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The Oultines of the
Syrisc I dentity of Lebanon
By Dr. André kahale
Beirut, Lebanon
INTRODUCTION
Hubl, the British historian, says that if you wish to liquidate
certain nations, you start first by paralyzing their memory power,
then destroy their books, culture and history, then have another
party write them books, give them another culture and create for
them another history… then these people will surely forget who they
are and what they were and the world will forget them also. This is
a summary of the historic struggle facing our people in the east. As
far as Lebanon is concerned, Kamal Saliba, the historian says. The
reality and essentiality of the war going on in Lebanon, is a war
aimed to limit the importance and effectiveness of the true history
of this country. The essential cause of our people is a cause of our
Syriac identity and the essential battle is to preserve this
identity. the essential basics of our identity surpass history to
include religion, language, civilization and culture in general… if
we bypass the basic of religion, we find that the other basics are
unstable and in constant threat to waves of successive attempts of
forgery, at times, and containment, at other times, all working
within a master historic conspiracy summed up in two words arabizing
and liquidating. We site a simple example from our modern history,
the verbal treaty of the year 1943 stated that Lebanon has an Arab
face and within a period of 50 years it was changed and put in
writing within the Taif constitution that Lebanon is Arabic in
identity and belonging.
The examples we need to consider come from important historic
stations in our ancient history, of Lebanon did not start in 1943
nor did it start in 1920 and Lebanon was not created by fakher
el-din 2. Lebanon was created by the Syriac´s
thirty centuries ago. It
is our duty to protect our history, generation after generation,
because the suffering was coupled with a historic struggle in the
defence of just cause, a cause of freedom and human dignity. Last
but not least, the right of peoples to decide their own destiny, is
one of the basic
Rules issued and recorded by the United Nations. We the Syriac
Christian people should be first convinced of this right, and then
press on with the other minorities to claim this right within and
through the united nation. We the Syriac Christian people are like
the Indians in defending our being, identity and existence. Our
cause has enough deep roots and legality like any other people … we
should newly be acquainted with the roots of our people’s cause, by
researching our true history, which is not in our unified university
books prepared to guard our existence as a society, protect our
cause as a people and keep our country.
1- The roots of the
Christian Syriac Aramaic culture.
The Syriac Aramaic history has also roots in the Greek Hellenic
culture, the expansion of Alexander the Macedonian in the year 330
B.C., in spite of the short time during which the Aramaic regions
were united under his rule, made the Greek culture with its
philosophy, art, literature and language have a great impact for
several centuries.
Back to language, what was the language spoken by the eastern people
before Alexander conquests, it was, no doubt, our Syriac Aramaic
language. Aramaic was so famous and widely used; it was the common
language of the Persian Achemenian Empire, before it split it into
several dialects after Alexander and the Hellenic era. Aram in the
Old Testament means the land of Syria. (1)-p. Robert 2. Dictionary
des noms propres. The name land of Syria is taken from the Syriac
word soryoyo which means the land of Syriac´s by the northern Syriac
dialect, thus the country of Syria as called by the Greek and the
Romans became the portion of seleucus who build a kingdom with the
city of Antioch as its capital in the year 300 B.C.. This kingdom
was in constant struggle with the Lichedean kingdom with Alexandria
as its capital for a period more than two and half centuries, until
64B.C.. When the roman armies marched through and united the whole
region under the roman rule…
2 – Syriac Christianity
before the expansion of Islam.
This unity and the roman peace which included all the Mediterranean
basin facilitated the spread of the Christian gospel which started
in Jerusalem and reached Rome and the close of the 2nd century A.D.
the gospel in the land of Aram spread first in the big cities of
Sidon, tyre, Damascus and Antioch where they were first called
Christians , while the interior area and the mountains were harder
to preach, where the heathen temples continued to flourish such as
the temple of the sun in Baalbeck which was built in the second
century A.D. and the heathen temples of Fakra. The persecution of
the Christians halted finally in the beginning of the 4th century
A.D. when in the year 330 A.D. the Christian religion was legalized
by emperor Constantine the great and was permitted, to operate
within the boundaries of all the Roman empire. The situation was
then reversed and persecution started against the Heathen religions
and their schools of philosophy.
