norris (harry)_ibn battuta on muslims and christians in the crimean peninsula (iran & the caucasus...

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Ibn Battuta on Muslims and Christians in the Crimean PeninsulaAuthor(s): Harry NorrisSource: Iran & the Caucasus, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2004), pp. 7-14Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4030887Accessed: 01-08-2015 13:29 UTC

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8 HARRY NORRIS

Black and Caspian seas. In order to find the source of these beliefsboth Armenians and Iranians feature prominently in the information,

which he has provided.Ibn Battuta made one, if not two, journeys to the Crimean penin-

sula. It is there that his encounters with Caucasians are most likely tohave taken place, although he also makes a reference to them duringhis visit to the southeastern districts of Asia Minor and to the north-ernmost flanks and foothills of the Caucasus range. He wrote:"Thence I visited the fortress of Baghras5 at the entrance to the land ofSis [Little Armenia], that is, the land of the Armenian infidels, andmany other castles and fortresses, several of which belong to a sectcalled Isma'ilites or Fidawis6 and may be entered by none but mem-bers of the sect". He comments a little later about this entire area:"The majority of the people of the coastal district belong to the sect ofthe Nusayris who believe that 'Ali is a God".7 His encounter with theperson of 'Ali b. Abi Talib, in local beliefs, will appear later in my text.

Amongst the Sufi centres, which were visited by Ibn Battuta withinthe Crimea, itself, or immediately to the north of it, were Sufi hostelsand retreats (zawiyas) where the Shaykhs who were in charge camefrom Khurasan. In one of these retreats he met a jurist, or teacher,(faqih) who was an Ossetian from the northern Caucasus. In Azaq, hewas afforded hospitality near a fortified retreat (rabita), which was asso-ciated with al-Khidr (the spiritual guide of Dhu'l-Qarnayn and, inparticular, an illuminator of Sufis) and with the Prophet Elias (Ilyas).

Both here, and in the Crimean peninsula, the Sufi communities

were multi-ethnic. Possibly some inmates were from the local Turkicor Tatar peoples, and a number of them were certainly Khurasanis. InIndia, Ibn Battuta had met a messenger from the king whom he de-scribes as a Sufi Shaykh, named Rajab al-Burqa'i, who was born inQiram, the ancient capital of Islamic Crimea, Staryj Krym (EskiKrim, or Solkhat). Elsewhere he encountered Byzantine Greeks whohad been converted to Islam and who had embraced Sufism, togetherwith Iraqis and Turks.

5 Pagrae fortress, which was called Gaston, or Gastin, by the Crusaders defended the entrypoint to the Baylan Pass which is located between Alexandretta nd Antioch.

6 The "Fidawis", r "Fida'iyyin" re better known as the "Assassins" n the West, see FarhadDaftary, 7he Isma'ilis, heirHistogy ndDoctrines, ambridge, 1990: 18-19, 433-434.

7 H. A. R. Gibb, "Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354", 7he Broadway ravel-lers,London, 1939: 62-63, and Ibn Battuta, n the Hakluyt Society edition, vol 11, 1959: 469 and

f.n. 299.


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IBN BATTUTA ON MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS IN THE CRIMEAN PENINSULA 9

There are two places in the peninsula, specifically described by IbnBattuta, which were significant centres for Armenian communities

during the days of his visit. He also describes important towns such asFeodosia (Theodosia, Kaffa), which likewise housed Armenian com-munities, though he makes no specific mention of them.

Claude Mutafian and Eric Van Lauwe, in discussing the medievalArmenian settlement in the Crimea, have pointed out that the 13thcentury was a key period when this settlement took place.8 The GoldenHorde was in the ascendant and the Cilician kingdom had a remark-able commercial expansion, with centres established, and churchesbuilt, in Kaffa (Feodosia), Gamtchak and Sudak. By 1316 A.D., theArmenians had established their presence at Solkhat, later to becomethe first Turco-Tatar capital. They were present in the whole south-eastern part of the Crimea and they were the neighbours of the Greek,Cuman, Karaim and Genoese inhabitants. By 1375 A. D. sometwenty years after Ibn Battuta's visit to the Crimea-a further exodusof Armenians from Cilicia brought more Armenians into the Crimeaand they were to become a majority in the entire region of Kaffa. Themonastery of the Holy Cross (Surb-Khach) was founded in 1338 A. D.,the site of holy springs and retreats for ascetics, although the still stand-ing Armenian monastery which is there to this day would seem to post-date Ibn Battuta's visit to Staryj Krym, the centre of which is situatedat a close distance from this holy site. Armenians were also present inthe region of Kerch. The map of the Crimea published in the Atlas inClaude Mutafian and Eric Van Lauwe's book, sites an Armenian

