Download PDF | (Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture) Bradley Bowman - Christian Monastic Life in Early Islam-Edinburgh Univ Pr (2021).
257 Pages
Introduction
The title for the opening chapter of this book was inspired by a phrase within the Kitab al-ruhban (The Book of Monks), authored by the ninthcentury Muslim moralist Ibn Abi al-Dunya (d. 894 cE). Ibn Abi al-Dunya, a well-regarded scholar of early Islamic mysticism and an ascetic himself, here provides considerable insight into Muslim views of Christian monasticism by detailing encounters between Muslim ascetics, or zuhhdd, and their monastic counterparts. The text itself is essentially a collection of edifying sayings, short stories, and dialogues that demonstrate monastic wisdom, ever situating a Muslim sage as the recipient of that knowledge. The particular passage, from which the first chapter owes its title, depicts a monk insisting to his novice that only in a withdrawal into nature, turning away from humanity, can the ascetic truly reach spiritual serenity. The sage admonishes:
Until the disciple of God seeks refuge in the bosoms of the mountains and the wombs of the wadis and caverns, taking shelter with the wild beasts, settling at their watering holes and eating from the gardens of trees in its shade, he will not see that a blessing, complete as this one, is laid before him.
hatta yawa murid allah ila aknaf al-jibal wa-butin al-awdiya w-l-ghiran yazallu ma‘a al-wahsh yaridu muwaridaha, ya’ kulu min ajinnat al-shajar fiazilliha, 14 yara ft dhalika anna al-ni‘ma atamma ‘ala ahadin minha ‘alayhi.! While being credited with well over a hundred treatises, primarily concerned with themes such as the virtue of humility, fasting, fear of the divine, and the admonition of the physical world, it is instructive that a religious scholar such as Ibn Abi al-Dunya would exhibit this degree of concern about a text emphasising the merits of Christian monastic devotion. We therefore see within the Kitab al-ruhban a model for a piety-driven existence that offers little in the way of discernible confessional barriers, rather suggesting a kind of nebulous religious context in which many groups could exchange concepts of righteousness and spirituality. The monks featured by Ibn Abi al-Dunya are not expressly characterised as ‘denominational’ Christians, meaning that there is no discussion of Christology or particular theological principles to be found throughout the entirety of the work. The Christian ascetics and hermits recounted in The Book of Monks simply offer advice on achieving a pious lifestyle, a regiment that like-minded Muslims could have perhaps most empathised with and embraced.
My research seeks to participate in this ongoing discussion of confessional fluidity, as well as overlapping religious contours, during the early centuries of Islam in the Near East. The investigation here is carried out with specific attention to Christian monastic life within a Muslim political milieu. Even following the turbulent transition from Byzantine hegemony to Islamic authority across the Levant in the middle of the seventh century, Christian monasteries of the region displayed continued vitality and sustainability for centuries under Islamic rule. While it has been widely acknowledged that Christian monasticism continued to flourish across Iraq, Syria-Palestine and North Africa well into the Islamic period, the question remains as to the precise nature of the relationship between monastic communities and Muslim society. These disparate populations appear to have not only established a relatively harmonious coexistence, but also facilitated a collective exchange of ideas, interests and concerns across would-be confessional divides. A considerable range of medieval texts from the Byzantine Greek, Syriac and Arabic traditions (including hagiographies, historical chronicles, geographical treatises and works of poetry) indeed demonstrate a palpable Muslim fascination with Christian asceticism and monasticism.
I would argue that this fascination with Christian monastic life was articulated through a fluid, piety-centred movement at the rise of Islam that did not rigidly distinguish between sectarian groups. Ultimately this would
suggest an overlapping of confessional affiliation within nascent Islam, reveal-ing a relatively amorphous religious context that closely reflected the flexible identifications within late antique Christianity. Such ambiguity would echo throughout the following centuries of the Islamic period, manifesting itself in Muslim appreciation, interest, and at times, participation in Christian monastic life. The overarching proposal of the research is thus less a matter of religious tolerance, than a suggestion for confessional synthesis between likeminded religious groups throughout the period. This potential ecumenism, as it is explored in the monograph, would have been based upon the sharing of core tenets concerning piety and righteous behaviour. Such fundamental attributes of the Christian eremitic existence, long associated with monasticism in the East, would have perhaps served as a mutually inclusive common ground for Muslim and Christian communities of the period.
