Christianity [The Arabian Gulf]

Historical sources and archaeological finds show a history of Christianity in the Gulf between the 4th and the 9th centuries CE, with a particular florescence in the coastal and island regions in the 7th–8th centuries CE.

Early Christian communities

Christian communities were founded in the Gulf in the second half of the 4th century according to the Chronicle of Seert (9th or 10th cent.), which refers to the foundation of a monastery by a certain ʿAbdisho, who also baptised local inhabitants (Scher 1910: 311-2). These events occurred on "an island of Yamāma and Baḥrayn", known as Ramath in the chronicler's day, 18 parsangs (ca. 100 km) from al-Ubulla. This may identify it as the site of al-Quṣūr, on the island of Faylakā, Kuwait, just over 100 km from Basra (Kozah et al. 2021: 6).

The earliest contemporary Syriac source occurs later, in the records of the Synod of Mar Isaac, 410 CE. This refers to "the bishops of the distant dioceses of Persia, of the islands…"; bishop Baṭai of Māshmāhīg was excommunicated, and a bishopric was created for the islands of Todourou and of Ardai (Chabot 1902: 273). The same synod marks the origins of the Church of the East (Nestorian Church), which dominated the Gulf in succeeding centuries. Māshmāhīg refers to Samahij on the island of Muharraq in the Bahrain archipelago (Beaucamp & Robin 1983), while Ardai is probably either Arad (also on the island of Muharraq) or a variant of Daray, equating to Darin on the nearby island of Tarūt (Saudi Arabia), which itself may equate to Todourou.

A Christian core can therefore be identified in the early 5th century in the Bahrain archipelago and nearby islands (Fig. 1). Sites in three areas of Muharraq (Muharraq Town, Samahij and Arad) have yielded 6th to 8th cent. remains (Insoll et al. 2021: 406-7), while there is at least one other well-preserved but undated Christian site in Bahrain, of undisclosed location (Insoll et al. 2021: 409, and fig. 21). These island communities did not form a separate archdiocese but were subject to the Metropolitan of Rev-Ardashir, equating to Rishahr on the Bushehr Peninsula in Iran (Fiey 1969: 182).

6th-8th cent. Christian communities

By the second half of the 6th cent. the inland oasis of al-Ḥasāʾ in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia had sufficient Christian population to merit its own bishopric, demonstrated by the appearance of Hagar (al-Ḥasāʾ/al-Hufūf) in the synod of Ezechiel in 576 CE. Also mentioned was Pit-Ardashir, equivalent to Haṭṭa in other Syriac sources (al-Khaṭṭ in Arabic). Haṭṭa (Pit-Ardashir) refers either to al-ʿUqayr, which was the port of al-Ḥasāʾ in more recent centuries, or al-Qaṭīf (Robin and Arbach 2016: 115; Kozah et al. 2021: 133-5). So far the only clearly identified church in the Eastern Province is found at Jubayl, some 60 km to the northwest of al-Qaṭīf (see below).

Together, the islands of Bahrain and adjacent parts of Arabia were known as Bet Qaṭraye (Region of the Qataris), a term first used in the mid 7th cent. in the letters of Ishoyahb III. It included the dioceses of Māshmāhīg, Dayrin, Talon (i.e. Talūn, Tilwān), Haṭṭa and Hagar. Most likely the designation was derived from a cadre of Syriac writers described as Qatari, presumed to have been active in or originating from Qatar itself. There are no former or subsequent references to the toponym Qatar being used for any place other than the Qatar peninsula. It is therefore to be expected that monastic establishments existed in Qatar, but these are yet to be discovered.

In the 7th cent., Ishoyahb III first had to contend with an attempted break-away by Rev-Ardashir, and then Bet Qaṭraye. In his famous Letters to the Qataris of ca. 650 CE (Kozah 2015), he excoriates the Bishop of Māshmāhīg, who had broken away from the Church and begun to persecute those who remained loyal to the Catholicos. Thereafter, an attempted reconciliation and consequent regulations are recorded in the synod of Gwargis I in 676 CE, but no subsequent detailed historical sources are known for Bet Qaṭraye or the wider Gulf.

