Damascus: A Brief History (History)

Name: librelola

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Product:	History
Date:	01/02/06 (225 review reads)
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Advantages: Learn more about a fascinating city

Disadvantages: If you are not interested in history...

Having completed my review on Damascus, I have decided to post this part of it separately for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, as it is extremely long, though I have tried to shrink a lot of information into very few pages. I know that many people are not particularly interested in reading at length about the history of a city or country, but I, for one, find it quite fascinating.

The history of Damascus in particular is remarkable and that is the main reason for which I opted for posting this information, as opposed to omitting it altogether.

The second reason is that its history is extremely complicated and quite confusing at times, hence needs to be read separately for easier digestion.

I trust that those of you who enjoy finding out about the diversity of certain lands, might appreciate it.

So here goes…

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Pre-History

The History of Damascus (known as "Al Shâm, in Arabic) is very old, long and quite… complicated. I have tried to be brief, but this has proved extremely hard to achieve.

Damascus is the capital of Syria and has a very long and rich past. I have read somewhere that it is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, but I've read the same thing about other places, so who knows?

It is a natural oasis irrigated by the river Barada, and was once known as "Dar Meshq", which apparently means "well watered place".

There is firm evidence to suggest that Damascus was inhabited by a prosperous civilisation in the third millennium BC, but no one is sure which civilisation that was. Others suggest that it was inhabited as long as the 7th millennium BC. Not improbable, but there are no definite proofs.

The earliest reference to its name was found in 1975, in the archaeological site of Ebla, where the word "Damaski" was deciphered on a clay tablet.

Aramean Period

The earliest documented history about this rich city dates back to 2000 BC, during its Amorite period, when it served as the capital of an Aramean Principality (the Arameans spoke a northern Arabian dialect which later came to be known as Syriac or Aramaic). Sadly, most Aramean towns are buried beneath the eastern part of the old walled city and are impossible to excavate as other historical monuments have been built on top of them. One of the major Aramean buildings, the Temple of Hadad (God of Storm) is said to be buried beneath the Great Umayyad Mosque

Assyrian Period

The Assyrian King Hadad Niari III besieged and took over the city in 841 BC, and in 572BC, it was the turn of the Chaldeans (Neo-Babylonians) to reign over Damascus, under King Nebuchadnezzar; not for long though, as King Cyrus of Persia arrived in 538 BC to rule over the city and establish it as the capital of the Persian Province of Syria.

The Arrival of Alexander and the Greek Period (and others…)

But in 333 BC, Damascus was to come under western control for the very first time in its history when the armies of Alexander the Great swept through the near East, capturing the city (amongst other conquests) and marking the start of a "classical" civilisation, which was to last until 630 AD.

A lot did happen in the meantime! After the death of Alexander, in 323BC, a constant struggle between the Seleucid (Seleucus was Alexander's successor) and Ptolemaic empires led to much instability as control over the city regularly passed from one side to the other. Although the Greek era lasted for about 250 years, it did not leave a huge imprint on Damascus, and the crumbling of the Seleucid Kingdom made it easy for the Nabateans (Arabian tribe) to occupy Damascus in the beginning of the 1st century BC, shortly before that, the Armenian army had also passed through there!

Roman Period and Christianity

64BC was the year in which the Roman Empire appeared on the scene; General Pompey annexed Syria to the Great Empire and although Damascus was under the full control of Rome, it flourished significantly and gained a huge importance as the crossroads on the East-West trade route. In the 2nd century AD, it was given the state of Metropolis under Alexander Severus and soon after became a Roman Colony and a headquarters of the Roman Armies. Christianity was introduced to Damascus and the whole of Syria during this period and it was not long before it became an important centre of Christianity.

Byzantine Period and Arrival of Islam

As the Roman Empire broke down in 395AD, Damascus became part of the Byzantine Empire and maintained its importance. In 612 AD, the Persian King Chosraes II invaded and ruled Damascus until 627 AD when Byzantine rule was restored.

635AD saw the arrival of the Muslim armies under Khaled Ibn-al-Walid, who annexed Damascus (and Syria) to the Muslim Empire. Mass conversion to Islam followed, but although the Christians and Jews became minorities, they were still treated very well and with complete tolerance.

