Hill Peter - Prophet Of Reason Science Religion And The Origins Of The Modern Middle East - Paperback

Binding: Paperback
Description: An outstanding intellectual biography. Eugene Rogan In 1813, high in the Lebanese mountains a thirteen - year - old boy watches a solar eclipse. Will it foretell a war a plague the death of a prince? Mikha il Mishaqa's lifelong search for truth starts here. Soon he's reading Newtonian science and the radical ideas of Voltaire and Volney: he loses his religion turning away from the Catholic Church. Thirty years later as civil war rages in Syria he finds a new faith Evangelical Protestantism. His obstinate polemics scandalise his community. Then in 1860, Mishaqa barely escapes death in the most notorious event in Damascus: a massacre of several thousand Christians. We are presented with a paradox: rational secularism and violent religious sectarianism grew up together. By tracing Mishaqa's life through this tumultuous era when empires jostled for control Peter Hill answers the question: What did people in the Middle East actually believe? It's a world where one man could be a Jew an Orthodox Christian and a Sunni Muslim in turn and a German missionary might walk naked in the streets of Valletta.
Title: Prophet Of Reason Science Religion And The Origins Of The Modern Middle East
Author(s): Hill Peter
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Barcode: 9780861547364
Pages: 368 Pages
Publication Date: 6/11/2024
Category: History Of Religion