Current Time in Ḩamāh, Syria

Ḩamāh, commonly spelled Hama in English, is a city located in central Syria on the banks of the Orontes River, positioned approximately 210 kilometers north of Damascus. It is the fourth largest city in Syria and serves as the capital of the Hama Governorate. With a pre-war population of approximately 800,000 people, Hama was one of the most historically and culturally significant cities in the Levant before the devastating impact of the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011 caused widespread displacement, damage, and suffering throughout the country.

Hama is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth. Archaeological evidence indicates settlement on the Tell site overlooking the Orontes dating back to the Neolithic period, approximately ten thousand years ago. The city was known as Hamath in antiquity and was a significant Hittite, Aramean, and later Assyrian city mentioned numerous times in the Bible. Its strategic position on the Orontes made it a coveted location through Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods, each leaving layers of cultural and architectural heritage.

The city's most famous and beloved landmarks are its norias — enormous ancient wooden water wheels that lift water from the Orontes River to irrigate the surrounding agricultural land and supply the city. These massive creaking wheels, some reaching up to 20 meters in diameter, have been turning for centuries and are unique in the world. The sound of their groaning wood and the sight of water cascading from their buckets into elevated aqueducts has been described by travelers and poets throughout the ages. The norias are the defining symbol of Hama and a testament to the ingenuity of pre-modern engineering.

The old city of Hama contained a rich collection of Ayyubid and Mamluk period mosques, hammams, khans, and traditional courtyard houses that made it one of the best-preserved Islamic city centers in Syria. The Great Mosque of Hama, originally a Byzantine church and later an Umayyad congregational mosque, stood as a testament to the city's layered history. The Azm Palace, an elegant eighteenth-century governor's residence, housed a regional museum with collections of mosaics, pottery, and historical artifacts.

In 1982, Hama was the site of one of the most devastating events in modern Syrian history, when President Hafez al-Assad's government suppressed an armed uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood with massive military force, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians and the destruction of significant parts of the old city. This event shaped the political psychology of Syria for a generation.

Despite the tragedies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Hama's extraordinary heritage — its ancient history, its iconic norias, and its position as a center of Syrian cultural identity — ensures its enduring importance in the narrative of the Levant's civilizational history.