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.