Syria (region)

Coordinates: 33°N 36°E / 33°N 36°E / 33; 36
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Al Sham
)

Syria (Sham)
ٱلشَّام
Ash-Shām[1]
Greater Syria[1]
Syria-Palestine[2]
Levant
Map of Ottoman Syria in 1851, by Henry Warren
Map of Ottoman Syria in 1851, by Henry Warren
Coordinates: 33°N 36°E / 33°N 36°E / 33; 36
Countries or territories

Syria (

Syrian Arab Republic
.

The term is originally derived from Assyria, an ancient civilization centered in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq.[4][5] During 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 After the Muslim conquest of the Levant, the term was superseded by the Arabic equivalent Shām, and under the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates, Bilad al-Sham was the name of a metropolitan province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 the Arabic name of Bilad al-Sham.[6]

After

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.

Etymology and evolution of the term

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 and greater Syria[4][5][7][8] 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 the Elder and Pomponius Mela, Syria covered the entire Fertile Crescent
.

In

French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and the contemporaneous but short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria
.

Geography

Map depicting Syria as the land ranging from the Taurus Mountains to the Sinai Peninsula to the Euphrates, but not including Upper Mesopotamia

In the most common historical sense, 'Syria' refers to the entire northern

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" (سُوْرِيَّة ٱلْكُبْرَىٰ, Sūrīyah al-Kubrā); also called "Natural Syria" (سُوْرِيَّة ٱلطَّبِيْعِيَّة, Sūrīyah aṭ-Ṭabīʿīyah) or "Northern Land" (بِلَاد ٱلشَّام, Bilād ash-Shām),[1] extends roughly over 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 the approximate area included in present-day Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel.[11]

The uncertainty in the definition of the extent of "Syria" is aggravated by the etymological confusion of the similar-sounding names

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.[3] The Muslim geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi visited the region in 1150 and assigned the northern regions of Bilad al-Sham as the following:

In the Levantine sea are two islands:

Samosata, Malatiya
, Ḥusn Mansur, Zabatra, Jersoon, al-Leen, al-Bedandour, Cirra and Touleb.

For

French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, and the contemporaneous but short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria
.

Today, the largest metropolitan areas in the region are Amman, Tel Aviv, Damascus, Beirut, Aleppo and Gaza City.

Rank City Country Metropolitan
Population
City
Population
Image
1 Amman  Jordan 4,642,000 4,061,150
2 Tel Aviv  Israel 3,954,500 438,818
3 Damascus  Syria 2,900,000 2,078,000
4 Beirut  Lebanon 2,200,000 361,366
5 Aleppo  Syria 2,098,210 2,098,210
6 Gaza City  Palestine 2,047,969 590,481

Etymology

Syria

Several sources indicate that the name Syria itself is derived from

The Levant, and henceforth the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant.[4][7][8]

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."[4] 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.

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 the cognate Greek: Ἀσσυρία, Assyria.[13]

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.[citation needed] In English, "Syrian" historically meant 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 the historical region of Syria.

Shaam

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 the more typical ش م ل (š-m-l), is also attested in Old South Arabian, 𐩦𐩱𐩣 (s²ʾm), with the same semantic development.[10][14]

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; a theory for the etymology of Arabia Felix denoting Yemen, by translation of that sense.[citation needed]

The Shaam region is sometimes defined as the area that was dominated by Damascus, long an important regional center.[citation needed] In fact, the word Ash-Sām, on its own, can refer to the city of Damascus.[15] Continuing with the similar contrasting theme, Damascus was the commercial destination and representative of the region in the same way Sanaa held for 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.[16][17]

There is no connection with the name Shem, son of Noah, whose name usually appears in Arabic as سَام Sām, with a different initial consonant and without any internal glottal stop. Despite this, there has been a long-standing folk association between the two names and even the region, as most of the claimed Biblical descendants of Shem have been historically placed in the vicinity.[citation needed]

Historically,

Imperial Aramaic: ܒܥܠ ܫܡܝܢ, romanized: Ba'al Šamem, lit.'Lord of Heaven(s)'),[18][19] was a Semitic sky god in Canaan/Phoenicia and ancient Palmyra.[20][21] Hence, Sham refers to (heaven or sky). Moreover; in the Hebrew language, sham (שָׁמַ) is derived from Akkadian šamû meaning "sky".[22] For instance, the Hebrew word for the Sun is shemesh, where "shem/sham" from shamayim [note 1] (Akkadian: šamû) means "sky" and esh (Akkadian: išātu) means "fire", i.e. "sky-fire".[citation needed
]

