Interaction of Christianity and Islam Prior to the 20th Century

I would like to propose that the historical interaction between Christianity and Islam prior to the 20th century be given its own thread. There seems to be a lot of off topic posts and historical misinformation appearing in Jar's thread So let's look at why the Islamic world might be annoyed by the West?To start, lets at least get the chronology right:Roman history
476 Fall of Western Roman Empire
1453 Fall of Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire to Ottoman EmpireIslamic history
622 Hijra - Mohammed flees to Medina
632 Death of Mohammed, Islam mainly limited to Arabian penninsula
750 Islamic states range from Spain to Pakistan
1096 First Crusade, crusades last 250 years
1299-1923 Ottoman Empire, siege of Vienna 1529"The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an Empire" - Voltaire. There is no continuous historical relationship, meaning one did not come from the other, between the Roman and Holy Roman Empires.
800 Crowning of Charlemagne, basic start of Holy Roman Empire
1806 Holy Roman Empire dissolved (Napoleon's fault)Suggest we put it in coffee house and see what happens. History prior to 20th century only, current situation off-topic.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Great idea. I hope there will be lots of information about the earliest period, especially the period when Christianity was being spread by evangelism and took root in many areas of the Middle East, six centuries before Mohammed. The spread of Christianity was within the Roman Empire, but the Empire did not extend to the east of Palestine into Arabia proper. It included Syria and Asia Minor/Turkey/Anatolia.There was a large Syrian church. I know there was an Egyptian church but how large I don't know, and of course Paul had established churches all over Asia Minor. They are the seven churches of the early chapters of the Book of Revelation -- but the population of the time was Greek. Armenia was outside the Roman Empire to the east, it appears from the maps of the time, and yet it became completely Christian.So I'd like to know of the history of rebellion by Syria or Turkey or Egypt against either the earlier Greek occupation or the Roman Empire.

Been doing a little sporadic research since nobody else is coming up with anything.Found out there's a big flap over whether or not the Christians of the Middle East are Arab or of various other ethnicities. Not sure why this is such a big deal yet. They are all native to the region in any case and all trace their Christianization back either to the apostles or the second century at the latest, well before Constantine made the Empire Christian.Haven't yet found any political objections to the Greek or Roman empires at the time.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Haven't yet found any political objections to the Greek or Roman empires at the time.

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Throughout history there were plenty.Rigor mortis hadn't set in for Alexander before his generals divided up the spoils. One was Ptolemy who garnered Egypt, whose direct descendent was Cleopatra.As for the Romans, among the challenges was Vespasian, who along with Titus, supressed the Jewish revolt in 70ad and then marched on Rome to overthrow Vittelus. There was the transvestite emperor Elagabalus from Syria. Another was Zenobia who challenged the imperial goofball Gallienus who was finally conquered by Aurelian, who along with Claudius the Goth, took out the previous 18 claimants to the purple.What does this have to do with the relationship of Islam to Christianity?Thanks for replying but this is off-topic.

I meant uprisings by the conquered peoples, not from within the ranks of the conquerors. I know there were some, but the only ones noted much were the Jews and the Goths. It has to do with tracking a supposed historical excuse for revenge against the West by the Muslims, in the early Arab experience with the Greek empire (they were not subjugated by the Romans, even by Byzantium), as suggested by Modulous on the other thread. Edited by Faith, : typoEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

the gauls and the celts led at least one terrifying revolt. Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

While the history of the early church is an interesting topic itself, as a stand-alone topic its somewhat off the original intent of the history of the relationship of Christianity to Islam. Yes there was an Egyptian Coptic church in Egypt that predated Islam, there was the Ethiopian Church which is the oldest and was never conquered by Islam, the Armenians have a long history of Christianity because they were an allied kngdom to Rome and being in proximity heard the gospel as rapidly as Greece and Anatolia.Christiantiy spread through the Roman world like wildfire, and while sometimes tolerated and other times supressed, became the state religion of Rome due to Constantine (324 ad) and remained that way with the exception of the short rule of Julian.However all of this happened before Islam (early 600s), so it should at least have some connection to the OP. Please provide more information concerning the connection.

From the other thread the idea was being argued by Modulous, unless I misunderstood him, that the early experience of Muslims under the Roman Empire explained their attacks on the West. I have been going back to the situation before Islam even existed to show that there was certainly NO provocation to the early attacks of Muslims against the indigenous Christians and Jews, they were generated completely by the ideology of Islam itself. If you agree that is the case, then let's move on to whatever points you want to make about later phases.The Eastern Roman Empire / Byzantium, had no jurisdiction over anything Arab at all, until the Islamic conquests themselves, and it was islam that was the aggressor.So if this is off topic I'll leave the thread. Otherwise, where is it you want to go from here?

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It has to do with tracking a supposed historical excuse for revenge against the West by the Muslims, in the early Arab experience with the Greek empire (they were not subjugated by the Romans, even by Byzantium), as suggested by Modulous on the other thread.

