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HISTORY OF RABBAN BAR SAWMA - CHAPTERS 1-6 |
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Bar Sawma
Brief Biography: Bar Sauma, born in Tai-tu (Northern China) about 1260, was a descendant of the Onggud Turks who joined the Mongols early in the reign of Chinggis Khan. Like other Onggud Turks, his family were members of the Nestorian church, the most active Christian church in Central Asia. By the age of twenty-five, Sauma had taken vows to become a Nestorian monk and built a cell to meditate in isolation. Able to read Syraic, Turkic, and possibly Chinese, he was well-educated as well as pious. Fired by a zeal to visit Nestorian monuments in the Middle East and Jerusalem, Sauma and his student Markos, later to become the patriarch and leader of the Nestorian church centered in Baghdad, set out on their arduous pilgrimage sometime before 1278. They reached the Mongol territories in Persia, but were unable to continue their journey to Jerusalem because of the political situation. Instead Sauma eventually found himself appointed to a diplomatic mission which would take him to Constantinople, Genoa, Paris, Bordeaux, and Rome and which would involve negotiations for joint operations to force the Mamluks of Egypt out of the Holy Land. He died in Baghdad in 1313 without reaching Jerusalem. Brief Itinerary: Leaving Taitu shortly after Marco Polo arrived in China, Sauma and Markos followed the Yellow River southwest to Ningxia. From there, they took the southern silk road below the Taklamakan Desert passing through Miran and following a course along the Chenchen river for about 500 miles to Khotan. The section of their travel from Ningxia to Khotan took two months. They proceeded to Kashgar, Talas, and Tus, the Ilykhan capital of Khurasan, Maragha, and finally Baghdad. From there the two men travelled to Nestorian centers in Beth Garmai, Arbil, Mosul, and back to Baghdad. From there they went to Tabriz and Ani, and then headed to port cities abong the Black Sea. At this point Armenian and Georgian friends advised them of the great danger of trying to reach the Holy Land, so they return to Maragha.
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email: info@nestorian.org |