent of the Prophets (on them be peace.) Among its holy sanctuaries is the cave in which was born Ibrahim al-Khalil (On him be peace.) It is a long and narrow cave over which has been built a mosque with a tall minaret. It was from that cave that he saw the star, the moon and the sun as is related in the Exalted Book.”

The indefatigable Khaled and I set off. We climbed Mt. Qassioun twice. Or to be more accurate, we drove half way. I still have no idea how this was in fact accomplished. The narrow streets of Mt. Qassioun make those of the perched villages in the south of France seem like wide boulevards, they wind around improbable angles and cling to the curve of the hill on faith alone. Miraculously traffic moves in both directions, jaw-dropping disbelief has obliterated from my mind how. When we reached as far as we could go, I got out to visit one of the caves on the list. I had no idea which one it was as the names have changed and not even Iranians pilgrims visit here. I went inside, the key being held by a woman living nearby who had spotted me toiling up the hill. She came with me, but when I asked her if this was one of the caves mentioned by Ibn Battuta, she told me it had something to do with Fatima, but I could not quite figure out what. Even when Khaled joined us, panting and gasping from the steep walk, he could not determine from what she said which cave this represented in Ibn Battuta’s pantheon of caves. It was not particularly interesting to me and the only thing that interested her was that I give the baksheesh to her only and not to another woman who had silently appeared behind me. This she conveyed by a series of nods, silent mouthing, raised eyebrows and much eyeball darting to the left - it was quite comedic.

A view of Damascus from Mt. Qassioun.

Damascus Esoterica

Damascus, Syria.

Back on the trail of the now truly obscure - even the Ministry of Awqaf (Islamic Endowments) had no idea where the last of Ibn Battuta’s ‘list of the late illustrious’ were to be found - I am finding out that some have moved...... is this something peculiar to denizens of Syria’s cemeteries? “Oh, yes, he moved - he’s not here now,” I have been told on more than one occasion. Quite why they have moved remains a complete mystery.....did someone else want their spot?

In an area between the Old City and Ath-Thawra street called Sarouja, is the Najmiya madrasa which was not in fact a madrasa but a convent. Ibn Battuta mentions it as one of the many in the city,

“The Hanbalites have many colleges, the largest of them being the Najmiya college.”

Now it is a small mosque with two large, dusky pink-domed, white-washed tombs in the corner, but that day we could not find anyone who knew who they were - perhaps they house some of my ‘lost’ cemetery occupants.

The little Najmiya Mosque now almost lost in a busy intersection of the city.

One Step of the Minbar and the Silk skullcap; The Battle of the Qadis

Damascus, Syria

One of the first things you learn about medival Islam is that the four schools of Sunni Islam mattered much more then than they do today. Ibn B as a North African was Maliki which is austere, but not quite as austere as Hanbali. Shafi, which was the main school in Damascus at the time, and Hanafi schools are more ‘liberal’. Ibn Battuta often relates amusing tales of disputes between various qadis - perhaps because he became one himself. Here he relates a story about the famous Islamic theologian, Taqi ad-Din Taimiya, who was frequently imprisoned by the authorities for his conduct and pronouncements.

“There was living in Damascus a certain Taqi ad-Din Taimiya, one of the principal Hanbalite doctors there, a man greatly esteemed and able to discourse on various sciences, but with some kink in his brain.”

It starts well, don’t you think?

Carolyn McIntyre; Tomb searcher

Damascus, Syria

It is not always easy searching for 14th century graves in a city like Damascus which has mushroomed in recent years, but one Friday morning Khaled and I set out to pay our respects to those whom Ibn Battuta deemed worthy of mention, almost 700 years ago. We began in the east part of the city,

“In the village called al-Maniha to the east and at a distance of four miles from Damascus, is the grave of Sa’ad ibn Obada. Over the grave there is a small and nicely built mosque and at its head is a stone with this inscription: ‘This is the grave of Sa’ad ibn Obada, chief of the Khazraj and Companion of the Apostle of God, bless and give him peace.’

His story is a curious one; he was indeed elected chief of the Khazraj tribe after the death of the Prophet Mohammed, but the decision was voided by the election of the first Caliph, Abu Bakr. Ibn Obada refused allegiance to Abu Bakr and was exiled to Syria where he died in 636. Legend however says he was killed by the jinn......
A new, large (and rather unattractive) mosque is now built over his tomb.

“In a village to the south of town and a league distant from it is the tomb of Umm Kulthum, daughter of Ali ibn Abu Talib by Fatima. It is said that her name is Zainab......the people of Damascus call it the grave of the Sitt Umm Kulthum.”

Not anymore, it is now known as Sayyida Zainab and you cannot miss it. The Iranians have built an enormous shrine in her honor in their style; gold dome, blue tile, calligraphy, and inside, lots of mirrored glass. I was once chased out of this shrine by a furious official and I am still not sure why.

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 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.