Unidades institucionales

Chapter 1 of this volume traces factors in the pre-Islamic condi- tion in Armenia from the fourth century to the arrival of the Arabs before the middle of the seventh century. Th ese factors also shaped the patterns of Armenian–Islamic interactions, hence the relevance of this section to the general study. From the beginning, bipolarity and pluralism distinguished all things Armenian and both the culture and politics evolved between and as part of the Roman/Byzantine west and Persian/Islamic east, assimilating many elements from both.

Th e process continued to the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Ottoman Period. While most of the clergy and some of the nobility were consistently pro-western, the eastern camp was always broader and included large popular factions as well. Th e political–religious institutions were more rigid and pro-western, and the formation of dissident ideologies and careers was expected and happened. Regional politics contributed to the militarization of some trends and/or the suppression of others, but throughout, dissidence was part of the basic texture of Armenian history. Th is is a major argu- ment in this book and the theme of Armenian dissidence is taken up throughout the study.

In general, each case and/or episode is studied in a holistic perspec- tive. Th is means taking all the elements as parts of a whole. For example, as of the fourth century the “heretical” Christianity of the sects was as much part of early Armenian Christianity as that of the Church. Consequently, almost all of what has been written about the subject can only be partial. Armenian Christianity was not monolithic; it did not and could not really signal a sudden transition from one religious culture into another. Since there can be no purely religious ideology and culture, the substratum of both is simultaneously social, political, and economic.

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Similar to heterodoxy, I also take syncretism as a paradigm to explain many obscure episodes, cultures, and folklores that persisted to the present. In general, the cultures of the entire region were unavoidably syncretistic, while ideological purism typifi ed the policies and ideolo- gies of the dominant religious and political institutions. Dichotomies between Armenian orthodoxy and heresy were drawn and conceptu- alized during the fi fth century or the Golden Age of Armenian intel- lectual culture. Th ey were maintained and persisted with force for many centuries. It is rarely noticed that the legacies of faith, language, and ancestral values of the fi fth century or the Golden Age—or the fundamentals in the conceptualization of the Armenians as a distinct people—gradually turned into fi xities that trapped the free fl ow of cultural traffi c, while causing sedimentations and congestion.

Th e “orthodoxy” of the Armenian institutions took shape in the midst of Byzantine–Persian confl ict during the fourth century and adopted the dogmatism and the imperialist spirit of both. By the eighth century, the fi rst histories (as of the fi fth century) shaped the national narrative/s, and simultaneously defi ned all that contradicted or questioned them. In other words, they played a double function. It was in the name of orthodoxy that the artistic and intellectual legacies of paganism of all sorts, Zoroastrianism and Hellenism, as well as the indigenous syncre- tism of the Near East were branded by the fox-sign, as it were, and the peculiarities of early Armenian Christianity dissolved in the anti-hereti- cal debates. During the mid-fi fth century, Eznik Kołbac‘i (theologian, philosopher, translator, Bishop of Bagrewand, died just after the middle of the fi fth century) provided the philosophical grounding for the lega- cies of faith, language, and ancestral values of the Classical Age. He introduced a battery of polemical techniques, and more importantly, he contributed to the militarization of the Church. Before the middle of the seventh century, and after the arrival of the Arabs in eastern Asia Minor, doctrinal affi nities and persecution eased interactions between them and the sects, and the alliance with the Muslims militarized and politicized the dissident factions on the regional level.

As I try to show in this chapter and the study in general, Armenian dissidence was not just a class struggle within the peculiar feudal system, in which the Church too was another powerful participant. It was a more pervasive historical phenomenon. Individuals and trends of all social strata, even some clergy, for example, Eustathius (the Armenian bishop of Sivās during the third quarter of the fourth century), and during the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, Yakobos

Introduction to Volume One

(the Armenian bishop of the province of Hark‘ northwest of Lake Van) and his contemporary Vardapet (monk-priest) Grigor Narekac‘i (d. c. 1003 of the Monastery of Narek on Lake Van) were suspected and accused of heresy. As I will demonstrate, they were in fact genuinely spiritual and revolutionary-reformist fi gures, and as such they were feared and persecuted. Medieval histories provided little informa- tion about these fi gures and their followers. While the fi rst two were referred to in anti-heretical contexts, the latter was known only by his own autobiography and a popular cycle of legends, a Narekiana of sorts, about a certain saintly fi gure called Narek, who was not even a vardapet . In sum, as of the fourth century, what I call Armenian dissidence was a powerful, grassroots, reformist, and cosmopolitan movement, which, as mentioned, was militarized soon after the arrival of the Arabs and drew its path in regional politics.

