persecution and destruction of eastern christianity under islam

8/3/2019 Persecution and Destruction of Eastern Christianity Under Islam

1/6

1

Persecution and Destruction of Eastern Christianity Under Islam

By Ng Kam Weng

http://www.krisispraxis.com/archives/2011/12/persecution-and-destruction-of-eastern-

christianity-under-islam/

The Glory of Eastern Christianity

The story of the triumph of the early church over the Roman Empire continues to inspire

Christians today. How can we not marvel at the courage of the martyrs who calmly faced the

lions? The religion of the weak and poor literally conquered the empire symbolized by the

conversion of none other than Emperor Constantine himself. Surely Tertullian was right when

he declared that the martyrs blood is the seed of the church.

Unfortunately, it is not always the case that the church triumphs over hostile powers. Political

persecution can destroy the church and cause a Christian populace to abandon the faith. A case

in point is the political destruction the Syria-Persian-Central Asian Church (referred to in this

article as the Eastern Church or Eastern Christianity). The story of its destruction is both tragic

and salutary.

At its height, Eastern Christianity was glorious. During the 8th

century, the Nestorian Patriarch

Timothy had under his jurisdiction eighty-five bishops and nineteen metropolitans that stretched

from the Caspian Sea to Yemen (a metropolitan comes under the jurisdiction of clergy ranked

between an Archibishop and the Pope/Patriarch). As early as the 6th

century, Edessa (Syria) was

the organization centre for two Patriarchs and eighty-nine bishops. In comparison, at around 800

AD, England had only two metropolitans.

Eastern Christianity was well known for its desert hermits, but we should not miss the fact that it

was also a flourishing intellectual movement. It was Syrian Christian scholars who translated the

best texts of Greek philosophy and Latin technology that laid the foundations on which Islamic

science and philosophy later bloomed.

Eastern Christianity initiated a vigorous missionary enterprise unmatched until modern times.

Missionaries were sent to Central Asia, reaching the Turks, Uygurs and the Mongols and later

the Chinese. By the 7th century there were already twenty bishops in Kashgar and Samarkand.

The church itself was model of multiculturalism and racial diversity, as evidenced by Christian


2/6

2

documents and inscriptions written in Turkish, Syriac, Chinese and Indian dialects. In far away

China, Christianity was referred to as the religion of Jingjiao, the luminous teaching from the

distant land of Daqin (or Syria), and regarded as a faith that was mysterious, wonderful,

spontaneous, producing perception, establishing essentials, for the salvation of creatures and the

benet of man.

Faith Destroyed by Persecution

How then, did this glorious movement end up as a pale shadow of its former self, existing

precariously at the margin of Eastern lands under the looming mosque? We need to retell the

story of centuries of unrelenting pressure on and persecution of the Eastern Church that led to its

near destruction beginning with benign toleration to persecution, then violent attacks and

finally brutal massacres and widespread destruction.

Islam swiftly conquered vast swathes of Christian lands shortly after its meteoric rise in the 7th

century. Initially, Christians welcomed their Muslim conquerors as deliverers from the

oppression of the Roman (actually Byzantine) Christians. The Muslims in turn tolerated the

Christians as the People of the Book, albeit as a subordinate social class. It suited the Muslims to

practice tolerance towards their conquered subjects since the Muslims were still a minority group

at that time. But gradually, the proportion of Muslims grew and they began to treat their

Christian subjects harshly. By 690 AD, thejizyah, a poll tax symbolic of submission to Islam,

was imposed on Christians. In 722 AD, Caliph Yazid II banned the display of Christian images

in public and prohibited Christian proselytization with the threat of dismemberment of limbs.

In the early centuries of Muslim conquest there was no systematic implementation of violent

persecution; but by the 9th

century, many churches and monasteries were burned and monks

killed in Egypt. Most significantly, the Church of Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the great symbol

of Christianity in the Middle East, was destroyed in 1099 by Caliph Hakim.

