Zakkur (or Zakir ) was the ancient king of Hamath and Luhuti (also known as Nuhašše ) in Syria . He ruled around 785 BC. Most of the information about him comes from his basalt stele, known as the Stele of Zakkur .
104-459: Hama ( Arabic : حَمَاة Ḥamāh , [ħaˈmaː] ; Syriac : ܚܡܳܬ , romanized : ħ(ə)mɑθ , lit. 'fortress'; Biblical Hebrew : חֲמָת , romanized: Ḥămāṯ ) is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria . It is located 213 km (132 mi) north of Damascus and 46 kilometres (29 mi) north of Homs . It is
208-717: A Byzantine mosaic painting of a church that dates back to the fifth century AD. The painting, which was decorated with geometric shapes and inscriptions in Latin, was unearthed in the Tell Salhab area in Khareb village. Its climate is classified as semi-arid (BSk) in Köppen-Geiger system . Hama's inland location ensures that it receives no softening coastal influences and breezes from the Mediterranean Sea . As
312-568: A coalition against the Assyrian expansion under Shalmaneser III . Their coalition succeeded in 853 BC in the Battle of Qarqar . Later Irhuleni maintained good relations with Assyria. Not so much is known about the background of Zakkur. He is first mentioned in Assyrian sources probably in 785 BC, in the last years of Adad-nirari III . Adad-nirari ordered his commander Shamshi-ilu to mediate
416-511: A coalition including Sam'al under Ben-Hadad III , son of Hazael , king of Aram-Damascus. Zakir was besieged in his fortress of Hazrak , but saved by intervention of the God Baalshamin . Later on, the state of 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 1,223 selected inhabitants to
520-575: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
624-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
728-1081: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
832-487: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
936-690: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
1040-522: A notable family. Thus, the hinterland was owned by landowning elites. 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,
1144-594: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
SECTION 10
#17327658331981248-516: A result, the city has a much hotter and drier climate than nearby Homs . According to Josiah C. Russel, during the 12th century, Hama had a population of 6,750. James Reilly accounts the historical population as: 1812– 30,000 (Burckhardt) 1830– 20,000 (Robinson) 1839– 30–44,000 (Bowring) 1850– 30,000 (Porter) 1862– 10–12,000 (Guys) 1880– 27,656 (Parliamentary Papers) 1901– 60,000 (Parliamentary Papers) 1902–1907 80,000 (Trade Reports) 1906– 40,000 (al-Sabuni) 1909– 60,000 (Trade Reports) In 1932, while Hama
1352-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
1456-470: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
1560-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
1664-507: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
1768-476: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
1872-737: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
1976-590: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
2080-559: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
2184-478: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
SECTION 20
#17327658331982288-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
2392-472: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
2496-574: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
2600-803: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
2704-404: Is specified as part of the northern border of the land that will fall to the children of Israel as an inheritance when they enter the land of Canaan ( Numbers 34.1–9 ). Solomon , it would seem, took possession of Hamath and its territory and built store cities ( 1 Kings 4:21–24 ; 2 Chronicles 8:4 ). 1 Kings 8:65 names the "entrance of Hamath", or Lebo-Hamath , as the northern border of Israel at
2808-572: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
2912-587: Is the Manikeios whose signature appears in the First Council of Nicaea . 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. Titular bishopric of the Roman Church Hama's most famous attractions are the 17 Norias of Hama ( Arabic : نواعير حماة ), dating back to
3016-590: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
3120-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
3224-524: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
Hama - Misplaced Pages Continue
3328-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
3432-550: The Ba'ath . This party's ascent to power in 1963 signalled the end of power for the landowning elite. The 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 epicentre of an uprising by conservative forces, encouraged by speeches from mosque preachers, denouncing
3536-581: The Battle of Qarqar . The attested win for the Assyrians seems to have actually been more of a draw, although Shalmaneser III continued on to the shore and even took a ship to open sea. In the following years, Shalmaneser III failed to conquer Hamath or Aram-Damascus. After the death of Shalmaneser III, the former allies Hamath and Aram-Damascus fell out, and Aram-Damascus seems to have taken over some of Hamath's territory. An Aramaic inscription of Zakkur , dual king of Hamath and Luhuti , tells of an attack by
3640-717: The Byzantine times. Fed by the Orontes river , they are up to 20 metres (66 ft) in diameter. The largest noria s 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: Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
3744-686: The Crusaders lost it definitively to the Seljuks , during the reign of Toghtekin , atabeg of Damascus. In 1157 an earthquake shattered the city. 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. 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
3848-651: The Euphrates in northeastern Syria. By around 1350 BC, Mitanni was overthrown by the Hittites , who controlled all of northern Syria. In the south, the Hittites were in conflict with the Egyptians. Hamath became an important urban center. The conflict culminated in the famous Battle of Kadesh against Ancient Egypt under Ramesses II near Homs in 1285 BC. In early 19th century, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
3952-580: The Mamluks who succeeded the Ayyubids as rulers of the region. 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. He described his city as "very ancient... mentioned in
