Acting On The Advice Of Aristotle, Alexander
Removed The Inhabitants From Their Island, And Established In Their Place
A Colony Of Ionians, To Whom He Entrusted The Care Of Cultivating Aloes.
These Greeks Were Converted When The Christian Religion Was Preached To
Them, And Their Descendants Have Remained Christians.
- H.C.]
In the list of the metropolitan Sees of the Nestorian Church we find one
called Kotrobah, which is supposed to stand for Socotra. According to
Edrisi, Kotrobah was an island inhabited by Christians; he speaks of
Socotra separately, but no island suits his description of Kotrobah but
Socotra itself; and I suspect that we have here geography in duplicate, no
uncommon circumstance. There is an epistle extant from the Nestorian
Patriarch Jesujabus (A.D. 650-660), ad Episcopos Catarensium, which
Assemani interprets of the Christians in Socotra and the adjacent coasts
of Arabia (III. 133).[1] Abulfeda says the people of Socotra were
Nestorian Christians and pirates. Nicolo Conti, in the first half of the
15th century, spent two months on the island (Sechutera). He says it was
for the most part inhabited by Nestorian Christians.
[Professor W.R. Smith, in a letter to Sir H. Yule, dated Cambridge, 15th
June, 1886, writes: "The authorities for Kotrobah seem to be (1) Edrisi,
(2) the list of Nestorian Bishops in Assemani. There is no trace of such a
name anywhere else that I can find. But there is a place called Katar
about which most of the Arab Geographers know very little, but which is
mentioned in poetry.
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