Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule PDF Download

Author: David Richard Thomas
Publisher: History of Christian-Muslim Re
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
This volume on Christian life and thought in Baghdad under 'Abbasid rule illustrates the vigour of Christianity, and shows that relations between Christians and Muslims, although at times strained, could often be beneficial to followers of both faiths.

Author: Hugh Goddard
Publisher: New Amsterdam Books
ISBN: 1461636213
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The relationship between the Christian and Muslim worlds has been a long and tortuous one. Over the course of the centuries the balance of power has swung in pendulum fashion—at times the initiative seems to have lain with the Muslim community, with the Christian world simply being compelled to react to developments outside itself, while at other points the opposite has been true and Muslims have found themselves having to respond to Christian challenges in different forms. Today Christians and Muslims comprise the world's two largest religious communities. Although they can coexist fairly peacefully, at times they still engage in violent confrontation, such as in the recent conflicts in Bosnia and the Sudan. This book investigates the history of the relationships between Christians and Muslims over the centuries, from their initial encounters in the medieval period, when the Muslims were the dominant group, through to the modern period, when the balance of power seems to have been reversed. This much-needed overview of the Christian-Muslim encounter places the emphasis on the context within which perceptions and attitudes were worked out and provides a depth of historical insight to the complexities of current Christian-Muslim interactions on different continents.

Author: Christian C. Sahner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069120313X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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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.

Author: Charles Tieszen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786731584
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
One of the most common religious practices among medieval Eastern Christian communities was their devotion to venerating crosses and crucifixes. Yet many of these communities existed in predominantly Islamic contexts, where the practice was subject to much criticism and often resulted in accusations of idolatry. How did Christians respond to these allegations? Why did they advocate the preservation of a practice that was often met with confusion or even contempt? To shed light onto these questions, Charles Tieszen looks at every known apologetic or polemical text written between the eighth and fourteenth centuries to include a relevant discussion. With sources taken from across the Mediterranean basin, Egypt, Syria and Palestine, the result is the first in-depth look at a key theological debate which lay at the heart of these communities' religious identities. By considering the perspectives of both Muslim and Christian authors, Cross Veneration in the Medieval Islamic World also raises important questions concerning cross-cultural debate and exchange, and the development of Christianity and Islam in the medieval period. This is an important book that will shine much needed light onto Christian-Muslim relations, the nature of inter-faith debates and the wider issues facing the communities living across the Middle East during the medieval period.

Author: Charles Lowell Tieszen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781350985964
Category : Christian art and symbolism
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
"One of the most common religious practices among medieval Eastern Christian communities was their devotion to venerating crosses and crucifixes. Yet many of these communities existed in predominantly Islamic contexts, where the practice was subject to much criticism and often resulted in accusations of idolatry. How did Christians respond to these allegations? Why did they advocate the preservation of a practice that was often met with confusion or even contempt? To shed light onto these questions, Charles Tieszen looks at every known apologetic or polemical text written between the eighth and fourteenth centuries to include a relevant discussion. With sources taken from across the Mediterranean basin, Egypt, Syria and Palestine, the result is the first in-depth look at a key theological debate which lay at the heart of these communities' religious identities. By considering the perspectives of both Muslim and Christian authors, Cross Veneration in the Medieval Islamic World also raises important questions concerning cross-cultural debate and exchange, and the development of Christianity and Islam in the medieval period".

Author: Robert F. Shedinger
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498220223
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Few words inspire more fear in Americans these days than jihad. Its mere utterance conjures up images of car bombs exploding in crowded markets; Boeing 737s crashing into tall buildings; and flag-burning, gun-toting bearded Arab men shouting, "allahu akbar" and "Death to America!" But what if all our stereotypical images of jihad are wrong, and when rightly understood, jihad turns out to be the perfect lens through which to understand the life and mission of Jesus? Jesus and Jihad argues that in early Muslim sources jihad stood for the struggle to transform a violent and unjust pre-Islamic society into one characterized by greater levels of justice and peace. When rescued from his Christian pietistic misinterpretations, Jesus emerges as a highly prophetic figure of resistance to the injustices authorized by Roman imperial power. As Muslims reengage an authentic understanding of jihad, and Christians, through a renewed understanding of jihad, meet the prophetic Jesus from whom they have become estranged, a new era of Christian-Muslim cooperation in the struggle against injustice can become the norm, replacing the current antipathy dividing these communities with a passion to reclaim once again a prophetic heart in service to a hurting world.

Author: Lev E. Weitz
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812295110
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
In the conventional historical narrative, the medieval Middle East was composed of autonomous religious traditions, each with distinct doctrines, rituals, and institutions. Outside the world of theology, however, and beyond the walls of the mosque or the church, the multireligious social order of the medieval Islamic empire was complex and dynamic. Peoples of different faiths—Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, Jews, and others—interacted with each other in city streets, marketplaces, and even shared households, all under the rule of the Islamic caliphate. Laypeople of different confessions marked their religious belonging through fluctuating, sometimes overlapping, social norms and practices. In Between Christ and Caliph, Lev E. Weitz examines the multiconfessional society of early Islam through the lens of shifting marital practices of Syriac Christian communities. In response to the growth of Islamic law and governance in the seventh through tenth centuries, Syriac Christian bishops created new laws to regulate marriage, inheritance, and family life. The bishops banned polygamy, required that Christian marriages be blessed by priests, and restricted marriage between cousins, seeking ultimately to distinguish Christian social patterns from those of Muslims and Jews. Through meticulous research into rarely consulted Syriac and Arabic sources, Weitz traces the ways in which Syriac Christians strove to identify themselves as a community apart while still maintaining a place in the Islamic social order. By binding household life to religious identity, Syriac Christians developed the social distinctions between religious communities that came to define the medieval Islamic Middle East. Ultimately, Between Christ and Caliph argues that interreligious negotiations such as these lie at the heart of the history of the medieval Islamic empire.

Author: Peter Riga
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1477209158
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
In some 31 short chapters (182 pages) the author attempts to show why there is such intolerance of Christianity in almost every majority Muslim country in the Islamic world. There is no such persecution of Islam in the West which lives under Judeo-Christian values with respect and tolerance for Islam. The contrasts is startling. Why is this so? Even in the West through acts of terrorism and other forms of stealth jihad, there is a whole movement to convert the West to Islam if not by violent jihad (holy war) then by stealth jihad (a slow integration of sharia (Muslim holy law) into the West under guise of religious freedom offered in the West. This conflict is global in nature, violent in Muslim countries, non violent in the West. This conflict seems to be a one way street with Muslims attacking Christians while Christians seem to offer little or no resistance. This must change if there is to be true peace in this world. But first there must be a realization of this war on Christians by Islam and why this is so. This book attempts to do just that.

Author: Miroslav Volf
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802863809
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A letter printed in the pages of The New York times in 2007 acknowledged differences between Christianity and Islam but contended that "righteousness and good works" should be the only areas in which the two compete. That letter and a collaborative Christian response appear in this volume, which includes subsequent dialogue between Muslim and Christian scholars.

Author: Mateen Elass
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310298601
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
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.