The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter

The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter
History of
Christian-Muslim
Relations
Editorial Board
Jon Hoover (University of Nottingham)

Sandra Toenies Keating (Providence College)
Tarif Khalidi (American University of Beirut)
Suleiman Mourad (Smith College)
Gabriel Said Reynolds (University of Notre Dame)
Mark Swanson (Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago)
volume 25
Christians and Muslims have been involved in exchanges over matters of faith and morality
since the founding of Islam. Attitudes between the faiths today are deeply coloured by the
legacy of past encounters, and often preserve centuries-old negative views.
The History of Christian-Muslim Relations, Texts and Studies presents the surviving
record of past encounters in authoritative, fully introduced text editions and annotated
translations, and also monograph and collected studies. It illustrates the development
in mutual perceptions as these are contained in surviving Christian and Muslim writings,
and makes available the arguments and rhetorical strategies that, for good or for ill, have
left their mark on attitudes today. The series casts light on a history marked by intellectual
creativity and occasional breakthroughs in communication, although, on the whole beset by
misunderstanding and misrepresentation. By making this history better known, the series
seeks to contribute to improved recognition between Christians and Muslims in the future.
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hcmr

The Character of
Christian-Muslim Encounter
Essays in Honour of David Thomas
Edited by
Douglas Pratt
Jon Hoover
John Davies
John Chesworth
leiden | boston
Cover illustration: The cover image is the text of Qurʾān 19:12-33a, which relates the story of Mary and the
birth of Jesus; it is drawn from Mingana Islamic Arabic 2000, an eighteenth-century Arabic Qurʾān from
Persia. The image is reproduced with kind permission of the Cadbury Research Library, University of
Birmingham.
http://vmr.bham.ac.uk/Collections/Mingana/Islamic_Arabic_2000/Page_19/viewer/
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Contents
Publisher’s Preface xi
Contributor Notes xiii
General Introduction 1
Editors
1 David Thomas: The Hearing of Two Vocations—A Biographical

Sketch 12
John Davies
2 Professor David Thomas—A Representative Reminiscence 19

Albert Suderaraj Walters
part 1
From the Rise of Islam to the Medieval World
3 Facing the Last Day through Two Narrative Apocalyptic Figures in the
Coptic-Arabic ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’ 25
Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala
4 The Holy Spirit in Early Christian Dialogue with Muslims 42

Mark Beaumont
5 Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, Disciples and Masters: On Questions of Religious

Philosophy 60
Emilio Platti
6 The Theme of Language in Christian-Muslim Discussions in the

ʿAbbāsid Period: Some Christian Views 85
Herman Teule
7 A Neglected Piece of Evidence for Early Muslim Reactions to the

Frankish Crusader Presence in the Levant: The ‘Jihad Chapter’ from
Tuḥfat al-mulūk 95
Alex Mallett
viii contents
8 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and Ibn ʿArabī on the Ways to Knowledge of God:
Unveiling or Reflection and Reasoning? 111
Muammer İskenderoğlu
9 “Can You Find Anything Praiseworthy in My Religion?” Religious

Aversion and Admiration in Medieval Christian-Muslim
Relations 126
Charles L. Tieszen
10 The First Imposition of a Badge on European Jews: The English Royal

Mandate of 1218 145
John Tolan
11 An Arabic Version of the Treatise on the Origin and History of the

Thirty Pieces of Silver which Judas Received from the Jews 167
Rifaat Ebied
12 Debating According to the Rules: A Conversation about the

Crucifixion in al-Ḥāwī by al-Makīn Jirjis ibn al-ʿAmīd 186
Mark N. Swanson
part 2
From Early Modernity to the Present
13 Islamic Anti-Christian Polemics in 16th Century Spain: The Lead

Books of Granada and the Gospel of Barnabas. Beyond the Limits of
tahrīf 207
Luis F. Bernabé Pons
14 Islam: An (Almost) Redundant Element in the

Polish-Lithuanian/Ottoman Encounters between the 16th and 19th
Centuries? 225
Stanisław Grodź svd
15 (In)tolerant Ottomans: Polemic, Perspective and the Reading of

Primary Sources 242
Claire Norton
contents ix
16 The Hadith in Christian-Muslim Dialogue in 19th Century India 264

Alan M. Guenther
17 Muslim Responses to Missionary Literature in Egypt in the Late

Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 288
Umar Ryad
18 Three Pioneering Malay Works of Quranic Exegesis: A Comparative

Study 309
Peter Riddell
19 Christian-Muslim Engagement in Contemporary India: Minority

Irruptions of Majoritarian Faultlines 326
Peniel J. Rufus Rajkumar
20 Scholarly Reception of Alphonse Mingana’s ‘The Transmission of the

Ḳurʾān’: A Centenary Perspective 343
Gordon Nickel
21 The Role of Religious Leaders in Promoting Reconciliation in

Sudan 365
Sigvard von Sicard
22 Patterns of Christian-Muslim Encounters in Sub-Saharan Africa 381

John Azumah
23 Italian Islam: Imam and Mosque Today 401

Davide Tacchini
part 3
Looking Ahead: From Present to Future
24 The Current Situation of Christian-Muslim Relations: Emerging

Challenges, Signs of Hope 415
Jørgen S. Nielsen
25 The Future of the Christian-Muslim Past: Reflecting with Charles

Taylor on Interreligious Relations 428
Damian Howard sj
x contents
26 Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue: Towards a More

Interpersonal and Spiritual Engagement 447
Risto Jukko
27 Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and the Environment: The Case for a

New Sacred Science 470
Andrew M. Sharp
28 Provocation and Resonance: Sacramental Spirituality in the Context

of Islam 492
Michael Ipgrave
29 Getting to Know One Another’s Hearts: The Progress, Method, and

Potential of the Building Bridges Seminar 512
Lucinda Allen Mosher
30 Anglican Interreligious Relations in Generous Love: Indebted to and

Moving from Vatican ii 527
Richard J. Sudworth
31 The Interfaith Landscape and Liturgical Places 544

David Cheetham
32 Textual Authority and Hermeneutical Adventure: Three 21st Century

Dialogue Initiatives 559
Douglas Pratt
33 Transfiguring Mission: From Arabic Dallas to Interfaith

Discovery 579
Clare Amos
David R. Thomas Academic Publications 597

Index 601
Publisher’s Preface
In the field of Christian-Muslim relations, Professor David Thomas is a towering

figure. Even the most cursory glance at his list of publications provides ample
evidence. One of David’s earliest major publications, Anti-Christian polemic in
early Islam: Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq’s “Against the Trinity” (Cambridge University
Press, 1992), is a critical edition of the Arabic text with a parallel English
translation. The impact of this work is illustrated by the fact that it was reviewed
in nine international academic periodicals.
With Brill, David is involved in two book series. The smaller of the two is
Studies on the Children of Abraham, which he co-edits with two other scholars.
Since 2010, four volumes have been published in this series, with a total of 1,455
pages. The second series is the History of Christian-Muslim Relations (hcmr),
which was founded by David. The first volume was published in April, 2003,
and by the end of 2015 the series will have reached volume 25. Until the end of
2014, 6,164 pages were published in hcmr—not counting the subseries which
is published online as a major reference work in its own right: Christian-Muslim
Relations. A Bibliographical History. The first phase of that project (vols. 1–5)
covered the period 600–1500ce, while the on-going Phase ii will take the work
up to the early twentieth century. Volume 6 was published in 2014; Volume 7 in
2015. The first six volumes of this reference work, which is usually abbreviated
as cmr and of which David has been the editor-in-chief from the beginning,
encompass 5,230 pages—and there is much more to come.
David’s involvement in the journal, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations
(icmr), a Routledge publication, deserves also to be mentioned. The journal
was started in 1990 with two issues per year. It has since gone up to four
issues annually. Its 26th volume will be published in 2015. In his capacity as
the journal’s senior editor David Thomas has supervised the publication of
another ca. ten thousand pages of academic articles. David would undoubtedly
point out that these were mostly collaborative enterprises and quality is more
important than quantity. Still, few scholars could boast such productivity.
Most Festschrifts are prepared in secret and the present volume was no
exception. With more than 30 contributions this is a sizeable project, and the
more people involved the greater the risk that word reaches the honouree
prematurely. Perhaps the greatest risk of this happening is on the publisher’s
end. In modern publishing announcing new publications many months before
they become available is the norm. The book trade and other suppliers expect
to be informed well in advance, and publishers ensure that this happens by
creating automatic feeds from their internal administrative databases. With
xii publisher’s preface
Festschrifts, we put an embargo on all external information as well as on the

dispatch of the books to the series editors; after all, we don’t want David to
receive this volume in the post out of the blue. Despite such precautions, things
occasionally go wrong and word does get out about projects which should have
been kept secret. Perhaps one way to solve this would be to work with code
names? In David’s case, though, the first thing that comes to mind may well be
so obvious as to defeat the purpose: Goliath.
My congratulations to the editors of this Festschrift for putting together a
splendid volume in tribute to a most deserving recipient.
Maurits van den Boogert

Senior Acquisitions Editor, BRILL
Contributor Notes
Clare Amos
(dd Lambeth; dhl (hon.) Berkeley Divinity School, Yale) is currently a Pro-
gramme Executive for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation at the World
Council of Churches, Geneva. Previously she was Director of Theological Stud-
ies in the Anglican Communion Office and Coordinator of the Network for
Interfaith Concerns (nifcon) of the Anglican Communion. A graduate of Gir-
ton College, Cambridge and the École Biblique in Jerusalem, in 2012 she was
awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the
same year she received an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Berke-
ley Divinity School, Yale. Clare co-edits the wcc journal Current Dialogue. Her
most recent book is a study of Jerusalem entitled Peace-ing Together Jerusalem
(2014) and some years earlier assisted David Thomas in co-editing A Faithful
Presence: essays for Kenneth Cragg (2003).
John Azumah
(PhD Birmingham, 1998) is Associate Professor of World Christianity & Islam,
Columbia Theological Seminary, and an adjunct member of Faculty, Fuller
Theological Seminary, usa. He was formerly the Director of the Centre of
Islamic Studies at the London School of Theology, uk. Recent publications
include two co-edited books: with Lamin Sanneh, The African Christian and
Islam (2013) and, with Peter Riddell, Islam and Christianity on the Edge: Talking
Points in Christian-Muslim Relations into the 21st Century (2013).
Mark Beaumont
(PhD The Open University 2003) is Senior Lecturer in Islam and Mission at the
London School of Theology. His doctoral thesis, Christology in Dialogue with
Muslims: A Critical Analysis of Christian Presentations of Christ for Muslims from
the Ninth and Twentieth Centuries, was undertaken through The Oxford Centre
for Mission Studies supervised externally by David Thomas. It was published
by Paternoster in 2005 and re-issued by Regnum Press in 2011. With a research
focus on Christian-Muslim relations with special reference to theological issues
in the early and modern periods, recent publications include ‘Christology in
Dialogue with Muslims’ in The Routledge Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations
(ed.) M. Siddiqui (2013): 49–64.
xiv contributor notes
David Cheetham
(PhD Wales, 1994) is Reader in Philosophical Theology and Head of the Depart-
ment of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham, uk. He is also
an ordained Anglican priest. Specializing in contemporary philosophical the-
ology and inter-religious relations, he is widely published in this field. His sole-
authored books include Ways of Meeting and the Theology of Religions (2013)
and John Hick (2003); and his edited books include, Contemporary Practice and
Method in the Philosophy of Religion (2008) and, with David Thomas and Dou-
glas Pratt, Understanding Interreligious Relations (2013).
John Chesworth
(PhD Birmingham, 2008), is project officer for Christian-Muslim Relations. A
Bibliographical History 1500–1900 (cmr1900), and is co-editor with David
Thomas of the 16th century volumes. He co-edited Sharīʾa in Africa Today: Reac-
tions and Responses (2014) and has written several articles on Christian-Muslim
relations in Africa and Europe.
John Davies
(The Very Revd Dr) (PhD Lancaster 1999) is Dean of Derby Cathedral and is a
former Chaplain of Keble College Oxford.
Rifaat Ebied
faha (ba Hons with Distinction, Ain Shams University, 1960) is emeritus Pro-
fessor of Semitic Studies of the University of Sydney and an Adjunct Profes-
sor of the Australian Catholic University. His book publications include An
Anthology of Arab Wit and Wisdom (2008). Together with David Thomas he
has published Muslim-Christian Polemic during the Crusades: Ibn Abi Talib al-
Dimashqi’s Response to the Letter from the People of Cyprus (2005) and, with
Herman Teule, Studies on the Christian Arabic Heritage: Eastern Christian Stud-
ies (2004). Professor Ebied was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of
the Humanities (faha) in 1982.

(ThD Lublin, 2003) is Reader at the Department of the Study of Religion and
Missiology, the Catholic University of Lublin. He has studied at the School of
Oriental and African Studies (soas), London, and the Centre for the Study
of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations (csic), University of Birmingham.
His research interests focus on Christianity and interreligious relations, espe-
cially in West Africa, as well as Christian-Muslim relations more generally. He
is a team leader and section editor on the Christian-Muslim Relations. A Biblio-
contributor notes xv
graphical History 1500–1900 (cmr1900) project. He co-edited, with G.G. Smith,

Religion, Ethnicity and Transnational Migration between West Africa and Europe
(2014).
Alan M. Guenther
(PhD McGill, 2005) is Assistant Professor of History at Briercrest College and
Seminary, and a team member on the Christian-Muslim Relations. A Biblio-
graphical History 1500–1900 (cmr1900) project. His research interests are the
history of Christian-Muslim Relations, the history of Muslim law, and the his-
tory of Muslim communities and colonial law in British India. His doctorate at
McGill University’s Institute of Islamic Studies was on ‘Syed Mahmood and the
transformation of Muslim law in British India’.
Jon Hoover
(PhD Birmingham, 2002) is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at the Uni-
versity of Nottingham. He has published Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpet-
ual Optimism (2007), several studies on the theologies of Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn
Qayyim al-Jawziyya, and a number of essays on Christian-Muslim Relations. He
is presently the book review editor for Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations.
Damian Howard SJ
(PhD Birmingham 2010) is a lecturer at Heythrop College, University of London.
He studied theology at Trinity College, Cambridge and at the Centre Sèvres
in Paris, and philosophy at the London School of Economics. Then followed
Islamic studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London before
obtaining his doctorate in contemporary Islamic thought under the supervi-
sion of Professor David Thomas. His thesis is published as Being Human in
Islam. The Impact of the Evolutionary Worldview (2011).
Michael Ipgrave
(PhD Durham 2000) is Bishop of Woolwich, in the Church of England Diocese
of Southwark (South London). He is Vice-Chair of the Anglican Communion’s
Inter Faith Network (nifcon), and Chair of the Council of Christians and Jews.
For some years he was actively involved in the organisation of the Building
Bridges seminar series of Christian-Muslim dialogue, and the editor of initial
published volumes arising therefrom.
(PhD Birmingham 2001) lectures at Sakarya University where he teaches and
writes on Medieval Muslim and Christian Thought. His recent publications
xvi contributor notes
include ‘Ġazālī and Bonaventure on the Criticism of Philosophical Knowledge’,

in T. Kirby, R. Acar and B. Baş (eds.), Philosophy and the Abrahamic Religions:
Scriptural Hermeneutics and Epistemology (2010): 237–249 and ‘Ḫōcazāde Būr-
sevī (d. 1488): Tahāfut al-falāsifah’, in Sabine Schmidtke & Khaled El-Rouayheb
(eds.), Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy ( forthcoming).
Risto Jukko
(ThD Helsinki, 2001) is a Docent (Adjunct Professor) in Ecumenics at the Uni-
versity of Helsinki and Director of the Office for Global Mission of the Evan-
gelical Lutheran Church of Finland. His publications, mostly in Finnish, are in
the fields of the theology of religions and contemporary Roman Catholic theol-
ogy. His Trinity in Unity in Christian-Muslim Relations: The Work of the Pontifical
Council for Interreligious Dialogue (2007) was published as Volume 7 in Brill’s
History of Christian-Muslim Relations (hcmr) series.
Alex Mallett
(PhD Edinburgh, 2009) is a Research Fellow in the Institute of Arab and Islamic
Studies at the University of Exeter, and Brill project manager for the Christian-
Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 1500–1900 (cmr1900) project. He
was Research Fellow on the preceding project, cmr600. His work focuses on
the Crusades, and particularly Muslim responses to the Frankish presence in
the Levant and the image of the Franks in Arabic historical writings. He is
the author of Popular Muslim Reactions to the Franks in the Levant, 1097–1291
(2014) and editor of Medieval Muslim Historians and the Franks in the Levant
(2014).

(PhD Granada, 1996) is Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, University
of Cordova in the Department of Translation and Interpretation, Romance Lan-
guages, Semitic Studies and Documentation. His research focuses on Christian
Arabic Literature. Recent publications include ‘New skin for old stories. Queens
Zenobia and Māwiya, and Christian Arab groups in the Eastern frontier during
the 3rd–4th centuries ce’, in Charles Burnett and Pedro Mantas-España (eds.),
Mapping Knowledge: Cross-Pollination in the Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages,
av 1 (2014): 71–99; and ‘Christians in the Red Sea area in Late Antiquity. On the
Arabic version of the Martyrdom of Athansius of Clysma’, in Ägypten und sein
Umfeld in der Spätantike. Vom Regierungsantritt Diokletians 284/285 bis zur ara-
bischen Eroberung des Vorderen Orients um 635–646. Herausgegeben von Frank
Feder und Angelika Lohwasser (2013): 247–274.
contributor notes xvii

(Th.D., General Theological Seminary, 2002) is Faculty Associate in Interfaith
Studies at Hartford Seminary (Connecticut, usa) and Assistant Academic Di-
rector of the Building Bridges Seminar. She teaches, writes, and consults on
multifaith concerns generally and Christian-Muslim relations particularly. She
is the author of Toward Our Mutual Flourishing: The Episcopal Church, Interre-
ligious Relations, and Theologies of Religious Manyness (2012), and a contribu-
tor to Christian-Muslim Relations in the Lutheran and Anglican Communions:
Historical Encounters and Contemporary Projects (2013). With David Marshall,
she is the editor of several volumes of Building Bridges Seminar proceedings,
including Death, Resurrection, and Human Destiny: Christian and Muslim Per-
spectives (2014).
Gordon Nickel
(PhD Calgary, 2004) is director of the Centre for Islamic Studies at the South
Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies in Bangalore, India, and a team
member on the Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 1500–1900
(cmr1900) project. His research focus is the Qurʾan and the Islamic interpre-
tive tradition. He is the author of Narratives of tampering in the earliest com-
mentaries on the Qurʾan (2011) and the recently published Gentle answer to the
Muslim accusation of biblical falsification (2015).
Jørgen S. Nielsen
(PhD America University of Beirut, 1978) studied Arabic and Arab history in
London and Beirut. His research has focused on Muslims in Europe, and he
has engaged in Christian-Muslim dialogue in the uk, Europe, and interna-
tionally. Professor Nielsen has held academic posts in Beirut, Copenhagen,
Damascus and Birmingham. Recent publications include Yearbook of Mus-
lims in Europe, vols. 1–6, as chief editor (2009–2014), and Muslim Political Par-
ticipation in Europe (2013). He is Chief Editor of the Journal of Muslims in
Europe.
Claire Norton
(PhD Birmingham 2005) is Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow in the His-
tory Department at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and a team member on
the Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 1500–1900 (cmr1900)
project. Her doctoral research was on Ottoman and modern Turkish narrations
of the 1600 and 1601 sieges of the Nagykanizsa castle situated on the Ottoman-
Habsburg borderlands. Her current research is focused on Muslim-Christian
interactions and conceptions of the other in the context of the Ottoman Em-
xviii contributor notes
pire. She is a co-editor, with Anna Contadini, of The Renaissance and the Otto-
man World (2013).
Emilio Platti
(PhD ku Leuven, 1980) is professor emeritus in charge at the ku Leuven Uni-
versity. He is a member of the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies (ideo)
in Cairo, Egypt and was Editor of Mélanges de l’ ideo (2008–2014).

(PhD Alicante, 1992) is professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Univer-
sity of Alicante, Spain, and a team member on the Christian-Muslim Relations.
A Bibliographical History 1500–1900 (cmr1900) project. His doctoral study was
on the Islamic Gospel of Barnabas. His main fields of interest are Mudéjares
and Moriscos, Islam in Spain during 16th and 17th centuries, Aljamiado Liter-
ature and Arabic Literature. Recent publications include ‘The Moriscos Out-
side Spain: Routes and Financing’, The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain. A
Mediterranean Diaspora (2014): 219–238, and ‘Taqiyya, niyya y el islam de los
moriscos’, Al-Qantara, xxxiv (2013): 491–527.
Douglas Pratt
(PhD St Andrews, Scotland, 1984; DTheol Melbourne College of Divinity, 2009)
is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand,
and Adjunct Professor within the Faculty of Theology at the University of Bern,
Switzerland. His research interests include interreligious dialogue, Christian-
Muslim relations, and issues of religious plurality and extremism. His publica-
tions include The Challenge of Islam: Encounters in Interfaith Dialogue (2005),
The Church and other Faiths: The World Council of Churches, the Vatican, and
Interreligious Dialogue (2010), and Being Open, Being Faithful: The Journey of
Interreligious Dialogue (2014). He co-edited with David Cheetham and David
Thomas, Understanding Interreligious Relations (2013) and edited Interreligious
Engagement and Theological Reflection: Ecumenical Explorations (2014). Profes-
sor Pratt is a Team Leader and Section Editor on the Christian-Muslim Relations.
A Bibliographical History 1500–1900 (cmr1900) project.
Peniel Jesudason Rufus Rajkumar

(PhD Kent, 2007) is a Programme Executive for Inter-religious Dialogue and
Cooperation with the World Council of Churches, focussing on relations with
‘Eastern Religions’. Prior to working for the wcc, he was Associate Professor
in the Department of Theology and Ethics at the United Theological College,
Bangalore, India. He is a co-editor of the wcc journal Current Dialogue. His
contributor notes xix
recent publications include Mission At and From the Margins: Patterns, Protag-
onists and Perspectives (2014), ‘Re-Cast(e)ing Conversion, Revisiting Dialogue:
Indian Attempts at an Interfaith Theology of Wholeness’, Journal of the Aca-
demic Study of Religion, 26/2 (2013): 57–171, and ‘A prophetic, polysemic and
proleptic prompt: reflections on the convergence text The Church: Towards a
Common Vision’ in the Ecumenical Review 65/3 (2013): 338–341.
Peter Riddell
(PhD Australian National University, 1985) is Vice Principal (Academic) of the
Melbourne School of Theology, Australia, and Professorial Research Associate
in History, soas, University of London. He is also a team member on the
Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 1500–1900 (cmr1900) proj-
ect. He was previously Professor of Islamic Studies at the London School of
Theology and has taught at the Australian National University, Canberra; the
Institut Pertanian Bogor (Indonesia); and the London School of Oriental and
African Studies. He has published widely on Southeast Asia, Islam and Chris-
tian-Muslim Relations. Recent works include Islam and Christianity on the
Edge: Talking Points in Christian-Muslim Relations into the 21st Century, edited
with John Azumah (2013), and Islam and the Last Day: Christian Perspectives on
Islamic Eschatology, edited with Brent J. Neely (2014).
Umar Ryad
(PhD Leiden, 2008) is associate professor of Islamic Studies at the University of
Utrecht and a team member on the Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliograph-
ical History 1500–1900 (cmr1900) project. He completed undergraduate studies
Al-Azhar University, Cairo, and his masters and doctorate at the University of
Leiden. He is currently leading an erc Starting Grant project: Neither visitors,
nor colonial victims: Muslims in Interwar Europe and European Trans-cultural
History (2014–2019). Recent publications include ‘A Salafi Student in Oriental-
ist Scholarship in Nazi Germany: Taqi al-Din al-Hilali and His Experience in
the West’, in G. Nordbruch & Umar Ryad (eds), Transnational Islam in Interwar
Europe: Muslim Activists and Thinkers (2014): 107–155, and ‘Anti-Imperialism
and the Pan-Islamic Movement’ in David Motadel (ed.), Islam and the European
Empires (2014): 131–149.
Andrew M. Sharp
(PhD Birmingham 2010) is Research Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Stud-
ies in Culture, University of Virginia, and Affiliate Assistant Professor of Reli-
gious Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University. He is author of Orthodox
Christians and Islam in the Postmodern Age (2012) and articles on Eastern Chris-
xx contributor notes
tianity, Islam, and Muslim-Christian relations, including ‘Modern Encounters

with Islam and the Impact on Orthodox Thought, Identity, and Action’, Inter-
national Journal of Orthodox Theology 5:1 (2014). Forthcoming work includes a
chapter on ‘Orthodox-Muslim relations in Lebanon’ in Eastern Christian
Encounters with Islam (2015) and ‘The Eastern Churches and Islam’ in The Rout-
ledge Handbook on Christian-Muslim Relations (2015).
Sigvard von Sicard

(ThD Uppsala 1970) is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Theology at
the University of Birmingham. His research interests are Islam in Africa and
Christian-Muslim relations more widely. Recent publications include ‘Mala-
gasy Islam: Tracing the History and Cultural Influence of Islam in Madagascar’,
Muslim Minority Affairs, 31/1 (2011): 101–112; ‘Malagasy Islam: Representing the
various strands of Muslim tradition in twenty-first century Madagascar’, Mus-
lim Minority Affairs, 31/2 (2011): 273–283; and ‘God-Consciousness’ in Christian
Lives dedicated to the Study of Islam, C.W. Troll and C.T.R. Hewer (eds) (2012):
22–30.
Richard J. Sudworth
(PhD London, 2013) is a Church of England parish priest in Birmingham, and
Tutor in Anglican Theology at the Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham, Eng-
land. His particular research focus is the interface of Anglicanism, Christian-
Muslim Relations, and Political Theology. Recent publications include ‘Chris-
tian Responses to the Political Challenge of Islam’, Islam and Christian-Muslim
Relations, Vol. 4/2 (2013): 191–211; ‘Hospitality and Embassy: The Persistent Influ-
ence of Kenneth Cragg on Anglican Theologies of Interfaith Relations’, Anglican
Theological Review, 96/1 (2014): 73–89.
Mark N. Swanson
(PhD pisai [Pontifical Institute for the Study of Arabic and Islam], 1992) is the
Harold S. Vogelaar Professor of Christian-Muslim Studies and Interfaith Rela-
tions at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He has previously taught
in St. Paul, Minnesota and in Cairo, Egypt. He is the author of The Coptic Papacy
in Islamic Egypt (641–1517) (2010) and was the Christian Arabic section editor for
the first five volumes of Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History
(2009–2014).
Charles L. Tieszen
(PhD Birmingham, 2010) is adjunct assistant professor of Islamic studies at
Fuller Theological Seminary in California, usa. A specialist in Christian-Mus-
contributor notes xxi
lim relations, he has most recently written Christian Identity amid Islam in
Medieval Spain (2013) and A Textual History of Christian-Muslim Relations
(2015).
John Tolan
(PhD Chicago, 1990) is professor of Medieval History at the University of Nantes
(France) and member of the Academia Europaea. He is author of numerous
articles and books in medieval history and cultural studies, including Sons of
Ishmael: Muslims through European Eyes in the Middle Ages (2008), Saint Fran-
cis and the Sultan: The Curious History of a Christian-Muslim Encounter (2009)
and, with Gilles Veinstein and Henry Laurens, Europe and the Islamic World
(2012). He is currently director of a major project funded by the European
Research Council, ‘relmin: The legal status of religious minorities in the Euro-
Mediterranean world (5th–15th centuries)’ (www.relmin.eu).
Davide Tacchini
(PhD Milan, 2006), is a lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Catholic
University, Milan, Italy and he teaches Islamic Studies at the Northern Ital-
ian School of Theology. He is presently a member of the scientific committee
of the fidr (International Forum for Democracy and Religion) in Italy and
is section editor for Italy and the Papal State with respect to the Christian-
Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 1500–1900 (cmr1900) project. Pre-
viously a Visiting Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim relations
at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, ct, usa, in 2014 he published two books,
Islam e integrazione in Italia (Islam and Integration in Italy) and America Bar-
bara e Infedele, Il diario del viaggio di Sayyid Qutb negli Stati Uniti (Barbarian
and Infidel America, Sayyid Qutb’s Diary from the of his trip to the United
States).
Herman Teule
(PhD Louvain, 1990) is Professor emeritus for Eastern Christianity of the Uni-
versity of Leuven and Acting Head of the Institute of Eastern Christian Studies,
Radboud University Nijmegen. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Eastern
Christian Studies. His research is focused on the reception of Islamic traditions
by Syriac and Arabic Christians in the period of the Syriac Renaissance (12th–
13th cent.) and on present-day developments within the Christian communi-
ties of the Middle East. His recent publications include Al-Kildu-Ashūriyyūn
(2012), being an updated Arabic translation of his Les Assyro-chaldéens (2008)
and ‘Les chrétiens d’Irak. Quelle place dans la société?’Perspectives et Réflexions
(2013): 3–18.
xxii contributor notes
Albert Sunderaraj Walters

(PhD Birmingham 2000) is an Anglican priest and Principal of St Andrew’s
Theological College in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has taught previously at the
Seminari Theoloji Malaysia, Seremban, Malaysia and St Mark’s Anglican The-
ological College, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. His publications include Know-
ing our Neighbour: A Study of Islam for Christians in Malaysia (2007), ‘Issues
in Christian-Muslim Relations: A Malaysian Christian Perspective’, Islam and
Christian-Muslim Relations, Vol. 18/1 (2007): 67–83, and ‘Anglican National Iden-
tity: Theological Education and Ministerial Formation in Multifaith Malaysia’,
Journal of Anglican Studies, Vol. 6/1 (June 2008): 69–88. A member of the edi-
torial team of the Journal of World Christianity, his research interests span the
fields of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, interfaith dialogue, ecumenism,
and theological education, among others.
General Introduction
David Thomas is a widely-regarded and much-beloved colleague and mentor

within the community of scholars of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, and
also with respect to those of the Church of England and beyond involved in
interfaith dialogue—in particular with Islam and Muslims. An Anglican priest,
David has ever honoured his professional calling to the service of ministry
within the Christian Church and, as John Davies’ biographical sketch spells
out, he has responded to a second vocational call to scholarship and teaching,
with distinction. Beginning his university education with degrees in English
literature and theology, David later embarked upon doctoral studies in Islam,
becoming proficient in Arabic, and developing specialist interest in the his-
torical intricacies of dialogical relations between Muslims and Christians. For
nearly a quarter of a century he has taught and supervised students at Birm-
ingham, first within the Selly Oak Federation, and then, following its merger, at
the University of Birmingham where he has risen through the ranks to become
Professor. Throughout, he has been not only an active researcher and writer,
producing impressive books and articles, he has emerged as one of the leading
lights of scholarly facilitators adept at building and fostering collegial relations,
engaging others to work with him on one or more of his research and publishing
projects. Deeply respected within both academia and church, as well as within
the Muslim world, it is in tribute to his immense influence that this book has
emerged; and the response of the contributors is a measure of the regard so
many hold for him.
It was in early 2013, as a result of a conversation between four of his
colleagues—the editors of this volume—that a proposal to honour David with
a Festschrift as he approaches retirement from his university post took concrete
shape. It was quickly endorsed and supported by Maurits van den Boogert, his
publisher at Brill. The editors express to Maurits their deep appreciation for
the support of Brill, and the licence given to produce this Festschrift without
constraint on its size. One issue, that everyone involved has ever been mind-
ful of, has been the matter of secrecy. The intention was to ensure David knew
nothing of this book until it was published—no mean feat as he is the General
Editor of the series in which it sits! At the time of writing this Introduction, just
ahead of handing the completed manuscript over to the publisher, it seems to
have worked; if it has not, David is not saying! So we are hopeful that at the
launch and presentation, timed for 22 September, 2015, this will be a total sur-
prise to him. In any event it will be an occasion of celebration in the context
of a social evening during the course of the fourth annual meeting of the team
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/9789004297210_002

2 general introduction
working on the cmr1900 project1 for which David is the Principal Investigator,
and whose brain-child it is.
This collection of essays commences with an introductory section compris-
ing, together with this Introduction that gives an overview of the contributions,
a biographical sketch contributed by john davies, a long-standing ecclesial
colleague of David’s, and a representative reminiscence and tribute provided
by albert sundararaj walters, one of David’s former doctoral students.
There then follows, in three parts, 31 scholarly papers offered in tribute of some-
one who, in the words of Andrew Wingate, is ‘a committed priest, a person
with a gentle exterior, yet steely and purposive underneath; a good friend,
with a sharp mind, and a Welsh sense of humour’.2 When the Festschrift was
first conceived, the thinking was to reflect three dimensions of David Thomas’
academic and professional work—studies in and of Islam; Christian-Muslim
relations; the Church and interreligious engagement. At the same time, invi-
tees were given a relatively free hand to offer what they wished. Would that
yield three roughly balanced parts? In the end it did, albeit not quite reflecting
the initial plan, yet certainly those elements of David’s work are nevertheless
reflected within, and set in the context of a focussed theme—the character
of Christian-Muslim encounters—cast within a broad chronological frame-
work.
Part 1 comprises contributions that address issues in the study of Islam and
Christian-Muslim relations up to the Middle Ages. It begins with the early Arab-
Islamic expansion beyond Arabia which precipitated a counter-campaign of
Christian propaganda that included apocalyptic writings. In ‘Facing the Last
Day through two narrative apocalyptic figures in the Coptic-Arabic “Apocalypse
of Pseudo-Athanasius”’ juan pedro monferrer-sala edits and translates
a text dating back to the early eighth-century and analyses its use of the motifs
‘the four winds of heaven’ from Daniel 7:2 and ‘the eschatological banquet’ from
Revelation. The last of the winds is the Arabs, the Sons of Hagar, who ultimately
perish at the great end time feast.
In ‘The Holy Spirit in Early Christian Dialogue with Muslims’ mark beau-
mont examines how several Christian theologians writing in the late eighth
and early ninth centuries explain the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in dialogue
with their Islamic context, as well as how the Zaydī Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm
and Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq refute this Christian doctrine. Beaumont concludes that
1 Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 1500–1900.

2 Revd Canon Dr Andrew Wingate obe, Canon Theologian of Leicester Cathedral, founding
Director of St Philip’s Centre, Leicester, and former Principal of the College of the Ascension,
Selly Oak Federation, Birmingham. Correspondence with the Editors.
general introduction 3
as the eighth century passes to the ninth century, the Holy Spirit receives less
attention in Christian apologetic to Muslims.
Next, emilio platti in his ‘Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, disciples and masters: on ques-
tions of religious philosophy’, highlights recent manuscript findings pertaining
to the tenth-century Christian philosopher’s views on causality, God’s power,
and the human act. Among other things, Platti shows that Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī adopts
a traditional patristic view of human freedom rather than the deterministic
views found within his Islamic milieu, and he observes that Yaḥyā’s specifically
philosophical treatises found today in Iranian libraries do not appear to have
been available to medieval Coptic writers.
Writing on ‘The Theme of Language in Christian-Muslim Discussions in the
ʿAbbāsid Period: Some Christian views’, herman teule traces the ambiva-
lence of Christian writers toward the Arabic language between the ninth and
thirteenth centuries, an ambivalence born out of Muslim claims to Arabic’s
unparalleled status as the language of Islamic divine revelation. Whereas some
Christians lauded the virtues of languages apart from Arabic to undermine such
Muslim claims, others embraced Arabic as their own cultural heritage in order
to establish common ground for dialogue.
Then, in ‘A Neglected Piece of Evidence for Early Muslim Reactions to the
Frankish Crusader Presence in the Levant’, alex mallet examines the chap-
ter on jihād in the ‘Mirror for Princes’ work Tuḥfat al-mulūk, which may have
been written by al-Ghazālī (d. 1111). The text expresses anger against the sul-
tan in Baghdad for his inactivity and calls on him to undertake jihād against
the crusaders. Mallet takes this as evidence that Muslim sentiments against the
early crusaders was likely stronger than scholars have previously supposed.
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and Ibn ʿArabī were two of the greatest minds of the
early thirteenth century, with the former well known for his rationalist theology
and the latter for denigrating reason in favour of mystical intuition or unveiling.
muammer i̇s kenderoğlu, in ‘Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and Ibn ʿArabī on the
ways to knowledge of God: Unveiling or Reflection and Reasoning?’ shows
that al-Rāzī is in fact closer to Ibn ʿArabī than often thought since in his late
work Al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya he regards both reason and unveiling as paths to
knowledge of God. However, al-Rāzī worries that unveiling can lead to error,
and he therefore suggests that it must be controlled by reason.
charles tieszin, in his ‘“Can You Find Anything Praiseworthy in My Reli-
gion?” Religious Aversion and Admiration in Medieval Christian-Muslim Rela-
tions’, looks for patterns in the negative and positive responses to Muḥammad
and the Qurʾān in three Christian texts devoted to Islam. In the ‘disputation of
the monk Jirjī’, a 13th century Melkite monk from Antioch, Jirjī is asked if he, as a
Christian, can find anything praiseworthy in Islam. The text is compared with
the 9th century disputation of Patriarch Timothy i with the Caliph al-Mahdī,
and with the 15th century preface to a trilingual edition of the Qurʾān com-
missioned by Juan de Segovia for the purpose of Christian-Muslim dialogue.
Tieszin concludes that both Timothy and de Segovia move beyond aversion to
Islam.
john tolan’s ‘The first imposition of a badge on European Jews: Henry iii
of England’s 1218 mandate’ examines the enactment by the English of Papal
edicts which required Jews to wear a distinctive badge, resembling the Mosaic
tablets of the law. The origin of the mandate is examined and questions are
raised as to how rigorously it was enforced. This contribution illustrates in fas-
cinating detail that the Christian west (Christendom) was choosing to identify,
and thereby to separate, ‘the other’ within its borders. In so doing, it was act-
ing in a similar way to the Muslim rulers in Mamlūk Egypt who, at a similar
period were requiring Christians and Jews to wear distinctive badges as part of
the dhimmī system.
Arab Christians transmitted an apocryphal history of the thirty pieces of
silver that Judas received in exchange for betraying Jesus (Matthew 26:14–16).
As the story goes, Abraham’s father Terah minted the silver coins, which were
then passed down through the generations until they came into the possession
of the Jews who gave the coins to Judas. rifaat ebied, in ‘An Arabic Version
of the Treatise on the Origin and History of the Thirty Pieces of Silver’, edits
three Arabic versions of this fascinating story from several manuscripts copied
between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, translates the first version into
English, and provides as well an edition in Syriac with its translation.
The final contribution of Part 1 takes us to the fourteenth century which,
in Egypt, was a particularly difficult time in Christian-Muslim relations with
spasms of violence and sharp polemics. In ‘Debating According to the Rules: A
Conversation about the Crucifixion in al-Ḥāwī by al-Makīn Jirjis ibn al-ʿAmīd’,
mark swanson examines a portion of the large al-Ḥāwī written in the 1390s by
the Coptic monk al-Makīn Jirjis, and he outlines Jirjis’ rules for the fair and dis-
ciplined use of scripture in Christian-Muslim discussion. Swanson concludes
that Jirjis’ rules are not without value today in thinking thorough how to speak
about the religion of the other.
Part 2 presents a collection of essays traversing a variety of themes and topics
that broadly span the period from early modernity up to the present day. We
begin with luis bernabé pons who, in his ‘Islamic anti-Christian polemics
in 16th century Spain: the lead books of Granada and the gospel of Barnabas’,
examines Muslim Morisco anti-Christian polemical works (rudūd) written at
the time that the Moriscos faced increasing persecution. Pons looks at the lead
books of Sacromonte, Granada, discovered at the end of the 16th century and
compares them with the Gospel of Barnabas, the Italian and Spanish texts of
which can be dated to the early 17th century. He concludes that they go beyond
the limits of tahrīf in their response to oppression.
stanisław grodź in ‘Islam: an (almost) redundant element in the Polish-
Lithuanian/Ottoman Encounters between 16th and 17th centuries?’ examines
the significance of the Jagiełłonian dynasty (1387–1572), which is often over-
looked in Western Europe. During this period the Polish-Lithuanian Common-
wealth controlled territory from the Baltic to the Black Sea, acting as antemu-
rale Christianitatis (the bulwark of Christianity), defending Europe from the
threatening wave of Islam. Grodź explores the role that the Commonwealth
played in the 16th and 17th centuries, when it appeared to stand aloof from
what was happening to its southern neighbours, not heeding the call of Pope
Leo x to lend support. He also looks at the resultant fascination with literature
concerning Islam that arose during the period.
claire norton, in her ‘(In)tolerant Ottomans: polemic, perspective and
the reading of primary sources’, argues that just as negative early modern
depictions of the Ottomans fulfilled specific, often polemical, functions, more
modern narrations are similarly based upon readings of the extant primary
sources that are informed by specific metanarratives in which Islamic states
and cultures fulfil a particular role or function. The key arguments for Ottoman
tolerance as articulated by Ottoman scholars are summarised, but her principal
point is to demonstrate how primary sources can be read in diametrically
opposite ways. The view amongst many contemporary writers is that Islam
and Muslim communities are intrinsically hostile to non-Muslims leading to
greater intolerance and misunderstanding.
In his contribution on ‘The Hadith in Christian Muslim Dialogue in 19th
century India’, alan guenther examines the writings of two Anglican mis-
sionaries, T.P. Hughes (1838–1911) and Edward Sell (1839–1932). Both trained for
service in India at the Church Missionary College in Islington, with little previ-
ous education. Both made major contributions to the Western understanding
of Islam in the late 19th century in the form of Hughes’ Dictionary of Islam (1885)
and Edward Sell’s Faith of Islam (1880). The approach to Hadith was to exam-
ine how they were understood in contemporary India, in contrast to the better
known William Muir, whose focus was on their origins and what information
they contained about the life of Muḥammad. Both Hughes and Sell studied
the revival groups in India, sitting alongside Indian adherents, thus gaining
an understanding that was unclouded by the Orientalist approaches that were
then so prevalent.
In ‘Muslim Responses to Missionary Literature in Egypt in the Late Nine-
teenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, umar ryad highlights common themes
in Muslim polemical writings, namely mounting defences against modern

Christian missionary attempts to prove the authenticity of the Bible on the
basis of the Qurʾān, attacking the reliability of the Qurʾān’s transmission, and
undermining the soundness of the ḥadīth tradition. The Muslim polemicists
responded by defending the reliability of their sources and impugning the
authenticity of the Bible and refuting traditional Christian views of Christ. To
make their cases, these writers drew not only on pre-modern anti-Christian
polemics in Arabic and western historical criticism of the Bible but also on
other western writings drawing parallels between Christianity and ancient
paganism.
peter riddell takes us into the realm of Islam in Southeast Asia with
his ‘Three pioneering Malay works of Quranic Exegesis: a comparative study’.
Noting the prolific activity of exegetical activity that has taken place, here
he investigates three examples of extended tafsīr in the Malay language that
originate a century or more ago. Observing that the authors of these works had
close links to Sufism, he concludes that these three commentaries have had a
lasting impact that has contributed to the upsurge in Quranic exegesis in the
Malay-Indonesian world since the mid-20th century.
We remain in the Asian context as peniel rajkumar discusses ‘Christian-
Muslim Engagement in Contemporary India: Minority Irruptions of Majoritar-
ian Faultlines’. His focus is what he refers to as ‘minority-identified’ interreli-
gious dialogue between Christians and Muslims, and he argues that this dia-
logue both represents and is a space for solidarity, mutual sustenance and the
safeguarding of secularism. Both Indian Christians and Indian Muslims are cur-
rently caught in the tendency for India to manifest an overtly religious dimen-
sion aimed at reinforcing the secondary-citizen status, as often ascribed by
fundamentalist Hindu majoritarianism to them. His close and detailed exposi-
tion of this situation concludes with advocacy of the dialogue of an expansive
and inclusive ‘with-discourse’, posited as a relevant form of Christian-Muslim
engagement in a context where minorities may need to take up a politics of
‘withstanding’ (in the sense of resilient resistance) and a ‘politics of standing
with’ (in the sense of solidarity).
In 1915 Alphonse Mingana published a study arguing that the Umayyad
caliph ʿAbd al-Malik (d. 704) and his governor al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf (d. 714) col-
lected the Qurʾān into book form for the first time. This thesis undermined both
traditional Muslim accounts dating the collection of the Qurʾān much earlier,
and the German scholarship of Mingana’s day that accorded those accounts
greater reliability. gordon nickel’s ‘Scholarly reception of Alphonse Min-
gana’s “The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān” one century on’ observes that Min-
gana’s article remains a key point of reference in academic debate over the
Qurʾān’s origins, and he explains why scholars continue to differ over Mingana’s
radical conclusion.
‘The role of religious leaders in promoting reconciliation in the Sudan’ by
sigvard von sicard, was originally given as a paper at a consultation on
Post-Conflict Justice and Reconciliation in Sudan, organized by the Sudan
Inter-Religious Council (sirc). This was held in Khartoum at a critical time
during the period following the comprehensive peace accord which led to the
creation of South Sudan. The concept of Scriptural Reasoning is introduced and
demonstrated by the use of texts from the Bible and the Qurʾān to teach on
the topic of leadership as applied to the given situation in Sudan. Von Sicard
notes that it was whilst in the Sudan that David Thomas first experienced a call
to reconciliation which has become a hallmark of his pastoral and academic
life.
john azumah’s contribution, ‘Patterns of Christian-Muslim Relations in
sub-Saharan Africa’, presents an overview of these encounters. Encounters in
different situations are examined in order to exemplify the range of such meet-
ings. The host and guest dimension is examined, using as an example the recep-
tion of the followers of Muḥammad who went to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) for safety,
before the move to Medina. The section examining encounters in Conquest
and Conflict includes an account of the Portuguese support of the Christian
ruler against a Muslim usurper in Abyssinia during the 16th century. Encoun-
ters during Colonial times include both colonial and missionary activity, with
Samuel Crowther, a freed slave who became the first African bishop, as one of
the examples. Finally, the range of encounters in independent Africa and the
challenges of nation states and failed states are examined.
We conclude Part 2 with a contribution by davide tacchini on ‘Italian
Islam: Imam and Mosque Today’ in which he gives a close discussion of the
meaning of the term Imām and the function of the Imam in respect to the
mosque and the leadership of community prayers. He includes an examination
of the figure and meaning of Imam in Shiʿism before turning to a general
discussion of the contemporary figure of the Imam, especially within Western
and European contexts, and with particular focus on the situation of Italy.
He concludes with the observation that there is a desperate need for trained
leaders in Italian Muslim communities and notes developments in this regard
that have taken place elsewhere, as well as the recent emergence of an Italian
programme designed for the formation of Muslim religious leaders.
Part 3 explores some current issues and looks to the future, and not just
with respect to Christian-Muslim relations. For it is in this part that other
aspects of David Thomas’ life and work—as a theologian and interfaith practi-
tioner, for instance—also come into play. jørgen s. nielsen, in ‘The current
situation of Christian-Muslim relations’, gives a masterly overview of emerg-

ing challenges and signs of hope in today’s world. The current situation is set
within its historical context with a particular focus on relations between Arab
Islam and Europe. The development of dialogue initiatives is sketched out and
their changed role following the September 2001 attacks is examined. With
the increase of both inter- and intra-religious conflict, dialogue has become
politicised and Nielsen concludes that there is a need to prevent the political
processes from taking over completely.
damian howard, in his ‘The Future of the Christian-Muslim Past: reflect-
ing with Charles Taylor on interreligious relations’, examines the work of the
Canadian political philosopher, Charles Taylor. Having asked the question ‘why
bother with the past encounter of two religious communities?’ Howard
answers it by declaring that an understanding of past encounters is an absolute
pre-condition for the promotion of healthy relations between the two religions.
He explores these past encounters through an analysis of Taylor’s A Secular Age,
reflecting on how Christian and Muslim theologians have dealt with the con-
cept and reality of modernity. Howard concludes that the people of modernity,
be they Christian, Muslim or profoundly secular, share a sense of the past and
consequently a sense of the present. He commends Taylor’s ultimate aim, to
commend communion, to encourage us to taste the other in ourselves.
In ‘Ecumenical and Interreligious dialogue: Towards a more interpersonal
and spiritual engagement’, risto jukko discusses the similarity and dissimi-
larities of the forms of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue undertaken by
the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church during the 20th
century. Whether ecumenical or interreligious—including Christian-Muslim,
dialogue—he concludes that the aim is not to search for unity, but to look for
mutual encounter, understanding, cooperation and common ground so that,
as human beings, we may seriously consider the social and relational nature of
our own human ‘being’ as such. Ecumenical and interreligious dialogues have
mutually informing possibilities as well as limits. Instead of pursuing dialogues
with old forms and methods, there are some new ways to learn from, and for,
these dialogues which constitute a step forward and also aids theological reflec-
tion.
andrew sharp, in his ‘Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and the Environ-
ment: the case for a new sacred science’, notes how leaders from these two
communities have been long-standing champions of the care of the environ-
ment. They have also experienced and responded to modernity in similar ways
and have raised important questions that could bring fresh perspectives to the
issues and debates surrounding global warming and the worldwide ecological
crisis. A common theme has been the notion that we are facing less of an eco-
logical problem than a crisis of knowledge, in terms of how we envisage the

world and so relate to it. Sharp discusses their perspective on the need for a
new worldview or a new ‘sacred science’ on the order of nature, and discusses
how it might come to bear upon their future dialogues and common work in
the field of ecology.
michael ipgrave’s ‘Provocation and Resonance: Sacramental Spirituality
in the context of Islam’, presents and explores two complementary motifs to
describe the encounter between Christians and Muslims at the level of spiritual
experience: respectively, ‘provocation’ and ‘resonance’. The former describes
a dynamic of interaction, the second indicates a potential for dialogue. A
case for ‘provocation’ as part of Christian-Muslim encounter is made through
revisiting the primary paradigm of the Christian-Jewish relationship; Catholic
sacramental spirituality in contact with Islam provides one instance of what
such provocation might look like. Despite the apparent aridity of the theme
of the sacramental in Islam, it is possible to discern dimensions of Islamic
experience which resonate with sacramental spirituality. If a renewed sense
of the importance of the sacramental is one consequence for Christians of
the provocation of Islam, it must be asked how this sense of the sacramental
resonates with an Islamic spirituality.
In January 2002, George Carey, then Archbishop of Canterbury, welcomed
some 40 Christian and Muslim scholars and leaders—David Thomas among
them—to Lambeth Palace to investigate the potential of a sustained dialogue.
Called The Building Bridges Seminar, this proved to be the launch of an annual
meeting alternating between Christian- and Muslim-majority contexts. In ‘Get-
ting to Know One Another’s Hearts: The Progress, Method, and Potential of the
Building Bridges Seminar’ lucinda mosher discusses the history and lays
out the Building Bridges method as ‘a distinctive enterprise in inter religious
conversation’ and ‘an exercise in appreciative conversation’. It describes the
pedagogical applications of the wealth of resources this ongoing project of ‘get-
ting to know one another’s hearts’ has generated, thus the method’s potential
for local or regional use.
In ‘Anglican Interreligious Relations in Generous Love: Indebted to and mov-
ing from Vatican ii’ richard sudworth discusses the Anglican Commu-
nion’s theology of inter faith relations as articulated in this 2008 document. In
his foreword, Archbishop Rowan Williams notes the significance of Vatican ii
in shaping Christian accounts of faithful and generous ways of relating to other
faiths yet also notes that ‘the situation has moved on, both in theology and
practical relations between communities’. Sudworth explores resonances with
Vatican ii within Generous Love, in particular the seminal encyclical, Nostra
Aetate, as well as areas of departure. The theological and practical shifts hinted
at by Williams will become apparent in the resistance to any all-encompassing

schema of theology of religions in favour of a consolidation of the theologi-
cal impulses to good relations. And the concrete realisation of good relations
between communities of faith remains a continuing challenge that ever needs
to be fleshed out in local terms.
david cheetham, in his ‘The Interfaith Landscape and Liturgical Places’,
explores the Anglican use of ‘space’ in liturgy and the ways in which such litur-
gical aspects might be utilised in the description of meeting between different
religious traditions. Drawing on a Christian theology of place as articulated by
Bishop John Inge and other contemporary thinkers (architectural, philosophi-
cal and theological), Cheetham attempts to outline a novel form of engagement
that stresses style, performance and good craft.
douglas pratt, in ‘Textual Authority and Hermeneutical Adventure:
Three 21st century Christian-Muslim dialogue initiatives’, looks at the Build-
ing Bridges seminar series, the Theologisches Forum Christentum-Islam, and
A Common Word between Us and You. The first is an Anglican initiative, the sec-
ond an Ecumenical German initiative, both of which were begun in 2002, and
the third was a letter sent in 2007 from Muslims leaders to Christian leaders
which has sparked a raft of responsive conferences and interventions. These
three initiatives are introduced in turn and their approach to Christian-Muslim
dialogue is explored. Pratt concludes they demonstrate the way theological
dialogue between Christians and Muslims demands both close attention to
and respect for the authority of scriptural texts and also, in order to advance
mutual understanding, a requisite openness to the possibilities inherent in
hermeneutical adventuring. This contribution complements that of Lucinda
Mosher, with its focus on the Building Bridges initiative, and sets it within a
wider context of other initiatives.
Our concluding contribution, by clare amos, ‘Transfiguring Mission: From
Arabic Dallas to Interfaith Discovery’, does two things. First, it echoes some-
thing of this book’s introductory tribute to David Thomas by way of includ-
ing a measure of personal reminiscence and, in the process, re-echoing this
theme which other contributors have varyingly expressed. To this extent Amos
brings us full circle: a reminder that this is a Festschrift in honour of a highly
respected colleague. Second, in honouring David, she, as with all contributors,
has attempted to offer a substantial piece of scholarly work. The colleague we
honour is a first-rate scholar; he should be honoured in kind. Amos does just
that with her reflection on the relationship between ‘mission’ and ‘interreli-
gious engagement’, arguing for an appropriate sense of the ‘transfiguration’ of
mission arising out of a deep theological consideration of the biblical transfig-
uration motif.
We have included, at the end of this Festschrift, a bibliography of David

Thomas’ published output. Along with his listed sole-authored books, edited
and co-edited books, book chapters and articles, we have also noted his many
other editorial contributions, including being the General Editor of the hcmr
series in which, courtesy of our publisher, we have been able to include this
tribute volume to him. We live in an era where the work of an academic is
now regularly assessed in terms of research productivity, most usually for the
purposes of institutional funding. However configured, such assessment most
typically encompasses three dimensions of research work: published outputs,
contribution to the research field, and evidence of peer esteem and impact.
It is clear, on the basis of his own publications; his nurturing of doctoral
students—many of whom are now emerging, if not already leading, as scholarly
figures in their own right—and his facilitating of the scholarly research outputs
of others; together with the obvious esteem in which he is held—this very
Festschrift bears testimony to that—and the very significant and wide-ranging
impact, directly and indirectly, of his work that Professor David Thomas scores
highly in all respects. It is our earnest hope that David continues to enjoy
a productive and stimulating scholarly life, beyond the days of institutional
commitment, for many years to come.
Douglas Pratt, Jon Hoover, John Davies & John Chesworth

January, 2015
chapter 1
David Thomas: The Hearing of Two Vocations

A Biographical Sketch
John Davies
David Richard Thomas was born in 1948 and brought up in South Wales, in the
town of Neath. Early academic promise won him a place at the boys Gram-
mar School, and that same potential led him on to a place at Brasenose College
Oxford to read English. Some of his academic studies there stirred his imagina-
tion but so too did religion. The Christian faith was encountered through the
lens of Anglicanism, formally in the college chapel, more informally at a parish
church in the city.
As a young man, the idea of ordination began to form in David’s mind. He
does not point to a particular time or place when the vocation became appar-
ent, and it seems to have been a gradual sense of calling that came to him. His
parents moved to Wells in Somerset during David’s time as an undergraduate,
and Wells Cathedral certainly had an impact with its glorious architecture, fine
music and devotional atmosphere. David eventually became an ordinand spon-
sored by the diocese of Bath and Wells. The Church of England was at that time
suggesting to ordinands emerging from university that, before embarking on
theological training, they should see a wider world. David took such advice very
seriously and set off to see a world wider than most. He went as a Voluntary Ser-
vice Overseas Volunteer to teach English in a Sudanese school at Wad Medani.
David can still speak eloquently about this period in the early 1970s. He did not
stay for one year, but for two, perhaps because a world was opening up which
fascinated him, the world of Arabic culture and Muslim belief.
Coming back to the uk in 1973 as an Anglican ordinand, David became a
member of Ridley Hall, one of the two Anglican theological colleges in Cam-
bridge. His ecumenical spirit meant that, in due time, he became the student
chair of the Cambridge Federation, the umbrella body for the theological train-
ing colleges in Cambridge of four denominations. As a potential theological
educator David was also made a member of Fitzwilliam College so he could
read for a Cambridge degree in theology. After immersion in Christian doctrine
and church history, he had the chance, as part of that degree course, to branch
out and explore other faiths and their beliefs. Professor John Bowker, then Dean
of Corpus Christi College, was a formative influence as David explored Islamic
belief and thought in an initial way.

david thomas: the hearing of two vocations 13
Completing the theological tripos degree in two years, David would normally
have passed on, in 1975, to a third year at Ridley Hall to explore pastoralia
and undertake some pastoral placements. In fact the Wad Medani experience
and the later parts of the tripos meant that further research appealed rather
more. A second vocational call had been heard, distantly perhaps; a vocation
to explore Islamic belief and theology, and to work as a historian and interpreter
on the boundary between Christianity and Islam. Hence, directly after leaving
Cambridge, David undertook research for a PhD at Lancaster University, then
and still famous for its multi faith approach to theological exploration. Ninian
Smart had been a founding professor of the department, and John Bowker
had just moved from Cambridge to Lancaster. David’s doctoral supervisor was
Professor Walid Arafat, and Professor Montgomery Watt of Edinburgh was the
eventual external examiner when the thesis, ‘Anti-Christian Polemic in Early
Islamic Theology’, was presented.
Fulfilling Two Vocations
Following three years immersed in medieval Islamic thought, and with ancient
and contemporary questions arising about the relations between Muslims
and Christians, David nevertheless still felt loyal to his calling as a Christian
priest. Nine months at Queen’s College Birmingham, 1979–1980, fulfilled the
requirements of pre-ordination training, and led to ordination in Liverpool
Cathedral and an inner city curacy in Anfield. Here David was up to his neck
in the challenges and joys of the inner city, associated with a parish church, St
Columba’s Anfield, which was remarkably buoyant and colourful. He learnt his
priestly craft in a good but demanding school.
From there David moved to a short second curacy at Liverpool Parish Church
in 1983, on the famous waterfront, near the banks and iconic buildings of the
city. The post allowed a certain freedom, and David was able to take up the offer
of some part time teaching at what is now John Moores University, lecturing in
Islamic history and theology. His next post also allowed David to fulfil both his
vocations. As Fellow and Chaplain of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, from
1985, David was responsible for worship in the college chapel together with pas-
toral care of students and staff; but there was also space and encouragement for
academic work, again in the area of medieval Christian-Muslim relations, and
so work began on what was to be David’s first book (after a number of articles
already published in learned journals): Anti-Christian polemic in early Islam.1
1 David Thomas, Anti-Christian polemic in early Islam: Abu Isa al-Warraq’s “Against the Trinity”
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
14 davies
The book contains both a translation of Abu Isa’s challenge to Christian doc-
trine, and a very substantial introduction placing the work in its historical,
theological and philosophical context. This work was a tangible sign of David’s
time in Cambridge; reforming chapel life and pastoral care are inevitably less
demonstrable.
After five years at Corpus Christi, in 1990, David moved geographically, to
Blackburn in Lancashire, and with respect to the fulfilment of one aspect
of his vocation. He remained a pastor, the Vicar of a church and parish on
the edge of the town, for three years. And he also became Bishop’s Advisor
on Interfaith Relations. This was a new post and a sensitive one in a setting
where relations between the large Muslim community and the host Christian
and secular community were not always easy. For the first time, working on
the boundary between Islam and Christianity, David was an ambassador and
an interpreter. His historical perspectives certainly helped, but in Lancashire
for the first time he was immersed in interfaith dialogue, not as the scholar
investigating, but as a participant trying to bring trust, mutual understanding
and cooperation. It was a pioneering work in a place where such things had not
happened before.
But was it possible to be both a scholar and a participant in contempo-
rary dialogue? If David Thomas was missing the chance to be a scholar in
Lancashire, an opportunity arose in 1993 which seemed almost custom made
for him. The Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian Muslim Relations
(csic), part of the then network of Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham, had
both a serious academic profile and a deep concern for continuing contempo-
rary dialogue. As a newly appointed Senior Lecturer at csic from September
1993, David engaged readily in the supervision of doctoral students, many of
them Muslims; but he also engaged more informally in leading seminars and
discussions so that Muslims and Christians could explore commonalities and
differences at one table, together.
The Revd Dr Andrew Wingate, then Principal of the College of the Ascension,
also part of the Selly Oak Colleges network, recalls not only losing to David
regularly at squash, but also how David rebalanced csic which, in his view, had
latterly lacked a Christian voice with authority.2 Wingate also points to David’s
mentoring of students, offering a care and concern which has gone with them
into their future careers. David became senior editor of the csic journal Islam
and Christian-Muslim Relations, and his own articles and books began to flow
as the bibliographical section of this volume makes clear. And David was also
2 Personal correspondence with the editors, November 2014.

keen, once he moved to Birmingham, to embed his Christian faith in the life
and witness of a local church. He found an inner city church, up against it from
nearly every angle, and there he ministered Sunday by Sunday until a move to
live in Derbyshire anchored him in another church and a very different setting.
By the late 1990s the Selly Oak Colleges were experiencing significant finan-
cial pressure, and the University of Birmingham was beginning to express a
strong interest in at least some parts of the colleges’ network. csic was of par-
ticular interest. In 1999 David became Senior Lecturer in Christianity and Islam
in the Department of Theology and Religion at Birmingham University. He
became Reader five years later, Professor of Christianity and Islam in 2007 and
to that was added, in 2011, the title of Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Inter Religious
Relations.
David’s vocation to work on the boundary of Islam and Christianity as a
scholar was now well recognised. He played a full part in departmental life
including a period as acting Head of Department. He also tried to maintain
at least something of the ethos of csic, encouraging Muslims and Christians
to be in dialogue as much and as often as possible. And he maintained a
strong interest in the Mingana Collection (of over three thousand manuscripts,
a key resource for the study of Muslim-Christian relations, now lodged at
Birmingham University), and organised successive Mingana conferences.
An Interpreter on the Boundary
After 9/11 many in British society were deeply unsettled about the presence in
their midst of a significant Muslim minority. Did Islam always imply violence?
Who were these strangers in the midst? What were the prospects for better
cooperation and mutual trust? In the aftermath of the tragic events of 2001, I
saw David Thomas hold a packed church in the south of this diocese enthralled
as he outlined Muslim belief, interpreting to Christians and others interested
what Islam, at its heart, is about. It was an outstanding piece of interpretation
which stimulated and encouraged a very sizeable audience.
In 2011 David was made Honorary Canon Theologian of Derby Cathedral. At
his inaugural presentation in the Cathedral he faced a mixed audience of Mus-
lims and Christians. Once again the skills of the interpreter were needed in a
mixed city where we are really only just beginning to know and understand
each other. Standing on the boundary in the great space of the Cathedral, David
interpreted Muslims to Christians, and Christians to Muslims. Individuals from
both communities came up afterwards to say that they had well recognised
themselves in David’s account, and had also understood the other far better.
16 davies
Deep scholarly knowledge was combined with a clear sense of the contempo-
rary need for information and a clearer sense of each other. David has subse-
quently been of enormous help in forming a Cathedral dialogue group where
representative Muslims and Christians can get to know each other and ask both
the easy and the awkward questions. David has also been keen to work with and
support others who live and work on the boundary with Islam, for example in
respect to his engagement with Journées d’Arras, an informal group of Chris-
tian academics and practitioners.
Interpretation on the Boundary: The Legacy of Scholarship
Two major sets of publications represent David’s lasting legacy as one con-
cerned to provide all working on the boundary between the two faiths with the
resources for their work. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations, published
by E.J. Brill of Leiden, and now running to over twenty volumes, is a series of
scholarly reflections, mainly for fellow members of the academy. Arguably the
significant international research project, Christian-Muslim Relations, a Biblio-
graphical History, has a slightly different feel and audience. Again published by
Brill, with five volumes produced by 2014 covering the period 600–1500 ce, and
the sixth volume, the first of the second phase of this project also published
by the end of 2014, the project and its published volumes seeks to record the
documentary repository connected with the development of Christian-Muslim
relations both through time and with respect to the geographic spread of these
two major religions. The project will eventually comprise many volumes as it
now takes the bibliographical history up to the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury. The work of this project, which is the brainchild of David and is led by
him as Principal Investigator, has been supported thus far by very significant
ahrc (the uk Arts and Humanities Research Council) grants. There is a full
time research officer, a part time secretary, and a vast network of specialists
and scholarly contributors worldwide. It seeks to be both definitive and com-
prehensive. As a non-expert I have found it to be eminently approachable. It is
foundational for future work on the boundary, I suggest.
Together with these, David has been active in both his own publication work,
as testified by his own bibliography, and has been instrumental in facilitating
the publication of works by other scholars whether as the senior Editor of
the journal Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, or as the Islam editor on an
international editorial board for the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception,
a project sponsored by De Gruyter Verlag, Berlin, or as a co-editor on a number
of other book projects. The legacy of David Thomas will long live on.
Supporting the Church as It Works on the Boundary
Anglicanism does not have a Vatican. Its workings are more informal. One such
formalised ‘informal’ piece of work, arguably crucial in the context of present-
day issues, is nifcon, the London-based Anglican Communion’s Network for
Interfaith Concerns. Although uk based, it seeks to work across the entire
Anglican Communion and David has been for many years a member of its Man-
agement Group. He is also supervising editor of the Muslim-Christian Digest,
a key piece of information sharing across the Communion. David has put sig-
nificant time into all these arenas of work, judging that the Church needs to be
informed and creative as it deals with Islam worldwide. With a scholarly per-
spective, he has also been very well aware of contemporary global challenges
and conflicts. I suspect that memories of the Sudan help David stay loyal to this
activity for the international church.
Going beyond the Boundary
For a number of years David was an examiner for the Cambridge Board of
International Examinations. For some years, too, he was Principal Examiner
for the cie Islamyat syllabus, and together with Mustafa Draper he wrote the
official course text book and teachers guide. In one recent year alone the book
sold nearly 10,000 copies. I have wondered why a scholar of Muslim-Christian
relations bothered with such work. The answer goes partly back to Wad Medani
perhaps. There David saw young Muslims learning by rote, simply repeating
textual information with little or no reflection on its context or meaning. For
Muslims in their own living, and as they come to the boundary with other
faiths, David, a non-Muslim, wanted something better. Many thousands of
Muslims have now been offered sight of a more reflective faith through David’s
ministry of scholarly and practical interfaith engagement exercised beyond the
boundary, deep in the territory of Muslim belief.
Recognised
The production of this volume signals much in terms of recognition among

his peers in the field. David holds a chair at his own university. He has been
a Visiting Professor at Trinity College Dublin. He has also been a visiting Senior
Scholar at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, and at the International
Islamic University there. In the church he is an Honorary Canon Theologian,
18 davies
and highly valued in that role. But I strongly suspect that the recognition David
Thomas would most value will come after his time when others who build on
the foundation of his scholarly work look back and are thankful for foundations
so well laid.
chapter 2
Professor David Thomas

A Representative Reminiscence
Albert Sundararaj Walters
I was running a little late for a lunch appointment and was rushing to catch
the lift at the eri Building, Birmingham University. Just then, guess who comes
rushing down the stairs and bumps into me at the lift lobby? Prof Dr David
Thomas. He is one person who insists on keeping to time and expects the
same of others. And that day in October 2014, I was late by 15 minutes. After
much apology and exchange of greetings, we went off to the University Staff
Centre for a quick lunch. I was thankful that he was kind enough to grant me
an appointment. I was excited that we were meeting after almost eight years
and there was so much to catch up on each other, with such limited time.
As I watched him over lunch, he looked calm, collected and impressive. The
man I saw in the autumn of 2014 was just as I remembered him some years
ago: truly humble, polite, confident, brilliant, smart, charming, hilarious, wise,
warm and modest. Despite the fact that Dr Thomas was now Professor David
Thomas, I marvelled at how far my PhD supervisor had come, and yet, how
little he had changed. Our conversation, as I recall, skirted around many subject
matters including his present research work; the move from csic at Selly Oak
to eri on the Edgbaston campus; the church in Melbourne in the Diocese of
Derby where he assists at weekends; my own work in Dhaka; the church in
Bangladesh; my family, and so on. He listened to me with genuine interest.
After the hurried lunch, he had to head off to a staff meeting and I went back
to Queen’s to attend a conference.
It was in 1990, while teaching at St Mark’s Theological College in Dar es
Salaam, Tanzania, that I decided to actively explore getting a doctorate degree
in Islamic Studies. I consulted with several individuals who spoke highly of the
Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations (csic) at Selly
Oak. Unfortunately, at that time I was unable to pursue that dream further as
I had to return to Malaysia to serve in the Anglican Church and to teach in the
seminary there. It was only in 1996 that I was able to enrol at csic for a doctoral
research programme. I must admit, I was extremely nervous about returning to
school after having completed my Master’s degree, almost eight years earlier.
When I first met with David Thomas at csic, he introduced himself saying:
“My name is David and you are …” And I replied: “I am Albert.” Coming from

20 sundararaj walters
an Asian cultural setting, that kind of informal and personal introduction by

a teacher came as a total surprise to me. I could not bring myself to call Dr
Thomas by his first name. During my time at the Selly Oak Centre, I had the
great privilege of coming to know him as my teacher and as a friend. And I was
honoured to introduce him to my wife, Rosemary, who was at Selly Oak for a
short period of study of her own.
As a student, one of the things I used to look forward to was Wednesday
afternoons when we had the Muslim-Christian dialogue seminar session at the
Centre. It was often a mixed crowd, albeit comprising mostly post-graduate and
doctoral students and some interested visitors. Sometimes the debates become
so heated that emotions ran high; but Dr David Thomas did a good and efficient
job of moderating these meetings. I was struck by his patience and the calm
way he had for handling difficult and thorny issues. He was a truly wonderful
teacher. More importantly, he had deep knowledge of the subject matter and
an incredible ability to make connections across the course of these seminars
by bringing back into focus issues raised previously and points argued weeks
before. He was always very well prepared and very good on his feet. He made
me think about old issues in new ways. The Wednesday dialogue sessions were
one of my favourite classes.
Professor David Thomas was, and is, a great teacher because he makes use of
the Socratic Method correctly. He was especially good at backing off just half a
step in his questioning to enable the student to develop an understanding. As a
teacher, I found him highly successful at presenting the course content and his
ideas within the context of a truly democratic class atmosphere. His excitement
about what he was teaching was truly contagious.
Dr David Thomas made his classroom an open place for students, a place
where all students felt comfortable expressing their views. He was also incred-
ibly approachable and accessible. If I had only known him as my lecturer for a
single class, I doubt I would have such fond memories of him. Instead, I remem-
ber him as perhaps the member of the faculty most interested in and involved
with student life. He was game to participate in any student activity. He inspires
everyone around him to give just that little bit extra. Always respectful of differ-
ences of opinion, while he will let you know when he disagrees, he is adept at
the unspoken agreement to agree to disagree. In fact, as I reflect on it, I can’t
remember even once seeing him get angry or agitated about anything. And
even if he was annoyed with something, he handled it in his characteristic level-
headed way.
Prof David Thomas was an inspiration both in and out of the classroom. I
used to talk to him quite frequently, for guidance, advice, comfort, and what
not. I always left his office feeling supported and encouraged to persist with
professor david thomas 21
my studies. He really does not want any thanks or compliments, and detests
anything he considers to be flattery. (This reminiscence will no doubt embar-
rass him somewhat, I am sure!). He was a wonderful thesis advisor. He was ever
responsive, giving timely and critical feedback. He kept me focused. He read my
thesis material within days, and returned it with extensive and helpful input.
He was always available to meet and our interchanges consistently stimulated
my thinking. This is a hallmark of David Thomas. Whatever he does he has a
unique perspective and inspires people to think. With his support, I was able
to pursue the work that I most wanted to do. His sincere interest, openness to
think with me, and most of all, his encouragement to ask the uncomfortable
questions, was essential to my work and I have always been thankful for that.
When I had finished writing up my thesis, he said: “When the time comes, I
will lead you right up to the room door where the viva will take place. Then you
are on your own.” After the viva, I told him the good news that I had passed and,
on congratulating me said, “Join the club.” What a heart-warming welcome it
was! I defended my dissertation in November 1999 and graduated in July 2000.
I am very proud to say that my dissertation was later published.1
I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to study with
a man I consider to be one of the most brilliant thinkers on Islam and Chris-
tianity and Muslim-Christian Relations. He was part of a faculty renowned
for and extraordinarily serious about teaching. He is an avid reader, a writer,
commentator and critic. His professional achievements are so numerous that
I cannot even begin to mention them all. David is also a man of considerable
humility. While Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations were close to
David’s heart, he also contributed much to the life of the Church of England
and beyond.
It is with great pleasure that I join so many others in applauding the contri-
butions that Prof David Thomas has made to csic and the School of Philosophy,
Theology and Religion, at the University of Birmingham, to the field of schol-
arship in Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, and to the lives of so many
students. I value the well-rounded and quality education that I received at the
Centre and I am truly honoured to be among its graduates. My own achieve-
ments and participation in this Festschrift is a testament to David Thomas’
wisdom, patience, and dedication.
In my own seminary teaching and theological training, both in Malaysia
and now in Bangladesh, I try to share what I learned from my research and
1 Albert Sundararaj Walters, We Believe in One God? Reflections on the Trinity in the Malaysian
Context (Delhi: ispck, 2002).
22 sundararaj walters
work at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. That
Centre, its successor within the University, and the field of academic work they
represent is now closely identified with the name of Professor David Thomas.
I hope that I encourage and help colleagues through friendship and care in
the same way he once guided and supported me. I am very grateful to have
known David, a man of such high calibre, as a personal friend and I wish him all
fulfilment of his hopes and dreams, and the strength to continue transforming
these into reality. It is my deep privilege to be part of this well-deserved tribute
to him.
part 1
From the Rise of Islam to the Medieval World
∵
chapter 3
Facing the Last Day through Two Narrative

Apocalyptic Figures in the Coptic-Arabic
‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’
The flourishing of eschatological writing in the Eastern Roman or Byzantine

Empire following the Persian invasions in the seventh century fostered hope
for a final emperor who would defeat Rome’s enemies and return to Jerusalem
before the second coming of Jesus Christ.1 At the same time, Arab troops
advanced out of Arabia, defeated the Sasanian Empire of Persia, and conquered
lands that had been ruled by the Byzantines.2 It was not long until Islam, the
religion of the Muslims, and its prophet Muḥammad were identified as fore-
runners of the Antichrist, whose purpose was to herald the beginning of the
end.3
This new situation not only gave rise to changes at the local level but also
shaped a new world order, both at the time and for future ages. Certain intel-
lectual circles within the Christian communities in lands now governed by
Islam waged a full-scale propaganda campaign against the new state and the
new religion in which apocalyptic works played a decisive role.4 Apocalyptic
1 E. Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte und Untersuchungen. Pseudo-Methodius, Adso und die Tiburtinis-
che Sibylle (Halle an der Saale: Niemeyer, 1898; reprint Turin: 1963), 185.
2 F.M. Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).
3 J.P. Monferrer-Sala, ‘Un daimónion llamado Machoúmet’, Al-Andalus-Magreb 14 (2007): 91–
101; cf. J.P. Monferrer-Sala, ‘ “The Antichrist is coming …” The making of an apocalyptic topos
in Arabic (Ps.-Athanasius, Vat. ar. 158 / Par. ar. 153/32)’, in Bibel, Byzanz und Christlicher Ori-
ent. Festschrift für Stephen Gerö zum 65. Geburtstag, ‘Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta’ 187,
ed. D. Bumazhnov, E. Grypeou, T.B. Sailors and A. Toepel (Louvain: Peeters, 2011), 653–
678.
4 A synthesis focused on the eschatological-apocalyptic milieu is provided by M. Himmelfarb,
The Apocalypse. A Brief History (Singapore: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 117–135. On the concept of
‘apocalyptic’ and its origins and terminology, see J.C. VanderKam, From Revelation to Canon:
Studies in the Hebrew Bible and the Second Temple literature (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 241–254
and 255–353. For further information on the term itself, see also R.L. Webb, ‘“Apocalyptic”:
Observations on a Slippery Term’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 49:2 (1990): 115–126.

26 monferrer-sala
literature reacting to the Arab-Islamic expansion in the Middle East has been
unearthed in Palestine and Mesopotamia,5 and it took on a very specific char-
acter in the hands of Arab Christian writers,6 who engaged in a process of
reflection on the ‘theological, as well as political, ramifications of the Arab inva-
sion’.7
The two apocalyptic examples examined in the present study are drawn
from the text preserved in Codex Vaticano arabo 158 (fos. 99v–111v), which is
edited and translated in the Appendix, and Paris arabe 153 (fols. 461v–
469v). Both belong to the same family of manuscripts (the so-called family
no. 2) known as the ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’.8 The opening lines
include the words, ‘The vision of our Father, Patriarch Athanasius, Patriarch
of Alexandria’ (ruʾyā Abū-nā [sic!] al-baṭriyark Atanāsiyūs baṭriyark al-Iskan-
dariyyah), thus attributing it to Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373). This is evi-
dently a misattribution since the Vorlage of this text, which contains part of
a homily for the feast of the Archangel Saint Michael,9 must date to around
5 H. Suermann, ‘Einige Bemerkungen zu syrischen Apokalypsen des 7. Jhds.’, in iv Sympo-

sium Syriacum 1984. Literary Genres in Syriac Literature (Groningen—Oosterhesselen 10–12 Sep-
tember), ‘Orientalia Christiana Analecta’ 229, ed. H.J.W. Drijvers, et al. (Rome: Pontificium
Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1987), 327–335 (328–329); F.J. Martínez, ‘The Apoca-
lyptic Genre in Syriac: The World of Pseudo-Methodius’, in iv Symposium Syriacum, 337–
352.
6 J.P. Monferrer-Sala, ‘Tipología apocalíptica en la literatura árabe cristiana’, in Literatura árabe
cristiana, coord. Montserrat Abumalham (Madrid: Editorial Universidad Complutense, 2001),
51–74.
7 V.L. Erhart, ‘The Church of the East during the Period of the Four Rightly-Guided Caliphs’, Bul-
letin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 78:3 (1996): 55–71 (56); cf. G.J. Reinink,
‘East Syrian Historiography in Response to the Rise of Islam: The Case of John bar Penkaye’s
Ktāba d-rēš mellē’, in Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since
the Rise of Islam, ed. J.J. van Ginkel, et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 77–89 (88).
8 Cf. G. Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur (gcal), ‘Studi e Testi’ 133, 5 vols.
(Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1947), 1:277. A description of Par. 153 is pro-
vided by G. Troupeau, Catalogue des manuscrits arabes. i. Manuscrits chrétiens, 2 vols. (Paris:
Bibliothèque nationale, 1972), 2:87 (no. 6147/5); and G. Troupeau. ‘De quelques apocalypses
conservées dans des manuscrits arabes de Paris’, Parole de l’Orient 18 (1993): 75–87 (77–79).
See also H. Suermann, ‘Koptische arabische Apokalypsen’, in Studies on the Christian Arabic
Heritage in Honour of Father Prof. Dr. Samir Khalil Samir s.i. at the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth
Birthday, ed. R. Ebied and H. Teule (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 25–44 (31).
9 Cf. F.J. Martínez, ‘Eastern Christian Apocalyptic in the Early Muslim Period: Pseudo-
Methodius and Pseudo-Athanasius’ (PhD thesis, The Catholic University of America, 1985),
248–274.
facing the last day through two narrative apocalyptic figures 27
96/71510 and is among the earliest of a whole series of apocalyptic texts appear-
ing in the Palestinian and Mesopotamian milieu as part of the propaganda
campaign against the Arab-Islamic expansion noted above.
Based on what we currently know of the Coptic textual tradition,11 the
Arabic-Coptic tradition of the ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’ comprises a
varied group of textual families,12 whose very diversity has proved valuable for
reconstituting the surviving ninth-century Coptic fragment under considera-
tion.13 In addition to the significant differences apparent between the families
of Arabic-Coptic manuscripts currently available, they also provide interesting
intertextual parallels with other Eastern Christian apocalyptic works belonging
to the Coptic, Syriac and Arabic traditions.
One particularly fascinating parallel is with a Monophysite text in Coptic
known as the ‘Vision of Shenūte of Atripe (Atrīb)’ produced around 644.14
This text also survives in Arabic, in a late copy made in the nineteenth cen-
tury, more specifically in the Coptic year 1548 (equivalent to 1832),15 from
an as-yet-unedited fourteenth-century text.16 Yet despite its parallels with the
‘Vision of Shenūte of Atripe’,17 the ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’ undoubt-
edly contains a number of distinctive features characteristic of the apocalyp-
10 Cf. R.G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish
and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton, nj: The Darwin Press, 1997), 285.
11 Cf. B. Witte, Die Sünden der Priester und Mönche. Koptische Eschatologie des 8. Jahrhun-
derts nach Kodex m 602 (ps. Athanasius) der Pierpont Morgan Library. Teil 1: Textausgabe,
‘Arbeiten zum apätantiken und koptischen Ägypten’ 12 (Altenberge: Oros Verlag, 2002),
104–154.
12 Cf. Graf, gcal, 1:277–279.
13 M.N. Swanson, ‘St. Shenoute in Seventeenth-Century Dress: Arabic Christian Preaching in
Paris, b.n. ar. 4761’, Coptica 4 (2005): 27.
14 Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 282, 285.
15 Graf, gcal, 1:463–464 and 2:500; Troupeau, Catalogue, 2:87 (no. 6147/5).
16 Troupeau, ‘De quelques apocalypses’, 83–86, J. van Lent, ‘An unedited Copto-Arabic apoc-
alypse of Shenute from the fourteenth century: prophecy and history’, in Ägypten und
Nubien in spatäntiker und christlicher Zeit. Akten des 6. Internationalen Koptologenkon-
gresses, Münster, 20.-26. Juli 1996, ed. S. Emmel, M. Krause, S.G. Richter and S. Schaten
(Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 1999), 2:155–168; J. van Lent, ‘The nineteen Muslim Kings
in Coptic Apocalypses’, in Actes du 5e Congrès International d’Études Arabes Chrétiennes
(Lund, août 1996), ed. S.K. Samir, in Parole de l’ Orient 25 (2000): 645–655. On the Ethiopic
text, see A. Grohmann, ‘Die im Äthiopischen, Arabischen und Koptischen haltenen Visio-
nen Apa Schenute’s von Atripe. Text und Übersetzung’, Zeitschrift der deutschen morgen-
ländischen Gesellschaft 67 (1913): 187–267.
17 Grohmann, ‘Die im Äthiopischen’, 187–267.
28 monferrer-sala
tic genre, not only in its specifically Christian form, but also in its Islamic
manifestations18 and, naturally enough, in the Jewish substrate underlying
both.19
Major Thematic Profiles of the Apocalyptic Genre in Arabic
From a literary standpoint, the apocalyptic texts produced by Eastern Christian

Arab authors—for all the peculiarities in terms of genre and type that evolved
over the centuries—are no more than another branch of the literary tradition
generated and developed by both Judaism and Eastern Christianity in previous
centuries.20 This tradition, which in time was to branch off, simultaneously,
into three major linguistic traditions (Greek, Syriac and Coptic) with interfer-
ence from the Islamic milieu,21 underwent historical and linguistic changes
which helped to revitalise what we might call the canon apocalypticum.22 The
historical situation was simply the fact of living in a new dispensation, under
a system founded on a new religion, branded from the outset as skeía, that is,
spiritual ‘error’ or ‘darkness’ by the celebrated Melkite monk from Mār Sābā,
John of Damascus (d. c. 750).23
The new historical situation, with all its social and political implications, was
compounded by a new linguistic situation: the Christian communities whose
legacy had been shaped in Greek, Syriac or Coptic as the case may be, were
now obliged for various reasons to translate their texts into Arabic. Due to
18 R. Kruk, ‘History and Apocalypse: Ibn al-Nafîs’ Justification of Mamluk Rule’, Der Islam 72.2
(1995): 324–337.
19 J.P. Monferrer-Sala, ‘ “The Antichrist is coming …” ’, in Bibel, Byzanz und christlicher Orient,
653–678.
20 See the first chapter of J.C. Vanderkam and W. Adler, The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in
Early Christianity, ‘Compedia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum’ 4 (Assen: Van
Gorcum, 1996), 1–31.
21 One such case was the tradition associated with Pseudo-Tiberius, cf. M. Cook, ‘The Hera-
clian dynasty in Muslim eschatology’, Al-Qanṭara 13:1 (1992): 3–23, esp. 13–16.
22 On the nature of apocalyptic, see D.G. Meade, Pseudonymity and Canon: an investiga-
tion into relationship of authorship and authority in Jewish and early Christian tradition,
‘Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament’ 39 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1986),
73–85.
23 De haeresibus 101; cf. D.J. Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam. The ‘Heresy of the Ishmaelites’
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972), 68–74; cf. Athanasius Theol., ‘Historia Arianorum’, in Athanasius
Werke, ed. H.G. Opitz (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1940), 78,5, line 4; Athanasius Theol., ‘Orationes
tres contra Arianos’, in Patrologia Graeca, 26:425 line 45.
the policy of Arabization and Islamization pursued by the Umayyad rulers,

Christians living in the new Arab-Islamic state were forced to communicate
in Arabic, which soon became a lingua franca,24 not only amongst the various
Arab-speaking and non-Arab-speaking communities that together made up
the new state, but also—and particularly—for cultural relations between the
Christian writers themselves.25 The edict of the prefect ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd
al-Malik, issued in 698, imposed Arabic as the language of administration of the
new state, and in 715 a more drastic measure introduced under Caliph al-Walīd
I forbade the use of Greek, which nevertheless continued to be spoken for some
time in Egypt, thereafter disappearing almost completely.26
A surviving document from Umayyad Damascus, written in the late seventh
century in Arabic using Greek characters, is evidence of the rapid linguistic Ara-
bization of the Christian population, at least in the cities, and of the advent of a
new language form—nabaṭī Arabic—that was to become a true forerunner of
neo-Arabic.27 A polemical verse composition produced in the mid-eighth cen-
tury testifies to the Melkite mastery of Arabic in the Syrian-Palestinian milieu.28
24 On Coptic-Arabic, see W. Bishai, ‘Notes on the Coptic Substratum in Egyptian Arabic’,

Journal of the American Oriental Society 80:3 (1960): 225–229 (227); cf. A.Y. Sidarus, ‘Plurilin-
guisme en Égypte sous la domination gréco-romaine’, Journal of Coptic Studies 10 (2008):
183–202 (191). On Melkite language usage, see J. Blau, ‘A Melkite Arabic lingua franca from
the second half of the First Millennium’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Stud-
ies, 57 (1994), 14–16.
25 On the Arabisation of Coptic authors, see M.N. Swanson, The Coptic Papacy in Islamic
Egypt (641–1517) (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2010), 59–81, cf. 43–57.
26 L.S.B. MacCoull, ‘Three cultures under Arab rule: the fate of Coptic’, Bulletin de la Société
d’ Archéologie Copte 27 (1985), 61–70 (68). Cf. G.W. Bowersock, Mosaics as History. The Near
East from Late Antiquity to Islam (Cambridge, ma: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2006), 66.
27 F. Corriente, ‘The Psalter fragment from the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus: a birth
certificate of Nabaṭī Arabic’, in Eastern Crossroads. Essays on Medieval Christian Legacy,
ed. J.P. Monferrer-Sala (Piscataway, nj: Gorgias Press, 2007), 303–320.
28 S.K. Samir, ‘The earliest Arab apology for Christianity (c. 750)’, Christian Arabic apologetics
during the Abbasid Period, 750–1258, ed. S.K. Samir and J.S. Nielsen (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994),
57–114. See also S.K. Samir, ‘Une apologie arabe du christianisme d’époque umayyade?’,
Actes du troisième congrès international d’études arabes chrétiennes, ed. S.K. Samir, in
Parole de l’ Orient 15 (1990): 85–105; M.N. Swanson, ‘Some Considerations for the Dating of
fī Taṯlīth Allāh al-wāḥid (Sinai ar. 154) and al-Ǧāmiʿ wuǧūḥ al-īmān (London, British Library
or. 4950)’, Parole de l’ Orient 18 (1993), 115–141; and M.N. Swanson, ‘Beyond Prooftexting:
Approaches to the Qurʾān in Some Early Arabic Christian Apologies’, The Muslim World
88 (1998): 297–319.
30 monferrer-sala
The Arabization policy thus prompted a process of linguistic change, through

which Christians eventually became speakers of Arabic. A further consequence
was that contemporary centres of learning—especially, and for some time ear-
lier, the monasteria29—embarked upon the translation of their whole legacy,
reproducing in Arabic a rich textual heritage transmitted centuries earlier in
Greek, Syriac and Coptic.30
Yet the linguistic change triggered by the Arabization policy was by no
means an isolated event. The parallel process of Islamization—in tandem with
a whole range of measures, including fiscal,31 that varied depending on time
and place—meant that the change of course adopted by Christian writers with
respect to their mother-tongue gradually acquired, from the second half of
the seventh century, an offensive edge. Nowhere was this response to the dual
colonising policy pursued by the new Arab-Islamic government more apparent
than in Egypt.32 Here, as in other lands belonging to dār al-islām,33 the issue
of linguistic colonisation was a casus belli among Christians subjected to the
power and culture of the new occupying regime and thus resigned to social
promotion in a new setting. This sentiment is to be found in the ‘Apocalypse
of Pseudo-Samuel of Qalamūn’,34 which, like others, urged a switch away from
Coptic in favour of Arabic.35
29 A. Desremaux, ‘The Birth of a New Aramaic Script in Bilad al-Sham at the End of the
Byzantine Period’, The History of Bilād al-Shām During The Umayyad Period (Fourth Inter-
national Conference: 24–29 October 1987). Proceedings of The Third Symposium, 2 vols., ed.
M.A. Bakhit and R. Schick (Amman: University of Jordan—Yarmouk University, 1989), 2:31.
30 S. Rubenson, ‘Translating the Tradition: Some Remarks on the Arabization of the Patristic
Heritage in Egypt’, Medieval Encounters 2.1 (1996), 4–14.
31 On this, see D.C. Dennett, Conversion and Poll Tax in Early Islam (Boston: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1950, reprint Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 2000); W.J. Fischel, Jews in the
Economic and Political Life of Mediaeval Islam, ‘Royal Asiatic Society Monographs’ 22 (Lon-
don: The Royal Asiatic Society for Great Britain and Ireland, 1968). See also S.D. Goitein,
‘Evidence on the Muslim Poll tax from non-Muslim Sources: A Genizah Study’, Journal of
the Economic and Social History of the Orient 6 (1963): 278–295.
32 See a synthesis by S.I. Gellens, ‘Egypt, Islamization of’, Coptic Encyclopedia, 8 vols., ed.
A.S. Atiya (New York: Macmillan, 1991), 3:936–942.
33 J.W. Watt, ‘Guarding the Syriac Language in an Arabic Environment: Antony of Tagrit
on the Use of Grammar and Rhetoric’, in Syriac Polemics. Studies in Honour of Gerrit Jan
Reinink, ed. W.J. van Bekkum, et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 133–150.
34 J. Ziadeh, ‘L’apocalypse de Samuel, supérieur de Deir-el-Qalamoun’, Revue de l’Orient
Chretien 230 (1915–1917): 374–405 (379).
35 A. Papaconstantinou, ‘ “They will speak the Arabic language and take pride in it”: Recon-
sidering the Fate of Coptic after the Arab Conquest’, Le Muséon 120:3–4 (2007): 273–299.
The Christian communities—in Egypt, mostly Monophysites36—who had

initially collaborated with the invading forces37 after their persecution and
political-religious subjugation by the Byzantine Empire38 soon realised that
the much-vaunted change was, in reality, no more than a change of tyrant. If
these communities had previously struggled under the yoke of Greek Ortho-
dox religious rule, they now laboured under the yoke of the new Arab-Islamic
political and religious system. This realisation led to a marked change in atti-
tude.39 In Egypt, specifically, during the period of transition from a Byzantine-
Coptic society to an Islamic-Coptic society, the Monophysite communities
lived through momentous changes, involving not only political matters but also
theological issues.40
Narrative Framework of the Arabic Apocalypses as Reflected in the

‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’
The replacement of one repressive power by another drove a number of Chris-

tian communities to engage in a propaganda campaign against the new rulers
and the new religion as well. Drawing on the books of Daniel and Revelation,41
the campaign against the new system took a literary form, largely because the
Christian tradition was heir to a centuries-old tradition in which the apocalyp-
tic genre had served to create a channel for criticism not only of the established
regime but also of a situation which the writers sought to overcome by pro-
claiming that the end times were nigh. This apocalyptic approach, comprising
36 H.C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1972).
37 G. Downey, ‘Coptic Culture in the Byzantine World: Nationalism and Religious Indepen-
dence’, Greek and Byzantine Studies 1.2 (1958): 119–135 (135).
38 F. Dvornik, Byzance et la primauté romaine (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1964).
39 J. Haldon, ‘The Works of Athanasius of Sinai: A Key Source for the History of Seventh-
Century East Mediterranean Society and Belief’, in The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near
East, ed. A. Cameron, L. Conrad, and G. King (Princeton, nj: Darwin, 1992), 1:107–147 (108).
40 L.S.B. MacCoull, ‘The Paschal Letter of Alexander ii, Patriarch of Alexandria: A Greek
Defense of Coptic Theology under Arab Rule’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990): 27–40,
esp. 34–40.
41 C.H. Becker, Vom Werden und Wesen der islamischen Welt. Islamstudien (Leipzig: Verlag
Quelle and Meyer, 1924), 150–151. On the reception of the Book of Revelation in the Copto-
Arabic milieu, see S.J. Davis, ‘Introducing an Arabic Commentary on the Apocalypse: Ibn
Kātib Qayṣar on Revelation’, Harvard Theological Review 101:1 (2008): 77–96, esp. 78–86.
32 monferrer-sala
various kinds of texts produced in the pre-Christian Jewish milieu,42 also drew
on other genres, notably the polemic, which shaped its apologetic or debating
style.43
Thus, prima facie, the narrative structure of the Eastern Christian apocalyp-
tic texts reflects the influence of several genres. The overall shape is informed
by the traditional millennialist, apocalyptic, genre, whilst bearing the specific
hallmark of Eastern Christian apocalyptic work written as a response to the
Arab-Islamic invasion. At the same time, the discursive quantum contains ele-
ments characteristic of the polemic genre. But the narrative structure is also
studded with elements—motifs, symbols, figures—which in some cases are to
be found in the testimonia collected as part of the apocalyptic tradition, and in
other cases are specific to each text and are incorporated in accordance with
a whole range of criteria. In both cases, moreover, these elements are freely
enlarged, reduced, changed, or rewritten as individual requirements dictate;
this can be seen when comparing the use of the motif under study in the ‘Apoc-
alypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’.
As is evident in the following extract from the ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-
Athanasius’, the apocalyptic texts represent a hybrid textual type whose com-
positional elements reflect that dual typology. As a result of that blending pro-
cess, the testimonia apocalyptica take on new life, quickened by figures, symbols
motifs and themes belonging to that Eastern apocalyptic tradition.
Apart from this new trend, undoubtedly of historic and literary interest, the
authors of these Eastern apocalyptic texts explore—each in their own way—
a number of themes widely addressed by the Christian apocalyptic tradition
in general. They tend towards the succinct account, shorn of descriptive para-
phrasing and ad hoc exegesis, suggesting that their readership was already
familiar with the textual mechanisms, motifs, symbols and figures used in nar-
ratological composition. The ‘brand-new’ or specific elements introduced by
each author are sometimes drawn from the biblical repertory, but may also
reflect the author’s own lived experience or an oversight by the recensor or
copyist; this in turn gives rise to new topoi which can readily be used—with
or without reworking—in subsequent texts.
A final consideration is required. The apocalyptic works produced by East-
ern Christian authors during Arab-Islamic periods reflect a threefold composi-
42 F.C. Burkitt, Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (London: The British Academy, 1914), 44.
43 G. Troupeau, ‘La littérature arabe chrétienne du xe au xiie siècle’, Cahiers de Civilisation
médiévale, 14.1 (1971): 1–20 (9–11); reprint in G. Troupeau, Études sur le christianisme arabe
au Moyen Age (Aldershot: Variorum, 1995, i).
tional process in which tradition, intertextuality and figurative re-adaptation

provided the basic framework into which each author fitted his work, shaped as
it was by his own immediate setting, although the influence of that setting was
to some extent diluted by the compositional dynamic of the apocalyptic genre
itself, and also by the actualising mechanism of ‘Wirkungsgeschichte’ inherent
in texts with historical applications.
Apocalyptic through Two Literary Figures from the ‘Apocalypse of

Pseudo-Athanasius’
The foregoing points are neatly illustrated by two examples or figures: a) ‘the
four winds of heaven’, and b) ‘the eschatological banquet’. It will be suffice to
say that for the case of the texts produced by Christians living under the Islamic
rule these two apocalyptic figures were well known by Christian authors
through New Testament use in the Book of Revelation. A splendid example of
these two figures is provided, for instance, by the celebrated Beato of Liébana’s
Commentary to the Book of the Apocalypse44—a work which exhibits clear con-
nections with the Arab world in several ways45—although this was not the only
example as can be observed, for instance, in the representation of the angel, the
sun and the four winds according to Revelation 7 as it appears in Beato of San
Miguel de la Escalada’s miniature (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, Ms. 644,
fol. 115v), a motif which yields certain errors or variations in the transmission.46
The first figure appears in a sentence which, though apparently anecdotal,
introduces major apocalyptic elements drawn—as we shall see—from the
Semitic substrate. The Arabic text and the English translation read as follows:
wa-fī ākhir al-sawābīʿ yabʿathu Allāh min al-samāʾ al-arbaʿah al-aryāḥ min
al-mashriq wa-l-maghrib wa-l-janūb wa-l-shimāl
‘At the end of the seventy weeks God will send the four winds from heaven,
from west, east, south and north.’
44 B. de Liébana, Obras completas, ed. J.G. Echegaray, A. del Campo and L.G. Freeman
(Madrid: bac, 1995).
45 M. Tolmacheva, ‘Cartography’, in Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: an Encyclo-
pedia, ed. T. Glick, S.J. Livesey and F. Wallis (New York: Routledge, 2005), 115–118 (116).
46 P.K. Klein, ‘The Model for the Cardeña and Manchester Beatus’, in Imágenes y promotores
en el arte medieval. Miscelánea en homenaje a Joaquín Yarza Luaces, ed. M.L. Melero
(Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2001), 139–151 (146).
34 monferrer-sala
Unlike the Coptic ‘14th Vision of Daniel’, which is a virtual copy of the Daniel
text,47 the ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’48 offers in this sentence a rewrit-
ing of Daniel 7:249 which is also recast in the Syriac versions of the ‘Apocalypse
of Baḥīrā’, although not marked as a Bible quotation by the copyist:50
– Eastern Syriac recension: whaydeyn meshtagshan ʾarbaʿ rūḥī shmayā

‘And then, the four winds of heaven will be stirred up’.
– Western Syriac recension: zabnā meshtagshan ʾarbaʿ rūḥī shmayā wbah deyn
bhaw
‘And then, in that time, the four winds of heaven will be stirred up’.
The figure of ‘the four winds of heaven’ (Daniel 7:2) which appears several times
in the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel (rūḥī shmayā)51 as well as in the Book of the
Revelation,52 is a topos of prophetic literature in the Bible, and its interpretation
varies as a function of the texts used.53
The version of the Daniel quotation offered by the Syriac recensions of
the ‘Apocalypse of Baḥīrā’ is evidently more concise than that provided in
the Arabic text of the ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’. Yet the two Arabic
recensions of the ‘Apocalypse of Baḥīrā’—long and short—offer a text very
similar to that of the ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’, with an elaborate
expansion on the winds from the four cardinal points54 (cf. Ethiopic Enoch
76:1–14).55 In apocryphal apocalyptic texts (e.g. Greek Apocalypse of Ezra 13:5)
47 O. Meinardus, ‘A Commentary on the xivth Vision of Daniel Acccording to the Coptic

Version’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 32 (1966): 394–449 (412).
48 So in J. Ziadé, ‘Un Testament de n.-s. concernant les invasions des mongols’, Revue de
l’ Orient Chrétien 21 (1918–1919), 261–273, 433–444 (266).
49 For the apocryphal Danielic materials, see L. DiTommaso, The Book of Daniel and the
Apocryphal Daniel Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
50 B. Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic
in Response to Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 294–295 and 368–369, respectively.
51 M. Henze, The Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel. Introduction, Text and Commentary, ‘Studien
und Texte zu Antike und Christentum’ 11 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 39 (Syriac text)
and 78 (English trans.)
52 P. Prigent, Commentary on the Apocalypse of St. John (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004),
280–281.
53 Henze, The Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel, 78, n. 66.
54 Roggema, Sergius Baḥīrā, 380–381 and 436–437.
55 M.A. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch: A new edition in the light of the Aramaic Dead
Sea Fragments, in consultation with E. Ullendorf, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978),
1:244–250 (Ethiopic text), 2:176–179 (English trans.)
the four winds have a warlike value,56 indicating the four points of emergence
of the ‘multitudes of men’ who were to subdue the Messiah (‘the Man that came
out of the sea’).57
The phrase al-arbaʿah al-aryāḥ appears in these Danielic contexts as a sym-
bol, initially, of the four empires of the world referred to in the Book of Daniel,
traditionally identified with the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians and the
Romans, based on a pattern which was to have a marked impact in the Judaeo-
Christian milieu,58 but which Hanhart interprets as four empires located
around the Mediterranean:59
– Egypt: south = lion.

