Simeon Stylites the Younger

  

            Simeon Stylites the Elder may have been the first ascetic to climb a pillar and stay there until his death (in 459), but he was not the last one.
            Simeon Stylites the Younger was born in Antioch in 521. We are told that he grew up in the neighbourhood called Cherubim. This quarter was close the old Daphne Gate where Titus has placed cherubs taken from the Jewish temple in Jerusalem at its destruction in the year 70. During the time of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II the southern part of the city wall had been moved further south so that it followed the torrent Phyrminus opposite to where the barracks are located today. What happened to the cherubs is not known, but the quarter kept the name of Cherubim. It was situated somewhere in the area between the Habib-i Neccar mosque and the mosque called Sarımiyye.[i]
           About Simeon Stylites the Younger we are told that "from his childhood he was under the special guidance of Saint John the Baptist and adopted an extremely ascetical way of life."[ii] If the assertion is true that the Habib-i Neccar Mosque used to be the Church of St. John the Baptist, it is safe to conclude that Simeon's home was close to that spot. It will be remembered that a side chamber to the mosque has a sarcophagus with the name of John the Baptist on it.
            Simeon was an ambitious boy. When he climbed his first pillar he was only about seven years old. We are told that he chose a spot close to another stylite named John. But Simeon grew, and so did his pillars. When John died, the asceticism of Simeon became even more austere. Eventually he ended up on a pillar between twelve and sixteen tall on the top of a small mountain between Antioch and the Mediterranean. The Mountain of Miracles it was called, due to the miracles Simeon was believed to have worked.
           In time a small group of buildings somehow materialised around the pillar on the otherwise empty mountain top. East of the pillar there was a church dedicated to the Trinity. To the west there was an atrium, an entrance to the complex and places where monks and pilgrims could stay. Later on, churches were built to the north and to the south of the octagonal square where the column was standing.

A plan of the complex

(Verdier, "A Medallion of Saint Symeon the Younger")

What is left of the column today

Today the locals call the ruins Manastır (Monastry) and between the mountain and the Mediterranean there is a small town called Samandağ (Turkish for the Mountain of Simeon). From the mountain there is a marvellous view: towards the west is the Mediterranean, to the south Mount Casius (Arabic: جبل الأقرع‎  [jabal al-aqra']) with its 1.700 metres, and to the northwest the Orontes valley and Antakya (Antioch). When the weather was good Simeon could spend hours just enjoying the view – if this is something stylites do. At least he could scrutinise all what was going on inside the monastery. The problem was bad weather, gale and rain.

           It has been claimed, though, that the stylites had a roof over their head. The peculiar roof of the minarets of old mosques in Antakya may have been inspired of the roof of the stylites. [iii]

Minaret in Antakya

Medallions with pictures of the stylite made to his honour, though, indicate that all there was on the top of the pillar was a wooden platform of about five square metres with a railing around it. Besides the column there was a sort of staircase carved out of rock. People who for various reasons wanted to consult Simeon could climb the stairs and converse with him. This block of stairs can still be seen beside the remains of the column. [iv]

Medallion
 

            We are told that Simeon climbed his pillar on the Mountain of Miracles in 551. He died in 597 and was buried close to his pillar where his mother Martha had been buried in 551. At his death he was about 76 years old. [v]

            We may wonder what makes a man spend most of his life on the top of a pillar. At least we know that the inspiration was not from Christianity as we know it from the New Testament. Jesus and his apostles did not advocate asceticism and although the apostle Paul said: "I give blows to my body, and keep it under control," [vi] he did not speak about asceticism. The context and Paul's own life show us that he spoke of self-control and self-sacrifice. Interestingly Wallace-Hadrill has this comment about Manichaeism (a non-Christian dualistic religion that flourished in the East from the third century onward): "The ascetic demands which were an offence to Persians and Muslims were precisely the attraction for the Christian monks in Syria." Very likely asceticism was a notion imported from the East. [vii]
            It seems, though, that some other influence was at work as well: If a boy five or seven years old finds it interesting to sit on a column, somebody must have made the idea look attractive. The name the parents had chosen for their son had been taken from the other stylite named Simeon who had been sitting on a pillar halfway between Antioch and Aleppo. We are told that it was Simeon's mother Martha who suggested that a monastery was built around the column on the Mountain of Miracles. Martha spent most of her time at the base of the column and she was depicted on some of the medallions made in honour of the stylite. She has even been regarded as a saint. Whatever her motives may have been, she came to share the fame of her son.

Lately a platoon of huge windmills has been put up around the ruins on the Mountain of Miracles. It is a weird experience.

           

-----
[i] Glanville Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 553-557.

[ii] Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Online Chapel, accessed September 25, 2011, http://www.goarch.org/chapel/saints_view?contentid=65.
[iii] M. Grazia Zambon, Domenico Bertogli & Oriano Granella, Antioch on the Orontes (Parma: Eteria, (no year)), 95.
[iv] Philippe Verdier, "A Medallion of Saint Symeon the Younger," The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Jan., 1980), 17-26, accessed September 25, 2011, http://asketikos.info/pdfarticles/verdier.pdf
[v] According to Catholic Encyclopedia, accessed September 27, 2011, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13795b.htm. According to Verdier Simeon died in 592.
[vi] First letter to the Corinthians chapter 9 verse 27 (The Bible in Basic English).
[vii] D.S. Wallace-Hadrill, Christian Antioch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 25.

The Colonnaded Street / Kurtuluş Caddesi

  .

            Antioch was founded in 300 B.C. by the Seleucid king Seleucus I (d. ca. 281 B.C.). The city was built according to the so-called Hippodamian plan where the streets were straight and met at right angles. The city was fairly rectangular. To the one side a long wall followed the river Orontes and parallel to this there was a wall following the present streets of Kurtuluş Caddesi and Süreyya Halefoğlu Caddesi from the point where the street Kırk Asırlık Türk Yurdu Caddesi meets Kurtuluş Caddesi to the point close where Süreyya Halefoğlu Caddesi meets İzmir Caddesi. At this point a road is coming in from Beroea (today: Aleppo). This road most likely continued along the city wall towards the south. Most travellers very likely entered Antioch through the Eastern Gate (later changed to the Middle Gate as the city grew towards the north).

