234-512: The Banu Kalb ( Arabic : بنو كلب , romanized : Banū Kalb ) was an Arab tribe which mainly dwelt in the desert and steppe of northwestern Arabia and central Syria . It was involved in the tribal politics of the Byzantine Empire 's eastern frontiers , possibly as early as the 4th century. By the 6th century, the Kalb had largely adopted Christianity and came under the authority of
468-507: A retaliatory expedition to Syria, which did not launch until soon after Muhammad's death in 632. Usama may have been chosen for the campaign because of his Kalbite descent. The majority of the Kalb remained outside the emerging Muslim state's authority at the time of Muhammad's death. While al-Asbagh remained loyal to the Medina -based Muslim state during the subsequent Ridda wars , when most Arab tribes broke off their allegiance, another faction of
702-456: A sensational victory against Bulgaria and the Kievan Rus' in 971. John in particular was an astute administrator who reformed military structures and implemented effective fiscal policies. After John's death, Constantine VII's grandsons Basil II and Constantine VIII ruled jointly for half a century, although the latter exercised no real power before Basil's death in 1025. Their early reign
936-562: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
1170-463: A combination of external threats and internal instabilities caused the Roman state to splinter as regional armies acclaimed their generals as "soldier-emperors". One of these, Diocletian ( r. 284–305 ), seeing that the state was too big to be ruled by one man, attempted to fix the problem by instituting a Tetrarchy , or rule of four, and dividing the empire into eastern and western halves. Although
1404-626: A considerable increase in the size of urban settlements, together with a notable upsurge in new towns. Trade was also flourishing; the Venetians, the Genoese and others opened up the ports of the Aegean to commerce, shipping goods from the Crusader states and Fatimid Egypt to the west and trading with the empire via Constantinople. Manuel's death on 24 September 1180 left his 11-year-old son Alexios II Komnenos on
1638-460: A contested legacy to Roman identity and to associate negative connotations from ancient Latin literature. The adjective "Byzantine", which derived from Byzantion (Latinised as Byzantium ), the name of the Greek settlement Constantinople was established on, was only used to describe the inhabitants of that city; it did not refer to the empire, which they called Romanía —"Romanland". After
1872-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
2106-578: A descendant of Himyar , the semi-legendary patriarch of the southern Arabs. With the exception of three small clans, all the branches of the Kalb descended from the line of Rufayda ibn Thawr ibn Kalb. The Kalb's most prominent branch was the Banu Abdallah ibn Kinana, especially its largest subbranch, the Banu Janab, which provided the Kalb with its chiefs. From the Janab descended the Kalb's aristocratic family of
2340-1077: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
2574-532: A distinction between the earlier Roman Empire and the later Byzantine Empire . During the earlier Pax Romana period, the western parts of the empire became increasingly Latinised , while the eastern parts largely retained their preexisting Hellenistic culture . This created a dichotomy between the Greek East and Latin West . These cultural spheres continued to diverge after Constantine I ( r. 324–337 ) moved
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#17328490722872808-577: A large number in Venice. According to chronicler Niketas Choniates , a prostitute was even set up on the patriarchal throne. When order had been restored, the crusaders and the Venetians proceeded to implement their agreement; Baldwin of Flanders was elected emperor of a new Latin Empire , and the Venetian Thomas Morosini was chosen as patriarch. The lands divided up among the leaders included most of
3042-564: A leading Kalbite family. According to the historian Andrew Marsham, the marriages between different families of the Umayyads and the Kalb "[reflected] competition both within Kalb and within the Umayyad kin-group". Amid the Umayyad succession crisis, a rival claimant to the caliphate, Ibn al-Zubayr of Mecca, had challenged Umayyad leadership and was gaining support in Syria. Ibn Bahdal, determined to preserve
3276-504: A lengthy conflict against Sasanid Persia and ended in 363 with the death of his son-in-law Julian . The short Valentinianic dynasty , occupied with wars against barbarians , religious debates, and anti-corruption campaigns, ended in the East with the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Valens's successor, Theodosius I ( r. 379–395 ), restored political stability in
3510-483: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
3744-632: A line through the Adriatic Sea and south to Cyrene, Libya . This encompassed most of the Balkans , all of modern Greece, Turkey, Syria , Palestine ; North Africa, primarily with modern Egypt and Libya ; the Aegean islands along with Crete , Cyprus and Sicily , and a small settlement in Crimea . The landscape of the Empire was defined by the fertile fields of Anatolia , long mountain ranges and rivers such as
3978-677: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
4212-456: A result of their firm incorporation in the Byzantine foederati system, the Kalb "became accustomed to military discipline and to law and order", according to the historian Johann Fück . There is scant record of the Kalb's activities in the so-called ayyam literature, the collections of pre-Islamic poems which serve as a source of history for the tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia , especially
4446-576: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
4680-610: A revolt against Marwan II in Homs, but the Kalb and its Yamanite allies were defeated. The Kalb afterward reconciled with the caliph by 746. However, with the advent of the Abbasid Revolution in 749–750, the Kalb probably realized Umayyad rule was close to collapse. Thus, when Marwan II dispatched 2,000 Kalbite soldiers to reinforce the Umayyad governor of Basra , they instead defected to the Abbasids . The Kalb's role in Syria declined under
4914-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
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#17328490722875148-465: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
5382-450: A small fleet of 100 ships to defend the capital, but other than that he was indifferent to the populace. He was finally overthrown when Isaac II Angelos , surviving an imperial assassination attempt, seized power with the aid of the people and had Andronikos killed. The reign of Isaac II, and more so that of his brother Alexios III , saw the collapse of what remained of the centralised machinery of Byzantine government and defence. Although
5616-417: A speedy and marked improvement. Gradually, however, Andronikos's reign deteriorated. The aristocrats were infuriated against him, and to make matters worse, Andronikos seemed to have become increasingly unbalanced; executions and violence became increasingly common, and his reign turned into a reign of terror. Andronikos seemed almost to seek the extermination of the aristocracy as a whole. The struggle against
5850-510: A two-month siege on 29 May 1453. The final Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos , was last seen casting off his imperial regalia and throwing himself into hand-to-hand combat after the walls of the city were taken. The Empire was centred in what is now Greece and Turkey with Constantinople as its capital. In the 5th century, it controlled the eastern basis of the Mediterranean running east from Singidunum (modern Belgrade ) in
6084-503: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
6318-499: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
6552-470: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
6786-569: Is a good position to migrate northward into Syria. With the advent of Islam in the 630s, the Kalb began to enter Syria in large numbers, at first making their abodes in the Golan Heights , the northern Jordan Valley , and in and around Damascus . Its tribesmen eventually became major landowners in the Ghouta gardens surrounding Damascus, as well as living a semi-nomadic existence in the Marj pasture grounds on
7020-585: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
7254-542: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
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7488-469: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
7722-614: Is credited by an inscription. After the mid-11th century, the resurgent power of the Bedouin tribes of Syria and Iraq dissipated, precipitated by the invasion of the Turkish Seljuk Empire and its affiliates. With the exception of the Tayy under the Jarrahids' descendant branches and the Mazyadids of al-Hilla , the Bedouin tribes disappear from the political map of the region by the end of
7956-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
8190-468: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
8424-531: Is evidence that some Komnenian heirs had set up a semi-independent state in Trebizond before 1204. According to the historian Alexander Vasiliev , "the dynasty of the Angeloi, Greek in its origin, ... accelerated the ruin of the Empire, already weakened without and disunited within." In 1198, Pope Innocent III broached the subject of a new crusade through legates and encyclical letters. The stated intent of
8658-532: Is impossible to precisely date the foundation of the Byzantine Empire. In a series of conflicts between the third and first centuries BC, the Roman Republic gradually established hegemony over the eastern Mediterranean , while its government ultimately transformed into the one-person rule of an emperor . The Roman Empire enjoyed a period of relative stability until the third century AD , when
8892-449: Is no consensus on a "foundation date" for the Byzantine Empire, if there was one at all. The growth of the study of "late antiquity" has led to some historians setting a start date in the seventh or eighth centuries. Others believe a "new empire" began during changes in c. 300 AD. Still others hold that these starting points are too early or too late, and instead begin c. 500 . Geoffrey Greatrex believes that it
