BEIT AL MAMLOUKA SUITES, DAMASCUS, SYRIA

BEIT AL MAMLOUKA SUITES 5*(OLD ARABIC HOUSE)                     

Location: Damascus, Old City, Bab Toma, Syria               

 Version française       اللغة العربية

Book now, Pay on check out              

SPECIAL RATES           DISCOUNT UP TO 70%            

CONDITIONS

• Rates are quoted in US Dollars per room per night and include breakfast, service charges and all governmental taxes.

• Rates are valid till December 31, 2010.

HOW TO MAKE A RESERVATION IN BEIT AL MAMLOUKA SUITES DAMASCUS:

To make a reservation, please send full names of passengers, nationality, your telephone number, check in date, arrival time, check out date, room type by e-mail to:

reservation@newsteps-travel.com

Your request will  be processed very shortly : from 1 to 8 hours if your request reaches us at night!

For phone booking or last minute booking ,please call :

00961 4 713 467 or  00961 4 716 467 or 00961 4 716 649 or 00961 4 716 649

LOCATION

DESCRIPTION OF AL MAMLOUKA SUITES IN DAMASCUS

The hotel consists of 8 bedrooms (two singles, two doubles and four suites), with a courtyard, terraces and private patios.

The hotel features an Old Bayke (stable) converted into a gallery, restaurant and bar. On show on the walls are local art exhibitors for sale and hand painted verses of old Arabic poetry drawn on it.

This little gem of a boutique hotel in the heart of Damascus can also be hired out in its entirety or for official functions such as dinners and wedding receptions.

 The hotel dates back to the 17th century and boasts original features from the 18th century, together with a mid 16th century archway. One of the suites, Suleiman the Magnificent, contains its own fountain in the shape of a rose and an original 230 year old Christian fresco on the ceiling. The hotel is unstinting in its style and blends tradition with luxury. Each room is exotically entitled and decorated in traditional Syrian style using local products. Brocade is used to make the curtains and the beds are fitted with Damascene quilts. Bathrooms are fitted with hand made and painted tiles and drawings.

Step out of such luxury and you will be within minutes walk from the rambling souks where you can see the corrugated-iron roofs and all the ancient culture that the old city has to offer.

ACCOMMODATION AT AL MAMLOUKA SUITES IN DAMASCUS

Rooms & Suites

Rooms offer exceptional grace and comfort and all give views over either the hotel’s central courtyard terrace or the hotel’s terraces. Suites range in size but the largest and most famous is the Suleiman Suite. Large, pampering bathrooms in mosaic style marble and tiles echo the Mamlouk period of the hotel's origins.

All rooms have a custom-built entertainment that includes a television with satellite channels and the Internet. Rooms are fitted with air-conditioning units for the summer months and a mini-bar.

Description of the rooms:

Baybars I (1233-1277), Mamluk Sultan of Egypt (1260-1277), originally a Turkish slave who rose to power through military skill. In 1260 he led the Mamluks against the Mongols at the Battle of Ayn Jalut, Palestine. Shortly afterwards he killed the Sultan and assumed supreme control. During his rule Egypt became the most powerful Muslim state in the Middle East.

Baybars waged a successful war against the Crusaders in Syria and in 1268 put an end to the Norman principality of Antioch. His armies overran Armenia and penetrated deeply into Asia Minor, defeating the Seljuk Turks and remnants of the Assassins (a secret society of Muslims during the Crusades). His power towards the south extended over Nubia and he controlled most of Arabia. His exploits gave rise to many legends, the most famous of which is the Romance of Baybars.

Ibn Rished “Averros” in Arabic, Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd (1126-98), Spanish-Arab Islamic philosopher, jurist and physician, was born in Cordoba, Spain. His father, a judge in Cordoba, instructed him in Muslim jurisprudence. He studied theology, philosophy and mathematics under the Arab philosopher Ibn Tufayl and medicine under the Arab physician Avenzoar.

Averros was appointed a judge in Seville in 1169 and in Cordoba in 1171. In 1182 he became chief physician to Abu Yaqub Yusuf, the Almohad caliph of Morocco and Muslim Spain. Averros’ view that reason takes precedence over religion led to his being exiled in 1195 by Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur. He was released shortly before his death.

Averros held that metaphysical truths can be expressed in two ways, through philosophy, as represented by the views of Aristotle, and through religion. He rejected the concept of a creation of the world in the history of time; the world, he maintained, has no beginning. God is the supreme creator, the force that stimulates all motion, who transforms the potential into the actual. The individual human soul emanates from the one universal soul.

Averros' extensive commentaries on the works of Aristotle were translated into Latin and Hebrew. They greatly influenced the Scholastic school of philosophy in medieval Europe and medieval Jewish philosophy. His main independent work was Tahafut al-Tahafut (Incoherence of the Incoherence), a rebuttal of the attack on Neoplatonic and Aristotelian philosophy by the Islamic theologian al-Ghazali. Averros also wrote books on medicine, astronomy, law and grammar.

