( لمحة تاريخية ) ٢_a .. كتاب حمص

Papenianus was thirty-seven years old when he was executed. However, the great legacy he left was not left by any other jurist in the Roman Empire!!!

During the reign of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, her advisor and teacher was Longinus of Homs (273-214 AD). .

When the battle was lost to the Roman Emperor Aurelian and she became a prisoner in his hands, he ordered the execution of Longinus, and the emperor did not dare to look at him for fear that his dignified appearance would make him forgive him!!! . The political and intellectual impact of Homs was great in the Roman Empire, until the Latin poet Juvenal said in the year (60-140) AD, “The capital flows into the Tiber, carrying its language and customs.

Paganism, as we have seen, was ancient among the people of Homs, and therefore Christianity did not enter it easily.

Acts of violence against the early Christians prompted some Christian believers to leave Homs and migrate to the Cilicia region. Among those who immigrated was (John the Syrian), and God granted him a son who adopted Christianity as his belief until he became one of the prominent priests in that region, which prompted the most beloved Christians in Rome to elect him (pope), and he remained in that position from (155-166) AD. He was known as Pope Anicet.

When the Muslims began the wars of liberation in the Levant, they captured Damascus for the first time on September 19, 634 AD. Corresponding to the twentieth of Rajab 13 AH.

Then Abu Ubaidah and Khaled bin Al-Walid took control of Homs after besieging it from the beginning of December (635) AD until mid-March (636) AD. Perhaps some people wonder why we used the word (wars of liberation) and our answer to that is that we must distinguish between the populations in the liberated areas. The original ones, who are mostly the peasants in their villages who work the land, and among the category of rulers and senior military officials. The first are Syriacs, that is, Arabs in the broad sense of the word. They were persecuted by the second group, who were Byzantine Romans. The feelings of the first category of peasants were expressed by Michael the Syrian, who said, “Indeed, God The avenger sent the Arabs to us to save us from the Romans. Our churches did not return to us, so everyone kept what they owned, but the Arabs liberated us from the brutality of the Byzantines and their hatred against us” (1).

The best evidence of this is the generous treatment with which Abu Ubaida treated the people of Homs when the Muslim Arabs left the city. During the conquest of Homs, he collected tribute from the local residents in exchange for relieving them from military service and protecting them from enemies, but since the Arabs will leave the city and the position does not allow them to protect its residents. Abu Ubaidah gathered the residents and returned to them the money he had taken from them as tribute, and said to them: “We are not able to help you and defend you, and you are now free on your own.” The people of Homs replied to him, “Your rule for us and your justice are dearer to us than the oppression and power we were experiencing.” Abu Ubaidah wrote to the princes. The other brigades that had withdrawn "(4) before" included the Muslim Arabs to return to the people the tribute they had collected from them, and this was implemented by each prince before he moved to join Abu Ubaidah in Al-Jabiya.

Arab forces from all over the liberated areas gathered in Al-Jabiya, south of Damascus, in the third week of August (636) AD = the second week of Rajab (15) AH. The decisive battle of Yarmouk took place, which lasted for six full days, and which opened the gates of the entire Levant to the Arabs, after the Byzantine forces were completely destroyed.

After the Battle of Yarmouk, Khaled entered the city of Damascus, and his family welcomed him and reminded him of the treaty he had made with them when they first entered the city two years ago, so Khaled assured them that they were still under its protection. Then Abu Ubaida and Khaled headed to liberate Jerusalem, and peace came over the Holy City in April of the year 637 AD = Rabi’ al-Awwal 16 AH. It remained on top of it until it fell into the hands of the Crusaders (1099 AD). Then Abu Ubaida and Khaled set off to liberate the entire north of the Levant, and when they arrived in Homs, it welcomed the return of the Arabs to it, thus beginning a new chapter in its history.

Here we want to respond to what Yaqut al-Hamawi claimed in his book Mu’jam al-Buldan, “... that Khalid bin Al-Walid died in Medina and was buried there, which is more correct... and that what is visited in Homs is the grave of Khalid bin Yazid bin Muawiyah (1) without mentioning any support for his narration.” To respond to that, it is sufficient to cite two narrations from our most reliable and famous historical sources: the first by Al-Tabari in his book (The History of the Messengers and Kings) and the second by Abu Al-Faraj Al-Asbahani in his book (Al-Aghani).

