Watt, W. Montgomery. ‘‘Shiqism under the Umayyads.’’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, n.s., 92, nos. 3–4 (1960): 158–172. Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. ‘‘Sectarianism in Pakistan: The Radicalization of Shiqi and Sunni Identities.’’ Modern Asian Studies 32, no. 3 (1998): 689–716. Maria M. Dakake George Mason University SUYUTI, AL- (848/1445–911/1505) Al-Suyuti was an Egyptian scholar best known for his prolific writings on prophetic tradition (hadith), Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), Qurpanic studies, Arabic language, and related subjects. The son of a minor religious scholar, he was trained in the Sunni religious disciplines and held several endowed academic positions in Cairo. Convinced that he alone was truly learned in an age of scholarly decline, he compiled a series of works intended to pre- serve the fundamentals of classical Sunni scholarship for posterity. His sense of his own superiority and his quick- ness to denigrate others’ abilities provoked his colleagues, and he was embroiled in numerous scholarly disputes. His claims to be qualified to give independent legal opinions (ijtihad ) and to be the reviver of Islamic knowl- edge at the beginning of the sixteenth century CE were highly controversial. Al-Suyuti’s relationship with the Mamluk sultans who ruled Egypt was also an uneasy one, since he firmly believed that the religious scholars (ulema), as guardians of God’s law, should be the supreme authorities in the state. Toward the end of his life, frustrated and disheartened, al-Suyuti relinquished his public posts and sought consolation in mysticism (tasawwuf ). He continued to write, leaving at his death over 550 books and treatises on a wide range of subjects. Several works are still in use as valuable references. Some modern scholars have dismissed him as a mere compiler, but this judgment underrates his scholarly contributions, especially in the fields of jurisprudence, prophetic tradi- tion, and Arabic language. SEE ALSO Arabic Language; Hadith; Ijtihad; Sufism. BIBLIOGRAPHY Garcin, Jean-Claude. ‘‘Histoire, opposition politique et pie ´tisme traditionaliste dans le Husn al-muhadarat de Suyuti.’’ Annales Islamologiques 7 (1967): 33–90. Jackson, Roy. ‘‘Al-Suyuti (1445–1505).’’ In Fifty Key Figures in Islam. London: Routledge, 2006. Sartain, Elizabeth M. Jalal al-din al-Suyuti. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1975. E. M. Sartain Emeritus Associate Professor, Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations American University in Cairo, Egypt SYRIA Syria is a predominantly Arabic-speaking country located in the Middle East, bordered by Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and the Mediterranean Sea. Its territory covers 185,180 square kilometers (71,500 square miles), which includes the Golan Heights, Syrian territory occu- pied by Israel since 1967. Its population in 2010 was estimated to be 22 million (reduced to 18 million by 2015 as a result of war-related population displacement). Until the late 1990s most Syrians lived in rural areas where the economy depended on farming. However, rapid urbanization since the 1960s, the rise of new eco- nomic sectors, and the impact of a severe drought late in the first decade of the twenty-first century diminished agriculture’s relative importance. In 2011, 56 percent of Syria’s population lived in urban areas. From the 1980s onward oil and gas extraction became an important contributor to Syria’s gross domestic product (GDP) and its export earnings, and earnings from tourism became significant in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Light industries—including cement, textiles, and fertilizers—developed in the decades after World War II (1939–1945). Small-scale handicrafts continued to be a mainstay of old and historic central-city markets. Syria’s major ethnic groups are Arabs (90%) and Kurds (9%), with smaller communities of Armenians, Circassians, and Syriac Christians. In religious terms, the Syrian population in 2010 was predominantly Sunni Muslim (71%), with geographically concentrated minor- ities of Alawites (12%), Christians (10%), and Druze (3%). Other religiously defined communities include Twelver or Imami Shiqites (3%) and Ismaqilis (1%). All these percentage figures are approximations. Syria’s capital is Damascus, and its second-largest city (until 2011 a major industrial and cultural center in its own right) is Aleppo. All the historically significant Syrian cities (Damascus and Aleppo plus Homs and Hama) have central mosques whose foundations go back to the early years of Islam. These mosques usually were built on the same sites as preceding Byzantine churches, which in their turn had supplanted Hellenistic-Roman temples in late antiquity. Syria’s major Muslim holy sites are in Damascus, where the Umayyad Mosque houses a reputed tomb of St. John the Baptist (Yahya in the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD, 2ND EDITION 1121 Syria COPYRIGHT 2016 Gale, Cengage Learning WCN 02-200-210