 away and seceding from authority and getting accused of being pirates as they try to establish themselves. Now, unfortunately, that particular tribe chose a terrible area to go to. They went to Hora, the redate, and the redate is kind of where the emirates meet. There's no water, there's no food. It was a terrible place to go. But again, we have this idea that people are acting of their own volition, and I think that that is a story that gets very much ignored as we talk about the past with the assumption that we just, because we assume we don't have those stories, I guess. Sorry. I have a question over here, Dan. Yeah. Thanks for this very stimulating talk. I'd like to ask you for a more global perspective, i.e. contextualization in a broader image. We know from the British that they had phases of piracy themselves, if you want to put it this way. Francis Drake, probably the most famous. But staying in the Muslim or Islamic context, I was thinking of the Ottoman pirates in the western Mediterranean, Barbarossa probably is again the most famous, which is from the time perspective also closer to your examples. Could you draw some parallelist distinctions between these other acts of maritime warfare? Well, I think what's really interesting about the so-called piracy, these acts of maritime violence on the coast, is that sometimes, it does look a lot like sort of privateering, the nice way we refer to Francis Drake and things like that. It does look like privateering in so far as a ruler gives a subject the right to go and attack. Other times it looks like the Ottoman case where Barbarossa becomes part of the Ottoman navy. He gets co-opted and his crews in many ways eventually get co-opted as part of the Ottoman navy and it becomes their de facto navy. For many rulers on the coast, they didn't have a standing army or navy, it was all by need and conscription I guess to some extent. Some of these so-called acts of piracy look like that. A ruler trying to either recruit a navy or perpetuate a war by naval means. I think a lot of it also looks like some of the attacks that we see in the 18th century off of the coast of India by the eastern air company as well as by others where we have more opportunistic piracy where people, they see a ship, they're having a bad trading voyage, they attack a ship. There are other types of piracy that we see or so-called piracy in this era that are more like salvage where a ship runs aground and then people go out and take the stuff off of it. So more salvage than anything else. So I think that if we put it into this grand context, what is so-called piracy is reflective of a number of different actions in reality. It's not just attacking a single ship or anything like that. And it does look sometimes like an Ottoman, so I think that's more canon and close to an Ottoman example. It's something that looks like privateering and sometimes it does look like independent individual actions. In other words the dual typology, sorry, ruler-indicated or initiated warfare and private enterprises does not cover all these examples. We have some historic evidence here. Thank you. That's what I want the book to be about. Well then, actually we've just about taken an entire half hour that we have for Dr. Haidtower, so please join me in thanking Dr. Stingel and Christ. And our next speaker is a colleague of mine from the American University of Beirut, Mario Kozach, who is, according to his biography, I didn't know this, MA and PhD from Cambridge University. He teaches Islamic studies, Arabic and Syriac language and literature in the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut. And his publications include a trilogy, The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the 7th Century, and an anthology of Syriac Writers in Qatar in the 7th Century, and the Adish al-Qutrayus Compendies Commentary on the Paradise of the Egyptian Fathers in Garshuli, which for those of you who don't know is Arabic written in the Syriac letters. He is also edited a volume on the Lebanese Anglophone poet Joudat Haidtot, Joudat Haidtot poetic legacy, issues of modernity, belonging, language, and transcendence. And he is the author of a monograph on the Muslim polymath, Abu Rahman al-Baruni, the birth of indology as an Islamic science, of Baruni's treatise on Yoga psychology. His forthcoming publication of the Library of Arabic Literature is entitled The Arabic Yoga Sutras of Baruni's book of the Patanjali, the Indian. So I think that we're in for an interesting discussion. And the title of his talk is The Maritime Journey of Katholico's Gwarni's One to the East Arabian Island of Deirin. And I know where that is, but if you don't, I'll let Mario tell you. Thank you very much, David, and thank you, and Dr. Lohan and all the organizers at the ASEAN and the U.S. for inviting me to this wonderful conference. We go back 1,200 years now from the previous presentation and talk about George I or Gwarkis in Syriac who was actually born in Kathra in the province of Bedgawaya in a region in northern Iraq, referred to in Syriac as Bedgarmai. He died in Hira in southern Iraq in 680. Born into a noble family, Gwarkis was sent by his parents to take charge of their estates in the country of Marga, also in northern Iraq, where he became attracted to the monastic life and became a monk in the monastery of Bedgawai. He caught the attention of Eshoiach Bishop of Mosul Minawah, and when the latter became patriarch of the Church of the East as Eshoiach III, he made Gwarkis metropolitan to Irbil. Shortly before his death, Eshoiach suggested the name of his disciple, Gwarkis, to the future electors of the new patriarch. The brief Naliton Gwarkis in the 11th century Kitab el Majdal also mentions him as metropolitan of Gondishapur. Gwarkis took up office as patriarch in 660, and is the author of some liturgical memory, that is poems in Syriac, and a Christological letter originally written in Persian but preserved in Syriac, addressed to a certain Nina, choreopiscopus in the land of the Persians. In the year 676, he convened an important synod, the record of which is extant in Syriac on the island of Deirin, or Deirin, in the Arabian Gulf, reconciling the metropolitan of Bedgawai, and five bishops of Arabian diocese. This important synod is mentioned by Thomas of Maga in the 9th century book of governors, or in Syriac, you can see that the account in the book of governors is given to you here, and after these things, Maga Faliqas, that is Gwarkis, went down to Bedgawai, that he might reconcile his inhabitants who have cut themselves off from obedience to the Episcopal Sea of Refar Ghashir, which is Persia, and he went to the island of Deirin, and in this way its inhabitants were also reconciled. And he went up from there, and he came to this holy monastery, and he brought with him cloths for the