Dura-Europos was a Hellenistic , Parthian , and Roman border city built on an escarpment 90 metres (300 feet) above the southwestern bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the village of Salhiyé , in present-day Syria . Dura-Europos was founded around 300 BC by Seleucus I Nicator , who founded the Seleucid Empire as one of the Diadochi of Alexander the Great. In 113 BC, Parthians conquered the city, and held it, with one brief Roman intermission (114 AD), until 165 AD. Under Parthian rule, it became an important provincial administrative centre. The Romans decisively captured Dura-Europos in 165 AD and greatly enlarged it as their easternmost stronghold in Mesopotamia , until it was captured by the Sasanian Empire after a siege in 256–257 AD . Its population was deported, and the abandoned city eventually became covered by sand and mud and disappeared from sight.
178-619: Dura-Europos is of extreme archaeological importance, and was called the "Pompeii of the Desert". As it was abandoned after its conquest in 256–57 AD, nothing was built over it and no later building programs obscured the architectural features of the ancient city. Its location on the edge of empires made for a commingling of cultural traditions, much of which was preserved under the city's ruins. Some remarkable finds have been brought to light, including numerous temples, wall decorations, inscriptions, military equipment, tombs, and even dramatic evidence of
356-520: A Caliphate , IS borrowed the idea of restoration of a global Caliphate. Although the religious character of IS is mostly Wahhabi, it departs from the Wahhabi tradition in four critical aspects: dynastic alliance, call to establish a global caliphate, sheer violence, and apocalyptism. IS did not follow the pattern of the first three Saudi states in allying the religious mission of the Najdi ulema with
534-414: A caliphate , an Islamic state led by a group of religious authorities under a supreme leader – the caliph – who is believed to be the successor to Muhammad . In June 2014, ISIL published a document in which it claimed to have traced the lineage of its leader al-Baghdadi back to Muhammad, and upon proclaiming a new caliphate on 29 June, the group appointed al-Baghdadi as its caliph. As caliph, he demanded
712-538: A sator square ), Palmyrene , Hebrew , Hatrian , Safaitic (proto-Arabic dialect), Pahlavi , Parthian , and Middle-Persian . In such a multicultural city, languages used by people didn't tell of their ethnicity. Dura-Europos was founded by Greek settlers. So, it is not surprising that the vast majority of the inscriptions are in Greek, and about 800 Greek texts are known so far. These are dedicatory inscriptions, graffiti , and documents on papyrus and parchment. Greek
890-415: A suicide vest , deliberately killing both himself and two children who had been living in the compound prior to the assault. U.S. President Donald Trump stated in a televised announcement that Baghdadi had, in fact, died during the operation and that American forces used support from helicopters, jets and drones through airspace controlled by Russia and Turkey. He said that "Russia treated us great... Iraq
1068-494: A Christian house-church as well as shrines to Greek and Palmyrene deities. Scholars said the different religious groups seemed to maintain their distinct identities. The Temple of Artemis Nanaïa was perhaps the oldest temple in the city. In the Seleucid period there was a temenos (a walled, sacred area) with a Doric colonnade and an altar in the middle. At the end of the second century BC it burned down. A naiskos (small temple)
1246-563: A U.S.-led raid in Syria. In 2014, The Wall Street Journal estimated that eight million people lived in the Islamic State. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has stated that IS "seeks to subjugate civilians under its control and dominate every aspect of their lives through terror, indoctrination, and the provision of services to those who obey". Civilians, as well as the Islamic State itself, have released footage of some of
1424-590: A branch of the Afroasiatic language family . They include Arabic , Amharic , Tigrinya , Aramaic , Hebrew , Maltese and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia , North Africa , the Horn of Africa , Malta , and in large immigrant and expatriate communities in North America , Europe , and Australasia . The terminology
1602-604: A branch of the Northwest Semitic languages included Edomite , Hebrew , Ammonite , Moabite , Phoenician ( Punic / Carthaginian ), Samaritan Hebrew , and Ekronite . They were spoken in what is today Israel and the Palestinian territories , Syria , Lebanon , Jordan , the northern Sinai Peninsula , some northern and eastern parts of the Arabian Peninsula , southwest fringes of Turkey , and in
1780-462: A cabinet of senior leaders, while its operations in Iraq and Syria are controlled by local 'emirs,' who head semi-autonomous groups which the Islamic State refers to as its provinces. Beneath the leaders are councils on finance, leadership, military matters, legal matters (including decisions on executions) foreign fighters' assistance, security, intelligence and media. In addition, a shura council has
1958-629: A comparative analysis of Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic was published in Latin in 1538 by Guillaume Postel . Almost two centuries later, Hiob Ludolf described the similarities between these three languages and the Ethiopian Semitic languages . However, neither scholar named this grouping as "Semitic". The term "Semitic" was created by members of the Göttingen school of history , initially by August Ludwig von Schlözer (1781), to designate
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#17327653089152136-558: A consular representative nowadays" to the Euphrates stronghold, in order to approve of the frescos. Because of the dry desert climate, numerous documents on papyrus and parchment have been preserved, materials that otherwise would have little chance of surviving for millennia. The documents were found under the brick ramp built against the western wall, where they were especially protected. In the Temple of Artemis Azzanathkona , documents of
2314-531: A disadvantage to foreign members, with some native Syrian fighters resenting "favouritism" allegedly shown towards foreigners over pay and accommodation. In August 2016, media reports based on briefings by Western intelligence agencies suggested that IS had a multilevel secret service known in Arabic as Emni , established in 2014, that has become a combination of an internal police force and an external operations directorate complete with regional branches. The unit
2492-536: A dynamic and self-generating potential to expand and develop into the important, wealthier, and more complex settlement it would become. In 113 BC, the Parthian Empire conquered Dura-Europos, and held it, with one brief intermission, until 165 AD, when it was taken by the Romans. The Parthian period was that of expansion at Dura-Europos, an expansion that was facilitated by the town's losing its function as
2670-447: A hybrid of Salafism , Salafi jihadism , Islamic fundamentalism , Wahhabism , and Qutbism , as well as other doctrines. According to Robert Manne, there is a "general consensus" that the ideology of the Islamic State is "primarily based upon the writings of the radical Egyptian theoretician Sayyid Qutb ". The Muslim Brotherhood began the trend of political Islamism in the 20th century, seeking gradual establishment of
2848-482: A journalist writing on Salafi jihadism , has written that IS's goal is to "terrorize, mobilize [and] polarize". Its efforts to terrorise are intended to intimidate civilian populations and force governments of the target enemy "to make rash decisions that they otherwise would not choose". It aims to mobilise its supporters by motivating them with, for example, spectacular deadly attacks deep in Western territory (such as
3026-399: A large central agora , took place in the 2nd century BC. The traditional view of Dura-Europos as a great caravan city is modified by the discoveries of local manufactures and traces of close ties with Palmyra . Dura-Europos is now seen as owing its development to its role as a regional capital. After the siege and destruction of the city its names were forgotten by local people, and the site
3204-527: A lengthy battle that saw massive destruction to the city, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the full capture of Raqqa from IS. From 2013 to 2019, IS was headed and run by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi , the Islamic State's self-styled Caliph . Before their deaths, he had two deputy leaders, Abu Muslim al-Turkmani for Iraq and Abu Ali al-Anbari (also known as Abu Ala al-Afri) for Syria, both ethnic Turkmen . Advising al-Baghdadi were
3382-437: A literary language of early Christianity in the third to fifth centuries and continued into the early Islamic era. The Arabic language, although originating in the Arabian Peninsula , first emerged in written form in the 1st to 4th centuries CE in the southern regions of The Levant . With the advent of the early Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries, Classical Arabic eventually replaced many (but not all) of
3560-668: A liturgical text written in Hebrew (on a parchment), the available textual sources from the synagogue consist of inscriptions and graffiti, which are more or less evenly divided in Aramaic (22), Greek (19) and Persian (12 Middle Persian, 'Pārsīk', and 3 Parthian, 'Pahlavīk'). [...] Most of the Persian ones were written on the wall paintings themselves and record appraisal on the part of visitors from elsewhere. Their presence can be explained by assuming that Mesopotamian Jews had sent someone "like
3738-402: A local tradition of people having several names: for example, a Greek one and a Semitic or a Persian one. One of the examples is Dura parchment 19 (P. Dura 19) (dating from first century AD), which records the division of a house inherited by four brothers from their father. As Baird wrote: The father is recorded as having the Greek name Polemocrates (his own father and grandfather also bearing