            The ill-famed king Antiochus Epiphanes (175-163 B.C.) incorporated the city quarters between the wall and Mount Silpius into the city calling it Epiphaneia after himself. A new gate was built close to the present junction of Kurtuluş Caddesi and Kırk Asırlık Türk Yurdu Caddesi. This gate was later called the Cherubim Gate as the Roman general Titus is said to have put up cherubs from the Jewish temple in Jerusalem at this gate.

            With this new addition to the city, the road from Beroea (Aleppo) to Daphne (Harbiye) some kilometres further south went right through the city.

As mentioned above, the city had grown towards the north and a big bean-shaped island in the middle of the river Orontes had been incorporated. The Eastern Gate was now situated close to where Mount Staurin meet Antakya Reyhanlı Yolu near its junction with Atatürk Caddesi. This made the thoroughfare through Antioch more or less three kilometres long.

            As time went by, this street was to grow in importance. Herod the Great, the ruler of Judaea, financed some improvement of the street, and also the Roman Emperor Tiberius (A.D. 14-37) has been credited with some contribution. When the street was finished it was 27 metres wide: nine metres for the street itself and nine metres for the colonnades on each side of the street where shops of various sorts were located. The saying goes that the Roman Emperor Anthonius Pius (A.D. 138-161) had the street paved with Theban granite.

On the picture above we see the course of the Colonnaded Street from the Cherubim Gate (that was located at the crossroad near the bottom of the pictures) up to Mount Staurin (the small mountain just beside the street). The densely populated area to the left used to be the original Seleucid city. The populated area to the right, up the slopes of Mount Silpius, is roughly equivalent to Epiphaneia. On the left side of the street, opposite Mount Staurin, there is a green area. This is where the bean-shaped island used to be. Today there is no island as the eastern branch of the Orontes has dried up.

            During the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II (A.D. 408-450) the street was extended towards the south and a new wall was built from a point close to the present waterworks on the slopes of Mount Silpius to a point close to where the streets Kurtuluş Caddesi and Hastane Caddesi meet. There a new gate called the Daphne Gate, or the Golden Gate, was built. Thus the quarters of Rhodion (today probably the quarter of Güllü Bahçe: Rose Garden) and Kerateion were incorporated into the city.

The picture above shows the quarters that were added to the city by Theodosius II. The Daphne Gate was located just behind the building with the white roof in the foreground. The quarter of Kerateion was somewhere in the area to the right of Kurtuluş Caddesi and Rhodion most likely to the left. The torrent of Phyrminus came down through a gorge in Mount Silpius. Now it is hidden under the street that is entering our picture above the barracks in the front. It is continuing down towards the Orontes under the houses between the two curved streets in the left side of the picture.

            Today the part of Antioch or Antakya that is situated east of the river Orontes has shrunk. Consequently, only about half of what used to be the Colonnaded Street runs through densely populated parts of town. In the downtown area the old street is hidden several metres under the present level. Furthermore, Kurtuluş Caddesi is a very narrow street compared to the Colonnaded Street, measuring only about a third of the old street.

Nearly a hundred years ago and during the time of the French occupation in the thirties, beautiful houses were built in this street. Later ugly concrete boxes were put up beside them.

            Lately some renovation of the Kurtuluş Caddesi has begun. At least the facades of the old houses are being renovated and it is said that also the shops eventually will have a front similar to that of old.

            Some discussion has been going on about closing the street to traffic turning it into a sort of pedestrian street as has been done with Hürriyet Caddesi (popularly called Saray Caddesi) close to the Bridge. It has been suggested that a "nostalgic" tram like the one in İstiklal Caddesi in Istanbul should run along the street. Also horse drawn gigs like those on the islands across from Istanbul have been suggested. [i] However, this solution would leave the city with the same stench as that on the island Büyükada.

            It is sad that Antakya, like many other Turkish cities, has suffered from the widespread lack of appreciation for history. Nevertheless, it is good to see that many locals now try to preserve the values they have inherited from the past.

Kurtuluş Caddesi towards the south

Kurtuluş Caddesi, the southern extension

[i] "Antakya tarihi ve kentsel SİT alanları sürdürülebilir koruma-geliştirme planı," Güney Rüzgarı, sayı 140, August 2011, pages 9-12.

Province and capital

 

The practice of naming a province after the provincial capital and vice versa is not something new. It reminds me of the prophet Jonah whose sarcophagus allegedly stands in a room next to the Habib-i Neccar mosque in Antakya. [a]

According to the biblical account the prophet Jonah had to go to Nineve, the capital of Assyria, and proclaim its doom. In the book of Jonah (chapter 3 verse 3) it is said that Nineve "was an exceeding great city of three days' journey." (מהלך שׁלשׁת ימים)

This has been taken as a wild exaggeration. The Commentary on the Old testament of Keil and Delitzsch ventures this explanation:

