HASBEYA, or Hasbeiya, a town of the Druses, about 36 m. W. of Damascus, situated at the foot of Mt. Hermon in Syria, overlooking a deep amphitheatre from which a brook flows to the Hasbāni. The population is about 5000 (4000 Christians). Both sides of the valley are planted in terraces with olives, vines and other fruit trees. The grapes are either dried or made into a kind of syrup. In 1846 an American Protestant mission was established in the town. This little community suffered much persecution at first from the Greek Church, and afterwards from the Druses, by whom in 1860 nearly 1000 Christians were massacred, while others escaped to Tyre or Sidon. The castle in Hasbeya was held by the crusaders under Count Oran; but in 1171 the Druse emirs of the great Shehāb family (see [Druses]) recaptured it. In 1205 this family was confirmed in the lordship of the town and district, which they held till the Turkish authorities took possession of the castle in the 19th century. Near Hasbeya are bitumen pits let by the government; and to the north, at the source of the Hasbāni, the ground is volcanic. Some travellers have attempted to identify Hasbeya with the biblical Baal-Gad or Baal-Hermon.
ḤASDAI IBN SHAPRUT, the founder of the new culture of the Jews in Moorish Spain in the 10th century. He was both physician and minister to Caliph Abd ar-Raḥman III. in Cordova. A man of wide learning and culture, he encouraged the settlement of Jewish scholars in Andalusia, and his patronage of literature, science and art promoted the Jewish renaissance in Europe. Poetry, philology, philosophy all flourished under his encouragement, and his name was handed down to posterity as the first of the many Spanish Jews who combined diplomatic skill with artistic culture. This type was the creation of the Moors in Andalusia, and the Jews ably seconded the Mahommedans in the effort to make life at once broad and deep.
(I. A.)
HASDEU, or Hăjdeu, BOGDAN PETRICEICU (1836-1907), Rumanian philologist, was born at Khotin in Bessarabia in 1836, and studied at the university of Kharkov. In 1858 he first settled in Jassy as professor of the high school and librarian. He may be considered as the pioneer in many branches of Rumanian philology and history. At Jassy he started his Archiva historica a Romaniei (1865-1867), in which a large number of old documents in Slavonic and Rumanian were published for the first time. In 1870 he inaugurated Columna lui Traian, the best philological review of the time in Rumania. In his Cuvente den Bătrăni (2 vols., 1878-1881) he was the first to contribute to the history of apocryphal literature in Rumania. His Historia critica a Romanilor (1875), though incomplete, marks the beginning of critical investigation into the history of Rumania. Hasdeu edited the ancient Psalter of Coresi of 1577 (Psaltirea lui Coresi, 1881). His Etymologicum magnum Romaniae (1886, &c.) is the beginning of an encyclopaedic dictionary of the Rumanian language, though never finished beyond the letter B. In 1876 he was appointed director of the state archives in Bucharest and in 1878 professor of philology at the university of Bucharest. His works, which include one drama, Rasvan şi Vidra, bear the impress of great originality of thought, and the author is often carried away by his profound erudition and vast imagination. Hasdeu was a keen politician. After the death of his only child Julia in 1888 he became a mystic and a strong believer in spiritism. He died at Campina on the 7th of September 1907.
(M. G.)
HASDRUBAL, the name of several Carthaginian generals, among whom the following are the most important:—
1. The son-in-law of Hamilcar Barca (q.v.), who followed the latter in his campaign against the governing aristocracy at Carthage at the close of the First Punic War, and in his subsequent career of conquest in Spain. After Hamilcar’s death (228) Hasdrubal, who succeeded him in the command, extended the newly acquired empire by skilful diplomacy, and consolidated it by the foundation of New Carthage (Cartagena) as the capital of the new province, and by a treaty with Rome which fixed the Ebro as the boundary between the two powers. In 221 he was killed by an assassin.