Researchers
Damascus
Damascus: the oldest continuously inhabited city in human memory, and the Umayyad caliphate's capital for nine decades. The Arameans built it in antiquity, Rome and Byzantium knew it, and Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan made it the heart of his state in 661 — from it the conquests went out to al-Andalus and Sindh. It holds the Umayyad Mosque over John's temple and the Jesus minaret where tradition says he will descend, the Hamidiyeh markets and the Nuri schools Nur al-Din built before Saladin, its old bathhouses and Arab lanes. It stayed the city of long memory: every era left a quarter or a stone, until it became Syria's open book on all its ages. She stayed in Islam's memory the Umayyads' city first — yet older and loftier than them: the Muslims' city entire, whatever age they came to her in.