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Cross Veneration in the Medieval Islamic World: Christian Identity and Practice under Muslim Rule. By Charles Tieszen. The Early and Medieval Islamic World. London: I. B. Tauris, 2017. x + 229 pp. $95.00 hardcover.
- Sidney H. Griffith
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- Journal:
- Church History / Volume 87 / Issue 1 / March 2018
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 June 2018, pp. 196-198
- Print publication:
- March 2018
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Chapter 2 - Disclosing the mystery
- from Part I - Scriptural texts in changing contexts
- Edited by Mordechai Z. Cohen, Yeshiva University, New York, Adele Berlin
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- Interpreting Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
- Published online:
- 05 June 2016
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- 06 June 2016, pp 46-64
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5 - Christianity in Syria
- from Part I - Iran and the Near East
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- By Sidney H. Griffith, Catholic University of America
- General editor Michele Renee Salzman, University of California, Riverside
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- Book:
- The Cambridge History of Religions in the Ancient World
- Published online:
- 05 October 2013
- Print publication:
- 18 March 2013, pp 138-162
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Summary
The history of Christianity in Syria is a story of how this burgeoning religious movement of Late Antiquity came to take on a distinctively regional dress. Effectively a large frontier zone between the Roman and the Parthian (and later the Persian) empires, Syria was exposed to ever-changing cultural and political influences. While Aramaic, with many regional variations, was the dominant language in this milieu, from the late fourth century BCE onward Greek language and culture also gained a powerful presence. From the last third of the second century BCE, local circumstances allowed the development of the semi-independent kingdom of Edessa. Here the cultivation of the native Aramaic dialect eventuated in the appearance of Syriac, an Aramaic idiom that facilitated the growth of a unique Christian identity in cultural terms, defined largely in reaction to and/or in tandem with Greek thought and religious expression. While inscriptions and other archaeological evidence document the beginnings, for the most part the historical evidence is literary.
Edessene Christianity
To the north and east of the Roman province of Syria, beyond the Euphrates and just within the borders of the province of Mesopotamia (Persian Osrhoene), lay the city of Edessa. Founded in 304 BCE by the Greek-speaking Seleucus I Nicator, the name Edessa recalled the city of the same name in Seleucus’s native Macedonia. Syriac-speaking locals, however, have persistently called the city Ûrhāy. In Parthian times, from around the year 132 BCE onward, the city and its associated territories became the kingdom of Edessa, a dignity it preserved until the year 214 CE, when it officially became a Roman colony. In the environs of Edessa, sometime in the early first century CE, developments in the writing of Aramaic began to take the form that in due course would come to be called Syriac. From about the middle of the second century CE until well into Islamic times, Syriac, the standard Aramaic of a large corpus of mostly Christian texts, was, together with Greek, one of the principal vehicles of Christianity in Syria and eastward. Indeed, by the fifth century Syriac and its associated ecclesiastical culture had extended its influence well to the west of the Euphrates.
7 - The Bible in Arabic
- from Part I - Texts and Versions
- Richard Marsden, University of Nottingham, E. Ann Matter, University of Pennsylvania
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- Book:
- The New Cambridge History of the Bible
- Published online:
- 28 May 2012
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- 26 April 2012, pp 123-142
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The study of the Bible in Arabic is in its infancy. While there are literally hundreds of known manuscripts containing portions of the Bible in Arabic translation, they have up to now been of little interest either to biblical scholars or even to church historians. One nineteenth-century scholar is quoted as having said, ‘There are more Arabic versions of the Gospels than can be welcome to theologians, pressed as they are with other urgent tasks.’ Bible scholars have typically thought of the Arabic versions as being too late to be of importance for the textual criticism of the Bible, and the history of the intellectual and cultural lives of the churches in the Arabic-speaking world of Islam still awaits its modern-day Eusebius. Nevertheless, the relatively few recent studies of Arabic versions of portions of the scriptures do allow us to sketch the history of the Arabic versions in broad outline, and they have shown that the translations are a gold mine for those interested in the history of biblical interpretation, especially in the ever more important realm of the history of relations between Muslims and Christians. As we shall see below, in a number of instances the studies have shown that Arabic translations of some apocryphal and so-called ‘pseudepigraphical’ biblical works have in fact proved to be indispensable for the establishment of their texts. In its origins, however, the Bible in Arabic seems first to have been an oral scripture.
