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87-515: The Taym Allah were originally called 'Taym Allat' after their eponymous progenitor, a son of Tha'laba ibn Ukaba ibn Sa'b ibn Ali ibn Bakr ibn Wa'il. The name may have been altered to 'Taym Allah' after their embrace of Christianity or Islam as ' Allat ' referred to an Arabian polytheistic god . They were a branch of the Banu Bakr ibn Wa'il tribe, part of the larger group of north Arabian tribes descended from Rabi'a ibn Nizar . Although not specified in

174-681: A ceremony in Jerusalem in 660. Ali was murdered the following year, paving the way for Mu'awiya to gain control of the rest of the Caliphate. Syria became the metropolitan province of the Umayyad Caliphate which Mu'awiya founded and whose capital was at Damascus. Syria's history under Umayyad rule was "essentially the history of the Umayyad dynasty ", according to the historians Henri Lammens and Clifford Edmund Bosworth . Mu'awiya had his son Yazid I ,

261-611: A lion and a gazelle, the lion representing her consort, and the gazelle representing al-Lat's tender and loving traits, as bloodshed was not permitted under penalty of al-Lat's retaliation. Al-Lat was associated with the Greek goddess Athena (and by extension, the Roman Minerva ) in Nabataea , Hatra , and Palmyra . It seems that her identification with Athena was only a mere change in iconography, and al-Lat's character noticeably softened

348-593: A local Hijazi form of her attested in Hegra alongside Dushara and Manat was "Allat of 'Amnad". Al-Lat was closely related to al-'Uzza , and in some regions of the Nabataean kingdom , both al-Lat and al-'Uzza were said to be the same goddess. John F. Healey believes that al-Lat and al-'Uzza originated as a single goddess, which parted ways in the pre-Islamic Meccan tradition . Susan Krone suggests that both al-Lat and al-'Uzza were uniquely fused in central Arabia. Al-Lat

435-826: A report by Abu Mikhnaf , cited by al-Tabari. Another poet and chief of the Taym Allah, Nahar ibn Tawsi'a, was a commander in the conquests led by the Umayyad commander Qutayba ibn Muslim in Transoxiana (the part of Central Asia beyond the Oxus ) in the early 8th century, despite having earlier mocked Qutayba in verse. Nahar was known as the Bakr's best poet in Khurasan. The founder of the Hanafi madhhab (Islamic school of jurisprudence), Abu Hanifa (d. 767),

522-523: A separate deity in the Meccan pantheon. Redefining Dionysos considers she might have been a deity of vegetation or a celestial deity of atmospheric phenomena and a sky deity. According to Wellhausen, the Nabataeans believed al-Lat was the mother of Hubal (and hence the mother-in-law of Manāt ). It has been hypothesized that Allah was the consort of al-Lat, given that it is typical of deities in that area of

609-541: A silver bowl dedicated by a Qedarite king, with the goddess' name inscribed on it. The Nabataeans and the people of Hatra also worshipped al-Lat, equating her with the Greek goddesses Athena and Tyche and the Roman goddess Minerva . She is frequently called "the Great Goddess" in Greek in multilingual inscriptions. The Nabataeans regarded al-Lat as the mother of the deities, and her family relations vary; sometimes she

696-590: Is also mentioned in pre-Islamic Arab poetry, such as in al-Mutalammis ' satire of Amr ibn Hind : Thou hast banished me for fear of lampoon and satire. No! By Allat and all the sacred baetyls (ansab) thou shalt not escape. A poem by the pre-Islamic monotheist Zayd ibn Amr mentions al-Lat, along with al-'Uzza and Hubal : Am I to worship one lord or a thousand? If there are as many as you claim, I renounce al-Lat and al-Uzza, both of them, as any strong-minded person would. I will not worship al-Uzza and her two daughters… I will not worship Hubal, though he

783-591: Is regarded as the consort of Dushara and at other times as the mother of Dushara. Nabataean inscriptions call her and al-'Uzza the "brides of Dushara ". A temple was built for al-Lat in Iram of the Pillars , by the tribe of ʿĀd . Al-Lat was referred to as "the goddess who is in Iram" in a Nabataean inscription. She was also referred to as "the goddess who is in Bosra ". Perhaps

870-713: Is to be sought. The word gharaniq was translated as "most exalted females" by Faris in his English translation of the Book of Idols , but he annotates this term in a footnote as "lit. Numidean cranes". According to Islamic tradition, the shrine dedicated to al-Lat in Ta'if was demolished on the orders of Muhammad , during the Expedition of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb , in the same year as the Battle of Tabuk (which occurred in October 630 AD). The destruction of

