600: Pope Gregory the Great Intervenes in Favour of the Exiled Ǧafnid Prince al-Munḏir b. al-Ḥāriṯ: Difference between revisions

[§3] The context of this letter can only be deduced from Greek and Syriac sources. The Ǧafnid prince al-Munḏir had been exiled to Sicily in 582 by Emperor Maurikios (r. 582-602).<ref name="ftn4">Shahîd, ''Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century'', vol. I,1, pp . 538-539.</ref> Al-Munḏir, whose grandfather and father had already been in the service of the Byzantine Empire as phylarchs, had built up a powerful position for himself under Emperor Tiberios in the border zone between the Byzantine Empire on the one hand, and Sassanid Persia as well as the Persia-associated Naṣrīds of al-Ḥīra on the other.<ref name="ftn5">Shahîd, ''Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century'', vol. I,1, pp. 339-438.</ref> Unlike his predecessor Justin II, who had taken action against al-Munḏir in 572, Emperor Tiberios supported the Ǧafnīd, e.g. in the context of the latter’s honourable reception in Constantinople in 575 or 580 described by John of Biclaro.<ref name="ftn6">Shahîd, ''Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century'', vol. I,1, p. 440. See [https://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/transmed-en/index.php/575:_A_Hispano-Roman_Visitor_from_the_Visigoth_Kingdom_Observes_Arab-Byzantine_Relations 575: A Hispano-Roman Visitor from the Visigoth Kingdom Observes Arab-Byzantine Relations].</ref> The occasion for al-Munḏir’s banishment seems to have been his campaign against the Persians conducted in 580-81 together with the ''comes excubitorum'' and later emperor Maurikios.<ref name="ftn7">Greg Fisher, ''Between Empires'', pp. 123, 176-183.</ref> During this campaign, the Byzantine and Ǧafnid troops came across a destroyed bridge over the Euphrates, which was supposed to lead them into Persian territory to Ctesiphon. Maurikios blamed the destruction of the bridge on al-Munḏir and thus voiced the accusation that the latter had cooperated with the Persians and consequently committed high treason.<ref name="ftn8">Shahîd, ''Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century'', vol. I,1, pp. 441-447.</ref> An additional factor that seems to have contributed to the estrangement of the two individuals was that al-Munḏir undertook a successful campaign against the Naṣrīds associated with the Persians in 581, which had not been agreed upon with the imperial centre.<ref name="ftn9">Shahîd, ''Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century'', vol. I,1, pp. 420-25.</ref> The conflict of al-Munḏir with Maurikios must also be seen against the backdrop of fundamental religious-confessional tensions of the Ǧafnids with the Byzantine imperial centre and its civil and ecclesiastical administration. The Ǧafnids and Ġassānids represented by al-Munḏir followed and supported a form of mono- or miaphysite Christianity classified as heretical by Constantinople at the latest from 542 onwards.<ref name="ftn10">Irfan Shahîd, Ghassān, p. 1020; Hainthaler, ''Christliche Araber'', pp. 75-80; Fisher, ''Between Empires'', pp. 56-57; Fisher, From Mavia to al-Mundhir, pp. 28-30.</ref> This variant of Christianity had been condemned at the Council of Chalcedon (451) and had alienated numerous Christians in the Egyptian and Syrian regions from the Byzantine imperial church.<ref name="ftn11">See ''The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon'', trans. Price, pp. 51-55.</ref> Maurikios’s accusations, situated in the political-military sphere, were possibly supported by other actors. Among these we find the Patriarch Gregorios of Antioch, who endorsed the Chalcedonian creed and took exception both to the Ǧafnids’ miaphysite Christian denomination as to their involvement in spreading this form of Christianity among more southern Arab groups, including in Naǧrān.<ref name="ftn12">Irfan Shahîd, Ghassān, p. 1020; Shahîd, ''Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century'', vol. I,1, pp. 21, 445-448.</ref> The confessional opposition may have played a role for Maurikios as well, since he himself tried to impose the Chalcedonian creed on the Armenians after his accession to power.<ref name="ftn13">''Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos'', trans. R. W. Thomson, cap. 19, p. 37.</ref> However, in view of the complexity of the relations between imperially supported representatives of the Chalcedonenian creed and miaphysite groups, the confessional opposition should not be overemphasized.<ref name="ftn14">Fisher, ''Between Empires'', p. 60: “Both Chalcedonian and miaphysite positions were characterised by numerous rifts and schisms of varying severity in the sixth century; any picture of two well-defined and opposing religious movements would be misleading.”</ref> While it seems wrong to negate the relevance of religious issues, the opposition between Maurikios and al-Munḏir is likely to have been of a political rather than a religious nature. Shortly before the death of Tiberius, al-Munḏir was taken prisoner in Constantinople and sent from there into exile in Sicily immediately after Maurikios came to power in 582. He seems to have been accompanied by his wife, a daughter and a son, as well as several other people.<ref name="ftn15">Shahîd, ''Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century'', vol. I,1, pp. 103-104.</ref> Pope Gregory’s letter was probably written in the later period of the latter’s exile. In his function as ''apocrisiarius'' sent by Pope Pelagius II to Constantinople, Gregory may have been a witness to al-Munḏir’s “coronation” reported by John of Biclaro for the year 575 or 580,<ref name="ftn16">See [https://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/transmed-en/index.php/575:_A_Hispano-Roman_Visitor_from_the_Visigoth_Kingdom_Observes_Arab-Byzantine_Relations 575: A Hispano-Roman Visitor from the Visigoth Kingdom Observes Arab-Byzantine Relations].</ref> but also to the accusations, imprisonment and exile of al-Munḏir that followed later on.<ref name="ftn17">On Gregory’s activities as ''apocrisiarius'', see Dal Santo, Gregory, pp. 63-65.</ref> It is clear in any case that he took up the cause of the exiled prince after his return to Italy and his election as pope.<ref name="ftn18">Shahîd, ''Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century'', vol. I,1, pp. 602-605, 618.</ref>