TheEmperor himself considered himself the first defender, not only
of the political security of all the empire, but of the security of
the church and its theology. The unity of the church and state were
expressed by a two sided coin known as. Cesaro-papisme. All world
congresses were held at the request of the emperor and under his
leadership and his presence mostly. All constructional and
theological decision were enforced by imperial decrees and military
force.
The conference that aimed to unite the Christians and to fight the
sects, brought adverse results and caused new divisions in the
church and the rise of new churches expressing their for political
independency, this happened especially after Chalcedonies synod in
451 A.D. the internal division, among those who supported the
conference and those who opposed it, which occurred in the East
during the sixth century A.D. centred around the theological terms
used about the two natures of the Christ these delicate theological
differences found their roots in the minds of the common people
because it was related to ethnic and nationalistic prejudices
supported by the Coptic’s, Syriac´s and the Armenians to oppose the
Ruling Roman state (1) History of the Eastern Church by bishop
Michael Yateem . within the same trend of analysis, we find the
Syriac people in Mesopotamia, earlier, adopting the Nestorian
theology to make evident that the established eastern Syriac church
differs from the Byzantine church and the Byzantine state to escape
the persecution of the Persian state.
By supporting the Chalcedon synod a group of monks had followed
saint maroon who died in the year 410 A.D. they completed building
ST maroon monastery beside river around 452 A.D. in the region of
Apamia near Hamah by direct orders of emperor Mercian and the
endeavours of bishop Theodoratos bishop of kourosh to defend the
supporters of the conference in Syria. This monastery had precedence
over all other monasteries in the region because preaching of
Christianity started from saint maroon monastery by Orontes toward
Mount Lebanon where river Abraham was named after the monk Abraham
who carried the gospel to the residents of the mountains.
In the beginning of the seventh century A.D. the situation in the
east was as follows. Religious divisions in the from of ethnic
churches among the Coptic’s in Egypt, the Armenians and the Syriac´s
in the Syriac land in addition to the kingly orthodox Syriac´s, the
KI- G Maronite Syriac´s and the eastern Syriac´s in Persia.
Politically, the whole region was experiencing fierce wars 7after
the Persian conquest in 612 A.D. and the fall of Antioch. The
Syriac east and Egypt when emperor Hercules regained all the regions
and returned the holy cross about the year 628 A.D.
2 – The spread of Islam
The historic dividing line in the fate of the east comes with the
Islamic conquest which came out of the Arab peninsula after the
death of prophet Mohammad 632.A.D. when the reluctant raids were
transformed into a complete victory after the battle of el-Yarmouk
636 A.D. (Yarmouk stream pores into the Jordan river)
And the battle of el Qadissie 637A.D. in the first battle the
Byzantine empire was defeated and in the second battle the Persian
empire was defeated … there are two basic reasons that helped the
Islamic army defeat the two Byzantine and Persian empires, the first
reason is that during the few centuries preceding this Islamic
victory, the two great empires were engaged in bloody wars that
drained their forces along all the eastern battle fronts, the second
reason is that most of the Syriac´s adhered to churches that were
separated from the Byzantine church, therefore they readily welcomed
the Islamic invasion hoping to be saved from the Byzantine
oppression, but the transfer was much worse.
