For Professors Herbert Mason, Merlin Swartz, and
William C. Chitblick
In treating medieval Christian concepts of Islam, especially
in regard to the Crusader period, it is necessary to examine
the contemporary theological world view of Christianity. Christianity
maintains the second-most comprehensive world view of any
of the world's religions, after Islam. (That is, Islam and
Christianity have historically posited themselves most thoroughly
and respectively as the normative and superceding of all of
the world's faith traditions.) Christianity saw itself as
the new dispensation after Judaism ceased to be of theological
relevance with the resurrection of Christ and the apostle
Paul's insistence upon the abrogation of Mosaic law. The New
Testament confirms and yet abrogates the O1d or the Hebrew
Bible, and eclipses Judaism as the new spiritual norm for
humanity. With this universal approach, yet self-centered
nature, a Christian cosmological model would need to assign
each item of theological relevance into its working schema
of the universe. It was by this necessity that Islam was first
incorporated into Christianity's world view in the seventh
century (just as Judaism had been in the first of the Common
Era) and assigned a position specifically in its relation
to Christianity, not regarded as a phenomenon in and of itself.
One of the first surviving accounts detailing a Christian
approach to Islam comes to us in the form of a homily by Sophronius,
Patriarch of Jerusalem (ca. 560-638 C.E.). The homily was
delivered on the Christmas eve of 634 C.E., to a Jerusalem
congregation desirous to make a pilgrimage to nearby Bethlehem,
the site of Christ's nativity. The faithful were prevented
from attending Mass there, however, due to a Saracen encampment
around the city. Sophronius lamentably informed the faithful
that:
''Because of our countless sins and very serious faults, we
have become unworthy of the sight of these things [the holy
places in Bethlehem] and are prevented from entering Bethlehem
by way of the roads. Unwillingly, indeed contrary to our wishes,
we are required to stay at home, not bound closely from bodily
bonds, but bound by fear of the Saracens, and we are prevented
from experiencing such heavenly joy, and are engulfed by a
grief suited to our wretchedness, which is unworthy of blessings.
But we have the Davidic desire and thirst to see, just as
David famous in song, the water, and we are prevented from
experiencing feasting our souls through fear of the Saracens
alone. For now the slime of the godless Saracens, like the
gentiles at the time [of David], has captured Bethlehem and
does not yield the passage but threatens slaughter and destruction
if we leave this Holy City and if we dare to approach our
beloved and sacred Bethlehem. Therefore I call on and I command
and I beg you for the love of Christ the Lord, in so far as
it is in our power, let us correct ourselves. Let us shine
forth with repentance, let us be purified with conversion
and let us curb our performance of acts which are hateful
to God. If we constrain ourselves, as friendly and beloved
of God, we would laugh at the fall of our Saracen adversaries
and we would view their not so distant death and we would
see their final destruction. For their blood-loving blade
will enter their hearts, their bows will be shattered and
their shafts will be fixed in them. They will furnish a clear
way for us having neither hills nor thorns nor impassable
points so that we, running boldly and dauntlessly, may possess
the child of life, may love the God-redeeming chamber, may
prostrate ourselves before the Holy Manger. We shall embrace
the God-producing city, dancing with lambs, shouting with
the Magi, giving glory with the angles: Glory to God in the
Highest and on earth, peace and good-will to men. (Kaegi 139-141)
Although the Byzantine term saracen was only synonymous with
Arab at this point in history and not an identifier of Muslim,
Sophronius unknowingly applies this term to the adherents
of a new religion that has arisen in his vicinity. Most importantly,
the Patriarch explains the Saracen presence in relation to
Christianity. It is because of the Christian's sins that the
Saracens have arrived at the gates sins of Bethlehem. Islam
is thus fitted into the universal and exclusively self-concerned
world view of Christianity. Sophronius describers the Saracens
in relation to the sensibilities of his congregation and his
own theological paradigm, not as a socio-political phenomenon
in and of itself. The Saracens are being used to punish the
Christians for their sins, and are a divine prodding stick
for an increased devotion to God on their part. The Muslim
army has thus been reduced to one of God's agents of history,
unimportant in themselves and leading their lives fully in
their relation to the Christian community. Such a historical
paradigm may also be seen in the vision Jews and Christians
shared of Cyrus the Great of Persia releasing the Israelite
captives from a defeated Babylon. For the purposes of sacred
history, God had ordained the presence of the Muslims purely
for the ultimate benefit of the Christians, just as YHWH raised
up Cyrus to his position only for the release of the House
of Israel. (See Ezra chapter 1, but also Isaiah 45:12-13 “I
am the one who made the earth and created mankind to live
there. By my power I stretched out the heavens: I control
the sun, the moon and the stars. l myself have stirred Cyrus
to action to fulfill my purpose and put things right. I will
straighten out every road that he travels. He will rebuild
my city, Jerusalem, and set my captive people free.”).
