Jebel Ansariye
| Jebel Ansariye | ||
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 Summit area in the north, on the eastern slope to the Ghab plain |
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| Highest peak | Nebi Yunes ( 1562 m ) | |
| location | Syria | |
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| Coordinates | 35 ° 15 ′ N , 36 ° 6 ′ E | |
Jebel Ansariye , Arabic جبال الأنصارية, DMG Ǧibāl al-Anṣārīya , also Jebel al-Alawia , Jabal an-Nusayriyah and Jabal al-Ladhiqiyah; is a mountain range in western Syria that runs parallel to the Mediterranean coast . The mountain peaks with an average height of 1200 meters are separated from the southern continuation as the Lebanon Mountains by the valley of the (southern) Nahr al-Kabir , the Syrian- Lebanese border river. At the northern depression, the road runs between the port city of Latakia and Jisr asch-Shugur over the Bdama Pass.
Surname
Jebel means Arabic جبل, DMG Ǧabal , Mountain ', Ansariya is the Arabic plural form of Nusairiya and refers to Alawites , which are also called Alawite and settled as the largest minority from the Middle Ages. The area is mostly within the Latakia governorate .
geology
The north-south longitudinal direction of the Jebel Ansariye is about 110 kilometers, the mean profile in east-west direction protrudes to about 25 kilometers above the height line of 500 meters, whereby the area with heights over 1000 meters is less than half as wide. The highest peak, the Nebi Yunes at 1562 meters, is about 3 kilometers from Slinfah on the ridge, rarely less than 1300 meters high in the north, above the steep eastern drop to the Ghab plain. The Ghab is a tectonic rift that probably did not collapse until the Quaternary . It is traversed by the Nahr al-Asi (Orontes) in the north and bounded in the east by the mountains of the Jebel Zawiye (az-Zawiya), the southern part of the northern Syrian limestone massif , which is up to 937 meters high . Towards the Mediterranean there is a gentle slope with a gradual transition to the foreshore.
The Jebel Ansariye emerged from a late Pliocene- Quaternary crustal movement that formed a broad ridge rising from the sea. The sometimes steep valleys that dissect this ridge are sloping edges that were broken up when the rupture folds were formed due to shifts in the course of the layers . These transverse valleys with the Riedel in between extend partially up into the ridge region. In the northern part of the mountain range, a jump height of up to 1700 meters to the east forms in the course of the layers, which results in an unstructured steep drop of over 1000 meters to the Ghab plain. The other two, significantly higher mountain ranges, the Anti-Lebanon and its southern continuation as Hermon , have the same geological history. All of them have a poorly structured summit area comparable to the European low mountain ranges. Many areas are karstified , in some places rugged rock formations emerge. At Jebel Ansariye, in the ridge region consisting of Jura limestone, there are sinkholes with a diameter of up to two kilometers and a depth of 150 to 350 meters.
Up to the middle Tertiary Jebel Ansariye and Lebanon Mountains formed a continuous range of hills; the Akkar plain, through which the Nahr al-Kabir flows, which separates the two, was not formed until the late Pliocene. The Antakya Basin in the north also did not exist before. The coastal mountains represented a watershed along their entire length, so that the Orontes and Afrin at that time drained to the Euphrates . The Ghab Depression is the northernmost continuation of the Great African Rift Valley, which runs over the Red Sea , the Jordan Rift , the Bekaa Plain and on to Antakya (Hatay Rift). The African and Arab continental plates are drifting apart along this line to this day.
geography
The Bdama Pass, which borders the mountainous country in the north, forms the watershed between the Orontes in the interior and the small (northern) Nahr al-Kabir, which rises here and flows into the sea after 28 kilometers in a south-westerly direction a little south of Latakia. The road also runs through this valley. The Akkar Plain in the south is a fertile foreshore stretching from Tartus to almost the Lebanese port city of Tripoli . It provides the only natural corridor to the Syrian hinterland is. Even in ancient times ran a trade route from the Middle Euphrates about on the same latitude location Qatna the sea.
The foreshore in the west is followed inland by small and poor arable land on slopes, which are terraced by walls made of reading stones and on which grain and fruit trees thrive. The most important crop for the market in the northern area is tobacco , which has been planted since the 17th century. Peanuts are also mainly exported. Between Tartus and Baniyas the foothills of the mountains reach almost to the sea. The mountainous area south of it has been an important growing area for olives since Ottoman times . Just as old and a specialty is the cultivation of mulberry trees for silkworm breeding , which is practiced especially by Christians who live around Safita .
The Jebel Ansariye is one of the rainiest areas of Syria. Locations over 1000 meters are part of the Mediterranean-oceanic high altitude climate with 900 to 1200 millimeters of precipitation on a multi-year average, which mainly falls between November and February. While the foreshore receives more than 700 millimeters, the areas in the slipstream further east only fall a maximum of 500 millimeters. The maximum temperature in July / August is below 28 ° C at high altitudes, plus a pleasant nighttime cooling. The average temperatures in January are between 0 and 5 ° C, with minimum temperatures below -5 ° C. Snow falls on more than 20 days and can stay there until spring.
Because olive trees are sensitive to frost, the altitude limit for their cultivation is 900 meters. In the Old Testament , the cedar is mentioned as a character tree for Lebanon and the Jebel Ansariye. This is only true to a very limited extent, as the high forest has been cleared since ancient times. Forest areas that were preserved until the 19th century fell victim to rail traffic with its high demand for firewood by the First World War at the latest. The original forest has been completely converted into arable land, fruit or olive tree plantations at lower altitudes, below 800 meters. Old oak stocks have been preserved in tiny tree islands in remote places around mausoleums, where a saint is venerated by Alawites, Druze or Sunnis , and which are therefore not allowed to be felled. Sweet chestnuts grow in some places north of Safita .