"But Nineveh was a great city to God (lē'lōhı̄m), i.e., it was regarded by God as a great city. This remark points to the motive for sparing it (cf. Jon_4:11), in case its inhabitants hearkened to the word of God. Its greatness amounted to “a three days' walk.” This is usually supposed to refer to the circumference of the city, by which the size of a city is generally determined. But the statement in Jon_3:4, that “Jonah began to enter into the city the walk of a day,” i.e., a day's journey, is apparently at variance with this. Hence Hitzig has come to the conclusion that the diameter or length of the city is intended, and that, as the walk of a day in Jon_3:4 evidently points to the walk of three days in Jon_3:3, the latter must also be understood as referring to the length of Nineveh. But according to Diod. ii. 3 the length of the city was 150 stadia, and Herodotus (v. 53) gives just this number of stadia as a day's journey. Hence Jonah would not have commenced his preaching till he had reached the opposite end of the city. This line of argument, the intention of which is to prove the absurdity of the narrative, is based upon the perfectly arbitrary assumption that Jonah went through the entire length of the city in a straight line, which is neither probable in itself, nor implied in בּוֹא בָעִיר. This simply means to enter, or go into the city, and says nothing about the direction of the course he took within the city. But in a city, the diameter of which was 150 stadia, and the circumference 480 stadia, one might easily walk for a whole day without reaching the other end, by winding about from one street into another. And Jonah would have to do this to find a suitable place for his preaching, since we are not warranted in assuming that it lay exactly in the geographical centre, or at the end of the street which led from the gate into the city. But if Jonah wandered about in different directions, as Theodoret says, “not going straight through the city, but strolling through market-places, streets, etc.,” the distance of a day's journey over which he travelled must not be understood as relating to the diameter or length of the city; so that the objection to the general opinion, that the three days' journey given as the size of the city refers to the circumference, entirely falls to the ground. Moreover, Hitzig has quite overlooked the word וַיָּחֶל in his argument. The text does not affirm that Jonah went a day's journey into the city, but that he “began to go into the city a day's journey, and cried out.” These words do not affirm that he did not begin to preach till after he had gone a whole day's journey, but simply that he had commenced his day's journey in the city when he found a suitable place and a fitting opportunity for his proclamation. They leave the distance that he had really gone, when he began his preaching, quite indefinite; and by no means necessitate the assumption that he only began to preach in the evening, after his day's journey was ended. All that they distinctly affirm is, that he did not preach directly he entered the city, but only after he had commenced a day's journey, that is to say, had gone some distance into the city. And this is in perfect harmony with all that we know about the size of Nineveh at that time. The circumference of the great city Nineveh, or the length of the boundaries of the city of Nineveh in the broadest sense, was, as Niebuhr says (p. 277), “nearly ninety English miles, not reckoning the smaller windings of the boundary; and this would be just three days' travelling for a good walker on a long journey.” “Jonah,” he continues, “begins to go a day's journey into the city, then preaches, and the preaching reaches the ears of the king (cf. Jon_3:6). He therefore came very near to the citadel as he went along on his first day's journey. At that time the citadel was probably in Nimrud (Calah). Jonah, who would hardly have travelled through the desert, went by what is now the ordinary caravan road past Amida, and therefore entered the city at Nineveh. And it was on the road from Nineveh to Calah, not far off the city, possibly in the city itself, that he preached. Now the distance between Calah and Nineveh (not reckoning either city), measured in a straight line upon the map, is 18 1/2 English miles.” If, then, we add to this, (1) that the road from Nineveh to Calah or Nimrud hardly ran in a perfectly straight line, and therefore would be really longer than the exact distance between the two parts of the city according to the map, and (2) that Jonah had first of all to go through Nineveh, and possibly into Calah, he may very well have walked twenty English miles, or a short day's journey, before he preached. The main point of his preaching is all that is given, viz., the threat that Nineveh would be destroyed, which was the point of chief importance, so far as the object of the book was concerned, and which Jonah of course explained by denouncing the sins and vices of the city. The threat ran thus: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be destroyed.” נֶהְפָּךְ, lit., overturned, i.e., destroyed from the very foundations, is the word applied to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The respite granted is fixed at forty days, according to the number which, even as early as the flood, was taken as the measure for determining the delaying of visitations of God." [b]

This may all be very correct. Another explanation, though, might be that the three days journey relate to the whole province. The book of Daniel (chapter 3 verse 1) speaks of an image of gold set up "in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon." The word translated "province" is מדינה (medîne) and does not refer to the city itself. If the Babylonian Dura in question is close to Tell Hariri in Syria it is rather far from the city of Babylon.

It reminds me of the Turkish workers who came to Europe many years ago. When you asked them where in Turkey they came from many answered: "From the capital, from Ankara." Nevertheless, it showed up that they came from Haymana about a hundred kilometres south of the capital.

I have had a similar experience in Egypt although in the reverse. Once we took a taxi from Cairo to Memphis but when we had to return to Cairo the driver lost his way. Consequently he started to ask people on the road: "Which way to Egypt [Misr]?"

_________

[a] For reasons unknown this Antiochene Jonah has been identified with the apostle Paul. However, Paul's Jewish name was not Jonah but Shaul. Stories run wild in this area. See http://wowturkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17883.

[b] Keil & Deltizsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, e-Sword, Version 9.6.0.

Antakya or Hatay

It seems that certain persons believe that somebody in Turkey want to have the name of Antakya changed to Hatay and this has created some stir in certain waters. What is behind it is this: The Turkish identification cards that show the personal data of the citizen also show the province and the city where the person was born. For at Turk born in Antakya the province would be Hatay and the city Antakya.

Nevertheless, most Turkish provinces take the name of the capital of the province. Thus the province of Konya (Iconium) has Konya as its capital. In police reports and other documents where the person's identity is described, the word Centrum [Merkez] is often used instead of the name of the provincial capital.

  

Now, the provincial capital of the province of Hatay is not just any city, it is Antakya, Antioch of old, the Queen of the East. To change its name to "Centrum" is to many of the locals something close to sacrilege.

  

In an article in the newspaper Milliyet[i] (August 16, 2011) İlber Oltaylı writes that the motivation behind this is not nationalism but simply inexperience or lack of good manners.

  
This, however, is contradicted by Emre Can Dağlıoğlu who in the newspaper Taraf of August 20, 2011, page 14 has an article with the headline "How Antakya really became Hatay." Dağlıoğlu writes: "In short, the attempt of erasing the name of Antakya is not 'inexperience' as Oltalı would have it. Although the derogative term 'so-called' is used on the practice it is in fact 'a nationalistic administrative measure,' part and parcel of Turkish assimilation policy."
  

Whether the observation of Dağlıoğlu is correct or not, I do not know. Both names are in fact foreign to Turkish. The word Hatay is derived from the word Hittite. When the great Hittite empire in central Anatolia collapsed a number of small Hittite principalities survived along the present border between Turkey and Syria. Today only the name Hatay survives as it was used by the Turks in the early twentieth century.[ii] At that time the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, said that the province had been a homeland for Turks for four millenniums. This may sound strange as it is common knowledge that the Turks only made their entry into Anatolia (or Asia Minor) after the battle of Malazgirt (or Manzikert) in 1071, but as Mustafa Kemal regarded the Turks as descendants of the Hittites, he at least to some extent had a point.[iii]

  

Whatever the case, even if the name of Antakya administratively were changed to Hatay Centrum following the procedure applied in the case of other provincial capitals in Turkey, nobody would forget that this city is the one called Antakya, Antâkiye or Antioch. This city has got its name inscribed into history for good and for bad. It is not easily forgotten. Two thousand years ago it was the third most important city of the Roman Empire and during the time of the Byzantines it was often frequented by the emperors. Every now and then ruins and mosaics from the past are found under the streets and at other places where excavation is done.

  

It is with Antakya as with Istanbul or Jerusalem: You may change its name, but it will not disappear.

