Syria's Secret Library Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2019 by Mike Thomson

  Cover design by Pete Garceau

  Cover image copyright © iStock/Getty Images

  Cover copyright © 2019 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd.

  First US Edition: August 2019

  Published by PublicAffairs, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The PublicAffairs name and logo is a trademark of the Hachette Book Group.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019938981

  ISBNs: 978-1-5417-6762-1 (hardcover), 978-1-5417-6761-4 (ebook)

  E3-20190713-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  A Note on Place Names and Spelling

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Photos

  Acknowledgements

  Discover More

  References and Further Reading

  Illustration Credits

  About the Author

  I dedicate this book to the people of Daraya, whose courage, resilience and love of books has brought light to a country in darkness.

  And to Leo and Holly.

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  A Note on Place Names and Spelling

  When translating Arabic names into English, there are several options for how to form the name. In this book, I have opted for translations that are consistent with each other in style, to allow a smooth reading experience. Similarly, with place names in Syria, there are multiple correct English spellings. Daraya, for example, can also be spelled Darayya. I have chosen to spell these places in accordance with how the people of Daraya spell them: these places are their homes, I will take their lead.

  On a separate note, I refer to the terrorist organisation known to the world variously as IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, and many other names besides, initially as the so-called Islamic State and IS thereafter.

  Some people’s names have been changed in order to protect the individuals and their families from possible arrest or ill treatment by Syria’s security services.

  Introduction

  As dawn breaks, the crack of rifle fire echoes through empty streets. Yellow mist, a sulphury haze of exploded barrel bombs and burning plastic, hangs over shattered homes, their warped, crumbling roofs splayed forward. Here and there charred electric cables dangle down, limp lines of debris over a prone, bleeding city.

  Picking his way through the lifeless landscape, defying the rotten smells and prolonged, rumbling explosions, a teenage boy slips through the half-buried entrance of a gutted building. After shutting the outside door, its weathered surface pockmarked with cracks and holes, the boy descends. Down, down he goes, step by careful step, into the darkness. One palm touches the wall steadying his passage, the other hand grips his precious bundle of books. As he nears the foot of the concrete stairs, the sounds of war fade into silence, broken only by the echoes of his sandalled feet.

  In the gloom, the boy gropes for a light switch. With electricity now a rarity, he does so more in hope than expectation. A naked bulb flickers into life, illuminating a large basement room with generous high ceilings.

  Books, long rows of them, line almost every wall. Grand volumes with brown leather covers; tattered old tomes with barely readable spines; pocket-sized guides to poetry; classic and contemporary novels; religious works with gaudy gold-lettering; a range of reference books: all rub shoulders in well-ordered literary lines, their neat, regimented rows marred only by occasional kinks in the handmade shelves.

  Setting his books on a table, fourteen-year-old Amjad bustles about, preparing for the day ahead, stopping here and there to align the chairs and rehome the odd stray book. It is early and this is his time. The only sounds, the shifting of books, the rustling of paper and the faint hum of a small rusty generator. A cloth in hand, Amjad makes for a narrow bookcase. Carefully, he takes the volumes down, then lovingly dusts each and every one, before buffing the shelves to a hazy shine.

  In a few hours’ time the secret library will open for business. Between twenty to thirty people arrive every day. All make treacherous journeys across the shattered city, braving snipers, bombs and missiles. Their reward–a few precious moments quietly choosing books, reading and exchanging news. Then they return to the streets and warily, block by block, inch their way home.

  The books Amjad so lovingly tends were not bought from shops or delivered by publishers. Most were bravely gathered from burning homes and bombed council offices, often under shelling and sniper fire. Filling this library was a dangerous business.

  Amjad meticulously signs every book in and out, each one handled like a priceless treasure. Names, addresses and return dates are logged. He smiles and nods, while advising on the merits of one book or another. Not that he ever has bad words to say about any of them. As choices are made and titles bundled into bags, everyone is told to keep safe and come back soon. Though whether Amjad is thinking as much of his beloved books as the person borrowing them, is hard to say.

  There is only one thing more important to Amjad than the thousands of books on the shelves and that is the secrecy of the library itself. Everyone is told to reveal its location only to those they trust. Otherwise, he warns, pro-Assad planes will destroy it. That, the teenage tells me, in a near-starving city that is slowly dying each day, ‘would be the end of hope for us all’.

