When the blessed Omar conquered Jerusalem, Jabal could not remain any longer in that place, so they boarded ships and took refuge with the king of Spain.
Jabal-i Alhama was given the mountains of Dukat, Progonat and Frengis in the Albanian regions of Avlona and Delvina to live in, which were then under Spanish rule. These lands were previously uninhabited and, within a short period of time, he settled them and,
mingling with the Franks, they created the Albanian language from a mixture of Frankish and Arabic.
The place they originally inhabited, and where they still reside after many generations,
is now called the mountain of Quryelesh, since they are descended from the
Quraysh tribe of Arabs. Accordingly,
the Albanian people boast that they are descended from the Quraysh, the companions of the Prophet. Although Jabal-i Alhama died as a Muslim and was buried at this site according to his last will and testament, his descendants intermarried with the treacherous Franks and became Frankish and bookless themselves..........The Albanians claim that their ancestor Jabal-i Alhama was a companion of the Prophet and died a Muslim.
In short, Jabal-i Alhama of the Quraysh tribe is the ancestor of the Albanian..........
Quryelesh = Kurvelesh -топоним во денешна Албанија
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurvelesh
They all speak Arnaud, which is like no other tongue. In origin,
the Arnaudi were one of the Arab tribes of Quraysh in Mecca. That is why there are some Arabic words still in use among them. When these Arnaud tribesmen emerged from the mountains of
Skadar and Vlora, they mingled with the Italians and Franks, and so, during the Caliphate of Omar,
produced a language between Arabic and Frankish.
“Jabal-i Alhama subsequently died as a Muslim in the city of
Elbasan. In the Tuhfa history, there is extensive information on this Arab tribe.
This clan of Quraysh actually do look like Arabs........ “
Robert Dankoff, Robert Elsie; Evliya Celebi in Albania and adjacent regions (Kosovo, Montenegro, Ohrid).
Travelling through southern Albania in 1670, Ottoman traveller Evliya Chelebi (1611-1684) recounts the apocryphal legend of the Arab sheikh
Jabal-i Alhama, who fled to the
mountains of Kurvelesh in Albania and died in
Elbasan. According to Evliya,
he is the father of the Albanian people.
http://www.albanianliterature.net/oral_lit3/OL3-11.html
The Albanians are divided into four tribes. These are, the
Gheghides and
Mirdites, the
Toskides, the
Tsamides, and the
Liapides.
The
Toskides are the most handsome of the Albanians. They have noble features, with fair hair and blue eyes,
indicating the mixture of Georgian blood, which probably flows in their veins : less warlike than their countrymen of the other tribes, their stature is also less Herculean.
They are supposed to have derived their name from the Toxidse, mentioned by Chardin as inhabiting Mingrelia.
http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts19/AH1848_2.html
The Principality of
Mingrelia was a historical
state in Georgia ruled by the Dadiani dynasty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Mingrelia
The country now occupied by this tribe lies to the south of that of the
Ghegs and
Mirdites, and extends to the river Vojutza. It is called by themselves Toskouria. Their chief places are Elbassan and Berat, called by the Turks Arnaout Belgrad, in order to distinguish it from Belgrade on the Danube. Te-pellene, the birth-place of Ali Pasha, is now included in their territory, although it was formerly considered as belonging to the infamous Liapides.
The women of the Toske tribe are remarkable for their beauty,
like those of Georgia, whence they issue, according to the conjecture of some antiquaries.
In their own language they call themselves Skipetar, which name bears some affinity with that of of the Skitekip, mentioned by the Armenian geographers as inhabiting a territory near the Caspian.
Journal of the Ethnological Society of London (1848-1856)
Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts19/AH1848_2.html
http://www.archive.org/stream/edinbu...6edin_djvu.txt
Во книгата подоле спомнати се
Colchians како жители на Епир - односно со поправката подоцна - Албанија,
како основачи на градот Орикум меѓу Влора и Саранда.
http://books.google.com/books?id=FGPcLMpcBAMC&pg=PA56&dq=Oricum Colchi&hl=pl&ei=iuHqTL76IJDoOczgvd8K&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Oricum Colchi&f=false
Тоа е само потврда за врската меѓу двете Албании и населувањето на античките кавкаски племиња на денешна албанија, носејќи ги со себе и имињата и топонимите.
