- published: 27 May 2012
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- author: Syrian Scenes
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![[13/7/2012] Hama, Syria: Terrorists try to rampage through a town, meet Syrian army 18+](http://web.archive.org./web/20121217234851im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Bh7ITI4arkA/default.jpg "When they speak of a")
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- 1981 Hama massacre
- 2011 Syrian uprising
- 2012 Houla massacre
- Abbasid
- Abdul Halim Khaddam
- Abu al-Fida
- Adnan Al-Aroor
- Afrin, Syria
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Afrin, Syria
Afrin (Arabic: عفرين ʿAfrīn, Kurdish: Efrîn) is both a district and city of the Aleppo Governorate, Syria. The district of Afrin includes the eponymous city of 80,000 inhabitants and 366 surrounding villages, among them Katma, Kastall, Kibar and Rajo. The district has 490,000 inhabitants and is situated next to Kurt-Dagh ("Mountain of the wolf in Turkish"). The district has an area of 2.033 square kilometers and consists of seven municipalities: Afrin (center), Jindêrês, Sharan, Mobetan/Mahbatli, Rajo, Bulbul, Shiyê. Afrin means "fruitful creation" or "blessing" in Kurdish.
The Afrin River flows through the city.
The first resistance against French troops was based on DECO and Shikakies tribes in northern Afrin. The city was later built by France as a commercial center.
Coordinates: 36°30′36″N 36°52′04″E / 36.51°N 36.86778°E / 36.51; 36.86778
wn.com/Afrin,_Syria -
Al-Bab
Al-Bāb (Arabic: الباب Al Bāb) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to the Aleppo Governorate. Al Bab is located northeast of Aleppo and has an area of 30 km². Al-Bab has an altitude of 471 meters. It has a population of 144,705 as of 2007, making it the 8th largest city per geographical entity in Syria. The majority of the city's population is Sunni Muslim.
Al-Bāb in Arabic means the door. According to Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi in 1226, the name is a shortening of Bāb Bizāʻah (the gate to Bizāʻah). Bizāʻah (also Buzāʻah and Bzāʻā) is a town located about 10 km east of Al-Bāb.
Al-Bāb was conquered by the Arab army of the Rashidun Caliphate under caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab. It received its name, meaning "the Gate", during Islamic rule as it served as "the gate" between Aleppo and the adjacent town of Buza'ah. The tomb and shrine of Aqil ibn Abi Talib (the brother of Ali) was located in al-Bāb, and until its rule by the Ayyubids in the 13th century, the town was populated mostly by Shias of the Ismaili sect.
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Al-Darbasiyah
Al-Darbasiyah (Arabic: الدرباسية, Kurdish: Dirbêsî) is a Syrian city on the Turkish border opposite the Turkish town of Senyurt. It belongs administratively to Al-Hasakah Governorate. It has a population of 22,247. It is connected by road to Tell Beydar in the south.
wn.com/Al-Darbasiyah -
Al-Haffah
Al-Haffah (Arabic: الحفة) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Latakia Governorate. Al-Haffah has an altitude of 194m. It has a population of 17,921. Al-Haffah is the largest section (Manteqa) of the four administrative sections forming Latakia Goverorate; City of Latakia, Al-Haffah, Jableh and Al-Qurdaha.
Al-Haffah is located on a mountain near Salah-Ul-Deen Castle (7 km); which is very famous in the Syrian Monuments Directory due to its history (starting with the Phoenicians, and being a strategic point for invading Crusaders) and the unique "Pole of the Pregnant" (ar: عامود الحبلة ), which is a tower sculptured in stone to connect the two parts of the castle without using the gates.
Al-Haffah produces olives, figs, pomegranates, Damacian apples and Debbeshee pears.
wn.com/Al-Haffah -
Al-Hajar al-Aswad
Al-Hajar al-Aswad (Arabic: الحجر الأسود, meaning Black Stone) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to the Rif Dimashq Governorate. It has a population of 96,419 as of 2007, making it the 13th largest city per geographical entity in Syria.
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Al-Hasakah
Al-Hasakah (Syriac: ܚܣܟܗ, Arabic: الحسكة Al Ḥasaka, Kurdish: Hesîçe) is the capital city of the Al-Hasakah Governorate and is located in the far north-east corner of Syria. With a population of 188,160 residents, Al-Hasakah is among the 10 largest cities in Syria and the largest in the governorate, with the majority being Christian ethnic Assyrians/Syriacs, the Muslims in the city are mainly Kurds and Arabs. The Khabur River runs through Al-Hasakah and the rest of the governorate. Coordinates: 36°29′N 40°45′E / 36.483°N 40.75°E / 36.483; 40.75
Armenian church in Al-Hasakah
Saint George Cathedral
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Al-Malikiyah
Al-Malikiyah (Arabic: المالكية Al Mālikiya, Classical Syriac: ܕܪܝܟ, Dêrik, Kurdish: Dayrik) is a small Syrian city and the center of an administrative district belonging to Al-Hasakah Governorate. The district constitutes the northeastern corner of the country. The Tigris river defines the border that separates Syrian from Turkish and Iraqi territories. The population enjoys demographic and ethnic diversity that is characteristic of most of Al-Hasakah Governorate. The town is inhabited by Assyrians/Syriacs, Arabs, Kurds, and Armenians.
Al-Malikiyah, which is named after a Syrian army officer Adnan al-Malki, is also known as Dayrik an Assyrian/Syriac reference to monastery. The town's indigenous occupants are Assyrians/Syriacs who trace their ancestry to many Turkish villages (Tur Abdin) whose inhabitants fled to Syria escaping the Assyrian Genocide and Armenian genocide by Ottoman Turkey during World War I.
The northern half of the town is mainly inhabited by Muslim Kurds, the southern by Christians. As the economic center of the district, the town is usually flocked by people from the surrounding villages and towns, especially during the morning hours. Al-Malikiyah has seen a dramatic urban expansion and real estate development in recent years which led to many streets being extended to new neighborhoods that are now part of the continually growing town.
wn.com/Al-Malikiyah -
Al-Mukharram
Al-Mukharram (Arabic: المخرم), also known as Mukharram al-Foqani, is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Homs Governorate in the Al-Mukharram District. Al-Mukharram has an altitude of 845m. It has a population of 9,640.
wn.com/Al-Mukharram -
Al-Qusayr, Syria
Coordinates: 34°30′42.72″N 36°34′35.32″E / 34.5118667°N 36.5764778°E / 34.5118667; 36.5764778
Al-Qusayr (Arabic: القصير) is a city in western Syria, administratively part of the Homs Governorate. It is located about 4.8 kilometers (3.0 mi) southwest of Homs and is situated in a mountainous area overlooking Syria's border with Lebanon. Al-Qusayr has an altitude of 540 meters (1,770 ft). A Muslim majority city with a significant Christian minority, it had a population of 29,818 in 2004 according to the Syrian census.
Al-Qusayr is the closest modern day city to the ancient walled hilltop city of Qadesh (now the ruins known as Tell Nebi Mend, (ca. 1766 ft)) named for the ancient deity Qetesh (Qetesh-goddess of beauty) and which sits north and above the plain east of the river where historians place the largest known chariot vs. chariot battle in antiquity, the Battle of Qadesh, May 1274 BCE between the forces of Ramesses II's Egypt and the Anatolian Empire of the Hittites of Muwatalli II.
wn.com/Al-Qusayr,_Syria -
Al-Qutayfah
Al-Qutayfah (Arabic: القطيفة) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to the Rif Dimashq Governorate in the al-Qutayfah District, and is located 40 kilometers (25 mi) east of Damascus. It has a population of 16,360.
wn.com/Al-Qutayfah -
Al-Sanamayn
Al-Sanamayn (Arabic: الصنمين) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Daraa Governorate. Al-Sanamayn has an altitude of 640. It has a population of 27,351.
wn.com/Al-Sanamayn -
Al-Suqaylabiyah
Al-Suqaylabiyah (Arabic: السقيلبيه As Suqailabiya) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Hama Governorate. Al-Suqaylabiyah is located at a height of 220 meters above sea level. According to the 2004 official census, the town has a population of 17,313.
The name goes back to the ancient Seleucia ad Belum, a town of hellenistic foundation that was located almost at the same place. The site was given up during the middle ages and repeopled at the beginning of the 19th century.
wn.com/Al-Suqaylabiyah -
Al-Tall (Syria)
Al-Tall (Arabic: التل) is the Syrian capital city of the Al-Tall District, which administratively belongs to the Rif Dimashq Governorate. Al-Tall has an altitude of 913 meters. It has a population of 59,869 as of 2007, making it the 27th largest city per geographical entity in Syria. It is located in the middle of the Anti-Lebanon mountains.
wn.com/Al-Tall_(Syria) -
Al-Thawrah
The city of Al-Thawrah (Arabic: الثورة Aṯ Ṯawra) is located in Ar-Raqqah Governorate (Syria), c. 55 kilometres (34 mi) west of its capital city Ar-Raqqah. The name "Al-Thawrah" literally means "The Revolution", in reference to the March 8th revolution. The Tabqa Dam, which compounds the Euphrates and creates Lake Assad, was built near Al-Thawrah. The city has a population of 65,000.
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Albaida, Syria
Albaida (Arabic: البيضا) is a small village in Syria. It is located 95 km (59 mi) Southeast of the port city of Latakia, 2 km (1 mi) south of Masyaf (Arabic: مصياف), and 210 km (130 mi) north of Damascus. It is part of the Hama Governorate (Muhafazat Hama).
The village is notable for numerous water springs such as Ayen Tallah which provided the village with pure water for many years.
Albaida's population is about 800 during winter, growing to about 5,000 during the summer; summer visitors spend most of their times at waterfall areas, cafeterias, and cafes. The year-round population is 99% Christian (Greek Orthodox) and 1% Muslim; most work in agriculture, in tourism, or for the government.
The first man who lived in Albaida was Ibrahim Bolous Ghanemeh in about 1730. The San Gawargeos church at Albaida was built in 1865.
Official website
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An Nabk
An Nabk or Al-Nabk (Arabic: النبك) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Rif Dimashq and the capital of the Qalamoun. Located 81 kilometers (50 mi) north of Damascus and south of Homs. It has an altitude of 1255 meters. It has a population of 52,502 as of 2007, making it the 35th largest city per geographical entity in Syria. The Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian (Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi) is located along the Anti-Lebanon Mountains near Nabk and dates back to at least the 6th century.
Al-Nabk has been mentioned by Arab geographers from the 12th to 13th centuries CE. Ibn Jubayr recorded that it was a village north of Damascus "with much running water and broad arable fields." Yaqut al-Hamawi wrote in 1225 that "is a fine village with excellent provisions... There is here a curious spring which runs cold in the summer, and with clear, excellent water. They say its source is at Yabrud."
Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi, the monastery of Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian, sits above the town to the west.
wn.com/An_Nabk -
Ar-Raqqah
Ar-Raqqah (Arabic: الرقة Ar Raqqa), also spelled Rakka, is a city in north central Syria located on the north bank of the Euphrates, about 160 km east of Aleppo. It is the capital of the Ar-Raqqah Governorate and one of the main cities of the historical Diyār Muḍar, the western part of the Jazīra. According to th 2004 official census, the population of the city is 220,488 people.
The Seleucid king Seleukos II Kallinikos (reigned 246–225 BC) founded ar-Raqqah as the eponymous city of Kallinikos (Latinized as Callinicum). In the Byzantine period, the city was briefly named Leontoupolis by the emperor Leo I (reigned 457–474 AD), but the name Kallinikos prevailed. In 542, the city was destroyed by the invasion of the Persian Sasanid Shahanshah Khusrau I Anushirvan (reigned 531–579), but was subsequently rebuilt by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (reigned 527–565).
In the 6th century, Kallinikos became a center of Syriac monasticism. Deir Mār Zakkā, or the Saint Zacchaeus Monastery, situated on the tell just north of the city, today's Tall al-Bi'a, became renowned. A mosaic inscription there is dated to the year 509, presumably from the period of the foundation of the monastery. Deir Mār Zakkā is mentioned by various sources up to the 10th century. The second important monastery in the area was the Bīzūnā monastery or 'Dairā d-Esţunā', the 'monastery of the column'. In the 9th century, when ar-Raqqah served as capital of the western half of the Abbasid Caliphate, this monastery became the seat of the Syriac Patriarch of Antioch.
wn.com/Ar-Raqqah -
Ariha (Syria)
Arīḥā (Arabic: أريحا) or (more commonly) Rīḥā (Arabic: ريحا) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Idlib Governorate. Arihah has an altitude of 587 meters. It has a population of 55,017.
Coordinates: 35°49′N 36°36′E / 35.817°N 36.6°E / 35.817; 36.6
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Arpad (Syria)
Arpad (probably modern Tell Rifa'at, Syria) was an ancient Aramaean city located in north-western Syria, north of Aleppo. In 743 BC, the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III led a military expedition to Syria, defeating there the Uraratian army. But the city of Arpad, which had formed an alliance with Urartu, did not surrender easily. It took Tiglath-pileser three years of siege to conquer Arpad, whereupon he massacred its inhabitants and destroyed the city.
The city is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible several times:
'Tell Rifa'at' is an oval 250 by 233 meters. Within this, the main citadel is 142 by 142 meters with a maximum height of 30 meters. The defensive wall surrounding the site is about two miles long.
The site has been worked by a team from the Institute of Archaeology or the University of London. After a preliminary examination in 1956, Tell Rifa'at was excavated for two seasons in 1961 and 1964. The team was led by M. V. Seton Williams.
In 1977, an archaeological survey was conducted of the area around Tell Rifa'at, also by the Institute of Archaeology.
wn.com/Arpad_(Syria) -
As-Suwayda
As-Suwayda' (Arabic: السويداء / ALA-LC: as-Suwaydā’), also spelt Sweida, is a mainly Druze city located in southwestern Syria, close to the border with Jordan.
It is the capital of Muhafazat as-Suwayda', one of Syria's 14 governorates, bordering Jordan in the South and the governorates of Daraa in the West and Rif Dimashq in the North and East.
The inhabitants of the city are mainly Druze with a prominent Greek orthodox minority.
The population of the city is 73,641 (2004 census).
The city was founded by the Nabataeans as Suada. It became known as Dionysias (Greek: Διονύσιας) in the Hellenistic and Roman times, for Dionysus the god of wine - the city is situated in a famous ancient wine-producing region.
The name Dionysias replaced the former Nabatean name of Suada in 149 AD after the Nabataean influence decreased and then concentrated towards the south, as a result of the accelerating Hellenization of Coele-Syria at that time.
Dionysias was a part of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, and received the rights of civitas under the reign of Commodus between 180–185.
wn.com/As-Suwayda -
Ash-Shaykh Badr
Ash-Shaykh Badr (Arabic: الشيخ بدر) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Tartus Governorate. Ash-Shaykh Badr has an altitude of 536 meters. It has a population of 47,982.
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Assyrian Empire
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the late 25th or early–24th century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia (present day northern Iraq), that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur (Akkadian: 𒀸𒋗𒁺 𐎹 Aššūrāyu; Aramaic: אתור Aṯur; Hebrew: אַשּׁוּר Aššûr; Arabic: آشور Āšūr). Assyria was also sometimes known as Subartu, and after its fall, from 605 BC through to the late seventh century AD variously as Athura, Syria (Greek), Assyria (Latin) and Assuristan. The term Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were centred. The modern Assyrian Christian minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, south east Turkey and north west Iran are the descendants of the ancient Assyrians (see Assyrian continuity).
Assyria evolved originally as a minor Akkadian kingdom. From the late 24th Century BC Assyrian kings would certainly have been regional leaders only, and subject to Sargon of Akkad who united all the Akkadian speaking peoples of Mesopotamia under the Akkadian Empire which lasted from 2334 BC to 2154 BC. After the fall of the Akkadian Empire circa 2154 BC, and the succeeding Sumerian 3rd Dynasty of Ur, Mesopotamia eventually coalesced into just two separate nations; Assyria in the north, and some century and a half later, Babylonia in the south.
wn.com/Assyrian_Empire -
Ayn al-Arab
'Ayn al-'Arab (Arabic: عين العرب 'Ayn al 'Arab, Kurdish: Kobanê) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Aleppo Governorate. 'Ayn al-'Arab has a population of 54,681.
Coordinates: 36°53′24″N 38°22′12″E / 36.89°N 38.37°E / 36.89; 38.37
wn.com/Ayn_al-Arab -
Azaz
Azaz (Arabic: أعزاز A'zāz) is a small town in Syria, roughly 20 miles (30 kilometres) north-northwest of Aleppo (Halab). It is most notable for being the site of the Battle of Azaz between the Crusader States and the Seljuk Turks on June 11, 1125.
Azaz was the scene of a humiliating defeat of the Byzantine emperor Romanos III in August 1030, but was soon afer captured by the Byzantines under Niketas of Mistheia.
In the Battle of Azaz, forces of the Crusader States commanded by King Baldwin II of Jerusalem defeated Aq-Sunqur il-Bursuqi's army of Seljuk Turks on June 11, 1125 and raised the siege of the town. (One authority says the battle was fought on June 13.)
Joscelin I of Edessa had captured the city from the atabeg of Aleppo in 1118. The next year the Crusaders under Roger of Salerno were severely defeated at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis, and King Baldwin II of Jerusalem was captured while patrolling in Edessa in 1123.
In 1124 Baldwin II was released, and almost immediately he laid siege to Aleppo on October 8, 1124. This caught the attention of il-Bursuqi, the Seljuk atabeg of Mosul. Il-Bursuqi marched south to relieve the siege of Aleppo, which was nearing the point of surrender in January 1125 after a three-month siege. In spite of the city being "the greatest prize the war could offer," Baldwin cautiously withdrew without a fight.
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Azm Palace (Hama)
Coordinates: 35°8′2″N 36°45′13″E / 35.13389°N 36.75361°E / 35.13389; 36.75361
The Azm Palace (Arabic: بيت العظم, Beit al-Azem) is an 18th-century Ottoman palace in Hama, Syria located at the center of the city on the banks of the Orontes River, about 400 meters (1,300 ft) south of the Hama Citadel. Ross Burns, author of Monuments of Syria, reportedly considers the Azm Palace to be "one of the loveliest Ottoman residential buildings in Syria."
The Azm Palace at Hama was built in 1742 by the Ottoman governor, As'ad Pasha al-Azm as his residence. A larger palace with the same basic plan, also known as the Azm Palace, was built in Damascus by As'ad Pasha when he became governor of that city in 1743. It served the continuing line of Azm governors in Hama until the end of family rule in the 19th century.
The palace has been used as a museum since 1956, displaying archaeological finds from various sites in and around Hama, including the citadel. A noteworthy exhibit is that of a Roman mosaic depicting a musician playing a lyre. Extensively damaged during the 1982 Hama uprising, the palace has since been largely restored.
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Baalbek
Baalbek (Greek: Ἡλιούπολις; Arabic: بعلبك / ALA-LC: Ba‘albak) is a town in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon situated east of the Litani River. It is famous for its exquisitely detailed yet monumentally scaled temple ruins of the Roman period, when Baalbek, then known as Heliopolis, was one of the largest sanctuaries in the empire. It is Lebanon's greatest Roman treasure, and it can be counted among the wonders of the ancient world, containing some of the largest and best preserved Roman ruins.
Towering high above the Beqaa plain, their monumental proportions proclaimed the power and wealth of Imperial Rome. The gods worshiped there, the triad of Jupiter, Venus and Bacchus, were grafted onto the indigenous deities of Hadad, Atargatis and a young male god of fertility. Local influences are seen in the planning and layout of the temples, which vary from the classic Roman design.
Baalbek is home to the annual Baalbeck International Festival. The town is about 85 km (53 mi) northeast of Beirut and about 75 km (47 mi) north of Damascus. It has a population of approximately 72,000.
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Baniyas
Baniyas (Arabic: بانياس Bāniyās) is a city in Tartous Governorate, northwestern Syria, located at the foot of the hill of Qalaat el-Marqab (housing the Crusade castle of Marqab, Margat in western sources), 55 km to the south of Latakia (ancient Laodicea) and 35 km north of Tartous (ancient Tortosa), and a Catholic titular see under the Latin name of Balanea, which is presently vacant.
It is famous for its orchards and its export of wood. Today it is best known for its oil refinery north of the city, one of the largest in Syria; a power station is also present.
It still contains citrus fruit orchards surrounded by green hills. One of the hills has at its top the imposing Margat Citadel, a huge Knights Hospitaller fortress built with black basalt stone.
In Phoenician times, it was an important seaport, known to the Greeks as Balemia. Perhaps in Hellenistic times the city borrowed the name Leucas (according to Stephanus Byzantius) from the island in western Greece. The city of Balanaea, its Latin name, was a colony of Aradus (Strabo, XVI, 753), and was placed by Stephanus Byzantius in Phoenicia, though it belonged rather to the former Roman province of Syria. Its first known bishop was present at the Council of Nicaea in 325 (Lequien, Oriens Christ., II, 923). In 2011, during the 2011 Syrian uprising, Baniyas is assieged by the Syrian military.
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Battle of Qarqar
The Battle of Qarqar (or Ḳarḳar) was fought in 853 BC when the army of Assyria led by king Shalmaneser III encountered an allied army of twelve kings at Qarqar led by Hadadezer (also called Adad-idr and possibly to be identified with Benhadad II) of Damascus and King Ahab of Israel. This battle, fought during the 854 BC-846 BC Assyrian Conquest of Syria, is notable for having a larger number of combatants than any previous battle, and for being the first instance in which some peoples enter recorded history (such as the Arabs). The battle is recorded on The Kurkh Monolith. The ancient town of Qarqar at which the battle took place has generally been identified with the modern-day archaeological site of Tell Qarqur.
According to an inscription later erected by Shalmaneser, he had started his annual campaign, leaving Nineveh on the 14th day of Aiaru. He crossed both the Tigris and Euphrates without incident, receiving the submission and tribute of several cities along the way, including Aleppo. Once past Aleppo he encountered his first resistance from troops of Iruleni, king of Hamath, whom he defeated; in retribution, he plundered both the palaces and the cities of Iruleni's kingdom. Continuing his march after having sacked Qarqar, he encountered the allied forces near the Orontes River.
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Binnish
Binnish (Arabic: بنش) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Idlib Governorate. Binnish has an altitude of 351 meters and a population of 34,831.
The city is situated on a hill; the thing that gives it a spectacular view.The word "Binnish" derives from the Aramaic language which possibly means "child of man".The city is famous for olive, vine and fig trees besides its varied crops of all kinds. It has a big old mosque right at the centre which dates back to the Mamluk period (1250-1517) before the Ottomans. It has mild weather and hospitable people. Generally speaking, the people there are from all walks of life. The illiteracy rate is low compared to how it was three decades ago.
Coordinates: 35°57′N 36°42′E / 35.95°N 36.7°E / 35.95; 36.7
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Constantinople
Constantinople (Greek: Κωνσταντινούπολις, Konstantinoúpolis; Latin: Constantinopolis; Ottoman Turkish: قسطنطینیه, Qostantiniyye; and modern Turkish: İstanbul) was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Latin and the Ottoman Empires. It was founded in AD 330, at ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Constantine I, after whom it was named. The city was the largest and wealthiest European city of the Middle Ages, and shared the glories of the Byzantine Empire, which was eventually reduced to the city and its environs.
Although besieged on numerous occasions by various peoples, it was taken only in 1204 by the army of the Fourth Crusade, in 1261 by Michael VIII, and in 1453 by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. An inner wall was erected by Constantine I, and the city was surrounded by a triple wall of fortifications, begun during the 5th century by Theodosius II. The city was built on seven hills as well as on the Bosporus, and thus presented an impregnable fortress enclosing magnificent palaces, domes and towers. The Church of Hagia Sophia, the sacred palace of the emperors, the hippodrome, and the Golden Gate were among the largest of the many churches, public edifices, and monuments lining the arcaded avenues and squares.
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Damascus
Damascus (Arabic: دِمَشق / ALA-LC: Dimashq; commonly known in Syria as al-Sham (Arabic: الشام / al-Shām), and as the City of Jasmine (Arabic: مدينة الياسمين / Madīnat al-Yāsmīn), is the capital and the second largest city of Syria. Both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major cultural and religious center of the Levant. The city has an estimated population of 1,711,000 (2009 est.).
Located in southwestern Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area of 2.6 million people (2004). Geographically embedded on the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range 80 kilometres (50 mi) inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau 680 metres (2,230 ft) above sea-level, Damascus experiences a semi-arid climate due to the rain shadow effect. The Barada River flows through Damascus.
First settled in the 2nd millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad. Damascus saw a political decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. During Ottoman rule, the city decayed completely while maintaining a certain cultural prestige. Today, it is the seat of the central government and all of the government ministries. Damascus was chosen as the 2008 Arab Capital of Culture.
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Daraa
Daraa (Arabic: درعا, Levantine Arabic: [ˈdarʕa]), also Darʿā, Dara’a, Deraa, Dera, and Derʿā ("fortress", compare Dura-Europos), is a city in southwestern Syria, near the border with Jordan, with a population of 97,969 as of the 2004 census. It is the capital of Daraa Governorate, historically part of the ancient Hauran region. The city is located about 100 kilometres (62 mi) south of Damascus on the Damascus-Amman highway, and is used as a stopping station for travelers.
Daraa is an ancient city dating back to the Canaanites. It was mentioned in Egyptian hieroglyphic tablets at the time of the Pharaoh Thutmose III between 1490 and 1436 BC. It was known in those days as the city of Atharaa, and was later mentioned in the Old Testament as Edrei in the Kingdom of Bashan. Located in the city itself are a few ruins including caves and ancient dwellings, a Roman amphitheater, and the old Oumari Mosque which is of some architectural significance, dating back to the Umayyad and Ayyubid eras.
Daraa has recently suffered from reduced water supply in the region. Thousands of people protested in the city as part of the 2011 Syrian protests.
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Darayya
Darayya , Countryside of Damascus , Syria (Arabic: داريا) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Rif Dimashq. Darayya has an altitude of 689 meters. It has a population of 75,134 as of 2007, making it the 19th largest city per geographical entity in Syria. Patriarch Gregory III Laham, the spiritual leader of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church was born here in 15 December 1933 as Lutfy Laham.
Coordinates: 33°27′N 36°15′E / 33.45°N 36.25°E / 33.45; 36.25
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Deir Atiyah
Dair Atiah (Arabic: ديرعطية), is a city in Syria, located between the Qalamoun Mountains and the Eastern Lebanon Mountains Series, 88 kilometres (55 mi) north of the capital Damascus and on the road to the city of Homs. Dair Atiah's current population is estimated to be around 29,254 people.
