B. Diane Lipsett
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199754519
- eISBN:
- 9780199827213
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199754519.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
Self-restraint or self-mastery may appear to be the opposite of erotic desire. But in three ancient tales of conversion—The Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and Joseph and Aseneth—the ...
More
Self-restraint or self-mastery may appear to be the opposite of erotic desire. But in three ancient tales of conversion—The Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and Joseph and Aseneth—the interplay of desire and self-restraint is complex and dynamic, as careful literary analysis shows. This study treats conversion—the marked change in a protagonist’s piety and identity—as in part an effect of story, a function of narrative textures, coherence, and closure. Readings of the three narratives gain nuance through appeals to varied theorists of desire, self-formation, and narrative, including Foucault, psychoanalytic theorists, and the ancient literary critic Longinus. Well grounded in scholarship on Hermas, Thecla, and Aseneth, the closely paced readings sharpen attention to each story, while also advancing discussions of ancient views of the self; of desire, masculinity, and virginity; of the cultural codes around marriage and continence; and of the textual energetics of conversion tales.Less
Self-restraint or self-mastery may appear to be the opposite of erotic desire. But in three ancient tales of conversion—The Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and Joseph and Aseneth—the interplay of desire and self-restraint is complex and dynamic, as careful literary analysis shows. This study treats conversion—the marked change in a protagonist’s piety and identity—as in part an effect of story, a function of narrative textures, coherence, and closure. Readings of the three narratives gain nuance through appeals to varied theorists of desire, self-formation, and narrative, including Foucault, psychoanalytic theorists, and the ancient literary critic Longinus. Well grounded in scholarship on Hermas, Thecla, and Aseneth, the closely paced readings sharpen attention to each story, while also advancing discussions of ancient views of the self; of desire, masculinity, and virginity; of the cultural codes around marriage and continence; and of the textual energetics of conversion tales.
Umar Ryad
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197266915
- eISBN:
- 9780191938177
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266915.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
The chapter investigates the new religious life of a few well-known British converts to Islam in the interwar period; and how they practiced and defended their new faith in their colonial ...
More
The chapter investigates the new religious life of a few well-known British converts to Islam in the interwar period; and how they practiced and defended their new faith in their colonial "secularized" state. In their eagerness to spread Islam in Europe, British converts swung between two social and religious groups at the height of European imperialism and modernism. How far can we categorize their writings as "apologetics" for Islam in the land of the colonizers? In what way did they attempt to combine their new Islamic beliefs with their background as Europeans? The chapter discusses some of the issues which they raised in response to the public debates on Islam in Britain, especially about questions related to the Caliphate, pan-Islam, colonialism, atheism and the position of women in Islam.Less
The chapter investigates the new religious life of a few well-known British converts to Islam in the interwar period; and how they practiced and defended their new faith in their colonial "secularized" state. In their eagerness to spread Islam in Europe, British converts swung between two social and religious groups at the height of European imperialism and modernism. How far can we categorize their writings as "apologetics" for Islam in the land of the colonizers? In what way did they attempt to combine their new Islamic beliefs with their background as Europeans? The chapter discusses some of the issues which they raised in response to the public debates on Islam in Britain, especially about questions related to the Caliphate, pan-Islam, colonialism, atheism and the position of women in Islam.
Victoria Smolkin
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197266915
- eISBN:
- 9780191938177
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266915.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
In the Soviet Union, the figure of the “atheist apologist”—a propagandist charged with publicly denouncing religion and spreading atheism—emerged during Nikita Khrushchev’s antireligious campaign ...
