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DESCRIPTIONThe first Christians to meet Muslims were not Latin-speaking Christians from the western Mediterranean or Greek-speaking Christians from Constantinople but rather Christians from northern Mesopotamia who spoke the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Living under Muslim rule from the seventh century to the present, Syriac Christians wrote the first and most extensive accounts of Islam, describing a complicated set of religious and cultural exchanges not reducible to the solely antagonistic.Through its critical introductions and new translations of this invaluable historical material, When Christians First Met Muslims allows scholars, students, and the general public to explore the earliest interactions between what eventually became the world’s two largest religions, shedding new light on Islamic history and Christian-Muslim relations.CONTENTSAcknowledgmentsPrologue: The Year 630IntroductionAccount ad 637Chronicle ad 640Letters, Isho'yahb IIIApocalypse of Pseudo-EphremKhuzistan ChronicleMaronite ChronicleSyriac Life of Maximus the ConfessorCanons, George IColophon of British Library Additional 14,666Letter, Athanasius of BaladBook of Main Points, John bar PenkayeApocalypse of Pseudo-MethodiusEdessene ApocalypseMichael Philip Penn is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Religion at Mount Holyoke College and the author of Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians in the Early Muslim World and Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient ChurchExegesis of the Pericopes of the Gospel, Hnanisho' ILife of TheoduteColophon of British Library Additional 14,448Apocalypse of John the LittleChronicle ad 705Letters, Jacob of EdessaChronicle, Jacob of EdessaScholia, Jacob of EdessaAgainst the Armenians, Jacob of EdessaKamed InscriptionsChronicle of DisastersChronicle ad 724Disputation of John and the EmirExegetical Homilies, Mar Abba IIDisputation of Bet HaleBibliographyIndex