The Nestorians then became a rayah,[1] "people of protection,"[2] on the usual terms of Christians in the Khalifs domain.[3] About the year 750 Bagdad was built near Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The Abbasid Khalifs reigned there till 1258. During this time the Christians (naṣāra), of whom we hear in their neighbourhood, were, of course, mostly Nestorians. They did not at once sink to the pitiable state in which they are now. They still had enormous missions (see p. 108), and they were, during all the Abbasid period, a very important factor in civilization in the East.
Various legends grew up later, or were made deliberately to persuade the Moslem conqueror to look with special favour on the Nestorians among the subject communities of Christians, Jews and Mazdæans. So it was said that Mohammed himself had been in friendly relations with a Nestorian monk named Sergius, from whom he had learned about the Christian system.[4] Yeshu‘yab II was said to have gone to see Mohammed, and to have obtained from him a document granting privileges to Nestorians.[5] Omar is said to have confirmed this, ‘Ali to have given another letter of protection to Nestorians because they supplied his army with food at the siege of Mosul, and other Khalifs later to have treated this sect with special toleration.[6] So a Bishop of Adiabene, writing just after the Moslem invasion (650–660), says that the new masters are by no means so bad as they are thought to be, that they are not far removed from Christianity, honour its clergy and protect its Churches.[7] We conceive the Nestorians, then, as subject to the usual conditions of ḏimmis; they might restore their
- ↑ Ra‘iyyah, "herd," "flock," the legal name for an alien religious community tolerated under a Moslem Government.
- ↑ Ahl-aḏḏimmah.
- ↑ See Orth. Eastern Church, 233–237.
- ↑ So far this is likely enough. Mohammed's twisted knowledge of Christianity and of various Christian legends (as shown in the Ḳorān) was evidently gathered from talking to Christians. He often refers to monks (e.g. Sūrah lvii. 27). There were Nestorian missions in Arabia in his time; his informant is more likely to have been a Nestorian than anything else. Indeed, some references to our Lord in the Ḳorān suggest a Nestorian origin (e.g. S. ii. 81, 254; xliii. 57–65; v. 116–117, etc.).
- ↑ This is the famous Testament of Mohammed, published by Gabriel Sionita (Paris, 1630).
- ↑ Assemani: Bibl. Orient. iii. (part 2), p. 95; here also the Testament of Mohammed is quoted.
- ↑ Ib. iii. i. p. 131.