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#17327653089153916-506: A military outpost. All the space enclosed by the walls gradually became occupied, and the influx of new inhabitants with Semitic and Iranian names alongside descendants of the original Macedonian colonists contributed to an increase in the population, which was a multicultural one, as inscriptions in Greek , Latin , Hebrew , various Aramaic dialects ( Hatran , Palmyrene , Syriac ), Middle Persian , Parthian , and Safaitic testify. In
4094-485: A new Caliphate , a comprehensive Islamic society ruled by sharia law. Qutb's doctrines of jahiliyya (pre-Islamic ignorance), hakimiyya (divine sovereignty), and takfir of entire societies formed a radicalized vision of the Muslim Brotherhood's political Islam project. Qutbism became the precursor to all jihadist thought, from Abdullah Azzam to Zawahiri and to Daesh. Alongside Sayyid Qutb,
4272-466: A number of languages, including Amharic and Tigrinya . With the expansion of Ethiopia under the Solomonic dynasty , Amharic, previously a minor local language, spread throughout much of the country, replacing both Semitic (such as Gafat ) and non-Semitic (such as Weyto ) languages, and replacing Ge'ez as the principal literary language (though Ge'ez remains the liturgical language for Christians in
4450-592: A potential leader or opponent". In Raqqa , after rebel forces drove out the Bashar al-Assad regime and ISIL infiltrated the town, "first dozens and then hundreds of people disappeared". Security and intelligence expert Martin Reardon has described IS's purpose as being to psychologically "break" those under its control, "so as to ensure their absolute allegiance through fear and intimidation", while generating "outright hate and vengeance" among its enemies. Jason Burke ,
4628-580: A previous town; a clay tablet dating to King Hammurabi of Hana 's times, 1900 BC, refers to the place as Da-ma-ra . It is the only cuneiform writing found at Dura; no other evidence was found. The ancient settlement was probably deserted for a long time when Dura was found. The earliest mention of Dura-Europos can be found in the Parthian Stations by the geographer Isidore of Charax (c. 26 BC). ἔνθεν Δοῦρα, Νικάνορος πόλις, κτίσμα Μακεδόνων, ὑπὸ δὲ Ἑλλήνων Εὔρωπος καλεῖται. [Then comes Dura,
4806-422: A question of transcription; the exact pronunciation is not recorded. Most of the attested languages have merged a number of the reconstructed original fricatives, though South Arabian retains all fourteen (and has added a fifteenth from *p > f). In Aramaic and Hebrew, all non-emphatic stops occurring singly after a vowel were softened to fricatives, leading to an alternation that was often later phonemicized as
4984-599: A result of the loss of gemination. In languages exhibiting pharyngealization of emphatics, the original velar emphatic has rather developed to a uvular stop [q] . Note: the fricatives *s, *z, *ṣ, *ś, *ṣ́, and *ṱ may also be interpreted as affricates (/t͡s/, /d͡z/, /t͡sʼ/, /t͡ɬ/, /t͡ɬʼ/, and /t͡θʼ/). Notes: The following table shows the development of the various fricatives in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Maltese through cognate words: – żmien xahar sliem tnejn – */d/ d daħaq – ħolm għarb sebgħa Proto-Semitic vowels are, in general, harder to deduce due to
5162-641: A significant following in northern and Sahelian Africa, where IS still controls a significant territory. Originating in the Jaish al-Ta'ifa al-Mansurah founded by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2004, the organisation (primarily under the Islamic State of Iraq name) affiliated itself with al-Qaeda in Iraq and fought alongside them during the 2003–2006 phase of the Iraqi insurgency . The group later changed their name to Islamic State of Iraq and Levant for about
5340-616: A strategy of attack outside its territory in which fighters would "Diversify and widen the vexation strikes against the Crusader-Zionist enemy in every place in the Islamic world, and even outside of it if possible, so as to disperse the efforts of the alliance of the enemy and thus drain it to the greatest extent possible." The group has been accused of attempting to "bolster morale" and distract attention from its loss of territory to enemies by staging terror attacks abroad (such as
5518-501: A temple, gymnasium, theater, and a "Hippodamian" street plan. In terms of sociopolitical phenomena, it lacked a developed epigraphic habit, representative civic government, sophisticated bureaucracy, and its own mint (bar one short episode). The administrative center ("palace"), patterns of land ownership, royal cult, and state officials show, however, it was more than a fortified army community, isolated from its local and imperial environments. Its location and dependent territory gave Europos
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5696-403: A terrorism analyst and the co-founder of SITE Intelligence , noted that the alleged statement used a different font when compared to other statements and it was never distributed on Amaq or IS channels. On 29 October 2019, Trump stated on social media that al-Baghdadi's "number one replacement" had been killed by American forces, without giving a name. A U.S. official later confirmed that Trump
5874-505: A terrorist organisation by the United Nations and others, IS—during its rule in northern Iraq—launched genocides against Yazidis and Iraqi Turkmen ; engaged in persecution of Christians , Shia Muslims , and Mandaeans ; publicised videos of beheadings of soldiers, journalists, and aid workers; and destroyed several cultural sites . The group has also perpetrated terrorist massacres in territories outside of its control, such as
6052-569: A variety of Maghrebi Arabic formerly spoken in Sicily . The modern Maltese alphabet is based on the Latin script with the addition of some letters with diacritic marks and digraphs . Maltese is the only Semitic official language within the European Union . Successful as second languages far beyond their numbers of contemporary first-language speakers, a few Semitic languages today are
6230-509: A worldwide caliphate . The name "Islamic State" and the group's claim to be a caliphate have been widely rejected, with the UN, various governments, and mainstream Muslim groups refusing to use the new name. The group's declaration of a new caliphate in June 2014 and its adoption of the name "Islamic State" have been criticised and ridiculed by Muslim scholars and rival Islamists both inside and outside
6408-463: A year, before declaring itself to be a worldwide caliphate , called simply the Islamic State ( الدولة الإسلامية , ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah ). As a caliphate, IS demanded the religious, political, and military obedience of Muslims worldwide , despite the rejection of its legitimacy by mainstream Muslims and its statehood by the United Nations and most governments. Designated
6586-583: Is verb–subject–object (VSO), possessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective (NA). This was still the case in Classical Arabic and Biblical Hebrew , e.g. Classical Arabic رأى محمد فريدا ra'ā muħammadun farīdan . (literally "saw Muhammad Farid", Muhammad saw Farid ). In the modern Arabic vernaculars , however, as well as sometimes in Modern Standard Arabic (the modern literary language based on Classical Arabic) and Modern Hebrew ,
6764-547: Is a working language in Eritrea. Tigre is spoken by over one million people in the northern and central Eritrean lowlands and parts of eastern Sudan. A number of Gurage languages are spoken by populations in the semi-mountainous region of central Ethiopia, while Harari is restricted to the city of Harar . Ge'ez remains the liturgical language for certain groups of Christians in Ethiopia and in Eritrea . The phonologies of
6942-660: Is also used liturgically by the primarily Arabic-speaking followers of the Maronite Church , Syriac Catholic Church , and was originally the liturgical language of the Melkites in Antioch , and ancient Syria . Koine Greek and Classical Arabic are the main liturgical languages of Oriental Orthodox Christians in the Middle East, who compose the patriarchates of Antioch , Jerusalem , and Alexandria . Mandaic
7120-521: Is an altar of the local god Yarhibol . On it there is an inscription in Greek: "[For] the god Yarhibol, Scribonius Moucianus, chiliarch , made this as commanded." It is notable because it shows that a man who bears a Latin name, Scribonius Moucianus, and holding a Greek-titled office in the Roman army, worshipped a local deity and offered his dedication in Greek. Some documents that were found are evidence of
7298-560: Is both spoken and used as a liturgical language by the Mandaeans . Although the majority of Neo-Aramaic dialects spoken today are descended from Eastern varieties, Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken in two villages in Syria. Despite the ascendancy of Arabic in the Middle East, other Semitic languages still exist. Biblical Hebrew, long extinct as a colloquial language and in use only in Jewish literary, intellectual, and liturgical activity,
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7476-408: Is considered as the key inspiration for early figures of IS. Al-Muhajir's legal manual on violence, Fiqh ad-Dima ( The Jurisprudence of Jihad or The Jurisprudence of Blood ), was adopted by IS as its standard reference for justifying its extraordinary acts of violence. The book has been described by counter-terrorism scholar Orwa Ajjoub as rationalising and justifying "suicide operations,
7654-669: Is difficult to find in the architecture of Dura-Europos, in figurative art the influence of Parthian art is felt. In 114 AD, the Emperor Trajan occupied the city for a couple of years: the Third Cyrenaica legion erected a "Triumphal Arch" west of the Palmyrene Gate. Upon the death of Trajan in 117, Rome relinquished Mesopotamia to the Parthians, but Dura was retaken by the Roman army of Lucius Verus during
7832-521: Is generally assumed to indicate citizen status. Fragments of parchment scrolls with Hebrew texts have also been unearthed; they resisted meaningful translation until J.L. Teicher pointed out that they were Christian Eucharistic prayers, so closely connected with the prayers in Didache that he was able to fill lacunae in the light of the Didache text. In 1933, among fragments of text recovered from
