المواسم والأعياد في حمص ٦_a .. كتاب حمص

The road is filled with women, men, and children, among them sellers of pickles and pickles, and the procession moves slowly until they reach the Baba Amr Mosque. Then the gentlemen sheikhs get off their animals, rest them, and comfort their followers and disciples, and they eat their lunch, then the noon prayer is performed in the Baba Amr Mosque. Then the day is beautiful and sunny and the weather shows mafia. People spread out in the prairies surrounding the village, sitting on the edge of the crops and on the banks of the waterwheel that passes near it. You see people in heaps and groups of women spread out on the ground with their black sheets, with the black handkerchiefs somewhat hidden from their faces, and with them are their children, eating what they have saved of food, which ends with oranges and lettuce.

After completing the noon prayer, the sheikhs would hold circles of remembrance, each sheikh with his followers and disciples. Then the processions would be rearranged in the previous manner and they would return to the country via Tripoli, passing by the Bab Hud prayer hall, then to the main street that used to pass west of Al-Dabbuya, which is now Hashim Al-Anasi Street, west of Dar. Government, then to Al-Quwatli Street now. Where the crowding is at its peak, you will see the children climbing the trees that were in the “Wasps” garden, as they used to call it, and people have gathered on the balconies of the hotels overlooking the street, on their roofs, and on the sidewalks surrounding the road, until the procession reaches the site of the old clock at the eastern end of Al-Quwatli Street, and heads towards... North on Hama Road, and the crowding remains the same between the flurries of flutes, the ringing of cymbals, the rhythm of Shashtri, the beating of drums, and the chanting of the disciples and followers. In another, at the Khalid bin Al-Walid Mosque, and it is time for the afternoon prayer, the motorcade performs the prayer there and then leaves the mosque, heading east of the country towards the Palmyra Gate, where Sheikh Saad al-Din al-Dawsa resides before his convoy enters the Palmyra Gate to its corner, where they disperse.

As for the janadalas, they continue to Bab al-Duraib, where their corner is, and then disperse. This is Thursday. On Friday, the participating teams would meet in the morning at the Shrine of the Sphinx, where the sanjak of Khalid ibn al-Walid had spent the night before. Then the procession would follow in the order that we presented above, passing through the covered market south of the mosque, proceeding along al-Nuri al-Kabir, then the plain of Bab al-Souq, then the Hama Road towards the Khalid ibn al-Walid Mosque. They beat the spells, beat the drums, and sing religious songs and prophetic praises. This distance between the Great Mosque and the Shrine of the Sphinx does not exceed one kilometer, and yet it takes three or four hours for the procession to cover it due to the large number of stops on Hama Street. You would see people ascending to the graves of the two cemeteries on both sides of the road. The cemetery of the Al-Sibai family is to the east and the cemetery of the Al-Jundi family is to the west, and the procession ends
And beat the seizures.

At Khalid bin Al-Walid Mosque, they pray Friday, and after that, the procession is reconstituted in the order it came in. It passes through Hama Street, then Al-Quwatli Street now, then the square, where they have lunch and pray the afternoon prayer, then they take a rest, then they go to the Turkmen Gate, and it is time for Maghrib, so they disperse from the Turkmen Gate all the way. To his corner or home.

One of Sheikh Bakkar's group, one of the murids, is assigned to return the Sanjak of Khalid bin Al-Walid to his mosque. He walks with a Nuba, and they pass by the Sphinx, where they beat the Nuba, then they continue their walk until the Khalid bin Al-Walid Mosque, where they deposit the Sanjak and return it to the place from which they took it two nights ago. Thus the celebration ends.

