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Beth Kustan
Neighbourhood
Beth KustanLocation in Turkey
Coordinates: 37°29′42″N 41°37′34″E / 37.495°N 41.626°E / 37.495; 41.626
Country	Turkey
Province	Mardin
District	Midyat
Population	154
Time zone	UTC+3 (TRT)

Beth Kustan (Arabic: باقسيان; Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܩܣܝܢܐ; Turkish: Alagöz; Bethkustan) is a neighbourhood of the municipality and district of Midyat, Mardin Province in Turkey. It is inhabited by Assyrians who belong to the Syriac Orthodox Church and speak Turoyo, a dialect of Neo-Aramaic. The village had a population of 154 in 2022. It is located in the historic region of Tur Abdin.

In the village, there are churches of Mor Dimet and Mor Eliyo.

Etymology

The Syriac name of the village is derived from "beth" ("house" in Syriac) and "Kustan" ("Constantine" in Syriac), thus Beth Kustan translates to "house of Constantine".

History

The Church of Mor Eliyo was constructed in 343 AD. It has been suggested that the village was founded by a member of the Roman limitanei (frontier militia) named Constans in the 4th century AD. It is believed that the army of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) marched through Beth Kustan on several occasions. Philoxenus Yeshu, metropolitan bishop of the Monastery of the Cross and Hah (r. 1368–1410), ordained by Ignatius Saba I, patriarch of Tur Abdin, was from Beth Kustan. Dionysius Yuhanna of Qustan was metropolitan bishop of the Monastery of the Cross in 1519–1543. Cyril Isaiah of Qustan was abbot of the Monastery of Mar Awgin and then metropolitan bishop of Nisibin in 1861–1865.

In 1914, the village was inhabited by 500 Assyrians, according to the list presented to the Paris Peace Conference by the Assyro-Chaldean delegation. Amidst the Sayfo, Hajo, chief of the Kurtak clan, escorted the villagers to safety at Hah, where they stayed for seven years until they were able to return to Beth Kustan with the help of Çelebi Ağa of the Haverkan confederation.

The village was officially named Alagöz in the 1930s as a result of the state's turkification policy. The population was 666 in 1966. There were 620 Turoyo-speaking Christians in 155 families at Beth Qustan in 1966. Most of the village's population were forced to leave in the 1960s and 1970s due to the Kurdish–Turkish conflict and emigrated abroad to the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland. In 1993, it was alleged that seven villagers were detained and tortured by Turkish paramilitaries. On 12 February 2015, Beth Kustan was restored as the official name of the village.

Demography

The following is a list of the number of Assyrian families that have inhabited Beth Kustan per year stated. Unless otherwise stated, all figures are from the list provided in Eastern Christianity, Theological Reflection on Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Holy Land and Christian Encounter with Islam and the Muslim World, as noted in the bibliography below.

• 1915: 120
• 1966: 155
• 1978: 73
• 1979: 62
• 1981: 63
• 1987: 30
• 1995: 15
• 1997: 17
• 2013: 15–23
• 2017: 20
• 2021: 15

Notable people

• Gabriel of Beth Qustan (573/574–648), Syriac Orthodox bishop of Tur Abdin
• Timotheos Samuel Aktaş (b. 1945), Syriac Orthodox archbishop of Tur Abdin.

References

Notes

1. Alternatively transliterated as Bagssian, Bakisyan, Bakısyan, Baqisyan, Baqsyan, Bekusyone, Bekusyono, Bēth Qusṭān, Beth Qusyan, Bōqısyōno, or Boqusyono. Also called Kustan or Qustan. Nisba: Qusnōyo.
2. The size of a single family varies between five and ten persons.

