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In Shi'i Islam, the Imams are considered to be the Possessors of the Command (ulu al-amr), and are the purveyors of divine authority in the world. The chapter speaks of the Ismaili Imams, Islamshah and Muhammad b. Islamshah; compares the modes of precautionary dissimulation (taqiyya) of Ismailis in Quhistan (where the community was persecuted) and Syria (where the bravery of the Ismailis was often romanticized); and highlights the emphasis placed on communal harmony. It also delves into the resurgence of the Ismaili da'wa at this time, particularly in South Asia under the able leadership of Pir Shams and his successors, including Pir Sadr al-Din.

Includes all relevant information on national elections and referendums held in Syria since its independence. Part I gives a comprehensive overview of Syria's political history, outlines the evolution of electoral provisions, and presents the current electoral legislation in a standardized manner (suffrage, elected institutions, nomination of candidates, electoral system, organizational context of elections). Part II includes exhaustive electoral statistics in systematic tables (numbers of registered voters, votes cast, the votes for candidates and/or parties in parliamentary and presidential elections and referendums, the electoral participation of political parties, the distribution of parliamentary seats, etc.).

Greek and Latin inscriptions are now fully embraced within the study of Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Era. At Constantinople, inscriptions of the Byzantine era were displayed along with ancient texts imported from elsewhere in the Empire, symbolising the welding of Hellenism and Romanitas. While the number and variety of texts do not match those of earlier eras, they can furnish evidence for several aspects of society. Personal names recorded on inscriptions reveal the impact of the Latin West and of Christianity on the Greek East, in the choice of names and the styles of nomenclature. The survival of names of local origin, from Thrace, Anatolia and Syria, areas where Greek was later imposed on an earlier substrate not always written, reveals the vigour of local traditions.

This chapter examines two major questions central to any study of the French mandate in Syria (and also of Lebanon) between 1918 and 1946. First, why the French were so determined to get political control over Syria and why they never voluntarily conceded independence to it. Second, why Syria proved to be a relatively docile French dependency for so long, despite the fact that it was the centre of Arab nationalism before 1914 and was the first Arab territory to declare itself an independent state between 1918 and 1920. The answer to the first question lies in the labyrinthine structure of French domestic politics and interest groups before and after 1918, while the answer to the second question lies in the complexities of the Syrian social structure, which alone made it possible for the French to make some form of compromise with the social elite of notables, who in turn provided sufficient collaboration to make the alien regime viable.

Since the Anglo-American invasion and the fall of the Ba’athist regime in 2003, Iraq has been through profound changes. New and heightened levels of human security have led to large numbers of refugees seeking refuge in neighbouring Arab countries such as Syria and Jordan. This has also resulted in internal displacement within the country. This chapter discusses the historical and political context of Iraqi displacement to the northern regions of Iraq and the neighbouring countries of Syria and Jordan. It examines the effect of the international humanitarian aid regime’s designation of ‘unprecedented refugee crisis’ to the forced migrants and to the political actors of the region. The creation of a state-centred approach and the visibility of Iraqi refugees created other invisibilities that concealed and obscured the question of the prevalence of forced migrations and the dynamics of cross-border ties which have spanned for decades. These trends of Iraqi migration have been shaped by successive coercive governments which have fragmented the population along religious, ethnic and ideological orientations and by the nature of the polities from which Iraqis sought security. By analysing the trends and context of Iraqi migration, this chapter sheds light on the true nature of the Iraqi refugee agenda.

One of the fiercest debates about the monetization of the Roman Empire concerns the difference between rural and urban sites. One view has been that the use of coined money was limited to the cities of the Empire, given that excavations of villas in Italy have yielded only a very small number of coins. However, archaeologists working on Roman Britain have pointed out that a substantial number of hoards in Britain have been found in rural sites, while fewer have been found on military sites or in towns. This chapter considers whether the now very extensive numismatic evidence from the Balkans, Asia Minor, and Syria can help to clarify the level of coin use in the countryside. It reassesses the role of diverse economic forces — such as the army, trading activities, and the urbanization of the provinces — and raises some questions about their impact on the monetization of the North and Eastern frontier through an analysis of the numismatic material found in the course of excavations or surface surveys at urban centres, fortress-cities, and military installations in rural areas.

A west Syrian strand of history, originating with Theophilus, a Chalcedonian Christian from Edessa who became chief astrologer to the Caliph Mahdi (775–85), can be picked out in four later works, one Byzantine, one Arab, and two Syrian. The field of vision includes the author's homeland, Syria, the east Mediterranean, and Asia Minor. Transcaucasia is largely excluded. For the early seventh century, little is added to what can be extracted from contemporary and near‐contemporary sources, save for anecdotal material. But Theophilus is shown to make a valuable contribution to knowledge about the Arab conquest of Palestine and Syria, the battle for the Mediterranean between the caliphate and Byzantium (649–98), and subsequent campaigns which culminated in the siege of Constantinople 717–18. There is enough independent corroborative material to justify placing confidence in his account.

