Greater Syria , also known simply as
Syria, is a term that denotes a region in the
Near EastNear East today is an ambiguous term that covers different countries for archeologists and historians, on one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
bordering the Eastern
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
or the
LevantThe Levant describes, traditionally, the Eastern Mediterranean at large, but can be used as a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia formed by the lands bordering the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, roughly bounded on the north by the Taurus Mountains, on the south by...
.
The classical Arabic name for Syria is
Sham (
ash-Shām), which in later ages became to refer only to
DamascusDamascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world and its current population is estimated at about 1,669,000...
in
Levantine ArabicLevantine Arabic is a group of Arabic varieties spoken in the 100 km-wide eastern-Mediterranean coastal strip known as the Levant, i.e. in western Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Palestine, Israel, and western Jordan...
, while the pre-Islamic name of the territory, Syria, became used again until the collapse of the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
in 1918.
Historic Syria
The area known as Syria has changed over time. In the most common historical sense, it usually refers to the region bordering the eastern Mediterranean, which includes modern-day
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
, parts of
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
,
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
,
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
,
LebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon
[Republic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies...]
, the
Palestinian territoriesThe Palestinian territories are composed of two discontiguous regions, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, whose final status has yet to be determined. The territories, which were originally contained within the British Mandate of Palestine, were captured and occupied by Jordan and by Egypt in the...
and parts of southern of
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
including
Alexandrettaİskenderun , is a city and district in the province of Hatay on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.-Geography:...
and the ancient city of
AntiochAntioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River...
, the pre-Islamic capital of Syria .
In the more ancient and wider sense of the word, Syria stretches inland to include
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
, and has an uncertain border to the northeast that
Pliny the ElderGaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
describes as including, from west to east,
CommageneThe Kingdom of Commagene was an ancient kingdom of the Hellenistic Age.Little is known of the region of Commagene prior to the beginning of the 2nd century BC. However, it seems that, from what little evidence remains, Commagene formed part of a larger state that also included Sophene...
,
SopheneFor the kingdom, please see Kingdom of Sophene.Sophene was a province of the Armenian Kingdom and of the Roman Empire, located in the south-west of the kingdom. It currently lies in modern-day southeastern Turkey....
, and
AdiabeneAdiabene was an ancient Assyrian semi-independent kingdom in Mesopotamia, with its capital at Arbela . Its rulers converted to Judaism in the 1st Century....
, "formerly known as Assyria".
By Pliny's time, however, this larger Syria had been divided into a number of provinces under the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
(but politically independent from each other):
JudaeaJudaea can refer to:* The land of Judea and previous Kingdom of Judah * The Roman province historians refer to as Iudaea province...
, later renamed
PalaestinaPalestine is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.As a geographical term, Palestine can also refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area...
in AD 135 (the region corresponding to modern day Palestine and Israel, and Jordan) in the extreme southwest,
PhoeniciaPhoenicia what is now modern day Lebanon, was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal regions of modern day Lebanon, extending to parts of Israel, Syria and Palestine...
corresponding to Lebanon, with Damascena to the inland side of Phoenicia,
Coele-SyriaCoele-Syria, traditionally given the meaning 'hollow' Syria, was the region of southern Syria disputed between the Seleucid dynasty and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Rather than limiting the Greek term to the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, it is often used to cover the entire area south of the river Eleutherus...
(or "Hollow Syria") south of the Eleutheris river, and Mesopotamia.
The region was annexed to the Islamic
CaliphateThe term caliphate refers to the first form of government inspired by Islam. It was initially led by Muhammad's disciples as a continuation of the political authority the prophet established, known as the 'rashidun caliphates'. It represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah, and was the...
after the
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
RashidunThe Rightly Guided Caliphs or The Righteous Caliphs is a term used in Sunni Islam to refer to the first four Caliphs who established the Rashidun Caliphate. The concept of "Rightly Guided Caliphs" originated with the Abbasid Dynasty...
victory over the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
at the
Battle of YarmoukThe Battle of Yarmouk comprised a series of engagements between the Rashidun Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire over six days in August 636, near the Yarmouk River, along what is today the border between Syria and Jordan, south-east of the Sea of Galilee. It is regarded as one of the most decisive...