More
In the Soviet Union, the figure of the “atheist apologist”—a propagandist charged with publicly denouncing religion and spreading atheism—emerged during Nikita Khrushchev’s antireligious campaign (1958-1964). When Khrushchev came to power, he denounced Stalin’s more pragmatic approach to religious affairs and called for a return to ideological purity. The Soviet Union had entered a new historical stage – “Building Communism” – which again made religion a problem and atheism a priority. Yet, as the party mobilised for a new antireligious campaign, it realized that it lacked the institutions, expertise, and cadres to conduct atheist work, and that it had to build an atheist apparatus. This made the figure of the religious apostate turned atheist apologist especially valuable., and under Khrushchev, hundreds of believers and clergy publicly broke with religion. Among them, Evgraf Duluman (1928-2013) and Aleksandr Osipov (1911-1967) were the most prominent. These figures transformed a private spiritual crisis into a public vocation, in the process becoming the party’s atheist apologists. Based on archival sources and the author’s interviews with former atheist cadres, this chapter looks at what atheist apologists can reveal about the Soviet atheist apparatus and the party’s struggle to overcome religion, spread atheism, and build Communism.Less
In the Soviet Union, the figure of the “atheist apologist”—a propagandist charged with publicly denouncing religion and spreading atheism—emerged during Nikita Khrushchev’s antireligious campaign (1958-1964). When Khrushchev came to power, he denounced Stalin’s more pragmatic approach to religious affairs and called for a return to ideological purity. The Soviet Union had entered a new historical stage – “Building Communism” – which again made religion a problem and atheism a priority. Yet, as the party mobilised for a new antireligious campaign, it realized that it lacked the institutions, expertise, and cadres to conduct atheist work, and that it had to build an atheist apparatus. This made the figure of the religious apostate turned atheist apologist especially valuable., and under Khrushchev, hundreds of believers and clergy publicly broke with religion. Among them, Evgraf Duluman (1928-2013) and Aleksandr Osipov (1911-1967) were the most prominent. These figures transformed a private spiritual crisis into a public vocation, in the process becoming the party’s atheist apologists. Based on archival sources and the author’s interviews with former atheist cadres, this chapter looks at what atheist apologists can reveal about the Soviet atheist apparatus and the party’s struggle to overcome religion, spread atheism, and build Communism.
Jeffrey S. Sposato
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195149746
- eISBN:
- 9780199870783
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195149746.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter explores the situation of Jews in early 19th-century Germany, and situates the Mendelssohn family within this context. With the defeat of Napoleon and the treaties of the Congress of ...
More
This chapter explores the situation of Jews in early 19th-century Germany, and situates the Mendelssohn family within this context. With the defeat of Napoleon and the treaties of the Congress of Vienna, the situation of German Jews worsened, and many of them, including the Mendelssohn family, chose to convert to Protestantism at that time. Felix Mendelssohn's father, Abraham Mendelssohn, had distanced his family from its Jewish roots for many years. Although Abraham's father, Moses Mendelssohn, was a prominent Jewish philosopher, Abraham avoided Jewish connections and declined to live in Jewish neighborhoods. In 1816, Abraham and his wife, Lea, converted their four children. In 1822, the parents themselves converted. The chapter also disputes critics, such as Eric Werner, who have argued that Mendelssohn retained a strong attachment to Judaism during his lifetime.Less
This chapter explores the situation of Jews in early 19th-century Germany, and situates the Mendelssohn family within this context. With the defeat of Napoleon and the treaties of the Congress of Vienna, the situation of German Jews worsened, and many of them, including the Mendelssohn family, chose to convert to Protestantism at that time. Felix Mendelssohn's father, Abraham Mendelssohn, had distanced his family from its Jewish roots for many years. Although Abraham's father, Moses Mendelssohn, was a prominent Jewish philosopher, Abraham avoided Jewish connections and declined to live in Jewish neighborhoods. In 1816, Abraham and his wife, Lea, converted their four children. In 1822, the parents themselves converted. The chapter also disputes critics, such as Eric Werner, who have argued that Mendelssohn retained a strong attachment to Judaism during his lifetime.
Lawrence M. Wills (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195151428
- eISBN:
- 9780199870516
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151429.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
An introduction and translation of The Marriage and Conversion of Aseneth (or Asenath), usually entitled Joseph and Aseneth. This novel fills in the story of Joseph from Genesis and his marriage to ...
More
An introduction and translation of The Marriage and Conversion of Aseneth (or Asenath), usually entitled Joseph and Aseneth. This novel fills in the story of Joseph from Genesis and his marriage to the Egyptian Aseneth. It includes the motifs of prayer, penitence, the competition of ethnic groups, the role of women, and the construction of gender. There is a mystical interlude that may give evidence of Jewish mysteries.Less
An introduction and translation of The Marriage and Conversion of Aseneth (or Asenath), usually entitled Joseph and Aseneth. This novel fills in the story of Joseph from Genesis and his marriage to the Egyptian Aseneth. It includes the motifs of prayer, penitence, the competition of ethnic groups, the role of women, and the construction of gender. There is a mystical interlude that may give evidence of Jewish mysteries.
