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Hoda al-Naamani (Syria/Lebanon)
- University of Texas Press
- Chapter
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syria Hoda al-Naamani lebanon Hoda al-Naamani is a distinguished poet and painter who lives in Beirut. She was born in Damascus, attended French schools there, and graduated from the law school of the Syrian University. After her marriage to her cousin, Abdul Kader al-Naamani, she moved to Cairo, where Dr. Naamani was dean of the American University in Cairo. Hoda Naamani considers herself a Sufi, and much of her poetry has been termed that. She writes regularly for Arabic newspapers and journals. Among her many books are I Remember I Was a Point I Was a Circle, which appeared in 1978 during the Lebanese Civil War and has been translated into English. Her paintings have been exhibited in London and Washington as well as in Lebanon. ^ damascus the golden Hoda al-Naamani ^ What I have been asked to remember I hope constantly to forget.Agreatnostalgiaformybirthplace,Damascus,haunts me in my dreams, fills me with sadness, questions, and answers that make me sometimes fear that a source of beauty and respect is gone forever. A page from the history of our country, a page rich in dignity, honor, tradition, and magic has been dramatically turned. During the thirties, Damascus was the spiritual wealth that meant to me, as to others, happiness, values, stability, and contentment. It summarized the East for us in its privacy , prejudice, and seclusion. Syria with its castles and palaces . Lebanon with its mountains, rivers, beaches, and meadows . Iraq with its mosques, deserts, and palm trees. Egypt with its Nile, pyramids, temples, its warmth of spices, cotton , and wool. The Arabian peninsula with its pearls, rubies, and the power of its holy places. Like one large, whirling circle, the windows, doors, and rocks of all these countries carry a hundred stories about dervishes, traders, caravans, conquests, knights, silk, velvet, perfumes, incense, merchants , and pilgrims. Here in this land is the trace of Adam’s fall and of the blood of Abel, who was murdered by Cain. Here is the water which was transformed into wine by Jesus Christ. Here the head of John, still gazing at the world, was presented on a silver platter. Here is where Mohammad stopped and said, “I won’t enter paradise twice.” Yes, Damascus, to me, is the beginning and the end of Creation, the throne of God. When I close my eyes, I see old Damascus as a flower from which life sparkles. Every dawn the windows and doors were opened. The streets were [18.119.17.207] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 13:22 GMT) crowded with men going to their jobs, children going to school, women bustling to shop for what they needed. Sounds of carts and horses, drifts of scents and perfumes. Singing by the vendors. A beautiful beginning. A general agreement among people about appropriate habits. For every job its clothes. For every village its summits. For each place and state its accents. Then, the same language, dreams, and memories did unify everybody. I close my eyes and see Damascus wearing the confining garb of the night illuminatedbythelightoftheminarets;Ihearthemurmurfromthemosque’s readings. For each month its ethics, motives, congratulations, and cakes. For each time its invocations. For everything, its fixed time—its claim— for meetings, for fasting, for prayers, for parties, for marriages; even for burial there was a specific hour. In those days, Wednesday was not the time to see a sick person, and Monday was the day to clean the house. And by 10 p.m. women were driven away from the roofs of their houses because that time had been set for men to sell doves. I believed then that these routines demonstrated love, universal beliefs, justice, truth, and stability. How could I have been so naive and so idealistic ? Why did I not see in the cultural, political, and economic opening to the west a new age that blew away the life and nature of Damascus? Travel, new languages, technologies, factories, electricity, offices, schools—all of these things were the beginning of separations and differences between social classes. How was it possible for the success of the Arab Revolt to lead to the division of the Arab countries (after the Sykes-Picot Agreement), to result in a convulsion that changed everything? How could the Mandate not be a shame, horrifying all those who are today so proud of the past? How could Damascus defend itself after these transformations which caused many other changes, changes in which stronger countries had...