Road to Jannah

Description of Souk Hamadiya

Souk Hamadiya is THE SOUK of Damascus. It is the biggest covered souk in the Middle East. It’s totally like famous There’s a main long throughfare that we call the tourist shark alley. It’s where all the tourists come through and every shop keeper yells out “welcome welcome!!” in heavy Arab accents and then proceed to totally rip you off. The stores in that area are very nice looking and remind me of an open air mall in the US.

Around this main avenue are blocks and blocks of different souks in every direction. There are shops and stands, free-standing carts and just ppl walking around with stuff hanging on their arms. One guy had fox skins on his arm! They sell everything from hijabs, jilbabs, books, stationary, toys, spices, dried fruit, soaps, candies, baklava, drinks, artwork, belly-dancing outfits!, swords, silver, wooden boxes and furniture, wedding dresses, lingerie, kids clothes, cloths, carpets.

There are also some very old mosques, maqaams, schools, khans and historical buildings in this area as it’s part of the Old City. Sometimes you just wander around and have no idea where you are and end up in some alleyway feeling like you’ve fallen into 1001 Arabian Nights or Aladdin.

I think I have many more pictures of the souk from my visit last time. InshaAllah I’ll add them here one day. Uh yeah about that picture with the juice guy RIGHT NEXT TO ME. I just wanted a picture of me making a drink from one of those press things, he just got really happy and got in the picture what could i do!!

There’s so much more to say about Souk Hamadiya and all the adventures we’ve had here, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

Link to the pictures of Souk Hamadiya