The theoretical underpinning of this research was largely inspired by the work of Fred Donner and his proposal for a ‘Believers’ movement at the dawning of the Islamic period. As Donner has suggested most recently in Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam, the earliest expression of such a ‘Believers’ drive, which would eventually come to be known as Islam, would have potentially included both Jews and Christians. The absolute mandate for personal piety would have been a primary directive of the incipient community, a society which Donner has defined as ‘a separate group of righteous, God-fearing monotheists, separate in their strict observance of righteousness from those around them’, yet decidedly non-sectarian in nature.”
Utilising this basic premise, the research here attempts to refine the principle by addressing a particular group of Christians within this more complex, multi-confessional framework, that is, the monastic communities of the Near East. While Donner’s argument may well have applied across broader religious boundaries, it seems that the emphasis on piety might have had an even greater bearing on the possible spiritual kinship between Christian monks and their Muslim, and/or ‘Believer’, counterparts. Just as the monk had been understood as a standard of righteousness par excellence in the late antique Christian environment, so the image remained virtually unchanged into the Islamic period, an appreciation for the wisdom and piety of the monk being transferred into a new religious matrix. The captivation of such figures, carrying even more weight within a community characterised by its absolute fervour for righteousness, would have naturally extended to their houses of worship as well as dwelling places.
‘The ‘Believers’ proposition, it should also be noted, deals with a rather narrow window of ecumenism in a historical sense, exclusively relating to the origins period and early state formation within Islam. This confessional fluidity that characterised the intital impulse of the movement, according to Donner’s template, then subsided in the late seventh century under the caliph ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (r. 685-705). Under pressure to reassert Umayyad control and reaffirm their legitimacy in the wake of two devastating civil wars, the ruling elite began to lay the foundations of Islam as we recognise it today.* Ambitious projects such as the commissioning of the Dome of the Rock‘ and epigraphic changes in coinage’ were clearly implemented with a public religious ideology in mind, perhaps simultaneously signalling the official pronouncement of Islam as the basis of the state as well as creating a partition between, at least what might have been seen as, rival confessional groups.° By the time of the Second Fitna, we could include among these competing constituencies more than just Christian groups within Umayyad lands, but also “Alid or Shi‘i factions, as well as Kharijites — each of the latter groups laden with their own claims to authority. To these internal political struggles should be added a renewed hostility with Byzantium, under Justinian II (c. 692-3). All of these aforementioned trials, witnessed by the Marwanid regime, are reflected in the innovations carried out by “Abd al-Malik and undoubtedly shaped by the growing necessity to establish a distinct self-identity that could reinforce the dynasty on religious grounds.”
The crystallisation of an unambiguous confessional identity, as far as could be accomplished by ‘Abd al-Malik and his successors, however, speaks to a strictly institutional model. As Donner acknowledges, the programme of delineating religious boundaries would have been gradual outside of the administrative structure.’ A communal acceptance, or even recognition, of barriers like these would have necessarily taken decades or longer to mature on the local level. I would suggest that the continued Muslim fascination with Christian monastic life is a corollary to precisely such an ongoing process. Though measures adopted by the Islamic state may have indeed sought to demarcate confessional lines, the intimate collaboration between monastic communities and piety-minded Muslims remained strong for many years. Ibn Abi al-Dunya’s Kitab al-ruhban should be appreciated as a testament to a kind of ‘residual, ecumenical imdn’ that endured well beyond the seventh century.
This study intends to present a survey of Christian monastic life in the Near East, focusing on the early centuries of the Islamic era. This opening chapter frames the discussion to follow by acquainting readers with the scholarship concerning Christian communities, and more specifically monastic life, under Muslim rule in the early Islamic centuries. In introducing the methodology behind my research, I also draw on examinations into broader fields of Late Antiquity and early Islamic history relating to ‘identity’ or ‘self-identity’ of various religious groups. The recent discourse in scholarship to recognise over-lapping confessional boundaries and shifting religious identities, from the Christianisation process in North Africa and Egypt to the blending of Christian, Zoroastrian and Muslim communities in early Islamic Persia, is utilised to support my claims that monastic life may indeed serve as a window into Islamic theology and inter-confessional relations in the formative centuries.
