The Seljuk Empire , or the Great Seljuk Empire , was a high medieval , culturally Turco-Persian , Sunni Muslim empire, established and ruled by the Qïnïq branch of Oghuz Turks . The empire spanned a total area of 3.9 million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles) from Anatolia and the Levant in the west to the Hindu Kush in the east, and from Central Asia in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south, and it spanned the time period 1037–1308, though Seljuk rule beyond the Anatolian peninsula ended in 1194.
168-451: Syrian Turkmen ( Arabic : تركمان سوريا , romanized : Turkumān Sūriyā ; Turkish : Suriye Türkmenleri ) are Syrian citizens of Turkish origin who mainly trace their roots to Anatolia (i.e. modern Turkey ). Turkish -speaking Syrian Turkmen make up the third largest ethnic group in the country, after the Arabs and Kurds respectively. The majority of Syrian Turkmen are
336-740: A Kilis and Antep dialect; in Tell Abyad and Raqqa they speak an Urfa dialect; and in Bayırbucak they speak a Hatay / Yayladağı dialect of the Turkish language . Some Syrian Turkmen living far from the Turkish border , such as in Homs , have managed to preserve their national identity but are more competent in speaking the Arabic language . In Damascus Syrian Turkmen speak the Turkish language of
504-468: A Yörük dialect. In 2018 Dr. Eldad J. Pardo and Maya Jacobi reported that they did not identify any Turkish (nor Kurdish or Aramaic ) teaching, either as a first or second language, in the Syrian national curriculum . The majority of Syrian Turkmen are Sunni Muslims , but there is also a small minority of Turkmen who are Shia Muslims (particularly Alevis and Bektashis ). Ali Öztürkmen claims that
672-733: A Friday mosque with a newly constructed quarter in Baghdad which was surrounded by a wall. The new quarter separated the Shia community from the Sunnis, since there had been frequent outbreaks of violence. Through the influence of Tughril's vizier, al-Kunduri, a Hanafi Sunni, the Ash'ari and Ismaili Shi'ites were exiled from Khurasan and cursed at Friday sermons in Seljuk mosques. Al-Kunduri's vizierate persecuted Ash'aris and Sharifis, although this ended with
840-549: A Syrian Turkmen village in the northern countryside of Homs . In the same month Russian warplanes had staged 600 strikes on Syrian Turkmen villages, displacing approximately 10,000 people. There have also been reports that there had been forced displacement of Arabs, Syrian Turkmen and Kurdish civilians at the hands of the YPG from their homes in areas in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria . In June 2015 there
1008-560: A citadel and a castle near Dizkuh. Following Malik-Shah's death, the familial civil war drew attention away from religious patronage, slowing the building of madrasas and mosques. Although, in 1130, the Seljuk sultan Sanjar ordered the construction of the Quthamiyya madrasa in Samarkand. While the Seljuk sultans were prodigious builders of religious buildings, Seljuk viziers were no different. The Seljuk vizier, Nazim al-Mulk, founded
1176-474: A claim to the throne but was killed in battle against Barkiyaruq in February 1096. Upon his death, his sons Radwan and Duqaq inherited Aleppo and Damascus respectively and contested with each other as well, further dividing Syria amongst emirs antagonistic towards each other. In 1118, the third son Ahmad Sanjar took over the empire. His nephew, the son of Muhammad I, did not recognize his claim to
1344-575: 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
1512-435: 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
1680-636: A decisive turning point in the conflict in favour of the Seljuks, undermining the authority of the Byzantine Empire in the remaining parts of Anatolia and gradually enabling the region's Turkification . The Seljuk Empire united the fractured political landscape in the non-Arab eastern parts of the Muslim world and played a key role in both the First and Second Crusades ; it also bore witness to in
1848-1081: 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
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#17327756564642016-487: 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
2184-690: 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
2352-502: A professional army; however, warfare was a way of life for nearly all of adult male Turkmens. According to a Seljuk vizier , Nizam al-Mulk , by the reign of Malik-Shah I , the sovereign had a large army at his disposal. There were Turkmens , mamluks , a standing army, infantry and the sultan's personal guard. Nizam al-Mulk also estimated Malik-Shah's forces at 400,000 men, and often opposed cost-cutting plans (instituted by Taj al-Mulk ) to bring these to 70,000. Vizier Nizam al-Mulk,
2520-638: A re-establishment of Sunni Islam in Iraq and western Persia since the 10th century. In 1046, Tughril built the madrasa, al-Sultaniya in Nishapur, while Chaghri Beg founded a madrasa in Merv. Tughril and Alp Arslan chose Hanafi qadis and preachers for these madrasas. By 1063, there were twenty-five madrasas scattered throughout Persia and Khorasan, founded by Seljuk princes. In the 12th century there were over thirty madrasas in Baghdad. In 1056, Tughril built
2688-594: 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
2856-462: 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",
3024-470: 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
3192-458: A situation later exploited by the victorious Turkmens, whose hordes would overrun Khorasan unopposed, wreaking colossal damage on the province and prestige of Sanjar. Sanjar eventually escaped from captivity in the fall of 1156, but soon died in Merv in 1157. After his death, Turkic rulers, Turkmen tribal forces, and other secondary powers competed for Khorasan. In 1181, Sultan Shah , a pretendent to
3360-507: 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
3528-507: 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
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#17327756564643696-732: A vast booty loaded on the backs of ten thousand camels. In 1055, Tughril entered Baghdad and removed the influence of the Buyid dynasty , under a commission from the Abbasid caliph. Iraq would remain under the control of the Seljuk Turks until 1135. Alp Arslan, the son of Chaghri Beg, expanded significantly upon Tughril's holdings by adding Armenia and Georgia in 1064 and invading the Byzantine Empire in 1068, from which he annexed almost all of Anatolia. Arslan's decisive victory at
3864-869: A warlord, who belonged to the Qiniq tribe of Oghuz Turks . He led his clan to the banks of the Syr Darya river, near city of Jend , where they converted to Islam in 985. Khwarezm, administered by the Ma'munids , was under the nominal control of the Samanid Empire . By 999, the Samanids had fallen to the Kara-Khanid Khanate in Transoxiana , while the Ghaznavids occupied the lands south of
4032-476: 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
