The Role of Christians in Building Iraq

By Adhid Miri, PhD

Part I

Hormuzd Rassam

The Christians of Iraq are one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world. The vast majority are indigenous Aramaic-speaking people who descend from ancient Babylonia, Chaldea, and Assyria, and follow the Syriac Christian tradition.

Present-day Iraqi Christians are ethnically, linguistically, historically, and genetically distinct from Arabs, Kurds, Persians, Turks, and Turkmens (as well as from fellow Syriac Christians in western Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and southwestern Turkey). Some are also known by the name of their Christian religious denomination as well as their ethnic identity, such as Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syriacs, or Armenians.

They have been a shining presence in institutions, monasteries, churches, and archdioceses—especially in Mosul and the Nineveh province—for nearly two thousand years.

Biblical Iraq

Iraq has the most biblical history of any other country in the world after Israel. The patriarch Abraham, father of nations, was from Ur of the Chaldees. Rebecca, wife of Isaac and mother of Jacob and Esau was from northwestern Iraq, in Assyria. Daniel of the famous lion’s den lived in Iraq most of his life.

Christianity was brought to Iraq in the 1st century by St. Thomas the Apostle and Saint Addai (Addai of Edessa) and his disciples Aggai and Mari. Addai was one of the seventy disciples of Christ, who was sent to the east by St. Thomas, one of the twelve, thirty years after the crucifixion of Christ.

The historian and philosopher Bar-Hebraeus (1226-1286) mentioned that Mar Addai was responsible for spreading Christianity in all of Persia, Assyria, Armenia, Medea, and Babylonia.

Erbil, (the city of four Gods) played a central role in the early history of Christianity in the Parthian Empire due to the previous spread of Judaism there.

After Erbil, Christianity spread quickly to other areas of Iraq. The Word arrived in Mosul through three of the twelve apostles, namely Peter, Thomas, and Bartholomew, accompanied by four of the seventy disciples, Addai, Mary, Benjamin, and Simon.

Pope Francis’ Apostolic Journey to Iraq in March 2021 offered a unique opportunity to learn about the history of Christianity in Mesopotamia, where Jesus’ mother-tongue endures to this day.

House of Wisdom

The history of Iraq, with all its ups and downs, was built with the contribution of all religions, components, and sects — Christians, Jews, and Muslims all participated in weaving the rich tapestry that is Iraq.

Our Christian ancestors shared with Muslim Arabs a deep tradition of thought and philosophy, engaging with respectful dialogue from the 8th Century. A style of scholastic dialogue developed which could only occur because a succession of caliphs (Islamic political and religious leaders) tolerated minorities. As toleration ended, so did the culture and wealth which flowed from it.

In the era of the Abbasids (750-1258), Caliph al-Ma’amun (813-833) founded Dar Al-Hikma (House of Wisdom) in the city of Baghdad. Also known as Dar al-Ilm (House of Knowledge), this was a place where the sciences including astronomy, logic, philosophy, mathematics, history, theology, languages, and medicine were taught. It was also a publishing house concerned with transferring non-Arabic philosophical heritage into the Arabic language.

Al-Ma’amun was visionary in bringing Haneen bin Ishaq (809-873) to supervise the House of Wisdom. The Syriac scholar was an influential Nestorian Christian, scholar, translator, physician, and scientist who was fluent in three languages besides Syriac: Persian, Greek, and Arabic.

Other prominent Christian scholars who contributed to the House of Wisdom include Yehya Ibn Ishaq Al-Ibadi from Hira, Abu Bishr, Yohanna bin Jallad, and the philosopher Yahya bin Uday from Tikrit; they were giants of the translation movement.

Philosophers and thinkers such as Qusta bin Luca, Timothy the First, Abi Faraj bin Al-Tayyib, Thabit Bin Qarra, and Issa Ibn Al-Attar excelled in authoring and translating philosophical and scientific blogs in medicine, mathematics, astronomy and engineering from the Syriac, Greek and Persian languages ​​to the Arabic language.

Christians served as a link between Islamic and Byzantine art, a relationship of mutual interaction. Inhabitants of Syria and Iraq, the Arameans, or the Christian Arabs, were craftsmen—goldsmiths, brass calligraphers, potters, and carpenters—who contributed to the development of both art styles.

The great Iraqi cities of old were teeming with Christians, especially Baghdad. Christian monasteries were spread across neighborhoods, adjacent to mosques and Jewish temples, giving life to a character of tolerance not seen in other parts of the world.