church, near Yenikale on a promontory facing Tamans'ka Zatoka andthe Circassian foothills. Kerch itself is situated near the most easterlypoint of the peninsula, where the Sea of Azov meets the Black Sea(Kerchens Kyipiv).

Ibn Battuta describes an unusual experience upon landing in theCrimea at this point:

"The wind was fair, so we put to sea, but when we were midway onour course and out at sea it blew in the terrifying fashion, which it haddone so, previously. But then it was that the wind blew to help us andwe spied mountains on the shore and we set our course for a harbourcalled Kerch. We wished to enter it, but people who were standing onthe heights above signalled to us, saying: 'Enter not'. We were in fearof our lives and we dreaded the presence of hostile vessels there. So we

8 Claude Mutafian and Eric Van Lauwe, "Adas Historique de l'Armenie, Proche Orient etSud Caucase du V I II siecle av. J. C. au XX I siecle", Collection tlas Edition utrement, aris, 2001:

84-85.




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10 HARRY NORRIS

put to sea again and then returned again to the coastline. I said to theowner of the boat: 'I wish to disembark at this point'. He therefore putme ashore and I caught sight of a church. I made my way towards tand it was there that I met a monk. In one of the walls of the church Isaw an image of an Arab who was wearing a turban. He was girt witha sword and he was brandishing a spear in his hand. A burning lampwas in front of the image. I enquired of the monk: 'Whom does thisimage depict?'. He said to me: 'This is the image of the Prophet 'Ali(b. Abi Talib)'. I was astonished at what he had told me. We passedthe night in that church".9

Prof. Hamilton Gibb suggested that there was a confusion here be-

tween the persons of 'Ali and Elias. This identification is common inthe Near East, especially so in the Sufi poetry of members of certaindervish orders, for example the Bektashiyya. However, Tim Mackin-tosh-Smith, in his recent book,'0 expresses grave doubts whether this isa correct identification, here. He identifies the church with that of StJohn the Baptist, in Kerch, which was built between the 8th and 10thcenturies, believing this to be the only church of note where such anencounter could have taken place. However, Ibn Battuta's text sug-gests that the building which he visited was right outside the heart ofKerch, itself. The latter town was known as St John's Port and thetraveller had deliberately asked the master of the boat in which he wassailing to avoid a landing there. The image may have been an icon butit could equally have been a carved figure in low relief. Mackintosh,rightly, sees no evidence from the iconography to identify 'Ali withElias, rather to the contrary. He has suggested that St George was thesaint in question, pointing out that this identification of 'Ali with StGeorge was also known in Iran. The most famous representation of StGeorge from the Crimea, is the Byzantine, 12th century, "Mariupolrelief)', once associated with St George's monastery in Balaklava andwithout any associations with Kerch, indeed it came from the oppositecorner of the peninsula. In my view there is a distinct likelihood thatthe monk he met was an Armenian and that Ibn Battuta had taken ref-uge in an Armenian church outside Kerch. The Armenian churches in

the Crimea shared many common features with mosque decorationsand architecture. The Armenians were commonly found in large num-ber in the Seljuk states and some were even converts to Islam. By con-trast, the Greeks only shortly before Ibn Battuta's visit to the Crimea,had suffered the sack of Sudak by the Golden Horde, at the hands of

9 See the Arabic text of Tuhfat l-Nuzzar, d. by Ta1al Harb, Beirut, 1407/1987: 335 ff.10 See Tim Mackintosh-Smith's Travels ith a Tangerine, ourney n theFootnotes f Ibn Battuta,

London, Basingstoke nd Oxford, 2001: 316-320.




