PRESS RELEASE
Dr. Sidney H. Griffith
Catholic University of America
Washington, DC
Living Together in Baghdad Muslim-Christian Relations in Abbasid and Contemporary Times
Lecture: April 12, 2010
Luther College/University of Regina, Room 207
2:30 p.m.
Dr. Sidney H. Griffith will present “Living Together in Baghdad: Muslim-Christian Relations in Abbasid and Contemporary Times.” at Luther College, University of Regina, on Monday, April 12, at 2:30 p.m. in room 207.
Dr. Griffith is Professor and Chair of the Department of Semitic & Egyptian Languages and Literature at Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. His teaching and research falls primarily into two fields - Syriac (Aramaic) language and literature, and Christian Arabic language and literature, Professor Griffith is one of the world’s foremost students and scholars of Eastern Christianity, especially the churches that continue to thrive in the midst of predominantly Islamic societies (Syrian, Coptic, Armenian, Arabic).
Dr. Griffith has written extensively on the early Syriac-speaking churches (3rd to 7th centuries) that flourished in what is today Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Qatar, and their continued life after the emergence of Islam in the mid-7th century. His most recent book, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton University Press, 2007), examines how the Eastern churches adapted to life under Islamic rule as a fellow “People of the Book.” His focus centers upon the vibrant intellectual life in Baghdad during the Abbasid caliphate (750-935) when Christian and Muslim scholars studied with and under one another. During this time, a great translation movement developed under the encouragement of the caliphs at the Bayt al-Hikma, “House of Wisdom,” resulting in the translation of many of the classic Greek works of philosophy, science and medicine into Arabic by Eastern Christian scholars who were fluent in Arabic. The fruits of this massive translation project eventually found their way back into medieval Europe through Moorish Spain, fueling the beginnings of the Western Renaissance.
Dr. Griffith has also become deeply involved in contemporary Christian-Muslim relations, both in publications and engaging in inter-faith dialogue. His lecture will aim to wed an historical perspective on how Christians and Muslims lived, worked and studied together in the first three centuries of the Islamic era and how those relationships might encourage and inspire similar benefits in the 21st century.
This lecture is being coordinated and sponsored by the Luther College, Campion College, the Religious Studies Department, and the Canada Research Chair for Social Justice, all at the University of Regina, as well as Knox-Metropolitan United Church. For further information, please contact: F. Volker Greifenhagen, Luther College (585-4859), Matthew Livingstone, S.J., Campion College (359-1240), Robert Kitchen, Knox-Metropolitan United Church (525-9128).