Sheikh Raslan Cemetery

A cemetery at the north-eastern exit of the Old City, outside Bab Touma. Its name comes from Sheikh Raslan al-Dimashqi, a Damascene Sufi of the 12th century, and the street that runs past it carries the same name. It is not a sight: it is a working cemetery, and the natural end of a walk out through Bab Touma.

Getting there

Leave Bab Touma heading north-east and turn into Sheikh Raslan Street; the cemetery lies along it, outside the line of the wall. There is no gate and the entrances are open. Walking from the Umayyad Mosque by way of Straight Street takes about twenty minutes.

Who Sheikh Raslan was

He was born in 470 of the Hijri calendar, that is 1077, at Qalaat Jaabar near Raqqa. His father was among the soldiers fighting the Franks. He himself worked as a carpenter and took his living from nowhere else — neither from people’s alms nor from the state treasury. He divided his wages in three: one part for food, one for clothing, one for charity.

He first worshipped in a small mosque inside Bab Touma, and dug a well there with his own hands. When Nur al-Din Zangi extended the walls the sheikh moved to Bab Touma. There he set up a zawiya and a ribat — a lodge and a frontier post — on the spot where Khalid ibn al-Walid is said to have pitched his tent on the day Damascus fell. His lodge became a centre of popular resistance against the Crusaders; the phrase Damascenes still repeat has his men as monks by night and horsemen by day. He died in 541, or 1146, and after his death the lodge went on serving as a ribat on the wall.

How to behave

This is not an area to tour. People are buried here. Keep quiet, walk between the headstones and not over them. Women cover their hair. If a burial is taking place, step back and put the camera away. The sheikh’s own grave and lodge are not inside the cemetery but are placed on the line of the wall; the cemetery takes its name from that proximity.

How long it takes

Twenty minutes. Bab Touma and the churches around it belong to the same walk. The cemetery sits on the way out rather than the way back, so plan on re-entering the city from here.