Download or read book The Orthodox Church in the Arab World 700 1700 written by Samuel Noble and published by Northern Illinois University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-15 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All of the texts chosen for this volume are interesting in their own right, but the collection of these sources into a single volume, with helpful introductions and bibliographies, makes this book an invaluable resource for the study of Arabic Christianity and, indeed, the history of Christianity more broadly. ― Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies Arabic was among the first languages in which the Gospel was preached. The Book of Acts mentions Arabs as being present at the first Pentecost in Jerusalem, where they heard the Christian message in their native tongue. Christian literature in Arabic is at least 1,300 years old, the oldest surviving texts dating from the 8th century. Pre-modern Arab Christian literature embraces such diverse genres as Arabic translations of the Bible and the Church Fathers, biblical commentaries, lives of the saints, theological and polemical treatises, devotional poetry, philosophy, medicine, and history. Yet in the Western historiography of Christianity, the Arab Christian Middle East is treated only peripherally, if at all. The first of its kind, this anthology makes accessible in English representative selections from major Arab Christian works written between the eighth and eigtheenth centuries. The translations are idiomatic while preserving the character of the original. The popular assumption is that in the wake of the Islamic conquests, Christianity abandoned the Middle East to flourish elsewhere, leaving its original heartland devoid of an indigenous Christian presence. Until now, several of these important texts have remained unpublished or unavailable in English. Translated by leading scholars, these texts represent the major genres of Orthodox literature in Arabic. Noble and Treiger provide an introduction that helps form a comprehensive history of Christians within the Muslim world. The collection marks an important contribution to the history of medieval Christianity and the history of the medieval Near East.
Download or read book Christian Martyrs Under Islam written by Christian C. Sahner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at the developing conflicts in Christian-Muslim relations during late antiquity and the early Islamic era How did the medieval Middle East transform from a majority-Christian world to a majority-Muslim world, and what role did violence play in this process? Christian Martyrs under Islam explains how Christians across the early Islamic caliphate slowly converted to the faith of the Arab conquerors and how small groups of individuals rejected this faith through dramatic acts of resistance, including apostasy and blasphemy. Using previously untapped sources in a range of Middle Eastern languages, Christian Sahner introduces an unknown group of martyrs who were executed at the hands of Muslim officials between the seventh and ninth centuries CE. Found in places as diverse as Syria, Spain, Egypt, and Armenia, they include an alleged descendant of Muhammad who converted to Christianity, high-ranking Christian secretaries of the Muslim state who viciously insulted the Prophet, and the children of mixed marriages between Muslims and Christians. Sahner argues that Christians never experienced systematic persecution under the early caliphs, and indeed, they remained the largest portion of the population in the greater Middle East for centuries after the Arab conquest. Still, episodes of ferocious violence contributed to the spread of Islam within Christian societies, and memories of this bloodshed played a key role in shaping Christian identity in the new Islamic empire. Christian Martyrs under Islam examines how violence against Christians ended the age of porous religious boundaries and laid the foundations for more antagonistic Muslim-Christian relations in the centuries to come.
Download or read book The Arab Christian written by Kenneth Cragg and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Centuries before the existence of the Islamic faith, there were Arabs who could be described as Christian. And there has been a Christian Arabism, an Arab Christianity, since Muhammad's day. Arab Christianity has survived Muslin dominance, and this enlightening book takes an in-depth look at its survival.
Download or read book A History of Muslims Christians and Jews in the Middle East written by Heather J. Sharkey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the history of conflict and contact between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Ottoman Middle East prior to 1914.
Download or read book Arab Orthodox Christians Under the Ottomans 1516 1831 written by Constantin Alexandrovich Panchenko and published by Holy Trinity Publications. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 966 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the so called "Arab Spring" the world's attention has been drawn to the presence of significant minority religious groups within the predominantly Islamic Middle East. Of these minorities Christians are by far the largest, comprising over 10% of the population in Syria and as much as 40% in Lebanon.The largest single group of Christians are the Arabic-speaking Orthodox. This work fills a major lacuna in the scholarship of wider Christian history and more specifically that of lived religion within the Ottoman empire. Beginning with a survey of the Christian community during the first nine hundred years of Muslim rule, the author traces the evolution of Arab Orthodox Christian society from its roots in the Hellenistic culture of the Byzantine Empire to a distinctly Syro-Palestinian identity. There follows a detailed examination of this multi-faceted community, from the Ottoman conquest of Syria, Palestine and Egypt in 1516 to the Egyptian invasion of Syria in 1831. The author draws on archaeological evidence and previously unpublished primary sources uncovered in Russian archives and Middle Eastern monastic libraries to present a vivid and compelling account of this vital but little-known spiritual and political culture, situating it within a complex network of relations reaching throughout the Mediterranean, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. The work is made more accessible to a non-specialist reader by the addition of a glossary, whilst the scholar will benefit from a detailed bibliography of both primary and secondary sources. A foreword has been contributed to this first English language edition by the Patriarch of Antioch, John X. It contextualizes the history found in this work within the ongoing struggle to preserve the ancient Christian cultures of the Arabic speaking peoples from extinction within their ancestral homeland.
