Palestine A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha

By and large Arab pagan society was illiterate, cultivating immensely rich oral/aural traditions and epic stories and prizing, in particular, exquisite oral poetry, the oldest form of Arabic literature. Furthermore, for many centuries before Islam the spread of Arabic in the predominantly oral culture of Arabia and beyond, and the Arabisation of parts of the Levant and Iraq, were carried out through the memorisation of oral/aural traditions, epics, Arabic poetry and classic poems (for instance, the mu’allaqat). This pre-Islamic poetry became a major source for the Arabic language and rhetoric and a rich historical record of the political and cultural life of the time. This communication of powerful pre-Islamic oral/aural traditions and poetry and the memorisation of epics were transmitted not only by poets and rawis (storytellers) but also by travelling Arab traders, through the annual pilgrimage to pre-Islamic Mecca and poetry competitions at seasonal literary markets (a famous example was Souq ‘Ukath, near Ta’if in the Hijaz). In this pre-Islamic Arab culture the poet played the role of oral historian, storyteller, social critic, public intellectual, soothsayer and political agitator.

Arabic poetry and Arabic literacy and the movement from a predominantly oral/aural culture and oral traditions to a more literate Arabic setting and book culture was hugely influenced by the spread of Hellenistic Christianity and later the rise of Islam and by what Islam termed the ‘people of the Book’ (ahl al-kitab). Crucially, this gradual movement from illiteracy and oral/aural traditions to literacy and written culture was also promoted by the Christian Arab courts of the Ghassanid phylarchs of Palestine. These courts generously patronised the arts, especially Arabic poetry. This movement to literacy, together with the important tradition of memorisation of epics and classic Arabic poetry, continued to flourish with the spread of Islam, but crucially it was also accompanied by the reading and memorisation of the holy Quran as a means of spreading standard Arabic and establishing Arabisation and Arabic as the lingua franca in the newly founded Islamic empire. The Arabs of Provincia Palaestina and former Provincia Arabia, with their predominantly oral/aural culture, were also influenced by the literary life of the Arabs in the 5th and 6th centuries and by the tradition of memorisation of classic Arabic poetry by poets, rawis and ordinary people.

In pre-Islamic times, there were Christian Arab courts at Hirah, in southern Iraq, and Jabiyah, in Palaestina Secunda, and court poets, such as al-Nabighah adh-Dhubyani (535–604 AD), who played an important role in the spread of classical Arabic poetry. The Ghassanid tribal kings (phylarchs)

of Palaestina Secunda, in particular, patronised the arts and entertained some key Arabian poets such as al-Nabighah and Hassasn ibn Thabit (a companion of the Prophet Muhammad who died in 674) at their courts.

One possible connection between the Ghassanids of Palestine as protectors of the Christian holy places in the ‘land of the Gospel’ and the future Islamic holy places in Mecca is related to al-Nabighah, a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad (570–632 AD). Al-Nabighah (literally ‘the genius’)

was one of the last great Arab poets in the pre-Islamic era who spent most of his time at the courts of the Ghassanid kings in Palestine and the courts of the Christian Arab kings of Hirah, al-Mundhirs. Like Palaestina Tertia and Palaestina Secunda, Hirah was an important major pre-Islamic Arab Christian centre, being a diocese of the church of the East between the 4th and 7th centuries and seat of the Nestorian bishopric by 410 AD. Al-Nabighah became known as by his Christian Arab name ‘Ilyas and later ‘Ilyas from the Land of the Gospel’ (Ilyas min ard al-Bishara الياس من أرض البشارة ) or the Holy Land, as described by Arab historian al-Maqrizi (1364–1442). Greek was one the two lingua francas of Byzantine Palestine and Ilyas is the Arabic form of the Greek Elias, a name common among Christian Arabs today.

Al-Nabighah/Ilyas is one of the six eminent pre-Islamic poets whose poems were collected before the middle of the 2nd century of Islam, and have been regarded as the standard of Arabic poetry. These poets have written long poems comparable to epic poems, known as Muʿallaqat since they were hung on the walls of the Kaaba (a building at the centre of Islam’s most sacred mosque in Mecca). The surviving descriptions of the Ghassanid urban centres and courts impart an image of luxury and an active cultural life, with patronage of the arts, music and especially Arab-language poetry.

