If the fiction set in Syria presents a positive view of Arab family and social structures, it frequently contains critical comment on Damascene politics, on corruption, censorship, issues of civil and human rights.
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It takes the form of the diary of a Damascene youth, following his progress through school, work, and family life, and featuring the themes of friendship and first love in a difficult situation of social conflict.
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The story "Als der Angstmacher Angst bekam" ("When the Fear-maker became Afraid") in Der Fliegenmelker takes a malicious delight in the downfall of a government informer, a stock figure in Schami's Damascene fiction.
According to historian Irfan Shahid, who specializes in Byzantine history, it is possible that Beit Sawa was the site of the Damascene monastery of Sawa al-Haykal.
The Damascus goat, also known as Aleppo, Halep, Baladi, Damascene, Shami, or Chami, is a breed of goat raised in Syria and Lebanon.
She was born on 5 January 1846 (the eve of Epiphany) in the village of I'billin, the region of Southern Syria in the Ottoman Empire, now in Israel, to Giries (George) Baouardy and his wife, Mariam Chahine, both of Damascene ancestry.
The Imadi family is a small Sunni Damascene family that is known to have had important religious scholars in Damascus as early as the 16th century.