Securing Neighborhoods in Medieval Damascus

A careful look at a detailed map of Damascus reveals two superimposed cities: the first is Roman, and the second is Arab-Islamic. This view has occasionally been debated on the following grounds:

1. The outlines of the Islamic city had arguably been sketched under the Byzantines.
2. Some consider Roman Damascus as an aberrancy, arguing that Medieval Damascus had simply reverted to its pre-classical plan or the lack thereof.

With those reservations in mind, Roman Damascus boasted imposing large avenues intersecting at right angles. The city's main axis was, of course, Via Recta, stretching east to west from al-Bāb aš-Šarqī to Bāb al-Ǧābīā. Another and shorter axis parallel to the above was Via Sacra, which had connected the Temple of Jupiter with the agora (forum under the Romans). Still, a third east-west artery further north would be Sūq Sārūǧā, but the latter is located outside the city's wall and belongs to the Islamic era. 

The medieval city was an oriental one. Its streets and alleys were narrow, crooked, entangled, and often issued onto a dead-end. Several explanations could be put forward, such as the desire to enlarge one's property by infringing on the street in an otherwise limited urban space, which would often result in rooms overhanging the alley when the lower floor no longer offers the capacity for expansion. Thus protruded, the upper floors can cover the narrow paths under to form the so-called sībāṭ (or sābāṭ), providing walkers with the added bonus of shade in the hot season and shelter in the rainy one.

It was security, however, that largely determined what appears at first sight as a chaotic and maze-like urban tissue. Fear can compel a man to lock his door, and when several families share this sentiment, the natural result would be to restrict the access of the neighborhood or subdivision by constructing a gate at its entrance. There used to be legions of such gates until they started to disappear towards the end of the 19th century. Quite a few of them were still present in the early years of the French Mandate, and some were replaced in 1925-1926 (1). As a rule, those gates were closed every day between 21:00 and 23:00.

(1) A reference to the Great Syrian Revolution.

Richard Lodoïs Thoumin. Géographie humaine de la Syrie centrale. Librairie Ernest Leroux, Paris 1936.