Warwick Ball, writer, archaeologist and former Architectural Conservator in the Department of Antiquities in Jordan, comments:

the Ghassanid courts were the most important centres for Arabic poetry before the rise of the Caliphal courts under Islam, and their court culture, including their penchant for desert palaces like Qasr ibn Wardan, provided the model for the Umayyad caliphs and their court.

(Ball 2000: 103‒105; also Shahid 2006b: 102)

Samaritan communities were established in practically all the cities of Roman Palestine: Neapolis, Sebaste, Caesarea Maritima, Scythopolis, Ascalon, Ashdod, Gaza, Iamnia, Emmaus, Ashdod and Antipatris (Hjelm 2016), and these communities were also found in most Palestinian cities in the Byzantine period. In fact, demographically the Greek-speaking Byzantine Christians and Samaritans dominated the central region of Palaestina Prima, while the Christian Ghassanid Arabs and Nabataean Arabs dominated Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Tertia respectively. However, the Samaritan revolts during the 5th and 6th centuries in Palaestina Prima were marked by great violence on both sides, and their brutal suppression at the hands of the Byzantines and their Ghassanid Arab allies (Crown 1989: 72–73; Shahid 2010: 8) contributed to shifting the demographics of the region, making the Christians the dominant group in the province of Palaestina Prima for many decades. Also, many Samaritans converted to Islam from the early 7th century onwards.

The Ghassanid Arabs rose in the 5th century to be become an important ethno-linguistic religious community in Palestine and their Monophysite Orthodox Church became important in Palestine. In the 5th‒6th centuries their capital was at Jabiyah in the Golan Heights, located within Palaestina Secunda. ‘Gabitha’ is mentioned in 520 AD in a Syriac Aramaic letter of Monophysite Bishop Simeon of Bet Arsham. Following the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 AD and the Arab conquest of Palestine and Syria, the Ghassanid town of Jabiyah became the headquarters of the main military camp for the Muslim armies in Syria. Overall the Monophysite Ghassanid Arabs preferred the Muslim Arab conquerors to the Christian Chalcedonians (Wigram 2004). Following the Byzantine military defeat at Yarmouk many of the Ghassanids would have been happy to get rid of the Byzantine Emperor and the Greek-speaking Chalcedonite Church and ally themselves with the rising power of Islam.

Derived from the Quranic Arabic term millah, the term millet denoted the religious community under Islam. The Ghassanid-dominated Monophysite Orthodox churches may have given the idea of the millet system to Islam. This became a principle for non-Muslims, who were given a significant degree of religious and social autonomy within their own community throughout the history of Islamic Palestine and the Near East.

Furthermore, according to historians Warwick Ball and Irfan Shahid, the Ghassanids’ promotion of a simpler and more rigidly monotheistic form of Christianity in a specifically Arab context can be said to have anticipated Islam (Ball 2000: 105; Shahid 2006b: 102).

The substantial autonomy achieved by the Ghassanid Arab-populated settlements of Palaestina Prima was derived from the fact that their localities acquired the status of both phylarchates, headed by a supreme Arab phylarch (a tribal king), and episcopates, headed by bishops. Petros (or Petrus), a chief of an Arab tribe or group of tribes from Byzantine Provincia Arabia, whose original name was Aspebetos, was the first to be simultaneously appointed as phylarch and bishop in Palaestina Prima (Shahid 2006a: 181; Isaac 2003: 450‒451). The colourful career of Aspebetos was remarkable. He started as a military commander in the service of the Persian shah. He then defected to the Byzantines and became the Arab phylarch of Provincia Arabia. He then moved to Palaestina Prima, settling near the monastery of Euthemius, located between Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem)

and Jericho, and served as the Arab phylarch of Palaestina Prima.

He and his son Terebon were then converted to Christianity and baptised by Euthemius. He also adopted the name Petros (Greek: rock) which became his baptismal name. Butros, the Arabic form of the Greek name Petros – a name still common among Palestinian and Arab Christians – would be the name used by him and his Arab followers in Palestine.

