Abu Bakr Rieger presents Ibn Battuta’s impressions of Syria at the time. And presents lessons from the past.
ISLAMIC TIMES – On 9 August 1326, Ibn Battuta reached Damascus at an opportune moment. The city was in full bloom and was a vibrant intellectual center. The traveler found accommodation at the Malikite law school and began his memorable journey of discovery. In his travelogue, he enthusiastically describes his impressions.
For him, Damascus surpasses all other cities he has seen so far in beauty and perfection: ‘Any description, no matter how long, is always too short for its splendour.’ And: the city’s society takes care of its guests. ‘Anyone who is a stranger there feels well looked after and is treated with respect, and they take care to protect them from anything that could harm their reputation.’
Foto: Shutterstock
Ibn Battuta is deeply impressed: also, by civil society
Civilisation unfolds – as in all Islamic centres of the past – around the mosque and the marketplace. The material and spiritual dimensions are intertwined in the urban development of Islamic cities.
Ibn Battuta is deeply impressed by the wonderful Umayyad Mosque. ‘From daybreak until the first third of the night, prayers are held, and Qur’ans are read in this mosque without ceasing. Both contribute to the fame of this blessed mosque.’
The sacred building in the heart of the city has undergone a metamorphosis. In the late 4th century AD, a Roman temple dedicated to the god Jupiter was replaced by a Christian Basilica. According to tradition, the head of John the Baptist was kept in the church.
After the Arab conquest of Damascus in 636, the site continued to serve as a place of worship for both denominations for about seven decades. After that, the government took over the entire building and compensated the former owners for the loss of their prayer room.
Life in the mosque, with its seventy muezzins, leaves a lasting impression on the traveller. The various schools of law are represented by the leading scholars of their time. The standard of teaching is high: Ibn Battuta takes an interest in his own education and – as he proudly notes – acquires more than a dozen teaching licences.
Controversies surrounding Ibn Taymiyya
But he also witnesses religious controversy surrounding one of the most important teachers in Damascus: Ibn Taymiyya. He has no idea that this scholar will be important long into the future. From the 18th century onwards, the scholar’s growing popularity was initially attributed to Muhammad bin ‘Abd al-Wahhab. The doctrines of Wahhabism are very close to him in some essential respects.
In the further course of history, the ideas are also often cited in the circles of controversial reformers such as Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida. Their political demands are partly justified with reference to these sources. In Sayyid Qutb’s ideology, based on his understanding of Ibn Taymiyya, the primary task of an Islamic state is to enforce the Shari’a.
But that is not all: it is said that Muslims have in some cases resorted to Ibn Taymiyyah’s condemnation of the Alawite-backed Ba’ath regime in their dealings with this religious community. One thing is certain: in the 21st century, the debate about the role and sources of so-called political Islam in the context of dictatorship, terrorism and civil war will continue to be topical in Syria and elsewhere.
The inner balance of society
In addition to the religious and economic life in the city, Ibn Battuta is impressed by another institution that is crucial for the inner balance of Muslim civil society. ‘It is impossible to list the many types of pious foundations that exist in Damascus or to indicate their expense, they are so numerous,’ he reports. This infrastructure, which is dedicated to a specific purpose, is still beyond the reach of political influence.
The traveller lists some examples of local institutions dedicated to hospitality, dowry, the release of prisoners or the maintenance of roads: he particularly likes the ‘Pious Foundation for Tableware’, which helps servants who accidentally destroy valuable tableware belonging to their employers by reimbursing the damage.
Wherever he stops during his ten-thousand-kilometre journey through the Islamic world, he talks about the social significance and blessings of the foundations. Modern political movements show little interest in these proven institutions of a free civil society. This phenomenon is thought-provoking.
His descriptions of the ethnic and religious diversity of Damascus are surprising to the modern reader. They are as weighty as they are credible. For Ibn Battuta does not mince his words on his travels. He denounces grievances, contradictions or injustices without regard to the balance of power.
He is far from romanticizing and idealizing the Islamic world, which he travelled for almost 30 years. In line with the sociological beliefs of Ibn Khaldun, he doubts the logic of constant progress and instead soberly documents the ups and downs of history, which resembles a wave.
