Pre-publication of chapter XIII of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey – 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian – Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”; chapters XI, XII, and XIII constitute the Part Four (Fallacies about the so-called Hellenistic Period, Alexander the Great, and the Seleucid & the Parthian Arsacid Times) of the book, which is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters. Chapter XI ‘Alexander the Great as Iranian King of Kings, the fallacy of Hellenism, and the nonexistent Hellenistic Period’ and Chapter XII ‘Parthian Turan: an Anti-Persian dynasty’ have already been uploaded as partly pre-publication of the book; they are currently available online here: https://www.academia.edu/105386978/Alexander_the_Great_as_Iranian_King_of_Kings_the_fallacy_of_Hellenism_and_the_nonexistent_Hellenistic_Period
The book is written for the general readership with the intention to briefly highlight numerous distortions made by the racist, colonial academics of Western Europe and North America only with the help of absurd conceptualization and preposterous contextualization.
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The very long shadow of the Turanian Parthian Arsacids who ruled Iran (250 BCE – 224 CE) longer than the Achaemenids (550-330 BCE) and the Sassanids (224-651 CE); this silver gilt dish was found in Padishkhwargar, an Arsacid province that corresponds to Tabaristan (of Islamic times) or to Mazandaran and Gilan (of Modern times), i.e. the long and narrow region between the Alborz Mountains and the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. The dish dates back to the last decades of Sassanid rule or the very early Islamic period; it apparently follows the Sassanid artistic traditions, but the main person next to whom there is a brief Pahlavi inscription makes with his left hand a particular sign of mystical recognition among initiates. This sign reminds the typical hand gesture of Gray Wolves (a fist with the little finger and index finger raised).
Colonial historiographers and Orientalists expand much about the philhellenism of the Parthian monarchs at least for the first 250 years of the dynasty, down to the very beginning of the 1st c. CE; this is a fact. However, few questioned how functional this Parthian philhellenism was and what important purposes it actually served. It is true that after Alexander the Great’s death (323 BCE) a chaotic situation prevailed across Iran and many battles were fought by his Epigones; the Seleucid Empire, which incorporated the central Iranian satrapies, was constituted only 11 years after Alexander’s death (312 BCE).
At that moment and for a longer period afterwards, the worst hit province of the Achaemenid Empire was still Fars (Persia); Alexander the Great’s invasions did not involve any other destruction of Achaemenid city or site comparable to that of Parsa (Persepolis). Reflecting pre-existing rivalries, several populations of other Iranian – Turanian provinces may have enjoyed both, Alexander’s attitude against Fars and the destruction of Persepolis. Furthermore, the inevitable transfer of the imperial capital to Babylon must have pleased them too; it offered them space to gradually control as long as the Persian Iranians were in disarray.
Parthia was already a province of the short-lived Median Empire
Parthia as an Achaemenid Iranian satrapy
The early period of Arsacid Parthia: 250-200 BCE
The Arsacid Parthian Empire in 94 BCE at its greatest extent, during the reign of Mithridates II (124–91 BCE)
The Arsacid Parthian Empire at the beginning of the first c. CE
Parthia (P-rw-t-i-wꜣ) written in Egyptian hieroglyphic characters: it was one of the 24 subject nations of the Achaemenid Empire (from the Egyptian Statue of Darius I the Great)
Parthian soldier depicted on the façade of Xerxes’ I tomb in Naqsh-e Rustam, ca. 470 BCE
The subsequent transfer of the Seleucid capital to Seleucia in Mesopotamia was a grave mistake of the newly established dynasty, which failed to comprehend the very smart effort of Alexander to favor, befriend and utilize the Babylonians as the principal means to hold his vast empire united. Finally, the Parthians seceded from the Seleucid Empire 60-65 years after its inception. The rise of the Arsacid dynasty meant that, for the first time in History, the central Iranian–Turanian provinces were ruled under a scepter and a throne that were not located in Fars.
It is therefore normal that the Parthians -in their opposition to the Persians (of Fars)- promoted a systematic court philhellenism and contributed to Alexander the Great’s Iranian legitimation and unquestionable incorporation into the imperial identity and history, and to his posterior fame among Iranian–Turanian nations. This stance fully corresponded to their best interests, namely to secure stability across Iran’s central provinces, while facing threats from rivals among the neighboring empires and kingdoms. It is clear that the Turanian attempt was rejected by the Persian Iranians, and of this polarization we attest late echoes that date back to the Islamic times. Accepting Alexander as an Iranian was benediction to the Turanian Parthians and malediction to the Iranian Persians. But the empire (Xšāça) established by Cyrus the Great was indiscriminately Iranian-Turanian.
Despite the Arsacid–Seleucid wars, one must rather conclude that, with their marked philhellenism, the Turanian rulers of Parthia had good relations with the various Greek and Macedonian colonies, which had been established throughout their territory and in several adjacent lands, notably Bactria.
This fact helps also explain why, despite Alexander the Great’s rather negative portrait in Sassanid and Middle Persian sources of the Islamic times’ Parsis, the conqueror of the Achaemenid Empire enjoyed splendid narratives and majestic descriptions by Ferdowsi, Nizami, and many other Islamic Iranian–Turanian poets, mystics, philosophers and historians.
Although followers of Parsism (the form of Zoroastrianism that survived down to our days) in Iran and India have a very negative perception of Alexander the Great, Iranian and Turanian Muslims very much venerate him. About:
One must have no doubt that the term ‘Hellene’ (Greek) is ‘Ionian’ for the Oriental languages. Throughout all the ancient Oriental sources, i.e. Assyrian-Babylonian, Old Achaemenid Iranian, Aramaic, Phoenician and Hebrew, there is not one mention of ‘Greeks’ or ‘Hellenes’; the only term used is ‘Ionian’. This means that in any ancient Oriental language, for the word ‘Philhellene” the corresponding term is “friendly to Ionians”.
It is essential at this point to define the ethnic and cultural links that the Arsacid Parthians felt that they connected them with the ‘Ionians’ with whom they entered in contact. The Parthians accepted the imperial concept because they were integral part of Achaemenid Iran; around 200 years later, the Macedonians, the Ionians and the Aeolians became acquainted with this spiritual notion thanks to Alexander the Great and the practices of Orientalization that he introduced for his soldiers.
However, prior to the acceptance of the imperial ideal, both the Parthians and the ‘Ionians’ had their apparently common concept of governorship that was above the fundamental level of Kurultai, which corresponds to the ‘Ionian’ Amphictyony for settled tribes. This was a military type of rule with man exercising absolute power upon condition of general approval. The traditional Turanian ruler was named in Ancient Ionian (‘Greek’) ‘tyrannos’, and it was pronounced as ‘tu-ran-nos’ with the accent on the first syllable. The term designated the typically Turanian ruler and it serves as an indication of the Turanian origin of the Ionians and the Aeolians. It was actually first used among the Lydians of the Mermnadae dynasty, whose members had apparently names of Turanian origin, notably the founder of the dynasty Gyges whose name was written in Assyrian Annals as Gu(g)gu. About:
In fact, the Parthian Arsacid philhellenism sheds more light on the inculcation of Turanian populations across Western Anatolia and South Balkans during the first millennium BCE, which is a topic that colonial historians tried systematically to conceal. However, Parthian philhellenism is certainly a form of anti-Persianism, which shows that the Achaemenid times were not a period of peace and concord, as many attempted to depict.
——————— THE GALLERY OF ARSACID RULERS & SOLDIERS —————————
Silver drachma of Arsaces I (247 – 211 BCE) with inscription
Arsaces II (211–191 BCE); coin from the Ray mint
Friyapat/Priapatius (191-176 BCE); coin from the Qumis (Hekatompylos; today’s Saddarvazeh) mint
Coin of Frahat I / Phraates I (176-171 BCE)
Coin of Mehrdat I / Mithridates I (171–138 or 132 BCE), who was the first Arsacid Parthian ruler to be attributed the title ‘King of Kings’, according to Babylonian cuneiform records; the reverse shows Verethragna / Heracles, and the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ “Great King Arsaces, friend of Greeks”.
Parthian relief of Mithridates I of Parthia from Xong-e Ashdar (also known as Hung-i Nauruzi), near the city of Izeh, in Khuzestan, Iran; compared to the Achaemenid reliefs, which were the results of an official imperial art, the Parthian reliefs are relevant of provincial artists and craftsmanship; most of the Parthian reliefs are found in the southern range of Zagros Mountains. Parthian reliefs are rather secular and not religious; and not religious; they depict scenes of resting, drinking, and hunting, also including several animal figures.
Mithradat-kert (literally the city of Mithridates I of Parthia) in today’s Nisa (or Nissa or Nusay) in Eastern Turkmenistan; the entrance to the city and the walls, which had to be covered up to prevent further damage from erosion
Mithradat-kert(Ancient Greek: Νῖσος, Νίσα, Νίσαιον; Turkmen: Nusaý or Parthaunisa)
Mithradat-kert
Mithradat-kert
Frahat II / Phraates II (132–127 BCE); coin from the Seleucia mint (in Mesopotamia)
Ardawan I / Artabanus I (127–124 BCE); coin from the Seleucia mint
Coin of Ardawan II / Artabanus II (126–122 BCE)
Coin (drachma) of Mihrdāt II / Mithridates II of Parthia (124–91 BCE); the clothing is Parthian, while the style is Seleucid (sitting on an omphalos). The Greek inscription reads “King Arsaces, the Philhellene”.
Godarz I / Gotarzes I (95-90 BCE); coin from the Ecbatana mint
Coin of Mihrdat III / Mithridates III (87-80 BCE) from the Ray mint
Tetradrachm of the Parthian monarch Urud I / Orodes I (90-80 BCE) from the Seleucia mint
Coin of Sanatruq I / Sinatruces I (77-70 BCE) from the Ray mint
Frahat III / Phraates III (70–57 BCE); coin from the Ecbatana mint
Coin of Mihrdat IV / Mithridates IV (57-54 BCE)
Coin of Urud II / Orodes II (57-38 BCE) from the Mithradat-kert (Nisa) mint
Frahat IV / Phraates IV (38-2 BCE); coin from the Mithradat-kert mint
During the reign of Frahat IV / Phraates IV, there seems to have been a pacification agreement between Parthia and Rome (after the proclamation of Octavian as Emperor in early 27 BCE). According to Roman sources, the Parthians returned to Romans the standards lost in the Battle of Carrhae (53 BCE); this fact was commemorated and presented by Octavian as a victory: this coin (denarius) was struck in 19 BCE. It depicts the Roman goddess Feronia on the obverse, and on the reverse a Parthian soldier who kneels in submission while returning the Roman military standards. It is apparently a matter of utmost symbolism and not the representation of a historical event.
The decentralized administrative and royal power of the Arsacid Parthians allowed for many small, peripheral and vassals kingdoms to surface (Characene, Adiabene, Osrhoene, etc.); there are many possible interpretations of the phenomenon, which was erroneously viewed as result of military weakness in the past. Elymais (in today’s Khuzestan, SW Iran) was one of those vassal states. Coin of Kamnaskires III, king of Elymais, and his wife Queen Anzaze, 1st century BCE
Coin of Tiridat II / Tiridates II (29-27 BCE)
Coin of Frahat V / Phraates V (2 BCE-4 CE)
Vonun I / Vonones I (8-12 CE); coin from the Seleucia mint
Coin of Ardawan II / Artabanus II (10-38 CE) from the Seleucia mint
Vardan I / Vardanes I (40-47 CE); coin from the Seleucia mint
Tetradrachm of Godarz II / Gotarzes II (40-51 CE) minted in 49 CE
Tetradrachm of the Parthian king Vologases I (50-79 CE), struck at Seleucia; on the obverse, there is a portrait of the king who appears to wear a trouser-suit, bear a diadem, and have beard. The reverse depicts an investiture scene, where the king receives the scepter and the divine authority by Ahura Mazda.
The so-called Indo-Parthian Kingdom (19-226 CE) was another small, vassal and peripheral kingdom that was located east of the Parthian Arsacid Empire; it was founded by king Gondophares (Γονδοφαρης/Υνδοφερρης; 19-46 CE) whose name (Windafarm in Parthian and Gundapar in Middle Persian) means ‘May he find glory’ (Vindafarna in Old Achaemenid Iranian). Gondophares originated from the illustrious House of Suren, one of the most prestigious families in Arsacid Iran. He built his own royal city Gundopharron and this name was gradually altered to Kandahar (which is located in today’s Afghanistan). Gondophares’ coin was found in India and bears witness to a clearly Parthian style.
Roman sestertius issued by the Roman Senate in 116 CE to commemorate Trajan’s Parthian campaign
Drawing representing a Parthian archer as depicted on Trajan’s Column in Rome (113 CE)
Relief of the Roman-Parthian wars at the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome (203 CE)
Parthian (right) wearing a Phrygian cap, depicted as a prisoner of war, in chains, held by a Roman (left); Arch of Septimius Severus, Rome, 203 CE
Parthian king making an offering to god Verethragna; from Masjed Soleyman, SW Iran. 2nd–3rd century CE (today in the Louvre Museum)
Silver drachma of the Parthian king Walagash VI / Vologases VI (208-228 CE), penultimate ruler of the Arsacid dynasty. Obverse: King wearing a tiara decorated with deers and ribboned diadem. Reverse: Arsakes I, founder or the Arsacid Parthian dynasty, seating on a throne and holding a bow. From the Ecbatana mint (today’s Hamadan).
Parthian horseman, currently at the Palazzo Madama, Turin
Parthian cataphract fighting a lion, currently at the British Museum
Stucco relief of an infantry soldier, dating back to the Arsacid times (250 BCE – 224 CE); from the Zahhak castle, in Hashtrud, Eastern Azerbaijan, Iran; currently in the Azerbaijan Museum, Tabriz (Iran)
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Another fact that Western Orientalists tried always to obscure is that the religion of the Arsacids was somewhat divergent from that of the Achaemenids. I don’t mean that the Parthians had a diametrically different or a counterfeit religion; not at all! Simply, in terms of Zoroastrian cosmogony, cosmology, universalism, imperial doctrine, and apocalyptic eschatology, the Arsacids sensibly differed from the Achaemenid Zoroastrian orthodoxy. We have to also bear in mind at this point that the scarcity of the historical sources still prevents us from properly assessing the true dimensions of the religious differentiation.
However, the marked differentiation of the Arsacid monarch from his Achaemenid predecessors suggests another type of royalty, sacrality, spirituality, and morality. As an example for the average readership, I point out here that there has not been even one Old Achaemenid or Imperial Aramaic text -saved down to our days-, which explicitly mentions Zoroaster by name. All the earliest mentions of the name of the founder of the Achaemenid imperial religion are in Middle Persian and in Avestan writings – except for external but largely untrustworthy sources (Ancient Greek and Latin).
All the same, the religious differentiation between the Achaemenid and the Arsacid times did not bring about a drastic religious change, but rather another perception of the divine world; the Parthians continued worshipping Ahura Mazda and keeping themselves far from Ahriman’s attraction. But it appears that, during the Arsacid times, Zoroaster’s preaching was rather perceived as a sacred moral world order; subsequently, the metaphysical terms of the then orally preserved Avesta took a moral dimension and connotation. The spiritual interest seems to have shifted from an imperial order of worldwide salvation to a personal order of moral integrity.
Consequently, examining the nature of this historical-religious change, we may be able to discern that the Achaemenid Zoroastrian orthodoxy, once deprived of its overwhelmingly imperial character, looks rather associated to the moral concepts and the spiritual tenets of Tengrism. For this reason, it is proper not to use the term ‘Zoroastrianism’ for all the historical periods after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, because religiosity differed substantially; it would then be preferable to use the term ‘Zendism’ for the Iranian religion of the Arsacid times, which is in reality a later form of Zoroastrianism in which theological exegesis (Zend Avesta meaning interpretation of Avesta) prevailed over the original faith, and the Avestan text took mainly a moral connotation and value within the socio-religious environment of those days.
The Zend commentaries of the Avestan texts, which definitely originate from the spiritual-religious background of the Arsacid Parthian (and not Sassanid) times, do reflect theological concepts and world views closer associated with Tengrism. About:
Zendism was definitely opposite to Mithraism, although perhaps not in the very strict form for which the Achaemenid emperors became famous. But it was mainly in Arsacid times that Mithraism expanded enormously both, southeastwards (India) and westwards (Caucasus, Anatolia, Syria, Greece, Europe, Rome and the Roman Empire). This does not mean that there were no Mithraic Magi left in Iran; their existence proved to be the main reason for palatial turmoil, sacerdotal plots, social unrest, and internal strives. Undoubtedly, the Magi were the absolute embodiment of Ahriman (: the evil) for the Arsacid rulers, pretty much like they had been an abomination for the Achaemenid monarchs.
In this regard, it is essential to point out that ‘Mithra’ (or ‘Mehr’) in Zoroastrianism and ‘Mithra’ (or ‘Mehr’) in Mithraism are two absolutely different divinities – pretty much like Jesus in Manichaeism, Mandaean religion, Gnostic Christianity, Roman & Eastern Roman Christianity, Nestorian Christianity, and Islam is not one being but many divergent entities or forms of divinity, each with dissimilar attributes. It goes without saying that for any concept or aspect of Tengrism, which is also a markedly monotheistic system, Mithra is a religious disgrace.
