A sourcebook of major Arabic Christian theologians and texts from the 9th-11th centuries. Christian authors who spoke and wrote Arabic had no choice but to engage with Islam and the complex realities of life—initially as a majority, later as a minority—under Muslim rule. They had to express their theology in new ways, polemicize against the claims of a new religion, as well as defend their doctrines against Islam’s challenges.
The first ever critical edition and complete translation of the Syriac Life of Saint Simeon of the Olives, who was an abbot of Qartmin Monastery in Tur Abdin and a bishop of the city of Harran in the late seventh and early eighth century AD.
A translator of Aristotle and friend of Jacob of Edessa and Athanasios of Balad, George, Bishop of the Arab Tribes (d. AD 724) was an important figure in the history of the life and thought of the Syrian Orthodox Church. This article offers a study of the first three of George’s eleven extant letters and relates them to the larger Christian and Islamic context of his day. It will be of interest to students of Greek patristics, Syriac Christianity, and early Islamic history.