Surviving documents testify that Sophronius would later repeat
identical convictions in a synodical epistle and again in
a homily delivered on the feast of the Epiphany (January 6th)
in 637 C.E. Despite the Patriarch's earlier convictions in
his 634 C.E. Christmas Eve homily that the Christians would
soon defeat the Saracens, it was actually left to Sophronius
to negotiate the surrender of Jerusalem to Muslim forces led
by the second Caliph of (Sunni) Islam, Umar ibn al-Khattab,
in 638 C.E. On this occasion, the Patriarch (most probably
frightened by observing Umar's notoriously severe character)
exclaimed upon seeing him for the first time, that surely
the Caliph was the Awful Horror foretold by the prophet Daniel
and Christ in the Christian Scriptures. (See Daniel 9:27;
11:31; 12:11; Matthew 24:15-28; Mark 13:14-23; Luke 21:21-24.)
The evangelists' utilization of Daniel's apocalyptic imagery
of the Awful Horror is borrowed for the messianic and apocalyptic
fervor of the first century, and later applied by Sophronius
to his own unhappy situation. The corresponding Lucan account
of the Awful Horror as described in Matthew 24 as: ''You will
see ‘The Awful Horror’ of which the prophet Daniel spoke.
It will be standing in the holy place'' and in Mark 13: “You
will see ‘The Awful Horror’ standing in the place where he
should not be'' and in Luke 21:20: When you see Jerusalem
surrounded by armies, then you will know that she will soon
be destroyed.”)
In Sophronius' identification of Umar with the Awful Horror,
the Patriarch applies first century Christian revelation to
seventh century military conquests. Umar (the internally-disputed
representative of the umma, the Islamic community) is the
Awful Horror. By extension, the Muslim body he represents
is the satanic trumpet blast of the Apocalypse. Thus, the
Muslim encampment besieging Jerusalem in 638 C.E. is translated
into a Christian world view as the army to which Christ referred
to in relation with the Awful Horror in the warning: “When
you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know
that she will soon be destroyed” (Luke 21:20). In issuing
his opinion that Umar was the Awful Horror, Sophronius may
have reflected upon Daniel's vision that: “Then he will turn
back in a rage and try to destroy the religion of God's people.
He will follow the advice of those who have abandoned that
religion. Some of his soldiers will make the Temple ritually
unclean. They will stop the daily sacrifices and set up the
Awful Horror” (Daniel 9:30-31) . Sophronius may have considered
these words in relation to Umar's construction of a masjid
(mosque) upon the centuries-old ruins of Herod's Temple upon
Mount Zion. Umar's construction, which would be later rebuilt
as the al-Aksa mosque, architecturally established Islam as
the new theocratic regime on the ruins of the center of Jewish
ritual practice and directly across from the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, which enclosed Christ’s tomb and served as
the theological center of Christian Jerusalem. The construction
of the masjid in such an historically-sensitive site would
have confirmed Umar's status as Anti-Christ in Sophronius'
mind, a conclusion drawn from a Christian understanding of
history when applied to contemporary political challenges.
(Such a view has occasioned numerous Jewish and Christian
attempts in this century to commit acts of arson against the
Harem esh-Sharif, the complex of masjids and other sacred
Muslim spaces upon the old Temple Mount dating from the seventh
century and later including the Qubbat al-Sakkra, the Dome
of the Rock–considered to be Islam's third holiest shrine
after the masjids of Mecca and Medina.) In Sophronius' identification
of Islam with the Anti-Christ, we are provided with another
example of the extent to which the new Muslim presence was
absorbed and distorted into a Christian schema of the cosmos.
The military might of Islam is thus seen as the army of the
Anti-Christ, by association with the Awful Horror who would
usher in the end of time-an association which would persist
in some Christian minds until this very day.
Sophronius was not alone among his contemporaries in such
a view, the critical Christian mystical theologian Maximus
the Confessor (ca. 580-662 C.E.) expressed similar sentiments
in a letter to a colleague, Peter the Illustrious. The letter
can approximately be dated between 634 and 640 CE. In this
missive, Maximus laments:
“And especially when...nature herself teaches us to seek refuge
in God, when she uses the present dire circumstances as a
symbol. For what could be more dire than the present evils
now encompassing the civilized world? ...To see a barbarous
nation of the desert overrunning another land as if it were
their own! To see our civilization laid waste by wild and
untamed beasts who have merely the shapes of a human form!”
