THE OLD CITY OF DAMAS-CUS. Part Two.

During Muham-Mad era, his first interaction with the people of Damas-Cus was when he sent Shiya Bin Wahab to Haris Bin Ghasani the king of Damas-Cus during the Expedition of Zaid Ibn Haritha (Hisma), that took place in October, 628 CE, 6th month of 7AH of the Islamic calendar. The attack was a response to Dih-Yah Bin Khalifa Kalbi's call for help, after being attack by robbers. Muslims retaliated and killed many of the robbers and captured 100 tribe members. In his epistle to the Byzantine Emperor, Heraclius, Muham-Mad wrote:"In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. From Muham-Mad, the slave of Allah and His Messenger to Hercules, king of the Byzantines. Blessed are those who follow true guidance. I invite you to embrace Islam so that you may live in security. If you come within the fold of Islam, Allah will give you double reward, but in case you turn your back upon it, then the burden of the sins of all your people shall fall on your shoulders. To proceed: submit yourself, and you shall be safe. Submit yourself, and God shall give you your reward twice over. But, if you turn away, the sin of the Husband-Men shall be upon you."
After most of the Syrian countryside was conquered by the Rash-Idun Cali-Phate, Damascus itself was conquered by the Muslim-Arab general Khalid Ibn Al-Walid in 635CE. Then the Byzantines alarmed at the loss of their most prestigious city in the Near East, decided to wrest back control of it. While the Mulims administered the city, the population remained mostly Christian (Eastern Orthodox and Monophy-Site) with a growing community of Muslims from Mecca, Medina, and the Syrian Desert.
On 25 August 750 CE, the Abba-Sids, having already beaten the Umay-Yads in the Battle of Zab in Iraq, conquered Damas-Cus after facing little resistance. With the heralding of the Abba-Sid Caliphate, Damas-Cus became eclipsed and subordinated by Bagh-Dad, the new Islamic capital. Due to their inability to control the vast amount of land they occupied a new Dynasty, the Ikh-Shidids, took control of the city. They maintained the independence of Damas-Cus from the Arab Ham-Danid Dynasty of Aleppo and the Bagh-Dad-based Abbasids until 967 CE.
With the arrival of the Sel-Juq Turks in the late 11th century, Damascus again became the capital of independent states. It was ruled by Abu Sa'id Taj Ad-Dawla Tutush I starting in 1079 and he was succeeded by his son Abu Nasr Duqaq in 1905. The city saw an expansion of religious life through private endowments financing religious institutions (madrasas) and hospitals (maristans). Damascus soon became one of the most important centers of propagating Islamic Thought in the Muslim World.
Damas-Cus experienced stability, elevated status and a revived role in commerce. The city's Sun-Ni majority enjoyed being a part of the larger Sun-Ni framework effectively governed by various Turkic Dynasties who in turn were under the "moral authority" of the Bagh-Dad-based Abba-Sids.
While the rulers were preocupied in conflict with their fellow Sel-Juqs in Aleppo and Diyar-Bakir, the Crusaders (mostly French), arrived in the Levant in 1097, conquering Jerusalem, Mount Lebanon and Palestine. With military support from Sha-Raf Al-Din Mawdud of Mosul, Togh-Tekin managed to halt Crusader raids in the Golan and Hauran. Mawdud was assassinated in the Umay-Yad Mosque in 1109. depriving Damas-Cus of Northern Muslim backing and forcing Togh-Tekin to a truce. Following his death in 1128CE, his son became the new ruler. Coincidentally, the Sel-juq prince of Mosul, I-Mad Al-Din Zen-Gi, took power in Aleppo and gained a mandate from the Abba-Sids to extend his authority to Damas-Cus. In 1129, around 6000 Isma'IlMuslims were killed in the city along with their leaders. Soon after the massacre (a rumor took place that the Isma'Ilis were aiding the Crusaders), the Crusaders aimed to take advantage of the unstable situation and launch an assault against Damas-Cus with nearly 60,000 troops.  Buri allied with Zen-Gi and prevented it. Buri was assassinated by Isma'Ili agents in 1132CE. His son Shams Al-Din Mah-Mud Isma'Il ruled tyrannically until he was murdered in 1135 on secret orders from his mother, his brother, Shihab Al-Din Mah-Mud, replaced him. His reign ended in 1139 after his was killed by members of his own family.
