My last few days in Damascus were dominated by studying for the final exam, and trying to write my 2000 word essay, in Arabic, about the role of Jesus in Islam and Christianity, actually a process of simplifying and translating an essay I’d written in first year, as finding the sources to write a new essay from scratch in Syria seemed like far more trouble than it was worth. Nevertheless we found time to have plenty of fun in between, including a visit to the Umayyad mosque for the Eid morning prayer, which Sam and Tamsin’s housemate Abdu invited us to, telling us everyone was welcome to attend. Unfortunately he subsequently informed us, at 5.30am the next morning when we arrived at the house, that only Muslims could attend, and that we would have to all
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