957-647: The Abbasid Caliphate , which succeeded the Umayyads in 750. The Abbasids moved the capital first to Kufa , and then to Baghdad and Samarra , all of which were in Iraq , which consequently became their most important province. The mainly Arab Syrians were marginalized by Iranian and Turkish forces who rose to power under the Abbasids, a trend which also expressed itself on a cultural level. From 878 until 905, Syria came under

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1044-525: The Battle of Siffin in 657, during the First Muslim Civil War . Another member of the tribe, Bahr ibn Ka'b ibn Ubayd Allah, is held by the 10th-century historian al-Tabari to have struck and killed a young nephew of Husayn ibn Ali , grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad , at the Battle of Karbala in 680. Members of the tribe played an increasingly prominent role in the easternmost provinces of

1131-701: The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which he may have promoted as an additional center of Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. Abd al-Malik's son and successor, al-Walid I ( r.  705–715 ), ruled with autocratic tendencies and less tolerance for the non-Muslims in Syria and the empire in general, which reached its greatest territorial extent during his reign. He largely demolished the Christian basilica of St. John in Damascus and built in its place

1218-556: The Safaitic script frequently invoked al-Lat in their inscriptions. She was also worshipped by the Nabataeans and was associated with al-'Uzza. The presence of her cult was attested in both Palmyra and Hatra . Under Greco-Roman influence, her iconography began to show the attributes of Athena , the Greek goddess of war, as well as her Roman equivalent Minerva . According to Islamic sources,

1305-614: The Syria -based Umayyads . With all of the Bakrite tribesmen of Khurasan, Aws ibn Tha'laba held out in Herat for a year before being slain. The Umayyads reasserted control over the Caliphate by 692. In the eastern provinces, the Taym Allah tribesmen Tayhan ibn Abjar is mentioned as the first person to have renounced the authority of Caliph Abd al-Malik and joined the anti-Umayyad rebellion of Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath in 700-701, according to

1392-489: The "idol of jealousy" erected in the temple of Jerusalem according to the Book of Ezekiel , which was offered an oblation of barley-meal by the husband who suspected his wife of infidelity. It can be inferred from al-Kalbi 's Book of Idols that a similar ritual was practiced in the vicinity of the image of al-Lat. The second proposed etymology takes al-Lat to be the feminine form of Allah . She may have been known originally as ʾal-ʾilat , based on Herodotus' attestation of

1479-530: The 10th century, the terms Thughur and al-Awasim were often used interchangeably in the sources. The governor of the provinces were called wali or amir . As direct Abbasid rule over the Levant faltered and eventually collapsed in the 10th century, different parts of the region were controlled by several different rulerships. The ajnad became nominal divisions with no practical relevance. The administrative system continued to be officially recognized by

1566-399: The 11th century. Allat al-Lat ( Arabic : اللات , romanized :  al-Lāt , pronounced [alːaːt] ), also spelled Allat , Allatu , and Alilat , is a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess , at one time worshipped under various associations throughout the entire Arabian Peninsula , including Mecca , where she was worshipped alongside Al-Uzza and Manat as one of

1653-408: The Caliphate. During one of his visits, or by 640 at the latest, the central army camp at Jabiya was disbanded by Umar. Instead, as a result of several factors, "a self-supporting, more flexible" military-administrative system was established, according to the historian Alan Walmsley. Unlike Iraq and Egypt where settlement was concentrated along the major rivers of those provinces, Syrian settlement

1740-667: The Egypt-based Fatimid Caliphate continued to officially recognize the province and its ajnad until the Crusader invasions of the coastal regions in 1099. The name Bilad al-Sham in Arabic translates as "the left-hand region". It was so named from the perspective of the people of the Hejaz (western Arabia), who considered themselves to be facing the rising sun, that the Syrian region

1827-533: The Greek form of his name. In Islamic sources discussing pre-Islamic Arabia , al-Lat is attested as the chief goddess of the Banu Thaqif tribe. She was said to be venerated in Ta'if , where she was called ar-Rabba ("The Lady"), and she reportedly had a shrine there that was decorated with ornaments and treasure of gold and onyx . There, the goddess was venerated in the form of a cubic granite rock. The area around

