The Elimination of Grief

After Muhammad's death, the Muslim world expanded its reach quickly. Within a century, its reach extended from modern-day Afghanistan and India in the east to the southern border of France (and all around the Mediterranean).

One result of this influence was the adoption of Arabic by Christian writers. Christian authors wrote explanations of their faith in Arabic to reach a wider audience.

The 11th-century Nestorian Archbishop Elijah of Nisibis was one of these, choosing to write several works in Arabic as well as other languages. His best-known is a history called Opus Chronologicum in Latin ("Work of chronology") and Kitāb al-Azmina in Arabic. He modeled it on the Ecclesiastical History of the 4th-century Eusebius of Caesarea. It includes information taken from works written in earlier centuries that are now lost. He also includes tables for calculating Persian and Syriac new years as well as Zoroastrian calendars.

A lesser-known work by Elijah that has survived is the Kitāb dafʿ al-hamm ("The Book of Elimination of Grief"). It blends Christian theology and Islamic ethical philosophy to offer practical and spiritual strategies for overcoming sorrow and anxiety. 

Though Christian, Elijah shows a deep understanding of traditional Islamic thought. The work includes several quotations from the Hadith (the collection of Muhammad's sayings), and refers to the writings of early Islamic Sufi mystics.

The second chapter emphasizes the cultivation of gratitude to combat grief and anxiety. He advises the reader to actively appreciate divine blessings to counter the tendency of humans to lean toward despair.

The work, which survives today (though I cannot locate an English-language edition), is part of a tradition that started earlier with writers like the 9th-century al-Kindi.

Another work of Elijah's was a dictionary and grammar for learning the Syriac language, which was his primary language. Tomorrow, let's take a dive into something really different: Syriac.

Elijah of Nisibis

Thank heavens for people in the past who took the time to write down what they knew—although, to be fair, we have very few means to independently verify the truth of what they wrote. The best we can hope for is to compare what they wrote to the records of others, examine as best we can at this remove what political or religious or personal motives they might have had, and then make a case for their truthfulness.

Elijah of Nisibis was a member of the Church of the East, which is also known as the Assyrian Church, or the Nestorian Church, or even the Babylonian Church. It was different from the Chalcedonian Church, from which modern Roman Catholicism (and therefore Protestantism) and Eastern Orthodoxy descend.

He was originally known as Elijah Bar Shinajah, meaning "Elijah, son of Šena." Šena was not his father, but a reference to a town near what is present-day Al-Zab, Iraq. Born in 975, he was ordained a priest in 994, made a bishop in 1002, and became archbishop of Nisibis in 1008.

A fulfilling life for him, certainly, but he is important to us because of his desire to write and explain, and his desire to have intellectual discussion with non-Christians.

His reputation extended not only among Christian scholars and theologians of his era but also Muslim mutakallimūn and intellectuals. This recognition stemmed not only from his profound knowledge spanning medicine, mathematics, philosophy, Arabic and Syriac philology, ethics, Christian theology, and Islamic Kalām, but also from his adeptness at enculturating his philosophical and theological doctrines within the Islamic world through the adoption of Islamic language and terminology. [source]

(The illustration is part of one of his works written in Arabic script.) While at Nisibis, he met with the Muslim vizier Abū al-Qāsim al-Maġribī for discussions on various topics of mutual interest, and to enable both to learn about the other's faith. The two remained in contact, and a few letters between the two from the following year exist.

The visits, from 15 to 29 July 1026, are called the "Seven Sessions." They were initiated by the vizier himself after he experienced a miraculous cure at the hands of a Christian monk. They were written up by Elijah and covered the following topics:

• God's unity (because of the Trinity, Christianity was considered polytheistic and therefore "false")
• Jesus's incarnation of two natures (divine and human)
• Quranic support for considering some forms of Christianity as monotheistic
• Logical and miraculous justifications for various Christian doctrines
• Elijah's own profession of monotheism
• Language, and considerations of its importance in theology
• Christian perspectives on astrology, Islam, and the soul

Tomorrow I'd like to start exploring some of Elijah's writings. See you then.

Muawiyah I

In the early days of Muhammad (c.570 - 632 CE), the founder of Islam, not everyone in that part of the world automatically agreed with him. A distant kinsman of Muhammad's, Abu Sufyan of the Umayyad clan, opposed the new religious leader. The Battle of Badr had Muhammad's followers on one side and Abu Sufyan on the other. Abu Sufyan's eldest son and father-in-law were killed at the battle.

Then Muhammad married Abu Sufyan's widowed sister in 629 and entered Mecca in 630, whereupon Abu Sufyan became a follower and took a role in the new Muslim state. (The illustration shows Abu Sufyan and other leaders making a pledge to support the new Muslim order.)

Abu Sufyan had two sons, Yazid and Muawiyah, who each were granted command roles in the province. Yazid became governor of Damascus, Jordan, and Palestine. This was under the Rashidun Caliphate. Muawiyah went on to start his own caliphate, the Umayyad Caliphate.

Muawiyah became one of Muhammad's scribes first, moving up the ranks until he became the governor of Syria. There was a powerful tribe, the Banu Kalb, with which Muawiyah formed an alliance. Muawiyah became a leader in the campaigns against the Byzantine Empire.

His duties were not just military, of course. He organized the local government and established a chancellery and postal routes. The Muslim conquest of Ifriqiya (Northern Africa) was begun by him. When the last Rashidun Caliph, Uthman, was assassinated, Muawiyah was chosen to replace him. Muawiyah was the first caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty.

He was different from other caliphs, however, treating himself more as a king above others rather than a first among equals. He was criticized for having a throne that put him physically higher than others. A 9th-century Arab Muslim historian, al-Ya'qubi, described him as:

...the first to have a bodyguard, police-force and chamberlains ... He had somebody walk in front of him with a spear, took alms out of the stipends and sat on a throne with the people below him ... He used forced labour for his building projects ... He was the first to turn this matter [the caliphate] into mere kingship.

There is another anecdote, however, that makes him a little more kind to his subjects. One anecdote, in which he is questioned for letting someone criticize him, has him respond "I do not insert myself between the people and their tongue, so long as they do not insert themselves between us and our sovereignty."

Another supposed saying of his was "I never use my voice if I can use my money, never my whip if I can use my voice, never my sword if I can use my whip; but, if I have to use my sword, I will."

He died in the spring of 680 CE, having caused a controversy by naming his son as his successor rather than having a successor be chosen by his followers. Some of what we know about him comes from a Nestorian chronicler named Elijah of Nisibis, whom I will tell you about tomorrow.