What do you think?
Rate this book
Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World
"Flawless . . . [Makdisi] reminds us of the critical declarations of secularism which existed in the history of the Middle East."—Robert Fisk, The Independent
Today’s headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage. Ussama Makdisi’s Age of Coexistence reveals a hidden and hopeful story that counters this clichéd portrayal. It shows how a region rich with ethnic and religious diversity created a modern culture of coexistence amid Ottoman reformation, European colonialism, and the emergence of nationalism.
Moving from the nineteenth century to the present, this groundbreaking book explores, without denial or equivocation, the politics of pluralism during the Ottoman Empire and in the post-Ottoman Arab world. Rather than judging the Arab world as a place of age-old sectarian animosities, Age of Coexistence describes the forging of a complex system of coexistence, what Makdisi calls the “ecumenical frame.” He argues that new forms of antisectarian politics, and some of the most important examples of Muslim-Christian political collaboration, crystallized to make and define the modern Arab world.
Despite massive challenges and setbacks, and despite the persistence of colonialism and authoritarianism, this framework for coexistence has endured for nearly a century. It is a reminder that religious diversity does not automatically lead to sectarianism. Instead, as Makdisi demonstrates, people of different faiths, but not necessarily of different political outlooks, have consistently tried to build modern societies that transcend religious and sectarian differences.
Today’s headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage. Ussama Makdisi’s Age of Coexistence reveals a hidden and hopeful story that counters this clichéd portrayal. It shows how a region rich with ethnic and religious diversity created a modern culture of coexistence amid Ottoman reformation, European colonialism, and the emergence of nationalism.
Moving from the nineteenth century to the present, this groundbreaking book explores, without denial or equivocation, the politics of pluralism during the Ottoman Empire and in the post-Ottoman Arab world. Rather than judging the Arab world as a place of age-old sectarian animosities, Age of Coexistence describes the forging of a complex system of coexistence, what Makdisi calls the “ecumenical frame.” He argues that new forms of antisectarian politics, and some of the most important examples of Muslim-Christian political collaboration, crystallized to make and define the modern Arab world.
Despite massive challenges and setbacks, and despite the persistence of colonialism and authoritarianism, this framework for coexistence has endured for nearly a century. It is a reminder that religious diversity does not automatically lead to sectarianism. Instead, as Makdisi demonstrates, people of different faiths, but not necessarily of different political outlooks, have consistently tried to build modern societies that transcend religious and sectarian differences.
312 pages, Hardcover
First published October 15, 2019
21 people are currently reading
566 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 10, 2025
في عمله الأخير، والأكثر اكتمالًا، يستمر المقدسي في تاريخ مفاهيم المواطنة والطائفية في الشرق الأوسط على ضوء سياسة التنظيمات العثمانية وكيف استقبلها العوام وكيف رأتها السلطة.. وفي هذا الكتاب، يقارن المقدسي بين العديد من الخطابات الخاصة بعصر النهضة العربية التي ظهرت في أعمال بطرس البستاني وساطع الحصري وميشال شيحة ورشيد رضا ومحمد عبده والكثير غيرهم بالطبع، في محاولات إنتاج خطاب للمواطنة والتعايش في الشرق العثماني وأعقابه، اصطرعت فيها الرؤى العلمانية -المسيحية في أحيان كثيرة- بالخطاب الإسلامي بين قوسيّن، السلفي الإصلاحي. المقدسي يعي أمورًا كثيرة تم إغفالها عند تناول هذا العصر برومانتيكية إلى درجة المبالغة في تسميّته أحيانًا بالعصر الليبرالي، أو المشروع الديمقراطي الذي قوضته الإنقلابات العسكرية في الأربعينيات والخمسينيات، يعي المقدسي لتشوهات ذلك العصر الليبرالي، الذي لم ينتج خطابًا للمواطنة إلا من منظور ذكوري، حتى لو اصطرعت فيه التصورات الدينية العلمانية، كما أن ذلك الخطاب أغفل كثيرًا العامة وانحصر في صراع نخبوي، كأنه كهنوت. وفي هذا العمل، تدخل الصهيونية ثم إسرائيل، كعوامل خارجية مؤثرة على الخطاب وإنتاجه في ضوء التفاعل مع وجودهما الثقيل والغريب والمستهجن، الذي أضاف طرفًا لم يكُ موجودًا في المعادلة من قبل في المحاولات الباكرة لصناعة الإطار المسكوني. يؤمن المقدسي، كنظيره نزيه الأيوبي من قبل، أن الإنقلابات العسكرية والنخب العسكرية العربية في النهاية
