1.
Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
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The Mamluk Sultanate was a medieval realm spanning Egypt, the Levant, and Hejaz. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, historians have traditionally broken the era of Mamlūk rule into two periods—one covering 1250–1382, the other, 1382–1517. Western historians call the former the Baḥrī period and the latter the Burjī due to the dominance of the regimes known by these names during the respective eras. Contemporary Muslim historians refer to the divisions as the Turkish. The Mamlūk state reached its height under Turkic rule with Arabic culture, the sultanates ruling caste was composed of Mamluks, soldiers of predominantly Cuman-Kipchaks, Circassian, Abkhazian, Oghuz Turks and Georgian slave origin. While Mamluks were purchased, their status was above ordinary slaves, Mamluks were considered to be true lords, with social status above citizens of Egypt. Though it declined towards the end of its existence, at its height the sultanate represented the zenith of medieval Egyptian and Levantine political, economic, the term Mamluk Sultanate is a modern historiographical term. The Arabic sources for the period of the Bahri Mamluks refer to the dynasty as the State/Realm of the Turks, other official names used were State of the Circassians. A variant thereof emphasized the fact that the Circassians were Turkish-speaking, the term Mongol State was used during Sultan al-Adil Kitbughas rule, who was of Mongol extraction. Dawlatāl Qalāwūn or Dawlat Banī Qalāwūn which means Qalāwūnī State/Dynasty which have ruled for hundred years between 1279 and 1382, al-dawla al-Ẓāhiriyya which meant Ẓāhirī state/dynasty which is the dynasty of Baibars and his two sons al-Said Barakah and Solamish. This dynasty have ruled consecutively for 19 years, Mamluk was a term defined as owned slave, distinguishing the mamluk from the garya and ghulam, which referred to household slaves. After thorough training in fields such as martial arts, court etiquette and Islamic sciences. However, they were expected to remain loyal to their master. Mamluks had formed a part of the state or military apparatus in Syria and Egypt since at least the 9th century, each Ayyubid sultan and high-ranking emir had a private mamluk corps. Most of the mamluks in the Ayyubids service were ethnic Kipchak Turks from Central Asia and they were highly committed to their masters, who they often referred to as father, and were in turn treated more as kinsmen than as slaves by their masters. These mamluks became known as the Salihiyyah, to provision his mamluks, as-Salih forcibly seized the iqtaʿat of his predecessors emirs. Despite his close relationship with his mamluks, tensions existed between as-Salih and the Salihiyyah, and a number of Salihi mamluks were imprisoned or exiled throughout as-Salihs reign. Tensions between as-Salih and his mamluks came to a later in 1249 when Louis IX of Frances forces captured Damietta in their bid to conquer Egypt during the Seventh Crusade
2.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam
3.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
4.
Islam
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Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion
5.
History
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History is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory and it is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians and their works continue to be read today, and the gap between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or approach in modern historical writing. In Asia, a chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals was known to be compiled from as early as 722 BC although only 2nd-century BC texts survived. Ancient influences have helped spawn variant interpretations of the nature of history which have evolved over the centuries, the modern study of history is wide-ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and the study of certain topical or thematical elements of historical investigation. Often history is taught as part of primary and secondary education, the word history comes ultimately from Ancient Greek ἱστορία, meaning inquiry, knowledge from inquiry, or judge. It was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in his Περὶ Τὰ Ζῷα Ἱστορίαι, the ancestor word ἵστωρ is attested early on in Homeric Hymns, Heraclitus, the Athenian ephebes oath, and in Boiotic inscriptions. History was borrowed from Latin into Old English as stær, and it was from Anglo-Norman that history was borrowed into Middle English, and this time the loan stuck. In Middle English, the meaning of history was story in general, the restriction to the meaning the branch of knowledge that deals with past events, the formal record or study of past events, esp. human affairs arose in the mid-fifteenth century. With the Renaissance, older senses of the word were revived, and it was in the Greek sense that Francis Bacon used the term in the sixteenth century. For him, historia was the knowledge of objects determined by space and time, in an expression of the linguistic synthetic vs. analytic/isolating dichotomy, English like Chinese now designates separate words for human history and storytelling in general. In modern German, French, and most Germanic and Romance languages, which are synthetic and highly inflected. The adjective historical is attested from 1661, and historic from 1669, Historian in the sense of a researcher of history is attested from 1531. Historians write in the context of their own time, and with due regard to the current dominant ideas of how to interpret the past, in the words of Benedetto Croce, All history is contemporary history. History is facilitated by the formation of a discourse of past through the production of narrative. The modern discipline of history is dedicated to the production of this discourse. All events that are remembered and preserved in some authentic form constitute the historical record, the task of historical discourse is to identify the sources which can most usefully contribute to the production of accurate accounts of past. Therefore, the constitution of the archive is a result of circumscribing a more general archive by invalidating the usage of certain texts and documents
6.
