THE WONDER CITY OF DAMASCUS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 87, 7 January 1919, Page 10

THE WONDER CITY OF DAMASCUS

OLD WHEN ABRAHAM WAS YOUNG GREAT AND FLOURISHING THROUGH THE AGES When General Alleuby entered Damascus his troops occupied one of the very oldest cities in the world. The Australian column, lending, were the first to enter tho city. Few incidents in all tho extraordinary history of British fortunes ill the Fast have been more stirring and picturesque. Damascus was already iniuiemorially old when Abraham was young. Amidst the groves nnd gardens of the oasis still ivntered by "Abnnn and Phnrpar, lucid streams," it was for centuries the Paris of the Fast. Jerusalem is of yesterday compared to her, and she saw more centuries before Jionie was than have gone by from the legendary l'onnda- ' tion of the Eternal City to this our day. Glories of the Past. ■ "Tho wonder of Damascus," says the writer of an extremely interesting article in the "Times," "is that through all these thousands of years she has remained a great and flourishing city. Empires and world-religions have come and gone—she was herself for a season the sent and centre of one of the mightiest of all; civilisations of immemorial antiquity have developed, ripened, .and decayed; countless dynasties have held swny and perished from the very memories of men; groat races hnve vanished from the earth —through all changes she has been still 'the eye of all teh Fast.' She lias'suffered many sacks and sieges; she has lain at the foot of many conquerors; she has undergone the oppression and the extortion of many foreign masters.. She has endured and survived'nil. Even four centuries of Turkish rule have not paralysed her. , . ' "Damascus is still the centro of a wide and flourishing trade. Her natural wealth, her beauty, and, above.all, her position, are tho seoret of her prosperity and her length of days. From immemorial time the caravans from Egypt, from Arabia, from Mesopotamia, Southern Persia, . and the Far East have passed through her gates, carrying. their wares to Asia Minor, or to the coast, and so to all the lands of. Europe. Dnmnsk,, damascene, damson, damask rose, damask cheek, and, alas! dnmnsk powder nre abiding witnesses to tho skill of her nrtificers, the fame of her gardens, tho luxury of her women, -and tho activities of her merchants in tho Middle Ages. So early as the seventh, and oven as the fourth, century some of these 'Syrians' traded as far as Treves, Orleans, Paris, and Brittany. In,the,palmy days of the Ottomans she was tho fifth city of the Empire, rnnking next after Constantinople, Brusa, Adrianbple, and Cairo. - '.'•■, "Groves of almonds and of fig trees, of peach trees and of apricots, of cherry trees, of walnut, mulberries, lemon trees. and pomegranates surround ' her, nnd their fruits, with her grapes, quinces, pistachios, her plums, her jasmines, and her treses, are "fanions throughout.. tho . Enst. Amid glittering waters her marble domes and minnrets, bathed, in the dazzling .liglit of tho Eastern sun, nnd canopied by the' blue of the .Syrian heavens, rise out of the green foliage—'a. pearl 6et in emeralds'—against tho golden yellow sands of the desert ar.d the purple summits of the Jebl Hainan to the east or tins snows of Herman to the west. Abnna and Pharpar bring her all these riches. I "Tl-.'; O.liphs of Damascus bequeathed i Ito posterity noble monuments of Sara- i con architecture and ornament, amoiig j which the great mosque,of Damascus, the i 'St. Peter's of Islam,' as it, lias ■ been j"' called from its itumer.es proportions, j stands supreme. At the tune of the • 'A-raU conquest it was i'o.o cathedral of St. j :. JoV.n the Baptist, {tnd by .the terms of 1 I surrvndi-'- it was equally divided,between j Christians and Mohammedans. But .the 1 right cf tho stronger Foeri prevailed, nnd : Abd-.ul-Mololc (685-705) converted .it into ! the renowned mosque, of Urn Ommiades. j "Arab writers exhaust their rhetoric i in describing its magnificence. Six hun-1 du'ed lamps hanging by gold and silver •' chains ■ illuminated its rich mosaics and this'neaniftl caligraphy of tin'-inscrip-tions—a vuimber increased to 12,000. on -, the great nights .of Rnmnsan. But; tho j nlace is very sacred as well as beautiful, j •The Jinac of. St. John tho Baptist is still reverenced in its ancient shrino . The j original manuscript of.lhe Koran in the i auto?raph of Osman, the first collector of the sacred texts, and a Koran ..in ..the hand of Ali, tho son-in-iaw of; .the. Prophot, are, or,were, among the,treasures of the mosque. Damascus boasts f many | other holy places. , [ . I "There are the tombs of two of the Prophet's wives, of 40 of his immediate I disciples, of Belnl, his b'fick suiiimoner j to prayer, of Khalid and of Abu Oboi-1 dah, the joint conquerors of the city, the 'sword'' and the' 'arm' of God., Saladin sleeps in the precir.oin of the great mosque, with the'sword at. his side, by whiuh lie did such great things for tho Faith. Her Worst Enemy. "In 1516 Sultan Selim I took up his winter quarters there on his way to the conquest of Egypt. The most blood- , thirsty of all the. Sultans, he inflicted 'upon her the most fatal, wrong of all. He brought her under Turkish rule, and under it she remained,' except for the eight years (1832-10) when Ibrahim Pasha , restored her to Egypt, until the. Australians rode last week through her ancient "ates. So-the very new meets the very old and the web of history is woven." . "Sooner or later," says Colonel Sir Mark Sykes, M.P., in the "Observer," "Damascus will realise what has happened, and when that occurs we shall see the beginning of a new andwouderful era in the history of tho Near East. Damascus is the true home of Arab genius and racial feeling; its people are cultured, refined, and intelligent. French and American schools, contact with European thought, Lebanese emigration to the United States, and the steady growth of Arab national feeling, have •ill tended to prepare, the Damascenes for the hour which has now struck. Revived Arab Civilisation. ' . "Surrounded by areas of. enormous potential agricultural wealth, by a prolific, industrious, 1 and naturally intelli: gent peasantry, Damascus, with its mer- . chants and educated'upper classes, has overy capacity to become tho capital of nn enlightened State or, political unit. Provided the Turk is not suffered to return, within twenty years we shall seo in Damascus a city of perhaps doublo its present population, prosperous and progressive, with colleges and. universities, and great mercantile establishments and factories. This city will be conencted by rail of uniform gauge with Aleppo. Bagdad, and Cairo, and will undoubtedly be ono of the great intellectual and business centres of the revived Arab civilisation." "On the other hand, it must be remembered that for the last three years the Turks have been engaged in murdering nnd exiling overy leader of Arab thought they could lay (heir hnnds on, and in destroying the Moslem malo population of the working clnsses by' deliberately exposing them on the front, while the Christ inns' of the Lebanon were being reduced in numbers by the abominable expedient of artificial famine. The Turks' method in Syria has been to cow the population of the cities by public executions, decimate the rural Moslems by military service, and starve, the Christians out of existence. "The Damascus of to-day is doubtless a stricken city, which may take months to revive. The wounds may heal more quickly than some may -hop°. for, but undoubtedly the sears will remain for some time to come. 1 '