8010-419: Is known better than most of the Roman soldiers who were stationed at Dura, as he is recorded in papyri from the military archives as well as from a painting, depicting him with his men. His Greek funerary inscription was found in a house near the centre of the city, apparently incomplete—as can be seen, the last section was not carved, but the painted guiding lines are preserved. Whether his wife, Aurelia Arria, or
8188-499: Is natural for the consonants , as sound correspondences among the consonants of the Semitic languages are very straightforward for a family of its time depth. Sound shifts affecting the vowels are more numerous and, at times, less regular. Each Proto-Semitic phoneme was reconstructed to explain a certain regular sound correspondence between various Semitic languages. Note that Latin letter values ( italicized ) for extinct languages are
8366-458: Is not well attested to, and the few Parthian inscriptions seem to date to Roman times. Middle Persian is attested primarily by two parchments and numerous graffiti in the synagogue. The texts must date from the short time when the city was ruled by the Sasanids. Historian George Kilpatrick described the linguistic diversity as follows (from examples of graffiti from the synagogue): Apart from
8544-405: Is now only spoken by a few thousand Christian and Muslim Arameans (Syriacs) in western Syria . The Arabs spread their Central Semitic language to North Africa ( Egypt , Libya , Tunisia , Algeria , Morocco , and northern Sudan and Mauritania ), where it gradually replaced Egyptian Coptic and many Berber languages (although Berber is still largely extant in many areas), and for a time to
8722-647: Is represented by the symbolism in the Black Standard variant of the legendary battle flag of Muhammad that it has adopted: the flag shows the Seal of Muhammad within a white circle, with the phrase above it, " There is no god but Allah ". This symbolism is said to symbolize IS's belief that it represents the restoration of the caliphate of early Islam , with all the political, religious and eschatological ramifications that this would imply. Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir, an Egyptian Jihadist theoretician and ideologue
8900-482: Is shown by a visitor's inscription, in Hatran (an Aramaic language), that is addressed to the god of the city of Hatra named Šamaš . Otherwise, a striking number of inscriptions in the temple, some of which were scratched into the walls, were made by women. There is an inscription from the first half of the first century AD that mentions the consecration of a chapel. A number of other inscriptions date from 69 AD. Some of
9078-461: Is specifically described as being 'ruined'": Fiey is more plausible in his suggestion that the History was written at a monastery that had grown up on the site of Mar Ma'in's cell at Shadba (=Shadwa, Shadbo), 6 miles from Europos, and on the basis of this he is able to give c. 636, the end of Byzantine rule in that area, as the terminus ante quem , since the author is clearly writing at a time when
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#17327653089159256-458: Is well documented in Palmyra, where belonging to a clan was an important part of one's identity. In Dura-Europos clan membership obviously lost its meaning, and two people from different clans could appear together in inscriptions. In Dura-Europos, their identity was their common Palmyrene origin. The Temple of Atargatis , which is south of the centre of the city (referred to by the excavators as
9434-511: The 2016 Berlin truck attack , the 6 June 2017 attacks on Tehran , the 22 May 2017 bombing in Manchester , and the 3 June 2017 attacks in London that IS claimed credit for). IS has been described as a terrorist group adhering to Salafi jihadism . Raqqa in Syria was under IS control from 2013 and in 2014 it became the group's de facto capital city. On 17 October 2017, following
9612-784: The Al Saud family , rather they consider them apostates. The call for a global caliphate is another departure from Wahhabism. The caliphate, understood in Islamic law as the ideal Islamic polity uniting all Muslim territories, does not figure much in traditional Najdi writings. Ironically, Wahhabism emerged as an anti-caliphate movement. Although violence was not absent in the First Saudi State, Islamic State's displays of beheading, immolation, and other forms of violence aimed at inspiring fear are not in imitation of early Saudi practices. They were introduced by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who took inspiration from
9790-535: The Assyrians and Mandaeans of northern and southern Iraq , northwestern Iran , northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey , with up to a million fluent speakers. Syriac is a recognized language in Iraq, furthermore, Mesopotamian Arabic is one of the most Syriac influenced dialects of Arabic, due to Syriac, the dialect of Edessa specifically, having originated in Mesopotamia. Meanwhile Western Aramaic
9968-591: The Beni Ḥassān brought Arabization to Mauritania . A number of Modern South Arabian languages distinct from Arabic still survive, such as Soqotri , Mehri and Shehri which are mainly spoken in Socotra , Yemen, and Oman. Meanwhile, the Semitic languages that had arrived from southern Arabia in the 8th century BC were diversifying in Ethiopia and Eritrea , where, under heavy Cushitic influence, they split into
10146-743: The Cohors XX Palmyrenorum , which was stationed here, were found in a room that apparently served as an archive. The texts offer a unique view of the organization of the Roman army on the eastern border of the empire, and include a religious festival calendar, various letters—some of which are in Latin—daily reports on troop movements, and various lists of names. Although the documents found mainly regard administration (in Latin) and business (in Greek), some literary and religious texts were found in
10324-479: The European Union . The Semitic languages are notable for their nonconcatenative morphology . That is, word roots are not themselves syllables or words, but instead are isolated sets of consonants (usually three, making a so-called triliteral root ). Words are composed from roots not so much by adding prefixes or suffixes, but rather by filling in the vowels between the root consonants, although prefixes and suffixes are often added as well. For example, in Arabic,
10502-471: The Horn of Africa to a much earlier date. According to another hypothesis, Semitic originated from an offshoot of a still earlier language in North Africa and desertification made its inhabitants to migrate in the fourth millennium BC into what is now Ethiopia , others northwest out of Africa into West Asia. The various extremely closely related and mutually intelligible Canaanite languages ,
10680-557: The Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain , Portugal , and Gibraltar ) and Malta . With the patronage of the caliphs and the prestige of its liturgical status, Arabic rapidly became one of the world's main literary languages. Its spread among the masses took much longer, however, as many (although not all) of the native populations outside the Arabian Peninsula only gradually abandoned their languages in favour of Arabic. As Bedouin tribes settled in conquered areas, it became
10858-554: The Levant , Ethiopia , the Eastern Mediterranean region, the Arabian Peninsula , and North Africa . According to a 2009 study, the Semitic languages originated in the Levant c. 3750 BC , and were introduced to the Horn of Africa c. 800 BC from the southern Arabian Peninsula, and to North Africa via Phoenician colonists at approximately the same time. Others assign the arrival of Semitic speakers in
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#173276530891511036-616: The Middle East and Asia Minor during the Bronze Age and Iron Age , the earliest attested being the East Semitic Akkadian of Mesopotamia ( Akkad , Assyria , Isin , Larsa , and Babylonia ) from the third millennium BC . The origin of Semitic-speaking peoples is still under discussion. Several locations were proposed as possible sites of a prehistoric origin of Semitic-speaking peoples : Mesopotamia ,
11214-510: The November 2015 Paris attacks ), to polarise by driving Muslim populations – particularly in the West – away from their governments, thus increasing the appeal of IS's self-proclaimed caliphate among them, and to: "Eliminate neutral parties through either absorption or elimination". Journalist Rukmini Maria Callimachi also emphasises IS's interest in polarisation or in eliminating what it calls
11392-817: The November 2015 Paris attacks , the 2024 Kerman bombings in Iran, and the 2024 Crocus City Hall attack in Russia. After 2015, the Iraqi Armed Forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces pushed back IS and degraded its financial and military infrastructure, assisted by advisors, weapons, training, supplies, and airstrikes by the American-led coalition , and later by Russian airstrikes, bombings, cruise missile attacks, and scorched-earth tactics across Syria, which focused mostly on razing Syrian opposition strongholds rather than IS bases. By March 2019, IS lost
11570-730: The Qur'an and Jews speak and study Biblical Hebrew , the language of the Torah , Midrash , and other Jewish scriptures. The followers of the Assyrian Church of the East , Chaldean Catholic Church , Ancient Church of the East , Assyrian Pentecostal Church , Assyrian Evangelical Church , and the Syriac Orthodox Church speak Eastern Aramaic languages and use Classical Syriac as their liturgical language . Classical Syriac
11748-411: The Roman–Parthian War of 161–166 . The townspeople, however, retained considerable freedom as inhabitants of the regional headquarters for the section of the river between the Khabur River and modern Abu Kamal . The historian Ross Burns states that, in exchange, the city's military role was abandoned. Its original Greek settler population was increasingly outnumbered by people of Semitic stock; and by
11926-419: The agora ) and which occupies the northern part of H2 Block, was built on roughly the same principle. The temple complex had a large courtyard in the middle, a monumental entrance, and a sanctuary with a pronaos (portico) in front and three naoi (chambers) at the back. There were numerous small rooms around the courtyard, some of which were probably shrines that were consecrated to various deities. A relief on
