Volume 88, Issue 1

Diversity and hybridity, interaction and exchange: these terms compose the thematic focus of this issue of the journal “Der Islam”: Eastern Christianity in History and the Present: Perspectives and Obstacles . The issue features contributions to a conference held in the year 2008. Evaluating the state of research on Eastern Christianity in Germany, the participants observed that this field of academic enquiry is in danger of becoming extinct in this country. Thus, this collection of articles hopefully serves as a catalyst for jumpstarting debate on Eastern Christianity in the German academic community. The study of Eastern Christian communities’ cultural identity is at the same time ineluctably intertwined with Qur‘anic Studies and Islamic History - i. e. an Islam in dialogue with, but not mimicking Jewish and Christian traditions of the Hijaz. Diversity in the Islamic-ruled world is a historical reality that has been largely ignored in the study of Islam as well. This edition of “Der Islam” therefore highlights research that considers the interaction between Muslim and non-Muslim groups, as well as the entangled development of the religious traditions, in order to better understand the socio-religious plurality of Western Asia. Interaction and exchange, however, also include moments of conflict and discrimination. As we close upon the one-year anniversary of the “Arab Spring”, the authors are reminded that it is important to consider the worsening condition of Eastern Christian communities today and their representation in Western studies as well as in the political systems they live in.

This article proposes to interpret Surah 97 based on research undertaken in the framework of the Corpus Coranicum project. The first part scrutinizes Christopn Luxenberg ’s seriously flawed argument that Surah 97 can be understood as a Qur’anic hymn on the Nativity of Jesus if some of its key expressions are read against the semantic background of Syriac, while the remainder of the article endeavours to develop a more tenable understanding of the text. This involves an attempt to date Surah 97 relative to other Qur’anic texts and to detect possible additions to it. In addition, the article discusses the meaning and reference of its most central term, laylat al-qadr . Finally, special attention is given to the question whether the text might not, in spite of the circularity of Luxenberg ’s reading, contain implicit references to the Nativity.

Various etymologies have been proposed for Arabic allāh but also for Syriac allāhā . It has often been proposed that the Arabic word was borrowed from Syriac. This article takes a comprehensive look at the linguistic evidence at hand. Especially, it takes into consideration more recent epigraphical material which sheds light on the development of the Arabic language. Phonetic and morphological analysis of the data confirms the Arabic origin of the word allāh , whereas the problems of the Syriac form allāhā are described, namely that the Syriac form differs from that of other Aramaic dialects and begs explanation, discussing also the possibility that the Syriac word is a loan from Arabic. The final part considers qur’anic allāh in its cultural and literary context and the role of the Syriac word in that context. The article concludes, that both, a strictly linguistic, as well as cultural and literary analysis reveals a multilayered interrelation between the two terms in question. The linguistic analysis shows, that Arabic allāh must be a genuinely Arabic word, whereas in the case of Syriac allāhā , the possibility of both, a loan and a specific inner-Aramaic development are laid out. Apart from linguistic considerations, the historical and cultural situation in Northern Mesopotamia, i. e. the early Arab presence in that region is taken into scrutiny. In turn, a possible later effect of the prominent use of Syriac allāhā on the use in the Qur’an is considered. It is emphasized, that we are presented with a situation of prolonged contact and exchange, rather than merely one-way borrowings.

