{"product_id":"prophet-of-reason-science-religion-and-the-origins-of-the-modern-middle-east-9780861547364","title":"Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East","description":"\u003cb\u003e'An outstanding intellectual biography.' Eugene Rogan\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 1813, high in the Lebanese mountains, a thirteen-year-old boy watches a solar eclipse. Will it foretell a war, a plague, the death of a prince? Mikha'il Mishaqa's lifelong search for truth starts here. Soon he's reading Newtonian science and the radical ideas of Voltaire and Volney: he loses his religion, turning away from the Catholic Church. Thirty years later, as civil war rages in Syria, he finds a new faith - Evangelical Protestantism. His obstinate polemics scandalise his community. Then, in 1860, Mishaqa barely escapes death in the most notorious event in Damascus: a massacre of several thousand Christians. We are presented with a paradox: rational secularism and violent religious sectarianism grew up together. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBy tracing Mishaqa's life through this tumultuous era, when empires jostled for control, Peter Hill answers the question: What did people in the Middle East actually believe? It's a world where one man could be a Jew, an Orthodox Christian and a Sunni Muslim in turn, and a German missionary might walk naked in the streets of Valletta.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePeter Hill is a historian of the modern Middle East, specialising in the Arab world in the long nineteenth century. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eUtopia and Civilisation in the Arab Nahda \u003c\/i\u003e(2020)\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eand has published articles in \u003ci\u003ePast \u0026amp; Present\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eJournal of Arabic Literature\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eJournal of Global\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eHistory\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Oneworld Academic","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50458262176018,"sku":"9780861547364","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_f671c6f5-3476-4303-9705-f2b356a1ed51.jpg?v=1729958627","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/prophet-of-reason-science-religion-and-the-origins-of-the-modern-middle-east-9780861547364","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}