Correspondents'
Journal
March 29, 2003
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| Fruit vendor in Amman |
Yesterday was
the first day of real sunshine since
I arrived in Amman twelve days ago!
It was wonderful to be able to shed
my coat and go out in shirtsleeves
or a light sweater. Friday is the
sacred day in Muslim countries and
the beginning of the weekend in
Jordan. Offices and most stores
are closed on Fridays and Saturdays,
and most Jordanians take the day
off to relax and be with their families.
Last weekend,
as the war was just beginning, I
worked through the weekend. But
now, as the reality that this will
not be a short war is sinking in,
I decided that I needed to do some
relaxing of my own to try to refresh
my body and spirit for the long
struggle against this war. I hired
Ahmad, a driver who often works
for AFSC, and asked him to show
me Amman. He started by driving
me past the main mosques of the
city: King Abdullah Mosque, a massive,
beautiful structure with a sky blue
dome, built in the 1980s before
the crisis with Iraq; the Darwish
Mosque, built in the 1960s, with
beautiful black-and-white stonework;
and finally, the oldest mosque in
Amman, the Al-Hussein Mosque, built
in 1924 on the site of Amman’s
first Mosque built in the 7th century,
and located in the center of the
old city.
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| Al-Hussein Mosque |
After this tour
of religious buildings, Ahmad took
me for a quick look at some of Jordan’s
other history. As Americans, we
are used to looking back over only
a couple of hundred years. But Jordanians
measure their history in millennia,
not centuries. We first visited
the Roman Amphitheatre (which seats
6,000 people and is still used),
built from 77-169 AD when the city
of Amman was known as Philadelphia.
It was the southern-most
city of the Decapolis, the ten important
Greco-Roman towns of that era. The
Citadel Hill, which overlooks the
city, gives a good flavor of some
of Amman’s history: the ruins
of the Temple of Hercules (161-180
AD), the ruins of an early Byzantine
church, and the Omayyad Palace (720
-750 AD).
By the time we finished our short
historical excursion, the noon Call
to Prayer could be
heard from
scores of mosques across the city.
Ahmad took me back to Al-Hussein
Mosque, where thousands of men filled
the mosque and overflowed into the
plaza and surrounding streets of
the Old City. It is hard to describe
what it is like to be among thousands
of praying Muslim men. There seemed
to be healing and strength in the
prayers chanted in unison, but I
also sensed pain in those prayers
— the pain of humiliation
that comes from the powerlessness
of having to watch, once again,
as the West marches in to dominate
another Muslim country, this time
their neighbor to the East, Iraq.
As prayers ended,
the men inside the mosque joined
the thousands in the plaza and surrounding
streets. A few score of young men
started chanting their solidarity
with the people in Iraq as they
marched through the main street
of the Old City. Knowing that an
assembly of thousands of men at
this volatile time is potentially
dangerous, the Jordanian National
Police were well prepared with hundreds
of police in riot gear scattered
throughout the city. The police
were generally respectful and allowed
the crowd to march and chant for
about twenty minutes. Then, they
moved in quickly with shields and
batons to break up the crowd and
open the Old City again to vehicular
traffic.
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| Prayers in courtyard of Al-Hussein Mosque |
After the demonstration,
Ahmad took me to visit Salt, the
oldest city in Jordan, a place that
has attracted settlers since at
least the Iron Age. It was a beautiful,
quiet village of ancient houses
nestled among hills green with grass
and newly blossoming flowers from
the previous week of rain. We had
no real agenda in Salt except to
wander the narrow streets and enjoy
the sunshine. Ahmad, who teaches
high school during the week, did
want me to visit the Salt High School
that sits on one of the hills overlooking
the city. Salt High School, built
in the 1920s, was the first secondary
school in Jordan. Its graduates
include most of the Jordanian prime
ministers, as well as the leadership
of Palestine and many of the surrounding
countries.
Photos and text: Doug Hostetter
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