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188-599: The Southern Wall ( Hebrew : הכותל הדרומי HaKotel HaDromi ) is the retaining wall of the Temple Mount at the southern end. It was built during King Herod's expansion of the Temple Mount platform southward on to the Ophel . The Southern Wall is 922 feet (281 m) in length, and which the historian Josephus equates as being equal to the length of one furlong ( Greek : stadion ). Herod's southern extension of

376-583: A "member of the family" of Muhammad, without making explicit mention of the Abbasids. These missions met with success both among Arabs and non-Arabs ( mawali ), although the latter may have played a particularly important role in the growth of the movement. Around 746, Abu Muslim assumed leadership of the Hashimiyya in Khurasan. In 747, he successfully initiated an open revolt against Umayyad rule, which

564-685: A Hebrew form. Medieval Hebrew added 6421 words to (Modern) Hebrew. The approximate number of new lexical items in Israeli is 17,000 (cf. 14,762 in Even-Shoshan 1970 [...]). With the inclusion of foreign and technical terms [...], the total number of Israeli words, including words of biblical, rabbinic and medieval descent, is more than 60,000. In Israel, Modern Hebrew is currently taught in institutions called Ulpanim (singular: Ulpan). There are government-owned, as well as private, Ulpanim offering online courses and face-to-face programs. Modern Hebrew

752-830: A bright, white patch in the photo above, has been criticized as "unsightly", an "eyesore", and a "terrible job" because it is out of keeping with the common practices of historical restoration in being of a lighter color and smoother surface than the original stone. A number of points of interest are situated along the wall, within the Temple Mount and outside, including; From west to east: Gates 1. Jaffa 2. Zion 3. Dung 4. Golden 5. Lions 6. Herod 7. Damascus 8. New ( Double, Single, Tanners ' ) Al-Mawazin Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית ‎, ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ‎ ʿÎbrit )

940-595: A century ago, was fluent enough in this idiom to be able to follow the Mishna Berurah without any trouble." Hebrew has been revived several times as a literary language, most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th-century Germany. In the early 19th century, a form of spoken Hebrew had emerged in the markets of Jerusalem between Jews of different linguistic backgrounds to communicate for commercial purposes. This Hebrew dialect

1128-828: A claim unrecognized outside of al-Andalus, he maintained that the Umayyad Caliphate, the true, authentic caliphate, more legitimate than the Abbasids, was continued through him in Córdoba . It was to survive for centuries. Some Umayyads also survived in Syria, and their descendants would once more attempt to restore their old regime during the Fourth Fitna . Two Umayyads, Abu al-Umaytir al-Sufyani and Maslama ibn Ya'qub, successively seized control of Damascus from 811 to 813, and declared themselves caliphs. However, their rebellions were suppressed. Previté-Orton argues that

1316-581: A collapse in revenue, the converts' lands would become the property of their villages and remain liable for the full rate of the kharaj . In tandem, Umar intensified the Islamization drive of his Marwanid predecessors, enacting measures to distinguish Muslims from non-Muslims and inaugurating Islamic iconoclasm . His position among the Umayyad caliphs is unusual, in that he became the only one to have been recognized in subsequent Islamic tradition as

1504-661: A corollary Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. Moshe Zvi Segal , Joseph Klausner and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions to this view. During the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has disproven that view. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in 1946–1948 near Qumran revealed ancient Jewish texts overwhelmingly in Hebrew, not Aramaic. The Qumran scrolls indicate that Hebrew texts were readily understandable to

1692-579: A distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic. ) Another important influence was Maimonides , who developed a simple style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh Torah . Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and

1880-538: A genuine caliph ( khalifa ) and not merely as a worldly king ( malik ). After the death of Umar II, another son of Abd al-Malik, Yazid II ( r.  720–724 ) became caliph. Not long after his accession, another mass revolt against Umayyad rule was staged in Iraq, this time by the prominent statesman Yazid ibn al-Muhallab . The latter declared a holy war against the Umayyads, took control of Basra and Wasit and gained

2068-594: A gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904–1914 Second Aliyah that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with

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2256-495: A kneeling spear wall formation in battle, probably as a result of their encounters with Roman armies. This was radically different from the original Bedouin style of mobile and individualistic fighting. The Byzantine and Sassanid Empires relied on money economies before the Muslim conquest and that system remained in effect during the Umayyad period. Byzantine coinage was used until 658; Byzantine gold coins were still in use until

2444-698: A largely impenetrable region for earlier Muslim armies, between 705 and 715. Despite the distance from the Arab garrison towns of Khurasan, the unfavorable terrain and climate and his enemies' numerical superiority, Qutayba, through his persistent raids, gained the surrender of Bukhara in 706–709, Khwarazm and Samarkand in 711–712 and Farghana in 713. He established Arab garrisons and tax administrations in Samarkand and Bukhara and demolished their Zoroastrian fire temples . Both cities developed as future centers of Islamic and Arabic learning. Umayyad suzerainty

2632-468: A literary language down through the Byzantine period from the 4th century CE. The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history, origins and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion; Aramaic functioned as the international language with

2820-536: A literary language, especially in Spain, as the language of commerce between Jews of different native languages, and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew , until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. In May 2023, Scott Stripling published the finding of what he claims to be the oldest known Hebrew inscription, a curse tablet found at Mount Ebal , dated from around 3200 years ago. The presence of

3008-466: A majority of the caliphate's population, and Jews were allowed to practice their own religion but had to pay the jizya ( poll tax ) from which Muslims were exempt. Muslims were required to pay the zakat , which was earmarked or hypothecated explicitly for various alms programmes for the benefit of Muslims or Muslim converts. Under the early Umayyad caliphs, prominent positions were held by Christians, some of whom belonged to families that had served

3196-583: A mere 7 to 10 inches high, and each step is 12 to 35 inches deep, forcing the ascending pilgrims to walk with a stately, deliberate tread. The pilgrims entered the temple precincts through the double and triple gates still visible in the Southern Wall. Together, the double and triple gates are known as the Huldah Gates , after the prophetess Huldah . The present iteration of the Triple Gates

3384-727: A monument of victory over the Christians that would distinguish Islam's uniqueness within the common Abrahamic setting of Jerusalem, home of the two older Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Christianity. An alternative motive may have been to divert the religious focus of Muslims in the Umayyad realm from the Ka'aba in Zubayrid Mecca (683–692), where the Umayyads were routinely condemned during the Hajj. In Damascus, Abd al-Malik's son and successor al-Walid I ( r.  705–715 ) confiscated

3572-723: A more serious threat had arisen in Khorasan . The Hashimiyya movement (a sub-sect of the Kaysanites Shia ), led by the Abbasid family, overthrew the Umayyad caliphate. The Abbasids were members of the Hashim clan, rivals of the Umayyads, but the word "Hashimiyya" seems to refer specifically to Abu Hashim, a grandson of Ali and son of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya. According to certain traditions, Abu Hashim died in 717 in Humeima in

3760-414: A naval campaign against the city. The Byzantines destroyed the Umayyad fleets and defeated Maslama's army, prompting his withdrawal to Syria in 718. The massive losses incurred during the campaign led to a partial retrenchment of Umayyad forces from the captured Byzantine frontier districts, but already in 720, Umayyad raids against Byzantium recommenced. Nevertheless, the goal of conquering Constantinople

3948-487: A revolt against Umayyad rule from Iraq. An army mobilized by Iraq's governor Ibn Ziyad intercepted and killed Husayn outside Kufa at the Battle of Karbala . Although it stymied active opposition to Yazid in Iraq, the killing of Muhammad's grandson left many Muslims outraged and significantly increased Kufan hostility toward the Umayyads and sympathy for the family of Ali. The next major challenge to Yazid's rule emanated from

