Chaldeans in Europe: Part I: Pioneers and Frontiers
By Dr. Adhid Miri, PhD
When we hear the term “Chaldean pioneers,” we tend to think of history and the individuals one or two generations back who left Iraq and came to the U.S. and other places to start anew. But the original pioneers were foot soldiers, going out ahead of the rest of the troops to prepare the way. They were trend-setters, the first among their kind in the field of inquiry, enterprise, and development. The Chaldeans who came to America in the 16th century and those who followed, traveling west in the 19th and 20th centuries, write a dramatic chapter in a heroic story.
We do not have precise information about all of the pioneering immigrants to Europe from the Christian villages of Nineveh; however, the story starts with two major characters - a priest who became a prominent pioneer in the Americas, and an adventurer who consorted with queens and crowned herself a princess.
The First Pioneers
Historians record the first Chaldean pioneers as a priest named Elyas bin Hanna al-Musili, (Elyas, son of John of Mosul) and a woman named Maria Theresa Asmar from the village of Telkaif. Elyas left Baghdad in 1668 on a journey that carried him to Europe and as far away as the Americas. Maria Theresa was born in 1804, when her village was part of the Ottoman Empire, and moved to Baghdad as an orphan before traveling to Lebanon and beyond. Both Elyas and Maria were more adventurers than immigrants.
Elyas Bin Hanna Al-Musili
Elyas bin Hanna al-Musili al-Chaldani was born into the Abouna family. He is considered the first Chaldean to travel to Europe and the American continent, and is most certainly the first to record his observations about his travels, making him famous to this day. Information about his personal life is scarce; we do not know his date of birth nor the date of his death. However, we do know that he lived during the reign of Patriarch Ilia VIII (1627-1660).
In 1668, Al-Musili left Baghdad for Al-Quds Al-Sharif (Jerusalem). He then went to Aleppo in Syria, traveling through Iskenderun to Cyprus, where he sailed to Venice and the Vatican, and from there to France and Spain. Finally, he sailed from Cadiz in Spain, Portugal, passing through the Canary Islands, arriving in Venezuela. He traveled to Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, returning to Lima, Peru to write the details of his first trip.
Beginning in 1680, Al- Musili started writing what he called his “Book of Travels” as well as “A History of the New World,” the earliest known Arabic account of the Americas. Al-Musili tailored his message specifically to an audience of Eastern Christians living on the borderlands between the Ottoman Empire and Persia, seeking to demonstrate the importance of integrating the scattered writings of Eastern Christian travelers into Ottoman exchanges with the wider world.
Prompted by his deep devotion to Eastern religious rituals, Al-Musili held Mass in the presence of the Pope and also King Louis the IV of France, with whom he established a close friendship. Thereafter, he went to Spain, meeting the queen and reciting Eastern songs and hymns in the presence of her son. The queen, moved by his recital of the hymns, helped him continue his voyage to the Americas (after staying as a guest of honor for seven months at the royal palace).
Ten years later, Al-Musili returned to Spain and then Italy, where he met Pope Innocent the Twelfth (1615-1700). According to reliable sources, Elyas made three trips to Rome, but only on his second trip did he continue on to the Americas. At that time, voyages across the Atlantic Ocean were organized every three years in convoys of 15 or more ships.
In 1905, the Jesuit scholar Antûn Rabbât discovered the writings of Elyas Al-Musili in a Jacobite diocese in Aleppo, Syria. The discovery was exciting as it showed the perspective of Al-Musili, a seventeenth-century priest of the Chaldean Church who traveled widely across colonial Spanish America and became the first person to visit the Americas from Baghdad.
Rabbât transcribed the writings into Arabic and published those portions relating to Al-Musili’s travels, which shared his perceptions of native peoples and their customs, beliefs, and treatment by Spanish conquistadors. Perhaps because of the uniqueness and significance of his journey, Al-Musili was both supported by the Pope and authorized by the Queen Regent of Spain.
The book is entitled, “An Arab’s Journey to Colonial Spanish America: The Travels of Elyas Al-Musili in the Seventeenth Century.” It provides thoughtful descriptions of high-level officials and clerics in the New World, and is a rare insight into a voyage that would turn into a twelve-year adventure.
The Russian orientalist Krachkovsky speculates that Al-Musili spent the rest of his life in Rome, and he provides what he sees as proof of that with an Arabic prayer book printed in Rome in the year 1692. This book includes the titles that both the Pope and the Emperor of Spain gave to Al-Musili, including, “The bearer of the cross Mar Peter, Count Palatino, Priest of the Church of the King of Spain.”
