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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2019
This essay examines what Arabs knew about Luther, Calvin, and the Protestant-Catholic conflict in the early modern period. While there have been studies of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century impact of Protestant missions on the Arab East, there has been no study of the Protestant movement and its confrontation with Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the period between 1517 and 1698. Although Protestantism failed in gaining converts, the rivalry between Protestant England and Catholic France in co-opting converts to their military and ideological camps resulted in religio-social fissures that would have a lasting impact on Christians and Christianity in the Middle East.
I am grateful to the RSA Board of Directors for inviting me to give the Bennett Lecture at the RSA Annual Meeting in New Orleans. I presented part of this essay in the “Remembering the Reformation” lecture series at the University of Minnesota. I am grateful to Professor Jim Parente for the invitation. Also, I wish to thank Professor Jessica Wolfe for her comments, Professor Mohammad Asfour, Mr. Alexander Baramki, and Ms. Mariam Salama.