John Of Damascus And Islam

In John of Damascus and Islam, Schadler offers a reassessment of the Christian application of the term heresy to Islam, and the description of the new religion made by John of Damascus in the eighth century C.E.

Much of the world today is convulsed in an epic struggle between the Christian West and Islam. Scholars seeking to understand the issues look back in history to unearth the roots of this conflict. Of great value in this effort are the writings of an eyewitness, a devoted Christian who served as chief financial officer of the Umayyad Empire and wrote at the time Islam was developing. John of Damascus (675-750) authored two major works, the Heresy of the Ishmaelites and the Disputation between a Christian and a Saracen, to provide an apologetic response to Islam from a Christian perspective. His writings shed light on many questions that are pertinent today: When was the Qur'an actually written? What was the role of the powerful caliph Abd al-Malik in the making of Muhammad? How did the theological issues related to the deity of Christ and the Trinity develop in the early days of Islam? This book delves into the life of John and studies his apologetic writings in detail, utilizing the first English translation from the critical text. It seeks to address these questions thoughtfully, provide valuable insights from the past, and then equip today's church as it engages with Islam.

A study of the identity-formation process that the Christians of Syria-Palestine experienced during Umayyad Caliphate. It approaches this subject by using John of Damascus and his writings on Islam as a case-study. This provides an exhaustive study of the available historical data in order to stimulate some further thought on John of Damascus's theology and legacy from a contextual and intercultural methodology. Such an examination has not yet been pursued in the scholarship of Byzantine Christianity during that era. Proceeding from a centralizing 'context', the monograph revisits John of Damascus's legacy (and the Umayyad Christians' identity-formation of that era) from the perspective of his historical, Islamic-Arabic context, and not from any assumed, mita-narrative, common to contemporary pro-Byzantine theology scholars.

In AD 726, the Byzantine emperor ordered the destruction of all icons, or religious images, throughout the empire, and icons were subject to an imperial ban that was to last, with a brief remission, until AD 843. A defender of icons, St John of Damascus wrote three treatises against "those who attack the holy images." He differentiates between the veneration of icons, which is a matter of expressing honor, and idolatry, which is offering worship to something other than God.

This magnificent volume explores the epochal transformations and unexpected continuities in the Byzantine Empire from the 7th to the 9th century. At the beginning of the 7th century, the Empire's southern provinces, the vibrant, diverse areas of North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, were at the crossroads of exchanges reaching from Spain to China. These regions experienced historic upheavals when their Christian and Jewish communities encountered the emerging Islamic world, and by the 9th century, an unprecedented cross- fertilization of cultures had taken place. This extraordinary age is brought vividly to life in insightful contributions by leading international scholars, accompanied by sumptuous illustrations of the period's most notable arts and artifacts. Resplendent images of authority, religion, and trade—embodied in precious metals, brilliant textiles, fine ivories, elaborate mosaics, manuscripts, and icons, many of them never before published— highlight the dynamic dialogue between the rich array of Byzantine styles and the newly forming Islamic aesthetic. With its masterful exploration of two centuries that would shape the emerging medieval world, this illuminating publication provides a unique interpretation of a period that still resonates today.

John of Damascus, theologian of the eighth century Jerusalem Patriarchate, remains understudied as a mere compiler of tradition saying nothing of his own. This volume challenges this misconception arguing that John is an original and constructive theologian.