[Editor and translator's introduction]: On account of its beautiful historical ruins, including an ancient church, the originally Druze village of Qalb Lawze in the Jabal al-Summaq area of north Idlib countryside is one of my favourite villages in all of Syria. Regrettably though, it was also the site of a dreadful massacre of many of the original villagers in 2015. In this guest post, 'Odoacer', who resides in Qalb Lawze and has previously written for my site, provides some updates from the village, in particular regarding the new 'al-Nur' mosque and the mobile hospital. Any parenthetical insertions in square brackets are my own.
The al-Nur mosque in Qalb Lawze
The place is in the village of Qalb Laeze which contains its ancient well known church.
The time is 2021.
The people of the original inhabitants (who are Druze monotheists) participated and bought land and built the pillars and the walls for the land. The support was offered for the project from the Turkish Awqaf Ministry [i.e. the Turkish Diyanet]. This mosque was built alongside the ancient church. Perhaps there will be in it good for all and light and blessing.
On this land have passed many beliefs, for there are on the land of this village ruins that go back to the Hittite period and ruins of the worship of the Sun and sanctification of some of the animals through drawings of the lions and oxen.
Then in the Roman era with the temples tha worship the gods in the time of the Greeks.
Then the church was built in the fourth or fifth century AD approximately.
Then this region became inhabited by a minority of the Druze monotheists whose time goes back to the era of the Fatimid state.
And now after the events of 2011 in Syria and the displacement of a great number of the Muslims to the northern region in the countrysides of Idlib and Aleppo in the Jabal al-Summaq region and what is known as Jabal al-'Ala and the increase in the number of worshippers, this mosque was built.
Qalb Lawze Hospital
After three years of the existence of the hospital in the village of Qalb Lawze, which was established with support from the German GIZ NGO, this hospital has been moved from the village to another place. The hospital was serving the region of Jabal al-Summaq and Barisha, around 200,000 people and an area in dire need. And it has transformed into a clinic for primary health care. Note the Jabal al-Summaq area is suffering from poverty and difficult livelihood circumstances.
We do not know for certain the reasons that led to that, but possibly among them:
Lack of compliance of the staff who were working in it and they are from outside this area and their disdain for work, which led to a small number of patients coming to see, and also the supporting NGO cancelled the support and among them also the Idlib health directorate and its erroneous decisions in the distribution of the medical map in Idlib in that the focus must be on the regions most in need from the towns, or lack of cooperation of the Salvation Government and its intervention in the hospital, which led to the stop of support, because it is located in an area controlled by it.
As a result we do not know what was the reason, but we know whoso has paid the price: it is the poor citizen and the displaced person, and the resident who has suffered what he has suffered from ethnic discrimination and persecution and takfir and high cost of living and lack of income.
The decisions of the opposition in the areas they have seized from the regime and the oppression it has engaged in, will be reflected on its future, because without justice states do not arise, and if you claim something and do something negating that, ethics and values will collapse, and the land will fall.