The Bible says that after the apostle Paul was struck blind on the road to Damascus, God directed him to “the Street Called Straight” to find a man who would baptize him, on a spot now marked by the nearby Hanania church.

Along the street, remnants of a Roman colonnade, plastered in places with worn posters of Mr. Assad, testify to millenniums of habitation. Geometric stonework dates to the medieval Ummayad era, when Damascus was the seat of the caliphate ruling the Muslim world. For centuries, people of many faiths and ethnicities have rubbed shoulders daily here, if not always in complete harmony, then in common worship of urban life and commerce.

Today, high-end antique shops alternate with cubbyhole workshops where carpenters and metalworkers make and sell their wares, much as they did centuries ago. Ottoman mansions and tiny swaybacked dwellings still shelter, respectively, the wealthy and the poor.

Scarves and carpets spill onto the street, from the third-century arched gateway at Bab Sharqi to the Medhat Pasha Souq, where market stalls under an arched tin roof display spices, lingerie and toys. At night, from the window of Abu George’s tiny and venerable bar, dim light still glows through colored liquor bottles, a kind of stained-glass beacon of religious diversity and neighborhood fellowship.

“If Muslims didn’t drink,” Abu George, a Christian, likes to say, “alcohol would be a lot cheaper.”

Abu Tony sat on the curb one recent morning in front of his antique shop, drinking coffee. There were no customers, but he and his merchant neighbors had opened up anyway, to pass the time. He surveyed the row of shops, which to him symbolized the spirit of the street. “I’m Christian,” he said. “Next door, he is Sunni; the next one is a Shiite” — who, he said, rents his store from the Jewish owner, who left for America but stays in touch.

To Abu Tony, the rebels were extremists, alien to Syria.

“It’s the land of civilization,” he said. “Christianity went out to the world from this street.”