Download or read book Reopening Muslim Minds written by Mustafa Akyol and published by St. Martin's Essentials. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating journey into Islam's diverse history of ideas, making an argument for an "Islamic Enlightenment" today In Reopening Muslim Minds, Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and opinion writer for The New York Times, both diagnoses “the crisis of Islam” in the modern world, and offers a way forward. Diving deeply into Islamic theology, and also sharing lessons from his own life story, he reveals how Muslims lost the universalism that made them a great civilization in their earlier centuries. He especially demonstrates how values often associated with Western Enlightenment — freedom, reason, tolerance, and an appreciation of science — had Islamic counterparts, which sadly were cast aside in favor of more dogmatic views, often for political ends. Elucidating complex ideas with engaging prose and storytelling, Reopening Muslim Minds borrows lost visions from medieval Muslim thinkers such as Ibn Rushd (aka Averroes), to offer a new Muslim worldview on a range of sensitive issues: human rights, equality for women, freedom of religion, or freedom from religion. While frankly acknowledging the problems in the world of Islam today, Akyol offers a clear and hopeful vision for its future.
Download or read book The Vanishing written by Janine di Giovanni and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Vanishing reveals the plight and possible extinction of Christian communities across Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Palestine after 2,000 years in their historical homeland. Some of the countries that first nurtured and characterized Christianity - along the North African Coast, on the Euphrates and across the Middle East and Arabia - are the ones in which it is likely to first go extinct. Christians are already vanishing. We are past the tipping point, now tilted toward the end of Christianity in its historical homeland. Christians have fled the lands where their prophets wandered, where Jesus Christ preached, where the great Doctors and hierarchs of the early church established the doctrinal norms that would last millennia. From Syria to Egypt, the cities of northern Iraq to the Gaza Strip, ancient communities, the birthplaces of prophets and saints, are losing any living connection to the religion that once was such a characteristic feature of their social and cultural lives. In The Vanishing, Janine di Giovanni has combined astonishing journalistic work to discover the last traces of small, hardy communities that have become wisely fearful of outsiders and where ancient rituals are quietly preserved amid 360 degree threats. Di Giovanni's riveting personal stories and her conception of faith and hope are intertwined throughout the chapters. The book is a unique act of pre-archeology: the last chance to visit the living religion before all that will be left are the stones of the past.
Download or read book Rulers Religion and Riches written by Jared Rubin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-16 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to explain the political and religious factors leading to the economic reversal of fortunes between Europe and the Middle East.
Download or read book Understanding the Koran written by Mateen Elass and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009-08-19 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Find out how the Koran resembles the Bible—and the drastic ways in which it differs. Understanding the Koran gives you an essential grasp of Islam's holy book: where it came from, what it teaches, how Muslims view it, and how the Allah of the Koran compares with the God of the Bible. Cherished as the final, perfect revelation of God's will by 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide, the Koran has become a part of American life. What do you know about the holy book that shapes the lives and views of your neighbors and a fifth of the world's population? Written by a pastor who was born to a Muslim father and raised in Saudi Arabia, Understanding the Koran gives you a fascinating, easy-to-understand overview that will show you: Why the background behind the Koran is important to understanding it. How the Koran came into existence. A summary of the main teachings of the Koran, including what it says about Jesus and the crucifixion. Similarities and differences between Muslim and Christian views of God. What the Koran teaches about Jihad and holy war. What the Koran teaches about heaven and hell and the final destinies of the human soul. Giving you an essential grasp of Islam's holy book, Understanding the Koran points you to the one thing that can draw your Muslim friends to Jesus—his love, demonstrated to them through you. Discussion questions make it possible to use this book in group studies.
