The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers by Jack Tannous (review)

• Autores: Jeanne Nicole Mellon Saint Laurent
• Localización: Journal of early Christian studies: Journal of the North American Patristic Society, ISSN 1067-6341, Nº. 4, 2020, págs. 657-660
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In this context of blurry lines and confused confessional identities (which most ordinary people didn’t worry about), religious specialists drew strict boundaries of orthodoxy to determine who could participate in the liturgies of the church (especially the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist). Once scholars understand this social reality, they can understand the beginnings of Islam and why Christians joined this minority religion of the ruling authorities. Conversion to Islam for ordinary Christians may have had social and economic consequences. [...]we cannot understand Islam in the early medieval and medieval period unless we see it in the context of the great mass of non-Muslims—in formerly Roman areas, most of whom will have been simple Christians—and their gradual conversion to Islam” (500–501).