There are few mosques which have a more interesting history than the
great one of Damascus. Of all those in existence, save only that of
Mecca, the greatest interest probably clusters about this one. It is not
as splendid as that of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, and yet it has
some elements of touching story that not even that one possesses. It
stands upon the foundation of a Greek temple. In the early Christian ages
it required only an imperial order to convert a temple into a church.
So, when the Emperor Arcadius, toward the close of the fourth century,
wished to convert this temple into a church, all he needed to do was
to declare his will, and hurl out the pagan priesthood, and make a few
minor changes, and the deed was done. It became a splendid church, whose
fame went out into all lands. Thus it remained until the rise of the
Mohammedan faith. When Damascus was conquered, so arduous was the strife
that the leader of the Christians met the leader of the Moslems near the
spot where the church stood, and, by agreement, part of the church was
given up to the Mohammedans, and part still reserved by the Christians.
But Christian and Moslem had the same doorway. This state of things
could not last a great while. The Caliph Omar I. asked the Christians
to sell their right to a part of the church. They refused, and then he
took it from them. But he was fair enough to given them perpetual right
to other churches in the city and its environs. He then set to work to
beautify and make still more splendid this ancient building. He is said
to have brought from Constantinople 1,200 skilled artists, and to have
searched over all Syria for the most splendid pillars and architectural
adornments, with which to beautify and enlarge the building. Precious
stones were used for mosaic, vines of solid gold were made to run over
the archways, the wooden ceiling was overlaid with a plating of gold, and
from its glittering height there hung six hundred gold lamps.
The wars and time have told strangely upon this rich, historical
building. The lamps are gone, no doubt to serve the purposes of warfare.
The plating on the ceiling has disappeared, probably for the same reason.
Much of the splendor has departed. But there are still the magnificent
columns, with mutilated capitals and defaced bases, which once belonged
to the Greek pagans of Syria, and in their long life, have witnessed the
worship of Baal, Jupiter, Mohammed, and the one true Savior.
The present reminders of the time when this vast building of four hundred
and twenty-nine feet in length and one hundred and twenty-five feet wide,
was new, are numerous and very prominent. Everywhere, at every step you
take, you see the old peering out boldly through the new and the late.
Here is a patch of rich and deep-stoned mosaic, which has escaped a
thousand destructive forces, and still stands as a witness to the time of
remote Christianity, when Mohammed was not yet born. The stained windows,
with glass so somber and subdued that one can hardly see even this
blazing Syrian sun’s rays through it, are few in number, but they must
have been made by Christian hands, in the far gone and fading Byzantine
times. Even the Roman peers through the Christian, and one sees strong
evidences of the times when the star had not yet stood over the manger
at Bethlehem, and when the Greek paganism ruled from the Mediterranean
to the borders of India. Here is an archway with only one stone missing,
which is as perfect a bit of Greek architecture as Athens can furnish
to-day.
One of the most singular features of this building is this—the respect
which the Mohammedan shows here for Christianity. I have seen nothing
equal to it elsewhere. There is here, belonging to the Greek mosque, the
Madinet ’Isa, or “Minaret of Jesus,” and the Mohammedans have a belief
that when the Christ comes he will appear on this minaret. Bloody as
has been the history of Damascus, and violent as has often been the
treatment of the Christians by the natives, the Mohammedans have been
compelled to respect the Christians, and to remember the relation of this
wonderful city to early Christianity.
Let me give another illustration of how the old still looks through the
new. To the dragoman I said, when he seemed to have shown us everything:
“Where is that Christian inscription?”
“Oh,” he replied, “nobody goes there much now. It is dangerous to get to
it. You have to leap across a bazar, from one house-top to another. It is
very dangerous.”
There were two ladies in our little party, and they were not at all
frightened by the outlook. It was simply a dragoman’s excuse to save
himself a little trouble. We all agreed that Franz must show us the
inscription. We went out of the mosque, down the street, then into the
silver bazar, then up a rickety stairway, and finally out over the flat
roofs of various buildings back to the outer wall of the mosque. We were
at the limit, and either had to leap over a deep span, the width of a
narrow street, or put a wide board across it. A couple of piasters soon
provided the board from a man who was just waiting to serve us, and in
one minute more we were reading, along the architrave of one side of the
old mosque, these words from David, in early Greek:
“Thy kingdom [O, Christ] is an everlasting kingdom, and thy
dominion endureth throughout all generations.”
This inscription has stood here through all the years since they were
put there first by the Christians of the fourth century, after they had
changed the temple into the church. The letters are as clear as the sun
in the heavens.
It is, perhaps, the only illustration where Mohammedanism has permitted
a Christian inscription to stand. It is not likely to be removed in the
future, but will come into use when all the mosques are again made into
Christian temples.
It is not an easy climb to the top of one of these lofty minarets. But
we resolved to do it. The picture never fades from the mind. Toward
the west we could see, as though within arm’s length, Ubel Sheikh, or
Mount Hermon, with its great folds of snow, that make his perpetual
turban of spotless white. Out from the sides of the Anti-Libanus burst
the Abana and Pharpar, which go singing down to the desert, and produce
the damascenes of all the countries. Yonder is the Christian quarter,
there the Jewish, and in another direction the Mohammedan. Far off to
the northeast lies Palmyra. But we can not see it. It is a four days’
camel journey distant. The illimitable desert stretches east and south
and north, and these two “better rivers” of Damascus lose themselves
in those two little lakes, whose silver surface just glistens a little
in this perfect sun. Fruit trees are everywhere in bloom. The almond,
the plum—the damson takes its name from Damascus—and the apricot, are
everywhere in full blaze, and make the city one vast nosegay. The murmur
of fountains rises from a thousand courts, while the streets are alive
with the streams which have been vexed and teased away by many a device
from these living rivers. You get weary with the view.
We now descend. How shall we see the way down the dingy steps? By the
same lamp which had guided us up. Yes, it is a veritable coal-oil
lantern. Think of it—the mixing up of the centuries! My Anglo-Saxon
feet have been guided to the topmost point of one of the world’s oldest
buildings here in grand and hoary Damascus, by the aid of a kerosene
lantern, every drop of whose petroleum has come from Oil City or its
neighborhood.
DAMASCUS, March 8, 1885.
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I do not pretend that books are everything.… Some day I may say some very
hard things about people who keep their books so close before their eyes
that they can not see God’s world, nor their fellow men and women. But
books rightly used are society.—_E. E. Hale, in “How to Do It.”_