Aleppo

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For other meanings, see Aleppo (disambiguation). Halab redirects here; for other meanings, see Halab (disambiguation).

Aleppo (Arabic: حلب ['ḥalab], 36°13′N, 37°10′E) is a city in northern Syria, capital of the Aleppo Governorate. The city has a population of around 3,780,000, making it the second largest city in Syria after Damascus. Aleppo is one of the oldest inhabited cities in history. It knew human settlement since the eleventh millennium B.C. through the residential houses which were discovered in Al-Qaramel Hill. It was known to antiquity as Khalpe, Khalibon, to the Greeks as Beroea (Veroea), and to the Turks as Halep; during the French Mandate, Alep was used. It occupies a strategic trading point midway between the sea and the Euphrates; initially, it was built on a small group of hills in a wide fertile valley on both sides of the river Quweiq (قويق). The province or governorate extends around the city for over 16,000 km² and has around 4.1 million inhabitants.

The main role of the city was as a trading place, as it sat at the crossroads of two trade routes and mediated the trade from India, the Tigris and Euphrates regions and the route coming from Damascus in the South, which traced the base of the mountains rather than the rugged seacoast. Although trade was often directed away from the city for political reasons, it continued to thrive until the Europeans began to use the Cape route to India and later to utilise the route through Egypt to the Red Sea. Since then the city has declined and its chief exports now are the agricultural products of the surrounding region, mainly wheat and cotton, pistachios, olives and sheep.

[edit] History

The name Halab is of obscure origins. Some proposed that Halab means the metals of iron or copper in Amorite languages since it was a major source of these metals in antiquity. Halaba in Aramaic means white, referring to the color of soil and marble abundant in the area. Another proposed etymology is that the name Halab means "gave out milk," coming from the ancient tradition that Abraham gave milk to travelers as they moved throughout the region. The colour of his cows was ashen (Arab. shaheb), therefore the city is also called "Halab ash-Shahba'" (he milked the ash-coloured).

Because the modern city occupies its ancient site, Aleppo has scarcely been touched by archaeologists. The site has been occupied from around 5000 BC, as excavations in Tallet Alsauda show. It grew as the capital of the kingdom of Yamkhad until the ruling Amorite Dynasty was overthrown around 1600 BC. The city remained under Hittite control until perhaps 800 BC before passing through the hands of the Assyrians and the Persian Empire and being captured by the Greeks in 333 BC, when Seleucus Nicator renamed the settlement Beroea, after Beroea in Macedon. The city remained in Greek or Seleucid hands until 64 BC, when Syria was conquered by the Romans.

The city remained part of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire before falling to Arabs under Khalid ibn al-Walid in 637; in the 10th century a resurgent Byzantine Empire briefly regained control from 974 to 987, and remained an Imperial vassal until the Byzantin-Seljuk Wars. The city was twice besieged by Crusaders—in 1098 and in 1124—but was not conquered.

On August 9, 1138, a deadly earthquake ravaged the city and the surrounding area. Although estimates from this time are very unreliable, it is believed that 230,000 people died, making it the fourth deadliest earthquake in recorded history.

The city came under the control of Saladin and then the Ayyubid Dynasty from 1183.

On January 24,^[1] 1260 the city was taken by the Mongols under Hulagu in alliance with their vassals the Frank knights of the ruler of Antioch Bohemond VI and his father-in-law the Armenian ruler Hetoum I.^[2] The city was bravely defended by Turanshah, but the walls fell after six days of bombardment, and the citadel fell four weeks later. The Muslim population was massacred, though the Christians were spared. Turanshah was shown unusual respect by the Mongols, and was allowed to live because of his age and bravery. The city was then given to the former Emir of Homs, al-Ashraf, and a Mongol garrison was established in the city. Some of the spoils were also given to Hethoum I for his assistance in the attack. The Mongol Army then continued on to Damascus, which surrendered, and the Mongols entered the city on March 1, 1260.

In September, the Egyptian Mamluks negotiated a treaty with the Franks of Acre which allowed them to pass through Crusader territory unmolested, and engaged the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut on September 3, 1260. The Mamluks won a decisive victory, killing the Mongols' Nestorian Christian general Kitbuqa, and five days later they had re-taken Damascus. Aleppo was recovered by the Muslims within a month, and a Mamluk governor placed to govern the city. Hulagu sent troops to try and recover Aleppo in December. They were able to massacre a large number of Muslims in retaliation for the death of Kitbuqa, but after a fortnight could make no other progress and had to retreat.^[3]

The Mamluk governor of the city became insubordinate to the central Mamluk authority in Cairo, and in Autumn 1261 the Mamluk leader Baibars send an army to reclaim the city. In October 1271, the Mongols took the city again, attacking with 10,000 horsemen from Anatolia, and defeating the Turcoman troops who were defending Aleppo. The Mamluk garrisons fled to Hama, until Baibars came north again with his main army, and the Mongols retreated.^[4]

On October 20, 1280, the Mongols took the city again, pillaging the markets and burning the mosques. The Muslim inhabitants fled for Damascus, where the Mamluk leader Qalawun assembled his forces. When his army advanced, the Mongols again retreated, back across the Euphrates. Aleppo returned to native control in 1317,^{[citation needed]}.

