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Syria's estimated pre–Syrian Civil War 2011 population was 22 ±.5 million permanent inhabitants, which included 21,124,000 Syrians, as well as 1.3 million Iraqi refugees and over 500,000 Palestinian refugees. The war makes an accurate count of the Syrian population difficult, as the numbers of Syrian refugees, internally displaced Syrians and casualty numbers are in flux. The CIA World Factbook showed an estimated 20.4m people as of July 2021. Of the pre-war population, six million are refugees outside the country, seven million are internally displaced, three million live in rebel-held territory, and two million live in the Kurdish-ruled Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
The Arab world, formally the Arab homeland, also known as the Arab nation, the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in Western Asia and Northern Africa. While the majority of people in the Arab world are ethnically Arab, there are also significant populations of other ethnic groups such as Berbers, Kurds, Somalis and Nubians, among other groups. Arabic is used as the lingua franca throughout the Arab world.
Bashar al-Assad is a Syrian politician who is the current and 19th president of Syria since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the secretary-general of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, which nominally espouses a neo-Ba'athist ideology. His father and predecessor was General Hafiz al-Assad, whose presidency in 1971–2000 marked the transfiguration of Syria from a republican state into a de facto dynastic dictatorship, tightly controlled by an Alawite-dominated elite composed of the armed forces and the Mukhabarat, who are loyal to the al-Assad family.
The Alawites, also known as Nusayrites, are an Arab ethnoreligious group that live primarily in the Levant and follow Alawism, a religious sect that splintered from early Shi'ism as a ghulat branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, revered as the first Imam in the Twelver school, as the physical manifestation of God. The group was founded by Ibn Nusayr during the 9th century. Ibn Nusayr was a disciple of the tenth Twelver Imam, Ali al-Hadi and of the eleventh Twelver Imam, Hasan al-Askari. For this reason, Alawites are also called Nusayris.
Arabization or Arabicization is a sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Arab society becomes Arab, meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Arabic language, culture, literature, art, music, and ethnic identity as well as other socio-cultural factors. It is a specific form of cultural assimilation that often includes a language shift. The term applies not only to cultures, but also to individuals, as they acclimate to Arab culture and become "Arabized". Arabization took place after the Muslim conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as during the more recent Arab nationalist policies toward non-Arab minorities in modern Arab states, such as Algeria, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and Sudan.
Syrian nationalism, also known as Pan-Syrian nationalism, refers to the nationalism of the region of Syria, as a cultural or political entity known as "Greater Syria".
Christians in Syria made up about 10% of the pre-war Syrian population. The country's largest Christian denomination is the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, closely followed by the Maronite Church and the Assyrian Church of the East; the cities of Damascus and Aleppo are believed to have the largest number of Christians in Syria. There is a small minority of Protestants in the country.
Arabic is the official language of Syria and is the most widely spoken language in the country. Several modern Arabic dialects are used in everyday life, most notably Levantine in the west and Mesopotamian in the northeast.
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest. Cyprus lies to the west across the Mediterranean Sea. It is a unitary republic that consists of 14 governorates (subdivisions). A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including the majority Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians, Circassians, Armenians, Albanians, Greeks, and Chechens. Religious groups include Muslims, Christians, Alawites, Druze, and Yazidis. The capital and largest city is Damascus, followed by Aleppo, Homs, Latakia, Hama, Deirezor, and Raqqa. Arabs are the largest ethnic group, and Sunni Muslims are the largest religious group. Syria is now the only country that is governed by Ba'athists, who advocate Arab socialism and Arab nationalism.
Arabs represent the major ethnicity in Syria, in addition to the presence of several, much smaller ethnic groups.
Syrian Turkmen are Syrian citizens of Turkish origin who mainly trace their roots to Anatolia. Turkish-speaking Syrian Turkmen make up the third largest ethnic group in the country, after the Arabs and Kurds respectively.
Religion in Syria refers to the range of religions practiced by the citizens of Syria. Historically, the region has been a mosaic of diverse faiths with a range of different sects within each of these religious communities.