Chapter 2, “Early Arab Campaigns and the Regulation of Relations According to the Medīnan Legacy” deals with a relatively better- researched subject. However, the perspectives in which this period was narrated—but not analyzed—still remain very narrow. Also, instead of taking the year 884 (the coronation of the fi rst Bagratuni king), I take the arrival of the Seljuks after mid-eleventh century as its end. While some medieval authors reconstructed the Arab period in epic terms, more modern and contemporary authors off ered a tedious story of invaders and invaded, oppressors and oppressed, and Muslim fanatics and Christian martyrs. However looked upon, the Arab Period marked a massive exposure of the Armenians to a new and diff erent, and pri- marily urban religious–political culture. Islam permanently changed the Near Eastern world and farther, both culturally and politically. Interactions happened, and still do, on all levels of society. It often escapes historians that as of the seventh century, Armenia became part of the Islamic world, also remaining part of the southern Cauca- sus. Th e situation has not changed much: three of the four neighbors of the Republic of Armenia today are countries with predominantly Muslim populations, namely, Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan. But still, Islamic–Armenian interactions of almost fourteen centuries have received minimal attention from scholars in all the disciplines. Th is is where my research begins. Islam caused an instant politicization of social conditions in Armenia. While in the case of the feudal nobility, the Armenian dynastic territories were created by Arab encouragement and support, large heterodox factions were politicized and militarized through their sympathies for and alliances with the Muslims. Either

Th e Armenians in the Medieval Islamic World

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way, interaction with both political and cultural Islam expanded the peripheries of the Armenian experience, and this is no trivial matter.

During the Arab period and practically due to Arab support, irrespective of the motives and the interests of the latter, the Armenian naxarar s or nobility, such as the Bagratunis, Arcrunis, Siwnis rose to dynastic power. Byzantium always resented these so-called “kingdoms.” Byzantine emperors (many of whom were of Armenian descent) never acknowledged Armenian sovereignty and before the middle of the elev- enth century these “kingdoms” were annexed to the Byzantine Empire. One of the peculiarities of medieval Armenian political culture was the total absence of basic frameworks of statehood and administration. Th e naxarar system remained archaic to a large extent, but the fl exibility and pragmatism of the nobility and heterodox factions made up for lags in their evolution and contributed to the persistence of all. Often, ideology was secondary to interest. I have analyzed the Arab period in these perspectives.

Another and completely unstudied subject discussed in Chapter 2 is the development of the patterns in which Islamic–Armenian relations were regulated as per early-Islamic political culture. I argue that the literary tradition of Islamic oaths to Armenians is an absolutely vital issue that has never been studied. All but one of the circulating docu- ments is verifi able, but the question of authenticity has nothing to do with the signifi cance of the tradition. In medieval Armenian histories, the origin or the model, so to speak, of all Islamic–Armenian treatises was seen in the Medīnan period of Islam (622–632) and in a so-called “Prophet’s Oath to Armenians” (allegedly given to an Armenian del- egation to Medīnah). A long chain of agreements—also called “oaths,” “treatises,” “peace agreements,” etc.—continued through the Umayyad, Ayyūbid, ‘Abbāsid, and Safavid periods. Th e tradition also echoed in the Ottoman Tanzimat or Reforms of the nineteenth century. As each text in circulation claimed to be based on the previous ones, it became a link in a continuum. Th ere came about a tradition, which acquired a historicity as an important aspect of Islamic–Armenian relations. More importantly, in most of the contacts and resulting agreements, the negotiator was the Armenian Church representing the people.

Th is leads us to another understudied subject: the status of the Armenian Church in Islamic states and societies. It must be common knowledge that under Muslim rule—even during the most somber mo- ments of the later Ottoman period—the Armenian Church and clergy were protected by law and gained political signifi cance and economic

Introduction to Volume One

prosperity. Monasteries and monastic schools were established in the tenth century and had exclusive control over the intellectual cul- ture. Th e dark side of Armenian monasticism was its radicalism and institutional corruption. Th e rebellions in reaction were frequent and widespread. Th e causes and eff ects were simultaneously ideological, social, and economic. Troubled times, especially during the tenth and eleventh centuries on the entire surface of Armenia east and west, only partially surfaced in histories. To connect the dots, Arab sources are of primary importance, but other types of texts, such as anti-heretical texts and even poetry, must be referred to as well.

