Dahdah Cemetery

A cemetery north of the walls, in the Uqaybiya quarter inside the boundaries of the Suq Saruja municipality. It is among the best known burial grounds in Damascus and the most expensive: a plot costs more than 3 million Syrian pounds. The Syrian pound moves, so that figure ages quickly, but the ranking does not — like Bab al-Saghir, Dahdah is where the wealthy families of the city choose to be buried.

Getting there

Leave Bab al-Faradis heading north and walk into Uqaybiya; the cemetery lies east of Suq Saruja, inside the quarter. On a walk outside the walls, the Jawza Mosque and the Aqsab Mosque fall on the same line.

Where the name comes from

Two accounts circulate and both are handed down rather than settled. One ties the name to a shrine in the cemetery attributed to a Companion of the Prophet. The other ties it to a Damascene scholar, Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad Abu al-Dahdah al-Dimashqi, and adds that the cemetery was once called the Faradis cemetery, after Bab al-Faradis, one of the gates of the Old City.

Who is buried here

What sets the cemetery apart in Damascus are the names in it. The novelist Abdul Rahman Munif, the stage and television actor Nihad Qalai, the jurist and scholar Muhammad Khayri al-Mufti, the former president Husni al-Zaim and a good many other writers and lawyers are buried here. A separate section for the war dead was added later.

How to behave

This is a working cemetery and most of the people in it are families. Keep quiet, walk between the stones and not over them. Women cover their hair. If a burial is taking place, step back and put the camera away. If you are looking for a particular grave, ask the attendant at the entrance: the ground is large and the sections are not signposted. Half an hour, including the search.