altar, which had been woven for him in the island of Deirin of Bedgathrae, so that is our first piece of evidence of the maritime journey. So it should be noted here that Bedgathrae in Syriac sources, such as this one, included all of the East Arabian coast and its adjacent islands, but excluded the Alman region of today, which was known as Bayt-Malzounaye. Now the island of Deirin. The island of Deirin is to be differentiated from the other islands that are mentioned in these Syriac sources, including Darae and Ardae, is today possibly Tarut Island, which is six kilometers to the east of the town of Al-Qadif, and which interestingly has a large village that bears the name of Deirin, mentioned in later Islamic sources. In Syriac sources Deirin may be the name of Tarut Island, since the East Syriac Synod of 410 mentions the establishment of the Diocese of Ardae and Tuduru on other islands. The latter, Tuduru, it has been argued, may in fact refer to the island of Tarut itself, however it may be that Deirin is in fact one of the Bahrain islands, perhaps Ual or Moharrab. Its Bishop, that is the Bishop of Deirin, Paul, attended the Synod of Isaac of 410, where the establishment of the Diocese of Ardae and Tuduru were also mentioned. Two other bishops from this island are known, Yaqub, who addressed 20 questions to the Catholicosky Syriac, the first in the 6th century, specifically concerning the duties of the Episcopal office and the administration of the mysteries of the church, and Metropolitan Isha Yaqub, the second, who attended the Synod of George I in 676. This and many other Issyriac Synods are described in the Synodic and Orientali, which provides important historical information for the history of the Church of the East, stretching from the early 5th century through the latter part of the 8th century. The Synod in Deirin presided over by George I, which is recorded in the East Syriac Synodic and Orientali, was held in May, quote, of the year 57 of the rule of the Arabs, that is 676, and attended by the Metropolitan of Beth-Beth-Raeae and five bishops from Eastern Arabia. George's principal objective in convening this assembly was probably to heal the rift in relations between this province and the Catholicate that had occurred in the time of his predecessor, Isha Yaqub III, but also to clarify certain pressing canonical issues that had arisen in the region. The practice includes one of the earliest extant references to the traditional Muslim calendar and states that the Synod was convened during the 57th year of the Arab rule. A handful of late 7th century Syriac manuscripts also use Hishla dating. However, unlike this Synod's document, all of them include not only a Hishla date, but also the more common Seleucid dating system that Syriac Christians had been using for centuries. The preface is also important because of its interest in law and legal traditions. Although earlier Syriac documents also speak of jurisprudence, this topic was increasingly pressing with the rise of Islam and its insistence that non-Muslims in the Islamic Empire either have their own robust system of civil law or become subject to Islamic law. Several modern scholars have suggested that this preface's focus on the necessity of law is a direct reaction to its post-conquest legal environment and a number of the 7th-19th calendar may also have been composed in response to the spread of Islam into Eastern Arabia. Although the preface lists only the island of Deir Eim and the two inland towns of Hajar and Haqqa in Bed Qatrayi, it does mention that George I's visit involved a patriarchal visit of a number of islands as part of his maritime journey. It says after visiting the islands. It is intriguing to imagine this well-loved and extremely erudite patriarch of the Church of the East and his entourage, island hopping off the east Arabian coastline and perhaps sailing as far as Qish off the southern coast of Iran, where today an island bears that very same name. The islands as they are called in a number of Syriac sources, including the Synodic and Orientale, and the patriarchal letters of George I, predecessor Isha Yad V, are a reference to those islands that specifically form a part of the Bed Qatrayi region. In the Synodic and Orientale they are perhaps up to seven islands in total that may have been considered part of this region. Deir Eim, Ar-Dai, Dar-Ai, Ruh-Ha, Talun, Tuduru and Qish, they are here listed and a reference from the Synodic and Orientale. In the patriarchal letters of Isha Yad V, the third to the inhabitants of Bed Qatrayi, only Deir Eim and Talun islands are specifically mentioned as well as other general references to the islands. Meshmahid was a metropolitan town of an unidentified island, perhaps the island of Samahid, referred to by Yaqul del Hamawi later, which the latter vaguely locates in the middle of the sea between Alman and Al-Bahrein. The exact location of at least six of these listed islands remains a puzzle therefore, although the Synodic and Orientale does give us some clues regarding the relative proximity of some of these islands to each other. For example, it states that the islands of Talun and Ruh-Ha are in the vicinity of the island of Dar-Ai. A careful search for these islands in the Islamic geographies has been generally inconclusive thus far, although some interesting finds can be highlighted here. The inland settlements of Al-Khattan and Hajjur, as well as the island of Dar-Ai, have been identified in Ibn Khuradahbis, Kitab al-Masalik and Al-Mamalik. The same three locations only are also found in Ibn Al-Fatihis, Kitab al-Buldan. Notable in Al-Mas'udi's Muruj al-Dahab is his reference to the islands of Qatar, which is perhaps also an echo of the earlier Syriac sources referring to the islands of Bed-Khatra'i. Finally, in Yakut al-Hamawiz, Marjan al-Buldan, the same three locations of Al-Khatt al-Hajjur and the island of Darim are found. In addition, the island of Samahik is listed, which makes the location of the metropolitan town of Mashmahik mentioned in the letters of the Tisha, Yahad al-Dahab. Today, there is a village by the same name of Samahik in Tahrain on the northern coast of Muharrab island. And I was quite intrigued coming from the airport to find two places that sort of raised my interest, that they reigned and there was Hattah, so I wonder. Upon completing his maritime tour, visiting diocese located on the islands, the Catholicos George I reaches the Darim island where he presides over a synod that is meant to heal the rift that had occurred between the bishops of this region and the patriarchal sea under his predecessor Isha'iyah and bring them back into the fold of the church to east. The synod also establishes 19 canons of diverse content providing us with a remarkable window into the cultural interactions between Syriac Christians, Arabs, Muslims