The leader of Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebel movement certainly had history at his back in December when he appeared in the ancient Umayyad Mosque in Damascus to announce the fall of the odious Assad regime. The site had begun as an Aramean temple to the god Hadad, then to Zeus of the Greeks and Jupiter of the Romans, becoming a Christian basilica in the 4th Century and finally, in the 8th, a Muslim mosque. But impressive though it is, my favourite memory of the place is a modest mausoleum tucked outside the northern wall ‒ the tomb of Saladin.
Bashar al-Assad had recently inherited the position of Syria’s dictator on the death of his father when a friend and I travelled to Damascus in 2001 to visit the city and then ride the legendary Hejaz Railway back to Jordan. We were assured that the city was so safe that you could walk through the streets waving a $100 bill without anyone bothering you. That wasn’t so much because everyone was so nice (which they are) as the fact that Assad’s plain-clothes enforcers were everywhere.
The Umayyad Mosque
Damascus vies with Jericho in Jordan for the title of the world’s oldest city ‒ it depends on your definition. Its Umayyad Mosque is one of the oldest and largest in the world, reflecting the rich cultural and religious diversity which the new regime has just inherited: a Sunni Arab majority, the Shia Alawite minority (of which the Assads are members), Kurds, Christians, Druze, Turkmen, Ismailis, Armenians, Assyrians and others. John the Baptist’s reputed head is enshrined within the main hall pictured above (“reputed” because Rome, Amiens and Munich also claim to have the genuine article). John is not only revered by Christians, but also by Muslims as the prophet Yaḥyā ibn Zakarīīyā. Another shrine contains the head of Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, whose martyrdom in Karbalā in Iraq is highly significant to Shia Muslims. The “Minaret of Isa” is where Muslims believe that the prophet Jesus will appear at the end of times.
The Saladin of History
Outside the mosque, a modest domed mausoleum set in a peaceful little garden houses the remains of arguably the most exemplary of Muslim Sultans; Salah ul-Din Ayubi, known to the West as Saladin. A Kurd born in Tikrit (later the birthplace of Iraq’s late, unlamented dictator, Saddam Hussein), Saladin built an empire uniting Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen and parts of North Africa. The story of his strategic and political achievements is too extensive to describe here, but it’s the man’s character that interests me. Take one example.
When “Christian” Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 they embarked on a wholesale slaughter of both Muslims and Jews. An eyewitness, 40 year-old chaplain Fulcher of Chartres, reported that “if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain… neither women nor children were spared.” The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Christ, the “Prince of Peace”, was believed to have been crucified and buried, was a pool of blood.
In contrast, when Saladin recaptured the city 87 years later he overruled his emirs, ordered the building protected, turned it over to Byzantine Orthodox Christians (as distinct from the Latin Roman church), and allowed it to become a pilgrimage site for the devout. Unlike the Crusaders’ indiscriminate slaughter, Saladin allowed many inhabitants to leave without condition, ransomed most, gave parting gifts to widows of dead soldiers and invited Jews to return to their sacred city.
Saladin’s Legacy
The Islam which Saladin exemplified was marked by piety, chivalry, generosity, humility and personal austerity. He founded colleges and hospitals across his empire but wouldn’t permit his name to be given to any of them. When he died in Damascus in 1193 he was found to have no personal wealth, except for a few coins that would amount to only a couple of dollars today. His entourage had to borrow money for the burial arrangements. Three years after his death his simple wooden coffin was installed in the present unassuming mausoleum.
I doubt very much that Saladin would have approved of the triumphalist statue commissioned by Bashir Assad’s father in 1993 to mark the 800th anniversary of his death.
But I do think he would have been pleased that his body remains in the original simple coffin covered with a green shroud, rather than having been transferred into the ostentatious 19th Century marble sarcophagus that sits empty beside it today.(*)
I’m an optimist, so I live in hopes that one day the cycle of history will turn and that dar al-Islam – the world of Islam – will once again be blessed with Saladin’s sophisticated and cultured type of leaders, rather than that of the dour literalists, crude jihadists and hypocritical autocrats who have been so prevalent so far this century. After all, there is nothing un-Islamic about sophistication, tolerance and chivalry.
(*) The common story is that the marble sarcophagus was donated by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany after his 1898 visit and that it had been politely accepted but remained unused. In fact, it was an Ottoman addition dating to 1878. Wilhelm made a little speech and his wife laid a gilded bronze wreath on it. The wreath is now in the Imperial War Museum in London having been donated by T.E. Lawrence (“of Arabia”).
Photos:
The feature photo is courtesy of “seier+seier” on Flickr. The images of the statue and mausoleum interior are from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. The picture of me and a friend outside the Damascus Citadel was taken by my friend and travel companion, the late James Kelly.