2016/08/04 by Christian C. Sahner · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Historical and Linguistic Studies #Archaeology and Historical Studies #Islamic Studies and History #Islamization #Armenian #Georgian #Christianity #Arabic #Middle East #History #Islam #Zoroastrianism #Teleology #Ancient history #Greeks #Philosophy #Archaeology #Epistemology #Linguistics
paper · doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.136.2.265
openalex publication_date 2016/08/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

 
 
 This article explores Muslim conversion to Christianity using a body of hagio-graphical sources in Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Greek, and Latin. Through these lives of Christian martyrs, the article seeks to understand why Muslims undertook the surprising journey from “mosque to church” in the early centuries after the conquests. Many studies of Islamization are teleological, aiming to explain the large-scale conversion of the Middle East by the end of the Crusades. In contrast, this article aims to show why Islamization—especially in the Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid periods—could be highly contingent, even fragile, at a time when Muslims formed a numerical minority in many regions under their control.