Tripoli, or three cities was named by the Greeks as it was the capital of Sidon, Tyre and Arwad in Phoenician times. It lay to the north of Byblos and a bus left me close to the port area where I found rather dingy accommodation that was in keeping with the rundown nature of the area. I went to explore the souk where apart from the usual array of fruit, vegetables, spices and nuts there were chickens dead and alive for sale. I found some nicely colored and decorated glass nargile bases and bought a couple to take home. I was doing some belly-dancing classes at home and thought I might find some attractive accessories but was disappointed to discover there was nothing of interest to be found. Small sweet shops offered wonderful arrays of chocolate eggs wrapped in fabulously beautiful papers of salmon pink, cobalt blue, soft greys and greens that would have been a delight to any designer’s eye. As is the tradition in all Arabic souks the area is divided into different sections, fruit and vegetable, meat and poultry and fish, textiles of many hues, gold and silver jewelry, a myriad of soaps, women’s clothing and perfumes, with each section having its own small mosque to which traders would retreat for the five ritual daily prayers or salat which constitutes one of the five pillars of Islam. Most of the old buildings in the souk area date from the Mameluk period between the 13th-15th centuries, the most ornate being the al-Qartawiyat Medresseh or religious school, one of the many that once surrounded the Great Mosque which was built in 1294 on the site of a Crusader church. Perhaps it was too late in the day but the excitement and lively bustle that is normally found in Arabic marketplaces was missing.
The Crusader Castle, named the Qalat Sinjil after Raymond de St. Gilles one of the leaders of the First Crusade, dominates Tripoli and is an ever present reminder of Western treachery. When the Crusaders raised Tripoli to the ground most of its citizens were sold into slavery and the entire library of the exiled ruler Qadi Fakhr el-Mulk, books of Persian, Greek and Arabic classics were burnt for their supposed impiety. It was the Mameluks, originally slaves and mercenaries who gradually rose to power in Egypt between the 11th and 13th centuries, who finally broke the Crusaders hold on the Levantine coast.
Back in my dilapidated accommodation I encountered a dark and handsome Polish scholar. Having worked as a vet for seven years he had come to dislike small animals. He had taken a law degree and was now in the throes of researching the ritual sacrifice of animals for a PhD and had come to Lebanon to interview a Beiruti Bishop on the subject. We agreed to share a taxi next morning to visit the Khalil Gibran Museum in Bcharre and then on to the famous Qadisha Valley. It proved to be a day of false starts run down taxi’s and even more dilapidated taxi drivers. What had obviously once been a beautiful area was now being destroyed by the building of insensitively designed holiday homes for returning ex-pats. The few remaining Cedars of Lebanon looked mangy and were corralled away behind fencing. Hawkers lined the snow covered roadway selling cheap wooden souvenirs but I managed to pick up some cedar cones which I placed as stoppers into the glass nargile bases to make attractive decanter bottles one of which I still possess. In the chapels of the monasteries now deserted by the monks my new found companion, communist by upbringing and Catholic by aspiration, blessed himself fervently. Having long since become an unbeliever I refrained from such ritual, much to his annoyance.
In his book From the Holy Mountain William Dalrymple tells of the recent history of this area which was once famous for producing saints. The area produced two of the rival Maronite leaders, Samir Geagea and Suleiman Franjieh who is reputed to have ordered the shooting dead of a Tripoli Muslim every month to remind them who was in control. He became President of Lebanon in 1970 and appointed his friends and relatives to the Cabinet. Dalrymple also encountered the one remaining hermit then living in the area for whom a cedar wood coffin had been prepared in Mar Lisha, or St. Elisha, one of the monasteries we visited.
We would love to have seen the dancing dervishes, Druze and members of the mystical Sufi sect, and to have visited the sacred fish near al-Bedauoi, but we could not find anyone who could tell us the way. My companion, who did not like to stay in the one place two nights running nor retrace his steps found a practically empty hotel on the central square in the town. It was a pleasant example of Islamic architecture and even cheaper than the mournful pension. Although richly decorated inside it had a slightly seedy air and I refused his offer to share a room for the night. We shared a passable meal together in a local hostelry in the company of a young entrepreneur. We asked if he knew of anywhere we could see some belly dancing or raqs sharqi or eastern dance as it is known in Arabic. “There is one place where a gypsy dances”, he told us, “but she is a prostitute”, he continued with an air of contempt. Feeling uninterested as to who pays whom for what I asked if he thought she could dance and he told me he thought not. Having tasted some delicious pastries for which Lebanon is famous I returned to my lodgings wishing I was somewhat more of a whore myself.
A few days later I encountered the Polish man again in Beirut and we sampled a glass of Lebanese wine in one of the more upmarket hotels where the food was international and tasteless. “Do you people actually understand that Finnegan’s Wake he asked me, a book worm to his fingertips. As we browsed through the bookshops I found a copy of Isabel Allende’s Aphrodite, a fabulous collection of aphrodisiac recipes complete with voluptuous illustrations. Now perhaps if we had shared a meal from this catalogue of delights, I thought, but he reminded me me ungallantly that I was no Molly Bloom and nor am I.
In the 1960’s before the war in Lebanon, Colin Thubron spent three months walking throughout this country and wrote about it in his book The Hills of Adonis. I envy him having seen that country before the ravages of war, the car, and the modern developers. I can envisage a similar fate befalling our own beautiful countryside and coastline if we are not careful. With a little consideration given to the planning and development of both countries there is still hope.