4200-737: 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
4368-590: 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
4536-559: 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
4704-478: 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
4872-408: 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
5040-472: 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
5208-574: 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
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5376-855: 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
5544-572: 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
5712-590: 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
5880-413: 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
6048-524: 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
6216-445: 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
6384-591: The Amu Darya . The Seljuks supported the last Samanid emir against the Kara-Khanids before establishing an independent base. Oghuz Turks (also known as Turkmens at the time), led by Seljuk's son, Musa and his two nephews, Tughril and Chaghri, were one of several groups of the Oghuz who made their way to Iran between about 1020 and 1040, first moving south to Transoxiana , and then to Khorasan , initially at
6552-564: The Arab Reform Initiative ) Assistant Professor Sebastian Maisel, focusing on the Yezidis , claimed that Syrian Turkmen numbered 250,000 (or approx 1% of the population). However, Professor Pierre Beckouche stated that Sunni Muslim Turkmen alone formed 4% of the country's population before 2011 (i.e. approximately 1 million). Professor John Shoup has said that in 2018 the Turkish -speaking Syrian Turkmen formed around 4-5% of
6720-645: The Artuqids against him. This event triggered the launch of the Second Crusade. Nur ad-Din , one of Zengi's sons who succeeded him as atabeg of Aleppo , created an alliance in the region to oppose the Second Crusade, which landed in 1147. Ahmad Sanjar fought to contain the revolts by the Kara-Khanids in Transoxiana , Ghurids in Afghanistan and Qarluks in modern Kyrgyzstan , as well as
6888-452: The Battle of Dandanaqan , Seljuks decisively defeated Mas'ud I of Ghazni , forcing him to abandon most of his western territories. Afterwards, Turkmens employed Khorasanians and set up a Persian bureaucracy to administer their new polity with Tughril as its nominal overlord. By 1046, Abbasid caliph al-Qa'im had sent Tughril a diploma recognizing Seljuk rule over Khurasan . In 1048–1049,
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7056-627: The Battle of Didgori on August 12, 1121, the Seljuks were routed, being run down by pursuing Georgian cavalry for several days afterward. The battle helped the Crusader states, which had been under pressure from Ilghazi's armies. The weakening of the main enemy of the Latin principalities also benefitted the Kingdom of Jerusalem under King Baldwin II . During this time conflict with the Crusader states
7224-634: The Battle of Manzikert in 1071 effectively neutralized the Byzantine resistance to the Turkish invasion of Anatolia, although the Georgians were able to recover from Alp Arslan's invasion by securing the theme of Iberia . The Byzantine withdrawal from Anatolia brought Georgia in more direct contact with the Seljuks. In 1073 the Seljuk Amirs of Ganja, Dvin and Dmanisi invaded Georgia and were defeated by George II of Georgia , who successfully took
7392-461: The Battle of Qatwan . He suffered his first defeat in his long career, and as a result lost all Seljuk territory east of the Syr Darya . Sanjar's as well as the Seljuks' rule collapsed as a consequence of yet another unexpected defeat, this time at the hands of the Seljuks' own tribe, in 1153. Sanjar was captured during the battle and held in captivity until 1156. It brought chaos to the Empire –
7560-655: The European regions of the Ottoman Empire (particularly in the Balkans ) settled in Ottoman Syria between 1878 and 1906 and were provided with new lands by the Ottoman state. According to Dawn Chatty , these Turkmen settlers (alongside Circassian and Chechen refugees) became loyal subjects to the sultan and were "driven to succeed in agriculture and ready to defend themselves against any Bedouin claims to
7728-1162: The Free Syrian Army (FSA). Another Syrian Turkmen unit – the Seljuk Brigade and the Manbij Turkmen Brigade – have sided with the Kurdish-led People's Protection Units (YPG) and joined the US -backed Kurdish-led opposition coalition called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war many Syrian refugees (including Syrian Turkmen) have sought asylum in Turkey , Jordan , Lebanon and northern Iraq , as well as several Western European countries and Australia . Moreover, many Syrian Turkmen have also been internally displaced from their homes, forcing them to settle in other parts of Syria. In 2012
7896-518: The French mandate era to the Assad regime, the Turkish culture and language have perished for a section of the Syrian Turkmen community. Many Syrian Turkmen have become Arabized and indistinguishable from the Arabs in areas where they form a minority. Consequently, Arabization is mainly an exception in areas where the Syrian Turkmen live in areas where they form a significant population, where they have continued to maintain their Turkish identity and language despite discriminative state policies. Under
8064-465: The Hama Governorate , the Latakia Governorate and the Quneitra Governorate . There are also smaller Turkmen communities living in the Daraa Governorate ; as well as in Tartous , Raqqa , and Idlib governorates. In the Aleppo governorate, the main locales in which the Turkmen live include the city of Aleppo (with Bustan al-Basha, Haydariyah, Hllok, Sheikh Hizir, Sheikh Feriz, Saladdin, Owaijah being neighborhoods with ethnic Turkmen populations) and
8232-405: The Iranian mainland , where they would become largely based as a Persianate society . They then moved west to conquer Baghdad , filling up the power vacuum that had been caused by struggles between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate and the Iranian Buyid Empire . The subsequent Seljuk expansion into eastern Anatolia triggered the Byzantine–Seljuk wars , with the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 marking
8400-408: The Kingdom of Georgia began to become a regional power and extended its borders at the expense of the Great Seljuk Empire. The same was true during the revival of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia , under Leo II of Armenia , in Anatolia. The Abbasid caliph An-Nasir also began to reassert the authority of the caliph and allied himself with the Khwarezmshah Takash . For a brief period, Toghrul III
8568-399: The Mirrors for princes genre, such as the prominent Siyasatnama (Book of Politics) composed by Nizam al-Mulk . During this period, these type of books consciously made use of Islamic and Iranian traditions, such as an ideal government based on the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his successors, or the Sasanian King of Kings Khosrow I ( r. 531–579 ). In most of their coins,
