Shamsīyah
The Shamsīyah were a tribe or sect of sun-worshippers in northern Mesopotamia, concentrated in the city of Mardin (in modern south-eastern Turkey) and the surrounding Tur Abdin region.
They converted to the Syriac Orthodox Church in the 17th century in order to avoid persecution in the Ottoman Empire but retained their own set of beliefs and practices; many travellers who observed and met with them doubted the extent to which they were actually Christian.
The important 5th-century Syriac Orthodox monastery Mor Hananyo, located near Mardin, was built on top of an ancient temple dedicated to Shamash.
[17] In addition to ancient Mesopotamian beliefs, the Shamsīyah may have been influenced by Yazidism (Yazidis also pray facing the sun) and perhaps Gnosticism and Zoroastrianism.
[18] Medieval Armenian sources record the presence of sun-worshippers in northern Syria for centuries, sometimes involved in local conflicts and conspiracies.
[19] 15th-century Syriac-language sources suggest that significant numbers of sun-worshippers converted and were welcomed into the Syriac Orthodox Church already in the sixth century AD.
[4] A group of sun- or fire-worshippers living in the city of Samsat, perhaps connected to the Shamsīyah, were reported by the Catholicos Nerses IV the Gracious to have converted to Christianity in the 12th century.
[20] The Shamsīyah, or adherents of similar beliefs, were once numerous in the northern lands around the Tigris river,[2] worshipping in temples throughout a region largely corresponding to the Ottoman Diyarbekir vilayet.
They first came to the attention of the government of the Ottoman Empire when Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623–1640) passed through Mardin on his way back following the 1638 capture of Baghdad.
[8] The Syriac Orthodox patriarch, Ignatius Hidayat Allah, however took pity on them and agreed to baptize the Shamsīyah to safeguard them from execution and persecution.
[4] According to the missionary Giuseppe Campanile, writing in 1818, the Shamsīyah converted only for protection and abandoned all Christian practices after Murad left the city, only actually adopting them in 1763 under pressure from the Syriac Orthodox and bribed government officials.
[5] The Venetian traveller Ambrosio Bembo, who passed through the Ottoman Empire in 1671–1675, noted the presence of five different Christian sects in the city of Diyarbakır (located near Mardin).
[21] Contrary to Parry's report, the British priest and scholar Adrian Fortescue claimed in 1913 that there were still about a hundred families who identified as Shamsīyah in Mardin.
[1][11] There were still Shamsīyah in Mardin at the outbreak of World War I but their subsequent fate is unknown and they appear to have since disappeared,[4] perhaps merging into the rest of the Syriac Orthodox Church.
Niebuhr also wrote that their weddings were officiated by Syriac Orthodox priests but that the newlyweds after the ceremony were given a ride down a road, passing by a "certain large stone to which they must show great respect".
Similar to Niebuhr, Campanile reported that the Shamsīyah dead were buried with gold and silver jewellery alongside household belongings.
[5] Campanile further claimed that the Shamsīyah gathered together three times a year to construct a large idol out of dough in the shape of a lamb, cover its head with a piece of cloth, and place it in a tin bowl.
[5] Silk Buckingham wrote in 1827 that the Shamsīyah had refused to give information on their beliefs to other members of the Syriac Orthodox Church and threatened their adherents with death if they did so.
