Early Islamic Conquest: The Tactics Behind the Transformation and Colonization of North Africa

Bill Scott

5 days ago

22 min read

Bill Scott

Introduction

One of the most significant cultural shifts in world history was the birth of Islam. Muhammad supposedly received what he believed to be Allah’s final revelation to humanity, and his military conquest of the Arabian Peninsula laid the foundation for a movement that is still growing today. After his death in 632 CE, Muhammad’s religious influence spread quickly throughout the Middle East and North Africa through the leadership of the caliphs and the well-equipped Muslim armies.

As a people group, Muslims are often considered the most historically violent people the world has seen. Moreover, according to historian Philip Jenkins, Christianity has found Islam to be its most persistent and, often, most successful rival.[1] However, the infamous conquests of the sixth-century Muslim armies were so polarizing that much information and perspective is often overlooked. While military campaigns did much to establish Muslim rule in the Middle East and Africa,[2] it was the long-term war of ideas and cultural pressures that ultimately and persistently changed the hearts and minds of the conquered citizens of these regions.[3]

The sudden influx of Islamic ideas into North Africa began the decline of Christianity in that region from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries.[4] Once a thriving center of Christian heritage, North Africa today is almost entirely dominated by Muslims.[5] Libraries have been lost, cultures have been erased, and Islam has been established as the majority religion across the Saharan region of Africa. While some pockets of Christianity managed to stave off the proverbial sword and survive the Muslim conquest, others disappeared forever.

The picture painted of the Muslim conquests is grim, and perhaps it should be. The first caliphates expanded the Islamic empire rapidly. Within twenty-one years of Muhammad’s death, the caliphs had subdued Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.[6] Thousands of Christian churches in the Middle East and North Africa were either destroyed or turned into mosques.[7] Indeed, images of sword-wielding, bearded men on horseback slicing off the heads of innocents are burned into the minds of many when they think of the conquests, yet there is much more to be said about the history of these conquests. There were pockets of resistance that did not allow Islam to rob Africa completely of its Christian roots: the Orthodox, Coptic, and Ethiopian churches staved off Muslim conquest and maintained their church traditions.[8]

However, military conquest does not tell the whole story of the Islamic population of North Africa. By exploring the history of the Muslim conquest of North Africa, one can learn much about how Islam gradually became the region’s dominant religion. First, though Christianity was the prevailing religion of North Africa, many Christians had adopted beliefs that were not orthodox. The Muslim conquests did not culturally establish Islam on the continent; indeed, it took centuries for Islam to find its cultural footing. Nevertheless, Muslim influence grew because of birthrates, social prominence, and the encouragement of Christian emigration.[9] The Islamic cultural transformation was made much easier by many North African Christians’ lack of theological depth. Second, specific cultural pressures allowed for a slow but sure conversion of the North African region from Christianity to Islam. The dhimmi system, social prestige, and birthrates were highly effective in shaping the Islamic culture of North Africa. This study investigates the cultural norms and influences that allowed for the rise of Islam in North Africa.

Purpose and Significance

The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the ideas and practices that led to the eventual Islamic domination of the North African region. In assessing the ideas and practices of the Muslim conquerors in the medieval period, one finds clear examples of ideologies that predated the Islamic influence in North Africa. The significance of this analysis is, first, to help the reader understand the lesser-known influences of Islam on North African culture that led to Christianity’s cultural demise; I will then conclude with some practical steps that the church could take today to guard against the influence of outside forces.

