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Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (BRIIFS)

In the twenty-first century, the Coptic Orthodox Church is reaping the benefits of an ongoing renewal process that commenced in the early decades of the twen-tieth. Drawing inspiration from its heritage, especially monasticism and mar-tyrdom, the Church has been able to revitalize its rich traditions by encouraging a strong Sunday School movement and reviving monastic practices. Due to the apparent inability of Egypt’s political actors, most notably, the Wafa Party, to represent Coptic interests, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Patriarch Shenouda III, has used his position as head of the community to provide civil as well as spiritual leadership. This is no departure from tradition as the office of patriarch has long possessed a temporal dimension, especially under the Ottoman millet system. A rise in violence against Copts marred Church-state relations during the presidency of Anwar Sadat, but a new president, Hosni Mubarak, and a change in tactics by Patriarch Shenouda has led to renewed cooperation. The government has acknowledged the role of the patriarch as the representative of the Coptic community to the state. During the reign of the patriarch, the Church has experienced global expansion providing new opportunities and challenges. Through ministering to Coptic expatriates and evangelizing in new mission fields, the Coptic Orthodox Church has reclaimed its credentials as a universal Church, while retaining its Coptic identity through close connections with the desert tradition.‬

Christianity in Iran goes back to the Apostolic Age, when it was first established in Edessa and Adiabene. However, for doctrinal and ecclesiastical reasons, the Church in the East separated from the Antiochian Syrian Church and proclaimed itself the ‘Church of the East. Buttressed by their faith and zeal, these Christians were moved to evangelize in Central Asia and China, before and after the coming of Islam. Historic circumstances, especially the invasion of Timur Lenk and many bloody conflicts in later days, caused membership in this Church and its sister Churches to dwindle to small communities living in Urmia-Salmas and northern Iraq. In the seventeenth century, the Armenian Apostolic Church was founded in Iran when Shah Abbas permitted a community of deportees to settle in the country. Roman Catholic missions were established early in the seventeenth century and Protestant ones in the eighteenth. Today, there are Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches in Iran. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the war in Iraq has made the future of Christian communities precarious, but the Muslim majority can and must ameliorate the situation by granting these Christians all of the rights and privileges of citizenship. The future of Christianity in the Middle East is subject not only to external circumstances, but to internal ones as well. The ongoing Christian-Muslim dialogue, in which Iran is a strong participant, is a good omen that brings hope to the small Christian communities in the Islamic Republic of Iran. “But they were all amazed and marveled, saying, ‘Behold, are not all these that are speaking Galileans? And how have we heard each his own language in which he was born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and inhabitants of Mesopotamia…” Acts II:7-9.

Leaving aside a discussion of the making of the Syriac-speaking world that built upon the heritage of Arameans, Greeks, Nabateans and Jews. This article traces some major trajectories of the development of Syriac-speaking Churches from the early Byzantine period to the early eighteenth century. Highlighting aspects of their early literary history in Edessa and Nisibis, as well as connections to Mesopotamia, this article offers extended discussion of the impact of theological, particularly Christological, controversies on the emergence of divisions among Syriac-speaking Christians. It traces aspects of the Syriac Renaissance, the impact of the Mongol invasion and Syriac Christian missionary activities in Central and East Asia, and the further diversification of the body of Syriac-speaking Churches through the emergence of the Maronite Patriarchate. During the later centuries covered, Syriac-speaking Churches increasingly faced divisions and hardships. The regulations under which some of these Churches fell during the Ottoman Empire did not improve their lot. It would take until the latter part of the twentieth century before perspectives and new opportunities for a brighter future emerged at least for some of the members of Syriac-speaking Churches.‬

