Beirut’s Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque, located at Martyr’s Square, is in some ways emblematic of downtown Beirut as a whole. Like much of the city, it was erected by Lebanon’s assassinated Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a billionaire businessman who was instrumental in the reconstruction and renovation efforts following the Lebanese Civil War.
Hariri’s Mosque is a grand project, meticulously and elaborately decorated with a ceiling that imparts a feeling of loftiness even higher than the skies outside. And still the design feels overly calculated, perhaps even artificial, this is a building whose every inch was intended to impress.
Mosque carpet detail, Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque.
Tripoli, known as Tarablus to its inhabitants, is a famous port city which is Lebanon’s second largest overall, and is predominantly Sunni Muslim. Here,Tarablus’ Grand Mosque, which at the time was undergoing extensive renovation.
Tarablus' Grand Mosque.
In addition to its rich history, the city is known for its sweets. Here, the Halab Brothers Sweet Shop.
Mabroomeh, Halab Brothers Sweet Shop, Tripoli.
The towns of Ehden and Bcharre lie high up in the mountains enveloping Lebanon’s Qadisha Valley, and are widely known as a haven for the country’s Maronite Christians. More importantly however, these mountains are filled with some of the most gorgeous natural scenery I have been witness to in the Middle East.
Just as in Beirut, where you might question if you are actually in Lebanon or in Europe, so in Ehden and Bcharre you might believe you are vacationing in Switzerland. Lebanon’s diverse landscapes invite such questions and comparisons rather frequently.
On top of one of Edhen's peaks there is a church built in the shape of a pyramid. This church, the Saydet El-Hosn, is filled with unusual architecture.
Saydet El-Hosn Church, Ehden.
The Qadisha Valley is as majestic a location in Lebanon as you are ever likely to encounter. The Valley features a number of trails which wind through thickly wooded areas, rushing streams, and in between towering rock cliffs painted in a certain red that suggests the American southwest and California.
Lebanon’s Cedar Reserve in the Chouf Mountains ranks as one of my favorite places we visited in Lebanon, despite the fact that we only had an hour and a half to drive up into the Reserve and explore before the gates to the park closed in the early afternoon. We arrived at the Reserve on an especially foggy day, but this only augmented the other-worldly atmosphere of this secluded spot. The Reserve apparently covers an impressive 5% of Lebanon’s total landmass.
It was now time to see the real Southern Lebanon, which is known for its larger concentrations of Shia Muslims, as well as being less well-off economically. This second factor in turn explains the popularity in the region of groups like Hezbollah, the Party of God, which amongst its many activities, notorious and otherwise, provides vital social services to the under-assisted population of the South. We arrived in the city of Nabatea the night before Arba’een, the 40th day of the Muslim lunar calendar following the death of the Shia Imam, or religious leader, named Hussein, along with his companions and family during the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD at the hands of the Umayyad Caliph. This night and following day are important days of mourning for Shia Muslims, and they gather on this day to recount the story of their fallen Imam during narrations of his story at assemblies known as majalis.
The mourning in Nabatea featured a type of Passion play which presented the events leading up to and including the death of Hussein. As per Islamic custom, the actor who played the character of Hussein never actually showed his face (which was cleverly obscured by spotlights) and so the Imam’s companions became the principle characters.
Following the play, there was a procession which wound its way through Nabatea’s streets, featuring decorative floats such as the sword of Ali, father of Hussein and a close-relative of the Prophet Mohammed, who is another important figure in Shia Islam. The procession was lead by a group of Shia ‘ulama, or scholars, who were also important figures in the Hezbollah party. As such, Hezbollah’s private security force and body guards were scanning the crowd, on the look-out for any signs of trouble.
After the procession I headed over to a large gathering of Shia who were practicing ma’tam, a type-of self-flagellation which is a controversial issue amongst Sunni and Shia Muslims alike. Some Shia Muslims, as part of their mourning, choose to simply pat their chest as a symbolic gesture. Others practice more extreme forms of flagellation, and the results can be bloody. In Nabatea, in addition to the patting of the chest, many of the youths of the city were engaged in a more severe method of ma’tam. In the picture above, look at the lower right hand corner of the image and you can see a young man facing the camera who is grabbing a second man’s hair. This second man is allowing the man grabbing him to perform a shallow cut across his scalp with a straight razor. He then, much like the other men around him, will begin hitting his head with his palm in order to shed blood.
The practice of this type of ma’tam divides Muslim opinion to this day. Although medical personnel were on site to handle any serious injuries, their presence did not dilute the intensity of the event in any way.
Image: A Red Crescent worker examines a participant of the ma'tam.
While those who perform this style of ma’tam may see it simply as an expression of their commitment to their faith as well as an act of mourning, there is no doubt that these men were in a trance and filled with energy, and perhaps even, paradoxically, a degree of exuberance, as in the photograph above.
Furthermore, it would be a mistake to interpret the mindset of those performing this ma’tam as ‚out-of-body‛ in any form, or one that allows them to distance themselves from the bloody scenes taking place around them. For these Shia, their trance fixates them in the moment. Rather than ignoring the blood, they seem to see it as an inseparable part of the ritual. As such, this flagellation has lead to the voicing of criticism both from Sunni Muslims who reject the practice entirely, as well as many Shia who feel that some of their brethren have taken the practice too far.
The floor of the Hussainiya following the ma'tam.
Our ultimate destination was the village of Qana, which lies close to Lebanon’s southern border with Israel. Qana, unfortunately, is known primarily in the West for the suffering its population has undergone during Lebanon’s numerous conflicts with Israel. Pictured above is the memorial in Qana to its civilians who have been killed in Israeli air raids since 1996. In the building behind the memorial, preparations are underway to build a museum dedicated to these victims and their story.
While at the memorial, we were approached by a man who might be described as the village’s unofficial tour guide, and who had just finished his presentation to a group of Saudi visitors about the memorial’s significance. In order to raise money for the planned museum, he was selling albums and a DVD of pictures taken following the numerous bombings, pictures filled with scenes of anguish as well as torn off limbs and destruction and rubble.
After explaining to us the significance of the monument and the details of the atrocities he had witnessed, the guide led us to an area of scorched earth just adjacent to the museum site. There the residents of Qana have preserved the site of one of the bombings where a young girl and her family were killed. It is an eerily cataloguing of a heinous crime. The guide pointed to walls of what remained of a room in the house, indicating that the black stains on the wall were blood that had been burned in by the heat of the explosion. He told us that the Israeli military had been successful in the past in suppressing details of the massacres that had taken place in Qana, and his only wish was for the world to know the truth. I believe that his prayers will most likely go unanswered.
In the end, we thanked our guide, took one last look around, and headed back on the highway towards the distant lights of Beirut.