On the practical level this will involve an elucidation of official Muslim administrative policy toward such institutions, including the parameters for taxation, maintenance, construction and security measures. The next two sections of this research attempt to draw parallels and distinctions to previous Byzantine attitudes toward monasteries in the Near East. The second chapter particularly directs attention to the condition of monastic communities in their late antique context through the early to middle seventh-century period of the Islamic conquests. The main idea here is to present a contrast between the fortunes of monastic communities on the eve of the conquest era and directly following the initial Muslim occupation of the region. The following chapter will concentrate on the legal and administrative strategies exhibited toward monasteries in the early caliphal and Umayyad periods. Given the variety of Christian confessional positions in the region at this time, falling under the broad rubric of Chalcedonian and Miaphysite communities, the necessary question arises concerning the extent of uniformity for Muslim policy over divergent Christian groups. In other words, one of the issues is concerned with whether or not the official position of the Muslim court was in any way different with respect to the dogmatic principles of a specific confessional community.
In connection to this line of inquiry it has been suggested that the Chalcedonian Christians of the region, who maintained a theological allegiance to the church in Byzantium, were more burdened by the transition to Muslim authority than were their Miaphysite neighbours.'° Does this however imply a deliberate policy toward this community or was it merely the result of an increasingly difficult means of communication and support across imperial borders? In addition, to be taken into consideration is the discrepancy between official policies of the state regarding non-Muslim communities and the practical administrative procedures carried out on the local level toward such confessional groups, which appears to have had some measure of variation depending on location and time."
As will be demonstrated in the third chapter, the variations mentioned above included, at times, rather oppressive measures against monasteries — though even in these instances, the oppression appears to be principally economic in nature. The information for this section primarily comes from Christian ecclesiastical sources, which would have of course been invested in documenting the hardships of local institutions. Even in such events, however, the overall picture that emerges indicates a considerable leniency and respect in dealing with monasteries. As stated by Alphonse Mingana with respect to issues of religious tolerance under the early caliphates:
The need has always been felt for an authoritative statement throwing light on the relations between official Islam and official Christianity at the time when Islam had power of life and death over millions of Christian subjects. Individual Christians may have suffered persecution at the hands of individual Muslims; isolated cases of Christian communities suffering hardships through the fanaticism of a provincial governor, or jurist, or the hallucinations of a half-demented sheikh or mullah are also recorded in history ... but such incidents, however numerous, are to be considered infractions of the law, and the men who brought them about were breakers of the law ... however imperfect official Islam may have been in some social aspects, statutory intolerance was not among its defects.’
While Mingana’s statement could be said to apply quite generally to the treatment of non-Muslim populations under the early caliphates, the epi-
sodic persecution of monasteries was indeed largely subject to the wills of particularly harsh local officials, rather than any institutionalised policies for monastic governance. Indeed, it would appear that the fate of monastic communities was intimately bound to the stability of the Muslim state, in terms of security and protective measures granted from time to time by the central administration.
Chapter 4 examines the diverse nature of Muslim interest in Christian monasteries during the medieval Islamic period. According to a variety of contemporary accounts, Muslim visitation to monasteries often involved wine consumption and licentious behaviour on the part of the elites. While not dismissing this possibility, this research suggests that there was often a greater religious dimension to Muslim fascination with monastic sites. Sacred shrines throughout the late antique Levant had, after all, been held in esteem for their hospitality and miraculous powers long before the arrival of Islam. This examination contends that Muslim interest in such Christian shrines and monasteries represents a dynamic, flexible confessional environment at the dawning of Islam. The pious spirit of pilgrimage and zéydra/visitation was simply transferred into a new religious context, one that was defined by its fluid character and amorphous sectarian lines. It was this form of popular Muslim fascination which prompted the composition of numerous texts dealing with monks and their monasteries in the Islamic period. While much of this Muslim literary corpus on monasteries is no longer extant, it is in itself instructive that this type of writing constituted such a presence in the literature of that time. The tenth-century compendium of Ibn al-Nadim, the Fihrist, for example, lists five books by Muslim authors dedicated to Christian monasteries — although these works unfortunately do not survive intact.'°
Some of the most important remaining material on monasteries is found in the Kitab al-diyarat (Book of Monasteries) of al-Shabushti (d. 1008), which has preserved earlier accounts relating, in part, to Muslim-Christian interaction at monasteries.'* In addition to this, there are numerous references to monasteries in other forms of prose literature, historical narratives and geographical works in the Islamic tradition. All of this clearly suggests a certain interest in monastic communities; the particular implications and interpretations of such an interest will form the basis of the fourth and fifth sections of the research.
