Jazira

The methodological problems of the period of the „settlement gap (Siedlungslücke)“ have become more evident. This period is best approached with the help of different disciplines.  During the 4th/10th century the Banu Numayr moved into northern Mesopotamia as part of the second great migration of Arab tribes. The cultivated land of settled people diminished and the routes between the villages, towns and cities became endangered.
During the period of Bedouin domination the seat of rulership was transferred from the city to the tribal camp (hilla). The interest of the Bedouins lay in the fiscal exploitation of the cities. The emirate of Mani' ibn Shabib constitutes a brief interlude in the development of the Banu Numayr. During the time of the rebellion of al-Basasiri in Iraq, the Fatimids integrated Mani' into an alliance. Thus, the Fatiimids created political stability among the hostile tribes from northern Syria to the Euphrates valley. Then Mani' ibn Shabib began to represent himself as an urban ruler: he built the citadel in Harran. As proof of rulership he had coins struck not only in Harran, as his predecessors had done, but established a mint in ar-Raqqa as well. The evidence marshalled here also suggests that he undertook the restoration of the most representative urban building in ar-Raqqa, the congregational mosque. He extended his territory into the Khabur valley.  Manî' ibn Shabib’s rule corresponds to that type of nomadic authority which Michael Rowton calls a ‘dimorphic state’. This constitutes a state led by a nomadic ruler accommodating himself to urban forms of rulership, or at least to urban forms of projecting sovereignty but who simultaneously maintains his power base within the pasture: a ruler who has to balance between the interests of the settled people and the demands of the nomads. These favourable conditions for the revival of urban life in the Diyar Mudar ended soon after the rebellion of al-Basâsîrî  in the year 451/1060.

It is proposed that, in the Marwanid period (79-132), the various provinces of the Caucasus region had only a single silver coin mint that was located at the residence of the regional governor, and moved from place to place as he did, each time assuming the name of the city or province--with a few exceptions. Since the article was written, some new issues of the region have been discovered, which complicate the picture.

Since late antiquity, northern Mesopotamia had been the cradle of two main Christian communities, namely, the Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch. From the late Middle Ages onwards, however, their newly-created Catholic counterparts, as well as Protestant offshoots in the modern period, have further added to this uneasy and often antagonistic mix. Despite these Churches sharing a common Syriac liturgical language, and their members speaking Neo-Aramaic and sharing a common Assyrian ethnicity and heritage, they have time and again found themselves at loggerheads in the historical record over differences in theology, Christology, allegiance and claims to apostolic succession. With this diversification of creeds and loyalties amongst the Syriac Churches, there also came a need for each community to legitimise, consolidate and renew itself as it saw fit in order to be able to remain in competition with its ‘rivals.’ Part of this process was embodied in the appropriation of churches and monasteries belonging to the ‘others’ and their modification to conform to the ecclesiastical norms of the new owners.

In this study, cases of churches which have largely changed hands between the Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church and Syriac Catholic Church will be discussed in an effort to illustrate this un-Christian process of control, appropriation and dispossession, as well as the transferral and imposition of one form of Christian expression on an edifice which previously belonged to another denomination. Examples of church buildings in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran will hence be discussed in an effort to understand the way in which this heritage is appropriated and transferred, as well as the method through which one denomination’s own heritage can be transferred to an existing structure built by an opposing one.

"The historian of early Islamic Bilād al-Shām has almost no primary source material; legal or political documents are lacking. Most historical information derived from later medieval but secondary sources such as chronicles, biographical dictionaries and poetry written from the perspective of a major capital, a ruler, a ruling house, or one of the different Islamic communities.
Archaeology in general and legends on coins in particular, as well as coin finds from archaeological contexts can provide further independent information about the settlements.
First, a brief overview is given about the current state of numismatic research in both the Syrian Arab Republic and adjacent regions historically connected to it. Secondly, this study examines the archaeology of the Diyār Mudar or Osrhoene on a regional level. Coins as texts and archaeological coin finds are presented as a parallel independent source for settlement patterns from the 6th to the 10th century AD.
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This article discusses the emergence of Diyār Bakr as the northern subdivision of the Jazīra in the early Islamic period. It shows that this subprovince is a product of the 10th century CE and not, as has hitherto been assumed, of the conquest or Umayyad period. As a first step, the paper traces the appearance of the name Diyār Bakr in the Arabic sources to the mid-10th century CE. It then turns to the ʿAbbāsid geographical tradition and gives an overview of the various portrayals of the region of the Jazīran north up to al-Muqaddasī (d. after 990 CE), who is the first to provide a rudimentary depiction of the Jazīran north as ‘Diyār Bakr’. The article then turns to the history of the Banū Shaybān of Bakr/Rabīʿa in the Jazīran north to offer a tentative explanation for the origin of the term and administrative district of Diyār Bakr. It concludes with a brief discussion of the need to re-evaluate the political and administrative history of the Jazīra before the 10th century CE.

The fifth century AH/eleventh century CE in Shām and the Jazīra was a period of a receding monetary economy, and drastically shrinking number of produced coins. Contemporary legal texts supported by archaeologically provenanced coin finds suggested that the reduced highly alloyed black dirhams were only circulating in a narrow region of origin. It came therefore as
a surprise to find the earliest Numayrid dirham far from its supposed mint in Ḥarrān (modern Altınbaşak, Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey) in an excavation in Tiberias. The coin also establishes a terminus post quem for a disputed dating of the particular site.

