Early Christianity in Arabia/Section 14

by Thomas Wright

SECTION XIV.

The invasion and conquest of Hamyar by the Persians, afforded a pretext for continuing the wars between the king and the Romans; the latter complained of the hostility of the Persians towards their ally the king of Ethiopia, and the Persians easily found causes for complaints in return.^[1] In the beginning of the reign of Maurice this war was not ended,^[2] and the Saracens still attended the Roman army for the purpose of reconnoitring the enemy, and making incursions into his territories;^[3] but they began to be the subject of great distrust, on account of their inconstancy and faithlessness.^[4] A continued peace lasted during the reign of Khosroës Parviz, who, on the usurpation of Baharam, had been escorted through the desert by the Arab chiefs^[5] to the territory of Rome, and had recovered the throne of his ancestors by the assistance of Maurice,^[6] although the friendly understanding between the two empires had been nearly broken by the predatory incursions of the Roman Arabs into the territory of Babylon.^[7] Hostilities, however, commenced after the death of Maurice, and in the Persian war, which lasted from this period till the victories of Heraclius, the Roman and Persian Saracens make again a considerable figure.^[8]

Till after the conquest of Mecca, the progress of Muhammed had been unobserved by, perhaps unknown to, the great powers around. The victorious army of Noushirwan was overrunning the richest tracts of Syria, and was only separated from the capital of the Cæsars by the breadth of the Hellespont; but the coffers of Persia were emptied and its best blood wasted in a continuance of desperate efforts, and it would require no very prophetic spirit to foresee that their conquests must soon be abandoned.

After having at Mecca given a death-blow to the power of his idolatrous opponents, Muhammed began to make advances towards the subversion of Christianity. The chief of the Taiites was a Christian named Adi; his subjects, we are told, were idolaters, and he was obliged to seek refuge in Syria from the arms of the prophet; but his wife and family fell into the hands of the victor, and he was compelled to redeem them by his apostacy.^[9] The Christian inhabitants of Dûmato'l-Gjaudal, a town on the frontiers of Syria, five days from Damascus, and fifteen or sixteen from Medina,^[10] were induced by the persuasions of Abdo'l-Rahman to accept the faith of Islam, and the daughter of their prince, who was a Calbite and named Ashas, was betrothed to their converter.^[11] But their conversion was perhaps insincere, for after the battle of Muta Muhammed was obliged to confirm them by force in their new religion;^[12] and at the same time the church of the tribe of Ganam, whose crime, according to the Arabian writers, was that of hypocrisy, was levelled with the ground.^[13] But the conquests of Muhammed only extended as yet over the northern districts of Arabia, while the whole of Yaman was subject to Badhân, the Persian viceroy.

From Medina Muhammed had directed letters to the sovereigns of the various kingdoms around, to invite them to embrace the new religion, and among the rest to the king of Persia.^[14] The Khosroës treated his proposals with contempt, and dispatched an order to the governor of Hamyar to send him either the head or the body of the impostor. But Muhammed was safe amongst his followers from the distant threats of his enemies; Badhân, perhaps, was little inclined to perform the commands of his master, and the dominions of the great king were devoted to future division and destruction by the malediction of the prophet.^[15] The latter part of the reign of Khosroës Parviz was clouded by his crimes and his imprudence; he became hateful to his subjects; they revolted against him, confined him in a subterraneous apartment where he had kept his treasures, and raised his son Shoruïa or Siroës to the throne, who commenced his reign by the murder of his father.^[16] Muhammed, who had been early informed of this event by his emissaries, before it could have reached the peninsula, pretended to have received the news by supernatural means the same moment in which it occurred, and immediately sent an account of it to the governor of Yaman, who, convinced by this pretended miracle, perhaps before determined in his mind, deserted the service of Persia, accepted the proffered grace, and became the convert and subject of the ruler of Mecca, and brought with him the greater part of the people of Yaman.^[17] The power of the prophet was increased by the conversion of the mondar of Hirah, who also deserted the Khosroës, and afterwards distinguished himself by his bravery in the cause of Islam against the Persians. About the same time he was joined, though reluctantly, by Howadah ibn Ali, the Christian king of Yemama.^[18]

