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National Geographic : 1974 Apr
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Israel, some 30,000 Jews lived in Syria. Today about 3,500 remain, 2,500 in Damascus. Rabbi Ibrahim Hamra, 30, spiritual leader of Syria's Jewish community, told me: "We have many synagogues in Damascus. The main one is Al-Frange, the Synagogue of the European, and the oldest is the 2,000-year-old Jawbar Synagogue. We have 800 students in two schools, and many of our people go on to the University of Damascus. "Our people, all Sephardic Jews, have been here for hundreds of years. Saladin, who saved Jerusalem from the Crusaders, had a Damas cus Jew for a personal physician. Today we have rights like any other citizen." It is true, as the rabbi added, that the Syrian Jews have "freedom of worship and freedom of opportunity," but they cannot leave Da mascus without a permit, and are not free to emigrate. Syria feels that each new settler in Israel is the potential bearer of a gun pointed at Syrian soldiers. Perhaps 500 Jews have fled Syria since 1967, most across the border into Lebanon and from there into Israel. Reprisals against the families of those who leave, however, are rare. One Damascene summed up the situation for me: "Our Jews leave because they want to be free, not necessarily because they want to be in Israel. If we have peace, they can be free, and then most will stay because Da mascus is their home." Oasis Once Ruled an Empire The Umayyad Mosque, built on the site of a Roman temple to Jupiter, was originally the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, and for a time was a symbol of the coexistence of faiths. Arab armies under the command of the famous Gen. Khalid ibn al-Walid took Damascus in 636, ending a thousand years of Western occupation. Thereupon the cathedral was divided into two sections, allowing both Moslems and Christians room for worship. In 705 the city's Umayyad rulers converted it into the present mosaic-rich, arcaded mosque. The Umayyads ruled the entire Islamic world from Damascus for 89 years; from its verdant oasis they created an empire larger than Rome's, stretching from the Indus to the Pyrenees.* But when the last Umayyad caliph was overthrown in 750 by a more religion oriented faction led by the Abbasid family, the decline of Damascus began. Outraged by the "improprieties" of the wine-drinking, fun-loving, poetry-reading, monument-building Umayyads, the Abbasids desecrated Umayyad tombs, neglected the city, and moved the capital of the Arab Em pire to Baghdad. Thus began a series of sub jugations to non-Damascene rulers that was to last another 1,200 years, ending only when the French pulled out in April 1946. Hamid's Suq Sells the World's Wares Suq al-Hamidiyah, largest and most fa mous of the Damascus bazaar streets, is also the main passageway through the Old City to the Umayyad Mosque. The suq is named after the oppressive Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909), one of the Ottoman caliphs who ruled Damascus from 1516 to World War I. Roofed by metal sheeting, it is a bazaar of narrow, tightly clustered shops selling every thing from Muhammad Ali T-shirts and Japanese radios to valuable antiquities. I walked down Al-Hamidiyah one morning with my driver, Said Shibli. It took us more than two hours to navigate the 600 yards to the mosque, weaving our way through crowds of bearded Druze sheiks, deeply tanned Bedouin, village women wearing bright-colored dresses, and soft-skinned, dark-eyed, miniskirted Damascene girls. The sounds began to reach a crescendo. On nearly every corner, vendors beside brightly decorated carts advertised fruits and vege tables with cries famous for their originality: "Walnuts. They have a white heart!" "Almonds as big as cucumbers!" "Cucumbers as tender as baby fingers." "Figs as white as jasmine-as fresh as the cold morning's dew." "Pomegranates-sweet, like roses-good for the newly weaned baby." It was time for one of the day's five prayers, * "The Sword and the Sermon," by Thomas J. Aber crombie, in the July 1972 GEOGRAPHIC, and a double sided supplement map of the Middle East, portrayed the dazzling sweep of the Arab Empire. Silver beacon of devotion draws Moslem pilgrims to the tomb of Al-Sitt Zainab, Moham med's granddaughter, outside Damascus. Commerce also lures visitors to the city. Buyers and sellers still vie in the Street Called Straight, where Saul of Tarsus was given back his sight (Acts 9:11-18). The jumble of shops jamming the street has turned it into a narrow, twisting lane. National Geographic,April 1974 520
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