Dair Atiah enjoys a moderate climate in summer and cold in the winter as Dair Atiah is located at an altitude of 1,250 metres (4,100 ft) above sea level.
The proximity to a desert region, where the average rainfall does not exceed more than 125 millimetres (4.9 in) annually, means that environmental conditions, including poor soil, does not provide adequate resources to economically sustain the local population. Hence locals travel or emigrate.[citation needed] Many locals emigrated to the Americas in the early 20th Century, and to the countries of Persian Gulf after the emergence of job opportunities there, and to Eastern Asia.
Farmers cultivate grapes, apricots, cherries, figs and other fruits.
Dair Atiah benefits from groundwater located in its valley.
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Deir ez-Zor
Coordinates: 35°20′N 40°9′E / 35.333°N 40.15°E / 35.333; 40.15
Deir ez-Zor, also spelled Dayr al-Zawr, Der Ezzor, Deir Azzor, and other variants (Arabic: دير الزور; Syriac: ܕܝܪܐ ܙܥܘܪܬܐ, Armenian: Տէր Զօր, Դեր Զոր, Ter Zor), is the 7th largest city in Syria and the largest in the eastern part of Syria. Located 450 km to the northeast from the capital Damascus on the shores of Euphrates River, Deir ez-Zor is the capital of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate. According to the 2004 official census, 211,857 people are residing in the city.
Among Syrians and neighbouring regions, Ad-Deir is used for short to indicate Deir ez Zor[citation needed]. The Current name, which has been extended to the region around it, indicates an ancient site for one of the Early Christian secluded monasteries spread since the persecution times and Apostolic Age throughout Mesopotamia. Although Deir, which is Arabic for "monastery", thought to be kept throughout Medieval and Modern Age renaming, Zor, which indicates the riverbank bush, appeared only in some late Ottoman records.
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Deirmama
Deirmama (Arabic: ديرماما) is a village of Masyaf in Hama Governorate, Syria, located at the eastern side of the coastal Alawite mountains. It has two main springs, the southern and northern regions, and the central village spreads between them with one main road. Deirmama's history goes back to the Roman era; it was the only village in Masyaf region that wasn’t under feudal rule, unlike the neighboring villages. Deirmama's residents have included intellectuals, including one reputed novelist and theater writer Mamdouh Adwan.
The population is composed mainly of Alawites and Christians, who share one shrine for worship: Alawites call it Sheikh Sobeh while Christians call it saint Mama. Diermama is famous for making the traditional Arak liquor and natural silk handicraft.
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Drekish
Duraykish (Arabic: دريكيش) is a city in Syria, in the Tartus Governorate, at a distance of about 32 km east of Tartus. The name Duraykish stems from Latin, and means "three caves". There is a spring near the south of the city; this water is bottled and sold under the label "Dreikiche".
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Fiq, Syria
Fiq (Arabic: فيق) is a former Syrian town administratively belonging to Al Quneitra Governorate, located in the Golan Heights. Residing at an altitude of 349 meters (1,145 ft), the Israeli settlement, kibbutz, Afik was built close by. As of 1966[update], Fiq had a population of 2,769 , but has since declined.
Coordinates: 32°46′N 35°42′E / 32.767°N 35.7°E / 32.767; 35.7
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France
France (English
i/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] (
listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
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Hama
Hama (Arabic: حماة Ḥamāh [ħaˈmaː], Biblical Ḥamāth, ("Fortress") is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria north of Damascus. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. With a population of 312,994 (2004 census), Hama is the fifth-largest city in Syria after Aleppo, Damascus, Homs and Latakia. The modern city is built on the site of the ancient city of Hamath (
/ˈheɪ.mʌθ/).
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-Ba'ath opposition in Syria, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood. The city was raided by the Syrian Army, beginning with the 1964 Islamic uprising, and becoming the scene of carnage during the Islamic uprising in Syria in April 1981 and especially in 1982, when some 25,000 people were killed in what became known as Hama massacre. The city was once again besieged by the Syrian military, as one of the main arenas of the 2011 uprising.
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Hama Governorate
Hama Governorate (Arabic: مُحافظة حماه / ALA-LC: Muḥāfaẓat Ḥamā) is one of the fourteen governorates (provinces) of Syria. It is situated in western-central Syria. Its area depends of sources. It varies from 8,844 km² to 8,883 km². Governorate has a population of 1,593,000 (2010 estimate). The capital is Hama.
Hama is an important agricultural and industrial center in Syria, with 3,680 square kilometres (1,420 sq mi), over a third of the governorate's area, under cultivation. The governorate produces over half of the national crop of potatoes and pistachio nuts, as well as growing a variety of other vegetables. Livestock ranching is also common in the governorate.
The governorate is divided into 5 districts (manatiq):
These are further divided into ? sub-districts (nawahi).
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Harasta
Harasta (Arabic: حرستا Ḥarastā), also known as Harasta al-Basal, is a city and northeastern suburb of Damascus, Rif Dimashq, Syria. Harasta has an altitude of 702 meters. It has a population of 38,184 as of 2007, making it the 43rd largest city per geographical entity in Syria.
Coordinates: 33°34′N 36°22′E / 33.567°N 36.367°E / 33.567; 36.367
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Harem, Syria
Harem (Arabic: حارم, Turkish: Harim) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Idlib Governorate. Harem has an altitude of 160 meters. It has a population of 21,934. Harem is situated exactly on the border of Turkey. The city is 55 km west of Aleppo.
There is an important Arab Islamic castle in Harem which has been built in a unique military style.
This city, located on the Turkish border used to be on the route between Antioch and Aleppo, and has been around since the Byzantine era. The castle was originally Byzantine and was built by Nicephorus shortly after 959, it then fell to the Arabs and then to the Seljuk Turks. In 1097 it was taken by the Crusaders who kept it till 1119, except for a short time in 1098 when it was taken by the Muslim Arabs.
It fell to Nur Al Din in 1149, then taken back by the Crusaders in 1158 and back again by Nur Al Din in 1164. When the Mongols invaded in the 13th century, much of Harem was destroyed including its castle. What is left of the castle dates back to the Muslim - Crusader battles between 1164 and 1268. The crusader castle was rebuilt by the son of Saladin, Malik Al Zaher Ghazi.
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Homs
Homs (Arabic: حمص Ḥimṣ), previously known as Emesa (Greek: Ἔμεσα, Emesa), is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is 501 metres (1,644 ft) above sea level and is located 162 kilometres (101 mi) north of Damascus. Located on the Orontes River, Homs is also the central link between the interior cities and the Mediterranean coast.
Homs is a major industrial center, and with a population of at least 652,609 people (2004 census), it is the third largest city in Syria after Aleppo to the north and the capital Damascus to the south. Its population reflects Syria's general religious diversity, composed mostly of Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims and Alawite and Christian minorities. The city boasts a number of historic mosques and churches and is close to the Krak des Chevaliers, a world heritage site.
Homs did not emerge into the historical 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 city's strategic position in the area. Homs began to decline under the Ottomans and only in the 19th century did the city regain its economic importance when its cotton industry boomed. During French Mandate rule, the city became a center of insurrection and, after independence in 1946, a center of Baathist resistance to the first Syrian governments. Homs has played a central role in the ongoing Syrian uprising against the Baathist government and since May 2011 has been under siege by the Syrian Army.
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Idlib
Idlib (Arabic: ادلب, also spelled Idleb) is a city in northwestern Syria, capital of the Idlib Governorate, and 59 kilometers (37 mi) west of Aleppo. It has an elevation of nearly 500 meters (1,600 ft) above sea level. In the 2004 census by the Central Bureau of Statistics, Idlib had a population of 97,969 (2004 census). The inhabitants are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims. Idlib is divided into six main districts: Ashrafiyeh (the most populous), Hittin, Hejaz, Downtown, Hurriya, and al-Qusur.
A major agricultural center of Syria, the Idlib area is also historically significant, containing many "dead cities" and man-made tells. Idlib contains the ancient city of Ebla, once the capital of a powerful kingdom. (See Ibrium)
During the Ottoman Empire era of rule in Syria between the 16th and 19th centuries, Idlib was a center of olive production which in turn gave way to a prosperous olive-based soap industry in the city. Soap from Idlib was exported as far as the Ottoman capital of Istanbul. Idlib was also a major producer of cotton fabrics. The city served as the capital of a kada ("subdistrict capital") bearing its name, part of the larger vilayet ("province") of Aleppo. In the late 19th-century, the city was "flourishing" and contained a number of Christian families according to German writers working for Karl Baedeker.
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Iraq
Iraq (/ɪˈræk/ or
i/ɪˈrɑːk/; Arabic: العراق al-‘Irāq); officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic: 
جمهورية العراق (help·info) Jumhūriyyat al-‘Irāq), 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 borders Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Jordan to the southwest and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south. Iraq has a narrow section of coastline measuring 58 km (36 mi) on the northern Persian Gulf. The capital city, Baghdad is in the center-east of the country.
Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run through the center of Iraq, flowing from northwest to southeast. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the steppe and desert landscape that covers most of Western Asia.
Historically, Iraq was the center of the Abbasid Arabic Islamic Empire. Iraq has been known to the west by the Greek toponym 'Mesopotamia' (Land between the rivers) and has been home to continuous successive civilizations since the 6th millennium BC. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is often referred to as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of writing, law and the wheel. At different periods in its history, Iraq was the center of the indigenous Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid empires. It was also part of the Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires, and under British control as a League of Nations mandate.
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Izra'
Izra' (Arabic: ازرع Izra') is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Daraa Governorate. Izra' has an altitude of 599 metres and a population of 14,772.
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Jableh
Jableh (Arabic: جبلة Ǧabla), also spelt Jebleh, Jabala, Jablah or Gabala, is a coastal city on the Mediterranean in Syria. with c. 80,000 inhabitants (2008).
Jableh was part of the Principality of Antioch, one of the Crusader States, until it was captured by Saladin in 1189 during the Third Crusade. One famous resident was Hugh of Jabala, the city's bishop, who reported the fall of Edessa to Pope Eugene III, and was the first person to speak of Prester John.
The city is home to the tomb and the mosque of Sultan Ibrahim Bin Adham, a famous Sufi mystic who renounced his throne and devoted himself to prayers for the rest of his life.
Jableh has a great nice cost that named in local language (Al-Kurnish), where people come and meet enjoying the cold beer and water pipe in that incredible view of the sea.
People in Jableh are very friendly, open mind, and respect all cultures in the country. Its position at the Mediterranean sea make it affected by several cultures during the long history.
Jableh is the home town of the great Syrian pioneer of modern Arabic poetry Adunis who is the first Arabic poet, and one of the best poets in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adunis. Jableh is also the home town of the world-champion swimmer Firas Mouala, who swam from Latakia to Cyprus (almost 90 km distance): .
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Jarabulus
Jarābulus (Arabic: جرابلس Ğarābulus; North Syrian Arabic: Jrāblos) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Aleppo Governorate. Jarabulus has an altitude of 367 m asl and lies on the western bank of the river Euphrates. It has a population of 25,705. It is located North of the Assad lake, just South of the Syro-Turkish border.
The original AD 18th century form of the toponym seems to have been Djerabis, later found however as Djeraboolos or Djerablus, probably deriving from a Hierapolis (which is modern Manbij to the South-West). After the site was called Karkemish in the Bronze and Iron Ages, in Greek and Roman times the ancient name of the city was Europos (Εὐρωπός).
Coordinates: 36°49′N 38°01′E / 36.817°N 38.017°E / 36.817; 38.017
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Jaramana
Jaramana (Arabic: جرمانا) is a city in the Rif Dimashq Governorate in southern Syria.
Its location, 10 Kilometers southeast of the Syrian capital, makes it a bustling town in the greater Damascus metropolitan area, with a Christian and Druze majority. Since 2003 and the beginning of the Iraq War, large numbers of Iraqi have immigrated to Jaramana, swelling the population from around 100,000 to over 250,000. According to the 2004 official census, the population of the city was 114,363.
There is also a Palestinian refugee camp near the town bearing its same name. Jaramana is a favorite destination for Iraqi Assyrians fleeing their unstable country.
In October 2006, the Assyrian community in Jaramana finally received a priest from Mosul, Iraq. The priest, Arkan Hana Hakim, claims there are now 2000 Assyrian Iraqis in Jaramana alone.
Coordinates: 33°29′N 36°21′E / 33.483°N 36.35°E / 33.483; 36.35
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Jisr ash-Shugur
Jisr ash-Shugur (pronounced [dʒɪsr aʃˈʃuɣuːr]; also spelled Jisr al-Shughour) (Arabic: جسر الشغور) is a city in the Idlib Governorate in northwestern Syria. Situated at an altitude of 170 metres (560 ft) above sea level on the Orontes river, the city was inhabited by 44,322 people as of 2010.
Jisr ash-Shugur has long been an important stopping point on trade routes and is situated on the main route between Latakia, 75 kilometres (47 mi) to the west and Aleppo 104 kilometres (65 mi) to the east. Located in the rich alluvial plain of the Ghab valley on the eastern side of the An-Nusayriyah Mountains (also known as the Jebel Ansariye), the area has been continuously inhabited for over 10,000 years. The ancient city of Qarqar is thought to have been situated some 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) south of the modern town, which was established in Hellenistic times as the city of Seleucia ad Belum. The Romans called it Niaccuba and built a stone bridge there across the Orontes.
Little remains of the ancient city other than portions of the much-repaired Roman bridge, which is now incorporated into a 15th–century Mameluke construction that still serves as one of the city's two bridges over the river. The bridge's V-shaped design was intended to enable it to withstand the force of the current. Although Jisr ash-Shugur is mostly of modern construction, a number of old Ottoman-era buildings still survive including a caravanserai built in the centre of the old town between 1660-75 and restored in 1826-27.
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Kafr Buhum
Kafr Buhum (Arabic: كفربهم, Syriac: ܟܟܦܪ ܒܚܡ, Kafar Bouhoum) town located in middle of Syria and administratively belong to Hama Governorate. The town is 9 km away of Hama city, 210 km (130 mi) of Damascus and 160 km (99 mi) of Aleppo. It is 330 meters (1082 ft) above the sea level and a population for more than 17,379 inhabitants.
Town lands tend towards Asi River (Orontes River) Valley from the east. The town plateau relates with Masyaf plateau at the west, Muhardeh plateau at the north, and Harbenevsh basalt plateau at the south-west. The west and north plateaus composed of karst limestone rocks.
A town geography from the east and south is flatter than the north and west. From the beautiful hills in Kafr Buhum are Tel Veon which is located at the west of the town (2 km / 1.25 miles), Abi Salloum Plateau from the east and Almkens and Wadi al Khassalate, Kfraldos hills from the south.
The town has a Mediterranean climate, where winter is cold and rainy and summer is warm and dry. The climate is affected by the distance from the Mediterranean Sea, 80 km (50 mi) west, and by the coastal mountains barriers.
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Kafr Nabl
Kafr Nabl (Arabic: كفرنبل, also spelled Kafranbel or Kafr Nabil) is a city administratively belonging to the Idlib Governorate and Ma'arrat al-Numan District in northwestern Syria. It is situated 735 meters (2,411 ft) above sea level. In the 2004 census by the Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics Kafr Nabl had a population of 15,455. Kafr Nabl is located on an ancient Byzantine dead city, and is surrounded by some of the most important Dead Cities, such as Serjilla, Shanshrah, and al-Bara.
Kafr Nabl is Syria's largest producer of figs and a major producer of olives. About 3,700 hectares, or 778,000 trees are used for fig cultivation. Roughly 60% of the population are employed in the production and natural processing of the fruit. Farmers in Kafr Nabl usually dedicate around 80% of their cultivation time to the production of figs and 20% for olives.
Coordinates: 35°36′N 36°33′E / 35.6°N 36.55°E / 35.6; 36.55
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Khan Shaykhun
Khan Shaykhun (Arabic: خان شيخون) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Idlib Governorate. Khan Shaykhun has an altitude of 350 meters. It has a population of 52,972.
Coordinates: 35°26′N 36°38′E / 35.433°N 36.633°E / 35.433; 36.633
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Kiswe, Syria
Kiswe (Arabic: الكسوة Al Kiswah) is a small city in Syria, located approximately 8 miles (13 km) south of Damascus. It was the location of the 1303 Battle of Marj al-Saffar, and the childhood home of Adnan Awad.
Kiswe is the regional centre of Markaz Rif Dimashq district.
Bridge in Kiswe city named Al-Kobri
Grand Mosque in Kiswe city
River in Kiswe city
Kiswe farms
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Latakia
Latakia, or Latakiyah (and often locally transliterated as Lattakia) (Arabic: اللَاذِقِيَّة al-Lādhiqīyah), 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. According to the 2004 official census, the population of the city is 383,786. It is the 4th largest city in Syria after Aleppo, Damascus and Homs.
Though the site has been inhabited since the second millennium BC, the modern-day city was first founded in the 4th century BC under the rule of the Seleucid empire. Latakia was subsequently ruled by the Romans, then the Ummayads and Abbasids in the 8th–10th centuries. Under their rule, the Byzantines frequently attacked the city, periodically recapturing it before losing it again to the Arabs, particularly the Fatimids. Afterward, Latakia was ruled by the Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, and Ottomans. Following World War I, Latakia was assigned to the French mandate of Syria, in which it served as the capital of the autonomous territory of the Alawites. This autonomous territory became the State of Alawites in 1922, proclaiming its independence a number of times until reintegrating into Syria in 1944.
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Ma'arrat Misrin
Ma'arrat Misrin (Arabic: معرة مصرين) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Idlib Governorate. Ma'arrat Misrin lies an elevation of 338 metres (1,109 ft). It has a population of 34,788.
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Manbij
Manbij (Arabic: منبج Manbiǧ, Classical Syriac: ܡܒܘܓ mabbug) is a town in the Aleppo Governorate, Syria, 30 kilometers west of the Euphrates. In the 2004 census by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Manbij had a population of nearly 100,000.
The ruins of the ancient city "Hierapolis Bambyce," also known as "Hierapolis Euphratensis" or "Hierapolis in Euphratesia", are 20 km north, where remains of aqueducts and the Byzantine walls of Justinian are still to be seen.
The place first appears in Greek as Bambyce, but Pliny (v. 23) tells us its Syrian name was Mabog (also Mabbog, Mabbogh). As a centre of the worship of the Syrian goddess Atargatis, it became known to the Greeks as the Ἱερόπολις (Hieropolis) 'city of the sanctuary', and finally as Ἱεράπολις (Hierapolis) 'holy city'.
This worship of Atargatis was immortalized in De Dea Syria which has traditionally been attributed to Lucian of Samosata, a native of Commagene, who gave a full description of the religious cult of the shrine and the tank of sacred fish of Atargatis, of which Aelian also relates marvels. According to the De Dea Syria, the worship was of a phallic character, votaries offering little male figures of wood and bronze. There were also huge phalli set up like obelisks before the temple, which were ceremoniously climbed once a year and decorated.
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Mari, Syria
Mari (modern Tell Hariri, Syria) was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometers north-west of the modern town of Abu Kamal on the western bank of Euphrates river, some 120 km southeast of Deir ez-Zor, Syria. It is thought to have been inhabited since the 5th millennium BC, although it flourished with series of superimposed palaces that spans a thousand years, from 2900 BC until 1759 BC, when it was sacked by Hammurabi.
Mari was discovered in 1933, on the eastern flank of Syria, near the Iraqi border. A Bedouin tribe was digging through a mound for a gravestone that would be used for a recently deceased tribesman, when they came across a headless statue. After the news reached the French authorities currently in control of Syria, the report was investigated, and digging on the site was started on December 14, 1933 by archaeologists from the Louvre in Paris. Discoveries came quickly, with the temple of Ishtar being discovered in the next month. Mari was classified by the archaeologists as the "most westerly outpost of Sumerian culture".[citation needed] Since the beginning of excavations, over 25,000 clay tablets in Akkadian language written in cuneiform were discovered. Finds from the excavation are on display in the National Museum of Aleppo, the National Museum of Damascus, and the Deir ez-Zor Museum. In the latter, the southern façade of the "Court of the Palms" of Zimri-Lim's palace has been reconstructed, including the wall paintings.
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Mayadin
Mayadin (Arabic: ميادين) is a city in eastern Syria. It is located at about 35°1′0″N 40°27′0″E / 35.016667°N 40.45°E / 35.016667; 40.45Coordinates: 35°1′0″N 40°27′0″E / 35.016667°N 40.45°E / 35.016667; 40.45. Euphrates River flows through the town.
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Medes
The Medes (/midz/) (from Old Persian Māda-) were an ancient Iranian people who lived in Iran in an area known as Media and spoke a northwestern Iranian language referred to as the Median language. Their arrival to the region is associated with the first wave of Iranian tribes in the late second millennium BCE (the Bronze Age collapse) through the beginning of the first millennium BCE.
In the 7th century BCE a unified Median state was formed which together with Babylonia, Lydia, and Egypt became one of the four major powers of the ancient Near East. An alliance with the Babylonians helped the Medes to capture Nineveh in 612 BCE which resulted in the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes were subsequently able to establish their Median kingdom (with Ecbatana as their royal centre) beyond their original homeland (central-western Iran) and had eventually a territory stretching roughly from northeastern Iran to the Halys River in Anatolia. The Median kingdom was conquered in 550 BCE by Cyrus the Great who established the next Iranian dynasty—the Achaemenid Empire.
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Mhardeh
Mhardeh (Arabic: محردة Maḥarda, pronounced Mħardé), also spelt Muhradah, is a city in the Hama Governorate of Syria. It is about 23 km North West of Hama on the Orontes River, and is the centre of Mantiqat Mħardeh, one of the governorate's five districts.
Mhardeh is a Christian city with about 22,442 inhabitants in 2010. The Orontes was recently dammed 3 km north, the dam now generates about 2,500 KW-hours of hydroelectric power. Muħardeh dates back to the same Hellenistic period of Apamea, the most notable archaeological remnant from this period is an old temple with stone doors and columns with Corinthian capitals transformed later into a church.
Ghada Shouaa, the first Syrian athlete to win an Olympic gold medal, was born in Mhardeh as well as Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch.
Coordinates: 35°15′N 36°35′E / 35.25°N 36.583°E / 35.25; 36.583
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Nahr al-Bared, Syria
Nahr al-Bared (Arabic: قريه نهر البارد) is a village in Syria located in the Alghab region of the Hama Governorate, near Tal Salhab in the As-Suqaylabiyah District.
Although the village is considered modern, it still contains a number of ruins. The village is also situated at a big river and during the winter regularly receives snow.
Nahr al-Bared has 3 hotels, called Saharahotel, Abo Allosh and Abo Maher. There are also 3 mosques in the village called Alshiekh abd Alhadi Haidar, Alshiekh Soliman Moaala and Ali Naser. The village also has a large restaurant which can be accessed by using a micro bus. Nahr al-Bared also contains a large petrol station.
tu:nahr elbared suria
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Nawa, Syria
Nawa (Arabic: نوى, Nawā) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to the Daraa Governorate. It has an altitude of 568 meters (1,864 ft). It had a population of 59,170 in 2007, making it the 28th largest city per geographical entity in Syria.
Nawa has been defined as the city that Job dwelled in and is the burial place of Shem, the son of Noah. According to Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi, While under the Islamic Caliphate of the Rashidun, Umayyads, and Abbasids, it was a part of Jund Dimashq and the principal city of Hauran. Al-Mas'udi wrote in 943 CE that a mosque dedicated to Job was located three miles (5 km) from Nawa. By the 13th century, its status declined; Yaqut al-Hamawi recorded in 1225 that Nawa was "a small town of the Hauran", formerly being the capital of the region. He also recorded that Job's tomb was located there. In 1277, Imam Yahya ibn Sharaf al-Nawawi, a prominent Muslim scholar, was born in the city.
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Nimrud
Coordinates: 36°5′57″N 43°19′39″E / 36.09917°N 43.3275°E / 36.09917; 43.3275 Nimrud is an ancient Assyrian city located south on the river Tigris in modern Iraq. In ancient times the city was called Kalhu. The Arabs called the city Nimrud after the Biblical Nimrod, a legendary hunting hero (cf. Genesis 10:11-12, Micah 5:6, and 1Chronicles 1:10).
The city covered an area of around 16 square miles (41 km2). Ruins of the city are found in modern day Iraq, some 30 kilometres (19 mi) southeast of Mosul. The ruins are located in the District of Al Hamdaniya, within 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) of the village of Noomanea. Nimrud has been suggested as the site of the biblical city of Calah or Kalakh.
Assyrian king Shalmaneser I made Nimrud, which existed for about a thousand years, the capital in the 13th century BC. The city gained fame when king Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria (c. 880 BC) made it his capital. He built a large palace and temples on the site of an earlier city that had long fallen into ruins.
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Nineveh
Coordinates: 36°21′34″N 43°09′10″E / 36.35944°N 43.15278°E / 36.35944; 43.15278
Nineveh (English pronunciation: /ˈnɪn.ɪv.ə/; Akkadian: Ninwe; Classical Syriac: ܢܸܢܘܵܐ; Hebrew: נינוה Nīnewē; Greek: Νινευη Nineuē; Latin: Nineve; Arabic: نينوى Naynuwa; Persian: نینوا Nainavā) was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq.
The origin of the name Nineveh is obscure. Possibly it meant originally the seat of Ishtar, since Nina was one of the Babylonian names of that goddess. The ideogram means "house or place of fish," and was perhaps due to popular etymology (comp. Aramaic "nuna," denoting "fish").
Ancient Nineveh's mound-ruins of Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus are located on a level part of the plain near the junction of the Tigris and the Khosr Rivers within a 7 km² (1732 acres) area circumscribed by a 12-kilometre (7.5 mi) brick rampart. This whole extensive space is now one immense area of ruins overlaid in parts by new suburbs of the city of Mosul.
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Norias of Hama
Coordinates: 35°8′7″N 36°45′11″E / 35.13528°N 36.75306°E / 35.13528; 36.75306
The Norias of Hama (Arabic: نواعير حماة) are a number of norias ("wheels of pots") along the Orontes River in the city of Hama, Syria. Only seventeen of the original norias remain. They are mostly unused now and serve an aesthetic purpose. They were called "the most splendid norias ever constructed." The norias of Hama were submitted as a tentative World Heritage Site by the Syrian Arab Republic in June 1999.