Ibn Taymiyyah
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Taqī ad-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Taymiyyah, known as Ibn Taymiyyah for short, was a controversial medieval Sunni Muslim theologian, jurisconsult, logician, and reformer. Moreover, Ibn Taymiyyahs controversial fatwa allowing jihad against other Muslims, is referenced to by Al-Qaeda, Ibn Taymiyyahs full name is Taqī ad-Dīn Abu l-Abbās Ahmad ibn Abd al-Ḥalīm ibn Abd as-Salām ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Khidr ibn Muhammad ibn al-Khidr ibn Ali ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Taymiyyah al-Ḥarrānī. Ibn Taymiyyahs name is unusual in that it is derived from a member of his family as opposed to a male member. Taimiyatu was a woman, famous for her scholarship and piety, Ibn Taymiyyah had a simple life, most of which he dedicated to learning, writing, and teaching. He never married nor did he have a companion, throughout his years. Al-Matroudi says that this may be why he was able to engage fully with the affairs of his time without holding any official position such as that of a judge. An offer of a position was made to him but he never accepted. His life was that of a scholar and a political activist. In his efforts he was persecuted and imprisoned on six different occasions with the time spent inside prison coming to over six years. Other sources say that he spent over twelve years in prison and his detentions were due to certain elements of his creed and his views on some jurisprudential issues. However according to Yahya Michot, the reasons were more trivial. Ibn Taymiyyahs own relationship, as a scholar, with the ruling apparatus. It ranged from silence to open rebellion, Ibn Taymiyyah was born in 1263 in Harran into a well-known family of theologians. His father had the Hanbali chair in Harran and later at the Great mosque of Damascus, before its destruction by the Mongols, Harran was also well known since the early days of Islam for its Hanbali school and tradition, to which Ibn Taymiyyahs family belonged. His grandfather, Abu al-Barkat Majd ad-Din ibn Taymiyyah al-Hanbali and his uncle, likewise, the scholarly achievements of ibn Taymiyyahs father, Shihab al-deen Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah were also well known. According to the book Rethinking Islamic Studies edited by Carl W. Ernst, martin, Ibn Taymiyyah believed, non-Arab Muslims are inferior to Arab Muslims. In 1269, Ibn Taymiyyah at the age of seven together with his father, Ibn Taymiyyahs family moved and settled in Damascus, Syria, which at the time was ruled by the Mamluks of Egypt. In Damascus his father served as the director of the Sukkariyya madrasa, Ibn Taymiyyah acquainted himself with the religious and secular sciences of his time
7.
