Ishoʿdnah Of Basra
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Ishoʿdnaḥ (; fl. 9th century) was a historian and hagiographer of the
Church of the East The Church of the East ( ) or the East Syriac Church, also called the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Babylonian Church, the Chaldean Church or the Nestorian Church, is one of three major branches o ...
who served as the metropolitan bishop of Mayshan at
Baṣra Basra () is a port city in southern Iraq. It is the capital of the eponymous Basra Governorate, as well as the third largest city in Iraq overall, behind Baghdad and Mosul. Located near the Iran–Iraq border at the north-easternmost extent ...
. Some manuscripts refer to him as metropolitan of the diocese of Qasra, but this appears to be a simple spelling error, since Qasra was never a metropolitan see. Ishoʿdnaḥ wrote in Syriac. According to ʿAbdishoʿ bar Brikha, writing towards 1300, he wrote a three-volume
ecclesiastical history Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception. Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual side of the ...
, a treatise on
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...
, hymns, poems and consolations, as well as "a treatise on chastity, in which he collected an account of all the saints." The last is one of only two works by Ishoʿdnaḥ known to have been preserved. The other is an acrostic poem about Mar Yawnan, the founder of a monastery near al-Anbār, in 22 stanzas. The former has been published in full, but only a few stanzas of the latter. The ''Ktābā d-nakputā'' ("Book of Chastity"), also known by its
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
title, ''Liber castitatis'', was written around 860. It contains 140 brief biographical notices of ascetic saints, mostly the founders of monasteries in
northern Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia constitutes the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been known by ...
in the late
Sasanian The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranians"), was an Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign ...
and early Arab periods, between about 580 and 660. The earliest is Mar Awgen of the 4th century, while the latest is from the mid-9th century. The latest event he refers to is the
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of the monk Ishoʿzka in "the third year of Jaʿfar, son of Muʿtaṣim, king of the Arabs Ṭayyāyē''">Banū_Ṭayy.html" ;"title="'Banū Ṭayy">Ṭayyāyē'', that is, 849–850. Although several manuscript copies now exist, all derive from a single late 19th-century copy. It is untitled in the manuscripts. Its conventional title is taken from ʿAbdishoʿ. In the heading identifying Ishoʿdnaḥ as the author, the scribe notes that he "write[s] the stories in brief of all those fathers who founded convents in the kingdom of the Persians and Arabs", which may indicate either that the notices he was copying were brief or perhaps that he (i.e., the copyist) was abridging them. It is possible, therefore, that the work which survives is an abridgement. The existing text also omits some Jacobite founders known from descriptions of the work to have been part of the original. Ishoʿdnaḥ's lost ecclesiastical history was written around 850.
Elias of Nisibis Elijah, Eliya, or Elias of Nisibis (, 11February 975– 18July 1046) was an Assyrian cleric of the Church of the East, who served as bishop of Beth Nuhadra (1002–1008) and archbishop of Nisibis (1008–1046). He has been called the most impor ...
cites it seventeen times, but for no event earlier than 624 or later than 714. Among the events he is known to have recorded are the death of Shah
Khusrau II Khosrow II (spelled Chosroes II in classical sources; and ''Khosrau''), commonly known as Khosrow Parviz (New Persian: , "Khosrow the Victorious"), is considered to be the last great Sasanian King of Kings (Shahanshah) of Iran, ruling from 590 ...
and the accession of
Kavad II Kavad II () was the Sasanian King of Kings () of Iran briefly in 628. Born Sheroe, he was the son of Khosrow II () and Maria. With help from different factions of the nobility, Sheroe overthrew his father in a coup d'état in 628. At this junct ...
(628);
ʿUmar Umar ibn al-Khattab (; ), also spelled Omar, was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () and is regarded as a senior companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muh ...
's capture of Jerusalem (637); the death of the Emperor
Heraclonas Heraclius (; 626 – 642), known by the diminutive Heraclonas or Heracleonas (), and sometimes called Heraclius II, was briefly Byzantine emperor in 641. Heraclonas was the son of Heraclius and his niece Martina. His father had stipulated in ...
and the accession of
Constans II Constans II (; 7 November 630 – 15 July 668), also called "the Bearded" (), was the Byzantine emperor from 641 to 668. Constans was the last attested emperor to serve as Roman consul, consul, in 642, although the office continued to exist unti ...
(641); Muʿāwiya I's initiation of naval warfare against Byzantium (647); the first Arab civil war (656–661); Constans II's campaign against the
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in 660; and Constans II's murder of his brother Theodosius that same year. The Jacobite historians Michael Rabo and
Bar Hebraeus Gregory Bar Hebraeus (, b. 1226 - d. 30 July 1286), known by his Syriac ancestral surname as Barebraya or Barebroyo, in Arabic sources by his kunya Abu'l-Faraj, and his Latinized name Abulpharagius in the Latin West, was a Maphrian (region ...
cite an otherwise unknown Dnaḥ Ishoʿ the Nestorian for an event of 793, and this may be a garbled reference to Ishoʿdnaḥ.. , regards them as the same. Pierre Nautin proposed that Ishoʿdnaḥ was the author of the anonymous
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'' Chronicle of Siirt''. Jean Maurice Fiey suggests, however, that they author of the ''Chronicle'' merely had access to some of the same sources as Ishoʿdnaḥ. Robert Hoyland considers it unlikely that Ishoʿdnaḥ lived long enough into the 10th century to have completed the ''Chronicle of Siirt''. The most likely place for Ishoʿdnaḥ in the list of known metropolitans of Baṣra is between Daniel (853) and
Gabriel In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), Gabriel ( ) is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to mankind, as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran. Many Chris ...
(884), although it is possible that he reigned earlier, his pontificate ending between 849 and 853.


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* * * * * * * * {{Authority control 9th-century historians from the Abbasid Caliphate Archbishops in Asia 9th-century bishops of the Church of the East Syriac writers Nestorians in the Abbasid Caliphate Church of the East writers