Certain examples of these later texts from the Islamic literary tradition generally propose that attraction and visitation to monasteries corresponded to Muslim participation in illicit activities, such as the consumption of wine and fornication. Some of this material devoted to monastery excursions has been categorised as a sub-genre of ‘Abbasid wine poetry/khamriyya.”° While Christian monasteries were indeed recognised for their vineyards and production of wine in the Levant of Late Antiquity,'® there could perhaps have been an additional, more spiritual purpose for Muslim visitation to such environs and interest in monasticism. Inasmuch as Christian monasteries were known for their storehouses of wine, they were also repositories of learning, often containing libraries of ecclesiastical texts and theological scholarship.” The intellectual activity of monks throughout this period has been widely recognised, in terms of the preservation of classical works, the copying of manuscripts, and compositions of historical and hagiographical material."
It seems that a curiosity in such matters, as well as an increasing interest in ascetic practices and liturgical celebrations, would have likewise served as a factor in the allure of monasticism on behalf of the popular culture in the early Islamic period. There are, after all, various accounts in the aforementioned literature that depict Muslims in attendance for Christian ceremonies at monasteries and churches, albeit the explanations for such outings are generally not overtly justified in religious terms.'? Even the deeply religious ‘Umar ibn “Abd al-Aziz (r. 717-20), typically considered the most pious of the Umayyad caliphs, is said not only to have led Muslim prayers in a Christian church,” but visited and was buried at Dayr Sim‘an (Monastery of St Simeon) in northern Syria.*? Accounts like this seem to suggest that there was more going on at the monasteries than just revelry and merrymaking. In reality it would appear that visitation and pilgrimage to Christian shrines, undertaken by the Muslim devout throughout the Middle Ages, possessed a decidedly greater pietistic dimension. In an article concerning medieval Arabic literature relating to monasteries, Gérard Troupeau arrived at a similar
conclusion, stating:
A lire les ouvrages relatifs aux couvents, on a l’impression que ceux-ci étaient surtout fréquentés par des oisifs, des buveurs et des débauchés qui
appartenaient aux classes les plus hautes et les plus riches de la société: califes, grands personnages de la cour, hauts fonctionnaires de empire, accompagnés de leurs commensaux, de leurs poétes, de leurs musiciens et de leurs chanteuses. En fait, ce n’est pas tout a fait exact, et il semble bien que la clientéle musulmane des couvents chrétiens comprenaient des gens de tous les milieux, et méme des milieux simples, qui s’y rendaient en toute honnéteté . .. A mon avis, ces raisons sont de deux sortes: des raisons
profanes et des raisons religieuses.”
While previous sections of this book have been devoted to demonstrating the flexible parameters for monastic existence as well as substantiating an elevated religious and social prominence for monastic communities throughout the early Islamic period, the question remains, however, as to precisely why these institutions and their guardians would have been accorded such a privileged position within Islam during its formative era. In other words, what was the origin of this reverence for Christian ascetic communities that appears to have been transferred into a Muslim context? In turn, what can this tell us about the nature of Islam and confessional distinctions in the early period? In an attempt to answer such a query, the final chapter of this book will posit that the ultimate source of early Muslim interest in monasteries is articulated through an inclusive, piety-centred religious orientation that extends from the late antique period.
This project overall involves a critical examination of primary texts, spanning a variety of genres, confessional backgrounds and linguistic compositions — utilising Greek, Arabic and Syriac sources from the late antique and early medieval periods. From the Christian tradition there exists a substantial corpus of historical chronicles, statutes for monastic life, zypica documents (foundational charters for monasteries), ecclesiastical literature, theological treatises and hagiographical material which provide valuable information concerning the state of Christian communities in the Near East. In addition to the classical histories, local chronicles and futah literature within the Muslim historiographical tradition, which provide some details on Christians during the conquest and consolidation of Muslim rule, other materials which specifically relate to inter-confessional relations with Christians, legislation on non-Muslim populations, the depiction of monasticism and/or asceticism
in Islam, geographical works containing information on monasteries, and specific elements within the adab genre of Arabic literature will be addressed in this analysis.”
