Life Must Goes ON - Syria Chapter

I visited Syria two months ago and spent about 8 days in this beautiful serene piece of peaceful land. We covered almost two third of the land, right from Busra in the South; Allepo or Halap (in the local dialect) in the North; Lattakia or Lazaqiah in the North-West; Tartous in the South- West; and of course its capital city, Damascus or Dimashq in the center. Along the way, we went to many beautiful unique places, visited historical tombs and shrines of prominent people, and met many lovely, pleasant and kind Syrian of all levels. Despite their cloudy economy as compared to other Arab countries in that region, amid the global economic recession, businesses were running as usual and people seems to be not really affected or hit by the turmoil. Almost all the places that we went, were properly maintained and one could obviously see there are systems in place and appropriately enforced. Syria is not very aggressive with tourism industry. Seldom or sometime it is difficult for you to find relevant information about this lovely land in the media or internet, but what I had observed and astonished me was, most of the interesting places or touristic spots were packed with foreigners from all over the world. This is what I called ‘Baraqah’ – Blessing by Allah swt. During that 8 days, I had captured thousands of shots and below are some of those shots that I called the Faces of Syria. In my opinion, what had really made people from all corners of the world invested their time, wealth and health (many had visited Syria few times) in this place was mainly because of its decent people. I remember there was one time, we took a taxi from one of the markets to our home-stay, the taxi driver reluctant to take our money, which was only about 50 cent, simply because our friend Azmi is studying there?! We forced him to take and yet he still reluctant, but finally we just left the money on the front passenger’s seat. I was really touched with this kind attitude. The Faces of Syria is the manifestation of my positive feeling and obsession of the people of Syria. Like I’d said earlier, despite their modesty, they still put their dedicated efforts doing anything reasonable within their capability in achieving their self-esteem. How much did they make from those noble efforts – by selling ice-cream; selling cigarettes & lighters on a wheelchair; etc..?? Well, it was not about how much. It is about satisfaction. It is about being independent. It is about commitment for Allah swt and to the community. It is about being obedient to Rabbul Jalil.

Thank you very much to the people of Syria for kindly accomodating us to your beautiful country. May Allah swt Grant you His Blessing, Grace and Mercy for all the noble things that you do. To Him, what really matters is you do it for Him and only Him.