тhe term
Colchians is used as the collective term for early Georgian tribes which populated the eastern coast of the Black Sea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colchis
The tribe of the Ghegs and Mirdites are of lofty stature and athletic frame; and their swarthy complexion and black eyes still retain the characteristics of their supposed Caucasian origin.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ShwXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA310&lpg=PA310&ots=4Fk__5Yhmo&dq=Skitekip&output=text
He chose Tiridates, of the same stock as Artabanus, to be his rival, and the Iberian
Mithridates to be the instrument of recovering Armenia, having reconciled him to his brother Pharasmanes, who held the throne of that country.
Of the petty chiefs
Mithridates was the first to persuade Pharasmanes to aid his enterprise by stratagem and force, and agents of corruption were found who tempted the servants of Arsaces into crime by a quantity of gold. At the same instant the
Iberians burst into Armenia with a huge host, and captured the city of Artaxata. Artabanus, on hearing this, made his son Orodes the instrument of vengeance. He gave him the Parthian army and despatched men to hire auxiliaries. Pharasmanes, on the other hand,
allied himself with the Albanians, and procured aid from the Sarmatae, whose highest chiefs took bribes from both sides, after the fashion of their countrymen, and engaged themselves in conflicting interests. But the Iberians, who were masters of the various positions, suddenly poured the Sarmatae into Armenia by the
Caspian route. Meanwhile those who were coming up to the support of the Parthians were easily kept back, all other approaches having been closed by the enemy except one, between the sea and the
mountains on the Albanian frontier, which summer rendered difficult, as there the shallows are flooded by the force of the Etesian gales. The south wind in winter rolls back the waves, and when the sea is driven back upon itself, the shallows along the coast, are exposed.
Meantime, while Orodes was without an ally, Pharasmanes, now strengthened by reinforcements, challenged him to battle, taunted him on his refusal, rode up to his camp and harassed his foraging parties. He often hemmed him in with his picquets in the fashion of a blockade, till the Parthians, who were unused to such insults, gathered round the king and demanded battle. Their sole strength was in cavalry; Pharasmanes was also powerful in infantry,
for the Iberians and Albanians, inhabiting as they did a densely wooded country, were more inured to hardship and endurance.
They claim to have been descended from the Thessalians, at the period when Jason,
after the departure of Medea and the children born of her, returned subsequently to the empty palace of Aeetes, and the vacant
kingdom of Colchi. They have many traditions connected with his name and with the oracle of Phrixus. No one among them would think of sacrificing a ram, the animal supposed to have conveyed Phrixus, whether it was really a ram or the figure-head of a ship.
http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.6.vi.html
The eastern Black Sea city of Volni was part of the kingdom of Colchi, today's Georgia.
Mithradates VI (
Greek: Μιθριδάτης), from Old Persian
Mithradatha, "gift of
Mithra"; b. 134, d. 63 BC, also known as
Mithradates the Great (
Megas) and
Eupator Dionysius, was king of
Pontus and Armenia Minor in northern Anatolia (now in
Turkey) from about 119 to 63 BC.
Mithradates was a king of Greek and Persian origin, and claimed descent from Alexander the Great and King Darius the Great. Both spellings of his name were used in antiquity; Mithridates was favored by the Romans, while Mithradates follows Greek inscriptions and highlights the association with the ancient
Persian god Mithra.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridates_VI_of_Pontus
And it may have been these immense, and as Bayer says
celebrated, plains, to which this mountain was contiguous, that was the distinguishing property, which gave rise to the name of this portion of the long range of mountains running from west to east, and to the inhabitants of it, as well as to the mountain itself: for, although the
plains were little habitable, yet the \ allies at the foot of the mountain on both sides were very fertile, and full of the same race of men, who occasionally roved over those plains on the north side of it. Stephanus, an ancient Greek author, expressly says,
that the inhabited district on the south side was called Gogarena.
"Gogarena est locus inter Colchos et Iberos orientales."
http://books.google.com/books?id=_EMUAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA135&ots=kjrzjAQNzK&dq=GOGARena&pg=PA135&output=text
