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In the Ancient East, the temples were considered houses of the gods and that is why they were also identified with the noun bitu (house); in addition to this term, the term qds, mqds (sanctuary) was also found at Ugarit. At the royal palaces belonging to the ancient peoples of the Cannean space there were also chapels, where especially the deified ancestors were worshipped, and in these places there were also cult images, made of precious metals, but which - in general - were not preserved as historical relics, these being over the centuries the object of robberies, for their value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a ḥadīth text that illustrates the complicated interactions between Christian and Islamic sacred spaces in the early period of Islamic rule in the Near East. In this narrative, the Prophet Muḥammad gives a group of Arabs instructions for how to convert a church into a mosque, telling them to use his ablution water for cleansing and repurposing the Christian space for Muslim worship. Contextualizing this narrative in terms of early Muslim-Christian relations, as well as late antique Christian religious texts and practices, my analysis compares this story with Christian traditions regarding the collection and usage of contact relics from holy persons and places. I argue that this story offers an example of early Islamic texts' engagement with, and adaptation of, Christian literary themes and ritual practices in order to validate early Islamic religious claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]