Misplaced Pages

#32967

110-480: The Forty Martyrs Armenian Cathedral ( Arabic : كنيسة الأربعين شهيد , romanized :  Kanīsa al-ʿarbaʾīn šahīd , Armenian : Ս. Քառասնից Մանկանց Մայր Եկեղեցի , romanized :  S. K’arrasnits’ Mankants’ Mayr Yekeghets’i ) of Aleppo , Syria , is a 15th-century Armenian Apostolic church located in the old Christian quarter of Jdeydeh . It is significant among the Armenian churches for being one of

220-488: A baptismal font placed in 1888. The church never had a belfry until 1912, when a bell tower was erected by the donation of the Syrian-Armenian philanthropist Rizkallah Tahhan from Brazil . During the 2nd half of the 20th century, the interior of the church underwent massive renovations to meet with the requirements of traditional Armenian churches. On 28 May 1991, by the donation of Keledjian brothers from Aleppo,

330-468: A khachkar -memorial was placed in the churchyard commemorating the victims of the Armenian genocide . On 26 April 2000, the Armenian community of Aleppo marked the 500th anniversary of the first enlargement of the church under the patronage of Catholicos Aram I , during the period of Archbishop Souren Kataroyan. The church is rich for both ancient and modern-day icons, with more than 30 samples: With

440-575: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as

550-474: A considerable number of Armenian families and merchants settled in the city creating their own businesses and residences. With the foundation of Armenian schools, churches and later on the prelacy, Armenians presented themselves as a well-organized community during the 14th century. The Armenian population of Aleppo continued to grow as Aleppo was swallowed into the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire had

660-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By

770-1081: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to

880-504: A few years later. The reasons for the executions of both khwajas remain not fully understood. According to Semerdjian, they may be related to the complaints of the European consuls against the brothers and their excessive power. Some authors, such as El-Mudarris & Salmon and de Groot, directly connect the execution of Petik on complaints against him from four consuls — Venetian, English, French and Dutch. According to Masters, Petik

990-498: A large indigenous Armenian population in its Eastern Anatolia region, from where some Armenians moved to Aleppo in search of economic opportunity. The Armenian presence in Aleppo grew exponentially after 1915, when it became an immediate haven for refugees of survivors of the Armenian genocide . Tens of thousands of Armenian refugees, likely well over 100,000, settled in Aleppo during this period. By some estimates, Armenians accounted for

1100-487: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic

1210-690: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb  [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak

SECTION 10

#1732780426033

1320-523: A new prelacy building of the Armenian Diocese of Beroea was built in the church yard, funded through the donation of an Armenian elite named Reyis Baron Yesayi. During the following years, Forty Martyrs Cathedral frequently became a temporary seat of many Armenian catholicoi of the Holy See of Cilicia . Until 1579, the cathedral was surrounded with the tombstones of the Armenian cemetery, when

1430-598: A quarter of Aleppo's population by the middle of the twentieth century, by which time they had become a respected, upwardly mobile community. Later, as a result of political upheaval in Syria, Armenians began to emigrate to Lebanon and later to Europe, the Americas and Australia, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. Nonetheless, Aleppo remained a center of the worldwide Armenian diaspora , ranging between 50,000 and 70,000 Armenians residents. Tens of thousands of Armenians left during

1540-470: A result of the growing number of Armenian residents and pilgrims, the Armenian prelacy started to build a quarter near the church, which is still known with its original name "Hokedoun" (Spiritual House). It was designated to serve as a rest-house with 23 large rooms for the Armenian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem . The Hokedoun was built by the donation of Khoja Gharibjan. The Italian explorer Pietro Della Valle who visited Aleppo in 1625, has described

1650-594: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from

1760-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",

1870-470: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for

1980-416: A time, among which were "customs [duties], the inspection of markets, the police superintendency, the khans , the public bath houses" and other income-generative offices purchased from the government. Khwaja Petik became the richest merchant in Aleppo, and brought substantial income to the imperial treasury. His large-scale entrepreneurial activities were greatly facilitated by his service as manager of