9126-566: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
9360-836: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
9594-559: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
Banu Kalb - Misplaced Pages Continue
9828-584: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
10062-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
10296-516: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
10530-588: The diyar (tribal territories) of the Kalb extended from the area of Siffin near Raqqa , off the western bank of the Euphrates, to Tayma. This expanse excluded the area of al-Rahba and largely bordered the southern Syrian and northern Hejazi diyar of the Fazara tribe, a branch of the Ghatafan. Because of its inclination toward sedentarism , through the 10th century, the Kalb gradually lost its dominant position in
10764-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
10998-692: The Tactica , a military treatise; and the Book of the Eparch , which codified Constantinople's trading regulations. In non-literary contexts Leo was less successful: the empire lost in Sicily and against the Bulgarians , while he provoked theological scandal by marrying four times in an attempt to father a legitimate heir. The early reign of that heir, Constantine VII , was tumultuous, as his mother Zoe , his uncle Alexander ,
11232-585: The Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
11466-607: The Battle of Hama in November 903. Attempts by the Qarmatian leaders to rouse the defeated chiefs of the Ullays were rejected and they submitted to the Abbasids at al-Rahba in 904. Nevertheless, within a short period, the Ullays reverted to the Qarmatian cause and suffered a damaging campaign by the Abbasids. Another deputy of Zakarawayh, Abu Ghanim, appealed to the Kalb of Palmyra. While most of
11700-524: The Catalan Company ravaging the countryside and increasing resentment towards Constantinople. The situation became worse for Byzantium during the civil wars after Andronikos III died. A six-year-long civil war devastated the empire, allowing the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan to overrun most of the empire's remaining territory and establish a Serbian Empire . In 1354, an earthquake at Gallipoli devastated
11934-681: The Council of Clermont and urged all those present to take up arms under the sign of the Cross and launch an armed pilgrimage to recover Jerusalem and the East from the Muslims. The response in Western Europe was overwhelming. Alexios was able to recover a number of important cities, islands and much of western Asia Minor. The Crusaders agreed to become Alexios' vassals under the Treaty of Devol in 1108, which marked
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#173284907228712168-608: The Council of Piacenza in 1095, envoys from Alexios spoke to Pope Urban II about the suffering of the Christians of the East and underscored that without help from the West, they would continue to suffer under Muslim rule. Urban saw Alexios' request as a dual opportunity to cement Western Europe and reunite the Eastern Orthodox Church with the Roman Catholic Church under his rule. On 27 November 1095, Urban called
12402-471: The Danube , he pushed his troops too far in 602—they mutinied, proclaimed an officer named Phocas as emperor, and executed Maurice. The Sasanians seized their moment and reopened hostilities ; Phocas was unable to cope and soon faced a major rebellion led by Heraclius . Phocas lost Constantinople in 610 and was soon executed, but the destructive civil war accelerated the empire's decline. Under Khosrow II ,
12636-717: The Danube . In the north and west were the Balkans, the corridors between the mountain ranges of Pindos , the Dinaric Alps , the Rhodopes and the Balkans . In the south and east were Anatolia, the Pontic Mountains and the Taurus - Anti-Taurus range, which served as passages for armies, while the Caucasus mountains lay between the Empire and its eastern neighbours. Roman roads connected
12870-404: The Eastern Roman Empire , was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred in Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages . The eastern half of the Empire survived the conditions that caused the fall of the West in the 5th century AD, and continued to exist until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained
13104-418: The Empire of Trebizond , was created after Alexios I of Trebizond , commanding the Georgian expedition in Chaldia a few weeks before the sack of Constantinople, found himself de facto emperor and established himself in Trebizond. Of the three successor states, Epirus and Nicaea stood the best chance of reclaiming Constantinople. The Nicaean Empire struggled to survive the next few decades, however, and by
13338-422: The Ghassanids , leaders of the Byzantines' Arab allies. During the lifetime of the Islamic prophet Muhammad , a few of his close companions were Kalbites, most prominently Zayd ibn Haritha and Dihya , but the bulk of the tribe remained Christian at the time of Muhammad's death in 632. They began converting in large numbers when the Muslims made significant progress in the conquest of Byzantine Syria , in which
13572-419: The Komnenian restoration , and Constantinople would remain the largest and wealthiest city in Europe until the 13th century. The empire was largely dismantled in 1204, following the Sack of Constantinople by Latin armies at the end of the Fourth Crusade ; its former territories were then divided into competing Greek rump states and Latin realms . Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261,
13806-411: The Nile Delta in Lower Egypt around this time. In the Arab genealogical tradition, the progenitor of the tribe was named Kalb, which means 'dog' in Arabic . Kalb's father was Wabara and his mother, Asma bint Duraym ibn al-Qayn ibn Ahwad of the Bahra' , was known as Umm al-Asbu ( lit. ' mother of wild animals ' ) because all of her children were named after wild animals. The Kalb
14040-408: The Normans who arrived in Italy at the beginning of the 11th century. During a period of strife between Constantinople and Rome culminating in the East-West Schism of 1054 , the Normans advanced gradually into Byzantine Italy . Reggio , the capital of the tagma of Calabria, was captured in 1060 by Robert Guiscard , followed by Otranto in 1068. Bari , the main Byzantine stronghold in Apulia ,
14274-411: The Pechenegs , who were caught by surprise and annihilated at the Battle of Levounion on 28 April 1091. Having achieved stability in the West, Alexios could turn his attention to the severe economic difficulties and the disintegration of the empire's traditional defences. However, he still did not have enough manpower to recover the lost territories in Asia Minor and to the advance by the Seljuks. At
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#173284907228714508-461: The Renaissance . The fall of Constantinople is sometimes used to mark the dividing line between the Middle Ages and the early modern period . The inhabitants of the empire, now generally termed Byzantines, thought of themselves as Romans ( Romaioi ). Their Islamic neighbours similarly called their empire the "land of the Romans" ( Bilād al-Rūm ), but the people of medieval Western Europe preferred to call them "Greeks" ( Graeci ), due to having
14742-407: The Roman papacy . In 780, Empress Irene assumed power on behalf of her son Constantine VI . Although she was a capable administrator who temporarily resolved the iconoclasm controversy, the empire was destabilized by her feud with her son. The Bulgars and Abbasids meanwhile inflicted numerous defeats on the Byzantine armies, and the papacy crowned Charlemagne as Roman emperor in 800. In 802,
14976-406: The Second Muslim Civil War , the Kalb routed its main rival, the Qays , in the Battle of Marj Rahit in 684, inaugurating a long-running blood feud , in which the Qays eventually gained the advantage. In the resulting tribal factionalism which came to dominate Umayyad politics, the Kalb became a leading component of the Yaman faction against the Qays. The Kalb lost its political influence under
15210-452: The Tanukhids . The latter, like the Kalb, also traced their descent to the Quda'a tribal confederation. The Kalb's territory on the Byzantine Empire 's Limes Arabicus frontier straddled the Oriens , a collective term for the empire's eastern provinces. The Kalb may have been the unnamed tribe that launched a massive invasion of Byzantine-held Syria , Phoenicia , Palestine and Egypt in 410, according to Shahîd. He posits that
15444-437: The Umayyad Caliphate , but the empire subsequently stabilised under the Isaurian dynasty. The empire was able to expand once more under the Macedonian dynasty , experiencing a two-century-long renaissance . This came to an end in 1071, with the defeat by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert . Thereafter, periods of civil war and Seljuk incursion resulted in the loss of most of Asia Minor . The empire recovered during
15678-467: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
15912-425: The Yaman coalition in opposition to the Qays. The Qays under Zufar ibn al-Harith al-Kilabi and the disaffected Umayyad commander Umayr ibn al-Hubab al-Sulami , who were based in the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia), engaged the Kalb under Ibn Bahdal's brother, Humayd ibn Hurayth , in a series of raids and counter-raids ( ayyam ) during 686–689. The Kalb was frequently attacked by the Qays at its dwelling places in
16146-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
16380-457: The sea walls of Constantinople , overhaul provincial governance, and wage inconclusive campaigns against the Abbasids. After his death, his empress Theodora , ruling on behalf of her son Michael III , permanently extinguished the iconoclastic movement; the empire prospered under their sometimes-fraught rule. However, Michael was posthumously vilified by historians loyal to the dynasty of his successor Basil I , who assassinated him in 867 and who
16614-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
