Chapter Four: Islam Meets Eastern
Christianity
This chapter draws from well-established events and the time lines of the
region widely available in many books. The striking
quote on Syrian antipathy to
the West is from Arthur Vööbus’s article “The Monophysite Church in Syria and
Mesopotamia,”
Church History 42, no. 1 (March 1973): 17–26. See also analysis
by Andrew James in the discussion section
of the Wikipedia article on
Monophytism.
The quote on the siege of Damascus is from the work of Ahmad Ibn Yahya
Al-Balazuri, a ninth-century classical Arab historian.
The quotes from Ira Lapidus on Muslim conquests are from his
History of
Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 41–43, 53.
Merlin Swartz’s assertion on Jewish attitudes in the Byzantine Empire is
drawn from his article “The Position of Jews in Arab
Lands Following the Rise
of Islam,”
The Muslim World 60, no. 1 (January 1970): 6–24.
Arnold J. Toynbee’s quote on the use of force in the propagation of Islam is
from his magisterial
Study of History (abridgement of vols. I–VI), D. C.
Somervell, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 488.
Richard Bulliet discusses this process of conversion to Islam in
Conversion
to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1979).