, and became known afterwards by its Arabic name,
ash-Shām. During
UmayyadThe Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four Islamic caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the...
times, Shām was divided into five
junds or military districts. They were
Jund Dimashq', Jund Hims
, Jund QinnasrinJund Qinnasrin was one of five sub-provinces of Syria under the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphate, organized soon after the Muslim conquest of Syria in the 7th century CE. Initially, its capital was Qinnasrin, but as the city declined in population and wealth, the capital was moved to Aleppo...
, Jund FilastinJund Filastin was one of several sub-provinces of the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphate province of Syria, organized soon after the Muslim conquest of Syria in the seventh century...
and Jund al-UrdunnJund al-Urdunn was one of the five districts of Syria during the period of the Arab Caliphates. It was established under the Rashidun and its capital was Tiberias throughout its rule by the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates...
. The city of
DamascusDamascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world and its current population is estimated at about 1,669,000...
was the capital of the Islamic Caliphate until the rise of
Abassid DynastyThe Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic Caliphates of the Islamic Empire. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs from all but Al Andalus....
.
In the later ages of the
OttomanOttoman Syria Ottoman Syria Ottoman Syria (Ottoman Turkish:سورية في العصر العثماني, refers to the Levant within the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1918. Syria in the Ottoman era included modern(Ottoman Turkish: Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, and parts of Turkey and Iraq.-...
times, it was divided into
wilayahA wilāyah or vilâyet is an administrative division, usually translated as "province" or "governorate". The word comes from Arabic w-l-y 'to govern': a wāli 'governor' governs a wilayah 'that which is governed'...
s 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 LebanonMount Lebanon , as a geographic designation, is the Lebanese mountain range, known as the Western Mountain Range of Lebanon. It extends across the whole country along about , parallel to the Mediterranean coast with the highest peak, Qurnat as Sawda', at . Lebanon has historically been defined by...
and
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
. Aleppo consisted of northern modern-day Syria plus parts of southern
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
, Damascus covered southern Syria and modern-day
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
, Beirut covered Lebanon and the Syrian coast from the port-city of
LatakiaLatakia or Latakiyah is the principal port city of Syria, as well as the capital of the Latakia Governorate. In addition to serving as a port, the city is a manufacturing center for surrounding agricultural towns and villages...
southward to the
GalileeGalilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country...
, while Jerusalem consisted of the land south of the Galilee and west of the
Jordan RiverThe Jordan River or River Jordan is a river in Southwest Asia which flows into the Dead Sea. It is considered to be one of the world's most sacred rivers...
and the
Wadi ArabahThe Arabah is a section of the Great Rift Valley lying between the Dead Sea to the north and the Gulf of Aqaba to the south. It forms part of the border between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east....
.
Although the region's population was dominated by
Sunni MuslimsSunni Islam is the largest denomination of Islam. It is also referred to as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘ah or Ahl as-Sunnah for short...
, it also contained sizable populations of Shi'a Muslims, Syriac Orthodox, Maronite, Greek Orthodox and
MelkiteThe term Melkite is used to refer to various Christian churches and their members originating in the Middle East. The word comes from the Syriac word malkāyā , meaning "imperial"...
Christians, as well as Mizrahi Jews, Alawite and
Ismaili' is a branch of the Islamic faith. It is the second largest part of the Shī‘ah community, after the mainstream Twelvers...
Muslims and
DruzeThe Druze are a religious community found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, whose traditional religion is said to have begun as an offshoot of Islam, but is unique in its incorporation of Gnostic, neo-Platonic and other philosophies, similar to other followers of Ismaili Shi'a...
s.
