Download or read book Infidels written by Andrew Wheatcroft and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2005-05-03 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the first panoptic history of the long struggle between the Christian West and Islam. In this dazzlingly written, acutely nuanced account, Andrew Wheatcroft tracks a deep fault line of animosity between civilizations. He begins with a stunning account of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, then turns to the main zones of conflict: Spain, from which the descendants of the Moors were eventually expelled; the Middle East, where Crusaders and Muslims clashed for years; and the Balkans, where distant memories spurred atrocities even into the twentieth century. Throughout, Wheatcroft delves beneath stereotypes, looking incisively at how images, ideas, language, and technology (from the printing press to the Internet), as well as politics, religion, and conquest, have allowed each side to demonize the other, revive old grievances, and fuel across centuries a seemingly unquenchable enmity. Finally, Wheatcroft tells how this fraught history led to our present maelstrom. We cannot, he argues, come to terms with today’s perplexing animosities without confronting this dark past.
Download or read book Neighboring Faiths written by David Nirenberg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-10-20 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book represents the culmination of David Nirenberg s ongoing project; namely, how Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived with and thought about each other in the Middle Ages, and what the medieval past can tell us about how they do so today. There have been scripture based studies of the three religions of the book that claim descent from Abraham, but Nirenberg goes beyond those to pay close attention to how the three religious neighbors loved, tolerated, massacred, and expelled each otherall in the name of Godin periods and places both long ago and far away. Whether Christian Crusaders and settlers in Islamic-ruled lands, or Jewish-Muslim relations in Christian-controlled Iberia, for Nirenberg, the three religions need to be studied in terms of how each affected the development of the other over time, their proximity of religious and philosophical thought as well as their overlapping geographies, and how the three neighbors define (and continue to define) themselves and their place in the here-and-nowand the here-afterin terms of one another. Arguing against exemplary histories, static models of tolerance versus prosecution, or so-called Golden Ages and Black Legends, Nirenberg offers here instead a story that is more dynamic and interdependent, one where Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities have re-imagined themselves, not only as abstractions of categories in each other s theologies and ideologies, but by living with each other every day as neighbors jostling each other on the street. From dangerous attractions leading to interfaith marriage, to interreligious conflicts leading to segregation, violence, and sometimes extermination, to strategies of bridging the interfaith gap through language, vocabulary, and poetryNirenberg aims to understand the intertwined past of the three faiths as a way for their heirs to coproduce the future."
Download or read book The Cambridge History of Christianity Volume 4 Christianity in Western Europe c 1100 c 1500 written by Miri Rubin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-31 with total page 1004 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the early middle ages, Europe developed complex and varied Christian cultures, and from about 1100 secular rulers, competing factions and inspired individuals continued to engender a diverse and ever-changing mix within Christian society. This volume explores the wide range of institutions, practices and experiences associated with the life of European Christians in the later middle ages. The clergy of this period initiated new approaches to the role of priests, bishops and popes, and developed an ambitious project to instruct the laity. For lay people, the practices of parish religion were central, but many sought additional ways to enrich their lives as Christians. Impulses towards reform and renewal periodically swept across Europe, led by charismatic preachers and supported by secular rulers. This book provides accessible accounts of these complex historical processes and entices the reader towards further enquiry.
Download or read book Religion and Culture in Medieval Islam written by Richard G. Hovannisian and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seven distinguished scholars explore the religion and culture of medieval Islam.
Download or read book Islam Christianity and the West written by Rollin Stely Armour and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of a number of "9/11" volumes that appeared last year, Rollin Armour's book has been nearly a decade in the making. He takes the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and its final destruction in 2001 as historical "bookends" for the material covered. His stated goal is to contribute to better mutual under standing between the West and the Islamic world.
Download or read book Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom c 1050 1614 written by Brian A. Catlos and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-20 with total page 649 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative study which explores how the presence of Muslim communities transformed Europe and stimulated Christian society to define itself.
Download or read book How the Bible Led Me to Islam written by Yusha Evans and published by Tertib Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-17 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 1996, Yusha Evans went on a passage through the Bible and its four Gospel. He scrutinized more than five different religions in search of God and His message. In 1998, he reverted to Islam. He yearned for the truth in life which is to “Worship God alone as one, obey Him and His Messenger to go to Heaven,” of which he found through Islam.