Throughout the early Islamic period, people from various Shurāt subgroups identified themselves in their poetry and to others as ‘the exchangers’ (al-shurāt), an appellation derived, along with related words, from Qur’an 2:207. The faces of different categories of exchangers-the ideal, the elegized, the summoned and the leader —depict various facets of the concept of exchange. The singular form, ‘exchanger’ (shārin), was claimed as an identity by people from across the spectrum of Shurāt groups, activist and quietist, from the earliest moments of the Shurāt experience until the late Umayyad period. Its basic meaning is two-fold: making a choice and taking decisive action. Whether activist or quietist, each person who called himself an exchanger (shārin) was distinguishing himself from the governing authority. It was his interpretation of exchange that determined how he expressed his opposition. The poems containing this term give us insight into the variety of meanings that exchange could signify. In addition to being used to define ideas about governing authority and leadership, it has often been associated with fighting the adversary in battle. The poems show that it can also mean to retreat, to be executed in captivity and even to admit defeat. The exchanger (shārin) is presented in the context of his life beyond the battlefield and beyond mere rhetoric. Thus, the poetry sheds valuable light on various social relations within Shurāt communities.

The Ibāḍī sect of Islam originated in Iraq during the first/seventh century, but missionaries soon travelled west to the Maghrib where many Berbers, who had already converted to Islam, became followers. The Ibāḍī missionary effort culminated with the establishment of an Ibāḍī Imamate by ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Rustam in about AH 160/AD 776. Many Berber tribes in North Africa became affiliated with this state while establishing good relations with the Aghlabids, who then ruled modern-day Tunisia and Tripolitania. When the Aghlabids launched their conquest of Sicily in 212/827, members of Ibāḍī Berber tribes were among the Muslim forces. With the establishment of Muslim rule on the island, Ibāḍī tribes from North Africa began to settle there. Arabic and Ibadi historical sources suggest that their communities in Sicily became part of the Ibāḍī trade network that flourished between sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean. The rise of Ibāḍī commercial interests on the island may have led Ibāḍīs there into conflict with the new Fāṭimid state that replaced Aghlabid rule. It seems possible that some of the struggles between the Muslims of Sicily and the Fāṭimid central government in Ifrīqiya were due to Fāṭimid attempts to control the Ibāḍī trade network and to undermine the economic power of the Ibāḍī tribes on the island, much as they had done in North Africa.

Ibāḍī Islam, practiced by the sultans who ruled Zanzibar from 1832-1964, is a moderate sect that emerged out of Khārijism. Like the Khārijīs, Ibāḍīs recognize as Muslims only those who belong to their own sect; unlike the Khārjīs, they do not support violence against non-members. Although they advocate ‘dissociation (barā’a) from non-Ibāḍīs, this is an attitude of withholding religious ‘friendship’ (walāya) and not one of hostility. Ibāḍism emerged during the heated political disputes of early Islam and was nurtured in the relative isolation of Oman’s mountainous interior and of remote areas of North Africa. The sultans of Zanzibar ruled over a highly diverse population, mainly Sunnī Muslims. Bū Sa’īdī rulers sponsored the development of Zanzibar as a centre of Islamic scholarship for both Ibāḍīs and Sunnīs. In practice, Ibāḍī-Sunnī relations were very friendly and Sunnī scholars were among the sultans’ closest confidants. During the reign of Sayyid Barghash (1870-88), some conversions of Ibāḍīs to Sunnī Islam provoked a severe reaction from the monarch; Ibāḍī scholars of the time also felt threatened by the attraction of Sunnī Islam. Nonetheless, Ibāḍī and Sunnī scholars had cordial and collegiate relations and crossed sectarian lines for the purposes of study and adjudication.