Following the
San Remo conferenceThe San Remo Conference was an international meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council, held in Sanremo, Italy, from 19 to 26 April 1920. It was attended by the four Principal Allied Powers of World War I who were represented by the Prime Ministers of Britain , France and Italy and...
and the defeat of
King FaisalKing Faisal may refer to:* Faisal of Saudi Arabia * Faisal I of Iraq , king of Greater Syria and king of Iraq* Faisal II of Iraq Iraq's last king*King Faisal Airbase, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia...
's short-lived monarchy in Syria at the
Battle of MaysalunThe Battle of Maysalun , also called The Battle of Maysalun Pass, took place between Syrian and French forces about 12 miles west of Damascus near the town of Maysalun on July 23, 1920.-Background:...
, the French general
Henri GouraudHenri Gouraud may refer to:*Henri Gouraud *Henri Gouraud...
, in breach of the conditions of the mandate, subdivided the
French Mandate of SyriaThe French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon was a League of Nations mandate created after the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire...
into six states. They were the states of
DamascusThe State of Damascus was one of the six states established by the French General Henri Gouraud in the French Mandate of Syria which followed the San Remo conference and the defeat of King Faisal's short-lived monarchy in Syria....
(1920),
AleppoThe State of Aleppo was one of the five states that were established by the French High Commissioner in Syria and Lebanon General Henri Gouraud in the French Mandate of Syria which followed the San Remo conference and the collapse of King Faisal's short-lived monarchy in Syria.The other states...
(1920),
AlawitesThe Alawite State , also known in French as Alaouites, after the locally dominant Alawite sect of Shi'a Islam, was a French mandate territory in the coastal area of present-day Syria after World War I.-History:...
(1920), Jabal Druze (1921), the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta (1921) (modern-day
HatayHatay refers to the following places in Turkey:* Hatay Province, Turkey* Antakya is the capital city of Hatay Province, Turkey* Republic of Hatay, between 1938–1939.* Hatay, İzmir, Turkey, a district of İzmir...
), and the
French Mandate of LebanonThe French Mandate of Lebanon was a League of Nations Mandate created at the end of World War I. When the Ottoman Empire was formally split up by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, it was decided that four of its territories in the Middle East should be League of Nations mandates temporarily governed by...
(1920) which became later the modern country of
LebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon
[Republic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies...]
.
Syrian nationalism
In the nationalist ideology developed by the founder of the
Syrian Social Nationalist PartyThe Syrian Social Nationalist Party or SSNP , is a secular nationalist political party in Syria and Lebanon...
,
Antun SaadehAntun Sa'adah was a Syrian nationalist philosopher, writer and politician who founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.-Life:...
, Syria is seen as the geocultural environment in which the Syrian nation state evolved, an area Sa'adeh called the Syrian
Fertile CrescentThe Fertile Crescent is a region in the Near East, incorporating the Levant and Mesopotamia, and often incorrectly extended to Egypt. Mesopotamia is considered the cradle of civilization and saw the development of the earliest human civilizations and is the birthplace of writing and the wheel.The...
.
Sa'adah rejected both language and religion as defining characteristics of a nation, and instead argued that nations develop through the common development of a people inhabiting a specific geographical region. He pointed to what he considered to be the region's distinct
natural boundariesBorders define geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, states or subnational administrative divisions. They may foster the setting up of buffer zones...
, and described it as extending from the Taurus range in the northwest and the
Zagros MountainsThe Zagros Mountains are the largest mountain range in Iran and Iraq...
in the northeast, to the
Suez CanalThe Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened on November 1869, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigating around Africa...
and the
Red SeaThe Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez,...
-including the
Sinai PeninsulaThe Sinai Peninsula or Sinai The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai (sina; Egyptian Arabic: سينا sina; sina'a; is a triangular peninsula in Egypt. It lies between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, forming a land bridge between Africa and Southwest...
and the
Gulf of AqabaThe Gulf of Aqaba , in Israel known as the Gulf of Eilat is a large gulf of the Red Sea. It is located to the east of the Sinai peninsula and west of the Arabian mainland. Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia all have coastlines on the Gulf of Aqaba...
in the south, and from the eastern
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
including the island of
CyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey and west of Syria and Lebanon....
in the west, to the arch of the
Arabian DesertThe Arabian Desert is a vast desert wilderness stretching from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq. It occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula with an area of 2,330,000 square kilometers...
and the
Persian GulfThe Persian Gulf, in the Southwest Asian region, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Historically and commonly known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes controversially referred to as the Arabian Gulf by most Arab states or simply The...
in the east.