12104-459: The nonconcatenative morphology of Semitic languages. The history of vowel changes in the languages makes drawing up a complete table of correspondences impossible, so only the most common reflexes can be given: The Semitic languages share a number of grammatical features, although variation — both between separate languages, and within the languages themselves — has naturally occurred over time. The reconstructed default word order in Proto-Semitic
12282-410: The "grey zone" between the black (non-Muslims) and white (IS). "The gray is moderate Muslims who are living in the West and are happy and feel engaged in the society here." A work published online in 2004 entitled Management of Savagery ( Idarat at Tawahoush ), described by several media outlets as influential on IS and intended to provide a strategy to create a new Islamic caliphate, recommended
12460-433: The 'Daesh cutthroats'." Retired general John Allen , the U.S. envoy appointed to co-ordinate the coalition; U.S. Army Lieutenant General James Terry , head of operations against the group; and Secretary of State John Kerry had all shifted towards use of the term Daesh by December 2014, which nonetheless remained a pejorative in 2021. The ideology of the Islamic State , or Islamic Statism has been described as being
12638-452: The 1st century BC, it served as a frontier fortress of the Parthian Empire. The entirely original architecture of Dura-Europos was perfected during the Parthian period. This period was characterized by a progressive evolution of Greek concepts toward new formulas in which regional traditions, particularly Babylonian ones, played an increasing role. These innovations affected both religious and domestic buildings. Although Iranian influence
12816-480: The Byzantine emperor controlled the area. Another piece of evidence is a single coin, of the Roman emperor Constantius II , that indicates some activity in the 4th century or later. A Yale–French expedition also found seven lamps dating from fifth century. Because of these finds, historians concluded that the city wasn't abandoned and that there is "firm evidence that not only did activity continue at Dura—even if it
12994-477: The Egyptian Jihadi scholar, Abu Abdallah Al Muhajir. It is the latter's legal manual on violence, popularly known as Fiqh ad-Dima (The Jurisprudence of Blood), that is the Islamic State's standard reference for justifying its acts of violence. The Islamic State's apocalyptic dimension also lacks a mainstream Wahhabi precedent. IS aims to return to the early days of Islam, rejecting all innovations in
13172-538: The End Times fill Islamic State propaganda. It's a big selling point with foreign fighters, who want to travel to the lands where the final battles of the apocalypse will take place. The civil wars raging in those countries today [Iraq and Syria] lend credibility to the prophecies. The Islamic State has stoked the apocalyptic fire. ... For Bin Laden's generation, the apocalypse wasn't a great recruiting pitch. Governments in
13350-559: The Euphrates, including the colony at Anah , in 253. The sixth-century historian Peter the Patrician wrote that Odaenathus approached Shapur I to negotiate Palmyrene interests but was rebuffed and the gifts sent to the Persians were thrown into the river. The date for the attempted negotiations is debated: some scholars, including John F. Drinkwater , set the event in 253; while others, such as Alaric Watson , set it in 256, following
13528-470: The Europeans of Seleukos Nikator' (κωλονεία Εὐροπαίων Σελεύκου Νεικάτορος)." The good state of preservation of these buildings and their frescoes was due to their location, close to the main city wall facing west, and to the military necessity of strengthening the wall. The Sassanid Persians had become adept at tunneling under such walls in order to undermine them and create breaches. As a countermeasure,
13706-457: The Greek gods Zeus and Artemis . There were shrines, dating from the 1st century AD, dedicated to Mithra , to Palmyrene gods, and to local deities. In 216 AD, a small amphitheater for soldiers was built in the military area, while the new synagogue, completed in 244 AD, and a house of Christian worship, were embellished with frescos of important characters wearing Roman tunics, caftans, and Parthian trousers. These splendid paintings, which cover
13884-575: The Levant Primary target of The Islamic State ( IS ), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIL ), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ( ISIS ), the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham ( ISIS ) and by its Arabic acronym Daesh , is a transnational Salafi jihadist group. IS gained global prominence in 2014, when its militants conquered large territories in northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, taking advantage of
14062-486: The Middle East two decades ago were more stable, and sectarianism was more subdued. It was better to recruit by calling to arms against corruption and tyranny than against the Antichrist. Today, though, the apocalyptic recruiting pitch makes more sense than before. Since at latest 2004, a significant goal of the group has been the foundation of a Sunni Islamic state . Specifically, ISIL has sought to establish itself as
14240-726: The Muslim lands were dealt with, according to the Islamist manual Management of Savagery . Documents found after the death of Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, a former colonel in the intelligence service of the Iraqi Air Force before the US invasion who had been described as "the strategic head" of ISIL, detailed planning for the ISIL takeover of northern Syria which made possible "the group's later advances into Iraq". Al-Khlifawi called for
14418-524: The Near East, particularly after being adopted as the lingua franca of the vast Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) by Tiglath-Pileser III during the 8th century BC, and being retained by the succeeding Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Empires . The Chaldean language (not to be confused with Aramaic or its Biblical variant , sometimes referred to as Chaldean ) was a Northwest Semitic language, possibly closely related to Aramaic, but no examples of
14596-708: The Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon) during the 14th century BC, incorporating elements of the Mesopotamian East Semitic Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia with the West Semitic Canaanite languages. Aramaic , a still living ancient Northwest Semitic language, first attested in the 12th century BC in the northern Levant , gradually replaced the East Semitic and Canaanite languages across much of
14774-489: The Qur'an and Muslim traditions. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi , the first Emir of the Islamic State of Iraq , was radicalised as a Muslim Brotherhood member during his youth. Motaz Al-Khateeb states that religious texts and Islamic jurisprudence "alone cannot explain the emergence" of Daesh since the Muslim Brotherhood and Daesh "draw on the same Islamic jurisprudence" but "are diametrically opposite" in strategy and behavior. Through
14952-568: The Roman garrison decided to sacrifice the street and the buildings along the wall by filling them with rubble, to bolster the wall in case of a Persian mining operation. So, the Christian chapel, the synagogue, the Mithraeum, and many other buildings were entombed. The Romans also buttressed the walls from the outside with an earthen mound forming a glacis , sealed with a casing of mud brick to prevent erosion. As J.A. Baird writes, "the threat by
15130-444: The Roman military), there is a Greek inscription that identifies the man by name and occupation. The use of Greek to identify a Roman official is typical of the multicultural environment at Dura-Europos. Another example is an inscription that reads: "... brave in campaigns, mighty in wars, dead..." These words are part of the epitaph of Julius Terentius, tribune of the twentieth Palmyrene cohort. As historian Jennifer Baird wrote, Julius
15308-420: The Roman province." The military importance of the site was confirmed after 209 AD: the northern part of the site was occupied by a Roman camp, isolated by a brick wall; soldiers were housed among civilians, among others, in the so-called "House of Scribes". Romans built the palace of the commander of the military region on the edge of a cliff. The city then had several sanctuaries, beside the temples, dedicated to
15486-487: The Romans became aware of the threat, they dug a countermine with the aim of meeting the Persian effort and attacking them before they could finish their work. The Persians had already dug complex galleries along the wall by the time the Roman countermine reached them. They managed to fight off the Roman attack, and when the city defenders noticed the flight of soldiers from the countermine, it was quickly sealed. The wounded and stragglers were trapped inside, where they died. (It
15664-547: The Salafi-jihadi movement that evolved out of the Afghan jihad. One difference between IS and other Islamist and jihadist movements, including al-Qaeda , is the group's emphasis on eschatology and apocalypticism – that is, a belief in a final Day of Judgment by God. IS believes that it will defeat the army of "Rome" at the town of Dabiq . The noted scholar of militant Islamism Will McCants writes: References to
15842-598: The Sasanian siege. It was looted and mostly destroyed between 2011 and 2014 by the Islamic State during the Syrian Civil War . Originally a fortress, the city was founded around 300 BC as Dura ("fortress" in Aramaic), at the intersection of an east–west trade route and the trade route along the Euphrates. The city was called Europos by Greeks in honor of the origin of Seleucus Nikator , who founded it and
16020-468: The Sasanians was keenly felt by the Roman military, and what had been a walled city became a fortress—literally, in that it became a defensive place. A huge embankment was built against the interior of the city walls to hold back the Sasanian incursion, deliberately and with great effort involving the methodical destruction of buildings and the moving of many metric tonnes of earth, ruining a huge swathe of
