The Life of Sallara and his Mother Elishbah

East Syrian Christianity in Northern Mesopotamia from Late Antiquity to Early Islam

By Robert Hoyland, Simon Brelaud, Charlotte Labedan-Kodaş, Andrew Palmer & Alexandre Varela

The first ever edition and translation of a biography of Sallara and his mother Elishbah, exploring both its local context – their asceticism and deeds in North Mesopotamia in the early 7th century – and the geopolitical events underway in the Middle East: war between Persia and Byzantium, and the rise of Islam in the region.

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Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC

Availability: In stock

SKU (ISBN): 978-1-4632-4802-4

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- Paperback ISBN 978-1-4632-4802-4

Series: Texts from Christian Late Antiquity81

Publication Date: Dec 5,2024

Interior Color: Black with Color Inserts

Trim Size: 7 x 10

Page Count: 250

Languages: English

ISBN: 978-1-4632-4802-4

Price: $114.95

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Sallara and his mother Elishbah lived through turbulent times: the “last great war of antiquity” fought between Byzantium and Iran, as well as the astonishingly successful Muslim Arab invasions, which led to the collapse of the empire of Iran and the rise of the new Islamic empire. Yet this holy couple, bound by their love for each other and for God, continued unperturbed by these events in quiet devotion to their faith and their local community, performing healings, exorcisms and other wondrous deeds. The account of their lives, published here for the first time, focuses on their small patch of northern Mesopotamia, now in southeast Turkey, and in particular on the two monasteries of Mar Awgen and Mar Yohannan, of which Sallara was the abbot and which still stand today, and on the villages round about, for whose inhabitants the monasteries served both as employers and as providers of all manner of social and divine services. This book, as well as presenting an edition and translation of the Syriac text, will explore this local world and how it fared in the fast-changing Middle Eastern region to which it belonged.

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	Contributor	Biography
	RobertHoyland	Robert Hoyland specializes in the history and material culture of the Middle East. He is currently Professor of Late Antique and Early Islamic Middle Eastern History at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, having previously been Professor of Islamic history at the University of Oxford and the University of St. Andrews. His best known publications are Seeing Islam as Others Saw it (1997, 2018), Arabia and the Arabs (2001) and In God’s Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire (2014).
	SimonBrelaud
	AlexandreVarela
	AndrewPalmer	Andrew Palmer teaches Classics at a Dutch Grammar School. He holds a D.Phil from the University of Oxford. He has more than ninety publications, mainly on Syriac in the context of Byzantine Studies, and is presently preparing an edition of the Life of Barsawmo for a Muenster-based project on religious violence in Late Antiquity.
	CharlotteLabedan-Kodaş	Charlotte Labedan-Kodas read Classics at Nanterre University, followed by research on Hellenistic and Roman Mesopotamia at Montpellier University and in the field. She is now an associate researcher at the IFEA in İstanbul.

Table of Contents (v)

Acknowledgments (vii)

List of Illustrations (ix)

Chapter 1. The historical context of the Life of Sallara and his mother Elishbah (1)

Introduction (1)

Witnesses to the Life and to Sallara (2)

Outline and date of the Life (6)

Value of the Life (9)

Historical Context of the Life (10)

Religious context of the Life (13)

Chapter 2. The expansion of East Syrian monasticism during Sallara’s lifetime (17)

Introduction (17)

Sources (18)

The main features of East Syrian or “Persian” monasticism (20)

The Eugene cycle: a traditional story on early Persian monasticism (20)

The monastic experiments in the Sasanian empire (4th–6th centuries) (22)

Kashkarian monasticism and the believers of Mount Izla, and beyond (26)

The geography of Syriac monasticism in the century of Sallara (28)

The East Syrian heartland in North Mesopotamia (29)

Monastic establishments in southern Iraq and Asia (34)

The East Syrian monasticism west of Mount Izla (37)

Conclusion (41)

Chapter 3. The physical and environmental context of Sallara’s world (43)

Introduction (43)

Life in the borderlands (43)

Landscape and Subsistence (45)

The Sasanian settlement pattern in North Mesopotamia (47)

Troubled times and environmental stresses (53)

Survey of the valley of Mashak and Mount Izla (58)

Where was the border between the Roman and Persian Empires? (65)

Conclusion (69)

Chapter 4. The Monastery of Mar Yoḥannan Ṭayyaya: a case study for the understanding of Syriac Monasticism in Mount Izla (73)

Introduction (73)

The monasteries of Mar Sallara (75)

Mar Yoḥannan Ṭayyaya (75)

The monastery and its church (79)

The painting remains of Mar Yoḥannan Ṭayyaya (83)

Conclusion (87)

Monasticism in Mount Izla, textual and material elements (87)

Chapter 5. Edition and Translation of the Life of Sallara and his mother Elishbah (101)

Introduction (101)

Conventions (103)

Edition and Translation (104)

Bibliography (217)

Abbreviations (217)

Primary Literature (217)

Secondary Literature (220)

Index (235)

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The Life of Sallara and his Mother Elishbah

East Syrian Christianity in Northern Mesopotamia from Late Antiquity to Early Islam