Students: Katharina Schwiete, Marie-Luise Wunder
Location: Damascus
Date: October, 2009
Type: Research project, student work

Background
The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II and reached Jerusalem 1099. The Siege of Jerusalem took place from June 7 to July 15, 1099 whereupon the crusaders stormed the city and slaughtered its Jewish and Muslim inhabitants. Many Arab and Palestinian families that were able to survive the attack fled the city and moved over the Jordan and the Golan heights to Damascus. They settled approximately 6 km northeast of the city, on the foot of the Qasyun mountain range, establishing probably one of the earliest “refugee camps” or refugee settlements in history. With the following Crusades during the twelfth century many more “Palestinian” refugees fled from the ‘Holy Land’ to the outskirts of Damascus. The neighborhood became an important center of Islamic scholarship and religious study, emphasizing on the ‘Hanbali’ school of religious law and is home to the tomb of Sheikh Muhi al-Din Ibn al-Arabi, one of the most prolific and famous Arab Sufi mystic and philosopher who lived there from 1223 to his death in 1240.

Themes
The refugees from the crusades, their conviction to fight against the Christian usurpers by taking up the ‘Jihad’ have made them figure strongly in the common memory and self-understanding of the Palestinian people. The crusaders’ refugees are often compared to the Palestinian refugees fleeing Israeli occupation and the Nakba of 1948.
Today, the neighborhood of al-Salihiyya is a densly populated area of Damascus, by now integrated into the city limits. It clings to the foot of the impressive mountain range towering over it.

Project
What is the urban idea of this “refugee”-Hilltown? Can one still detect a difference in character when comparing al-Salihiyya to other parts of Damascus, based on its history as a refugee settlement? How did the neighborhood merge with Damascus? What ‘role’ does al-Salihiyya play in contemporary Damascus?