Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian NationalismMost Americans have little understanding of the relationship between religion and nationalism in the Middle East. They assume that the two are rooted fundamentally in regional history, not in the history of contact with the broader world. However, as Adam H. Becker shows in this book, Americans—through their missionaries—had a strong hand in the development of a national and modern religious identity among one of the Middle East's most intriguing (and little-known) groups: the modern Assyrians. Detailing the history of the Assyrian Christian minority and the powerful influence American missionaries had on them, he unveils the underlying connection between modern global contact and the retrieval of an ancient identity. American evangelicals arrived in Iran in the 1830s. Becker examines how these missionaries, working with the “Nestorian” Church of the East—an Aramaic-speaking Christian community in the borderlands between Qajar Iran and the Ottoman Empire—catalyzed, over the span of sixty years, a new national identity. Instructed at missionary schools in both Protestant piety and Western science, this indigenous group eventually used its newfound scriptural and archaeological knowledge to link itself to the history of the ancient Assyrians, which in time led to demands for national autonomy. Exploring the unintended results of this American attempt to reform the Orient, Becker paints a larger picture of religion, nationalism, and ethnic identity in the modern era. |
Contents
1 | |
Historicizing Religion before Religion | 37 |
Mr Perkins of West Springfield Massachusetts meets Mar Yokhannan of Gawilan Persia | 71 |
Moral Reform and the Awakening of Nation and Self 184170 | 102 |
The Mission and Evangelical Sociality 183470 | 137 |
5 Death the Maiden and Dreams of Revival | 181 |
The Journals of Native Assistants | 223 |
New Institutions Missionary Competition and the First Generation of Nationalists | 257 |
Language Reform Orientalizing Autoethnography and the Demand for National Literature | 299 |
Mirza David George Malik 18611931 and the Engaged Ambivalence of Poetry in Exile | 339 |
Notes | 359 |
399 | |
419 | |
Other editions - View all
Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the ... Adam H. Becker No preview available - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
ABCFM addressed Alqosh American mission American missionaries ancient Aramaic Armenian Asahel Grant Assyrian Bible biblical Catholic Chaldean chapter Christ Christian church Classical Syriac concern conversion culture Deacon death describes discourse Dunkha early East Syrians evangelical example female seminary Fiske focus Gawar Geogtapa Geschichte God’s Gospel Hakkari holy human ideas Iran Jilu Justin Perkins Khamis language Laurie learning letter linked literature Macuch male seminary Malick manuscripts melat missionaries montagnards montagnards chrétiens Mosul mountains Murre-van den Berg Muslim nation melat nationalist native assistants Neo-Aramaic Nestorians nineteenth century Orthodox Ottoman Ottoman Empire patriarch Perkins’s Persia political practices prayer preaching priest printed Protestant Qajar Rays of Light reform region religion religious Residence revival ritual salvation Sanam schools Scripture secular social Syriac Christians Syrian nation Tabriz Tamo tayepa theological tion tradition translation Urmia village whereas Wilmshurst women words Yokhannan Yonan