Philip Wood: Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, the Gubbite monks and their Muslim patrons

Dionysius of Tel-mahre held the patriarchate of Antioch through the support of Abdallah ibn Tahir, the governor of the Jazira. This paper examines how this support worked in practice, through legitimating his role in collecting tithes and, where necessary, backing up the patriarch's writ with coercive force. However, Dionysius' opponents had their own Muslim patrons too, and we also consider how the monks of Gubba Barraya used their contacts with members of the Alid family in Baghdad to develop their own claims to the patriarchate. The crucial context for this uncertainty over who held the patriarchate was the aftermath of the caliph al-Ma'mun's victory in the civil war over his brother al-Amin. Syria and the Jazira had long been out of the hands of the caliph in Baghdad, and it was unclear how far he would be willing to commit resources east of Iraq. At the same time, al-Ma'mun had very seriously entertained appointing an Alid, Ali al-Rida, as his successor, which made the connections of patronage in this era opaque and unclear. At its heart, this paper argues that ecclesiastical politics in this period cannot be understood divorced from wider patterns in Islamic political and cultural history.