“Beyond the Basilica: Christians and Muslims in Nazareth.” By Chad F. Emmett, University of Chicago Press, 303 pp.; $22
When the cover says, “Geography Research Paper No. 237,” the discriminating reader pictures it stamped with “Avoid This Book at All Costs”–especially if the book is a converted dissertation (from the University of Chicago, no less!). Such were my reactions when “Beyond the Basilica” arrived. Yet I discovered a reader-friendly, academically based, but eminently practical, well-balanced volume that I enthusiastically recommend to all who are interested in the Middle East.
The study centers on the Christian and Muslim quarters of Arab Nazareth, the hometown of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and home to a vital community of Christians and Muslims today. Its author, Chad F. Emmett, received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1991, having spent extensive time in Nazareth itself gathering data for this study, and is now an assistant professor of geography at Brigham Young University in Utah. He has compiled field research, statistical data, historical surveys, new maps, charts, and well-placed photographs into what could be described as a steroid-enhanced Baedeker. Having visited the city annually for the past 15 years, I learned more from this volume than I have from any previous study or even my firsthand experience. My future approach to Nazareth will have a more informed and sensitive perspective, thanks to Emmett’s work.
The study begins with a useful 50-page historical survey from the prebiblical era to the present, tracing Nazareth’s evolution from a tiny village into a city, and from a predominantly Muslim city (seventh to seventeenth centuries) to a largely Christian city (mid-1700s to 1948). Emmett’s handling of the sensitive 1948 period, including the establishment of Israel and the forced displacement of the Palestinian Arabs, draws upon both Israeli and Palestinian accounts. His telling of the post-1948 period, however, including the new Jewish state’s policy in the Galilee, lacks the contextual analysis provided for the earlier periods.
In the three following chapters, which form the backbone of his research, Emmett studies the Christian and Muslim communities in contemporary Nazareth. The reader travels into Nazareth’s religious quarters, which numbered only three (Muslim, Greek Orthodox, and Latin Catholic) in the midseventeenth century, but have grown to 51 identifiable communities today. The elements of this rich but confusing mosaic are described in terms of their major institutions, religious traditions, political tendencies, and educational systems.
(A cautionary note is in order for readers not acquainted with Arabic names, Muslim and Arab Christian terminology, and various political groupings in Israel/Palestine. The book would have been strengthened with a glossary or a more extensive use of explanatory footnotes, to overcome the inevitable distancing effect of the Arabic terms.)
Beyond the Basilica can be recommended to readers interested in urban studies (especially in the Middle East); Arab Christianity; Christian-Muslim relations; geography and demography in the Holy Land; pilgrimage or tourism to Nazareth; and students of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Selected chapters, such as the historic surveys and “Quarters of Nazareth,” will have practical value for prospective visitors to the city.
Perhaps the primary value of the volume is its study of Christian-Muslim cooperation in the Middle East and the survival of the Palestinian community despite the political and economic pressures it faces inside Israel. Emmett is careful to avoid overly romanticizing the communities he describes, noting the perpetual inter-Christian and Christian-Muslim tensions. Nevertheless, his conclusions are overwhelmingly positive, as Nazareth maintains a remarkable degree of unity and cooperation among its diverse communities.
Not to be missed is the plea by Palestinian Christians to their Western counterparts that they become informed and sensitized to the rapid erosion of the Christian presence in the Middle East, where some analysts fear the churches will soon become museums tended by elderly caretakers.
Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./BOOKS AND CULTURE Review
Volume 2, No. 2, Page 17
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