IFAO

This article is inscribed in the field of graffitology and it presents the study of a corpus which still largely unknown. Collected by the Japanese mission in Sinai (Dir. M. Kawatoko) between 2001 and 2005, the Christian Arab graffiti present in large numbers in the south of the peninsula, had never delivered their contents. The study of these sources, from the point of view of forms, onomastics and paleography, as well as historical and epigraphic contextualization, shed a light on the history of Eastern Christianity in the region. The exploitation of the data makes it possible to outline the profile of these Christian pilgrims converging on Mount Sinai and informs about the frequentation of the roads at the Abbasid and Fatimid times.

Cet article présente un dossier inédit de documents concernant les chrétiens de Damas à la fin du ixe siècle. Conservés au moyen de leur copie dans deux manuscrits tous deux datables approximativement du xe-xie siècle, ces neuf documents rédigés en arabe ont été produits à l’occasion d’un conflit au sein de l’Église melkite de Syrie en 277/890‑891. Il ressort de l’analyse que David, évêque métropolitain de Damas, a lui-même réuni ces documents à charge contre son adversaire Siméon, patriarche d’Antioche. La plainte de David de Damas aux deux autres patriarches, Élie de Jérusalem et Michel ­d’Alexandrie, contre Siméon d’Antioche, est éditée et traduite en français en annexe de l’article.

This paper presents an unpublished dossier of documents related to the Christians of Damascus in the late 9th century. Preserved through their copy in two manuscripts ­datable to the 10th or 11th century, these nine documents written in Arabic were issued on the ­occasion of a conflict that happened among the Melkite Church in Syria in 277/890‑891. The ­documents prove to have been gathered by David the metropolitan bishop of Damascus, against his adversary Simeon the patriarch of Antioch. The complaint of David of Damascus against Simeon of Antioch, addressed to the two other patriarchs, Elias of Jerusalem and Michael of Alexandria, is edited and translated into French as an appendix to this article.

When Western Syriac literature designates the Christian Arabs (ṭayyōyē krisṭyōnē), it is ­often through a ternary expression, the « Tanūkōyē, ʿAqūlōyē and Ṭūʿōyē », in variable order. These people (ʿammē) played a very significant role during the second civil war (60‑72/680-692) within the Syriac Orthodox Church, as it is starting to consider the Muslim alterity. At this ­specific time, a homonym bishopric is attested, especially under Georges’ authority (d. 105/724), one of the main intellectuals of this time. These populations seem to have lived in « the Occident » (then forming the ǧund of Qinnasrīn) and in the post-Roman Upper Mesopotamia (the Ǧazīra) during the Umayyad period. The Tanūḫ (Tanūkōyē) are defined as an Iraqi community partially settled in northern Syria, but the period of this migration, traditionally dated to the proto-Byzantine era, is still indeterminate. The two other words are less clear: the ʿAqūlōyē are related to the people of al‑Kūfa (the expression is almost certainly post‑Hiǧra) while the Ṭūʿōyē would correspond to ancient groups from the same area. Our hypothesis is that the moving of these Iraqi ʿammē, designated by this ternary standardized ethnonym (they are not tribes in the sense of arabic nasab) to the Syrian space results from a transfer policy under Muʿāwiya (d. 60/680). It is most likely in this context that they might have been affiliated to the episcopal miaphysit nomenclature, at a time where it was possible to participate in the Believers’ movement while including one’s self in the Antiochene Church.