Table Of ContentSTORIES BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY
AND ISLAM
STORIES BETWEEN
CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM
saints, memory, and cultural exchange in
late antiquity and beyond
Reyhan Durmaz
university of california press
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2022 by Reyhan Durmaz
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Durmaz, Reyhan, author.
Title: Stories between Christianity and Islam : saints, memory,
and cultural exchange in late antiquity and beyond / Reyhan
Durmaz.
Description: Oakland, California : University of California
Press, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2021062921 (print) | lccn 2021062922
(ebook) | isbn 9780520386464 (cloth) | isbn
9780520386471 (ebook)
Subjects: lcsh: Christianity and other religions—Islam—
History—To 1500. | Islam—Relations—Christianity—
History—To 1500. | Muslim saints—History—To 1500—
Comparative studies. | Christian saints—History—To
1500—Comparative studies. | Qurʼan—Christian interpre-
tations. | Bible New Testament—Islamic interpretations.
Classification: lcc bp172 .d845 2022 (print) | lcc bp172
(ebook) | ddc 261.2/7—dc23/eng/20220202
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021062921
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021062922
Manufactured in the United States of America
28 27 26 25 24 23 22
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Note on Translation, Transliteration, and References xi
Introduction 1
Narrating Stories 2
Sorting Stories 5
Remembering Stories 7
1. Storytelling in Late Antique Christianity 15
Hagiography and Orality 16
A World of Storytelling 21
Storytellers in Late Antique Christianity 26
Hagiographic Interviews and Audience Participation 28
2. “How Is Muhammad a Better Storyteller Than I?” 33
Who Is Narrating? 35
Storytelling in the Quran 37
The Broader Late Antique Context of Quranic Storytelling 47
Functions of Storytelling in Muhammad’s Preaching 50
Narrating Stories after Muhammad 61
3. “Ask Him about the Youths”: Narrating the Quran with
Christian Saints 66
Q18: The Cave 68
The Companions of the Cave 70
The Rich Man and the Poor Man 77
Moses, the Unnamed Servant of God, and the Two-Horned 80
4. Christian Saints in Islamic Literature 90
Remembering Saint Antony 91
South Arabian Historiography and Alexander the Believing King 101
Saint George in Al-T.abarī’s History of the Prophets and Kings 109
Looking at Buildings, Narrating Saint Marūthā 114
5. From Paul and John to Fīmyūn and S.ālih. 122
Transformation of a Story 122
Ibn Ish.āq on the Authority of Wahb b. Munabbih 132
Fīmyūn and S.ālih. in Context 134
6. Stories between Christianity and Islam 146
Monks, Monasticism, and the Islamic Notion of Sanctity 146
Authorship and Transmission of Hagiographic Knowledge 151
Narratives in and of the Family 156
Abbreviations 163
Notes 165
Bibliography 209
Index 257
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It would not have been possible to pursue this project without the continuous
support and guidance of Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Nancy Khalek, and Sulei-
man Mourad. I am grateful for the model of intellectual generosity and
scholarly rigor they set. It is the greatest honor to have been Susan’s student.
The core ideas for this project started in one of her seminars in 2013. Since
then, the lighthouse of her scholarship and friendship has guided me along
the exciting and challenging shores of antiquity. I have learned what it means
to be nurturing from Nancy’s mentorship throughout the many years of this
project. Her seminars, the conversations in her office, and our meetings over
coffee deeply shaped and reshaped my thinking. I also had the privilege of
working with Suleiman from the early days of this project through its comple-
tion. Every page of this book benefited from his directions, careful reading,
and candid critique.
I learned how to approach history, religion, and ancient texts in seminars,
reading groups, and interdepartmental colloquia at Brown University, where
I benefited immensely from courses and conversations with Jonathan Conant,
Ross Kraemer, Stratis Papaioannou, Michael Satlow, Sarah Insley Say, among
others. At Brown I also explored the challenges and joys of reading Syriac
with Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Rebecca Falcasantos, Michael Payne, Daniel
Picus, and Noah Tetenbaum. Beyond Brown, I am indebted to Niels Gaul for
helping me develop my ideas at an early stage of this project and for support-
ing me at every phase thereafter. I also thank Volker Menze, who has always
been a great mentor and friend. And I extend my heartfelt gratitude to Sidney
.
viii acknowledgments
Griffith and Stephanos Efthymiadis for their supportive, insightful, and
delightful conversations, which challenged my ideas in transformative ways.
During my time as a Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellow in 2018–2019, I had
the opportunity to think about, write, and discuss many parts of this book. I
am thankful to Thomas Arentzen, Alberto Bardi, Daniel Caner, Anna Kelley,
Michael McCormick, John Mulhall, Mark Pawlowski, Christos Simelidis,
Erin Walsh, and other Fellows for their generous engagement with my work
and for the delightful meals at Dumbarton Oaks, full of laughter. My thanks
also go to Jan Ziolkowski, Anna Stavrokopoulou, Eden Slone, Emily Jacobs,
Joshua Robinson, and Alyson Williams for their care and hospitality at
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, DC. This
project was also generously supported by a Charlotte W. Newcombe Dis-
sertation Fellowship provided by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship
Foundation.