The earliest evidence for norias in Hama suggests they were developed during the Byzantine era, although none of the norias in Hama today precede the Ayyubid period. However, a mosaic found at Apamea dating to 469BC pictures a noria very similar to those at Hama, suggesting they may have even earlier origins. It was during the Mamluk era that many of the norias—initially started during the rule of the Ayyubid dynasty in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century—were reconditioned and enlarged. The Mamluks also increased the amount of norias in the city. At one time, medieval Hama contained more than thirty of the waterwheels. Aqueducts and other channeling systems were built to take water from the Orontes River and use it to irrigate nearby fields. Now only 17 norias remain, unused.
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Orontes River
The Orontes ([pronunciation?]; Ὀρόντης) or ‘Āṣī (Arabic: العاصي, Turkish: Asi) is a river of Lebanon, Syria and Turkey.
It was anciently the chief river of the Levant, also called Draco, Typhon and Axius. The last was a native form, from whose revival, or continuous employment in native speech, has preceded the modern name ‘Āṣī ("rebel"), because the river flows from the south to the north unlike the rest of the rivers in the region[citation needed].
The name Orontes is the Hellenized form of the Iranic (possibly Kurdish) term Harawanta/Harawand/Alwand, meaning "Of greatness, mighty".[citation needed] There are many other rivers and mountains by this same Iranic name in the general area of the Fertile Crescent. These include the Alwand River on Iran-Iraq borders, east of Baghdad, and Mount Alvand to the east of the same river. The name of the eponymous Armenian dynasty, the Orontids springs from the same lexical roots.
The Orontes rises in the great springs of Labweh on the east side of the Beqaa Valley, very near the fountains of the southward-flowing Litani, and it runs due north, parallel with the coast, falling 2000 feet (600 m) through a rocky gorge. Leaving this it expands into the Lake of Homs, having been dammed back in antiquity. The valley now widens out into the rich district of Hamah (Hamaih-Epiphaneia), below which lie the broad meadow-lands of Amykes, containing the sites of ancient Apamea and Larissa. This central Orontes valley ends at the rocky barrier of Jisr al-Hadid, where the river is diverted to the west, and the plain of Antioch opens.
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Orontes river
The Orontes ([pronunciation?]; Ὀρόντης) or ‘Āṣī (Arabic: العاصي, Turkish: Asi) is a river of Lebanon, Syria and Turkey.
It was anciently the chief river of the Levant, also called Draco, Typhon and Axius. The last was a native form, from whose revival, or continuous employment in native speech, has preceded the modern name ‘Āṣī ("rebel"), because the river flows from the south to the north unlike the rest of the rivers in the region[citation needed].
The name Orontes is the Hellenized form of the Iranic (possibly Kurdish) term Harawanta/Harawand/Alwand, meaning "Of greatness, mighty".[citation needed] There are many other rivers and mountains by this same Iranic name in the general area of the Fertile Crescent. These include the Alwand River on Iran-Iraq borders, east of Baghdad, and Mount Alvand to the east of the same river. The name of the eponymous Armenian dynasty, the Orontids springs from the same lexical roots.
The Orontes rises in the great springs of Labweh on the east side of the Beqaa Valley, very near the fountains of the southward-flowing Litani, and it runs due north, parallel with the coast, falling 2000 feet (600 m) through a rocky gorge. Leaving this it expands into the Lake of Homs, having been dammed back in antiquity. The valley now widens out into the rich district of Hamah (Hamaih-Epiphaneia), below which lie the broad meadow-lands of Amykes, containing the sites of ancient Apamea and Larissa. This central Orontes valley ends at the rocky barrier of Jisr al-Hadid, where the river is diverted to the west, and the plain of Antioch opens.
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Palmyra
Palmyra (Aramaic: ܬܕܡܘܪܬܐ;Hebrew: תדמור; tiḏmor, Greek: Παλμύρα, Arabic: تدمر; Tadmur, English pronunciation: /ˌpælˈmaɪrə/) was an ancient city in central Syria. In antiquity, it was an important city located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 180 km southwest of the Euphrates at Deir ez-Zor. It had long been a vital caravan stop for travellers crossing the Syrian desert and was known as the Bride of the Desert. The earliest documented reference to the city by its Semitic name Tadmor, Tadmur or Tudmur (which means "the town that repels" in Amorite and "the indomitable town" in Aramaic) is recorded in Babylonian tablets found in Mari.
Though the ancient site fell into disuse after the 16th century, it is still known as Tadmor in Arabic (aka Tedmor), and there is a newer town of the same name next to the ruins. The Palmyrenes constructed a series of large-scale monuments containing funerary art such as limestone slabs with human busts representing the deceased.
Palmyrans bore Aramaic names, and worshipped a variety of deities from Mesopotamia (Marduk and Ruda), Syria (Hadad, Baʿal, Astarte), Arabia (Allāt) and Greece (Athena). Palmyrans were originally speakers of Aramaic but later shifted to the Greek language. At the time of the Islamic conquests Palmyra was inhabited by several Arab tribes, primarily the Qada'ah and Kalb.
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Persian Empire
The Achaemenid Empire (/ækəˈmɛnɪˌdi/; Old Persian: Parsā, name of ruling dynasty: Haxāmanišiya) (c. 550–330 BCE), sometimes known as First Persian Empire, was an Iranian empire in Southwest Asia, founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation. It expanded to eventually rule over significant portions of the ancient world which at around 500 BCE stretched from the Indus Valley in the east, to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece making it the biggest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenid Empire would eventually control Egypt as well. It was ruled by a series of monarchs who unified its disparate tribes and nationalities by constructing a complex network of roads.
Calling themselves the Parsa after their original Aryan tribal name Parsua, Persians settled in a land which they named Parsua, bounded on the west by the Tigris River and on the south by the Persian Gulf. This became their heartland for the duration of the Achaemenid Empire. It was from this region that eventually Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II of Persia) would advance to defeat the Median, the Lydian, and the Babylonian Empires, opening the way for subsequent conquests into Egypt and Asia minor.
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Qardaha
Qardaha (Arabic: قرداحة / ALA-LC: Qardāḥah) is a village in northwestern Syria, in the mountains overlooking the coastal town of Latakia. It is mainly an Alawite town and the traditional home of the Assad family, that has ruled Syria since 1970. During the reign of Hafez al-Assad 1970-2000 the government poured massive investments into Qardaha, Lattakia and the surrounding region. Today, this is evident already before entering Qardaha, as the broad Syrian coastal highway makes an inexplicable pass into the mountains just to reach Qardaha. Qardaha has a lot of luxurious villas.
Qardaha is surrounded by the villages of A'aen al-A'aros, Debash, Kabo, Bustan al-Basha, and Bhmra. Major families in Qardaha: Al-Assad, al-Khayer, Othman, Shalish, Ismail, Jabbour, Nassif, Hatem, Suleiman, Deeb, Kina'an, Makhlouf, Aslan, Jarkas. A major statue of Hafez al-Assad is found in the town center, and a huge mausoleum containing the graves of Basil al-Assad and Hafez al-Assad is also located there. Hasan al-Khayer was also born in Qardaha.
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Qatana
Qatana (Arabic: قطنا) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Rif Dimashq. Qatana has an altitude of 879 meters. It has a population of 18,465.
Coordinates: 33°26′N 36°05′E / 33.433°N 36.083°E / 33.433; 36.083
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Quneitra
Quneitra (also Al Qunaytirah, Qunaitira, or Kuneitra; Arabic: القنيطرة al-Qunayṭrah) is the largely destroyed and abandoned capital of the Quneitra Governorate in south-western Syria. It is situated in a high valley in the Golan Heights at an elevation of 1,010 metres (3,313 feet) above sea level. Quneitra was founded in the Ottoman era as a way station on the caravan route to Damascus and subsequently became a garrison town of some 20,000 people, strategically located near the ceasefire line with Israel. Its name is Arabic for "the little bridge".
On 10 June 1967, the last day of the Six-Day War, Quneitra came under Israeli control. It was briefly recaptured by Syria during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, but Israel regained control in its subsequent counter-offensive. The city was almost completely destroyed before the Israeli withdrawal in June 1974. It now lies in the demilitarized United Nations Disengagement Observer Force Zone between Syria and Israel, a short distance from the de facto border between the two countries, and is populated by only a handful of families. Syria refused to rebuild the city and actively discourages resettlement in the area. Israel was heavily criticized by the United Nations for the city's destruction, while Israel has also criticized Syria for not rebuilding Quneitra.
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Ra's al-'Ayn
Ra's al-'Ayn (Arabic: رأس العين Ra's al 'Ayn, Kurdish: Serêkanî, Classical Syriac: ܪܝܫ ܥܝܢܐ Rēṣḥ 'Aynā, Turkish: Resuleyn) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Al-Hasakah Governorate. Ra's al-'Ayn has an altitude of 360 m. It has a population of 55,247, many of them being Assyrian/Syriacs, Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Chechens, or Syrian Turkmen. There is a border crossing to Ceylanpınar in Turkey.
The city has been inhabited from 1500 BC or earlier.
In ancient times it was known as Washukani,Sikan, Resaina, and Theodosiopolis. During the Armenian Genocide many Armenians were deported to the desert death camps of Ra's al-'Ayn, a site that would become "synonymous with Armenian suffering". The city is the birthplace of the popular Syrian dabke musician, Omar Souleyman.
The ancient Neo-Assyrian city of Sikan is on the southern edge of the mound at Ras el 'Ayn. Its location is near the modern-day Tell el Fakhariya, where a famous Neo-Assyrian statue of Adad-it'i/Hadd-yith'i, the king of Guzana and Sikan was discovered in the 1970s, with a bilingual inscription in the Assyrian dialect of Akkadian and Aramaic, the earliest Aramaic inscription. The statue was inscribed as a votive object to Hadad, whose name the donor bore. It is generally dated to around 850 BC, though an 11th century BC date has also been proposed.
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Rome
Rome (/ˈroʊm/; Italian: Roma pronounced [ˈroːma] ( listen); Latin: Rōma) is a city and special comune ("Roma Capitale") in Italy. Rome is the capital of Italy and the capital of Lazio (Latin: Latium). With 2.8 million residents in 1,285.3 km2 (496.3 sq mi), it is also the country's largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. Between 3.2 and 3.7 million people live in the Rome metropolitan area. The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.
Rome's history spans two and a half thousand years. It was the capital city of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, which was the dominant power in Western Europe and the lands bordering the Mediterranean for over seven hundred years from the 1st century BC until the 7th century AD and the city is regarded as one of the birthplaces of western civilization. Since the 1st century AD Rome has been the seat of the Papacy and, after the end of Byzantine domination, in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. In 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic.
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Safita
Safita (Arabic: صا فيتا Ṣāfītā) is a city in northwestern Syria, located to the southeast of Tartous and to the northwest of Krak des Chevaliers. The city has a population of 33,000. It's situated atop three hills and the valleys between them, in the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range. Safita grew prominent during the Crusades, and was inhabited by the Knights Templar of the castle Chastel Blanc, while a part of the County of Tripoli.
The city has been inhabited since the times of the Phoenicians, and several archaeological discoveries have been made, including Phoenician and Canaanite settlements. In 1102, Raymond IV of Toulouse began to take the land of the Banu Ammars Emirs of Tripoli. A four-year siege on Tripoli resulted in full control of the city and many lands surrounding it, including Safita. Mamluk Sultan Baibars captured the castle in 1271.
Coordinates: 34°49′N 36°07′E / 34.817°N 36.117°E / 34.817; 36.117
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Saidnaya
Saidnaya (also transliterated Saydnaya or Sednaya from the Arabic: صيدنايا) is a city located in the mountains, 1500 metres (0.938 miles) above sea level, 27 kilometres (17 mi) north of the city of Damascus in Syria and was one of the episcopal cities of the ancient Patriarchate of Antioch. Though orthographically slightly variant with Arabic, the spelling is consistent with Aramaic orthography (with no distinction between "sin" and "sad") of the name for "Our Lady" and refers, almost certainly to the Virgin Mary, a renowned icon of whom is revered in the city's main church by both Christians and Muslims to this day. The town is noted for the large number of (Western Neo-) Aramaic speakers, along with nearby Maaloula and a few smaller towns nearby. Adding to the mythical character of the area, the Hellenistic-era name for thea region centered in the Barada Valley was Abilene and from that name local tradition has long held it as the site where the grave of Abel, slain brother of Cain, lies. Scholars consider it likely that the capital of Abilene was the city of Saidnaya.
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Salamiyah
Salamiyah (Arabic: سلمية Salamīya) is a city and district in western Syria, in the Hama Governorate. It is located 33 km southeast of Hama, 45 km northeast of Homs. The city is nicknamed the "mother of Cairo" because it was the birthplace of the second Fatamid Caliph Muhammad al-Qaim Bi-Amrillah, who's dynasty would eventually establish the city of Cairo, and the early headquarters of his father Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi Billah who founded the Fatamid Caliphate. The city is an important center of the Nizari Ismaili sect and also the birthplace of poet Muhammad al-Maghut.
Salamiyah is an ancient city which was first known during Babylonian times in 3500 BC. It was the dwelled in by Sumerians at around 3000 BC, the Amorites around 2400 BC, the Aramaeans around 1500 BC, and the Nabateans around 500 BC. The city was destroyed for the first time by the Assyrians in the year 720 BC. After being rebuilt, the city was part of the Roman Empire and ruled by the Royal family of Emesa, a Roman Client Kingdom of Ancient Rome where they built the famous Shmemis castle on the remains of a former volcano, 5 km northwest of Salamiyah.
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Salkhad
Salkhad (Arabic: صلخد Ṣalḫad) a Syrian city in the As Suwayda governorate, southern Syria. It is the capital of Salkhad District, one of the governorate's three districts. It has a population of 15,000 inhabitants.
It is located at 1350 metres above sea level in the central Jabal el Druze highlands.
Mentioned several times in the Bible as "Salcah", as a settlement in biblical Bashan. During the second century BC Salcah was a flourishing Nabataean city, where the gods Dushara and Allat were worshiped. Afterwards it was incorporated into the Roman province of Arabia, it was one of the important citys in Hauran during Roman and later Byzantine epochs, Salkhad is indicated in the Madaba mosaic map of the sixth century AD.
Due to the strategic position of the city overlooking Hauran plains to the west, the Ayyubid dynasty built a fortress in Salkhad between 1214 - 1247 to counter a possible attack of the Crusades into inner Hauran. It has also been said that Al-Afdal was exiled here by his uncle and brother.
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Salqin
Salqin (Arabic: سلقين) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Idlib Governorate. Salqin has an altitude of 459. It has a population of 34,187.
Coordinates: 36°08′N 36°27′E / 36.133°N 36.45°E / 36.133; 36.45
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Sam'al
Sam'al (Hittite: Yadiya) was a Hittite and Aramaean city located at Zincirli Höyük in the Anti-Taurus Mountains of modern Turkey's Gaziantep Province.
The site of Sam'al was originally occupied in the Early Bronze Age and later became part of the kingdom of Yamhad (Aleppo) early in the second millennium. It was absorbed into the Hittite empire during the middle of that millennium. After the fall of the Hittites, it was controlled by the Neo-Hittites until the arrival of the Aramaeans established the city as the center of a kingdom called Sam'al. With the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Sam'al became a vassal state and later a province of that empire. This ended in the seventh century BC with the fall of the Assyrian Empire.
Kingdom of Sam’al (in Aramaic Ya’idi) was a middle power of the Middle-East in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. It was near the Nur Mountains. Sam'al was the capital of the country. Royal steles and stone tablets from the period, of Kilamuva and Panamuva II, are the main sources for historical data about this timeperiod.
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Samarra
Sāmarrā (Arabic: سامَرّاء) is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Salah ad-Din Governorate, 125 kilometers (78 mi) north of Baghdad and, in 2003, had an estimated population of 348,700.
Medieval Islamic writers believed that the name “Samarra” is derived from the Arabic phrase “Sarra man ra’a” (Arabic: سر من رأى), which translates to “A joy for all who see”. Later when the city declined the name changed to “Sa'a man ra’a” (Arabic: ساء من رأى), which translates to “A sadness for all who see”. Eventually the two names merged to its current form Samarra' (Arabic: سامَرّاء).
In 2007, UNESCO named Samarra one of its World Heritage Sites.
The remains of ancient Samarra were first excavated between 1911 and 1914 by the German Archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld. Since 1946, the notebooks, letters, unpublished excavation reports and photographs have been in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
Though the present archaeological site covered by mudbrick ruins is vast, the site of Samarra was only lightly occupied in ancient times, apart from the Chalcolithic Samarran Culture (ca 5500–4800 BC) identified at the rich site of Tell Sawwan, where evidence of irrigation—including flax— establishes the presence of a prosperous settled culture with a highly organized social structure. The culture is primarily known by its finely-made pottery decorated against dark-fired backgrounds with stylized figures of animals and birds and geometric designs. This widely-exported type of pottery, one of the first widespread, relatively uniform pottery styles in the Ancient Near East, was first recognized at Samarra. The Samarran Culture was the precursor to the Mesopotamian culture of the Ubaid period.
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Saraqib
Saraqib (Arabic: سراقب) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Idlib Governorate. Saraqib has an altitude of 370 meters. It has a population of 37,025.
Coordinates: 35°52′N 36°48′E / 35.867°N 36.8°E / 35.867; 36.8
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Shahba
Shahba (Arabic: شهبا Šahbā), known in Late Antiquity as Philippopolis, is a city located 87 km south of Damascus in the Jabal el Druze in As-Suwayda Governorate of Syria, but formerly in the Roman province of Arabia Petraea.
The oasis settlement now named, Shahba, had been the native hamlet of Philip the Arab. After Philip became the emperor of Rome in 244 CE, he dedicated himself to rebuilding the little community as a colonia. The contemporary community that was replaced with the new construction was so insignificant that one author states that the city can be considered to have been built on virgin soil, making it the last of the Roman cities founded in the East.
The city was renamed Philippopolis in dedication to the emperor. The emperor is said to have wanted to turn his native city into a replica of Rome herself. A hexagonal-style temple and an open-air place of worship of local style, called a kalybe, a triumphal arch, baths, a starkly unornamented theatre faced with basalt blocks, a large structure that has been interpreted as a basilica, and the Philippeion (illustration, right) surrounded by a great wall with ceremonial gates, were laid out and built following the grid plan of a typical Roman city.
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Syria
Syria (/ˈsɪriə/ ( listen) SIRR-ee-ə; Arabic: سورية Sūriyya or سوريا Sūryā; Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܐ; Kurdish: Sûrî), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabīyah as-Sūriyyah Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), 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.
In English, the name Syria was formerly synonymous with the Levant, known in Arabic as Sham, while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the third millennium BC. In the Islamic era, its capital city, Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate, and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.
The population of Syria is 74% Sunni, 12% Alawi, 10% Christian, and 3% Druze. Combined, 87% of the Syrian population is Muslim, while the other 10% is Christian, which includes mainly Arab Christians but also Assyrians and Armenians. Major ethnic minorities in Syria include Kurds (9%), Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmens and Circassians. The majority of the population is Arab (90%).
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Talkalakh
Talkalakh (Arabic: تلكلخ) is a Syrian city . It has a population of 31,479, most of them are Alawite. Talkalakh is the principal urban centre of Talkalakh District in Homs Governorate. It is also known as Tall Kalakh.
On May 15, 2011 in part of the 2011 Syrian uprising the Syrian army shelled Talkalakh in response to demonstrations against the regime that occurred a day before in the city. Seven civilians were killed and at least 2,000 residents tried to flee from the city in to Lebanon. By May 18, 2011 At least 27 civilians reported that have been killed by Syrian security forces in Talkalakh.
People in the city depend on trade and smuggling as the main source of income. It has six mosques and two main small squares: Al Assad and Sahat Al Thawra Squares. It's people are known as peaceful and hard-working. It was one of the first cities in 2011 to welcome the Syrian Army when parts of the city was in revolt against Regime. The Syrian forces entered the city many times to root out the insurgent and militant forces, and the most violent conflict occurred in May 14th 2011. 27 people were killed in that attack, but the city has returned to normalcy and the Syrian army is still living among the people to ensure security. As in Homs and Qusayr , a lot of its population (mostly the minority sunnis) fled to Lebanon due to sectarian conflicts, and they are living in cities such as Wadi Khaled.
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Tartus
Tartus (Arabic: طرطوس / ALA-LC: Ṭarṭūs; also transliterated Tartous) is a city on the Mediterranean coast of Syria. Tartus is the second largest port city in Syria (after Latakia), and the largest city in Tartus Governorate. The population size is 115,769 (2004 census).
The city lies on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea bordered by the Alawite Mountains to the east. Arwad, the only inhabited island on the Syrian coast, is located a few kilometers off the shore of Tartus.
Tartus occupies most of a flat area, surrounded to the east by hills composed mainly of limestone and, in certain places around the town of Souda, basalt.
The climate is Mediterranean, with short winter months and a moderate temperature from April to October. The hills to the east of the city create an alternative environment and climate. Tartus is known for its mild weather and high precipitation. Humidity in the summer can reach 80%.
The History of Tartus goes back to the 2nd millennium BC when it was founded as a Phoenician colony of Aradus. The colony was known as Antaradus (from Greek "Anti-Arados → Antarados", Anti-Aradus, meaning "The town facing Arwad"). Not much remains of the Phoenician Antaradus, the mainland settlement that was linked to the more important and larger settlements of Aradus, off the shore of Tartus, and the nearby site of Amrit.
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Tigris River
The Tigris River (/ˈtaɪɡrɪs/; Arabic: دجله) is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.
The Tigris is 1,850 km long, rising in the Taurus Mountains of eastern Turkey about 25 km southeast of the city of Elazig and about 30 km from the headwaters of the Euphrates. The river then flows for 400 km through Turkish territory before becoming the border between Syria and Turkey. This stretch of 44 km is the only part of the river that is located in Syria. The remaining 1,418 km are entirely within the Iraqi borders.
The Tigris unites with the Euphrates near Basra, and from this junction to the Persian Gulf the mass of moving water is known as the Shatt-al-Arab. According to Pliny and other ancient historians, the Euphrates originally had its outlet into the sea separate from that of the Tigris.
Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, stands on the banks of the Tigris. The port city of Basra straddles the Shatt al-Arab. In ancient times, many of the great cities of Mesopotamia stood on or near the Tigris, drawing water from it to irrigate the civilization of the Sumerians. Notable Tigris-side cities included Nineveh, Ctesiphon, and Seleucia, while the city of Lagash was irrigated by the Tigris via a canal dug around 2400 BC.
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Tripoli, Lebanon
Coordinates: 34°26′N 35°51′E / 34.433°N 35.85°E / 34.433; 35.85
Tripoli (Formal Arabic: طرابلس / ALA-LC: Ṭarābulus; Lebanese Arabic: Ṭrāblus; Greek: Τρίπολις / Tripolis) is the largest city in northern Lebanon and the second-largest city in Lebanon. Situated 85 km north of the capital Beirut, Tripoli is the capital of the North Governorate and the Tripoli District. Geographically located on the east of the Mediterranean, the city's history dates back to the 14th century BC. Tripoli is home to the easternmost port in Lebanon, and holds offshore a remarkable string of four small islands, the only surviving islands of Lebanon. The largest of these islands, the Island of Palm Trees, has been declared a protected reserve by UNESCO in 1992 for its rich ecosystem of green sea turtles and rare birds.
In ancient times, it was the center of a Phoenician confederation which included Tyre, Sidon and Arados, hence the name Tripoli, meaning "triple city" in Greek. Later, it was controlled successively by the Assyrian Empire, Persian Empire, Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Caliphate, the Seljuk Empire, Crusader States, the Mamluks, the Ottoman Empire and France. The Crusaders established the County of Tripoli there in the twelfth century.
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Yabrud
Yabrud (Arabic: يبرود) is a city in Syria, located in the Rif Dimashq (Damascus suburb) governorate about 80 km north of the capital Damascus. The city is known for its ancient caves, most notably the Iskafta cave (where, in 1930, a thirty-year old German traveller and would-be archeologist Alfred Rust made many important pre-historical findings), and the Yabrud temple, which was once Jupiter Yabroudis 's temple but later became "Konstantin and Helena Cathedral". The name Yabrud is said to have originated from an Aramaic word meaning "cold" : the city rests upon the Qalamoun mountains slopes (Anti-Lebanon) at a height of 1,550m.
The parents of former President of Argentina Carlos Menem were both born in Yabrud; they emigrated to Argentina before the end of World War I. According to "www.syriagate.com' , "this small beautiful town set amid a limestone amphitheater is shaded by many apricot, poplar and weeping willow trees"... The Natufian archeological site Yabrud III is named for the town of Yabrud.
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Zabadani
Zabadani (Arabic: الزبداني) is a city in southwestern Syria in the Rif Dimashq Governorate, close to the border with Lebanon. It is located in the center of a green valley surrounded by high mountains at an elevation of around 1,100 m.
Compared to Damascus, the weather in Zabadani tends to be milder in the summer — about 5–8 degrees less, but from December to the end of February it is colder with a lot of snow, and the temperature drops to -10 degrees. The mild weather along with the scenic views, made the town a popular resort both for tourists and for visitors from other Syrian cities, especially from nearby Damascus and for tens of thousands of visitors from the Arabian peninsula. A more elevated region than Zabadani is its neighbour, Bloudan, also a resort for thousands of tourists. Bloudan is about 1,500 metres above sealevel.
Zabadani is predominantly Sunni with a substantial percentage of Christians. Christians have their own church and monastery. Zabadani is rapidly growing and is well connected to Damascus.
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Zagros mountains
The Zagros Mountains (Arabic: جبال زغروس, Aramaic: ܛܘܪ ܙܪܓܣ, Kurdish: زنجیرهچیاکانی زاگرۆس, Lurish: کو یه لی زاگروس, Persian: رشته كوه زاگرس) are the largest mountain range in Iran and Iraq. With a total length of 1,500 km (932 mi), from northwestern Iran, and roughly correlating with Iran's western border, the Zagros range spans the whole length of the western and southwestern Iranian plateau and ends at the Strait of Hormuz. The highest points in the Zagros Mountains are Zard Kuh-bakhtiari and Dena. The Hazaran massif in the Kerman province of Iran forms an eastern outlier of the range, the Jebal Barez reaching into Sistan.
