In this excerpt, Benjamin of Tudela enters Damascus and spends two pages describing it. He takes on a tone of admiration throughout most of the section, writing appreciatively about the city overall. He says that they trade \u201cwith all countries,\u201d indicating wealth and cosmopolitanism. They seem to have rich architecture and large marketplaces. There is abundant water from the two rivers which flow into the city, and infrastructure that brings the water to houses and gardens. He describes building features of glass, gold, and silver. Particularly impressive to him are the Gami mosque and the palace. In the mosque there is a wall of crystal glass \u201cof magic workmanship,\u201d with an integrated sundial. It seems that he has not seen anything like this before either at home or in his travels so far. His journey took place during the Islamic Golden Age, during which such technological and artistic innovations flourished, and we experience it through Benjamin of Tudela\u2019s outsider\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n
It can already be assumed that Benjamin of Tudela, as a product of his upbringing in recently Muslim-controlled Navarre, would have been quite familiar with Islam and its cultural influences. It shows up in this excerpt; it does not seem as though the people or practices as particularly foreign to him, nor does he pass judgment on the people and practices as he does in other sections (such as the children of Ammon). For example, he admires their mosque, saying that there is no building like it in the whole world, and does not state any further opinions. In this passage, like in several of our other readings, there is a mention of the ancient giants which once ruled the world. A rib of one of these giants is said to be housed in the palace. He is told that this rib belonged to the King Anak, or so it said on his grave. It\u2019s interesting that the biblical mythology of the giants was so prevalent across the Abrahamic religions in the medieval era, brought up frequently throughout the writings of all the travelers. It\u2019s not something that\u2019s brought up often in modern life.<\/p>\n
As usual, Benjamin completes the passage by cataloguing the Jewish population in Damascus, noting population, particular important individuals, and relationship with others in the city. He does not explicitly discuss the state of Jewish rights in Damascus, but since three thousand Jews lived in the city at the time it was probably accepting to his people to a fairly high degree, and perhaps they enjoyed some privileges. Many Palestinian Jews came to Damascus escaping the crusaders, bolstering the Jewish population in the city before Benjamin of Tudela\u2019s arrival. Damascus was under Seljuk rule at the time: he writes that the city is the beginning of the empire of Nur-ed-din, the king of the Turks. The place of Jews under Turkish rule often changed from king to king. It\u2019s unclear based on this text alone exactly where Nur-ed-din stood. There are \u00a0several notable Jewish scholars in Damascus that he names, all of which work in some fashion for the Academy of the Land of Israel, including the head of the Academy. There are also 400 Cuthim (Samaritans) and a hundred Karaites, which are an alternative sect of Judaism. According to him, their relationship is peaceful, but they don\u2019t intermarry. He doesn\u2019t specify if this peaceful relationship extends between them and the rest of the Jews of Damascus, but he doesn\u2019t mention any conflict either. As I\u2019ve touched on in other posts, Benjamin of Tudela could have been writing a sort of guide for other Jews across the diaspora. The introduction to the Project Gutenberg edition speculates that wide-scale upheaval in Jewish communities during the era of the Crusades and of Christian encroachment into Spain may have motivated Benjamin to find places suited for asylum if needed and convey the information back to the Jews of Navarre. This seems like a reasonable extrapolation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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