Comparing “Acts of Excommunication” in the Late Antique and Early Medieval Middle East

Abstract

ABSTRACT This introduction suggests an approach to the study of excommunication that is comparative (here highlighting Jewish, Christian and Islamic cases) and carefully contextual, taking note of specific institutional dynamics and processes of historical memory formation. Moreover, excommunication should be not be understood as a clearly defined category, but part of a broader network of acts of boundary enforcement which share certain features, including cursing, ostracism, banishment, oath-breaking, and execution. Meanwhile, studying individual “acts of excommunication” gives us a sharpened sense of how authority is practically constructed and threatened at particular moments. By studying acts rather than ideal conceptions or purely legal definitions, it is argued that excommunication can be seen not merely as a hierarchical tool for top-down discipline, but also a communal arena in which authority and boundaries are contested within wider communities of believers.