My friend David Mills passed this on, from Asia News.

The tradition of the Syriac Churches, an instrument of dialogue with Islam
 
Salzburg (AsiaNews) – Benefactors of a centuries-old tradition in co-existence alongside Muslims, the ancient Syriac Churches have an important role to play today regarding dialogue, Christian witness and cooperation.

That was the conclusion drawn from a conference which took place between November 14 and 16 in Salzburg Austria organised by Pro Oriente, a foundation of the Vienna Archdiocese which gave birth to Pro Oriente Forum Syriacum in October 2006.

It gathers together academics from the Syriac Churches with an aim to promoting its legacy and work towards improving understanding, cultural enrichment and solidarity.

“Syriac Churches Encountering Islam: Past Experiences and Future Perspectives“, was the theme of the first academic encounter, which involved scholars from Iraq, Syria, United Sates,

Austria, Germany, Holland, Italy, India and France. The conclusions drawn are based on the affirmation that from the very beginning Islam entered into close contact with Christianity of the Syro-Aramaic tradition.

The early Umayyad period is marked by an open and tolerant attitude towards Christians.

One of the main reasons might have been that the Muslims needed their administrative and economic knowledge and experience to rule and organize the newly conquered territories (for instance St. John Damascene and his father).

In the attitude of Muslims towards Christians, very soon one can realize certain ambivalence according to the social and political circumstances: At times more open and tolerant, at times more aggressive and even oppressive.

This ambivalence is easily justified by different Koranic verses. Texts concerning Islam written in Syriac (about 20) were mainly for internal use in Christian communities in order to educate and strengthen them in their own faith and to help them respond to certain questions and objections raised by Muslims.

Those written in Arabic were approaches to present Christian dogmas and moral to Muslims. Some of them are of an apologetic nature, and others are clearly polemical.

The Abbasid period inaugurates a time of wide and fertile cultural exchange as a consequence of the spread of the Arabic language. Commissioned by the caliphs (bayt al-hikma-house of wisdom), mainly Christians of the Syriac tradition undertook huge systematic translations – especially in the fields of Science, Philosophy, and Medicine – from Greek via Syriac into Arabic.

In this way the knowledge of the Greco-Roman world was made available as one of the foundation for the development of the Arabo-Islamic culture. Through the Arabic presence in Spain this heritage was transmitted to the European Christian Middle Ages.

There’s more detail at Asia News. Several papers dealt with the patristic era: “Syriacisms in the Arabic Qur’an” (Sidney Griffith); “The Syriac Churches in the Umayyad Period (661-750)” (Mor Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim, Aleppo, Syria); Christian Responses to Islam in the Umayyad Period (661-750) (Dietmar W. Winkler, Salzburg, Austria).