Metropolitan of [
Nisibis
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Nisibis) and author.
Eliya d-Ṣoba or bar Shinaya was born in Shenna (North Iraq) and studied in
the St. Michael’s monastery near [
Mosul
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Mosul). In 1002, he
was ordained bp. of [
Beth Nuhadra
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Beth-Nuhadra)
and, in 1008, metropolitan of Nisibis. The majority of Eliya’s works were
written in Arabic. His Chronography (maktbānut zabne)
is bilingual, Arabic and Syriac, and consists of two parts: Part I opens
with lists of names of secular and ecclesiastical leaders, followed by a
chronological series of mostly short entries on ecclesiastical and political
events, covering the years AD 25–1018, with careful indication of Syriac
(East and West) and Muslim-Arabic sources. Part II consists of conversion
tables of feasts and years according to different eastern calendars.
The report of his discussions with Abū al-Qāsim al-Maghribī, minister at the
court of the Marwānids in Diyarbakır (see [
Amid
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Amid)), though written
in Arabic, is important because of Eliya’s reflections on the [ Syriac language](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Syriac-Language) and culture. He tries to demonstrate
the superiority of the Syriac language with a number of syntactical and
lexicographical arguments as well as by referring to the fact that the
Muslims have many scientific works translated from Syriac, whereas the
Syrians do not have a single science borrowed from the Arabs. His
argumentation is partly based on observations made by [
Ḥunayn b.
Isḥāq
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Hunayn-b-Ishaq) in the 9th cent. and is no longer valid for his own period.
His remark about the absence of translations of Arabic among the Syrians is
contradicted by his chronicle which gives Syriac translations of fragments
of Arabic historiographical works. He also argues that the Syriac [script](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Script-Syriac) is ‘more beautiful, accurate and useful’ than
the Arabic script. We may have an example of his own Syriac handwriting in
the only surviving ms. of his chronicle, ms. London, Brit. Libr. Add. 7197,
written as early as 1019. His interest in Syriac grammar — and the relation
between Syriac and Arabic — also appears from his Syriac-Arabic dictionary
and Syriac grammar.
Eliya of Nisibis was also active in the field of liturgical poetry, which
became partly inserted into later liturgical compilations such as the ‘Abū
Ḥalīm’ or the book of [
Gewargis
Warda
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Gewargis-Warda). According to [
ʿAbdishoʿ of Nisibis
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Abdisho-bar-Brikha),
Eliya is also the author of a no longer extant four-volume canonical
collection in Syriac; the part on the law of inheritance is preserved in an
Arabic translation by ʿUbaydallāh b. Bakhtishūʿ. His interest in canonical
matters also appears from his Letter on the election of Cath.
[
Ishoʿyahb
IV
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Ishoyahb-IV). Other letters, in Syriac and Arabic, ascribed to him by
ʿAbdishoʿ of Nisibis, are lost.