(Tolan 14) The priest would also recognize the arrival of
the Muslims as a divine punishment for the Christians' sins.
The Confessor confides to Peter” ''For we have not conducted
ourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ...We
have all acted like wild beasts towards one another, ignorant
of the grace of God's love for humans and the mystery of the
suffering God who became flesh for our sakes'' (Tolan 15).
Maximus, writing from Alexandria, would make a more significant
step than Sophronius in his assessment of the new dispensation,
however. Where Sophronius did not yet understand that the
invading Arabs represented a religion which would soon successfully
challenge his own, the Alexandrian priest already recognized
a new religious force as a causal factor for the invasions.
Maximus describes the Muslims as “a Jewish people who... delight
in human blood...whom God hates, though they think they are
worshiping God-” (Tolan 15). Although Maximus cannot yet precisely
identify the new community, he does recognize the strong similarities
it shares with Judaism and determines that it is simply a
new valiant of the religion. These contrived assessments of
the new religious community assured that the sudden Muslim
presence in the newly-challenged Byzantine territory would
be defined by Christianity from a purely Christian-specific
world view. It is on account of the Christians' grievous sills
that the terror of Islam has suddenly appeared.
The first full rendering of Islam into a Christian world view,
however, comes with the one individual in the best position
to do so, John of Damascus (ca. 670-749 C.E.). John's grandfather,
Mansur ibn Sargun, had been a high-ranking official in the
Byzantine administration of Damascus. After Damascus fell
to Muslim forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid (d. 642 C.E.)
in 635 C.E., Mansur retained a high government position in
Damascus after it came under the control of the Rashidun Caliphs,
and later became the seat of the Umayyad dynasty which had
fought to remove the rightful Caliph Ali ibn abi Talib (Muhammad's
cousin and son-in-law, d. 661 C.E.) from power. By 661 C.E.,
under the new Caliphate of Mu'awiya I (661-680 C.E.), Mansur
(a Christian) had received the most powerful position in Damascus
next to the Caliph himself. His position may be likened to
that of vizier (administrator-magistrate) in the amount of
authority he wielded, though it remained largely financial.
Mansur's son, ibn Mansur (John's father), succeeded to this
position after the death of his father. Ibn Mansur became
highly-favored under the Caliphate of abd al-Malik (684-705
C.E.); the Muslim ruler and Christian vizier were actually
friends. It was in this environment that John was raised.
He had a Muslim tutor as a boy and was versed in the Islamic
religious sciences, yet at the same time ibn Mansur provided
his son with a Catholic monk from Sicily to instruct him in
the Christian theological traditions. John's substantial education
places him in a unique intellectual position: he is at once
the last Greek Father of the Church, the first Christian Aristotelian
and the first Christian to challenge Islam on serious theological
and philosophical grounds. John is most celebrated for his
De Orthodoxa Fidei, which in many ways is the first real summa
theolgiae for Christianity-a precise summation of the Christian
faith from the first century to the eighth. He is also responsible
for the baptism of Aristotle into Christian thought through
his Fount of Knowledge. These and other intellectual achievements
merited John the titles ''Chrysorrhoas the Golden Stream''
[Orator] from Orthodox Christians, and Doctor of the Church,
awarded to him by Pope Leo XIII in 1890. The monk's intellectual
achievements brought Catholic Sacred Scripture and Sacred
Tradition, reinforced by Greek philosophy, to bear against
the new challenge of Islam.
John became involved in the iconoclastic controversy of the
early eighth century, and wrote in the defense of the Catholic
and Orthodox position over and against Byzantium, arguing
that it is permissible to produce and venerate images of Christ
and the saints. He thus incurred the wrath of Leo III the
Isaurian (iconoclast emperor from 717-741 C.E.) and his equally
iconoclastic son Constantine V (741-775 C.E.). According to
legend, Leo deceived the reigning Caliph of the time into
believing John was plotting to overthrow the Islamic government
in Damascus, in retribution for a successful apologetic-polemical
campaign the monk was waging against the official iconoclasm
of the imperial government. The legend narrates that Leo had
scribes forge a treasonous letter in John's hand (imitated
from one of the monk's treaties condemning iconoclasm) and
had it sent to the reigning Caliph. The Damascene was consequently
punished by having one of his hands cut off. The deception
was soon discovered, however, and John was invited by an apologetic
Caliph to return to the government position which he had been
expelled from. John declined the opportunity of returning
to his post, however, and retired to the Saint Sabas monastery
in the vicinity of Jerusalem. He would remain there until
his death in 749.
