Muslim Converts to Greek Orthodoxy

I am greatly looking forward to reading this new study which will begin filling a very considerable gap in the literature on conversion: Proselytes of a New Nation: Muslim Conversions to Orthodox Christianity in Modern Greece by Stefanos Katsikas  (Oxford UP, 2022), 248pp. About this study the publisher tells us this:

Proselytes of a New Nation analyzes questions such as: Why did many Muslims convert to Greek Orthodoxy? What did conversion mean to the converts? What were their economic, social, and professional profiles? And how did conversion affect the converts' relationships with Muslim relatives in Greece and the Ottoman Empire?

Because Sharia law and the Ottoman legal system could keep Muslim apostates--Muslims who had converted to other religions--from inheriting family property, Stefanos Katsikas examines the ways in which conversion complicated family relations and often led to legal disputes. This volume also discusses the method used by the Greek state to adjudicate legal disputes on property issues between neophytes (converts) and their Muslim relatives.

Proselytes of a New Nation maintains that religious conversion in the era of nationalism was far more consequential for the convert, their family, and their social relations. Converts received not only community attention, but also national. Depending upon the religious affiliation and nationality of an individual, they regarded neophytes as either "traitors" or "heroes." Against this sociopolitical backdrop, conversion more drastically affected the social fabric of communities than in the pre-modern era, and more often led to violence and conflict.

Christianity and Islam in Ethiopia and Africa

It always cheers the heart to see that increasingly scholars studying disciplines they label "politics" realize that things labelled "religion" (etc.) are by no means separable from the study of the former. In that light, the Routledge Handbook of the Horn of Africa, ed. Jean-Nicolas Bach (February 2022, 784pp.) has an entire section exploring Islam and Christianity in Africa, with a particular focus on Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, about which I wrote only this week. 

About this collection the publisher further tells us this: 

The Routledge Handbook of the Horn of Africa provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary survey of contemporary research related to the Horn of Africa.

Situated at the junction of the Sahel-Saharan strip and the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa is growing in global importance, due to demographic growth and the strategic importance of the Suez Canal. Divided into sections on authoritarianism and resistance, religion and politics, migration, economic integration, the military and regimes and liberation, the contributors provide up-to-date, authoritative knowledge on the region in light of contemporary strategic concerns. The handbook investigates how political, economic and security innovations have been implemented, sometimes with violence, by use of force, or by negotiation; including ‘ethnic federalism’ in Ethiopia, independence in Eritrea and South Sudan, integration of the traditional authorities in the (neo)patrimonial administrations, Somalian Islamic Courts, the Sudanese Islamist regime, people’s movements, multilateral operations and the construction of an architecture for regional peace and security.

Accessibly written, this handbook is an essential read for scholars, students and policy professionals interested in the contemporary politics in the Horn of Africa.

Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamic World

In the dozen years this blog has now been active, it has been an especial joy to watch increased scholarly attention to the Syriac tradition, not a few of whose books have been featured on here. 

Set for release early next month will be another welcome volume aiding in our understanding of this tradition and its wider relations: Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World: Abdisho of Nisibis and the Apologetic Tradition by Salam Rassi (Oxford University Press, April 2022), 400pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this: 

Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World is the first monograph-length study and intellectual biography of Abdisho of Nisibis (d. 1318), bishop and polymath of the Church of the East. Focusing on his works of apologetic theology, it examines the intellectual strategies he employs to justify Christianity against Muslim (and to a lesser extent Jewish) criticisms. Better known to scholars of Syriac literature as a poet, jurist, and cataloguer, Abdisho wrote a considerable number of works in the Arabic language, many of which have only recently come to light. He flourished at a time when Syriac Christian writers were becoming increasingly indebted to Islamic models of intellectual production. Yet many of his writings were composed during mounting religious tensions following the official conversion of the Ilkhanate to Islam in 1295. In the midst of these challenges, Abdisho negotiates a centuries-long tradition of Syriac and Arabic apologetics to remind his readers of the verity of the Christian faith. His engagement with this tradition reveals how anti-Muslim apologetics had long shaped the articulation of Christian identity in the Middle East since the emergence of Islam. Through a selective process of encyclopaedism and systematisation, Abdisho navigates a vast corpus of Syriac and Arabic apologetics to create a synthesis and theological canon that remains authoritative to this day.