Aiding the Arab Renaissance

Although the history of the Iraqi Christian renaissance in Arab culture is almost hidden from its chapters, several Iraqi Christian personalities played a major role in the modern Arab renaissance movement that arose in the nineteenth century, witnessing the participation of elite scholars, thinkers, and reformers. Then there were the explorers…

Ilyās ibn al-Qassīs Hannā Al-Mousili, also known as Elias of Babylon, was a late 17th century priest and author. As an ethnic Chaldean, he was a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church. He is known for his accounts of his travels in Western Europe and the Spanish colonies in the New World, which is the oldest record in Arabic-language literature devoted to the Americas. He was named “Don Elías de Babilonia” by the Spaniards.

Al-Mousili left Baghdad in 1668 AD, passing through Aleppo, Alexandria, Venice, France, and Spain, traveled to the South American continent, passed through parts of Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico, returning to Rome in 1683 AD.

Another Christian figure from Mosul was Yousif Attisha al-Mousli, who was born in Mosul in 1599 and died in Germany in 1680. He studied Chaldean and Assyrian in Iraq, traveled to Palestine, and settled there for a period to teach Semitic languages ​​and history.

He also traveled to Germany to join the Institute of Oriental Studies of the University of Wittenberg, holding the title of Professor, and contributing to the development of Oriental Sciences. Attisha added Hebrew and Sanskrit to the Institute’s language studies.

In the first half of the eighteenth century, another Iraqi traveler emerged, Khidher Ibn Elias Hormuz al-Mousli al-Chaldani (1679-1755 AD). Al-Chaldani traveled to Rome and the Vatican and wrote a memoir of his journey from Mosul to Rome in 1719 AD in which he described his land and sea travels and his persecution after embracing the doctrine of Catholicism.

In the eighteenth century, Iraq became more stable and developed. There was an economic movement and an increase in European commercial and missionary influence. Iraq gave birth to many writers and scholars during this period.

Iraq’s position changed greatly during the Ottoman era and witnessed the spread of the Catholic doctrine through multiple missions, experiencing the emergence of some reformist movements and ideas. Scientific and cultural traditions matured, and literary language and poetic writing flourished, especially in Mosul.

 One of the most important of these missions was the Dominican Fathers who arrived in Mosul in 1750 AD, providing medical and educational services. The Dominican Fathers School, a French school, emerged as an incubator of modern intellectuals and scholars whose influence continued until the twentieth century.

The Mosul scholar Iklimos Yousuf Dawood (1829-1890 AD) mastered several languages, authoring and publishing a collection of 85 books in various fields. The modern Arab intellectual renaissance emerged in part due to the abundance of his production, the depth of his ideas, and his mastery of languages.

Girges Abd Yshua Khayat (1828-1899 AD) studied in Rome and was fluent in several European and Eastern languages ​​and had knowledge of history and philosophy; some of his works (he excelled in writing schoolbooks) were printed in Rome. Ignatius Behnam ibn Bunni (1830-1897 AD) also studied in Rome and was an expert in Eastern and Western languages. His output was abundant in ecclesiastical history and theology.

The scholar Addai Sher (1867-1915 AD) was fluent in several languages, and a historian. Most of his work was published in French. Naoum Fathallah Sahar (1859-1900) was a prominent figure in Mosul, educated in the French language. He was the first to introduce theatrical art as a new literary genre in the history of Iraqi culture in the late nineteenth century. His work was influenced by European literature and the Dominicans, and it was presented on the stage of the Dominican Fathers School winning admiration, appreciation, and acclaim by the people.

The linguist Anastas Marie Al-Karmali, born in Baghdad in 1866, was perhaps one of the most prominent modernists of the Arabic language. He made a significant contribution to enriching the Arabic language, its terms, and synonyms. He published the magazine “The Language of the Arabs” (Lughat Al-Arab) in two stages. It was a prominent publication of its day, a marker in the history of the modern renaissance considered one of the most important references in the Arabic language. Anastas founded a language school in Baghdad.

Anastas’ expertise was not limited to language; he contributed to writing the history of Iraq and was famous for his scientific and social forum (Dewan) and weekly round table, attended by a distinguished number of Iraqi intellectuals from all walks of life, Muslim and Christian.

Archeology

Iraq became a very exciting country and a destination for the whole world to visit in the nineteenth century, when a mine of historic treasures that revealed information about the first human civilizations that lived in Mesopotamia was discovered. Previously, the available sources of material were scarce and mainly within religious books. 

Among the leading Iraqi experts in archeology during the nineteenth century was Dr. Hormzud Rassam (1826-1901). Rassam, from a well-known Mosul family, discovered Assyrian treasures in Nineveh, Khorsabad, and Nimrud. He was part of the famous expedition team of the British archeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817 – 1894), an English Assyriologist, traveler, cuneiformist, art historian, draftsman, collector, politician, and diplomat, whose excavation of the ancient site of Nimrod greatly advanced knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian civilization.