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1914-523: The Greek historian Herodotus in his fifth-century BC work Histories , and she was considered the equivalent of Aphrodite ( Aphrodite Urania ): The Assyrians call Aphrodite Mylitta , the Arabians Alilat [Greek spelling: Ἀλιλάτ], and the Persians Mithra . According to Herodotus, the ancient Arabians believed in only two deities: They believe in no other gods except Dionysus and

2001-517: The Heavenly Aphrodite; and they say that they wear their hair as Dionysus does his, cutting it round the head and shaving the temples. They call Dionysus, Orotalt ; and Aphrodite , Alilat . Al-Lat was widely worshipped in north Arabia, but in South Arabia she was not popular and was not the object of an organized cult, with two amulets (inscribed "Lat" on one, "Latan" on the other) being

2088-659: The Ijl. The Taym Allah are reported to have fought alongside their Bakrite tribesmen against the al-Hira -based Lakhmids , Arab client kings of the Sasanian Empire , including at the famed Battle of Dhi Qar in 611 CE. The Taym Allah, and the largely Christian, core tribes of the Lahazim in general, appear to have fought against the Muslim conquests of eastern Arabia in the Ridda wars (632–633) and

2175-520: The Lahazim group. The alliance's purpose was to strengthen these tribes' position against the powerful Bakrite nomads of the Banu Shayban , or more likely, to better defend themselves against the large nomadic tribe of Tamim , specifically its Banu Yarbu division. The Shayban and the Bakrite Banu Dhuhl never fought against the Lahazim, and at times, fought alongside the Lahazim in the battles with

2262-622: The Muslim armies. Among the Syrian tribes, the powerful Banu Kalb and their Quda'a confederacy gained the preeminent position in Mu'awiya's government. He also accommodated Arab newcomers, most prominently the Kinda of South Arabia. The tribes and commanders of Syria backed Mu'awiya in his confrontation with Caliph Ali at the Battle of Siffin in 657, which ended in a stalemate and an agreement to arbitrate their dispute. The arbitration talks collapsed and Mu'awiya's Syrian supporters recognized him as caliph in

2349-453: The Muslim troops in Syria in c.  636 and governor of the conquered region. He died in the plague of Amwas , which devastated the Muslims at their camp near Jerusalem and caused significant loss of life throughout Syria. Umar replaced him with Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan in the southern districts of Syria and Iyad ibn Ghanm in the northern districts. Yazid died from the plague soon after and

2436-593: The Muslims. The Byzantines were decisively defeated in the resulting major battles of Ajnadayn in Palestine and Fahl and Yarmouk in Transjordan, all occurring in 634–636. The Muslim battlefield victories effectively ended organized resistance by the Byzantines. In the third phase, beginning about 637, the Muslim armies quickly occupied the northern Syrian countryside, while steadily conquering individual towns throughout

2523-465: The Tamim, The Taym Allah are rarely mentioned specifically in the Arabic ayyam literature, which referred to the battle-days of the pre-Islamic Arab tribes. However, as a component of the Lahazim, they probably participated in its battles against the Tamim. In any case, they did not fight with any distinction or provide important battle leaders to the alliance in those engagements, most of whom were supplied by

2610-583: The Umayyads during the Second Muslim Civil War . According to the historian Hugh N. Kennedy , the separation was done at the request of Muhammad ibn Marwan , Abd al-Malik's brother and his commander responsible for the Jazira. In 786 Caliph Harun al-Rashid established Jund al-Awasim out of the northern part of Jund Qinnasrin. It spanned the frontier zone with the Byzantine Empire, extending from

2697-632: The aftermath of the First Jewish Revolt in 70 CE and the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135 CE. To establish closer control over the broadly spread population of Syria following the revolts, the region was subdivided into smaller units centered around an urban center which policed and collected taxes from the surrounding hinterland. By 400 the southern half of Syria was divided between the three Palestines ( Palaestina Prima , Palaestina Secunda , and Palaestina Tertia ), Phoenice and Arabia . Following

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2784-436: The alleged Satanic Verses incident, an occasion on which the Islamic prophet Muhammad had mistaken the words of "satanic suggestion" for divine revelation. Many different versions of the story existed (all traceable to one single narrator Muhammad ibn Ka'b, who was two generations removed from biographer Ibn Ishaq). In its essential form, the story reports that during Muhammad 's recitation of Surat An-Najm, when he reached

2871-501: The areas immediately south of Antioch , Aleppo, and Manbij and eastward to the Euphrates. Manbij and later Antioch became the capitals of the new jund . Jund al-Awasim served as the second defensive line behind the actual frontier zone, the Thughur, which encompassed the far northern Syrian towns of Baghras , Bayas , Duluk , Alexandretta , Cyrrhus , Ra'ban and Tizin . The Thughur

