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66-717: Syria is a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in West Asia , broadly synonymous with the Levant . Other synonyms are Greater Syria or Syria-Palestine . The region boundaries have changed throughout history. However, in modern times, the term "Syria" alone is used to refer to the Syrian Arab Republic . The term is originally derived from Assyria , an ancient civilization centered in northern Mesopotamia , modern-day Iraq . During

132-524: A Syrian Christian such as Ephrem the Syrian . Following the declaration of Syria in 1936, the term "Syrian" came to designate citizens of that state, regardless of ethnicity. The adjective "Syriac" ( suryāni سُرْيَانِي ) has come into common use since as an ethnonym to avoid the ambiguity of "Syrian". Currently, the Arabic term Sūriya usually refers to the modern state of Syria, as opposed to

198-439: A second language (if they spoke the colloquial dialects as their first language) or as a third language (if they spoke another language as their first language and a regional variety of colloquial Arabic as their second language). Nonetheless, the pronunciation of Classical Arabic was likely influenced by the vernaculars to different degrees (much like Modern Standard Arabic ). The differences in pronunciation and vocabulary in

264-653: A "pure Arabic origin", especially those in the Qur'an. Thus, exegetes, theologians, and grammarians who entertained the idea of the presence of "impurities" (for example, naturalized loanwords) in the Qur'an were severely criticized and their proposed etymologies denounced in most cases. Nonetheless, the belief in the racial and ethnic supremacy of the Arabs and the belief in the linguistic supremacy of Arabic did not seem to be necessary entailments of each other. Poems and sayings attributed to Arabic-speaking personages who lived before

330-613: A province of the Roman Empire, following the conquest by Pompey . Roman Syria bordered Judea to the south, Anatolian Greek domains to the north, Phoenicia to the West, and was in constant struggle with Parthians to the East. In 135 AD, Syria-Palaestina became to incorporate the entire Levant and Western Mesopotamia. In 193, the province was divided into Syria proper ( Coele-Syria ) and Phoenice . Sometime between 330 and 350 (likely c. 341),

396-695: A subset of the syntactic structures available in Classical Arabic, but the morphology and syntax have remained basically unchanged. In the Arab world little distinction is made between Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic and both are normally called al-fuṣḥā ( الفصحى ) in Arabic, meaning 'the most eloquent'. The earliest forms of Arabic are known as Old Arabic and survive in inscriptions in Ancient North Arabian scripts as well as fragments of pre-Islamic poetry preserved in

462-413: A theory for the etymology of Arabia Felix denoting Yemen, by translation of that sense. The Shaam region is sometimes defined as the area dominated by Damascus , long an important regional center. Ash-Sām on its own can refer to the city of Damascus. Continuing with the similar contrasting theme, Damascus was the commercial destination and representative of the region in the same way Sanaa held for

528-769: Is equivalent to the region known in Classical Arabic by the name ash-Shām ( ٱلشَّام /ʔaʃ-ʃaːm/ ), which means the north [country] (from the root šʔm شَأْم "left, north"). After the Islamic conquest of Byzantine Syria in the seventh century, the name Syria fell out of primary use in the region itself, being superseded by the Arabic equivalent Bilād ash-Shām ("Northern Land'"), but survived in its original sense in Byzantine and Western European usage, and in Syriac Christian literature. In

594-506: Is generally believed to have evolved from local cursive varieties of the Aramaic script , which have been adopted to write Arabic, though some, such as Jean Starcky , have postulated that it instead derives direct from the Syriac script since, unlike Aramaic, the scripts of Arabic and Syriac are both cursive. Indigenous speculations concerning the history of the script sometimes ascribe

660-599: The Ahvaz region of Iran, and the Kilikian region of Turkey. The region has sites that are significant to Abrahamic religions : Nearby is Mount Carmel . Being associated with the Biblical figure Elijah , it is important to Christians, Druze , Jews and Muslims. Historical region The fundamental principle underlying this view is that older political and mental structures exist which exercise greater influence on

726-683: The Armenian Apostolic Church . There are also Levantines or Franco-Levantines who adhere to Roman Catholicism . There are also Assyrians belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church . Other religious groups in the Levant include Jews , Samaritans , Yazidis and Druze . [REDACTED] Asia portal Herodotus uses Ancient Greek : Συρία to refer to

