Magarat Ad-Damm (the cave of first blood)

The video theming archive “The Mysteries of Mount Qasioun“. It tells about two unusual places on the territory of Syria, associated with the Old Testament legend of Cain and Abel, described in the Bible and the Quran, which has its own “folk” version¹ – places of active pilgrimage of Muslims, including Iranian Shiites. The material is full of interesting little-known information and is made in the genre of a film-reflection on the moral and ethical closeness of the two major religions of the Middle East – Islam and Christianity. The story is told through the mouths of the Moutahaddeth², who have passed down the original (opposite the biblical) version of the first fratricide at the scene of the crime in the “Cave of First Blood” on Mount Qasioun and at Abel’s tomb from generation to generation over many centuries.
“Magarat Ad-Damm” is the “cave of first blood” on Mount Qasioun, near Damascus.
According to local legend, this is where the first fratricide in biblical history took place when Cain killed his brother Abel (Genesis 4.8; Quran 5:30-33). However, from the words of another hereditary custodian of the maqam “Khadim Al-Aarbain” named Fathi Safi, it follows that the true motives of the first crime differ from those given in the Biblical sources: in fact, the murder was committed out of jealousy, when Cain and Abel did not share their own sister.
This place has another name, Maqam Aarbain (the camp of the forty). According to one version, forty Muslim men who fell in battle with the Crusaders entered and disappeared here in the cave “Magarat Al-Ju” (the cave of hunger). “… They are called vicars of God, for they continue to live in Damascus among its citizens and protect the city from trouble. When one of them dies, his soul moves into a living person, and so their number never diminishes…”