7.18 The near east: a.d. 401 to 500

The near east

Back to The Near East: A.D. 301 to 400

Arabia and jordan

Arabia was primarily a Bedouin land, with social organization pivoting around the tribe. Both Byzantine and Persia tried to protect themselves by supporting new buffer Arab border states and through these buffer zones, foreign customs and ideas filtered into the world of the nomads. Far south Arabia remained a civilized, Christian community with close ties to Ethiopia. In North Yemen repairs were attempted on an old earthen dam stretching some two thousand feet across the Wadi Dhana, using 20,000 men, 14,600 camels and 12,000 donkey teams. The dam diverted flood waters to irrigate about 4,000 acres of land but it lasted for only about a century. (Ref. 82 )

Mediterranean coastal areas of israel and lebanon&Iraq and syria

This region continued as part of the Byzantine Empire. Monophysitism dominated in western Syria while Nestorians were prominent in the east until expelled in the later part of this century.

Iran: persia

The Sassanid Empire continued to flourish and after a treaty with Byzantium there was relative peace and tolerance of Christians. The Nestorians were particularly prevalent in Iran in the latter part of the century after they had been run out of the Byzantine area, proper, and later out of Syria. The city of Bandor Shahpur on the Persian Gulf was the site of a great hospital and translation center of Greek texts to Arabic. The Nestorians were active in these translations and in founding the hospital. Particularly famous was Jurgis Bukht-Yishu, first of six generations of translators.

The century began with Zorastrianism continuing as the major religion with taints of Hellenism still remaining, but now appeared Mazdak, a new preacher, reviving a kind of Manichean doctrine, which was translated into a kind of communism. It caused much political trouble for Kavadh I, who originally had supported the doctrine. This king married a Hepthalite (also spelled Ephthalite and sometimes called "White Hun", probably erroneously

In A.D. 484 the Persian army was finally annihilated and their king killed by the Hepthalites. During their period of control of Persia in the remainder of the century an exiled Persian, Kobad, who had been living among the invaders, took the throne, only to be driven off again by his own nobles in 489, perhaps because he supported the priest Mazdak's theories. (Ref. 137 , 8 , 38 , 119 )