|
|
Article: Christianity face to face with Islam.(Essay)
- Article from:
- First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life
- Article date:
- January 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Institute on Religion and Public Life. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
No event during the first millennium was more unexpected, more calamitous, and more consequential for Christianity than the rise of Islam. Few irruptions in history have transformed societies so completely and irrevocably as did the conquest and expansion of the Arabs in the seventh century. And none came with greater swiftness. Within a decade three major cities in the Byzantine Christian Empire--Damascus in 635, Jerusalem in 638, and Alexandria in 641-fell to the invaders.
When reports began to circulate that something unusual was happening in the Arabian Peninsula, the Byzantines were preoccupied with the Sassanians in Persia who had sacked Jerusalem in 614 ...