The dissensions among the Christians greatly assisted the designs of their enemies. The greater part of the Arabs had been separated from the Roman interest by the persecution of their Monophysite pastors. The faith of Heraclius leaned towards his Jacobite subjects, and he was accused of being a Monothelite,^[19] and of having drawn upon himself the judgment of heaven for his heretical opinions;^[20] yet most of them preferred seeking protection from the new power which had risen in Arabia, to being exposed to the implacable resentment of their enemies, under the precarious protection of the court of Byzantium. In Egypt the two parties were powerful; the Melchites^[21] possessed the capital, and the Copts, or Egyptian Jacobites, waged a continual but useless war from the cloisters of the Thebaid. Muhammed was perhaps well aware of the state of affairs in Egypt; at least, his invitation was directed to the Coptic primate, and not to the orthodox ruler of Alexandria. If the Egyptian Christians were unwilling to change their faith, they were not unwilling to change masters, and they expected to profit by the change. The messenger of the prophet was honourably entertained, and returned with four valuable gems, two virgins, of whom one named Mary was the mother of his son Ibrahim, a mule named Daldal, and an ass whose name was Ya'fur, as presents to his master.^[22] Muhammed well knew the importance of this alliance; and, as he might already contemplate the future conquest of Egypt, the Copts were allowed to continue in their faith; they purchased the protection of the Arabians by a trifling tribute,^[23] and the prophet was heard to express his benevolent regard for the Copts of Egypt.^[24]

The Monophysites of Arabia and Syria were no less ready to change their masters than the Copts. Many of them sought refuge from their Catholic persecutors in the camp of the Moslem, and their bishops and priests went to negotiate an alliance and a tribute.^[25] Seid, the Christian prince of Nadjran, with the patriarch Jesujabus, procured by their valuable gifts a favourable audience of Muhammed himself; they demanded a written document of alliance between the Christians and the Arabs who had embraced the predatory faith of Islam, and the diploma of the prophet stipulated that his subjects should defend them from their enemies; that they should never be compelled to go to fight, or to change their religion; that their priests should be free of tribute, and that that of the laity should be confined within moderate bounds;^[26] that the Christians should be allowed to repair their churches, and that Christian slaves might serve among the Arabians without changing their faith.^[27] Similar diplomas are said to have been granted by some of the earlier khalifs to different societies of Christians, perhaps under the guidance of a similar policy.^[28] The influence of these lenient measures was quickly perceived in the Roman territories. A lieutenant of Syria is recorded to have deserted the service of Heraclius for the religion of the Koran.^[29] The invitation of Muhammed to the king of Ghassan, Hareth ibn Abu-Shamar, had been treated with coldness and neglect,^[30] but a similar message to Gabala, the last of the Syro-Arabian princes, who was residing at Tadmor, was followed by his conversion, and he continued a strict Mussulman till the khalifate of Omar, when he was accused of resenting with violence an insult which he had received from a Fazarite, whilst he was religiously performing the circuit of the Kaaba. The affair was brought before the khalif, the Arab bore the marks of his injuries, and the offender was condemned to punishment according- to the laws of talion,^[31] or publicly to beg the pardon of the man whom he had injured. The king of Ghassan was unwilling to submit to either; he fled to Constantinople, again turned Christian, and remained so to the end of his days. "May God," says the Moslem historian, "preserve us from so great a misfortune, and from a crime so enormous."^[32]