Muslim-Christian Relations

We live in a happy time when, as I have tried to document on here for over a decade, scholarship devoted to Muslim-Christian relations, in which Eastern Christians take pride of place, is blossoming. A new book adds to the riches: David Thomas, ed., The Bloomsbury Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations, 600-1500 (Bloomsbury, 2022), 352pp.

About this collection we are told this:

This Reader brings together nearly 80 extracts from the major works left by Christians and Muslims that reflect their reciprocal knowledge and attitudes. It spans the period from the early 7th century, when Islam originated, to 1500.

The general introduction provides a historical and geographical summary of Christian-Muslim encounters in the period and a short account of the religious, intellectual and social circumstances in which encounters took place and works were written. Nearly all the translations are new, and a map is provided. Each of the six parts contains the following pedagogical features:

-A short introduction

-An introduction to each passage and author

-Notes explaining terms that readers might not have previously encountered

On the Christian side topics include: condemnations of the Qur'an as a fake and Mu?ammad as a fraud, depictions of Islam as a sign of the final judgement, and proofs that it was a Christian heresy. On the Muslim side they include: demonstrations of the Bible as corrupt, proofs that Christian doctrines were illogical, comments on the inferior status of Christians, and accounts of Christian and Muslim scholars in collaboration together.

A Short History of Islamic Thought

By virtue of living alongside each other since the beginnings of Islam, Eastern Christians have unique insights into not just the Muslim-Christian relationship ab initio, but also to Islam as such. That does not mean everyone has such insights, or that they are always impeccable in their details. For those needing a refresher, or an introduction, a short new book from the world's leading academic publisher fits the ticket: A Short History of Islamic Thought by Fitzroy Morrissey (Oxford University Press, 2021), 178pp. About this 

About this new book the publisher tells us this:

For general readers, a compact and illuminating introduction to Islam, from its beginnings almost 1500 years ago to the present moment.

While much has been written about Islam, particularly over the twenty-five years, few books have explored the full range of the ideas that have defined the faith over a millennium and a half. Fitzroy Morrissey provides a clear and concise introduction to the origins and sources of Islamic thought, from its beginnings in the 7th century to the current moment. He explores the major ideas and introduces the major figures--those who over the centuries have broached life's major questions, from the nature of God and the existence of free will to gender relations and the ordering of society, and in the process defined Islam. Drawing on Arabic and Persian primary texts, as well as the latest scholarship, A Short History of Islamic Thought explains the key teachings of the Qur'an and Hadith, the great books of Islamic theology, philosophy, and law, as well as the mystical writings of the Sufis. It evaluates the impact of foreign cultures-Greek and Persian, Jewish and Christian-on early Islam, accounts for the crystallization of the Sunni and Shi'i forms of the faith, and accounts for the rise of such trends as Islamic modernism and Islamism. Above all, it reveals the fundamental principles of Islamic thought, both as a source of inspiration for Muslims today and as illuminating and rewarding in their own right.

The Ottoman Empire at Sunset and its Last Wars in Europe

I hope there are archives in heaven, and books too, for I do not think I will ever have the time in my remaining years on Earth to acquire the languages necessary to immerse myself in all the works both published on, and still hidden away in the archives of, the Ottoman Empire. In the meantime, I will have to content myself with benefiting from the work of living scholars, including this new book which sounds very fascinating indeed:The Last Muslim Conquest: The Ottoman Empire and Its Wars in Europe by Gábor Ágoston  (Princeton University Press, 2021), 688pp. 

This book is, the publisher tells us, 

A monumental work of history that reveals the Ottoman dynasty's important role in the emergence of early modern Europe

The Ottomans have long been viewed as despots who conquered through sheer military might, and whose dynasty was peripheral to those of Europe. The Last Muslim Conquest transforms our understanding of the Ottoman Empire, showing how Ottoman statecraft was far more pragmatic and sophisticated than previously acknowledged, and how the Ottoman dynasty was a crucial player in the power struggles of early modern Europe.