As discussed in Chapter 2, the so-called Paulician and T‘ondrakian histories were very much a part of the Arab period. Th ey produced per- haps the most intriguing paradigms to understand not only Armenian– Islamic interactions but also Armenian social–cultural history and folklore at that time. No literature has survived and most of the infor- mation on these trends came from their enemies; but from what has been written in anti-heretical texts, it is possible to draw the general outlines of their doctrinal position. I suggest that the philosophical arche (or fi rst principle) and legacy of Armenian dissidence was what I call the “no-boundary” principle. It marked a transition from early Christianity to a more developed phase in social–religious culture. Rejection of hierarchy, egalitarian demands, communalism, rational- ism of some trends and mysticism of others, equality of women, etc., were all expressions of a surprisingly developed culture.

Th e alliance of the heterodox factions with the Muslim side was a predictable and inevitable consequence of the situation in the Byzan- tine and Islamic worlds, and not just in Armenia, which was anyway divided between the two. Th ere was another factor in the evolution of Armenian dissidence, and that was Islamic dissidence. In Islam, dissident trends began appearing as of the fi rst century of its advent. As discussed in my other articles and books, in my opinion, the so- called sects in various parts of the medieval Near East shared strikingly similar doctrines, circumstances, and careers. In fact, I could have a much better understanding of the Armenian sects after studying the Irano-Islamic and other syncretistic trends in the entire Near East. Armenian and Near Eastern scholars will have to realize that just as the Armenian ones, Islamic sects too are subjects in medieval Near Eastern urbanism. Similar to Ismā‘īlism, the politicization and militari- zation of Armenian dissident factions as of the eighth century marked an advanced stage in the evolution of Near Eastern society. Both were

Th e Armenians in the Medieval Islamic World

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closely connected to regional syncretism, reformist tendencies, social and economic change, power struggles, and many more factors, as I try to show in this study.

Another major theme is that of the urban youth coalitions of Armenian manuk s and the Islamic futuwwa . As cities began develop- ing in the ‘Abbāsid world, and already during the ninth century, there began appearing somehow anarchistic, extra-ethnic, extra-religious, and militant coalitions of jobless young men. But however they were known, manuks, fi tyān , ah.dāth , ‘ ayyarūn , and so on, they were aspects of Near Eastern urban and social development (as I try to demonstrate in Volume Th ree).

Also closely connected to the phenomenon of dissidence, the chapter provides yet another entirely new paradigm: the Frontiers or the Borderlands between the Byzantine and Islamic (Arab, Seljuk, and later Mongol) empires. As discussed in Volume Two as well, only recently scholars have begun studying this aspect of medieval Islamic history, but Armenian scholarship is still alien to this development. Even the dispute around the Byzantine epic of Digenis Akritis fi nds its proper context in the Frontiers. Th is was a vast area from the Black Sea to north al-Shām and Cilicia, where several cultures, trends, and traditions were diff used. Th e ‘Abbāsid project to create a unique and exclusive region for Holy War or Jihād and a “true Muslim life” failed, but the Frontiers created for these ideals, or the akritic world became an entity of its own. Th e region was a haven for syncretistic, dissident, mostly militant and marginal communities. In this context, Digenis Akritis must be re-studied as “history” too, because it is the only sur- viving document that contains the identifi able echoes of a lost phase and lost world in Armenian and regional histories. I argue that an important part of Medieval Islamic–Armenian history falls, or rather must fall, under the heading of akritics or Borderlands history, with its own peculiar type of historicity. Th ese border regions were a most appropriate milieu for indigenous Near Eastern syncretism, which under the strictly orthodox establishments of both Byzantium and the Caliphate, as well as all the churches, was unwelcome. Muslims and Christians of all ethnic backgrounds—like the heroes of Digenis Akritis— had more in common with one another than with the peoples on the opposite sides of the Frontiers. In over three centuries of ex- istence, the Frontiers became a marker as well as an assimilator of diff erences. Th e condition allowed commercial contacts and became a breeding ground for a peculiar landholding warrior aristocracy.

Introduction to Volume One

Initially built as border fortifi cations, the small fortress towns on the Frontiers, and the Euphrates in particular, and some on the Tigris, became cities after the tenth–eleventh centuries and still maintained their cosmopolitan nature. Medieval cosmopolitanism is discussed in Volume Th ree.

Th e paradigm of Borderlands, suggested in this study, is absolutely essential to review and deconstruct many seemingly simple yet oth- erwise new and complex patterns of interaction between peoples of the region. Armenian–Islamic interactions are another aspect of this project. Th is chapter also gives some space for the discussion of the revolutionary-reformist or “dissident” nature of the literature of Grigor Narekac‘i. I shall refer to him in Chapter 2 of Volume Two. He embod- ied his age, was accused of T‘ondrakism, but was and still is kept at a safe distance from analysis in the mediocre portrait of the medieval “mystic” and “saint.”

Introduction to Volume Two