The Zagros fold and thrust belt was formed by collision of two tectonic plates — the Eurasian and Arabian Plates. Recent GPS measurements in Iran have shown that this collision is still active and the resulting deformation is distributed non-uniformly in the country, mainly taken up in the major mountain belts like Alborz and Zagros. A relatively dense GPS network which covered the Zagros in the Iranian part also proves a high rate of deformation within the Zagros. The GPS results show that the current rate of shortening in SE Zagros is ~10 mm/yr and ~5mm/yr in the NW Zagros. The NS strike-slip Kazerun fault divides the Zagros into two distinct zones of deformation. The GPS results also show different shortening directions along the belt, i.e. normal shortening in the South-East and oblique shortening in the NW Zagros.
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Abdul Halim Khaddam
Abdul Halim Khaddam (Arabic: عبد الحليم خدام; born 15 September 1932) is a Syrian politician who was Vice President of Syria from 1984 to 2005.
Abdul Halim Khaddam was born on 15 September 1932 in Baniyas, Syria. Abdul Halim was one of the few Sunni Muslims to make it to the top of the Alawite-dominated Syrian leadership. He was long known as a loyalist of Hafez al-Assad, and held a strong position within the Syrian government. In 1969, Khaddam had a major role in sentencing prominent Syrian politicians to death in absentia, among them Amin al-Hafiz, Salah ad-Din al-Bitar, Nasim Al Safarjalani, Khaled Al Hakim and others, through a special military court headed by later Syrian Defence Minister, Mustafa Tlass, and Abdul Halim Khaddam, as prosecutor. He later served as foreign minister of Syria from 1970 to 1984 and as Vice President of Syria from 1984 to 2005. He was interim President of Syria from June 10 to July 17, 2000, between the death of Hafez and the election of his son (the election was symbolic in nature as there was only one candidate and it somewhat represented an approval rating where the ba'ath claimed 97% of the votes), Bashar al-Assad, as the new President. At the time, there were rumours in Damascus that Khaddam would try to seize power.
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Abu al-Fida
Rashad Mohammed Saeed Ismael,also known as Abu Al-Fida, is a citizen of Yemen alleged to be a close associate of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. According to The Times he worked with bin Laden during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
bin Laden commissioned him to return to Yemen, and seek out a girl to serve as his fifth wife. His choice, Amal Ahmed al-Sadah married bin Laden in 2000 in Kandahar.
The Times reports Ismael was apprehended in Yemen, shortly after al Qaeda's attacks on September 11, 2001. They report he was held for two years in Yemen. They report that his brother Sadeq, a brother-in-law and a cousin were all held in Guantanamo.
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Akram al-Hawrani
Akram El-Hourani (Arabic: أكرم الحوراني, also transcribed Howrani or Hurani) (1912 – 1996), was a Syrian politician who played a prominent role in the formation of a widespread populist, nationalist movement in Syria and in the rise of the Ba'th Party. He was highly influential in Syrian politics from the beginning of the 1940s until his departure into exile in 1963, and held various positions including a government ministry and the joint vice-presidency of the United Arab Republic.
Born in Hama, Syria into a formerly wealthy land-owning family, El-Hourani himself grew up in modest circumstances as the family wealth had been dissipated. He was educated in Hama and Damascus before joining the medical faculty at the Jesuit University in 1932. He was forced to leave the institution soon thereafter, having been implicated in the attempted assassination of former Syrian president, Subhi Barakat.
In 1936, he enrolled in the Damascus Law School, and became a member of the Syrian Social National Party. In 1938 he left the party and returned to Hama to practice law. There he took over the Hizb al-Shabab (Youth Party) founded by a cousin.
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Al-Afdal Muhammad
Al-Afdal Muhammad Arabic: الأفضل محمد, was the last Ayyubid governor of Hama in central Syria, reigning from 1332 to 1341. The Ayyubid sultanate in Syria collapsed in 1260 with the advent of the Mongols, however the Mamluks of Egypt drove them out and allowed Ayyubid rule to be maintained in the principality Hama under Abu al-Fida, the father of al-Afdal. Al-Afdal incurred the displeasure of his Mamluk overlords and was deposed by them in 1341.
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Al-Muzaffar Umar
Al-Muzaffar Taqi al-Din Umar (Arabic: المظفر تقي الدين عمر) (died 1191) was the Ayyubid prince of Hama from 1179 to 1191 and a general of Saladin. He was the son of Nur al-Din Shahanshah, the brother of Saladin.
After the conquest of Syria and northern Iraq, Saladin named al-Muzaffar Umar the sovereign of Ayyubid-ruled Mesopotamia. In the city of Edessa located in the Mesopotamian territory, al-Muzaffar Umar also built a madrasa. He particularly showed favor for those who worked in religious law and the Sufis. He was handed the principality of Hama four years after helping Saladin conquer it in 1175. His ascendancy ushered in an era of prosperity for Hama that lasted until the end of Ayyubid rule in 1341. During al-Muzaffar Umar's reign, the city was walled and palaces, markets, madrasas, and mosques were built.
In 1181, while in Manbij, he attempted to block the Zengid forces of Izz ad-Din Mas'ud from reaching Aleppo, but failed and was forced to retreat to Hama. Two years later, Saladin's brother and his deputy ruler in Egypt, al-Adil, was sent to besiege Kerak in southern Transjordan which was in Crusader hands. Saladin therefore sent al-Muzaffar Umar as al-Adil's replacement.
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Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας, Aléxandros ho Mégas from the Greek αλέξω alexo "to defend, help" + ανήρ aner "man"), was a king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful commanders.
Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II of Macedon, to the throne in 336 BC after Philip was assassinated. Upon Philip's death, Alexander inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. He was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's military expansion plans. In 334 BC, he invaded Persian-ruled Asia Minor and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew the Persian King Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.
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Ali al-Abdallah
Ali al-Abdallah is a Syrian writer and human rights activist.
He was arrested in Syria in March 2006. He was again arrested and jailed during 2007 after trying to revive the Damascus Declaration, a rights movement named after a 2005 document that demanded that bans on freedom of speech and assembly be lifted and Syria's emergency law abolished. He was released from Adra Prison on June 23, 2010, and re-imprisoned one day later for writing an article that was critical of Syria's ties with Iran. A Syrian military court charged him with weakening national morale. The United States asked Syria to free him.
Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience, "held solely for the peaceful expression of his beliefs", and called for his immediate release.
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Ali Habib Mahmud
Lieutenant General Ali Habib Mahmud (Arabic: علي حبيب محمود) is a Syrian military officer who served as Syria's Minister of Defense from June 2009 until August 2011. He was a part of Assad's inner circle.
He was born 1939 in Tartus and joined the army in 1959. In 1962 he graduated from the military academy. He fought in the 1973 October War against Israel and led forces against Israeli troops invading Lebanon in 1982. He also participated in the Gulf War as part of the international coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In 1994 he was appointed commander of the Special Forces until he was appointed deputy chief of staff in 2002. In 2004 he was appointed chief of General Staff of the Army and the armed forces. On 3 June 2009, President Bashar al-Assad appointed Mahmud as defense minister.
In May 2011, the United States accused Habib of human rights abuses, and announced a travel ban and asset freeze.
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Ammar Abdulhamid
Ammar Abdulhamid (Arabic عمار عبد الحميد) (born May 30, 1966) is a Syrian-born human rights activist, dissident, and founder of the Tharwa Foundation.
Abdulhamid was born on May 30, 1966, to Syrian actress Muna Wassef and the late Syrian filmmaker Muhammad Shahin in Damascus, Syria.
He spent approximately eight years in the United States(1986–1994), studyingAstronomy and History. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science in History. He returned to Damascus in September 1994.
He married author, fashion designer, and human-rights activist Khawla Yusuf.
Abdulhamid was a visiting fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution 2004-2006.
Adbulhamid and Yusuf fled from Damascus in September 2005. They currently live in Washington, D.C.,with their two children Oula (1986) and Mouhanad (1990), awaiting political asylum in the United States.
Currently, Abdulhamid is a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy and member of its Syria Working Group.
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Ammar al-Qurabi
Dr Ammar Al-Qurabi (Arabic: عمار القربي, born 21 August 1970) is a Syrian human rights activist and executive director of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria since April 2006. He was elected in April 2011 as member of the Board of Trustees of the Arab Human Rights Organization in Syria.
Born in Algeria to Syrian parents from Ariha, a province close to Aleppo, Ammar al-Qurabi trained as a dentist at the University of Aleppo. Qurabi was a member of the banned Arab Socialist Party from 1985 to 1999, and served as Secretary of its Aleppo branch from 1989 until his resignation from the Party in 1999.
In addition to establishing the Arab Human Rights Organization in Syria, Qurabi has worked with the Syrian Human Rights Committee, the Arab Commission for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch. He was a founding member and official spokesperson of the Arab Human Rights Organization in Syria from 2004 until his arrest and travel ban in 2006. He led the Arab Commission for Human Rights in Paris and monitored four sessions of the trial of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt between August and September 2007.
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Amorite
Amorite (Sumerian 𒈥𒌅 MAR.TU, Akkadian Tidnum or Amurrūm, Egyptian Amar, Hebrew אמורי ʼĔmōrī) refers to an ancient Semitic people from ancient Syria who also occupied large parts of Mesopotamia from the 21st Century BC. The term Amurru in Akkadian and Sumerian texts refers to them, as well as to their principal deity.
In the earliest Sumerian sources, beginning about 2400 BC, the land of the Amorites ("the Mar.tu land") is associated not with Mesopotamia but with lands immediately to the West, including what is now modern Syria and Canaan. They appear as nomadic people in the Mesopotamian sources, and they are especially connected with the mountainous region of Jebel Bishri in Syria called the "mountain of the Amorites". The ethnic terms Amurru and Amar were used for them in the Akkadian Empire, Assyria and Egypt respectively. From the 21st century BC and likely triggered by the 22nd century BC drought, a large-scale migration of Amorite tribes infiltrated Mesopotamia. They were one of the instruments of the downfall of the Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur, and acquiring a series of powerful kingdoms,including the founding of Babylon as a state, culminating in the triumph under Hammurabi of one of them, that of Babylon.
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Amos (prophet)
Amos ( /ˈeɪməs/; Hebrew: עָמוֹס , Modern Amos Tiberian ʻāmōs) is a minor prophet in the Old Testament, and the author of the Book of Amos. He lived in Israel during the 8th century B.C..
Before becoming a prophet, Amos was a sheep herder and a sycamore fig farmer. Amos' prior professions and his claim "I am not a prophet nor a son of a prophet" (7:14) indicate that Amos was not from the school of prophets, which Amos claims makes him a true prophet (7:15).
His prophetic career began in 750 BC out of the town of Tekoa, in Judah, south of Jerusalem.
Despite being from the southern kingdom of Judah Amos' prophetic message was aimed at the Northern Kingdom of Israel, particularly the cities of Samaria and Bethel.
The Book of Amos is one of the twelve minor prophets. Most Bibles place it third in sequence, after the Book of Joel and before the Book of Obadiah. The nine chapters of Amos' book bring three accusations of breaking God's covenant.
On the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar, Amos' feast day is celebrated on June 15 (for those churches which follow the traditional Julian Calendar, June 15 currently falls on June 28th of the modern Gregorian Calendar). He is commemorated along with the other minor prophets in the Calendar of Saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 31.
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Ancient Egyptians
This is a list of ancient Egyptian people who have articles on Wikipedia. The list covers key ancient Egyptian individuals from the start of the first dynasty until the end of the ancient Egyptian nation when the Ptolemaic Dynasty ended and Egypt became a province of Rome in 30 BC.
Note that the dates given are approximate. The list presented below is based on the conventional chronology of Ancient Egypt, mostly based on the Digital Egypt for Universities database developed by the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology.
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z
Other articles including lists of ancient Egyptians:
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Anwar al-Bunni
Anwar al-Bunni (Arabic: أنور البني, born 1959) is a Syrian human rights lawyer who has defended clients such as Riad al-Turk, Riad Seif, the owner of The Lamplighter, (an independent newspaper shut down by the Syrian government), Kurdish protesters, and "dozens of others."
Al-Bunni was born in Hama to a Christian family active in dissident leftist politics. According to an interview with American journalist Robin Wright, he became interested in defending dissidents after being beaten, bayonetted, and having beard set on fire, by Syrian soldiers during a military sweep of Hama in 1981. He has been described as having spent "most of his life" defending Syria's political dissidents, often pro bono, and having sold his automobile and office to pay his bills as a result. He was head of the short-lived European Union-funded human rights training centre in Syria called the Center for Legal Research and Studies until it was shut down by the government in 2006. Following this he wrote a model constitution for Syria guaranteeing political pluralism and civil rights.
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Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs (Arabic: عرب, ʿarab), are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing an important part of Arab identity.
The word "Arab" has had several different, but overlapping, meanings over the centuries (and sometimes even today). In addition to including all Arabized people of the world (with language tending to be the acid test), it has also at times been used exclusively for bedouin (Arab nomads [although a related word, "`a-RAB," with the Arabic letter "alif" in the second syllable, once was sometimes used when this specific meaning was intended] and their now almost entirely settled descendants). It is sometimes used that way colloquially even today in some places. Townspeople once were sometimes called "sons of the Arabs." As in the case of other ethnicities or nations, people identify themselves (or are identified by others) as "Arabs" to varying degrees. This may not be one's primary identity (it tends to compete with country, religion, sect, etc.), and whether it is emphasized may depend upon one's audience.
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Aramean people
The Arameans, or Aramaeans[pronunciation?] (Aramaic: ארמיא; ʼaramáyé) were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who originated in what is now modern Syria (Biblical Aram) during the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Large groups migrated to Mesopotamia where they intermingled with the native Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) population.
The Arameans never had a unified nation; they were divided into small independent kingdoms across parts of the Near East, particularly in what is now modern Syria. After the Bronze Age collapse, their political influence was confined to a number of Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the 8th century BC.
By contrast, the Aramaic language came to be the lingua franca of the entire Fertile Crescent, by Late Antiquity developing into the literary languages such as Syriac and Mandaic. Scholars even have used the term "Aramaization" for the process by which the Akkadian/Assyro-Babylonian peoples became Aramaic-speaking during the later Iron Age.
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Aref Dalila
Professor Aref Dalila (Arabic: عارف دليلة) (born 1943) is a Syrian economics professor and former Dean of the Faculty of Economics in Damascus University. He was arrested for his political activity during the Damascus Spring period.
Born in Latakia, Dalila holds a doctorate in economics from Moscow University. He worked as an economy expert for the Development Fund of Kuwait in the 1980s. He returned to Syria to serve as dean of the economics at Damascus University until he was banned from teaching in 1998, allegedly due to his criticism of the regime's economic policies.
He was arrested in Damascus on 9 September 2001, reportedly following a lecture in which he called for democracy and transparency, In this lectures delivered at the Syrian Economic Society in the Arab Cultural Center in Damascus, He demanded the release of information about the usage of oil and gas revenues. He was adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. He served a 10-year prison sentence before being released by a special presidential order in August 2008.
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As'ad Pasha al-Azm
As'ad Pasha al-Azm (Arabic: أسعد باشا العظم, Unknown-1758) was the governor of Damascus under Ottoman rule from 1742 to his deposition in 1757. He is responsible for the construction of several architectural works in the city and other places in Syria.
As'ad was born to a prominent local Arab clan, al-Azm, which controlled much the central districts of Syria, Lebanon, and eventually Damascus in 1725. As'ad governed Hama as a tax collector for a number of years, until his uncle, Suleyman Pasha al-Azm, governor of Damascus, died in 1743. In Hama, he built the Azm Palace where he resided.
Al-Azm succeeded his father as governor of Damascus in 1743. Throughout the first half of the 18th century, the janissary corps created troubles for the governance of the al-Azm family in Damascus, but in 1746, As'ad crushed the local janissaries. This enabled him to establish his unchallenged authority in the city.
He was favored by the Ottoman authorities in Istanbul because he was successful in ensuring the protection of the Syrian pilgrim caravan that annually left for Mecca and Medina during the Hajj. In his dealings with the Bedouins along the caravan route in the Syrian Desert and the Hejaz, al-Azm either used force to subdue them or bought them off. The security of the pilgrim caravan was of prime importance to the Ottoman sultan in his capacity as "Protector of the Two Holy Sanctuaries," especially after the failure of the janissaries to protect the caravan.
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Ayyubid
The Ayyubid dynasty (Arabic: الأيوبيون) was a Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origin, founded by Saladin and centered in Egypt. The dynasty ruled much of the Middle East during the 12th and 13th centuries CE. The Ayyubid family, under the brothers Ayyub and Shirkuh, originally served as soldiers for the Zengids until they supplanted them under Saladin, Ayyub's son. In 1174, Saladin proclaimed himself Sultan following the death of Nur al-Din. The Ayyubids spent the next decade launching conquests throughout the region and by 1183, the territories under their control included Egypt, Syria, northern Mesopotamia, Hejaz, Yemen, and the North African coast up to the borders of modern-day Tunisia. Most of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and beyond Jordan River fell to Saladin after his victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. However, the Crusaders regained control of Palestine's coastline in the 1190s.
After the death of Saladin, his sons contested control over the sultanate, but Saladin's brother al-Adil eventually established himself as Sultan in 1200. In the 1230s, the Ayyubid rulers of Syria attempted to assert their independence from Egypt and remained divided until Egyptian Sultan as-Salih Ayyub restored Ayyubid unity by taking over most of Syria, excluding Aleppo, by 1247. By then, local Muslim dynasties had driven out the Ayyubids from Yemen, the Hejaz, and parts of Mesopotamia. After repelling a Crusader invasion of the Nile Delta, as-Salih Ayyub's Mamluk generals overthrew al-Mu'azzam Turanshah who succeeded Ayyub as Sultan after his death in 1250. This effectively ended Ayyubid power in Egypt and a number of attempts by the rulers of Syria, led by an-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo, to recover it failed. In 1260, the Mongols sacked Aleppo and wrested control of what remained of the Ayyubid territories soon after. The Mamluks, who forced out the Mongols after the destruction of the Ayyubid dynasty, maintained the Ayyubid principality of Hama until deposing its last ruler in 1341.
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Bar-Hadad
Hadadezer ([pronunciation?]; "Hadad is my help"); also known as Adad-Idri (Assyr.) and possibly the same as Bar-Hadad II (Aram.); Ben-Hadad II (Heb.), was the king of Aram Damascus at the time of the battle of Qarqar against the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in 853 BCE. He and Irhuleni of Hamath led a coalition of eleven kings (listed as twelve) at Qarqar (including Ahab of Israel). He fought Shalmaneser six other times, twice more with the aid of Irhuleni and possibly the rest of the coalition that fought at Qarqar.
He is mentioned in the inscriptions on the Tel Dan Stele; he seems most likely to be the unknown author's father. He was succeeded by Hazael after he was suffocated in the night by him. Some accounts claim that Hazael was in fact his son.
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Bashar al-Assad
Bashar Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: بشار حافظ الأسد, Baššār al-ʾAsad, Arabic pronunciation: [bæʃˈʃɑːɾɪlˈʔæsæd]); born 11 September 1965) is the current President of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Syrian-led branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. His father Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria for 29 years until his death in 2000.
Al-Assad graduated from the medical school of the University of Damascus in 1988, and started to work as a doctor in the army. Four years later, he attended postgraduate studies at the Western Eye Hospital, in London, specializing in ophthalmology. In 1994, Al-Assad entered the military academy and in 1998, Al-Assad took charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. In December 2000, Assad married Asma Assad, née Akhras. Al-Assad was elected as President of Syria in 2000 and 2007, unopposed each time. During the Syrian uprising, activists and protesters have called for President al-Assad's resignation.
Bashar Hafez al-Assad was born in Damascus on 11 September 1965, the son of Aniseh (née Makhluf) and Hafez al-Assad. His father, Hafez al-Assad, born to a poor family of Alawite background, had risen through the Party ranks, to take control of the Syrian-led branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in the 1970 Corrective Revolution, thus installing himself as president. Hafez al-Assad purged the Party, and introduced effective Alawite rule of Syria.
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Bouthaina Shaaban
Bouthaina Shaaban (Arabic: بثينة شعبان) (b. 1953) is a Syrian politician and is currently the political and media adviser to the President of Syria. Shaaban served as the first Minister of Expatriates for the Syrian Arab Republic, between 2003 and 2008, and has been described as the Syrian "regime's face to the outside world."
Born in Homs and a member of the Baath Party since the age of 16, she was educated in Britain and obtained her Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Warwick. She is married with two daughters and a son.
Shaaban worked first as an interpreter for the Syrian presidents Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad. Under Hafez she became an "adviser to the Foreign Ministry," and in 2003 she was named Minister of Expatriates, "a new post created to try to lure wealthy Syrian expatriates abroad — or at least their resources — back home." In 2008 she was appointed political and media adviser to president Bashar al-Assad. Between 1985 and 2003 she was also the professor of Romantic poetry at the English department of Damascus University.
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Farid Ghadry
Farid al-Ghadry (Arabic: فريد الغادري) (born on June 18, 1954) is the Syrian-born co-founder and current president of the United States-based Reform Party of Syria, a party lobbying for regime change in Syria. Many of al-Ghadry's critics have compared him to Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who lobbied the US government to invade his home country. Ghadry has functioned as an American defense contractor and businessman, "Frank Ghadry," who represents himself as being born in Lebanon. Ghadry is a member of AIPAC, Israel's main lobbying group in the U.S., and has strongly supported all of Israel's recent wars in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
Ghadry was born in Aleppo, Syria, but in 1964 his family emigrated to Beirut, Lebanon because of political turmoil. There he attended the Maristes Brothers School (Champville - Deek-el-Mehdi). In 1975 the Ghadry family, once again, emigrated to the U.S. and settled in the suburbs of Washington DC. Mr. Ghadry graduated from the American University in Washington DC in 1979 with a degree in Finance and Marketing.
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Great Seljuq Empire
The Great Seljuq Empire (Turkish: Büyük Selçuklu Devleti, Persian: دولت سلجوقیان) was a medieval Persianate,Turko-PersianSunni Muslim empire, originating from the Qynyq branch of Oghuz Turks. The Seljuq Empire controlled a vast area stretching from the Hindu Kush to eastern Anatolia and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf. From their homelands near the Aral sea, the Seljuqs advanced first into Khorasan and then into mainland Persia before eventually conquering eastern Anatolia.
The Seljuq empire was founded by Tughril Beg in 1037 after the efforts by the founder of the Seljuq dynasty, Seljuq Beg, back in the first quarter of the eleventh century. Seljuq Beg's father was in a higher position in the Oghuz Yabgu State, and gave his name both to the state and the dynasty. The Seljuqs united the fractured political scene of the Eastern Islamic world and played a key role in the first and second crusades. Highly Persianized in culture and language, the Seljuqs also played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition, even exporting Persian culture to Anatolia. The Seljuqs conquest gave impetus to the progressive Turkicization of parts of Anatolia, Iran and the Caucasus.
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Hadadezer
Hadadezer ([pronunciation?]; "Hadad is my help"); also known as Adad-Idri (Assyr.) and possibly the same as Bar-Hadad II (Aram.); Ben-Hadad II (Heb.), was the king of Aram Damascus at the time of the battle of Qarqar against the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in 853 BCE. He and Irhuleni of Hamath led a coalition of eleven kings (listed as twelve) at Qarqar (including Ahab of Israel). He fought Shalmaneser six other times, twice more with the aid of Irhuleni and possibly the rest of the coalition that fought at Qarqar.
He is mentioned in the inscriptions on the Tel Dan Stele; he seems most likely to be the unknown author's father. He was succeeded by Hazael after he was suffocated in the night by him. Some accounts claim that Hazael was in fact his son.
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Haitham al-Maleh
Haitham al-Maleh (Arabic: هيثم المالح, born 1931) is a Syrian human rights activist and former judge. He is a critic of the current Syrian regime under Bashar al-Assad and has been imprisoned by the Syrian government as a political prisoner on several occasions since the 1960s. Maleh became an important opposition figure in the 2011 Syrian uprising.
Haitham al-Maleh earned a degree in law and a diploma in international law. He was first arrested in 1951 at the age of twenty when he called for an independent judiciary; he was imprisoned for three weeks. He became a judge in 1958. The first Baathist government dismissed him from the judicial bench because of his public criticism of the 1963 Emergency Law, which suspended constitutional rights and codified martial law. He returned to the practice of law after his dismissal, continuing to work in the area of human rights law.
The Syrian government ordered Maleh's arrest and detention numerous times because of his human rights activities. In 1978, Maleh was one of the authors of a document demanding constitutional reforms and the end of Emergency Law, which was soon endorsed by other professional organizations, culminating in a mass strike in March 1980. Maleh was jailed as a political prisoner between 1980 and 1986 because he publicly criticized human rights abuses committed by the government, the Emergency Law, and violations of the Syrian Constitution. He went on hunger strikes at least twice during his detention.
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Hasael
Hazael ([pronunciation?];Hebrew: חֲזָהאֵל or חזאלḤaZa'eL; Aramaic, from the triliteral Semitic root h-z-y, "to see"; his full name meaning, "God has seen") was a court official and later an Aramean king who is mentioned in the Bible. Under his reign, Aram-Damascus became an empire that ruled over large parts of Syria and Palestine.
Hazael is first referred to by name in 1 Kings 19:15 when God told the prophet Elijah to anoint him king over Syria. Years after this, the Syrian king Hadadezer was ill and sent his court official Hazael with gifts to Elijah's successor Elisha. Elisha asked Hazael to tell Hadadezer that he would recover, and he revealed to Hazael that the king would recover but would die of other means. The day after he returned to Hadadezer in Damascus, Hazael suffocated him and seized power himself.
During his approximately 37-year reign (c. 842 BC-805 BC), King Hazael led the Arameans in battle against the forces of King Jehoram of Israel and King Ahaziah of Judah. After defeating them at Ramoth-Gilead, Hazael repelled two attacks by the Assyrians, seized Israelite territory east of the Jordan, the Philistine city of Gath, and sought to take Jerusalem as well (2 Kings 12:17). A monumental Aramaic inscription discovered at Tel Dan is seen by most scholars as having been erected by Hazael, after he defeated the Kings of Israel and Judah. Recent excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath have revealed dramatic evidence of the siege and subsequent conquest of Gath by Hazael. The destruction of the settlement at Tell Zeitah during the ninth century may also be the result of Hazael's campaign. King Joash of Judah forestalled Hazael's invasion by bribing him with treasure from the royal palace and temple, after which he disappears from the Biblical account.
