Bab al-Salam

It stands on the northern face of the Damascus wall, east of Bab al-Faradis, where the wall turns a corner. That turn swings the gate round to face east, towards the Eastern Ghouta. It is one of the least altered of the old gates of Damascus, and therefore the most legible.

Getting there

Go north from the Umayyad Mosque into the Amara quarter and follow the wall eastwards. This is the second gate after Bab al-Faradis. The lane is narrow, and the gate appears all at once between two shopfronts.

What to see

Its age is disputed. Some accounts trace it to the Roman period, when a gate here is said to have been called the Gate of the Moon. Others hold that Nur al-Din Zangi built the first version in 1164. What you see now comes from the rebuilding by al-Salih Ayyub in 1243; it is the second Ayyubid gate after Bab Touma and resembles it in the arch, the recess and the pair of merlons. Because the Mamluks never rebuilt it, much of the original surface is still in place.

How long it takes

A quarter of an hour. This is not a monument with a gate ticket but a threshold the neighbourhood passes through, with everyday traffic running underneath.

Don’t miss

The muqarnas corbels above the arch and the mixture of stone in the wall. Dark basalt blocks sit beside pale limestone, and some of the large, neatly cut pieces were taken from an older building and set here. The blue enamel plaques on the right jamb are still in place too.