The historiography of Salafī reform in the Arab world has confined this movement within Sunnī circles and completely overlooked the role of Ibāḍī Salafism. Like their Sunnī counterparts, Ibāḍī reformers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries called for a return to the era of the salaf in order to reform religious practices and renew Islamic thought. More interestingly, Salafism paved the way for a reconciliatory position between Sunnīs and Ibāḍīs for the sake of Muslim unity. This paper sheds light on Ibāḍī Salafism and highlights aspects of this Ibāḍī -Sunnī rapprochement. It analyzes the writings of two modern Ibāḍī reformers, Qāsim al-Shammākhī and Ibrāhīm Aṭfiyyash. While both supported Sunnī reformers, each did so in a different way. Al-Shammākhī defended the Sunnī Salafī argument to abolish the madhāhib (schools of jurisprudence) and open the gates of ijtihād. This, he believed, would allow both sects to find a meeting point in the pre-madhāhib era and would reveal the truth of Ibāḍīsm to Sunnīs. Aṭfiyyash’s approach was to deny any relationship between Ibāḍīsm and Khārijism. He wanted to present Ibāḍīs as adherents to the ideals of the salaf rather than those of a splinter group. Their different approaches reflect increasing flexibility in Salafī Ibāḍīsm after World War I. In all cases, Sunnī Salafī reform appealed to Ibāḍīs and provided reformers from both sects with the opportunity to create an ideological and political alliance.‬

This paper discusses the role of Khārijī thought in modern Arab intellectual history and attempts to answer the question: What prompted Arab scholars to suddenly become interested in the Khārijīs? After a brief introduction, the paper begins by looking at the modern reinterpretation of Khārijī history in Ibāḍī scholarship and notes that modern Ibāḍī scholars seem convinced that a favourable image of the Khārijīs will help to reconcile Ibāḍism with Sunnism. The second part of the paper argues that modern Arab scholars, who have unearthed and analyzed the vast corpus of Khārijī poetry, have used the poetry as a rhetorical vehicle to rehabilitate the image of Khārijīs in the turath and to narrow the religio-political gap between Khārijīs and Sunnīs. The paper’s third part contends that ideologically-oriented Arab scholars have reinterpreted and, most importantly, made use of Khārijī history and thought in order to promote modern (Western) ideologies and beliefs long shunned in the Arab/Islamic world. In all cases, one may argue that the rise of modern Islamic fundamentalism and its portrayal as neo- Khārijīsm by some has led Arab scholars to reconsider the role and image of the historical Khārijīs. Although only a handful of modern Arab scholars have discussed and analyzed Khārijī poetry, they have produced an important and essential genre of literature on the history and beliefs of the Khārijīs. This study is significant because it unravels a body of literature that is still little known in the West.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is analyzed With three interrelated goals: first, to improve understanding of the reasons for failed conflict resolution in the Middle East by contrasting it With successful peacemaking in South Africa; second, to critically probe analogies between the two disparate situations and scrutinize whether the frequently used apartheid label fits Israeli policies; third, to draw specific lessons from the South African experience for alternatives in the Middle East. Analogies With the South African case are increasingly applied to Israel/Palestine for two different purposes: to showcase South Africa as an inspiring model for a negotiated settlement and to label Israel a ‘colonial settler State’ that should be confronted With strategies similar to those applied against the apartheid regime (sanctions, boycott). Both assumptions are problematic because of the different historical and socio-political contexts. Peacemaking resulted in an inclusive democracy in South Africa, while territorial separation in two states is widely hailed as the solution in Israel/Palestine, Ihe death of Arafat and the realignments in Palestinian politics are not changing the basic structural interests and power relations in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

This paper takes as its starting point the identification of the element of risk as a structural condition of advanced industrialization. The concern here is less with the ‘systematically produced hazards’ of ‘risk society’ (those matters which are, at least to some degree, open to political, scientific and ethical deliberation), than with something more fundamental–what is termed the complex interaction of human and natural systems. The argument is that the human condition-and, by extension, the range of possible social futures- is coming to be conditioned by global dynamics that fall outside of the calculation of risk and, indeed, sometimes outside of timely human comprehension. Even as the range and power of actors with global reach or potential impact has increased, there has also been a proliferation of new centres of power, competence, authority and allegiance, reflected in the burgeoning literature on global governance. Whether the new modes of regulation and control suggested in much of the global governance literature are likely to be equal to the task of sustaining the globalized and globalizing world we have made for ourselves comprises the second half of the paper.‬