The War of Ideas

Classicist Theodor Mommsen wrote, “In the development of Christianity, Africa plays the first part. If it arose in Syria, it was in and through Africa that it became the religion of the world.”[10] Christianity did not immediately dissipate when the Muslim invaders arose. While many Christians converted immediately, historians must still account for the large number of conversions to Islam in a short period of time.[11] North African Christianity, a society that produced such intellectual giants of the faith as Augustine and Athanasius, is almost wholly Islamic today. Muslim invaders spread into North Africa in the seventh century CE, forever changing the region’s religious landscape.[12]

Even with the rich academic tradition of the Cappadocian Fathers, Islam slowly took over as the region’s dominant religion. One of the causes of Christianity’s decline predates the Muslim invasion. Before the age of the Muslim conquests of North Africa and Asia, seeds of unorthodox teaching appear to have been planted well before Islam made its appearance. Many historians have pointed out the influence of Christian sects estranged from orthodoxy, which may have influenced Islam and other Asian religions.[13]

One example is a legend that Christ was born at the foot of a tree. As the early twentieth-century historian William Tisdall pointed out,

Several passages in the apocryphal Gospels show that ideas of Buddhist origin had gained access to the minds of the writers of these spurious works, though doubtless these men were quite unaware of the real source of their inspiration. It was easy for Muhammad therefore, to be misled in the same, and we can point to the very passages in the Pâlî books which represent the earliest known form of the legends about the tree.[14]

Apocryphal legends and unorthodox teachings were all too common in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as in North Africa, before the advent of Islam. This allowed the seeds of conversion to Islam to be planted more quickly than they would have been in an otherwise pure and orthodox Christian tradition.[15] In the Arabian Peninsula, John of Damascus discussed the unorthodoxy of the Middle East as early as the sixth century CE. John of Damascus “attributes the origins of Muhamad’s heresy to the malign influence of an Arian monk.”[16] This is not unlikely, as the Arian heresy, like Islam, taught that Jesus was not coeternal with God the Father but was a created being.[17]

Islam became attractive to many heretical Christians in the seventh and eighth centuries by paying homage to Jesus without claiming his deity. Whether intentionally or not, Muhammad’s theological strength was his ability to synthesize Islam with competing faiths, especially Christianity and Judaism.[18] In North Africa, Islam was able to adopt familiar elements of the Judeo-Christian worldview, such as its people, events, and laws, and present them with fresh authority.[19]

Arianism and other theologies significantly influenced the North African church despite the tight grip of Byzantine theological oversight.[20] Before the Muslim influence in North Africa, the legal rule of the Byzantine church did not allow for much theological flexibility. Indeed, the Byzantines regularly harassed those who disagreed with their theology.[21] Historian Justin Lasser points out that the Coptic church in Egypt welcomed Arab rule:

In sum, Byzantine influence had waned significantly before the arrival of the Muslim invaders. Moreover, the Coptic church in Egypt had already begun contextualizing Christianity into an Egyptian identity. Egyptians had abandoned centuries-old religious practices in favor of the foreign religion of Christianity. In fact, it took longer for Islam to unite the people of Egypt than it did for Christianity. Although conversions of Christian Copts to Islam occurred intermittently, widespread conversion to Islam did not occur until after the Crusades.[23] Thus, leaving the Christian church was not a far departure for Muslim converts from Christianity in the Egyptian empire.[24] However, the Coptic church has survived to this day. It is flourishing in Egypt, in contrast to other sects of Christianity, largely because of its resilience against its conquerors and its theological scholarship, coupled with theological writings in the language of the Alexandrians.[25]

Without the Bible and other theological texts in their own language, some Christians had little defense against the cultural and theological indoctrination of Islam. In contrast to Africa, the Muslim conquest of Arabia met with little theological resistance. The Arabian Peninsula was filled with Christians fleeing Byzantine or Roman church governance.[26] Because their divergent beliefs often erred on the side of Trinitarian or Christological heresies, these Christians made easy targets for Muslim conversion. Moreover, Arabs did not have the Bible in their language until around 867, which prevented the development of any biblical theological tradition.[27] Indeed, a significant missional weakness of early Arabian Christian missions was that there had been no central base or Bible translation work during the first eight hundred years of the church in Arabia.[28]

