Ya Hussein

The Umayyad mosque is one of the most remarkable buildings of Islam and the most important pilgrimage site in all of Syria. The absolute majority of pilgrims are Iranian. They are the first to be noticed in the old city. Hundreds of women in black chadors are filling up already overcrowded narrow lanes of the bazaar leading to the mosque, loudly haggling in Farsi over rather unusual material goods. But all of them here are after spiritual goods. The flocks of pilgrims visit the main praying hall first. There they would sit on the carpets and attend communal prayer with a mullah. Looking somewhat out of the place there is the shrine of John the Baptist. It is well lit with green neon lights, ornamented with plastic flowers, and supposedly contains his head. However, this is only one of several claimed places for the mentioned relic and unless the saint had multiple heads, the authenticity of cage’s content has to be questioned.

The other corner of the mosque contains even more holy shrine and a claimed head, this one allegedly belonging to Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. He was martyred by the Umayyads at Kerbala, but whether or not his head ended up here is uncertain as well. Not for the pilgrims. I got caught in a stream towards his shrine, surrounded with fine metal, neon green. This is a place of deep mourning; pilgrims crying while simultaneously taking photos of the cage with their cell phones. While I was contemplating the procession in astonishment a guy walked up to me and started to talk in Farsi. I could understand only two questions. Where are you from? Muslim? While I was answering he was filming me with his movie camera.