Sasanian Antecedents, the Sectarian Milieu, and the Creation of an Islamic Frontier in Armīniya
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FROM KCUSTI KAPKOH TO AL-ǦARBĪ: SASANIAN ANTECEDENTS, THE SECTARIAN MILIEU, AND THE CREATION OF AN ISLAMIC FRONTIER IN ARMĪNIYA by Alison Marie Vacca A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Near Eastern Studies) in The University of Michigan 2013 Doctoral Committee: Professor Michael Bonner, Co-Chair Professor Kevork B. Bardakjian, Co-Chair Associate Professor Kathryn Babayan Professor John V. A. Fine Timothy Greenwood, University of St. Andrews Associate Professor Christiane Gruber ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is the culmination of many years of study. Over the past decade I have benefited from the guidance of several eminent scholars of Islamic and Armenian history. First, I’d like to express my sincere appreciation for the members of my committee, especially Dr. Michael Bonner, for balancing meticulous attention to detail with humor and interest, and Dr. Kevork B. Bardakjian, for introducing me to a number of opportunities to improve my work. Both professors have offered considerable time and effort to my development both as a person and as a scholar. I’d also like to thank the other members of my committee, Drs. Timothy Greenwood, Kathryn Babayan, John Fine, and Christiane Gruber, for their interest, support, and commitment. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with scholars at the University of Michigan, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and elsewhere over the past eight years, including Drs. Sergio La Porta, Christina Maranci, Steven Rapp, Karin Rührdanz, Alexander Knysh, Hrach Martirosyan, Behrad Aghaei, Ray Silverman, and Reuven Amitai. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the Near Eastern Studies department and the Armenian Studies Program, including Ozgen Felek, Rob Haug, Evyn Kropf, Noah Gardiner, Nancy Linthicum, Ilgi Evrim Gercek, Frank Castiglione, Michael Pifer, Vahe Sahakyan, Dzovinar Derderian, and Deborah Forger, for their friendship and collegiality. Finally, my family has consistently supported my interest in pursuing history and I am thankful for their encouragement: this extends to my sisters Jennifer Krog, Rachel Lucchesi, and Janine Brescia and my grandparents Norman and Carol Napier. I’d especially like to thank my parents for their determination to send their daughters to college: my father, Keith Crossley, for ii reading drafts of papers, and my mother, Barbara Crossley, for traveling around the world to accompany my research trips and babysit my kids. They set the parenting bar high. Most importantly, I cannot understate the importance of the emotional support of my husband, Michael Vacca. He has been a loving and encouraging partner and a rambunctious father. Living with a graduate student is not easy: books cover the house, work never stays in the office, and the chores frequently pile up undone. I can’t promise that living with a professor will be any easier, but I appreciate his patience, love, and support more than I can put into words. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii LIST OF IMAGES viii LIST OF TABLES ix ABSTRACT x CHAPTERS 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Main Arguments 3 1.1.1 The Northern Frontier 4 1.1.2 Sasanian Legacy 5 1.1.3 The Sectarian Milieu 13 1.2 Methodology 19 1.3 Trajectory of the Argument: Chapter Abstracts 24 2. The Northern ṯuġūr and the Definition of the Islamic World 31 2.1 Armenia and mamlakat al-Islām 32 2.1.1 Dār al-Islām, Mamlakat al-Islām, and Islam as a Geographical 33 Identifier 2.1.2 Armīniya and the Islamic World 37 2.2 The Nature of the Frontier 43 2.2.1 Ḥudūd and Ṯuġūr 44 2.2.2 The Frontier as “Barrier or Bridge?” 48 2.2.2.1 Qālīqalā: “So the Arabs arabized Qālī Qālah” 51 2.2.2.2 Tiflīs and Bāb al-Abwāb: “beyond which there is no 54 Islām” 2.3 Muslim Presence in Armīniya and Relevance of Armīniya to Islam 58 2.4 Conclusion 65 3. Historical and Administrative Geography 67 3.1 Geographical and Administrative Definitions of Armīniya 68 3.1.1 Greater and Lesser Armīniya 70 iv 3.1.2 Interior and Exterior Armenia 73 3.1.3 Armenia, Iberia, and Albania 76 3.1.4 The Fourfold Division of Armenia 80 3.1.4.1 Armenia Prima 81 3.1.4.2 Armenia Secunda 82 3.1.4.3 Armenia Tertia 83 3.1.4.4 Armenia Quarta 86 3.1.5 Al-Riḥāb: Armīniya, Aḏarbayǧān, and al-Rān 88 3.2 Arab Memory of a Sasanian Past 92 3.2.1 Kcusti Kapkoh / Kust-ī Ādūrbādagān 93 3.2.2 Al-Ǧarbī / al-Ǧabal / al-Ǧadī 97 3.2.3 Echoes of