Philip Wood, "Government by Proxy and the Realities of Imperial Power: Melkite Sub-Elites and Their Muslim Sponsors in the 9th-Century Levant," Der Islam 103.2 (2026), 427-447.
Abstract:
This article explores the role of Chalcedonian bishops as sub-elites of the Abbasid caliphate in 8th- and 9th-century Syria-Palestine. Using hagiography, chronicles, and a legal dossier it argues that Muslim patrons engaged in competition using Christian proxies and would back them up with force against their
rivals. However, a bishop could not expect a patron to continue to expend time and effort to keep them in place and had to generate local legitimacy after their election. This involvement in Muslim political patronage often made episcopal leadership suspect to their coreligionists, especially to Palestinian monks, with their strong connections outside the boundaries of the caliphate.
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