Mujahideen, or Mujahidin, is the plural form of mujahid, an Arabic term that broadly refers to people who engage in jihad, interpreted in a jurisprudence of Islam as the fight on behalf of God, religion or the community (ummah).
The Syrian Civil War is an intensely sectarian war. After the early years of cross-sectarian opposition to the rule of Bashar al-Assad, the civil war has largely transformed into a conflict between ruling minority Alawite government and allied Shi'a governments such as Iran; pitted against the country's Sunni Muslim majority who are aligned with the Syrian opposition and its Turkish and Persian Gulf state backers. Sunni Muslims make up the majority of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and many hold high administrative positions, while Alawites and members of almost every minority have also been active on the rebel side.
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij, and Deir Ez-Zor. The region gained its de facto autonomy in 2012 in the context of the ongoing Rojava conflict and the wider Syrian civil war, in which its official military force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has taken part.
Ba'athism, also spelled Baathism, is an Arab nationalist ideology which promotes the creation and development of a unified Arab state through the leadership of a vanguard party over a socialist revolutionary government. The ideology is officially based on the theories of the Syrian intellectuals Michel Aflaq, Zaki al-Arsuzi, and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. Ba'athist leaders of the modern era include the former president of Iraq Saddam Hussein, former president of Syria Hafez al-Assad and his son, the current president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.
Circassians in Syria refer to the Circassian diaspora that settled in Syria in the 19th century. They moved to Syria after the Circassian genocide following the Russo-Circassian War. While they have become an increasingly assimilated part of Syrian society, they have maintained a distinct identity, having retained their language, their tribal heritage, and some of their other traditional customs.
The Chechen–Russian conflict refers to a centuries-long ethnic and political conflict, often armed, between the Russian, Soviet and Imperial Russian governments and various Chechen forces. The recent phase of the conflict started after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and ended with the crushing of the separatist movement and oppression of the Chechen population.
Ajnad al-Kavkaz is a Chechen-led Salafi jihadist militant group in northwestern Syria, operating primarily in the mountainous and forested areas of Latakia Governorate. Although it was formed by former fighters of the Caucasus Emirate and was tentatively linked to the organization, AK operated autonomously from the beginning and later cut ties with the Caucasus Emirate. Though it had become "the largest of the Muslim factions from the former Soviet Union fighting in Syria" by September 2016, AK's activity dwindled in the following years. In 2022, the group's centre of operations shifted from Syria to Ukraine, as most AK militants had begun mobilizing to fight against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As of 2023, AK has largely been engaged in the Battle of Bakhmut in Ukraine.
Anti-Chechen sentiment, Chechenophobia, anti-Chechenism, or Nokhchophobia, refers to fear, dislike, hostility, hatred, discrimination, and racism towards ethnic Chechens, the Chechen language, or the Chechen culture in general. Anti-Chechen sentiment has been historically strong in Russia, and to some degree has spread to other countries in the former Soviet Union, such as Azerbaijan, to Europe, the Middle East, and to the United States. For decades, the main causes of hatred against Chechens have been largely due to the created narrative which depicts a violent mentality of Chechens, the association of Chechens with Islamic extremism, and Russian imperialist propaganda targeted at Chechens.
References
- 1 2 3 4 Jaimoukha, Amjad M. (2008), "Syria", The Chechens: A Handbook, Routledge, p. 232, ISBN 978-0415323284
- ↑ Mairbek Vatchagaev (1 October 2015). "Is Moscow Set to Target Russians Fighting Against Assad in Syria?". Jamestown Foundation . Retrieved 4 September 2018.
- ↑ "Chechens drawn south to fight against Syria's Assad". BBC News. 20 November 2013.
- ↑ "Chechen leader claims his troops eager to fight 'scum' in Syria". 8 December 2016.
- ↑ Behnstedt, Peter (2008), "Syria", in Versteegh, Kees; Eid, Mushira; Elgibali, Alaa; Woidich, Manfred; Zaborski, Andrzej (eds.), Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. 4, Brill Publishers, p. 402, ISBN 978-90-04-14476-7
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1 Under the terms of the Syrian Constitution the Druze community is designated as a part of the Syrian Muslim community. | |
