Umayyad -Sandra

I stood tall and proud in the ancient city of Aleppo for a thousand long years. These years have bought me joy, happiness, and most importantly, humbleness. As tall as I am, as big as I am, and as strong as I am, I will always remain humble because that is what I was made for. I was made to invite people from hundreds of generations to nurture them and welcome them to the only place they can come to in peace. Prayers of gratitude, sorrow, and forgiveness of my people lay within me. A medium to God is what I have been to my beloved people of Damascus for generations and generations. I bared the prayers of sons, daughters, women, and men. I held the prayers of my people so close to my heart. Life long prayers lay within me, of men that came to me when they were children, and the elderly that came to me when they were youthful, their prayers stay with me as I welcomed them for thousands of years. Oh, my beloved Damascus, oh my beloved Aleppo how I have seen you grow and blossom into a beautiful city where gratitude and humbleness was always there.

I was once a house of prayers, but not today. My beloved people of Aleppo came to me to pray, but now they come to me with guns. I was a shelter for prayers for my beloved people, but now I am a shelter for rebels and mass destruction. My beloved people of Aleppo shoot at me with guns and tanks. A place where my people held each other’s hand to help each other up after prayers has now become a place where my people shoot each other down. Oh my dear people of Aleppo, my dear country Damascus, that I do not recognize anymore. My own beloved people that I have nurtured for all these years have destroyed me, as they blame one another for my destruction. My dear people of Aleppo have beaten me down, the Umayyad Mosque, the house of prayer to millions of people from hundreds of generations, but not today. The holy house of prayers has now become a tainted house for a civil war.