Interfaith Relations in the First Islamic Century
The old picture of a violent and sudden conquest of the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire by Muslim armies must be rethought, especially in light of the significant amount…
On the Qurʾanic Stories About Mary and Jesus
A comparison of stories found in Christian religious texts with similar stories found in the Qurʾan highlights the common heritage shared by Christianity and Islam. One of the many examples…
Arab Christian Culture in the Early Abbasid Period
An examination of the oldest surviving Arab Christian manuscripts makes it clear that, in the early Abbasid period, the inculturation of Christians into the world of Islam consisted of two…
Arab Christian Contributions to Muslim Historiography on Byzantium
This paper airs to define the role of Christian Arab historians in influencing the substance of the information found in Muslim texts on Byzantium. Various Muslim historians such as al-Masʿudi,…
Muslim-jewish Relations in Medieval Andalusia: Cultural Contacts and Their Ambiguities
From the tenth to the twelfth centuries, the Jews of Muslim Spain experienced a remarkable cultural renaissance. This flowering began under the patronage of Hasdai ibn Shaprut, a Jewish courtier…
On Muslim Curiosity and the Historiography of the Jews of Yemen
The first part of this article assesses modern scholarship on the history of the Jews of Yemen in light of Arabic sources written by Yemeni Muslim scholars. Since accounts of…
The Jewish Business Elite in Twentieth-century Egypt: Pillars of the National Economy or Compradors?
Many secular Egyptian intellectuals began to examine the modern history of the Jews of Egypt as an aspect of their opposition to the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Fearing that normalizing…