The ninth letter assigned to those which Ishoʿyahb sent as Metropolitan of Adiabene went to the leading clergy of Nisibin. I had wondered if the correspondence had actually gone to Jerusalem, or even to some city along the Nile; but that Balad was noted - in Cyriacos' time, nominally under the Nisibene "Maternity" - affirms the superscript. Bcheiry, 99 has a summary which I shall expand here.
"N" is short for nomen - anonym, really. Guidi's Khuzestan informs that Nisibin won't get another archbishop until catholicos Maremmeh appoints Isaac. I had been directed over to #9 by Addai Scher's note 3 that - hey - there's theology going on over there. As it turns out Scher was wrong. But hey - thanks for the French translation (of two sentences).
When we last left his predecessor pope, Ishoʿyahb II was ruling from that Seleucian karka in Bet-Garmay which is Kirkuk. The archbishop's letter #9 is ambiguous: he had got the Nisibene letter en route to a famous Selîq which must be the Madain; but the letter notes also a Karka of Seleucia. That all the bishops are taking the river for speed suggests they're going downstream. That archbishop Ishoʿyahb is so emphatic on its fame, also, suggests he's distinguishing this Selîq from Kirkuk.
This entails that an emergency synod was convoked to the Madain - to Kokhe - in the early-mid 640s / 950s. The synod was expected to come up with some decisions.
The letter tells not what other, apocalyptic emergency cut it short. The conflagrations surrounding would-be caliph ʿUthmân won't kick in until spring 656 / 967 followed by Siffîn the next year - under Ishoʿyahb III with no need to travel to any Seleucia by then. A better candidate is the murder of ʿUmar by a nonMuslim which Elias bar Shenaye from Khwarizmî marks near the end of AH 23 so: October 644 / early 956. (This is not so well-constrained in the Syriac sources, except inasmuch they relate the Islamic tradition of a dozen lunar years prior to AG 967.) Per Khwarizmî: ʿUthmân is elected 28 Dhû'l-Hijja, 7 Tishrîn II (November). And there was an eclipse 5 November which various Syriac sources get wrong in their own way: Hoyland, Theophilus, 127. Michael (alone) notes the general terror.
Yazdegerd, of course, was then shah of nothing. But as of Indiction III the Greek king Constans II was firmly ensconced having quelled Valentine over a year before. Whilst and wherever Islam was thought leaderless, border cities like Nisibin might have exhumed the arguments of Mar Hnana for the malkiya. Notwithstanding as the Nisibenes had, under Cyriacos, used Hnana as a pretext against him.
Of note in Elias' notes for AH 23 is one more death: of Ishoʿyahb II. An election would naturally follow, at one Seleucia or the other - a.s.a.p. The neutral ground of the Madain would be the speedier choice, although still not of the best security; once completed, everyone can return home (or, for the elected one, to the Catholical Cathedra) on his own good time. Pace Bcheiry certainly from Fiey who pinned that date to AD 646. UPDATE 3/10: The next pope's reign must span January AG 957 as Fiey notes pp. 15-16. That about does it for Guidi's Khuzestan and for Siʿrt: Ishoʿyahb reigned sixteen years and change.
FIEY 4/17/23: M. IX footnoted chapter V p. 18 in French. Mostly I'm concerned here with the dates which Fiey has expounded pp. 6-8.
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