My academic home for the last several years, the University of Pennsylva-
nia’s Department of Religious Studies, has provided the most nurturing
environment for the completion of this book. I cannot overstate my gratitude
to my department colleagues Anthea Butler, Jamal Elias, Justin McDaniel,
Megan Robb, Donovan Schaefer, Jolyon Thomas, and Steven Weitzman for
their careful reading of chapters, sharing of ideas over coffee or cocktails, and
for their unwavering support.
At UPenn, I was also fortunate to be able to workshop an earlier version
of the manuscript thanks to the Hershey Manuscript Grant for Assistant
Professors provided by the Wolf Humanities Center. The discussion and
debate that day reverberate in many pages of this book. Kevin Van Bladel was
the main respondent, and his comments led me to think about various chap-
ters of the book in new ways. I am indebted to the director of the Wolf
Humanities Center, Karen Redrobe, organizers Dru Baker and Sarah Varney,
and the workshop participants, Kim Bowes, Anthea Butler, Mary Caldwell,
Paul Cobb, Rita Copeland, Jamal Elias, Cam Grey, Joseph Lowry, Justin
McDaniel, Megan Robb, Sarah Bowen Savant, Donovan Schaefer, Jolyon
Thomas, Steven Weitzman, and Brannon Wheeler, for their invaluable com-
ments and questions, during and after the meeting. The debate that day, about
Late Antiquity, literacy, book titles, and other interesting topics was a precious
moment of collegiality and generosity that I learned a lot from.
A village of people were there when I needed a critical pair of eyes on these
pages. At various points I sent draft chapters, sometimes with very little notice,
.
acknowledgments ix
to Kim Bowes, Simcha Gross, Jae Hee Han, Joseph Lowry, Ivan Marić, John
Penniman, Megan Robb, Donovan Schaefer, and Daniel Wodak. Thank you
for your time, brilliant ideas, and support! I extend my thanks to the Syriac
Studies community, especially to Adam Becker, Maria Doerfler, Emanuel
Fiano, Philip Forness, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent, Sergey Minov,
Josh Mugler, Kyle Smith, Salam Rassi, Alberto Rigolio, Flavia Ruani, Erin
Walsh, Jamey Walters, and John Zaleski. Thanks to this community, I left
every conference and workshop with new ideas, new friends, and new projects
to look forward to. I had the opportunity to present one of the chapters of this
book at the “Memory and Forgetting” workshop organized by Annette Yoshiko
Reed and Simcha Gross at NYU in 2019, another chapter with Emily Steiner
and her graduate students in a doctoral seminar at UPenn in 2021, and yet
another chapter at the “Retracing Connections” seminar in March 2022 with
a warm invitation from Stratis Papaioannou. I am grateful for these and other
opportunities to speak about this project and receive invaluable feedback.
It has been a pleasure to work with the University of California Press in
preparing my manuscript for publication. My special thanks go to Eric
Schmidt, who has been a great advocate for the project from the beginning;
LeKeisha Hughes, whose attention to the various stages of the publication
process has been indispensable; and the anonymous Academic Committee
reader, whose comments and words of encouragement were most welcome.
The two anonymous reviewers turned out to be Jack Tannous and Arietta
Papaconstantinou, and I could not be more honored to have received their
careful reading, constructive critique, and generous support. I am also grate-
ful to Kali Handelman, who read the manuscript in great detail and offered
invaluable editorial comments, and to Marian Rogers for skillfully editing the
book at the latest stage. All the mistakes and imperfections of the book are
of course mine.
I would have been less and done less without the love, support, adventures,
movie recommendations, coffee, and laughter my friends shared with me over
the years that I was busy with this project. In addition to the many I mentioned
above, thank you, Dora Ivanišević, Anlam Filiz, Ramzi Kanazi, Irene Mal-
fatto, Ivan Marić, Lynn Meskell, Michael Payne, Behice Pehlivan, John Pen-
niman, Megan Robb, Ayşe Şirin, Donovan Schaefer, Fatemeh Shams, and
Noah Tetenbaum! The last phase of writing and revising the book was a dif-
ferent kind of challenge, punctuated by moments of overworking and over-
thinking. My biggest thanks to Daniel Wodak and Nala for accompanying
.
x acknowledgments
me in this process. Daniel reminded me to breathe, eat, go for a walk, travel,
sleep, and raise a toast for every milestone, big and small. It is those moments
that complete a project, and I owe him so much for that.
I made a big family while writing this book and found new homes in many
cities. Yet over that time the dent in my heart in being away from my mother
and brother, Hatice and Ibrahim, and my aunt “Cicila,” only grew bigger. My
nephew Asaf was born when I started writing the earliest chapters of the book.
By the time I finished writing this book, he was four years old, learning to
read and talking about how much he likes his teachers. This book is dedicated
to Asaf.
