Islam, Orthodoxy and

TIMOTHY J. BECKER

Orthodoxy has existed alongside Islam since the time of Muhammad. From the 7th century to the 21st, from Arabia and Anatolia to America, the two faiths have played decisive roles in each other’s histories. From the outset, Christians were influential. Arab Christians introduced the Arabic writing used in the Qur’an and it was interactions with Ethiopian and Arab Christians in south Arabia that shaped Muhammad’s conception of what Chris­tianity was.

When Islam emerged from Arabia in 632 ce it encountered an Orthodox Byzantine Empire extending east to Armenia and south to Egypt. Within a decade, Islamic armies had gained control of the major centers of the Middle East, including such major Christian centers of learning as Damascus, Jerusalem, Antioch, Caesarea, Edessa, Ctesiphon, Dwin, and Alexandria. Much of the conquest came through nego­tiated terms of peace rather than physical destruction, as the cities lacked necessary defenses. The Byzantine army, unprepared for the organized Arab Muslim force, had retreated to Asia Minor. What remained was the long pilgrimage under Islamic rule of the Orthodox patriarchates of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch, and that of the Coptic Orthodox, Syrian Ortho­dox, Armenian Orthodox, and Assyrian Church of the East.

Life for Christians under Islam was a mixed reality. As fellow monotheists and “People of the Book” (ahl al-kitab) with the Jews, they were spared the harsher persecution experienced by groups like the Zoroastrians and polytheists. However, Christians remained a subjugated peo­ple with restrictions placed on them. Though officially recognized as a “protected minority” (dhimmi) and governed by their own leaders, “protected” implied infe­rior and Christians had to wear distinctive clothing, refrain from public religious practice, and avoid proselytizing Muslims. Their property was subject to seizure and they were obliged to quarter Islamic soldiers. Moreover, Christians could not build new churches and were forced to pay a special head tax (al-jizyah), which was imposed in addition to land and prop­erty taxes.

Even so, Christians remained influential, possessing a cultural heritage developed in their schools and monasteries. This equipped them to play important social roles in medicine, law, philosophy, and particularly administration. Perhaps most influential was the Syriac Christian trans­lation project of ancient Greek texts into Arabic, which proved critical to the development of Islamic culture and the rise of Muslim philosophy and science, seen foremost in the ‘Abbasid period (750–1258).

In time, many of the subjugated eastern Christians found a place within Islamic soci­ety, but their place involved both polemics and dialogue. Figures such as St. John of Damascus (Mansur ibn Sarjun) (d. 749/ 764) and Patriarch Timothy I of Baghdad (727/8–823) represent differing approaches, the former more bracing and the latter more eirenic in terms of their respective assess­ments of Islam. St. John, it is worth remem­bering, was writing to Christian monks, while Timothy I was carrying on a public debate with the caliph. The former defines Islam as the latest Christian “heresy”; the latter is more ready to affirm the God-given attributes of an Islamic faith that has led so many to monotheism.

In the Islamic dominated territories there also developed a particular inter­Christian culture. Confessional disputes remained between Assyrians, Oriental Orthodox, and Orthodox, and yet, in cer­tain ways, Islam set these disputes into a new relief, facilitating Christian cooper­ation. Examples include the prolific scholars ‘Abd Allah ibn at-Tayylb (d. 1043), whose works on the Trinity and on Christology were widely used across confessional lines, and al-Mu’taman ibn al-’Assal (fl. 1230–60), who wrote that the various Christian communions all sub­stantially professed the same faith in Christ.

Encounters with Islam also shaped how Christians presented their faith. Islam’s nearly complete rejection of Christian belief, seen foremost in its dismissal of the Trinity, the concept of divine incarnation, and the reality of Jesus’ crucifixion, led Christian writers to defend and demon­strate Christian belief and practice more comprehensively than at any time since the 4th century. Early examples include John of Damascus’ The Fount of Knowledge and Theodore bar Koni’s (fl. ca. 792) Scholion.

