Abstract
During the course of the eleventh century, the Armenian kingdoms of the Bagratuni and Arcruni dynasties were annexed by the Byzantine Empire.1 The invasions of the Seljuk Turks precipitated the collapse of the Armenian kingdoms and then swiftly removed the Byzantines from their newly acquired territory.2 Although Armenians had a long relationship with Islam, Islamic peoples, and Islamic rule,3 Seljuk dominance in Anatolia inaugurated a new social reality resulting from the demographic shift of emigrating Armenians and new influxes of Islamic groups of Turkish, Kurdish, and Persian ethnicity. The new political and cultural topography consequently engendered a renewed Armenian narrative about Islam and Muslims that refashioned elements of the earlier discourse as well as introduced new interpretative strategies to contextualize and determine the radical transformation of contemporary Armenian life. In this chapter, I first present evidence concerning both creative and conflictual Armenian and Muslim interactions in the period approximately between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries and then turn to cotemporal Armenian literary depictions of Muslims and of the Seljuk Turks in particular.4
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Part of the research for this essay was sponsored by grants from the Israel Science Foundation and the American Philosophical Society. On the Byzantine annexation of the Armenian provinces, see Nina Garsoiïan, “The Byzantine Annexation of the Armenian Kingdoms in the Eleventh Century,” in The Armenian People. From Ancient to Modern Times, ed. Richard Hovannisian (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 187–98.
On the origin and early history of the Seljuk empire, see Claude Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1968), 19–32.
on the Seljuk expansion into Anatolia and the Caucasus, see most recently Andrew Peacock, “Nomadic Society and the Seljūq Campaigns in Caucasia,” Iran and the Caucasus 9, no. 2 (2005): 205–30.
On Arab rule in Armenia, see Joseph Laurent, L’Arménie entre Byzance et l’Islam, rev. Marius Canard (Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian, 1980).
Aram Ter-Ghewondian, The Arab Emirates in Bagratid Armenia, trans. Nina Garsoïan (Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian, 1976).
People: From Ancient to Modern Times, ed. Richard Hovannisian (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 117–42.
This essay will not discuss how Armenian authors of the period depicted Islam as a religion generally or its origins, on which see Robert Thomson, “Muhammad and the Origin of Islam in Armenian Literary Tradition,” in Études armeniénnes: In memoriam Haïg Berbérian, ed. Dickran Kouymjian (Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian, 1986), 829–58.
On the dynastic system, see Nikoghoyos Adontz, Armenia in the Period of Justinian, trans. and rev. Nina Garsoïan (Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian, 1970).
and Cyril Tumanoff, Studies in Christian Caucasian History (Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 1963).
for a succinct treatment of the period, see Krikor Maksoudian, Chosen of God: The Election of the Catholicos of All Armenians from the Fourth Century to the Present (New York: St. Vardan’s Press, 1995), 40–46.
On the interpretation of this battle in Islamic historiography, see Carole Hillenbrand, Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol: The Battle of Manzikert (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007).
On the Sökmanids, see Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1960–2005) [henceforth, EI], 9:193; on the Šaddādids, see EI 9:169–70 and Vladimir Minorsky, Studies in Caucasian History (London: Taylor’s Foreign Press, 1953); on the Mengüčekids, see EI 6:1016–17; on the Saltukids, see EI 8:1001; on the Artukids, see EI 1:662–7; on the Eldigüzids (s.v. “Ildeñizids”), see EI 3:1110–13.
William Allen, A History of the Georgian People (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971), 81–120.
Ronald Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1994), 34–40.
The Armenian migrants may have supplanted the Qipčaq Turks who had similarly played a significant role in the Georgian kingdom. On the Qipcaqs in Georgia, see Peter Golden, “Cumanica I: The Qipčaqs in Georgia,” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi IV (Wiesbaden, 1984): 45–87.
repr. in Peter Golden, Nomads and Their Neighbours in the Russian Steppe, Variorum Collected Series (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003).