In this panoramic and multifaceted book, Gábor Ágoston captures the grand sweep of Ottoman history, from the dynasty's stunning rise to power at the turn of the fourteenth century to the Siege of Vienna in 1683, which brought an end to Ottoman incursions into central Europe. He discusses how the Ottoman wars of conquest gave rise to the imperial rivalry with the Habsburgs, and brings vividly to life the intrigues of sultans, kings, popes, and spies. Ágoston examines the subtler methods of Ottoman conquest, such as dynastic marriages and the incorporation of conquered peoples into the Ottoman administration, and argues that while the Ottoman Empire was shaped by Turkish, Iranian, and Islamic influences, it was also an integral part of Europe and was, in many ways, a European empire.

Rich in narrative detail, The Last Muslim Conquest looks at Ottoman military capabilities, frontier management, law, diplomacy, and intelligence, offering new perspectives on the gradual shift in power between the Ottomans and their European rivals and reframing the old story of Ottoman decline.

Muslims Fascinated with Christian Monks

As the late, great historian of Byzantine Christianity, Robert Taft of the Society of Jesus used to say, when it comes to the development of liturgical traditions at least, we're all "mongrels." By that he meant that anybody tempted (and such people are not hard to find on the Web) to propagate founding narratives of purity, in which the Latin or Syriac or Armenian or Greek or Russian traditions (inter alia) were somehow untouched by other traditions, is talking nonsense. That lesson surely applies, mutatis mutandis, to the development of monastic traditions, and indeed to the emerging tradition called Islam. In other words, people first encountered, then were fascinated with, and finally in some fashion often borrowed from each other even if in some eyes doing so was verboten (though the condemnations of such borrowings are almost always very post hoc). 

Anyway, here is a new book that shows early Christian monastic life was not just hugely fascinating to other Christians, but to Muslims as well: Christian Monastic Life in Early Islam (Edinburgh UP, April 2021, 288pp.) by Bradley Bowman.

About this new book the publisher tells us this:

During the rise of Islam, Muslim fascination with Christian monastic life was articulated through a fluid, piety-centred movement. Bradley Bowman explores this confessional synthesis between like-minded religious groups in the medieval Near East. He argues that this potential ecumenism would have been based upon the sharing of core tenets concerning piety and righteous behaviour. Such fundamental attributes, long associated with monasticism in the East, likely served as a mutually inclusive common ground for Muslim and Christian communities of the period. This manifested itself in Muslim appreciation, interest and – at times – participation in Christian monastic life.

People of the Book

Much romanticized nonsense is talked by both Christians and Muslims about our individual and shared pasts. Too much history traffics in narratives of either "chosen trauma" or "chosen glory," to use the invaluable categories of Vamik Volkan. Too much of the history of Muslim-Christian relations becomes anachronistic and often tendentious as well. The writing of such histories is a case-study in itself of historiographical hazards to be avoided.

We shall have to wait to see if a book, set for September release, avoids these pitfalls or not: People of the Book: Prophet Muhammad's Encounters with Christians by Craig Considine (Hurst, August 2021), 232pp. About this book the publisher tells us this:

The Christians that lived around the Arabian Peninsula during Muhammad's lifetime are shrouded in mystery. Some of the stories of the Prophet's interactions with them are based on legends and myths, while others are more authentic and plausible. But who exactly were these Christians? Why did Muhammad interact with them as he reportedly did? And what lessons can today's Christians and Muslims learn from these encounters?

Scholar Craig Considine, one of the most powerful global voices speaking in admiration of the prophet of Islam, provides answers to these questions. Through a careful study of works by historians and theologians, he highlights an idea central to Muhammad's vision: an inclusive Ummah, or Muslim nation, rooted in citizenship rights, interfaith dialogue, and freedom of conscience, religion and speech. In this unprecedented sociological analysis of one of history's most influential human beings, Considine offers groundbreaking insight that could redefine Christian and Muslim relations.