2090-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means

2200-507: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as

2310-476: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted

SECTION 20

#1732780426033

2420-590: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak

2530-559: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It

2640-478: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in

2750-797: Is considered the main sponsor of the church reconstructions of 1616. According to Simeon of Poland , "the builder was Khoja Sanos", and two churches ( Church of the Holy Mother of God and Church of the Forty Martyrs) "were renovated and enlarged; domes and arches were added, making them very beautiful and delightful." To the church of the Forty Martyrs were presented Armenian Gospels dated 1615 written by Wardan Lekhatzi from Lviv and illuminated by Israel of Amit for Khwaja Sanos. Sanos also erected an ornate Armenian cathedral in Erzurum

2860-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon

2970-472: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and

3080-565: Is given by various authors as being 1627 (Masters; Semerdjian), 1632 (Sanjian; Kévonian; Sebouh Aslanian  [ de ] ), 1634 ( Acharian ), or sometime after 1639 (Barsoumian). Until 1640, Sanos continued to be the chief customs officer of Aleppo. According to Semerdjian, one can speak of the "vastness of Sanos’ personal fortune". Just a year before his execution, in his ledger, dated 2 Muharram 1049, one can find records of his considerable transactions with foreign merchants. Based on archival materials from Syria, Masters notes that in

3190-574: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference

3300-855: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not

3410-572: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As

Forty Martyrs Cathedral - Misplaced Pages Continue

3520-590: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that

3630-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into

3740-524: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while

3850-465: Is very important and respected among them [Armenian Christian gentlemen from Julfa]; this not only means that he is a good Christian and a good friend, as always was with the people of the Franks; but that that he is so religious and pious that it [represents] a mirror of religiosity and Eastern Christianity. This lies in the fact that no matter how many sons a person has, he still spends all his [wealth] on

3960-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary

4070-589: The Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic

4180-662: The Levant Company , William Biddulph, who visited Aleppo in 1600, and the Portuguese-Jewish traveler Pedro Teixeira, who visited the city five years later, noted the extreme poverty of the local Christians in comparison with the wealth of the Jewish community; but both were surprised by the wealth and influence of the Julfa Armenians in the city. According to Masters, at the end of the 16th and beginning of

4290-568: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to

4400-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic

4510-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In

Forty Martyrs Cathedral - Misplaced Pages Continue

4620-743: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c.  8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Petik and Sanos Besides their commercial activities

4730-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to

4840-469: The 17th centuries an Armenian "cultural renaissance that was unequaled elsewhere among Ottoman Armenians" took place in Aleppo, caused by the patronage of Armenian miniaturists , architects and artisans by local Armenian merchants. According to Semerdjian: "While both brothers were eventually executed, […] their ascendency, though brief, is historically significant. The wealth they amassed was invested in crucial urban projects […]. In terms of sheer numbers,

4950-519: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of

5060-834: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ    [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized

5170-671: The Dutch Republic, and it was even said that he was the Dutch official trade representative in Aleppo. This fact is explained by the existence of an active Armenian community in Amsterdam , the majority of which were also Julfans. Petik's and Sanos's dealings with Dutch businesses went through Cornelis Pauw  [ nl ] , the Dutch consul in Aleppo. Petik and Sanos, along with the Syrian Jew Musa ibn Ishaq, are

5280-645: The Jdeydeh quarter. The church was named in honour of a group of Roman soldiers who faced martyrdom near the city of Sebastia in Lesser Armenia , and were all venerated in Christianity as the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste . At the beginning, the church was of a small size with a capacity of only 100 seats. In 1499-1500, the church went under large-scale renovations. Within 2 years, it was enlarged and

