THE RICHES OF DAMASCUS
The great khans, or wholesale warehouses, of Damascus lie in the center
of the city near the Omayyade Mosque. As a rule they are not detached
structures, but are hidden by the surrounding shops and are entered
through tunnels which pierce the sides of the bazaars. The finest of
them is the Khan Asad Pasha, which was erected a hundred years ago by
the governor whose name it bears, and is still owned by his family.
This is one of the few really impressive pieces of Arabic architecture
in Syria, rich and massive, yet effectively adapted to the purposes for
which it was intended. The building is constructed of alternate courses
of dark brown and yellow limestone, and its principal entrance is a high,
vaulted “stalactite” gateway covered with beautiful carvings. The central
court is a hundred feet across and, as one comes suddenly from the dim
light of the crowded bazaar, it seems of an astounding brightness and
spaciousness. The pavement is divided into squares by four pillars, and
from these spring the arches of nine lofty domes, which are ornamented
with elaborate arabesques and pierced by a number of small windows. On
the sides of this great court, and also on a gallery above, are the
offices of wholesale merchants and brokers, and at the rear are situated
smaller courts and the vaulted storerooms of the khan. Around the central
fountain between the pillars of the largest dome and crowding through
the gateway and thronging the street outside, a vociferous throng of
muleteers and camel-drivers are unloading the caravans which have come
from Beirut on the coast and from northern Aleppo and across the desert
from the Euphrates, bearing the choicest merchandise of the East, and
some few machine-made products of the West, to swell “the riches of
Damascus.”[33]
There are real merchant-princes in this busy trading-center, and some of
them live in royal splendor. The houses of the Damascus rich are truly
palatial; but the stranger would never guess it from their exteriors, for
the Syrian home has no elaborate façade and pretentious approach, such
as the Franks delight to build. The prime object of the architect is to
achieve the most absolute retirement for his patron. No window ever looks
into that of a neighboring residence; no passer-by ever glimpses through
an opened door the interior of a private dwelling. If the Englishman’s
house is his castle, the Syrian’s is his retreat.
You pass along a dirty alley to an insignificant wooden door in a high
stone wall. Just inside is the porter’s cell; then comes a dark, vaulted
passageway, which either has a sharp bend in it or else is screened at
the farther end; then—
The open court which you enter may be three hundred feet across. Its
tessellated pavement is of white marble inlaid with arabesques of darker
stone. In the center is a fountain with designs of colored limestone
set into its marble walls. Potted flowers bloom luxuriantly in the warm
sunlight, and birds sing to the accompaniment of the splashing water. In
the grateful shade of small fruit trees are placed bright rugs and soft
cushions and tabarets made of rare woods inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The
many lofty windows in the red and yellow striped walls of the surrounding
dwelling are curtained with gorgeous silks.
At one side, usually the south, a spacious alcove reaches to the height
of the second-story ceiling. This _liwân_, or drawing-room, is entirely
open to the court; but its floor is raised a foot or two above the
pavement outside, and its decorations are as rich and elaborate as if
it were a huge, glittering jewel-box. No figures of men or animals are
seen, for Moslems are forbidden to make representations of any living
creature in the heavens above or the earth beneath or the waters under
the earth;[34] yet it is astonishing what splendid effects are evolved
by their architects from the limited elements of Arabic script, geometric
designs, foliage, fruits and flowers. In the _liwân_ this arabesque
ornamentation is profuse and elegant. The lower walls are built of
alternate layers of differently colored stones, into which are set mosaic
panels as intricate in design as the priceless rugs which lie upon the
marble pavement. The woodwork of the room is all minutely carved, and
inlaid with bits of glass and mother-of-pearl and sometimes even with
jewels. The upper walls are frescoed in blue and green and gold, and from
the gilded beams of the ceiling hang chandeliers of silver and beaten
brass.