Robert DeCaroli
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195168389
- eISBN:
- 9780199835133
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195168380.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This chapter examines the relationship between local deities and the ancestral dead. There are a vast number of tales in the early Buddhist literature that detail situations in which a dangerous ...
More
This chapter examines the relationship between local deities and the ancestral dead. There are a vast number of tales in the early Buddhist literature that detail situations in which a dangerous demigod or ghost confronts the Buddha, a monk, or a nun. With few exceptions, these tales conclude when the supernatural being realizes that it is unable to sway or harm its intended victim and, after a brief sermon, the creature ends up being converted to Buddhism as a new guardian of the faith. These tales demonstrate the Buddhist efficacy in helping the dead and relate to the development of the monks’ role as funerary experts. This growing association between the Buddhist community and the dead receives additional support from an analysis of the thousands of votive stupas (relic mounds) that have been dedicated by lay devotees to the memory of deceased relatives and are found at the majority of early Buddhist sites.Less
This chapter examines the relationship between local deities and the ancestral dead. There are a vast number of tales in the early Buddhist literature that detail situations in which a dangerous demigod or ghost confronts the Buddha, a monk, or a nun. With few exceptions, these tales conclude when the supernatural being realizes that it is unable to sway or harm its intended victim and, after a brief sermon, the creature ends up being converted to Buddhism as a new guardian of the faith. These tales demonstrate the Buddhist efficacy in helping the dead and relate to the development of the monks’ role as funerary experts. This growing association between the Buddhist community and the dead receives additional support from an analysis of the thousands of votive stupas (relic mounds) that have been dedicated by lay devotees to the memory of deceased relatives and are found at the majority of early Buddhist sites.
Philip N. Mulder
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195131635
- eISBN:
- 9780199834525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195131630.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
A distinct Baptist piety grew through the efforts of aggressive Calvinists who compromised the various interests of Particular, Regular, General, and Separate Baptists invading the South. Individual ...
More
A distinct Baptist piety grew through the efforts of aggressive Calvinists who compromised the various interests of Particular, Regular, General, and Separate Baptists invading the South. Individual Baptists had to conform to this new hybrid orthodoxy, converting to meet the doctrinal standards, and measuring their religious progress according to a notion of definitive truth: believer baptism by immersion. Baptists’ congregational churches, collections of these converts, contained heated debate and close discipline that perpetuated the evaluative sensibility. In their quest for the truth, they argued, split, re‐formed, and even developed associations of churches for helpful conversation; yet these added more layers of doctrinal debate, extending the rancor and confrontation within Baptists’ insistent religiosity.Less
A distinct Baptist piety grew through the efforts of aggressive Calvinists who compromised the various interests of Particular, Regular, General, and Separate Baptists invading the South. Individual Baptists had to conform to this new hybrid orthodoxy, converting to meet the doctrinal standards, and measuring their religious progress according to a notion of definitive truth: believer baptism by immersion. Baptists’ congregational churches, collections of these converts, contained heated debate and close discipline that perpetuated the evaluative sensibility. In their quest for the truth, they argued, split, re‐formed, and even developed associations of churches for helpful conversation; yet these added more layers of doctrinal debate, extending the rancor and confrontation within Baptists’ insistent religiosity.
Katherine Ledford and Theresa Lloyd (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780813178790
- eISBN:
- 9780813178806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813178790.003.0705
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Social Groups
The terms “folklore,” “folklife,” and “folkways” refer to cultural practices transmitted orally among members of a group. The literature represented in this anthology is an example of verbal ...
