Jane Digby: The English Lady Who Found Love in the Syrian Desert
Jane Digby, the English aristocrat who married Sheikh Medjuel on the road to Palmyra and lived between Damascus and the desert until 1881.
In this article
One of the strangest love stories in Syria's history is that of an Englishwoman from the highest society of London who left all of Europe behind to spend half the year in a Damascus house and the other half in a tent in the desert.
A stormy European life
Jane Digby was born in 1807 into an aristocratic English family. Famous for her beauty, she lived a romantic life that made her the talk of Europe's salons: several marriages and love affairs in England, Germany and Greece. In her forties she decided to travel to the East.
The road to Palmyra
In 1853 she wanted to visit Palmyra, and the desert road needed the protection of the tribes. Her escort was Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab of the Anazeh, an educated man who spoke several languages and could read. On the journey they fell in love, and they married — despite the gap in age and culture and the objections of many on both sides.
Between Damascus and the tent
Jane lived some thirty years in Syria. She spent half the year in a house in Damascus that she built to her own taste, with a garden and horses, and the other half with her husband and his tribe in the desert, living as the Bedouin lived and moving with them. She learned Arabic, dyed her hair with henna, milked camels, and became known as "Umm al-Laban", the mother of milk.
The end
Jane Digby died in Damascus in 1881 and was buried in the city's Protestant cemetery. It is said that at her funeral Medjuel rode her favourite mare, then galloped away, unable to stay.
Why her story matters
Jane's story is not only a strange romance. It is a portrait of nineteenth-century Damascus: a city where Europeans, Arabs and Bedouin lived side by side and the world of the salon met the world of the tent. And it is a reminder that many who came to Syria as visitors found a home there.
In Damascus, ask your guide about the Protestant cemetery where she is buried. And read about the Damascene house she loved.
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