{"id":16816,"date":"2017-03-02T20:30:23","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T20:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=16816"},"modified":"2017-03-02T20:30:23","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T20:30:23","slug":"the-annals-of-eutychius-of-alexandria-10th-c-ad-chapter-18i-the-remaining-ummayads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2017\/03\/02\/the-annals-of-eutychius-of-alexandria-10th-c-ad-chapter-18i-the-remaining-ummayads\/","title":{"rendered":"The Annals of Eutychius of Alexandria (10th c. AD) \u2013 chapter 18i \u2013 The remaining Ummayads"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last few Ummayads conclude chapter 18.\u00a0 The seizure of the Damascus church was plainly not straightforward.\u00a0\u00a0It looks rather as if\u00a0at least some of the Muslims felt that the failure to honour the guarantee by Khalid ibn al-Walid was dishonourable, for the matter came up again under the next caliph, Omar.\u00a0 Omar also made moves to conciliate the Shia by removing the anathemas against Ali from public worship.\u00a0 In the reign of Hisham, the melkite patriarch of Alexandria, an illiterate named Cosmas, started the evil tradition of appealing to the Muslims to settle disputes with the monophysites.\u00a0 The caliph Yazid was the son of the Persian princess, descended from the emperor Maurice and the Sassanid Persian kings (!).\u00a0 The line comes to an end with Marwan II, who dies in a Persian uprising.<\/em><\/p>\n

CALIPHATE OF OMAR IBN ABD AL-AZIZ (99-101\/717-720)<\/p>\n

1. The bay’ah was given to Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz b. Marwan b. al-Hakam – his mother was Umm Asim, daughter of As ibn Omar b. al-Khattab – in the month of Safar\u00a0in the ninety-ninth year of the Hegira.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0He disdained to follow the behaviour of the members of his family, and\u00a0removed the curse that used to be launched against Ali ibn Abi Talib from the pulpit.\u00a0 From\u00a0the days of the Caliphate of Mu’awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, in fact,\u00a0until the time of the caliphate of Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz, the Umayyad caliphs were\u00a0accustomed to curse Ali ibn Abi Talib from the pulpits, maliciously calling him\u00a0“Abu Turab”.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 [Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz] was\u00a0caliph for thirty months.\u00a0 In his day\u00a0there was king of the Rum Anastasius, who reigned only a year and a half.\u00a0 The Christians\u00a0said to Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz\u00a0that by virtue of the protection granted to them, their churches should neither be destroyed nor used as dwelling places.\u00a0 In this regard they showed him\u00a0the letter of Khalid ibn al-Walid.\u00a0 Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz suggested\u00a0that they\u00a0take the money, abandon the church and construct another anywhere in Damascus they liked.\u00a0 But the Christians refused.\u00a0 Then the Caliph signed a decree which he allowed them to\u00a0keep the church with its boundaries and be able to repair it.\u00a0 The Muslims believed that this measure was onerous and said:\u00a0 “Must\u00a0we return to\u00a0them our mosque, where we\u00a0have been\u00a0called to prayer from the top of the minaret, and where we have actually prayed, fulfilling our obligation to raise prayers to Allah?\u00a0 Must it be destroyed and go back to being a church?”\u00a0 Then Abu Idris al-Hulw\u0101ni interjected and said:\u00a0 “The Christians have our protection for only one half of the city of Damascus and only for the churches that are in\u00a0that half; the other half of the city, in fact,\u00a0was conquered by the sword.\u00a0 Also\u00a0the churches and monasteries that are located on the outskirts of Damascus starting from Gh\u016btah belong to the Muslims, because they were conquered by the sword.\u00a0 If the Christians want us to give back to them this their church, we will return it to them, but on one condition, namely that we will destroy every church that is in the other half of the city of Damascus and every church and monastery which are outside\u00a0the town,\u00a0at Gh\u016btah.\u00a0 But if\u00a0they leave us this church, we will give them all the rest.” With these last words he alluded to the churches of Gh\u016btah and “Dayr Murran” in which the Muslims were accustomed to stop and stay.\u00a0 The Christians then, fearing that their churches and monasteries would be\u00a0destroyed, left their church.\u00a0 Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz wrote them a decree which ensured that their churches that were at Damascus, and the churches and monasteries that were outside Damascus, in Gh\u016btah, were neither destroyed nor used as dwelling places, and that no Muslim would ever\u00a0be able to\u00a0claim rights over them.\u00a0 For all this he made\u00a0his solemn oath.<\/p>\n

4. Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz died in the month of ragab in the year 101 of the Hegira, at the age of thirty-nine.\u00a0 He was of medium height, handsome of body and face with premature signs of gray hair and a scar on his forehead.\u00a0 In\u00a0one text\u00a0he is said to be buried in Dayr Sim’an, in Homs.\u00a0 The leader\u00a0of his bodyguard was Ruwah Yazid ibn as-Saksaki and his h\u0101gib was the freedman Hubaysh.<\/p>\n

