Dreams and Shadows by Robin Wright

Author:Robin Wright
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Politics, History
ISBN: 9781101202760
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Published: 2008-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

The ultimate redline for politics in Damascus is religion. It is another of Syria’s ironies.

On Easter weekend, I visited the Umayyad Mosque. It is one of the most magnificent settings in the Middle East. Built in the eighth century, it was named after the first dynasty to lead the new Islamic world, which ruled from Spain to India for almost a century. More than 10,000 stonemasons and artisans labored on the mosque for more than a decade. It is the first monumental work of architecture in the Islamic world. In 2001, Pope John Paul II chose it for the first visit by a pope to a mosque since Islam was founded. Like everyone else, he removed his shoes when he entered.15

The grandeur of the mosque’s vast courtyard always reminds me of the great piazzas of Venice and Rome. It bustles: Children slide on stocking feet across the smooth white stone floor. Small groups of women sit and talk. Men stroll. Pigeons peck and flock. The courtyard is surrounded on three sides by an arched arcade; the fourth side is a facade of golden mosaics that leads to a huge prayer hall.

Three of the most influential characters in Middle East history are buried here. The sarcophagus of Saladin, the Sunni leader who died in Damascus in 1193 after forcing European Crusaders out of Jerusalem, is in a tranquil little garden. In a small room off the courtyard is a shrine with the head of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. His battle against the Omayyad dynasty in 680 A.D. symbolized the greatest schism within Islam, dividing Sunni and Shiite. I got caught up in a crush of Shiite pilgrims from Iran trying to touch the shrine. Several chador-clad women brought their children’s clothes to rub against its silver grill.

In the heart of the long prayer hall, the head of John the Baptist is reputedly buried in a domed sanctuary with unusual green glass windows. Muslims revere John as the prophet Yahya; he is mentioned four times in the Koran. Because of the story of his birth to a barren mother and aged father, devout Muslim women sometimes pray in front of his shrine if they are having trouble getting pregnant. On the day I visited, several Muslim women mingled with Christian tourists in front of the tomb.

Politically, Syria is arguably the Arab world’s most secular country, particularly after the fall of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq. Both Syria and Iraq were ruled by the socialist Baath Party, albeit by branches with rival interpretations. Yet underneath, Syria remains a conservative religious society.

“Spiritual wealth is ingrained in the Syrian character,” Mohammed Habash told me when I stopped in to see him at the Islamic Studies Center. Habash, a diminutive but ebullient man, is both a Muslim sheikh and an independent member of parliament. He also hosts popular television shows on religion.

“We believe this land is a cradle of religions,” he explained. “More than one half of the people in the world belong

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