A Tale From My 2003 Trip To Lebanon

Unique Collateral Damage

In about mid October 2003 I made a trip from Lebanon to Damascus for the specific purpose of visiting Sayyda Zainab Shrine in metropolitan Damascus.  The specific purpose being a promise that I made to my sister in law, Amira, that I will visit the shrine and place an envelope containing $AUS100 note inside the shrine.  
Very close to martyr square in downtown Beirut is Ryidh Sulah bus and taxi terminal where, except to Israel, you can catch a bus or take a taxi to almost anywhere in the Middle East. Early morning, 10 October 2003, I got a lift to the terminal and joined four other passengers in a taxi to Damascus.  The trip was pleasant enough the drive from Beirut was mostly uphill till about the town of Chatura where the taxi driver stopped to purchase some Lebanese bread (which is apparently common practice of taxi drivers heading from Lebanon to Syria) and allow passengers short break.  At Chatura it is also common for passengers to change Lebanese or foreign currency to Syrian pounds.   From Chatura to the Syrian border of Masnaa it is about 15 minutes drive.  Whilst we waited in the taxi the driver took the ID card from the five passengers (in my case Australian passport) and came back 15 minutes later with visa permitting entry to Syria.  Less than 20 minutes later we were in Damascus where all passengers disembarked.  The entire trip from Beirut took about 90 minutes and cost me about $AUS 4!  It was just few minutes before 10 am. 

I first went to Damascus by accident when on 9 January 1976 Beirut International Airport closed and the flight I was on was redirected to Damascus.  This trip was probably my tenth trip to Damascus and somehow the feeling I had when I first visited this ancient and historically rich city never changed.  There is certain aura that makes you consciously aware of ancient civilizations as if it is pulling you back in time and demanding that you pay homage to its presence in the air you smell and the ground you walk on. 
After going to coffee lounge and having a cup of bitter Arabic coffee and piece of baklava I took a taxi to Sayyda Zainab Shrine.  The trip was approximately 40 minutes.  Shortly after getting out of the taxi I took out my Nikkon camera in readiness to take some photograph of the entrance to the Shrine which I saw to be exceptionally rich with architecturally unique mosaic structure.

As I was busy taking photograph little did I know that there was a lady dressed in typical Islamic chador pushing a pram and holding the hand of a boy aged 5 or 6 years that was looking at me from the opposite side just outside the entrance. After finishing the first roll of film and starting to load another I could see the lady crossing the road with the pram and holding the hand of the boy coming directly towards me. 

She started to talk in fluent English with tears coming freely from her eyes: ‘I am a doctor, a graduate from the UK, I am a paediatrician, my husband was a well known surgeon we both had private practice in Baghdad and we worked in hospital.  In April this year our home was bombed by the American my husband and eldest son were killed I had to run away to safety and came with thousands and thousands of refugees to Syria. I live in a little room with another woman who fled Baghdad.  I could not bring any documents and have no identification everyone here thinks I am mad’. 

The lady started wailing and crying her son also started to cry.  I felt tears coming out of my eyes and simply could not utter a word.  I looked at the pram and saw the child, a boy under one year old.  I asked the lady what about her name and the medical school where she studied.  Wiping tears she said that her name was Siham and her murdered husband was named Anwar and she studied medicine at Nuffield College.  She went on to say that she specialized in paediatric neurology and returned to Iraq because that speciality was particularly needed. 
At that point the boy in the pram started to cry.  ‘He and his brother had not been fed since 6 pm yesterday I have no money to buy them anything to eat’ said Siham.  I felt something stab me deep inside.

At that point my eye caught a glimpse of an elderly woman at the entrance of the Shrine looking at me and may be cursing me. She must have been observing from the other side my conversation with Siham.  I don’t exactly know how much Syrian money I had exchanged in Chatura and Damascus I took it all out of my pocket and gave them to Siham.  She cried and uttered the words ‘may God reward you and gives you long life’.  I nodded my head and said ‘I am going to visit the Shrine and may see you when I come out’.  Still crying Siham nodded her head.

I walked across the street to the entrance and stopped in front of the elderly woman. Before I could say a word to her she berated me in what I considered to be the most vehement manner:  ‘this is a holy shrine you should not speak to this woman outside I have been trying to keep her out from coming here for the last few days’.  
After collecting my thoughts and looking at Siham pushing the pram and holding her son’s hand I said: ‘Hajji you are doing a good job keeping beggars out but this lady is not a beggar, she is a specialist children doctor a graduate from London who lost her doctor husband and eldest son thanks to President George Bush’. 
‘Are you sure she was not pulling your legs?’ said the Hajji. 
‘I am sure Hajji, I had good discussion with her and I know what I am talking about’.  
‘Oh my God forgive me’ said the Hajji with some embarrassment and went on to assure me that she will try to help Siham and that she knew the director of the local children hospital.  
After taking my shoes off and walking inside the Shrine and coming next to the burial site I sat meditating for good half an hour slid the envelope entrusted with me by Amira through the donation box and made my way out.  I took a taxi back to Damascus and found a room in the Samir Amis Motel.  That night I went to a well known restaurant and had chat with few diners. 
I was informed that over million Iraqi refugees were already in Syria and sizeable number was in Jordan and Lebanon.   Other sizeable number of refugees made it to Iran. Siham’s plight I was told was not unique all these refugees and their story and agony were part and parcel of the collateral damage which the Neo Con Committee advising president George W Bush and George W Bush were willing to accept.  The so-called Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) which Saddam Hussein was alleged to possess and the stated reason for invading Iraq and killing doctor Anwar, his eldest son and making doctor Siham and her two remaining sons barefoot refugees in Syria was not as at October 2003 located.  Nine years after the invasion when the bulk of the American troops are withdrawn from Iraq there was no evidence of WMD.  Perhaps with the exception of the Kurdish community the current population of Iraq is dreaming of the days when Saddam Hussein ruled with an iron fist.  Despite its substantial oil reserve and cultural richness and wealth current day Iraq is as close as you can get to a country that had been returned to the Stone Age. 