Ibn Battuta’s travels continue to inspire today: Erich Follath in the footsteps of the adventurer
Travelling in the footsteps of the scholar from the Maghreb continues to inspire today. The leitmotif of numerous books is to compare current world developments with times gone by. Seven hundred years after his stay in the Syrian capital, Erich Follath, a long-standing author at SPIEGEL, followed in the footsteps of the great adventurer. In his bestseller Jenseits aller Grenzen (Beyond All Borders), he reports on the old infrastructure of the venerable city, without overlooking the radically different political conditions of the 20th century.
A revolution has taken place in Syria: socialism now reigns. As a young tourist, he visited the city in 1969 and was briefed by student friends. ‘They told me that opposition members were in prison and being tortured, but also that the economy was improving and that they were happy with their independent state.’
The situation in Syria a few decades later is quite different for the author. The country is increasingly the subject of political reportage. In 2008, Bashar al-Assad is in power and ‘is being courted in Europe’. Follath interviews the dictator, who wants to appear moderate on the international stage.
He has no illusions about those in power: ‘The Assads had no intention of reforming the country. The clans’ retention of power, their closeness to the generals and the secret service henchmen, was more important than anything else. And so, in the style of their predecessor, they suppressed any opposition and did not even allow a pluralistic civil society to take root.’
In 2011, the journalist travelled to Aleppo for the last time and met the Grand Mufti at the time, Shaykh Ahmad Badr ad-Din Hassoun. The role of Islamic doctrine under the regime has long since been perverted and the pluralism of the past is over.
‘The Grand Mufti had thrown in his lot entirely with the president; whether out of conviction or political calculation and survival instinct, he often seemed to be speaking on behalf of Assad.’ Politics determines the law, one of the roots of every unjust system.
Foto: European Cultural Foundation, via flickr | Lizenz: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Kermani saw himself at the ‘gateway to hell’
Soon it will no longer be possible to report on the country, which is sealed off behind the iron curtain of violence. ‘Gateway to hell’ is the headline of one of the last travel reports from that time. In his book Reisen in eine beunruhigte Welt (Travels in a Troubled World), Navid Kermani recounts his visit to Damascus in 2012. The country is in a state of emergency; the revolution, which began peacefully, is now being brutally suppressed by the state apparatus.
There are discussions in the Muslim community about the meaning of the use of violence. Kermani quotes a representative of this point of view, who sees the strategy of military confrontation as a trap. ‘The government wants to instigate a sectarian war in order to see the opposition as holy warriors,’ he warns. Criticism of the growing influence of radical, foreign-funded actors on the various opposition groups is already being addressed just as openly in this phase of the conflict.
The writer collects stories and registers the perspectives of the various parties, which, when presented with total conviction, mutually exclude each other in terms of content and significance. Meanwhile, the cynical Syrian regime continues to fuel terror by using its secret services behind the scenes and arming brutal militia to murder and kill opposition members. The idea of non-violent resistance no longer stands a chance.
In the confused situation in Damascus, Kermani presents a selection of paradoxical facts: a secular regime has an Islamic theocracy as its main sponsor. The democratic West arms different radical religious groups to protect its various geopolitical interests. Bearded men and veiled women pin their hopes on democracy and appeal to human rights.
After a terrible war that has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and created millions of refugees, hope has finally returned to Syria. A small group of highly motivated actors has – at least from their point of view – completed the revolution. The task of pacifying the country, with its hundreds of opposition groups and the constant interference of foreign powers, is a monumental task for the century.
While the guilt of the regime is clear and obvious, the question of how the regime’s own actions are dealt with and the clarification of the long-term intentions of those involved in the victory arises. ‘Those who present revolutions as confessions also confess their acts of violence as if they were unavoidable,’ comments Peter Sloterdijk on the philosophy of revolutionary self-exoneration. Can the use of force be avoided in the future? How are the lessons of Syrian history formulated by the elites?
The world of Ibn Battuta will not return. But his account provides – from a Muslim perspective – some timeless indications from which a positive development can be derived. These include freedom of teaching, the strengthening of civil society, the protection of minorities, freedom of belief, the safeguarding of women’s rights and the rejection of any form of ideology.
Without economic justice, a community will also not develop. We will have to wait and see. A free Damascus will soon become a destination for many travelers from around the world once again. It will be interesting to see what they have to say.