2958-482: The canonical hadith compilations, though reference and exegesis about the Verses appear in early histories, such as al-Tabari 's Tārīkh ar-Rusul wal-Mulūk and Ibn Ishaq 's Sīrat Rasūl Allāh (as reconstructed by Alfred Guillaume ). Various legends about her origins were known in medieval Islamic tradition, including one that linked al-Lat's stone with a man who grinds cereal ( al-latt , "the grinder"). The stone

3045-598: The conquest of Egypt under Amr's command. Troop numbers in Jabiya could not be restored in the aftermath of the plague and the departure of Muslim troops to other fronts. Unlike in Iraq where there were high levels of Arab tribal immigration, similar immigration into Syria was restricted by the Qurayshite elite in a bid to preserve their pre-established interests in the region. Syria had a substantial, long-standing Arab population, both in

3132-485: The conquest of Syria. The conquest unfolded in three main phases, according to the historian Fred Donner . In the first phase, Abu Bakr dispatched four armies from Medina in late 633 led by the commanders Amr ibn al-As , Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan , Shurahbil ibn Hasana , all veterans of the Ridda wars, and Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah , a leading companion of Muhammad. Abu Ubayda may not have been dispatched until 636. Each commander

3219-499: The conquests ground to a halt. His successor, al-Walid II , was assassinated, sparking the Third Muslim Civil War . His successor Yazid III died after a few months, followed by the weak rule of Ibrahim . Marwan II took control of the caliphate, crushed his Syrian tribal opponents, and shifted the capital to Harran , outside of Syria, which increased Syrian opposition to his rule. Al-Sham became much less important under

3306-455: The cult image was a demand by Muhammad before he would allow any reconciliation to take place with the tribes of Ta'if, who were under his siege. According to the Book of Idols , this occurred after the Banu Thaqif converted to Islam , and that her temple was "burnt to the ground". In the Quran , she is mentioned along with al-‘Uzza and Manat in Quran 53:19–22 , which became the subject of

3393-534: The daughters of Allah . The word Allat or Elat has been used to refer to various goddesses in the ancient Near East , including the goddess Asherah-Athirat . She also is associated with the Great Goddess . The worship of al-Lat is attested in South Arabian inscriptions as Lat and Latan , but she had more prominence in north Arabia and the Hejaz , and her cult reached as far as Syria . The writers of

3480-479: The decisive Muslim victory at Yarmouk in 636, and the occupation of most of the Mediterranean coast and northern Syria in the next two years, the Muslims began to militarily and administratively organize the region for their needs. Caliph Umar, who ruled from Medina, visited the Muslim army's principal camp at Jabiya , the former Ghassanid capital, at least once between 637 and 639. From there he personally oversaw

3567-494: The distribution of allowances ( ata ) and rations ( rizq ) to the Muslim soldiery, tax collection from the conquered population, and the appointments to military command. There may have been initial Muslim intentions to establish Jabiya as the permanent, central garrison town of Syria along the lines of those later established in the conquered regions of Iraq ( Kufa and Basra ), Egypt ( Fustat ), and Ifriqiya ( Kairouan ). Those garrison cities developed into major urban centers of

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3654-504: The early Arabic sources, the Taym Allah's abode was probably in eastern Arabia . They embraced Monophysite Christianity , like many Bakrites, before the advent of Islam in the 620s–630s. A relatively minor nomadic tribe on its own, the Taym Allah allied with other Bakrite tribes, namely its brother tribe, the Banu Qays ibn Tha'laba, and the Banu Ijl , and the non-Bakrite Anaza tribe, to form

3741-528: The early Caliphate, especially in Khurasan and Sijistan . There, a governor and poet from the Taym Allah, Aws ibn Tha'laba ibn Zufar ibn Wadi'a, defended the city of Herat with distinction against the forces of Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr led by Abd Allah ibn Khazim al-Sulami in 684–685. At the time, the Caliphate was in middle of the Second Muslim Civil War , with Mus'ab representing the Mecca -based Zubayrid side against

3828-581: The east toward Iraq. The western, Mediterranean coastal range were characterized by rolling hills in Palestine in the south, rising to their highest points in Mount Lebanon in the center before becoming considerably lower in the Jabal Ansariya range in the north. Eastward from the coastal range, the ridges of inland Syria become gradually lower, with the exception of Mount Hermon north of the Golan , and include