16198-625: The Sassanian tunnel, the tunnelers ignited a mixture of sulfur and pitch , producing a cloud of poisonous gas, sulfur dioxide , which killed 19 Romans and 1 Persian, one of which was carrying a coin dated 256, allowing the dating of the siege. Archaeologists excavated the scene in the 1930s. In 2009, tests showed the presence of sulfur dioxide inside the tunnel. An archaeologist at the University of Leicester suggested that bitumen and sulphur crystals were ignited to create poisonous gas, which
16376-439: The Semitic languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea , is technically an abugida – a modified abjad in which vowels are notated using diacritic marks added to the consonants at all times, in contrast with other Semitic languages which indicate vowels based on need or for introductory purposes. Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin script and the only Semitic language to be an official language of
16554-528: The US Joint Special Operations Command . On 30 November 2022, IS announced that their unidentified leader had been killed in battle and named a successor, providing no additional information other than his pseudonym . A spokesman for U.S. Central Command confirmed that IS's leader had been killed in mid-October by anti-government rebels in southern Syria. On 16 February 2023, senior IS leader Hamza al-Homsi blew himself up in
16732-536: The US State Department, David Kilcullen , has said that "There undeniably would be no Isis if we had not invaded Iraq." It has been reported that Iraqis and Syrians have been given greater precedence over other nationalities within IS because the group needs the loyalties of the local Sunni populations in both Syria and Iraq in order to be sustainable. Other reports, however, have indicated that Syrians are at
16910-578: The United States to combat terrorism. Russia had previously claimed Baghdadi was killed in May 2019 by their airstrike. In September 2019, a statement attributed to IS's propaganda arm, the Amaq news agency , claimed that Abdullah Qardash was named as al-Baghdadi's successor. Analysts dismissed this statement as a fabrication, and relatives were reported as saying that Qardash died in 2017. Rita Katz ,
17088-620: The United States, Canada, Turkey, Australia, the United Kingdom, and other countries generally call the group ISIL, while much of the Arab world uses the Arabic acronym Dāʻish or Daesh. France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said: "This is a terrorist group and not a state. I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims, and Islamists. The Arabs call it 'Daesh' and I will be calling them
17266-693: The allegiance of all devout Muslims worldwide according to Islamic jurisprudence ( fiqh ). ISIL has detailed its goals in its Dabiq magazine, saying it will continue to seize land and take over the entire Earth until its: Blessed flag...covers all eastern and western extents of the Earth, filling the world with the truth and justice of Islam and putting an end to the falsehood and tyranny of jahiliyyah [state of ignorance], even if America and its coalition despise such. According to German journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer , who spent ten days embedded with ISIL in Mosul ,
17444-477: The allotments according to military rank. As the historian Paul Kosmin wrote, during its early history Dura-Europos was neither entirely a military outpost nor a polis, but something in-between: Out of this meager evidence, the early settlement of Europos emerges as an entity ambiguously situated between a simple fortress and a full polis . The absences are striking. As far as can be perceived, in terms of civic architecture and urbanism, third-century Europos lacked
17622-493: The alphabet used, the name "Semitic languages" is completely appropriate. Previously these languages had been commonly known as the " Oriental languages " in European literature. In the 19th century, "Semitic" became the conventional name; however, an alternative name, " Syro-Arabian languages ", was later introduced by James Cowles Prichard and used by some writers. Semitic languages were spoken and written across much of
17800-431: The attested Semitic languages are presented here from a comparative point of view (see Proto-Semitic language#Phonology for details on the phonological reconstruction of Proto-Semitic used in this article). The reconstruction of Proto-Semitic (PS) was originally based primarily on Arabic , whose phonology and morphology (particularly in Classical Arabic ) is very conservative, and which preserves as contrastive 28 out of
17978-403: The base of the sacred literature of some of the world's major religions, including Islam (Arabic), Judaism (Hebrew and Aramaic ( Biblical and Talmudic )), churches of Syriac Christianity (Classical Syriac) and Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Christianity (Ge'ez). Millions learn these as a second language (or an archaic version of their modern tongues): many Muslims learn to read and recite
18156-425: The buttress had been successful — but to pass under it and penetrate the city. This tunnel was built to allow the Persians four abreast to move through it. It eventually pierced the inner embankment and, when the ramp was completed, Dura's end had come. As Persian troops charged up the ramp, their counterparts in the tunnel would have invaded the city with little opposition, as nearly all the defenders would have been on
18334-574: The case of Phoenician, coastal regions of Tunisia ( Carthage ), Libya , Algeria , and parts of Morocco , Spain , and possibly in Malta and other Mediterranean islands. Ugaritic , a Northwest Semitic language closely related to but distinct from the Canaanite group was spoken in the kingdom of Ugarit in north western Syria. A hybrid Canaano-Akkadian language also emerged in Canaan (Israel and
18512-525: The city of Nicanor, a foundation of the Macedonians, called Europos by the Greeks.] Isidore is the only ancient historian who mentioned that the city had two different names. Isidore's account helped to identify the site, because both "Dura" and "Europos" were not unique names for that region. When the town was founded, agricultural land was allotted to the members of the garrison, the size and quality of
18690-421: The city. Only a few documents can be dated with certainty to the time of Parthian rule. Only seven of them are definitely dated. They are written in Greek but use the Seleucid calendar. Among the literary texts there is a fragment by Herodotus and one by Appian . The Herodotus fragment comes from his 5th book and is written in extremely beautiful script. C. Bradford Welles describes the book as de luxe and dates
18868-539: The classical VSO order has given way to SVO. Modern Ethiopian Semitic languages follow a different word order: SOV, possessor–possessed, and adjective–noun; however, the oldest attested Ethiopian Semitic language, Ge'ez, was VSO, possessed–possessor, and noun–adjective. Akkadian was also predominantly SOV. The proto-Semitic three-case system ( nominative , accusative and genitive ) with differing vowel endings (-u, -a -i), fully preserved in Qur'anic Arabic (see ʾIʿrab ), Akkadian and Ugaritic , has disappeared everywhere in
19046-516: The copy to the 2nd century AD. Dura parchment 10 (P. Dura 10), the fragment of a harmony of the Gospels, is particularly interesting. It is perhaps a fragment of Tatian 's Diatessaron . There was also a prayer in Hebrew. The texts shed light on daily life in the city. In Parthian times, documents were dated from the Arsacian era and from the Seleucid era. Interesting is the appearance of women in
19224-491: The current Saudi Arabian government in that category. IS believes that only a legitimate authority can undertake the leadership of jihad and that the first priority over other areas of combat, such as fighting non-Muslim countries, is the purification of Islamic society. For example, IS regards the Palestinian Sunni group Hamas as apostates who have no legitimate authority to lead jihad and see fighting Hamas as
19402-507: The desert. Some evidence of a Sasanian presence at Dura after the sack of the city was found, but is limited to several coins, and some burials. Many buildings apparently stood empty for a time before they collapsed: a house in a part of the site near the river that was excavated by the Franco-Syrian expedition in the 2000s had its floors covered in disarticulated rodent skeletons and owl pellets, apparently from time when birds inhabited
19580-449: The destruction of Dura-Europos. Clark Hopkins , the field director at Dura-Europos in the 1930s, opened his book The Discovery of Dura-Europos with an epigram: After the siege and victory by the Persians in AD 256, the record is blank. The mute testimony that remained was of a site desolate and forlorn, where the lonely and level sands covered the bones of the city and stretched away across
19758-550: The eastern coast of Saudi Arabia , and Bahrain , Qatar , Oman , and Yemen . South Semitic languages are thought to have spread to the Horn of Africa circa 8th century BC where the Ge'ez language emerged (though the direction of influence remains uncertain). Classical Syriac , a 200 CE Eastern Middle Aramaic dialect, used as a liturgical language in Mesopotamia , the Levant , and Kerala , India, rose to importance as
19936-470: The emptied homes. Coin hoards were found, which indicate that people hoped to return to the city. Historians argue whether Dura-Europos was completely abandoned after the siege of 256. Lucinda Dirven wrote that, according to Ammianus Marcellinus , Dura-Europos was a deserted town when Julian's army passed there in 363. There is evidence from a Syriac document called Life of the Martyr Mu'Ain , dating from
20114-508: The evident 29 consonantal phonemes. with *s [ s ] and *š [ ʃ ] merging into Arabic / s / ⟨ س ⟩ and *ś [ ɬ ] becoming Arabic / ʃ / ⟨ ش ⟩ . Note: the fricatives *s, *z, *ṣ, *ś, *ṣ́, and *ṱ may also be interpreted as affricates (/t͡s/, /d͡z/, /t͡sʼ/, /t͡ɬ/, /t͡ɬʼ/, and /t͡θʼ/), as discussed in Proto-Semitic language § Fricatives . This comparative approach