– Persia: east = bear.
– Rome: west = leopard.
– Syria: north = anonymous beast, probably an elephant.
The number four, in the Ancient and Classical Greek worlds as in the Semitic
world, derived from the four seasons and their corresponding constellations
(Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius), and also from the four cardinal points
and the four directions of the wind (cf. Revelation 7:1); hence, the number four
symbolises the totality of the earth and of the universe (cf. Ezekiel 1:5, 37:9;
Zechariah 2:6; Daniel 8:8, etc.). The ‘four winds’ have an additional symbolic
value in apocryphal literature, as the bearers of God (Kýrios Strateōn < Yahweh
Ṣebaʾôth) and the cherubim (cf. Greek Apocalypse of Moses 38:3).60
In the Hebrew Bible, the importance of the number four is evident, for
example, in the theophany of Ezekiel 1; it is also a key number in the New
56 As well as the wind in the singular, see J.C. Reeves, Trajectories in Christian Near Eastern
Apocalyptics. A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader, ‘Resources for Biblical Studies’ 45
(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 224.
57 R.H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1913), 2:616.
58 J.W. Swain, ‘The Theory of the Four Monarchies. Opposition History under the Roman
Empire’, Classical Philology 35 (1940): 1–21; cf. Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 259. The Coptic text
of the ‘xivth Vision of Daniel’ explains it as the Empires of the Persians, Romans, Hellenics
(Byzantines) and Ismaelites; see Meinardus, ‘A Commentary’, 410, 417–418.
59 K. Hanhart, ‘The Four Beasts of Daniel’s Vision in the Night in the Light of Rev. 13,2’, New
Testament Studies 27:4 (1981): 581; cf. B.H. Reynolds, Between Symbolism and Realism: The
Use of Symbolic and Non-Symbolic Language in Ancient Jewish Apocalypses, 333–363bce
(PhD thesis, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009), 127–142. See also
Himmelfarb, The Apocalypse, 35–37.
60 Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2.151.
36 monferrer-sala
Testament, especially in apocalyptic passages. The figure of the wind had been
widely used in the Semitic literature since ancient times: Babylonian texts
report that the desert winds bring calamities and suffering. The wind as the
bearer of good and evil things for man is a common figure in Mesopotamian
texts, expressed in antithetical terms as shāru ṭābu (‘good wind’) and shāru lā
ṭābu or shāru lemnu (‘bad wind’), the ‘bad wind’ being exemplified through a
group of seven evil spirits.61
The text of the ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’ displays certain paral-
lels with the ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo Methodius’, which refers to this time as ‘in
this last millennium, specifically the seventh’ (shbīʿayā bhanā gar ʾalfē ʾḥrayā
d’ ytūhī), as a means of indicating the eradication of the Persian Empire (mal-
khūtā d-parsayē) and the arrival of the Sons of Ismael (nafqīn bnay ʾIshmaʿīl),
seen by the seventh-century Syriac chronicles as a new empire which would
succeed earlier empires, following the apocalyptic pattern of the Book of Dan-
iel.62 In Christian apocalyptic writings, the ‘south wind’, the fourth beast,63
symbolises the Muslims, as is apparent in the Eastern Syriac version of the
‘Apocalypse of Baḥīrā’.64
One final remark on the figure of ‘the four winds’: as part of a whole repertory
of prophetic figures of speech, the ‘four winds’ represent the instruments of
punishment sent down against a people, as for example upon Elam in Jeremiah
49:36. Occasionally, moreover, the figure is used antithetically and even appears
as a multiple of four, as in Ethiopic Enoch 76:4a, which speaks of twelve winds
(a multiple of four), the four winds of blessings and eight winds of punishment:
‘through four of them come winds of blessing and peace, and from those eight
come winds of punishment’.65
61 R.C. Thompson, The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, 2 vols., ‘Luzac’s Semitic Text and
Translation Series’ xiv (New York: Luzac, 1903–1904), 1: xlv–xlvi.
62 A. Harrak, ‘Ah! The Assyrian is the Rod of My Hand!: Syriac View of History after the Advent
of Islam’, in Redefining Christian Identity, ed. J.J. van Ginkel et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2005),
45–65 (46).
63 Meinardus, ‘A Commentary’, 418.
64 Roggema, Sergius Baḥīrā, 300–301.
65 Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 1:244–245 (Ethiopic text), 2:176–177 (English trans.);
cf. R.H. Charles, The Ethiopic Version of the Book of Enoch, Edited from twenty-three mss,
Together with the fragmentary Greek and Latin versions, ‘Anecdota Oxoniensia’ (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1906), 144. See also for the Aramaic fragments from Qumrān, J.T. Milik,
The Books of Enoch. Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4, with the collaboration of
M. Black (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 285–286.
The second figure of speech to be noted from the ‘Apocalypse of Psuedo-

Athanasius’, recalling the New Testament, states that:
thumma yunādī ṣawtan min al-samāʾ yajtamiʿu al-ṭuyūr wa-l-wuḥūsh al-

walīmah alladhī ṣanaʿat lahum wa-yaʾkulūna min ajsād al-mulūk wa-l-
ruʾasāʾ
Then a voice will come from heaven calling the fowls and the beasts to the
banquet that will be set before them, and they will eat the flesh of kings
and the flesh of mighty men.
The same sequence, with a single variant, is found in a Christian-Arabic apoc-

alypse.66 The Arabic formula yunādī ṣawtan min al-samāʾ67 equates with the
Hebrew qol min shamayim nĕphal (‘a voice came from heaven’; lxx: phōnḕn
ek tou ouranou ḗkouse) in Daniel 4:31, although here there is likely to be inter-
ference from Matthew 3:17 phōnḕ ek tōn ouranōn légousa ‘there came a voice
from heaven’ (cf. par. Mark 1:11; var. Luke 3:22),68 which has Rabbinic paral-
lels.69
The reference to the fowls and beasts called to the banquet to eat the flesh
of kings and of mighty men clearly recalls Revelation 19:17–18 kaì ékraxen en
phōnē megálē légōn pasi tois petoménois en mesouranḗmati deute synáchthēte eis
to deipnon tò mega tou Theou hina phágēte sárkas basiléōn kaì sárkas chiliárchōn
(‘and [the angel] cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the
midst of heaven: Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the
great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains’), which
is itself a reference to Ezekiel 39:17.
The author of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius thus offers a parody of
the Messianic banquet, in order to describe the tragic end awaiting the Sons
of Hagar. The origin of this motif can be traced to the Mesopotamian myths in
66 Ziadé, ‘Un Testament de n.-s.’, 266.

67 On the verb nādā-yunādī, see J.P. Monferrer-Sala, ‘Kērýssō and its Arabic renditions in
a bilingual Gospel of Luke (BnF ‘Supl. grec 911’, 1043ce)’, in Graeco-Latina et Orientalia.
Studia in honorem Angeli Urbani heptagenarii, ‘Syro-Arabica’ 2, ed. S.K. Samir and J.P.
Monferrer-Sala (Córdoba: Oriens Academic, 2013), 221–236.
68 This same formula is used in John 12:28 and Revelation 10:4, 10:8, 11:12, 14:2, 16:17, 18:4, 21:3.
69 F. Lentzen-Deis, Die Taufe Jesu nach den Synoptikern: Literarkritische und gattungsge-
schichtliche Untersuchungen, ‘Frankfurter Theologische Studien’ 4 (Frankfurt am Main:
Knecht, 1970), 200–202.
38 monferrer-sala
which the battle of the gods concludes with a sacrificial banquet, at which the
defeated enemy is devoured.70
Appendix: Edition and Translation of the Fragment from the

Apocalypse Pseudo Athanasius (Vaticano arabo 158)71
An edition and a translation of the unedited fragment of the ‘Apocalypse of

Pseudo-Athanasius’ are appended below. This fragment contains the ‘motif of
the kings of Ethiopia and Nubia’, also found in the example analysed above.
The fragment offers a good example of the points made earlier with regard to
the motifs, symbols and figures—in short, the testimonia apocalyptica— that
make up the apocalyptic genre.72
‫في اخر الاسابيع الدى دفعهم اللـه لهم في اخر ايامهم يرفع اللـه يده عنهم‬
‫من اجل الجور والظلم الدي علي المسكونه و يسلط عليهم يد جميع الامم كما‬
‫قال موسي النبي وفي اخر السوابيع يبعت اللـه من السما الار بعه الار ياح‬
‫من المشرق والمغرب والجنوب والشمال و يجمعوا اولاد هاجر الي نهر الفرات‬
‫الـكبير و يجمع الـكبير منهم والصغير كمتل من يدعي الي العرس و يفترقوا فرقين‬
‫و يدعي كل منهم ان الملك له وهو احق به فيتقاتلوا ولا يغلب واحد منهم‬
70 P.D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 322.

71 In the edition of the present fragment the specific paleographic features of the text have
been respected with the aim of showing the characteristics of the linguistic register, the
‘Middle Arabic’ used by the Christian authors. On this issue, see J. Blau, A Grammar of
Christian Arabic. Based Mainly on South-Palestinian Texts from the First Millenium. 3 vols.
(Louvain: Sécrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1966–1967); idem, A Handbook of Early Middle Arabic,
‘The Max Schloessinger Memorial Foundation’ (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 2002);
K. Versteegh, ‘Breaking the Rules without Wanting to: Hypercorrection in Middle Arabic
Texts’, in Investigating Arabic: Current parameters in Analysis and Learning, ed. A. Elgibali
(Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2005), 3–18. For the Coptic-Arabic writers, see S. Kussaim, ‘Contribu-
tion à l’ étude du moyen arabe des coptes. L’adverbe H̱ aṣṣatan chez Ibn Sabbā’, Le Muséon,
80 (1967), 153–209; and idem, ‘Contribution à l’ étude du moyen arabe des coptes. ii.—
Partie synthetique’, Le Muséon, 81 (1968), 5–78.
72 An analysis of the fragment is provided in J.P. Monferrer-Sala, ‘Tradición e intertextualidad
en la apocalíptica cristiana oriental. El motivo de los reyes de Etiopía y Nubia en el
“Apocalipsis (árabe) del Ps. Atanasio” y sus testimonia apocalíptica’, Al-Qanṭara, 32:1 (2011),
199–228.
‫‪facing the last day through two narrative apocalyptic figures‬‬ ‫‪39‬‬
‫صاحبه تم بعد دلك يرسل اللـه ملاكه من السما في يده سيف من نار فيقع‬
‫القتال بينهم البين ولا يبقي من الفر يقين احد في اسرع وقت لان بسيفهم‬
‫اخدوا المسكونه و بسيفهم يقتلوا و يجري دماهم حتي تغطي نهر الفرات تم‬
‫ينادي صوتا من السما يجتمع الطيور والوحوش الوليمه الدي صنعت لهم‬
‫و ياكلوا من اجساد الملوك والروسا وفي دلك الوقت قيل لقا هولا القوم ببرهه‬
‫من الزمان يخفا الصدق و يطهر الباطل والمحال و يكتر الفسق والزنا حتي ان‬
‫الامراه تعلم فساد بنتها و يعلم الاح بفساد اخته ولو شرحت الامر علي حقيقه‬
‫لهلـكت من الهم فالو يل للاحرار واولادهم في دلك الزمان وعند لقا هولاي‬
‫القوم وقتلهم علي ما تقدم دكره يسمعوا ملوك النو به والحبش يخرجوا و يملـكوا‬
‫جميع الارض اليمن و يجوا الي مصر فيجدوها خراب ولا يجدوا فيها احد ولا‬
‫كلب ينبح ولا يكون فيها بلد عامره غير جز يره نيقيوس فيصعب عليهم دلك‬
‫و يحزنوا احزا شديدا تم يعمروا مصر و يبنوا فيها هيكلا عظيما في مده تلتين‬
‫يوما يسمع ملوك الحبشه والنو به و يصل الخـير الي ملك الافرنج وهو جدوا‬
‫الاسد واسمه فسطنطين و يجتمع معه جميع الملوك في البر والبحر و يصل الي‬
‫مدينه القسطنطينيه فيغلقوا ابواب المدينه في وجهه فيفتحها بالسيف و ياخد‬
‫جميع الحصان الدي فيها يعرقها في البحر وهم احيا و ياخد صليب الصلبوت‬
‫من دار الملك و يخرج بقوه اللـه و يسير حتي يطلع الشمس ومن هناك يقيم‬
‫دين النصرانيه وقوانين البيعه الارتدكسيه والامانه الى ان يصل هو ومن‬
‫معد من الامم والشعوب والقبايل الي اورشليم فيجدها خراب فيحزن حزنا‬
‫عطيما و يامر بعمارتها و يبني البيت المقدس و يشكر الرب السماي و يمجده‬
‫و يقول اشكرك يار بنا وملكنا الدي اعطيتني سلطان علي جميع امم الارض‬
‫و يجعلهم علي امانه واحده و يقلع دين المخالفين }واللـه بعينه اعلم هدا وافهم{‬
‫وكدلك الملـكين النو بي والحبشي بعد فراغ بنا الهيكل يشكروا الرب و يمجدوه‬
‫وهولا يشكروا الرب الدي اعطانا ان نقيم الامانه المستقيمه وهما فراحا بدلك‬
‫غايه الفرح فيصل اليهما الخـير عن ملك الروم انه وصل الي البيت المقدس‬
‫فيقولا لجندهما وجميع عساكرهما وشعو بهما قوموا بنا الي ملك الروم نلقاه‬
‫فان يكون علي امانتنا والا قتلناه وجعلنا جميع الشعوب والعساكر علي امانه‬
40 monferrer-sala
‫واحده وكدلك ملك الروم الدى هو قسطنطين يصل اليه الخـبر بوصول الملـكين‬
‫الحبشي والنو بي وانهما ملكا بلاد اليمن ومصر فيقول لجيوشه سيروا بنا نلقاهم‬
‫فان يكونوا علي مدهبنا والا قتلناهم‬
At the end of the seventy weeks that God granted them at the end of their
days, God will raise his hand against them on account of the injustice
and the tyranny that reigns upon the earth and He will deliver them unto
the power of the hand of all the nations, as the prophet Moses said, ‘And
at the end of seventy weeks, God will send the four winds from heaven,
from the west, from the east, from the south and from the north’, and the
Sons of Hagar will gather by the great river Euphrates. Great and small
will gather, like those called to the wedding. They will be divided into two
groups, and each of them will be called, that they may have a king, the
most righteous. They will fight, but neither of them will vanquish their
counterpart. Then, after this, God will send his angel from heaven with
a sword of fire in his hand. War will befall them, and of the two groups
nobody will remain in a very short time because with their sword they will
take the whole land and with their sword they will deal death and their
blood will flow until it covers the river Euphrates. Then, a voice will come
from heaven calling the fowls and the beasts to the banquet that will be set
before them, and they will eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of mighty
men. At this time, it will be said that the gathering of that people will
take place at an imminent time, truth shining out and lies and falsehood
being revealed; lust and fornication shall be rife, until the woman knows
the depravation of her daughter and the brother that of his sister; if the
affair were duly examined, they would perish. Woe to the pure and their
children in that time!—when these meet and kill each other as it has been
said. The kings of Nubia and of Ethiopia will hear [all this and] will go out
to seize the whole land of Yemen (al-arḍ al-Yaman, sic); they will come
unto Egypt and find it destroyed; and there they shall find nobody, not
even a barking dog, nor shall there be any place inhabited except for the
island of Nīqiyūs. This will be a trial for them, and they shall grieve sorely.
Then they will settle in Egypt, and there they will build a vast temple in
thirty days. When the kings of Ethiopia and Nubia discover this, they will
carry the glad tidings to the king of the Franks (al-ifranj). He, whom they
call ‘the lion’ and whose name is Constantine, will summon all the kings
in the earth and the sea, and he will arrive in the city of Constantinople.
They will close the gates of the city before him, but he shall open them
with his sword and will seize the fortresses (ḥiṣān) that are in it, sinking
them in the sea, but they will remain alive. He will take the wood of the
cross (ṣalīb al-ṣalabūt) from the house of the king, and they shall go out
with the strength of God marching until sunrise. Thence Christianity (dīn
al-naṣrāniyya) will emerge, and the canons of the Orthodox Church and
the credo, until they—he and those whom he may take of the nations,
peoples and tribes—reach Jerusalem. He will find it destroyed and will be
sorely grieved. He will order it to be [re-]built and will raise a holy temple
giving thanks unto the heavenly Lord, glorifying Him and saying, ‘I give
thanks unto you, O our Lord and our king! who gave us power over all the
nations on earth, that they may be placed under a single faith and that
the religion of their opponents be rooted out’—God himself gives this to
be understood. In the same way, the Nubian and Ethiopian kings, having
finished the building of the temple, gave thanks unto the Lord and praised
Him. These gave thanks unto the Lord saying, ‘You have granted that we
may keep the righteous faith’. Both were extraordinarily happy for this.
Both heard of the good action of the king of the Romans, how he came
to the holy temple, saying to their armies and all their soldiers and their
people, ‘Let us set out to meet the king of the Romans, for he is of our faith
and we shall not kill him; let us place all our people and soldiers under a
single faith’. In the same way, the king of the Romans, who is Constantine,
heard of the good action of the arrival of the two kings, the Ethiopian and
the Nubian, for both were the kings of the country of Yemen and of Egypt.
Then he [Constantine] said to his armies, ‘Let us go out to meet them, for
they are of our rite (madhhab), so we shall not put them to death’.
chapter 4
The Holy Spirit in Early Christian Dialogue with

Muslims
Mark Beaumont
David Thomas has been a pioneer in the investigation of how Muslim intellec-
tuals in the early Islamic period engaged with Christian theological concepts,
particularly in his groundbreaking edition, translation and evaluation of the
refutation of the Trinity and Incarnation by Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq (d. 855). The
intention of this study is to analyse the theology of the Holy Spirit in the writ-
ings of late eighth and early ninth century Christians who were the possible
dialogue partners of Abū ʿĪsā.
The topic of the Holy Spirit in Christian writings in the early Islamic period
has so far received little scholarly attention. This study examines a discussion
called ‘The heresy of the Ishmaelites’ by John of Damascus (d. c. 750), an
anonymous apology for Christianity (c. 750), the dialogue between Timothy i
and Caliph al-Mahdī (781), and treatises on the Trinity by Theodore Abū Qurra
(d. c. 830), Abū Rāʾiṭa (d. c. 835) and ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī (d. c. 860) to see how
Christian theologians communicated their understanding of the Holy Spirit in
an Islamic framework of discourse. Muslim reaction to these apologetics is then
measured from Abū ʿĪsā’s treatment of the Trinity as well as from the refutation
of Christianity by al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm (d. 860).1
The Quranic Context for Dialogue on the Holy Spirit
Christian discourse on the Holy Spirit at the time of the rise of Islam was
already well established. The third member of the Trinity was identified with
the Spirit of God present and at work from time to time in the pre-Christian
era, particularly in inspiring prophets to proclaim God’s word. The fact that the
Qurʾān claimed to be the word of God brought by the final prophet Muḥammad
1 For a more detailed study of the dialogue on the Trinity by these writers out of which their
discussion of the Holy Spirit arises, see M. Beaumont, ‘Speaking of the Triune God: Christian
Defence of the Trinity in the Early Islamic Period’, Transformation 29 (2012): 111–127.

the holy spirit in early christian dialogue with muslims 43
introduced a challenge to the Christian belief in the inspiration of prophets by

God’s Spirit. In addition, the presence of the term ‘holy spirit’ in the Qurʾān
meant that Muslims had their own particular understanding of the nature and
work of that spirit, which was not often in alignment with Christian belief.
In the Qurʾān, the Holy Spirit (rūḥ al-qudus) is mentioned four times. Three
of these references are to Jesus being strengthened by the Holy Spirit in q 2:87,
253, and 5:110. The fourth reference in q 16:102, ‘The holy spirit brought revela-
tion from your Lord’, is addressed to the Prophet Muḥammad to encourage him
to refute those who were accusing him of forging the message he proclaimed.
Since God says to Muḥammad in q 2:97 that the angel Gabriel ‘brought revela-
tion to your heart’, it has been customary for Muslims to identify the Holy Spirit
with Gabriel.2
There are several occasions in the Qurʾān where the spirit (rūḥ) is mentioned
without the descriptive ‘holy’ (al-qudus). In q 26:193, God tells Muḥammad, ‘the
faithful spirit (al-rūḥ al-amīn) brought down the revelation to your heart’. q 19:17
relates the story of Mary conceiving Jesus after encountering the spirit in the
form of a human being. God said, ‘We sent our spirit to her and he appeared to
her as a man’. In this text the ‘spirit’ is clearly an angelic messenger, confirming
the correlation of God’s spirit with the angel Gabriel. In q 78:38, ‘the spirit’ is
named among ‘the angels’ who stand silently in ranks on the Day of Judgment,
and only speak when God gives permission.
God breathed his ‘spirit’ into Adam (q 15:29) and Mary (q 21:91). This pre-
sentation of God’s spirit closely matches Genesis 2:7, where ‘God breathed life’
into Adam. In q 4:171, Jesus is described as a ‘spirit’ from God, which seems to
refer to the results of the breathing into Mary at the conception of Jesus. q 3:59
compares the way Adam and Jesus were conceived: ‘God created (Adam) from
dust and then said to him: be, and he came into existence’. Jesus was created in
just the same way as Adam. Sidney Griffith has argued persuasively that these
comparisons between Adam and Jesus are intended by the Qurʾān as a direct
criticism of Christian belief in the Holy Spirit indwelling Jesus, which Christians
held to be evidence for his divine nature.3 That this is how Muslims normally
understand the comparison can be seen in the fact that Quranic commentators
have tended to point out that Adam and Jesus received power from God that
was not granted to others.4
2 M. Mir, Dictionary of Qurʾānic Terms and Concepts (New York, 1987), 96.
3 S.H. Griffith, ‘Holy Spirit’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, 5 vols.
(Leiden, 2001–2006), 2:443.
4 See F. Rahman, Major Themes of the Qurʾān (Chicago, 2009), 98.
44 beaumont
Christian Use of the Quranic References to the Spirit of God
The earliest example of Christian appropriation of Quranic references to the

spirit of God is found in the writing of John of Damascus (d. c. 750). During
John’s retirement from serving the Muslim Caliph in Damascus, he wrote a
three volume work entitled The Fount of Knowledge (Pege Gnoseos). The second
volume, Heresies (De Haeresibus), critiques one hundred heresies concluding
with ‘The Heresy of the Ishmaelites’, in which he finds the Christian definition
of the Holy Spirit in q 4:171 where Jesus is named as ‘God’s word’ and ‘God’s
spirit’. John has heard the Muslim criticism that Christians associate Jesus with
God by calling him Son of God, but draws attention to the fact that Muslims
call Christ Word and Spirit of God. He argues,
If the Word of God is in God, then it is evident that he is God as well.

If, however, the word is outside of God, then, according to you, God is
without Word and Spirit. Consequently, by avoiding the association of a
partner with God, you have mutilated him.5
John assumes that the Trinitarian hypostases of Christ the Word and the Holy
Spirit are actually meant in q 4:171, which reads, ‘Christ Jesus, son of Mary,
was the messenger of God, and His word which He cast on Mary, and a spirit
from Him’. This is a complete surprise to the reader of John’s account that has
depicted the Qurʾān as full of absurdity. John condemns ‘the false prophet’ of
Islam for inventing his heretical message on the foundation of Christian truth.
Paradoxically, John is advocating that Christians rely, in defending their faith
before Muslims, not on an appeal to their own scriptures, nor on the exposition
of their own doctrinal beliefs, but on the Qurʾān that is largely unreliable.
This reliance on q 4:171 to present Christian belief in the Holy Spirit is also
found in an anonymous Apology for Christianity, not in Greek but in Ara-
bic, which comes from the same Chalcedonian community to which John
belonged.6 The writer says at the end of the treatise, ‘If this religion was not
truly from God, it would not have stood firm nor stood erect for seven hundred
and forty-six years’. So, it may have been composed in the middle of the eighth
5 The Greek text of The Heresy of the Ishmaelites is found in B. Kotter, ed., Die Schriften Des
Johannes Von Damaskos, iv (New York, 1981), 60–67. This text is reproduced and translated in
D.J. Janosik, ‘John of Damascus: First Apologist to the Muslims’ (PhD thesis, London School
of Theology, 2011), 281–286.
6 The Arabic text (Sinai 154) is found in M.D. Dunlop, ed. and trans., A Treatise on the Triune
Nature of God (London, 1899).
century around the same time as John’s work.7 The presentation of the Trin-
ity uses references from the Qurʾān in an attempt to explain Christian belief
for a Muslim reader and to show Christians how to defend their faith before
Muslims. The fact that it is composed in Arabic demonstrates that some Chris-
tian communities were beginning to use the language of the Muslim rulers, for
example in Palestinian monasteries.8
The anonymous writer addresses a Muslim audience by declaring, ‘We do
not distinguish God from His Word and His Spirit. We do not worship another
god alongside God in His Word and His Spirit’.9 The first sentence reflects
John’s argument that Christians do not mutilate the Triune God by separating
His Word and Spirit from Him. The second sentence alludes to q 5:72–73
which alleges that Christians worship gods alongside the One True God, and it
redefines God to include Christ the Word and the Holy Spirit. The writer denies
that Christians worship three gods as the Qurʾān says they do, ‘We do not say
three gods …. But we do say that God and His Word and His Spirit is One God
and One Creator’.10 Here he rejects q 5:73, ‘They are unbelievers who say that
God is one third of a Trinity’, and q 4:171, ‘Believe in God and His messengers
and do not say “Trinity”’. He then quotes from q 4:171 and 16:102 to challenge his
Muslim reader to accept this truth.
Believe in God and His Word; and also in His Holy Spirit; surely the Holy
Spirit has brought down from your Lord mercy and guidance … You find
in the Qurʾān that God and His Word and His Spirit is One God and One
7 S.K. Samir discovered this statement on one of the pages of the manuscript not included
in the printed version by Dunlop who said that she was unable to photograph ‘a few pages
from the end’. Samir believes that this dates the writing to just before 750; see S.K. Samir,
‘The Earliest Arab Apology for Christianity (c. 750)’, in Christian Arabic Apologetics during
the Abbasid Period (750–1258), ed., S.K. Samir and J.S. Nielsen (Leiden, 1994), 57–116 (61).
M. Swanson calculates the date not from the birth of Christ but from the beginning of
the church and suggests 788; see M. Swanson, ‘Some Considerations for the Dating of Fī
taṯlīṯ Allāh al-wāhid (Sinai ar. 154) and al-Ğāmiʿ wuğūh al-īmān (London, British Library
or. 4950)’, Parole de l’ Orient 18 (1993): 118–141 (140). However, S.H. Griffith argues that
Palestinian scribes were more likely to compute the date from the beginning of the year
of the Incarnation, thus placing the composition around 755; see S.H. Griffith, The Church
in the Shadow of the Mosque (Princeton, 2008), 54.
8 See S.H. Griffith, ‘The Monks of Palestine and the Growth of Christian Literature in Arabic’,
The Muslim World 78 (1988): 1–28.
9 A Treatise on the Triune Nature of God, 75.
10 A Treatise on the Triune Nature of God, 76.
46 beaumont
Lord. You have said that you believe in God and His Word and His Spirit,
so do not reproach us, you people, for believing in God and His Word and
His Spirit.11
The reference to the Holy Spirit bringing revelation to Muḥammad in q 16:102 is

used by the writer to confirm that the Qurʾān actually teaches that God Himself
brought revelation as Christians believe. The function of the Spirit of God is to
reveal God to human beings.
There is no engagement with the Quranic texts that identify the holy spirit
with the angel Gabriel in this writer’s account. This partial interpretation of
the spirit of God in the Qurʾān shows how Christians in the early period of
engagement with the Muslim scriptures preferred to limit their apologetic use
of the Qurʾān to those texts that lent themselves to a Christian reading, and to
ignore other texts that might invalidate Christian belief.
Christian Responses to Muslim Questions about God’s Spirit
Timothy i
Whereas John of Damascus and the writer of the Anonymous Apology sought
to develop their apology for the Holy Spirit on the basis of Quranic texts, they
were not demonstrating how Muslims reacted to their arguments. However,
when the Caliph al-Mahdī summoned Timothy i for an audience with him in
Baghdad shortly after Timothy became Patriarch of the East Syrian church in
780, the Patriarch was required to answer questions about Christian beliefs.12
Timothy’s report of the debate was produced in Syriac and subsequently
translated into Arabic but may not conform to the actual conversation in
every detail. Nevertheless, it is hardly likely that Timothy would have dared to
misrepresent the speech of the Caliph. So the questions posed by him in the
report are likely to be those he asked in the debate which are mainly concerned
with Timothy’s understanding of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Scriptures,
and the status of the Prophet Muḥammad.13
11 A Treatise on the Triune Nature of God, 77–78.

12 Timothy describes his two day audience with the Caliph in a letter to the priest Sargis
in 782/3. See epistle 59 in R.J. Bidawid, ed., Les Lettres du Patriarche Nestorien Timothée i
(Rome, 1956), 42–43.
13 The Syriac version is edited and translated into English by A. Mingana, ‘The Apology of
Timothy the Patriarch before the Caliph Mahdi’, Woodbrooke Studies ii (1928): 1–162. The
Arabic version is edited in L. Cheikho, ‘The Religious Dialogue which occurred between
When the Caliph al-Mahdī asks, ‘Do you believe in three gods?’ Timothy
replies that Christians believe in ‘three hypostases (aqānīm) … The Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit, which are together one God, one nature, and one
essence ( jawhar)’.14 Timothy points out that this was clearly taught by Jesus
in the gospel and is also proved from studying created things. Just as the Caliph
is one person in his mind and spirit, and these cannot be separated from him,
so it is with God and his Word and Spirit. Likewise, the sun with its rays and heat
are one inseparable sun. We do not say that a person who speaks is without life
or spirit. So, ‘If someone says that God exists without Word and Spirit then he
blasphemes’.15
Timothy repeats the argument of John of Damascus and the Anonymous
Apology that the Word and Spirit cannot be separated from God, which demon-
strates that it was common to Christians from different denominations. How-
ever, Timothy is concerned to explain how the Christian conceptualization of
the Trinity in the language of one essence (ousia) in three persons (hypostases)
was translated into Arabic as one jawhar in three aqānīm. The latter term is a
transliteration of the Syriac qenômê, with which Timothy was familiar, but the
former is a newly coined Arabic word for the Syriac ousia, itself a transliteration
of the Greek.16
Timothy refers to a series of Biblical texts that support the Trinitarian nature
of God, but the Caliph moves the discussion to the definition of God: ‘How
are the Son and Spirit not the same, since you say that God is simple and
not composite?’17 Timothy says that a distinction must be made between the
essence and the hypostases. ‘With respect to the essence ( jawhar) there is no
distinction between them, but with respect to their own particular character-
istics as hypostases (aqānīm), one of them is begotten ( yūlad) and the other
is not begotten but proceeds ( yanbathiq)’.18 The Father is the origin of the Son
and the Spirit. From eternity the Son is begotten and the Holy Spirit emanates
the Caliph al-Mahdi and Timothy the Patriarch’ (Arabic), Al-Machriq 19 (1921): 359–374
and 408–418, and reproduced with a French translation by H. Putman, L’Église sous
Timothée i: 780–832 (Beirut, 1975), Appendix, 7–51; Putman believes that the Arabic version
is a summary of the longer Syriac version made in 794/5.
14 Putman, L’ Église sous Timothée i: 780–832, Appendix, 13.
15 Putman, L’ Église sous Timothée i: 780–832, Appendix, 13–14.
16 See S.H. Griffith, ‘The Concept of Al-Uqnūm in ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī’s Apology for the Doctrine
of the Trinity’, in Actes du Premier Congrès International d’Études Arabes Chrétiennes, ed.
S.K. Samir (Rome, 1982), 169–190 (179).
48 beaumont
( yaṣdur), and the begetting and the emanating are without bodily separa-
tion or by means of bodily members. This is because God is not composite
or embodied. Timothy supports this argument with an analogy from human
nature: ‘From the human soul (nafs) the spoken word is born and love emanates
without separation or by means of members. Yet love is distinguished from
word and word from love’.19
Nevertheless, the Caliph spots a contradiction in the logic of the Trinity:
‘If the hypostases (aqānīm) are not separated or divided one from another,
then the Father and the Holy Spirit became human along with the Word’.20
Timothy seeks to assure al-Mahdī that the functions of the three hypostases
are different, while they maintain their inseparability of nature. He presents
several analogies to make sense of the apparent contradiction. What the Caliph
has written on parchment is not obviously connected to his soul or mind but
cannot be separated from them. What people say is generated from the soul
and mind and heard in the air but cannot be divided from the soul and mind.
People talk not about hearing the soul or mind but about hearing the word of
someone.21
While the earlier apologetic could experiment with using the Qurʾān to
communicate the Trinity to Muslims, Timothy is required to defend the Trinity
against criticism that logical thinking reduces the notion of a Triune God to
absurdity. The Caliph was not interested in the Biblical references to the Trinity
mentioned by Timothy, but he was aware of the use that Muslims were making
of references to the Paraclete in John’s gospel as evidence that Jesus predicted
the coming of Muḥammad, to be examined later.
Theodore Abū Qurra

Theodore Abū Qurra, Chalcedonian Bishop of Harran in the late eighth and
early ninth centuries sought to answer the Muslim accusation that Christians
worship three gods in ‘A Treatise by Theodore, Bishop of Harran, establishing
that Christians do not believe in three gods when they say that the Father is
God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and that the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit are one God even though each of them is complete in himself’.22
He points out that the opponents of Christian teaching object to the Trinity

22 Abū Qurra, ‘Treatise on the Trinity’, in Les Oeuvres Arabes de Theodore Aboucara, ed.
C. Bacha (Beyrouth, 1904), 23–47, 23. See also the English translation of the treatise in
J. Lamoreaux, Theodore Abu Qurrah (Utah, 2005), 175–193.
because their ‘reason is confused by the Christian claims that the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit are three hypostases (aqānīm) in one God (ilāh wāḥid),
and that each of the hypostases is perfect God in himself’.23
He uses the human names, Peter, Paul and John as an analogy for the hypos-
tases (aqānīm) since these names refer to persons (wujūh), and the human
nature (ṭabīʿa) shared by these three names as an analogy for the divine nature
shared by the hypostases. Abū Qurra has supplied wajh/wujūh as a translation
of the Greek term prosōpon (person) which was a synonym for hypostasis in
Greek theology, as Rachid Haddad has pointed out.24 There are ‘three persons
(wujūh), one God … because the term “person” (wajh) is attributed to the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit’.25 But he recognises that the analogy with three
men must not lead to the supposition that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are
separated or differentiated, since they would then be three divine beings rather
than one divine being.26
He refers to the divine nature in various ways. The three persons (wujūh)
share the same non-physical nature (laṭāfa).27 Therefore each of the persons
shares the same essence (dhāt).28 The three persons share the same oneness
of divinity (wāḥidiyya al-lāhūt).29 Three further analogies are presented to
support the three persons sharing one divinity. If there are three lamps in a
house, they each give light, but the light is one and indivisible. When three
speakers recite the same poem simultaneously, the hearer hears one poem.
Three pieces of gold are just one kind of gold, not three kinds. Yet the oneness of
God is ‘purer and higher’ than the oneness in any of these analogies.30 Finally,
the three persons share the same nature (ṭabīʿa).31
While Abū Qurra defends the divinity of the Holy Spirit in this treatise,
he does not indicate the particular functions of the Spirit. However, he does
this in another treatise entitled, ‘A Dialogue between Theodore Abū Qurra,
the Bishop of Harran, and the Postmaster of Emesa, who had asked him to
prove through reason alone that God exists’.32 After an explanation of the
23 Abū Qurra, ‘Treatise on the Trinity’, 27.

24 See R. Haddad, La Trinité divine chez les théologiens arabes 750–1050 (Paris, 1985), 172.
30 Abū Qurra, ‘Treatise on the Trinity’, 36–37.
31 Abū Qurra, ‘Treatise on the Trinity’, 39, and 44.
32 This dialogue in Greek is translated by J. Lamoreaux, Theodore Abū Qurrah, 229–236.
50 beaumont
Trinitarian nature of God, the ‘unbeliever’ asks the ‘orthodox’ ‘what need was
there for the Holy Spirit if the Son was sufficient to bring the fullness of the
Father’s rule?’ The reply is that the Holy Spirit is ‘responsible for distributing
the gifts’ of the Father.33 But then the unbeliever asks why the Son was not
the one who did this. The orthodox replies that ‘the Father gives orders and
the Son brings to effect the Father’s good pleasure and gives the Holy Spirit
who is the wealth and treasury of all good gifts’.34 The Spirit cannot be a
created being, according to the orthodox, since the wealth of God is not less
than God himself. If the Spirit were a created being, ‘God would be ever poor,
needy and lacking … It must be that he is equal to God and coeternal with
him’.35 Here there is some engagement with the Muslim assumption that God’s
spirit is an angelic messenger, though there is no explicit discussion of Muslim
thinking.
The connection between the Holy Spirit and the giving of God’s gifts is
carried further in another Greek treatise entitled ‘Refutations of the Saracens
by Bishop Theodore of Harran, called Abū Qurra, as reported by John the
Deacon’.36 In his explanation of the Eucharist to a Muslim, John the Deacon
reports that Abū Qurra pointed out that when the priest prays the Eucharistic
prayer, ‘the Holy Spirit descends on the gifts placed’ on the holy altar, with the
result that God’s Spirit transforms the bread and wine into the body and blood
of Christ.37 He asks his Muslim dialogue partner to concede that the Holy Spirit
is just as capable of this transformative work as the liver is in transforming
‘food into the body of a person’.38 The Muslim is said to admit the possibility
grudgingly.
Finally, in a treatise ‘On the confirmation of the Gospel’,39 Abū Qurra argues
that the Holy Spirit revealed the truth of the incarnation, death and mission of
Jesus Christ to those who exercised faith: ‘They came to understand that there
were good reasons for these things, even if their mortal minds were incapable of
comprehending them’.40 The Holy Spirit disclosed this mystery ‘that had been
hidden from them before they had faith in him’.41
33 J. Lamoreaux, Theodore Abū Qurrah, 235.

36 See the translation by J. Lamoreaux, Theodore Abū Qurrah, 211–227.
39 See the translation by John Lamoreaux, Theodore Abū Qurrah, 49–53.
Abū Qurra attempts to take his Muslim audience into the thought world of
the Christian community in a way that was unique to him among Christian
apologists in the period. He alone explains the particular work of the Spirit
in the life of the church and the believer. The portrayal of the Muslim under-
standing of the transformative work of the Spirit in the Eucharist is also marked
by the reality that he does not affirm the truth of the transformation. The gulf
between Christian perception of the Spirit as indwelling the believer and the
believing community and Muslim belief in the transcendence of God is as wide
as ever.
Abū Rāʾiṭa
The West Syrian miaphysite theologian Abū Rāʾiṭa was a contemporary of Abū
Qurra with whom he claimed to have debated face to face.42 Their theological
disagreement lay in the interpretation of the union of divinity and humanity in
the incarnate Christ, but they were in agreement over the Trinitarian formula,
‘One essence in three hypostases’. However, their presentations of the Trinity
show differences in Arabic terminology and apologetic strategy. Abū Rāʾiṭa says
that he will try to answer the claim of ‘the People of the South’ that since God
is one, we Christians are wrong to teach the threeness (tathlīth) of God along
with his oneness (tawḥīd).43 He proposes that ‘the People of Truth’ agree with
‘the People of the South’ that God is one but ask them what kind of oneness
they mean. Do they mean one as genus ( jins), one as species (nawʿ) or one as
number (ʿadad)?44 If ‘genus’ is meant, then God encompasses various species
which is not possible for the Creator of all species. If ‘number’ is meant, then
God is subject to division since the number ‘one’ is a species of number which is
included in the perfection of number, and this contradicts the belief that God
is perfect without being divided into parts. If ‘species’ is meant, then God is
comprised of different beings, and this is unacceptable.45
The Christian response is to say, ‘We describe Him as “one” perfect in essence
( jawhar) and not in number, because He is in number “three” in the hypostases
42 Abū Rāʾiṭā begins his ‘Reply to the Melkites on the union (of the divine and human in
Christ)’ with a reference to a debate between himself and Abū Qurra that he wishes to
follow up in writing. See G. Graf, ed., Die Schriften des Jacobiten Ḥabīb Ibn H̱ idma Abū
Rāʾiṭā, csco 130 (Louvain, 1951), 65–72.
43 Abū Rāʾiṭa, ‘The First Letter on the Holy Trinity’, in Defending the ‘People of Truth’ in
the early Islamic Period: The Christian Apologies of Abū Rāʾiṭa, ed. and trans. S.T. Keating
(Leiden, 2006), 164–215, 168–169.
44 Abū Rāʾiṭa, ‘The First Letter on the Holy Trinity’, 170–173.
52 beaumont
(aqānīm)’. This is a perfect description of God because, firstly, it upholds His

complete difference from the creation in His essence such that nothing that is
made can be compared with Him; and, secondly, it upholds His encompassing
all numbers, even and odd, in His hypostases.46 If the Muslim asks why there are
only three hypostases and not ten or twelve, then the answer should be, ‘God
possesses knowledge and spirit, and the knowledge of God and His spirit are
permanent and perpetual, not ceasing. For it is not permitted in a description
of God for Him in His eternity to be without knowledge and spirit’.47
So, Abū Rāʾiṭa shares with all the writers surveyed a similar argument for
the divine nature of the Spirit. But he is rather less concerned to discuss the
particular functions of the Spirit. One function of the Spirit is found in a
quotation from Isaiah 48:16, where the prophet declares that God’s Spirit has
sent him. Abū Rāʾiṭa asks, ‘How is it possible that the Spirit send Isaiah if it is
not God, a perfect being?’48 But there is no developed presentation of the work
of the Spirit in the lives of believers.
In the final section of the treatise Abū Rāʾiṭa deals with the concept of
causation within the Trinity about which a Muslim may argue that since the
Father is the cause of the Son and the Spirit, He must be more worthy of
praise and worship. He points out that the Son and the Spirit are not less
than the Father from whom they originate, but that the Son and the Spirit
are ‘two perfect beings (dhātān) from one perfect being (dhāt)’.49 However,
he previously uses jawhar to refer to the essence of God rather than dhāt,
and Rachid Haddad notes that the latter term oscillates between two different
senses here, between meaning the essence ( jawhar) of God and meaning the
three individuals (ashkhāṣ), the three hypostases (aqānīm).50 This confusion
of terms could easily lead a Muslim to ask why the Son and the Spirit are not
two perfect essences ( jawharayn) from one perfect essence ( jawhar). Abū ʿĪsā
al-Warrāq would draw attention to incoherent terminology among Christian
theologians.
ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī
The East Syrian diophysite theologian ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī wrote two defences of
the Trinity, a longer one as part of a Book of Questions and Answers, and a
shorter one as a section in his Book of the Proof. The leading Muʿtazilī thinker,

50 See Haddad, La Trinité divine, 166.
Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf (d. c. 840), is said by Ibn al-Nadīm to have written
a ‘refutation of ʿAmmār the Christian in his reply to the Christians’.51 There-
fore, it is probable, as Sidney Griffith argues, that ʿAmmār was attempting to
answer Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf.52 The longer presentation is a series of answers
to nine questions posed by a Muslim about the Trinity, and these may well
be the kind of questions raised by Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf in his lost refu-
tation of ʿAmmār.53 The shorter presentation comes in an apology for key
Christian beliefs and practices and is designed as a manual of advice for Chris-
tians.
ʿAmmār’s treatment of the Holy Spirit follows the pattern established by
his predecessors of explaining the divine nature of the Holy Spirit. His defi-
nition of the Trinity involves the speech and life of the Creator. The Muslim
asks, ‘Since the Creator is one, how can one be three and three one?’54 The
answer is that there is one eternal essence ( jawhar) in three essential proper-
ties (khawāṣ jawhariyyāt) that are not differentiated or separated. The Creator
lives and speaks; so ‘life’ and ‘speech’ may be attributed to Him. ‘The princi-
pal essence ( jawhar al-ʿayn) has the attributions of His life and His speech; His
speech is the source of His wisdom and His life is the source of His spirit’.55 If
the opponents suggest that God’s attributes such as hearing, seeing, almighty,
and being merciful, generous, and kind mean that Christians cannot limit God
to threeness, then they need to distinguish between God’s names (asmāʾ) and
His attributes (ṣifāt). The names refer to actions of God whereas the attributes
refer to properties essential to Him. Only ‘life’ and ‘speech’ are essential prop-
erties in God. ‘Life and speech are properties (khawāṣ) in the structure of the
essence ( jawhar), and in the quality of the essence (dhāt), and the nature
(ṭibāʿ)’.56
51 See B. Dodge, The Fihrist of al-Nadīm, a Tenth Century Survey of Muslim Culture, (New York,
1970), 1:394.
52 See S.H. Griffith, ‘The Concept of Al-Uqnūm in ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī’s Apology for the Doctrine
of the Trinity’, in Actes du Premier Congrès International d’Études Arabes Chrétiennes,
ed. S.K. Samir (Rome, 1982): 169–190, 180–181; and S.H. Griffith, ‘ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī’s Kitāb
al-Burhān: Christian Kalām in the First Abbasid Century’, Le Museon 96 (1983): 145–181,
169–172.
53 See D. Thomas, ‘Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf’, in Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical
History 1, ed. D. Thomas and B. Roggema (Leiden, 2009), 544–549.
54 ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī, ‘Book of Questions and Answers’ (Kitāb al-masāʾil w-al-ajwiba), in ʿAm-
mār al-Baṣrī: Apologie et Controverses, ed. M. Hayek (Beyrouth, 1977), 148.
55 ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī, ‘Book of Questions and Answers’, 149.
56 ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī, ‘Book of Questions and Answers’, 156–157.
54 beaumont
When it is asked, ‘Why do you call the three hypostases Father, Son and
Holy Spirit?’ The basic reason is that the Apostles report Jesus as commanding
baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Matthew 28:19. John
also speaks of the Son as the Word of God in the opening of his gospel, and later
in 14:17 declares that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Apostles
declare, ‘The eternal living one who speaks is Father, who has His eternal Word,
and His eternal life the Holy Spirit’.57 If the opponent argues, ‘If you claim that
Father, Son and Holy Spirit are each perfect God then either you believe in three
gods or three parts of one perfect god’, ʿAmmār answers that the three distinct
members of the Trinity share the same perfect essence ( jawhar kāmil), just
as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob share the same human nature but are distinct
persons. There are not three perfect essences, or three perfect gods, but ‘each
of them in his property (khawāṣ) is perfect God’.58
Here ʿAmmār is concerned to defend the divine nature of the Holy Spirit
in relationship to the Father and Son, but does not explain the particular
functions of the Spirit of God within the Trinity. While he appeals to Biblical
statements for the Trinity he does not go on to develop a portrait of the work
of the Spirit that could have been found in scripture.
Muslim Use of the Johannine Paraclete as Referring to Muḥammad

and Christian Defense of the Paraclete as the Holy Spirit
During the questioning of Timothy, the Caliph al-Mahdī assumes that ref-
erences to the Paraclete in the Christian scriptures point to the coming of
Muḥammad. He asks, ‘Why do you accept the Messiah on the testimony of
the Torah but do not accept the testimony of the Messiah about Muḥam-
mad?’59 When Timothy answers that there is no statement made by Jesus about
Muḥammad, the Caliph asks, ‘Who is the Paraclete?’60 After Timothy’s exposi-
tion of John 14:17, 26 and 16:13–14, in which he demonstrates that Jesus promises
the Spirit who proceeds from the Father to be with the disciples, to interpret the
truth of God to them, and to bring glory to Jesus, the Caliph retorts, ‘All of that
points to the coming of Muḥammad’.61 Timothy embarks on a logical demoli-
tion of this proposal:

If Muḥammad is the Paraclete and the Paraclete is the Spirit of God,

then Muḥammad is the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is not limited so
Muḥammad is not limited. The unlimited is also unseen so Muḥammad
is unseen. The unseen has no body so Muḥammad has no body. The one
who has no body is not physical so Muḥammad is not physical. Therefore
Muḥammad is not the Paraclete.62
The Caliph accuses Christians of removing references to Muḥammad from

their scriptures. ‘Many proofs and testimonies existed in your books concern-
ing Muḥammad but you corrupted your books and altered them’.63 Timothy,
with tongue in cheek, avers that if he found a prophecy about the coming of
Muḥammad in the gospels he would ‘follow the Qurʾān’ just as the prophecies
about the coming of Jesus in the Torah made him follow the gospels.64
This reliance of the Caliph on Jesus’ prophecy of the coming of the Paraclete
as proof of his prediction of the coming of Muḥammad is one of the earliest
examples of a commonly found piece of apologetic for the Prophetic status of
Muḥammad in Muslim debate with Christians. The earliest extant testimony
for this reading of Paraclete comes in the eighth century biography of Muḥam-
mad by Ibn Isḥāq (d. 787), who reported that Muḥammad’s wife Khadija sent
him to her cousin Waraqa ibn Nawfal, ‘a Christian who had studied the scrip-
tures and was a scholar’ who accepted that Muḥammad was the prophet of
his people who had been expected.65 Jewish rabbis and Christian monks had
concluded that Muḥammad was described in their scriptures, as in John 16:13
where Jesus promised the coming of the Comforter who was Muḥammad.66
The appeal to the Bible for the confirmation of Muḥammad’s prophetic
status was taken to the most extreme lengths by ʿAlī al-Ṭabarī (d. c. 855),
a convert from Christianity, who amassed many predictions of Muḥammad
from the Old Testament in his Book of Religion and Empire.67 This tradition
among Muslim polemicists of seeking predictions of Muḥammad from the
Bible stumbles over the choice of the Paraclete. The failure to interpret the
context of the promise of the Paraclete demonstrates inadequate attention to

65 A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad. A translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah (London,
1955), 83.
66 A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 104.
67 See D. Thomas, ‘The Bible in Early Muslim Anti-Christian Polemic’, Islam and Christian-
Muslim Relations 7 (1996): 29–38 (31–32).
56 beaumont
the nature of the Christian scriptures. However, this is a mirror image of the
extraction of texts from the Qurʾān by John of Damascus and the Anonymous
Apology without concern for the context from which they come. Both sides
mined the other’s scriptures for support for their own convictions without
broader concern for accurate reading of the other’s scriptures.
Muslim Writing about Christian Belief in the Holy Spirit
The Refutation of the Christians by al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm (d. 860)

The Zaydī Imam, al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, may have written his Refutation of the
Christians after debating with Christians in Egypt between 815 and 826.68 He
quotes from the Qurʾān those verses that criticise those who associate with
God other persons worthy of worship, especially 112:1–4, ‘Say, He is God the
One, God the Eternal, who does not beget and who is not begotten, and there
is no-one like Him’. He urges Christians to pay heed. ‘Whoever talks about God
having a son, all those who associate anyone with God, among Jews, Christians,
and any other people, should listen to God’s clear arguments against them
concerning this’.69 In his presentation of Christian doctrine of the Trinity, he
shows familiarity with the kind of terminology used by Abū Qurra and Abū
Rāʾiṭa: ‘All the Christians claim that God is three separate individuals (ashkhāṣ),
and that these three individuals have one similar nature (ṭabīʿa) … Father, Son
and Holy Spirit’.70 He points out that Christians depend on analogies of the sun
and of human nature to argue that there is ‘one essence (dhāt) and one nature
(ṭabīʿa) which joins together the three hypostases (aqānīm)’.
Al-Qāsim does not go on to critique the Trinity, because he is more con-
cerned with refuting the divinity of Christ. But he is sure that the Trinity trans-
gresses the appropriate boundaries established in the Qurʾān for speaking of
God. David Thomas points out that al-Qāsim emphasises the individuality of
the hypostases ‘unlike the Arabic speaking Christians who emphasise the iden-
tity between them’.71 This Muslim understanding of the hypostases as separate
68 See W. Madelung, Der Imām al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen
(Berlin, 1965), 88–90.
69 Al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, ‘Al-Radd ʿalā al-naṣārā’, in I. di Matteo, ‘Confutazione contro I
Cristiani dello zaydati al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm’, Rivista degli Studi Orientali 9 (1921–1922):
301–364 (310).
70 Al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, ‘Al-Radd ʿalā al-naṣārā’, 314–315.
71 See D. Thomas, ‘The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Abbasid Period’ in Islamic
Interpretations of Christianity, ed. L. Ridgeon, (London, 2001), 78–98 (84).
individual deities could explain ʿAmmār’s rejection of the terminology of three

individuals (ashkhāṣ) in favour of three properties (khawāṣ) shared by the one
essence.
The Refutation of the Trinity by Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq (d. 860)

Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq’s refutation of the Trinity is certainly the most thorough
Muslim refutation of the Trinity that is extant from the early Islamic period.
He knows that the three main Christian denominations disagree about the
uniting of the divinity and humanity in Christ but that they have the same
definition of the Trinity as ‘one essence ( jawhar), three hypostases (aqānīm)’,
and that the three hypostases are Father, Son and Spirit.72 He reports that
they all believe that the Father eternally generates the Son, that the Son is
eternally generated from the Father and that the Spirit eternally pours forth
from the Father. He has noticed that the language related to the Holy Spirit
varies from ‘pours forth’ (munbathiq) to ‘flows out’ ( fāʾiḍ).73 He has discov-
ered three different terms used for the hypostases. Some Christians call them
‘properties’ (khawāṣ), others name them ‘individuals’ (ashkhāṣ), and yet oth-
ers say ‘attributes’ (ṣifāt). However, ‘despite their differences over explanation
and terminology they keep more or less the same meaning, as they themselves
admit’.74
Unlike al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq does not refer to the Qurʾān
to support his argument. Rather he relies on reason alone to test whether the
language of the Trinity upholds the unity of God. He places the language of
the Trinity under a definition of oneness that excludes threeness. One exam-
ple of this approach is a mirror argument to that of John of Damascus and his
successors to the effect that God’s Word and Spirit must be eternally divine.
He counters this notion by arguing that if the three hypostases are equivalent
to the essence then the threeness of the hypostases must attach to the one
essence. ‘Every number attaching to the properties will attach to the essential-
ity ( jawhariyya)’.75 As a result, Christians are forced to concede that there are
three essentialities rather than one.
Abū ʿĪsā applies the same logical argument to the divinity of the three
properties. Since Christians believe that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are each
72 Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq, ‘Refutation of the Trinity: The First Part of the Refutation of the
Three Christian sects’, in Anti-Christian polemic in early Islam, ed. and trans., D. Thomas
(Cambridge, 1992), 66–181 (66–67).
73 Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq, ‘Refutation of the Trinity’, 67.
74 Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq, ‘Refutation of the Trinity’, 68–69.
58 beaumont
divine, then there are three divinities who share one divine essence. This means
that Christians operate with two separate definitions of ‘divinity’, one which
relates to ‘the essence’ and the other to ‘the hypostases’.76 He applies the same
logical scrutiny to ‘the characteristics’ of the three hypostases. If ‘fatherhood’ is
essential to the Father and not the Son, then the Son lacks an essential quality
and so is less than God in his essence. If ‘fatherhood’ and ‘sonship’ are eternal
characteristics then they both share ‘fatherhood’ and ‘sonship’; therefore, the
Son must be the Father as well.77 Abū ʿĪsā does not name any Christian writers,
but he says that,
One Trinitarian theologian (mutakallim) has presented arguments in sup-

port of the essence ( jawhar) and the hypostases (aqānīm), that the one he
worships lives eternally by ‘life’ and speaks eternally by ‘speech’, and that
‘life’ and ‘speech’ are two properties (khāṣatān) which confer perfection
on His essence.78
This reference to ‘life’ and ‘speech’ as the two essential properties of God reflects
ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī’s terminology. So he is likely to be the unnamed mutakallim
here. Abū ʿĪsā examines the meaning of ‘essence’ ( jawhar), and argues that, if
the divine essence is specified by ‘life’, then any essence in the created world
must also be specified by ‘life’, so that inanimate objects such as stones would
have to be specified as ‘living’. But this is absurd. If the essence is specified
by a cause (ʿilla) other than the essence, then another eternal cause has been
established. But this would simply negate the value of the argument being put
forward.
Neither al-Qāsim nor Abū ʿĪsā expound references to the spirit of God in the
Qurʾān. It appears that they saw nothing to gain from arguing with Christians
over the precise activities of the spirit of God or his relationship with the angelic
messenger who bears the name, ‘the spirit of God’. The fact that Christians
drew their understanding of the Holy Spirit from the Bible was irrelevant to
them, since the developed conceptualisation of the Trinity among Christians
provided the most obvious point of attack. The Qurʾān is in any case concerned
with the assertion of a trinity by Christians and shows no interest in the
scriptural origins of this belief.

Conclusion
The Quranic terminology for the spirit of God is explicitly cited in the earliest
Christian responses to Islam but is only implicit in the ninth century Christian
apologetic. This is mirrored by the fact that the Paraclete references in the
early Muslim debate with Christians are sidelined in ninth century Muslim
refutations. The tendency of the later debaters is to defend the unity of God.
From the Muslim side, the ‘spirit of God’ can only be a reference to God in
himself, and the focus of criticism of Christian conceptualisation of the Holy
Spirit is to argue that the unity of God requires this interpretation. As for the
Christian writers of the ninth century, they all seek to defend the revealed
distinctions within the godhead. Thus the Holy Spirit is the third member of the
Trinity, fully God, but with distinct characteristics. However, only Abū Qurra
attempts to explain the particular functions of the Holy Spirit in the life of the
church community in the context of a Muslim audience. The neglected third
member of the Trinity was thus given prominence only for a moment in the
early Christian dialogue with Muslims.
chapter 5
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, Disciples and Masters:

On Questions of Religious Philosophy
Emilio Platti
Introduction
The ongoing multi-volume work Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical

History (hereafter cmr) is certainly a fantastic achievement due to the initia-
tive of Professor David Thomas.1 We now have a much better overview of the
history of Christian-Muslim relations than before, and authors can be easily
linked to others so that a more contextual approach to scholarship is possible.
For example, when discussing “Islamic Philosophy,” it is common to jump from
al-Kindī (d. 870) and al-Fārābī (d. 950) straight to Avicenna (d. 1037), forgetting
about “the circle of al-Kindī,”2 the early years of al-Fārābī and his neo-platonic
masters,3 and what is called “the School of Baghdad,” the Baghdad Peripatetics,
including the most prominent representative, the Christian Jacobite philoso-
pher and theologian Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (d. 974), his Christian and Muslim masters,
his disciples, and in particular ʿĪsā ibn Zurʿa (d. 1008) up to Abū al-Faraj ibn al-
Ṭayyib (d. 1043). Thanks to cmr, we are now much better able to understand
how, between 750 and 1050, interaction between Christian, Muslim and Jewish
scholars was very common on philosophical and theological questions and, in
particular, on questions of “religious philosophy.”
This contribution in honor of Professor David Thomas is a bibliographical
addendum to the article on Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī written in 2008 and published in 2010
in cmr 2.4 That article for cmr reported on scholarship on Yaḥyā’s theological
1 David Thomas et al., eds., Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History (hereafter

cmr), 7 vols. to date (Leiden: Brill, 2009–), also available in an online format at http://
referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/christian-muslim-relations.
2 Gerhard Endress, “The Circle of al-Kindī: Early Arabic Translations from the Greek and the
Rise of Islamic Philosophy,” in The Ancient Tradition in Christian and Islamic Hellenism, ed.
Gerhard Endress and Remke Kruk (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 43–76.
3 Philippe Vallat, Farabi et l’ École d’Alexandrie. Des prémisses de la connaissance à la philosophie
politique (Paris: Vrin, 2004).
4 Emilio Platti, “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī,” cmr 2:390–438.

yaḥyā ibn ʿadī, disciples and masters 61
and polemical work from the time of the earliest publications of Georg Graf in
1910 and the 1920 publication of Augustin Périer’s thesis.5 The present article
introduces material and publications on topics of religious philosophy which
in fact have become a subject of more intense research only recently, even
though Endress and Pines had already discovered two manuscripts containing
philosophical treatises in Tehran in 1971 and Khalifat had edited the text of
these manuscripts in 1988. More recently, Robert Wisnovsky has presented a
newly discovered third manuscript with twenty-four philosophical treatises,6
which will make it possible to understand the coherence of Yaḥyā’s thinking
concerning some fundamental questions of theology or religious philosophy
better.7 We have not included a third category of works on purely logical or
philosophical subjects in this presentation.
Three resources are essential for further research on Yaḥyā’s philosophical
thought on religious matters. First is Gerhard Endress’ Analytical Inventory of
Yaḥyā’s works published in 1977,8 which will be cited according to the num-
bering system of the inventory (e.g., e4.41 refers to the text listed by Endress
as 4.41). Second is Sabhan Khalifat’s edition of 24 philosophical treatises that
are listed in Endress’ inventory.9 Third is Robert Wisnovsky’s supplement to
Endress’ inventory that derives from the newly discovered codex Madrasa-yi
Marwī 19, which was copied in October 1662. Wisnovsky’s supplement pro-
vides the incipits and explicits of 24 treatises in the codex that Endress had
thought were lost. With this, it appears that we have now almost all of Yaḥyā ibn
5 Georg Graf, Die Philosophie und Gotteslehre des Jaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (Münster: Aschendorff, 1910);
Augustin Périer, Yaḥyā ben ʿAdī: un philosophe arabe chrétien du xe siècle (Paris: J. Gabalda,
1920).
6 Robert Wisnovsky, “New Philosophical Texts of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī: A Supplement to Endress’
Analytical Inventory,” in Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture and Religion. Studies in
Honor of Dimitri Gutas, ed. Felicitas Opwis and David Reisman (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 308–
326.
7 As for the concepts of jawhar and maʿnā in Yaḥyā’s polemical theological works, see Emilio
Platti, “Towards an interpretation of Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī’s terminology in his theological treatises,”
Mélanges de l’ Institut Dominicain d’Etudes Orientales 29 (2012): 61–71, and in particular the
text published by Stephen Menn and Robert Wisnovsky, “Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī On the Four Scientific
Questions Concerning the Three Kinds of Existence. Editio princeps and Translation,” Mélanges
de l’ Institut Dominicain d’ Etudes Orientales 29 (2012): 73–96.
8 Gerhard Endress, The Works of Yahyâ Ibn ʿAdî: An analytical inventory (Wiesbaden: Ludwig
Reichert, 1977).
9 Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī, The Philosophical Treatises, ed. Sabhan Khalifat (Amman: Department of
Philosophy, University of Jordan, 1988) (hereafter Khalifat).
62 platti
ʿAdī’s treatises mentioned by Ibn al-Nadīm and other medieval sources. Some
of these treatises have been recently published and translated.10
In this contribution, special attention will be given to three topics. First is
the interaction between Jews, Muslims and Christians as disciples and masters,
which has recently become much more apparent in the context of the Graeco-
Arabic translation movement and in particular with Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī, Yaḥyā
ibn ʿAdī’s predecessor in Baghdad, who was linked to this movement. Second is
what are probably the most important questions of religious philosophy in this
context: the question of causality and the relation between the human ability
to act and God’s omnipotence. In this regard some information will be added
to analyses of Yaḥyā’s treatises on iktisāb published in 2003 and 2004. Also dis-
cussed are Yaḥyā’s treatises on potentiality and the sophism of the abolition
of the possible and the question of God’s foreknowledge and human freedom,
with the translation of an unpublished short note.11 On this matter, it can be
shown that Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī is perfectly in line with the positions of his Christian
predecessors, such as those expressed by Theodore Abū Qurra in his treatise
on human’s freedom. Third, we notice that almost none of Yaḥyā’s treatises on
philosophical subjects can be found in Coptic manuscripts but that they are
preserved only in Iranian libraries. This brings us to the (hypothetical) conclu-
sion that Coptic Christian authors of the Coptic renaissance in the thirteenth
century did not have access to Yaḥyā’s philosophical views so as to understand
his theological and polemical work better.
Interaction between Arab Christian, Muslim and Jewish Scholars
As in cmr 2, our starting point is again Sidney Griffith’s description of the two
levels of discussion between Arab Christian, Muslim and Jewish scholars found
in his book The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque:
10 See Robert Wisnovsky, “Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī’s Discussion of the Prolegomena to the Study of a
Philosophical Text (Introd., text and transl.),” in Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic
Thought, ed. Michael Cook, et al. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 187–201; Peter
Adamson and Robert Wisnovsky, “Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī on the Location of God,” in Oxford Studies
in Medieval Philosophy, vol. 1, ed. Robert Pasnau (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013),
205–228.
11 On providence, with reference to the treatise of Alexander of Aphrodisia on this matter,
in the translation of Yaḥyā’s teacher Abū Bishr Mattā, see Emilio Platti, “Les thèses des
philosophes rejetées par Ghazālī telles que les présente Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī,” Mélanges de
l’ Institut Dominicain d’Etudes Orientales 30 (2014): 75–89.
On one level it is certainly true that a clash of theologies characterized the

relationship between Muslims and Christians in the early Islamic period,
in the sense that their shared reasoning issued in radically opposed con-
clusions on major religious topics. But on another level it is also true that
the dialogue between them, which the public culture they shared made
possible, allowed them to discuss together such issues as the ontological
status of the divine attributes, or the effects of the acts of the divine will
on human freedom …12
There was of course more direct and personal interaction between Muslims,
Christians and Jews, as they were contemporary scholars and colleagues. For
example, Wisnovsky mentions Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s brother Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAdī
“known as Abū Naṣr” who perhaps named his son Naṣr “as a gesture of respect
to his teacher al-Fārābī, who had earlier named his son Naṣr.”13 In this context of
interaction between Muslims and Christians, it becomes more and more obvi-
ous that both the “theological” works and the treatises on “religious philosophy”
are linked to this situation. This is becoming increasingly clear in the case of
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī now that most of his theological and philosophical work has
been recovered.
Christians such as Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī used the literary form of the “refutation”
(radd) to discuss the articles of faith in dialogue with Muslims. The most
famous is of course Yaḥyā’s refutation of Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb al-Kindī’s treatise
on the Trinity.14 However, we should also note in this context ʿĪsā ibn Zurʿa’s
12 Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the
World of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 158, as quoted in Platti, “Yaḥyā
Ibn ʿAdī,” cmr 2:392.
13 Wisnovsky, “Supplement,” 326.
14 Cornelia Schöck, “The Controversy between al-Kindī and Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī on the Trinity,
Part One: A Revival of the Controversy between Eunomius and the Cappadocian Fathers,”
Oriens 40.1 (2012): 1–50, and “Controversy between al-Kindī and Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī on the Trin-
ity, Part Two: Gregory of Nyssa’s and Ibn ʿAdī’s Refutations of Eunomius’ and al-Kindī’s
‘Error’,” Oriens 42.2 (2014): 220–253; the article starts with the presumption that both al-
Kindī and Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī knew the patristic controversies (in Greek?) very well: “Al-Kindī’s
refutation of the Trinity must have appeared to Ibn ʿAdī as an Arabic-Muslim revival of
Arianism. Likewise, it is hardly conceivable that al-Kindī was not aware that he took up
logical arguments of the Arian party against the dogma that God-Father and -Son are ‘of
one substance’ (ὁμοούσιος). Thus, al-Kindī’s refutation of the Trinity together with Yaḥyā
b. ʿAdī’s response is an example of the Sitz im Leben of the logical and philosophical prob-
lem of οὑσία and a document for how the early Muslims became acquainted with logic
and philosophy through Christian dialectic disputes” (p. 4). Al-Kindī’s disciple Sarakhsī
64 platti
refutation of selected arguments against the Trinity and anthropomorphism

(tashbīh) presented by the renown Muʿtazilī author Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbdallāh al-
Balkhī (d. 931)15 and Ibn Zurʿa’s Epistle to the Jewish author Bishr ibn Finḥās
on Mosaic and Christian Law.16 These are typical “theological” topics—Trinity,
Mosaic and Christian Law, etc. The discussions mentioned show that it is
of course meaningful in this case to use the terms Islamic theology (kalām)
and Christian scholastic theology. The distinction made by Griffith indeed still
stands: in this case “their shared reasoning issued in radically opposed conclu-
sions on major religious topics.” However, the recent research underlines the
difference when it comes to discussing “together such issues as the ontologi-
cal status of the divine attributes, or the effects of the acts of the divine will
on human freedom …” There is here a different kind of in-depth interaction
between Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers in this field, characterized by
the overwhelming influence of ancient Greek philosophy, so that it becomes
meaningless to use the term “Islamic Philosophy” in this early, very prolific
period between 780 and 1050. It is more convenient to speak of this formative
period as “Classical Arabic Philosophy.”
But we are even more prone to forget the immense pagan influence on Arab
philosophers than that of Christians and Jews. As Rémi Brague notes, the term
“Islamic Philosophy” is also for this reason not at all appropriate.17 There was
participated in a similar debate with Isrāʾīl of Kashkar where he also challenged the ratio-
nality of the Christian doctrine (cmr 1:840–843).
15 David Thomas, “Abū l-Qāsim al-Balkhī: Awāʾil al-adilla fī uṣūl al-dīn, ‘Fundamentals of the
Proofs for the principles of religion’,” cmr 2:189–191; Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala, “Ibn Zurʿa:
Radd Abī l-Qāsim ʿAbdallāh al-Balkhī ʿalā l-Naṣārā fī kitābihi l-musammā Awāʾil al-adilla,
‘Abū l-Qāsim ʿAbdallāh ibn Aḥmad al-Balkhī’s refutation of the Christians in his book
entitled “Fundaments of the proofs” ’,” cmr 2:573–574.
16 Peter Starr, “The Epistle to Bišr b. Finḥās (Maqālah ʿamalahā ilā Bišr b. Finḥās) of Ibn Zurʿah
(m. a.h. 398/a.d. 1008). Edition, Translation and Commentary” (PhD thesis, Cambridge
University, 1999); Sidney Griffith, “ʿĪsā ibn Zurʿah on the Abrogation of Mosaic Law and
the Redundancy of the Islamic Sharīʿah,” in Orientalia Christiana: Festschrift für Hubert
Kaufhold zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Peter Bruns and Heinz Otto Luthe (Wiesbaden: Harras-
sowitz, 2013), 175–194.
17 Rémi Brague, “En quoi la philosophie islamique est-elle islamique?” in L’Orient chrétien
dans l’ empire musulman, ed. Geneviève Gobillot and Marie-Thérèse Urvoy (Paris: Éditions
de Paris, 2005), 119–120: “Certains savants ont forgé des néologismes destinés à montrer
que, par ‘islamique’ ou des expressions de ce genre, on ne doit prêter attention qu’à la seule
civilisation. C’ est ainsi que le regretté Lawrence Berman avait risqué l’anglais islamicate;”
the term is now more common: cf. the journal Intellectal History of the Islamicate World 1
(2013): 1, which reads, “ihiw provides a forum for research that systematically crosses the
indeed “the massive Graeco-Arabic translation movement of the ninth century,

associated with two ‘circles’ or ‘schools’ in particular, namely that of al-Kindī
and that of the Nestorian scholar Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq (d. 873 or 877),”18 but also
al-Fārābī and his masters and the school of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī and his disciples.
In the larger field of religious philosophy, theology and philosophy can also
be intertwined, and a link between the Muslim and Christian philosophical
positions and their faiths can still be apparent.19 It will become clear that this
is the case in Ibn ʿAdī’s treatises much more than in al-Fārābī’s work.
In this larger context of interaction between Muslim and Christian schol-
ars of his time, Yaḥyā’s treatises on religious philosophical subjects deserve
our particular attention because they touch the very heart of both Islam and
Christianity. This is especially so for Yaḥyā’s treatises on God’s omnipotence
and foreknowledge and causality and human freedom because they relate to
the more pre-deterministic doctrine represented by contemporary Muslim the-
ologians such as Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 935). Before discussing al-Ashʿarī,
however, it is important to examine the position of Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī,20 Yaḥyā’s
predecessor in Baghdad and his teacher.
Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī
Philippe Vallat provides an interesting way to understand Fārābī’s position. He

refers to Ibn Abī ʿUṣaybiʿa and Ibn al-Nadīm and links al-Fārābī to a pagan
philosophical tradition in Ḥarrān21 whose inhabitants’ last pagan temple was
boundaries between the three major disciplines of academia and research, viz. Islamic
Studies, Jewish Studies and the study of (Eastern) Christianity.”
18 Peter Adamson and Peter E. Pormann, eds., The Philosophical Works of Al-Kindī (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012), xxiii.
19 See Platti, “Les thèses des philosophes rejetées par Ghazālī.”
20 Al-Fārābī was most probably from Sogdian/Persian origin and not Turkish as commonly
thought; see Goshtasp Lohraspi, “Some remarks on Farabi’s background, Iranic (Sog-
dian/Persian) or Turkic (Altaic)?” accessed 11 September 2014, https://archive.org/details/
SomeRemarksOnFarabisBackgroundIranicsoghdianpersianOraltaic.
21 Cf. Vallat, Farabi et l’ École d’Alexandrie and the introduction to his French translation of
al-Fārābī’s Risāla fī al-ʿaql: Al-Fārābī, Épître sur l’ intellect, trans., Philippe Vallat (Paris: Les
Belles Lettres, 2012), xxviff, “[Les années] 850–950: Le contexte païen de la falsafa.” Cf.
Dimitri Gutas, “The ‘Alexandria to Baghdad’ Complex of Narratives: A Contribution to the
Study of Philosophical and Medical Historiography among the Arabs,” Documenti e Studi
sulla Tradizione Medievale 10 (1999): 155–193.
66 platti
destroyed in 1032.22 However, Vallat’s position is still a hypothetical proposi-

tion that tries to resolve some unanswered questions about the transmission
of ancient pagan philosophy into Arabic.23 According to Vallat, Greek philo-
sophical teaching was transmitted into Arabic from a pagan center in Ḥarrān
to Yuḥanna ibn Ḥaylān (d. 910?), a teacher of al-Fārābī.24 Vallat’s research cor-
roborates this by reviving the idea that pagan philosophy linked to the schools
of Alexandria and Athens was transmitted directly from Greek into Arabic, via
Antioch, without intermediary transmission through Syriac. This line of trans-
mission could also explain why the writings of the first Muslim philosopher
al-Kindī (d. 870) seem to be drawing only on prior Arabic sources at a time
when Greek and Syriac were still very much the languages of philosophy.25 For
Vallat the line of transmission via Ḥarrān is also essential to link Greek pagan
philosophy with the Muslim Arabs. However, it is clear that the reception of
Greek philosophical works in Arabic translation also reached Baghdad in other
ways.
The link with Ḥarrān could also explain on the one hand how al-Fārābī
was fascinated by ancient (pagan) Greek philosophy and on the other hand
how other Arabic speaking Christians such as Theodor Abū Qurrah, bishop of
Ḥarrān (!) (d. after 829), bishop Isrāʾīl of Kaskar (d. 872) and Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq
22 Al-Fārābī, Le livre du régime politique, trans. Philippe Vallat (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2012),
xxxvii.
23 On the Ṣābians of Ḥarrān and the (non-)existence of a Ḥarrānian Platonic School, see
Kevin van Bladel, The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009), 64–79; according to van Bladel, “None of the Arabic evi-
dence … supports the hypothesis of a Platonic school at Ḥarrān;” he criticizes Michel
Tardieu’s article, “Ṣābiens coraniques et ‘Ṣābiens’ de Ḥarrān,” Journal Asiatique 274 (1986):
1–44, but this does not mean that Arabic speaking Ḥarrānian circles did not transmit some
pagan Greek philosophical works.
24 Vallat writes in the introduction to al-Fārābī, Le livre du régime politique, xi: “De l’entourage
de Farabi, on ne connaît à ce jour que le nom de ses maîtres et de ses disciples. Un fait doit
à ce propos retenir l’ attention: ils étaient tous chrétiens, y compris ceux qui transcrivirent
ses commentaires sur Aristote et la Cité vertueuse. Le manuscrit le plus ancien de la Cité
vertueuse (xie siècle) a également été copié par un chrétien.”
25 It is important to notice in this context that we know very little about al-Kindī’s back-
ground and how he became the most famous first Arab Muslim philosopher; cf. Adamson
and Pormann, The Philosophical Works of Al-Kindī, xx: “… a lot of the information that we
have about al-Kindī is of doubtful historicity.” See also Ẓāhir al-Dīn al-Bayhaqī, Tatimmat
ṣiwān al-ḥikma, ed. Rafic El-Ajam (Beirut: Dār al-fikr al-lubnānī, 1994): “People have dif-
ferent opinions about his religion; some say that he was Jewish and converted to Islam;
others that he was a Christian …” (p. 50).
(d. 873) were themselves directly influenced by this tradition going back to the
schools of Athens and Alexandria and their neo-platonic teachings.
This could also be one of the ways medicine and logic were brought to Bagh-
dad,26 where they joined mathematics, astrology/astronomy and medicine,
which were already there and very much needed in this expanding capital of
the empire. The translation movement was indeed initiated long before caliph
al-Maʾmūn (d. 833) and the “circle of al-Kindī.” It started with translation from
Greek into Syriac as in the case with Sergius of Reshʿayna (d. 536) who was the
disciple of the neoplatonist philosopher Ammonius Hermiae (d. circa 520).27
Vallat goes so far as to say that Fārābī’s interest in philosophy was in fact a
kind of “conversion” towards “Aristotelism in its pagan dimension, in a sense
that he adopted exclusively the rationality of the Neo-platonist commenta-
tors of Aristotle.”28 Al-Ghazālī’s Tahāfut reminds us that some of these Muslim
philosophers diverge from three fundamental articles of Islam (and Christian-
ity): the temporal creation of the world as opposed to its pre-eternity (qidam
al-ʿālam), God’s knowledge of particulars, and the physical resurrection of
bodies. According to al-Ghazālī, “the source of their unbelief is in their hear-
ing high-sounding names such as ‘Socrates’, ‘Hippocrates’, ‘Plato’, ‘Aristotle’ and
their likes …”29
However, with regard to the three articles of faith mentioned by al-Ghazālī,
al-Fārābī’s disciple Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī falls very much in line with the Christian
faith. He upholds the doctrines of the world’s origination, the resurrection
of bodies and God’s attribute of knowledge including particulars. If Vallat is
right in his interpretation of al-Fārābī, there is a fundamental disagreement
between Yaḥyā and his master when they refer to the ancient philosophers.
He will not agree that the ultimate criterion for truth is whatever Aristotle
26 Vallat goes so far as to affirm in the introduction to Al-Fārābī, Épître sur l’intellect, xxx–xxxi,
“Il faut citer les noms de quatre philosophes non chrétiens, contemporains de Thābit
(Ibn Qurra, from Ḥarrān, d. 901), sur qui le paganisme ḥarrānien exerça une profonde
fascination religieuse et intellectuelle que personne n’a encore cherché à expliquer. Ces
quatre philosophes sont les plus grands noms de l’ époque: Kindī (ob. 873), ses disciples
Sarakhsī (ob. 899) et Abū Maʿshar (ob. 886), et le médecin et philosophe Abū Bakr al-Rāzī
(ob. 925), qui fut sans doute l’ esprit le plus brillant de son temps avec Kindī, Thābit et
quelques autres.”
27 Henri Hugonnard-Roche, “Note sur Sergius de Rešʿainā, traducteur du grec en syriaque et
commentateur d’ Aristote,” in Endress and Kruk, The Ancient Tradition, 121–143.
28 Vallat in the introduction to al-Fārābī, Épître sur l’ intellect, xxiii.
29 Al-Ghazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-falāsifa), ed. and trans., Michael
E. Marmura, 2nd ed. (Provo, ut: Brigham Young University Press, 2000), 2.
68 platti
or other ancient philosophers said. For Yaḥyā, the ultimate criterion for truth
is revelation, and he is very explicit on this point in some of his polemical
treatises.30
From this point of view, we should not exaggerate the pagan aspect of
the “Ḥarrānian school” and the heritage from Athens, via Antioch, where the
school was established in 718. In this context, al-Fārābī’s “conversion” was
probably an exception, and his Muslim predecessor al-Kindī was indeed not
at all in the same line.31 When Emperor Justinianus closed the philosophical
school of Athens in 529, John Philoponus, who was a Christian unlike his
master Ammonius, was able to save the Alexandrian school for their disciples
Olympiodorus and Stephanus and their own disciples David and Elias. As all
of them were Christians, it can be said that the school of Alexandria became
Christian around 530 at the time of Philoponus.32 So, there can be no doubt that
the further link to Baghdad must have been profoundly influenced by those
Christians mentioned in Dimitri Gutas’ article on “The ‘Alexandria to Bagdad’
Complex of Narratives” of al-Masʿūdī, Ibn al-Nadīm and Ibn Abī ʿUsaybiʿa.33
Above all, there was also the Christian Syriac line of transmission including
Sergius of Reshʿayna and others.
But this fact does not contradict the immense influence of ancient (pagan)
philosophy and demonstration methods on both Yaḥyā and al-Fārābī. This is
shown again very clearly in Wisnovsky’s article on Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s Discussion of
the Prolegomena to the Study of a Philosophical Text, which is directly influenced
by al-Fārābī’s works on this subject, al-Fārābī being indeed Yaḥyā’s teacher
on these matters.34 The influence of ancient philosophy is also obvious in
questions of religious philosophy, and in the following paragraphs we will show
that both Yaḥyā and al-Fārābī have a common philosophical view in affirming
some autonomy of creation, very much in opposition to al-Ashʿarī’s theological
affirmation that God brings everything into creation directly.
30 Platti, “Les thèses des philosophes rejetées par Ghazālī,” 80ff.; see Jules Janssens, “La
philosophie peut-elle contribuer au dialogue interreligieux?” in Perspectives on Islamic
Culture, ed. Bert Broeckaert, Stef van den Branden and Jean-Jacques Pérennès (Louvain:
Peeters, 2013), 197–218.
31 See Endress, “The Circle of Al-Kindī,” 75–76.
32 Henri-Dominique Saffrey, “Le chrétien Jean Philopon et la survivance de l’École d’Alexan-
drie au vième siècle,” Revue des études grecques 67 (1954): 396–410.
33 Gutas, “The ‘Alexandria to Baghdad’ Complex of Narratives.”
34 Wisnovsky, “Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī’s Discussion,” 188.
Al-Ashʿarī and al-Fārābī on Causality
The question of the relation between God’s almighty power and secondary
causes has been at the heart of many a discussion among Muslim theologians
such as al-Ashʿarī and al-Ghazālī and philosophers since al-Fārābī, who was
joined by Christian philosophers and theologians such as Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, up
to Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), who made mention of the Muslim “loquentes”
(mutakallimūn).35 This in fact has continued on well into modern times.
Indeed, modern Muslim intellectuals such as the Indian scholar Asghar Ali
Engineer criticize the tendency towards pre-determinism in the classical
Islamic tradition:
According to al-Ashʿarī God creates accidents at each moment and the

universe consists of these accidents. Thus the universe is created, accord-
ing to this view, by the direct will of God. Human agents have no role to
play, nor any creativity or initiative. Human beings are determined objects
and not active, creative subjects ….al-Ghazali strengthened the Ashʿarī
doctrine of occasionalism.36
Al-Ashʿarī’s position is clearly expressed in his ʿaqīda, translated by Mont-

gomery Watt:
[Those following the ḥadīth and the Sunna (ahl al-ḥadīth wa-l-sunna)]
hold that a (person) has no acting-power to do anything (inna aḥadan
lā yastaṭīʿ an yafʿal shayʾan) before he (actually) does it, and that he is not
able to escape God’s knowledge or to do a thing God knows he will not
do. They assert that there is no creator except God, that the evil actions of
human beings are created by God, … and that human beings are not able
to create anything.37
35 Thomae de Aquino, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q. 5 a. 9 ad 4, in Opera omnia, vol. 22

(Rome: [Commissio Leonina], 1970), 165: “Et hanc opinionem Rabbi Moyses dicit esse
loquentium in lege Maurorum: dicunt enim, quod ignis non calefacit, sed Deus in igne. Sed
haec positio stulta est cum auferat rebus omnibus naturales operationes; et contrariatur
dictis philosophorum et sanctorum.”
36 Asghar Ali Engineer, “Perspectives on Islam and Philosophy,” in Secularism, Islam and
Modernity: Selected Essays of Alam Khundmiri, ed. M.T. Ansari, (New Delhi: Sage Publi-
cations, 2001), 34.
37 W. Montgomery Watt, trans., Islamic Creeds. A Selection (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
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Al-Ghazālī will elaborate this position, being aware of the fact that religious
philosophy has to include in one way or another the mystical experience of the
“unity of being” expressed in the conviction that “none has being, save through
His Face—so that His Face alone is,” and in accord with the Qurʾan, “… call not,
besides God, on another god. There is no God than He. Everything will perish
except His own Face …” (q 28:88).38
In contemporary reflection on Islamic “fundamentalism” and the question
of the autonomous subsistence of the universe, al-Ashʿarī and al-Ghazālī’s posi-
tions can be seen to imply an “unjustified interference from heteronomy into
an autonomous domain.”39 However, we should not forget the reality of reli-
gious and mystical experience behind al-Ashʿarī and al-Ghazālī’s expressions.
Since the first century of Islam until now there is indeed a tension in Islamic
thought concerning the autonomy of creation, human freedom and God’s
almighty power. Consciousness of freedom and awareness of secondary causes
in the universe are now seen as basic elements for human thinking while God’s
almighty power and foreknowledge are fundamental in religion. There is no
doubt that this paradox is also at the heart of many discussions on religious
philosophy at the time of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī and his master al-Fārābī.
We again come across this fundamental question while reading the doc-
toral research and several articles and translations concerning al-Fārābī by the
French scholar Philippe Vallat and in particular in the notes to his translation
of Fārābī’s Kitāb al-siyāsa al-madaniyya (The Political Regime) where he argues
that for al-Fārābī, “The First Principle is not the efficient cause of the world,
but only its final and formal cause.”40 In his introduction to the translation of
Fārābī’s Risāla fī al-ʿaql (The Epistle on the Intellect), Vallat is very clear on this
matter:
Press, 1994), 42 § 15–16, with transliteration inserted from al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn,
ed. H. Ritter (Istanbul, 1929–1930), 291.
38 Cf. Emilio Platti, “L’idée de création dans l’ islam,” in Que soit! L’idée de création comme don
à la pensée, ed. Françoise Mies (Bruxelles, Lessius, 2012), 190–192.
39 Emilio Platti, Islam … étrange? 3rd ed. (Paris: Cerf, 2009), 289.
40 Vallat in al-Fārābī, Le livre du régime politique, 1–2 n. 2: “La question des Causes secon-
des est une véritable ligne de partage des eaux dans la philosophie arabe, entre, d’une
part, les philosophes héritiers d’ Aristote et de ses interprètes, dont Farabi, qui soutien-
nent l’ indépendance et la subsistance des Causes secondes, et la tradition kindienne et
avicenienne, qui permet de penser la résorption de ces Causes secondes dans la Cause
première, en préparant ainsi la voie à la résorption de la philosophie dans la théologie
islamique de l’ unicité divine (ʿilm al-tawḥīd).”
Both the ideas of possibility and contingency are in evidence for al-Fārābī,
but they are extremely problematic for the school of al-Ashʿarī, in the
sense that there is some (undetermined) space in natural phenomena,
where divine action and thought produces neither necessary nor deter-
mined outcomes, and that certain things depend in reality on human free
will.41
In the context of this fundamental discussion, al-Fārābī’s position is clearly not

in tune with al-Ashʿarī’s creed, and on the subject of the human’s real capacity
to act Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī is even more explicit.
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī on the Human Capacity to Act
As we have already mentioned, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s treatises on questions of Islamic

Kalām deserve our particular attention and especially his responses to Muslim
theologians on the human capacity to act and on potentiality or the possible
(mumkin). These are two subjects where we find an explicit link with the great
theologian Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī. The following section of this article will
discuss several treatises on the “abolition of the possible” (ibṭāl al-mumkin).
Here we will examine the treatise on human capacity numbered e5.36: “What
[Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī] wrote to Abī ʿUmar Saʿd ibn [Saʿīd] al-Zaynabī: a critique of the
arguments which he communicated to him, in support of those who assert that
the acts are God’s creation and an acquisition of man” (Mā kataba ilā Abī ʿUmar
Saʿd ibn [Saʿīd] al-Zaynabī fī naqḍ al-ḥujaj allatī anfadhahā ilayhi fī nuṣrat qawl
al-qāʾilīn inna al-afʿāl khalq li-llāh wa-ktisāb li-l-ʿibād).
41 Vallat in al-Fārābī, Épître sur l’ intellect, xviii and xx, and notes 17–18: Fārābī “traite de
la connaissance divine des particuliers et de la causalité déterminante de cette pre-
science divine. Comme on le sait, les deux questions—prescience divine et détermin-
isme causal—sont liées explicitement depuis au moins le Traité du destin d’Alexandre
d’ Aphrodise,” and “… évidente pour Farabi et problématique pour l’École acharite est
l’ idée de possible et de contingence, à savoir qu’ il y a du jeu dans les phénomènes naturels,
que l’ action et la pensée divines ne sont nullement nécessitantes ou déterministes et que
certaines choses dépendent réellement du libre-arbitre des hommes …” See also Philippe
Vallat, “Deux modèles de physique non-déterministe: Maimonide, lecteur de Farabi: La
sous-détermination physique de l’ éthique,” conference presentation for “Maimonide, un
humanisme médiévale,” Damascus, Institut Français du Proche Orient, June 2007, version
2, 15 February 2008, accessed 11 September 2014, http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/
25/66/37/PDF/Deux_modeles_de_physique_non-deterministe.pdf.
72 platti
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī wrote this treatise as a refutation against Abū ʿUmar Saʿd
ibn al-Zaynabī (?) ibn Saʿīd. This Muslim author was clearly a follower of the
Ashʿarī doctrine of kasb or iktisāb, the doctrine of “acquisition,” which is the
appropriation of human acts by humans while the acts themselves are created
by the almighty God. Ibn al-Zaynabī has not yet been identified, but according
to Khalifat, there may be a reference to this author in the historical work
al-Muntaẓam of Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 1201). The text of Yaḥyā’s treatise has been
edited by Khalifat, and Shlomo Pines and I have commented upon it.42 The
central theme of the discussion is the relation between divine and human
determination of actions.
We can summarize the arguments of the unknown disciple of al-Ashʿarī,
Abū ʿUmar Saʿd ibn al-Zaynabī, as presented by Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī, in the following
way.43 God is not a “thing.” Rather, He is above every “thing.” He is Creator and
every “thing” is created. Only God is able to “bring into existence” (ījād) because
He is the only one who can initiate and bring back into existence (al-ibtidāʾ
wa al-iʿāda). He is also the only one who can bring human acts into existence.
From this it becomes obvious that humans cannot create their acts; they can
only appropriate or “acquire” them (muktasib). In this argument two principles
are crucial. First is the absolute transcendence of God who is the only source of
any “thing” coming to being. Second is that both substances and accidents are
“things” belonging to the created world and that they came into being by the
creation of God who never “came into being” himself.
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s position can be summarized as follows without going into
the details of his arguments. For Yaḥyā, it is wrong to say that only God who is
pre-eternal (qadīm) can create. Accidents can also be created by men. An agent
who is himself created and brought into being can indeed bring something
into being, as is the case with the human act, which is an accident. For Yaḥyā
42 Khalifat, 303–313 (reference to the author on p. 95 n. 1); Shlomo Pines and Michael
Schwarz, “Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī’s Refutation of the Doctrine of Acquisition (iktisāb),” in Studia
Orientalia Memoriae D.H. Baneth Dedicata (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, Hebrew Uni-
versity of Jerusalem, 1979), 49–94; Emilio Platti, “Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī: Réflexions à propos de
questions du Kalām musulman,” in Studies on the Christian Arabic Heritage, ed. Rifaat
Ebied and Herman Teule (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 177–197; Emilio Platti, “Entre théologie et
philosophie: Des Arabes chrétiens dans l’ œuvre de Shlomo Pines (1908–1990),” in Sources
and Approaches across Disciplines in Near Eastern Studies (ola, 215), ed. Verena Klemm
and Nuha al-Shaʾar (Louvain: Peeters, 2012), 101–112.
43 Emilio Platti, “Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī and the Theory of Iktisāb,” in Christians at the Heart of Islamic
Rule: Church Life and Scholarship in ʿAbbasid Iraq, ed. David Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 2003),
151–157.
ibn ʿAdī, the term “thing” (ʿayn) could be applied to an accident (ʿaraḍ), but
it is more common to apply it only to a substance ( jawhar) such as a human
being, a horse, a tree or a stone. In this sense, the term can be applied also
to the Creator. Fundamental for Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s position is his distinction
between substances and accidents and his definition of substance ( jawhar)
and the status of substances, which are equivalent to “real entities” (maʿānin)
and “substantial things” (aʿyān). For Yaḥyā it can indeed be said that God is
one of the “things” (ʿayn min al-aʿyān) in the sense that in His existence He
is in no need of anything else (bi-l-maʿnā annahu mustaghnin fī wujūdihi ʿan
ghayrihi), which is the characteristic of a substance and not only God. It is
true that the term “act” refers only to an accident and what “came into being”
(muḥdatha) and also that we can never say of God that He is “coming into
being” at a certain moment in time.44 For Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, the argument using
the concept of appropriation or acquisition is false because appropriation is
itself an accident and accidents can be brought into being by an agent who is
himself created and brought into being. Appropriation is indeed itself an act
performed by the human being.
The question whether the term “thing” can be applied to the Creator or not
was fundamental in these discussions between Muslims and Christians at that
time. For Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, it can indeed be said that God is one of the “things”
(ʿayn min al-aʿyān) in the sense that He has no need of something else for His
existence. This question is also one of the topics in the Refutation of Christian
anthropomorphism (tashbīh) written by Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbdallāh ibn Aḥmad
al-Balkhī (d. 931) and quoted by Yaḥyā’s disciple Ibn Zurʿa in his own Refutation
written in 997.45 For the Muslim scholars, the Creator of everything cannot be
“some thing,” nor can we apply the term “substance” to God, whereas this is the
case for Christian thinkers.
In his article on the doctrines of the Christians in the Mughnī of ʿAbd al-
Jabbār (d. 1025), Guy Monnot has clearly analyzed the fundamental differences
between Muslim theologians and Christians in defining the notion of jawhar in
the sense of substance.46 The definition given by Christians is that a substance
is “existing in itself,” while for Muslims a substance is seen as part of the mate-
rial dimension of creation and cannot therefore be applied to God the Creator
who is transcendent over any material aspect of creation. This is very clear in
44 Khalifat, 309.
45 Thomas, “Abū l-Qāsim al-Balkhī,” cmr 2:188–191.
46 Guy Monnot, “Les doctrines des chrétiens dans le ‘Moghni’ de ʿAbd al-Jabbār,” Mélanges
de l’ Institut Dominicain d’ Etudes Orientales 16 (1983): 13–14.
74 platti
several polemical texts. In his Tahāfut, Ghazālī is perfectly aware of both the
position of Christians and the position of Muslims:
Their naming the world’s Creator—exalted be He above what they say—a

substance, with their explanation of substance as that which does not
exist in a subject (mawjūd lā fī mawḍūʿ), that is, [as] the self-subsisting
that does not need that which substantiates it (lā yaḥtāj ilā muqawwim
yuqawwimuhu). They did not intend by substance, as their opponents
intend, that which occupies space (mutaḥayyiz).47
In his treatise on things existing (mawjūdāt) and repeated time and time again
in so many other treatises, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī makes very clear: “The Creator … is a
substance, without a body, [He is] Good, Wise and Powerful ( jawād, ḥakīm,
qādir) …,” and, “By substance, I mean an existent which does not exist in a
subject (mawjūd mā laysa huwa fī mawḍūʿ); and this means that it does not
need a subject to exist (laysa bi-muḥtāj fī wujūdihi ilā mawḍūʿ).”48
It is without doubt that Yaḥyā’s position on “substance” can only be under-
stood in the context of neo-platonism and idea of the “autonomous” (“divine”)
existence of “real entities” (maʿānin) or “substances.”49 From all this, it becomes
indeed very clear that this treatise on the human act has to be seen in the
47 Al-Ghazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, 5 §13 (transliteration inserted).

