The Making of the Medieval Middle East - by Jack Tannous (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A bold new religious history of the late antique and medieval Middle East that places ordinary Christians at the center of the story

In the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle East fractured irreparably into competing churches and Arabs conquered the region, setting in motion a process that would lead to its eventual conversion to Islam. Jack Tannous argues that key to understanding these dramatic religious transformations are ordinary religious believers, often called "the simple" in late antique and medieval sources. Largely agrarian and illiterate, these Christians outnumbered Muslims well into the era of the Crusades, and yet they have typically been invisible in our understanding of the Middle East's history.

What did it mean for Christian communities to break apart over theological disagreements that most people could not understand? How does our view of the rise of Islam change if we take seriously the fact that Muslims remained a demographic minority for much of the Middle Ages? In addressing these and other questions, Tannous provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the religious history of the medieval Middle East.

This provocative book draws on a wealth of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources to recast these conquered lands as largely Christian ones whose growing Muslim populations are properly understood as converting away from and in competition with the non-Muslim communities around them.

Review Quotes

"A tour de force."---Ramez Mikhail, Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies

"A remarkable achievement that energetically articulates a little-studied research field: the fate of the Christian population in the era of Muslim conquests and the beginning of the formation of Muslim civilization in the Middle East."---Rustam M. Shukurov, Journal of Church and State

"An ingenious study of the history of the late Roman and early medieval Middle East."---Valentina A. Grasso, Journal of the American Oriental Society

"Honorable Mention for the Albert Hourani Book Award, Middle East Studies Association"

"Its greatest contribution is that it opens up many new lines of research."---R. Stephen Humphreys, Journal of Medieval Worlds

"This is a book that will sit on the desks of social historians of the eastern Mediterranean for the foreseeable future. . . . [Tannous] excels in persuasive rhetoric and transmits his enthusiasm in a very compelling manner. . . . Ultimately his message is incontrovertible."---Arietta Papaconstantinou, Bustan: The Middle East Book Review

"This is a large, wide-ranging and important book. . . . The Making of the Medieval Middle East is, in sum, an impressive tome that will undoubtedly help us to rethink how this region became Muslim and make us reconsider the many blind spots and assumptions our traditional paradigms have included."---Aaron W. Hughes, Reading Religion

"This is an excellent book that undergraduates, graduate students and established scholars could all engage with at different levels, and all read with great profit."---Philip Wood, Medieval Encounters

"Winner of the James Henry Breasted Prize, American Historical Association"

About the Author

Jack Tannous is assistant professor of history at Princeton University.