MJ Akbar
THERE is no news from Aleppo,” said the merchant at Al-Hamidiya souk in Damascus, perhaps a thousand years ago. “Thank God!”
There was news from Aleppo in the last week of November this year and an inflexible statue fell in Damascus in the first week of December. That’s how fast news and danger travel.
History is best understood through the philosophy of the bazaar, and the great market of Damascus is as old as history. Perhaps it always had 4,000 shops and always sold knives made from Damascus steel forged in India and Syrian dresses made from Chinese silk; where the sound of bargains is a waft of music, where chatter is knowledge. The Grand Bazaar of Istanbul is a mere upstart from the 15th century, while Cairo was built only in the 10th. Damascus was capital of the Biblical Arameans; Aramaic is still spoken.
The oldest city
Damascus is the oldest continually inhabited city in existence. Its cathedral was built by the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius in the last quarter of the fourth century. The power of the Patriarch of Antioch was second only to that of the Pope. The most dynamic general in Arab history, Khalid ibn al-Walid, conquered Damascus in 634, making it part of the emerging Muslim domain. In 661, the Umayyads seized power and made it the capital of their Caliphate. In 680 the merchants of Al-Hamidiya watched the captives of the epic Battle of Karbala pass by. The holy martyr Imam Hussain, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, is buried in the great Umayyad mosque.
Muslim tradition asserts, although it elides over details, that the site of this mosque, completed in 715, was also the last resting place of St John the Baptist after the saint’s head was severed in Jerusalem by King Herod Antipas to appease his stepdaughter Salome. When I last visited Damascus, some eight years ago, young couples were still placing their pictures in a glass case on the premises to seek the blessings of St John.
The 253-foot Madhanat al-Arus, or Minaret of the Bride, rose on the mosque’s northern wall in 831, named it is said after the daughter of the merchant who provided lead for the roof; she married the Sultan of her time. A muezzin would climb 160 steps of a stone spiral staircase to give the call to prayer. Near the minaret is a replica of the 1371 sundial of Ibn al-Shatir, the scientist who rationalised time by dividing each day into an equal number of hours.
The latest conqueror
This year, on Saturday, December 7, the Umayyad mosque echoed to cries of “Allahu Akbar!” and “Labbaiq!” as Ahmed al-Sharaa, the latest conqueror of Damascus, gave his first press conference. “Here I am, Allah, at your service!” said followers of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), while America and Britain welcomed the fall of Bashar alAssad while they began to probe for answers to a hundred questions.
Three powers decided that the vacuum in Damascus was an irresistible opportunity to destroy Syria’s military capability. Israel claimed it had destroyed 80 per cent of Syria’s arsenal. While claims are claims, security analysts who do not speak for public consumption might be wondering if an arsenal which had crossed its sell-by date had been destroyed, creating room for fresh supplies in 2025. This is not a war which is coming to an end any time soon. America shredded its inimical targets operating under the Islamism brand. Turkey hit the resources of the Kurdish Workers Party which wants a separate state for Kurds.
The big conundrum
Quite unnoticed in the noise of sophisticated bombs, the Hayat Tahrir-al Sham expanded its control to the east, capturing a town called Deir ez-Zor on the Iraq border held by a Kurdish group supported by the US. It is, of course, too early for clear answers but the questions should be clear once you clear the mind of bias.
The big conundrum is: Has Iran been weakened by the fall of Bashar al-Assad but the war against Israel strengthened? One video from the excited troops of Hayat celebrating victory at the Umayyad mosque shows them chanting: “This is the land of Islam, this is Damascus, the Muslim stronghold. From here to Jerusalem! We’re coming for Jerusalem. Patience, people of Gaza, patience!” ‘This’ is Syria. In Gaza, Hamas welcomed the change of regime in Damascus.
Since victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan, Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu claimed credit for the fall of the Assad family. That was political triumphalism, understandable in the context. Both are totally aware of the old warning. Be careful what you wish for; you might get it.
