Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 214 h George Tsoutsos Whereas the Muslims displayed a contemptuous attitude towards the Christian Franks of Western Europe, they regarded Byzantium as a world- power and a culture on an equal footing with themselves. Byzantium and Islam shared a common belief in God Creator, the Resurrection and the Last Judgment. 12 Inter alia , the two religions accept the existence of Adam and the existence of Angels. The Koran accepts the Veneration of Virgin Mary, and Jesus is considered to be a Prophet, although his Crucifixion is refused. 13 Regarding the Muslim perception of the “Holy War”, it is true that “…the status and nature of Jihad are a marked feature of early Islamic Law, and details about the conduct of Jihad continue to reflect historical circum- stances throughout the history of Islamic Law in the Middle East” 14 .The difference in question is rather clearly reflected by the fact that the Muslim who fell in battle was automatically regarded to be a martyr, while the By­ zantine Emperors were certainly less successful in claiming such a status for their soldiers. 15 During the last years of the Byzantine Empire, the differences between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches were expressed as the opposition between the supporters of the unification of the Churches and its opponents. For the majority of the people and for the Church, the political subordination to the Ot- tomans constituted a choice that would more effectively protect the Orthodox faith. The Latins, apart from the fact that they did not constitute a trustworthy political power, had proved that they did not respect the Orthodox doctrine, and they did not provide any other motives of political or economic nature to attract the Orthodox population. The Christian mysticism of Byzantium, as expressed by the movement of Hesychasm, held many affinities with Islamic mysticism, and a lot less with agnosticism or with rationalistic humanism of the opposite Roman Church wing. From a social perspective, the views concerning large property owned by the Church and the monasteries, were rather close to the Ottoman model. 16 12 C. Edmund Bosworth. Byzantium and the Arabs: War and Peace between two world civilisa- tions // Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, Vassilios Christides, Theodoros Papadopoulos (eds.). East and West: Essays on Byzantine and Arab Worlds in the Middle Ages. Piscataway, N. J.: Gorgias Press, 2009. P. 22–23. 13 G. Tsoutsos. Διάλογος Ορθοδοξίας — Ισλαμ: Είναι εφικτός // Kivotos tis Orthodoxias. 29–10. 2015. P. 5. 14 Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, Ridwan al-Sayyid. The Idea of the Jihad in Islam before the Cru- sades // A. E. Laiou, R. P. Mottahedeh. Op. cit. P. 23. 15 E. Bosworth. Op. cit. P. 23. 16 D. Tsakonas. Κοινωνιολογική ερμηνεία του νεοελληνικού βίου (εισαγωγή βεις την νεοελλη- νικήν κοινωνίαν). Athens, 1974. P. 15–17.