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This chapter traces key developments in Copto-Arabic Christology and Christopraxis from the 10th to the 13th century. The Christology of Būlus Al-Bushī, and Christology of Awlād Al-AssālBulus Al-Bushi Awlad Al-Assal are discussed.

The introduction highlights the tension between nationalism and religious identification and explains how earlier scholarship takes an all-or-nothing approach to the meaning of religious identity. Others have ignored religion by privileging secular nationalism or have attributed all meaningful history to religious distinctions and communities. Instead, the introduction lays the basis for seeking to understand the relationship between Christians and nationalism by exploring the formation of their religious and national identities. This approach is similar to recent work on communalism and sectarianism in other parts of the colonial world. In addition, this chapter introduces the reader to some of the most pertinent historical details and variations between Arab Christian denominations in Palestine.

Nadine Naber, Matthew Stiffler, and their research team focus on Sunni Muslims in California and Maronite Catholics and Antiochian Orthodox Christians in Michigan, specifically those belonging to diaspora communities from the Arab region. Their research illustrates the way in which religious and scriptural concepts and practices are entangled in historical and material realities that are transnational in scope. Naber and Stiffler found that these diasporic individuals conceptualize their relationship to religion and scriptures with and through varied relationships to the concept of “Arab cultural identity” in ways that are very much entangled in the historical realities of anti-Arab racism, particularly in the aftermath of 9/11. Some Christians overemphasize their Christian identity and de-emphasize their relationship to Arab histories and cultures. While some Muslims tend to disaggregate the categories “Arab” from “Muslims,” arguing that cultural norms taint true Islam.

This concluding chapter argues that not only were there such practitioners of Christian kalām in the lifetime of Alfonso VIII—and most likely in Toledo—but that their works were, moreover, the fruit of such interaction between the Latin-Christian and Arab-Christian intellectual traditions. The rationalist arguments for the Trinity advanced in two Arabic works that survive only fragmentarily both continued a long tradition of Middle-Eastern Trinitarian argumentation rooted in kalām, and incorporated at the same time emerging Latin-Christian Trinitarian theology devised by Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor. As such, they were evidence of an intellectually vital Arab-Christian community that was actively cultivating Arab-Christian and Latin-Christian thought in the twelfth century. However, important scholarly work has appeared on a handful of issues surrounding these texts and their Trinitarian arguments. The chapter then revisits the texts, considering the via impugnandi advanced by these tracts.

The chapter looks into the writings about Jews in 1890s Egypt, especially in the works of novelist and intellectual Farah Antun (1874-1922). It argues that the Egyptian print media, in its post-1882 stage, encouraged important conversations about citizenship rights and democracy, in which the writing about ‘the Jew’ served as a key metaphor. Most of the important writers in the public sphere condemned European anti-Semitism and saw it as a reflection of European fanaticism. Antun’s writings, both in his journal al-Jami‘a and his 1904 novel, The New Jerusalem (Urshalim al-Jadida), reflect this interest in Jewish life and in the historical oppression of the Jewish people. Writing about the persecution of Jews under the Byzantine Empire, Antun used this historical setting to call for Ottoman brotherhood and unity, equality before the law to all subjects of the Ottoman Empire regardless of their religion, and social justice.

Similarities between southern peninsular Arabic dialects and the Modern South Arabian languages support a southern pre-diaspora origin for the Arabic dialects negating and interrogating with reflexes of šī. Most share an existential particle analogous to the Arabic šī found in Yemeni, Omani, and Syrian varieties, at least, and Mehri possesses an indefinite determiner śi that functions exactly like the analogous Arabic šī. Southern Arabic speakers were probably in the Fertile Crescent as early as seven centuries before Islam and maybe twice that many, ample time for a southern Arabic feature to become established in the Levant. Current dialect distributions probably originate in the displacement of the old southern Arab Christian elite by Arabic-speaking Muslims from Central Arabia.

This chapter examines the Arabic poetry dealing with the city of Ḥīra in south-west Iraq. Much of this poetry is filled with longing for a fleeting era of glory, when Ḥīra was ruled by its Christian kings. The chapter suggests that much of this material had its origins in the Ḥīra court itself. When this poetic tradition was inherited by Muslim Arabs, it caused them to view the Islamic conquests as a time of loss, as well as victory, and it acted as a reminder of the temporary nature of all political authority.

The caravan enters the Kurd country, on the borders of the desert. The author describes the desert and narrates how the caravan was detained. He also presents an account of the tribe of Senjar, a race of mountaineers, and his journey over the desert. The author arrives at Mousul, is courteously received by Mohammed Pasha, visits the tomb of St George of England, describes Mousul and its inhabitants, leaves Mousul, and is hospitably entertained by some Christian Arabs. He also describes Kirkook and Karutapa. The author arrives at Bagdad and estimates the distance from Constantinople to Bagdad.

This chapter argues that the Middle East provided a testing ground for different and contesting visions of what it meant to be an Anglican. It begins with a review of the thought and ministry of Horatio Southgate, sent as a missionary bishop to Constantinople by the Episcopal Church of the United States. Then the archbishop’s mission to Persia is described, with its vision for supporting the ancient indigenous Christian communities. The Church Mission Society mission to Persia is also explored. Finally, the chapter relates the foundation of the diocese of Jerusalem, itself the fruit of three very different mission societies with different, and sometimes clashing, visions of what it meant to be Anglican and what constituted an authentic interpretation of Anglican mission.

This chapter discusses the contribution made to the modern Arabic literary tradition by the series of twenty-two historical novels published in Cairo by the Lebanese/Egyptian author Jurji Zaydan between 1891 and his death in 1914. The chapter gives an account of Zaydan’s childhood and education in Beirut, considers the possible reasons for his emigration to Egypt in 1883, and discusses his motivations for writing the novels in the context of his wider scholarly interests in history, language and literature. The chapter considers precursors to Zaydan’s work in both the Western and the Arabic literary traditions, and attempts to evaluate his contribution to the development of the modern Arabic novel. Selected passages from the novels are analysed in some detail, and reasons are suggested for their continued popularity.

The chapter examines medieval ecclesiastical history from Iraq to examine the importation of ‘Western’ history in the end of the sixth century. This was prompted by the greater prominence and international awareness of Christians in the Sasanian world. It suggests that eastern Christians received several different strands of Western history, which accounts for their contradictory positive attitudes towards the person of Nestorius and the council of Chalcedon.