Baltimore Chronicle

8, 31, 05

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 I challenge the writer to present any reliable historical reference proving that Arabs existed in Egypt, Mount Lebanon, and northern Mesopotamia before the Islamic Arab conquest.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.

For an overview of the history of Assyria, see "Assyrians after Assyria," an academic treatise by Dr. Simo Parpola, University of Helsinki.