What Did Conversion to Islam Mean in Seventh-Century Arabia?

Islamisation ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 83-101
Author(s):  
Harry Munt
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
Church Father ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
The Church

In a late seventh- or very early eighth-century Coptic homily anachronistically attributed to the church father Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373), it is lamented that, following the Arab conquest of Egypt in the early 640s, ‘many Christians, Barbarians, Greeks, Syrians and from all tribes will go and join them in their faith’.1 This prophecy comes across as somewhat hysterical to many modern observers – at least within its seventh-or eighth-century context – since it is now the generally accepted consensus of historians that the processes through which the inhabitants of the conquered territories of the Middle East converted to Islam were extremely gradual and persisted for centuries. Monumental changes to the political, social and religious life of many communities in this region came in the decades and centuries after the conquests – developments to which many non-Muslims fully contributed – but Muslim-majority populations are not thought to have emerged widely until the ninth or tenth centuries at the very earliest.

Introduction: Comparative Perspectives on Islamisation

Islamisation ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
A. C. S. Peacock
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Populated State ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Almost All

The Arab conquests of the Middle East and much of North Africa and Central Asia in the seventh century mark the beginning of a process of religious and cultural change which ultimately resulted in the present Muslim-majority populations of almost all of these regions (see Figure 1.1). Yet the countries with the greatest Muslim populations today exist outside the Middle East in South Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and in Southeast Asia, where Indonesia constitutes the largest Muslim-populated state in the world. Islam spread far into Africa and Europe too, and significant Muslim populations also arose in parts of the world which remained mostly non-Muslim, such as China and Ethiopia. This spread of Islam is often referred to as ‘Islamisation’, a term widespread in scholarship and in recent times in more popular media.

scholarly journals In Search of Moderation of Islam Againts Extremism: A Promoting “Islam Pribumi” By Gus Dur

FIKRAH ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
Muzayyin Muzayyin ◽  
Nadia Raifah Nawa Kartika ◽  
Habib Habib
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Islamic Culture ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Fundamentalist Movement ◽  
Global Peace

<p class="06IsiAbstrak"><span lang="EN-US">Indonesian religious expressions are facing an extraordinary challenge with the emergence of fundamentalist movements affiliated with number of Islamic transnationalist from Middle East, which is rigidly establishing the ideology of "purification" or as so called Islam Kaffah even if to be forced to the all nation. In this Case, Gus Dur presented another alternative religious pattern by promoting the idea of Islam Pribumi or “Islam Pribumi” which mean to respon and againts this scripturalist-fundamentalist movement. Islam Pribumi is intended to provide opportunities for the diversity of interpretations in term of practicing religious life (Islam) in each different region. Thus, Islam is no longer seen as a single, but rather compound. So there is no longer an assumption that Islam in the Middle East is the best representative of Islam. Therefore, this paper attempts to examine Gus Dur's thoughts on Islam Pribumi which is definitly inclusive, tolerant and peaceful Islamic culture, relflecting Islam as rahmatal lil alamin. It is also to offer a model of Islamic Moderation provided a solution in realizing global peace against conflicts between religions and politics that has occurred most recently in a Muslim-majority country like Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.</span></p>

The Caliphate

2021 ◽  
pp. 355-379
Author(s):  
Andrew Marsham
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Ethnic Identities ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Mediterranean

The first Muslim empire—the Caliphate—began with the conquests of the mid-seventh century CE and fragmented in the mid-tenth century. This chapter outlines the Caliphate’s political and economic history, its organizational structures, and forms of coercive and ideological power. During a long eighth century, the Mediterranean and the Middle East were transformed by the formation of new elites, by a new transregional coinage economy, by the rapid expansion of new cities and settlements, and by an agrarian revolution. The religion that became Islam was crucial in uniting the conquerors of the empire, and then as the idiom for the expression of the conquered peoples’ political ambitions. Eventual widespread conversion among the conquered populations meant that as the Caliphate collapsed, it left behind Muslim successor states, as well as new linguistic and ethnic identities—notably the Arabic and New Persian linguae francae, and a transregional “Arab” ethnicity.

Prison Religion and Prison Justice

2020 ◽  
pp. 153-192
Author(s):  
Joshua Dubler ◽  
Vincent W. Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
The Political ◽  
Malcolm X ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
The Church

Using trial records, court decisions, and ethnographic fieldwork, this chapter tracks how the disruptive religious practices of the prisoners’ rights era, including prison strikes, became the accommodating religious practices of America’s prisons today. In other words, it tells the story of the rise and fall of the collectivist prisoners’ religion of the 1960s and the subsequent ascendency of the depoliticized, accommodationist religious forms better suited to the controlled conditions of mass incarceration. Touching on a range of incarcerated people’s writings and rituals, including Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and his conversion to Islam, the Church of the New Song, and the black naturalist sect MOVE, the chapter explores how highlighting the politicizing force of prison and reclaiming the political-theological voices of prisoners might allow us to see new possibilities for justice beyond the prison. With an eye toward what has been repressed, the chapter concludes with the abolitionist promise of the new surge in prisoners’ political organizing.