Citations

1. ^ "Population Of Municipalities, Villages And Quarters". TÜIK. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
2. Carlson, Thomas A. (9 December 2016). "Beth Qustan - ܒܝܬ ܩܣܝܢܐ". The Syriac Gazetteer. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
3. Barsoum (2003), p. 559; Jongerden & Verheij (2012), p. 321; Barsoum (2008), pp. 7, 15; Courtois (2013), p. 149; Gaunt (2006), p. 211; Palmer (1990), p. xx; Ritter (1967), p. 12.
4. Gaunt (2006), p. 211; Barsoum (2008), p. 7.
5. ^ Ritter (1967), p. 12.
6. "Türkiye Mülki İdare Bölümleri Envanteri". T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı (in Turkish). Retrieved 19 December 2022.
7. Brock (2021), p. 167; Oez (2018), p. 341.
8. Barsoum (2003), p. 559.
9. ^ Takahashi (2011), p. 163.
10. ^ Mehmed Salih Bedirxan (4 March 2021). "A life in service of Assyrian culture". Inside Turkey. Retrieved 12 August 2022.
11. Sofuoglu, Murat (5 September 2017). "Assyrians return to Turkey from Europe to save their culture". TRT World. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
12. Palmer (1990), p. 55.
13. Oez (2018), p. 342.
14. Barsoum (2008), pp. 46–47.
15. Barsoum (2008), p. 38.
16. Barsoum (2008), p. 36.
17. Gaunt (2006), p. 427.
18. Gaunt (2006), p. 211; Jongerden & Verheij (2012), p. 264.
19. Oez (2018), p. 340.
20. ^ Vardar, Nilay (12 February 2015). "Assyrian Village Name Returned For 1st Time in Turkey". Bianet. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
21. ^ Courtois (2013), p. 149.
22. "U.S. Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices 1993 - Turkey". United States Department of State. 30 January 1994. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
23. ^ Brock (2021), p. 167.
24. Courtois (2004), p. 226.
25. Oez (2018), p. 341.
26. "1985 General Census" (PDF) (in Turkish). Turkish Statistical Institute. 1986. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 May 2021.
27. "1990 General Census" (PDF) (in Turkish). Turkish Statistical Institute. 1991. Archived (PDF) from the original on 31 August 2021.
28. "1997 Population Count" (PDF) (in Turkish). Turkish Statistical Institute. 1999. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 October 2022.
29. "Mor Timotheos Samuel Aktas". Malankara Syriac Christian Resources. Retrieved 22 October 2024.

Bibliography

• Barsoum, Aphrem (2003). The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences. Translated by Matti Moosa (2nd ed.). Gorgias Press. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
• Barsoum, Aphrem (2008). The History of Tur Abdin. Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
• Brock, Sebastian (2021). "The Syrian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century". Eastern Christianity, Theological Reflection on Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Holy Land and Christian Encounter with Islam and the Muslim World (PDF). Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust. pp. 155–181. Retrieved 12 August 2022.
• Courtois, Sébastien de (2004). The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, The Last Arameans. Translated by Vincent Aurora. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
• Courtois, Sébastien de (2013). "Tur Abdin : Réflexions sur l'état présent descommunautés syriaques du Sud-Est de la Turquie,mémoire, exils, retours". Cahier du Gremmamo (in French). 21: 113–150.
• Gaunt, David (2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 21 May 2023.
• Jongerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle, eds. (2012). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Brill. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
• Oez, Mikael (2018). "A Guide to the Documentation of the Beth Qustan Dialect of the Central Neo-Aramaic Language Turoyo". Language Documentation & Conservation. 12: 339–358.
• Palmer, Andrew (1990). Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Tur Abdin. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
• Ritter, Hellmut (1967). Turoyo: Die Volkssprache der Syrischen Christen des Tur 'Abdin (in German). Vol. 1. Franz Steiner Verlag.
• Takahashi, Hidemi (2011). "Also via Istanbul to New Haven- Mss. Yale Syriac 7-12". Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture, and Religion: Studies in Honour of Dimitri Gutas, ed. Felicitas Opwis, David Reisman. Brill. pp. 157–179.

• Assyrian communities in Turkey
• Tur Abdin
• Neighbourhoods in Midyat District
• Places of the Assyrian genocide
• Populated places in ancient Upper Mesopotamia