Page 21 - Adiabene letters_Neat

Peter Hellyer

Records of the Synod of Mar Isaac, in 410, specifically mention the
establishment of a diocese of "Ardai and Todoro," with a Bishop Paulus
being named. Ardai is another name for the island of Darin [or Tarut],
which is located off the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. By 585, the diocese
also included the islands of "Ruha Yateba" and "Taiwan,"24 neither of
which can now be identified, and the mention of these two islands pre­
sumably suggests that churches or monastic communities had been estab­
lished on them. By 410, a diocese also existed at Masmahig (Muharraq,
one of the islands of Bahrain). Its bishop, Batai, was excommunicated and
deposed at the 410 Synod because of his disagreements with changes in
the church. He was replaced by Elias.25 Bet Qatraye, sometimes also called
"The Isles," was the ecclesiastical province covering Kuwait, eastern
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. Several other Christian settlements,
both monasteries and churches, have now been found within the
province, including two in Kuwait, two more in Saudi Arabia, and at least
one in Qatar.26 To the south of Bet Qatraye was the province of Bet
Mazunaye, a Syriac name derived from Mazun, the Persian word for
881 vor Oman and the UAE. The border between the two provinces appears to
have been somewhere in the region of the Qatar peninsula and the west­
ern UAE, perhaps in the vicinity of the Sabkhat Matti, an extensive coastal
and inland sabkha that provides an effective barrier to movement by land
between Qatar and the UAE. It is not yet possible to determine into which
province the Sir Bani Yas settlement fell. It is slightly to the east of the
Sabkhat Matti, but it is, nonetheless, fairly close to the Qatar peninsula.
Presumably the Marawah settlement, further to the east, was in Bet
Mazunaye.
Christian communities were certainly present in southeastern Arabia
by the early 5^ Century AD. This is shown by the attendance at the
Markabta Synod in 424 AD of a Bishop Yohannon, a delegate from Bet
Mazunaye, the province covering the UAE and Oman. The acts of
Markabta Synod provide the first evidence of the province of Bet

24. J.S. Trimingham, Christianity Among the Arabs (1979), p. 281.
25. Ibid., p. 281.
26. GRD King, in I. Al Abed and P. Hellyer, The United Arab Emirates-A New Perspective (2001),
p. 78.