and Jews in this region and important insights into the early development and spread of Islam in eastern Arabia. Canon 6 for example urges that legal cases and disputes between Christians be judged within the church and that those to be judged should not go outside the church before the pagans and non-believers. Though the wording is vague, the Muslims must chiefly be meant and we find the same concern in rulings by contemporary Jacobite and Jewish leaders. Canon 14 for example that it is not appropriate for Christian women to consort with the pagans who are strangers to the fear of God is similarly unspecific. In a general way it probably intends all non-Christians but again it is likely that Muslims were uppermost in the minds of those at the synod and indeed we find this issue commanding the attention of a number of contemporary Christian authorities. It is however true that there were still pagan vestiges in eastern Arabia as is indicated by Canon 18 which forbids Christians from burying their dead quote in the manner of the pagans for it is a pagan custom to wrap the deceased in rich and precious clothes and in weakness and despair to make great lamentations for them. Canon 16 condemning polygyny indicates that that practice was still present among them but notably it is now associated with Muslim Arabs. The Canon refers to polygyny as the Hanpe custom of taking two wives. In older Syriac usage the term Hanpe means pagans sometimes including Zoroastrians. Later in the Islamic period it commonly refers to Muslims. With some qualifications Hanpe seems here to imply Muslim Arabs and not merely non-Christian. 676 is an early enough date that Christian Ecclesiast may not have had a conception of the Arabs as practicing any distinctly identifiable religion but that the way it was on the Arabian Peninsula and thus had been conquered and its Arab tribes Islamised whatever that may have meant in this context. At a comparative the early date in the late 620s or early 30s the Hanpe of Bet-Kathraya were thus likely to have been local Muslim Arabs though in George's eyes that is George I they may have been no more than vaguely half pagan half heretic. Polygyny was likely not new to the Christians of Bet-Kathraya ostensibly un-Christian polygyny was common practice in many regions of the Near East. To George I however it was becoming more than just un-Christian it was beginning to appear culturally definitive of the region's new rulers adding to this the fact of the recent ecclesiastical schism and the apostasy of the Christians of neighbouring Oman, Bet-Mazunai in Syria. Polygyny had come into focus in his eyes as a marker distinguishing the new Muslim Arab rulers from Christians. Just two more canons. Then Canon 17 refers to the Christians mixing with and frequenting the taverns of Jews. The use of this specific term for Jews indicates that Hanpe refers to non-Jews as well as non-Christians. This practice was especially deployed because there was no lack of taverns run by Christians where they might satisfy their desire for wine according to their custom. By admonishing Christians not to drink wine with Jews but instead to go to Christian bars and by expressly favouring a public church attendance over private prayer the bishop showed that they were willing to make their faith visible to their Muslim Arab neighbours and his evidence of the existence of churches and monasteries in the region which archaeology has now confirmed. The existence of practical limitations to communal barriers are as important to an understanding of early Muslim society as the existence of the formal barriers themselves. There was really never any time when inter-communal contact was entirely cut off and the effectiveness of Talmudic restrictions amongst Jews must be measured by the fact that Jews were still selling wine to Christians in the 670s. Canon 19 stresses that bishops should be held in honour and respect by their flock and that believers who hold power are not authorised to exact poll tax, that is Jizya in Arabic and tribute from him as from Alema. This really gives us our earliest literary reference to poll tax, Jizya, imposed by Muslims and illustrates that the latter made use of local members of the various communities to collect taxes to conclude. In addition to providing vital information concerning inter-religious communal life and Syriac place names in 7th century Eastern Arabia, the cannons of George I are particularly important as they document the earliest Christian reactions to issues nascent Islam such as the Jizya dating, the systematisation of Christian jurisprudence, prohibitions on Christians going to non-Iglesiastical courts, concerns of inter-religious mingling, intermarriage and forbidding the laity from collecting the poll tax from clergy. Thank you very much. And I thank you very much. I find this subject fascinating and I'll make a comment eventually, but first I will open the floor to questions. I'd like to also point out that both of our speakers finished within 18 minutes. Can we get a reward? Well, I'll comment then. This of course starts to impinge upon my own Arab expertise, which is Arabic dialectology and the myth surrounding Arabic, one of the myths, there are several of them, plenty of them, is that the Arabs, or speakers of the Arabic language if you will, were isolated inside of their barren desert peninsula until around the 7th century AD when they suddenly spilled out of the peninsula onto this stage of world history, at which point they encountered speakers of Aramaic, Christians for the most part, in the Levant and the Third Impressant. But of course that myth then supersedes or must insist upon the idea that there was nothing here in this part of the world except, shall we call them, Hampe, pagan Arabs until the 7th century. But this kind of evidence we see here is obviously tells us a different story entirely. That story is that the Arabs were not isolated from world history, were aware of world history and they were living side by side with Syriac Christians and even as the document shows us, with Jews in Eastern Arabia. And that's my comment. There we go. I think that will generate some questions. Let me make another linguistic comment, since we started this issue. Hampe of course is the Quranic Hanif, or Hanif is referred, goes back to the Hampe word. Regarding Qata, is Qata going back to Bait Qatariya as a geographical term? Do you know something about the etymology of the term Qata? The term Qata, we have it in Latin as well and we have it in Ptolemy's geography. So it exists not only in the Syriac sources but also in the Greek maps and in Latin. What's the letter term for? Qata rai. Yeah, it's a plural. I guess it's the plural that is also found in the Syriac because Qatariya is the plural of Qatariya. So it is a term that we find in both Greek