Quick Updates

I finally moved from sleeping on Rory's sofa - which has been my bed for the last 2 weeks or so - and got 'a place of my own'. Last year I found a great place to live very quickly, but this time around it's been a real nightmare. Some of the trouble comes from the housing shortage and price inflation brought about by what seems to be an accelerating exodus from Iraq. But some of it is just me being a lot pickier. This place I've moved to will be a great flat - when it's finished! And that's the trouble - half of it is still very much a work in progress complete with tins of paint, tools, piles of rubbish etc. The other half is great, but I still need to harass the landlord to provide me with stuff like a fridge, a cooker etc. Nevermind...

In the meantime I'm planning to head off to Jordan tomorrow. I've been in Syria for more than a month which, because I'm on a tourist visa, means I have to report to the ever-cheerful staff of the Immigration Office and have a morning of alternately filling in forms and waiting around in order to get an extension. Alternatively, I can avoid this rigmarole by crossing one of Syria's borders and then returning - so I decided it's time to visit Syria's southern neighbour. Expect a blog post in a week or so reporting on what I got up to.

Take care,

Dave

The Mild Wild North East

I just got back from a pleasant long weekend in Qamishli so I thought it might be good to strike while the iron was hot and put my thoughts down before they fade away – they also might serve to illustrate, for those of you who can’t understand it, some of the reasons why I love Syria.

For the previous few days I’d been giving English lessons to a Syrian Kurdish guy. After hanging out with him in Damascus for a week he then invited me to visit his home in the far north-eastern corner of Syria – the triangle of land wedged between Turkey and Iraq. Obviously any mention of proximity to the horrific mess that is Iraq leads to a little bit of nervousness but I thought I might never again get the opportunity to visit this area with a native. Therefore, at 10.00 pm on Thursday night I boarded a coach at Damascus' large and chaotic Harasta bus terminal bound for Tadmur (Palmyra), Deir Az-Zur and beyond and finally stepped out into the morning sunshine in Qamishli a good 9 (sleepless) hours later.

Qamishli is a somewhat scruffy border town of about 100,000 people – an interesting mix of Kurds and Arabs, and with a sizeable Christian population. However, our ultimate destination lay outside the town, in Helwar, a small village of mud huts situated within stunning countryside – a plateau of green fields stretching to the Tarsus mountains (just across the Turkish border) on the horizon.

There is one mosque in this village, which also serves as the boarding school for three students of Islamic law – and where I would be sleeping for the next two nights. The mosque remains open 24 hours a day – unusual in Syria where they only tend to be open during the five prayer-times – a place where the poor can come and rest and be fed by the wife and daughters of the sheikh who lives in the village. The students were a lovely bunch, very devoted to Islam and extremely respectful towards their sheikh but also full of fun and mischief when his eye was turned away. We got on very well, despite my limited grasp of the Arabic they spoke and non-existent knowledge of Kurdish.

I was also welcomed by all the men of the village, especially the shabab (young men), who invited me to take part in the daily football match played in the fields.

The women and girls were occasionally glimpsed from a distance but basically remained a shadowy presence – hidden behind closed doors, producing a long procession of delicious dishes for my culinary appreciation.

I did see women working in the fields and also walking around in the towns (in both cases often without headscarves) but no women were directly encountered – except for one young woman who was begging in one of the towns I visited.

It might be easy to jump to conclusions about how ‘primitive’ this area is. The majority of the houses in the countryside are made of mud and straw, livestock (goats, chickens and sheep) wander around freely, the roads are often little more than bumpy tracks, and internet connections will be many years in coming (though Qamishli itself is wired up). The people who live here would appear to be the descendants of Bedouin and other nomads, and many people still seem to eke out a living herding sheep and goats. Needless to say, the appearance of a pale young Englishman beside the sheikh caused a certain amount of curiosity and excitement.

However, these rustic markers actually mask a sophisticated society. The mud hut exteriors often disguise fairly modern and comfortable interiors. The more affluent hut dwellers also have modern apartments in Qamishli, and many have family or business links with Europe and beyond. Finally, and most importantly, the whole area is tightly bound together through tribal links, cemented through regular meetings where news is relayed, matters are discussed and disputes are resolved.