Admittedly, the intrinsic shortcoming in such an endeavour is the relative paucity of documentary historiographical evidence, of an exclusively archival nature from the Muslim side,™ regarding inter-confessional relations from the earliest period of Islam. Insofar as this reflects well-known issues from within the Islamic tradition itself, it should be conceded that many of the classical Arabic texts examined here are not contemporary with the events they describe. In many cases they are, in fact, several centuries removed from the foundational era of Islam. The question as to the historical validity of such source material lingers,” particularly regarding the potentially anachronistic tendencies that may or may not suggest concerns of later times.*° Despite the debate over the merits and accuracy of the Islamic historiographical traditions, it seems prudent to attempt to glean from them what one can, especially as they relate to inter-confessional contacts in the early period. However, even then, the relations between religious groups are not generally of primary concern to classical Muslim authors. This is precisely where evidence from the Christian tradition must be employed, where possible, to provide a fuller depiction of social, political and religious interactions between communities.” Important information can likewise be gathered from the considerable corpus of late antique and early Islamic papyri, the vast majority of which was produced in Egypt. While the papyri records are often concerned with fiscal receipts, land leases and the like, these kinds of documents do serve as supplements to a much wider social history that includes confessional relations.”®
A considerable body of modern research has been dedicated to the study of Christian communities under Muslim authority during the early Islamic period. Strictly speaking, however, the particular status of monasticism and monasteries within this context has received only limited attention. This study will therefore necessarily require a synthesis of information contained within a broad scope of disparate materials, in an attempt to present a historical reconstruction of monastic communities for the transitional period in question. The range of such materials that are pertinent to this research can be categorised into the following broad genres of study: social and ecclesiastical/
sectarian histories and studies of dhimmi populations,” theological and doctrinal aspects of Christian life under Muslim rule,*® Christian ascetic and
monastic practices,°!
studies on the Islamic conquest period and the final stages of Byzantine rule in the Levant,** Byzantine policies and Muslim legislation on monasteries,*’ and archaeological research relating to monastic complexes and churches from this period.
In terms of studies that have focused the discussion on Christian monks and/or monasteries within an Islamic historical context, of which there are relatively few, the first that should be mentioned here is the article by Troupeau, entitled “Les Couvents Chrétiens dans la Littérature Arabe’.» Troupeau, primarily using the Kitab al-diydrat of al-Shabushti as a guide, presents a concise evaluation of the relationship between the Muslim populace and monasteries in the early Islamic period. The term ‘populace’, in terms of the examples from al-Shabushti, incorporates characters across wide social strata, including caliphs, court officials, imperial functionaries, poets, musicians and singers. Throughout this process he cites numerous accounts within Kitab al-diydrat of Muslim visitation to monasteries, to which he suggests a few sociological conclusions for such ventures.
The first is that the monasteries of the Near East would have served as perfect locales for relaxation, away from the hustle and bustle of the towns and cities.*° To this point, al-Shabushti typically begins his chapters on monasteries with descriptions of the topographical beauty of the gardens, vineyards and orchards, and serene atmosphere of monasteries. The second reason, according to Troupeau, is for the purposes of intoxication, which is forbidden in Islam, for which monasteries were also the ideal places, generally secluded and quite apart from the more austere elements within the Muslim community.” The final explanation relates to the hospitality of monastic institutions, in which even Muslim travellers could expect accommodation.*® This description of the monastery-hostel is perhaps also plausible, in that providing a secure and comfortable environment for way-side pilgrims and travellers appears to be a typical characteristic of monastic custom.®” Muslims often journeyed to monasteries, Troupeau further explains, specifically to take part in Christian feasts and celebrations. This was not only due to the paucity of such holy days in the Islamic calendar, but also with respect to the richness of liturgical services in that domain.”
A second article which should be taken into account is ‘Monasteries Through Muslim Eyes: The Diyarat Books’,*! by Hilary Kilpatrick. This work, which uses Troupeau’s article as its point of departure, is primarily interested in the depiction of monasteries as a literary motif in classical Arabic wine-poetry. The main sources for such an examination are, again, the Kitab al-diyarat as well as the Kitab al-aghani (Book of Songs) of al-Isfahani (d. 972). Aside from the recounting of various other examples of Muslims attending monasteries and involvement in Christian ceremonies, Kilpatrick does not seem to be interested in the possible religious implications of such activities. Interestingly, her argument against Troupeau’s theory for legitimate Muslim interest in monastic rituals on an inter-confessional level is based on the suggestion that many of the Muslims who were allegedly taking part in Christian traditions, were indeed likely to have been descended from Christian families. She dismisses this as a mere illustration of popular forms of religion, actually remnants of previous religious affiliation, and is for her thus a ‘moot point’.” This, however, is precisely the interest of the research here in attempting to determine the relationship between these complex and fluid systems of confessional identities.