As a result of this dangerous change of atmosphere, the Christians
were forced to face choices affecting their destiny. Islam limited
the choices to three.. 1 accepting Islam. Become a Moslem and are
safe (this choice led the eastern people and the people of North
Africa to become Moslems.) 2 – be a second-class citizen (Dhimmi)
and a tax payer. This choice was taken by the Christians who stayed
behind to protect their lives and properties by giving up their
civil and political rights. 3 – Deportation and uprooting. bishop
Yateem includes this choice by the following statement in his book
(the history of the eastern church) .., the early stages of the
Islamic rule was noted for its leniency and permissiveness by
offering whoever wishes of the residents, the monks or the official
employees to immigrate to Byzantium. Therefore many Syriac
Christians in Syria left the Islamic state and lived in southern
Italy and civilly. The rest of the Christians stayed behind and
protected their churches, properties and freedom of worship and
their private religious practices under the leadership of their
pastors. As for the fourth choice which the Moslems did not
consider, was the opposition and struggle that. The Syriac Maronites
in the land of the Syriac´s decided to follow by joining the
Maronites in Mount Lebanon where saint maroon had established the
Syriac Maronite patriarchate of Antioch around 685A.D. in defiance
of the Byzantine church and the Islamic military authority. The
Maronite patriarchate was finally established in Lebanon until
938A.D. when saint maroon monastery on Orontes was destroyed. It was
then that the triangle choice of destiny was taken a free Christian
life in Syriac Lebanon. During the rule of the Umayyad empire, whose
territory extended from the borders of china through the middle east
and the Arab peninsula to north Africa, Spain and the middle of
France, the linguistic and cultural mandate effectively started in
696 A.D. when the Arabic language was assigned as the official
language in all public offices, replacing the Syriac, Greek and
Persian language, and replacing the Byzantine coin by the Islamic
coins. These two reforms constitute the major factor that helped
establish the Islamic influence, supporting its central rule and
confirmed the Islamic Arabic identity when the word Arabic became a
synonym to Islamic. This battle of language and culture added
another face to the struggle for the Syriac Christian people who
continued to be faithful in preserving their heritage and culture
through their literary treasures protected in the monasteries, and
through their spoken language in the villages and the mountains.
Saint John of Damascus who lived during the Umayyad rule in the 8th
century used the Syriac and Greek languages in writing all his
books. (He died 754A.D.)
After all the other regions accepted Islam as their religion and
Arabic as their language, mount Lebanon remained Christian in his
religion and retained Syriac as his language and nationality . At
this time Mount Lebanon started to appear on the political stage in
this part of the world, Mount Lebanon led by the Maronites and
geographically established in jibbed Bsharry, the region of Byblos
and Batroun. (Philip Hitti).
As for the suffering of those who chose to stay under the Islamic
rule, the historian Philip Hitti describes it as follow. With
Lebanon standing as a little Christian island in a sea of Moslems,
many Christian groups moved from the neigh boring areas and settled
in north Lebanon, some fled from paying taxes or having to be
second-class citizen, others fled the restrictions and
discrimination imposed by the Umayyad caliph Omar bin abed al Aziz
(717-720 A.D. ) by issuing certain strange and unique decrees
against the second class citizen (as Christian were then called)
summed as follows. Christians are banned from holding a public
office, banned from wearing a turban on their heads, ordered to wear
clothes with leather belts to be identified from the other citizens,
to ride donkeys without a saddle, banned from building churches, and
forced to pray silently to avoid being heard outside. The
immigration of the Christians to Lebanon increased during the
Abbasid rule because the Abbasids were not as tolerant and free as
the Umayyad rule, especially during the rule of Haroun el-Rashid
(786-809 A.D.) and during the rule of al-mutawakkel (847-861) we
believe that by the close of the 10th century Syria,
Egypt and Iraq became Islamic both in their private and public life.
In Egypt the fatimid caliph al Hakim beamer Allah (996-1021) issued
certain decrees that completely abolished any evidence of Christian
culture and consecrated the entire country to Islam. The suppressed
people in the regions maintained their language with a stronger
struggle than their religious wars, and were not taken by the Arabic
language until the end of the Abbasid rule or the beginning of the
13th century when even the Christians in France suffered
from the same Islamic pressure because the Islamic expansion had
reached France and did not retreat until after the battle of Boitieh
(732 A.D.) while the Islamic rule continued in Spain for 500 years.
