It is part of our heritage that the Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian countryside was Arabized nine hundred years before the "Arab Conquest," and that the Arabs founded emirates and kingdoms in the lands of Syria and their neighborhood hundreds of years before Islam!

The Nabataeans were Arabs who spoke Arabic but wrote in Aramaic, for two reasons: the first, the absence of Arabic letters for writing; and the second, that the Aramaic language had already become an international language before their appearance in the world of civilization. The kings of Edessa were Arabs of pure stock who played a great role in the history of the relations between Rome and Persia. The famous Zenobia was an Arab, and her husband Wahballat was an Arab as well. The Arab element in her days made up nearly half of Palmyra. And in the middle of Palmyra, in their time, there arose a temple for the worship of Allat and Rahim.

The Ituraeans, who ruled the Bekaa and eastern Lebanon up to the approaches of Damascus, and western Lebanon down to the seacoast between Jbeil and Tartus, were Arabs also — in their language, their names, and their gods.

'Abjar' in the language means the big-bellied. The Abgars in history are the kings of Edessa. The most famous of the Abgars is Abgar the Fifth, who was a contemporary of the Lord the Savior. It is related in 'Tradition' that this Abgar suffered from an infirmity of the body that baffled the physicians. So he sent a delegation to the Lord Christ, asking him to come to Edessa to heal him

and to dwell in his city. The Lord answered him with a letter in which he blessed him and blessed his city, and promised to send one of his disciples to heal him in soul and body. Thomas the Apostle fulfilled this promise, sending his brother Addai to Edessa; and he healed the king and taught him the way of salvation. And he believed — he and his great men!

Talk of the Heart: A Summer Breeze

Nature is in a blazing flood of heat —

her face, from its scorching, drenched in sweat,

and the ears of wheat, at the peak of their ripeness, sway gracefully and rustle.

How lovely her blonde head! She tosses it coquettishly,

happy with the minutes remaining of her life...

not knowing what fate, tomorrow, will be hers!

And what power will pounce upon her and utterly crush... her ribs,

and put out her gentle hazel eyes,

and carry her off to inevitable extinction!!

And yesterday death visited our quarter —

it harvested heads blindly,

and swooped with its black talons upon a girl like a flower,

driving her — a cold body — to a grave dark and desolate,

as the storm drives the leaves of the trees into the rotting gutters,

heedless of a mother's wailing and a lover's burning grief —

I remembered, in the shudder of dreadful death,

the tale of the gentle blonde wheat-ear —

and I wondered at myself — a foolish, witless creature,

who seeks happiness with the hunger of the dog and its greed,

and rages and storms over the most trivial things!

And I felt the blood of health in my veins —

We praise Thee, O God, we praise Thee!

Safety first, then health and contentment we asked of Thee —

and let us take from the lessons of life a warning...