The Second Established Religion of the Caliphate: The Church of the East in Ninth Century Baghdad

The Church of the East (sometimes known as ‘Nestorians’) was the largest Christian confession in Iraq, which, in the ninth century, lay at the heart of the Abbasid caliphate. Their missions reached the coast of south India and the great cities of Tang China. Using Arabic church chronicles and Syriac saints’ lives, this lecture examines how the leaders of the Church of the East used their court connections to assert their supremacy over other Christian groups without overtly antagonising their Muslim rulers.

Presenter: Dr Philip Wood, Tejpar Professor of Inter-religious Studies, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, Aga Khan University (United Kingdom)