S. PIERRE and M.-A. UTRERO-AGUDO, From the Tigris to the Ebro. Church and Monastery Building under Early Islam, Editorial CSIC, 2024, 332 p. (original) (raw)
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From the Tigris to the Ebro: churches and other Christian buildings Churches and other Christian Buildings under Early Islam (7th -10th c.), 2024
In this chapter, I address how and when church-building became problematic during the early Islamic period in the Syro-Aramaic regions of Northern Syria and Mesopotamia. First, I focus on the evidence provided by ecclesiastical Syriac sources concerning ongoing constructions during the seventh century, when it appears that no legal restrictions operated. Moreover, even under the Marwānid caliphate, whose social and ideological system was driven by more confessional principles, an impressive number of testimonies suggest an increase in the number of monastery foundations, which may have been a way to shelter private wealth from taxation. Things seem to have changed during the early Abbasid period. The sources are contradictory: some new laws were introduced in Syria against Christian proselytism, but no evidence of such limitations upon church building in the Jazīra is attested before the 770s. Also, legal evidence and theory suggest that, at least during the first half of the second century AH (720-770), there were two hermetic categories in urban settlements: 1/ the construction of churches was authorized within the indigenous, Aramaic-speaking, madīnas; 2/ in the amṣār however, where Arab-Muslims were supposed to hold a privileged position, the very visibility of Christian cult and social habits and practices was gradually banned, especially church-building. Finally, the growing hostility crystallized in traditions that commanded churches in the amṣār to be destroyed, even if such orders were neither systematic nor effective. The turning point of this story could be the disastrous invasion of Northern Syria by Byzantine general Michael Lakhanodrakon, in 777. Indeed, for the first time in a century, a caliph decided to lead the army in person to repel the enemy in Cilicia, and a significant policy of sunna enforcement and reform was launched by al-Mahdī through a so-called muḥtasib. Emir ʿAlī b. Sulaymān al-ʿAbbāsī was especially committed to this military, as well as ideological, counter-offensive. It struck the Syriac Orthodox church, as recalled by an inscription on the southern wall of the church of Eḥnesh, in Northern Syria. After this date of 779-780, the region of the Byzantine frontier, the thughūr, endured a process of military colonization that matches the development of new legal paradigms: the “miṣrization” of indigenous madīnas. It consisted in their transformation into miṣr-like towns or neighborhoods, where the law of the amṣār was to be applied and “new churches” had to be destroyed. Gradually, the growing number of Muslim inhabitants in the cities of Ḥarrān or Edessa led to their miṣrization too, if not simply to the downright breach of their treaties (ṣulḥ), like in Takrīt and Mosul. At this stage, governors were frequently caught between the antagonistic pressures of Christian and Muslim elites, and also had to face contagious destructing riots staged by Muslim mobs. Every ten years, in ca. 190, 200, 210 and 220 AH, “new churches” were demolished, and then for the most part reconstructed, a regularity that perhaps reflects a legal principle that has not yet been elucidated.
