By the year 732 CE, just one hundred years after the death of the prophet Muhammad, Arab military forces, in the name of Islam, consolidated their hegemony over a large stretch of territory outside of Arabia. This expanse of territory, embracing major portions of the Roman and Persian empires of Late Antiquity, included many indigenous Christian communities, in several denominations. They all came under Muslim rule, but demographically they made up the religious majority in many places until well into the eleventh century. There were strong Christian communities in Spain (al-Andalus) and in the territories of the former eastern patriarchates of the Roman Empire, as well as in Persian Mesopotamia. During the first four centuries of the hegira (i.e., the Islamic era) most of these Christian subjects of the Muslim caliph gradually adopted the Arabic language, while retaining to a greater or lesser extent, depending on local circumstances, their traditional, patristic, and liturgical languages for church purposes.

Christians in the Qur’ān and in early Islam

Arabic-speaking Christians were in the audience to whom the Qur’ān first addressed the word of God, as it claimed, in “a clear Arabic tongue” (Qur’ān 16.103 and 26.105). Indeed the Qur’ān presumes the priority of the Torah and the Gospel in the consciousness of its hearers, and insists that in reference to the earlier divine revelations it is itself “a corroborating scripture in the Arabic language to warn wrong doers and to announce good news to those who do well” (Qur’ān 46.12). In the Qur’ān, God advises the Muslims, “If you are in doubt about what we have sent down to you, ask those who were reading scripture before you” (Qur’ān 10.94).