We conclude that the history of the Christian Syriac people in
Lebanon is closely entwined with history of the church in Mount
Lebanon, a history of persecution and struggle. All that we know
about the Maronites between the 8th and the 11th
centuries are two things, the gardens they carve in he rocky
mountains and the prayers they prayed ( the Maronites, by Michael
Aweet )
Bishop and historian Clemens says. Since ancient times Lebanon and
its inhabitants are Aramaic, it flourished with them since the times
of the Syriac kings. It flourished more during the times of King
David the Israelite when he battled Haddad Azar king of Aram in
Damascus and ariokh the Syriac king of Hamah. Many Syriac´s then
fled and fortified themselves in Lebanon where they multiplied and
increased in numbers. After the coming of Christ, they were called
to the true religion, the Christian religion, which they accepted
readily and they all became Christians they were increased in power
and became very strong.( AL-Lamaa Al-Shahia by Iklimos David 1896 )
the historian youssef el-dibs says. These Syriac people were soon
called Maronites in reference to the Syriac Monk saint maroon who
lived in the forth century and died in the 410 A.D. he adds saying.
The Maronites there fore are a group of Syriac´s who accepted the
Christian religion since the early beginning and continued their
strict adherence to the true religion , when raging storms of rising
false religions took placed in Syria. They were guided by the
teachings of saint maroon, who is considered father and intercessor
of these people, and his honourable monks. 1 (civil and religious
history of Syria by youssef el-dibs).
The truth is, the national Lebanese history of a Syriac people
always holding fast to his being free and always ready for any
sacrifice to preserve his status, was suddenly faced with Arab
expansion which tried to change Lebanon’s status by force. Before
the 7th century, Christian Syriac Lebanon was in close
association with the rest of the eastern Aramaic Christians within
one cultural circle, but the change of the status of the eastern
Aramaic region and the people to accept Islam and Arabism, led to
the bodily detachment of the Christian Syriac inhabitants of Lebanon
and the Syriac´s of the oppressed areas in the east, when obvious
contradictions and conflicts arose between two nationalistic forces,
Arabic Islamic on one side and Syriac Christian on the other side,
the effects of which are still going on till this day.
This cultural contradiction started in Lebanon after the wars with
the Abbasids caliph el-Mansour in 758A.D. when he settled on the
coasts of Lebanon the Islamic tribes who come from the Arab
peninsula. The nature of the conflict then was changed from being a
Christian country in Lebanon against a Moslem country surrounding it
into a struggle between two peoples on the same ground, after the
new settlers considered them selves legal citizen. The importance of
this phenomena is extremely dangerous because it exposes the
development of the Islamic intents in the region…(history of Lebanon
by youssef Hitti)
Iif the eastern problem was triggered around the year 636A.D. ,or
started with the Islamic conquest and the occupation of all the
eastern Aramaic territories, it was then that the Christian Lebanese
identity and its desire to be independent in mount Lebanon was
crystallized. The Lebanese problem really started in the year
758A.D. with the start of the settlement plan on the Lebanese coasts
giving the birth of the dual identity and belonging the reaction of
which, continue until this day. On one side is the Christian
Syriac people while on the other side stand the Islamic Arabic
people settled in Lebanon. Any talk about the oneness of a people is
only an attempt to avoid the historic facts or to forge history. If
we can refer to one Yugoslavian people or one Cypriot people then we
can also refer to one Lebanese people.
With the change of times and by the end of the eleventh century, the
crusaders campaigns between 1097-1099A.D. reached Lebanon , when the
coastal cities rallied to resist the franks ( or foreigners), these
coastal cities were Islamic, ruled by the Fatimites at times and by
the Abbasids in other times, as for the Christian mountaineers,
referred to by the historian crusader Guillaum from Tyre as follows:
“ When the Franks (crusaders) subdued Tripoli in their march toward
Jerusalem after defeating Antioch, a group of Syriac believers
who lived in mount Lebanon in the elevations above Byblos, Batroun
and Tripoli, came down to meet the Crusaders to congratulate them,
and offered them their services. They were welcomed with brotherly
love and were taken as guides”. These crusades that lasted two
hundred years were some of the great failing causes in history; they
failed to accomplish their aim to free the Holy Land and the land
they did free was very small and limited, it did not include
Damascus, Homs, Hamah or Aleppo, and their retreat and pull-out of
the East, the Christians had to pay a very costly price…The
Christians were newly unsettled and driven out of the interior
cities like Aleppo and others, in addition to the military campaigns
against Lebanon as we will discuss later.