This paper constructs the theological polemic among Near Eastern Christian sects and the encounter with the new religio-political regional power: Islam. Focusing on the period from around the first Muslim conquests in the mid-seventh century until the ninth centure C. E., a list of East Syriac (Nestorian) Church Fathers and their writings are selected as representative voices in the continuing Christological debates. In particular, the paper is concerned with how theological arguments were first used and reinterpreted to address conversion to Islam and later used to emphasize, in an ironic twist, the proximity between Nestorianism and Islam contra other Christian “heresies”. This historical development is important to understand how Nestorian literature was later used by Muslim theologians well after the ninth century, such as Ibn Abī Ţālib al-Dimašqī in the fourteenth century, to defend Islam and debunk Christianity. For Nestorian apologetics the immediacy of addressing the issue of Christian conversion to Islam was clear. Letters from Nestorian clergy, such as Katholikos Īšō’yahb III. (649–659) and Katholikos Georg (661–680/81), recount the old debates among Nestorians, Miaphysites, and Melkites concerning the nature of Christ. In order to explicate best the erroneous attraction of Islam, these two men contextualized Islamic theology as similar to a Christian heretical sect. Yet over time, appealing to Islamic overlordship became necessary. With the rise of the Abbasid caliphate (750–1258) and the establishment of its capital in the historical heartland of the Nestorian Church, the polemic was reversed. Hereafter, Nestorian dyophysite doctrine was used as an appeal to the Islamic conception of Christ’s divinity. For example, Katholikos Timotheos I. (780–823) and the theologian Theodor Bar Koni underlined the blasphemy of the Miaphysite and Chalcedonian Christology. This very tactic, however, was easy for Muslim scholars to appropriate in Islamic apologetics. Well before al-Dimašqi, the words of the Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi to Timotheos are distinct: the Nestorians understood correctly that God could not have suffered and died, but that they all were still wrong that Jesus is the Son of God.

In Europe and Asia there are many holy sites visited by adherents of different religions. These multi-religious spaces are experienced and interpreted differently, for example either as places of reconciliation or as centers for the crystallization of conflict. In this article, the state of research and previously tested analytical approaches are addressed. In light of empirical examples, analytical tools – based on the ideas of Benjamin Kedar – are refined. It is shown that any analysis must take into consideration the regional interests, as well as any particular power imbalance and context of a given multi-religious site. Therefore, this article argues for a differentiated analytical framework based on a broad empirical basis. The sites studied demonstrate, moreover, that the multi-religious veneration of a particular site does not necessarily reflect popular piety, as is often suggested, but rather that powerful rulers also had an interest to donate to such holy sites and thereby legitimate their own authority. In contrast, custodians of a sacred place felt as though they were confirmed by the ruling religion as administrators of spiritual power. Due to the dynamic relationship of power and legitimacy, multi-religious sites were considered neither entirely bizarre nor exactly quotidian. These sacred places nevertheless demonstrate the perpetual cultural importance of a Christian presence in the Muslim ruled Near East.

This paper gives an overview about the transmission of Greek popular philosophical writings in Ethiopian literature. Information about the historical and religious background in Ethiopia until the 13th century is very scanty, and also the conditions of transmission of Greek philosophy in monastic circles are poorly attested. An analysis of the ambivalent attitude towards Greek philosophy and secular education in Syriac and Coptic monasticism could shed some light on intellectual preconditions in Ethiopian monasteries, because they were significantly influenced by these circles. The manuscript tradition of relevant writings gives us an additional clue which themes and works were preferred among monks in Egypt. Manuscripts containing popular philosophy circulated in the existent network of monasteries in Egypt and Ethiopia, and an increased interest, especially in the 15th/16th centuries, in these writings give rise to their translation from Arabic into Ethiopic.

This article attempts to adumbrate the social complexity of an urban uprising in Ottoman Aleppo by revisiting the patterns of conflict proposed by the historian Herbert Bodman . The perceived antagonism between two of the city’s major factions, the ’Ashrāf and the Janissaries, as well as the constant conflicts between these two groups and the representatives of Ottoman authority in the city, provide an insufficient framework for explaining the areas of conflict which Margaret Meriwether has identified as major ground for social frictions. Focussing on the uprising in 1819/20 in Aleppo, and relying on the recently published notes of the Armenian Catholic bishop ’Abrāhām Kūbilyān (1786–1832), this article argues that contemporary reports offer new insights into social configurations during the uprising. The reports reflect an awareness of power-political interests of individual persons, as well as social issues concerning myriad groups in society that transcend the narrow horizon of the antagonism between ’Ashrāf and Janissaries.