It was during this approximately twenty year period, living
under monastic vows, that John would write the majority of
his surviving works. One of his greatest intellectual contributions
was the aforementioned Fount of Knowledge, which begins with
a highly detailed Christian summary and presentation of Aristotelian
philosophy. The second major component of the text is his
Of the Orthodox Faith, a complete summation of the Catholic
and Orthodox faith until the time of its composition. The
last section of the Fount of Knowledge is John’s De Haerisibus-Of
Heresies.
The manner in which John presented the Fount of Knowledge
is essential to the actual nature of the work. The first section,
comprising Aristotelian philosophical models, instructs the
disciple in the proper modes of thought. The second section
details the truth of the Christian revelation, and the third
is presented as a catalog of theological errors. Simply stated,
the Fount of Knowledge’s three sections may be summarized
as follows: 1. how to think, 2. what to think, and 3. what
not to think. John is world-building, creating an entire cosmological
order within a few hundred pages. With this understanding,
John's approach to Islam is much more significant. He is placing
the religion not only in his catalog of heresies at the close
of the Fount of Knowledge, John is also placing Islam entirely
into a corner of the Christian world view. Islam is thus relegated
to a servile position in relation to Christianity - Islam
thus subsists not in itself, but only in whatever relationship
it may share with Christianity.
John's cosmological schema may be better understood in a closer
examination of the De Haerisibus. The book consists of a list
and descriptions of the one hundred heresies to plague Christianity
until the Damascene's time. The fist eighty heresies and their
descriptions are quoted verbatim from the chapter headings
given in Epiphanius' massive Adversus Haereses opus quod inscribitur
Panarium sive Arcula. The Panarion was the definitive work
of Christian heresiography by the end of the fourth century.
Its author, Epiphanius the Bishop of Salamis (present-day
Constantinople), took great pains to sufficiently treat each
of the heresies of which he was aware. The Panarion itself
draws upon earlier sources as well, such as the heresiographers
Iraneus and Tertullian. John is thus not simply adding new
dimensions to the Christian world view in his De Haerisibus,
he is seeking to expand and reinforce an earlier one. In drawing
upon Epiphanius for the accounts of the first eighty heresies
in his catalog, and then quoting from the prominent Fathers
of the Church active between Epiphanius' time and his own
for the next 19 accounts, John lends more credence to the
acceptance of his portrayal of the hundredth and last heresy
to be listed, Islam. John thus begins his description where
his predecessors had stopped. The Damascene writes: “There
is also the superstition of the Ishmaelites which to this
day prevails and keeps people in error, being a forerunner
of the Antichrist. They are descended from Ishmael, who was
born to Abraham of Agar, and for this reason they are called
both Agarenes and Ishmaelites.” (Chase 153) John speaks of
this day in his introduction, thus fitting Islam neatly into
the hundredth position of a Christian-specific pattern of
thought. In placing Islam within this list of heresies and
Christian world view, Islam becomes entirely Christianity's
own, its only real pertinence remaining in its relationship
to the true faith of Christianity. This is especially evident
in John's references to Abraham and Ishmael, whom Islam recognizes
as their spiritual fathers, and to whom Arabs look as the
progenitors of their race. The Damascene’s reference here
is to the brief Biblical passages which establish the identity
of Ishmael. Christian polemicists from John onwards would
remember God's words as recorded in Genesis: ''But your [Hagar,
Abraham’s concubine] son [Ishmael] will live like a wild donkey;
he will be against everyone, and everyone will be against
him. He will live apart from all his relatives'' (Gen. 16:12).
Hagar and Ishmael would thus leave Abraham as Genesis relates,
and move out into the Arabian peninsula where the young man
would eventually found his own nation: The descendants of
Ishmael lived in the territory between Havilah and Shur, to
the east of Egypt on the way to Assyria. They lived apart
from the other descendants of Abraham. (Gen. 25:18) The Christian
apostle Paul would later aggravate the already developing
vision of a polarity between the children of Sarah (Jews and
Christians) with Ishmael the son of the slave Hagar and his
benighted descendants. Paul writes: “Let me ask those of you
who want to be subject to the [Mosaic] Law: do you not hear
what the Law says? It says that Abraham had two sons, one
by a slave woman, the other by a free woman. His son by the
slave woman was born in the usual way, but his son by the
free woman was born by God's promise. These things can be
understood as a figure: the two women represent two covenants.