The Mamluks, with the help of the Tenukhian Tribe, made perpetual
attacks on Mount Lebanon beginning in 1283A.D. until the Great
campaign in 1305A.D. when the Christian Independence was finally
fallen.This Christian independence had lasted six centuries yet it
is not recorded in any history book in Lebanon, to preserve the
national unity… also the battle of the Fidar, Byblos, Madfoun
triangle in 1293 in which the Christian Syriac army was victorious,
when 30000 Christians faced 100,000 soldiers composed of the mukluk
and the Arab tribes and defeated them, without any help from the
crusaders or the Byzantines, this battle also is not mentioned in
the official history of our country, to preserve the national unity…
this battle was the last successful stand in the history of
independent Christian Syriac country, because in the year 1305 a
huge campaign, the Keserwen, was launched, marking another great
turning point in history. If the Yarmouk battle was a historic
turning point which facilitated for the Islamic conquest to reach
the region of the Aramaic east and control it except for mount
Lebanon wish retained its independence and being for seven long
centuries, the sweeping success of the Keserwen campaign caused the
fall of the Christian Syriac nation and the control of Islamic
Mamluks rule over all mount Lebanon and the rest of the free
territories in the eastern region.
The Mamluks patronized a new settlement plan, presented in the
school books as follows. The Mamluks portioned the different areas
to their followers, they gave Keserwen to al-Assaf, Beirut to
al-tenouck, to prevent the crusaders from landing and making contact
with the people of Keserwen, we have nothing to comment on this
quotation, the Islamic villages near tarshish were placed to observe
the port of Beirut for the interest of the Mamluks. Finally the
Mamluks filled up all the seaports with dirt to prevent any sea
landing-attempt by the crusaders.
The rule of the Mamluks constituted a dark period, because of
suffering of the Christians under their rule on one side and the
lack of any historic records on the other side… there is no doubt
that the one basic factor which helped the Christian Aramaic people
to survive the Mamluks oppression, is their clinging to the church
institution which continued to play its historic role by combining
their civil and religious duties along with the political, which was
j held by al-mukaddam to make tax collection for the Mamluks easy.
One historic event of oppression in the 14th century
during 1367 A.D. is the burning of patriarch Hajula on the doors of
the city of Tripoli… this event weakened the authority of the
patriarch-teto the benefit of al-mukaddam and promoted them to the
level of Chidiaq. This persecution of the patriarchate caused
patriarch john Jaji to leave elige in Mayfouq in 1440 A.D. and go to
the valley of Qannoubin where the patriarchate survived in the bosom
of the holy valley and lived in the rock.
The fall of Constantinople in 1453A.D. opened the doors of the area
for the Ottoman Empire conquest. After sultan Salim completed his
conquest of Persia, he encircled the Mamluks by surprise and
defeated them on the plains of Dabek near the city of Aleppo in 15
16A.D., thus subduing the eastern region until Egypt, the Byzantines
Christians then followed the patriarch assigned by the ottoman
sultan in Istanbul, a further step in the oppression of the
Christians under occupation. Lahed Khater in his book Lebanon and
the Vatican says the following: During the negotiations of
Sultan Salim with the Maronite patriarch of Hadathy, he was
convinced by the patriarch that Lebanon always enjoyed interior
independence and his patriarch did not take orders like the rest of
the patriarchs, the Sultan then exempted the Maronite patriarch from
accepting the decrees that were imposed on the rest of the
patriarchs of the East.
The Ottoman political system retained the division of the states as
they were portioned and nearly appointed princes and rulers in
exchange of certain amounts in the form of taxes to renew the
appointments. During the year 1535 A.D. Francois the First King of
France, made economic trade and religious agreements with the
Ottoman Sultan, giving France a role in the protection of the
Catholics within the borders of the Ottoman Empire and opened the
door for the religious foreign missions to operate in the East. In
the year 1540 A.D., Prince Assaf the Turkmen granted his permission
for the return of the Maronites to Keserwen and an alliance was
formed between Mansour and Al-Assaf and the Maronites represented by
Hbeish family. In the beginning of the 16th century, the
Christian Maronites experienced a general revival, spiritually,
socially and politically, to accomplish two aims coveted by the
Maronite people (Abbot Boulos Nehm). The first aim is to accomplish
independence within the Mount Lebanon.