[Illustration: Court and Liwân of a Damascus residence]
[Illustration: Cemetery where members of Mohammed’s family are buried]
This half out-of-doors alcove gives access to the rooms which we
should think of as being really in the house. Some of these may
be even more lavishly decorated than the _liwân_, and all are
comfortably furnished—according to the Syrian idea of comfort. Into
the apartments of the ladies, however, no male guest may enter. These
are _hareem_—“forbidden.” Indeed, it is very likely that they are in a
separate building, which opens on an inner court whose existence the
casual visitor does not even suspect. No men save her nearest relatives
are supposed ever to look upon the unveiled face of a Moslem woman.
This prohibition, however, is of necessity little observed among the
poor, hard-working peasants and the desert Bedouins; and in the cities
the universal characteristics of the female sex have not been entirely
obliterated by the law of Islam. An unusually thin gauze almost always
reveals a remarkably beautiful face, and I have seen veils coquettishly
dropped—of course by accident—even in the bazaars of fanatical Damascus.
Yet among the upper classes the thought of social intercourse between the
sexes is so repellent that no good Moslem ever willingly alludes to his
wife. If he is absolutely forced to speak of her, he apologizes by saying
_Ajallak!_—“May God lift you up!”—that is, from the degradation of having
to hear such a thing mentioned. He uses the identical expression when he
refers to anything else unfit to be spoken of in conversation between
gentlemen. “Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with
which God hath gifted the one above the other,” said the Prophet.[35]
There is no place for female suffrage in the world of Islam!
If we think of Damascus as the port of the desert, then its wharves lie
along the Meidan. This narrow handle of the spoon-shaped city, which
stretches far southward on both sides of the _Derb el-Haj_ or “Pilgrim
Road” to Mecca, is a comparatively modern quarter; but it is most akin
to the wilderness, and its one long avenue is thronged with Children
of the East who have journeyed far to visit what they firmly believe to
be the world’s largest and most beautiful city. Long caravans, weary,
dusty and heavily laden, are led into the Meidan by wild-looking, shaggy
Bedouins. A little flock of sheep on its way to the slaughter-house is
driven by no gentle shepherd, but a black-bearded giant armed with rifle
and dagger and club. Groaning camels kneel in the street while immense
sacks of wheat are untied from their backs and rolled into the vaults of
the grain-merchants. We see here the choicest mares of Arabia ridden by
tall, stalwart Hauran Druses whose cruel, handsome faces, wrapped around
with flowing headgears of spotless white, look down upon the hurrying
crowds with a haughty contempt. Yonder group of strangely dressed fellows
with red and white cloths bound about their brows are Chaldeans from
Baghdad. The shops here seem very poor and shabby in comparison with the
bazaars of the older quarters; but the simple country folk, and even the
proud Bedouin Arabs, stand spellbound before the astounding wealth and
bewildering tumult of the great city.
The south end of the Meidan is known as the Gate of Allah—though it
has no gate; for it is here, amid impressive ceremonies, that there
starts the annual Pilgrimage to Mecca.[36] Back to the same _Bab Allah_
straggle, four months later, a sick and exhausted remnant who have
survived the journey to the holy city, to bear henceforth the envied
title of _haj_ or “pilgrim.” Then cholera or plague breaks out with
renewed virulence.
Of the ancient fortifications of Damascus, only a short, ruinous piece
now remains. The city is surrounded, between the houses and the orchards,
by an almost unbroken succession of cemeteries. In the burying ground of
the Orthodox Greeks is the small, unimpressive tomb of St. George, who is
said to have assisted the Apostle Paul in his escape over the wall. This
cannot, of course, be the same St. George who killed the dragon, as the
hero of that famous exploit was not born until nearly three hundred years
after the time of Paul.
In the large Moslem cemeteries at the southeast of the city are the tombs
of Mohammed’s muezzin, two of his nine wives, and his favorite child,
Fatima. Not far from the sepulcher of the Prophet’s daughter, though
outside of the cemetery, is buried an unfortunate Jew who aspired to
the hand of Fatima. The presumptuous lover is said to have been stoned
to death, and his grave is now entirely hidden under a great heap of
the rocks which passing Moslems still cast upon it as a sign of their
contempt.
