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Letter To The Himyarites
The ''Letter to the Himyarites'' was a letter sent by Jacob of Serugh to the Christian community of Najran to console them during the persecutions against them by the Jewish Himyaritic king, Dhu Nuwas. Jacob's letter came as one of many responses to the massacre, which was a moment of international outrage among Christian communities. Jacob's letter was meant to draw a wide and non-elite readership and may have be associated with the interest of the Miaphysite Church in the Arabian peninsula. A Syriac edition of Jacob's letter was published by Gunnar Olinder in 1937. The letter is itemized and sometimes referred to as Letter 18. Structure Jacob's letter was structured into five main sections: * A salutation * A consolation for the persecuted, reminding them of what Jesus Christ had also suffered * An exposition of Christology (1/3 of the letter) * A consolation for the persecuted, combined with eschatological hope * A valediction Content The opening salutation of the lett ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Jacob Of Serugh
Jacob of Serugh (, ; ; 452–521), also called Jacob of Sarug or Mar Jacob (), was one of the foremost poets and theologians of the Syriac Christian tradition, second only to Ephrem the Syrian and equal to Narsai. He lived most of his life as an ecclesiastical official in Suruç, in modern-day Turkey. He became a bishop (of Batnan) near the end of his life in 519. He was a Miaphysite (a form of Non-Chalcedonian Christianity), albeit moderate compared to his contemporaries. Jacob is best known for the homilies he wrote in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. He wrote in prose, as well as in 12-syllable ( dodecasyllabic) meter, which he invented, and he was known for his eloquence. According to Jacob of Edessa, he composed 763 works during his lifetime. Around 400 survive, and over 200 of those have been published. The longest is about 1,400 verses. By the time of his death, he had a great reputation. His works were so popular that of any author from late antiquity, only ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Meccan Surah
A Meccan surah is, according to the timing and contextual background of their revelation ('' asbāb al-nuzūl'') within Islamic tradition, a chronologically earlier chapter ('' suwar'', singular ''sūrah'') of the Qur'an. The traditional chronological order attributed to Ibn Abbas became widely accepted following its adoption by the 1924 Egyptian standard edition. The Meccan chapters are believed to have been revealed anytime before the migration of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina ('' Hijra''). The Medinan surahs are those revelations which occurred after the move. There are 86 makkan surahs. Meccan surahs are typically shorter than Medinan surahs, with relatively short verses ('' āyāt''), and mostly come near the end of the Qur'an. (As a general rule, the chapters of the Qur'an are ordered from longest to shortest.) Most of the chapters containing Muqatta'at are Meccan, Except 2, 3 and 13. The chapters are divided into "Meccan" and "Medina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Najran
Najran ( '), is a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia. It is the capital of Najran Province. Today, the city of Najran is one of the fastest-growing cities in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As of the 2022 census, the city population was 381,431, with the population of the governorate of Najran being 592,300. Today, the population is primarily Ismaili with a Sunni minority. The ancient city of Najran is now largely in ruins, the archaeological site Al-Okhdood, located south-east of the present-day city. In ancient times, this Najran was a major urban, agriculture, industrial (cloth, leather), and trade (incense) center, located in the midst of a fertile wadi (valley), called the Wadi Najran. Najran was also located at the intersection of two main caravan routes: one running from Hadhramaut, to the Hejaz, to the Eastern Mediterranean, and another running from the northeast through Al-Yamama and into Mesopotamia. Its pre-Islamic history is notable for its Christian community, inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
6th-century Books
The 6th century is the period from 501 through 600 in line with the Julian calendar. In the West, the century marks the end of Classical Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire late in the previous century left Europe fractured into many small Germanic kingdoms competing fiercely for land and wealth. From the upheaval the Franks rose to prominence and carved out a sizeable domain covering much of modern France and Germany. Meanwhile, the surviving Eastern Roman Empire began to expand under Emperor Justinian, who recaptured North Africa from the Vandals and attempted fully to recover Italy as well, in the hope of reinstating Roman control over the lands once ruled by the Western Roman Empire. Owing in part to the collapse of the Roman Empire along with its literature and civilization, the sixth century is generally considered to be the least known about in the Dark Ages. In its second golden age, the Sassanid Empire reached the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Christianity In Pre-Islamic Arabia
Christianity was one of the major religions of pre-Islamic Arabia. It was likely introduced in the fourth century, during the period of Late Antiquity, and had achieved a large presence by the fifth century. Bishoprics were established in multiple areas in Eastern Arabia, as well as in Arabia Petraea, Najran, and Zafar. Churches, martyria and monasteries were constructed across the peninsula, allowing local leaders to display their benefaction in the region, communicate with locals and with local officials, and to establish points of contact with Byzantine representatives. Christian proselytism also happened throughout the peninsula, especially in its northwest and southwest. Northern proselytization was driven by Syrian Christian missionaries, and the south, by Ethiopian Christians in the aftermath of the Ethiopian conquest of the South Arabian Kingdom of Himyar. Many conversion stories of Arabs are found in Byzantine Christian literature, especially those with a Syrian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Martyrium Sancti Arethae Et Sociorum In Civitate Negran