July 7, 2023
يقدم مقدسي نظرة مغايرة لما تعودنا ان نسمعه عن الشرق الاوسط و يبرهن ان العرب طرحوا اطار سليم لتعايش بين الطوائف خلال بداية القرن ٢٠. يبرهن هذا الكتاب على عظمة الفكر القومي العربي و منظريه الدين و ان كانوا بعيدين عن الكمال فان افكارهم كانت عظيمة و لازلت بامكانها ان تزدهر اذا وجدت اذانا صاغية
July 23, 2024
This is a really important work for anyone wanting to understand West Asia - and particularly the role Zionism and European colonialism played in dividing up the region - in a more comprehensive way. The variety of Arab thinkers and actors Makdisi weaves into this history to reframe how we understand the way events unfolded is enlightening - especially the way Iraq and Lebanon's post-Ottoman emergence unfolded and the eyes through which he tells those stories. It's a really important history for anyone wanting to understand the region then and now.
March 5, 2025
This work should be absolute required reading on the history of the Middle East and the influence of the Ottoman Empire on its modern developments—the ecumenical frame is a key concept with which to analyze the rise of Arab nationalism and what sectarian projects like Lebanon and more violently Israel sought to thwart.
November 20, 2022
Like in the film “Kingdom of Heaven,” this book covers the dream of an peaceful populace rich in religious diversity. Far from being the miracle workers that the West thinks they are, Ussama Maksadi demonstrates that it is often the West’s influence that leads to sectarian strife. Providing a history of the Ottoman empire as a backdrop to the struggles that followed. Along with a detailed accounting of Western influence through statecraft and war towards where we are today.
Maksadi sketches the Arab world as a dynamic and complex region and not a stubbornly static one. He details the malcontent with Western governing frameworks that often push the pendulum away from a common ecumenical frame, instead towards enmity and sectarianism. Maksadi makes a compelling argument for how religious pluralism can work so long as every member of the ecumenical group champions the separation of church and state.
What’s missing is the storytelling and anecdotal tie ins that would make this a more engaging read. In an effort to be as plane spoken and grounded as possible, Maksadi serves up a dry and bland study of a fascinating topic. Which is just fine for academic circles but lacking if you are a causal observer looking to delve deeper into this area. I was left wanting, hoping that Malcolm Gladwell would pick up the torch and give us something comparable.
Maksadi sketches the Arab world as a dynamic and complex region and not a stubbornly static one. He details the malcontent with Western governing frameworks that often push the pendulum away from a common ecumenical frame, instead towards enmity and sectarianism. Maksadi makes a compelling argument for how religious pluralism can work so long as every member of the ecumenical group champions the separation of church and state.
What’s missing is the storytelling and anecdotal tie ins that would make this a more engaging read. In an effort to be as plane spoken and grounded as possible, Maksadi serves up a dry and bland study of a fascinating topic. Which is just fine for academic circles but lacking if you are a causal observer looking to delve deeper into this area. I was left wanting, hoping that Malcolm Gladwell would pick up the torch and give us something comparable.
October 25, 2020
This is a dense text, but still accessible. Makdisi is an incredible thinker, and he shows here a different side of sectarianism that adds an important element to the conversation. His analysis on how European powers inadvertently facilitated sectarianism was especially interesting.