More specifically, I have to point out that within the context of Zoroastrianism, ‘Mithra’ (or ‘Mehr’) is a subordinate form of divinity that constitutes merely an expression of the unfathomable benevolence and omnipotence of Ahura Mazda, and as such it bears solar attributes. Contrarily, within the context of Mithraism, this divinity gets emancipated, becomes independent, and turns out to be the central recipient of cult, while a series of abominable and sacrilegious acts are attributed to him, notably the blasphemy of tauroctony which is part of the Mithraic eschatology. Due to the polytheistic nature of Mithraism, Mithra is intrinsically and extensively mythologized; this is so because there cannot be true polytheism without numerous narratives which attract the adoration of the faithful, and in the process, they prevent believers from focusing on the spiritual exercises, the moral principles, and the basic narratives of Cosmogony, Cosmology and Eschatology. In Mithraism, Ahura Mazda still exists as an inactive divinity of the old time, like the Roman dei otiosi.
At this point, it is essential to make one clarification; the well-known, theophoric name ‘Mithridates’, which was used by several Arsacid Parthian rulers, does not directly imply Mithraic affiliation. Certainly, the name means literally ‘given by Mithra’; it was also attested in Pontus, Commagene, Armenia and elsewhere. But every case of use is different. In some cases, it may involve the Zendist / Zoroastrian concept of Mithra; on other occasions, it may reflect a compromise among the Parthian Arsacid Empire’s imperial and the sacerdotal cliques, which were plunged in an endless conflict against one another.
Last, the use of the aforementioned theophoric name can eventually denote the pro-Mithraic tendency and affiliation of a Parthian monarch; there were indeed few Mithraists among the Arsacid rulers. This was an abomination for the monotheistic Parthian Zendist priests, and it appears that some of the pro-Mithraic Arsacid rulers were overthrown. The analysis of the reason(s) that stood behind the selection of a theophoric name in the Antiquity may be very long and complicated a topic, because usually these names heralded the nature of the imperial rule that was to be expected in terms easy to understand for the contemporaneous people and difficult to decode for modern scholarship. About:
———– A SELECTION OF ARSACID PARTHIAN MONUMENTS ———
Hatra, NW Iraq: a major caravan city on the Silk Roads that prospered during the Arsacid Parthian times, being mainly inhabited by the local Aramaeans
A barrel vaulted iwan at the entrance at the ancient site of Hatra, modern-day Iraq, built c. 50 CE
Statue unearthed in Hatra, currently at the Tokyo National Museum: Aramaean amalgamation of Verethragna and an Aramaean deity into a Mithraic divinity similar to Artagnes, who is known to have been worshipped in Nemrut Dagh and Commagene in general
Temple of the Aramaean divinity Gareus, near Uruk, Southern Mesopotamia – near the borders of the vassal kingdom of Characene
Parthian ceramic oil lamp, from the province of Khuzestan, currently in the National Museum of Iran (Tehran)
Baal temple in Palmyra: a frieze relief
Grave towers in Tadmor / Palmyra / Phoinicopolis; known among Syrians as the ‘Valley of the Tombs’ (Wadi al-Qubur). Majestic funerary monuments bear witness to the extraordinary wealth of the great Aramaean caravan city (1st-3rd c. CE).
Statue of a young Palmyrene Aramaean in fine Parthian trousers; from a funerary stele at Palmyra / Tadmor, early 3rd century CE
Mordechai and Esther. From the Aramaean Synagogue of Dura Europos (near Abu Kemal) on the Western bank of Euphrates River in Syria (right before the Syrian-Iraqi border): wall mural with representation of a story from the Book of Esther (early 3rd c. CE); artistic style known as ‘Parthian frontality’
Pre-publication of chapter XIV of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey – 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian – Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”. Along with Chapter XV and Chapter XVI, Chapter XIV belongs to Part Five {Fallacies about Sassanid History, History of Religions, and the History of Migrations}. The book is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters. Chapter XVI has already been made known in pre-publication here: https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2023/02/02/iran-turan-manichaeism-islam-during-the-migration-period-and-the-early-caliphates/
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Nisa, Turkmenistan: the original Parthian Arsacid capital
Nisa, the Parthian Fortress
To the Anti-Mithraic nature of the Arsacid rule and to the philhellenism of the Parthians are due the main reasons for all the Iranian-Roman wars (54 BCE – 628 CE) that took place under either the Arsacid or the Sassanid dynasty, before and after the Christianization of the Roman Empire. For those who accepted Alexander the Great as an Iranian king of kings (after the example of Cyrus the Great) on the basis of his purely Oriental claims and his genuinely Iranian deeds, the fact that a remarkable Mithraic penetration took place across the territories of various states of Epigones was unacceptable. This fact has always been deliberately obscured by the colonial Orientalist forgers.
It is however easy to observe that no war took place between the Parthians and the Romans prior to the Mithraic prevalence in Pontus, Commagene, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Western Anatolia, and the Balkans at a time the Romans were gradually expanding in the East. The Parthians viewed the Romans as a successor to the Epigones and had rather good relations with the Anti-Mithraic Romans.
The main reason for the Parthian interference in the regions of Caucasus, Armenia, Anatolia, North Mesopotamia and Syria was the rise of Mithraism in those lands. In Armenia, more specifically, the problems started when a Parthian Arsacid offspring, Vonones I, took power there (12-18 CE), after being overthrown as pro-Mithraic in Parthia where he had ruled for four years only. Of course, it is not a coincidence that the Parthian noble, who overthrew Vonones I, i.e. Artaban II, was his predecessor’s nephew and originated from the Dahae Turanian tribe. More significantly, he had previously ruled Atropatene, i.e. the most sacrosanct land of the Empire. All the elements of the conflict appear to be religious of nature and character; they seem to testify to a formidable clash between Zendism, i.e. the monotheistic orthodoxy, and the Mithraic polytheistic heresy. About:
Parthian golden necklace, 2nd c CE, Reza Abbasi Museum
Parthian long-necked lute
Parthian funerary objects from Nineveh
Statue of Parthian nobleman from Shami, Khuzestan
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The rise of the Sassanid dynasty (224-651 CE) was not the result of an ethnic clash (Persian vs. Turanian) or a tribal dispute; it was a resolute effort of some Persian Iranians to bring about, at the local level first, the irrevocable termination of the Mithraic subversion. The uniquely totalitarian rule of the Sassanid was successful in eliminating every trace of Mithraic Magi from the empire which, as I already said, was named for the first time Iran (or rather Iranshahr/ Ērānshahr: ’empire of Iranians’).
However, the rise of the Sassanids in Iran (224 CE) was contemporaneous with the rise of Mithra Sol Invictus in Rome; this ominous fact deteriorated the relationship, further discrediting Rome in the eyes of the Iranian Zoroastrian monotheists. Few scholars have observed that Ardashir I overthrew the last Parthian monarch (after the famous battle of Hormozdgan, somewhere in today’s Iranian Khuzestan, on 28 April 224 CE) only two years after the assassination (11 March 222 CE) of the Roman Emperor Elagabalus (or Heliogabalus; official imperial name: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus), who was the son of an Aramaean noble lady and a Roman aristocrat.
Quite revelatory for Rome’s overwhelming Orientalization and emphatic Mithraization is the fact that Elagabalus, before ruling Rome for four years, had been the high priest of the Aramaean sun god in Heliogabalus’ temple in Emessa, i.e. today’s Homs in Syria. This crucial fact was apparently known to the monotheists and their venerable mystics in Iran.
————————— Parthian Arsacid coins and bas-reliefs ———————————–
Coin of Mithridates II of Parthia, Ray mint
Phraates IV (reign c. 38–2 BCE) ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ ΕΥΕΡΓΕΤΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ
Mithridates I’s victory depicted on a relief at Hung-e Azhdar (also written as Xong-e Ashdar), Izeh (SW Iran); Mithridates I (195-132 BCE) reigned after 165 BCE.
Behistun relief of Vologases III (reign: 110–147 CE)
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Another critical development that had taken place in Rome few years before Elagabalus became a typically Oriental emperor was the issuance (212 CE) of the Edict of Caracalla, which is rather known as Constitutio Antoniniana; according to this groundbreaking dictate, all free men in the Roman Empire were given full Roman citizenship. This development eliminated every ‘political ideological’ or ‘ethnic identitarian’ theory, belief or pretension.
For important historical nations like the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Aramaeans, the Jews, the Berbers, the Carthaginians, the Macedonians, and the Ionians, the Edict of Caracalla was clearly tantamount to irrevocable ‘act of death’: it definitely meant complete voluntary renunciation of one nation’s own imperial or political concept (and practice) of governance and explicit abnegation of own rule, royal or political tradition, and cultural-ethnic identity. By accepting (as they all did without the slightest opposition) the Edict of Caracalla, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Jews, the Macedonians and all the rest accepted that they were merely Egyptian-speaking, Phoenician-speaking, and Berber-speaking Romans (and so on for the rest).
The concept of the Oriental Universal Empire was thus imposed one century before the Christianization of the Roman Empire. One must however add that this occurred due to devious machinations and administrative acts and not in proper terms of spiritual evocation and genuine, solemn, imperial inauguration; it was very lowly and evidently unholy.
However, Rome’s Mithraization was indeed a counterfeit Iranization. This fact has been systematically concealed by modern historians and historians of religion. But in this manner, to the eyes of the Iranian monotheists, Rome became -and for very good reasons- the abode of Ahriman (: Satan) as per the viewpoint and the criteria of the Iranian Zoroastrian monotheists. Why this is so we can understand, if we truly pay attention to what happened in Rome during the 3rd c. CE.
The blasphemous apotheosis of the Roman emperors started being related to an evident identification with Sol Invictus, and in 220 CE Elagabalus replaced Jupiter with god Elagabalus who was conceived as Sol Invictus – Mithra. The equation of a human with a god had always been an evil monstrosity for Iranian Zoroastrian monotheists. Not one emperor could ever be accepted as ‘god’ in Iran, and actually this never happened. The Achaemenids and later Alexander ruled the Iranian province of Egypt as Horus (: the Living Concept of the Messiah) to be there considered as pharaohs, but this was a phenomenon apart that did not concern the main provinces of the Empire.
This was not the beginning of Mithraic prevalence in Rome, but it was the first time a Roman emperor was officially believed to be Mithras Incarnate. This practice was repeatedly attested in almost all the other Roman emperors, who were venerated as Sol Invictus (Undefeatable Sun) and accordingly were portrayed with radiant crowns.
In fact, the Mithraization of the Roman religion, empire, cultural and imperial life was a compact development that did not involve only the erection of hundreds of Mithraea across the vast country but also the systematic and overwhelming spiritual, religious, mythological, theological transformation of several (Aramaean, Anatolian, Phoenician, Caucasian, Berber, Roman, Macedonian, Ionian, Celtic and many other European) divinities into mere aspects of Mithra.
This abominable situation was tantamount to unprecedented and foremost Ahrimanization (: Satanization) of the Western confines of the Earth; consequently, it had to be dealt with and rectified or annulled. This was the universal raison d’être of the Sassanid emperors of Iran; they had to eliminate the evilness of those who had already proved to be untrustworthy successors of Alexander the Great and impotent custodians of his legacy, i.e. an illustrious effort of readjustment of Achaemenid Iran.
The Sassanid armies repeatedly defeated many Roman armies; they even captured Roman emperors. Unfortunately, this was not enough, as it could not change much the evil religious practices in Rome. Despite Valerian’s disastrous defeat at Urhoy (Edessa of Osrhoene; today’s Urfa in Southeastern Turkey), the subsequent (260 CE) invasion of Cappadocia by Shapur I (Ardashir I’s son; 240-270 CE), and the stunning deportation of 400000 Cappadocians in Iran, Aurelian (270-275) was proclaimed Sol Invictus as official Roman god on 25th December 274 CE, thus further advancing the process of Orientalization, Mithraization and counterfeit Iranization of the Roman Empire. Little mattered to the Iranians the fact that few faithful and benevolent praetorian guardians murdered the infamous emperor.
Rome had progressively become ‘Aniran’, i.e. the Non-Iran – an evil and chaotic periphery under the full control of Ahriman. To the Sassanid monotheistic emperors and priests, this development meant that, in 275 CE, Rome was indeed a counterfeit Iran the existence of which the Sassanid kings of kings could not accept anymore.
The Mithraization of the Roman Empire was highly accentuated in the reign of the most Mithraic Roman Emperor Constantine I (306-337 CE). Noticeably, in the Arch of Constantine, several statues of Sol Invictus are depicted; Constantine I was portrayed as Sol Invictus Mithra on coins dating in the period 315-325, and as late as March 7th 321 CE, he proclaimed the Day of Mithra, Dies Solis, as the official Roman day of rest. The only development left to take place beyond that point was the association of the forged narratives about the historical Jewish rabbi Jesus with the themes of the mythical-mystical evangelization of the Anti-Iranian, Roman Mithra as End Times’ Savior. This progressive amalgamation, after being unconditionally wrapped in voluminous theological indoctrination, became known as the Official Roman Christianity, as the parallel, but fundamentally different, Hebrew concept of Messiah was entirely absorbed, irrevocably disassembled, and egregiously distorted within the Mithraic Roman specter named ‘Jesus – Christ’.
General reading and bibliography can be found here:
—— ARAMAEAN CARAVAN SITES UNDER PARTHIAN ARSACID INFLUENCE ———
Dura Europos
Temple of Bel
Dura Europos, Temple of Bel relief: Bel (far right), Baalshamin (far left) and the Aramaean gods Iarhibol & Aglibol in-between
Dura Europos, Temple of Bel wall painting: Julius Terentius performing a sacrifice
Dura Europos, Temple of Bel wall painting: Conon offers a sacrifice
Detail from the previous wall painting
Hatra
Hatra military commander with a votive statuette (offering)
Hatra: the Mithraic version of Nergal, an Ancient Assyrian mythological-cosmological concept that the Aramaean polytheists personified as the god of the Nether World.
By Prof. Muhammet Şemsettin Gözübüyükoğlu (Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis)
Pre-publication of chapter XXIII of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey – 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian – Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”; chapter XXIII constitutes the Part Nine (Fallacies about the Golden Era of the Islamic Civilization). The book is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters.
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Known rather through his cognomen (‘Paradisiacal’) and his kunya (teknonym: Abu’l Qassem, i.e. ‘father of Qassem’), Ferdowsi was born (ca. 940) in Tus (Khorasan, NE Iran) around the time Muhammad ibn al-Askari, son of Hasan al-Askari and 12th Imam, went into his Major Occultation (941). The apocalyptic eschatological fascination of those days is explicitly shown in Ferdowsi’s own name, because the quest for the Paradise is the epitome of every reliable Messianism (: Soteriology) and Eschatology.
Ferdowsi is a worldwide unique case of highly venerated poet whose work is absolutely immense and whose known details of life are incredibly minimal; although he was historically referred to as the leading epic poet, erudite sage, and unsurpassed master of Farsi (and there have been several historical biographies of him), we don’t know even his real name. Judging from his son’s name, Ferdowsi (940-1020) was a Muslim, but there stop all the important biographical details that we know. In fact, Ferdowsi’s life is enveloped in mystery and legend similarly with the contents of his monumental and sublime epic; we know however that he had a great Turanian sponsor: the formidable Conqueror and Emperor Mahmud Ghaznavi (971-1030; the founder of the Ghaznavid dynasty), who invaded the Indus Valley, Punjab and the Ganges Valley, unifying territories that stretched between the Caspian Sea and today’s Bangladesh.
Ferdowsi mausoleum, Tus – Iran
Ferdowsi’s unsurpassed masterpiece, the Shahnameh (: the Book of the Kings) is the world’s largest epic totaling more than 100000 (one hundred thousand) verses. In terms of Iranian Literature, it was not the first epic composed under this title. Thanks to his historical biographies, we know that Ferdowsi started the composition of the enormous opus in 977, initially viewing it as the completion of a similar effort earlier undertaken by another Iranian poet, Abu Mansur Daqiqi, who did not have the chance to advance his Shahnameh much before being assassinated. However, Ferdowsi’s epic differs greatly from all the other Shahnameh epic poems or prose compositions in many ways; although similar narratives have been attested in other Iranian and Islamic epics, Ferdowsi places his heroes in an atemporal field of semiotics whereby they function as symbols of spiritual ideas, moral principles, and eternal values.
Was Ferdowsi a ‘Sunni’ or a ‘Shia’? The question sounds irrelevant; although it is evident that he was a Muslim and a strong monotheist (which also applies to several forms of pre-Islamic Iranian religions), Ferdowsi does not contain the slightest portion of reference to the Early Islamic History into his legendary opus.
