Between Trepidation and Hope: A Study of Palestinian Christians after the Arab Conquests, ca. 630-797

Abstract

This study examines the lives of Palestinian Christians in the seventh and eighth centuries CE. Though current scholarship sheds much light on political, theological, and other intellectual responses to the rise of Islam, it has little to say on local society, especially the impact of religious and political change on so-called “simple believers.” Responding to the neglect of this important topic, my study highlights the social-historical experiences of Christians in Umayyad and early Abbasid Palestine. Recent scholarship on the early medieval Middle East has come to eschew the notion of a common cultural and historical experience under the first Islamic caliphates. Regional and micro-regional studies have shown that distinct communities throughout the Levant were faced with unique experiences and challenges. My study offers the first treatment of the experiences and challenges of these Palestinian communities, from their center in Jerusalem to the peripheries of Galilee and the Negev. Evidence for this Palestinian “micro-Christendom” exists in a variety of texts and objects. These include hagiographies, correspondence, homilies, inscriptions, travelogues, papyri, and the remains of material culture, both urban and rural. In considering this evidence as a whole, this study assesses the changes which Palestinian Christian communities underwent in this period (alongside remarkable continuities). What emerges from this analysis are the contours of a community struggling to shape a deliberate future while claiming a sacred and immutable past. Such a paradoxical struggle overflowed into everyday life, touching on questions of food, dress, labor, family, and language. Though focused on the particulars of this Palestinian community, my study also contributes to a broader scholarly discussion of the interconnected worlds and religious and ethical values of medieval Christians, Muslims, and Jews.