A Heaven of Wine: Muslim-Christian Encounters at Monasteries in the Early Islamic Middle EastSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/YYB7XMDT/tei
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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.ElizabethCampbellA Heaven of Wine: Muslim-Christian Encounters at Monasteries in the Early Islamic Middle Easthttp://syriaca.org/cbss/YYB7XMDThttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/YYB7XMDThttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/YYB7XMDT2009This dissertation reconsiders the
transition from Christianity to Islam in the Middle East during the
half-millenium following the Muslim conquest by investigating the development of
Islam in dialogue with Christianity. Monasteries provide an angle for
understanding the vital role of Christians, both real and imagined, in the
evolution of Muslim identity and the formation of Islamic culture and society.
Texts about monasteries participated in a larger Muslim discourse that defined
the relationship between Christianity and Islam, the legacy of Christianity in
the Muslim community, and Islam itself. They exhibit the process by which
Muslims absorbed Christian social and religious spaces and interpreted them in
their own tradition.
The works on monasteries of Shabushti (d. ca. 988),
Yaqut (d. 1228), and al-`Umari (d. 1349), as well as ascetic biographies,
chronicles, and popular romances, show monasteries to be the setting for a wide
range of Muslim-Christian interactions. Chapter one describes the Muslim
understanding of the physical monastery and its relation to the landscape of the
early Islamic Middle East. Chapters two and three examine the Muslim literary
tradition about monasteries. In ascetic biographies, the story of the visit to
the monastery allowed authors to explore the relation between Muslim and
Christian asceticism, either acknowledging shared practices or describing
competition between Islam and Christianity. The most prevalent literary trope
portrayed monasteries as places to indulge in wine, music, and flirtation. The
stories secularized the monastery, turning the sacred Christian space into a
place of leisure and indulgence for Muslims. Chapters four and five examine the
historical patterns that shaped these texts, the social interaction and cultural
dialogue that occurred at monasteries. The stories, although conforming to
literary tropes and exaggerated to boast or condemn, originated in actual visits
to monasteries, which were the base for Umayyad court ritual, following the
practice of their Ghassanid Arab predecessors. Monasteries marked an established
network of privileged sites, the backdrop against which a distinctly Muslim
sacred topography developed. Finally, post-Crusader legends of Muslim-Christian
warfare show that monasteries remained potent symbols of the encounter between
Islam and Christianity, sites of both peaceful interaction and violent
confrontation.
Campbell, Elizabeth. “A Heaven of Wine: Muslim-Christian Encounters at Monasteries in the Early Islamic Middle East.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 2009.
Elizabeth Campbell, A Heaven of Wine: Muslim-Christian Encounters at Monasteries in the Early Islamic Middle East (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 2009).Muslim-Christian
relationsSyriac influence [Arabs]VII-XVIII CEX CEXIII CEXIV CEmonasteriesmonasticismwine