When Christians First Met Muslims: A Sourcebook of the Earliest Syriac Writings on Islam

The first Christians to meet Muslims were not Latin-speaking Christians from the western Mediterranean or Greek-speaking Christians from Constantinople but rather Christians from northern Mesopotamia who spoke the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Living under Muslim rule from the seventh century to the present Syriac Christians wrote the first and most extensive accounts of Islam describing a complicated set of religious and cultural exchanges not reducible to the solely antagonistic. Through its critical introductions and new translations of this invaluable historical material When Christians First Met Muslims allows scholars students and the general public to explore the earliest interactions between what eventually became the worlds two largest religions shedding new light on Islamic history and Christian-Muslim relations.