Origins and early translations
Biblical texts translated into Arabic first circulated orally among Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians in pre-Islamic times. The Arabic Qurʾān, in its canonical form a product of the mid- to late seventh century ce at the earliest, presents the earliest textual evidence for the circulation of the Bible in Arabic. The Qurʾān paraphrases biblical narratives, refers to biblical personae by name, alludes to and comments on biblical verses, but does not exactly quote from the biblical text, with the exception of one or two possible instances (e.g., Ps. 37:29 in Qurʾān 21:105).
Contributors
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- By Rose Teteki Abbey, K. C. Abraham, David Tuesday Adamo, LeRoy H. Aden, Efrain Agosto, Victor Aguilan, Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, Charanjit Kaur AjitSingh, Dorothy B E A Akoto, Giuseppe Alberigo, Daniel E. Albrecht, Ruth Albrecht, Daniel O. Aleshire, Urs Altermatt, Anand Amaladass, Michael Amaladoss, James N. Amanze, Lesley G. Anderson, Thomas C. Anderson, Victor Anderson, Hope S. Antone, María Pilar Aquino, Paula Arai, Victorio Araya Guillén, S. Wesley Ariarajah, Ellen T. Armour, Brett Gregory Armstrong, Atsuhiro Asano, Naim Stifan Ateek, Mahmoud Ayoub, John Alembillah Azumah, Mercedes L. García Bachmann, Irena Backus, J. Wayne Baker, Mieke Bal, Lewis V. Baldwin, William Barbieri, António Barbosa da Silva, David Basinger, Bolaji Olukemi Bateye, Oswald Bayer, Daniel H. Bays, Rosalie Beck, Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, Guy-Thomas Bedouelle, Chorbishop Seely Beggiani, Wolfgang Behringer, Christopher M. Bellitto, Byard Bennett, Harold V. Bennett, Teresa Berger, Miguel A. Bernad, Henley Bernard, Alan E. Bernstein, Jon L. Berquist, Johannes Beutler, Ana María Bidegain, Matthew P. Binkewicz, Jennifer Bird, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Dmytro Bondarenko, Paulo Bonfatti, Riet en Pim Bons-Storm, Jessica A. Boon, Marcus J. Borg, Mark Bosco, Peter C. Bouteneff, François Bovon, William D. Bowman, Paul S. Boyer, David Brakke, Richard E. Brantley, Marcus Braybrooke, Ian Breward, Ênio José da Costa Brito, Jewel Spears Brooker, Johannes Brosseder, Nicholas Canfield Read Brown, Robert F. Brown, Pamela K. Brubaker, Walter Brueggemann, Bishop Colin O. Buchanan, Stanley M. Burgess, Amy Nelson Burnett, J. Patout Burns, David B. Burrell, David Buttrick, James P. Byrd, Lavinia Byrne, Gerado Caetano, Marcos Caldas, Alkiviadis Calivas, William J. Callahan, Salvatore Calomino, Euan K. Cameron, William S. Campbell, Marcelo Ayres Camurça, Daniel F. Caner, Paul E. Capetz, Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, Patrick W. Carey, Barbara Carvill, Hal Cauthron, Subhadra Mitra Channa, Mark D. Chapman, James H. Charlesworth, Kenneth R. Chase, Chen Zemin, Luciano Chianeque, Philip Chia Phin Yin, Francisca H. Chimhanda, Daniel Chiquete, John T. Chirban, Soobin Choi, Robert Choquette, Mita Choudhury, Gerald Christianson, John Chryssavgis, Sejong Chun, Esther Chung-Kim, Charles M. A. Clark, Elizabeth A. Clark, Sathianathan Clarke, Fred Cloud, John B. Cobb, W. Owen Cole, John A Coleman, John J. Collins, Sylvia Collins-Mayo, Paul K. Conkin, Beth A. Conklin, Sean Connolly, Demetrios J. Constantelos, Michael A. Conway, Paula M. Cooey, Austin Cooper, Michael L. Cooper-White, Pamela Cooper-White, L. William Countryman, Sérgio Coutinho, Pamela Couture, Shannon Craigo-Snell, James L. Crenshaw, David Crowner, Humberto Horacio Cucchetti, Lawrence S. Cunningham, Elizabeth Mason Currier, Emmanuel