A short post on an important topic.

I have written a good deal on Eastern Christian communities, especially their interactions with early Islam. I am therefore delighted to see not just one but two new books on these matters by Michael Philip Penn. I have read neither as yet, but I know Penn to be a fine scholar, and I am very much looking forward to reviewing them.

One is Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World (University of Pennsylvania, June 2015, 320 pages). The other is When Christians First Met Muslims: A Sourcebook of the Earliest Syriac Writings on Islam (University of California Press, March 2015, 280 pages).

The description of Envisioning Islam reads as follows:

The first book-length analysis of these earliest encounters, Envisioning Islam highlights the ways these neglected texts challenge the modern scholarly narrative of early Muslim conquests, rulers, and religious practice. Examining Syriac sources including letters, theological tracts, scientific treatises, and histories, Michael Philip Penn reveals a culture of substantial interreligious interaction in which the categorical boundaries between Christianity and Islam were more ambiguous than distinct. The diversity of ancient Syriac images of Islam, he demonstrates, revolutionizes our understanding of the early Islamic world and challenges widespread cultural assumptions about the history of exclusively hostile Christian-Muslim relations. 

The two books together look like a very valuable addition to our knowledge of a critical era in religious history.