Christian Adaptations of and to Muslim Governance

I have previously drawn attention to the fascinating books of the historian Phillip Wood who treats early Muslim-Christian encounters in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. He has another book coming out later next month that I am greatly looking forward to reading: The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, c. 750–850  (Princeton University Press, April 2021), 304pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this:

How Christian leaders adapted the governmental practices and political thought of their Muslim rulers in the Abbasid caliphate

The Imam of the Christians examines how Christian leaders adopted and adapted the political practices and ideas of their Muslim rulers between 750 and 850 in the Abbasid caliphate in the Jazira (modern eastern Turkey and northern Syria). Focusing on the writings of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, the patriarch of the Jacobite church, Philip Wood describes how this encounter produced an Islamicate Christianity that differed from the Christianities of Byzantium and western Europe in far more than just theology. In doing so, Wood opens a new window on the world of early Islam and Muslims’ interactions with other religious communities.

Wood shows how Dionysus and other Christian clerics, by forging close ties with Muslim elites, were able to command greater power over their coreligionists, such as the right to issue canons regulating the lives of lay people, gather tithes, and use state troops to arrest opponents. In his writings, Dionysius advertises his ease in the courts of Abdallah ibn Tahir in Raqqa and the caliph al-Ma’mun in Baghdad, presenting himself as an effective advocate for the interests of his fellow Christians because of his knowledge of Arabic and his ability to redeploy Islamic ideas to his own advantage. Strikingly, Dionysius even claims that, like al-Ma’mun, he is an imam since he leads his people in prayer and rules them by popular consent.

A wide-ranging examination of Middle Eastern Christian life during a critical period in the development of Islam, The Imam of the Christians is also a case study of the surprising workings of cultural and religious adaptation.

Christians under the Crescent and Muslims under the Cross c.630 - 1923

I previously posted a brief notice about this book, Christians under the Crescent and Muslims under the Cross c.630 - 1923 by Luigi Berto (Routledge, 2020), 178pp. I have now had a chance to read it, and as soon as I did made the decision on the spot to adopt it for my course Eastern Christian Encounters with Islam. It is the rare book that does all the things I need a book to do for teaching undergraduates, but this book superbly accomplishes them all:

• it is written in cogent, clear English
• it is without an obvious agenda, especially an apologetic one
• it is relatively brief
• it avoids getting lost in the notes and apparatus, which undergrads often find bewildering
• it captures the messiness of history--the "nobody has clean hands" approach
• it is reasonably affordable in a paperback edition.

My course has struggled over the years to find suitable texts. Some are far too apologetic and almost polemical; some are only partially useful; some were useful for a time but more recent scholarship or events on the ground (e.g., the Arab Spring) made much of them out of date. So to find this book is a great gift and I am very much looking forward to teaching with it.

The publisher's description of the book follows:

This book examines the status that rulers of one faith conferred onto their subjects belonging to a different one, how the rulers handled relationships with them, and the interactions between subjects of the Muslim and Christian religions.

The chronological arc of this volume spans from the first conquests by the Arabs in the Near East in the 630s to the exchange between Turkey and Greece, in 1923, of the Orthodox Christians and Muslims residing in their territories. Through organized topics, Berto analyzes both similarities and differences in Christian and Muslim lands and emphasizes how coexistences and conflicts took directions that were not always inevitable. Primary sources are used to examine the mentality of those who composed them and of their audiences. In doing so, the book considers the nuances and all the features of the multifaceted experiences of Christian subjects under Muslim rule and of Muslim subjects under Christian rule.

Christians under the Crescent and Muslims under the Cross is the ideal resource for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in the relationships between Christians and Muslims, religious minorities, and the Near East and the Mediterranean from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century.

Islam and Christianity in Post-Soviet Russia

The complex realities of Muslim-Orthodox interactions in Russia continue to fascinate, and to repay careful study. A recent book builds on a considerable, and ever-growing, body of literature in this area: Languages of Islam and Christianity in Post-Soviet Russia by Gulnaz Sibgatullina (Brill, 2020), 232pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this:

In her book, Gulnaz Sibgatullina examines the intricate relationship of religion, identity and language-related beliefs against the background of socio-political changes in post-Soviet Russia. Focusing on the Russian and Tatar languages, she explores how they simultaneously serve the needs of both Muslims and Christians living in the country today. 

Mapping linguistic strategies of missionaries, converts and religious authorities, Sibgatullina demonstrates how sacred vocabulary in each of the languages is being contested by a variety of social actors, often with competing agendas. These linguistic collisions not only affect meanings of the religious lexicon in Tatar and Russian but also drive a gradual convergence of Russia's Islam and Christianity.

