This article is about the region of Syria also called "Greater Syria" or "Syria-Palestine". For the modern country, see Syria. For other uses, see Syria (disambiguation).
Syria[b] is a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in West Asia, broadly synonymous with the Levant.[3] Other synonyms are Greater Syria or Syria-Palestine.[2] The region boundaries have changed throughout history. However, in modern times, the term "Syria" alone is used to refer to the Syrian Arab Republic.
The term is originally derived from Assyria, an ancient civilization centered in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq.[4][5] During the Hellenistic period, the term Syria was applied to the entire Levant as Coele-Syria. Under Roman rule, the term was used to refer to the province of Syria, later divided into Syria Phoenicia and Coele Syria, and to the province of Syria Palaestina. Under the Byzantines, the provinces of Syria Prima and Syria Secunda emerged out of Coele Syria. After the Muslim conquest of the Levant, the term was superseded by the Arabic equivalent Shām, and under the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates, Bilad al-Sham was the name of a metropolitan province encompassing most of the region. In the 19th century, the name Syria was revived in its modem Arabic form to denote the whole of Bilad al-Sham, either as Suriyah or the modern form Suriyya, which eventually replaced the Arabic name of Bilad al-Sham.[6]
After World War I, the boundaries of the region were last defined in modern times by the proclamation of and subsequent definition by French and British mandatory agreement. The area was passed to French and British Mandates following World War I and divided into Greater Lebanon, various states under Mandatory French rule, British-controlled Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. The term Syria itself was applied to several mandate states under French rule and the contemporaneous but short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria. The Syrian-mandate states were gradually unified as the State of Syria and finally became the independent Syria in 1946. Throughout this period, pan-Syrian nationalists advocated for the creation of a Greater Syria.
In the most common historical sense, 'Syria' refers to the entire northern Levant, including Alexandretta and the Ancient City of Antioch or in an extended sense the entire Levant as far south as Roman Egypt, including Mesopotamia. The area of "Greater Syria" ([سُوْرِيَّة ٱلْكُبْرَىٰ] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |link= (help), Sūrīyah al-Kubrā); also called "Natural Syria" ([سُوْرِيَّة ٱلطَّبِيْعِيَّة] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |link= (help), Sūrīyah aṭ-Ṭabīʿīyah) or "Northern Land" ([بِلَاد ٱلشَّام] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |link= (help), Bilād ash-Shām),[1] extends roughly over the Bilad al-Sham province of the medieval Arab caliphates, encompassing the Eastern Mediterranean (or Levant) and Western Mesopotamia. The Muslim conquest of the Levant in the seventh century gave rise to this province, which encompassed much of the region of Syria, and came to largely overlap with this concept. Other sources indicate that the term Greater Syria was coined during Ottoman rule, after 1516, to designate the approximate area included in present-day Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon.[11]
The uncertainty in the definition of the extent of "Syria" is aggravated by the etymological confusion of the similar-sounding names Syria and Assyria. The question of the etymological identity of the two names remains open today, but regardless of etymology, both were thought of as interchangeable around the time of Herodotus.[12] However, by the time of the Roman Empire, 'Syria' and 'Assyria' began to refer to two separate entities, Roman Syria and Roman Assyria.
Killebrew and Steiner, treating the Levant as the Syrian region, gave the boundaries of the region as such: the Mediterranean Sea to the west, the Arabian Desert to the south, Mesopotamia to the east, and the Taurus Mountains of Anatolia to the north.[3] The Muslim geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi visited the region in 1150 and assigned the northern regions of Bilad al-Sham as the following:
For Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela, Syria covered the entire Fertile Crescent. In Late Antiquity, "Syria" meant a region located to the east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Arabian Desert, and south of the Taurus Mountains,[9] thereby including modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the State of Palestine, and the Hatay Province and the western half of the Southeastern Anatolia Region of southern Turkey. This late definition is equivalent to the region known in Classical Arabic by the name ash-Shām (ٱلشَّام/ʔaʃ-ʃaːm/),[10] which means the north [country][10] (from the root šʔmشَأْم "left, north"). After the Islamic conquest of Byzantine Syria in the seventh century, the name Syria fell out of primary use in the region itself, being superseded by the Arabic equivalent Bilād ash-Shām ("Northern Land'"), but survived in its original sense in Byzantine and Western European usage, and in Syriac Christian literature. In the 19th century, the name Syria was revived in its modern Arabic form to denote the whole of Bilad al-Sham, either as Suriyah or the modern form Suriyya, which eventually replaced the Arabic name of Bilad al-Sham.[6] After World War I, the name 'Syria' was applied to the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, and the contemporaneous but short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria.
