A lecture by Mushegh Asatryan
Mushegh Asatryan’s lecture will explore the history of the emergence of the Tondrakians in the larger context of the history of heretical movements in the Middle East during the eighth and ninth centuries. While the several similarities in religious teachings do not necessarily indicate a direct borrowing, the lecture will argue that the spatial and chronological proximity of the Tondrakians to similar heresies in the Islamicate world of Iraq and Iran — coupled with Armenia’s historic links with the region where these heresies emerged — is more than suggestive that two developments were indeed part of a larger “connected history.” The lecture will examine the connected nature of this history by highlighting the circulation of men and religious ideas across the porous frontiers linking Iraq and Khurasan to Armenia during the period of the Umayyad and ‘Abbasid caliphates when Armenia was first incorporated into the larger Islamic world and even earlier when the entire region was under Sasanian rule.
This event was co-sponsored by The Center for Near Eastern Studies