Download or read book Islam and Christianity written by Odeh a Muhawesh and published by I.M.A.M.. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Muslim-Christian relations have been marred by conflict and polemics from the dawn of Islam. Not only are adherents of the two faiths considered rivals but the teachings of the faiths themselves are at odds with one another!! At least this is the prevailing narrative that most in Christendom are accustomed to. This book challenges the above narrative by examining the history of the relationship between Muslims and Christians and compares the beliefs of Muslims vis-a-vis key elements of Christianity especially in relation to Jesus and his role in our world. The author compares Muslim beliefs regarding the immaculate birth of Jesus, his miracles, his mother, and his role as the promised Messiah. The book answers questions like: What does Islam say about Jesus? Do Muslims believe in Jesus's miraculous birth? What are Muslim teachings regarding Mary? Do Muslims believe that Jesus is the Messiah? And many more related questions. The author further explains important issues like Jihad and Sharia Law, war and terrorism and answers the all-important question which many have which is: What does Islam really teach about terrorism and violence? This book is rich with information about Islam and is written specifically for those who are familiar with the teachings of Christianity and its adherents."
Download or read book The Abrahamic Religions written by Charles L. Cohen and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Connected by their veneration of the One God proclaimed by Abraham, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share much beyond their origins in the ancient Israel of the Old Testament. This Very Short Introduction explores the intertwined histories of these monotheistic religions, from the emergence of Christianity and Islam to the violence of the Crusades and the cultural exchanges of al-Andalus.
Download or read book Kingdoms of Faith written by Brian A. Catlos and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A magisterial, myth-dispelling history of Islamic Spain spanning the millennium between the founding of Islam in the seventh century and the final expulsion of Spain's Muslims in the seventeenth In Kingdoms of Faith, award-winning historian Brian A. Catlos rewrites the history of Islamic Spain from the ground up, evoking the cultural splendor of al-Andalus, while offering an authoritative new interpretation of the forces that shaped it. Prior accounts have portrayed Islamic Spain as a paradise of enlightened tolerance or the site where civilizations clashed. Catlos taps a wide array of primary sources to paint a more complex portrait, showing how Muslims, Christians, and Jews together built a sophisticated civilization that transformed the Western world, even as they waged relentless war against each other and their coreligionists. Religion was often the language of conflict, but seldom its cause -- a lesson we would do well to learn in our own time.
Download or read book Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages written by Michael Frassetto and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conflict and contact between Muslims and Christians in the Middle Ages is among the most important but least appreciated developments of the period from the seventh to the fourteenth century. Michael Frassetto argues that the relationship between these two faiths during the Middle Ages was essential to the cultural and religious developments of Christianity and Islam—even as Christians and Muslims often found themselves engaged in violent conflict. Frassetto traces the history of those conflicts and argues that these holy wars helped create the identity that defined the essential characteristics of Christians and Muslims. The polemic works that often accompanied these holy wars was important, Frassetto contends, because by defining the essential evil of the enemy, Christian authors were also defining their own beliefs and practices. Holy war was not the only defining element of the relationship between Christians and Muslims during the Middle Ages, and Frassetto explains that everyday contacts between Christian and Muslim leaders and scholars generated more peaceful relations and shaped the literary, intellectual, and religious culture that defined medieval and even modern Christianity and Islam.
Download or read book Religion and State written by L. Carl. Brown and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-20 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If Westerners know a single Islamic term, it is likely to be jihad, the Arabic word for "holy war." The image of Islam as an inherently aggressive and xenophobic religion has long prevailed in the West and can at times appear to be substantiated by current events. L. Carl Brown challenges this conventional wisdom with a fascinating historical overview of the relationship between religious and political life in the Muslim world ranging from Islam's early centuries to the present day. Religion and State examines the commonplace notion—held by both radical Muslim ideologues and various Western observers alike—that in Islam there is no separation between religion and politics. By placing this assertion in a broad historical context, the book reveals both the continuities between premodern and modern Islamic political thought as well as the distinctive dimensions of modern Muslim experiences. Brown shows that both the modern-day fundamentalists and their critics have it wrong when they posit an eternally militant, unchanging Islam outside of history. "They are conflating theology and history. They are confusing the oughtand the is," he writes. As the historical record shows, mainstream Muslim political thought in premodern times tended toward political quietism. Brown maintains that we can better understand present-day politics among Muslims by accepting the reality of their historical diversity while at the same time seeking to identify what may be distinctive in Muslim thought and action. In order to illuminate the distinguishing characteristics of Islam in relation to politics, Brown compares this religion with its two Semitic sisters, Judaism and Christianity, drawing striking comparisons between Islam today and Christianity during the Reformation. With a wealth of evidence, he recreates a tradition of Islamic diversity every bit as rich as that of Judaism and Christianity.
