Main areas under Mardaite control in the Levant, c. 7th century A.D.
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| Regions with significant populations | |
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| Levant, Anatolia, the Balkans | |
| Languages | |
| Unknown; possibly Syriac, Armenian, or an Iranian language | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Maronites,[1] Greeks,[2] South Slavs,[2] Albanians[3] |
The Mardaites (Medieval Greek: Μαρδαΐται) or al-Jarajima (Syriac: ܡܪ̈ܕܝܐ; Arabic: ٱلْجَرَاجِمَة/ALA-LC: al-Jarājimah) were early Christians following either MiaphysitismorMonothelitismorOrthodoxy in the Nur Mountains. Little is known about their ethnicity, but it has been speculated that they might have been Persians (see, for a purely linguistic hypothesis, the Amardi, located south of the Caspian Sea in classical times) or Armenians, yet other sources claim them to have been Greeks native to the Levant[4] or possibly even from the Arabian peninsula.[5] Their other Arabic name, al-Jarājimah, suggests that some were natives of the town JurjuminCilicia; the word marada in Arabic is the plural of mared, which could mean a giant, a supernatural being like Jinn, a high mountain or a rebel.
The argument that the Mardaites were Greek,[4] is supported on two facts. Firstly, their loyalty to the Greek emperors in Constantinople. If they were Maronites, MonophysitesorMiaphysites that had animosity towards the Orthodox Greeks of Syria and Palestine and the central government in Constantinople, they would not obey his orders to make war or peace with the new Muslim Arab conquerors. The same argument is made against being Muslim Arab renegades. They would not exhibit such fierce loyalty to an Orthodox Greek emperor. Linguistic evidence also supports this theory. The name Mardaites is found in use in areas of the Byzantine empire at least until the 10th century. It was synonym to apelates, seen in Greek folk and epic poems (akrites). Finally, indicative of their ancestry and locality is that after the peace treaty was signed between the Byzantines and the Arabs, they remained in the land.
Whether their name was due to their existence outside of legitimate political authority or their residence in the mountains is not known. They were joined later by various escaped slaves and peasants during their insurgency and were said to have claimed territory from "the Holy City" to the "Black Mountain" (Nur Mountains).[6]
After the Muslim conquest of the Levant, the Mardaites gained a semi-independent status around the Nur Mountains within al-ʿAwāṣim, the Byzantine-Arab border region. They initially agreed to serve as mercenaries for the Arabs and to guard the Amanian Gate, but their loyalty was intermittent and they often sided with the Byzantine Empire as their agenda varied.[6] According to Greek and Syriac historians, their territory stretched from the Amanus to the "holy city", the latter often identified as Jerusalem, although more likely to refer to Cyrrhus, also called Hagioupolis, the capital of Cyrrhestica, in upper Syria.[7] Their numbers were swelled by thousands of runaway slaves, making them an ethnically diverse group. In light of this, it is claimed that they forced Muawiyah I, Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, to pay tribute to the Byzantine emperor Constantine IV, or possibly to them instead.[7] Emperor Justinian II sent the Mardaites again to raid Syria in 688/9; this time they were joined by native peasants and slaves and were able to advance as far as Lebanon.
The Umayyads were compelled to sign another treaty by which they paid the Byzantines half the tribute of Cyprus, Armenia and the Kingdom of Iberia in the Caucasus Mountains;[4] in return, Justinian relocated around 12,000 Mardaites to the southern coast of Anatolia, and the area of Laconia in the Southern Peloponnese, being under Byzantine control, Nicopolis in Epirus and Cephalonia as part of his measures to restore population and manpower to areas depleted by earlier conflicts.[6][8] There they were conscripted as rowers and marines in the Byzantine navy for several centuries.[9] Others however remained behind and continued raiding Muslim-held territories until their chief stronghold fell to Umayyad prince-general Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik in 708. Maslama then resettled them throughout Syria, and although he allowed them to retain their faith, he conscripted them into his army.[5]
Describing the abna' of Yemen, Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani states in his Kitab al-Aghani that, up to his time (10th century), these people were called "banū al-aḥrār (بنو الأحرار) in Sanaa, al-abnāʾ in Yemen, al-aḥāmira (الأحامرة) in Kufa, al-asāwira (الأساورة) in Basra, al-khaḍārima (الخضارمة) in al-Jazira, and al-jarājima (الجراجمة) in Bilad al-Sham".[10]
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