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#17327756564648736-444: The Norwegian Church Aid and the World Council of Churches (compiled by various academics), stated that the Turkmen number anywhere from 500,000 to 3 million. Professor Pierre Piccinin claims that whilst 1.5 million Syrian Turkmen are Turkish-speaking, the total population of the minority is between 3.5 and 6 million (or 15% to 20% of the population), including those who have adopted Arabic as their mother tongue. In December 2016
8904-459: The Qarakhanids and Ghaznavids had to acknowledge the overlordship of the Seljuks. Seljuk dominion was established over the ancient Sasanian domains, in Iran and Iraq , and included Anatolia , Syria , as well as parts of Central Asia and modern Afghanistan . Their rule was modelled after the tribal organization common among Turkic and Mongol nomadic cultures, resembling a 'family federation' or ' appanage state'. Under this organization,
9072-445: The Raqqa Governorate . Others reside in the Turkmen Mountain near Latakia , the city of Homs and its vicinity until Hama , Damascus , and the southwestern governorates of Daraa (bordering Jordan ) and Quneitra (bordering Israel ). During the ongoing Syrian Civil War , many Syrian Turkmen have been involved in military actions against both the Syrian Armed Forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and have looked to
9240-404: The Shah-Armens and the Mengujekids in Eastern Anatolia, Artuqids in Southeastern Anatolia, Danishmendis in Central Anatolia, Rum Seljuks (Beylik of Suleyman , which later moved to Central Anatolia) in Western Anatolia, and the Beylik of Tzachas of Smyrna in İzmir ( Smyrna ). Under Alp Arslan 's successor, Malik Shah , and his two Persian viziers , Nizām al-Mulk and Tāj al-Mulk,
9408-511: The Siege of Baghdad (1136) , forcing Caliph Al-Rashid Billah to abdicate, but the next Caliph Al-Muqtafi (1136–1160) managed to restore a high degree of independence and successfully resisted the Seljuk Siege of Baghdad (1157) . The army of the earliest Seljuks was not similar to the renowned Turkic military of the classical 'Abbasid era. Their first invasions were more of a great nomadic migration accompanied by their families and livestock rather than planned military conquests. They were not
9576-407: The Sultanate of Rum , and Kerbogha exercised independence as the atabeg of Mosul . During the First Crusade , the fractured states of the Seljuks were generally more concerned with consolidating their own territories and gaining control of their neighbours than with cooperating against the crusaders . The Seljuks easily defeated the People's Crusade arriving in 1096, but they could not stop
9744-416: The Turkish Armed Forces for support and protection. Many united under an official governing body, the Syrian Turkmen Assembly , and established the military wing of the assembly, the Syrian Turkmen Brigades . However, not all Turkmen support the Turkish occupation of northern Syria , and some have sided with the SDF, forming the Seljuk Brigade . Turkic migration to Syria began in the 11th century during
9912-708: The Turkish language is the third most widely used language in Syria (after Arabic and Kurdish ). It is spoken by the Turkmen minority mostly in villages east of the Euphrates , north of Aleppo , and on the northern coast of the country, along the Syrian-Turkish border . In addition, there are Turkish language islands in the Qalamun area and the Homs area. Moreover, Syrian Arabic dialects have also borrowed many loanwords from Turkish. Mustafa Khalifa claims that, Turkmen are divided into two groups: Rural Turkish-speaking Turkmen, constituting 30% of Syrian Turkmen, and Urban Arabic -speaking Turkmen. Various dialects of Turkish are spoken throughout Syria: in Aleppo they speak
10080-491: The UN Refugee Agency had stated that Syrian Turkmen formed a significant number of the first wave of refugees who entered Turkey . An article published by Reuters in 2015, reporting the Russian raids hitting Syrian Turkmen areas (after a Russian plane was shot down on the Turkey-Syria border ), said that "Officials estimate 300,000 Turkmen used to live in northern Latakia " before the Russians "heavily targeted ethnic Turkmen areas." Al Jazeera English has also reported that
10248-467: 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
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#173277565646410416-593: The al-Atassi 's (Atasi's), Bey Kanj Pasha Zadeh (Genç Yussef Pasha 1807–1811), Al-Azm , Qawuqji's, Quwwatli's (Kuvvetli's) and Shishakli's (Çiçekçi's), continued to rule Syria as Prime Ministers or Presidents. However, by the 1960s the pan-Arab Baathist movement of the Al-Assad family sidelined non-Arabs from politics. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
10584-494: 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
10752-422: The tomb of Suleyman Shah , grandfather of the first Ottoman ruler Osman I , "shall remain, with its appurtenances, the property of Turkey." In September 1936, France announced that it would grant full independence to Syria, which would also include Alexandretta. The President of the Republic of Turkey , Mustafa Kemal Atatürk , responded with a demand that Alexandretta be given its own independence. The issue
10920-419: The tughra . The populace of the Seljuk Empire would have considered this Perso-Islamic tradition more significant than that of steppe customs. Highly Persianized in culture and language, the Seljuks also played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition , even exporting Persian culture to Anatolia. Under the Seljuks, Persian was also used for books lecturing about politics in
11088-403: The "Russian escalation of attacks on Turkmen areas" displaced "300,000 Turkmen from northern Latakia alone." The Syrian Government of president Bashar al-Assad , backed by Russia since 2015, have targeted several areas populated by Syrian Turkmen, as they were largely involved in anti-government attacks. On 2 February 2016, at least seven women and children were killed by Russian air strikes in
11256-566: The "Suriye Türkmen Kültür ve Yardımlaşma Derneği – Avrupa",or " STKYDA ", ("Syrian Turkmen Culture and Solidarity Association – Europe") was the first Syrian Turkmen association to be launched in Europe. It was established in order to help the growing Syrian Turkmen community which arrived in the country since the European migrant crisis which started in 2014 and saw its peak in 2015. The association includes Syrian Turkmen youth activists originating from all Syrian cities and who are now living across Western European cities. Most Syrian Turkmen live in
11424-419: 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
11592-723: 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. Seljuk Empire The Seljuk Empire
