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The Syriac people (Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ܐܪܡܝܐ, IPA: ['Sūryōyɛ Orōmōyɛ]), also simply known as Syriacs or Arameans are an ethnic group of Aramaic origin, in the sense of sharing a common Syriac culture, Aramaic descent, religion, and speak a variant of Aramaic. They are native to Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and neighbouring regions who can also be found in a plethora of Syriac diaspora communities around the world. In later times, many of them fled into the United States, Canada, Australia, Israel, Jordan and Europe; mostly to Germany, Sweden, Netherlands and Switzerland. Today hundreds of thousands Syriacs live in diaspora.

For the most part, they speak the Syriac language, which is known as "Suryoyo" (ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ) in their native tongue, but a large part also speak a dialect of the Neo-Aramaic language called Turoyo (ܛܘܪܝܐ). The Syriacs mostly call themselves "Suryoye" (ܣܘܪܝܝܐ) in their native tongue, but a large part also tend to use "Oromoye" (ܐܪܡܝܐ) as self-designation, since the Syriacs are descendants to the Aramaeans.

Being adherents of the West Syrian Rite, they belong to the Syriac Orthodox Church and Syriac Catholic Church, for which reason they are also known as Jacobites (named after Jacob Baradaeus). They are known as one of the first people to accept Christianity as their religion.

Their original homeland, which is known as Mesopotamia, or Beth Nahrain (ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ) in the their mother tounge, lies in what is now Syria, Iraq and Turkey, specifically in the Turabdin (ܛܘܪ ܥܒܕܝܢ) region in Turkey, and in the Al Hasakah region in Syria. The strongest Syriac community in the world is found in the city of Al Qamishli (ܩܡܫܠܐ) in Syria where a large Syriac community live. Following the Syriac genocide (ܣܝܦܐ) in the early 20th century, many fled abroad, and a large portion today lives in diaspora.

History

Prehistoric time

The Aramaeans was a semitic ethnic group that lived in Mesopotamia and in Syria from around 1100 BC.

Their language, Aramaic, was a north Semitic language that had its time of greatness in the bigger part of the Near East during the first millennium before our time of counting; much as a result of the new Assyrian empire, that assumed the language as its national language, that led to the big spread of the Aramaic language in that area in the Middle East, today known as the Fertile Crescent .

Later, even the Persians and the Jews came to talk different accents of Aramaic . In the Old Testament, the Aramaeans are described as with the Jews, a close related ethnic group .

The Aramaeans along with the Hittite rulers came to rule Syro-Hittite states from about 1000 BC. The Aramaeans ruled cities such as Bit-Adini, Bit-Bahiani, Bit Agusi, Hatarikka-Luhuti and Hama. .

The Aramean expansion continues and in the second half of the second century BCE, Edessa became the capital of the Abgar dynasty, who founded the Kingdom of Osroene, the first Christian state under Abgar IX.

The Aramaeans were, in the 11th century BC, dominating the area in Syria. The Aramaeans established kingdoms across the northern frontier of Israel, such as Aram-Sobah, Aram-Bêt-Rehob and Aram-Ma’akah around Mount Hermon, Aram-Geshur in the Hauran, and Aram-Damascus which became the strongest and largest one.

In 900 BC the Arameans reaches the culmination of their political power. A large group of Aramaeans moved to the east of the Euphrates, where they settled in such numbers that the whole region became known as Aram-Naharaim or "Aram of the two rivers". One of their earliest kingdoms in Mesopotamia was Bît-bahiâni (Tell Halaf). North of Sam'al was the Aramaean state of Bit-Gabari, sandwiched between the Neo-Hittite states of Carchemish, Gurgum, Tabal, Khattina and Unqi.

The Arameans was dominating great areas in the southern Levant, whit states such as Aram-Damascus. Other Aramean tribes lived around the areas today known as Syria.

Aram-Damascus falls in 723 BC, with Resin as the last king in throne.

