Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 223 Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World, Christian C. Sahner, 2018, Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, xxv + 335 pp., £34.00/US$39.95 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-691-17910-0 In Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World, Christian C. Sahner illuminates a hitherto unexplored dimension of the late-antique cult of the saints: the phenomenon of Christian martyrdom in the Muslim world during the forma- tive years of Islam. In doing so, Sahner follows many formidable works on the late-antique cult of saints and its corollary, martyrdom. As well, this volume draws on scholarship exam- ining violence in pre-modernity, developed with most renown by David Nirenberg and suc- ceeded now by others including Thomas Sizgoritch and Christopher MacEvitt, in addition to drawing on R. I. Moore’s concept of ‘the persecuting society’. These themes and the sources used naturally demand significant consideration of conversion by a variety of people in different directions – and sometimes back again. Through considering conversion, martyrdom and violence during the early years of Islam, at a broader level Sahner’s intention is to explain the beginning of the evolution of the Middle East from majority Christian