Over time, Muslim rulers came up with new wide-ranging policies designed to humiliate

Christians. Christians were now called Dhimmis, which stressed their inferior status in Muslim

society. Dhimmis were required to wear distinctive clothing that included blue turbans. They

were not allowed to display the cross on their houses or churches since it was regarded as a

symbol of infidelity. They were prohibited from praying or reading the Bible aloud at home or in

churches, lest Muslims heard their prayers. Dhimmis were not allowed to hold public


3/6

3

celebrations and they were to make their way to church quietly. Muslim authorities were

encouraged to humiliate Dhimmis when they came to pay thejizyah. This they did by slapping

them on the neck and chasing them out from the office (after collecting the protection money).

Dhimmis were also not allowed to testify against Muslims in legal disputes.

In the 18th

century, an Egyptian sheikh ordered that the following restrictions be imposed on the

Dhimmis:

They should not be allowed to clothe themselves in costly fabrics which have been cut in

the modes which are forbidden to them, in order that they may not offend the sensibilities

of poor Muslims. . . .They must under no circumstance ride horses because of the noble

character of this animal. . . . The absence of every mark of consideration toward them is

obligatory for us; we ought never to give them the place of honor in an assembly when aMuslim is present. This is in order to humble them and to honor the true believers. . . . It

is no longer permitted them to put themselves, with respect to their houses, on an equalfooting with the dwellings of their Muslim neighbors, and still less to build their

buildings higher.

These unrelenting pressures naturally debilitated the Eastern Church, but worse was yet to come.

Between 1290 and 1330, the Eucharist was banned, a large number of churches were closed

down and destroyed, and both bishops and priests were imprisoned. Even the patriarch Yaballaha

III was tortured.

It was the Mongol rulers who delivered the coup de grace to the Eastern Church especially after

Timur converted to Islam. Timur made it his trademark to massacre entire city populations and

assemble the victims heads into giant pyramids. It was reported that he piled up a pyramid of

90,000 skulls in the ruins of Baghdad. Similar massacres were carried out from Damascus to

Tikrit and Mosul. The Eastern Church was utterly decimated and never recovered from this

horrendous onslaught. Philip Jenkins described the inexorable decline and rot that set upon the

beleaguered Church:

The Syrian churches survived as inward-looking quasi-tribal bodies within the Near East.Succession to the Nestorian patriarchate became hereditary, passing from uncle to

nephew. Intellectual activity declined to nothing, at least in comparison with the glorious

past. Many clergy were illiterate, and the church texts that do survive are often deeply

imbued with superstition and folk magic.

Final Destruction


4/6

4

The final destruction of the Eastern Church came when the Turks massacred them in the 1915

Armenian Genocide. News reports gave accounts of horrific atrocities being committed against

helpless Christians: men had horse shoes nailed to their feet; women were gang-raped the

roads and the Euphrates are strewn with corpses of exiles, and those who survive are doomed to

certain death. It is a plan to exterminate the whole Armenian people. An estimated one million

to one-and-a-half million Armenians and Assyrian Christians perished in this pogrom. Not

surprisingly only those who fled (or migrated) survived as the broken Armenian Church in

diaspora. By the 20th century, the number of Christians in the Middle East had declined from

10% to 3% of the population.

While it is natural to highlight the violent physical attacks against Christians we should not miss

the psychological debilitation that they suffered under these inhumane conditions. It was also the

case that many Christians opted for the easy (and safer) way out by assimilating into the

dominant religion. In 775AD, one contemporary witness, Tur Abdin, lamented on the weakness

of Christians:

Without blows or torture, people slipped towards apostasy with great eagerness, in groups

of twenty, thirty, one hundred, two hundred or three hundred without any compulsion. . . .

They used to come down to Harran, to governors, and apostasize to Islam.

