Arabic is commonly seen as the language of Islam, and the Qur’an has long been viewed as the first book to have ever been written in Arabic.  But there were Arabic-speaking Christians long before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, and for much of the medieval period, the Middle East was a largely Christian region.  In this lecture, I will discuss the status of Arabic as a Christian language, focusing especially on the question of the Bible in Arabic. Was there a pre-Islamic translation of the Bible into Arabic?

An East of Byzantium lecture. EAST OF BYZANTIUM is a partnership between the Arthur H. Dadian and Ara Oztemel Chair of Armenian Art at Tufts University and the Mary Jaharis Center that explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine empire in the late antique and medieval periods.