3915-521: The effective control of the Tulunids of Egypt, but Abbasid control was re-established soon thereafter. It lasted until the 940s, when the province was partitioned between the Hamdanid Emirate of Aleppo in the north and Ikhshidid -controlled Egypt in the south. In the 960s the Byzantine Empire under Nikephoros II Phokas conquered much of northern Syria, and Aleppo became a Byzantine tributary, while

4002-420: The following verses: Have you thought of al-Lāt and al-‘Uzzá and Manāt , the third, the other? Satan tempted him to utter the following line: These are the exalted gharāniq, whose intercession is hoped for. (In Arabic تلك الغرانيق العلى وإن شفاعتهن لترتجى.) Following this, the angel Gabriel chastised Muhammad for uttering that line, and the verses were abrogated with a new revelation: Are yours

4089-571: The goddess as Alilat . Al-Lat was used as a title for the goddess Asherah or Athirat . The word is akin to Elat , which was the name of the wife of the Semitic deity El . A western Semitic goddess modeled on the Mesopotamian goddess Ereshkigal was known as Allatum , and she was recognized in Carthage as Allatu . The goddess Allat's name is recorded as: Al-Lat was mentioned as Alilat by

4176-426: The grinder. Michael Cook noticed the oddity of this story, as it would make al-Lat masculine. Gerald Hawting believes the various legends that link al-Lat with that of al-latt , "the grinder", was an attempt to relate al-Lat with Mecca. He also compared the legends to Isaf and Na'ila , who according to legend were a man and a woman who fornicated inside the Kaaba and were petrified. These two stones representing

4263-427: The influx of northern Arab ( Qays and Mudar ) immigrant tribesmen to Qinnasrin and the Jazira during Mu'awiya's governorship and caliphate. In 692 Caliph Abd al-Malik separated the Jazira from Jund Qinnasrin, and it became the independent province of the Jazira . According to Blankinship, this change of status may have been related to the peace settlement reached with the Qays in 691 after the Qays had rebelled against

4350-484: The landmark Great Umayyad Mosque . He achieved great popularity among the Syrian Arabs. During his rule and that of his successors, Damascus retained its role as the administrative capital of the empire, but the caliphs increasingly resided in their country estates in the Syrian steppe . After a period of stagnation, the caliph Hisham ( r.  724–743 ) restored the prestige of Umayyad Caliphate through his administrative reforms, state-building and austerity, though

4437-440: The lower Euphrates in modern Iraq afterward. The Taym Allah tribesmen are mentioned as being among the fighters of Abjar ibn Bujayr of the Ijl, who backed the rebellion of the pro-Sasanian al-Hutam from the Qays ibn Tha'laba in eastern Arabia during the Ridda. They are then found in the ranks of the Christian Ijl chief Abu al-Aswad when he and a local Sasanian garrison fought the Muslims at the Battle of Walaja in Iraq. No members of

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4524-432: The males and His the females? That were indeed an unfair division! The majority of Muslim scholars have rejected the historicity of the incident on the basis of the theological doctrine of 'isma (prophetic infallibility i.e., divine protection of Muhammad from mistakes) and their weak isnads (chains of transmission). Due to its defective chain of narration, the tradition of the Satanic Verses never made it into any of

4611-455: The northern Syrian and Mediterranean fronts, also necessitated the establishment of additional army headquarters and garrisons, such as Homs, diminishing Jabiya's centrality. Further reducing troop numbers in Jabiya was the Plague of Amwas in 639, which reduced the garrison there from 24,000 to 4,000. The decrease was likely due to factors in addition to the plague. In late 639 or early 640, a significant number of Muslim troops also left Syria for

4698-408: The only indication that this goddess received worship in the area. However, she seems to have been popular among the Arab tribes bordering Yemen . She was also attested in eastern Arabia ; the name Taymallat (a theophoric name invoking the goddess) was attested as the name of a man from Gerrha , a city located in the region. From Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions, it is probable that she

4785-495: The pair of baetyls were finally removed and placed at Jabal as-Safa'a and Jabal al-Marwah in Mecca. F. V. Winnet saw al-Lat as a lunar deity due to association of a crescent with her in 'Ayn esh-Shallāleh and a Lihyanite inscription mentioning the name of Wadd over the title of ' fkl lt . René Dussaud and Gonzague Ryckmans linked her with Venus, while others have thought her to be a solar deity. John F. Healey considers al-Uzza might have been an epithet of al-Lat before becoming

