Christianity in Eastern Arabia
According to the Chronicle of Seert,[1] Bishop David of Perat d'Maishan was present at the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, around 325, and sailed as far as India.
The monk Jonah is said to have established a monastery in the Persian Gulf "on the shores of the black island" in the middle of the fourth century.
[2] A Church of the East bishopric was established at Reishahr, nearly opposite Kharg Island in the northern Persian Gulf, before the Council of Dadisho in AD 424.
[6] This was, in large part, due to the arrival of Christians who faced persecution in Iraq and Iran under the reign of Shapur II starting in 339.
[8][9] Furthermore, the Chronicle of Seert mentions a monk named 'Abdisho who Christianized the locals of Ramath, an island located between Kuwait and Qatar, and built a monastery there sometime between 363 and 371.
[8] Church of the East records attest to a consistent Christian presence in the region between the fifth and seventh centuries, as evidenced by the regular attendance of synods by local bishops.
[14] From the sixth to seventh centuries, bishops were known to be stationed in the districts of Mashmahig (Samaheej), Dayrin (Tarout Island), Mazun, Hagar, and Ḥaṭṭa.
[17] The bishops of Beth Qatraye stopped attending synods in 676 although Christianity persisted in the region until the late ninth century.
[4] By the fifth century, Beth Qatraye was a major centre for the Church of the East, which had come to dominate the southern shores of the Persian Gulf.
[22][24] Because of this unique fusion of linguistic elements, the monks of Beth Qatraye were active in translating texts between Persian, Syriac and Arabic.
It is said that a Christian from Beth Qatraye even served as the official Persian translator for King al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir who was a native Arabic speaker.
[14] In 1993 a joint Kuwaiti-French expedition found a church in Akkaz (in present Kuwait) dating to the early Abbasid era.
[25][26] Remnants of a church, dating to perhaps as early as the 5th or 6th century as determined by the crosses that form part of the stucco decoration, were found at Al-Qusur on the Kuwaiti island of Failaka.
At Thaj, 90 km to the west, what appears to be a smaller church or chapel, built of reused stones and perhaps dating to the fifth or sixth century, has been discovered.
[32] Not far to the South of Jubail, at Jabal Berri, three bronze crosses have been found dating possibly to the period when Sassanian Persia had influence over the region.
The ceramics are consistent with those found in other Nestorian sites in the Eastern Arabia and the structure bears resemblance to the excavated church in Jubail.
[38] At Sir Bani Yas, an island off the Western coast of the United Arab Emirates, an extensive monastic and ecclesiastical complex has been found similar to that at Kharg.
