{"id":3902,"date":"2010-03-26T23:58:13","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T23:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=3902"},"modified":"2010-03-26T23:58:13","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T23:58:13","slug":"eutychius-on-the-events-in-egypt-in-820-30-ad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2010\/03\/26\/eutychius-on-the-events-in-egypt-in-820-30-ad\/","title":{"rendered":"Eutychius on the events in Egypt in 820-30 AD"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve translated from the German the last portion of the Annals<\/em> of Eutychius, who was Melkite Patriarch of Alexandria, and whose autograph manuscript has been edited in the CSCO.<\/p>\n

33.\u00a0 EVENTS IN JERUSALEM AND LOWER EGYPT (820-830 A.D.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

[286]. When morning came, the Patriarch Thomas and his companions were brought.\u00a0 The Muslims came and testified that the dome had enlarged (=been made larger).\u00a0 Patriarch Thomas disproved this through the (above-mentioned) argument 1<\/sup>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0[287] Abdallah ibn Daher said to them: he is right.\u00a0 Explain to me:\u00a0 How big was the dome, before it was removed, and how big is it now?\u00a0 They said:\u00a0 We will think about this.\u00a0 They went out and the meeting came to an end.\u00a0 Abdallah ibn Daher then went to Damascus.\u00a0 Thomas and his companions went merrily to the holy city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[288]\u00a0 Thomas paid the Sheikh in question 1000 (dirhams).\u00a0 To him and his children after him as well as his\u00a0 children’s children the compensation was paid continuously, so long as (someone) from his descendants lived, until there was only one daughter (young woman).\u00a0 Elias ibn Mansur, Patriarch of the holy city, presented her with the compensation. Patriarch Thomas died, and his pupil named Basila (= Basilios) became\u00a0 Patriarch of the holy city.\u00a0 It was in the 7th year of the Caliphate of al-Ma`mun.\u00a0 Basila remained in the see 25 years and died.\u00a0 Abdallah ibn Daher returned to al-Ma`mun and reported about Egypt and on what he had undertaken (there).\u00a0 Then the (supporters of the) Emma (Yma) revolted.\u00a0 Al-‘Emma is a coptic word and means “forty” 2<\/sup>. This is why: when the Romans left Egypt, in the time when the\u00a0 Muslims arrived, forty men stayed.\u00a0 In the lower part of the country (=Lower Egypt) they testified, multiplied and continued to do so and were called ‘Y MA, i.e.\u00a0 the descendants of the forty (men).\u00a0 They revolted and paid neither excise nor poll tax.\u00a0 This event was announced to Mamun and he sent his brother\u00a0 al-Mu`tasim, who was a Amir, to Egypt.\u00a0 The Emma fought against him . . . 3<\/sup><\/p>\n

1<\/sup> The previous sentence in Ch. 51, 56,20-22 reads:\u00a0 A Muslim sheikh had secretly instructed him (to say):\u00a0 May the Emir ask them,”How big was the small dome, which I took down as you requested, and how big now is the dome, which I have rebuilt\u00a0 and enlarged?”\u00a0<\/small><\/p>\n

2<\/sup> If the rebels had been descendants of those Romans left, then they would have used a Greek name, not a Coptic one.\u00a0 The letters given however do not permit the Coptic reading of HMA (for forty).\u00a0 Later historians have confounded this revolt with that of the Copts in Basmur, which took place allegedly under Abdel Malek around 750-51.\u00a0 Scholars are therefore divided on the exact date of the last Coptic revolt, therefore.\u00a0 See Sylvestre Chauleur, Histoire des Coptes d’Egyple, Paris 1960, 107 (dating the revolt to 216 AH. = 831 AD); item: C. Detlef, G. M\u00fcller. Grundz\u00fcge des christlich-islamischen \u00c4gypten, Darmstadt 1969, 146 (both giving around 828-30).\u00a0<\/small><\/p>\n

3<\/sup> The continuation of the sentence in Ch. (51, 57.17-18)\u00a0 reads:\u00a0 “and he fought them and killed very many of them.\u00a0 He struck them down and drove out their wives and children and brought them with him to Baghdad.”\u00a0<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve translated from the German the last portion of the Annals of Eutychius, who was Melkite Patriarch of Alexandria, and whose autograph manuscript has been edited in the CSCO. 33.\u00a0 EVENTS IN JERUSALEM AND LOWER EGYPT (820-830 A.D.)\u00a0 [286]. When morning came, the Patriarch Thomas and his companions were brought.\u00a0 The Muslims came and testified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_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":[4],"tags":[216,672,1287],"class_list":["post-3902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arabic-christian-literature","tag-arabic-christian-literature","tag-eutychius","tag-patristics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902","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=3902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}