11760-416: The 'Lesser Seljuks'. Much of the ideological character of the Seljuk Empire was derived from the earlier Samanid and Ghaznavid kingdoms, which had in turn emerged from the Perso-Islamic imperial system of the Abbasid caliphate. This Perso-Islamic tradition was based on pre-Islamic Iranian ideas of kingship molded into an Islamic framework. Little of the public symbolism used by the Seljuks was Turkic, namely
11928-454: 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
12096-853: The 12tn century the Turkic Zengid dynasty (a vassal of the Seljuk Empire) continued to settle Turkmes in the wilayah of Aleppo to confront attacks from the Crusaders . In return for their military service, the Turkic rulers distributed fiefs in the area to the Turkmen. In 1260, the Mamluk Sultanate – ruled by a line of Turkish and Circassian sultans – entered Syria in response to the Mongol invasions. Whilst Cairo remained
12264-571: 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
12432-834: 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
12600-559: The Atabegs effectively independent. The breakaway states and dynasties included: After the Second Crusade, Nur ad-Din's general Shirkuh , who had established himself in Egypt on Fatimid land, was succeeded by Saladin . In time, Saladin rebelled against Nur ad-Din ; upon his death, Saladin married his widow, captured most of Syria and created the Ayyubid dynasty. On other fronts,
12768-614: The Khwarezmian throne, managed to take control of Khorasan, until 1192 when he was defeated near Merv by the Ghurids , who captured his territories. The Ghurids then took control of all Khorasan following the death of his successor Tekish in 1200, as far as Besṭām in the ancient region of Qūmes. The province was finally conquered by Khwarazmians after the Ghurid defeat at the Battle of Andkhud (1204). The Tomb of Ahmed Sanjar
12936-412: 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
13104-690: 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
13272-614: The Republic of Turkey. France finally agreed to the Turkish annexation on 23 July 1939. Today, the Bayırbucak region, the coastal and rural section covering the northern Latakia area, has a considerable Turkmen presence and is considered by some Turks as a "stretch of the modern Turkish Hatay Province". After the Sanjak of Alexandretta became the province of Hatay in the Republic of Turkey , in 1939, some Turkish families immigrated into
13440-576: 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
13608-636: The Seljuk Empire. While the Maliknama was compiled from Turkic oral accounts, it was written in Persian and Arabic languages. Steppe traditions influenced Seljuk marriages, with Tughril marrying his brother Chaghri 's widow, a practice despised in Islam . Seljuk ceremonies were based on the Abbasid model, but sometimes ancient Iranian ceremonies were observed. During a night in 1091, all of Baghdad
13776-574: The Seljuk Turks, commanded by Ibrahim Yinal , uterine brother of Tughril, made their first incursion into the Byzantine frontier region of Iberia and clashed with a combined Byzantine-Georgian army of 50,000 at the Battle of Kapetrou on 10 September 1048. The devastation left behind by the Seljuk raid was so fearful that the Byzantine magnate Eustathios Boilas described, in 1051–1052, those lands as "foul and unmanageable... inhabited by snakes, scorpions, and wild beasts." The Arab chronicler Ibn al-Athir reports that Ibrahim brought back 100,000 captives and
13944-608: The Seljuk state expanded in various directions, to the former Iranian border of the days before the Arab invasion, so that it soon bordered China in the east and the Byzantines in the west. Malik Shah's brother Tutush defended Seljuk' interests in Syria in the battle of Ain Salm against Suleiman ibn Qutalmish who had started to carve out an independent state in Anatolia. Nevertheless, despite various attempts to bring afterwards
14112-517: The Seljuk sultans used the Sasanian title of shahanshah (King of Kings), and even used the old Buyid title of "Shahanshah of Islam." The title of malik was used by lesser princes of the Seljuk family. Like the caliphate, the Seljuks relied on a refined Persian bureaucracy. The settlement of Turkic tribes in the northwestern peripheral parts of the empire, for the strategic military purpose of fending off invasions from neighboring states, led to
14280-540: The Seljuks arrived on the edges of Khorasan , the province considered a jewel in the Ghaznavid crown. After moving into Khorasan, Seljuks under Tughril wrested an empire from the Ghaznavids . Initially the Seljuks were repulsed by Mahmud and retired to Khwarezm , but Tughril and Chaghri led them to capture Merv and Nishapur (1037–1038). Later they repeatedly raided and traded territory with Mahmud's successor, Mas'ud, across Khorasan and Balkh . In 1040, at
14448-788: The Syrian independent newspaper Zaman Al Wasl reported that 120,000 to 150,000 Syrian Turkmen refugees arrived in Lebanon , and hence they now outnumber the Turkish minority of Lebanon . By 2018 the number of Syrian Turkmen in Lebanon had increased to approximately 200,000. A substantial number of Syrian Turkmen refugees also fled to Jordan . Outside the Middle East , Syrian Turkmen refugees have mainly fled to Western Europe (particularly Germany ), but some have also been given refuge in countries as far as Australia . Established in Germany,
14616-672: The Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ümit Yalçın stated that Turkey opened its borders to 500,000 Syrian Turkmen. Most Syrian Turkmen settled in Istanbul , Gaziantep , Osmaniye , Hatay , Izmir , Malatya , and Konya . In 2020 the Voice of America reported that 1,000,000 Syrian Turkmen (including descendants) who are living in Turkey are requesting to become Turkish citizens. In October 2015,
14784-517: The Turkish-speaking Syrian Turkmen as the third largest ethnic group in the country (after Arabs and Kurds respectively). Yet, a report published by the Arab Reform Initiative suggests that they may form the second largest ethnic group if Arabized Turkmen are also taken into account: "Turkmen are the third largest ethnic group in Syria, making up around 4-5% of the population. Some estimations indicate that they are
14952-483: The Turkmen community is 99% Sunni whilst the remainder (1%) practice Shia Islam. There are also some Syrian " Nawar people " (a derogatory term for people who live a mobile lifestyle – often described as "gypsies") who speak Turkish , some of whom self-identify as Turkmen; those practicing Islam belong to the Sunni , Shiite , and Alevi / Bektashi religious groups. There are also some who practice Christianity . From
15120-611: The Turkmen live in the city of Damascus , and Harret Al Turkman is a Turkmen district where Turkish is predominantly spoken. In the Homs governorate the Turkmen mostly live in the city of Homs and the surrounding villages, such as Kara Avshar, Inallu, and Kapushak. They also live in Gharnatah , Al-Krad , Burj Qa'i , al-Sam'lil , and in villages in the Houla plain. In the Hama governorate
