Violence and the Spread of Islam in Late Antique Christian Societies — Christian Sahner

The Morningside Institute

You may watch this lecture along with Dr. Sahner’s PowerPoint presentation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/96CmUeeNLls

How did the medieval Middle East transform from a majority-Christian world to a majority-Muslim world, and what role did violence play (or not play) in this process? This lecture explores how Christians across the early Islamic caliphate slowly converted to the faith of the Arab conquerors and how small groups of individuals rejected this faith through dramatic acts of resistance, including apostasy and blasphemy.

Christian Sahner is associate professor of Islamic history and a fellow of St. Cross College at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World and, most recently, an editor of Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook.

This lecture was given to the Morningside Institute on March 18, 2021. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org​.