Just outside of Damascus, also, is a sad house of “life more terrible
than death.” It was once, they say, the residence of proud Naaman, and it
is still tenanted by lepers who, alas, have known no Elisha and washed
in no healing Jordan. My Syrian friends were afraid even to enter its
court, but I talked with eight of the thirty or forty inmates. Some were
voiceless and shapeless—grotesque, horrible caricatures of humanity.
But there was still a “little maid” in the House of Naaman. Miriam was
a pretty, slender girl, just beginning to burst into the bloom of early
Eastern adolescence. She seemed the very incarnation of health and
youthful joy, and could hardly stop laughing long enough for me to take
her photograph. Yet I could not laugh with her; for on the rich brown of
her cheek was a tiny pinkish swelling, and close beside her graceful form
crouched an awful figure, loathsome, unsmiling and unwomanly, like which
she would some day be.
Over the now closed Kisan Gate at the southeast corner of the city wall
is a small, bricked-up window, through which tradition says that St.
Paul was let down in a basket. Unfortunately for the story, this part
of the fortification dates from the Turkish occupation. The bend of
the wall includes, however, as it probably has always done, the Jewish
Quarter. The Hebrews of Damascus are unique among their coreligionists
of Palestine and Syria in that they are not comparatively recent
immigrants drawn back to the land of their fathers by Zionist ideals, but
are descended from ancestors who settled here in very ancient times.[37]
Some of them bear family names which can be read in the earliest census
lists of the Old Testament. Many of them are very estimable people; but I
cannot describe the quarter where they live, further than to state that
it is the most filthy and malodorous place I have yet visited. I am not
especially squeamish; I have often, for the sake of the human interest
found there, traveled in Mediterranean steerages and lived in the slums
of great capitals; but after a brief glimpse of the Jewish Quarter of
Damascus, I beat an ignominious retreat. There are said to be houses
there whose interiors are wonderfully beautiful; but I am not going back
to see them.
There are in all five “quarters” in Damascus: the Christian and the
Jewish at the east, the peasant market of the Meidan at the south, the
suburb of el-Amara north of the Barada, and the Moslem heart of the city.
The “Street called Straight,”[38] which cuts across the center of the
bazaar district from east to west, may roughly be considered the dividing
line between the Jewish and the Christian Quarters. The flippant jest to
the effect that the writer of the Acts said only that the thoroughfare
was “called” straight, is hardly justified by the facts. This is, in
fact, the straightest, longest street in all Damascus, as well as one
of the widest. It was once divided into three parallel roadways by
Corinthian colonnades, some few remains of which can still be found.
To-day it is covered for half its length with a high, arching metal roof,
and contains many of the largest and most modern stores in the city.
Beside this busy bazaar the Damascus Moslems show the tomb of the
disciple Ananias, whose memory they hold in great respect. His reputed
residence, which lies some distance away in the center of the Christian
Quarter, is in charge of Latin monks. All that remains of the house is a
low, cave-like chapel, twenty or more feet below the street. By itself,
however, this fact furnishes no argument against the correctness of
the location; for the level of every crumbling, undrained Syrian city
constantly rises century by century.
Turning now into the Moslem Quarter, we pass through a tasteful little
garden, closely planted with shade trees, and enter an unpretentious
building. Here rests one of the greatest Moslem heroes and the most
formidable opponent of the Crusaders—the invincible Salah ed-Din, whose
sonorous name we Franks pronounce “Saladin.” It seems very strange that
the tomb of this valiant champion of Islam was long unhonored, if not
entirely unknown, by the inhabitants of Damascus, until it was discovered
fifty years ago by an American missionary. The original casket of walnut
has since been replaced by an exquisitely carved marble sarcophagus, upon
which lies a cover of green silk. In a niche of the wall at the foot of
the tomb now hangs the large bronze wreath given by the German Emperor in
memory of his visit to Damascus. One hopes that it was a Christian spirit
of forgiveness which prompted the placing of a Maltese cross on this
tribute to the Crusaders’ greatest foeman. But as soon as the Christian
emblem was noticed by the custodian of the tomb, the wreath was removed
from its original position on the sarcophagus.