  As a Foreign Correspondent for the BBC, I am no stranger to war zones. From Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan to Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Colombia I have seen the horrors of what man can do to man, and of course women and children too. Every war has its share of horrors and depravity, but one conflict in particular sticks in my mind. I will never forget the extraordinary brutality to women during ongoing unrest in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Many were not only raped by militia groups and sometime government soldiers, but also violated with rifle barrels and other implements, in many cases in front of their children. I remember asking a doctor who was treating survivors of sexual violence in the town of Bukavu in 2007 why he thought people did this. After all, these were men with mothers and often wives, sisters and daughters of their own. He told me that he had come to be
lieve in a chilling explanation voiced by a former militia member he had treated. The man had told him: ‘If you can destroy a woman’s ability to bear children, while also destroying her mind, you melt the glue that binds your enemy’s community together. You kill his will to fight.’ I have never been able to forget those awful words.

  In 2011, when President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces opened fire and killed several pro-democracy protesters in the southern city of Daraa, I watched events on an ancient, spluttering television, in northern Congo. I was covering the murderous march of what was left of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, through large isolated swathes of central Africa. I had been in Damascus only a few months before and remembered the tensions and rebellious spirit of many I had talked to there. Much of this was expressed to me in furtive whispers in cafés and hotel lobbies, or in scribbled notes on scraps of paper. But these had not in any way prepared me for what was to follow. Damascus, with its attractive tree-lined streets and pretty flower-adorned restaurants, did not look a likely war zone capital. Yet the deaths in Daraya would soon ignite an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad and his regime, which would spread across the country. Nearly eight years of war and untold suffering that continues to this day.

  I knew nothing of the town of Daraya until it came to my attention in the summer of 2015 when I was compiling a news report for the BBC. At the time around half a million people were living in cities and towns encircled by pro-Syrian government forces, though a few had been besieged by rebel groups or so-called Islamic State (IS) fighters. By all accounts it was a grim struggle to survive in all of these places. Yet, to me, the dire situation in Daraya stood out because it had received no aid of any kind since being surrounded by pro-Syrian government forces back in November 2012. How, I wanted to know, were people there surviving?

  I called my contacts inside the country, hoping that one of them could put me in touch with someone in Daraya. At first this proved difficult. Those who knew people there needed to talk to them first, before passing on names–all normal etiquette in most parts of the world, but absolutely essential in Syria. This is a country where one day it is safe to speak out against your enemy, the next your town is overrun and you face arrest or worse.

  Finally, I managed to get in touch with some people in Daraya. Thanks to their candid and revealing testimonies I was able to complete my reports on the latest situation there. But the more I found out, the more interesting the people and their town became. In particular I was transfixed by rumours of a secret underground library that, I had been told, was full of books, books that had been gathered, and were being read, in the most harrowing and dangerous of circumstances. It seemed almost unimaginable. Battles were usually over things like money, women or power. Yet here was a love of books, a passion for literature and learning that ran so deep that people were willing to risk their lives for it. Here in a time of war, when feelings of hatred and lust for revenge grew as casualties mounted, a group of young men were dedicating themselves to learning and culture. All this while their town was being attacked on all sides and they were living on little more than a cup of watery soup each day.

  At first it was hard to believe. Given that I could not get into the besieged town to verify what I was being told, I wondered whether it was true. Could there really be a secret library filled with thousands of books rescued from the rubble of war? An underground literary sanctuary filled with lovers of poetry, science, history and art, who held book clubs while bullets flew above? It defied every brutal image I had of the Syrian war, and I was determined to find out more.

  The story of Syria’s Secret Library was first broadcast as a documentary by BBC Radio 4 in late July 2016. It got a heart-warming reception and won two major awards. Among the correspondence I received after the broadcast was a tweet from a Washington-based lecturer on the Middle East. The secret library, he wrote, had given him his first glimmer of hope for the country in many years. This was something that deeply resonated with me. In all the time I had been reporting on Syria, I had never come across a story like this. One that inspired rather than depressed, and showed how a love of literature, learning and culture had somehow survived, amid all the cruelty and bloodshed. And I realised there was so much more to say.

  Chapter One

  Until 2011, Daraya, a town of around 90,000 people on the southern doorstep of Damascus, was a thriving, vibrant community. Life carried on pretty much as normal in its broad, tree-lined streets. Convoys of farmers’ trucks laden with rich varieties of locally grown crops; small furniture factories producing the town’s speciality–hand-crafted bedroom pieces; crowded markets and shops, decked with brightly painted placards and elaborate shop windows.

  Daraya is often referred to as a suburb of Damascus, but it is a separate town, with its own identity and history, and is said to be the site of Paul the Apostle’s Damascene conversion.1 Daraya was initially a Ghassanid Christian village, full of monasteries, but with the rise of Islam in the seventh century, it soon became an important site for Muslims and the monasteries were replaced with shrines to the companions of Muhammad who lived and died there.2 Bilal, one of Muhammad’s closest companions, is believed to have settled in Daraya. Born in Mecca, he is considered to be the first ever muezzin chosen by Muhammad and, as such, is one of the most significant figures in the early history of Islam.