48 Cf. Emilio Platti, ed. and trans., La grande polémique antinestorienne, vol. 437, tome 38
(Leuven: Peeters, 1981–1982), 181, l. 8–9; vol. 438, tome 39, 157, l. 15; Emilio Platti, Yaḥyā
ibn ʿAdī, théologien chrétien et philosophe arabe: sa théologie de l’Incarnation (Leuven:
Departement Oriëntalistiek, 1983), 105. This is exactly what is meant by Ghazālī.
49 Emilio Platti, “Towards an Interpretation,” 61–71. See in particular Endress, “The Circle
of al-Kindī,” 73: “… it can be shown readily that mathematicals and intelligibles (the
examples given are istiwāʾ, equality, and nuṭq—λόγος) cannot be gleaned from the senses,
because material things do not provide sensual differentia of them. This knowledge
is not outside the soul, but is knowledge of itself: the intelligible, ‘having subsistence
separate from the things perceived by the senses, are brought forth by the soul’, as we
have them ‘since the origin of our being’. Thus our knowledge of the intelligibles is
intellective, original knowledge (ʿilm awwalī ʿaqlī) without any intermediary; indeed,
knowledge, that which knows and the object known—or we might translate: intellect
(ʿaql: νοῡς), intelligent (ʿāqil: νοῶν) and the intelligible (maʿqūl: νοούμενον)—are one and
the same. The well-known formula was taken from Aristotle, but became essential for
the Neoplatonic model of ontological procession (emanation) and intellectual reversion.”
Some modern philosophers, such as David J. Chalmers, The conscious mind (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1996), argue also that the “material” brain cannot, indeed, be the
source of conceptualization.
perspective of other treatises written by Yaḥyā, and in particular those defining

the categories of existence, such as his essay “On the four scientific questions
concerning the three kinds of existence: divine, natural and logical” (Maqāla fī
al-buḥūth al-ʿilmiyya al-arbaʿa ʿan aṣnāf al-wujūd al-thalātha al-ilāhī wa al-ṭabīʿī
wa al-manṭiqī) (Wisnovsky e5.12 = Khalifat #67).50
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī on Potentiality and God’s Omnipotence
We come now to the second of two subjects in Yaḥya ibn ʿAdī’s thought that
find a link with Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī. This is the “abolition of the potential
or the possible” (ibṭāl al-mumkin), and this includes the belief that humans
have no capacity to act before their very acts because God’s omnipotence,
and in particular his prescience (sābiq al-ʿilm), “abolish the possible.” Yaḥya
negates the abolition of the possible in several texts mentioned by Endress in
chapter 5 of his Inventory—e5.32, e5.33, e5.34 and e5.35—and by Wisnovsky
in his Supplement—e5.33, e5.34 (two texts), and 5.35. What follows are notes
on e5.33, e5.34, e5.32—in that order—leaving aside e5.35. The translation
and the transliterated Arabic for the title of each treatise are given first from
Endress and then from Wisnovsky. Given our interest in Christian-Muslim
scholarly interaction, the names of Muslims referred to by Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī will
be noted.
e5.33: “Reply to al-Dārimī and Abū l-Ḥasan al-Mutakallim, concerning the ques-
tion about the abolition of the possible” ( Jawāb al-Dārimī wa-Abī l-Ḥasan al-
Mutakallim, ʿan al-masʾala fī ibṭāl al-mumkin). Endress and Khalifat said that
this treatise was lost,51 but it has now been recovered in the codex Madrasa-yi
Marwī 19 described by Wisnovsky: “The answer to Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Dārimī and
Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā (sic) al-Mutakallim on the question of the abolition
of the possible on which Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Rāzī told that both agreed to con-
sent on it” ( Jawāb Abī ʿAbd al-Dārimī wa-Abī al-Ḥasan Alī ibn ʿĪsā al-Mutakallim
fī ibṭāl al-mumkin ḥakā Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Rāzī annahumā jtamaʿā ʿalā al-ijāba
bihi).
Endress identifies Abū al-Ḥasan al-Mutakallim with the great theologian
Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Ismāʿīl al-Ashʿarī. In this case, the name Ibn ʿĪsā must
be a mistake introduced by a copist. Khalifat however makes a better proposal
50 Menn and Wisnovsky, “Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī On the Four Scientific Questions.”
51 Khalifat, 30 (#73) and 106.
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by referring to Ibn al-Nadīm.52 Ibn al-Nadīm says that Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā
ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Rummānī al-Naḥwī, who was born in Baghdad in 909,
was still alive at the time that he wrote the Fihrist. This Abū al-Ḥasan actually
died in 994, and he is said to have written a treatise against Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī on
the Trinity.53
The first addressee of Yaḥya ibn ʿAdī’s treatise e5.33, al-Dārimī, has been iden-
tified by Endress as Abū Saʿīd ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd al-Dārimī (d. 896), but this is
inconsistent with the name given in the new discovered manuscript: Abū ʿAbd
Allāh al-Dārimī, unidentified until now. The name of the narrator in the treatise
title, Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Rāzī, could be the son of the great Muḥammad ibn
Zakariyyā al-Rāzī (d. 925) mentioned by al-Masʿūdī (d. 956) in connection with
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī.54 The text of e5.33 has not yet been edited or translated, but we
can in any case already define the position of the Mutakallimūn criticized by
Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī as “the abolition of the possible.”
e5.34 = Khalifat #72: “On a sophism for the abolition of the possible” (Kitāb
al-shubha fī ibṭāl al-mumkin). Endress considered this to be one treatise, albeit
lost. Wisnovsky now judges that two short texts in codex Madrasa-yi Marwī
19 (fol. 69a9–17 and 69b3–70a19) likely together constitute this treatise. The
first is “Transcript of the sophism concerning the abolition of the possible”
(Nuskhat al-shubha fī ibṭāl al-mumkin), which is then answered by the second,
“The answer to Abū Bakr al-Daqqāq on the sophism (shubha) of the abolition
of the possible” ( Jawāb Abī Bakr al-Daqqāq ʿan al-shubha fī ibṭāl al-mumkin).
These texts have not been edited. Endress and Khalifat do not mention the
name al-Daqqāq.55 Wisnovsky suggests that al-Daqqāq here means “The Flour
Merchant” and referred to the profession of Yaḥyā’s student Abū Bakr al-Ādamī
al-ʿAṭṭār.
e5.32: “What he [Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī] wrote to Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad
ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Quraysh in support of the existence of the
52 Khalifat, 109; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist li-Abī al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Nadīm,
ed. Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, 4 vols. (London, al-Furqan, 2009), i.1, 187–188: min afāḍil al-
naḥwiyyīn al-Baṣriyyīn wa al-mutakallimīn al-Baghdādiyyīn, i.2, 623: the title of a book Fī
al-Kalām is missing.
53 J. Flanagan, “Al-Rummānī,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 8:614–615. On al-Rummānī’s
treatise against Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī on the Trinity, see Platti, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī: théologien chrétien
et philosophe arabe, 11 n. 46.
54 Khalifat, 14.
55 Endress, The Works, 77; Khalifat, 30 (#76).
possible in the nature of things, and in refute [sic] of the arguments of those
who deny this, which are shown to be untenable” (Mā kataba bihi ilā Abī Bakr
Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Quraysh fī ith-
bāt ṭabīʿat al-mumkin wa-naqḍ ḥujaj al-mukhālifīn li-dhālika wal-tabīh [sic] ʿalā
fasādihā). This treatise has been edited by Khalifat56 and edited, translated
and commented upon in German by Carl Ehrig-Eggert.57 The Muslim recipi-
ent has not yet been identified. This long treatise presents arguments to refute
the thesis that God’s prescience makes the existence of the possible necessarily
impossible, as potentiality is incompatible with God’s omnipotence and pre-
science.
In his introduction, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī describes the seven chapters of this
treatise as follows. The first chapter describes what the discussion is about:
the existence or non-existence (wujūd aw ʿadam) of possibility (imkān) in the
future ( fī al-zamān al-ātī). The second chapter presents the argument based
on the Creator’s prescience (sābiq ʿilm al-Bāriʾ): everything God knows to exist,
exists of necessity because the status of what is known conforms to the status
of the knower (ḥāl al-maʿlūmāt muwāfiqa li-ḥāl al-ʿālim). The third chapter
analyses the argument that God’s prescience is the cause of the necessity of the
existence of the things that He knows, insofar as God’s knowledge is a cause
of necessity. Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī enumerates the six kinds of causes (taʿdīd asbāb
kulli mukawwan) to conclude that the cause presented is not one of them: 1)
kawn sābiq al-ʿilm sababan ʿunṣūriyyan (material cause) li-ḍarūriyyat al-amr,
2) sababan ṣūriyyan (formal cause) lahā, 3) sababan fāʿilan (efficient cause), 4)
sababan kamāliyyan (final cause) lahā, 5) sababan adawiyyan (instrumental
cause) lahā, 6) sababan mithāliyyan (exemplar cause) li-ḍarūriyyat al-umūr
kullihā. In the fourth chapter it is made clear that it is wrong to conclude that
if the knower exists of necessity, the object of knowledge, the known thing,
also existents of necessity. There is a distinction between the knowledge of the
quiddity of some essence, like the essence of Zayd, and the knowledge of the
quiddity of the essence of Zayd who is existent (al-ʿilm bi-māhiyyat dhāt Zayd,
mujarrada min al-ṣifa, mustaghnin fī māhiyyatihi wa-inniyyatihi ʿan ziyādat
al-mawjūd). So, it is the relation to the object of knowledge which will change,
56 Khalifat, 337–374.
57 Carl Ehrig-Eggert, “Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī: über den Nachweis der Natur des Möglichen. Edi-
tion und Einleitung,” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 5
(1989): 283–297 and 63–97 (text); Carl Ehrig-Eggert, Die Abhandlung über den Nachweis der
Natur des Möglichen von Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī (gest. 974a.d.) (Frankfurt: Institute für Geschichte
der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften, 1990).
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but not the knower ( faqad ẓahara anna al-ʿālim min ḥaythu huwa ʿālim qad
tataghayyar iḍāfātuhu ilā al-maʿlūm bi-taghayyur aḥwāl al-maʿlūm, wa-in kānat
dhāt al-ʿālim ghayr mutaghayyira). The fifth chapter highlights other mistakes
in the argumentation. The sixth chapter shows by the example of a walking
man, that what is possible is neither existent by necessity nor non-existent by
necessity. It is just a possibility. What is always existent, is indeed existent by
necessity, while what is always non-existent is indeed non-existent by necessity.
The fact that a man can be standing at one moment and walking at another
shows what possibility is: neither always existing, nor always not-existing. The
seventh and last chapter presents a refutation of the thesis that whatever
is truly predicated will happen by necessity. In this refutation, according to
Ehrig-Eggert’s edition and commentary, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī quotes directly from
Aristotle’s dissertation on future contingencies De Interpretatione, chapter 9,
18a28–19b4.
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī on God’s Foreknowledge
It is obvious from the previous paragraphs that all the subjects mentioned are
linked: the question of causality, the relation between the human ability to act
and God’s omnipotence, and the questions on potentiality and the sophism of
the abolition of the possible. The question of God’s foreknowledge and human
freedom is also linked to these issues, but there is apparently no treatise written
by Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī explicitly on this subject. We only have some remnants
of Yaḥyā’s view in other texts and in particular in four notes transmitted in
Egyptian manuscripts with the collection of several long refutations that he
wrote.58 To provide a sample of Yaḥya’s thinking in this regard, we translate
the following note (ḥāshiya) on God’s foreknowledge, which comes from part
of the “four notes on the Unity of God and God’s prescience of what is before
it is” (ḥawāshī arbaʿa fī waḥdāniyyat Allāh wa-ʿilmihi bi-mā yakūn qabla mā
yakūn) found in manuscript Theol. 184 in the Library of the Coptic Patriarchate,
fol. 82b:
58 The collection can be found in the following mss.: ms Eastern Desert, Egypt, Monastery
of St Anthony—Theol. 130 (1570ce); ms Cairo, Coptic Patriarchate—Theol. 184 (1783ce)
(Simaika, 400; Graf 641); ms Eastern Desert, Egypt, Monastery of St Anthony—Theol. 129
(1788 ce); ms Cairo, Coptic Patriarchate—Theol. 183 (1875ce) (Simaika, 526; Graf 642); ms
Wādī Naṭrūn, Egypt, Monastery of St Bishoi—Theol. 303 (1882ce); ms Dayr al-Muḥarraq,
Egypt—Theol. 37 (1848 ce).
The Creator—His power (qudra) be exalted—knows what is before it is.

He knows what is hidden (khafiyyāt)—[God] be praised! By His justice,
His graciousness and His fairness, however, He does not enjoin a sin on
someone before he actually commits it; and He will not punish someone
who has not sinned yet, before doing so, so that this [act] has not been
achieved, in the same way that He will not reward ( yuthīb) someone who
does not do any good, before he de facto deserves it. Knowledge, indeed,
is not directing, nor is it driving, and it does not assign someone to engage
in something that he does not want to [take on], from two points of view:
knowledge does not command, nor does it forbid. [God’s] knowledge only
precedes what is to be and what is not to be—[God] be praised and
exalted, and His names be hallowed!—God be praised, always!
Abū Qurra, Bishop of Ḥarrān, and the Prescience of God (sābiq ʿilm
Allāh)
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s short unpublished note, translated just above, is perfectly in
line with the positions of his Christian predecessors. In comparison with al-
Fārābī, it becomes clear that Yaḥyā was much more influenced by his Christian
faith than was his Muslim master by the dominant Muslim theologians. In this
case this is even more obvious when we compare what Yaḥyā said in the short
notice above with the ideas expressed by Theodore Abū Qurra (d. after 829) in
his treatise on human freedom, the question of free will, and God’s prescience
not being the cause of the necessity of the existence of the things He knows.
Abū Qurra developed these ideas in his famous treatise “On free will,”59 and it
is clear that Abū Qurra, who is a Melkite Christian, is perfectly in line with the
59 Theodore Abū Qurra, “Maymar yuḥaqqiq li-l-insān ḥurriyya thābita,” in Teodoro Abū
Qurra, La Libertà, ed. Samir Khalil Samir, trans. Paola Pizzi (Torino: Silvio Zamorani Edi-
tore, 2001), which surpasses the edition in Mayāmir Thāwudūrus Abī Qurra usquf Ḥarrān,
ed. al-Khūrī Qusṭanṭīn al-Bāshā (Beirut: Maṭbaʿat al-fawāʾid, [1904]), 9(sic)-22; English
trans. John C. Lamoreaux, trans., Theodore Abu Qurrah (Provo, ut: Brigham Young Univer-
sity Press, 2005), 195–206; German trans., Georg Graf, Die Arabischen Schriften des Theodor
Abû Qurra, Bischofs von Ḥarrān (ca. 740–820). Literarhistorische Untersuchungen eine Über-
setzung (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1910), 223–238: ix. “Mîmar, welches für den
menschen eine feste, ihm von Gott seiner Natur nach zukommende Willensfreiheit nach-
weist, und dasz über die Willensfreiheit überhaupt kein Zwang in irgendwelcher Weise
komt, verfaszt von der Lehrer Kyr Theodorus, Bisschof von Charrān.” Cf. John C. Lam-
oreaux, “Theodore Abū Qurra,” cmr 1:439–491, and the entry on pp. 453–454 on Abū
Qurra’s “Maymar yuḥaqqiq li-l-insān ḥurriyya thābita.” Cf. Sidney H. Griffith, “Free Will in
80 platti
older Christian tradition of the Fathers, and in particular John of Damascus.

Pines refers to him as follows:
John Damascene or, to use his Arabic name, Yūḥannā Ibn Manṣūr (died
c. 750), who wrote in Greek, in the beginning of his well-known treatise
on theology entitled De Fide Orthodoxa (Cols. 919ff.),60 notably discusses
(Cols. 951ff.) man’s capacity for action, his voluntary and involuntary
acts, his freedom of will and of action, which is affirmed by theologians,
and the thesis that, although God has foreknowledge of all things, this
foreknowledge does not signify that man is not free to act as he wishes.61
John of Damascus and Abū Qurra were living in a context where Islamic pre-
deterministic ideas were strong, and they feared that Christians themselves
would follow these Islamic ideas. They opposed the opinion that God’s pre-
science is the cause from which the existence of things is necessarily conse-
quent. From the following short overview of Abū Qurra’s arguments in com-
parison with Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s short note, we see that this is also the opinion of
the latter.
In his introduction, Abū Qurra makes clear that his treatise is not apologet-
ical or theological, but rather philosophical; it is indeed a treatise on a subject
of “religious philosophy.” It is interesting to see that he is talking about the
pagans, the atheists, probably those present in his town of Ḥarrān where he
was a bishop:
Our objective in this treatise is not to confirm that, of all laws attributed
to God, the gospel alone is true and perfect, nor is it to induce atheists to
confess the truth. This we have accomplished elsewhere. Rather, our aim
is to establish that there is freedom in human nature and that compulsion
was not introduced into it (anna al-ḥurriyya fī ṣibghat al-insān wa-anna
al-qahr lā yadkhul ʿalayhā) from some cause or another—until, that is, it
voluntarily yielded to that cause.62
Christian Kalām: the Doctrine of Theodore Abū Qurrah,”Parole de l’Orient 14 (1987): 79–101;
Shlomo Pines, “Some traits of Christian Theological Writing in relation to Muslim Kalām
and to Jewish Thought,” in Studies in the History of Arabic Philosophy: The collected Works
of Shlomo Pines iii, ed. Sarah Stroumsa (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1996), [79]–[99], cf.
[85].
60 See Migne, Patrologia Graeca xciv.
61 Pines, “Some traits,” [88].
62 Lamoreaux, trans., Abū Qurrah, 196; Abū Qurra, La Libertà, 138 and 152.
Abū Qurrah contradicts those “who claim to have no freedom and to be

compelled by their creator to do the good and evil they do” (annahu lā ḥurriyya
lahu wa-yaqūlu innahu majbūr min khāliqihi ʿalā an yaṣnaʿ mā huwa ṣāniʿ min
khayr aw sharr) and “those who say that God created them with freedom but
that, for some cause or another, compulsion was introduced into their freedom
such that it was coerced into doing the good and evil it does.”63
Abū Qurra goes on to present the question of God’s foreknowledge (sābiq
ʿilm Allāh) and the position of those, “who introduce compulsion into freedom”
(man yudkhil al-qahr ʿalā al-ḥurriya) and say,
God foreknows everything; what he foreknows must take place; as for

what must take place, the one who does it, is compelled to do it; accord-
ingly, human freedom is compelled to do the good or evil it does (inna
Allāh qad sabaqa ʿilmuhu fī al-umūr, wa-mā qad sabaqa fī ʿilm Allāh, fa-
innahu lā budda lahu min an yakūn … fa-fāʿiluhu maqhūrun ʿalā an
yafʿalahu, fa-idhan al-ḥurriyya al-insāniyya maqhūra …).64
Abū Qurra’s position on this is quite clear: “If what God foreknows must hap-
pen and the doer of what must happen is, as you claim, compelled to do it, God
is compelled to do what he foreknows he will do.”65 This, however, is unaccept-
able to Abū Qurra, and if this is true,
God’s foreknowledge does not compel him to do what he foreknows

he will do ( fa-qad ṣāra Allāh maqhūran ʿalā an yaṣnaʿ mā kāna sabaqa
fī ʿilmihi in kāna ṣāniʿahu) …. And since this is so, it is necessary that
God’s foreknowledge does not compel human freedom, which freedom
God generously granted people and fixed in their nature ( fa-yanbaghī an
yakūn sābiq ʿilm Allāhi lā yaqhar al-ḥurriyya al-insāniyya allatī jāda Allāh
bi-hā li-l-insān …).66
On the other hand, if the power of human freedom is not subject to compulsion,
“it is able to intend what it wishes, whether to obey or disobey God, and to
carry out what it wishes in everything that lies within its ability,” “whether to do
what is praiseworthy or what is blameworthy;” and, “freedom always has power
63 Lamoreaux, trans., Abū Qurrah, 195–196; Abū Qurra, La Libertà, 136.

64 Lamoreaux, trans., Abū Qurrah, 203; Abū Qurra, La Libertà, 196–198.
82 platti
over its intention and God justly requites it only according to its intention” (kull
aʿmālihā innamā tukāfā ʿalayhā bi-qadr niyyatihā).67
A Note on Manuscripts Containing Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s Treatises on

Philosophical Subjects
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s very short text on God’s foreknowledge cited above comes from
an important collection of his theological and polemical writings included in
several manuscripts of Coptic origin.68 However, this text seems to be excep-
tional in its content. As far as I see—but more research may contradict this
impression—almost nothing in the philosophical treatises written by Yaḥyā
ibn ʿAdī and preserved in Iranian libraries found its way to the Coptic Christian
writers from the thirteenth century, particularly to the Awlād al-ʿAssāl. There
are of course the Treatise on the Unity (of God) and the Refutation of al-Kindī,
but none of the other works preserved in Iranian collections and described
by Pines, Endress and Wisnovsky are available in manuscripts of Coptic ori-
gin. There are some extracts from al-Fārābī’s work in al-Muʾtaman’s Uṣūl al-Dīn
(chap. 7 §34),69 and of course a chapter on the creation of the world against
the idea of the world’s eternity ( fī qidam al-ʿālam), with references to Yaḥyā al-
Naḥwī (John Philoponus) (chap. 4), and also a quotation of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī on
the Creator knowing the particulars (chap. 3 §36). However, it seems that only
works on questions of ethics, Christian theology and Scripture and especially
Yaḥyā’s long polemical works were available in Egypt from the time of the Cop-
tic renaissance of the thirteenth century until now. It is likely that Iranian or
Turkish libraries contain other manuscripts containing collections of Yaḥyā’s
philosophical opus, while it seems highly unlikely that new manuscripts of
Coptic origin could still be found containing a collection of his philosophical
works.
67 Lamoreaux, trans., Abū Qurrah, 204; Abū Qurra, La Libertà, 214. Cf. Michael Cook, Early
Muslim Dogma. A source-critical study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 147:
“The anti-deterministic argument that divine foreknowledge does not entail predestina-
tion ….”
68 See note 58 above and Platti, “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī,” cmr 2:393–394 for the list of the mss.
containing 33 treatises.
69 Al-Muʾtaman ibn al-ʿAssāl, Majmūʿ uṣūl al-dīn wa-masmūʿ maḥṣūl al-yaqīn, ed. Wadīʿ al-
Fransīskānī, trans., Bartolomeo Pirone, 6 vols. (Cairo: Franciscan Centre of Christian Ori-
ental Studies, 1998–2002); see also Wadi Awad, “Al-Muʾtaman ibn al-ʿAssāl,” cmr 4:530–
537, with pp. 533–537 discussing al-Muʾtaman ibn al-ʿAssāl’s Majmūʿ uṣūl al-dīn.
If this is correct, this means that these Coptic Christian authors did not
have access to the treatises on religious philosophical subjects that would have
enabled them to understand the philosophical background of the polemical
and theological works better. They were in a certain sense in the same posi-
tion as Augustin Périer who edited several short theological treatises but was
unaware of the neo-platonic context of Yaḥya ibn ʿAdī’s thinking.70
Conclusions
The present contribution is in the first place a kind of bibliographical adden-

dum to the entry “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī” in cmr 2, but from what has been said some
conclusions become clear. In the first place we need more research on the
philosophical interaction between Muslims and Christians in the formative
period of classical Arabic philosophy, on the impact of ancient Greek philos-
ophy on Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s predecessors and in particular al-Fārābī, his master,
and on the coherence of Yaḥyā’s complete opus. It is for example clear that a
new edition of Périer’s Petits Traités71 according to all the manuscripts we know
now is absolutely necessary in the light of the philosophical treatises that have
come to light.
What also becomes clearer is that Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s position on the crucial
questions relating to God’s omnipotence and foreknowledge and causality and
human freedom coheres with the whole of the Christian tradition. Perhaps we
can even say that his conclusions on these matters always conform to main-
stream Christian doctrine, and insofar as this is the case he is in fact a Christian
scholastic theologian defending this doctrine with everything he knows from
ancient Greek translated wisdom. We noted earlier on that he himself is per-
fectly aware of this; he rejects Aristotle as his criterion for truth. However, this
does not mean that Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī was not a logician and philosopher in his
own right. In fact, to him this ancient Greek wisdom takes on a neo-platonic
character, and in this light the whole of his work must be reexamined, along
with what was available to the later Coptic Christian tradition.
As for Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s master al-Fārābī, we have already known for some
time that the influence of ancient Greek wisdom on his thinking brought
him to conclusions directly opposed to dominant pre-deterministic Islamic
70 Cf. Platti, “Towards an interpretation,” 65 ff.

71 Augustin Périer, Petits traités apologétiques de Yaḥyā ben ‘Adī. Texte arabe édité pour la
première fois d’après les manuscrits de Paris, de Rome et de Munich (Paris: J. Babalda, 1920).
84 platti
theologies and especially concerning the crucial theological questions of God’s

omnipotence and causality. This again illustrates a paradox in Islamic thinking,
a paradox brought to light by al-Ghazālī, between two different and seeming
contradictory approaches: on the one hand the religious or mystical experience
of the “unity of being” and on the other the philosophical apprehension of
secondary causes. While this contribution has not focused in the first instance
on al-Farābī, brief analysis of his thought on causality and human action has
provided important background for our study of what is now available of
Yaḥyā’s thought on these crucial topics of “religious philosophy,” topics very
much ad rem even in our contemporary discussions on modernity, Christianity
and Islam.
chapter 6
The Theme of Language in Christian-Muslim

Discussions in the ʿAbbāsid Period:
Some Christian Views
Herman Teule
Introduction
In studies on the interaction between Christians and Muslims, most attention

goes to analysis of fundamental theological themes such as the Trinity, the
Incarnation, the authority of Scripture or the Crucifixion, or to more practical
matters such as the direction of prayer, the veneration of icons or the manner
of fasting.1 It often remains unnoticed that language and culture are recurrent
issues as well, albeit in different ways and on different levels. Interestingly, lan-
guage as an expression of culture and ethnic identity also plays a prominent
role in present day discussions on the future of Christians in the Middle East.
One could think of the debates during the preparation of the Vatican Special
Synod for the Middle East (October, 2010) which emphasized the importance
of Arabic and of the idea of “Arab Christianity” for interreligious dialogue: “Fur-
thermore, the Christian heritage of the Arabic language, when given due aca-
demic consideration, is of genuine assistance in cultural and religious dialogue
among Christians and in Christian-Muslim dialogue.”2
It was the French-Lebanese priest Jean Corbon who was one of the first to
reflect on the importance of a shared Arab identity for the churches in the
Antiochian area and its potentialities for the dialogue with the world of Islam,
though this latter aspect was not his main concern.3 Various Lebanese thinkers
1 For a survey of themes discussed by Nestorian Christians and Muslims, see B. Landron,
Chrétiens et musulmans en Irak: Attitudes Nestoriennes vis-à-vis de l’Islam (Paris: Cariscript,
1994), 145–266.
2 Cf. section 59 of the lineamenta: La Documentation catholique 2442 (2010): 261–276, especially
p. 271. In the list of the final Resolutions issued at the end of the Synod, there is a reference to
the importance of Arabic for the development of theological thinking in the Middle East (cf.
La Documentation catholique 2456 (2010): 1004).
3 J. Corbon, L’ Eglise des Arabes (Paris: Cerf, 1977); reprint with new preface by G. Hachem (Paris:
Cerf, 2007).

86 teule
such as Youakim Moubarac, Georges Khodr and Mouchir Aoun4 have explicitly
and repeatedly discussed this issue in several of their publications, referring to
the nineteenth-century nahḍa as a pivotal period in the acceptance of an Arab
identity by at least the Maronite, Greek-Orthodox and Melkite Christians.5
One could also think of the modern debate on a common ethnic identity
of the “Syriac” churches (from the Maronites to the Assyrians), stressing their
opposition to Arab culture as part of their Christian tradition.6 To put these dis-
cussions into some historical perspective, it is worthwhile to look at some texts
written in the ʿAbbāsid period, which was characterized by strong interaction
between the Christian and Muslim cultural worlds.
Elias of Nisibis
The most outspoken text on language is probably the report of the discussions
or “sessions” (majālis) between the East-Syrian Metropolitan of Nisibis, Elias
(d. 1046) and a Muslim official, Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī al-Maghribī, in
the service of the Marwānid dynasty established in Diyarbakir. The report, in
Arabic, was made by Elias himself and sent to his brother Abū al-ʿUlāʾ Saʿīd ibn
Sahl, the private physician of his Muslim interlocutor.7 Though we may assume
that the encounter really took place, it seems that the report is not a neutral
account. The role of al-Maghribī is mostly limited to asking questions, giving
Elias the opportunity to formulate elaborate answers.
During the sixth session,8 al-Maghribī raises the subject of science and
language, and he asks questions about the syntax of Syriac compared to Arabic.
4 Cf. A. Fleyfel, La théologie contextuelle arabe. Modèle libanais (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2011);
and A. Fleyfel, Géopolitique des chrétiens d’orient. Défis et avenir des chrétiens arabes (Paris:
L’ Harmattan, 2013), 28–33.
5 Cf. the Apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in medio oriente, the final document of the Special
Synod in the Middle East; cf. La documentation catholique 2497 (2012): 846.
6 Cf. H. Teule, “Christians in Iraq: An analysis of some recent political developments,”Der Islam
88.1 (2011): 178–198.
7 Cf. S. Khalil Samir, “Note sur le médicin Zāhid al-ʿUlamāʾ, frère d’Elie de Nisibe,” Oriens
Christianus 69 (1985): 168–183, reprinted as nr iv in S. Khalil Samir, Foi et culture en Irak au
xie siècle: Elie de Nisibe et l’ islam (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1996).
8 The text of the sixth session was edited by L. Cheikho in Al-Mashriq 20 (1922): 366–377,
and by S. Khalil Samir, “Deux cultures qui s’ affrontent. Une controverse sur l’iʿrāb au xie
siècle entre Elie de Nisibe et le vizir Abū l-Qāsim,” Mélanges de l’Université St Joseph 49
(1975–1976): 619–649 (sections 1–50) (reprinted in Samir, Foi et culture, nr xi); and S. Khalil
Samir, “Langue arabe, logique et théologie chez Elie de Nisibe,” Mélanges de l’Université St
the theme of language in christian-muslim discussions 87
This allows Elias to sing the praises of his Syriac language which he considers
to be superior to Arabic, because both the syntax and the script are clear and
without ambiguity. Although he adduces a whole range of grammatical and
linguistic arguments to prove his claim, his main argument is of a more cultural
nature: the Muslims may have many useful sciences, but all of them have been
borrowed from the Syrians, whereas the Syrians have no science whatsoever
transmitted to them by the Arabs. He means of course that writings of the
“Arabs” are not worthwhile translating into Syriac. In his eyes, the Syrians are
culturally superior. He acknowledges that, in some fields, the vocabulary of the
Arabic language may be richer than in Syriac, but this certainly does not apply
to the domain of medical science or science in general.
What shall we think of these arguments? In the first place, they are contra-
dicted by Elias himself. He is the author of a famous bilingual Syriac-Arabic
chronicle based on various Muslim sources, portions of which he faithfully
translated from Arabic into Syriac.9 Secondly, the majority of his own writings
are in Arabic.10 Thirdly, it seems that some of his arguments reflect the situation
during an earlier period and no longer apply to his own times. As a matter of
fact, on two occasions, he refers to Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq’s Book of Diacritical Points
and his Syntax of the Arabs (see below). What was true of the ninth century
when Ḥunayn and others worked on their translations from Greek into Syriac
and Arabic or from Syriac into Arabic was much less valid for the beginning
of the eleventh century when the Syrians began to open themselves up to the
achievements of Muslim science and philosophy. His attempt at defending the
Syriac language at the cost of Arabic is to be read against the background of a
growing acceptance of Arabic and Muslim science and culture among the East-
Syrians, where Syriac had to be defended, even though Arabic was on its way
to becoming the predominant language.11
Joseph 52 (1991–1992): 229–367 (sections 51–401). For an analysis, see D. Bertaina, “Science,
syntax, and superiority in eleventh-century Christian–Muslim discussion: Elias of Nisibis
on the Arabic and Syriac languages,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 22.2 (2011):
197–207.
9 E.W. Brooks, ed., Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni opus chronologicum, vol. 1 (Corpus scriptorum
Christianorum Orientalium [hereafter csco] 62–63) (Paris: Carolus Poussielgue, 1910).
10 For a recent description of some of these, see J.-P. Monferrer Sala, “Elias of Nisibis,” in
Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History (hereafter cmr), ed. David Thomas,
et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2009–), 2:727–741.
11 Cf. H. Teule, “The Syriac renaissance,” in The Syriac Renaissance, ed. H. Teule and C. Fotescu
(Louvain: Peeters, 2010): 1–30; it also explains why Elias composed a Syriac grammar
88 teule
There may be another aspect to Elias’ comments on the Arabic language.

Bertaina has drawn attention to the fact that some arguments about the ambi-
guity of the Arabic language are taken from the Qurʾan itself, which explains
why there are different interpretations by Muslims of the text of the Qurʾan.12
The underlying suggestion may be that the Arabic of the Qurʾan is defective, an
attack against the doctrine of iʿjāz, the inimitability of the Qurʾan, the perfect
language of which is considered proof of its divine character. However, unlike
some of his predecessors such as al-Kindī (see below), Elias does not press this
issue any further.
ʿAbd al-Masīḥ al-Kindī
The ninth century East-Syrian writer, commonly known as ʿAbd al-Masīḥ al-
Kindī, is the author of a fictitious epistolary exchange between a prominent
Muslim of Hashimite origin and a Christian scholar, the author himself, who,
according to the introduction, must have belonged to the inner circle of the
caliphal court in Baghdad. This position notwithstanding, al-Kindī composed
a strongly-worded refutation of Islamic doctrines in which he also denounced
the lack of moral behavior in Muḥammad.13 In the third chapter,14 he deals with
the Qurʾan. After discussing the existence of different Qurʾanic recensions cir-
culating in the early period of Islam and suggesting that certain passages may
have been manipulated by those in power, he turns to its language. According
to his Muslim correspondent, who refers to the classical verses, “If mankind
and the jinn gathered in order to produce the like of this Qurʾan, they could not
produce the like of it, even if they were to each other assistants” (q 17:88), and,
“If you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant, then
produce a sūra the like thereof …” (q 2:23), the Qurʾan is a miracle (āya) com-
parable to the miracles (aʿājīb) of the Old Testament Prophets or to the raising
of the dead by Christ.
and a Syriac-Arabic thematic dictionary, the Kitāb al-tarjumān, ed. B. Ḥaddād (Duhok,
Iraq: 2007).
12 For example, Samir, “Langue arabe,” 264–268 (a discussion of q 3.7) or 320–324 (ambiguity
in the Qurʾan due to the similarity of some Arabic characters).
13 See the survey of themes in L. Bottini, “The Apology of al-Kindī,” cmr 1:585–594.
14 There is an unpublished critical edition and published French translation of this work by
G. Tartar, Ḥiwār islāmī-masīḥī fī ʿahd al-khalīfat al-Maʾmūn: Risālat al-Hāshimī wa risālat
al-Kindī (Strasbourg, 1977), trans., Dialogue islamo-chrétien sous le caliphe al-Maʾmûn
(813–834): Les épîtres d’al-Hashimî et d’al-Kindî (Paris: Nouvelles éditions latines, 1985), for
Chapter 3, see pp. 101–166 (trans. pp. 175–206).
Al-Kindī challenges this argument for the uniqueness of Qurʾanic language

by first referring to the fact that other languages such as Greek, Persian, Syr-
iac and Hebrew also possess unique and eloquent expressions which, however,
can only be appreciated by native speakers and may seem barbaric to speak-
ers of Arabic in the same way as speakers of other languages are unable to
appreciate “the eloquent Arabic language.” This having been said, he seems
to acknowledge that the Qurʾan is the most eloquent “Arabic” book, but he
immediately adds that one of the conditions for “eloquence of expressions”
( faṣāḥat al-alfāẓ) is use of pure language not contaminated with borrowings
from other tongues. Al-Kindī then has no difficulty finding a number of Persian
and Ethiopian loanwords in several sūras. His conclusion is that either Arabic is
an imperfect, underdeveloped language in need of foreign words, or, worse, that
the one who has “revealed the Qurʾan in Arabic” (cf. q 12:2) has only a deficient
knowledge of it. Pure Arabic is rather to be found in the writings of pre-Islamic
authors such as Imrūʾ al-Qays and others.
However, Al-Kindī’s criticism of the Arabic of the Qurʾan does not imply
that he positions himself as an outsider to the Arab cultural world as in the
case of Elias of Nisibis.15 As a member of the Yemenite tribe of Kinda, he
considers himself to be a genuine Arab, comparable even to the members of
Quraysh, the tribe of Muḥammad, and other Bedouins. The Arabic language is
rather a common ground between him and his correspondent or the Muslims
in general: “We are partners (shurakāʾ) in [the Arabic language], you are not
superior to us, and you do not possess what is not in our hands too.” He proudly
mentions that he belongs to the “community of the Arabs (maʿshar al-ʿarab).”
However, probably realizing that the majority of the Christians are Arabicized
rather than of pure Arab descent, he adds that the Arabic of these “outsiders
to the [pure] Arabs” is by no means inferior since they follow the correct
grammatical rules. In the eyes of al-Kindī, the Arabic language is an important
identity marker of the Christians, challenging the idea that Arabic coincides
with Islam, a mentality prevalent in ninth century Baghdad, whereas in the eyes
of some the language of instruction for the Christians had to be Syriac rather
than Arabic.16
15 My interpretation is here somewhat different from Samir, “Deux cultures,” 631. Despite
Elias’ de facto belonging to Arabic culture, which explains why he can speak in the
first person plural when giving examples of sentences in Arabic, he positions himself
ideologically as a defender of the superiority of Syriac.
16 Cf. J.-M. Fiey, Chrétiens syriaques sous les Abbassides surtout à Bagdad (749–1258), (csco
420) (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1980), 93; Fiey here refers to a remark in the
world chronicle of Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 1201).
90 teule
Ḥunayn ibn al-Isḥāq
As seen above, Elias of Nisibis’ argumentation was partly based on two writ-
ings of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, one of the most prestigious translators in ninth
century Baghdad. Born into the Arabic speaking tribe of the ʿIbād,17 he was
a native speaker of Arabic, but unlike al-Kindī, this fact is nowhere put for-
ward as an argument to prove his allegiance to the cultural and political Mus-
lim elite of his day. He even preferred Syriac, at least for scientific purposes.
Unfortunately, his Book on the syntax of the Arabs is lost, but from the small
fragment preserved in Elias of Nisibis’s Book of sessions, discussed above, it
appears that Ḥunayn holds that the syntax of Arabic grammar is insufficient
compared to Syriac for knowing the meaning of ambiguous sentences.18 In his
Book of diacritical points (Kitāb al-nuqaṭ), again lost, but also referred to by
Elias, he mentions that the Syrians, the Greeks and the Persians have words
for useful things (for example in the medical field) that have no equivalent
in Arabic. Arabic books translated from Greek, Persian and Syriac are replete
with loanwords from these languages, and should it be necessary to translate
a book from Arabic into Syriac,19 the Syrians can easily find appropriate Syr-
iac equivalents for all Arabic terms.20 Judging from these two small quotations
by Elias, it does not seem that Ḥunayn’s preference for Syriac was motivated
by considerations of identity or a refusal of Arabic; it was rather the scholarly
opinion of a translator, comparing and judging the merits of both languages and
someone who could also appreciate the richness of another Islamic language,
Persian.
Qusṭā ibn Lūqā
The ninth to tenth century Melkite author Qusṭā (Costas) ibn Lūqā was a
highly skilled translator from Greek into Arabic and at the same time an orig-
17 B. Roggema, “Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq,” cmr 1:768–779.

18 Cf. Bertaina, “Science, syntax,” 202; Samir, “Langue arabe,” 294–295.
19 Literally “to the attention of the Syrians.” Although in the period of Ḥunayn, the translation
movement was basically from Syriac into Arabic, there are a few instances of Arabic works
(translated from Greek) that were later translated into Syriac; cf. G. Bergsträsser, Hunain
ibn Ishaq über die syrischen und arabischen Galen-Übersetzungen (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus,
1925), 19–20.
20 Bertaina, “Science, syntax,” 203; Samir, “Langue arabe,” 310–313.
inal author in his own right.21 During a stay in Armenia, he received a treatise
(risāla) from a certain Ibn al-Munajjim, a descendant of a famous family of
astrologers at the court in Baghdad.22 In the treatise the latter tried to build
an irrefutable proof for the prophethood of Muḥammad along Aristotelian
lines. One of his arguments was that everybody agrees that Muḥammad, when
addressing his people, had used a unique form of pure Arabic without for-
eign influences. Moreover, he challenged his listeners to produce a sūra cast
in a language and style similar to the verses of the Qurʾan (cf. q 2:23).23 Qusṭā
takes up the challenge and answers that it is impossible that everybody, the
“nations,” testify to the purity of the Arabic language of the Qurʾan for the
simple reason that “the nations” do not know Arabic. Secondly, like al-Kindī,
he has no difficulty in finding words and expressions in the Qurʾan which
are not purely Arabic. In response to “And if you are in doubt about what
We have sent down upon Our Servant, then produce a sūra the like thereof”
(q 2:23), he develops the following counter-argument: the codification of the
Muslim scripture by the third Caliph ʿUthmān and the elimination of cer-
tain verses by accepting only those verses confirmed by two witnesses would
not have been necessary if the style and language of the Qurʾan were really
unique and thus easily discernible. He then makes an interesting comparison
with the codification of the work of Homer where scholars could easily dis-
tinguish the authentic verses from the apocryphal ones. Finally, he devotes
some attention to rhyme and meter and whether the use of rhyme really
makes the Qurʾan as unique as his Muslim correspondent would like to have
it.
From the perspective of this article, the interesting point is that Ibn Lūqā,
as an Arabic speaking Chalcedonian Christian at home in the intellectual
community of Baghdad, was able to deconstruct the idea of the prophethood
of Muḥammad with the help of linguistic arguments, at least partly. Writing
from Armenia, which was under the protection of a Christian prince and far
from the repressive climate of Bagdad under the caliph al-Muqtadir, he has no
inhibitions expressing his reservations about the uniqueness of the Arabic of
21 About him, see now M. Swanson, “Qusṭā ibn Lūqā,” cmr 2:147–153.
22 About the complicated issue of the exact identity of the Ibn al-Munajjim who sent a
risāla to Qusṭā, see Kh. Samir and P. Nwyia, Une correspondance islamo-chrétienne entre
ibn al-Munaǧǧim, Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq et Qusṭā ibn Luqā (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981), 538–543;
B. Roggema, “ʿAlī ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Munajjim,” cmr 1:764–766; and Swanson, “Qusṭā ibn
Lūqā,” 152.
23 Cf. Samir and Nwyia, Correspondance, 574–575, 584–585.
92 teule
the Muslim scripture. He was probably not the only one to think in this way.
In subsequent periods we see various Christian attempts at imitating the style
of the Qurʾan, firstly in homilies and gospel commentaries and later even in
the text of the Gospel itself in order to deconstruct the idea of the Qurʾan’s
inimitability.
Antony of Tagrit
The Syrian Orthodox author Antony of Tagrit,24 who probably lived in the ninth
century, is known best for his treatise on Syriac rhetoric.25 In the introduction
to the fifth part of this work, he refers to people for whom the intrinsic beauty
of their own works is not sufficient, but who also need to glorify themselves
by humiliating others “and therefore call our spoken Syriac language (mamllā
dilan Suryāyā) meagre, narrow, stunted and feeble and designate our written
language (seprā dilan) poor and beggarly.”26 The reference is clearly to the
Muslims. Their reproach is however taken up positively. It is an incentive to
“acquire what we lack and to remove and pluck out from ourselves that [with]
which we are reproached.” Apparently, to a certain extent, he agrees with
their criticism, but not in the sense that he considers Arabic to be a superior
language. His point of reference is rather Greek: “For look, with the Greeks
the three arts of grammar, rhetoric and poetry exist in a collected and crafted
form, but with the Syrians, Persians and others, scattered and confused.”27 In
this sense, Arabic is not in a better position than Syriac, for “a Son of Ishmael
may praise, blame or incite to battle, yet may never have learned the fine art of
Demosthenes.” Antony’s treatise on rhetoric may then be considered an answer
to Muslim criticism of the Syriac language.
24 J. Watt, “Anṭun of Tagrit,” Gorgias encyclopedic dictionary of the Syriac heritage, ed. S. Brock,
et al. (Piscataway, nj: Gorgias Press, 2011), 23.
25 J.W. Watt, ed. and trans., The fifth Book of the Rhetoric of Antony of Tagrit, 2 vols. (csco 203–
204) (Louvain: Peeters, 1986).
26 See J.W. Watt, “Guarding the Syriac Language in an Arabic environment: Antony of Tagrit
on the use of Grammar in Rhetoric,” in Syriac polemics. Studies in honour of Gerrit Jan
Reinink, ed. W. van Bekkum, J. Drijvers and A. Klugkist (Louvain: Peeters, 2007), 133–150,
especially 138; and Watt, The fifth Book, 2 (trans. 2), Watt translates seprā as “literature.”
27 Cf. Watt, The fifth Book, 6–7 (trans., 5–6, see also p. ix).
Paul of Antioch
Paul of Antioch was a Chalcedonian-Orthodox Christian from the Antiochian

region who at some stage became the bishop of Sidon. He may have lived
at the beginning of the thirteenth century although a slightly earlier period
cannot be excluded.28 As a Chalcedonian from the Antiochian area his first
language was Arabic,29 a fact that he was proud of and considered a bond with
the Muslim community.30 However, in his most famous treatise A Letter to a
Muslim Friend,31 he displays a somewhat ambiguous attitude towards Arabic.
The letter begins with an account of a journey that Paul would have undertaken
to the homelands of the Byzantines, Constantinople, the country of Amalfi,
some Frankish provinces and Rome, where as a bishop he had the opportunity
to discuss Islam with the scholars of those regions. He then explains to the
addressee of the letter that these scholars, after having heard about the Qurʾan,
had decided not to accept it, because the Qurʾan itself repeatedly states that
it is an Arabic scripture, whereas they had received the Bible (the “Torah and
Gospel”) in their own vernacular languages.
For various reasons, it seems probable that this discussion did not take place
exactly in the way as Paul describes it.32 It might well be that Paul, addressing
himself to a Muslim living in the city of which he was the bishop, preferred to
formulate his critical remarks of the Qurʾan or of Islam in general in an indirect
way, putting them into the mouth of foreigners.33 Aware that the argument of
28 Cf. D. Thomas, “Paul of Antioch,” cmr 4:78–82.

29 The twelfth century Armenian historiographer Matthew of Edessa considered the Chal-
cedonians of Antioch as even pseudo-Muslims on account of their Arabic language; see
H. Teule, “Paul of Antioch’s Attitude towards the Jews and the Muslims. His Letter to the
Nations and the Jews,” The Three Rings. Textual Studies in the historical trialogue of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam, ed. B. Roggema, M. Poorthuis, and P. Valkenberg (Leuven: Peeters,
2005), 91–110, especially 95.
30 In the treatise on Predestination and Free Will, one finds, “We [Chalcedonian Christians
and Muslims] belong to the same race ( jins).” There are however some reservations as to
whether this treatise was really by Paul; see Teule, “Paul of Antioch’s Attitude,” 95–97.
31 Critical edition of the Arabic text by P. Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, évêque melkite de Sidon
(xiie s.) (Beirut: Imprimerie catholique, 1965), 59*–83*; recent English translation by
S.H. Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” in S. Noble and A. Treiger, The Orthodox Church in the Arab
World. 700–1700. An Anthology of Sources (Dekalb, il: Northern Illinois University Press,
2014), 216–235.
32 Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 218.
33 This indirect way of formulating criticism is also found in other letters of Paul, such as in
his “Treatise to the Nations and the Jews;” see Teule, “Paul of Antioch’s Attitude,” 100.
94 teule
an Arabic Qurʾan could be used against him as a native speaker of this language,
he emphasizes that the Qurʾan had been sent to the pagan Arabs: “It is clear
from this scripture that it was sent only to the Arabs of the Jāhiliyya period,”
who had not received any other prophet or messenger before Muḥammad.
Indirectly, his emphasis on the fact that the Qurʾan is in Arabic, whereas the
(Christian) apostles preached the message of the Bible in the language of the
nations to which they were sent, criticizes the claim of universality of the
mission of Muḥammad, generally postulated by Muslim theologians.
Conclusion
From the foregoing selection of writings composed by Christian thinkers of the

ʿAbbāsid period, it appears that issues of language regularly popped up in their
discussions with Muslims. This had a partly theological background. The idea
of the inimitability of the language of the Qurʾan as proof for its divine origin or
for the prophethood of Muḥammad had to be deconstructed by pointing out its
deficiencies in grammar (ambiguity) and lexicography (loanwords). Moreover,
in the eyes of some Christians, an Arabic scripture implied a lack of universality
in contrast to the universal message of Christ.
Another issue was the question of identity. Against increasing Arabization,
some Christians wanted to defend their own cultural and linguistic (Syriac)
specificity, whereas others accepted that Arabic constituted a common ground
for interaction with their Muslim neighbors.
Although the writings briefly described above are attempts at formulating
direct responses to the claims of some Muslim friends, there are many more
cases of indirect answers. One could think of the growing numbers of Syriac
grammars or other linguistic books written either according to the traditional
(Greek) methods or increasingly under the influence of Arabic (Muslim) gram-
matical theories, as in the work of the East Syrian Catholicos Elias i (of Ṭirhān,
d. 1049), a contemporary of Elias of Nisibis. Another indirect way was the com-
position of writings, in Syriac or Arabic, or even the Arabic translation of parts
of the Bible, imitating the style of the Qurʾan.34 And, finally, the Syriac-Arabic
debate is still most relevant for present-day discussions on identity by Middle
Eastern Christians.
34 Cf. H. Teule, “Interculturalité syriaque arabe,” in La Parole de Dieu dans le patrimoine

syriaque au risque de la diversité religieuse et culturelle, Patrimoine syriaque. Actes du
Colloque xii (Antélias, Lebanon: Édition du cero, 2010), 83–97.
chapter 7
A Neglected Piece of Evidence for Early Muslim

Reactions to the Frankish Crusader Presence in the
Levant: The ‘Jihad Chapter’ from Tuḥfat al-mulūk
Alex Mallett*
Introduction
Any modern attempt to reconstruct how Muslims responded to the arrival

and presence of the Franks in the Holy Land during the first decades of the
crusading period—roughly corresponding to the first half of the sixth/twelfth
century—is hampered by the problematic issue of a limited quantity of rele-
vant contemporary source material. The chronicles that form the basis of the
vast majority of modern studies of the medieval Islamic world, and which must
be employed in any attempt to reconstruct the attitudes of Muslims during
the early years of the crusading period, were all written at least fifty and in
some cases more than one hundred years after the events described. Conse-
quently, the very different political, religious and social atmospheres in which
they were composed, compared to those of the years they describe, mean
that their presentation of the events only partially reflects the realities of the
earlier period. Modern historians cannot know for certain either how or the
extent to which these changes have affected the accounts and so how far—
consciously or unconsciously—the medieval Muslim historians altered their
presentation of history to suit their own circumstances. Consequently, in order
to gain a more accurate idea of the very earliest Muslim reactions to the Cru-
sades, it is necessary to turn to other genres. As such, use has been made par-
ticularly of poetry and religious texts, as some contemporaneous material in
these genres has survived, but unfortunately these are still very limited in quan-
tity.1 The only surviving poems are short though intense works by poets such
as al-Abīwardī, and the one religious text written against the Franks which
has been studied by modern scholars is al-Sulamī’s 498–499/1105 text Kitāb
* I would like to thank Carole Hillenbrand for reading a draft of this paper, and for her useful
comments and suggestions.
1 See C. Hillenbrand, The Crusades. Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh, 1999), 69–74.

96 mallett
al-jihād.2 Almost all scholarship from the last fifty years on initial Muslim
reactions to the Crusades has been based very heavily on these works, and
particularly the latter. The purpose of this study is to provide a brief introduc-
tion to aspects of a new text relevant to the subject: a tract on jihad which
constitutes the final chapter in a ‘Mirrors for Princes’ work entitled Tuḥfat al-
mulūk.3
Current Scholarship on the Early ‘Counter-Crusade’
Modern scholarship into Muslim reactions to the crusader presence forms

a small though important part of wider studies into both the Crusades and
Islamic history in the early sixth/twelfth centuries, and there have been three
main studies which deal with this phenomenon. The first is the 1968 tome
by Emmanuel Sivan L’Islam et la croisade. In this work, the view was put for-
ward that there was little attempt amongst Muslims from outside the specific
theatres of conflict to resist the Franks beyond the boundaries of normal cross-
border raiding, and certainly no concerted attempt to launch a jihad against
them before the latter years of the reign of ʿImād al-Dīn Zengī (d. 541/1146),
despite some employment of the propaganda of jihad by Muslim rulers of Syr-
ian cities and those of the Jazīra from 513/1118 onwards.4 The second study, by
Köhler, suggests that there was no jihad activity by the Muslim rulers during the
first decades of the Frankish presence.5 The third, Hillenbrand’s The Crusades:
2 The poems can be found in Ibn al-Khayyāṭ, Dīwān Ibn al-Khayyāṭ, ed. H.M. Bey (Damascus,
1958), 184–186; al-Abīwardī, quoted in Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fīʾl-taʾrīkh, ed. C.J. Tornberg, 14
vols. (Leiden, 1851–1876), 10:192–193; an anonymous poet quoted by Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm
al-zāhira fī mulūk Miṣr waʾl-Qāhira, ed. M.ʿA. Hātim, 16 vols. (Cairo, 1963), 5:151–152; partial
English translations can be found in Hillenbrand, Crusades, 69–71. Sections of al-Sulamī’s
Kitāb al-jihād were edited and translated into French in E. Sivan, ‘La génèse de la contre-
croisade. Un traité damasquin du début du xiie siècle’, Journal Asiatique 254 (1966): 197–224;
a full edition and English translation can be found in N. Christie, The Book of the Jihad of ʿAli
ibn Tahir al-Sulami (d. 1106). Text, Translation and Commentary (Farnham, forthcoming).
3 Tuḥfat al-mulūk, in Du Mujaddid, ed. N. Pūrjavadī (Tehran, 1381/2002), 345–412; the jihad
chapter is on pp. 407–411. A fuller analysis, with an accompanying English translation of the
text, are forthcoming by the present author.
4 E. Sivan, L’ Islam et la Croisade (Paris, 1968), 23–53.
5 M.A. Köhler, Alliances and Treaties between Frankish and Muslim Rulers in the Middle East, tr.
P.M. Holt, rev., ed. and introduced by K. Hirschler (Leiden, 2013), 20–127. As Köhler’s study is
based primarily upon diplomatic and political relations between Frankish and Muslim rulers,
there is little assessment of al-Sulamī’s text.
the ‘jihad chapter’ from tuḥfat al-mulūk 97
Islamic Perspectives, follows broadly the same line of argument as Sivan, accept-
ing the broad assertion that the Muslim jihad against the Franks only really
took hold following the arrival of the Second Crusade in 543/1148 and the sub-
sequent growth in power of Nūr al-Dīn (d. 565/1174), but adds that there were
a number of religious figures in Syria who attempted to rouse the leadership
to perform the jihad against the enemy during the first decades of the crusader
presence.6 Both Sivan’s and Hillenbrand’s works are based firmly on analyses of
al-Sulamī’s Kitāb al-jihād, alongside additional examinations of extant poetry
and references in later chronicles.7
In addition to these main works, other scholars have produced further stud-
ies which have likewise been based almost exclusively on examinations of al-
Sulamī’s text and the poems, and which examine that work primarily in the
light of Sivan’s and Hillenbrand’s theories.8 From this brief assessment of the
state of current scholarship and the lack of surviving source material it should
be clear that there is a significant need for new evidence to be brought to light,
something this study seeks to achieve.
6 Hillenbrand, Crusades, 103–132.

7 See also P.M. Cobb, The Race for Paradise (Oxford, 2014), and N. Christie, Muslims and
Crusaders (London, 2014).
8 See, for example, S.A. Mourad and J.E. Lindsay, The Intensification and Reorientation of Sunni
Jihad Ideology in the Crusader Period. Ibn ʿAsākir of Damascus (1105–1176) and His Age, with an
Edition and Translation of Ibn ʿAsākir’s The Forty Hadiths for Inciting Jihad (Leiden, 2013), 31–
46; P.E. Chevedden, ‘The View of the Crusades from Rome and Damascus: The Geo-Strategic
and Historical Perspectives of Pope Urban ii and ʿAlī ibn Ṭāhir al-Sulamī’, Oriens 39 (2011): 257–
329; N. Christie, ‘Jerusalem in the Kitab al-jihad of ʿAli ibn Tahir al-Sulami (d. 1106)’, Medieval
Encounters 13 (2007): 209–221; N. Christie, ‘Motivating Listeners in the Kitab al-jihad of ʿAli
ibn Tahir al-Sulami (d. 1106)’, Crusades 6 (2007): 1–14; D. Talmon-Heller, ‘Islamic Preaching in
Syria during the Counter-Crusade (Twelfth-Thirteenth Centuries)’, in In Laudem Hierosolymi-
tani, ed. I. Shagrir, R. Ellenblum and J. Riley-Smith (Aldershot, 2007), 61–75; P.E. Chevedden,
‘The Islamic Interpretation of the Crusade. A New (Old) Paradigm for Understanding the
Crusades’, Der Islam 83 (2006): 90–136; N. Christie, ‘Religious Campaign or War of Conquest?
Muslim Views of the Motives of the First Crusade’, in Noble Ideals and Bloody Realities. War-
fare in the Middle Ages, ed. N. Christie and M. Yazigi (Leiden, 2006), 57–72; N. Elisséeff, ‘The
Reaction of the Syrian Muslims after the Foundation of the First Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’,
in Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth Century Syria, ed. M. Shatzmiller (Leiden, 1993), 162–172;
and H. Dajani-Shakeel, ‘A Re-assessment of some Medieval and Modern Perceptions of the
Counter-Crusade’, in The Jihad and its Times, ed. H. Dajani-Shakeel and R.A. Messier (Ann
Arbor, mi, 1991), 41–70.
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Aspects of Kitāb al-jihād and the Surviving Poetry on the Frankish

Invasion
In order to provide some contextualisation for the rest of the article, it is nec-
essary here to recount briefly some aspects of the poetry and al-Sulamī’s text.
The main focus of modern studies has been, as noted above, al-Sulamī’s Kitāb
al-jihād. The surviving aspects of this text make a number of points, although
those of particular interest are limited to the section entitled Book 2.9 In this
part, the obligatory nature of jihad on all Muslims is highlighted, along with
how it has been neglected at the time of writing as, after the exemplary con-
duct of the Rāshidūn and some other ‘good’ caliphs in consistently carrying
out jihad, latter-day caliphs let this activity falter through weakness and neg-
ligence. This led to Muslim disunity, which in turn allowed their enemies (the
Franks) to seize Islamic lands in Sicily, Spain, and Syria. The Muslim response
to this, al-Sulamī suggests, has been poor, and he contrasts the tirelessness of
the Frankish assaults with the Muslim failure to confront them because of lazi-
ness and a reluctance to get involved. He also comments how it is a duty for
every Muslim to become involved in the struggle until the Franks are defeated.
This means, according to this ‘principle of sufficiency’, that if the Muslims in
the area being attacked are not strong enough to resist then more need to join
them, until the point is reached where resistance is successful, and, although it
is a duty of the central leadership to lead the struggle, it is still incumbent on
Muslims in general to join the fight if the leaders do not. Furthermore, al-Sulamī
gives precedence to the ‘internal’ jihad over the ‘external’ one, as he claims only
an internal religious ‘cleansing’ would prepare the way for a Muslim victory,
while he also suggests that the Muslims can prove themselves worthy of great
rewards by defeating the Franks, which, according to quoted hadith reports,
could lead to the Muslim conquest of Constantinople and Rome.10
The other main texts which have been used to reconstruct the attitudes
of this period are the surviving poems. In these, the poets lament the loss of
Jerusalem to the Muslims, and the majority of the space within these texts
is devoted to fierce criticism of the failure of the Muslim authorities to make
any effort to counter this loss, and the affront to God it would be should
they continue to do nothing. Yet they also see this as an opportunity for the
9 Only books 2, 8, 9, and 12 survive, along with a small fragment of another book. It is not
known how long the original text was or what was contained within the lost books. Books
8, 9, and 12 are primarily concerned with how the jihad should be carried out in theory
and contain almost nothing on the situation in Syria at the time.
10 See Sivan, ‘La génèse’.
Muslims to show they are worthy of their position by taking the fight to the
Franks and attempting to dislodge them. Additionally, contained with these
poems are references to what the Franks have done: turning mosques into
churches, putting a cross in place of the miḥrāb, placing pig’s blood in the
(former) mosques, and burning Qurʾans. These images are designed to outrage
the Muslim readership, as the most holy places and items of Islam are being
subjected to the most religiously polluting acts on the part of the Franks.11
Due to this very limited quantity of surviving source material from the
period, the location and assessment of new sources is vital in determining
the extent to which these ideas permeated Islamic society—or at least some
parts of it—in the early crusading period: were they shared by the majority of
the literate classes, or are the attitudes contained within these works merely
examples of the serendipitous survivals of text which did not reflect general
opinion? It is hoped that this study will go some way towards answering this
question.
‘Mirrors for Princes’ Texts
Before moving on to discuss the specific text in question it will be useful to

examine the genre of which it is an example. ‘Mirrors for Princes’, or Fürsten-
spiegel, texts constitute a type of writing which was very popular during the
medieval period in the Islamic world, and they are essentially guides as to
how to govern justly, and what the role of the ruler should be. Modern schol-
arship has noted that they could be written by people from a wide range of
professional backgrounds, including bureaucrats, historians, philosophers, and
theologians, and they had their background in both Arabic-Islamic and Persian
ideas of kingship and statecraft, with the result that illustrative examples were
just as likely to come from pre-Islamic Persian stories as from Islamic ones. The
particular aim of those who wrote them was to help create the ideal (Islamic)
society which would necessarily occur through the application of the princi-
ples contained within the text to the society in which it was written. Those
aspects which were the focus of such works were usually how justice could
be ensured, how Islamic Law was to be followed and implemented, and how
‘orthodox’ Islam could be protected from the many threats with which it was
11 Sivan, L’ Islam et la croisade; see also Hillenbrand, Crusades, 69–71; H. Dajani-Shakeel,

‘Jihad in Twelfth-Century Arabic Poetry: A Moral and Religious Force to Counter the
Crusades’, The Muslim World 66 (1976): 96–113; and N. Christie, ‘Religious Campaign or
War of Conquest?’, 61–63.
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faced. ‘Mirrors for Princes’ texts were often written for or dedicated to a specific
member of the ruling classes in order to make him ‘reflect on himself’, to alter
his behaviour so that it would ‘mirror’ the ideals within the text and so, through
his influence, alter the state for the better.12
One of the most famous ‘Mirrors for Princes’ is Naṣīḥat al-mulūk, a work
whose authorship is uncertain, although it has often been wholly ascribed to
the famous al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), even if only the first part of the text, written
in Persian, is definitely his.13 This work contains chapters on the principles
of (the Islamic) faith, the qualities required by kings, viziers and secretaries,
and comments on others, such as intelligent persons and women. Other texts
from the period contain chapters containing similar, though not identical,
themes; for example, the Persian text Baḥr al-favāʾid (‘The Sea of Precious
Virtues’), seemingly written in eastern Anatolia in the 550s/1160s, contains a
large number of books, on subjects as diverse as the conduct of kings, what
is lawful and unlawful, rites of pilgrimage, wisdom, and stories of pious men.
This text does, however, also contain a book on jihad, which is not surprising
given its composition during the time of Nūr al-Dīn’s great ‘jihad revival’; yet
in the spirit of that venture, pride of place is given within the section on jihad
to the jihad against the soul—that against the Franks comes in a very definite
second place.14 However, despite the importance of ‘Mirrors for Princes’ as a
12 For ‘Mirrors for Princes’ texts, see among others A. Lambton, ‘Islamic Mirrors for Princes’,
in La Persia nel Medioevo (Rome, 1971), 419–442; A Lambton, ‘Islamic Political Thought’, in
The Legacy of Islam, ed. J. Schacht with C.E. Bosworth (Oxford, 1974), 402–424; L. Marlow,
Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 1997); C. Hillenbrand, ‘A
Little-Known Mirror for Princes by al-Ghazālī’, in Words, Texts, and Concepts Cruising
the Mediterranean Sea, ed. R. Arnzen and J. Thielmann (Leuven, 2004), 591–599 (591);
P. Crone, Medieval Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, 2005), 148–164; L. Marlow, ‘Advice
and Advice Literature’, Encyclopaedia of Islam Three. The quote is from Crone (150).
13 A translation of this work can be found in F.R.C. Bagley, Ghazālī’s Book of Counsel for
Kings (Naṣīḥat al-mulūk) (London, 1964). Discussions of the authorship can be found in
C. Hillenbrand, ‘Islamic Orthodoxy or Realpolitik? Al-Ghazālī’s Views on Government’,
Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 26 (1988): 81–94 (91–92), who writes
that only the first, Persian, section can be attributed to al-Ghazālī, while the second, Arabic
section was by an unknown later writer; and P. Crone, ‘Did al-Ghazālī Write a Mirrors for
Princes?’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987): 167–191, who goes even further,
agreeing with Hillenbrand’s assessment over the authorship while also declaring that the
Persian section is not a Mirror for Princes.
14 Anonymous, Baḥr al-favāʾid; trans. J.S. Meisami as The Sea of Precious Virtues: A Medieval
Islamic Mirror for Princes (Salt Lake City, 1991). It was a motif amongst Muslims writers who
demanded a revival of the jihad in order to fight the Franks that the Muslims themselves
literary genre within medieval Islamic writing they have been rather neglected
in studies of Muslim reactions to the Crusades.15
Circumstances of Composition of Tuḥfat al-mulūk
Moving onto the text itself, one of the most important questions surrounding
Tuḥfat al-mulūk is that of authorship. There is a claim in the text that it was
written by al-Ghazālī, the great Islamic philosopher and theologian of the
fifth/eleventh and sixth/twelfth centuries, and this claim has been taken at face
value by a number of modern scholars, who see al-Ghazālī’s ideas and methods
of writing and argument within the text. Others, however, reject this view, and
regard the text as being authored by someone otherwise unknown who used
al-Ghazālī’s name in the text in order to gain more attention for it, a not unusual
working method at the time.16 It is not the aim of this article to make a claim
whether or not al-Ghazālī was the author of this text; it is best left to experts on
al-Ghazālī’s thinking to make such a judgement. However, it would have been
strange for this great thinker to have remained silent over the Frankish invasion
of the Levant, although that does not mean that Tuḥfat al-mulūk’s jihad chapter
was indeed written by him, and further investigation is required.
The uncertainty over the question of authorship leads to further problems.
Foremost amongst these is the question of dating. If it was written by al-
Ghazālī, it must have been completed sometime before his death in Jumādā
ii 505/December 1111, making it one of the earliest anti-Frankish tracts from
the crusading period. If it was not written by al-Ghazālī, then the dating is a
lot less certain, although a number of suppositions can still be made. Although
needed to undergo a process of self-purification by carrying out a jihad against their own
soul. It was believed to be their failure to follow Islam properly which caused the Frankish
successes, and so it was only by returning to the correct path that the Franks could be
defeated. See also Hillenbrand, Crusades, 103–108, 117–141, 161–167.
15 Hillenbrand, Crusades, 161–162, wrote a very small section on the place of the Franks in
‘Mirrors for Princes’ texts from the crusading period, which focussed exclusively on Baḥr
al-favāʾid. Others, such as the text being examined in this article and al-Ṭurṭushī’s Sirāj
al-mulūk, have been completely ignored in studies of the Counter-Crusade.
16 This seems to have happened with the Arabic continuation of another of al-Ghazālī’s
texts, Naṣīḥat al-mulūk, which was almost certainly not written by al-Ghazali himself;
see note 13, above. For assessments of the debate surrounding the authorship of Tuḥfat
al-mulūk see O. Safi, The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam: Negotiating Ideology and
Religious Inquiry (Chapel Hill, nc, 2006), 121–122, and Pūrjavadī, Du Mujaddid, 327–336.
102 mallett
the text carries no date in it, internal evidence suggests it was written within
the first two decades of the crusading period, before 513/1118, and almost cer-
tainly before 538/1144. One of the first aspects of the situation in Syria which it
highlights is that Jerusalem had been lost by Islam to the ‘infidels’. The only
occasions prior to 1948 when Jerusalem was not controlled by Islamic pow-
ers were the years of Frankish domination over the city in 1099–1187 and again
in 1229–1244. Furthermore, it suggests that Hebron (the ‘Shrine of Khalīl’) had
also been lost by the Muslims, thus putting the piece firmly within the period
between 1100 and 1187, the years of Frankish rule over that town. Following this,
a number of suppositions may be made. The morbid tone of the text and the
deep concern with a lack of any response from the Muslim leadership make it
almost certain that it was written before the capture of Edessa by the Muslims
under the Turkish atabeg Zengī in 539/1144, the first time a significant Frankish
city had been taken. However, it seems likely that it was written much earlier
than this, and probably before 513/1119, for two main reasons. Firstly, there is no
mention of any Muslim victories over the Franks, of which the first major exam-
ple was the annihilation of the Frankish army of Antioch by the Muslims at the
battle of Balāṭ/Field of Blood in 513/1119. This was also the first occasion when a
Frankish ruler had been killed in conflict with the Muslims, and it was the basis
of a small though significant amount of jihad-based victory propaganda among
the Muslims. Had Tuḥfat al-mulūk been written in the years 513/1119–539/1144
it may be expected that at least one Muslim triumph—for example, at Balāṭ, at
the siege of Aleppo in 518/1124, or at the siege of Damascus in 523/1129—would
have been mentioned, if only in passing. Secondly, and perhaps most signifi-
cantly, the year 513/1119 seems to have been the cut-off date for any efforts by
the Muslims in general—either by the ordinary populations or by members of
the ʿulamāʾ—to urge the sultan in Baghdad to action against the Franks in per-
son. Before this date numerous embassies from Syrian towns asking for help
had been received in the ʿAbbāsid capital, and these had had varying degrees
of success, but no sultan ever came in person, and it seems that the total failure
of the sultan to do anything when an appeal was sent to Baghdad from Aleppo
in 513/1119 was the last straw. Never again did the inhabitants of Syria send to
the sultan for help, something that was almost certainly caused by a combina-
tion of a lack of action on the sultan’s part and the civil war which engulfed the
Seljuq state in Iraq and Persia during this and subsequent years.17 It would seem
unlikely that, given this political situation, the author of this text would have
17 Hillenbrand, Crusades, 78–81; A. Mallett, Popular Muslim Reactions to the Franks in the
Levant, 1097–1291 (Farnham, 2014), 32–37.
chosen to criticise the sultan for his failure to do anything of note against the
Franks while the latter was fighting in a civil war, and the lack of any criticism or
direct reference within the text to Muslims fighting Muslims in such a manner
reinforces this. It could also be suggested that, as the text claims to have been
written by al-Ghazālī, it cannot have been composed too long after his death if
it was not by him, again placing it tentatively before around 513/1119. As for the
earliest date of writing, Safi has suggested that it must have been written after
499/1105, as it contains sections copied verbatim from the Naṣīḥat al-mulūk’s
first section, which was definitely written by al-Ghazālī and completed in that
year.18 If al-Ghazālī’s authorship of Tuḥfat al-mulūk is doubted, then this assess-
ment must be correct. However, if it is believed that al-Ghazālī did write it (as
Safi does), there is no reason why Tuḥfat al-mulūk could not have been written
first, before Naṣīḥat al-mulūk. Whichever is the case, it seems clear that Tuḥfat
al-mulūk can be placed alongside the surviving poems and al-Sulamī’s Kitāb al-
jihād as one of the earliest surviving textual responses to the Frankish presence,
written sometime between 499/1105 and approximately 513/1119.
Another problem related to that of authorship is Tuḥfat al-mulūk’s place of
composition. If al-Ghazālī is presumed to be the author, then it can be placed,
depending on the date of composition, either in Syria if was written before
506/1106, or Nishapūr or Ṭūs, both in Persia, after that year. If it was not by
al-Ghazālī, however, then its place and circumstances of writing are unknown;
it may have been written in Syria, Iraq, Persia, or even further east, although as it
was addressed to the Seljuq sultan it must have been written somewhere in the
territory which acknowledged his sovereignty which, at the time, was almost
all the Islamic world east of Syria. One of the most notable aspects of the text,
which marks it out from almost all other Islamic writings about or against the
Frankish crusader presence in the Levant, especially from the early crusading
period, was that it was written in Persian rather than Arabic. The significance
of this linguistic factor cannot be overstated. While Arabic was the Muslim
lingua franca in the Levant, and certainly the language of the Islamic courts
of that area’s towns, if not the rulers, Persian was the language of the Seljuq
court in Baghdad. This, along with its direct address to the sultan, indicates
that the text was composed for consumption not in the Levant, where the
Muslims were directly facing the Franks, but in Baghdad, the seat of the Seljuq
empire, suggesting it was written in eastern Iraq, Persia, or even further east,
where Persian was the main language. It is known that news of the Frankish
invasions came to Baghdad in the very first year of their presence in the Levant,
18 Safi, The Politics of Knowledge, 121; see also footnote 13 above.

104 mallett
and this piece could have been written with such stories in mind.19 However,
it also cannot be discounted, given the anger contained within it, that it was
written by someone from the east who had been in Syria and had seen for
themselves the effects of the Frankish invasions; this would have been the case
for al-Ghazālī himself.
The inability to know for certain who the author was, and where and, to
a lesser extent, when it was written unfortunately means that the precise
context of composition is unknown, and a number of questions must be left
unanswered. Was the author someone who had been made a refugee by the
Frankish invasions or someone living under Frankish rule? Was it someone
whose territory was close to that of the Franks and so was feeling threatened?
Or was it someone who lived much further away and whose lands were in no
danger, but who still felt outrage at the fact that the Franks had taken Muslim
territory? Even though these questions concerning the precise circumstances
of composition remain unclear, the work is still important as evidence for
Muslim reactions to the Frankish presence.
The Jihad Chapter in Tuḥfat al-mulūk
The chapter on jihad is the last of the eleven contained within the book, and
this position is surely significant; as will be seen, the tone of the text is a barely
disguised raw anger directed towards the sultan. This suggests that that the
author placed this chapter, with all its indignant fury, at the end of the text as,
being the final section, it would be both the conclusion to all the comments
which came before and, as the last thing read, more likely to remain in the
mind of the reader.20 Its importance is further suggested because in this period
it was unusual for ‘Mirrors for Princes’ texts to have chapters on jihad at all.
Other works written just before or during the beginning of the sixth/twelfth
century, including al-Ṭurṭushī’s Sirāj al-mulūk, al-Ghazālī’s Nasīḥat al-mulūk,
and Niẓām al-Mulk’s Siyāsat-nāma, among others, do not have them, and so
merely by containing one, Tuḥfat al-mulūk marks jihad out as an issue of
particular importance.
The rest of this article will introduce some of the main points of Tuḥfat
al-mulūk’s final chapter and how these relate to other surviving works against
19 Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī taʾrīkh al-mulūk waʾl-umam, 6 vols., numbered 5b–10 (Hyder-
abad, 1938–1940), 9:105.
20 Cf. Hillenbrand, ‘A Little-Known Mirror for Princes’, 598.
the Franks from this period. The chapter on jihad commences dramatically
and potently with q 9:111, which states, in the original Arabic followed by a
Persian paraphrase: ‘Indeed, God has bought from the faithful their lives and
their properties so that paradise is theirs’. This forceful opening highlights to
the readership that the lives of Muslims are no longer their own and that it
is God who has the right to dictate to them what they do because they will
receive paradise in exchange for this, and consequently they cannot refuse to
do what God wants.21 The author then moves from this verse to speaking about
jihad itself, underlining that it is jihad to which that verse is referring, and
so it is jihad which the Muslims cannot refuse to undertake. He writes that
it is a fundamental principle of Islam, before setting out to define it, writing,
‘This is jihad: that they (the Muslims) go to the lands of the infidels (dār
al-kuffār) and fight them’.22 Thus, the text describes the origins of the jihad
against the infidel, how jihad is an obligation on the Muslims—and here, it
is equated with warfare, described as setting out for the lands of the infidels
and killing them—and that it is stipulated as a duty in the Qurʾan. Yet for
the author this duty is not being adhered to, and instead the enemies of the
Muslims have taken the initiative, and consequently Muslim lands have been
invaded; the text employs language which suggests that this is a perversion of
the divinely ordained world order, as the infidels have reversed this by invading
and conquering Islamic lands.23
The text then continues to a description of the consequences of the Frankish
presence, using deliberately emotive examples designed to arouse anger and
shock in the audience, and in an outraged passage the writer thunders that:
[The Franks] have [taken] the minbars of the Muslims, have turned the
Shrine of Khalīl—peace be upon him—into a house for pigs, and they
have also turned the miḥrāb of Zechariah—peace be upon him—and
the birthplace of Jesus—peace be upon him—into the infidels’ drinking-
houses, and have captured the qibla of 124,000 prophets, and they have
banished the call to prayer (‘the cry of Islam’), while they declare their
unbelief.24
21 Tuḥfat al-mulūk, 407.