In the 1940s,
BritainThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
secretly advocated the creation of a Greater Syrian state that would secure Britain preferential status in military, economic and cultural matters, in return for putting a complete halt to
Jewish ambitionZionism is the international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine. The area was the Jewish Biblical homeland, called the Land of Israel...
in Palestine.
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
opposed British hegemony in the region, which led to the creation of
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
.
Names for Syria
"Greater Syria" is not always precisely synonymous with
LevantThe Levant describes, traditionally, the Eastern Mediterranean at large, but can be used as a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia formed by the lands bordering the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, roughly bounded on the north by the Taurus Mountains, on the south by...
, since Greater Syria can refer to a smaller region, while the Levant can refer to a larger region. Today the term is most commonly used by historians to describe the area in earlier times. For much of the history of the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, Syria was closely integrated and shared a common culture and economy. The
colonialismColonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Sovereignty over the colony is claimed by the metropole...
of the post-WWI years and the rise of a number of states in the region has ended this unity. It is still useful for historians looking at pre-twentieth century history to consider it as a region, however.
The name Syria
derives from the ancient GreekAncient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
name for Syrians, , which the Greeks applied without distinction to various AssyriaAssyria was a civilization centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
n people. Modern scholarship confirms the Greek word traces back to the cognate , , ultimately derived from the AkkadianAkkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
,
Syria was known to Arabian Arabs as Shām
, which comes from the root , meaning "sublime" and "victorious" a well known arabic name comes from is hisham whereas YemenYemen , officially the Republic of Yemen is a country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia...
comes from the root Y-M-N
meaning "fortune" and "right direction"). Note that the name Sham has no valid etymological connection with the Biblical figure ShemShem was one of the sons of Noah in the Bible. He is most popularly regarded as the eldest son, though some traditions regard him as the second son. Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Shem and his brother Japheth, but with sufficient ambiguity in each to have yielded different translations...
son of NoahNoah was, according to the Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs; and a prophet according to the Qur'an...
, which appears in Arabic as Sām
سام (with a different initial consonant, and without any internal glottal stopThe glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English the feature is represented for example by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those attempting an authentic pronunciation of...
consonant). There is also a connection with the word shams
"sun" (as in Majdal ShamsMajdal Shams is a Druze village in the northern part of the Golan Heights, the center of Druze life in the region. Majdal Shams is situated in the southern foothills of Mt. Hermon, and is surrounded by thousands of dunams of orchards, the main crops of which include first class apples and cherries...
or ash-ShamsSurah Ash-Shams is the 91st sura of the Qur'an with 15 ayat. It opens with a series of solemn oaths sworn on various astronomical phenomena, the first of which, "by the sun", gives the sura its name, then on the human soul itself. It then describes the fate of Thamud, a formerly prosperous...
).
The classical Arabic pronunciation of Syria is Sūriyya
(as opposed to the MSAStandard Arabic or Literary Arabic is the standard and literary variety of Arabic used in writing and in formal speech...
common pronunciation "Sūrya"
). This name was not widely used among Muslims before about 1870, though it had been used by Christians earlier. According to the Syrian Orthodox Church, "Syrian" (sūriy
سوري) used to mean "Christian" in early Christianity. In English, "Syrian" historically meant a Syrian ChristianSyriac Christianity is an ancient near Eastern Christian group represented by denominations primarily in the Middle East and in Kerala, India. Particularly notable is the liturgical use of ancient Syriac, a dialect related to the Aramaic of Jesus.-History:...