The individual rulers of the Abbasids, the High Caliphal Period that ruled from Baghdad between 750 t0 935 which saw the greatest discoveries ever made by mankind in astronomy, medicine, philosophy and literature at a time when Europe was facing wars,  plagues and black death, will be reeling in their graves. 

Holy Grail - Part 2

Holy Grail       - Part 2

Dear Reader,
I ended my first blog on the subject of the Holy Grail by asking you to keep in mind the name Joseph of Arimathea.  The reason for this is simply due to the fact that legends had developed and grown around the name Joseph of Arimathea.  The name also  pops up in all literature, operas and plays that had been written around the Holy Grail, especially in England and France from the Middle Ages onwards. 
The first question that needs to be asked relates to the identity of Joseph of Arimathea and how he is linked to the Holy Grail.

Who is Joseph of Arimathea?

The gospel of Mark, which is the first of the four gospels making up the New Testament, tells us that Joseph of Arimathea was an honorable counselor who waited for the kingdom of God, who went Pilate and craved the body of Jesus (15:43). 

The gospel of Matthew tells us that Joseph of Arimathea was both a rich man and disciple who went to Pilate and commanded the body of Jesus to be delivered and when its was, he took the body and he wrapped it in clean linen and cloth and laid it in his own tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed (27: 57-60). 
The gospel of John tells us that Joseph of Arimathea was a disciple of Jesus and that he had the assistance of Nicodemus, who brought a mixture of myrrh and aloe which were rubbed around the body of Jesus before wrapping the body with linen and placing it in the garden new sepulcher (19: 38-41).
 Like Mark, Luke tells us that Joseph was counselor and that he was a good and just man and had not consented to the counsel and deed of them, he went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus (23: 50-52).

Despite certain inconsistencies from these four gospels we can be certain that Joseph of Arimathea was wealthy and respected merchant and well known to the High Priests and indeed as a counselor may have been a member of the Sanhedrin who presided over the trial of Jesus and disagreed with the ruling. 

The word ‘Sanhedrin’ literally means ‘sitting together’ or   ‘assembly’.  In the ancient land of Israel Sanhedrin constituted 23 judges who were appoint in every city. Appeals from the decisions of city Sanhedrin was to the Great Sanhedrin which is constituted of 71 members, analogous to modern day Supreme Court.

The question that arises is one of the likelihood of Joseph of Arimathea being a member of the assembly of the High Priests that sat on the trial of Jesus and the only one that spoke against the High Priest decision to order Jesus brought before Pilate and demand death sentence proclaimed.  As to the charge deserving of the death sentence sought of Pilate is Jesus' non denial that he was the Son of God.  It does certainly makes sense that if Joseph of Arimathea was member of the Sanhedrin, a counselor, as the gospels of Mark and Luke tell us, and whether he had sat at the trial  of Jesus or not,  the mere fact that he was a member of the Sanhedrin added weight to the fact Pilate was able to give him audience and cede to his request to take the body of Jesus off the cross.  We are also told by the four gospels that when the High Priest who sat at the trial of Jesus became aware of the action of Joseph of Arimathea he ordered his arrest and imprisonment. 

A number of books had been written in recent times that allege that Jesus was in fact still alive when brought down from the cross by Joseph of Arimathea helped by Nicodemus.  The authors of those books base their argument on three basic premises.  The first of these is the fact that Jesus legs were not broken. Had they been broken the body weight would have caused the lungs to compress and death ensued quickly.  The second is the language used by Joseph of Arimathea when speaking to Pilate. He allegedly asked Pilate for the ‘soma’ of Jesus. The word ‘soma’ comes from the Greek and means ‘body’ as distinct from the soul or the mind.  The third is the use of the myrrh and aloe ointments in which the body of Christ was treated with before wrapping it in linen and placed in the sepulcher which Joseph or Arimathea had reserved for his own burial.

If the Holy Grail was the cup from which Jesus and his twelve disciples drank at the last supper or the cup in which the blood of Jesus was collected at the cross and which cup possessed super natural healing powers it makes sense that such a Grail came into the possession of Joseph of Arimathea.  As to how the legend of the Holy Grail developed in Europe will have to await Part 3.