16848-745: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Byzantine The Byzantine Empire , also referred to as
17082-429: The 'Banu Amir al-Akbar' to distinguish it from similarly named clans of the Kalb. Kalbite tribesmen may have arrived in Syria by the 4th century, though precise information about the tribe at that time is unavailable. The historian Irfan Shahîd speculates Mawiyya , a warrior queen of Arab tribesmen in southern Syria, likely belonged to the Kalb. This would indicate that the Kalb was an ally of Mawiyya's principal force,
17316-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
17550-575: The 11th century. From then on, various tribes receive occasional mention in the record as allies of the Turkish atabegs or as raiders of caravans. In 1084, the Kalb, including its Banu Ulaym branch, joined the Bedouin coalition assembled by the Uqaylid ruler of Aleppo, Muslim ibn Quraysh , to strengthen his position against his Seljuk overlords; he was slain two years later and Aleppo came under direct Turkish rule. The Kalb continued its shift to sedentarism into
17784-678: The 12th century, especially in the Hauran. The Kalb there are recorded in 1131 as having captured the Mazyadid emir Dubays ibn Sadaqa on his way to Salkhad. The Kalb then transferred Dubays to the custody of the Turkish atabeg of Damascus, Taj al-Mulk Buri . A Kalbite family from the Kinana branch, the Banu Munqidh , which had established an emirate in the Orontes Valley in the 1020s, continued to operate under
18018-514: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
18252-674: The 532 Nika revolt he rebuilt much of Constantinople, including the original Hagia Sophia . Justinian took advantage of political instability in Italy to attempt the reconquest of lost western territories. The Vandal Kingdom in North Africa was subjugated in 534 by the general Belisarius , who then invaded Italy ; the Ostrogothic Kingdom was destroyed in 554. In the 540s, however, Justinian began to suffer reversals on multiple fronts. Taking advantage of Constantinople's preoccupation with
18486-531: The 580s. They lost their powerful position and much of their prestige when the Sasanian Persians conquered Byzantine Syria in 613–614. The Byzantines recaptured the region in 628, but the Ghassanids remained weakened, divided into multiple subgroups, each headed by a different chief. The Kalb, though allied with the Ghassanids, had begun pushing into their territory within the Byzantine Empire's boundaries during
18720-744: The 6th and 7th centuries, the Banu Haritha ibn Janab, as well as other prominent lines, namely the Banu Ulaym and the Banu Ullays. Among the other main branches of the Kalb was the Kinana ibn Awf. From its subbranch, the Banu Awf ibn Kinana, descended the Banu Abd Wadd and the Banu Amir al-Aghdar. The latter may have originally been a family of non-Kalbite priests for the pre-monotheistic Kalb's idol , Wadd , which
18954-477: The 860s, Abbasid central control waned in the provinces, including Syria. In 864, the Kalb under Utayf ibn Ni'ma took leadership of an anti-Abbasid revolt in Homs in which the city's governor, al-Fadl ibn Qarin, was killed. The Kalb was afterward defeated by the Abbasid general Musa ibn Bugha , but soon linked up with a rebel Tanukhid chief in northern Syria, Yusuf ibn Ibrahim al-Fusays. In 866, Utayf refused to recognize
19188-812: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
19422-617: The Anti-Lebanon and the Palmyrene steppe, high grain prices, and low caravan traffic had pushed the Kalb to rupture its relations with the Fatimids. However, while the Tayy and Kilab took control of Palestine and northern Syria, respectively, the Kalb failed to capture Damascus. Sinan's death in 1028 and the defection of his successor, Rafi ibn Abi'l-Layl , to the Fatimids scuttled the alliance, which unraveled with Salih's slaying by Rafi's warriors in
19656-516: The Arab efforts to capture Constantinople in the 670s , but suffered a reversal against the Bulgars , who soon established an empire in the northern Balkans . Nevertheless, he and Constans had done enough to secure the empire's position, especially as the Umayyad Caliphate was undergoing another civil war . Justinian II sought to build on the stability secured by his father Constantine but
19890-544: The Arab strongman of Palestine in c. 866 –871. In the 10th century, the Kalb was one of the three largest Arab confederations of Syria, largely concentrated in the central parts of the region; the other two confederations were the Tayy in southern Syria and the Kilab in northern Syria. Unlike the Tayy and Kilab, who were relative newcomers, most of the long-established Kalb tribesmen were settled peasants who lost their traditional nomadic mobility by this time. At this point,
20124-517: The Bedouin tribes around Kufa but the Banu Ullays and some of the Banu al-Asbagh branches of the Kalb embraced Zakarawayh's son, al-Husayn , in 902. Later that year, the Kalbite converts under al-Husayn's brother, Yahya , defeated and killed the Abbasid garrison commander of Rusafa , Sabuk al-Daylami, then stormed the city, looting it and burning its mosque. The Kalb under Yahya proceeded toward Damascus, sacking
20358-565: The Bedouins of northern Arabia. On behalf of Abraha , the mid-6th-century Aksumite ruler of South Arabia , Zuhayr led an expedition against the north Arabian tribes of Taghlib and Bakr . In the mid-6th century, the Kalb under Zuhayr fought the Ghatafan tribe over the latter's construction of a haram (sacred place) at a place called 'Buss'; the Ghatafan's haram emulated the Ka'aba of Mecca , at
20592-445: The Byzantine Empire. They seasonally migrated from there deep into the vast desert steppe between Syria and Mesopotamia , which the Arabic sources called the Samawa or Samawat Kalb , after the tribe, especially the southwestern part of this region. To the west of al-Jawf, the tribe's Banu Amir al-Akbar branch roamed between the oasis of Tayma in the south to the wells of Quraqir in
20826-408: The Byzantine administration's policy of heavy taxation and abolishing of the levy. The weakening of Georgia and Armenia played a significant role in the Byzantine defeat at Manzikert in 1071. Basil II is considered among the most capable Byzantine emperors and his reign as the apex of the empire in the Middle Ages . By 1025, the date of Basil II's death, the Byzantine Empire stretched from Armenia in
21060-481: The Byzantine emperor, Heraclius . According to the historian Fred Donner , while there were notable converts among the Kalb, there are scarce details about contacts between Muhammad and the Kalb in general. As Byzantine foederati , the Kalb fought against Muslim advances in northern Arabia and Syria. The first confrontation was the 627/628 expedition against Dumat al-Jandal , in which the prominent companion of Muhammad, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf , succeeded in converting
21294-596: The Christian chief of the Kalb there, al-Asbagh ibn Amr , to Islam. The pact between at least part of the Kalb, under al-Asbagh, and Muhammad was the first major step in the future alliance between the tribe and the Muslim state. The pact was sealed by the marriage of Abd al-Rahman to al-Asbagh's daughter, Tumadir, which represented the first marital link between the Kalb and the Quraysh , the tribe of Muhammad and Abd al-Rahman. Most of
21528-670: The Day of Kahatin, and the Day of Siya'if between the Kalb and the Sasanian-allied Taghlib around the time of the Battle of Dhi Qar between the Sasanians and a coalition of Arab tribes. The two minor clashes were the Day of Ulaha against the Taghlib and the Day of Rahba against the Asad tribe. The best-known pre-Islamic chief of the Kalb was Zuhayr ibn Janab , who wielded significant influence among
21762-462: The Dumat al-Jandal and Wadi Sirhan regions to its Tayy allies, while those who remained nomadic either migrated to join their kinsmen in central Syria or kept a low profile in their traditional dwelling places. Military pressures also forced the Kalb to retreat from the Homs area in the mid-10th century, its territory thereafter becoming restricted to the environs of Palmyra and Damascus. Nomadic sections of
21996-572: The Empire by land, with the Via Egnatia running from Constantinople to the Albanian coast through Macedonia and the Via Traiana to Adrianople (modern Edirne ), Serdica (modern Sofia ) and Singidunum. By water, Crete, Cyprus and Sicily were key naval points and the main ports connecting Constantinople were Alexandria, Gaza, Caesarea and Antioch. The Aegean sea was considered an internal lake within
22230-432: The Empire. The emperor was the centre of the whole administration of the Empire, who the legal historian Kaius Tuori has said was "above the law, within the law, and the law itself"; with a power that is difficult to define and which does not align with our modern understanding of the separation of powers. The proclamations of the crowds of Constantinople, and the inaugurations of the patriarch from 457, would legitimise
22464-465: The Fatimid army at the Battle of al-Uqhuwana in 1029. By 1031, Rafi, having grown dissatisfied at the failure of the Fatimids to transfer Sinan's iqtas to him, resumed the Kalb's alliance with Hassan and the Tayy, who had been driven into the Palmyrene steppe by the Fatimids. Both the Kalb and the Tayy then relocated to Byzantine territory near Antioch after allying with Byzantium in the aftermath of
22698-524: The Iraq-based Abbasids. The Yaman, including the Kalb, quickly became frustrated with Abbasid rule in Syria and joined the revolt of the Umayyad prince Abu Muhammad al-Sufyani and the Qaysite general Abu al-Ward in 750–751. Abu Muhammad was a descendant of the Kalb's former patron, Mu'awiya I, and he presented himself as a messianic figure known as the 'Sufyani', who many from Homs believed would restore
22932-500: The Kalb and its tribal neighbors deemed a threat to their socio-economic interests and power in Syria. In 639, Umar appointed Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan , a member of the powerful Umayyad clan of the Quraysh, to the governorships of the Damascus and Jordan districts, which collectively corresponded with central Syria. From the beginning of his administration, Mu'awiya forged close ties with