Rachel Goshgarian, “Beyond the Social and the Spiritual: Redefining the Urban Confraternities of Late Medieval Anatolia” (Diss., Harvard University, 2007).
See Hakob Manandyan, The Trade and Cities of Armenian in Relation to Ancient World Trade, trans. N. Garsoïan (Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian, 1965), 183–87.
On the significance of the inscription, see also Sergio La Porta, “Lineage, Legitimacy, and Loyalty in Post-Seljuk Armenia: A Reassessment of the Sources of the Failed Ōrbēlean Revolt against King Giorgi III of Georgia,” Revue des Études Arméniennes 31 (2008–2009): 127–65, and bibliography cited there (nn. 28 and 31).
See, for example, Jean-Pierre Mahé, “Les inscriptions de Hoṙomos,” Monuments Piot 81 (2002): 177 [147–217].
cf., however, Robert Bedrosian, “The Turco-Mongol Invasions and the Lords of Armenian in the 13th-14th Centuries” (Diss., Columbia University, 1979), 265.
Claude Cahen, “L’évolution de l’iqtā ‘du IXe au XIIIe siècle: Contribution à une histoire comparée des sociétés médiévales,” Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 8 (1953): 25–52 (especially 27).
Reuven Amitai, “Turko-Mongolian Nomads and the Iqtā ‘System in the Islamic Middles East (ca. 1000–1400 AD),” in Nomads in the Sedentary World, ed. Anatoly Khazanov and André Wink (Richmond, Surrey, UK: Curzon, 2001), 154–56 [152–71].
See in particular the studies of Nina Garsoïan, “Notes préliminaires sur l’anthroponymie du moyen âge,” in L’anthroponymie: Document de l’histoire sociale des mondes méditerranéens médiévaux, ed. Monique Bourin, Jean-Marie Martin, and François Menant. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 226 (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1996), 227–39; and Joseph J. S. Weitenberg, “Cultural Interaction in the Middle East as Reflected in the Anthroponomy of Armenian 12th-14th Century Colophons,” in Van Ginkel, Murre-van den Berg, and van Lint, Redefining Christian Identity, 265–73.
Dickran Kouymjian, “A Numismatic History of Southeastern Caucasia and Adharbayjan Based on the Islamic Coinage of the 5th/llth to the 7th/13th Centuries” (Diss., Columbia University, 1969), 129.
David Lang, Studies in the Numismatic History of Georgia in Transcaucasia: Based on the Collection of the American Numismatic Society (New York: American Numismatic Society, 1955), 2, cited also in Kouymjian, “Numismatic History,” 107nl20). This interpretation, however, is subject to question.
see James Russell, “The Tale of the Bronze City in Armenian,” in Medieval Armenian Culture, ed. Thomas Samuelian and Michael Stone, University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies 6 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), 256 [250–61].
repr. in James Russell, Armenian and Iranian Studies, Harvard Armenian Texts and Studies 9 (Cambridge, MA: Armenian Heritage Press/Harvard University Press, 2004), 9–20; Cowe, “Politics of Poetics,” 383–84.
On Grigor’s literary and epistolary accomplishments, see Peter Cowe, “Models for the Interpretation of Medieval Armenian Poetry,” in New Approaches to Medieval Armenian Language and Literature, ed. Joseph J. S. Weitenberg (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1995), 34–35 [29–45]; Cowe, “Politics of Poetics,” 384–85.
Abraham Terian, “The Bible in Verse by Gregory Magistros,” in Armenia and the Bible, ed. Christoph Burchard. University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies 12 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1993), 213–19; and Thomson, “Muhammad and the Origin of Islam,” 841.
James Russell, “On Armeno-Persian Interaction in the Medieval Period,” Au Carrefour des religions: Mélanges offerts à Philippe Gignoux. Res Orientales 7 (1994): 235–38; repr. in Russell, Armenian and Iranian Studies, 593–96; Cowe, “Politics of Poetics,” 388n41.
