Sadad, Syria
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Sadad ( /
ALA-LC ALA-LC (American Library AssociationLibrary of Congress) is a set of standards for romanization, the representation of text in other writing systems using the Latin script. Applications The system is used to represent bibliographic information by ...
: ''Ṣadad'') is a town in
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
, 60 kilometers (37 mi) south of
Homs Homs ( ; ), known in pre-Islamic times as Emesa ( ; ), is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is Metres above sea level, above sea level and is located north of Damascus. Located on the Orontes River, Homs is ...
, and 101 kilometers (63 mi) northeast of
Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
, in the eastern part of the
Qalamoun Mountains The Qalamoun Mountains () are the northeastern portion of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, and they are northeast of the Syrian capital Damascus. They run from Barada River Valley in the southwest to the city of Hisyah in the northeast. Western Q ...
. It had over 3,500 inhabitants in the 2004 census, the majority of whom belonged to the
Syriac Orthodox Church The Syriac Orthodox Church (), also informally known as the Jacobite Church, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian denomination, denomination that originates from the Church of Antioch. The church currently has around 4-5 million followers. The ch ...
.


History


Early history

Sadad is an ancient village; it is thought to be the "Zedad" ( / ''Tzedad''; translated as "''Sedada''" in the
Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...
) mentioned in the
Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
(
Book of Numbers The Book of Numbers (from Biblical Greek, Greek Ἀριθμοί, ''Arithmoi'', , ''Bəmīḏbar'', ; ) is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah. The book has a long and complex history; its final f ...
, ;
Book of Ezekiel The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Nevi'im#Latter Prophets, Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and one of the Major Prophets, major prophetic books in the Christian Bible, where it follows Book of Isaiah, Isaiah and ...
, ), on the northeastern boundary of the biblical land of Canaan, the land promised to the
Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...
. Isolated on the edge of the desert, the community has remained predominantly
Syriac Orthodox The Syriac Orthodox Church (), also informally known as the Jacobite Church, is an Oriental Orthodox denomination that originates from the Church of Antioch. The church currently has around 4-5 million followers. The church upholds the Mia ...
, even after the
Muslim conquest of Syria The Muslim conquest of the Levant (; ), or Arab conquest of Syria, was a 634–638 CE invasion of Byzantine Syria by the Rashidun Caliphate. A part of the wider Arab–Byzantine wars, the Levant was brought under Arab Muslim rule and developed ...
in the mid-7th century. The village originally spoke a Western Aramaic dialect, similar to the
dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
of Maaloula (53 km (33 mi) south of Sadad), which persisted until the 1830s when it was displaced as the mother tongue by Arabic. Traces of Aramaic in the Arabic dialect of Sadad were studied by Fadel M. Mubaraka in 2010. Therefore,
Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
is spoken only as a second language by some people in the village. Sadad had been an important bishopric in the past. There was a close connection between Sadad and the Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian; according to Istifan al-Duwayhi, some of the monks of that monastery came from Sadad.Dodd.


Modern era

In 1838, its inhabitants were noted as being predominantly
Syriac Christians Syriac Christianity (, ''Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto'' or ''Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā'') is a branch of Eastern Christianity of which formative theological writings and traditional liturgies are expressed in the Classical Syriac language, a var ...
. In a report of 1881, a French military attaché described the state of insecurity of Sadad, whose inhabitants seemed to suffer attacks from the
Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...
s. Despite the tax its inhabitants regularly paid to the tribes that camped in the region, Sadad remained in constant risk of raiding. The inhabitants had therefore created adobe barricades around the village and its surrounding gardens, thus preventing anyone on horseback to enter without dismounting, which an isolated Bedouin rarely did in enemy territory. Anthropologist Sulayman Jabbur, writing in the 1980s, noted that most of Sadad's working inhabitants made their income in the textile industry, primarily weaving '' abayas'' (robes) and woolen mats for the Bedouin tribesmen of the vicinity.Jabbur 1995, pp. 336-337. The Bedouin usually acquired their clothing from villages along the desert fringes, such as Sadad, and the latter's inhabitants sold their products either directly to the Bedouin or indirectly via local merchants. According to Jabbur, the craft of weaving ''abayas'' was an ancient tradition passed down by generation to Sadad's inhabitants. Sadad was the most important market town for the Bedouin of the region, where they came to purchase clothing, tent equipment, saddles, coffee beans, tea and other supplies. During the Syrian Civil War, on 21 October 2013, the town was captured by Islamist militants reportedly belonging to the
al-Nusra Front Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra or Jabhat Nusrat Ahl al-Sham, also known as Front for the Conquest of the Levant, and also later known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham was a Salafi-jihadist organization that fought against Ba'athist Syria, Ba'athist ...
, who set up loudspeakers in the main square, calling for residents to return to their houses. At least nine people were reported killed, as Syrian Army forces were sent in on 22 October to try and retake the town, sparking fierce resistance from the militants. Locals were unsure as to the reason behind the attack, though medical supplies within the town's hospital were a possibility, as well as the presence of a military depot nearby. By 28 October, the Syrian Arab Army had taken back control of Sadad. Visiting church leaders and returning villagers found two mass graves of civilians, including women and children, containing 30 bodies. They were suspected of being massacred by
al-Nusra Front Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra or Jabhat Nusrat Ahl al-Sham, also known as Front for the Conquest of the Levant, and also later known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham was a Salafi-jihadist organization that fought against Ba'athist Syria, Ba'athist ...
militants. Forty-five Christians were killed during the rebel occupation, and several churches were also looted.


Demographics

The majority of the inhabitants are Christians belonging to the
Syriac Orthodox Church The Syriac Orthodox Church (), also informally known as the Jacobite Church, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian denomination, denomination that originates from the Church of Antioch. The church currently has around 4-5 million followers. The ch ...
. According to the Syriac Orthodox patriarch, Mor Ignatius Aphrem Karim II, Sadad had a population of 15,000 in the summer of 2015, but following the advance of ISIL forces in the area in the fall, about 2,000 inhabitants remained.


Main sights

The town is well known for its several churches, in particular, the church of Mar Sarkis and the church of Saint Theodore, both of which have elaborate, ancient frescoes; it is indeed unusual to find paintings on the walls of Syrian churches.


Notable people

*Barsum Hilal of Sadad, priest and calligrapher in the 16th century.Barsum, p. 547. * Abu Firas al-Hamdani, Baghdadi prince and poet buried at Sadad. * Ignatius Abded Aloho II, Syriac Orthodox Patriarch.


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * *


See also

* Fairouzeh * Zaidal * Maskanah * Al-Qaryatayn * Al-Hafar


External links


Syriac-Aramean villages of Homs
{{Coord, 34, 18, 46, N, 36, 55, 33, E, display=title, region:SY_type:city Populated places in Homs District Christian communities in Syria Syriac Orthodox Christian communities in Syria Towns in Syria Biblical cities