Historian Kamal Salibi, in an article titled “Bhamdoun: Portrait of a Lebanese Mountain Village” and published in 1997 for the Center for Lebanese Studies at Oxford University, wrote that

“In the latter half of the seventennth century, […] a large scale Christian migration from the Hawran region to Transjordan, Palestine and the Lebanon was triggered by the weakening of the Ottoman control over the bedouin tribes of the Syrian desert.”

I am very curious to know his sources.

On the margin of Vatican Library Manuscript 215 of Patriarch Istifan al-Duwayhi’s Tarikh al-Azminah, as published by Butrus Fahd:

It is said that the vault (qabu) of Khalil ibn Muqallid the muqaddam of ‘Aquri, which is above the spring was built during that time, thirty years before the vault (qabu) of al-Shiqyaq which is in Aqura

The time referred to is the period between 1435 and 1445 CE, the bracket for the events chronicled on that page. The annex of Rashid al-Khuri al-Shartuni’s “Tarikh al-Ta’ifah al-Maruniyah” (published in 1890) has excerpts from another manuscript of Duwayhi’s Tarikh al-Azminah, including a slightly different version of the same account:

In the year 1442 or around it, Khalil ibn Muqallid the muqaddam of ‘Aqura took good care [sic] and built the vault that is above the spring of the village, and raised a tower above the vault.

The vault of al-Shidyaq in the first quote is the one Duwayhi refers to in this passage of Tarikh al-Azminah, also in the margin of Vatican Library Manuscript 215, under the year 1479 CE:

In the year 1790 of the Greeks, al-Shiqyaq Qustantin son of al-Rayyis Sarkis son of Ilyas son of Faris son of the priest Dawud build the vault known as the vault of al-Shidyaq in the midst of the village of al-‘Aqura. Before that time, the forefathers of al-Shidyaq Qustantin built the church of Saint Georges (Mar Jirjis) in the mist of al-Aqura Jamlun (?) as is well known, and it is inscribed on its door that the monk Ilyas son of Sarkis son of al-Rayyis Hanna built it.

From Istifan al-Duwayhi’s “Tarikh al-Azminah”:

“In the year 1309, there was strife in Hauran between the Qayssiyah and the Yamaniyah and scores of people were killed”. 

I wonder whether one should look towards Hauran for the source of the Qayssi-Yamani factionalism in Aqura, in light of the connections between the two areas. The family of Malik ibn Balghayth, the Yamani muqaddam of ‘Aqura was originally from Hauran.

 

 

I had already written about Malik ibn Abu al-Ghayth (or Malik ibn Balghayth), the muqqadam of ‘Aqura here. Now, two years later, I have confirmed his affiliation to the Yamani party and his career in the XVIth century.

The ‘Aquri priest Yusuf al-Dahdah (1602-1677), a near contemporary who appended many local history notes on the margins of Maronite prayers books he copied for the churches and abbeys of ‘Aqura, had the following to say about the family of Malik ibn Abu al-Ghayth:

And the origin of the family of Bu al-Ghayth is from Yemen, it dwelled in Hauran then in the Ghuta of Damascus; and because of the extent of what befell it at the advent of the Muslims, it left for al-‘Aqura; and from it, there were muqaddams, and they held sway within the Yamani [faction]. 

Yusuf al-Dahdah added that Malik had four sons: Sa’d whose nickname was Shalaq, As’ad, Ghayth and Mikhail.

Whether the prayer books on the margins of which these notes were penned have survived is unclear to me. I only know the writings of Yusuf al-Dahdah from Father Luwis al-Hashim’s book “Tarikh al-‘Aqura“.

What is most significant in the testimony of al-Dahdah is the record of the affiliation of Malik’s family to Yemen, Hauran then the Ghouta of Damascus. First, and most generally, this adds to the existing evidence for the multiple links between ‘Aqura and the oasis of Damascus (the Ghouta). Second, it establishes ‘Aqura as a haven for persectuted Christian communities from inner Syria such as the Hauran and the Ghouta. Third, it helps illustrate and validate the claims some Lebanese Christian families make about their Arab origins, well before the popularity of Arab nationalist ideas led them to link their ascendance to the Ghassanids (a short for prominent, noble Arab Christians).

