Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
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50 t CHAPTER TWO<br />
The <strong>Christians</strong> of Arabia<br />
Although there is abundant material on a Christian presence in<br />
Arabia, our sources are principally literary ones from the high Hellenic<br />
tradition, both secular <strong>and</strong> ecclesiastical. The first dwell<br />
chiefly on the political relations between the empire <strong>and</strong> its federated<br />
Arab allies among the nomads, <strong>and</strong> it is clear that religion,<br />
more specifically conversion to Christianity from the indigenous<br />
polytheism, had a major role to play, as a condition <strong>for</strong> entering<br />
into a treaty relationship with the Roman state <strong>and</strong> then in the<br />
fierce sectarian strife that shook the Middle Eastern Churches of<br />
the fifth, sixth, <strong>and</strong> seventh centuries. But the ecclesiastical writers<br />
provide some sense of what, besides politics, attracted the Arab<br />
tribes to Christianity, to wit, the example of Christian holy men<br />
already living in remote outposts where they were accessible to the<br />
nomads, even at a great distance, <strong>and</strong> the miracles that they <strong>and</strong><br />
others could still per<strong>for</strong>m in the name of Christ.<br />
Though we can chart certain events in its history, describing the<br />
substance <strong>and</strong> practice of Arab Christianity is far more difficult.<br />
That the Christian Arabs constituted a kind of “church” is evident<br />
from the fact that there were bishops consecrated <strong>for</strong> their use at<br />
the camps of the Arab federates who patrolled the frontiers. Monasticism<br />
was particularly cultivated among them, <strong>and</strong> many of its<br />
more popular reflexes such as the veneration of holy men <strong>and</strong> of<br />
relics are attested. We do not know much about the actual Christian<br />
Arab cultus, an ignorance hinged to substantial doubts as to<br />
whether there was even available an Arabic translation of the New<br />
Testament, <strong>and</strong> its inevitable corollary, that the language of worship<br />
<strong>and</strong> piety was not Arabic but Syriac or Christian Aramaic.<br />
We are, in consequence, ill in<strong>for</strong>med about the quality of the<br />
Christianity beyond the immediate borderl<strong>and</strong>s of the great empires,<br />
or, to be more precise, of the milieu from which <strong>Islam</strong><br />
emerged. That there were some <strong>Christians</strong> at Mecca can scarcely<br />
be doubted, <strong>and</strong> the Quran, <strong>and</strong> hence Muhammad, know about<br />
the Gospel, Jesus, Mary, churches, monks, <strong>and</strong> monasteries. Indeed,<br />
the Quran’s version of Christianity is a notorious hybrid, as<br />
we have seen, <strong>and</strong> it ill con<strong>for</strong>ms with any existing model.