23166-499: The Kalb and other Bedouin tribes, but was defeated. The Kalb also participated in at least one of Sayf al-Dawla's campaigns against the Byzantines. At times, Sayf al-Dawla campaigned to protect the Kalb of Homs and at other times confronted them to reassert his authority in his domains, a situation which played out with the other Arab tribes. These tribes launched a massive uprising against him in 955, which he decisively suppressed, forcing
23400-565: The Kalb and the Asad defeated Ibn Hamdan, forcing him to flee to Aleppo. Later that year, Ibn Hamdan defeated the Kalb and its Tayy allies. The Kalb then raided places in the Samawa and attacked Hit . Al-Muktafi countered with an army led by Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Kundaj , which compelled the Kalb to betray the Qarmatians and kill Nasr, thereby avoiding punitive action by the authorities. "The final retreat of
23634-424: The Kalb and the Fatimids. Its numbers and power reduced from its historical highs in previous centuries and possessing a respect for order, the Kalb became among the first tribes to ally with the Fatimids and the tribe most often employed by the Fatimids in Syria. Ibn Ulayyan's brother, Sinan ibn Ulayyan , was emir of the Kalb by 992, when he participated in the struggle between the rival Fatimid military factions of
23868-539: The Kalb continued to inhabit the desert east of Palmyra into the late 11th century. After that point, even these nomadic groups shifted to sedentarism and the Kalb's main area of concentration shifted from the stretch between Damascus and Palmyra southwestward to the settled areas between Damascus, the Anti-Lebanon Mountains , and the Hauran , especially the last region. Smaller groups of the Kalb moved north of Homs and
24102-649: The Kalb economically depended on tolls exacted from the caravans travelling between al-Rahba and Homs and Damascus, as well as taxes on the agricultural output from the Palmyra oasis and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. Nomadic clans of the Kalb which controlled Palmyra and the Samawa found a strong patron in the Qarmatian movement, and became propagandists of this millenarian Isma'ili Shi'a sect. The Qarmatians under their leader Zakarawayh had failed to gain traction among
24336-533: The Kalb in Dumat al-Jandal, under the chief Wadi'a, rebelled, but was suppressed. The Ridda wars were largely concluded by 633 and the caliph (successor of Muhammad as leader of the Muslims) Abu Bakr launched the Muslim conquest of Byzantine Syria in late 633 or early 634. Despite their historical ties with Byzantium, Kalbite tribesmen remained largely neutral during the conquest. At least some Kalbites fought in
24570-449: The Kalb joined the Tayy and Kilab in a rebellion to split Syria among themselves in 1024–1025, during which the Kalb failed to capture Damascus . The Kalb continued transitioning to a settled existence into the 12th century, after which the tribe no longer appears in the historical record. Before Islam, the Kalb dominated the regions of al-Jawf and Wadi Sirhan , as well as the Samawa, the great desert expanse between Syria and Iraq. After
24804-541: The Kalb participated in the abortive Fatimid campaigns against the Mirdasid emir Mu'izz al-Dawla Thimal in 1048 and 1050. The Kalb again were dispatched by the Fatimids against the Mirdasids in 1060, this time at al-Rahba. In 1065, the Kalb entered a conflict against the Fatimid governor of Damascus, Badr al-Jamali , and bested the Fatimid troops dispatched against it, killing and capturing several soldiers and commanders. Among
25038-421: The Kalb probably remained Christian, despite the pact with al-Asbagh. Part of the tribe came under a Muslim agent, al-Asbagh's son Imru al-Qays, during the campaign against pro-Byzantine Arab tribes at Dhat al-Salasil in northwestern Arabia. After Zayd ibn Haritha was slain during a campaign against the Byzantines and their Arab allies at the Battle of Mu'ta in 629, Muhammad appointed Zayd's son, Usama , to head
25272-517: The Kalb provided crucial support to Mu'awiya. Bahdal's sons and grandsons served as commanders against Ali's partisans during the 657 Battle of Siffin , which ended in a stalemate. Ali was killed in 661 and months later, Mu'awiya became caliph. He continued his reliance on the Kalb to maintain his foothold in Syria. Bahdal secured for the Kalb and its allies in the Quda'a significant privileges from Mu'awiya, including consultation in all major caliphal decisions,
25506-540: The Kalb stayed neutral. As a massive nomadic tribe with considerable military experience, the Kalb was sought as a key ally by the Muslim state. The leading clans of the Kalb forged marital ties with the Umayyad family , and the tribe became the military foundation of the Syria -based Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) from the reign of Mu'awiya I ( r. 661–680 ) to the early reign of Abd al-Malik ( r. 685–705 ). During
25740-461: The Kalb to abandon Homs. In 958, the Kalb and the Tayy launched an assault against the Hamdanid governor of Homs, Abu Wa'il Taghlib ibn Dawud. The Kalb had been considerably weakened during the 10th century as a result of the tribe's increasing sedentarism, its lack of control over urban settlements from which Bedouin tribes typically exacted tribute, its highly decentralized structure, and the defeat of
25974-421: The Kalb's political isolation. The Kalb remained among the three largest tribes of Syria at the start of Fatimid rule in the late 10th century, but due to its increasing sedentarism , it was disadvantaged to the more numerous and nomadic Tayy and Kilab tribes. The Kalb's relative weakness encouraged its close alliance with the Fatimids over the next century. This was occasionally interrupted, most notably when
26208-448: The Kalb, his wives being either Qurayshites or the daughters of Qaysite tribal chiefs. With the death, in 704, of Egypt 's powerful governor Abd al-Aziz, who was slated to succeed his brother Abd al-Malik, Marsham notes that "the Kalb's close kinship connection with the caliphate was severed". Nevertheless, several members of the tribe served key roles under Abd al-Malik and his successors. The most notable were Sufyan ibn al-Abrad , who led
26442-421: The Kalb, one of the principal sources of military power in Syria. During the reign of his Umayyad kinsman, Caliph Uthman ( r. 644–656 ), Mu'awiya's governorship was gradually expanded to include the rest of Syria. The Kalb formed marital links with the Umayyads from this time. Uthman married a Kalbite noblewoman, Na'ila bint al-Furafisa , a paternal cousin of Tumadir bint al-Asbagh. Na'ila's sister, Hind,
26676-554: The Kalbites were opposed to the Qarmatian mission, Abu Ghanim won over remnants of the Ullays, many among the al-Asbagh, and brigands from other Kalb clans, such as the Banu Ziyad. In 906, they plundered Bosra , Adhri'at and Tiberias , and killed the deputy governor of the Jordan district. In response, al-Muktafi dispatched a punitive expedition led by Husayn ibn Hamdan against the Kalb, but
26910-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
27144-418: The Mirdasids' victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Azaz . Nevertheless, by 1038, Rafi and the Kalb renewed their allegiance to the Fatimids, playing a key role in the army of Anushtakin al-Dizbari , the Fatimid governor of Syria, during his successful campaign against the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo, Shibl al-Dawla Nasr , near Homs. After Anushtakin's death and the return of Mirdasid rule to Aleppo in 1042,
27378-565: The Mongol invasion also gave Nicaea a temporary respite from Seljuk attacks, allowing it to concentrate on the Latin Empire to its north. The Empire of Nicaea, founded by the Laskarid dynasty , managed to recapture Constantinople in 1261 and defeat Epirus . This led to a short-lived revival of Byzantine fortunes under Michael VIII Palaiologos , but the war-ravaged empire was ill-equipped to deal with
27612-476: The Muslim conquest, the tribe expanded its presence into Syria proper, taking the dominant position in the Golan Heights , the northern Jordan Valley , the Damascus area, and in and around Homs and Palmyra. As Fatimid rule progressed in the 11th century, the tribe's main concentration between Damascus and Palmyra shifted to the settled areas between Damascus, the Hauran , and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains . The Kalb
27846-423: The Muslim state's need to establish a defense network out of the militarily experienced, formerly Byzantine-allied Arab tribes of Syria drove it to strengthen ties with the Kalb, as well as with the old-established Judham and Lakhm tribes in the southern Syrian steppe. This need was pressing for the Muslims as they lacked a standing army and their tribal forces from Arabia had to be deployed to different fronts. In
28080-562: The Namir, the Kalb's brother tribe, in the Golan. It is not clear if the conflict between Tha'laba ibn Amir and Dawud was a personal feud or part of a tribal conflict between the Kalb and the Salihids. Although the Kalb's role in 5th-century Arab tribal politics in the Byzantine Empire is clear, contemporary sources do not indicate how early the Kalb made contact with the Byzantines. By the early 6th century,
28314-568: The Normans were driven out of Greece, in 1186 the Vlachs and Bulgars began a rebellion that led to the formation of the Second Bulgarian Empire . The internal policy of the Angeloi was characterised by the squandering of the public treasure and fiscal maladministration. Imperial authority was severely weakened, and the growing power vacuum at the centre of the empire encouraged fragmentation. There
28548-476: The Qarmatians. When the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate under the general Ja'far ibn Falah invaded Syria in 970, the emir of the Kalb's Palmyra-based Banu Adi clan, Ibn Ulayyan, captured the pro-Abbasid chief of the Damascus ahdath (urban militia) during his attempted escape to Palmyra. The Kalbite emir sent him to Ja'far for a large bounty, thereby inaugurating a century-long, mostly collaborative relationship between