Youtube link to hear and interact with the conference and replay : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCarvbpbaE0J93Km3AvvNh8Q Conçu et organisé par Maria Angeles UTRERO (chercheuse CSIC/EEHAR) et Simon PIERRE (doctorant Sorbonne Université, associé à l'Ifpo). Colloque international (Espagne/France), transversal(archéologie/histoire) et pluridisciplinaire (Antiquité tardive, Haut-Moyen-Âge). Initié à l'Ifpo Beyrouth en 2019 par une initiative de Pauline Koetschet, directrice des études arabes (DEAMM), avec le concours de Dominique Pieri, directeur des études archéologiques et historiques de l'Antiquité (DAHA), et avec le soutien constant de Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet (Mondes sémitiques), Vincent Déroche (Monde byzantin), et Jean-Pierre Van Staevel (Islam médiéval) de l'UMR 8167 (CNRS-Paris 1-Sorbonne Université). Le projet initial porté par l’Ifpo en 2020 a été repoussé en 2021 en raison de la pandémie. Il a alors fusionné avec une seconde entreprise parallèle impulsée par Maria Angeles Utrero, chercheuse CSIC en poste à l'Ecole espagnole d'histoire et d'archéologie de Rome (EEHAR) et avec le soutien de l'Escuela de Estudios Árabes de Grenade. Sous le nom de "Construction et Usage des édifices chrétiens pendant les débuts de l'Islam : approches croisées sur l’Église en Méditerranée et au Moyen-Orient (VIIe-IXe siècles)", il réunit 23chercheurs travaillant sur l'Antiquité tardive ou du premier Moyen-Âge dans les différentes aires de la Méditerranée et du Proche-Orient(Espagne post-wisigothique, Irak et Arménie post-sassanide, Syrie-Palestine, Egypte et Afrique post-byzantine.) autour d'un sujet commun, le développement continu des Eglises héritières du christianisme antique dans le domaine de l'Islam des premiers siècles. Nous y confrontons les dynamiques d'expansion, de conversion, de structuration communautaire comme autant de formes paradoxales et d'adaptations variées à un ordre confessionnel dont le développement fut lui-même progressif. L'objet qui permet cette démarche polycentrique n'est autre que l'église en tant que bâtiment, ainsi que ses édifices associés(monastères, baptistères, chapelles, martyria) qu'en théorie, la loi islamique aurait dû proscrire dès l'instant de la conquête. Pourtant, ils continuèrent à être construits, agrandis, remaniés, modifiés, et souvent reconstruits et réinvestis pendant les trois siècles de l'Empire omeyyade et abbasside. Ce colloque international se propose d’envisager ces questions multiples en confrontant les observations, approches et hypothèses des archéologues, historiens de l’art et des textes, antiquisants et médiévistes, occidentalistes et orientalistes, byzantinistes et islamisants travaillant au sud comme au nord de la Méditerranée et du Moyen-Orient.
Recent Constructions: How the Churches of Classical Baghdad Were Built
The Muslim World, 2017
The standard legal theory of the classical Islamic period states that non-Muslims should not be allowed to build new places of worship within lands ruled by Islamic law. Therefore, it is somewhat surprising that in Baghdad—a city constructed by the ‘Abbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr in the second/eighth century—we find flourishing Christian and Jewish communities throughout the majority of the ‘Abbāsid period, whose places of worship obviously could not have been constructed before the Islamic conquest of the region. This paper investigates the origins of the Christian churches and monasteries of classical Baghdad, looking for evidence of the negotiation process that took place as the Christian communities of this great medieval capital were becoming socially and topographically established. Such evidence sheds light on the place of Christians and other non-Muslim groups within classical Islamic society, and on how Muslim scholars perceived the “proper” place of such subordinate groups.
2023
This paper aims to assess the continuity of Christianisation in Iraq during Early Islam, through development of monasteries and urban churches. The sources on Mesopotamian Christianity present a paradox that has not yet been sufficiently explained: literary testimonies are numerous for the Sasanian period, while archaeological testimonies are almost exclusively dated to the Islamic period. Churches and monastic communities from Central and Northern Mesopotamia (from the oasis of ʿAyn al-Tamr to the Khābūr river in the west, Mount Izlā, Balad and al-Qosh in the North, then Bāzyān and Takrīt in the East) appear to have developed during the “long 7th century.” There, no Islamization policy can be observed before the Abbasid period. How can the dynamics of the Christianisation of the Iraqi landscape in the early Islamic period be explained, when Christians continued to live within a second empire that did not share their faith? Recent historical studies on the Sasanian period have deeply enhanced the landmark research of J. M. Fiey. Nevertheless, in spite of the latter’s continuity approach, this literature too often approached the issue by following the chronological divisions between the Sasanian and Islamic eras. Thus, the cross-study of the archaeological evidence with Syriac ecclesiastical writings for the 7th and 8th century has not always been carried out, especially in Northern Iraq. Yet, recent surveys and excavations of ecclesiastic buildings in Southern Iraq and the Gulf also show, when compared with hagiographical or canonical texts, how the church of the East expanded (J. Bonneric, R. Carter, Ch. and F. Jullien, R. Payne) during the Late Sasanian and early Islamic period. We propose to extend this perspective to the spread of Christianity in the northern late and post-Sasanian lands, by the careful comparison of archaeological results and the Dyophysite and Miaphysite chronicles (such as Thomas of Marga, Ishōʿdnaḥ of Basra, Bar ʿEbroyo informants) and hagiographies –mostly written during the 8th and 9th century. One should discuss if some construction technics (stones, lime, mudbrick), features (columns or pillars, shqaqūnā or bema) and layouts (three-nave or one nave, oblong or squared shape, apsis or chahar-ṭāq hayklā) could be associated with Christologically determined churches, namely the so-called ‘Nestorian’, ‘Jacobite’, or ‘Melkite’ ones. Another assumption will be to consider them mainly from both a regional and a sub-provincial local perspective, following the accurate approach that E. Keser Kayaalp developed for Ṭur ʿAbdin. Finally, we aim to define the milieu that supported this development of early islamicate monasticism, made of a Christian elite of Iranian-Aramaic background and tribal Arab immigrants. Our study will shed new light on a land that has been considered marginal in the study of the Umayyad caliphate, even though it was the heart of a particularly flourishing Christianity, and also a transitional bridge between Sasanian and Abbasi social and architectural worlds.
