Since the rise of Islam, Christian-Muslim relations have varied from time to time and changed according to political and social conditions, this is notable since the very beginnings of Islam. During his lifetime, Muhammad reacted differently at different times to Jews and Christians depending on the reception they accorded him and also on his dealings with Christian states.

Concerning the Jews Qur’an recognized their religion as a godly one and witnessed that its Scriptures were given by God Himself to His prophets “We verily gave Moses the Scripture; so be not ye in doubt of his receiving it; and We appointed it a guidance for the Children of Israel.” (Surah 32:23), “Lo! We inspire thee as We inspired Noah and the prophets after him, as We inspired Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes, and Jesus and Job and Jonah and Aaron and Solomon, and as we imparted unto David the Psalms” (Surah 4:163). And more examples could be given (Surahs 11:11; 21:49; 37:117; 40:56).   

 Latter Muhammad condemned the Jews because they acted as his political opponents. The situation was not too different with Christianity, despite the many Qur’anic passages that refer to Christians as well as to their scriptures in positive manner, “Lo! We are Christians. That is because there are among them priests and monks, and because they are not proud” (Surah 5:82) “And We caused Jesus, son of Mary, to follow in their footsteps, confirming that which was (revealed) before him, and We bestowed on him the Gospel wherein is guidance and a light” (Surah 5:46).

Despite these passages and many others, the Qur’anic perspective Christianity came to be turned into a negative one. The negative position that Qur’an took against Christianity was against belief in the Divinity of Christ, and belief in His Crucifixion, as well as against the Trinitarian dogma. Therefore we notice that Muhammad turned against Christians and attacked their belief that Jesus was Son of God [1], denounced the dogma of the Trinity (Surah 4:17), and pointed to the division of Christians among themselves (Surah 5:14).

Regarding the Christian attitude towards Islam, the attitude varied on two groups. The first group which consisted of some Arab Christian tribes and groups such as the Monophysites and the Nestorians, accepted Islam and even helped the Muslims in their conquest, hoping to become released from Byzantine empirial domination[2]. A Nestorian Catholicos exemplified this reality when he wrote:

These Arabs, whom God has now given sovereignty over the world, are not opposed towards us, as you know. They are not opposed to Christianity. Indeed, they respect our religion and honor the priests and the saints of our Lord and they give aid to the churches and monasteries.[3]

In fact, such an attitude towards Islam did not deal with the realities of Islamic beliefs. Rather, it came as a reaction against the Byzantine imperial authority, which tried to impose its Hellenism over the Eastern part of the empire and its people, who had much more in common with the Arab Muslims. One more important reason which led the Nestorians and the Monophysites to accept Islam was the intention of the Byzantine Empire to enforce the decisions of the Church’s Councils among the eastern metropolitans, such as those of Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch. This led to confrontations between them and some of these were bloody ones[4].

The second group consisted of the Christians who were still in union with Constantinople, the Melkites. These included Christian Arabs, Syrians, and Greeks. As a matter of fact, the relations between Christian Melkites and Muslims, at the beginning, were characterized by peace and cooperation. Latter, with the Islam’s conquests, these relations deteriorated and the Muslim attitude toward Christians took an official and political form.  Accordingly, at the time of Umar ibn-al-Khattab (634-644) a new status were given to Christians, that of dhimmis (ahl-al-Dhimmi). By this new status, Christians as dhimmis were subject to tribute, which comprised both a land-tax and a poll-tax, while they enjoyed the protection of Islam and were exempt from military duty, because only a Muslim could draw his sword in defense of Islam. Later, with the establishment of the Umayyad state, the Muslim leaders had to chose qualified people to work in the new state’s administration, with no religious or racial discrimination. Therefore, many Christians were put in charge of many important positions because of the experience that they had gained from working in the Byzantine state administration[5]. As a matter of fact, even when the Umayyad Caliph, Abed-Al Malik, Arabicized the state’s departments from Greek influence, he continued appointing Christians in the different departments of the new state. Worth mentioning is the fact that Arabicization of the departments was limited to using the Arabic language in the different departments of the state and to substitution of the golden Byzantine currency by the Arabic dinar. In addition to the administrative positions that were filled by Christians, the palace of the caliph was always a center for many Christian poets such as Al-A’shah, Al-Nabeghah Al-Akhtal and many others. Moreover, Christians practiced most of the handcrafts such as building and sewing, since the Arab Muslims were not attracted to practicing such crafts[6].