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Heinrich Gelzer
Not to be confused with the German classical scholar Matthias Gelzer, who wrote on Julius Caesar and the Late Roman Republic.
Heinrich Gelzer (1847–1906) was a German classical scholar. He wrote also on Armenian mythology. He was the son of the Swiss historian Johann Heinrich Gelzer (1813–1889). He became Professor of Classical Philology and Ancient History at the University of Jena, in 1878. He wrote a still-standard work on Julius Africanus. He worked out the chronology of Gyges of Lydia, from cuneiform evidence, in an 1875 article.
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Ibn Battuta
Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Lawātī al-Ţanjī ibn Baṭūṭah (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله اللواتي الطنجي بن بطوطة), or simply Ibn Battuta (ابن بطوطة), also known as Shams ad-Din (February 25, 1304–1368 or 1369), was a Berber Muslim Moroccan explorer, known for his extensive travels, accounts of which were published in the Rihla (lit. "Journey"). Over a period of thirty years, he visited most of the known Islamic world as well as many non-Muslim lands; his journeys including trips to North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the West, and to the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China in the East, a distance surpassing threefold his near-contemporary Marco Polo. Ibn Battuta is considered one of the greatest travellers of all time. He journeyed more than 75,000 miles (121,000 km), a figure unsurpassed by any individual explorer until the coming of the Steam Age some 450 years later.
All that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from the autobiographical information included in the account of his travels. Ibn Battuta was born into a Berber family of Islamic legal scholars in Tangier, Morocco, on 25 February 1304, during the reign of the Marinid dynasty. As a young man he would have studied at a Sunni Maliki madh'hab, (Islamic jurisprudence school), the dominant form of education in North Africa at that time. In June 1325, at the age of twenty-one, Ibn Battuta set off from his hometown on a hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, a journey that would take sixteen months. He would not see Morocco again for twenty-four years.
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Im-idri
Hadadezer ([pronunciation?]; "Hadad is my help"); also known as Adad-Idri (Assyr.) and possibly the same as Bar-Hadad II (Aram.); Ben-Hadad II (Heb.), was the king of Aram Damascus at the time of the battle of Qarqar against the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in 853 BCE. He and Irhuleni of Hamath led a coalition of eleven kings (listed as twelve) at Qarqar (including Ahab of Israel). He fought Shalmaneser six other times, twice more with the aid of Irhuleni and possibly the rest of the coalition that fought at Qarqar.
He is mentioned in the inscriptions on the Tel Dan Stele; he seems most likely to be the unknown author's father. He was succeeded by Hazael after he was suffocated in the night by him. Some accounts claim that Hazael was in fact his son.
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Isaiah
Isaiah ( /aɪˈzeɪ.ə/ or UK /aɪˈzaɪ.ə/;Hebrew: יְשַׁעְיָהוּ, Modern Yeshayahu Tiberian Yəšạʻyā́hû ; Greek: Ἠσαΐας, Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet who lived in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed (although not the earliest) of the neviim akharonim, the latter prophets.
Isaiah is not mentioned anywhere outside of the Bible. It is stated in the first verse of the Book of Isaiah that he prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah (or Azariah), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah (Isaiah 1:1). Uzziah reigned fifty-two years in the middle of the 8th century BC, and Isaiah must have begun his career a few years before Uzziah's death, probably in the 740s BC. Isaiah lived until the fourteenth year of Hezekiah (who died 698 BC), and may have been contemporary for some years with Manasseh. Thus Isaiah may have prophesied for as long as sixty-four years.
Isaiah's wife was called "the prophetess" (Isaiah 8:3), either because she was endowed with the prophetic gift, like Deborah (Judges 4:4) and Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20), or simply because she was the wife of "the prophet" (Isaiah 38:1). The second interpretation, that it was simply an honorary title, "Mrs. Prophet" as it were, is likely. They had two sons, naming one Shear-Jashub, meaning "A remnant shall return"Isaiah 7:3 and the younger, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, meaning, "Spoil quickly, plunder speedily."Isaiah 8:3
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Israelite
The Israelites (בני ישראל, Standard: Bnai Yisraʾel; Tiberian: Bnai Yiśrāʾēl; ISO 259-3: Bnai Yiśraˀel) were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East, who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods (15th to 6th centuries BCE), later evolving into Jews and Samaritans of the classic period, inhabiting Judea and Samaria respectively. In Modern Hebrew usage, an Israelite is, broadly speaking, a lay member of the Jewish ethnoreligious community, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohanim and Levites.
The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew word "Israel". Although most literary references to Israelites are located in the Hebrew Bible, there is also abundant non-biblical archaeological and historical evidence of ancient Israel and Judah. The ethnonym is attested as early as the 13th century BCE in an Egyptian inscription. The Hebrew Bible etymologizes the name as from yisra "to prevail over" or "to struggle/wrestle with", and el, "God, the divine". The eponymous biblical patriarch of the Israelites is Jacob, who wrestled with God who gave him a blessing and renamed him "Israel" because he had "striven with God and with men, and have prevailed." (Genesis 32:24-32) According to the Hebrew Bible, Israelites were the "chosen people" of God. The name Hebrews is sometimes used synonymously with "Israelites". The Qurʾānic term is for Israelites is Banī Israʾīl (children of Israel).
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John of Epiphania
John of Epiphania (Greek: Ιωάννης Επιφανεύς) was a late sixth century Byzantine historian.
John was born in Epiphania (modern Hama, Syria). He was a Christian and served as a legal counselor to the Patriarch of Antioch, Gregory (ca. 590). John was also a cousin of the church historian Evagrius Scholasticus.
John obviously received good training. In his role as legal adviser, he was a witness to the Persian king, Khosrau Parvez's retreat into Roman territory, and may have even met the king personally. Khosrau was restored to the Persian throne by the Roman emperor Maurice. John may have also visited Persia (cf. Fragment 1)
John wrote a history of the Byzantine-Persian wars; from the campaigns of Khosrau I against Justin II, to the flight of his grandson Khosrau II to the Byzantines. The work is lost, but a fragment is preserved. The history was used by Evagrius and Theophylact Simocatta. As with many other Byzantine works, it is written in an archaic form of Greek, meant to imitate the classical style (e.g. Thucidydes).
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Kamal al-Labwani
Dr. Kamal al-Labwani (born October 10, 1957 in Zabadani, Syria) is a Syrian doctor and artist, considered one of the most prominent members of the Syrian opposition movement. He was imprisoned in Adra Prison, near Damascus until November 15, 2011, according to state media.Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience.
Dr. Al-Labwani comes from the small town of Zabadani in the Rif Dimashq province, close to the Lebanese border.
In 1982, while serving as a military doctor, he observed the Hama massacre, in which the government crushed the uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood. This induced him to oppose the ruling Ba'ath party.
He founded the Syrian Liberal Democratic Union and joined the "Damascus Spring" movement, which briefly flourished after Bashar al-Assad became President of Syria in June 2001 after the death of his father.
Kamal al-Labwani was arrested in September 2001 after attending a political seminar in the house of fellow activist and politician Riad Seif. Al-Labwani was taken to ‘Adra prison and held initially in incommunicado detention and then in solitary confinement. Subsequently he gained access to his lawyer and he was allowed family visits. On 28 August 2002 the Supreme State Security Court (SSSC) sentenced him to three years in prison on charges including "inciting armed revolt". After serving his sentence he was released in September 2004.
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Larbi Sadiki
Larbi Sadiki is a Tunisian writer, political scientist and senior lecturer at the University of Exeter. He was formerly a scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center. Sadiki's writing focuses on the democratization of the Arab world as well as human rights studies and dialogue between the Western and Islamic civilizations.
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Maher al-Assad
Maher al-Assad (Arabic: ماهر الأسد, born 8 December 1967) is the brother of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the commander of the Republican Guard and the army's elite Fourth Armored Division, which together with Syria's secret police form the core of the country's security forces. He is part of Bashar's inner circle and is thought by some to be the second most powerful man in Syria after President Bashar al-Assad.
Maher al-Assad was born on 8 December 1967, the youngest child of Aniseh (née Makhlouf) and Hafez al-Assad. He was just two years old when his father became president of Syria. Like the other children in the Assad family, he was raised out of the public spotlight. Maher went to the Academy of Freedom School for his secondary education and then studied business at Damascus University. Following university he pursued a career in the military like his older brother Basil Assad who was being groomed to be his father's successor. When Basil died in a car crash in 1994, he was mentioned as a possible successor to Hafez, but in the end, Bashar succeeded his father even though he lacked the military experience and political ambition. It was speculated that Maher's reputation as a hot-tempered person influenced the decision in favour of Bashar.
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Medes
The Medes (/midz/) (from Old Persian Māda-) were an ancient Iranian people who lived in Iran in an area known as Media and spoke a northwestern Iranian language referred to as the Median language. Their arrival to the region is associated with the first wave of Iranian tribes in the late second millennium BCE (the Bronze Age collapse) through the beginning of the first millennium BCE.
In the 7th century BCE a unified Median state was formed which together with Babylonia, Lydia, and Egypt became one of the four major powers of the ancient Near East. An alliance with the Babylonians helped the Medes to capture Nineveh in 612 BCE which resulted in the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes were subsequently able to establish their Median kingdom (with Ecbatana as their royal centre) beyond their original homeland (central-western Iran) and had eventually a territory stretching roughly from northeastern Iran to the Halys River in Anatolia. The Median kingdom was conquered in 550 BCE by Cyrus the Great who established the next Iranian dynasty—the Achaemenid Empire.
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Michel Kilo
Michel Kilo (Arabic: ميشيل كيلو, born 1940) is a Syrian Christian writer and human rights activist, who has been called "one of Syria's leading opposition thinkers."
He was born in the Syrian Mediterranean coastal city and province of Latakia in 1940.
Michel Kilo studied journalism in Egypt and Germany. He has translated many political and economics books from German to English. As a columnist he wrote opinion pieces for two Arabic papers, the Lebanese daily Annahar and the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi. Recently he wrote several articles about the Syrian uprising for Assafir Lebanese daily newspaper.
Kilo was first arrested by the government in the early 1980s, following this arrest he moved to France but came back to Syria in 1991. Following the Damascus Spring movement, Kilo was a central figure in the Damascus Declaration of 2005 and called for `peaceful, gradual," reform "founded on accord, and based on dialogue and recognition of the other.`
On May 12, 2006 the Beirut-Damascus Declaration, calling for normalising Lebanese-Syrian relations after decades of domination by Syria of its smaller neighbour Lebanon, was published with Kilo as one of its signatories. He was arrested yet again and a year later was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of "of weakening national sentiment and encouraging sectarian strife." On May 19, 2009 he was released after completing all of his sentence.
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Nasir Khusraw
Abu Mo’in Hamid ad-Din Nasir ibn Khusraw al-Qubadiani or Nāsir Khusraw Qubādiyānī [also spelled as Nasir Khusrow and Naser Khosrow] (1004 - 1088 AD (Persian: ناصر خسرو قبادیانی,Tajik: Носири Хусрав) was a Persian poet, philosopher, Isma'ili scholar, traveler and one of the greatest writers in Persian literature. He was born in Qubadyan, a village in middle-age Bactria in eastern Iranian province of Khorasan, now present-day in modern Tajikistan and died in Yamagan, Central Asia (now in Afghanistan). He is considered one of the great poets and writers in Persian literature. The Safarnama, an account of his travels, is his most famous work.
Nasir Khusraw was born in 1004 AD, in Qubadyan. He was well versed in the branches of the natural sciences, medicine, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, Greek philosophy, and the writings of al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina; and in the interpretation of the Qur'an. He also studied Arabic, Turkish, Greek, the vernacular languages of India and Sindh, and perhaps even Hebrew; and had visited Multan and Lahore, and the splendid Ghaznavid court under Sultan Mahmud, Firdousi's patron. He later chose Merv for his residence, and was the owner of a house and garden there.
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Nicephorus Phocas
Nikephoros II Phokas (Latinized: Nicephorus II Phocas) (Νικηφόρος Β΄ Φωκᾶς, Nikēphoros II Phōkas) (c. 912 – 10–11 December 969) was a Byzantine Emperor (963–969) whose brilliant military exploits contributed to the resurgence of Byzantine Empire in the tenth century.
Nikephoros Phokas was born in about 912 and belonged to a Cappadocian family which had produced several distinguished generals, including Nikephoros' father (Bardas Phokas), brother (Leo Phokas), and grandfather (Nikephoros Phokas the Elder), who had all served as commanders of the field army (domestikos tōn scholōn). His mother, whose name is unknown, was a member of another powerful Anatolian clan, the Maleinoi.
Nikephoros joined the army at an early age. He was appointed the military governor of the Anatolikon Theme in 945 under Emperor Constantine VII. When his father, Bardas was wounded in battle in 953, Nikephoros was promoted to supreme commander on the eastern frontier. In the war with the Abbasid Caliphate under Al-Muti, Nikephoros began with a severe defeat in 954, from which he recovered in the following years by victories in Syria, starting in 957.
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Nur ad-Din Zangi
Nur ad-Din (February 1118 – 15 May 1174), also known as Nur ed-Din or Nur al-Din (Turkish: Nureddin Mahmud Zengi, Arabic: نور الدين / ISO 233: Nūr ad-Dīn / English: Light of the Faith), full name Nur ad-Din Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Imad ad-Din Zangi, was a member of the Turkish Zengid dynasty which ruled the Syrian province of the Seljuk Empire. He reigned from 1146 to 1174.
Nur ad-Din was the second son of Imad ad-Din Zengi, the Turkish atabeg of Aleppo and Mosul, who was a devoted enemy of the crusader presence in Syria. After the assassination of his father in 1146, Nur ad-Din and his older brother Saif ad-Din Ghazi I divided the kingdom between themselves, with Nur ad-Din governing Aleppo and Saif ad-Din Ghazi establishing himself in Mosul. The border between the two new kingdoms was formed by the Nahr al-Khabur River. Almost as soon as he began his rule, Nur ad-Din attacked the Principality of Antioch, seizing several castles in the north of Syria, while at the same time he defeated an attempt by Joscelin II to recover the County of Edessa, which had been conquered by Zengi in 1144. (See Siege of Edessa.) Nur ad-Din exiled the entire Christian population of the city, in punishment for assisting Joscelin in this attempt.
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Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire or Turkish Empire or Sublime Ottoman State or sometimes also referred to as Turkey (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِيّهٔ عُثمَانِیّه Devlet-i ʿAliyye-yi ʿOsmâniyye (also عثمانلى دولتى Osmanlı Devleti),Modern Turkish: Osmanlı Devleti or Osmanlı İmparatorluğu) was a Turkish empire which lasted from 27 July 1299 to 1 November 1922, when the Sultanate was abolished.
The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and longest lasting empires in history; such that the Ottoman State, its politics, conflicts, and cultural heritage in a vast geography provide one of the longest continuous narratives. During the 16th and 17th centuries, in particular at the height of its power under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the empire was one of the most powerful states in the world – a multinational, multilingual empire that stretched from the southern borders of the Holy Roman Empire to the outskirts of Vienna, Royal Hungary (modern Slovakia) and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the north to Yemen and Eritrea in the south; from Algeria in the west to Azerbaijan in the east; controlling much of southeast Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. At the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states, some of which were later absorbed into the empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries.
wn.com/Ottoman_Empire -
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians. The synonymous usage of Iranian and Persian has persisted over the centuries although some modern Western sources use Iranic/Iranian as a wider term that includes the term Persian as well as related Iranian languages and ethnic groups. However, these terms have been used both synonymously as well as in a complementary fashion since ancient times; as the Ancient Iranian peoples such as the Old Persians, Medes, Bactrians, Parthians and Avesta peoples considered themselves to be part of the greater Iranian ethnic stock.
The term Persian translates to "from or of Persis" which is a region north of the Persian Gulf located in Pars, Iran. It was from this region that Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid empire, united all other Iranian empires (such as the Medes and the Elamites), and expanded the Persian cultural and social influences by incorporating the Babylonian empire, and the Lydian empire. Although not the first Iranian empire, the Achaemenid empire is the first Persian empire well recognized by Greek and Persian historians for its massive cultural, military and social influences going as far as Athens, Egypt, and Libya.
wn.com/Persian_people -
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey ( /ˈpɒmpiː/) or Pompey the Great (Classical Latin abbreviation: CN·POMPEIVS·CN·F·SEX·N·MAGNVS; September 29, 106 BC – September 29, 48 BC), was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic. He came from a wealthy Italian provincial background, and established himself in the ranks of Roman nobility by successful leadership in several military campaigns. Sulla addressed him by the cognomen Magnus (the Great), and he was awarded three triumphs.
Pompey joined his rival Marcus Licinius Crassus and his ally Julius Caesar in the unofficial military-political alliance known as the First Triumvirate. The first triumvirate was validated by the marriage between Julia Caesar (daughter of Julius Caesar) and Pompey. After the deaths of Julia and Crassus, Pompey sided with the optimates, the conservative and aristocratic faction of the Roman Senate.
Pompey and Caesar contended for the leadership of the Roman state, leading to a civil war. When Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus, he sought refuge in Egypt, where he was assassinated. His career and defeat are significant in Rome's subsequent transformation from Republic to Principate and Empire.
wn.com/Pompey -
Rami Makhlouf
Rami Makhlouf (Arabic: رامي مخلوف, born 10 July 1969) is a wealthy Syrian businessman and the maternal cousin of President Bashar Assad. He is the main owner of Syriatel and according to the Financial Times he is thought to control as much as 60% of the Syrian economy through his web of business interests that include telecommunications, oil and gas, construction, banking, airlines and retail. He is considered one of the most powerful men in Syria and according to Syrian analysts no foreign company can do business in Syria without his consent and partnership. He is a part of Bashar Assad's inner circle.
Rami Makhlouf is one of the wealthiest individuals in Syria and the cousin of Bashar Assad. He is related to the Assad family through his aunt Anisa Makhlouf who is the wife of former Syrian President Hafez Assad. His personal wealth was estimated in 2008 to be about $6 billion dollars. He is the main owner of Syriatel which is one of the two licensed mobile phone company's in Syria. Besides owning Syriatel, he is involved in real estate, banking, free trade zones along the border with Lebanon, duty-free shops, and luxury department stores. According to the Financial Times, he is thought to control as much as 60% of the Syrian economy through his web of business interests,
wn.com/Rami_Makhlouf -
Riad Seif
Riad Seif (Arabic: رياض سيف; born 25 November 1946) is Syrian political dissident, formerly a member of the Parliament of Syria and prominent businessman, who founded and lead the Forum for National Dialogue. Seif was elected to parliament in 1994 as an independent and again in 1998. For many years held the Adidas franchise in Damascus.
According to Seif, his career in industry started with "a workshop for manufacturing shirts in 1963." In 1993, he began "building the New Adidas Company in 1993 ... the first of its kind in Syria", after acquiring a franchise for Syria from the Adidas Corporation.
wn.com/Riad_Seif -
Rifaat al-Assad
Rifaat Ali al-Assad (Arabic: رفعت عالي الأسد; born 22 August 1937) is the younger brother of the former President of Syria, Hafez al-Assad, and the uncle of the incumbent President Bashar al-Assad, all of whom come from the minority Alawite Muslim sect. He was born in the village of Qardaha, near Lattakia in western Syria. He is perhaps best known for allegedly personally overseeing the Hama massacre of 1982.
He played a key role in his brother's takeover of executive power in 1970, dubbed the Corrective Revolution, and ran the elite internal security forces and the Defense Companies (Saraya al-Difaa) in the 1970s and early 1980s. He had a pivotal role throughout the 1970s and, until 1984, many saw him as the likely successor to his elder brother.
In February 1982, as commanding general of the Syrian Army, he allegedly commanded the forces that put down a Muslim Brotherhood revolt in the central city of Hama, by instructing his forces to shell the city, killing thousands of its inhabitants (reports range from between 5,000 and 40,000, the most common suggestion being around 15-20,000). This became known as the Hama Massacre. The United States journalist Thomas Friedman claims in his book From Beirut to Jerusalem that Rifaat later said that the total number of victims was 38,000. Rifaat has denied having a leading role in the Hama massacre.
wn.com/Rifaat_al-Assad -
Saladin
Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb (Arabic: صلاح الدين يوسف بن أيوب, Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb, Kurdish: سهلاحهدین ئهیوبی, Selah'edînê Eyubî) (ca. 1138 – March 4, 1193), better known in the Western world as Saladin, was a KurdishMuslim, who became the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. He led Muslim opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant. At the height of his power, his sultanate included Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Hejaz, Yemen, and parts of North Africa.
Under his personal leadership, his forces defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin, leading the way to his re-capture of Palestine, which had been seized from the Fatimid Egyptians by the Crusaders 88 years earlier. Though the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem would continue to exist for a period, its defeat at Hattin marked a turning point in its conflict with the Muslims and Arabs. As such, Saladin is a prominent figure in Kurdish, Arab, and Muslim culture. Saladin was a strict adherent of Sunni Islam. His noble and chivalrous behavior was noted by Christian chroniclers, especially in the accounts of the Siege of Kerak, and despite being the nemesis of the Crusaders, he won the respect of many of them, including Richard the Lionheart; rather than becoming a hated figure in Europe, he became a celebrated example of the principles of chivalry.
wn.com/Saladin -
Sargon II
Sargon II ( Akkadian Šarru-kên "legitimate king", Arabic: سرجون' reigned 722 – 705 BC) was an Assyrian king. Sargon II became co-regent with Shalmaneser V in 722 BC, and became the sole ruler of the kingdom of Babylonia in 722 BC after the death of Shalmaneser V. It is not clear whether he was the son of Tiglath-Pileser III or a usurper unrelated to the royal family. In his inscriptions, he styles himself as a new man, rarely referring to his predecessors; however he took the name Sharru-kinu ("true king"), after Sargon of Akkad — who had founded the first Semitic Empire in the region some 16 centuries earlier.Sargon is the Biblical form of the name.
Beset by difficulties at the beginning of his rule, Sargon II made a pact with the Babylonian king Marduk-apla-iddina II. He was able to free all temples, as well as the inhabitants of the towns of Assur and Harran from taxes. While Sargon was thus trying to gain support in Assyria, Marduk-apla-iddina II conquered Babylon with the help of the new Elamite king Ummanigash and was crowned king in 721 BC.
wn.com/Sargon_II -
Seleucus Nicator
Seleucus I (given the surname by later generations of Nicator, Greek : Σέλευκος Νικάτωρ, i.e. Seleucus the Victor) (ca. 358 BC – 281 BC) was a leading officer of Alexander the Great's League of Corinth and one of the Diadochi. In the Wars of the Diadochi that took place after Alexander's death, Seleucus established the Seleucid dynasty and the Seleucid Empire. His kingdom would be one of the last holdouts of Alexander's former empire to Roman rule. They were only outlived by the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt by roughly 34 years.
After the death of Alexander, Seleucus was nominated as the satrap of Babylon in 320 BC. Antigonus forced Seleucus to flee from Babylon, but, supported by Ptolemy, he was able to return in 312 BC. Seleucus' later conquests include Persia and Media. It is assumed that he was defeated by the emperor of India, Chandragupta Maurya and accepted a matrimony alliance for 500 elephants after ceding the territories considered as part of India. Seleucus defeated Antigonus in the battle of Ipsus in 301 BC and Lysimachus in the battle of Corupedium in 281 BC. He was assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus during the same year. His successor was his son Antiochus I.
wn.com/Seleucus_Nicator -
Shalmaneser III
Shalmaneser III (Šulmānu-ašarēdu, "the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent") was king of Assyria (859 BC – 824 BC), and son of the previous ruler, Ashurnasirpal II[1].
His long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations of Mesopotamia and Syria, as well as Kizzuwadna and Urartu. His armies penetrated to Lake Van and the Taurus Mountains; the Hittites of Carchemish were compelled to pay tribute, and the kingdoms of Hamath and Aram Damascus were subdued.
In 853 BC a coalition which was formed by the kingdoms of Egypt, Hamath, Arvad, the Ammonites, "Ahab of Israel" and other neighboring states, under the leadership of king Hadadezer of Damascus, fought the Assyrian king at Battle of Qarqar. However, the Assyrian king persevered in his attempts to subjugate Israel and Syria[citation needed]. Other battles soon followed in 849 BC and 846 BC.
In 842 BC, Shalmaneser campaigned against Hadadezer's successor Hazael, forcing him to take refuge within the walls of his capital. While Shalmaneser was unable to capture Damascus, he devastated its territory, and Jehu of Israel (whose ambassadors are represented on the Black Obelisk now in the British Museum), together with the Phoenician cities, prudently sent tribute to him in 841 BC. Babylonia had already been conquered as far as the marshes of the Chaldaeans in the south, and the Babylonian king put to death. It was the Assyrian king who defeated the Western coalition at Qarqar.
wn.com/Shalmaneser_III -
Solomon
Solomon (Hebrew: שְׁלֹמֹה, Modern Shlomo Tiberian Šəlōmō ISO 259-3 Šlomo; Arabic: سليمان Sulaymān, also colloquially: Silimān; Greek: Σολομών Solomōn), according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah (Hebrew יְדִידְיָהּ) in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah split; following the split his patrilineal descendants ruled over Judah alone. In the Qur'an, he is considered as a major Prophet, known as Sulaiman, son of David.
The Hebrew Bible credits Solomon as the builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem, and portrays him as great in wisdom, wealth, and power, but ultimately as a king whose sin, including idolatry and turning away from Yahweh, leads to the kingdom being torn in two during the reign of his son Rehoboam. Solomon is the subject of many other later references and legends.
wn.com/Solomon -
Tiglath-Pileser III
Tiglath-Pileser III (from the Hebraic form of Akkadian: Tukultī-apil-Ešarra, "my trust is in the son of Esharra") was a prominent king of Assyria in the eighth century BC (ruled 745–727 BC) and is widely regarded as the founder of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
Tiglath-Pileser III seized the Assyrian throne during a civil war and killed the royal family. He made sweeping changes to the Assyrian government, considerably improving its efficiency and security. Assyrian forces became a standing army. Tiglath-Pileser III subjected Babylonia to tribute, severely punished Urartu (Armenia), and defeated the Medes and the Hittites. He reconquered Syria (destroying Damascus) and the Mediterranean seaports of Phoenicia. Tiglath-Pileser III also occupied Philistia and Israel. Later in his reign, Tiglath-Pileser III assumed total control of Babylonia.