(as in, e.g., Ephraim the Syrian). Following the declaration of the Syrian Arab Republic in 1936, the term "Syrian" became to designate citizens of that state regardless of ethnicity. The adjective "Syriac" (suryāni
سرياني) has come into common use since as a demonym to avoid the ambiguity of "Syrian."
Currently, the Arabic term Suriyya refers to the modern state of
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
(as opposed to the whole Greater Syria region), but this distinction was not as clear before the mid 20th-century. The
HashemiteHashemite is the Latinate version of the and traditionally refers to those belonging to the Banu Hashim, or "clan of Hashim", a clan within the larger Quraish tribe...
dream of a Greater Syrian Arab kingdom was frustrated after WW1 due to the
Sykes-Picot AgreementThe Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 was a secret agreement between the governments of the UK and France, with the assent of Imperial Russia, defining their respective spheres of influence and control in west Asia after the expected downfall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I...
, and the uniting of the separate French mandates in Syria into one unified entity in 1936.
See also
- King of Syria
The title King of Syria, was established briefly following the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. Faysal ibn Husayn of the House of Hashim was proclaimed King of Greater Syria on 7 March, 1920 in Damascus, following the Arab revolt against the Ottomans of 1916–1918...
- Cradle of civilization
The cradle of civilization is any of the possible locations for the emergence of civilization.It is usually applied to the Ancient Near Eastern Chalcolithic , especially in the Fertile Crescent , but also extended to sites in Anatolia and the Persian Plateau,besides other Asian cultures situated...
- Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent is a region in the Near East, incorporating the Levant and Mesopotamia, and often incorrectly extended to Egypt. Mesopotamia is considered the cradle of civilization and saw the development of the earliest human civilizations and is the birthplace of writing and the wheel.The...
- Ottoman Syria
Ottoman Syria Ottoman Syria Ottoman Syria (Ottoman Turkish:سورية في العصر العثماني, refers to the Levant within the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1918. Syria in the Ottoman era included modern(Ottoman Turkish: Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, and parts of Turkey and Iraq.-...
- Syrian Social Nationalist Party
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party or SSNP , is a secular nationalist political party in Syria and Lebanon...
- Syrian nationalism
Syrian nationalism refers to the nationalism of Syria, or the Fertile Crescent as a cultural or political entity. It should not be confused with the Arab nationalism that is the official state doctrine of the Syrian Arab Republic's ruling Baath Party, nor should it be assumed that Syrian...
- Covenant Society
The Covenant Society was a political group organized in 1913, mainly by Iraqi officers serving in the Ottoman military.Most of these officers would serve in Sharif Husayn's army during the Arab Revolt and later in Faisal's Syrian army...
- Damascus Protocol
The Damascus Protocol was a document given to Faisal bin Hussein by the Arab secret societies al-Fatat and Al-'Ahd on his second visit to Damascus during a mission to consult Turkish officials in Constantinople...
- Region of Palestine
- Levant
The Levant describes, traditionally, the Eastern Mediterranean at large, but can be used as a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia formed by the lands bordering the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, roughly bounded on the north by the Taurus Mountains, on the south by...
- Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
- Mashriq
Mashriq or Mashreq is derived from the Arabic consonantal root sh-r-q relating to the east or the sunrise, and essentially means "east"...
- Names of the Levant
Over recorded history, there have been many names of the Levant, a large area in the Middle East. These names have applied to a part or the whole of the Levant. On occasion, two or more of these names have been used at the same time by different cultures or sects. As a natural result, some of...
Sources
- Article "Al-Sham" in the Encyclopedia of Islam by C.E. Bosworth, volume 9, p. 261 (1997).
- Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic
The Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic is an Arabic-English dictionary compiled by Hans Wehr and edited by J Milton Cowan.First published in 1961 by Otto Harrassowitz in Wiesbaden, Germany, it was an enlarged and revised English version of Wehr's German Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache...
by Hans WehrHans Wehr was a German Arabist. A professor at the University of Münster from 1957-1974, he published the Arabisches Wörterbuch , which was later published in an English edition as A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, edited by J Milton Cowan. For the dictionary Wehr created a transliteration...
(4th edition, 1994).