Damascus Tears September 2004

Barbara negotiating Frisky’s release from Damascus

Their youngest child had left his pet dog, ‘Frisky’ in a hotel when they transited Damascus. Many tears had been shed and emails sent. Our mission (‘should we choose to accept it’) was to rendezvous at the hotel in the Kurdish quarter and make the exchange. Numerous phone- calls and a mad taxi ride took us to our destination. Frisky was there in the reception, hanging tortuously by his collar.The hotel owner released Frisky, but then whisked out a calculator and forced him to calculate the cost of his own prolonged stay. ‘Another week and we would have made him a Syrian citizen’ quipped his guard. But now he was, at last, free to go. You can imagine the relief experienced by all, when Barbara later reunited him with his owner back in UK. ‘When I see that child, and the look in his eyes, that’s all the thanks that I need’. It brings a whole new dimension to understating the vital work of ‘setting captives free’ !

Damascus is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and we went on a walkabout to get a ‘feel’ of its oriental delights. We were travelling with Aziz, one of our regional advisory group, who himself originates from Mosul in Iraq, a near neighbour. We met some fascinating (and literate) people. In a local Kebab restaurant, the gregarious owner quoted Freud among his many jokes and later the night-watchman, in the Orthodox hostel we were staying in, confessed to reading Nietzsche and Shakespeare, which seemed to feed his own internal angst. Aziz spoke to him for hours in Arabic, whilst I spoke with him briefly in English and left them to it.

A street called straight 

We went on another trail – a sort of church crawl – in search of the lost Anglican church. It was definitely on the wall-map I spotted in the Franciscan Church of Anayas. But our search revealed there is no such church. But we visited many on the way, down narrow cobbled streets – St. Mary's Greek Orthodox, on the Street called Straight; the church commemorating Paul being let down over the city walls in a basket; a mass in a Chaldean Catholic, presided by a priest we also met in the mosque; the Syrian Orthodox (where everyone knew Aziz); an Armenian church with an erratic mass of cables overhead; and finally the 'Injeeli' Presbyterian (which the map makers had confused with Anglican). Mind you, the Bishop in Jerusalem does have plans to build a church in Damascus, at the invitation of the president. Possibly on the commonwealth war graves commission lot, between another Franciscan church and a mosque. 

We certainly had an ecumenical feast that day.

But it is the old city itself that is magnetic. The covered bazaar, street vendors, restaurants and cafes. Lots to distract and tempt even experienced travellers. The Old Souq is a shoppers delight. Good prices are to be had by a persistent barterer.

Saladin's statue, outside the city wall, dominates the area and commemorates the ‘liberation’ of Damascus, his victory at the Horns of Hattin and subsequently Jerusalem in 1187. Whereas there was unmitigated slaughter of Muslims, Jews and Orthodox Christians, accompanying the Crusader’s capture of Jerusalem in 1097, Saladin retrained his men at its recapture.

Saladin liberating Damascus and triumphing over his enemy King Richard. Their relationship is explored ‘Warriors of God’ by James Reston (Doubleday  2001) the more civilised Saladin comes out streets ahead of his ‘barbaric’ rival.

Through the Souq itself, is the Omayyad Mosque, built in 705 on the site of a Cathedral. It contains 2 tombs for Saladin – one commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm II after his visit in 1898 for whom he was something of a hero. There is also a large tomb inside the mosque – the mausoleum of Head of John the Baptist. A group of pilgrims from Gujarat was visiting with a tour guide. I chatted with them in Urdu and suggested to them that John the Baptist pointed the way to the Christ. 

The Old Damascus mosque also has what is called the Jesus Minaret. According to the shopkeeper in the ‘Jesus Minaret Souvenirs’, who Aziz spoke to, this is where Christ will return ‘and the first thing he will do is destroy all the crosses on the churches’. The cross remains one of the biggest stumbling blocks to Muslims.

We met with Eldon and Jane, a Mennonite couple from Kansas and Cairo who are a seeking to be ‘faithful presence’ in Damascus, supporting the ancient through church teaching English at the seminary. and peace-making and bridge-building. In their charming house in the Old City, with its courtyard in middle - facing inwards, we sipped tea and cookies.

He introduced me to the Lebanese writer Amin Malouf: ‘The Crusades through Arab Eyes’ (Saqi, 2004). He talks of the ‘tears of Saladin’, his response when confronted with the news of the death of a friend and also when faced with a widowed ‘Franj’ (the generic Arabic name for crusaders) who had lost her baby. He comes over as compassionate, as well as a brilliant military strategist.

But the book also indicates just how deep rooted are the feelings and how alive the ‘Crusades’ are as a metaphor: 

Today on the eve of the third millennium the political and religious leaders constantly refer to Saladin, to the fall of Jerusalem and its recapture In the popular mind, and in some official discourse too, Israel is regarded as a new crusader state’ (265)

Over the centuries, many tears have been shed by widows and orphans in this part of the world. Manouf concludes: ‘

The Arab East still sees the West as the natural enemy. There can be no doubt that the schism between these two worlds dates from the crusades, deeply felt by these Arabs, even today as an act of rape.’ (266)

From your own correspondent

September 2004