While Egypt was taken swiftly, just to the south the Nubian kingdom withstood Islam, both theologically and militarily, maintaining a peace treaty for six hundred years. The Nubian kingdom was home to the brilliant ante-Nicene thinker Athanasius of Alexandria. The Nubians had developed a robust Trinitarian Christianity and strong local-language fluency. For six hundred years, Nubian culture maintained a steadfast Christian influence that would eventually decline in the twelfth century. By the fifteenth century, Arabic had become the recognized language.[29]

Ethiopia provides another interesting example of the church in Africa. Doctrinally, some developments within Ethiopian Christianity were new and forward-thinking. Cooper points out that the Ethiopian church became more isolated from the rest of Christendom because of its belief that it was the successor to Israel.[30] Ethiopian Christianity is a potent example of a developed Trinitarian theology and of the power of an indigenous Bible.[31] Ethiopian Christianity developed independently of Roman and Byzantine influence. Ethiopians held a Miaphysite understanding of the nature of Christ. Theologian Steve Strauss points out that the Ethiopians drew no distinction between the nature and the person of Christ. The Christology of the Ethiopian church set it apart from the Roman and Byzantine churches,[32] but this did not prevent it from maintaining a healthy Christian culture that has lasted until today. The Glory of the Kings, a fourteenth-century Christian document written in Ge’ez but based on centuries of oral tradition, became the framing narrative of Ethiopian culture.[33]

This work proved three things:

1. That the lawful kings of Ethiopia were descended from Solomon, King of Israel.

2. The Tabernacle of the Law of God, the Ark of the Covenant, was brought from Jerusalem to Aksum by [Menelik], Solomon’s firstborn son.

3. The God of Israel transferred His place of abode on earth from Jerusalem to Aksum, the ecclesiastical capital of Ethiopia.[34]

Because of the development of these doctrines and the Muslim conquest to the north, the Ethiopian church also slowed its expansion, but it was never overtaken by Muslim invaders.

It would seem that the best defense against the Muslim invaders was sound theology coupled with a Bible in the native tongue of the culture. Sound theological training undergirded by biblical studies staved off Muslim ideological domination for centuries in some areas, and in others, such as Ethiopia, a robust Christian culture remains to this day. Although orthodoxy and a Bible in the native language are not the only factors, they are undoubtedly among the significant factors that proved able to withstand the cultural pressures of Islamic rule, to which our attention now turns.

Social Pressures and the Slow Grind of Cultural Transformation

As I noted above, the North African Christian population was worn down not by the sword but by transformative cultural pressures. While other cultural pressures slowly wore down the native Christians, it was typically Muslim converts to Christianity who gave their lives for the faith. Cooper points out, “Although many churches were turned into mosques during the Middle Ages, it was illegal for Muslims to convert to Christianity. Christian martyrdom, though it existed, largely occurred when Muslims converted to Christianity rather than Christians being killed for the sake of being Christians.”[35] While martyrdom certainly existed in North Africa, it was not the typical pressure that led to conversion. We will now examine three cultural pressures that led to the Islamic conversion of North Africa.

The dhimmi system was introduced as a system of taxation and legal protection under Shariah law that would cause many North African Christians to convert to Islam over the centuries. Muslims collected taxes from Christians through the bishops of various churches by means of the dhimmi system, which resulted in mass conversions not by the sword but via a 3 percent tax. Our text outlines the rules laid down for Christians who lived under Muslim rule in the eighth century, according to tenth-century records from the jurist al-Mawardi of the Shafi’i school of Muslim thought:

1. They (the dhimmis) must not denigrate or misquote the book of Allah.

2. They may not accuse the messenger of Allah of lying or speak of him disparagingly.

3. They must not mention Islam with slander or calumny.

4. They must not approach a Muslim woman to commit adultery with her or with intent to marry.

5. They must not undermine a Muslim’s faith or cause harm to his wealth or religion.

6. They must not help the enemies of, or spy in opposition to, Islam.

In addition to these guidelines, the dhimmi were forced to pay the jizya (the poll tax on non-Muslims)[36] in exchange for protection. While the dhimmi system allowed Jews and Christians to practice their religion, it also imposed clothing restrictions and took away other civil rights from Christians and Jews, in addition to the financial burden.[37] However, compared with the Roman and Byzantine systems, the taxes imposed by Muslims were not as harsh. On occasion, tax-related issues led to significant unrest, as evidenced by a famous revolt in Bulgaria in 1180 over poorly administered and unpopular tax increases, which led to the loss of Byzantine control of that region.[38]

Many African Christians welcomed their new rulers because of the harsh treatment they had received from their Byzantine predecessors. They reasoned that governance under the Muslim conquerors might improve their quality of life. Historian Justin Lasser notes,

While the 6th century marked the isolation of the Coptic Church from the larger Orthodox world, it also deepened a greater sense of Coptic “national” unity and cohesive identity. The strained relations between Egypt and Constantinople made the Copts ready to accept the divorce that occurred after the Arab invasion of the peninsula. In some instances, the Copts received improved treatment under the Arabs; they were granted religious freedom, their taxes were significantly reduced (even if they had to pay the dhimmi, which separated them as “protected” religious people under Shariah [Law]), and they were given many important posts within the government.[39]

In some instances, the Copts were treated demonstrably better under Arab rule. Not only were they granted religious freedom, even under the dhimmi system, but their taxes were also reduced. Moreover, payment under the dhimmi system meant that they would be “protected” by their Arab rulers under Shariah law. Finally, the North Africans were given many important posts within the government.[40]

The dhimmis were protected under Islamic rule, but their quality of life was poor. The codes enacted under Caliph Umar in the ninth century produced dress codes and other restrictions that increased pressure on the Christian and Jewish populations.[41] These laws seem to have been adapted from the Roman regulations imposed on Jews, which limited religious practices that would supposedly offend Christians.[42] Instead of denouncing, killing, or converting the dhimmis, the Muslim population marginalized them through taxes or military service. Wearing a sash, clothing, or turban of a distinct color clearly signaled to the rest of the population that the dhimmi was a second-class citizen. In some areas, the dhimmis were forbidden to ride horses and were allowed only to ride a donkey sidesaddle or were forced to walk.[43]

Indeed, the situation for dhimmis in Egypt became intense because of conflicts in the Middle East. In Syria in the 690s, the situation became dire for the non-Muslims of that region as the regime there imposed a poll tax on them. Additionally, rivalries between Christianity and Islam came to a boiling point after the assault on Constantinople in 717–718 CE. In 722, Caliph Yazid II became iconoclastic and began destroying public displays of images in public libraries and churches, as well as killing every animal in the kingdom deemed unclean.[44] The conflicts in Syria would cause a ripple effect that eventually affected North African Christians.

New laws reduced the number of churches, and it was reported that the monks came under severe persecution in 718.[45] It was said that the governor mutilated the monks, and branded each one of them on his left hand, with a branding iron in the form of a ring, that he might be known; adding the name of his church and his monastery, without a cross, and with the date according to the era of Islam… If they discovered a fugitive or one that had not been marked, they brought him to the Amir, who ordered that one of his limbs should be cut off, so that he was lame for life.

Being a dhimmi meant having little to no social, political, or economic power.[46] The conversion of many North African Christians was not forced by the sword; rather, it was more likely rooted in the logical outworking of their cultural situation and theological ideas.[47] As I mentioned above, many of the Christians in North Africa had veered from orthodoxy in their theology. By the seventh century, many Christians had incorporated Christological and Trinitarian heresies into their theological framework. Suffice it to say that, when these beliefs were coupled with the pressure of dhimmitude, it was more advantageous for them to convert to Islam.[48]

Besides the cultural pressures of being a dhimmi, other cultural norms motivated conversions from Christianity to Islam. North African Christianity did not wholly subside after the Muslim conquest for another reason: political influence.

