Before Aleppo became a symbol of the horrors of Syria's ongoing war, it was known for its traders and craftspeople -- a city where Muslims, Jews, and Christians rubbed elbows in some of the most elegant bazaars and courtyards in the Middle East. But a current of grievances ran beneath the cobblestones. The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT has allowed RFE/RL to reproduce 14 images from their remarkable archive to help tell the story of Syria's devastated former second city and the war that has engulfed it.
Aleppo Before The Fall
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Detail of the Lion Gate in the Citadel photographed in the 1980s or '90s. The unrest that began in Syria in 2011 accelerated after a crackdown by security forces against protests inspired by the region's so-called Arab Spring. But the resulting war has pitted a predominantly Sunni opposition against President Bashar al-Assad and fellow Alawites, regarded by some as a third branch of Islam.
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An undated street scene in Aleppo. For most of its history, the ancient trading city was a beacon of relative tolerance. T.E. Lawrence wrote that in Aleppo "more fellowship should rule between Christian and Mohammedan, Armenian, Arab, Turk, Kurd and Jew than in perhaps any other great city of the Ottoman Empire." When the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I, that fellowship began to fray.
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Aleppo's clock tower, photographed in 1937. In 1923, Syria fell under control of the French. Their unpopular rule was marked by near-constant repression of Arab nationalism. One of the methods for keeping the mostly Sunni nationalists in check was to promote minorities, including Alawites, an impoverished mountain people who made up around 12 percent of the Syrian population.
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A public square in Aleppo in 1937. By the end of French rule, the Alawites had taken advantage of France's divide-and-rule tactics to build themselves a powerful network in the public services, including top positions in Syria's military. Yale University said that 70 percent of Syrian soldiers in 2012 were Alawites.