Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Envisioning Islam : Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World / Michael Philip Penn.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient ReligionPublisher: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2015]Copyright date: ©2015Description: 1 online resource (304 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780812247220
  • 9780812291445
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 275.6/03 23
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. When Good Things Happened to Other People: Syriac Memories of the Islamic Conquests -- Chapter 2. A Different Type of Difference- Making: Syriac Narratives of Religious Identity -- Chapter 3. Using Muslims to Think With: Narratives of Islamic Rulers -- Chapter 4. Blurring Boundaries: The Continuum Between Early Christianity and Early Islam -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments
Summary: The first Christians to encounter Islam were not Latin-speakers from the western Mediterranean or Greek-speakers from Constantinople but Mesopotamian Christians who spoke the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Under Muslim rule from the seventh century onward, Syriac Christians wrote the most extensive descriptions extant of early Islam. Seldom translated and often omitted from modern historical reconstructions, this vast body of texts reveals a complicated and evolving range of religious and cultural exchanges that took place from the seventh to the ninth century.The first book-length analysis of these earliest encounters, Envisioning Islam highlights the ways these neglected texts challenge the modern scholarly narrative of early Muslim conquests, rulers, and religious practice. Examining Syriac sources including letters, theological tracts, scientific treatises, and histories, Michael Philip Penn reveals a culture of substantial interreligious interaction in which the categorical boundaries between Christianity and Islam were more ambiguous than distinct. The diversity of ancient Syriac images of Islam, he demonstrates, revolutionizes our understanding of the early Islamic world and challenges widespread cultural assumptions about the history of exclusively hostile Christian-Muslim relations.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. When Good Things Happened to Other People: Syriac Memories of the Islamic Conquests -- Chapter 2. A Different Type of Difference- Making: Syriac Narratives of Religious Identity -- Chapter 3. Using Muslims to Think With: Narratives of Islamic Rulers -- Chapter 4. Blurring Boundaries: The Continuum Between Early Christianity and Early Islam -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

The first Christians to encounter Islam were not Latin-speakers from the western Mediterranean or Greek-speakers from Constantinople but Mesopotamian Christians who spoke the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Under Muslim rule from the seventh century onward, Syriac Christians wrote the most extensive descriptions extant of early Islam. Seldom translated and often omitted from modern historical reconstructions, this vast body of texts reveals a complicated and evolving range of religious and cultural exchanges that took place from the seventh to the ninth century.The first book-length analysis of these earliest encounters, Envisioning Islam highlights the ways these neglected texts challenge the modern scholarly narrative of early Muslim conquests, rulers, and religious practice. Examining Syriac sources including letters, theological tracts, scientific treatises, and histories, Michael Philip Penn reveals a culture of substantial interreligious interaction in which the categorical boundaries between Christianity and Islam were more ambiguous than distinct. The diversity of ancient Syriac images of Islam, he demonstrates, revolutionizes our understanding of the early Islamic world and challenges widespread cultural assumptions about the history of exclusively hostile Christian-Muslim relations.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)