[Illustration: The street called Straight]
[Illustration: The Bride’s Minaret of the Omayyade Mosque]
The one notable ancient building in Damascus is the great mosque of
_Neby Yahya_ or “St. John,” better known to the Western world as the
Omayyade Mosque. The site where this stands has probably always been
marked by a place of worship, and the present structure is some of those
immemorial religious edifices which, so far as we definitely know, was
never built, but only rebuilt. It was doubtless here that there stood
the House of Rimmon in which Naaman, captain of the host of the king of
Syria, bowed down with his royal master.[39] About the year 400 A. D.
the then Roman temple was transformed into the Church of St. John the
Baptist. When Damascus fell into the hands of the Omayyade Dynasty in
the seventh century, the Christian house of worship was converted into
a mosque of such miraculous splendor that the vast multitude of human
artists and artisans who labored upon it were later believed to have
been assisted by the genii. All Syria was ransacked for ancient columns
to adorn the new structure. The pavement was of the most expensive
marbles, the prayer-niches and pulpits were set with jewels, the carved
wooden ceiling was inlaid with precious metals, and six hundred hanging
lamps of solid gold cast their mellow light upon the exquisite mosaic
decorations. Since then, the building has been burned and burned again,
and at each restoration has lost something of its former magnificence.
Yet still it ranks with St. Sophia of Constantinople, the Dome of the
Rock at Jerusalem and the Sacred Mosque of Mecca, as one of the greatest
of Moslem sanctuaries.
Time would fail to tell of its size and splendor, its holy impressiveness
to Moslem eyes, and the inspiring views from its lofty minarets. In its
great court rise the Dome of the Hours and the Dome of the Fountain,
which is believed to mark a point on the Pilgrim Route exactly half-way
between Constantinople and Mecca, and the Dome of the Treasure, where,
hidden jealously from infidel eyes, are kept the sacred books and the
records of the mosque. Above tower three minarets, which are known as
the Western, the Bride’s and—strange as this name may at first seem—the
Minaret of Jesus. The Moslems, however, believe that ʿIsa, as they call
Him, was one of the greatest of the prophets, hardly, if at all, inferior
to Mohammed himself;[40] and the “Son of Mary” is held in unusual
reverence by the inhabitants of Damascus, who say that He will stand upon
this minaret at the Last Judgment.
The mosque itself extends along the entire southern side of the court.
I know of no other non-Gothic structure which seems so well fitted
to uplift one’s thoughts in solemn, spiritual worship of the unseen
God. Here are no confusing chapels, no gaudy pictures or distracting
statues, no gilded altar lit by smoking candles, no thin blue clouds of
slowly rising incense. All is clean, bright, commodious, and yet of an
appropriate richness and beauty. A careful inspection shows that the
architects used the ground-plan of a basilica with aisles and transepts;
but, in spite of the two rows of columns and the heavier pillars which
support the central “Dome of the Eagle,” the chief and lasting impression
of the mosque is its ample, unbroken spaciousness.
The building is larger even than the visitor first thinks: a hundred
and fifty paces will hardly take him from one end of it to the other.