The Arabians boast that the embassy of Muhammed was received with favour by Heraclius, who was then at Emessa, or Hems, on his return from his Persian expedition; they even assert that in secret he had embraced the faith of the prophet.^[33] The Christian writers assure us that the emperor was personalty visited by Muhammed, and that he granted him a district of land on the borders of Syria.^[34] This parade of his peaceful intentions was not, however, long kept up. The murder of the Muhummedan ambassador to the governor of Bostra by Sherheil al Mutar, a Christian chief of the district of Balka, afforded a plausible pretext for hostilities. Three thousand Moslems invaded the Syrian territories of Rome to revenge the insult, and advanced to Muta, in the domain of Balka; the Roman army which opposed them was composed chiefly of Arabs.^[35] The battle of Muta was obstinately disputed, and three of Muhammed's favourite generals fell, but the faithful believers were led back in safety to Yatreb, by Khaled, the future conqueror of Syria.^[36] The hostile intentions of Muhammed towards the Greeks were now no longer disguised; it was reported that the emperor was preparing to stop the career of the impostor, and the latter, immediately after the conquest of Mecca, publicly declared war against the empire of Roum, and collected an army for the invasion of Syria. He proceeded as far as Tabuc, on the road to Damascus, but the perils of the expedition and the discontent of his followers obliged him to retreat, and he declared himself satisfied of the peaceable intentions of his enemies.^[37] But the failure of his Syrian expedition was compensated by the reduction of the territory on the Euphrates, and the kingdom of Hirah fell finally beneath the sword of Khaled Ebno'l Walid.^[38] The impostor was now less scrupulous towards the Christians; another revelation urged the making war on all unbelievers; and; though his projects were frustrated by his death, his last command was the invasion of Syria, and the revenge of his generals who fell at Muta.^[39] The Syrian provinces had been but lately ravaged by the arms of the Persians, and were in no condition to make a powerful resistance.^[40] Within a few years after the death of the prophet, the crescent had spread its baleful influence over Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Egypt.

With the death of Muhammed the last sparks of Christianity in Arabia were extinguished. The professions of Abubeker, were marked by a spirit of moderation,^[41] but he was surrounded by men whose only virtues were ferocious bravery and an unrelenting hatred to the enemies of their religion. The treatment of the conquered infidels accorded but little with those which, from such professions, we might be led to expect. The Christians of Jerusalem were subjected to a heavy tribute, and to such galling conditions as were calculated to give a tolerable foretaste of what might follow.^[42] The treatment of the Christians of Egypt was not less rigorous.^[43]

Whether any Christians were left in the peninsula of Arabia at the death of Muhammed may be reasonably doubted. His dying injunction was that his native country might be inhabited solely by believers; and it was rigorously enforced in the khalifate of Omar, who is said to have banished from Arabia the Jews who were left at Chaibar.^[44] Yet we read of a bishop of Yaman and Sanaa in Arabia, who must have flourished during the eighth century,^[45] and of a priest of Yaman at the commencement of the tenth.^[46]

Empires and kingdoms, like men, have their diseases and failings, their periods of health, of decline, and recovery; and the page of history is intended to expose their vices, and by comparison to shew their remedies. If the fall of empires is determined and hastened by an over-ruling Providence, it is when their diseases are become incurable, and consequently when the only mode of permanently bettering mankind must be by their entire destruction. The infidel will boast exultingly that Christianity brought on the world the barbarism, ignorance, and intolerance which marked the latter days of the empire of Rome, and that the religion of Islam is as equally marked by the stamp of miraculous success and divine authority as that of Christ. But his boasting rests on the misrepresentation of what he is himself either unable or unwilling to understand. The spirit of Christianity was a spirit of peace, not of barbarism but of civilization. Ignorance was produced by war and conquest. With the rise of the Roman power, the fate of literature was decided, although various causes delayed for a time its final fall. The Romans were a people whose genius was formed for war and not for civilization. When the world was conquered, and none other remained accessible to their arms, they gave themselves up not to literature but to luxury, and their patronage of learning was but a spirit of emulation. Christianity was propagated in peace, but it became in its progress mixed and tainted with the manners and sentiments of the various people who received it. Persecution, perhaps, is one of the surest schools of tyranny and intolerance; the disciples of the Gospel underwent a long and arduous preparation in it, and when at length they obtained possession of the reins of power, we see that it had not been without effect.