With regard to the political situation, Christians did not suffer persecution to convert to Islam or experience enmity in dealing with Muslims. Rather, Muslims and Christian lived together trying to find ways to live in peace and mutual understanding.

This situation did not change very soon. With the Caliph ‘Umar II (717-720) some more restrictions were imposed on Christians concerning working in official departments and filling military positions. These restrictions did not reach religious limits. Christians remained free to practice their worship in their churches and to express their beliefs, even in public gatherings.

Little by little, Islam was growing. Arab Christians melted within the Islamic world and many of them converted to Islam. As for those who remained Christian, they had to accept Islam and to deal with it as a reality. From this point, Christians and Muslims interpenetrated and cooperated with each other in order to acclimate themselves to the new situation. With the new situation, Christians had many questions about Islam to be answered. For Muslims, answering the Christians’ questions about Islam was the way by which they converted them to Islam, Da’wah. For Christians, in the beginning they did not go into controversies with Muslims. Rather, they took an apologetic attitude, by which they defended and explained the Christian faith.

One of the oldest Christian-Islamic dialogues that reflects this reality is the dialogue between the Patriarch John III and ‘Umayr Ibn Sa’d Al-Ansary (c.644). John III was a Jacobite patriarch of Antioch (d.648). Patriarch John, summoned by the Emir, ‘Umayr Ibn Sa’d Al-Ansary, came to see him in the company of five bishops. That happened on Sunday, 9 May 644, when Patriarch John had a dialogue with the Emir for many days:

Because we know that you are anxious and fearful on our account, due to the matter for which we have been called in this area, (with) our holy father the Patriarch, we inform your Grace that on the ninth of this month of May, the day of the holy Sunday, we went to the famous General Emir, and this holy father of all (the Christians) was questioned by him, whether this is one and the same Gospel, without any differences, which is held by all of those who are Christians and who carry this name throughout the whole world.[7]

In the dialogue the Emir questioned the Patriarch about the one Gospel, the incarnation, the Trinity and the doctrines of Christianity[8]. In this dialogue, Patriarch John started defending Christianity and explaining its doctrines in a very simple way:

The blessed answered him that it [the Gospel] is one and the same among the Greeks, the Romans, the Syrians, the Egyptians, the Cushites, the Hindus, the Armenians, the Persians and the rest of all the peoples and (all) languages.[9]

It is very clear that Patriarch John did not follow special apologetic techniques in his dialogue and did not know much about Islam. However, there is an interesting indication to the Chalcedonians who attended the dialogue and were praying to the Patriarch:

(The Emir) also had certain persons of the main followers of the Council of Chalcedon come, and all who were present, Orthodox or Chalcedonian, pleaded for the life and the detainment of the holy Patriarch; they praised and exalted God, who had given the word of truth in his mouth in rich measure, and who had filled him with His power and grace, according to His true promises, as He said: "They will bring you and the governors on account of Me, but do not become anxious about how or what you will speak, for it will be given you in that hour what you are to speak, for it is not you who speak, but the of your Father speaks in you.[10]

To this point, Christians were facing a new religion which they did not know much about from its own sources. Accordingly, they remained cautious towards it, especially towards its faith. In reality, the Christians’ ignorance of Islam, and the strict restrictions that Islam imposed on Christians, changed the Christian attitude towards Islam. That is realized, for example, when Christians considered Islam as a Christian heresy, with John of Damascus later; and the more oppression Christians suffered because of strict Muslim law, the more defensive their writings became.

