Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia Edited by A. C. S. Peacock, Bruno De Nicola and Sara Nur Yildiz

Throughout its known history the peninsula of Anatolia has been a religious conundrum. To ancient Romans it was the mysterious home of the cult of the goddess Cybele, with its self-emasculating priests. To the first Christians it represented the dangers of syncretism, detailed by Paul (himself an Anatolian) in his warnings to the Christians of Colossae against alien beliefs, and by John the theologian in his criticisms of the impurities in the faith of the Seven Churches of Asia, though it was also the homeland of some of the greatest theologians of the early Church, including the Cappadocian Fathers whose formulations of the doctrine of the Trinity form the basis of Christian beliefs. Under Byzantine rule Anatolia was largely Christian, with an establishment of bishops and ecclesiastical networks giving every sign that the faith of the empire was firmly rooted in the minds and hearts of the people. Yet with the insurgence of Muslim Turks in the eleventh century and the seizure of most of the peninsula by the Seljuks and other tribes, its religious character changed. By the time the ascendant Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople in the fifteenth century, the population of the former Christian heartland was largely Muslim, and more inclined to loyalty to the victor than the vanquished. The period in which this religious upheaval occurred, and just what occurred and how, is the subject of this collection of essays. They shed light on many details of what was a long and involved process, though they make no pretence that the conundrum has been resolved. In fact, the book raises the important question of whether it can be resolved at all, and whether it is realistic to think that it could be resolved by a single solution.