22 Tuḥfat al-mulūk, 407. It is to be noted that the writer has a very narrow perspective on the
idea of jihad, seeing it as being exclusively fighting non-Muslims and not mentioning the
‘greater jihad’ (that against one’s own soul).
106 mallett
In writing in such a manner, the writer deliberately underscores how aspects

of the ‘pure’ religion of Islam—the minbars, qiblas, shrines and prophets—
have all been tainted and polluted not only by the Frankish presence, but also
by their seemingly deliberate attempts to defile the area religiously, through
the use of impure pigs and wine, and their destruction of Islamic places of wor-
ship. While some of these things occured after the Frankish invasions, not all of
them did, and the report is primarily designed to force the readers—and par-
ticularly the sultan to whom it is addressed—to action, using examples which
seem impossible to ignore.
Following this assessment of the situation in Syria, the text then addresses
the sultan directly, telling him that it is a religious duty, as important as
prayer—and therefore absolutely necessary—that he participate in a jihad
against the Franks and eradicate them, challenging him with the question:
‘Why do you not come to the rescue of the Muslims and recapture the lands
taken?’25
The author then, in a rather self-aggrandising statement, comments that
nobody else has spoken to the sultan in the way he is doing because nobody
else has been brave enough to do so. The writer, however, underlines that he is
doing what is correct in speaking thus, and reminds the addressee that, what-
ever difficulties he may encounter in doing his duty of jihad, the consequences
of failing to take it up are much more severe, citing q 9.81 as his basis, ‘The
fire of hell is fiercer [than the heat of battle]’.26 Then, as an example of this in
action, the author recounts the story of three of the Companions of Muḥam-
mad mentioned in q 9.118. The narrative details how, when the Muslims went
on a raid, these three failed to participate and so were ostracised from the
Islamic community, as Muḥammad ordered that nobody return their greeting.
In penance for their deeds, and to allow themselves back into the umma, the
three tied themselves to a post and declared that they would neither eat food
nor release themselves from their bound state until they were accepted back
into their community. This very public and difficult act of repentance allowed
them to be re-integrated into the nascent Islamic community as they desired.27
By making reference to this episode, the writer compares the sultan to one of
those three, in danger of being ostracised from the community and in need of

26 Tuḥfat al-mulūk, 407–408.
27 Tuḥfat al-mulūk, 408. The three referred to in q 9:118 are traditionally taken to be Kaʿb ibn
Mālik, Hilāl ibn Umayya and Murara ibn Rabīʿ, who failed to go on a raid against the town
of Tabūk in 10/632.
repentance for failing to take part in the jihad; once he does so he will be
accepted by God again.
Following this threat, the tone becomes more positive through the employ-
ment of a number of Qurʾanic verses, used to underscore the results of taking
up the jihad against the Franks. Firstly, the words of some of the Companions
of Muḥammad, in which they declare their yearning for paradise and the mar-
tyrdom which leads to it—causing them to fight in the front row and attempt
to be killed—are recounted.28 Secondly, the deaths of the Companions Ḥamza
ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and Muṣʿab ibn al-Zubayr are described: how they went
on a raid, made sure they were on the frontline of the battle, were killed in
it, and were taken to paradise where, the text emphasises, they are not dead
but alive.29 Thirdly, to demonstrate the veracity of the martyrdom achieved by
them, the author highlights how those who are martyrs have been found to be
incorruptible after a long period of burial—how, amongst other things, their
flesh is still fresh and their clothes new. This, says the writer, is proof of their
martyrdom, as proclaimed by Muḥammad.30
Following this comes one of the most important aspects of this tract: how
the author interprets who is responsible for the defence of Islamic territory in
case it is attacked. While al-Sulamī regards the waging of the struggle against
the Franks as being principally the duty of the Muslim ruler in the regions sur-
rounding Frankish territory, with the ordinary people having an important role
in the struggle, the author of Tuḥfat al-mulūk instead puts the duty to do this
first and foremost on the sultan and his army in Baghdad. It is fundamentally
not the case, he writes, that the sultan has a choice in the matter; it is instead,
he repeats, a duty incumbent on him. Furthermore, the author justifies his crit-
icism of the sultan, based on his (assumed) position as a member of the ʿulamāʾ.
For just as it is incumbent on the sultan to set out on the jihad, so it is incum-
bent on the ʿulamāʾ to speak the truth to the sultan about his duty to perform
the jihad, and not to pretend it is not a duty for the sultan in order to gain
power or wealth for themselves. In order to prove this, the writer repeats the
statement of Muḥammad that the greatest of all martyrs are Ḥamza ibn ʿAbd
al-Muṭṭalib and a man who speaks the truth in front of an unjust sultan and is
killed because of it. By including this statement in the text, the author is doing
two things simultaneously: he is both seeking to protect his own honour by
conferring the potential for martyrdom on those, such as himself, who may feel

108 mallett
the wrath of the ruler who has been criticised, while also suggesting that any
ruler who killed the person who spoke the truth is an enemy of the true faith,
perhaps no better than the Franks themselves. This would thus give reasons to
the sultan not to kill the author, as in so doing it would put the sultan’s soul in
danger of hell.31
The author then uses another approach in his attempts to prevent himself
from receiving the sultan’s wrath. In the following section of the text the author
praises the sultan for being a just and benevolent ruler—and so implicitly
suggesting that he would not, therefore, kill anyone who spoke the truth to him.
The author seems to be deeply concerned about his own situation, as following
this he attempts to create a group in which he and the sultan are, in fact, in the
same situation. For, he writes, just as the author has a God-given duty to tell
the sultan what he should be doing about the Franks, so it is also the God-given
duty of the sultan to carry out the jihad; both of them, the implication is, are
in a situation which they would prefer not to be in, but neither of them can
refuse to do so as it is their duty. As the author of the tract has done his duty in
this regard through his composition of it, so the sultan is further pressured to
carry out the jihad against the Franks, particularly as, the author underlines,
it is only after the sultan has started it that other Muslims can participate
properly.32
After this appeal to the sultan’s duty, and the highlighting of the negative
consequences of failing to react and the good consequences of a positive
response, the author directly challenges the sultan as to his next move. As,
he writes, this life will end, what will the sultan do? For, the writer concludes
from his previous statements, it is better for the sultan to spend his time doing
the will of God—taking back Jerusalem, the tomb of Abraham, and the lands
of Islam from the infidels so that he will receive praise and intercession from
Muḥammad on the day of resurrection—than to do nothing and instead have
Muḥammad as an adversary, criticising him for his lack of action and—it is
implied—ensuring the sultan does not make it to paradise but is instead sent
to hell on that day.33
The tract concludes, however, rather negatively, with a section criticising
attachment to worldly things and to cowardice. Using q 46:20, the writer notes
how worldly possessions will be of no use on the day of judgement, but are
instead criticised, because those who enjoyed their life in this world have

used up all their rewards already, thus leaving them no possibility for the
rewards of paradise. Likewise, the words of ʿAlī are then recalled in which
he demonstrates that cowardice is pointless as the coward cannot escape
his destiny; the implication being that the sultan will die on his allotted day
whether he is in battle or sitting in his palace. Thus, the sultan would be
better off going into battle with the Franks, since if he were to die there on
the day his death was decreed, he would go straight to paradise as a mar-
tyr.34
Conclusion
The aim of this brief study has been twofold: firstly, it has sought to highlight the
importance of Tuḥfat al-mulūk’s chapter on jihad as evidence for early Muslim
reactions to the Crusades; secondly, it has attempted to highlight the main
aspects of the text itself. It should be clear from this that many of the themes
which are espoused are similar to those mentioned earlier from the works of
al-Sulamī and the poems about the arrival of the Franks. Those that are present
in all three of these texts include the responsibility of the Muslim leadership to
lead the fight against the Franks and their failure to do so thus far. Furthermore,
both al-Sulamī and Tuḥfat al-mulūk, although not the poets, highlight the
opportunity for salvation which the Frankish presence gave Muslims at the
time. Yet there are also differences between them. Foremost is the use of Persian
as the language of choice for the text of Tuḥfat al-mulūk, compared to Arabic for
the other texts, which suggests a difference in target audience. While al-Sulamī
seeks to address Muslim leaders in general, particularly those in Syria whose
court language was Arabic, the author of Tuḥfat al-mulūk wrote directly to
the sultan in the Persian-speaking court at Baghdad. The appearance of this
text within a larger ‘Mirrors for Princes’ work is also significant, as it suggests
that the author regarded the Franks as merely one problem which the Islamic
world was facing, and he presents them in a similar way to how the Nizārīs, for
example, are portrayed in other ‘Mirrors for Princes’ texts from the time.
Consequently, current theories explaining how Muslims reacted to the
arrival and presence of the Frankish crusaders may have to be altered, in two
ways. Firstly, the supposed lack of surviving material, which has always been
used to demonstrate that there was little enthusiasm for a jihad against the
Franks in this period, is overstated, as there is more extant material than is

110 mallett
supposed.35 Secondly, the belief that the message expounded by al-Sulamī was
both unique and had little impact needs to be re-assessed, as the ideas in Tuḥfat
al-mulūk are fairly similar. Consequently, a reassessment of the current narra-
tive of the early years of the Counter-Crusades, and particularly the role and
response of the ʿulamāʾ, of which the author was almost certainly a member, is
necessary in order to take into account the discovery of new evidence on the
subject, of which the text from Tuḥfat al-mulūk is but one example.
One further point must also be made. This study has highlighted a number of
aspects of the text itself which may be of importance when attempting to ascer-
tain its authorship: the text contains strong Sufi themes, particularly its focus
on the ephemeral nature of existence and the need to govern justly because
of the unavoidable day of judgement; there are no stories from non-Islamic
sources within the text; ideas are grounded firmly within Islamic traditions sur-
rounding Muḥammad and his Companions; there is no mention of the caliph
within the text, or of any specific ruler; and the positioning of this most impor-
tant section of the text is right at the end, as in a work of fiqh. This reflects very
closely the approach taken by al-Ghazālī in his ‘Mirrors for Princes’ text Kīmiyā-
yi saʿādat, increasing the chances that Tuḥfat al-mulūk may indeed have been
written by that great thinker.36
35 As well as this chapter on jihad, two works by al-Ṭurṭushī (d. 520/1126) also seem to have
been at least partially written in response to the arrival of the Franks in the Levant: Sirāj
al-mulūk and Kitāb al-ḥawādith waʾl-bidāʿ. An assessment of these works by the current
author is forthcoming.
36 For these aspects in the Kīmiyā see Hillenbrand, ‘A Little-Known Mirror for Princes’,
595–598.
chapter 8
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and Ibn ʿArabī on the Ways

to Knowledge of God: Unveiling or Reflection and
Reasoning?
Whether human beings can know God, and, if so, by which way, is a matter
of discussion within the Islamic tradition. Muslim philosophers, theologians
and Sufis have had heated discussions on this issue, and fundamentally dif-
ferent views have been set forth. As a result of these debates, the existence of
more than one way to such knowledge became apparent, and it proved diffi-
cult to rule out the validity of any of the various alternatives completely. That
is why we see in the writings of the great figures from the later generations
of the Islamic tradition an attempt to include these different ways into their
respective theories somehow. In this article, I will discuss the approaches of
two leading figures of the Islamic tradition to the nature, sources and limits of
metaphysical knowledge, in particular to knowledge of God. The first figure I
wish to consider is Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210), one of the leading thinkers not
only within the Ashʿarite school, but also within Muslim theology in general.
His main achievement was to harmonise philosophy, particularly the philos-
ophy of Ibn Sīnā, with Muslim theology, and produce a kind of philosophical
theology that exerted significant influence upon later theologians. The second
figure is Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240), hailed as the ‘Greatest Master’ in Sufi
tradition and responsible for a deep and pervasive influence over the intellec-
tual life of later generations. For the purpose of this article, I will compare their
approaches using the following three questions. First, is it possible for human
beings to have knowledge of God and does this knowledge include God’s exis-
tence, essence and attributes? Second, can human beings reach certainty in this
area, or do they have to be satisfied with the most appropriate opinion among
the alternatives? Finally, what is the way that leads human beings to knowl-
edge of God? Both Rāzī and Ibn ʿArabī state that there are two ways for human
beings to attain the knowledge of God, namely, unveiling and reasoning. I will
discuss how they evaluate these two ways and whether they consider them to
be alternatives or complementary.
Before entering into discussion of Islamic understandings of attaining
knowledge of God, a brief reminder of the classification of the sciences, the

112 i̇s kenderoğlu
position of metaphysics within this classification, and the subject matter of

metaphysics is necessary. As in many other issues, it is evident that both Rāzī
and Ibn ʿArabī were heavily influenced by Ibn Sīnā in relation to the classi-
fication of sciences and the position of metaphysics within them. However,
it seems that they differ slightly from Ibn Sīnā on the question of the proper
subject matter of metaphysics. For Ibn Sīnā, the proper subject matter of meta-
physics is that which exists inasmuch as it exists,1 in other words, ‘being as
being’ as Aristotle says,2 and on this issue Ibn Sīnā criticises those who claim
that the subject matter of metaphysics is God or causes in general.3 When Rāzī’s
earlier works are compared with his final work, Al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya min al-ʿilm
al-ilāhī, it seems that his understanding of metaphysics has changed from that
of Ibn Sīnā’s to the one that Ibn Sīnā criticises, namely, that the subject matter
of metaphysics or, as Rāzī calls it, al-ʿilm al-ilāhī is God. This change of under-
standing regarding the subject matter of metaphysics is continued with Ibn
ʿArabī, for whom metaphysics or gnostic science (maʿrifa), as he names it, deals
primarily with the Real (al-Ḥaqq) or God, who is identified with the absolute
being (al-wujūd al-muṭlaq).4 Furthermore, this understanding is reiterated by
his student, Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qunawī, who writes that the subject matter of meta-
physics is the existence of the Real, rather than that which exists inasmuch as
it exists.5
For Rāzī in Al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, metaphysics is the highest science, and it
derives this position, first, from the subject matter that it deals with, since
it primarily deals with God and His attributes. A number of proofs can be
given for God’s being the highest being, but for Rāzī, the best proof is to state
that God is beyond comparison with any other being. Second, it is the highest
science because its ultimate purpose is to attain real or ultimate happiness. He
argues that metaphysical concerns lead man to spiritual pleasure, which is the
ultimate happiness, and the highest pleasure is achieved with the possession of
the knowledge of God and His attributes. The more man concentrates on this
metaphysical endeavour, the deeper his desire will be both to turn away from
1 Ibn Sīnā, Al-Shifā, Al-Ilāhiyāt, ed. G. Anawātī and S. Zāyed (Qum: Maktabat A. Marʿashī, 1984),
9; Ibn Sīnā, Najāt, ed. A. ʿAmayra, 2 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1992), 2:47.
2 Aristotle, Metaphysics, iv, 1, 1003a., tr. W.D. Ross, in Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. R.M. Hutch-
ins, Great Books of the Western World, vol. 8 (Chicago: Enc. Britannica, Inc., 1952).
3 Ibn Sīnā, Al-Shifā, Al-Ilāhiyāt, 5–9; for an analysis of this issue, see Jon McGinnis, Avicenna
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 149–153.
4 Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, 4 vols. (Beirut: n. p., n. d.), 1:118.
5 Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qunawī, Miftāh al-ghayb, with Hamza Fanārī’s commentary Miṣbāḥ al-uns, ed.
M. Khājawī (Tehran: Intishārāt-ı Mawlā, 1388/2009), 6.
rāzī and ibn ʿarabī on the ways to knowledge of god 113
everything worldly and towards God whole-heartedly, and this in turn furthers
his happiness. Consequently, for Rāzī, metaphysical knowledge is the source
of every goodness and happiness, and whoever reaches this knowledge can be
considered to be at the highest station of humanity.6
Rāzī has no doubt that it is possible for humans to have knowledge of
things in general and metaphysical things in particular. What is in question
is the degree of certainty in relation to the knowledge of metaphysical things.
By reference to the authority of great philosophers, of whom he gives no
names, though Aristotle may be given as one example,7 Rāzī argues that it
is not possible to attain certainty in metaphysical issues; the best that man
can do is to favour that view which is most likely or most justifiable.8 The
fact that no one can attain certainty in metaphysical issues can be seen more
clearly, according to Rāzī, by questioning our knowledge on issues we con-
sider most apparent. Rāzī’s following examples will be enough to clarify this
point.
He first gives the example of man’s knowledge of his own essence, which
is considered by all thinkers to be the most certain instance of knowledge.
For Rāzī, however, despite this claim of certainty, the intellect falls short of
reaching knowledge on this point. Hence, asks Rāzī, if the position of man’s
knowledge on issues closely related to himself is in such a state, how can
his knowledge on issues related to beings that are hierarchically distant from
himself be certain? There is no doubt that man’s knowledge of himself is
the most apparent knowledge. For one who knows something, necessarily
knows that he knows it. This means that his knowledge of himself precedes his
knowledge of other things. Now, asks Rāzī, what do we mean when we say ‘I’,
the existence of which we have no doubt? Do we mean our body, our physical
form, a part of the constituent parts of our body, an attribute of our body, or
a substance that is completely separate from our body and its attributes? The
theologians, the philosophers, the Sufis and other seekers of the true realities
of things tried to attain the knowledge of the ‘I’, which they supposed was the
most apparent, but in the end realised that such knowledge is a great mystery
and almost impossible to acquire. Such is also the position of the searchers
for the true realities of things regarding the nature of time, place and body, as
well as the mathematical issues on which they have, relatively speaking, more
6 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya min al-ʿilm al-ilāhī, ed., A.H. al-Saqqā, 9 vols. (Beirut:
Dār al-kutub al-ʿarabī, 1987), 1:37–40.
7 Aristotle, Metaphysics, ii, 1, 993a.
8 Rāzī, Al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, 1:41.
consensus. So, if the degree of certainty of man’s knowledge concerning himself

and other possible beings is in such a condition, what remains, then, for the
degree of certainty of his knowledge concerning God, who has no resemblance
whatsoever to possible beings, and His attributes? No doubt, Rāzī says, if the
human’s knowledge of himself is a mystery, then surely he approaches an
even greater mystery in the case of God. Hence, it is not possible for man to
reach certainty on this issue; the best he can do is to adopt the most likely or
justifiable view.9
The second proof of Rāzī for the impossibility of man’s attainment of cer-
tainty in metaphysical issues is formulated on the basis of an analogy between
the faculty of sight and the intellect. Rāzī argues that just as the faculty of sight
can neither perceive very dim objects nor very bright ones but only the objects
in between, so the faculty of intellect can neither comprehend weak objects
of knowledge nor strong objects, such as God and His attributes, but only the
objects of knowledge that fall in between these two categories. In this way,
therefore, the knowledge of God’s essence and attributes is beyond the com-
prehension of the human intellect.10
Rāzī’s third argument for the impossibility of certainty in metaphysical
issues is derived from the limits of the concepts (taṣawwur) and judgements
(taṣdīq) that constitute the bases of human knowledge. For Rāzī, knowledge
consists of either conception or judgement. There are four kinds of concep-
tions: the first is derived from essences perceived by the five senses, the second
from essences of emotions perceived necessarily by the human soul, the third
from essences comprehended as a result of the human intellect’s inborn judge-
ment, and the fourth from essences composed from simple essences by the
intellect, the faculty of imagination or by the estimative faculty. For Rāzī, since
human judgements are based on these four kinds of conceptions, judgements
also consist of four corresponding kinds. On the basis of these preliminary
remarks, the question that must be answered, says Rāzī, is that of from which
conceptions or judgements do we derive our knowledge of God’s essence. In
response to this question, Rāzī argues that God’s essence is totally different
from the essences that we know in detail through sense perception. For this
reason, the human intellect cannot know God’s essence fully. The utmost that
man can do is to consider the meanings of perfection and imperfection as they
refer to the human being first, and then, by negating the attachments that arise
as a result of their use in relation to human beings, attribute these concepts to
9 Rāzī, Al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, 1:41–46.

God. For Rāzī, although this analogical way is problematic in some ways, it is the
only way that can lead man to knowledge, though imperfect, of God’s essence.11
Rāzī’s fourth argument for the impossibility of certainty in metaphysical
issues is structured on the basis of the methodology for acquiring knowledge.
He argues that there are three main ways that lead us from the known to the
unknown and make us more knowledgeable: either from the cause to the effect,
from the equal to the equal, or from the effect to the cause. Rāzī argues that it
is impossible to acquire knowledge of God through the first way or the second.
This is because God is the cause of other beings, and what we want to inves-
tigate is the knowledge of this cause; yet, through the first way we can only
acquire knowledge of His effects on the basis of the knowledge of God, and
through the second way we can obtain no knowledge at all, since there is no
being of which we have knowledge that is compareable to God and from which
we can analogically reach knowledge of Him. Consequently, the only way that
leads us to the knowledge of God is the third way, that is, from the effect to the
cause. According to Rāzī, from knowledge of himself, man can reach the knowl-
edge of the cause of his existence, and from there to the cause of that cause and
so on until he reaches the knowledge of the necessary being, that is, God.12
For Rāzī, in this hiearchy of being, God is the first in the order of descent
from Him to created beings, and the last in the order of ascent from created
beings to Him, as is stated in the Qurʾanic verse, ‘He is the First and the Last’
(57:3). Since the ascending-descending stages are many, their natures are a
mystery to the human intellect. Their natures are different from each other, and
hence the degree of each one in illuminating the human intellect is different.
Additionally, since the human intellect is weak, it can be said that most people
cannot ascend to the highest stage; they stick to one of the lower stages or
another. Rāzī argues that most people are not able to ascend beyond the stage
of the sensible world, and most of those who are able to ascend beyond the
sensible world stick to the stage of the world of imagination. Only a few among
them are able to ascend to the intelligible world. Since there are also many
stages in the intelligible world, those who are able to reach this world remain
in one stage or another in this world. Only those who are endowed with divine
providence can ascend through all these stages and reach God. Consequently,
for Rāzī, not every human being can attain knowledge of God; this knowledge
is accessible only to a few select people.13

Up to this point, Rāzī argues for the possibility of metaphysical knowl-

edge but stresses that only a few people can access this knowledge and that,
rather than reaching certainty on this knowledge, they can only reach the view
that is more likely or justified. Now the question is that of which ways can
lead man to this knowledge. This brings us to Rāzī’s response to this ques-
tion.
Rāzī argues that there are two ways of acquiring metaphysical knowledge:
the first is the way of the metaphysical philosophers, that is, reflection (naẓar)
and reasoning (istidlāl); the second is the way of the Sufis or the people of
ascetic practices (aṣḥāb al-riyāḍa), that is, unveiling (kashf ).14 He argues that
by way of reflection and reasoning, from the conditions of possible beings,
the philosophers can prove the existence of the necessary being, that is, God.
For when it is established, in sequence, that material beings are possible and
temporally created, that possible beings need a determinant in order to come
into existence, that temporally created beings need another temporally created
being, and that infinite regression (tasalsul) and circularity (dawr) are impos-
sible, it must be accepted that the hierarchy of beings necessarily ends up in
an eternal being that is the Necessary Being. Although Ibn Sīnā argues that
it is possible to prove the existence of the Necessary Being from the concept
of being qua being without reference to possible beings and that this proof is
preferable to other proofs,15 for Rāzī, this way is weaker than the others. For,
even if it is granted that this way proves the existence of a necessary being, it
cannot clarify whether it is a material or immaterial being; this can only be
clarified with reference to possible beings.16
It is worth pointing out here that, in Rāzī’s examination of this philosophical
way, while clearly stating that this way gives us knowledge of God’s existence, he
is reticent as to whether it gives us knowledge of God’s essence and attributes.
Rāzī seems to imply that man cannot fully acquire knowledge of God’s essence
and attributes through reflection and reasoning.17
For Rāzī, the second way of acquiring metaphysical knowledge is the way of
the Sufis or the people of ascetic practices. He argues that when man purifies
his soul of engagements with beings other than God and turns his attention
together with his body and soul totally to God through invocation (dhikr), then

15 See Ibn Sīnā, Al-Ishārāt waʾl-tanbīhāt (Qum: Nashr al-balāgha, 1996), 102.
17 In some of his works Rāzī holds the view that God’s essence can be known. For a discussion
of his position in his different works, see Binyamin Abrahamov, ‘Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī on the
Knowability of God’s Essence and Attributes’, Arabica 49.2 (2002): 204–230.
his soul will be filled with divine lights and mysteries. Those who are not able
to ascend to these stations cannot fully comprehend these mysteries.18 At this
point, Rāzī argues that people’s spiritual capacities differ. While some people
are able to ascend beyond the stages of the sensible world and, as a result, are
capable of becoming divinely illuminated and fully acquire divine love, as well
as the capacity to access knowledge of God, others can only acquire these gifts
partially, while others can be totally deprived of them and hence become lost
in the darkness of the sensible world.19
Rāzī illustrates the diversity of people’s spiritual capacities with the diversity
of mountains and their mineral reserves. While some mountains and hills
contain minerals, others contain none. What is more, most of those that do
contain minerals contain cheap minerals while only a few contain valuable
ones. The most valuable minerals, such as gold, can only be found in a few
mountains, and, in these areas where gold is found, great effort is sometimes
required to obtain just a small amount of gold while at other times a rich gold
seam can be discovered with little effort. For Rāzī, the diversity of people’s
spiritual capacities resembles the diversity of the mountains, and the gold that
is found amongst them resembles the light of God’s knowledge and love. As
most mountains are devoid of valuable minerals, so are the human souls who
are interested in the intelligible world few and far between. Moreover, just as it
is impossible to access the most valuable minerals if the mountain from which
they are sought does not contain them, so also the efforts of souls who lack
the capacity for accessing divine knowledge cannot lead those souls to the
knowledge they seek since that door will not be opened to them. Furthermore,
just as some people can obtain gold only with great effort while others can
obtain it with little effort, so also some souls receive only a small number of
unveilings from intensive ascetic practice while others receive a great number
with little such practice.20
With these explanations, Rāzī tries to say that a man who chooses the ascetic
way does not necessarily ascend to the highest stage, and, in fact, that that is not
the ultimate goal. For, according to Rāzī, ascending to the ultimate goal, that is
to say, knowledge of God and, consequently, ultimate happiness, is not possible

19 Rāzī, Al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, 1:55; in the Mafātīh al-ghayb, Rāzī says that, through rational
proofs and divine unveiling, he reached the certainty that people’s intellectual capacities
and inclinations are different: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīh al-ghayb, 32 vols. (Beirut: Dār
iḥyāʾ turāth al-ʿarabī, 1999), 18:437.
in this world. Despite this, since the ascetic way takes the human soul from
the sensible world and the world of imagination to the intelligible world, there
is no doubt that the human soul attains some benefits from this practice.
Rāzī says that man can acquire the knowledge of God and the consequent
ultimate happiness only after the separation of his soul from his body and the
return of his soul to its original world, that is, the intelligible world, and thus
freeing itself from all the limitations that arise as a result of its connection with
the body. With the ascetic way, man can only partially actualize this ultimate
goal.21
Rāzī argues that the two methods of acquiring metaphysical knowledge,
namely, reflection (naẓar) and reasoning (istidlāl) on the one hand and unveil-
ing (kashf ) on the other are not mutually exclusive. The ideal way, for Rāzī, is
man’s perfecting his soul first in the way of reflection and reasoning and then
turning his attention to unveiling and ascending to perfection in that way too.
For, he argues, the practitioner of the ascetic way may sometimes imagine that
the unveilings that he has received are the final states, and this misapprehen-
sion may prevent him from attempting to acquire the higher states. The best
way to escape this trap is to evaluate the ascetic way with reason and reflec-
tion.22
Ibn ʿArabī’s metaphysical system is based on understanding of the Oneness
of Being or the Unity of Existence (waḥdat al-wujūd), and so the search for
this being is a central question that, for him, every human being must seek to
answer. Questions such as ‘How can I find God?’ and ‘Where can I find God?’
are central to this search. It goes beyond the scope of this essay to present Ibn
ʿArabī’s answers to these questions.23 What I will try to do is examine briefly
Ibn ʿArabī’s answer to the questions whether it is possible for human beings to
have knowledge of God and whether this knowledge includes God’s existence,
essence and attributes; what the ways that lead human beings to knowledge of
God are; and whether any human being can reach certainty of this knowledge.
Additionally, I will compare Ibn ʿArabī’s approach with that of Rāzī and evaluate
their approaches to this issue.
For Ibn ʿArabī, knowledge of God includes His essence, His attributes and His
acts. The search for knowledge of God, then, primarily includes God’s existence

23 See the works of William C. Chittick, in particular, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-
ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination (Albany, ny: State University of New York Press, 1989),
3, where he says that this is the major task of his work.
and essence, and, as a result of the manifestation of His names or attributes or

relations,24 everything other than God, namely the created beings, as His acts.
In a way similar to Rāzī, Ibn ʿArabī argues that there are two ways that lead to the
knowledge of God: first is the rational way, which he commonly expresses with
the terms reflection (naẓar) and reasoning (istidlāl). Second is the way of the
Sufis, for which he uses different terms in different passages such as unveiling
(kashf ), bestowal (wahb), witnessing (mushāhada) and finding (wajd).25 Ibn
ʿArabī’s evaluation of the rational way varies, for while he sometimes seems to
reject it totally, at other times he seems merely to lay stress on its inadequacy.26
In accordance with these different evaluations, his presentation of the relation
between these two ways also varies from placing them in a position of mutual
exclusion to one of complementarity.
Ibn ʿArabī argues that the reason for our bewilderment (ḥayra) in knowing
God is our seeking the knowledge of His essence through two ways, namely,
rational proofs and witnessing. He argues that the rational way treats knowl-
edge of God’s essence as an impossibility: reason cannot comprehend God’s
essence in terms of the positive attributes that He posseses essentially; it can
only comprehend Him through some negative attributes and then wrongly
considers this knowledge.27 Again Ibn ʿArabī tries to establish the unknowa-
bility of God through the impossibility of any comparison between Him and
creation. He argues that everything other than God can be comprehended
either through its essence, as is the case with sensible beings, or through its
actions, as is the case with intelligible beings. In this respect, the intelligible
being is higher than the sensible, for its essence cannot be comprehended; it
can be comprehended only through its actions. Ibn ʿArabī argues that, since the
sensibles and the intelligibles are thus, God is far beyond being comprehended
essentially or through His actions in a way similar to either sensible or intelligi-
ble things. For there is absolutely no relation or comparison between God and
His creatures. There is neither any similarity between Him and the sensibles
24 Names, attributes and relations are the terms that are used for expressing the same reality
by the Law, the theologians and the philosophers, respectively. Ibn ʿArabī seems to prefer
the term names; see Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, 3:389, 4:294.
25 Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, 1:261, 270, 319; 2:523; 3:310.
26 For analysis of this issue, see Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, 159; Salman H. Bashier,
Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Barzakh: The Concept of the Limit and the Relationship between God and
the World (Albany, ny: State University of New York Press, 2004), 118; Ian Almond, ‘The
Shackles of Reason: Sufi/Deconstructive Opposition to Rational Thought’, Philosophy East
& West, 53.1 (2003): 22–38.
27 Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, 1:270.
so that He could be comprehended through His essence. Nor is there any sim-
ilarity between Him and the intelligibles so that He could be comprehended
through His actions.28
Ibn ʿArabī repeatedly emphasizes that through reflection man cannot
acquire the knowledge of God’s essence. Moreover, with reference to the
Quranic verse, ‘God warns you about His Self’ (3:28), he repeatedly emphasizes
that this kind of reflection is forbidden by the Law (sharʿ).29 In this context, Ibn
ʿArabī understands from the Quranic verse, ‘In that there are signs for a peo-
ple who reflect’ (13:3), not reflection upon God’s essence, for that is impossible,
but reflection upon created beings.30 Ibn ʿArabī considers the created beings
to be a realization of God’s most beautiful names and His highest attributes,
which perpetually become manifest in people in diverse forms.31 He argues that
God can be known by created beings (ashyāʾ): the possessor of unveiling knows
God in the created beings through unveiling. While ordinary people see in cre-
ated beings their properties, the people of unveiling see in created beings God
alone.32 On this point, Ibn ʿArabī says that those who claim that they first know
God and then know the world are mistaken in their opinion.33 In a way similar
to Rāzī, Ibn ʿArabī seems to criticize Ibn Sīnā’s proof of God’s existence from the
concept of being qua being.
Ibn ʿArabī argues that the rational thinkers arrived at nothing in their discus-
sions on the essence of God because they reached contradictory conclusions
on the issue. For example, one of them said that God is a body while another
said that He is not a body, and one of them said that He is a substance while
another said that He is not a substance. Ibn ʿArabī states that God did not ask
people to plunge into this kind of discussion, and he argues from the example
of man’s knowledge of his soul, the same example used by Rāzī for the same
purpose, as discussed above, to show that these rational thinkers cannot even
verify (taḥqīq) the knowledge of a single essence in the world. Ibn ʿArabī says,
If it were said to this plunger: ‘How does your soul govern your body?
Is it inside or outside it, or neither inside nor outside? Consider that
with your rational faculty! And this extraneous thing through which the
animate body moves, sees, hears, imagines, and reflects—to what does
28 Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, 1:93–94.

29 See for example, Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, 2:230; 3:81.
33 Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, 2:507. Cf. Ibn Sīnā, Al-Ishārāt waʾl-tanbīhāt, 102.
it go back? To a single thing, or to many things? Does it go back to a

substance, an accident, or a body?’ If you were to seek from him rational
proofs—not proofs derived from the Law—he would not find any rational
proofs whatsoever.34
Hence, since man cannot reach proper knowledge on such issues close to
himself, how can he reach proper knowledge of God? Ibn ʿArabī says that the
way of reasoning is not the proper way to know God; in fact, it does not give
knowledge at all.35
The second way that leads to knowledge of God, for Ibn ʿArabī, is unveil-
ing, which man finds in his soul. This knowledge comes without any suspi-
cion and man cannot repel it. Ibn ʿArabī argues that this kind of knowledge
is given through divine self-disclosure to such people as the messengers, the
prophets and the friends of God (awliyāʾ).36 Ibn ʿArabī says that this knowl-
edge is beyond the stage of reason, though not unacceptable to the one who
has sound reason.37 Both people of reasoning and people of unveiling establish
with demonstrative proofs the oneness of God and His existence. However, the
second group through their way also brings other modes of knowledge and var-
ious attributes of God that rational proofs considered impossible. Thus, these
modes of knowledge distinguish the people of unveiling from the people of
reasoning. Ibn ʿArabī says that they actualize this knowledge through spiritual
retreats (khalwa) and invocations (adhkār) in order to purify their hearts from
the pollution of reflection. They start to polish their hearts through invocations,
reciting the Qurʾān, freeing the heart from consideration of possible things,
presence and self-examination. They also keep their outward dimension pure
by observing the boundaries of the Law. Ibn ʿArabī continues,
Such a person eliminates reflection from himself completely, since it

disperses his singleminded concern (hamm). He secludes himself at the
gate of his Lord, occupying himself with examining his heart, in hopes
that God will open the gate for him and he will come to know what he
did not know, those things which the messengers and the Folk of Allah
know and which rational faculties cannot possibly perceive on their own.
34 Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, 3:81; trans. from Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge,
63.
When God opens the gate to the possessor of this heart, he actualizes
a divine self-disclosure which gives to him that which accords with its
own properties. Then he attributes to God things which he would not
have dared attribute to God earlier. He would not have described God
that way except to the extent that it was brought by the divine reports. He
used to take such things through following authority. Now he takes them
through an unveiling which corresponds with and confirms for him what
the revealed scriptures and the messengers have mentioned. He used to
ascribe those things to God through faith and as a mere narrator, without
verifying their meaning or adding to them. Now he ascribes them to Him
within himself, with a verified knowledge because of that which has been
disclosed to him.38
With this, Ibn ʿArabī rejects the approaches of those rationalists who emphasize
God’s incomparability (tanzīh) and those literalists who emphasize His similar-
ity (tashbīh). For him, the people of unveiling reach true knowledge of God by
combining these two opposing approaches.39
Ibn ʿArabī says that this is the way of his friends, but emphasizes that this
self-disclosure of God is not open to the Sufis in general. What he means by
his friends are not worshipers and ascetics, but the people of verification (ahl
al-taḥqīq), heart, witnessing and unveiling.40 In a number of passages, Ibn
ʿArabī emphasizes that they alone possess the real or sound knowledge. The
following quotation will suffice to illustrate this point:
Sound knowledge is only that which God throws into the heart of the
knower. It is a divine light for which God singles out any of His servants
whom He will, whether angel, messenger, prophet, friend, or person of
faith. He who has no unveiling has no knowledge (man lā kashf lah lā ʿilm
lah).41
Ibn ʿArabī goes on to argue that man can reach the knowledge of everything
by way of unveiling, and he also goes on to forbid reflection totally because
it makes its possessor heir to deceit and lack of truth and becomes a barrier
168.
39 See Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, 73–76.
170.
to his acquisition of knowledge.42 Again, Ibn ʿArabī says that the greatest veil
between God and man is man’s acquisition of his knowledge from reflection
and reasoning.43 It must be pointed out that unveiling cannot give the knowl-
edge of God’s essence, since Ibn ʿArabī argues that for the people of the Realities
(ahl al-ḥaqāʾiq) the self-disclosure of the essence is unanimously impossible.44
Hence, his statement above must be taken with some reservation.
Despite this kind of exclusive approach to the rational way, Ibn ʿArabī some-
times presents the rational way as complementary to the way of unveiling. For
example, in one passage he argues that the philosophers who use reasoning can
have in common the knowledge that is disclosed to the people of God through
unveiling. The former acquire it through rational investigation while the lat-
ter through faith, but both reach the same conclusion.45 In another passage,
Ibn ʿArabī argues that, before the coming of revelation, reason was the fac-
ulty by which one could come to know God, and this achievement includes
the knowledge of His oneness and the necessary properties that He possesses
as the Necessary Being, though not knowledge of His essence. The Law brings
first what reason found beforehand and then adds something beyond the lim-
its of reason.46 It seems that with this approach Ibn ʿArabī does not exclude
the rational way but sees it as inadequate and complemented by revelation or
unveiling.
Since Ibn ʿArabī considers knowledge acquired through unveiling to be
beyond and higher than rational knowledge, a question arises about the evalua-
tion of this knowledge: what is the objective criterion that differentiates accept-
able inspiration, unveiling, bestowal or whatever we call it from the unaccept-
able? It seems that it is difficult to place an objective criterion on a science that
is based on the subjective experience of the Sufis. This is also a difficult prob-
lem for Ibn ʿArabī to answer. On this point, with reference to the famous Sufi
Junayd, Ibn ʿArabī argues, ‘Our knowledge is confined to the limits of the Qurʾan
and the Sunna’. He explains that the Sufis take their knowledge from God, not
from books or from the sayings of some people and that God does not teach
them anything contrary to what the prophet brought from Him. Their knowl-
edge does not contradict the revelation of any holy book or the sayings of the
Prophet. Their knowledge is similar to that which God gives to the legendary

sage Khaḍir.47 Needless to say, their interpretation of the Qurʾan and the Sunna
was different from other scholars, be they the theologians, the jurists or the
literalists; and they did not find difficulty in justifiying their unveilings from
the Qurʾān and the Sunna. Later, Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qunawī added to these criteria
another one, specifically, that the unveilings must also be evaluated by reason
and by the true unveiling of the verifiers, who are perfect men.48 With these cri-
teria Qunawī tries to show that the Law, reason and unveiling are in harmony
and that there cannot be any conflict among them.
With respect to acquiring metaphysical knowledge, it is a matter of dispute
whether the use of unveiling or witnessing (mushāhada) can be found in the
works of Ibn Sīnā alongside those of reasoning and reflection. It seems that,
even though it is difficult to claim that Ibn Sīnā clearly formulated a mystical
way, the idea can be found in his different works where he discusses the stations
of the Sufis.49 Later, Ghazzālī classified the searchers for the true reality of
things into four groups, namely, the philosophers, the theologians, the Bāṭinīs
(Ismāʿīlīs) and the Sufis.50 However, in the end, it can be said that the sources
of knowledge for the former two groups reduce to reasoning and reflection and
for the latter two groups to unveiling or inspiration (ilhām).
When it comes to the generation of Rāzī and Ibn ʿArabī, we see that both
refer only to two groups, namely, the people of reasoning and reflection and
the people of unveiling. It is important to note that Ibn ʿArabī considers the the-
ologians to be the possessors of imperfect reasoning while Rāzī does not men-
tion them in his classification in Al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya at all. Since Rāzī is com-
monly referred to as an important theologian, his reference to the philosophers
and the Sufis but not the theologians in Al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya seems to imply
his awareness of the lack of methodology in theology. When he attempted to
resolve this problem, Rāzī realized that the difference between theology and
philosophy disappeared. At this point, it is meaningless to discuss whether
what Rāzī is doing is theology or philosophy or philosophical theology, for he

48 Qunawī, Miftāh al-ghayb, 7–8; Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qunawī, Taʾwīl Sūrat al-Fātiha (Ḥaydarābād,
Dekkan: Dāʾirat al-maʿārif al-niẓāmiyya, 1310/1893), 10.
49 Ibn Sīnā, Al-Ishārāt waʾl-tanbīhāt, 143–161; Ibn Sīnā, Al-Shifā, Al-Ilāhiyāt, 423–455.
50 Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, Al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl, in Majmūʿat rasāʾil al-Imām al-Ghazālī
(Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1994). For an English translation, see Richard Joseph McCarthy, Free-
dom and Fulfillment: An Annotated Translation of Al-Ghazālī’s al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl and
Other Relevant Works of al-Ghazālī (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980); and M.A. Khalidi,
trans., ‘The Rescuer from Error’, in Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings, ed. M.A. Kha-
lidi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 59–98.
goes beyond the limits of these concepts and presents a new understanding of
metaphysical knowledge that includes reason and reflection as well as unveil-
ing or witnessing. On this point, he comes closer to the position of Ibn ʿArabī.
However, on the question whether the rational way or the way of unveiling is
the superior way that leads to the knowledge of God, Rāzī and Ibn ʿArabī dis-
agree. For while Ibn ʿArabī finds the rational way inadequate and in need of
supplementation by the way of unveiling, Rāzī thinks that the way of unveiling
may lead man into error and that it must be controlled by reason. It seems that
the criteria suggested by Ibn ʿArabī and his student Qunawī that the knowledge
disclosed through unveiling must be determined and supported by the Qurʾan
and Sunna and must accord with the true unveilings of the verifier does not
put the final point on this issue. Here, Rāzī’s suggestion that unveiling must be
controlled by reason seems to be the only objective criterion.
chapter 9
“Can You Find Anything Praiseworthy in My

Religion?” Religious Aversion and Admiration in
Medieval Christian-Muslim Relations
Charles L. Tieszen
Introduction
Sometime in the early thirteenth century, a Christian monk from Syria found
himself locked in debate with three Muslim scholars and an emir. After much
theological discussion, one of the Muslims implores, “Is there not to be found
in my book and with my prophet any virtue or anything praiseworthy?”1 The
nature of the monk’s response is the focus of the essay that follows in which we
attempt to discern patterns of aversion and admiration for Muḥammad and the
Qurʾān in three Christian texts devoted to Islam.
We begin with an examination of the text in which the exchange briefly sum-
marized above occurs, “The disputation of Jirjī the monk”, and observe many
features common to texts where Christians express aversion, not admiration,
for Islam. This treatise is important to our study because, though moments of
admiration are quite strained in the text, it may help us by comparison to catch
glimpses in other texts of admiration for Islamic faith and Muslim piety. With
this in mind, we also examine the well-known disputation of Patriarch Tim-
othy i with the Caliph al-Mahdī and the preface to a trilingual edition of the
Qurʾān commissioned by Juan de Segovia for the purpose of Christian-Muslim
dialogue. Like “The disputation of Jirjī the monk”, these two treatises retain
their Christian, theological distinctions, but unlike it, they also appear in some
ways to move ‘beyond aversion’2 towards admiration for Muḥammad and the
Qurʾān.
1 Constantine Bacha (Qusṭanṭīn Bāshā), Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib al-Simʿānī maʿ thalāthat
shuyūkh min fuqahāʾ al-Muslimīn bi-ḥaḍrat al-amīr Mushammar al-Ayyūbī, Beirut, 1932, 98;
Alex Nicoll, Account of a disputation between a Christian monk and three learned Moham-
medans on the subject of religion, Edinburgh Annual Register ad annum 1816, vol. 9 (1820),
437.
2 For a similar assessment applied to a different set of texts, see Mark N. Swanson, ‘Beyond
Prooftexting: Approaches to the Qurʾān in Some Early Arabic Christian Apologies’, The Muslim
World, 88, no. 3–4 (July–October 1998), 297–319.

“can you find anything praiseworthy in my religion?” 127
Taken together, all three texts place value on a dialogical process as a part
of forming a religious community’s identity.3 By choosing texts from different
periods and even different geographic locations, we can see the continuity
that may exist between texts, despite their varying historical contexts, but we
can also demonstrate the ways in which they exhibit patterns of aversion and
admiration.
Jirjī the Monk
Jirjī was a Melkite monk from the monastery of Mar Simʿān al-Barḥi near Anti-
och. In the early thirteenth century, perhaps in 1217, he travelled with fellow
monks to Aleppo and sheltered in the palace of al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Ghāzī b.
Yūsuf b. Ayyūb (r. 1186–1218), the local governor and son of the famous Ṣalāḥ
al-Dīn.4 Once there, the governor’s brother, al-Malik al-Mushammar, posed
a number of theological questions to the monk. Soon, three Muslim schol-
ars joined them for a debate, beginning with a discussion on discerning the
true religion, with much time given to the prophethood of Muḥammad. From
there, the debate shifted to matters of Christian doctrine before efforts to dis-
cern the true religion among Sabians, Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Many of
these topics are accompanied by the monk’s deployment of elaborate para-
bles.5 These stories not only function as colourful illustrations of the monk’s
arguments, but they were also designed to dazzle the reader as much as they
were meant to ensure the monk’s victory. In turn, those who read the account
of Jirjī’s debate might feel assured that their religion was the uniquely true
one.
Judging from manuscript witness, the text of the debate, known to us now
by the abbreviated title “The disputation of Jirjī the monk” (Mujādalat Jirjī
al-rāhib), enjoyed immense popularity.6 In fact, over ninety manuscripts are
3 Cf., David Bertaina, ‘Melkites, Mutakallimūn and al-Maʾmūn: Depicting the Religious Other
in Medieval Arabic Dialogues’, Comparative Islamic Studies, 4 no. 1/2 (June 2008), 31.
4 Mark N. Swanson, ‘The disputation of Jirjī the monk’, in David Thomas and Alex Mallett
(eds), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographic History, vol. 4 (1200–1350), Leiden: Brill,
2012, 167–168.
5 Barbara Roggema, ‘Ḥikayat amthal wa-asmar … King Parables in Melkite Apologetic Litera-
ture’, in Rifaat Ebied and Herman Teule (eds), Studies on the Christian Arabic Heritage, Leuven:
Peeters, 2004.
6 Samir Khalil Samir, ‘Jirji al-Simʿani’, Coptic Encyclopedia, accessed 18 December 2013, http://
www.ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/cce. For a summary of the
128 tieszen
known, but whether the debate can be affirmed as an historical event or is

simply the literary invention of a clever author, we cannot be sure.7 What is
certain is that the medieval account of the debate follows the general format
of other similar debates whose authenticity is not in question. More impor-
tantly, “The disputation of Jirjī the monk” conforms to the type of apologetic
debate that Sidney Griffith has called “the monk in the emir’s majlis”.8 In such
texts, a monk or ecclesiastic is summoned or otherwise found in the pres-
ence of Muslim authorities whereupon he is called to defend Christian faith
in a debate with a caliph, emir, and/or Muslim scholars.9 Most often, a nar-
rator tells the story of the entire affair, giving the debate both literary and
social functions. In other words, the accounts were written and intended to
circulate among Christian communities. In turn, they could nourish, encour-
age, and inform the communities who read them, affirming their identities as
Christians in Islamic milieus, encouraging them with stories of theological tri-
umph, and equipping them with strategies to best their Muslim interlocutors
in debate.
In terms of specific content, these debates, and in particular, “The dispu-
tation of Jirjī the monk”, cover most of the expected topoi of interreligious
apologetic and polemic literature. For example, along with much medieval
anti-Muslim writing, Jirjī concludes that Muslims are inherently violent. In fact,
text and its manuscripts, see L. Sâkô, ‘Bibliographie du Dialogue Islamo-Chrétien. Auteurs
chrétiens de … Auteurs arabes chrétiens du xiiie siècle’, Islamochristiana 7 (1981), 299–307
and Swanson, ‘The disputation of Jirjī’. As Swanson notes, modern Arabic editions were
completed by Bacha (also available at http://islamicmanuscripts.info/reference/index.html)
and Paul Carali (Būlus Qarʾalī) in Le Christianisme et l’Islam. Controverse attribuée au moine
Georges du Couvent de St Siméon (Séleucie) soutenue devant le Prince El-Mouchammar fils de
Saladin en 1207, Beit Chebab, 1933. Translations include, in English, Nicoll, 405–442 (based
on two manuscripts in the Bodleian Library), Dale A. Johnson, ed., Christian-Muslim Debate,
New Sinai Press, 2007 (based on one manuscript and also available online at http://www
.fordham.edu/halsall/source/christ-muslim-debate.asp), and, in French, Etienne A. Le Grand,
Controverse sur la religion chrétienne et celle des Mahométans, entre trois docteurs musulmans
et un religieux de la nation maronite, Paris, 1767 (based on one manuscript). As yet, there is no
modern edition or translation that takes into account all available manuscripts.
7 Sidney H. Griffith, ‘The Monk in the Emir’s Majlis: Reflections on a Popular Genre of Christian
Literary Apologetics in Arabic in the Early Islamic Period’, in Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, Mark
R. Cohen, Sasson Somekh, Sidney H. Griffith (eds), The Majlis: Interreligious Encounters in
Medieval Islam, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1999, 54, 60.
8 Griffith, ‘The Monk in the Emir’s Majlis’, 54, 60, and Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the
Shadow of the Mosque, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008, 77–81.
9 Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, 77.
“vehemence is common” among Muslims, Jirjī claims, and is a character trait in

which they glory.10 Muḥammad’s ministry, Jirjī goes on, was marked with “terror
by the sword”11 and even some of his earliest followers were forced to convert to
Islam.12 In all of this, not only was the sword at the very foundations of Islam,
but as one of Jirjī’s Muslim interlocutors admits, “Victory and the sword bear
testimony to [Muḥammad]” as well.13
In Jirjī’s account, violent Muslims and their religion were also full of fool-
ishness and deceit. Such features are seen in the Muslim scholars’ consistent
inability to fully comprehend Jirjī’s arguments. Their understanding is con-
sidered silly, malformed, and inept and they are made to feel childish.14 Al-
Mushammar at times scolds or mocks the Muslims for their blunders15 and they
are occasionally tricked into affirming Christian doctrine.16 Even descriptions
of Muslim piety, such as what can be seen on the Ḥajj, are made to look ridicu-
lous.17 In a similar way, Muslims and their sources are made to appear deceitful.
For example, Jirjī consistently reforms selections from the Qurʾān and exploits
them so that they support Christian doctrine. In this, Jirjī purports to uncover
truth and discover deceit.18 The irony here should not be missed, for Jirjī is able
to employ the Qurʾān and make it reinforce Christian doctrine—a method he
consistently claims as one of his strengths19—even as he condemns Muslim
interpretations of their sources as confused lies. The Qurʾān is made to support
Christian truth, then, even as Muslims’ alleged deceit supports the notion that
Islam is simple foolishness.
In yet another topos of Christian anti-Muslim polemic, Jirjī repeatedly
describes Muslims as perverse and sexually indulgent. These traits are seen
for Jirjī, as with many other medieval Christian authors, in Muslim depictions
10 Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 408; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 13.
14 E.g., Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 416, 421, 423, 438, 440; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī
l-rāhib, 37, 51, 57, 101, 106.
15 Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 416, 442; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 36, 113.
Cf., Griffith, ‘The Monk in the Emir’s Majlis’, 42–43.
16 Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 415; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 34–35.
17 Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 441–442; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 110–113.
18 Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 408, 414, 421–422; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib,
14, 35, 52.
19 E.g., Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 412, 414–415; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib,
24, 29–35.
130 tieszen
of the afterlife20 and in the seemingly unrestrained way in which Muslims

are allowed to marry multiple women. In the case of the latter, the example
of Muḥammad’s marriage to Zaynab is nearly ubiquitous in medieval Chris-
tian anti-Muslim polemic.21 According to Islamic tradition, Zaynab was given
in marriage to the Prophet’s adopted son, Zayd. But Muḥammad fell in love
with Zaynab and so Zayd subsequently divorced her. Muḥammad then married
her and it was later revealed that the new marriage was divinely sanctioned.
Though no names are mentioned in Jirjī’s account, the affair is clearly alluded
to by him and used as a proof for Muḥammad’s insatiable lust.22 Other, similar
examples are used to illustrate Muslims’ self-indulgent nature and the perver-
sity allowed by their religion.
But if Muslims were for Jirjī perverse fools, then they were only mimicking
their founder. According to Jirjī, disciples can only become like their leader; a
wicked master will engender wicked followers.23 The monk makes a great dis-
play of this in his direct comparisons of Muḥammad and Christ.24 Of particular
interest here though are the answers Jirjī offers when his Muslim interlocu-
tors ask, “What now have you to say concerning Muḥammad?”25 In response,
Jirjī gives a brief history of Muḥammad’s life, covering his family origins and
his introduction to a Nestorian monk named Baḥīrā who taught him elements
of Christianity.26 In turn, Muḥammad tried to pass on his new monotheis-
tic convictions, but only encountered opposition and the twisting of his reli-
gious message. In response, Muḥammad resorted to violence in order to force
20 E.g., Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 407, 413; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 10–11,
26.
21 Tieszen, Christian Identity amid Islam, 252–256.
24 See, most notably, Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 407–410, 434–435, and 440–441;
Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 10–21, 85–91, 106–110. On the nature of “Christ versus
Muḥammad” as a strategy in anti-Muslim polemic, see Tieszen, Christian Identity amid
Islam, 249–251.
25 Nicoll, Account of a disputation, 412; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 24.
26 The story of the monk Baḥīrā appears in the Sīra of Muḥammad (see Alfred Guillaume, The
Life of Muhammad, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1967, 79–81) and in many medieval
Christian texts devoted to Islam. Christian authors often used the story to imply that
the Prophet’s early religious education came from a heretical Nestorian monk. In Jirjī’s
disputation, however, there is nothing to suggest that the monk was concerned with
Baḥīrā’s confessional background. See Barbara Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā,
Leiden: Brill, 2009, 162–163.
conversions, also tempting potential followers with promises of women and

riches on earth and in paradise.27
Elsewhere, Jirjī’s responses to the nature of Muḥammad are more direct,
such as when he asserts,
I know that Muḥammad became a ruler over the Arabs … and that he
brought them from worshiping idols to the knowledge of God, but not his
true knowledge because he intended to rule over them and bring them
under his obedience, more than letting them know the Creator truly.28
With this assessment in mind, Jirjī is neither able to “regard [Muḥammad] nor
call him a prophet or a messenger”. Thus, whilst the monk at first appears to
give some prophetic recognition to Muḥammad—he brought his people back
towards monotheism—Jirjī asserts that he did so underhandedly and con-
fusedly, only really pursuing power and vanity. This assessment, purportedly
offered by Jirjī with sole dependence on the Qurʾān, only confirms his inter-
locutors’ suspicion that Christians consider Muḥammad to be, at the very least,
inferior to Christ and his apostles (despite their repeated claims to the con-
trary),29 and at most, thoroughly debased.
Towards the end of the debate, one of the Muslim scholars wonders in seem-
ing desperation, “Is there not to be found in my book and with my prophet
any virtue or anything praiseworthy?”30 Jirjī appears at first to concede some
appreciative ground. “I find one thing to praise in your prophet”, he says.31 This
admirable feature was Muḥammad’s love of prayer. But in the same breath,
Jirjī adds that Muḥammad loved women just as much, followed by perfume
(al-ṭīb).32 The monk goes on to ascribe some virtue to Muḥammad, noting
that with regard to marriage he advised Christians to adhere to their practices
(ecclesiastics may abstain from marriage) and Muslims to adhere to theirs (all
may marry). Jirjī even professes to “know many other virtues of [Muḥammad],
27 Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 412–413; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 24–28.
28 Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 24 (cf. Griffith, The Monk in the Emir’s Majlis, 56).
Nicoll’s translation has, “… I allow that [Muḥammad] was the guide of that nation, and
that he converted them from idolatry to the knowledge of that God, but not to the true
knowledge, because his object was to gain an ascendency over them … he could not teach
them the true knowledge of the Creator” (Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 411).
29 Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 411; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 23–24.
30 Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 98.
32 Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 98; Nicoll, ‘Account of a disputation’, 437–438.
132 tieszen
and could easily enumerate them”.33 But he does not and al-Mushammar com-
mands everyone at this point in the debate to be silent.
In all of this, many of the common features of anti-Muslim polemic are
on display in Jirjī’s debate. Similarly, like many other medieval Christian texts
devoted to Islam, the monk exhibits a reasonable familiarity with the Qurʾān
and Islamic history. Most importantly, Jirjī’s assessment of Muḥammad con-
forms to many others in which the Prophet is violent, foolish, and perverse.
To be true, the Prophet is not framed as a demon-possessed lunatic, as some of
Jirjī’s Latin and Byzantine contemporaries deduced.34 But any ground Muḥam-
mad gains in Jirjī’s assessment for preaching monotheism is lost amid his deceit
and ultimate desire for power. Admittedly, Jirjī can think of at least one minor
virtue for Muḥammad, but his claim to be able to list many others is mean-
ingless, for the damage, where it matters most (characteristics of the Prophet
where absolutely no virtue may be found), has been done. As a result, it seems
unlikely that the debate produced in readers very much curiosity for the other
admirable virtues Jirjī claims to be able to number. Ultimately, the debate seems
better able to generate aversion for Islam, the Prophet, and the Qurʾān.
Timothy i
Medieval texts, like “The disputation of Jirjī the monk”, in which Christians
express aversion for Islam, are relatively common. Textual evidence pointing
towards interreligious cooperation or cross-fertilization is also not difficult to
uncover, even if at times it lies subtly beneath layers of harsh polemic.35 One
can even find examples of appreciation for one another’s culture, civilization,
or specific individuals.36 But medieval theological treatises in which Islam is
34 Cf., Samir, ‘The Prophet Muḥammad as Seen by Timothy i and Some Other Arab Christian
Authors’, in David Thomas (ed.), Syrian Christians under Islam: The First Thousand Years,
Leiden: Brill, 2001, 79; John V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination,
New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
35 For example, see Tieszen, ‘Re-planting Christianity in New Soil: Arabized Christian Reli-
gious Identity in Twelfth-Century Iberia’, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 22, no. 1
(January 2011), 57–68.
36 John V. Tolan, ‘Veneratio Sarracenorum: Shared Devotion among Muslims and Christians,
According to Buchard of Strasbourg, Envoy from Frederic Barbarossa to Saladin (c. 1175)’, in
Sons of Ishmael: Muslims through European Eyes in the Middle Ages, Gainesville: University
of Press of Florida, 2008, 101.
explicitly admired or given an appreciative assessment by Christians are rare.

That is why our treatment of Jirjī’s debate is important. At times, appreciative
texts are better seen when we view them alongside harsher texts like “The
disputation of Jirjī the Monk”. Seen through the eyes of someone like Jirjī, these
texts, whilst they stop well short of endorsing Islam, evince a posture towards
the religion that is very nearly a kind of interreligious admiration, or perhaps
better, ‘beyond aversion’.
Such is the case with Patriarch Timothy i (d. 823) and his disputation with
the Caliph al-Mahdī, another popular example from “the monk in the emir’s
majlis” genre of religious treatises.37 In this late-eighth century debate—whose
authenticity is far more certain than Jirjī’s disputation, though the two share
many features38—Timothy offers detailed explanations on topics ranging from
Christology and the Trinity to the nature of scripture and miscellaneous ethical
concerns.39 Those who read an account of the debate would see a display of
Christian theological distinctives in an Islamic milieu, perhaps learn how to
articulate these distinctives to the Muslims in their communities, and likely
be affirmed in what made them Christians in an environment heavily and
increasingly influenced by Islam.
Particularly intriguing in the context of the present study are five statements
regarding Muḥammad and the Qurʾān.40 In the first, al-Mahdī wonders, “How
37 For an English translation, see Alphonse Mingana, ‘Timothy’s Apology for Christianity’,
in Woodbrooke Studies: Christian Documents in Syriac, Arabic, and Garshūni, vol. 2, Cam-
bridge: W. Heffer and Sons Limited, 1928, 15–90 (Syriac, 91–162).
38 Both debates, for example, discuss the Islamic notion of taḥrīf (Nicoll, Account of a dispu-
tation, 410; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 21; Mingana, ‘Timothy’s Apology’, 35–36)
and the Muslim allegation that Christians worship the cross (Nicoll, ‘Account of a dispu-
tation’, 427–430; Bacha, Mujādalat al-anbā Jirjī l-rāhib, 68–73; Mingana, ‘Timothy’s Apol-
ogy’, 39–40). Perhaps Timothy’s debate functioned as a template for later literary debates,
though some of these themes are present in even earlier debates (e.g., “The Disputation
between a monk of Bēt Ḥālē and an Arab notable”). See Gerrit J. Reinink, The Veneration
of Icons, the Cross, and the Bones of the Martyrs in an Early East-Syrian Apology Against
Islam, in D. Bumazhnov, E. Grypeou, T.B. Sailors and A. Toepel (eds), Bibel, Byzanz und
Christlicher Orient, Leuven: Peeters, 2011 and Sidney H. Griffith, ‘Disputing with Islam in
Syriac. The Case of the Monk of Bêt Ḥālê and a Muslim Emir’, Hugoye 3, no. 1 (2000), 46–
48.
39 For a more detailed description, see Martin Heimgartner, ‘Letter 59 (Disputation with
the Caliph al-Mahdī)’, in David Thomas and Barbara Roggema (eds), Christian-Muslim
Relations. A Bibliographic History, vol. 1 (600–900), Leiden: Brill, 2009, 522–526.
40 For an interesting study of medieval Christian assessments of the Prophet, including
Timothy i, see Samir, ‘The Prophet Muḥammad’.
134 tieszen
is it that you accept Christ and the Gospel from the testimony of the Torah
and of the prophets, and you do not accept Muḥammad from the testimony
of Christ and the Gospel?”41 The implication is that Muḥammad is foretold in
the Gospels and that Christ testified to his coming.42 Timothy responds with
an exposition of where Christ is foretold in texts from the Hebrew Bible. “So far
as Muḥammad is concerned”, Timothy concludes, “I have not received a single
testimony either from Jesus Christ or from the Gospel which would refer to his
name or to his works”.43
Al-Mahdī is unconvinced and, in the second statement, presses, “Who is
then the Paraclete?” In the Caliph’s mind, this promised figure in the Gospels
was none other than Muḥammad.44 Timothy counters with more biblical exe-
gesis and asserts that even the Qurʾān discounts the Prophet’s role as Paraclete
when it says that he was unable to see the future and performed no miracles.45
Timothy concludes, “Muḥammad is not the Paraclete”.46
In the third intriguing statement, al-Mahdī asks, “Do you not believe that
our Book was given by God?”47 Timothy’s response is evasive, but sugges-
tive. “It is not my business”, he replies, “to decide whether it is from God or
not”.48 All he can say is that the words in the Bible have been confirmed
by miracles. Similarly, the abrogation of the Torah by the Gospels was con-
firmed by miracles. “Since signs and miracles are proofs of the will of God,
the conclusion drawn from their absence in your Book is well known to your
Majesty”.49 Timothy’s veiled assertion is that a book without accompanying
miracles may not be from God. Though indirect, like his previous responses,
it comes without any of the usual abuse intended to discredit the Qurʾān.
Timothy does not attribute to the Qurʾān the status al-Mahdī wishes it to
have, but he also refrains from disparaging it as a book of lies and perver-
sion.
41 Mingana, ‘Timothy’s Apology’, 32.

42 E.g., Qurʾān 61:6.
43 Mingana, ‘Timothy’s Apology’, 33. See also, Mingana, ‘Timothy’s Apology’, 35.
44 On the Muslim claim that the Bible predicts Muḥammad in general, and the connection
between the Prophet and the paraklētos of John 15:26 in particular, see Hava Lazarus-Yafeh,
Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1992, 75–110.
45 Mingana, ‘Timothy’s Apology’, 34. See also, for example, Qurʾān 6:50.
The fourth intriguing statement is well known. “What do you say”, al-Mahdī
asks, “about Muḥammad?”50 Timothy’s response is eloquent. Though he has
previously asserted that “after the coming of Christ there will be neither
prophet nor prophecy”,51 he claims here that, “Muḥammad is worthy of all
praise …. He walked in the path of the prophets, and trod in the track of the
lovers of God”.52 In particular, according to Timothy, Muḥammad proclaimed
monotheism and called “his people” to good works and the worship of the one
God. Furthermore, he was zealous for God in preaching and in battle, analogous
to the prophets Moses and Abraham. “Who will not praise … the one whom
God has praised, … glorified and exalted? These and similar things I and all
God-lovers utter about Muḥammad ….”53 Again, Timothy’s assessment is free
of repugnance. Even more, it appears to be unexpectedly rich with admiration
for Muḥammad.
Such apparent admiration, of course, leads al-Mahdī to say in our final state-
ment that Timothy “… should, therefore, accept the words of the Prophet”.54
Specifically, the Caliph has in mind Muḥammad’s instruction concerning the
oneness of God. This suggestion moves the debate into its most theologically
complex passages. In all of them, Timothy asserts Nestorian Christology and his
commitment to God as a Trinity in unity. His responses do not remove the the-
ological barriers that separate Islamic and Christian conceptions of God and
Christ, but they remain consistently free of aversion for Islam and Muslims.
Remarkably, each of these five statements brings Timothy to the very centre
of difference between Islam and Christianity. In his questions, the Caliph does
not mince words. Timothy’s responses are thorough and only occasionally eva-
sive. To be sure, one cannot miss the need Timothy had to employ diplomatic
language given the potentially delicate nature of his debate.55 More impor-
tantly, one must not miss the assertions that lay beneath Timothy’s conciliatory
remarks and seeming admiration for the Prophet. For example, in all of the
space he gives to Muḥammad, Timothy never actually calls him a prophet—
Muḥammad is said to merely walk in the path of the prophets. Moreover, the
good work that Muḥammad does is restricted by Timothy to Arabia and to
Muḥammad’s formerly pagan people. Perhaps most significantly, much of what

51 Mingana, ‘Timothy’s Apology’, 38–39.
55 David Thomas, ‘Cultural and Religious Supremacy in the Fourteenth Century: The Letter
from Cyprus as Interreligious Apologetic’, Parole de l’ Orient, 30 (2005), 302.
136 tieszen
Muḥammad proclaimed—the oneness of God in particular—can be found, so

Timothy argues, better explicated in Christian doctrines. In this, Muḥammad
really only mimics in his Arabian context what the previous prophets did in
theirs, which was to prepare the way for Christ.56 Thus, former pagans were
made much more receptive to the person and work of Christ as a result of
Muḥammad’s presentation of monotheism. In all of this, no Muslim would be
satisfied, as is made clear from al-Mahdī’s appreciative, though disagreeable
estimation of Timothy’s remarks.
Even with these clarifications in mind, however, those who read the account
of Timothy’s disputation would surely be left with a different impression than
what they might glean from reading the account of Jirjī’s debate. In fact, viewing
Timothy’s responses in the light of “The disputation of Jirjī the monk” may help
us to see in Timothy’s debate moments of admiration. All of Jirjī’s apparent dis-
dain that is evident in the text, it must be said, is absent from Timothy’s debate.
Whilst both texts restrict Muḥammad’s work to Arabia, Timothy regards this
work to be good. In Jirjī’s debate, it is considered underhanded, self-seeking,
and ultimately false. With this in mind, the Prophet may have a place in the
account of Timothy’s disputation, however constrained (and unsatisfactory for
Muslims) it may be, where in Jirjī’s debate he may have none. As a result, “The
disputation of Jirjī the monk” helps us to see that Muḥammad may have been
in some ways more admirable in the account of Timothy’s debate, or at the very
least, ‘beyond aversion’.
Juan de Segovia
A final example may help us further elucidate the relationship between aver-
sion and admiration that is apparent in many medieval Christian texts devoted
to Islam. Juan de Segovia (d. 1458) was born in late-fourteenth century Spain
and taught theology at the University of Salamanca. He is perhaps best known
as a proponent of church reform at the Council of Basel (1431–1449).57 He also
took a keen interest in Islam, especially in the light of the Ottoman sack of
Constantinople in 1453. Like Jirjī and Timothy, he, too, engaged Muslims in offi-
cial debate. In July 1431, Juan met Yusūf b. al-Mawl (d. 1432), soon-to-be king of
56 Thomas, ‘Cultural and Religious Supremacy in the Fourteenth Century’, 303–304 and
Samir, ‘The Prophet Muḥammad’, 93–96.
57 For a fuller biography, see Anne Marie Wolf, Juan de Segovia and the Fight for Peace, South
Bend, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014 and Darío Cabanelas Rodríguez, Juan
de Segovia y el problema Islámico, Madrid: Universidad de Madrid, 1952.
Granada, in Córdoba and asked that a meeting might be arranged for the pur-
pose of theological discussion. Yusūf was surprised by the request, but admitted
that there was no one qualified enough among his entourage for such a dis-
cussion.58 Later that same year, Juan met another Muslim from Granada and
the two discussed their respective faiths. These meetings continued on several
occasions and at one point even included a Muslim scholar (Alfaquinum). The
discussions involved attacks upon alleged Christian polytheism and theological
confusion and feature Juan’s supposedly astute explanations of the Incarnation
and the Trinity.59
Juan was clearly provoked by his theological interactions with Muslims, so
much so that he felt this type of dialogue was key to the conversion of Mus-
lims, and in turn, peace between Christianity and Islam.60 With this in mind,
Juan publicly opposed the idea of taking up arms in a crusade against Mus-
lims. But instead of promoting traditional missionary activity, an effort Juan
saw as historically unproductive among Muslims,61 he advocated a method
he called a “way of peace and doctrine” (via pacis et doctrinae). This, accord-
ing to Richard Southern, was “a new kind of communication”,62 a non-violent
approach towards Muslims focusing on dialogue and the presentation of clearly
explicated Christian doctrine.63 In order to establish a sound basis for this type
of dialogue, Juan put other work aside and set himself in earnest to producing
a trilingual Qurʾān: a fresh Arabic text with corresponding Latin and Castilian
(uulgare Hispanum) translations.
58 Juan discusses this meeting in a letter to Jean Germain (d. 1461), a portion of which appears
along with discussion in Cabanelas Rodríguez, Juan de Segovia, 100–102.
59 These meetings are discussed in his De gladio divini Spiritus in corda mittendo Sarraceno-
rum, the relevant text of which is included in Wolf, Juan de Segovia and the Fight for Peace,
264–267, with discussion in Cabanelas Rodríguez, Juan de Segovia, 100–107. He also men-
tions the meetings in the preface to his now lost Qurʾān (Prefacio, 202–211) where the
Muslim is referred to as an ambassador of the king of Granada (ambassiatore quodam
regis Granate).
60 Cf. José Martínez Gázquez, ‘Las traducciones Latinas del Corán, arma antiislámica en la
Cristiandad medieval’, Cuadernos del CEMyR, 13 (December 2005), 25.
61 Jesse D. Mann, ‘Truth and Consequences: Juan de Segovia on Islam and Conciliarism’,
Medieval Encounters 8, no. 1 (2002), 82–83.
62 Richard Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages, Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1962, 91.
63 Juan mentioned his via pacis et doctrinae in a letter to Nicholas of Cusa on 2 December
1454, stating that he had been thinking about it for three decades. The approach is featured
in Juan’s later texts as well. See Anne Marie Wolf, ‘Juan de Segovia’, in David Thomas and
Alex Mallett (eds), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographic History, vol. 5 (1350–1500),
Leiden: Brill, 2013, 429–442.
138 tieszen
Sadly, Juan’s edition of the Qurʾān is now lost, but the preface he wrote to
accompany it remains extant.64 In it, we see his reasons for producing the edi-
tion and his methodology. According to Juan, a translation of the Qurʾān was
necessary because so few Christians were aware of the book.65 Even more, some
Christians attributed such ridiculous and ill-informed things to Islam66—“very
insulting language” (permaximam … contumeliam), he observes—that Mus-
lims withdrew from them so that they could listen to sensible dialogue else-
where.67 Juan further contends that nothing was more damaging to his via
de pacis et doctrinae than this kind of behaviour from Christians.68 A widely
read translation of the Qurʾān, such as one in a vernacular language, may yield
better-informed Christians and more fruitful exchanges with Muslims.
Of course, there were already translations of the Qurʾān—in Latin, no longer
a vernacular language—by the middle of the fourteenth century. But Juan
acquired and read at least one of these translations and repeatedly lamented
its shortcomings in his preface.69 For example, he felt that the Latin in this
translation frequently departed from the Arabic original and at times devi-
ated from the original textual structure.70 As a result, even though the Latin
64 Gerard Wiegers argues for an extant manuscript (Islamic Literature in Spanish and Aljami-
ado: Yça of Segovia ( fl. 1450), His Antecedents and Successors, Leiden: Brill, 1994, 109–114),
but Consuelo López-Morillas finds this doubtful in her article ‘Lost and Found? Yça of
Segovia and the Qurʾān among the Mudejars and Moriscos’, Journal of Islamic Studies 10
(1999), 277–292. There are two extant manuscripts of the preface: Latin manuscript 2923
of the Vatican Apostolic Library (which Cabanelas Rodríguez uses for the Latin edition in
Appendix iii of his work) and 9250 of the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid. José Martínez
Gázquez uses both of these manuscripts in his Latin edition of the preface in El Prólogo
de Juan de Segobia al Corán (Qurʾān) trilingüe (1456), Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 38, no. 2
(2003), 394–410 (This edition can also be found online and divided into paragraphs at www
.grupsderecerca.uab.cat/islamolatina/content/fuentes.) See also, Anne Marie Wolf, ‘Pref-
acio in translationem noviter editam ex Arabico in Latinum vulgareque Hyspanum libri
Alchorani; Prefacio’, in David Thomas and Alex Mallett (eds), Christian-Muslim Relations.
A Bibliographical History, vol. 5 (1350–1500), Leiden: Brill, 2013, 440–442. References to the
Prefacio in this study will refer to the line numbers in Martínez Gázquez’s edition.
65 Juan de Segovia, ‘Prefacio’, 161–162.
69 He refers to the translation produced by Robert of Ketton (d. c. 1160). As Martínez Gázquez
notes, Juan does not seem to know the translation by Mark of Toledo (fl. 1193–1216).
Martínez Gázquez, ‘Las traducciones Latinas del Corán’, 25.
70 Juan de Segovia, ‘Prefacio’, 169–170. Cf., Martínez Gázquez, ‘Las traducciones Latinas del
Corán’, 26.
translation was at times eloquent, the original sense of the Arabic language and
text was lost.71 In a way, the translation was so heavy-handed that it muffled the
intentions of the Arabic and blurred the nature of Islamic ideas.72 With this in
mind, Juan set out to produce a translation that protected the Arabic manner
of speech.73 At times, this concern and care for the Arabic text even meant that
he had to adjust the grammar and linguistic sense of the Latin and Castilian
translation in his edition.74 This meant a rather literal rendering, but at least it
was honest to the original Arabic.
In the end, a new translation of the Qurʾān could correct the errors of ear-
lier, inferior ones by striving to be faithful to its original text and doctrinal
content.75 By including a vernacular Castilian translation, Juan could make
the Qurʾān better and more widely known among Castilian-speaking Chris-
tians. As a result, they might peacefully engage Muslims on the basis of a
proper understanding of their book and, in turn, the intellectual relationship
with Islam that was necessary for a demonstration of Christian truth could be
formed.76
Juan went to remarkable lengths in order to produce his Qurʾān translation.
Not only had he already familiarized himself with other Arabic manuscripts
and a Latin translation of the Qurʾān, but he also acquired the services of a
well-known Spanish Muslim faqīh, Iça Gidelli, in order to help him.77 Iça was
also from Segovia and travelled to the priory in Savoy where Juan lived. With
him, he took a Muslim friend and various Islamic commentaries that would
support his work in translating and expounding the Qurʾān. Once there, Iça
laboured for four months: one month copying out the whole of the Qurʾān in
Arabic; a second month adding vowel markings; a third translating the Ara-
bic into Castilian; and in the fourth month Iça and Juan read the Arabic and
Castilian side by side in order to ensure an error-free text.78 In the process, Juan
71 Juan de Segovia, ‘Prefacio’, 354–371, 393–422. For more on some of these Qurʾān transla-
tions, their deficiencies and, remarkably, their philological triumphs, see Thomas E. Bur-
man, Reading the Qurʾān in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560, Philadelphia, University of Penn-
sylvania Press, 2007.
72 Southern, 87–88.
73 Juan de Segovia, ‘Prefacio’, 13–14, 469–470. See also 513–525.
75 Martínez Gázquez, ‘Las traducciones Latinas del Corán’, 27.
76 Cf., Martínez Gázquez, ‘Las traducciones Latinas del Corán’, 27.
77 Iça’s name appears in various forms in the sources (e.g., Içe de Gebir) all rendering what
perhaps was ʿĪsā b. Jābir in Arabic. See Burman, Reading the Qurʾān, 181.
78 Juan de Segovia, ‘Prefacio’, 246–255, 270–276.
140 tieszen
began learning how to read Arabic and, perhaps more importantly, caught a
glimpse of how Muslims read and interpreted their sacred text.79 After four
months, and with two-thirds of the trilingual Qurān complete, Iça returned
home. Juan eventually set himself to adding the Latin translation, but not
before Iça had also provided him with a short biography of Muḥammad, a
list of Islamic articles of faith along with their proofs, and a list of abrogated
verses in the Qurʾān.80 Thus, Juan’s introduction to the Qurʾān came along-
side a learned Muslim’s explanation of how the text was to be read and inter-
preted.
This thorough approach to Islam and the Qurʾān is remarkable. Upon initial
examination it would appear that not only does Juan move beyond the aversion
of many of his forebears, but would even seem to embody admiration for
Islam. Indeed, Juan seeks to promote peaceful engagement with Muslims in a
dialogical context. At a time when many around him were calling for crusade in
order to push back against the advancing Ottoman Empire, Juan called for the
laying down of arms.81 In this light, his via pacis et doctrinae, is significant in the
light of a context where the threat of war loomed heavily over portions of the
medieval Mediterranean basin. Furthermore, he rejects some of the insulting
things ascribed to Muslim religious beliefs by Christians and laments many of
the pitfalls of available information about Islam. He sets out to improve the
ways in which Christians engage Muslims via an edition of the Qurʾān that is
honest to the original Arabic text and fairly represents Islam. He also humbly
receives the Muslim scholar Iça and learns a great deal from him about how
Muslims interpret their text.
Juan’s respectful attitude is significant. However, as is evident from passages
in the preface to his Qurān and many of his other writings not examined
here,82 Juan’s momentary admiration did not prevent him from repeating some
commonly deployed polemic about Muslims and the Qurʾān. For example, it is
clear from Juan’s preface that he viewed Islam as a malformed derivative of
Christianity. In this, his views are very much the intellectual legacy of early
79 Juan de Segovia, ‘Prefacio’, 309–312 and Burman, Reading the Qurʾān, 183.
81 Philip Krey, ‘Nicholas of Lyra and Paul of Burgos on Islam’, in John V. Tolan (ed.), Medieval
Christian Perceptions of Islam, New York: Routledge, 1996, 159 and Anne Marie Wolf, ‘Juan
de Segovia and the Lessons of History’, in Simon R. Doubleday and David Coleman (eds),
In the Light of Medieval Spain, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 35, 45–46.
82 Wolf, ‘Juan de Segovia and the lessons of history’, 37–38 and Mann, ‘Truth and Conse-
quences’, 84–85.
Christian heresiology. Indeed, Juan notes that a number of books known to

him, in particular works by Irenaeus (d. 202) and Augustine (d. 430), informed
his views of heretical movements and helped him to see Islam as the latest in
a long line of heresies.83 Juan also considers Islam to be false, obstinate, and
detestable blasphemy that was the cause of violence towards non-Muslims.84
From this view, Juan concludes that Muslims’ “law is not divine” (lex eorum non
sit diuina).85
When it comes to Muḥammad, Juan is hardly unique when he considers
the Prophet and the spread of Islam in the 800 years since his ascendency
in an apocalyptic light. In this way, Juan looks at the beast in Revelation
13:5–6 and sees Muḥammad, a monster who oppresses the Church with his
false doctrine and tribute tax.86 Here, Juan draws directly from his predeces-
sors, Paul of Burgos (d. 1435) in particular, who viewed Islam and Muḥam-
mad through the lenses of biblical apocalypticism in their attempts to under-
stand Islam, the Church’s place vis-à-vis Muslims, and God’s providence over
them.87
Even Juan’s via de pacis et doctrinae carried with it a rather low view of Mus-
lims and must be viewed in the context of truth as synonymous with Christian
belief. In other words, as Jesse Mann argues, Juan assumed that Christian truth
was “obvious, or at least readily accessible to human reason”.88 Even more, truth
was, in the medieval mindset, objective.89 Thus, once doctrines like the Trinity
and Incarnation were made plain to Muslims they would accept them. What
else could they do when faced with truth? Moreover, Christian truth was best
arrived at through dialogue among those knowledgeable of their respective
religions.90 The only challenge with respect to Islam, Juan considered, would
83 Juan de Segovia, ‘Prefacio’, 3–5, 39–46, 81–93. Cf. Tieszen, Christian Identity amid Islam,
124–129.
84 Juan de Segovia, ‘Prefacio’, 6, 81–82, 137, 98–100.
85 Juan de Segovia, ‘Prefacio’, 144.
87 See Krey, ‘Nicholas of Lyra’, who points out that Paul of Burgos was himself dependent
upon the work of Nicholas of Lyra (d. 1349). Apocalypticism with regards to Islam was
not new. Already in ninth century Spain, Paulus Alvarus (d. c. 862) was reflecting apoc-
alyptically on Muḥammad and the rise of Islam (see Tieszen, Christian Identity amid
Islam, 93–94). Though Alvarus’ texts were not well-known, other apocalyptic texts like
the late-seventh century work originally in Syriac, The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius,
were widely distributed (see Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, 32–35).
88 Mann, ‘Truth and Consequences’, 86.
89 Mann, ‘Truth and Consequences’, 86.
90 Mann, ‘Truth and Consequences’, 86–87.
142 tieszen
be overcoming Muslims’ lack of reason, one of the main impediments to their

ability to comprehend truth.91 But once this challenge was faced with the sup-
port of his Qurʾān, “it might become known … how easily learned Christians
are able to persuade Muslims out of their sect, and how one should be com-
passionate with those who are passing away in ignorance, lack of learning, and
blindness …”.92 The via de pacis et doctrinae, then, was in Juan’s mind the ideal
approach towards those who lacked reason, for it lifted the fog in their minds
and allowed them to see truth they could not resist.
These clarifications are noteworthy and problematize the ways in which we
identify patterns of aversion and admiration in medieval texts like those from
Juan de Segovia.93 Indeed, both characteristics are readily apparent in Juan’s
preface. Like views expressed in “The disputation of Jirjī the monk”, Juan sees
Muslims as intellectually simplistic and given over to sensuality.94 However,
very much like readers of Timothy’s disputation with the Caliph al-Mahdī,
those who may have read the preface to Juan’s Qurʾān must surely have been left
with a much more complex impression regarding Islam than simply aversion.
It is true that Christian readers could hardly be expected to take Muslims
seriously when they were told about their lack of reasoning. Yet, the same
readers might perceive the ways in which Juan cares for the Qurʾān as a sacred
text and consider the notion that Christians should engage Muslims in peaceful
dialogue. As contrived as such a dialogue may have been, such a position
had the potential to force serious readers of the Qurʾān preface to reshape
91 Mann, ‘Truth and Consequences’, 87–88. See also, Víctor Sanz Santacruz, ‘Juan de Segovia y
Nicolás de Cusa frente al Islam: su comprensión intelectualista de la fe Cristiana’, Anuario
de Historia de la Iglesia 16 (2007), 193–194.
92 Juan de Segovia, ‘Prefacio’, 542–545, translated in Burman, Reading the Qurʾān, 186.
93 Cf., Leyla Rouhi, ‘A Fifteenth-Century Salamancan’s Pursuit of Islamic Studies’, in Cynthia
Robinson and Leyla Rouhi (eds), Under the Influence: Questioning the Comparative in
Medieval Castile, Leiden: Brill, 2005. Similarly, on the importance of context in fifteenth
century texts such as Juan’s, see Anna Echevarria, The Fortress of Faith: The Attitude towards
Muslims in Fifteenth-Century Spain, Leiden: Brill, 1999. See also, James E. Biechler, ‘A New
Face toward Islam: Nicholas of Cusa and John of Segovia’, in Gerald Christianson and
Thomas M. Izbicki (eds), Nicholas of Cusa in Search of God and Wisdom, Leiden: Brill, 1991
and Thomas M. Izbicki, ‘The Possibility of Dialogue with Islam in the Fifteenth Century’,
in Christianson and Izbicki (eds), Nicholas of Cusa in Search of God and Wisdom, Leiden:
Brill, 1991.
94 Though not apparent in the Prefacio, Juan also mentions, like “The disputation of Jirjī the
monk”, that Islam expanded by violence. See Wolf, ‘Juan de Segovia and the lessons of
history’, 37.
their posture towards Islam. Even more, in a context when so many Christian
treatises aimed at Islam were intended for internal consumption—their argu-
ments often unconvincing to and not intended for Muslims—Juan encouraged
peaceful, interreligious contact. So, whilst Juan’s preface may not be fully appre-
ciative of Islam, within it we glimpse moments of his admiration indicating that
Islam may have been for Juan in some ways ‘beyond aversion’.
Conclusion
In response to the Muslim scholar’s question that began our study—essentially,

do you find anything admirable about my religion?—Jirjī the monk said that
he admired Muḥammad for his devotion to prayer and found virtue in his
willingness to allow Christians to freely practise marriage according to their
traditions. But as we observed, the monk’s response is coupled with the usual
derision—the Prophet was as devoted to women and perfume as he was to
prayer—and a rather indifferent nod to an allegedly long list of virtues that go
unmentioned. The reader is left with the impression that admiration for Islam
is inconsequential in light of Christianity’s superior claims to truth and that
there is much more to be averse to regarding Muḥammad and the Qurʾān.
With this in mind, assessments of Muḥammad and the Qurʾān from Patri-
arch Timothy i and his disputation with the Caliph al-Mahdī appear all the
more appreciative. While Timothy asserts the distinctives of Christian theol-
ogy and stops short of endorsing the prophethood of Muḥammad, he is able
to speak appreciatively of the Prophet. The typical derision that accompanies
assessments of the Qurʾān is, moreover, absent from his responses even though
he is evasive in his assessment of it. Hence, though readers may hesitate to say
that Islam is admired in Timothy’s disputation, they may at least see in the
account a movement far ‘beyond aversion’.
Juan de Segovia and the preface to his Qurʾān translation offer us perhaps
the most complex pattern of aversion and admiration. It is clear within his
preface—not to mention his other writings—that he espouses some long-held
views in which Islam was thought to be inherently violent. Similarly, he feels
that Muslims exceed in sensuality, but are deficient in logical reason: all views
that can be located in texts like “The disputation of Jirjī the monk”. But even
as such views are on display, the preface to Juan’s Qurʾān reveals his keen
interest in Islam and concern to translate the Qurʾān in a way that is honest
and respectful. He is also insistent that his Qurʾān be used as the basis for
peaceful dialogue, thinking that this will be the only truly effective means of
engaging Muslims. When we view these moments of admiration in the light of
144 tieszen
“The disputation of Jirjī the monk” they become much more sharply focused.
Thus, like the account of Timothy’s debate, the preface to Juan’s Qurʾān can be
said to move “beyond aversion” for Islam.
chapter 10
The First Imposition of a Badge on European Jews:

The English Royal Mandate of 1218
John Tolan*
On 20 March 1218, a mandate was issued in the name of King Henry iii (who
was at the time an 11-year-old boy) ordering that all Jews wear, on their outer
garments, a badge in the form of two white tablets. The boy king thus gained
the dubious distinction of being the first European monarch to require Jews
to wear a badge. Who was behind this decision? Why was it made? Was this
merely a symbolic law, or was it meant to be enforced? In this article, I will
examine the law itself, place it in the context of broader movements both in
England and in Europe, and look at the historiographical debate on how (and
whether) the law was enforced. Here is the text of the mandate:
The king to the Sheriff of Worcestershire, greetings. We order that you

have announced and observed in all your jurisdiction that all Jews, wher-
ever they walk or ride, in or outside the town, should wear on their chest,
on their outer garments two emblems in the form of white tablets made
of linen cloth, or parchment, so that in this way Jews may be clearly
distinguished from Christians. Attested by the Earl [the regent William
Marshal] at Oxford 20 March 1218. The same was sent to the sheriffs of
Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire and Northamp-
tonshire, and to the mayor and sheriffs of London.1
* Many thanks to Paul Brand, who read and commented upon an earlier version of this article.
1 ‘Rex Vicecomite Wigorn. salutem. Precipimus tibi quod clamari et observari facias per totam
bailliam tuam quod omnes judei deferant in superiori indumento suo, ubicumque, ambula-
verint vel equitaverint infra villam vel extra quasi duas tabulas albas in pectore factas de lineo
panno vel de parcameno ita quod per hujus modi signum manifeste possint judei a chris-
tianis discerni. t. Com. apud Oxon. xx. die Marc. [1218]. Item mandatum est Vicecomitibus
Glouc., Warewic., Linc., Oxon, Norhamt, Majori et Vicecomitibus London.’ King Henry iii of
England, ‘Mandate imposing the badge on Jews,’ in Rotuli litterarum clausarum in Turri londi-
nensi asservati, T. Hardy, ed., vol. 1 (London, 1833), 378; for text, translation and analysis, see
http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait252108/.

146 tolan
The mandate is quite specific about the colour and shape of the twin tabu-
lae, ‘tablets’, which were no doubt meant to represent the tablets of the Law
that Moses received on Mount Sinai. The mandate is sent to the royal offi-
cials of Worcester, Gloucester, Warwick, Lincoln, Oxford, Northampton, and
London: in other words, to several of principal towns where Jews resided,
though it is not clear why there is no mention here of other shires with impor-
tant Jewish communities (Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Kent, and oth-
ers).
For some historians, this imposition of a ‘badge of shame’ marks a significant
step in the deterioration of the status of Jews in Medieval England. Cecil
Roth pictures Jews winding their way through the streets of medieval Oxford
adorned with the tablets, which marked them out for the spite and opprobrium
of their Christian neighbours; for him the royal order, reinforced by frequent
reiteration by Church councils, imposed this humiliating distinction on English
Jews.2 Yet other historians cast doubt on how much these measures were
enforced or ever intended to be enforced; was the 1218 mandate simply a
pious gesture? Henry Richardson emphasises that the pressures to impose the
badge in England came at a time when royal power was low, and for him the
repeated reiterations of the requirement by church councils show the Church’s
impotence in the matter: ‘Conciliar decrees against the Jews were, in fact, not
enforced because they were unenforceable’.3
In fact, as we will see, the mandate represents both an attempt to reassert
royal control over the ‘King’s Jews’ after a period of civil war brought a sharp
decline in royal power, and, at the same time, a concession to the papacy and
the English bishops who sought to enforce, in England and elsewhere, the
fourth Lateran council’s call for Jews to dress differently from Christians. Yet
the enforcement of this mandate would become a bone of contention between
King Henry and his agents, on the one hand, and the popes and English bishops
on the other. Henry repeatedly resisted calls to enforce the mandate and only
when politically and financially weakened, in 1253, did he take what seem to be
measures to oblige Jews to wear the badge.4
2 Cecil Roth, The Jews of medieval Oxford, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951.
3 H.G. Richardson, The English Jewry under Angevin kings, London: Methuen, 1960, 180.
4 On the English Jews during the reign of Henry iii, see Robert Stacey, ‘The English Jews
under Henry iii’, in Patricia Skinner (ed.), The Jews in medieval Britain: historical, literary, and
archaeological perspectives, Rochester ny: Boydell & Brewer, 2003, 41–54. For an introduction
to the rich and complex legal sources concerning thirteenth-century English Jewry, see Paul
the first imposition of a badge on european jews 147
The ‘King’s Jews’ and the Reaffirmation of Royal Power, 1217–1221
When the royal chancery issued this mandate in March 1218, the crown was
struggling to reaffirm royal power and restore control over traditional sources of
income after a long and divisive civil war, from 1215 to 1217, known to historians
as the ‘first barons’ war’. John had lost much of his territory on the continent (in
particular Normandy), had been excommunicated in 1209 by Pope Innocent iii
(in large part because of his refusal to accept the pope’s candidate Stephen
Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury), and had provoked the ire of both towns-
men and nobles through heavy taxation and arbitrary justice. England’s Jews
also suffered under John’s reign: in 1210 he imposed on them an extraordinary
tax known to historians as the ‘Bristol Tallage’, for a total of £ 40,000. To make
them pay, John had Jews all over England arrested and tortured, if we are to
believe chronicler Roger of Wendover, who relates that royal officials in Bristol
tortured one rich Jew by removing one tooth each day for a week; finally, on
the 8th day, he agreed to pay the king 10,000 marks.5 Matthew of Paris, in his
reworking of Roger’s account, concludes ‘Many of the Jews fled the kingdom,
on account of the great affliction they suffered’.6
Under the pressure of unrest in England and military failure against King
Philip ii of France, in May 1213, John submitted to Pope Innocent iii’s demands
and made England into a papal fief, securing the Pope’s alliance against his ene-
mies. Philip scored a resounding victory over John’s ally Otto iv at the Battle of
Bouvines on 27 July 1214 and subsequently conquered Anjou and Maine. John’s
costly and ill-fated military adventures earned him the epithet ‘soft sword’ and
made his position in England all the more unstable. When he returned to Eng-
land he was met with a baronial revolt, which culminated in the concession at
Runnymede of the Charter of liberties (or Magna Carta), on 15 June 1215. The
charter affirmed the liberty of the English Church and the rights of barons in
the areas of inheritance, taxation, and justice, placing constitutional limits on
John’s royal powers. But John had little intention of respecting it, and Inno-
cent declared the charter null and void and excommunicated John’s baronial
Brand, ‘The Jewish Community of England in the Records of English Royal Government’, in
Skinner (ed.), The Jews in medieval Britain, 73–85.
5 Roger of Wendover, Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History, Comprising the History of England
from the Descent of the Saxons to a.d. 1235 Formerly Ascribed to Matthew Paris, trans. by J. Giles,
2 vols, London: Bohn, 1849, 2:252–253, taken up and elaborated upon by Matthew Paris, Matthi
Parisiensis: monachi Santi Albani, Chronica majora, H. Luard (ed.), London: Rolls Series, 1872,
2:528.
6 Matthi Parisiensis, 2:528.
148 tolan
opponents. In the subsequent rebellion, the rebel barons turned to the French
dauphin Louis, who laid claim to the throne and landed in England in May 1216.
John fought back and the war was essentially in a stalemate when he contracted
dysentery and died on 18 October 1216.
Ten days later, on 28 October 1216, John’s nine-year-old son was crowned King
Henry iii in a hasty ceremony. The forces loyal to Henry routed Louis’ forces in
two key battles in 1217, and finally, in September 1217, the belligerents signed
the treaty of Lambeth, in which Louis (for a large fee) recognised Henry as king
and agreed to withdraw from England. Thus, in September 1217, Henry became
uncontested King of England. Yet there was virtually no money in the royal
coffers and no revenue coming in. Few of the royal properties (notably castles
and forests) were in fact in the hands of royal officials. As for the ‘King’s Jews’,
many were still languishing in prison, and many of those who were not in prison
had fled. The regency sought over the coming years to assure the loyalty of the
barons, affirm the crown’s control over royal assets, and resume the receipt of
royal revenues. It is in this context that the crown revived and strengthened
the institution of the Exchequer of the Jews (Scaccarium Judeorum), and the
system of local chirography chests archae in which were kept records of loans
made by Jews.7
Various documents from the royal chancery show attempts to recover royal
property (castles, lands, etc.) lost in the revolts of the barons against King John.
Among these documents a number concern Jews, including the following:
The king to the constable of Norwich, greetings. Know that we have taken
under our protection and defence Isaac, our Jew of Norwich, and all his
dependents and all his possessions and all of our other Jews of Norwich.
And therefore we command you that you protect this Isaac and his people
and his possessions and all the other Jews of Norwich and to not allow any
harm to befall them, etc. And if any offence should be committed against
them, make amends to him without delay, because we wish and order that
they themselves and all their possessions be protected and maintained,
as pertaining to our fisc [tanquam dominica nostra]. And you shall receive
this same Isaac with his dependents and his possessions in our castle. And
7 Robert Stacey, ‘The Massacres of 1189–1190 and the Origins of the Jewish Exchequer, 1186–1226’,
in Sarah Rees Jones and Sethina C. Watson (eds), Christians and Jews in Angevin England:
the York Massacre of 1190, narratives and contexts, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2013,
123; Joe Hillaby and Caroline Hillaby, The Palgrave dictionary of medieval Anglo-Jewish history,
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 130–133.
in this matter, etc., attested by the Earl at the same place [Lambeth] in the
same year [2 October 1217].8
Apart from the very specific case of Isaac (the prominent Jewish lender of Nor-
wich and one of the richest Jews in England), this text shows us the assertion
by the crown of the close and exclusive relationship between the king and ‘his’
Jews. He considers these Jews and their property to tanquam dominica nostra.
The word dominica indicates the exclusive domain of royal power (though this
is mitigated by tanquam, ‘as’ or ‘as if’). This seems to show both a desire to assert
recovery of royal prerogatives usurped by the barons in revolt against King John
at the end of his reign (here dominica over the Jews) and to reassure Jews such
as Isaac that they would henceforth suffer neither from excessive arbitrary taxa-
tion or imprisonment or the exactions of the barons. Just like the castles, lands
and royal revenues usurped by the barons, the Jews must return to the royal
fold. The crown, in this law and other measures, is reasserting its authority over
England’s Jews.
One of the key members of the regency was Guala Bicchieri, papal legate.
Guala, a native of the Piedmont, studied law in Bologna and rose in the ranks of
the ecclesiastical hierarchy; Pope Innocent iii made him cardinal in 1205. Guala
participated in the fourth Lateran council in November 1215, through which
Innocent and his cardinals sought to promote reform of the church and assert
Rome’s control over ecclesiastical appointments and church institutions. Two
months later, in January 1216, Innocent named Guala papal legate to England,
replacing Pandulf of Masca (who had served as legate since 1213). Guala paid a
key role in delegitimising the rebels, excommunicating Prince Louis and the
rebellious English barons and making the royalist cause a quasi-crusade. At
his coronation ceremony Henry did homage to the papacy, represented in the
person of Guala, so making the boy king the Pope’s ‘vassal and ward’.9 Guala,
as representative of Pope Innocent iii (and, from July 1216, of the new pope
Honorius iii), played a key role in legitimating Henry’s role and in helping
him assert his rights. It seems very likely that Guala was behind the mandate
imposing the badge on English Jews.10 If so, the papal legate was seeking to
8 Patent Rolls 1216–1225, 98.