At altitudes of 800 to 1200 meters, evergreen and deciduous oaks such as the sessile oak (Quercus sessiliflora), Portuguese oak (Quercus lusitanica) or the Kermes oak (Quercus coccifera) belong to the old stock. Oriental hornbeam (Carpinus orientalis), Syrian maple (Acer syriacum) and some smaller Central European deciduous trees are found in more humid locations . The oak share has been decimated through selective deforestation. The only dense high forest protected from deforestation stands east of the Saladinsburg up towards Slinfah. The Calabrian pine (Pinus brutia) not only provides special types of undergrowth, but also a microclimate that is appreciated by holiday trippers. The remaining areas of the highlands are severely degraded and are populated with typical types of maquis .
At the summit areas over 1200 meters, in the submontane level, coniferous trees bent due to the permanent strong wind predominate, especially the Cilician fir (Abies cilicica) and the Lebanon cedar (Cedrus libani), in some cases also Lebanon oak (Quercus libani). A particularly dense vegetation with a high biodiversity grows on the eastern slope of the Ghab. Firs, oaks, maples and pistachios stand between the maquis . The steep slope, which is difficult to access, has largely prevented its use.
On the south-eastern slope of the mountain range, the 1,128 meter high shield volcano of Jebel Helou rises over 500 to 600 meters of the surrounding area. The basalt fields formed from the lava masses cover large areas. As in the unfavorable areas of the Hauran , very little weathered soil suitable for arable farming has formed. Despite high rainfall, winter wheat only thrives in a few places and melons in summer . The Christian villages predominantly grow wine.
History and population
On the western slope of the Jebel Ansariye there was a first complex of the Saladinsburg as a Byzantine border post in the 10th century . The Krak des Chevaliers , laid out by the Crusaders in the southern foothills of the mountain area , was built in the 11th century. Otherwise the forests of the Jebel Ansariye must have been uninhabited up to this time. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the warlike assassins were allied with the crusaders , as the Ismaili religious community was called at that time. They carried out raids from their mountain fortresses and were recognized as local rulers until their positions were conquered by the Mameluke sultan Baibars I around 1271 .
In the centuries that followed, the forests were generally used as retreats for religious minorities. These closed themselves off from the outside against the Bedouins of the surrounding area and only undertook occasional raids. Ismailis came in larger numbers from 1260, when they fled their headquarters in Salamiyya after the Mongol invasion. Today Ismailis make up about one percent of the Syrian population, most of them migrated back to the young settlements of Salamiyya on the edge of the Syrian desert steppe as their ancestral home in the middle of the 19th century. In the places Masyaf with the formerly most important Assassin's castle in the center (captured 1140/41) and in Qadmus (the castle came into the possession of the Assassins in 1132/33) an Ismaili majority still lives.
A larger denomination , split off from Shiite Islam, are the Alawites , who immigrated to the mountain areas in the Middle Ages and increasingly from the 17th century. They make up the majority of the rural population in Latakia Governorate. Like the Druze in southern Syria, they traditionally form a withdrawn, village society. The individual Alawite tribal groups were hostile to each other and often fought among themselves.
The Jebel Ansariye remained one of the most backward and hardly developed areas of Syria in the middle of the 20th century and was wedged between the malaria- infested and almost unpopulated regions of the foreshore and the Ghab plain. Around 1930 two out of three children died before they were one year old. The population during this time was 5 to 25 inhabitants per square kilometer in the high areas compared to 50 to 100 in the arable plains in the east.
From the beginning to the middle of the 20th century, the population increase on the Jebel Ansariye was significantly lower than the national average. The property of the peasants who worked on their own land was fragmented by the constant division of property. Around 1960, 60 percent of the farms owned less than two hectares of land. Many Alawites and Ismailis migrated to the small towns on the arable plains between Homs and Aleppo before the relative overpopulation of the mountainous region in search of jobs , while the Christians from there from the 1960s to areas with newly developed arable land in the Euphrates Valley and in the northeastern Jazīra - Region moved.
The few Christian places, especially in the south of the mountainous country (like Safita), were more open-minded and more successful in business because of their economic contacts in Lebanon. A wealthy Lebanese upper class withdrew to the mountains in the hot summer months from the beginning of the 20th century. This is how some summer resorts arose in the south of Jebel Ansariyye. Slinfah was founded by Christians from Latakia in the north around 1928 . A further rural exodus of the rural population has been counteracted since the 1990s by the accelerated construction of new apartment blocks with an urban character, which are sold and rented out as holiday apartments and lead to unsuitable urban sprawl. Well-developed roads ensure that these newly founded settlements “in the countryside” can also be used by commuters to the coastal cities.
literature
- Eugen Wirth : Syria, a geographic study of the country. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1971.
- Naval Intelligence Division (Ed.): Syria. BR 513 (Restricted). Geographical Handbook Series. April 1943. Archive Editions, Buckinghamshire 1987, pp. 14 f, 63, 90, 262.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wirth, pp. 47 f, 63
- ↑ Wirth, pp. 197, 365, 370, 372
- ↑ Wirth, table p. 101
- ↑ Wirth, pp. 122, 126-128
- ↑ Wirth, pp. 59 f, 373
- ↑ Kenneth M. Setton, Marshall W. Baldwin: A History of the Crusades, Volume I: The First Hundred Years. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 2005, pp. 119 f
- ↑ Jacques Weulersee: Le pays des Alaouites. Arrault, Tours 1940, vol. 1, p. 71
- ^ Geographical Handbook Series, p. 192
- ↑ Wirth, pp. 176, 183f, 363