Simeon
Simeon Stylites was a Syrian Christian ascetic in 5th century AD.
He enjoyed people but abhorred physical contact. So he set himself on a small platform atop a tall pillar beside a major road in northern Syria that linked the Orient and Mediterranean worlds.
There he lived for over 30 years, achieving fame far and wide. Soon after his death in 459, the Byzantine Emperor ordered a magnificant basilica to be built around the pillar named Qalaat Simaan.
Over the years thousands came to venerate the site, as did I.
Known locally as the Jinn, Simeon was still giving comfort 1500 years later to those uprooted by the politics of the Middle East.
This is my version of the saga of Simeon’s Jinn.
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This is a brilliant and magical book, using all the author’s deep knowledge and love of the history, landscapes, peoples and cultures of Syria and its neighbouring territories to construct a rich narrative centred around the 5th century ascetic Simeon Stylites but interwoven with her personal journeys over many years linking the past and the present.
Sarah Searight’s rich imagination and descriptive gifts evoke all the aromas, sights, sounds and tastes of the area with memorable incidents and characters and a lively narrative, interspersed with insights into the schisms and power struggles of a Christian world balanced between Rome and Constantinople, and a region whose way of life was increasingly threatened by a world in disorder, as it is now. It is grounded in research and factual veracity, as one would expect from someone with a background in journalism who has also written scholarly works on the Middle East.
Mike Barrett OBE, former cultural diplomat
Sarah Searight
As journalist and author Sarah Searight’s fascination with the Middle East began in Beirut with the Arab News Agency, often travelling to Syria, always a favourite country. Later, completing a degree in Islamic art, she became a lecturer in the subject all over the UK, as well as across Australia and Europe. She also lectured on cruises, best of all in the Black Sea.
Her publications reflect her travels and include Steaming East; Yemen Land and People (with photographer Jane Taylor); Lapis lazuli: Travels of a Celestial Stone. She chaired the Society for Arabian Studies (now International Society for Arabian Studies) for a decade.
Her love of beautiful, tragic Syria turned her attention to that eccentric pillar squatter, Simeon Stylites, forever haunting the superb basilica built around his pillar by the Byzantine emperor Zeno, that has tragically become a victim of Syria’s bitter warfare. Yet Simeon, the Jinn, survives.