The researcher added that the second journey took 15 years of the priests’ life - deemed to be quite an adventure for a cleric from the village of Alqoush! Al-Musili’s journey was analogous to the adventures of the famous traveler Ibn Battuta, the Berber Moroccan scholar and explorer who widely travelled the medieval world and wrote about it.
Al-Musili walked through desserts, climbed mountains, crossed rivers, seas, oceans, passed through jungles, beast- inhabited woods, and spent many nights inside caves in a very primitive setting.
The researcher concluded that if Europeans are proud of Christopher Columbus (1447- 1506), Chaldeans cannot be less proud of Elyas bin Hanna Al-Musili, the first from the East to undertake an adventurous voyage some 350 years ago, 170 years after the discovery of the Americas.
Maria Theresa Asmar
Maria Theresa Asmar (1804–1870) was an ethnic Chaldean from Tel- Kaif in the Ottoman Empire. She is credited to have written “Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess,” consisting of two volumes and 720 pages. Written in the early 19th century and translated into English in 1844, the book describes her travels through Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine.
Asmar was born in Telkaif, moving to Baghdad after the outbreak of the plague and death of her parents. From there, she moved to Lebanon and by special favor was able to live in the house of religion (Beit-eldin). She eventually became the adopted daughter of Prince Bashir Al-Din.
Asmar, faced with tremendous obstacles both as a Chaldean Christian and a woman, set up a school for women in Baghdad and welcomed western Christian missionaries with open arms. This was her undoing as the missionaries then bribed the Turkish government to give them the license for the school and also forbid Maria to carry on with her project. Left frustrated and angry to have been treated this way by fellow Christians, she eventually took refuge with the Emir Beschir, the governor of Lebanon.
From Lebanon, she moved to Europe where she was repeatedly robbed, falling into poverty. The dethroned Governor Emir Beschir also fell into poverty, leaving Maria with no financial support.
After twelve years in Europe, Asmar wrote her book, an account of the events that led up to that point, her survival, and how her family became martyrs.
With nothing to lose, Asmar traveled to Italy and searched for a monastery to join, but her attempt to become a nun was unsuccessful. While in Rome, on November 30, 1836, she received a medal from Pope Gregory VI for her work with young women. Cardinal Ezonolli recalled Asmar’s enthusiasm, “This woman was determined to devote herself to helping and educating girls in the Catholic East.”
Near the end of the year 1837, Asmar met two priests in Rome. The first was Fr. Michael Aoun and other, Fr. Toma Al-Alqoushi. The priests had obtained approval from Cardinal Odessa, the representative of the pontiff, to collect donations for the Monastery of Mar-Hormzid in Alqoush. Miss Asmar was assigned the order and she accepted the task to fulfill the mission request.
In 1838, Asmar traveled to France and opened a girl’s school. In 1840, she moved to London and met Queen Victoria, where she presented herself as the Babylonian Princess, “Theresa, the daughter of Prince Abdullah Asmar.” Queen Victoria promptly gave Asmar fifty golden pounds.
In 1844-1845 her notes (all 760 pages) were printed in English, in two volumes entitled “Babylonian Princess” and “Voice from the East” (or “Prophecy and Legacy”). Publishing the works was an appeal to the women of England to help in the revival of the Catholic East. A copy of the book was presented to Queen Victoria.
At the time, despite her popularity, Asmar faced great difficulties in paying the costs of printing her books. The British court seized her property, and as a result she fell ill and depressed, choosing to remain hidden from view as a result of this shock.
In 1847, the British Consul in France noted that Maria Asmar was staying in Paris. After a short period she returned to Britain. After staying ten years there, she obtained British citizenship on October 17, 1850. In 1853, she moved to France again and in Paris obtained a document from the Turkish ambassador, allowing non-intervention and free travel within the Ottoman region. Asmar intended to travel to Switzerland, Austria, and Italy.
Little is documented about that period until 1870, when she was found living again in Paris, France. Maria Theresa Asmar, known as ‘Babylon’s Princess in Europe,’ died in France that year before the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War. In her will, she left a portion of her wealth of 5,000 piasters (Ottoman Turk or Qirshes currency) to restore the Church of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Telkaif. She requested that her body be buried in the churchyard of Telkaif.
Pioneers and Frontiers
These early pioneers forged the way for those that followed, creating a trend for coping with such frontier realities as overcoming language barriers, financial challenges and geographic challenges, such as no roads or bridges. With no guarantees of any sort, all the while they let no obstacle deter or defeat them. Al- Musili and Asmar were dauntless pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to establish a foothold based on ideals and courage; a base that would come to define our community