and Latin and in the Syriac sources. So everybody tries to find an etymology for it. In Arabic, the etymology of course is a drop of something or in Syriac one reading is of, it is from the root Qtaar which also means to weave and we see evidence in one of our documents that weaving did take place in the region and the clocks were taken from this region back to Iraq which would surprise us one would expect the other way around given our stereotype of the region as barren and non-industrialized in the pre-modern sense of the word that there's nothing here to take but clearly there is textile production here. Now water and then Christianity. And seeing you were talking about language and I cannot help but envy you obviously you know Syriac. I don't know if you know the answer to my question though seeing you're a historian rather than a linguist but you may too. It's fascinating the Syriac script and part of me sees Arabic in it. What's the connection between Syriac and Arabic as language? Is there any or? Thank you for your question. You see Arabic in them somehow. There are, I mean Symitic languages are related and there is a great deal of sharing the vocabulary there. What I'd like to focus on seeing as you ask this question about language is that these sources are also giving me a vocabulary from this region which is known as Katra'id. And this in fact begins, there is, I have a theory that it is actually Arabic. So you have an Arabic dialect from the 7th, 8th century being documented in Syriac sources and there you have that interaction at the linguistic level between Syriac and an Arabic dialect and the Persian and other languages that were represented in the region. Before I give Christian, Christian is the floor for his question. I'd like to point out also that the great Arabic linguist Clive Holes who's done a great deal of work, most of the work that we know of in the dialectology in the Gulf has traced a lot of, especially food production and vocabulary in Gulf dialects all the way back to Akkadian, the language, the ancient language of Iraq which would probably have also been brought here by speakers of Aramaic who were coming to work the land here and was eventually adopted by Arabic speakers. The other thing that Mario forgot to point out is that the Arabic script itself developed from a script of Aramaic. So there is definitely a connection there. It's not almost all the same letters too. Now give you your question to Christian. In early Christianity this might be comparable because in this time Christianity was a minority as well so we can combine it with this. There is much about what a good Christian should not do. So this is quite comparable but there are many cases as well where there is no other chance than to participate like for our, like for instance the bathing culture where you have to bath in a pagan situation and if you have to, you have to do it the best way a Christian can. Are there such instances as well in the canons where he says you have to deal because here is shown the exclusion. Don't do it. Be it your own community but it is interesting at the same time in which cases is there said you have to interact somehow with the rest of the community and which cases is the case. Thank you for that. I would say that in this period Christianity was not a minority that it was in fact the majority of the population of the Middle East was Christian until well into the 9th century. People like Richard Bulliet have made statistical surveys that support this argument and people like Jack Daniels for example have recently written a monograph published by Princeton University Press that suggests this argument as well. I would say however that although here we have exclusivity and sort of to that one should self sustain this would perhaps in the same period we have other authors such as Jacob Odessa from the same period who is asked questions in letters what do we do if we have to eat on the same table as Muslims and he would say the situation requires it. So there is sort of a pragmatism as well involved in not these canons as you have noticed it's for quite this exclusivity that dominates here but in other authors pragmatism is an important factor. Another letter to Jacob Odessa where the local priest says I have Muslims bringing their children to my school do I exclude them or include them and he says no you should include them because good things might come out of it. So there was also a trend for inclusivity under certain circumstances. The other question. Yes. Not that question but nobody wants to say. You know the last thing you commented on answering the question about connection to the story in Arabic. You said that Arabic you did kind of had the Arabic was a source for Arabic. The script. But even if it's just the script that alone doesn't it defeat the whole myth that you talked about? Oh yeah, I would think so. In fact that's a refutation of the myth that's been in plain sight for generations not a generation. We've known that forever. Any other comments? I have one more to make. Yes. Something about the canons that you showed so can we move into the talking of not using the caverns that was important enough for him to say that is that because that was the only place of interaction or he felt it was an important part that he doesn't want that interaction to happen in that space or why was it important for him that there are not any other places where there are interactions. You're referring to the taverns? Yes. So obviously I mean also to answer Christian's question when you have canons saying don't do this it means it was happening. Otherwise you would not have a canon saying don't do it. So clearly to answer your question it was happening there was intermingling between the communities and there was interaction and I would say this was probably the norm and our patriarch comes and perhaps is shocked at all of this and hence the canons. So I would suggest that probably the opposite of the canons was the case, was the norm and that these were trying to create sort of boundaries, cultural boundaries that were in fact not there or not clearly delineated and he was trying to delineate them as a way to preserve the sort of cultural integrity of his own community as it were. To this ancient Christianity is absolutely a way and succeeding from authority and getting accused of being pirates as they try to establish themselves. Now unfortunately that particular tribe chose a terrible area to go to for a redate and a redate is kind of where where the emirates meet there's no water, there's no food it was a terrible place to go but again we have this idea that people are acting of their own volition and I think that that is a story that gets very much ignored as we talk about the past with the assumption that we just because we assume we don't have those