المواسم والأعياد في حمص ٧_a .. كتاب حمص

* Its end: The Khamis Al-Musheikh continued to flourish between the First and Second World Wars (1919 - 1939), but it began to falter after the end of the Second World War (1945) and at the beginning of the era of independence (1946), due to the intervention of some people who wanted to create strife between the sheikhs and the people. Bab Tadmur and Bab al-Darib. In the 1948 season, Sheikh Saad al-Didi al-Jabbawi agreed with Sheikh Abdullah Jandal not to go out with that season and not to celebrate it. He agreed to that, and they went out on Thursday of the aforementioned year for a picnic to escape the problems and embarrassment. He was at the head of the opponents of the Khamis al-Sheikhs. Some fundamentalists who saw it as an innovation that should be eliminated, and therefore they resisted it, and the celebration of it began to weaken in the following years until the season of 1954, and only some of the sheikhs’ caliphs participated in it in a simple and limited manner, and they never returned to it after that. Thus, the curtain came down on the greatest popular festival and economic season in Homs.

This is a picture of the Thursday of the Sheikhs as it was in the twenties and thirties of this century, and as we used to watch it as young children, and it does not differ from what was happening in the second half of the nineteenth century, except for some street names such as Al-Quwatli Street and the only development that occurred in the celebration of Thursday, during... In the last hundred years of his life, the introduction of Shashtari/and his spells was upon Mustafa Sheikh Othman, as we saw in the course of the research, and still in some corner of Homs, there were instruments, tools, and slings that had been used in celebration for a hundred years, and that their use had ceased thirty-seven years ago.

* Feasts :

Muslims used to celebrate three holidays: 1- Eid al-Fitr, after the month of Ramadan, and they called it the Little Eid.

2 - Eid al-Adha on the tenth of the month of Dhu al-Hijjah, and it is called “the Great Eid”. 3 - The Prophet’s Birthday on the 12th of Rabi’ al-Awwal of every Hijri year.

As for Christian citizens, their important holidays that all their sects celebrate are Christmas and Easter, and we will give a picture of each of them.

* Eid al-Fitr: Three days following the blessed month of Ramadan, i.e. the first three days of the month of Shawwal. If its date is confirmed by the Sharia court, this is announced to the people with Ramadan cannon shots. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, this cannon was placed where the Rawda Café and its surroundings are now located, and they called it / the cannon square, and by firing the cannon to prove that Ramadan had begun. Fasting from the following dawn.

The whole of Ramadan is a holiday for Muslims, in which their daily routine changes and in which the ignorant return to obedience to the Most Gracious. Those with dependents are generous to their dependents and relatives, and generous to the needy. The mosques were: lit by lamps, the number of lamps was increased, the amount of oil allocated for lighting was increased, and additional uncles were appointed to supervise the lighting of the mosques and to clean and care for them, and the expenses of teachers and lighting were from the funds allocated for this purpose.

Since people’s homes were devoid of alarm clocks, a special profession was found for Ramadan that comes and goes with it, which is the profession of the magician, who alerts people to the time of the arrival of suhoor, which is food, the magic that precedes abstaining from food and beginning fasting.

Every neighborhood in Homs had its own mockery, walking in the alleys, beating his little drum, saying, “Be united with God, O sleeper, be united with Daym, O sleeper, be united with your Lord, a plate of Qatayef is beside you.” And other phrases that suit the situation. He may knock on the houses of those he knows from the neighborhood’s residents and call them by name. No obstacle, such as rain, snow, or biting winds, in the cold winter days will hinder him from carrying out his mission. He had two rounds, the first at dawn, as we mentioned, and the second before sunset, when the cooking was cooked. He knocks on the door and asks for what the family has to prepare for their breakfast. He puts it all in his notebook.

When the middle of Ramadan came, they would begin to bid farewell from the minarets of the mosques, after the evening prayer. A group of young men would climb the spiral stairs of the minaret, no matter how high they were, and when they reached the place of the call to prayer, the one who spoke to them would begin to say while repeating after him:

O, bid him farewell, then say to him, O this month of ours, peace be upon you. When the days of the month of fasting passed, my tears flowed like overflowing clouds, and when the pilgrims were preparing to join the Hajj convoy in Damascus and from there to Medina and Mecca, after the end of the Eid, this matter is indicated by their saying: a month in which the pilgrims have bid farewell. Their families and children were breastfed when they saw its lights shining. They all headed towards the door of peace. As for the last ten days of Ramadan, the following poem is a farewell to the pilgrims: Oh, you who are leaving for Mina under my leadership, you will rage on the day of departure, for my heart you have walked, and your guide has walked, oh my longing, I have been disturbed by the voice of the one, so if you arrive safely, give me peace. On the guiding prophet.

Also during the last ten days of Ramadan, some believers seclude themselves in small rooms in the mosque prepared for this purpose. We will go through the conditions of seclusion in the discussion of Sufi paths in the next chapter.

If it is confirmed that the sighting of the Shawwal crescent will stop, all of this will stop and the cannon will be fired to signal the end of the month of Ramadan and the beginning of Shawwal. Its first three days are days:

* The Little Eid or Eid al-Fitr, in the last week of Ramadan, the family is concerned with securing new clothes and new shoes. Therefore, the markets before the Eid are crowded with people and the buying and selling activity is active. People start their Eid with men going to the mosques after the morning prayer to perform the Eid prayer. As for the women, they go to the graves, before sunrise, carrying bouquets of myrtle or roses to form the graves, and they also bring with them some / tablets / and / sunbousek to distribute to readers and the new poor.

The Eid prayer takes place shortly after sunrise, and after performing it and listening to the sermon, the men, accompanied by their children, go to visit the graves of their relatives. They recite Al-Fatihah, and greet each other by saying Happy New Year. Among the etiquette of visiting graves is that reciting Al-Fatihah is not limited to the relatives of the visitors, but rather recites Al-Fatihah and sacrifices the souls of everyone.

After that, they return to their homes to eat breakfast, greet family members (2), and distribute Eid gifts to them. People visit each other on the three days of Eid, offering congratulations in traditional phrases that are still used today. They also offer Eid gifts to the children of their relatives and relatives.

As for most people, including children, teenagers, and young people, they go to the games places, where there are flaps, trebuchets, and catapults. Their gathering place in the late nineteenth century was in the space that existed between the palaces from the west, and the western Qashla appeared from the east, that is, east of the Saraya (1) and west of the Qashla, where they meet. Crowds of people were there, and the trebuchets and catapults were for the children. As for the catapults, they were a rectangular wooden box suspended from its four upper corners with strong, strong ropes and a crossbar three or four meters high, resting on sturdy legs. One or two men rode in the box and demonstrated their skill in making the stroke “k” and “high.” You would see around these games selling pickles, seeds, spira, musk, liquorice, ayran yoghurt and lemonade if the weather was hot. All of this is mixed with the children’s screaming behind the one who makes them move the dawkha or the flipper, saying: Uncle Muhammad, and the children respond with the refrain /yoyo/.

Lend me your horse - Bobo, to pull and ride - Yoyo, Ali Iskandar - Yoyo Iskandar died - Yoyo, behind the girls. Yoyo, her eyes are black - Yoyo, like gunpowder. Then he says to them, “Get up and come down.” They answer him, “What’s down?”