Tiglath-Pileser III discouraged revolts against Assyrian rule, with the use of forced deportations of thousands of people all over the empire. He is considered to be one of the most successful military commanders in world history, conquering most of the world known to the Assyrians before his death.
wn.com/Tiglath-Pileser_III -
Timurlane
Timur (Turkish: Demir "iron", Persian: تمور Timūr, Chagatai: Temür "iron"; 8 April 1336 – 18 February 1405), historically known as Tamerlane (from Persian: تيمور لنگ, Timūr-i Lang, Aksak Timur "Timur the Lame" in Turkish), was a Turkic, who conquered West, South and Central Asia, and the founder of the Timurid dynasty. He was the grandfather of Ulugh Beg, who ruled Central Asia from 1411 to 1449, and the great-great-grandfather of Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire, which ruled South Asia for centuries.
Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. Unlike his predecessors Timur was also a devout Muslim and referred to himself as the Sword of Islam. His armies were inclusively multi-ethnic and multicultural. During his lifetime Timur would emerge as the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world after defeating the formidable Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire and the declining Sultanate of Delhi; Timur had also decisively defeated the Knights Hospitaler at Smyrna and since then referred to himself as a Ghazi. By the end of his reign Timur had also gained complete suzerainty over all the remnants of the Chagatai Khanate, Ilkhanate, Golden Horde and even the Yuan Khanate.
wn.com/Timurlane -
World War I
World War I (WWI), which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939 (World War II), and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers, which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; but, as Austria–Hungary had taken the offensive against the agreement, Italy did not enter into the war). These alliances both reorganised (Italy fought for the Allies), and expanded as more nations entered the war. Ultimately more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of enormous increases in lethality of weapons, thanks to new technology, without corresponding improvements in protection or mobility. It was the sixth-deadliest conflict in world history, subsequently paving the way for various political changes such as revolutions in the nations involved.
wn.com/World_War_I -
Yaqut al-Hamawi
Yāqūt ibn-'Abdullah al-Rūmī al-Hamawī) (1179–1229) (Arabic: ياقوت الحموي الرومي) was an Islamic biographer and geographer renowned for his encyclopedic writings on the Muslim world. "al-Rumi" ("from Rûm") refers to his Greek (Byzantine) descent; "al-Hamawi" is taken, as usual with slaves, from the family name of his master after Hama, Syria, and ibn-Abdullah is a reference to his father's name, Abdullah. This is common among slaves who don't know the name of their fathers, to call him Abdullah. The word yāqūt means ruby or hyacinth.
Yaqut was a Greek sold as a slave to trader, Askar ibn Abi Nasr al-Hamawi, who lived in Baghdad, Iraq. His master taught him accounting and trading and sent him to trade on his behalf. He later freed him and that enabled Yagut to dedicate himself to his scholarly tasks. He was one of the last scholars who accessed to the libraries east of the Caspian Sea before Mongol invasion of Central Asia. He travelled to the peaceful scholarly city of ancient Merv in present-day Turkmenistan. There Yaqut spent two years in libraries, learning much of the knowledge he would later use in his works. Yaqut spend the last few years of life in Aleppo and died there.
wn.com/Yaqut_al-Hamawi -
Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Yassin al-Haj Saleh (born 1961) is a Syrian writer and political dissident. He writes on political, social and cultural subjects relating to Syria and the Arab world.
From 1980 until 1996 he spent time in prison in Syria for his membership in what he now calls a "communist pro-democracy group". He was arrested while he was studying medicine in Aleppo and spent sixteen years in prison, the last in Tadmur Prison. He took his final examination as a general medical practitioner in 2000, but never practiced.
Saleh is married to Samira al Khalil and lives in Damascus.
wn.com/Yassin_al-Haj_Saleh
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Massacre in Hama - Masha'a al-Firusiyyah - May 27, 2012
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:09
- Updated: 11 Dec 2012
This footage, uploaded by Syrian democracy activists on May 27, 2012, was filmed in Hama in the neighborhood of Masha'a al-Firusiyyah. It depicts Syrian civilians maimed and killed in the aftermath of a tank bombardment -- allegedly by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad.
http://wn.com/Massacre_in_Hama_Masha'a_al-Firusiyyah_May_27,_2012
This footage, uploaded by Syrian democracy activists on May 27, 2012, was filmed in Hama in the neighborhood of Masha'a al-Firusiyyah. It depicts Syrian civilians maimed and killed in the aftermath of a tank bombardment -- allegedly by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad.
18+ Syria - Hama Woman Lay Dead as Assad Attacks City 5-27-12 Dictator Commits 2 Massacres in 3 Days
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:56
- Updated: 06 Dec 2012
18+ Adults Only - Warning - Not for Shock - Contains Graphic Images - Documentary Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity Committed by Syria Dictator Bashar Assad as he orders his Army to Massacre Civilians in Hama on May 27, 2012 This is Randa Al-Naimi and she is only one victim of the dozens of men, women and children killed and Wounded today by the Assad Army in Hama in the south part of the city. Syria Now 28-5-2012 Posted by abeer on May 28th, 2012 Local Coordination Committees in Syria Damascus Suburbs: Muadamieh: Powerful explosion shook the city a little while ago Daraa: Sheikha Mskeen: Continued gunfire from all checkpoints using various types of heavy and medium-grade weapons and snipers amid movement of armored vehicles Damascus: Wadi Masharee: Regime forces stormed the neighborhood moments ago Homs: Quseir: Several explosions were reported in the villages of Jweisa and Nizariya Homs: Several shellings shake Al-Khaldieh neighborhood accompanied with massive gunfire Damascus Sububrs: Moudamieh: Powerful Shelling in the City on Sunday ام حماة مشاع جنوب الملعب الشهيدة رندة النعيمي ....flvش
http://wn.com/18+_Syria_Hama_Woman_Lay_Dead_as_Assad_Attacks_City_5-27-12_Dictator_Commits_2_Massacres_in_3_Days
18+ Adults Only - Warning - Not for Shock - Contains Graphic Images - Documentary Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity Committed by Syria Dictator Bashar Assad as he orders his Army to Massacre Civilians in Hama on May 27, 2012 This is Randa Al-Naimi and she is only one victim of the dozens of men, women and children killed and Wounded today by the Assad Army in Hama in the south part of the city. Syria Now 28-5-2012 Posted by abeer on May 28th, 2012 Local Coordination Committees in Syria Damascus Suburbs: Muadamieh: Powerful explosion shook the city a little while ago Daraa: Sheikha Mskeen: Continued gunfire from all checkpoints using various types of heavy and medium-grade weapons and snipers amid movement of armored vehicles Damascus: Wadi Masharee: Regime forces stormed the neighborhood moments ago Homs: Quseir: Several explosions were reported in the villages of Jweisa and Nizariya Homs: Several shellings shake Al-Khaldieh neighborhood accompanied with massive gunfire Damascus Sububrs: Moudamieh: Powerful Shelling in the City on Sunday ام حماة مشاع جنوب الملعب الشهيدة رندة النعيمي ....flvش
- published: 28 May 2012
- views: 3263
- author: Souria2011archives
Syrian police beat man to death in Hama 20/05 قتل متظاهر من قبل الأمن
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:42
- Updated: 11 Dec 2012
Attrocious. Footage of Syrian security forces and Shabiha beating a man to death in the city of Hama on Friday 20th May 2010
http://wn.com/Syrian_police_beat_man_to_death_in_Hama_20_05_قتل_متظاهر_من_قبل_الأمن
Attrocious. Footage of Syrian security forces and Shabiha beating a man to death in the city of Hama on Friday 20th May 2010
- published: 21 May 2011
- views: 117403
- author: freeknight2011
[13/7/2012] Hama, Syria: Terrorists try to rampage through a town, meet Syrian army 18+
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:17
- Updated: 10 Dec 2012
When they speak of a "massacre", you know what it means: Lots of terrorist losses. Note that almost all of the dead had a weapon on them at the time. Killing terrorists prevents them from carrying out their massacres. While its a loss when any Syrian dies, from any side, this has to be done to save the country from the grips of israel and America.
http://wn.com/_13_7_2012_Hama,_Syria_Terrorists_try_to_rampage_through_a_town,_meet_Syrian_army_18+
When they speak of a "massacre", you know what it means: Lots of terrorist losses. Note that almost all of the dead had a weapon on them at the time. Killing terrorists prevents them from carrying out their massacres. While its a loss when any Syrian dies, from any side, this has to be done to save the country from the grips of israel and America.
- published: 15 Jul 2012
- views: 6536
- author: SuriComrade
SYRIA:(Warning Violent!) Jihadists Ambush checkpoint in Hama Province
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:17
- Updated: 13 Dec 2012
(31/07/2012) Audacious ambush by Islamist group Aharar Al Sham in Al-suqaylabiyah, Hama governorate. Ahrar Al Sham, a Salafist extremist group based in Idlib are probably the most powerful insurgent group in Syria, their operations are often celebrated on Al Qaeda forums. The Jihadists drive right up to the checkpoint before opening fire and jumping out. The tactic strongly resembles those employed by Al Qaeda in Iraq in their latest video release and appears to be an attempt to by Ahrar Al sham to emulate them. They do not however meet with the same success, the vehicle takes fire, one of the attackers doesn't appear to return to the car and the the vehicle is seen taking fire, one of the men in the back seems to be shot in the shoulder towards the end.
http://wn.com/SYRIAWarning_Violent!_Jihadists_Ambush_checkpoint_in_Hama_Province
(31/07/2012) Audacious ambush by Islamist group Aharar Al Sham in Al-suqaylabiyah, Hama governorate. Ahrar Al Sham, a Salafist extremist group based in Idlib are probably the most powerful insurgent group in Syria, their operations are often celebrated on Al Qaeda forums. The Jihadists drive right up to the checkpoint before opening fire and jumping out. The tactic strongly resembles those employed by Al Qaeda in Iraq in their latest video release and appears to be an attempt to by Ahrar Al sham to emulate them. They do not however meet with the same success, the vehicle takes fire, one of the attackers doesn't appear to return to the car and the the vehicle is seen taking fire, one of the men in the back seems to be shot in the shoulder towards the end.
- published: 12 Aug 2012
- views: 2845
- author: John Doe
Syria slaughter: Up to 100 bound & slain in Hama massacre
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:06
- Updated: 05 Nov 2012
A new massacre has apparently taken place in Syria, in a small village near the city of Hama. So far reports are painting a very contrasting picture, but the episode appears to be eerily similar to those surrounding the bloody slaughter in the town of Houla last month. RT crosses to correspondent Maria Finoshina, who's in Damascus. Subscribe to RT! www.youtube.com Watch RT LIVE on our website rt.com Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
http://wn.com/Syria_slaughter_Up_to_100_bound_slain_in_Hama_massacre
A new massacre has apparently taken place in Syria, in a small village near the city of Hama. So far reports are painting a very contrasting picture, but the episode appears to be eerily similar to those surrounding the bloody slaughter in the town of Houla last month. RT crosses to correspondent Maria Finoshina, who's in Damascus. Subscribe to RT! www.youtube.com Watch RT LIVE on our website rt.com Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
- published: 07 Jun 2012
- views: 63520
- author: RussiaToday
Video tutorial hama, pyssla (8bit art)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:59
- Updated: 09 Dec 2012
Este es un video tutorial de como crear y planchar una figura hecha con hama beads, pyssla etc..... Si no sabes donde comprar los hama entra en mi facebook y alli tendrás un enlace directo a una tienda de las mas baratas: www.facebook.com
http://wn.com/Video_tutorial_hama,_pyssla_8bit_art
Este es un video tutorial de como crear y planchar una figura hecha con hama beads, pyssla etc..... Si no sabes donde comprar los hama entra en mi facebook y alli tendrás un enlace directo a una tienda de las mas baratas: www.facebook.com
- published: 17 Nov 2011
- views: 8559
- author: jorgemms
Soraya - "Scarface" (clip officiel)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:41
- Updated: 17 Dec 2012
Soraya - 1er EP « Frères Sœurs » -- sortie le 7 janvier 2013 Un titre exclusif offert avec la précommande : bit.ly Rejoins ma Page Facebook pour partager tes impressions & suivre mon actu : www.facebook.com Twitter : twitter.com
http://wn.com/Soraya_Scarface_clip_officiel
Soraya - 1er EP « Frères Sœurs » -- sortie le 7 janvier 2013 Un titre exclusif offert avec la précommande : bit.ly Rejoins ma Page Facebook pour partager tes impressions & suivre mon actu : www.facebook.com Twitter : twitter.com
- published: 15 Feb 2012
- views: 1488501
- author: Soraya Hama
لواء المتحابين في الله - حماه
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:11
- Updated: 17 Dec 2012
تابعونا على التويتر AlsayadaArmy@
http://wn.com/لواء_المتحابين_في_الله_حماه
16 10 Hama أوغاريت , تجمع أحفاد الرسول لواء النصر في ريف حماة استهداف الرتل المتوجه الى معرة النعمان في بسيدا براجمة الصواريخ
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:27
- Updated: 17 Oct 2012
http://wn.com/16_10_Hama_أوغاريت_,_تجمع_أحفاد_الرسول_لواء_النصر_في_ريف_حماة_استهداف_الرتل_المتوجه_الى_معرة_النعمان_في_بسيدا_براجمة_الصواريخ
AJPW 08.09.2012 - Ryota Hama vs Yasafumi Nakanoue (GTTT - Match 1)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:00
- Updated: 17 Nov 2012
All Japan Pro Wrestling GAORA TV Title Tournament Match 1
http://wn.com/AJPW_08092012_Ryota_Hama_vs_Yasafumi_Nakanoue_GTTT_Match_1
All Japan Pro Wrestling GAORA TV Title Tournament Match 1
- published: 27 Sep 2012
- views: 1295
- author: KingsRoadJapan
FiLmY KoMiDeY HaMa DaMaW 2012 ^HAMA DAMBL & SALA^
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 50:15
- Updated: 07 Dec 2012
FLMY KOMIDEY HAMA DAMAW 2012 ^HAMA DAMBL & SALA^
http://wn.com/FiLmY_KoMiDeY_HaMa_DaMaW_2012_^HAMA_DAMBL_SALA^
FLMY KOMIDEY HAMA DAMAW 2012 ^HAMA DAMBL & SALA^
- published: 21 Aug 2012
- views: 14374
- author: skysilemany
Hama DamBl - BE BE
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 78:01
- Updated: 10 Nov 2012
Hama DamBl - BE BE ADIL'S YouTube
http://wn.com/Hama_DamBl_BE_BE
Syria Hama Heavy Assad's military Reinforcements Enter City to Continue Destruction &Killing5-6-2012;
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:18
- Updated: 12 Nov 2012
www.facebook.com Syria, Hama Heavy Assad's military Reinforcements Enter City to Continue Destruction & Killing. 5-6-2012 Hama 5-6-2012 Heavy Assad's military Reinforcements Enter City to Continue Destruction & Killing. O' God Look at that! Look at Annan's peace plan in action! May God protect these brave activists.
http://wn.com/Syria_Hama_Heavy_Assad's_military_Reinforcements_Enter_City_to_Continue_Destruction_&Killing5-6-2012;
www.facebook.com Syria, Hama Heavy Assad's military Reinforcements Enter City to Continue Destruction & Killing. 5-6-2012 Hama 5-6-2012 Heavy Assad's military Reinforcements Enter City to Continue Destruction & Killing. O' God Look at that! Look at Annan's peace plan in action! May God protect these brave activists.
- published: 08 Jun 2012
- views: 2998
- author: Syria Translators
Syria Massacre 18+ Syria Fires in Hama as Dictator Assad Warplanes Bomb Villages 12 July 12
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:22
- Updated: 15 Aug 2012
18+ Adults Only - Warning - Not for Shock - Contains Graphic Images - Video from Syria Uprising for Freedom and Democracy Struggle --- Syria Freedom Fighters Defend Crusader Castle12-July-12 Krak Des Chevaliers Liberated by the Free Syria Army but surrounded and bombed daily by the Regime forces of Dictator Bashar Assad - AFP ------------------ 287 Martyrs 12-7-2012 Posted by abeer on July 13th, 2012 Local Coordination Committees in Syria The number of martyrs is Syria has risen to 287 so far.Two hundred and twenty martyrs in Hama, mostly victims of the massacre of Tremseh town ,twenty two martyrs in Homs, eleven martyrs in Damascus Suburbs, Alseidh Zeinab, Daria, Yalda, Zamilka , twelve martyrs in Damascus, eight of them in the bombing of Barzeh and martyr in Jobar and three martyrs in Hajar Aswad , seven martyrs in the Daraa, six martyrs in Deir Al-Zour, five martyrs in Idlib, three martyrs in Aleppo, two of them by a shooting on a demonstration, and a martyr in Hasaka Hama: Altrimssh: the number of the martyrs of the massacre by the shelling on the town rose up to more than a hundred martyrs Idlib: Ariha: Gunfire is reported from the checkpoints of the city on a large demonstration that set out to condemn the Treimseh massacre. Hama: Regime forces located in Mhardeh were intensely shelling the towns of Taremseh and Karameh with mortars Hama: Karnaz: Intense artillery shelling with rockets and heavy missles Damascus Suburbs: Western Ghouta: The regime's army shells the ...
http://wn.com/Syria_Massacre_18+_Syria_Fires_in_Hama_as_Dictator_Assad_Warplanes_Bomb_Villages_12_July_12
18+ Adults Only - Warning - Not for Shock - Contains Graphic Images - Video from Syria Uprising for Freedom and Democracy Struggle --- Syria Freedom Fighters Defend Crusader Castle12-July-12 Krak Des Chevaliers Liberated by the Free Syria Army but surrounded and bombed daily by the Regime forces of Dictator Bashar Assad - AFP ------------------ 287 Martyrs 12-7-2012 Posted by abeer on July 13th, 2012 Local Coordination Committees in Syria The number of martyrs is Syria has risen to 287 so far.Two hundred and twenty martyrs in Hama, mostly victims of the massacre of Tremseh town ,twenty two martyrs in Homs, eleven martyrs in Damascus Suburbs, Alseidh Zeinab, Daria, Yalda, Zamilka , twelve martyrs in Damascus, eight of them in the bombing of Barzeh and martyr in Jobar and three martyrs in Hajar Aswad , seven martyrs in the Daraa, six martyrs in Deir Al-Zour, five martyrs in Idlib, three martyrs in Aleppo, two of them by a shooting on a demonstration, and a martyr in Hasaka Hama: Altrimssh: the number of the martyrs of the massacre by the shelling on the town rose up to more than a hundred martyrs Idlib: Ariha: Gunfire is reported from the checkpoints of the city on a large demonstration that set out to condemn the Treimseh massacre. Hama: Regime forces located in Mhardeh were intensely shelling the towns of Taremseh and Karameh with mortars Hama: Karnaz: Intense artillery shelling with rockets and heavy missles Damascus Suburbs: Western Ghouta: The regime's army shells the ...
- published: 13 Jul 2012
- views: 2480
- author: jacikagary
Robert Fisk remembers Hama massacre
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:05
- Updated: 30 Nov 2012
Robert Fisk was one of the few journalists who managed to enter Hama during the 1982 military assault on the city. At least 10000 people were killed as the army crushed an armed rebellion led by the Muslim Brotherhood.
http://wn.com/Robert_Fisk_remembers_Hama_massacre
Robert Fisk was one of the few journalists who managed to enter Hama during the 1982 military assault on the city. At least 10000 people were killed as the army crushed an armed rebellion led by the Muslim Brotherhood.
- published: 02 Feb 2012
- views: 7772
- author: AlJazeeraEnglish
AJPW 07.05.2012 - Kaz Hayashi, Kondo & Hama vs Daisuke Sekimoto, Okabayashi & Hashimoto
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 16:49
- Updated: 30 Nov 2012
All Japan Pro Wrestling Six Man Tag Team Match
http://wn.com/AJPW_07052012_Kaz_Hayashi,_Kondo_Hama_vs_Daisuke_Sekimoto,_Okabayashi_Hashimoto
All Japan Pro Wrestling Six Man Tag Team Match
- published: 09 May 2012
- views: 3662
- author: KingsRoadJapan
Illya Kuryaki And The Valderramas - Expedicion Al Klama Hama
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:31
- Updated: 17 Dec 2012
Music video by Illya Kuryaki And The Valderramas performing Expedicion Al Klama Hama. (C) 1997 Universal Music Argentina SA
http://wn.com/Illya_Kuryaki_And_The_Valderramas_Expedicion_Al_Klama_Hama
Music video by Illya Kuryaki And The Valderramas performing Expedicion Al Klama Hama. (C) 1997 Universal Music Argentina SA
- published: 31 Aug 2011
- views: 151815
- author: IKVVEVO
Hama, Masha Al Forousia: The Frist Scenes from the Massacre 27 5 2012
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:13
- Updated: 08 Jun 2012
After less than two days of Al Houla massacre which claimed the lives of more than 100 people, most of them were slaughtered children, Bashar Al Assad and his gang continue with their reforms. Now, they have committed a massacre in Hama, Masha Al Forousia. The death toll reached 39 victims up to this minute. When will Bashar reforms come to an end? ============
http://wn.com/Hama,_Masha_Al_Forousia_The_Frist_Scenes_from_the_Massacre_27_5_2012
After less than two days of Al Houla massacre which claimed the lives of more than 100 people, most of them were slaughtered children, Bashar Al Assad and his gang continue with their reforms. Now, they have committed a massacre in Hama, Masha Al Forousia. The death toll reached 39 victims up to this minute. When will Bashar reforms come to an end? ============
- published: 27 May 2012
- views: 3158
- author: Syria Translators
Soraya feat. Fababy - Ce que je pense
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:06
- Updated: 17 Dec 2012
Premier EP « Frères Sœurs » -- sortie le 7 janvier 2013 Un titre exclusif offert avec la précommande : bit.ly Production : DOTHELINK PAROLES : REFRAIN : Mais comment leurs dire ce que je pense ? Sans que les autres me juge constamment Donc je garde et je garde cette souffrance Et ici bas seul Dieu sait ce que je pense X 2 COUPLET I : (SORAYA) Dis moi à quoi tu pense Que cache tes yeux d'enfant Je le sais sans cesse tu me ment Ton amertume se reflète et se ressent Tu sais avec le temps Hormis les saisons rien ne change Chaqu'un pleur seul et en silence L'espoir c'est flingué y'a bien longtemp Je ne parle pas Non je ne dit rien Non Je ne cris pas Non je ne dit rien J'garde tout pour moi Non je ne dit rien Je ne parle pas Je n'attend rien .... REFRAIN : Mais comment leurs dire ce que je pense ? Sans que les autres me juge constament Donc je garde et je garde cette souffrance Et ici bas seul Dieu sait ce que je pense X 2 COUPLET II : FABABY Si la France ne comprend pas Pourquoi juger nos délits ? Et si le savoir est une arme J'me mutilerais avec des livres Mon coeur est noir Parce que l'amour manque d'éclairage Sur l'autoroute de la gloire Les jaloux s'prennent pour des péages Ils t'donnent des cicatrices plus d'place pour s'tatoué (oh) La paix a plusieurs lois ben que la guerre a toujours bafoué (oh) Marre de cette vie triste j'le dit dans tous les titres Vu que les remord me guette de trops Ben moi j'ferais teinté les vitres La jeunesse des quartier , écoute mes 16 sa vien ...
http://wn.com/Soraya_feat_Fababy_Ce_que_je_pense
Premier EP « Frères Sœurs » -- sortie le 7 janvier 2013 Un titre exclusif offert avec la précommande : bit.ly Production : DOTHELINK PAROLES : REFRAIN : Mais comment leurs dire ce que je pense ? Sans que les autres me juge constamment Donc je garde et je garde cette souffrance Et ici bas seul Dieu sait ce que je pense X 2 COUPLET I : (SORAYA) Dis moi à quoi tu pense Que cache tes yeux d'enfant Je le sais sans cesse tu me ment Ton amertume se reflète et se ressent Tu sais avec le temps Hormis les saisons rien ne change Chaqu'un pleur seul et en silence L'espoir c'est flingué y'a bien longtemp Je ne parle pas Non je ne dit rien Non Je ne cris pas Non je ne dit rien J'garde tout pour moi Non je ne dit rien Je ne parle pas Je n'attend rien .... REFRAIN : Mais comment leurs dire ce que je pense ? Sans que les autres me juge constament Donc je garde et je garde cette souffrance Et ici bas seul Dieu sait ce que je pense X 2 COUPLET II : FABABY Si la France ne comprend pas Pourquoi juger nos délits ? Et si le savoir est une arme J'me mutilerais avec des livres Mon coeur est noir Parce que l'amour manque d'éclairage Sur l'autoroute de la gloire Les jaloux s'prennent pour des péages Ils t'donnent des cicatrices plus d'place pour s'tatoué (oh) La paix a plusieurs lois ben que la guerre a toujours bafoué (oh) Marre de cette vie triste j'le dit dans tous les titres Vu que les remord me guette de trops Ben moi j'ferais teinté les vitres La jeunesse des quartier , écoute mes 16 sa vien ...
- published: 09 Jun 2012
- views: 745970
- author: Soraya Hama
Syria's crackdown affects Hama
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:14
- Updated: 05 Jul 2012
There are empty streets in Syria's third largest city, Hama, where shop workers and residents have reportedly gone on strike in responde to the widening government crackdown. According to witnesses, troops also stormed houses in the city on Monday morning and arrested dozens of people. Al Jazeera's Nazanin Sadri reports.
http://wn.com/Syria's_crackdown_affects_Hama
There are empty streets in Syria's third largest city, Hama, where shop workers and residents have reportedly gone on strike in responde to the widening government crackdown. According to witnesses, troops also stormed houses in the city on Monday morning and arrested dozens of people. Al Jazeera's Nazanin Sadri reports.
- published: 04 Jul 2011
- views: 4872
- author: AlJazeeraEnglish
2. Aleš Háma - Show Jana Krause 2. 11. 2012
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 18:15
- Updated: 13 Dec 2012
Hosté: herečka, zpěvačka Barbora Hrzánová, herec a moderátor Aleš Háma a historik zabývající se homosexualitou Jan Seidl.
http://wn.com/2_Aleš_Háma_Show_Jana_Krause_2_11_2012
Hosté: herečka, zpěvačka Barbora Hrzánová, herec a moderátor Aleš Háma a historik zabývající se homosexualitou Jan Seidl.
- published: 02 Nov 2012
- views: 28230
- author: SJKshow
How to make a Perler / Hama beads guitar!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:54
- Updated: 16 Dec 2012
Like the video if you want to see more Perler / Hama beads tutorials! :) Watch it on HD!
http://wn.com/How_to_make_a_Perler_Hama_beads_guitar!