Over the course of my visit it gradually dawned on me what an important man the Sheikh is – far from being just the Imam of a picturesque but ultimately insignificant little village, he commands love and respect throughout a large area of north-eastern Syria, from Qamishli (where he also has homes and gives regular sermons) to the Iraqi border. One day he took me with him out towards Iraq to attend a series of these aforementioned tribal meetings – the kind of gatherings that I’m sure you have images of: a few dozen of the oldest and most respected men sitting around in a tent or meeting room, resting on cushions and obeying a strict and, to me at least, somewhat esoteric code of etiquette. The largest was a gathering of perhaps 80-100 men. On all occasions I was afforded a position of great honour – on the sheikh’s right-hand side at the head of the meetings, and was one of the first to be offered the inevitable tea and unsweetened coffee. Everywhere he went the sheikh was showered with praise and affection.

The other thing that is worth stressing is that although the people are diverse, there is actually a great deal of cohesiveness. The village I stayed in was only home to a handful of interlinked extended families, bound together through intermarriage with each family incorporating all the various elements – Arab and Kurd, Muslim and Christian. For example, one old Kurdish man told me his grandfather was a (presumably Arab) Christian, whilst another family was a mix of both Syrian Kurds and Arabs, and was also paying host to their Iraqi Arab cousins (three brothers and their families) who fled Baghdad one year ago. One of the Iraqi brothers talked to me for hours both evenings, impressing me with his proficient English and great affection for British culture.

I had a wonderful time – treated as a guest of honour in the sheikh’s various homes (he has two wives, one in the city and one in the village, who between them have borne him 10 daughters and 1 son – so he’s a busy man!!!), by the various tribal elders, and by the families of my friends. I left having not been allowed to spend a single lira, well-fed and weighed down by a handful of gifts (including a scarf, a prayer cap brought back from Mecca and a CD of the Qur’an in mp3 format!). All this from a set of people whom basically I had absolutely no links with just one week previously... and you still wonder why I love the people of Syria!?!?!

Marhaba from Syria!

After just over two weeks back in Syria, and following a bit of prodding from my loyal readership (!), I thought it was about time I started trying to get this blog properly updated.

And what a two weeks it’s been. I have done so much – and so much that is new – so I apologise for the length of this post.

Arrival

So, two weeks ago I touched down at Damascus International Airport, having spent the flight sitting next to an Iraqi man who has lived in London since the Seventies. He was coming to Damascus for a few days to visit his sister and her family, whom he hadn’t seen for years. They had only arrived in Syria a few weeks previously, having fled Baghdad after being told by anonymous assailants that they must leave their home or be killed. This is just one harrowing tale among many thousands that the estimated 1 million Iraqi refugees now resident in Syria bear witness to.

In Damascus I met up with Muhammad and Yaq’ub whom I know from an Islamic study group I attend in London. As we drove across Damascus, from the Baramke to the Harasta bus stations, it was as if the intervening months in England were just melting away – the mad driving, the noise and the smells and the chaotic skyline of minarets, satellite dishes and ugly apartment blocks against the backdrop of Jebel Qasyion brought the memories and excitement flooding back. You’re not in Newmarket anymore, Dave.

However, the myriad delights of the big D would have to wait awhile because we were heading up to Muhammad’s hometown – Aleppo (Halab).

Aleppo

After an uneventful 4-hour coach-ride up to Aleppo we soon oriented ourselves in Syria’s second city and commercial centre.

The main tourist attractions I’ve mentioned in previous posts so I won’t repeat myself. It’s just worth adding that there is currently major refurbishment going on around the citadel. Despite our never actually seeing anyone doing any work it was clear that rapid progress was being made (we could only conclude that there was a huge team of builders who worked only in the wee small hours of the morning).

Aside from a bit of sightseeing and shopping in the souq most of our time was spent eating and drinking with a cast of interesting characters. My most adventurous meal involved eating both sheep's tongue and brains (a bit like pate since you ask). One day was spent at Muhammad’s family home – a large apartment in a well-heeled suburb of the city – where we were filled to bursting by a seemingly endless round of courses of food and drink. Thankfully we were able to work off some of the calories with a session of music and dancing in the evening.

Aside from Muhammad’s family and friends we also met some new friends of our own. At our hotel was a Belgian man who had cycled across Europe to the Middle East and hoped to make it down to Egypt and then across to Libya – all in a bid to alleviate acute back troubles brought about by a car accident. There was also a young British couple who were on a UK-South Africa motorbike trip. Unfortunately their bike had broken down so they were now whiling away the time in Aleppo waiting for a spare part to arrive from Blighty. We also hung out for a couple of evenings with a pair of very nice muslims from London – a Bengali and a convert from New Zealand – playing pool and smoking nargileh (water pipe) in a nice café close to the hotel.