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4136-546: A series of raids on coastal areas of the Visigothic Kingdom paved the way to the permanent occupation of most of Iberia by the Umayyads (starting in 711), and on into south-eastern Gaul (last stronghold at Narbonne in 759). Hisham's reign witnessed the end of expansion in the west, following the defeat of the Arab army by the Franks at the Battle of Tours in 732. Arab expansion had already been limited following

4324-548: A set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceased as a regularly spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba revolt around 135 CE. In

4512-668: A spoken language, it continued to be used as a lingua franca among scholars and Jews traveling in foreign countries. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt , they adapted to the societies in which they found themselves, yet letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry and laws continued to be written mostly in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms. After

4700-567: A stalemate at the Battle of Siffin in early 657. Ali agreed to settle the matter with Mu'awiya by arbitration, though the talks failed to achieve a resolution. The decision to arbitrate fundamentally weakened Ali's political position as he was forced to negotiate with Mu'awiya on equal terms, while it drove a significant number of Ali's supporters, who became known as the Kharijites , to revolt. Ali's coalition steadily disintegrated and many Iraqi tribal nobles secretly defected to Mu'awiya, while

4888-504: A summit of pro-Umayyad Syrian tribes, namely the Quda'a and their Kindite allies, organized by Ibn Bahdal in the old Ghassanid capital of Jabiya , Marwan was elected caliph in exchange for economic privileges to the loyalist tribes. At the subsequent Battle of Marj Rahit in August 684, Marwan led his tribal allies to a decisive victory against a much larger Qaysite army led by al-Dahhak, who

5076-438: A token portion of the provincial tax revenues to Damascus, the caliph let his governors rule with practical independence. After al-Mughira's death in 670, Mu'awiya attached Kufa and its dependencies to the governorship of Basra, making Ziyad the practical viceroy over the eastern half of the caliphate. Afterward, Ziyad launched a concerted campaign to firmly establish Arab rule in the vast Khurasan region east of Iran and restart

5264-472: A truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology , was to take its place among the current languages of the nations. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (because Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of

5452-558: A vernacular in Judea until it was displaced by Aramaic, probably in the 3rd century CE. Certain Sadducee , Pharisee , Scribe , Hermit, Zealot and Priest classes maintained an insistence on Hebrew, and all Jews maintained their identity with Hebrew songs and simple quotations from Hebrew texts. While there is no doubt that at a certain point, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most Jews, and that its chief successor in

5640-606: A westerly-easterly direction along the full length of the Southern Wall, but which now lead up into the old section of the Al-Aqsa Mosque . The domed ceilings of the great staircases are carved with elaborate floral and geometric designs. Unlike the austere exterior gate, the interior of the gateway is elaborately decorated with ornately carved columns and ornamented domes. Two pairs of domes and their elaborate, surrounding columns survive intact. Intricately carved vines, rosettes, flowers and geometric patterns cover "every inch" of

5828-518: Is 8198, of which some 2000 are hapax legomena (the number of Biblical Hebrew roots, on which many of these words are based, is 2099). The number of attested Rabbinic Hebrew words is less than 20,000, of which (i) 7879 are Rabbinic par excellence, i.e. they did not appear in the Old Testament (the number of new Rabbinic Hebrew roots is 805); (ii) around 6000 are a subset of Biblical Hebrew; and (iii) several thousand are Aramaic words which can have

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6016-644: Is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family . A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages , it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until after 200 CE and as the liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period ) and Samaritanism . The language was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century, and

6204-599: Is a piece of stone from the base of the statue of Antoninus Pius, which stood in the Temple of Jupiter , built by the Romans in Aelia Capitolina on the Temple Mount platform. The Bordeaux Pilgrim in 333 mentions two statues of the emperor Hadrian . Researchers believe that the second of these statues was dedicated to Hadrian's successor, Antoninus Pius, during whom the construction of Aelia Capitolina continued. In

6392-567: Is fighting to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services. In 2012, a Knesset bill for the preservation of the Hebrew language was proposed, which includes the stipulation that all signage in Israel must first and foremost be in Hebrew, as with all speeches by Israeli officials abroad. The bill's author, MK Akram Hasson , stated that the bill was proposed as a response to Hebrew "losing its prestige" and children incorporating more English words into their vocabulary. Hebrew

6580-439: Is not Herodian. Each of the three gates measures at its width c. 4.03 metres (13.2 ft). The only Herodian element visible from the outside is the doorjamb on the bottom of the left-hand arch. The Double Gate is substantially concealed by a Crusader-era addition to the Temple Mount. Only half of the right-hand arch of the double gate is visible today from the outside, measuring at its exposed width 3.09 metres (10.1 ft). Over

6768-666: Is one of several languages for which the constitution of South Africa calls to be respected in their use for religious purposes. Also, Hebrew is an official national minority language in Poland , since 6 January 2005. Hamas has made Hebrew a compulsory language taught in schools in the Gaza Strip. Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire ( UK : / uː ˈ m aɪ j æ d / , US : / uː ˈ m aɪ æ d / ; Arabic : ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة , romanized :  al-Khilāfa al-Umawiyya )

6956-573: Is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival . It is the only Canaanite language, as well as one of only two Northwest Semitic languages, with the other being Aramaic , still spoken today. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew , with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around

7144-457: Is the primary official language of the State of Israel. As of 2013 , there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide, of whom 7 million speak it fluently. Currently, 90% of Israeli Jews are proficient in Hebrew, and 70% are highly proficient. Some 60% of Israeli Arabs are also proficient in Hebrew, and 30% report having a higher proficiency in Hebrew than in Arabic. In total, about 53% of

7332-661: Is understood to have repaired damage to the Huldah Gates and Pilgrim stairs caused by the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, in order to use them for access to the newly built Dome of the Rock . Near the Double Gate is a reused marble slab with an inscription, that came from a statue of the emperor Antoninus Pius (138–161 AD). The Latin inscription (placed upside-down, and with the usual abbreviations) reads: This

7520-547: Is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however, properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed. Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting

7708-650: The Chayei Adam in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish , as a guide to Halacha for the " average 17-year-old" (Ibid. Introduction 1). Similarly, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan 's purpose in writing the Mishnah Berurah was to "produce a work that could be studied daily so that Jews might know the proper procedures to follow minute by minute". The work was nevertheless written in Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic, since, "the ordinary Jew [of Eastern Europe] of

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7896-520: The kharaj (land tax). Since avoidance of taxation incentivized both mass conversions to Islam and abandonment of land for migration to the garrison cities, it put a strain on tax revenues, especially in Egypt, Iraq and Khurasan. Thus, "the Umayyad rulers had a vested interest in preventing the conquered peoples from accepting Islam or forcing them to continue paying those taxes from which they claimed exemption as Muslims", according to Hawting. To prevent

8084-727: The Ancient Greek Ἑβραῖος ( hebraîos ) and Aramaic 'ibrāy , all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew Ivri ( עברי ), one of several names for the Israelite ( Jewish and Samaritan ) people ( Hebrews ). It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham 's ancestor, Eber , mentioned in Genesis 10:21 . The name is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ‎), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of

8272-558: The Battle of Dayr al-Jamajim in April. The suppression of the revolt marked the end of the Iraqi muqātila as a military force and the beginning of Syrian military domination of Iraq. Iraqi internal divisions, and the utilization of more disciplined Syrian forces by Abd al-Malik and al-Hajjaj, voided the Iraqis' attempt to reassert power in the province. To consolidate Umayyad rule after

8460-469: The Battle of Toulouse in 721. In 739 a major Berber Revolt broke out in North Africa, which was probably the largest military setback in the reign of Caliph Hisham. From it emerged some of the first Muslim states outside the caliphate. It is also regarded as the beginning of Moroccan independence, as Morocco would never again come under the rule of an eastern caliph or any other foreign power until

