Explore the vast range of titles available.

\"John V. Tolan is one of the world's foremost scholars in the field of early Christian/Muslim interactions. In ten essays, he explores \"Sons of Ishmael,\" the epithet many Christian writers of the Middle Ages gave to Muslims, Sons of Ishmael focuses on the history of conflict and convergence between Latin Christendom and the Arab Muslim world during this period.\"--Jacket.

Virginia Burrus explores one of the strongest and most disturbing aspects of the Christian tradition, its excessive preoccupation with shame. While Christianity has frequently been implicated in the conversion of ancient Mediterranean cultures from shame- to guilt-based and, thus, in the emergence of the modern West's emphasis on guilt, Burrus seeks to recuperate the importance of shame for Christian culture. Focusing on late antiquity, she explores a range of fascinating phenomena, from the flamboyant performances of martyrs to the imagined abjection of Christ, from the self-humiliating disciplines of ascetics to the intimate disclosures of Augustine.Burrus argues that Christianity innovated less by replacing shame with guilt than by embracing shame. Indeed, the ancient Christians sacrificed honor but laid claim to their own shame with great energy, at once intensifying and transforming it. Public spectacles of martyrdom became the most visible means through which vulnerability to shame was converted into a defiant witness of identity; this was also where the sacrificial death of the self exemplified by Christ's crucifixion was most explicitly appropriated by his followers. Shame showed a more private face as well, as Burrus demonstrates. The ambivalent lure of fleshly corruptibility was explored in the theological imaginary of incarnational Christology. It was further embodied in the transgressive disciplines of saints who plumbed the depths of humiliation. Eventually, with the advent of literary and monastic confessional practices, the shame of sin's inexhaustibility made itself heard in the revelations of testimonial discourse.In conversation with an eclectic constellation of theorists, Burrus interweaves her historical argument with theological, psychological, and ethical reflections. She proposes, finally, that early Christian texts may have much to teach us about the secrets of shame that lie at the heart of our capacity for humility, courage, and transformative love.

This book is a Festschrift in honour of David Thomas (Professor of Christianity and Islam, and Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Inter Religious Relations, at the University of Birmingham, UK). The Editors have put together a collection of over 30 contributions from colleagues of Professor Thomas that commences with a biographical sketch and representative tribute provided by a former doctoral student, and comprises a series of wide-ranging academic papers arranged to broadly reflect three dimensions of David Thomas's academic and professional work - studies in and of Islam; Christian-Muslim relations; the Church and interreligious engagement. These are set in the context of a focused theme - the character of Christian-Muslim encounters - and cast within a broad chronological framework.

This article examines the long-term consequences of a historical human capital intervention. The Jesuit order founded religious missions in 1609 among the Guaraní, in modern-day Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Before their expulsion in 1767, missionaries instructed indigenous inhabitants in reading, writing, and various crafts. Using archival records, as well as data at the individual and municipal level, I show that in areas of former Jesuit presence—within the Guaraní area—educational attainment was higher and remains so (by 10%–15%) 250 years later. These educational differences have also translated into incomes that are 10% higher today. The identification of the positive effect of the Guaraní Jesuit missions emerges after comparing them with abandoned Jesuit missions and neighboring Franciscan Guaraní missions. The enduring effects observed are consistent with transmission mechanisms of structural transformation, occupational specialization, and technology adoption in agriculture.

In the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle East fractured irreparably into competing churches and Arabs conquered the region, setting in motion a process that would lead to its eventual conversion to Islam. Jack Tannous argues that key to understanding these dramatic religious transformations are ordinary religious believers, often called \"the simple\" in late antique and medieval sources. Largely agrarian and illiterate, these Christians outnumbered Muslims well into the era of the Crusades, and yet they have typically been invisible in our understanding of the Middle East's history. What did it mean for Christian communities to break apart over theological disagreements that most people could not understand? How does our view of the rise of Islam change if we take seriously the fact that Muslims remained a demographic minority for much of the Middle Ages? In addressing these and other questions, Tannous provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the religious history of the medieval Middle East. This provocative book draws on a wealth of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources to recast these conquered lands as largely Christian ones whose growing Muslim populations are properly understood as converting away from and in competition with the non-Muslim communities around them. -- Publisher, inside front flap of dust jacket.

