One key element of the Islamic intellectual tradition is the commentary. Commentaries on the Qurʼan (tafsīr) began early in Islamic history, but from about the 12th or 13th century, well into the 19th, commentaries on other scholarly texts became extremely common. -jm

1 So, today we turn to early Islamic Beirut. what do we know of the earliest times of #Beirut under early Islamic rule, starting with the #conquest. How and when did Beirut enter the emerging Muslim empire? -rm

2 Let’s start with traditional sources for the early Islamic period. Of those, only al-Balādhurī (d. ca. 892), the Abbasid scholar, is informative. Other Muslim and non-Muslim sources including al-Ṭabarī's Tārīkh are silent on the matter.-rm

3 In his small tome, Futūḥ al-Buldān, al-Balādhurī tells his readers: “After the conquest of Damascus, Yazīd came to Sidon, ʿArqa, Byblos, and Beirut which lie on the sea coast with his brother Muʿāwiya leading the van of the army.”-rm

4 Hence, the men who conquered Beirut were Yazīd b. Abī Sufyān (d. 639) and his half-brother and future caliph Mu‘āwiya (r. 661-680). The date of the conquest of the coast falls between 636 and 639 at the latest, the date of the death of Yazīd in the plague of Emmaus. -rm

5 Yazīd and the Muslim army likely took the coastal road to Beirut, a path taken by numerous armies before. They would have either swung from Damascus to Baalbek through the Hims gap to ‘Arqa, then Byblos, crossed the Dog River, and arrived at the eastern side of Beirut.

How do you explain the Trinity in Chinese? If you're a Christian in Tang China, there's a few ways!

I'm @ChenHuailun, back for my last #Twittistorian thread, this time on translating the names of God in Chinese Christian documents. ~ahc #jingjiao 1/

There are two main writers/translators credited in the extant documents of the Christian (called 'Jingjiao' 景教 in Chinese) corpus of Tang China: Aluoben and Jingjing. ~ahc #jingjiao /2

Aluoben (阿蘿本) was said to have been the Persian missionary responsible for bringing Christianity to China, arriving in Chang'an in 635 and building a church there with 21 monks. ~ahc #jingjiao /3

'Observing the azure clouds, he [Aluoben] bore the true sacred books; beholding the direction of the winds, he braved difficulties and dangers.' - Xi'an stele ~ahc #jingjiao /4

Let's pause on this name, Aluoben (阿蘿本). Some translate it as 'Olopen.' Is it a Syriac name, perhaps a rendering of Yahballaha or Abraham? Or perhaps a Middle Persian name Anōš-ruwān (meaning immortal soul)? ~ahc #jingjiao /5

@ChenHuailun here. I'm adding a supplementary thread before today's scheduled one to expand on the origins and early history of the Church of the East (aka the Nestorian Church) ~ahc #jingjiao 1/

The Church of the East traces its origins to the christological position of the School of Antioch, which held that the human and divine and human essences (ουσία) of Christ were united in a single prosopon (πρόσωπον). ~ahc #jingjiao 2/

This ran against the position of the School of Alexandria, which held that the two essences of Christ were united in a single hypostasis (ὑπόστασις). In general terms, hypostasis is more inherent than prosopon. ~ahc #jingjiao 3/

One implication of the Antiochene rejection of the hypostatic union is that Mary could not accurately be called the Theotokos, or God-bearer. Instead, she is the Christotokos, the Christ-bearer. ~ahc #jingjiao 4/

These Christological debates were further complicated by Syriac terms such as 'kyana' (ܟܝܢܐ), associated with 'ousia' but later translated to 'hypostasis' by Syrian Orthodox; and 'qnoma ' (ܩܢܘܡܐ), sometimes contentiously translated as 'hypostasis' or 'person.' ~ahc #jingjiao 5/

1/25 Today, I will continue looking at the lives of Palestinian poets in the context of the intellectual battle over modernizing Arabic poetry after 1948. A marginalized and maligned figure in Arab intellectual history in the Cold War is Tawfiq Sayigh (1923-71) ~AA.

2/25 I am tagging Tawfiq's nephew @SayighYezid, a brilliant political economist and political scientist of the modern and contemporary Middle East. He is the son of Palestinian economist Yusuf Sayigh and Rosemary Sayigh, the British anthropologist ~AA.

3/25 Though elsewhere in my work I closely study Jabra I. Jabra (1920-94) -- Sayigh's lifetime colleague and confidant -- I will cover Jabra, here, in relation to Sayigh for the purposes of brevity and since Jabra has received a fair amount of attention in the historiography ~AA.

4/25 The prose-poem was a form that Sayigh masterfully used to express his feelings of misery and pain. Sayigh led a tortured life that took him from one exile to another until his lonely death in Berkeley in 1971. Mounah Khouri, Arabic professor @NESUCB laid him to rest ~AA.

5/25 During the Nakba, the Sayigh family fled from Tiberias and settled in Ras Beirut, where Sayigh received them and cared for them from his income as a librarian at Beirut’s American Cultural Center and as an anonymous editor of the women's magazine "Ṣawt al-Mar’ah" ~AA.

Muslim thought in India can be thought of as having two lineages

1. Islamic puritanism

Lineage : Sirhindi -> Shāh Walīullāh ->Syed Ahmad Barelvi, Deobandi movement, Maulana Azad -> Jamaat e Islami

2. Muslim nationalism

Syed Ahmed Khan ->Jinnah, Iqbal - > Ayub Khan/Musharraf

The former originated largely as a religious movement.

It has its origins in Sirhindi, who voiced the view in 16th cen, that Akbar's policy was "Indianizing" Islam too much

Too much of Din-e-ilahi crap.

Let's keep Islam pure

That lineage continues in the thinking of 18th cen theologian Shah Waliullah , the Delhi based Islamic scholar who lived b/w 1703 and 1762

Waliullah like Sirhindi emphasized segregation/purity
and loyalty to the Ummah (the global Islamic whole)

Not to South Asian muslims per se

Waliullah once said

"Muslims, no matter where they live, they should be completely separated from the natives of that country in their culture, traditions and mannerisms. And wherever they are, they must be immersed in their Arabic splendor and Arabic trends”

This line of thinking continues in two 19th cen movements-

That of Syed Barelvi - who fought valiantly against Sikh rule in Punjab at Balakot

And that of the Deobandis in late 19th cen

Does Islam teach men to oppress women?🧵

A dispassionate study of the primary sources of
Islam, along with an analysis of the position of
women in societies where Islam was implemented, shows that Islam's emergence was a blessing for women and it drastically improved their previously poor status.

As far as relationship to God is concerned, there is absolutely no difference between men & women. Both are promised reward/punishment according to their conduct.

In addition to the verses which makes both genders one product in regard to spirituality, Quran, in addressing believers, often uses the expression 'believing men & women' to emphasize their equality in regard to their respective duties, rights, virtues & merits. Examples:

Quran being the rulebook for muslims demonstrates how certain things should be done which also includes rules regarding marriage, behaviour between spouses, separate rights of them which cant be taken away, Allah's warnings against pressuring/confining the wife etc some verses: