Muhammad - Restauranteur
Given the heat it's good to use the internet in the middle of the day. This frees up the cooler hours for your non-virtual life, which is more or less important than your 'real' life depending on your opinion.
Like much in Palmyra the internet is expensive. But Mahran knew of a place in an Islamic cultural centre that was five times cheaper than the tourist cafes and kindly drove me there on his way to a philosophy course. Mahran, whose English is excellent, has a brother living in Bath in the UK who comes back to Syria most years. Mahran travels there when he can but it's difficult, so he tells me, for Syrians to get visas. This is because the UK authorities don't like Syrians visiting, in case they stay or, presumably, blow things up. Beyond that the visas are expensive. Then beyond the visa obstacle is the prohibitive expense of Britain in relation to the average Syrian income, which is between 150-200 dollars a month. Even the flight would be double that. Then they must reckon with the famous costs of a country which include, for example, an astonishing six dollars for a single ride on the Capital's underground. Well, unless you get an Oyster card. But how useful are these for short visits?;a question I often asked myself when I returned from Slovakia.
In the evening I went to Palmyra's Bedouin restaurant. Situated under an enormous tent, it has carpets and low headrests next to knee-high tables. In return for a free tea I was serenaded with account after account of how gorgeous Muhammad's meals had been, written by travellers of various nationalities, stored in a series of notebooks that he left me to leaf through.
Then a pretty French woman came in and I gestured that perhaps she’d like to join me. She smiled and did so and we exchanged the usual chit chat. She looked impressed that I'd come from Qamishle, not Damascus or Aleppo like most people but maybe I imagined that. She said she was here to see her friend, who upon my gentle curiosity was confirmed to be her Syrian boyfriend. Soon enough he appeared and without talking to me talked to her as if they'd agreed it was ok for him to tell her what to do, despite the visible irritation she displayed. I imagined, rightly or wrongly, that he was cross with her for apparently wanting to talk to me. Maybe I was wrong. But even though he then left the restaurant for awhile she got up and moved to the other side of the tent, where he joined her shortly afterwards. Anyway, as long as she's happy.
Sufficiently persuaded by the complimentary notebooks, I decided to order the suggested menu which was recommended by two Germans to my left. A tendency already apparent in Central and Eastern Turkey was becoming ever stronger in Syria: namely for most travellers I meet to be Western-Continental European, most commonly German, and even more so French. The Anzac-Anglo-North American predominance noticeable in Greece, Bulgaria and Western Turkey is evidently eroded when cultural references become too exotic and the availabilty of resources for riotous drinking retreat. Am I being unfair? No doubt we're not all like this. But many of us are. I'm not asking to have these perceptions. I'm not asking to meet so few people from the Anglo-Saxon sphere as I travel to the obscurer realms, I just don't. This German-French preponderance is confirmed, more objectively, in some of the 'book exchange' programmes some hostels and hotels run in which I can find hardly any in my usually triumphant tongue.
I don't really understand the 'French Connection' and I'm not talking about the film. Is the allure of this country to the French purely to be explained in terms of the Mandate France exercised over Syria and Lebanon from 1921 to 1946? That's only 25 years. We were in India for two hundred. I don't see us flocking there in consequence to revel in the culture of our former dependents. Nor, more closer, are British travellers drawn to Jordan or Egypt or were we to Iraq before the war gave us a decent reason to stay away. All those were 'British' or strongly under British influence anyway, as recently as the Levant was French. Are the French drawn to countries in which (at last!) French and not English is the second language. Is that it? Someone told me it’s a legacy of the crusades when the region was heavily visited by French aristocrats. But not all the crusaders were French and that was centuries ago anyway. Someone else said the French still like to exert an influence in the region to counter that of others, the US in particular, and that close ties with these countries enable this.
Anyway, whatever the reasons Syria’s a good place to visit if with your hot climate and ruins you want to get away from the Anglos and be called 'Monsieur'.
During the evening Muezzin's call I realised I wasn't sure what it meant. The Muezzin's call (the adhan) is the 5 times a day public call to prayer specifically designed to torment atheists or anyone who thinks religion can be a private matter, not a fact of civic life. Actually, I've got used to it and can even find it beautiful. Blended with the machine gun fire of car horns blasting disgust at other drivers - just for being there - the call sometimes continues for ages saying Sinbad knows what. But it always begins with these words:
"God is the Greatest, God is the Greatest
I believe that there is no God but Allah
I believe that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah
Come to Prayer
Come to Peace,
Come to Salvation.
Ok, I know that is just one translation of one version but I’m not here to quibble. The above version was told me by one of the German guys and I find it more melodious, more rhythmically agreeable than the alternative, perhaps more accurate versions I’ve found on Wikipedia.
Interestingly enough, just as Muslims got their Minarets from Church towers and their Domes from Byzantium, so Christians began tolling their bells when Francis of Assisi heard the Muslim call to prayer and thought 'aha ha', that's their secret.’
I have since thought how by changing just a few words in the second and third lines you can make it Christian. Just have 'There is no God but God' , or even 'no God but The Lord' and alter the third line to "I believe that Jesus Christ, the Saviour, is the Son of God"...