Its stone floor is entirely covered by rugs, whose variegated patterns
have worn to a dull, somber tint. From the lofty ceiling a multitude of
lamps and several gigantic chandeliers are hung by long chains, so low
that they just clear the head of a tall man. Between two of the columns
stands a lavishly decorated, domed structure which is said to contain the
head of John the Baptist, after whom the mosque is named. The shrine is
about the size of the Chapel of the Sepulcher at Jerusalem, but it seems
smaller on account of the far larger building which surrounds it. In the
south wall of the mosque—toward Mecca—are four shallow prayer-niches, and
near the middle of this side stands a tall, graceful pulpit, whose minute
and elaborate inlays of silver and ivory and mother-of-pearl make it a
marvel of chaste richness. Unlike all Oriental churches and most other
mosques, there is comparatively little gold used in the decoration of
this great building. The prevailing colors are cool white and blue and
silver, and the really immense amount of mosaic and inlaid work seems
hardly more than delicate tracery upon the broad, unbroken surfaces.
Such is the Great Mosque when it is empty, a fitting place for quiet
communion and solemn contemplation of the vastness and unhurried power
of the Almighty. But when you behold this same building thronged with
strangely garbed, proud, intellectual-looking and intensely devout
men—women are seldom seen in mosques—you feel the grip of something
portentous, irresistible, relentless. Long lines of turbaned figures
facing toward the holy city of Arabia, now bending low together like a
field of wheat swept by the summer breeze, now standing erect with arms
outstretched toward Allah the Merciful and Compassionate, reciting their
confession of faith in shrill, quick tones which lose their individuality
in a tremendous momentum of sound like the wave-beat of the sea—these
thousands of worshipers have firm hold on a great truth, though it be
but a half-truth; they believe in their religion with an impregnable,
unquestioning confidence, and they render to its precepts an implicit
obedience such as is not enforced by any Christian sect in the world.
They would gladly die for the faith of Islam, and nothing but the strong
restraint of European armaments holds them back from again raising the
standard of the Prophet and setting forth on a new _jahâd_, or holy war,
in obedience to the sacred mandate, “When ye encounter the unbelievers,
strike off their heads until ye have made a great slaughter among
them.... As for the infidels, let them perish, and their works shall
God bring to nought.... And their dwelling the hell fire!... Be not
faint-hearted then, and invite not the infidels to peace!”[41]
Be he preacher or statesman, that man is a fool and blind who does
not realize the tremendous vitality and undiminished strength of
Mohammedanism, the power instinct in its half-truths, and the
unsleeping menace of its essential antagonism to all the “infidel”
world. Politically, Islam is being rapidly shorn of its power; but as a
religion—a religion for which men will cheerfully give their lives it
has lost no whit of its potency. As the cry of the muezzin echoes across
the earth to-day from Japan to Gibraltar, there are, not fewer, but many
millions more who obey its call than there were four centuries ago when
Mohammed II. hurled his Turkish regiments against the ramparts of a then
Christian Constantinople.
The Omayyade Mosque, as has been said, was once a church. In the marble
wall beside its most beautiful prayer-niche is set a large mosaic panel,
among whose intricate geometric traceries there stand out distinctly
three large Maltese crosses. The Moslem artist apparently copied the
design from some earlier decoration without realizing that he was
including the hated symbol of Christianity. So the worshipers in the
Great Mosque who face towards Mecca face also the Cross!
But the strangest feature of this ancient sanctuary is seldom viewed by
travelers; for it is hard to reach, and dragomans are averse to taking
the necessary trouble. You must go to the Joiners’ Bazaar, which lies
just south of the mosque, and borrow a long ladder. Setting this up in
the busy street, you then climb through a small hole which has been
broken in the wall just under the roof of the covered bazaar, and step
out upon a dusty housetop. Here is seen a bit of an old stone portal,
elaborately carved with leaves and flowers, and bearing on its lintel the
unexpected Greek inscription, standing out clearly in capital letters—
THY KINGDOM, O CHRIST, IS AN EVERLASTING KINGDOM, AND THY
DOMINION ENDURETH THROUGHOUT ALL GENERATIONS.
It is a startling, suggestive sentence to read upon the wall of the
greatest mosque of fanatical Moslem Damascus. But you have to get up on
the housetops before you can read the promise that is written there.