In 720 BC the Assyrian emperor Sargon II dispersed the last Aramaean kingdoms independence . Some people mean that the Chaldeans that occupied Babylon, was of Aramaic extraction

123 BC the great Aramean king Abgar Aryo founds the kingdom of Osroene with Urhoy as capital city.

Between the years 267–272 BC the Aramean queen Bath Zabbai of Palmyra conquers the Orient.

Christian time

Between the years 0–100 AD the terms Arameans and Aram were replaced by the terms Syrians (which today are known as Syriacs) and Syria.

The Syriacs were Christianized in the 1st to 3rd centuries, at the time subject to the Roman Empire in the Osroene and Syria provinces. According to legend already during the lifetime of Jesus, as king Abgar V of Edessa asked to be cured of leprosy and was healed by Thaddeus..

During the 3rd centurie, large scale Syriacs settle in Mardin and becomes a majority. In 1910, the Syriacs is forced to emigrate because of massacres.

Edessa became an important center of Early Christianity, and the local Syriac language came to be the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity. The Antiochene Rite developed at the time evolved into the West Syrian Rite followed by Western Syriacs.

The great king Abgar V the Black (Syriac; Abgar u Komo), son of the Araméans , suffered from a leprosy sickness, that even his own doctor not could cure him from.

Abgar V of Edessa had been told about a wise man in Palestine (Jesus) that this person had effective cures against sicknesses. He send a delegation with a letter to Jesus and invited him to Edessa, to cure Abgar V of Edessa. Jesus answered that could not come to Edessa, because he was on other duties. But he sent one of his followers, Thaddeus of Edessa and this Thaddeus cured king Abgar V and not long after, Abgar V of Edessa and the Aramean population converted into Christianity.

The kingdom of Abgar V, Edessa, got famous because of this event, and many people visited Edessa to look at the letters that was exchanged between Abgar V and Jesus .

Later, Edessa became a important centre for the Christian Arameans (Syriacs) and for their Syriac-Christian culture. The Aramaic dialect that was spoken in Edessa, became standard language in the new Syriac-Christian church.

With the rise of Sassanid Persia in the 3rd century, the Western Syriacs were divided from their Eastern cousins, who found themselves in the Sassanid province of Asuristan. The division deepened with the Nestorian and Monophsite schism in the 5th century.

After the Council of Ephesus (431), the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, which had hitherto been governed by a catholicos under Antioch, refused to accept the condemnation of Nestorius, cut itself and the Church to the East of it off from both the Roman Catholic Church and the Syriac Church of Antioch. The Church of Antioch remained in communion with Rome until the East-West Schism of the 11th century.

The first Syriac documents come from about the end of the 5th century. The oldest Jacobite Liturgy extant is the one ascribed (as in its Greek form) to Saint James. It is in the dialect of Edessa.

During the Fifth century, Many Syriacs moved from Urhoy to Gundeshapur in Iran, as medical doctors. During that time, Urhoy was the leading medical centre.

The first Jacobite writer on their rite is James of Edessa (d. 708), who wrote a letter to a priest Thomas comparing the Syrian Liturgy with that of Egypt.

With the establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate in the 650s, both the Eastern and the Western Syriac Churches fell under Islamic rule, their followers receiving the status of Dhimmi. Syriac Christianity has held the status of a minority religion in the Arab world ever since.

Nevertheless, the Syriacs remained a significant majority in various areas of the Middle East until the late 13th century.

After this century, the Syriacs never succeeded in recovering, and this was the start on oppressions, persecutions and constant massacres on the Syriacs.

During the 14th-century Timurid rule, however, large numbers of Syriacs were killed, and many of the survivors fled into the mountains of Tur Abdin. This area became the center of Syriac culture. The Syriacs built villages, churches and monasteries.