4056-627: The Mediterranean coast into Asia. A number of khans (" caravansaries "s) were built in the city, like Khan Rustum Pasha which dates from 1556. The governor of Hama was tasked in 1692 with settling Turkoman nomads in the Hama-Homs region under the aegis of the Ottoman Empire's tribal settlement program. Then in the 18th century, it became a part of the holdings of the governor of Damascus. The governors of Damascus at this time were
4160-601: 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 . 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 eyalet ("province") of Tripoli . Hama once again became an important center for trade routes running east from
4264-576: 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. As Syria became part of the Roman Empire, five hundred Hamian archers, known as " Cohors Prima Hamiorum Sagittaria ", were stationed at Magnis on Hadrian's Wall in northern Britain starting from AD 120. The same unit or another one
Hama - Misplaced Pages Continue
4368-595: The Syriac Orthodox Church . The city also contains a Palestinian refugee camp , known as Hama camp . The Greek Orthodox Church has a prelacy in Hama under the Patriarch of Antioch . 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. The first of them, whom he calls Mauritius,
4472-568: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
4576-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
4680-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
4784-780: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Zakkur Irhuleni and his son Uratami were Kings of Hamath prior to Zakkur. Irhuleni led
4888-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
4992-571: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
5096-834: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
5200-511: The Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (858–824 BC) conquered the north of Aramea , he reached Hamath (Assyrian: Amat or Hamata ) in 853 BC; this marks the beginning of Assyrian inscriptions relating to the kingdom. Irhuleni of Hamath and Hadadezer of Aram-Damascus (biblical "Bar-Hadad") led a coalition of Aramean 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
5304-511: 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. By then, there were 14 caravansaries in the city, mostly used for the storage and distribution of seeds, cotton, wool, and other commodities. After
SECTION 50
#17327658331985408-581: 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
5512-442: The Great" ( Amos 6:2 ). In 539 BC, Cyrus the Great , King of Achaemenid Empire , took Syria as part of his empire, to be known as Eber-Nari . In July 522 BC, Cambyses II died at a location called Agbatana, which is most likely the modern city of Hama. 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
5616-530: The Hama massacre. The story is suppressed and regarded as highly sensitive in Syria. The Hama massacre led to the military term "Hama Rules" meaning the complete large-scale destruction of a military objective or target. The city was the site of conflict between the Syrian military and opposition forces as one of the main arenas of the Syrian civil war during the 2011 siege of Hama . In 2018, archaeologists revealed
5720-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
5824-690: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
5928-576: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
6032-491: The Syrian Islamist 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. 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
6136-400: The administration of Jund Hims and remained so throughout the rule of Umayyads until the 9th century. Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi writes Hama became a part of Jund Qinnasrin during Abbasid rule. 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. On 29 November 903, the Abbasid Caliphate during
6240-656: The book of the Israelites . It is one of the pleasantest places in Syria." 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. 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
6344-405: The border dispute between Zakkur and Atarshumki I of Arpad . Zakkur appears to have been a native of 'Ana' (which may refer to the city of Hana/ Terqa ) on the Euphrates River , that was within the influence of Assyria. Zakkur is believed to have founded the Aramean dynasty at the city of Hamath (now known as Hama ). Some scholars consider him as an usurper , because, previously, Hamath
SECTION 60
#17327658331986448-420: The city are exclusively Christian. 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." The Christian population mostly adheres to the Greek Orthodox Church or
6552-509: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
6656-412: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of
6760-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
6864-447: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
6968-422: The former citadel once stood. The excavation took place between 1931 and 1938 under the direction of Harald Ingholt. The overlying level L dates to the Chalcolithic Halaf culture . Although the town appears to be unmentioned in cuneiform sources before the first millennium BC, the site appears to have been prosperous around 1500 BC, when it was presumably an Amorite dependency of Mitanni , an empire along
7072-403: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
7176-420: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
7280-558: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
7384-550: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
7488-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
7592-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
7696-746: 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. The 1925 Hama uprising occurred in the city during the Great Syrian Revolt against the French. 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
7800-738: The multi-ethnic Aramaean community at Elephantine and Syene (now Aswan ) in Egypt starting in 700 BCE, where alongside similarly displaced Jews they produced a large corpus of materials in Imperial Aramaic known as the Elephantine papyri and ostraca . The few Biblical reports state that Hamath was the capital of a Canaanite kingdom ( Genesis 10:18 ; 2 Kings 23:33; 25:21 ), whose king congratulated King David on his defeat of Hadadezer , king of Zobah ( 2 Samuel 8:9–11 ; 1 Chronicles 18:9–11 ). In God's instructions to Moses , Hamath
