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Edinburgh Studies in Middle Eastern Christianity

Christians in Middle Eastern HistoryStrangers No More

Edited by John-Paul Ghobrial, Michael A. Reynolds, Christian C. Sahner and Jack Tannous

Format

£100.00

About this book

Challenges the field of Middle Eastern studies by imagining the history of the region from the perspective of its Christian inhabitants

  • Covers the history of the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean from the rise of Islam until the modern period
  • Considers the place of Christians alongside Muslims in the historiography of the region
  • Challenges dominant narratives which often elide the history of the Middle East and the history of Islam by showing how Christian actors, experiences, and sources can enrich our understanding of the region
  • Advances a renewed sense of methodological awareness and reflexivity in the writing of Middle Eastern history

The dazzling array of languages and religions in the Middle East, from Late Antiquity to the present, has long made the region a source of fascination. But the specific features of pluralism in the Middle East have also made writing its history a difficult enterprise, as scholarly specialisation has often meant that this or that religious group becomes invisible. The challenges of the Middle East’s particular pluralism, however, also represent an opportunity for creative reflection and innovation in historical research.

This volume takes as its starting-point the fact that, for much of the past 1,500 years, the population of the Middle East has been significantly Christian. It offers a series of case studies by leading scholars that offer different answers to the question of what histories of the region might look like if this demographic situation were taken seriously. Critiquing dominant narratives that conflate the history of the Middle East and the history of Islam, they show how integrating Christian actors, experiences and sources can enrich our understanding of the region.

Reviews

The many historical roles played by Middle Eastern Christians are significant in themselves, but they also illuminate key themes in the wider history of the region. This volume contains papers that focus sharply on both these aspects.
Table of contents

Preface

1. Between Strangers and Friends: Studying the History of the Christian Communities of the Middle East
Jack Tannous
2. The Straight Paths of Christian Law: Reframing the Intellectual History of the Early Caliphate
Lev Weitz
3. A Christian Magnate in Islamic History: Isḥāq ibn Nuṣayr al-ʿIbādī, Arabic Stylist and Patron of the Abbasid Age
Luke Yarbrough and Iyas Nasser
4. The Queen of Akhlāṭ: Arab, Armenian, and Kurdish Coproduction of Stories about the Islamic Conquests
Alison Vacca
5. Egyptian and Ethiopian Christians in Intersection: Monastic Multiculturalism and Migration, Discourses of Race, and the Problem of Premodern “Africa” and the “Middle East”
Stephen J. Davis
6. For Whom the Bell Tolls: Middle Eastern Christians and the So-Called “Counter Crusade” in Edessa, 1144 CE
Thomas A. Carlson
7. Between Byzantium and the Mamluks: Orthodox Christians in Egypt and Syria during the 14th Century
Johannes Pahlitzsch
8. Why did the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople Behave Like a Muslim Noble? The İstanbul Rum Patriği as Âyân
Tom Papademetriou
9. Christian Mountains in the Ottoman Empire
Molly Greene
10. New Literacy and Global Culture among the Christians of Syria (17th-18th Centuries)
Bernard Heyberger
11. Protestant Bibles, Middle Eastern Print Cultures, and the Making of World Christianity
Heather J. Sharkey

About the contributors

John-Paul Ghobrial

John-Paul Ghobrial is Professor of Modern and Global History at the University of Oxford and the Lucas Fellow and Tutor in History at Balliol College. He was the Principal Investigator for two ERC-funded projects that explored religious identity in the Ottoman Empire: Stories of Survival: Recovering the Connected Histories of Eastern Christianity in the Early Modern World (2015-2020) and Moving Stories: Sectarianisms in the Global Middle East (2021-2026), both based at Oxford.

Michael A. Reynolds

Michael A. Reynolds is Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Co-Director of the Program in History and the Practice of Diplomacy at Princeton University. He is the author of Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1918 (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and a biography of Enver Pasha forthcoming with Princeton University Press.

Christian C. Sahner

Christian C. Sahner is Associate Professor of Islamic History at the University of Oxford and Margoliouth Fellow in Arabic at New College. His books include Christian Martyrs under Islam (Princeton University Press, 2018) and The Definitive Zoroastrian Critique of Islam (Liverpool University Press, 2023).

Jack Tannous

Jack Tannous is Associate Professor of History and Hellenic Studies at Princeton University. He is interested in the history of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic speaking Christians in the Middle East. He is the author of The Making of the Medieval Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2018).

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