Cutrone, Mary L. Daniel, David D. Daniels, Robert Darden, Rolf Darge, Isaiah Dau, Jeffry C. Davis, Jane Dawson, Valentin Dedji, John W. de Gruchy, Paul DeHart, Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards, Miguel A. De La Torre, George E. Demacopoulos, Thomas de Mayo, Leah DeVun, Beatriz de Vasconcellos Dias, Dennis C. Dickerson, John M. Dillon, Luis Miguel Donatello, Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, Susanna Drake, Jonathan A. Draper, N. Dreher Martin, Otto Dreydoppel, Angelyn Dries, A. J. Droge, Francis X. D'Sa, Marilyn Dunn, Nicole Wilkinson Duran, Rifaat Ebied, Mark J. Edwards, William H. Edwards, Leonard H. Ehrlich, Nancy L. Eiesland, Martin Elbel, J. Harold Ellens, Stephen Ellingson, Marvin M. Ellison, Robert Ellsberg, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Eldon Jay Epp, Peter C. Erb, Tassilo Erhardt, Maria Erling, Noel Leo Erskine, Gillian R. Evans, Virginia Fabella, Michael A. Fahey, Edward Farley, Margaret A. Farley, Wendy Farley, Robert Fastiggi, Seena Fazel, Duncan S. Ferguson, Helwar Figueroa, Paul Corby Finney, Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald, Thomas E. FitzGerald, John R. Fitzmier, Marie Therese Flanagan, Sabina Flanagan, Claude Flipo, Ronald B. Flowers, Carole Fontaine, David Ford, Mary Ford, Stephanie A. Ford, Jim Forest, William Franke, Robert M. Franklin, Ruth Franzén, Edward H. Friedman, Samuel Frouisou, Lorelei F. Fuchs, Jojo M. Fung, Inger Furseth, Richard R. Gaillardetz, Brandon Gallaher, China Galland, Mark Galli, Ismael García, Tharscisse Gatwa, Jean-Marie Gaudeul, Luis María Gavilanes del Castillo, Pavel L. Gavrilyuk, Volney P. Gay, Metropolitan Athanasios Geevargis, Kondothra M. George, Mary Gerhart, Simon Gikandi, Maurice Gilbert, Michael J. Gillgannon, Verónica Giménez Beliveau, Terryl Givens, Beth Glazier-McDonald, Philip Gleason, Menghun Goh, Brian Golding, Bishop Hilario M. Gomez, Michelle A. Gonzalez, Donald K. Gorrell, Roy Gottfried, Tamara Grdzelidze, Joel B. Green, Niels Henrik Gregersen, Cristina Grenholm, Herbert Griffiths, Eric W. Gritsch, Erich S. Gruen, Christoffer H. Grundmann, Paul H. Gundani, Jon P. Gunnemann, Petre Guran, Vidar L. Haanes, Jeremiah M. Hackett, Getatchew Haile, Douglas John Hall, Nicholas Hammond, Daphne Hampson, Jehu J. Hanciles, Barry Hankins, Jennifer Haraguchi, Stanley S. Harakas, Anthony John Harding, Conrad L. Harkins, J. William Harmless, Marjory Harper, Amir Harrak, Joel F. Harrington, Mark W. Harris, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Van A. Harvey, R. Chris Hassel, Jione Havea, Daniel Hawk, Diana L. Hayes, Leslie Hayes, Priscilla Hayner, S. Mark Heim, Simo Heininen, Richard P. Heitzenrater, Eila Helander, David Hempton, Scott H. Hendrix, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Gina Hens-Piazza, Carter Heyward, Nicholas J. Higham, David Hilliard, Norman A. Hjelm, Peter C. Hodgson, Arthur Holder, M. Jan Holton, Dwight N. Hopkins, Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Po-Ho Huang, James Hudnut-Beumler, Jennifer S. Hughes, Leonard M. Hummel, Mary E. Hunt, Laennec Hurbon, Mark Hutchinson, Susan E. Hylen, Mary Beth Ingham, H. Larry Ingle, Dale T. Irvin, Jon Isaak, Paul John Isaak, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Hans Raun Iversen, Margaret C. Jacob, Arthur James, Maria Jansdotter-Samuelsson, David Jasper, Werner G. Jeanrond, Renée Jeffery, David Lyle Jeffrey, Theodore W. Jennings, David H. Jensen, Robin Margaret Jensen, David Jobling, Dale A. Johnson, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Maxwell E. Johnson, Sarah