9 David Carpenter, The minority of Henry iii, Berkeley ca: University of California Press, 1990,
13.
10 Although, as Nicolas Vincent notes, ‘there is no direct evidence that Guala played any part
in this decision’, Guala Bicchieri, The letters and charters of Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, papal
legate in England, 1216–1218, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press [for] The Canterbury and
York Society; Boydell & Brewer, 1996.
150 tolan
implement, in a kingdom which was after all a papal fief, a stipulation of one
of the canons of the fourth Lateran council.
The fourth Lateran Council included a number of measures meant to limit
and regulate relations between Christians and Jews. Among them is a measure
imposing distinctive dress on Jews:
In some provinces, differences in dress distinguish the Jews and Saracens

from Christians, but in others some confusion has arisen as no difference
is discernible. Whence it sometimes happens that Christians mingle with
the women of Jews and Saracens, or Jews and Saracens mingle with the
women of Christians. Therefore, lest this transgression of damnable mis-
cegenation spread further under the cover of such an error, we decree that
such people of both sexes be distinguished from other people publicly by
the manner of their dress in all Christians’ provinces and all of the time;
as indeed we read that they are enjoined to do by Moses.11
This canon was the first piece of canon law that unequivocally required Jews
and Muslims to be visibly distinguishable from Christians. Its sole predeces-
sor was a canon issued at the Council of Nablus in 1120, which forbade Mus-
lims from dressing like ‘Franks’ in the Crusader kingdom.12 Throughout Europe
papal legates and provincial synods tried to apply the reform program of Lat-
eran iv; Innocent and his successors wrote letters to various European kings
to try to get them to implement the Council’s rulings and to punish those who
resisted. It is hence no surprise that England, a papal fief with a papal legate
as an active member of the regency council for a child king, should be the
first European kingdom to translate the Lateran Council’s injunction into royal
law.
Yet the 1218 mandate is not a mere reiteration of the Lateran canon, but an
attempt to translate it into clear and enforceable legislation. The Lateran canon
is extremely vague about the nature of the clothing distinction, saying only
that Jews (and Muslims) should dress differently from Christians. There is no
mention of a badge or other distinctive mark. The canon shows more interest
in the justification of this measure: to avoid sexual contact between Christians
and non-Christians. It asserts moreover that Moses himself had required Jews
to dress differently from non-Jews.
11 Translation by Jessie Sherwood, http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30326/.

12 Concilium Neapolitanum [Capitulum xvi], ed. Adam Bishop, http://www.cn-telma.fr/
relmin/extrait40871/.
The royal mandate dispenses with all justification, merely asserting that
the goal is to distinguish Jews from Christians ‘with a clear sign’. Rather than
a vague injunction to dress differently from Christians, the mandate offers a
requirement to wear ‘two white tablets’ on their outer dress, and that they do
so both in town and while travelling, on horse or on foot. The colour (white)
and material (linen or parchment) of these ‘tablets’ is clearly indicated, though
not their size. Guala translated the Lateran directives into clear and applicable
legislation, and convinced the other members of the regency council to agree
to this mandate, issued in the king’s name and sent to the royal officials of some
of the major towns where Jews resided. So while Guala’s actions and motives
seem clear, it is much less clear how much he and the other members of the
regency meant for the measure to be enforced, although three years later, in
1221, royal receipt rolls offer evidence that there had been at least some effort
to enforce the mandate.13
Receipt rolls are registers of the royal exchequer that record payments from
individuals to the agents of the royal treasury. The rolls are organised by shire. In
general, there is one line for each payment, listing the payer, the amount paid,
and usually a brief mention of the reason for payment: debt, fine, tax, etc. For
some years, including 1221, a separate roll contains the revenue received from
Jews. Here, too, each entry is usually accompanied with a brief explanation of
the reason for the payment. A number of the Jews recorded in the Easter 1221
roll, for example, make payments toward the Bristol tallage, the extraordinary
tax that King John had imposed on his Jewish subjects in 1210—and which was
still being paid by a significant number of Jews in 1221. (Entries for payments
towards the Bristol tallage are also found in the receipt rolls for 1220, 1222 and
1224).
Thirty-five entries from the Easter 1221 receipt rolls involve payments by
Jews, in most cases individuals but in some cases groups, in order not to wear
the badge or ‘tabulae’. The total of the payments is £ 28.8s.6d., a not-negligible
contribution to the royal coffers. Jews from 13 different shires are listed here:
sums vary from a mere 5 shillings collected in Northamptonshire to £ 7.18s.
for Lincolnshire. These sums seem a priori not to correspond to the relative
size and wealth of the Jewish communities of the different shires: London
13 For the Latin text, translation and commentary on these receipt roll entries, see De tabula
non portanda, ed. John Tolan, http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait268769/ (accessed 14
August 2014). Latin text from Receipt rolls for the fourth, fifth and sixth years of the reign
of King Henry iii, Easter 1220, 1221, 1222 (Receipt rolls 3b, 4, and 5): now first printed from the
originals in the National Archives: Public Record Office, London: Pipe Roll Society, 2003.
152 tolan
was probably the most significant Jewish community in England, but its Jews
paid a mere 13s. collectively for the right not to wear the badge. Individual
payments vary widely as well: from 10d. for Manasser, son of Abraham (entry
number 2639) to the considerable sum of £4 for Moses son of Abraham in Nor-
folk/Suffolk (2761). We lack the context that would explain these variations.
Most of the payments seem to be made by individuals for the individual privi-
lege of not wearing the badge, though a number of them are followed with the
term ‘cum duplo’, literally with a ‘double’ or ‘copy’. It is unclear whether this
means that a certificate attesting their exemption was issued to them or if the
‘duplum’ refers to an extended permission (there is no mention of how long
this permission is meant to last, or if it is perpetual) or perhaps to permission
granted for two people. Several entries mention that the payment is made for
a man and his wife (or in one case, his daughter). Finally, four entries involve
communal payments: it seems that they obtain the exemption for the entire
Jewish communities of Canterbury, Oxford, Stanford and London; although in
the case of Oxford there are individuals who pay for this exemption in addition
to the payment for the general exemption.
1221 seems to be an exceptional year for the collection of these fees. There
is no mention of fees collected for the right not to wear badges in the 1220
or 1222 receipt rolls. The receipt roll for the seventh year of Henry’s reign (for
Michaelmas 1224) has only two such entries, for a total of five shillings and nine
pence (entries 1959 and 4158). Richardson mentions similar records from the
(as yet unedited) rolls from 1226 and 1227, but nothing on the scale of 1221. Here
again, we lack the context to explain why the crown was able to put sufficient
pressure on English Jews in 1221 to make them pay considerable sums to avoid
wearing the badge, and why it never did so again to the same scale. This may
suggest that the grants were permanent.
As we have seen, there has been some debate among historians over the
enforcement of the badge. For some, Henry’s 1218 law was a significant change
in Jewish policy; others see this mandate as little more than a sop to eccle-
siastical opinion, a measure that the king and his regency had little will to
enforce and that quickly became a dead letter. These records from receipt
rolls (some of which were already known and commented upon by Richard-
son14) nuance this debate. It shows how numerous Jews in England were ready
to pay significant sums of money in order not to wear the badge. Clearly,
if there were no threat of enforcement, these Jews would not willingly pay
these sums. Conversely, were the law enforced strictly, these people would
14 Richardson, 178–180.
presumably not be able to buy exemptions from it. What this shows is that
Henry’s regency saw this legal obligation as a means both to assert royal juris-
diction over the King’s Jews and to obtain money from them. As is often the
case in Medieval Europe, justice is, among other things, a means of obtaining
income. Guala had returned to Italy in 1219; significantly, it is only after his
departure that the crown sees fit to sell exemptions from wearing the tabu-
lae; it was also during the absence of Archbishop Stephen Langton, who was
in Rome.
The Papacy, the English Bishops and the King’s Jews (1221–1245)
The sale of these exemptions and, more generally, the lack of enforcement of
the badge, clearly did not please Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury.15
Innocent iii had named Stephen Archbishop in 1207; as we have seen, King
John’s refusal to accept his nomination had led Innocent to excommunicate
the king in 1209. John’s submission to Innocent in 1213 allowed Stephen’s return
to England, where he played a key role in the negotiation of the Magna Carta.16
This brought Stephen into conflict with Innocent, who repudiated the Magna
Carta; papal legate Pandulf of Masca had Stephen suspended (though never
removed) from office. He left England and stayed in Rome and in France until
1218, when he returned to resume office. Guala resigned as papal legate in 1219
but was replaced by Pandulf of Masca, who Stephen felt was undermining his
authority as archbishop. Stephen went to Rome in 1220, in large part to convince
Honorius to recall Pandulf.17 In this he succeeded; shortly after Stephen’s return
to England Pandulf resigned (on 26 July 1221).
Upon his return, Stephen brought with him the following letter from Pope
Honorius iii, addressed to Stephen as Archbishop of Canterbury and dated 6
July 1221:
15 On Stephen Langton, see Daniel Baumann, Stephen Langton Erzbischof von Canterbury
im England der Magna Carta (1207–1228), Leiden: Brill, 2009; Étienne Langton: prédicateur,
bibliste, théologien, Turnhout: Brepols, 2010.
16 For a recent reassessment of Stephen’s role in the Magna Carta, see David Carpenter,
‘Archbishop Langton and Magna Carta: His Contribution, His Doubts and His Hypocrisy’,
The English Historical Review 126, no. 522 (2011); see also John Baldwin, ‘Master Stephen
Langton, Future Archbishop of Canterbury: The Paris Schools and Magna Carta’, English
Historical Review 123 (2008), 811–846.
17 Carpenter, The minority of Henry iii, 228, 254.
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Honorius bishop, servant of the servants of God, to venerable brother

archbishop of Canterbury, cardinal of the holy Roman church, greet-
ings and apostolic blessing. Since the general council, whose complete
statutes we wish to serve, upon careful deliberation decreed that in every
land Jews should be distinguished from Christians by different clothing,
lest some Christian men should have intercourse with Jews’ women or
Jewish men with Christians’ women; and since the Jews of your diocese
do not observe this (as we have learned from you), on account of which
the crime of damnable commerce could be subsumed under the veil of
error, by Apostolic mandate we order your fraternity to compel Jews to
distinguish themselves from Christians in their dress by removing them
from contact with the faithful. Given at the Lateran on the second day of
the Nones of July in the sixth year of our pontificate (6 July 1221).18
As Nicholas Vincent has shown, Archbishop Stephen Langton no doubt solic-

ited this letter from the Pope, in order to obtain a clear mandate to impose these
measures on the English church.19
The issue was important to Honorius, who sent similar letters to other Euro-
pean prelates as part of an attempt to enforce conciliar regulations that aimed
to limit contacts between Jews and Christians. The pope refers to ‘the general
council’, referring here of course to the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. Hono-
rius indeed reiterates the language of canon 68, in particular concerning the
goal of avoidance of sexual mixing, and the general, non-specific requirement
of distinctive dress. He does not mention the royal mandate of 1218 or the spe-
cific requirement to wear tabulae, although he (through Stephen) is no doubt
aware of both. Nor does he mention the exemptions sold to Jews at Easter 1221,
of which he may well have been unaware (since Stephen had been away from
England since 1220).
While Honorius’ letter closely follows canon 68, there is one very impor-
tant difference. Canon 68 had no teeth: there was no mention of punish-
ment for non-respect of these sumptuary measures. While Jews are not sub-
ject to Church jurisdiction, they can be punished indirectly ‘by removing them
from contact with the faithful’. In other words, the way in which he enjoins
Stephen to compel Jews to obey is to oblige Christians to avoid interaction with
18 Text and translation from Cum in generali consilio, ed. John Tolan, http://www.cn-telma
.fr/relmin/extrait251655/.
19 Nicolas Vincent, ‘Two papal letters on the wearing of the Jewish badge, 1221 and 1229’,
Jewish Historical Studies 34, (1996).
them. Stephen has a mandate and a means of coercion; this will lead him into
direct conflict with Henry.
Central to Stephen’s attempt to reassert control over the English Church
is the Provincial Council of Oxford, which he convoked and presided over. It
took place on Sunday, 17th April 1222 in the monastery of Osney, just outside of
Oxford. According to various thirteenth-century English chroniclers, the first
business of the council was to pass judgment against several individuals. First
there was a deacon who, for love of a Jewess, had apostatised and had himself
circumcised ‘according to the Jewish rite’. Some chroniclers accuse him of host
desecration or even of participating in the ritual murder of a Christian child.
He was defrocked by the council and handed over to the lay authorities, who
swiftly burned him. Another man had tried to crucify himself, affirming that
he was the redeemer of the world; he was imprisoned for life on a diet of bread
and water. The canons of the council mention nothing of either of these cases.
The council pronounced a series of sixty canons. Under the authority of the
Archbishop, the council sought to apply a reformist agenda on the English
church, inspired in good part by the Fourth Lateran council. Thus the great
majority of the canons regulate the behavior of bishops, priests, monks and
other churchmen: their ordination, their dress, their financial activities, their
respect of canonical rules, their sexual proclivities (they are prohibited from
keeping concubines). A number of the canons seek to limit lay power over the
Church and in particular the alienation of Church property to laymen. Two of
the canons (nos. 46 & 47) deal with Jews. The case of apostasy, connected as it
was with a sexual liaison between a Christian deacon and a Jewish woman, may
in part explain the concern with the use of badges to distinguish Jews, explicitly
presented as a means to avoid sexual union between Jews and Christians, as we
see in canon 47:
Since in these parts such confusion has arisen between Christians and
Jews that they are barely distinguishable, and as a result it sometimes
happens that Christians unite with Jewesses or vice versa, we decree by
the authority of the present general Council, that each and every Jew,
whether male or female, shall wear clearly exposed on the outer garments,
on the chest, woollen tablets of a different colour from that of his garment,
so that each patch shall measure two inches in width and four in length;
and that they shall be compelled, by ecclesiastical censure, to observe this
regulation.20
20 Concilium Oxoniensis, canon 47, text and translation online (http://www.cn-telma.fr

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This canon goes beyond what the Lateran Council had proclaimed in Canon
68: that Jews (and Saracens) were to dress in a distinctive and recognisable
manner, in order to avoid unintentional sexual mixing. Here we have not
a general (and rather vague) rule on distinctive dress, but a quite specific
regulation, in accordance with the royal mandate of 1218, requiring every Jew,
male and female, to wear a badge on his or her outer clothing. Compared to the
royal mandate, there are a few important differences. The 1218 text imposed
‘two white tablets made of linen cloth or parchment’ (duas tabulas albas …
factas de lineo panno vel de parcameno), whereas here it is ‘woollen tablets
of a different colour from that of his garment’ (tabulas laneas alterius coloris
quam vestis), in order to ensure that the tablets be clearly visible. For the same
reason, the canon specifies the minimum size of the tablets (which had not
been mentioned in the 1218 mandate): two inches in width and four in length:
admittedly, a fairly small badge.
The canon also proscribes the means to enforce this measure: censura eccle-
siastica, a term which designates ecclesiastical justice but can also more specif-
ically indicate the punishment meted out by ecclesiastical judges, in particular,
excommunication. Clearly what Stephen and the council have in mind is the
sort of indirect punishment explicitly authorised by Pope Honorius iii in the
previous year: cutting Jews off from contact with Christians and hence depriv-
ing them of their livelihood and means of subsistence. This is exactly what
Stephen and at least some of his bishops will do in the following months, and
in so doing will provoke a strong reaction from the crown.
The year 1222 had been marked by important successes in the reaffirma-
tion of royal power: the resumption of the royal demesne and the growing
royal control over sheriffdoms. This is seen in the Michaelmas exchequer of
1222, which marked significant advances in royal revenues and royal power.
The young king, who turned 15 on 1st October, was playing an increasingly
active role. Langton was crucial, alongside Justiciar Hubert de Burgh, in help-
ing the crown reaffirm its prerogatives. The Archbishop played a key role of
moderator between the crown and the barons, as is seen the following year (in
January, 1223), when, at his urging, the King issues a confirmation of the Magna
Carta.21
Yet the resurgent power of the crown affirms itself not only against baro-
nial usurpers of royal demesnes and sheriffdoms, but also against Langton’s
/relmin/extrait246619/); text F. Powicke and C. Cheney (eds), Councils & synods: with other
documents relating to the English Church, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, 2:121.
21 Carpenter, The minority of Henry iii, 279–297.
attempts to limit Jewish-Christian contact. On 10 November 1222 the following

mandate was issued in the king’s name:
The king to the sheriff and to the Mayor of Canterbury, greetings. Our Jews
of Lincoln showed us that, on account of a precept issued by the venera-
ble fathers the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of Lincoln, it was
prohibited for anyone to sell them food or to engage in commerce with
them. They were indeed unable to find anyone who would sell them any-
thing. Therefore we order you that, once you have seen these letters, you
order and proclaim on our behalf, in your territories, that food and other
necessities be sold to them. And if you find someone who refuses to sell
them food and other necessities in the city of Lincoln or elsewhere, seize
him and keep his body securely, until we send you a mandate concerning
him. Witness H. [Hubert de Burgh], etc., at Westminster, November 10th.
Similar letters were sent to the mayor and provost of Oxford concerning
the Jews of Oxford and to the bailiff of Norwich concerning the Jews of
Norwich.22
Clearly, some Jews had complained to the king that the Archbishop of Canter-
bury and the Bishop of Lincoln had prohibited Christians to sell their food to
Jews. Such a ban, of course, would make life impossible for these Jews. The text
does not say why this ban had been proclaimed, but as we have seen Honorius
and Langton had already envisioned this measure in July, in order to compel the
Jews to respect the obligation to wear the badge (and the prohibition to have
Christian servants in their homes, another constant preoccupation of popes
and councils). The purpose of the prohibition to sell to Jews is to force the Jews
to comply; the goal is not to prohibit permanently any business with them. But
Jews manage to obtain the annulment of the ban by the king, without having
to make any concessions to the clergy. The mandate is addressed to an unspec-
ified sheriff (perhaps of Kent?) and to the mayor of Canterbury; it was also sent
to royal officials in Norwich and in Oxford (which was under the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction of the Bishop of Lincoln). This suggests that there were attempts
to enforce the decrees of the Oxford council in the dioceses of Canterbury, Lin-
coln, and perhaps Norwich. In reaction, Henry strongly reaffirms his monopoly
of power over ‘his’ Jews who are under his protection. There is no evidence that
Langton further pursued this issue or tried to enforce the wearing of the badge.
22 Text and translation from: ‘Ostenderunt nobis Judaei nostri Lincolniae’, ed. John Tolan,
http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait254390/.
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Yet documents from 1229 and 1245 show that Jewish-Christian relations, and
in particular the two issues of badge-wearing and Jews employing Christian ser-
vants in their homes, continue to provoke clerical concern. On 26 November
1229, Pope Gregory ix addresses a letter to Richard Grant, Archbishop of Can-
terbury.
Gregory bishop, servant of the servants of God, to venerable brother arch-

bishop of Canterbury, greetings and apostolic blessing. We have learned
from our venerable brother the bishop of Worcester that the Jews set-
tled in your province, who should be distinguished by insignia through
which they are distinguished in clothing from the Christians, according
to what had been decreed after due deliberation in the general council,
do not deign to wear them. As a result of this, a thousand abuses occur,
putting souls in grave danger. What is more, the same Jews, acting against
the very same council, presume to have Christian servants, in contempt
and disgrace of the orthodox faith. Not wishing to turn a blind eye to
their transgressions, we order your fraternity, by apostolic mandate, to
impose upon the above-mentioned Jews that they wear their insignia and
that they release their Christian servants, by continual admonition and
by the punishments proclaimed against the Jews by that same council.
And you shall have that penalty strictly observed in your province, so that
in these things one have the zeal for Christ before one’s eyes, lest one
prefer to Him any temporal riches. Given in Perugia the fifth day of the
Calends of December in the third year of our pontificate (26 November
1229).23
Gregory says that it is William de Blois, Bishop of Worcester, who informed him
that Jews were not wearing their badges and that they continued to employ
Christian servants in their homes.24 Hence the pope writes to the Archbishop,
demanding that he see that these regulations are enforced. Yet the letter pro-
poses little in the way of means of coercion: whereas Honorius in 1221 had
enjoined Stephen Langton to prohibit Christians from commerce with Jews,
23 For text, translation and commentary, see Ex parte venerabilis fratris nostri Wigorniensis
episcopi, ed. John Tolan, http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait251656/. Latin text from
Vincent, ‘Two papal letters on the wearing of the Jewish badge, 1221 and 1229’, 220–221. On
Richard Grant, see C. Lawrence, ‘Grant, Richard (d. 1231)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
24 On William, see Philippa Hoskin, ‘Blois, William de (d. 1236)’, in Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Gregory does not attempt to use these means, perhaps aware that Langton’s
actions had been overruled by the king. There is no evidence that this letter
had any impact in England. The next text we have concerning this issue is a
royal mandate from December 1245:
For the Jews. It is mandated to the sheriffs of London that, notwithstand-

ing any prohibition which the Bishop of London or any ordinary may have
made in the City of London, prohibiting that food be sold to the king’s
Jews, food shall be sold all over the above-mentioned city to those same
Jews who have business there, as has been done previously. Witness the
king at Westminster on the 17th day of December [1245].25
It seems that Fulk Basset, Bishop of London, had tried to prohibit Christians
from selling food to Jews in London, just as Stephen Langton and his bishops
had done in 1222.26 Henry reacts in the same way, ordering that food shall
be sold to Jews as usual. As in 1222, the royal mandate does not mention the
reasons behind the bishop’s prohibition, but it seems very likely that at issue
here, as earlier, were what were seen as improper relations between Christians
and Jews, as represented in particular by the issues of servants and badges.
What is clear is that in 1245 there is still episcopal discontent with the refusal
of Jews to recognise restrictions on their status and that Henry is willing to
override bishops in order to defend ‘the king’s Jews’.
1253: Towards Enforcement of the Badge?
In 1245, we see Henry firmly resisting episcopal attempts to curtail Jewish-

Christian contacts or to exercise any control, direct or indirect, over Jews. Yet
eight years later, the king does an about-face, as we see in the following man-
date:
25 ‘Pro Judeis. Mandatum est vicecomitibus London’ quod, non obstante aliqua inhibicione
quam London’ episcopus vel aliquis ordinaries fecerit in civitate London’ ne victualia ven-
dantur Judeis regis, vendi faciant per totam civitatem predictam eisdem Judeis victualia
quibus opus hauberint, sicut prius fieri solet. Teste rege apud Westm’ xvij die Decem-
bris [1245]’. Latin text from Public Record Office Great Britain, Close rolls of the reign of
Henry iii: preserved in the Public Record Office, London: hmso, 1902.
26 See R. Franklin, ‘Basset, Fulk (d. 1259)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004.
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Mandate of the King to the Justices assigned to the custody of the Jews
touching certain statutes relating to the Jews in England which are to
be rigorously observed, the thirty-seventh year of King Henry, ad 1253.
The King has provided and ordained etc.: That no Jew remain in England
unless he do the King service, and that from the hour of birth every
Jew, whether male or female, serve Us in some way. And that there be
no synagogues of the Jews in England save in those places in which
such synagogues were in the time of King John, the King’s father. And
that in their synagogues the Jews, one and all, subdue their voices in
performing their ritual offices, that Christians may not hear them. And
that all Jews answer to the rector of the church of the parish in which
they dwell touching all dues parochial relating to their houses. And that
no Christian nurse in future suckle or nourish the male child of any Jew,
nor any Christian man or woman serve any Jew or Jewess, or eat with them
or tarry in their houses. And that no Jew or Jewess eat or buy meat in
Lent. And that no Jew disparage the Christian Faith, or publicly dispute
concerning the same. And that no Jew have secret familiar intercourse
with any Christian woman, and no Christian man with a Jewess. And that
every Jew wear his badge conspicuously on his breast. And that no Jew
enter any church or chapel save for purpose of transit, or linger in them
in dishonour of Christ. And that no Jew place any hindrance in the way of
another Jew desirous of turning to the Christian Faith. And that no Jew be
received in any town but by special license of the King, save only in those
towns in which Jews have been wont to dwell. And the Justices assigned to
the custody of the Jews are commanded that they cause these provisions
to be carried into effect, and rigorously observed on pain of forfeiture of
the chattels of the said Jews. Witness the King at Westminster, on the 31st
day of January. By King and Council.27
In this mandate, which Henry sent to the judges exercising jurisdiction over
Jews, the King affirms his authority over Jews while at the same time lending
royal authority to various measures concerning Jews taken by church councils
in Rome (Lateran iii, 1179 and Lateran iv, 1215) and in England (Oxford, 1222,
among others). The king begins by affirming that no Jew, of whatever age or
sex, may remain in England unless he provides service to the king. This is a
27 For text, translation and commentary see: ‘Mandatum regis justiciariis ad custodiam
Judeorum assignatis’, ed. John Tolan, http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait252152/. Text
and translation from Select pleas, starrs, and other records from the rolls of the Exchequer of
the Jews, a.d. 1220–1284, London: B. Quaritch, 1902.
strong affirmation of the direct dependency of Jews on the person of the king.
There is a clear desire to limit expansion of Jewish settlement and to prohibit
building of new synagogues. A series of stipulations echo measures taken at the
Council of Oxford in 1222: Jews are prohibited from having Christian servants,
from sexual relations with Christians, are obliged to pay tithes on their lands
and houses to the parish rector and to wear a badge in the shape of ‘tablets’.
While many of the measures in this mandate had been the object of canons
in previous church councils, here Henry iii lends royal authority to these laws
and specifically instructs his royal justices to enforce them, if necessary through
the seizure of Jews’ property. For Robin Mundill, this mandate ‘redefined the
conditions under which Jews could live … The Jews were no longer in England
by invitation with special privilege. They were now in England to be exploited
and directed at the King’s whim’. It marks an important step in the increasing
royal control and restriction of Jewish communities in England. Here we see
that the injunction to wear the badge is one item in an arsenal of measures
meant to restrict the Jews. While in the 1220s (and even as late as the 1245)
Henry resisted pressures from bishops and papal legates (on badges, but also
on other matters), here he seems to bow to his bishops. Why?
Henry was in difficult straits in January 1253. As David Carpenter has shown,
Henry’s finances were, as often, in the red.28 The king had taken a crusading
oath; to finance his crusade, he wanted to levy a 10 % tax on ecclesiastical
property (a tax subsequently estimated to be worth roughly £ 30,000). He had
received authorisation from the pope, but the bishops of the Church of England
needed to approve the tax. The bishops are not in a position to refuse what the
pope has already granted; yet they are in an advantageous bargaining position:
they can negotiate with the king and ask him to redress a long list of grievances.
In particular, they seek to reaffirm the independence of ecclesiastical justice.
But among their demands, as well, are a whole series of issues concerning
relations between Christians and Jews that had been the object of legislation
in Church councils but to which Henry had given little or no backing. Hence
the 1253 statute.
In 1253, then, Henry accedes to the bishops’ demands and lends the weight of
royal authority to restrictions that the English church had been attempting to
impose on Jews for over thirty years, including the badge. But was this measure
any more effective than the 1218 mandate? Did Henry and the royal officials
make a greater effort to enforce them? There is little evidence to permit us to
28 What follows is based on David Carpenter, ‘Magna Carta 1253: The ambitions of the church
and the divisions within the realm’, Historical Research 86, no. 232 (2013).
162 tolan
answer these questions; I know of no further written documents that mention

the issue during the reign of Henry iii.
The other source, interesting but difficult to interpret, is iconography. Several
manuscripts from the reigns of Henry and his son Edward i depict Jews wearing
badges. The first (fig. 10.1) is an Illustration by Matthew Paris from his chronicle.
Dated c. 1255, it is roughly contemporary with the 1253 mandate. Matthew
seems to associate Jews with the badge. This does not of course mean that
Jews invariably wore their tablets, either before 1253 or after. In iconographical
practice, kings are invariably shown with crowns, which serves to identify them
as kings; but of course they did not always wear crowns. Yet the very fact
that Matthew uses the badge to designate Jews shows that the association
was clear in the minds of the artist and his audience. This would suggest that
badge-wearing was frequent, if not universal.
Two other images from the late 13th and early 14th centuries show English
Jews wearing badges. The first is a portrait or caricature of an English Jew of
the year 1277, drawn on a forest-roll of the county of Essex, in connection with
a number of fines imposed on some Jews and Christians who pursued a doe
that had escaped from the hounds near the town of Colchester. This was an
offence against the forest laws of the time, and a fine had to be paid by a Jew
who had evaded arrest and who, when he returned, was probably the subject of
the caricature. Aaron, caricatured as an ugly, beardless, large-nosed man, wears
the tablets prominently on his cloak.
The final example is from a fourteenth-century manuscript of the Chronica
roffense. The chronicler relates how Edward i in 1275 issued his statute of Jewry
and summarises the statute. In the left margin, under the caption ‘interdicta
est Judeis licentia usurandi’ (the right to practise usury is prohibited to Jews),
stands a Jew who with his left hand seems to be indicating the text of the
statute. Contrary to the caricature of Aaron, this bearded figure is shown with
normal traits and is not caricatured. He, too, wears the tablets on his chest. In
the summary, the chronicler says that King Edward ordered that Jews wear on
their outer garments badges in the form of tablets of the length of a palm.29
Indeed, Edward’s 1275 Statute of Jewry requires every Jew to wear on his outer
garment tablets of yellow felt six inches in height and three in width (roughly
the same as the ‘palm’ measure given by the chronicler, and in any case larger
29 Many thanks to Paul Brand and to Susanne Jenks for this information. Thanks in particular
to Susanne Jenks for looking at British Library ms. Cotton Nero d. ii, f. 180r and in particular
transcribing the passage concerning the tablets: “preceperit rex quod ad instar tabularum
ad unius palme longitudinem signa ferren in exterioribus indumentisi”.
fig. 10.1 Illustration by Matthew Paris (British Library, Cotton Nero d.i.), folio 183v, Jews being
beaten by a Christian
© the british library board. -cotton nero dii, f.183v
164 tolan
fig. 10.2 Plea Roll of Essex forest eyre 1277, sketch of a Jew in margin with the ‘Tablets of
the Law’ badge
from national archives tna e 32/12, m.3d
fig. 10.3
Margin of 14th c. manuscript of

Chronica roffense, British Library
ms. Cotton Nero d. ii, f. 180r
© the british library
board. -cotton nero d ii,
f.180r
166 tolan
than in the earlier legislation).30 In 1279 (and again in 1282), the requirement to
wear badges was extended to Jewish women.31
These three images together suggest that artists and their audiences asso-
ciated the tablets with Jews, and that (like crowns for kings) tablets served as
a quick and recognisable shorthand to identify Jews. This suggests, at the very
least, that badge-wearing had become common between 1253 and 1290. There
are perhaps other images and texts attesting to Jews wearing badges in 13th-
century England. But it is always hard, in dealing with legal sources, to know
to what extent laws are respected. The evidence we have seen here shows that
while the law of 1218 did not result in the widespread practice of Jews wearing
badges, the threat of enforcement was real enough to allow the crown to extort
money from Jews willing to pay in order not to wear the badge (this is particu-
larly true for 1221). The repeated complaints of popes and bishops concerning
the non-enforcement of these laws seem to show that before 1253 they are lit-
tle enforced. To what extent they were actually enforced after 1253 is not clear.
We have seen that King Edward took further measures in 1275, 1279 and 1282
to oblige Jews to wear the tablets, yet again there is little evidence to suggest
whether or not these mandates were respected.
England was the first European kingdom to translate the Fourth Lateran
Council rulings on distinctive Jewish clothing into royal legislation; other Euro-
pean polities would follow suit in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and
their measures too would have similarly chequered histories: sporadic enforce-
ment, selling of exemptions, etc. In England, perhaps because of the rich sur-
viving documentation, the forces at play are most clearly thrown into relief:
royal will to assert exclusive control over the ‘King’s Jews’, bishops’ attempts
to segregate Jews from Christians, royal fiscal interests, etc. The ways in which
political and financial weakness led Henry iii in 1253 to make an about-face
and submit to church demands concerning ‘his’ Jews is instructive in explain-
ing the precarious place of Jews in thirteenth-century English society (and in
Medieval European societies more generally). It is this precariousness, and the
willingness of European monarchs to dispense with their Jewish communities
when they feel it is no longer in their interest to defend them, that explain the
series of expulsions of Jews from Medieval European kingdoms, not least from
England in 1290.
30 Statutes of the Realm 1:221.

31 In Thomas Ryder (ed.), Foedera, London, 1726, i, ii, 570.
chapter 11
An Arabic Version of the Treatise on

the Origin and History of the Thirty Pieces of Silver
which Judas Received from the Jews
Rifaat Ebied
Introduction
The rich collection of the Mingana Syriac, Arabic and Garshūnī manuscripts
preserved in the library of the University of Birmingham in England contains
numerous valuable, and in some cases unique, works.1 Volume One of the
Catalogue in particular contains a number of seminal works on a variety of
Christian subject matters in Syriac and Arabic (Garshūnī). At least four of these
manuscripts—Mingana Syriac ms 22, Mingana Syriac ms 48, Mingana Syriac
ms 479 and Mingana Syriac ms 514—contain, inter alia, the Arabic text of an
interesting short piece dealing with the origin and history of the thirty pieces
of silver which Judas Iscariot received from the Jews for betraying Jesus. The
purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the existence of this hitherto
unpublished work, as well as to present its text and translation and to provide
an analysis of its contents, linguistic features and likely authenticity.
The Biblical Narrative of the Thirty Pieces of Silver
According to the Gospel accounts, Judas Iscariot was a disciple of Jesus. Before
the Last Supper, Judas went to the chief priests and agreed to hand over Jesus
in exchange for thirty silver coins (Matthew 26:14–16).2 Jesus is then arrested
in Gethsemane, where Judas reveals Jesus’ identity to the soldiers by giving
1 A. Mingana, Catalogue of the Mingana Collection of Manuscripts: vol. 1, Syriac and Garshūni
Manuscripts (Cambridge, 1933), vol. 2, Christian Arabic Manuscripts and Additional Syriac
(Cambridge, 1936), vol. 3, Additional Christian Arabic and Syriac Manuscripts (Cambridge,
1939).
2 Cf. R.T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, mi, 2007), 976–979.

168 ebied
him a kiss.3 According to Matthew 27, Judas was filled with remorse and he
subsequently returned the money to the chief priests before hanging himself.
The chief priests then decided that they could not put it into the Temple
treasury, and so with it they bought the Potter’s Field (Matthew 27:9–10).4 In
the Book of Zechariah (11:12–13), “thirty pieces of silver” was the price Zechariah
received for his labour. He took the coins and cast them “to the Potter.”5 In the
Book of Exodus (21:32), “thirty pieces of silver” was the price of a slave.6 Klaas
Schilder notes that Zechariah’s payment indicates “an assessment of his worth,
as well as his dismissal.”7 He further suggests that these thirty pieces of silver
then get “bandied back and forth by the Spirit of Prophecy.”8 When the chief
priests decided to buy a field with the returned money, Matthew says that this
fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the Prophet: “They took the thirty pieces
of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy
the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me” (Matthew 27:9–10).9
The “Thirty Pieces of Silver” are used in Christian literature on the betrayal
of Jesus, as in the poem Thirty Pieces of Silver by William Blane:
Thirty pieces of silver for the Lord of life they gave:

Thirty pieces of silver—only the price of a slave,
But it was the priestly value of the holy One of God:
They weighed it out in the temple, the price of the Saviour’s blood.
Thirty pieces of silver laid in Iscariot’s hand:—
Thirty pieces of silver and the aid of an armed band,
Like a lamb that is brought to the slaughter, led the Holy Son of God
At midnight from the garden where His sweat had been as blood.
Thirty pieces of silver burned in the traitor’s brain:
Thirty pieces of silver! but oh! it is hellish gain:
“I have sinned and betrayed the guiltless,” he cried with a fevered breath
And he cast them down in the temple and rushed to a madman’s death.
3 France, The Gospel of Matthew, 1012.

4 Cf. Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew (Collegeville, mn, 1991), 384–387.
5 Cf. Zechariah 11:12–13.
6 See France, The Gospel of Matthew, 978. Cf. the same sum given as the “value” of an adult
woman in Leviticus 27:4; a man is worth fifty shekels.
7 Klaas Schilder, Christ in His Suffering (Grand Rapids, mi, 1938), 74.
8 Schilder, Christ, 71.
9 For the motif of the thirty pieces of silver, see Erica Reiner, “Thirty Pieces of Silver,” Journal of
the American Oriental Society 88 (1968): 186–190.
the thirty pieces of silver which judas received from the jews 169
Thirty pieces of silver lay in the House of God:

Thirty pieces of silver, but oh! ‘twas the price of blood.
And so, for a place to bury the stranger in, they gave
The price of their own Messiah Who lay in a borrowed grave.
It may not be for silver; it may not be for gold;
But still by tens of thousands is this precious Saviour sold.—
Sold for a godless friendship, sold for a selfish aim,
Sold for a fleeting trifle, sold for an empty name!
Sold in the mart of science! sold in the seat of power!
Sold at the Shrine of Fortune! sold in Pleasure’s bower!
Sold, where the awful bargain none but God’s eye can see:
Ponder, my soul, the question, “Shall He be sold by thee?”
Sold! O God, what a moment! stifled is conscience’ voice:
Sold! and a weeping angel records the awful choice:
Sold! but the price of the Saviour to a living coal shall turn,
With the pangs of remorse for ever deep in the soul to burn.10
The Syriac Version of the Treatise
The text of the treatise on the Thirty Pieces of Silver seems to have enjoyed
considerable popularity as is attested by the fact that it is known in Latin,
Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, etc. Versions in these languages are preserved in
numerous manuscripts.11 The Syriac text of this piece, which was included
in The Book of the Bee of Solomon, Metropolitan of Basra in Iraq (thirteenth
century),12 also survived in three further Mingana manuscripts: ms Syriac 369
(dated 1481), ms Syriac 71 (dated ca. 1600) and ms Syriac 480 (dated 1712). This
version was edited and translated by the present writer in Series Syro-Arabica,
10 William Blane, “Thirty Pieces of Silver,” in The Silent Land and other Poems (London, 1906),
149. I am grateful to my colleague, Barry Spurr, Professor of Poetry and Poetics, University
of Sydney, for making this poem available to me.
11 See Florence Jullien, “Édesse, un creuset de traditions sur les Mages Évangéliques,” Le
Muséon 127.1–2 (2014): 77–93 (81).
12 Solomon became Metropolitan of Basra about 1222. The Syriac text of the Book of the Bee
was edited from four mss preserved in London (2 mss), Oxford and Munich by Ernest
A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Bee: The Syriac Text (Oxford, 1886) [chapter xliv: On the
Passion of Our Lord], Syr. text, 107–110; English trans., 95–97. Butrus Haddād provided an
Arabic rendition of this Syriac text in his Kitāb al-Naḥla (Baghdad, 2006), 128–130.
170 ebied
2.13 It is reproduced here for the sake of comparison with the Arabic version
which is the subject of this paper.
The Arabic Version of the Treatise
The Arabic text of this piece has survived in the following six manuscripts:14
(i) ms Cambridge Add. 2881 [hereafter = A]. The part of the manuscript
which comprises our text consists of folios 136b–139a. This manuscript,
which is dated 1795 ag [= 1484ce], contains a number of works mainly in
Garshūnī, but some pages are written in an Egyptian Arabic hand.15 Our
piece, which is written in cursive Garshūnī, is headed as follows:
‫( أخذها‬sic) ‫حسن توفيقه ونكتب خبر الفضة الذي‬

ُ ‫نبتدئ بعون الل ّٰه تعالى و‬
.‫يهوذا من اليهود ثمن سي ّدنا المسيح لذكره السجود والتسابيح‬
(ii) ms Mingana Syriac 22 [hereafter = B]. The part of the manuscript which
comprises our text consists of folios 134b–136b. This manuscript, which
is dated 29 Tishrīn 1838 ag [= 1527ce], is written by two contemporary
and clear west Syrian hands. It comprises a number of pieces of varying
content written in Garshūnī: lives of various saints, hagiography, a maimra
of Jacob of Serug on love, two miracles of St. George, etc.16 Our piece,
which is also written in cursive Garshūnī, is headed as follows:
‫( أخذ يهوذا الإسخر يوطي ثمن سي ّدنا‬sic) ‫تعر يف من أ ين هم الدراهم الذي‬

.‫المسيح‬
13 See Rifaat Ebied, “The Syriac Version of the Treatise on the Origin and History of the Thirty
Pieces of Silver which Judas received from the Jews,” in Greaeco-Latina et Orientalia: Studia
in honorem Angeli Urbani heptagenarii [Series Syro-Arabica, 2], ed. Samir Khalil Samir and
Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala (Cordoba, 2013), 123–131.
14 For a list of these manuscripts, see Georg Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen
Literatur, 5 vols. (The Vatican, 1944–1953), 1:243.
15 For a description of the contents of this manuscript, see William Wright, A Catalogue of
the Syriac Manuscripts preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge,
1901), 713–723.
16 For a description of the contents of this manuscript, see Mingana, Catalogue, 1:62–68.
(iii) ms Mingana Syriac 48 [hereafter = C]. The part of the manuscript which
comprises our text consists of folios 146a–147a. This manuscript was writ-
ten in 1906ce in Mosul by the deacon Matthew, son of Paul, who copied
it from another manuscript dated August 2068 ag [= 1757ce]. It com-
prises a number of pieces of varying content written mainly in Syriac and
Garshūnī in a clear and handsome west Syrian hand: a few maimras of
Jacob of Serug on the praises of the Virgin Mary and her burial, miracles
of the Virgin, etc.17 Our piece, which is written in Garshūnī, bears the fol-
lowing title:
… ‫( أخذها يهوذا من كهنة اليهود‬sic) ‫ن الدراهم الذي‬

ّ ‫ قال بعض العلماء إ‬.‫خبر‬
(iv) ms Mingana Syriac 514 [hereafter = D]. The part of the manuscript which
comprises our text consists of folios 140a–142a. It comprises a number of
works of varying content put together from different manuscripts by a
binder and written in Syriac and Garshūnī in a west Syrian hand in 2030
ag [= 1729ce] and 2061 ag [= 1750ce].18 Our piece, which is written in
Garshūnī, is headed as follows:
.‫( أخذ يهوذا الإسخر يوطي ثمن سي ّدنا‬sic) ‫تعر يف أن ّه من أ ين هم الدراهم الذي‬
(v) ms Mingana Syriac 479 [hereafter = E]. The part of the manuscript which
comprises our text consists of folios 123b–125a. This manuscript contains
a work written in Syriac on Syriac grammar by the West Syrian writer
Timothy Isaac, Metropolitan of Amed (fols. 1b–120b) and two short pieces
including our text in Garshūnī. It is dated 2130 ag [= 1819ce] and written
by the priest ʿAbd al-Masīḥ, son of Isaac.19 Our piece begins as follows:
‫( أخذهم يهوذا من كهنة‬sic) ‫ن الدراهم الذي‬

ّ ‫ وقال بعض العلماء إ‬:‫خبر عنهم‬
… ‫اليهود‬
(vi) ms Cairo 139. This manuscript was written in the eighteenth century. I
have not yet been able to consult this manuscript.20
20 See Graf, Geschichte, 1:243; according to Graf, Geschichte, 1: xxxi, the manuscript is kept in
the Coptic Patriarchate in Cairo.
172 ebied
The Present Piece
A collation of the text preserved in the above mentioned manuscripts shows

that, although they contain basically the same substance, they differ in their
phraseology. I, therefore, present here the Arabic text of this piece in three
versions designated Arab. i (taken from ms a), Arab. ii (taken from mss B and
D)21 and Arab. iii (taken from mss C and E).22 As stated above, the published
version of the Syriac text is also presented in juxtaposition for purposes of
comparison with the text of the Arabic versions. A collation of the Arabic
version with the published Syriac version shows that on the whole it stands
in close relation with it. This is also augmented by the internal evidence of
the contents of the piece,23 as well as by the fact that the Arabic text exhibits
a number of features in vocabulary, grammar and style which indicate an
underlying Syriac origin.24
This anonymous treatise most likely falls into the category of apocryphal/
pseudepigraphal biblical literature.25 It traces the origin of the thirty pieces of
silver to the biblical figure Terah who allegedly minted them before passing
them onto his son, the patriarch Abraham. The latter gave them to his son Isaac,
and they subsequently changed hands on numerous occasions before finally
entering into the possession of King Abgar of Edessa, who gave them to Christ
in return for the favours He had rendered to him, having healed him from his
illness. The treatise does contain, however, some erroneous historical informa-
tion. For example, Nebuchadnezzar is described as, “King of the Persians” (sic)
in both the Syriac and Arabic versions.26
21 Significant variant readings are recorded in the notes to the text.

22 Significant variant readings are recorded in the notes to the text.
23 Examples include the frequent mention of the City of Edessa which played an essential
and pioneering role in the spread of Christianity as well as the reference to King Abgar’s
well known Syriac correspondence with Jesus. Cf. Jullien, “Édesse,” 81, 82, 93.
24 For example, the use of the letter Lāmad in Syriac after transitive verbs as the sign of the
accusative/direct object: for example, ‫( وأكرم بهم لفرعون‬Arab. i, ms A); ‫لم ّا رأى أبجر الملك لتلك‬
‫( القميص‬Arab. ii, ms D); ‫( وأخذوا لتلك الدراهم‬Arab. iii, ms E).
25 Cf. Graf, Geschichte, 1:243.
26 In all the extant Arabic and Syriac manuscripts of this treatise, Nebuchadnezzar is de-
̈
scribed as ‫ملك الفرس‬/󰀊󰀥󰀴󰀖󰀽‫󰀮󰀬󰀎󰀊 ܕ‬.
Sigla of Manuscripts Used for the Edition of the Arabic Text
A= ms Cambridge Add. 2881

B= ms Mingana Syriac 22
C= ms Mingana Syriac 48
D= ms Mingana Syriac 514
E= ms Mingana Syriac 479
Sigla of Manuscripts Used for the Edition of the Syriac Text
A = ms Mingana Syriac 369

B = ms Mingana Syriac 71
C = ms Mingana Syriac 480
‫‪174‬‬ ‫‪ebied‬‬
‫‪TEXT‬‬
‫‪Arab. ii‬‬ ‫‪Arab. i‬‬

‫]‪[mss B and D‬‬ ‫]‪[ms A‬‬
‫تعر يف من أ ين هم الدراهم الذي )‪ (sic‬أخذ يهوذا‬ ‫حسن توفيقه ونكتب خبر الفضة‬
‫نبتدئ بعون الل ّٰه تعالى و ُ‬
‫الإسخر يوطي ثمن سي ّدنا المسيح‪.‬‬ ‫الذي )‪ (sic‬أخذها يهوذا من اليهود ثمن سي ّدنا يسوع المسيح‬
‫لذكره السجود والتسابيح‪.‬‬
‫قيل إن الفضة الذي )‪ (sic‬أخذ يهوذا من كهنة اليهود‪،‬‬ ‫ن الفضة الذي )‪ (sic‬أخذها يهوذا من كهنة اليهود‬
‫قيل إ ّ‬
‫تارح أبو ا براهيم الخليل‪ 35‬ضرب تلك الدراهم وأعطاهم‬ ‫ن تارح أبو إ براهيم الخليل ضرب تلك الدراهم وأعطاهم‬
‫فإ ّ‬
‫لإ براهيم‪ 36‬وأي ً‬
‫ضا إ براهيم وهبهم لإسحاق ابنه‪ ،‬وإسحاق‬ ‫لإ براهيم‪ ،‬وإبراهيم أعطاهم لإسحاق ولده‪ ،‬وإسحاق اشترى‬
‫اشترى بهم قر ية‪ ،‬وصاحب القر يةكر ّم بهم لفرعون‪،‬‬ ‫بهم قر ية‪ ،‬وصاحب القر ية أخذ الثمن إللي هو الدراهم‬
‫وفرعون نّفذهم لسليمان ا بن داوود تهنئة في بني الهيكل‬ ‫وأكرم بهم لفرعون‪ ،‬وفرعون‪ 27‬أعطاهم لسليمان ا بن‬
‫وسليمان وضع الدراهم على قوائم باب المذبح‪ ،‬عشرة على‬ ‫داوود‪ 28‬تهنئة في بني الهيكل‪ 29‬وسليمان‪ 30‬وضع الدراهم‬
‫شيف الفوقاني وعشرة من هاهنا وعشرة من هاهنا‪ .‬فلماّ‬ ‫على‪ 31‬قوائم باب المذبح عشرة‪ 32‬على شيف‪ 33‬الفوقاني‬
‫جاء بختنص ّر ملك الفرس )‪ (sic‬وأخذ سبية بني اسرائيل‬ ‫وعشرة‪ 34‬من هاهنا وعشرة من هاهنا‪ .‬فلماّ جاء‬
‫‪27‬‬ ‫‪ (sic).‬وفعرعون ‪A:‬‬

‫‪28‬‬ ‫‪ with a cryptic reading of numerical‬داوود ‪Reading with B, C, D and E; A substitutes‬‬
‫‪, cf. Wright, Catalogue, 714.‬ܐ󰀫󰀿 ܗ󰀱󰀖ܘ󰀤󰁋ܐ ‪characters according to the‬‬
‫‪29‬‬ ‫‪ with a cryptic reading of numerical‬بني الهيكل ‪Reading with B, C, D and E; A substitutes‬‬
‫‪30‬‬ ‫‪ with a cryptic reading of numerical‬وسليمان ‪Reading with B, C, D and E; A substitutes‬‬
‫‪31‬‬ ‫‪ with a cryptic reading of numerical characters‬على ‪Reading with B, C, D and E; A substitutes‬‬
‫‪, cf. Wright, Catalogue, 714.‬ܐ󰀫󰀿 ܗ󰀱󰀖ܘ󰀤󰁋ܐ ‪according to the‬‬
‫‪32‬‬ ‫‪ with a cryptic reading of numerical‬عشرة ‪Reading with B, C, D and E; A substitutes‬‬
‫‪33‬‬ ‫‪ with a cryptic reading of numerical‬شيف ‪Reading with B, C, D and E; A substitutes‬‬
‫‪34‬‬ ‫‪ with a cryptic reading of numerical‬وعشرة ‪Reading with B, C, D and E; A substitutes‬‬
‫‪35‬‬ ‫‪B omits this word.‬‬
‫‪36‬‬ ‫‪D omits this word.‬‬
‫‪the thirty pieces of silver which judas received from the jews‬‬ ‫‪175‬‬
‫دخل إلى هيكل سليمان ورأى‪ 37‬الدراهم وحسنوا‪ 38‬في‬ ‫بختنص ّر ملك الفرس )‪ (sic‬وسبى بني اسرائيل من أورشليم‪،‬‬
‫عينه أخذهم‪ 39‬إلى بابل مع جملة سبي بني اسرائيل‪ 40.‬وقد‬ ‫دخل إلى هيكل سليمان ونظر الدراهم وحسنوا في عينه‬
‫كان عنده أولاد ملوك الفرس رها ئن‪ 41،‬فلماّ رجع‪ 42‬من‬ ‫فأخذهم إلى بابل مع جملة سبي بني اسرائيل‪ .‬وقد كان‬
‫ل شيء‬
‫أورشليم نفذوا له ملوك الفرس خدام وحملوا ك ّ‬ ‫عنده أولاد ملوك الفرس رهن‪ ،‬فلماّ رجع من أورشليم أنفذ‬
‫يليق‪ 43‬للملوك‪ 44.‬فلماّ نظر‪ 45‬بختنص ّر‪ 46‬أّنهم قد بعثوا‪ 47‬له‬ ‫ل شيء يليق بالملوك‪ .‬فلماّ‬
‫إليه ملك الفرس خدمة‪ ،‬وحمل ك ّ‬
‫كسيم‪ 48‬مماّ يليق للسلاطين‪ ،‬أطلق‪ 49‬أولادهم ووهب‪50‬‬ ‫ل شيء يليق بالسلاطين‪ ،‬ثم ّ‬
‫نظر بختنص ّر أّنهم أرسلوا ك ّ‬
‫ضا أعطاهم تلك الدراهم مع جملة‬
‫لهم المواهب الغز يرة وأي ً‬ ‫ضا‬
‫أطلق سبيل أولادهم وأعطاهم المواهب الغز يرة‪ ،‬وأي ً‬
‫العطايا‪ 51.‬والفرس مضوا بالدراهم إلى آبائهم‪52.‬‬ ‫أعطاهم تلك الدراهم مع جملة العطايا‪ .‬وأولاد الفرس‬
‫مضوا بتلك الدراهم إلى آبائهم‪.‬‬
‫فلماّ إتولد سيدنا يسوع‪ 53‬المسيح ورأوا الـكوكب قاموا‬ ‫فلماّ و ُلد سي ّدنا المسيح ورأوا الـكوكب مضوا وأخذوا‬
‫وأخذوا‪ 54‬في صحبتهم ذهب ًا ومًّرا ولباناً وأي ً‬
‫ضا تلك الدراهم‬ ‫صحبتهم ذهب ًا ومًّرا ولباناً ‪ ،‬وأخذوا تلك الدراهم وأتوا إلى‬
‫وأتوا إلى ز يارة المسيح‪ 55.‬فلماّ جاؤوا إلى‪ 56‬قرب مدينة‬ ‫ز يارة سي ّدنا المسيح‪ .‬فلماّ جاؤوا إلى قرب مدينة الرها‪ ،‬نزلوا‬
‫الرها نزلوا وحلوّ ا على عين ماء في تلك الطر يق‪ .‬فلماّ قاموا‬ ‫على عين ماء في تلك الطر يق‪ .‬فلماّ أرادوا يمضوا في سبيلهم‬
‫ليمضوا في سبيلهم وقعوا الدراهم منهم على تلك العين ولم‬ ‫وقعوا الدراهم منهم على تلك العين وهم فلم يعلموا‪ .‬ولم ّا مضوا‬
‫يعلموا‪ 57.‬فلماّ مضوا جاء في إ ثرهم قوم تجاّ ر ووجدوا‬ ‫جاء من بعدهم قوم تجاّ ر فوجدوا تلك الدراهم‪ .‬وفي‬
‫‪37‬‬ ‫هؤلاء ‪D adds‬‬

‫‪38‬‬ ‫‪ of conjunction).‬و ‪ (omitting the‬حسنوا ‪D:‬‬
‫‪39‬‬ ‫وودّاهم معه ‪D adds‬‬
‫‪40‬‬ ‫في سبية بني اسرائيل ‪D:‬‬
‫‪41‬‬ ‫وكان هنا في مدينة بابل أولاد ممسوكين رها ئن من بني الفرس ‪D:‬‬
‫‪42‬‬ ‫لم ّا جاء ‪D:‬‬
‫‪43‬‬ ‫يصلح ‪D:‬‬
‫‪44‬‬ ‫للملك بختنصر ‪D:‬‬
‫‪45‬‬ ‫رأى ‪D:‬‬
‫‪47‬‬ ‫أن بعثوا ‪D:‬‬
‫‪48‬‬ ‫ل شيء حسن ‪D:‬‬ ‫ك ّ‬
‫‪49‬‬ ‫ل ‪D:‬‬
‫ح ّ‬
‫‪50‬‬ ‫وعطى ‪D:‬‬
‫‪51‬‬ ‫ضا أعطاهم تلك الدراهم مع جملة العطايا ‪D omits‬‬‫الغز يرة وأي ً‬
‫‪52‬‬ ‫وهؤلاء الدراهم ودّوهم معهم هؤلاء الفرس لآبائهم ‪D:‬‬
‫‪54‬‬ ‫أخذوا هؤلاء الدراهم ومر وذهب ولبان ‪D:‬‬
‫‪55‬‬ ‫وأتوا إلى ز يارة المسيح ‪D omits‬‬
‫‪56‬‬ ‫وجاؤوا في الطر يق إلى أن وصلوا في ‪D:‬‬
‫‪57‬‬ ‫ناموا هؤلاء الملوك على قرب من الطر يق وقاموا نسيوا الدراهم وما ذكروا فقد منهم شيء ‪D reads differently:‬‬
‫‪176‬‬ ‫‪ebied‬‬
‫الدراهم‪ .‬وفي ذلك اليوم‪ 58‬جاء ملاك‪ 59‬الرب إلى رعاة‪60‬‬ ‫ذلك اليوم نزل ملاك الرب إلى رعيان ذلك البلد وأعطاهم‬
‫ذلك البلد وأعطاهم قميص‪ 61‬ما هو مخي ّط من فوق‪ ،‬بل‬ ‫قميص لم هو مخي ّط من فوق‪ ،‬بل منسوج كل ّه صحيح‪ .‬فقال‬
‫صا‪64‬‬‫منسوج كل ّه صحيح‪ 62.‬وقال‪ 63‬لهم الملاك‪” :‬خذوا قمي ً‬ ‫لهم الملاك‪” :‬خذوا قميص فيه حياة لبني البشر‪ “.‬فأخذوا‬
‫فيه‪ 65‬حياة لبني البشر‪ 66“.‬وأخذوا الرعاة‪ 67‬القميص وأتوا‬ ‫الرعيان ذلك القميص وأتوا إلى العين ليسقوا غنمهم‪،‬‬
‫إلى العين‪ 68‬ليسقوا غنمهم‪ ،‬فوجدوا التج ّار الذين وجدوا‬ ‫فوجدوا التج ّار الذين وجدوا الدراهم جالسين على العين‪.‬‬
‫الدراهم جالسين على المعين‪ .‬قالوا الرعاة للتج ّار‪” :‬تشتروا‬ ‫فقالوا الرعاة للتج ّار‪” :‬تشتروا قميص لم هو مخي ّط من فوق؟“‬
‫قميص لم هو مخي ّط من فوق؟“‪ 69‬أجابوا التج ّار وقالوا لهم‪:‬‬ ‫أجابوا التج ّار وقالوا لهم‪” :‬أحضروا تلك القميص‪ “.‬فلماّ‬
‫”أحضروا تلك القميص‪ 70“.‬فلماّ أحضروها‪ ،‬إتعّجبوا‪71‬‬ ‫حسن القميص‪ .‬أجابوا التج ّار‬
‫جبوا التج ّار من ُ‬
‫أحضروه‪ ،‬تع ّ‬
‫حسن القميص‪ ،‬أجابوا التج ّار وقالوا للرعاة‪:‬‬
‫التج ّار من ُ‬ ‫وقالوا للرعاة‪” :‬معنا دراهم أحسن شيء يكون مماّ يليق‬
‫”معنا دراهم أحسن شيء يكون مماّ تليق للملوك‪ 72،‬فخذوا‬ ‫الملوك‪ ،‬فخذوا الدراهم وأعطونا القميص‪ “.‬فباعوهم ذلك‬
‫الدراهم وأعطونا القميص‪ “.‬فباعوا وأخذوا التج ّار‬ ‫القميص وأخذوه التج ّار وسل ّموهم تلك الدراهم‪ .‬فتو ّ‬
‫جهوا‬
‫القميص‪ ،‬وأخذوا الرعاة الدراهم‪ .‬وجاءوا التج ّار الرها‪73‬‬ ‫التج ّار نحو مدينة الرها ونزلوا في الفندق‪ .‬فأرسل أبجر ملك‬
‫ونزلوا في الخان‪ ،‬أعني الفندق‪ 74.‬فأرسل أبجر ملك الرها‬ ‫الرها يقول للتج ّار‪” :‬هل معكم شيء من الثياب مماّ يصلح‬
‫يقول للتج ّار‪” :‬معكم شيء من الثياب ما يصلح للملوك‬ ‫للملوك لنشتري منكم؟“ فهم أحضروا بين يديه ثياب مفتخرة‬
‫لأشتري منكم؟“ فهم أحضروا بين يديه ثياب مفتخرة وأي ً‬
‫ضا‬ ‫ضا القميص من جملتهم‪ .‬فلماّ رأى القميص وهو ليس في‬
‫وأي ً‬
‫القميص‪ .‬فلماّ رأى‪ 75‬القميص وما وجد‪ 76‬مثلها في العالم‪،‬‬ ‫العالم ي ُنسج مثله‪ ،‬قال لهم‪” :‬من أ ين لـكم هذا القميص؟“‬
‫قال لهم‪” :‬من أ ين لـكم هذه القميص؟“‬ ‫أجابوا وقالوا له‪” :‬نزلنا على عين ماء على باب مدينت َ‬
‫ك‪ ،‬فجاء‬
‫‪58‬‬ ‫النهار ‪D:‬‬

‫‪59‬‬ ‫أتوا الملائكة ‪D:‬‬
‫‪60‬‬ ‫عند الرعوان ‪D:‬‬
‫‪61‬‬ ‫وأعطوا لهم القميص ‪D:‬‬
‫‪62‬‬ ‫بلا خياطة ‪D:‬‬
‫‪63‬‬ ‫وقالوا لهم ‪D:‬‬
‫‪64‬‬ ‫هذه القميص ‪D:‬‬
‫‪65‬‬ ‫ن فيها ‪D:‬‬
‫إ ّ‬
‫‪66‬‬ ‫للناس ‪D:‬‬
‫‪67‬‬ ‫هؤلاء الرعوان ‪D:‬‬
‫‪68‬‬ ‫وجاؤا إلى تلك العين الماء الذي كانوا هؤلاء التجار عليها نازلين ‪D:‬‬
‫‪69‬‬ ‫معنا قميص بلا خياطة منسوج من الملائكة اشتر يناها ‪D:‬‬
‫‪70‬‬ ‫آتوها إلى هاهنا ‪D:‬‬
‫‪71‬‬ ‫أخذهم العجب ‪D:‬‬
‫‪72‬‬ ‫معنا ثلاثين دراهم يصلحون للسلاطين ‪D:‬‬
‫‪73‬‬ ‫ودخلوا إلى مدينة الرها ‪D:‬‬
‫‪74‬‬ ‫ونزلوا في الخان ‪ ،‬أعني الفندق ‪D omits‬‬
‫‪75‬‬ ‫أبجر الملك لتلك ‪D adds‬‬
‫‪76‬‬ ‫ن ليس ‪D:‬‬ ‫أ ّ‬
‫أجابوا‪ 77‬وقالوا‪ 78‬له‪” :‬جئنا إلى‪ 79‬معين‪ 80‬ماء على باب‬ ‫رجال رعاة غنم ومعهم هذا القميص‪ ،‬فقالوا لنا‪ :‬تشتروا هذا‬
‫ك‪ ،‬وجاءوا رعوان غنم ومعهم قميص ما هو مخي ّط من‬
‫مدينت َ‬ ‫القميص؟ ولم رأى أحدًا )‪ (sic‬مثله‪ ،‬وقد كان معنا دراهم‬
‫فوق وقالوا لنا‪ :‬تشترون )‪ (sic‬هذه القميص؟ فلما نظرنا‬ ‫مبلغ ‪ ٣٠‬درهم عليهم صورة الملوك‪ ،‬فأعطيناهم للرعاة‬
‫ضا كان معنا دراهم‬
‫القميص أن ما رأى أحد مثلها‪ ،‬وأي ً‬ ‫وأخذنا منهم القميص‪ .‬وتلك الدراهم كانوا يصلحون‬
‫مبلغ ثلاثين صور الملوك‪ ،‬أعطيناهم للرعوان وأخذنا منهم‬ ‫و يليقون لملك مثلك‪ “.‬فأمّا الملك اشترى القميص منهم‪،‬‬
‫هذه القميص‪ 81.‬وهؤلاء الدراهم كان يصلحون للملك‬ ‫وأنفذ أحضر الرعاة وأخذ منهم الدراهم وأعطاهم مثل‬
‫مثلك‪ 82“.‬فهو الملك اشترى القميص منهم ونّفذ أحضر‬ ‫وزنهم بالمعاملة‪.‬‬
‫الرعوان وأخذ الدراهم منهم‪ ،‬وأعطاهم مثل وزنهم‬
‫معاملة‪83.‬‬
‫وأبجر الملك نّفذ الدراهم والقميص لسي ّدنا يسوع المسيح‬ ‫أمّا أبجر الملك أنفذ الدراهم والقميص إلى سي ّدنا المسيح‬
‫عوض الخـير الذي كان قد فعل معه من جهة الوجع‬ ‫عوض الخـير الذي كان قد فعله معه من جهة الوجع‬
‫الصعب الذي أشفاه‪ .‬فلماّ وصلت هدية الملك‪ ،‬أخذ سي ّدنا‬ ‫الصعب الذي كان قد شفاه منه‪ .‬فلماّ وصلت هدية الملك‪،‬‬
‫القميص‪ ،‬والدراهم رماهم في بيت الخزانة الذي لهيكل‬ ‫أخذ سي ّدنا القميص‪ ،‬والدراهم فأرماهم في بيت الخزانة‬
‫اليهود وسي ّدنا‪ ،‬عالم الخفايا وعالم بالمزمعات‪ ،‬بعث لهم‬ ‫الذي لهيكل اليهود‪ ،‬وسي ّدنا عالم الخفايا وعالم المزمعات‪،‬‬
‫الدراهم حتى يبيع بهم نفسه‪ .‬فلماّ جاءوا اليهود إلى يهوذا‬ ‫بعث لهم الدراهم حتى ت ُباع بهم نفسه‪ .‬فلماّ جاؤوا اليهود إلى‬
‫الإسخر يوطي‪ 84‬وقالوا له‪” :‬سل ّم لنا يسوع الناصري ا بن‬ ‫يهوذا الإسخر يوطي وقالوا‪” :‬أسلم لنا يسوع الناصري ا بن‬
‫يوسف“‪ ،‬قال لهم‪” :‬ماذا تعطوني وأسل ّمه لـكم؟“ فأحضروا‬ ‫يوسف“ قال لهم‪” :‬ماذا تعطوني وأسل ّمه إليكم؟“ فأحضروا له‬
‫وأروه ثلاثين الدراهم وأرغبوه بهم‪ ،‬وأعطوا اليهود الدراهم‬ ‫تلك الفضة وأرغبوه بهم وسل ّموه تلك الدراهم‪ .‬لم ّا ندم على‬
‫ليهوذا الإسخر يوطي‪ .‬وهو يهوذا لم ّا ندم على ما فعل‪ ،‬ردّ‬ ‫ما فعل‪ ،‬ردّ الدراهم إلى اليهود‪ ،‬واليهود اشتروا بهم حقلا ً‬
‫الدراهم لليهود‪ ،‬واليهود اشتروا بهم بيت مقبرة وهي فخر يا‬ ‫وجعلوها مقبرة للغر باء‪ .‬وهي حقل الفخ ّار‪ ،‬وأن الدراهم‬
‫ناووس الغر باء‪ .‬وحينئذ ر ّ‬
‫جعوا الدراهم إلى هيكل‬ ‫رجعت إلى هيكل سليمان‪ ،‬وطرحوهم في البئر الذي في‬
‫سليمان‪ ،‬ورموا بهم‪ 85‬في البئر التي في الهيكل وخفوهم‪.‬‬ ‫الهيكل وأخفوهم‪.‬‬
‫والل ّٰه أعلم وأحكم‪86.‬‬ ‫والل ّٰه أعلم وأحكم‪ .‬وهذا ما وجدنا من أمر الدراهم‬
‫والقميص‪ ،‬ولل ّٰه التوفيق وعلينا رحمته إلى الأبد آمين‪.‬‬

‫‪78‬‬ ‫قالوا ‪D:‬‬
‫‪79‬‬ ‫أتينا على عين واحدة ‪D:‬‬
‫‪80‬‬ ‫إن ّا أتينا على عين واحدة ‪D:‬‬
‫‪81‬‬ ‫‪D has a slightly different reading of this sentence.‬‬
‫‪82‬‬ ‫ما كانوا يصلحون إلا للملوك مثلك ‪D:‬‬
‫‪83‬‬ ‫‪D contains an abridged text and a slightly different reading from that of B in the remaining‬‬
‫‪section of this version.‬‬
‫‪84‬‬ ‫السخر يوطي ‪B:‬‬
‫‪178‬‬ ‫‪ebied‬‬
‫‪Syriac Version‬‬ ‫‪Arab. iii‬‬

‫]‪[mss A, B and C‬‬ ‫]‪[mss C and E‬‬
‫ܬܘܒ ܬ󰀛󰀙󰀤󰁋ܐ ܕ󰀮󰀳 ܐ󰀤󰀩󰀊 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ ܙ̈ܘܙܐ‬ ‫خبرعنهم‪87:‬‬

‫̈‬
‫ܕ󰁈̣󰁅󰀭 󰀤󰀘ܘܕܐ 󰀴󰀩󰁇󰀤󰀙󰀞󰀊 󰀞󰀥󰀯󰀙ܗܝ ܕ󰀮󰁉󰀥󰀜󰀊‪.‬‬
‫̇ܗ󰀱󰀙ܢ ܙ̈ܘܙܐ ܕ󰁈̣󰁅󰀭 󰀤󰀘ܘܕܐ 󰀮󰀳 󰀨̈󰀘󰀱󰀊‬ ‫ن الدراهم الذي )‪(sic‬‬

‫قال‪ 88‬بعض العلماء إ ّ‬
‫ܕ󰀤󰀙ܕ̈󰀤󰀊‪ :‬ܬܪܚ ܐ󰀍󰀙ܗܝ ܕܐ󰀍󰁇ܗܡ 󰀺̣󰀎󰀖 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ‪:‬‬ ‫أخذهم يهوذا من كهنة اليهود‪ ،‬تارح أبو ا براهيم‬
‫ܘܐ󰀍󰁇ܗܡ 󰀤󰀘ܒ ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰀊󰀤󰀵󰀜󰁆 󰀍󰁇ܗ‪:‬‬ ‫الخليل ضرب الدراهم وأعطاهم لإ براهيم‪،‬‬
‫ܘܐ󰀤󰀵󰀜󰁆 ܙ̣󰀍󰀳 󰀍󰀘ܘܢ 󰁄󰁇󰀤󰁋ܐ‪ :‬ܘ󰀮󰁓󰀤̇󰀘‬ ‫ضا ا براهيم وهبهم إلى إسحاق ابنه‪ ،‬وإسحاق‬
‫وأي ً‬
‫ܕ󰁄󰁇󰀤󰁋ܐ ܐܘ󰀍󰀬󰀙 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰀾󰁇󰀺󰀙ܢ ܘ󰀽󰁇󰀺󰀙ܢ‬ ‫اشترى بهم قر ية‪ ،‬وصاحب القر يةكر ّم بهم إلى‬
‫󰁈󰀖ܪ ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰁉󰀬󰀥󰀯󰀙ܢ‪󰁇󰀍 :‬ܗ ܕܕܘ󰀤󰀖 󰀮󰀟󰀭‬ ‫فرعون الملك‪ ،‬وفرعون نّفذهم لسليمان ا بن‬
‫ܗ󰀤󰀩󰀬󰀊 ܕ󰀍̣󰀲󰀊 ܗܘܐ‪ :‬ܘ󰁈󰀬󰀥󰀯󰀙ܢ 󰁈̣󰁅󰀭 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ‬ ‫داوود تهنئة في بني الهيكل‪ ،‬وسليمان وضع‬
‫󰀫󰀚ܘܙܐ ܘ󰀴󰀰 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀛󰀖󰁒ܝ ܬܪ󰀺󰀊 ܕ󰀮󰀖󰀍󰀜󰀊‪:‬‬
‫̈‬ ‫الدراهم على قوائم باب المذبح‪ ،‬عشرة منهم على‬
‫ܘ󰀨󰀖 ܐ̣ܬܐ 󰀱󰀎󰀙󰀨󰀖󰀱󰁃ܪ 󰀮󰀬󰀩󰀊 ܕ󰀽󰁓󰀴󰀥󰀊 ܘ󰁈̣󰁅󰀭‬ ‫شيف الفوقاني وعشرة‪ 89‬على جانب اليمين‬
‫󰁈󰀎󰀥󰁋ܐ ܕ̈󰀍󰀲󰀦 ܐ󰀤󰀵󰁇ܐ󰀤󰀭‪ :‬ܘ󰀺󰀭 󰀫󰀘󰀤󰀩󰀬󰀊‬ ‫وعشرة على جانب اليسار‪ .‬ولم ّا جاء بختنص ّر ملك‬
‫̈‬
‫ܕ󰁈󰀬󰀥󰀯󰀙ܢ‪ :‬ܘ󰀛󰀚ܐ ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰀚ܘܙܐ ܗ󰀫󰀥󰀳 ܕ󰁈󰀾󰀥󰁇󰀤󰀳‪:‬‬ ‫الفرس )‪ (sic‬وأخذ سبية بني اسرائيل دخل إلى‬
‫ܘ󰁈̣󰁅󰀭 ܐܘ󰀍󰀭 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰀎󰀎󰀥󰀭 󰀺󰀰 󰁈󰀎󰀥󰁋ܐ‬ ‫هيكل سليمان ورأى الدراهم عجبوا في عينه‬
‫ܕ󰀍̈󰀲󰀦 ܐ󰀤󰀵󰁇ܐ󰀤󰀭‪ .‬ܘܐ󰀤󰁋 ܗܘܐ ܬ󰀮󰀳 ܗ󰀮󰀥󰁓ܐ‬ ‫أخذهم إلى بابل مع جملة سبية بني اسرائيل‪ .‬وقد‬
‫ܕ󰀍̈󰀲󰀦 󰀽󰁇ܣ‪ :‬ܘ󰀨󰀖 ܐ̣ܬܐ 󰀱󰀎󰀙󰀨󰀖󰀱󰁃ܪ 󰀮󰀳‬ ‫كان عنده أولاد ملوك الفرس خدم عنده‪،‬‬
‫̈‬
‫ܐܘܪ󰁈󰀬󰀥󰀰 󰁈󰀖ܪܘ 󰀫󰀘 󰀨󰀭 󰀮󰀖ܡ ܕ̇󰀛󰁉󰀝 󰀫󰀯󰀬󰀩󰀊‪:‬‬ ‫ل شيء يليق للملوك‪ .‬فلماّ نظر بختنص ّر أن ّه‬
‫وحمل ك ّ‬
‫ܘ󰀨󰀖 󰀛̣󰀚ܐ 󰀱󰀎󰀙󰀨󰀖󰀱󰁃ܪ ܕ󰁈󰀖ܪܘ 󰀫󰀘 󰀨󰀬󰀯󰀖ܡ ܕ󰁈󰀾󰀥󰁇‪:‬‬ ‫قد بعث كسيم مماّ يليق للسلاطين‪ ،‬طلق سبيل‬
‫̣󰁈󰁇ܐ 󰀫󰀎󰀲̈󰀥󰀘ܘܢ ܘ󰀤̣󰀘ܒ 󰀫󰀘ܘܢ 󰀮󰀙ܗ̈󰀍󰁋ܐ‬ ‫أولاد الملوك‪ ،‬ووهب لهم المواهب الغز يرة وهم‬
‫̈‬
‫󰀴󰀑̈󰀥󰀊ܬܐ‪ :‬ܘ󰀤̣󰀘ܒ 󰀫󰀘ܘܢ ܐܦ ̇ܗ󰀱󰀙ܢ ܙܘܙܐ‪:‬‬ ‫أعطى تلك الدراهم مع جملة العطايا‪ .‬وأولاد‬
‫󰀘󰀤󰀘ܘܢ‪.‬‬ ‫󰀽󰁓󰀴󰀥󰀊 ܕ󰀤󰀳 ܐܘ󰀍󰀬󰀙 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰀊󰀍 ̈‬ ‫الفرس أعطوا تلك الدراهم إلى أبيهم‪.‬‬
‫‪85‬‬ ‫ورموهم ‪D:‬‬

‫‪86‬‬ ‫من الكل ‪D adds‬‬
‫‪87‬‬ ‫‪E omits this word.‬‬
‫‪88‬‬ ‫وقال ‪E:‬‬
‫‪89‬‬ ‫‪C omits this word.‬‬
‫ܘ󰀨󰀖 ܐܬ󰀤󰀬󰀖 󰀤󰁉󰀙ܥ 󰀮󰁉󰀥󰀜󰀊 ܘ󰀛󰀚ܘ 󰀫󰀩󰀙󰀨󰀎󰀊‪:‬‬ ‫ولم ّا و ُلد‪ 90‬المسيح ورأوا المجوس الـكوكب الذي‬
‫󰁄󰀯󰀙 󰁈󰁅󰀬󰀙 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫̇󰀘󰀱󰀙ܢ ܙ̈ܘܙܐ ܘܕܗ󰀍󰀊‬ ‫خب ّر عنه بلعم جّدهم أخذوا في حقائبهم ذهب‬
‫̇‬
‫ܘ󰀮󰀙ܪܐ ܘ󰀫󰀎󰀙󰀱󰁋ܐ‪ :‬ܘܐ󰀤󰁋󰀤󰀙 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰀘󰀱󰀙ܢ‬ ‫ومّر ولبان وأخذوا تلك‪ 91‬الدراهم هدية إلى‬
‫̈‬
‫ز يارة السي ّد المسيح‪ .‬فلماّ جاؤوا الرها نزلوا حلوّ ا‪ 92‬ܙܘܙܐ ܘܐܬܘ 󰀍󰀊ܘܪ󰀛󰀊 󰀺󰀖󰀮󰀊 ܕ󰀮󰀟󰀙‬
‫󰀫󰁅󰁇󰀤󰀎󰀙ܬܐ ܕܐܘܪܗܝ‪ :‬ܘ󰀛̣󰁉󰀪 ܐ󰀤󰀯󰀯󰀊‬ ‫على عين ماء‪ ،‬قاموا وضعوا تلك الدراهم على‬
‫̇‬
‫رأس العين ورحلوا‪ ،‬ونسوا تلك الدراهم على تلك ܘܕ󰀮󰀩󰀙 󰀺󰀭 󰀤󰀖 ܐܘܪ󰀛󰀊 ܗܝ‪ :‬ܘ󰀍󰁃󰀽󰁇ܐ 󰁄󰀯󰀙‬
‫العين ولم يعلموا‪ .‬ولم ّا مضوا جاء من‪ 93‬بعدهم قوم ܕ󰀱󰁇ܕܘܢ 󰀍󰀊ܘܪ󰀛󰀊 󰀞󰀻󰀙 󰀫̇󰀘󰀱󰀙ܢ ܙ̈ܘܙܐ ܐ󰀤󰀩󰀊‬
‫تجاّ ر فوجدوا الدراهم‪ .‬وفي ذلك اليوم جاء ملاك ܕܕ󰀮󰀩󰀙 ܘ󰀫󰀊 󰀤󰀖󰀺󰀙‪ .‬ܘܐܬܘ 󰀍󰁋ܪܗܘܢ ܐ󰀱󰁉̈󰀥󰀳‬
‫ܬܐ󰀐󰁓ܐ ܘܐ󰁈󰀩󰀜󰀙 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰀚̈ܘܙܐ ܘܐܬܘ‬ ‫إلى رعاة ذلك البلد وأعطاهم قميص ما هو‬
‫̈‬
‫󰀫󰁅󰁇󰀤󰀎󰀙ܬܐ ܕܐܘܪܗܝ 󰀺󰀭 󰀛󰀖ܐ 󰀺󰀥󰀲󰀊 ܕ󰀮󰀥󰀊‪:‬‬ ‫مخي ّط من فوق‪ ،‬منسوج كل ّه صحيح‪ .‬وقال لهم‬
‫̇‬
‫ܘ󰀍󰀘 󰀍󰀘ܘ 󰀤󰀙󰀮󰀊 ܐ̣ܬܐ 󰀮󰀬󰀊󰀨󰀊 󰀫󰀙ܬ‬ ‫الملاك‪” :‬خذوا هذا القميص فيه حياة لبني‬
‫̇‬
‫البشر‪ “.‬ورحلوا‪ 94‬إلى العين ليسقوا الغنم‪ ،‬وجدوا 󰁒󰀺󰀙ܬܐ ܕܐܬܪܐ ܗܘ ܘ󰀤󰀘ܒ 󰀫󰀘ܘܢ 󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊‬
‫ܕ󰀫󰀊 󰀛󰀥󰀟󰀊 󰀮󰀳 󰀫󰀻󰀭‪ :‬ܘܐ̣󰀮󰁇 󰀫󰀘ܘܢ 󰁈󰁅󰀙ܠ‬ ‫]التج ّار[ الذين وجدوا‪ 95‬الدراهم جالسين‬
‫̈‬ ‫̈‬ ‫̇‬
‫󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊 ܕܐ󰀤󰁋 󰀍󰀘 󰀛󰀥󰀊 󰀫󰀎󰀲󰀥󰀲󰁉󰀊‪ .‬ܘ󰁈󰁅󰀬󰀙‬ ‫على العين‪ .‬قالوا للتج ّار‪” :‬أتشترون‪ 96‬قميص ما‬
‫̈‬
‫󰁒󰀺󰀙ܬܐ 󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊 ܘܐܬܘ 󰀫󰀻󰀥󰀲󰀊 ܕ󰀮󰀥󰀊‬ ‫مخي ّط من فوق؟“ أجابوا التج ّار وقالوا لهم‪:‬‬
‫̈‬
‫ܘܐ󰁈󰀩󰀜󰀙 󰀫󰁋ܐ󰀐󰁓ܐ ܕܐ󰁈󰀩󰀜󰀙 󰀫󰀚ܘܙܐ 󰀺󰀭‬ ‫”أحضروه‪ 97‬لنا القميص لننظره‪ “.‬فأحضروا‪98‬‬
‫̈‬
‫󰀺󰀥󰀲󰀊 ܕ󰀮󰀥󰀊‪ :‬ܘܐ󰀮󰁇ܘ 󰀫󰁋ܐ󰀐󰁓ܐ ܙ󰀍󰀲󰀥󰀳‬ ‫حسنه‪ 99،‬وقالوا‪:‬‬ ‫جبوا التج ّار من ُ‬ ‫القميص‪ ،‬فتع ّ‬
‫ܐ󰀱󰁋ܘܢ 󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊 ܕ󰀫󰀊 󰀛󰀥󰀟󰀊 󰀮󰀳 󰀫󰀻󰀭‪:‬‬ ‫”معنا شيء يليق للملوك‪ 100،‬خذوا الدراهم‬
‫وأعطونا القميص‪ “،‬فتبايعوا عليه وأخذوا التج ّار ܐ󰀮󰁇󰀤󰀳 ܬܐ󰀐󰁓ܐ ܐ󰀤󰁋ܘ 󰀫󰀘ܪ󰀨󰀊‪ :‬ܘ󰀨󰀖 󰀛󰀚ܘ‬
‫ܬܐ󰀐󰁓ܐ 󰀫̇󰀘ܝ 󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊 ܬܗܪܘ 󰀍̇󰀘 󰀴󰀑󰀦‪:‬‬ ‫القميص‪ ،‬وأخذوا الرعوان الدراهم‪ .‬وجاؤوا‬
‫ܘܐ󰀮󰁇ܘ ܬܐ󰀐󰁓ܐ 󰀫󰁓󰀺󰀙ܬܐ‬ ‫التج ّار ونزلوا في الفندق‪101،‬‬
‫‪90‬‬ ‫إتولد ‪E:‬‬

‫‪91‬‬ ‫‪ (sic).‬لتلك ‪E:‬‬
‫‪94‬‬ ‫وأخذوا ‪Corrected thus at the bottom of C; E:‬‬
‫‪95‬‬ ‫‪; cf. Arab. ii above.‬ال الذي ‪C and E seem to be corrupt here; they both read:‬‬
‫‪96‬‬ ‫تشترون ‪E:‬‬
‫‪97‬‬ ‫‪E omits this word.‬‬
‫‪98‬‬ ‫وأحضروا ‪E:‬‬
‫‪99‬‬ ‫تعجبوا من حسنه التجار ‪E:‬‬
‫‪100‬‬ ‫إلى الملوك ‪E:‬‬
‫‪101‬‬ ‫‪ added in the margin in the same hand.‬الفندق ‪ with the word‬الخان ‪C:‬‬
‫‪180‬‬ ‫‪ebied‬‬
‫̈‬
‫ܐ󰀤󰁋 󰀺󰀯󰀳 ܙܘܙܐ 󰁈󰀾󰀥󰁓ܐ ܕ󰀛󰁉󰀜󰀥󰀳 󰀫󰀯󰀬󰀩󰀊‪:‬‬
‫̈‬ ‫أعني الخان‪ .‬فأرسل الملك حاكم الرها يقول‬
‫للتج ّار‪” :‬معكم ثياب مماّ يصلح للملك ليشتر يهم؟“ 󰁈󰁅󰀙󰀫󰀙 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ ܘܗ󰀍󰀙 󰀫󰀳 󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊 ܗܕܐ‪ .‬ܘ󰀨󰀖‬
‫󰁈󰁅󰀬󰀙 ܬܐ󰀐󰁓ܐ 󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊‪󰁋󰀲󰀤󰀖󰀯󰀫 󰀙󰀬󰀺 :‬ܐ‬ ‫فهم أحضروا بين يديه ثياب مفتخرة ومعهم‬
‫ذلك القميص‪ .‬فلماّ رأى القميص وهو غير مخي ّط ܘ󰁈󰁇ܘ 󰀍󰀾󰀙ܬ󰁄󰀊‪󰀖󰁈 :‬ܪ ܐ󰀍󰀑󰁇 󰀮󰀬󰀩󰀊 ܘܐ̣󰀮󰁇‬
‫من فوق قال لهم الملك‪” :‬من أ ين لـكم القميص؟“ 󰀫󰁋ܐ󰀐󰁓ܐ ܐ󰀤󰁋 󰀺󰀯󰀩󰀙ܢ 󰀮󰀖ܡ ܕ󰀛󰁉󰀝‬
‫󰀫󰀯󰀬󰀩󰀊 ܕܐܙ󰀍󰀳 󰀮󰀲󰀩󰀙ܢ‪ :‬ܐ󰀮󰁇󰀤󰀳 󰀫󰀘‬ ‫قالوا له‪” :‬جئنا إلى معين الماء‪ 102‬الذي على باب‬
‫ܬܐ󰀐󰁓ܐ‪ :‬ܐ󰀤󰁋 󰀺󰀯󰀳 󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊 ܕ󰀫󰀊 󰀛󰀥󰀟󰀊‬ ‫ك‪ ،‬وجاءوا رعوان وجابوا معهم هذا‬ ‫مدينت َ‬
‫̇‬
‫القميص وقالوا لنا‪ :‬تشترون )‪ (sic‬هذا القميص؟ 󰀮󰀳 󰀫󰀻󰀭‪ :‬ܘ󰀨󰀖 󰀛̣󰀚ܐ ܐ󰀍󰀑󰁇 󰀫󰀘ܝ 󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊‬
‫ܕ󰀫󰀥󰁋 ܐ󰀨󰀙ܬ̇ܗ‪ :‬ܐ̣󰀮󰁇 󰀫󰀘ܘܢ 󰀮󰀳 ܐ󰀤󰀩󰀊‬ ‫فلما نظرنا ما رأينا مثله‪ ،‬وكان معنا دراهم مبلغ‬
‫󰀫󰀩󰀙ܢ ܗܕܐ 󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊‪ :‬ܐ󰀮󰁇󰀤󰀳 󰀫󰀘 ܐܬ̣󰀤󰀲󰀳‬ ‫ثلاثين صور الملك‪ ،‬وأعطيناهم للرعوان‪103‬‬
‫̈‬
‫󰀫󰀜󰀖ܐ 󰀺󰀥󰀲󰀊 ܕ󰀮󰀥󰀊 󰀺󰀭 ܬܪ󰀺󰀊 ܕ󰀮󰀖󰀤󰀲󰁋ܟ‬ ‫وأخذنا منهم القميص‪ .‬وأولئك الدراهم كان‬
‫يصلحوا و يليقون للملك مثلك‪ “.‬فالملك‪ 104‬اشترى ܘܐ̣󰀮󰁇ܘ 󰀫󰀳 󰁒󰀺󰀙ܬܐ ܐ󰀤󰁋 󰀺󰀯󰀳 󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊‬
‫القميص ونّفذ أحضر الرعوان‪ 105‬وأخذ الدراهم ܕ󰀫󰀊 󰀛󰀥󰀟󰀊 󰀮󰀳 󰀫󰀻󰀭‪ :‬ܙ󰀍󰀲󰀥󰀳 󰀫̇󰀘‪ :‬ܘ󰀛󰀚󰀤󰀲󰀳‬
‫󰀫󰀩󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊 ܕ󰀫󰀊 ܗܘܐ 󰀍󰀻󰀬󰀯󰀊 ܐ󰀨󰀙ܬ̇ܗ‪:‬‬ ‫وأعطاهم عوضهم‪.‬‬
‫̈‬ ‫̈‬
‫ܐ󰀤󰁋 ܗܘܐ 󰀺󰀯󰀳 ܬ󰀫󰁋󰀤󰀳 ܙܘܙܐ ܨ󰀫󰀯󰀊‬
‫ܕ󰀮󰀬̈󰀩󰀊‪ :‬ܘ󰀤󰀘󰀍󰀲󰀳 󰀫󰁓󰀺󰀙ܬܐ ܘ󰁈󰁅󰀬󰀲󰀳 󰀫󰀘ܕܐ‬
‫󰀨󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊‪ :‬ܘ̇ܗ󰀱󰀙ܢ ܙ̈ܘܙܐ 󰀛󰁉󰀜󰀥󰀳 󰀫󰀯󰀬̈󰀩󰀊‬
‫ܕܐ󰀨󰀙ܬܟ‪ .‬ܘ󰀨󰀖 󰁈̣󰀯󰀼 ܐ󰀍󰀑󰁇 󰁈󰀖ܪ 󰀍󰁋ܪ‬
‫̈‬
‫󰁒󰀺󰀙ܬܐ ̇ܗ󰀱󰀙ܢ ܘ󰁈󰁅󰀬󰀙 󰀮󰀲󰀘ܘܢ 󰀫󰀚ܘܙܐ‪.‬‬
‫ܘ̣ܗܘ ܐ󰀍󰀑󰁇 󰁈󰀖ܪ 󰀫󰀚̈ܘܙܐ ܘ󰀫󰀩󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊 󰀫󰀯󰁉󰀥󰀜󰀊‬ ‫وأبجر الملك نفذ الدراهم والقميص إلى السي ّد‪106‬‬
‫󰀛󰀬󰀿 󰀞󰀎󰁋ܐ ܕ󰀺̣󰀎󰀖 󰀺󰀯󰀘‪󰀙󰀨 󰀭󰀟󰀮 :‬ܪܗ󰀱󰀊‬ ‫المسيح عوض الخـير الذي كان قد‪ 107‬فعل‬
‫ܕܐ󰀤󰁋 ܗܘܐ 󰀫󰀘 ܘܐ󰀴󰀥󰀘‪󰀚̣󰀛 󰀖󰀨 󰀊󰀜󰀥󰁉󰀮 :‬ܐ‬ ‫معه من جهة الوجع الصعب الذي أشفاه‪.‬‬
‫󰀫󰀩󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊 ܘ󰀫󰀚̈ܘܙܐ 󰀫󰀩󰀙ܬ󰀤󰀲󰀊 󰁈󰁅󰀬̇󰀘‪ :‬ܘ󰀫󰀚̈ܘܙܐ‬ ‫ولم ّا‪ 108‬وصلت هدية الملك‪ ،‬أخذ سي ّدنا المسيح‬
‫󰁈󰀖ܪ ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰀎󰀥󰁋 󰀐󰀚ܐ ܕ󰀤󰀙ܕ̈󰀤󰀊‪:‬‬ ‫القميص‪ ،‬والدراهم رماهم‪ 109‬في بيت الخزانة‬
‫‪102‬‬ ‫ماء ‪E:‬‬

‫‪103‬‬ ‫للرعيان ‪C:‬‬
‫‪104‬‬ ‫وهو الملك ‪E substitutes in the margin in the same hand:‬‬
‫‪105‬‬ ‫الرعيان ‪C:‬‬
‫‪106‬‬ ‫للسي ّد ‪C:‬‬
‫‪108‬‬ ‫لم ّا ‪E:‬‬
‫‪109‬‬ ‫‪; cf. Arab. ii above.‬ورماهم ‪C and E:‬‬
‫󰀮󰁇ܢ ̇󰀤󰀖ܥ 󰀨󰀵̈󰀥󰁋ܐ ܐ󰀤󰁋ܘܗܝ ܗܘܐ‪:‬‬ ‫الذي لهيكل اليهود وسي ّدنا‪ ،‬عالم الخفايا وعالم‬
‫󰀮󰀟󰀬󰀘󰀱󰀊 󰁈󰀖ܪ ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰀚̈ܘܙܐ ܕ󰀱󰀚̇󰀍󰀳 󰀍󰀘ܘܢ‬ ‫المزمعات‪ ،‬ألقى الدراهم حتى يبيع بهم نفسه‪.‬‬
‫̈‬
‫ولم ّا‪ 110‬جاءوا اليهود إلى يهوذا الإسخر يوطي قالوا 󰀱󰀾󰁉󰀘‪ :‬ܘ󰀨󰀖 ܐܬܘ 󰀤󰀙ܕ󰀤󰀊 󰀫󰀙ܬ 󰀤󰀘ܘܕܐ‬
‫󰀴󰀩󰁇󰀤󰀙󰀞󰀊‪ :‬ܘܐ󰀮󰁇󰀤󰀳 󰀫󰀘 ܕܐ̣󰁈󰀬󰀰 󰀫󰀳 󰀫󰀥󰁉󰀙ܥ‬ ‫له‪” :‬سل ّم لنا يسوع الناصري ا بن يوسف‪ “،‬قال‬
‫لهم‪” :‬ماذا تعطوني وأسل ّمه لـكم؟“ فأحضروا وأروه 󰀍󰁇 󰀤󰀙󰀴󰀿 ܐ̣󰀮󰁇 󰀫󰀘ܘܢ 󰀮󰀙ܢ 󰀤󰀘󰀍󰀥󰀳 ܐ󰀱󰁋ܘܢ‬
‫الثلاثين درهم وأرغبوه بهم‪ ،‬وأعطوا‪ 111‬الدراهم 󰀫󰀦 ܕ󰀮󰁉󰀬󰀰 ܐ󰀱󰀊 󰀫󰀘 󰀫󰀩󰀙ܢ‪ :‬ܘ󰁄󰀯󰀙 ܘܐ󰀤󰁋󰀤󰀙‬
‫̈‬
‫󰀫󰀘 󰀫̇󰀘󰀱󰀙ܢ ܬ󰀫󰁋󰀤󰀳 ܙ̈ܘܙܐ‪ :‬ܘ󰀤󰀘󰀍󰀙 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ‬ ‫ليهوذا الإسخر يوطي‪ .‬وهو يهوذا‪ 112‬لم ّا ندم على ما‬
‫󰀫󰀥󰀘ܘܕܐ 󰀴󰀩󰁇󰀤󰀙󰀞󰀊‪ :‬ܘ̣ܗܘ 󰀴󰀩󰁇󰀤󰀙󰀞󰀊‬ ‫فعل‪ ،‬ردّ الدراهم لليهود‪ ،‬واليهود اشتروا بيت‬
‫̈‬ ‫̈‬
‫ܐܗ󰀽󰀪 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰀥󰀙ܕ󰀤󰀊‪ :‬ܘ󰀤󰀙ܕ󰀤󰀊 ܙ󰀍󰀲󰀙 󰀍󰀘ܘܢ‬ ‫مقبرة فخر يا ناووس الغر باء‪ .‬حينئذ ر ّ‬
‫جعوا‬
‫̈‬
‫الدراهم إلى هيكل سليمان ا بن داوود‪ ،‬ورموهم 󰀍󰀥󰁋 󰁄󰀎󰀙ܪܐ ܕܐ󰀨󰀵󰀲󰀥󰀊‪ :‬ܘ󰀍󰁋ܪ󰀨󰀳 ܐ󰀺󰀬󰀙‬
‫ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀫󰀚̈ܘܙܐ 󰀫󰀘󰀤󰀩󰀬󰀊 ܕ󰁈󰀬󰀥󰀯󰀙ܢ‪ :‬ܘܐܪ󰀮󰀥󰀙‬ ‫في البئر الذي للهيكل وخفوها‪.‬‬
‫̇‬
‫ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ 󰀍󰀎󰀊ܪܐ ܕ󰀍󰀑󰀙 ܗ󰀤󰀩󰀬󰀊 ܘ󰀛󰀾󰀥󰀙 ܐ󰀱󰀙ܢ‪.‬‬
‫󰁈󰀬󰀰܀‬ ‫󰁈󰀬󰀰‪113‬‬
‫‪110‬‬ ‫لم ّا ‪E:‬‬

‫‪111‬‬ ‫وأعطوه ‪C:‬‬
‫‪112‬‬ ‫و يهوذا ‪E:‬‬
‫‪113‬‬ ‫‪E adds this Syriac word here.‬‬
182 ebied
TRANSLATION
Syriac Version Arab. i

[mss A, B and C] [Based on ms A]
Again, a Demonstration of the Origin of With the help of God and success from
the Coins, being the Price of Christ, Him, we commence to write the story
which Judas Iscariot Received of [the pieces] of Silver which Judas
received from the Jews, being the price of
our Lord Jesus Christ to whom shall be
adoration and praise
Those coins, which Judas received from It is said that [the pieces] of Silver which
the Jewish priests, were minted by Terah, Judas received from the Jewish priests
Abraham’s father. Then Abraham gave were minted by Terah, father of Abraham
them to his son Isaac, and Isaac purchased al-Khalīl114 who gave them to Abraham.
a village with them. The owners of the Then Abraham gave them to his son Isaac,
village subsequently delivered them to and Isaac purchased a village with them.
Pharaoh. But Pharaoh dispatched them to The owner of the village then delivered
Solomon, David’s son, for the Temple the price, i.e. the coins, to Pharaoh. But
which he had built. Then Solomon took Pharaoh dispatched them to Solomon,
them and placed them around the door of David’s son, as a congratulatory [present]
the altar. But when Nebuchadnezzar, king for building the Temple. Then Solomon
of the Persians [sic], came and carried placed the coins on the posts around
away the booty of the Israelites, he the door of the altar; ten on the upper
entered Solomon’s Temple and saw that slice, and ten here and there. But when
these coins were beautiful. Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Persians
[sic], came and carried away the booty of
the Israelites from Jerusalem, he entered
Solomon’s Temple and saw that these
coins were beautiful.
114 An epithet of Abraham meaning literally “Friend of God.”

