Between 850 and 859 (Christian Era), the Muslim government of Cordoba ordered the execution of forty-eight Christians. With few exceptions, these Christians invited execution by committing capital offenses: some appeared before the Muslim authorities to denounce Mohammed; others, Christian children of mixed Islamic-Christian marriages, publicly proclaimed their Christianity. Coope investigates the origins of this "martyrs' movement" in Cordoba, then flourishing as a center of Islamic culture. She cites the fears of radical Christians that conversions to Islam were on the increase and that...