Several sources indicate that the name Syria itself is derived from Luwian term "Sura/i", and the derivative ancient Greek name: Σύριοι, Sýrioi, or Σύροι, Sýroi, both of which originally derived from Aššūrāyu (Assyria) in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq[4][5] However, during the Seleucid Empire, this term was also applied to The Levant, and henceforth the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant.[4][7][8]
The oldest attestation of the name 'Syria' is from the 8th century BC in a bilingual inscription in Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician. In this inscription, the Luwian word Sura/i was translated to Phoenician ʔšr "Assyria."[4] For Herodotus in the 5th century BC, Syria extended as far north as the Halys (the modern Kızılırmak River) and as far south as Arabia and Egypt.
The name 'Syria' derives from the ancient Greek name for Assyrians, Greek: ΣύριοιSyrioi, which the Greeks applied without distinction to various Near Eastern peoples living under the rule of Assyria. Modern scholarship confirms the Greek word traces back to the cognate Greek: Ἀσσυρία, Assyria.[13]
The classical Arabic pronunciation of Syria is Sūriya (as opposed to the Modern Standard Arabic pronunciation Sūrya). That name was not widely used among Muslims before about 1870, but it had been used by Christians earlier. According to the Syriac Orthodox Church, "Syrian" meant "Christian" in early Christianity.[citation needed] In English, "Syrian" historically meant a Syrian Christian such as Ephrem the Syrian. Following the declaration of Syria in 1936, the term "Syrian" came to designate citizens of that state, regardless of ethnicity. The adjective "Syriac" (suryāniسُرْيَانِي) has come into common use since as an ethnonym to avoid the ambiguity of "Syrian".
Currently, the Arabic term Sūriya usually refers to the modern state of Syria, as opposed to the historical region of Syria.
Shaam
Greater Syria has been widely known as Ash-Shām. The term etymologically in Arabic means "the left-hand side" or "the north", as someone in the Hejaz facing east, oriented to the sunrise, will find the north to the left. This is contrasted with the name of Yemen (اَلْيَمَنal-Yaman), correspondingly meaning "the right-hand side" or "the south". The variation ش ء م (š-ʾ-m), of the more typical ش م ل (š-m-l), is also attested in Old South Arabian, 𐩦𐩱𐩣 (s²ʾm), with the same semantic development.[10][14]
The root of Shaam, ش ء م (š-ʾ-m) also has connotations of unluckiness, which is traditionally associated with the left-hand and with the colder north-winds. Again this is in contrast with Yemen, with felicity and success, and the positively-viewed warm-moist southerly wind; a theory for the etymology of Arabia Felix denoting Yemen, by translation of that sense.[citation needed]
The Shaam region is sometimes defined as the area that was dominated by Damascus, long an important regional center.[citation needed] In fact, the word Ash-Sām, on its own, can refer to the city of Damascus.[15] Continuing with the similar contrasting theme, Damascus was the commercial destination and representative of the region in the same way Sanaa held for the south.
