The Cambridge History of the Papacy is organized to provide readers with a critical–historical survey of the structural development of the papacy as an institution and as an actor in Church history, and in world history. It is hard to imagine a sphere of human activity over the past two millennia that has not been influenced by, and influenced in turn by, papal action – be it in the domains of religious belief and practice; social, cultural, and political thought; art, science, medicine, ethics, diplomacy, and international relations. Four questions – each addressed throughout the three volumes of the present work – have framed that vision across vast chronological and geographical expanses: the pope’s centrality within the Catholic Church, the primacy of papal power as an instrument of governance, the papacy’s cultural influence in society and culture, and the implications of secularity for its place in the lives of believers and non-believers alike. Each question – and the search for answers – converges around the fundamental question of papal authority: its original claims; the ebbs and flows of its effective reach; and the numerous ways in which claims, and expressions of papal authority and supremacy, have been contested within the Catholic tradition, and from without.

Pontiffs from the Middle Ages to the present have portrayed Islam in widely differing terms. Indeed, before the twentieth century, popes rarely employ the terms “Islam” and “Muslim,” preferring terms such as “Saracens,” “Turks,” or “Mohammedans.” The ways they portrayed Islam and Muslims varied according to the perceived doctrinal and military threat posed to the Roman Church and according to the individual inclinations of different popes. But they also varied (sometimes in the writings of the same pope) according to a variety of specific interests: the popes’ engagement with Islam and Muslims is alternately military, political, diplomatic, theological, or pastoral. Hence very different assessments of Islam and Muslims emerge from a great diversity of papal sources: crusading encyclicals, canon law texts dealing with the legal status of Muslims living in Christian lands, letters to Muslim rulers, correspondence with Church officials in Muslim territories (bishops, friars, missionaries, or others). This brief chronological survey examines the varying and evolving portrayals of Islam and Muslims in papal documents, from the early Middle Ages through Vatican II and until the pontificate of Francis I.

This chapter problematises popular and Orientalist discourses concerning ‘Islam and Peace’, recognising that both are heterogeneous and contested concepts in the fields of Islamic studies and moral philosophy. It proposes a more fruitful approach founded on systematic philosophical reflection on specific exemplars within their respective cultural and historical contexts.

This chapter analyses the spiritual ideas on universal peace developed by Sri Lankan teacher Bawa Muhaiyaddeen in terms of their South Asian and North American cultural syncretism and his development of classical Sufi ideas of the microcosmic ‘Perfect Man’ into a globalised but decidedly anti-modern ‘cosmopiety’.

The Cambridge History of the Papacy is organized to provide readers with a critical–historical survey of the structural development of the papacy as an institution and as an actor in Church history, and in world history. It is hard to imagine a sphere of human activity over the past two millennia that has not been influenced by, and influenced in turn by, papal action – be it in the domains of religious belief and practice; social, cultural, and political thought; art, science, medicine, ethics, diplomacy, and international relations. Four questions – each addressed throughout the three volumes of the present work – have framed that vision across vast chronological and geographical expanses: the pope’s centrality within the Catholic Church, the primacy of papal power as an instrument of governance, the papacy’s cultural influence in society and culture, and the implications of secularity for its place in the lives of believers and non-believers alike. Each question – and the search for answers – converges around the fundamental question of papal authority: its original claims; the ebbs and flows of its effective reach; and the numerous ways in which claims, and expressions of papal authority and supremacy, have been contested within the Catholic tradition, and from without.

This chapter develops an account of prolific Indian author and peace activist Wahiduddin Khan in terms of his approach to exegesis, his apologetics in relation to the natural sciences, his Islamocentric conception to historical teleology, his approach to political quietism, and his valorisation of the principle of strategic concession.

This chapter traces the development of Iranian Shi’ite revolutionary Ali Shariati in his conception of a nonviolent Islam encompassing humanist, existentialist, and socialist ethics in pursuit of an egalitarian ‘System of Abel’. This is in turn placed in tension with his valorisation of ‘alter-inflicted violence’ as a means to altruistic self-transcendence.

This chapter critiques past attempts at developing models of Islamic nonviolence which rely on key concepts and scriptural loci classici. Instead, it identifies structural commonalities flowing from a classically Islamic approach to ethical evaluation which regards the actor’s dispositional intention [niyyah] as coequal with the criteria of means and ends more commonly discussed in secular writing on nonviolence. The consequences of this are then examined in relation both to their praxis and to their commensurability with dominant secular models.

This chapter comprises interviews with contemporary advocates for Islamic nonviolence concerning their understandings of ‘peace’ as a concept, their views on the moral status of war and violent self-defence, the connection (if any) between peace and justice, the nature of nonviolence in civil, familial, and inter-personal contexts, and the implications of nonviolence towards nature and non-human animals.

This chapter examines the nonviolent projects of ‘Pride of the Afghans’ Indian independence activist Bacha Khan. It engages both with his personal and institutional praxis within their Pashtun cultural context and with the historiographical challenges posed both by his suppression by the state and his proximity to Mahatma Gandhi.

The Cambridge History of the Papacy is organized to provide readers with a critical–historical survey of the structural development of the papacy as an institution and as an actor in Church history, and in world history. It is hard to imagine a sphere of human activity over the past two millennia that has not been influenced by, and influenced in turn by, papal action – be it in the domains of religious belief and practice; social, cultural, and political thought; art, science, medicine, ethics, diplomacy, and international relations. Four questions – each addressed throughout the three volumes of the present work – have framed that vision across vast chronological and geographical expanses: the pope’s centrality within the Catholic Church, the primacy of papal power as an instrument of governance, the papacy’s cultural influence in society and culture, and the implications of secularity for its place in the lives of believers and non-believers alike. Each question – and the search for answers – converges around the fundamental question of papal authority: its original claims; the ebbs and flows of its effective reach; and the numerous ways in which claims, and expressions of papal authority and supremacy, have been contested within the Catholic tradition, and from without.

This chapter explores the nonviolence of Senegalese Sufi Amadou Bamba in terms of its critiques of racism and political domination, its pedagogy of productive service, and the relationship between spiritual hierarchy and its apparent ambivalence between absolute nonviolence and defensive warfare.

This chapter investigates the life and ideas of Syrian dissident thinker Jawdat Said, who attempts to balance an absolute moral obligation to bear witness with a systematic rejection of political compulsion through scriptural models from Abel to Bilal ibn Rabah.