TY - BOOK ID - 127315728 TI - The Imam of the Christians : the world of Dionysius of Tel-mahre, c. 750-850 PY - 2021 SN - 9780691212791 0691212791 PB - Princeton (N.J.) : Princeton university press, DB - UniCat KW - Christian philosophy KW - Christianity and other religions KW - Islam KW - Jacobites (Syrian Christians). KW - Islamic influences. KW - Islam. KW - Relations KW - Christianity. KW - Dionysius, KW - Syrian Orthodox Church. KW - Jacobites (Syrian Christians) KW - Islamic influences KW - Christianity UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:127315728 AB - "This book considers how Christians adopted the governmental practices and political thought of their Muslim rulers. It explores how this encounter produced an Islamicate Christianity, that differed from the Christianities of Byzantium and western Europe in far more than just theology. It focuses on the history of the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, and examines the Jazira in the century after the Abbasid Revolution (750-850). It argues that the Abbasid period saw the higher clergy able to command increased powers over their co-religionists, such as issuing canons to regulate the lives of laymen, gathering tithes and arresting Christian opponents. Dionysius' historical writing advertises the patriarch's savoir-faire as he interacts with the court of Abdallah in Raqqa or the caliph al-Ma'mun in Baghdad. It presents him as an effective advocate for the interests of his co-religionists through his knowledge of Arabic and his ability to redeploy Islamic ideas to his own advantage. Strikingly, he observes that both he and al-Ma'mun are imams, since they lead their people in prayer and rule by popular consensus. On this basis, he claims, the caliph should support his leadership in order to guarantee the social order of the caliphate. The Imam of the Christians offers Dionysius' history as a window into the world of early Islam, and as an example more generally of how a powerful worldview can set the parameters by which other worldviews operate"-- ER -