The contiguity between churches and mosques in early Islamic Bilad al-Sham
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 76.2 (2013), pp 229-258
This article examines the transformation of the sacred landscape in the cities of Syria and Palestine from late antiquity to early Islam. This phase of urban and architectural history, often obscured by the changes brought in during the medieval period, is investigated through a close comparison of textual and material evidence related to the main urban religious complexes. It is suggested that the new Friday mosques were frequently built contiguous to Christian great churches, creating a sort of shared sacred area within the cities. Legal issues related to the Islamic conquest and the status of minorities are considered in order to explain the rationale behind such a choice by Muslims.
Religious Buildings in Early al-Andalus: Origins, Consolidation and Prevalence in Urban Contexts
Religions 14 (11), 2023
The arrival of Islam to the Iberian Peninsula at the beginning of the 8th c. brought important changes to the urbanism of cities which contributed to turn the previous late-antique realities into medieval Islamic settlements. Among all the transformations that took place, the introduction of mosques and the reconfiguration of cities’ religioscapes is one of the most relevant. The processes through which the earliest mosques were first inserted in urban landscapes in al-Andalus are unclear, since so far there are no remains that can be undoubtedly dated before the Umayyad period. From that moment on, and alongside the Umayyad organization of the Andalusi state, the founding of mosques becomes clearer and traceable, and their urban, religious and political roles more evident. This contribution seeks to identify how and why mosques appeared in the Iberian Peninsula, how they (re)configured religious spaces in cities, and how they contributed to consolidate their significance through specific written and architectural narratives. This topic will be explored also seeking for parallels and connections in the Bilād al-Shām region.
Transferrable Religious Heritage: Church Buildings in Northern Mesopotamia
Le patrimoine architectural de l’Église orthodoxe d’Antioche: Perspectives comparatives avec les autres groupes religieux du Moyen-Orient et des régions limitrophes, May Davie (ed.), 2015
Since late antiquity, northern Mesopotamia had been the cradle of two main Christian communities, namely, the Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch. From the late Middle Ages onwards, however, their newly-created Catholic counterparts, as well as Protestant offshoots in the modern period, have further added to this uneasy and often antagonistic mix. Despite these Churches sharing a common Syriac liturgical language, and their members speaking Neo-Aramaic and sharing a common Assyrian ethnicity and heritage, they have time and again found themselves at loggerheads in the historical record over differences in theology, Christology, allegiance and claims to apostolic succession. With this diversification of creeds and loyalties amongst the Syriac Churches, there also came a need for each community to legitimise, consolidate and renew itself as it saw fit in order to be able to remain in competition with its ‘rivals.’ Part of this process was embodied in the appropriation of churches and monasteries belonging to the ‘others’ and their modification to conform to the ecclesiastical norms of the new owners. In this study, cases of churches which have largely changed hands between the Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church and Syriac Catholic Church will be discussed in an effort to illustrate this un-Christian process of control, appropriation and dispossession, as well as the transferral and imposition of one form of Christian expression on an edifice which previously belonged to another denomination. Examples of church buildings in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran will hence be discussed in an effort to understand the way in which this heritage is appropriated and transferred, as well as the method through which one denomination’s own heritage can be transferred to an existing structure built by an opposing one.