I love your learned and well researched essay’s spirit but must gently disagree with you about Syria’s boundaries. If you were talking about Bilad al Sham then you’d have a better case to make. El-Sham could include Cypress and may stretch as far as the Gulf, but Syria may not. Being a Syrian is after all a choice. In villages near Antalia in middle southern Turkey I found third generation Turks who when I asked them (in Turkish) what are you; they said “Syrian”. But no Cypriote or Bahraini I’ve met has ever said that. In Saudi Arabia us Levantines are called disparagingly Shawam not Soorieen, so even the un-cultured nomads of Arabia can distinguish between a Syrian and a Bilad Shami.

Dear Ayman,

Thank you for your comment. However, your conclusion about the confines of the name Syria is wrong. Our nation was historically called Syria, not bilad el-sham. Bilad el-sham was the name given to us by the Arabs (some historians argue that “sham” in this case was derived from “shimal,” i.e. north) and its usage became more common after the Arab conquests under Islamic rule.

The name Syria, however, or Souria in Arabic, and Aramaic before it, goes back thousands of years , probably to the second millenium BC, and is most likely derived from Assyria, with a dropping of the “a”. It was then used to refer to the nation as a whole within the boundaries defined in my article. If you read the Gospel, during the time of Christ the entire area was referred to as Syria. Under the Seleucid state Syria was used to identify the entire homeland. Our people in general, and not merely those living within the borders of the current entity of the Syrian Arab Republic, identified themselves as “Syrian.” Old records from Jerusalem and Beirut refer to these cities as Jerusalem, Syria and Beirut, Syria respectively and not “bilad el-sham”.

Of course, today our nation is divided and fragmented and many of our people refuse to identify themselves as either Syrian or Shami. It is natural that the Cypriot today will not refer to himself/herself as Syrian, but neither will they do so as Shami because we currently suffer from a lack of national consciousness. As for the Bahraini, they are not Syrian to begin with so it is of no surprise that they wouldn’t identify with the name.

I was told -but I can’t verify this- that when Hotel Sham Palace was being built a French historian was commissioned to find out why the word Sham doesn’t come up in writing as often as it comes up in speach. He concluded that one of the possible origins of the word is that it refers to Shem, son of Noah (the father of all Semites). Yaphit went north to father Europe, Shem stayed put, and Ham went south to father Africa. Damascus is the Roman abbreviation of Dimashq-El-Shem or Damascus-um: The rose of Shem. I understand that the story or the Ark is fiction but I feel that there is a possibility that Bilad al-Shem is older and geographically larger than Souria…but I may be wrong. Both ways Jerusalem and Beirut were definitely cities in Syria. Talcott Seelye the departed US ambassador to Syria showed me his old US passport; it said born in Beirut, Syria. This may be an issue of semantics but I would really like to know what’s what; who’s older Syria or Shem and which is more inclusive Syria or bilad el- Sham. The fact that Sham means Damascus in modern parlance is not an issue.

Nour,

Having read several legal thrillers by John Grisham, I should know better than to try and debate with an attorney 🙂 but I am going to try my luck anyway.

I am a Syrian and I was born in Syria. These two facts are enough for me to identify with this nation. We can argue forever about the perimeter, but the core is there. As you yourself rightly said, we can’t impose this vision on the people of Mesopotamia or Cyprus. How do we, then, consummate our vision for a nation? You’d agree with me that forceful conquest is ruled out. Is Syria an exclusive concept that can’t be realized except within the geographical context you’ve outlined? I don’t think so. But on the other hand, is Syria an inclusive concept that accepts and attracts its neighbors to join hands and unite? Why not, I could certainly see that happening.

Aman,

Thank you for the response. You are right, there are several interpretations regarding the origin of the name, Sham, as it is not fully agreed-upon by historians and other intellectuals. However, regardless of the age of the name itself, and whether it preceded the name “Syria”, the basic point is that historically our people used the term Syria to identify their homeland and referred to themselves as “Syrian.” The usage of the term “bilad el-sham” did not come about until after the Arab conquests and only referred to the western part of natural Syria. In any case, regardless of the name itself, the important thing is that we become aware that we are one people and one nation and rid ourselves of divisive mentalities that have plagued us for too long.

Offended,

I applaud you for attempting to engage in a debate with an attorney ;-). However, in the end, it shouldn’t be my debating skills that win people over, but rather the soundness of the ideas I’m presenting. The main idea I am conveying is that the people of this entire homeland, within the boundaries I specificed above, form a single socio-economic life-cycle, and thus a single nation.

Now, you ask how we consummate our vision for a nation, and I believe this is the fundamental question we have to answer before we engage in attempting to define our national indentity. This of course requires us a more comprehensive, thorough study of nation-formation, which would require more time and space than we have here. I would thus invite you to read Antoun Saadeh’s “The Genesis of Nations” to have a better understanding of how we came to the conclusions I highlighted above.

To summarize the basic idea, however, the formation of nations begins with man’s interaction with the land on which he lives. This interaction is two-fold: a horizontal interaction with other groups within the same geographic territory, and a vertical interaction with the land itself, in attempting to shape and exploit the land. Of course, just as man is able to shape the physical environment to satisfy his needs, so is he limited by his very physical environment in the extent of this shaping. Saadeh states:

“Although man molds the physical environment it is the physical environment itself that determines the extent and content of this molding. At the same time man strives to mold his physical environment in order to satisfy his livelihood needs, he also finds himself having to adapt his needs to conform with the region he had come to inhabit.”

The horizontal and vertical interaction on and with the land inhabited by man helped shape human development in three basic ways: its topography greatly determined the nature and scope of human adaptation as well as the form of human resources and their combinations; its natural composition influenced the outward and psychological makeup of peoples; and, finally, its natural division into zones facilitated internal group unity and prevented the integration of mankind into a single community.

The geographic barriers of the Syrian homeland allowed the various groups that inhabited this territory to interact and intermix with each other, and prevented their interaction and intermixing with peoples outside these boundaries, helping to create a distinct national composite that is of a different character than that of other nations around us. Thus, the basic definition of a nation is a group of people who inhabit a specific geographic territory who, after a long period of interaction on and with the land it inhabits, and through a process of evolution, develops distinct characteristics differentiating it from other groups. And according to this definition the people of natural Syria form a single nation based on this continuous interaction and unity of life that have existed on this land for thousands of years.

As for the inclusivity of this concept, the philosophy of Social Nationalism is different from other nationalist schools in that it incorporates all elements of the society into the definition of the nation. In other words, as opposed to the racial, ethnic, or religious nationalisms of other movements, the Social Nationalist philosophy regards the single society, with all its parts, as the basis of the national identity. Therefore, all groups who have settled in the Syrian homeland and who have intermixed with and melted into Syrian society are seen as Syrian by definition.

I hope this sheds some light on the idea I was attempting to present in my article. If you have any further questions please continue to ask them. Thank you.

My issue with the word Syria is not out of hatred, but out of love.
Syrian Nationalism is exclusive and Bilad al-sham is inclusive, I think.
Exclusivness is often defined by; first to market forces of Branding.
Syria’s Nationalist Party was just that a relic of the Nationalist era.
I reffer you to my Brand Syria post in creative Syria, last year… If you want me to e-mail it to you please reply to my e-mail address; babadoc1@aol.com. I really enjoyed your essay and would love to share with you mine, but it’s a tewnty page collection too long to post here, so keep up the good work and I’ll be follwing your writing.

Although I am not in Syria, but I have been in support of Syria, Syria hope that peace and civilization coming, http://www.beatsdrecheapsale.com, thank you!