Turkmens
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The Turkmens are a Turkic people located primarily in Central Asia, in the state of Turkmenistan, as well as in Iran, Afghanistan, North Caucasus, and northern Pakistan. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Eastern Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages, examples of other Oghuz languages are Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai, Gagauz, Khorasani, and Salar. Originally, all Turkic tribes that were not part of the Turkic dynastic mythological system were designated Turkmens, only later did this word come to refer to a specific ethnonym. The etymology of the term derives from Türk plus the Sogdian affix of similarity -myn, -men, a prominent Turkic scholar, Mahmud Kashgari, also mentions the etymology Türk manand. The language and ethnicity of the Turkmen were much influenced by their migration to the west, Kashgari calls the Karluks Turkmen as well, but the first time the etymology Turkmen was used was by Makdisi in the second half of the 10th century AD. Like Kashgari, he wrote that the Karluks and Oghuz Turks were called Turkmen, some modern scholars have proposed that the element -man/-men acts as an intensifier, and have translated the word as pure Turk or most Turk-like of the Turks. During the Ottoman period these nomads were known by the names of Türkmen and these names were generally used to describe their nomadic way of life, rather than their ethnic origins. However, these terms were used interchangeably by foreigners. At the same time, various other exonym words were used for these nomads, such as Konar-göçer, Göçebe, Göçer-yörük, Göçerler, the most common one among these was Konar-göçer – nomadic Turcoman Turks. All of these words are found in Ottoman archival documents and carry only the meaning of nomad, Oghuz tribes had moved westward from the Altay mountains in the 7th century AD, through the Siberian steppes, and settled in this region. They also penetrated as far west as the Volga basin and the Balkans and these early Turkmens are believed to have mixed with native Sogdian peoples and lived as pastoral nomads until the Russian conquest of the 19th century. Signs of advanced settlements have been found throughout Turkmenistan including the Djeitun settlement where neolithic buildings have been excavated and dated to the 7th millennium BCE, by 2000 BCE, various Indo-European peoples began to settle throughout the region, as indicated by the finds at the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. Notable early tribes included the nomadic Dahae, Massagetae and Scythians, the Parni, a Dahae tribe came to dominate the region, and established the Parthian Empire, which also later fractured as a result of invasions from the north. Ephthalites, Huns, and Göktürks came in a parade of invasions. Finally, the Sassanid Empire based in Persia ruled the area prior to the coming of the Muslim Arabs during the Umayyad Caliphate by 716 CE, the majority of the inhabitants were converted to Islam as the region grew in prominence. Next came the Oghuz Turks, who imparted their language upon the local population, a tribe of the Oghuz, the Seljuks, established a Turko-Iranian culture that culminated in the Khwarezmid Empire by the 12th century. Mongol hordes led by Genghis Khan conquered the area between 1219 and 1221 and devastated many of the cities led to a rapid decline of the remaining Iranian urban population. The Turkmen largely survived the Mongol period due to their lifestyle and became traders along the Caspian
8.
Baalbek
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The capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate, Baalbek has a population of approximately 82,608, mostly Shia Muslims, followed by Sunni Muslims and a minority of Christians. It is reckoned a stronghold of the Shia Hezbollah movement and it is home to the annual Baalbeck International Festival. Heliopolis is the latinisation of the Greek Hēlioúpolis, meaning Sun City in reference to the solar cult there and it is the earlier attested of the two names, appearing under the Seleucids and Ptolemies. Ammianus Marcellinus, however, does note that earlier Assyrian names of Levantine towns continued to be used alongside the official Greek ones imposed by the successors of Alexander, in Greek religion, Helios was both the sun in the sky and its personification as a god. It was sometimes described as Heliopolis in Syria or Coelesyria to distinguish it from its namesake in Egypt, in Catholicism, its titular see is distinguished as Heliopolis in Phoenicia, from its former Roman province Phoenice. The importance of the cult is also attested in the name Biḳāʿ al-ʿAzīz borne by the plateau surrounding Baalbek, as it references an earlier solar deity and not later men. In Greek and Roman antiquity, it was known as Heliopolis and it still possesses some of the best-preserved Roman ruins in Lebanon, including one of the largest temples of the empire. The gods that were worshipped there were equivalents