___________  

[i] İlber Oltaylı, "Hatay'daki büyük görgüsüzlük," accessed August 31, 2011,  http://cadde.milliyet.com.tr/2011/08/16/YazarDetay/1426402/Hatay_daki_buyuk_gorgusuzluk

[ii] "HATAY, the name given by the Turks to the Sanjak of Alexandretta, at the time of the crisis of 1936-9." The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 3 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1986), 273

[iii] Compare Wikipedia, "Genetic origins of the Turkish people," accessed August 31, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_origins_of_the_Turkish_people. According to the chart less that 50 % of the gene pool of Anatolia is typical for people of Central Asia.

The Mosque of Habib-i Neccar II

  
In tourist brochures written about Antakya, the authors take it for granted that the Mosque of Habib-i Neccar was built by Abu Obayda after the city fell to the Muslims in 636 A.D. In one of these brochures called Hatay we read: "The Habib-i Neccar Mosque was built in 636 when the Muslim Arabs conquered Antakya."[i] In another of them we read: "In the year 636 A.D. Antakya was conquered by Abu Obayda Ibn Jerrah, one of the generals of Omar. This was the year when the Habib-i Neccar Mosque was built."[ii] In the book Antiocheia we read on page 237: "The Habib-i Neccar Mosque and the mausoleum was built for the first time by Abu Obayda Ibn Jerrah in the year 638." [iii]

The author Zafer Sarı, however, is more exact. He writes: "The story goes that originally there was a Roman temple on its present spot. After the spread of Christianity in Antakya, this temple was turned into a church. When the Muslims took over the city, the present mosque was built on the same spot. ... The building, which has an architectural style reminding of the Baroque, was erected by Abu Obayda Ibn Jerrah after the Muslims conquered Antakya in 638." [iv]

The observation by Zafer Sarı is in harmony with the way things were done in the Middle East years ago: temples were turned into churches and churches eventually into mosques. There may even be an evidence for this claim.

In the courtyard of the mosque, a lonely pillar is standing that evidently has no business at that location. It is overwhelmingly doubtful that Abu Obayda Ibn Jerrah put it there. It very likely belongs to something much older.

   

There used to be very many Greek and Roman temples in old Antioch, but most of them were either pulled down or turned into churches. This especially happened after the decree of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I (379-395).[v] Speaking about the aggressive destruction done by the monks, the pagan philosopher Libanius (d. ca. 393), who was a native of Antioch and living there, gives this description of the situation:

"But those black-garbed people, who eat more than elephants, and demand a large quantity of liquor from the people who send them drink for their chantings, but who hide their luxury by their pale artificial countenances, - these men, O Emperor, even whilst your law is in force, run to the temples, bringing with them wood, and stones, and iron, and when they have not these, hands and feet. Then follows a Mysian prey, the roofs are uncovered, walls are pulled down, images are carried off, and altars are overturned: the priests all the while must be silent upon pain of death. When they have destroyed one temple they run to another, and a third, and trophies are erected upon trophies: which are all contrary to [your] law. This is the practice in cities, but especially in the countries." ( Libanius, Oration 30: For the temples (Pro templis) (1830) pp.72-96, accessed August 13, 2011, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/libanius_pro_templis_02_trans.htm)

According to Libanius, destruction was especially widespread in the countryside. It is therefore reasonable to expect that pagan temples in town were largely allowed to stand, although turned into churches.

Therefore, the sarcophagi we find in the Habib-i Neccar Mosque today were probably already there when Abu Obayda turned the place into a mosque. That would also explain why at least three persons who according to the Muslims are Christian saints have their shrine in the mosque: John the Baptist, Shem'un al-Safa and Habib-i Neccar.

One thing is certain: when the Mameluk Sultan Baybars took Antioch in 1268, he did not leave many Christians in the city, if any at all. Their church close to the former Cherubim Gate on what used to be the Colonnaded Street became the Mosque of Habib-i Neccar. The title of Baybars, al-malik aZ-Zâhir, is still to be seen in an inscription in its courtyard.

 

---

[i] Hatay City Directorate of Culture and Tourism, Hatay (Antakya: (no year)).

 

[ii] T. C. Hatay Valiliği İl Kültür ve Turizm Müdürlüğü, Habib Neccar Camii (Antakya: (no year)).

 

[iii] Uysal Yenipınar, Antiocheia (İzmir: Etki Yayınları, 2010).

 

[iv] Zafer Sarı, Hatay'da tarihi ve turistik yerler, (Antakya: Hatay Expres Gazetecilik Matbaacılık, 2009), 47.

[v] Glanville Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab conquest, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 437, 439.

Serug

This article was printed in the internet edition of the Turkish newspaper Zaman on August 8, 2001 about an incident that happened 2-300 kilometers northeast of Antakya:
 
Five dead as adults join children's fight in Turkey's southeast
08 August 2011, Monday / TODAYSZAMAN.COM,
      
"Five people died and 12 others were injured when a fistfight among a group of children grew larger after their families got involved on Monday in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa.

Reports said children from the Şahin and Pesen families, which reportedly have a long-standing dispute, in the Suruç district got into a fistfight in the morning. While the fight seemed to have ended, some members of the Pesen family went to the home of the Şahin family and reportedly insulted them.

Following this, members of the Şahin family took out weapons and opened fire on them, killing five people from the Pesen family.

Reports said three of the victims are women. The clash continued for hours and another 12 people were injured. Riot police were sent to the area to end the clash.

Strict security measures were taken at Suruç State Hospital, where the injured individuals were taken, to prevent any further violence. An investigation into the incident has also been launched."

The story is sad but trivial. Incidents like the one described are not unusual along the frontier between Turkey and Syria. What makes the story unusual is that it puts back on the map a city that the world forgot centuries ago: the city of Serug.

In the Bible book of Genesis we read in chapter 11 verses 22 – 26 we read:

"And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor: And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah: And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters. And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran." (King James Version)

Thus Serug was the great-grandfather of the patriarch Abraham and he had a city called by his name.

This was not unusual. Also Abraham's brother Haran had a city with his name, and also this city still exists at its location about 40 kilometres south of the big city of Urfa (or Şanlıurfa).

The account in the book of Genesis tells us how Abraham's grandson Jacob later settled with his relative Laban in Haran (Harran) where he worked as a shepherd. Eventually he had to run away because of serious differences with Laban about wages. According to Genesis Laban only refrained from doing Jacob harm after divine intervention.

The newspaper story from Suruç (Serug) indicates that not everything in that area has changed since the time of the patriarchs nearly four thousand years ago.