It is a common custom, during the procession, for some women to bring their sick children, asking the sheikh for his recovery or a blessing if he is healthy. It is customary for the woman to approach the sheikh’s horse, which is the condition of her son, saying, “Oh my sheikh, take it.” Then the sheikh extends his blind or his right hand and places it on the boy’s head and says some supplications, and if she feels The woman said she needed to be restrained. She approached the sheikh and said, “My sheikh, you restrained me.” So he placed his hand on her head and recited some verses and prayed for her to be healed or for a solution to her problem. People would gather on the procession’s itinerary at certain points to watch it, and some of them would accompany it in its itinerary from the beginning to the end. Since it is spring time, people come out of their homes to watch, old and young, men and women, and it spreads along the length of the procession, and some of them may sit in their places for long hours. The owners of the hotels located on Al-Quwatli Street allow spectators to go up to the balconies or rooftops for a certain fee per person, and some of them allocate a rooftop for women only. You would see the rooftops surrounding both sides of Al-Quwatli Street filled with women wearing their black sheets, with their handkerchiefs removed from their faces, and around each of them were her children. Some eat lettuce, others eat nibbles, slice roasted seeds, or enjoy musk. The musky seller would place his goods in a chest, which he would carry over his head and support it with one hand, holding the chair with the other hand. When selling, he would place the high “chair” on the ground, which is a round hoop supported by three legs. Then he would place the chest on top of it and call out, “My fish, oh amber, my fish, oh amber.” The sidewalks of the street were crowded with spectators who were peeking at the faces of the spectators on the rooftops, and some of them were climbing the trees on both sides of the road to secure a suitable place for themselves to watch.

In this crowd, pickle sellers spread out in their small carts, and each of them spreads out on the roof of the cart his merchandise of pickles made from lingonberries, vinegar, and eggplant, and next to them are empty pottery dishes, adding to it some broth and hot peppers, just as the lemonade sellers and liquorice sellers spread out. If the day is hot and they are clinking with their own copper pots, “Karb, oh thirsty” and “Asus, oh thirsty”.

Before the end of the research, it is necessary to introduce some of the tools and objects used:

* The sanjak: A large rectangular piece of cloth with four folds, in each corner of which is written the name of one of the Rightly Guided Caliphs: Abu Bakr, Omar, Uthman Ali, and some Qur’anic verses and some lineage of the sheikh to whom the sanjak belongs. The cloth of the sanjak is made of velvet by the wealthy sheikhs. And others from plain cloth. At the ends of the piece of cloth are fixed umras, which are pulled by the boys participating in the procession, to maintain its balance and maintain its individuality. The large piece of cloth is fixed in the middle with a wooden pole ending with a head of ivory or copper, according to the normal ability of the sheikh. All the sanjaks are similar except for the sanjak of Khalid ibn al-Walid, for it is It is distinguished by its silver head and velvet fabric.

* Al-Mizhar: A hoop made of wood over which a thin skin is stretched and signed by hand. Its depth is small, unlike the tambourine, which is smaller in diameter and has a deeper bottom. Small gongs were attached to its frame.

* Al-Shashtari: previously explained.

* Caliph of the Sheikh * The caliph is the highest rank in the Sufi order after the sheikh. The sheikh may have a number of caliphs, and the caliph is a representative of the sheikh of the order in the village where there is a branch of it. This title does not mean the succession of the sheikh in the presidency of the order, after his death, because the leadership of the order is hereditary. in the family .

* The Nuba flute: It consists of four flutes, a drum, and a cymbal, accompanied by a sanjak that walks behind the Nuba, and its group is called the car.

* Thursday expenses: All expenses fall on the shoulders of the sheikh of the order. He is the one who hosts the village sheikhs and their followers who will go out with him in the procession. In addition, all those who go out as devotees of the disciples, who form the shifts of the flute and shashtri, and who carry the cymbals, all receive their wages from the sheikh, as well as their food expenses in Baba Amr. On Thursday, or in the square, on Friday afternoon, and by virtue of the Homs merchants’ connection with the merchants of other cities, such as Tripoli, Damascus, Hama, and Aleppo, these merchants would invite their clients in those cities to spend a few days in Homs, enjoying its khamis, parks, and beautiful orchards on the banks of the Orontes, and the buying and selling activity increased during this season. Because of the large number of visitors to the city, merchants, restaurant owners, food and beverage sellers, buskers, hotel and restaurant owners, especially popular restaurants and means of transportation, all benefited financially from this season and from the popular market it creates.