Is pre-Islamic Iranian-Turanian History reflected in Ferdowsi’s epic? In a way, yes! But it is an ahistorical reference to a series of dynasties that modern Iranologists, philologists, specialists in Comparative Literature, historians and historians of religions, experts in Mysticism Studies and Symbolism try in vain to accommodate within the scholarly known frame of the Achaemenid, Arsacid and Sassanid dynasties. This is however quite impossible a task to carry out; and Ferdowsi is the only reason for this. Although there is not a single indication that Ferdowsi divided his masterpiece into ‘periods’, the entire Shahnameh is divided, on the basis of typical literary analysis, into three sections: mythical age, heroic age, and historical age.
As per this – absolutely wrong – categorization, all the aforementioned pre-Islamic Iranian dynasties belong to the third section (historical age). But more than two thirds of the enormous epic’s verses are dedicated to the narration of episodes of the so-called ‘heroic age’. An analysis of Shahnameh goes beyond the scope of the present book, but with the above brief description I wanted to point out that Ferdowsi mainly focused on pre-Achaemenid eras and that his intention was to illuminate the spiritual ideas and the human valor that predestined historical Iran-Turan to be what we know through regular historical documentation that it was. Despite the numerous distortive presentations and worthless analyses, if one stays close to Ferdowsi’s verses, one concludes easily that, as per the illustrious poet and mystic, Iran-Turan constitutes an indivisible world.
Was Ferdowsi a Persian or a Turanian? This question in and by itself reveals total ignorance of Iranian and Turanian History, Culture and Civilization. The undisputed and definitely unequaled mastership of Farsi to which the majestic composition of Shahnameh bears witness does not make of Ferdowsi a Persian. Across the ages, many Turanians excelled in Persian poetry. Ferdowsi’s origin from Khorasan (a region traditionally inhabited by Turanians and Persians alike) and his close relationship with the great Turanian Emperor Mahmud Ghaznavi show that it is quite plausible that Ferdowsi was a Turanian. Mahmud Ghaznavi vanquished the Samanid state (995-999) pretty much like the Seljuk Turks had destroyed the Buyids half a century later. Consequently, we can conclude that Ferdowsi ostensibly sided with Turanian institutions and rulers against Persian states and kings.
There are also some other indicators that must be taken into consideration, as regards Ferdowsi’s identity: although his legendary narratives reflect the foremost values of the Achaemenid Civilization and represent the Zoroastrian conceptualization of the Universe, the contents of Shahnameh do not stringently correspond to the world of Parsis, namely those among the Sassanid times’ Persians who managed to escape the Islamic onslaught and survived in Iran and in India, preserving a posterior form of Mazdeism (and Zoroastrianism) that we presently call ‘Parsism’. Several PhD-level dissertations can be elaborated to properly demonstrate that on many critical issues Ferdowsi’s viewpoint on the pre-Islamic Iran and the Parsis’ traditions pertaining to the Sassanid (and earlier) past differ greatly.
In Shahnameh, one cannot find the slightest support for the Parsi faith, let alone of the Parsis’ anti-Islamic feelings. There is not a single sign that Ferdowsi saw his grand opus as an Iranian ‘comeback’ (let alone ‘revenge’), as an instigation of pre-Islamic Iranian ‘patriotism’ among Iranian Muslims or as anti-Islamic fascination and mobilization. On the contrary, throughout Shahnameh, there are incessant references to Turanian gallantry and passion, bravery and confusion, unity and division, crime and punishment, discipline and order, mysticism and divination, honesty and treachery, clarity and confusion.
The Iranian – Turanian epic presents a magnificent equilibrium among all tendencies and characters, trends and exploits, attempts and regrets. Shahnameh attains a spherical perfection, contains no pointless element, locates all elements in their correct place whereby everything meets its reverse reflection and all spirits are accompanied by their opposites. All this is put in perfect Farsi, in lines of 22 syllables, in rhyming couplets (masnaviyat), and in metre 1.1.11.
Where does Ferdowsi stand among his time’s mystics, orders, kings and warriors, erudite scholars and theological jurists?
Was he close to late Sassanid Zervanism? Certainly not as much as Tabari, a fully accredited Islamic exegete and theologian, founder of a major madhhab, and the Islamic world’s supreme historian! Tabari dedicated the introductory chapter of his voluminous History to a theoretical analysis of the Time (: Zervan or Zurvan, a late Mithraic figure that was the central god of a late branch of Mithraists). But Ferdowsi started his epic with Keyumars (Gayomard of the late Zoroastrian texts), the first man and first king (Pishdad dynasty); this approach makes of royalty the first human virtue.
Was Ferdowsi close to the late Sassanid followers of Gayomard? Not quite! His focus on the recapitulation of themes related to heroic combats gives us the impression that Ferdowsi envisioned a dynamic universe in which Cosmogony and Eschatology consisted in an indivisible entity of spiritual and material order based on a permanent movement back and forth between Being and Becoming.
From all the major groups of early Muslims and from all the followers of then extant Iranian religions, the Khurramites, the Parsis, the Manichaeans, the Mazdakists, the so-called Twelver Shia, the Isma’ilis, between the Mazdeists and all the rest, Ferdowsi seems to be equidistant.
The same attitude appears in the Shahnameh; between the Turanian Afrasiab and the Iranians Siyavash and Kay Khosrow, Ferdowsi pursues a narrative that does not favor any of the combatants, while presenting brave deeds and mythical facts as the straight result of the great legendary heroes’ spiritual choices and divine providence.
In fact, Ferdowsi is to be found at cosmic distance from all his contemporaneous mystics, poets, erudite polymaths, historians, scholars and theologians. Next to him, all the rest appear infinitesimal. That’s why we can safely claim that within the wider context of Islamic Civilization across Eurasia only Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh proved to be as influential a book as the Quran. The great epic impacted all the Islamic nations, ethno-linguistic groups, mystical orders, intellectuals, poets, authors, and artists so irrevocably that, from the beginning of the 11th c. onwards, it would perhaps be more accurate, instead of speaking of Iranians and Turanians, to start referring to them as Ferdowsians. About:
Kay Qobad (Kay Kawad) on his throne; a leading figure of the Kayanid dynasty that was transcendentally constructed by Ferdowsi
In fact, one cannot speak about the Seljuk Turks, before briefly presenting Ferdowsi’s Cosmogony within the Islamic world. This is so because the Seljuk dynasty, along with the Ghaznavids, proved to be the first and the most enthusiastic adepts and supporters of the heroic worldview narrated by Ferdowsi, of the spiritual ideas revealed in Shahnameh, and of the moral values respected by the great heroes of the legendary, atemporal and apocalyptic Pishdadian and Kayanian dynasties. In fact, only this phenomenon, i.e. the Ghaznavids’ and the Seljuk Turks’ wholehearted acceptance and overwhelming promotion of the Universe as reassessed by Ferdowsi, makes of the grand master of Farsi Literature the national poet of all Turanians.
Quite contrarily to the historical facts, the criminal Western Orientalists depict a terribly tarnished and viciously distorted image of this reality; as per their false and nonsensical interpretations, the Seljuk Turks accepted Islam through Persian culture. This is as idiotic as an eventual, irrelevant assumption according to which a (fully hypothetical) educational jury was supposedly awaiting at the northeastern Iranian borders for the Seljuk Turks to come, and then upon their arrival, they told them: “pass your Ferdowsi exam, and come-in”! So pathetic and ludicrous is the Western Orientalist approach to the topic! Things did not happen that way, and this reality shows that it is absolutely absurd and utterly calamitous for any Turkic and Iranian nation to accept the presence of Anglo-American institutions in their territories or to allow their nationals to study in Western universities or even to visit West European, North American, and Oceanian countries.
The heroic, legendary, cosmological and eschatological order revealed by Ferdowsi in his Shahnameh was the basic oral culture of all Turanians and Iranians, Persians included, for millennia. Simply, this cultural background was not (and could not be) the religious dogma of Zoroastrianism (and of its subsequent forms, i.e. Arsacid Zendism and Sassanid Mazdeism) as attested in the holy texts of that religion and in the imperial inscriptions of the faithful Kings of Kings.
The fallacy of Modern Western Humanities, as developed in the racist, colonial, criminal pseudo-universities of Western Europe and North America, is due to the paranoid (but intentionally implemented) method of compartmentalizing the historical truth and the exploration thereof; this occurs in total contradiction to the universal, comprehensive and holistic approach and method (of viewing and examining the historical truth) that prevailed among all the great historical civilizations (whereby there was no compartmentalization). This vicious method leads colonial historiographers to the distortive division of topics into separate ‘academic fields’: history, archaeology, philology (‘literature’), linguistics, history of religions, ethnography and social anthropology, philosophy, history of arts, history of sciences, architecture, and so on. Consequently, this makes researchers separate their various study topics between “written cultures” and “oral cultures”; but by so doing, they totally misperceive and misrepresent entire historical periods.
As a matter of fact, Ferdowsi did not ‘invent’ (or ‘envision’ or ‘conceive’ or ‘devise’ or ‘create’) his narratives; he only managed to compose them in an incomparably genuine and superior poetic manner. All the terms, names and ideas of Shahnameh’s stories antedate Ferdowsi for about 1500 years – to say the least; this is something that all Orientalists accept. But they fail to see that these terms, names, ideas and stories constituted the oral culture of all the Iranians and the Turanians long before the heliocentric fallacy of Mithras was first propagated among them in the first half of the first pre-Christian millennium. Ferdowsi wrote down this millennia-long Turanian and Iranian oral anti-Mithraic cultural tradition in a literarily majestic manner. And by doing so, he did not ‘give’ the Seljuk Turks their culture (which was already theirs and their ancestors’), but the wings that they needed to conquer the world and implement their millennia long values and virtues as reinstated in the Quran and reinterpreted in the Shahnameh.
Of course, there is a reason the colonial historiography appears to have some success in plunging readers into deceitful schemes, distortive narratives, and nonexistent popups; if you are naïve enough to believe that the Seljuk Turks came from the North Pole or the Moon, then you will certainly accept the fallacy of the so-called Seljuk acculturation in Iran, and you will start believing the nonsense of the Turanian nations’ ‘persianization’. But the Seljuk Turks were neither in the North Pole nor in the Moon! In fact, they had been -for several centuries- just on the other side of the Islamic Caliphate’s northeastern border. And for cultures, for nations, for faiths, and for civilizations, there are no borders; even more importantly, borders do not apply to oral cultures.
Even more absurdly, “border historiography” cannot exist across the Silk Road; by ‘stopping’ their premeditated and therefore fallacious description of historical facts at the borders of the various modern states, the criminal Western pseudo-historians intentionally implement their evil political axiom ‘divide et impera’ throughout Humanities. This is the way most of the people worldwide have been deceived in this regard.
For several centuries, the ancestors of the Seljuk Turks lived within the wider Yabyu (English: Yabghu) territory within the land of the Oguz/Oghuz (Oğuz) nomads’ state. Its location stretched across vast territories of the modern states of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and (to smaller extent) Uzbekistan. Yabyu spanned east of the Khazar Khaganate (or Khanate), between the Caspian Sea and Aral Lake, and north of the border of the Islamic Caliphate. The forefather of the Seljuk Turks was a formidable Oghuz combatant named Seljuk, who served also in the Khazar army, before clashing with other Oghuz warriors, migrating to southeast (around the year 980), and settling in Transoxiana (Arabic: Mawarannahr / ماوراءالنهر), next to Syr Darya (Iaxartes) river. At that original stage, the ‘Seljuk Turks’ (i.e. the family of Seljuk) were less than 1000 people in total.
Seljuk made an alliance with the Samanids (a mainly Persian kingdom) and fought against the Kara-Khanids, a Turanian Khaganate, mainly known as the House of Afrasiab (آل افراسیاب / which means that they were named (as early as the 9th c.; so before Ferdowsi) after the most important Turanian hero of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. The development was not good for the Seljuk family, and Seljuk’s grandsons Tughril and Chaghri had to further migrate (ca. 1040) to the South (Khorasan). The son of Mahmud Ghaznavi, Mas’ud I of Ghazni, tried to prevent them from advancing, and the battle of Dandanaqan (near Merv in today’s Turkmenistan) opened the way for the Seljuk rise. Tughril’s and Chaghri’s victory (1040) was tantamount to Seljuk prevalence in Khorasan. Ten years later (1050), Tughril invaded Isfahan and established the Great Seljuk Empire.
However, only to prove the inalienable, indissoluble, and indelible nature of the Turanian–Iranian civilization and identity, the early Seljuk success across the Iranian plateau would have no historical continuity and impact without the astounding contribution of a Persian original: Abu Ali Hasan ibn Ali Tusi, who is rather known through his incredible title ‘Nizam al Mulk’ (:”Systems of Royal Governance”). Nizam al Mulk (1018-1092) was born two years before Ferdowsi died, but his inclination and genius covered a totally different field than that of the greatest epic poet of World History. Originating from Khorasan, Abu Ali Hasan ibn Ali Tusi left his position at Ghazni, the capital of the Turanian Ghaznavid Empire and entered the service of the Seljuk Turks (1043); there he was entrusted, among other tasks, with the education of Muhammad bin Dawud Chaghri (mainly known as Alp Arslan), i.e. the son of Chaghri and nephew of Tughril, the founding sultans of the Seljuk empire.
The assassination of Nizam al Mulk
Consequently, the rise of the Seljuk Empire is entirely due to the wise advice, the outstanding guidance, and the governance systematization introduced by Nizam al Mulk, a Persian; of course, all this would prove to be useless without the Seljuk bravery and thunderous attacks. One can call the Seljuk Empire a ‘Turanian’ (or ‘Turkic’ state); but it was equally ‘Iranian’ – notwithstanding the historical forgeries of the Orientalist gangsters of the Anglo-American universities.
Nizam al Mulk is perhaps the person, who studied best the infinite intrigues that occurred on daily basis among all the rulers who enjoyed some portion of power due to the already discussed phenomenon of the Abbasid Caliphate’s fragmentation. Highly respected and incessantly consulted by Tughril, Chaghri and their children, Nizam al Mulk methodically guided them in the splendid attempt to terminate the Abbasid Caliphate’s fragmentation. First, they consolidated their control across the northern part of the Iranian plateau until 1046-7. In 1048, they attacked an Eastern Roman – Georgian army near today’s Pasinler (or Hasankale), east of Erzurum, in the less publicized but historic battle of Kapetron. After ensuring a great capital for themselves at Isfahan (1050), in the Iranian plateau’s southern part, Tughril invaded Baghdad (1055), terminated the Buyid dynasty, and (according to modern Turkish Islamist bibliography) ‘liberated’ the Abbasid Caliph; this is however not accurate because it was not possible anymore to restore the original power of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Abbasids remained a weak and impotent dynasty for another 200 years.
Nizam al Mulk set up a series of academies named after him, ‘Nizamiyah’; his major opus Siyasatnameh (‘the Book of the Governance’) was the basic manual that was taught, discussed, and in-depth understood there, after the completion of an entire basic circle of studies. The numerous Nizamiyah academies that the indefatigable Nizam al Mulk founded in various parts of the expanding Seljuk territory were not similar either to the earlier appeared jurisprudential madhhabs or to the regular madrasas (theological schools).
The graduates of every Nizamiyah acquired first a spherical, encyclopedic knowledge, and at a second stage, an excellent command of the diverse methods of a successful administration of the state (one could vaguely compare them to various modern ‘national schools of administration’). Nizamiyah graduates could man the Seljuk administration and deliver spectacular results, due to the innovative and resourceful mindset that they were taught to build and thanks to their persistence on avoiding bureaucracy. Despite his indisputable imperial and administrative genius, Nizam al Mulk was also a combatant, and – contrarily to the worthless and corrupt, modern bureaucrats – he often accompanied his shahs in their campaigns.
Nizam al Mulk was ostensibly against the group of Isma’ilis and their system of secretive and elitist governance. In his book, he expanded on them; this however does not make of him a ‘Sunni’, as modern forgers pretend. He and his Seljuk emperors were Muslims, who did not accept either secretive governance or the particularities of various eschatological, messianic groups like the Isma’ilis (today mistakenly named ‘Sevener Shia’) or the apocalyptic adepts of the Ahl al Bayt (today erroneously called ‘Twelver Shia’), who expected the imminent reappearance of the 12th imam. This is an extra proof that throughout History there is no such sectarian division and false identification as “Turkish Sunni” and “Iranian Shia”; this is a colonial lie and a shameful Orientalist forgery.
All the same, because of the colonially imposed (during the 19th and 20th centuries) sectarianism, which prevails among today’s deceived and disoriented Muslims, Nizam al Mulk is totally unknown among African Muslims and Saudi-impacted Muslims in Southeast Asia, because he is idiotically viewed as “Iranian and therefore Shia”. This externally imposed pseudo-historical dogma is enough to reveal the criminal nature of the colonial countries France and England, of their successor state (USA), and of the various associated structures, like Canada and Australia.
The rise of the Seljuk Empire was the result of great bravery, heroic fascination, and superb imperial administration that greatly contributed to arts, letters, sciences and spirituality; but it was practically speaking the affair of one family. Few victories were enough to catapult the Seljuk Turks to world predominance between China and Rome. This was due to their wisdom, universal culture, and ability to compose out of many diverse elements; they therefore became a pole of major attraction. Within the general context of Modern Turkology, most of the researchers are specializing in the Ottoman Empire (eventually because of the abundance of historical sources) and have a certain predilection and admiration for the Ottomans, who also functioned as one family – only to the detriment of the Empire that they acquired and that they inherited. But this scholarly attitude is very subjective, highly sentimental, and therefore wrong.