5390-618: The Julfans to expand and renovate the churches: This prayer space was expanded in 1639 by Bedros al-Ajami, also known as Khoja Bedik, who received permission from the Sultan Murad Khan after inviting him to a meal, which was served in fancy and expensive Chinese plates , china rarely found outside his house. After the Sultan finished eating, Bedros told his servants to break the china, so the sultan grew angry and asked why he broke

5500-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around

5610-690: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from

SECTION 50

#1732780426033

5720-576: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With

5830-558: The [Armenian] community but a fraction of the Christian population in the city, yet in the early seventeenth century it exercised an extraordinary amount of power." Art historian Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh considers the reconstruction of the Church of the Forty Martyrs by Khwaja Sanos as one of the "chronological landmarks" of the revival of Eastern Christian arts in Aleppo in the 17th century. Researcher Kéram Kévonian gives Khwaja Petik

5940-575: The beginnings of the 20th century, when it was turned into a library. In 1991, the building was turned into museum and renamed Zarehian Treasury of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Aleppo, in memory of Catholicos Zareh I of the Great House of Cilicia, who had served as archbishop of the diocese of Aleppo before being elected as catholicos. The Forty Martyrs Cathedral is the seat of the Armenian Diocese of Beroea and one of

6050-630: The brothers "crossed the lines with the Ottoman authorities". In 1640, Sanos was removed from office and executed. After him, the Jew Musa walad Ishaq al-Khakham regained his position as the lucrative position of the chief of customs of Aleppo, which marked the fall of the hegemony of the Armenians in the trade of the Syrian cities. Simeon of Poland, who visited Aleppo in 1617, wrote: This Petik

6160-519: The brothers also held influential positions. Petik was the chief of customs of Aleppo, Tripoli , and Alexandretta , and thus of all Ottoman Syria , and then in Erzurum . Sanos was the chief of customs of Erzurum, and after the execution of his brother and shortly before his own execution was the chief customs officer of Aleppo. Researchers disagree about the circumstances under which the brothers acquired their great fortune, and with it exclusive power in

6270-477: The cemetery was moved and only clergymen and the elites of the community were allowed to be buried in the church yard. The Forty Martyrs Cathedral was renovated again in 1616 by the donation of the community leader Khoja Bedig Chelebi and the supervision of his brother Khoja Sanos Chelebi . By the end of the same year, the church was reopened with the presence of Catholicos Hovhannes IV of Aintab (Hovhannes 4th Aintabtsi) and Bishop Kachatur Karkaretsi. In 1624, as

6380-407: The china. Bedros told him that he did not need them anymore, as he has no one like the Sultan who deserves to eat on them, and that he had especially prepared them for him. The Sultan was happy, so he asked him what he wanted for a reward. Bedros asked to expand the old and small church, as it was not big enough for them, and add a [second floor] building to it, so the Sultan approved. Usually, Sanos

6490-566: The church as one of the four churches that were built adjacent to each other in one yard with one gate, in the newly created Jdeydeh Christian quarter. The other three churches are the Greek Orthodox Church of the Dormition of Our Lady , the Holy Mother of God Armenian Church (the current Zarehian Treasury) and the old Maronite Church of Saint Elias . Currently, the cathedral has three altars , an upper story built in 1874 and

6600-541: The city's trade with Europe. Using his social position, Khwaja Petik maintained close contacts with the Sublime Porte and the Sultan's palace in Constantinople . Historian Artavazd Surmeyan  [ hy ] , and after him Kéram Kévonian, also call Petik a subashi of Aleppo, but historian Avedis Sanjian believed that this “assertion seems to be based on some misunderstanding”, “since this office

6710-475: The city, but they agree that their activity was a remarkable positive period in the history of the Armenian community of Aleppo. The reasons for the executions of Petik and Sanos are still not fully understood. The name Petik is a diminutive of the Armenian name Petros . His name in the sources is also given as Bedig , but more often as Bedik , diminutives from the Western Armenian form of

