Christians in Middle Eastern History

John-Paul Ghobrial is Professor of Modern and Global History at the University of Oxford and the Lucas Fellow and Tutor in History at Balliol College. He was the Principal Investigator for two ERC-funded projects that explored religious identity in the Ottoman Empire: Stories of Survival: Recovering the Connected Histories of Eastern Christianity in the Early Modern World (2015-2020) and Moving Stories: Sectarianisms in the Global Middle East (2021-2026), both based at Oxford. Michael A. Reynolds is Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Co-Director of the Program in History and the Practice of Diplomacy at Princeton University. He is the author of Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1918 (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and a biography of Enver Pasha forthcoming with Princeton University Press. Christian C. Sahner is Associate Professor of Islamic History at the University of Oxford and Margoliouth Fellow in Arabic at New College. His books include Christian Martyrs under Islam (Princeton University Press, 2018) and The Definitive Zoroastrian Critique of Islam (Liverpool University Press, 2023). Jack Tannous is Associate Professor of History and Hellenic Studies at Princeton University. He is interested in the history of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic speaking Christians in the Middle East. He is the author of The Making of the Medieval Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2018).

• Preface1. Between Strangers and Friends: Studying the History of the Christian Communities of the Middle EastJack Tannous2. The Straight Paths of Christian Law: Reframing the Intellectual History of the Early CaliphateLev Weitz3. A Christian Magnate in Islamic History: Isḥāq ibn Nuṣayr al-ʿIbādī, Arabic Stylist and Patron of the Abbasid AgeLuke Yarbrough and Iyas Nasser4. The Queen of Akhlāṭ: Arab, Armenian, and Kurdish Coproduction of Stories about the Islamic ConquestsAlison Vacca5. Egyptian and Ethiopian Christians in Intersection: Monastic Multiculturalism and Migration, Discourses of Race, and the Problem of Premodern “Africa” and the “Middle East”Stephen J. Davis6. For Whom the Bell Tolls: Middle Eastern Christians and the So-Called “Counter Crusade” in Edessa, 1144 CEThomas A. Carlson7. Between Byzantium and the Mamluks: Orthodox Christians in Egypt and Syria during the 14th CenturyJohannes Pahlitzsch8. Why did the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople Behave Like a Muslim Noble? The İstanbul Rum Patriği as ÂyânTom Papademetriou9. Christian Mountains in the Ottoman EmpireMolly Greene10. New Literacy and Global Culture among the Christians of Syria (17th-18th Centuries)Bernard Heyberger11. Protestant Bibles, Middle Eastern Print Cultures, and the Making of World ChristianityHeather J. Sharkey

The many historical roles played by Middle Eastern Christians are significant in themselves, but they also illuminate key themes in the wider history of the region. This volume contains papers that focus sharply on both these aspects.