stories. Thanks for this very stimulating talk I'd like to ask you for more a global perspective, i.e. contextualization in a broader image we know from the British that they had phases of piracy themselves if you want to put it this way Francis Drake probably the most famous staying in the Muslim or Islamic context I was thinking of the Ottoman pirates in the western Mediterranean Barbarossa probably is again the most famous which is from the time perspective also closer to your examples could you draw some parallel distinctions between these other acts of maritime warfare? Well I think what's really interesting about the so-called piracy these acts of maritime violence on the coast is that sometimes yes it does look a lot like sort of privateering the nice way we refer to Francis Drake and things like that it does look like privateering insofar as a ruler gives a subject the right to go and attack Other times it looks like the Ottoman case where Barbarossa becomes part of the Ottoman navy he gets co-opted and his crews in many ways eventually get co-opted as part of the Ottoman navy and it becomes their de facto navy and for many rulers on the coast they didn't have a standing army or navy it was all by need and conscription to some extent and so some of these so-called acts of piracy look like that a ruler trying to either recruit a navy or perpetuate a war by naval means I think a lot of it also looks like some of the attacks that we see in the 18th century off of the coast of India by the Eastern air company as well as by others where we have more opportunistic piracy where people they see a ship they're having a trading voyage they attack a ship there are other types of piracy that we see or so-called piracy in this era that are more like salvage where a ship runs aground and then people go out and take the stuff off of it so more salvage than anything else so I think that if we put it into this grand context what is so-called piracy is reflective of a number of different actions in reality it's not just attacking a single ship or anything like that and it does look sometimes like an Ottoman something that's more canon close to an Ottoman example it's something that looks like privateering and sometimes it does look like independent individual actions in other words the dual typology a ruler based sorry, ruler indicated or initiated warfare and private enterprises does not cover all the all these examples we have historic evidence here thank you that's what I want to talk to you about okay well then, actually we've just about taken up the entire half hour that we have for Dr. Haithauer so please join me in thanking Dr. Schindler and our next speaker is a colleague of mine from the American University of Beirut called Marya Kozach who is according to his biography I didn't know this MA and PhD from Cambridge University he teaches Islamic studies Arabic and Syriac language and literature in the center for Arabic and Middle Eastern studies at the American University of Beirut and his publications include a trilogy the Syriac Writers of Qatar in the 7th century an anthology of Syriac Writers of Qatar in the 7th century and that Disho Kothraeus compendies commentary on the paradise of the Egyptian fathers in Garshudi which for those of you who don't know is Arabic written with Syriac letters he has also edited a volume on the Lebanese Anglophone poet Joudat Haithar Joudat Haithar's poetic legacy issues of modernity, belonging, language and transcendence and he's the author of a monograph Abu Rahman al-Baruni The Birth of Indology as an Islamic Science of Baruni's Treatise on Yoga Psychology his forthcoming publication of the Library of Arabic Literatures entitled The Arabic Yoga Sutras of Baruni's book of the Patanjali the Indian so I think that we're in for an interesting discussion and the title of his talk is The Maritime Journey of Katholikos Kiwarkis 1 to the East Arabian island of Deirin and I know where that is but if you don't I'll let Mario tell you. Thank you very much David and thank you and Dr. and all the organizers that are here in the US for inviting me to this wonderful conference we go back 1200 years now from the from the previous presentation and talk about George I or Kiwarkis in Syriac who was actually born in Kathar in the province of Bedgawaya in a region in northern Iraq referred to in Syriac as Bedgarmai he died in Hira in southern Iraq in 680 born into a noble family Kiwarkis was sent by his parents to the United States and the country of Margar also in northern Iraq where he became attracted to the monastic life and became a monk in the monastery of Bedgawaya he caught the attention of Eshoiak Bishop of Mosul Minawar and when the letter became patriarch of the church at the east as Eshoiak the third he made Kiwarkis metropolitan to Erbil shortly before his death Eshoiak suggested the name of his disciple to the future electors of the new patriarch the brief Nalitom Kiwarkis in the 11th century Kitab el Majdal also mentions him as metropolitan of Kondeshapur Kiwarkis took up office as patriarch in 660 and is the author of some liturgical memory that is poems in Syriac and a Christological letter originally written in Persian but preserved in Syriac in Nenak or Episcopus in the land of the Persians in the year 676 he convened an important synod the record of which is extant in Syriac on the island of Dereen or Dereen in the Arabian Gulf reconciling the metropolitan of Bedgawaya and five bishops of Arabian diocese this important synod is mentioned by Thomas of Margar in the 9th century book of governors or in Syriac you can see that the account in the book of governors is given to you here and after these things Marqafali that is Kiwarkis went down to Bedgawaya that he might reconcile his inhabitants to have cut themselves off from obedience to the Episcopal sea of which is Persia and he went to the island of Dereen and in this way its inhabitants and he went up from there and he came to this holy monastery and he brought with him cloths for the altar which had been woven for him in the island of Dereen of Bedgawaya so that is our first piece of evidence of the maritime journey so it should be noted here that Bedgawaya in Syriac sources such as this one included all of the east Arabian coast and its adjacent islands that excluded the Alman region of today which was known as Bayt-Mazunaya now the island of Dereen the island of Dereen is to be differentiated from the other islands that are mentioned in the Syriac sources including Darai and Ardai is today possibly Tarut island which is six kilometers to the east of the town of Al-Qadif and which interestingly has a large village that bears the name of Dereen mentioned in later Islamic sources in Syriac sources Dereen may be the name of Tarut island since the east Syriac synod of 410 mentions the establishment