Archaeological evidence for monasteries and churches

Extensive excavations of monasteries have taken place on the islands of Faylakā (Kuwait), Kharg (Iran), andṢīr Banī Yās (Abu Dhabi). Another monastery with a church has recently been uncovered on Sīnīya Island (Umm Al-Quwain) (Power et al. 2023). None of these are within the boundaries of Bet Qaṭraye as conventionally understood. In addition, a church has been identified at Jubayl (Saudi Arabia), with crosses engraved on gravestones or building stones recorded at Thāj and al-Ḥinna in Saudi Arabia, and portable crosses or crosses on pottery and stucco found at Jabal Barrī (Saudi Arabia), Shaghab (Bushehr, Iran), ʿAkkāz (Kuwait), Umm al-Maradim (Qatar), Samahij and an unnamed site in Bahrain (Langfeldt 1994; Potts 1994; Gachet 1998; Carter 2013: 324; Al Thani 2014; Insoll et al. 2021).

The monasteries vary considerably in size, but display a certain uniformity of architecture and architectural decoration. The largest is found at al-Quṣūr, on Faylakā Island (Fig. 2). The entire extent of the site measures more than 1.5 km x 2.5 km, with a dense central core of ca. 300 m x 200 m. As well as a church, survey indicates around 142 walled enclosures, of which 121 clearly contain a house (Bonnéric 2021: 51); about 60 of the courtyard buildings are outside the central complex. There is no visible enclosure wall, but the presence of a refectory indicates a monastic foundation. The refectory is a rectangular building with a bench running around its inner side, surrounded by a corridor or colonnade ("a lower portico-like structure"). It could have seated up to 90 monks, and walling shows it had been very high, at least 5.60 m. Also found was a likely tri-partite monk's cell, identified by analogy with long lines of near-identical monk's cells running alongside the enclosure walls at Kharg.

The courtyard buildings at al-Quṣūr, identified as the homes of semi-eremitical senior monks (Bonnéric 2021: 59), generally consist of a building of 2-4 rooms (occasionally more) in the centre of, or on the inner edge of, a rectangular or arch-shaped courtyard wall, often with a separate kitchen or other small rooms in one corner; one large building (house 26) may have had a wind-tower above a water tank (Ruttkay et al. 2019: 99-102, figs. 16, 17, 18).

A clear monastic plan is evident at Kharg, which contained a walled compound measuring ca. 100 m x 100 m. In the compound were found a large church, a refectory (similar to that of al-Quṣūr), buildings identified as a scriptorium and infirmary, a garden, and around 20 tripartite monks' cells lining the northern and western walls (Fig. 3). Outside the monastery walls there was an unknown number of "other external installations", photographs of which indicate courtyard buildings similar those at al-Quṣūr and Ṣīr Banī Yās (e.g. Steve 2003, pl. 69).

The monastery at Ṣīr Banī Yās also includes a small walled compound containing a church, with number of rooms clustered on the east and northern side of the compound wall, two of which have been identified as monks' cells (Beech nd). Up to 10 external buildings are found in the vicinity, broadly similar in architecture to those of al-Quṣūr (King 1998; Beech nd: 3). Again, it is likely that these are equivalent to the separate houses of al-Quṣūr.

The architecture of all three indicates a central communal area, walled in the case of Kharg and Ṣīr Banī Yās, with external quarters for senior monks. This matches the monastic configuration revealed by historical sources, for example the History of Mar Yawnan, a 7th or 8th century hagiographic text which reports the presence of a large cell with a courtyard, outside the central coenobium on the Black Isle (situated "below" Bet Qaṭraye), to which Yawnan retreats on his arrival (Payne 2011: 103; Brock 2015: 18).

With the exception of Sīnīya the churches vary in size but show a standard plan and orientation, with aisles on each side of the nave, a narthex at the western end, and a chancel and side-chapels at the eastern end. There is no semi-circular apse. The Kharg and al-Quṣūr churches are similar in size (ca. 30 x 14 m and ca. 34 x 19 m externally for the main structure, excluding attached rooms), while the one at Ṣīr Banī Yās is around half the size, ca. 16-18 m long and 11 m wide; ladder footings suggest there was a tower at its southeastern corner. Orientation is consistent, tilted around 6-8° off east-west (83-85° from north), perhaps towards the direction of sunrise at Easter, with the chancel at the east end. The church at Sīnīya is simple with no aisles or narthex, and moreover is oriented with the chancel at ca. 140° from north. The church at Jubayl was exceptionally well preserved according to photographs taken soon after excavation (Langfeldt 1994), but its precise plan and size is unknown, as is the nature of its surroundings, and the associated material culture and dating.

