Hasan M Yusuf wrote:
I am not asking this question to you, dear reader, but to myself. The more I read about my Syria, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was ignorant of it.
Today, Wednesday, a friend of mine congratulated me on the occasion of the Syrian New Year 6772, which falls on Friday, April 1, 2022.
It is true that I had previously read a lot about Syria, visited all parts of it and wrote about some of its secrets, but the congratulations made me focus my readings on the Syrian New Year. So I discovered that I knew many details of the story without knowing the story itself. My shortcomings about the history of my country teasing me, so I had no choice but to ask myself again: Are you worthy of being Syrian!
The first thing that stopped me was that the Syrian calendar is a thousand years ahead of the Hebrew calendar and the ancient Pharaonic calendar by five hundred years, and it is linked to the myths of fertility emanating from the conditions of nature and the succession of seasons.
The Syrian calendar is linked to Ishtar, the goddess, the first mother and giver of life, the morning and evening star at the same time.
The goddess described by ancient texts as “in her mouth lies the secret of life, and her smile spreads security and tranquility in the soul.
Ishtar, which in legend is called “Umm Al Zulf”. She is the same Umm al-Zalf, to whom people still sing in the countryside of Syria: “Ala’ al-Zalf, Zalfa, Yamulia.” Yes, we sing for Ishtar without realizing it.
The word “Zalf” means in Syriac many things, the first of which is: “clothes, adornment, beauty..etc.” As for the word “mollya” it means: “fertility, abundance, fullness, saturation…etc.” These meanings are all related to Ishtar, mother, earth and nature.
The Syrian New Year celebrations begin on the twenty-first of March. The first four days of them are devoted to presenting plays and telling legends. Then religious celebrations begin to culminate in the Syrian New Year’s Day on the first of April, and then continue until the tenth of it. During all this time it was forbidden for people to reprimand children, punish slaves, carry out daily chores, or convene courts. What surprised me is that the names of the Syrian months have remained the same since antiquity and are related to the cycle of nature.
The Syrian New Year celebrations begin on the twenty-first of March. The first four days of them are devoted to presenting plays and telling legends. Then religious celebrations begin to culminate in the Syrian New Year’s Day on the first of April, and then continue until the tenth of it. During all this time it was forbidden for people to reprimand children, punish slaves, carry out daily chores, or convene courts.
What surprised me is that the names of the Syrian months have remained the same since ancient times and are related to the cycle of nature; March, in which celebrations begin, is the month of blossom, April – spring, May – light, June – wheat harvest, July – the loss of fertile lover Ishtar, September “Ululu” The month of wail on “July” due to the demise of its fertility…etc..
It is true that the emperors of Rome when they ruled this land tried to impose their names on our calendar like Julius and Augustus, but their mark faded with their demise.
My friend thinks that this New Year’s celebration has been taken away from us three times; The first is when the Julian calendar is imposed, the second is when the lunar calendar is imposed, and the third is when Charles IX, King of France, ordered four hundred and fifty years ago to adopt the Gregorian calendar and to transfer the New Year from the first of April to the first of January.
The Syrian New Year was called “April fool”, a phrase that was used for anyone who forgets that the New Year was moved from April 1 to January 1. What saddens the soul is that, due to our negligence, we went along with our opponents in mocking our heritage, so we adopted the first of April as a day of lies, ignorant that it is the Syrian New Year that our ignorance has lost!
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