So I was reading a series of articles about the history of Christianity in Iraq and in the 2nd part the writer talks about the Christians under Islamic rule, that is from the time Iraq was conquered by the Muslims throughout the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid Calipahtes until Baghdad was taken by the Mongolians (end of the last Arab Caliphate).
The writer is Sayyar Al-Jamil and he is probably the foremost Iraqi historian alive [
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=48810538237&v=info ]. All his articles are very objective and well-referenced. In this series, he said he only used sources written by Iraqi Christian historians. So I gotta say, the guy is biased not making stuff up.
The writer talks about many things. He talks about how the Christians welcomed the Arab invasion not necessarily because they liked Arabs or Islam but because they wanted to get rid of Persian occupation and because Arabs were Semites, spoke a similar language to Aramaen, and were monotheists as opposed to Persians.
He also talks about the relatively high level of religious freedoms granted to the Christians (relative to the time as he puts it) while at the same time not hesitating to name and condemn the Caliphs and governors who persecuted them, specially Caliph Yazeed Bin Abdul-Malik and a couple of Abbasid Caliphs.
However what most interested me are the paragraphs about the contribution of Iraqi and Arab Christians to the so-called Islamic Golden Age. He writes, citing many different Western and Arab sources, that the Christians of Iraq were but not merely important but integral to the scholarly advancement achieved at the time.
He says that the majority of the translators who translated Greek books to Arabic were in fact Christians. In fact he says that the post of general director of the famous "House of Wisdom" was given on more than one occasion to a Christian. This was at the time Baghdad was the capital of the Isalmic Caliphate and the richest city in the world.
He also mentions the fact the almost all Abbasid Calipahtes had Christian doctors and that there very few Muslim doctors in Baghdad. He also mentions the names of some Christians who were given very high civil posts.
He concludes that although all these advancements were achieved in a Muslim state, without the contribution of Christians it may not have been possible.
Just wanted to share that !
For Arabic readers, this series of articles can be found of Dr. Al-Jamil's website [
http://www.sayyaraljamil.com/Arabic/ ] and his Facebook group page [
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=48810538237&v=info ]
Topic: Christian Contribution to the Golden Islamic Age