15288-687: The Turkmen live in the city of Hama and are also scattered in numerous villages around the district. For example, Baba Amir Haras is a prominent Turkmen district. There are also Turkmen living in Aqrab and Talaf . In the Quneitra governorate the Turkmen are scattered in numerous villages in the districts of Quneitra . They predominantly reside in the villages of Dababiye, Rezaniye, Sindiyane, Aynul Kara, Aynul Simsim, Ulayka, Aynul Alak, Ahmediye, Kafer Nafah, Mugir, Hafir, Hüseyniye, and Ayn Ayse. According to The Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics ,
15456-512: The YPG had accused the locals of collaborating with ISIL. There are no reliable estimates on the total number of ethnic minorities living in Syria because official censuses have only asked citizens about their religion, therefore, Syrian citizens have not been allowed to declare their ethnic origin or mother tongue. Dr Abdelwahed Mekki-Berrada, et al., in a report published by the UNHCR , points out that
15624-746: The area around the northern Euphrates , near the Syrian-Turkish border ; however, they are also scattered throughout several governorates, stretching towards central Syria and the southern region near the Golan Heights . In particular, the Turkmen are concentrated in the urban centers and countryside of six governorates of Syria: in the Aleppo Governorate , the Damascus Governorate , the Homs Governorate ,
15792-633: The beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, large numbers of Syrian Turkmen have been displaced from their homes and many have been killed due to attacks by President Bashar al-Assad 's government, as well as the terrorist attacks carried out by " Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant " (ISIL). Whilst Turkmen villages in Hama , Homs , and Latakia have been destroyed by the Syrian government, Turkmen villages in Aleppo were occupied by ISIL. Syrian Turkmen, with
15960-577: The capture of Margat by the Muslim commander of the Krak des Chevaliers in 1280. The late Mamluk-era writer Ahmad al-Qalqashandi noted that Turkmen formed contingents in the regular armies of greater Syria. By the 15th century, the Muslim writer Khalil az-Zahiri recorded 180,000 Turkmen soldiers and 20,000 Kurdish soldiers in Syria. The Turkmen mainly lived in the provinces of Aleppo and were settled in suburbs such as al-Hadir al-Sulaymani; they also live near
16128-726: The coast and the Jawlan (i.e. Golan Heights). Mamluk rule of Syria ended once the Ottoman Sultan Selim I conquered the region in 1516–17. Thereafter, the Ottoman administration encouraged Turkish nomads from Anatolia to settle in strategic areas of the region. By the sixteenth century the Ottomans continued to settle Turkmen in the rural areas around Homs and Hama to keep the Bedouin in check and serve as mütesellim . Turkish migration from Anatolia to Ottoman Syria
16296-574: 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
16464-411: The countryside in the northern part of the governorate. They also live in the villages next to the cities of Azaz , Al-Bab , and Jarabulus . Al-Rai is also a Turkmen-dominated town. There are 16 Turkmen-dominated villages south of Mount Simeon , 17 Turkmen villages in the district of Azaz, 29 villages to the east of that region, 3 villages connected to Aleppo, 69 villages around Al-Rai, 26 villages in
16632-585: The creation and expansion of multiple artistic movements during this period By the 1140s, the Seljuk Empire began to decline in power and influence, and was eventually supplanted in the east by the Khwarazmian Empire in 1194 and the Zengids and Ayyubids in the west. The last surviving Seljuk sultanate to fall was the Sultanate of Rum , which fell in 1308. The founder of the dynasty was Seljuk,
16800-668: The crusaders. After pillaging the County of Edessa , Seljuk commander Ilghazi made peace with the Crusaders. In 1121 he went north towards Georgia and with supposedly up to 250,000 – 350,000 troops, including men led by his son-in-law Sadaqah and Sultan Malik of Ganja , he invaded the Kingdom of Georgia . David IV of Georgia gathered 40,000 Georgian warriors, including 5,000 monaspa guards, 15,000 Kipchaks , 300 Alans and 100 French Crusaders to fight against Ilghazi 's vast army. At
16968-530: The demographic structure of the Sanjak was as follows: In 1921, the Treaty of Ankara established Alexandretta (present-day Hatay ) under an autonomous regime under French Mandate of Syria . The Turks were initially satisfied with this agreement, because Article 7 declared that "The Turkish inhabitants of this district shall enjoy every facility for their cultural development. The Turkish language shall have official recognition." Moreover, Article 9 stated that
17136-454: The descendants of migrants who arrived in Syria during Ottoman rule (1516–1918); however, there are also many Syrian Turkmen who are the descendants of earlier Turkish settlers that arrived during the Seljuk (1037–1194) and Mamluk (1250–1517) periods. Some estimates indicate that if Arabized Turkmen (those who no longer speak Turkish as their main language) are taken into account, they form
17304-480: The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1918; nonetheless, Syrian Turkmen community continued to reside in the region during the French Mandate and the formation of Syrian Republics . Syrian Turkmen have had a presence in Syria since the 11th century. The first recorded entry of free Turkmen troops into Syria was in 1064 when the Turkmen prince Ibn Khan and 1,000 of his archers entered Aleppo . He came at
17472-547: The dominant power in the region, but the Mongol invasion in 1219–1220 soon destroyed it. The Sultanate of Rum, the last remnants of the Seljuks in Anatolia, ended too with the Mongol invasions of Anatolia through the 1260s, and was divided into small emirates called ' beyliks '. One of these, the Ottomans , would eventually rise to power and conquer the rest. Seljuk power was indeed at its zenith under Malikshāh I, and both
17640-587: 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
17808-728: 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
17976-607: 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
18144-642: The first madrasa in Baghdad, in 1063, called the Nizamiya . In the madrasas he built, he patronized Shafi'is. The vizier Taj al-Mulk and Malik-shah's widow, Terken Khatun, patronized the building of a madrasa to compete with Nazim's Nizamiya . The region of Iraq was under the control of the Seljuk Empire from 1055 to 1135, since the Oghuz Turk Tughril Beg had expelled the Shiite Buyid dynasty . Tughril Beg entered Baghdad in 1055 and
18312-718: The fortress of Kars . A retaliatory strike by the Seljuk Amir Ahmad defeated the Georgians at Kvelistsikhe . Alp Arslan authorized his Turkoman generals to carve their own principalities out of formerly Byzantine Anatolia, as atabegs loyal to him. Within two years the Turkmens had established control as far as the Aegean Sea under numerous beyliks : the Saltukids in Northeastern Anatolia,
