the Coptic-Orthodox church under Islam: 1st century (639-750AD), 2008

The Ecumenical Review, 2012

International Review of Mission, 2000

In the Middle East, where Judaism, Christianity and Islam all find their roots, the issue of Christian presence has recently taken on a significant urgency among church leaders. Manifestations of Christian presence can be many, including quantitative, and several forms of quantitative presence. In a region where the Christian population is a numerical minority, presence means daily interaction with, and acceptance by and of the larger Muslim majority. If the commitment to the transformation of society has relevance to the Christian population, that presence also means involvement in social, economic and political life to the extent possible.

Historia: the Alpha Rho Papers , 2011

In Constantinople, the Muslims became the custodians of the Greco/Roman tradition when Europe ignored that heritage. The Arabs had an enthusiasm for learning, and their will for education is manifestly clear in their leader, Mohammed's dictums, "Seek knowledge, even in China" and "The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of a martyr". This enlightenment formed a stark contrast to the rigid tradition and narrow horizons that enshrouded Western Europe during the Middle Ages. Arabs had freedom of enquiry in philosophy, science, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and geography when Christian Medieval Europeans considered such practices as sorcery. When the Greco/Roman tradition of learning and humanism eventually returned to Europe, it was through Arab scholars' brilliant ideas and their translations of Greek texts. The Middle East area nurtured a succession of empire builders, most notably the Amorites, Chaldeans, Canaanites, and Hebrews. After conquering territories stretching from Egypt to India, Alexander the Great recognised Arabia's dazzling splendour during the fourth century BC. He intended to conquer the area, but he died whilst preparing the invasion. After Alexander, the Romans acknowledged the Arabs' distinct Middle East culture but dismissed them as feuding, insignificant people without political unity. They realised the nomadic tribes inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula for centuries lacked resources to create a centralised state, so they left them alone. However, during the seventh century, this situation changed. With incredible efficiency, the Arabs united and rose into a force that created an empire more extensive and powerful than Alexanders or Rome's. Their religion, Islam, started this transition from a humble backwater to a superpower. It enabled the Arabs to conquer most of the Eastern Roman Empire, parts of the Western Roman Empire, and defeat areas of which Roman soldiers had not seen or heard. During the Roman Empire's era, Arabia traded with Byzantium and Persia. Its strategic location at the cardinal juncture between Europe and Asia benefitted this mutual interchange. Because of its lucrative commerce, trade routes developed, traversing Arabia, leading to the growth over the centuries of a few wealthy, influential towns ruled by merchant-prince oligarchs. Most famous and significant was Mecca, positioned on the busiest road running from north to south. Notwithstanding this commercial enterprise, seventh-century Arabia was as bleak and barren as it is today, except for Yemen, whose power and wealth sustained several kingdoms for over two millennia. Arabia's nomadic tribes kept a distance from the rapid shifts of culture in the Near East and adopted the role of neutrality, aloof from Christians, Jews, and Persians. The Arabs were proud of their tribal heritage and culture, their lingua franca, soaring poetry, and customs. They saw no alternative to these values to accommodate life in such a harsh land, until Mohammed offered another with Islam, which defamed the Arabs' way of life. Mohammed saw how the merchant dynasty's nouveaux riches had eroded the Arabs' traditional standards. Therefore, the Prophet created the 'super tribe', called Umma, a fold that conciliated the people who had forgotten the desert's ethics. "Umma imposed peace on the feuding parties," said Mohammed, and in the decade from 622 to his death in 632, his new Muslim culture had pacified the entire Arabian Peninsula. First, the internecine feuding Bedouin tribe turned its aggression against infidel unbelievers in Byzantine Syria, followed by Persia in the Holy War. Next, they pacified Arabia by negotiation and treaty. Then, Damascus and Alexandria fell after the Muslim High Command offered munificent terms of protection and toleration in return for tribute. However, not all wars were by the sword, because Mohammed's generals were conquerors, not tribal raiders. This massive vicissitude altered an extrovert tribal culture into an introverted one. Before Mohammed, rigidly held obligations bonded Arabs to their tribe, where fear of losing face formed society's glue, and generosity, courage, and upholding the ancestry was its mainstay. Mohammed offered the antithesis, with a collective community, not a separatist one, where a Muslim controlled himself without the shame of losing face amongst equals. That is why the Muslims banned alcohol, not to avoid drunkenness, but to eliminate the prop it offered for motivation and "being a man". The Muslims evaded such heroism as it interfered with their single quest, the awe-inspiring Last Judgement. Other than the few towns scattered amongst the desert, linked by caravan routes, Arabia was virtually empty of natural resources and agriculture on which to make a living. Therefore, the Arabs' standard of living remained dismally low, which was another reason that hastened a need for change. An Arab ambassador mentioned to the Shah of Persia, "Once, the Arabs were a wretched race, whom you could tread underfoot with impunity. We were reduced to eating dogs and lizards. However, for our glory, God has raised a prophet amongst us …" When Mohammed, a merchant by trade, made contacts outside the Arabian Peninsula by dealing with Christians and Jews, he realised monotheistic Islam presented better opportunities for an improved lifestyle than the Arabs' paganism offered. All three Platonic/Hebraic religions' followers were God-fearing, believed the Last Judgement, and possessed a Holy Book to guide them. When Mohammed introduced the Arabs to the Near East's civilisations, he catalysed a vast diaspora startlingly quickly. Most revolutions usually take generations, but Mohamed's, the last major revolution of Late Antiquity, took three decades. This swift change of circumstances happened because of one hugely significant book, the Qur'an (Arabic for 'recitation'). This totem galvanised Islam into a force that challenged and changed the world, and the religion's influence became global. The broad belt of Islam stretched from Spain through North Africa, penetrated the Balkans, the Near East, southwest Asia, Pakistan, deep into India, and fanned into Indonesia and the Philippines. The religion unified diverse peoples and cultures, in Europe, Africa, and Asia, like the Goths, Berbers, Egyptians, Syrians, Persians, Arabs, and Turks. Arabic, like Latin, became a catholic tongue spanning all three continents. From 633 to 651 Islam dislodged Christianity's grip over the Mediterranean basin and crushed the Sasanian Empire, invaded Visigoth Iberia, and seized Byzantium's wealthiest provinces. Anatolia, Greece, southern Italy, Sicily, Syria, and the North African coast including its breadbasket, Egypt fell. The Muslims' innovative faith and new Arabic culture reshaped and enriched European societies with intellectual ideas, technology, agricultural methods, and products unheard of in the West. They created an agricultural revolution, new methods of irrigation, and chemical industries like glassmaking, ceramics, and sugar refining. They constructed dams, canals, waterwheels, and pumps, made technological advances in clock making, and invented coffee, which originated in Ethiopia. The Muslims created an advanced civilised society, and judging from their literature, they looked down on Western Europeans as inferior to Islam's political, intellectual, and administrative culture. One-tenth century Arab wrote about the Europeans, "… their bodies are large, their natures gross, their manners harsh, their understanding dull, and their tongues heavy. Their colour is so excessively white that they look blue … their hair is lank and reddish because of the damp mists. The farther they live to the north, the more they are stupid, gross, and brutish." His father died before Mohammed's birth, and his mother, Amina, passed away before his sixth birthday, so his grandfather raised him. When Mohammed's grandfather died, an uncle adopted him and took him on trading trips to Basra, Syria, where a monk taught him about Christianity and Jewish scripture. This monotheistic education formed the nascent threads Mohammed subsequently wove into Islam. At 25, Mohammed found employment, managing caravans for a wealthy widow called Khadija, who became his wife. It was while travelling with Khadija's caravans to Damascus, that Mohammed encountered the three most significant religions of antiquity, Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism, which provided the incentive to form the new faith of Islam. During 610 AD in Mecca, Mohammed, now about 40, received the divine word in the Cave of Mount Hira, overlooking the city, where he liked to meditate. The revelation streamed down to him from heaven as visions from the archangel Gabriel, who told Mohammed that God selected him as His messenger and prophet. Overwhelmed and terrified by the spectre, Mohammed looked to Khadija for support. She took him to speak to her Christian cousin, Waraqah ibn Nawfal, who reassured Mohammed that God had chosen him as a prophet, because the same angel visited Moses 2000 years ago and it told Mary about her virgin birth in the Annunciation. This metaphysical experience, which spiritually enlightened Mohammed, taught him to believe in a single almighty God, he called Allah, a word from an early Semitic interpretation. It also convinced him he was the last of a long succession of prophets, including Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus. However, Mohammed believed his revelation superseded theirs. He was now ready to begin his mission, and Khadija, his family members, and acolytes became his first converts. Mohammed revered the Bible, and from its readings, he stressed the imminent coming of the Apocalypse, which he called the 'Judgement', the 'Last Day', or the 'Hour', and the Qur'an specified that, "the knowledge of it is only with God". The early revelations Mohammed received in Mecca are violent yet poetic, and they appeal to Arabs to dismiss idolatry...