Christian-Muslim Relations in Syria

My survey course on Eastern Christian encounters with Islam always focuses on Syria as one of several countries we examine. The course deliberately seeks to show the great diversity in those encounters, thereby disrupting the equally lazy stereotypes that Islam is always and only either hellbent on violence, or the bringer of the greatest peace and progress ever seen. 

A recent book gives us some of the most up-to-date analysis of the situation in Syria, which has of course changed dramatically starting a decade ago now with the failed "Arab spring." Prior to all the violence that "spring" brought, Syria was a place of many considerable Christian communities--Protestant, Orthodox, and Melkite Greek Catholic, inter alia, usually managing to lead decent and productive lives. But so much has changed so dramatically, and often destructively, that we need a new guide to realities on the ground. Along comes Andrew W. H. Ashdown, Christian–Muslim Relations in Syria: Historic and Contemporary Religious Dynamics in a Changing Context (Routledge, 2020), 270pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this:

Offering an authoritative study of the plural religious landscape in modern Syria and of the diverse Christian and Muslim communities that have cohabited the country for centuries, this volume considers a wide range of cultural, religious and political issues that have impacted the interreligious dynamic, putting them in their local and wider context.

Combining fieldwork undertaken within government-held areas during the Syrian conflict with critical historical and Christian theological reflection, this research makes a significant contribution to understanding Syria’s diverse religious landscape and the multi-layered expressions of Christian-Muslim relations. It discusses the concept of sectarianism and how communal dynamics are crucial to understanding Syrian society. The complex wider issues that underlie the relationship are examined, including the roles of culture and religious leadership; and it questions whether the analytical concept of sectarianism is adequate to describe the complex communal frameworks in the Middle Eastern context. Finally, the study examines the contributions of contemporary Eastern Christian leaders to interreligious discourse, concluding that the theology and spirituality of Eastern Christianity, inhabiting the same cultural environment as Islam, is uniquely placed to play a major role in interreligious dialogue and in peace-making.

The book offers an original contribution to knowledge and understanding of the changing Christian-Muslim dynamic in Syria and the region. It should be a key resource to students, scholars and readers interested in religion, current affairs and the Middle East.

Muslim-Christian Dialogues

Forthcoming in March of this year is a book that will carefully examine some initiatives that I know Eastern Christians to have been especially involved with over the last decade or so: Contemporary Christian-Muslim Dialogue: Twenty-First Century Initiatives by Douglas Pratt (Routledge, March 2021), 232pp. About this book the publisher tells us this: 

This book introduces and examines the work of two significant 21st century Christian – Muslim dialogue initiatives – "Building Bridges" and the "Christian–Muslim Theological Forum" – and gives close attention to five theological themes that have been addressed in common by them.

An overview and analysis, including inception, development, outputs and significance, together with discussion of the select themes – community, scripture, prophecy, prayer and ethics – allows for an in-depth examination of significant contemporary Muslim and Christian scholarship on issues important to both faith communities. The result is a challenging encounter to, arguably, a widespread default presumption of irredeemable mutual hostility and inevitable mutual rejection with instances of violent extremism as a consequence.

Demonstrating the reality that deep interreligious engagement is possible between the two faiths today, this book should appeal to a wide readership, including upper undergraduate and graduate teaching as well as professionals and practitioners in the field of Christian-Muslim relations.

Christianizing Egypt

In February it will, impossibly, be 30 years (!) since I went to the World Council of Churches seventh general assembly in Canberra, Australia. It was there, as an impressionable 18-year-old finishing high-school, that I learned a big new word: syncretism. Many people were up in arms at an apparent outbreak of the same during the assembly, and there was even a contingent of tiresome whackos from (where else?) the American Bible belt protesting outside our worship tent most days, saying syncretists were going to go to hell. We found these people vaguely amusing.

