Bashar al-AssadBashar al-Assad (born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the current and 19th president of Syria since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the secretary-general of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, which nominally espouses a neo-Ba'athist ideology. His father and predecessor was General Hafez al-Assad, whose presidency between 1971 and 2000 marked the transfiguration of Syria from a republican state into a dynastic dictatorship tightly controlled by an Alawite-dominated elite composed of the armed forces and the Mukhabarat (secret services), who are loyal to the al-Assad family.
Hejaz railwayThe Hejaz railway (also spelled Hedjaz or Hijaz; حجاز تيمور يولى, Hicaz Demiryolu) was a narrow-gauge railway ( track gauge) that ran from Damascus to Medina, through the Hejaz region of modern day Saudi Arabia, with a branch line to Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea. It was a part of the Ottoman railway network and the original goal was to extend the line from the Haydarpaşa Terminal in Kadıköy, Istanbul beyond Damascus to the Islamic holy city of Mecca.
CaliphateA caliphate or khilāfah (خِلَافَة, xi'laːfah) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (ˈkælɪf,_ˈkeɪ-; خَلِيفَة xæ'liː'fæh, ), a person considered a political-religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim world (ummah). Historically, the caliphates were polities based on Islam which developed into multi-ethnic trans-national empires.
AmmanAmman (pronəˈmɑːn; عَمَّان, ʿAmmān ʕamːaːn) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant region, the fifth-largest city in the Arab world, and the ninth-largest metropolitan area in the Middle East. The earliest evidence of settlement in Amman dates to the 8th millennium BC, in a Neolithic site known as 'Ain Ghazal, where the world's oldest statues of the human form have been unearthed.
Palestine (region)Palestine (Παλαιστίνη, Palaistínē; Palaestina; فِلَسْطِينَ, , , ; פלשתינה, Palestīna) is a geographic region in West Asia. It is usually considered to include Israel and the State of Palestine (i.e. West Bank and Gaza Strip), though some definitions also include part of northwestern Jordan. The first written records referring to Palestine emerged in the 12th-century BCE Twentieth dynasty of Egypt, which used the term "Peleset" for the neighboring people or land. In the 8th century BCE, the Assyrians referred to the region as "Palashtu" or "Pilistu".