8648-524: The Byzantines . The employment of Christians was part of a broader policy of religious accommodation that was necessitated by the presence of large Christian populations in the conquered provinces, as in Syria. This policy also boosted Mu'awiya's popularity and solidified Syria as his power base. The Umayyad era is often considered the formative period in Islamic art . During the pre-Islamic period ,

8836-547: The Canaanite group of languages . Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. Hebrew was the spoken language in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. Epigraphic evidence from this period confirms the widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore,

9024-572: The Gospel of Matthew . (See the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis or Language of Jesus for more details on Hebrew and Aramaic in the gospels.) The term "Mishnaic Hebrew" generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud , excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which

9212-495: The Latin alphabet of ancient Rome . The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels , and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places in which later Hebrew spelling requires them. Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example, Proto-Sinaitic . It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs , though

9400-682: The Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE) and the emergence of the Hasmonean kingdom , the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). The nationalist significance of Hebrew manifested in various ways throughout this period. Michael Owen Wise notes that "Beginning with the time of the Hasmonean revolt [...] Hebrew came to the fore in an expression akin to modern nationalism. A form of classical Hebrew

9588-456: The Maghreb (western North Africa), conquering Tangier and Sus in 708/09. Musa's Berber mawla , Tariq ibn Ziyad , invaded the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) in 711 and within five years most of Hispania was conquered . Al-Hajjaj managed the eastern expansion from Iraq. His lieutenant governor of Khurasan , Qutayba ibn Muslim , launched numerous campaigns against Transoxiana (Central Asia), which had been

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9776-422: The Qadariyya . In 744, Yazid III , a son of al-Walid I, was proclaimed caliph in Damascus, and his army tracked down and killed al-Walid II. Yazid III has received a certain reputation for piety and may have been sympathetic to the Qadariyya. He died a mere six months into his reign. Yazid had appointed his brother, Ibrahim , as his successor, but Marwan II (744–50), the grandson of Marwan I, led an army from

9964-422: The Second Aliyah , it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. Those languages were Jewish dialects of local languages, including Judaeo-Spanish (also called "Judezmo" and "Ladino"), Yiddish , Judeo-Arabic and Bukhori (Tajiki), or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian , Persian and Arabic . The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along

10152-407: The Temple Mount via the Double Gate and the Triple Gate . These are the steps that Jesus of Nazareth and other Jews of his era walked up to approach the Temple, especially on the great pilgrimage festivals of Passover , Shavuot and Sukkot . The stairs that lead to the double gate are intact and "well-preserved." The steps that lead to the triple gate were mostly destroyed. The risers are low,

10340-430: The Umayyads or Banu Umayya were a leading clan of the Quraysh tribe of Mecca . By the end of the 6th century, the Umayyads dominated the Quraysh's increasingly prosperous trade networks with Syria and developed economic and military alliances with the nomadic Arab tribes that controlled the northern and central Arabian desert expanses, affording the clan a degree of political power in the region. The Umayyads under

10528-409: The bossage is raised about 3/8" above the surrounding margins. The unmortared blocks are so finely fitted together that a knife blade cannot be inserted between the ashlars. An enormous flight of steps leads to the Southern Wall from the south. They were excavated after 1967 by archaeologist Benjamin Mazar and are the northernmost extension of the pilgrims road leading from the Pool of Siloam to

10716-425: The early Muslim conquests during the reign of Caliph Umar. Al-Walid I's successor, his brother Sulayman ( r.  715–717 ), continued his predecessors' militarist policies, but expansion mostly ground to a halt during his reign. The deaths of al-Hajjaj in 714 and Qutayba in 715 left the Arab armies in Transoxiana in disarray. For the next twenty-five years, no further eastward conquests were undertaken and

10904-444: The largest empires in history in terms of area. The dynasty was toppled by the Abbasids in 750. Survivors of the dynasty established themselves in Córdoba which, in the form of an emirate and then a caliphate , became a world centre of science, medicine, philosophy and invention during the Islamic Golden Age . The Umayyad Caliphate ruled over a vast multiethnic and multicultural population. Christians, who still constituted

11092-399: The literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language . However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like Ahad Ha'am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into

11280-507: The official language of the State of Israel . Estimates of worldwide usage include five million speakers in 1998, and over nine million people in 2013. After Israel, the United States has the largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers (see Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans ). Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while pre-revival forms of Hebrew are used for prayer or study in Jewish and Samaritan communities around

11468-484: The ostraca found near Lachish , which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew refers to the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between c.  1000 BCE and c.  400 CE . It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them. Sometimes

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11656-510: The "impressive" entry to the ancient Temple. In a post-1967 dig led by archaeologists Benjamin Mazar and Meir Ben-Dov , it was discovered that the Hulda gates led into a grand staircase and served as the principal entrance to the temple in the Roman period. During the post-1967 digs, an elaborate group of Umayyad administration buildings and palaces were uncovered just outside the Southern Wall. They have been carefully preserved and are now part of an archaeological park. The Umayyad Caliphate

11844-441: The 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic period , the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon . Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew , the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that, through the Greeks and Etruscans , later became

12032-454: The 1980s in the USSR , Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel ( refuseniks ). Several of the teachers were imprisoned, e.g. Yosef Begun , Ephraim Kholmyansky , Yevgeny Korostyshevsky and others responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of the USSR. Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However,

12220-535: The 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Ben-Yehuda) and older Aramaic and Latin. Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially English, Russian, German, and French. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of

12408-426: The 20th century. It was followed by the collapse of Umayyad authority in al-Andalus. In India , the Umayyad armies were defeated by the south Indian Chalukya dynasty and by the north Indian Pratiharas , stagnating further eastward Arab expansion. In the Caucasus , the confrontation with the Khazars peaked under Hisham: the Arabs established Derbent as a major military base and launched several invasions of

12596-495: The 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity . For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש , lit.   ' the holy tongue ' or ' the tongue [of] holiness ' ) since ancient times. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible , but as Yehudit ( transl.  ' Judean ' ) or Səpaṯ Kəna'an ( transl.  "the language of Canaan " ). Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to

12784-429: The Ansar and the Iraqis, while the bulk of the Quraysh was wary of his rule. The first challenge to his authority came from the Qurayshite leaders al-Zubayr and Talha, who had opposed Uthman's empowerment of the Umayyad clan but feared that their own influence and the power of the Quraysh, in general, would dissipate under Ali. Backed by one of Muhammad's wives, A'isha , they attempted to rally support against Ali among

12972-419: The Arab immigrants and troops who arrived during the conquest of Iraq in the 630s–640s , resented the transition of power to Syria. They remained divided, nonetheless, as both cities competed for power and influence in Iraq and its eastern dependencies and remained divided between the Arab tribal nobility and the early Muslim converts, the latter of whom were divided between the pro- Alids (loyalists of Ali) and

13160-463: The Arab tribes who originally served in the army of the Eastern Roman Empire in Syria. These were supported by tribes in the Syrian desert and in the frontier with the Byzantines, as well as Christian Syrian tribes. Soldiers were registered with the Army Ministry, the Diwan Al-Jaysh, and were salaried. The army was divided into junds based on regional fortified cities. The Umayyad Syrian forces specialised in close order infantry warfare, and favoured using

13348-420: The Arabs lost territory. The Tang Chinese defeated the Arabs at the Battle of Aksu in 717, forcing their withdrawal to Tashkent . Meanwhile, in 716, the governor of Khurasan, Yazid ibn al-Muhallab , attempted to conquer the principalities of Jurjan and Tabaristan along the southern Caspian coast. His Khurasani and Iraqi troops were reinforced by Syrians, marking their first deployment to Khurasan, but