Seleucus' rise to power is perhaps the most spectacular event of the period of the Successors. Expelled from his satrapy by Antigonus in the summer of 316 BC, he was able to retrieve it four years later and did so with a force which was remarkably small by any standards. Not only did he regain Babylonia, but he beat off an attack by Nicanor, the general supervising the upper satrapies, and immediately took the offensive, extending his dominions to Susiana, Media, and perhaps even further afield. All that took place within a year of his entering Babylonia, and a year later, in the summer of 310 BC, he was coping with a full-scale invasion by Antigonus. He did not merely survive; he forced Antigonus out of his territories, never to resume the offensive, and by 305 BC he had penetrated to the Indus valley, placing almost all the satraps of the eastern empire under his sway. This chapter chronicles Seleucus' rise to power and attempts to explain his success.

The initial Arab conquests are described and dated: Palestine and Syria (634–6); Persian Mesopotamia (636–40); northern Mesopotamia and south‐west Armenia (640); Khuzistan (640–2); Egypt (641–3); Iran (642–52). The unification of Arabia, achieved in the two years following the Prophet's death in 632, and Meccan organizational capability are identified as key factors in these early successes. Attention then turns to the Mediterranean where both sides dispatched naval expeditions against each other, ending with a grand Arab offensive targeted on Constantinople in 654. Failure there and reverses elsewhere helped trigger civil war in the caliphate (656–61). Mu‘awiya is shown to have imposed his authority with much bloodshed after ‘Ali's assassination in 658. Meanwhile Constans II (641–69) is seen preparing the rump of the Roman empire (customarily called Byzantium) for a long defensive war, and intervening first in Transcaucasia (660–1), then in the central Mediterranean (662–9).

Regional variety in the liturgy persisted in the fourth and fifth centuries, but with a surprising degree of common practice with regard to baptism, the Eucharist, marriage, and funerals. Opinions were divided about church decoration. Fairly full liturgical texts surviving from Egypt, Syria, and Cilicia illustrate both variations and common features in religious practice.

Chapter 6 argues that marginal landscapes witnessed unprecedented agricultural development during late antiquity. In part because choice lands were scarce due to increasing competition among the growing number of farmers and the success of large estates, the desert margins of Oriens were increasingly settled. A similar phenomenon occurred in the upland areas of Syria-Palestine, where tree crops and vines provided a natural alternative to cereal farming. Since a thriving market for oil and wine existed, these normally desolate regions became viable agricultural zones. In addition, the extension of farmed space depended on irrigation, which was a far more important part of the late antique farming regime than previously understood.

Peter Malcolm Holt (1918–2006), a Fellow of the British Academy, was an historian of the Sudan, of the Middle East more widely, and of the development of Arabic studies in early modern England. Born at Leigh in Lancashire, he went to Lord Williams's Grammar School at nearby Thame, and then read History at University College, Oxford from 1937 to 1940. Having obtained a Diploma of Education (1941), he joined the Education Department of the Government of the Sudan, where he worked as a secondary school teacher and inspector. In the year before the Sudan became independent in 1956, Holt was appointed as a Lecturer in the History Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Articles investigating aspects of the earlier period of Sudanese history represent part of his scholarly output during the 1960s. While the main body of Holt's academic research occupied three, approximately successive, phases (the Sudan, Egypt under Ottoman rule, and the early Mamluk sultanate in Egypt and Syria), the development of Arabic studies in seventeenth-century England remained an abiding interest.

This chapter considers how, during the nineteenth century, the Muslim regions that succeeded in preserving formal independence were caught up in a race between European encroachment or interference and the establishment of a strong state, which also had to call on the Europeans for assistance. Because of that dynamic of change, it is difficult to determine what was borrowed pure and simple and what was the result of evolutionary synchronism: the complex question of the emancipation of non-Muslims in Islamic territory is a case in point. Other regions had to face the “colonial night” of European domination, which in certain places eventually adopted the form of settlement colonies. However, the Muslim world was far from passive when confronted with Europe's multifaceted advance. It entered a cycle of accelerated transformation, culminating in the adoption of the nationality principle as the new mode of social organization.

This chapter outlines the course of events from Syria's decision to secede from the United Arab Republic in September 1961 to Egypt's decision to intervene in the incipient civil war in Yemen exactly one year later. Sparked by humiliation at the Syrian secession, the intervention was the culmination of a decade of support for revolutionary movements on the Arabian Peninsula, which ultimately aimed at toppling the Saudi monarchy. The hastily made decision to send military forces to San‘ā’ was taken under the cloud of a power struggle within the Nasser regime, which carried serious consequences for military preparedness in June 1967.