Quran 106:2 alludes to this practice of caravans traveling to Syria in the summer, to avoid the colder weather, and to likewise sell commodities in Yemen in the winter.[16][17]
There is no connection with the name Shem, son of Noah, whose name usually appears in Arabic as سَامSām, with a different initial consonant and without any internal glottal stop. Despite this, there has been a long-standing folk association between the two names and even the region, as most of the claimed Biblical descendants of Shem have been historically placed in the vicinity.[citation needed]
Herodotus uses Ancient Greek: Συρία to refer to the stretch of land from the Halys river, including Cappadocia (The Histories, I.6) in today's Turkey to the Mount Casius (The Histories II.158), which Herodotus says is located just south of Lake Serbonis (The Histories III.5). According to Herodotus various remarks in different locations, he describes Syria to include the entire stretch of Phoenician coastal line as well as cities such Cadytis (Jerusalem) (The Histories III.159).[12]
Hellenistic Syria
In Greek usage, Syria and Assyria were used almost interchangeably, but in the Roman Empire, Syria and Assyria came to be used as distinct geographical terms. "Syria" in the Roman Empire period referred to "those parts of the Empire situated between Asia Minor and Egypt", i.e. the western Levant, while "Assyria" was part of the Persian Empire, and only very briefly came under Roman control (116–118 AD, marking the historical peak of Roman expansion).
In the Roman era, the term Syria is used to comprise the entire northern Levant and has an uncertain border to the northeast that Pliny the Elder describes as including, from west to east, the Kingdom of Commagene, Sophene, and Adiabene, "formerly known as Assyria".[32]
Various writers used the term to describe the entire Levant region during this period; the New Testament used the name in this sense on numerous occasions.[33]
In 64 BC, Syria became a province of the Roman Empire, following the conquest by Pompey. Roman Syria bordered Judea to the south, Anatolian Greek domains to the north, Phoenicia to the West, and was in constant struggle with Parthians to the East. In 135 AD, Syria-Palaestina became to incorporate the entire Levant and Western Mesopotamia. In 193, the province was divided into Syria proper (Coele-Syria) and Phoenice. Sometime between 330 and 350 (likely c. 341), the province of Euphratensis was created out of the territory of Syria Coele and the former realm of Commagene, with Hierapolis as its capital.[34]
After c. 415 Syria Coele was further subdivided into Syria I, with the capital remaining at Antioch, and Syria II or Salutaris, with capital at Apamea on the Orontes River. In 528, Justinian I carved out the small coastal province Theodorias out of territory from both provinces.[35]
In the later ages of the Ottoman times, it was divided into wilayahs or sub-provinces the borders of which and the choice of cities as seats of government within them varied over time. The vilayets or sub-provinces of Aleppo, Damascus, and Beirut, in addition to the two special districts of Mount Lebanon and Jerusalem. Aleppo consisted of northern modern-day Syria plus parts of southern Turkey, Damascus covered southern Syria and modern-day Jordan, Beirut covered Lebanon and the Syrian coast from the port-city of Latakia southward to the Galilee, while Jerusalem consisted of the land south of the Galilee and west of the Jordan River and the Wadi Arabah.
An 1810 map of the Ottoman Empire in Asia, showing the region of Ottoman Syria
Ethnic groups in the Middle East shown in a pre-World War I British government map. The primary population of the region of Syria is described as "Arabs (settled)" and inland as "Arabs (nomadic)"
Book of the Independence of Syria (Arabic: ذِكْرَى اِسْتِقْلَال سُوْرِيَا, romanized: Dhikrā Istiqlāl Sūriyā), showing the declared borders of the Kingdom of Syria, states the date of the Declaration of Independence on 8 March 1920
The Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA) was a British, French and Arab military administration over areas of the former Ottoman Empire between 1917 and 1920, during and following World War I. The wave of Arab nationalism evolved towards the creation of the first modern Arab state to come into existence, the Hashemite Arab Kingdom of Syria on 8 March 1920. The kingdom claimed the entire region of Syria whilst exercising control over only the inland region known as OETA East. This led to the acceleration of the declaration of the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and British Mandate for Palestine at the 19–26 April 1920 San Remo conference, and subsequently the Franco-Syrian War, in July 1920, in which French armies defeated the newly proclaimed kingdom and captured Damascus, aborting the Arab state.[39]
The boundaries of the region have changed throughout history, and were last defined in modern times by the proclamation of the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria and subsequent definition by French and British mandatory agreement. The area was passed to French and British Mandates following World War I and divided into Greater Lebanon, various Syrian-mandate states, Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. The Syrian-mandate states were gradually unified as the State of Syria and finally became the independent Syria in 1946. Throughout this period, Antoun Saadeh and his party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, envisioned "Greater Syria" or "Natural Syria", based on the etymological connection between the name "Syria" and "Assyria", as encompassing the Sinai Peninsula, Cyprus, modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, the Ahvaz region of Iran, and the Kilikian region of Turkey.[40][41]
Near the city of Jericho in the West Bank is the shrine of NabiMusa (literally: Prophet Moses), which is considered by Muslims to be the burial place of Moses.[43][63][64]
In Samaritanism, Mount Gerizim is the holiest site on earth, and the location chosen by God to build a temple. In their tradition, it is the oldest and most central mountain in the world, towering above the Great Flood and providing the first land for Noah’s disembarkation.[72] In their belief, it is also the location where Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac.[73]
^In the Hebrew language, mayim (מַיִם) means "water". In Genesis 1:6Elohim separated the "water from the water". The area above the earth was filled by sky-water (sham-mayim) and the earth below was covered by sea-water (yam-mayim).
