Note 175 — Chapter III · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF WESTERN ASIA.
Reading edition
Barhebræus (1), vol. iii. pp. 288–90. Elias of Nisibis, pp. 153–4. He returned to the Christian faith, however, before his death, which took place about twenty years later. Two similar cases are recorded in the annals of the Jacobite Patriarchs of Antioch in the sixteenth century: of these one, named Joshua, became a Muhammadan in 1517, but afterwards recanting fled to Cyprus (at that time in the hands of the Venetians), where prostrate at the door of a church in penitential humility he suffered all who went in or out to tread over his body; the other, Niʻmat Allāh (flor. 1560), having abjured Christianity for Islam, sought absolution of Pope Gregory XIII in Rome. (Barhebræus (1), vol. ii. pp. 847–8.) ↑