The crusades : Islamic perspectives /
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"This is not a chronological survey of the events of the period 1099 to 1291 and even beyond, for that has already been done several times. Instead, this is a general book intended to introduce some of the wider aspects of the history of the Crusades from the Muslim side. Accordingly, as a deliberate policy, an attempt is made here to view the phenomenon of the Crusades entirely through the prism of medieval Muslim sources. This naturally involves bias, but such a bias is salutary given the cumulative impact of centuries of Eurocentric scholarship in this field and it should help to create a more balanced picture of this fascinating and momentous period of Christian/Muslim confrontation and interaction." "The text is accompanied by well over 500 illustrations of medieval Islamic art which provide a visual reinforcement for this attempt to view the Crusades from 'the other side'."--Jacket.
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lvi, 648 pages, [16] pages of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 25 cm :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
0748606300
9780748606306
0748609059
9780748609055
Forced conversion in Christianity, Judaism and Islam : coercion and faith in premodern Iberia and beyond /
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Focusing on the Iberian Peninsula but examining related European and Mediterranean contexts as well, Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism and Islam traces how Christians, Jews, and Muslims grappled with the contradictory phenomenon of faith brought about by constraint and compulsion. Forced conversion brought into sharp relief the tensions among the accepted notion of faith as a voluntary act, the desire to maintain "pure" communities, and the universal truth claims of radical monotheism. Offering a comparative view of an important yet insufficiently studied phenomenon in the history of religions, this collection of essays explores the ways in which religion and violence reshaped these three religions and the ways we understand them today.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004416826
When Christians first met Muslims : a sourcebook of the earliest Syriac writings on Islam /
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"The first Christians to meet Muslims were not Latin-speaking Christians from the western Mediterranean or Greek-speaking Christians from Constantinople but rather Christians from northern Mesopotamia who spoke the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Living in what constitutes modern-day Iran, Iraq, Syria, and eastern Turkey, these Syriac Christians were under Muslim rule from the seventh century to the present, wrote the earliest and most extensive accounts of Islam, and described a complicated set of religious and cultural exchanges not reducible to the solely antagonistic. Through its critical introductions and new translations of this material, When Christians First Met Muslims allows scholars, students, and the general public to explore the earliest interactions of what eventually became the world's two largest religions" -- Provided by publisher.
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xix, 254 pages ; 22 cm. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9780520284944
0520284941