20292-670: The fifth century, that a Christian (perhaps Byzantine) hermit lived there during the time of the Sassanid emperor Shapur II (c. 379). J. M. Unvala wrote that "The fortress of Doura-Eropos is mentioned by ancient authors like Polybius , Isidore of Kharax , Lucian , Ptolemaeus , Ammianus Marcellinus , Zosimus the Cosmographer of Ravenna . It is also mentioned in the Acts of the Syrian Martyr Mar Mu'ain, who lived in
20470-562: The first century BC, the city was predominantly eastern in character. The city regained its importance as a military outpost, when the Romans established it as a starting point for the conquest of the territories of Osroene , and as an outpost for expeditions against the Parthian empire and their capital on the Tigris in 198 AD. The city was later a border post of the Roman " Kingdom of Palmyra ". In A.D. 194, Emperor Septimius Severus divided
20648-430: The first step towards confrontation by IS with Israel. Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye said: The Islamic State was drafted by Sayyid Qutb, taught by Abdullah Azzam, globalized by Osama bin Laden, transferred to reality by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and implemented by al-Baghdadis: Abu Omar and Abu Bakr. The Islamic State added a focus on sectarianism to a layer of radical views. In particular, it linked itself to
20826-606: The founders of the temple are known: Zabdibol, son of Ba'yashu, and Maliku, son of Ramu. Zabdibol came from the Bene Gaddibol clan, Maliku from that of the Bene Komare. The donors were obviously Palmyrians who lived in Dura-Europos. It is noteworthy that the donors come from two different clans. In inscriptions at Palmyra , when different donors are named together, they come from the same clan. The Bene Gaddibol clan
21004-565: The group adopted the name ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fī 'l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām ( الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام ). As al-Shām is a region often compared with the Levant or the region of Syria , the group's name has been variously translated as "Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham ", "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (both abbreviated as ISIS), or "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (abbreviated as ISIL). In 2014, Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah dubbed ISIS as QSIS for "al-Qaeda Separatists in Iraq and Syria", arguing that ISIL does not represent
21182-429: The group from official Saudi religious beliefs. What connection, if any, there is between Salafi-Jihadism of IS and Wahhabism and Salafism proper is disputed. IS borrowed two elements of Qutbism and 20th century Islamism into its version of Wahhabi worldview. While Wahhabism shuns violent rebellion against earthly rulers, IS embraces political call to revolutions. While historically Wahhabis were not champion activists of
21360-514: The group whilst speaking amongst themselves, although—and to a certain extent because—it is considered derogatory, as it resembles the Arabic words Daes ("one who crushes, or tramples down, something underfoot") and Dāhis (loosely translated as "one who sows discord"). Within areas under its control, ISIL considers use of the name Daesh punishable by flogging . In late June 2014, the group renamed itself ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah ( lit. ' Islamic State ' or IS), declaring itself
21538-426: The hard-line ideology of al-Qaeda and many other modern-day jihadist groups. For their guiding principles, the leaders of the Islamic State ... are open and clear about their almost exclusive commitment to the Wahhabi movement of Sunni Islam. The group circulates images of Wahhabi religious textbooks from Saudi Arabia in the schools it controls. Videos from the group's territory have shown Wahhabi texts plastered on
21716-510: The human rights abuses. Social control of civilians was by imposition of IS's reading of sharia law, enforced by morality police forces known as Al-Hisbah and the all-women Al-Khanssaa Brigade , a general police force, courts, and other entities managing recruitment, tribal relations, and education. Al-Hisbah was led by Abu Muhammad al-Jazrawi. In 2015, IS published a penal code including floggings, amputations, crucifixions, etc. Semitic languages The Semitic languages are
21894-691: The indigenous Semitic languages and cultures of the Near East . Both the Near East and North Africa saw an influx of Muslim Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula, followed later by non-Semitic Muslim Iranian and Turkic peoples . The previously dominant Aramaic dialects maintained by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians gradually began to be sidelined, however descendant dialects of Eastern Aramaic (including Suret (Assyrian and Chaldean varieties), Turoyo , and Mandaic ) survive to this day among
22072-485: The infiltration of areas to be conquered with spies who would find out "as much as possible about the target towns: Who lived there, who was in charge, which families were religious, which Islamic school of religious jurisprudence they belonged to, how many mosques there were, who the imam was, how many wives and children he had and how old they were". Following this surveillance and espionage would come murder and kidnapping – "the elimination of every person who might have been
22250-654: The language remain, as after settling in south eastern Mesopotamia from the Levant during the 9th century BC, the Chaldeans appear to have rapidly adopted the Akkadian and Aramaic languages of the indigenous Mesopotamians. Old South Arabian languages (classified as South Semitic and therefore distinct from the Central-Semitic Arabic) were spoken in the kingdoms of Dilmun , Sheba , Ubar , Socotra , and Magan , which in modern terms encompassed part of
22428-507: The languages closely related to Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew. The choice of name was derived from Shem , one of the three sons of Noah in the genealogical accounts of the biblical Book of Genesis , or more precisely from the Koine Greek rendering of the name, Σήμ (Sēm) . Johann Gottfried Eichhorn is credited with popularising the term, particularly via a 1795 article "Semitische Sprachen" ( Semitic languages ) in which he justified
22606-647: The last of its territories in West Asia , although its affiliates maintained a significant territorial presence in Africa as of 2024. The Islamic State, abbreviated IS, is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL / ˈ aɪ s ɪ l / ), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS / ˈ aɪ s ɪ s / ), and by its Arabic acronym Da'ish or Daesh ( داعش , Dāʿish , IPA: [ˈdaːʕɪʃ] ), and also as Dawlat al-Islam (Arabic: دولة الإسلام). In April 2013, having expanded into Syria,
22784-534: The legal documents of the Parthian and Roman periods, which indicated that they acted independently and did not need a male advocate, as they did in the Mediterranean region. Many Greek documents are in the Attic dialect and have few grammatical errors. Since most of the texts are legal documents, this shows that most of the writers were well educated in the Greek language. On the other hand, a letter dating from
22962-466: The legends about the invention of the syllabograms and alphabetic script go back to the Semites. In contrast, all so called Hamitic peoples originally used hieroglyphs, until they here and there, either through contact with the Semites, or through their settlement among them, became familiar with their syllabograms or alphabetic script, and partly adopted them. Viewed from this aspect too, with respect to
23140-662: The main language of not only central Arabia, but also Yemen, the Fertile Crescent , and Egypt . Most of the Maghreb followed, specifically in the wake of the Banu Hilal 's incursion in the 11th century, and Arabic became the native language of many inhabitants of al-Andalus . After the collapse of the Nubian kingdom of Dongola in the 14th century, Arabic began to spread south of Egypt into modern Sudan ; soon after,
23318-612: The many colloquial forms of Semitic languages. Modern Standard Arabic maintains such case distinctions, although they are typically lost in free speech due to colloquial influence. An accusative ending -n is preserved in Ethiopian Semitic. In the northwest, the scarcely attested Samalian reflects a case distinction in the plural between nominative -ū and oblique -ī (compare the same distinction in Classical Arabic). Additionally, Semitic nouns and adjectives had
23496-521: The members of its military and security committees and the majority of its emirs and princes—are former Iraqi military and intelligence officers, specifically former members of Saddam Hussein 's Ba'ath government who lost their jobs and pensions in the de-Ba'athification process after that regime was overthrown. The former Chief Strategist in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism of
23674-537: The most invoked ideological figures of IS include Ibn Taymiyya , Abdullah Azzam, and Abu Bakr Naji . Although IS claims to adhere to the Salafi theology of Ibn Taymiyyah , it rejects traditional Salafi interpretations as well as the four Sunni schools of law, and anathematizes the majority of Salafis as heretics . IS ideologues rarely uphold adherence to Islamic scholarship and law manuals for reference, mostly preferring to derive rulings based on self-interpretation of
23852-442: The mutilation of corpses, beheading, and the killing of children and non-combatants." His theological and legal justifications influenced IS, al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram , as well as several other jihadi terrorist groups. Numerous media outlets have compared his reference manual to Abu Bakr Naji 's Management of Savagery , widely read among IS's commanders and fighters. IS adheres to global jihadist principles and follows
24030-429: The names Demetrius and Polemocrates, respectively), and amongst the younger Polemocrates' sons, all had both Greek and Aramaic names, for instance Demetrius, also known as Nabusamus. The document records the concern with noting patrilineal descent – descent along the male line – and a pattern of sons taking the Greek name of their grandfathers. They are described as Europaioi, 'of Europos', a designation of place which [...]