In 1400, the Mongol leader Tamerlane captured the city again from the Mamluks.^[5]. He massacred many of the inhabitants, infamously ordering the building of a tower of 20,000 skulls outside the city.^[6]

The city became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1517, when the city had around 50,000 inhabitants. Reference is made to the city in 1606 in William Shakespeare's 'Macbeth.' The witches torment the captain of the ship the Tiger which was headed to Aleppo from England but endured a 567 day voyage before returning unsuccessfully to port.

The city remained Ottoman until the empire's collapse, but was occasionally riven with internal feuds as well as attacks of the plague and later cholera from 1823. By 1901 its population was around 125,000. The city revived when it came under French colonial rule but slumped again following the decision to give Antioch to Turkey in 1938-1939.

Aleppo was named by the Islamic Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) as the capital of Islamic culture in 2006.[1]

[edit] Design

As an ancient trading centre, Aleppo also has impressive suqs (shopping streets) and khan (commercial courtyards). The city was significantly redesigned after World War II; in 1952 the French architect Andre Gutton had a number of wide new roads cut through the city to allow easier passage for modern traffic. In the 1970s, large parts of the older city were demolished to allow for the construction of modern apartment blocks.

[edit] Population and religion

While more than 70% of Aleppo's inhabitants are Sunni Muslims (mainly Arabs, but also Kurds, and other diverse ethnicities relocated there during the Ottoman period, most notably Circassians, Adyghe, Albanians, Bosnians, Bulgars, Turks, Kabardins, Chechens, and others), Aleppo is home to one of the richest and most diversified Christian communities of the Orient. Christians belonging to a dozen different congregations (with prevalence of the Armenian and Syriac Orthodox Church and other Orthodox denominations) represent between 15% and 20% of its population, making it the city with the fourth biggest Christian community in the Middle East after Beirut, Zahle, and Jounieh Lebanon.

There are no more Jewish families who still live in Aleppo today, and the synagogue remains virtually empty.^{[citation needed]} At one point it was a thriving Jewish community, especially under the guidance of the Chief Rabbi Jacob Dwek and his brother in law Rabbi Ezra Soued. Their offspring have since settled around the world in such places as the United States (Syrian Jews mostly moved to Brooklyn, New York, where there is still an ethnic community called Little Syria), Mexico, Brazil and other countries, by dint of the efforts of the Canadian musician Judy Feld Carr, which secured the rescue of almost all Syrian Jews from the pressures of the Syrian government and population.^{[citation needed]} Currently hundreds of buildings, many of beautiful late Ottoman style stand empty and deteriorating in many sections of town, chained symbolically against repossession by Christians or Muslims.

The city has many mosques including the Madrasa Halawiya. A temple that once stood on the site was rebuilt as Aleppo's great Byzantine cathedral founded by Saint Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, which contains a tomb associated with Zachary, father of John the Baptist. During the Crusades, when the invaders pillaged the surrounding countryside, the city's chief judge converted St. Helena's cathedral into a mosque, and in the middle of the 12th century the famous leader Nur al-Din founded the madrasa or religious school that has encompassed the former cathedral. The Jami al-Kabir or "Great Mosque" was originally built by the Umayyads, although the present structure begun for Nur al-Din dates from 1158 and a rebuilding after the Mongol invasion of 1260.

[edit] Notable people

See also: Rulers of Aleppo

• Paul of Aleppo, 17th century Archdeacon of Aleppo, traveler and chronicler.
• Phillip Stamma Chessplayer and writer, was born in 1705 .
• Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni, deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1977.
• Emile Benveniste French linguist
• Muhammed Faris (born 1951), first Syrian cosmonaut.
• Adnan Dabbagh, former minister of interior of Syria.
• Moustapha Akkad, film producer and director, born in 1935.
• George Tutunjian– Famous Armenian Revolutionary Songs performer.
• Levon Ter-Petrossian, former president of the Republic of Armenia.
• Abdul-Rahman Mowakket,A famous sculptor who created great sculptures in the city.
• Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi, A famous astronomer working in Marageh obsorvatory

[edit] See also

• Aleppo Codex

[edit] Photo gallery

The amphitheatre inside the citadel

The Byzantine hall inside the citadel

Old Aleppo (view from the citadel)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Lynn Simarski, 'The lure of Aleppo" history and architecture.
• Armenian history and presence in Aleppo
• University of Aleppo
• Aleppo Citadel Friends - Local non-profit with information on old city and citadel.
• A walk through Aleppo from a travelogue, with pictures (2006).
• Keith David Watenpaugh, Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism and the Arab Middle Class (Princeton: 2006)
  

(a comprehensive account of Aleppo's diverse middle class in the early-20th Century)

• Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, The Image of an Ottoman City Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Leiden: 2005)
  

[edit] Photography

• A large picture gallery about Aleppo, sorted after the old, the modern city and the souk.
• Citadel of Aleppo, inside and outside.
• A collection of pictures made in 2003 on Aleppo (a mosque, the Citadel, the souk).
• Pictures of Aleppo

[edit] Local

• 'Ittihad club of Aleppo" forum for local sport and Aleppo community .
• 'Jalaa Club of Aleppo" local basketball team and rivals of Ittihad .

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