of the Canaanite deities Hadad, local influences are seen in the planning and layout of the temples, as they vary from the classic Roman design. The name BʿLBK is first attested in two early 5th-century Syriac manuscripts, a c. 411 translation of Eusebiuss Theophania and a c. 435 life of Rabbula and it was pronounced as Baʿlabakka or Baʿlabakku in Classical Arabic. In Modern Standard Arabic, its vowels are marked as Baʿlabak or Baʿlabekk or Bʿalbik, the half ring ⟨ ʿ ⟩ or apostrophe ⟨ ⟩ in these romanisations marks the words pharyngeal stop. The etymology of Baalbek has been debated indecisively since the 18th century, cook took it to mean Lord of the Beka and Donne as City of the Sun. Lendering asserts that it is probably a contraction of Baʿal Nebeq, steiner proposes a Semitic adaption of Lord Bacchus, from the classical temple complex. The hilltop of Tell Baalbek, part of a valley to the east of the northern Beqaa Valley and it was well-watered both from a stream running from the Rās-el-ʿAin spring SE of the citadel and, during the spring, from numerous rills formed by meltwater from the Anti-Lebanons. Macrobius later credited the foundation to a colony of Egyptian or Assyrian priests. The settlements religious, commercial, and strategic importance was minor enough, however and its enviable position in a fertile valley, major watershed, and along the route from Tyre to Palmyra should have made it a wealthy and splendid site from an early age. During the Canaanite period, the temples were largely devoted to the Heliopolitan Triad, a male god, his consort. The site of the present Temple of Jupiter was probably the focus of worship, as its altar was located at the hills precise summit. Following Alexander the Greats conquest of Persia in the 330s BC and it was annexed by the Romans during their eastern wars
9.
Homs
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Homs, previously known as Emesa, is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is 501 metres above sea level and is located 162 kilometres north of Damascus, located on the Orontes River, Homs is also the central link between the interior cities and the Mediterranean coast. Its population reflects Syrias general religious diversity, composed of Sunni and Alawite, there are a number of historic mosques and churches in the city, and it is close to the Krak des Chevaliers castle, a world heritage site. Homs did not emerge into the record until the 1st century BCE at the time of the Seleucids. It later became the capital of a kingdom ruled by the Emesani dynasty who gave the city its name, originally a center of worship for the sun god El-Gabal, it later gained importance in Christianity under the Byzantines. Homs was conquered by the Muslims in the 7th century and made capital of a district that bore its current name, throughout the Islamic era, Muslim dynasties contending for control of Syria sought after Homs due to the citys strategic position in the area. Homs began to decline under the Ottomans and only in the 19th century did the city regain its importance when its cotton industry boomed. During French Mandate rule, the city became a center of insurrection and, after independence in 1946, in the ongoing Syrian civil war, Homs became an opposition stronghold and the Syrian government launched a military assault against the city in May 2011. The following Siege of Homs left much of the city completely destroyed, the war in the city ended in 2015 when rebels evacuated the city, resulting in a government victory. The origin of the modern name is that it is an Arabic form of the citys Latin name Emesus. The name Emesa seems to derive from the nomadic Arab tribe, called Emesenoi by the Greeks and the Romans, Emesa was shortened to Homs or Hims by its Arab inhabitants, many of whom settled there prior to the Muslim conquest of Syria. This name has been preserved throughout the period of Islamic rule continuing to the present day and it was known as la Chamelle by the Crusaders, although they never ruled the city. For approximately 2,000 years, Homs has served as a key market, production site. It has also provided security services to the hinterland of Syria, excavations at the Citadel of Homs indicate that the earliest settlement at the site dates back to around 2300 BCE. Biblical scholars have identified the city with Zobah mentioned in the Bible, in 1274 BCE, a battle took place between the forces of the Egyptian Empire under Ramesses II and the Hittite Empire under Muwatalli II at the city of Kadesh on the Orontes River near Homs. It was possibly the largest chariot battle ever fought, involving perhaps 5, at this time, Greek philosopher Strabo spoke of a tent-dwelling tribe called the Emesani living in the area around the Orontes and south of the Apamea region. They were an Arab tribe in the area and settled in Emesa—which derived its name from them. Their chief at the time, Sampsiceramus I, gained the status as King of Emesa, but their capital was at Arethusa, a city north of Emesa, also along the Orontes River
10.