CALIPHATE OF\u00a0YAZ\u012aD IBN ABD AL-MALIK (101-105\/720-724)<\/p>\n

1. The bay’ah was given to Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ibn al-Hakam – his mother was Atika, daughter of Yazid ibn Mu’awiya -.\u00a0 He\u00a0was caliph for four years and one month and was the first caliph to take a singer.\u00a0 For he had taken a singer named Habb\u0101bah, very dear to him, who appointed and deposed the governors without waiting for\u00a0any order from him.\u00a0 [Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik] died in the month of Ragab in the year 105 of the Hegira, at the age of thirty-one (In another text\u00a0it says “thirty-seven years”), and was buried in Damascus.\u00a0 The leader of\u00a0of his bodyguard was Ka’b ibn Khalid al-Absi and his h\u0101gib was the freedman Khalid.<\/p>\n

CALIPHATE OF\u00a0HISH\u0100M IBN \u2018ABD AL-MALIK (105-125\/724-743)<\/p>\n

1. The bay’ah was given to Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik – his mother was Umm Hashim, daughter of Hisham ibn Isma’il b. Hashim b. al-Walid b. al-al-Mughira Makhz\u016bmi -.\u00a0 He was caliph was for nineteen years and seven months.\u00a0 In his day\u00a0there was king of the Rum Theodosius.\u00a0 He reigned a year and a half and died.<\/p>\n

2. After him there reigned over Rum Leo for twenty-four years and died.\u00a0 In the third year of Caliph Hisham\u00a0there was made patriarch of Constantinople Constantine.\u00a0 He held the office for\u00a0twenty-eight years and died.\u00a0 In the seventh year of the caliphate of Hisham\u00a0there was made patriarch of Alexandria Cosmas.\u00a0 He held the office for twenty-eight years.\u00a0 The Melkite Christians in Alexandria were praying in the church of St Saba because the Jacobites had seized all the [other] churches in the city.\u00a0 When Cosmas was made Patriarch he was an illiterate, he could neither read nor write.\u00a0 He was a tailor.\u00a0 He went to Damascus\u00a0to the presence of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and claimed from him, with the help of some scribes, the return of the churches that the Jacobites had made\u00a0their own.\u00a0 Hisham wrote to his prefect in Egypt, who was then Abdullah ibn al-Gigan as-Sakw\u012b, to get the churches that were in the hands of the Jacobites and return them to the Patriarch Cosmas together with all that had belonged to them.\u00a0 Cosmas then\u00a0took the churches from\u00a0the Jacobites, including the church of al-Qays\u0101riyyah.\u00a0 All this had happened because, from the time that\u00a0the patriarch George had fled from Alexandria to Constantinople, in the third year of the caliphate of Omar ibn al-Khattab, until\u00a0Cosmas became patriarch of Alexandria, in the seventh year of the caliphate of\u00a0Hisham, the\u00a0see of Alexandria had been without a Melkite Patriarch for ninety-seven years.\u00a0 The Jacobites, therefore, had been able to take possession of all the churches of Egypt and Alexandria.\u00a0 In addition,\u00a0as the inhabitants of Nubia needed bishops, the patriarch of the Jacobites began to ordain bishops for them, and the Nubians became Jacobites also\u00a0after then, and every time the bishop died\u00a0in any city in Egypt, the patriarch of the Jacobites appointed another, so that all of Egypt, from the\u00a0Upper to the Lower, became Jacobite.\u00a0 The only exception was the Mika’il church in Qasr ash-Shama.\u00a0 The Melkites, in fact, had managed to keep it, carrying on prayer and when their bishop died they referred to the Metropolitan of Sur, who ordained for them\u00a0a\u00a0[new] Bishop.\u00a0 Things continued to go well for the Melkites of Egypt and Alexandria until Cosmas was no longer\u00a0patriarch.\u00a0 In the seventeenth year of the caliphate of\u00a0Hisham\u00a0there was made patriarch of Jerusalem Elia.\u00a0 He\u00a0held the office for\u00a0thirty-four years and died.<\/p>\n

3. Hisham died in the month of Rabi al-Akhar in the year 125 of the Hegira, at the age of fifty-three years.\u00a0 He was buried in ar-Rusafah, in the district of ar-Raqqah.\u00a0 He\u00a0was of fair complexion, cross-eyed, ugly, bad tempered, stingy, and greedy for wealth.\u00a0 The leader\u00a0of his bodyguard was Ka’b ibn Hamid and his h\u0101gib the freedman Gh\u0101lib.\u00a0 His influential adviser was Sa`\u012bd ibn al-Walid al-Abrash al-Kalbi and his katib was Salim ibn Abd al-Aziz.<\/p>\n

