Bilad el-Cham

The traditional term Arab Bilad el-Cham (in Arab: rear RTL بلادالشام) is a name given to the Machrek (less the Iraq). One also speaks about " Large Syria " , area which contains the equivalent of the actual positions of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and of the Palestinian Territoires (sometimes other than the area of Al-Jazira which includes/understands the North-East of current Syria).

Étymologiquement, the term means " ground of the hand gauche" , in reference to the fact that for somebody located in the Hijaz and facing the Is (old the orientation of the charts), the Northern is on the left (in the same way the name Yemen means " ground of the hand droite").

The area is sometimes defined like the zone formerly dominated by Damas, which was a long time a regional capital - the word el-Cham rear RTL الشام makes of it corresponds in the name of the town of Damas in Dialectical Arabic.

Bilad el-Cham is not always completely synonymous with " Large Syrie" or of " Levant" , because Large Syria can be regarded as a smaller area, whereas on the contrary Raising it would be a greater area. Nowadays, the term is rather used by the historians to describe the zone in a last context. During the greatest part of the history of the the Middle East, Bilad el-Cham was a homogeneous unit culturally and economically. The Colonialism of the years which followed the First World War and the rise to power of a certain number of states in the area broke this dream of unit.

See too

Agreement nationalist Sykes-Barb
Machrek
Left social Syrian

Source

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