On a Friday morning in Maaloula, Syria, at the St. Thakla Convent, a busload of Iranian Shi\u2019ites pulls up to visit.\u00a0 Some, no doubt, seeking cures, some feeding their curiousity about this place where miracles are said to happen.<\/p>\n
Mother Superior Pelagia Sayyaf said, \u201cMany Muslims come, and the Muslims are so close to God.\u00a0 They make their prayers to God.\u00a0 This convent opens its doors to everyone regardless of their faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Thakla was one of the original Christian martyrs\u2026.the story goes she was being chased, persecuted for her religion, when a crack opened up in a mountain, miraculously giving her shelter from those who wanted to kill her.<\/p>\n
Crutches left behind at the convent tell stories of the injured walking out of the convent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maaloula, a city of beige and pale blue structures clinging to a mountain, is one of the only places left in the world where people still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ.Residents fight to keep it alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mother Pelagia said, \u201cAramaic is so important but I am afraid it is dying so that is why I felt I should do something about it so a few years ago we set up an institute for teaching Aramaic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Syria is a secular country.\u00a0 Religious political groups are banned from operating in the system.\u00a0 However, Damascus does support Hamas and Hezbollah.\u00a0 It considers that support political rather than religious.\u00a0 And worries about Islamic fundamentalism taking root.<\/p>\n
The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus is one of the most important mosques in Islam.\u00a0 The mosque used to be a cathedral and a Roman temple was on the grounds before then.\u00a0 The tomb of St. John the Baptist is right in the middle of the mosque.\u00a0 And on a Friday after prayers, some of the Muslim faithful will pay respects at its bright green windows.<\/p>\n
One of the minarets at the Umayyad Mosque is called the Jesus Minaret because many here believe that Jesus will return, and his point of arrival will be Damascus.<\/p>\n
Islamic scholar Dr. Mohammad Al Habash said, \u201cWe believe Jesus Christ is a messenger of God, and a prophet of God, and we believe him as a word of God and we believe him as a spirit of God.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Habash said that the religious tolerance that exists in Syria has to do with the region being the spiritual heartland of the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe in Islam that God is one, but his names are many.\u00a0 Spirituality is one but the religions are many.\u00a0 The love is one but hearts are many.\u00a0 So we believe in this life to struggle against monopoly of salvation.\u201d<\/p>\n
A common concern about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism is something the United States and Syria share.<\/p>\n
Magazine editor Sami Moubayed said, \u201cWe do have a problem with groups that use the name of Islam, who pervert Islam, groups like Al Qaeda or Fateh el Islam, and this is one of the things we have plenty of common ground with the United States and a lot can be done in counter-terrorism, particularly in Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the issues the two countries are discussing most energetically is bilateral cooperation on is counter-terrorism. It\u2019s widely seen as a potential break-through area for getting US-Syria relations on more solid footing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On a Friday morning in Maaloula, Syria, at the St. Thakla Convent, a busload of Iranian Shi\u2019ites pulls up to visit.\u00a0 Some, no doubt, seeking cures, some feeding their curiousity about this place where miracles are said to happen. Mother Superior Pelagia Sayyaf said, \u201cMany Muslims come, and the Muslims are so close to God.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-439119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}