Syria: An Exceptional Woman

Umm Abdu did not cry when she heard that her son and grandson had been killed. Instead, she stood up, performed her ritual ablutions and prayed in gratitude to God.

“God, grant me martyrdom as You did them, and let me join them in heaven,” she said.

Umm Abdu, also known as Zahia, is 105 years old and has spent her whole life in Maarat al-Numan. She lost her husband in the 1980s and has had eight sons, five daughters and numerous grandchildren. She has worked at various things in her long life, from stitching leather and weaving wool to practicing traditional medicine and bone-setting.

She has supported the Syrian revolution ever since it began in 2011 and most of her children have played leading roles in the opposition, among them Abdulhamid, 70, Hakim, 58, Abu Bakr, 56, and Khalaf, 45.

“We are with the uprising, heart and soul, because it is a revolution for justice and dignity,” Umm Abdu said. “Free people will never accept injustice. It is time to stand up to our oppressors and restore people’s rights, in the face of a regime that has tyrannised us for 45 years.

"I encouraged my children to take part in the struggle. I told them that either they would live with dignity together with their children in a free country, or else they would be martyred.”

Tragedy came when Umm Abdu’s son, Sheikh Ali, 51 – an opposition activist – was killed in shelling outside the Bilal Habashi mosque in Maarat al-Numan along with his nephew Amer, 24.

Umm Abdu lost more relatives in a failed attempt to defuse an unexploded bomb lodged in the ground floor of her building, which destroyed her home. She was there at the time, along with a number of her family members, and was the only one to escape without injury. She lost four grandchildren and her daughter-in-law in that explosion. Many of the activists and bomb-disposal experts there were also killed.

As well as being proud of her own family, Umm Abdu has taken many others under her wing.

“I was a mother to all the revolutionaries in the area,” she said. “They were like my children. I tended to the wounded, fed the fighters, and advise anyone who needed guidance. I raised people’s spirits.”

Umm Abdu’s house was raided by army forces on several occasions before Maarat al-Numan was liberated and government troops withdrew from the city on September 9, 2012.

“There are many spies and informers in the area,” she explained. As a result, she divided her time between her own house and another on the fringes of the city, where she would secretly harbour wounded fighters.

Today, Umm Abdu lives with some of her sons and grandchildren in her in-laws’ home, an old house in the city centre.

“Now I do a lot of emergency relief work. I give organisations the names of families who need help, as well those of the poor, the needy, orphans, and widows so that they can send them assistance,” she said.

“God bless Umm Abdu,” said her neighbour Umm Amjad, 48. “She may be old but she’s still strong and smart. We feel that she is a blessed woman. Even though she is illiterate, she is able to recite many of the Prophet’s sayings and also verses from the Koran,” she added.

“Everyone who knows Umm Abdu calls her ‘Nadira’, which means ‘exceptional’, especially after her house exploded and she survived without a scratch,” said Umm Hassan, 52, another neighbour.

“She is a brave, wise woman,” said her son Abu Bakr, who is leader of the Omar bin al-Khattab Brigade. “God has given her a very long life. I am proud she is my mother, and proud of her principled stand. She forbade us from executing regime soldiers after we captured the Taraf checkpoint between Deir Sunbul and Maarat al-Numan, even though they’d stayed with the army after we told them to defect. When they fell into our hands, my mother took pity on them and would not let them be executed. In the end, they all joined the Free Syrian Army and they’re now some of our best soldiers.”

Abu Abdulrahman, 67, a close friend of Umm Abdu, added, “She is the best of women. She does so much good for the community, reconciling differences between people. She loves everyone, and in turn she is loved by all.”

Umm Abdu herself said, “I have lost many of my children and grandchildren, but I don’t feel sorry for them because they are God’s martyrs. Freedom does not come without sacrifice, and the blood that is spilled will lead to our victory, God willing.”

This story was produced by Syria Stories (previously Damascus Bureau), IWPR’s news platform for Syrian journalists.