So he took them and carried them off to So he took them and carried them off to
Babylon with the Israelite captives. Babylon with the group of the Israelite
captives.
There were Persian hostages there (i.e. in There were Persian hostages there (i.e. in
Babylon), and, when Nebuchadnezzar Babylon), and, when Nebuchadnezzar
came from Jerusalem, they sent to returned from Jerusalem, the King of
him everything that befits kings. the Persians sent to him emissaries
Nebuchadnezzar, having seen that they carrying everything that befits kings.
had dispatched to him all that is fair, Nebuchadnezzar, having seen that they
released their children and bestowed had dispatched to him all that is fair,
upon them many gifts. He also gave them released their children and bestowed
those coins, which the Persians duly upon them many gifts. He also gave them
presented to their parents. those coins, together with the rest of the
gifts which the sons of the Persians duly
gave to their parents.
Then when Jesus Christ was born and they Then when our Lord Christ was born and
(i.e. the Magi) saw the star, they arose they (i.e. the Magi) saw the star, they arose
[and] carried those coins, as well as gold, [and] carried with them gold, myrrh and
myrrh and frankincense [with them]. frankincense. They then took those coins
So, they brought those coins as they and came to visit our Lord Christ. When
travelled on the road, until they reached they reached the neighbourhood of the
the neighbourhood of Edessa. Then, when city of Edessa, they stayed at a spring of
it became dark, they slept on the side of water on the road. When they wished to
that road and, having risen in the morning continue the journey, they unknowingly
to continue the journey, they unknowingly dropped the coins on that spring. Certain
forgot those coins where they had slept. merchants then arrived [there] after
Certain merchants then arrived [there] them and found the coins. On that same
after them, found the coins, and then day, the angel of God appeared to the
came by a certain spring of water in the shepherds of that land and presented
neighbourhood of Edessa. On that same them with a seamless woven tunic from
day, an angel appeared to the shepherds of on high.
that land and presented them with a
seamless tunic from on high.
184 ebied
He then said to them: “Take the tunic in The angel then said to them: “Take a tunic
which there is life for mankind.” The in which there is life for mankind.” The
shepherds thus took the tunic, arrived shepherds thus took that tunic, arrived
at the spring of water, and found the at the spring to water their sheep and
merchants who had discovered the coins found the merchants who had discovered
by it. So they said to the merchants: the coins sitting by it. The shepherds
“Would you buy a seamless tunic from on said to the merchants: “Would you buy
high?” The merchants replied: “Bring it a seamless tunic from on high?” The
here.” Having seen that tunic, the merchants replied and said to them:
merchants were exceedingly amazed, so “Bring that tunic.” Having brought it, the
they said to the shepherds: “We possess merchants were amazed because of the
beautiful coins, which befit kings. Take handsomeness of the tunic and they
them and give us this tunic.” replied and said to the shepherds: “We
possess beautiful coins, which are the best
to befit kings. Take the coins and give us
the tunic.” So they sold that tunic to them
and the merchants took it and gave them
those coins.
The merchants, having taken the tunic, The merchants then went to the city of
entered the city and lodged at an inn. King Edessa and lodged at the inn. Abgar, King
Abgar dispatched [a message] to the of Edessa, dispatched [a message] to the
merchants and said to them: “Do you have merchants and said to them: “Do you have
anything befitting a king that I could any garments befitting a king that I could
purchase from you?” The merchants purchase from you?” So they brought to
answered: “We have a seamless tunic from him splendid garments including the
on high.” Having seen the matchless tunic, tunic. Having seen the matchless tunic, he
King Abgar asked them: “From where did said to them: “From where did you obtain
you obtain this tunic?” They replied: “We this tunic?” They replied and said to him:
arrived at a certain spring of water by the “We arrived at a certain spring of water by
gate of your city, and some shepherds said the gate of your city, and some shepherds
to us: ‘We have a seamless tunic from on of sheep came with this tunic and said to
high. Would you like to buy it?’ Then we us: ‘Would you like to buy this tunic of
saw the tunic, of which there is none which there is none like it in the world?’
like it in the world. We had thirty coins We had thirty coins bearing kingly images,
bearing kingly images, so we gave
so we gave them to the shepherds and them to the shepherds and took the tunic
took this tunic, but those coins are from them, but those coins are suitable
befitting of kings such as you.” Having and befitting of kings such as you.” The
heard [this], Abgar sent after those king then bought the tunic from them and
shepherds and took the coins from them. sent after the shepherds, took the coins
from them and reciprocated them with
similar weight.
Then Abgar sent the coins and the tunic to Then King Abgar sent the coins and the
Christ in return for the good deed which tunic to our Lord Christ in return for the
He did for him, for he had an illness, and good deed which He had done for him,
[Christ] healed him. Having seen the tunic having healed him from an acute illness.
and the coins, Christ took the tunic and When the gift of the king arrived, our Lord
dispatched the coins to the Treasury of the took the tunic. As for the coins, He cast
Jews. Since He was our Lord, who knows them into the Treasury which is in the
hidden secrets, he sent the coins in order Temple of the Jews. Our Lord, since He
to sell Himself with them. When the Jews knows hidden secrets and future [events],
came to Judas Iscariot, and said to him, He dispatched the coins to them in order
“Hand Jesus, son of Joseph, over to us,” he to sell Himself with them. When the Jews
replied to them: “What will you give me came to Judas Iscariot, and said: “Hand
that I may deliver Him to you?” So they Jesus the Nazarite, son of Joseph, over to
arose and brought forth those thirty us,” he replied to them: “What will you
coins, giving them to Judas Iscariot, who give me that I may deliver Him to you?” So
subsequently returned them to the Jews. they brought forth those [pieces] of Silver,
The Jews then purchased with them a enticed him with them and gave those
burial ground for foreigners. Thereafter coins to him. Having repented from what
they brought the [coins] into Solomon’s he had done, he returned the coins to the
Temple, cast them into the cistern inside Jews who purchased with them a field
the Temple, and concealed them. which they turned into a burial ground for
foreigners, i.e. the “Potter’s Field.” Then
the coins were brought back to Solomon’s
Temple. They cast them into the cistern
which is in the Temple, and concealed
them.
The End. God knows best and is All-wise. This is

what we have found regarding the coins
and the tunic. May God grant us success
and bestow upon us His everlasting mercy.
Amen.
chapter 12
Debating According to the Rules: A Conversation

about the Crucifixion in al-Ḥāwī by al-Makīn Jirjis
ibn al-ʿAmīd
Mark N. Swanson
In the last decade of the fourteenth century of the Common Era, at a time in
Egyptian church history better known for its saints and martyrs than for its
theological production,1 a Copt by the name of al-Makīn Jirjis ibn al-ʿAmīd—
a priest, physician, and bureaucrat who at a certain point in his life retired
to become a monk—produced a theological/ecclesiastical encyclopedia that
sometimes goes under the name Mukhtaṣar al-bayān fī taḥqīq al-īmān (“The
Brief Exposition in Faith’s Verification”), but which is usually known as al-
Ḥāwī (“The Compiler”).2 Neither the author nor the work have received much
attention until recently; indeed, the author has often been mistaken for his
thirteenth-century namesake, the renowned historian al-Makīn,3 while two
partial editions in Cairo (the earliest from 1906) failed to generate much atten-
tion, at least not in print. However, between 1999 and 2001 a monk of the al-
Muḥarraq Monastery produced a four-volume transcription of the work from a
pair of manuscripts in the monastery’s library.4 Since then, the text has gradu-
ally been attracting the attention of students of Coptic Christianity—including
my colleague Adel Sidarus and myself in an entry on al-Makīn Jirjis ibn al-ʿAmīd
“the younger” in Volume 5 of Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical His-
1 The best known saints of the period are Marqus al-Anṭūnī (d. 1386), Ibrāhīm al-Fānī (d. 1396),
Anbā Ruways (d. 1404), Patriarch Matthew i (d. 1408), and the 49 martyrs of Patriarch Mat-
thew’s days (in the 1380s and 90s); see, for example, Mark N. Swanson, The Coptic Papacy in
Islamic Egypt (641–1517) (Cairo and New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2010), chap-
ter 8.
2 This short title is itself an abbreviation for a longer title: al-Ḥāwī al-mustafād min badīhat
al-ijtihād, which I have tried to render as “The Profitable Compilation, from the Faculty of
Ratiocination.”
3 This includes the Introduction to the new edition; see the next note.
4 Rāhib min Dayr al-Muḥarraq, al-Mawsūʿa al-lāhūtiyya al-shahīra bi-l-Ḥāwī l-Ibn al-Makīn, 4
vols. (Cairo: Dayr al-Muḥarraq, 1999–2001); in what follows I shall refer to this edition as
Ḥāwī.

debating according to the rules 187
tory, for which David Thomas is the lead editor.5 In that entry we noted that
al-Ḥāwī consists of two parts that have often circulated independently, and
that Part One contains three sections in particular that are of clear relevance
to the Christian-Muslim conversation: one on al-qaḍāʾ wa al-qadar; one that
includes a discussion on discerning the true religion; and one on the crucifix-
ion of Christ. I have already written essays on the first two of these sections.6
The present essay focuses on the third section.
An Essay on the Crucifixion—for Christians
The first faṣl of the third bāb in Part One of al-Ḥāwī is a lengthy essay—or
pair of essays—on the crucifixion of Christ.7 Jirjis makes his intended audience
explicit from the very beginning of the faṣl: he is not writing to those outside
the Christian fold, but for Christians. Jirjis knows that his Christian audience
has heard objections from opponents to Christian teaching about the cross,
and he understands the reasoning of these (unnamed but obviously Muslim)
opponents: they aim to preserve the honor of al-Masīḥ from crucifixion, death,
and pain, that is, “to raise his status … above that of decline to the level of death
by crucifixion” (wa yarfaʿ qadrahu … ʿan al-inḥiṭāṭ ilā rutbat al-mawt bi-l-ṣalb).8
Jirjis does not offer an immediate response to this objection, but rather
concedes the intellectual integrity of the one making it:
‫ فهو معذور في نفيه الصلب عن سي ّدنا )له‬،‫وإن كان خارجا ً عن الإ يمان‬
‫ فعذره واضح لهذا‬،‫ لأن ّه في ذلك معتمد على أصوله ونتائج محصوله‬،(‫المجد‬
.‫السبب‬
5 A. Sidarus and M.N. Swanson, “Al-Makīn Jirjis ibn al-ʿAmīd,” in Christian-Muslim Relations: A
Bibliographical History (hereafter cmr), ed. David Thomas, et al., 7 vols. to date (Leiden: Brill,
2009–), 5:254–261; see the bibliography included in that entry.
6 For Jirjis’ treatise on al-qaḍāʾ wa al-qadar (Ḥāwī i.1.3), see Mark N. Swanson, “Christian
Engagement with Islamic kalām in Late 14th-Century Egypt: The Case of al-Ḥāwī by al-Makīn
Jirjis Ibn al-ʿAmīd ‘the Younger’,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 2 (2014): 214–226.
For Jirjis’ section on discerning the true religion (Ḥāwī i.2.3), see Mark N. Swanson, “Discern-
ing the True Religion in Late Fourteenth-Century Egypt: Pages from the Dayr al-Muḥarraq
Edition of al-Ḥāwī by al-Makīn Jirjis ibn al-ʿAmīd,” in Christianity and Monasticism in Middle
Egypt, ed. Gawdat Gabra and Hany N. Takla (Cairo and New York: American University in
Cairo Press, forthcoming).
7 Ḥāwī 1:304–341, with the break between the two major essays at p. 322.
8 Ḥāwī 1:304, line 10.
188 swanson
If he is outside the [Christian] faith, he is excused in his denial of cruci-

fixion to Our Lord (to whom be the glory!), because in that he is basing
himself on his own fundamental teachings [uṣūl] and the results of his
own summa. His excuse, for that reason, is clear.9
It is important here to note Jirjis’ notion of uṣūl, the “roots” or fundamental

teachings of a religion. These are different in Christianity and Islam, and Jirjis
will again and again decline to debate the furūʿ (“branches” or ramifications)
that stem from these uṣūl (“roots”) when the uṣūl are not shared.
But if Jirjis does not have anything to say to Muslims at this point, he has
much to say to Christians who possess some form of loyalty to the cross but
who lack any deep understanding of it: he desires to show them “the abundance
of inner virtues of the cross of Christ, the mysteries lodged in what flows
forth from it, and its exceeding wisdom” ( jazīl fawāʾid ṣalīb al-masīḥ al-bāṭina
wa asrārahu al-muwaddaʿa fī taṣarrufātihi wa ḥikmatahu al-bāligha)10 with
a view to making their faith “firm in word and deed” (thābitan qawlan wa
fiʿlan).11
In keeping with his rather expansive style of exposition, Jirjis does not imme-
diately begin to list the “inner virtues” of the Cross of Christ; rather, he will
consider these within a larger framework that tries to encompass what Christ
desired to communicate in his earthly ministry. He believes he can summarize
this in three fundamental teachings or uṣūl. The first aṣl is that Christ is from
God, while the second aṣl is that Christ is the promised Messiah, the Savior of
Israel, foretold by the prophets.12 Both of these points are argued and illustrated
from Christian Scripture, which comes as no surprise since Jirjis is writing
about specifically Christian uṣūl for a specifically Christian audience. His dis-
course picks up the Gospels’ own apologetic against Jesus’ Jewish opponents—
and sometimes the reader senses a quiet response to Muslim claims as well.
For example, when Jirjis states that Christ’s deeds cannot be considered under
the category of deception (iḥtiyāl, khidāʿ),13 is he alluding to the idea, based
on q 4:157 and its shubbiha lahum, that someone was made to look like Jesus
and crucified in his place? And when Jirjis argues that Christ was more than
one who “came from God as a prophet and guide” and that there will come no
9 Ḥāwī 1:304, lines 10–12.

10 Ḥāwī 1:304, lines 16–17.
11 Ḥāwī 1:305, line 6.
12 Ḥāwī 1:307–308 and 309–311, respectively.
13 Ḥāwī 1:307, lines 9–10.
“other hope” after him,14 might he be alluding to the Islamic prophetology as

well as Jewish hopes for the coming of the Messiah?
Having demonstrated on the basis of Scripture that Christ is a) from God
and b) the promised Messiah and Savior of Israel, foretold by the Prophets, Jir-
jis reaches the main point of his initial essay. The third fundamental teaching or
aṣl is that Christ came to demonstrate the reality of the general resurrection from
the dead, doing so in deed (bi-l-fiʿl) as well as in his teaching.15 For believers in
Christ, certainty in the reality of the general resurrection has immediate conse-
quences for this life: they take on “the yoke of [Christ’s] Way” (nīr al-sharīʿa),16
renouncing worldly things and pursuing all virtue, “seeking to obtain reward
after death, everlasting life, and rest in the Abode of the Hereafter” (ṭalaban
li-l-ḥuṣūl ʿalā al-mujāzāt baʿd al-mawt bi-l-baqāʾ al-dāʾim wa al-rāḥa fī al-dār al-
ukhrawiyya).17
So far there is nothing new or startling here; Christian apologists within the
Dār al-Islām had been making what we might call “divine demonstration” argu-
ments for the historical actuality and redemptive necessity of the crucifixion
for centuries.18 The argument’s basic claim—that the crucifixion can be under-
stood as a necessary element of a divine plan to demonstrate and give people
certainty in the reality of the general resurrection—was well developed, for
example, in the Kitāb al-masāʾil wa al-ajwiba of the ninth-century “Nestorian”
apologist ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī, who despite being of a different Christological con-
fession was copied and read by medieval Copts.19 What may be most original
in al-Ḥāwī is the fact that Jirjis combines this divine demonstration discourse
with an idea usually associated with the tenth-century “Jacobite” theologian
and philosopher Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī: that God “whose generosity is beyond all gen-
14 Ḥāwī 1:309, lines 5, 15.

15 The basic statement of the case is at Ḥāwī 1:311–312, and the passage extends to p. 322.
16 Ḥāwī 1:312, line 1.
17 Ḥāwī 1:312, lines 4–5.
18 We find this already for example in the discussion between the East Syrian patriarch Tim-
othy i and the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mahdī; see Mark N. Swanson, “Folly to the Ḥunafāʾ: The
Crucifixion in Early Christian-Muslim Controversy,” in The Encounter of Eastern Christian-
ity with Early Islam, ed. Emmanouela Grypeou, Mark Swanson, and David Thomas (Leiden:
Brill, 2006), 237–256, here 253–255, with further bibliography. On Timothy, see Timothy
Heimgartner, “Timothy i (Ṭīmāteʾōs, East Syrian Patriarch),” cmr 1:515–532.
19 On ʿAmmār, see Mark Beaumont, “ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī,” cmr 1:604–610. Note that the 13th-
century Copt al-Ṣafī ibn al-ʿAssāl made an epitome of ʿAmmār’s two known works, while
the fuller version of these works is preserved in a late 13th-century manuscript made by a
Copt (London, bl Add. 18998).
190 swanson
erosity” ( jūduhu fawq kull jūd)20 gives the most generous of gifts: God’s own
self (dhāt). Yaḥyā had developed this idea as an apology for the Incarnation;21
Jirjis extends it to the Crucifixion as well. For Jirjis, Christ’s sublime teachings in
words are bracketed and rhymed by supremely generous deeds: the self-giving
of the Incarnation and the self-giving of the Crucifixion.
All this gives rise to a set of possible objections,22 which may be understood
as coming from a Muslim interlocutor—although objections of this sort and
the responses to them had already been laid out centuries earlier, which allows
for brevity in my description of them here.23 These objections (paraphrased, in
italics) and Jirjis’ responses (drastically summarized) are as follows:
1. Surely it was enough to teach the reality of the general resurrection in word,
without the necessity of a demonstration in deed. Jirjis responds by posing the
dilemma question: Which is the more perfect demonstration of generosity
( jūd), for the Generous One to combine word and deed and bring benefit to
both mind and sense, or to bestow the word alone? Surely the former; but the
demonstration of the reality of the resurrection in deed necessitates a bodily
death, to which Christ submitted freely.24
2. God took Christ into heaven alive. For Jirjis, this idea (which he recognizes
as being the belief of “a group of outsiders with respect to Christianity,” qawm
min al-khārijīn ʿan al-masīḥiyya)25 does not bring the benefit of a demonstra-
tion of the reality of the resurrection in word and deed. Prophets before had
been taken into heaven alive—without any particular benefit to their people.
Christ’s aim, in contrast, was to demonstrate the reality of the resurrection in
deed, so that people might have certainty ( yaqīn) in the reality of the general
resurrection.26
3. [Assuming that he had to die,] might Christ not have died a natural death? Jirjis
distinguishes between deaths in private and those in public. A natural death in
20 Ḥāwī 1:312, line 14.

21 See Emilio Platti, “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī,” cmr 2:390–438, here pp. 427–428 and 433–434.
22 Ḥāwī 1:312–316.
23 For ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī’s set of interrogations of the “divine demonstration” apology, see Mark
N. Swanson, “Resurrection Debates: Qurʾanic Discourse and Arabic Christian Apology,”
Dialog: A Journal of Theology 48 (2009): 248–256.
24 Ḥāwī 1:312–313.
25 Ḥāwī 1:314, line 3.
26 Ḥāwī 1:314.
private would have undermined any demonstration, as there would have been
room for doubt as to whether Christ had, in actual fact, died. As for a natural
death in public, here the deed would not fully correspond to the word—since
Christ had predicted that he would give his life for his friends (John 15:13; cf.
John 10:11 and Ephesians 5:25). Christ therefore freely gave his life and chose the
death of the cross.27
4. Why the death of the cross, specifically? Jirjis asserts that Christ’s death was
intended to bring benefit to all people, and so he died the public death of cru-
cifixion at a time when people from many nations were present; he observes
that the notice of the charge against Christ had to be written in three lan-
guages!28
Thus far in this section, we find parallels in earlier Arabic Christian tradition.
But now Jirjis takes this last point and expands it in his own way. Christ’s death
by crucifixion was intended to bring benefit to all. But (going on to another
point), it also brings benefit specifically to Israel, for whom he was Messiah
and savior, promised by scripture. Christ’s crucifixion fulfills the prophecies of
Psalms 22 and 69, a fact to which Christ himself called attention by quoting
Psalm 22:1 from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”29
This, therefore, was by no means a “cry of dereliction” but rather an invitation
to look up the relevant scripture passages!30
Christ’s crucifixion likewise has specific benefits for Christians. Only the
death by crucifixion allows for the piercing of Christ’s side as foretold in the
prophet Zechariah (12:10); the blood and water which flowed from Christ’s side
(John 19:34) are then linked by 1John 5:8 to the bestowal of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, it is through crucifixion that Christ redeems us from the curse
of the law (Galatians 3:13–14, commenting on Deuteronomy 21:23).31
And finally, a general benefit of Christ’s crucifixion is the power of the sign
of the cross.32 Jirjis does not, like some earlier Christian apologists, describe
this power in military terms.33 There was no room for any kind of Christian
27 Ḥāwī 1:314–315.
28 Ḥāwī 1:315–316.
29 Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46.
30 Ḥāwī 1:316–318.
31 Ḥāwī 1:318–320.
32 Ḥāwī 1:320–321.
33 See, for example, the Christian claim in the report of the debate between Abū Qurra and a
number of Muslim interlocutors in the majlis of the caliph al-Maʾmūn: “No king departs to
battle his enemy and [taking] with him the emblem of the cross, except with victory and
192 swanson
triumphalism among the Copts in Mamlūk Egypt, at the end of a century in

which the community had suffered greatly and had hemorrhaged members.34
Rather, Jirjis teaches that the sign of the cross gives power over the Devil—and,
through the reminder of Christ’s self-giving, patience and strength to endure
through persecutions, even “to the extent of the shedding of blood” (ilā ḥadd
safk al-dam).35
At this point, Jirjis is ready to bring his (initial) essay to a close.36 If Christ had
not died the death of crucifixion, none of these benefits would have accrued
to people, the prophecies would have been in vain, and deed would not have
corresponded to word—all of which is, in Christian terms, unthinkable. Jirjis
concludes by exhorting his readers to inward belief, to inward and outward
confession, and to the praise …
‫صن‬
ّ ‫للكلمة الأزليّ يسوع المسيح ال ّذي أعّدنا في ز ُمرة م َن فاز بسرّ صليبه وتح‬
‫به واشترك في الاّطلاع على فوائده وتشر ّف بفخره وافتخر بعظيم قدره وسار‬
.‫في أ ثره‬
of the eternal Word, Jesus Christ, who has prepared us to be in the com-
pany of those who have triumphed by the mystery of his cross, have sought
protection in it, have partaken in the vision of its benefits, have been
honored by its glory, have gloried in the greatness of its worth, and have
followed in its path.37
Sharing This Material with a Muslim
One might have expected the faṣl to end at this point, but Jirjis continues
on, reporting on a scholarly conversation that he held “with a person from
triumph and he would have possession of his enemy;” trans. of Wafik Nasri, The Caliph and
the Bishop. A 9th Century Muslim-Christian Debate: Al-Maʾmūn and Abū Qurrah (Beirut:
cedrac, Université Saint-Joseph, 2008), 215, verset 377.
34 A seminal article on the plight of the Copts in the 14th century is Donald P. Little, “Coptic
Conversion to Islam under the Baḥrī Mamlūks, 692–755/1293–1354,” Bulletin of the School
of Oriental and African Studies 39 (1976), 552–569.
35 Ḥāwī 1:320, line 22 and 1:321, line 1. It is worth noting that Jirjis was a contemporary of the
49 martyrs of the time of Patriarch Matthew i; see note 1 above.
36 See Ḥāwī 1:321–322.
37 Ḥāwī 1:322, lines 1–3.
one of the foreign communities, outside our [Christian] faith, who had knowl-
edge of the way of investigation and inquiry” (maʿ shakhṣ min baʿḍ al-umam
al-gharība al-khārija ʿan īmāninā mimman lahu dirāya bi-ṭarīq al-baḥth wa al-
naẓar).38 This interlocutor had conducted a study (baḥth) of Christian funda-
mental beliefs in which he asserted his denial of the occurrence of the Cruci-
fixion (inkār wāqiʿat al-ṣalīb). Jirjis had engaged this (clearly Muslim) scholar
in conversation, making the case for the salvific necessity of the crucifixion—
apparently sharing the arguments, or perhaps the very text, that we have just
reviewed. The result of this engagement, reports Jirjis, was a wide-ranging con-
versation of which he gives an account. Jirjis’ account is interesting for several
reasons. First, Jirjis claims to quote his Muslim interlocutor’s questions, giving
us—if we take this claim at face value—some samples of Christian-Muslim
conversation.39 But these questions also give Jirjis an opportunity to articulate
what he considers to be rules for an intelligible and fair conversation. The brief
description that follows will concentrate on what appear to be quotations from
Jirjis’ scholarly interlocutor, as well as those points in Jirjis’ reply that best artic-
ulate what constituted, for him, rules for an intelligible and fair conversation
between Christians and Muslims.
What about Christ’s Anguish?

The first response of Jirjis’ scholarly interlocutor to Jirjis’ presentation shows
considerable sophistication: rather than taking him on point by point, he
hypothetically concedes part of Jirjis’ argument in order to question a later
assertion:
‫ن‬
ّ ‫تإ‬
َ ‫ فلماذا قل‬.‫ت لك حصول الفائدة بموت المسيح بالصليب‬
ُ ‫ه َب أن ّني سل ّم‬
‫المسيح سل ّم ذاته لليهود لي ُصلب اختيارا ً منه ليس بقاهر من خارج كرها ً؟ وقد‬
‫ وسؤاله‬،‫شهد الإنجيل على رأيكم بما ظهر منه من الج َز َع والخوف ليلة الصلب‬
‫ وفي هذا دلالة ظاهرة بأن ّه لم يسل ّم ذاته للموت‬.‫للآب أن يرفع عنهكأس الموت‬
ً .‫اختيارا ً ولا إرادي ّا‬
38 Ḥāwī 1:322, lines 7–8.

39 I see no reason to dismiss Jirjis’ claim that his second essay was based on a real conversa-
tion. But even if it does provide us with a kind of sample of Christian-Muslim conversation
in Egypt at the end of the 14th century, it is not a very good one. The quotations from Jirjis’
interlocutor occupy a total of 13 lines, or about half a page, in an essay of more than 18
pages.
194 swanson
Suppose that I concede to you the occurrence of benefit through the death
of Christ on the cross. Why then have you said that Christ delivered him-
self to the Jews to be crucified voluntarily, and not unwillingly, through
coercion from outside? The Gospel bears witness against your opinion
with what appears in it of [Christ’s] anguish and fear on the eve of the
crucifixion, and his beseeching the Father to remove from him the cup
of death. In this is clear evidence that he did not deliver himself to death
voluntarily or willingly.40
How can the Gospel depictions of Christ’s agony and prayer in the Garden
of Gethsemane41 be harmonized with the claim that Christ died voluntarily?
In his response to this rather natural question, Jirjis says nothing about the
Gospel passages involved but rather offers a short essay on the interpretation
of difficult texts. Particular texts, asserts Jirjis, whether scriptural or otherwise,
must be read in their wider contexts. An author’s intent (gharaḍ) is discerned
from the reading of the whole, with attention to the repetitions of various kinds
that indicate the author’s wider intent (mā yadullu ʿalā gharaḍihi al-aqṣā),
or even better to those places where the author’s intent is stated explicitly
(ṣarīḥan). These are to be given priority in interpretation over the literal surface
reading of particular scriptural reports that might allow an opponent to make
a judgment of contradiction (al-ḥukm … bi-al-tanāquḍ). Jirjis briefly states that
fundamental Christian teaching does not allow the tool of abrogation (nāsikh
wa mansūkh) as a means of dealing with (apparent) contradictions in the
Gospels—a point to which he will return later. Instead, difficult scriptural
reports may be taken according to the wajh—which I will here translate as
“interpretive category”—of taʾwīl (which Jirjis here leaves undefined), so that
the reader need not assert a judgment of contradiction.42 To these introductory
considerations, Jirjis immediately adds a rule for debate:
ً ‫ص الإنجيل مضافا‬ ّ ‫ل هذه الشبهة من ن‬ ّ ‫واعلم أن ّني لم أورد لك ح‬

‫ ولم تكن‬،‫ت الحج ّة عل َيّ من كتابي‬
َ ‫للمقّدمات النظر ي ّة التّ ي ذكرتُها إلّا لأن ّك أقم‬
ّ‫ت عل َي‬
َ ‫ت إشكالك من الكتاب ال ّذي أورد‬
ُ ‫ فحل ّل‬.‫مؤمنا ً به وشاكّا ً في نصوصه‬
‫ و يلزمك قبول الحج ّة من هذا‬،‫ فهذا من قواعد التحقيق في البحث‬.‫منه إشكالك‬
.‫ت عليه في إ يراد الإشكال علينا منه‬
َ ‫الكتاب بعينه لأن ّك اعتمد‬
40 Ḥāwī 1:322, lines 11–14.

41 Mark 14:32–36, Matthew 26:36–39, Luke 22:39–44.
42 Ḥāwī 1:322–323.
Understand that I did not offer you a solution of this dilemma from the
text of the Gospel, in addition to the theoretical principles that I have
[already] mentioned, except for the fact that you made an argument
against me on the basis of my Book—even though you are not a believer
in it and a doubter of [the veracity of] its texts. I have solved your problem
from the Book from which you raised your problem against me. For this
is one of the rules of verification in scholarly inquiry. You must accept an
argument on the basis of this very Book, because you relied upon it when
you raised a problem against us on the basis of it.43
For Jirjis, the Muslim interlocutor’s “trespass” into biblical territory had, log-
ically, left him in the position of having to accept a biblical argument in re-
sponse. And so Jirjis then offers one, barraging his interlocutor with Gospel pas-
sages that show that Christ repeatedly foretold his voluntary death by crucifix-
ion.44 In the face of such clear texts, the superficially difficult texts brought up
by the opponent must be taken according to the interpretive category of taʾwīl
(more than merely literal interpretation) and not that of opposition and con-
tradiction. This, Jirjis assures his readers, is not an arbitrary judgment (ḥukm
mutaʿassif ) aimed at scoring debate points, but rather appropriate attentive-
ness to all the interpretive categories (wujūh) of a report, as opposed to the
polemicist’s tendency to ascribe a particular report to a single interpretive cat-
egory and build his judgment upon it—a judgment that will be worthless and
arbitrary.45 This leads quite naturally to the interlocutor’s next question.
‫فما هي الوجوه التّ ي حملتم عليها هذه النصوص التّ ي ظاهرها يحتمل القول‬
‫ل‬
ّ ‫ على ما زعمتم؟ وكيف انح‬،‫ وليس باطنها عندكم كذلك‬،‫بالتضادّ والتناقض‬
‫لـكم إشكالها؟‬
And so, what are the interpretive categories to which you ascribe these
texts, the apparent meaning of which makes plausible a judgment of
opposition and contradiction, but the inner meaning of which, for you,
is not so (according to what you have claimed)? How, for you, is the
problematic character of [these texts] resolved?46
43 Ḥāwī 1:324, lines 3–8.

44 He quotes the following texts: Matthew 16:21, John 10:18, Luke 12:50, Matthew 16:23, John
13:27, and John 18:1–9.
45 Ḥāwī 1:324–326.
46 Ḥāwī 1:326, lines 7–9.
196 swanson
We might expect Jirjis here, finally, to offer an exegesis of Christ’s prayer

and agony in the Garden of Gethsemane; but again he has formal principles
to enunciate. Jirjis states that the proper taʾwīl of such texts is built on specif-
ically Christian uṣūl or fundamental beliefs unanimously held by all Christian
communities: the divinity of Christ; the incarnation of the Word from Mary;
and the full humanity of Christ, sharing in all that belongs to human beings
except sin. Christ’s words on the eve of the crucifixion, or from the cross, must
be interpreted in the light of these uṣūl.47
If one is now expecting to read Jirjis’ exegesis of Christ’s prayer in the Garden
of Gethsemane, one will be disappointed. Jirjis appears to have regarded such
an exercise as specifically Christian discourse pointless in a Christian-Muslim
discussion—since it would be a discussion about furūʿ or “branches” where the
uṣūl, the “roots” or fundamentals, were not shared:
‫ن الكلام في فروع علم من العلوم لا يحصل فائدة للطالب والوقوف‬

ّ ‫أعني أ‬
‫ بل‬.‫على مفهوماته ما لم يعلم اصطلاح أهل ذلك العلم في أصولهم وإشاراتهم‬
‫ ومن جهل‬،‫ن الفروع مبنية على أصول‬
ّ ‫ فإ‬.‫هذا لازم في سا ئر الموادّ العلمي ّة‬
.‫الأصول فقد جهل الفروع‬
I mean that discourse about the “branches” of any particular science will
not provide benefit to the one who seeks [knowledge], nor will the close
examination of its concepts, as long as one does not know the technical
vocabulary and allusive shorthand of the specialists in that science with
regard to its48 “roots.” This is inherently the case in all scientific subjects.
For the branches are built upon the fundamentals; one who is ignorant of
the fundamentals is [necessarily] ignorant of the branches.49
On the Authenticity of the Gospel Texts

A flesh-and-blood interlocutor may have well at this point been frustrated
at Jirjis’ seeming evasion of a debate about the meaning of Christ’s words in
Gethsemane or from the cross; Jirjis himself says that his interlocutor suspected
him of trying to steer him into realms of discourse for which he was not
prepared.50 But (the interlocutor can be imagined as thinking), if the discourse
47 Ḥāwī 1:326–327.
48 Correcting uṣūlihim to uṣūlihi.
49 Ḥāwī 1:327, lines 4–7.
50 Ḥāwī 1:327, lines 7–8.
was to be based upon a particular text, one could certainly ask about the
authenticity of that text. And so, he asks:
‫ وهذه الاعتقادات التّ ي أنتم عليها‬،‫وم َن قال إن ّكم ما أبدلتم وغي ّرتم الأناجيل‬
.‫الآن ليست هي التّ ي أتى الحوار يوّ ن بها‬
Who said that you have not altered and changed the Gospels, [so] that
these beliefs that you now hold are not the same as the ones that the
Disciples brought?51
When Jirjis responds with a question as to who has made this claim, his inter-
locutor responds:
.‫ن الكتاب العز يز ال ّذي نحن م ُجمعون عليه شهد بذلك‬

ّ ‫إ‬
The mighty Book upon which we are all agreed has borne witness to
that.52
Jirjis is quick to respond that the mighty Book upon which all the Christians are
agreed has not borne witness to any such thing. But Jirjis also states plainly that
his interlocutor’s Book (the Qurʾan, that is) does not constitute an argument
[ḥujja] against him and has no place in the conversation. The only reason that
they are speaking about the Gospel is that it was the Muslim interlocutor who
introduced it as an authority. Jirjis can formulate this as a rule:
‫ أن لا يورد حج ّة الردّ على الخصم إلّا من‬،‫فهذا هو الشرط في المباحث المحَّققة‬

‫ إذ كان قد جعله عمدته في‬،‫ج به الخصم و يقيم الحج ّة عليه منه‬
ّ ‫ص ال ّذي يحت‬ّ ‫الن‬
‫ وجب الردّ عليه بالمنقول‬،‫ج بالمنقول‬
ّ ‫ هذا إن كان الخصم يحت‬.‫الاستناد إليه‬
‫ وجب الردّ عليه بمثلها )وإن عضدها‬،‫ج بالقوانين النظر ي ّة‬
ّ ‫ وإن احت‬.‫المقبول‬
.(‫بالنقل المنقول كان أتم ّ في البيان‬
This is a necessary condition of assured scientific inquiries: that one does

not offer an argument in response to the opponent except from the same
text from which the opponent argued and base the argument against him
51 Ḥāwī 1:327, lines 10–11.

52 Ḥāwī 1:327, lines 12–13.
198 swanson
from [the same text], since he had made it the support upon which he
relied. And thus, if the opponent argued from a transmitted text, then the
response to him must be from an accepted transmitted text. And if he
argued on the basis of the rules of theoretical logic, then the response to
him must be from its like (although if he supported that by reproducing a
transmitted text, that would be a more perfect elucidation).53
Jirjis might have left the matter at this, but he decides to respond to the charge
that Christians had altered and changed the Gospels. As usual, however, he
puts the issue of alteration (ibdāl) and change (taghyīr) into a larger frame-
work: he begins by considering the possibility of divinely-instituted change, or
abrogation (naskh). This, he argues, is impossible within the specific logic of
the Christian Gospel. It is among the uṣūl or fundamental teachings of Chris-
tianity that the Gospel is the “Way of perfection” (sharīʿat al-kamāl), that which
is highest and best—a case that Jirjis had made in the previous faṣl of his com-
pendium.54 However, it would make no sense to abrogate that which is perfect,
since there is nothing better with which to replace it. Thus, the idea of naskh
only makes sense in a “Way” that allows for stepwise improvements.55
At this point, Jirjis gives an almost doxological description of the virtues
of the Christian sharīʿa and its goal, which is the enjoyment of the angelic
state56—and then he allows himself a polemic. In contrast to the Christian
sharīʿa, he asserts, the sharīʿa that has come afterwards promises its obedient
adherents the attainment of the Garden (al-janna), where the height of blessed-
ness consists of food, drink, marriage, and the enjoyment of bodily delight. All
this apparently is to be understood literally, since its (Muslim) scholars have
warned against the use of taʾwīl to interpret these texts, specifically to avoid
falling into agreement with spiritually-minded Christians or philosophers.57 Jir-
jis reminds his readers that the human being is not merely a body, but a body
which is servant and instrument of the soul, so that a final state limited to bod-
ily delights would be, for the soul, the “worst of conditions” (asharr al-aḥwāl).58
For his insistence that a human being is more than a body and that the truest
final happiness (or misery) is that of the rational soul, Jirjis can turn for sup-
port to the Greek philosophers (“the scholars of divinity who lived before the
53 Ḥāwī 1:328, lines 5–10.

54 In Bāb 2, faṣl 3; see Swanson, “Discerning the True Religion.”
55 Ḥāwī 1:328–329.
56 Ḥāwī 1:330.
57 Ḥāwī 1:331–332.
58 Ḥāwī 1:332, line 17.
appearance of the scriptural Ways,” al-ḥukamāʾ al-lāhūtiyyūn alladhīna kānū

mawjūdīn qabl ẓuhūr al-sharāʾiʿ al-naqliyya)59 as well as to al-shaykh Fakhr
al-Dīn al-Rāzī (whom Jirjis briefly paraphrases from Kitāb al-Arbaʿīn, chapter
[twenty-] eight, in an Appendix to the chapter).60 What Christianity has done,
Jirjis then asserts, is to gather the wisdom of the philosophers concerning the
true end of the soul and combine it with the demonstration of the reality of
the resurrection of the body—thus neatly returning to the main theme of the
chapter! More than that, however, Christianity empowers lives that demon-
strate and confirm these teachings—which also returns to a major theme in
Jirjis’ discourse, that of the rhyming of word and deed, not only in the mission
of Christ but also in the lives of his followers.61
This brings Jirjis’ consideration of naskh to a conclusion, but now he turns to
his interlocutor’s claim “that we [Christians] altered, corrupted, and changed”
(innanā abdalnā wa ḥarrafnā wa ghayyarnā) the Gospels.62 He is quick to
repeat that he will not accept a qurʾanic argument; but then, the claim can only
be addressed in ways other than scriptural:
‫فإن النقول الشرعي ّة إذا ات ّفقت فيها المناقضات والمتقابلات بين المتباحثين‬
‫ق‬
َ ‫ فلم يب‬،‫المتباينين في الاعتقادات وعدم الإقرار بتحقيق دعوى دون دعوى‬
‫ وإمّا الوجودي ّة‬،‫ إمّا النظر ي ّة القياسي ّة‬:‫لنا فيها إلّا الرجوع إلى الاستشهادات‬
‫ وإمّا الرجوع إلى الاستشهادات‬،(‫س‬
ّ ‫الاستقرائي ّة )التّ ي هي الظاهرة لشاهد الح‬
‫ إذ كانت هذه حج ّتها لا تنقض بإقامة الدليل‬،‫من المنقولات الكتابي ّة الشرعي ّة‬
.‫على الدعاوى التّ ي ندعيها على الخصم‬
If it happens, on the basis of transmitted religious texts, that there occurs

mutual contradiction and confrontation among researchers who differ
59 Ḥāwī 1:332 line 22–333 line 1.

60 The Appendix is at Ḥāwī 1:340–341, with the reference to Kitāb al-Arbaʿīn at p. 340, lines 18–
21. One may compare Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Kitāb al-Arbaʿīn fī uṣūl al-dīn (Hyderabad:
Majlis dāʾirat al-maʿārif al-ʿuthmāniyya, 1934), 264–265 (at the beginning of chapter 28 on
the soul). This material may have been transmitted to Jirjis by a Coptic précis; cf. A. Wadi,
ed., Al-Muʾtaman Ibn al-ʿAssāl: Summa dei principi della religione, 2 text and 2 appara-
tus vols. (Cairo: Franciscan Center of Christian Oriental Studies; Jerusalem: Franciscan
Printing Press, 1998–1999), 1:116–120 (chapter 5, §§ 10–29, esp. 15). Jirjis returns to al-Rāzī’s
treatment of the soul in Part One, bāb 4, faṣl 1; Ḥāwī 2:21–23.
61 Ḥāwī 1:332–333.
62 Ḥāwī 1:334, line 6.
200 swanson
in their beliefs, and there is no way to confirm the verification of one

claim as opposed to another, there remains nothing for us but to return to
the [fundamental] forms of attestation: either theoretical-syllogistic, or
existential-inductive (which are apparent to the witness through sense-
experience), or the return to attestations from the transmitted texts of
religious scriptures—so long as their arguments are not in contradiction
with evidence established in support of claims we make against the oppo-
nent.63
In other words, disputes that are based on differing scriptures can only be
adjudicated by syllogistic logic or by observable evidence; scriptural evidence
may be called on, but only in a secondary, illustrative capacity. On this basis,
then, Jirjis challenges his interlocutor:
‫ل على أن ّنا نحن أبدلنا وحرّفنا وغي ّرنا من جهة قياسي ّة أو‬
ّ ‫وإن كان عندك ما يد‬
!‫ فاذكرها‬،‫من جهة استقرائي ّة وجودي ّة‬
If you have any evidence that we have altered, corrupted, or changed [the
Gospels] on the basis of syllogistic logic or induction from observable
reality, mention it!64
Jirjis claims that his interlocutor had nothing to say on the basis of logic and
induction from observed reality; he himself, however, had plenty to say. The
charge that Christians have changed the Gospels is illogical, because if they had,
the first thing that they would have eliminated from the text would have been
the Crucifixion, or anything that seemed to detract from the power and glory
of Christ. Furthermore, the observable evidence supports the Christians’ case:
there is no manuscript or historical evidence for an altered scripture, some-
thing that would have been seized upon by apostates. The spread of the Gospel
throughout the world—Jirjis mentions Ethiopia, China, India, France, Rome,
and Constantinople—bears witness to an unaltered scripture, the meanings of
which are the same even when translated into many languages.65
This brings the section on ibdāl, taḥrīf, and taghyīr to a close. Jirjis reports
that his interlocutor had one final question, this time about the certainty of
textual transmission:
63 Ḥāwī 1:334, lines 9–15.

64 Ḥāwī 1:335, lines 15–16.
65 Ḥāwī 1:335–338.
‫ن المسيح لم يقُ م على الأرض حت ّى‬

ّ ‫ن بعض علماء الدين عندنا معتقدون أ‬
ّ ‫إ‬
.‫ح به التصديق بدعوة الداعي‬
ّ ‫ والتوا ترُ هو ال ّذي يص‬، ُ‫يحصل عنه التوا تر‬
Some of our religious scholars believe that al-Masīḥ did not live upon the
earth [long enough] to allow for sound transmission [tawātur]; but sound
transmission is what makes it correct to declare the truth of a caller’s
call.66
Jirjis responds that Christ’s ministry lasted three years and was carried out
before great crowds of people—so that a great body of witness could indeed
build up. But, he then asserts, while Christian claims are not lacking in tawātur,
this is not a central Christian concern! Christian claims were not believed
because of their tawātur, but rather (for example) because of their power
manifest in evidentiary miracles! For Jirjis, tawātur serves as a proof only where
other proofs are not present; but as for Christianity, it provides evidence for
those who seek scriptural texts or syllogistic proofs, as well as appealing to
those who are attracted to miracles and sensory demonstrations.67 And with
that, Jirjis tells us, the conversation came to a close; his interlocutor departed
and did not return for more.68
Debating According to the Rules
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Jirjis’ chapter is the clarity with which he
enunciates what he sees as rules for Christian-Muslim conversation. I attempt
to summarize these as follows:
1. Each faith has its own fundamental beliefs (uṣūl), which are often simply
different.
2. The structure of a faith, based upon its specific fundamentals, has its own
integrity. Thus, for example, a Muslim is “excused” for believing that Christ
was rescued from the death of crucifixion, since that stems from fundamen-
tal Islamic beliefs.
3. There is no point in arguing about the ramifications (“branches”) that stem
from different fundamental beliefs (“roots”). Jirjis, for example, is not inter-
66 Ḥāwī 1:338, lines 3–5.

67 Ḥāwī 1:338–340.
68 Ḥāwī 1:340, lines 9–12. There follows the Appendix or postscript mentioned above.
202 swanson
ested in a was-he-or-wasn’t-he argument about the historical occurrence of

Christ’s crucifixion.
4. Because the Bible and the Qurʾan advance different fundamental beliefs,
biblical passages do not have evidentiary force for a Muslim, and qurʾanic
passages do not have evidentiary force for a Christian. A Muslim is not
required to accept a purely biblical argument, and a Christian is not required
to accept a purely qurʾanic argument.
5. If, however, a Christian or Muslim makes an argument from the other’s
scripture, then one has allowed that scripture as an authority, and must be
prepared to receive a response based on that same authority. Such scriptural
discussion will observe the rule that texts be interpreted in their wider
contexts, using the tools developed by the bearers of that particular scripture
(e.g. for Christians, taʾwīl but not naskh).
6. Since the Bible does not necessarily possess evidentiary force for the Muslim,
or the Qurʾan for the Christian, contrasting claims must be weighed on the
basis of logical demonstration or induction from observable evidence.
These rules have a number of interesting consequences. In the first place, Jirjis
is straightforward about who he is addressing: in the first part of the faṣl on the
crucifixion, he writes specifically for Christians, exploring the Christian uṣūl
and the furūʿ that stem from them, untroubled by his knowledge that Muslims
might think otherwise. Indeed (and this is a second consequence), Jirjis is, for
arabophone Christian writers, quite generous in according a logical coherence
to Islamic belief: a Muslim is maʿdhūr, “excused,” for believing that al-Masīḥ
was preserved from the ignominious death of crucifixion, because that is a farʿ
consistent with Islamic uṣūl.
But perhaps the most surprising result here stems from the fifth rule summa-
rized above: that making an argument based on the other’s scripture is, at least
for the duration of the conversation, to concede the authority of that scripture
as interpreted by its own scholars. Jirjis, of course, insists on this rule in order to
counter his interlocutor’s use of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ agony and prayer
in the Garden of Gethsemane, but he appears to be consistent in that he himself
does not offer qurʾanic prooftexts in support, say, of the historical occurrence of
Christ’s death (as opposed to his being taken into heaven alive)—a tactic with a
long history in Christian-Muslim controversy.69 Jirjis would seem to be warning
69 One of the earliest instances is in the famous conversation between East Syrian patriarch
Timothy i and the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mahdī; see for example Swanson, “Folly to the
Ḥunafāʾ,” 248–250.
Christians against qurʾanic prooftexting: to do so is to open oneself to a coun-

terargument from the Qurʾan interpreted according to the canons of qurʾanic
hermeneutics.
Of course, one can ask whether Jirjis observed his own rules. A full answer
to this question, of course, requires a study of al-Ḥāwī as a whole.70 Yet even
in the faṣl on the crucifixion Jirjis seems to be willing to bend the rules, a
bit, to his own advantage. While Jirjis does not prooftext the Qurʾan in his
essay for Christians, he may—as we saw above—allude to qurʾanic ideas (e.g.,
Christ’s place in a succession of prophets and apostles culminating in the
Prophet Muḥammad; or the possibility that someone else was crucified in
Christ’s place) in an indirect and allusive way, even while explicitly referring to
the Gospels’ characterizations of Christ’s first-century hearers and opponents.
Perhaps more troubling for a contemporary reader of al-Ḥāwī is the polemic
that Jirjis permits himself against the qurʾanic descriptions of the afterlife.
Jirjis claims that this is permitted by the rule that gives priority to logical
demonstration and inference from observation in matters of religious dispute,
and could even call upon a Muslim scholar, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, in support
of what he deemed a matter of logic.71 Still, this polemic would seem to be
in tension with Jirjis’ rules that recognize both difference and integrity in
another’s system of belief.
Perhaps it is too much to expect complete consistency in Jirjis’ rules and
his application of them. Christian theologians in apologetic environments had
long settled for “what works” rather than systematic coherence.72 And it may
be that future studies of al-Ḥāwī and its sources will show that it is indeed
a compilation in which a variety of pieces are imperfectly stitched together.
Still, the rules that Jirjis enunciates are striking in their acknowledgement of
both the difference and coherence of a faith other than the Christian one,
in their desire to avoid useless debate, and in the discipline imposed upon
interreligious conversation, including strict limitations on the use of revealed
scriptures.
70 We look forward to the doctoral dissertation on al-Ḥāwī that Ashraf Nājiḥ Ibrāhīm ʿAbd
al-Malāk is preparing at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome.
71 Jirjis borrows another passage originally from al-Rāzī’s Kitāb al-Arbaʿīn in his defense
of human freedom in the section on al-qaḍāʾ wa al-qadar (Ḥāwī i.1.3); see Swanson,
“Christian Engagement,” 221–223.
72 I make this case for some well-known 9th-century apologists in Mark N. Swanson, “Apol-
ogy or Its Evasion? Some Ninth-Century Arabic Christian Texts on Discerning the True
Religion,” in Christian Theology and Islam, ed. Michael Root and James J. Buckley (Eugene,
or: Cascade Books, 2014), 45–63.
204 swanson
Conclusion
I opened this essay with the comment that Jirjis wrote al-Ḥāwī at a point
in Egyptian church history better known for its saints and martyrs than for
its theological production. The Forty-Nine Martyrs of the time of Patriarch
Matthew i (the 87th patriarch, 1378–1408) were a mixed lot, including nominal
Muslims from Christian backgrounds who made public profession of their
Christian faith as well as Christians who openly preached against Islam.73
Against this background, Jirjis’ rules for interreligious conversation are almost
startling. In a time of inflammatory speech leading to violence, Jirjis gives rules
for careful, disciplined speech that appeal, finally, to canons of reason available
to all people regardless of their competing scriptural commitments.
In this, Jirjis may have something to teach us. There is no shortage in our
day of careless, undisciplined interreligious speech (or of technologies capable
of magnifying such speech and almost instantaneously broadcasting it around
the world, sometimes with dire consequences). To learn to speak of the neigh-
bor, especially the neighbor who professes a religion other than one’s own, with
care and discipline (to say nothing of respect and esteem) is one of the great
ascetic and spiritual tasks of God-fearing people today. Jirjis may not provide
definitive answers to our questions about how to do this, but his suggestions
are well worth pondering.
73 On these martyrs, see Swanson, Coptic Papacy, 114–117, 133–134; Tamer el-Leithy, “Coptic
Culture and Conversion in Medieval Cairo, 1293–1524a.d.” (PhD dissertation, Princeton
University, 2005), 101–139; A. Wadi, “Quarantanove martiri,” in Enciclopedia dei santi: Le
chiese orientali, Bibliotheca sanctorum orientalium, ed. Juan Nadal Cañellas and Stefano
Virgulin (Rome: Città Nuova, 1998–1999), vol. 2, cols. 866–868.
part 2
From Early Modernity to the Present
∵
chapter 13
Islamic Anti-Christian Polemics in 16th Century

Spain: The Lead Books of Granada and the Gospel
of Barnabas. Beyond the Limits of taḥrīf
The Islamic anti-Christian polemical works (rudūd), which are understood as

dialectical attacks on beliefs and practices of Christianity, have a long tradition
that determines which are the main issues of confrontation, as well as the way
to present them.1 Although many of the works by Muslim authors were written
in response to attacks by Christian writers, since quite early days, Islamic
thought had a few arguments prepared in order to attack Christian dogmas;
texts that sustained the faith and ecclesiastical institutions that propagated
these beliefs. From the Qurʾān itself, which can be referred to in this regard
as the first book of anti-Christian polemic, Muslims are aware of the basic
differences that separate them from both Judaism and Christianity. Although
these differences will be eventually revisited, their main features are as old
as Islamic thought itself. Al-Andalus participated for centuries in this way of
understanding Islamo-Christian controversy, with authors as important as Ibn
Hazm.2 Similarly, Medieval Spain, with the outstanding figure of the convert
Anselm Turmeda /ʿAbd Allāh al-Tarjumān.3
However, with the decline of Muslim power in the Iberian Peninsula from
the eleventh to the fifteenth century and the emergence of Muslim commu-
nities subject to Christian political power, the situation changed dramatically.
These Muslim groups suffered gradual isolation that separated them from their
tradition of wisdom while living in an increasingly hostile social and religious
1 M. Steinschneider, Polemische und apologetische Literatur im arabischer Sprache, Leipzig,

1877, new ed. Hildesheim, 1965; I. Goldziher, ‘Ueber muhammedanische Polemik gegen Ahl al-
kitāb’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 32 (1878), 341–387; G. Anawati,
‘Polémique, apologie et dialogue islamo-chrétien. Positions classiques médiévales et posi-
tions contemporaines’, Euntes Docete, 22 (1960), 375–452.
2 M. de Epalza, ‘Notes pour une histoire des polémiques antichrétiennes dans l’Occident
musulman’, Arabica, 18 (1971), 99–106.
3 M. de Epalza, La Tuḥfa, autobiografía y polémica islámica contra el cristianismo, de ʿAbd Allâh
al-Taryumân ( fray Anselmo Turmeda), (Rome, 1971; new ed. Madrid, 1994).

208 bernabé pons
context.4 Although these Muslim communities could legally continue to pro-

fess their religion, their isolation from the rest of Dār al-Islām and the loss of
such a fundamental cultural practice as the Arabic language meant that they
had little chance to maintain religious disputes; however it was not entirely
extinguished. The fact that their religious texts had to be translated into Span-
ish, starting with the Qurʾān itself,5 undermined the possibility of scholarly
religious polemics with Christians, these generally being reduced to verbal
exchanges.
From 1501, Hispanic Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity, which
considerably worsened their situation. Of course, few were deceived about the
sincerity of their conversion: the Church prepared Christianization campaigns
for these new Christians; the Inquisition watched their new life as Christians
so that they did not deviate from the faith with Muslim beliefs and ceremonies.
Christians who shared land and streets with these so-called Moriscos knew
that, although there may have been sincere Christians among them, espe-
cially as the Century drew on, the majority remained Muslims in secret. This
suspicion led to restrictions on the possession of Arabic books, the use of
the Arabic language where it could be preserved (particularly Granada and
Valencia)6 and of course any feature which could be interpreted as Islamic.
Moriscos, officially Christians, had to hide any Islamic religious knowledge
they possessed and particularly avoid any attack on, or even doubt about
Christianity. The Inquisition was responsible for monitoring any deviations
that might exist in the official religious discourse. There are many inquisito-
rial processes that show how Moriscos, intentionally or inadvertently, entered
into religious discussions with their neighbours. These were spontaneous dis-
cussions, often led by anger and with no real theological background, but
words uttered in such arguments always cost them at least their freedom—and
quite often their life—for breaking the secrecy that concealed their Muslim
lives.7
4 For an overview, see L.P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain 1500 to 1614 (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2006).
5 C. López-Morillas, The Qurʾān in sixteenth-century Spain: six morisco versions of Sūra 79,
London: Tamesis, 1982; C. López-Morillas, El Corán de Toledo (Toledo, Gijón: Trea, 2011).
6 M.J. Rubiera and L.F. Bernabé Pons, ‘La lengua de mudéjares y moriscos. Estado de la cuestión’,
vii Simposio Internacional de Mudejarismo, Teruel, 1999, 251–278.
7 L. Cardaillac (ed.), Les morisques et l’ Inquisition, Paris, 1990; M. García-Arenal, Inquisición y
moriscos. Los procesos del tribunal de Cuenca, Madrid, 1978.
islamic anti-christian polemics in 16th century spain 209
The secret: one of the most important elements in the life of the Moriscos
and the maintenance of Islam in sixteenth-century Spain.8 Crypto-Islam devel-
oped to be one of the driving forces of Morisco life as Muslims. They had to
maintain a public appearance as Christians, but we know that within their
communities, within their homes, they continued, as far as possible, to main-
tain a life in accordance with the precepts of Islam. Certainly this process of
years of acculturation caused a number of Moriscos to be seamlessly inte-
grated into Christian society, probably through a gradual process of religious
indifference (see the case of the Morisco Ricote in Don Quixote by Miguel de
Cervantes). But it is equally true that many of these Muslim believers were
determined to maintain their faith in such hostile circumstances. In addition
to secrecy, Moriscos made their cultural and intellectual resistance another of
the key feature of their life.
This resistance was based not only on trying to carry out as well as possible
the rituals and acts of their religion, but also on trying to keep alive most of
the cultural heritage of Islam.9 In such difficult circumstances, this purpose
led the Moriscos of Aragon to develop an original form of Islamic cultural life.
Generally unable to use Arabic (one more of their many regrets as Muslims),
the Moriscos created an ‘aljamiado’ literature, that is, an Islamic literature in
Spanish, written with Arabic letters.10 This was a literature of Muslims for
Muslims, in which they made the effort to translate and adapt the Arab-Islamic
contents to the Spanish language, which had grown semantically attached
to Christianity.11 It is extremely interesting to see how Moriscos performed
difficult semantic balances to translate their beloved Qurʾān into Spanish.12
8 L.P. Harvey, ‘Crypto-Islam in Sixteenth-Century Spain’, Actas del Primer Congreso de Estu-
dios Árabes e Islámicos (Córdoba, 1962), Madrid, 1964, 163–179.
9 M. de Epalza, ‘Principes chrétiens et principes musulmans face au problème morisque’,
Louis Cardaillac (ed.), Les Morisques et l’ Inquisition, Paris, 1990, 37–49; L.F. Bernabé Pons,
‘Los mecanismos de una resistencia: los libros plúmbeos del Sacromonte y el Evangelio de
Bernabé’, Al-Qanṭara, xxiii, 2 (2002), 477–498.
10 A. Galmés de Fuentes, ‘La literatura española aljamiado-morisca’, in Walter Mettmann
(ed.), Grundriss der Romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters, vol. 9: La littérature dans
la Peninsule Ibérique aux xive et xve siècles, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1985, vol. 10, 1985,
i: 117–132; ii: 103–112.
11 M. de Epalza, ‘Le lexique religieux des Morisques et la littérature aljamiado-morisque’, Les
Morisques et l’ Inquisition, 51–64.
12 L.F. Bernabé Pons, ‘Interferencias entre el árabe y el romance en los textos coránicos
aljamiados’, in P. Bádenas de la Peña et al., Lenguas en contacto: el testimonio escrito,
Madrid, 2005, 109–126.
210 bernabé pons
This literature covered the most important fields for the life of a believer:
Qurʾān, ḥadīth, and manuals on how to do the prayer, together with Muslim
law digests, or pious stories out of which the Moriscos drew moral teachings.13
Of course it was a covert literature, both because of its Arabic script and its
Islamic contents, and the works were also anonymous, since they represented
the collective wisdom of an entire community. It is true that some works
of religious polemic circulated among Moriscos for domestic consumption,
both in Arabic and Aljamiado. However, given the circumstances of these
communities of Muslims, they had many more Islamic works dedicated to
the fundamentals of their faith and their behaviour as ordinary Muslims than
works of anti-Jewish or anti-Christian polemic.14 Although their Islamic faith
was in general firm, their instruction as Muslims suffered an inevitable process
of erosion that led to the authorities devoting most of their efforts to the
apologetic statement rather than to the religious attack. Their life as hidden
Muslims developed within them a special lifestyle.
Although in recent years critics have studied whether or not their secrecy
was guided by the Islamic concept of taqiyya15 or whether Moriscos living
a real process of Christianization were more or less numerous, most experts
agree that Islam was the element around which the vast majority of Moriscos
established a reference. Even in those cases where Moriscos seem to be fully
integrated into Spanish society, cases arise where a hidden (but continuous)
Islamic life can be detected. Guided by the aforementioned intellectual resis-
tance, Moriscos held to their beliefs and prayers as a way to maintain their
identity against the enemy Christian majority.
However, in some cases, Moriscos did more than maintain their Muslim
identity; they articulated anti-Christian religious polemic. Some Morisco
groups felt strong and prepared-enough to contest from a theological level the
official Christian superiority. Of course, given the conditions of life of Moriscos,
always under the authority and supervision of Christian authorities, we can-
not expect any public theological discussion or religious debate against Chris-
13 See the collective work Memoria de los moriscos. Escritos y relatos de una diáspora cultural,
Madrid, 2010.
14 M. Asín Palacios, ‘Un tratado morisco de polémica contra los judíos’, Mélanges Hartwig-
Derenbourg, Paris-Angers, 1909, 343–366; also in Obras Escogidas de Miguel Asín Palacios,
Madrid, 1948, vol. ii–iii, 246–273. We can find many more examples of polemical works
by Moriscos in their diaspora in North Africa. See G. Wiegers, ‘European converts to Islam
in the Maghrib and the polemical writings of the Moriscos’, in M. García-Arenal (ed.), Con-
versions islamiques. Identités religieuses en Islam méditerranéen, Paris, 2001, 207–223.
15 See monographs on Taqiyya in Al-Qanṭara, 34, 2 (2013), 345–546.
tian authorities. Such an exercise would have been completely impossible in

sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spain. What these Moriscos did was, in
essence, to take advantage of the very structures of Spanish society and to turn
this advantage pro domo sua.16 The Moriscos used very recognizable historical
and religious discourses in Spain to launch a disguised Islamic religious mes-
sage at the very centre of Catholic society.
1 Truth has been Modified—taḥrīf
One of the main pillars of the Islamic view of the history of mankind is that
Islam recognizes itself within the chain of revelations that God sent to man.
Other monotheistic communities, primarily Jews and Christians, have received
God’s revelation through a prophet who was sent to a particular people. These
revelations, from the Islamic perspective, must align with the Qurʾān, the last of
the revelations of God to men. Islam recognises a familiarity, a prophetic line
between Jewish and Christian prophets and the message that came down to
Muḥammad.17
But the Qurʾān states that Jews and Christians have strayed from the right
path of God by introducing into the body of their beliefs a number of innova-
tions for their own sake. These beliefs had distorted the original meaning of
the revelations of God so much that a new revelation had become necessary.18
The basis for these deviations is that the scriptures containing the message God
had been altered (taḥrīf ).19 Jews and Christians, according to Muslim thought,
have altered their texts for spurious reasons and have spoiled the texts which
collected the true message of God.20 Since the Qurʾān is the only text that
16 L.F. Bernabé Pons, ‘La nostalgia granadina de los moriscos’, in J.A. González Alcantud and
A. Malpica Cuello (eds.), Pensar la Alhambra, Barcelona, 2001, 165–181.
17 O. Leirvik, Images of Jesus Christ in Islam, Uppsala, 1999, 22–57.
18 See for instance q ii, 38–39; 70–73; iv, 48; v, 16–18. Cfr. N. Daniel, Islam and the West. The
Making of an Image, Edinburgh, 1993, 47.
19 I. di Matteo, ‘Il Taḥrīf od alterazione della Bibbia secondo i musulmani’, Besssarione, 38
(1922), 64–111; J.M. Gaudeul and R. Caspar, ‘Textes de la tradition musulmane concernant
le taḥrīf (falsification) des Écritures’, Islamochristiana, 6 (1980), 61–104; H. Lazarus-Yafeh,
‘Taḥrīf’, ei2.
20 Different texts discussed in G.S. Reynolds, ‘On the Qurʾanic Accusation of Scriptural
Falsification (taḥrīf ) and Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic’, Journal of the American Oriental
Society, 130.2 (2010), 189–202; A. Saeed, ‘The Charge of Distortion of Jewish and Christian
Scriptures’, The Muslim World, 92 (2002), 419–436.
212 bernabé pons
collects and maintains the accurate words of God, which have always been the
same, the original texts of Jews and Christians had to be identical or at least
very similar to the sacred text of Islam.
Jewish and Christian texts have not been altered in their entirety, hence
Muslim writers also used parts of them,21 but essential parts of belief have been
modified. Particularly ominous has been the concealing of Muḥammad as the
last of the series of prophets sent by God to men, but also the terrible distortion
of the prophet Jesus and other similar issues. Rudūd treatises develop all these
textual and/or conceptual changes from the message of God, showing from the
Qurʾān, Ḥadīth, and more generally, from a call to common sense, how these
are false beliefs. Since the very beginning of Christianity, with the figure of Paul
himself,22 then following with the Popes and Church Fathers, pristine belief has
been sliding down a slope of human interest so that it has become a completely
wrong belief.23 Underlying all this analysis and all of these views is the notion
of taḥrīf feeding the distortion from the Quranic truth.24
Right from the beginning, Islam points at Paul of Tarsus as being responsi-
ble for the changes that have been introduced into Christianity. These changes
have created a number of objectionable texts. Because they contain statements
that contradict the Qurʾān, Muslims inevitably complain about their contami-
nation by men and their distance from the message of God. Christians, there-
fore, cannot be a source of religious rule for Muslims, as indicated by a ḥadīth
that goes back to Ibn ʿAbbās:
O believers! How can you question the people of the Book when your Book
which God revealed to His Prophet, brings the best knowledge of God?
You read it without alteration, and God warns you that those who have
the Scripture, in order to procure a small reward, have changed what God
has written, have altered the Book with their own hands and said: “This is
from God”.25
21 Gaudeul and Caspar, ‘Textes de la tradition’, 79. See M. Asín Palacios, Logia et agrapha
Domini Iesu, apud moslemicos scriptores, asceticos praesertim, usitata, Patrologia Orien-
talis, vol. 13, 3, Paris, 1916, 335–431, vol. 19, Paris, 1926, 529–624; T. Khalidi, The Muslim Jesus:
Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature, Cambridge ma, 2001.
22 G.S. Reynolds, A Muslim theologian in the sectarian milieu: ʾAbd al-Jabbār and the critique
of Christian origins, Leiden, 2004.
23 de Epalza, La Tuḥfa, 109.
24 J. Wansbrough, The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History,
Oxford, 1978, 41–42.
25 In A. Soesillo Vijoyo, ‘The Christians as religious Community according to the Ḥadīth’,
This view Jewish and Christian texts does not imply, however, a complete
rejection of what is contained therein. Some parts of them are acceptable to
Muslim eyes, if, for example, they are not read in the light of the divine nature
of Jesus or his Messianism, something completely unacceptable to Islamic
thought. The medieval Muslim writers have cited parts of the Gospels and
the Torah as valid texts;26 also, the collection by Muslim authors of the non-
evangelical words or deeds of Jesus reveals a group of texts that are completely
acceptable for Muslims. These masīḥiyāt are actually supposed by Islamic
thought to be a kind of religious text that has managed to evade the alterations
carried out by the Christian authorities. On the one hand, their collection by
Muslim authors has preserved them from any possible alteration. On the other
hand, their absence from the canonical Gospels is both a further proof of their
validity and the proof of the forgery of other texts.
2 Christian Texts before (or after) Islam
But the main problem in finding Christian texts that have not been corrupted
in one way or another is that the Church and its authorities did their best to
destroy them. Once the Injīl revealed to Jesus was definitely lost, those texts
which faithfully collected his words have been twisted almost from the begin-
ning of Christianity and the original versions have disappeared. Taking this uni-
versal theological Islamic view, is it then possible to imagine a text coming from
Christianity which could be acceptable in the eyes of Muslims? A priori, this
text should at least meet with a number of essential conditions. First, it should
not in any way contradict the Qurʾān, since this has the true guidance of God’s
message. Second, its form and content should approximate mutatis mutandis
to the religious textual models emanating from the Qurʾān and Islamic tradi-
tion. Third, it should be assumed that these texts have remained hidden and
escaped from the clutches of Paul and his followers: therefore, they must have
been preserved from modification by Christian hands.
This is the perspective that must be considered regarding a number of texts
that appeared in Spain in the latter half of the sixteenth century. In Granada, the
last land conquered by the Christians from Islam, and still palpably Arabic for
Islamochristiana, 8 (1982), 87. See also al-Bukharī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Kitāb al-Shahadāt, 29, Beirut,
1999, 2, 182.
26 D. Thomas, ‘The Bible in Early Muslim Anti-Christian polemic’, Islam and Christian-
Muslim Relations, 7 (1996), 29–38.
214 bernabé pons
much of the sixteenth century, some strange Arabic texts which were going to
cause a huge impact started emerging from a cave located beside the fortress of
the Alhambra. This impact caused the name of the mountain where these caves
were located, Valparaíso, to be changed to its current designation: Sacromonte
(the sacred mountain).
On 21 February 1595, some treasure hunters exploring a cave on the moun-
tain Valparaíso, to the east of Granada, found a sheet of lead written in Arabic
characters, somewhat deformed. The sheet, once translated, stated that a cer-
tain Mesitón suffered martyrdom there during the reign of Nero and was buried
right there. A second lead sheet, found five days later, gave the same news about
a certain Hiscio, a disciple of St. James, stating that the name of the hill where
they were buried was ‘Sacro Monte’. On 30 March, some ashes and bones were
found, and on 5 April a third plate was found, about Tesifón (before his conver-
sion, Ibn ʿAtār), also a disciple of James; it stated that he had written a book on
lead plates entitled Fundamentum Ecclesiae which was to be found along with
his ashes, in this hill. Indeed, on 22 April this book and some ashes appeared.
The ‘book’ consisted of five round and thin sheets of lead, written in some-
what deformed Arabic characters that the book itself labelled as ‘Solomonic’
script. From that time, amid the sharpest popular fervour of Granada, a series
of wonderful books began to appear. They referred each other and provided
news about the early days of Christianity and Granada’s patron, San Cecilio.27
A total of twenty-two lead books were found in the caves of Valparaíso, while
ecclesiastical authorities started a parallel process to authenticate them. They
commissioned numerous translations of the books. The process led to a dispute
during the seventeenth Century. There was an extremely violent confronta-
tion between supporters and detractors of the authenticity of the lead tablets,
including particularly Archbishop Castro, who took over the defence of the
authenticity of the lead plates as a matter of divine appointment of his own
person. The criticisms of the texts, however, gradually grew in number and
intensity, coming sometimes from some of the most famous scholars of Spain.
After much discussion, the lead books went to Rome, where they were even-
tually convicted by Innocent xi in 1682 of containing erroneous (vide Islamic)
doctrine.
The contents of the texts, despite including many different topics, all had
a common thread: to provide news and doctrinal messages of Christianity by
the mouths of the most relevant actors of the early church, especially of the
27 Account of the events in C. Alonso, Los apócrifos del Sacromonte. Estudio Histórico, Val-
ladolid, 1979; M. Hagerty, Los libros plúmbeos del Sacromonte, Madrid, 1989.
Virgin Mary and the Apostle James, always with an ambiguous tone about the
fundamental dogmas of faith. To understand how these texts could penetrate
the Granadian and Spanish society it is essential to note that the lead books
(via their translations), were accepted as authentic ancient Christian texts from
the time of their discovery. Granada’s Islamic past was still very evident in this
young diocese, and these texts came to offer a shining Christian past to the
ancient Naṣrī city.28 It was quite a complex process in which social, political,
intellectual and religious matters were involved.29 Once the first translations
confirmed the Christian nature of the Arab lead sheets, they were analysed
according to this pattern. The translations were shaping the text and not the
reverse.30 Pedro de Castro was looking for a translation that would fit what he
thought was contained in the lead books. Any other possibility was unthinkable
not only theologically and socially, but also risked facing Pedro de Castro’s
enmity.31
28 M. García-Arenal and F. Rodríguez Mediano, Un Oriente español. Los moriscos y el Sacro-

monte en tiempos de Contrarreforma, Madrid, 2010.
29 M. García-Arenal and M. Barrios Aguilera (eds), Los Plomos del Sacromonte. Invención y
tesoro, València, 2006.
30 In early March 1597, less than two years after the first discoveries, Pedro de Castro assem-
bled a board of theologians to give his opinion on the content of books. The opinion was
unequivocal and unanimous: ‘… and we think and say, all with one accord and consis-
tent, that these books contain the Holy Catholic and Apostolic doctrine: High Theology,
positive and scholastic … supernatural and revealed, that exceeds the forces and fires of
human understanding, and that seems dictated by the Holy Spirit. Not in anything con-
trary to the sacred writings, determinations of Councils, or the common doctrine of the
saints, nor they have no history in anything suspicious … and declare everything in great
honor and glory of God and comfort of the world and the Catholic Church: they eradicate
and confound all the Moorish and paganism, all these heretics and heresies … and they
are in a language the heretics, couldn’t have produce, nor anybody at this time who has
nobody and it seems a providence of God that they have been kept so many centuries and
being revealed at this time, for the remediation of such damage’. The theologians gathered
in Granada do not doubt that the leads were documents from the dawn of Christianity
with which God had rewarded Granada … even though they knew nothing of Arabic. Or
maybe because of it. See L.F. Bernabé Pons, ‘Los libros plúmbeos desde el pensamiento
islámico’, in M. García-Arenal and M. Barrios Aguilera (eds.), ¿La historia inventada? Los
libros plúmbeos y el legado sacromontano. Granada, 2008, 57–81, 62.
31 So wrote the Morisco Jesuit, Ignacio de las Casas, on the work of Castro’s translators:
‘… I knew for certain, that when they translated, it was always in the presence of the
Archbishop or others for him, and he said to them when the translators bumped into
difficulties: “They cannot say that! Will not they say so?”. Thereby preventing them from
telling the truth, specially being most of them descendants of the Arabs and fearful
216 bernabé pons
The Sacromonte texts contained, as mentioned, a number of Christian mes-

sages from the mouths of characters like the Virgin Mary, Saint Peter or some
of the Apostles. They were, of course, texts that could be understood without
too many difficulties for Christians, who would recognise themselves in them.
However, a careful reading of them soon leads to the impression that there is a
certain ‘dogmatic ambiguity’ when pointing out the essential dogmas of Chris-
tianity. For example, an exhaustive statement of the divinity of Jesus, as the Son
of God or one of the persons of the Trinity, cannot be found anywhere. The term
‘Holy Spirit’ (Rūḥ Allāh) with which Jesus is consistently designated in the lead
books cannot be objected to, much less by Christianity, as it is usual for Muslims
to refer to the prophet Jesus in this manner. That is to say, of course, about the
fact that the previous phrase on many occasions is attached to the main state-
ment of the oneness of God in Islam, the first part of the profession of faith:
‘There is no God but God, Jesus, Spirit of God’. A Christian can assume that it
is an ancient formula, fallen into disuse, but by no means heterodox. A Muslim
recognises himself perfectly in that sentence.
What about the Mass? Would it not be quite a contradiction for some Mus-
lims to create a text in which one of the most hated Christian rites is praised?
Again, the need for perspective should be noted in examining what the lead
books actually say and what Islam says about certain aspects of Christianity.
There are, indeed, among the lead books references to the Mass and the priest,
even a book entitled Book of the story of the mass of the Apostle James by the
hand of his notary and disciple Tesiphon Aben Athar, which describes the cere-
mony at some length. But we must not confuse realities: the rite is fairly well
explained throughout the text, but it tiptoes around the issue of the dogma
of transubstantiation and the sacrificial character of the sacrament. Regarding
the misunderstanding of the Moriscos about the Mass at the moment of the
Eucharist, the lead texts only give descriptions of the ceremonial performance.
By removing references to dogmatic incomprehensible realities, the result is a
pious act of faith and worship.
It is interesting to see that baptism is also illustrated with its ritual character
stripped of its theological significance. For example, when we reconstruct
the time of Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan (Matthew 3:13–17), the text
introduces a fundamental change when reporting God’s voice: ‘You are my
of being taken by men claiming against the Faith, as they said themselves’. Another
example will show this mentality: in several places in the Lead books there is a sequence
m-r-Allāh, which is consistently translated in this version as Messiah spirit of God (masīḥ
Rūḥ Allāh), but could also be read, as already noted at the time, as Muḥammad Rasūl Allāh
‘Muhammad apostle of God’, the very testimony of faith in Islam.
Spirit, my Beloved and my repose’, instead of ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom

I am well pleased’. The change is apparently minor and, in fact, if one assumes
Spirit of God = Son of God it does not seem to have much relevance. However,
if one adheres to the primary meaning, we have a completely transcendental
moment in the life of Jesus, the confession of his messianic identity, and the text
of the lead books quibbles over his divine nature. But besides launching a subtle
blow to the character of forgiveness of sin in the world by baptism through the
figure of the ‘Lamb of God’ that Jesus took upon him, his sacramental character
is compromised.32
The figure of Jesus is seemingly drawn in such a way as to balance Islamic
traits with a Christian template. The emphasis on Jesus’ human nature is con-
stant in all the lead books that mention him. He is God’s Word or Spirit of God,
but nothing beyond. He intercedes for humanity as a man through his gospel
(of course, singular) and has beautiful features. Establishing a clear relation-
ship between Adam and Jesus, essentially based on prophecy, the lead books
not only recall the Islamic narrative of the prophetic inscription on the back
of Adam announcing the Prophet of God, but this authentic ‘seal of prophecy’,
which reappears on the shoulders of Muḥammad as the end of the prophetic
line, will be placed on the shoulders of Jesus as Islamic testimony of the eter-
nal faith. Jesus was truly a man as exemplified by his human needs: eating and
sleeping, as often argued by Islamic anti-Christian polemics. Even something
as essential to the Christian as the crucifixion is not clearly stated in the lead
sheets: they say the Romans seized and mistreated ‘the one who featured in the
Scriptures’. Is this a reference to Jesus, as a Christian will understand it, or the
man who appeared in the false Gospels, as every Muslim learns from childhood
onwards?
Are the Lead Books texts that present a syncretic belief between Christianity
and Islam, and which sought to reverse the critical situation of the Moriscos,
as many modern writers have argued?33 This widespread opinion is based, I
believe, in a vision of the lead books developed from Christianity. How to make
a syncretic vision of Christianity and Islam? Which dogmas of each of the two
religions would be imposed at all times? And how could this message have an
impact on a Christian society?
32 Bernabé Pons, ‘Los libros plúmbeos de Granada desde el pensamiento islámico’.