In reality, the Ottomans were superior to the Seljuk Turks only quantitatively. They controlled larger territory and they lasted longer; that’s true. But if one examines the data qualitatively and evaluates comparatively, one easily concludes that the Seljuk were remarkably superior to the Ottomans. However, their undeniably inherent weakness, which consisted in numerous internal conflicts and in incessant, yet unnecessary, family divisions, antagonisms and rivalries, predestined them to fast decay. In fact, the Seljuk Golden Era lasted ca. 100 years: from the dissolution of the Buyid dynasty (1055) to the death of Ahmad Sanjar (1157). After that term, the Seljuk Empire split to several sultanates. The most remarkable among them was certainly the Sultanate of Rum, but that was an Anatolian state, not a major empire across Eurasia. All the same, the History of Mysticism and Spirituality in Seljuk Anatolia eclipsed the Imperial History of that branch of the Seljuk family.
Even Alp Arslan (1063-1072) and Malik-Shah I (1072-1092), who represent the top of Seljuk power, had to engage in battles to eliminate contenders to their throne, and the contenders were none else than their formidable uncles, Kutalmish and Qavurt respectively. Thanks to Nizam al Mulk, Alp Arslan organized a mixed form of feudal empire, at the same time sedentary and nomadic, and for this, he was praised by many Persians like Saadi Shirazi, whereas with the rising sectarianism of the 13th c. he was terribly scolded by Turanians like Shams al-din ibn Kızoğlu (Sıbt İbnu’l-Cevzi). Thanks to Nizam al Mulk’s concepts and Alp Arslan’s rule and practices, a great process of Turanian sedentism across Iran, India, Caucasus, Anatolia and Syro-Mesopotamia was initiated only to strengthen the local populations and transform the Central Asiatic and Siberian nomadism. More importantly, this ingenious idea and brilliant execution introduced -across a vast region- a new social system of mutual social interdependence among sedentary and nomadic populations, thus fortifying the states that would rule these populations. Many populations that still preserve their nomadic nature and traditions across the vast lands from the Mediterranean to the Indus River and from the Persian Gulf to the Tian Shan Mountains and the Siberian permafrost reached the regions where they currently live in the period between the arrival of the Seljuk Turks and the rise of Mughal Empire.
Contrarily to Orientalist deceitful schemes and deliberate misinterpretations, Malik-Shah I did not clash with the dangerous Isma’ili enclave of Hassan al Sabah (1050-1124) in Alamut and in various surrounding locations in the Alborz Mountains because of a hypothetical ‘Sunni’–’Shia’ dispute or an ethnic Persian–Turanian conflict. Simply, as a student of Nizam al-Mulk, he fully accepted and implemented his tutor’s and adviser’s recommendations as regards the nature of the imperial administration and state.
First of all, the small and perfidious Isma’ili state constituted real dynamite in the foundations of the Seljuk Empire; second, the treacherous nature of the Assassins consisted in permanent threat for all the local populations that wanted to live in peace across the Seljuk territory, and not in ceaseless strives. Above all, Malik-Shah I rejected the concept of elitist rule and the existence of spiritual orders with material aspirations. Unfortunately, his successors proved to be quite incompetent and totally unable to face the challenges that they encountered. Because of them and due to their internal discord, the Seljuk Empire was not prepared to oppose the Crusades that started at that moment. For a period of 26 years (1092-1118), four monarchs ruled the vast state that was gradually being decomposed; their incompetence triggered the secession of various lands that formed independent sultanates under the control of various members of Seljuk’s family.
Ahmad Sanjar (1118-1153) was the luckiest of the sons of Malik-Shah I, because he managed to defeat successive invasions from the Kara-Khanids (Afrasiab) of Central Asia, the Ghurids of Khorasan, and the Ghaznavids of the Indus River Valley; however, he faced a crushing defeat at the hands of the Siberian Turanians of Kara Khitan (at the Battle of Qatwan; 1141) and a disastrous uprising among his fellow Seljuk tribesmen (1153). After Ahmad Sanjar’s death, the Turanians of Khwarazm (Chorasmia) conquered the northeastern part of the Seljuk Empire, whereas the vast territory was finally divided among the Seljuk sultans of Hamadan and Baghdad, the Seljuk sultans of Kerman, the Seljuk emirs in Syria, and the Seljuk sultans of Rum (i.e. Romania-Ρωμανία: the Eastern Roman Empire). The endless internal strives of the Seljuk dynasty are no 1 reason of the Crusaders’ success in the Orient. In 1157, Muhammad II ibn Mahmud (1128–1159), Sultan of Seljuk Empire from 1153 to 1159, failed to conquer Baghdad, despite the siege that he laid to the city; this shows that the Great Seljuk state was already weak and that tensions often existed between Baghdad’s impotent caliphs and the various monarchs who ruled in his name.
The Seljuqian-e Rum (1077-1308 / سلجوقیان روم) lasted longer and became the forerunners of the Iranian-Turanian oral culture and the standard bearers of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh in the most important regions of the Eastern Roman Empire. If you only have a look at the list of the Seljuqian-e Rum monarchs for a moment, you come to realize that their spiritual world and their imperial identity originated from the all-encompassing Turanian-Iranian Universe of Shahnameh: among the 18 sultans, who ruled during a period of 231 years, there were three (3) named Kayqubad, two (2) named Kaykaus, and three (3) named Kaykhusraw. This means that almost half of this dynasty’s rulers named themselves after the most illustrious legendary Iranian kings of the Kayanian dynasty, which represents the focal point of Ferdowsi’s sublime Iranian-Turanian epic poetry.
Throughout Human History, we have known a great number of historical kings, who posthumously entered the world of the legend; but the Seljuqian-e Rum were the only to incarnate the legend and to make out of the realm of the spiritual intuition and the transcendental vision an undeniably historical reality. This fact irrevocably marked the central position that they occupy within the indivisible Iranian-Turanian world. About:
The prevalence of the Seljuqian-e Rum in Anatolia transformed this land into the high land of Islamic Civilization, Spirituality and Mysticism. Pretty much like the Islamic world’s gravitational center shifted from Arabia to Mesopotamia with the foundation of Baghdad and the establishment of the Bayt al Hikmah in the middle of 8th c., the Islamic world’s center of imperial power, mysticism and spirituality was relocated from Iran and Caucasus to Anatolia in the late 12th and early 13th c. For many centuries, Anatolia had lost its worldwide radiation; after the end of the Eastern Roman Isaurian dynasty (717-802), the defeat of the Iconoclasts (842), and the downfall of the Paulicians (dispersed in 872 and massively relocated in 970), Anatolia was in ramshackle. The overwhelming rejection of the evil Constantinopolitan theology by the quasi-totality of the Anatolian population irrevocably predestined their future and facilitated the forthcoming Islamization. The spiritual successors to the Iconoclasts and the Paulicians were to be the Mevlevis, the Bektashis, and above all the Qizilbash. The indigenous, traditional Anatolian mysticism predetermined the historical evolution.
The beginning of the Seljuk prevalence in Anatolia is entirely due to Kilij Arslan I (1092-1107; Kılıç Arslan / قِلِج اَرسلان), the first Seljuk to have Konya-Iconium as capital. He managed to defeat three Crusader armies and to secure a sizeable portion of Anatolia for his expanding state. He was a great warrior and an illustrious mystic. However, many scholars want to deliberately forget the fact that the two names of this sultan became the emblem of the Iranian Safavid Empire 400 years later! If this sounds somewhat strange, the English translation of the two names will be enough to clarify the case: “Kılıç Arslan” means “the sword holding lion”. See the emblem:
However, the main part of the preparatory work for the rise of Seljuk Anatolia was done by Rukn al-Din Mesud I (1116-1156; Rükneddin Mesud /ركن الدین مسعود) who was able to defeat two Crusader armies (led by the German Conrad III and the French Louis VII) in 1147 and 1148 and to welcome the adhesion of significant portion of the local Eastern Roman population to Islam. Even illustrious members of the Comneni / Komnenos imperial family, like John Komnenos Tzelepes (grandson of the Eastern Roman Emperor Alexios I Komnenos) who married Rukn al-Din Mesud I’s daughter, became Muslim around the middle of the 12th c.
Rukn al-Din Mesud I’s son and successor, Izz ad-Dīn Qilij Arslān bin Masʿūd (rather known as Kilij Arslan II (1156-1192; Kılıç Arslan / عز الدین قلج ارسلان بن مسعود) represents a very successful consolidation stage of the Seljuqian-e Rum; his critical victory at Myriokephalon (SW Turkey: between Isparta and Konya) in 1176 sealed the end of Eastern Roman presence in Anatolia. Kilij Arslan II, who claimed to be a far relative of Heinrich der Löwe (German prince of the Welf family and Teutonic Knight), expanded at the detriment of the Turkmen Danishmends and the Eastern Roman, but, despite his alliance with Saladin, proved to be unable to possibly stop Frederick Barbarossa’s Third Crusade; however, the numbers speak for themselves: for 76 years, the Seljuqian-e Rum were under only two kings – which is tantamount to great stability.
To the court of the Seljuqian-e Rum started flocking numerous Muslim mystics, spiritual masters, erudite polymaths, theologians, interdisciplinary scholars, great architects and artists, philosophers, leading medical doctors, poets, and other prominent intellectuals of those times. Konya had gradually become a major pole of attraction for the world’s leading wise men. In fact, Seljuk Anatolia eclipsed all other parts of the world in terms of spirituality, mysticism, letters, arts and sciences. This is not strange; despite the great confusion caused by colonial Orientalists and Western Medievalists, who elaborate a distortive and highly politicized representation of this historical period by focusing on the Crusades and the bloodshed caused by Papal Pseudo-Christianity, the 13th c. proved to be above all the peak of the Golden Era of Islamic Civilization.
Those were the times when Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209; today celebrated as the national poet of Azerbaijan), based in South Caucasus, composed his illustrious epics Khusraw and Shirin (1177-1180), Eskandar-Nameh (: the Book of Alexander the Great; 1196-1202), and his apocalyptic eschatological masterpiece Haft Peykar (: the Seven Beauties; 1197), in which he detailed the troubles of seven major lands of civilization that will rise at the End of Time, when a formidable punishment will be adjusted to the evil perpetrator of crimes against those nations. The sublime epic is monstrously misinterpreted by materialistic Western pseudo-academics as “erotic poetry”, because those corrupt and worthless forgers cannot understand what apocalyptic symbolism is all about. The seven nations / lands of civilization are personified by
– Furak (or Nurak; India),
– Yaghma Naz (China, described as the land under the “Khaqan of the Turks”),
– Naz Pari (Turanian Central Asia, named ‘Khwarazm’/Chorasmia),
– Nasrin Nush (Russia, which is in reality Tatarstan, i.e. the Land of the descendants of the Rouran Touranian Khaganate),
– Azarbin (or Azareyon; Africa – called Maghreb, but viewed generally as the ‘West’)
– Humay (the Eastern Roman Empire’s lands), and
– Diroste (Iran, described as the House of Kay Ka’us, an illustrious Shah of Fardowsi’s heroic Kayanian dynasty whose deeds cover the largest part of Shahnameh).
Miniature from a manuscript of Nizami Ganjavi’s Haft Peykar: Bahram Gur in the Turquoise Pavilion with Azarbin, the personnification of Maghreb
Quite indicative of the Rum Sultanate’s court’s proclivity to mysticism, Turanian heroic tradition, and attachment to Ferdowsi’s epic genius is the fact that, only 14 years after Nizami Ganjavi wrote the incomparably revelatory Haft Peykar and only 2 years after he died, the new Seljuk sultan of Rum, Kaykhusraw I’s son, was named Kaykaus I (1211-1220). It was a time of extensive intermarriages with the Eastern Roman imperial family of the Comneni / Komnenoi. Kaykhusraw I (1192-1196 and 1205-1211) was fluent in Roman (‘Medieval Greek’) language and had evidently double Turko-(Eastern) Roman culture.
Kaykaus I’s mother was an Eastern Roman princess, daughter of Manuel Komnenos Maurozomes (Μανουήλ Κομνηνός Μαυροζώμης), who was an Eastern Roman nobleman. Ala ad-Din Kayqubad bin Kaykavus (1220–1237; Alâeddin Keykûbad / علاء الدين كيقباد بن كيكاوس) was the most illustrious sultan of the entire Seljuqian-e Rum dynasty. At the times of his son and successor Kaykhusraw II (1237-1246) starts the fall of the Anatolian Seljuk imperial power, basically due to the religious rebellion of Baba Ishak (1240-1243) and the Mongol victory at the battle of Köse Dağ (1243) where Baiju Noyan (appointed by Ögedei Khan) prevailed. As a matter of fact, this battle is the Seljuk equivalent of the Ottoman defeat in Ankara (1402) by Timur (Tamerlane).
In 1204, one of the most influential dignitaries of the Anatolian Seljuk court invited Muḥyiddin ibn Arabi (1165-1240; full name: Abu Abd Allah Muḥammad ibn Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn Arabī), the Islamic world’s foremost mystic and spiritual master, to Anatolia; Muḥyiddin ibn Arabi’s Futuhat al Makkiyah (: ‘the Mekkan Initiations’) is the greatest text of spiritual revelations (effectuated as result of successive initiations experienced under the guidance of supreme spiritual beings – not after the human fashion) that was ever written in the History of the Mankind. The incredible size (560 chapters or 37 volumes totaling ca. 10000 pages of modern books) of this unique masterpiece of spirituality matters very little when compared to the enthralling contents, which go up to the level of mystical communication with a) the souls of beings that were alive and inhabited the Earth during several generations prior to ours, and b) supreme hierarchies of spiritual beings, intelligences, spirits of elements, and numerous ethereal potentates.
h ttps://ibnarabisociety.org/futuhat-al-makkiyya-printed-editions-claude-addas/
Born in Andalusia’s coastal city of Murcia to parents of Arab and Berber origin, Muḥyiddin ibn Arabi studied in Seville, met and discussed extensively with Ibn Rushd (Averroes), worked as secretary in the city governorate, and undertook incessant travels across North Africa, Syria, Arabia, Mesopotamia and Anatolia. His travels’ most determinant stages took place in Mecca (where he wrote his celebrated masterpiece), in Mosul, in Damascus, and in Eastern Anatolia where he met the students of the great mystic Abdal Qadir Gilani (1078-1166), who was one of the leading mystics of an earlier generation and also the founder of the Qadiriyah mystic order.
Opening pages Konya manuscript Futuhat, handwritten by Ibn Arabi
It is interesting to notice the details of the theological and jurisprudential affiliation of that great mystic, who was born in Gilan (i.e. Caspian Sea’s southwestern coast) and lived most of his life in Baghdad and in various other locations of Mesopotamia. He was a descendant of Hasan ibn Ali, the second imam and grandson of Prophet Muhammad, but did not belong to Ja’far al-Sadiq’s madhhab; however, if one sees the world through today’s colonially imposed, sectarian and distortive lenses, Abdal Qadir Gilani should have been a Ja’fari. In fact, the great mystic and ascetic was a Hanbali and follower of the jurisprudential school that is nowadays said to be (whereas originally it was not) the most ‘anti-Shia’ or ‘anti- Ja’fari’.
The Qadiriya order had many followers in Anatolia and later in the Balkans, although its diffusion from Mesopotamia to China, to Somalia and to Western Sahara regions was spectacular. The sectarian viewpoint in this regard is posterior and it started with the catastrophic distortion of Ibn Hanbal’s doctrine by the vicious theologian Ahmed ibn Taimiyya whose pseudo-Islamic theology represents a sort of Christianization of Islam. The propagation of his fake Islamic ideas triggered obscurantism, ignorance, and utter hatred for the sciences and the arts among the Muslims; as a consequence, extreme fanaticism prevailed among the gradually decayed, spiritually debased, and increasingly ignorant Muslims of later periods (late 14th – early 16th c.), and then the Safavid reaction (as of 1501) to this situation only added oil to the fire.
Ala ad-Din Kayqubad (Kayqubad I) held in great esteem and sponsored numerous mystics, erudite scholars, poets, architects, artists and spiritual masters. His court was also frequented by very exceptional figures like Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (1162-1231), a great spiritual master, alchemist, physician and polymath, who explored antiquities at both, the spiritual and the material, levels, thus being an early, Muslim Egyptologist.