But to grow up and out of such lurid fantasies is to realize that people are constantly borrowing from other cultures and traditions, no matter how much the fundamentalist freaks and the purity fetishists scream and whinge about it. As the late great Robert Taft said of liturgical history, "we're all mongrels" so, a fortiori, is this true for "religious" traditions more broadly still--and the histories of ethnic and nationalist groups as well. This is a lesson amply illustrated by histories of almost every time and place. One of my most favored examples comes from Juliet du Boulay's haunting book (discussed here), Cosmos, Life, and Liturgy in a Greek Orthodox Village.

Soon we will have an affordable version of another such book about another ancient Eastern Christian country: Egypt. First released in hardback in 2017, this book is set for paperback release in the middle of 2021: Christianizing Egypt: Syncretism and Local Worlds in Late Antiquity by David Frankfurter (Princeton University Press, June 2021), 336pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this:

How does a culture become Christian, especially one that is heir to such ancient traditions and spectacular monuments as Egypt? This book offers a new model for envisioning the process of Christianization by looking at the construction of Christianity in the various social and creative worlds active in Egyptian culture during late antiquity.

As David Frankfurter shows, members of these different social and creative worlds came to create different forms of Christianity according to their specific interests, their traditional idioms, and their sense of what the religion could offer. Reintroducing the term “syncretism” for the inevitable and continuous process by which a religion is acculturated, the book addresses the various formations of Egyptian Christianity that developed in the domestic sphere, the worlds of holy men and saints’ shrines, the work of craftsmen and artisans, the culture of monastic scribes, and the reimagination of the landscape itself, through processions, architecture, and the potent remains of the past.

Drawing on sermons and magical texts, saints’ lives and figurines, letters and amulets, and comparisons with Christianization elsewhere in the Roman empire and beyond, Christianizing Egypt reconceives religious change—from the “conversion” of hearts and minds to the selective incorporation and application of strategies for protection, authority, and efficacy, and for imagining the environment.

Muslims under Christian Rule, and Christians Under Muslim Rule

As you continue your Christmas feasting, and perhaps spending some gift cards you got, you would do well to consider this book set for release on the 30th of this month: Christians under the Crescent and Muslims under the Cross c.630 - 1923 by Luigi Andrea Berto  (Routledge, 2020), 178pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this:

This book examines the status that rulers of one faith conferred onto their subjects belonging to a different one, how the rulers handled relationships with them, and the interactions between subjects of the Muslim and Christian religions.

The chronological arc of this volume spans from the first conquests by the Arabs in the Near East in the 630s to the exchange between Turkey and Greece, in 1923, of the Orthodox Christians and Muslims residing in their territories. Through organized topics, Berto analyzes both similarities and differences in Christian and Muslim lands and emphasizes how coexistences and conflicts took directions that were not always inevitable. Primary sources are used to examine the mentality of those who composed them and of their audiences. In doing so, the book considers the nuances and all the features of the multifaceted experiences of Christian subjects under Muslim rule and of Muslim subjects under Christian rule.

Christians under the Crescent and Muslims under the Cross is the ideal resource for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in the relationships between Christians and Muslims, religious minorities, and the Near East and the Mediterranean from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century.

A History of Muslim-Christian Relations

The original of this book is now twenty years old, and I read it many years ago now, finding it profitable in places. I shall be keen to see what is updated in this second edition of Hugh Goddard, A History of Christian-Muslim Relations (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 256pp.

The publisher gives us this short description of the book:

Christians and Muslims comprise the world's two largest religious communities. This book looks at the history of their relationship - part peaceful co-existence and part violent confrontation - from their first encounters in the medieval period up to the present. It emphasises the theological, cultural and political context in which perceptions and attitudes have developed and gives a depth of historical insight to the complex current Christian-Muslim interactions across the globe.

Christian Martyrs Under Islam

First published in the summer of 2018, a new paperback version is to be released in just a few short weeks. Unlike some apologetic and hagiographic texts, which would have us believe this history is unidirectional and entirely bloody and violent for Christians, this author recognizes the complexities: Christian Sahner, Christian Martyrs Under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World (Princeton University Press, 2020), 360pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

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.

