''Jund Dimashq'' ( ar, جند دمشق) was the largest of the sub-provinces (''ajnad'', sing. ''
jund
Under the early Caliphates, a ''jund'' ( ar, جند; plural ''ajnad'', اجناد) was a military division, which became applied to Arab military colonies in the conquered lands and, most notably, to the provinces into which Greater Syria (the Le ...
''), into which
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
was divided under the
Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
and
Abbasid dynasties. It was named after its capital and largest city,
Damascus ("Dimashq"), which in the Umayyad period was also the capital of the
Caliphate
A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
.
Geography and administrative division
Unlike any other province of the
Caliphate
A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
,
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
was divided by the early
Umayyads into several (originally four, later five) sub-provinces or ''ajnad'' (singular ''
jund
Under the early Caliphates, a ''jund'' ( ar, جند; plural ''ajnad'', اجناد) was a military division, which became applied to Arab military colonies in the conquered lands and, most notably, to the provinces into which Greater Syria (the Le ...
'', "army division"), which in their original inception were the areas from which a particular army division drew its pay, provisions and recruits. The province of
Damascus, ''jund Dimashq'', was the largest of the ''ajnad'', comprising most of central Syria. Its borders encompassed roughly the former
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
provinces of
Phoenice Prima,
Phoenice Libanensis, and
Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plat ...
.
Later Arab geographers divide the ''jund'' of Damascus into the following districts: the
Ghuta
Ghouta ( ar, غُوطَةُ دِمَشْقَ / ALA-LC: ''Ḡūṭat Dimašq'') is a countryside and suburban area in southwestern Syria that surrounds the city of Damascus along its eastern and southern rim.
Name
Ghouta is the Arabic term (''g ...
plain around Damascus, known as the "Garden Land" for its fertility; the
Hawran
The Hauran ( ar, حَوْرَان, ''Ḥawrān''; also spelled ''Hawran'' or ''Houran'') is a region that spans parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. It is bound in the north by the Ghouta oasis, eastwards by the al-Safa field, to the so ...
and
Bathaniyya, with
Adra'a as capital;
Jawlan;
Jaydur (mentioned only by
Yaqut al-Hamawi
Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) ( ar, ياقوت الحموي الرومي) was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine Greek ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th-13th centuries). He is known for ...
);
Hula
Hula () is a Hawaiian dance form accompanied by chant (oli) or song ( mele). It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Native Hawaiians who originally settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli or mele in a visua ...
;
Balqa;
al-Sharah
''Ash-Sharāt'' or ''Ash-Sharāh'' ( ar, ٱلشَّرَاة, also known as ''Bilād ash-Sharāt'' ( ar, بِلَاد ٱلشَّرَاة) or ''Jibāl ash-Sharāt'' ( ar, جِبَال ٱلشَّرَاة), is a highland region in modern-day souther ...
, with capital at
Adhruh, sometimes recorded as belonging to ''
Jund Filastin
Jund Filasṭīn ( ar, جُنْد فِلَسْطِيْن, "the military district of Palestine") was one of the military districts of the Umayyad and Abbasid province of Bilad al-Sham (Levant), organized soon after the Muslim conquest of the Lev ...
''; and al-Jibal. Other principal towns and cities were
Beirut,
Sidon,
Tyre (the tax proceeds of which went to ''
Jund al-Urdunn
Jund al-Urdunn ( ar, جُـنْـد الْأُرْدُنّ, translation: "The military district of Jordan") was one of the five districts of Bilad al-Sham (Islamic Syria) during the early Islamic period. It was established under the Rashidun and ...
''),
Tripoli and
Jubail along the coast. The coastal cities and their immediate surroundings formed their own small districts.
In its tribal make-up, the ''jund'' of Damascus was chiefly
Yamani, but with a sizeable minority of
Qays
Qays ʿAylān ( ar, قيس عيلان), often referred to simply as Qays (''Kais'' or ''Ḳays'') were an Arab tribal confederation that branched from the Mudar group. The tribe does not appear to have functioned as a unit in the pre-Islamic e ...
i tribes. The annual tax proceeds of the province totalled 450,000
gold dinar
The gold dinar ( ar, ﺩﻳﻨﺎﺭ ذهبي) is an Islamic medieval gold coin first issued in AH 77 (696–697 CE) by Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. The weight of the dinar is 1 mithqal ().
The word ''dinar'' comes from the Lat ...
s according to
Ya'qubi
ʾAbū l-ʿAbbās ʾAḥmad bin ʾAbī Yaʿqūb bin Ǧaʿfar bin Wahb bin Waḍīḥ al-Yaʿqūbī (died 897/8), commonly referred to simply by his nisba al-Yaʿqūbī, was an Arab Muslim geographer and perhaps the first historian of world cul ...
, 400,000 according to
al-Baladhuri
ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Balādhurī ( ar, أحمد بن يحيى بن جابر البلاذري) was a 9th-century Muslim historian. One of the eminent Middle Eastern historians of his age, he spent most of his life in Baghdad and e ...
, and 420,000 according to
al-Jahshiyari;
Qudama ibn Ja'far gives the low number of 110,000 dinars, but this probably reflects the effects of the civil war of the
Fourth Fitna. In terms of troops, under the Caliph
al-Walid I (r. 705–715), 45,000 men were in the rolls for the ''jund'' of Damascus, although presumably not all of them were effectives.
Governors
Umayyad period
*
Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri (661–680; governed under Caliph
Mu'awiya I)
*
Abd al-Rahman ibn Umm al-Hakam al-Thaqafi
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUthmān ibn Rabīʿa al-Thaqafī (), called Ibn Umm al-Ḥakam (), was a governor and military leader in the early Umayyad Caliphate. He was a nephew of the Caliph Muʿāwiya I through the latter's sister, ...
(undetermined period in 685–705 during the rule of Caliph
Abd al-Malik)
*
Abd al-Aziz ibn al-Walid (undetermined period in 705–715 during the rule of his father Caliph
al-Walid I)
*
Muhammad ibn Suwayd ibn Kulthum al-Fihri (715–720; a kinsman of Dahhak ibn Qays; governed under Caliph
Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik and continued under Caliph
Umar II for an undetermined period)
*
Dahhak ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Ash'ari (undetermined period in 717–720; governed under Umar II)
*
Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Utba al-Fihri (undetermined period in 720–724; governed under Caliph
Yazid II
Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik ( ar, يزيد بن عبد الملك, Yazīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik; — 28 January 724), also referred to as Yazid II, was the ninth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 9 February 720 until his death in 724.
Early life
Yazid was b ...
)
*
Walid ibn Talid al-Murri (undetermined period in 720–732; governed under Yazid II and continued in office under Caliph
Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik until being reassigned by the latter to
Mosul in 732)
*
Hakam ibn Walid ibn Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik (743–744; governed under his father Caliph
al-Walid II)
**
Abd al-Samad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hajjaj (743–744; a grandson of
al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, governed as Hakam ibn Walid's lieutenant)
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
{{coord missing, Syria
Medieval Damascus
Subdivisions of the Abbasid Caliphate
Syria under the Umayyad Caliphate
Military history of the Umayyad Caliphate
States and territories established in the 7th century