Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0360/03606.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 21KB | 390 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03606}
$Pretitle{247}
$Title{Syria
History and Government}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Embassy of Syria, Washington DC}
$Affiliation{Embassy of Syria, Washington DC}
$Subject{syria
french
arab
war
syrian
syrians
france
control
damascus
empire}
$Date{1990}
$Log{}
Country:     Syria
Book:        Facts about Syria
Author:      Embassy of Syria, Washington DC
Affiliation: Embassy of Syria, Washington DC
Date:        1990

History and Government

     The ancient territory named Greater Syria once included a much larger
area than does the modern Syrian Arab Republic. At different times in history,
parts of what are now Turkey and Iraq-as well as all of Lebanon, Jordan, and
Israel-belonged to Greater Syria.

     Nomadic herders lived in the region as early as 5000 B.C. Almost all of
these inhabitants were Semitic peoples, whose ancestors originated in the
Arabian Peninsula to the south and who shared a common language. Later,
Greater Syria's rich farmland drew many other groups to the area.

     In time, Greater Syria became a thriving center for agricultural and
commercial activity. Builders from as far away as

     In A.D. 395, to ease the management of its vast holdings, the Roman
Empire split into eastern and western portions. Syria became part of the
Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire. Emperors governed the territory from the
city of Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey). The empire's rulers, who
followed the Christian religion, tried to convert the Syrians but were
successful only in the northern part of the country.

     During the next 240 years, the Byzantine Empire was often at war with
Persia over land. Syria frequently became a battlefield, and the fighting
financially drained Constantinople. Eventually, the Byzantine rulers stopped
paying Arab clans from southern Syria for the border protection that they had
provided. Without these Arab troops, the empire's southern defenses weakened.
Invaders from the Arabian Peninsula met little resistance as they moved toward
southern Syria in the early 600s.

Islam and the Arabs

     Prophet Muhammad started a new, one-god faith called Islam. By 629 the
followers of Islam-called Muslims-set out from their capital at Mecca in the
Arabian Peninsula to establish Islam in other lands. Soon after the death of
Muhammad in 632, Muslims divided into two main sects. Sunni Muslims favored
electing a leader, while Shiites wanted Islam's head to be chosen from among
Muhammad's family. The Sunni sect became Islam's dominant group.

     Led by Khalid ibn al-Walid, the Arab Muslims conquered Damascus in 636.
Under Muslim rule, Syria slowly adopted Islam as the official religion of the
country. Muawiya, a Sunni who belonged to the Umayyad family, became the
caliph, or ruler, of Syria. In 661 a majority of the faithful elected him the
leader of all Muslims, and he chose Damascus as the political capital of
Islam.

     The city enjoyed a period of fame and wealth as the hub of the Islamic
Empire, which Muawiya I and other Umayyad caliphs extended west to Spain and
east to central Asia. Under the influence of Islam, Syrians substituted Arabic
for Aramaic as the main language of the Middle East. The Umayyads built roads,
founded hospitals, and encouraged education. Scholars from other lands studied
in Damascus, developing a new medical practices and philosophical ideas.

     Despite these advances, the empire had unstable leadership, and later
Umayyad caliphs fell away from Islamic traditions. In 715 the Abbasids, a
rival Muslim family, overthrew the Umayyad dynasty. The Abbasids transferred
the capital of the empire from Damascus to Baghdad (in present-day Iraq).

     Muslim nobles often challenged Abbasid rule. For example, Sayf al-Dawla
Abu al-Hasan ibn Hamdan established the Hamdanid kingdom at Aleppo in the
tenth century. Besides defying the authority of the Abbasids in Baghdad, Sayf
al-Dawla-who was himself a poet-made Aleppo a center of culture.

Seljuks and Crusaders

     In time, the Abbasids also ignored Islamic traditions, and their power
over the Islamic Empire weakened. When the Seljuk Turks invaded the region in
the late eleventh century, Arab nobles had already split Syria into small
Islamic states. The Seljuks, who had adopted Islam in the tenth century,
conquered Syria and established two provinces-one with its capital at Aleppo
and the other centered in Damascus.

     The Muslim Seljuks also pushed into the territory still controlled by the
Eastern Roman Empire in Anatolia. The Seljuks made it difficult for European
Christian to pass through Anatolia on their way to Palestine-a Middle Eastern
land that both Christians and Muslims considered sacred. To make safe passage
possible and to gain riches, Christian armies arrived from western Europe in
the late eleventh century.

     Known as crusaders, these Christian soldiers sought to control Palestine.
They conquered Seljuk territory and set up domains that were centered at
Antioch (in Anatolia), Tripoli (in Greater Syria), and Jerusalem (in
Palestine). The Syrian cities of Damascus, Homs, and Hama, however, remained
under Seljuk authority.

     In the early 1100s, constant warfare against the crusaders broke the
power of the Seljuk Turks in Syria. Zangi, a Muslim noble from Mosul (now in
northern Iraq), defeated a number of European crusaders and Seljuks, pushing
them out of northern Syria. Zangi's son, Nureddin, succeeded his father and
moved the capital of his growing kingdom first to Aleppo and then to Damascus.

SALADIN

     As sultan (ruler) of Syria, Nureddin responded to an Egyptian leader's
request for help both in settling an internal dispute and in stopping the
crusaders. Nureddin sent one of his armies and his ablest general, Saladin, to
the Egyptian royal court in 1169. Saladin became influential in the Egyptian
administration and finally took control of Egypt in 1171. After Nureddin's
death in 1174, Saladin became sultan of both Egypt and Syria.

     After Saladin brought the independent armies of several Muslim nobles
under his control, he used his newly unified forces to attack the crusaders.
Saladin pushed the European armies out of Jerusalem in 1188. Muslim and
Christian forces in other parts of the Middle East continued to fight until
1192. In that year, the two groups agreed to end the war. The agreement
allowed Christians to have access to Jerusalem in Palestine and to establish a
limited number of outposts on Syria's coast.

Mongols, Mamluks, and Ottomans

     After Saladin's death in 1192, Syria again broke into several states. In
1260 the Mongols, skilled warriors from central Asia, set upon Syria for the
first time. Under their leader Hulegu Khan, the Mongols killed thousands of
people and destroyed many mosques, homes, and aqueducts.

     The Mongols attacked Syria several times in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. Forces from the Mamluk dynasty, which had established itself in
Egypt in 1250, fought the Mongols in Syria during the 1300s and claimed the
region as part of the Mamluk kingdom. Despite repeated Mongol raids, the
Mamluks founded a prosperous realm. The most destructive Mongol attack came
in 1402, when Timur the Lame (called Tamerlane in the West) captured and
plundered Damascus.

     Syria did not easily recover from the damage inflicted by Timur and his
troops. The Mamluks continued to rule the area but became less effective. In
1516 the Ottoman Turks, founders of an Islamic empire in central Asia,
defeated the Mamluks at Aleppo and started their 300-year rule of Syria. The
Ottomans eventually controlled Anatolia, a section of southeastern Europe,
most of southwestern Asia, and part of northern Africa.

     The Ottomans ruled their empire through pashas-leaders who were given
complete authority over their areas. The pashas employed local civic and
religious officials to collect taxes, to establish courts, and to govern
communities.

     Under the pashas' leadership, Syria lost its economic vitality. Heavy
taxes and inef