Jews and Christians in the East

Barbara Roggema

Contact 

Dr. Barbara Roggema
Ruhr-Universität Bochum CERES
Universitätsstr. 90a
D-44789 Bochum
Germany

Room 1.14
+49 (0)234 - 32-21919 
barbara.roggema@rub.de

Subproject Middle East; chief editor JCR-MIO

Barbara Roggema is a specialist in the history of Jewish-Christian-Muslim interaction in the medieval Middle East. She studied Arabic and Syriac in Groningen, Oxford and Cairo. Her PhD dissertation was published as The Legend of Sergius Bahīrā. Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam (Leiden, 2009). She co-edited the volumes Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History (600-1500), Leiden, 2009 and The Three Rings: Textual Studies in the Historical Trialogue of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Leuven, 2005. Her most recent research deals with religious Question-and-Answer literature (7th-14th c.) and is part of the ERC-project "Defining Belief and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean: the Role of Interreligious Debate and Interaction" at King’s College London. She is also a member of the ERC Consolidator Project Armenia Entangled: Connectivity and Cultural Encounters in Medieval Eurasia (ArmEn), PI Zara Pogossian.

Vita and Publications

Vita

Positions

• 2020-2025 - Research Fellow, ERC Project Armenia Entangled: Connectivity and Cultural Encounters in Medieval Eurasia (ArmEn), University of Florence, Italy

• 2016-2020 - Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr Universität Bochum, Germany

• 2013-2015 - ERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Theology & Religious Studies / Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College London

• 2009-2013 - Adjunct Assistant Professor of History and Religion, John Cabot University, Rome

• Spring-Summer 2009 - Invited guest professor at the Oriental Seminar of the University of Tübingen, Germany

• 2006-2008 - AHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Graduate Institute for Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham, UK

• 2004-2006 - Lecturer in the History of Islam, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

• 1999-2002 - Lecturer in Arabic Language and Culture, University of Groningen, The Netherlands 

• 1996-2001- Research Fellow, The Netherlands’ Organization for Scientific Research

Education and degrees

• 2007 - Ph.D. in Languages and Cultures of the Middle East, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

• 1995-1996 - M.Phil program in Islam and the History of Christian-Muslim relations, University of Birmingham

• 1994-1995 - Arabic and Syriac studies at the Oriental Institute/Pembroke College, University of Oxford

• 1989-1995 - Doctoraal (BA + MA) in Languages and Cultures of the Middle East., Dept. of Languages and Cultures of the Middle East, University of Groningen, The Netherlands (with distinction). First language: Arabic, second language: Syriac, Minor: theory of literature

• 1991-1992 - Arabic at Cairo University, Egypt

Publications

Books

• The Legend of Sergius Bahīrā. Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam, Leiden, 2009 [The History of Christian-Muslim Relations – Texts and Studies 9]

• Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History (600-1500), Leiden, 2009 [co-edited with David Thomas, in collaboration with Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala, Johannes Pahlitzsch, Mark Swanson, Herman Teule, and John Tolan]

• The Three Rings: Textual Studies in the Historical Trialogue of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Leuven, 2005 [co-edited with M. Poorthuis and P. Valkenberg]

• Communal Identity and Self-Portrayal in the Worlds of Eastern Christianity, 300-1500 [forthcoming mid-2016]

• Patterns of Argumentation and Exchange of Ideas in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, edited with Yannis Papadogiannakis [forthcoming mid-2016]

Articles/book chapters [selection]

• ‘Ibn Kammūna’s and Ibn al-ʿIbrī’s responses to Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Proofs of Muḥammad’s Prophethood’, The Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 2 (2014), 193-213

• ‘Muhammad almost Christian. An Eastern Christian Legend about the Origin of Islam’, Groniek 189 (2011), 369-381 [In Dutch]

•  ‘Biblical exegesis and interreligious polemic in the Arabic Apocalypse of Peter—The Book of the Rolls’, in: David Thomas (ed), The Bible in Arab Christianity, Leiden, 2007, 131-150 [The History of Christian-Muslim Relations – Texts and Studies 6]

•  ‘The Debate between Patriarch John and an emir of the Mhaggrāyē: A Reconsideration of the earliest Christian-Muslim Debate’, in: Martin Tamcke (ed), Christen und Muslime im Dialog. Christlich-muslimische Gespräche im muslimischen Orient des Mittelalters, Beirut, 2007, 21-39 [Beiruter Texte und Studien, 117]

• ‘Epistemology as Polemics: Ibn Kammūna’s Examination of the Apologetics of the Three Faiths’, in: Barbara Roggema, Marcel Poorthuis and Pim Valkenberg (eds), The Three Rings: Textual Studies in the Historical Trialogue of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Leuven, 2005, 47-68

• ‘ikāyāt amthāl wa-asmār… king parables in Melkite apologetic literature’, in: H. Teule and R. Ebied (eds), Studies on the Christian Arabic Heritage – in honour of Father Prof. Dr. Samir Khalil Samir S.I. at the Occasion of his sixty-fifth Birthday, Leuven, 2004, 113-131 [Eastern Christian Studies 5]

• ‘Muslims as crypto-idolaters – a theme in the Christian portrayal of Islam in the Near East’, in: D. Thomas (ed), Christians at the heart of Islamic Rule: Church life and scholarship in `Abbasid Iraq, Leiden, 2003, 1-18 [The History of Christian-Muslim Relations – Texts and Studies 1]

• ‘A Christian Reading of the Qur’ān: the Legend of Sergius-Baīrā and its Use of Qur’ān and Sīra’, in: D. Thomas (ed), Syrian Christians under Islam: the first thousand years, Leiden, 2001, 57-73

• ‘The Legend of Sergius-Baīrā. Some remarks on its origin in the East and its traces in the West’, in: K. Ciggaar and H. Teule (eds), East and West in the Crusader States. Context – Contacts – Confrontations. II. Acta of the congress held at Hernen Castle in May 1997, Leuven, 1999, 107-123 [Orientalia Lovaniensa Analecta 92]

• ‘Jewish-Christian debate in a Muslim context: Ibn al-Marūma’s Notes to Ibn Kammūna’s Examination of the Inquiries into the Three Faiths’, in: H. Vanstiphout et al (eds), All those nations …Cultural Encounters within and with the Near East. Studies presented to Han Drijvers at the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday by colleagues and students, Groningen, 1999, 131-139

• ‘Muslim-Christian Relations in Patristic Literature: The ‘Questions and Answers’ of Basil and Gregory’, in: S. Toenies Keating and D. Bertaina (eds), Festschrift for  ….. [forthcoming]

• ‘Salvaging the Saintly Sergius: the Hagiographical Aspects of the Syriac Legend of Sergius Bahira’, in: A. Cuffel and N. Jaspert (eds), Entangled Hagiographies [forthcoming]

Grants and Fellowships

Faculty Development Grant from John Cabot University 2010-2012; Summer school fellowship at the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften & Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, 2007; Summer school fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, 2003; Research grant from the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome, Spring 1997; VSB Foundation scholarship for postgraduate studies abroad, 1996-1997; Erasmus scholarship, Oriental Institute/Pembroke College, Oxford, 1994-1995; Dutch-Egyptian Cultural Agreement scholarship, Cairo University 1991-1992