23 The Christian Movement and the Islamic Caliphate Flashcards
Under which Persian shah did Christian influence increase in the Persian empire?
Khusru II
Christian wife ‘Sirin’ and personal physician ‘Gabriel’
What were the reasons given by Irvin for the swift Muslim advance?
1) Superior horsemanship of Arabs and military tactics employed
2) Lack of local support for Constantinople’s policies
3) Motivated by compelling religious vision that called them to establish conditions for universal devotion to the one God who rules over all the earth.
What were the 3 options offered to opposing military forces by Muslim troops?
1) Immediate conversion to Islam
2) surrender and acceptance of subjugation as a minority paying taxes
3) full-fledged battle with Allah entrusted to determine the outcome
What were Christians under Islamic rule allowed or not allowed to do?
1) Allowed to practice their religion and maintain their communities
2) Forbidden to evangelise among the Muslim population or show disrespect for either the Prophet or the Qur’an
3) Permitted to keep existing house of worship but forbidden to build new ones. If a church was taken over for use as a mosque, it was not allowed to revert.
4) Church bells were not permitted to be rung in Muslim lands and crosses are not allowed to be displayed publicly
5) Christians were not allowed to serve in the military, carry weapons or ride horses; only mules and donkeys were allowed for transportation
6) Required to wear special identifying clothing, even though unevenly enforced
7) Christian men forbidden to marry Muslim women but Muslim men allowed to marry Christian wives. Children are to be raised Muslim
8) All adult males are to pay a head tax.
In what area were the Arabs working with the Christians in the early centuries of Islamic rule?
Administration, Education, and Business
What language continued to be used in liturgy even after it ceased being used in other areas of life under the Islamic rule?
Syriac
What were the 2 professions that had significant Christian presence within the Islamic empire?
Trading (Merchants) and Medicine (Doctors)
Which were the 2 major eastern Christian traditions in Syria and Palestine?
The Jacobite churches (intellectual strength in monasteries)
Churches that recognised the authority of the patriarch of Constantinople (also recognised the authority of the East Roman emperor)
Who called Islam, the “Ishmaelite heresy”?
John of Damascus
What were John of Damascus criticisms of Islam?
1) The Prophet taught that God had no Son, thus the God Muhammad proclaimed was not the same God as the Christians knew to be the Father of Jesus
2) Criticised Muslim practice of polygamy
Whose theology was really influential amongst the East Syrian Christians?
Theodore of Mopsuestia; It was his method of biblical exegesis, however, more than the formulations of his christology that was taken to be decisive for his contributions to orthodoxy
What is the Islamic mystical and ecstatic experience that was influenced by Christian monasticism in the East?
Sufism
adapted aspects of ascetic life that were characteristic of Christian monasticism
Who was the ascetic mystic whom the immediate experience of God was more important than intellectual formulations of the faith?
Isaac of Nineveh
Spiritual life for him was one of progression moving through stages from bodily passions to spiritual wonder
Which patriarch appointed metropolitans to Tibet, amongst the Turks, San’a’, and India?
Timothy
Which people did, both the caliph Mahdi and patriarch Timothy, agree were to be despised and rejected by all?
Jews