28782-683: The Qays at the Battle of Marj Rahit in August 684. In the battle's aftermath, the Qays–Kalb feud intensified , while Marwan became completely dependent on the Kalb and its allies to maintain his rule. Syrian tribes envious of the Quda'a's privileges either opposed or sought to join it. The Judham of Palestine and the South Arabian tribes which dwelt in the Homs district defected to the Quda'a's side after Marj Rahit, forming
29016-407: The Qays tribes opposed Abu al-Umaytir. The Qaysite leader, Ibn Bayhas al-Kilabi , backed another Umayyad counter-caliph, Maslama ibn Ya'qub, and together defeated Abu al-Umaytir. By 813, Ibn Bayhas reverted to Abbasid allegiance, prompting the two Umayyad claimants to the caliphate to take refuge with the Kalb in its Ghouta villages of Mezzeh , Darayya and Beit Lihya until their natural deaths. In
29250-672: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
29484-561: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
29718-514: The Salihids were supplanted by the Ghassanids as the supreme phylarchs of the Arab tribes in Byzantine territory. Like the Ghassanids, the Kalb embraced Monophysite Christianity . The Kalb was put under the Ghassanids' authority and, like other allied tribes, was charged with guarding the Byzantines' eastern frontier against Sassanian Persia and the latter's Arab vassals in al-Hira , the Lakhmids . As
29952-534: The Samawa and despite making retaliatory raids, the Kalbites were forced to leave the Samawa for the Jordan Valley . Humayd attacked the Qays in the Jazira around 690, but the Kalbites were dealt a heavy blow by the Qays at a place called Banat Qayn between 692 and 694, for which the caliph, Marwan's son Abd al-Malik ( r. 685–705 ), had the culpable Qaysite chiefs executed by the Kalb in revenge. This event marked
30186-401: The Sassanids occupied the Levant and Egypt and pushed into Asia Minor, while Byzantine control of Italy slipped and the Avars and Slavs ran riot in the Balkans. Although Heraclius repelled a siege of Constantinople in 626 and defeated the Sassanids in 627, this was a pyrrhic victory . The early Muslim conquests soon saw the conquest of the Levant , Egypt , and the Sassanid Empire by
30420-415: The Tayy under the Jarrahid emir Hassan ibn al-Mufarrij , and its traditional rivals, the Kilab under the Mirdasid emir Salih ibn Mirdas , formed an unprecedented Bedouin alliance to divide Syria among themselves. The three chiefs launched their war in 1025, taking over much of Syria. Bianquis speculates severe economic strain on the Kalb, probably emanating from years-long drought and reduced crop yields in
30654-413: The Tetrarchy system quickly failed, the division of the empire proved an enduring concept. Constantine I ( r. 306–337 ) secured sole power in 324. Over the following six years, he rebuilt the city of Byzantium as a capital city , which was renamed Constantinople . Rome , the previous capital, was further from the important eastern provinces and in a less strategically important location; it
30888-426: The Turkish invaders at the Battle of Hyelion and Leimocheir , brought troops from the capital and was able to gather an army along the way, a sign that the Byzantine army remained strong and that the defensive program of western Asia Minor was still successful. John and Manuel pursued active military policies, and both deployed considerable resources on sieges and city defences; aggressive fortification policies were at
31122-424: The Turks under Manjutakin and the Berbers under al-Hasan ibn Ammar , the latter himself a scion of a ruling Kalbite family in Sicily . Throughout the 11th century, the Kalb was commissioned by the Fatimids on several occasions against the Mirdasid -led Kilab of northern Syria. As Fatimid control weakened in Syria after Caliph al-Hakim 's disappearance in 1021, Sinan and the chiefs of the Kalb's traditional ally,
31356-403: The Umayyad Caliphate. Abu al-Ward was killed by an Abbasid army while Abu Muhammad and the Kalb barricaded themselves in Palmyra, after which the revolt dissipated. The Kalb-led Yamanites were the chief backers of another Umayyad claimant to the caliphate, Abu al-Umaytir al-Sufyani , who took power in Damascus in 811, amid the Great Abbasid Civil War . Due to partisan acts in favor of the Yaman,
31590-486: The West, Khosrow I of the Sasanian Empire invaded Byzantine territory and sacked Antioch in 540. Meanwhile, the emperor's internal reforms and policies began to falter, not helped by a devastating plague that killed a large proportion of the population and severely weakened the empire's social and financial stability. The most difficult period of the Ostrogothic war, against their king Totila , came during this decade, while divisions among Justinian's advisors undercut
31824-401: The West. Zeno ( r. 474–491 ) convinced the problematic Ostrogoth king Theodoric to take control of Italy from Odoacer, which he did; dying with the empire at peace, Zeno was succeeded by Anastasius I ( r. 491–518 ). Although his Monophysitism brought occasional issues, Anastasius was a capable administrator and instituted several successful financial reforms including
32058-429: The Western provinces to achieve an economic revival that continued until the close of the century. It has been argued that Byzantium under the Komnenian rule was more prosperous than at any time since the Persian invasions of the 7th century. During the 12th century, population levels rose and extensive tracts of new agricultural land were brought into production. Archaeological evidence from both Europe and Asia Minor shows
32292-403: The [Qarmatians]" from Syria after their defeat in 970, left the Kalb "politically isolated", according to the historian Kamal Salibi . In 944–945, the Hamdanid emir Sayf al-Dawla established an emirate in Aleppo spanning much of northern Syria, with the southern parts controlled by the Egypt-based Ikshidids . In his attempt to capture Damascus from its Ikhshidid governor in 947, he rallied
32526-522: The abolition of the chrysargyron tax . He was the first emperor to die with no serious problems affecting his empire since Diocletian. The reign of Justinian I was a watershed in Byzantine history. Following his accession in 527, the law-code was rewritten as the influential Corpus Juris Civilis and Justinian produced extensive legislation on provincial administration; he reasserted imperial control over religion and morality through purges of non-Christians and "deviants"; and having ruthlessly subdued
32760-401: The administration's response. He also did not fully heal the divisions in Chalcedonian Christianity , as the Second Council of Constantinople failed to make a real difference. Justinian died in 565; his reign saw more success than that of any other Byzantine emperor, yet he left his empire under massive strain. Financially and territorially overextended, Justin II ( r. 565–578 )
32994-419: The advantage and Mismar negotiated a large bribe for his neutrality, though this was not paid and the Fatimids used the respite to defeat the Damascenes, prompting the Kalb to withdraw into the Ghouta. According to the historian Werner Caskel , this event represents the last known military engagement of the Kalb. Mismar's son, Husayn, founded or rebuilt the fortress of Salkhad in the Hauran in 1073, for which he
33228-568: The aristocracy turned into wholesale slaughter, while the emperor resorted to ever more ruthless measures to shore up his regime. Despite his military background, Andronikos failed to deal with Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus, Béla III of Hungary who reincorporated Croatian territories into Hungary, and Stephen Nemanja of Serbia who declared his independence from the Byzantine Empire. Yet, none of these troubles compared to William II of Sicily 's invasion force of 300 ships and 80,000 men, arriving in 1185 and sacking Thessalonica . Andronikos mobilised
33462-444: The battle site, in the northern Jordan Valley region. The conversion of much of the tribe to Islam probably occurred after this battle, which shattered the Byzantine army in Syria and drove on the Muslim conquest of the region. The conquest was largely concluded by 638; by then, the Kalb dominated the steppes around Homs and Palmyra and was the leading and most powerful component of the Quda'a tribal confederation. In Athamina's opinion,
33696-420: The battles and raids they were involved in. An exception is the Day of Ura'ir, where a Kalbite chief, Masad ibn Hisn ibn Masad, was slain by the Banu Abs . The Kalbite historical tradition formulated in 9th-century Kufa mentions five pre-Islamic confrontations involving the Kalb. The three major ones were the Day of Nuhada, fought between the Abdallah ibn Kinana and Kinana ibn Awf divisions of the tribe around 570,
33930-403: The capital to Constantinople and legalised Christianity . Under Theodosius I ( r. 379–395 ), Christianity became the state religion , and other religious practices were proscribed . Greek gradually replaced Latin for official use as Latin fell into disuse. The empire experienced several cycles of decline and recovery throughout its history, reaching its greatest extent after the fall of
34164-432: The capital, and Alexios Angelos was elevated to the throne as Alexios IV along with his blind father Isaac. Alexios IV and Isaac II were unable to keep their promises and were deposed by Alexios V . The crusaders again took the city on 13 April 1204 , and Constantinople was subjected to pillage and massacre by the rank and file for three days. Many priceless icons, relics and other objects later turned up in Western Europe ,
34398-455: The captives was the dignitary Ibn Manzu, who agreed to pay a substantial ransom and became a key client of the Kalb in Damascus. During the revolt of the Damascenes against the Fatimid garrison loyal to Badr in 1068, Ibn Manzu arranged for the Kalb, by that time led by Sinan's son Mismar and Hazim ibn Nabhan al-Qarmati, to back the Damascenes. The Kalb was unable to breach the city's defenses, but remained outside its walls. The Fatimid troops gained
34632-514: The central and southern parts of the region, at least not in large numbers. Mu'awiya's son and successor, Yazid I ( r. 680–683 ), who was born to Maysun, also married a Kalbite woman, and maintained the privileges granted to the Quda'a by his father. Mu'awiya chose Yazid instead of his elder son by a woman of the Quraysh, an indication of the Kalb's critical role as the foundation of Sufyanid power. The accession of Yazid's son Mu'awiya II ( r. 683–684 ), born to Yazid's Kalbite wife,