13536-561: The Arabs' initial successes were reversed by the local Iranian coalition of Farrukhan the Great . Afterward, the Arabs withdrew in return for a tributary agreement. On the Byzantine front, Sulayman took up his predecessor's project to capture Constantinople with increased vigor. His brother Maslama besieged the Byzantine capital from the land, while Umar ibn Hubayra al-Fazari launched

13724-406: The Arabs' severe losses in the offensive against Constantinople, Umar drew down Arab forces on the caliphate's war fronts, though Narbonne in modern France was conquered during his reign. To maintain stronger oversight in the provinces, Umar dismissed all his predecessors' governors, his new appointees being generally competent men he could control. To that end, the massive viceroyalty of Iraq and

13912-766: The Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud. Hebrew persevered through the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses—not only liturgy, but also poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts. There have been many deviations from this generalization such as Bar Kokhba 's letters to his lieutenants, which were mostly in Aramaic, and Maimonides' writings, which were mostly in Arabic; but overall, Hebrew did not cease to be used for such purposes. For example,

14100-711: The Berbers of Ifriqiya, where the Umayyad governor was assassinated by his discontented Berber guards. Warfare on the frontiers was also resumed, with renewed annual raids against the Byzantines and the Khazars in Transcaucasia . The final son of Abd al-Malik to become caliph was Hisham ( r.  724–743 ), whose long and eventful reign was above all marked by the curtailment of military expansion. Hisham established his court at Resafa in northern Syria, which

14288-687: The British Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. After the establishment of Israel, it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language . The results of Ben-Yehuda's lexicographical work were published in a dictionary ( The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew , Ben-Yehuda Dictionary ). The seeds of Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by

14476-605: The Byzantine Empire and raids into Syria by the Byzantines' Mardaite allies compelled him to sign a peace treaty with Byzantium in 689 which substantially increased the Umayyads' annual tribute to the Empire. During his siege of Circesium in 691, Abd al-Malik reconciled with Zufar and the Qays by offering them privileged positions in the Umayyad court and army, signaling a new policy by the caliph and his successors to balance

14664-481: The Egyptian dīwān in 705/06. Arabic ultimately became the sole official language of the Umayyad state, but the transition in faraway provinces, such as Khurasan, did not occur until the 740s. Although the official language was changed, Greek and Persian-speaking bureaucrats who were versed in Arabic kept their posts. According to Gibb, the decrees were the "first step towards the reorganization and unification of

14852-474: The Great conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jewish people to return from captivity. In time, a local version of Aramaic came to be spoken in Israel alongside Hebrew. By the beginning of the Common Era , Aramaic was the primary colloquial language of Samarian , Babylonian and Galileean Jews, and western and intellectual Jews spoke Greek , but a form of so-called Rabbinic Hebrew continued to be used as

15040-432: The Hebrew name of god , Yahweh, as three letters, Yod-Heh-Vav (YHV), according to the author and his team meant that the tablet is Hebrew and not Canaanite. However, practically all professional archeologists and epigraphers apart from Stripling's team claim that there is no text on this object. In July 2008, Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa that he claimed may be

15228-602: The Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The Syriac alphabet , precursor to the Arabic alphabet , also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo Codex , a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century, likely in Tiberias, and survives into

15416-683: The Hejaz where Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr , the son of al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and grandson of Abu Bakr, advocated for a shura among the Quraysh to elect the caliph and rallied opposition to the Umayyads from his headquarters in Islam's holiest sanctuary, the Ka'aba in Mecca. The Ansar and Quraysh of Medina also took up the anti-Umayyad cause and in 683 expelled the Umayyads from the city. Yazid's Syrian troops routed

15604-595: The Herodian Double Gate survive, although the waqf rarely permits visitors to see it. Pilgrims, upon entering the Double Gate (70 metres (230 ft) westward of the Triple Gates), were not immediately greeted by a wide-open courtyard. Rather, they continued to ascend a flight of stairs in a dome-shaped passageway carved into the rock which led up to the royal cloisters described by Josephus ( Antiquities 15.11.5. [15.410]), cloisters which ran in

15792-454: The Israeli population speaks Hebrew as a native language, while most of the rest speak it fluently. In 2013 Hebrew was the native language of 49% of Israelis over the age of 20, with Russian , Arabic , French , English , Yiddish and Ladino being the native tongues of most of the rest. Some 26% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 12% of Arabs reported speaking Hebrew poorly or not at all. Steps have been taken to keep Hebrew

15980-699: The Kharijites, who followed their own strict interpretation of Islam. The caliph applied a decentralized approach to governing Iraq by forging alliances with its tribal nobility, such as the Kufan leader al-Ash'ath ibn Qays , and entrusting the administration of Kufa and Basra to highly experienced members of the Thaqif tribe, al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba and the latter's protege Ziyad ibn Abihi (whom Mu'awiya adopted as his half-brother), respectively. In return for recognizing his suzerainty, maintaining order, and forwarding

16168-524: The Khorasani Arabs rose sharply after the losses suffered in the Battle of the Defile in 731. In 734, al-Harith ibn Surayj led a revolt that received broad backing from Arabs and natives alike, capturing Balkh but failing to take Merv . After this defeat, al-Harith's movement seems to have been dissolved. The problem of the rights of non-Arab Muslims would continue to plague the Umayyads. Hisham

16356-490: The Medinans at the Battle of al-Harra and subsequently plundered Medina before besieging Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca . The Syrians withdrew upon news of Yazid's death in 683, after which Ibn al-Zubayr declared himself caliph and soon after gained recognition in most provinces of the caliphate, including Iraq and Egypt. In Syria Ibn Bahdal secured the succession of Yazid's son and appointed successor Mu'awiya II , whose authority

16544-477: The Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek , scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic period in the 4th century BCE, and that as

16732-453: The Muslim conquests in the surrounding areas. Not long after Ziyad's death, he was succeeded by his son Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad . Meanwhile, Amr ibn al-As ruled Egypt from the provincial capital of Fustat as a virtual partner of Mu'awiya until his death in 663, after which loyalist governors were appointed and the province became a practical appendage of Syria. Under Mu'awiya's direction, the Muslim conquest of Ifriqiya (central North Africa)

16920-720: The Second Fitna, the Marwanids launched a series of centralization, Islamization and Arabization measures. To prevent further rebellions in Iraq, al-Hajjaj founded a permanent Syrian garrison in Wasit , situated between Kufa and Basra, and instituted a more rigorous administration in the province. Power thereafter derived from the Syrian troops, who became Iraq's ruling class, while Iraq's Arab nobility, religious scholars and mawālī became their virtual subjects. The surplus from

17108-621: The Talmud, the Gemara , generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in two forms of Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which occasionally appears in the text of the Gemara, particularly in the Jerusalem Talmud and the classical aggadah midrashes . Hebrew was always regarded as the language of Israel's religion, history and national pride, and after it faded as

17296-460: The Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it

17484-454: The Temple Mount is clearly visible from the east, standing on the Mount of Olives or to a visitor standing on top of the Temple mount as a slight change in the plane of the eastern wall, the so-called "Straight Joint." Herod's Royal Stoa stood atop this southern extension. The retaining wall is built of enormous blocks of Jerusalem stone , the face of each ashlar (block) is edged with a margin,

17672-453: The Umayyad Caliphate reached its greatest territorial extent. The war with the Byzantines had resumed under his father after the civil war, with the Umayyads defeating the Byzantines at the Battle of Sebastopolis in 692. The Umayyads frequently raided Byzantine Anatolia and Armenia in the following years. By 705, Armenia was annexed by the caliphate along with the principalities of Caucasian Albania and Iberia , which collectively became

17860-512: The Umayyads by awarding them command roles in the Muslim conquest of Syria . One of the appointees was Yazid , the son of Abu Sufyan, who owned property and maintained trade networks in Syria. Abu Bakr's successor Umar ( r.  634–644 ) curtailed the influence of the Qurayshite elite in favor of Muhammad's earlier supporters in the administration and military, but nonetheless allowed