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792-555: The Bilad al-Sham province of the medieval Arab caliphates , encompassing the Eastern Mediterranean (or Levant) and Western Mesopotamia. The Muslim conquest of the Levant in the seventh century gave rise to this province, which encompassed much of the region of Syria, and came to largely overlap with this concept. Other sources indicate that the term Greater Syria was coined during Ottoman rule , after 1516, to designate

858-730: The Emirate of Transjordan . The Syrian-mandate states were gradually unified as the State of Syria and finally became the independent Syria in 1946. Throughout this period, Antoun Saadeh and his party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party , envisioned "Greater Syria" or "Natural Syria", based on the etymological connection between the name "Syria" and "Assyria" , as encompassing the Sinai Peninsula , Cyprus, modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait,

924-424: The Emirate of Transjordan . The term Syria itself was applied to several mandate states under French rule and the contemporaneous but short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria . The Syrian-mandate states were gradually unified as the State of Syria and finally became the independent Syria in 1946. Throughout this period, pan-Syrian nationalists advocated for the creation of a Greater Syria. Several sources indicate that

990-643: The Franco-Syrian War , in July 1920, in which French armies defeated the newly proclaimed kingdom and captured Damascus, aborting the Arab state. Thereafter, the French general Henri Gouraud , in breach of the conditions of the mandate, subdivided the French Mandate of Syria into six states. They were the states of Damascus (1920), Aleppo (1920), Alawite State (1920), Jabal Druze (1921),

1056-577: The Hellenistic period , the term Syria was applied to the entire Levant as Coele-Syria . Under Roman rule , the term was used to refer to the province of Syria , later divided into Syria Phoenicia and Coele Syria , and to the province of Syria Palaestina . Under the Byzantines, the provinces of Syria Prima and Syria Secunda emerged out of Coele Syria. After the Muslim conquest of the Levant ,

1122-518: The Middle Ages , most notably in Umayyad and Abbasid literary texts such as poetry, elevated prose and oratory, and is also the liturgical language of Islam . Classical Arabic is, furthermore, the register of the Arabic language on which Modern Standard Arabic is based. Several written grammars of Classical Arabic were published with the exegesis of Arabic grammar being at times based on

1188-503: The Qur'an (and also many of its readings also) and the later normalized orthography of Classical Arabic as a standard literary register in the 8th century. By the 2nd century AH (9th century AD / CE ) the language had been standardized by Arabic grammarians and knowledge of Classical Arabic became a prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, since it was

1254-639: The Roman Empire , Syria and Assyria came to be used as distinct geographical terms. "Syria" in the Roman Empire period referred to "those parts of the Empire situated between Asia Minor and Egypt", i.e. the western Levant , while "Assyria" was part of the Persian Empire , and only very briefly came under Roman control (116–118 AD, marking the historical peak of Roman expansion ). In the Roman era,

1320-637: The ancient Near East during the Bronze and Iron Ages . Others such as Bedouin Arabs inhabit the Syrian Desert and Naqab, and speak a dialect known as Bedouin Arabic that originated in Arabian Peninsula . Other minor ethnic groups in the Levant include Circassians , Chechens , Turks , Turkmens , Assyrians , Kurds , Nawars and Armenians . Islam became the predominant religion in

1386-579: The lingua franca across the Middle East , North Africa , and the Horn of Africa , and thus the region eventually developed into a widespread state of diglossia . Consequently the classical language, as well as the Arabic script , became the subject of much mythicization and was eventually associated with religious, ethnic, and racial conflicts, such as the rise of many groups traditionally categorized under

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1452-483: The 19th century, the name Syria was revived in its modern Arabic form to denote the whole of Bilad al-Sham, either as Suriyah or the modern form Suriyya , which eventually replaced the Arabic name of Bilad al-Sham. After World War I , the name 'Syria' was applied to the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon , and the contemporaneous but short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria . Today, the largest metropolitan areas in

1518-615: The 3rd or 4th century AD in the Greek alphabet in a dialect showing affinities to that of the Safaitic inscriptions shows that short final high vowels had been lost in at least some dialects of Old Arabic at that time, obliterating the distinction between nominative and genitive case in the singular, leaving the accusative the only marked case: Classical Arabic however, shows a far more archaic system, essentially identical with that of Proto-Arabic : The definite article spread areally among

