Daniel King (Research Fellow, Cardiff University, UK) is a scholar of Syriac who specialises in the history of Syriac philosophy and its contribution to the progress of knowledge. His research is principally concerned with examining how the Syriac tradition adopted and adapted to its own environment the heritage of Greek Christian thought and ideas, and how it was able to translate large numbers of Greek texts into a new and distinctive idiom. He has a special interest in all aspects of the history of translation and currently works in East Africa advising and consulting on the translation of the Bible into the vernacular languages of the region.

Introduction Part I: Backgrounds 1. The eastern provinces of the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity 2. The Sasanian Empire Part II: The Syriac world in Late Antiquity 3. The pre-Christian religions of the Syriac-speaking regions 4. The coming of Christianity to Mesopotamia 5. Forms of the religious life and Syriac monasticism 6. The establisment of the Syriac Churches 7. The Syriac Church denominations: an overview 8. The Syriac world in the Persian Empire 9. Judaism and Syriac Christianity 10. Syriac and Syrians in the later Roman Empire: questions of identity 11. Early Syriac reactions to the rise of Islam 12. The Church of the East in the 'Abbasid Era Part III: The Syriac langage 13. The Syriac language in the context of the Semitic languages 14. The Classical Syriac language 15. Writing Syriac: manuscripts and inscriptions 16. The Neo-Aramaic dialects and their historical background Part IV: Syriac literary, artistic, and material culture in Late Antiquity 17. The Syriac Bible and its interpretation 18. The emergence of Syriac literature to AD 400 19. Later Syriac poetry 20. Syriac hagiographic literature 21. The mysticism of the Church of the East 22. Theological doctrines and debates within Syriac Christianity 23. The liturgies of the Syriac Churches 24. Historiography in the Syriac-speaking world, 300-1000 25. Syriac philosophy 26. Syriac medicine 27. The material culture of the Syrian peoples in Late Antiquity and the evidence for Syrian wall paintings 28. Churches in Syriac space: architectural and liturgical context and development 29. Women and children in Syriac Christianity: sounding voices 30. Syriac agriculture 350-1250 Part V: Syriac Christianity beyond the ancient world 31. Syriac Christianity in Central Asia 32. Syriac Christianity in China 33. Syriac Christianity in India 34. The renaissance of Syriac literature in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries 35. Syriac in a diverse Middle East: from the Mongol Ilkhanate to Ottoman dominance, 1286-1517 36. The Maronite Church 37. The early study of Syriac in Europe 38. Syriac identity in the modern era 39. Changing demography: Christians in Iraq since 1991 Appendices I: The patriarchs of the Church of the East II: West Syrian patriarchs and maphrians III Online resources for the study of the Syriac world Maps Index Subject Index