18480-458: 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
18648-480: The host of Yelu Dashi at the Battle of Qatwan on September 9, 1141. While Sanjar managed to escape with his life, many of his close kin including his wife were taken captive in the battle's aftermath. As a result of Sanjar's failure to deal with the encroaching threat from the east, the Seljuk Empire lost all its eastern provinces up to the river Syr Darya , and vassalage of the Western Kara-Khanids
18816-597: 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
18984-487: The invitation of the local rulers, then under alliances and conflicts. Contemporary sources mention places such as Dahistan , Farawa and Nasa , as well as Sarakhs , all in present-day Turkmenistan. Around 1034, Tughril and Chaghri were soundly defeated by the Oghuz Yabghu Ali Tegin and his allies, forcing them to escape from Transoxiana . Initially, the Seljuks took refuge in Khwarazm , which served as one of their traditional pastures, but they were also encouraged by
19152-408: The land on which they had built their villages". According to the French geographer Vital Cuinet (1833–96), the Ottoman Turks (excluding Turkmen nomads) formed the second largest ethnic group, after the Syrian Arabs , in the Aleppo Sanjak . In his best known work La Turquie d'Asie, géographie administrative: statistique, descriptive et raisonnée de chaque province de l'Asie Mineure he stated that
19320-558: 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
19488-428: The largest port city in Syria, and many Syrian Turkmen living in rural villages joined the Turkmen community already established there. Consequently, there is now a total of 265 Turkish villages in and around Latakia center. In addition to urban migrations, under the name of "land reform", lands owned by the Turkmen were nationalized and Arabs were resettled in areas near the Turkish border. Arabization policies also saw
19656-550: 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)
19824-420: 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
19992-403: The leading member of the paramount family assigned to family members portions of his domains as autonomous appanages. Seljuks exercised full control over Islamic Central Asia and the Middle East between 1040 and 1157. For most of its history, the empire was split into a western and eastern half and did not have a single capital or political center. In the east, the chief seat of Seljuk rule
20160-426: The local Ghaznavid governor, Harun, who hoped to utilise Seljuks for his efforts to seize Khorasan from his sovereign. When Harun was assassinated by Ghaznavid agents in 1035, they again had to flee, this time heading south across the Karakum Desert . First, they made their way to the important city of Merv, but perhaps due to its strong fortification, they changed their route westwards to take refuge in Nasa. Finally,
20328-605: The majority of Syrians are considered "Arab", however, this is a term based on spoken language ( Arabic ) not ethnic affiliation. Consequently, this has created difficulties in estimating the total Syrian Turkmen population (i.e. including the Turkish-speaking and the Arabized Turkmen). According to Professor Taef El-Azhari, the Syrian Turkmen have "always been the forgotten minority in the area despite their large population". Dr Abdelwahed Mekki-Berrada, et al., as well as Professor Pierre Beckouche, Professor John Shoup, Professor Pierre Piccinin , and Dr Peter Behnstedt, have all placed
20496-883: 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
20664-657: The minority had no rights to open Turkish schools or associations. By the late 20th century, Dr. Larry Clark stated there was "more than 200,000" Turkmen in Syria whilst the German Orient-Institute [ de ] stated that estimates ranged between 800,000 and 1 million. Numerous academics placed the Turkish -speaking Sunni Muslim population (i.e. not including Arabized or Alevi/Shia Turkmen) at approximately 3% of Syria's population, including Professor Daniel Pipes Professor Itamar Rabinovich , Professor Moshe Ma'oz, Dr. Nikolaos van Dam , Dr Henry Munson, Professor Alasdair Drysdale and Professor Raymond Hinnebusch. Since
20832-405: The most prominent development of Malik Shah's rule was the continuous increase in the power of the Nizām al-Mulk. Some contemporary chroniclers refer to the period as "al-dawla al-Nizamiyya", the Nizam's state, while modern scholars have mentioned him as "the real ruler of the Seljuq empire". The 14-century biographer Subki claimed that Nizām al-Mulk's vizierate was "not just a vizierate, it was above
21000-540: The names of Turkish villages renamed with Arabic names. Thus, a mass exodus of Syrian Turkmen migration to Turkey took place between 1945 and 1953, many of which settled in Kirikhan , Alexandretta and Adana , in southern Turkey. The cultural and political rights of the Turkish-speaking minority remaining in Syrian territories was not guaranteed under any legal constitution. Those living in large groups managed to protect their cultural identity, however, Turkmen living in smaller groups were significantly Arabized. In any case,
21168-624: 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
21336-401: The new borders of Syria, settling in the provinces of Aleppo and Damascus . Hence, new "Turkish streets" began to emerge, such as in the al-Salihia district in Damascus . Family unifications of Turkmen families living on both sides of the Syrian-Turkish border continued for more than 70 years until the outbreak of the Syrian revolution. By 1950, Latakia showed great economic potential as
21504-421: The nomadic invasion of the Kara-Khitais in the east. The advancing Kara-Khitais first defeated the Eastern Kara-Khanids, then followed up by crushing the Western Kara-Khanids, who were vassals of the Seljuks at Khujand . The Kara-Khanids turned to their Seljuk overlords for assistance, to which Sanjar responded by personally leading an army against the Kara-Khitai. However, Sanjar's army was decisively defeated by
21672-424: 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
21840-549: 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
22008-428: The population. Professor Taef El-Azhari, Dr. Sebastien Peyrouse, and Dr. Paul Antonopoulos have all stated that there is around 1 million Turkish-speaking Syrian Turkmen. In addition, Dr. Eldad J. Pardo and Maya Jacobi have cited an estimate of 750,000 to 1.5 million. Professor David Aikman has said that there is "about 1.7 million Turks in Syria". Dr. Jonathan Spyer , as well as a report published in cooperation between