33 J. Godoy Alcántara, Historia crítica de los falsos cronicones, Madrid, 1868, new ed. Granada,
1999 (preliminary study by O. Rey Castelao), 127; D. Cabanelas, El morisco granadino Alonso
del Castillo, Granada, 1965, new ed. Granada, 1991 (with a foreword by J. Martínez Ruiz),
286–293.
218 bernabé pons
In my opinion, the Lead Books were something simpler, yet more fascinating.
They were a Muslim response to a tragic situation, but a response drawn from
the bowels of Christian culture. Instead of discussing the dogmas and beliefs,
of following the traces of classical rudūd, the Moriscos of Granada constructed
Christian texts, from an Islamic perspective. The Moriscos did not argue, but
they showed Christians how wrong they were in their religion, showed them
how their religion really was in its very beginning. In a Spain full of wonderful
findings and veneration for relics, the Moriscos knew that these texts would be
received with interest and with the faith of those who believed them to be true.
No more was needed.34
For Muslims, the texts of Jews and Christians do not correspond to the Rev-
elation received by this people. These texts are man-made, full of absurd and
pernicious errors which are contrary to God’s message. The only acceptable
things a Muslim can find in these texts are reminiscences of the original texts
from which they were taken, but Islam is adamant in declaring the definitive
loss of the Gospel revealed by God to Jesus. That loss, caused by human evil,
has been repaired with the revelation of the Qurʾān, the only immutable ver-
sion of God’s message. The Qurʾān thus becomes the only religious guidance
to man, and from this perspective, this immediately devalues Christian writ-
ings.
This is the vision remaining in the lead books of Sacromonte, which speak
of Christianity, of Jesus or the Virgin in terms which, being acceptable to Chris-
tians, are perfectly recognizable to Muslims. Perhaps the Morisco authors tried
to make a testimony of faith, with the audacity to release it among Christians.
As part of a very calculated ambiguity (not syncretism!), the Sacromonte books
proposed a message acceptable to all. Beyond evangelization, beyond religious
polemics, the lead books were set in a time before Muḥammad, but an Islamic
time nevertheless.
34 These Moriscos dealt not only with Religion, but also with History. In 1592 Miguel de
Luna, a Morisco doctor and official translator from Arabic, who was also involved with
the translations of the Lead Books, published a Real History of King Roderick (Verdadera
Historia del Rey Don Rodrigo), from a supposed Arabic manuscript found by him in
the Escorial Library. This manuscript offered a completely different version of the Arab
conquest of Spain, with an Arab King who introduced civilization and Raison d’Etat in
a semi-wild country like Visigothic Spain. See Miguel de Luna, Verdadera Historia del
rey Don Rodrigo, ed., with an introductory study by L.F. Bernabé Pons, Granada, 2001;
García-Arenal and Rodríguez Mediano, Un Oriente español, pp. 165–196.
3 Taḥrīf Defeated. The Gospel of Barnabas
An important aspect of the lead books should be noted here: in Book of the
History of the Truth of the Gospel, Mary announces to James the ‘Truth of the
Gospel’, that has been revealed by the angel Gabriel to her, carrying down a
writing from the sky with shining light, using the same model of prophetic
revelation as in Islam. The mystery of the ‘Truth’ will not be revealed in his time,
but it will in time ‘with exorbitance, dissensions and heresy among nations
about the Spirit of God, Jesus and the glorious Gospel. From east to west and
from north to south. And leave the truth of the Gospel. And will be taken and
altered up and down’. It is not too difficult to find within these words of the
Virgin Mary a real prophecy based on taḥrīf. This will happen when the time is
fulfilled, and when the gospel is already unrecognizable, when the transfer of
this ‘true’ text will come to Light.35
Shortly afterwards, a gospel that contains the life of Jesus told from the view-
point of Islam appeared, and was quoted among exiled Moriscos in Tunisia.36
35 Some learned Moriscos who knew the Lead Books also thought of a new gospel which
would abrogate those accepted by Christians. So, Ahmad Al-Hajari around 1638 writes:
‘It [is] said that this book was entitled Haqîqat al-Injîl, which means ‘the Verification of
the Gospel’ … it will be accepted by all, and they will do as it tells them to, and they will
return from their errors and heresies. And it is clear that this Gospel will be different from
the one they have now, for, if it would be like that, it would be superfluous and useless,
so it is obvious that there will be no mention of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost
in it, but only of one God’ (… que aquel libro se yntitula Haqîqat al-Inyîl, que quiere decir
la verificación del evangelio … y será rreçevido de todos y harán con lo que dize y dexarán
los herrores que de antes tenían y herejías. Y está claro que aquel evangelio será diferente
del que oy tienen porque si fuera como él, fuera sobrado, inútil y de ningún efecto, y ansi
se a de entender que no avrá en él nombre de padre y del hijo y del espíritu sancto sino
solamente de un Dios): ms. d565 de la Biblioteca Universitaria de Bolonia, 169r–169v. Also
P.S. van Koningsveld, Q. al-Samarrai, G. Wiegers, Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Ḥajarī, Kitāb Nāṣir
al-Dīn ʿala ʿl-Qawm al-kāfirīn (The supporter of Religion against the Infidel), Madrid, 1997,
265–266, 273–274 (I follow their translation with some differences). Also, a good authority
on the Moriscos like the Jesuit Ignacio de las Casas, himself of Morisco origin, warned
about Moriscos’ opinion (siendo estos libros en arábigo, que es la lengua en que ellos
creen que está la verdad y certidumbre de las escripturas sagradas y en sola la qual habla
Dios con veras lo que pertenece a la fe, tienen por muy cierto [los moriscos] que estos
libros son verdad), in Y. El Alaoui, Jesuites, Morisques et Indiens. Étude comparative des
méthodes d’évangélisation de la Compagnie de Jésus d’après les traités de José de Acosta
(1588) et d’ Ignacio de las Casas (1605–1607), Paris, 2006, 564–565.
36 In the manuscript 9653 from the Spanish National Library in Madrid, f. 156 v: ‘And many
things (about Muḥammad) will be found in the Taurat, and from there in the Bible, that
220 bernabé pons
The Gospel of Barnabas is, in fact, a text preserved in two manuscripts, one Ital-
ian and one Spanish, closely related, the writing of which can be dated to the
early seventeenth century, and which present the life and message of Jesus by
following an evangelical narrative structure but placing it in the perspective of
the Islamic prophecy.37 From this conceptual perspective, in the Gospel of Barn-
abas Jesus rejects, shocked, the idea of being the Son of God, claiming to be a
human prophet sent to Israel, to whom God has sent down the gospel in their
hearts; he will not suffer the passion and crucifixion, but Judas will, in his place.
He also denies being the expected Messiah, claiming to be, on the contrary, the
announcer of the true Messiah, Muḥammad, according to the promise made
by God through the lineage of Ishmael.
This last point has astonished many critics who have studied the text: How
could the Gospel of Barnabas deny Jesus the title the Qurʾān applies to him
(Arabic al-masīḥ)? Maybe part of the answer lies in something similar to the
view of the Lead Books by the authorities in Granada?: the perspective of
the critics, seeing the Gospel of Barnabas from a Christian/Islamic perspective
instead of one exclusively Islamic. I develop this opinion based on two different
points:
1) The Qurʾān applies the term al-masīḥ to Jesus in every moment of his life
and not from a particular occasion, as the canonical Gospels do. However,
the meaning derived from this Quranic usage deviates from what is com-
mon to Christianity. For the Qurʾān this al-masīḥ is a human person, without
the Jews have in Castilian … and also in the Gospel of Saint Barnabas, where light will be
found, that if Christians read it and would consider it well they would see their blind way’
(… y particularmente se hallarán muchas cosas en el taurat, y deste en la biblia que en poder
de los judíos se hallará en castellano … y assí mesmo en el ebangelio de san bernabé, donde se
hallará luz, que a mirallo bien y considerarlo bieran los cristianos su çiego camino). The text
is anonymous and not dated but was written presumably around 1630–1640. Bernabé Pons
has argued the Toledan Morisco Ibrahim Taybili / Juan Pérez to be its author: ‘L’écrivain
morisque hispano-tunisien Ibrahim Taybili (Introduction à une Littérature Morisque en
Tunisie)’, Mélanges d’Archéologie, d’Épigraphie et d’Histoire offerts à Slimane Mustapha
Zbiss, Tunis, 2001, 249–272.
37 L. Cirillo and M. Frémaux, Evangile de Barnabé. Recherches sur la composition et l’origine.
Texte et traduction, Paris, 1977 (Italian text); L.F. Bernabé, El texto morisco del Evange-
lio de San Bernabé, Granada, 1998 (Spanish text). See J. Jomier, ‘L’Evangile de Barnabé’,
Mélanges de l’ Institut Dominicain d’Etudes Orientales, 6 (1959–1961), 137–226; J. Slomp, ‘The
Gospel in dispute. A Critical evaluation of the first French translation with the Italian text
and introduction of the so-called Gospel of Barnabas’, Islamochristiana, 4 (1978), 67–111;
L.F. Bernabé, El Evangelio de San Bernabé. Un evamgelio islámico español, Alicante, 1992.
participation in the divine (cf. sura 5, 169, 76, 79), not much different from the
prophets sent before him. In this sense, as presented in the Quranic text, al-
masīḥ is little more than another name or an honorary title given to the Prophet
ʿIsā / Jesus.38 But in the Gospel of Barnabas we do not find this restricted notion.
On the contrary, it can be seen that the concept used here follows the Jewish
and Christian concept (although the latter narrowly) as the messiah prophe-
sied in the Old Testament, who gives fullness to the end, and divine revelation.
In this sense, the Islamic plot of the Gospel of Barnabas is perfect in attribut-
ing that title to Muḥammad, the end and culmination of God’s revelation to
mankind. He who makes this identification knows both the salvific significance
of the concept of Messiah as well as the final nature of Quranic revelation, so
that he moves this title, stripping it of its characteristics of divine sonship, from
Jesus to Muḥammad. And it is not only through the words of Jesus himself, but
with the ingenious device of eliminating the figure of John the Baptist, that
the text acquires a full Islamic dynamic. Denying notions of redemption and
incarnation, the Gospel of Barnabas also denies the Christian Messianism of
Jesus as “Word made man” and derives Muḥammad’s messianism exclusively
from Judaism, the first of the revealed religions of the Book. As, according to
the Qurʾān, the revelation of God has always been the same, this claim falls
within Islamic orthodoxy.
2) What the Gospel of Barnabas does when it says that Jesus is not the messiah
is to apply the Quranic idea of the humanity of Jesus through the words messia
(Italian) and mesías (Spanish), and herein lies one of the great merits of text
to develop that idea. It should be kept in mind—as Muslims always do—that
the Quranic text only takes on its full significance and validity in Arabic, so
that to say that Jesus is not the messiah (in Spanish or Italian) may perhaps
be shocking, but will never be completely outside of Islamic orthodoxy and
Quranic exegesis, as it could be, for example, to say that the prophet ʿIsā is not
al-masīḥ. This fact is always taken into account by modern Arabic translators
of the Gospel of Barnabas, who do not use the Arabic term when faced with
the denial of Jesus to be the messiah, but import the Italianism masiyya. Using
the first would take them to a serious contradiction of the Quranic text, a
contradiction which does not exist when the Italian term is used.39
38 M. de Epalza, Jésus otage. Juifs, chrétiens et musulmans en Espagne (vie–xviie siècles), Paris,
1987, 201–202.
39 Translators into Arabic used also the Arabic name for Jesus (Yasûʾ) instead of the Quranic
ʿIsā. See Injīl Barnāba, trans. by J. Saʾada; foreword by Muḥammad Rashid Rida;
222 bernabé pons
The Gospel of Barnabas is a very original text in its conception and develop-
ment, coordinating doctrinal and stylistic elements belonging to two different
religious universes. It structurally takes the form of the canonical gospels, but
when the Christian texts contradict Islam, the Gospel of Barnabas introduces
an amendment from the Islamic point of view and continues with the story. If
Jesus is presented not as the Messiah, but as the herald of the true Messiah, the
Gospel of Barnabas takes the words and actions of the agent in the canonical
texts, John the Baptist. But again the Islamic amendment appears: the passage
on the baptism of Jesus on the Jordan River disappears completely and the
announcement of the prophecy does not come by the Holy Spirit in the fig-
ure of a dove, but from a book ‘like a shining mirror’ which descends into Jesus’
heart.
Also, from a textual point of view, the Gospel of Barnabas approaches an
Islamic perspective. One of the points developed in the Muslim-Christian con-
troversy is the lack of laws and regulations that govern the full life of the believer
within the Christian Gospels. The fact that an organized worldview of man’s
life cannot be extracted from its interior is an evidence for Muslim polemicists
that the Gospels possessed by Christians do not respond to the formal charac-
teristics of the divine message. In this sense the Gospel of Barnabas is nearer
to the religious form of Islamic education than the canonical gospels: its high
percentage of doctrinal content, besides the narrative of the life of Jesus, makes
the shape and style more familiar to an Islamic reader as opposed to the canon-
ical gospels, which are mere biographical accounts, and also full of lies. These
long moral teachings of Jesus in the Gospel of Barnabas approach what might be
called the ‘evangelical’ category of Islam: the ḥadīth. These statements do not
appear as such in the Christian texts, and would, following the logic of taḥrīf,
be logia of Jesus deleted from the Gospel.
The Gospel of Barnabas presents what for a Muslim must be a correct
account of the life and doctrine taught by Jesus, far from the formal and con-
ceptual mistakes the Christian tradition has introduced into the Gospels. Only
a text that has been hidden from Christian manipulations, like Barnabas, can
deliver a credible story of Jesus; to be credible it must conform with, what
the latest manifestation of God’s revelation to men contains. Responding to a
Spanish-Christian as well as to an Islamic perspective, the Gospel of Barnabas
is a text rescued from the Christian authorities and at the same time is a text
which, coming first-hand from a direct disciple of Jesus, may have been known
introductory essay by A. Hijazi al-Saqa: Qalā Yasû’: Al-ḥaqq anā lastu masiyya (170). See
W.F. Campbell, The Gospel of Barnabas. Its True Value, Rawalpindi, 1989, 29–30.
by some Christian scholars: that is, it provides its own isnād. To do this, the
Spanish manuscript provides a prologue in which a priest, Fray Marino, who
writes from an Islamic point of view, tells how he had learned of the existence
of this gospel from some ancient authors. As a matter of fate, being one day with
Pope Sixtus v (who initiated the process of authentication of the Lead Books),
the Pope fell asleep and Fray Marino was left alone, discovering the Gospel of
Barnabas in the Pope’s library. When the Pope woke up Marino hid the book in
his sleeve. ‘And reading it for two years, I decided to come to the true Faith, and
for the benefit of the faithful write it, sure that it is true and angelic scripture
and doctrine, in which the Holy Herald of God is clearly announced’.
Naturally, this prologue is the basis of the ideation and subsequent spread
of the Gospel of Barnabas. It helps one to understand the possible relationship
between the two texts and also, perhaps what might have been the first plan
for their creation. Fray Marino, whom I see as a literary mirror of the Orientalist
and exegete Fray Marco Marini (1542–1594), discovers an ancient Christian text
in the papal library and is determined to ‘write’ for the benefit of the faithful.40
The circle thus is closing, bringing the Gospel of Barnabas near to what was
clearly announced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries about a text of
its kind: the Sacromonte texts. In it, Jesus and the revelation given to the Sons
of Israel would finally be presented without alterations, to demonstrate the real
role of Jesus as a prophet come to announce the true Messiah sent to the world:
Muḥammad. From this point of view it is logical that the Gospel of Barnabas
was known among the Spanish Moriscos in North Africa as a sequel to the
books of the Sacromonte. The Morisco diaspora was the only milieu where the
affirmation of Muḥammad as the Messiah could be attested.41
The complexity of the Gospel of Barnabas and its value as a potential reli-
gious text can be attested by several factors: its many translations; the fact that
groups of Muslims have taken it as an acceptable gospel, opposite to their view
of the canonical gospels, and that in Pakistan and Egypt biographies of Jesus
based on the Gospel of Barnabas42 have already been written. Even supporters
of the Gospel of Barnabas have a very active website where they discuss their
views and give answers to questions posed by Christians. Thus, the lead books
of the Sacromonte represent not just a crude elaboration of false texts. They
40 L.F. Bernabé, El evangelio de Bernabé. Un evangelio islámico español, Alicante, 1995, 57.
41 G. Wiegers, ‘Muhammad as the Messiah: A comparison of the polemical works of Juan
Alonso with the Gospel of Barnabas’, Bibliotheca Orientalis, lii, 3/4 (1995), 245–291.
42 C. Schirrmacher, Mit den Waffen des Gegners. Christlich-muslimische Kontroversen im 19.
und 20. Jahrhundert, Bonn, 1992.
224 bernabé pons
are, beyond the simple accusation of taḥrīf, an elaborate intellectual adven-

ture from which the sixteenth-century Spanish Muslims, forced to hide away
their religion, taught Christians what was the correct belief. A correct Chris-
tian belief that, for a Muslim, then and now, is also a correct Islamic belief. The
more oppressed Hispanic Islam was, the bolder was its answer, and fully Islamic
also: Christians have among them the real answer about the Truth of God.
chapter 14
Islam: An (Almost) Redundant Element in the

Polish-Lithuanian/Ottoman Encounters
between the 16th and 17th Centuries?
The contacts between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman

Empire began in the early 15th century and lasted till the end of the Common-
wealth’s political existence and the final partition of the Commonwealth at the
end of the 18th century. Although, according to the historians, wars only occu-
pied a fraction of that long period, the relationship between the two parties—
especially in popular perception—has been perceived as being hostile. It may
be said that the Commonwealth played a role of antemurale Christianitatis
(the bulwark of Christianity) defending Europe from the threatening wave of
Islam that, ridden by the Ottoman Turks, was ready to submerge the continent.
The impression of a religiously ideological struggle (created by many groups of
interest—not only the counter-Reformation movement but also later, during
the 19th and 20th centuries) seems to give a prominent role to the religious dis-
parity that differentiated the two states. The concept of antemurale Christian-
itatis has been discussed by historians and to a certain extent deconstructed.
However, in my view, that discussion did not sufficiently take into account the
fact that Islam as a religion played a rather marginal role not only in the polit-
ical relations between both states but also in the individual perceptions of the
citizens.
The statement about the ‘irrelevance’ of Islam in the contacts between the
Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire can sound surprising, especially to
those acquainted with the ecclesial Catholic version of the encounters with the
Ottomans. Phrasing it that way, however, I want to underline that both states
entered into a mutual relationship—composed of times of peace and war—not
because they were different in religious terms, i.e. were shaped by a different
religious ideology and zealous to spread it. Their contacts resulted from the
fact that their expansion brought them on a collision course—they were vying
for the control of the territories situated north-west of the Black Sea. Once this
conflict of interests became a fact, the religious elements were used in the later
struggles but served as a rallying call and not as a bone of contention. It is
interesting that neither side launched a missionary (ideological) attack against

226 grodź
the other with the effect of reaching out to the other with their own religious
message. On the Commonwealth side—and I intend to limit myself to this side
of the relationship—as Bohdan Baranowski stated, ‘there was no particular
interest in the matters of Islam’ among the nobility,1 so even those few who
did express interest were unable, by their efforts, to draw the attention of the
majority to the real precepts and practices of Islam and failed to correct the
misperceptions (if that was their purpose, after all) that contributed largely to
creating a very distorted stereotype.
This does not mean that the inhabitants of the Commonwealth were
unaware of the basic religious differences between Islam and Christianity but
that limited and often distorted knowledge was more effectively employed in
inter-Christian struggles than against the Muslims. As a matter of fact, very few
did care what Islam was really about. I intend to draw a general framework
of the Polish-Ottoman encounters, indicate what the Commonwealth nobility
actually knew about Islam, in what way that knowledge was applied, and finally
turn to the reasons for the lack of appeal of Islam to the nobility. Before that,
however, it is pertinent to give a bit of space to some terminological explana-
tions.
Troublesome Terminology
It is difficult to find adequate and self-explanatory contemporary terms for talk-

ing about the 16th–18th century political entity known as the Commonwealth
of Both Nations and its inhabitants. Perhaps a few basic facts will clarify the
issue for those unacquainted with the meanderings of the history of central-
eastern Europe. After Duke Jagiełło was offered the crown of Poland with the
agreement of the Polish nobility in 1387, both states—the Kingdom of Poland
and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania—were joined by the personal union of the
same monarch. The last ruler of the Jagiellonian dynasty, Sigismund August
(d. 1572), anticipating the end of the dynasty, helped to effect a deeper merger
of two states in the form of the Union of Lublin in 1569 and the creation of the
1 B. Baranowski, Znajomość Wschodu w dawnej Polsce do xviii wieku [Knowledge of the East
in the ancient Poland till the 18th century], Łódź: Łódzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1950, 177.
Also picked up by Kopański without direct comments. B. Kopański, ‘Znajomość państwa
tureckiego i jego mieszkańców w renesansowej Polsce’ [The knowledge about the Ottoman
state and its inhabitants in the Renaissance Poland], Przegląd Orientalistyczny 1977, no. 3
(103), 221–229, p. 224.
islam: an (almost) redundant element 227
Commonwealth of Both Nations, i.e. the Polish and Lithuanian. Since the sub-
sequent monarchs were to be elected by a popular vote of the nobility, the aim
of the union was to prevent a split between the two states. Though the official
regulations made provision for a certain duality of the state apparatus—Polish
and Lithuanian—in practice the relationship was a complicated one in which a
strong tendency to be part of the Commonwealth with its privileges and oppor-
tunities was countered with (at times, very open) secessionist tendencies.2
It seems inadequate nowadays to talk about this political entity as ‘Pol-
ish’, though this practice was quite common.3 ‘Polish-Lithuanian’ is no better,
as the term is inadequate. Apart from the Poles and Lithuanians, there were
other ethnic groups living in both states as significant minorities—Ruthenians,
Jews, Germans, Tatars, Armenians and others. It was a multi-ethnic and multi-
cultural—including multi-religious—political entity that comprised the
present day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and adjacent territories that
now belong to neighbouring countries. The term ‘the Commonwealth’ will
be used in this article to refer to this political entity. Only the nobility—and
that was about 6.6–9% of the population—saw itself as citizens of the Com-
monwealth, though in terms of material status that group was very diverse—
from extremely rich landowners to those who lived almost like peasants.4 The
burgesses, especially from the cities of Royal Prussia—Gdańsk, Elbląg, Toruń—
tried to challenge the domination of the nobility but were unsuccessful as the
nobility jealously guarded their privileges. The nobility—very diverse ethni-
cally, culturally and religiously (during the 16th century about 20 % accepted
different forms of Protestantism)—underwent a process of homogenization
and Polonization from the late 16th until the mid-17th century. Various forces
were at play in this process but, from the religious perspective, the Counter-
Reformation movement played a significant role. Its representatives also con-
tributed highly to propagating the antemurale ideology and its anti-Turkish
twist with such increasing success on the theoretical-intellectual level (as
opposed to the practical, which resulted in facts countering the theoretical
claim) that a late 20th century foreign researcher could insist on attributing
2 N. Davies, God’s Playground. A History of Poland, New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. I
am using the Polish translation: Boże igrzysko. Historia Polski. Tom 1–2, Kraków: Znak, 1989.
3 Also on the grounds that the leading tone in the culture was expressed in Polish. For the effect
it had on the Muslim Tatar settlers see e.g. A. Konopacki, Życie religijne Tatarów na ziemiach
Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego w xvi–xix wieku [Religious life of the Tatars in the territories of
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 16–19th century], Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu
Warszawskiego, 2010, 55–57.
4 Davies, Boże igrzysko, i, 289.
228 grodź
Islamophobic feelings to the Commonwealth nobility, dismissing the contrary

opinion of one of the leading historians.5
This brings us to another terminological difficulty. In trying to focus on the
religious aspect of the contacts with Muslims, the problem of the relationship
between religion and politics comes to the fore. In our contemporary Western
perspective, where the distinction between ‘religious’ and ‘political’ seems to be
important, it is very difficult to talk about the realities of the 16th–17th centuries
when religion and politics were so entwined that, on the one hand, attempts
at separating them create a disfigured picture, and, on the other, ‘religious’ and
‘political’ were not entirely synonymous. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact
that the meaning of the words ‘religious’ and ‘political’ had been undergoing
often unnoticed changes. This means that a term—used at the beginning of
the article—‘Islam as a religion’ also requires some explanation. In using it I
intend to draw a distinction between the fact that in former times (as also now)
many people referred to the political entities inhabited mainly by Muslims
as ‘Islamic’, thus bringing to the fore the ‘religious’ aspect of the public life
and, in the situations of conflict, stressing the fact of ‘opposing Islam’, while
in fact not religious but political (socio-economic) interests were at play. These
‘opponents of Islam’ were (are) often almost completely uninterested in Islam
in its entirety, i.e. including the religious aspect, and had some false stereotype
as the representation of the Islam they were ‘opposing’. The vast majority of the
Commonwealth nobility knew hardly anything about the Islamic way of life.
The stereotype of a ‘Muslim’—created under the influences of the papal and
Habsburg propaganda6—was that of a ‘Turk’, and most literature called him ‘a
pagan’, ‘a bisurman’.7 The attitude towards the ‘Turk’ and his image underwent
various changes over the period.
The Framework of Encounters
Poland and Lithuania, ruled by the Jagiellonian dynasty, in the 15th century
had already encountered the forces of the growing Ottoman Empire. Though
5 M. Arafe, Świat arabski w piśmiennictwie polskim xix w. [The Arab World in the Polish writings
in the 19th century], Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 1994, 109.
6 H. Olszewski, ‘Ideologia Rzeczypospolitej—przedmurza chrześcijaństwa’ [Ideology of the
Commonwealth-bulwark of Christianity], Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne, 35/2 (1983) 1–19,
p. 7.
7 Kopański indicated that it was a mispronounced word Musulman borrowed from the Wal-
lachians. ‘Znajomość państwa tureckiego’, 225.
it was becoming obvious that the expansion of both states into the region
north-west of the Black Sea would bring them eventually into a collision course,
the encounters started in a peaceful way with the signing of a treaty. When
Jagiełło’s son, Ladislaus iii also became the king of Hungary and got himself
involved in an anti-Ottoman coalition, his disastrous defeat near Varna in 1444
was interpreted in Poland as the punishment for breaking the peace treaty his
father had signed with the Ottomans.8
King Jan Olbracht, in 1497, led another disastrous military campaign to
Bukovina against the Moldovan hospodar (lord). The latter’s forces, with the
help of the Ottoman troops, managed to decimate the king’s army which sent
a strong signal to the Polish nobility—‘Do not fall foul of the Turks!’ King Sigis-
mund i the Old and his successor Sigismund Augustus (the last Jagiellonian
monarch) were very cautious in their relations with the Ottoman Empire and
tried to maintain peaceful relations in spite of occasional interventions in Wal-
lachia and Moldova. This was during the times when the Turks were making
continuous incursions into the Balkans and some of the popes still took steps
to organise Christian alliances against the Ottomans. Sigismund i not only dis-
entangled himself from the problems of his Jagiellonian relatives on the Czech
and Hungarian thrones (King Louis, who was killed at Mohacs, was his nephew)
but also requested from the pope an exemption from paying the tribute to the
Holy See on account of his kingdom fighting the enemies of Christianity in the
east.9
The notion of being on the frontier between different worlds had been
present among the Polish nobles long before their encounter with the Otto-
mans. However, contrary to those who insisted on seeing the Commonwealth
as antemurale Christianitatis against Islam, historians have effectively demon-
strated that the notion of what was actually defended and against whom, was
undergoing constant reformulations.10
8 Because the campaign was undertaken on the instigation of the papal envoy, its long-
lasting side-effect later appeared as a certain reserve on the part of some of the nobility
towards the anti-Turkish appeals from the pope. The Protestants used the Varna defeat
in their debates with the Catholics as an example of what happens to people who listen
unreservedly to the pope.
9 That actually referred to the Orthodox Muscovites who were considered to be outside
‘Christian Europe’.
10 There are several works on the issue but the most comprehensive one is: J. Tazbir, Pol-
skie przedmurze chrześcijańskiej Europy. Mity a rzeczywistość, rzeczywistość [Polish ante-
murale of the Christian Europe. Myths and reality], Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Interpress,
1987.
230 grodź
Since in the first half of the 16th century, i.e. in the times of Mohacs and
the first siege of Vienna, the Polish Jagiellonians stood back and refrained from
helping their southern Christian neighbours, the Ottoman incursion must have
been perceived as something other than an ‘Islamic onslaught on the Chris-
tian lands’ (even if we can find publications from the era advocating such a
perception). The growing Ottoman power was watched with increasing con-
cern but, in spite of the first anti-Turkish speeches and pamphlets appearing
in the Commonwealth, no military action was undertaken. Contacts with the
Turks seemed to be first analysed in a political perspective that was not sea-
soned with ideological religious views.11 If there was an ideological trait, then
it was more political in character as, during the first two royal elections (of
Henry de Valois in 1573 and Stephen Batory in 1575), the possible relationship
with the Ottomans was taken into account. Also, a Habsburg candidate was
always rejected on the basis that he would be more likely to involve the Com-
monwealth (his new kingdom) in a war with the Ottomans.12 So, if any (self-)
perception of the Commonwealth as antemurale Christianitatis could be advo-
cated, then that antemurale had a defensive character and was not considered
as a ‘missionary outpost’.
Though the contacts with the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and especially in
the 17th century were prolific, the religious dimension—though present and
acknowledged—was marginal. The Ottoman Empire was treated as a politi-
cal entity and seen as a player in the power game—not as an ideologically
(religiously) different power that posed a total threat. That was despite a grow-
ing trend by an increasing number of the nobility of seeing the Common-
wealth as antemurale Christianitatis. There were numerous examples of that
‘political’ approach that seemed devoid of religious undertones. The reluc-
tance of Sigismund i and his son, through the almost seven decades of their
11 J. Bartoszewicz, Pogląd na stosunki Polski z Turcją i Tatarami. Na dzieje Tatarów w Polsce

osiadłych, na przywileje tu im nadane, jako też wspomnienia o znakomitych Tatarach pol-
skich [A view on the relationship between Poland and Turkey and the Tatars. On the
historiography of the Tatars settled in Poland, on the privileges given to them there,
and also memoirs about the prominent Polish Tatars], Warsaw, 1859, p. 52. Quoted also
by L. Bazylow, ‘Polsko-tureckie powiązania dyplomatyczne w xvi wieku wieku’ [Polish-
Turkish diplomatic links in the 16th century], Przegląd Humanistyczny, 20 (1976), no. 5
(128), 1–13, p. 6.
12 There was also another strong discriminatory reason—a Habsburg was suspected of
introducing autocratic methods of governing the country and limiting the freedom of
the nobility. Because many did not actually believe that the Ottomans would conquer
and subdue the Commonwealth, the threat was distant, while the dangers brought by a
possible Habsburg royal candidate seemed more real. Tazbir, Polskie przedmurze, 31, 38.
rule, to engage in openly anti-Turkish military endeavours has already been

mentioned. Their decision was in accordance with the will of the majority of
the nobility expressed during the Parliament sessions. In spite of anti-Turkish
speeches and tracts that began to proliferate in the 16th century,13 the Ottomans
were treated as power-game players and approached according to the current
political situation. For example, in 1552 the rulers of the Commonwealth were
probing the Tatar Khan on a possible alliance against the Muscovites. The same
proposition was presented to the Sultan Suleiman in 1555 by the Polish envoy
Mikołaj Brzeski. The sultan did not take it up as he was more interested in
preparations for war against Emperor Maximilian. However, he tried to respond
to the offer in 1559 negotiating a safe passage for his army going against the
Duchy of Moscow. The negotiations conducted by the Ottoman envoy Ibrahim
Beg (a Polish convert to Islam—Joachim Strasz) ended without success but
religious differences were not the issue.14 The Crimean Tatars gave some mili-
tary support to the Commonwealth in its wars against the Muscovites, Swedes,
Brandenburgians and Transylvanians in the mid-1650s.15 In 1676–1678, dur-
ing the reign of Jan Sobieski, the rulers of the Commonwealth—due to the
precariousness of the kingdom’s situation—considered entering into alliance
with the Ottomans against all the other enemies of the kingdom.16 The fact
that instances like these did happen indicates that there was no ‘religious-
ideological’ war or confrontation going on between the Commonwealth and
the Ottoman Empire.
Knowledge about Islam
A striking lack of interest in Islam as a religion can be detected among the

writers of the 16th–17th century. Getting to know one’s adversary (enemy)
should include obtaining all relevant and reliable information (also about his
religion). Meanwhile, the earliest works contain information on the military
power of the Ottomans with very little interest expressed in what the Turks
believed.17
When we take a closer look at what the Commonwealth nobility actually
knew about Islam and what the sources of their knowledge were, it may be
13 About 30 appeared in the 16th century. Kopański, ‘Znajomość państwa tureckiego’, 222.
14 Tazbir, Polskie przedmurze, 31–32.
15 Tazbir, Polskie przedmurze, 66–67.
16 J. Tazbir, Rzeczpospolita i świat. Studia z dziejów kultury xvii wieku, Wrocław, 1971, 75.
17 It began with Philip Callimach Buonacorsi in the late 15th century.
232 grodź
difficult to conceal a reaction of surprise. Given the geographical proximity, fre-

quency of contacts and apparently increasingly prominent place of the notion
of the bulwark of Christianity in the perception of their state, the nobility had
very limited sources of knowledge about Islam. ‘Memoirs of a janissary’, a late
15th century work by Konstantin Michailović, a Serbian who defected to the
Christian side after serving eight years in the Ottoman army, was one.18 The
first seven chapters in the ‘Memoirs’ contain information about the religion
of Islam. Coming from someone considered as an insider (though for a lim-
ited period of time), it must have had an aura of credibility. Yet, the informa-
tion provided by Konstantin is distorted showing that the author had a very
superficial knowledge about religious matters. The ‘Memoirs’ circulated only
in manuscript form, but the number of extant copies shows that it must have
been widely known. It was also used and paraphrased by other authors.19 The
presentation of Islam does not seem to be the main purpose of the book. It
focuses on description of the military power of the Ottomans and the cur-
rent (or recent) events. That view maybe upheld when we consider that even
Samuel Otwinowski (died after 1650), one of the few members of the nobility
known for his fascination with Islamic culture, in his edition (or rather rear-
rangement) of the ‘Memoirs’, left out the first seven chapters, and the eighth
one—about Ottoman justice—he moved to a position after the description of
the Ottoman state and its military power.20
Works by another southern Slav, Bartholomaeo Georgius, also seem to have
been very popular in the 16th–17th centuries.21 However, his interest in De
origine Turcarum and De Turcam moribus epitome seemed to focus mainly
on the situation of the Christians under Muslim rule. He also bemoans the
discord among the Christian rulers and the lack of a unified front against
the Ottomans. The part of the work that touches on the religious aspect of
18 Pamiętniki janczara [Memoirs of a janissary], ed. J. Łoś, Kraków, 1912; G. Veinstein, ‘Kon-
stantin Mihailović’, in D. Thomas and A. Mallett (eds), Bibliographical History of Christian-
Muslim Relations 1350–1500, Vol. 5, Brill: Leiden, 2013, 603–608.
19 Information from the ‘Memoirs’ was used in the M. Stryjkowski/A. Gwagnin’s chronicle.
Kopański, ‘Znajomość państwa tureckiego’, 223.
20 Baranowski, Znajomość Wschodu, 93–96. Baranowski assumes that Otwinowski did that
with the awareness that the chapters on the religion of Islam contained distorted infor-
mation.
21 His name appears in the European literature in various forms—Bartol Đurđević, Gjor-
gevic, Jurjević, Georgijević, Georgievitz, Georgiewicz. A. Höfert, ‘Bartholomaeo Georgius’,
in D. Thomas and J. Chesworth (eds), Bibliographical History of Christian-Muslim Relations
1500–1600, Vol. 7, Leiden: Brill, 2015, 321–330.
Islam presents Muḥammad (Machomet) as a miracle worker. (Georgius does

not distinguish between Qurʾanic material, Muslim tradition and legendary
information.) It presents aspects of Islam immediately in a polemical context
in the form of a discussion between a Christian and a Muslim, in which the
Christian obviously takes the upper hand. The issues raised belong to the
standard list—the Trinity, the status of Jesus. The author also presented a
curious interpretation of basmallah. Using a Turkish mispronunciation of the
Arabic words that slightly alters them, he tried to prove that the real meaning
of the basmallah was Trinitarian—in line with the words uttered when making
the sign of the cross.22
The information contained in the chronicles was rather incidental. Miecho-
wita states that the Tatars believe in Muḥammad, and accept the books and the
Law of Moses.23 Only very scanty information drawn from secondary sources
is provided in the chronicles by Bielski and Stryjkowski/Gwagnin. The infor-
mation about Muḥammad is a mixture of facts and legendary material.24 The
already mentioned curious Trinitarian interpretation of basmallah is repeated.
Most of the descriptions, even those without derogatory terms, like the one
about customs performed in connection with conversions, bear traits of dislike
for Islam.25
22 In the section called ‘Mysterium Sanctae Trinitatis Arabice’ he explains that ‘bi = in’,
‘sem = nomen, quasi dicat: in nomine. Allache = Dei. El Rahmane = misericordiae. El
Ruoahim = spiritus eorum’ and interprets ‘misericordiae’ as the second person of the
Trinity. That motif was later repeated by other writers—Stryjkowski/Gwagnin, T. Rutka,
M. Wieczorkowski. See J. Nosowski, Polska literatura polemiczno-antyislamistyczna. xvi,
xvii i xviii w. Wybór tekstów i komentarze [Polish polemical and anti-Islamic literature.
16th, 17th and 18th century. Selected texts and commentaries], vol. 1, Warsaw: Akademia
Teologii Katolickiej, 1974, 48–66.
23 It should be underlined that though the information on Islam he provided was quite inad-
equate, he was not judgmental in his statements. M. Miechowita, Tractatus de duabus
Sarmatiis, Asiana et Europiana et de contentis in eis, see: Opis Sarmacji Azjatyckiej i Europe-
jskiej oraz tego, co się w nich znajduje, transl. T. Bieńkowski, Wrocław, 1972 (edition based
on the 1521 one). A. Konopacki, ‘Maciej z Miechowa’, in D. Thomas and J. Chesworth (eds),
Bibliographical History of Christian-Muslim Relations 1500–1600, Vol. 7, Leiden: Brill, 2015,
65–70.
24 E.g. Muḥammad’s mother was a Jewish woman, Muḥammad upheld an old Arabic solar
cult, etc. Nosowski, Polska literatura polemiczno-antyislamistyczna, vol. 1, 150–151. For a
short description of the contents of Marcin Bielski’s chronicle: S. Grodź, ‘Marcin Bielski’,
in D. Thomas and J. Chesworth (eds), Bibliographical History of Christian-Muslim Relations
1500–1600, Vol. 7, Leiden: Brill, 2015, 393–403.
25 Nosowski, Polska literatura polemiczno-antyislamistyczna, vol. 1., 144–161.
234 grodź
More substantial works were published only at the end of the 17th century;
by then the ‘Turkish issue’ was quickly losing its relevance. Teofil Rutka, a
Jesuit, translated works by Michael Nau, Tirso de Santanella Gonzalez and
Philip Gwanadoli, apparently in order to fill in the gap in the Polish literature
on Islam but these works were polemical and missionary in character.26 Even
the highly polemical Alfurkan tatarski (published in Vilnius in 1616–1617) does
not deal with doctrinal, theological problems but concentrates on the social
issues—e.g. the behaviour and attitude of the Tatar Muslim settlers to their
non-Muslim neighbours, the fact that Muslims are allowed to marry Christian
women and keep Christian slaves (peasants and captives). The author accuses
them of perjury and treachery because they are pagans who do not know
one true God and his commandments. Explaining why the Muslims pray on
Fridays, the author resorts to legends and concludes that the practice comes
from the fact that the heathens always have their own gods whom they worship
and Muḥammad decided to choose Friday to honour the goddess Venus. The
description of Muḥammad’s mystical journey to heaven is tendentious and
presented as an unreliable fantasy.27
The proximity of the Turks resulted in the fact that Islam was seen as ‘the
Turkish religion’ and ‘Turk’ became a synonym for Muslim. That perception
became dominant despite that fact that Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł, in his
account of the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Egypt, described the ethnic
diversity of the inhabitants of these lands. Critics underlined the fact that his
descriptions were ethnographic in character and quite objective. His Peregry-
nacja was published in Latin and in Polish and apparently was quite widely
read. Yet, Radziwiłł himself referred to the Muslims as ‘Turks’ from time to
time.28
There were a number of individuals who seemed to be interested in Mus-
lim culture, including its religious aspect, but apparently their works were not
26 M. Nau, Fides Catholica contra Alcoranum, Paris, 1680 translated as: Wiara chrześcijańska
przeciwko Alkoranowi przez Alkoran spokojnie obrobiona y utwierdzona, Poznań, 1697; T. de
Santanella Gonzalez, Manduction ad conversionem Mahometanorum, Dillingen, 1680
translated as Rękoprowadzenie do nawrócenia mahometanów, Lwów, 1694; P. Gwadagnolli,
Apologia pro Christiana religione …, Rome, 1634 translated as Alkoran na wywrócenie wiary
chrześcijańskiej od Machometa spisany, s.l., 1699.
27 P. Czyżewski, Alfurkan tatarski prawdziwy na czterdzieści części rozdzielony [True Tatar
Alfurkan divided into fourty parts], ed. A. Konopacki, Białystok, 2013, 137, 155–160. See also:
Nosowski, Polska literatura polemiczno-antyislamistyczna, vol. 1, 351–368.
28 M.K. Radziwiłł, Podróż do Ziemi Świętej, Syrii i Egiptu 1582–1584 [Journey to the Holy Land,
Syria and Egypt, 1582–1584], L. Kukulski (ed.), Warsaw, 1962.
published in the 16th–17th centuries, e.g. the translation of Saadi’s Gulistan by

Samuel Otwinowski (though probably from a Turkish translation).29 It seems,
then, that their impact on the general public was marginal. It should be added
that the image of the Turk acquired definitely negative traits only in the 17th
century when direct conflict broke out. Before that, however, the Polish authors
acknowledged some aspects of the Ottoman characteristics considered as posi-
tive, like respect for order and justice, also the possibility of social advancement
(in contrast to the Commonwealth situation where position in the social struc-
ture was determined by birth).30 In spite of these fluctuations of sympathy and
antipathy there seemed to be present in the mutual perception a certain admi-
ration and appreciation of bravery and fortitude.31
Application of the Knowledge about Islam
All that knowledge was applied in anti-Turkish literature and intra-Christian

debates. The acclaimed Turcyki (anti-Turkish speeches and tracts) did not
provide any serious knowledge about Islam. After all their purpose was to
frighten the addressees and mobilise them against the ‘Turkish threat’. That was
attained by two stereotypical images—of the ‘ferocious Turk’, the invader and
destructor, and the threat of the Ottoman absolutism that would abolish the
‘golden freedom’ the Commonwealth gentry cherished and defended so much.
This type of publication appeared throughout the whole period, though mostly
in the 17th century.32
29 Baranowski, Znajomość Wschodu, 97–102. There are references to at least two lost trans-
lations of the Qurʾan. Nosowski, Polska literatura polemiczno-antyislamistyczna, vol. 2,
311–312.
30 M. Bogucka, ‘Szlachta polska wobec Wschodu turecko-tatarskiego: między fascynacją a
przerażeniem (xvi–xviii w.)’ [Polish nobility with regard to the Turco-Tatar East: between
fascination and terror (16–18th centuries)], Śląski kwartalnik historyczny Sobótka, 37 (1982),
185–193, p. 187.
31 The authors indicate for example the fact that Jan Sobieski after the victory at Chocim in
1673 expressed admiration for the bravery of the Ottoman army, or that after a treaty was
signed in Żurawno in 1676 the Ottoman and Tatar soldiers were apparently fraternizing
with the soldiers from the Commonwealth war camp. Bogucka, ‘Szlachta polska’, 192.
32 Anti-Turkish motifs had been used already in the renaissance poetry at the end of the 15th
century. See e.g. J. Nowak-Dłużewski, Okolicznościowa poezja polityczna w Polsce. Czasy
Zygmuntowskie [Occasional political poetry in Poland. The times of Sigismunds], Warsaw:
Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1966, 93–120.
236 grodź
Though that type of view was increasingly upheld and promoted by Catholic
preachers (especially within Counter-Reformation circles), the majority of the
nobility opposed any direct action against the Ottomans, suspecting that it
could bring disaster for the Commonwealth. (Hungary was the significant
example.) Besides, since the military confrontation with the Ottoman forces
was more in the interest of the Habsburgs than the Commonwealth, the calls
to action against the Turks bore the stigma of pro-Habsburg sympathies, very
unpopular with the majority of the nobility.33 Even when Islam was described
it was presented as something very alien, distant, part and parcel of a different
social and political system.
Actions that bore resemblance to the ideological attacks were undertaken
only within the internal forum of the state, and even then they were directed
against very specific groups of people (factions of the nobility), and not against
Islam as such—the Tatar Muslims were often left untroubled. The Unitarians
(the Socinians, the Polish Brethren) especially were accused of sympathising
with Islam and the Muslims. There is a lack of extant materials to provide infor-
mation about all the factors that were at play in that context.34 The accusation
might not have been totally groundless as we know that Marcin Lubieniecki,
a member of a Unitarian family and one of the few youngsters sent to Istan-
bul to learn the language, with the prospect of working in the Commonwealth
chancery as an interpreter, after his return home caused a stir by proclaiming
that Islam was the new and improved version of Christianity. The negative reac-
tion to his views caused him not to press the matter further.35
33 Tazbir upheld Babinger’s view that most of that literature was commissioned and paid for
by pro-Habsburg lobbies and not written out of the sincere convictions of their authors.
Polskie przedmurze, 44–45.
34 At least two works written in the period bear witness to this—H. Bieliński compared the
teachings of the Unitarians to Islam in 1595; then Marcin Łaszcz, a Jesuit writer, published
a work Messiasz nowych arianów wedle alkoranu Tureckiego [Messiah of the new Arians
according the Turkish alkoran] in Kraków in 1612. The subtitle is more indicative as it
states: ‘… that Mr Moskorzewski and his Arians believe in such a Christ as Machomet in
the Turkish Alkoran, and understand the Scripture the way Machomet did’. Baranowski,
Znajomość Wschodu, 178. ftn 9; Nosowski states that the copies of Łaszcz’s work are lost
(Polska literatura polemiczno-antyislamistyczna, vol. 2, 182–183).
35 Baranowski, Znajomość Wschodu, 73–74. Though in Baranowski’s view the accusations
were groundless.
Reasons for the Lack of Interest in Islam
Although the Muslim Tatars made very frequent raids on the south-eastern
territories of the Commonwealth (the present day Ukraine), and although the
17th century was marked by military conflicts with the Ottomans, Islam never
seemed to be attractive to the inhabitants of the Commonwealth. Sharpening
the focus and trying to enumerate the reasons for the lack of interest in Islam,
we could point to the following matters: 1/ Islam was considered as a ‘pagan’
religion; 2/ the nobility had a strong sense of belonging to the ‘Christian world’
whilst leaving the non-Christians a space to live; 3/ Islam was seen as ‘an
element of a foreign socio-political system’ that was incompatible with the way
the Commonwealth was organised and governed.
The Tatars were increasingly a real challenge from the mid-13th century.
Their raids posed a serious threat but, as time passed, they were treated more as
‘natural disasters’ than in fear of a foreign invasion. As neighbours, the Tatars
were dangerous and a nuisance but hardly ever considered as a cultural (or
religious) threat. They were ‘pagans’ and their Islamisation did not seem to
change that. In fact, it might have had a negative effect on how Islam was
viewed in the eyes of the Polish and Lithuanian nobility, as the Tatars (and
also later their Ottoman patrons) were still called the same—‘the pagans’ (the
bisurmans).36 Thus, in religious terms, Islam was classified as a ‘pagan’ religion.
Given the popular association of being Christian with ‘advancement’, such a
classification did not make Islam appealing to the Christian inhabitants of the
Commonwealth.
Participation in the ‘Christian civilisation’ was unquestioned and historians
showed evidence that the medieval notion of a Christian Europe as a cultural
unity was upheld among the Commonwealth nobility long after the concept
(not to say the reality behind it) was abandoned in the western part of the con-
tinent.37 In spite of the strong feeling of belonging to the ‘Christian fold’, cultural
influences and borrowings from the Tatar and Ottoman world were strong and
numerous. They included military equipment and tactics, culinary tastes, inte-
rior design and the way people dressed. All these influences were reflected in
the language with borrowed (and Polonised) words. Literary and religious mat-
ters were left out.38 A few members of the nobility who visited the Ottoman
36 The distorted Persian term that reached the Poles through the Turks and the Wallachians
had stronger connotations with the ‘pagan’ and eventually signified also a person who
misbehaved, was wild, troublesome.
37 Tazbir, Polskie przedmurze, 60.
38 In the 17th century the Ottoman influences in dress and hairstyles increased to such a
238 grodź
Empire as royal envoys or as members of their entourage displayed an interest

in the cultural heritage of the Muslim world but—as already mentioned—their
interests failed to become popular.
Though Christianity came to the Poles, and later to the Lithuanians, in its
Latin Catholic form, the eastern and south-eastern parts of both countries
were inhabited by Orthodox Christians. There were also Jewish and Muslim
minorities, the latter composed of Tatar refugees and prisoners of war settled
in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the late 14th century with subsequent
new-comers. Though the hierarchy of the Catholic Church played important
roles in the state administration, the Catholic Church did not dominate the
scene until the second part of the 17th century.39 Because the need for church
reforms had already been felt in the 15th century the ideas brought about by
Reformation fell on rich soil. During the second part of the 16th century about
20% of the nobles adhered to various Protestant churches and groups. So, it was
not the case that the nobles were uninterested in religious innovations—even
the novelties coming from the regions that were considered as being inhabited
by not particularly friendly people. In terms of adherence to religious groups
the country became very diverse, yet Islam was not considered as appealing.
On the other hand, the openness towards religious diversity—especially
during the 16th century—was such that it was almost obvious that other reli-
gious groups, like Armenians or Jews, or even Muslim Tatars, needed their own
religious infrastructure. Provision was made for that and religious communi-
ties were assisted in, for example, constructing places of worship (including
mosques for the Tatars). Tatar Muslim communities were left untroubled even
during the most intense fighting with the Ottomans. Their loyalty to their Chris-
tian patrons and the king was almost taken for granted.40 Tatar cavalry units
point that the Polish 16th century descriptions of the Turks (like that by S. Orzechowski,
in which he ridiculed them) lost their differentiating character. Bogucka, ‘Szlachta polska’,
189.
39 The act of the Warsaw Confederation of 1573 guaranteeing freedom of religion to all the
nobility was signed and promulgated by the rulers of the Commonwealth despite the
objection of the majority of the Catholic bishops. For more on this see: Davies, Boże
igrzysko; J. Tazbir, A state without stakes. Polish religious toleration in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, New York: The Kościuszko Foundation, 1973, 90–97.
40 There were mutinous actions on the part of some Tatar regiments (e.g. the so called Lipka
mutiny in 1672) but the reasons for these were rather mundane and some of the muti-
neers were later pardoned and readmitted into the Commonwealth service. S. Kryczyński,
Tatarzy litewscy. Próba monografii historyczno-etnograficznej, 2nd ed., Gdańsk, 2000,
pp. 24–25.
were used in retaliatory action against the Prussian Prince Elector who, as a
Polish vassal, sided with the Swedes in 1655–1656. King Jan Sobieski used the
Tatar cavalry against the Ottoman army at Chocim (1673) and during the Vienna
campaign (1683).
In general, people knew that the Turks and Tatars were of a different religion.
That religion was, however, considered as an element of a foreign system that
was totally incompatible with the one operating in the Commonwealth. The
initial surprise and certain fascination with the discovery of the possibilities
for social advancement in the Ottoman Empire gave way to the growing fear
of the authoritarian rule of the monarch. The golden freedom that the nobility
gained gradually from the mid-16th century contributed to the perception of
the Ottoman state as totally authoritarian (that also applied to all the other
neighbouring countries). This led to seeing the inhabitants of these states as
enslaved while the Commonwealth was the country of free people (that, of
course, applied only to the nobility).41 Thus it must have been unthinkable to
become a Muslim and still stay in the Commonwealth. Yet, at the same time,
Islam was not perceived as a threat since the Muslim Tatars, settled in the
eastern parts of the Commonwealth, were helped to establish their religious
infrastructure and could marry Christians (the 1616 ban on marrying Christian
women was not adhered to everywhere).42
There was hardly any significant effort to run a missionary-proselytizing
action to the Turks, Tatars, and others.43 That reluctance had a background in
the struggle with the Teutonic Knights and in a conviction that it was good to be
a Christian and belong to the Christian world but that an individual’s decision
could not be forced in any way. Probably the Reformation ideas strengthened
the conviction about an individual’s free choice in matters of religion. The
Warsaw confederation (1573) did not restrict the number of accepted religions
in the country and the right to practice the religion of one’s choice belonged
to the concept of the ‘golden freedom’ cherished and defended by the nobility.
The later restrictions and growing intolerance resulted from the 17th century’s
bitter experiences of wars and treason.
People did convert to Islam for different motives—there were those who
were captured as children and raised as Muslims (though they were old enough
41 Tazbir, Rzeczpospolita i świat, 71; Bogucka, ‘Szlachta polska’, 189.

42 J. Tyszkiewicz, Tatarzy na Litwie i w Polsce. Studia z dziejów xiii–xviii w. [The Tatars in
Lithuania and Poland. Studies in history 13–18th centuries], Warsaw: pwn, 1989, 289.
43 Tyszkiewicz, Tatarzy na Litwie, 296–297. Davies (Boże igrzysko, 233) underlined that mil-
itancy displayed in the 17th century was only the very outer ‘superficial’ layer of Polish
Catholicism.
240 grodź
to remember their Christian background); then there were those who con-
verted as captives in order to ameliorate their situation, having no prospect
of getting their freedom; and finally there were those who converted for bet-
ter prospects or as fugitives from justice in the Commonwealth.44 The first two
categories were looked upon with a certain pity. The third group was treated,
if not with contempt, then with some kind of dismissive indifference. How-
ever, those who rose to power in the Ottoman system could earn respect (e.g.
Ibrahim bey—Joachim Strasz).45 All in all, I have not come across any informa-
tion that would present conversions to Islam as a socially acceptable fact in the
Commonwealth. This was not because the nobility was so attached to Catholi-
cism, or Orthodoxy. During the 16th century quite a number of the gentry from
both religious strands had accepted various Protestant versions of Christianity.
Even though the Catholic Counter-Reformation movement eventually attained
its goal in sidelining the ‘religiously other’ members of the nobility in the pub-
lic life of the country (this was due to a number of political and social causes),
the ‘religiously other’ still held many important public offices for a number of
decades. In addition, it may also be important to remember that most of the
actions against the non-Catholics targeted mainly the nobility, while leaving
the others alone. Tazbir quoted one of the voices heard in 1613 underlining the
fact that neither the Jews nor the Tatar Muslims did any harm to the Catholic
faith, as for many centuries no one converted to Judaism or Islam, while the
Protestants keep ‘stealing souls’ from the Catholic fold.46
Conclusion
Although the history of the Commonwealth records: 1/ a lengthy period of con-

tact with the Muslim Tatars and the Ottoman Empire, and although 2/ the reli-
gious Catholic Counter-Reformation propaganda did use the concept of ante-
murale Christianitatis, and though 3/ the popular imagination was increasingly
fed with notions and images of struggles with the Tatars and Turks, the religious
44 Kopański, ‘Znajomość państwa tureckiego’, 226, refers also to those—especially in the

earlier times—who converted in order get back their captured family members.
45 Bogucka (‘Szlachta polska’, 191) refers to the work of the early 17th century poet Samuel
Twardowski who pities the youngsters from the nobility who entered the service of the
Turks but he neither condemned them nor showed them disrespect.
46 J. Tazbir, ‘Problem nietolerancji religijnej w Polsce xvi i xvii wieku’ [The problem of
religious intolerance in Poland in 16th and 17th centuries], Przegląd humanistyczny, 19
(1975), no. 2 (113), 1–19, p. 14.
aspect of these encounters with the south-eastern neighbours of the Common-

wealth was rather marginal, i.e. seeing them as Christian-Muslim encounters
would be to grossly exaggerate their significance. Islam was an (almost) redun-
dant element in the contacts with the Tatars and Turks. The word ‘almost’ is
needed here for two reasons: 1/ because there was certainly a basic awareness
of the religious differences; 2/ the false stereotype of Islam served as a rallying
call to close ranks and tighten the sense of a (class) identity. Religiously—both
as a possible challenge and/or religious alternative to Christianity—Islam was
irrelevant for the Commonwealth nobility.
chapter 15
(In)tolerant Ottomans: Polemic, Perspective

and the Reading of Primary Sources
Claire Norton
‘He impales on fence posts, flays, burns, boils, hangs, and drowns the
saints of God, Shedding innocent blood without measure or restraint’.1
∵
Introduction
The quote at the beginning of this article epitomizes the view of many early
modern writers that the Ottomans were driven by a merciless desire to expand
the dār al-Islām and in the process eradicate or convert all non-Muslims they
encountered. That such persecution was not limited solely to non-Muslim com-
munities that they conquered, but also extended to non-Muslims resident in
the Ottoman Empire is evident in the title of a sub-section of John Cartwright’s
The Preacher’s Travels: ‘[t]he Miserable thralldom of the Christians under the
Turkish tyranny’.2 In a wide variety of texts including histories, travel and cap-
tivity narratives, polemical tracts, sermons, and plays, the Ottoman Empire is
presented as a place of untold misery and oppression for non-Muslims, who are
subject to forcible conversion, excessive taxation, random acts of brutality, and
are prevented from freely practising their religion.3
1 Heinrich Knaust, Von geringe herkommen, schentlichen leben, schmehlichen ende, des Türck-
ischen Abgots Mahomets […] [a1]–a2, quoted in John W. Bohnstedt, ‘The Infidel Scourge of
God: The Turkish Menace as seen by German Pamphleteers of the Reformation Era’, Transac-
tions of the American Philosophical Society, 58/9 (1968), 3–40, 19, n. 4.
2 Title of a section from John Cartwright, The Preacher’s Travels, London: Printed for Thomas
Thorpe, 1611, extracts included in Kenneth Parker (ed.) Early Modern Tales of Orient: A Critical
Anthology, London: Routledge, 1999, 106–127, 118–121. See also William Lithgow, The Rare
Adventures and Painful Peregrinations of William Lithgow, edited by Gilbert Phelps. London:
The Folio Society, 1974, 95, for the ‘Turks’ oppression of their Christian subjects.
3 See the extracts from various captivity narratives in Daniel Vitkus (ed.), Piracy, Slavery, and

(in)tolerant ottomans 243
Yet, there is abundant evidence in early modern primary sources and con-
temporary secondary sources that non-Muslim Ottomans were accorded free-
dom of worship in their own churches and synagogues, and significant intra-
communal economic, administrative, and judicial autonomy. While the degree
of religious tolerance practised by the Ottomans might not match some twenty-
first century expectations, it certainly exceeded that of early modern Europe.
Despite this overwhelming evidence of Ottoman state toleration towards its
non-Muslim subjects, the perception of Ottoman cruelty and intolerance is per-
petuated in the work of some modern historians, journalists and polemicists.
For example, the Habsburg historian Paula Fichtner, in her work on Habsburg
representations of the Ottoman Empire, conflates Ottoman imperial and terri-
torial expansionist ambitions with a desire for religious domination, and there-
fore interprets all Ottoman official state rhetoric accordingly, without analysing
the various functions such pronouncements were intended to serve, nor assess-
ing the degree to which they reflected and cohered with actual Ottoman prac-
tices and motivations. She encourages readers to position the Ottomans as
early modern precursors to twenty-first century Islamists—reactionary, funda-
mentalist militants determined to destroy Christianity—a position that is rein-
forced by her discussion, in the introduction to the book, of the 2001 Septem-
ber 11 attacks on America.4
Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England, New York: Columbia
University Press, 2001, and the sermon by William Gouge, dd, Minister in Blackfriars, A
Recovery from Apostacy. Set out in a Sermon Preached in Stepney Church neere London at
the receiving of a Penitent Renegado into the Church, Octob.21.1638 for examples of forced or
coerced conversion to Islam. For examples of general brutality see Cartwright, The Preacher’s
Travels and examples of Türkenbüchlein in Bohnstedt, ‘The Infidel Scourge’. Nabil Matar, Islam
in Britain 1558–1685, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 56 notes that a number
of plays and histories (George Sandys, A Relation of a Journey Begun An: Dom: 1610: Foure
books (1615) and Bartholomeus Georgievits, The Ofspring of the house of Ottomanno, and
officers pertaining to the great Turkes Court trans. Hugh Goughe (1570)) make reference to
Christians in the Ottoman Empire having to convert to avoid punishment for blaspheming the
Prophet, to save their life or to avoid a debt. Matar in Britain and Barbary 1589–1689, Gainsville:
University Press of Florida, 2005, chapter 1 explores the representation of the Moor and North
Africa in early modern English plays. Matthew Dimmock, New Turkes: Dramatizing Islam
and the Ottomans in Early Modern England, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005 discusses the changing
representation of the Ottomans and Islam in sixteenth century English drama.
4 Paula Sutter Fichtner, Terror and Toleration. The Habsburg Empire Confronts Islam, 1526–1850
London: Reaktion Books, 2008. For a more in-depth analysis of this work see my review article
Norton, ‘Terror and Toleration, East and West, Despotic and Free: dichotomous narratives and
representations of Islam’ review article, Holy Land Studies 7/2 (2008), 221–228.
244 norton
Diane Moczar’s Islam at the Gates: How Christendom Defeated the Ottoman
Turks is indicative of a more religiously polemical, less scholarly genre of writ-
ing about the Ottoman Empire. Her work is framed by a concern that a ‘new
Islamic offensive is coming’ and that if nothing is done the West will be subject
to ‘Muslim domination’.5 Within this framework she narrates a history of the
Ottomans that repeatedly presents them as actively repressing non-Muslims
and trying to destroy their faith.6 The trope of Ottoman intolerance is also often
found in the work of Eurocentric historians: Mansfield comments that non-
Muslims ‘lacked any political power within the structure of the empire, and
they were not allowed to join the army or the civil service’.7
In this chapter I will argue that just as negative early modern depictions
of the Ottomans fulfilled specific, often polemical, functions, more modern
narrations are equally based upon readings of the extant primary sources that
are informed by specific metanarratives in which Islamic states and cultures
fulfil a particular role or function. As such, this essay has a historiographical,
rather than a historical focus. While I will summarise the key arguments for
Ottoman tolerance articulated by Ottoman scholars, I am mainly interested in
exploring how a specific primary source can be read in diametrically opposite
ways and used as evidence for radically different views depending on the wider
interpretative framework within which it is read.
Religious Freedom
The Ottoman administration acted in accordance with Islamic precedent

regarding the religious rights of their non-Muslim subjects. Under Islamic law,
5 Diane Moczar, Islam at the Gates: How Christendom Defeated the Ottoman Turks, New Hamp-
shire, Sophia Institute Press, 2008, 226.
6 Moczar, Islam at the Gates, 3 for her claim that monks had to secretly teach children Christian-
ity and Greek; 15 for her assertion that non-Muslims ‘should be so humiliated that whoever
saw them would know they were unbelievers’ and 37–40 for her negative appraisal of the
devşirme system as a ‘cruel system’ of atrocities where the Ottoman kidnappers seized and
converted young boys, isolated them from all Christian contacts, and possibly raped them.
Her conclusion 222–226 is a particularly hysterical and rather unpleasant response to the
presence of Muslims in western European states.
7 Peter Mansfield, A History of the Middle East 2nd ed. London: Penguin, 2003, 29; Eric Jones, The
European Miracle: environments, economies and geopolitics in the history of Europe and Asia,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 3rd edn, 186 comments that ‘Christian subjects
were now bound to the land by an obligation of perpetual debt’ and that they were exploited
by soldiers returning from war.
dhimmī subjects of Islamic states, that is, non-Muslim ‘people of the book’, are
afforded the status of ‘protected subject’; can practise their religion freely; and
organise their communities according to their own customary laws. However,
they are required in exchange to recognise Islamic sovereignty, generally must
pay a poll tax [ jizya], and, occasionally, are subject to certain restrictions.8
According to the vast majority of Islamic jurists and scholars, in lands con-
quered by force it was permitted to convert non-Muslim places of worship into
mosques, if particular conditions were fulfilled, whereas in lands conquered by
treaty the lives, properties and religious buildings of the āhl al-dhimma (non-
Muslim subjects) were to be protected.9
In terms of religious freedom, Ottoman non-Muslims had full rights of wor-
ship in their churches and synagogues, were permitted to perform all religious
ceremonies freely, appoint their own clergy, and could generally repair or ren-
ovate existing churches and synagogues.10 They were not, however, permitted
to insult the Prophet, attempt to convert a Muslim, or ring church bells.11 For
8 See Karen Armstrong, Islam: A Short History, London 2001, 31 and Cl. Cahen, ‘Dhimma’, ei2
accessed on-line on 4/7/14.
Restrictions could include various sumptuary laws, a proscription on the use of fine
steeds, and a ban on building new places of worship, but these stipulations were rarely
enforced for any length of time, or systematically, outside of Baghdad and other Islamic
centres. Despite the arguments surrounding its historicity, the above restrictions, partic-
ularly the prohibition against non-Muslims building new places of worship, are traced
back to the pact of ʿUmar. See Cl. Cahen, ‘Dhimma’, Bernard Lewis (ed.), Islam from the
Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, 2 vols. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1987, 2:118; and Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle
Ages, Princeton, n.j.: Princeton University Press, 1994, 58–60, quoted in Marc David Baer,
‘The Great Fire of 1660 and the Islamicization of Christian and Jewish Space in Istanbul’,
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 36 (2004), 159–181, n. 35. See Baer 165–166 for
a discussion of Ottoman innovation with regard to the status of churches and synagogues
in the Ottoman Empire.
9 See L. Öztürk, ‘Hüsâm Çelebi’nin (ö. 926/1520) Risâle Maʿmûle li-Beyâni Ahvâli’l-Kenâisi
Şerʿan Adlı Eseri’, İslâm Araştırmaları Dergisi, 5 (2001) 135–156, 146–147, quoted in Lejla
Demiri and Muharrem Kuzey, ‘Risāla maʿmūla li-bayān aḥwāl al-kanāʾis sharʿan’, in David
Thomas and John Chesworth (eds), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History,
vol. 7, Leiden: Brill, 2015, 596–598.
10 Uriel Heyd, Ottoman Documents on Palestine 1552–1615: a study of the firman according
to the Mühimme defteri, Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1960, 179–180, document 120
gives permission to the monks of Mār Sābā monastery east of Jerusalem to repair their
monastery.
11 Cl. Cahen, ‘Dhimma’. The Ottoman state tolerated a degree of proselytization by Christian
missionaries on the condition that it was directed towards other non-Muslims and did not
246 norton
example, following his conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed ii’s treaty

with the Genoese in Galata states that ‘[t]hey may keep their churches and
hold services in them, provided that they do not ring bells or sound semantra.
We shall not try to turn their churches into mosques, but they are not to build
any new churches’.12 It should be noted that this agreement not to convert any
churches in Galata to mosques was rare, and many non-Muslim religious estab-
lishments were turned into mosques to accommodate a newly established
Muslim population, or were destroyed because they were considered to be too
close to mosques.
Despite a variety of official Ottoman documents prohibiting the establish-
ment of new churches and synagogues, the Ottoman state appears to have
permitted the building of new non-Muslim places of worship where neces-
sary. For example, following the migration of Jews from Iberia to the Ottoman
Empire, Jewish communities in Salonica and Safed built new synagogues to
accommodate expanding congregations and to take account of different sects’
desires to have their own place of worship.13 Moreover, Istanbul had forty Greek
churches in the eighteenth century, only three of which had existed at the time
of the conquest, meaning that thirty-seven new churches had been built over
the intervening years.14 The pragmatic approach of the Ottoman state was sup-
ported by arguments by Ottoman legal scholars. The Ottoman scholar and jurist
Hüsâm Çelebi argued that non-Muslims in Islamic lands that had been con-
quered by treaty were permitted to build new places of worship up until the
time the place became populated by Muslims and was turned into a Muslim
town.15 In order to legitimise the building of churches and synagogues in Istan-
bul, the fiction of a willing surrender was also subsequently constructed.16
upset the status quo, see Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 207–213.
12 J.R. Melville Jones, trans. The Siege of Constantinople 1453: Seven Contemporary Accounts,
Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1972, 136.
13 Muammer Demirel, ‘Construction of Churches in Ottoman Provinces’, in Colin Imber,
K. Kiyotaki and Rhoads Murphey (eds), Frontiers of Ottoman Studies, vol. 2, London:
I.B. Tauris, 2005, 213. Various Christian churches were also expanded over the years 213–214.
14 Halil Inalcık, ‘Istanbul’, ei2. Inalcık cites Schneider, Byzanz, Vorarbeiten zur Topographie
und Archäologie der Stadt, Berlin 1936, 38–49 for the reference to 40 churches.
15 Öztürk, ‘Hüsâm Çelebi’nin (ö. 926/1520)’. It should be noted that the building of new places
of worship by non-Muslims living in Islamic lands has been subject to debate and varied
opinion among Islamic scholars and jurists.
16 Halil Inalcık, ‘Istanbul’, quoting Inalcık, The Policy of Mehmed ii towards the Greek pop-
ulation of İstanbul and the Byzantine buildings of the city, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers,
This tolerance is evidenced in Ottoman fermans, which repeatedly demon-

strate that the Ottoman state took seriously its duty of protecting the places
of worship of non-Muslims and fairly arbitrating in disputes between religious
communities concerning ownership of, or access to, sacred places. Many fer-
mans command the relevant Ottoman official to investigate, in accordance
with the law, disputes, abuses or requests for repair concerning places of wor-
ship, whereas others command that places be returned to the rightful commu-
nity, or prohibit interference in the space by Ottoman state officials, or local
Muslim or other non-Muslim communities:
… some Muslims, solely in order to gain money and to annoy and tyran-
nize over the said infidels, have come with the intention of living there.
[Therefore] the said infidels … have requested [the Sultan’s] favour (pro-
tection). ‘My order has therefore been [issued] that no interference con-
trary to the sacred law is to take place …’17
This religious freedom is also attested to in a genre of writing that is notori-

ously problematic in its depiction of the status of non-Muslims in the Ottoman
Empire: captivity narratives.18 Although many captivity narrative authors
no. xxiii–xxiv, 231–249, 233.; Eugenia Kermali, ‘Ebussuud Efendi’, Christian-Muslim Rela-
tions. A Bibliographical History, Vol. 7, Leiden: Brill, 2015, 715–723, mentions a fatwa by
Ebussuud Efendi that encodes this fiction by repeating the testimony by two elderly Mus-
lim fighters that the Christian and Jewish population of Constantinople surrendered to
the Ottomans. ms Istanbul, Süleymaniye Library, or. 1067 f.97a.
17 Uriel Heyd, Ottoman Documents, 180–181, document 122. For example, document 118 cen-
tres on a claim by Muslims that Christians had illegally taken back a mosque that had
previously been annexed to their church. The ferman references evidence for it previ-
ously having been a mosque and commands that it be given back to the Muslims of the
area. Conversely, ferman 119 centres on a dispute over the right to use a burial ground.
Although the Christian community had used it for many years this right was contested by
descendants of Shaikh Ahmad ad-Dajjani who said that it was previously dedicated as a
wakf (pious foundation) for their use. The ferman summarises this information and then
argues that as the Christians have title deeds to the burial ground and have been buried
there for many years, and as the descendants of the Shaikh are hoping to gain money from
the litigation and were not able to prove their case in a judicial inquiry, the Christian burial
ground should be left to the Christians and not interfered with.
18 For some extracts of captivity narratives see Vitkus (ed.), Piracy; for discussions of the
genre see Claire Norton, ‘Lust, Greed, Torture and Identity: Narrations of Conversion
and the Creation of the Early Modern “Renegade”’, Comparative Studies of South Asia,
Africa and the Middle East 29/2 (2009), 259–268; Nabil Matar, ‘Introduction: England
248 norton
assert that they, or others known to them, were forcibly converted to Islam, they
unconsciously depict a general atmosphere of religious tolerance in Ottoman
lands that also coheres more closely with other extant evidence.19 Okeley, held
captive in North Africa, testifies to this religious tolerance: ‘they allow that every
man may be saved in that religion he professes, provided he walks by its rules,
and therefore that at last, the Jews, under the banner of Moses, the Christians,
under the banner of Christ, and the Turks, under the banner of Mahomet, shall
all march over a fair bridge into I know not what paradise’.20 Similarly, Pitt
although presenting himself as a victim of forced conversion, rather ironically,
earlier in the text, comments that the notion that ‘Christians […] are put to the
extremest tortures that so they may be thereby brought over to the Moham-
metan faith, […] is a very false report’.21 Ockley also attests to religious tolerance
arguing that captives in Algiers ‘have allsoe liberty to say & hear mass euery
places allowed for that Seruice’.22
Accusations of forced conversion to Islam are prevalent in early modern
and some modern accounts of Ottoman (in)tolerance. These generally focus
on non-violent coercion of non-Muslims through oppressive tax regimes and
the destruction of their places of worship, the torture of captives in order that
they renounce their faith, the misleading of non-Muslims into conversion, and
the institutional practice of the devşirme. There is very little corroborative evi-
dence for the first three instances of forcible conversion with the exception
of polemical tracts. The only real large-scale case of involuntary conversion in
and Mediterranean Captivity, 1577–1704’, in Vitkus (ed.), Piracy, 1–52; Joe Snader, Caught
between Worlds: British Captivity Narratives in Fact and Fiction, Kentucky: University Press
of Kentucky, 2000; Khalid Bekkaoui, White Women Captives in North Africa. Narratives of
Enslavement, 1735–1830, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
19 While individual instances of forcible conversion due to torture, maltreatment or coer-
cion cannot be entirely discounted, Islamic law does forbid forcible conversion and any
conversion obtained under duress is considered to be invalid. For more on the trope of
forced conversion in captivity narratives see Norton, ‘Lust, Greed, Torture’.
20 William Okeley, Ebenezer; or, A Small Monument of Great Mercy, Appearing in the Miracu-
lous Deliverance of William Okeley (1675), in Vitkus (ed.), Piracy, 124–192, 161.
21 Joseph Pitts, A True and Faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mohammetans,
with an Account of the Author’s Being Taken Captive (1704), in Vitkus (ed.), Piracy, 218–340,
306.
22 [Simon Ockley] An Account of South-West Barbary: containing what is most remarkable in
the territories of the King of Fez and Morocco. Written by a Person who had been a Slave there
…. London: J. Bowyer and H. Clements, 1713, 112 and sp 71/2/65, quoted in Nabil Matar, Islam
in Britain 1558–1685, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 26–27; Matar, ‘Introduction’,
in Vitkus (ed.) Piracy, 18.
the Ottoman Empire is the devşirme, which was essentially a government levy
of non-Muslim, male youths predominantly from the Balkans that occurred
between the early fifteenth and late seventeenth centuries. Collected boys were
brought to Istanbul, converted to Islam and admitted to the Janissary training
schools to be educated for eventual service in the state administration or in
the janissary corps. Devşirme graduates could, and did, fill the highest posi-
tions in the Ottoman military-administrative structure, including that of Grand
Vizier. Reactions to the institution were complex. Initially communities per-
ceived it as constituting the theft of their sons and as an integral part of a
wider attempt to Islamify the Balkans. However, while there are a number of
documented cases of recruits trying to run away and re-join their old com-
munities and religion, there is also evidence that other families, particularly
following the gradual reduction in opportunities for Christians to be recruited
directly into the Ottoman military-administrative structure in the late fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, saw it as an opportunity to make valuable connections
to the ruling elite.23 Sugar cites instances of Christian families trying to bribe
the devşirme recruiters to take their sons, and Metin Kunt has also argued that
in some instances devşirme recruits may have been personally recommended
by acquaintances already employed in the palace, which would suggest that
recruitment and therefore their subsequent conversion had a more voluntary
aspect to it.24 For many Christian Balkan families and their sons it was not
viewed as a repressive institution, instead it was understood as a means by
which an individual could become a member of the ruling askeri class and
therefore acquire wealth as well as social status.25 Conversion was apparently
a small price to pay for such an opportunity.
In addition to the religious freedom discussed above, the different non-
Muslim communities of the Ottoman Empire were also granted significant
economic, administrative, and judicial autonomy in intra-communal affairs.
The previously implicit relationship that the Ottoman state had had with its
non-Muslim subjects was codified by Mehmed ii following his conquest of
Constantinople. Recognising that he needed to address the question of the
23 Tijana Krstic, Narrating Conversions to Islam: The Dialogue of Texts and Practices in Early
Modern Ottoman Balkans. Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, 2004, 121.
24 Peter Sugar, Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354–1804, Seattle 1977, 58; Metin
Kunt, ‘Transformation of Zimmi into Askeri’, in Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (eds),
Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, vol. 1: The
Central Lands. New York 1982, 55–67, 61.
25 Askeri refers to members of the Ottoman administrative, military and religious ruling
elite.
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Greek Orthodox Church, Mehmed ii delegated to the Patriarch religious, finan-

cial and legal responsibility for the Greek Orthodox community. The religious
hierarchy of the Greek Orthodox Church was thus given responsibility for gov-
erning the Orthodox community and, in doing this, Mehmed ii bestowed on
the Patriarchate far greater intracommunal power than the office had wielded
under the Byzantine Empire.26 Similar autonomy was granted to other non-
Muslim communities resident in the Ottoman Empire, for example in
Mehmed ii’s treaty with the Genoese he commands: ‘Let them observe their
own laws and customs, and preserve them now and in the future. […] The
people of Galata are also to have permission to appoint an official among them-
selves, to direct the administration which their trade demands’.27 It should be
noted however that the Ottoman state exercised ultimate control over these
communities by virtue of the fact that it was required to ratify the choice of
appointments.
Non-Muslim communities were not passive observers sidelined to the
extremities of the Ottoman state. Through the mediation of religious or insti-
tutional leaders, they were active participants in Ottoman society. Kolovos
discusses the case of the Athonite monasteries, which from the beginning
of Ottoman overlord-ship in the early fifteenth century, negotiated with the
Ottomans for protection, and to preserve their position in the socio-cultural
hierarchy of Ottoman non-Muslims. They acquired significant tax exemptions
on the rural estates affiliated to the monastery complex, protection for their
possessions, and freedom from interference by Ottoman officials who were
directed to protect the monks’ legal rights.28 Although in later years they lost
their full tax-exempt status, they continued to enjoy state protection and, in the
seventeenth century, in accordance with the legal opinion of Ebûssuʿûd, they
officially established monastic waqfs (charitable endowments).29 The estab-
lishment of monastic waqfs, together with the monks’ use of fatwās to support
their protests against tax farmers whom they believed were illegally trying to
26 Goffman, The Ottoman Empire, 170–171.

27 ‘Mehmed’s treaty with the Genoese’, in Melville Jones, trans., The Siege of Constantinople,
136–137.
28 Elias Kolovos, ‘Negotiating for State Protection: Çiftlik-Holding by the Athonite Monas-
teries (Xeropotamou Monastery, Fifteenth-Sixteenth c.)’, in Colin Imber, K. Kiyotaki and
Rhoads Murphey (eds), Frontiers of Ottoman Studies, vol. 2, London: I.B. Tauris, 2005, 197–
209, 200.
29 Kolovos, ‘Negotiating for State Protection’, 201.
extract tax from them, demonstrates that they were able to employ the Islamic
judicial system and legal apparatus to defend their interests where appropri-
ate.30
The Ottoman state, in accordance with Islamic principles, permitted non-
Muslim subjects autonomy in law on issues internal to their community or for
disputes not involving Muslim subjects. This was not to exclude non-Muslims
from appealing to, and making use of, the Ottoman Islamic legal system, which
they frequently did, often in defiance of their own religious or political author-
ities. Imber notes that some Jewish women had recourse to Islamic courts on
matters of inheritance because of the more generous provision given to female
heirs in Islamic law.31 Molly Greene notes in her study of inter-communal rela-
tions in Ottoman Candia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that
Christians and Muslims were willing to testify on each other’s behalf in court
proceedings. For example, the Muslim Mustafa represented his Christian father
in court to ensure that his father, rather than her Muslim husband, received his
deceased daughter’s property. Christian testimony was also accepted as legally
valid and Christians on occasion acted as vekil or agents for Muslims, as in the
case of Georgis who acted as agent for Razie bint Abdullah in her sale of a vine-
yard.32
Despite the communal autonomy outlined above, the different religious
communities of the empire did not live in separate spheres, but were eco-
nomically and socially integrated to a large degree. For example, the activi-
ties of Muslim and non-Muslim tradesmen and artisans were controlled by
the same hisba regulations, and they worked side by side in the bazaars.33 In
Ottoman urban areas, confessional communities tended to congregate around
their places of worship therefore neighbourhoods were often perceived as
being Muslim, Christian or Jewish. However, this was not exclusively the case
and for most of the duration of the empire there was no official topographi-
cal segregation, that is, there were no laws requiring non-Muslims to inhabit
30 Kolovos, ‘Negotiating for State Protection’, 206.

31 Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002, 217, citing Aryeh Shmuele-
vitz, The Jews of the Ottoman Empire in the late Fifteenth and the Sixteenth Centuries: admin-
istrative, economic, legal, and social relations as reflected in the response. Leiden: Brill, 1984,
69.
32 Molly Greene, A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, 106–107.
33 Inalcik, ‘Istanbul’, quoting H. Dernschwam, Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und
Kleinasien, ed. Fr. Babinger, Munich-Leipzig 1923, 116.
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particular areas or excluding them from others.34 With the Ottoman capture of
Candia, Muslims, Christians and Jews were given the right to buy property in
the city. This marked a change from earlier Venetian rule when the Jewish com-
munity was confined to a designated quarter.35 There was one notable instance
of exclusion or restriction placed on non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire: non-
Muslims were not permitted in the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina
and were restricted from entering mosques and shrines. However, in a recipro-
cal arrangement, the holy places of Christians and Jews were also off-limits to
Ottoman Muslims.36
This is not to say that exclusionary practices or instances of urban Islamici-
sation were completely absent from the Ottoman Empire. Following a period of
economic, religious, military and political crisis, the 1660 great fire in Istanbul
provided an ideal opportunity for a group of political elites to promote an exclu-
sionary Islamicisation of space. By prohibiting the rebuilding of non-Muslim
places of worship, expropriating Christian and Jewish properties to make space
for the building of the Valide Sultan mosque, and re-locating non-Muslim com-
munities to different areas of Istanbul, the Ottoman state attempted to both
reform Muslim behavior and demonstrate that all Ottomans were subject to
the law.37 In doing so, it was hoped that the authority of the state, both within
and outside the Empire, would be reasserted. It should be noted here that this
process of Islamicisation of space was not primarily undertaken as a result of
religious piety and/or intolerance, but was the consequence of a specific inter-
section of elite religio-political interests and extraordinary pressures on the
state.38
Court records and other sources demonstrate that the integration of com-
munities extended to the family: either because some family members con-
verted to Islam, or as a result of mixed marriages between Muslim men and
Christian or Jewish women. Such unions were not necessarily censured by state
or religious institutions or local communities. Muslim courts were happy to
register such unions and village priests often blessed such marriages.39 More-
over, the multiple commercial and social ties that existed between Muslims,
Christians and Jews who co-existed in urban and rural communities often led

35 Greene, Shared World, 85–86.
36 Demirel, ‘Construction of Churches’, 211–212.
37 Baer, ‘The Great Fire of 1660’, 160.
38 Baer, ‘The Great Fire of 1660’, 174.
39 Greene, Shared World, 105.
to a blurring of the strict lines demarcating the practices of different faiths.

For example, it was noted that Ottoman Muslims sometimes venerated local
Christian saints, and Muslims and Christians might join together in ‘Rites of
Devotion’.40
In terms of employment, although certain religions predominated in partic-
ular professions, this also was not the result of state-imposed restrictions, but
rather a result of civilizational legacies inherited by the Ottomans, and the par-
ticular talents and connections of their immigrant communities.41 Although
the higher echelons of the Ottoman government were not open to non-
Muslims, Christians and Jews were found in a wide variety of administrative
and military positions. Immediately after the conquest of Constantinople in the
mid-fifteenth century, many Byzantine officials and notables were absorbed
into the Ottoman military-administrative system. Some of these, such as Mah-
mud Pasha Angelovic, a Byzanto-Serbian noble who eventually rose to the posi-
tion of grand vizier, converted to Islam. However, others did not. When Mah-
mud Pasha Angelovic’s cousin George Amirutzes surrendered to the Ottomans
following the defeat of Trebizond in 1461, he chose not to convert, yet still served
as philosopher-royal to the sultan.42 In later centuries non-Muslims were still
employed in court circles: the late sixteenth century Jewish merchant and
banker Joseph Nasi was Sultan Selim ii’s close advisor and was rewarded with
the title of Duke of Naxos, the rank of sancak beyi, and the customs’ revenues
from the island’s wine trade.43
Despite the widespread assumption that non-Muslims were not permitted
to serve in the military, in the early years of Ottoman conquest successful
Christian warriors who fought alongside the Ottomans, or who negotiated a
surrender, were either granted timars or were permitted to retain their former
fiefs unchanged, with the new Ottoman status of sipahi. In some areas, up
to, or more than, fifty percent of registered timars were held by Christians.44
40 The Sieur du Mont, A New Voyage to the Levant, (1696) 191. See also William Biddulph
who described a church where ‘both Christians and Turkes pray therein’ in Purchas His
Pilgrimes, vol. 8, 284, quoted in Matar, Islam in Britain, 29.
42 Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire 1300–1923, London: John
Murray, 2006, 57, 62–63.
43 Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 161; and Charles Issawi and Dmitri Gondicas, Ottoman Greeks in
the Age of Nationalism, Princeton nj: Princeton University press, 1999, 2.
44 Anton Minkov, Conversion to Islam in the Balkans: Kisve Bahası Petitions and Ottoman
Social Life, 1670–1730, Leiden: Brill, 2004, 98. The timar-system was a land-tenure system
in which Ottoman military and administrative personnel were allotted the revenues from
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In later years there were also considerable numbers of Christian soldiers in

martolosan, sekban and müsellem units stationed on the Ottoman-Habsburg
frontier.45 The case of the French and Walloon soldiers who defected from the
Habsburg-held fortress of Papa as a result of non-payment of wages and offered
their service to the Ottoman Empire is especially illustrative. Ottoman military
records show that these soldiers not only fought alongside Ottoman soldiers in
the subsequent Ottoman capture and defence of Nagykanizsa castle, but they
also elected to remain in Ottoman service for many more years and fought
as part of Ottoman armies in Moldavia, on the Hotin campaign, and against
the Safavids and Cossacks. One of the French captains from Papa converted
to Islam in the winter of 1600–1601 and was rewarded with command of the
sancak [sub-province] of Semendire. Despite his conversion, he retained com-
mand over his men who remained Christian.46 Over the centuries, however,
the earlier inclusive attitude towards the incorporation of non-Muslims into
the upper echelons of the Ottoman administrative-military structure became
less flexible, and conversion to Islam became a prerequisite for the acquisition
of high office. Such a shift did not necessarily reflect an increase in religious
intolerance or exclusionary practices, instead conversion to Islam was under-
stood as an expression of one’s loyalty to the Ottoman State.47
This is not to say that Muslim and non-Muslim Ottoman subjects were
treated equally. Non-Muslim men could not marry Muslim women; any chil-
dren of a mixed marriage were assumed to be Muslim; conversion from Islam
to another religion was forbidden and technically punishable by death; and
non-Muslims often paid more tax, particularly in commercial transactions, and
were subject to the jizya or poll-tax.48 The jizya, rather than simply being inter-
preted as monetary evidence of the subjugation of non-Muslims, can be seen as
land and, occasionally, other tax sources in exchange for state service. A sipahi was an
Ottoman cavalryman and provincial administrator.
45 Mark Stein, Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Forts and Garrisons on the Habsburg Frontier
(Hungary), (Ph.D. thesis, The University of Chicago, 2001) 147–149.
46 Caroline Finkel, ‘French Mercenaries in the Habsburg-Ottoman War of 1583–1606: The
Desertion of the Papa Garrison to the Ottomans in 1600’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental
and African Studies 55/3, (1992) 451–471, 465–468.
47 Christine Isom-Verhaaren, ‘Shifting Identities. Foreign State Servants in France and the
Ottoman Empire’, Journal of Early Modern History, 8 (2004) 109–134, 109, in particular her
discussion of Hüseyn, the subaşı of Lemnos and Christoph von Roggendorf.
48 Cl. Cahen, ‘Dhimma’. In theory non-Muslims were subject to various sumptuary regula-
tions and were not permitted to own Muslim slaves, but these regulations were rarely
enforced.
payment in exchange for exemption from military service. Non-Muslims in the

Ottoman Empire who provided some form of military service such as voynuḳs,
martolos, eflaḳs, and Christian timar holders were exempt from paying it.49 In
the Ottoman Balkans, the Ottoman state often simply renamed existing pre-
Ottoman poll taxes as jizya meaning that non-Muslim populations were rarely
financially worse off. In fact, the Ottoman state often reduced the tax burden on
newly conquered populations.50 Moreover, imperial fermans attest to the fact
that, despite on occasion tax abuses occurring, the state tried to prohibit local
Ottoman authorities from extracting more tax than they were legally entitled
to.51
Early Modern Views of Ottoman (In)Tolerance
Many early modern authors were aware of the toleration shown to non-Muslim
subjects in the Ottoman Empire. Luther rather grudgingly acknowledged that
non-Muslims were tolerated, although he erroneously claimed that they had
no freedom of worship.52 Jean Bodin, in contrast, held up the empire as an
exemplum of religious toleration, exclaiming that the Ottomans ‘permitteth
every man to live according to his conscience’.53 John Locke admired Mus-
lim toleration of Christians and Jews noting that Calvinists and Arminians
would be able to freely practise their religion in the Ottoman Empire, but not
in Christian Europe.54 Scholars such as Thomas Coryat, Rycaut and Richard
Knolles held a similar position arguing that the Ottomans would ‘converse with
Christians, and Eat and Traffick with them freely; yea some-times they marry
49 Halil İnalcik, ‘Djizya: Ottoman’, ei2 citing H. Inalcik, Fatih devri, i, 176–179. The inhabitants
of five Albanian mountain villages were able to negotiate a fixed rate, group discount to
the ciziye at the end of the 15th century in return for guarding mountain passes—as above.
50 Finkel, ‘French Mercenaries’, 465–468.
51 Heyd, Ottoman Documents, 182–183, document 124 prohibits the kadi of Jerusalem from
collecting one para from Christian pilgrims at the door of the Church of the Holy Sepul-
chre and other officials from collecting irregular tolls and protection fees. It states that
‘The pilgrims must not be forced to pay more taxes than was customary in the past and is
laid down in the Cadastral register. The protection fee is to be abolished altogether’.
52 Goffman, The Ottoman Empire, 111.
53 Kenneth Douglas McRae (ed.), The six books of a commonweale, Cambridge ma: Harvard
University Press, 1962, book 6, 537, quoted in Goffman, The Ottoman Empire, 111.
54 John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, intro. Patrick Romanell, New York: Bobs Mer-
rill, 1955, 25, cited in Nabil Matar, ‘John Locke and the “Turbanned Nations”’, Journal of
Islamic Studies 2/1 (1991) 67–77, 72.
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their Daughters, and suffer them to live after their own Religion’.55 Such views
were echoed by the authors of captivity narratives and travellers.56 Religious
minorities, merchants and economic migrants across Europe were also aware
of Ottoman tolerance for religious diversity. When the Jews were expelled from
Iberia, they sought, and were granted, asylum in the Ottoman Empire. French
Huguenots, Quakers, Anabaptists, Antitrinitarians, and some Catholic Jesuits
were also granted refuge.57 Rabbi Isaac Zarfati (originally from the Rhineland)
circulated a letter encouraging Jews to leave the ‘great torture chamber’ of the
west and move to the Ottoman Empire:
I, Isaac Zarfati, […] proclaim to you that Turkey is a land wherein nothing
is lacking, and where, if you will, all shall yet be well with you. The way to
the Holy Land lies open to you through Turkey. Is it not better for you to
live under Muslims than under Christians? Here every man dwell at peace
under his own Dine and fig tree. Here you are allowed to wear the most
precious garments.58
Goffman notes that the religious freedom and less onerous taxation accorded
to Ottoman subjects proved very attractive to Greek Orthodox Christians living
under the often religiously and economically repressive Catholic Latin regimes
in the eastern Mediterranean and Balkans and might, to some degree, explain
the ease with which certain islands and regions were conquered and incorpo-
rated into the Ottoman Empire.59 Moreover, throughout the duration of the
Empire, foreign expatriate communities of non-Muslim European merchants
voluntarily established themselves in Ottoman dominions.60
55 Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes from The first beginning of that Nation
to the rising of the Othoman Familie, 2nd ed. 1610, 962 quoted in Matar, Islam in Britain, 29
n. 34. See also Thomas Coryat Master Coryats Constantinoplitan Observations Abridged in
Purchas His Pilgrimes, vol. 10, 417–434, and Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Greek and
Armenian Churches Anno Christi 1678 (1679), 20.
56 See the comments by Okeley, Pitts and Ockley and also Lithgow cited in ns 19–21 above.
57 Goffman, The Ottoman Empire, 111.
58 Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984, 135–136. The
letter is also available on-line http://www.turkishjews.com/history/letter.asp last accessed
20/06/14.
59 Goffman, The Ottoman Empire, 46–47 and 153–154.
60 For resident British merchants in the Ottoman Empire see Daniel Goffman, Britons in the
Ottoman Empire 1642–1660, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998 and for Venetians
and the French see Daniel Goffman Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550–1650, Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1990.
So why then did so many early-modern writers and polemicists spend so

much time describing the infinite miseries and the ‘miserable thraldom of the
Christians under Turkish tyranny’?61 In an early-modern context, Bohnstedt
demonstrates that both German Catholic and Protestant polemicists, pam-
phleteers and authors of Türkenbüchlein characterised the Ottomans as the
archenemy or hereditary foe of Christendom: as tyrants who oppressed and
slaughtered Christians, driven by both an insatiable lust for Christian blood,
and the devil.62 Bohnstedt has argued that such depictions of the Ottomans
served primarily polemical functions: the Ottomans were the ‘scourge of God’
sent to punish Christians for their wickedness, be this the doctrinal errors and
general iniquity of the Lutherans, or the false doctrines of the Catholics.63 For
example, in an anonymous pamphlet, Luther is unfavourably compared to the
Ottomans, ‘the Turk tears down churches and monasteries—so does Luther’.64
More pragmatically, such descriptions of Ottoman intolerance towards Chris-
tians were employed to exhort the rulers of Europe to provide for the defence
of Hungary against an Ottoman advance.65
Many of the Türkenbüchlein authors also accuse the Ottomans of trying to
forcibly convert both captured Christians and their own Christian subjects,
namely the young men recruited through the devşirme system.66 Cartwright
also dramatically comments on the devşirme system, describing Christian fam-
ilies in the Balkans as being forced:
… to pay a tribute also of souls to wicked Muḥammad to have their dearest

children (both sons and daughters) snatched out of their parents’ bosoms
to be brought up in his impious abominations, and to be employed (after
they are so brought up) in murdering their fathers and mothers that
begat them; and in rooting out that faith wherein they were born and
baptized.67
His negativity towards the Ottomans might be influenced to a degree by his

close association with the Sherley brothers and the Safavids. He refers in his
61 Cartwright, The Preacher’s Travels, 118.

62 Bohnstedt, ‘Infidel Scourge of God’, 19 and n. 5 paraphrasing and quoting Veit Dietrich, Wie
man das volck de-[d4].
63 Bohnstedt, ‘Infidel Scourge of God’, 25.
64 Ein Sendbrieff, c2–c3 quoted in Bohnstedt, ‘Infidel Scourge of God’, 24, see also n. 26.
65 Bohnstedt, ‘Infidel Scourge of God’, 11.
66 Bohnstedt, ‘Infidel Scourge of God’, 21–23.
67 John Cartwright, The Preacher’s Travels, 120.
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work to the Ottomans as a common enemy of Christian princes and the ‘Persian
King’, crediting the Safavids with distracting ‘the huge and dreadful power of
the Ottoman Emperor’ away from Europe.68
Such accusations of forced conversion are also prevalent in English-language
captivity narratives that describe the capture of Englishmen by Maghrebi-
based corsairs and their subsequent enslavement in North Africa before their
return to England. I have argued elsewhere that such depictions of violent,
forced conversion are unlikely to reflect reality and instead serve a diverse
range of functions including: raising funds to ransom other captives; providing
a socially-appropriate way by which voluntary conversion of individuals could
be explained; ameliorating the collective social anxiety and threat to national
identity engendered by large-scale migration to North Africa and conversion
to Islam; and the construction or reinforcement of a Christian Protestant iden-
tity that valued courage, stoicism and the heroic defence of faith while under
duress.69
Reading Sources
The depiction and perception of the Ottomans viz-a-viz their treatment of non-
Muslims in twenty and twenty-first century narratives are similarly affected
by the perceived functions of the text and the network of interests, beliefs
and ideological perspective of author and audiences. Claims that historians
can produce objective, true accounts of the past are based upon realist episte-
mologies and correspondence theories of meaning. These argue that a careful
analysis of the extant relics of the past (primary sources) in accordance with the
protocols of the historical method can facilitate not only a true reading of the
source, but also a degree of correspondence or representation between the his-
torian’s narrative and the past as it really happened. I find this understanding
of historical knowledge problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, all knowl-
edge is situated and perspectival. We necessarily apprehend the present and
68 John Cartwright, The Preacher’s Travels, 121.

69 Norton, ‘Lust, Greed, Torture’, 264–266. See also Matar, Islam in Britain, 67 for the hostility
shown by the church and communities towards men returning from the Maghreb who
had converted to Islam. He notes that ‘[b]ecause of the Church’s strong condemnation of
apostasy, some renegades found that the best way to deflect the pulpit’s ire was to argue
that they had not converted to Islam in their hearts but only with their tongues’. Similarly,
professing that one was coerced into conversion would also alleviate any social stigma or
condemnation.
the past from a particular vantage point mediated through a prism of human
interests, assumptions, culturally-specific classificatory systems and concep-
tual schemas. We can never step outside of ourselves and obtain a god’s eye
view of the past, a view from nowhere. Knowledge of the past is always there-
fore constructed within cultural and institutional practices: we cannot escape
the historicity of our time and culture.70 Secondly, no acts of reception are neu-
tral, language is not a transparent vehicle that can unproblematically represent
or describe reality: all texts are consumed within, and are in dialogue with,
wider political, cultural and religious contexts. Meaning is not found in the text,
but is created by readers in accordance with the expectations and norms of the
interpretative community to which they belong.71 In other words there are mul-
tiple possible ways of interpreting a text, and these interpretations both reflect
and constitute the explanatory frameworks we use to make sense of our world.
A good example of how our beliefs, interests, cultural norms, and preferred
explanatory metanarratives affect our reading of primary sources in the context
of Ottoman (in)tolerance is a fatwā written by a Muslim scholar in Cairo
in 1772 on the subject of how Christians and Jews should be treated.72 The
questioner notes a number of practices common among the non-Muslims of
Cairo including imitating Muslim chiefs, scholars and nobles in dress and in
carrying small batons; building places of worship and houses that are better
and higher than those of Muslims; ‘scattering and pushing back Muslims’ on
the streets; and buying Muslim slaves. He then inquires whether it is not the
duty of every Muslim prince to ask the scholars of the law to express a legal
opinion ‘in order to put an end to these revolting innovations and to these
reprehensible acts’.73 Shaikh Hasan al-Kafrawi, the Shafiʿi, answers that indeed
70 See Mark Donnelly and Claire Norton, Doing History, London: Routledge, 2011, particularly
chapters 5 and 6 for a more in-depth discussion of the epistemic genre choices historians
make when researching and writing their histories.
71 The term ‘interpretive community’ is from Stanley Fish, ‘Introduction, or How I stopped
Worrying and Learned to Love Interpretation’, in S. Fish, Is There a Text in this Class,
Cambridge ma: Harvard University Press, 1980, 1–17, 14, ‘Interpretative communities are
made up of those who share interpretive strategies’ and ‘An interpretive community is
[…] a bundle of interests, of particular purposes and goals’.
72 The fatwā in English translation is included under the title ‘Islam and the Jews: The Sta-
tus of Jews and Christians in Muslim Lands, c. 1772 ce’ on the Fordham University website:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/jewish/1772-jewsinislam.asp last accessed 4/7/14. An
earlier source is given as Jacob Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook, 315–
1791, New York: jps, 1938, 15–19.
73 ‘Islam and the Jews’.
260 norton
non-Muslims should not dress like Muslims, nor should they be permitted to
wear costly fabrics, they should not ride horses, nor buy Muslim slaves. They
should also not build houses that are of the same height or higher than Muslim
houses, and they should not extend or build new places of worship. Moreover, if
a Muslim should encounter a non-Muslim in the street they should push them
aside.74
Such a primary source could easily be read as evidence for Ottoman intol-
erance towards their non-Muslim subjects, or as an example of institutional
and judicial prejudice. As such it would cohere with some of the accounts by
early modern travellers and polemicists discussed above. However, one could
equally read it as providing evidence of Ottoman tolerance. Despite the theo-
retical stipulations of Islamic law with regard to the treatment of non-Muslims,
those living in Cairo (and, presumably, elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire) were
dressing like Muslims, buying Muslims slaves, building tall houses and new
places of worship, and riding horses: there was in fact very little, or no differen-
tiation in practice between Ottomans of different religions. Such a view would
cohere with evidence from many Ottoman and European primary sources as
well as many secondary sources by Ottoman scholars.
In a similar manner one could interpret Birgivī’s Vasiyyet-nāme [Last Will and
Testament] in two diametrically opposite ways: as evidence of religious discrim-
ination, or multi-confessional understanding and tolerance. In this work Birgivī
condemns outright Muslims who express approval of Christian practices, who
affirm the existence of two qiblas (indicating Jerusalem and Mecca), who do not
specify their belief beyond a generic belief in God, and who wear non-Muslim
clothing.75 This could therefore be read as an example of religio-cultural intol-
erance on the part of Muslim Ottomans. However, one could equally, and I
believe, more persuasively argue that Birgivī’s concern with the blurring of
Islamic boundaries instead reflects the fact that Ottoman Muslim communi-
ties existed in very close contact with their Christian and Jewish neighbours
and colleagues, and that there was a degree of mutual understanding, tolerance
and synthesis between the communities. Indeed, Allen argues that Birgivī’s
Vasiyyet-nāme implicitly recognises the multi-confessional, rather porous reli-
gious world of the early modern Ottoman Empire.76
Likewise, the ‘Decree of the Grand Signor to the Kaymakam of Constantino-
ple and Kadi of Galata for the expulsion of Christians and Jews neighbouring
74 ‘Islam and the Jews’.

