Al-Shām (the Levant)

The name

Al-Shām is the left hand. The lexicographers pair it with al-Yaman: stand at the Kaʿba facing the sunrise, and Yemen lies on your right — al-yumn, the right side and the fortunate one — while this country lies on your left, from al-shuʾmā, the left hand. The two great names of the Arab north and south are a single pair of directions taken from one standing point. A derivation from Sām, the sīn become a shīn, is also reported, as the geographers habitually explain very old names; it is reported rather than documented.

Extent

From the Euphrates to al-ʿArīsh at the edge of Egypt, and from the sea inland to the desert. The administrative geographies divide the country into the ajnād — Dimashq, Ḥimṣ, Qinnasrīn, al-Urdunn and Filasṭīn — and a place is usually located in the sources by naming its jund. Al-Shām in this classical sense is the whole country and not one state: Sūriyā as the name of a state is modern, and what the sources call al-Shām is spread today across several countries.

In genealogy

Al-Shām is the standing northern destination in the migration accounts. The sources place Quḍāʿah, Ṭayyiʾ and others in this country, reached by the northern road that runs through al-Jawf and Dūmat al-Jandal and past Tabūk. Those accounts are transmitted narrative, and the sources differ over who went, when and how far. An association with al-Shām records where a group is placed; it is not a statement about anyone's descent.