Knowledge leaves a trace
that endures and is rediscovered

What truly drove me to enter the digital world, despite my limited familiarity with it, to consider opening my library and gradually publishing everything it holds—photographs, video or audio recordings, and documents concerning my village, Yohmor al-Chaqif, and its people—and to place all my records before the public, was this earthquake that struck the villages of Amila, including my own, whose every detail nestles deep within my heart. It was as though all the world’s evils and evildoers had come together against the people of our region, seeking to erase memory and every trace of it, and to uproot human lives. But never, never…

After thousands of defenders fell as martyrs, after dozens of villages in Amila were looted and then wiped out, ancient olive trees stolen, and orchards and farms burned, the Genghis Khan of our age surpassed his master by bulldozing cemeteries, roads, historic remains, old houses, and everything beautiful.

Because the struggle between good and evil began with creation and will end only when creation ends, future generations have a right to expect us—not our enemies—to record every detail of our present, so that it may be a light and a guide, shortening the distance they must travel through time and helping them know what they must do.

After all that has happened and is still happening to our village, changing every landmark that once delighted our eyes and every place that speaks of its love to those who love it: from the river to the castle, from the plain to al-Nabouʿ, from Safita Castle to al-Dabsh, from the old mosque to the new one, by way of the Husseini club and the school built by the villagers; from the innermost heart to loved ones laid in the soil of its resting place.

That is why I felt duty-bound to place all my documents before the people of my village and researchers from Amila. It is in the details of life that history’s meanings and significance become complete.

It is also a call to all thinkers, people of culture, and artists to roll up their sleeves, and to everyone who holds documents about their villages to publish them—and indeed to record every detail of our lives before it is lost with the passing days and years. This is our national and human duty toward the land of Amila, which has embraced thousands of bodies in its soil. A ferocious war is being waged against memory with every means humanity has devised, yet deep in our hearts is the rooted belief that we are the ones who remain and they are merely passing through. By God, they will not erase our remembrance.