More
The terms “folklore,” “folklife,” and “folkways” refer to cultural practices transmitted orally among members of a group. The literature represented in this anthology is an example of verbal folklore, more specifically folk narrative and folk song. These readings demonstrate both the bounty of folklore in Appalachia and the way that the region’s folklore has been deployed to support cultural-political agendas.Less
The terms “folklore,” “folklife,” and “folkways” refer to cultural practices transmitted orally among members of a group. The literature represented in this anthology is an example of verbal folklore, more specifically folk narrative and folk song. These readings demonstrate both the bounty of folklore in Appalachia and the way that the region’s folklore has been deployed to support cultural-political agendas.
Kenneth R. Ross and Todd M. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474439824
- eISBN:
- 9781474465366
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439824.003.0018
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
The Maldives comprises 1,190 coral atolls lying in the India Ocean to the south-west of India and Sri Lanka. the overwhelming majority of the population is Muslim, with Islam dating back to the ...
More
The Maldives comprises 1,190 coral atolls lying in the India Ocean to the south-west of India and Sri Lanka. the overwhelming majority of the population is Muslim, with Islam dating back to the twelfth Century. Government policy places a high premium on the Islamic identity of the country, and conversion to Christianity is punishable by loss of citizenship and, allegedly, torture. Foreign workers are legally permitted to express their faith, but only privately in their homes when no Maldives citizens are present. Catholics (mainly Filipinos), the Church of South India, the Evangelical Mennonite Church and the Seventh-day Adventists have a small and low-key presence in the country. The number of Christian believers among the indigenous population is thought to be very low, and they are obliged to observe their faith under conditions of utmost secrecy. Criticism of its record on human rights and political
freedoms led the government to announce in October 2016 that it will leave the Commonwealth.Less
The Maldives comprises 1,190 coral atolls lying in the India Ocean to the south-west of India and Sri Lanka. the overwhelming majority of the population is Muslim, with Islam dating back to the twelfth Century. Government policy places a high premium on the Islamic identity of the country, and conversion to Christianity is punishable by loss of citizenship and, allegedly, torture. Foreign workers are legally permitted to express their faith, but only privately in their homes when no Maldives citizens are present. Catholics (mainly Filipinos), the Church of South India, the Evangelical Mennonite Church and the Seventh-day Adventists have a small and low-key presence in the country. The number of Christian believers among the indigenous population is thought to be very low, and they are obliged to observe their faith under conditions of utmost secrecy. Criticism of its record on human rights and political
freedoms led the government to announce in October 2016 that it will leave the Commonwealth.
Amy Johnson Frykholm
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195159837
- eISBN:
- 9780199835614
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195159837.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The primary work that readers ascribe to Left Behind is evangelistic. This chapter describes how readers speak of that evangelistic work and the urgency that they believe the rapture narrative gives ...
More
The primary work that readers ascribe to Left Behind is evangelistic. This chapter describes how readers speak of that evangelistic work and the urgency that they believe the rapture narrative gives it. Then the chapter examines the possibility of conversion through the reading of fiction. Looking at the publishers’ and authors’ accounts of these conversions, how conversion is depicted in the narrative, and how readers describe their own religious conversions, this chapter suggests that religious conversion through reading Left Behind is a very rare event indeed and one that only comes about in a particular kind of supportive social environment.Less
The primary work that readers ascribe to Left Behind is evangelistic. This chapter describes how readers speak of that evangelistic work and the urgency that they believe the rapture narrative gives it. Then the chapter examines the possibility of conversion through the reading of fiction. Looking at the publishers’ and authors’ accounts of these conversions, how conversion is depicted in the narrative, and how readers describe their own religious conversions, this chapter suggests that religious conversion through reading Left Behind is a very rare event indeed and one that only comes about in a particular kind of supportive social environment.
Robert Tobin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199641567
- eISBN:
- 9780191738418
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641567.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter focuses on Butler's writings after the Second World War and his efforts to confront the impact of totalitarian thought on Western society. It offers close readings of some of his most ...
