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| Cathedral of St.George, Damascus, courtesy, Wikipedia |
There is
archaeological evidence that the Damascus area was settled as early as 9000 BCE
around the Barada River. According to ancient Jewish tradition, it was founded
by Uz, son of Aram,
grandson of Noah. It was a major settlement in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, located in the country of Aram from where the Aramaic language was
formulated. Eliezer, the trusted steward of Abraham, was referred to in the
Biblical texts as “Eliezer of Damascus”. The name of the city was referred to, by
the Aramaic-speaking people, as “Darmsuq” meaning “a well-watered land”. (The
name was later Grecized/Latinized to “Damascus”.)
Years later,
the city would gain pre-eminence when Ezron,
the claimant to the royal throne of Aram Zobah, centered on the Beqaa Valley, was
denied the kingship, fled Beqaa and captured Damascus by force in 965 BCE,
overthrowing its king Rezin. In so doing, he founded the independent kingdom of
Aram Damascus. Under his rule, a water distribution system was established
which maximized the efficiency of the Barada. This system was later improved by
the Romans and the Arab Umayyads, and still forms the basis of the water system
of the old part of the city today.
As Aram
Damascus expanded south, it prevented the Kingdom of Israel from
spreading north and the two kingdoms soon clashed as they both sought to
dominate trading hegemony in the east. Under Ezron's grandson, Ben-Hadad I (880–841
BCE), Damascus annexed Bashan (the modern-day Hauran region),
and went on the offensive with Israel. This conflict continued until the early
8th century BCE when Ben-Hadad II was captured by Israel after
unsuccessfully besieging Samaria.
As a result, he granted Israel trading rights in Damascus. Shortly thereafter,
however, the Assyrian Empire began to encroach on the territory of Aram Damascus.
Aramean forces were ordered to retreat to the walled part of the city while the
Assyrians plundered the remainder of the kingdom. Soon, the city was ruled in
its entirety by Assyria which ushered in a Dark Age.
In 332 BCE, Damascus
was conquered by Alexander the Great. After the death of
Alexander in 323 BCE, Damascus became the site of a struggle between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires.
In 64 BCE, the Romans occupied Damascus and subsequently
incorporated it into the league of ten cities known as the Decapolis which
themselves were incorporated into the province of Syria and granted autonomy.
Damascus was
one of the first sites to receive Christianity during the ministry of St. Peter.
As a result there were more Christians in the city than anywhere else and the
inhabitants would soon form their own unique form of Syriac Christianity. But
other forms of Christianity also sprang up around them. As the spread of the
new religion progressed locally, by the end of the Roman/Byzantine era, the local
Eastern Orthodox Christians developed the neighborhood of Bab Tuma.
According to the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Paul and Saint Thomas both lived there. Roman
Catholic historians also consider Bab Tuma to be the birthplace of
several Popes such
as John V and Gregory III.
In 125, the
Roman emperor Hadrian promoted the city to "Metropolis of Coele-Syria".
In 222, it was upgraded to a colonia by the Emperor Septimius
Severus. During this period, Damascus and the Roman province of
Syria in general began to prosper. Its importance as a caravan city was
evident with the trade routes from southern Arabia, Palmyra, Petra, and the silk routes
from China all converging on it.
In 636, the same year the Arabs conquered Israel, they also conquered
Syria, and like Israel, Syria was thereafter made an Arab country at the
expense of the indigenous Syriac Christian inhabitants, in which state it
remains to this day, unlike Israel. From 661 to 750, Damascus was made the
capital of the Arab Umayyad Caliphate. While the Muslims administered the
city, its population remained mostly Christian with a growing community
of Muslims from Mecca, Medina,
and the Syrian Desert. Aramaic was superseded by Arabic which
was established as the official language, giving the local Muslim minority an
advantage over the Aramaic-speaking Christians in administrative affairs. In
706, the Caliph al-Walid initiated construction of the Grand Mosque of Damascus (known
as the Umayyad Mosque). The site originally had been the Christian Cathedral of
St. John, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. The Muslims maintained the
building's dedication. By 715, the mosque was complete.
After
centuries of living somewhat peacefully with their neighbors, by the 19th
century, things took a turn for the worst. The massacre of Christians in 1860 occurred
when fighting between Druze and Maronites in Mount Lebanon spilled
over into Damascus. Several thousand Christians were killed with many more
being saved through the intervention of the Algerian Arab exile Abd al-Qadir and his soldiers (three
days after the massacre started), who brought them to safety in Abd al-Qadir's
residence and the citadel. The
Christian quarter of the old city (mostly inhabited by Catholics), including a
number of churches, was burnt down. The Christian inhabitants of the
notoriously poor and refractory Midan district
outside the walls (mostly Syriac Orthodox) were, however, protected by their
Muslim neighbors.
In 1924, the patriarchate of the Syriac
Church was transferred to Homs after Kemal Atatürk expelled the Patriarch,
who took the library of Deir el-Zaferan and settled in Damascus. The current headquarters of the
Church has been located in the Cathedral of Saint George
in Bab Tuma
since 1959.
Today, Bab Tuma remains the main Christian center in the city.
Bab Sharqi Street, filled with small shops, leads
to Bab Tuma. At the end of this street,
one reaches the House of Ananias, an
underground chapel that was the cellar of Ananias's house. Other Christian
districts in the city are Qassaa and Ghassani. They are home to many churches most notably the
ancient Chapel of Saint Paul near
the Bab Kisan where, according to
tradition, is the spot Saint Paul made an escape. Between 1982 and 2004 in the suburb
of Soufanieh, a
series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary have
reportedly been observed. The Damascus Straight Street (referred
to in the account of the conversion of St. Paul in Acts 9:11), also known as
the Via Recta, was the decumanus (East-West
main street) of Roman Damascus, and extended for almost a mile. The Cardo (north-south),
of the Decumanus is about twice as long. The Romans built a monumental gate which still survives at
the eastern end of Decumanus Maximus. The gate originally had three arches: the
central arch was for chariots while the side arches were for pedestrians.
A small Druze minority
also inhabits the city, notably in the mixed Christian-Druze suburbs of Tadamon, Jaramana, and Sahnaya.
Other indigenous sites include:
Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus;
Cathedral of the Dormition of Our Lady;
Saint John the Damascene Church;
Saint Paul's Laura;
Ruins of the Jupiter Temple at the entrance of Al-Hamidiyah Souq;
The Happy Child House project started in 2019 which provides childcare services in Damascus.
Cathedral of the Dormition of Our Lady;
Saint John the Damascene Church;
Saint Paul's Laura;
Ruins of the Jupiter Temple at the entrance of Al-Hamidiyah Souq;
The Happy Child House project started in 2019 which provides childcare services in Damascus.
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