Petros/Butros became first phylarch-bishop of the Palestinian Parembole in around 427 AD. This line of Palestinian bishops survived until the middle of the 6th century. Although his bishopric was based in Palaestina Tertia, he was responsible to the All Palestine Patriarchate of Aelia Capitolina, which later became known as the Patriarchate of Ilya (Jerusalem)

under Arab Muslim rule from 637 onwards. The conversion of Aspebetos/ Butros was followed by the conversion of his Arab tribe and he became a zealous Christian and for years led his converted Saracen (Arab) Christian community and managed to increase significantly the number of Christian Arabs in Palestine. The climax of his career was his active participation at the ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, where he appears not merely as a subscription in the conciliar list but as an active participant in the debates and a delegate of the Council of Ephesus to Nestorius (Shahid 2006a: 46‒48, 181‒184, 528; 2006b: 128). Members of the house of Aspebetos continued to thrive as the tribal leaders of Arab Palaestina Prima and in the 6th century Cyril of Scythopolis, the historian of monastic life in Palestine, describes Terebon II, Aspebetos’ great-grandson, as ‘the renowned phylarch in this region’: the area between Jerusalem and Jericho (Shahid 1995: 652).

But there were some fundamental differences between the ‘autonomous’ Arab phylarchs-bishops of Palaestina Prima – a core province – and the fairly independent Ghassanid kings-phylarchs of the two ‘frontier provinces’ of Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Tertia: Abu Karib and al-Harith. The latter operated from established and recognised capitals.

They also commanded their own substantial professional Arab armies, and not just contingent tribal forces. They enforced law and order within their wider domain and raised revenues and taxes from the lucrative international and regional trade passing through their provinces. They provided protection to the holy places in Palestine and, crucially, they dispatched their own ambassadors to foreign countries – ambassadors who acted in their names rather than representing the Byzantine state.

The year 451 was a turning point for the Church in Palestine. At the Council of Chalcedon, 451, the ‘Three in One’ Palestine provinces were separated from the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Antioch. The ecclesiastical separation of the ‘Three Palestines’ from Antioch did not have an immediate effect on the Arab church of the federates who remained staunchly Orthodox. With the growth of Monophytism in the Near East in the 6th century, especially after the impetus given by the Emperor Anastasius, the Patriarchate of Palestine remained the stronghold of Greek-dominated orthodoxy in Palestine and this legacy had a lasting impact on Arab‒Greek relationships within the Palestine Church (Shahid 2006a: 528). It also opened up internal conflicts which lasted until today; in the 5th century AD, these internal divisions within the Palestine Church were also reflected in symbols and colour codes:

The Arab federates of the three Palestines, at least Prima and Secunda, remained staunchly Orthodox, while those outside the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, were mostly Monophysites, especially the dominant group, the Ghassanids … The division within the Arab church is reflected in Palestinian historiography, where the image of the [Arab] Orthodox phylarchs of the Parembole in Palaestina Prima is bright and that of the Ghassanids of Arabia is dim. (Shahid 2006a: 528)

Somewhat different in background from all Arab phylarchs of Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Tertia was Elias, the Arab Patriarch of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), who became head of the All Palestine Church in 494 AD. While the others were federate Arab kings, Elias was a Rhomaic Arab born in Arabia. His ecclesiastical career was no less remarkable.

He started as a monk in the desert of Palestine associated with Saint Euthymius the Great (377–473), an abbot venerated today in both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Elias then drew the attention of Patriarch Anastasius, who ordained him priest of the Church of Anastasia in Jerusalem; finally, Elias became the Patriarch of the holy city, and engaged in an effective administration of his Patriarchate. He devoted time to the improvement of the churches and monasteries and laid the foundation of the Church of the Theotokos in Jerusalem, the spectacular church completed during the reign of Emperor Justinian and dedicated in 543.

Possibly Elias was also associated with the translation of a simple liturgy and biblical lectionary into Arabic for the benefit of the various Christian Arab communities scattered in the ‘Three Palestines’ which came under his ecclesiastical jurisdiction (Shahid 2006a: 193‒194).