Jacob probably acted wisely by avoiding a confrontation.

The Mosque of Habib-i Neccar (Habib al-Najjâr)

Nobody seems to know who Habib al-Najjâr was. However, his name has been given to a mosque situated in the central part of Antakya.

Originally this mosque may have been a church and perhaps previously a pagan temple. In ancient times, its location was close to the Cherubim Gate, the western gate of Antioch. Some members of the local churches believe that it originally was the Church of John the Baptist. Whatever the case, in a side chamber to the present mosque there are two sarcophagi, one with the name of the prophet Jonah and one with the name of John the Baptist on it.

It is somehow a riddle what connection the prophet Jonah should have had to Antioch. When it comes to John the Baptist, however, things are easier to explain. 

The first place designated as the burial place of the body John was in Sebaste, a small city close to Nablus on the West Bank in Palestine. The saying goes that eventually his bones were taken to Alexandria in Egypt.

It will be remembered, however, that John was decapitated. What became of his head is a lot more obscure. Today the head of John the Baptist is kept in the Topkapı Museum in Istanbul, in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, in Church of Saint Sylvester in Capite in Rome, in the Residenz Museum in Munich and a couple of other places, so why not in Antioch? (To readers who would like to know how things like this are possible, I will recommend the book with the title Baudolino by Umberto Eco.)

If we leave the side chamber in the Habib-i Neccar Mosque and descend by the stairway to the crypt under the mosque, things get even more interesting. In a small room there are two sarcophagi, one with the name of Habib-i Neccar (Ottoman for Habib al-Najjâr) and one with the name of Sham’un al-Safa. If we proceed one flight of stairs down to the crypt under this crypt, we find two more sarcophagi with the same names on them. Who are the persons with these names?


Habib-i Neccar

According to Muslim tradition, Habib-i Neccar was the man mentioned in the Qur’an (Sura 36).[i] This man had been sent by God, but was put to death in a certain city (ﻗﺭﻳﺔ). The city is supposed to be Antioch (ancient Antakya). A problem with this interpretation is that the word ﻗﺭﻳﺔ (qarya) according to the dictionary Al-Mawrid has the meaning of “village, small town, hamlet.”[ii] Ancient Antioch can hardly be called a hamlet. It was, in fact, one of the three most important cities in the Roman Empire. Some Muslims claim that the incident described took place in the first century. During the first four centuries of the Christian era, Antioch had about 250.000 inhabitants. It was no “small town.”

Some have tried to identify Habib-i Neccar with the Christian prophet Agabus from the first century. According to “several hagiographic texts,” Agabus suffered martyrdom, but Antioch is not mentioned in this connection.[iii] It should be remembered that there is no mention of any persecution of Christians in Antioch until the one ordered by Trajan in the beginning of the second century.


Sham’un al-Safa

Sham’un al-Safa is even more evasive. The epithet al-Safa (ﺍﻠﺻﺎﻓﻰ) carries the meaning of somebody who is sincere, loyal or devoted,[iv] but the fact that the place of his coffin is regarded by Sunni Muslims as a shrine already indicate that he – by them, at least – is venerated for his devotion and religious loyalty. But who was he?

The name Sham’un is neither Arabic nor Turkish. The word is Hebrew (or Aramaic) and was originally pronounced Shim’on while its Arabic equivalent is Sam’an. This has made some Muslims , especial some with Shiite, Ismaili and Nusayri background, believe that Sham’un al-Safa is Simon Peter, the apostle of Jesus.[v] 

This automatically makes us ask two questions: How did the apostle Peter end up in a mosque in the centre of Antakya without the knowledge of the local Christians? And what is he doing in a Sunni mosque when it is Shiite related groups, as the Ismailis and the local Nusayris, who regard him as important? Would you not have expected to find his tomb in one of the shrines (ziyaret) of the Nusayri Alawites?

In answering the first question, it should be kept in mind that there is a very old tradition of Peter visiting Antioch (Antakya). In his letter to the Galatians the apostle Paul describes a controversy he had with the apostle Peter in Antioch (chapter 2 verses 11-13, KJV): "But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation."

However, Peter did not stay in Antioch. According to the Bible, he later on wrote a letter from "Babylon" which may refer to Babylon in Mesopotamia or Babylon in Egypt.[vi] According to Catholic tradition, he died in Rome and was buried there.[vii] To our knowledge there is  no tradition that places the tomb of the apostle Peter in Antioch.

So what is the coffin of Sham’un al-Safa doing in the crypt of a Sunni mosque? We do not know. Whoever he may have been, his name indicates that he was not a Muslim.

When you read Turkish books about Antakya (as for example Uysal Yenipınar, Antiocheia (İzmir: Etki Yayınları, 2010), you get the impression that the Habib-i Neccar Mosque was first built in 638 by Abu Ubayda Ibn Jarrâh who had conquered the city from the Byzantines. It is not likely, however, that Abu Ubayda chose an empty spot for his project. The usual procedure in antiquity was that Christians converted pagan shrines into churches and the Muslim later turned these into mosques. The spot where the mosque is located was within the walls of the original Seleucid city and close to the centre of the Byzantine city taken by Abu Ubayda. There was hardly any empty plot of land there.

Thıs leads us to believe that the mosque was originally a church, and perhaps the local Christians are right when the claim that it was the Church of John the Baptist. That would also explain why a sarcophagus with his name on is kept there. If this is the case, we may also draw the conclusion that some ancient Christian saint is hiding behind the name of Sham’un al-Safa.