Following Kayqubad I’s invitation, the great mystic, theologian and jurisprudential scholar (of the Hanafi madhhab) Baha’ al-Din Muhammad Walad (1151-1231), a Persian originating from Balkh/Bactra (Khorasan), arrived and settled in Konya with his entire family in 1228; this event would have an everlasting impact down to our days. The entire Seljuk royal family was fond of the newly arrived scholar and mystic, who had earlier faced negative treatment from Ala ad-Din Muhammad II of Khwarazm (Chorasmia) in whose state Baha’ al-Din Muhammad Walad used to live. Khwarazm was a Turanian state with constant problems with the Seljuk sultanates, and the main reason Baha’ al-Din Muhammad Walad had problems with his shah was the fact that in Khwarazm’s court the most influential mystic and theologian was Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, the scholar who invented the concept of Multiverse (: the parallel existence of many Universes) and with whom Baha’ al-Din Muhammad Walad had terribly clashed. It was therefore only normal that, to flee the Mongol invasions and to get rid of Ala ad-Din Muhammad II’s enmity and disgrace, Baha’ al-Din Muhammad Walad found a subterfuge in Seljuk Anatolia. The everlasting impact is due to the prodigious poetry composed and the mystical exploits performed by his son, Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Rumi, who is also known as Mawlana or Mevlana.
Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-1273; جلالالدین محمد رومی) surpassed by far his father’s fame, literary mastership, mystical experience, intellectual acumen, spiritual ingenuity, and posthumous fame, being one of the Islamic world’s foremost mystics, poets, and holy men. Bringing spiritual activities at the epicenter of material life, Rumi turned dance into active meditation, and thus made of Anatolia the worldwide epicenter of all later Islamic mysticisms. He is considered as the founder of the Mevlevi Spiritual Order (the ‘tariqa’ of the ‘whirling dervishes’), although it is very clear that his son and his disciples founded the Order after Rumi’s death. In younger age, he was fascinated with the literary masterpieces of the mystic Sana’i Ghaznavi (1080-1141); remarkable influence on Jalal ad-Din Rumi was also exerted by his father, by the famous Persian Khorasani mystic and poet Farid ud-Din (1145-1221; known as Attar of Neyshapur), and by Muḥyiddin ibn Arabi. But the close companionship he had with Shams-e Tabrizi (1185-1248), a supreme spiritual hierophant and mystic, was the most determinant factor of his spiritual advance, mystical comprehension, sublime poetry, and whirling dance conceptualization as meditation technique.
Did Jalal ad-Din Rumi actually meet Muḥyiddin ibn Arabi?
This question has been raised by many modern scholars, although on the basis of several historical sources there is clear evidence that they first met during Rumi’s first arrival to Damascus, and later again during Rumi’s formative years there. Furthermore, there is ample evidence that several disciples of ibn Arabi (notably Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi) were companions of Rumi and that Shams-e Tabrizi knew personally ibn Arabi very well. In addition, several literary patterns and terms testify to a spiritual, intellectual and philosophical connection, despite the fact that the essence, the contents, and the forms of both masters of Islamic spirituality and mysticism differed greatly, pretty much like their respective quests, explorations, devotions, spiritual exercises, and transcendental experiences did.
Mausoleum of Jelaleddin Rumi Mevlana, Konya – Turkey
Rumi was a human, who discovered the divine world through love and through strict imitation/repetition of Prophet Muhammad’s manner of life; Muḥyiddin ibn Arabi was a man contacted by spiritual hierarchies, entrusted with the revelation of spiritual occurrences, and endowed with unique qualities to describe in human words unfathomable situations comprehended only through spiritual initiation. An enlightened man like ibn Arabi could never be strictly bound to only one religion.
Closer to Muḥyiddin ibn Arabi was indeed Haji Bektash (1209-1271; Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli / حاجی بکتاش ولی); born in Neyshapur (Khorasan), he was a descendant of Musa Kazim, the 7th imam and son of Ja’far al-Sadiq. He fled westwards because of the Mongol invasions and he arrived in Seljuk Anatolia in the late 1220s or early 1230s. He belonged to the Ja’fari jurisprudential tradition (madhhab), which is quite normal as he retraced his ancestry to the 6th imam’s son. Given his Arab ancestry, it is ridiculous to entertain discussions about his ethnicity (Persian or Turkic) as Western nonsensical Orientalists do; Haji Bektash was certainly acculturated among all Iranians and Turanians between Central Asia and Anatolia. However, this issue can allow us to better assess the locally prevailing ethnic and cultural environment; if a person of Arab descent, like Haji Bektash, living in Khorasan, preferred to bear a Turkish name, i.e. Bektaş, this means that we cannot afford anymore to consider that vast NE Iranian region as exclusively Persian (as fallacious colonial Orientalists do), but as predominantly Turanian. In his young age, Haji Bektash was apparently fascinated with the mystical poetry of the Turanian spiritual master, mystic, and Hanafi theologian Ahmed Yesevî (1093-1166; قوجا احمەت ياساۋٸ), the founder of Yasawiyah (Yeseviye) order.
The oldest painting of the Muslim mystic Haji Bektash Veli
Modern forgers and Western impostors try to associate Haji Bektash with the Qalandariyah Order (which is wrong) and with Baba Eliyas al-Khorasani, another Khorasani mystic who had settled in Anatolia and instigated the Babai revolt that was led by Baba Ishak in 1239. That’s totally false, because Haji Bektash, despite his Batiniyya approach to Islam’s holy scriptures (as per which all holy scriptures have ‘external’ and ‘internal’-mystical meaning), reprimanded the Isma’ili enclave in Iran, denounced Baba Ishak’s plot for the establishment of a Crypto-Christian state in Amasya (Anatolia), and condemned Baba Ishak’s infamous pretensions that he was a ‘prophet’. As a matter of fact, Haji Bektash was greatly esteemed by everyone in the Anatolian Seljuk court where they appreciated his contribution to the combat against the rebellion and to the refutation of anti-Islamic concepts among Turanian nomadic settlers in Anatolia. All the same, the early Bektashi Order accepted in their lodges (khanqah) many earlier adepts and followers of Baba Ishak, who had repented and regretted, and numerous participants in the failed rebellion. The Bektashi Order played later a determinant role in the formation of the Ottoman Sultanate and Caliphate and in the relations between the Ottomans and the Safavids.
The Seljuk Turks managed to assimilate among them a great number of Anatolian, Eastern Roman populations. This topic is critical in understanding later historical developments in the region. Whereas the Achaemenid Iranians failed to plainly assimilate Anatolia during their rule (546-330 BCE) and finally only later (during the Seleucid and Roman times) we clearly attest an undeniable Iranian cultural impact on the various Anatolian kingdoms, the Rum Sultanate proved to be far more efficient in rapidly shaping a diverse yet inclusive Anatolian Muslim identity which revolves around the Iranian-Turanian epic traditions and legends and an Islamic interpretation of the Eastern Roman Christianity. About:
I. Ancient, Christian, and Muslim historiographers
II. Oversights and errors attested in the existing bibliography
A. ‘Battle techniques’
B. ‘Two great empires exhausted and weakened’
———- EXCURSE I: HISTORICAL FOCUS —————-
Borders, fronts, rebellions, divisions and fights
1- Post-conquest Iran
2- Eastern Roman Empire
3- Upper Egypt and the Sudan (: historical Ethiopia)
4- Internal conflicts transported from Hejaz to Syria and Mesopotamia
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C. ‘History of states’ and not of peoples and cultures
D. Poor conceptualization of the early Islamic conquests by modern scholars
—— EXCURSE II: ETHNO-LINGUISTIC & RELIGIOUS FOCUS ———
Ethno-linguistic groups
Religious groups
i- the Christian Aramaeans of the Syriac Orthodox Church (Monophysites)
ii- the Christian Aramaeans of the Great Church of the East (Nestorians)
iii- the Gnostic Aramaeans
iv- the Manichaean Aramaeans
v- the Copts (Monophysitic Christian Egyptians)
vi- the (Aramaic-speaking) Jews, followers of Rabbinical Judaism
vii- the Persians and other Iranians followers of various Iranian religions
viii- the Eastern Roman Orthodox Christians, who sided with the Patriarchate of Constantinople
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E. The demographic structure of the eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire and of the Western Iranian provinces: the Aramaeans
F. The central provinces of the Islamic Caliphates: the lands of the Aramaeans.
G. Lack of historical criticism in Islamic Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies
III. The astounding scarcity of contemporaneous sources
IV. Critical incidents during the Battle of Yarmouk
V. The true dimensions of the Battle of Yarmouk and of its outcome
An early 7th c. drawing on a 5th c. biblical manuscript: the unusual and unnecessary representation of Job and his family is correctly viewed by modern scholars as a cryptographic representation of Heraclius and his family, notably his second wife Martina, his sister Epiphania, and his daughter Eudoxia. There is a clear reason for this allegory; by associating Heraclius with Job, the calligrapher and painter interpolated the concept of the Righteous Suffering and projected it onto Heraclius. The apparently Monotheletist artist wanted to praise the Monotheletist emperor for his patience and tolerance toward the Orthodox extremists among the Constantinopolitan clergy, who incessantly insulted the basileus. He therefore identified him with the Biblical person that embodies the concept of the Righteous Suffering, which is of entirely Assyrian-Babylonian origin as the illustrious epic Ludlul bel nemeqi – https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1189&context=cop-facbooks
The battle that led to the withdrawal of the Eastern Romans (‘Rum’ – therefore not ‘Greeks’) from Syria, Palestine, and North Mesopotamia has been the object of numerous studies, essays, chapters of books, and treatises. Modern Orientalist historiographers distorted and/or concealed the historical realities that determined the fact. They impacted their writings with unnecessary astonishment, unsolicited admiration, bizarre bewilderment, and at times childishly subjective descriptions. It is as if they are either blind or predetermined to disorient readers from the historical truth. It is most unfortunate that this situation prevails, despite numerous military experts delving into historical texts, many philologists scrutinizing posterior sources, and several historians publishing the corpus of the textual evidence as regards the event.
The confusion of the average reader and learner is completed with the modern, definitely unscholarly, Islamist pamphleteering as per which ‘the faith in the only true God’ gave the victory to the less-experienced, numerically inferior, and surely ill-equipped and poorly armed (if compared with the Eastern Romans) Muslim armies. I will not expand on this nonsense, because it would only prove that all victors and conquerors were true believers and all the defeated armies belonged to disbelievers – which is absurd.
I. Ancient, Christian, and Muslim historiographers
At this point, I have to highlight that, when it comes to the attitude toward History and historiography, there is a deep chasm between our modern world (after 1500) and past generations that lived in the Antiquity or during the Christian and Islamic times. The modern theories that History can ‘teach’ and that, by studying History, one can avoid past mistakes did not exist before the modern world; these theories are wrong, insane, inhuman and disastrous.
‘History’ does not ‘teach’, and not one Muslim, Christian, Manichaean, Gnostic, Zoroastrian, Babylonian or Egyptian ever thought or expected that History could possibly ‘teach’ him anything. In their perception of the world, there was clarity whereas modern minds are terribly confused about a critical issue: recording facts (historiography) is not History. History is what happened. No one can reconstitute it in its entirety, except by living in the past and being present in the events.
Historiography, i.e. simple recording of facts, did indeed happen for more than five millennia, but not for the purpose of ‘teaching’ or being ‘taught’. This reality determined all ancient historical records, be they Ancient Egyptian Annals, Babylonian Chronicles, Assyrian Annals, Greek and Roman history writing, Christian and Muslim Chronography or other. And for the purpose of objectivity, in most of the cases, the authors eliminated their personal views and considerations; and this is quite normal, as we all understand that a fact is always a fact per se, irrespective of the author’s (or narrator’s or historian’s) personal favor and/or understanding.
For the above reasons, serious, decent and valuable ancient authors did not include in their narratives what was evident to all: the historical context. Contextualization would be tantamount to self-devaluation for an historian like Tabari or Theophanes or the anonymous, 7th c. CE, Aramaean author of the Syriac Chronicle of Kirkuk, which is mainly known as ‘History of Karka de Beth Selok’. About:
(Throughout the present article links to the Wikipedia are included only for further research and access to historical sources and bibliography – not for the contents of the entries that are often impertinent and biased and the ensuing conclusions misplaced)
Ka’ba-ye Zardosht (Zoroaster’s Kaaba): one of the holiest shrines of the Sassanid Empire of Iran at Naqsh-e Rustam, ancient Achaemenid necropolis; it is to be noted that there were several pre-Islamic times’ holy buildings in rectangular shape. They were located in Iran and in Yemen. The Kaaba of Najran was the Christian cathedral in Yemenite Najran (currently under Saudi occupation).Saint Sophia: the Eastern Roman Empire’s greatest cathedral was not a holy shrine for the Monophysitic and Nestorian Aramaeans and the Copts (Egyptians), because they viewed the Patriarchate of Constantinople as heretic. This played an enormous role and impacted the historical developments back in the 630s.
II. Oversights and errors attested in the existing bibliography
Contrarily to Ancient, Christian and Muslim authors and people, who did not expect ‘History’ (but their holy books) to teach them the correct path in life and who did not repeat past mistakes by delving into moral depths (and not into useless historical manuals), we need extensive contextualization to accurately perceive and correctly understand epochs that totally differed from ours. This is what is terribly missing from the studies of almost all the scholars who were interested in the Battle of Yarmouk.
Yarmouk battlefield in Jordan today
A. ‘Battle techniques’
Many scholars focused on the battle techniques of Khalid ibn al-Walid (592-642 CE). But however successful these techniques may have been, military dexterity does not explain why the bulk of the indigenous populations of the eastern provinces (North Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Cyrenaica) of the Eastern Roman Empire did not rebel against the early Muslim rule. The battle of Yarmouk may have been won by the Muslims, but 10 or 20 years later a violent local rebellion could have eventually terminated the foreign rule. But this did not happen.
Typical samples of worthless bibliography and lectures:
One of the wrong diagrams that one can find in the Internet nowadays; suffice it that you read Tabari and you will understand the mistakes.This type of diagrams can never explain historical processes; it is therefore wrong, confusing and disorienting.
B. ‘Two great empires exhausted and weakened’
Several authors explained the early Islamic victories by referring to the exhaustion of the then known world’s two greatest empires, namely the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire of Iran. This is correct and true, but still it does not help us understand why the outright majority of populations of the western provinces of Iran and the eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire did not rebel against the foreign invaders in the first 2-3 decades of Islamic rule. However, this fantasy is reproduced even in serious UNESCO documentation on the Silk Road: https://fr.unesco.org/silkroad/sites/default/files/knowledge-bank-article/vol_III%20silk%20road_the%20arab%20conquest.pdf
The Sassanid Empire of Iran and the Eastern Roman Empire at the time prophet Muhammad was bornMain movements of Eastern Roman and Sassanid Iranian armies
———- EXCURSE I: HISTORICAL FOCUS —————-
Borders, fronts, rebellions, divisions and fights
In this regard, it is noteworthy to point out a quadruple phenomenon that took place in the first decades of Islamic rule in the Caliphate’s central provinces:
1- Post-conquest Iran
The first rebellions against the new rule started early in Iran, but they occurred in remote provinces (Gilan, Mazandaran, Azerbaijan) that were inhabited by nations other than those living in the former western provinces of Iran. In any case, both great empires, the Eastern Romans and the Iranians, were multi-ethnic imperial structures.
2- Eastern Roman Empire
The first line of Eastern Roman defense against the Islamic Caliphate was created alongside the Taurus and Anti-Taurus mountains, whereas the upper flow of Euphrates became the border between the two empires. This is the location where the formidable Akritai appeared to fight and stop every advance of the Omayyad or Abbasid armies to the West, apparently coordinating with the Islamic opposition to the pseudo-Islamic rule of the caliphs.
3- Upper Egypt and the Sudan (: historical Ethiopia)
Upper Egypt totally escaped the Islamic rule, as Nobatia was incepted as Christian Coptic kingdom with capital at Faras (almost on the present Egyptian-Sudanese borderline). The Islamic rule in Masr (Egypt) did not exceed beyond the region between Al Minya and Assiut (ca. 350 km south of Cairo), and while Seville, Cordova, Sicily, Crete, Samarqand and the Delta of Indus belonged to the Islamic Caliphate, Coptic monasticism flourished in Thebes of Egypt (today’s Luxor; from Al Uqsur, ‘the military camps’) where all ancient Egyptian temples and antiquities, notably Deir al Bahri and Deir al Madina, had become monastic cells. Two other Christian Sudanese kingdoms rose further in the South: Makuria and Alodia, limiting the Islamic presence in Eastern Africa to the Red Sea coastland.
4- Internal conflicts transported from Hejaz to Syria and Mesopotamia
The only conflicts that took place in the early Islamic Caliphate’s central provinces (i.e. the lands that belong today to Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, SE Turkey, Iraq, SW Iran, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar and the northern parts of Saudi Arabia) were those related to the ‘new’ faith, prophet Muhammad’s preaching, and the interpretation of this faith’s prescriptions as regards the governance of the state. This means, in other words, that the Arabs of Hejaz, brought with them to Syria-Mesopotamia the deep divisions that characterized their society (acceptance, rejection and/or distortion of prophet Muhammad’s religious revelation) even before prophet Muhammad’s death (632 CE). These divisions were ferocious and the bloodshed tarnished irrevocably the History of Islam, although it really paled if compared with the bloodshed caused after the official imposition of Constantinopolitan-Roman Christianity as the sole religion throughout the Roman Empire. And the early converts from the newly occupied lands that earlier belonged to the Eastern Romans and to the Sassanid Iranians vividly participated in these divisions, debates, polarizations, conflicts and civil wars.
