Religious Identity in the Golden Age of Islam: Collective Identities and Culture of Remembrance of Jews, Christians and Muslims seen through the lens of Arabic Controversy Literature

• Applicant: Dr. Bernhard Kronegger
• Subject Area: Roman Catholic Theology ; Medieval History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 560174735

The project aims to examine the Arabic religious controversial literature of the Middle using methods developed for the study of collective identities and cultures of memory. The unique interreligious dynamics of Islam's Golden Age have so far produced sources that have received little attention in church history research. Interdisciplinary research methods will be used to investigate how religious identities were constructed, negotiated and remembered in the context of interreligious dialogues, polemics and theological disputes. As sources, central works of various literary genres, including apologies, polemics and the Islamic tradition of the Kalām, will be analysed to determine how these interactions contributed to the shaping of the self-conception of each group. The special religious framework caused by the rule of the Shiite Buyids in Mesopotamia and the Fatimids in Egypt, also enabled representatives of religious minorities to engage in disputes with Muslim scholars on an equal footing. There was thus a completely different dynamic within which this controversial literature emerged than in Christian Europe, where similar dialogues often took place under coercive and asymmetrical conditions. Christian philosophers, such as Yaḥyā ibn ˁAdī, were able to rise to become leading scholars in Baghdad's academic world and gather a multi-religious circle of students around them. The religious controversies that unfolded between him and his Jewish and Muslim colleagues and students show how religious identities were challenged and defended in this academic environment. Methodologically, the project draws on concepts of identity theory, in particular that of collective identity and social memory, as well as the model of cultural memory developed by Jan and Aleida Assmann. The aim of this project is to comprehensively analyze how religious controversies shaped collective identities in the medieval Islamic world and to open up new perspectives on the interaction between Jews, Christians and Muslims. The project promises to provide far-reaching new insights into interreligious relations in the Middle Ages and the historical development of religious identity and to add valuable non-European perspectives on the history of Christianity, Islam and Judaism to existing research. With funding from the Walter Benjamin Program, a pilot study is to be carried out, which will be used to apply for funding in a longer-term format.

• DFG Programme: WBP Fellowship
• International Connection: Austria
• Host: Professor Dr. Dietmar Winkler