January 13, 2025
Very good. It blows through the orientalist accounts of transhistorical sectarianism while not falling back into an equally transhistorical notion of coexistance. The exploitation of minority politics by European powers for colonial purposes in late 19th century Ottoman Empire propelled a wave of sectarian strife, but also lead to the formulation of an alternative ideological framework, that he labels the ecumenical frame. This frame is based on the creation of a civic and political community based on secular equality. One key theme that comes up thoughout the book is how both of these competing frameworks were neither mere Western imports nor completely indigenous developments. They were produced by Arabs operating under the constraints of Western imperial domination and falling Ottoman sovereignity. In the words of Said, "we can better understand the persistence and the durability of saturating hegemonic systems like culture when we realize that their internal constraints upon writers and thinkers were productive, not unilaterally inhibiting."
These internal constraints persisted into the mandate era, when European powers openly used sectarian politics to pursue their interests. The French exploited the maronite christian community in Lebanon, the British separated the Druze and Alawite parts of Syria from the rest. As one French official remarked at the Permanent Mandates Commission in Geneva, their intention was to create “a certain number of small states” to stifle the “aggressive tendencies” of larger states. As colonial conditions varied, responses to these strategies also varied. In Lebanon, the ecumenical frame manifested as the ossification of sectarian divisions by creating a system of sectarian quotas. In Iraq, it manifested as the invisibilization of all sectarian dentities.
One prominent anti-ecumenical movement covered in the book is Zionism. I appreciated the framing: it is clear that exclusivism was written in the DNA of Zionism. A more in depth coverage of Zionist literature could have illustrated this more clearly. Also, the anti-Zionist responses by Palestinian Jews fit very well under the ecumenical frame, but were not mentioned at all. This chapter is at its best regarding the effect of the Zionist triumph on ecumenical ideas, both in Palestine and outside.
Finally, coverage of Arab nationalism, the military dictatorships of the second half of the 20th century, and political Islam is limited to the epilogue. The epilogue is much less analytical than the rest of the book, and reads more like a succession of broad trends that took place since 1948 and how they affected the ecumenical frame. The overall picture seems to be that the dictatorial character of these regimes prevented the solidification of ecumenical ideas, and it was only a matter of time until these regimes transitioned to somewhat anti-ecumenical positions to cement their power. This part of the book seems lazier than the rest.
Overall, the book is very good. Most of its value lies in the framing, as opposed to the specific evidence, which is uncommon.
These internal constraints persisted into the mandate era, when European powers openly used sectarian politics to pursue their interests. The French exploited the maronite christian community in Lebanon, the British separated the Druze and Alawite parts of Syria from the rest. As one French official remarked at the Permanent Mandates Commission in Geneva, their intention was to create “a certain number of small states” to stifle the “aggressive tendencies” of larger states. As colonial conditions varied, responses to these strategies also varied. In Lebanon, the ecumenical frame manifested as the ossification of sectarian divisions by creating a system of sectarian quotas. In Iraq, it manifested as the invisibilization of all sectarian dentities.
One prominent anti-ecumenical movement covered in the book is Zionism. I appreciated the framing: it is clear that exclusivism was written in the DNA of Zionism. A more in depth coverage of Zionist literature could have illustrated this more clearly. Also, the anti-Zionist responses by Palestinian Jews fit very well under the ecumenical frame, but were not mentioned at all. This chapter is at its best regarding the effect of the Zionist triumph on ecumenical ideas, both in Palestine and outside.
Finally, coverage of Arab nationalism, the military dictatorships of the second half of the 20th century, and political Islam is limited to the epilogue. The epilogue is much less analytical than the rest of the book, and reads more like a succession of broad trends that took place since 1948 and how they affected the ecumenical frame. The overall picture seems to be that the dictatorial character of these regimes prevented the solidification of ecumenical ideas, and it was only a matter of time until these regimes transitioned to somewhat anti-ecumenical positions to cement their power. This part of the book seems lazier than the rest.
Overall, the book is very good. Most of its value lies in the framing, as opposed to the specific evidence, which is uncommon.
September 28, 2025
Rarely does an academic book about ecumenism compel me like this one does. Makdisi is a great writer and makes clear what his problem is: the obverse of sectarianism in the form of a shared identity basing itself in location and history transcending religion. This he calls “the ecumenical framework,” and he uses it as a method with which to analyze the rise of the framework and its pitfalls in the wake of devastating sectarian conflicts.