The second aim is to create a free reciprocal cooperation with their
allies and neighbours within the country and without.
The visit of the papal Ambassador Eliano had a great influence in
holding the first Maronite conference, establishing the Maronite
school in Rome in the year 1584 A.D. (after school of Saint
Athnasios for the Greek in 1576 A.D.) and the Armenian school was
also established in Rome. This Maronite institution graduated
religious teachers, bishops and patriarchs for a period of two
centuries which caused a great revival in the church body and
society along the other revival caused by the graduates who were
spread in the European countries. The reports of the Ambassadors
Eliano and Dandini mention the term “the Maronite People” and “the
Maronite State” because their spread in specific regions where the
practiced their special prayers and religious practices, traditions
and habits using their knowledge and their military and political
institution to create one united social system within the country
and without.
The contact with the Western world expedited the cultural revival by
introducing the Gregorian calendar in the year 1606 A.D. and
established the first printing press in the East the year 1610
within the walls of Saint Antonio’s Qizhaya monastery.
During the rule of Fakher Eddine the second, the new alliance with
the Maronites led to the spread of the population in El-Shouf
region, and the church participated the foreign policy of the state
by its communications with the Italian states. The military
organization was also dependent on the Maronites. Beginning with the
year 1625 A.D., the western missionaries came in groups to the East
especially to the city of Aleppo where the efforts of these missions
along the efforts of the French Embassy had a great influence in the
union of certain Eastern churches with Rome in the 18th
century, when the Syriac Catholic Denomination was established in
1657, the Roman Catholic Denomination 1724, the Armenian Catholic
Denomination in 1740 with their headquarters in Mount Lebanon to
guarantee their safety and protection.
At the end of the 17th century, two important
developments took place, the first was political when Al-Shehab took
over the rule of the state in 1697, and the other was religious, the
reformation of the monastic system under the leadership of the
patriarch Dwayhi and the gradual building of the three different
monastic systems.
These monasteries effectively shared in the spread of the population
and the distribution of the real estate.
Last but not least we refer to the Lebanese conference held in 1736
when the skeleton of the Maronite church was completely organized
and creating the different Parishes and many other organizing
matters, with the presence of the Scholar Assemani of Hasroun the
Papal Ambassador.
SUMMARY
Two lessons must be learned from our historic suffering:
The level of the Christian Cause.
-
The level of the Syriac
Identity.
First - As far as the Christian Cause is concerned, it is three
sided cause as presented by Professor Tony Mfarrage, it is the Free
Christian Living in Lebanon. This triangle has historic roots as we
discussed previously.
Second - As far as the Syriac Identity is concerned: The properties
of this identity unites all the Syriac Aramaic People with all their
different denominations and religions.
The four properties for a national identity are: Religions,
Language, History and One Culture.
As far as religion is concerned, we find that Christianity unites
all the Eastern Syriac denominations and religious practices.
As far as language is concerned, the Aramaic Syriac language is the
basic fountain for all the area.
As far as history is concerned, the Syriac Christian people with
their different denominations are united in one common history of
suffering and struggle during thirteen centuries.
As far as culture is concerned in its broader sense including
educational, social and literature, it is basically the Aramaic
Syriac Christian culture.
The presence of two different identities in Lebanon is the real
cause of the historic problem and struggle, and the denying of this
multiple identity is one face of the suffering that the Christians
endure, because they are denied their unique Syriac identity and
their true Syriac Aramaic history, because a people without a
history is not existent.
Sheikh Shams El-din declared (in the Rayeh magazine November 92
issue) saying: I oppose the motto” Lebanon has multiple social
identities”, I say “Lebanon has different social identities”, “it is
not a multiple identity, because if we allow the concept of multiple
identity, it means there are societies, the political meaning of
multiple is federal of confederate.”
We agree with his last conclusion only. |