For Byzantium, various Islamic empires now started to replace the fallen Persian Empire as its resident rivals in the East. However, Byzantium faced a greater disad­vantage, having lost Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. These losses were commonly seen to bolster Muslim claims to divine favor and contributed to an Orthodox penitential sense of judgment. A result of this may be seen in the rise of iconoclasm in the 8th and 9th centuries, where Islam’s aniconic nature and military strength may well have been decisive factors in the Byzantine imperial reaction against icons.

Two further events were defining moments in Byzantium’s relationship with Islam. The Turkish victory at Manzikert in 1071 was the culmination of decades of jihad and raids into Anatolia and led to further Islamic penetration ofthe Byzantine heartland. Not only did this weaken the empire fatally, it also was an instigation of the Crusades, which, arguably, did greater damage to Byzantium than Islam ever did. It was a severely crippled Byzantine Empire that finally was abandoned to fall to the Ottomans in 1453.

Unlike the mixed assessment of Christians living under Islamic rule, the Byzantine attitude on its side was decidedly polemical and overarchingly hostile. The prevailing belief was threefold: Muhammad was a false prophet, the Qur’an is a false scrip­ture, and Islam is a false religion. And yet the Byzantines were not just distant rivals. A number of Byzantium’s most important figures had close ties with Muslims. It was Maximus the Confessor’s spiritual father, Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem, who negotiated terms of peace for the city during the Muslim conquest. St. John of Damascus served in the administration of the Umayyad Caliph for many years. And St. Gregory Palamas spent a period of time in Turkish captivity, during which he intelligently debated issues regarding Islam, Christianity, and the religious significance of ascendant Turkish military power.

While Ottoman rule was largely a change in administration for those Chris­tians who had lived under Islamic domi­nance for centuries, it was a radical and dramatic shift for Byzantium. The great cathedral of Hagia Sophia was made into a mosque along with numerous other churches, and the capital city, Con­stantinople, was redesigned and renamed Istanbul. Moreover, the patriarch of Constantinople’s role changed to that of a politician, ruler of the Orthodox mil­let (nation). Although life under the Ottomans fluctuated between times of tol­erance and active persecution, two notable hardships were lodged in the memories of the Orthodox: the periodic practice of taking one boy from each Christian home and converting him to Islam (devshirme) and the recurring enslavement of Christian children resulting from Turkish slave-raiding under acquiescent Ottoman rule.

The 15th century marked the end of the Byzantine Empire; it also saw the rise of the Russians and the decline of the Assyrians. The Russian Orthodox Church emerged from centuries of Islamic Mongol rule and sought to fill the place of Byzantium as the Third Rome and ostensible protector of Eastern Orthodox Christendom. For the Assyrian Church, however, it was the begin­ning of its long decline, having been left reeling in the aftermath of the Turko- Mongol ruler, Timur the Great (Tamerlane) (d. 1405).

Under the Ottomans, there were origi­nally three millet groups, Greek, Jewish, and Armenian. By the 19th century the Christian numbers had proliferated, contributing to the rise in 19th and 20th-century Balkan nationalisms. This new situation helped place Eastern Chris­tians in often precarious environments, amid Islamic divisions, political turmoil, ethnic strife, and global migration. Exam­ples can be seen in the bitter experiences of modern Christians in Armenia, Palestine, the Balkans, and Iraq.

SEE ALSO: Africa, Orthodoxy in; Alexandria, Patriarchate of; Antioch, Patriarchate of; Armenian Christianity; Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East; Constantinople, Patri­archate of; Coptic Orthodoxy; Jerusalem, Patriarchate of; Syrian Orthodox Churches; World Religions, Orthodoxy and

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Badr, H. (ed.) (2005) Christianity: A History in the Middle East. Beirut: Middle East Council of Churches/Studies and Research Program.

Braude, B. and Lewis, B. (eds.) (1982) Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, 2 vols. New York: Holmes and Meier.

Griffith, S. H. (2008) The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Grypeou, E., Swanson, M. N., and Thomas, D. (eds.) (2006) The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam. Leiden: Brill.

Khoury, A. (1982) Apologetique byzantine contre I’islam; Vllle-XIIIe siecles. Altenberge, Germany: Verlag fur christlich-islamisches Schrifttum.

Runciman, S. (1968) The Great Church in Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek

War of Independence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vryonis, S., Jr. (1971) The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.