4872-400: The plague. The Kalb and other loyalist tribes elected another Umayyad, Marwan I , as caliph and he moved to secure the dynasty's Syrian heartland. With these tribes' support, he defeated the Qays tribes and other supporters of Ibn al-Zubayr at the Battle of Marj Rahit , north of Damascus, in 684. Under his son and successor, Abd al-Malik ( r.  685–705 ), Syrian troops reconquered

4959-449: The primordial couple (sic Adam & Eve the so called ancestors of the human race) most likely pre-existed this cautionary tale promulgated by Islam. Furthermore, Isaf and Na'ila played a central role in the Quraish and al-Khuza'a's ritual practice of hierogamy or 'sacred marriage' culminating in a communal wedding feast 'walima'. This joyful event took place every year during the mid-winter month of Dhu'l Hijjah on and around Mt. Arafat until

5046-407: The ranges of the Anti-Lebanon , Jabal al-Ruwaq , and Jabal Bishri . With the termination of the inland ridges begins the mostly level Syrian steppe . Following the consolidation of Islamic hegemony over Arabia and its nomadic Arab tribes in the Ridda wars of 632–633, the caliph (leader of the Muslim community) Abu Bakr ( r.  632–634 ) turned the nascent Muslim state's goals toward

5133-565: The region whose garrisons held out alone following the breakdown of the imperial defense. Among the towns, a number of which held out until 637 or 638, were Aleppo (Beroea) and Qinnasrin (Chalcis) in the north, Hama , Homs and Baalbek (the latter two possibly for the second time), Damascus possibly for the second time, Jerusalem. Within the next few years, the Mediterranean coastal towns of Beirut , Sidon , Tyre , Caesarea , Antioch , Tripoli and Ascalon were captured by Muslim forces. Umar has appointed Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah commander of

5220-407: The rest of the Caliphate and killed Ibn al-Zubayr in a second siege of Mecca . A standing army composed of the Syrian tribal soldiery was established under this caliph and his sons and successors. Abd al-Malik inaugurated a more Arab–Islamic government in Syria by changing the language of its bureaucracy from Greek to Arabic, switching from Byzantine coinage to a strictly Islamic currency, and building

5307-433: The shrine was considered sacred; no trees could be felled, no animal could be hunted, and no human blood could be shed. According to al-Kalbi 's Book of Idols , her shrine was under the guardianship of the Banū Attāb ibn Mālik of the Banu Thaqif . She was also venerated by other Arab tribes , including the Quraysh , and their children would be named after the goddess, such as Zayd al-Lat and Taym al-Lat . Al-Lat

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5394-475: The son of a Kalbi woman, recognized as his successor. Yazid I ( r.  680–683 ) was opposed by the people of the Hejaz , whose revolt against him was crushed by Syria's troops at the Battle of al-Harra . The Syrians proceeded to besiege Mecca in 683, but withdrew to Syria after Yazid I died. The Meccan leader of the revolt, Ibn al-Zubayr , was recognized as caliph across much of the Muslim empire, while Yazid I's son and successor, Mu'awiya II , succumbed to

5481-504: The southern provinces passed to the Fatimid Caliphate after its conquest of Egypt in 969. The division of Syria into northern and southern parts would persist, despite political changes, until the Mamluk conquest in the late 13th century. The ajnad were an adaptation of the preexisting administrative system of the Diocese of the East (Byzantine Syria) to suit the nascent Muslim state's needs. The Byzantine system, in turn, had been based on that instituted by its Roman predecessor in

5568-435: The tribe are recorded as participants on the Muslim side during the Iraqi conquests. The tribe, nonetheless, embraced Islam. A member, Iyas ibn Abd Allah, played a role among the Muslim rebels who killed Caliph Uthman in Medina in 656. In the Kufa -based army of Uthman's caliphal successor, Ali , a member of the tribe, Ziyad ibn Khasafa, was a commander who fought against the governor of Syria, Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan at

5655-400: The tribe of Banu Thaqif in Ta'if especially held reverence to her. In Islamic tradition , her worship ended in the seventh century when her temple in Ta'if was demolished on the orders of Muhammad . There are two possible etymologies of the name al-Lat . Medieval Arab lexicographers derived the name from the verb latta (to mix or knead barley-meal). It has also been associated with

5742-410: The tribes who dominated the steppe and formerly served Byzantium and in the urban Arab communities, particularly those of Damascus and Homs. Not long after Yarmouk, the Arab tribes of Syria were incorporated into the nascent Muslim military structure there. The native tribes had a preference for the established urban centers with which they were long familiarized. Muslim settlement in the urban centers