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OK, fair enough, will research more and post later.That being said, the ancient world was full of popular revolts against any dominating empire, in the case of Rome within one decade some famous (Jewish 66-70, Queen Boudicca 60ad) some less. You still got me on this one, what does that have to do with Islam?PS - how do you two reply quicker than I post?

I don't know for sure, I'm just responding to what I understood of Modulous' argument, that somehow Islam's actions have to do with prior mistreatment at the hands of the Greeks and Romans. The only way I can make sense of this is to equate Islam with the Arabs which I know is not completely accurate, but at least in the beginning Islam was Arab. The pre-Islamic Arabs were never under the dominion of Rome, however,and I've seen no evidence of their rebelling against Greece, or anything that might explain their later behavior in the form of Muslim invasions in terms of how Greece mistreated them. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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The Eastern Roman Empire / Byzantium, had no jurisdiction over anything Arab at all, until the Islamic conquests themselves, and it was islam that was the aggressor.

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The Byzantine empire ruled over Egypt, Palestine, and nearby areas, especially in its earlier history. Under Justinian they even tried to reconquer Italy and managed to nail most of it (565ad). So to say the Romans or Byzantines had no jurisdiction over Arabs would require a definition of Arab. Certianly some of the areas where arabs are predominant today were once ruled by Greece/Rome/Byzantium.As to the belief that one group ever attacked another without provocation in all of history, I'm sure if they didn't have one (unlikely if considering the length of time, proximity, and inventiveness) they could readily manufacture one. Also, the Byzantines were, if anything, even more treacherous than the Romans, in their diplomatic dealings.Remember, if nothing else the bedouin tribes in the Arabian Pennsula bordered both the Roman, and at least until the Turks interceded, the Byzantine Empires. I'm sure the proximity led to a long history of both marginal friendship and dispute depending upon circumstances.Edited by anglagard, : misplaced blame

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I don't know for sure, I'm just responding to what I understood of Modulous' argument, that somehow Islam's actions have to do with prior mistreatment at the hands of the Greeks and Romans. The only way I can make sense of this is to equate Islam with the Arabs which I know is not completely accurate, but at least in the beginning Islam was Arab. The pre-Islamic Arabs were never under the dominion of Rome, however,and I've seen no evidence of their rebelling against Greece, or anything that might explain their later behavior in the form of Muslim invasions in terms of how Greece mistreated them.

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I think its safe to say there were no nice, kind, pure, moral empires back then. Everyone mistreated everyone else, no one was special. It was dog eat dog (even worse than today).The Islamic Empire spread in the same way the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, Alexander's Empire, and the Mongol Empire spread, by way of conquest and fervor in a cause.

How does Italy figure into "jurisdiction over Arabs?" From what I've been reading, the Arabs did not get associated with Egypt, Turkey or Syria until the Islamic invasion. Syria was not Arab, Asia Minor was Greek -- the Turks started moving into the area in 1073. Palestine had no particular identity at all at the time. It was sparsely populated by different groups. Jews lived there over the centuries as well as various nomads, Arabs and others, and in the 19th century Mark Twain described it as desolate and barren wilderness. Later on I'm sure they did manufacture some. But again, Byzantium had no jurisdiction over anything Arab so there's just NOTHING there for an excuse. Syria, Egypt and Anatolia were not Arab until the Islamic invasion of Byzantium.And I think you're wrong anyway about how it would be unique to have no provocation. What was the provocation for Alexander's conquests? Or the Romans' either? Or earlier empires, from Babylonia to Persia etc.? The motive was conquest, who needs provocation? Islam, as I've been trying to say, CALLS FOR subduing the world to Allah. THAT is their sufficient motive for conquest.In the process of trying to get this across I've had to try to answer all these suppositions -- for that's all they are -- that there must have been a historical political provocation. I see none so far from the pre-Islamic period. Nobody has shown any. But you may be able to show some from later periods. Although maybe these considerations are more along lines of the earlier thread than you had in mind for this thread? Your being sure isn't much evidence for anything of the nature of motivation to invade and conquer, let alone their subjugation of Christians and Jews in the Middle East over the subsequent centuries, and such things as their kidnapping of American "Christian" sailors.

Yes, but I'm trying to answer this claim that their motivations were revenge for particular abuses. That's what was implied in the title of jar's thread and in Modulous' claims that they were reacting to previous domination by the Greeks and Romans. They weren't even under the Roman Empire so that cause never existed anyway. I've seen nothing along these lines so far, and "safe to say" just isn't enough in this context. OK, I just wrote something of the sort myself in my last post. Maybe you aren't pushing the argument jar and Modulous are pushing. Islam's cause has always been to take the world for Allah, OK? They needed no historical reasons for revenge or anything along those lines, no political motivations whatever against the Roman Empire, and as far as I can see they had none.