Thomas A. Carlson is Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern History at Oklahoma State University. His research explores the religious, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of medieval society from Cairo to Samarqand to Constantinople, as well as the multifaceted and contingent process of Islamization. His articles have appeared in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, and elsewhere.

• Introduction; 1. Coming into focus: the world of fifteenth-century Iraq and al-Jazīra; 2. Muslim lords and their Christian flocks; 3. Living with suspicious neighbors in a violent world; 4. Interlude: concepts of communities; 5. Bridges and barriers of doctrine; 6. Practical theology in a dangerous time; 7. Rituals: the texture of belonging; 8. Desperate measures: the changing ecclesiastical hierarchy; 9. The power of the past: communal history for present needs; Conclusion; Appendix A. Glossary; Appendix B. Lists of rulers and patriarchs; Appendix C. The patriarchal succession of the Church of the East; Appendix D. Dating the ritual for reception of heretics.

'This book is a masterpiece and a model. It is a masterpiece of discovery. Through meticulous use of seldom-considered texts in every language of the region, it brings alive a long-neglected section of the population of Iraq in the late middle ages - the Christians: the structure of their churches; their relations with their Muslim neighbors and rulers; their quite distinctive sense of religious community. The book is a model for future work. It offers a way to do justice to the unsuspected diversity of the Middle East. All too often presented to us as a monolithic, Islamic region, the creativity of medieval Iraq and elsewhere arises, in fact, from the continued juxtaposition of new and ancient faiths in what had remained, since ancient times, an ever-fertile and variegated 'cradle of civilization'.' Peter Brown, Professor Emeritus of History at Princeton University, New Jersey