More
This chapter focuses on Butler's writings after the Second World War and his efforts to confront the impact of totalitarian thought on Western society. It offers close readings of some of his most prominent post‐war writings, and in the process, introduces his preoccupation with exposing the compulsory conversion campaign waged against Orthodox Serbs in Croatia during the war. It accounts for how this concern led to the most traumatic experience of his public life, the so‐called ‘Papal Nuncio Incident’ of 1952. It explores his concern with the creeping anonymity of modern life, exploited by totalitarian regimes before and during the war but also evident after the war in the capitalist West. His travels in China in the fifties, as well as in Europe and the USA in the sixties, confirmed for him this assessment.Less
This chapter focuses on Butler's writings after the Second World War and his efforts to confront the impact of totalitarian thought on Western society. It offers close readings of some of his most prominent post‐war writings, and in the process, introduces his preoccupation with exposing the compulsory conversion campaign waged against Orthodox Serbs in Croatia during the war. It accounts for how this concern led to the most traumatic experience of his public life, the so‐called ‘Papal Nuncio Incident’ of 1952. It explores his concern with the creeping anonymity of modern life, exploited by totalitarian regimes before and during the war but also evident after the war in the capitalist West. His travels in China in the fifties, as well as in Europe and the USA in the sixties, confirmed for him this assessment.
Alan Strathern
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474417129
- eISBN:
- 9781474434980
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417129.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
The first great expansion of Islam owed little to the conversion of rulers but instead followed, albeit slowly, in the footsteps of strikingly rapid military conquest. Yet, in the second millennium, ...
More
The first great expansion of Islam owed little to the conversion of rulers but instead followed, albeit slowly, in the footsteps of strikingly rapid military conquest. Yet, in the second millennium, Islam expanded further and faster by means of ruler conversions than its proselytising rivals, Christianity and Buddhism. The principal regions where this held true were Sub-Saharan Africa and maritime Southeast Asia, though Central Asia also saw numerous conversions of the Mongol and Turkic elites that poured into the region.1 This was the period, then, in which Islam broke out of its Mediterranean and West Asian base to penetrate new territories to the south and the far east of the old world.Less
The first great expansion of Islam owed little to the conversion of rulers but instead followed, albeit slowly, in the footsteps of strikingly rapid military conquest. Yet, in the second millennium, Islam expanded further and faster by means of ruler conversions than its proselytising rivals, Christianity and Buddhism. The principal regions where this held true were Sub-Saharan Africa and maritime Southeast Asia, though Central Asia also saw numerous conversions of the Mongol and Turkic elites that poured into the region.1 This was the period, then, in which Islam broke out of its Mediterranean and West Asian base to penetrate new territories to the south and the far east of the old world.
David Thomas
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474417129
- eISBN:
- 9781474434980
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417129.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
Among the glittering intellects of ninth-century Baghdad, few surpassed the Nestorian Christian Hunayn b. Ishaq. He was known for his scientifi c accomplishments, among them for his scholarship on ...
More
Among the glittering intellects of ninth-century Baghdad, few surpassed the Nestorian Christian Hunayn b. Ishaq. He was known for his scientifi c accomplishments, among them for his scholarship on the structure and function of the eye, and also for his medical skills, though he gained his reputation above all else for his translations of works from Greek and Syriac into Arabic. In these he achieved an accuracy and clarity that singled him out from other translators and made him into a celebrity whom people with money and position sought out for their commissions. Thanks to these skills and accomplishments, Hunayn moved in elite circles. These included the imperial court, where a succession of caliphs were glad to pay for his services.Less
Among the glittering intellects of ninth-century Baghdad, few surpassed the Nestorian Christian Hunayn b. Ishaq. He was known for his scientifi c accomplishments, among them for his scholarship on the structure and function of the eye, and also for his medical skills, though he gained his reputation above all else for his translations of works from Greek and Syriac into Arabic. In these he achieved an accuracy and clarity that singled him out from other translators and made him into a celebrity whom people with money and position sought out for their commissions. Thanks to these skills and accomplishments, Hunayn moved in elite circles. These included the imperial court, where a succession of caliphs were glad to pay for his services.
Richard W. Bulliet
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474417129
- eISBN:
- 9781474434980
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417129.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
In 1970, I published ‘A Quantitative Approach to Medieval Muslim Biographical Dictionaries’ in the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient.1 Originally a part of my doctoral thesis, ...
