Among the Jasmine Trees. Jonathan Holt Shannon

Abd al-Wahhāb asked the stage manager, “Why were there only a few people the first night and an overflow crowd tonight?” He was told, “Ah! Those who came the first night were our sammīa. No one in Aleppo will go to a concert unless the sammīa say the artist is good. You did well and therefore everyone came on the second night!” In other words, Abd al-Wahhāb passed the test of Aleppo’s sammīa and this allowed him, in the eyes of the Aleppines, not only to succeed in Aleppo but to succeed in the Arab world at large. He got their coveted “seal of approval.”

      Muḥhammad Qadrī Dalāl, Aleppo, 2000.

      Another legend involving ‘Abd al-Wahhāb and told in numerous versions, as most legends, says that the great artist wanted to meet with Aleppo’s musicians and learn what he could from them. In an evening gathering with Umar al-Baṭsh, Alī al-Darwīsh, and others, Abd al-Wahhāb asked if they had any muwashshaḥāt in the mode sīkāh, since none in this mode was known in Egypt at the time. Umar al-Baṭsh replied that, of course, they had a full suite in that mode. When Abd al-Wahhāb asked to hear it, al-Baṭsh replied that the time of day was not appropriate for singing that mode and that therefore he should come back the following morning when the stars would be more favorable, evoking the neo-Pythagorean theory of the correspondence between the different modes, the times of day, and particular moods. When Abd al-Wahhāb departed, ‘Alī al-Darwīsh turned to al-Baṭsh and said in surprise, “We don’t have any muwashshaḥāt in that mode! What are you going to do?!” Umar al-Baṭsh replied, “Well, it’s not appropriate for a city like Aleppo not to have any muwashshaḥāt in sīkāh, so I will compose some!” and that same evening he composed three and taught them to a chorus of singers. When ‘Abd al-Wahhāb returned the following morning, to his astonishment, and the astonishment of everyone else, al-Baṭsh and his chorus sang a complete suite in the mode (Mahannā 1998: 139–40; al-Sharīf 1991: 131–32).

      What might account for Aleppo’s famed musical importance? Many Aleppines attribute the city’s musical and cultural strength to its historical importance as a center for commerce, learning, and industry. Located in northwestern Syria on the western end of the famous Silk Road, Aleppo served since the rise of the Ottoman Empire (in 1516) as the major center in the Levant for the overland textile and spice trade between Europe and Asia, via the port city of Alexandretta (Iskandarun) (Faroqhi 1987: 315; Inalçik 1997: 244; A. Marcus 1989: 146–48). Throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, Aleppo had extensive and sustained contact with European powers, especially Venice, France, and England, whose merchants bought large quantities of raw silk in exchange for gold, silver, and woolen and silk cloth, much of which was later redistributed to cities in the North and East (Faroqhi 1987: 337; Inalçik 1997: 244–45; A. Marcus 1989: 148). Trade with Europe was never stable, but Aleppo remained an important center until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, growing to be the third-largest city in the Ottoman Empire after Istanbul and Cairo, with a population topping one hundred thousand (A. Marcus 1989: 337–41). By the middle of the eighteenth century, European textile trade began to shift to Izmir and Istanbul (A. Marcus 1989: 152), and by the nineteenth century, Europe had come to dominate world textile trade, especially after British cotton “invaded” the region (Inalçik 1987: 381–83; Mitchell 1991: 15–16).

      Aleppo’s Citadel, 2004.

      Like other cities in the Mediterranean Basin, Aleppo’s commercial wealth spawned an active artistic and cultural life in the city. Aleppo developed strong traditions in music, literature, popular arts such as shadow plays and storytelling, and religious and other forms of intellectual scholarship (A. Marcus 1989: 227–37). Numerous scholars and local inhabitants refer to the Ottoman period as one of decline. Yet, Ottoman influence stimulated the culture of the Aleppine elites, some of whom did not even speak Arabic because of their Turkish provenance, and as a consequence the arts and culture of the city proliferated. Aleppo’s participation in pan-Ottoman culture still can be felt today in the city’s architecture, cuisine, music, and even dialects, which use many Turkish words.¹⁶

      Because of its commercial prominence, Aleppo was a magnet for traders from near and far, thus serving as a meeting point for people of diverse cultural traditions. Gathering in the numerous caravansaries after a day’s labor, as locals like to narrate their history, these traders had no concern other than to sit back and relax, enjoy a fine meal, and listen to some music as a reward for their efforts. Soon Aleppo boasted a cosmopolitan mixture of musical and culinary styles—two areas of local culture of which many Aleppines are proud. The Aleppine genre of popular music known as the qudūd ḥalabiyya includes songs of Iraqi, Egyptian, Turkish, and Kurdish as well as Syrian origin (Qalajī 1988: 165–74).¹⁷ Even today these songs, most of which probably date from the eighteenth through the early twentieth century, are sung in approximations of their original dialects: Aleppine, Iraqi, and Egyptian, for example. Aleppo’s culinary traditions are also unique in Syria, especially the emphasis on grilled meats and zesty dishes. All of these factors grant the city and its cultural practices a special “nakha,” a particular scent or flavor that Aleppines argue distinguishes their traditions from those of Damascus or any other city.

      Despite Europe’s advances in world trade, Aleppo remained an important regional center for commerce and industry into the late nineteenth century, producing quantities of raw materials, textiles, soaps, agricultural products, and other commodities for regional and world markets. However, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 undermined Aleppo’s position as European merchants took advantage of sea-based routes to India and the Far East. The shift from overland to sea-based trade coincided with a series of Ottoman reforms that had the effect of further marginalizing Aleppo from the growing global economy in textiles, its major export, while burdening the city with a flood of migrants from rural areas fleeing onerous taxation and seeking employment opportunities (McGowan 1988: 18).

      The period of the French Mandate (1922–1944¹⁸) saw an expansion in Aleppo’s economic position as new lands were claimed for agricultural development. At the same time, the center of commercial and administrative power began to shift to Damascus, site of French colonial authority. Syria’s rapid economic growth lasted through the 1940s and 1950s because of a series of economic reforms that gave Syria one of the fastest-growing economies among developing countries at the time (Mason 1988). Yet, political instabilities and changing global patterns of trade in the postwar era challenged Syria economically and adversely affected Aleppo and its position as a commercial entrepôt. The city’s economic position was undermined further by a prolonged drought in the late 1950s and by the nationalization of Aleppine textile and agricultural industries under the ill-fated union with Egypt (1958–1961), leading to major capital flight to nearby Lebanon, Europe, and the Americas, drastic declines in production, and the virtual decimation of Aleppo’s merchant class. The