34866-413: The city had collapsed so severely that it was now little more than a cluster of villages separated by fields. On 2 April 1453, Sultan Mehmed 's army of 80,000 men and large numbers of irregulars laid siege to the city. Despite a desperate last-ditch defence of the city by the massively outnumbered Christian forces (c. 7,000 men, 2,000 of whom were foreign), Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans after
35100-509: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
35334-439: The crusade was to conquer Egypt , the centre of Muslim power in the Levant. The Crusader army arrived at Venice in the summer of 1202 and hired the Venetian fleet to transport them to Egypt. As a payment to the Venetians, they captured the (Christian) port of Zara in Dalmatia , which was a vassal city of Venice, it had rebelled and placed itself under Hungary's protection in 1186. Shortly afterward, Alexios IV Angelos , son of
35568-447: The deposed and blinded Emperor Isaac II, made contact with the Crusaders. Alexios offered to reunite the Byzantine church with Rome, pay the Crusaders 200,000 silver marks, join the crusade, and provide all the supplies they needed to reach Egypt. The crusaders arrived at Constantinople in the summer of 1203 and quickly attacked , starting a major fire that damaged large parts of the city, and briefly seized control. Alexios III fled from
35802-424: The east by allowing the Goths to settle in Roman territory; he also twice intervened in the western half, defeating the usurpers Magnus Maximus and Eugenius in 388 and 394 respectively. He actively condemned paganism , confirmed the primacy of Nicene Christianity over Arianism , and established Christianity as the Roman state religion . He was the last emperor to rule both the western and eastern halves of
36036-433: The east to Calabria in southern Italy in the west. Many successes had been achieved, ranging from the conquest of Bulgaria to the annexation of parts of Georgia and Armenia, and the reconquests of Crete , Cyprus , and the important city of Antioch . These were not temporary tactical gains but long-term reconquests. At the same time, Byzantium was faced with new enemies. Its provinces in southern Italy were threatened by
36270-412: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of
36504-424: The emperor's role as the leader of the Christian world, John marched into the Holy Land at the head of the combined forces of the empire and the Crusader states; yet despite his efforts in leading the campaign, his hopes were disappointed by the treachery of his Crusader allies. In 1142, John returned to press his claims to Antioch, but he died in the spring of 1143 following a hunting accident. John's chosen heir
36738-423: The empire's eastern defences. The emergency lent weight to the military aristocracy in Anatolia, who in 1068 secured the election of one of their own, Romanos Diogenes , as emperor. In the summer of 1071, Romanos undertook a massive eastern campaign to draw the Seljuks into a general engagement with the Byzantine army. At the Battle of Manzikert , Romanos suffered a surprise defeat against Sultan Alp Arslan and
36972-443: The empire's fall, early modern scholars referred to the empire by many names, including the "Empire of Constantinople", the "Empire of the Greeks", the "Eastern Empire", the "Late Empire", the "Low Empire", and the "Roman Empire". The increasing use of "Byzantine" and "Byzantine Empire" likely started with the 15th-century historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles , whose works were widely propagated, including by Hieronymus Wolf . "Byzantine"
37206-446: The empire, gaining only short-term success. To avoid another sacking of the capital by the Latins, he forced the Church to submit to Rome, again a temporary solution for which the peasantry hated Michael and Constantinople. The efforts of Andronikos II and later his grandson Andronikos III marked Byzantium's last genuine attempts to restoring the glory of the empire. However, the use of mercenaries by Andronikos II often backfired, with
37440-402: The empire; after his death, the West would be destabilised by a succession of "soldier-emperors", unlike the East, where administrators would continue to hold power. Theodosius II ( r. 408–450 ) largely left the rule of the east to officials such as Anthemius , who constructed the Theodosian Walls to defend Constantinople, now firmly entrenched as Rome's capital. Theodosius' reign
37674-416: The end of the Norman threat during Alexios' reign. Alexios's son John II Komnenos succeeded him in 1118 and ruled until 1143. John was a pious and dedicated emperor who was determined to undo the damage to the empire suffered at the Battle of Manzikert half a century earlier. Famed for his piety and his remarkably mild and just reign, John was an exceptional example of a moral ruler at a time when cruelty
37908-492: The enemies that surrounded it. To maintain his campaigns against the Latins, Michael pulled troops from Asia Minor and levied crippling taxes on the peasantry, causing much resentment. Massive construction projects were completed in Constantinople to repair the damage of the Fourth Crusade, but none of these initiatives were of any comfort to the farmers in Asia Minor suffering raids from Muslim ghazis. Rather than holding on to his possessions in Asia Minor, Michael chose to expand
38142-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
38376-447: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
38610-417: The former Byzantine possessions. Although Venice was more interested in commerce than conquering territory, it took key areas of Constantinople, and the Doge took the title of " Lord of a Quarter and Half a Quarter of the Roman Empire ". After the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by Latin crusaders, two Byzantine successor states were established: the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epirus . A third,
38844-443: The fort, allowing the Ottomans (who were hired as mercenaries during the civil war by John VI Kantakouzenos ) to establish themselves in Europe. By the time the Byzantine civil wars had ended, the Ottomans had defeated the Serbians and subjugated them as vassals. Following the Battle of Kosovo , much of the Balkans became dominated by the Ottomans. Constantinople by this stage was underpopulated and dilapidated. The population of
39078-403: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
39312-431: The heart of their imperial military policies. Despite the defeat at Myriokephalon, the policies of Alexios, John and Manuel resulted in vast territorial gains, increased frontier stability in Asia Minor, and secured the stabilisation of the empire's European frontiers. From c. 1081 to c. 1180 , the Komnenian army assured the empire's security, enabling Byzantine civilisation to flourish. This allowed
39546-420: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
39780-440: The intra-dynastic Third Muslim Civil War in 743–750. The Kalb's position in the Umayyad state began to deteriorate under the pro-Qaysite caliph al-Walid II ( r. 743–744 ), and collapsed under Caliph Marwan II ( r. 744–750 ), who relied almost entirely on the Qays for military and administrative support at the expense of Yamanite interests. In June 745, the Kalbite chief of Palmyra, al-Asbagh ibn Dhu'ala , led
40014-414: The invasion was related to the fall of the Kalb's Tanukhid allies and the latter's replacement as the Byzantine's main foederati by the Salihids , who also descended from Quda'a. In the closing years of the 5th century, tensions between the Kalb and the Salihids culminated in a battle in which the Salihid phylarch , Dawud, was killed by Tha'laba ibn Amir of the Kalb and his ally Mu'awiya ibn Hujayr of
40248-558: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
40482-460: The last of the Qays–Kalb battles. The Kalb remained the backbone of the Umayyad army through the early part of Abd al-Malik's reign. After Abd al-Malik's reconciliation with Zufar in 691, which the Kalb had protested, the Qaysites were reintegrated into the army, ending the Kalb's monopoly of power there and beginning a policy by the caliphs of balancing Qaysite and Kalbite/Yamanite interests. Moreover, Abd al-Malik lacked ancestral or marital ties with
40716-550: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
40950-547: The later part of his reign, John focused his activities on the East, personally leading numerous campaigns against the Turks in Asia Minor. His campaigns fundamentally altered the balance of power in the East, forcing the Turks onto the defensive, while retaking many towns, fortresses, and cities across the peninsula for the Byzantines. He defeated the Danishmend Emirate of Melitene and reconquered all of Cilicia , while forcing Raymond of Poitiers , Prince of Antioch, to recognise Byzantine suzerainty. In an effort to demonstrate
41184-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
41418-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
41652-418: The measures he took to reform the government of the empire have been praised by historians. According to the historian George Ostrogorsky , Andronikos was determined to root out corruption: under his rule, the sale of offices ceased; selection was based on merit, rather than favouritism; and officials were paid an adequate salary to reduce the temptation of bribery. In the provinces, Andronikos's reforms produced
41886-433: The mid-13th century it had lost much of southern Anatolia. The weakening of the Sultanate of Rûm following the Mongol invasion in 1242–1243 allowed many beyliks and ghazis to set up their own principalities in Anatolia, weakening the Byzantine hold on Asia Minor. Two centuries later, one of the Beys of these beyliks, Osman I , would establish the Ottoman Empire that would eventually conquer Constantinople. However,