Zen-Gi conquered Edessa in 1144, a Crusader stronghold. Zen-Gi was assassinated and his territory divided among his sons, one of whom, Nur Ad-Din, emir of Aleppo, made an alliance with Damas-Cus. In 1164, King Amalric of Jerusalem invaded Fatimid Egypt, which requested help from Nur Ad-Din. He sent his general Shir-Kuh, and in 1166 Amalric was defeated at the Battle of Al-Babein. When the general died in 1169, he was succeeded by his nephew Yusuf, better known as Sal-Adin, who defeated a joint crusader-Byzantine siege of Dam-Ietta. Sal-Adin eventually overthrew the Fatimid Caliphs and established himself as Sultan of Egypt. He allso began to assert his independence from Nur Ad-Din, and with the death of both Amalric and Nur Ad-Din in 1174, he was placed to begin exerting control over Damas-Cus and other Syrian possessions. In 1187 he launched a full invasion of Jerusalem and annihilated the crusader army at the Battle of Hat-Tin. After Acre fell to Sal-Adin, Jerusalem itself was captured in October. The events shocked Europe provoking the 3rd Crusade in 1189, led by Richard I of England, Philip II of France, and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, though the last drowned en route. The surviving ones joined the new arrivals from Europe, then put Acre to siege which lasted until 1191. After recapturing Acre, Richard defeated Sal-Adin at the Battle of Ar-Suf in 1191 and the Battle of Jaffa in 1192, recovering most of the coast but not Jerusalem or any of the inland territory of the Kingdom. The Crusade came to an end peacefully with the treaty of Ram-La in 1192.
Sal-Adin allowed pilgrimages to be made to Jerusalem. Sal-Adin died in 1193 and there were frequent conflicts between different Ay-Yubid Sultans ruling Damas-Cus and Cairo. Damas-Cus was the capital
of independent Ay-Yubid rulers from 1193 to 1260. Their rule came to an end with the Mongol invasion of Syria and following the Mongol defeat in the same year. The Black Death of 1348-1349 killed as much as half of the city's population.
In 1400 Timur, the Turco-Mongol conqueror, besieged Damas-Cus. The Umay-Yad Mosque was burnt and women taken into slavery. A huge number of the city's artisans were taken to Timur's capital at Sam-Ark-And. Many were slaughtered and their heads piled up in a field outside the North-East corner of the walls, where a city square still bears the name "the tower of heads"(Burj Al-Ru'us).
In early 1516, the Ottoman Turks started a campaign of conquest against the Mamluk Sultanate. The Ottomans remained for the next 400 years. In 1915-1916 the hanging of a number of patriotic intellectuals by the governor of Damas-Cus stoked "nationalist feeling" and in 1918, as the forces of the Arab Revolt and the British Forces approached, residents fired on the retreating Turkish Troops. On 1st October 1918, T.E. Lawrence entered Damascus, the 3rd arrival of the day, the 1st being the Australian 3rd Light Horse Brigade.  Two days later, 3 October 1918, the forces of the Arab revolt led by Prince Faysal also entered Damas-Cus. Political tension rose in November 1917, when the new Bolshe-Vik government in Russia revealed the Sykes-Picot Agreement whereby Britain and France had arranged to partition the Arab East between them (the 3 Monarchies involved were interrelated). A new Franco-British proclamation came through promising the "complete freedom  of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks." In 1920 the French army entered Damas-Cus. The french made Damas-Cus capital of their League of Nations Mandate for Syria. The French agreed to withdraw in 1946, thus leading to the "full independence" of Syria. Damas-Cus remained its capital.
Thomas Edward Lawrence (16August 1888-19May1935) was a British renowned for his liaison during  the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the Arab Revolt againstOttoman Turkish rule. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia -a title used for the 1962 film based on his First World War activities.