James Russell, “The History of the Youth Farman (Patmut’iwn Farman Mankann): A Medieval Armenian Romance,” Acta Orientalia 50, nos. 1–3 (1997): 203–44; repr. in Russell, Armenian and Iranian Studies, 809–50.
and Sergio La Porta, The Armenian Scholia on Dionysius the Areopagite: Studies on Their Literary and Philological Tradition (Louvain, Belgium: Peeters, 2008), 14–15.
On Armenian-Seljuk artistic cross-fertilization, see Armen Ghazarian and Robert Ousterhout, “A Muqarnas Drawing from Thirteenth-Century Armenia and the Use of Architectural Drawings during the Middle Ages,” Muqarnas 18 (2001): 141–54; and, most recently, Oya Pancaroğlu, “The Mosque-Hospital Complex in Divriği: A History of Relations and Transitions,” Anadolu ve çevresinde Ortaçağ 3 (2009): 169–98. I would like to thank Prof. Christian Maranci of Tufts University for kindly informing me of these references.
See the list of similar phrases in Robert Thomson, Thomas Artsruni: History of the House of the Artsrunik ‘(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985), 47–49.
see also Thomson, “Christian Perception of History—The Armenian Perspective,” in Van Ginkel, Murre-van den Berg, and van Lint, Redefining Christian Identity, 39; and Nina Garsoïan, “Reality and Myth in Armenian History,” in The East and the Meaning of History, Studi Orientali dell’Università di Roma “la Sapienza” 13 (Rome: Bardi, 1994), 126–27; repr. in Garsoïan, Church and Culture in Early Medieval Armenia, Variorum (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999), xii.
see Robert Thomson, Ełishē: History of Vardan and the Armenian War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 11–16.
Sergio La Porta, “The Vision of St. Grigor Lusaworič‘and the Role of Apocalyptic in the Conversion of Armenia,” forthcoming in the proceedings of the conference “After the Apocalypse: The Nachleben of Apocalyptic Literature in the Armenian Tradition,” Hebrew University of Jerusalem, June 4–6, 2007; Timothy Greenwood, “Sasanian Echoes and Apocalyptic Expectations: A Re-evaluation of the Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos,” Le Muséon 115, no. 4 (2002): 323–97.
The brief vision of St. Nersēs predicting the end of the Arčakuni dynasty appears in the Epic Histories attributed to P‘awstos, IV.15, English translation: Nina Garsoïan, The Epic Histories Attributed to P’awstos Buzand (Buzandaran Patmut‘iwnk‘) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989). The expanded vision appears in Patmut‘iwn srboyn Nersisi Part‘ewi Hayoc‘hayrapeti [History of St. Nersēs Part‘ew, patriarch of the Armenians]. Sop‘erk‘haykakank‘ [Armenian books] vi (Venice: San Lazzaro Press, 1853), 92–104.
Robert Thomson, “Aristakes of Lastivert and Armenian Reactions to Invasion,” in Armenian Karin/Erzerum, ed. Richard Hovannisian (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2003), 79–82 [73–88].
Christopher MacEvitt, “The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa: Apocalypse, the First Crusade, and the Armenian Diaspora,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 61 (2007): 157–81; Thomson, “Aristakes of Lastivert,” 87; Andrews, “Prolegomena,” 82.
See also James Russell, “Revelations of Darkness: Medieval Armenian Apocalyptic in the Epic of Sasun and the Visions of Yovhannes Kozern,” Journal of Armenian Studies 6.1 (1998–1999): 3–15; repr. in Russell, Armenian and Iranian Studies, 875–88.
In this sense, the function of the eschatological perspective in conjunction with the “supernatural” characterization of Muslims as both instruments of divine wrath and demonic beings is comparable to that found in definitions of apocalyptic literature; see the contributions of Adela Yarbro Collins (“Introduction,” 1–12), David Hellholm (13–64), and David Aune (65–96) in Early Christian Apocalypticism: Genre and Social Setting, ed. Adela Yarbro Collins, Semeia 36 (Decatur, GA: Scholars Press, 1986).