42120-403: The mid-to-late 630s, Caliph Umar dismissed the Muslims' supreme commander in Syria, Khalid ibn al-Walid, and reassigned his forces, derived largely from the Mudar and Rabi'a tribal groups of Arabia, to the Sasanian front in Iraq . Athamina attributes this decision to the Kalb's probable opposition to the significant numbers of outside tribal soldiers and their families in Khalid's army, which
42354-495: The most capable Byzantine emperors, withstood continued Arab attacks, civil unrest, and natural disasters, and reestablished the state as a major regional power. Leo's reign produced the Ecloga , a new code of law to succeed that of Justinian II, and continued to reform the "theme system" in order to lead offensive campaigns against the Muslims, culminating in a decisive victory in 740 . Constantine overcame an early civil war against his brother-in-law Artabasdos , made peace with
42588-434: The most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in the Mediterranean world . The term "Byzantine Empire" was only coined following the empire's demise; its citizens referred to the polity as the "Roman Empire" and to themselves as "Romans". Due to the imperial seat's move from Rome to Byzantium , the adoption of state Christianity , and the predominance of Greek instead of Latin , modern historians continue to make
42822-624: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
43056-405: The new Abbasid Caliphate , campaigned successfully against the Bulgars, and continued to make administrative and military reforms. However, due to both emperors' support for the Byzantine Iconoclasm , which opposed the use of religious icons , they were later vilified by Byzantine historians; Constantine's reign also saw the loss of Ravenna to the Lombards , and the beginning of a split with
43290-399: The new Abbasid caliph and was captured and executed by the general Ahmad ibn al-Muwallad, but the Kalb of the Homs countryside continued to resist. Al-Fusays abandoned his alliance with the Kalb and assaulted the tribe. Although the Abbasids reconciled with al-Fusays, the fate of the Kalbite tribes of the Homs countryside is not known. The tribe later allied with Isa ibn al-Shaykh al-Shaybani ,
43524-466: The newly-formed Arabic Rashidun Caliphate . By Heraclius' death in 641, the empire had been severely reduced economically as well as territorially—the loss of the wealthy eastern provinces had deprived Constantinople of three-quarters of its revenue. The next seventy-five years are poorly documented. Arab raids into Asia Minor began almost immediately, and the Byzantines resorted to holding fortified centres and avoiding battle at all costs; although it
43758-475: The northern Wadi Sirhan depression. The Kalb began to expand its grazing territories eastward toward the Euphrates River , following the retreat of the Taghlib tribe in c. 570 . The Kalb's tribal territory was bordered on the north by the powerful Tayy tribe, close allies of the Kalb. To the west, southeast, and east were the tribes of Balqayn , Ghatafan , and Anaza , respectively. The Kalb's domination of Wadi Sirhan and al-Jawf put its tribesmen
43992-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
44226-406: The outset of his reign, Alexios faced a formidable attack from the Normans under Guiscard and his son Bohemund of Taranto , who captured Dyrrhachium and Corfu and laid siege to Larissa in Thessaly . Guiscard's death in 1085 temporarily eased the Norman problem. The following year, the Seljuq sultan died, and the sultanate was split due to internal rivalries. By his own efforts, Alexios defeated
44460-440: The outskirts of the Ghouta. They also established themselves in and around Homs and Palmyra . A minor proportion of the tribe settled down in the garrison town and administrative center of Kufa in Iraq during the same period, while many Kalbite tribesmen established themselves in Muslim Spain as part of the Syrian expeditionary forces sent there in the 8th century. At the time of the mid-10th-century geographer Ibn Hawqal ,
44694-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
44928-521: The patriarch Nicholas , the powerful Simeon I of Bulgaria , and other influential figures jockeyed for power. In 920, the admiral Romanos I used his fleet to secure power, crowning himself and demoting Constantine to the position of junior co-emperor. His reign, which brought peace with Bulgaria and successes in the east under the general John Kourkouas , was ended in 944 by the machinations of his sons, whom Constantine soon usurped in turn. Constantine's ineffectual sole rule has often been construed as
45162-416: The political and economic privileges the Kalb had acquired under the Sufyanids, gave his allegiance to Marwan in return for the continuation of these privileges and priority in Marwan's court. A former top aide of the Sufyanids, al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri , and the Kalb's main tribal rivals, the Qays, both supported Ibn al-Zubayr. Ibn Bahdal mobilized the Kalb and its tribal allies and routed al-Dahhak and
45396-410: The pope and Western Christian kingdoms, and he successfully handled the passage of the crusaders through his empire. In the East, Manuel suffered a major defeat in 1176 at the Battle of Myriokephalon against the Turks. These losses were quickly recovered, and in the following year Manuel's forces inflicted a defeat upon a force of "picked Turks". The Byzantine commander John Vatatzes , who destroyed
45630-439: The ports of southern Italy, he sent an expedition to Italy in 1155, but disputes within the coalition led to the eventual failure of the campaign. Despite this military setback, Manuel's armies successfully invaded the southern parts of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1167, defeating the Hungarians at the Battle of Sirmium . By 1168, nearly the whole of the eastern Adriatic coast lay in Manuel's hands. Manuel made several alliances with
45864-420: The pro-Qaysite caliph Marwan II ( r. 744–750 ), a situation which continued under the Iraq-based Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258). From its footholds in the Ghouta and Palmyra oases, the tribe revolted against the Abbasids on several occasions in the 8th–10th centuries, at first in support of Umayyad claimants to the caliphate and later as key troops of the Qarmatians , whose suppression contributed to
46098-428: The ranks of the Arab Christian tribes against Muslim forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid at Ziza in Transjordan in 634. While Fück notes that individual Kalbite Muslims did not participate in the conquest, Athamina holds that "there are clear hints that one or more groups" of Kalbite tribesmen fought in the Muslim ranks from the initial phases of the invasion. A Kalbite, Alqama ibn Wa'il, was entrusted with distributing
46332-441: The reconstituted empire would wield only regional power during its final two centuries of existence. Its remaining territories were progressively annexed by the Ottomans in perennial wars fought throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 ultimately brought the empire to an end. Many refugees who had fled the city after its capture settled in Italy and throughout Europe, helping to ignite
46566-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
46800-412: The right to propose and veto measures, and significant, annual hereditary stipends for 2,000 nobles of the Kalb and the Quda'a. With this, the Kalb became the most influential tribe during the Sufyanid period (661–684) of the Umayyad Caliphate . Mu'awiya was careful to keep the Kalb onside, ensuring that tribal newcomers to Syria from the Qays and Mudar groups did not settle in the Kalb's territories in
47034-463: The ruling family, Marwan ibn al-Hakam . The latter had forged links with the family of al-Asbagh by marrying his granddaughter, Layla bint Zabban, with whom he had his son Abd al-Aziz —the family of al-Asbagh represented the preeminent clan of the Kalb in northern Arabia, while that of Bahdal led the Kalb of the Syrian steppe. A third Umayyad contender for the succession was the son of Sa'id ibn al-As, Amr al-Ashdaq , who had also forged marital ties with
47268-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
47502-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
47736-403: The spoils of the decisive Muslim victory against the Byzantines and their Ghassanid allies at the Battle of Yarmouk , a particularly high-stakes assignment due to the Muslim army's composition of diverse and competing groups of Arab tribes. The greater part of the Kalb did not participate in that battle, whether to avoid entanglement with either side or because of the distance of its territory from
47970-498: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
48204-403: The suppression of revolts in Iraq in the 690s, the brothers Hanzala ibn Safwan and Bishr ibn Safwan , frequent governors of Ifriqiya and Egypt in the 720s–740s, al-Hakam ibn Awana , the governor of Sind in 731–740, Sa'id ibn al-Abrash , an adviser of Caliph Hisham ( r. 724–743 ), Abu al-Khattar , the governor of Muslim Spain in 743–745, and Mansur ibn Jumhur , a major player in
48438-424: The suzerainty of Syria's Turkish atabegs until its demise in 1157. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] ) is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in
48672-491: The throne. Alexios was highly incompetent in the office, and with his mother Maria of Antioch 's Frankish background, his regency was unpopular. Eventually, Andronikos I Komnenos , a grandson of Alexios I, overthrew Alexios II in a violent coup d'état . After eliminating his potential rivals, he had himself crowned as co-emperor in September 1183. He eliminated Alexios II and took his 12-year-old wife Agnes of France for himself. Andronikos began his reign well; in particular,
48906-433: The time a widely honored edifice containing pagan Arabian idols, which offended the powerful tribes of the area, including the Kalb. Zuhayr decisively defeated the Ghatafan and had their haram destroyed. Although the Ghassanids were the preeminent Arab tribal group of Byzantine Syria and presided over the Arab confederate tribes of Byzantium in the Syrian steppe throughout the 6th century, their influence began to wane in
49140-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