^ abKillebrew, A. E.; Steiner, M. L. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: C. 8000–332 BCE. OUP Oxford. p. 2. ISBN978-0-19-921297-2. The western coastline and the eastern deserts set the boundaries for the Levant ... The Euphrates and the area around Jebel el-Bishrī mark the eastern boundary of the northern Levant, as does the Syrian Desert beyond the Anti-Lebanon range's eastern hinterland and Mount Hermon. This boundary continues south in the form of the highlands and eastern desert regions of Transjordan.
^ abcdeRollinger, Robert (2006). "The terms "Assyria" and "Syria" again". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 65 (4): 284–287. doi:10.1086/511103. S2CID162760021.
^ abcFrye, R. N. (1992). "Assyria and Syria: Synonyms". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 51 (4): 281–285. doi:10.1086/373570. S2CID161323237.
^ abcdSalibi, Kamal S. (2003). A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered. I.B.Tauris. pp. 61–62. ISBN978-1-86064-912-7. To the Arabs, this same territory, which the Roman Empire considered Arabian, formed part of what they called Bilad al-Sham, which was their own name for Syria. From the classical perspective, however, Syria, including Palestine, formed no more than the western fringes of what was reckoned to be Arabia between the first line of cities and the coast. Since there is no clear dividing line between what is called today the Syrian and Arabian deserts, which actually form one stretch of arid tableland, the classical concept of what actually constituted Syria had more to its credit geographically than the vaguer Arab concept of Syria as Bilad al-Sham. Under the Romans, there was actually a province of Syria, with its capital at Antioch, which carried the name of the territory. Otherwise, down the centuries, Syria, like Arabia and Mesopotamia, was no more than a geographic expression. In Islamic times, the Arab geographers used the name arabicized as Suriyah, to denote one special region of Bilad al-Sham, which was the middle section of the valley of the Orontes River, in the vicinity of the towns of Homs and Hama. They also noted that it was an old name for the whole of Bilad al-Sham which had gone out of use. As a geographic expression, however, the name Syria survived in its original classical sense in Byzantine and Western European usage, and also in the Syriac literature of some of the Eastern Christian churches, from which it occasionally found its way into Christian Arabic usage. It was only in the nineteenth century that the use of the name was revived in its modern Arabic form, frequently as Suriyya rather than the older Suriyah, to denote the whole of Bilad al-Sham: first of all in the Christian Arabic literature of the period, and under the influence of Western Europe. By the end of that century it had already replaced the name of Bilad al-Sham even in Muslim Arabic usage.
^ abHerodotus. "Herodotus VII.63". Fordham University. Archived from the original on 20 February 1999. Retrieved 28 May 2013. VII.63: The Assyrians went to war with helmets upon their heads made of brass, and plaited in a strange fashion which is not easy to describe. They carried shields, lances, and daggers very like the Egyptian; but in addition they had wooden clubs knotted with iron, and linen corselets. This people, whom the Hellenes call Syrians, are called Assyrians by the barbarians. The Chaldeans served in their ranks, and they had for commander Otaspes, the son of Artachaeus.
