, “iron bridge”, name of a bridge over the Orontes in the lower part of its course, at the point where the river, emerging from the valleys of the calcareous plateau and widening towards the depression of al-ʿAmḳ [ q.v.], turns sharply westwards without being lost in that marshy depression whose waters it partly drains to the sea. The fame of This toponym, frequently mentioned in mediaeval documents but of obscure origin (perhaps local legend), is explained by the strategic and commercial importance of This stage, through which, in a…

, a place, no longer extant, in northern Syria, whose name is very probably a word of Syriac origin meaning “mosquito”, from which fact H. Lammens has inferred that the region was a marshy one. It figures in the Arabic texts of the first centuries of Islam. Nothing is known of its more ancient history, but it is mentioned in the narratives of the conquest by Abū ʿUbayda of the provinces of Antioch and Ḳinnasrīn, and appears to have had a certain importance in Umayyad times. Then it was near the …

or D̲j̲isr al-S̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr , the modern name of a place in north Syria, the site of a bridge over the Orontes which has always been an important centre of communications in an area that is mountainous and difficult to traverse. It was in fact at This spot that the most direct route from the Syrian coast to the steppes in the interior and the Euphrates, passing over the D̲j̲abal Nuṣayri and the Limestone Massif, crossed the line of communications that ran north-south and followe…

, former town in northern Syria, which was both a port on the Western bank of the Euphrates and an important stage, 100 km. from Aleppo and at the entrance to the D̲j̲azīra, of the road from Antioch and the Mediterranean leading, via al-Raḳḳa, to Bag̲h̲dād and ʿIrāḳ. The commercial and agricultural prosperity of the town was doubtless due to its situation at a point of intersection of river and land highways, and in a warm valley where the irrigation possibilites favoured the development of husbandry. Known in antiquity under the Aramaic and Greek names of BYT BLS and Barbalissos…