As for Al-Tabari’s narration, he cited it in the context of the events of the year (21) AH: “Al-Waqidi said: In this year, meaning the year (21), Khalid bin Al-Walid died in Homs and he made a will to Omar bin Al-Khattab (1). When Khalid’s obituary arrived in Medina, the women of Banu Makhzum began to cry over him, and Omar heard them. Ibn Al-Khattab “Then he cried and said, ‘Let the women of Banu Makhzum say whatever they want about Abu Sulaiman, for they do not lie, and over those like Abu Sulaiman, the weeping ones cry.’ Talha bin Ubaid Allah, who was with him, said to him: You and him are as Ubaid bin Al-Abras said:

No, after death, you mourn for me, and in my life you did not provide me with food. In addition, if Khalid bin Yazid had a grave in Homs, the Abbasids would have dug it up and removed its features, as they did with the graves of the Umayyads in the Levant after eliminating them. Accordingly, the death of Khalid bin Al-Walid is confirmed in Homs, and his grave is in his existing mosque there, and the claim of Yaqut Al-Hamawi is false and cannot be taken into account by Lay’a Saul.

Homs participated in the historical events that took place during the reign of the Abbasids, and when the Abbasid state weakened and independent states began to grow in its eastern and western outskirts, Homs began to move from the hands of the Abbasids to the hands of the Tulunids, then the Akhshidids, then the Hamdanids, and among them, after Sayf al-Dawla, was his son Saad al-Dawla, who appointed one of its leaders. (Bakjur) in the year 365 AH = 975-976 AD. On Homs, its age and its legacy is the (Al-Daml) Mosque, located near the Maqam of the Sphinx and overlooking Sphinx Street from the south. He had a minaret with a Kufic inscription on it, which was considered one of the precious things. He was mentioned by (Muhammad Kurd Ali) as follows: “There is still a minaret in Homs built by Bakjur, who seized control of the city in the year 367 AH = 977 AD. On it is (1), a useful inscription in the field of Arabic geometry.
After the Hamdanid state, it was replaced in the year (406) AH = 1015 AD. The state = the Mardasiyah, named after its founder, Salih bin Mardas, the Emir of Banu (Kilab). It was ruled by Shibl al-Dawla, Nasr bin Mardas, who in the year 424 AH, 1032 AD, settled in the fort of (Al-Saffah) with a group of Kurds to guard the road. Between Homs and Tripoli. Since then, the magnificent fort has been attributed to the Kurdish fort, and the castle above it was attributed to it, so it was said (Qalat al-Husn). The last of them was in Homs and Salamiyah in (475) AH and after that, Khalaf bin Malaeb, also nicknamed (Saif al-Dawla).

In the middle of the fifth century AH (451) AH, that is, in the middle of the eleventh century AD (1059) AD. The Arab East was exposed to the emergence of a new force, the Turkmen, who eliminated the Shiite influence in Baghdad and supported the Sunni doctrine. Brockelmann explains their embrace of the Sunni doctrine by saying, “Even if these Turks converted to Islam, they sided with the Sunnah, whose clear and sober belief was consistent with their simple minds, so they accepted it and embraced it.” With all the strength and enthusiasm of their raw souls” (2).

After the foundations of the Turkish state were consolidated in Baghdad during the reign of Sultan Ertugrul, they headed towards the Levant and captured Aleppo (463 AH). They removed the Mirdasid state from it and seized Damascus (468 AH). They addressed the Abbasids and removed the rule of the Fatimids from the coastal areas of the Levant.

The push of the Seljuk Turkmen towards the Levant had many intellectual, social and political consequences. From an intellectual standpoint, the Turkmen of the Seljuks of Baghdad were Sunnis who were fanatical towards their Sunnah, and they relied on violence, oppression and threats in order to return the people to the Sunnis and abandon Shiism. Fanaticism replaced tolerance in the Seljuk era and closed the door to ijtihad. In Arab-Islamic thought, intellectual stagnation prevailed, and imitation replaced creativity. From a social standpoint, the migration of Turkmen to the Levant had a great human and social impact. The migration removed the local aristocracy and replaced it with new Turkmen classes. The migration also brought in large numbers of Turkmen, who mixed with the country’s local population in the cities or expelled them from their places in the countryside. (1) To this era of history, most Homs families trace their Turkmen origins, after having Arabized the language.