Accordingly, during the reign of Caliph Al-Walid ‘Abd Al-Malik (705-715) and his brother, Sulayman (715-717), Christians suffered more because of new restrictions that were imposed on them, and later during the reign of ‘Umar Ibn ‘Abd Al-Aziz (717-720). As a matter of fact, the period between the years 705 and the year 720 was an intolerant and hostile period for Christians. During this period, more restrictions were imposed and many Christians converted to Islam either by force or out of conviction or only to get the privileges of the Muslim citizenship.

This new situation led many Christian scholars to compose some works to defend Christianity and to strengthen Christians in the face of such challenges. St, John of Damascus would be a good example in this concern. We know that St. John occupied a high position in the financial office in the administration (as mentioned in the Greek vita), and was secretary of the “prince of the city” (as mentioned in the Arabic vita)[11]. Regardless of the exact position that St. John occupied, we are very sure the he occupied a high position in the administration of the state. When Caliph ‘Umar issued a new law that forbade Christians from occupying any work in the official departments of the state unless they converted to Islam, John of Damascus resigned and abandoned his public post for the contemplative life at St. Sabas monastery. During his monastic life, he devoted himself to theological, liturgical and hymnal writings. St. John’s writings about Islam contain references to the history of Islam and references to the differences between Christian and Islamic faith. In his writings, he used an apologetic attitude to defend Christianity accusations.  Moreover, St. John was the first to use scholastic theology in handling Islam. One of his well-known works that dealt with Islam is his work “On Heresies”. This work came to argue about the nature of Islam, pointing out that Islam may best be understood as a Christian heresy: “ This man [Muhammad], after having changed upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy”[12]. Regardless the fact that we cannot consider Islam as a Christian heresy, we have to take into consideration two things. First, when St. John composed this work, he did not know much information about Islam from its own sources, so what he did know about Islam was closer in his mind to Arian thoughts. Second, his rich knowledge of many Christian heresies, which were found at his time, and his works in refuting their belifs, led him to deal with the new Islamic teachings and accusations from this background. This reality is attested in his work, where we notice that he always tried to defend Christianity from accusations and return the accusations to their source: “The Muslims accuse the Christians also of idolatry, because they venerate the cross; and the Christians return the accusation to the Muslims, because they venerate the Ka'ba”[13]. However, we may classify this work as apologetic, where he defends Christianity and refutes Islam. However, in spite of St. John’s attitude that considers Islam as a Christian heresy, this consideration cannot be an absolute one. Soon, Christians had to realize that they were dealing with an independent religion having all the components of a new religion.   

Another important work of St. John is the ‘Disputatio Saraceni et Christiani’, or ‘A Dialogue with an Easterner’[14]. This work contains two main subjects, which were put in a dialogue style. The first subject is the distinction between the Word and the words of God. The second subject is a discussion about the source of good and evil as well as about predestination. The two subjects both related to Islam. In each case the dialogue presented the Christian-Islamic view and defended the Christian perspective. Interestingly, St. John’s writings did not only affect many Christian writers after him, but also affected Islamic intellectual movements and contributed to spreading the use of scholastic theology among them[15].

Till now, all of the Christian writings were put in an environment of religious freedom and faithful concern about defending Christianity from whoever accusations, and Christians distinguished between religious and social domains in dealing with Islam. Socially, Christians lived with Muslims in social harmony, served the Islamic state faithfully, enriched it with their intellectual and scientific knowledge, and contributed to its growth and development. Religiously, Christians adopted two ways in dealing with Islam. First, they defended Christian dogmas from accusations, and that took the shape of the apologetic writings. Second, they tried to understand Islam and to offer Muslims a better understanding of Christianity, and that took the shape of dialogue, such as the dialogue of the Patriarch John III with the Muslim Emir.

Tags: grace, gospel, patriarch, christians, john, cross, christian, worship