Samuēl Anec‘i, Hawak‘munk‘i grot‘patmagrac‘ [Collection from the histories], éd. Arshak Tēr-Mikaēlean (Vałaršapat, Armenia: Holy Ēĵmiacin, 1893).
The Chronicle of Smbat Sparapet (late thirteenth century) was based heavily on Matt‘ēos’s and his continuator’s account for the years up until 1162, so it repeats the language used there. Such language does not carry over into Smbat’s account of the period from 1163 to 1272, Gérard Dédéyan, La chronique attribuée au Connétable Smbat (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1980).
Only the first part of Mxit‘ar Anec‘i’s Chronicle has survived, but Vardan relies upon Mxit‘ar for his account of the origin of the Seljuks; Mxit‘ar in turn relied at least partially upon Islamic sources for his information. See Dickran Kouymjian, “Mxit‘ar (Mekhitar) of Ani on the Rise of the Seljuqs,” Revue des Études Arméniennes, n.s., 6 (1969): 331–53.
Dickran Kouymjian, “Problems of Medieval Armenian and Muslim Historiography: The Mxit‘ar of Ani Fragment,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 4 (1973): 465–75.
For Vardan’s account, see the introduction and English translation of Robert Thomson, “The Historical Compilation of Vardan Arewelc‘i,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 43 (1989): 125–226. Vardan does depict Alp Arslan in such terms at his murder in par. 59, but this may be attributable to the sources he used, such as Matt‘ēos’s Chronicle.
Patmut‘iwn Hayoc‘, ed. Karapet Melik-ōhanĵanyan (Erevan, Armenia: Haykakan SSR Gitut‘yunneri Akademia, 1961); an English translation by Robert Bedrosian may be found online, http://rbedrosian.com/kg1.htm. Alp Arslan remains a vilified figure; see for example, pp. 92–93, of the Armenian text.
See, in particular, ch. 32; and John Boyle, “Kirakos of Ganjak on the Mongols,” Central Asiatic Journal 8 (1968): 199–214.
On the other hand, Grigor Aknerc‘i’s account of the Mongol invasions, History of the Nation of Archers, is more reserved; Robert P. Blake and Richard N. Frye, eds. and trans., “History of the Nation of Archers (the Mongols) by Grigor of Akanc‘,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12 (1949): 269–399.
Frik Diwan, ed. Archbishop Tirayre (New York: AGBU, 1952), 532.
On the poem, see Theo van Lint, “The Poem of Lamentation over the Capture of Jerusalem Written in 1189 by Grigor Tgha, Catholicos of All Armenians,” in The Armenians in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, ed. R. Ervine, M. Stone, and N. Stone. Hebrew University Armenian Studies 3 (Louvain, Belgium: Peeters, 2002), 121–43.
The Penitential of David of Ganjak, ed. and trans. Charles Dowsett. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 216, 217; scriptores armeniaci 3, 4 (Louvain, Belgium: Peeters, 1961), paragraphs 10, 16, 45, 56.
See Robert Thomson, The Lawcode [Datastanagirk‘]of Mxit‘ar Goš, Dutch Studies in Armenian Language and Literature 6 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), 14, 47–57, 72–73, 99–102.
Cowe, “Politics of Poetics,” 389; other Armenian articulations against (and evidence for) intermarriage are provided by James Russell, Yovhannēs T‘lkuranc‘i and the Mediaeval Armenian Lyric Tradition, University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies 7 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 105–6.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2011 Jerold C. Frakes
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
La Porta, S. (2011). Conflicted Coexistence: Christian-Muslim Interaction and its Representation in Medieval Armenia. In: Frakes, J.C. (eds) Contextualizing the Muslim Other in Medieval Christian Discourse. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230370517_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230370517_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-29374-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-37051-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)