Talk:Greater Syria

Confusing article
It is not clear that the term "Bilad a Sham" has any existence outside Syrian nationalist propaganda. The Ottoman empire did not have any corresponding division. It seems to be a term used to justify spurious Syrian territorial claims in Iraq, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon.

It may correspond to the territory of Arab conquests controlled from Damascus. Mewnews (talk) 20:49, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

You taking politics, and the greater Syria is natural and historical subject. you need to have some social studies background before you blame your confusion on the articleSyrian10 (talk) 04:24, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * "Greater Syria" can be equated with Ash-Shâm (اَلـشَّـام). Leo1pard (talk) 10:02, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Fixes needed in the map
There are a few things that are confusing in the Greater Syria map, and have to be fixed.

The most important is that Iran is colored white blue, as if there was a sea entity on the eastern border of Greater Syria. The color must be changed to brown or something similar.

The second issue is the state of Jordan, which, according to Saadeh's vision, is a part of GS. The borders on the map should be the same as Jordan's borders. The same thing should be done with Kuwait.

There is also a minor issue with the Saudi Arabia area divided into three parts, for unknown reasons. It should be a single entity.

-- Gabi S. (talk) 11:22, 4 July 2010 (UTC) --- Thank you Gabi for addressing these mistakes. however your correction came on political level. please refer to the article Antoun Saadeh where I addressed the same issue. There is important thing about the layer of society starting from Natural geography in the first layer to Immediate social life in the second layer like Mood, Food and Music to Culture including language and religion in the third layer to the Political structure in the forth layer. When we talk about the MAP of greater Syria we are talking about what we see from the Plane if we are to fly over that land, this view we answer us why people in this area have the same NUTS mood, great same food and why they listen to very similar music. if you see from this angle you can understand that unity actually exist and there is no need to wars to unify this land. The difference come only on the political level like having multiple operating systems on your Computer hard drive, each one wants to claim all resources and conflict is the only possible result.Syrian10 (talk) 04:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Numerous mistakes
It appears that since I rewrote this article about 1 year ago numerous false and POV edits have been made. It looks like no body is watching over this article. There are many factual mistakes. Just one example, since when did Cyprus become part of Syria? This is a POV edit made by one of Antun Saade followers.--HD86 (talk) 06:24, 25 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Now there is, or shall I say, "there was." The page has been changed. Leo1pard (talk) 10:04, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Bilad al-Sham is...
...is a subarticle of this.

In terms of the move to Syria (historical region), it is a better name for the contents of this article since it is not primarily about Syrian nationalism - only one small section is. The contents of this article are about the region, which was only called "Greater Syria" by modern nationalists.

