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Speech by Hazar Imam at Banquet in Damascus during the Golden Jubilee visit to Syria
August 23-30 2008

Dear President and Leaders of the Jamat

I would like to begin these short comments by sharing with you My sense of immense happiness on this Golden Jubilee visit to Syria.
It has brought to Me very, very great happiness because I can remember 1957 very well. I can remember 1958, 1959, 1960.- years in which Syria and the Jamat in Syria had very great problems ahead of them. And I compare where we are today and I say to myself “Alhamdullilah” we have made real progress.

Hazar Imam addressed the Syrian Jamati Leadership at a banquet in Damascus during His 2008 Golden Jubilee visit to Syria August 23-30-2008

In a strategic move this week, the state Hermitage Museum announced that Russia has partnered with Syria to restore 20 cultural artifacts from the National Museum of Palmyra that ISIS attempted to destroy over the last four years. A coalition will also look at rebuilding the historic sites of Palmyra damaged or destroyed by ISIS forces.

Children present His Highness the Aga Khan with flowers upon his arrival in Syria. Syrian Minister for Tourism, Sadallah Agha Al-Qala (Courtesy Minister) is overlooking.
AKDN / Gary Otte

Aleppo: On the domed roof of a historical market in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, architect Bassel Al Daher moves between workers painstakingly working to erase the scars of war.

Men wearing vests and helmets repair parts of the roof still bearing visible traces of the four-year-long battle for the former rebel stronghold.

They cover its charred surface with a fresh coat of white paint as part of a wider effort to rehabilitate the Saqatiya market, or souk in Arabic.

Hazar Imam meets with religious leaders in Damascus 2004-02-15

ga Khan Trust for Culture calls for condemnation of destruction to be reinforced by help on the ground

PALERMO - While the war continues in Syria, with regime bombing on besieged Eastern Ghouta and clashes between the Turkish army and the Kurdish YPG in the north, reconstruction has begun in Aleppo. A group of Italian engineers and experts have been transferred to the Syrian city to work with locals and teach them the necessary skills to restore the UNESCO World Heritage sites of the souq, minaret and Umayyad mosque.

Superflex’s Conceptual Hospital Exhibition Gets Put to Life-Saving Use—in a Syrian Operating Room
Victims of the raging civil war in Syria are undergoing surgery assisted by a work of conceptual art.

And I am only one individual, but I hope that there will be thousands of other people who will join me in recognising that we have to be proud, we have to be illustrative, we have to articulate the greatness of our histories. And within that greatness, Syria has a unique position

Director-General of Antiquities and Museums Dr. Maamoun Abdulkarim has given a lecture about Syrian heritage during the opening ceremony of an exhibition opened on October 15th in Toronto in Canada under the title “Syria is a Live History”.

He focused on the Syria heritage damaged during the foreign-backed terror war being waged on Syria and the measures adopted by the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) to protect historic sites in cooperation with civil community.

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Co-hosts of the Conference on Supporting Syria and the Region,

Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I thank the co-hosts for organising this much needed initiative to deepen the understanding of, and garner international support for the peoples of Syria, Alongside all those present here today, I am deeply distressed over the indiscriminate and widespread devastation of life and property, including that of irreplaceable cultural assets which are the manifestation of Syria’s stunningly rich pluralistic history.