The Golden Age of Damascus started in 661AD, when Muawiyah Bin Abi Sufian established himself as fifth Caliph (or successor of the Prophet Mohammad), thus founding the Umayyad Dynasty which ruled for about a century over the Muslim Empire, of which Damascus became the capital, making it the most important cultural, economic and political centre in this extensive empire, which stretched from Spain and the shores of the Atlantic ocean, all the way to Iran and India. No less than fourteen Umayyad Caliphs ruled Damascus during this period.

Sadly, the Golden Age ended abruptly in 750AD when the Abbassids (powerful Arabian family settled in Iran) murdered the Umayyad Caliph, putting an end to the Umayyad Caliphate and occupying Damascus. The Abbassids destroyed countless of the numerous monuments built by their predecessors and proceeded to eradicate all traces of the Umayyad era. They moved the capital to Baghdad, in the process, plunging Damascus in 300 years of unrest, civil strife and successive assaults. The great city was almost completely burned down.

The Turkish Ahmad Ben Tulun captured Damascus in 878 AD, only to be overrun a few years later by the Ikshidis (of Egypt), followed by the Hamdanid Dynasty of Aleppo (in Syria).

The Ikshidis reclaimed the city in 969 AD but were driven out by the powerful Fatimids (of Egypt) soon after. Their century long reign (the Fatimids) was filled with unrest and opposition from inside and out. They soon lost control to the Seljuks (Turkish tribe converted to Islam) in 1076 AD under their ruler Duqaq, whose weakness allowed the Atabeg dynasty (Turkish) to take over under Tughtakin.

In 1069 AD, the first Crusade was launched and although Tughtakin held a truce with them, it did not last long. However a crusader King was defeated in Damascus in 1113 AD and until 1154 AD, the history of the city becomes extremely messy and impossible to go into without much detail.

It was during the second Crusade (in 1154AD) that Nour Ed-Din regained Damascus, defeating the city which was still besieged by crusaders. A great patron of Art and Architecture, Nour Ed-Din died in 1174 AD, leaving the city in the hands of Salah Ed-Din (Saladin), who started the rule of the Ayyubid Dynasty. He died in 1193AD and his uncle, Al Malik El-Adil, took charge through a coup and moved the Ayyubid capital to Cairo.

The Tartars briefly occupied Damascus in 1260, the same year in which the Memluks captured it, under Sultan Baybars. The Memluks ruled over Damascus in much prosperity until disaster struck in 1400 in the form of Tamurlane, leader of the Mongols. The Mongol invasion of Damascus (and other places) was notoriously bloody and Memluk Damascus would never fully recover from this fatal blow.

The Ottoman Era and Modern Times

Too weak to fight the Ottoman Turks who came to claim the city in 1516 under Sultan Selim I, the Memluk ruling over Damascus ended that year, and the Ottoman occupation would last until 1918, not without many episodes of incursions from Lebanon and Egypt which were eventually always crushed.

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany and Syria (therefore Damascus) was thrust into the conflict.

During that time, Sherfi Hussein of Mecca headed an Arab Revolution against the Turkish rule, and in 1918 as well, his son Faisal entered Damascus with his Arab troups, accompanied by British Forces, thus marking the end of a 4 century long Ottoman rule.

Shortly before this happened, in April 1915, negotiations between Sherif Hussein and Britain had resulted in a British guarantee of Independence for Syria (including present day Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan) as well as Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula, when the war ended.

However when a Syrian General Conference declared Syria an independent Kingdom in 1918, it soon came to light that France and Britain had secretly concluded the Sykes-Picot agreement, in which they "carved" the middle east into "spheres of influence", and the Syrian independence was very short lived indeed.

All guarantees were thrown to the wind and France landed in Syria, imposing its mandate, amid fierce resistance which was very swiftly crushed, forcing King Faisal into exile.

Finally, in 1941, during World War II, France recognised Syria's Independence, but maintained its military presence in Damascus and the rest of the country until April 17, 1946.

Syria's early years of independence were very politically unstable (with 5 coups between 1949 and 1954) until 1963, when yet another coup d'état by the Baath Socialist Party (later known as the March Revolution) was enacted.

The Baath have ruled Syria ever since that day, but "stability" only came back to the country with the accession to power of President Hafez El-Assad on the 16th of November 1970.

Hafez El-Assad died in 2000, leaving his son, Bashar El-Assad in charge, and the rest, as many will know, is history still in the making.

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I hope that you have enjoyed reading this brief and rushed resume about a city whose past is undeniably intriguing, whose present is curious to say the least and whose future will most certainly hold more surprises.


© Lola Awada 2005

Summary: A brief history of Damascus...