Like the video if you want to see more Perler / Hama beads tutorials! :) Watch it on HD!
- published: 10 Aug 2012
- views: 879
- author: alexcherry099
photo: AP / Jason DeCrow
16 Dec 2012
NEWTOWN, Conn. — The gunman in the Connecticut shooting rampage committed suicide as first responders closed in, the governor said Sunday, raising the specter that Adam Lanza had planned an even more gruesome massacre and was stopped short. Lanza blasted his way into the building and used a high-power rifle to kill 20 children and six adults, including the principal who tried to stop him, authorities said ... Among the questions ... H ... The Rev....(size: 8.8Kb)
photo: AP / Guang Niu, Pool
16 Dec 2012
Retired Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin yesterday wrapped up a visit to the United States during which he met with officials at the Pentagon, State Department as well as members of Congress warning about underestimating China’s tactical nuclear weapons buildup ... Yesin warns that U.S. and Western arms specialists are dramatically underestimating China’s nuclear arsenal ... Somewhere between the higher and lower estimates is no doubt the truth ... Mr ... Mr ... ....(size: 4.0Kb)
photo: AP / David Goldman
17 Dec 2012
WASHINGTON—Democrats say meaningful action in the wake of last week's elementary school shooting must include a ban on military-style assault weapons and a look at how the nation deals with individuals suffering from serious mental illness. Several Democratic lawmakers and Independent Sen ... Gun control was a hot topic in the early 1990s, when Congress enacted a 10-year ban on assault weapons ... He added ... Sen ... Rep ... ———....(size: 5.3Kb)
photo: AP / Newtown Bee, Shannon Hicks
15 Dec 2012
Newtown, Conn. Twenty schoolchildren were slaughtered by a heavily armed gunman who opened fire at a suburban elementary school in Connecticut on Friday, ultimately killing at least 27 people including himself in the one of the worst mass shootings in US history ... Authorities found 18 children and seven adults, including the gunman, dead at the school, and two children were pronounced dead later after being taken to a hospital ... Reuters ....(size: 7.5Kb)
photo: AP / Jessica Hill
14 Dec 2012
More than two dozen people, mostly elementary school children, were shot and killed at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school this morning, federal and state sources tell ABC News. The massacre involved two gunmen at a Connecticut school this morning, prompting the town of Newtown to lock down all of its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today. State Police confirm that one shooter is dead ... at ABCNews.com ... ....(size: 4.5Kb)
CounterPunch
17 Dec 2012
Media reporting on Hamas is doubly provocative, controversial and similar to political stances towards Hamas. However, in the eyes of Israel, through the prism of its media and among Israel’s western supporters, Hamas is an unequaled terrorist organization, sworn to destroy Israel and unlike the other ‘moderate’ Palestinians – for example, western-backed Palestinian Authority – it refuses to recognize Israel’s ‘right to exist’....(size: 8.9Kb)
Middle East Online
17 Dec 2012
Media reporting on Hamas is doubly provocative, controversial and similar to political stances towards Hamas. However, in the eyes of Israel, through the prism of its media and among Israel’s western supporters, Hamas is an unequaled terrorist organization, sworn to destroy Israel and unlike the other ‘moderate’ Palestinians – for example, western-backed Palestinian Authority – it refuses to recognize Israel’s ‘right to exist’....(size: 8.9Kb)
Reuters
17 Dec 2012
* Rebels announce offensive in Hama province ... Assad's forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters from around Damascus but the violence has crept into the heart of the capital and rebels announced on Sunday a new offensive in the central province of Hama ... "When we liberate the countryside of Hama province ... then we will have the area between Aleppo and Hama liberated and open for us," he told Reuters....(size: 6.4Kb)
Reuters
17 Dec 2012
Government forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters but the violence has crept into the heart of the city and activists say rebels overran three army stations in a new offensive in the central province of Hama on Monday ... In Hama province, rebels and the army clashed in a new campaign launched on Sunday by rebels to block off the country's north, activists said....(size: 5.0Kb)
The Himalayan
17 Dec 2012
OFFENSIVE IN HAMA. On the ground, rebels said they were launching an operation to seize the central province of Hama to try to link northern rural areas of Syria under their control to the centre ... "When we liberate the countryside of Hama province ... then we will have the area between Aleppo and Hama liberated and open for us," he told Reuters....(size: 9.8Kb)
The Star
17 Dec 2012
Government forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters but the violence has crept into the heart of the city and activists say rebels overran three army stations in a new offensive in the central province of Hama on Monday ... In Hama province, rebels and the army clashed in a new campaign launched on Sunday by rebels to block off the country's north, activists said....(size: 5.5Kb)
The Times of India
17 Dec 2012
Assad's forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters from around Damascus but the violence has crept into the heart of the capital and rebels announced on Sunday a new offensive in the central province of Hama ... On the ground, rebels said they were launching an operation to seize the central province of Hama to try to link northern rural areas of Syria under their control to the center....(size: 6.3Kb)
photo: AP / Apphoto
17 Dec 2012
Assad's forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters from around Damascus but the violence has crept into the heart of the capital and rebels announced on Sunday a new offensive in the central province of Hama ... On the ground, rebels said they were launching an operation to seize the central province of Hama to try to link northern rural areas of Syria under their control to the centre....(size: 6.7Kb)
Bloomberg
17 Dec 2012
Hamas, a Palestinian movement that runs the Gaza Strip and that’s designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel and the European Union, condemned yesterday’s attacks by Assad’s forces and called those responsible “war criminals,” according to an e-mailed statement earlier today. Hamas was formerly allied to the Assad government and many of its leaders were Damascus-based....(size: 3.6Kb)
Al Jazeera
17 Dec 2012
Al-Assad's forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters from around Damascus but the violence has crept into the heart of the capital and rebels announced on Sunday a new offensive in the central province of Hama ... On the ground, rebels said they were launching an operation to seize the central province of Hama to try to link northern rural areas of Syria under their control to the centre....(size: 19.5Kb)
The Guardian
17 Dec 2012
However, the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has abandoned its headquarters in Damascus and turned on Assad, has lately been increasingly vocal in its criticism of the regime. Quoting the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Taher al-Nunu, the Palestinian news organisation, Ma'an, condemned the regime air strike on Yarmouk. Hamas's deputy ......(size: 4.6Kb)
BBC News
17 Dec 2012
Syrian Vice-President Farouq al-Sharaa has said neither the government's forces nor the rebels can win the 21-month-old conflict ... 'Syrian solution' ... The current leadership... Commanders also said they were launching an operation to seize control of the central province of Hama ... "When we liberate the countryside of Hama province... then we will have the area between Aleppo and Hama liberated and open for us," he said. ....(size: 3.8Kb)
Ha'aretz
17 Dec 2012
If elections for Palestinian president were to take place today, and the candidates were Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, Haniyeh would win ... Haniyeh's popularity – the highest it has been since 2008 – is directly associated with the way that Hamas dealt with Israel's offensive in Gaza in November ......(size: 2.6Kb)
This article is about the city in Syria. For other uses of the same word, see Hama (disambiguation)
For the 1982 Hama massacre, see February 1982 Hama massacre.
| Hamah حماة |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
 Hamah
|
|
| Coordinates: 35°08′N 36°45′E / 35.133°N 36.75°E / 35.133; 36.75 | |
| Country | Syria |
| Governorate | Hama Governorate |
| District | Hama District |
| city | |
| Government | |
| • Governor | Abdul Razzaq al-Qutainy |
| Population (2004 census[1]) | |
| • City | 312,994 |
| • Metro | 467,254 |
| • Ethnicities | Arab |
| • Religions | Sunni Islam and the Greek Orthodox Church under the Patriarch of Antioch |
| Area code(s) | 33 |
| Website | www.ehama.sy |
Hama (Arabic: حماة Ḥamāh [ħaˈmaː], Biblical Ḥamāth, ("Fortress") is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria north of Damascus. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. With a population of 312,994 (2004 census), Hama is the fifth-largest city in Syria after Aleppo, Damascus, Homs and Latakia. The modern city is built on the site of the ancient city of Hamath ( /ˈheɪ.mʌθ/[2]).
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-Ba'ath opposition in Syria, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood. The city was raided by the Syrian Army, beginning with the 1964 Islamic uprising, and becoming the scene of carnage during the Islamic uprising in Syria in April 1981 and especially in 1982, when some 25,000 people were killed in what became known as Hama massacre. The city was once again besieged by the Syrian military, as one of the main arenas of the 2011 uprising.
Contents |
History[link]
Ancient era[link]
The ancient settlement of Hamath was occupied from the early Neolithic to the Iron Age. The site is inside a tight curve of the Orontes, which made it relatively easy to defend, and was the original place of the settlement; later on, as the town grew beyond it, the mound became the military center of Hama.[3] Remains from the Chalcolithic era have been uncovered by Danish archaeologists on the mount on which the former citadel once stood.[3] 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 (6 m or 20 ft thick) contained both white ware (lime-plaster) and true pottery. It may be contemporary with Ras Shamra V (6000-5000 BC). The overlying level L dates to the Chalcolithic Halaf-period.
The Amorite people colonized the area during the third millennium BC. The Amorites came from Mari on the River Euphrates, some 250 miles (400 km) to the east of Hama, and they colonized many parts of what is now Syria and Iraq.[3] Although the town appears to be unmentioned in cuneiform sources before the first millennium BC,[4] the site appears to have enjoyed great prosperty around 1500 BC, during which time it was presumably an Amorite dependency of Mittanni, an empire along the Euphrates in northeastern Syria.[3] Mitanni was subsequently overthrown by the Hittites, who controlled all of northern Syria following the famous Battle of Kadesh against the Egyptians under Ramses II near Homs in 1285. The site also shows Assyrian and Aramaean settlement.[3]
By the turn of the millennium, the centralized old Hittite Empire had fallen, and Hama is attested as the capital of a prosperous Aramaean neo-Hittite kingdom known from the Hebrew Bible as Hamath (Aramaic: Ḥmt; Hittite: Amatuwana;[4] Hebrew: חֲמָת, Ḥmṯ), which traded extensively, particularly with Israel and Judah.[5] The Aramaean and Hittite peoples lived comparatively peacefully, co-existing with other states in the region, such as Carchemish.[3] The most significant of all the Aramaean states was Damascus, which became the leader of a federation of Aramaic states, of which Hamath was a member. Gradually Aramaic became the most widely used language of the Near East.
When the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (BC 858-824) conquered the north of Syria he reached Hamath (Assyrian: Amat or Hamata[4]) in 835 BC; this marks the beginning of Assyrian inscriptions relating to the kingdom.[6] Irhuleni of Hamath and Im-idri of Aram (biblical Bar-Hadad) led a coalition of Syrian cities against the encroaching Assyrian armies. According to Assyrian sources, they were confronted by 4,000 chariots, 2,000 horsemen, 62,000 foot-soldiers and 1,000 Arab camel-riders in the Battle of Qarqar. 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. After the death of Shalmaneser III, the former allies Hamath and Aram fell out, and Aram seems to have taken over some of Hamath's territory.
An Aramaic inscription of Zakir, dual king of Hamath and La'ash, tells of an attack by a coalition including Sam'al under Ben-Hadad III, son of Hasael, king of Aram. Zakir was besieged in his fortress of Hazrak, but saved by intervention of the God Be'elschamen. Later on, Ja'udi-Sam'al came to rule both Hamath and Aram.
In 743 BC, Tiglath-Pileser III took a number of towns in the territory of Hamath, distributed the territories among his generals, and forcibly removed 1223 selected inhabitants to the Upper Tigris valley; he exacted tribute from Hamath's king, Eni-Îlu (Eniel). 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.[4] After the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, Hamath's king Ilu-Bi'di (Jau-Bi'di) led a failed revolt of the newly organized Assyrian provinces of Arpad, Simirra, Damascus, and Samara. It was this revolt which led to the deportation of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Styling himself "Destroyer of Hamath," Sargon II razed the city,[7] recolonized it with 6,300 Assyrians and removed its king to be flayed alive in Assyria.[4] He also carried off to Nimrud the ivory-adorned furnishings of its kings[8]
The conquests of the New Assyrian Empire eventually stretched over most of the Near East up to the Mediterranean coast. However, their empire fell, when in 612 an allied army of Babylonians and Medes captured Nineveh, the Assyrian capital. The Assyrians were replaced briefly by the Babylonians as the rulers of Syria, but by about 540 Hama, like the rest of Syria, was part of the Persian Empire.[9]
The few Biblical reports state that Hamath was the capital of a Canaanite kingdom (Genesis 10:18; 2 Kings 23:33; 24:21), whose king congratulated King David on his victory over Hadadezer, king of Soba (2 Samuel 8:9-11; 1 Chronicles 13:9-11). Solomon, it would seem, took possession of Hamath and its territory and built store cities.[10] Assyria's defeat of Hamath made a profound impression on Isaiah.[11] The prophet Amos called the town "Hamath the Great."[12] Indeed, the name appears to stem from Phoenician khamat, "fort."[13]
Hellenistic and Roman history[link]
In the second half of the 4th century BC the modern region of Syria came under the influence of Greco-Roman culture, following long lasting semitic and Persian cultures. Alexander the Great's campaign from 334 to 323 BC brought Syria under Hellenic rule. Since the country lay on the trade routes from Asia to Greece, Hama, and many other Syrian cities, again grew rich through trade. After the death of Alexander the Great his Near East conquests were divided between his generals, and Seleucus Nicator became ruler of Syria and the founder of the Seleucid dynasty. Under the Seleucids there was a revival in the fortunes of Hama. The Aramaeans were allowed to return to the city, which was renamed Epiphania[4] (Greek: Ἐπιφάνεια), after the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Seleucid rule began to decline, however, in the next two centuries, and Arab dynasties began to gain control of cities in this part of Syria, including Hama.[9]
The Romans took over original settlements such as Hama and made them their own. They met little resistance when they invaded Syria under Pompey and annexed it in 64 BC, whereupon Hama became part of the Roman province of Syria, ruled from Rome by a proconsul. Hama was an important city during the Greek and Roman periods, but very little archaeological evidence remains.[9]
In AD 330, the capital of the Roman Empire was moved to Byzantium, and the city continued to prosper. In Byzantine days Hama was known as Emath. Roman rule from Byzantium meant the Christian religion was strengthened throughout the Near East, and churches were built in Hama and other cities. The Byzantine historian John of Epiphania was born in Hama in the 6th century.[9]
Muslim rule[link]
During the Muslim conquest of Syria in the 7th century, Hama was conquered by Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah in 638 or 639 and the town regained its ancient name, and has since retained it. Following its capture, it came under the administration of Jund Hims and remained so throughout the rule of Umayyads until the 9th century.[14] The Umayyads built the Great Mosque in Hama in the early 8th century and modelled it on the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.[9]
Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi writes Hama became a part of Jund Qinnasrin during Abbasid rule.[15] Although the city's history is obscure at this time period, it is known that Hama was a walled market town with a ring of outlying cities. It came under the control of the Hamdanid rulers of Aleppo in the 10th century and was consequently drawn into the orbit of that city where it remained until the 12th century.[14] These were considered the "dark years" of Hama as the local rulers of northern and southern Syria struggled for dominance in the region. The Byzantines under emperor Nicephorus Phocas raided the town in 968 and burned the Great Mosque. By the 11th century, the Fatimids gained suzerainty over northern Syria and during this period, the Mirdasids sacked Hama.[14] Persian geographer Nasir Khusraw noted in 1047 that Hama was "well populated" and stood on the banks of the Orontes River.[16]
Tancred, Prince of Galilee, took it in 1108, but in 1114 the Crusaders lost it definitively to the Seljuks. In 1157 an earthquake shattered the city.[17] For the next sixty years, Hama was battled for by competing rulers. Nur al-Din, the Zengid sultan, erected a mosque with a tall, square minaret in the city in 1172.[18] In 1175, Hama was taken from the Zengids by Saladin. He granted the city to his nephew, al-Muzaffar Umar, four years later, putting it under the rule of his Ayyubid family. This ushered in an era of stability and prosperity in Hama as the Ayyubids ruled it almost continuously until 1342.[14] Geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi, who was born in Hama, described it in 1225 as a large town surrounded by a strongly built wall.[19] Hama was sacked by the Mongols in 1260, as were most other Syrian cities, but the Mongols were defeated that same year and then again in 1303 by the Mamluks who succeeded the Ayyubids as rulers of the region.[9] Hama briefly passed to Mamluk control in 1299 after the death of governor al-Mansur Mahmoud II. However, unlike other former Ayyubid cities, the Mamluks reinstated Ayyubid rule in Hama by making Abu al-Fida, the historian and geographer, governor of the city and he reigned from 1310 to 1332.[14] He described his city as "very ancient... mentioned in the book of the Israelites. It is one of the pleasantest places in Syria."[20] After his death, he was succeeded by his son al-Afdal Muhammad who eventually lost Mamluk favor and was deposed. Thus, Hama came under direct Mamluk control.[14]
Hama grew prosperous during the Ayyubid period, as well as the Mamluk period. It gradually expanded to both banks of the Orontes River, with the suburb on the right bank being connected to the town proper by a newly built bridge. The town on the left bank was divided into upper and lower parts, each of which was surrounded by a wall. The city was filled with palaces, markets, mosques, madrasas, and a hospital, and over thirty different sized norias (water-wheels). In addition, there stood a massive citadel in Hama.[14] It was during Mamluk rule that many of the norias, initially started during the rule of the Ayyubid dynasty, were reconditioned and enlarged, and their numbers increased. Currently, only seventeen norias remain, unused. Aqueducts and other channeling systems were built to take water from the river and use it to irrigate nearby fields.[9] Moreover, a special aqueduct brought drinking water to Hama from the neighboring town of Salamiyah.[14]
Ibn Battuta visited Hama in 1335 and remarked that the Orontes River made the city "pleasant to live in, with its many gardens full of trees and fruits." He also speaks of a large suburb called al-Mansuriyyah (named after an Ayyubid emir) that contained "a fine market, a mosque, and bathes."[20] In 1400, Timurlane conquered Hama, along with nearby Homs and Baalbek.[21]
Ottoman rule[link]
The prosperous period of Mamluk rule came to an end in 1516, when the Ottoman Turks conquered Syria from the Mamluks after defeating them at the Battle of Marj Dabiq near Aleppo. Hama, and the rest of Syria, came under Ottoman rule from Constantinople.[22] Under the Ottomans, Hama gradually became more important in the administrative structure of the region. It was first made capital of one of the liwas ("districts") of the vilayet ("province") of Tripoli.[14] Hama once again became an important center for trade routes running east from the Mediterranean coast into Asia. A number of khans ("caravansaries"s) were built in the city, like Khan Rustum Pasha which dates from 1556. Syria was later divided into three governorships and Hama was ruled by the governorship based at Aleppo.[22]
Then in the 18th century, it became apart of the holdings of the governor of Damascus.[14] The governors of Damascus at this time were the Azems, who also ruled other parts of Syria, for the Ottomans. They erected sumptuous residences in Hama, including the Azem Palace and Khan As'ad Pasha which were built by As'ad Pasha al-Azem, who governed Hama for a number of years until 1742.[22] By then, there were 14 caravansaries in the city, mostly used for the storage and distribution of seeds, cotton, wool, and other commodities.[23] After the passing of the Vilayet Law in 1864, Hama became the capital of the Sanjak of Hama (gaining the city more administrative powers), part of the larger vilayet of Sham.[14]
Colonial rule and independence[link]
Ottoman rule ended in 1918, after their defeat in World War I to the Allied Forces. Hama was made part of the French Mandate of Syria. By then, Hama had developed into what it has remained: a medium-sized provincial town, important as the market for an agricultural area abundant in cereals, but also cotton and sugar beets. It gained notoriety as the center of large estates worked by peasants and dominated by a few magnate families. During the French Mandate, the district of Hama contained within its bounds the municipality of Hama and 114 villages. By an estimate in 1930, only four of these villages were owned outright by local cultivators, while sharing ownership of two villages with a notable family. Thus, the hinterland was owned by landowning elites.[24] Starting in the late 1940s, significant class conflict erupted as agricultural workers sought reform in Hama.
Syria gained full independence from France in 1946. Akram al-Hawrani, a member of an impoverished notable family in Hama, began to agitate for land reform and better social conditions. He made Hama the base of his Arab Socialist Party, which later merged with another socialist party, the Ba'ath. This party's ascent to power in 1963 signaled the end of power for the landowning elite.
Ba'athist rule 1963-today[link]
Political insurgency by Sunni Islamic groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, occurred in the city, which was reputed as a stronghold of conservative Sunni Islam. As early as the spring of 1964, Hama became the epicenter of an uprising by conservative forces, encouraged by speeches from mosque preachers, denouncing the policies of the Ba'ath. The Syrian government sent tanks and troops into the quarters of Hama's old city to put down the insurrection.[24]
In the early 1980s, Hama had emerged as a major source of opposition to the Ba'ath regime during the Sunni Islamist uprising, which had begun in 1976. The city was a focal point for bloody events in the 1981 massacre and the most notable 1982 Hama massacre.[25] The most serious insurrection of the Syrian Islamic uprising happened in Hama during February 1982, when Government forces, led by the president's brother, Rifaat al-Assad, quelled the revolt in Hama with very harsh means.[26] Tanks and artillery shelled the neighbourhoods held by the insurgents indiscriminately, and government forces are alleged to have executed thousands of prisoners and civilian residents after subduing the revolt, which became known as the Hama massacre. The story is suppressed and regarded as highly sensitive in Syria.[27]
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Wikinews has related news: More than 100 reported dead after Syrian troops move against protesters |
In summer 2011, the city became one of the main opposition centers of the popular uprising, taking place in Syria, as part of the Arab Spring. An armed blockade was imposed on the town on July 3, when more than 50 people were killed and hundreds injured.
Climate[link]
Hama's inland location ensures that it receives no softening costal influences and breezes from the Mediterranean Sea. As a result, the city has a much hotter and dryer climate than nearby Homs.
Demographics[link]
According to Josiah C. Russel, during the 12th century, Hama had a population of 6,750.[28] In 1932, while Hama was under the French Mandate, there were approximately 50,000 residents. In the 1960 census, there were 110,000 inhabitants. The population continued to rise, reaching 180,000 in 1978 and 273,000 in 1994.[29] The infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births in the Hama Governorate was 99.4.[30] A 2005 estimate had Hama's population at around 325,000 inhabitants.[31]
Most of the residents are Sunni Muslims, although some districts of the city are exclusively Christian.[31] Hama is reputed to be the most conservative Sunni Muslim city in Syria since French Mandate times. During that period there was an old saying reflecting this characteristic: "In Damascus, it takes only three men to make a political demonstration, while in Hama it takes only three men to get the town to pray."[24] The Christian population mostly adheres to the Greek Orthodox Church or the Syriac Orthodox Church.[32]
Ecclesiastical status[link]
The Greek Orthodox Church has a prelacy in Hama under the Patriarch of Antioch.[32] Hama is still a Roman Catholic titular see (referred to as "Hamath" or Amath"), suffragan of Apamea. It is as "Epiphania" that it is best known in ecclesiastical documents. Lequien mentions nine Greek bishops of Epiphania.[33] The first of them, whom he calls Mauritius, is the Manikeios whose signature appears in the First Council of Nicaea.[34] Currently, it has two Catholic archbishops, a Greek Melkite and a Syrian, the former residing at Labroud, the latter at Homs, reuniting the titles of Homs (Emesus) and Hamah.[35]
Main sights[link]
Hama's most famous attractions are the 17 Norias of Hama (Arabic: نواعير حماة), dating back to the Byzantine times. Fed by the Orontes river, they are up to 20 metres (66 ft) in diameter. The largest norias are the al-Mamunye (1453) and the al-Muhammediye (14th century). Originally they were used to route water into aqueducts, which led into the town and the neighbouring agricultural areas.
Other sights include:
- the museum, housed in an 18th-century Ottoman governor residence (Azem Palace). Remains in the exhibition include a precious Roman mosaic from the nearby village of Mariamin (4th century AD)
- al-Nuri mosque, finished in 1163 by Nur ad-Din after the earthquake of 1157. Notable is the minaret.
- The small Mamluk al-Izzi mosque (15th century)
- The mosque and Mausoleum of Abu al-Fida, a celebrated Arab historian who was also governor of the city.
- al-Hasanain mosque, also rebuilt by Nur ad-Din after the aforementioned earthquake.
- The Great Mosque. Destroyed in the 1982 bombardment, it has been rebuilt in its original forms. It has elements dating from the ancient and Christian structures existing in the same location. It has two minarets, and is preceded by a portico with an elevated treasury.
See also[link]
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References[link]
- ^ Hama city population
- ^ LDS.org: "Book of Mormon Pronunciation Guide" (retrieved 2012-02-25), IPA-ified from «hā´muth»
- ^ a b c d e f Ring, 1996, p.315.
- ^ a b c d e f Hawkins, J.D. "Hamath." Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, Vol. 4. Walter de Gruyter, 1975.
- ^ Jewish Encyclopedia: "Hamath"
- ^ Hamath's history from the inscriptions was encapsulated by George L. Robinson, "The Entrance of Hamath" The Biblical World 32.1 (July 1908:7-18), in discussing the topography evoked by the Biblical phrase "the entrance of Hamath".
- ^ "Hamath Wrecked to Terrify Small Opponents of Assyria" The Science News-Letter. 39:13 (March 29, 1941:205-206.)
- ^ The ivories were found there by Layard. One of the ivory panels found at "Fort Shalmaneser" is inscribed "Hamath." (R. D. Barnett, "Hamath and Nimrud: Shell Fragments from Hamath and the Provenance of the Nimrud Ivories." Iraq. 25:1. [Spring 1963:81-85.])
- ^ a b c d e f g Ring, 1996, p.317.
- ^ 1 Kings 4:21-24; 2 Chronicles 8:4.
- ^ Isaiah X.9
- ^ Amos VI.2
- ^ Room, Adrian. Placenames of the World. London: MacFarland and Company, Inc., 1997.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Dumper, Stanley, and Abu-Lughod, 2007, p.163.
- ^ le Strange, 1890, p.39.
- ^ le Strange, 1890, p.357.
- ^ Robinson 1908:9.
- ^ Nur al-Din Mosque. Archnet Digital Library.
- ^ le Strange, 1890, p.359.
- ^ a b le Strange, 1890, p.360.