A third sample of scholarship on this subject is found in ‘Monks, Monasteries and Early Islam’,*? by Elizabeth and Garth Fowden. This article is essentially a survey tracing the importance of monasticism in the Near East from the eve of Islam into the Umayyad period. The main point of the article is that Christian monasticism continued to flourish within an Islamic political milieu, essentially due to the nature of reverence accorded to such ascetics and holy men in the historical context of Late Antiquity. While certain episodic disturbances to monasteries did occur in this period, examples being occasional looting and pillaging of a site, the article maintains that there is even archaeological evidence for restoration and establishments of new monasteries under Muslim rule.“ The complicated interpretation of monasticism on the part of Muslim theologians is also addressed, often involving conflicting images of the monk in /adith literature, ranging from appreciation of ascetic values exhibited by monks to strict condemnation of their celibacy. This article likewise provides several examples of Muslim visitation to monasteries, although interestingly enough, al-Shabushti is not mentioned as a source. With these topics having been explored, the general solution to the
relationship between monasteries and the Muslim community, as this article suggests, rests in the authority of the exemplars of piety and their reputation being transmitted from the late antique period into a Muslim context.
Related pieces of contemporary scholarship have focused more on the interpretation of monasticism within the Qur'an itself. Works by Jane McAuliffe, Daniel J. Sahas,* Louis Massignon*” and Edmund Beck** represent the most relevant of these studies. Though these examinations form different conclusions as to the image of the monk in Muslim scripture and exegesis,” they all focus the discussion on the pietistic inclination of Near Eastern monastic communities and its possible effects on the development of early Islamic religious practices.
The 2009 book entitled Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam* by Thomas Sizgorich also addresses the theme of monasticism and its interpretations in the early Islamic period, albeit from a very different perspective than the aforementioned studies. His thesis relates to Christian monks as figures of warrior-ascetics in the late antique period: on the fringes of society waging not only a spiritual battle against the forces of evil, but also at times an armed struggle against politicoreligious opponents. This transmission of the holy warrior ideal and models of militant piety, according to Sizgorich, appear in the evolution of jihdd as a tenet of Islam and a subdivision of the practice of zwhd, Muslim asceticism.*! While the argument has merit, particularly as it relates to a slightly later period in Islamic history,” it is a decidedly separate approach from the one here. The concern of this research will focus more on aspects of an inward struggle for personal righteousness — a spiritual striving, or jihdd,*’ toward a piety-centred existence. This type of struggle, rather than one predicated on militancy, appears to have been where the example of Christian monks would have exerted the most influence in the formative period of Islam. As further examples will contend, Muslim interest in monasteries was intimately connected to a reverence for the righteous monastic lifestyle. It is in this pietistic sense that the tenth-century religious scholar al-Malati makes an appraisement of monks as ‘believers who have made a fervent effort to practice their religion’ (al-mujtahidin fi dinihim).™
‘The plan of analysis here will attempt to construct a framework for the relationship between Christian monasteries and Muslim authority/popular
interest. While the initial sections of the material will involve practical administrative measures for the governance of monastic communities, the latter portions will attempt to provide interpretations for Muslim interest in monasteries on a more popular and possibly religious level — invoking questions with regard to the degree of rigidity for confessional distinctions in the early Islamic period. At this point, it appears plausible that there is more to this relationship than monasteries merely serving as hostelries and wayside hawanit (taverns) for amusement-seeking Muslims.
In closing, it is perhaps fitting to refer to a similar reasoning by Jane McAuliffe, who has offered a familiar plan for the lingering, developmental process of self-definition in the early Islamic period on the basis of textual
criticism of the Qur’an and tafsir, stating:
From its inception Islam has lived with other religions. Its emergent selfdefinition evolved through a process of differentiation from other contemporary belief systems. As textual attestation to this process, Islam’s foundational Scripture offers abundant evidence of varied interreligious concerns and connections. For example, a primary theological assessment created the fundamental categorization of believer/unbeliever, while further particularization recognized such groupings as Christians, Jews, Majis, Sabi’ tin, idolators, and so on. Those generations of scholars who then explicated the Qur’an sought and stabilized the referents for these terms as they elaborated the theological judgments to which they found textual allusion. From this interplay of the Qur’an and its exegesis arose a fluctuating ethos of interreligious perspectives, prescriptions, and proscriptions.”°
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