Demographics

Historical population of the region of Syria
YearPop.±%
144,300,000—    
1644,800,000+11.6%
5004,127,000−14.0%
9003,120,000−24.4%
12002,700,000−13.5%
15001,500,000−44.4%
17002,028,000+35.2%
18973,231,874+59.4%
19143,448,356+6.7%
19223,198,951−7.2%
Source:[23][24][25][26]

The largest religious group in the Levant are

Kurds, Nawars and Armenians
.

Hatay and the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range, while Twelver Shiites are mainly concentrated in parts of Lebanon
.

Levantine Christian groups are plenty and include

Other religious groups in the Levant include

History

Roman times

Ancient Syria

Ancient Greek: Συρία to refer to 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).[12]

Hellenistic Syria

In Greek usage, Syria and Assyria were used almost interchangeably, but in the

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).

Roman Syria

Sergiopolis

In the Roman era, the term Syria is used to comprise the entire northern Levant and has an uncertain border to the northeast that

Kingdom of Commagene, Sophene, and Adiabene, "formerly known as Assyria".[32]

Palmyra, one of ancient Syria's wealthiest cities

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.[33]

In 64 BC,

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), the province of Euphratensis was created out of the territory of Syria Coele and the former realm of Commagene, with Hierapolis as its capital.[34]

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.[35]

Bilad al-Sham

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 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.[36][37][38]

Ottoman Syria

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 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 the region's population was dominated by

Roman Catholics and Melkite Christians, Jews and Druze
.

  • 1803 Cedid Atlas, showing Ottoman Syria in yellow
    1803 Cedid Atlas, showing Ottoman Syria in yellow
  • An 1810 map of the Ottoman Empire in Asia, showing the region of Ottoman Syria
    An 1810 map of the Ottoman Empire in Asia, showing the region of Ottoman Syria
  • Ethnic groups in the Middle East shown in a pre-World War I British government map. The primary population of the region of Syria is described as "Arabs (settled)" and inland as "Arabs (nomadic)"
    Ethnic groups in the Middle East shown in a pre-World War I British government map. The primary population of the region of Syria is described as "Arabs (settled)" and inland as "Arabs (nomadic)"

Arab Kingdom and French occupation

Arabic: ذِكْرَى اِسْتِقْلَال سُوْرِيَا, romanizedDhikrā Istiqlāl Sūriyā), showing the declared borders of the Kingdom of Syria
, states the date of the Declaration of Independence on 8 March 1920

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 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 the Franco-Syrian War, in July 1920, in which French armies defeated the newly proclaimed kingdom and captured Damascus, aborting the Arab state.[39]

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), the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta (1921) (modern-day Hatay in Turkey), and Greater Lebanon
(1920) which later became the modern country of Lebanon.

In pan-Syrian nationalism

Antoun Saadeh's SSNP map of a "Natural Syria", based on the etymological connection between the name "Syria" and "Assyria"

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 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, the Ahvaz region of Iran, and the Kilikian region of Turkey.[40][41]

Religious significance

The region has sites that are significant to Abrahamic religions:[1][42][43]

Place Description Image
Acre Acre is home to the Shrine of Baháʼu'lláh, which is the holiest site for the Baháʼí Faith.[44][45]
Aleppo Aleppo is home to a
Zechariah,[46] who is revered in both Christianity[47] and Islam.[48][49]
Bethlehem Bethlehem has sites which are significant for Jews, Christians and Muslims. One of these is Rachel's Tomb, which is revered by members of all three faiths. Another is the Church of the Nativity (of Jesus),[50] revered by Christians, and nearby, the Mosque of Omar, revered by Muslims.[51]
Damascus The
Old City has a Great Mosque[52][53][54] which is considered to be one of the largest and best preserved mosques from the Umayyad era. It is believed to house the remains of Zechariah's son John the Baptist,[36][55] who is revered in Christianity[47] and Islam, like his father.[49] The city is also home to the Sayyidah Zainab Mosque, the shrine of Zaynab bint Ali the grand-daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and Sayyidah Ruqayya Mosque, the shrine of Ruqayya the daughter of Husayn, both sites holy to Shia Muslims.[56]
Haifa Haifa is where the Shrine of the Báb is located. It is holy to the Baháʼí Faith.[42][57]

