Liam Levitz
Beatitudes
Walking down the arched central corridor of the infinite Damascus souk, I hear the noise. A chanting, strong, arrhythmic song that halts abruptly: interrupted by cries of strain and effort and a sound I do not know. It is an aggressive, unyielding sound that I just cannot place.
Walking down the arched central corridor alone in central Damascus, I am pleasantly lost. It is the middle of Ramadan and life here bears no recognition to anything I have ever known. The communities around me are lost in their great fast. Life slows but does not stop. The children still run, the shops still open but the men, they slouch and huff against the doorways. The stunning generosity shown to me is done with a sense of duty but not with a smile. The smiles come when 7pm is called out and this sprawling city halts in every way to eat, to drink, to wash and to pray. All of this is extra-ordinary: a base ritual for them, a change of worlds for me.
What comes towards me is not that starved stasis though. This has energy and life that belies the hungry stomachs and the parched throats. As it draws near I see the pendants and flags. The scrawling Arabic writing and resplendent drawings depict some scenes, some tragedies I remain all too ignorant of. The chants are led by what I learn to be called Nuhakans who recite ancient odes that mark the slow end of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammed, and the blood-letting and grieving that followed this historic massacre.
All of this is remarkable to see but it is not this that draws my eyes. There under the bursting shards of sunlight and those glowing pendants is a throng of men: a regimented rabble of bare-chested men who stare through the world before them. As the chants stop, the sound I realise I did not recognise was that of each one of these men, Shia Muslims, striking their chest with open palms.
Those words undermine their efforts. Each man stretches his hand into the waiting air and, in beat with his brethren, hurtles his open palm down onto his smarting, bruised body with so much force that they can barely stand against the blow. Their skin is purple and red, stretched and clearly agonising. Yet they continue. The chants start, they march in line and finally stop, just metres along the street to begin again.
Some, on closer inspection, have welts and scars lining their back. The gouges that have made these marks came from the voluntary, self-imposed flagellation with a bunch of hooks tethered to a rope called zanjirs. I can barely raise a camera to capture this, I most certainly cannot look away. There is no shame in this voyeurism. I am privileged to have seen this most public display of devout faith. Here is suffering brought down through the centuries and reborn with every generation. Here is a willingness to replace your body with a love for an unseen God. There is nothing that I can think that is comparable in my western world. There are, and I have said this before, few words that say to you what this was to see. This is flagellation. A public, pained and beatific display of an emotion I cannot say I have ever felt but will always claim to have sought. There is something of me in there. Something of the reason I am out here alone in what they do. The difference is in the magnitude. The difference is they have their answers.
As the crowd eventually passes I am left standing. I feel mechanical and thin. What do I carry with me that has even a sliver of such passion? What they believe I do not believe. What they practice I cannot condone and what they practice I could never follow. Yet for all that, I felt something. Through sheer proximity with this display something got past the lens, through the calm, atheistic observer role I was taking and got deep inside of me. I step down another of the warren paths that open up for me and my heart is beating, my eyes are wide and I feel like I am seeing the world with a new depth.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4697270.stm
Beatitudes
Walking down the arched central corridor of the infinite Damascus souk, I hear the noise. A chanting, strong, arrhythmic song that halts abruptly: interrupted by cries of strain and effort and a sound I do not know. It is an aggressive, unyielding sound that I just cannot place.
Walking down the arched central corridor alone in central Damascus, I am pleasantly lost. It is the middle of Ramadan and life here bears no recognition to anything I have ever known. The communities around me are lost in their great fast. Life slows but does not stop. The children still run, the shops still open but the men, they slouch and huff against the doorways. The stunning generosity shown to me is done with a sense of duty but not with a smile. The smiles come when 7pm is called out and this sprawling city halts in every way to eat, to drink, to wash and to pray. All of this is extra-ordinary: a base ritual for them, a change of worlds for me.
What comes towards me is not that starved stasis though. This has energy and life that belies the hungry stomachs and the parched throats. As it draws near I see the pendants and flags. The scrawling Arabic writing and resplendent drawings depict some scenes, some tragedies I remain all too ignorant of. The chants are led by what I learn to be called Nuhakans who recite ancient odes that mark the slow end of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammed, and the blood-letting and grieving that followed this historic massacre.
All of this is remarkable to see but it is not this that draws my eyes. There under the bursting shards of sunlight and those glowing pendants is a throng of men: a regimented rabble of bare-chested men who stare through the world before them. As the chants stop, the sound I realise I did not recognise was that of each one of these men, Shia Muslims, striking their chest with open palms.
Those words undermine their efforts. Each man stretches his hand into the waiting air and, in beat with his brethren, hurtles his open palm down onto his smarting, bruised body with so much force that they can barely stand against the blow. Their skin is purple and red, stretched and clearly agonising. Yet they continue. The chants start, they march in line and finally stop, just metres along the street to begin again.
Some, on closer inspection, have welts and scars lining their back. The gouges that have made these marks came from the voluntary, self-imposed flagellation with a bunch of hooks tethered to a rope called zanjirs. I can barely raise a camera to capture this, I most certainly cannot look away. There is no shame in this voyeurism. I am privileged to have seen this most public display of devout faith. Here is suffering brought down through the centuries and reborn with every generation. Here is a willingness to replace your body with a love for an unseen God. There is nothing that I can think that is comparable in my western world. There are, and I have said this before, few words that say to you what this was to see. This is flagellation. A public, pained and beatific display of an emotion I cannot say I have ever felt but will always claim to have sought. There is something of me in there. Something of the reason I am out here alone in what they do. The difference is in the magnitude. The difference is they have their answers.
As the crowd eventually passes I am left standing. I feel mechanical and thin. What do I carry with me that has even a sliver of such passion? What they believe I do not believe. What they practice I cannot condone and what they practice I could never follow. Yet for all that, I felt something. Through sheer proximity with this display something got past the lens, through the calm, atheistic observer role I was taking and got deep inside of me. I step down another of the warren paths that open up for me and my heart is beating, my eyes are wide and I feel like I am seeing the world with a new depth.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4697270.stm