Ajlun

Went on an excursion yesterday to Ajlun – had lunch and then went to Salahdin’s Castle. So anyway, the site used to be a Byzantine church, but it was leveled by an earthquake and so Salahdin built a castle there. It was then taken by the Romans (?), then Mongols, then finally the Muslims again (or something like that, I can’t remember because I didn’t take any notes. So as usual, pictures.

Entrance – Stairway

Arrow Slits

Archways

Cistern

Internal Passageways (To Prison)

Internal passageways

View of First Tower from Inside Castle

Catapult balls

Passage to roof

View of Ajlun from roof – you can see all the way to Al-Aqsa in Palestine, snow on the mountains in Lebanon, and to Baghdad – on a clear day that is. We could just see snow on mountains in Lebanon. – 361-4

Second Tower and view towards Iraq

Islamic carvings inside castle

There was this little secret passageway we went through which got us back to the main entrance very quickly, but it was pitch black, and you had to jump down all these mini cliffs – we emerged covered in dust.

Secret Passageway Entrance

Didn’t get home till fairly late – we found Gloria Jeans *yay* so had coffee, then wondered around the area for about 3 hours, buying sweets and other assorted food. So Im tired today…I really wanted to go to the Abdali markets, but everyone else is to tired to so I guess I’ll have to leave that till next week insha’allah.

First day of classes tomorrow – it seems so strange having class on a Saturday. Our weekends are Friday and Monday…

Ma’a Salama