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Syria Succeeding Caliphates and Kingdoms
Under later dissolute caliphs, the Umayyad dynasty began to
decline at a time when both Sunni and Shia Muslims in Iran began
to press against Umayyad borders. By 750 the Abbasids, whose
forces originated in Khorasan (in northeast Iran), had conquered
the Umayyads and established the caliphate in Baghdad. As a
result, Syria became a province of an empire.
Abbasid rule over Syria, however, was precarious and often
challenged by independent Muslim princes. The greatest of these
was Abu Ali Hasan, who founded a kingdom known as the Hamdani. A
Shia, he established his capital at Aleppo, and the Abbasids
recognized him as Sayf ad Dawlah (sword of the state). The
Hamdanid dynasty ruled throughout the tenth century and became
famous for its achievements in science and letters. In Europe it
was known for its persistent attacks against Byzantium. The
Hamdanid kingdom fell in 1094 to Muslim Seljuk Turks invading
from the northeast.
During the same period, the Shia Fatimids established
themselves in Egypt and drove north against Syria. The Fatimids
were less tolerant of subject peoples than their predecessors.
Intolerance reached its height under caliph Abu Ali Mansur al
Hakim (966-1021), who destroyed churches and caused Christians to
flee to the mountains. When he announced his divinity, his mother
murdered him. In the secluded valleys of Mount Hermon in Syria,
his followers found tribesmen to adopt his religion, the
ancestors of Syria's present-day Druzes
(see Druzes
, ch. 2).
Muslim rule of Christian holy places, overpopulation, and
constant warfare in Europe prompted the Crusades, the first major
Western colonial venture in the Middle East. Between 1097 and
1144 Crusaders established the principalities of Edessa (in
northeast modern Syria), Antioch, Tripoli, and the Latin Kingdom
of Jerusalem. The politically fragmented area was an easy
conquest for the Europeans. The first Muslim threat to European
entrenchment came not from within Greater Syria but from Zangi,
the
amir (see Glossary) of Mosul (in modern Iraq). Zangi took
Edessa in 1144 and his son, Nur ad Din (light of the faith),
secured Damascus, extending the realm from Aleppo to Mosul. When
the last Shia Fatimid caliph died, Nur ad Din secured Egypt as
well. Eliminating Sunni-Shia sectarianism, the political rivalry
that had so aided the European venture, he invoked jihad, holy
war, as a unifying force for Arabs in Greater Syria and Egypt.
The jihad was to liberate Jerusalem, the third holiest city
to Muslims, who call it Bayt Quds (the house of holiness) in
memory of Muhammad's stopping there on his night journey to
heaven. It fell to Nur ad Din's lieutenant, Saladin (Salah ad Din
al Ayubbi--rectitude of the faith), to recapture Jerusalem.
Saladin, a Kurd, unified Syria and Egypt, a necessary
preliminary, and after many setbacks, captured Mosul, Aleppo, and
the string of cities from Edessa to Nasihin. In 1187 Saladin took
Al Karak, a Crusader fort on the route between Homs and Tripoli
held by the infamous Reginald of Chatillon, who had broken
treaties, molested Saladin's sister, and attacked Mecca with the
aim of obtaining the Prophet's body and exhibiting it at Al Karak
for a fee. Saladin besieged Jerusalem on September 20, 1187, and
9 days later Jerusalem surrendered. Saladin's behavior and
complete control of his troops earned him the respect of all
Jerusalemites and the epithet, "flower of Islamic chivalry."
Saladin inflicted Islam's mightiest blows against the
Crusaders, raised Muslim pride and self-respect, and founded the
Ayyubid dynasty, which governed Egypt until 1260. During his
lifetime, he created harmony among Muslims in the Middle East and
gained a position of affection and honor among them that remains
strong to the present, particularly in Syria.
When Saladin died of malaria in 1192, his rule extended from
the Tigris River to North Africa and south to the Sudan.
Saladin's death brought this unity to an end. His Ayyubid
successors quarreled among themselves, and Syria broke into small
dynasties centered in Aleppo, Hamah, Homs, and Damascus. By the
fourteenth century, after repelling repeated invasions by Mongols
from the north, the Mamluk sultans of Egypt, successors to the
Ayyubids, ruled from the Nile to the Euphrates. Their great
citadels and monuments still stand. In 1516 the Ottoman sultan in
Turkey defeated the Mamluks at Aleppo and made Syria a province
of a new Muslim empire.
Data as of April 1987
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