Homs is an important city in Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is located in western Syria in the fertile valley of the Nahr al-Asi (in ancient times Orontes) and is the third largest city in the country with around one million inhabitants; only Damascus and Aleppo are more populated. The climate is mild and humid by Syrian standards. Homs has been heavily affected by the civil war in Syria. The following information essentially refers to the pre-war status.
Homs is home to the Khalid ibn al-Walīd Mosque, where the general
Khalid ibn al-Walīd is buried, the Great Mosque of Nuri and the Church
of the Holy Belt, famous for its age. Only a few remains of the citadel
remain. Other sights include other mosques and churches, as well as the
historic city gates and traditional souks. Homs has a university and an
oil refinery. Homs is also a transport hub and offers access to the
Mediterranean via the Homs Depression, which is protected by the
important Krak des Chevaliers castle.
The Church of St. Elian of
the Greek Orthodox Church, dating back to 432, and the Church of St.
Mary of the Holy Belt of the Syrian Orthodox Church, dating back to 50,
are still in use today. The cathedral of the Greek Orthodox Church is
the Forty Martyrs Cathedral of Homs, which was badly damaged in the
civil war in Syria.
The current population is not known exactly. Estimates range from 650,000 to 1,200,000. For the 1920s, 55,000 are given, of which 20,000 were Christians, for the 1960s 170,000, including suburbs 300,000.
Settlement on the citadel hill dates back to the 3rd millennium BC.
The hill was continuously inhabited during the Bronze Age. However, very
little is known about the prehistoric population due to insufficient
archaeological research. So far, it has not been possible to identify
Emesa with one of the cities mentioned in ancient Near Eastern texts.
After the end of the Bronze Age, archaeological evidence of continued
settlement is lacking for more than a millennium. Mention in narrative
sources only begins during the period of Roman rule.
The name
Emesa is of Semitic origin. The geographer Strabo mentions an "ethnos"
(people or tribe) of the Emeseners. In the 1st century BC, the area of
Emesa was under the control of Arab princes ("kings"). It can be
assumed that the Arab upper class was recruited from immigrant nomadic
tribes who had settled there during the time of the Seleucid Empire. The
first of these princes to be clearly identified is Sampsigeramos I, who
captured and killed the Seleucid king Antiochos XIII in 64 BC and had a
good relationship with Pompey. His small kingdom, which also included
the city of Arethusa (now Restan or Rastan), was evidently a serious
regional power at the time. The princes from the Sampsigeramid family
were vassals of the Roman Empire and took part in the Roman civil wars.
Marcus Antonius had Sampsigeramos I's son and successor, Iamblichos I,
executed in 31 BC. A brother of Iamblichos then came to power. He was
friends with Marcus Antonius and was executed after his defeat on the
orders of the victorious Octavian, later Emperor Augustus. Augustus
appointed Iamblichos II, a son of Iamblichos I, as ruler. The city of
Emesa may not have been founded until this time.
Like Palmyra,
155 km to the east, Emesa experienced an economic and cultural boom in
the early Roman Empire thanks to its location on the caravan route to
the Persian Gulf. During the time of the emperors Nero and Vespasian,
the prince of Emesa took part in the war against the Jews and the
conquest and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD with a strong army.
Emperor Domitian apparently abolished Emesa's independence and
incorporated the city into the Roman province of Syria.
A special
feature of Emesa was the cult of the god Elagabal, which was first
attested in the 1st century AD; it was in all probability very old and
went back to the pre-Arab population. Originally he was a local mountain
god; later his followers elevated him to the status of sun god and thus
the highest of all gods. In the period 138/143 AD, Emesa coinage with
the symbols of Elagabal began to be minted. At the centre of the
Elagabal cult was a huge, roughly beehive-shaped, bumpy black stone
(meteorite?), which was kept in a magnificent, famous temple (see stone
cult).
The dignity of the high priest was hereditary in a family
that probably descended from the old princely family of Emesa. This
family included the Roman empress Julia Domna, the wife of Septimius
Severus (193–211); her sons were Emperor Caracalla (211–217) and his
temporary co-regent Geta. The younger sister of this empress, Julia
Maesa, was the politically very influential grandmother of the emperors
Elagabal (218–222) and Severus Alexander (222–235). In the period
211–235 the Roman Empire was thus ruled by descendants of the Elagabal
priests of Emesa (apart from an interruption in 217–218).
