The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque

Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam
Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-691-14628-7
Verlag: Princeton University Press

Buch, Englisch, 248 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 412 g

Reihe: Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World

Amid so much twenty-first-century talk of a "Christian-Muslim divide"--and the attendant controversy in some Western countries over policies toward minority Muslim communities--a historical fact has gone unnoticed: for more than four hundred years beginning in the mid-seventh century, some 50 percent of the world's Christians lived and worshipped under Muslim rule. Just who were the Christians in the Arabic-speaking milieu of Mohammed and the Qur'an? The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque is the first book-length discussion in English of the cultural and intellectual life of such Christians indigenous to the Islamic world. Sidney Griffith offers an engaging overview of their initial reactions to the religious challenges they faced, the development of a new mode of presenting Christian doctrine as liturgical texts in their own languages gave way to Arabic, the Christian role in the philosophical life of early Baghdad, and the maturing of distinctive Oriental Christian denominations in this context. Offering a fuller understanding of the rise of Islam in its early years from the perspective of contemporary non-Muslims, this book reminds us that there is much to learn from the works of people who seriously engaged Muslims in their own world so long ago.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Griffith, Sidney H.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christentum/Christliche Theologie Allgemein Christentum und Weltreligionen, Weltethos
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christliche Kirchen, Konfessionen, Denominationen Östliche & Orientalische Orthodoxe Kirchen
• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Geschichte des Islam Geschichte des Islam: 7. - 14. Jahrhundert
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Kirchengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam und Weltreligionen, Weltethos

Inhaltsverzeichnis

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix
PREFACE xi
Introduction 1
CHAPTER I: "People of the Gospel," "People of the Book": C Hristians and Christianity in the World of Islam 6
CHAPTER II: Apocalypse and the Arabs: The First Christian Responses to the Challenge of Islam 23
CHAPTER III: Christian Theology in Arabic: A New Development in Church Life 45
CHAPTER IV: The Shape of Christian Theology in Arabic: The Genres and Strategies of Christian Discourse in the World of Islam 75
CHAPTER VP: Christian Philosophy in Baghdad and Beyond: A Major Partner in the Development of Classical Islamic Intellectual Culture 106
CHAPTER VI: What Has Baghdad to Do with Constantinople or Rome?: Oriental Christian Self-Definition in the World of Islam 129
CHAPTER VII: Between the Crescent and the Cross: Convivencia, the Clash of Theologies, and Interreligious Dialogue 156
BIBLIOGRAPHY 181
INDEX 213

Über Autor(innen)

Griffith, Sidney H.
Sidney H. Griffith is a professor at the Catholic University of America, where he teaches Syriac and Christian Arabic.