Sidney H. Griffith

Christians under Muslim rule

By the year 732 CE, just one hundred years after the death of the prophet Muhammad, Arab military forces, in the name of Islam, consolidated their hegemony over a large stretch of territory outside of Arabia. This expanse of territory, embracing major portions of the Roman and Persian empires of Late Antiquity, included many indigenous Christian communities, in several denominations. They all came under Muslim rule, but demographically they made up the religious majority in many places until well into the eleventh century. There were strong Christian communities in Spain (al-Andalus) and in the territories of the former eastern patriarchates of the Roman Empire, as well as in Persian Mesopotamia. During the first four centuries of the hegira (i.e., the Islamic era) most of these Christian subjects of the Muslim caliph gradually adopted the Arabic language, while retaining to a greater or lesser extent, depending on local circumstances, their traditional, patristic, and liturgical languages for church purposes. Christians in the Qur’ān and in early Islam Arabic-speaking Christians were in the audience to whom the Qur’ān first addressed the word of God, as it claimed, in “a clear Arabic tongue” (Qur’ān 16.103 and 26.105). Indeed the Qur’ān presumes the priority of the Torah and the Gospel in the consciousness of its hearers, and insists that in reference to the earlier divine revelations it is itself “a corroborating scripture in the Arabic language to warn wrong doers and to announce good news to those who do well” (Qur’ān 46.12). In the Qur’ān, God advises the Muslims, “If you are in doubt about what we have sent down to you, ask those who were reading scripture before you” (Qur’ān 10.94).

“Spirit in the Bread; Fire in the Wine”: the Eucharist as “Living Medicine” in the Thought of Ephraem the Syrian

Ephraems “teaching songs” in Syriac had a didactic function in the context of the divine liturgy: to commend the doctrines of the scriptures to the congregations of worshippers! The present article surveys Ephraems presentation of the scriptural teachings on the Eucharist, its meaning and significance, along with its power in Christian life.

Bediüzzaman Said Nursi and Louis Massignon in Pursuit of God's Word: A Muslim and a Christian on the Straight Path

Abstract Said Nursi (1876–1960) and Louis Massignon (1883–1962) were contemporaries. Both of them were men of God in whose lives dramatic turning points changed the direction of their thinking and led them to devote themselves to the cause of re-awakening the religious consciousness of the people of their time. This article explores the striking parallels in their personal journeys, offers a comparison of their leading ideas and describes the far-reaching effects their lives and works have had in their respective faith communities. The biographies of faithful witnesses in modern times in both Islam and Christianity have much to teach those of us in the twenty-first century who seek to find the way to a harmonious convivencia for our two, global faith communities.

Christianity’s Historic Roots in the Middle East: Christians at Home in the ‘World of Islam’

The important but neglected Christian heritage in Arabic is highlighted in Griffith’s work on Christian scholars of tenth-century Baghdad, especially the influence of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in translating Greek philosophy into Arabic and Latin. After the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258, this intellectual activity shifted to Damascus and Cairo. The accumulated pressures of dhimma status gradually brought the demographic decline of the Christian communities from a majority in Abbasid times to demographic insignificance in most of the Middle East by the end of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, historians must note the contributions of the indigenous Jews and Christians in the world of Islam.

Christians and the Arabic Qurʾān: Prooftexting, Polemics, and Intertwined Scriptures

‭Christians living in the World of Islam have had a lively interaction with the Qurʾān ever since it became widely available in the Arabic-speaking milieu of Umayyad and Abbasid times. This article discusses the multifaceted aspects of this interaction as they are disclosed in texts written by Christians in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic from the eighth through the thirteenth centuries. Christian writers quoted from the Islamic scripture, imitated its diction and style, wrote polemics against it, used its words and phrases as proof texts in their own apologetic texts, and appealed to the religious authority of the Qurʾān for its probative value. In many ways the Qurʾān effectively structured Christian religious discourse in Arabic and this article explores some of the ways this was the case.‬

When Did the Bible Become an Arabic Scripture

While the circumstances were favorable to the translation of the Jewish and Christian scriptures into Arabic in writing in pre-Islamic times, there is no compelling evidence to support the conclusion that such a translation was ever made. Rather the evidence of the Qurʾān along with other considerations suggests that prior to the rise of Islam, Jewish and Christian scripture texts circulated orally in Arabic and that the earliest Arabic translations in writing appeared first among the Christians in the monastic communities in Palestine and probably in part at least in response to the appearance of the Arabic Qurʾān itself in writing at the turn of the seventh and eighth centuries.

Mystics and Sufi masters: Thomas Merton and dialogue between Christians and Muslims

The Cistercian, Trappist monk Thomas Merton (1915–1968), author of numerous books on Christian spirituality, monasticism and social commentary, was a forerunner in popular inter‐religious dialogue in the twentieth century. In this connection, he is best known for his sympathetic explorations of themes from Asian religions, particularly Zen and other forms of Buddhism. This article calls attention to his studies in Islam, initially under the guidance of Louis Massignon (1883–1962), and particularly in Sufism. It highlights his interactions with a number of contemporary Muslim thinkers, and describes his decade‐long correspondence with a Pakistani Muslim student of Sufi texts, a unique instance of a sustained dialogue in letters on religious themes between a Muslim and a Christian in modern times. The article also calls attention to the ways in which Merton took inspiration from Islamic sources in the development of his own spiritual teaching.