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'A handbook of Syria (including Palestine). London: Naval Staff Intelligence Department, June 1919' [110v] (225/738)
The record is made up of 1 volume (365 folios). It was created in 1919. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
214
INHABITANTS
modern, means ‘friends i. e. friends of ‘Ali (sing. Mutawdli).
The community traces its origin to a Companion of the
Prophet, Abu Dharr Ghifari, who is supposed to have first
taught his doctrines in the villages of Sarafend and Meis.
Their views are identical with those of the Ithnasharis of
Persia, who believe in a series of twelve Imams, of whom the
last went into concealment in Samarra in the second half of
the third Islamic century, and whose reappearance they
expect. They differ from the Sunnites mainly on the question
of the khalifate, which they hold fell by right to ‘Ali;
but there are also certain differences of law and ritual. They
decline to sit at the same table with those who do not share
their beliefs, will neither eat nor drink out of a vessel which
has been used by such a person, and go far beyond other
Moslems in intolerance.
It is not quite easy to account for the existence of this
community in Syria under a series of dynasties which regarded
its tenets as revolutionary, whence some suppose them to be
comparatively recent immigrants, while others with some
historical support assume that they normally concealed their
opinions in accordance with a permission granted in the
Koran, of which the Shi‘ites make a liberal use. Some tra
vellers declare them to be illiterate; but this reproach
cannot well be justified, since for some years before the war
they maintained a press at Saida, whence a series of valuable
works was issued, and which also maintained a well-conducted
magazine. In earlier times savants belonging to this com
munity composed works which have acquired the status of
classics among the Shi‘ites of Persia and India, whither mem
bers of if have from time to time migrated, and where they
have been rewarded with high office.
The Ismd‘iUyeh (Ismailians), numbering only a few thou
sands, reside in the hills west of Homs (Qadmus and Marqab),
and in the plains about Homs and Hama. They are relics of
a society founded in the fifth Islamic century by Hasan Sabbah
at Alamut in the neighbourhood of Qazwin, in Persia, and were
known in the history of the Crusades by the name Assassins.
About this item
- Content
Admiralty handbook regarding Syria (including Palestine) 'to as far north as the River Orontes and a line Antioch-Aleppo-Meskeneh. For details of the part of Syria beyond this line reference must be made to the Handbook of Asia Minor , Vol. iv, Part 2 (C.B. 847 C).'
'Contents. Chapters:
- I. Boundaries and Physical Survey, p 9 (folio 7)
- II. Climate, p 24 (folio 14v)
- III. Minerals, Flora and Fauna, p 93 (folio 50)
- IV. Military History, p 109 (folio 58)
- V. Inhabitants, p 175 (folio 91)
- VI. Turkish Administration, p 236 (folio 121v)
- VII. Agriculture, p 252 (folio 129v)
- VIII. Industry and Trade, p 276 (folio 141v)
- IX. Currency, Weights and Measures, p 318 (folio 162v)
- X. Jebel Ansarīyeh, p 325 (folio 166)
- XI. Country East of Jebel Ansarīyeh, p 344 (folio 175v)
- XII. Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, and Damascus Plain, p 357 (folio 182)
- XIII. River Systems of Northern Syria, p 395 (folio 201)
- XIV. Judea and the Southern Desert, p 427 (folio 217)
- XV. Samaria (including Carmel), p 472 (folio 239v)
- XVI. Galilee, p 515 (folio 261)
- XVII. Haurān and Jaulān, p 556 (folio 281v)
- XVIII. 'Ajlūn and Northern Belqa, p 580 (folio 293v)
- XIX. Southern Belqa and Ardh el-Kerak, p 612 (folio 309v)
- XX. El-Jibāl and Esh-Shera, p 636 (folio 321v)
- XXI. The Ghōr (Jordan and the Dead Sea); and Wādi 'Arabah, p 645 (folio 326)
- Appendix: Conventional Spellings, p 668 (folio 337v)
- Index, p 669 (folio 338)
- Plates, p 725' [missing]
- Extent and format
- 1 volume (365 folios)
- Arrangement
The volume contains a contents page (folio 6) and an index (folios 338-365).
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence commences at the front cover with 1 and terminates at the inside back cover with 367; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Pagination: the volume also contains an original printed pagination sequence. The volume originally contained fourteen plates showing maps, bound into the back of the volume. These are now missing; details of the plates can be found at folio 5v.
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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- Reference
- IOR/L/MIL/17/16/15
- Title
- 'A handbook of Syria (including Palestine). London: Naval Staff Intelligence Department, June 1919'
- Pages
- front, back, spine, edge, head, tail, front-i, 2r:366v, back-i
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence