Converting to Islam and Returning to Christianity

2018 ◽  
pp. 29-79
Author(s):  
Christian C. Sahner
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Mixed Families

This chapter explores the nature of conversion in the early medieval Middle East by focusing on the first half of these convert martyrs, who began their lives as Christians, embraced Islam, and then returned to Christianity. Among these, there were several subgroups, including Christians who converted to Islam as slaves or prisoners, Christians who converted under disputed or contingent circumstances, and martyrs who were brought up in religiously mixed families. Because of the contingent nature of this process, conversions could also be undone, leading to sizable numbers of apostates over the course of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries. Even if the number of apostates paled in comparison with the number of those who converted and remained Muslims, their paths in and out of Islam tells a great deal about how conversion worked, especially the myriad social, spiritual, economic, and political pressures that powered religious change in the period.

Education and Community Formation

2018 ◽  
pp. 181-198
Author(s):  
Jack Tannous
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Christian Education ◽  
Child Labor ◽  
Basic Education ◽  
Community Formation ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Agrarian Society ◽  
Tiered System ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Late Roman

This chapter studies Christian education in the post-Chalcedonian Middle East. It is unlikely that an attempt would be made to educate all young Christian boys—the need for child labor in an overwhelmingly agrarian society would have made such a goal difficult to achieve. In fact, it was perhaps only in the regions which surrounded certain especially strong monasteries that educating all boys was even an ideal. However, one should still recognize that the spread of Christianity in the Middle East and the post-Chalcedonian increase in educational efforts must have had a positive effect on literacy rates, even if those rates remained quite low. A two-tiered system seems to have been the most typical course that education took in the late Roman and early medieval Middle East. Indeed, some members of the clergy would receive more than just the basic education.

The Islamic East a millennium ago: Biruni’s world

Biruni ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
George Malagaris
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Complex World ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Historical Aspects ◽  
Medieval Islam

Biruni constantly investigated his complex world in its natural and historical aspects. He perceived his homeland of Khwarazm in the manner of a modern physical geographer while simultaneously maintaining awareness of its underlying cultural currents and far-flung connections with distant lands. He appreciated that the notion of a region depended on cultural and political factors; indeed, the modern usage of the terms Central Asia, Middle East, and South Asia implies a multiplicity of histories, as he doubtlessly would have understood. Biruni himself frequently commented on its significance and persistently sought to interpret its underlying tendencies throughout his writing. Whether he touched on the topics of ancient Iran, late antique Hellenism, or early medieval Islam, Biruni added to the knowledge of his contemporaries, and the survival of his works has augmented our own.

Wysokie krzyże iryjskie a grobowce Edessy

Vox Patrum ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 111-119
Author(s):  
Ryszarda M. Bulas
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Cultural Affinity ◽  
Artistic Tradition

The author in the article refers to a broad discussion on the origin of ideas and artistic inspiration for Celtic crosses. She refers to a Hilary Richardson of the Armenian and Georgian origin of the concept of the Celtic cross, also to the results of her book The symbols of pagan Celtic crosses. Myths, symbols, images. In this book she indicates a cultural affinity of Ireland and the Syria. She points to the compositional and iconographic parallels between the Early Medieval Irish crosses and tombs mosaics of Edessa, dated to the III century. Reinforcing the thesis of H. Richardson, indicates the possibility of the existence an artistic tradition, in Late Antiquity and Early Medieval Syria, which is able to reach Ireland. She indicates the Celtic crosses, which have the most parallels with Syrian decoration (monasteries from Arboe, Monasterboice, Kells, Clones). The author concludes that they are grouped only in the Middle East of Ireland, in several counties (Louth, Meath, Monaghan, Tyron).

Creating Saints and Communities

2018 ◽  
pp. 199-240
Author(s):  
Christian C. Sahner
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Arab Culture ◽  
The Third ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
The Social

This chapter considers what hagiography meant as a genre of literature in the postconquest period. It investigates the rhetorical goals of these texts, arguing that many were written by monks and priests to discourage conversion to Islam and to condemn Christians who were drawn too closely to Arab culture. It then suggests that the martyrologies enshrined the views of one side of an intra-Christian debate about the threats of Islamization and Arabization. The chapter is organized into three sections. The first examines the social and religious backdrop of martyrology-writing, namely, the perceived threat of Islamization and Arabization. The second section discusses the authors of the texts and their motives. The third section explores how these attitudes mapped onto Christian sectarianism in the early medieval Middle East.

scholarly journals ‘Conversion’ to Islam in Early Medieval Europe: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on Arab and Northern Eurasian Interactions

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 544
Author(s):  
Sara Ann Knutson ◽  
Caitlin Ellis
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Northern Eurasia ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Economic Exchanges ◽  
Lines Of Evidence

In recent years, the influence of Muslims and Islam on developments in medieval Europe has captured the attention of scholars and the general public alike. Nevertheless, ‘conversion’ to Islam remains a challenging subject for historical research and demands more transdisciplinary collaborations. This article examines early medieval interactions between Muslim Arabs and Northern and Eastern Europeans as a case study for whether some individuals in Northern Eurasia ‘converted’ to Islam. More importantly, we address some key examples and lines of evidence that demonstrate why the process of ‘conversion’ to Islam is not more visible in the historical and archaeological records of Northern Eurasia. We find that, despite the well-established evidence for economic exchanges between the Islamic World and Northern Eurasia, the historical and material records are much more complex, but not entirely silent, on the issue of religious change. We also conclude that religious connectivity and exchanges, including with Islam, were common in early medieval Northern Eurasia, even if it is difficult in most cases to identify conclusive instances of ‘conversion’ to Islam.

Prophetic Resistance to Islam in Ninth-Century Córdoba: Paulus Alvarus and the Indiculus Luminosus

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 433-456
Author(s):  
Andrew Sorber
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Prophetic Authority

Abstract The Indiculus Luminosus has been discussed for its polemical depiction of Muḥammad, its author’s lament over the loss of Latinity in Umayyad Córdoba, or its relation to the so-called Córdoban Martyrs of the 850s. None of these, however, comprehends the purpose of the work as a whole. A layman, Paulus Alvarus, wrote the Indiculus in 854 CE to galvanize the Córdoban Christian elites to oppose Islam through public preaching and affirmation of their Christian identity without compromise. Asserting prophetic authority and appropriating ecclesiastical modes of discourse to engage and influence the elites of an early medieval society, Alvarus’s Indiculus provides a crucial, if idiosyncratic, witness to a time of profound cultural and religious change.

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