Balad
author: Amir Harrak
source date: 2011
edition published: 2016-09-22-16:00
availability: Copyright ©2011 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute Distributed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Balad

https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Balad http://syriaca.org/bibl/79 70 http://syriaca.org/place/42 [place] [Town located some 40 km. northwest of Mosul, on the west bank of the Tigris.]

Balad, Assyrian Balaṭ, Syriac and Arabic Balad or Balaṭ, and modern Aski Mosul (Turkish for ‘Old Mosul’) are names referring to a town located some 40 km. northwest of Mosul , on the west bank of the Tigris. Balad occurs in the inscriptions of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (BC 705–681), and in Syriac sources as part of the province of Beth ʿArbaye . In the late 5th cent. it became an E.-Syr. bishopric seat, beginning with bps Ḥawaḥ and Shubḥa l-Ishoʿ, who were present at the synod of Mar Babai that took place in Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 497. The long line of E.-Syr. bps. ended around 1364 with Aaron. Balad was also a Syr. Orth. bishopric seat, but only one bp., Mushe (mid 9th cent.), bore the title ‘bp. of Balad’. The other bishops may have resided in Dayr al-Muʿallaq ‘Hanging Monastery’, located some 15 km. from the city, on Mt. Buṭmān. They bore the title ‘bp. of Beth ʿArbaye’, having under their jurisdiction Sinjār and Nisibis , in addition to Balad. The last bp. was called ‘of Sinjār’ and served in this rank between 1317 and 1345, a fact that led Patr. Afram Barsoum to date the final destruction of Balad to the 14th cent. Two famous Syr. Orth. bps. originated from Balad, Aḥudemmeh and Athanasios II .

Sources

Barsoum, Scattered pearls, 552.
Chabot, Synodicon Orientale , 67, l. 19.
Fiey, Pour un Oriens christianus novus, 57–8, 175.
Fiey, ‘Balad et Beth ‘Arabaye irakien’, OS 9 (1964), 189–232.

Amir Harrak