This quadruple phenomenon was never studied per se until now, and to duly investigate it one needs to delve in the ethnic and religious/theological conflicts that took place in the two great empires (the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire of Iran) for about 300-400 years before the Battle of Yarmouk. This clearly demonstrates that not one specialist of the Early Islamic History can be taken seriously without the knowledge of at least two among the following languages and religious/literary traditions: Coptic, Syriac Aramaic, Middle Persian, Medieval ‘Greek’ (‘Roman’: the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire), Manichaean, and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (: the language of Rabbinical Judaism).
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C. ‘History of states’ and not of peoples and cultures
Numerous authors write on the topic, while focusing on State History (Eastern Roman, Sassanid Iranian, Omayyad and Abbasid Islamic); this is one way ticket to misperception, misunderstanding, and distortion. States are not representative of subject nations and peoples, but of ruling elites and their doctrines; in their effort to secure their interests, states destroy all historical, literary, religious or theological documentation that would challenge them. States are to some extent the reason for the scarcity of documentation that characterizes the 7th and the 8th centuries CE (or, to put it otherwise, the first 100-150 years AH/anno Hegirae).
D. Poor conceptualization of the early Islamic conquests by modern scholars
Most researchers failed to contextualize the early Islamic conquests, because they were unable to properly conceptualize the historical developments in the first place. Battles are undertaken by social groups or eventually states, but socio-cultural processes and historical developments are generated by peoples and nations. So, the proper manner to approach the topic is to view it as an affair of various nations and ethno-linguistic and religious groups that lived in the wider region between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, from the Taurus Mountains to the Indus River Delta, and in-between the Nile and Syr-Darya (Iaxartes River) in Central Asia.
——– EXCURSE II: ETHNO-LINGUISTIC & RELIGIOUS FOCUS ————
In this regard, it is essential to conclude from the aforementioned that the only pertinent manner to tackle the topic is via interdisciplinary studies. Until now, no effort was displayed in this direction; and yet, there can be many combinations of interdisciplinary studies applying to this case.
Ethno-linguistic groups
During the 6th–7th c. CE, the main nations which lived in the lands that, after the Islamic conquests, became the central provinces of the Islamic Caliphate were:
i- the Aramaeans,
ii- the Copts,
iii- the Persians and other Iranians, who manned the imperial administration at Tesiphun (Ctesiphon) and controlled the Iranian military outposts,
iv- the (Aramaic-speaking) Jews, and
v- the Eastern Romans, who were organized in small communities living in the major cities of the eastern provinces of the empire, notably around the Chalcedonian patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria.
This means that at those days the outright majority of the populations living in lands belonging to today’s SE Turkey, Syria, Iraq, SW Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and the North of Saudi Arabia were Aramaeans.
And the outright majority of the populations living in the Nile Valley were Copts.
Urhoy-Edessa of Orhoene-Urfa (SE Turkey): a major Aramaean cityNasibina-Nisibis-Nusaybin (SE Turkey): a major Aramaean city Hatra (NW Iraq): a major Aramaean city Dura Europos on Euphrates (Eastern Syria): a major Aramaean cityTadmur-Palmyra (Central Syria): a major Aramaean city Bosra (Southern Syria): a major Aramaean city Rekem (Petra, Jordan): a major Aramaean city of the Nabataean dynastyHegra, the necropolis of the Aramaean Nabataean kingdom, at 350 km distance north of Yathrib (Madina)Charax Spasinu (South Iraq): a major Aramaean city
Religious groups
When it comes to ethno-religious and linguistic groups existing at those days (6th–7th c. CE) in the aforementioned region, we enumerate the following:
i- the Christian Aramaeans of the Syriac Orthodox Church (Monophysites) Although entirely anti-Constantinopolitan, the Christian Aramaeans were divided into Miaphysitic (Monophysitic) anti-Chalcedonian Christians and Nestorian anti-Ephesine Christians (see below no ii).
Christian Aramaeans of the Syriac Orthodox Church (Monophysites) formed the outright majority of the populations living in the Eastern Roman provinces of Syria, North Mesopotamia, and Palestine.
The term Monophysitic (Monophysitism/Monophysites) being quite pejorative, it is currently replaced by Miaphysitic (Miaphysitism/Miaphysites). The most common appellation of the church is Jacobite, after St. Jacob Baradaeus (also known as Jacob bar Addai).
Deir Zafaran (also known as Mor Hananyo) Monastery, near Mardin (SE Turkey): a high place of Syriac Jacobite (Miaphysitic/Monophysitic) Christianity
It is also necessary to underscore that the noun/adjective ‘Syriac’ is totally unrelated to the land of Syria (in such case the adjective is ‘Syrian’), but denotes a late phase of Aramaic that survived down to our days, being one of the main liturgical languages in the History of Christianity. Syriac alphabet derived from Aramaic alphabet (in the 1st c. CE) and, similarly, Arabic alphabet derived (in the 4th c. CE) from Nabataean Aramaic alphabet; Aramaic and Hebrew were the two original languages in which the Old Testament was written.
Syriac Aramaic in Serto writingSyriac Aramaic in Estrangelo writing
Monophysitic Aramaeans were essential for the formation and the diffusion of historical Islam. Their overwhelming rejection of the Constantinopolitan theology and of the anti-Aramaean policies of the Eastern Roman Empire totally alienated the Aramaeans from the authorities that ruled them. For Monophysitic Aramaeans, the Eastern Roman Empire was ruled by heretics. And as the illustrious Aramaean theologian, historian and erudite scholar Tatian (112-185 CE) demonstrated in his magnificent opus Oratio ad Graecos (Address to the Greeks), the enormous cultural gap between Aramaeans and Greeks played a considerable role in the destabilization of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire (and subsequently of the Eastern Roman Empire), because the Constantinopolitan authorities cooperated basically with the Greek-speaking minority.
The determinant role played by the Monophysitic Aramaeans in the formation and the diffusion of historical Islam is highlighted by the case of Sergius Bahira, the Syriac Jacobite (Monophysitic) monk, who encountered prophet Muhammad in young age, when he accompanied his uncle Abi Taleb ibn Abd el Muttalib to Syria and other provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire.
ii- the Christian Aramaeans of the Great Church of the East (Nestorians)
These Aramaeans followed Nestorius in his doctrine that was a radical form of what is called Diophysitism (belief in two natures/hypostases of Jesus); they are called Nestorians, although the term is not regarded as correct (being tantamount to calling the Muslims ‘Muhammedans’). Nestorians rejected the Council of Ephesus (431 CE), pretty much like the Monophysites/Miaphysites rejected the Council of Chalcedon (451 CE).
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Dair Mar Eliya (Monastery of St. Elijah) in North Iraq: Nestorian monastery of the 6th c.Nestorian Gospel in SyriacThe Anikova plate: representation of the Siege of Jericho; masterpiece of Sogdian Nestorian Art from Semirechie (southeastern Kazakhstan and northeastern Kyrgyszstan). Probable date: 8th-9th c.Ecclesiastical provinces of the Nestorian Church in the 10th c.Nestorian communities in the 10th-11th c.
Christian Aramaeans of the Great Church of the East (Nestorians) formed the outright majority of the Sassanid Iranian provinces of Central and South Mesopotamia, South Transtigritane, and Arabia, namely Huzistan, Meshan, Asurestan, Nodshiragan (Adiabene), and Arabestan.
Nestorian Aramaeans were essential in the formation and diffusion of historical Islam. Their staggering rejection of both, Constantinopolitan Christianity and Sassanid Mazdeism (the official Iranian imperial religious dogma that consisted only in a later form of the Achaemenid Zoroastrianism), was highly determinant for the early success of the caliphs. At this early point, I only state the well-known (but not deeply understood) fact that, for ca. 180 years before the arrival of the Islamic armies in Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia, the Nestorians called Virgin Mary ‘Mother of Christ’ and not ‘Mother of god’, in striking opposition to the Constantinopolitan theologians, monks and courtiers. In this manner, Nestorian Aramaeans proved to be the real precursors of prophet Muhammad and his teachings. As a matter of fact, at the beginning of the 7th c. CE, the Nestorians were closer to the early Quranic text, which may have reached them through hearsay (before the early Islamic armies), than to the Nicene Creed.
Constantinopolitan theology and the anti-Aramaean religious and economic policies of the empire totally alienated the Aramaeans from the ruling authorities. Even worse, in Iran, the Nestorian Aramaeans were persecuted in definitely crueler manner than the Monophysitic Aramaeans were in the Eastern Roman Empire. And the ceaseless Eastern Roman – Sassanid Iranian wars devastated -more than any other territories- the lands inhabited by the Aramaeans.
Their surviving remnants are nowadays the Mandaeans. There are about 100000 Mandaean Aramaeans worldwide, but due to the ongoing persecution and oppression, most of them live currently in the Diaspora, and not in their historical land, i.e. Central and South Mesopotamia (Iraq) and South Transtigritane (SW Iran).
Gnostic Aramaeans were essential in the formation and diffusion of historical Islam. Their participation in Muslim spiritual life is at the origin of the formation of groups like the legendary Ikhwan Safa, whose rituals have been later reproduced by numerous Islamic mystics, spiritualists, occultists and scholars from the Qarmatians and the Isma’ilis to all types of Batiniyya (‘esoterism’) wise elders and great spiritual scientists, like Muhammad al Fazari, Al Ghazali, Abu ‘l Qassim ibn al Saffar, Maslam al Majriti, and Muhyieldin ibn Arabi.
Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa, (‘Epistles of the Brethren of Purity’), Book I – on the mathematical sciences; Western Iran, ca. 14th c.
Even the communication manners and literary style of the Ikhwan Safa’s treatises and manuals appear to be Gnostic in their essence. What is nowadays erroneously called ‘Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity’, which is in fact the compendium of their wisdom, consists of letters or ‘messages’ (رسائل), being thus a reminiscence of the typically Gnostic manner of sharing knowledge, wisdom and spiritual practices.
The religion composed, proclaimed and propagated by Mani was displayed in 242 CE in front of the formidable Sassanid shah Shapur I to whom the prophet of Manichaeism dedicated one of his books, titled Shabuhragan. Shapur I did not adhere to the new religion, but he realized its imperial importance for the Sassanid state and supported the young prophet (born in 216 CE) in his mission. It is not wrong to consider Manichaeism technically as a type of Gnosticism, but it was indeed a Gnostic system apart from the rest.
Aramaeans, Persians, Iranians, Sogdians, Turanians, Mongolians, Indians, Chinese, Egyptians, Romans, Armenians and many other nations wholeheartedly accepted Manichaeism, which was the first religion in the world to have adepts from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The last Manicheans performed their rites in China’s eastern coastland before 150-100 years. Following the rise of Mazdeism (a later form of Iranian Zoroastrianism) and the prevalence of Kartir among the Sassanid courtiers, Manichaeism was persecuted and Mani was tortured to death, but the diffusion of Manichaeism was not impacted; quite on the contrary! Mani’s faith spread and many Manichaean communities existed at the times of the Islamic conquest in both, the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire of Iran. Aramaean Manichaean communities in Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine greatly impacted Islam in many dimensions.
Almost 400 years before prophet Muhammad postured to be the last of the prophets, the prophet of Manichaeism claimed to be the ‘seal of the prophets’. Manichaean hierarchy seems to have been diffused among many Muslim esoteric spiritual orders. Some of the greatest historians and chronographers of Islamic times, like Tabari, al Biruni, and al Nadim, expanded on Mani and the Manicheans. The five prayers that a Muslim must perform daily seem to have been a compromise between the four daily prayers of the Manichaean ‘hearers’ (laymen) and the seven daily prayers of the elects (ecclesiastical hierarchy). Prophet Muhammad’s discussions with earlier prophets, during the Isra and Mi’raj nocturnal voyage to the Celestial Jerusalem, seem to exactly reflect similar considerations. Furthermore, the ablutions before the prayer appear to be a repetition of Manichaean practices. In addition, the Ebionite and Elcesaite impact on Manicheans seems therefore to have been passed on to the Muslims.
Was Mani crucified? The question remains unanswered, as several Islamic sources reported a dire end following a terrible persecution unleashed by the Sassanid imperial priesthood against the prophet of Manichaeism.The diffusion of Manichaeism eclipsed that of any other religion before the Modern Times; but Manichaeism was state religion only once: among the Uyghur nation of Central Asia.
The religion of Mani may have by now gone extinct, but its impact on Islam was tremendous. Many scholars tried to retrace fundamental concepts of Islam to the beliefs of several Jewish or Christian groups and notably the Nazarenes, but it would make more sense to closely examine how some of Mani’s innovative concepts found their way into prophet Muhammad’s cardinal tenets and world conceptualization.
Although Christianity accepted the Ancient Hebrew prophets as such, Islam is characterized by a definitely different approach, as it makes of Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isma’il, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, David and Solomon prophets as well (also extending the status of prophet to John the Baptist and Jesus). Furthermore, it is noticeable that Islam’s position on prophethood is flexible enough to encompass other historical figures or outstanding persons not directly known to the small Meccan community of the times of Muhammad ibn Abdullah. However, this fresh approach to World History, which is a novelty for Christianity and Judaism, was absolutely Manichaean or origin. Mani first introduced the concept by accepting Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus as earlier prophets and by thus giving to his religious system a universal-imperial dimension that was badly needed for a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious empire.
Manichaean Aramaeans were systematically persecuted in both, the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire of Iran; it was therefore quite normal for them to support the replacement of the double yoke with an Arab state and administration that they would be able to fully staff and operate (along with other Aramaeans who were followers of other religions, notably Christianity), taking into consideration the fact that the uneducated, uncultured and primitive Arabs of Hejaz, who had never formed any kind of proper state, would be definitely and absolutely unable to face such a challenge.
In the early Islamic times, there have been many notable Manichaean scholars, who prospered in the Islamic Caliphate; as Abbasid Baghdad became a center for either Manicheans or Manichaean converts to Islam, many Manicheans of other origin flocked there to contribute to the illustrious Beit al Hikmah (بيت الحكمة/House of the Wisdom) university, library, archival organization, academic center of translations, research center, botanical garden, and observatory. Abu Hilal al-Dayhuri, a Berber from Maghreb, was one of them. On the other hand, elements of the criticism that Abu Isa al Warraq addressed to Islam and to prophet Muhammad seem to be Manichaean of nature.
However, one must admit that, despite similarities, loans and impact, Islam and Manichaeism soon became rival systems and most of the Islamic erudite scholars portrayed Mani in a rather negative manner. This approach made of Muslims the major opponents of the Manicheans, after the Christians and the Jews; but this situation is attested in rather later periods (9th–10th c.). However, this is not quite strange, if we take into consideration the fact that the Old Testament god Yahweh was portrayed as the Demiurge (i.e. the Satan) by Mani.
v- the Copts (Monophysitic Christian Egyptians)
As close allies of the Monophysitic Aramaeans (see above unit i-), they were ferocious enemies of the oppressive Constantinopolitan administrative hierarchy and Patriarchate. Similarly with the Monophysitic Aramaeans, who belonged to the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and rejected the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (which sided with Constantinople), the Monophysitic Copts followed the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and rejected the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria.
Coptic manuscript with illuminationsCoptic manuscriptCoptic Gospel with illumination representing the four Evangelists.Coptic manuscript with illuminations
Similarly with what happened in North Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine where the followers of the Constantinopolitan doctrine-related patriarchates (in Antioch and Jerusalem) were not numerous, as they constituted the Greek-speaking minority of those regions, in Egypt, the followers of the Constantinopolitan doctrine-related patriarchate (in Alexandria) were few, and they constituted the Greek-speaking minority of Egypt.
This leads to a detrimental conclusion as regards the Eastern Roman Empire and its chances to maintain control across its eastern provinces, namely North Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Cyrenaica; both, the Constantinopolitan authorities and their local stooges were loathed and reviled by the outright majority of the local populations that would certainly do all that it took to get rid of the heretical rulers at Constantinople. All they needed was an opportunity, and prophet Muhammad’s preaching in Hejaz was apparently more important for them (as a tool) than to Arabs (as a faith).
vi- the (Aramaic-speaking) Jews, followers of Rabbinical Judaism
After the destruction of Jerusalem (70 CE) and the failure of the Bar Kokhba (136 CE) rebellion, the Sadducees, the Essenes and the Zealots did not have a chance to survive as religious-spiritual-intellectual systems among the Judaic Jews. Ever since, Judaism has revolved around the Pharisees, who thus formed what is now known as ‘Rabbinical Judaism’. As Ancient Hebrew was already a dead language, all Jews were already speaking Aramaic. Expelled from Aelia Capitolina (former Jerusalem), Jews could stay in Palestine or preferably settle in Arsacid (and after 224 CE, Sassanid) Iranian Mesopotamia.
