Prophet of Reason : Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East Paperback / softback
by Peter Hill
Paperback / softback
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Description
'An outstanding intellectual biography.' Eugene RoganIn 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.
Information
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Pre-OrderFree UK DeliveryThis title is available for pre-order
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:368 pages
- Publisher:Oneworld Publications
- Publication Date:02/05/2024
- Category:
- ISBN:9780861547364
Information
-
Pre-OrderFree UK DeliveryThis title is available for pre-order
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:368 pages
- Publisher:Oneworld Publications
- Publication Date:02/05/2024
- Category:
- ISBN:9780861547364