Ethnicity, Confession, Nation – The Development of Concepts in the History of Transylvania in Religious Life

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-162
Author(s):  
Ioan Chirilă
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
National Division ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

"The church has had to accept the national division of Europe since the Middle Ages and adapt to this situation. This issue is relatively unclear in the case of Tran-sylvania. N. Iorga stated about the Orthodox Christian consciousness that “it was so strong that it hindered the creation of a strong national consciousness”, and this would allow us to see in the ecclesiastical organization a form of expression of uni-tary organization of Romanian ethnicity in Transylvania. The time of Transylvani-an principalities and voivodeships shows us that most often the ecclesiastical leaders were also the political leaders (see the case of Prince Andrew Báthory who was Archbishop of Warmia – Poland); so, the two concepts of ethnicity and confession reflected the same historical reality during those times. The two concepts will be-come separated only later, after the emergence of confessions other than the Eastern rite. In support of our statement, we have the correspondence between the Hungar-ian kings and officials and the papacy. Before dealing with these perspectives, we shall pin down the terminology to grant the reader the possibility to understand the historical situations through a kind of thinking marked by the imprint of the Holy Scripture. Keywords: ethnicity, people, confession, dynamic status, national consciousness, Transyl-vania, the church. "

Der Einfluß der Religion auf Politik und Gesellschaft in Afrika

1993 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 297-307
Author(s):  
Theo Sundermeier
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe author explains four patterns concerning the relation between the church and the political institutions in Afrika. Thesepatterns have be seen against the background ofthe original Ontocratic unity in premale societies, which all rulers in Africa favorite in an hidden way. Colonialism promotes the separation between political and religious life, nationalism, however, restores the unity. In South-Afrika a prophetic dualism is turning against the theocratic ideology of the Boers. All in all a relation of criticalloyality is coming into existence in Africa.

Rome, the Arabs, and Iconoclasm

2021 ◽  
pp. 135-149
Author(s):  
Edward J. Watts
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
Iconoclastic Controversy

By the early seventh century a combination of Persian invasions and, ultimately, Arab conquests removed the Roman Empire from the Middle East and North Africa. Although the emperor Heraclius sparked a brief but dramatic Roman resurgence in the early 630s, these traumatic losses pushed Romans to reintroduce the rhetoric of decline and renewal. Instead of focusing on the traditional, pagan Roman past as Romans had done in earlier centuries, their seventh- and eighth-century counterparts thought about how the empire’s Christian religious practices had fallen away from the ideals that had once made Rome a powerful Christian empire. One result was the Iconoclastic controversy, an argument between Romans who embraced the role of icons in Christian worship and others who wanted to suppress their use. Both sides claimed that the religious practices for which their opponents advocated had broken with the traditions that had once made the empire strong.

Attitudes Towards Religious Matters in Mexican School History Textbooks

1959 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-247
Author(s):  
Richard Blaine McCornack
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mexican History ◽  
Exclusive Jurisdiction ◽  
The People ◽  
School History ◽  
National Period ◽  
The Church

Throughout Mexican history the attitudes and actions of the Church have been of the greatest importance. During the colonial period the Church had exclusive jurisdiction not only over the religious life of the people, but also over education. Its role in the political and economic fields was often paramount. In the national period of Mexican history the attitude of a government toward the Church and religion was often the most important feature of its program, and on many occasions a government came to power or fell on this question.

scholarly journals Islam, Catholicism, and Religion-State Separation: An Essential or Historical Difference?

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-104
Author(s):  
Ahmet Kuru
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Dissent ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Historical Methods ◽  
Historical Difference ◽  
The Church ◽  
State Separation

There exist severe restrictions over religious dissent in most Muslim-majority countries. This problem is associated with the alliance between religious and political authorities in these cases. I argue that the alliance between Islamic scholars (the ulema) and the state authorities was historically constructed, instead of being a characteristic of Islam. Hence, the essentialist idea that Islam inherently rejects religion-state separation, whereas Christianity endorses it, is misleading. Instead, this article shows that the ulema-state alliance in the Muslim world was constructed after the mid-eleventh century, as well as revealing that the church-state separation in Western Europe was also historically institutionalized during that period. Using comparative-historical methods, the article explains the political and socioeconomic backgrounds of these epochal transformations. It particularly focuses on the relations between religious, political, intellectual, and economic classes.

Unity and Diversity in the Carolingian Church

1996 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 59-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosamond McKitterick
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
The Church

With their steady series of conquests during the eighth century, adding Alemannia, Frisia, Aquitaine, the Lombard kingdom in northern Italy, Septimania, Bavaria, Saxony, and Brittany to the Frankish heartlands in Gaul, the Carolingians created what Ganshof regarded as an unwieldy empire. Was the Carolingian Church unwieldy too? Recent work, notably that of Janet Nelson, has underlined not only the political ideologies that helped to hold the Frankish realms together, but also the practical institutions and actions of individuals in government and administration. Can the same be done for the Church? Despite the extraordinary diversity of the Carolingian world and its ecclesiastical traditions, can it be described as a unity? What sense of a ‘Frankish Church’ or of ‘Frankish ecclesiastical institutions’ can be detected in the sources?

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