1584-563: The 5th century BC, Syria extended as far north as the Halys (the modern Kızılırmak River ) and as far south as Arabia and Egypt. The name 'Syria' derives from the ancient Greek name for Assyrians, Greek : Σύριοι Syrioi , which the Greeks applied without distinction to various Near Eastern peoples living under the rule of Assyria . Modern scholarship confirms the Greek word traces back to

1650-413: The Arabic name of Bilad al-Sham. After World War I , the boundaries of the region were last defined in modern times by the proclamation of and subsequent definition by French and British mandatory agreement. The area was passed to French and British Mandates following World War I and divided into Greater Lebanon , various states under Mandatory French rule , British-controlled Mandatory Palestine and

1716-621: The Central Semitic languages and it would seem that Proto-Arabic lacked any overt marking of definiteness. Besides dialects with no definite article, the Safaitic inscriptions exhibit about four different article forms, ordered by frequency: h- , ʾ- , ʾl- , and hn- . The Old Arabic of the Nabataean inscriptions exhibits almost exclusively the form ʾl- . Unlike the Classical Arabic article, the Old Arabic ʾl almost never exhibits

1782-717: The Elder and Pomponius Mela , Syria covered the entire Fertile Crescent . In Late Antiquity , "Syria" meant a region located to the east of the Mediterranean Sea , west of the Euphrates River , north of the Arabian Desert and south of the Taurus Mountains , thereby including modern Syria , Lebanon , Jordan , Israel , Palestine , and parts of Southern Turkey, namely the Hatay Province and

1848-608: The Elder and Pomponius Mela , Syria covered the entire Fertile Crescent . In Late Antiquity , "Syria" meant a region located to the east of the Mediterranean Sea , west of the Euphrates River , north of the Arabian Desert , and south of the Taurus Mountains , thereby including modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the State of Palestine, and the Hatay Province and the western half of the Southeastern Anatolia Region of southern Turkey. This late definition

1914-425: The approximate area included in present-day Palestine , Syria, Jordan, Lebanon. The uncertainty in the definition of the extent of "Syria" is aggravated by the etymological confusion of the similar-sounding names Syria and Assyria . The question of the etymological identity of the two names remains open today. Regardless of etymology, both were thought of as interchangeable around the time of Herodotus. However, by

1980-647: The area of Jordan). Later Jund Qinnasrîn was created out of part of Jund Hims. The city of Damascus was the capital of the Islamic Caliphate, until the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate . In the later ages of the Ottoman times, it was divided into wilayahs or sub-provinces the borders of which and the choice of cities as seats of government within them varied over time. The vilayets or sub-provinces of Aleppo, Damascus, and Beirut, in addition to

2046-484: The area of the Persian Gulf . This article about geography terminology is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Classical Arabic Classical Arabic or Quranic Arabic (Arabic: العربية الفصحى , romanized:  al-ʻArabīyah al-Fuṣḥā , lit.   'the most eloquent classic Arabic') is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout

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2112-537: The assimilation of the coda to the coronals; the same situation is attested in the Graeco-Arabica, but in A1 the coda assimilates to the following d , αδαυρα * ʾad-dawra الدورة 'the region'. In Classical Arabic, the definite article takes the form al- , with the coda of the article exhibiting assimilation to the following dental and denti-alveolar consonants. Note the inclusion of palatal /ɕ/ , which alone among

2178-610: The autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta (1921) (modern-day Hatay in Turkey), and Greater Lebanon (1920) which later became the modern country of Lebanon. The boundaries of the region have changed throughout history, and were last defined in modern times by the proclamation of the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria and subsequent definition by French and British mandatory agreement. The area was passed to French and British Mandates following World War I and divided into Greater Lebanon , various Syrian-mandate states, Mandatory Palestine and

2244-487: The broad label of al-Shu'ibiyya (roughly meaning "those of the nations", as opposed to Arab tribes), who, despite the remarkable differences in their views, generally rejected the stressed and often dogmatized belief that the Arabs, as well as their language, were far superior to all other races and ethnicities, and so the term later came to be applied pejoratively to such groups by their rivals. Moreover, many Arabic grammarians strove to attribute as many words as possible to

2310-434: The classical literature. It is hypothesized that by the late 6th century AD a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koiné ", a synthetic language distinct from the spoken vernaculars, had developed with conservative as well as innovative features, including the case endings known as ʾiʿrab . It is uncertain to what degree the spoken vernaculars corresponded to the literary style, however, as many surviving inscriptions in