Emperor
Elagabalus brought the holy stone to Rome in 219 and elevated the
Elagabalus cult to the Roman state religion. As a result, the worship of
Elagabalus briefly gained world-historical significance. After the
assassination of this emperor (222), the stone was brought back to
Emesa. The cult continued to flourish there.
During the imperial
crisis of the 3rd century, Emesa was the target of Persian attacks (see
Uranius Antoninus). In 261, the city was the residence of the Roman
rival emperor Quietus. In 272, Emperor Aurelian defeated the army of the
Palmyrene ruler Zenobia at Emesa and then went to the Elagabalus temple
to fulfill a vow. In late antiquity, in 284, Emperor Diocletian had the
Orontes dammed near the city with a 2 km long dam to form Lake Homs, the
largest Roman water reservoir in the Middle East.
Emesa had long been a bishop's seat; the first bishop known by name died in the Diocletian persecution. Around the middle of the 4th century, Bishop Eusebius of Emesa emerged as a theological writer. Another prominent bishop was Nemesius of Emesa, who around 400 wrote the important work On the Nature of Man, which was important for the history of anthropology. In 452, the head of John the Baptist, a relic of very high rank, was found in a monastery near Emesa. It was probably under the impression of this event that the diocese attained the rank of a metropolitan see. Nothing is known about Orthodox metropolitans in the following period, however, because after the Council of Chalcedon (451) there was a schism in the church, and the very strong opponents of Chalcedon in the region (Monophysites) set up a competing metropolitan see. They were persecuted by the state. When the Persians, under the emperors Phocas and Heraclius, initially achieved great success in their long war against Byzantium, they were able to conquer Emesa in 609 and hold it until 628.
When the Byzantines had to evacuate Syria after their defeat against
the Arabs in the decisive battle at Yarmouk, Emesa fell into the hands
of the victors without resistance in 636. According to a report passed
down by al-Balādhurī (d. ca. 892), Kindit as-Simt ibn al-Aswad
negotiated a peace treaty with the inhabitants of the city, which Abū
ʿUbaida ibn al-Dscharrāh subsequently ratified. As-Simt then divided the
city into quarters (ḫiṭaṭ) to accommodate the Muslims, and then had them
move into all the buildings that had been vacated and abandoned by their
inhabitants. Later, his son Shurahbīl ibn Simt served as governor of
Homs for about 20 years. Numerous companions of the Prophet settled in
Homs. The demographic situation changed permanently due to a large
immigration of Yemenis. During the First Civil War, Shurahbīl helped
Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān to mobilize the Syrian Arabs against ʿAlī ibn
Abī Tālib. At the Battle of Siffin (657), however, the inhabitants of
Homs were on ʿAlī's side. After Shurahbīl's death, Muʿāwiya appointed
the Kindite Mālik ibn Hubaira as governor of Homs.
In 944, the
city was taken by Saif ad-Daula and thus came under the rule of the
Hamdanids of Aleppo. In 969, the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas
conquered Homs, but when the Byzantines withdrew in 973, the Hamdanids
returned. In 995, the Byzantines under Emperor Basil II were able to
temporarily regain control of Homs. These battles caused terrible
devastation.
The Crusaders, who called the city La Chamelle,
never managed to take Homs, but the city became an important base for
their opponents. It was excellently fortified and had excellent
irrigation systems, but was devastated by earthquakes in 1157 and 1170.
In 1175, Saladin conquered the city, but then left it under the control
of a local dynasty, the Asadis.
During the Mongol invasion, Homs
was captured by Hülegü's troops in 1260. After the Mongols were
expelled, the Mamluks took power. In 1400, Homs was captured by Timur
Lenk.
In 1516, Syria, and with it Homs, came under Ottoman rule.
The city had been known for its weaving and silk production since the
Middle Ages and has remained a center of the textile industry in modern
times. However, it experienced a decline during the Ottoman period; in
the late 18th century, it is said to have been only a village of around
2,000 inhabitants.