This article presents an instructive example of cultural interaction between Iran and Germany at the end of the 19th century: the movement of the “Lutheran Nestorians”. A group of Eastern Syriac priests (“Nestorians”) from the Urmia region in Northwest Iran came to Germany to pursue their theological formation at Lutheran institutions, whereafter they returned to Iran and continued to work, albeit within the parameters of a complex relationship, with their Mother Church. Although the initial purpose and intention of the priests’ decision to come to Germany is obscure, the influence of their cultural experience in the West is clear. Specifically, Western values and habits formed the perspective with which they assessed the cultural development of Iran after their return to their native land (I). The priests constantly had to balance their orientation toward the West with their personal and intellectual connection to their home tradition; how difficult this situation was becomes apparent in their endeavor to redefine Eastern Syriac heritage by means of Lutheran theology (II). These priests made an important contribution to the cultural exchange between both countries even though they lived in manifold tensions (III). Thus, the “Lutheran Nestorians” can be perceived as exponents of a “bipolar” way of life, since they felt they belonged to (at least) two cultures. Their stories indicate that the antagonism between East and West, Orient and Occident is too simple to cover the complexities of history.

The relationship between Christians and Muslims underwent drastic fluctuations in the former Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century and the modern Republic of Turkey in the twentieth century generally. The dynamic can be described as having been one of sanctioned political communion under the Ottoman regime, outright violence and antagonism in the shadows of WWI, and today reflected in a type of social equilibrium, albeit precarious. Specifically, the paper focuses on adumbrating the modus vivendi that facilitated coexistence between Christians and Muslims over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and how the Christian communities have subsequently remained to this day. For this purpose the three following regions of East Anatolia are examined: Hakkari, Bohtan, and Turabdin. The history of the Christians, once a legally protected and acknowledged minority under the status of dhimma , is first demonstrated in a historical outline of the confederations of Syriac-Nestorian (Assyrian) Christians and Muslim Kurds in the Hakkari region. These socio-political compacts – in Kurdish bazikê çepê (aram. bāzekka d-semmāla ) and bazikê rastê (aram. bāzekka d-yammīna ) – provided the bulwark for regional stability and security in the nineteenth century. The dawn of colonialism and the coming of American and British Christian missionaries (1838) tolled the knell for this positive mechanism for practical coexistence. Second, the Bohtan region is observed. Here, the history of Anatolia’s Christians reflects a similar negative development. For example, during WWI the Aghas protected the Christians from extermination, whereafter the Christians found themselves to have become the personal property of their Muslim protectors. As chances for emigration from Anatolia to Istanbul and Europe opened up, Christians fled their servitude thereby emptying entire towns of Christians. Lastly, in the Turabdin region, parallels can be made with the Hakkari region: Christians and Muslim Kurds also coexisted through confederations. Yet, like Hakkari and throughout East Anatolia, the massacre of Christians by the Kurdish Emir of Cizre in the mid-nineteenth century and mass murders in 1914–1915 precipitated the decline in Christian population in the twentieth century. The paper concludes that the current relationship between Christians and Muslims is one of living next – yet not equal – to one another.

The collapse of the Saddam regime in March 2003 saw the publication of a number of articles or more encompassing works devoted to the situation of the Christian communities in Iraq. The majority of these focus on ecclesiastical issues and much less on political developments. However, it is clear that it would be artificial to separate the religious from the political: some religious leaders actively participate in the political debate and express views on the ethnic profile of their community, which has consequences for the role they want their communities to play in the Iraqi society. The present article tries to describe and understand some political developments, focusing on three interrelated themes: the divided political landscape, the position of the Christians in Kurdistan and their relations with the Kurdish Regional Government and the Central Federal Government and the discussion on political and cultural “autonomy” for the Christian communities and the creation of a Christian “homeland”.