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As the first Christians to encounter Islam, Syriac authors preserve the earliest Christian depictions of Muslims, Islam, and the conquests. Syriac writers also present the unusual circumstance of a group interpreting not their victory, but their defeat as the outcome of a holy war. This chapter examines how Syriac Christian responses to these questions developed over time and across literary genres. It investigates how early Christian communities interpreted and reinterpreted the Islamic conquests and how their writings constructed images, rhetorical strategies, and stereotypes that later Christian writers would further elaborate.

This chapter focuses on the earliest of Syriac Christian writings, the Acts of Judah Thomas, that make a link between holiness and sexual renunciation, and which advocate total sexual renunciation as the surest means to both becoming (achieving) holy and protecting one’s holiness once gained. Yet, this text is a composite text, which suggests a more complex development of this theology and its biblical interpretive roots. For in certain sections of the Acts, “living in holiness” can mean living a married life with one lifetime partner rather than total sexual renunciation. The one derives from biblical notions of achieved holiness, while the other descends from a different paradigm entirely, which in its origins was unrelated to holiness. The two constructs remain in uneasy tension in the later redactions of the Acts, even as the second one rises to the forefront.

This chapter analyzes how Syriac historiography is a rare example of non-etatist, non-imperial, history writing. It was produced, copied, and preserved entirely within Christian church structures. The Syriac-using Christians, however, were divided into numerous rival denominations and communities as a consequence both of the fifth-century theological controversies and of geopolitical boundaries. And since both of these factors strongly influenced both the motivations which underpinned the production of history writing and the forms it took, historians need to have some knowledge of these rival Syriac denominations. Because of internal Christian debates about the relationship of the divinity and humanity within Christ during the fifth century, the Syriac-using churches fragmented. All accepted that Christ was perfect God and perfect man, but differed fiercely about how to articulate this.

Chapter 3 examines “diaspora space”–usually used solely as metaphor–in connection with Syriac monumental architectural spaces for theSyriac Orthodox Church and the Assyriska and Syrianska soccer clubs, sacred and profanerespectively. These social institutions developed during the 1970s and 1980s but eventually required dedicated physical spaces.

Chapter 4 focuses on both permanent spaces and temporary spatial practices associated with weddings and funerals. Urban spaces have become backdrops for a roleplaying game with an ever-attentive audience, as Syriacs metamorphose between audience members and stage actors and continually reinscribe social expectations about personal bodily and social propriety.

This book reconsiders the history of Christianity in the fourth century by analyzing narratives about Constantine and the Christians of Persia. Drawing on a range of Greek, Latin, and Syriac sources, it argues that there was not, and never has been, just one history of fourth-century Mesopotamia. Instead, there are multiple and fragmented histories with competing historiographical, hagiographical, and ideological agendas. The first part of the book examines how Constantine and the Roman–Persian War were seen from within the Roman Empire, and the second part focuses on how the fourth century was remembered by Syriac-speaking Christians of the Persian Empire. It shows that accounts regarding the persecution of Christians in fourth-century Persia on the basis of their presumed allegiances to the Roman Empire have been embellished by dozens of conflicting sources that were composed decades, even centuries, after the events they describe.

Chapter 1 compares the spatial agendas of the Swedish welfare state and Syriacs. The “Million Program” (1965 to 1974) saw Sweden develop one million dwelling units through standardized forms meant to reduce social inequalities. In contrast, Syriacs’ experiences with discrimination in theMiddle East made them positive to enclaves and spatial differentiation.

The Introduction explores modernism, equality, and standardization in the development of European suburbs. I question the predominant narratives of post-utopian decline or, alternatively, grassroots resilience and place the book within the framework of studies of suburbs and questions of European immigration and integration. Mack positions Sweden in the context of its international status as an ideal place for asylum seekers and immigrants.

Chapter 6 examines national norms defined both rational design and questions of taste and beauty, and how these intersect with new forms that Syriacs have developed in houses, churches, banquet halls, and other buildings in Södertälje. The frictions between them raise questions about tolerance and who may contribute to the urban image.

Chapter 5 analyzes several new and controversial Syriac-dominated neighborhoods of custom-designed and formally elaborate single-family houses that majority Swedish planners regard as cautionary tales of too-flexible planning regulations. Syriac architectural displays of difference in affluent enclaves have required new forms of professional planning practice and reconsiderations of “participation.”

Chapter 2 focuses on Södertälje during the 1970s, when Syriacs moved to its empty Million Program neighborhoods, where Syriacs resumed their historical pattern of protective enclaves. They adapted welfare-state spaces but retained their forms and functions, suggesting that modernist design was more successful at accommodating difference than has been acknowledged.

The Conclusion zeroes in on “urban design from below” as the aggregate result of the Syriacs’ discrete projects. This phenomenon functions as a space between the “top-down” official designs and plans and the “bottom-up” forms of community activism without an effect on the form of physical space. So-called “users” have become designers.