Armenians in Contact with Islam Seventh to Fourteenth Centuries Seta

ARMENIANS IN CONTACT WITH ISLAM SEVENTH TO FOURTEENTH CENTURIES SETA B. DADOYAN Less than two decades after the rise of Islam, Armenians were exposed to and interacted with cultural and political Islam in most intriguing manners. The exposition, classification and analysis of these patterns of interaction is the subject of this paper (which is in fact the abstract of a book in progress). The geographical area under study covers Greater Armenia, Upper Meso- potamia, Bilad al-Sham and Egypt during the period from the eighth century to the end of the fourteenth. The historic record of over seven centuries of Islamic-Armenian relations is available though scattered, but this ongoing reality never developed into an academic discipline both in Armenology and Near Eastern studies in general. The surprisingly dynamic and rich texture of Islamic-Armenian interaction resists rigid classifications however, a broad distinction must be made, as this paper does, between Armenian interactions with political Islam on the one hand and the manners in which Armenians saw and interacted with cultural-doctrinal Islam, on the other. Gathering and organizing available data, then reconstructing the patterns or ‘models’ of interaction are tasks of this initial phase of Islamic-Armenian history (for the initiation of which the author of these lines modestly claims credit). What I call ‘historic models’ are specific yet generalizable instances in which Armenians interacted with political and cultural Islam as their immediate environment, both within and without their establishment. Medieval histories constitute the record of Islamic-Armenian interactions and in this context, Islamic sources present particular significance. Because, what they called Arminia extended from the Black Sea to North Syria and from the Caspian to Cappadocia. It covered Armenia proper or Greater Arme- nia, VirÈ (Georgia) and AghvanÈ (Albania). As an administrative unit, it was divided into four areas: the First Arminia was AghvanÈ, the Second VirÈ, the Third the eastern part of Greater Armenia and the Fourth its western part. 176 S.B. DADOYAN Concerning the ‘Armenians’ or al-arman, I would like to propose the following: Arab historians and geographers used the words arman and armani to refer equally to those who were natives of this region and those who lived in and out of it. Similar to the word ‘Arab’, the term armani was extra-religious, extra-national and extra-local. Consequently, being broader in their outlook, Islamic accounts reflected more vivid images of the diffused and dynamic patterns of the political careers and cultures of the Armenians in the Islamic world, which practically included Armenia too. More impor- tantly, Arminia and al-arman were dealt with and presented as indigenous elements of the Near East and the narratives did not single them out of the general historic texture. This is why historic truth is to be found on the crossroads of Arab and Armenian sources; often a complex and synthetic method is necessary to shed some light on what may be called ‘historic black holes’ in Armenian histories. This paper treats the Armenian experience with Islam as a singularity and in doing so it proposes a philosophically distinct historic vision and a new methodology to draw criteria for a systemic study of the historicity of Islamic- Armenian interactions. The few Armeno-Arab studies are restricted to the period of Arab rule (approximately from 636-885, from the Islamic conquests of Arminia to the rise of the Bagratunis, the third dynasty). For these authors Islam is simply the religion of the Arabs. In turn, historiography of the later periods reduces Islam to part of the ethnicity of the Turks, Mongols, Persians, Kurds, etc. But Islam as a world was never studied as a vast culture which in fact constituted a good part of the realities the Armenians and other peoples of the Near East interacted with in most intriguing manners. POLITICAL ISLAM AND THE ARMENIANS Arab rule in Armenia and the penetration of Islam By a treaty in 652, between Omayyad Caliph Mu‘awiyah and Theodorus Rshtuni, the latter became ‘Prince of Armenia’ (Hayots Iskhan) and to the end of the first phase of Arab rule around 701,1 the country enjoyed a measure of 1 Arab rule in Armenia had four phases: Early unstable period: 636-701; Direct administration: 701-885; Semi- independence with taxes: 885-913; Independence with a gradual halt of taxes by Ashot Yerka† (915-928). See A. Alboyajian, Batmu†yun Îay Gagh†akanu†yan [History of Armenian Emigrations], I (Cairo, 1941). The Armenian sources on the period of Arab domination are: Sebeos, Movses Kaghankatuatsi, Ghevond, ARMENIANS IN CONTACT WITH ISLAM 177 internal sovereignty. Armenians faced Islam directly and as a cultural-political alternative ally, only after Arminia became an administrative unit under Arab governors (who resided in Dvin then in Bardav as of 789). This condi- tion was created by the location of Armenia between East and