2376-575: The cognate Greek : Ἀσσυρία , Assyria . The classical Arabic pronunciation of Syria is Sūriya (as opposed to the Modern Standard Arabic pronunciation Sūrya ). That name was not widely used among Muslims before about 1870, but it had been used by Christians earlier. According to the Syriac Orthodox Church , "Syrian" meant "Christian" in early Christianity . In English, "Syrian" historically meant

2442-580: The creation of the first modern Arab state to come into existence, the Hashemite Arab Kingdom of Syria on 8 March 1920. The kingdom claimed the entire region of Syria whilst exercising control over only the inland region known as OETA East. This led to the acceleration of the declaration of the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and British Mandate for Palestine at the 19–26 April 1920 San Remo conference , and subsequently

2508-447: The desert-dwellers (as opposed to the " corrupted " dialects of the city-dwellers) expressed in many medieval Arabic works, especially those on grammar, though some argue that all the spoken vernaculars probably deviated greatly from the supraregional literary norm to different degrees, while others, such as Joshua Blau , believe that "the differences between the classical and spoken language were not too far-reaching". The Arabic script

2574-553: The emergence of a regional identity . In Europe, regional identities are often derived from the Migration Period but for the contemporary era are also often related to the territorial transformations that followed World War I and those that followed the Cold War . Some regions are entirely invented, such as the Middle East , which was popularised in 1902 by a military strategist , Alfred Thayer Mahan , to refer to

2640-623: The existing texts and the works of previous texts, in addition to various early sources considered to be of most venerated genesis of Arabic. The primary focus of such works was to facilitate different linguistic aspects. Modern Standard Arabic is its direct descendant used today throughout the Arab world in writing and in formal speaking, for example prepared speeches, some radio and television broadcasts and non-entertainment content. The lexis and stylistics of Modern Standard Arabic are different from Classical Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic uses

2706-484: The historical region of Syria. Greater Syria has been widely known as Ash-Shām . The term etymologically in Arabic means "the left-hand side" or "the north", as someone in the Hejaz facing east, oriented to the sunrise, will find the north to the left. This is contrasted with the name of Yemen ( اَلْيَمَن al-Yaman ), correspondingly meaning "the right-hand side" or "the south". The variation ش ء م ( š-ʾ-m ), of

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2772-557: The literary ideal to be followed, quoted, and imitated in solemn texts and speeches. Lexically, Classical Arabic may retain one or more of the dialectal forms of a given word as variants of the standardized forms, albeit often with much less currency and use. Various Arabic dialects freely borrowed words from Classical Arabic, a situation similar to the Romance languages , wherein scores of words were borrowed directly from Classical Latin . Arabic-speakers usually spoke Classical Arabic as

2838-497: The more typical ش م ل ( š-m-l ) , is also attested in Old South Arabian , 𐩦𐩱𐩣 ( s²ʾm ), with the same semantic development. The root of Shaam , ش ء م ( š-ʾ-m ) also has connotations of unluckiness, which is traditionally associated with the left-hand and with the colder north-winds. Again this is in contrast with Yemen, with felicity and success, and the positively-viewed warm-moist southerly wind;

2904-440: The name Syria itself is derived from Luwian term "Sura/i", and the derivative ancient Greek name: Σύριοι , Sýrioi , or Σύροι , Sýroi , both of which originally derived from Aššūrāyu ( Assyria ) in northern Mesopotamia , modern-day Iraq and greater Syria For Herodotus in the 5th century BC, Syria extended as far north as the Halys (the modern Kızılırmak River ) and as far south as Arabia and Egypt. For Pliny

2970-722: The name Syria was applied to the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and the contemporaneous but short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria . In the most common historical sense, 'Syria' refers to the entire northern Levant , including Alexandretta and the Ancient City of Antioch or in an extended sense the entire Levant as far south as Roman Egypt , including Mesopotamia . The area of "Greater Syria" (Arabic: سُوْرِيَّة ٱلْكُبْرَىٰ , Sūrīyah al-Kubrā ); also called "Natural Syria" (Arabic: سُوْرِيَّة ٱلطَّبِيْعِيَّة , Sūrīyah aṭ-Ṭabīʿīyah ) or "Northern Land" (Arabic: بِلَاد ٱلشَّام , Bilād ash-Shām ), extends roughly over