SECTION 60

#1732780426033

6820-473: The civil war, and it remains to be seen what will remain of the community when stability returns. The Armenian church of the Forty Martyrs in Aleppo was mentioned 1476, in the second edition of the book The Exploit of the Holy Bible , written by Father Melikseth in Aleppo. However, the current building of the church was built and completed in 1491 to replace a small chapel in the old Christian cemetery of

6930-495: The construction of churches and decorations of [their] walls, silver crosses, cups and other necessary things. And in this new Isfahan Julfa, where they were forced to move after the king destroyed the ancient Armenian Julfa, which was located on the border with Turkey on the Araks River, out of ten churches, one was completely built and maintained by Chogia Abedik with his own money, and in another [church] he contributed most of

7040-574: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after

7150-442: The duties of chief customs officer. There he quickly won the recognition of all the pashas and performed his duties until his death. According to Karnetsi, Khwaja Sanos "managed to secure the Sultan an income of 100,000 kurush, in addition to the amounts he gave to the pashas and the needy", and, in addition, he did as "many good deeds" as "only God knows; for example, he arranged the liberation of 1,000 slaves.” The English priest of

7260-587: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of

7370-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around

7480-607: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From

7590-424: The family name was Karagöz ). Petik is also referred to as Bedros al-ʿAjami . Khwaja Petik was the son of Kirakos, an Armenian merchant who moved from Old Julfa to Aleppo . Petik and Sanos had at least one other brother. Both brothers were from an Armenian merchant town of Old Julfa. According to the Middle Eastern historian Bruce Masters, they "were among the Julfa Armenians who settled in Aleppo during

7700-470: The feet of the kat‘oghikos and greeted him. […] That day, Khoja Petik set a great feast and everyone had a good time until evening. Historian Elyse Semerdjian notes that Petik's public wearing of the items described by Simeon ran counter to the Ottoman Empire's sumptuous laws , which forbade non-Muslims from wearing such luxurious clothes, leaving such indulgence only for Muslims. In one of his letters, Pietro Della Valle wrote about Petik: Chogia Abedik

7810-546: The first half of the seventeenth century". Petik and Sanos were the most prominent of the Armenian merchant magnates in Aleppo during the late 16th and first half of the 17th centuries. Petik established a mercantile silk firm in Aleppo, and over time, he and Sanos monopolized the city's silk trade. From about 1590 to 1632, their mercantile firm was preferred by Venetian , Spanish, French, English and Dutch merchants when conducting their silk trade in Aleppo. Petik's family huge trade network in Anatolia , Persia and India

7920-498: The four capitals of the short lived Armenian Empire. After 301 AD, when Christianity became the official state religion of Armenia and its population, Aleppo became an important center for Armenian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem . Yet, the Armenians did not form into an organized community in Aleppo until the Armenian presence grew noticeably during the 11th century at the times of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia , when

8030-510: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and

8140-474: The funds, although [its construction] is attributed to the names of other [people]. And [still] he helped and helps to create countless works of art in the surrounding villas every day. But I do not want to be silent about another manifestation of his kindness. In the wars that took place in Armenia and Georgia, when [the lives] of many thousands of Christians were turned upside down, and they became slaves, out of

8250-597: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward

8360-486: The initiative of Archbishop Souren Kataroyan, the majority of the icons were renovated between 1993 and 1996 by the Armenian expert Andranik Antonyan. The old church of the Holy Mother of God was built prior to 1429, at a time when the Armenian community was formed as a significant community in Aleppo with its own clergymen, scholars and the prelacy. This small church has witnessed several renovations, in 1535, 1784, 1849 and 1955 respectively. The church remained active until

8470-404: The khans, baths and other institutions of Aleppo, and in particular by his position as chief customs officer of Aleppo, Alexandretta and Tripoli , which made him the chief of customs of all Ottoman Syria . In Tripoli, an important Levantine port, Petik's family held high positions for decades. As the main contact agent for all merchants in Aleppo, Khwaja Petik began to play a pivotal role in