West, first Roman/Persian then Byzantine/Islamic and as in the past, during Arab rule too, there were pro-Western and pro-Eastern trends. During the first century of Arab rule, the choices the Armenians made – as clergy, aristocracy, dissi- dent factions and individuals –, decided the course of events and drew the destiny of the nation. The Armenian Church always sided with the Christian West, despite serious disagreement following the Council of Chalcedon and despite the consistently unfavourable attitude of Byzantium towards Armenian sovereignty. However, the Omayyads maintained cordial relations and it was with their assistance that Chalcedonianism was banned in Armenia by Catholicos Yeghya Arjishetsi (703-777); Hovhan Oznetsi (d. 728) was in good terms with the court at Damascus. Some aristocratic Houses and mainly the Bagratunis pursued pro-Eastern and generally more flexible policies, which allowed and justified cooperation with the Arabs. The most prominent elements in the pro-Eastern camp were the various social and religious dissidents or the sectarians, which became the permanent allies of the Muslims. In contrast, the Mamikonian House was a prominent example of pro-Greek and nationalistic trends, it led major uprisings against the Omayyads (703 and 747-750). Two greater revolts happened in 774-5 and around 850 because of high taxes; they were encountered by very heavy Arab reprisals and several nakharars moved to the Byzantine side, thus indirectly con- tributing to the settlement of Arab Tribal Emirates, like Shaybanis, Sulaymis or Qaysits, Uthmanis, ZaÌÌafis, Zuraris, etc. They were eventually eradi- cated by the Greeks in the eleventh century but it was the Kurdish element, not the Armenians, that replaced them. Intermarriages between the Arab Amirs and daughters of the Bagratunis, Mamikonians and ArÂrunis were not uncommon and granted the former hereditary rights. During the Abbasid-Greek wars, some Armenian generals in the Byzantine army joined the Arab side and occupied high administrative positions; one such example is Tajat Anzevatsi who became governor of Armenia in 781-785. In the midst of Arab-Greek wars, Armenian uprisings, large scale devasta- tion of the land and the population and consecutive governors there were many Armenians in the Abbasid army and the administration. In addition 178 S.B. DADOYAN to minor names, there is a major figure who played a very important role: he was YaÌya al-Armani, a general and governor of Egypt previously and of Armenia in 862. He was instrumental in the end of Arab rule by the procla- mation of Ashot I Bagratuni as Prince of Princes during his term. Practically direct Arab rule over Armenia lasted from 701 to 862. Eventually the Bagratunis founded the third Armenian dynasty in 885 by a crown sent by Caliph Mu‘tamid to Ashot Bagratuni I. In early 1960’s the Arabic seal of Ashot I was discovered during the excavations of Dvin.2 Contacts through social-religious dissidence of the Armenian sects The Paulicians - By the first years of the eighth century, channels of interaction with Islam were established through the cooperation which developed between the Arabs and the Paulician ‘heretics’, because of social and religious dissidence. Thus, as of the second decade of the eighth century, the Armenian sects were also accused of Islamic sympathies in addition to pagan and other unorthodox beliefs. Considering the Paulicians of his time, remnants of the early Christian sects, Catholicos Hovhan Oznetsi (term: 717-728) says that they shrewdly struck an “alliance with the oppressors [Muslims]… finding in them weapons to bring evils upon the Christians … They [the Paulicians] even studied the false and obscure scriptures [of the Muslims] and instructed ignorant followers in these teachings … [therefore] it comes as no surprise to us to see them sharing similar notions with those whose satellites they were”.3 While Byzantine persecutions and deportations drove the dissidents to the side of the Arabs, encounters with the latter politicized them and offered an alternative culture. In the year 717 they became the “auxiliaries of the Kingdom of the Tayaye”, Michael the Syrian says4 and inhabiting the marcher regions they took part in the Arab-Byzantine wars, until their strongholds in Tephrike and Arcaous were devastated in 872 by Basil I the Macedonian (867-886). Hovhannes Patmaban Catholicos, ™ovma ArÂruni, Steπannos Asoghik, Ukh†anes, Aris- takes Lastivertsi. 2 A. Ter Ghevondian, The Arab Emirates in Armenia (Yerevan, 1965), p. 29. 3 Hovhannes Oznetsi, Hovhannu Imatasiri Avznetsvo Matenagru†yunk, ‘Norin Enddem Pavghikeants', ‘Norin Enddem Yerevutakanats’ [ Writings ‘Against the Paulicians’, ‘Against the Phantasiasts’] (Venice, St. Lazar, 1833), pp. 34-35. See also the Canons issued from the Council of Dvin, summoned in 719 in Arsen Gheldejian, Kanongirk Hayots [Book of Armenian Canons] (Tbilisi, 1913), pp. 148-149. 4 Michael the Syrian, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, ed.

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