What Pro-Aramean Assad Sauma Assad claims implies

By: Hanna Hajjar

Just notice the contradiction in the words of Assad Sauma Assad in this article:

فان الشعب الاشوري كان شعباً صغير العدد

كما ان بسبب كثرة الآراميين الذين رحَّلهم الاشوريون من المناطق الآرامية المحتلة واسكنوهم في عواصم آشور "كان قلب آشور قد تحول الى شبه آرامي Semi Aramean" على حد قول علماء الاشوريات (راجع مثلا بحث العلامة المرحوم " ح. تدمر":

وبعد حوالي شهرين من الحصار في صيف 612 سقطت نينوى بيد الاعداء، فاهتز العالم القديم لسقوطها. وتفشى فيها الذعر، وعمَّت الفوضى، ودمّروا المدينة وحوّلوها الى "أكداس من الخراب" كما جاء في سجل الاحداث البابلية، وتعرضت هذه المدينة الجميلة الى ابشع انواع النهب والسلب والحرق والقتل والمجازر، فسارت فيها الدماء في الطرقات، وتحولت الى خراب ينعق فيها البوم كما ذُكر. وكان البعض من الجنود والسياسيين والاداريين "الاشوريين" قد هربوا ليتحصنوا في حران التي كانت قاعدة آرامية مقتدرة مرتبطة بآشور،

Notice his words:

1st, he claims that the numbers of Assyrians are small.

2nd, he claims that the numbers of Arameans were very high in Assyrian capitals that they became the majority, and Assyrian cities became Semi Arameans.

3rd, He claims that the Chaldeans and Medes layed a seige to Nineveh, and it fell after 2 months.

4th, He claims that the Medes and Chaldeans, conducted massacres in Nineveh.

5th, He claims that Assyrians escaped to Harran.

6th, He claims that Harran was an Aramean center.

Now let's analize his logic:

If Assyrians were a minority in their own capital Nineveh, and Assyrians escaped from the city, well, Who did those Medes anc Chaldean invaders massacre? Doesn't that mean that if his claim is true then it was the Aramean majority that was massacred, while the Assyrian minority escaped to Harran.

If the Assyrians of Nineveh were escaping from the attack of the Medes and Chaldean (whom Assad claims them to be Arameans), then the question is: why would the Assyrians who are escaping from the so called Aramean head towards Harran if it were an Aramean city? Would anyone in his right mind escape to a city of his enemies? Obviously Harran was a pure Assyrian city, and by the way it was a privillaged Assyrian city because it was tax exempt city.

Here is a very interesting quote from the Bible, which I would like to share with Assad Sauma who claim that Chaldeans and Arameans are the same!

2 Kings 24:2: "In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years; then he turned and rebelled against him. The LORD sent against him bands of Chaldeans, bands of Arameans, bands of Moabites, and bands of Ammonites"

Notice how the Bible makes a distinction between Chaldeans and Arameans. If they were the same then they would have mentioned one or the other!

The same thing could be seen in the Assyrian kings annals where they describe different people which they deported through the Assyrian empire, you can also see here that the Assyrian king Sennacherib for example in his inscriptions makes a distinction between Chaldeans and Arameans, meaning that Assad Sauma Assad's claim is false!

As you see the words of Assad are not logical, and they don't make any sense, let alone he is contradicting himself. Because what we can conclude from his version of the story, is that Chaldean Arameans massacred the Arameans of Assyria. And this is exactly what happened, because when Assyrians made the Aramaic language as their official language, everyone in their empire spoke it. and guess what happens when the Medes army who speak an indo-Eupropean language completely different than Aramaic, entered Nineveh, how could a foreigner differenciate who is who, when everyone spoke the same Aramaic langauge and all had similar facial features. The Medes thought that the Arameans were Assyrians, so they massacred them, while the Assyrians escaped to Harran. On the other hand, the Chaldeans who spoke Aramaic, could have easily confused Assyrians speaking Aramaic to be an Armaeans, hence spared them.

The Adoption of the Aramaic language by the Assyrians was a genius idea, it diffused the Arameans and fused them in Assyrian society, where everyone became known as Assyrian, and that is why after the fall of Assyria and Chaldea we notice that the name Athura and Asoristan were preserved, while the name Aram had disappeared from the map. Later the Greeks Hellenized Assyria into Syria, and similarly applied it to the whole Middle East


Another blooper by Assad Sauma Assad:

وفي نفس الوقت، وبعد سقوط آشور وذوبان البقية من الاشوريين في البوتقة الآرامية وتحولهم الى الانتماء الآرامي، بقي الاسم الاشوري مستمراً في الاستعمال لدى جيرانهم الفرس والارمن واليونان يطلقونه على المنطقة الجغرافية التي كانت تضم مدينة "آشور" القديمة، لذلك فان مدينة الموصل القديمة تسمى بالسريانية "آثور" ܐܬܘܪ. كما كانوا يطلقون هذا الاسم احياناً على اشخاص انحدروا من ذلك الاقليم لتعني "موصلي" بغض النظر عن قومية الشخص الموصلي لأن المصادر السريانية القديمة أطلقت لفظة "آثوري" (اي موصلي) على العرب والسريان والاكراد سكان الموصل، مثلما اطلقت بالسريانية لفظة ܒܒܠܝܐ̈ "بابليين" على سكان بغداد من عرب وسريان وغيرهم. وبامكاننا ان نستشهد بالنقش السرياني المزبور عام 1893على باب مذبح كنيسة مار الياس في قرية باقسيان (باقسيونِه) في طور عابدين اثناء ترميمها (ܒܝܘ̈ܡܝ ܐܒܐ ܕܝܠܢ ܪܘܚܢܝܐ ܦܛܪܝܪܟܐ ܦܛܪܘܣ ܡܘܨܠܝܐ ܐܘܟܝܬ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ) أي رُممت "بأيام أبينا الروحي البطريرك بطرس الموصلّي أي الآثوري". كما ان المطلعين على المصادر السريانية القديمة يعرفون هذه الامور البديهية

He claims that after the fall of Assyria, the region of Mosul/Nineveh and Ashur remained to be called Assyria geographically, and the Armenians, Persians, and Greeks, as well as Syriacs called the people coming from that region as Assyrians irrespective of their ethnicity.

That is not true because Armenians and Persians called every Syriac as Asori (Assyrians), while they called the Kurds, Arabs, and Turks from the region of Mosul/Nineveh and Ashur, simply as Kurds, Arabs, and Turks. In other words the name Asori was limited to all Syriacs and irrespective if they came from that region or any other region, simply because they are the descendents of Assyrians.

And here is the funny thing, if Assad claimed that Assyrian minority were massacred, then logically what he would be left with is a vast majority of Arameans, now here is the question: Why were those Arameans all over the Middle East named Asori by Armenians and Persians after the fall of Assyria?

Finally, the Greeks called the people Assyrian, and Syrian interchangeably, which makes us conclude that the Arameans all over the Middle east were influenced by the Assyrian name, in other words it was the Arameans who were Assyrianized.

There is no Syriac manuscript that labels Arabs or Kurds as Assyrians! Otherwise Ibin Bahlool (who was an Arab), would have called himself Assyrian!