About a thousand years ago, Ibn Asaker tried to do so, and the narratives extended and the capabilities were short of him, had it not been for Nur al -Din Zangi with money and men, and he would have done seventy volumes.
Have you ever heard about a writer who transcends his concern to write seventy volumes in the history of his city? It is what is known today as “the history of Damascus”.
Recently, he tried to write about Nizar Qabbani, and he left poetry pictures that the city’s walls boast, but he continued to complain that whenever his pen was the throne of jasmine on his fingers, and his mouth was tightened with the juice of apricots, pomegranate, berries, and saffron.
And Ali Al -Tantawi tried him, and he described Damascus at the beginning of the twentieth century before he went to his sorrows on the Saba’i and the glory of the boy.
And here you are trying to write about Damascus, and the strings are intertwined, just as the electricity distribution wires are intertwined with the branches of Jasmine! As if to challenge and say that in Damascus, it cannot be described, and it cannot be overcome.
It is Damascus that teaches you to write about it and you know that the language will betray you. Do you search for the beginning of the house of Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan and Omar bin Abdul Aziz, who ruled half of the world and challenged the obstacles of geography? Or about his neighbor, Salah al -Din al -Ayyubi, who changed history? Or about the lanes of Muhyiddin bin Arabi, who occupied the poles of the earth, Arabs and Ajam, in understanding its contents and phrases.
Perhaps, as Titanic, Flashback from the Al -Tadamun neighborhood, Jobar, or the Yarmouk camp, can talk about a city that resisted the earthquakes or destroying the invaders such as Timorlane and Mongols ..
Transfer your heart where you want from history, it will turn to you with light cracks from the roof of Al -Hamidiya, or a sprayed spray from the fountains of an ancient Damascene house.
But do not tire yourself with Damascus, as this city, as Muzaffar Al -Nawab says, is the division of division by two.
Between them, the Damascene ice cream, or perhaps a cup of mint tea, will take care of the manufacturer, to resume the journey again.
Then do not be afraid of the loss, because the Damascene – as Al -Tantawi described them and found them with experience – is one of the most generous people, and the most sympathetic to the stranger, and love for him, they affect him on the family and the boy.
In Damascus, I will hear your hearing and open your eyes well. This city is a museum in the open air, and its designer is subtle.
In the years before the revolution, tourist paths were identified inside the city that float in its most prominent features, and today its features have been spoken, but their ruins appear in murals, you know the names of the sites without providing them with detail.
Such initiatives on their value do not exceed the historical dimension of places. The map talks about the markets of a traditional city and markets for craftsmen, historical and cultural monuments such as the Damascus Castle, and religious landmarks such as the position of Salahuddin Al -Ayyubi, the Umayyad Mosque and the Church of St. Hanania and Khan Asaad Pasha.
Myself spoke to me that this initiative, which was supported by the European Union, may not be appropriate for Damascus. In this city everything is narrated twice: once, as it happened, and once the hearts you love to remember. What you miss from the details of the maps is much more than what you say to you, and it may take care of the narration of the stone, which is the only witness that remains in the history of that city.
Perhaps it tells you about her straight street, and that it is a hymn of the gospel in which Khalid bin Al -Walid and Abu Ubaidah bin Al -Jarrah shook hands, and his atmosphere mixed with all the spices of the world that carried to the Medhat Pasha market through the Silk Road.
From here, millions of pilgrims passed every year, and they sold, bought and campaign, and they left the mourners with Damascene money, shawl, soapy soap, and a sweet cheese.
Here they inhabited the Damascene homes and fields that have ever turned into a lifestyle in the West through Spain, and whose homes have been called a vineyard in relation to the varicose veins that cried their homes, and mixed with jasmine and Narning.
In my view, the traditional approach with the city may not be sufficient in dealing with an entity that is full of life and fragrance, and therefore I suggest alternative paths such as:
- Eye joy path
- The path of fragrant places
- The path of hearts and minds
- Stomach
In the joy of the eye, the old Damascus lanes seem an example of the consistency between art, creativity and basic human needs, and if the Nostalgia “Bab Al -Hara” adds to it, the scenes of reality crowded with memories and narratives that give the place a spirit and the walls of tongues.
I disclose what is in it today that the butter of pictures of leaders who described themselves one day as the immortals, and kept the poems of Nizar Qabbani and his Damascene hymn.
In the course of the fragrant places, the perfumes, perfumery, soap and their accessories are highlighted, and then the Syrians love the good wind, and how many perfumes manufacturing stores, decorate their bottles and celebrate them.
And you ask me about the path of the stomach in Damascus, so I say, as its jurist and its speaker, Hisham bin Ammar, says, is the thing surprising from its metal? And more, does the glory ask about his cradle? Did the goods of peoples meet except in them? Did the recipes come out except from its lanes?
But its restaurants today are scattered through alleys that the introductions do not indicate the results. From a narrow, dark entrance that reaches an ancient Damascene homes whose walls are singing in Damascus and their beauty, and the morning of an honorary morning is shouting to announce that you have reached your goal.
And if you are like me, you prefer meals scattered on the roads, as it is like you behind the Umayyad Mosque, a bean plate that pledges to you in a traditional way, saving bean water with lemon to irrigate your thirst, and the beans are marinated for your hunger, so the satiety of Ryan Nashwan comes out of it, and that you remain in the stomach, so that the Qimariya stores will be guaranteed with its pastries and sweets, or “to drink moisturizers, for example.”
In the path of minds and hearts, thousands of years of hymns and praise will be reduced to you the squares of the Umayyad Mosque, which has been the record of the open city, adds to it every ruler, authority or convenience through the ages a touch or signature that remains a witness to the history of the city.
Then the stones of the shrine of Salah al -Din will talk to you about the Guru kick, but they remember, in return, the shrine of the King of Germany, Glium II, whom he gave him and deserved praise of Shawqi: God bless you from the king of Hammam, pledged to the rich king of Hamama.
Not far from those places, mosques and tombs of Ibn Arabi in the neighborhood of Mohie El -Din and next to him in the new mosque, the grave of Esmat Khatoun, the wife of Nur al -Din and Salah al -Din, was pleased with them, then Muawiyah, may God be pleased with him and Ibn Asaker, in the cemetery of the small door, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Katheer and Ibn Al -Salah, behind the Al -Walad Hospital in the Al -Barameka area.
Fouad then directed the historical Nuristan Pimaristan and then the markets, and I will be elected from them the Asrouni, the Meccan, the Coils, the Customs, the Kishani, the Al -Qalbatiya, the Qabaqib, the Al -Azuriya, and the Aqalin, and I will leave surprising the area of discovery and the pleasure of linking the name and the name.
Then it is not completed on the day of the Damascene meditation except with a Qalimal look, as the ears of the obedient meet with the prayers of the humbled with the smell of jasmine, the wishes of the lovers and the views of the conquerors such as Khaled, Abu Ubaidah, Nour al -Din and Salah al -Din, and the brightness of the servants and the Sufis, and if they veiled them for you on the pretext of maintenance, Damascus opened the path of its forty saints.
Perhaps you realize how history loved Damascus, so he resorted to Qassioun, who embraced her and stood up to her when the days tended and asked her the eye of the country from Barada to extend her jasmine with life, and shook her trunks of Ghouta, falling on her delicious wet, so she remained immortal over the ages …