3036-484: The origins of the script, and oftentimes the language itself also, to one of the ancient major figures in Islam, such as Adam or Ishmael , though others mention that it was introduced to Arabia from afar. In the 7th century AD the distinctive features of Old Hijazi , such as loss of final short vowels, loss of hamza , lenition of final /-at/ to /-ah/ and lack of nunation , influenced the consonantal text (or rasm ) of

3102-476: The palatal consonants exhibits assimilation, indicating that assimilation ceased to be productive before that consonant shifted from Old Arabic /ɬ/ : Proto-Central Semitic, Proto-Arabic, various forms of Old Arabic, and some modern Najdi dialects to this day have alternation in the performative vowel of the prefix conjugation, depending on the stem vowel of the verb. Early forms of Classical Arabic allowed this alternation, but later forms of Classical Arabic levelled

3168-517: The province of Euphratensis was created out of the territory of Syria Coele and the former realm of Commagene, with Hierapolis as its capital. After c. 415 Syria Coele was further subdivided into Syria I, with the capital remaining at Antioch , and Syria II or Salutaris, with capital at Apamea on the Orontes River . In 528, Justinian I carved out the small coastal province Theodorias out of territory from both provinces. The region

3234-491: The region are Amman , Tel Aviv , Damascus , Beirut , Aleppo and Gaza City . Several sources indicate that the name Syria itself is derived from Luwian term "Sura/i", and the derivative ancient Greek name: Σύριοι , Sýrioi , or Σύροι , Sýroi , both of which originally derived from Aššūrāyu ( Assyria ) in northern Mesopotamia , modern-day Iraq However, during the Seleucid Empire , this term

3300-698: The region after the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century. The majority of Levantine Muslims are Sunni with Alawite and Shia ( Twelver and Nizari Ismaili ) minorities. Alawites and Ismaili Shiites mainly inhabit Hatay and the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range , while Twelver Shiites are mainly concentrated in parts of Lebanon . Levantine Christian groups are plenty and include Greek Orthodox ( Antiochian Greek ), Syriac Orthodox , Eastern Catholic ( Syriac Catholic , Melkite and Maronite ), Roman Catholic ( Latin ), Nestorian , and Protestant . Armenians mostly belong to

3366-674: The region in 1150 and assigned the northern regions of Bilad al-Sham as the following: In the Levantine sea are two islands: Rhodes and Cyprus; and in Levantine lands: Antarsus, Laodice , Antioch , Mopsuhestia , Adana , Anazarbus , Tarsus , Circesium , Ḥamrtash, Antalya , al-Batira, al-Mira, Macri , Astroboli; and in the interior lands: Apamea , Salamiya , Qinnasrin , al-Castel, Aleppo , Resafa , Raqqa , Rafeqa, al-Jisr, Manbij , Mar'ash , Saruj , Ḥarran , Edessa , Al-Ḥadath , Samosata , Malatiya , Ḥusn Mansur, Zabatra, Jersoon, al-Leen, al-Bedandour, Cirra and Touleb. For Pliny

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3432-491: The region itself, being superseded by the Arabic equivalent Shām , but survived in its original sense in Byzantine and Western European usage, and in Syriac Christian literature. In the 19th century the name Syria was revived in its modern Arabic form to denote the whole of Bilad al-Sham , either as Suriyah or the modern form Suriyya , which eventually replaced the Arabic name of Bilad al-Sham. After World War I ,

3498-465: The region seem to indicate simplification or absence of the inflectional morphology of Classical Arabic. It is often said that the Bedouin dialects of Najd were probably the most conservative (or at least resembled the elevated intertribal idiom morphologically and lexically more than the other contemporary vernaculars), a view possibly supported by the romanticization of the ‘purity’ of the language of

3564-511: The region's population was dominated by Sunni Muslims , it also contained sizable populations of Shi'ite , Alawite and Ismaili Muslims, Syriac Orthodox , Maronite , Greek Orthodox , Roman Catholics and Melkite Christians, Jews and Druze . The Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA) was a British, French and Arab military administration over areas of the former Ottoman Empire between 1917 and 1920, during and following World War I . The wave of Arab nationalism evolved towards

