From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

by J. A. Zahm

In Bagdad, the “City of the Saints,” the number of shrines is particularly large. They are frequented by pilgrims from all parts, who prostrate themselves before the tombs of the saints to whose shrines they often make liberal offerings and where the more devout pray and chant hymns for hours at a time. “The Moslem,” as Kuenen tells us, “seeks what his faith withholds from him and seeks it where the authority which he himself recognized forbids him to look for it.”[266]

According to a widespread opinion the bodies of the departed Moslem saints are not supposed to undergo corruption. For it is a common belief, confirmed by countless traditions, that when the tombs of saints and martyrs are accidentally opened their remains have the appearance of being freshly buried: “their faces are blooming, their eyes are bright and blood would issue from their bodies, if wounded.”[267]

Not only is the Moslem saint not dead, in our acceptation of the term, but his tomb is his house in which he continues to live and in which he receives the petitions of those who have recourse to him in their difficulties. And yet more. According to the implicit belief of his devotees he can leave his tomb, go on long journeys and return again. Firmly believing in a great invisible organization of saints and in the picturesque al-Khader, who is reputed to wander continuously through the lands of Islam performing everywhere the will of Allah, and in the countless deceased but still very active and ubiquitous saints, the life of the pious Mussulman is indeed, as has truly been observed “hedged around everywhere by the Unseen.”

Our journey from Tarsus to Aleppo was a rarely enjoyable one. At every turn of the road we saw something of unique historic or legendary interest. Everything—mountain crags, swirling rivers, foaming torrents, moss-covered castles, crumbling churches, that would have enraptured a Hobbema or a Ruysdael—held so much of glamour and romance that we seemed all the while to be traveling in a veritable fairyland. High above the dark gray crest of Amanus were motionless masses of bright, cumulus clouds which, under some magic influence seemingly, had grouped themselves into the forms of Norman donjons and Saracen strongholds. And hovering near these fantastic shapes, fashioned from the mountain vapor, was the figure of the giant rock of eastern fable. “Verily,” I said to my companion, “we are in the land of the jinn and they are here giving us an exhibition of their power over inanimate nature.” Having the authority of Mohammed for their belief in these supernatural beings of smokeless fire, is it surprising to find the untutored Mussulman ascribing to their agency what he cannot conceive as being done by human means? It is the jinn “riding in the whirlwind,” that cause, he firmly believes, the gyrating pillars of sand to sweep over the desert and the portentous waterspouts to rise from the troubled sea, as it is the jinn that transform clouds into countless forms of animate and inanimate nature, which oriental fancy so readily discerns in a cloud-dappled sky. Should one then be surprised at the exquisite pleasure which the wonder-loving followers of the Prophet find in the recital of the famous stories of “A Thousand Nights and a Night”—stories in which the marvelous is so conspicuous and in which the jinn play so important a rôle?

While traveling this once densely populated region, we recalled a saying of the Arabs that in the triangle comprised between Hama, Antioch, and Aleppo are found the remains of no fewer than three hundred and sixty-five cities. This statement is, doubtless, an exaggeration but we were willing to accept the estimate of Reclus that there are within this area “over a hundred Christian towns dating from the fourth to the seventh century and still almost intact.”[268]

Then there are the countless dome-covered tekkehs which stud the landscape—each with a Kiblah and frequently with a tomb and lighted lamp. Around many of them we note small groups of women who have, presumably, come to make offerings of oil and fruit and coin to the guardian and to implore the aid, if not the intercession, of the local saint.

Besides these ever-interesting objects there are humble homes of the country folk, every one of which rejoices in its fig, plaintain, or mulberry tree. Frequently the scene is sprinkled with nomad tents and enlivened by flocks and herds which dot the green expanse, and by long lines of swaying camels which slowly bear their heavy burdens along the long-neglected highway, still continuing their service of thousands of years, notwithstanding the arrival of their great competitor—the iron horse. The increasing demands of trade and the need of rapid communication make the construction of railways in Asia as necessary as in other parts of the world, but the lover of the picturesque will hope that the time will never come when the locomotive will entirely displace the camel, which seems to be an essential feature in every eastern landscape. This thought comes to me with special insistence as the shriek of the railway whistle announces our arrival at Aleppo, where a train of cars—in place of a caravan of camels—appears to be as incongruous as at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem.

While in Aleppo we were the fortunate guests of the Franciscan friars, the best and most gentle of hosts. They received us with the same cordial hospitality which they had so graciously extended to me in Egypt and the Holy Land a third of a century before. Thanks to their long residence in Aleppo and their thorough knowledge of the manners and customs of its people, they enabled me to see more of the Aleppines during my short sojourn among them than would otherwise have been possible. I shall never forget the extreme kindness of the courteous and learned Padre Agostino, whose knowledge of everything in and about Aleppo continually reminded me of his learned confrère, Frère Lieven de Hamme, who was my constant guide and friend during the happy weeks I spent many years before in the holy city of Jerusalem and its environs.

There is, however, a great difference between the two cities. Jerusalem is a city of sacred monuments and holy memories while Aleppo is noted as Syria’s busiest interior mart. At present its population is about one hundred and thirty thousand but in the heyday of its prosperity it counted no fewer than three hundred thousand souls. It was then the great entrepôt of trade between the Orient and the Occident. Then great caravans brought silks from China, carpets and tapestry from Persia, spices, drugs, pearls, and precious stones from India and the Spice Islands of the Malay Archipelago. It was then headquarters for a large colony of Venetian, Dutch, French, and English merchants who here exchanged the products of the West for the prized merchandise of the East.

Pietro della Valle, the distinguished Roman traveler who visited Aleppo in 616, was immensely impressed by the magnitude of its commercial transactions. So great was the amount of money involved that, he says, it was never counted but always weighed in boxes. And no one, he assures us, ever spoke of sales or purchases that did not amount to sums which ranged, at the lowest, from forty to a hundred thousand scudi.[269]