22176-461: The progress of the army of the subsequent Princes' Crusade (First Crusade), which took important cities such as Nicaea ( İznik ), Iconium (Konya) , Caesarea Mazaca ( Kayseri ), and Antioch ( Antakya ) on its march to Jerusalem ( Al-Quds ). In 1099 the crusaders finally captured the Holy Land and set up the first Crusader states . The Seljuks had already lost Jerusalem to the Fatimids , who had recaptured it in 1098 just before its capture by
22344-418: The progressive Turkicization of those areas. According to the 12th-century poet Nizami Aruzi , all of the Seljuk sultans had a liking for poetry, which is also demonstrated by the large compilation of Persian verses written under their patronage. This had already started under Tughril, who was praised in Arabic and Persian by poets such as Fakhruddin As'ad Gurgani and Bakharzi, albeit he could not understand
22512-410: 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
22680-411: The request of the Arab Mirdasid emir Atiyya ibn Salih to assist him against his own Banu Kilab tribesmen who backed a rival Mirdasid emir, Mahmud ibn Nasr . Turkmen rule in the region began with the Seljuk conquests in the Middle East. The Seljuk Turks opened the way for mass migration of Turkish nomads once they entered northern Syria in 1071, and took Damascus in 1078 and Aleppo in 1086. By
22848-505: The rule of Hafez al-Assad , there has been a ban on Syrian Turkmen communities from publishing works in Turkish . Syrian Turkmen occupied a low rung on the societal ladder, as reported by Al Bawaba , it was stated that Assad always sought to benefit his politically dominant Alawite religious minority. The report quoted Bayırbucak Turkmen as highlighting, "They would take Alawites first no matter what, even if they had degrees, Turkmen couldn't find jobs". Several Turkish families, such as
23016-426: The rule of the Seljuk Empire . However, most Turkmen settled in the region after the Ottoman sultan Selim I conquered Syria in 1516. The Ottoman administration encouraged Turcoman families from Anatolia to establish villages throughout the rural hinterlands of several cities in Ottoman Syria (and later the Syria Vilayet ). Migration from Anatolia to Syria was continuous for over 400 years of Ottoman rule, until
23184-458: 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
23352-421: The same time, the son of Suleiman ibn Qutalmish , Kilij Arslan I , escaped Malikshāh's imprisonment and claimed authority in the former lands of his father . In Persia , Malikshāh's four year old son Mahmud I was proclaimed sultan but his reign was contested by his three brothers Barkiyaruq in Iraq , Muhammad I in Baghdad , and Ahmad Sanjar in Khorasan . Additionally, Malikshāh's brother Tutush I made
23520-450: The seat of the Mamluk Sultanate, Damascus became their second capital. Hence, by the thirteenth century, the Turkmen formed a part of the armies of Damascus and Aleppo , and permanently settled in these regions. After the Bahri sultan of the Mamluks , Baibars , destroyed Qara he settled Turkmen in the town in 1265. Two years later, he settled more Turkmen in the Syrian coast to protect the region. The Turkmen were called on to assist in
23688-479: The second biggest group, outnumbering Kurds, drawing on the fact that Turkmen are divided into two groups: the rural Turkmen who make up 30% of the Turkmen in Syria and who have kept their mother tongue, and the urban Turkmen who have become Arabised and no longer speak their mother language. Turkmen are mostly found in the urban centres and countryside of six governorates of Syria: Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, Hama, Latakia and Quneitra." – Mustafa Khalifa (2013, published by
23856-426: The second-largest group in the country. The majority of Syrian Turkmen are Sunni Muslims . Syrian Turkmen share common genealogical and linguistic ties with the Turkish people in Turkey and Iraqi Turkmen , but do not identify themselves with the Turkmen of Turkmenistan and Central Asia . Most live near the Syrian-Turkish border , in an area that runs from the northwestern governorates of Idlib and Aleppo to
24024-458: 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
24192-498: 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
24360-453: The sultanate". The Assassins ( Hashshashin ) of Hassan-i Sabāh started to become a force during his era, however, and they assassinated many leading figures in his administration; according to many sources these victims included Nizām al-Mulk. Ahmad was the son of Malik Shah I and initially took part in wars of succession against his three brothers and a nephew: Mahmud I , Barkiyaruq , Malik Shah II and Muhammad I Tapar . In 1096, he
24528-407: The support of the Republic of Turkey , have taken up arms against the Syrian government. Several Syrian Turkmen parties united under the Syrian Turkmen Assembly , which is affiliated with the National Coalition opposition group. A Second Coastal Division was formed in 2015 and along with another extensive Turkmen militia group Sultan Murad Division , the Turkmen brigades are closely affiliated with
24696-412: The throne, and Mahmud II proclaimed himself Sultan and established a capital in Baghdad, until 1131 when he was finally officially deposed by Ahmad Sanjar. Elsewhere in nominal Seljuk territory were the Artuqids in northeastern Syria and northern Mesopotamia ; they controlled Jerusalem until 1098. The Dānišmand dynasty founded a state in eastern Anatolia and northern Syria and contested land with
24864-501: 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
25032-435: The various Turkish warlords in Anatolia under control, they largerly maintained their independence. Malikshāh was the one who moved the capital from Ray to Isfahan . The Iqta military system and the Nizāmīyyah University at Baghdad were established by Nizām al-Mulk, and the reign of Malikshāh was reckoned the golden age of "Great Seljuk". The Abbasid caliph titled him "The Sultan of the East and West" in 1087. Internally,
25200-454: The verses. The last Seljuk sultan Tughril III was well known for his Persian poetry. The Saljuq-nama of Zahir al-Din Nishapuri , which was most likely dedicated to Tughril III, indicates that the Seljuk family now used Persian to communicate, and even were taught about the achievements of their forefathers in that language. Tughril relied on his vizier to translate from Arabic and Persian into Turkic for him, and Oghuz songs were sung at
25368-414: The vicinity of Jarabulus, and 23 villages south of Sajur River . In the Latakia governorate the Turkmen live mostly in the Turkmen Mountains (Jabal al-Turkman), Al-Badrusiyah , Umm al-Tuyour , and in various villages near the Syrian-Turkish border . There is also a number of Turkmen districts, including Bayırbucak and Jimmel Harresi where there are many Turkmen villages. In the Damascus governorate
25536-405: The vizierate of Nizam al-Mulk. It was under the vizierate of al-Kunduri that the Islamic scholar, Al-Juwayni was forced to flee to Mecca and Medina. In 1065, Alp Arslan campaigned against the Kingdom of Georgia , subjugated Tbilisi , and built a mosque in the city. In 1092, Malik-shah built the Jami al-Sultan Mosque in Baghdad . At the capital, Isfahan, Malik-shah had constructed a madrasa,