More
In 1970, I published ‘A Quantitative Approach to Medieval Muslim Biographical Dictionaries’ in the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient.1 Originally a part of my doctoral thesis, the article sought to derive fluctuations over time in traffic flows along the major caravan routes passing through Nishapur, a major city in north-eastern Iran, from the place names borne by the religious elite of that city during the first Islamic centuries. A second part of my submission was gently rejected by the editor. It dealt with a bell-shaped curve that traced the rise and fall in popularity of the personal names Muhammad, Ahmad, ʿAli, al-Hasan and al-Husain during the same period. Four years later, when I was teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, I was still puzzling over the bell-shaped curve of overtly religious Islamic naming.Less
In 1970, I published ‘A Quantitative Approach to Medieval Muslim Biographical Dictionaries’ in the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient.1 Originally a part of my doctoral thesis, the article sought to derive fluctuations over time in traffic flows along the major caravan routes passing through Nishapur, a major city in north-eastern Iran, from the place names borne by the religious elite of that city during the first Islamic centuries. A second part of my submission was gently rejected by the editor. It dealt with a bell-shaped curve that traced the rise and fall in popularity of the personal names Muhammad, Ahmad, ʿAli, al-Hasan and al-Husain during the same period. Four years later, when I was teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, I was still puzzling over the bell-shaped curve of overtly religious Islamic naming.
Harry Munt
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474417129
- eISBN:
- 9781474434980
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417129.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
In a late seventh- or very early eighth-century Coptic homily anachronistically attributed to the church father Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373), it is lamented that, following the Arab conquest of ...
More
In a late seventh- or very early eighth-century Coptic homily anachronistically attributed to the church father Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373), it is lamented that, following the Arab conquest of Egypt in the early 640s, ‘many Christians, Barbarians, Greeks, Syrians and from all tribes will go and join them in their faith’.1 This prophecy comes across as somewhat hysterical to many modern observers – at least within its seventh-or eighth-century context – since it is now the generally accepted consensus of historians that the processes through which the inhabitants of the conquered territories of the Middle East converted to Islam were extremely gradual and persisted for centuries. Monumental changes to the political, social and religious life of many communities in this region came in the decades and centuries after the conquests – developments to which many non-Muslims fully contributed – but Muslim-majority populations are not thought to have emerged widely until the ninth or tenth centuries at the very earliest.Less
In a late seventh- or very early eighth-century Coptic homily anachronistically attributed to the church father Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373), it is lamented that, following the Arab conquest of Egypt in the early 640s, ‘many Christians, Barbarians, Greeks, Syrians and from all tribes will go and join them in their faith’.1 This prophecy comes across as somewhat hysterical to many modern observers – at least within its seventh-or eighth-century context – since it is now the generally accepted consensus of historians that the processes through which the inhabitants of the conquered territories of the Middle East converted to Islam were extremely gradual and persisted for centuries. Monumental changes to the political, social and religious life of many communities in this region came in the decades and centuries after the conquests – developments to which many non-Muslims fully contributed – but Muslim-majority populations are not thought to have emerged widely until the ninth or tenth centuries at the very earliest.
A. C. S. Peacock
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474417129
- eISBN:
- 9781474434980
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417129.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
Islam penetrated Anatolia rather later than the rest of the Middle East. Indeed, Anatolia had been the Byzantine Empire’s bulwark against the Arabs over the seventh to tenth centuries, withstanding ...
More
Islam penetrated Anatolia rather later than the rest of the Middle East. Indeed, Anatolia had been the Byzantine Empire’s bulwark against the Arabs over the seventh to tenth centuries, withstanding or at least absorbing frequent – at times more or less annual – incursions that stretched far into the peninsula.1 Initially, perhaps, the raids of the Turks who had seized control of neighbouring Iran and the Caucasus in the mid-eleventh century seemed a similarly manageable annoyance. Yet for reasons that remain inadequately understood, after defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, Byzantine authority evaporated over most of the peninsula, leaving the way open for the establishment of the first Muslim state based at Nicaea in the far west in 1081, ruled by a cousin of the Seljuq sultans of Iran and Iraq, Sulayman b. Qutlumush. Although Byzantium managed to regain control of some of western and littoral Anatolia, with the loss of so much of the empire’s revenue-producing territory the stage was set for its inexorable decline and obliteration at the hands of the Turks, culminating in the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottomans, who saw themselves as the Seljuqs’ heirs.Less
Islam penetrated Anatolia rather later than the rest of the Middle East. Indeed, Anatolia had been the Byzantine Empire’s bulwark against the Arabs over the seventh to tenth centuries, withstanding or at least absorbing frequent – at times more or less annual – incursions that stretched far into the peninsula.1 Initially, perhaps, the raids of the Turks who had seized control of neighbouring Iran and the Caucasus in the mid-eleventh century seemed a similarly manageable annoyance. Yet for reasons that remain inadequately understood, after defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, Byzantine authority evaporated over most of the peninsula, leaving the way open for the establishment of the first Muslim state based at Nicaea in the far west in 1081, ruled by a cousin of the Seljuq sultans of Iran and Iraq, Sulayman b. Qutlumush. Although Byzantium managed to regain control of some of western and littoral Anatolia, with the loss of so much of the empire’s revenue-producing territory the stage was set for its inexorable decline and obliteration at the hands of the Turks, culminating in the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottomans, who saw themselves as the Seljuqs’ heirs.