They then (and over several centuries) elaborated a new religious book that marks a clear line of separation between their ancestors’ religion (Ancient Hebrew religion based exclusively on the Old Testament) and their new religion; this book is the Talmud, which is the product of the criminal priests who never repented for having killed the ancient prophets of Israel. Today, most scholars hide the critical fact that Judaism (i.e. Rabbinical Judaism or Talmudic Judaism) is totally different from and diametrically opposed to the Ancient Hebrew religion. As priestly literature and theological exegesis, the two different Talmud collections, namely the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalemite Talmud, were written in Aramaic.
Manuscript of the Babylonian Talmud with text from the tractate KiddushinManuscript of the Babylonian Talmud with text from the tractate Rosh ha-shannah
Contrarily to the Judaic Jews, who were marked by the composition and the diffusion of the Talmud among them, the Aramaean Jews in their totality turned to Early Christianity; this concerns the Samaritans of the time of Jesus and many other Aramaean Jewish communities that prospered in Syria and Mesopotamia, notably in Dura Europos where the Synagogue fully reveals the impetus and the magnificence of Aramaean Art. By the time of prophet Muhammad there was no Aramaean Jew.
Although late 6th c. and early 7th c. CE Jews wholeheartedly supported the Sassanid Iranians in their wars against the Eastern Roman Empire (in striking contrast with the early Muslims of the period 610-628/629, who clearly regretted the early Iranian advance and conquests, and later rejoiced with the final Eastern Roman victories) and in spite of many unfortunate incidents that occurred between the early Muslims and the Hejaz Jews (during prophet Muhammad’s lifetime), the early (634-651 CE) Islamic conquests were enthusiastically accepted by the Jews of the wider region, who found their ally and protector in the ominous figure of Omar ibn al Khattab, as he allowed them to enter Jerusalem, no less than 568 years after they were kicked out of there by the Romans. Jews actively supported the early Islamic Caliphates, notably the Umayyad state of Damascus, the Abbasid Empire of Baghdad, and the Umayyad caliphs of Córdoba (Andalus).
vii- the Persians and other Iranians followers of various Iranian religions
Being only one of the Sassanid Empire’s nations, the Persians lived in the province of Fars, which in Ancient Greek was translated as Persia; there cannot be confusion between ‘Persian’ and ‘Iranian’. Persians were/are only one of the Iranian nations.
The Persians controlled the administrative machine of the Iranian Empire during the Achaemenid times (550-330 BCE) and during the Sassanid times (224-651 CE), whereas the Parthians, another Iranian nation of Turanian origin, controlled the administrative machine of the empire during the Arsacid times (250 BCE-224 CE).
The Iranian Empire had always many imperial capitals, notably Pasargadae, Persepolis, Susa, Babylon, Ecbatana, Nisa (Mithradatkirt/Parthaunisa), Qumis (Hecatompylos), Ray (Ragae), Tesifun (Ctesiphon), and Istakhr; on the other hand, Praaspa (Adur Gushnasp/Takht-e Suleyman), at an elevation of 3000 m, in the northern part of Zagros Mountains, was permanently the Zoroastrian religious capital of the empire.
In the Mesopotamian provinces of the Sassanid Empire of Iran, there were few and rather small Persian communities; in these western provinces of Iran were also settled people originating from other Iranian nations that were indigenous in the central, eastern and northern provinces of the empire. They were dispatched to the imperial administration at Ctesiphon and they served in the army. But they were a minority among the indigenous Aramaeans of Central and Southern Mesopotamia, Transtigritane, and the Persian Gulf’s southern coastlands.
This reality has not been either assessed or revealed by any type of specialists who studied and wrote about the topic of the early Islamic conquests. Yet, it is uniquely determinant and utterly explanatory. It changes drastically our scholarly approach to the topic (see below unit E).
Another critical dimension that impacted greatly the fate of the Sassanid Empire of Iran was its religious multi-division. If we leave the Nestorian Aramaeans, the Gnostic Aramaeans, the Manichaean Aramaeans, other Manichaean Iranians (notably the Sogdians), and the Aramaic-speaking Jews aside, the Persians and the other Iranian nations of the Sassanid Empire were spiritually and religiously divided. Among them, there were adepts of the following religious systems:
1- Mazdeism: the imperial religion and Zoroastrian doctrine established by Kartir;
2- Mithraism: the popular religion that made of Mithra a god of polytheistic features;
3- Zurvanism: Mithra broke away from Zoroastrianism and Zurvan from Mithraism;
4- Mazdakism: the subversive socio-religious system of rebellious mobedh (priest);
5- Gayomardism: an offspring of Mazdeism and Mithraism, with monotheistic traits;
If one adds to the numerous aforementioned religions, several religious systems prevailing among nations of the Iranian periphery and border regions, notably Buddhism, Turanian Tengrism, and other Central Asiatic and Indus River valley religions, one gets a complete picture of the internal divisions that existed in the Sassanid Empire of Iran and finally lef to its destruction.
Sassanid Iranian relief with representation of the high priest, mystic and reformer of Zoroastrianism Kartir, a primary initiate who can be viewed as the founder of Mazdeism, i.e. the late form of Zoroastrianism that was instituted as official dogma in Sassanid Iran. Possibly Turanian (Turkic) of origin, Kartir (or Kerdyr) can be held as main responsible for the execution of Mani and the persecution of Manicheans in Iran until the end of the Sassanid times. Long before the Arabs of Hejaz heard of the Mi’raj story (prophet Muhammad’s nocturnal, transcendental travel to the Temple Mount and thence to the Celestial Jerusalem), the Iranians learned about Kartir’s celestial journey in the Heaven. There is also another (parallel?) Middle Persian story about the celestial journey of the sublime initiate Arda Viraf in the Heaven; however, the Middle Persian manuscripts of Arda Wīraz namag seem to date back to the 9th c., although the entire narrative echoes Sassanid traditions. About: https://iranicaonline.org/articles/kartir / https://www.academia.edu/37850211/The_nature_of_spiritual_journeys_in_Zoroastrianism_based_on_Kartir_and_Arda_Viraf_tripsThe Mithraic temple of Anahita at Bishapur near KazerunThe heroic elements of the Sassanid times’ Mazdeism were preserved in the Iranian epics of Islamic times, thus leading to a very different form of Islam than what Muhammad preached in Mecca; Esfandiyar faces Simurgh. Without Iranian epics composed 300 years after the death of prophet Muhammad, one cannot possibly identify correctly the cultural-spiritual-intellectual-artistic-educational environment of Iranian, Turanian, Central Asiatic, Caucasus and Indian Muslim societies. In fact, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh became the second Quran for Ottoman sultans, Mughal emperors, Iranian shahs and Eurasiatic Muslims.Gayomard (Keyumars) fighting evil spirits; a reminiscence of Gayomardism of the Sassanid times was preserved in the Iranian epics of Islamic times.The execution of Mazdak, the preacher of the world’s first religion which evangelized a communist social structure without property, as represented in Islamic times’ miniatures of manuscriptsRepresentation of Zurvan, the all-consuming ‘god’ of time
viii- the Eastern Roman Orthodox Christians, who sided with the Patriarchate of Constantinople
As I already said, the few Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Orthodox Christian communities, settled in Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria and several other cities in North Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Cyrenaica, supported the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Constantinopolitan imperial administration, but they were largely outnumbered by the local Aramaean (in Asia) and Coptic (in Africa) populations (which rejected the Patriarchate of Constantinople and its local stooges). That is why the few Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Orthodox Christian communities were greatly loathed: they ultimately functioned as tools of the imperial oppression and persecution of all those who disagreed with the Constantinopolitan theologians.
These populations and their ecclesiastical authorities, namely the Patriarchate of Constantinople and its dependencies in the East, i.e. the three minor institutions at Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria that were unrepresentative (as they were accepted as ‘patriarchates’ only by the tiny local minority of the Greek-speaking populations of the respective cities), wanted to monopolize the term ‘Orthodox’, but this was merely their propaganda, against those whom they called ‘Monophysites’. It would be however wrong to imagine that there was concord within the sphere of influence of the Patriarchate of Constantinople; there was discord and division instead.
Caesarea of Cappadocia (Kayseri): the city walls erected by Justinian in the middle of 6th c. The early Islamic conquests were stopped in the Taurus and Anti-Taurus mountains beyond Cappadocia. The bulk of the Eastern Roman population was centered between Caesarea and Smyrna (Izmir) whereas Cappadocia was the holy land of Eastern Roman Christianity.The rupestrian Cappadocian Art: one of Christianity’s most stupendous contributions to ArtTypical sample of rupestrian Cappadocian ArtThe highland of Cappadocia where many hundreds of cells and churches have been built and hewn in the rock.Caesarea: The basis of the Eastern Roman defense against the Islamic Caliphate for more than 400 years
The new theological-Christological dispute revolved around the ‘energy’ and the ‘will’ (thelesis) of Jesus, in the sense of whether they were one or two (human and divine) and, if two, what the relationship of the two energies or two wills was. As a matter of fact, it was the resurgence of the old dispute (about the ‘nature’ (physis) of Jesus), which had given birth to what we now call Miaphysitism/Monophysitism.
This new division concerned mainly vast populations living in the central provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire, namely Anatolia (Turkey), Constantinople, the Balkan Peninsula, southern and eastern Italy, Sicily, and Carthage. The division had already reached the top of the imperial structure, as Emperor Heraclius and Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople were accused of Monoenergism and Monothelitism. And the fact that Heraclius got married with his niece Martina (as second wife) unleashed an abysmal hatred against him from the part of the uncompromising ‘Orthodox’ theologians, monks and priests, as they viewed the marriage as incestuous.
This, briefly presented, was the situation in which the two great empires, the Eastern Romans and the Sassanid Iranians, found themselves in the eve of the battles that ended with the loss of the eastern provinces of the former and the final dissolution of the latter. As I said in the last paragraph of the EXCURSE I: HISTORICAL FOCUS, there has to be an academic focus on interdisciplinary studies and research, which will certainly unveil many points and elements of common faith shared by Muslims and followers of other religions (notably Manicheans) or Christian denominations (notably Miaphysitic/Monophysitic and Nestorian). This will greatly impact our understanding of the Eastern Roman and the Iranian defeats, because it may reveal that these early battles (and the Battle of Yarmouk was only one) had been already won before they were fought; furthermore, it will also explain why the situation, which arose as a consequence of these battles, proved to be irreversible for many long centuries.
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E. The demographic structure of the eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire and of the Western Iranian provinces: the Aramaeans
No scholar examined in detail the demographic structure of the populations that inhabited the central territories of the early Caliphate outside Hejaz and Yemen. This has much to do with the above EXCURSE II: ETHNO-LINGUISTIC & RELIGIOUS FOCUS. A detailed demographic study covering the period 224-750 CE would reveal that the bulk of the Aramaean populations living in the Western Iranian provinces and in the eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire were
1- ethnically different from the nations that ruled both empires (the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans and the Persians);
2- religiously opposed to the official imperial religions of both empires;
3- systematically persecuted and marginalized by both imperial administrations and armies;
4- detrimentally devastated by the incessant wars fought between the two empires, because the ordinary battlefield was precisely located in their own lands, namely the Western Iranian provinces and the eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire (and consequently the bulk of the populations of the ruling nations, namely the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans and the Persians, was not significantly affected by these wars); and
5- linguistically very close to the Arabs of Hejaz, because in fact Arabic was a southern Syriac dialect and the Arabic writing derived from Syriac Aramaic.
Ctesiphon: the remaining part of the then world’s most magnificent palace. Taq-i Kisra (or Al Mada’in) was the Sassanid palace in Mesopotamia and the archway is the largest single-span vault of unreinforced brickwork in the world. One of the best samples of pre-Islamic Aramaean-Iranian Art.In fact, Ctesiphon (Tesifun) in today’s central Iraq was an enormous agglomeration involving four cities; one of them, Seleucia, known as Mahoze in Aramaic, was the worldwide center of Nestorian Christianity.The Great Mosque of Damascus is a masterpiece of Aramaean Art.
F. The central provinces of the Islamic Caliphates: the lands of the Aramaeans.
No scholar noticed that, in addition to the aforementioned points, for about five (5) centuries (661-1258), the central regions of the Islamic Caliphates (Umayyad or Abbasid) were exactly the lands of the Aramaeans. The first Islamic capital was at Madinah, but this was soon terminated, as the Umayyad dynasty was based in the Aramaean city par excellence: Damascus. The determinant impact of the Aramaean universities, academies, monasteries and scriptoria (notably those of Urhoy/Edessa, Nisibis/Nusaybin, Tur Abdin, Mahoze/Ctesiphon, and Kerkha/Kirkuk) on the formation of the Islamic educational, academic, intellectual and scientific life changed totally the backward, uncivil and primitive environment in which prophet Muhammad’s preaching was undertaken.
The Sassanid Empire of Iran in its greatest extent at 621 CEHeraclius’ campaigns’ 611-628
This historical process and development made of the early Arab fighters, the so-called Sahaba, a marginal element that played almost no role in the History of Islamic Civilization. In other words, the Islamic Civilization in its early stage was clearly an Aramaean – Iranian civilization with significant Coptic, Yemenite and Jewish contributions; at a later stage, Berber, Turanian, African and Indus River Valley contributions to the Islamic civilizations have also been attested. However, there was never an ‘Arab civilization’ or -as per the French Orientalist forgers- “une civilisation arabo-musulmane”.
This automatically cancels the theoretical importance of the early Islamic conquests that are absurdly amplified and incommensurately over-magnified by both Western scholars and Islamic terrorists; in fact, the real winners were the inhabitants of the central regions of the Islamic Caliphates, i.e. the Aramaeans, who saw others fighting for their cause (to get rid of the double, Eastern Roman and Sassanid Iranian, yoke), for the transfer of the imperial capital into their land, and for the establishment of an imperial elite manned basically by them. In addition to the Aramaeans, the Persians and other Iranians and Turanians managed also to make their way into the new imperial administration. But prophet Muhammad had never spoken about an … ‘Islamic’ empire….
G. Lack of historical criticism in Islamic Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies
Taking all the aforementioned determinant parameters into account, reading the historical sources from the viewpoint of historical criticism, and viewing the historical facts in the light of the hitherto unevaluated critical factors, modern scholars can come up with a totally different interpretation/interrelation of sources and a dramatically contrasting reconstitution of the historical past, which would be diametrically opposed to the nonsense of military experts, who focus exclusively on battle techniques, and to the absurd and paranoid, pseudo-religious belief, as per which ‘god’ was involved in the events that took place in the 630s and 640s and shook the world between the Mediterranean, the Indus River valley, and Central Asia. Historical criticism of all sources relating to these events is indispensable and inevitable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism
Hadhrat Ali’s tomb in Najaf; Ali ibn abi Taleb (599-661) was designated as the first caliph, but after meeting fierce opposition, he was accepted as the fourth caliph. The early divisions of the small Muslim community after the death of Prophet Muhammad are an extra reason for historians to apply today extensive historical criticism and to reject the absolutely reconstructed and erroneous version of History.The tomb of the 3rd imam Hussein ibn Ali (626-680) at Kerbala. The sons of Ali had to become caliphs in his stead. But the grandson of prophet Muhammad (Hussein) was slaughtered by the son of prophet Muhammad’s worst enemy (Mu’awiya ibn Abī Sufyan / Muawiyah son of Abu Sufyan). If this situation does not impose extensive historical criticism, this means that today’s fake academics receive orders from the powers that be as regards what to study, what not to explore, and how to investigate the topics of their research. Yet, what happened in Kerbala (680 CE) illuminates very well what occurred after the Hudaybiyah treaty when Abu Sufyan rushed to Palestine to meet Emperor Heraclius and deceive him.
III. The astounding scarcity of contemporaneous sources
The first serious difficulty that every modern historian faces, when dealing with the early Islamic conquests, is the extreme scarcity of contemporaneous historical sources. A recent and highly commendable scholarly publication, titled ‘Seeing Islam as Others saw it: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam’ (by prof. Robert G. Hoyland), enumerates ca. 140 different authors, manuscripts, texts or inscriptions (categorized as a. sources; b. apocalypses and visions; c. martyrologies; d. chronicles and histories; and e. apologies and disputations) that involve various narratives in Syriac Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Armenian, Middle Persian, Christian Arabic, Jewish Aramaic, Latin and Chinese primary sources, which date back to the period between 620 and 780 CE.
As it can be easily understood, most of the above mentioned texts were not written with the specific purpose to detail the battles and the events that took place in the area under study in the 630s and the 640s; consequently, their mention of facts and their references to episodes were rather brief, because the main scope of the narrative was other. The Eastern Roman chronicler and monk Theophanes the Confessor (758-817) presented the longest description of the events by an Eastern Roman author. His text is to be found in Medieval Greek and Latin translation: J. P. Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, cviii (vol.108, col.55-1009). But when Theophanes wrote his venerated Χρονογραφία (Chronographia), at least 150 years had passed after the Battle of Yarmouk was fought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophanes_the_Confessor
Still this is fine if compared with the Muslim Arabic sources; the scarcity of 7th c. CE Islamic sources is spectacular. The Islamic sources of that period are much scarcer than the non-Islamic sources. Even worse, as the Arabs of Hejaz were not civilized and kept no historical records of their otherwise primitive and therefore dreary societies, a long formative period had to first pass, until -under clear Aramaean, Persian, Coptic and Jewish guidance- some rudiments of historiography be formed.