In 2011 and 2012, the protest stronghold was the target of massive
attacks by the Syrian army and the Syrian secret services, which are
trying to suppress opposition protests against the government of
President Bashar al-Assad. A tank attack on February 3, 2012, claimed
the lives of over 200 people in Homs, according to opposition sources.
On February 22, 2012, journalists Rémi Ochlik and Marie Colvin were
among those killed in a bombing.
In April 2012, the Farouk
Brigades were accused of collecting jizya in the Christian quarters of
Homs, an extra tax on non-Muslims living under Muslim rule. The group
denied this. According to the Institute for the Study of War, this
accusation probably came from the government. According to reports from
the evangelical community, on February 26, 2012, the so-called "Black
Sunday", rebels attacked several churches in Homs, including the
National Evangelical Church of Homs, whose roof was destroyed by a
direct hit from a rocket. About 50,000 Christians left the districts of
the city occupied by the rebels. According to Fides, at the end of March
2012 about 1,000 of the original 140,000 Christians remained in the
city. According to reports from Greek Orthodox Christians in the city,
after taking over the Christian districts of al-Hamidiya and Bustan
al-Diwan, the Islamist invaders from the Faruq Brigades indiscriminately
drove all Christians out of their homes there and confiscated them for
their own purposes. Jesuits denied that this was the cause of the exodus
from Homs. They said that Christians were not specifically attacked;
they fled because of the ongoing conflict. However, employees of Aid to
the Church in Need (ACN) confirmed reports of the expulsion of
Christians. The Jesuit priest Frans van der Lugt, who had criticized
both the rebels and the Syrian government for their attacks on the rebel
stronghold of Homs, was executed on April 7, 2014 by a shot to the head
- presumably by members of the al-Nusra Front.
At the end of June
2013, government troops and pro-government militias launched an
offensive to wrest control of several districts from the rebels. They
used air power and artillery to destroy key positions held by rebel
troops.
The situation of the civilian population trapped in parts
of Homs was the subject of the Syria conference held in Geneva at the
end of January 2014, at which representatives of the Syrian government
and the Syrian National Coalition held direct talks for the first time.
The government promised to allow aid measures for the population in the
besieged districts. On February 6, 2014, the civil war parties finally
agreed to a three-day "humanitarian ceasefire". During the ceasefire,
women, children and the elderly were to be evacuated from Homs and aid
supplies were to be delivered to the city under the leadership of the
UNHCR. The first civilians left Homs on February 7, 2014, and despite
the broken ceasefire, the first United Nations aid convoy reached the
besieged districts one day later. Homs was taken by government troops at
the beginning of May 2014. At the beginning of December 2015, the last
held district was evacuated by the rebels after an agreement with the
government to allow safe passage to rebel areas and to stop the attacks.
The final surrender of the city, which had long been considered the
capital of the rebels, was described in the media as a devastating blow
for the rebels. In February 2016, the first hundred residents returned
to their destroyed homes. On February 21, 2016, a district of Homs
inhabited predominantly by Alawites was the target of a series of
attacks. There were also several explosions in the capital Damascus on
the same day. At least 140 people were killed in both attacks. The
terrorist organization ISIS claimed responsibility.
On September
22, 2016, the last rebel fighters in Homs surrendered. Government troops
assured them and their families from the Al-Waer district of the city of
Homs that they would be allowed to travel safely to rebel areas in the
north. The withdrawal of the fighters and their families began on March
18, 2017 and lasted several weeks.
Anicetus (around 95–around 163), Bishop of Rome, Saint
Iulius
Alexander († around 190), rebel against the Roman Emperor Commodus
Julia Domna († 217), second wife of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus
and the mother of the Emperors Caracalla and Geta
Romanos Melodos
(around 485–555/562), Byzantine poet
Riad al-Turk (1930–2024),
democracy activist
Iwannis Louis Awad (1934–2020), Syrian Catholic
clergyman and Apostolic Exarch of Venezuela
Hassan Taha (* 1968),
Syrian composer, oud player and horn player
Firas Al Khatib (* 1983),
football player
Fadwa al-Bouza (* 1990), athlete
Mousa Dagher (*
1991), basketball referee
Abdul Baset Al-Sarout (1992–2019), football
player and resistance fighter