Suleyman I, called The Magnificent (1494-1566), a sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1520-1566). During his reign the empire reached its zenith of power and splendour.

Suleyman was born on November 6, 1494, in Trabzon (Trebizond), the son of Selim I. In 1521, at the beginning of his reign, Suleyman captured the city of Belgrade (now in Serbia). The following year he repelled the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, a military and religious order, from the Island of Rhodes in the Aegean Sea. In 1526 he again invaded Hungary, killing Louis II, King of Hungary, and incapacitating the Hungarian army at the Battle of Moha¡cs. He returned to Hungary in 1529 as the supporter of John I Zapolya, who had been elected king by the Hungarian nobility, but whose claim was contested by Archduke Ferdinand of Austria (later Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I). Ferdinand was driven back into Vienna, which Suleyman then attempted to besiege. He was unsuccessful, thus limiting the extent of his invasion into central Europe.

Suleyman next directed his arms against Iran. In 1534 he conquered the cities of Tabraz and Baghdad. In 1535 he concluded an alliance with Francis I, King of France, against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The treaty opened the commerce of the Levant to the French flag alone and as a result of the agreement diplomatic relations between France and the Ottoman Empire lasted for centuries.

In 1541 Suleyman again invaded Hungary, capturing Buda and incorporating all of central Hungary into his empire. Two years later the combined French and Ottoman fleets ravaged the Italian coasts and pilled into Nice. The Ottomans were now supreme in the Mediterranean. In 1551 Tripoli fell into their hands. A second and third war with Iran, an unsuccessful siege of Malta in 1565, and another expedition to Hungary in 1566 were the principal events of the later years of Suleyman's reign. He died conquering Szigetva¡r in Hungary on September 7, 1566.

Suleyman is considered the greatest of Ottoman sultans. He excelled as an administrator, earning the title Kanuni and was an influential patron of the arts and sciences. At his death the Ottoman Empire controlled much of the Balkans, Northern Africa, and the Middle East, and was the ruling power on the Mediterranean Sea.

Ibn Sina “Avicenna”, Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina, (980-1037), Iranian Islamic philosopher and physician, born near Bukhara (now Uzbekistan). The son of a government official, Avicenna studied medicine and philosophy in Bukhara. At the age of 18 he was rewarded for his medical abilities with the post of court physician to the Samanid ruler of Bukhara. He remained in this position until the fall of the Samanid Empire in 999. After that he travelled and lectured on astronomy and logic at Jurjan, near the Caspian Sea. He spent the last 14 years of his life as a scientific adviser and physician to the ruler of Isfahan.

Regarded by Muslims as one of the greatest Islamic philosophers, Avicenna is an important figure in the fields of medicine and philosophy. His work The “Canon of Medicine” was used in the Middle East and in Europe as a textbook. It is significant as a systematic classification and summary of medical and pharmaceutical knowledge up to and including Avicenna's time. The first Latin translation of the work was made in the 12th century, the Hebrew version appeared in 1491, and the Arabic text in 1593, the second text ever printed in Arabic.

Avicenna's best-known philosophical work is Kitab ash-Shifa (Book of Healing), a collection of treatises on Aristotelian logic, metaphysics, psychology, the natural sciences, and other subjects. Avicenna's own philosophy was based on a combination of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. Contrary to orthodox Islamic thought, Avicenna denied personal immortality, God's interest in individuals, and the creation of the world in time. Because of his views, Avicenna became the main target of an attack on such philosophy by the Islamic philosopher al-Ghazali. Nevertheless, Avicenna's philosophy remained influential throughout the Middle Ages.

Harun ar-Rashid (766-809), was the fifth caliph (786-809) of the Abbasid dynasty of Baghdad. He was the son of the third Abbasid caliph, al-Mahdi, and succeeded to the throne on the death of his brother al-Hadi. The period of his reign marked a notable development of culture. Until 803 administrative power was entrusted to Yahya ibn-Khalid (died around 803), the grand vizier, or councillor of state, and head of the illustrious family of the Barmecides. Baghdad, the capital of Harun's realm, became the most flourishing city of the period. Tribute was paid to the caliph by many rulers, and splendid edifices were erected in his honour at enormous cost. He is said to have exchanged gifts with Charlemagne. Harun was a generous patron of learning, poetry, and music, and his court was visited by the most eminent Muslims of the age. He was celebrated in countless songs and stories, and is perhaps best known to the Western world as the caliph whose court is described in the Arabian Nights.

From 791 to 809 Harun's empire was at war with the Byzantine Empire, and in 807 his forces occupied the Byzantine province of Cyprus. Towards the end of his reign Harun was influenced to depose the Barmecides, and in 803 he imprisoned the grand vizier. The caliph died while on his way to put down an insurrection in the eastern part of his empire.

Aghia Sophia, also Church of the Holy Wisdom, the most famous Byzantine structure in Constantinople (now Istanbul), built (532-37) by Emperor Justinian I, and now a museum. Its huge size and daring technical innovations make it one of the world's key monuments

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