24208-607: The northeastern Levant respectively. The only earlier attested languages are Sumerian and Elamite (2800 BCE to 550 BCE), both language isolates , and Egyptian ( c. 3000 BCE ), a sister branch within the Afroasiatic family, related to the Semitic languages but not part of them. Amorite appeared in Mesopotamia and the northern Levant c. 2100 BC , followed by the mutually intelligible Canaanite languages (including Hebrew, Phoenician, Moabite, Edomite, and Ammonite, and perhaps Ekronite, Amalekite and Sutean),
24386-679: The official statement of beliefs originally released by al-Baghdadi in 2007 and subsequently updated since June 2014, ISIL defined its creed as "a middle way between the extremist Kharijites and the lax Murji'ites ". ISIL's ideology represents radical Jihadi-Salafi Islam, a strict, puritanical form of Sunni Islam . Muslim organisations like Islamic Networks Group (ING) in America have argued against this interpretation of Islam . ISIL promotes religious violence , and regards Muslims who do not agree with its interpretations as infidels or apostates . According to Hayder al Khoei, IS's philosophy
24564-621: The ongoing civil war in Syria and the disintegrating local military forces of Iraq. By the end of 2015, its self-declared caliphate ruled an area with a population of about 12 million, where they enforced their extremist interpretation of Islamic law , managed an annual budget exceeding US$ 1 billion, and commanded more than 30,000 fighters. After a grinding conflict with American, Iraqi, and Kurdish forces, IS lost control of all its Middle Eastern territories by 2019, subsequently reverting to insurgency from remote hideouts while continuing its propaganda efforts . These efforts have garnered
24742-440: The person she commissioned to create this, did not themselves survive to complete the memorial, we do not know. While it is incomplete, this shows a Roman tribune commemorated with a Greek inscription by his wife. Also, it is virtually unique at Dura, where no tradition of funerary commemoration was found: no funerary inscriptions, and, unlike its more famous Syrian neighbour Palmyra, no funerary portraits. One more interesting example
24920-411: The province of Syria to limit the power of its previously rebellious governors. As a result, Dura became part of the new province of Syria Coele. In its later years, it also attained the status of a Roman colonia, which, by the third century, was what James (Henry Breasted) calls an "honorary title for an important town." He suggests that the "Roman authorities wanted to present Dura as an important city of
25098-459: The region); this spread continues to this day, with Qimant set to disappear in another generation. Arabic is currently the native language of majorities from Mauritania to Oman , and from Iraq to Sudan . Classical Arabic is the language of the Quran . It is also studied widely in the non-Arabic-speaking Muslim world . The Maltese language is a descendant of the extinct Siculo-Arabic ,
25276-466: The religion, which it believes corrupts its original spirit. It condemns later caliphates and the Ottoman Empire for deviating from what it calls pure Islam and seeks to revive the original Qutbist project of the restoration of a global caliphate that is governed by a strict Salafi-Jihadi doctrine. Following Salafi-Jihadi doctrines, IS condemns the followers of secular law as disbelievers, putting
25454-615: The root meaning "write" has the form k-t-b . From this root, words are formed by filling in the vowels and sometimes adding consonants, e.g. كِتاب k i t ā b "book", كُتُب k u t u b "books", كاتِب k ā t i b "writer", كُتّاب k u tt ā b "writers", كَتَب k a t a b a "he wrote", يكتُب ya kt u b u "he writes", etc.. The similarity of the Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic languages has been accepted by all scholars since medieval times. The languages were familiar to Western European scholars due to historical contact with neighbouring Near Eastern countries and through Biblical studies , and
25632-404: The sanctuary of the temple shows the goddess Atargatis , with a lion on either side of her, and her husband Hadad nearby. A cult standard is depicted between the two deities. Atargatis was the mother of Adonis ; Hadad and Adonis could also be worshipped here. Various inscriptions by ancient visitors tell of the people who visited the sanctuary. That the temple was frequented by people from Hatra
25810-548: The sides of an official missionary van. According to The Economist , Saudi practices followed by the group include the establishment of religious police to root out "vice" and enforce attendance at Salah prayers, the widespread use of capital punishment , and the destruction or re-purposing of any non- Sunni religious buildings. Bernard Haykel has described IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's creed as "a kind of untamed Wahhabism". Senior Saudi religious leaders have issued statements condemning IS, and attempting to distance
25988-413: The site". There is no written record of the Sasanian siege of Dura. However, archaeologists have uncovered striking evidence of the siege and how it progressed. The buttressing of the walls would be tested in 256 AD when Shapur I besieged the city. True to the fears of the defenders, Shapur set his engineers to undermine what archaeologists called Tower 19, two towers north of the Palmyrene Gate. When
26166-556: The still spoken Aramaic , and Ugaritic during the 2nd millennium BC. Most scripts used to write Semitic languages are abjads – a type of alphabetic script that omits some or all of the vowels, which is feasible for these languages because the consonants are the primary carriers of meaning in the Semitic languages. These include the Ugaritic , Phoenician , Aramaic , Hebrew , Syriac , Arabic , and ancient South Arabian alphabets. The Geʽez script , used for writing
26344-557: The surrounding Arabic dialects and from the languages of the Old South Arabian inscriptions. Historically linked to the peninsular homeland of Old South Arabian, of which only one language, Razihi , remains, Ethiopia and Eritrea contain a substantial number of Semitic languages; the most widely spoken are Amharic in Ethiopia, Tigre in Eritrea , and Tigrinya in both. Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia. Tigrinya
26522-402: The task of ensuring that all decisions made by the governors and councils comply with the group's interpretation of sharia . While al-Baghdadi had told followers to "advise me when I err" in sermons, according to observers "any threat, opposition, or even contradiction is instantly eradicated". According to Iraqis, Syrians, and analysts who study the group, almost all of IS's leaders—including
26700-516: The temple may have served to water pack animals. Remains of wall paintings were found in the temple. Three inscriptions are particularly important. The oldest of them, written in Palmyric , dates from 33 BC (year 279 of the Seleucid era) It is the oldest known inscription at Dura-Europos; and when it was found and published in 1935, it was the oldest known Palmyric inscription anywhere. The names of
26878-694: The terminology against criticism that Hebrew and Canaanite were the same language despite Canaan being " Hamitic " in the Table of Nations : In the Mosaic Table of Nations , those names which are listed as Semites are purely names of tribes who speak the so-called Oriental languages and live in Southwest Asia. As far as we can trace the history of these very languages back in time, they have always been written with syllabograms or with alphabetic script (never with hieroglyphs or pictograms ); and
27056-513: The territory it controls. In a speech in September 2014, United States President Barack Obama said that ISIL was neither Islamic (on the basis that no religion condones the killing of innocents) nor a state (in that no government recognises the group as a state), while many object to using the name Islamic State owing to the far-reaching religious and political claims to authority which that name implies. The United Nations Security Council ,
27234-409: The third century BC. Several construction phases can be distinguished in the building. The plan consisted of various rooms ranged around a courtyard; the actual temple stood to the north and was later marked by four columns. This temple was once richly decorated with wall paintings. There was also a shrine here, which probably contained the cult image. A small sanctuary of Bel, consisted of a single hall,
27412-420: The third century that was sent by a person from the village of Ossa shows more deviations from the classic Attic. Still, there is no indication that any dialect of Greek peculiar to the city, a "Durene" dialect, developed. The languages used by different people show how multicultural the city was. For example, on a ceiling tile of Heliodoros, an actuarius (an official responsible for the distribution of wages in
27590-425: The time of Shapur II as follows: men madabra da doura "from the fortress of Doura"; madinta hada xarabta metkaria doura "the ruined city called Doura". Sebastian P. Brock describes the story of Mu'Ain as "The History of Ma'in of Sinjar , a general under Shapur II (309–79) who converted to Christianity and suffered as a confessor ". He quotes Jean Maurice Fiey regarding the dating and place, and notes that "Dura
27768-403: The tower and adjacent walls to subside. However, Roman countermeasure bolstered the wall and prevented it from collapsing. This brought on a third attempt at breaching the city wall. A ramp was raised, attacking Tower 14; but, as it was being built and the garrison fought to stop the progress of the ramp, another mine was started near the ramp. Its purpose was not to cause a collapse of the wall —