The one whose children are born in slavery is Hagar, and she
represents the covenant made at Mount Sinai. Hagar, who stands
for Mount Sinai in Arabia, is a figure of the present city
of Jerusalem, in slavery with all its people. But the heavenly
Jerusalem is free, and she is our mother...Now, you, my brothers,
are God's children as a result of his promise, just as Isaac
was. At that time the son who was born in the usual way persecuted
the one who was born because of God's Spirit; and it is the
same now. But what does the scripture say? It says, ‘Send
the slave woman and her son away; for the son of the slave
woman will not have a part of the father's property along
with the son of the free woman.’ So, then, my brothers, we
are not the children of a slave woman but of a free woman”
(Galatians 4:21-31).
This model permits a polarity between the spiritual descendants
of Isaac and Ishmael and necessarily excludes the Muslims
from the covenant offered to the spiritual children of Israel
in medieval Christian theology, and places the Ishmaelites
diametrically opposed to Christianity, and necessarily in
the company of the Antichrist. John begins his exposition
of the Ishmaelite heresy with this Christian preconception,
and proceeds to tear at the very heart of Islam, the Quran.
The Damascene, with his skill in Arabic, knew the Quran well
and quoted from it in his polemical attacks against Islam.
Particularly offensive to the monk's sensibilities was the
idea that Muhammad would fabricate divine revelations in order
to satisfy his own desires and agendum. John informs his readers:
''As has been related, this Mohammed wrote many ridiculous
books, to each one of which he set a title. For example, there
is the book On Woman, [an-Nissa, surah 4 of the Quran] in
which he plainly makes legal provision for taking four wives
and, if it be possible, a thousand concubines-as many as one
can maintain, besides the four wives. He also made it legal
to put away [divorce] whichever wife one might wish, and should
one so wish, to take to oneself another in the same way. Mohammed
had a friend named Zeid. This man had a beautiful wife with
whom Mohammed fell in love. Once, when they were sitting together,
Mohammed said: Oh, by the way, God has commanded me to take
your wife. The other answered: You are an apostle. Do as God
has told you and take my wife. And he put her away. Rather-to
tell the story over from the beginning-he said to him: God
has given me the command that you put away your wife. And
he put her away. Then several days later: 'Now,' he said,
‘God has commanded me to take her.’ [al-Ahzab, “The Clans,”
surah 33:37] Then, after he had committed adultery with her,
he made this law: 'Let him who will put away his wife. And
if, after having put her away, he should return to her, let
another marry her. For it is not lawful to take her unless
she have batten married by another.' [ab-Baqara, “The Cow,”
surah 2: 230] in the same book he gives such precepts as this:
‘Work the land which God hath given thee and beautify it.
And do this, and do it in such a manner’ [surah 2: 223]-not
to repeat all the obscene things that he did'' (Chase 153-154).
John is intruding here upon a domain not entirely his own:
the sacred text of another religion. Both he and his successors
would approach surah 2, verses 223 and 230, which presents
the material critiqued above, with a Christian code of morality.
He is eisegetically distorting and disfiguring the Quran in
his glosses, assumptions and confusion of chapter headings
(the legitimization of polygamy is given in “The Cow,” not
in “On Woman” as the Damascene informs his readers). The Damascene
is presenting Islam to his audience in the moral light of
Christianity, a presentation inappropriate for the subject
matter treated. John and his successors would approach the
Zeid incident (where Muhammad married the divorced wife of
his adopted son) with a Christian idea of marriage, not an
Islamic one. The multiple marriages and divorces permitted
by Muhammad were at such variance with the Christian's own
sense of sexual morality that it was branded licentious. The
Damascene did not consider that marriage has entirely different
meanings for the Christian and Muslim. In Catholicism, marriage
is a sacrament, a visible sign of God's grace active in the
world. Divorce is thus as impossible and abominable as attempting
to de-baptize someone. The Islamic conception of matrimony
differs in its legalistic functions, tempered by religious
sentiment, and the boundaries, rights and obligations of each
spouse. The Damascene cannot conceive of a code of sexual
morality other than that espoused by Christianity.
