Erik Freas suggests in his introduction to Muslim–Christian Relations in Late Ottoman Palestine, which is otherwise devoted to the changing relationship between Christians and Muslims in 19th-century Palestine, that there was a fundamental difference in the conceptualization of Arab national identity as imagined by Muslim and Christian intellectuals at the dawn of the 20th century. Those Christians who embraced an Arab identity anchored it in a language and culture shared with their would-be Muslim compatriots. This view was not universally held by all Arabic-speaking Christians, however. Many Maronites and Assyrian Christians envisioned a distinct national identity anchored in a pre-Muslim ancient past, even if the language through which they expressed that ideal was Arabic. In contrast to the early Christian Arab nationalists, Freas argues that most Muslim Arab intellectuals conceived of their national identity as being rooted firmly in both Arab culture and Islam. The one could not be extricated from the other.

This argument is not particularly original as it has been the received wisdom about Arab nationalism among scholars since the publication of Albert Hourani's seminal work Arabic Thought in the Modern Age (London: Oxford University Press, 1962) more than a half century ago. Nor was a conflation of religion and ethnicity unique to Muslim Arabs. Freas points to the Hindu nationalism of the Bharatiya Janata Party in India and the Orthodox component of contemporary Russian nationalism. But the national identity of almost every ethnic group in the former Ottoman Empire was similarly imagined by their intellectuals with a blending of religious and ethnic identities. To be a Greek was by definition to be a communicant in the Greek Orthodox Church, or at least baptized in it; Serbs were Serbian Orthodox and Turks Muslims. The fate of the former Yugoslavia provides a chilling reminder of the destructive power that the merging of religious and ethnic identities can produce. It has been no less fraught with potential for disaster in the 21st-century Middle East.

Having suggested that difference, Freas abandons it. He turns rather to a lengthy discussion of the evolution of Muslim–Christian relations in what would become mandated Palestine from Napoleon's invasion of Egypt through the start of World War I. Here again there is nothing particularly insightful or innovative in his discussion. Freas describes the relations among the various religious communities in Palestine before the 19th century as complex. In the large cities, Muslims could appeal to the courts and the sultan to maintain the distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims mandated by holy law which favored Muslims in most instances. But such distinctions were not always maintained and a casual mixing of members of different religious faiths occurred both in residential spaces and the workplace. However, the threat that discriminatory practices might be reimposed never vanished. In the many villages of Palestine, communal differences were even less important. Peasants shared the same hardships, both natural and manmade, and often worshipped at the same holy shrines honoring local saints as churches and mosques were rare.

Those relations began to fray in the 19th century. The first major blow to the communal equilibrium was the invasion of the region by Ibrahim Pasha in 1831. The Egyptian occupation introduced an equality of sorts for the Christians. Many of the region's Muslims perceived this as a diminution of their own status. That sense of displacement was only heightened by the Ottoman regime when it issued the Hatt-ı Hümayun in 1856, granting full equality to all the sultan's subjects, regardless of their religious faith. Further adding to the many Muslims’ sense of unease, the economic status of Christians in Palestine improved at a much faster rate than for Muslims due to their contacts with Western governments and merchants and the availability of a modern education offered by Western missionaries. The sense of displacement led to Muslim violence against Christian neighbors elsewhere in greater Syria, but this was limited in what would become Mandate Palestine.

Freas suggests that the tensions between the religious communities were eased at the start of the 20th century with the elaboration of Arab nationalism. But he hints that as Muslim and Christian Arabs had very differing conceptions of what Arab national identity meant, it was only a temporary expediency to assert their position in the Ottoman Empire in its last days. Following World War I, a common Arab identity would be a rallying point against the designs of European imperialists. As Arab nationalism was always conflicted about the Arabs’ connection to Islam, however, Arabism has frayed as a coherent ideology in the 21st century. Religious identities have returned to the forefront of most Arabs’ sense of their self-identification.

Freas presents a familiar narrative that is largely gleaned from published secondary sources and British consular and missionary reports. The latter constitute the only primary sources utilized for his study. Noting that he did not consult the qadi sijills of the Palestinian towns, Freas offers the excuse that he does not know Ottoman Turkish. Yet had he consulted those archives, he would have found that the qadi sijills of the Palestinian cities, as is the case throughout the Arab lands, are almost entirely in Arabic. The only exception was orders coming from Istanbul which were recorded in Ottoman Turkish. In limiting the types of sources he uses to document his arguments, Freas perpetuates many of the characterizations of Muslim–Christian relations put forward uncritically by British observers in the 19th century. Scholars of the Ottoman era using local sources have successfully demonstrated that such reports were often biased and misinformed. Not using local sources, either in Arabic or Ottoman Turkish, Freas adds little that is new to our understanding of Muslim–Christian relations in late Ottoman Palestine. He does offer, however, a very clear and lucid discussion of the topic. As such, it would be beneficial for general readers and undergraduate students.