Oncenawhile (talk) 08:35, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You clearly have objection to this move by me and FunkMonk. If you still desire to move to "Historic Syria", please offer a move proposal per wikipedia guidelines. I don't want an edit-warring here for no reason.Greyshark09 (talk) 15:12, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't want to fight either. Let's discuss now, then we can formalize later if we need to. Currently this article is not clear what it's about - is it talking about a region, or a nationalistic concept? These are different things. What do you want this article to be about? If you want it to be about nationalism, that's fine. But then we'd need another broader article about the historical region. PS i'm not sure FunkMonk is still objecting here - perhaps he agreed with my point above. Oncenawhile (talk) 19:55, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Very clear what it is about - "Greater Syria" an Arab nationalist irredentist concept, like Greater Morocco or Greater Yemen. "Historic Syria" is practically the same - "historic" is used for nationalist irredentist purposes, same as "Historic Iran", "Historic Palestine" or "Historic Mexico" - same same. There is absolutely no need to dislink Syria (state) and Syria (country), despite the Syrian civil war. Only when and if Syria indeed breaks apart into whatever states / entities, the current article on Syriam state is to be renamed into "Republic of Syria (1970-20??)" and new articles on then current states to be created.Greyshark09 (talk) 19:26, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually I agree with Oncenawhile, Bilad ash-sham and Greater Syria are synonyms used more or less for the same geographical area. Now, the Syrian nationalist ideology adds other areas to Bilad ash-sham to make up their Greater Syria, their extra areas include Cyprus, Sinai, Iraq, and Kuwait. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 21:09, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I think there are two distinct topics here:
 * One is an "umbrella" for the historical periods for the region called Syria and Shams, the borders of which were not fixed and changed over time. For example Syria (Roman province), Bilad al-Sham and Ottoman Syria. As Amr says above, for the last 2000 years (since the Seleucid–Parthian wars) the region of "Syria" has not included areas East of the Euphrates.
 * The second is the 20th century nationalist concept of Greater Syria, which has been envisaged in different ways by different people.
 * So one topic is about history and the other is about nationalism.
 * Greyshark, would you object to splitting the article along these lines?
 * Oncenawhile (talk) 15:39, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * First of all i may be neutral on your split, but that depends on the exact name: "historic Syria" in my view is the same irredentist term as "greater Syria". you have also to consider that there are already articles on Levant, Eastern Mediterranean and Ottoman Syria, which all deal with the same area and all use Arabic term "a-Sham" (Syria).Greyshark09 (talk) 19:43, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok great. The name of the article should simply be Syria, as the article is intendes to be about the historical application of that word to various regions in various time periods. The question then is what should be in the brackets afterwards, as clearly the modern coutry of Syria is the main article for that name. Options include:
 * Syria (region)
 * Syria (Shams)
 * Syria (historical)
 * Syria (historical region)
 * Do you like any of these, or have any other options in mind?
 * On your point re other articles on similar regional terms, this is commonplace - see for example the many articles on the Palestine region (e.g. Southern Levant, Holy Land, Land of Israel, Southern Syria etc)
 * Oncenawhile (talk) 12:47, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The only option i don't mind is "Syria (region)". "Syria (Shams)" means nonsense (Sun of Syria?) - maybe you mean "Syria (al-Sham)". "Historic Syria", "Historical Syria" or "Historical region of Syria" are all nationalist-irredentist concepts and hence are practically the same as "Greater Syria".Greyshark09 (talk) 14:51, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * On second thought - "Syria (region)" will be almost the same as "Ottoman Syria", how do you differentiate them?Greyshark09 (talk) 14:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Greyshark, my proposal is that the Syria (region) article will cover the whole period of history as an umbrella article, just as articles like Palestine, Maghreb, Mesopotamia, Bengal or Punjab, to name a few. This is very common for regions covered in our Divided regions article. Oncenawhile (talk) 00:25, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't mind if you split Syria (region), similar to Mesopotamia, Levant, Palestine (region). Just make a clear definition that Greater Syria is a nationalist concept, while Syria (region) refers to various geographic definitions of Syria throughout history (Assyria, Roman Syria, Byzantine Syria Prima, Bilad al-sham, Mamluk Bilad al-sham, Ottoman Syria, French Mandate states, Republic of Syria and finally Ba'athist Syria).Greyshark09 (talk) 16:38, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

This whole article is a joke. I mean seriously, Greater Syria is not exclusively a nationalistic concept. Please cite where it states that it is, and please, don't give me some two bit "scholar". بلاد الشا, or Greater Syria existed way before nationalism appeared in the Middle East. I mean the clearest indication of this was during the Umayyad Caliphate. The spareness of this article is appalling and you guys are wasting your time trying to categorize what it is. While it is utilized by Nationalists, it is a historical entity that was broken apart by imperial interests. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.71.141.202 (talk) 23:36, 14 April 2016 (UTC)


 * "Greater Syria" can be equated with Ash-Shâm (اَلـشَّـام). Leo1pard (talk) 10:02, 11 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Here is the discussion. Leo1pard (talk) 15:44, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Now what is the problem? Leo1pard (talk) 09:39, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Page views
Leo1pard (talk) 10:02, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Why I merged Greater Syria with Syria (region)
I did it for a number of reasons. One is that "Greater Syria" can be equated with Ash-Shâm (اَلـشَّـام), so it is not entirely a political concept that is separate from the geographical concept of the Syrian region. Another is to reduce the number of articles that are about Ash-Shaam, hence related. Leo1pard (talk) 10:02, 11 March 2018 (UTC)


 * You cannot merge a mature page without discussion. If you like - you should propose a deletion procedure.GreyShark (dibra) 13:29, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

There already was a discussion, check the section above. I have said repeatedly to check this page. Leo1pard (talk) 15:43, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * You have not participated in that discussion.GreyShark (dibra) 09:26, 3 September 2018 (UTC)