Taj al-Dawla (Tush) captured Homs from Khalaf bin Malaab, the last of the Muradsid rulers, and it remained in his hands until he was killed (487) AH = 1094 AD. His son, Taj al-Muluk (Radwan), succeeded him in Aleppo, and Homs was subordinate to him. In the year (490) AH, Taj al-Muluk entrusted Homs to Atabegah (the ward of the state Hussein), who repaid the evil of the Crusaders on Homs with a fine paid by them.

Homs then passed to Nour al-Din Mahmoud, who inherited it from his father, Imad al-Din Zengi. During the reign of Nour al-Din, a massive earthquake struck the Levant from one end to the other, so Nour al-Din set about restoring and repairing what had been destroyed by the great earthquake in Homs and in other parts of the Levant (552 AH). 1157 AD. One of the most important things he did in Homs, before restoring its Great Mosque and rebuilding it, was that he bought the eastern half of the pledge of allegiance that had remained for the Christian people of Homs since the Arabs entered the city. He bought it from the Christians and added it to the mosque, and it was known from that time on as (the Great Al-Nuri Mosque).

The first ruler of Homs from the Abu Abu dynasty (Asad al-Din Shirkuh), the uncle of Saladin al-Ayyubi, who went with him to Egypt and eliminated the Fatimid caliphate there. After the death of Asad al-Din, his son Nasir al-Din Muhammad succeeded him, then Nour al-Din took it from him, and when the matter was settled for Saladin, he returned it. To him, Nasser al-Din Muhammad remained in Homs until his death (581 AH = 1185 AD). He was succeeded by his son (Asad al-Din Shirkuh), who was known as the Mujahid King, and who ruled Homs for fifty-six years AH - (54) AD. He was succeeded after him by his son, Al-Mansur Ibrahim, who died in Damascus (645 AH = 1227 AD) and was transferred to Homs, where he was buried in the south of it in the Al-Khidr Mosque). He was succeeded by his son, Al-Ashraf Musa, who died (662 AH) without success and was buried with his grandfather, the Mujahid King, and with his death the Ayyubid House of Shirkuh became extinct.

The Mamluks inherited the rule of Egypt and the Levant from the Ayyubids, and their rule began (1250) AD with (Izz al-Din Aybak). It seems that the status of Homs declined greatly during their reign, as the Crusades, then the Mongol invasion that struck the Levant during the reign of Timurlan K) and the massive plague that claimed the inhabitants of Homs as well as From the cities of the Levant (743 AH = 1342 AD) and the strife of the Bedouins that began in that era and caused great damage to the eastern villages of Homs, which led to the decline of the status of Homs beyond what it was decadent.

The situation continued in this manner until the arrival of the Ottomans (1516) AD, led by Sultan Selim I, and their elimination of the Mamluk king in the Levant and weakening it in Egypt after seizing it (1517) AD.

When Sultan Selim passed through Homs, on his way to Damascus, he left it out of the door that was later known as (the blocked door) because he ordered it to be blocked, as was the custom of the Ottoman sultans, so that no one would pass through it after him. He left behind him Turkmen families who still have most of their homes there to this day. At the beginning of the Ottoman era, Homs was a district affiliated with the Tripoli Ayalet, then at the end of their reign it turned into a district affiliated with the Hama Brigade, which was linked to the Damascus Ayalet. Throughout the Ottoman era, it remained neglected. Its residents lived a simple, humble life and suffered from the temptations and transgressions of the Bedouins. The gates of the walls were closed after sunset and all were sheltered. A man returned to his home and did not dare to leave it until Ibrahim bin Muhammad Ali, the ruler of Egypt from (1832 - 1840 AD) came. The calm was corrupted, and the security brigade spread in the region, and its eastern villages revived, and its economies improved, and from the effects of Egyptian rule in Homs (Al-Dabuya) (3), which was destroyed by the uprooting The basalt stones that covered the entire slopes of the citadel and the construction of the “dbuya” with them were located on the site of the government house, which is currently white stones, and remained so until the early fifties of this century.

When the Egyptians left (1840 AD), Halima returned to her usual habits. And the Bedouins returned to attacking the eastern lands, to the point that they were entering the country, looting, killing, and captivating, then withdrawing to return again. From here, from the Egyptians, the topic of our book begins, so how was Homs at that time??? .