Johnson, Mark D. Johnston, F. Stanley Jones, James William Jones, John R. Jones, Alissa Jones Nelson, Inge Jonsson, Jan Joosten, Elizabeth Judd, Mulambya Peggy Kabonde, Robert Kaggwa, Sylvester Kahakwa, Isaac Kalimi, Ogbu U. Kalu, Eunice Kamaara, Wayne C. Kannaday, Musimbi Kanyoro, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Frank Kaufmann, Léon Nguapitshi Kayongo, Richard Kearney, Alice A. Keefe, Ralph Keen, Catherine Keller, Anthony J. Kelly, Karen Kennelly, Kathi Lynn Kern, Fergus Kerr, Edward Kessler, George Kilcourse, Heup Young Kim, Kim Sung-Hae, Kim Yong-Bock, Kim Yung Suk, Richard King, Thomas M. King, Robert M. Kingdon, Ross Kinsler, Hans G. Kippenberg, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Clifton Kirkpatrick, Leonid Kishkovsky, Nadieszda Kizenko, Jeffrey Klaiber, Hans-Josef Klauck, Sidney Knight, Samuel Kobia, Robert Kolb, Karla Ann Koll, Heikki Kotila, Donald Kraybill, Philip D. W. Krey, Yves Krumenacker, Jeffrey Kah-Jin Kuan, Simanga R. Kumalo, Peter Kuzmic, Simon Shui-Man Kwan, Kwok Pui-lan, André LaCocque, Stephen E. Lahey, John Tsz Pang Lai, Emiel Lamberts, Armando Lampe, Craig Lampe, Beverly J. Lanzetta, Eve LaPlante, Lizette Larson-Miller, Ariel Bybee Laughton, Leonard Lawlor, Bentley Layton, Robin A. Leaver, Karen Lebacqz, Archie Chi Chung Lee, Marilyn J. Legge, Hervé LeGrand, D. L. LeMahieu, Raymond Lemieux, Bill J. Leonard, Ellen M. Leonard, Outi Leppä, Jean Lesaulnier, Nantawan Boonprasat Lewis, Henrietta Leyser, Alexei Lidov, Bernard Lightman, Paul Chang-Ha Lim, Carter Lindberg, Mark R. Lindsay, James R. Linville, James C. Livingston, Ann Loades, David Loades, Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, Lo Lung Kwong, Wati Longchar, Eleazar López, David W. Lotz, Andrew Louth, Robin W. Lovin, William Luis, Frank D. Macchia, Diarmaid N. J. MacCulloch, Kirk R. MacGregor, Marjory A. MacLean, Donald MacLeod, Tomas S. Maddela, Inge Mager, Laurenti Magesa, David G. Maillu, Fortunato Mallimaci, Philip Mamalakis, Kä Mana, Ukachukwu Chris Manus, Herbert Robinson Marbury, Reuel Norman Marigza, Jacqueline Mariña, Antti Marjanen, Luiz C. L. Marques, Madipoane Masenya (ngwan'a Mphahlele), Caleb J. D. Maskell, Steve Mason, Thomas Massaro, Fernando Matamoros Ponce, András Máté-Tóth, Odair Pedroso Mateus, Dinis Matsolo, Fumitaka Matsuoka, John D'Arcy May, Yelena Mazour-Matusevich, Theodore Mbazumutima, John S. McClure, Christian McConnell, Lee Martin McDonald, Gary B. McGee, Thomas McGowan, Alister E. McGrath, Richard J. McGregor, John A. McGuckin, Maud Burnett McInerney, Elsie Anne McKee, Mary B. McKinley, James F. McMillan, Ernan McMullin, Kathleen E. McVey, M. Douglas Meeks, Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon, Ilie Melniciuc-Puica, Everett Mendoza, Raymond A. Mentzer, William W. Menzies, Ina Merdjanova, Franziska Metzger, Constant J. Mews, Marvin Meyer, Carol Meyers, Vasile Mihoc, Gunner Bjerg Mikkelsen, Maria Inêz de Castro Millen, Clyde Lee Miller, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Alexander Mirkovic, Paul Misner, Nozomu Miyahira, R. W. L. Moberly, Gerald Moede, Aloo Osotsi Mojola, Sunanda Mongia, Rebeca Montemayor, James Moore, Roger E. Moore, Craig E. Morrison O.Carm, Jeffry H. Morrison, Keith Morrison, Wilson J. Moses, Tefetso Henry Mothibe, Mokgethi Motlhabi, Fulata Moyo, Henry Mugabe, Jesse Ndwiga Kanyua Mugambi, Peggy Mulambya-Kabonde, Robert Bruce Mullin, Pamela Mullins Reaves, Saskia Murk Jansen, Heleen L. Murre-Van den Berg, Augustine Musopole, Isaac M. T. Mwase, Philomena Mwaura, Cecilia Nahnfeldt, Anne Nasimiyu Wasike, Carmiña Navia