5829-402: The troops. During the caliphate of Umar's successor Uthman ( r.  644–656 ), supplemental garrisons were established in the respective ajnad , especially in the coastal cities. During the reign of Mu'awiya I or Yazid I, Qinnasrin (northern Syria) and the Jazira ( Upper Mesopotamia ) were separated from Jund Hims and became Jund Qinnasrin . The separation may have been a response to

5916-437: The urban centers of Lydda , Tiberias , Damascus, and Homs, respectively. In effect, Umar gave his sanction of the existing military situation in Syria, where different army units operated independently on the different fronts. By establishing the ajnad , Umar transformed the military structures into provincial governments concerned with the taxation of the local populations and the distribution of collected money and supplies for

6003-644: The warlike Athena in places where she was equated with al-Lat. One Nabataean relief of Athena-al-Lat depicts the goddess bearing both Athena and al-Lat's attributes. The relief depicts the goddess in the style of Athena, but having a Nabataean religion stylized eye- betyl in place of the Gorgoneion . Al-Lat can also be identified with the Babylonian goddess Ishtar , with both of the deities taking part in prosperity, warfare, and later being linked to Aphrodite and Athena. The two's similarities also appeared in their symbols, as both were associated with lions, morning star, and crescents. Like Al-Lat, Ishtar's origin

6090-495: The world to have consorts. In Ta'if, al-Lat's primary cult image was a cubic stone, sometimes described as white in color. Waqidi 's mention of the 'head' ( ra's ) of ar-Rabba may imply that the image was perceived in human or animal form, although Julius Wellhausen resisted this implication. Early Palmyrene depictions of al-Lat share iconographical traits with Atargatis (when seated) and Astarte (when standing). The Lion of Al-Lat that once adorned her temple depicts

6177-401: Was a province of the Rashidun , Umayyad , Abbasid , and Fatimid caliphates . It roughly corresponded with the Byzantine Diocese of the East , conquered by the Muslims in 634–647. Under the Umayyads (661–750), Bilad al-Sham was the metropolitan province of the Caliphate and different localities throughout the province served as the seats of the Umayyad caliphs and princes. Bilad al-Sham

6264-622: Was also venerated in Palmyra , where she was known as the "Lady of the temple". According to an inscription, she was brought into the Arab quarter of the city by a member of the Bene Ma'zin tribe, who were probably an Arab tribe. She had a temple in the city, which Teixidor believed to be the cultic center of Palmyrene Arab tribes. The practice of casting divination arrows, a common divination method in Arabia ,

6351-555: Was assigned to a different zone, with Amr entrusted over Palestine , Yazid to the Balqa (central Transjordan ), Shurahbil to southern Transjordan , and Abu Ubayda to the Ghassanid stomping grounds of the Golan Heights . The Muslim commanders mainly engaged in small-scale skirmishes in the southern Syrian countryside with local garrisons. The goal of the Muslims at the start of the conquest

6438-566: Was attested in her temple; an honorific inscription mentioning "a basin of silver for [casting] lots ( lḥlq )". By the second-century AD, al-Lat in Palmyra began to be portrayed in the style of Athena , and was referred to as "Athena-Allāt", but this assimilation does not extend beyond her iconography. The Palmyrene emperor Vaballathus , whose name is the Latinized form of the theophoric name Wahballāt ("Gift of al-Lat"), began to use Athenodorus as

6525-430: Was distributed over an extensive area of mountains, valleys, and plains. The complex geography slowed communications and army movements in the region, necessitating multiple regional centers for efficient administration and defense; according to Walmsley, this was "a principle confirmed by over 500 years of Roman and Byzantine administration". The change of Muslim military objectives following Yarmouk, when focus shifted to

6612-562: Was facilitated by the wide availability of property in the cities in the wake of the conquests, as a result of the exodus of pro-Byzantine, Greek-speaking residents or in property transfers to the Muslims secured in capitulation agreements. Muslim settlement in the hinterland, on the other hand, was limited as the Aramaic-speaking peasantry remained in their villages. Umar divided Syria into the four ajnad of Filastin , al-Urdunn , Dimashq , and Hims . The new garrisons were assigned to

