{"product_id":"9780861547364-prophet-of-reason","title":"Prophet of Reason","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eScience, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eA portrait of Enlightenment science, religious identity and empire in the making of the modern Middle Eastern world\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'An outstanding intellectual biography.' Eugene Rogan\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWINNER OF THE BRITISH-KUWAIT FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY BOOK PRIZE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41602006286433,"sku":"9780861547364","price":23.98,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_27650403.jpg?v=1721982455","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780861547364-prophet-of-reason","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}