18048-516: The Umayyads to pay the Empire an annual tribute of gold, horses and slaves. Mu'awiya's main challenge was reestablishing the unity of the Muslim community and asserting his authority and that of the caliphate in the provinces amid the political and social disintegration of the First Fitna. There remained significant opposition to his assumption of the caliphate and to a strong central government. The garrison towns of Kufa and Basra, populated by

18236-488: The ability to speak the language and attempted to promote its use. According to the Jerusalem Talmud , Megillah 1:9: "Rebbi Jonathan from Bet Guvrrin said, four languages are appropriate that the world should use them, and they are these: The Foreign Language (Greek) for song, Latin for war, Syriac for elegies, Hebrew for speech. Some are saying, also Assyrian (Hebrew script) for writing." The later section of

18424-478: The above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls). However, today most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as

18612-526: The agriculturally rich Sawad lands was redirected from the muqātila to the caliphal treasury in Damascus to pay the Syrian troops in Iraq. The system of military pay established by Umar, which paid stipends to veterans of the earlier Muslim conquests and their descendants, was ended, salaries being restricted to those in active service. The old system was considered a handicap on Abd al-Malik's executive authority and financial ability to reward loyalists in

18800-458: The allegiance of the Iraqis. The recognition of Mu'awiya in Kufa, referred to as the "year of unification of the community" in the Muslim traditional sources, is generally considered the start of his caliphate. With his accession, the political capital and the caliphal treasury were transferred to Damascus , the seat of Mu'awiya's power. Syria's emergence as the metropolis of the Umayyad Caliphate

18988-426: The army. Thus, a professional army was established during Abd al-Malik's reign whose salaries derived from tax proceeds. In 693, the Byzantine gold solidus was replaced in Syria and Egypt with the dinar . Initially, the new coinage contained depictions of the caliph as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community and its supreme military commander. This image proved no less acceptable to Muslim officialdom and

19176-506: The average Jew, and that the language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do. Recent scholarship recognizes that reports of Jews speaking in Aramaic indicate a multilingual society, not necessarily the primary language spoken. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew co-existed within Israel as a spoken language. Most scholars now date the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman period , or about 200 CE. It continued on as

19364-547: The beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. At the time, members of the Old Yishuv and a very few Hasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar , refused to speak Hebrew and spoke only Yiddish. In the Soviet Union, the use of Hebrew, along with other Jewish cultural and religious activities,

19552-540: The cathedral of St. John the Baptist and founded the Great Mosque in its place as a "symbol of the political supremacy and moral prestige of Islam", according to historian Nikita Elisséeff. Noting al-Walid's awareness of architecture's propaganda value, historian Robert Hillenbrand calls the Damascus mosque a "victory monument" intended as a "visible statement of Muslim supremacy and permanence". Under al-Walid I

19740-602: The composition of 1 Maccabees in archaizing Hebrew, Hasmonean coinage under John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE), and coins from both the Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba Revolt featuring exclusively Hebrew and Palaeo-Hebrew script inscriptions. This deliberate use of Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew script in official contexts, despite limited literacy, served as a symbol of Jewish nationalism and political independence. The Christian New Testament contains some Semitic place names and quotes. The language of such Semitic glosses (and in general

19928-468: The content of Hebrew inscriptions suggests that the written texts closely mirror the spoken language of that time. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as

20116-826: The death of Mu'awiya II. Al-Dahhak in Damascus, the Qays tribes in Qinnasrin (northern Syria) and the Jazira, the Judham in Palestine, and the Ansar and South Arabians of Homs all opted to recognize Ibn al-Zubayr. Marwan ibn al-Hakam, the leader of the Umayyads expelled to Syria from Medina, was prepared to submit to Ibn al-Zubayr as well but was persuaded to forward his candidacy for the caliphate by Ibn Ziyad. The latter had been driven out of Iraq and strove to uphold Umayyad rule. During

20304-568: The dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel. A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim ( Sifra , Sifre , Mekhilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta . The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere;

20492-515: The diverse tax-systems in the provinces, and also a step towards a more definitely Muslim administration". Indeed, it formed an important part of the Islamization measures that lent the Umayyad Caliphate "a more ideological and programmatic coloring it had previously lacked", according to Blankinship. In 691/92, Abd al-Malik completed the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It was possibly intended as

20680-423: The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating from around 3,000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was "proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that "[t]he differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear", and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. The Gezer calendar also dates back to

20868-513: The earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native language and often introduced calques from Yiddish and phono-semantic matchings of international words. Despite using Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation as its primary basis, modern Israeli Hebrew has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in some respects, mainly the following: The vocabulary of Israeli Hebrew is much larger than that of earlier periods. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann : The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words

21056-540: The early 21st century, a new bulge was noticed in the Southern Wall, threatening the structural integrity of the masonry. Unauthorized underground construction of the el-Marwani Mosque was cited as the cause. In a compromise between Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the Muslim Waqf that manages the property, it was decided that Jordan would manage the repairs. The Jordanian repair, visible as

21244-584: The early 6th century BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah , destroying much of Jerusalem and exiling its population far to the east in Babylon . During the Babylonian captivity , many Israelites learned Aramaic, the closely related Semitic language of their captors. Thus, for a significant period, the Jewish elite became influenced by Aramaic. After Cyrus

21432-491: The east was broken up. Umar's most significant policy entailed fiscal reforms to equalize the status of the Arabs and mawali , thus remedying a long-standing issue which threatened the Muslim community. The jizya (poll tax) on the mawali was eliminated. Hitherto, the jizya, which was traditionally reserved for the non-Muslim majorities of the caliphate, continued to be imposed on non-Arab converts to Islam, while all Muslims who cultivated conquered lands were liable to pay

21620-707: The east, where his armies attempted to subdue both Tokharistan , with its centre at Balkh , and Transoxiana , with its centre at Samarkand . Both areas had already been partially conquered but remained difficult to govern. Once again, a particular difficulty concerned the question of the conversion of non-Arabs, especially the Sogdians of Transoxiana. Following the Umayyad defeat in the " Day of Thirst " in 724, Ashras ibn 'Abd Allah al-Sulami, governor of Khurasan , promised tax relief to those Sogdians who converted to Islam but went back on his offer when it proved too popular and threatened to reduce tax revenues. Discontent among

21808-461: The end of the Second Fitna and the reunification of the caliphate under Abd al-Malik's rule. Iraq remained politically unstable and the garrisons of Kufa and Basra had become exhausted by warfare with Kharijite rebels. In 694 Abd al-Malik combined both cities as a single province under the governorship of al-Hajjaj, who oversaw the suppression of the Kharijite revolts in Iraq and Iran by 698 and

21996-563: The family, their burgeoning alliance with the powerful Banu Kalb tribe as a counterbalance to the influential Himyarite settlers in Homs who viewed themselves as equals to the Quraysh in nobility, or the lack of a suitable candidate at the time, particularly amid the plague of Amwas which had already killed Abu Ubayda and Yazid. Under Mu'awiya's stewardship, Syria remained domestically peaceful, organized and well-defended from its former Byzantine rulers. Umar's successor, Uthman ibn Affan ,

22184-408: The feud between Syria and Iraq further weakened the empire. The first four caliphs created a stable administration for the empire, following the practices and administrative institutions of the Byzantine Empire which had ruled the same region previously. These consisted of four main governmental branches: political affairs, military affairs, tax collection, and religious administration. Each of these

22372-711: The first Middle East printing press, in Safed (modern Israel), produced a small number of books in Hebrew in 1577, which were then sold to the nearby Jewish world. This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could converse in Latin. For example, Rabbi Avraham Danzig wrote