How did Christianity expand in Africa to become the continent’s dominant religion? Using annual panel census data on Christian missions from 1751 to 1932 in Ghana, and pre-1924 data on missions for 43 sub-Saharan African countries, we estimate causal effects of malaria, railroads and cash crops on mission location. We find that missions were established in healthier, more accessible, and richer places before expanding to economically less developed places. We argue that the endogeneity of missionary expansion may have been underestimated, thus questioning the link between missions and economic development for Africa. We find the endogeneity problem exacerbated when mission data is sourced from Christian missionary atlases that disproportionately report a selection of prominent missions that were also established early.

\"The contributions to this volume, which come from the Fifth Mingana Symposium, survey the use of the Bible and attitudes towards it in the early and classical Islamic periods\"--Page 4 of cover.

This paper examines the role of the notion of hope in Leibniz’s philosophy and argues that contrary to what has been claimed by recent commentators, Leibniz should not be counted among the philosophical proponents of hope. I argue, firstly, that there are insufficient textual grounds for making ‘hope’ a central concept in Leibniz’s philosophical apparatus; as it figures in his writings, it does not appear to serve a distinct function. However, this textual insignificance points to a deeper issue in his philosophy: is there need - or even room - for hope in the best of all possible worlds? In the final part of the article, I argue that Leibniz’s brand of optimism makes hope theologically redundant. Although this tendency sets Leibniz apart from the Augustinian-Lutheran strain of Christianity, it reflects a tension that is inherent in Christianity itself, namely one between hope and faith. Cet article examine le rôle de la notion d’espérance dans la philosophie de Leibniz et soutient que contrairement à ce qui a été affirmé par des commentateurs récents, ce n’est pas une notion qui devrait être associée avec la philosophie leibnizienne. Je soutiens, premièrement, qu’il n’y a pas suffisamment de base textuelle pour faire de l’espérance un concept central ; tel qu’il figure dans les écrits de Leibniz, « l’espérance » ne semble remplir aucune fonction distincte. Cependant, cette insignifiance textuelle renvoie à une question plus profonde dans sa philosophie : y a-t-il besoin d’espérance dans le meilleur des mondes possibles ? Dans la dernière partie de l’article, je soutiens que l’optimisme de Leibniz rend l’espérance théologiquement redondant. Bien que cette tendance distingue Leibniz à la fois d’Augustin et de Luther, elle reflète une tension inhérente au christianisme lui-même, à savoir celle entre l’espérance et la foi. Dieser Artikel untersucht die Rolle des Begriffs Hoffnung in der Philosophie von Leibniz und argumentiert, dass Leibniz im Gegensatz zu den Behauptungen neuerer Kommentatoren nicht zu den philosophischen Verfechtern der Hoffnung gezählt werden sollte. Ich behaupte erstens, dass es keine genügenden Textbelege dafür gibt, Hoffnung zu einem zentralen Konzept in Leibniz’ philosophischem Apparat zu machen; wie es in seinen Schriften zum Ausdruck kommt, scheint „Hoffnung“ keine besondere Funktion zu erfüllen. Der mangelnde textuelle Beleg des Begriffs weist jedoch auf ein tieferes Problem in Leibniz’ Philosophie hin: Gibt es in der besten aller möglichen Welten Bedarf - oder sogar Raum - für Hoffnung? Im letzten Teil des Artikels argumentiere ich, dass Leibniz’ Optimismus die Hoffnung theologisch überflüssig macht. Obwohl diese Tendenz Leibniz sowohl von Augustinus als auch von Luther unterscheidet, spiegelt sie doch eine Spannung wider, die dem Christentum selbst innewohnt, nämlich die Spannung zwischen Hoffnung und Glauben.

By the tenth century, Islamic scholars were making use of Christian doctrines as examples of misguided thinking that showed the correctness of Islam. This volume explores key writings in this tradition, including those of al-Nashi' al-Akbar, al-Maturidi, al-Baqillani and 'Abd al-Jabbar.

This article estimates the impact of completed higher education on economic prosperity across Indian districts. To address the endogeneity of higher education, we use the location of Catholic missionaries circa 1911 as an instrument. Catholics constitute a very small share of the population in India and their influence beyond higher education has been limited. Our instrumental variable results find a positive effect of higher education on development, as measured by light density. The results are robust to alternative measures of development, and are not driven by lower levels of schooling or other channels by which missionaries could impact current income.