6699-439: Was first organized into the four ajnad (military districts; singular jund ) of Dimashq ( Damascus ), Hims ( Homs ), al-Urdunn ( Jordan ), and Filastin ( Palestine ), between 637 and 640 by Caliph Umar following the Muslim conquest. The jund of Qinnasrin was created out of the northern part of Hims by caliphs Mu'awiya I ( r.  661–680 ) or Yazid I ( r.  680–683 ). The Jazira ( Upper Mesopotamia )

6786-602: Was likely bringing the Arabic-speaking nomadic, semi-nomadic, and settled tribesmen of the southern Syrian desert fringes under their control. The second phase began with the arrival of Khalid ibn al-Walid and his troops to Syria in 634. Under Khalid's supreme command, the Muslim armies besieged and captured the southern Syrian urban centers of Bosra , Damascus , Beisan (Scythopolis), Pella , Gaza, and temporarily, Homs (Emesa) and Baalbek (Hierapolis). Heraclius responded by deploying successive imperial armies against

6873-508: Was made an independent province from the Mesopotamian part of Qinnasrin by Caliph Abd al-Malik in 692. In 786, the jund of al-Awasim and al-Thughur were established from the northern frontier region of Qinnasrin by Caliph Harun al-Rashid . As centralized Abbasid rule over Bilad al-Sham collapsed in the 10th century, control over the region was divided by several potentates and the ajnad only represented nominal divisions. The Abbasids and

6960-664: Was of Semitic roots. The Lion of Al-Lat statue that adorned her temple in Palmyra was damaged by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in 2015 but has been since restored. It now stands in the National Museum of Damascus , but it may be returned to Palmyra in the future. Bilad al-Sham Bilad al-Sham ( Arabic : بِلَاد الشَّام , romanized :  Bilād al-Shām ), often referred to as Islamic Syria or simply Syria in English-language sources,

7047-508: Was our lord in the days when I had little sense. Al-Lat was also called as a daughter of Allah along with the other two chief goddesses al-'Uzza and Manat . According to the Book of Idols , the Quraysh were to chant the following verses as they circumambulated the Kaaba: By al-Lat and al-'Uzza, And Manat, the third idol besides. Verily they are the gharaniq Whose intercession

7134-516: Was positioned to their left, while to their right was al-Yaman ("the right-hand-region"). Bilad al-Sham comprised the area of the region of Syria , spanning the modern countries of Syria , Lebanon , Jordan , and Palestine , as well as the regions of Hatay , Gaziantep , and Diyarbakir in modern Turkey . It was bound by the Mediterranean Sea in the west and the Syrian Desert in

7221-403: Was replaced by his brother Mu'awiya . Umar's successor, Caliph Uthman ( r.  644–656 ), gradually expanded Mu'awiya's governorship to span all of Syria. As governor, Mu'awiya, forged strong ties with the old-established Arab tribes of Syria, which, by dint of their long service under the Byzantines, were more politically experienced than the tribesmen of Arabia, who filled the ranks of

7308-444: Was sometimes given the tribe's epithet, 'al-Taymi', because his grandfather had been a freed mawla (client) of the Taym Allah. A small part of the Taym Allah eventually settled in the valley at the western foot of Mount Hermon . The valley became known as Wadi al-Taym (Wadi Taym-Allah) after them. This valley became one of the first places where the heterodox Druze faith, which branched out of Isma'ili Shia Islam , took root in

7395-570: Was subdivided into the Cilician or Syrian al-Thughur al-Sha'miya and the Jaziran or Mesopotamian al-Thughur al-Jaziriya sectors, roughly separated by the Amanus mountains. Tarsus and Malatya were the most important towns in the Syrian and the Mesopotamian sectors respectively, though the two districts did not have administrative capitals sometimes were under the administrative control of Jund al-Awasim. By

7482-513: Was used as a base for the man (a Jew) to grind cereal for the pilgrims of Mecca . While most versions of this legend place the man at Ta'if, other versions place him at either Mecca or 'Ukaz. After the man's death, the stone, or the man in the form of a stone, was deified, according to some legends after the Khuza'a drove the Jurhum out of Mecca, while other legends report it was Amr ibn Luhayy who deified

7569-472: Was worshipped as Lat ( lt ). In Safaitic inscriptions, al-Lat was invoked for solitude and mercy, as well as to provide well-being, ease and prosperity. Travelers would invoke her for good weather and protection. She was also invoked for vengeance, booty from raids, and infliction of blindness, and lameness to anyone who defaces their inscriptions. The Qedarites , a northern Arabian tribal confederation, seemed to have also worshipped al-Lat, as evidenced by

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