27946-424: The town dump outside the Palmyrene Gate, a fragmentary text was unearthed from an unknown Greek harmony of the gospel account—comparable to Tatian 's Diatessaron , but independent of it. John Noble Wilford compared the ancient city with modern New York: New Yorkers would have felt at home in the grid pattern of streets, where merchants lived, scribes wrote and Jews worshiped in the same block, not far from
28124-466: The vast majority of Muslims. While the use of either one or the other acronym has been the subject of debate, the distinction between the two and its relevance has been considered less important. Of greater relevance is the name Daesh, which is an acronym of ISIL's Arabic name ad-Dawlah al-Islamīyah fī l-ʻIrāq wa-sh-Shām. Dāʿish ( داعش ), or Daesh. This name has been widely used by ISIL's Arabic-speaking detractors, for example when referring to
28302-400: The view he kept hearing was that ISIL wants to "conquer the world", and that all who do not believe in the group's interpretation of the Quran will be killed. Todenhöfer was struck by the ISIL fighters' belief that "all religions who agree with democracy have to die", and by their "incredible enthusiasm" – including enthusiasm for killing "hundreds of millions" of people. When the caliphate
28480-425: The wall, attempting to repel the attack from the ramp. The city was then abandoned, its population deported. The siege was notable for the early use of chemical weapons by the attacking Persian army. During the siege the attackers dug several underground shaft mines under the city walls. The Romans dug tunnels to reach the mines and fight the diggers underground. In one such tunnel, when the Romans broke through into
28658-406: The walls, testify to the richness of the Jewish and Christian communities. The population of Dura-Europos is estimated at 10,000-15,000 people, at the most; more conservative estimates say that the agriculture of that region could only support a population of about 5,000-6,000 people. The city received the status of " colonia " after the year 254 AD; official documents called the city "the 'colony of
28836-399: The women named in the inscriptions appear to have come from the family of the governors of Dura-Europos. One woman was the granddaughter of the governor Lysias, another woman the wife of the governor Seleucus. In a wall of the temple there was a cuneiform tablet with old Babylonian script, which names the place as Da-wa-ra , which may be an old name for Dura. Islamic State of Iraq and
29014-463: Was also found. The Necropolis Temple was built in 33 BC and, according to the inscriptions, was dedicated to Baal and Yarhibol . The temple was just outside the city and probably was maintained until the city's abandonment. Although the temple was located in the city's necropolis, it was built prior; and the cult there had no connection to the cemetery. The temple could have been a first port of call for caravans coming from Palmyra. A cistern next to
29192-442: Was believed to be under the overall command of IS's most senior Syrian operative, spokesman and propaganda chief Abu Mohammad al-Adnani until his death by airstrike in late August 2016. On 27 October 2019, the United States conducted a special operation targeting al-Baghdadi's compound in Barisha , Idlib , Northwest Syria. The attack resulted in al-Baghdadi's death ; caught by surprise and unable to escape, al-Baghdadi detonated
29370-427: Was born in Europos in Macedonia. In ancient times, either designation stood alone; the combination of " Dura-Europos " is modern, and was coined by Franz Cumont in 1922. Dura controlled the river crossing on the route between Seleucus's newly founded cities of Antioch and Seleucia on the Tigris . Its rebuilding as a great city after the Hippodamian model, with rectangular blocks defined by cross-streets ranged round
29548-412: Was built in its stead, but it was never finished. In the middle of the first century BC the temple was rebuilt: a courtyard complex was created, in the middle of which stood a new temple, with an anteroom and three-aisled cella. The temple was rebuilt several times before the city fell. A statue, found in its ruins, represents a woman's figure, probably Artemis , dressed in hunting garb. Only the upper part
29726-462: Was excellent. We really had great cooperation" and Turkey knew they were going in. He thanked Turkey, Russia, Syria, Iraq and the Syrian Kurdish forces for their support. The Turkish Defence Ministry also confirmed on Sunday that Turkish and U.S. military authorities exchanged and coordinated information ahead of an attack in Syria's Idlib. Fahrettin Altun , a senior aide to Turkish President Tayyib Erdogan, also stated, among other things, that "Turkey
29904-471: Was first used in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history , who derived the name from Shem , one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis . Semitic languages occur in written form from a very early historical date in West Asia , with East Semitic Akkadian (also known as Assyrian and Babylonian ) and Eblaite texts (written in a script adapted from Sumerian cuneiform ) appearing from c. 2600 BCE in Mesopotamia and
30082-413: Was found, both arms having been broken off. Historian Susan B. Downey writes that the statue has "an Amazonian aspect by the fact that one breast is left bare". There is a crescent-shaped necklace on the statue, and a veil of unusual form. There were at least three Palmyric temples in the city. The Temple of Bel (also known as the Temple of the Palmyric Gods) was built in one corner of the city wall, in
30260-399: Was known as Salihiyeh , "a name thought to refer to Saladin". In Ottoman times the ruins were known as Qan Qal'esi , "Castle of Blood". Pierre Leriche, excavations director of the site in early 2000s, opposes the name Dura-Europos, because it "obscures what he sees as the fundamental Greekness of the city" and proposes to use "Europos-Dura" instead. The city was probably built on the site of
30438-483: Was only sporadic and cannot confidently be associated with permanent settlement—but that contact with the Mediterranean, though certainly even more sporadic, continued as well." Dura-Europos was a cosmopolitan society, ruled by a tolerant Macedonian aristocracy descended from the original settlers. In the course of its excavation, over a hundred parchment and papyrus fragments, and many inscriptions , have revealed texts in Greek and Latin (the latter including
30616-443: Was primarily the language of business and seems to have gained in importance, especially after the Roman occupation. It is believed that the upper class of the city, in particular, was still Greek in Parthian times. Palmyric is known, with certainty, from various inscriptions on monuments from 33 BC. It is believed that a small number of Palmyric traders lived in the city, and in Roman times there were also soldiers from Palmyra. Parthian
30794-440: Was proclaimed, ISIL stated: "The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organisations becomes null by the expansion of the khilafah's [caliphate's] authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas." This was a rejection of the political divisions in Southwestern Asia that were established by the UK and France during World War I in the Sykes–Picot Agreement . All non-Muslim areas would be targeted for conquest after
30972-421: Was proud to help the United States, our NATO ally, bring a notorious terrorist to justice" and that Turkey "will continue to work closely with the United States and others to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to say if the United States had told Russia about the raid in advance but said that its result if confirmed, represented a serious contribution by
31150-404: Was referring to IS spokesman and senior leader Abul-Hasan al-Muhajir , who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Syria two days earlier. On 31 October, IS named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi as Baghdadi's successor. On 3 February 2022, it was reported by a US official that al-Hashimi killed himself and members of his family by triggering an explosive device during a counter-terrorism raid by
31328-434: Was revived in spoken form at the end of the 19th century. Modern Hebrew is the main language of Israel , with Biblical Hebrew remaining as the language of liturgy and religious scholarship of Jews worldwide. In Arab-dominated Yemen and Oman, on the southern rim of the Arabian Peninsula, a few tribes continue to speak Modern South Arabian languages such as Mahri and Soqotri . These languages differ greatly from both
31506-418: Was the coins found with these Roman soldiers that dated the siege to AD 256.) The countermine was successful, for the Persians abandoned their operations at Tower 19. Next, the Sassanids attacked Tower 14, the southernmost along the western wall. It overlooked a deep ravine to the south and it was from that direction that it was attacked. This time the mining operation was partially successful, in that it caused
31684-507: Was then funnelled through the tunnel with the use of underground chimneys and bellows. The Roman soldiers had been constructing a countermine, and Sasanian forces are believed to have released the gas when their mine was breached by the Roman countermine. The lone Persian soldier discovered among the bodies is believed to be the individual responsible for releasing the gas before the fumes overcame him as well. Shapur I destroyed not only Dura-Europos, but also other Palmyrene trade colonies along
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