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 Order Exclusion written by Dominique Iogna-Prat and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Order and Exclusion is a rare and magnificent book of medieval history with clear relevance to today's headlines. Through the lens of the polemics of Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, Dominique Iogna-Prat examines the process by which christianity transformed itself into Christendom, a powerful spiritual, social, and political system with pretensions to universality. Iogna-Prat's close examination of a set of writings central to the history of Catholicism resolves into a deeply troubling study of the origins of attitudes that continue to shape world events. Iogna-Prat writes that "versions of fundamentalism nourished by the soil of an often terrible common history" show that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have all been capable of intolerance.Peter the Venerable's writings had a far-reaching impact: the powerful network of Clunaic houses expanded from the founding of the original monastery of Cluny to dominate Christendom by the twelfth century. This Christendom, Iogna-Prat demonstrates, defined itself in part through its increasingly bitter struggles against its perceived enemies both within and without. Peter the Venerable's all-pervasive logic pitted the "order" of the monastery and its hierarchical society against all those--heretics, Jews, Muslims, lepers--outside its bounds. In his proclamations against Jews and Muslims, Peter devised a Christian anthropology: in his view, to be non-Christian was to be non-human. The power of the Church came at a great and lasting price.
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.
Download or read book Christianity Face to Face with Islam written by Robert Wilken and published by . This book was released on 2010-09-22 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Louis Wilken, preeminent historian and First Things contributor, concisely traces the fascinating but uneasy history between Christianity and Islam from the seventh century until today. Wilken offers this sobering overview: "When Islam arrives, it comes to stay." That is, most territories that were Christian 1,300 years ago are now Muslim. Will Christianity survive despite Islam's expanding political geography or succumb to its mounting numbers in Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa, and elsewhere? This extraordinary essay will help broaden your perspective on the dangers and opportunities that Islam presents to the West.Robert Louis Wilken is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia. This essay is adapted from his 2008 Erasmus Lecture, sponsored by First Things.
Download or read book God s Continent Christianity Islam and Europe s Religious Crisis written by Philip Jenkins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-05-11 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does the future hold for European Christianity? Is the Christian church doomed to collapse under the weight of globalization, Western secularism, and a flood of Muslim immigrants? Is Europe, in short, on the brink of becoming "Eurabia"? Though many pundits are loudly predicting just such a scenario, Philip Jenkins reveals the flaws in these arguments in God's Continent and offers a much more measured assessment of Europe's religious future. While frankly acknowledging current tensions, Jenkins shows, for instance, that the overheated rhetoric about a Muslim-dominated Europe is based on politically convenient myths: that Europe is being imperiled by floods of Muslim immigrants, exploding Muslim birth-rates, and the demise of European Christianity. He points out that by no means are Muslims the only new immigrants in Europe. Christians from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe are also pouring into the Western countries, and bringing with them a vibrant and enthusiastic faith that is helping to transform the face of European Christianity. Jenkins agrees that both Christianity and Islam face real difficulties in surviving within Europe's secular culture. But instead of fading away, both have adapted, and are adapting. Yes, the churches are in decline, but there are also clear indications that Christian loyalty and devotion survive, even as institutions crumble. Jenkins sees encouraging signs of continuing Christian devotion in Europe, especially in pilgrimages that attract millions--more in fact than in bygone "ages of faith." The third book in an acclaimed trilogy that includes The Next Christendom and The New Faces of Christianity, God's Continent offers a realistic and historically grounded appraisal of the future of Christianity in a rapidly changing Europe.
