The Presbyterians soon recognized that their plan to have Nestorian Christians evangelize their Muslim countrymen was not working. They then turned their own efforts in this direction, and small numbers of Muslims in Azerbaijan, Arāk, Khorasan, Tehran, and Gīlān did join the Presbyterian church. Indeed, the first Persian Christian martyr of modern times was Mīrzā Ebrāhīm of Ḵᵛoy in western Azerbaijan, a convert from Islam. The mullas tried to make him recant, offering him a comfortable place in one of their shrines, but he refused. After his wife left him, taking with her his children and his property, he was arrested and imprisoned in Tabrīz. When he began preaching to other prisoners he was segregated, and he finally died in prison in 1297/1880 (Elder, pp. 47-49).
From the Encyclopeadia Iranica.
2 comments:
How I love to come here and read these things, Abu Daoud. What was it that didn't work with the Nestorians evangelizing the Muslims?
Dear Jewel,
Wow, that is quite a question. If you want to chat on Skype in more depth let me know. For now I will say that there are a few options:
a) Bad theology: their misunderstanding of Christology meant that they were not able to evangelize correctly. This is weak though, because the Nestorians were in fact a great missionary force for centuries (among non-Muslims).
b) Geography: their churches were simply too spread out and widely distributed, so they could really not support each other physically when they needed to.
c) Bad luck: The Nestorians were decimated by two key factors that made each other worse: the Mongol invasions and Islam. I think they could have survived one or the other, but both? No way.
I love this question. Who are you? I have never seen you comment on here before...
AD
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