Tannus al-Shidqyaq’s Akhbar al-A’yaan fi Jabal Lubnan has the following quote about ‘Aqura in or around the year 1700:

“fa-tawajjaha ila dimashq wa-iltamassa min wazriha mashyakhata al-qaryati al-madhkurati fa-an’ama ‘alayhi biha li-annaha kaanat hina’idhin tabi’atan walayati Ba’albik”.

This translates as:

“And he took the direction of Damascus and sought from its minister the leadership of the aforementioned village (al-‘Aqura); so he (the minister) bestowed it upon him because it was a dependency of the wilayah (sic) of Ba’albek at that time,”. 

That ‘Aqura was part of the kaza/district of Baalbek (in the sanjak of Damascus, itself in the Ottoman Eyalet of Damascus) rather than the sanjak of Tripoli (itself part of the Eyalet of Tripoli) in the early eighteenth century is significant in so many ways.

First, it puts the migration of ‘Aqura families originating from Damascus, like the Jarmanus/Germanos, in perspective. Second, it establishes the continued relevance into the eighteenth century of the ancient route from Ba’albek to ‘Aqura via Yammuneh.

One would think that any village west of the Mount Lebanon ridge line would fall within the sanjak of Tripoli, but ‘Aqura seems to have been an exception. This is another instance of the specificity of this village within the Maronite homeland in Northern Mount Lebanon.

I am still trying to understand why the Qaysi/Yamani partisan divide appears to have played out among Maronites in Aqura but not in other places like Jubbat Bsharray.

Nasrallah Shalaq al-‘Aquri (Victor Scialac in Latin) was a Maronite priest from ‘Aqura and a student at the Maronite College of Rome. In Rome, he translated the 1597 catechism of Cardinal Robert Bellarmino into Arabic and edited it in 1613. Together with his fellow Maronite College student Jibrayil al-Sahyuni (Gabriel Sionita), he also edited the Book of Psalms in Arabic with a Latin translation in 1614. He later moved to Paris to teach Arabic and Syriac at the College Royal (now the College de France), where his title was “Professor du Roy aux Lettres Orientales”.

I am looking into his family, and whether it has modern descent.

Source: G.J. Toomer, Eastern Wisdom and Learning: The Study of Arabic in Seventeenth-Century England, Oxford University Press, 1996. 

Patriarch Duwayhi’s list of Maronite copyists of church books in the XVIth century features only two copyists from ‘Aqura, and translates as follows:

‘Aqura: 1552; 1560; the Khuri Sulayman; and the son of his paternal uncle the Khuri Hanna Dahdah son of the Khuri Brahim son of the priest Mikhayil.

The list appeared in Ferdinand Taoutel’s edition of Patriarch Duwayhi’s Tarikh al-Azminah (page 294), and in an article by Mikhayil al-Rajji the archivist of the library of the Maronite Patriarchate, in the journal Al-Mashriq 1954, pages 77-81.

The years 1552 and 1560 mark the dates when church books found by Patriarch Duwayhi  were copied. The year 1552 can be assumed to refer to the date Sulayman copied a first book, and the year 1560 to the date Hanna copied another book, unless either or both copied more than one book in the same year.

Beyond the dates, Patriarch Duwayhi established a three-generation lineage for the “Khuri Hanna Dahdah”. This is the same Khuri Hanna son of the Khuri Ibrahim son of the Khuri Mikhayil who appears in other genealogies of the al-Dahdah family (e.g., in Tannus al-Shidyaq Akhbar al-A’yaan fi Jabal Lubnan; in an article and family tree by Salim Khattar al-Dahdah published in 1901 in al-Mashriq 9 (4); and in an earlier, anonymous XIXth monograph of the al-Dahdah family, on which the Shidyaq account appears to have been based). This monograph was  published by Father Ighnatius Chebli in annexes to his edition of Haydar al-Shihabi’s Tarikh Ahmad Basha al-Jazzar.

This first primary soruce also shows that the insertion by Salim Khattar al-Dahdah (in his   1901 Mashriq article) of a Khuri Yusuf between the Khuri Ibrahim and the Khuri Mikhayil has no historical basis.