22560-410: The former Byzantine territories of Syria and Egypt. In Medina, he relied extensively on the counsel of his Umayyad cousins, the brothers al-Harith and Marwan ibn al-Hakam . According to the historian Wilferd Madelung , this policy stemmed from Uthman's "conviction that the house of Umayya, as the core clan of Quraysh, was uniquely qualified to rule in the name of Islam". Uthman's nepotism provoked

22748-399: The former Qurayshite elite and take control of the Muslim state. The Muhajirun gave allegiance to one of their own, the early, elderly companion of Muhammad , Abu Bakr ( r.  632–634 ), and put an end to Ansarite deliberations. Abu Bakr was viewed as acceptable by the Ansar and the Qurayshite elite and was acknowledged as caliph (leader of the Muslim community). He showed favor to

22936-406: The generic term for these passages is Baraitot . The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew. About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. By the third century CE, sages could no longer identify the Hebrew names of many plants mentioned in the Mishnah. Only a few sages, primarily in the southern regions, retained

23124-432: The growing foothold of Abu Sufyan's sons in Syria, which was all but conquered by 638. When Umar's overall commander of the province Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah died in 639, he appointed Yazid governor of Syria's Damascus , Palestine and Jordan districts. Yazid died shortly after and Umar appointed his brother Mu'awiya in his place. Umar's exceptional treatment of Abu Sufyan's sons may have stemmed from his respect for

23312-466: The hands of the Quraysh, as opposed to Ali's determination to diffuse power among all of the Muslim factions. From early in his reign, Uthman displayed explicit favouritism to his kinsmen, in stark contrast to his predecessors. He appointed his family members as governors over the regions successively conquered under Umar and himself, namely much of the Sasanian Empire , i.e. Iraq and Iran, and

23500-511: The historian Hugh N. Kennedy , Uthman was killed because of his determination to centralize control over the caliphate 's government by the traditional elite of the Quraysh, particularly his Umayyad clan, which he believed possessed the "experience and ability" to govern, at the expense of the interests, rights and privileges of many early Muslims. After Uthman's assassination, Ali was recognized as caliph in Medina, though his support stemmed from

23688-513: The house of Muhammad ibn Ali, the head of the Abbasid family, and before dying named Muhammad ibn Ali as his successor. This tradition allowed the Abbasids to rally the supporters of the failed revolt of Mukhtar , who had represented themselves as the supporters of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya. Beginning around 719, Hashimiyya missions began to seek adherents in Khurasan. Their campaign was framed as one of proselytism ( dawah ). They sought support for

23876-488: The interests of the Qays and Yaman in the Umayyad state. With his unified army, Abd al-Malik marched against the Zubayrids of Iraq, having already secretly secured the defection of the province's leading tribal chiefs, and defeated Iraq's ruler, Ibn al-Zubayr's brother Mus'ab , at the Battle of Maskin in 691. Afterward, the Umayyad commander al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf besieged Mecca and killed Ibn al-Zubayr in 692, marking

24064-540: The ire of the Ansar and the members of the shura . In 645/46, he added the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) to Mu'awiya's Syrian governorship and granted the latter's request to take possession of all Byzantine crown lands in Syria to help pay his troops. He had the surplus taxes from the wealthy provinces of Kufa and Egypt forwarded to the treasury in Medina, which he used at his personal disposal, frequently disbursing its funds and war booty to his Umayyad relatives. Moreover,

24252-462: The language as Ivrit , meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit , meaning Assyrian , which is derived from the name of the alphabet used , in contrast to Ivrit , meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet . Hebrew ceased to be a regular spoken language sometime between 200 and 400 CE, as it declined in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt , which

24440-465: The language spoken by Jews in scenes from the New Testament) is often referred to as "Hebrew" in the text, although this term is often re-interpreted as referring to Aramaic instead and is rendered accordingly in recent translations. Nonetheless, these glosses can be interpreted as Hebrew as well. It has been argued that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of

24628-471: The language. The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by the efforts of Ben-Yehuda. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine , then a part of the Ottoman Empire . Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora " shtetl " lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making

24816-596: The latter's ally Amr ibn al-As ousted Ali's governor from Egypt in July 658. In July 660 Mu'awiya was formally recognized as caliph in Jerusalem by his Syrian tribal allies. Ali was assassinated by a Kharijite dissident in January 661. His son Hasan succeeded him but abdicated in return for compensation upon Mu'awiya's arrival to Iraq with his Syrian army in the summer. At that point, Mu'awiya entered Kufa and received

25004-532: The leadership of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb were the principal leaders of Meccan opposition to the Islamic prophet Muhammad , but after the latter captured Mecca in 630, Abu Sufyan and the Quraysh embraced Islam. To reconcile his influential Qurayshite tribesmen, Muhammad gave his former opponents, including Abu Sufyan, a stake in the new order. Abu Sufyan and the Umayyads relocated to Medina , Islam's political centre, to maintain their new-found political influence in

25192-463: The local government workers in conquered provinces to keep their jobs under the new Umayyad government. Thus, much of the local government's work was recorded in Greek , Coptic , and Persian . It was only during the reign of Abd al-Malik that government work began to be regularly recorded in Arabic. The Umayyad army was mainly Arab, with its core consisting of those who had settled in urban Syria and

25380-453: The lucrative Sasanian crown lands of Iraq, which Umar had designated as communal property for the benefit of the Arab garrison towns of Kufa and Basra , were turned into caliphal crown lands to be used at Uthman's discretion. Mounting resentment against Uthman's rule in Iraq and Egypt and among the Ansar and Quraysh of Medina culminated in the killing of the caliph in 656. In the assessment of

25568-457: The military of the Byzantine Empire and their Ghassanid client kings, were "more accustomed to order and obedience" than their Iraqi counterparts, according to the historian Julius Wellhausen . Mu'awiya relied on the powerful Kalbite chief Ibn Bahdal and the Kindite nobleman Shurahbil ibn Simt alongside the Qurayshite commanders al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri and Abd al-Rahman , the son of

25756-467: The months following the battle, the inter-tribal strife undermined the foundation of Umayyad power: the Syrian army. In 685, Marwan and Ibn Bahdal expelled the Zubayrid governor of Egypt and replaced him with Marwan's son Abd al-Aziz , who would rule the province until his death in 704/05. Another son, Muhammad , was appointed to suppress Zufar's rebellion in the Jazira. Marwan died in April 685 and

25944-535: The nascent Muslim community. Muhammad's death in 632 left open the succession of leadership of the Muslim community. Leaders of the Ansar , the natives of Medina who had provided Muhammad safe haven after his emigration from Mecca in 622, discussed forwarding their own candidate out of concern that the Muhajirun , Muhammad's early followers and fellow emigrants from Mecca, would ally with their fellow tribesmen from

26132-727: The newly declared State of Israel . Hebrew is the most widely spoken language in Israel today. In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew , Modern Israeli Hebrew , Modern Hebrew , New Hebrew , Israeli Standard Hebrew , Standard Hebrew and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits some features of Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrowed terms (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. The literary and narrative use of Hebrew

26320-523: The northern Caucasus, but failed to subdue the nomadic Khazars. The conflict was arduous and bloody, and the Arab army even suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Marj Ardabil in 730. Marwan ibn Muhammad, the future Marwan II, finally ended the war in 737 with a massive invasion that is reported to have reached as far as the Volga , but the Khazars remained unsubdued. Hisham suffered still worse defeats in

26508-624: The northern frontier and entered Damascus in December 744, where he was proclaimed caliph. Marwan immediately moved the capital north to Harran , in present-day Turkey . A rebellion soon broke out in Syria, perhaps due to resentment over the relocation of the capital, and in 746 Marwan razed the walls of Homs and Damascus in retaliation. Marwan also faced significant opposition from Kharijites in Iraq and Iran, who put forth first Dahhak ibn Qays and then Abu Dulaf as rival caliphs. In 747, Marwan managed to reestablish control of Iraq, but by this time