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IBN BATTUTA ON MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS IN THE CRIMEAN PENINSULA I I

Tuluktumur, Ibn Battuta's host, and that in a document, dating fromthe year 1322 A. D., 'crosses and icons were removed and were broken

in pieces'. The Greeks had received harsh treatment. Kaffa has pro-duced examples of carvings of St George, which show remarkable simi-larities to the description, which was left to us in Ibn Battuta's ac-count." On balance the likelihood must be that Ibn Battuta had metan Armenian monk in the Crimea who was familiar with the iconogra-phy of 'Ali in the 'World of Islam' which he had encountered, whetherthis in proximity to the Nusayris or the Muslim Seljuqs, the GoldenHorde, or Mamluk communities in the Crimea, or in Cilicia, or evenfrom within the southern Caucasus.

The case for Armenian dialogue with the Muslims of Staryj Krym,and, in particular, with Sufi elements in Tuluktumur's court, is furthersupported by a second passage from Ibn Battuta's 'rihla'.'2 This wasabout an opportunity for inter-faith dialogue which Ibn Battuta re-jected and which he seemed to have regretted later. Solkhat (StaryjKrym) was the first capital of the Golden Horde in the Crimea. Itsgovernor, Tuluktumur, was to act as the host of the traveller duringmuch of his stay in the Crimea and within the steppes to its north. Hiscourt contained a number of scholars who are mentioned by name.The town had been in contact with the Mamluks in Egypt for a longperiod and, by repute, it had been the birthplace of Sultan al-Malik al-Zahir Baybars al-Bunduqdari (1260-77 A.D.), ruins of whose mosque

" Examples of carved icons may be found in Y. A. Aibanina, 7he Art of StoneCarving n Caffa,

14th-18th Centuries Dekorativnaya kamennaya rez'ba Kaffy XlV-XVI11 vv.), Simferopol, "So-nat", 2001. See, in particular, her Fig 6, "Relief with image of St George (according o L. A. Mag-gioroti) 4-1 1. FMLL A 1229. This carving closely correspends o the image described n Ibn Bat-tuta's account.

Prof. Garnik Asatrian has kindly drawn my notice to the fact that amongst heterodox Shi'ites(e. g. Zaza people, Alavis, etc.), the Prophet Elijah s commonly identified with St George and StSergius. Folk traditions of Armenians who are neighbours of the above peoples, including Kurdsand the Yezidis, also furnish examples of this phenomenon. He adds that both Kurdish and Yezi-di traditions assimilate Khizr, or Khidir with Ilyas (cf. the name of this compound character,Khidirilias, or Khirdilias) and, likewise amongst the Kurds, Khidir and St Sergius (Xidir-nabi).This offers an exact parallel with the Armenian Surb Sargis (Sergius) n folk traditions where thesaint s depicted as riding a horse and armed with a spear. A similar representation f Surb Gevorgis likewise ound. Khizir, amongst the Zaza is shown riding n the same manner.

I am also grateful to Prof. Asatrian or bringing to my notice the following references: A. A.Papazian, "Al-Khidr Iliya: Mifologiceskie stoki analogii", Palestinskij bornik, 8 (1986): 89-98;Munzir Comerd, "Dersim Iranci'nda Hizir", Ware, N12 (1998): 113-124. He has also added twofurther references.

The archeological evidence from the Crimea, together with the observations of Prof. GarnikAsatrian and others, providing extremely strong evidence from the sources in the Caucasus,would appear to make improbable a 'Byzantine Greek' hypothesis which was offered by TimMackintosh-Smith n his book.

12 Talal Harb's edition of Ibn Battuta's Arabic text, opcit.: 337.




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12 HARRY NORRIS

exist there to this day. Uzbek Khan had also built a mosque in thetown. Restored parts of this latter mosque and a madrasa still stand,

and its gate bears the date of 713 A. H. 1314 A. D.