Most of the first, important historians of Islamic times were of non-Arab origin:
1- Muhammad ibn Ishaq (704-767) was the grandson of an Aramaean young boy held captive in a Christian monastery in Shetata (Ayn al Tamr) in Mesopotamia;
2- Al Waqidi (747-823) was the son of a Persian lady of noble ancestry whose family introduced letters, arts and music to uncivil and primitive Hejaz;
3- Tabari (or rather Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari/ محمد بن جرير الطبري; 839-923) was an Iranian born in the southern coastlands of the Caspian Sea (Tabaristan), a location to which he owes the name by which he became widely known. Tabari’s Chronography was not different from the Eastern Roman historiographical tradition, as he started his narrative from the Creation. Tabari accumulated an enormous, unprecedented documentation, and he mentioned explicitly his sources for each and every part of his colossal text (a recent, unilingual English translation needed 40 volumes of ca. 300 pages each to be published), making it unattractive to the non-specialists. But Tabari wrote no less than 230 years after the Battle of Yarmouk was fought.
The situation is even worse, when it comes to Islamic religious, theological, biographical, and hagiographical literature. The earlier manuscripts that survived down to our days date back to the 8th, 9th and 10th c., while few existing exceptions are in truly fragmentary condition and cannot be taken as ‘proofs’ properly speaking.
The scarcity of the contemporaneous sources makes the interdisciplinary research imperative for the case of the early Islamic conquests and for the study of the first decades of caliphs’ rule. The contrast or the agreement between two different sources and the often divergent perspectives offered can help drastically stimulate the research orientation and push scholars toward hitherto unidentified areas, which may then grant a far better understanding of the historical facts than present-day clichés do.
The Teaching of Jacob (Διδασκαλία Ἰακώβου/Didaskalia Iakobou; Doctrina Jacobi) is an example in this regard; preserved partially in Medieval Greek manuscripts and integrally in Latin, Arabic, Ge’ez and Slavonic translations, the text consists in a debate among Jews as regards their eventual conversion to Christianity. It seems to be dated back to 634 CE, and it provides some of the earlier references to the Islamic conquests. In fact, it contradicts all Islamic sources, because it describes prophet Muhammad (without naming him) as waging wars in Palestine. However, the brief excerpt that concerns these facts makes state of an alliance between Palestinian Jews and the Arab armies. On the other hand, those among the Palestinian Jews, who had converted to Christianity (or rather were forced to), saw in the person of the ‘warrior prophet’ the Antichrist and even expected the imminent return of the Christ, also regretting that it took them long to identify Jesus with the Biblical Messiah.
The Syriac ‘Chronicle of 640’, written by Thomas the Presbyter, consists in a particular Christian Chronography down to the year 640 CE; the scribe, who copied the manuscript ca. 85 years later (724 CE), added an extra text containing the list of the Umayyad caliphs, who had reigned until that year. The Chronicle contains critical references to the early Islamic attacks and conquests, also stating that an enormous bloodshed followed the battle “between the Romans and the Tayyaye of Muhmd (the Arabs of Muhammad)”, which took place on 4th February 634 CE in Palestine, east of Gaza. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Presbyter
Two years later (636 CE), the Syriac ‘Chronicle of 640′ mentions explicitly the Sassanid Iranian debacle (without however naming the Battle of Qadissiyyah) and the subsequent arrival of the Islamic armies in NE Mesopotamia and notably Mardin (today in SE Turkey), which was the religious capital of the Tur Abdin Aramaean Miaphysitic/Monophysitic monasticism; these events also caused great bloodshed there. However, by dating these events in 636 CE {year 947, indiction 9, of the Seleucid Era (starting 312-311 BCE)}, the author makes it impossible for us to date the Battle of Yarmouk in 636, which is nowadays the tendency of several scholars who rather follow Theophanes’ text. On the contrary, Tabari makes it very clear that the Battle of Yarmouk occurred days after the death of Abu Bakr in August 634 CE.
Another brief and fragmentary inscription written on a blank page of a 6th c. Syriac copy of the Gospel of Mark makes state of the failure of the Eastern Roman army to properly defend the eastern regions of the empire; the same expression is used in Syriac (Tayyaye of Muhmd), but the dating is arbitrary. The inscription may well have been written in the 630s, but we cannot specify when exactly. Modern scholars have the tendency to deliberately mistrust the historical authors in order to fabricate the version of historiography that pleases them, and that is why several specialists assumed that the inscription’s author mistook Gabitha for Yarmouk; the inscription mentions a battle between the Eastern Romans and the Muslims in Gabitha (Jabiyah, in Syria) and the modern scholars translate it as ‘Yarmouk’ (in Jordan). It would be however more interesting to focus on similarities and dissimilarities between Syriac and Arabic, because practically speaking the same noun (Gabitha, Jabiyah) ended up having two totally different meanings. If one applies Syriac reading to the Quranic text before vocalization, the surprises may be phenomenal.
IV. Critical incidents during the Battle of Yarmouk
Tabari starts his narration of the events of the year 13 AH (634-635) with the Battle of Yarmouk; it expands on the illness and the subsequent death of Abu Bakr later. This cancels automatically the falsely reconstructed entry of the Wikipedia that dates the event back to 636 CE. Tabari’s two previous units are:
– Those who say Abu Bakr led the pilgrimage
– Those who say Umar led the pilgrimage
It is quite interesting that, in the introductory text for the events of the year 13 AH (before the description of the Battle of Yarmouk), Tabari states clearly that Abu Bakr, after his return from Mecca to Madina (when the hajj was completed), prepared the armies to be sent to Syria. Tabari narrates the developments, based on many different chains of earlier sources. There were many recruits of Yemen, because the Yemenites had recently accepted Islam (630 CE). So, even in these early battles, we cannot speak of ‘Arab armies’, but of Arab and Yemenite armies; the Yemenites are a Semitic nation, but as different from the Arabs as the Jews are from the Aramaeans, and pre-Islamic Yemenite languages and writings were very different from Arabic.
At this point, one has to point out that, before and after the death of prophet Muhammad (632), the early Islamic state in Hejaz, Yemen, Oman and the desert was in a tumultuous situation and incessant rebellions were exploding every now and then here and there, which means that the Islamic army units were in continuous readiness. However, despite this fact, the preparations for the dispatch of the army to the southern confines of Palestine and Syria, as narrated by Tabari, seem to have been rudimentary. In other words, I want to state that, for an event of so cataclysmic importance, the preparations were minimal.
This can only mean one thing: there were ongoing communications and coordination with Aramaeans based in Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia as regards a) attrition activities that they would possibly undertake against the Eastern Roman armies, b) defection of Aramaean soldiers from the Eastern Roman armies, and c) public opinion preparation for the forthcoming arrival of the Islamic armies and for the acceptance of the early Islamic faith (which was not what people think today that Islam is). And these developments (in Syria, and not in Hejaz) are exactly what made the difference, irrespective of the battle outcome. Otherwise, an early Islamic victory and invasion could be met with local population resistance and then the dispatch of another imperial army from Constantinople or Cappadocia would demolish once forever the initial state structure that the Arab and Yemenite armies may have imposed for a year or two in Damascus, Emessa (Homs), Caesarea Maritima, and Jerusalem.
Four separate armies were dispatched from Madina at the same time and each of them took a different road, but when they reached the region of Yarmouk River, they decided to unite, because the Eastern Romans outnumbered them. The same tactic was followed by the Eastern Romans. In some early skirmishes a Muslim force under Khālid ibn Saʿīd was defeated. Tabari states that the two armies encamped at a relatively close distance from one another without fighting for several months.
At that point, Tabari gives the date of Abu Bakr’s death, namely in the middle of the month Jumadah al Akhirah of the Islamic calendar (16 August 634), and specifies that the event took place “ten days before the victory (in the battle of Yarmouk River)”. It is noteworthy that prophet Muhammad’s worst enemy and late convert to Islam Abu Sufyan bin Harb accompanied the army and was appointed as the ‘preacher’ (qass). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q%C4%81%E1%B9%A3%E1%B9%A3
During the description of the battle, Tabari mentions the arrival of the messenger from Madinah, namely the rider who announced the death of Abu Bakr only to Khalid bin Walid, the army leader, keeping it secret from all the fighters for obvious reasons. Tabari narrates also discussions that took place in intervals between Khalid bin Walid and George (Jurjah bin Budhiyah; also mentioned as Jarajis), one of the commanders of the Eastern Roman armies, who finally accepted Islam, performed a brief Islamic prayer (only two prostrations; rak’atayn), and then fought with the Muslims against the Eastern Roman army.
At another point, Tabari mentions an incident between Al-Ashtar (Malik bin al Harith al Nakha’iy, also known as Malik Al-Ashtar; a Yemenite origin Muslim) and ‘a man of the Romans’, who suggested a single combat with any Muslim fighter – a challenge that Al-Ashtar accepted. After the two combatants exchanged many blows, Al-Ashtar said to the ‘Roman’ opponent: “Take that, because I am a youngster from the Iyad tribe”! The ‘Roman’ fighter responded: “May God increase the number of people like you among my people; because, by God, if you were not of my people, I would have supported the Romans (meaning the Eastern Romans), but now I will not help them”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malik_al-Ashtar
The hills around the Yarmouk riverYarmouk RiverMaps and diagrams about historical developments are useless, as they only offer information of one dimension; one grasps the reality as regards the Battle of Yarmouk only when understanding that the outright majority of the local Aramaean populations passionately desired and wished for an Eastern Roman defeat, expecting the Muslim warriors as liberators. This occurred not because these populations believed in the faith preached by prophet Muhammad, but due to their need to use the Muslim armies in order to get rid from the tyrannical Eastern Roman rule. This truth has been systematically obscured by Western historians who came up with cheap propaganda and empty rhetoric, in order to repeat the divisive clichés that are necessary to the criminal colonial regimes of the West.
Incidents like the aforementioned totally change the image that modern scholars have created as distortion of the historical reality. The Islamic army did not actually need to be numerous; the battlefront would not be the most critical location as regards the battle outcome. Even more so, because if the first battle had been lost, the second would have been victorious in any case!
V. The true dimensions of the Battle of Yarmouk and of its outcome
The linguistic affinity between Aramaeans and Arabs was such that we can easily infer that most of the Islamic fighters could easily communicate in the language of a sizeable part of the Eastern Roman army (the Aramaean soldiers recruited from the lands of today’s SE Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine). There is no doubt about the knowledge and use of Syriac Aramaic among Arabs, due to their long professional involvement across the frankincense and spice trade routes. Even more importantly, the well-documented diffusion of Christianity among the Arabs bears automatically witness to their great skills of Syriac Aramaic in terms of reading comprehension, listening comprehension, written composition, and usage. How close to prophet Muhammad may this situation have been? Extremely close!
The cousin of his first wife, a learned man named Warraqah (: lit. ‘paper’) ibn Nawfal was a Christian convert. The religiosity of those days was such that we can safely claim that Khadijah’s cousin was reading every day excerpts from the Peshitta (the Syriac Bible). To all those, who discuss issues pertaining to prophet Muhammad’s education, knowledge and familiarity with Christological disputes, although it is certain that Khadijah’s husband -in young age- traveled repeatedly to territories of the Eastern Roman Empire (where he may have had month-long discussions with monks, theologians and learned merchants), the easiest response would be:
– Already in Mecca, there were Peshitta copies of the Bible, in the small houses of prophet Muhammad’s relatives!
Peshitta manuscripts with miniaturesAramaean Art of the Book
Also many Aramaeans involved in the trade between Yemen and the Mediterranean could communicate in the provincial Hejaz dialect that we now call ‘Quranic Arabic’. Language issues are mentioned in the Quran, and not without reason. In fact, Arabic sounded like a rough and uncouth dialect to the Aramaeans of Damascus or Antioch, two great cities each of which had larger population than the totality of the (Hejaz and desert) Arabs. On the other hand, the lexicographical poverty of pre-Islamic Arabic, if compared to the treasure of Syriac Aramaic (which also contained loans from other languages), was viewed by the Hejaz Arabs as ‘linguistic purity’; this situation led them to the aberration that their dialect was more ‘ancient’ or more ‘original’, whereas in fact it was more ‘isolated’ and more arid than Syriac Aramaic. And this situation is reproduced nowadays when people, who are well versed in the Quranic text (which stays close to the pre-Islamic Arabic’s ‘purity’, although it is far more elaborate), try to read Ibn Sina’s Al-Isharat wa al-Tanbihat; they fail to grasp anything.
The religious-cultural similarity between the Arabs, who had just accepted prophet Muhammad’s preaching, and the Christian Aramaeans (either Nestorian or Miaphysitic/Monophysitic) was even more stupendous. Of course, when it comes to religion, tiny differentiations are known to have been reasons of terrible strives and wars, but in this case, there was a tremendously different issue. The Arabs had already rejected their idolatry and polytheistic concepts in order to adopt a faith that had a great number of common points with both, Nestorian and Miaphysitic / Monophysitic Christianity. In other words, they had made the first step in the direction of Miaphysitic/Monophysitic and Nestorian Christianity, and this was how the Christian Aramaeans viewed them; of course, to some Aramaean monks, the Arabs were perceived as heretic, but still this is far ‘better’ than just ‘heathens’.
The truly negative view of Islam was particular only to Constantinople and to Rome; but this detrimental judgment of Islam had basically imperial and material motives; in other words, Muhammad ‘was’ for the imperial ruling class the Antichrist, because his religious system was effective in seriously and irreversibly damaging their imperial posture, material benefits, and ecumenical appeal. Suddenly, the major challenges of 300 years of Christian imperial rule (namely Arius, Eutyches and Nestorius) that the Constantinopolitan theologians had managed to overcome appeared to be extremely weak and minor compared with the latest: Muhammad.
The difference was simple; the earlier challenges (namely Arius, Eutyches and Nestorius) emanated from within the Roman Empire, and the Constantinopolitan elite proved to be able to squelch them, oppressing and persecuting leaders and followers of the ‘heresies’. But Muhammad emanated from outside the Roman Empire. He early managed to secure an independent basis for his faith, and thence he attacked the Eastern Roman provinces that were inhabited by populations, which overwhelmingly rejected the Constantinopolitan doctrine; it was only normal for these populations to massively opt for the standard bearers of the new faith.
In fact, they perceived the arrival of the Muslim armies as liberation from the Roman – Constantinopolitan tyranny. The Anti-Muhammadan rhetoric of the Medieval Latin sources is merely an evil propaganda of the losers; the reality is simple: either they accepted Islam or remained Monophysitic, Nestorian, Gnostic or Manichaean, the Aramaeans, who constituted the quasi-totality of the local populations in Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and the southern coastland of the Persian Gulf, did not rebel against the rule of the Caliphate. And the Arab rulers accepted the importance of the lands of the Aramaeans, and that’s why they abandoned their marginal towns and sketchy villages in Hejaz and set up their capitals in the lands of the Aramaeans.
After all, this new doctrine appeared at the time as merely a new Christological dispute and heresy, and its followers were few and originated from lands that had never been historically important and which remained historically unimportant. But the loss for the theological elites of Constantinople and Rome was abysmal; in fact, pretty much like Constantinople was the New Rome, Damascus and Baghdad were meant to be the Final Rome. That is why Arius, Eutyches and Nestorius were never called ‘the Antichrist’, but prophet Muhammad was!
The Umayyad Mosque at Damascus: a masterpiece of Aramaean ArtGrand Mosque of Damascus: the spectacular mosaics in the arcade around the iwan reveal the splendor of the Aramaean Art.
At this point, I terminate the present, first article of the series; in a forthcoming article, I will reveal other critical points explicitly mentioned in the historical sources that modern Western scholars sulphurously disregard, conceal or misinterpret only to advance their historical forgery and intellectual fallacy; in this they are imitated and followed by the disreputable, ignorant and vicious, pseudo-Muslim sheikhs, imams, professors, muftis, qadis and preachers, who have been fabricated and put in place by the English and French colonials in full disruption of the Islamic historical continuity. Yet, these -widely unknown- points help us first achieve a deep and comprehensive understanding of the facts that took place in the 620s-630s and then get the real picture of the entire historical process without the smokescreen of today’s misplaced version of historiography.
In fact, what most people believe today as History of Islamic Conquests and Early Islamic History is entirely false. It is a fairy tale that turns a) most of the Westerners into absurd Muhammad-haters and Islam-deniers and b) most of the Muslims into useful-idiots and naïve believers of a pseudo-Islamic theological doctrine that has nothing in common with the religion preached by prophet Muhammad and ever since advocated by hadhrat Ali and his descendants. It is not a matter of Westerners accepting Islam and Muslims accepting Christianity as faith, but as historical process. Islam was not preached by prophet Muhammad in order to be imposed worldwide. That’s why both groups need to first interpret Emperor Heraclius’ evident reluctance to fight against the Islamic armies. This was the only man in the world who, before meeting with prophet Muhammad’s personal envoy Dahyah al Kalbi, encountered his worst enemy.
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