26 AusTRAlIAN QuARTeRlY OCT–DEC 2017
Travellers were amazed at the size and the
lavish decorations of some of these establishments.
The grandest could seat hundreds of patrons,
playing chess or backgammon and listening to
music, poetry and song.
ThE LOST CITy: hOMAGE TO ALEPPOpoet, was born near Aleppo in 973,
and studied there. He rejected all
religious dogma and tales of divine
revelation, proclaiming reason to be
the only worthwhile moral guide, thus
pre-empting Europe’s Enlightenment
by several centuries. He denounced
religion as ‘a fable invented by the
ancients.’ He was a pacifist, and a vegan
(cows produce milk for their babies, he
said, not for humans to exploit), and he
espoused social justice: extraordinarily
progressive for this or any era. He wrote:
‘Faith, disbelief, rumours spread,
Koran, Torah, Gospels prescribe
their laws
Lies in every generation.
Will a generation distinguish itself
one day
By pursuing the truth?
The inhabitants of this earth are of
two kinds –
One has brains but no religion
The other has religion but no brains.’^4In 2013 al-Marii’s outspoken atheism
was punished in absentia when jihadis
from the Jabhat al-Nusra Front spitefully
beheaded his statue.
Aleppo, known as the cradle of Arab
music^5 , produced great musicians as
well as poets and philosophers. They
performed at the city’s many cafes,
after the coffee drinking fashion spread
from Yemen in the 16th century.
Travellers were amazed at the size and
the lavish decorations of some of these
establishments. The grandest could seat
hundreds of patrons, playing chess or
backgammon and listening to music,
poetry and song. Dancers and puppet
shows were featured (the latter were
shut down when deemed too bawdy).^6
The city also boasted around fifty bath-
houses, some very elegant, and open to
all ranks; where friends could meet and
spend half the day gossiping, having
massages, and bathing.
Aleppo had its share of political
activists from early times, with lively
debates in the mosques, the souk,
bathhouses and private homes. one
was the remarkable Ibn al-Khashab, a
12th century qadi (religious judge) from
an eminent family. In his time, Aleppo’s
ruler had bowed to the Crusaders’
insulting demand for a Christian cross
to be placed on the minaret of Aleppo’s
Great Mosque. A furious al-Khashab led
a delegation of dignitaries to arouse the
Caliph in Baghdad, and after a rowdy
protest the cross was removed.