8580-613: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about

8690-604: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c.  603 –689)

8800-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA

8910-471: The love of God, at his own expense, he redeemed [from slavery] and freed more than four thousand people, diligently looking for them even in distant lands, [he returned] sons to fathers, wives to husbands, and relatives to relatives so that they would not be lost. And in order to do this, not having enough cash and not being able to quickly sell the silks he had, he borrowed them from the Shirvan Khan, who

9020-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya

9130-446: The most important emin-i gümrüks of Aleppo during the period of Armenian-Jewish dominance of this office (until the year 1660). The brothers took over the post following the revolt of Ali Janbulad. Petik served as the chief customs officer more than once. He bought the post in 1612 for nine years, but by 1614 (and under unknown circumstances), he was briefly supplanted by Musa ibn Ishaq. An attempt by Sanos to unseat ibn Ishaq that year

9240-469: The name Bedros , corresponding to the Eastern Armenian form Petros . Sanos’s name is also mentioned in the spelling Sonos and he is also referred to as Stepanos . The names of both brothers are mentioned in sources with the title khwaja (before the name), the title çelebi (usually after the name, but sometimes before ) and even with two titles simultaneously ( khwaja before

9350-573: The name and çelebi after). This double titling of the brothers is explained by the historian Hagop Barsoumian by the fact that their activity fell on the period of semantic erasure of the boundaries between the titles khwaja and çelebi among the Ottoman Armenians . In connection with the frequent and widespread use of the title khwaja , its depreciation took place in the Ottoman Armenian merchant circles, and for some time

9460-782: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum  [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve

9570-472: The oldest active churches in the Armenian diaspora and the city of Aleppo. It is a three-nave basilica church with no dome. Its bell tower of 1912, is considered to be one of the unique samples of the baroque architecture in Aleppo. The first significant Armenian presence in the city of Aleppo dates to the 1st century BC, when Armenia under Tigranes the Great subjugated Syria, and chose Antioch as one of

9680-511: The oldest active churches in the city. It is also one of the oldest functioning churches in the Armenian diaspora. The old building of the prelacy within the churchyard is under renovation to serve as an administrative office. The church complex is also home to the Zarehian Treasury, Haygazian Armenian School, Avetis Aharonian theatre hall and Nikol Aghbalian branch of Hamazkayin Educational and Cultural Society. The current building of

9790-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on

9900-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on

10010-429: The pilgrims from Jerusalem , among whom was Simeon: Khoja Petik arrived with his two brothers. He was atop a white Arabian horse with a golden saddle and a harness and belt-clasp covered with expensive jewels and pearls. They glittered with gold, gemstones, and expensive cloth. Many slaves and servants, sipahis and Janissaries accompanied him as they would a pasha. Approaching [us], he descended from his horse, fell at

10120-524: The prelacy stands in front of the cathedral. On April 28, 2015, parts of the Forty Martyrs church compound were destroyed in a suspected bombing or artillery attack; the church itself and the bell tower survived the attack. After the last anti-regime rebels left the city in December 2016, renovation works were announced in July 2017. The reconstruction lasted two years, until March 31, 2019, when reconstruction

10230-665: The reconstruction of the Forty Martyrs Cathedral , expanding it so that it could accommodate more parishioners and the Armenian Catholicos . This large-scale restoration confirms the exclusive power of Petik and Sanos, since the construction and expansion of Christian churches contravened the Ottoman building regulations. Aleppo historian Kamil al-Ghazzi  [ ar ] cited a local historical anecdote, according to which Murad IV, who passed through Aleppo, urgently personally granted permission to

10340-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within

10450-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there

10560-401: The same year Sanos collected 7934 ghurush from Europeans and 5406 from caravans, and additionally received 4086 ghurush from stamp ( damgha ) tax. In addition, Sanos was accused of extortion of several thousand ghurush from English merchants. To replenish his income, Sanos bought a few more positions. According to Semerdjian, having boldly exceeded their authority and being accused of extortion,