Sham’un was very likely a common name among the Aramaic speaking Antiochenes. We know at least two local stylites with that name. The first is Symeon the Stylite the Older, who eventually moved up to the plateau between Antioch and Aleppo where he sat on his pillar until his death. He was buried in Antioch.[viii] The second is Symeon the Stylite the Younger who had grown up in the quarter just beside the church that was later on turned into the Mosque of Habib-i Neccar.[ix] This Symeon was not buried in Antioch, but besides his pillar on the "Miraculous Mountain" at Samandağ. What happened to his bones later on, nobody knows. [x]

 

[i] Marmaduke Pickthall, trans. The Glorious Qur’an (Istanbul: Çağrı Yayınları, 1999), 440 – 442.
[ii] Rohi Baalbaki, Al-Mawrid (Beirut: Dar al-Ilm lilmalayin, 2005) 858.
[iii] G. Vajda, “Habib al-Nadjdjâr,” The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 3 (London: Luzac & Co., 1986), 12.
[iv] Baalbaki, Al-Mawrid, 686.
[v] "The Ismailis view history as a progressive cycle, which advances through seven major cycles, each inaugurated by a natiq (speaking prophet; pl. nutaqa’) or ulu’l-‘azm (endowed with resolution) who brings revelation and promulgates law in its external form. Adam, (Adam), Nuh (Noah), Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), ‘Isa (Jesus), and Muhammad were the six nutaqa’. Each succeeding natiq abrogates the law of his predecessor and brings a new law. Natiq is followed by asas (foundation), or samit (one who remains silent) who promulgates the batin through ta’wil, Shith (Seth), Sam (Shem), Isma‘il (Ishmail) or Ishaq (Isaac), Harun (Aaron), Yusha‘ (Joshua) the son of Nun, Sham‘un al-Safa (Simon Peter), and ‘Ali were the six usus of the aforementioned six nutaqa’." – Ismail K. Poonawala, "Ismaili Literature in Persian and Arabic" (The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2008), 4, 5, accessed August 4, 2011, http://www.iis.ac.uk/WebAssets/Medium/News/Ismaili%20Literature%20in%20Persian%20and%20Arabic.pdf. See also http://www.ismaili.co.uk/cyclical-time-and-sacred-history-in-medieval-ismaili-thought.shtml and http://www.shiastudies.com/library/english/00-noor/wig/018-Stories_of_Prophets/isa2.htm, accessed August 3, 2011. Henry Corbin, Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis (London: Kegan Paul International, (no date)), 96, accessed August 3, 2011, http://www.amiscorbin.com/textes/anglais/Corbin%20Cyclical%20Time.pdf
[vi] Wikipedia, "Babylon Fortress," accessed August 4, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_Fortress.
[vii] New Advent, "St. Peter, prince of the Apostles," accessed August 4, 2011, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11744a.htm#IV
[viii] Glanville Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 481.
[ix] Ibid., 553-555.
[x] M. Grazia Zambon, Domenico Bertogli & Oriano Granella, Antioch on the Orontes … where the disciples were first called Christians … (Parma: Edizioni Eteria (no date)), 97.

Back in town

After a hectic spring and early summer, it is nice to be back in Antakya. After too much action, Antakya may seem a little dull, though.
Especially our trip to Damascus was interesting. The bus company had informed us that they were going from Antakya to Damascus and back every day and they had not met with any problems. Friends in Syria informed us that they went to work and back every day without any unpleasant experiences. If we should believe the press all Syria would look like the front in Libya. On the other hand, if you were to believe that what is shown on Turkish television is a true reflection of what is going on here in this country, you would never leave your home.
On the way to Damascus nothing happened. We saw some tanks parked somewhere, but that is not unusual. In Damascus everything was as usual. The only difference to notice was the very limited number of tourists in the streets.
On the way back in bus from Damascus to Aleppo, we met a big group of people on motorcycles demonstrating for or against something or somebody. Some of them carried a picture of a man. It was not clear if it was the president or somebody else.
Fortunately, Antakya is more predictable. Some may call it a dull city, but it is a good place to work.

Easter

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In these days Easter is celebrated in all Christendom and in many countries celebrating Easter includes colouring eggs.

We are told that the word Easter has it origin in the old English ēastre which is related to the German Ostern. The name is in fact not a name of a holiday but of a goddess, who by some is believed to be a goddess of fertility. In his book Deutche Mytologie (1882) on page 781, 782 Jacob Grimm explains:

But if we admit, goddesses, then, in addition to Nerthus, Ostara has the strongest claim to consideration. To what we said on p. 290 I can add some significant facts. The heathen Easter had much in common with May-feast and the reception of spring, particularly in matter of bonfires. Then, through long ages there seem to have lingered among the people Easter-games so-called, which the church itself had to tolerate : I allude especially to the custom of Easter eggs, and to the Easter tale which preachers told from the pulpit for the people's amusement, connecting it with Christian reminiscences.[i]

In this connection it should be said that coloured eggs is not a Germanic phenomenon only. In Antakya (modern Antioch) colouring eggs is part of the celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. Starting on Palm Sunday and lasting the whole week Ester is celebrated in the church yard by dancing and merrymaking and here the young and unmarried meet each other. In preparation for Sunday eggs are coloured.

Interestingly the Nusayri Alewites have a similar festival, not the Easter festival, but the Festival of Eggs. It is celebrated on March 30. We are told that this festival is also nicknamed the Festival of Girls. Hüseyin Türk explains:

During the festival the engaged men give a basket filled with flowers and many-coloured eggs to the engaged girl. This custom still is celebrated. It is generally observed by all that the number of weddings increase after this festival. For this reason some call it the “Festival of Girls.[ii]

Now the question is whether the Nusayris got their tradition with eggs from the Church, or the Church got it from the Nusayris, or the both got it from the same source.

If we are to believe Alexander Hislop they both got it from the same source: the cult of the Syrian Goddess, Astarte. He writes:

Now the Romish Church adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and consecrated it as a symbol of Christ's resurrection. A form of prayer was even appointed to be used in connection with it, Pope Paul V. teaching his superstitious votaries thus to pray at Easter: - "Bless, Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance unto thy servants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c."[iii]

It has to be admitted that the explanations of Alexander Hislop at times are farfetched; but he has a point: no festival of eggs is mentioned in the Bible or in the Quran. The early Christians did not use the egg as a symbol of the resurrection of Christ and the early Muslims did not celebrate any festival of eggs.

Consequently, the phenomenon must have its root outside these two religions, very likely in pre-Christian fertility rites.

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[i] Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre#cite_note-GRIMM780-781-11

[ii] Hüseyin Türk, “Nusayrîlerde Hızır İnancı,” Türk Kültürü ve Haci Bektaş Veli Araştırma Dergisi, 54 (2010), 235.

[iii] Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons (London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 1903), 110. The quotation from Paul V is taken from Scottish Guardian, April, 1844.

Homoousios

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During the third century Antioch became the centre of an interesting controversy. The theologians of this city found it very important to insist that Jesus from Nazareth while on earth was a real man. They had had some trouble with people claiming that Jesus just looked like a man but in fact was something else.