[§4] Irfan Shahîd explains the pope’s commitment with the latter’s critical attitude towards the Emperor Maurikios, which was related, among other things, to the emperor’s lack of support against the Lombards.<ref name="ftn19">See, for example, Gregory's letter to Emperor Maurikios of June 595: Gregorius I papa, ''Registrum epistolarum'', vol. 1 (libri I-VII), ed. Ewald and Hartmann, ep. V,36, pp. 318-320; Dal Santo, Gregory, pp. 73-75.</ref> Shahîd justifies the fact that the Pope took a stand for a Monophysite Arab ruler with Gregory’s desire to win over al-Munḏir for the Chalcedonenian creed and the dogmatic compromise position advocated by Rome.<ref name="ftn20">Shahîd, ''Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century'', vol. I,1, p. 604.</ref> In the cited letter, al-Munḏir appears as a person known to the pope, who had already previously corresponded about the latter’s case with the prefect from North Africa. The letter shows that Gregory had empathy for the fate of the afflicted (''afflictis'') and also supported them, but that his efforts with the imperial leadership had so far been unsuccessful. A turning point was reached with the deposition of Maurikios and the usurpation of Phocas (r. 602-610). Phocas had the already ageing Ǧafnid prince return immediately from exile in 602, possibly in order to find allies in the Ǧafnids after his usurpation, which he could also use in the subsequent conflict with Sassanid Persia.<ref name="ftn21">Shahîd, ''Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century'', vol. I,1, pp. 619, 622.</ref>  

[§5] Gregory's letter is relevant for the history of Latin- Arabic entanglement and trans-Mediterranean relations: thanks to its intensive connections to Constantinople, the Roman Church of the late sixth and early seventh centuries was well aware of the Arab world, observed its Christianization and was also informed about the political relations between the Eastern Roman imperial government and the Arab periphery. In this context, it should be noted that Gregory maintained relations with, among others, Bishop Marianus of Arabia, to whom he sent relics in 601.<ref name="ftn22">Gregorius Magnus, ''Registrum'', ed. Norberg (CCL 140a), lib. XI, cap. 20 (Febr. 601), p. 889; ed. Hartmann, p. 281. Also see Rotter, ''Abendland und Sarazenen'', p. 246; König, ''Arabic-Islamic Views, ''p. 231.</ref>|6=Gregorius Magnus, ''Registrum Epistularum'', ed. Ludwig Hartmann (MGH Epp. in Quart 2: Gregorii papae registrum epistolarum, tomus II, libri VIII-XIV), Berlin: Weidmann, 1899, lib. X, cap. 16 (a. 600), pp. 250-252.