Lecture 6 Handout

Islamic Societies of the Middle East & North Africa            MELC20040

 

Glossary of terms:

Druze: Shi‘i off-shoot group in Syria, Lebanon primarily

Alawi: as above

Copts: predominant Christian group in Egypt

Kurds: Sunni Muslim Kurdish-speaking ethnic group in primarily Turkey, Iraq

Berber: ethnic group in North Africa

Ahl al-kitab: “people of the book;” term for Jews and Christians

dhimmi: “protected person,” used for a Jew or Christian, later also for a Zoroastrian in Persia, and Hindu in India

Monophysites: Eastern Christians who believed that the human and divine natures of Christ were fused into one; regarded as heretics by the Byzantine church

Council of Chalcedon: 451 CE

millet: autonomous religious communities in the Ottoman empire

Maronites: followers of St. John Maroun (d. 410), primarily in Lebanon

Bahai: off-shoot of Islam, now independent, ecumenical religion

 

Citation: Afsaruddin, A. (2006, September 05). Lecture 6 Handout. Retrieved November 23, 2009, from Notre Dame OpenCourseWare Web site: http://ocw.nd.edu/arabic-and-middle-east-studies/islamic-societies-of-the-middle-east-and-north/handouts/lecture-6-handout.
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