Courses: Caesar to Charlemagne, Qur’an to Crusades, Christian-Muslim Encounters, Islamic Civilization, Judaism-Christianity-Islam, Bible & Qur’an, History of Christmas, and Historical Methods

Research & Publications: David Bertaina studies the religious history of the late antique and medieval Middle East. Bertaina is interested in medieval encounters between Christians and Muslims. He is also interested in the historical development of Christmas. 

David Bertaina, Bulus ibn Raja: How a Fatimid Egyptian Convert shaped Christian Views of Islam. Leiden: Brill, 2022.

David Bertaina, “Muhammad’s Family and Polytheism: From Middle Eastern Muslim Debate to Iberian Christian Polemic.” In Mark of Toledo: Intellectual Context and Debates between Christians and Muslims in Early Thirteenth Century Iberia, ed. Charles Burnett and Pedro Mantas-España, 239–258. Córdoba: University of Córdoba Press, 2022. 

David Bertaina, “The Catholic Story.” In Surviving Jewel: The Enduring Story of Christianity in the Middle East, ed. Mark Lamport and Mitri Raheb, 147–163. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022.

David Bertaina, “Bulus ibn Raja' (d. after 1012): An Egyptian Muslim Convert to Christianity Assesses Islam.” In Medieval Encounters: Arabic-Speaking Christians and Islam, ed. Ayman Ibrahim, 389–414. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2022.

David Bertaina, “The Arabic Version of the Liber Denudationis: How Fatimid Controversies shaped Medieval European Views of Islam.” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 31, no. 4 (2020): 425–443.

David Bertaina, “Trees and Decorations.” In The Oxford Handbook of Christmas, ed. Timothy Larsen, 265–276. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.

David Bertaina, ed., Heirs of the Apostles: Studies on Arabic Christianity in Honor of Sidney H. Griffith. Edited by David Bertaina, Sandra Keating, Mark Swanson, and Alexander Treiger. Leiden: Brill, 2019.