^First proposed by Theodor Nöldeke in 1881; cf. Harper, Douglas (November 2001). "Syria". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 22 January 2013..
^Younger, K. Lawson Jr. (7 October 2016). A Political History of the Arameans: From Their Origins to the End of Their Polities (Archaeology and Biblical Studies). Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. p. 551. ISBN978-1589831285.
^Ali, Maulana Muhammad (2002). The Holy Quran Arabic Text with English Translation, Commentary and comprehensive Introduction (in English and Arabic). The Ahmadiyyah Anjuman Ish'at Islam. p. 1247. ISBN978-0913321058.
^"Their protection during their trading caravans in the winter and the summer."[Quran106:2 (Translated by Shakir)]
^Frier, Bruce W. "Demography", in Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Dominic Rathbone, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History XI: The High Empire, A.D. 70–192, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 827–54.
^A commentary on the Bible, quote "In the time of the Greek predominance it came into use. as it is employed to-day, as the name of the whole western borderland of the Mediterranean, and in the NT it is used several times in that sense (Mt. 4:24, Lk. 2:2, Ac. 15:23,41, 18:18, 21:3, Gal. 1:21)".
^ abAbdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary, Note. 905: "The third group consists not of men of action, but Preachers of Truth, who led solitary lives. Their epithet is: "the Righteous." They form a connected group round Jesus. Zachariah was the father of John the Baptist, who is referenced as "Elias, which was for to come" (Matt 11:14); and John the Baptist is said to have been present and talked to Jesus at the Transfiguration on the Mount (Matt. 17:3)."
^Sabrina MERVIN, « Sayyida Zaynab, Banlieue de Damas ou nouvelle ville sainte chiite ? », Cahiers d'Etudes sur la Méditerranée Orientale et le monde Turco-Iranien [Online], 22 | 1996, Online since 01 March 2005, connection on 19 October 2014. URL : http://cemoti.revues.org/138
"Israel was first forged into a unified nation from Jerusalem some 3,000 years ago, when King David seized the crown and united the twelve tribes from this city... For a thousand years Jerusalem was the seat of Jewish sovereignty, the household site of kings, the location of its legislative councils and courts. In exile, the Jewish nation came to be identified with the city that had been the site of its ancient capital. Jews, wherever they were, prayed for its restoration." Roger Friedland, Richard D. Hecht. To Rule Jerusalem, University of California Press, 2000, p. 8. ISBN0-520-22092-7
"The centrality of Jerusalem to Judaism is so strong that even secular Jews express their devotion and attachment to the city, and cannot conceive of a modern State of Israel without it.... For Jews Jerusalem is sacred simply because it exists... Though Jerusalem's sacred character goes back three millennia...". Leslie J. Hoppe. The Holy City: Jerusalem in the theology of the Old Testament, Liturgical Press, 2000, p. 6. ISBN0-8146-5081-3
"Ever since King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel 3,000 years ago, the city has played a central role in Jewish existence." Mitchell Geoffrey Bard, The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Middle East Conflict, Alpha Books, 2002, p. 330. ISBN0-02-864410-7
"Jerusalem became the center of the Jewish people some 3,000 years ago" Moshe Maoz, Sari Nusseibeh, Jerusalem: Points of Friction – And Beyond, Brill Academic Publishers, 2000, p. 1. ISBN90-411-8843-6
Brown, Leon Carl (2000). "Setting the Stage: Islam and Muslims". Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics. Columbia University Press. p. 11. ISBN0-231-12038-9. The third holiest city of Islam—Jerusalem—is also very much in the center...
Hoppe, Leslie J. (2000). The Holy City: Jerusalem in the Theology of the Old Testament. Michael Glazier Books. p. 14. ISBN0-8146-5081-3. Jerusalem has always enjoyed a prominent place in Islam. Jerusalem is often referred to as the third holiest city in Islam...
^Anderson, Robert T., "Mount Gerizim: Navel of the World", Biblical Archaeologist Vol. 43, No. 4 (Autumn 1980), pp 217–218
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