A slight concurrence of circumstances ensured the success of Mohammedanism, and a still slighter might have destroyed it at its first appearance. If its progress from obscurity be a proof of its truth, the rise of Rome proved the truth of its idolatry. The empires of Rome and Persia have passed away, the power of the Saracens has fallen before the same causes, and that which succeeded it is quickly following, but Christianity has arisen superior to every obstacle, and is now spread over countries unknown to Christians of former days. The name of Hamyar has sunk into oblivion, but the native songs of Ethiopia still celebrate the memory of Elesbaan the conqueror of Yaman, and of Arethas the pious martyr of Nadjran.^[47]

1. Theophylact. Symocatta, Hist. lib. iii. c. 9.
2. Theophylact. lib. i. cc. 9, 12, 13, et seq. lib. ii. c. 1, &c.
3. Id. lib. ii. c. 10.
4. Απιστοτατον γαρ και αλλοπροσαλλον το Σαρακηνικον φυλον καθεστηκε, παγιον τε τον νουν και την γνωμην προς το σωφρον ἱδυμενην ουκ εχον. Theophylact. lib. iii. c. 17.
5. Nikbi ben Massoud, in the Notices et Extraits de la Bibliothèque du Roi, tom. ii. p. 354, et seq.
6. Theophylact. lib. iii. cc. 6—18. lib. iv. cc. 1—16. lib. v. cc. 1—15. gives the history of Persia during the reign of Maurice; as also Evagrius, lib. vi. c. 16.
7. Theophylact. lib. viii. c. 1.
8. George of Pisidia mentions the hostile Arabians in Heraclius' expedition:—
   Παρην τις αρχιφυλος ευτολμου γενους,
   Το Σαρακηνων ταγμα των πολυτριχων
   Αγων συν αυτῳ, και περισκυπων, οπως
   Λαθων επελθοι τῳ στρατῳ σου προς βλαβην.

