BETWEEN CONQUEST AND CIVIL WAR (640–80)

1. For the next forty years North Mesopotamia was effectively under the control of Caliph Muʿawiya I, brother-in-law of the prophet Muḥammad and a senior member of the Umayyad clan that came to be the ruling dynasty of the Islamic Empire from 661–750. He was the governor of Syria for twenty years (640–60) and ruler of the Islamic Empire (i.e. caliph) for the following twenty years (661–80), and during this period North Mesopotamia remained pretty much an appendage of Syria. For example, an East Syrian contemporary of Theodotus, the monk John bar Penkaye from the monastery of Phenek, which lay on the Tigris river about 75 miles directly east of Mardin, asserts that “justice flourished in Muʿawiya’s time and there was great peace in the regions under his control; he allowed everyone to live as they wanted”, and he adds that crops were bountiful and trade doubled (John bar Penkaye, 146f).
2. THE CIVIL WAR YEARS (680–92)

Before he died in April 680, Muʿawiya nominated his son Yazid to succeed him as caliph. This action provoked more than a decade of civil strife among the Muslim Arabs, for it gave the impression that Muʿawiya believed that sovereignty belonged to his family alone. During Yazid I’s reign (680–83) there was a simmering of resentment rather than outright opposition, but when Yazid also chose his own son to be caliph after him angry feelings boiled over.

THE RISE OF A NEW ORDER AND THE DEATH OF THEODOTUS

1. The civil war finally came to an end in 692 when Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik (685–705), of the Umayyad clan like Muʿawiya but from a different branch, defeated all other contenders, including his main rival, ʿAbdallah ibn al-Zubayr, who was killed in Mecca in October 692 (Jumada I AH 73). Aware of the huge strain that over a decade of in-fighting had placed on the fledgling Islamic Empire, ʿAbd al-Malik immediately set about trying to achieve unity across the realm as well as the entrenchment of his own authority. His most dramatic and visible policies were the establishment of a uniform coinage throughout all Muslim-ruled lands, the introduction of Arabic in the bureaucracy and the promotion of Islam as an official religion. In certain ways these measures were mutually reinforcing; thus, coins and documents were stamped with the new Muslim creed in Arabic letters (see Figure 3), and the new imperial mosques that began to appear on the skylines of many cities bore Arabic inscriptions attesting to the primacy of the prophet of Islam and his message.
2. THE MUSLIM PRESENCE IN NORTH MESOPOTAMIA
3. Although Theodotus is portrayed as continually on the move, his wanderings are largely in the rural areas of North Mesopotamia, and most of the time he stayed in remote mountain regions, monastic communities and villages, eschewing major cities, except for Amida itself.22 Since there would have been no Muslim settlement in these bucolic backwaters at this time and very little, if any, conversion to Islam, Theodotus would have only encountered Muslims in these particular areas as a background hostile presence, as in the case quoted above, when he and his disciple traveled to the district of Lake Hore only to find that all the locals had taken refuge in forts “because they had heard that the (Muslim) Arabs intended to invade that district” (§115.5), and on another occasion, when they were warned by the Holy Spirit “that raiders were coming who would lay waste the district of Claudias” (§114.1).23 When ordained bishop of Amida, however, Theodotus had more direct dealings with them, for in that city, unlike the other places he frequented, there were a number of Muslims in residence, even if only as a military unit (see Figure 4). Even before he had been confirmed as bishop, the Muslim Arab “who was in command of the city and its territory” arrested him and “dragged him bodily to their mosque” to stand trial on account of a letter that he had written to authorities in the Byzantine Empire, which prompted the accusation “that he was a friend of the Byzantines” (§135.1–3). In the end, though, “that wicked man” was reportedly struck blind and had to beg forgiveness of Theodotus, who then cured him.

The very fact that no extant seventh-century Christian source mentions the conversion of all or part of a church into a mosque suggests that these early mosques were low-key unobtrusive affairs, except in the new garrison cities, where space was no object and there were no native non-Muslims to placate. The caliph Walid I (705–15) launched a massive program of mosque-enlargement and mosque-building, the most famous examples of which are at Medina, Sanʿa, Damascus and Jerusalem, where he completed the expansion and refurbishment of the Aqsa mosque initiated by his father ʿAbd al-Malik.

The Syriac Life of Theodotus is part of a long tradition of hagiographical writing that, by the time of its author, is a well-established genre with its own accepted stock of ingredients. It would be very rare, for example, not to include in such texts some instances of the subject’s ability to work miracles, perform exorcisms and discern what is hidden from ordinary folk, and Theodotus certainly offers us examples of his talents in that respect. He also exhibits other recognized traits of holy persons, being marked out by divine favor already in his youth, wishing to minister to the poor and needy, commanding the respect and obedience of heretics and secular authorities as well as of his own community. Yet the Life of Theodotus is no mere rehashing of hackneyed hagiographical themes and motifs, for it is also imbued with much local color and contemporary detail, which make it a fascinating read. It is well informed about numerous Christian personalities in North Mesopotamia of the second half of the seventh century and can give a fuller list of the bishops of Amida and its region in that period than any other source (§§130.1, 189.1, 246). It reveals an intimate knowledge of late seventh-century life in this province in terms of both the terrain and its inhabitants, including the secular and religious officials who administered the region. In particular, it brings out the precariousness of the lives of those living in the borderlands between the Byzantine and Islamic empires and gives us precious insights into the new policies being enacted by the Umayyad government in the aftermath of the second Arab civil war. There seems no reason to doubt that the Life was composed not long after Theodotus’ death from the personal recollection of his disciple, Joseph, as stated in the colophon (§247.1), and as such it is a valuable witness to this region at a key moment in its history.