Description
Book SynopsisStories between Christianity and Islam offers an original and nuanced understanding of ChristianMuslim relations that shifts focus from discussions of superiority, conflict, and appropriation to the living world of connectivity and creativity. Here, the late antique and medieval Near East is viewed as a world of stories shared by Christians and Muslims. Public storytelling was a key feature for these late antique Christian and early Islamic communities, where stories of saints were used to interpret the past, comment on the present, and envision the future. In this book, Reyhan Durmaz uses these stories to demonstrate and analyze the mutually constitutive relationship between these two religions in the Middle Ages. With an in-depth study of storytelling in Late Antiquity and the mechanisms of hagiographic transmission between Christianity and Islam in the Middle Ages, Durmaz develops a nuanced understanding of saints' stories as a tool for building identity, memory, and authority a
Trade Review"An excellent inquiry into the hagiographic texts of Christianity and Islam from late antiquity. . . . a worthwhile read for students of Christian–Islamic intertextuality, one that raises many questions and thought-provoking arguments." * Reading Religion *
Table of ContentsContents
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation, Transliteration, and References
Introduction
Narrating Stories
Sorting Stories
Remembering Stories
1. Storytelling in Late Antique Christianity
Hagiography and Orality
A World of Storytelling
Storytellers in Late Antique Christianity
Hagiographic Interviews and Audience Participation
2. “How Is Muhammad a Better Storyteller Than I?”
Who Is Narrating?
Storytelling in the Quran
The Broader Late Antique Context of Quranic Storytelling
Functions of Storytelling in Muhammad’s Preaching
Narrating Stories after Muhammad
3. “Ask Him about the Youths”: Narrating the Quran with Christian Saints
Q18: The Cave
The Companions of the Cave
The Rich Man and the Poor Man
Moses, the Unnamed Servant of God, and the Two-Horned
4. Christian Saints in Islamic Literature
Remembering Saint Antony
South Arabian Historiography and Alexander the Believing King
Saint George in Al-Tabarī’s History of the Prophets and Kings
Looking at Buildings, Narrating Saint Marūthā
5. From Paul and John to Fīmyūn and Sālih
Transformation of a Story
Ibn Ishāq on the Authority of Wahb b. Munabbih
Fīmyūn and S. ālih in Context
6. Stories between Christianity and Islam
Monks, Monasticism, and the Islamic Notion of Sanctity
Authorship and Transmission of Hagiographic Knowledge
Narratives in and of the Family
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