  Throughout the early Islamic period, Daraya was a bustling but modest village. Its proximity to Damascus, which became the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate in AD 680, meant it was always in the shadow of its wealthy, illustrious neighbour. Nonetheless, Daraya was not completely out-shone. Having been host to the Prophet Muhammad’s companions and their descendants, it became a sanctified location and was soon renowned among scholarly circles, said by some to be the ‘place to go for anyone seeking knowledge’.

  Daraya was also well known as an agricultural area, revered for its fine orchards and fertile soils. One of its crops–the grape–has long been prized above all others, not just locally, or nationally, but right across the world. In 1862, an article appeared in the British publication Once a Week, extolling the virtues of a ‘white grape, large and long, very fragrant, sweet and juicy, and with a hard skin which enables it to bear packing and carriage without injury. It is cultivated in a village near Damascus called Daraya, on the old Roman road south-west of the city, and there only, for often though planted elsewhere, it has always obstinately refused to thrive.’ The article went on to quote a story, translated by London’s then-Consul, named only as Mr Rogers, involving the Prophet Muhammad and a follower of his who, one afternoon, followed Muhammad in an attempt to discover where the Prophet said his afternoon prayers. According to the legend, after Muhammad prayed:

  The heavens opened, and a ladder was let down to the earth, up which Muhammad proceeded to climb. His friend followed close, and when the door of heaven was reached, he contrived, by hiding himself behind the skirts of the Prophet’s dress, to enter with him unperceived. He found himself in the immediate presence of Allah. Allah was seated on a magnificent divan, in all the celestial splendours. He was evidently waiting for the arrival of Muhammad, whom He at once recognised, called him to his right hand at the corner of the sofa, and commanded Gabriel and the other attendants to bring coffee, pipes, sweetmeats etc. Meantime the friend had been enabled, in the bustle of the entrance, to creep behind the divan, from whence he watched all that happened. After a time, conversation flagged, and a game of chess was proposed. To this Muhammad–who was perfectly at his ease, and apparently well used to his company–would only assent on condition that the game should be for some stakes worth winning. It was at last settled that the stakes should be a banquet, to be furnished on the spot by the loser. The Prophet won the game without difficulty, and the banquet at once appeared. One of its chief delicacies was a cluster of magnificent grapes, such as no mortal vine ever bore, beautiful in form and colour, and of celestial fragrance. At the sight of the grapes the friend c
ould resist no longer. He stole out of his hiding place while the Prophet and his Host were busy with the feast. He contrived, by mingling with the attendants, to break off a portion of the bunch, which he hid in his bosom, and then darted off down the ladder.

  Once on the earth again, he waited quietly in the neighbourhood, and on the Prophet’s reappearance congratulated him on having played his part so well. Muhammad was at first indignant, and professed not to understand his meaning, till the production of the grapes showed him that his follower had really witnessed all that had passed. He then bound him to secrecy: ‘As for the grapes,’ said he, ‘do not waste such precious fruit by eating it, but take it to Daraya, near Damascus, and there plant it, so that the earth may benefit by your visit to heaven.’ This his friend did. Now, all men know that the earth of the plain of Damascus is that out of which our first father Adam was created, and that in all the world there is not so fine or productive soil: but of all that plain Daraya is the richest. The grapes grow there to this day in abundance, for though thousands and tens of thousands eat of them, there is never any lack. But the vines will flourish nowhere else, as many can affirm who have planted them elsewhere. And this is the story of the grapes of Daraya, which will grow nowhere but in their own soil.3

  In 1953, nearly a century after this story was published, a festival of grapes was held in Daraya. More than thousand different varieties of the fruit were displayed and the occasion was attended by the then President of Syria, Adib Al-Shishakli.

  The magnificent quality of Daraya’s grapes continues to be celebrated. Photos of them adorn websites mentioning the town and the fruit was even used as a symbol of the uprising there on rebel posters and in campaign literature. Locals I have talked to have their own theories on what has made their grapes so particularly special. Most put it down to the area’s rich red soil and the life-giving waters of the Western River, which sates the thirst of the bounteous vines. One man I talked to described Daraya’s grapes as ‘sweeter, bigger, tastier and more colourful than any others’. He even believed that there is a spiritual explanation, telling me that, ‘The farmers who plant the vineyards do so with the most noble and good intentions. They grow them for all the community, for pleasure rather than profit. Their celebration of this special gift from God is infused in the flavour of the fruit.’