26696-472: The office of the caliph into a kingship. The act was met with disapproval or opposition by the Iraqis and the Hejaz-based Quraysh, including the Umayyads, but most were bribed or coerced into acceptance. Yazid acceded after Mu'awiya's death in 680 and almost immediately faced a challenge to his rule by the Kufan partisans of Ali who had invited Ali's son and Muhammad's grandson Husayn to stage

26884-463: The part of the right-hand Herodian arched doorway that is visible is an ornate, decorative half-arch dating to the Umayyad period (661–750 CE). Just above it, the stub of an Herodian relieving arch is visible. Inside the Temple Mount, much of the original staircase and the arched, elaborately carved Herodian ceilings survive. According to archaeologist Meir Ben-Dov, "On his way in and out of the Temple, Jesus must have walked here." The internal parts of

27072-427: The phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite , and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from that of Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone , written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam inscription , found near Jerusalem , is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include

27260-484: The present day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence. During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain , important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic . Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj , Jonah ibn Janah , Abraham ibn Ezra and later (in Provence ), David Kimhi . A great deal of poetry

27448-503: The primary language of use, and to prevent large-scale incorporation of English words into the Hebrew vocabulary. The Academy of the Hebrew Language of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem currently invents about 2,000 new Hebrew words each year for modern words by finding an original Hebrew word that captures the meaning, as an alternative to incorporating more English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Haifa municipality has banned officials from using English words in official documents, and

27636-474: The prominent general Khalid ibn al-Walid , to guarantee the loyalty of the key military components of Syria. Mu'awiya preoccupied his core Syrian troops in nearly annual or bi-annual land and sea raids against Byzantium, which provided them with battlefield experience and war spoils, but secured no permanent territorial gains. Toward the end of his reign the caliph entered a thirty-year truce with Byzantine emperor Constantine IV ( r.  668–685 ), obliging

27824-415: The province of Arminiya . In 695–698 the commander Hassan ibn al-Nu'man al-Ghassani restored Umayyad control over Ifriqiya after defeating the Byzantines and Berbers there. Carthage was captured and destroyed in 698, signaling "the final, irretrievable end of Roman power in Africa ", according to Kennedy. Kairouan was firmly secured as a launchpad for later conquests, while the port town of Tunis

28012-402: The reason for the decline of the Umayyads was the rapid expansion of Islam. During the Umayyad period, mass conversions brought Persians, Berbers, Copts, and Aramaic to Islam. These mawalis (clients) were often better educated and more civilised than their Arab overlords. The new converts, on the basis of equality of all Muslims, transformed the political landscape. Previté-Orton also argues that

28200-421: The remainder each year being sent to the central government in Damascus. As the central power of the Umayyad rulers waned in the later years of the dynasty, some governors neglected to send the extra tax revenue to Damascus and created great personal fortunes. As the empire grew, the number of qualified Arab workers was too small to keep up with the rapid expansion of the empire. Therefore, Muawiya allowed many of

28388-498: The rest of the Middle East; and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. William Schniedewind argues that after waning in the Persian period, the religious importance of Hebrew grew in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and cites epigraphical evidence that Hebrew survived as a vernacular language – though both its grammar and its writing system had been substantially influenced by Aramaic. According to another summary, Greek

28576-426: The southern villages of Judea." In other words, "in terms of dialect geography, at the time of the tannaim Palestine could be divided into the Aramaic-speaking regions of Galilee and Samaria and a smaller area, Judaea, in which Rabbinic Hebrew was used among the descendants of returning exiles." In addition, it has been surmised that Koine Greek was the primary vehicle of communication in coastal cities and among

28764-413: The spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests, a policy of suppression of the teaching of Hebrew operated from the 1930s on. Later in

28952-473: The succession resulted in the Second Fitna , and power eventually fell to Marwan I , from another branch of the clan. Syria remained the Umayyads' main power base thereafter, with Damascus as their capital. The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests , conquering Ifriqiya , Transoxiana , Sind , the Maghreb and Hispania ( al-Andalus ). At its greatest extent, the Umayyad Caliphate covered 11,100,000 km (4,300,000 sq mi), making it one of

29140-429: The support of the Kufan elite. The caliph's Syrian army defeated the rebels and pursued and nearly eliminated the influential Muhallabids , marking the suppression of the last major Iraqi revolt against the Umayyads. Yazid II reversed Umar II's equalization reforms, reimposing the jizya on the mawali , which sparked revolts in Khurasan in 721 or 722 that persisted for some twenty years and met strong resistance among

29328-414: The term "Hebrew" generally render its meaning as roughly "from the other side [of the river/desert]"—i.e., an exonym for the inhabitants of the land of Israel and Judah , perhaps from the perspective of Mesopotamia , Phoenicia or Transjordan (with the river referred to being perhaps the Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare

29516-429: The tombs of the Umayyads in Syria, sparing only that of Umar II , and most of the remaining members of the Umayyad family were tracked down and killed. When Abbasids declared amnesty for members of the Umayyad family, eighty gathered to receive pardons, and all were massacred. One grandson of Hisham, Abd al-Rahman I , survived, escaped across North Africa, and established an emirate in Moorish Iberia ( Al-Andalus ). In

29704-418: The troops of Basra, prompting the caliph to leave for Iraq's other garrison town, Kufa, where he could better confront his challengers. Ali defeated them at the Battle of the Camel , in which al-Zubayr and Talha were slain and A'isha consequently entered self-imposed seclusion. Ali's sovereignty was thereafter recognized in Basra and Egypt and he established Kufa as the caliphate's new capital. Although Ali

29892-438: The two forces met in the Battle of the Zab , and the Umayyads were defeated. Damascus fell to the Abbasids in April, and in August, Marwan was killed in Egypt. Some Umayyads in Syria continued to resist the takeover. The Umayyad princes Abu Muhammad al-Sufyani , al-Abbas ibn Muhammad, and Hashim ibn Yazid launched revolts in Syria and the Islamic–Byzantine frontier around late 750, but they were defeated. The victors desecrated

30080-580: The upper class of Jerusalem , while Aramaic was prevalent in the lower class of Jerusalem, but not in the surrounding countryside. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Judaeans were forced to disperse. Many relocated to Galilee, so most remaining native speakers of Hebrew at that last stage would have been found in the north. Many scholars have pointed out that Hebrew continued to be used alongside Aramaic during Second Temple times, not only for religious purposes but also for nationalistic reasons, especially during revolts such as

30268-455: The word Habiru or cognate Assyrian ebru , of identical meaning. One of the earliest references to the language's name as " Ivrit " is found in the prologue to the Book of Sirach , from the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people; its later historiography, in the Book of Kings , refers to it as יְהוּדִית Yehudit " Judahite (language)". Hebrew belongs to

30456-424: The world today; the latter group utilizes the Samaritan dialect as their liturgical tongue. As a non- first language , it is studied mostly by non-Israeli Jews and students in Israel, by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations , and by theologians in Christian seminaries . The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from

30644-421: Was a spoken language , and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language . The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah that was published around 200 CE, although many of the stories take place much earlier, and were written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of

30832-427: Was a wealthy Umayyad and early Muslim convert with marital ties to Muhammad. He was elected by the shura council, composed of Muhammad's cousin Ali , al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam , Talha ibn Ubayd Allah , Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas and Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf , all of whom were close, early companions of Muhammad and belonged to the Quraysh. He was chosen over Ali because he would ensure the concentration of state power into

31020-421: Was able to replace Uthman's governors in Egypt and Iraq with relative ease, Mu'awiya had developed a solid power-base and an effective military against the Byzantines from the Arab tribes of Syria. Mu'awiya did not claim the caliphate but was determined to retain control of Syria and opposed Ali in the name of avenging his kinsman Uthman, accusing the caliph of culpability in his death. Ali and Mu'awiya fought to