Nearby is Mount Carmel. Being associated with the Biblical figure Elijah, it is important to Christians, Druze, Jews and Muslims.[58]

Hebron The Old City is home to the Cave of the Patriarchs, where the Biblical figures Abraham, his wife Sarah, their son Isaac, his wife Rebecca, their son Jacob, and his wife Leah are believed buried, and thus revered by followers of the Abrahamic faiths, including Muslims and Jews.[59][60]
Hittin Hittin is near what is believed to near the
shrine of Shuaib (possibly Jethro). It is holy to Druze and Muslims.[61][62]
Jericho / An-Nabi Musa Near the city of Jericho in the West Bank is the shrine of Nabi Musa (literally: Prophet Moses), which is considered by Muslims to be the burial place of Moses.[43][63][64]
Jerusalem The
Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance for the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These sites include the Temple Mount,[65][66] Church of the Holy Sepulchre,[67][68] Al-Aqsa and the Western Wall.[69] It is regarded as the holiest city in Judaism,[70] and the third-holiest in Sunni Islam.[71]
Mount Gerizim In Samaritanism, Mount Gerizim is the holiest site on earth, and the location chosen by God to build a temple. In their tradition, it is the oldest and most central mountain in the world, towering above the Great Flood and providing the first land for Noah’s disembarkation.[72] It is also the location where Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac, in their belief.[73]

See also

Notes

  1. Genesis 1:6 Elohim separated the "water from the water". The area above the earth was filled by sky-water (sham-mayim) and the earth below was covered by sea-water (yam-mayim
    ).