Modern

During the years 1843, 1846 and 1860 there was three mass murders committed against the Syriac population, which led to new emigrations, where many of the Syriac population fled into the mountains of Tur Abdin which already was dominated by Syriacs.

In 1911 a winged sun relief was found in the Aramean village Tell-Khalaf, and there after the Syriacs in Syria started to use this relief as an honour to their Aramaic origin.

In 1914 a genocide, also known as "The Syriac genocide" was committed against the Syriac population in the Ottoman Empire near the end of the First World War by Young Turks. The Syriac population of northern Mesopotamia (Tur Abdin, Hakkari, Van, Siirt region in modern-day southeastern Turkey and Urmia region in northwestern Iran) was forcibly relocated and massacred by Ottoman (Turkish and Kurdish) forces between 1914 and 1920 under the regime of the Young Turks. This genocide is considered by some scholars to be a part of the same policy of extermination as the Armenian Genocide and Pontic Greek Genocide .

During the years 1915-1923, Aramean finds were discovered by German archeologists in the Aramean village Zincirli, Turkey. This finds were brought by the Syriacs from Syria when they fled into Turkey. Today they can be found in the Berlin Museum.

In 1920 a large amount of Syriacs emigrated into the plains in North Eastern Syria, especially in Al Qamishli and Al-Hasakah. Large Syriac communities could also be found in Beirut.

In , at the Ottoman Empire's fall after the first world war, the Syriac homeland fell under the French Mandate of Syria in the west and the British Mandate of Iraq in the east, and many Syriac Christians were dispersed in the Syriac diaspora.

During the fifties and the sixties another large wave of immigration set in. Syriac communities moved into larger urban areas in western part of Turkey. 20,000 Syriacs settled in Istanbul until the sixties.´

In year 1968, Syriacs moved from Lebanon to Sweden. The group contained a total of 200 Syriacs. At this time, many Syriacs left Lebanon, Syria and Turkey and moved to Europe and the United States.

The first Syriac soccer team in the diaspora was Syrianska FC, which currently plays in the third highest division in Sweden, was established in 1977. The first name on the soccer team was Suryoye, but was changed in 1986 to Syrianska SK, and finally to Syrianska FC.

In 1988 the Aramean-Syriac party Aramaic Democratic Organization was established in Lebanon.

Syriacs were still the largest Christian denomination in Turkey, with more than 100,000 Syriacs still left in Tur Abdin. In later years many Syriacs started to move from Tur Abdin, especially to Sweden, USA and Germany.

In the mid 1980s there were still 70,000 Syriacs left in Turkey. During this time many Syriacs fled abroad due to unrest in the border region and concerns for their security. In 1995 they were still a majority as the largest Christian denomination in Turkey, with around 50,000 Syriacs. Today in Tur Abdin, there remain about 3,000 Syriacs.. However, after the turn of the century, many Syriacs have started to move back.

The Syriac party Syriac Union of Lebanon, also known as SUL, is established in 29 of March, 2005 in Lebanon. The current leader for the party is Brahim Murat.

In 2008 the national team for the Aramean-Syriac people all over the world was established. The football team is named Arameans Suryoye and attended for the first time in 2008 VIVA World Cup. The football team reached the final, but lost against Padania with 2-0.

At the end of 2008, the Syriac team Syrianska FC reaches the second highest division in Sweden, Superettan for the first time in the history.

At the turn of the year 2008 and 2009, the Syriac monastery of Mor Gabriel gets a lot of media attention, after the 1700 years old monastery being accused of neighboring kurdish villages to be built on a mosque. Syriacs around the world performing large demonstrations against Turkey and gets a lot of media attention.

