The author assembles fevered letters and eyewitness sketches mourning the decline of a once-majestic city, offering evocative descriptions of mosques, tombs, and old quarters alongside accounts of devastating fires and widespread destruction. He denounces violence, pillage, sexual assault, and mutilation inflicted during recent conflicts, accuses foreign and local actors of hypocrisy and culpable modernization, and laments the loss of traditional urban beauty to Western-style rebuilding. The collection blends elegiac urban portraiture with urgent political protest, seeking to record truth, demand justice, and preserve memory against censorship.