"This is my working file for coins minted in the city al-Mawsil (Mosul or Mosil in the Diyar Rabi`a district of al-Jazira province; today in northern Iraq). It is not systematic or complete. The record was begun about 1972 on 3x5 cards and there are still many such cards not transcribed to the digital record. On the positive side, in addition to the listings of known examples year by year, there are comments and suggestions about the coins and the history of the mint.In particular, the Umayyad period is scarcely noted here, since it's covered in other publications (Klat for dirhams, Rotter and Album, Checklist, for fulus). I have more notes that I'd be glad to share with anyone working on Umayyad Mosul, or any period in the city's history.Anyone working on the coinage or history of Mosul may find something of interest here. If not, contact me--possibly I may have more information to pass on or add to the record."

Through Nicholas Al-Jeloo's exhibition, the general Fairfield community is able to witness the immense pride of the Assyrian people and the celebration of Persistence & Existence. The Assyrians are a key community in Fairfield. This exhibition showcases how the contemporary life of the Assyrian people is deeply rooted in the past and traditions of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria.

Summary During the 1940s and 1950s D. Storm Rice and Seton Lloyd, together with the Turkish Antiquity Authority, undertook archaeological excavations in Harran. Of the Islamic monuments they concentrated on the area of the citadel and its Numairid past, the Great Mosque and and the shrine of Shaikh Hayat outside the city walls. With the exception of two preliminary reports and a few articles on individual monuments and finds, the results of the excavations remain largely unpublished. The 264 coins discovered there constitute an independent source on the regional, political and economic history of Harran. Furthermore they supplement the existing picture we have of the circulation of petty coinages in the Diyar Mudar in comparison with other archaeological sites in the region. For the Umayyad and early Abbasid period, those coins, which originated in distant cities and which do not belong to the immediate coin circulation in Harran, offer a picture of the city's regional integration. Harran was much better connected, via Saru:j and Manbij, with the cities in Northern Syria than
with al-Raqqa in the south of the Balikh valley. After 163/779–80 large numbers of copper coins were imported into the Jazı:ra and northern Syria from southern Iraqi mints, most important among them are those from al-Kufa. Later, in order to supplement the circulating stock, imitations of those coins were manufactured in the region. Coins belonging to the enormous output of al-Rafiqa from the period of
Harun al-Rashid, especially those minted in the year 189/804–5, were found much
less frequently than expected, showing that these issues were produced mainly to
serve the needs of the new Caliphal residence and its immediate surroundings.
Following the reign of Har:n al-Rashıd the coins in circulation were supplemented by many different forms of coins, suggesting an unofficial origin. The circulation, at least in the first half of the third/ninth century, was dominated by cast copper coins whose models are barely, if at all, recognizable. It is not known when these forms of coins ceased to circulate. A comparison of different archaeological sites suggests that these forms of petty coinage were in circulation at least until the 270s/880s. At the end of the third/ninth century, silver coin fragments were increasingly used to serve as small change, and by the end of the fourth century, the silver content of the dirhams had declined considerably from technical purity to very low levels. These dirhams were called dirham aswad or Black Dirhams. Three of them were found: one from the Numairid dynasty in which Rice was more interested and, notably, two black Dirhams of the Saljuq prince al-Malik Mas'ud.
In the late 5th/11th century, with the new rise of the old Urban centres in Northern Syria and the Jazıra, imported Byzantine anonymous folles became the dominant means of daily exchange. They were subsequently found among the coins, although there were fewer than expected. No coins from the neighbouring Crusader county of Edessa/al-Ruha' were found, which suggests an economic separation of the two territories. Two-thirds of the coins date from the Ayyubid period. The circulation is characterized by a diversity of coins of different origins. First, those which were struck for the political entities to which Harran belonged. For some time Harran and neighbouring al-Ruha' served as mints in the region. Second, imports of Anatolian copper coins, i.e. beginning with the Byzantine copper coins mentioned above, and later coins of Ru:m-Salju:q origin. The third strong element are copper coins from northern Syria despite the fact that the Diyar Mudar and northern Syria belong to different branches of the Ayyubid dynasty. Life in Harran ceased abruptly with the destruction of this great city by the Mongols in 670/1272. Later coins are regarded as accidental losses.

... Page 4. The Career of Najm al-Dm Il-Ghäzi 253 ... al-'Azmü C. Cahen, ed., "La chronique abregee d'al-cAzurn", JA CCXXX (1938), 353-44. The Chrwiography of Gregory Abu'l Faraj, the Hebrew Physi-cian, comrnonly knoivn äs Bar Hebräern, tr. ... Chronique de Michel le Syrien, tr. ...

The particular epigraphic style of some inscriptions on the city walls of Diyarbakir, from the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 295-320/908-932) has parallels in several inscriptions which are presented here for the first time: The painted interior of a cave, presumably used as a mosque, at Suayp Sehir (Sanliurfa province) features several inscriptions of a similar style, one of which is dated to 297/909-910. There are few extant examples for this style in monumental epigraphy of other regions of the Abbasid caliphate, but possible parallels in Iraq might be postulated. The inscriptions from Suayp Sehir have a particular provincial appearance. Three other inscriptions, today in the museum of Urfa, form a special case. They originate from the same period, and from a neighbouring region within the Jazira; one of them is dated to 299/911-12. Their epigraphic style, while sharing some similarities with the former inscriptions, appears peculiar in its resemblance of Syriac inscriptions. From contemporary Arabic sources, it can be argued that during the period in question, Syriac script was connected with the Harranian school of philosophy and natural sciences, and thus conveyed an image of scientific and, perhaps, esoteric knowledge. It may be argued that the inscriptions from Urfa, while consisting of Arabic letters, were intentionally designed to give a “Syriac” impression and formed part of a “Syriac fashion”. However, this hypothesis is only based on circumstantial evidence. Particularly against the background of the current debate on politico-religious interpretations of changes in epigraphic style, rash conclusions should be avoided. In sum, the stylistic range of Abbasid cufic appears wider than previously assumed.