- ^ le Strange, 1890, p.xxiii.
- ^ a b c Ring, 1996, p.318.
- ^ Reilly, 2002, p.72.
- ^ a b c Dumper, Stanley, and Abu-Lughod, 2007, p. 164.
- ^ Larbi Sadiki. "In Syria, the government is the real rebel - Opinion". Al Jazeera English. http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/07/201173113293285318.html. Retrieved 2011-07-31.
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ "English.alarabiya.net". English.alarabiya.net. 2011-07-09. http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/07/09/156879.html. Retrieved 2011-07-31.
- ^ Shatzmiller, 1994, p.59.
- ^ Wincler, 1998, p.72.
- ^ Wincler, 1998, p.44.
- ^ a b Dumper, Stanley, and Abu-Lughod, 2007, p.162.
- ^ a b Schaff and Herzog, 1911, p.232.
- ^ Oriens Christianus, II, pp.915-918.
- ^ Gelzer, Heinrich, Patrum Nicaenorum Nomina. p.lxi.
- ^ Missiones Catholicae. pp.781-804.
Bibliography[link]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. [2]- Dumper, Michael; Stanley, Bruce E.; Abu-Lughod, Janet L. (2007), Cities of the Middle East and North Africa: A Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, ISBN 1-57607-919-8, 9781576079195, http://books.google.com/?id=3SapTk5iGDkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cities+of+the+Middle+East#PPA156,M1 .
- Herzog, Johann Jakob; Schaff, Phillip (1911), The new Schaff-Herzog encyclopedia of religious knowledge: embracing Biblical, historical, doctrinal, and practical theology and Biblical, theological, and ecclesiastical biography from the earliest times to the present day, Funk and Wagnalls Company, http://books.google.com/?id=amYAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA232&dq=Hamah+Christian+population .
- Reilly, James (2002), A small town in Syria: Ottoman Hama in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, P. Lang, ISBN 3-906766-90-X, 9783906766904 .
- Ring, Trudy; Berney, K.A.; Salkin, Robert M.; La Boda, Sharon; Watson, Noelle; Schellinger, Paul (1996), International Dictionary of Historic Places: Middle East and Africa, Routledge, ISBN 1-884964-03-6, http://books.google.com/?id=R44VRnNCzAYC .
- Shatzmiller, Maya (1994), Labour in the medieval Islamic world, BRILL, ISBN 90-04-09896-8, 9789004098961, http://books.google.com/?id=Bzo0Skd1kcYC&pg=PA65&dq=Population+of+Egypt+Ayyubid .
- le Strange, Guy (1890), Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500, Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, http://books.google.com/?id=ENANAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA493&dq=Lajjun+Guy+le+Strange .
- Winckler, Onn (1998), Demographic developments and population policies in Baʻathist Syria, Sussex Academic Press, ISBN 1-902210-16-6, http://books.google.com/?id=ki6yXV0qxw4C&pg=PA71&dq=Hama+Syria .
Further reading[link]
- P. J. Riis/V. Poulsen, Hama: fouilles et recherches 1931-1938 (Copenhagen 1957).
External links[link]
- The Official City's Group on facebook ( Arabic - English )
- E.sy Governmental online services
- Official site of Hama governorate (in Arabic)
- Hama city community on the net (in Arabic)
Coordinates: 35°08′N 36°45′E / 35.133°N 36.75°E / 35.133; 36.75
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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Ryota Hama | |
|---|---|
 Hama (on the left) vs. Akebono in 2010 |
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| Ring name(s) | Captain All Japan Ryota Hama |
| Billed height | 1.76 m (5 ft 9 1⁄2 in) |
| Billed weight | 205 kg (450 lb) |
| Born | (1979-11-21) November 21, 1979 (age 32)[1] Ibaraki, Osaka, Osaka, Japan[1] |
| Trained by | Kaz Hayashi Kohei Suwama |
| Debut | November 3, 2008[1] |
Ryota Hama (浜亮太,, Hama Ryōta?) is a retired Japanese sumo wrestler and current professional wrestler, competing in All Japan Pro Wrestling.
Contents |
Career[link]
Sumo[link]
Hama joined sumo in July 1995, and he fought for the Hakkaku stable run by former yokozuna Hokutoumi. His shikona was Hokutoarashi and he reached a highest rank of makushita 6 in November 2001. Injury-prone, he fell greatly in rank and announced his retirement in May 2008. His career record was 235 wins to 169 losses, with 114 absences due to injury.
Professional wrestling[link]
After retiring from sumo, Hama became a professional wrestler. Hama debuted in professional wrestling on November 3, 2008 losing to former Sumo champion Akebono.
On September 23, 2009, Hama and Akebono won the AJPW All Asia Tag Team Championship, defeating Minoru Suzuki and Nosawa Rongai. With Akebono as his partner, Hama participated in the 2009 World's Strongest Tag Team League, finishing 5th out of 9 teams with four victories and four defeats.
While still holding the AJPW All Asia Tag Team Championship, Hama won the AJPW Triple Crown defeating champion Satoshi Kojima on March 21, 2010. Hama holds the record for fastest superstar to attain the AJPW Triple Crown title, winning the title 503 days after his debut.[2]
Hama finished the 2010 Champion's Carnival in 4th place in Block A. He totaled 4 points having defeated Minoru Suzuki and Seiya Sanada. Hama and Akebono ended up losing the All Asia Tag Team Championship at the hands of Voodoo Murders' TARU and Big Daddy Voodoo on April 29, 2010. Three days later, on May 2, 2010, he lost the Triple Crown Championship in a match against Minoru Suzuki.
In Wrestling[link]
- Finishing moves
- Ryota Hammer (Vertical suplex powerslam pin)
- Signature moves
Championships and accomplishments[link]
- All Japan Pro Wrestling
- AJPW Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- AJPW All Asia Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Akebono
- F–1 Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Koriki Choshu1[3]
1Championship not officially recognized by All Japan Pro Wrestling.
References[link]
- ^ a b c "全日本プロレス 選手名鑑" (in Japanese). All Japan Pro Wrestling official website. Archived from the original on July 24, 2010. http://web.archive.org/web/20100724034231/http://www.all-japan.co.jp/fighter/hama.html. Retrieved March 25, 2010.
- ^ a b c http://www.cagesideseats.com/2010/3/21/1383850/ryota-hama-becomes-the-most
- ^ "2010 results". Purolove. http://www.purolove.com/ajpw/results/results10.php. Retrieved 2010-12-16.
- ^ ""PWI 500": 1–100". Pro Wrestling Illustrated. 2010-07-30. http://prowrestlingillustrated.blogspot.com/2010/07/pwi-500-1-100.html. Retrieved 2010-07-31.
External links[link]
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Hama, Ryota |
| Alternative names | Captain All Japan |
| Short description | sumo wrestler and professional wrestler |
| Date of birth | November 21, 1979 |
| Place of birth | Ibaraki, Osaka, Osaka, Japan |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Ryota_Hama
Related pages:
http://es.wn.com/Ryota Hama
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryota_Hama
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
For other people named Robert Fiske, see Robert Fiske (disambiguation).
| Robert Fisk | |
|---|---|
 Robert Fisk at a book festival in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2008. |
|
| Born | (1946-07-12) 12 July 1946 (age 65) Maidstone, Kent, England |
| Education | Lancaster University (B.A., 1968) Trinity College, Dublin (Ph.D., 1985) |
| Occupation | Middle East correspondent for The Independent |
| Notable credit(s) | Jacob's Award, Amnesty International UK Press Awards, British Press Awards, International Journalist of the Year, "Reporter of the Year", David Watt prize, Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize |
| Website | |
| http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/ | |
Robert Fisk (born 12 July 1946) is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. As Middle East correspondent of The Independent, he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years.[1] He has published a number of books and has reported on the United States's war in Afghanistan and its 2003 invasion of Iraq. Fisk holds more British and International Journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent.[2]
Contents |
Career[link]
The New York Times once described Robert Fisk as "probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain."[3] He reported the Northern Ireland troubles in the 1970s, the Portuguese Revolution in 1974, the Lebanese Civil War, the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. A vernacular Arabic speaker,[4] he is one of few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden, and did so three times between 1994 and 1997.[5][6] His awards include being voted International Journalist of the Year seven times.
Fisk has said that journalism must "challenge authority, all authority, especially so when governments and politicians take us to war." He has quoted with approval the Israeli journalist Amira Hass: "There is a misconception that journalists can be objective ... What journalism is really about is to monitor power and the centres of power."[7] Speaking on "Lies, Misreporting, and Catastrophe in the Middle East," at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 22 September 2010, Fisk stated, "I think it is the duty of a foreign correspondent to be neutral and unbiased on the side of those who suffer, whoever they may be." [8]
He has written at length on how much of contemporary conflict has its origin, in his view, in lines drawn on maps: "After the allied victory of 1918, at the end of my father's war, the victors divided up the lands of their former enemies. In the space of just seventeen months, they created the borders of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and most of the Middle East. And I have spent my entire career—in Belfast and Sarajevo, in Beirut and Baghdad—watching the people within those borders burn."[9]
Fisk is a pacifist and has never voted.[10]
The blogosphere term fisking originates from various American conservative blogs, which have taken particular issue with Mr. Fisk, who holds a "very skeptical view of U.S. foreign policy", and his articles and reports. Many of these bloggers have responded by reprinting his dispatches on their blogs, adding their own paragraph-by-paragraph commentary, purportedly dissecting and debunking Fisk's facts and opinions.[11] Irrespective of the success of their endeavour, the term "fisking" has come to denote the practice of "savaging an argument and scattering the tattered remnants to the four corners of the internet".[12]
In a 2002 appearance at the Cambridge Union Society, actor John Malkovich when asked whom he would most like to "fight to the death", replied that he would "rather just shoot" journalist Robert Fisk and British MP George Galloway.[13] Both Fisk and Galloway reacted with outrage.[14][15]
Early career[link]
Fisk was educated at Yardley Court preparatory school,[16] Sutton Valence School and at Lancaster University [17] and has a PhD in Political Science, from Trinity College, Dublin in 1983.[18] The title of his doctoral thesis was "A condition of limited warfare: Éire’s neutrality and the relationship between Dublin, Belfast and London, 1939–1945".[18] He worked on the Sunday Express diary column before a disagreement with the editor, John Junor, prompted a move to The Times.[19] From 1972–75, the height of The Troubles, Fisk served as Belfast correspondent for The Times, before becoming its correspondent in Portugal covering the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution. He then was appointed Middle East correspondent (1976–1988). When a story of his was spiked (Iran Air Flight 655) after Rupert Murdoch's takeover, he moved to The Independent, with his first report published there on 28 April 1989.
Lebanon, and other conflicts[link]
Fisk has been living in Beirut since 1976,[20] and was present in Beirut throughout the Lebanese civil war. He was one of the first journalists to visit the scene of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, as well as the Syrian Hama Massacre. His book on the Lebanese conflict, Pity the Nation, was first published in 1990. Fisk also reported on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Kosovo war, the Algerian civil war, and the Iran-Iraq War. Fisk suffered partial but permanent hearing loss as a result of being close to Iraqi heavy artillery in the Shatt-al-Arab when covering the early stages of the Iran-Iraq conflict.[citation needed]
Osama bin Laden[link]
Fisk is one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden—three times (all published by The Independent: 6 December 1993, 10 July 1996, and 22 March 1997). During one of Fisk's interviews with Bin Laden, Fisk noted an attempt by Bin Laden to convert him. Bin Laden said; "Mr Robert, one of our brothers had a dream. He dreamed ... that you were a spiritual person ... this means you are a true Muslim." Fisk replied; "Sheikh Osama, I am not a Muslim ... I am a journalist ... A journalist's task is to tell the truth." Bin Laden replied: "If you tell the truth, that means you are a good Muslim."[21][22]
During the 1996 interview, Bin Laden accused the Saudi royal family of corruption. During the 1997 (and final) interview, Bin Laden said he sought God's help "to turn America into a shadow of itself".[23]
11 September attacks[link]
Fisk condemned the 11 September 2001 attacks, describing them as a "hideous crime against humanity." He also denounced the Bush administration's response to the attacks, arguing that "a score of nations" were being identified and positioned as "haters of democracy" or "kernels of evil," and urged a more honest debate on U.S. policy in the Middle East. He argued that such a debate had hitherto been avoided "because, of course, to look too closely at the Middle East would raise disturbing questions about the region, about our Western policies in those tragic lands, and about America's relationship with Israel."[24]
In August 2007 Fisk expressed personal doubts about the official historical record of the 11 September attacks. In an article for The Independent, he claimed that, while the Bush administration was incapable of successfully carrying out such attacks due to its organisational incompetence: "I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11." He proceeded to raise his concerns about a lack of aircraft debris, the melting point of steel, the collapse of World Trade Center 7, misidentified suicide-hijackers, the authenticity of correspondence attributed by the CIA to Mohamed Atta, and other familiar questions that have circulated within the 9/11 Truth Movement. He added that he does not condone the "crazed 'research' of David Icke [...] I am talking about scientific issues".[25] Fisk had earlier addressed similar concerns in a speech at Sydney University in 2006.[26] During the speech, Fisk said: "Partly I think because of the culture of secrecy of the White House, never have we had a White House so secret as this one. Partly because of this culture, I think suspicions are growing in the United States, not just among Berkeley guys with flowers in their hair [...] But there are a lot of things we don’t know, a lot of things we’re not going to be told [...] perhaps the plane was hit by a missile, we still don’t know."[27]
War in Afghanistan[link]
After the United States launched its attack on Afghanistan, Fisk was for a time transferred to Pakistan to provide coverage of that conflict. While reporting from there, he was attacked and beaten by a group of Afghan refugees fleeing heavy bombing by the United States Air Force. He was saved from this attack by another Afghan refugee. In his graphic account of his own beating, Fisk pardoned the attackers of responsibility and pointed out that their "brutality was entirely the product of others, of us—of we who had armed their struggle against the Russians and ignored their pain and laughed at their civil war and then armed and paid them again for the 'War for Civilisation' just a few miles away and then bombed their homes and ripped up their families and called them 'collateral damage.'"[28]
Iraq[link]
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Fisk was stationed in Baghdad and filed many eyewitness reports. He has criticized other journalists based in Iraq for what he calls their "hotel journalism", literally reporting from one's hotel room without interviews or first hand experience of events.[29] His opposition to the war brought criticism from both Irish Sunday Independent columnist and senator, Eoghan Harris,[30] and The Guardian columnist, Simon Hoggart.[31]
Fisk has criticised the American handling of the sectarian violence in post-invasion Iraq, and argued that the official narrative of sectarian conflict is not possible: "The real question I ask myself is: who are these people who are trying to provoke the civil war? Now the Americans will say it's Al Qaeda, it's the Sunni insurgents. It is the death squads. Many of the death squads work for the Ministry of Interior. Who runs the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad? Who pays the Ministry of the Interior? Who pays the militia men who make up the death squads? We do, the occupation authorities [...] We need to look at this story in a different light."[32]
Books and other works[link]
Books[link]
Fisk has published a number of books. His 2005 work, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, with its criticism of Western and Israeli approaches to the Middle East, was well-received by critics and students of international affairs, and is perhaps his best-known work.
- The Point of No Return: The Strike which Broke the British in Ulster (1975). London: Times Books/Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-96682-X
- In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality, 1939–1945 (2001). London: Gill & Macmillan. ISBN 0-7171-2411-8 (1st ed. was 1983).
- Pity the Nation : Lebanon at War (3rd ed. 2001). London: Oxford University Press; xxi, 727 pages. ISBN 0-19-280130-9 (1st ed. was 1990).
- The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (October 2005) London. Fourth Estate; xxvi, 1366 pages. ISBN 1-84115-007-X
- The Age of the Warrior: Selected Writings (2008) London, Fourth Estate ISBN 978-0-00-727073-6
Video documentary[link]
Fisk produced a three-part series titled From Beirut To Bosnia in 1993 which Fisk says was an attempt "to find out why an increasing number of Muslims had come to hate the West."[33] Fisk says that the Discovery Channel did not show a repeat of the films, after initially showing them in full, due to a letter campaign launched by pro-Israel groups such as CAMERA.[33][34]
Forgery misattributed to Robert Fisk[link]
- Saddam Hussein—From Birth to Martyrdom (2007). Egypt: Ibda; 272 pages.[35]
Awards[link]
In 1991, Fisk won a Jacob's Award for his RTÉ Radio coverage of the first Gulf War.[36] He received Amnesty International UK Press Awards in 1998 for his reports from Algeria and again in 2000 for his articles on the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. In 1999, Fisk won the Orwell Prize for journalism.[37]
He has received the British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year seven times, and twice won its "Reporter of the Year" award.[38] In 2001, he was awarded the David Watt Prize for "outstanding contributions towards the clarification of political issues and the promotion of their greater understanding" for his investigation into the Armenian Genocide by the Turks in 1915.[39] In 2002 he was the fourth recipient of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. More recently, Fisk was awarded the 2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize along with $350,000.[40]
He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of St Andrews on 24 June 2004. The Political and Social Sciences department of Ghent University (Belgium) awarded Fisk an honorary doctorate on 24 March 2006. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the American University of Beirut in June 2006. Trinity College Dublin awarded him a second, honorary, Doctorate in July 2008.[41]
Fisk gave the 2005 Edward Said Memorial lecture at Adelaide University.[42]
In 2011, Fisk was awarded the International Prize at the Amalfi Coast Media Awards in Italy.[43]
Fisk is also a recipient of the College Historical Society's "Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse".[citation needed]
References[link]
- ^ "Robert Fisk". The Independent. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk. Retrieved 2006-07-19.
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjoGLA4mVxU&feature=channel
- ^ Bronner, Ethan (19 November 2005). "A Foreign Correspondent Who Does More Than Report". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/books/review/19bron.html?ei=5070&en=55044ab9f817eb99&ex=1153454400&pagewanted=print. Retrieved 2006-07-19.
- ^ http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/item.php?updatenum=466
- ^ Robert Fisk: The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle Eastpp. 1–39 ISBN 1-84115-007-X
- ^ "Honoured War Reporter Sides With Victims of Conflict". New Zealand Press Association. 4 November 2005.
- ^ Miles, Oliver (19 November 2005). "The big picture". Guardian Unlimited. http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,6121,1645908,00.html. Retrieved 2006-07-19.
- ^ "Robert Fisk: Terror of Power and Power of Terror". [[Making Contact (radio program)|]]. National Radio Project. 12 October 2010. http://www.radioproject.org/2010/10/robert-fisk-the-terror-of-power-and-the-power-of-terror/. Retrieved 28 June 2011.
- ^ Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilisation, 2005
- ^ Robert Fisk and Martin Bell. (10 November 2009) The lost art of reportage The Independent. 15:48–15:52 minutes in. Retrieved 2009-12-08.
- ^ Word detective, 2003
- ^ "Archbishop on end of a good Fisking" The Guardian, 19 June 2005
- ^ "MP stunned at actor's outburst". BBC Online. May 4, 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1967317.stm. Retrieved December 28, 2008.
- ^ Fisk, Robert (May 14, 2002). "Why Does Malkovich Want to Kill Me?". The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-does-john-malkovich-want-to-kill-me-605849.html. Retrieved July 14, 2011.
- ^ Fisk, Robert (10 March, 2012). "Robert Fisk: Condemn me, but get your facts right first". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-condemn-me-but-get-your-facts-right-first-7547335.html?origin=internalSearch. Retrieved April 29, 2012.
- ^ "Deadly skies: The bloody truth about the Battle of Britain 70 years on". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/deadly-skies-the-bloody-truth-about-the-battle-of-britain-70-years-on-2015062.html. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
- ^ "Robert Fisk lecture". LU News (Lancaster University). November 2006. http://domino.lancs.ac.uk/Info/lunews.nsf/I/9273D1AFBDC1A6B38025721B0049FA77. Retrieved 2008-10-14
- ^ a b "Former postgraduate students". Trinity College, Dublin. http://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/postgraduate/phdstudentspre1995.php. Retrieved 2008-07-26.
- ^ Robert Fisk (26 July 2008). "My days in Fleet Street's Lubyanka". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-my-days-in-fleet-streets-lubyanka-877812.html. Retrieved 2008-07-26.
- ^ Fisk, Robert (2006). The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East. London: Harper Perennial. pp. 973. ISBN 978-1-84115-008-6.
- ^ Ben Naparstek, New Zealand Listener, Watching the warriors, 30 August-5 September 2008 Vol 215 No 3564
- ^ Fisk, Robert (2007). The Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. Vintage. pp. 29–30. ISBN 978-1-4000-7517-1.
- ^ Fisk, Robert. Robert Fisk on Bin Laden at 50, The Independent. 4 March 2007.
- ^ Fisk, Robert. One year on: A view from the Middle East, The Independent, 11 September 2002.
- ^ Fisk, Robert (25 August 2007). "Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11". The Independent. http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2893860.ece. Retrieved 2007-08-25.
- ^ Are they all mad?, Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun, 29 March 2006
- ^ Robert Fisk at Sydney Ideas 2006 Robert Fisk, ABC News Australia, Sunday 26 March 2006
- ^ Fisk, Robert (2001-12-10). "My beating by refugees is a symbol of the hatred and fury of this filthy war". robert-fisk.com. Archived from the original on 2006-06-18. http://web.archive.org/web/20060618131439/http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles1.htm. Retrieved 2006-07-19.
- ^ Fisk, Robert (2005-01-17). "Hotel journalism gives American troops a free hand as the press shelters indoors". [1]. Archived from the original on 2006-03-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20060327175323/http://robert-fisk.com/articles450.htm. Retrieved 2006-07-19.
- ^ Harris, Eoghan. Air-kissing the terrorists—call it Luvvies Actually, Sunday Independent, 23 November 2003.
- ^ Hoggart, Simon. A war cry from the pulpit, The Guardian, 17 November 2001.
- ^ Robert Fisk shares his Middle East knowledge Tony Jones, ABC Australia, 02/03/2006
- ^ a b David Wallis, ed. (2004). Killed: great journalism too hot to print. Nation Books. pp. 388. ISBN 978-1-56025-581-9. http://books.google.com/?id=HH9XFP2VAhAC&pg=PA388&q=.
- ^ Trager, Robert; Donna Lee Dickerson (1999). Freedom of expression in the 21st century. Pine Forge Press. pp. 80. ISBN 978-0-8039-9085-2. http://books.google.com/?id=3B3HcQrDobYC&pg=PA80&q=.
- ^ Fisk, Robert (1 February 2008). "Robert Fisk: The curious case of the forged biography". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-the-curious-case-of-the-forged-biography-776775.html. Retrieved 2008-02-01.
- ^ The Irish Times, "In the wars", 19 November 1991
- ^ List of 1999 winners The Orwell Prize for Journalism
- ^ "Times reporter wins award". The Times. 15 December 1987.
- ^ "Fisk wins award for political journalism". The Independent. 20 July 2001. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/fisk-wins-award-for-political-journalism-678347.html.
- ^ "2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize awarded to Robert Fisk". Lannan Foundation. http://www.lannan.org/lf/cf/detail/2006-lannan-cultural-freedom-prize-awarded-to-robert-fisk/.
- ^ "Five recipients to receive honorary degrees at Trinity College Dublin". http://www.tcd.ie/Communications/news/news.php?headerID=954&vs_date=2008-7-1.
- ^ "About the Edward Said Memorial Lecture". University of Adelaide. http://www.adelaide.edu.au/esml/about/. Retrieved 2009-10-17.
- ^ Robert Fisk wins International Prize
Further reading[link]
- Robert Fisk on Shakespeare and war
- Man of War by Rachel Cooke of The Observer, 13 April 2008
- Journalism and 'the words of power': Robert Fisk address to the fifth Al Jazeera annual forum on 23 May
External links[link]
- Column archive at The Independent
- Robert Fisk at ZSpace
- Article archive at Journalisted
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Robert Fisk on Charlie Rose
- Robert Fisk at the Internet Movie Database
- Works by or about Robert Fisk in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Robert Fisk on the Gap Between U.S. Rhetoric and Action in the Egyptian Uprising—video interview by Democracy Now!, 2011
- Interview with Robert Fisk in Lebanon - 16 May 2011 (The Student Journals)
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Fisk, Robert |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 1946-07-12 |
| Place of birth | Maidstone, Kent, England |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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| Daisuke Sekimoto | |
|---|---|
 Sekimoto in February 2011. |
|
| Ring name(s) | Daisuke Sekimoto |
| Billed height | 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in) |
| Billed weight | 120 kg (260 lb) |
| Born | February 9, 1981 Osaka, Osaka |
| Debut | August 10, 1999 vs. Ryuji Ito |
Daisuke Sekimoto (関本 大介, Sekimoto Daisuke?) is a Japanese professional wrestler, best known for his appearances in Big Japan Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling ZERO1-MAX. He is a former six-time BJW Tag Team Champion, as well as a former NWA United National Heavyweight Champion in ZERO1-MAX. He lost the title to his partner Yoshihito Sasaki on November 13, 2007.
On January 1, 2010 he unsuccessfully challenged Toshiaki Kawada for the Zero1 World Heavyweight Championship. He beat Bambikiller for the title on September 9, 2010. He is the current NWA Pan-Pacific Premium Heavyweight Champion and a former wXw Unified World Heavyweight Champion and Zero1 World Heavyweight Champion, making him an overall two time world heavyweight champion.
Contents |
In wrestling[link]
- Finishing moves
-
- High-angle bridging German suplex, sometimes while deadlifting
- Signature moves
Championships and accomplishments[link]
-
- AJPW All Asia Tag Team Championship (2 times, current) - with Yuji Okabayashi
-
- BJW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- BJW Tag Team Championship (6 times) - with MEN's Teioh (1), Abdullah Kobayashi (1), Yoshihito Sasaki (2), Mammoth Sasaki (1) and Yuji Okabayashi (1)
- WEW Hardcore Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with MEN's Teioh
- Big Japan Tag League (2011) - with Yuji Okabayashi
-
- Zero1 World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- NWA United National Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- NWA Pan-Pacific Premium Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- Fire Festival (2011)
- Best Bout (2011) vs. Masato Tanaka on August 7
- Tenryu Project
- Tokyo Sports Grand Prix
-
- Tag Team of the Year (2011) - with Yuji Okabayashi
-
- wXw Unified World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[1]
References[link]
External links[link]
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Sekimoto, Daisuke |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | Japanese professional wrestler |
| Date of birth | February 9, 1981 |
| Place of birth | Osaka, Osaka |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
 |
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