A second primary source is a lengthy note left by the Khuri Yusuf al-Dahdah (1602-1677) on the margins of a church book in ‘Aqura. This note, written in 1649, was quoted both in the article of Salim Khattar al-Dahdah in al-Mashriq journal (1901), and in Father Luwis al-Hashim’s Tarikh al-‘Aqura (1930). Khuri Yusuf identified himself in the note as

“a priest under the name of Yusuf, servitor of ‘Aqura, ordained by the […] Patriarch Yuhanna Makhluf […], son of the late Mikhail son of the late priest Hanna son of the late priest Ibrahim referred to as ibn al-Dahdah from ‘Aqura the protected under the care of God in Mount Lebanon the blessed, in the dependency of the country of Baalbeck” 

Putting the two primary sources together yields the following genealogy:

Khuri Yusuf (1602-1677, wrote note in 1649) son of Mikhayil son of the Khuri Hanna (active in 1560) son of the Khuri Ibrahim son of the Khuri Mikhayil.

This genealogy fully matches the one in Shidyaq, with the difference that Shiqyaq turned the second Mikhayil into a priest, which the above note shows he was not.

Shiqyaq is also the only available source for the information that the first Mikhayil (the priest) was the son of al-Shidyaq (deacon) Girjis, the son-in-law and heir of Ghazal al-Qaysi al-Maruni, a muqaddam of ‘Aqura who died in 1375. While the dates could match, it is not beyond the realm of the possible that there were an additional generation or two between the priest Mikhayil and the shidyaq Girjis.

Sources:

Al-Dahdah, Salim Khattar (May 1, 1901). “Al-Kunt Rushayd wa-Usratuhu”. Al-Mashriq. 9 (4).

Al-Duwayhi (d. 1704), Istifan; Tawtal, s.j., Ferdinand (1950). Tarikh al-Azminah. Beirut: Al-Mashriq 1950: 1. p. 294.

Al-Hashim, Luwis (1930). Tarikh al-‘Aqura. Bayt Shabab, Lebanon: al-‘Alam Press. p. 328.

 Al-Rajji, Mikha’il (1954). “Kitab Tarikh al-Azminah lil-Duwayhi wa-Thabt al-Nussaakh fi al-Qarn al-Sadis ‘Ashar”. al-Mashriq. 1: 81.

Al-Shidyaq, Tannus ibn Yusuf (1859). Kitāb ʼAk︠h︡bār ʼal-ʼaʻyān fī Jabal Lubnān. Beirut: Butrus al-Bustani. 

 

A Dumbarton Oaks article on the XIIth century Maronite monastery of Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Kaftun (Bilad al-Batrun) and its wall paintings. From the article:

“The monastery was mentioned for the first time in 1141 when Daniel, a monk from Kaftûn, was designated to become the abbot and administrator of a monastery in Cyprus called the monastery of Saint John, at Kuzbandû (Kotsovitsi), in the mountains near present-day Nicosia.” 

Source: Mouawad, R. J. 2001–02. “Les mystérieux monastères de Keftûn au Liban à l’époque médiévale (XII–XIIIe s.): Maronite et/puis melkite?” Tempora,  Annales d’Histoire et d’Archéologie 12–13:95–113.

The earliest available record of the presence of an active Maronite community on the island of Cyprus dates from the early twelfth century.

A handwritten note in Syriac, on a Syriac manuscript in the Vatican library (Syriac Manuscript Vat. Syr. 118 f° 262 r ) cited in Leroy (1964, p. 235) translates into English as follows (translation by G. Hourani here):

 “I, the humble Sim’aan, monk by name, wrote these lines in this book, before our Blessed Father Butrus, Patriarch of the Maronites, who resides in the Monastery of Our Lady in Mayfuq in the valley of Ilij in the land of Batrun when he gave me the power to preside over the Monastery of Saint John Kuzband  in the island of Cyprus during the epoch of the monks who were living in the Monastery of Saint John. The following are their names: Dawud, monk; Musa, priest; Yusuf, monk and cook; Girgis, monk; and Daniyal, monk. These are priests and serve the Lord. The year 1432 of the Greek, the 12th of June. Glory be to God, Amen.”

Year 1432 of the Greeks corresponds to 1121/1122 AD. The monastery of Saint John Kusband is near today’s Kotsovitsi (Kûzbandû in Turkish, see blue circled area in map) in the mountains near Nicosia.

Source: Leroy, J. Les Manuscrits Syriaques A peintures Conservés dans les Bibliothèques D’Europe et d’Orient (Paris, 1964)