One historian said,

A case in point emerges in the Maghreb. Although it is commonly held that Christianity west of Egypt completely disappeared after the Arab conquests, historical evidence reveals another scenario. In the town of Tahart in southern Algeria, well after the seventh-century Arab conquests, “Christians formed part of the Imam’s court, … had their church, were wealthy and involved in trade, [and] had a market.[49]

It was common for Christians to serve in the courts of the caliphates that ruled once-Christian lands after the Muslim conquest. For instance, in the town of Tahart in southern Algeria, Christians formed part of the imam’s court, had their own church, were wealthy, and were heavily involved in trade, as they had their own market.[50] The Ibadis who ruled that area were a sect of Islam distinct from the Sunnis and Shias, who were probably as dominant then as they are now.[51] However, despite the role of African Christians in the courts of the caliphs in their region, Christianity eventually lost its dominance as the slow burn of Muslim influence continued to spread throughout North Africa.[52]

Because of the societal benefits of intermingling with Muslims, the slow burn of Islamic cultural indoctrination eventually prevailed, and the phasing out of the church in North Africa was nearly complete by the 1500s.[53] Just south of Egypt, Nubia was the final Christian stronghold in the northern region. Although the Nubian royalty had been intermarrying with Muslims for some time, the last Christian king of Nubia reigned in 1324.[54]

The more Islamic influence reached these regions, the greater the impetus for Africans to convert from Christianity. Moreover, as historian Philip Jenkins points out, “At various times, some Muslim regimes have been inconceivably brutal, others mild and accommodating.”[55] It is difficult to predict whether the various regions of Africa will have to contend with a radically violent or a peaceful version of Islam. Either way, the cultural influence of Islam persists in Africa today, and time will tell the results of these cultural pressures. Islamic power structures were also beginning to thrive in other parts of Africa.[56]

Social benefits seem to have played a significant role in the conversion of North Africa to Islam. The slow grind of Islam is still affecting many regions of Africa and strategically influencing Christians across the continent. In the last century, there has been a push to convert Christians through the influence of public schools. Islamic schools have been built to help Muslim students compete in the primarily English-speaking colonial school systems of Africa. By providing education, these systems practice da’wah, which is defined as Islamic evangelism.[57]

It is also worth noting that religious tolerance has a role to play. Christian communities in North Africa seem to have erred on the side of acceptance when Muslim populations began to migrate. In some African nations, such as Ghana, Muslims met no resistance and were allowed to practice their faith freely, and there was no widespread conversion.[58] After seeing that their presence was welcomed, the Arabs began to migrate and intermingle within the societies that accepted them.[59] Over time, at least two factors contributed to the increase in the Muslim population during this period, namely, immigration and birthrates.

The long-term process of demographic restructuring and population transfer was more effective than forced conversion.[60] According to historian Philip Jenkins, demography has played a crucial role in the rise and fall of religions. Jenkins claims that

Throughout history demography has played a crucial role in the rise and fall of religions, and in modern times, differential birthrates do much to explain the shift of Christian numbers to the global South… In earlier times, migration played a much greater role than birthrates in altering the balance between religions, and governments did much to manipulate migration trends.[61]

Interestingly, governments purposely exported citizens to conquered lands to supplant cultures and establish societies governed by Shariah law.[62] Muslims would also systematically deport Christians from conquered lands to lessen the influence of traditional cultural norms, including Christianity.[63] This resulted in the stamping out of resistant Christian families who had carried on their religious tradition for centuries. Historian Gladys Frantz-Murphy points out,

From the earliest days of the Muslim expansion, new regimes sponsored the migration of Arab and Muslim peoples into what had been Coptic or Syriac territories, reducing the relative power of older-stock populations and their cultures—and their faiths. Over time, intermarriage with these newer groups helped push older families toward accepting Islam. While many native Egyptians did accept Islam on its merits, the presence of these new populations contributed mightily to giving Egypt the strongly Muslim coloring that we find by the late Middle Ages. Between the ninth century and the eleventh, Sicily was another recipient of heavy Arab and Berber immigration.[64]

Concluding the societal-transformation portion of this essay, a couple of takeaways bear revisiting to make the conclusion clear.