Sasanian Geographical Models in Early Islamic 99 Administration 3.3 Conclusion 104 4. Local Authority and Attempts at Centralization 105 4.1 Local Governance and Titulature 109 4.1.1 Ostikan 109 4.1.2 Išxan Hayocc 116 4.1.3 Naxarars 118 4.2 Governmental Policy towards the Naxarar Houses 120 4.2.1 Forced Emigration of Naxarars from Armenia 121 4.2.2 Elimination of the Naxarar Houses 124 4.2.3 Encouraging Disunity 127 4.2.4 Hostages 130 4.2.5 Overtaxation 133 4.2.6 Arabization of Armenia 141 4.3 The Syrian/Mesopotamian Element 144 4.3.1 Armenian ties to Asorestan in the Sasanian Period 146 4.3.2 Mesopotamia, Northern Syria, and Armīniya in the Arab Period 149 4.4 Conclusion 151 5. Perceived threats to the Armenian Church 153 5.1 Armenian Responses to Islam 154 5.2 The Main Threats to the Armenian Church during the Arab Period 160 5.2.1 Chalcedonianism 162 5.2.1.1 Byzantine attempts to impose Chalcedonianism 163 5.2.1.2 The Georgian–Armenian Schism 165 5.2.1.3 Relations with the Albanian Church 168 5.2.1.4 Solidarity with the Syriac Church 172 5.2.2 Paulicians and Tcondrakians 176 5.2.2.1 The Preoccupation of the Armenian Church 178 5.2.2.2 The relation between Islam and the Paulicians and 180 v Tcondrakians 5.3 Conclusion 184 6. Caliphal Policy towards the Armenian Apostolic Church 186 6.1 Ahl al-ḏimma and Caliphal Policy in Armīniya 187 6.2 Abuse of the Church during the Arab Period 190 6.3 Martyrdom and the Rise of Hagiography 195 6.4 Conversions to Islam 201 6.5 Conclusion 203 7. Islamic Armīniya and the Alexander Legends 205 7.1 The Corpus of Alexander Legends concerning Armīniya 206 7.1.1 Gog and Magog: Location and Identity 208 7.1.2 The Land of Darkness and the Biblical North 217 7.1.3 The Rock of Moses and the Virtues of Patience 221 7.1.4 Al-Qāf 228 7.2 From Orientalism to the Sectarian Milieu 232 7.3 The Islamization of Alexander 237 7.4 Conclusion 241 8. Interconfessional Translations and the Sectarian Milieu 243 8.1 The Patmutciwn Hayocc of Agatcangełos 244 8.1.1 Renditions and Dating 245 8.1.2 Content: the Formation of a National Church 248 8.1.3 Significance: the Question of Chalcedonian Redactions 251 8.1.4 Armenian Literature in the Christian Communities in the Near East 258 8.2 Łewond and the Correspondence between cUmar and Leo 263 8.2.1 Dating 265 8.2.2 Content and its Significance: Sources of Armenian Knowledge of 267 Islam 8.3 The Commentary on the Gospel of John 273 8.3.1 The Background 273 8.3.2 Dating, Composition, and Translation of the Text 275 8.3.3 Significance of the Text 278 8.4 Conclusion 279 9. Conclusion 281 vi 9.1 The Frontier 281 9.2 Sasanian Legacy 282 9.3 Sectarian Milieu 283 9.4 Other Arguments about Arab Armīniya 285 10. Resources 289 10.1 A Short Note on Sources for the Sasanian Period 289 10.2 Eighth- and Ninth-Century Works 290 10.3 Tenth-Century Works 294 10.4 Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth-Century Works 305 WORKS CITED 308 vii LIST OF IMAGES Image 1: Arabic Inscription at Zwartcnocc 63 Image 2: Arabic Inscription at Aruč 64 Image 3: Sāsānian Seals from kust-i Ādūrbādagān. 59 Image 4: Sāsānian coins with 4 stars 59 Figure 5: cAbbāsid tax seals from Egypt 139 Image 6: Sāsānian sculpture 148 Image 7: The Inscription at Mren 149 Image 8: Armenian Inscription in the Sinai, 852 CE. 258 Image 9: Armenian Inscription in the Sinai, ninth century. 259 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Hewsen’s Chart of the 4 Armenias 08 Table 2: Bates’s study of minting patterns 102 Table 3: Wheeler’s Stemma for the Water of Life legend 224 Table 4: Ter-Łewondyan’s Schema for the transmission of Agatcangełos’s History 246 Table 5: Ter-Łewondyan’s Chart of Contents of Agatcangełos’s History 249 ix ABSTRACT Although Arab incursions into Armenia began in the 640s, it wasn’t until after the Marwānid reforms that Arabs established direct rule over the region and created the province Armīniya. This dissertation considers Armīniya and the caliphal North (comprising Armenia, Caucasian Albania, Eastern Georgia, Azerbaijan, and parts of Northern Mesopotamia) from c. 700 to 862. During this brief period, an Arab governor presided over Dabīl, struck coins in Armīniya, collected taxes, and imposed Islamic law. Importantly, Islamic sources project Armīniya as a province of the Islamic world rather than as a tributary state. This ends with the dissolution of cAbbāsid power after the death of al-Mutawakkil and, in Armenia, the rise of the Bagratids at the end of the ninth century. In particular, this dissertation forwards three main arguments about the Arab period in Armīniya.