Michael Brett
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474417129
- eISBN:
- 9781474434980
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417129.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
The title of this chapter begs some three or four questions to be addressed before we get down to the details: Who are, and who were, the Berbers for the purpose of this exercise? Why single out the ...
More
The title of this chapter begs some three or four questions to be addressed before we get down to the details: Who are, and who were, the Berbers for the purpose of this exercise? Why single out the question of their conversion to Islam as distinct from, say, the conversion of all North Africans, Berbers, Latins and Greeks? And, as a corollary to that, what were they converted from? Finally, what in their case was meant by ‘conversion’ – was it an individual or collective decision to enter into the new faith or a more gradual, incremental assimilation into Islam as it evolved over the centuries? The answers are not straightforward, since the questions themselves are ideologically charged. Some seventy years ago, in La Berbérie musulmane et l’Orient au moyen âge, Georges Marçais gave an answer in the tradition of French colonial historiography; in other words, he took the Berbers for granted as the native population of North Africa which had been turned away from a western Latin Christian civilisation towards the oriental Arab civilisation of Islam by the Arab conquest in the seventh and eighth centuries.Less
The title of this chapter begs some three or four questions to be addressed before we get down to the details: Who are, and who were, the Berbers for the purpose of this exercise? Why single out the question of their conversion to Islam as distinct from, say, the conversion of all North Africans, Berbers, Latins and Greeks? And, as a corollary to that, what were they converted from? Finally, what in their case was meant by ‘conversion’ – was it an individual or collective decision to enter into the new faith or a more gradual, incremental assimilation into Islam as it evolved over the centuries? The answers are not straightforward, since the questions themselves are ideologically charged. Some seventy years ago, in La Berbérie musulmane et l’Orient au moyen âge, Georges Marçais gave an answer in the tradition of French colonial historiography; in other words, he took the Berbers for granted as the native population of North Africa which had been turned away from a western Latin Christian civilisation towards the oriental Arab civilisation of Islam by the Arab conquest in the seventh and eighth centuries.
Tijana Krstić
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474417129
- eISBN:
- 9781474434980
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417129.003.0015
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
In a recent article, Derin Terzioğlu introduced a heretofore unknown seventeenth-century catechetical work in Ottoman Turkish by a certain Nushi al-Nasıhi. Hailing most probably from the Ottoman ...