Wherein lay the appeal of Islam at this time? On the one hand, conversion was tempting since it

allowed converts to escape from persecution and the burdens imposed on them. But it is also the

case that subject people tend to be assimilated into the ways of their conquerors. As the 14th

century scholar Ibn Khaldun observed, The vanquished always want to imitate the victor in his

distinctive marks, his dress, his occupation, and all his other conditions and customs.

Converting to Islam meant becoming a member of a global empire. Unfortunately, the long term

consequence is the extinction of the minority community.

Final Observations

It is easy to become pessimistic after reading this litany of disaster that struck the Eastern

Church. Indeed, many churches perished, but it is also significant that a small group of churches

survive, albeit under a bleak existence. One such group is the Copts in Egypt who survived 1400

years of violent oppression. It has been suggested that Coptic Christians survived by learning to

express their faith in a manner which may seem innocuous to outsiders but nonetheless was

effective in strengthening the faith of believers, especially through its liturgy.


5/6

5

Nevertheless, Christians should strive for greater freedom if not success in their witness. Perhaps

the formula for such a success comes from a combination of lessons learned from two ancient

churches in the Middle East, i.e., the Coptic Church and the Iraqi/Persian Church.

The Copts can claim to be the original inhabitants of Egypt and therefore legitimize the existence

for their churches even in a society dominated by Islam. But because the Coptic Church is

largely a rural church or made up of the urban underclass, it is relegated to a marginal existence

in society. In contrast, the Iraqi/Persian church comprised people from the business and

professional class. Undoubtedly, they exercised an influence disproportionate to their numbers

especially in the early years when the Muslims were still the minority. But without grassroots

followers, their influence proved short-lived. Worldly affluence and success meant that they had

more to lose and they succumbed to the temptation to convert to Islam so that they could enjoy

privileged status along with the Muslim rulers. Not surprisingly, the church declined to the point

that it became practically insignificant in Persia.

Perhaps these observations show us that the Church today is able to move beyond survival mode

and flourish if it can successfully combine the strengths of both the Coptic and the Iraqi/Persian

churches. Herein lies salutary lessons for the Malaysian Church it will flourish only if there is a

synergy between the East Malaysian native/Bumiputera Christians (representing the Coptic

spirit) and the West Malaysian professional Christians from among the immigrant races.

Laurence Browne notes that Eastern Christians did not apostasize in the face of threats against

their lives, at least not until the Muslim Mongols arrived on the scene. Neither did they

apostasize because they were persuaded by the truth of Islamic teachings since there is fuller

truth to be found in the Bible. Instead, the thing that turned Christians to Islam was the common

acceptance by Muslims and Christians alike of the error that the favour of God is shown by

worldly success. That is to say, the vision of the might of the Muslim Empire had the same

over-awing effect that the golden calf had on the Jews who abandoned Moses they bowed

down and worshipped. Browne concluded, In the same way these Christians accepted the false

idea of the supremacy of worldly might So they were allowed to join themselves to a system

in which religion and worldly empire were one.


6/6

6

It is probable that these Christians had already apostasized before the advent of Islam and that

Islam was merely the catalyst that crystallized and revealed their apostasy. This is not unlike a

giant tree that comes crashing down in the storm because it roots have rotted. Browne added,

[Christians] no longer worshipped Christ as Lord. They denied the Sun of Righteousness, but

God in his mercy, rather than leave them in total darkness gave them the light of a narrow

crescent moon.

That is to say, the day will come when God in his providence will reveal openly that this system

of empire and religion symbolized by the looming mosque, will be a spent force. There will be a

fresh outpouring of the Spirit to empower anew the small and oppressed but stubbornly faithful

churches in Eastern lands for the task of Christian mission. Perhaps in the cunning of divine

providence, the slivers of truth that Islam had earlier assimilated from Christianity will

eventually form the bridge that will facilitate the sharing of the full truth of the Gospel.

Useful Resources:

Philip Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity. Harper 2008.

Browne, Eclipse of Christianityin Asia. Cambridge Uni. Press 1933.

persecution and destruction of eastern christianity under islam

Documents