Introduction

The plight of the minorities has become especially important to Western states as they fled the region in large numbers amid the growing global refugee crisis of 2014–2016. Minority communities have been slowly departing the Middle East for generations, and their relative numbers have not kept up with the larger populations of Sunni and Shi'i Arabs. Though the Ottoman Empire may never have described non-Muslim communities as minorities, they did enforce status differentiation between officially recognized Muslim and non-Muslim subjects. Uncovering their agency reveals the way in which we may reclaim the concept of minority communities as something less than a derivative concept. Nostalgic references to forgotten kingdoms and lost histories suggest that there is little more than historic interest in considering such minority communities. In the Lost History of Christianity, Philip Jenkins profiles the ancient significance of the Church of the East while simultaneously assessing its apparent demise.