Velasco, Thulani Ndlazi, Alexander Negrov, James B. Nelson, David G. Newcombe, Carol Newsom, Helen J. Nicholson, George W. E. Nickelsburg, Tatyana Nikolskaya, Damayanthi M. A. Niles, Bertil Nilsson, Nyambura Njoroge, Fidelis Nkomazana, Mary Beth Norton, Christian Nottmeier, Sonene Nyawo, Anthère Nzabatsinda, Edward T. Oakes, Gerald O'Collins, Daniel O'Connell, David W. Odell-Scott, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Kathleen O'Grady, Oyeronke Olajubu, Thomas O'Loughlin, Dennis T. Olson, J. Steven O'Malley, Cephas N. Omenyo, Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro, César Augusto Ornellas Ramos, Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, Kenan B. Osborne, Carolyn Osiek, Javier Otaola Montagne, Douglas F. Ottati, Anna May Say Pa, Irina Paert, Jerry G. Pankhurst, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Samuele F. Pardini, Stefano Parenti, Peter Paris, Sung Bae Park, Cristián G. Parker, Raquel Pastor, Joseph Pathrapankal, Daniel Patte, W. Brown Patterson, Clive Pearson, Keith F. Pecklers, Nancy Cardoso Pereira, David Horace Perkins, Pheme Perkins, Edward N. Peters, Rebecca Todd Peters, Bishop Yeznik Petrossian, Raymond Pfister, Peter C. Phan, Isabel Apawo Phiri, William S. F. Pickering, Derrick G. Pitard, William Elvis Plata, Zlatko Plese, John Plummer, James Newton Poling, Ronald Popivchak, Andrew Porter, Ute Possekel, James M. Powell, Enos Das Pradhan, Devadasan Premnath, Jaime Adrían Prieto Valladares, Anne Primavesi, Randall Prior, María Alicia Puente Lutteroth, Eduardo Guzmão Quadros, Albert Rabil, Laurent William Ramambason, Apolonio M. Ranche, Vololona Randriamanantena Andriamitandrina, Lawrence R. Rast, Paul L. Redditt, Adele Reinhartz, Rolf Rendtorff, Pål Repstad, James N. Rhodes, John K. Riches, Joerg Rieger, Sharon H. Ringe, Sandra Rios, Tyler Roberts, David M. Robinson, James M. Robinson, Joanne Maguire Robinson, Richard A. H. Robinson, Roy R. Robson, Jack B. Rogers, Maria Roginska, Sidney Rooy, Rev. Garnett Roper, Maria José Fontelas Rosado-Nunes, Andrew C. Ross, Stefan Rossbach, François Rossier, John D. Roth, John K. Roth, Phillip Rothwell, Richard E. Rubenstein, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Markku Ruotsila, John E. Rybolt, Risto Saarinen, John Saillant, Juan Sanchez, Wagner Lopes Sanchez, Hugo N. Santos, Gerhard Sauter, Gloria L. Schaab, Sandra M. Schneiders, Quentin J. Schultze, Fernando F. Segovia, Turid Karlsen Seim, Carsten Selch Jensen, Alan P. F. Sell, Frank C. Senn, Kent Davis Sensenig, Damían Setton, Bal Krishna Sharma, Carolyn J. Sharp, Thomas Sheehan, N. Gerald Shenk, Christian Sheppard, Charles Sherlock, Tabona Shoko, Walter B. Shurden, Marguerite Shuster, B. Mark Sietsema, Batara Sihombing, Neil Silberman, Clodomiro Siller, Samuel Silva-Gotay, Heikki Silvet, John K. Simmons, Hagith Sivan, James C. Skedros, Abraham Smith, Ashley A. Smith, Ted A. Smith, Daud Soesilo, Pia Søltoft, Choan-Seng (C. S.) Song, Kathryn Spink, Bryan Spinks, Eric O. Springsted, Nicolas Standaert, Brian Stanley, Glen H. Stassen, Karel Steenbrink, Stephen J. Stein, Andrea Sterk, Gregory E. Sterling, Columba Stewart, Jacques Stewart, Robert B. Stewart, Cynthia Stokes Brown, Ken Stone, Anne Stott, Elizabeth Stuart, Monya Stubbs, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, David Kwang-sun Suh, Scott W. Sunquist, Keith Suter, Douglas Sweeney, Charles H. Talbert, Shawqi N. Talia, Elsa Tamez, Joseph B. Tamney, Jonathan Y. Tan, Yak-Hwee Tan, Kathryn Tanner, Feiya Tao, Elizabeth S. Tapia, Aquiline Tarimo, Claire Taylor, Mark Lewis Taylor, Bishop Abba Samuel