References

  1. ^ a b c d Mustafa Abu Sway. "The Holy Land, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Qur'an, Sunnah and other Islamic Literary Source" (PDF). Central Conference of American Rabbis. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 July 2011.
  2. ^ .
  3. ^ . The western coastline and the eastern deserts set the boundaries for the Levant ... The Euphrates and the area around Jebel el-Bishrī mark the eastern boundary of the northern Levant, as does the Syrian Desert beyond the Anti-Lebanon range's eastern hinterland and Mount Hermon. This boundary continues south in the form of the highlands and eastern desert regions of Transjordan.
  4. ^ .
  5. ^ .
  6. ^
    Muslim
    Arabic usage.
  7. ^ a b Herodotus. The History of Herodotus (Rawlinson).
  8. ^ a b Joseph, John (2008). "Assyria and Syria: Synonyms?" (PDF).
  9. ^ .
  10. ^ , Volume 9 (1997), page 261.
  11. ^ Thomas Collelo, ed. Lebanon: A Country Study Washington, Library of Congress, 1987.
  12. ^ a b Herodotus. "Herodotus VII.63". Fordham University. Archived from the original on 20 February 1999. Retrieved 28 May 2013. VII.63: The Assyrians went to war with helmets upon their heads made of brass, and plaited in a strange fashion which is not easy to describe. They carried shields, lances, and daggers very like the Egyptian; but in addition they had wooden clubs knotted with iron, and linen corselets. This people, whom the Hellenes call Syrians, are called Assyrians by the barbarians. The Chaldeans served in their ranks, and they had for commander Otaspes, the son of Artachaeus.
  13. ^ First proposed by Theodor Nöldeke in 1881; cf. Harper, Douglas (November 2001). "Syria". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 22 January 2013..
  14. .
  15. ^ Tardif, P. (17 September 2017). "'I won't give up': Syrian woman creates doll to help kids raised in conflict". CBC News. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  16. .
  17. ^ "Their protection during their trading caravans in the winter and the summer."[Quran 106:2 (Translated by Shakir)]
  18. . Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  19. . Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  20. . Retrieved 17 July 2012.
  21. . Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  22. ISBN 9788876535666. Retrieved 14 August 2017.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  23. ^ Mutlu, Servet. "Late Ottoman population and its ethnic distribution". pp. 29–31. Corrected population M8.
  24. ^ Frier, Bruce W. "Demography", in Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Dominic Rathbone, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History XI: The High Empire, A.D. 70–192, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 827–54.
  25. .
  26. ^ "Syria Population - Our World in Data". www.ourworldindata.org.
  27. PMID 32470374
    .
  28. .
  29. .
  30. ^ "Christian Population of Middle East in 2014". The Gulf/2000 Project, School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University. 2017. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  31. . Retrieved 26 May 2014.
  32. ISBN 84-249-1901-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link
    )
  33. ^ A commentary on the Bible, quote "In the time of the Greek predominance it came into use. as it is employed to-day, as the name of the whole western borderland of the Mediterranean, and in the NT it is used several times in that sense (Mt. 4:24, Lk. 2:2, Ac. 15:23,41, 18:18, 21:3, Gal. 1:21)".
  34. .
  35. .
  36. ^ .
  37. .
  38. .
  39. ^ Itamar Rabinovich, Symposium: The Greater-Syria Plan and the Palestine Problem in The Jerusalem Cathedra (1982), p. 262.
  40. ^ Sa'adeh, Antoun (2004). The Genesis of Nations. Beirut.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Translated and Reprinted
  41. ^ Ya'ari, Ehud (June 1987). "Behind the Terror". The Atlantic.
  42. ^ a b World Heritage Committee (2 July 2007). "Convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage" (PDF). p. 34. Retrieved 8 July 2008.
  43. ^ .
  44. ^ National Spiritual Assembly of the United States (January 1966). "Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh". Baháʼí News (418): 4. Retrieved 12 August 2006.
  45. ^ UNESCO World Heritage Centre (8 July 2008). "Baháʼí Holy Places in Haifa and the Western Galilee". Retrieved 8 July 2008.
  46. ^ "The Great Mosque of Aleppo | Muslim Heritage". www.muslimheritage.com. 24 March 2005. Retrieved 30 June 2016.
  47. ^ a b Gospel of Luke, 1:5–79
  48. ^ Quran 19:2–15
  49. ^ a b Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary, Note. 905: "The third group consists not of men of action, but Preachers of Truth, who led solitary lives. Their epithet is: "the Righteous." They form a connected group round Jesus. Zachariah was the father of John the Baptist, who is referenced as "Elias, which was for to come" (Matt 11:14); and John the Baptist is said to have been present and talked to Jesus at the Transfiguration on the Mount (Matt. 17:3)."
  50. ISBN 978-0-8146-5987-8. Archived from the original on 3 March 2020. Retrieved 3 March 2020.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link
    )
  51. . Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  52. .
  53. ^ Birke, Sarah (2 August 2013), Damascus: What's Left, New York Review of Books
  54. .
  55. ^ Burns, 2005, p.88.
  56. ^ Sabrina MERVIN, « Sayyida Zaynab, Banlieue de Damas ou nouvelle ville sainte chiite ? », Cahiers d'Etudes sur la Méditerranée Orientale et le monde Turco-Iranien [Online], 22 | 1996, Online since 01 March 2005, connection on 19 October 2014. URL : http://cemoti.revues.org/138
  57. ^ "Beauty of restored Shrine set to dazzle visitors and pilgrims". Baháʼí World News Service. 12 April 2011. Retrieved 12 April 2011.
  58. .
  59. .
  60. .
  61. .
  62. .
  63. ^ Canaan, Tawfiq (1927). Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine. London: Luzac & Co.
  64. .
  65. . To the Jews the Temple Mount is the holiest place on Earth, the place where God manifested himself to King David and where two Jewish temples - Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple – were located.
  66. .
  67. ISBN 978-0-8146-5987-8. Archived from the original on 3 March 2020. Retrieved 3 March 2020.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link
    )
  68. ^ "Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem". Jerusalem: Sacred-destinations.com. 21 February 2010. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
  69. ^ Frishman, Avraham (2004), Kum Hisalech Be'aretz, Jerusalem{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  70. ^ Since the 10th century BCE:
  71. ^ Third-holiest city in Islam:
  72. ^ Anderson, Robert T., "Mount Gerizim: Navel of the World", Biblical Archaeologist Vol. 43, No. 4 (Autumn 1980), pp 217–218
  73. ^ UNESCO World Heritage Centre (11 October 2017). "Mount Gerizim and the Samaritans". Retrieved 24 December 2020.

Citations

Further reading