25704-456: The wedding of Tughril to the caliph's daughter. Later sultans, like Mahmud , could speak Arabic alongside Persian, however, they still used Turkic among themselves. The most significant evidence of the importance of Turkic language is the extensive Turkic–Arabic dictionary, or the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk , assembled in Baghdad for Caliph al-Muqtadi by Mahmud al-Kashgari . However, besides the Diwan, no works written in Turkic language survive from
25872-451: 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
26040-491: Was Marv in present-day Turkmenistan . In the west, various cities, where the Seljuk rulers lived periodically, served as capitals: Rayy , Isfahan , Baghdad , and, later, Hamadan . These western lands were known as the Sultanate of Iraq. After 1118, the Seljuk rulers of Iraq recognized the suzerainty of the Seljuk sultan Sanjar , who mostly ruled from Marv, and was known by the title of al-sultān al-a'zam, 'the Greatest Sultan'. The Seljuk rulers of Iraq were often mentioned as
26208-401: Was also intermittent, and after the First Crusade increasingly independent atabegs would frequently ally with the Crusader states against other atabegs as they vied with each other for territory. At Mosul, Zengi succeeded Kerbogha as atabeg and successfully began the process of consolidating the atabegs of Syria. In 1144 Zengi captured Edessa , as the County of Edessa had allied itself with
26376-454: Was brought before the League of Nations , which sent a mission to the district in January 1937. The mission concluded that the Turks constituted a majority and by July 1938 elections were held in the province; the Turks formed a majority of 22 seats in a 40-seat parliament of the newly established Hatay State , which remained a joint Franco-Turkish protectorate. The Hatay State began using Turkish flags , and petitioned Ankara to unify Hatay to
26544-412: Was concern expressed by the UN Human Rights Council regarding displacement of Syrian Turkmen from their homes in villages south of Hasakah and Tal Abyad during fighting with ISIL. Approximately 200 Syrian Turkmen refugees fled to Urfa , in southern Turkey, while 700 more fled to the eastern areas of Tal Abyad, once the YPG seized the town of Tell Hammam al-Turkman from ISIL , and there were claims that
26712-475: Was continuous for almost 400 years, until Ottoman rule ended in 1918. The Turkish settlement throughout the rural hinterlands of several Syrian cities was a state-organized population transfer which was used to counter the demographic weight and influence of other ethnic groups in the region. Furthermore, the Turkmen served as the local gendarmes to help assert Ottoman authority. By the late nineteenth century, many Turkish refugees who lost their lands to Russia in
26880-406: Was destroyed by the Mongols led by Tolui , who sacked the city of Merv in 1221, killing 700,000 people according to contemporary sources during their catastrophic invasion of Khwarazm ; however, modern scholarship holds such figures to be exaggerated. When Malikshāh I died in 1092, the empire split as his brother and four sons quarrelled over the apportioning of the empire among themselves. At
27048-436: Was founded in 1037 by Tughril (990–1063) and his brother Chaghri (989–1060), both of whom co-ruled over its territories; there are indications that the Seljuk leadership otherwise functioned as a triumvirate and thus included Musa Yabghu , the uncle of the aforementioned two. During the formative phase of the empire, the Seljuks first advanced from their original homelands near the Aral Sea into Khorasan and then into
27216-427: Was lit with candles under the orders of Malik-Shah I, which resembled the Zoroastrian ritual of sadhak . In 985, the Seljuks migrated to the city of Jend where they converted to Islam. The arrival of the Seljuk Turks into Persia, and their patronage of constructing madrasas, allowed for Sunni Islam to become the dominant sect of Islam. Until the death of Sultan Sanjar, the Seljuks were pious Sunnis, and represented
27384-533: Was named Governor of Mosul, where the Atabegdom of Mosul was formed. The Seljuk control of the Abassids ended in 1135, with direct military confrontation between the Abassids and the Seljuks: after rebuilding the walls of Baghdad and recreating a Caliphal after many centuries, Al-Mustarshid confronted the subordinate Seljuk Sultan of Iraq Mas'ud in battle. The caliph lost and was taken prisoner, and died in captivity in 1135, but conflicts continued with Al-Mustarshid's successors. Mas'ud briefly recaptured Baghdad in
27552-434: Was restricted to the only rule of Iraq, while Sanjar took control of the rest of the Empire. In order to counter the ambitions of Abbasid Caliph al-Mustarshid (1118–1135), who wanted to acquire world dominance, in 1124 Mahmūd granted the city of Wasit to Imad al-Din Zengi as an ıqta , and conferred him the Military Governorship of Basra together with Baghdad and the whole of Iraq in 1126. In 1127, Imad al-Din Zengi
27720-420: Was tasked to govern the province of Khorasan by his brother Muhammad I. Over the next several years, Ahmad Sanjar became the ruler of most of Iran (Persia), and eventually in 1118, the sole ruler of the Great Seljuk Empire, but with a subordinate Sultan in Iraq in the person of Mahmud II . In 1141, Ahmad marched to eliminate the threat posed by Kara Khitans and faced them in the vicinity of Samarkand at
27888-454: Was the Sultan of all Seljuk lands except for Anatolia. He spent his reign conquering cities, destroying the citadel of Ray in the process, but was unable to hold any cities long enough to rebuild them. Toghrul III, however, was defeated by Ala al-Din Tekish , Shah of Khwarazmian Empire , and the Seljuk Empire finally collapsed in 1194. Of the former Empire, only the Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia remained. The Khwarazmian Empire took over as
28056-495: Was the first Seljuk ruler to style himself Sultan and Protector of the Abbasid Caliphate. From that time, the Abassids were only "puppets" in the hands of the Seljuks. In 1058, the Abassid Caliph granted to Tughril the title of "King of East and West", officially becoming the temporal protector of Abassid Caliph Qa'im . Iraq remained under the control of the Great Seljuks during the reign of Muhammad I Tapar (1082–1118 CE), but from 1119, his 14 years old son Mahmud II (1118–1131)
28224-429: Was usurped by the Kara-Khitai, otherwise known as the Western Liao in Chinese historiography. In 1153, the Oghuz Turks rebelled and captured Sanjar. He managed to escape after three years but died a year later. The Atabegs, such as the Zengids and Artuqids , were only nominally under the Seljuk Sultan, and generally controlled Syria independently. When Sanjar died in 1157, the empire fractured even further and rendered
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