   De Expedit. Heracl. Acroas. ii. v. 217.
9. Gagnier, Vie de Mahom. tom. ii. p. 211.
10. Soad al Yemenista, ap. Gagn. not. in Abulfed. p. 125. Al Edrisi makes it four stations from Timal.
11. Gagnier, tom. i. pp. 431, 432.
12. Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 225. Abulfeda de Vit. Moham. p. 125.
13. Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 229.
14. Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 30. Abulfed. p. 97.
15. Gagnier, ibid.
16. Mirkhond, ap. Gagn. p. 32. Nikbi ben Massoud, in the Notices et Extraits de la Bibl. du Roi, gives the history of the death of Parviz and his successors, tom. ii. pp. 358—364.
17. Gagn. p. 34. Abulfeda, pp. 93, 94.
18. Abulfeda, pp. 96, 97.
19. Zonaras, p. 85. tom. ii. Paris ed.
20. Per id tempus Cyrus Alexandrinus episcopus et Sergius Constantinopolitanus patriarcha Monothelitarum hæresin prædicabant, &c. Unde divino judicio Agareni, qui et Saraceni dicuntur, Hummaro duce, cœperunt lacerare. Chronica Saracenorum, in Bibliander, tom. ii. p. 1.
21. From continual usage the name of Melchites seems to have been applied to all who were of the party of the emperor, and a principle of the Jacobite faith seems to have been indiscriminate opposition. The difference in religious opinions between the two sects appears to have become very trifling, and to have consisted chiefly in terms and modes of expression. Amongst the principal charges against them urged by the Nestorians were, that their priests approached the altar barefooted — that they did not always receive the communion fasting — that they had many pictures in their churches — and, which was worst of all, that they placed pictures of Christ and the Virgin in their baths and other unclean places. Asseman, Bibl. Orient. tom. iii. p. 305.
22. Abulfeda, Vit. Muham. p. 97. Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 37.
23. Gagnier and Abulfeda, ibid. Makrizi, Hist. Copt. p. 89.
24. Dixit quoque: Benefacite Coptitis Ægypti: sunt enim vobis genere et affinitate juncti. Elmacin. Hist. Sarac. p. 11. Christiano Coptitæ qui nocet, mihi nocet. Abudacnus, Hist. Copt. præfat.
25. Asseman. tom. i. p. 494.
26. A laicis vero pauperibus nummos quatuor, a divitibus nummos duodecim dumtaxat.
27. Asseman. tom. ii. p. 418. Maracci, Vit. Moham. p. 28. An Arabic tract is still extant, bearing the title of a copy of this diploma, and has been published in several editions, but its authenticity has been much disputed.
28. Asseman. tom. iii. pars 2. p. xcv.
29. Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 252.
30. Abulfed. p. 96. Gagn. p. 41.
31. Millius, de Mohammedismo ante Mohammed, p. 9, has shewn that Muhammed transmitted to his posterity the same identical laws and modes of administration of justice as were in use among the pagan Arabs. See also the authorities he cites. The lex talionis is one instance.
32. Al Jannabi, ap. Gagn. tom. ii. p. 71. Rasmussen, Hist. Præcep. Arab. Regn. p. 46. Eichhorn, Monument. Antiq. Arab. p. 170.
33. Gagnier, pp. 34, 36.
34. Euthymius, p. 552 (in the Bib. Vet. Patr.). Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 86.
35. Abulfeda, p. 101.
36. Abulfeda, p. 100. Gagnier, tom. ii. pp. 327, 431. The Greek writers who mention the battle of Muta, call the castle he went against Μουχεων, the battle that of Μοθους. Theophanes, Chronograph. p. 278.
37. Abulfeda, p. 123.
38. Pococke, Spec. Hist. Arab. p. 75. Theophanes, p. 279.
39. Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 27. The Greek account of the war which followed, may be consulted in Theophanes, &c. The Arabian account, in Elmacin.
40. Cooperabant sane ad eorum propositum, quod paucis ante annis prædictus Cosdroe eandem Syriam violenter ingressus, urbes dejecerat, vel incenderat, suburbanasque ecclesias subverteus, populum captivaverat: et urbe sancta effracta, hostiliter in ea triginta sex civium millia gladio perimens, crucem dominicam, et loci ejusdem episcopum Zachariam, cum residuo populi tam urbis quam regionis universæ secum transtulit in Persidem. ... Ingressi igitur Arabes, terram habitatoribus reperientes vacuam, majorem subjiciendi eam sibi repererunt opportunitatem. Gulielmus Tyrius, lib. i. c. 2. Basil. ed.
41. See the instructions of Abubeker to his generals as given by Gibbon.
42. The following are the conditions of the capture of Jerusalem by Omar. "That the Christians should build no new churches, either in the city or the adjacent territory, either by night or day. That they should set open the doors of them to all passengers and travellers. If any Mussulman should be upon a journey, they should be obliged to entertain him gratis the space of three days. That they should not teach their children the Alcoran, nor talk openly of their religion, nor persuade any one to be of it: neither should they hinder any of their relations from becoming Mahometans, if they had an inclination to it. That they should pay respect to the Mussulmans, and rise up to them if they have a mind to sit down. That they should not go like the Mussulmans in their dress; nor wear such caps, shoes, nor turbants, nor part their hair as they do, nor speak after the same manner, nor be called by the same names used by the Mussulmans. Neither should they ride upon saddles, nor bear any sort of arms, nor use the Arabic tongue in the inscriptions of their seals; nor sell any wine. That they should be obliged to keep to the same sort of habit wheresoever they went, and always wear girdles upon their waists. That they should set no crosses upon their churches, nor shew their crosses nor their books openly in the streets of the Mussulmans. That they should not ring, but only toll their bells. Nor take any servant that had once belonged to the Mussulmans. Neither should they overlook them in their houses. Some say, that Omar commanded the inhabitants of Jerusalem to have the fore parts of their heads shaven, and obliged them to ride upon the pannels sideways, and not like the Mussulmans." Ockley, Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 257.
43. For the persecution of the Christians in Egypt, see Takyeddin Makrizi, in Sacy's Chrestomath. Arabe. On the barbarous conduct of the Moslem towards the Christians in Spain, &c. see the authors in the twelfth vol. of the Bibliotheca Vet. Patrum.
44. Elmacin, p. 9. Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 285.
45. Petrus ejusdem discipulus, quum ego Mar Abrahæ a secretis essem, adhuc superstes, Jamanæ et Sanaa in Arabia episcopatum obtinebat. Thomaæ Hist. Monast. ap. Asseman, tom. iii. p. 488. Thomas flourished at the beginning of the ninth century. According to Asseman, Timotheus, who ordained Peter, was bishop of Seleucia from 714 to 728.
46. Johannes V. Isæ filius an. 901 ad Hasanum Jamanæ presbyterum epistolam dedit, &c. Asseman, tom. iii. p. 249.
47. See Ludolf, Hist. Æthiop. lib. ii. c. 4.