2008

This a review of Robert Hoyland's latest book on the significance of the Arab Conquests

The Legend of the Arab Conquest - Alaxon In recent years, critical studies of the Quran and early Islam have experienced significant growth. For historians, non-Islamic sources, as well as archaeological, epigraphic, papyrological, and numismatic evidence, provide far more reliable testimony for understanding this period than oral traditions transmitted across generations. Christian chronicles written by Byzantine authors contemporary with the conquests, who were often direct witnesses to the events, serve as invaluable sources. These accounts, free from apologetics and anachronisms, are far more reliable than Islamic traditions written down at least two centuries after the events. As for the concept of conquest, it generally implies the entry of soldiers into a territory or city, accompanied by sieges, massacres, pillaging, and the seizure of spoils for the conquerors' benefit. Yet, according to archaeological evidence, such events did not occur in the eastern part of the Byzantine Empire, despite traditional accounts of grand, heroic battles. Furthermore, the conquerors typically did not settle in the territories they overtook. These "conquests" were instead preceded by the gradual weakening of the two empires of the time: the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires, both exhausted by incessant wars that had destroyed their administrative systems, particularly tax collection. In the end, there was no violent conquest but rather a shift in power, with no evidence of significant resistance. Moreover, it seems that the conquerors did not originate from the Arabian Peninsula but from the Syro-Christian world. Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, for instance, were conquered by soldiers recruited from regions already under their control. These conquerors were not Muslims; they were Christians belonging to various theological traditions prevalent in this Syro-Christian world. Historical sources describe them by various names, reflecting their affiliation with diverse cultural and religious groups within Greater Syria.