First, the popular belief that Islam dominated and took over North Africa quickly is an exaggeration. As social pressures mounted, North Africa slowly but surely became a Muslim region. While some parts of North Africa became heavily Muslim within roughly one hundred years, other areas took several hundred years to convert. Those regions where Christians had non-Trinitarian views and a low Christology baked into their theologies, and where they lacked a Bible in their own language, were the first to fall.

Secondly, societies with more orthodox theology and substantial infrastructure took the longest to infiltrate. Yet, over the centuries, each region fell to Islam through pressured societal constructs such as the dhimmi system, social prestige, intermarriage, and immigration. Although the Muslims invaded Europe in the late 600s CE, it would not be until the late 1400s that Arabic became the spoken language of North Africa. While Islam has been very successful in North Africa, the Muslim population has never been able to erase Christianity from the region altogether. As historian Derek Cooper points out,

In Egypt, for instance, collective memory maintains that Christianity entered in the first century. If correct, it still took hundreds of years before most Egyptians abandoned centuries-old religious practices in favor of the foreign religion of Christianity. In fact, in Egypt, it took longer for Islam to unite the people than it did for Christianity. Although conversion of Christian Copts to Islam occurred intermittently, not until after the Crusades did widespread conversion to Islam occur.[65]

It should come as no surprise that many Christians abandoned their faith for Islam. When put in historical perspective, Islam took about as long to become the dominant religion in eastern and northern Africa as Christianity had centuries before.[66] With European Christianity in decline, the words of Edward Blyden seem apropos; he predicted in 1880 that European Christians might one day “resort to [Mother] Africa” for guidance and renewal.[67] Indeed, as world Christian historian Andrew Walls wrote, “we may need to look at Africa … to understand Christianity itself.”[68] If this is indeed true, then we must take note of the demise of the once-thriving Christian culture of North Africa and thoughtfully pursue cultural change as part of our missiology.

Conclusion

Islam in Africa Today

Today, North Africa is home to 315 million Muslims, that is, twenty percent of the world’s Muslim population. Although it is widely believed that Islam managed to convert a swath of the world’s population by the scimitar, this narrative seems to tell only a portion of the story. The sword was involved, but taxes and impure theology also played their role. It would be wise to take this into account in our current missiology. Although missionaries are being sent and the world is being reached with the gospel, the numbers often do not consider what kind of Christianity is being accepted. Purity of doctrine should be a goal for modern missionaries. Indeed, we can learn much from historical movements within the church and the cultural pressures that surrounded it.

It is worth noting that some valuable lessons can be drawn from the Muslim conquest of North Africa. First, the Muslims seemed to understand that cultural transformation is a powerful tool for religious conversion. Throughout history, many Christians have introduced biblical teachings to different cultures, transforming entire societies. I do not think this is something Christians should shy away from; rather, they should strike a balance between discipleship and colonization and disciple their converts toward appropriate cultural transformation.

Second, it has been noted that Muslim birthrates far exceed Christian birthrates. According to the Pew Research Center, Muslims will outnumber Christians by 2035 because of their birthrate alone.[69] Jenkins points out that “Christian communities have much lower birthrates than Muslim neighbors, so Christians have progressively lost their share of the population.”[70] In short, Christians need to have more children and promote child-rearing in their communities worldwide.

Last but certainly not least, orthodox theological and biblical training is a glaring need for any Christian community that seeks to guard against indoctrination and outside influence. Moreover, those nations that had the Scriptures in their native tongue were able to stave off a total Muslim takeover of their region. Both Ethiopia and the Egyptian Copts provide nearly miraculous accounts of preserving their theological and biblical heritage because both had a Bible in their native tongue that was accessible to Christians in their lands.