of the diocese of Ardai and Tuduru on other islands the latter Tuduru it has been argued may in fact refer to the island of Tarut itself however it may be that Dereen is in fact one of the Bahrain islands perhaps Ual or Muharrab its bishop that is the bishop of Dereen Dereen Paul attended the synod of Isaac of 410 by the establishment of the diocese of Ardai and Tuduru were also mentioned two other bishops from this island are known Yaqub who addressed 20 questions to the Catholicosky Syriac the first in the 6th century specifically concerning the duties of the Episcopal office and the administration of the mysteries of the church and Metropolitan Isha Yaqub the second who attended the synod of George the first in 676 this and many other Issyriac synods are described in the synodic and orientale which provides important historical information for the history of the church of the east stretching from the early 5th century through the latter part of the 8th century the synod in Dereen presided over by George the first which is recorded in the Issyriac synodic and orientale was held in May of the year 57 of the rule of the Arabs that is 676 and attended by the Metropolitan and 5 bishops from eastern Arabia George's principal objective in convening this assembly was probably to heal the rift in relations between this province and the Catholic aid and the time of his predecessor Isha Yaqub III but also to clarify certain pressing canonical issues that had arisen in the region the practice includes one of the earliest extant references to the traditional Muslim calendar and states that the synod was convened during the 57th year of the Arab rule a handful of late 7th century Issyriac manuscripts also use Hishla dating however unlike this synod's document all of them include not only a Hishla date but also the more common solucid dating system that Syriac Christians had been using for centuries the preface is also important because of its interest in law and legal traditions although earlier Syriac documents also speak of jurisprudence this topic was increasingly pressing with the rise of Islam and its insistence that non-Muslims in the Islamic Empire either have their own robust system of civil law or become subject to Islamic law several modern scholars have suggested that this preface's focus on the necessity of law is a direct reaction to its post-conquest legal environment and a number of the 7th-19th calendar may also have been composed in response to the spread of Islam into Eastern Arabia although the preface lists only the island of Deir Eim and the two inland towns of Hajar and Hatta in Bed Qatrayi it does mention that George I involved the patriarchal visit of a number of islands as part of his maritime journey so you can see that in red it says after visiting the islands there so quote and after visiting the islands and other locations it is intriguing to imagine this well-loved and extremely erudite patriarch of the Church of the East and his entourage island hopping of the East Arabian coastline and perhaps sailing as far as Qish of the southern coast of Iran where today an island bears that very same name the islands as they are called in a number of Syriac sources including the Sinodic and Orientale and the patriarchal letters of George I predecessor are a reference to those islands that specifically form a part of the Bed Qatrayi region in the Sinodic and Orientale they are perhaps up to seven islands in total that may have been considered part of this region Deir Eim, Ardai, Darai, Ruha, Talmun, Tuduru and Qish they are here listed and a reference from the Sinodic and Orientale in the patriarchal letters of Isho Yahub III to the inhabitants of Bed Qatrayi only Deir Eim and Talun islands are specifically mentioned as well as other general references to the islands Mash Mahid was a metropolitan town of an unidentified island perhaps the island of Sa Mahid referred to by Yaqut al-Hamawi later which the latter vaguely locates in the middle of the sea between Alman and Al-Bahrein the exact location of at least six of these listed islands remains a puzzle therefore although the Sinodic and Orientale does give us some clues regarding the relative proximity of some of these islands to each other for example it states that the islands of Talun are in the vicinity of the island of Dara a careful search for these islands in the Islamic geographies has been generally inconclusive thus far although some interesting finds can be highlighted here the inland settlements of Al-Khattin and Hajjur as well as the island of Daireen have been identified in Ibn Khuradatbiz Kitab al-Masalik the same three locations only are also found in Ibn Al-Fatihis Kitab al-Buldan notable in Al-Mas'udi's Muruj al-Dahab is his reference to the islands of Qatar which is perhaps also an echo of the earlier Syriac sources referring to the islands of Bed Qathrayi finally in Yaqut al-Hamawi's Marjam al-Buldan the same three locations of Al-Khatt al-Hajjur and the island of Daireen are found in addition the island of Samahih is listed which make in the location of the metropolitan town of Mashmahih mentioned in the letters of the show Yaqut al-Dahab today there is a village by the same name of Samahih in Bahrain on the northern coast of Muharrab island and I was quite intrigued coming from the airport to find two places that sort of raised my interest that Daireen and there was Hattah so I wonder upon completing his maritime tour visiting diocese located on the islands the Catholic cost George the first reaches the Daireen island where he presides over a synod that is meant to heal the rift that had occurred between the bishops of this region and the patriarchal sea under his predecessor Isha Yaq and bring them back into the fold of the church to east the synod also establishes 19 cannons of diverse content providing us with a remarkable window into the cultural interactions between Syriac Christians Arabs, Muslims and Jews in this region and important insights into the early development and spread of Islam in eastern Arabia Canon 6 for example urges that legal cases and disputes between Christians be judged within the church and that those to be judged should not go outside the church before the pagans and non-believers although the wording is vague the Muslims must chiefly be meant and we find the same concern in rulings by contemporary Jacobite and Jewish leaders Canon 14 for example that it is not appropriate for Christian women to consort with the pagans who are strangers to the fear of God is similarly unspecific in a general way it probably intends all non-Christians but again it is likely that Muslims were uppermost in the minds of those at the synod and indeed we find this issue commanding the attention of a number of contemporary Christian authorities it is however true that there were still