Across Europe, the Continent's fastest-growing religion is establishing its public presence after decades in basements and courtyards, changing not only the architectural look of cities, but also their social fabrics. Since the mosque was opened in 1995, Muslim shops and youth centers have become a magnet for the Muslim community. Every weekend, roughly 150 Roman Catholics attend mass at the Liebfrauen Church, while up to 3,000 Muslims throng the Yavuz-Sultan-Selim mosque. Years ago, 180 sisters of the Catholic order of the Sisters of the Divine Savior were the pulse of the city.
Watch two extra daily videos here and here.In the Rhine Valley city of Mannheim, the glittering minaret of Germany's biggest mosque overshadows what was once the region's most vibrant church, testifying to Muslims' new confidence as Christian churches are closing down. That shift would be symbolized in the event we’ll study tomorrow: the crowning of Charlemagne. But after the rise of Islam the Western church began to face a different direction: north, toward Europe. Until this time, the church was largely running on an east-west axis. That left only one main city that wasn’t swept up by Islam: Rome. Most of the ancient centers of Christianity: Jerusalem (where Jesus died and was resurrected), Antioch (where disciples got the name Christians), Damascus (the city Paul was on his way to when he saw Jesus), Alexandria (the home of Athanasius), Carthage (Augustine’s old stomping grounds), and Constantinople (the seat of the Eastern church) became majority Muslim-and many still are. But it’s important to see now how Islam reconfigured the geography of the Christian faith. It also set the stage for some topics we’ll be studying later on, especially the crusades, when tensions between Christians and Muslims over control of the Holy Land came to a head. It’s probably obvious that today, over a millennium later, we still live in the wake of Islam’s spread in the seventh century. Its spread was largely due to military conquest, but it also helped that Christianity was weak in the area due to internal disputes over doctrine and politics. By the 700s, half of the world’s Christians lived under Muslim rule. In 674 Islam was knocking on the gates of Constantinople. While some Christians remained, they largely decreased in Carthage they were completely eliminated. Just ten years after Muhammad’s death Muslim armies had reached Egypt, the home of old Christian theological giants like Athanasius.
When he died in 632, the area of Arabia was already one third Muslim. While Muslims highly revere Jesus as a prophet, it is especially hard for Muslims to imagine God having a Son.ĭespite some initial resistance, Muhammad gained a sizable following. Islam also emphasizes God’s oneness to the point that it finds the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation scandalous. Islam differs from Christianity in that it emphasizes the role of human obedience or submission - which is what the word Islam means - in order to earn salvation. In a climate of polytheism (worship of many gods), Muhammad preached a radical message of monotheism (worship of one God). The Koran’s main message is obedience to one God. But in other ways Muslims view their Koran in the way Christians view Christ: God’s word in material form. In some ways the Koran is to Muslims what the Bible is to Christians: it is their main religious text. When he was forty he claimed to have received a vision of the angel Gabriel telling him to “recite.” He wrote down what he heard into what is now known as the Koran (which means “to recite”). At some point in his life Muhammad probably came into contact with Jewish and Christian sects, likely unconventional ones. It began in AD 570 - when Gregory the Great was thirty years old and not yet pope - with the birth of a man named Muhammad in the city of Mecca.
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