Wolde Tekestebirhan, Eugene TeSelle, M. Thomas Thangaraj, David R. Thomas, Andrew Thornley, Scott Thumma, Marcelo Timotheo da Costa, George E. “Tink” Tinker, Ola Tjørhom, Karen Jo Torjesen, Iain R. Torrance, Fernando Torres-Londoño, Archbishop Demetrios [Trakatellis], Marit Trelstad, Christine Trevett, Phyllis Trible, Johannes Tromp, Paul Turner, Robert G. Tuttle, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Peter Tyler, Anders Tyrberg, Justin Ukpong, Javier Ulloa, Camillus Umoh, Kristi Upson-Saia, Martina Urban, Monica Uribe, Elochukwu Eugene Uzukwu, Richard Vaggione, Gabriel Vahanian, Paul Valliere, T. J. Van Bavel, Steven Vanderputten, Peter Van der Veer, Huub Van de Sandt, Louis Van Tongeren, Luke A. Veronis, Noel Villalba, Ramón Vinke, Tim Vivian, David Voas, Elena Volkova, Katharina von Kellenbach, Elina Vuola, Timothy Wadkins, Elaine M. Wainwright, Randi Jones Walker, Dewey D. Wallace, Jerry Walls, Michael J. Walsh, Philip Walters, Janet Walton, Jonathan L. Walton, Wang Xiaochao, Patricia A. Ward, David Harrington Watt, Herold D. Weiss, Laurence L. Welborn, Sharon D. Welch, Timothy Wengert, Traci C. West, Merold Westphal, David Wetherell, Barbara Wheeler, Carolinne White, Jean-Paul Wiest, Frans Wijsen, Terry L. Wilder, Felix Wilfred, Rebecca Wilkin, Daniel H. Williams, D. Newell Williams, Michael A. Williams, Vincent L. Wimbush, Gabriele Winkler, Anders Winroth, Lauri Emílio Wirth, James A. Wiseman, Ebba Witt-Brattström, Teofil Wojciechowski, John Wolffe, Kenman L. Wong, Wong Wai Ching, Linda Woodhead, Wendy M. Wright, Rose Wu, Keith E. Yandell, Gale A. Yee, Viktor Yelensky, Yeo Khiok-Khng, Gustav K. K. Yeung, Angela Yiu, Amos Yong, Yong Ting Jin, You Bin, Youhanna Nessim Youssef, Eliana Yunes, Robert Michael Zaller, Valarie H. Ziegler, Barbara Brown Zikmund, Joyce Ann Zimmerman, Aurora Zlotnik, Zhuo Xinping
- Edited by Daniel Patte, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity
- Published online:
- 05 August 2012
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- 20 September 2010, pp xi-xliv
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9 - Christians under Muslim rule
- from Part II - Christianity in Confrontation
- Edited by Thomas F. X. Noble, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, Julia M. H. Smith, University of Glasgow
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- The Cambridge History of Christianity
- Published online:
- 28 March 2010
- Print publication:
- 11 September 2008, pp 197-212
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Summary
By the year 732 CE, just one hundred years after the death of the prophet Muhammad, Arab military forces, in the name of Islam, consolidated their hegemony over a large stretch of territory outside of Arabia. This expanse of territory, embracing major portions of the Roman and Persian empires of Late Antiquity, included many indigenous Christian communities, in several denominations. They all came under Muslim rule, but demographically they made up the religious majority in many places until well into the eleventh century. There were strong Christian communities in Spain (al-Andalus) and in the territories of the former eastern patriarchates of the Roman Empire, as well as in Persian Mesopotamia. During the first four centuries of the hegira (i.e., the Islamic era) most of these Christian subjects of the Muslim caliph gradually adopted the Arabic language, while retaining to a greater or lesser extent, depending on local circumstances, their traditional, patristic, and liturgical languages for church purposes.