One of the café owners was an Aleppan man who had lived in England for many years, and whose English wife and two kids are still in Watford (he can no longer stand being in England whilst she is not too keen on moving to Syria). His younger brother was a rapper who has recently turned away from the hip-hop lifestyle and returned to practicing Islam.

The muslim community here was very friendly. The Ottoman-era mosque which was close to our hotel was extremely welcoming. The muezzin and other regulars there were happy to have us there and were keen to teach us about Islam. They treated us to a moving rendition of a song apparently sung by the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) during the hijrah (the flight from Mecca to Medina) and also showed us parts of the mosque which were now closed but which were historically used as a religious school. Our rapper friend took us to a Qur’an reading class in which Yaq’ub really shined

We also met a man who said he had been on Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) ten times and was respectfully greeted as Hajji by the locals. He took Yaq’ub and I under his wing for an afternoon, proudly showing off his mini-empire of textiles factories whilst filling us with tasty food. To cap it off he insisted on paying for our entire hotel bill. And if that’s not an example of Arab hospitality then I don’t know what is…

Each time I have visited Aleppo I have liked it more and more. Therefore, it was with a degree of sadness that we left Aleppo after a pleasant six day stay and headed back on the road to Damascus.

Back to Damascus

Damascus is a real contrast to Aleppo. Where Aleppo is clean and confident, Damascus is far more messy and fragmentary. Despite having already lived here for 5 months, in the last seven days this city has revealed a lot of new things to me.

For several days Yaq’ub and I stayed in a house of about 15 Singaporean students, affectionately known as the ‘Singapore Embassy’. These guys were very kind to us and really made us feel like part of their family.

The Embassy is very close to Abu Noor, an Islamic University, which is in a different part of the city to where I used to live. Although I did briefly visit here before, now I have spent several days here it is clear that up here is very different – almost like another city. I have really liked discovering this area – well away from the International Party Scene centred on the Old City. There are lots of muslim students here from all over the world and also many scholars. One sheikh gives regular lectures in English, so I shall be going to that, inshallah.

I was also invited to attend a Naqshbandi dhikr ceremony at the mosque where one of their sheikhs is buried. The Naqshbandi are a venerable order of Sufis (Islamic mystics), who have historically been particularly strong in Central Asia and parts of the Indian subcontinent but who have a presence in most parts of the world. They're a flamboyant bunch, wearing brightly coloured robes and turbans and, in some cases, eayeliner and perfume. Basically this ceremony involves group chanting of some of the Names of Allah and various passages of the Qur’an. Through dhikr it is hoped to come close to an experience of Allah and it is not unknown for attendees to enter trance-like states. I didn’t experience anything too otherworldly but I did enjoy myself and I got to meet some very nice people. I am absolutely fascinated by mysticism and I may well go to more of these types of gathering but I don’t think I’ll be joining the order just yet.

Another new thing for me was to hike up to makan arba’yn, a mosque on the hill overlooking the city, which has a couple of legends associated with it. It gets its name from the story that many centuries ago 40 religious scholars came up here to study in isolation, away from the distractions of the city. But there is a much more famous myth also linked to this place. It is reputedly the spot where Cain killed Abel, complete with the murder weapon (a big heavy rock). In a cave at the rear of the mosque is a fissure where the mountain opened its mouth in shock and where a “tear” is regularly shed in eternal sadness at this first act of homicide. Sitting outside the mosque we were treated to wonderful views of the urban sprawl of Damascus in the pinky-orange glow of sunset. This view alone made the exhausting hike up the mountain worthwhile.

My birthday had none of these legendary associations. I merely had a pleasant evening in a fairly posh café in the New City, watching Liverpool-Barcelona, drinking tea and fruit juice and smoking watermelon flavoured nargileh with some of the lads from Singapore.

Since Yaq’ub returned home to London a few days ago I have remade contact with some of my old buddies here. A lot has happened, a lot of new cafes and restaurants have opened, many of the old faces have gone to be replaced by new ones and yet strangely almost nothing has changed in the Old City. I am currently busy looking for a flat, preferably in a different part of the city to where I used to live. I also have a lot of leads for potential work and study which need to be followed up. Therefore I shall continue to be very busy in the coming days.

Ma'Salaama