pagan vestiges in eastern Arabia as is indicated by Canon 18 which forbids Christians from burying their dead quote in the manner of the pagans for it is a pagan custom to wrap the deceased in rich and precious clothes and in weakness and despair to make great lamentations for them end quote Canon 16 condemning polygyny indicates that that practice was still present among them but notably it is now associated with Muslim arrows the canon refers to polygyny of taking two wives in all the Syriac usage the term hampay means pagans sometimes including Zoroastrians later in the Islamic period it commonly refers to Muslims with some qualifications hampay seems here to imply Muslim Arabs and not merely non-Christian 676 is an early enough date that Christian Ecclesias may not have had a conception of the Arabs as practicing any distinctly identifiable religion but Bet-Kathriah was on the Arabian peninsula and thus had been conquered and its Arab tribes Islamized whatever that may have meant in this context at a comparatively early date in the late 620s or early 630s the hampay of Bet-Kathriah with us likely to have been local Muslim Arabs though in George's eyes that is George I they may have been no more than half-pagans half-heretic Polygyny was likely not new to the Christians of Bet-Kathriah ostensibly un-Christian Polygyny was common practice in many regions of the Near East to George I however it was becoming more than just un-Christian it was beginning to appear culturally definitive of the region's new rulers adding to this the fact of the recent ecclesiastical schism and the apostasy of the Christians neighboring Oman Bet-Mazunayi in Syria Polygyny had come into focus in his eyes as a marker distinguishing the new Muslim Arab rulers from Christians just two more canons Canon 17 refers to the Christians mixing with and frequenting the taberns of Jews the use of this specific term for Jews indicates that hampay refers to non-Jews as well as non-Christians this practice was especially deplored because there was no lack of taberns run by Christians where they might satisfy their desire for wine according to their custom by admonishing Christians not to drink wine with Jews but instead to go to Christian bars and by expressly favoring a public church attendance over private prayer the bishop showed that they were willing to make their faith visible to their Muslim Arab neighbors the existence of churches and monasteries in the region which archaeology has now confirmed the existence of practical limitations to communal barriers are as important to an understanding of early Muslim society as the existence of the formal barriers themselves there was really never any time when inter-communal contact was entirely cut off and the effectiveness of Talmudic restrictions amongst Jews must be measured by the fact that Jews are willing to Christians in the 670s Canon 19 stresses that bishop should be held in honor and respect by their flock and that believers who hold power are not authorized to exact poll tax that is Jizya in Arabic and tribute from him as from Aleman this really gives us our earliest literary reference to poll tax, Jizya imposed by Muslims demonstrates that the latter made use of local members of the various communities to collect taxes to conclude in addition to providing quite information concerning inter-religious communal life and Syriac place names in 7th century East Arabia the Canon of George I are particularly important as they document the earliest Christian reactions to issues nascent Islam such as the Jizya dating the systematization of Christian jurisprudence prohibitions on Christians going to non-Indonesiastical courts concerns of inter-religious mingling intermarriage and forbidding the lady from collecting the poll tax from clergy thank you very much and I thank you very much I find this subject fascinating and I'll make a comment eventually but first I will open the floor to questions I also find out that both of our speakers they finished within 18 minutes can we get a reward can we get a reward get a reward and get pre-diverged well, I'll comment then this of course starts to impinge upon my own area of expertise which is Arabic dialectology and the myth surrounding Arabic one of the myths plenty of them is that the Arabs speakers of the Arabic language if you will were isolated inside of their barren deserts peninsula until around the 7th century AD when they suddenly spilled out of the peninsula onto the stage of world history at which point they encountered speakers of Aramaic Christians for the most part in the Levant and the third and present but of course that myth then supersedes or must insist upon the idea that there was nothing here in this part of the world except shall we call them hampae pagan Arabs until the 7th century but this kind of evidence we see here is obviously tells us a different story entirely and that story is that the Arabs were not isolated from world history were aware of world history and they were living side by side with Syriac Christians and even as the document shows us and that's my comment there we go I think that will generate some questions let me make another linguistic comment since we started this issue hampae of course is the Quranic Hanif or Hanif is refers back to the hampaean word regarding Qata is Qata going back to Beit Qatroye as a geographical term do you know something about the etymology of the term Qata? the term Qata we have it in Latin as well and we have it in Ptolemy's geography so it exists not only in the Syriac sources but also in the Greek maps and in Latin what's the Latin term for? Qata rai it's a plural I guess it's the plural that is also found in the Syriac because Qata rai is the plural of Qata rai so it is a term that we find in both Greek and Latin and in the Syriac sources so everybody tries to find an etymology for it in Arabic the etymology of course is a drop of something or in Syriac one reading is of it is from the root Qata which also means to weave and we see evidence in one of our documents that weaving did take place in this region and that clocks were taken from this region back to Iraq which would surprise us one would expect the other way around given our stereotype of the region as barren and non-industrialized in the pre-modern sense of the word that there is nothing here to take but clearly there is textile production here now water then Christian and seeing we're talking about the region and I cannot help but envy you obviously you know Syriac I don't know if you know the answer to my question though seeing you're a historian rather than a linguist but you may too it's fascinating the Syriac script and a part of me sees Arabic in it what's the connection between Syriac and Arabic as Latin is there any? Thank you for this question what is the Arabic in them somehow? I