7904-782: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
8008-473: The neighboring town of Salamiyah . 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." In 1400, Timurlane took Hama, along with nearby Homs and Baalbek . The prosperous period of Mamluk rule came to an end in 1516, when
8112-464: The newly organized Assyrian provinces of Arpad , Simirra , Damascus , and Samara . Styling himself the "Destroyer of Hamath," Sargon II razed the city c. 720 BC, recolonized it with 6300 Assyrians and removed its king to be flayed alive in Assyria. He also carried off to Nimrud the ivory-adorned furnishings of its kings. Displaced persons from Hamath subsequently comprised an important part of
8216-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
8320-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
8424-707: 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 . 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
8528-547: 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. In the early 1980s, Hama had emerged as a major source of opposition to the Ba'ath government during the Sunni armed 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 . The most serious insurrection of
8632-537: The provincial capital of the Hama Governorate . With a population of 996,000 (2023 census), Hama is the fourth-largest city in Syria after Damascus , Aleppo and Homs . 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. The ancient settlement of Hamath
8736-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
8840-600: 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. Persian geographer Nasir Khusraw noted in 1047 that Hama was "well populated" and stood on the banks of the Orontes River. Tancred, Prince of Galilee , took it in 1108, but in 1114
8944-552: The reign of Al-Muktafi defeated the Qarmatians in the Battle of Hama , which eliminated them from the western Syrian Desert . 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. These were considered the "dark years" of Hama as the local rulers of northern and southern Syria struggled for dominance in
9048-533: 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. Geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi , who was born in Hama, described it in 1225 as a large town surrounded by a strongly built wall. 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
9152-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
9256-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
9360-563: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
9464-671: The time of the dedication of the first temple in Jerusalem . The area was subsequently lost to the Syrians, but Jeroboam II , king of Israel , is said to have "restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah (the Dead Sea )". Assyria's defeat of Hamath made a profound impression on Isaiah ( Isaiah 10:9 ). The prophet Amos also named the town "Hamath
9568-402: 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. Moreover, a special aqueduct brought drinking water to Hama from
9672-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
9776-590: The valley of the Upper Tigris ; he exacted tribute from Hamath's king, Eni-Ilu (Eniel). In 738 BC, Hamath is listed among the cities again conquered by Assyrian troops. Over 30,000 natives were deported to Ullaba (located in Urartu ) and replaced with captives from the Zagros Mountains . After the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel , Hamath's king Ilu-Bi'di (Jau-Bi'di) led a failed revolt of
9880-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
9984-666: Was a revival in the fortunes of Hama. The Aramaeans were allowed to return to the city, which was renamed Epiphaneia ( Ancient 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. 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
10088-646: Was later renamed to " Numerus Syrorum Saggitariorum " and located at Derventio Brigantum ( Malton ). The garrison unit was transferred to Bar Hill Fort on the Antonine Wall in Scotland in AD 142–157, then back to Magnis in AD 163–166, during the early reign of Marcus Aurelius . They might have also stationed at Housesteads , as a tombstone of an archer was located there. However, the cohort's presence in Britain
10192-474: Was occupied from the early Neolithic to the Iron Age . 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). Remains from the Chalcolithic have been uncovered by Danish archaeologists on the mount on which
10296-583: Was proven by military diplomas, found in Stannington (AD 122) and Ravenglass (AD 124), in addition to altars dedicated to Syrian Goddesses discovered at Catterick . 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 or Emathoùs ( Εμαθούς in Greek ). Roman rule from Byzantium meant the Christian religion
10400-461: Was ruled by the kings with Luwian or neo-Hittite names. Luhuti, over which Zakkur came to rule, is known primarily from Assyrian inscriptions. Nevertheless, these inscriptions describe Luhuti as a country with many cities and troops. The capital of Luhuti was the city of Hazrik (modern Tell Afis; it was known as Hatarikka for the Assyrians), located 45 kilometers south of Aleppo . This
10504-463: 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. Two main personalities from Hama were documented during Greek-Roman times. The first is Eustathius of Epiphaneia ( Ancient Greek : Εὐστάθιος Ἐπιφανεύς ), who was a Greek historian but all his works were lost. His most famous work
10608-509: Was the "Brief Chronicle" ( Ancient Greek : Χρονικὴν ἐπιτομὴν ). The second personality is Euphrates the Stoic , who was from Epiphaneia according to Stephanus of Byzantium . 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
10712-639: Was the first to discover Hittite or Luwian hieroglyphic script at Hama. The Fall of the Hittite Empire saw the Neo-Hittite/ Aramaean Hama attested as the capital of one of the prosperous Syro-Hittite states known from the Hebrew Bible as Hamath ( Aramaic : Ḥmt ; Hittite : Amatuwana ; Biblical Hebrew : חֲמָת , romanized: Ḥămāṯ ), which traded extensively, particularly with Israel and Judah. When
10816-480: 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. The infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births in the Hama Governorate was 99.4. A 2005 estimate had Hama's population at around 325,000 inhabitants. Most of the residents are Sunni Muslims (including mostly Arabs , Kurds , and Turkmen ), although some districts of
#197802