Download or read book The Making of the Medieval Middle East written by Jack Tannous and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold new religious history of the late antique and medieval Middle East that places ordinary Christians at the center of the story In the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle East fractured irreparably into competing churches and Arabs conquered the region, setting in motion a process that would lead to its eventual conversion to Islam. Jack Tannous argues that key to understanding these dramatic religious transformations are ordinary religious believers, often called “the simple” in late antique and medieval sources. Largely agrarian and illiterate, these Christians outnumbered Muslims well into the era of the Crusades, and yet they have typically been invisible in our understanding of the Middle East’s history. What did it mean for Christian communities to break apart over theological disagreements that most people could not understand? How does our view of the rise of Islam change if we take seriously the fact that Muslims remained a demographic minority for much of the Middle Ages? In addressing these and other questions, Tannous provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the religious history of the medieval Middle East. This provocative book draws on a wealth of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources to recast these conquered lands as largely Christian ones whose growing Muslim populations are properly understood as converting away from and in competition with the non-Muslim communities around them.
Download or read book Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt written by S. S. Hasan and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Review: "Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt is the first study of Christian identity politics in contemporary Egypt. S.S. Hasan begins by looking at how the Coptic generation of the 1940s and 1950s remembered, recovered, and imagined the ancient history of Christianity in Egypt in order to weld the Copts into a unified nation, resistant to the growing encroachments of Islam. She argues that this interpretation of history, in which Egyptian martyrs figure prominently, made possible the rebirth of the Coptic church and community - in much the same way as the preservation of Hebrew and the historical memory of Jewish tribulations served the purpose of national reconstruction of the state of Israel."--Jacket
Download or read book Arabic Christianity between the Ottoman Levant and Eastern Europe written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume focuses on the connections of Arabic-speaking Christians with Eastern-European Christians in Ottoman times, it discusses the circulation of literature, models, iconography, and knowhow between the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and presents new research devoted to them.
Download or read book The Rowman Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East written by Mitri Raheb and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 711 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work represents the current and most relevant content on the studies of how Christianity has fared in the ancient home of its founder and birth. Much has been written about Christianity and how it has survived since its migration out of its homeland but this comprehensive reference work reassesses the geographic and demographic impact of the dramatic changes in this perennially combustible world region. The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East also spans the historical, socio-political and contemporary settings of the region and importantly describes the interactions that Christianity has had with other major/minor religions in the region.
Download or read book Arabic Christian Theology written by Zondervan, and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theology is not done in a vacuum. Our theology is affected by the culture in which we live, and our theology can have unexpected effects on the lives of Christians who live thousands of miles away. This point emerges clearly as we listen to seven Arabic evangelical theologians address issues that are of critical importance to Christians living as minorities in the Muslim world. North American readers may find that many of their assumptions are challenged as they see how respected Christian thinkers from a very different context address issues of biblical interpretation, national and international politics, culture and gender.
Download or read book Protestants Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria written by Womack Deanna Ferree Womack and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-14 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ottoman Syrians - residents of modern Syria and Lebanon - formed the first Arabic-speaking Evangelical Church in the region. This book offers a fresh narrative of the encounters of this minority Protestant community with American missionaries, Eastern churches and Muslims at the height of the Nahda, from 1860 to 1915. Drawing on rare Arabic publications, it challenges historiography that focuses on Western male actors. Instead it shows that Syrian Protestant women and men were agents of their own history who sought the salvation of Syria while adapting and challenging missionary teachings. These pioneers established a critical link between evangelical religiosity and the socio-cultural currents of the Nahda, making possible the literary and educational achievements of the American Syrian Mission and transforming Syrian society in ways that still endure today.
Download or read book The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque written by Sidney H. Griffith and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-09 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid so much twenty-first-century talk of a "Christian-Muslim divide"--and the attendant controversy in some Western countries over policies toward minority Muslim communities--a historical fact has gone unnoticed: for more than four hundred years beginning in the mid-seventh century, some 50 percent of the world's Christians lived and worshipped under Muslim rule. Just who were the Christians in the Arabic-speaking milieu of Mohammed and the Qur'an? The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque is the first book-length discussion in English of the cultural and intellectual life of such Christians indigenous to the Islamic world. Sidney Griffith offers an engaging overview of their initial reactions to the religious challenges they faced, the development of a new mode of presenting Christian doctrine as liturgical texts in their own languages gave way to Arabic, the Christian role in the philosophical life of early Baghdad, and the maturing of distinctive Oriental Christian denominations in this context. Offering a fuller understanding of the rise of Islam in its early years from the perspective of contemporary non-Muslims, this book reminds us that there is much to learn from the works of people who seriously engaged Muslims in their own world so long ago. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.
Download or read book The Case for Islamo Christian Civilization written by Richard W. Bulliet and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-22 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 'clash of civilisations' so often talked about in connection with relations between the West and Arab nations is, argues Richard Bulliet, no more than dangerous sophistry based on misconceptions in American government. He sets out the common ground between Islam and Christianity.