An armed saint mounted on a horse as depicted on a medieval "Khachkar"located in the garden outside Ejmiatsin Cathedral

As was the case elsewhere, Ibn Battuta makes a frequent mention

of Sufi hospices and hostels, retreats, zawiyas and ribats. As was thecase in those zawiyas to the north of the Crimea, their inmates were ofa mixed ethnic background. Ibn Battuta writes: "In Qlram (StaryjKrym) I met its chief Qadi, Shams al-Din al-Sa'ili, who was the Qadiof the Hanafite school of law (madhhab). also met the Qadi of the Sha-fi'ite school, who bore the name of Khidr. I met the jurist (faqih) and

teacher,5 'Ala'l-Din al-Assi (the Ossetian) and the Shafi'ite preacher,Abu Bakr. He regularly preached the Friday sermon in the mosque.This had been built by al-Malik al-Nasir-may God have mercy uponhim. I also met the wise and pious Shaykh Muzaffar al-Din, who wasone of the Byzantine Greeks who had converted to Islam, and also thepious and ardently devout, Muzhir al-Din, who was amongst the emi-nent jurists

" See H. A. R. Gibb's Hakluyt edition, op cit.: 469 ff, and Tim Mackintosh-Smith, op. cit.:315-316.




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IBN BATTUTA ON MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS IN THE CRIMEAN PENINSULA 13

Another religious official who had acted as an escort to bring IbnBattuta to Staryj Krym was Tuluktumur's imam, Sa'd al-Din, who

housed him in the zaw'va of Shaykh Zadah al-Khurasani: "This Shaykhoffered us his hospitality, he gave us a hearty welcome and he showedus favours. He is highly venerated amongst them. I saw the people of-fering him their respects, including the Qadi, the preacher of themosque (khatib), the jurist (faqih) and others besides these officials.Shaykh Zadah told me that outside this town a Christian monk residesin a monastery. He is extreme in the devotions, which he offers to God.He fasts severely and sometimes does so up to forty days. He thenbreaks his fast by eating one sole bean. He reveals matters, which arehidden from man's knowledge, and matters, which are unforeseen. Heasked me to accompany him in order to see this monk but I declinedhis request. But then, afterwards, I regretted that I had declined to doso in order to discover the true nature of his affair".

Tim Mackintosh-Smith has identified the haunt of this (Armenian)monk as the building which stood in the present location of the mon-astery of the Holy Cross (Surb-Khach), at no great distance fromStaryj Krym. He has also drawn attention to the fast itself and to theconsumption of a bean, or beans, at its close, and he has found it asbeing characteristic of the practise of the Armenian church, also, hepoints out the markedly Islamic character of the architecture of the ex-isting monastery, which was built in 1338 A.D., shortly after Ibn Bat-tuta's visit.

One can be certain that the Qipchaqs and other Muslims in the

Crimea, at that time, had both scholars and Sufis who were the neigh-bours of Karaims and of Oriental Christians. Ibn Battuta specificallymentions 'Qipchaq Christians' amongst them. This coexistence sur-vived centuries of turmoil and it was noticeable, at a later date, whenKaraims, Armenians and Muslims of the Golden Horde, dwelt side byside in the fortress of Chufut Kale near to the later Crimean Tatarcapital of Bakhshiserai. Ibn Battuta's observations reveal some hetero-dox features of this human contact and dialogue between those faithsall of which were practised, or were tolerated in the Crimea. This tol-eration echoes that co-existence, which was described as an acceptablehabit within the Golden Horde capital of Saray. The names of thosemen of faith whom he met also indicate the presence of Iranians, espe-cially from Khurasan, and of Caucasians from the Northern and theSouthern Caucasus. The Crimean peninsula had been a melting potof cultures for many centuries. Under the Golden Horde this featureof its life both widened in its

geographical parameters and deepened




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14 HARRY NORRIS

through its tapping of disparate spiritual sources. Their origins are tobe sought in the East, especially in the lands between the Caucasus,

the mouth of the Volga and Central Asia.14

14 Aspects of the cultural nfluences which arrived n the Crimean and Volga regions fromEgypt are explained in "The Islamic Culture of the Middle Volga Region, Roots and Perspec-tives", an article contributed by Guzel Valeeva-Sulaymanova, Tatarstan ast and Present, reparedfor publication by M. Z. Zakiev,J. A. Allan and S. Akiner, a publication of the Centre of Near andMiddle Eastern Studies, the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1992:

17-23.

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