Ussama Makdisi - Age of Coexistence The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World

I began writing this book in Berlin in 2012, when I was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. I completed it in 2018 when I spent a semester as a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. I acknowledge both these institutions for providing me the opportunity to work on the manuscript. I also acknowledge the generous support I have received from my home institution in those years, Rice University. While my experiences in Berlin bookended this project, my time in Houston and Lebanon largely define it.

There are far too many people to thank for the making of this book. I list here those who read and commented on chapters or entire drafts of the book, each of whom knows the degree of my individual debt to them: Hosam Aboul-Ela, Toufoul Abou Hodeib, Seda Altug, Fareed Armaly, Orit Bashkin, Michelle Campos, Nathan Citino, Leena Dallasheh, Dima de Clerck, Esmat Elhalaby, Nathaniel George, Zeina Halabi, Jens Hanssen, Gale Kenny, Dina Khoury, Ilham-Khuri Makdisi, Bruce Masters, Christine Philliou, Amy Remensnyder, Shira Robinson, George Sabra, Grace Said, Kirsten Scheid, Aziz Shaibani, Malek Sharif, and the anonymous readers for UC Press. Their criticisms and insights have been invaluable in helping me clarify my argument. I have taxed the patience of Niels Hooper, the executive editor at UC Press who has accompanied the progress of the manuscript for years. I acknowledge, as well, the assistance of Kamal Boulatta and Lily Farhoud in securing Steve Sabellas permission to use his photograph of the evocative painting on the books cover. Boulatta alerted me to the Palestinian painter Nicola Saigs circa 1920 depiction of Caliph Umar at Jerusalem Gates, an oil on canvas at the Islamic Museum, Jerusalem. In his book Palestinian Art, Boulatta writes that the dismounted, Christ-like caliph is raising his arms in peace while looking at the Christian patriarch Sophronius. He adds that this painting represents Saigs own experience of Jerusalems interfaith harmony. To me, the painting captures the profound importance and ambiguity inherent in the ecumenical framea strikingly modern interpretation of historic coexistence that elides much in order to achieve a composite of unity.

My friends Abdel Razzaq Takriti, with whom I co-organized a conference on Arab Traditions of Antisectarianism in December 2017, Fady Joudah, and Hicham Safieddine have been key readers of and interlocutors for this work during our years together in Houston. I am also indebted to the fact that I come from an academic family. My parents, Jean Said and Samir Makdisi, have provided crucial feedback, as has my spouse, Elora Shehabuddin. My brothers Karim and Saree know well what I have tried to accomplish, having participated in the works elaboration by reading and commenting on the manuscript from its earliest drafts. It is to them I dedicate this work. I alone am responsible for any errors of fact or judgment contained herein.

Houston, April 2019