This first volume in a new series, sponsored by the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean under the title “The Early and Medieval Islamic World” and published by I.B. Tauris, addresses one of what David Burrell has called the “neuralgic” issues in Christian–Muslim relations, namely attitudes towards the cross. What for Christians is a symbol of an event which bears very considerable positive theological significance, and has therefore often been venerated (though that word of course needs very careful definition), has usually been seen by Muslims as a mistaken testimony to an event which did not happen, and therefore as an anathema. Controversy has therefore raged over the issue during the centuries and in the different regions in which Christians and Muslims have interacted, as seen in the widely circulated pamphlet by the late South African Muslim polemicist against Christianity, Ahmed Deedat, under the title “Crucifixion or cruci-fiction?”.

There is no denying that Christians have often venerated the cross, however, and this study by Charles Tieszen, a young scholar based at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, articulates very carefully how this practice has worked and been perceived in an Islamic milieu. Tieszen's earlier work, based on his PhD thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham under the guidance of Professor David Thomas, has concentrated on relations between Christians and Muslims in medieval Spain, as seen in his Christian Identity amid Islam in Medieval Spain, published by Brill in 2013. This work broadens the geographical horizons to include the whole of the medieval Islamic world, and the different Christian writers who worked within it.

It does so through an introduction which traces the history of the idea of venerating the cross “Tracing the life of a theological and political idea”, four chapters respectively entitled “Stumbling over images and crosses”, “Christians and Muslims deflecting accusations of idolatry”, “Responding to accusations of divine shame, explaining cross veneration as a symbol of honour and power”, and “Making the cross a qiblah and a proxy for Christ”, and a conclusion, ‘A eulogy for the life of a theological and political idea”. The titles of the introduction and conclusion point quite explicitly to one highly problematic dimension of the question under discussion, namely that, as outlined on page 7, since the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine the cross, as well as being the bearer of soteriological significance for Christians, a pointer to salvation in other words, has also often served as a political, indeed a military, symbol, appearing in the sky to assure Christian rulers of military victory and then being transferred to their armour in order to help bring this victory about. Having been borne by groups such as the Crusaders, therefore, in Arabic “crossers”, it is not completely surprising if Muslim theological suspicions of the symbol have over the centuries been reinforced and strengthened by the actions of Christians in the political and military domains.

Tieszen's study therefore provides an extremely helpful and timely exposition of how Christians who found themselves living under Islamic rule endeavoured to defend and render comprehensible their attitudes towards the cross. It does so through the study of 40 sources, which are helpfully outlined in some detail in Appendix I (pp. 130–59), and then summarized in table form, with regard to title, language, date, and author, with their ecclesial affiliation where known, together with a cross-reference to Brill's Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, in Appendix II (pp. 160–7). This section contains the only significant error in the book, namely that details of Item 8 in the shorter list, Theodore Abu Qurrah's “Against the outsiders”, appear to have been omitted from the longer list on page 137.

The argument of the book proceeds from outlining earlier Christian defences of cross veneration, to pagans and Jews, and how these influenced early Christian writers working in an Islamic milieu such as John of Damascus and Theodore Abu Qurrah (chapter 1); to discussions of whether veneration of the cross should be seen as idolatry, as seen in John of Damascus’ argument that it was simply analogous to Muslim attitudes towards the Black Stone in the corner of the Kaʿba in Mecca (chapter 2); to arguments that the cross should be seen not as somehow a symbol of shame but rather of power and victory (chapter 3); to the attempts by some particularly creative Christian writers such as Abu Ra'itah, in the ninth century, to argue more positively that the cross should be seen as in some sense a Christian Qiblah, with all the positive associations which that term would have for his Muslim interlocutors (chapter 4). Important as the Qiblah is for Muslims, Abu Ra'itah argues, and deserving of honour, they certainly do not worship it, and by analogy the cross should be honoured because it points Christians towards Christ, and thus towards God, but Christians still do not necessarily worship it. Problematic as the practice might be in an Islamic environment, therefore, the author concludes that while it certainly played a crucial (no pun intended!) role in defining Christian identity in the Islamic World, it was not necessarily absolutely removed and distinctive from certain aspects of Muslim practice.

The book therefore provides a valuable account and summary of some significant Christian texts produced under Islamic rule which deserve to be better-known, not least because they address a theme which has been the focus of much misunderstanding and polemic over the centuries. The author is therefore to be congratulated for the thoroughness with which he has surveyed the texts and the accessible way in which they have been presented. May light thus be shed through his efforts on a theme concerning which not only much misunderstanding but also a large amount of vitriol has been expressed over the centuries.