Several of the churches, including Jubayl, Kharg and Ṣīr Banī Yās, display a distinctive and remarkably uniform repertoire of moulded stucco, consisting of rows of roundels with grape clusters, crosses, leaves, rosettes and geometrical motifs (Fig. 4). Additionally, square and rectangular stucco plaques bearing crosses are common at Kharg, and also found at al-Quṣūr and Ṣīr Banī Yās (Lic 2017), while at Jubayl the chancel contained two sets of plastered half-columns with rounded capitals beneath soffits bearing moulded friezes of roundels, facing each other, and a plastered raised area or bema. No decorated stucco has yet been reported from Sīnīya.

The monastic sites indicate an expansion of coenobitic establishments, in conjunction with semi-eremitical monastic life. This process peaked in the late 7th and/or 8th centuries according to radiocarbon dating, as well as the ceramics, glass and stucco at the sites (Carter 2013; Lic 2017; Simpson 2018; Ruttkay et al. 2019). This is in accordance with developments in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East during the Umayyad period (Payne 2011: 99). However, the monastery at Sīnīya appears to be somewhat earlier, founded between the mid 6th and mid 7th c. CE; its aberrant church architecture may reflect this earlier date, or perhaps an entirely different Christian tradition.

Life in the Christian communities

The historical sources give certain insights into the lives of the Christians of the Gulf. We learn that those in Daray ("in the area region of Talwan") were pearl fishers, sometimes compelled by non-Christian employers to work on Sundays; that Christians were not to attend the festivals of Jews, heretics and pagans; and that clerics were not to frequent taverns at all (Chabot 1902: Synod of Iso'yahb I, 585 CE). They were also warned to marry only with parental and priestly permission, and enjoined not to take two wives, or marry or cohabit with non-Christians, or drink in Jewish taverns (since Christian taverns existed), and not to wrap the dead in expensive burial shrouds in the manner of non-Christians (Synod of Gwargis I, 676 CE). The latter injunction was immediately revoked after complaints, presumably by wealthy Christian merchants who profited from the cloth trade and donated to the Church.

The History of Mar Yawnan reveals that merchants were major donors to monasteries, with a certain Nu'aym donating a whole boat load of goods recently arrived from China (Brock 2015: 22); another rich man is described as "one of those who bring up pearls from the ocean", while the Chronicle of Seert indicates the role of the future Catholicos Ezechiel in the organising the pearl fishery in the mid 7th century (Scher 1911: 178).

The monasteries themselves likely hosted productive activities. As well as the garden at Kharg (and perhaps date plantations in fertile districts beyond the bounds of the monasteries), date syrup production installations were found at al-Quṣūr, as well as large pierced basins inscribed with fish motifs, interpreted as evidence for fish sauce production (Perregon & Bonnéric 2021). Close to al-Quṣūr, the coastal village or port site of al-Quraynīya revealed a workshop with large ovens or kilns of uncertain function, and ploughed furrows, indicating that agriculture was possible close to the monastery (di Miceli 2021).

The end of Christianity in the Gulf

There are a few brief external allusions to Christians in Bet Qaṭraye in the 9th century (Carter 2013: 314), and a small amount of likely 9th cent. pottery at Kharg and possibly al-Quṣūr (Perregon & Bonnéric 2021), so it appears that conversion to Islam became widespread in the region during the 9th and later 8th century.