Hama
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Hama is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria. It is located 213 km north of Damascus and 46 kilometres north of Homs and it is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. With a population of 854,000, Hama is the fourth-largest city in Syria after Aleppo, Damascus, the city is renowned for its seventeen norias used for watering the gardens, which are locally claimed to date back to 1100 BC. Though historically used for purpose of irrigation, the norias exist today as an almost entirely aesthetic traditional show, in the last decades, the city of Hama has become known as a center of the anti-Baath opposition in Syria, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood. The city was again the site of conflict between the Syrian military and opposition forces as one of the main arenas of the Syrian civil war during the 2011 siege of Hama. The ancient settlement of Hamath was occupied from the early Neolithic to the Iron Age, remains from the Chalcolithic have been uncovered by Danish archaeologists on the mount on which the former citadel once stood. The excavation took place between 1931 and 1938 under the direction of Harald Ingholt, the stratigraphy is very generalized, which makes detailed comparison to other sites difficult. Level M contained both white ware and true pottery and it may be contemporary with Ras Shamra V. The overlying level L dates to the Chalcolithic Halaf culture, mitanni was subsequently overthrown by the Hittites, who controlled all of northern Syria following the famous Battle of Kadesh against Ancient Egypt under Ramesses II near Homs in 1285. In early 19th century, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt was the first to discover Hittite or Luwian hieroglyphic script at Hama, the site also shows Assyrian and Aramaean settlement. When the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III conquered the north of Aramea reached Hamath in 835 BC, irhuleni of Hamath and Hadadezer of Aram-Damascus led a coalition of Aramean cities against the encroaching Assyrian armies. According to Assyrian sources, they were confronted by 4000 chariots,2000 horsemen,62, the Assyrian victory seems to have been more of a draw, although Shalmaneser III continued on to the shore and even took a ship to open sea. In the following years, Shalmaneser III failed to conquer Hamath or Aram-Damascus, after the death of Shalmaneser III, the former allies Hamath and Aram-Damascus fell out, and Aram-Damascus seems to have taken over some of Hamaths territory. An Aramaic inscription of Zakkur, dual king of Hamath and Luhuti, tells of an attack by a coalition including Samal under Ben-Hadad III, son of Hazael, zakir was besieged in his fortress of Hazrak, but saved by intervention of the God Baalshamin. Later on, the state of Samal came to rule both Hamath and Aram, in 738 BC, Hamath is listed among the cities again conquered by Assyrian troops. Over 30,000 natives were deported to Ullaba and replaced with captives from the Zagros Mountains, after the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, Hamaths king Ilu-Bidi led a failed revolt of the newly organized Assyrian provinces of Arpad, Simirra, Damascus, and Samara. Styling himself the Destroyer of Hamath, Sargon II razed the city ca 720 BCE, recolonized it with 6,300 Assyrians and he also carried off to Nimrud the ivory-adorned furnishings of its kings. The few Biblical reports state that Hamath was the capital of a Canaanite kingdom, whose king congratulated King David on his victory over Hadadezer, king of Zobah
11.