CALIPHATE OF\u00a0AL-WAL\u012aD IBN YAZ\u012aD (125-126\/743-744).<\/p>\n

1. The bay’ah was given to al-Walid ibn Yazid b. Abd al-Malik b. Marwan – his mother was Umm al-Haggag, daughter of Muhammad b. Yusuf b. al-Hakam b. Abi Uqayl ath-Thaqafi -.\u00a0 He\u00a0was wild, wasteful and addicted to entertainment. He ruled one year and three months.\u00a0 Then the people could not stand his behaviour any more and killed him in the month of \u011fum\u0101d\u00e0 al-akhar in the year 126 of the Hegira.\u00a0 He was struck down in al-Buhayra, in Damascus.\u00a0 He was forty years old.\u00a0 There followed a revolt that shook the whole of Syria.\u00a0 He\u00a0was\u00a0handsome\u00a0of face, eloquent, with a perfect complexion.\u00a0 The leader\u00a0of his bodyguard was Abd ar-Rahman ibn Hamid al-Kalbi and his h\u0101gib was the freedman Qatr.<\/p>\n

CALIPHATE OF\u00a0YAZ\u012aD IBN AL-WAL\u012aD (126\/744)<\/p>\n

1. The bay’ah was given to Yazid ibn al-Walid an-N\u0101fid, i.e. Yazid ibn al-Walid b. Abd al-Malik b. Marwan – his mother was a Persian,\u00a0i.e. Sh\u0101hq\u016bd, daughter of Firuz Kisra, King of Persia, son of Yazda\u011fard, son of Shahray\u0101n, whose grandmother was the daughter of Maurice, king of the Rum -.\u00a0 [Yazid ibn al-Walid]\u00a0thus used to say: “I am the\u00a0son of Kisra and of Marwan;\u00a0Maurice is my grandfather and my grandfather is [also] Shashan”.\u00a0 He\u00a0was made caliph in the month of Ragab, he ruled five months and died at the end of the month of dhu’l-qa’da in the year 126 of the Hegira, at the age of thirty.\u00a0 He was buried in Damascus.\u00a0 The leader\u00a0of his bodyguard was Yazid ibn ash-Shamm\u0101kh al-Lakhmi and his h\u0101gib was the freedman Sallam.<\/p>\n

CALIPHATE OF MARWAN IBN MUHAMMAD AL-GA\u2018D\u012a (127-132\/744-750)<\/p>\n

1. Upon the death of Yazid an-Naqid, those of Syria\u00a0gave the bay’ah to Ibrahim b. al-Walid b. Abd al-Malik (238).\u00a0 He ruled for four months, then they deposed him.\u00a0 Then\u00a0arose Marwan ibn Muhammad b. [Marwan] al-Hakam, the son of an Armenian – his mother’s name was Izya and she had been the wife of Mus’ab ibn az-Zubayr and after the killing of this man she had been taken as wife by Muhammad ibn Marwan b . al-Hakam.\u00a0 When he arrived in Syria, Marwan ibn Muhammad was hailed as caliph by many of the inhabitants of Syria, but he was opposed by Suleiman ibn Hisham b. Abd al-Malik and other Umayyads.\u00a0 The inhabitants of Syria\u00a0united against him and in Khurasan the number of supporters of the Banu Hashim[ref]I.e. the Shia, meaning here the Persians.[\/ref] greatly increased.\u00a0 His troops were put to flight, and his soldiers were killed.\u00a0 Those of Khurasan killed many men of Syria and Iraq, seizing their property and making their wives and children captives.\u00a0 Marwan ruled five years,\u00a0through continuous wars and the opposition of the populations of the countries hostile to him.\u00a0 Then\u00a0he fled\u00a0from az-Zab to Mosul and finally into Mesopotamia, then through Syria to reach Egypt.\u00a0 The soldiers of the Banu Hashim penetrated Upper Egypt and began following him everywhere giving chase.\u00a0 He was surprised in a village of Ashm\u016br called Abusir L\u016brinds and was killed there.\u00a0 He\u00a0was sixty nine.\u00a0 Amir ibn Isma’il as-Salmi [= al-Maslami?] was responsible for his killing.\u00a0\u00a0 Marwan was nicknamed “al-Ga’di” because he who had great influence on him and on his decisions was al-Ga’d ibn Dirham.\u00a0 The leader\u00a0of his bodyguard was al-Kawthar ibn al-Aswad al-Anawi and his ‘h\u0101gib’ was the freedman Saql\u0101b.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last few Ummayads conclude chapter 18.\u00a0 The seizure of the Damascus church was plainly not straightforward.\u00a0\u00a0It looks rather as if\u00a0at least some of the Muslims felt that the failure to honour the guarantee by Khalid ibn al-Walid was dishonourable, for the matter came up again under the next caliph, Omar.\u00a0 Omar also made moves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[672,674],"class_list":["post-16816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-eutychius","tag-eutychius-chapter-18"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}