References

2. http://www.themesopotamian.org/magazine/mesopotamian_v1_i4_jan05.pdf
3. http://www.kristdemokraterna.se/PressOchMedia/Pressmeddelanden/Internationellt/~/media/DBB059D6B89C42C1B8CB49B55C7CAC49.ashx
4. http://www.joshuaproject.net/peoples.php?rop3=210540
5. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14417a.htm
6. http://www.tulumba.com/storeItem.asp?ic=VI342856CI279
7. "Tur Abdin, and the Aramaean Renaissance" by John Messo
8. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/christians-caught-in-the-crossfire-members-of-syriac-sect-driven-from-homes-1392468.html
9. ^ Aramaean - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
10. ^ Bible Dictionary: Aram, Aramaeans
11. Tübinger Bibelatlas / Tübingen Bible Atlas. Siegfried Mittmann, Götz Schmitt (eds.), Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2001, Map B IV 13-14
12. O.R. Gurney, The Hittites. Harmondsworth: Pelican, 2nd ed., 1976 = 1954. p. 39-46.
13. Adshead, Samuel Adrian Miles (2000). China in World History. Macmillan. p. 27. ISBN 0312225652. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
14. Ball, Warwick (2000). Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire. Rome: Routledge. p. 95. ISBN 0415113768. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
15. Cheetham, Samuel (1905). A History of the Christian Church During the First Six Centuries. Macmillan and Co. p. 58. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
16. Lockyer, Herbert (1988). All the Apostles of the Bible. Zondervan. p. 260. ISBN 0310280117. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
17. ^ Watson E. Mills (1990). Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press. pp. pp. 52. ISBN 0865543739. OCLC 20852514. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |origmonth=, |accessmonth=, |chapterurl=, |accessyear=, |month=, and |origdate= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
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20. Syriacs - Ethnicity
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26. The Greek writer Posidonius (150 BC) says in his work.. "The people that we (The Greeks) call Syrians, are called by themselves Arameans..........Because the people in Syra are the Arameans"
27. Cite error: The named reference kaldaya was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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29. ^ This event is described in Eusebius' Church-history (I.13;II.1) Cite error: The named reference "abgar" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
30. http://lexicorient.com/e.o/mardin.htm
31. S:t Jakob from Serug in a poem about the martyrs Guria and Shamuna, he says that Abgar V is son of the Araméans: "Two precious pearls, which were an ornament for the bride of my lord Abgar, the Aramaean's son." (Text tr. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (eds.), Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 8 (1886);) (See Syriac Manuscripts from the Vatican Library: Volume 1, VatSyr. 117, number 224:On Shmona and Gurya. Fol. 551a, p. 1099)
32. Testamentum Domini, ed. by Ignatius Rahmani II, Life of Severus of Antioch, sixth century.
33. http://rnb.uin.googlepages.com/v22n2spring2005.pdf
34. Assyrians: The Continuous Saga - Page 40 by Frederick A. Aprim
35. Ye'or, Bat (2002). Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp. pp. 148-149. ISBN 0838639437. OCLC 47054791. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessdaymonth=, |month=, |accessyear=, and |accessmonthday= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
36. Schaller, Dominik J. and Zimmerer, Jürgen (2008) 'Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies - introduction', Journal of Genocide Research, 10:1, 7 - 14
37. ^ http://www.jaas.org/edocs/v1/jastrow.pdf
38. MIDEASTIMAGE :: Image Search Results
39. SvD » Inrikes » "Nu visar vi världen vilka vi är"
40. Cite error: The named reference autogenerated8 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
41. : Syrianska FC :
42. [SPIRITUAL SITES] Mor Jacob Monastery: a Syriac oasis in Nusaybin
43. Cite error: The named reference autogenerated13 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
44. *SOC News report , He was documenting life in the Tur Abdin, where about 3,000 members of the Aramean minority still live in.
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47. sul-har-blivit
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49. http://www.lt.se/index.asp?kat=st&i1=index_red_2007.asp&i2=1&Id=29332&isp2=hela
50. http://www.syrianskafc.com
51. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE50L08720090122?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
52. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3968370,00.html
53. http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14310&size=A

See also

• Roman Syria
• Syriac Christianity
• Syriac language

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