10670-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of

10780-563: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of

10890-547: The tariffs to be paid by the Dutch Republic in Aleppo. As Masters points out, this was a direct violation of the powers granted to Petik by the Porte. In 1613, the Venetian consul in the city complained about Petik, after he boasted: “I am the collector of customs. No one will imprison me”. The brothers played an important role in the patronage of the Armenian community, like other wealthy Julfans. In 1616 they donated money for

11000-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to

11110-513: The use of both titles by Armenian khwajas was observed. Subsequently, the sons of the Ottoman Armenian khwajas massively switched to the çelebi title only, which they perceived as more prestigious. So, for example, the son of Sanos was called Skandar Çelebi. Both brothers are also mentioned under the byname Karagözoğlu (Ottomanist Alexander de Groot believed, and along with him Aleppo historians Hussein El-Mudarris and Olivier Salmon, that

11220-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study

11330-400: Was a known and famous man, for he traveled like a pasha, accompanied by thirty or forty special guards, as well as Janissaries and sipahis . They said that he had [purchased] twenty-four offices, [among them] chief of customs, head of the bazaar, and superintendent of all the inns, baths, and other things. Khwaja Petik, as was customary, along with other residents of the city, went out to meet

11440-482: Was achieved. The church was reconsecrated by Catholicos Aram I . Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized :  al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] ) is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in

11550-456: Was also the son of a Christian Armenian, giving him as a pledge the silk and what he had owned. This is real mercy, I don't know if more can be done. The 17th-century Armenian chronicler Hakob Karnetsi  [ hy ] described an episode about how Khwaja Sanos, "a pious man from Aleppo", having received an order from Sultan Murad and his Grand vizier Hüsref Pasha , in 1629 went to Erzurum (a hometown of Karnetsi himself), where he assumed

11660-522: Was appointed chief customs officer of Erzurum by Murad IV . Also, according to him, during this service of Petik, two brothers rescued from slavery more than a thousand Armenians taken prisoner as booty by what Barsoumian describes as a "Tartar army", who fought on the side of the Ottomans in the war against the Persians in 1638 . By 1616 Petik was negotiating directly with the Dutch consul regarding

11770-504: Was connected with the raw silk trade and the distribution of manufactured goods from Europe. The main markets for their silk and textiles were the Dutch Republic and Italy. Khwaja Sanos was his brother's assistant when Petik held the concession to collect customs duties in Aleppo. Subsequently, Petik held many different official or semi-official positions and was involved in many business matters. The sources of his income were so diverse that his ledgers contained up to twenty-four items at

11880-403: Was executed "partly due to the complaints sent to the Porte by the European consuls about his rapacious behavior" and Sanos was removed in 1640 and executed "for reasons that are not clear but were obviously serious". Khwaja Petik was beheaded in the citadel of Aleppo (presumably the order of Murad IV, but according to de Groot, on the order of Grand Vizier ). The year of Petik's execution

11990-532: Was reserved to an agha or kehya of the local Janissaries .” According to historian Elyse Semerdjian, it was after the revolt of the Kurdish leader Ali Janbulad that the brothers gained control over the city's customs and acquired their large fortune. Historian William Griswold believed that the Petik and Janbulad families must have known each other. Khwaja Petik's main European trade contacts were with

12100-535: Was unsuccessful. The rivalry between the brothers and Musa was outlined since they sought to unseat one other. Khwaja Petik regained his position in 1616 by establishing direct contact with the Dutch consul. According to Masters and Semerdjian, he occupied it until 1627 (according to them, this year he was executed). In 1629 Khwaja Sanos took over the customs office of Erzurum (in Western Armenia ). As Hagop Barsoumian describes, after working in Syria, Petik

#32967