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These papers from the Third Woodbrooke-Mingana Symposium on "Arab Christianity in Greater Syria in the pre-Ottoman Period" portray aspects of the distinctive character developed by Arab Christianity as it endeavoured to preserve its identity while coming under influences from Islam.
This book offers editions and translations of the Syriac and Christian Arabic versions of the originally ninth-century Legend of Sergius Baa, ArA, which portrays Islama (TM)s political might as predestined but finite and its scripture and religion as derivative of Christianity
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 reaction...
The art of interpreting Holy Scriptures flourished throughout the culturally heterogeneous pre-modern Orient among Jews, Christians and Muslims. Different ways of interpretation developed within each religion not without considering the others. How were the interactions and how productive were they for the further development of these traditions? Have there been blurred spaces of scholarly activity that transcended sectarian borders? What was the role played by mutual influences in profiling the own tradition against the others? These and other related questions are critically treated in the present volume.
From the eighth century onwards, Christians living under Islam have produced numerous apologetic and polemical works, aimed at proving the continuing validity of Christianity. Among these is the Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā, which survives in two Syriac and two Arabic versions, and appears here in edition and translation. Being a counterhistory of Islam, it reshapes early Muslim traditions about a monk recognizing Muḥammad as the final Prophet by turning this monk into Muhammad’s tutor and co-author of the Qur’an. In response to Muslim triumphalist propaganda, it portrays Islam’s political power as predestined but finite and unrelated to its religious message. This feature sets the legend apart from similar Christian accounts of the origin of Islam, East and West, which are reviewed in this study as well.
The meeting of East and West in the Crusader States was the theme of a symposium held at Hernen Castle in 1997. It was the continuation of a similar symposium which has been published in the Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 75. Various communities (Arabs, Armenians, Ethiopians, Greeks, Syrians and Latins) and various religions (the Church of Rome, the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, the Jacobites, the Muslims and others) play their part in the various Crusader States, sometimes in the effort to ecumenism, sometimes in the form of confrontations. Coins and seals in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem betray Eastern and Western influences. Daily life is reflected in historical texts, and in exempla and miracula. The fall of Edessa is described in the Lament of Edessa by Nerses Snorhali, which is here for the first time translated into English. Even icon-painting in Egypt reflects crusader influence.
Offering an analysis of Christian-Muslim dialogue across four centuries, this book highlights those voices of ecumenical tone which have more often used the Qur’an for drawing the two faiths together rather than pushing them apart, and amplifies the voice of the Qur’an itself. Finding that there is tremendous ecumenical ground between Christianity and Islam in the voices of their own scholars, this book ranges from a period of declining ecumenism during the first three centuries of Islam, to a period of resurging ecumenism during the most recent century until now. Among the ecumenical voices in the Christian-Muslim dialogue, this book points out that the Qur’an itself is possibly the s...
This book examines the premodern encounter between the three monotheistic religions through the unique prism of a premodern literary work—The Parable of the Three Rings—a poignant and charming tale of a father who had three sons and one precious ring. By tradition he was to bequeath the ring to his heir, but he loved his three sons equally — so he had two new rings made, crafted to be indistinguishable from the original, and on his deathbed gave a ring to each son. The narrator explains that the father is God, and his sons are the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims, each believing themselves to be the sole upholders of the true religion. A historical and literary study, the book offers a comprehensive discussion of the various guises of the Parable, from the early Middle Ages onwards, and highlights its capacity to reflect openness and pluralism in the interfaith encounter.
Theological Issues in Christian-Muslim Dialogue addresses the main theological topics of discussion that appear in Christian-Muslim engagement. Many of these topics originate in the medieval period and the earliest encounters between Christians and Muslims. Even so, the topics persist in contemporary contexts of dialogue and engagement. Christians and Muslims still discuss whether or not God should be understood as strictly one or as a Trinity-in-Unity, and debates over the nature of revelation or prophethood remain. Theological reflection, therefore, must continue to be brought to bear on these topics in light of their history and in view of their applicability to growing contexts of inter-religious engagement. Theological Issues in Christian-Muslim Dialogue is a comprehensive theological sourcebook for students learning about Christian-Muslim relations and practitioners engaged in Christian-Muslim dialogue.
In Christian Identity amid Islam in Medieval Spain Charles L. Tieszen explores a small corpus of texts from medieval Spain in an effort to deduce how their authors defined their religious identity in light of Islam, and in turn, how they hoped their readers would distinguish themselves from the Muslims in their midst. It is argued that the use of reflected self-image as a tool for interpreting Christian anti-Muslim polemic allows such texts to be read for the self-image of their authors instead of the image of just those they attacked. As such, polemic becomes a set of borders authors offered to their communities, helping them to successfully navigate inter-religious living.