mean Symitic languages are related and there is a great deal of shared vocabulary there what I'd like to focus on seeing as you ask this question about language is that these sources are also giving me a vocabulary from this region which is known as and this in fact is begins there is I have a theory that it is actually Arabic so you have an Arabic dialect from the 7th 8th century being documented in Syriac sources and there you have that interaction at the linguistic level between Syriac and an Arabic dialect and the Persian and other languages that were represented in the region Before I give Christian Christian is the floor for his question I'd like to point out also that the great Arabic linguist Clive Hose who's done a great deal of work most of the work that we know of in the dialectology of the Gulf has traced a lot of especially food production vocabulary in Gulf dialects and the ancient language of Iraq which would probably have also been brought here by speakers of Arabic who are coming to work the land here and was eventually adopted by Arabic speakers and the other thing that Mario forgot to point out is that the Arabic script itself developed from a script of Aramaic so there is definitely a connection almost all the same letters too now give you your quick question Christian In early Christianity this might be comparable because in this time Christianity was in my minority as well so we can combine it with this there's much about what a good Christian should not do so this is quite comparable but there are many cases as well where there's no other chance than to participate like for our for instance the bathing culture where you have to bath in a pagan situation and if you have to you have to do it the best way Christian can are there such instances as well in the canons where he says you have to deal because here is shown the exclusion don't do it beat your own community but it is interesting at the same time in which cases is there said you have to interact somehow with the rest of the community in which cases thank you for that I would say that in this period Christianity was not a minority that it was in fact the majority of the population of the Middle East was Christian until well into the 9th century people like Richard Bulliott have made statistical surveys that support this argument and people like Jeff Daniels for example have recently written a monograph published by Princeton University Press that suggests this argument as well I would say however that although here we have exclusivity and sort of that one should self sustain this would perhaps in the same period we have other authors such as Jacob of Odessa from the same period who is asked questions in letters what do we do if we have to eat on the same table as Muslims and he would say the situation requires it so there is sort of a pragmatism as well involved in not these canons as you have noticed it's quite there's exclusivity that dominates here but in other authors pragmatism is an important factor another letter to Jacob of Odessa where the local priest says I have Muslims bringing their children to my school do I exclude them or include them and he says no you should include them because good things might come out of it so there was also a trend for inclusivity under certain circumstances and the other question that's unfortunate but nobody wants to say you know the last thing you commented on in the question about connection to the story I came out of it you said that Arabic kind of had the Arabic was a source for Arabic the script the writing yes even if it's just the script that alone doesn't it defeat the whole myth that you talked about? in fact that's a refutation of the myth that's been in my insight for generations we've known that forever any other comments I have one more to make yes something about the cannons that you showed so can we more into the talking of not using the cannons that was important enough for him to say that because that was the only place the interaction or he felt it was an important part that he doesn't want that interaction to happen in that space or why was it important for him that there are not any other places where they're interacting you're referring to the taverns so obviously I mean also to answer Christian's question when you have cannons saying don't do this to me otherwise you would not have a cannon saying don't do it so clearly to answer your question it was happening there was intermingling between the communities and there was interaction and I would say this was probably the norm and our patriarch comes and perhaps is shocked at all of this and hence the cannons so I would suggest that probably the opposite of the cannons was the case was the norm and that these were trying to create sort of boundaries cultural boundaries that were in fact not there or not clearly delineated and he was trying to delineate them as a way to preserve the sort of cultural integrity of his own community as it were so this in ancient Christianity is absolutely the same especially in those cases where it is quite some fun or might attract Christian to become pagan such as the games the M theater and other cases where you could participate in a big group and maybe out of the sudden could become pagan or something like this and this is quite the same with what you are showing to us marrying more than one woman I know this would never be a theme for anybody here but for but it might attract some members of the Christian groups and so distinguish them and make them become Muslim so it is quite there are quite some similarities I mean it is quite interesting that this idea of polygyny seems to have existed before Islam in the region but after Islam it became associated with Islam and so became more of an issue for other communities not to practice it it stops being a cultural practice and becomes a religious sort of a religious dimension enters into it seems well I am glad several people have had several comments because I have one more this addresses an issue that has been raised a couple of times today over a long and interesting day and that is the issue of the name Arab itself or the designation let us put it that way because you will notice that the word is the first often mentions the Arabs but if you can read the Syriac it is not what he is calling them he is calling them which is a reference to a known tribe that still exists and is known from that era and perhaps before which is the Thali and that is the Syriac name for the Arabs and with that I think we are actually one minute overtime now and we have enough time for you all to get back to the hotel and change clothes and I thank you all for your attention today it has been for me a fascinating and stimulating day and we have three more of those ahead of us so we need to get some rest thank you all very much