John's major difficulty with Islamic theology, however, was
not to be found in its sexual mores but in its philosophical
differences with Christianity. From the Gospel of John onwards,
Christians had understood Christ to be both Word of God and
God. The detailed Trinitarian theology which had established
the Son as the Word of God and second person of the Most Holy
Trinity over and against the early heresies was now brought
to bear against Islam, which declared that Christ was a Word
from God, and a Spirit proceeding from Him-but not God. The
monk informs us: ''Moreover they call us Associators, because,
they say, we introduce beside God an associate to Him by saying
that Christ is the Son of God and God. To whom we answer,
that this is what the prophets and the Scripture have handed
down to us; and you, as you claim, accept the prophets. If,
therefore, we wrongly say that Christ is Son of God they also
were wrong, who taught and handed it down to us so. And some
of them maintain that we have added such things, by having
allegorized the prophets. Others hold that the Jews, out of
hatred, deceived us with writings which supposedly originated
from the prophets so that we might get lost.
“Again we respond to them: 'Since you say that Christ is Word
and Spirit of God, how do you scold us as Associators? For
the Word and the Spirit is inseparable each from the one in
whom this has the origin; if, therefore, the Word is in God
it is obvious that he is God as well. If, on the other hand,
this is outside of God, then God, according to you, is without
word and without spirit. Thus, trying to avoid making associates
to God you have mutilated Him. For it would be better if you
were saying that he has an associate than to mutilate him
and introduce him as if he were a stone, or wood, or any of
the inanimate objects. Therefore, by accusing us falsely,
you call us Associators: we, however, call you Mutilators
of God” (Sahas 137).
John does not appreciate the philosophical differences between
the two theologies and their respective understanding of the
Word of God. For Christianity, Christ is the Word of God incarnate,
while for Islam, the Quran is the Word of God inlibrate. The
Damascene makes a further point of this issue in his Disputatio
Saraceni et Christiani, where the monk provides a guidebook
for theological debate with Muslims. The Damascene advises:
''If you will be asked by a Saracen this question: ‘What do
you say that Christ is?’ say to him: ‘Word of God.’ I do not
think that you commit a sin by saying that, because in the
scripture he is called Word and wisdom and arm and power of
God and many other similar, for he has many names. And you
also return the question to him: ‘What is Christ called in
the Scripture?’ [the Quran]. Even if the Saracen wants, perhaps,
to ask you something else do not answer to him until he will
satisfy your question. With some pressure he will answer you:
‘In my Scripture Christ is called Spirit and Word of God.’
And then you again tell him, ‘In your Scripture are the Spirit
of God and the Word said to be uncreated or created?’ And
if he tells you that they are created, say to him: ‘And who
created the Spirit and the Word of God?’ And if, compelled
by surprise, he tells you that God created them, say to him:
‘Here, if I had said this to you, you would have told me that
You have concealed your testimony and from now on you will
not be credible no matter what you say. However, I will ask
you also this, ‘Before God created the Word and the Spirit
did he have neither Spirit nor Word?’ And he will flee from
you not having anything to answer. For these are heretics,
according to the Saracenes and utterly despised and rejected;
and if you want to report him to the other Saracenes he will
be very much afraid of you” (Sahas 149, 151).
John cannot recognize the possibility of another philosophical
system operating outside of his own Christian-Aristotelian
schema. For the 8th century monk, as well as for his ideological
successors, Islam would remain a bastard hybrid of Judaism
and various Christian heresies and not a world view in its
own right. Its theological and philosophical differences with
Christianity were measured not by the degree of its own value
but by how far it diverged frm the Christian norm. The emergence
of Islam as a military force in the seventh century Near-East
was interpreted by Christianity as a chastisement for their
own behavior. Islam was thus reduced to one of God's many
blind agents of history. The growth and expansion of Islam
(the only major religion to appear after the advent of Christianity)
was conjectured a sign of its demonic origins. The forces
of the Anti-Christ were seen rallying against Christianity
in the dar al-Islam, the Muslim world. The theological paradigms
which permitted the various attempts of the Crusaders to reclaim
the Near-East for Christianity (and conquer it for the West)
thus relegated the opposing world view of Islam not merely
to the status of enemy and rival, but the necessary ‘other’
of history. This model could only exist if Islam were to be
incorporated into Christianity's world view, placed in a corner
of the religion's larger vision of the cosmos, as a ‘Christian
Islam.’ TBJ
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kaegi, W. E. Initial Byzantine Reactions to the Arab
Conquest. Church History 38: 139-141.
Tolan, John-Victor. Medieval Christian Perceptions of
Islam. New York and London: Garland Publishing Company,
1996.
Chase, Frederic H. Saint John of Damascus Writings.
New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc. 1958.