Aleppo
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Aleppo is a city in Syria, serving as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,132,100, Aleppo was the largest Syrian city before the Syrian Civil War, however, now Aleppo is likely the second-largest city in Syria after the capital Damascus. Aleppo is an ancient city, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, such a long history is attributed to its strategic location as a trading center midway between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia. For centuries, Aleppo was the largest city in the Syrian region, and it was also one of the largest cities in the Levant before the advent of the Syrian Civil War. The citys significance in history has been its location at one end of the Silk Road, when the Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869, trade was diverted to sea and Aleppo began its slow decline. At the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Aleppo ceded its northern hinterland to modern Turkey, in the 1940s, it lost its main access to the sea, Antakya and İskenderun, also to Turkey. Finally, the isolation of Syria in the past few decades further exacerbated the situation and this decline may have helped to preserve the old city of Aleppo, its medieval architecture and traditional heritage. It won the title of the Islamic Capital of Culture 2006, during the Battle of Aleppo the city suffered massive destruction, and has been the worst-hit city in the Syrian Civil War. In December 2016, the Syrian government achieved full control of Aleppo following a successful offensive, modern-day English-speakers commonly refer to the city as Aleppo. It was known in antiquity as Khalpe, Khalibon, and to the Greeks, during the Crusades, and again during the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon of 1923–1946, the name Alep was used. Aleppo represents the Italianised version of this, the original ancient name, Halab, has survived as the current Arabic name of the city. Some have proposed that halab means iron or copper in Amorite languages, the modern-day Arabic nickname of the city, ash-Shahbaa, which means the white-colored, also allegedly derives from the famous white marble of Aleppo. From the 11th century it was common usage to apply the term Aram-Zobah to the area of Aleppo. Aleppo has scarcely been touched by archaeologists, since the city occupies its ancient site. The site has been occupied from around 5000 BC, as shown by excavations in Tallet Alsauda, Aleppo appears in historical records as an important city much earlier than Damascus. The first record of Aleppo comes from the third millennium BC, some historians, such as Wayne Horowitz, identify Aleppo with the capital of an independent kingdom closely related to Ebla, known as Armi, although this identification is contested. The main temple of the storm god Hadad was located on the hill in the center of the city. In the Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian Empire period, Aleppos name appears in its form as Ḥalab for the first time
12.
Cairo
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Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt. Cairo has long been a center of the political and cultural life. Cairo has the oldest and largest film and music industries in the Arab world, as well as the worlds second-oldest institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar University. Many international media, businesses, and organizations have regional headquarters in the city, with a population of 6.76 million spread over 453 square kilometers, Cairo is by far the largest city in Egypt. An additional 9.5 million inhabitants live in proximity to the city. Cairo, like many other mega-cities, suffers from high levels of pollution, Cairos metro, one of only two in Africa, ranks among the fifteen busiest in the world, with over 1 billion annual passenger rides. The economy of Cairo was ranked first in the Middle East in 2005, Egyptians often refer to Cairo as Maṣr, the Egyptian Arabic name for Egypt itself, emphasizing the citys importance for the country. In Coptic the city is known as Kahire, meaning Place of the Sun, possibly referring to the ancient city of Heliopolis, the location of the ancient city is the suburb of Ain Shams. The ancient Egyptian name for the area is thought to be Khere-Ohe, The Place of Combat, sometimes the city is informally referred to as Kayro. The area around present-day Cairo, especially Memphis, had long been a point of Ancient Egypt due to its strategic location just upstream from the Nile Delta. However, the origins of the city are generally traced back to a series of settlements in the first millennium. Around the turn of the 4th century, as Memphis was continuing to decline in importance and this fortress, known as Babylon, remained the nucleus of the Roman, and, later, the Byzantine, city and is the oldest structure in the city today. It is also situated at the nucleus of the Coptic Orthodox community, many of Cairos oldest Coptic churches, including the Hanging Church, are located along the fortress walls in a section of the city known as Coptic Cairo. Following the Muslim conquest in 640 AD the conqueror Amr ibn As settled to the north of the Babylon in an area became known as al-Fustat. Originally a tented camp Fustat became a permanent settlement and the first capital of Islamic Egypt, in 750, following the overthrow of the Ummayad caliphate by the Abbasids, the new rulers created their own settlement to the northeast of Fustat which became their capital. This was known as al-Askar as it was laid out like a military camp, a rebellion in 869 by Ahmad ibn Tulun led to the abandonment of Al Askar and the building of another settlement, which became the seat of government. This was al-Qattai, to the north of Fustat and closer to the river, Al Qattai was centred around a palace and ceremonial mosque, now known as the Mosque of ibn Tulun. In 905 the Abbasids re-asserted control of the country and their returned to Fustat
Tarikh al-Islam al-kabir. (Major History of Islam); (50 volumes) Ibn Hajar received it from Abu Hurayra ibn al-Dhahabi.[11]
