Jazīra
The Jazīra ( Arabic الجزيرة al-Jazīra , DMG al-Ǧazīra 'the island', today often also al-Jazīra al-Furātīya /الجزيرة الفراتية / 'The Euphrates Island') is a cultural landscape in northwest Iraq and northeast Syria . Other spellings are Dschasira and Dschesireh (e.g. in Karl May ; English Jazirah , French Djazirah and Italian Gesireh ). The area coincides with Upper Mesopotamia and extends from the Euphrates to the Tigris . The Chabur rises in Turkey and flows for 440 km through this landscape until it flows into the Euphrates at the northern edge of the Syrian Desert . The larger cities of the Jazīra are Mosul , Deir ez-Zor , Raqqa , al-Hasakah and Qamishli . The western Syrian part corresponds to the al-Hasakah governorate . The capital of the western region is al-Hasakah. The eastern Iraqi part is identical to the Iraqi province of Ninawa . The capital of the eastern region is Mosul.
geography
The region belongs to the Fertile Crescent . The western part of northern Mesopotamia (up to ar-Raqqa) is called Diyar Mudar , the northern part is called Diyar Bakr (corresponding to Diyarbakır ) and the eastern part is called Diyar Rabi'a . These names come from Arab tribes. The name al-Jazeera was used in the Islamic sources to denote the northern part of Mesopotamia and together with the Sawād region made up Iraq (Al-'arāgh). The Jazira was bounded on the south by the Jabal Sinjar , but the western and eastern borders appear to have been variable in the pre- Abbasid period , sometimes including western Syria and Adiabene in the east.
Jazira is described as a flat land and the landscape contrasts with the Syrian desert and the lower central Mesopotamia. Central Mesopotamia has one of the largest salt deserts in the world. Further south from Mosul to Basra there is a sandy desert that resembles the Rub al-Chali . The region has been plagued by droughts in recent years .
history
Early history
In the PPNB, parts of the Jazira belonged to the region in which the plants and animals were domesticated for the first time , which were also taken along when colonizing Europe after the Cold Age. Northern Mesopotamia was the heart of ancient Assyria and an economically thriving region with various agricultural products such as fruits and grains. It had a productive manufacturing system for food and clothing. The region's position on the borders with the Sassanid and Byzantine empires later made it an important economic center. These advantages persisted even after Muslims conquered parts of Byzantine Anatolia. The Jazira included the then Sassanid provinces of Arbayestan, Nisibis and Mosul.
Islamic empires
The Arab conquest of the Dchazīra took place at the time of the caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Chattāb (634-644) mainly through the prophet's companion ʿIyād ibn Ghanm (d. 641). He was either Umar or Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah in charge of this company. The Arabs continued to run the former administration with the exception that they now levied the jizya tax on non-Muslims . Non-Muslims also had to support the Muslims with a monthly amount of grain and oil. At the time of Muʿāwiyas (governor of Syria and later the first caliph of the Umayyad dynasty ), the administration of the Dchazīra was integrated into the administration of Syria. During the early Islamic empires, administration was shared with that of Armenia .
The region's prosperity and its high agricultural and manufacturing yields made it an object of competition between the leaders of the early conquering armies of the Arabs. Various conquerors tried in vain to bind the various cities of the former Sassanid provinces and the recently conquered Byzantine province of Mesopotamia under one unity and rule.
Control of the region was essential to any power centered in Baghdad . Consequently, the establishment of the Abbasids brought Jazira under the direct control of Baghdad. At the time, the Jazira was one of the most taxable provinces of the Abbasid Empire.
During the early history of Islam, the Jazira was a center of the Kharijite movement and so constantly had to be subjugated by the caliphs. Later, the Hamdanids , descendants of the Kharijites, established an autonomous state in the Jazira and northern Syria. The disappearance of the Hamdanids brought the region back under nominal rule of the caliphs in Baghdad, while real rule was in the hands of the Buyids .
Turkish empires
In the ensuing times, the Jazira came under the control of the newly established Turkish dynasties such as the Ichschidids and the Zengids , and was eventually controlled by the Ayyubids . The later development of the region was determined by the rise of Mosul and Nisibis, both of which were important commercial and manufacturing centers. In the 12th century the region was conquered and ruled by the Seljuks and later subordinated to the Rumseldschuks . When the Ottomans followed the Rumeljuks in Asia Minor, the Jazira came under their control.
Modern history
Thousands of Christian refugees from Turkey entered the Syrian Jazira after the First World War. In addition, 17,000 Assyrian Christians and 7,000 Chaldean Catholics came from northern Iraq in 1933 because of persecution and massacres.
Current situation
Jazira is one of the four archdioceses of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch . The others are in Aleppo , Homs and Damascus .
Many Christians have emigrated from this area in the past 40 years . Important reasons were the droughts, the emigration of Christians from Turkey and the influx of Kurds from the east.
literature
- Nafi Nasser Al-Kasab: The nomadic settlement in the Iraqi Jezira. Geographical Institute, Tübingen 1966.
- Ralph W. Brauer: Boundaries and Frontiers in Medieval Muslim Geography. Philadelphia 1995.
- JG Dercksen (ed.): Anatolia and the Jazira during the Old Assyrian period. Nederlands Institut voor het Nabije Oosten, Leiden 2008.
- Almut von Gladiss (ed.): The Jazira. Cultural landscape between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Museum of Islamic Art. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-88609-557-6 .
- Ralph Hempelmann: Tell Chuēra, Kharab Sayyar and the urbanization of the western Khazīra. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2013.
- G. Le Strange: The lands of the eastern caliphate. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1930.
- Michael G. Morony: Iraq after the Muslim Conquest. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1984; New edition: Gorgias Press, New Jersey 2005, ISBN 1-59333-315-3
- Julian Raby: The art of Syria and the Jazīra: 1100-1250. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1985.
Individual evidence
- ↑ al-Balādhurī : Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān. Ed. Michael Jan de Goeje. Brill, Leiden, 1866, p. 172 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Al-Balādhurī: Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān. P. 125. - Ger. Translated by O. Rescher. P. 126 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- ^ A b c Ray J. Mouawad: Syria and Iraq - Repression: Disappearing Christians of the Middle East. In: The Middle East Quarterly. Volume 8, No. 1, Winter 2001.