Obsessive-Compulsive Ottoman Disorder

Well do I recall reading biographies of David Lloyd George, as well as histories of the Great War and its aftermath, and hearing again how much George loathed the Ottomans and how, if nothing else came of the conflict, he wanted to ensure their empire was smashed after the war. Even sympathetic commentators and biographers regarded this as an "obsession" on George's part, but it was apparently an obsession shared by many others, as we shall soon see. Set for release early next month is what looks to be a fascinating work exploring how we construct images of "enemies" and how we view and write history in the light of current politics: Noel Malcolm, Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750 (Oxford University Press, 2019), 512pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, when Ottoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration.

In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion. Useful Enemies shows how the concept of 'oriental despotism' began as an attempt to turn the tables on a very positive analysis of Ottoman state power, and how, as it developed, it interacted with Western debates about monarchy and government. Noel Malcolm also shows how a negative portrayal of Islam as a religion devised for political purposes was assimilated by radical writers, who extended the criticism to all religions, including Christianity itself.

Examining the works of many famous thinkers (including Machiavelli, Bodin, and Montesquieu) and many less well-known ones, Useful Enemies illuminates the long-term development of Western ideas about the Ottomans, and about Islam. Noel Malcolm shows how these ideas became intertwined with internal Western debates about power, religion, society, and war. Discussions of Islam and the Ottoman Empire were thus bound up with mainstream thinking in the West on a wide range of important topics. These Eastern enemies were not just there to be denounced. They were there to be made use of, in arguments which contributed significantly to the development of Western political thought.

Armenians and Turks in the Aftermath of Genocide

Every semester when we talk about the Armenian (and Assyrian and Greek) genocide of 1915, my students are first fascinated and then appalled by the politics of its historiography, especially since 2007 and the murder of Hrant Dink. A newly published paperback edition of a book that first appeared in 2015 helps us appreciate the never-ending nature of this complex controversy: Thomas de Waal, Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide (Oxford UP, 2018), 328pp.| 2 maps; 22 photographs.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

The destruction of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16 was the greatest atrocity of World War I. Around one million Armenians were killed, and the survivors were scattered across the world. Although it is now a century old, the issue of what most of the world calls the Armenian Genocide of 1915 is still a live and divisive issue that mobilizes Armenians across the world, shapes the identity and politics of modern Turkey, and has consumed the attention of U.S. politicians for years.

In Great Catastrophe, the eminent scholar and reporter Thomas de Waal looks at the aftermath and politics of the Armenian Genocide and tells the story of recent efforts by courageous Armenians, Kurds, and Turks to come to terms with the disaster as Turkey enters a new post-Kemalist era. The story of what happened to the Armenians in 1915-16 is well-known. Here we are told the "history of the history" and the lesser-known story of what happened to Armenians, Kurds, and Turks in the century that followed. De Waal relates how different generations tackled the issue of the "Great Catastrophe" from the 1920s until the failure of the Protocols signed by independent Armenia and Turkey in 2010. Quarrels between diaspora Armenians supporting and opposing the Soviet Union broke into violence and culminated with the murder of an archbishop in 1933. The devising of the word "genocide," the growth of modern identity politics, and the 50th anniversary of the massacres re-energized a new generation of Armenians. In Turkey the issue was initially forgotten, only to return to the political agenda in the context of the Cold War and an outbreak of Armenian terrorism. More recently, Turkey has started to confront its taboos. In an astonishing revival of oral history, the descendants of tens of thousands of "Islamized Armenians," who have been in the shadows since 1915, have begun to reemerge and reclaim their identities.

Drawing on archival sources, reportage and moving personal stories, de Waal tells the full story of Armenian-Turkish relations since the Genocide in all its extraordinary twists and turns. He looks behind the propaganda to examine the realities of a terrible historical crime and the divisive "politics of genocide" it produced. The book throws light not only on our understanding of Armenian-Turkish relations but also of how mass atrocities and historical tragedies shape contemporary politics.

Christian Martyrs Under Islam

There is still much to be learned about early Muslim-Christian encounters in the first generations of Islam and its gradual conquest of the Middle East. In the wrong hands, this history can be portrayed tendentiously, as either relentless bloodshed and suffering or impeccable peace and amity. A book released last summer tries to recognize the complexity of decisions facing Christians living under Islam: Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World by Christian C. Sahner (Princeton University Press, 2018), 360pp.

About this book the publisher tells us the following:

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.