Greater Syria
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Greater Syria, also known (in a historic context) as Syria, or Bilad ash-Sham (Arabic: بلاد الشام) or Suriya Al-Kubra (Arabic: سوريا الكبرى) , is a term that denotes an historic region in the Middle East bordering the Eastern Mediterranean Sea or the Levant.
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[edit] History and territory
Greater Syria consists of modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Cyprus, the Alexandretta region in modern-day Turkey -- which was originally a part of Syria until it was ceded to the Turks by the French colonialists in 1939 -- and the settled areas of Jordan or the western region of that country. The region was annexed to the Islamic Caliphate after the Muslim Rashidun victory against the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Yarmouk. During Umayyad times, the area was declared Bilad ash-Sham or "lands of the left" due to its location in the Muslim empire whereas Yemen correspondingly meant "of the right". The region was divided into four junds or military districts. They were Jund Dimashq, Jund Halab, Jund Filastin and Jund al-Urrdun. The city of Damascus was the capital of the Islamic Caliphate until the rise of Abassid Dynasty
In Ottoman times, it was divided into the five wilayas or sub-provinces of Halab (Aleppo), Dimashq (Damascus), Sayda (Sidon), al-Quds (Jerusalem) and al-Urrdun (Jordan). Halab consisted of most of northern modern-day Syria, Dimashq covered southern Syria and Sayda covered Lebanon and the coast of Syria from the port-city of Tartus southward. Al-Urrdun encompassed most of Western Jordan as well as the Galilee, while al-Quds consisted of the land south of the Galilee and west of the Jordan River and the Wadi Arabah.
Although the region's population was dominated by Sunni Muslims, it also contained sizable populations of Shi'a Muslims, Maronite, Greek Orthodox and Melkite Christians, as well as Mizrahi Jews, Alawite and Ismaili Muslims and Druzes.
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[edit] Al-Sham vs. Syria
Bilad al-Sham is not always precisely synonymous with "Greater Syria" or "Levant", 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 East, Bilad al-Sham was closely integrated and shared a common culture and economy. The colonialism 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.
"Sham" can also be transcribed as "Cham" under French influence. The adjective shami شامي means someone coming from this region. Note that the name Sham has no valid etymological connection with the Biblical figure Shem son of Noah — Sham comes from the Arabic consonantal root shin-hamza-mim ش ء م (referring to unluckiness, such as that traditionally associated with the left), as seen in alternative Arabic spellings such as شأم and شآم, while Shem son of Noah appears in Arabic as sam سام (with a different initial consonant, and without any internal glottal stop consonant). There is also no connection with the word shams "sun" (as in Majdal Shams or ash-Shams).
The Arabic word suriyya (سوريا) was not widely used among Arabic-speaking Muslims before about 1870, though it had been used by Arabic-speaking Christians earlier. According to the Syrian Orthodox Church, "Syrian" used to mean "Christian" in early Christianity, and the special Arabic word suryani سرياني (singular) / suryan سريان (plural) means one who belongs to the Syrian Orthodox Church, as opposed to the general Arabic adjective for "Syrian" suri سوري (singular) / suriyun سوريون (plural).
Currently, the Arabic term suriyya is used to refer to the modern state of Syria (as opposed to the whole Greater Syria region referred to as Bilad al-Sham), but this distinction was not as clear before the mid 20th-century. The Hashemite dream of a Greater Syrian Arab kingdom was frustrated after WW1 due to the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the uniting of the separate French mandates in Syria into one unified entity in 1936.
[edit] Greater Syria and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party
In the Syrian nationalist irredentist ideology developed by the founder of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the Lebanese Antun Saadeh, Greater Syria is seen as the geographic environment in which the Syrian nation state evolved. Initially considered co-terminus with historic Syria as described above, Saadeh later expanded it to include the Sinai, Iraq, Kuwait and Cyprus. He pointed to what he considered to be the region's distinct natural boundaries, and described it as extending from the Taurus range in the northwest and the Zagros Mountains in the northeast to the Suez Canal and the Red Sea in the south and includes the Sinai Peninsula and the Gulf of Aqaba, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the west, including the island of Cyprus, to the arch of the Arabian Desert and the Persian Gulf in the east.
[edit] See also
- Damascus Protocol
- Greater Lebanon
- Greater Israel
- Land of Israel/Region of Palestine
- Levant
- Mashriq
- Names of the Levant
[edit] Sources
- Article "Al-Sham" in the Encyclopedia of Islam by C.E. Bosworth, volume 9, p. 261 (1997).
- Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic by Hans Wehr (4th edition, 1994).
