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This is about Damascus, the capital of Syria. There are also Damascus, Maryland, Damascus, Pennsylvania, and Damascus, Virginia.
Damascus (Arabic:
دمشق Dimashq, Dimashq al-Sham,
al-Sham; Biblical Hebrew דמשק Damméśeq, Damések,
Dammāśeq, Damásek) is the capital of Syria. It is one of the world's oldest cities. According to the New Testament, St Paul was on the road to
Damascus when he received a vision, was struck blind and as a result converted to Christianity. The city is therefore a centre of both Christian
and Muslim faith.
Damascus steel gained a legendary reputation among the Crusaders, and patterned steel is still "damascened". The patterned Byzantine and Chinese
silks available through Damascus, one of the Western termini of the Silk Road,
gave the English language damask.
Rooftops of Damascus
Major sights of Damascus include:
History
Damascus, settled about 2500 BC, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. It was the capital of a powerful
Aramaic state in the 9th and 8th Centuries BC, before being captured and sacked by
the Assyrians. At that point, it lost its independence for hundreds of years,
falling under Neo-Babylonian, Persian, Seleucid, and Roman rule. Damascus was conquered by the Caliph Omar in AD 636. Immediately
thereafter, the city's power and prestige reached its peak when it became the capital of the Omayyad Empire, which extended from Spain to India from AD 661 to AD 750, when the Abbasid caliphate was established at
Baghdad, Iraq.
After this, Damascus was ruled from Baghdad, and then, for a time, by the Fatimid
Caliphs in Cairo. With the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the late 11th Century, Damascus again became the capital of independent states. It was ruled
by a Seljuk dynasty from 1079 to 1104, and then by another Turkish dynasty - the Burid Emirs, until 1154. In that year it was conquered by the famous Zengid Atabeg Nur ad-Din of Aleppo, the great foe of the Crusaders, who made it his capital. Following the death of Nur ed-Din, it was acquired
by Saladin, the ruler of Egypt, who also made it his capital. In the years following
Saladin's death, there were frequent conflicts between different Ayyubid
sultans ruling in Damascus and Cairo.
Omayyad Mosque in center of Damascus
Ayyubid rule (and independence) came to an end with the Mongol invasion of Syria in 1260, and Damascus became a provincial capital of the Mameluke Empire
following the Mongol withdrawal. It was largely destroyed in 1400 by Tamerlane, the Mongol conqueror, who removed many of its craftsmen to
Samarkand. Rebuilt, it continued to serve as a provincial capital until 1516. In 1517, it fell under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans remained for the next 400 years, except for a brief occupation by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt from 1832 to 1840.
In 1918, Damascus was captured by the British and their Arab allies at the end of the
First World War. An attempt to create an Arab kingdom under the Emir Faisal was defeated by the French in 1920, who made Damascus the
capital of their League of Nations Mandate of Syria. When Syria became independent in 1946, Damascus remained
the capital.
Inhabitants of Damascus refer to their city as Sham.
See also
External links
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