What Happened with the Christians of North Africa and Levant?
[Music]
we are at the end of the third century
the Roman Empire is at its biggest a
well administrated structure with
institutions laws strong military and
religion but with corruption migrators
and other problems as well
religion in the Roman Empire compressed
the practices and beliefs in the Romans
regarded as their own as well as the
many cults imported to Rome or practices
of other people and provinces the
religion could be interpreted as
polytheistic the presence of Greeks on
the Italian peninsula from the beginning
of their historical period influenced
Roman culture introducing some religious
practices that became as fundamental as
the cult of Apolo
the Romans looked for common ground
between their major gods and those of
the Greeks adapting Greek myths and
iconography for Latin literature and
Roman art as the Etruscans had the
Romans thought of themselves as highly
religious and attributed their success
as a world power to their collective Pia
T in maintaining good relations with the
gods
one way that Rome promoted stability
among diverse peoples was by supporting
their religious heritage inscriptions
throughout the Empire record the
side-by-side worship of local and Roman
gods including dedications made by
Romans to local gods
Christianity started in Judea a province
of the Empire as a religious sect in the
1st century AD the new religions spread
out of Jerusalem as more and more people
became followers important places for
Christians started to exist in Antioch
and across the Levant and even in Egypt
especially in Alexandria in the next
centuries in the empire as well as
beyond the new cult grew more and more
conflicts and persecutions existed with
martyrdoms occurring most often under
the authority of local officials the
Christian communities in North Africa
were among the earliest in the world
legend has it that Christianity was
brought from Jerusalem to Alexandria on
the egyptian coast by mark one of the
four evangelists in 60 ad in the early
4th century Constantine the first became
the first emperor to convert to
Christianity which became the dominant
religion of the empire by the fifth
century many causes have been seen as
deleting the decline of Christianity and
Maghreb one of them is the constant wars
and conquests as well as persecutions in
addition many Christians also migrated
to Europe the church at that time lacked
the backbone of a monastic tradition and
was still suffering from the aftermath
of heresies but anyway there are reports
saying that many Christians existed in
North Africa but how did this religion
expand more and more in the areas where
Romans ruled diminished fast over time
being embraced by less than 10% of the
population in North Africa today birth
of Islam rapid expansion the few
populations of North Africa were
expelled are converted to Islam
population growth and expansion of Islam
more and more before the birth of Islam
Arabs followed a pre-islamic local
polytheism it's believed that Islam
originated Arabia at the start of the
seventh century few centuries after
Christianity started spread in the new
religion however it was considered that
it did not start at that moment but was
believed to be the original faith of
others whom they regard as prophets such
as Jesus David Moses Abraham and
the presence of Islam in Africa can be
traced to the seventh century on May 6
14 ma man advised a number of his early
disciples who were facing persecution by
the polytheistic inhabitants of the
Mecca to seek refuge across the Red Sea
of auxin is LOM spread through military
conquest trade pilgrimage and
missionaries Arab Muslim forces
conquered vast territories and built
Imperial structures over time most of
the significant expansion occurred
during the reign of rashidun from 632 to
661 which was the reign of the first
four successors of Muhammad the first
Caliphate the ratchet and Caliphate was
established immediately after Muhammad's
death in 632 this dynasty is
characterized by a 25-year period of
rapid military expansion fighting both
the Sassanid Empire and the Byzantine
Empire by the 650s the Caliphate in
addition to the Arabian Peninsula had
subjugated the Levant to the
Transcaucasus in the north north africa
from egypt to present-day tunisia in the
west and the Iranian plateau to parts of
Central Asia and South Asia in the East
it is not known for sure how they had
success against these two important
powerful empires one reason could be
that the Byzantines and the sassanids
were rivals and possibly had a weak
point due to their fights in 641 during
the reign of caliph Umar even al-kitab
Muslim troops took over current Egypt
and conquered current Libya the
following year Muslims then expanded to
current Tunisia 647 during the reign of
the third Muslim caliph Uthman upon the
conquest of North Africa continued under
the Umayyad dynasty which annex parts of
Algeria around 680 C II and Morocco the
following year beginning with the
Umayyads the title of the caliph became
hereditary and the Empire expanded
hugely more and more people converted to
Islam which became a way of life for
many unlike the Coptic Church in Egypt
or the Syrian and Armenian churches
another part of the Middle East the
North African church did not
successfully survive
the Latin speaking Church centered in
urban areas had made no significant
inroads into rural areas also it's
believed that no major actions were made
to expand Christianity to the local
people
Berbers the dominant indigenous
population more Christians of North
Africa came in towns already Christian
and made little attempt to in vandalize
pagan territory in the caliphates non
Arab people started to convert more and
more to Islam this happened during the
Umayyad period and then especially
during more politically multicultural
ave acid period which saw the Muslim
population grow from mid ninth century
to the end of the 11th century and
becoming the major religion in the area
also even so large minorities of
Christians continued to live in the
abasa
Syria may have had Christian majority
within its modern borders until the
Mongol invasions of the 13th century the
divisions of the church the internal
problems the sparsely populated harsh
regions in which people lived combined
with the fall of the Byzantine Empire
and their defeat in North Africa and
LaVon
created the situation for Christianity
to be expelled from this region not
totally but the Christian population
represented fewer people every year also
other reasons would be responsible for
this - along with the fall of the
Byzantines in the region and the huge
expansion of Arabs local people were
high influenced by the new culture
traditions and by the new religion
various taxes were put on people in this
time there were taxes for non Arabs
there were taxes for non-muslims
probably some pagan or Christian people
chose to convert to the new religion for
more benefits local Catholicism came
under pressure when the Muslim regimes
of the almohads and the Almoravids came
into power and the record shows demands
made that the local Christians of Tunis
convert to Islam
other caliphates existed in the
muslim-majority became more and more
stable as the population grew more and
more Muslim kingdoms continued to
dominate the region for centuries to
come
as many people embrace this religion
beyond the former borders of the
caliphates deep into the African
continent India and even Southeast Asia
as a region stays more under an
influence as the time goes by the
influence becomes stronger under Mamluks
and the ottomans as well muslims thrived
even so in the 19th and 20th centuries
European powers had colonies in these
territories and many colonists settled
there wasn't a large impact the majority
embraced Islam centuries ago and the
ascent wasn't so put on religion as it
was in the 6th or 7th centuries today in
this part of the world large communities
of Christians exist in Syria Lebanon and
Egypt be sure to subscribe to our
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