He begins the story in the 18th century Ottoman Empire, in which Islamic sovereignty is the basis of law and the millet system mediates this Islamic sovereignty with judicially and ecclesiastically autonomous confessional minorities. Later, he describes the slow degradation of Islamic sovereignty by both endogenous and exogenous forces, resulting in a reshuffling of relationships between religious communities. This confusion generated a new ideological framework to give order and cohesion to these changed communities the reforms undertaken in the 19th century Ottoman Empire: the ecumenical framework. All of this ideological change was occurring in a moment of deep philosophical re-evaluation—known as the Nahda. The ecumenical framework was slowly choked at the source by European imperialists and Zionists. The final chapter describes the Zionist project in the context of the late ottoman ecumenical framework.
Makdisi answers questions you never had about the region. What role did Arab Christians play in the consolidation of Arab National identity? Why would Europeans intervene in the ways they did, aside from selfish territorial acquisitions? What meaning does secularism have in the post-Ottoman Middle East, where most states maintain personal status laws to regulate marriage and reproduction between and within communities.
Hard not to recommend.
He begins the story in the 18th century Ottoman Empire, in which Islamic sovereignty is the basis of law and the millet system mediates this Islamic sovereignty with judicially and ecclesiastically autonomous confessional minorities. Later, he describes the slow degradation of Islamic sovereignty by both endogenous and exogenous forces, resulting in a reshuffling of relationships between religious communities. This confusion generated a new ideological framework to give order and cohesion to these changed communities the reforms undertaken in the 19th century Ottoman Empire: the ecumenical framework. All of this ideological change was occurring in a moment of deep philosophical re-evaluation—known as the Nahda. The ecumenical framework was slowly choked at the source by European imperialists and Zionists. The final chapter describes the Zionist project in the context of the late ottoman ecumenical framework.
Makdisi answers questions you never had about the region. What role did Arab Christians play in the consolidation of Arab National identity? Why would Europeans intervene in the ways they did, aside from selfish territorial acquisitions? What meaning does secularism have in the post-Ottoman Middle East, where most states maintain personal status laws to regulate marriage and reproduction between and within communities.
Hard not to recommend.
February 17, 2022
Ecumenical frame this, ecumenical frame that, but what about my ecumenical pain? 😞
In all seriousness, though, this is an excellent work of history that places current issues of sectarianism in the Arab World into their proper historical context, revealing how the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the effects of European colonialism in the 20th Century ended an age of religious coexistence (though not, importantly, equality— the two are not the same) and forced Arab identity into a series of political crises. Thought provoking and sad, Age of Coexistence disrupts the idea of the Middle East as a place of eternal intolerance and reminds us that the current state of affairs is both not inevitable and is largely the fault of colonialism and the West.
In all seriousness, though, this is an excellent work of history that places current issues of sectarianism in the Arab World into their proper historical context, revealing how the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the effects of European colonialism in the 20th Century ended an age of religious coexistence (though not, importantly, equality— the two are not the same) and forced Arab identity into a series of political crises. Thought provoking and sad, Age of Coexistence disrupts the idea of the Middle East as a place of eternal intolerance and reminds us that the current state of affairs is both not inevitable and is largely the fault of colonialism and the West.
October 28, 2024
The book gives a good insight about Arabs trying to form a frame for coexistence between the different sects, after the rise in sectarianism in the age of Tanzimat under the ottomans. The part of Palestine is also very informative about the rise of Zionism and how it did damage many of these coexistence principles.
October 11, 2021
Makdisi's scholarship of the Arab World and the issues surrounding faith, sectarianism, and historical coexistence is the best around. I highly recommend this work to any interested in deepening their understanding of the Levant.
September 16, 2024
israel always just comes and fucks it up omg
November 29, 2025
Wrote a book review on Makdisi’s Age of Coexistence for my Middle Eastern history course and made a B :D
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews