Note 78 — Chapter III · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF WESTERN ASIA.

The opinion of the Muhammadan legists is very diverse on this question, from the more liberal Ḥanafī doctrine, which declares that, though it is unlawful to construct churches and synagogues in Muhammadan territory, those already existing can be repaired if they have been destroyed or have fallen into decay, while in villages and hamlets, where the tokens of Islam do not appear, new churches and synagogues may be built—to the intolerant Ḥanbalite view that they may neither be erected nor be restored when damaged or ruined. Some legists held that the privileges varied according to treaty rights: in towns taken by force, no new houses of prayer might be erected by d͟himmīs, but if a special treaty had been made, the building of new churches and synagogues was allowed.78 But like so many of the lucubrations of Muhammadan legists, these prescriptions bore but little relation to actual facts.79 Schoolmen might agree that the d͟himmīs could build no houses of prayer in a city of Muslim foundation, but the civil authority permitted the Copts to erect churches in the new capital of Cairo.80 In other cities also the Christians were allowed to erect new churches and monasteries. The very fact that ʻUmar II (717–720), at the close of the first century of the Hijrah, should have ordered the destruction of all recently constructed churches,81 and that rather more than a century later, the fanatical al-Mutawakkil (847–861) should have had to repeat the same order, shows how little the prohibition of the building of new churches was put into force.82 We have numerous instances recorded, both by Christian and Muhammadan historians, of the building of new churches: e.g. in the reign of ʻAbd al-Malik (685–705), a wealthy Christian of Edessa, named Athanasius, erected in his native city a fine church dedicated to the Mother of God, and a Baptistery in honour of the picture of Christ that was reputed to have been sent to King Abgar; he also built a number of churches and monasteries in various parts of Egypt, among them two magnificent churches in Fusṭāṭ.83 Some Christian chamberlains in the service of ʻAbd al-ʻAziz b. Marwān (brother of ʻAbd al-Malik), the governor of Egypt, obtained permission to build a church in Ḥalwān, which was dedicated to St. John,84 though this town was a Muslim creation. In A.D. 711 a Jacobite church was built at Antioch by order of the caliph al-Walīd (705–715).85 In the first year of the reign of Yazīd II (A.D. 720), Mār Elias, the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, made a solemn entry into Antioch, accompanied by his clergy and monks, to consecrate a new church which he had caused to be built; and in the following year he consecrated another church in the village of Sarmada, in the district of Antioch, and the only opposition he met with was from the rival Christian sect that accepted the Council of Chalcedon.86 In the following reign, K͟hālid al-Qasrī, who was governor of Arabian and Persian ʻIrāq from 724 to 738, built a church for his mother, who was a Christian, to worship in.87 In 759 the building of a church at Nisibis was completed, on which the Nestorian bishop, Cyprian, had expended a sum of 56,000 dīnārs.88 From the same century dates the church of Abū Sirjah in the ancient Roman fortress in old Cairo.89 In the reign of al-Mahdī (775–785) a church was erected in Bag͟hdād for the use of the Christian prisoners that had been taken captive during the numerous campaigns against the Byzantine empire.90 Another church was built in the same city, in the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd (786–809), by the people of Samālū, who had submitted to the caliph and received protection from him;91 during the same reign Sergius, the Nestorian Metropolitan of Baṣrah, received permission to build a church in that city,92 though it was a Muslim foundation, having been created by the caliph ʻUmar in the year 638, and a magnificent church was erected in Babylon in which were enshrined the bodies of the prophets Daniel and Ezechiel.93 When al-Maʼmūn (813–833) was in Egypt he gave permission to two of his chamberlains to erect a church on al-Muqaṭṭam, a hill near Cairo; and by the same caliph’s leave, a wealthy Christian, named Bukām, built several fine churches at Būrah in Egypt.94 The Nestorian Patriarch, Timotheus, who died A.D. 820, erected a church at Takrīt and a monastery at Bag͟hdād.95 In the tenth century, the beautiful Coptic church of Abū Sayfayn was built in Fusṭāṭ.96 A new church was built at Jiddah in the reign of al-Ẓāhir, the seventh Fāṭimid caliph of Egypt (1020–1035).97 New churches and monasteries were also built in the reign of the ʻAbbāsid, al-Mustaḍī (1170–1180).98 In 1187 a church was built at Fusṭāṭ and dedicated to Our Lady the Pure Virgin.99