From Kcusti Kapkoh to Al-Garbi: Sasanian Antecedents, the Sectarian Milieu, and the Creation of an Islamic Frontier in Arminiya.

Abstract

Although Arab incursions into Armenia began in the 640s, it wasn’t until after the Marwanid reforms that Arabs established direct rule over the region and created the province Arminiya. This dissertation considers Arminiya and the caliphal North (comprising Armenia, Caucasian Albania, Eastern Georgia, Azerbaijan, and parts of Northern Mesopotamia) from c. 700 to 862. During this brief period, an Arab governor presided over Dabil, struck coins in Arminiya, collected taxes, and imposed Islamic law. Importantly, Islamic sources project Arminiya as a province of the Islamic world rather than as a tributary state. This ends with the dissolution of ‘Abbasid power after the death of al-Mutawakkil and, in Armenia, the rise of the Bagratids at the end of the ninth century. In particular, this dissertation forwards three main arguments about the Arab period in Arminiya. First, Armīniya was important primarily as a frontier between the Caliphate, Byzantium, and Khazaria. The frontier was only partially defined by the military realities of the borderland and was instead primarily conceptual, built by the literary production of difference. Second, the Arab conceptualization of Arminiya was largely dependent upon the legacy of Sasanian control. Arabs considered the Caliphate to be the heir of the Persian Empire, so they were particularly interested in the region’s Sasanian past. This determined not only how Arabs and Persians described Arminiya, but also how they ruled the land and its Christian population. Third, information about the Sasanian era was not transmitted via Arab-Armenian dialog, but rather among the Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Near East. Specifically, the role of Syriac-speaking Christians in the development of Islamic traditions about Arminiya cannot be overstated. This dissertation discusses the importance of the province from the perspective of Arabic sources and Islamic historiography; although it employs Armenian, Greek, and Syriac sources, it is primarily concerned with the perspective from the center (Damascus and Baghdad).