Interjection: I am Jordanian, though now I hold Saudi citizenship.
Shaykh: But originally…
Interjection: My father is Saudi and my mother Jordanian, yet I am—Jordanian…
Shaykh: What I meant by the question was: have you lived in Jordan?
Interjection: Of course—forty years.
Shaykh: That is what I was getting at. You must have heard of the shrine of Ibn …
Interjection: Yes.
Shaykh: Good! Have you seen that enormous tomb they built?
Interjection: Yes.
Shaykh: The whole business—people flock to it, visit it, and seek Allah’s favor through it. This calamity exists in every country on earth, and Shaykh al-Shaʿrāwī and Kishk do not utter a single word about it. Why? Because they do not wish to confront the masses; they fear the people would turn away from them, whereas they win hearts with that sweet, honeyed speech. In Damascus there is some of this; in Aleppo something even darker. As for … well, I am originally Albanian, then Damascene, then Jordanian, so I know these lands. Each one has—what shall we say?—its virtue or its plague. Syria, of course, has well-known centers such as Damascus and Aleppo, with Homs, Hama, and so on in between. In Aleppo there is a large Umayyad mosque comparable to the Umayyad Mosque in the capital, Damascus. In the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus they claim that John (Prophet Yaḥyā, peace be upon him) is buried; in the Umayyad Mosque of Aleppo they claim—so they say—that his father, Zechariah, is buried. Both graves are deliberately sought out.