Chapter Three
Eid in Beirut
بيروت رائحة الشمس والبحر والدخان والليمون
“Beirut is the smell of the sun, sea, smoke, and lemons.”
These are the words of the late Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, and after this past week, I can certainly say he wasn’t wrong.
For our nearly week long break off work to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, a major holiday for Muslim communities across the globe commemorating the end of the month of Ramadan, I decided to a book a ticket to Beirut to explore Lebanon, a longtime desire of mine.
After praying the morning Eid prayer in the mosque by my house here in Amman, I made my way to the airport, and a short 65 minute flight later, found myself in the Lebanese capital. To say Beirut was merely beautiful, I fear, would be doing it an injustice. Surrounded on three sides by the turquoise blue waters of the Mediterranean, with mountains flanking its distance, my first impression of the city stunned me with its beauty. However, I couldn’t spend all day gawking at the city's natural splendors. I had a long journey ahead of me the day after, exploring the south of the country, so after grabbing a quick bite to eat, I reached my hotel and tried my best to sleep in vain, feeling like an elementary school child the night before a field trip.
“Beirut was actually the most Romanized city in the Eastern Mediterranean region, south of the Anatolian Peninsula” our tour guide, Najwa, extolled, her voice ringing through the microphone. “It was the only city in the Syria-Phoenicia province of the Roman Empire that was fully Latin-speaking, whereas Greek and local Semitic tongues held sway in the rest of the Roman Levant”. We were driving 45 minutes south of the capital to Sidon, or Sayda as it’s called in Arabic, an ancient port city and the third largest in the country, after which we’d head to Tyre, or Sour, another ancient port city further south still.
After discovering I was an American law student, Najwa illuminated me on the history of how Beirut, or Berytus in Latin, was one of the premier legal centers in the Roman Empire. The city housed the famous Lex Schola, which was responsible for creating the Codex Justinianeus, part of the codification of Roman Law by Justinian I, earning the nickname Berytus Nutrix Legum, or “Beirut, Mother of Laws”. Najwa told me how the city exported Roman lawyers and magistrates throughout the Empire for centuries, until the famous earthquake of 551 decimated the city and leveled the school, after which the surviving students were transferred to Sidon where, appropriately enough, we were headed.
The rest of the day was spent touring Sidon with it’s the Crusader-era sea castle, Ottoman-era soap factory, and Mamluk-era Mosques. We walked through the old souk, which interestingly enough, was relatively empty, due to it being the second day of the Eid holiday. It was surreal seeing a place, usually deafening with activity, so quiet and calm. Afterwards, we headed to Tyre, once famous for its Tyrian purple dye, developed and traded by the Phoenicians. We visited the Roman ruins of the hippodrome and the baths by the coast. I couldn’t take my eyes off the cerulean blue water surrounding the city, with cream-colored buildings standing behind the beaches of white sand, nor the old cobbled avenues, lined on both sides by trees blooming with pink flowers. The area seemed like a demi-paradise. Najwa informed us that, though Tyre may look like paradise, the people here, as with most Lebanese, have gone through a lot these past few decades, feeling the brunt of unfortunate conflicts, such as the Lebanese Civil War and recurring illegal Israeli invasions and occupations.
After a traditional (and delicious) Lebanese mezze for lunch, we rounded out our trip in Maghdouché, a small, predominantly Christian town some 2 miles inland, famous for housing a shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary as “Our Lady of Mantara”, mantara meaning “awaiting”, referring to how this was where the Virgin Mary, prohibited from entering a pagan town due to being a Jewish woman, camped outside of Sidon where Jesus was preaching to the then pagan residents of the city, waiting for him and his disciples to return to the exact spot where the shrine and church are currently built. The church, belonging to the Melkite Greek Catholic sect, was one of the most beautiful I’d ever seen, and the entire area had a mellow, serene atmosphere to it.
I finished up my last few days in Beirut, where I met up with some friends, laughing and swimming the days away by the corniche, working on our tans and drinking mint lemonade and watermelon juice by the liter. My last day, I wanted to walk around the city alone, exploring its secrets for myself. What always struck me is how Beirut has managed to rebuild itself again and again, through the wars, invasions, bombardments, and occupations. At the risk of romanticizing it, the resilience and optimism of the Lebanese people astonished me. Everywhere I went, the scars of the past were felt deep, concerns for the future rang realistic, but never did I ever encounter a general attitude of defeatism or pessimism.
My flight out of Rafic Hariri International was in the wee hours of the morning, so I barely got any shut eye. As I got into my friend’s car, I braced myself for my journey back to Amman. I needed this week. It reinvigorated me, not just in the realms of rest and relaxation, but the optimism of so many I met here in Lebanon rubbed off on me in no insignificant way. I want to see a safe, peaceful, breathing Middle East, not one suffocated by corruption, wars, sectarianism, and tyranny, and I believe it is more than possible in our lifetimes. I was eager to return to Amman and get back to work with my teams, excited and humbled knowing I have an ever so small part to play in making that dream, of progress and development, not just in Jordan, but across the region, into a reality.