War Alone Does Not Define Aleppo: Ammar’s Story

Aleppo has a long history with trade and industry. It was part of the ancient Silk Road and an important administrative center of the Ottoman Empire, literally at the crossroads of cultures. Textile production was an important craft: During Ottoman times, the work was done by hand; later, when the French came to Syria, they brought with electricity and machinery, as did the Germans. Since that time the textile sector and industry overall has thrived in Aleppo, where there is a culture of problem-solving and unceasing opportunities. From early adulthood, young men work on textile or printing machines, learning their craft bit by bit until they perfect their skills. After three to five years, they either buy a small machine and become a small-business owner, or they team up with another business and become a partner. 

Having ambition and drive is the usual thing to have in Aleppo. My name is Ammar and I am part of this culture.

Bab al-Hadid, the neighborhood in which I grew up, was an important district in the old city within eastern Aleppo. When I was in secondary school there I wanted to be an engineer like my father. I would leaf through my father’s engineering textbooks, mesmerized by the yellowing pages heavy with typeset printing spilling the theories of electrical engineering, diagrams, and charts. 

In September 2012, when the rebel groups captured Bab al Hadid, my life turned to hell. This is what it was like living under ISIS. People in military uniform were at the roundabout. They were on every street and inside every mosque. Missiles and bullets landed very close to my home, but my family braved the storm. I saw a boy I knew pushing his brother in a wheelchair. His leg had been amputated. That image was now common across Aleppo and perhaps the country. I put together a motor for a wheelchair to help my paralyzed grandmother be more mobile, and volunteered as an electrician’s assistant. The fear of possibly dying at any moment pushed me even more to do something with my life. 

My family was displaced to Membej, a village outside of Aleppo which was being administered by the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Almost immediately it was captured by ISIS. We lived there for three years before moving back to Aleppo in 2015 so that I could finish high school.

When we returned to our city, the war was still going on but it had slowed down. I barely recognized it.  My family’s house had been partially destroyed. I was afraid my name would come up on the army reserve list and I wouldn’t be able to take my high school exam. I knew I had to find a way to “be somebody” or I would have to serve in the army. Even through those years, I recall being hopeful. I wanted to do a PhD in Malaysia because they didn’t require a visa from Syrians. Malaysia is a Muslim country and I thought maybe there I could build a new life and have my own family. Russia was also giving many scholarships to Syrian students, and I remember thinking about how I might apply. I still wanted to study technology. The first week I was back in Aleppo, I taught myself 3D Max by watching tutorials on YouTube. Learning software was my way of feeling hopeful and responsible for rebuilding my hometown. 

I settled into a former sewing shop underground in the Sulaimanieh District. Before the war, Sulaimanieh was a liberal Christian neighborhood filled with art and artists and where women had a great deal of freedom. Now it lay on the border between the eastern and western parts of the city, dangerously close to the front. My new home was dark and windowless and cramped with rolls of cotton cloth of many colors: red, violet, white, and black. The owner of the sewing shop had sought asylum in Norway and was granted refugee status, so the shop was untouched from the night he left. Power came on only two hours a day and some days not at all. My parent’s financial situation was very dire: I didn’t have enough money to buy candles and I didn’t want to burden my family with the cost. Alone in the sewing shop, I lived by battery light, and when my battery died I walked to my uncle’s home on King Faisal Street to charge it. Darkness offered physical and psychological isolation, so I would cram my studies to finish before 10 p.m., in case the battery ran out. If the battery ran out while I was awake, I would experience the true horror of being in complete darkness. Meanwhile, the war was burning up the identity of Aleppo the way a recycling plant processes plastic and glass. Missiles and bombs were going off in different parts of the city. Even when missiles didn’t crash near me, I heard the sound of firing and crashing. If living in a war zone for my youth wasn’t hard enough, then sleeping underground in an industrial space without electricity felt like being brought into the clutches of the devil. To alleviate my loneliness, I went to the Al Tawheed mosque to study, see some light, and save the battery of my lamp for the night. The mosque was spacious, with four minarets. Across the street from each minaret, there was a church. This had been a neighborhood, before the war, that embodied the peaceful coexistence of religions. 

I thought often during this time of Mohamad’s farewell sermon, the last words from the prophet. Even during this period of lawlessness, I could fall back on his words, and they gave me peace and helped me find my own garden in life. ISIS disfigured Islam in unrepairable ways. ISIS troops created so much evil on the land and spilled so much blood that even Muslims started to denounce Islam when they saw ISIS in action: property destruction and beheadings. 

When I returned to Aleppo, I was so scared that I wouldn’t be able to catch up on all the studies that I had missed during the time that we were in Membej, but I was able to pass my high school exam. I was accepted into engineering school at the University of Aleppo, and it opened a new chapter in my life. I felt had done my job and I had faith in God. During the first few weeks of university, I was nervous and didn’t want to speak with other people, but in the second term I made new friends and specialized in civil engineering. Still, every day, I would say goodbye to my new friends as if it were the last time I would see them. Missiles crosshatched the sky like the stars in a Van Gogh painting. 

I don’t expect to be happy. I just want to be productive, and the university has helped me feel that I can be. I find myself hoping that that war in Syria will bring something positive, like the industrial and scientific revolutions that happened in Germany and Japan after World War II.

Having ambition and drive is the usual thing to have in Aleppo. I am part of this culture.

This essay was submitted prior to the 2024 revolution in Syria that began with the attack on Aleppo, November 29, 2024.