Robert Carter

References and suggested reading

• Al Thani, H. 2014. An archaeological survey of Beth Qatraye, in M. Kozah, A. Abu-Husayn, S. Al-Murikhi & H. Al Thani (eds) The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the Seventh Century: 23–35. Piscataway: Gorgias Press.
• Beaucamp, J., C.J. Robin 1983. L'évêché nestorien de Māšmāhīg dans l'archipel d'al-Bahrayn, in D.T. Potts (ed.) Dilmun: New Studies in the Archaeology and Early History of Bahrain: 171–196. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.
• Beech, M. nd. The Church and Monastery of Sir Bani Yas. Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Culture & Tourism.
• Bonnéric, J. 2021. Archaeological evidence of an early Islamic monastery in the centre of al-Quṣūr (Failaka Island, Kuwait). AAE 32: 50–61. DOI: 10.1111/aae.12182.
• Brock, S.P. 2015. The History of Mar Yawnan, in M. Kozah, A. Abu-Husayn, S. al-Murikhi & H. Al Thani (eds) An Anthology of Syriac Writers from Qatar in the Seventh Century: 1–42. Piscataway: Gorgias Press.
• Carter, R.A. 2013. Christianity in the Gulf after the coming of Islam: redating the churches and monasteries of Bet Qatraye, in C.J. Robin & J. Schiettecatte (eds) Les préludes de l'Islam. Ruptures et continuités des civilisations du Proche-Orient, de l'Afrique orientale, de l'Arabie et de l'Inde à la veille de l'Islam: 311–330 (O&M, 11). Paris: De Boccard.
• Chabot, J.B. 1902. Synodicon orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens. Paris: Imprimerie nationale.
• Di Miceli, A. 2021. The site of Al-Qurainiyah: Topography and phases of an early Islamic coastal settlement on Failaka Island. AAE 32: 62–69. DOI: 10.1111/aae.12185.
• Fiey, J.-M. 1969. Diocèses syriens orientaux du Golfe persique, in Mémorial Mgr Gabriel Khouri-Sarkis (1898–1968), Revue d'Études et de Recherches sur les Églises de langue syriaque: 177–219. Louvain: Imprimerie Orientaliste.
• Gachet, J. 1998. Akkaz (Kuwait), a site of the Partho-Sasanian period. A preliminary report on three seasons of excavation (1993–1996). PSAS 28: 69–79. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41223614
• Insoll, T., R. Carter, S. Almahari & R. Maclean 2021. Excavations at Samahij, Bahrain, and the implications for Christianity, Islamisation and settlement in Bahrain. AAE 32: 395–421. DOI: 10.1111/aae.12173.
• Lic, A. 2017. Chronology of stucco production in the Gulf and southern Mesopotamia in the early Islamic period. PSAS 47: 151–162. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45163457
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• Kozah, M. 2015. Ishoʿyahb III of Adiabene's Letters to the Qataris, in M. Kozah, A. Abu-Husayn, S. Al-Murikhi & H. Al Thani (eds) An Anthology of Syriac Writers from Qatar in the Seventh Century: 43–88. Piscataway: Gorgias Press.
• Kozah, M., G.A. Kiraz, A. Abu-Husayn, H. Al Thani & S.S. Al-Murikhi 2021. Beth Qatraye. A Lexical and Toponymical Survey. Piscataway: Gorgias Press.
• Langfeldt, J.A. 1994. Recently discovered early Christian monuments in Northeastern Arabia. AAE 5: 32–60. DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0471.1994.tb00054.x .
• Payne, R. 2011. Monks, dinars and date palms: hagiographical production and the expansion of monastic institutions in the early Islamic Persian Gulf. AAE 22: 97–111. DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0471.2010.00324.x.
• Perrogon, R. & J. Bonnéric 2021. A consideration on the interest of a pottery typology adapted to the late Sasanian and early Islamic monastery at al-Quṣūr (Kuwait). AAE 32: 70–82. DOI: 10.1111/aae.12190.
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• Power, T., M. Degli Esposti, R. Hoyland & R.H. Kannouma 2023. A newly discovered late antique monastery and Islamic town on Sīnīya Island, Umm al-Quwain. PSAS 52: 273–289.
• Robin, C.J. & M. Arbach 2016. Nouveaux jalons pour une géographie historique de la Yamāma : les toponymes mentionnés dans les inscriptions sudarabiques, in J. Schiettecatte & A. al-Ghazzi (eds) Al-Kharj I. Report on two excavation seasons in the oasis of al-Kharj (2011–2012). Saudi Arabia: 109–28 (Series of Archaeological Refereed Studies, 40). Riyad: SCTH.
• Ruttkay, M., K. Pieta & Z. Robak 2019. Preliminary results of the al-Quṣūr research in the years 2016 and 2017, in M. Ruttkay, B. Kovár & K. Pieta (eds) Archaeology of Failaka and Kuwaiti coast – current research: 91–125. Nitra: VEDA.
• Scher, A. 1910. Histoire Nestorienne (Chronique de Séert). Première Partie (II). Patrologia Orientalis 5: 216–344.
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• Phelps, M., St J. Simpson & I.C. Freestone 2018. The early Islamic glass from Sīr Banī Yās, UAE. PSAS 48: 249–267. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45163159
• Steve, M.-J. 2003. L'île de Kharg. Une page de l'histoire du Golfe persique et du monachisme oriental. Neuchâtel: Civilisations du Proche-Orient.