I'm not sure how well the third line would go down, however; even though, in English anyway, it would have the same number of syllables.
Like much in Palmyra the internet is expensive. But Mahran knew of a place in an Islamic cultural centre that was five times cheaper than the tourist cafes and kindly drove me there on his way to a philosophy course. Mahran, whose English is excellent, has a brother living in Bath in the UK who comes back to Syria most years. Mahran travels there when he can but it's difficult, so he tells me, for Syrians to get visas. This is because the UK authorities don't like Syrians visiting, in case they stay or, presumably, blow things up. Beyond that the visas are expensive. Then beyond the visa obstacle is the prohibitive expense of Britain in relation to the average Syrian income, which is between 150-200 dollars a month. Even the flight would be double that. Then they must reckon with the famous costs of a country which include, for example, an astonishing six dollars for a single ride on the Capital's underground. Well, unless you get an Oyster card. But how useful are these for short visits?;a question I often asked myself when I returned from Slovakia.
In the evening I went to Palmyra's Bedouin restaurant. Situated under an enormous tent, it has carpets and low headrests next to knee-high tables. In return for a free tea I was serenaded with account after account of how gorgeous Muhammad's meals had been, written by travellers of various nationalities, stored in a series of notebooks that he left me to leaf through.
Then a pretty French woman came in and I gestured that perhaps she’d like to join me. She smiled and did so and we exchanged the usual chit chat. She looked impressed that I'd come from Qamishle, not Damascus or Aleppo like most people but maybe I imagined that. She said she was here to see her friend, who upon my gentle curiosity was confirmed to be her Syrian boyfriend. Soon enough he appeared and without talking to me talked to her as if they'd agreed it was ok for him to tell her what to do, despite the visible irritation she displayed. I imagined, rightly or wrongly, that he was cross with her for apparently wanting to talk to me. Maybe I was wrong. But even though he then left the restaurant for awhile she got up and moved to the other side of the tent, where he joined her shortly afterwards. Anyway, as long as she's happy.
Sufficiently persuaded by the complimentary notebooks, I decided to order the suggested menu which was recommended by two Germans to my left. A tendency already apparent in Central and Eastern Turkey was becoming ever stronger in Syria: namely for most travellers I meet to be Western-Continental European, most commonly German, and even more so French. The Anzac-Anglo-North American predominance noticeable in Greece, Bulgaria and Western Turkey is evidently eroded when cultural references become too exotic and the availabilty of resources for riotous drinking retreat. Am I being unfair? No doubt we're not all like this. But many of us are. I'm not asking to have these perceptions. I'm not asking to meet so few people from the Anglo-Saxon sphere as I travel to the obscurer realms, I just don't. This German-French preponderance is confirmed, more objectively, in some of the 'book exchange' programmes some hostels and hotels run in which I can find hardly any in my usually triumphant tongue.
I don't really understand the 'French Connection' and I'm not talking about the film. Is the allure of this country to the French purely to be explained in terms of the Mandate France exercised over Syria and Lebanon from 1921 to 1946? That's only 25 years. We were in India for two hundred. I don't see us flocking there in consequence to revel in the culture of our former dependents. Nor, more closer, are British travellers drawn to Jordan or Egypt or were we to Iraq before the war gave us a decent reason to stay away. All those were 'British' or strongly under British influence anyway, as recently as the Levant was French. Are the French drawn to countries in which (at last!) French and not English is the second language. Is that it? Someone told me it’s a legacy of the crusades when the region was heavily visited by French aristocrats. But not all the crusaders were French and that was centuries ago anyway. Someone else said the French still like to exert an influence in the region to counter that of others, the US in particular, and that close ties with these countries enable this.
Anyway, whatever the reasons Syria’s a good place to visit if with your hot climate and ruins you want to get away from the Anglos and be called 'Monsieur'.
During the evening Muezzin's call I realised I wasn't sure what it meant. The Muezzin's call (the adhan) is the 5 times a day public call to prayer specifically designed to torment atheists or anyone who thinks religion can be a private matter, not a fact of civic life. Actually, I've got used to it and can even find it beautiful. Blended with the machine gun fire of car horns blasting disgust at other drivers - just for being there - the call sometimes continues for ages saying Sinbad knows what. But it always begins with these words:
"God is the Greatest, God is the Greatest
I believe that there is no God but Allah
I believe that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah
Come to Prayer
Come to Peace,
Come to Salvation.
Ok, I know that is just one translation of one version but I’m not here to quibble. The above version was told me by one of the German guys and I find it more melodious, more rhythmically agreeable than the alternative, perhaps more accurate versions I’ve found on Wikipedia.
Interestingly enough, just as Muslims got their Minarets from Church towers and their Domes from Byzantium, so Christians began tolling their bells when Francis of Assisi heard the Muslim call to prayer and thought 'aha ha', that's their secret.’
I have since thought how by changing just a few words in the second and third lines you can make it Christian. Just have 'There is no God but God' , or even 'no God but The Lord' and alter the third line to "I believe that Jesus Christ, the Saviour, is the Son of God"...
I'm not sure how well the third line would go down, however; even though, in English anyway, it would have the same number of syllables.
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