Syria

Jack M. Sasson reads the letters of Shamsi-Adad and describes his humanity, patriarchal wisdom and easy sense of humour.

J.J. Saunders continues the story of the first, and perhaps the greatest, of Islam’s Commanders of the Faithful. The Caliph Omar, after triumphantly laying the foundations of the Arab Empire, fell to a Persian Christian assassin in the year 644.

As the Syrian crisis intensifies, John McHugo looks at the country’s troubled relationship with the West during the Cold War and the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict.

G. Goossens recalls the Assyrian monarchs, noted for their ferocity, great libraries, and achievements in agriculture and engineering.

Syria was among the most unstable states in the Middle East until Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. But, asks James Gelvin, can his son, Bashar, maintain the regime’s iron rule in the face of growing dissent?

During the seventh century the Arabs invaded North Africa three times, bringing not just Islam but a language and customs that were alien to the Berber tribes of the Sahara.

The quest for spiritual virtue through personal austerity drove many Eastern Christians to lead solitary lives as hermits surviving in the wilderness. Andrew Jotischky describes how indifference to food became an integral part of the monastic ideal in the Byzantine era, one revived in the West in the 11th and 12th centuries.

Among the enterprises of Tudor England was a powerful Company, whose purpose was to “traffic with the dominions of the Grand Seignior.”

Running after foreign gods - Richard Stoneman explains how Rome's Syrian rival, the city of Palmyra, and her formidable queen Zenobia influenced the religion and mores of the later Empire - and brought us in the process Christmas Day.

Terence Mirabelli investigates why Syria is losing an archaeological site.