Muslim-Christian dialogue is still needed in North Africa. Thankfully, ministries such as the Centre for Muslim and Christian Studies at Oxford champion textual dialogues between Christians and Muslims in hard-to-reach areas.[71] While some places in the Sudanese and Nigerian regions remain quite violent toward Christians, there is still much hope for Muslim outreach in these areas.

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[1]. Philip Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity (2024).

[2]. Jenkins (2024)

[3]. J. M. Allen III, “Theological Factors That Contributed to the Rise of Islam,” Midwestern Journal of Theology 23, no. 1 (2024), https://www.mbts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/MJT-SP-24-soft-proof-May-30.pdf.

[4]. Derek Cooper, Introduction to World Christian History (IVP Academic, 2016).

[5]. Cooper, World Christian History.

[6]. P. Schaff and D. S. Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910), 171.

[7]. Schaff and Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 171.

[8]. Cooper, World Christian History.

[9]. Cooper, World Christian History.

[10]. Mommsen, quoted in Jenkins, (2024)

[11]. Allen, “Theological Factors.”

[12]. Cooper, World Christian History.

[13]. Allen, “Theological Factors.”

[14]. William S. C. Tisdall, The Original Sources of the Qur’ân (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; E. S. Gorham, 1911), 165.

[15]. Allen, “Theological Factors.”

[16]. John of Damascus, Saint John of Damascus: Writings, trans. F. H. Chase (Fathers of the Church, 1958).

[17]. W. B. Pope, A Compendium of Christian Theology: Being Analytical Outlines of a Course of Theological Study, Biblical, Dogmatic, Historical, 3 vols. (London: Beveridge and Co., 1879), 274.

[18]. Allen, “Theological Factors,” 56.

[19]. J. R. W. Stott, C. G. Fry, and H. K. Stothard, “November 7, 1969,” Christianity Today, February 22, 2019, https://www.christianitytoday.com/magazine/1969/november-7/.

[20]. Cooper, World Christian History.

[21]. Cooper, World Christian History.

[22]. Justin Lasser, “Coptic Orthodoxy,” in The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, ed. John McGuckin (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011), 1:157.

[23]. Cooper, World Christian History.

[24]. Cooper, World Christian History.

[25]. Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity.

[26]. Allen, “Theological Factors.”

[27]. Allen, “Theological Factors.”

[28]. S. H. Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia: Beginnings to 1500 (Orbis Books, 1998).

[29]. Allen, “Theological Factors.”

[30]. Cooper, World Christian History.

[31]. Allen, “Theological Factors.”

[32]. Steve Strauss, “Creeds, Confessions, and Global Theologizing: A Case Study in Comparative Christologies,” in Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity (ISI Books, 2006).

[33]. Cooper, World Christian History.

[34]. M. Brooks, A Modern Translation of the Kebra Nagast: The Glory of Kings (Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press, 1996), xiii.

[35]. Cooper, World Christian History.

[36]. C. C. Sahner, Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World (Princeton University Press, 2018), 6.

[37]. L. A. Nichols, G. A. Mather, and A. J. Schmidt, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Cults, Sects, and World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 386.

[38]. S. Backhouse, Zondervan Essential Companion to Christian History (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019), 102.

[39]. Lasser, “Coptic Orthodoxy,” 1:157.

[40]. Lasser, “Coptic Orthodoxy,” 1:157.

[41]. Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity.

[42]. Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity.

[43]. Allen, “Theological Factors.”

[44]. Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity.

[45]. Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity.

[46]. Sahner, Christian Martyrs under Islam, 6.

[47]. Allen, “Theological Factors.”

[48]. Allen, “Theological Factors.”

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[58]. A. Holt, Religion and World Civilizations: How Faith Shaped Societies from Antiquity to the Present (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023), 142.

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