49374-442: The unpopular Irene was overthrown by Nikephoros I ; he reformed the empire's administration but died in battle against the Bulgars in 811. Military defeats and societal disorder, especially the resurgence of iconoclasm, characterised the next eighteen years. Stability was somewhat restored during the reign of Theophilos ( r. 829–842 ), who exploited economic growth to complete construction programs, including rebuilding
49608-455: The villages along the way, before launching an abortive, seven-month siege on the city. The besiegers were dispersed and Yahya was killed by an army sent by the Tulunids , who ruled Egypt, nominally on behalf of the Abbasids. The Kalb then escaped Damascus with al-Husayn. The latter's Kalb-dominated army, led by the da'i and chief al-Nu'man of the Ullays, was devastated by the forces of the Abbasid caliph al-Muktafi ( r. 902–908 ) at
49842-406: The west during the reign of Justinian I ( r. 527–565 ), who briefly reconquered much of Italy and the western Mediterranean coast . The appearance of plague and a devastating war with Persia exhausted the empire's resources; the early Muslim conquests that followed saw the loss of the empire's richest provinces— Egypt and Syria —to the Rashidun Caliphate . In 698, Africa was lost to
50076-408: The west, the warlord Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus in 476, killed his titular successor Julius Nepos in 480, and the office of western emperor was formally abolished. Through a combination of luck, cultural factors, and political decisions, the Eastern empire never suffered from rebellious barbarian vassals and was never ruled by barbarian warlords—the problems which ensured the downfall of
50310-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
50544-492: The years of the Ghassanids' waning influence. From the days of the Islamic prophet Muhammad , in the 620s, the Muslims had attempted to ally with the Ghassanids, but without success. According to the historian Khalil Athamina, "the Muslims were therefore compelled to seek another ally in the area", the Kalb, "whose importance was rising". A few individual Kalbite tribesmen in Mecca converted to Islam, including Zayd ibn Haritha and Dihya al-Kalbi , Muhammad's purported emissary to
50778-422: The zenith of Byzantine learning , but while several works were compiled, they were largely intended to legitimise and glorify the emperor's Macedonian dynasty . His son and successor died young; under two soldier-emperors, Nikephoros II ( r. 963–969 ) and John I Tzimiskes ( r. 969–976 ), the Roman army claimed numerous military successes, including the conquest of Cilicia and Antioch , and
51012-405: Was a Bedouin (nomadic) tribe well known for raising camels. Before the advent of Islam in the 7th century, the tribe's grazing grounds were in northwestern Arabia. Its earliest known abode, during the Byzantine era (4th–7th centuries CE), was in the al-Jawf depression, including the oasis of Dumat al-Jandal . The tribe was mainly concentrated in this region, bordering the eastern frontiers of
51246-447: Was besieged in August 1068 and fell in April 1071 . About 1053, Constantine IX disbanded what the historian John Skylitzes calls the "Iberian Army", which consisted of 50,000 men, and it was turned into a contemporary Drungary of the Watch . Two other knowledgeable contemporaries, the former officials Michael Attaleiates and Kekaumenos , agree with Skylitzes that by demobilising these soldiers, Constantine did catastrophic harm to
51480-560: Was captured. Alp Arslan treated him with respect and imposed no harsh terms on the Byzantines. In Constantinople a coup put in power Michael Doukas , who soon faced the opposition of Nikephoros Bryennios and Nikephoros III Botaneiates . By 1081, the Seljuks had expanded their rule over virtually the entire Anatolian plateau from Armenia in the east to Bithynia in the west, and had established their capital at Nicaea , just 90 kilometres (56 miles) from Constantinople. The Komnenian dynasty attained full power under Alexios I in 1081. From
51714-449: Was given credit for his predecessor's achievements. Basil I ( r. 867–886 ) continued Michael's policies. His armies campaigned with mixed results in Italy but defeated the Paulicians of Tephrike . His successor Leo VI ( r. 886–912 ) compiled and propagated a huge number of written works. These included the Basilika , a Greek translation of Justinian I's law-code which included over 100 new laws of Leo's devising;
51948-514: Was his fourth son, Manuel I Komnenos , who campaigned aggressively against his neighbours both in the west and east. In Palestine, Manuel allied with the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and sent a large fleet to participate in a combined invasion of Fatimid Egypt . Manuel reinforced his position as overlord of the Crusader states, with his hegemony over Antioch and Jerusalem secured by agreement with Raynald , Prince of Antioch, and Amalric of Jerusalem . In an effort to restore Byzantine control over
52182-421: Was incorporated into the Kalb after the cult of Wadd spread to Dumat al-Jandal. The four prominent, 8th-century Kalbite scholars of Kufa, Muhammad ibn Sa'ib al-Kalbi , his son Hisham ibn al-Kalbi , al-Sharqi al-Qutami, and Awana ibn al-Hakam , all descended from the Banu Abd Wadd, and their works are the main sources for the Kalb's genealogy. Another major branch was the Banu Amir ibn Awf ibn Bakr, better known as
52416-487: Was invaded annually, Anatolia avoided permanent Arab occupation. The outbreak of the First Fitna in 656 gave Byzantium breathing space, which it used wisely: some order was restored in the Balkans by Constans II ( r. 641–668 ), who began the administrative reorganisation known as the " theme system ", in which troops were allocated to defend specific provinces. With the help of the recently rediscovered Greek fire , Constantine IV ( r. 668–685 ) repelled
52650-399: Was largely due to the machinations of Bahdal's grandson, Hassan ibn Malik ibn Bahdal , who was commonly known as 'Ibn Bahdal'. Mu'awiya II died weeks into his rule, leaving the caliphate in disarray. Ibn Bahdal favored electing one of Yazid's other, younger sons as successor, while the influential, ousted governor of Iraq, Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad , favored an Umayyad from a different branch of
52884-497: Was marked by the theological dispute over Nestorianism , which was eventually deemed heretical , and by the formulation of the Codex Theodosianus law code. It also saw the arrival of Attila 's Huns , who ravaged the Balkans and exacted a massive tribute from the empire; Attila however switched his attention to the rapidly-deteriorating western empire , and his people fractured after his death in 453. After Leo I ( r. 457–474 ) failed in his 468 attempt to reconquer
53118-450: Was married to Uthman's Umayyad kinsman, the governor Sa'id ibn al-As . Mu'awiya married two Kalbite noblewomen, including Maysun , the daughter of Bahdal ibn Unayf , the Kalb's preeminent chieftain, who remained Christian until his death sometime before 657. The Kalb's marital ties with the Umayyads became a major source of their considerable political influence. During the conflict between Mu'awiya and Caliph Ali ( r. 656–661 ),
53352-406: Was not esteemed by the "soldier-emperors" who ruled from the frontiers or by the empire's population who, having been granted citizenship , considered themselves "Roman". Constantine extensively reformed the empire's military and civil administration and instituted the gold solidus as a stable currency. He favoured Christianity , which he had converted to in 312. Constantine's dynasty fought
53586-506: Was occupied by conflicts against two prominent generals, Bardas Skleros and Bardas Phokas , which ended in 989 with the former's death and the latter's submission. Between 1021 and 1022, following years of tensions, Basil II led a series of victorious campaigns against the Kingdom of Georgia , resulting in the annexation of several Georgian provinces to the empire. Basil's successors also annexed Bagratid Armenia in 1045. Importantly, both Georgia and Armenia were significantly weakened by
53820-441: Was overthrown in 695 after attempting to exact too much from his subjects; over the next twenty-two years, six more rebellions followed in an era of political instability . The reconstituted caliphate sought to break Byzantium by taking Constantinople, but the newly crowned Leo III managed to repel the 717–718 siege , the first major setback of the Muslim conquests. Leo and his son Constantine V ( r. 741–775 ), two of
54054-404: Was part of the Quda'a tribal confederation, whose presence spanned the northern Hejaz through the northern Syrian steppe. The Kalb was the largest component in the northern half of the Quda'a's roaming areas. The origins of the Quda'a are obscure, with claims of Arab genealogists being contradictory. Some sources claimed that Quda'a was a son of Ma'add , thus making the tribe northern Arabians, or
54288-467: Was soon at war on many fronts. The Lombards , fearing the aggressive Avars , conquered much of northern Italy by 572. The Sasanian wars restarted that year, and continued until the emperor Maurice finally emerged victorious in 591; by that time, the Avars and Slavs had repeatedly invaded the Balkans , causing great instability. Maurice campaigned extensively in the region during the 590s, but although he managed to re-establish Byzantine control up to
54522-428: Was the norm. For this reason, he has been called the Byzantine Marcus Aurelius . During his twenty-five-year reign, John made alliances with the Holy Roman Empire in the West and decisively defeated the Pechenegs at the Battle of Beroia . He thwarted Hungarian and Serbian threats during the 1120s, and in 1130 he allied himself with Lothair III , the German Emperor against the Norman King Roger II of Sicily . In
54756-415: Was used adjectivally alongside terms such as "Empire of the Greeks" until the 19th century. It is now the primary term, used to refer to all aspects of the empire; some modern historians believe that, as an originally prejudicial and inaccurate term, it should not be used. As the historiographical periodizations of " Roman history ", " late antiquity ", and "Byzantine history" significantly overlap, there
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