This viewpoint was already spreading in the first century. In verse 7 in his second letter the Apostle John wrote: “Because a number of false teachers have gone out into the world, who do not give witness that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. Such a one is a false teacher and Antichrist.” It is believed that John wrote this letter from Ephesus (Efes) at the Aegean coast several hundred kilometres from Antioch, but the doctrine also found supporters here.

While John was living in Ephesus Ignatius was the overseer (or bishop) of the congregation in Antioch. In a letter to the congregation in Smyrna (İzmir) he wrote (chapter 5): “For what does any one profit me, if he commends me, but blasphemes my Lord, not confessing that He was [truly] possessed of a body? But he who does not acknowledge this, has in fact altogether denied Him, being enveloped in death. I have not, however, thought good to write the names of such persons, inasmuch as they are unbelievers. Yea, far be it from me to make any mention of them, until they repent and return to [a true belief in] Christ’s passion, which is our resurrection.”

The problem had its roots in Gnostics thinking. The syncretistic world scheme of the Gnostics had it that everything material was by nature bad. Consequently the body of Jesus could not have been material.

This idea seems to have been very popular in and around Antioch. Nearly a hundred years after Irenaeus a letter claimed to have been written by the Apostle Peter was in circulation. As this letter contained “modern” doctrines based on Gnostic ideas, a bishop named Serapion (d. 211) wrote a letter to the small town of Rhossus (Arsuz) at the Mediterranean coast on the other side of the Amanus Mountains:

“We, brethren, receive Peter and the other Apostles even as Christ; but the writings that go falsely by their names we, in our experience, reject, knowing that such things as these we never received. When I was with you I supposed you all to be attached to the right faith; and so without going through the gospel put forward under Peter's name, I said, `If this is all that makes your petty quarrel, why then let it be read.' But now that I have learned from information given me that their mind was lurking in some hole of heresy, I will make a point of coming to you again: so, brethren, expect me speedily. Knowing then, brethren, of what kind of heresy was Marcion ... From others who used this very gospel— I mean from the successors of those who started it, whom we call Docetae, for most of its ideas are of their school— from them, I say, I borrowed it, and was able to go through it, and to find that most of it belonged to the right teaching of the Saviour, but some things were additions.”

In Antioch, however, there were people who fell into the opposite ditch. They believed that the divine Logos (λογος: word) mentioned in the Gospel of John (1:1) was a quality of God, His Reason indwelling or Reason expressed. They claimed that Jesus by birth was no different from others but that this Divine Reason, nearly as an emanation from God, had been dwelling in Jesus since his baptism by John.

In connection with the relationship between God and his Word (λογος) a later bishop of Antioch named Paul of Samosata (d. 275) was teaching that they were consubstantial (͑ομοουσιοι: homoousioi).

This word might have the denotation “of the same substance,” but it could also mean “of the same being.” And besides, it had unpleasant connotations.

Words do not have denotations only. They also have connotations, for example the thoughts they create in your mind because of their history. Until the first half of the 20th century the word Führer was a neutral German word. But after the Second World War it has taken unpleasant connotations.

The same was the case with the word homoousious. Although it may have been used by certain Christian philosophers it was mainly popular among the Gnostics, groups of people who had built up religious systems on a mixture of paganism, theosophy, Greek philosophy and Christianity. And they were not at all popular with the mainstream Christians.

Pier Franco Beatrice has the following comments on the early use of the word:

“Basilides, the first known Gnostic thinker to use homoousios in the first half of the second century, speaks of a threefold sonship consubstantial with the god who is not. The Valentinian Gnostic Ptolemy claims in his letter to Flora that it is the nature of the good God to beget and bring forth only beings similar to, and consubstantial with himself... So homoousios was certainly in current use by the second-century Gnostics, and through their works it became known to the orthodox heresiologists. Nevertheless, it must be stressed that in Gnostic texts homoousios has no reference to the specific relationship between Father and Son, as is the case in the Nicene Creed.”

That the word homoousios took on different shades of meaning dependent on the ones who used it did not matter. The word was foreign to Christianity and by its connotations it would easily give some people ideas about the relationship between God and Jesus that were foreign to subordinationist Christians.

Consequently, when Paul of Samosata started to use the homoousion on God and Logos the Church reacted strongly. A council was held in Antioch where the attending bishops had Paul deposed and excommunicated.

But this was not the end of it. In 325 at the Council of Nicaea (İznik, Turkey) the Byzantine Emperor Constantine the Great in his attempt to unify his empire suggested that the Church should agree that the Father and the Son were homoousioi, of the same substance.

This was an embarrassing situation. The term with its Gnostic connotations had been anathematized by a council of bishops in Antioch only 57 years earlier, and now the unbaptised Emperor wanted it reintroduced!

The bishops, or most of them, accepted. After all, it was Constantine that had had brought an end to the persecution of the Church. And furthermore, although still a pagan he regarded himself as a sort of bishop for both Christians and idolaters.

Notes.

• Philip Schaff, ed. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, (Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2002), 144.
• Wikipedia, Serapion of Antioch, accessed March 27, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serapion_of_Antioch
• Pier Franco Beatrice, “The Word "Homoousios" from Hellenism to Christianity Author(s)” Church History, Vol. 71, No. 2 (Jun., 2002), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church History), 243-272.
• A. H. M. Jones, Constantine and the Conversion of Europe, (Harmonsworth: Penguin Books, 1972), 155–159.
• D.S. Wallace–Hadrill, Christian Antioch: A study of early Christian thought in the East, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 7.

Blocking a blog

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Sitting in Antakya trying to access my own blog I got this error message: Bu siteye erişim mahkeme kararıyla engellenmiştir. Meaning: This web site has been blocked by court order.

I started to wonder what I had written that might offend Turkish authorities. Then I found out that it was not my blog only but the entire blogspot.com that had been blocked in Turkey. The reason seems to be that somebody has used the site for illegal purposes. In Turkey this was a front page story yesterday. One of the papers sarcastically wrote: Why not close down all the internet to be on the safe side!

Unfortunately it is not unusual in this part of the world to "apply iodine to all the body" - even if this procedure includes doing injustice to innocent people. The only thing you can do is to wait patiently until the problem is solved - in case you cannot find other ways to evade the obstruction.