More
In a recent article, Derin Terzioğlu introduced a heretofore unknown seventeenth-century catechetical work in Ottoman Turkish by a certain Nushi al-Nasıhi. Hailing most probably from the Ottoman European domains (Rumeli) and writing in roughly the 1630s, Nushi lamented the state of basic religious instruction in the empire and blamed the woes of the Ottoman state on insufficient knowledge of faith and on laxity in the observance of religious laws. He went on to outline a detailed plan of how the condition should be remedied: the authorities should send out town criers to all neighbourhoods and announce that from that point on everyone over the age of seven regardless of their social status would be examined on their knowledge of ‘faith and Islam and ablution and ritual prayer’ (īmāndan ve İslāmdan ve ābdest ve namāzdan suʾāl idüp).1 He further enjoined that those who fail to show satisfactory knowledge should be ‘publicly scolded, administered discretionary punishment or evicted from the neighbourhood’.2Less
In a recent article, Derin Terzioğlu introduced a heretofore unknown seventeenth-century catechetical work in Ottoman Turkish by a certain Nushi al-Nasıhi. Hailing most probably from the Ottoman European domains (Rumeli) and writing in roughly the 1630s, Nushi lamented the state of basic religious instruction in the empire and blamed the woes of the Ottoman state on insufficient knowledge of faith and on laxity in the observance of religious laws. He went on to outline a detailed plan of how the condition should be remedied: the authorities should send out town criers to all neighbourhoods and announce that from that point on everyone over the age of seven regardless of their social status would be examined on their knowledge of ‘faith and Islam and ablution and ritual prayer’ (īmāndan ve İslāmdan ve ābdest ve namāzdan suʾāl idüp).1 He further enjoined that those who fail to show satisfactory knowledge should be ‘publicly scolded, administered discretionary punishment or evicted from the neighbourhood’.2
Bruno De Nicola
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474417129
- eISBN:
- 9781474434980
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417129.003.0018
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
The Islamisation of the Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries exhibits some distinctive features compared with the adoption of Islam by other groups. Unlike the cases of the Christian ...
More
The Islamisation of the Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries exhibits some distinctive features compared with the adoption of Islam by other groups. Unlike the cases of the Christian communities of the Middle East during the initial Islamic conquest or the Zoroastrians of Iran, in which the native populations adopted the religion of their conquerors, for the Mongols in the Middle East and Central Asia, conversion followed the opposite trajectory: the conquerors adopted Islam from the native peoples.2 Thus the historical context within which the Mongols (or rather, some Mongols) adopted Islam was more akin to the Germanic peoples who adopted Christianity in the fifth century, or to the Hungarians in the ninth century, rather than to most populations that historically adopted Islam. This difference represents a shift in the power relationship between the converter and the convert that needs to be taken into account when approaching the Islamisation of the Mongols.Less
The Islamisation of the Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries exhibits some distinctive features compared with the adoption of Islam by other groups. Unlike the cases of the Christian communities of the Middle East during the initial Islamic conquest or the Zoroastrians of Iran, in which the native populations adopted the religion of their conquerors, for the Mongols in the Middle East and Central Asia, conversion followed the opposite trajectory: the conquerors adopted Islam from the native peoples.2 Thus the historical context within which the Mongols (or rather, some Mongols) adopted Islam was more akin to the Germanic peoples who adopted Christianity in the fifth century, or to the Hungarians in the ninth century, rather than to most populations that historically adopted Islam. This difference represents a shift in the power relationship between the converter and the convert that needs to be taken into account when approaching the Islamisation of the Mongols.
Richard M. Eaton
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474417129
- eISBN:
- 9781474434980
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417129.003.0019
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
Inasmuch as about a third of the world’s Muslims reside in South Asia, the question of how and why this came about should be high on our collective agenda. To explain this, however, we need to clear ...
More
Inasmuch as about a third of the world’s Muslims reside in South Asia, the question of how and why this came about should be high on our collective agenda. To explain this, however, we need to clear the air of a number of common misconceptions, beginning with ‘conversion’, a term that has greatly distorted our understanding of South Asia’s religious history. The verb ‘to convert’, which literally means to ‘turn around’ or ‘turn over’, implies not only a suddenness of religious change, but a complete rejection of a former cultural identity and the deliberate adoption of a new one. Such a view of religious change seems to be a product of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century worldwide Protestant missionary movement, in which conversion was understood as darkness replaced by light, and error by truth.Less
Inasmuch as about a third of the world’s Muslims reside in South Asia, the question of how and why this came about should be high on our collective agenda. To explain this, however, we need to clear the air of a number of common misconceptions, beginning with ‘conversion’, a term that has greatly distorted our understanding of South Asia’s religious history. The verb ‘to convert’, which literally means to ‘turn around’ or ‘turn over’, implies not only a suddenness of religious change, but a complete rejection of a former cultural identity and the deliberate adoption of a new one. Such a view of religious change seems to be a product of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century worldwide Protestant missionary movement, in which conversion was understood as darkness replaced by light, and error by truth.
