Fig. 63—A harvest scene in Upper Mesopotamia with Kurds at work.
The Syrians
Syria is the elongated land passage, barely fifty miles in width, which connects northern Africa with western Asia. It is one of the world’s best-defined natural regions. The sea on the west, and the desert on the east, sharply mark off its fringe-like extension. On the north the Amanus ranges constitute a wall that has proved well-nigh impassable to Semites. To the south the land naturally ends in the Sinai peninsula.[242]
The province is mountainous in its northern half. Its mountains are the monuments that throw light on the utter failure of the cause of human progress in northern Syria. A single redeeming feature, the Orontes river valley, favored foreign contact. At its mouth on the Mediterranean western ideas filtered into the land while a blend of eastern influences, Persian and Arabian, flowed down with its waters. All converged at Antioch, the region’s greatest center of life and a true product of the Orontes’ lower course. Absence of relief in southern Syria, however, was coupled to a Mediterranean climate and fertile soils. These permitted the development of the flourishing civilizations of antiquity. Herein lies the physical basis of the historical evolution of the Syrian fringe and the explanation of the growth of nations and of world religions in its southern lands.
As a land-bridge of early humanity Syria was necessarily the scene of much coming and going at a time when the civilization of the world was largely confined to what is now known as Asiatic Turkey. Its population therefore presents a mixed character. Hittites, Arameans, Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Turks conquered the land in turn and imparted their native customs to its inhabitants. The inhabitants of its southern area are now transformed almost beyond the possibility of analysis. The settlements of the elevated and broken northern area, on the other hand, represent very ancient communities.
The mountains of Syria harbor strange denizens in their northern end. In the northern Lebanon many villages of the western slopes are inhabited by the Metauilehs, who are Shiite dissenters and bear unenviable reputation for ignorance and inhospitality.[243] Their own traditions point to Persian or Arabian origins. Religion seems to confirm the former claim. At the same time they are known to the Syrians as a sturdy mountain people. Scattered through the same mountain districts the Ismailyehs, another highland folk who under the name of Assassins enjoyed sinister fame during the Middle Ages, maintain their abode in inaccessible valleys. The epithet which is coupled to their name is an altogether illogical rendering of the Arabic “hasheeshin” and does not convey any worse meaning than that of “hasheesh” fiends. They live mainly in groups around old Saracen castles.
The Ansariyehs
The Ansariyehs, or Nusariyehs, form an important group among northern Syrians. Their settlements are generally confined to the grassy seaward slopes of the mountains stretching north of the Nahr-el-Kebir towards the Gulf of Alexandretta. They also occupy villages in the plains surrounding Antioch. In recent years they have shown a tendency to abandon their mountain homes for the less arduous life of the plains. Officially they are regarded as Mohammedans and bear Mohammedan names, but the religion which differentiates them from the other inhabitants of northern Syria teaches Christian and Sabean doctrines alike. It is believed that they still maintain observances of exceedingly ancient nature cults. The fundamental principles of their creed are transmitted by word of mouth and with injunction to secrecy.[244] Their deification of the conception of fertility is couched in highly metaphorical language in which the productivity of the earth and of the human race is extolled. By making proper allowance for the imagery which clothes the wording of their prayers it will probably be found that their religion resolves itself into a relic of the worship of the mother-goddess which was deeply rooted throughout the mountain districts of Asia Minor. Hints of nocturnal orgies accompanying their worship should be taken with a grain of suspicion, as orthodox Mohammedans are prone to such imputations whenever dissension from the Koran is suspected. In this Mohammedans merely follow the lead of Byzantine Christians in whose eyes the relics of Anatolian paganism were as obnoxious as the heresies of their own times.
The ancestors of the Ansariyehs and other small sects in northern Syria were closely related to their powerful Hittite neighbors. These peoples all occupy, together with the Druzes and Maronites, the southern limit of known Hittite monuments.[245] Their land is the frontier zone between Syria, Asia Minor and the Armenian highland. It is studded with ruined strongholds which figured prominently in ancient battle.