Saracens

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

Saracen was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek and Latin writings, to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Petraea and Arabia Deserta.[1][2]

Variants

Jat Gotras Namesake

Mention by Pliny

Pliny[3] mentions Arabia....Up to the Nabatæi46 the ancients joined the Thimanei; at present they have next to them the Taveni, and then the Suelleni, the Arraeeni47, and the Areni48, whose town is the centre of all the commerce of these parts.


46 Whose chief city was Petra, previously mentioned.

47 Supposed by some writers to have been the ancestors of the Saracens, so famous in the earlier part of the middle ages. Some of the MSS., indeed, read "Sarraceni."

48 Their town is called Arra by Ptolemy.

History

The term's meaning evolved during its history of usage. During the Early Middle Ages, the term came to be associated with the tribes of Arabia.[4]

The oldest known source mentioning "Saracens" in relation to Islam dates back to the 7th century, in the Greek-language Christian tract Doctrina Jacobi. Among other major events, the tract discusses the Muslim conquest of the Levant, which occurred after the rise of the Rashidun Caliphate following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.[5]

The Roman-Catholic church and European Christian leaders used the term during the Middle Ages to refer to Muslims—usually Arabs, Turks, and Iranians.

By the 12th century, "Saracen" had become synonymous with "Muslim" in Medieval Latin literature. Such an expansion in the meaning of the term had begun centuries earlier among the Byzantine Greeks, as evidenced in documents from the 8th century.[6][7] Before the 16th century, "Saracen" was commonly used in Western languages to refer to Arab Muslims, and the terms "Muslim" and "Islam" were generally not used, with a few isolated exceptions.[8] The term gradually became obsolete following the Age of Discovery.

Origins

The Latin term Saraceni is of unknown original meaning. There are claims of it being derived from the Semitic triliteral root šrq "east" and šrkt "tribe, confederation".[9][10]

Another possible Semitic root is srq "to steal, rob, thief", more specifically from the noun sāriq (Arabic: سارق), pl. sāriqīn (سارقين), which means "thief, marauder".[11]

In his Levantine Diary, covering the years 1699–1740, the Damascene writer Hamad bin Kanan al-Salhi (Arabic: محمد بن كَنّان الصالحي) used the term sarkan to mean "travel on a military mission" from the Near East to parts of Southern Europe which were under Ottoman Empire rule, particularly Cyprus and Rhodes.[12]

Ptolemy's 2nd-century work, Geography, describes Sarakēnḗ (Ancient Greek: Σαρακηνή) as a region in the northern Sinai Peninsula.[13]

Ptolemy also mentions a people called the Sarakēnoí (Ancient Greek: οἱ Σαρακηνοί) living in the northwestern Arabian Peninsula (near neighbor to the Sinai).[14] Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical history narrates an account wherein Pope Dionysius of Alexandria mentions Saracens in a letter while describing the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Decius: "Many were, in the Arabian mountain, enslaved by the barbarous 'sarkenoi'."[15] The Augustan History also refers to an attack by Saraceni on Pescennius Niger's army in Egypt in 193, but provides little information as to identifying them.[16]

Both Hippolytus of Rome and Uranius mention three distinct peoples in Arabia during the first half of the third century: the Taeni, the Saraceni, and theArabes. [17] The Taeni, later identified with the Arab people called Tayy, were located around Khaybar (an oasis north of Medina) and also in an area stretching up to the Euphrates. The Saraceni were placed north of them.[18] These Saracens, located in the northern Hejaz, were described as people with a certain military ability who were opponents of the Roman Empire and who were classified by the Romans as barbarians.[19]

The Saracens are described as forming the equites from Phoenicia and Thamud.[20][21][22] In one document, the defeated enemies of Diocletian's campaign in the Syrian Desert are described as Saracens. Other 4th-century military reports make no mention of Arabs, but refer to Saracen groups ranging as far east as Mesopotamia who were involved in battles on both the Sasanian and Roman sides.[23] The Saracens were named in the Roman administrative document Notitia Dignitatum, dating from the time of Theodosius I in the 4th century, as comprising distinctive units in the Roman army. They were distinguished in the document from Arabs.[24]


References

  1. Daniel, Norman (1979). The Arabs and Mediaeval Europe. Longman. p. 53. ISBN 0-582-78088-8. JSTOR 43628523.
  2. Retsö, Jan (4 July 2003). The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads. Routledge. p. 505-06. ISBN 978-0-7007-1679-1.
  3. Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 32
  4. Professional, paid Editors of Encyclopedia Brittanica (2012). "Saracen". Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Cambridge University Press.
  5. Déroche, Vincent; Dagron, Gilbert (1991). Doctrina Jacobi nuper Baptizati, "Juifs et chrétiens dans l'Orient du VIIe siècle" (Edition of the Greek text with French translation ed.). pp. 17–248.; Kirby, Peter. "External references to Islam". External References to Islam.
  6. Daniel 1979, p. 53.
  7. Kahf, Mohja (1999). Western Representations of the Muslim Women: From Termagant to Odalisque. University of Texas Press. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-292-74337-3.
  8. Tolan, John V. (6 July 2002). Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination. Columbia University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-231-50646-5.
  9. Macdonald, Michael C. A. (2009). "On Saracens, the Rawwāfah Inscription and the Roman Army". Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic Arabia. Variorum Collected Studies Series. Ashgate Variorum. ISBN 978-0-754-65965-5.
  10. Toral-Niehoff, Isabel. "Saraca". In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth; Salazar, Christine F.; Orton, David E. (eds.). Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Vol. 14. Brill Publishers. p. 1158.
  11. Shahîd, Irfan (1984). Rome and the Arabs: A Prolegomenon to the Study of Byzantium and the Arabs. Dumbarton Oaks. p. 125. ISBN 0884021157.
  12. "الحوادث اليومية من تاريخ أحد عشر وألف ومية" [The Chronicles of Ash-Sham"]. Yawmiat Shamiyya (Chronicles of Ash-Sham) (in Arabic). The Daily Events As of 1111 Hijri / 1699 CE. 15 October 2015.
  13. Retsö 2003, p. 505-06.
  14. Retsö 2003, p. 505-06.
  15. Retsö 2003, p. 505-06.
  16. Retsö 2003, p. 457.
  17. Retsö 2003, p. 505-06.
  18. Retsö 2003, p. 505-06.
  19. Retsö 2003, p. 505-06.
  20. Retsö 2003, p. 464.
  21. Retsö 2003, p. 465.
  22. Retsö 2003, p. 466.
  23. Retsö 2003, pp. 464,465, 466, 517
  24. Retsö 2003, p. 464-466.