September 5, 2014 Friday

Very hot in my house, a/c down.  Went for a walk, it was glorious.  Nice breeze.


James chapter 4 -  Living for God is the title, but I think God lives for us too, even more.  Be confident in your faith and trust in God, He will care for you here and in the life to come.


On this day:
1975 - I had been dating Pete for 3 years.  We had a terrible relationship, but neither of us could give it up.  On this day for the last 3 years it would be - Pete called and hung up on me, or I called Pete and hung up.  Why we do that to ourselves I have no idea, but I think it has something to do with laundry.  On all of these days while I was battling with him, I would have to do laundry.  You can figure that out, I can't.  Fighting with Pete and doing laundry seemed to go hand in hand.
1698 - Russia's Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards.  Okay, this makes as much sense as that Pete I had around that had a full red beard and was Russian.


Parenting - Pete, as a matter of fact had an interesting parentage.  His mother and grandmother that were very Russian, who lived next door to each other while he was growing up, fought over him.  They both vied for his attention and he knew how to play it.  It finally got so bad that they would not talk to each other.  They both made me promise that if they died I would not let the other come to their funeral.  Honest.  Tell you about that another time.


Damascus:  I really think this is interesting.

Islamic Arab era[edit]

Courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque

After most of the Syrian countryside was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate during the reign of Caliph Umar, Damascus itself was conquered by the Muslim-Arab general Khalid ibn al-Walid in September–August 635 CE. His army had previously attempted to capture the city in April 634, but without success.^[22] With Damascus now in Muslim-Arab hands, the Byzantines, alarmed at the loss of their most prestigious city in the Near East, had decided to wrest back control of it. Under Emperor Heraclius, the Byzantines fielded an army superior to that of the Rashidun in manpower. They advanced into southern Syria during the spring of 636 and consequently Khalid ibn al-Walid's forces withdrew from Damascus to prepare for renewed confrontation.^[23] In August, the two powers met along the Yarmouk River where they a fought a major battle which ended in a decisive Muslim victory, solidifying the latter's rule in Syria and Palestine.^[24]
While the Muslims administered the city, the population of Damascus remained mostly Christian—Eastern Orthodox and Monophysite—with a growing community of Muslims from Mecca, Medina, and the Syrian Desert.^[25] The governor assigned to the city which had been chosen as the capital of Islamic Syria was Mu'awiya I. After the death of Caliph Ali in 661, Mu'awiya was chosen as the caliph of the expanding Islamic empire. Because of the vast amounts of assets his clan, the Ummayads, owned in the city and because of its traditional economic and social links with the Hijaz as well as the Christian Arab tribes of the region, Mu'awiya established Damascus as the capital of the entire Caliphate.^[26] With the ascension of Caliph Abd al-Malik in 685, an Islamic coinage system was introduced and all of the surplus revenue of the Caliphate's provinces were forwarded to the treasury of Damascus. Arabic was also established as the official language, giving the Muslim minority of the city an advantage over the Aramaic-speaking Christians in administrative affairs.^[27] It is critical to note that, at the time Damascus was conquered by the Muslims, the majority of Arabs were either pagans or Christians. Damascus itself was predominantly Aramaic with Arab speaking people.


Enjoy the day!  Make it memorable!