Peter Hill’s most recent book, Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East (2024), traces the life of Mikha’il Mishaqa over the course of the nineteenth century, examining the origins of his intellectual and religious development. The length of this one man’s life and the breadth of his interests and contacts across the region, from the ports of Egypt to the villages of Mount Lebanon and the ancient capital of Syria, make this book as much a study of this turbulent period across the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. At its heart, this wide-ranging study seeks to answer the question: What did people in the Middle East actually believe in this period?

How does the personal and individual and intellectual relate to the political and social? Every time Mishaqa changes his world view and his intellectual beliefs it seems to be in response to a new set of “vicissitudes of time”, of instabilities that make him rethink whether he had a good explanation of the world around him. He doesn’t just surrender to this, saying it’s fate, but says no, we need to use our reason to understand why this is happening.

Hill discusses the importance of Mishaqa to our understanding of this question and, more broadly, how the Middle East changed dramatically by the end of the nineteenth century. Where most studies have focused on the Vice-Consul’s reports and account of the 1860 massacre, Hill starts with his childhood and the first glimmers of a fierce intellectual curiosity which would lead him to convert from the Roman Catholicism of his upbringing and embrace Protestantism, under the influence of American and British missionaries. In this conversation, recorded on 12 July 2025, Hill discusses the impact of “vicissitudes” – the dramatic and sometimes cataclysmic events of Syria in the nineteenth century – on Mishaqa’s religious development and the decisions he made. In a world where many were questioning their beliefs even as others were engaging in violent religious sectarianism like that which threatened Mishaqa’s own life in 1860, Hill sheds light on how these two trends coexisted. He brings to life the lived experience of the actors who made and experienced the massive changes of the nineteenth century and draws out the relevance of his analysis to today’s world.

Episode 70 – Prophet of Reason

Podcasts are published by TLP for the purpose of encouraging informed debate on the legacies of the events surrounding the Lausanne Conference. The views expressed by participants do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of TLP, its partners, convenors or members.