Hama

He did evil on the side of the Lord, as his ancestors had done.

Pharaoh Necho imprisoned him in Riblah, in the land of Hamath, and prevented him from ruling in Jerusalem.

He imposed on the land a special tax of 100 talents of silver and a talent of gold.

Pharaoh Necho made Josiah's son Eliakim king in Josiah's place and changed his name to Jehoiakim.

You've heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely.

Will you be delivered? Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my predecessors, Gozen, Haran, Rezif, and the people of Eden and Telassar, save them? Where's the king of Hamath or the king of Arpad? Where's the king of Sefervaim, Hena, or Iva? Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it.

Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before him.

And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying, Lord of heaven's armies, God of Israel, you sit enthroned between the cherubim.

the main reason.

So, now you've made me curious, because I know you were not just born in Saudi Arabia, you were born in Ta'if, and I'm a political scientist, So I know political places and if I associate with the agreement that essentially brought an end to the Lebanese civil war, but you said your family's from Syria and I understand from the city of Hama, which again, as a political scientist, I associate with the essentially the uprising and the very brutal suppression of the uprising in 1982, in which thousands and thousands of residents were killed.

So these are not...

These are places with very, very strong associations.

So tell us a little bit about your association with these places and how your own individual history maps with this.

Exactly.

As you said, Nathan, my father's family was from Hama.

a city known for its anti-Assad resistance in the early 80s.

Don't let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, The Lord will deliver us.

Has the God of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Did they rescue Samaria from my hand? Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand? But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, Don't answer him.

Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him what the field commander had said.

Colossians chapter 2 I'm fighting powerfully for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who haven't had the chance to meet me face to face.

Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction.

And shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?” Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it.

And Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord.

And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, “O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth.

Uh, so politically, again, um, coming from...

So Egypt is based off of the uniting of the two lands, the uniting of Upper and Lower Egypt, and it was pretty much signified through the rule of Narmer, or Menes, who he's called.

Now, with that being said, in alignment with putting forth what the prophet laid down, he talks about how the Egyptians are the Hamathites and a direct descendant of Mizraim.

Um, there's a lot of studies out there that try to align Mizraim with Menes or Narmer, the one who united, um, uh, both Upper and Lower Egypt, and it also, uh, through the Hamathites, Hamath was a city in s- uh, ancient pre-modern Syria, [phone pings] uh, which kind of alludes also to the, uh, period of the Hyksos in Egyptian history.

Um, but prior to the Hyksos even ruling Egypt, um, there were waves and waves of migrations, generations before then.

So when I state that the Lower Egypt was, well, had people coming from the Levant and the Eastern Nile Delta, um, it shows through those movements of the Hyksos throughout generations that end up coming to rule Egypt, uh, right before between the Middle and the New Kingdom.

Not necessarily, you know, genetically, quote unquote, but politically a part of the Amorite movements.

In fact, um, the migration where Abraham in the Bible goes from Ur to the Chaldees up north, up the Euphrates River to Haran and then down into Canaan, is actually a archeological evidence trade route, or a migration route, of the Amorites.

Although the surroundings of the masjid are still damaged by the war.

In Hama, you have the famous Norius water wells and the Orentas River, which is a sight to see.

And in Aleppo, although Aleppo was greatly affected by the war, it is being rebuilt.

So the famous citadel of Aleppo was damaged during the war, and it was actually closed for quite some time after the liberation.

So in Homs, as I mentioned before, we have Masjid Khalid ibn Walid, where Khalid ibn Walid is buried alongside his son Abd al-Rahman.

And you have Ubaidullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab, also buried within the Masjid.

And in Hama, we take people to the Norse worlds, we take them to a madrasa built by Nur al-Din Zinki.

In Idlib countryside, there's the resting place of the fifth righteous Khalif, Khalifa of Islam Omar ibn Abdulaziz alongside his wife.