31208-406: Was carried out against the Roman Empire by the Jews of Judaea . Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy , rabbinic literature , intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature . The first dated book printed in Hebrew

31396-493: Was carried out under the sign of the black flag . He soon established control of Khurasan, expelling its Umayyad governor, Nasr ibn Sayyar , and dispatched an army westwards. Kufa fell to the Hashimiyya in 749, the last Umayyad stronghold in Iraq, Wasit , was placed under siege , and in November of the same year Abul Abbas as-Saffah was recognized as the new caliph in the mosque at Kufa. At this point Marwan mobilized his troops from Harran and advanced toward Iraq. In January 750

31584-415: Was closer to the Byzantine border than Damascus, and resumed hostilities against the Byzantines, which had lapsed following the failure of the last siege of Constantinople. The new campaigns resulted in a number of successful raids into Anatolia , but also in a major defeat (the Battle of Akroinon ), and did not lead to any significant territorial expansion. From the caliphate's north-western African bases,

31772-413: Was effectively abandoned, and the frontier between the two empires stabilized along the line of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus Mountains , over which both sides continued to launch regular raids and counter-raids during the next centuries. Contrary to expectations of a son or brother succeeding him, Sulayman had nominated his cousin, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz , as his successor and he took office in 717. After

31960-402: Was founded and equipped with an arsenal on Abd al-Malik's orders to establish a strong Arab fleet. Hassan ibn al-Nu'man continued the campaign against the Berbers, defeating them and killing their leader, the warrior queen al-Kahina , between 698 and 703. His successor in Ifriqiya, Musa ibn Nusayr , subjugated the Berbers of the Hawwara , Zenata and Kutama confederations and advanced into

32148-446: Was further subdivided into more branches, offices, and departments. Geographically, the empire was divided into several provinces, the borders of which changed numerous times during the Umayyad reign. Each province had a governor appointed by the caliph. The governor was in charge of the religious officials, army leaders, police, and civil administrators in his province. Local expenses were paid for by taxes coming from that province, with

32336-621: Was launched by the commander Uqba ibn Nafi in 670, which extended Umayyad control as far as Byzacena (modern southern Tunisia), where Uqba founded the permanent Arab garrison city of Kairouan . In contrast to Uthman, Mu'awiya restricted the influence of his Umayyad kinsmen to the governorship of Medina, where the dispossessed Islamic elite, including the Umayyads, was suspicious or hostile toward his rule. However, in an unprecedented move in Islamic politics, Mu'awiya nominated his own son, Yazid I , as his successor in 676, introducing hereditary rule to caliphal succession and, in practice, turning

32524-425: Was likely restricted to Damascus and Syria's southern districts. Mu'awiya II had been ill from the beginning of his accession, with al-Dahhak assuming the practical duties of his office, and he died in early 684 without naming a successor. His death marked the end of the Umayyads' Sufyanid ruling house, called after Mu'awiya I's father Abu Sufyan. Umayyad authority nearly collapsed in their Syrian stronghold after

32712-438: Was now a more significant written language than Aramaic within Judaea." This nationalist aspect was further emphasized during periods of conflict, as Hannah Cotton observing in her analysis of legal documents during the Jewish revolts against Rome that "Hebrew became the symbol of Jewish nationalism, of the independent Jewish State." The nationalist use of Hebrew is evidenced in several historical documents and artefacts, including

32900-406: Was published by Abraham Garton in Reggio ( Calabria , Italy) in 1475. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, the Hebrew language experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language. The creation of a modern version of the ancient language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda . Modern Hebrew ( Ivrit ) became the main language of the Yishuv in Palestine , and subsequently

33088-403: Was replaced in 696 or 697 with image-less coinage inscribed with Qur'anic quotes and other Muslim religious formulas. In 698/99, similar changes were made to the silver dirhams issued by the Muslims in the former Sasanian Persian lands of the eastern caliphate. Arabic replaced Persian as the language of the dīwān in Iraq in 697, Greek in the Syrian dīwān in 700, and Greek and Coptic in

33276-470: Was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, Ha-Me'assef (The Gatherer), was published by maskilim in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad ) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. Hamagid , founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky ; there were also novels written in

33464-409: Was secured over the rest of conquered Transoxiana through tributary alliances with local rulers, whose power remained intact. From 708/09, al-Hajjaj's kinsman Muhammad ibn al-Qasim conquered northwestern South Asia and established out of this new territory the province of Sind . The massive war spoils netted by the conquests of Transoxiana, Sind and Hispania were comparable to the amounts accrued in

33652-410: Was slain. Not long after, the South Arabians of Homs and the Judham joined the Quda'a to form the tribal confederation of Yaman . Marj Rahit led to the long-running conflict between the Qays and Yaman coalitions. The Qays regrouped in the Euphrates river fortress of Circesium under Zufar ibn al-Harith al-Kilabi and moved to avenge their losses. Although Marwan regained full control of Syria in

33840-491: Was subsequently given authority over the rest of the eastern caliphate. Resentment among the Iraqi troops towards al-Hajjaj's methods of governance, particularly his death threats to force participation in the war efforts and his reductions to their stipends, culminated with a mass Iraqi rebellion against the Umayyads in c.  700 . The leader of the rebels was the Kufan nobleman Ibn al-Ash'ath , grandson of al-Ash'ath ibn Qays. Al-Hajjaj defeated Ibn al-Ash'ath's rebels at

34028-447: Was succeeded by Al-Walid II (743–44), the son of Yazid II. Al-Walid is reported to have been more interested in earthly pleasures than in religion, a reputation that may be confirmed by the decoration of the so-called "desert palaces" (including Qusayr Amra and Khirbat al-Mafjar ) that have been attributed to him. He quickly attracted the enmity of many, both by executing a number of those who had opposed his accession and by persecuting

34216-452: Was succeeded by his eldest son Abd al-Malik . Although Ibn Ziyad attempted to restore the Syrian army of the Sufyanid caliphs, persistent divisions along Qays–Yaman lines contributed to the army's massive rout and Ibn Ziyad's death at the hands of the pro-Alid forces of Mukhtar al-Thaqafi of Kufa at the Battle of Khazir in August 686. The setback delayed Abd al-Malik's attempts to reestablish Umayyad authority in Iraq, while pressures from

34404-479: Was suppressed. Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes ). The official ordinance stated that Yiddish, being

34592-437: Was the language of government, Hebrew the language of prayer, study and religious texts, and Aramaic was the language of legal contracts and trade. There was also a geographic pattern: according to Bernard Spolsky , by the beginning of the Common Era, " Judeo-Aramaic was mainly used in Galilee in the north, Greek was concentrated in the former colonies and around governmental centers, and Hebrew monolingualism continued mainly in

34780-465: Was the result of Mu'awiya's twenty-year entrenchment in the province, the geographic distribution of its relatively large Arab population throughout the province in contrast to their seclusion in garrison cities in other provinces, and the domination of a single tribal confederation, the Kalb-led Quda'a , as opposed to the wide array of competing tribal groups in Iraq. The long-established, formerly Christian Arab tribes in Syria, having been integrated into

34968-435: Was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty . Uthman ibn Affan , the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a member of the clan. The family established dynastic, hereditary rule with Mu'awiya I , the long-time governor of Greater Syria , who became caliph after the end of the First Fitna in 661. After Mu'awiya's death in 680, conflicts over

35156-408: Was to a certain extent a pidgin . Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda , owing to the ideology of the national revival ( שיבת ציון , Shivat Tziyon , later Zionism ), began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of

35344-570: Was written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Judah ha-Levi , Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra , in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative or strophic meters. This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets. The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to

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