Damascus – the seduction of age, beauty and light

A few weeks ago I was reveling in the cradle of civilisation – well one of them, Damascus, which claims to be the longest continuously inhabited city in the world. A few thousands years old, a mere cough down the echoing tunnel of time. It’s a city that draws you in, easy-going people, easy to find your way around, easy on the eye. Completely seductive in fact: Syria’s crown-jewel – although Aleppo is equally beguiling.

Heart of the city – the Ummayad mosque

Of course I loved the Ummayad mosque (above), the beating heart of the old city and number three in Islam’s pecking order after the Kaaba (or is it Medina’s mosque?) and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The vast marble-paved courtyard is usually chockablock with Shiite pilgrims from Iran who flock like crows to see one particular shrine in the east wing.

Just outside the mosque walls is Saladin’s tomb, surprisingly low-key considering how thoroughly this Kurdish warrior thrashed the crusaders. The mausoleum stands next door to a “putting on special clothes room” – aka a cloakroom where Western women have to dress up like monks in hooded robes. One look at you and the guardian says – “size 2”!

In the main prayer hall the head of John the Baptist (allegedly) is another big draw. And in the middle of the complex is the fabulous courtyard, some façades faced in extraordinarily intricate mosaic, glinting with gold inserts. Serenely spacious, colonnades down one side, a towering minaret, and an ornate ablution fountain in the centre – all in all, a push-over for conversion.

Even more astounding is the fact that this mosque started life B.C. as an Aramean temple to the storm god, before becoming a Roman temple to Jupiter, next a Christian church, and finally in 715 CE (that’s extremely early days in the Islamic calendar) started to function as a mosque. Sign of those tolerant times was the fact that both religions worked side by side for decades until there were too many Muslims, and the Christians were forced out to other worship halls in the city.

If you’re lucky enough to be in Damascus, don’t miss a last glimpse of the mosque as the light fades and the edifice takes on dazzling garish hues. Crowds throng the courtyard, lured by the muezzin.

Bakdash – ice-cream heaven made in Damascus

Not far away is another great Damascene institution, Bakdash – catering to appetite rather than spiritual matters. Founded in the 1890s this ice-cream parlour is seemingly on everyone’s itinerary. I’d first heard about it when talking to Lucy and the late Greg Malouf (authors of Saha, a book on Syrian and Lebanese food) in Melbourne, who raved about the elasticky ice-cream. So there I headed.

The secret ingredient apparently is the ground root of a kind of orchid which replaces egg. I went, I saw, I tasted and I have to say I was slightly underwhelmed. But the pistachio topping was ace and the studious atmosphere at the tables in the back parlour quite extraordinary.

Then there was light…

There’s something captivating about the light in this city. I was there in autumn and the sunlight was still strong. There are moments when shafts of light slip through apertures in the ceilings of a caravanserai or sneak into shadowy souk passageways to create pure magic. In the evening the heavy brass lanterns are hard to better, often perforated to make dizzying patterns of light and shadow. Moroccans, eat your heart out, the Damascenes did it first. In fact I can’t wait, as I’m soon to return to Cordoba, the Ummayad’s first European city, via Morocco, in the 8th century. Damascus gave me a potent sense of this magical Andalucian city – not just from the alternating marble and stone bands of the arches in the mosque.

Finally – well for this blog anyway – there are pomegranates. Juices of deep crimson, darker and thicker than blood, a liquid that you feel pumping through your veins and a reminder of where so much Andalucian food originated. Divine.