Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

"Arab Christians"? Not In My View

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • "Arab Christians"? Not In My View

    "ARAB CHRISTIANS"? NOT IN MY VIEW
    by Frederick Aprim

    The Baltimore Chronicle, MD
    Sept 1 2005

    This is in response to the article by Raja G. Mattar, titled "Arab
    Christians are Arabs."

    There are a few interesting arguments in the article; however, most
    of the other arguments are disturbing, misleading, and completely
    inaccurate.

    For example, the writer stated that: "The fact that Syriac remains
    the language of their [Maronites] liturgy. is irrelevant."

    Fact is that there is neither the evidence that the liturgy of the
    Maronite Church was in Arabic before the 19th century nor that they
    in Mount Lebanon spoke Arabic before late 18th century and early 19th
    century. Assyrians continue to speak Assyrian (Syriac) until today.

    Only Arabization policy of the Iraqi past Ba'athist regime has forced
    some of them to speak Arabic.

    Next, the writer associated all the early Christian communities
    in today's Arab world, including Copts, Nestorians, Jacobites, and
    Maronites, with the Arabs and brought the book of El Hassan Bin Talal,
    Christianity in the Arab World, as a reference.

    The fact is that even the old Arab Islamic writers referred to Egypt
    for example as "the house of the Copts," as there were no Arabs
    in Egypt (Antonie Wessels. Arabs and Christians: Christians in the
    Middle East. The Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1995). I
    challenge the writer to present any reliable historical reference
    proving that Arabs existed in Egypt, Mount Lebanon, and northern
    Mesopotamia before the Islamic Arab conquest. While there existed,
    for example, Arabs who were Nestorian Christians, by the same token
    there were Persian, Hindu, Chinese, Mongol, and Assyrian Nestorians
    as well. Nestorianism was a faith and many nations professed it,
    although today only Assyrians remain linked to the Nestorians.

    The Nestorians of Mesopotamia, who carried the gospel to the entire
    Asian continent, were not Arabs. Not a single shred of evidence exists
    to such fallacy. Arabs never inhabited the mountainous regions of
    northern Mesopotamia, the home of the Nestorian Assyrians. Arabs are
    well known throughout history to live in plain and desert lands.

    The writer stated: "The language prevalent in the Arab world today
    is called Arabic, but it is no more than the dialect of one major
    Arab tribe, Qureish, which became the language of the Qur'an. That
    language spread like wildfire in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and
    northern Egypt because the people in these areas were effectively
    already speaking dialects of the same language."

    This statement is misleading. While Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac,
    for example, are Semitic languages and are close, there are still
    distinct differences between them. Arabic only spread through northern
    Mesopotamia and Egypt after the Moslem conquest. Arabic was not used
    in these regions. Many people who speak any one of these languages is
    not necessarily able to communicate with the other two groups. The
    grammar of these languages is different. For example, Syriac is
    more sophisticated and richer than Arabic. As I wrote in my book,
    Assyrians: The Continuous Saga, Philadelphia: Xlibris 2005, page 39:
    "Arabic literature prides in maqamat al-Harriri and the one liner
    poem that if read from left to right and vice versa it gives the
    same meaning. Mar 'Abd Isho', Metropolitan of Nisibin (1291-1316)
    composed a poem in Syriac from 29 lines. In his poem every single line
    could be read from right to left and vice versa without altering the
    meaning. Furthermore, in every line, the same exact letters repeated
    themselves going from right to left or the other way around.

    Additionally, the poem is composed in a way where the first letter
    of the subsequent lines are arranged in alphabetical order."

    ...fact is that the non-Arabs, non-Moslem Syriac-speaking Nestorian.

    and Jacobites have great influence in advancing this civilization and
    knowledge because it was these Christians who translated much of the
    Greek knowledge from Greek language to Arabic through Syriac. What is
    more interesting that the much of the Greek knowledge came originally
    from the ancient Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians before Arabs
    of the Jazeera had any interest in such knowledge.

    ...It is well established that many indigenous Christian communities.

    in the Middle East remained unassimilated after the Arab Islamic
    conquest. They carried the blood of their ancient forefathers,
    and continue to be different to this very day. Sweet writes that
    the Armenian and Assyrian communities remained unassimilated in the
    Moslem world. (Louise Sweet, Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East:
    Cultural Depth and Diversity. New York: New York Natural History
    Press, 1970). The Moslems created what is called the Moslem Umma. It
    segregated the Moslems and non-Moslems through the taxes and the
    laws applied on both communities. Until very recently, we could see
    this to some degree in Christian neighborhoods that remain segregated
    from Moslem neighborhoods in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul, Aleppo, Khabor
    region, etc.

    The writer then stated: "Apart from the obvious racial minorities
    (Christians and animists in Southern Sudan, Kurds in Syria and Iraq,
    Berbers in North Africa, and a few others), the rest of the population
    is culturally Arab. Culture is the language they speak, the poetry
    they recite, the songs they sing, the foods they eat, the music they
    dance to, and the history they share."

    By stating this, the writer contradicted his entire thesis. Assyrian
    culture, including language, food, music, dance, and history,
    is different from that of the Arabs. I do not have to prove this;
    it is a well-known fact.

    Next he stated: "The millions of Christians are a dynamic part of the
    Arab landscape and should remain so. They should cooperate with the
    Muslims to develop a secular society where all citizens are equal,
    regardless of religious affiliation or ethnic (imagined or real)
    background."

    I agree with this statement; however, I hope that the writer will
    deliver this message to the majority of the Moslem world in Asia and
    Africa. Allow me to ask, how did the Arab Moslems become a majority
    in northern Mesopotamia and the entire northern Africa when no
    Arab existed in these lands before the Islamic conquest of the 7th
    century? We all know that not a single Arab existed in northern Africa
    before the Islamic conquest. Some of them existed of course in Jazeera,
    but they were a minority before Islam.

    Finally, I wonder for whom the writer speaks. Is he speaking on his
    behalf or is he representing officially a certain community? It
    is his privilege to look at himself as an Arab Christian, but he
    has no right whatsoever to put that in plural and proclaim "we
    Arab Christians." If the policy of the Arab Moslem governments and
    religious leaders in the past has been to protect the non-Moslem,
    non-Arab, Syriac-speaking Christians of the Middle East, they would
    not have looked for a savior from the West.....

    Fred Aprim is a widely published author of articles on this and
    related subjects.

    http://baltimorechronicle.com/2005/083105Aprim.shtml
Working...
X