A ''martyrium'' (Latin) or ''martyrion'' (Greek) (: ''martyria)'', sometimes anglicized martyry (: "martyries"), is a church or shrine built over the tomb of a Christian martyr. It is associated with a specific architectural form, centered on a central element and thus built on a central plan, that is, of a circular or sometimes octagonal or cruciform shape. Etymology The origin of the name of the Christian ''martyrium'' is as follows: Ancient Greek ''martys'', "witness", to ''martyrion'', "testimony", to Late and Ecclesiastical Latin ''martyrium''. History The oldest Christian martyria were built at "a site which bears witness to the Christian faith, either by referring to an event in Christ's life or Passion, or by sheltering the grave of a martyr".Krautheimer, Richard. ''Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture''. Yale University Press, 1986. Fourth edition, with Slobodan Ćurčić. p. 518. Martyria, mostly small, were very common after the early 4th century, when Constan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Simeon Of Beth Arsham
Simeon () is a given name, from the Hebrew (Biblical ''Šimʿon'', Tiberian ''Šimʿôn''), usually transliterated in English as Shimon. In Greek, it is written Συμεών, hence the Latinized spelling Symeon. It is a cognate of the name Simon. Meaning The name is derived from Simeon, son of Jacob and Leah, patriarch of the Tribe of Simeon. The text of Genesis (29:33) argues that the name of ''Simeon'' refers to Leah's belief that God had heard that she was hated by Jacob, in the sense of not being as favoured as Rachel. Implying a derivation from the Hebrew term ''shama on'', meaning "he has heard"; this is a similar etymology as the Torah gives for the theophoric name ''Ishmael'' ("God has heard"; Genesis 16:11), on the basis of which it has been argued that the tribe of Simeon may originally have been an Ishmaelite group (Cheyne and Black, ''Encyclopaedia Biblica''). Alternatively, Hitzig, W. R. Smith, Stade, and Kerber compared שִׁמְעוֹן ''Šīmə‘ōn'' to A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Martyrdom Of Azqir
The ''Martyrdom of Azqīr'' or the ''Acts of Azqir'' (''Gadla Azqir'') is a short Christian hagiography of a preacher named Azqir living in the Himyarite city of Najran. Azqir lived in the second half of the fifth century, during the reign of the Jewish king Sharhabil Yakkuf. He was said to have been one of the first Christians of the city, and its first preacher. Ultimately, Azqir is executed by the king for his religious activities. The martyrdom of Azqir is the first report of a Christian being killed for their faith in South Arabia, part of the first wave of the persecution of the Christiani community of Najran, around 20–30 years after conversions began in the region. The martyrdom of Azqir and other Najranite Christians is commemorated by the Ethiopian church on the date of their calendar 24 Hedar, two days before the commemoration of the martyrdom of Arethas of Najran, who was killed during the great massacre of the Christians of Najran during the reign of Dhu Nuwas. Su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Geʽez
Geez ( or ; , and sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as Classical Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic language. The language originates from what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea. Today, Geez is used as the main liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church, the Eritrean Catholic Church, and the Beta Israel Jewish community. Hawulti Obelisk is an ancient pre-Aksumite obelisk located in Matara, Eritrea. The monument dates to the early Aksumite period and bears an example of the ancient Geez script. In one study, Tigre was found to have a 71% lexical similarity to Geʽez, while Tigrinya had a 68% lexical similarity to Geʽez, followed by Amharic at 62%. Most linguists believe that Geez does not constitute a common ancestor of modern Ethio-Semitic languages but became a separate language early on from another hypothetical unattested common language. Phonology Vowel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ramla
Ramla (), also known as Ramle (, ), is a city in the Central District of Israel. Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with significant numbers of both Jews and Arabs. The city was founded in the early 8th century CE by the Umayyad caliph Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik as the capital of Jund Filastin, the district he governed in Bilad al-Sham before becoming caliph in 715. The city's strategic and economic value derived from its location at the intersection of the '' Via Maris'', connecting Cairo with Damascus, and the road connecting the Mediterranean port of Jaffa with Jerusalem. It rapidly overshadowed the adjacent city of Lydda, whose inhabitants were relocated to the new city. Not long after its establishment, Ramla developed as the commercial centre of Palestine, serving as a hub for pottery, dyeing, weaving, and olive oil, and as the home of numerous Muslim scholars. Its prosperity was lauded by geographers in the 10th–11th centuries, when the city was ruled by the Fati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Book Of The Himyarites
The ''Book of the Himyarites'' (''Ktābā da-ḥmirāye'') is an anonymous Syriac account of the persecution and martyrdom of the Christian community of Najran in the Kingdom of Himyar around 523 AD and the ensuing Aksumite interventions. It was written sometime between the sixth and tenth centuries in a Syriac Orthodox milieu. Manuscript The only known manuscript of the ''Book of the Himyarites'' is incomplete and partially damaged. It was discovered in 1920 in the protective boards of a codex bound in 1469/1470. The tenth-century codex had been repurposed for the binding of another, and in the process its pages were cut down. While some pages of text are entirely intact, others are fragmentary. The original tenth-century copy of the ''Book'' probably contained at least ten quires of twenty pages each. About 59 pages of text are preserved. The script of the text is similar to that of the ''Codex Climaci Rescriptus'' from Edessa. The table of contents of the ''Book'' is preser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Seleucid Era
The Seleucid era ("SE") or (literally "year of the Greeks" or "Greek year"), sometimes denoted "AG," was a Calendar era, system of numbering years in use by the Seleucid Empire and other countries among the ancient Hellenistic period, Hellenistic civilizations, and later by the Parthians. It is sometimes referred to as "the dominion of the Seleucidæ," or the Year of Alexander. The era dates from Seleucus I Nicator's reconquest of Babylon in 312/11 BC after his exile in Ptolemaic Kingdom, Ptolemaic Egypt, considered by Seleucus and his court to mark the founding of the Seleucid Empire. According to Jewish tradition, it was during the sixth year of Alexander the Great's reign (lege: possibly Alexander the Great's infant son, Alexander IV of Macedon) that they began to make use of this counting. Versions Two different variations of the Seleucid years existed, one where the year started in spring and another where it starts in autumn: # The natives of the empire used the Babylonian c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