3630-559: The regional Arabic varieties were in turn variously influenced by the native languages spoken in the conquered regions, such as Coptic in Egypt; Berber and Punic in the Maghreb; Himyaritic , Modern South Arabian , and Old South Arabian in Yemen; and Aramaic in the Levant. Like Modern Standard Arabic, Classical Arabic had 28 consonant phonemes: Notes: The A1 inscription dated to

3696-421: The south. Quran 106:2 alludes to this practice of caravans traveling to Syria in the summer to avoid the colder weather and to likewise sell commodities in Yemen in the winter. The largest religious group in the Levant are Muslims and the largest ethnic group are Arabs . Levantines predominantly speak Levantine Arabic , who derive their ancestry from the many ancient Semitic-speaking peoples who inhabited

3762-407: The spatial-social identity of individuals than is understood by the contemporary world, bound to and often blinded by its own worldview - e.g. the focus on the nation-state. Definitions of regions vary, and regions can include macroregions such as Europe , territories of traditional sovereign states or smaller microregional areas . Geographic proximity is generally the required precondition for

3828-474: The standardization of the Classical idiom, which are preserved mainly in far later manuscripts, contain traces of elements in morphology and syntax that began to be regarded as chiefly poetic or characteristically regional or dialectal. Despite this, these, along with the Qur'an, were perceived as the principal foundation upon which grammatical inquiry, theorizing, and reasoning were to be based. They also formed

3894-518: The stretch of land from the Halys river, including Cappadocia (The Histories, I.6) in today's Turkey to the Mount Casius (The Histories II.158), which Herodotus says is located just south of Lake Serbonis (The Histories III.5). According to Herodotus various remarks in different locations, he describes Syria to include the entire stretch of Phoenician coastal line as well as cities such Cadytis (Jerusalem) (The Histories III.159). In Greek usage, Syria and Assyria were used almost interchangeably, but in

3960-441: The term Syria is used to comprise the entire northern Levant and has an uncertain border to the northeast that Pliny the Elder describes as including, from west to east, the Kingdom of Commagene , Sophene , and Adiabene , "formerly known as Assyria". Various writers used the term to describe the entire Levant region during this period; the New Testament used the name in this sense on numerous occasions. In 64 BC, Syria became

4026-406: The term was superseded by the Arabic equivalent Shām, and under the Rashidun , Umayyad , Abbasid , and Fatimid caliphates , Bilad al-Sham was the name of a metropolitan province encompassing most of the region. In the 19th century, the name Syria was revived in its modem Arabic form to denote the whole of Bilad al-Sham, either as Suriyah or the modern form Suriyya , which eventually replaced

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4092-443: The time of the Roman Empire , 'Syria' and 'Assyria' began to refer to two separate entities, Roman Syria and Roman Assyria . Killebrew and Steiner, treating the Levant as the Syrian region, gave the boundaries of the region as such: the Mediterranean Sea to the west, the Arabian Desert to the south, Mesopotamia to the east, and the Taurus Mountains of Anatolia to the north. The Muslim geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi visited

4158-421: The two special districts of Mount Lebanon and Jerusalem . Aleppo consisted of northern modern-day Syria plus parts of southern Turkey, Damascus covered southern Syria and modern-day Jordan, Beirut covered Lebanon and the Syrian coast from the port-city of Latakia southward to the Galilee , while Jerusalem consisted of the land south of the Galilee and west of the Jordan River and the Wadi Arabah . Although

4224-405: The western half of the Southeastern Anatolia Region . This late definition is equivalent to the region known in Classical Arabic by the name ash-Shām ( Arabic : ٱَلشَّام /ʔaʃ-ʃaːm/ , which means the north [country] (from the root šʔm Arabic : شَأْم "left, north")). After the Arab conquest of Byzantine Syria in the 7th century CE , the name Syria fell out of primary use in

4290-420: Was also applied to The Levant , and henceforth the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant. The oldest attestation of the name 'Syria' is from the 8th century BC in a bilingual inscription in Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician . In this inscription, the Luwian word Sura/i was translated to Phoenician ʔšr " Assyria ." For Herodotus in

4356-443: Was annexed to the Rashidun Caliphate after the Muslim victory over the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Yarmouk , and became known as the province of Bilad al-Sham . During the Umayyad Caliphate , the Shām was divided into five junds or military districts. They were Jund Dimashq (for the area of Damascus), Jund Ḥimṣ (for the area of Homs ), Jund Filasṭīn (for the area of Palestine ) and Jund al-Urdunn (for

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