Another famed archeologist and curator of the Iraqi Museum was Donny George Youkhanna (1950 –2011) an Iraqi-Assyrian archaeologist, anthropologist, author, scholar, and a visiting professor at Stony Brook University in New York. Dr. George tried to stop looters from ransacking the Iraq National Museum after the US invasion of 2003, then led in the recovery of thousands of stolen artifacts in the ensuing years.

George fled Iraq in 2006 because of threats to his family. He was upset that Iraq’s post-invasion politicians seemed interested mainly in archaeology pertaining to the Islamic conquest in the seventh century and its aftermath; his passion was the older civilizations of Mesopotamia. Some say the ransacking of the Iraqi Museum led to his early death in Toronto at age 60.

Behnam Nasser Nuaman Abu Alsoof (1931-2012) was an Iraqi Assyriologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, and writer. He was born in Mosul to a Christian Syriac family and completed his elementary and junior high education in the city of Mosul. He earned a BA in Archaeology and Civilization from the University of Baghdad in 1955.

An archaeologist with over thirty-five years of teaching experience, he held a PhD from Cambridge University and lectured extensively in the United States, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Germany, and Yemen. He directed multiple excavations in prehistoric and historical sites in the Middle East; the results of many of these excavations were published in English and Arabic.

This scholar’s contributions to his field were recognized and, in the 1970s, he was appointed Director General of Antiquities of the North, a position which gave him full responsibility for all northern Iraq, including ancient Assyria.

Abu Alsoof worked on scientific rescue excavations on a wide basin in the Hamrin Dam (Diyala Governorate) and Mosul Dam on the Tigris River in the late 1970s to mid-1980s. He revealed several archaeological sites in Iraq, including Tel Al-Sewan, in Samarra, which was from the stone age era. He also led work at the site of Qainj Agha near Erbil Castle to detect a wide range of archaeological evidence from the Uruk Period.

Behnam Abu Alsoof opposed the idea of Assyrian identity, stating that Syriac Christians are not descendants of ancient Assyrians, instead promoting the idea they are Aramaic Nestorians.

Politics

Many Iraqi Christians had roles in the political life of contemporary Iraq. Daoud Yousefani was a well-known Christian figure who influenced the days of the Unionists and the beginning of the monarchy, especially in his role as a deputy in the Ottoman Council of Representatives, where he imposed security and stability. 

Nicolas Abdel Nour (who declared his conversion to Islam and became named Thabet Abdel Nour) had an influential role in the Arab movement and the belief in Arab nationalism.

Yusef Salman (Fahad), the founder of the Iraqi Communist Party, was a Christian with humble beginnings. Yusuf Salman Yusuf was born in Baghdad in 1901 to a father from Bartella, in the province of Mosul. His father made his living selling cakes and sweets and in 1907, he moved with his family to Basra in the south of the country in search of a better livelihood.

Yusuf attended the Syriac Christian School in Basra from 1908 to 1914, and the American Mission School in the city from 1914 to 1916. His education was then interrupted as his father fell ill and Yusuf had to seek employment for the family’s upkeep. He took a job as a translator and clerk with the British Army in Basra before moving to Nasiriyah in 1919 to help his brother run a mill. In 1924, he returned to Basra and gained employment as a clerk at the Electricity Supply Authority. He went by “Comrade Fahad.”

The most prominent Iraqi Christian communists were Jamil Toma, Nouri Raphael, and Krikor Agoop Bedrosian, all graduates of the American University of Beirut.

Tariq Aziz emerged as a member of the Iraqi leadership of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, along with other leading Baathists such as Mumtaz Qasira, who was killed during the reign of Abd al-Salam Aref.

It is strange that we find among the convoy of rebellious officers who revolted against the leader Abd al-Karim Qasim in the year 1959, a Christian officer named Ismail Hormuz. Hormuz was executed along with his group of nationalists.

The Christians of Iraq are generally left-wing, fair-minded, and largely egalitarian in their outlook and attitude towards both sexes. They are passionate about the idea of right, be it positive or divine.

Acknowledgement of sources and excerpts from articles by Iraqi historian and writers Dr. Sayyar Al-Jamil, Siroor Mahmoud Mirza, Dr. Omar Al-Kubaisi, Professor Raad Estefan, Nizar Osachi, Faris Kamal Nadhmi, Douglas Martin NY Times, Wikipedia, Facebook, authors Hanna Batatu, Habib Hannona, Kamal Yaldo, Silva Seroubien, and other contributors.

Captions:

Behnam Nasser Nuaman Abo Alsoof Sketch

Hormuzd Rassam; Donny George

Hormzud Rassam Painting (1826–1910)