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The buffoons of Antioch

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The French philosopher Ernest Renan (d. 1892) has described the ancient Antiochenes the following way:

"Besides the Greek population, indeed, which was nowhere in the East (with the exception of Alexandria) so numerous as here, Antioch numbered among its population a considerable number of native Syrians, speaking Syriac. These natives composed a low class, inhabiting the suburbs of the great city and the populous villages which formed a vast suburb all around it— Charandama, Ghisira, Gandigura, and Apate (chiefly Syriac names). Marriages between the Syrians and the Greeks were common. Seleucus having formerly made naturalization a legal obligation binding on every stranger establishing himself in the city, Antioch, at the end of three centuries and a half of its existence, became one of the places in the world where race was most intermingled with race. The degradation of the people was terrible. … It was an inconceivable medley of merry-andrews, quacks, buffons, magicians, miracle-mongers, sorcerers, priests, impostors; a city of races, games, dances processions, fêtes, debauches, of unbridled luxury, of all the follies of the East, of the most unhealthy superstitions, and of the fanaticism of the orgy.” (Ernest Renan, The Apostles, (New York 1867), 198 199.)

People in modern Antakya are not like the old Antiochenes, but there are certain similarities.

"Unhealthy superstition" can be found, and so can 'merry-andrews, quacks and buffoons.'

A couple of days ago we were sitting in the workshop of one of our friends. The place has the size of a big dining table. He was busy behind his workbench and his assistant, who was sitting there as well, was doing nothing. Our friend is originally an Orthodox, but he is also involved with the Catholic Church. His assistant is a Protestant whose discourse has been indirectly influenced by people in the Bible Belt.

While we were sitting there a man rushed in with a deranged expression in his eyes and a gun in his hand yelling and screaming: "I'll kill you, I'll kill you." He was mainly pointing his gun at the Protestant, but in between - so as to make a point - he was aiming at the rest of us as well. We are not young and we have met crazy people before, so we relaxed and pretended that everything was normal.

This evidently made him feel that we did not take him seriously enough. Consequently he produced a bullet from somewhere, loaded the gun and repeated the séance. Suddenly he rushed out of the room just to return brandishing his pistol while pouring out torrents of threats. But when he saw that we were unimpressed, he put the gun on the workbench and said: "All stand! We are going to pray."

The two of us and our friend did not move. The Protestant rose. We did not find out whether he rose because he was under the influence of the show with firearms he had just witnessed or it was due to his peculiar type of religiosity. But he rose while we and our friend kept sitting.

This annoyed the perpetrator and he started to insist although he did not resort to armed persuasion. Finally he gave up. Instead he started his prayer while he and the Protestant were standing with their hands opened heavenward.

Until this point the two of us had no idea about the religious persuasion of our new acquaintance. It turned out that he belonged to the Orthodox faith. First he was rattling off a prayer in Turkish, next in Arabic all the time making the sign of the cross the Orthodox way.

After having shot his bolt - if this expression is admissible in this context - he sat down taking the place of the Protestant who kept standing as there was nowhere else to sit. Subsequently we had a fairly civilised conversation. All the rest was supposed to be a joke - perhaps apart from the prayer.

In the Western World opinionated Europeans and Americans believe that when someone from the Middle East behaves irrationally he has to be a Muslim. Our experience proves this assumption wrong.

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Aleppo and Damascus seen from Antakya

In good old days Antioch was the capital of the Roman province called Syria. This meant that she was more important than both Damascus and Aleppo. But with the conquest of Syria in the seventh century things started to change. Aleppo became an independent emirate and Damascus became the capital of the Umayyad Empire. The Umayyad rule eventually fell to the Abbasids in Baghdad, but Damascus continued to be more important than Antioch – or Antakya as it was now called.

Antakya has regained some of its importance under the Turkish Republic, but a visit to the three cities clearly shows the visitor that Antakya is far behind her two sisters. Antakya is a small town of 200.000 souls while both Aleppo and Damascus are metropolises with millions of inhabitants.

It is easy for people of Antakya to visit Syria. They do not even need a visa to cross over into Syria. But if you are not a Turk or an Arab things are more complicated. The Turkish side is easy, but at the Syrian side the undaunted traveller is met with a curious combination of Ottoman bureaucracy and French legalism of the former century. Forms have to be filled and stamped and all details about the traveller are registered on old computers by policemen holding the passport of the guest in his one hand while pecking the keyboard with one single finger of his other hand. You feel lucky when you manage to get through.

Syria has also introduced another oddity: You have to pay to get out of the country. You have already paid for your visa, but when you leave the country you have to pay something like 10-15 dollars to get safely back to Turkey. It is fine to go by bus when going to Syria, but on the way back buses may stay for hours in customs while private cars and taxis get through easily. And taxis from (and to) Aleppo are cheap. You pay about ten dollars per person for one way.

Aleppo and Damascus have many things in common with Antakya. Architecture of the old Syrian houses are similar although these houses in Aleppo and Damascus are bigger and more well-preserved that those of Antakya. It even applies to the simple unpretentious houses in the old part of town. In Damascus the inhabitants of the old quarters see to it that their houses do not fall apart. In Antakya the owners simply leave the house and let it fall into disrepair, perhaps hoping that it will topple over so that a concrete monstrosity can be built instead.

As also seen in Antakya some of the old buildings are used as restaurants. They are built in several storeys with a big yard in the middle. The restaurants usual have a removable “roof” of plastic or canvas over the courtyard so that guests are not harassed by dew or rain.

The religious tolerance so peculiar to Antakya is also seen in Aleppo and Damascus. In Damascus there are many Christians. You see churches and hear church bells blending with the Muslim call to prayer. Aleppo has many Nusayri Alewites, Armenian Christians, Catholics and members of the Orthodox and Syrian Churches together with the majority of Sunni Muslims. You see women completely covered in black and women in clothes so tight that you believe that it is sprayed on. Although the Muslims are in majority no attempt is made to change the dress code of others or to prevent the ringing of church bells. One may wonder where some countries in Western and Eastern Europe have dug up their bigotry.

In Aleppo the old Hotel Baron still exists. It has had so famous guests as Lawrence of Arabia, Agatha Christie (she wrote The Murder on the Orient Express there), Gertrude Bell and even the “father” of the Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. And by the way, King Faisal declared the independence of Syria from one of the balconies – presumably the one from where some of the guests were shooting ducks at another occasion. At that time the hotel was outside the city. This has changed. The noise of traffic is as unbearable as it is in all other big cities of the Middle East.

Besides the two Syrian mega-cities Antakya in Turkey is a very small place – less interesting, but a lot more relaxing to live in.