Modern Assyrian Studies

This first volume is the gratifying result of an extensive and time-consuming effort by a small team dedicated to take the challenge of presenting the hitherto almost inaccessible contents of the first magazine of the best-known Assyrian journalist, Naum Faiq.

Naum Faiq Palakh was born in Diyarbakir in February of 1868 and in a time of extreme difficulties with respect to social and political live in the Ottoman Empire.
His father was Elias Bar-Yakob Palakh. In a school in Diyarbakir, led by Ḫanna Sërre Čëqqe, he learned different languages, among them Arabic, Old-Turkish (Osmanlıca), Persian, Armenian and later also French and English.
In 1888, he became a teacher at the Assyrian school in Diyarbakir, but taught also temporarily in the Monastery of Zaˁfaran near Mardin, in Urfa, in Adıyaman and in Ḫomş (Syria).
From July 16th 1910 he started publishing Kawkab Madënẖo (Eastern Star) as bi-weekly magazine supported by Bišar Hilmi Boruji. The publication stopped with Faiq’s forced migration to the United States in 1912.

The magazine Kawkab Madënẖo was hardly accessible for two reasons: First, a century after its first appearance it has only been possible to discover film copies of the magazine in New York's Public Library. Apparently, the magazine's subscriber, Gabriel Boyaji, who lived in the United States, had donated the publication to the Library of New York and luckily it was archived on microfilm.
The second reason for its inaccessibility is that the contents are mainly written in handwritten Garšuni (Ottoman and Arabic) and as such can only be deciphered by experts. Garšuni has been a preferred method for writing both secular and religious texts since the spread of Arabic in the North Mesopotamian region among the Assyrians while utilizing Syriac alphabet.
Some scholars see in it the tradition of preserving linguistic identity while others even see in it a certain degree of maintaining privacy in communication against outside influences.

With the painstaking transcription and post-editing, the texts/articles of Kawkab have thus now been made available in book form to a wider research community and interested parties.

This publication comes in two volumes as part of a larger, multi-year project led by Abboud Zeitoune to review, analyze, and publish in European languages (English and German) the content of various magazines published by Naum Faiq.

"The enormous success of Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ has revived interest in the Aramaic language. It is now recognized throughout the world as the language spoken by Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Also called Assyrian or Syriac, it is very much a living language that is spoken today by the Assyrian peoples in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. it is also heard in Assyrian emigre communities such as those in the U.S., Europe, and Australia.

Modern Aramaic is made up of a number of dialects. The two major ones are Swadaya (Eastern) and Turoyo (Western). This unique dictionary and phrasebook incorporates both dialects in a way that illustrates the differences and gives the reader a complete understanding of both. The dialects are presented in an easy-to-read romanized form that will help the reader be understood."

Lying at the crossroads of many cultures and civilizations, the Middle East has long been home to a wealth of religious traditions. In the violent wars and political turbulence now affecting the Middle East, religious minorities are threatened to the point that the future of religious pluralism in the region is in question. At this critical juncture, the conference will bring together a wide variety of scholars, many of Middle Eastern heritage themselves, to share their research on these neglected communities. Presentations will focus on three states where anti-minority violence has been particularly traumatic: Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. The religious groups to be examined are all numerical minorities in these states. Some identify as ethnic minorities, some do not. They experience varying degrees of political and economic marginalization in their home countries, but they are all threatened by the violence that has gripped the region over the last decade.
This conference will be organized in three panels of experts examining three crucial conflicts and their repercussions for religious minorities. The first panel will provide historical perspective by tracing the overlooked progression of mass violence against Assyrian Christians, from the 1915-1918 Assyrian Genocide to the 1933 Simele massacre to the current campaign by IS. The second panel will be dedicated to the experience of religious minorities in the ongoing Syrian civil war, a conflict in one of the region’s most religiously-diverse countries that quickly took on sectarian tones. The third will consider the situation and role of religious minorities in post-revolutionary Egypt, particularly the Baha’i community and the Orthodox Copts, the largest religious minority community in the Middle East. This conference will be geared towards academics, University of Chicago students, and especially Middle Eastern communities in the Chicago area, including Assyrians, Copts, Baha’is and others.
This conference will challenge oversimplified narratives of sectarianism, nationalism, and democratization. It will also encourage its attendees to reflect on what constitutes “minority” in the Middle Eastern context, the various ways minorities in the Middle East express their identities, the causes of their marginalization and persecution, and the consequences of their potential extinction.