Al-Hariqa Quarter

The name means the conflagration, and the quarter has carried it since 1925. Before that this was Sidi Amoud, called after Sidi Ahmad Amoud, who was buried here. It lies inside the walls of the old city, south of the Citadel, between the Hamidiyya souq and the Midhat Pasha souq.

What happened in 1925

During the Syrian revolt the French command ordered the bombardment of Damascus on 18 October 1925. A shell fired from the position at Mezzeh struck the dome of the Hammam al-Malika in Sidi Amoud and started a fire. It took Zuqaq al-Mubalat behind the Hamidiyya souq, the lane of Sidi Amoud, and part of the Midhat Pasha souq. Most of the old Damascene houses here, known for their rich interior decoration, were lost in that fire; what replaced them is the work of another age.

What to see

The rebuilt quarter breaks with the fabric of the old city: straight avenues instead of narrow winding lanes, a square in the middle, and stone fronts of interwar architecture around it. This is one of the few places in Damascus where you can read a quarter’s history off its plan — it sits inside the walls and looks nothing like the rest of what is inside them.

How it stands today

Al-Hariqa is the wholesale district: cloth, haberdashery, stationery, electronics. After nine in the morning the pavements fill with handcarts, and loading traffic starts in the afternoon. The Nur al-Din Bimaristan, now the museum of medicine and science, is inside this quarter.

Don’t miss

Walk from the square towards the south gate of the Hamidiyya souq and look for the line where the two fabrics meet: gridded new streets on one side, the covered arches of the souq on the other. The border between them is about a step wide.