Christians in the Qur’ān and in early Islam
Arabic-speaking Christians were in the audience to whom the Qur’ān first addressed the word of God, as it claimed, in “a clear Arabic tongue” (Qur’ān 16.103 and 26.105). Indeed the Qur’ān presumes the priority of the Torah and the Gospel in the consciousness of its hearers, and insists that in reference to the earlier divine revelations it is itself “a corroborating scripture in the Arabic language to warn wrong doers and to announce good news to those who do well” (Qur’ān 46.12). In the Qur’ān, God advises the Muslims, “If you are in doubt about what we have sent down to you, ask those who were reading scripture before you” (Qur’ān 10.94).
Bat Yeʾor, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, Seventh–Twentieth Century, trans. Miriam Kochan and David Littman (Madison and Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996). Pp. 522. $45.00.
- Sidney H. Griffith
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- Journal:
- International Journal of Middle East Studies / Volume 30 / Issue 4 / November 1998
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 29 January 2009, pp. 619-621
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- November 1998
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Judean Monasteries in the Byzantine Period, by Yizhar Hirschfeld. 305 pages, maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. $45 (Cloth) ISBN 0-300-04977-3
- Sidney H. Griffith
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- Journal:
- Middle East Studies Association Bulletin / Volume 26 / Issue 2 / December 1992
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 09 March 2016, pp. 265-266
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- December 1992
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Images of Ephraem: The Syrian Holy Man and His Church
- Sidney H. Griffith
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Ephraem the Syrian is undoubtedly the best-known holy man of the Syriac-speaking world in the patristic period. Within fifty years of Ephraem's death, Palladius included a notice of him among the ascetic saints whose memory he celebrated in the Lausiac History. Sozomen the historian celebrated Ephraem's memory as a popular ecclesiastical writer, some of whose works had been translated into Greek even during his lifetime. Jerome claimed to recognize Ephraem's theological genius in a Greek translation he read of a book by Ephraem on the Holy Spirit. And toward the end of the fifth century, Gennadius of Marseilles called attention to Ephraem as a composer of metrical psalms. Well within the patristic era itself, therefore, Ephraem's reputation as holy man, theologian, and poet was secure.
Anthony David of Baghdad, Scribe and Monk of Mar Sabas: Arabic in the Monasteries of Palestine
- Sidney H. Griffith
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- Journal:
- Church History / Volume 58 / Issue 1 / March 1989
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 28 July 2009, pp. 7-19
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- March 1989
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Forty years ago George Every called the attention of the scholarly world to the likelihood that in the oriental patriarchates after the time of John of Damascus the Arabic language increasingly became the language of the Melkite, or Roman (rūmī), community of Christians in the caliphate. They came to use Arabic, Every suggested, not only for scholarly purposes, but even for the divine liturgy, at least for the Scripture lessons.1 In the years since Every made these observations it has become increasingly clear that not only was there such an increase in the use of Arabic in the church during the first Abbasid century, but that the crescendo in the use of Arabic went hand in hand with the diminishment of Greek as a language of church scholarship in the monasteries of the Holy Land from early Abbasid times, perhaps even until the Ottoman period, when the so-called “Rūm Millet” reintroduced the control of Greek speakers in the Jerusalem patriarchate.2 Accordingly, one might speak of the first flowering of Christian life in Arabic in the Holy Land as having occurred during the three centuries stretching from 750, the beginning of the Abbasid caliphate, to around the year 1050, the eve of the crusader period in Near Eastern history.3 And the documentary evidence for the literary activity of the Holy Land monks who wrote in Arabic during this period is largely the archive of “old south Palestinian texts” which Joshua Blau studied for his Grammar of Chrtstian Arabic.4
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