75 Jonathan Allen, ‘Vaṣiyyet-nāme’, in David Thomas and John Chesworth (eds), Christian-
Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History, vol. 7, Leiden: Brill, 2015, 707–711.
76 Allen, ‘Vaṣiyyet-nāme’.
their mosques by approximately a thousand paces’, following the Istanbul fire

of 1696, can be read as another example of state-instigated Islamicisation of
urban space and hostility towards non-Muslim Ottomans similar to the pro-
cess discussed above following the 1660 fire.77 The decree or hüccet explicitly
blames the ‘frequent assemblies of these debauched infidels who have aban-
doned themselves to brutal passions […] debauchery and forbidden games’
for drawing the wrath of God to Istanbul in the form of the fire. It states that
previous fires should have warned Muslims of the consequences of allowing
non-Muslims to dwell near mosques, but that these signs were ignored, and
continues ‘we should remove them from all the quarters and dwellings neigh-
bouring our chapels and holy mosques’—the sites of burnt houses should be
confiscated to prevent rebuilding by non-Muslims.78 However, the decree then
stipulates that the sites should be sold to Muslims at a just price and the profits
should go to their original non-Muslim owners. The sultan also commands that
the sites of burnt churches and synagogues should be left in their present state
until he returns from his campaign and can ‘examine the rights and needs of
each and everyone’. This latter reticence to confiscate the sites of non-Muslim
places of worship could suggest that non-Muslims will be permitted to rebuild
them when the initial furor resulting from the fire has subsided. The command
could be read as a polemical response to a natural disaster that scapegoats non-
Muslims, but which also is concerned with ensuring that justice is done for all
Ottoman subjects regardless of their religion. Such a public and histrionic reac-
tion of an administration to a disaster, followed by a more tempered response,
is something that continues in the modern world.
What is of particular interest to me in the context of this article is the con-
temporary academic framing of the fatwā discussed above and how it illus-
trates and reinforces specific metanarratives about Christian-Muslim relations.
77 ‘Decree of the Grand Signor to the Kaymakam of Constantinople and Kadi of Galata for
the expulsion of Christians and Jews neighbouring their mosques by approximately a
thousand paces,’ French translation, Paris, Archives de la Fraternité des Capucins de la
Région de Paris, Documents ottomans: hüccet et commandements, x 13, Decret du Gd
Seigr donné au Caimacan de Consple et au Cadis de Galata pour chaser es Chrétiens et
Juifs voisins de leur[s] mosque[é]es d’ environ mil pas, n.d. [1697] quoted in E. Eldem,
‘Istanbul: from imperial to peripheralized capital’, in E. Eldem, D. Goffman, and B. Masters
(eds), The Ottoman City between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir and Istanbul, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999, 155–156. Eldem, 156 notes that commands outlining the
measures that should be taken to ensure religious segregation ‘although often decreed,
were rarely implemented’.
78 Italics are mine.
262 norton
The document can be found in the Islamic history sourcebook on the Fordham
University website. Fordham University proclaims itself to be ‘The Jesuit Uni-
versity of New York’. The document is included in a sub-section on the Ottoman
Empire and more specifically under the sub-titles of government and the mil-
let system.79 However, there are no sources included there that more explicitly
attest to the religious tolerance of the Ottomans. A reader unfamiliar with the
Ottoman Empire might therefore read the source at face value and assume that
the Ottoman state and administrative system were intrinsically hostile to non-
Muslims, and that non-Muslims were subjugated and discriminated against on
a daily basis. Moreover, the text is introduced and framed by an editorial com-
ment in italics which states:
In 1772 a Muslim scholar in Cairo was asked how Jews and Christians
should be treated. The answer is found in this selection, issued four years
before the American Declaration of Independence, This answer is not law,
but only the opinion of a conservative Muslim, The opinion is in Arabic.
This reference to the American Declaration of Independence works to condi-

tion readers’ expectations and possible interpretations of the text. In partic-
ular, the second sentence of the Declaration is generally read as a statement
declaring the universality of human rights; that ‘all men are created equal’.
The juxtaposition of this phrase with a very conservative fatwā issued by an
Ottoman scholar, arguing that non-Muslims should be discriminated against,
contributes towards, or reinforces, a Eurocentric metanarrative that the mod-
ern world, including ideas on equality and freedom, was something that orig-
inated in the Christian West. It therefore works to reify the conceptual dis-
tinction between the western Christian and the eastern Islamic worlds and, in
doing so, it reinforces an orientalist narrative of western superiority.
Conclusion
The narratives we construct about the ‘before now’ are stories, stories written
in accordance with specific genre protocols, stories that cohere with both pri-
mary and secondary sources, but stories all the same. As I outlined above, we
79 http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/islam/islamsbook.asp#The%20Ottomans. Last
accessed 4/7/14. The document can also be accessed via the Medieval Jewish Sourcebook
under the sub-title of ‘Jewish Life in the Ottoman Empire’. http://www.fordham.edu/
Halsall/jewish/jewishsbook.asp#The%20Jewish%20Middle%20Ages last accessed 4/7/14.
cannot compare our narratives to what actually happened in the past. All we
can do is read and interpret the sources from our perspective within a net-
work of complex concerns, interests and assumptions, and in accordance with
particular genre rules. This does not mean we cannot judge or critique differ-
ent histories—of course we can. We can appraise narratives in terms of their
adherence to the genre protocols of history, for their aesthetic qualities or their
ethico-political perspective. For example, one could argue that Moczar has
deliberately chosen to ignore countervailing evidence that would undermine
her argument and has therefore not adhered to the main rules of historywriting
so her work cannot be classified as history.80 It is, however, possible for indi-
viduals to read, analyse and write about the same sources in accordance with
the practices and models inherent in the historical method, but still produce
qualitatively different narratives. We must therefore conclude that there are
multiple, valid, and not necessarily mutually-compatible ways of narrating the
past.
At this point, it is not possible to distinguish between such accounts on
epistemological or alethic grounds: one account is not more accurate or true
than the others, if by this we mean it corresponds to what actually happened.
Instead, the only way to discriminate between, or evaluate such accounts is
in political, ethical or aesthetic terms. We favour those accounts that are con-
gruent with our own beliefs, those narratives that reflect the way we think the
world is. This being said, I favour stories that encourage toleration and under-
standing; stories that recognise the achievements and humanity of all commu-
nities. Histories predicated on the assumption that one ‘civilisation’ or religious
community is more advanced, more developed, more tolerant than another are
divisive at best and at worst can encourage prejudice, antipathy and aggres-
sion. There are individuals that we may describe as more or less tolerant or
‘civilised’, but I do not think it is possible, nor prudent, to describe religions in
this manner. The view prevalent among some early modern and contemporary
writers that Islam (and thus Muslim communities) are intrinsically hostile to
non-Muslims and that they desire a universal caliphate and conversion of all
peoples to Islam is problematic not simply because it does not cohere with the
majority of available sources, but it is not useful, and, more importantly, I think
it leads to intolerance, alienation and injustice.
80 One could equally object to, or applaud her work for her assumption that Islam is a threat
to Christianity depending on one’s religious, political and/or ethical beliefs.
chapter 16
The Ḥadīth in Christian-Muslim

Dialogue in 19th Century India
Alan M. Guenther
“The light in which we view the stories of former times, varies with the medium
through which they have been handed down to us”. So wrote William Muir
(1819–1905) in 1853 to start his biography of the Prophet Muḥammad.1 This
fundamental assertion led him to challenge the reliability of the Ḥadīth, the
collection of traditions on which early Muslim history is based. Muir went on
to publish a four volume history of Muḥammad, followed later by other his-
tories of Islam after the death of Muḥammad.2 But it was his Life of Mahomet
which had the greatest impact, both on European and Indian Muslim views of
the Ḥadīth and of the historiography of early Islam.3 Muslims such as Sayyid
Ahmad Khan (1817–1898) felt compelled to respond to Muir’s critical assess-
ment of both the historical sources and the character of Muḥammad.4 In the
process of writing a rebuttal, these Muslim scholars at times defended the
traditional Muslim approach to writing history, while at other times adopted
European methodologies and adapted them for their purposes. Christian mis-
sionaries working in India also made use of Muir’s history, finding it useful in
1 William Muir, ‘Sources for the Biography of Mahomet’, Calcutta Review 19 (1853), 1–80.
2 William Muir, The life of Mahomet and history of Islam to the era of the Hegira: With intro-
ductory chapters on the original sources for the biography of Mahomet, and on the pre-Islamite
history of Arabia, vol. 1–2, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1858; vol. 3–4, London: Smith, Elder
& Co., 1861. The subsequent historical works were Annals of the Early Caliphate, London:
Smith, Elder & Co., 1883; The Caliphate, Its Rise, Decline, and Fall, London: Religious Tract Soci-
ety, 1891; and The Mameluke or Slave Dynasty of Egypt, 1260–1517, London: Smith, Elder & Co.,
1896.
3 Subsequent editions of the biography in 1877 and 1894 contained a summary of the original
four volumes but without the extensive footnotes, and with a few other minor alterations. The
section analyzing the textual sources remained intact as an appendix, but with the rejoinders
by Muslims and other critics having no noticeable effect on its content.
4 Sayyid Ahmad Khan, A Series of Essays on the Life of Muhammad and Subjects Subsidiary
thereto, London: Trübner, 1870. I have examined Muir’s writings and Ahmad Khan’s response
in ‘Response of Sayyid Aḥmad Ḥān to Sir William Muir’s Evaluation of Ḥadīṯ Literature’,
Oriente Moderno 21 (2002), 219–254.

the ḥadīth in christian-muslim dialogue in 19th century india 265
their own efforts to create an ordered understanding of the Muslims to whom

they were presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their approach, however, was
not to determine “what had actually happened” in early Islam, but to define
Islam as it was lived out by Muslims in 19th century India.
Thomas Patrick Hughes (1838–1911) and Edward Sell (1839–1932), both from
England, were missionaries in India with the Church Missionary Society. Both
made major contributions to the Western understanding of Islam in the late
19th century in the form of Hughes’ Dictionary of Islam (1885) and Edward
Sell’s Faith of Islam (1880).5 Both included significant sections on the topic
of the Ḥadīth in their writings, approaching the subject with an Orientalist
and Evangelical bias similar to that of Muir, but focusing on the role of the
Ḥadīth in contemporary expressions of Islam rather than solely in the history of
early Islam as Muir had done. Writing primarily for a Western audience, they
sought to impress upon their readers that the Ḥadīth was as foundational in
the life of a Muslim as the Qurʾān, since it formed the basis of Muslim law.
The writings of Hughes and Sell also demonstrate an awareness of revivalist
movements in India such as the Ahl-i Ḥadīth which sought to revitalize and
renew the practice of Islam through a fresh and focused study of the Ḥadīth.
Throughout their writings on Islam, Hughes and Sell engaged in dialogue with
another Muslim movement that was increasing in visibility, that of Muslim
modernists such as Ahmad Khan as well as Syed Ameer Ali (1849–1928) and
Cheragh Ali (1844–1895). While at times dismissive of this new expression of
Islam, the missionaries also regularly relied on the writings of these modernists
as authoritative statements of Muslim belief.
Christian Missionary Scholarship and Bias
Both Hughes and Sell attended the Church Missionary College, in Islington,
London, and were ordained together along with a number of other prospective
missionaries, in 1864. The Church Missionary College had opened in 1825 for the
purpose of providing training for prospective missionary candidates with the
5 Thomas P. Hughes, A Dictionary of Islam: Being a Cyclopaedia of the Doctrines, Rites, Cere-
monies, and Customs, Together With the Technical and Theological Terms, of the Muhammadan
Religion, London: W.H. Allen, 1885; reprinted in 1896; Edward Sell, The Faith of Islam, London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., 1880. The same publishers printed a revised edition
in 1896. The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, London, published another
revised and enlarged edition in 1906.
266 guenther
Church Missionary Society. Its main work was to provide training to prepare
non-graduate men for service as missionaries through a three-year course
followed by ordination by the Bishop of London before they went abroad. The
Church Missionary Society to which Hughes and Sell belonged had its origins
with the prominent Evangelicals of the Clapham Sect of the late 18th and early
19th centuries. It had been the main expression of the missionary concern of
Evangelicals within the Church of England, and had grown rapidly in terms of
missionary activity in England.
Hughes’ missionary career began with his departure for India in 1864 to work
in the city of Peshawar. He worked as an evangelist among the Afghan people
of that area until 1884 when he left India. In addition to two major books and
numerous articles on Islam and missionary efforts among Muslims, Hughes
wrote extensively on the Afghans, compiling a selection of Pushto prose and
poetry entitled The Kalīd-i-Afghāni. Upon retiring from cms, he and his family
moved to the United States where he was involved as a clergyman in several
churches in the New York area before his death in 1911. He received recognition
of his scholarship by being awarded membership of the Royal Asiatic Society
of England and Ireland, becoming one of the original Fellows of the University
of the Punjab at Lahore, being awarded a b.d. by the Archbishop of Canterbury
in 1878 and an honorary ll.d from St John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland in
1897.
Edward Sell left England in 1865, a year after Hughes’ departure, to work in
Madras as Headmaster of the Harris High School, with a specific assignment
to direct his ministry towards the Muslim population. He continued in active
ministry in southern India for fifty-seven years in a variety of missionary tasks,
including an abundance of research and literary work, and died in Madras ten
years after his official retirement. He left a legacy of writings about Islam as
well as studies about the Christian scriptures and doctrines. He was a member
of the Royal Asiatic Society, was made a Fellow of Madras University, and
received a bd from the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1881 and a dd from the
University of Edinburgh. He was awarded the Kaiser-i-Hind Gold medal in
1906.
Both Sell and Hughes were typical of cms missionaries in that they had little
formal education before they left for their field of service. Nevertheless, their
contribution to the new missionary scholarship was considerable. The writ-
ings of both missionaries up to 1888 will serve as the basis for an analysis of
their perspectives on the Ḥadīth and Islam more generally. Their articles, pub-
lished in both Indian and British journals, frequently formed the foundation
of their later books as they continued to revise and add to their original data
and conclusions. Hence, Hughes’ review of R. Bosworth Smith’s Mohammad
and Mohammedanism6 contained themes that were expanded into his Notes
on Muhammadanism, in which he stated that those “notes” would later become
the basis of the Dictionary of Islam he was compiling.7 Edward Sell’s Faith of
Islam was drawn from a series of articles he published in The British and For-
eign Evangelical Review and went through two subsequent revisions in 1896
and 1907. The writings of this period were generally intended for a European
audience and not as contributions to the genre of controversial writings that
had arisen, though Sell’s Faith of Islam was translated into Urdu as ʿAqāʿid-i-
Islamiyyat by Mawlavī Ḥamīdī Shafqat Allāh and published by the American
Mission Press in 1883. Although Hughes intended to assist those engaged in
such controversy through his Notes and his Dictionary, he did not direct his
writings to the Muslim audience as “a controversial attack on the religious sys-
tem of Muḥammad”.8
T.P. Hughes placed great importance on personal knowledge and experience
as the primary qualifications for writing on the Orient. He began his review of
Smith’s book with a general lament that Christian writers up until the begin-
ning of the 18th century held “the most absurd opinions” about the founder of
Islam and had not made any attempt “to give either Muḥammad or his religion
a fair and impartial consideration”.9 Hughes recognized that he, as a missionary,
would be viewed as being equally biased and lacking impartiality. He acknowl-
edged that the assumption would be made by critics that “when a Christian
Missionary approaches the consideration of Muhammadanism, he must nec-
essarily bring with him all the bias and party spirit of one whose life is devoted
to the work of proselytism”.10 But he felt that the intimate contact one in such
a profession could have with practitioners of the religion under examination
more than compensated for such possible bias. He insisted that a missionary
who daily interacted with Muslims in discussions with their religious leaders
and in regular social contacts, gained his credentials through his constant study
6 R. Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism: Lectures delivered at the Royal

Institution of Great Britain in February and March, 1874, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1874.
7 In a letter to Christopher Cyprian Fenn, Secretary of the Church Missionary Society,
T.P. Hughes wrote from Peshawar on 21 Aug. 1874, that he wanted his review of Bosworth’s
book to be returned if it was not going to be published. He added, “I have for some time
been a careful student of Muhammadanism and have been for a long time engaged on a
Dictionary of the system”. c i 1/0 147 cms Archives, University of Birmingham.
8 Hughes, Dictionary, p. v.
9 Thomas P. Hughes, ‘An Indian Missionary on Muhammad and Muhammadansim’, The
Church Missionary Intelligencer, new series, 10 (1874), p. 330.
10 Hughes, ‘An Indian Missionary’, p. 331.
268 guenther
of their system of religion—both in terms of religious texts and field research.

In his view, such a one was, “to say the least, as likely to form as true and as
just an estimate of the character of Muḥammad and his religious system as
those who have but studied the question with the information derived from
the works of English and Continental writers”.11 He contrasted a writer such as
Smith who “can lay no claim to original Oriental research, and has not had any
practical experience of the working of that great religious system which he has
undertaken to defend”, to one like Muir or fellow missionaries in India, Africa,
Turkey, Persia, or Afghanistan who had an “intimate acquaintance with the sys-
tem”.12 Hughes clearly considered the work done by Muir on manuscripts of
al-Wāqidī, previously unavailable in the West, and his own regular interviews
with Muslim religious leaders to have greater scholarly merit than reconstruc-
tions of Islam made by non-specialists such as Smith solely on the basis of
Orientalist writings in European languages.
Like Hughes, Edward Sell also took issue with the Orientalist scholars of
his day by whom, in his view, much was “written either in ignorant preju-
dice, or from an ideal standpoint”.13 He stressed, as did Hughes, that a greater
qualification than being well-versed in the writings of the Europeans, was to
live among the people and to know their literature. Not only the Orientalist
scholar, but also the traveller came under criticism. With reference to prac-
tices such as divorce and polygamy, Hughes stated, “It is but seldom that the
European traveller obtains an insight of the interior economy of the Muham-
madan domestic life, but the Christian Missionary, living as he does for a
lengthened period in the midst of the people, has frequent opportunities of
judging the baneful and pernicious influence of Muhammadanism on domes-
tic life”.14

12 Hughes, ‘An Indian Missionary’, p. 340. Hughes’s criticism does reveal a major weakness
in Smith’s work. In listing his sources, Smith did mention Ahmad Khan’s Essays and Amīr
ʿAlī’s A Critical Examination, but stated that he had not heard of these two books when
he wrote the substance of his lectures in 1872, and in enlarging his work, he “purposely
abstained from consulting them” since he had heard that they advocated from the Muslim
point of view what he was seeking to advocate from the Christian stand-point. He felt
his work would have greater impact if similar conclusions were reached independently,
thus opening himself up to the charge of a lack of “original Oriental research”. Smith,
Mohammad, pp. xvi–xvii.
13 Sell, Faith of Islam, 1880 ed., p. x. See also Edward Sell, ‘The Church of Islam’, British and
Foreign Evangelical Review 27, no. 104 (Apr. 1878), p. 33, 34.
14 Hughes, ‘An Indian Missionary’, cmi, p. 338.
Hughes rested the authority of his own research on Muslim texts, confirming
from living witnesses that those principles still formed the basis of their faith
and practice. In the introduction to his Dictionary he stated that, while he made
use of some European works, he had also, during a long residence among Mus-
lims, “been able to consult very numerous Arabic and Persian works in their
originals, and to obtain the assistance of very able Muhammadan native schol-
ars of all schools of thought in Islam.”15 In an earlier article, as a footnote to his
description of Wahhābī beliefs, he stated that his information could be con-
sidered reliable because of his intimate acquaintance with the chief disciple of
Sayyid Aḥmad (1786–1831) of Rae Bareli, and because he had “studied Islamism
under the tutorship of the second son of that Wahabi divine”, who was living
near Peshawar at that time.16 In addition to religious scholars he consulted in
India, Hughes spent a brief time in Egypt visiting mosques and questioning
scholars in places like al-Azhar.17 However, Hughes did acknowledge a greater
debt to certain European writers such as Muir, Gustav Weil, and Aloys Sprenger
than did Sell.18
In emphasizing the advantage of direct knowledge, Hughes directly con-
fronted several issues which are key components of modern discussions of
Orientalism. In his use of primary sources and his checking of facts with local
religious leaders, he separated himself from that class of Orientalists which
Edward Said has described as circumscribing the Orient “by a series of attitudes
and judgments that send the Western mind, not first to Oriental sources for cor-
rection and verification but rather to Orientalist works”.19 Hughes’ statement
regarding earlier negative assessments of the Prophet Muḥammad is signifi-
cant in the light of writings by Norman Daniel and Jabal Buaben.20 After his
very thorough survey of mediaeval Christian writings on Muḥammad, Daniel
proceeds to find the same themes in more recent Western writings, especially in
those of conservative, British Christians of the nineteenth century such as Muir
and other missionaries.21 Buaben follows a similar analysis, with a detailed
15 Hughes, Dictionary, p. vi.

16 Hughes, ‘An Indian Missionary’, cmi, p. 337.
17 Thomas P. Hughes, ‘A Week in Egypt’, Church Missionary Intelligencer, 1, second new series
(1876) pp. 216–218.
18 Hughes, Dictionary, pp. vi, 387, 643–646.
19 Edward Said, Orientalism, New York: Pantheon Books, 1978, p. 67.
20 Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image, rev. ed., Oxford: Oneworld
Publications Ltd., 1993; Jabal M. Buaben, Image of the Prophet Muḥammad in the West: A
Study of Muir, Margoliouth and Watt, London: The Islamic Foundation, 1996.
21 Daniel Islam and the West, pp. 326–327.
270 guenther
study of Muir’s biography of Muḥammad. Both conclude that the negative

assessments made of Muḥammad and Islam indicate a continuation of the
mediaeval attitudes and therefore also of mediaeval methodologies of study,
considered inferior to more modern, scientific and objective approaches. How-
ever, Hughes was aware of the ignorance regarding Islam expressed in earlier
writings and deliberately sought to distance himself from them by researching
original sources and involving himself in a continuous dialogue with Muslims
from a variety of sectarian backgrounds.
Unlike Muir, who had focused on the early history of Islam and made a
study of early texts to construct what he imagined Islam to be, Sell and Hughes
focused more attention on expressions of Islam current in their time, once
again appealing to their experience and relationships with the practitioners
as their authority. Sell stated in his essay on “The Church of Islam” that he
had not discussed whether Muḥammad had been deceived or self-deceived, an
apostle or an impostor, or other theoretical questions of the origins of Islam,
“but what Islam as a religious system has become, and is; how it now works;
what orthodox Muslims believe, and how they act in that belief”.22 The factors
which prompted him to do this research, rather than to write a biography of
the Prophet or the history of the political spread of Islam, as Muir was doing,
were the practical realities faced by both the missionaries and the colonialist
government who had to deal with “Islam as it is, and as it now influences those
who rule and those who are ruled under it”.23 Hughes also, in a brief review of
the first edition of his Notes, was described as having represented Islam “as it
really is, not as it is supposed that it might be”, in contrast to “the speculations
current in literary society” in England.24
Hughes, in the introduction to his Notes, stated his aim to provide informa-
tion to missionaries and others who might be interested.25 In his Dictionary, he
broadened his target audience, writing that he hoped that it would be useful
not only for Christian missionaries engaged in controversy with Muslim schol-
ars, but also for government officials, travellers, and students of comparative
religions.26 Both Sell and Hughes were consciously writing from a context in
22 Sell, ‘The Church of Islam’, British and Foreign Evangelical Review, p. 335.
23 Sell, The Faith of Islam, 1880 ed., p. ix.
24 Hughes, ‘A Week in Egypt’, with following editorial note. cmi, p. 224.
25 T.P. Hughes, Notes on Muhammadanism, being outlines of the Religious System of Islam,
2nd ed., London: Wm. H. Allen, 1877, p. ix. Unless indicated otherwise, all references to
Hughes’s Notes will be to this 2nd edition.
26 Hughes, Dictionary, p. viii. Robert Needham Cust, in his review of the book, considered
it of but limited value because of Hughes’ limited knowledge and experience of Islam
which the Ottoman Empire was a world power to which England had to relate,
in which England was also the ruler of the largest Muslim nation—India, and
in which Islam was a vast system with which the Christian Church had to come
to terms. Thus, while in their close interaction with the practitioners of the
religious system they were describing they differed considerably from other
European Orientalists, their major writings were not intended for Muslims or
other “Orientals”, but for Westerners, to construct an image of Islam which they
felt more accurately reflected the reality they had experienced.
The Revivalist Movement of the Ahl-i Ḥadīth
Both Hughes and Sell made the Ahl-i Ḥadīth movement, which they com-
monly referred to as the “Wahhābī” movement, a special focus of their study.
In his 1878 article on the movement in the Christian Missionary Intelligencer,
Hughes traced its history in Arabia and also in India as led by Sayyid Aḥmad
Barelvi in Oudh.27 He disagreed with W.W. Hunter’s (1840–1900) assessment of
its political threat to the British in India, seeing its continuing influence in the
subcontinent as being more in the area of Muslim religious thought than in
that of political resistance.28 This reform movement tended to deny “the valid-
ity of mediaeval law schools in favor of the direct use of the textual sources
of the faith, the Qurʾān and the hadis, which were to be interpreted literally
and narrowly”.29 One reason why the followers of this movement attracted the
attention of the missionaries was that they, along with the Deobandis, were
in the forefront of those who debated with both reformist Hindus and Chris-
tian missionaries.30 The political activities of the Ahl-i-Ḥadīth found their most
beyond his contact with the Afghans of Peshawar. See Robert Needham Cust, ‘Islam’,
Notes on Missionary Subjects. Part ii, Essays on the Great Problems outside the Orbit of Pure
Evangelistic Work, but which the Missionary has to Face, London: Elliot Stock, 1888, p. 53.
27 Thomas P. Hughes, ‘The Wahhabis of Najd and India’, Church Missionary Intelligencer, 3
second new series (1878) pp. 98–100, 160–165.
28 Hughes, ‘The Wahhabis’, p. 163. For Hunter’s views, see, William Wilson Hunter, The Indian
Musalmans: Are They Bound in Conscience to Rebel against the Queen? London: Trübner,
1871. Sayyid Ahmad Khan had written a review of the book which appeared as a series
of articles in The Pioneer from November 1871 to February 1872; see abridged version in
Ahmad Khan, Writings and Speeches of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, compiled and edited by Shan
Mohammad, Bombay: Nachiketa Publications, 1972, pp. 65–82.
29 Barbara Daly Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900, Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 265.
30 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 279.
272 guenther
prominent expression in military campaigns against the Sikhs in north-western

India under Sayyid Aḥmad Barelvi in the first half of the nineteenth century.
The British administration in India had launched a major effort to clean up
left-over fighters on the frontier in 1863, followed by trials of suspected leaders
in Ambala and Patna from 1864 until 1871.31 In this context, it was no won-
der that British administrative officials such as Hunter would see the pres-
ence of this group primarily in terms of a political threat. Ahmad Khan, in
his review of Hunter’s work, pointed out the fallacy of extrapolating the local-
ized conditions of the Bengal region to include all of India, and, further, to
include all Muslims.32 He saw the accusations as being particularly inappli-
cable to the Afghans in the north-western frontier region. Since this was the
context in which Hughes wrote his works, it is understandable that he would
share Ahmad Khan’s convictions as to the non-political thrust of the move-
ment. During his brief stay in Egypt, Hughes made a careful search for any
influence of “Wahhābīism”, but found no evidence for such a religious revival
there.33
Like Ahmad Khan, Hughes saw the Ahl-i-Ḥadīth movement in Islam as anal-
ogous to that of the Protestants in Christianity.34 This would have been another
major factor in drawing the attention of Protestant missionaries to this move-
ment. Hughes was convinced that the movement represented “the earliest
teachings of the Muslim Faith as they came from Muḥammad and his imme-
diate successors”.35 As an Evangelical, he would have been attracted by the
emphasis on rejecting mediaeval accretions to faith in favour of recourse to
textual sources interpreted quite literally. He would also have appreciated their
radical approach to religious practice that emphasized the individual responsi-
bility over a blind following of past religious authorities. He may even have felt
some empathy for their general religious and psychological orientation con-
sisting of an “urgent quest for a single standard of religious interpretation and
an exclusiveness and sense of embattlement against all others”,36 and the fact
that they were Muslims by conviction, not merely by birth. The major differ-
31 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp. 280–281.

32 Ahmad Khan, Writings and Speeches, pp. 67–70.
33 Hughes, ‘A Week in Egypt’, p. 221.
34 Hughes, ‘The Wahhabis’, p. 164; Ahmad Khan, Writings and Speeches, p. 68. See also The
Pioneer, Apr. 4, 1871, p. 4 and Apr. 5, 1871, p. 5, where Ahmad Khan again makes the
comparison, as well as proclaiming himself “a friend of Wahabeeism” while at the same
time a “liberal Mahomedan”.
36 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp. 269, 295.
ence that Hughes saw between the Protestant and Ahl-i-Ḥadīth movements
was that the former asserted the paramount authority of Scripture over tradi-
tion, while the latter asserted the authority of Scripture with tradition.37 This,
then, led him to examine the role that tradition, or the Ḥadīth, played in their
construction of Islam.
Hughes saw the rise of the study of Ḥadīth in general as a consequence of
“Wahhābism”,38 and strongly disagreed with European writers who saw in the
movement an attempt to strip the religion of its traditions and restore it to the
simple teaching of the Qurʾān.
Wahhabism is simply a revival of the teaching of the Traditions, to the

partial rejection of the third and fourth foundations of faith, namely,
the Ijmaʾ and Qiyās. The Wahabīs of India never speak of themselves as
Wahabīs, but as “Ahl i Hadīs”, or the People of the Traditions; and it is
entirely owing to this revival that so great an impetus has been given to the
study of the Hadīs, printed copies of which are published by thousands at
Bombay, Lucknow, and Delhi.39
He saw tradition as occupying a totally different place in Islam from that

occupied in Evangelical Protestant Christianity.40 Duties and dogma within
Islam that were held to be divinely instituted most often found their source
not in the Qurʾān but in the Ḥadīth.
Edward Sell similarly attributed the rise of the Arab reformer, Muḥammad
Ibn ʿAbdul Wahhāb (1703–1792) to the latter’s conviction that the Qurʾān and
the traditions had been neglected in favour of “the sayings of men of lesser
note and the jurisprudence of the four great Imāms”.41 While, in one sense,
the movement sought to cleanse Islam from the traditionalism of later ages,
he argued, in no sense could it be said that the Wahhābīs rejected Tradition.42
They accepted as binding not only the Qurʾān, but also the Ḥadīth as recorded
on the authority of the Companions. Sell did not see the resulting movement as
a progressive return to first principles, but rather as one that bound “the fetters
37 Hughes, ‘The Wahhabis’, p. 164.

38 Hughes, Dictionary, p. 643.
40 Hughes, ‘The Wahhabis’, p. 164; Hughes, Dictionary, p. 661.
41 Edward Sell, ‘The Sects of Islam’, British and Foreign Evangelical Review, 28, 109 (Jul. 1879),
p. 594.
42 Sell, The Faith of Islam, p. 105; see also p. 11.
274 guenther
of Islam more tightly”.43 In thus denying the legitimacy of the modernists to

transform Islam, Sell and other missionaries like him found in the reformist
Ahl-i-Ḥadīth movement a confirmation that Islam could not change to meet
the demands of a changing world and was antagonistic to the Western ideals of
liberty and free thought.
The Authority of the Ḥadīth
Their criticism of Orientalist European writers led both Hughes and Sell to
a discussion of the authority of the Ḥadīth for the beliefs and practices of
Muslims. Both were critical of writers who presumed the Qurʾān to be the all-
embracing code of Islam. Such a position, they felt, ignored the fact that much
of what made up Islam was based on the body of traditions that rose subse-
quent to the writing of the Qurʾān and were viewed as authoritative by Muslims.
Hughes argued that all groups—Shīʿī, Sunnī, or Ahl-i-Ḥadīth—received the tra-
ditions of the sayings and practices of Muḥammad as obligatory, along with
the pronouncements that he declared as revealed from Allāh.44 Sell echoed
the view that there was not one sect whose faith and practice was based on
the Qurʾān alone. “Its voice is supreme in all that it concerns, but its exegesis,
the whole system of legal jurisprudence and of theological science, is largely
founded on the Traditions”.45 In another essay he declared, “Without going
so far as saying that every Tradition by itself is to be accepted as an author-
ity in Islam, we distinctly assert that there can be no true conception formed
of that system if the Traditions are not studied and taken into account”.46
He was of the opinion that it would be very difficult for someone who had
not “lived in long and friendly intercourse” with Muslims to realize how the
Ḥadīth were the foundation for so much of their religious life and opinions,
thoughts and actions.47 This conviction regarding the centrality of the Ḥadīth
was born out of Sell’s experience in discussions with Muslim religious lead-
ers.
43 Sell, The Faith of Islam, p. 106.

44 Hughes, Notes, pp. vii–viii, 50.
45 Sell, The Faith of Islam, p. 1. See also his paper on ‘Muhammadans’, The Missionary Confer-
ence: South India and Ceylon, 1879, Madras: Addison, 1880, pp. 336–339.
46 Edward Sell, ‘Muhammadan Exegesis of the Qurān and the Traditions’, British and Foreign
Evangelical Review, 28, 110 (Oct. 1879), p. 757.
47 Sell, ‘Muhammadan Exegesis’, p. 760.
Every missionary to the Muhammadans knows that for one text from the
Koran quoted against him in controversy he will get a dozen from the
Sunnat. In vain does he say it is tradition, and not the “book”. The answer
is ever ready, it is to us what your four Gospels are to you—neither more
or less.48
Here, again, Sell was confronting those who wrote on Islam from a distance,
imagining an ideal which did not match with what he had experienced as real-
ity. The comparison of Ḥadīth literature to the Gospels was made repeatedly, as
another tool to stress its authority to the European reader. The Muslim would
view the Gospels as a record of what Jesus said and did, handed down by his
companions, just as the Ḥadīth was a record of what Muḥammad said and did,
similarly handed down by his companions. Sell quotes Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406)
as his authority for this comparison.49 Hughes further compared the authority
of the Ḥadīth for the Muslim to that of the Pauline epistles for the orthodox
Christian.50
In their objection to the European characterization of Islam as “a simple
system of Deism unfettered by numerous dogmas and creeds”, Hughes and
Sell were reacting to criticism of the missionary movement which was suppos-
edly thus “fettered”.51 In contrast, in their own construction of Islam, it was the
multiple layers of tradition that were added to the simple pronouncements of
the Qurʾān that became a vast burden now hanging as a “dead weight” upon
the religion.52 Sell blamed this body of tradition, along with the authority it
had acquired as an infallible and unvarying rule of faith, for the “immobil-
ity of the Muhammadan world” and its inability to progress according to the
European notion of progress.53 He described how horrified the pious Muslim
would be to learn of the “progress” his English friends envisioned him mak-
ing, since innovation was a crime, a sin, in his eyes.54 Sell also disagreed with
those who diminished the importance of the example of the Prophet in an
attempt to excuse what was seen as his jealousy, cruelty to the Jewish tribes,
licentiousness, and other weaknesses.55 Hughes, in his focus on the Ḥadīth,
48 Sell, ‘The Church of Islam’, p. 329.

51 Hughes, Notes, p. vii.
276 guenther
was also replying to those who questioned the Evangelical rejection of Muḥam-
mad’s message partly on the basis of his “private vices”. He felt that these critics
had a wrong estimation of the place the example of Muḥammad occupied in
Islam.56
The approach of Sell and Hughes to the study of the Ḥadīth differed from
that of Muir in its basic intention. Whereas Muir’s exploration of the sources of
the traditions was to arrive at a historically reliable assessment of the life and
character of Muḥammad, Hughes and Sell were describing Islam in its contem-
porary form and argued that that description was ultimately an expression of
Muslims’ attempts to follow the example of their Prophet in all details of life.57
It was in the Ḥadīth that the roots of many of the contemporary expressions of
Islam were to be found. It was also a study of these traditions that would assist
the missionary or other European wishing to understand how normative Islam
should manifest itself.
Cheragh Ali, writing as a Muslim modernist prepared to jettison the reliabil-
ity of the Ḥadīth, censured the Orientalists for placing such importance on the
authority of the Ḥadīth and insisting on refusing Islam any prospect of change.
“The European writers like Muir, Osborn,58 Hughes, and Sell, while describ-
ing the Muhammadan traditions, take no notice of the fact that almost all
of them are not theoretically and conscientiously binding on the Moslems”.59
He considered the sifting of the traditions done in the third century to have
been done too late, and the method of analyzing their authenticity by isnād
as merely “pseudo-critical,” without any sifting on critical, historical, or ratio-
nal principles nor any examination of subject matter or internal and historical
evidence.60 Such traditions could not be authoritative and thus not binding
on Muslims, though jurists continued to insist on using them as the basis for
common law. He wrote, “This is tantamount to our acting in accordance with
traditions even when our reason and conscience have no obligations to do so”.61
This interaction with authors such as Muir, Hughes, and Sell demonstrates that
56 Hughes, ‘An Indian Missionary’, pp. 332–333.

58 Robert Durie Osborn (1835–1889) was part of the British military force in India, participat-
ing in the suppression of the Revolt of 1857 and in the Afghan war in 1878 before retiring
as Lt.-Colonel in 1879. He wrote Islam under the Arabs (1876) and Islam under the Khalifs
of Bagdad (1877) as well as a number of journal articles.
59 Cheragh Ali, The Proposed Political, Legal and Social Reforms in the Ottoman Empire and
other Mohammadan States, Bombay: Education Society’s Press, 1883, p. xx.
60 Cheragh Ali, The Proposed Political, Legal and Social Reforms, p. xix.
61 Cheragh Ali, The Proposed Political, Legal and Social Reforms, p. xx.
the Muslims were not only aware of their writings, but actively confronting
their ideas with creative arguments that had the effect of transforming Mus-
lim discourse in India.
Defining the Ḥadīth
In their preliminary definitions of Ḥadīth, Hughes and Sell both emphasized

how foundational the body of tradition was to both dogma and ritual in Islam.
A related concern was the degree of inspiration attributed to this body of
traditions, since that had a direct bearing on its authority. Hughes summarized
the traditions as consisting of 3 types of Sunna—what Muḥammad did, what he
said should be practised, and what was done in his presence.62 The collections
of these traditions were called Ḥadīth and constituted the body of oral law of
Muḥammad with an authority that was next only to the Qurʾān.63 “Tradition
in Islam is nothing less than the supposed inspired sayings of the Prophet,
recorded and handed down by uninspired writers, and is absolutely necessary
to complete the structure of faith”.64
Sell’s definition was very similar: “It is the collection of the sayings of the
prophet in answer to inquiries as to the correct ritual to be observed in worship,
as to the course of action to be followed in the varied relationships of social
and political life. It is too something more, viz., the record of the actions of
the prophet”.65 With respect to inspiration, Sell stated that Muslims believed in
the divine inspiration of all Muḥammad’s words and actions, with the resulting
high authority of the Ḥadīth in the religion. In the Qurʾān the very words were
God’s, while in the Sunna, “the ideas are divine, the outward form human”.66
He supported this idea with a quote from al-Ghazālī (1058–1111) on the neces-
sity of the second part of the kalima or creed, emphasizing the authority of
the Prophet.67 He designated the revelation contained in the Qurʾān as “objec-
tive”, while Muḥammad’s sayings as collected in the Ḥadīth were received
by “subjective” but still true inspiration.68 In Faith of Islam, Sell gave a more

63 Hughes, Notes, p. 50.
64 Hughes, ‘The Wahhabis’, p. 164; see also Hughes, Dictionary, p. 661.
65 Sell, ‘The Church of Islam’, p. 329; see also Sell, ‘Muhammadan Exegesis’, p. 757.
278 guenther
detailed description of the degrees of inspiration.69 Waḥy was considered to be

inspiration given directly to major prophets in the form of words to be writ-
ten in a book, while ilhām was inspiration given to a saint or prophet who
delivered a message about God from his own mind. The degree of inspira-
tion applied to the Ḥadīth was a lower form of waḥy called ishārat al-malak,
denoting a sign given by the angel Gabriel, but not words from his mouth.
Sell noted that this was denied by some who said that the Qurʾān alone was
inspired by waḥy, but stated, “The practical belief is, however, that the Tradi-
tions were Wahī inspiration, and thus they come to be as authoritative as the
Qurʾān”.70
According to Hughes and Sell, the authority of the Sunna, that is, the way
of Muḥammad contained in the traditions that comprise the Ḥadīth, rested
fundamentally with the Prophet himself. Traditions stating that Muḥammad
had commanded his followers to follow his example, and those recording the
subsequent practice of his Companions to that effect, abounded.71 Hughes
quoted Ahmad Khan on the belief of every Muslim that the Prophet always
acted in conformity with the injunctions of the Qurʾān, and thus became the
exemplar that every Muslim must follow.72 Hughes argued that the example
of Muḥammad was for the Muslim what the example of Christ was for the
Christian, an idea repeated by Sell.73 Sell further added that, on the basis of
the sinlessness of the Prophet, obedience to him was considered obedience to
God.74 He stated, “It is the belief common to all Musalmāns that the Prophet
in all that he did, in all that he said, was supernaturally guided, and that his
words and acts are to all time and to all his followers a divine rule of faith and
practice”.75
However, both Hughes and Sell failed to include Ahmad Khan’s qualifier
that Muslims saw all of the Prophet’s words and actions concerning secu-
lar matters to be the same as those of any other virtuous and pious individ-
69 Sell, The Faith of Islam, pp. 37–38.

71 Sell, The Faith of Islam, p. 13ff. Here Sell cites as his source for some of the traditions:
Edward William Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians,
Written in Egypt during the Years 1833, 34, and 35, partly from Notes Made during a Former
Visit to that Country in the Years 1825, 26, 27, and 28, London: Charles Knight, 1846, vol. 1,
p. 354.
72 Hughes, ‘An Indian Missionary’, p. 333; quoting Ahmad Khan, Essays, p. 190.
73 Sell, Faith of Islam, p. 16.
74 Sell, Faith of Islam, pp. 12–13.
75 Sell, Faith of Islam, p. 10; Sell, ‘The Church of Islam’, p. 329.
ual, unless they were clearly indicated to be of divine origin.76 The position
adopted by Hughes in his review of Smith’s book on the comprehensive author-
ity of the Prophet’s example seems similar to that of Muir’s, to which Ahmad
Khan was reacting with his insistence on the limitation of that authority. How-
ever, in his Notes, published only a few years later, as well as in his Dictio-
nary, Hughes moved closer to Ahmad Khan’s interpretation as he included
the concept of secondary revelation, as Ahmad Khan did, in reference to the
authority of the Ḥadīth.77 Hughes described this type of revelation as simi-
lar to that which Christians believed the writers of the Christian Scriptures
received, a concept Ahmad Khan had discussed in his commentary on the
Bible.78
The Historical Collection of the Ḥadīth
In tracing the collection of the Ḥadīth after the death of the Prophet, both
Hughes and Sell tended to follow the analysis of Muir as given in his Life.
Hughes simply quoted Muir extensively in his Dictionary, focusing on the nat-
ural tendency to fabricate stories about a past hero and on the need for broader
source material generated by an expanding empire.79 The major weaknesses of
the body of traditions, as explained by Hughes, were the lack of written testi-
mony by contemporary witnesses and the unreliability of oral transmission.
Sell also closely followed Muir in describing the rise of the Sunna based on
an authoritative body of traditions.80 During the Prophet’s lifetime, believers
could ask him directly on aspects of worship, and his replies would be taken
as divine instructions. As the empire grew after his death, new questions arose,
leading to the development of qiyās, or analogical reasoning, based on previous
revelation, to determine correct practice. While the first four “rightly guided
Caliphs” lived, people could question them, since they could recall Muḥam-
mad’s words and actions. But as time went on, the community came to rely
more and more on devout men who had memorized the Qurʾān, the Sunna,
and the judgments of the rightly guided Caliphs. Sell saw in this progression a
76 Ahmad Khan, Essays, p. 208.

77 Hughes, Notes, p. 60; Hughes, Dictionary, p. 639.
78 Ahmad Khan, The Mohommedan Commentary on the Holy Bible, vol. 1, Ghazeepore: self-
published, 1862, pp. 13–14.
79 Hughes, Dictionary, pp. 643–646, from Muir. Life, pp. xxviii–xxxvi, xlii.
80 Sell, ‘The Church of Islam’, pp. 330–331.
280 guenther
temptation to create spurious sayings of the Prophet to settle disputed mat-

ters.81 He summed up the weaknesses of such as system in the following words:
“It is not difficult to see that a system which sought to regulate all departments
of life, all developments of men’s ideas and energies by, to use Muslim terms,
Sunnat and Quias, was one which not only gave every temptation a system
could give to the manufacture of tradition, but which would soon become too
cumbersome to be of practical use”.82
In summarizing the history of the growth of the body of traditions, Hughes
stated that, in spite of severe warnings from Muḥammad, many spurious tradi-
tions abounded, as evidenced by the numerous traditions that Abū Dāʾūd and
Bukhārī rejected from those they had preserved in their standard collections.
Since the rule of faith in Islam was based on that body of Ḥadīth, it was nec-
essary that a science of evaluating the traditions or ʿilm-i-ḥadīth be developed.
In the first edition of his Notes, completed during a short trip to England in
1875 after eleven years in India, Hughes had taken the rules and categories for
the reception and rejection of traditions directly from Ahmad Khan’s Essays.
In the 1877 edition, completed after returning to Peshawar, he arranged the
material on Ḥadīth according to the description of the various categories of
Ḥadīth and the strength of the chain of transmitters as given in the Arabic trea-
tise, Nukhba al-Fikr, by the 15th century Ḥadīth scholar and jurist, Ibn Ḥajar
al-ʿAsqalāni (1372–1449).83 Hughes recorded that copies of the six authoritative
collections, along with that of Imām Mālik, were printed and available in India,
but the most widely read, especially by the Ahl-i-Ḥadīth,84 was the Mishkāt
al-Maṣābīḥ a collection of the most reliable traditions translated into Persian
by Shaykh ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq Muḥaddith Dihlawī (1551–1642) during the reign of
Mughal emperor, Akbar (1542–1605), and translated into English by Captain
Matthews in 1809.85 Hughes used this collection extensively in his publications,
and had even planned to have a new edition published.86

83 Hughes, Notes, p. 52, footnote; this treatise had been edited by W. Nassau Lees and
published in Calcutta in 1862.
84 Hughes, ‘The Wahhabis’, p. 163, footnote.
86 Hughes, Dictionary, p. 353. In a letter to C.C. Fenn, London, 11 Oct. 1875, T.P. Hughes
enclosed a specimen title page for a new edition of The Mishkat-ul-Masabih, or A Col-
lection of the Most Authentic Traditions of the Precepts and Practice of Muhammad, to be
published by Wm. H. Allen & Co. Subsequent correspondence would indicate that a lack
of subscriptions and a lack of enthusiasm for the project on the part of William Muir
Hughes combined the approaches of Muir and Ahmad Khan in assessing

the authenticity of the Ḥadīth. He expressed his confidence that “the com-
pilers of the books of tradition were sincere and honest in their endeavours
to produce correct and well authenticated traditions of their Prophet’s pre-
cepts and practice”.87 But sincerity would not be enough to guarantee accuracy.
He quoted Muir with regard to the weakness of oral transmission in not pro-
viding the proper check against “the license of error and fabrication”.88 But,
along with Muir’s objections to the system of Ḥadīth criticism, Hughes also
took note of Ahmad Khan’s response to Muir in his Essays. In his Dictionary,
Hughes quoted Ahmad Khan’s essays extensively with regard to the various
styles of transmission, degree of authenticity, causes of diverse accounts, and
apocryphal Ḥadīth.89 However, he left out Ahmad Khan’s criticism of Christian
writers ignorant of these rules regulating the study of Ḥadīth, which directly
followed that section.90 Perhaps he felt he was meeting this objection through
his own thorough study. When he noted that Ahmad Khan actually confirmed
Muir’s critical assessment of the reliability of the Ḥadīth, in that he considered
only the Qurʾān and a few—not more than five—traditions were accepted as
fully reliable and authoritative in faith and practice, Hughes wrote of him, “The
learned Sayyid is in this, as in almost everything he writes on the subject of reli-
gion, his own refutation.”91 The factor leading Hughes to study the traditions
was not the necessity of gaining an accurate account of the life of Muḥammad,
as it was for Muir. Rather, he felt that it was significant that though “shrouded
with a degree of uncertainty,” this body of traditions still occupied a central
place in the theological structure of Islam.92 In this perspective of the value or
importance of Ḥadīth, his approach reflected that of Ahmad Khan more than
that of Muir.
discouraged Hughes from continuing. In his letter to Mr. Gray, 25 Aug. 1877, he comments
on the withdrawal of the agreement to publish the Mishkāt. c i 1/0 147 cms Archives, Uni-
versity of Birmingham.
87 Hughes, Notes, pp. 58–59.
89 Hughes, Dictionary, pp. 640–642; see Ahmad Khan, Essays, pp. 195–203.
91 Hughes, Notes, p. 59. In the first edition of his Notes, Hughes’s assessment was harsher:
“The learned Syud, however, is not considered an orthodox Muslim by his co-religionists
in India, and, therefore, cannot be regarded as a true exponent of the Muslim creed”.
Hughes, paradoxically, nevertheless relies heavily on Ahmad Khan’s work to expound
Islam. Thomas P. Hughes, Notes on Muhammadanism, London: Wm. H. Allen, 1875, p. 33.
282 guenther
In discussing the authoritative collections of Ḥadīth for the Sunnis, Hughes

followed Ahmad Khan in giving special attention to Imām Mālik. Ahmad Khan
had included the early jurist as a seventh major collector after the standard six,
Bukhārī, Muslim, Tirmidhī, Abū Dāʾūd, Nasāʾī, and Ibn Mājah.93 This reflects
the tendency initiated by Shāh Walī Ullāh (1703–1762) to elevate Imām Mālik’s
Muwaṭṭaʾ above all other collections of traditions and to place it alongside the
canonical collections in the highest category of reliability.94 Hughes, while not
including him with the six, stated that Imām Mālik’s work was still held in
great esteem and believed by many to be the source from which the others
derived most of their material.95 In his Dictionary, he focused on the beliefs
and practices of the Sunnis primarily, with indications where the Shīʿa or
Ahl-i-Ḥadīth might differ.96 This focus was in contrast with the writings of
earlier evangelical missionaries such as Karl Gottlieb Pfander (1803–1865) who
drew more on Shīʿī sources.97 Hughes did mention the five differing collections
accepted by the Shīʿa, seeking to refute the idea of some European authors that
this sect rejected tradition altogether.98
When evaluating siyār or biographical literature, Hughes again relied on
Ahmad Khan, who saw Ḥadīth literature as most in need of emendation in
connection with the biography of the Prophet.99 Hughes provided a list of
both traditional and popular biographies of the Prophet. Earlier in his Notes
he had indicated that the only “Life of Muḥammad” in the English language
which he considered of any pretension to original research was that of Muir,
once again demonstrating his synthesizing of selected aspects of Muir’s works
with those of Ahmad Khan.100 Ameer Ali had likewise addressed the matter
of the use of early biographies as historical sources, in his book, A Critical
Examination. Like Ahmad Khan, he considered the writings of al-Wāqidī and
his Kātib, on which Muir’s Life was in large measure based, as “regarded in the
Mohammedan world as the least trustworthy and most careless biographers of

94 Daniel W. Brown, Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996, p. 128.
95 Hughes, Dictionary, pp. 642–643.
97 Avril Ann Powell, Muslims and Missionaries in Pre-Mutiny India, London Studies on South
Asia, 7, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1993, p. 148.
98 Hughes, Dictionary, p. 643.
Mohammad”.101 To support his contention, he quoted Ibn Khallikān (1211–1282)

concerning the feeble authority of al-Wāqidī’s traditions and the doubts as to
his veracity. Ameer Ali also disagreed with Muir’s negative evaluations of Ibn
Hishām (d. 834), and stated in his preface that his own research would be based
on the writings of Ibn Hishām and Ibn al-Athīr (1160–1233), the former whom
he considered to occupy “the position of the most careful and trustworthy
biographer of the Prophet”.102
Sell’s account of the Ḥadīth was a summary of the orthodox Sunni posi-
tion, with a Ḥanafī bias, based as it was on the Sharḥ-i-Wiqāya by ʿUbayd Allāh
Ibn Masʿūd al-Maḥbūbī, (d. 1346), a Ḥanafī jurist of Bukhāra, and did not dif-
fer greatly from that given by Ahmad Khan in his Essays.103 He stated that
the unwillingness to commit the sayings of Muḥammad to writing from the
beginning was a consequence of the Prophet’s own command. Another of his
commands regarding careful transmission of his words resulted in the forma-
tion of rules insisting on the recitation of the chain of transmitters or isnād of
the traditions to prevent the rise of spurious ones. Here, Sell quoted the tra-
dition word for word from the English rendering in Ahmad Khan’s work.104
However, false traditions continued to circulate, necessitating the rise of Ḥadīth
scholars to collect and sift the false from the true. Sell proceeded to list the six
major collections, giving brief biographical accounts of their compilers’ lives,
emphasizing the enormous number of traditions they dealt with, as well as
their piety, qualifying them to make decisions on authenticity. His list did not
differ from that given by Hughes, and, like Hughes, only briefly mentioned
the alternate authorities accepted by the Shīʿa, indicating that they flourished
much later.105 His emphasis was that no group of Muslims accepted the Qurʾān
alone as their authority, even if there were differing opinions on which tra-
ditions were authoritative. “There is by no means an absolute consensus of
opinion among the Sunnīs as to the exact value of each Tradition, yet all admit
that a ‘genuine Tradition’ must be obeyed”.106 Sell followed a standard classi-
fication of the traditions based on the strength of the isnād, glossing over the
finer details and subdivisions of class. He ended his account with a statement
101 Syed Ameer Ali, A Critical Examination of the Life and Teachings of Mohammed, London:
Williams and Norgate, 1873, p. vii.
102 Ameer Ali, A Critical Examination, p. ix.
103 Sell, ‘Muhammadan Exegesis’, p. 762. The subsequent summary is taken from pp. 757–763.
104 Sell, ‘Muhammadan Exegesis’, p. 757; see Ahmad Khan, Essays, p. 193.
105 Sell, ‘Muhammadan Exegesis’, pp. 758–759. These are listed by name in his Faith of Islam,
p. 16n.
106 Sell, Faith of Islam, p. 16.
284 guenther
we have seen forming such a foundational principle for both Muir and Ahmad
Khan, “It is the universally accepted rule that no authentic Tradition can be
contrary to the Qurʾān”.107
The Use of the Ḥadīth in Muslim Law
Sell wrote less than did Muir and Hughes on the categories of authentic Ḥadīth,
focusing rather on schools of jurisprudence that developed, again in keeping
with his emphasis on lived Islam. He discussed the four major Sunni schools
in the light of their approach to the Ḥadīth. The Ḥanafī School, which he
described as most widely spread and which was dominant in most of India at
the time, was founded by Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 767) who admitted very few traditions
as authoritative in his system.108 Mālik Ibn Anās, who delighted in collecting
traditions, developed the Māliki School, a system which was much more histor-
ical and more directly based on traditions. Imām al-Shāfiʿī (d. 820) and Aḥmad
Ibn Ḥanbal (d. 855), in reaction to the Ḥanafites, gave greater weight to tradi-
tion as well. Sell attributed the vast collection of tradition that became such an
integral part of the religion to these later systems.109 In characterizing the dif-
ference between the schools of fiqh with respect to tradition, a maulavi friend
of Sell’s stated that a Ḥanafī jurist would be satisfied to make a judgment on just
one passage in the Qurʾān or Hadīth while a Shāfiʿī jurist would require many
traditions.110
In order to maintain his conception of Islam as bound for all time by
unchanging traditions without any ability to adapt to changing circumstances,
Sell rejected the idea proposed by “apologists for Islam”, presumably lawyers
such as Ameer Ali, that this process of law formation could be extrapolated so
that fresh imāms could arise and deduce new judgments in keeping with the
times. He pointed to the fatwas or legal decrees issued by the ‘ulamā’ in the
Ottoman Empire as proof of “how firmly a Muslim State is bound in the fetters
of an unchangeable law”.111 He felt a rejection of the continued use of ijtihād
was justified on the basis of his discussions with religious leaders who insisted

108 Sell, ‘The Church of Islam’, p. 331. In the 1896 edition of The Faith of Islam, London: Paul,
1896, he added that Abū Ḥanīfa selected so few because of the rigorous conditions the
traditions and its transmitters had to meet, quoting Ibn Khaldūn as his authority; p. 27.
110 Sell, ‘The Church of Islam’, pp. 332–333.
111 Sell, The Faith of Islam, p. ix.
that no Mujtahid, one with authority to exercise ijtihād, had arisen since the
four Imāms, and that discussions even in new situations must be according to
one of the four schools.112 He disagreed with Ameer Ali’s reinterpretation of ijti-
hād and considered it historically inaccurate, stating that even if one were to
accept some of Ameer Ali’s revised definitions, that in no way proved that Islam
had any capacity for progress.113 He emphasized that according to the author
of the Sharh-i-Waqāyah, following one of the four schools of jurisprudence was
a necessary extension of the authority of the Qurʾān and the Sunna.114 Because
of the abundance of spurious traditions, the four Imāms were needed, even
though there had been no such institutions at the time of the Prophet. He con-
cluded, “In short, the orthodox belief is that the only safe way is to follow the
Imāms, and to believe and act according to the dogmas and rule of the Mazhab,
to which the particular person belongs”.115
In his first book, The Proposed Political, Legal & Social Reforms, Cheragh Ali
directly addressed Sell’s writings on the rigidity of Islam due to the inflexibil-
ity within the schools of law. He opposed Sell’s statement that no mujtahid
had arisen after the four Sunni Imāms and that all legal decisions had to be
made within the confines of their four schools of fiqh.116 He argued that no
such authority had been claimed by or conferred on the Imāms. The authors
Sell claimed to have consulted, Cheragh Ali characterized as those who prac-
tised taqlīd, those blindly following “any one of the four doctors or schools of
jurisprudence, without having any opinion, insight discretion, or knowledge of
their own”.117 Cheragh Ali’s rating of the four Imāms was slightly different from
that of Sell. He agreed that Abū Ḥanīfa had used few traditions, and that Mālik
Ibn Anas and Imām al-Shāfiʿī used more. But Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal came under
severe disapproval for discarding the principle of analogical deductions and

113 Sell, The Faith of Islam, p. 34. The 1896 edition contained no significant revision of this
position, except to include that Ameer Ali had admitted in an article in the Nineteenth
Century (1895) that the description as given by Sell of the orthodox position was histori-
cally accurate.
114 Sell, ‘Muhammadan Exegesis’, pp. 762–763.
116 Cheragh Ali, The Proposed, p. vi. He also joined the controversy between Sell and Ameer
Ali on the matter of ijtihād, arguing that though the word was now a technical term, it had
not been so in Muḥammad’s time. He preferred to emphasize the principle of personal
opinion by qualified jurists; see pp. xxxvii–xl. Sell continued the discussion in an appendix
to his 1896 edition of The Faith of Islam.
117 Cheragh Ali, The Proposed, p. vii.
286 guenther
incorporating 30,000 traditions in his system, most of which were inauthentic

fabrications, though some justification was found in his system as a corrective
to other excesses.118 He concluded that in its historical context, “every sys-
tem was progressive, incomplete, changeable and undergoing alteration and
improvement”.119 Ameer Ali’s description of the schools was similar, with an
interesting comment that Abū Ḥanīfa often quoted the sixth Shīʿī Imām as his
authority for the traditions he used. He attributed Abū Ḥanīfa’s willingness to
use analogical reasoning to this influence of the house of the Prophet, namely
ʿAlī’s lineage.120
Conclusion
The prominent place of the subject of Ḥadīth in the writings of both Thomas
P. Hughes and Edward Sell indicates that they had achieved a greater under-
standing of its importance in Islamic religious discourse in India than had been
previously acknowledged. A strong undercurrent in their writings was a reac-
tion to what they perceived to be a superficial conception of Islam expressed
in the writings of English Orientalists. They strongly opposed any attempt to
present Islam as an idealized form of Deism, with a minimum of dogma and a
theology free of tradition. They saw the body of traditions known as the Ḥadīth
as composing the essential structure of Islam, and saw in the rise of the Ahl-i-
Ḥadīth a movement to restore the purity of that traditional structure.
Hughes and Sell approached Islam and the subject of Ḥadīth from a world-
view fundamentally shaped by their Evangelical ideology and their missionary
profession. They saw the ultimate religious truth as residing only in Christianity
and believed in the primary importance of spreading that truth to all people.
Consequently, they criticized alike the British government for trying to restrict
missionary movement and the modernist movements in India that introduced
rationalism and scepticism which questioned the supernatural element in reli-
gion. Their view of Islam, at least initially, was that of a lifeless religious tra-
dition bound by fetters of tradition, unable to change because that tradition
composed the essence of the religion.
Their discussion of the Ḥadīth differed from that by Sir William Muir in
that the questions they were asking were quite different. While Muir sought
118 Cheragh Ali, The Proposed, pp. viii–xi.

119 Cheragh Ali, The Proposed, p. xii.
120 Ameer Ali, The Personal Law of the Mahommedans, London, 1880, p. 19.
to determine the authenticity of traditional stories in order to construct what

he saw as a historically accurate biography of the Prophet, Hughes and Sell
sought to describe Islam “as it is”. They were more concerned with living
expressions of Muslim religiosity and with understanding the foundations of
Islamic institutions such as its forms of worship and its legal code. These
concerns led them to seek to understand the historical development of the
Ḥadīth and its relevance to diverse religious groups and movements in India
and the broader Muslim world.
Hughes and Sell seem to have been more open to the influence of their inter-
action with Indian Muslims. Due to their own limited training in Orientalist
studies, they had much to learn and applied themselves to learning both from
local religious leaders and from classical and contemporary writings. Thus they
continually compared and contrasted the teachings of newer movements with
those of the “orthodox”. They felt free to adopt the ideas concerning Ḥadīth
they found in Ahmad Khan’s Essays, while at the same time rejecting some of
his modernist trends as a complete departure from traditional Islam. The com-
pounded effect of his writings, together with those of Amīr ʿAlī and of Chirāgh
ʿAlī, however, was that both Hughes and Sell seemed to modify their views, and
began to acknowledge some of the positive aspects of Islam.
chapter 17
Muslim Responses to Missionary

Literature in Egypt in the Late Nineteenth
and Early Twentieth Centuries
Umar Ryad
Introduction
In the modern age, a number of studies have examined the historical devel-
opment of Christian approaches to Islam. Also, the history of modern Chris-
tian missions has been written predominantly from a Christian missionary
perspective.1 However, much work is needed on the views of Christianity held
by members of other faiths, in particular by Muslims, and how these ideas and
interpretations in turn changed and developed.2
Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many west-
ern Christian missionaries travelled to Egypt and wrote and distributed printed
1 See for example Erich W. Bethmann, Bridge to Islam: A Study of the Religious Forces of Islam
and Christianity in the Near East (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1953); Kenneth Scott
Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity: The Great Century a.d. 1800–a.d. 1914 in
Northern Africa and Asia, vols. 4–6 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1945); Julius Richter, A
History of Protestant Missions in the Near East, 1st ed. (New York: ams Press, 1970, reprinted
from the edition of 1910); Dennis H. Phillips, ‘The American Missionary in Morocco’, The
Muslim World 65.1 (1975): 1–20; Lyle L. Vander Werff, Christian Mission to Muslims: the Record
(South Pasadena, ca: William Carey Library, 1977).
2 Hugh Goddard, Muslim Perceptions of Christianity (London: Grey Seal, 1996), ix; cf. Mahmoud
Ayoub, ‘Islam and Christianity: A Study of Muhammad Abduh’s View of the two Religions’,
Humaniora Islamica 2 (1974), 121–137; Mahmoud Ayoub, ‘Muslim Views of Christianity: Some
Modern Examples’, Islamochristiana 10 (1984): 49–70; Mahmoud Ayoub, ‘Roots of Muslim-
Christian Conflict’, The Muslim World 79 (1989): 25–45; Christine Schirrmacher, Mit den Waf-
fen des Gegners: Christlich-muslimische Kontroversen im 19 und 20 Jahrhundert (Berlin: Klaus
Schwarz Verlag, 1992); Hugh Goddard, ‘Christianity from the Muslim Perspective: Varieties
and Changes’, in Islam and Christianity: Mutual Perceptions since the mid-20th Century, ed.
Jacques Waardenburg (Leuven: Peeters, 1998), 213–255; Christine Schirrmacher, ‘The Influ-
ence of Higher Bible Criticism on Muslim Apologetics in the Nineteenth Century’, in Mus-
lim Perceptions of Other Religions: A Historical Survey, ed. Jacques Waardenburg (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999), 270–279.

muslim responses to missionary literature in egypt 289
materials on and against Islamic doctrines and norms. For example, the well-
known missionary from Cambridge Douglas M. Thornton (d. 1907) saw liter-
ature as the most important means for ‘reaching the educated classes and
semi-civilized lands’,3 and several prominent missionaries wrote on Islamic
themes, either in English or Arabic. Among them were the Anglican Canon
William Temple Gairdner (d. 1928)4 and Samuel Marinus Zwemer (d. 1952),5 a
well-known leader of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
Gairdner for his part stressed the importance of ‘harnessing’ the Arabic lan-
guage, or even Christianizing it, to serve specific missionary literary tasks. For
Gairdner, by so doing missionaries were supposed to use ‘Islam’s own weapon’
against ‘Islam’s own bosom’.6
In response to this missionary literature, Muslim apologists composed anti-
Christian writings drawing on classical Muslim polemics and the critical study
of the Bible that had emerged in Europe in the nineteenth century. Modern Bib-
lical criticism frequently touched upon the miracles reported in the Hebrew
Bible and the New Testament, which were being discussed in European uni-
versities at the time. The formulations of Christology, the Trinity, the deity of
Jesus Christ, and the resurrection all came into question, and their historic-
ity was doubted.7 These critical questions were rapidly transferred to Muslim
countries, especially after the famous debate between Karl Gottlieb Pfander
(d. 1865), a member of the Basler Missionsgesellschaft (Basel Missionary Soci-
ety), and the Indian Muslim theologian, Rahmatullah al-Kayranāwī (d. 1891).
The debate took place in Agra in April 1854 between Pfander, supported by
T.V. French, and al-Kayranāwī with the assistance of Dr. Wazīr Khān, a medical
doctor who studied in England in the 1830s. During his stay in England, Wazīr
3 W.H.T. Gairdner, D.M. Thornton: A Study in Missionary Ideals and Methods (London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1908), 162.
4 See Constance E. Padwick, Temple Gairdner of Cairo (London: Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, 1929); Michael Shelley, ‘Temple Gairdner of Cairo Revisited’, Islam and Christian-
Muslim Relations 10 (October 1999): 261–278.
5 About his life, see Alfred DeWitt Mason and Frederick J. Barny, History of the Arabian Mission
(New York: The Board of foreign missions, Reformed church in America, 1926); J. Christy Wil-
son, Apostle to Islam: A biography of Samuel M. Zwemer (Grand Rapids, mi: Baker Book House,
1952); J. Christy Wilson, ‘The Epic of Samuel Zwemer’, The Moslem World 57 (June 1967): 79–
93; J. Christy Wilson, Flaming Prophet: The Story of Samuel Zwemer (New York: Friendship
Press, 1970); Vander Werff, Christian Mission, 224–267; Alan Neely, ‘Zwemer, Samuel Marinus’,
in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmil-
lan Reference usa, 1998), 763.
6 Gairdner, D.M. Thornton, 170.
7 Schirrmacher, ‘The Influence of Higher Bible Criticism,’ 274.
290 ryad
Khān collected several works of biblical criticism by western scholars such

as Thomas Hartwell Horne (d. 1862)8 and David Friedrich Strauss (d. 1874),9
and he began to study Greek and Hebrew. His ‘knowledge of Christianity from
western sources was to provide much of the material al-Kayranāwī needed for
his counter-attack on missionaries’.10 According to Schirrmacher, al-Kayranāwī
was the first apologist in the Muslim world who referred to biblical criti-
cism and other Bible commentaries in order to fight back against Christianity
with its own weapons. He used different works of famous nineteenth-century
European theologians who had been influenced by liberalism and historical
criticism.11 Al-Kayranāwī’s arguments influenced the character of most subse-
quent Muslim polemical writings against Christianity. Muslim apologists often
quoted from him at length, or at least employed the same methods.12
Western scholars of Islam and missionaries working during the period under
discussion were keen on collecting Muslim anti-Christian polemical titles
spread among Muslims. Steinschneider’s 1877 article ‘Polemische und apologe-
tische Literatur in arabischer Sprache’ was one of the first modern western
collections of early Muslim polemical discussions and apologetics; it also exam-
ined some mediaeval and seventeenth-century texts.13 Steinschneider’s work
was meant to provide ‘orientalists, historians of literature, theologians, and
researchers of history, etc. with a bibliographical summary of Muslim polemi-
cal writings’.14 Arthur Jeffery (d. 1959), while serving as an Australian orientalist
missionary at the School of Oriental Studies in Cairo, collected forty-five titles
8 Thomas Hartwell Horne, An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy
Scripture (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1818).
9 David Friedrich Strauss, Das Leben Jesu (Tübingen: C.S. Osiander, 1835).
10 Ann Avril Powell, ‘Maulana Rahamat Allah Kairanawi and Muslim–Christian Controversy
in India in the mid-19th Century’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 108 (1976): 42–63;
Paul Eppler, Geschichte der Basler Mission 1815–1899 (Basel: Verlag der Missionsbuchhand-
lung, 1900); F. LaRoche, ‘Karl Gottlieb Pfander’, Evangelisches Missionsmagazin 60 (1917):
503–512; Arthur C.I.E. Mayhew, Christianity and the Government of India (London: Faber &
Gwyer, 1929); A.A. Powell, ‘Muslim Reaction to Missionary Activity in Agra’, in Indian Soci-
ety and the Beginning of Modernization: c. 1830–1850, ed. Cyril Henry Philips and M. Doreen
Wainwright (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1976), 141–158: Christian
W. Troll, ‘Christian-Muslim Relations in India: A Critical Survey’, Islamochristiana 5 (1979):
119–145: Schirrmacher, Mit den Waffen des Gegners, 103ff.
11 Schirrmacher, ‘The Influence of Higher Bible Criticism’, 273.
12 Umar Ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity: A Critical Reading of the Works of Muḥam-
mad Rashīd Riḍā and His Associates (1898–1935) (Leiden: Brill, 2009).
13 Moritz Steinschneider, Polemische und apologetische Literatur in arabischer Sprache, zwis-
chen Muslimen, Christen und Juden (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1877).
14 Steinschneider, Polemische, 1.
of anti-Christian books and pamphlets that were in actual use among Muslims
in Egypt by 1925.15 Jeffery had been asked to make his collection in prepara-
tion for two missionary conferences, one in Hilwān (on the outskirts of Cairo)
and the other in Jerusalem. His article reveals that the anti-Christian literature
included both new writings and medieval Muslim-Christian controversial lit-
erature reprinted in modern editions.16 In another article, Jeffery states that the
Muslim
apologetic literature of the old orthodoxy [at that time] is little more than
a rehash of the old work of … Ṭabarī, Ibn Ḥazm, and Ibn Taymiyya …;
but there is a new note of ‘awakeness’ to modern conditions in many
of the pamphlets and tractates called forth by the … work of Christian
missionaries in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, or India. Some are urgent warnings
to [Muslims] against Christian hospitals and schools, and against the
circulation of Christian books. And some are replies to Christian books
whose … attack aroused Moslems to counter-attack.17
The present study examines a variety of Muslim polemical works in Egypt in

the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that reflect how Muslims,
both at the scholarly and the grassroots levels, perceived missionary work and
missionary writings on Islam. These have been selected to highlight represen-
tative ideas that Muslims developed to respond to the Christian apologetics of
western missionaries entering Muslim societies. These few examples will pro-
vide a brief and general perspective on the most important themes found in
the polemics between Muslims and missionaries at that time.
15 Arthur Jeffery, ‘A Collection of Anti-Christian Books and Pamphlets Found in Actual Use
among the Mohammedans of Cairo’, The Moslem World 15 (1925): 27–37.
16 Jeffery, ‘A Collection’. This literature included Al-Ajwiba al-fākhira of Ahmad Ibn Idrīs
al-Qarāfī, the Hidāyat al-ḥayāra min al-Yahūd wa al-Naṣārā of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya,
and Al-Jawāb al-ṣaḥīḥ fī al-radd ʿalā man baddala dīn al-Masīḥ of Ibn Taymiyya.
17 Arthur Jeffery, ‘New Trends in Moslem Apologetics’, The Moslem World of Today, ed. John
R. Mott (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1925), 305; Arthur Jeffery, ‘Anti-Christian Liter-
ature’, The Moslem World 17 (1927): 216–219; Arthur Jeffery, ‘The Anti-Christian Moslem
Press’, The Moslem World 17 (1927): 428–430. Cf. Harry Gaylord Dorman, Towards Under-
standing Islam: Contemporary Apologetic of Islam and Missionary Policy (New York:
Columbia University, Teachers College, Bureau of Publications, 1948); Summer 1914 Edi-
tion of the Descriptive Guide of the Nile Mission Press and Other Publications: Suitable for
Work in Oriental Lands among Moslems, Jews and Christians, with a foreword by Arthur
T. Upson (Cairo: The Nile Mission Press, 1914). On the Nile Mission, see E. Sanders, ‘The
Nile Mission Press’, The Moslem World 34 (1944): 209–213.
292 ryad
This investigation will show that Egyptian Muslim polemicists deployed a

variety of ad hoc arguments to withstand the polemics of the Christian mis-
sionaries. The Muslim writers drew upon various aspects of traditional Mus-
lim polemics against Christianity, modern higher criticism of the Bible, and
western studies of paganism and Eastern religions. They also attacked mission-
ary motives as abusive and offensive. In their defensive strategies, the Muslim
polemicists tried to ward off Christian missionary attacks on the infallibility of
the Qurʾān and the authenticity of the ḥadīth corpus and to attack Christian
Christological doctrines ranging from the virgin birth and incarnation to the
crucifixion and redemption.
Infallibility of the Qurʾān
Quranic Testimony to the Truth of Christianity

Missionary writings for Muslims frequently attempted to prove the genuine-
ness of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in their current form on
the basis of the Qurʾān itself. One well-circulated Christian missionary tract
in Egypt dealing with this subject was Al-Burhān al-jalīl ʿalā ṣiḥḥat al-Tawrāh
wa al-Injīl (The Glorious Proof for the Reliability of the Old and New Testa-
ments), which provoked heavy reactions from Muslims. The tract was written
by Revd Frederick Augustus Klein (d. 1903) of the Church Missionary Society
(cms) in Egypt between 1882 and 1893 to prove the reliability of the Christian
Scriptures vis-à-vis the infallibility of the Qurʾān. The first editions of the Ara-
bic version of the tract bear neither the author’s name nor the name of the
press where they were printed;18 they were probably first published by cms
in Jerusalem.19 The tract was used extensively by missionaries through the
1920s.20
18 Jeffery, ‘Press’, 428.

19 Jeffery, ‘Collection’, 30; Descriptive Guide, 45. Al-Burhān was reprinted in 1899 by
al-Muqṭataf Press in Cairo; see http://www.coptic-university.com/index.php/resources/books/getbookby
,0 accessed 10 October 2014. About Klein, see Anderson, ed., Biographical Dictionary of
Christian Missions, 370. Klein is also the author of The Religion of Islam (London: K. Paul,
Trench, Trübner and Co., 1906). Maulana Muḥammad Ali of the Ahmadiyya movement
in India responded to the book under the same title: Maulana Muḥammad Ali, The Reli-
gion of Islam (Lahore: The Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishāʾat Islam, 1990; originally published
in 1936).
20 Jeffery, ‘Collection’, 30.
The Christian argumentation in this book, which was common among mis-
sionaries at that time, works in two directions. First of all, it stresses the authen-
ticity of the Bible on the basis of specific Quranic verses; and secondly it
attempts to undermine the authenticity of Muslim traditions regarding the
compilation of the Qurʾān and its transmission history as related in Muslim
sources. In the spirit of this second strategy, Klein writes,
We wish ‘our Muslim friends’ had deeply examined their book [the
Qurʾān] in order to become acquainted with the methods by which it
was composed, collected, corrected and preserved; and to see whether
the book they have nowadays is still the original: the same one which
Muḥammad and his companions had, or that it has become corrupted,
changed and twisted. We see most of them [i.e. Muslims] do not pay atten-
tion to such significant matters, thinking that the Qurʾān was sent down
to Muḥammad; and Muḥammad delivered it to his companions; and they
delivered it to their followers, generation after generation, without the
least of corruption or change.21
Continuing in the same vein, Klein quotes from al-Bukhārī’s ḥadīth collection
and al-Suyūtī’s al-Itqān, a mediaeval manual of Quranic sciences, to argue that
the Qurʾān in its present form is not complete. Also, he contends that errors,
or at least variations, had crept into its text. Its existing arrangement was not
that compiled during the lifetime of the Prophet Muḥammad, and differences
among the qurrāʾ (reciters of the Qurʾān) took place after the Prophet’s death.
A Journalist’s Response
Immediately after publication of al-Burḥān, Ḥasan Ḥusnī Pasha ibn Ḥusayn
ʿĀrif al-Ṭuwayrānī (d. 1897), the proprietor of Al-Nīl Press and Al-Nīl newspa-
per,22 composed a pamphlet in refutation called Kitāb dalīl ahl al-īmān fī ṣiḥḥat
al-Qurʾān (A Book of Guidance for the People of the Faith to the Genuineness
of the Qurʾān). The author’s main motivation for writing his work was to refute
the assaults of the above-mentioned tract on the Qurʾān, especially the mis-
sionary method of quoting from the Qurʾān itself to prove the genuineness of
21 As quoted in Ḥasan Ḥusnī al-Ṭuwayrānī, Kitāb dalīl ahl al-īmān fī ṣiḥḥat al-Qurʾān (Cairo:
Al-Nīl Press, 1309/1891), 3.
22 Ḥasan Ḥusnī Pasha, Turkish by origin, was born in Cairo, and died in Constantinople. He
published his Al-Nīl newspaper, which appeared at first daily on 17 December 1891. Later it
was published once a week. See Al-Ziriklī, Al-Aʿlām (Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm li-l-malāyīn, 1979),
2:187; cf. Martin Hartmann, The Arabic Press of Egypt (London: Luzac, 1899), 74.
294 ryad
the Christian Scriptures. Al-Ṭuwayrānī came across this anonymous mission-

ary tract on Monday, 7 Ramadan 1309/1891 and finished writing his response
a few days later on Friday, 9 Shawwāl 1309/1891.23 Al-Ṭuwayrānī’s brief work is
a selection of articles that he had previously printed in his newspaper Al-Nīl.
Therefore, his ideas are not always well connected, and it is difficult to track
down his information in the original sources.
In response to al-Burhān, al-Ṭuwayrānī emphasizes that it is an uncondition-
ally justifiable right to defend one’s own beliefs, but not in the fanatic tone
of the missionary tract.24 He is terribly unhappy with the fact that ‘scientific
researches, fair debates and controversies are turned into hostility rather than
a method to reach the truth by examining and exchange of different ideas’.25
Al-Ṭuwayrānī bemoans the religious animosity between Judaism, Christianity
and Islam, as well as the sectarian strife among Protestant, Catholic and Ortho-
dox Christians, and Sunnī and Shīʿī Muslims. He is impressed by the European
model of encouraging religious freedom, which led to a harvest of great civil
rights for humanity.26
Al-Ṭuwayrānī is taken aback by the deliberate anonymity of the author of
the tract and the press where it was printed. For him, it is an indication that
the writer completely lacked the courage to get involved in open and fair
debate with Muslims. He accuses the missionary author of ‘fanaticism’ and
‘hostility’. If the purpose of the missionary writer had been to study the Qurʾān
truly within the realm of scholarly knowledge, he would have entered the
‘arena’ of debate with Muslims. But his ulterior motives were only to attack
Islam. Al-Ṭuwayrānī then turns to speak about the ethics of foreign printing
establishments in some detail. He argues that the government should oversee
the publication of material of this nature and that it should take measures
to prevent such publications, as they inflame different religious groups in the
society.27
Al-Ṭuwayrānī does not elaborate any harsh counter-attacks on the Christian
Scriptures. For him, to refute the beliefs of others is not a necessity. To his mind,
it is not our intention to counter the arguments with regard to the gen-
uineness of the Torah, the Gospel or the Psalms, as discussing such
23 Al-Ṭuwayrānī, Kitāb. Jeffery, however, briefly discussed a reissue of the pamphlet which
has no date; cf. Jeffery, ‘Press’, 428.
24 Al-Ṭuwayrānī, Kitāb, 6.
25 Al-Ṭuwayrānī, Kitāb, 6–10.
27 Al-Ṭuwayrānī, Kitāb.
matters requires going beyond the objective of the study …; it also neces-
sitates wide knowledge of others’ controversial books …. It is also known
that such arguments would not lead any of the [debating] parties to fol-
low or yield to the [religion] of the other …. Even the anonymous person
hiding behind the tract cannot with his arguments convert any ‘Muḥam-
madan’ [al-Ṭuwayrānī’s own word] from his belief. The believers of any
religion will always suspect any argument that an outsider might make
against [their religion].28
After giving an account of the nature of prophecy, the wonders of Prophets,

and the Prophetic office in Islam,29 al-Ṭuwayrānī turns to the question of the
corruption of the Qurʾān and argues that the early generations of Muslims
neither distorted nor altered it and that the nature of the Qurʾan itself is internal
evidence for its divine origin. Al-Ṭuwayrānī insists,
Muslims themselves have never made any attempt to change the Qurʾan
as such. If we supposedly claim that those Companions were divided into
two different factions, one with very strong religious zeal, which would
have naturally defended it against any corruption of the text of the Word
of God. If the other faction had no such purpose, but worldly objectives to
overthrow the government, they would have exploited any change [of the
primary source of Islam] as a pretext for thwarting the government and
provoking Islamic sentiments.30
An Azharite Student and a Civil Servant with the Railways

Cairene Muslim responses to Klein’s anonymously published missionary tract
al-Burhān were not confined to the category of religious scholars only but
included various other writers as well. The book Tanwīr al-adhhān fī al-radd ʿalā
muddaʿī taḥrīf al-Qurʾān (The Enlightenment of Minds: In Reply to Him Who
Claimed There is Corruption in the Qurʾan)31 by the then Azharī student ʿAb-
duh Muḥammad Zakī al-Dīn Sanad32 represents a more traditional response to
the tract than that found in Al-Ṭuwayrānī.

29 Al-Ṭuwayrānī, Kitāb, 11–17.
31 ʿAbduh Muḥammad Zakī al-Dīn Sanad, Tanwīr al-adhhān fī al-radd ʿalā muddaʿī taḥrīf
al-Qurʾān (Cairo, 1310/1891).
32 Sanad, Tanwīr, 2 Sanad’s work was later reprinted on the margin of another Muslim
polemical work directed against the same missionary tract entitled Al-Sahm al-ṣaqīl (The
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Zakī al-Dīn was not much concerned with criticizing or attacking the Bible,
but he denigrates al-Burhān’s method of proving the authenticity of the Bible
with the help of Quranic statements. Additionally, he maintains that corrup-
tion could never have reached the Qurʾān and that the authenticity of the
arrangement of the Quranic verses could not be doubted. According to the Tra-
dition, Zakī al-Dīn says, the Prophet taught his Companions the arrangement
of the verses and informed them of their places in every chapter (sūra). The
Prophet used to read the Qurʾān while his Companions were witnessing the
reading.33 The same holds true for the arrangement of the chapters. According
to Zakī al-Dīn, Muslim scholars are unanimous that the Qurʾan is today found
in the same arrangement as it had been during the Prophet’s lifetime.34
Muḥammad Ḥasan Faraḥāt, a civil servant with the Egypt Railway, wrote a
similar work called Sahm al-lisān fī al-radd ʿalā muddaʿī taḥrīf al-Qurʾān (The
Dart of the Tongue in Reply to Him Who Claimed There is Corruption in
the Qurʾān).35 In his booklet, Faraḥāt states that the missionary tract was not
of any great value and that no scholar should take any effort to reply to it.
Farahāt stressed that the goal of his writing was only to ridicule the way that
missionaries spoke about Islam and the Qurʾān.36 The first two parts include
the author’s reply to the problem of the corruption of the Qurʾān, and his
discussions on this point are to a great degree similar to those of Zakī al-Dīn. In
the subsequent parts of the book, however, he turns to attack the Trinity and
the divinity of Jesus, and the corruption of the Old and New Testaments.
Al-Manār Responding
The problem of missionaries trying to prove the genuineness of the Bible was
still resonating in Egyptian Muslim circles into the early twentieth century. The
well-known Salafī reformer Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935), the founder of
the voluminous journal Al-Manār (Lighthouse),37 was annoyed by an article
Bright Sword) by Shaykh Bakr ibn al-Sayyid ʿUmar al-Tamīmī al-Dārī al-Ḥanafī al-Nabulsī
(Cairo, 1895); see Jeffery, ‘Literature’, 30.
33 Sanad, Tanwīr, 11–15.
34 Sanad, Tanwīr, 14–18.
35 Muḥammad Ḥasan Faraḥāt, Sahm al-lisān fī al-radd ʿalā muddaʿī taḥrīf al-Qurʾān (Cairo,
1311/1892).
36 Faraḥāt, Sahm, 3–4.
37 About Riḍā’s views on Christian missions, see for example, Charles C. Adams, Islam
and Modernism in Egypt (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), 196ff.; Ayoub, ‘Mus-
lim Views’, 49–70; Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1789–1939 (London:
Oxford University Press, 1962); Maurice Borrmans, ‘Le commentaire du Manar à propos du
published by a Muslim journalist in a ‘big’ newspaper, which agreed with mis-

sionary writings on the reliability of the Bible. The writer had even become
doubtful about some Islamic teachings because of these arguments. Riḍā was
surprised at how the journalist depended on Christian writings in this regard
without reading Muslim works such as al-Kayranāwī’s Iẓhār al-ḥaqq. This Mus-
lim journalist entertained doubts on the following three points: 1) the con-
tradiction of Islamic sources with what is reported in Jewish and Christian
Scriptures, 2) things reported in the Qurʾan that are not mentioned in these
Scriptures, and 3) the many reports in the Qurʾan and the Sunna contradicting
what is known in modern science.38
In reply, Riḍā advises this Muslim journalist, who was fond of reading Chris-
tian missionary works, to read western works on the Bible that prove its ‘con-
tradictions’. The Qurʾan actually testifies that the Torah is a book of laws and
precepts. It does not bear any testimony to the Bible now in hand, which is,
according to these studies, nothing but a book of history borrowed from Assyr-
ian and Chaldean mythologies contradicting the sciences of geology and arche-
ology. Rather, the Qurʾan bears witness merely to the Torah as a book of legis-
lation (q 5:44), which Moses, as well as the prophets of the Children of Israel
and rabbis after him, had used in their rulings. Therefore, the Qurʾan does not
give any testimony to other Biblical historical books that had been written cen-
turies after Moses by unknown authors. Urging this Muslim journalist not to
be dazzled by such Christian assertions, Riḍā does not accept any historical
analogy between the Qurʾan and other Biblical books, such as Isaiah, Ezekiel
or Daniel. As for the New Testament, which the Christian calls ‘gospel’, Riḍā
says that it is in the view of Muslims a historical record that had been writ-
ten down many years after Jesus’ death. Additionally, it did not have strong
verset coranique sur l’ amitié des Musulmans pour les Chrétiens (5,82)’, Islamochristiana
1 (1975): 71–86; Olaf Schumann, Der Christus der Muslime: christologische Aspekte in der
arabische-islamischen Literatur (Köln/Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 1988); Olaf Schumann, ‘Ara-
bische Schriftsteller begenen Christus’, Hinaus aus der Festung: Beiträge zur Begegnung
mit Menschen anderen Glaubens und anderer Kultur (Hamburg: E.B.-Verlag, 1997), 145–174;
Schirrmacher, Mit den Waffen; Hugh Goddard, Muslim Perceptions of Christianity (Lon-
don: Grey Seal Books, 1996), 55–58; Oddbjorn Leirvik, Images of Christ in Islam (Uppsala:
Swedish Institute of Missionary Research, 1999), 140–143; Ryad, Islamic Reformism; Simon
Wood, ‘The Criticisms of Christians and the arguments of Islam: An annotated translation
of Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā’s Shubuhāt al-Naṣārā wā ḥujaj al-Islām’, (PhD thesis, Tem-
ple University, 2004), 95–96; the dissertation has been published as Christian Criticisms,
Islamic Proofs: Rashīd Riḍā’s Modernist Defense of Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2008).
38 See al-Manār 4.5 (May 1901): 179–183; cf. Ryad, Islamic Reformism, 178.
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asānīd (chains of transmission) proving its authenticity. The Qurʾan had also
testified that the Christians did not preserve all parts of the revelation about
Jesus (q 5:14).39
Riḍā contends that the Qurʾān also reproaches the Jews and the Chris-
tians for having mixed the real Bible with other historical stories. The Qurʾān’s
request to the Christians to be judged in accordance with the Gospel (q 5:47)
does not mean that these Scriptures were not mixed with history. Thus, Riḍā
argues, Muslims have no definitive criteria by which to distinguish these mixed
parts from the original revelations. Additionally, there is no problem if Mus-
lims consider the books of Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and Leviticus as
parts of the original Torah. The same holds true for Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount
(Matthew 5–7). In conclusion, Riḍā asks the writer to visit him in his office if
his written answers are not sufficient. A month later, Riḍā states that he had
decided to stop writing about the matter since the writer had visited him and
was persuaded by his answers.40
The Qurʾān Guarding the Christian Scriptures: A Question from

Kuwait
The missionary claim that the Qurʾān confirms the Bible also met resistance
in other Muslim regions. For example, Yūsuf ibn ʿĪsā al-Qināʿī (d. 1973), the
well-known Muslim educational reformer in Kuwait (a centre for the First Ara-
bian Mission founded by Samuel Zwemer),41 became irritated by an Arabic
edition of a missionary work under the title Al-Shahāda al-qurʾāniyya ilā al-
kutub al-masīḥiyya (Quranic Testimony for the Christian Scriptures), which
was written by the British politician and missionary to Bengal James Monro
(d. 1920) and distributed among Muslims in the Gulf region.42 Therefore, al-
Qināʿī approached the famous Muslim polemicist Muṣtafā al-Rifāʿī al-Labbān
to request that he respond to Monro’s book since some Muslims in Kuwait had
39 Ryad, Islamic Reformism, 179; Wood, ‘The Criticisms’, 95–96.

40 See al-Manār 4.5: 180; Ryad, Islamic Reformism, 179–180.
41 About the Arabian Mission, see for instance Lewis R. Scudder, The Arabian Mission’s Story:
In Search of Abraham’s Other Son (Grand Rapids, mi: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1998).
42 About James Monro’s missionary activities, see Eugene Stock, The History of the Church
Missionary Society, 4 vols. (London: Church Missionary Society, 1916), 4:234. Monro wrote
Teaching of the Maulavis as to the Sinlessness of Muḥammad, The Teaching of the Christian
Scriptures on Sin and Salvation, and How does the Qurʾan confirm and guard the Christian
Scriptures? which were published by Christian Literature for India Society. Some of his
tracts were also available in Urdu and Arabic.
been ‘deceived by it and deemed what the author wrote as true’.43 Al-Labbān
was a member of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt in the 1930s, and he is also
known in Salafī circles for his anti-Christian writings.
Al-Labbān’s response first assures his Kuwaiti correspondent that these ‘mis-
led’ Muslims were lacking knowledge of their religion, the Qurʾān and its lan-
guage. As for the Torah and the Gospel mentioned in the Qurʾān, they were
totally different from the books and stories in the hands of the People of the
Book nowadays.44 For al-Labbān, it is no surprise to see that the Christians who
had ‘corrupted’ their Scriptures would attempt to ‘cheat’ concerning Islam, as
it is their nature. For example, they attack Islam, saying that it was spread by
force and the sword while forgetting that in the Old Testament the Children of
Israel entered Jericho and utterly destroyed ‘all that was in the city, both man
and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the
sword’ (Joshua 6:21).45 Against this, al-Labbān defends the concept of tolerance
in Islam by noting how it protects the People of the Book. Once he was asked
by a Christian whether Islam orders Muslim preachers in mosques to say, ‘God,
make the money of the Christians and their women booty for us’; al-Labbān
takes this to be pure ignorance of Islam.46
Al-Labbān rejects Monro’s argument that Islam confirms the Scriptures.
Al-Labbān wonders which scripture, in the author’s view, does the Qurʾān
confirm, given that the Christian denominations themselves have disagreed on
the forms, contents and versions of the Old and New Testaments. For al-Labbān,
the authentic Bible does not exist.47 He claims that the Gospel sent down to
Jesus taught its followers compassion and mercy, whereas ‘Christian nations
nowadays are so cruel and harsh. The Gospel that should instill compassion in
hearts does not exist; these nations became unbelievers as they do not follow
it’.48
Al-Labbān next strikes out against the police career of Monro, who was Assis-
tant Commissioner (Crime) and Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis in
London before his missionary service in India in 1890,49 all of which disqual-
43 See Muṣtafā Aḥmad al-Rifāʿī al-Labbān, Mawāqif al-Islām min kutub al-Yahūd wa al-Naṣārā
(Cairo: Al-Maṭbaʿa al-salafiyya, 1353/1934–1935), 3.
44 Al-Labbān, Mawāqif, 5–10.
45 Al-Labbān, Mawāqif, 11.
49 See his name on the list of commissioners at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioner
_of_Police_of_the_Metropolis, accessed 10 October, 2014.
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ifies him from writing about religions and Islam in particular. ‘It is a bold
comment’, Labbān writes sarcastically, ‘of somebody known formerly as the
police commissioner in London. Bolder than police commissioners are the mil-
itary men who know nothing but swords, cannons and machine guns. How
could police commissioners know anything about religions and researching
them!’50
Authenticity of the Sunna
Besides attacks against the Qurʾān, missionary writings cast doubt on the
authenticity of the Sunna as well. Rashīd Riḍā published two articles in 1916
under the title ‘Siḥḥat al-Sunna’ (The Reliability of the Sunna)51 to refute an
article written in Arabic in the same year by the above-mentioned Temple
Gairdner in the missionary periodical Al-Sharq wa al-gharb (The Orient and
Occident).
Gairdner’s article was one of the routes through which Hungarian orientalist
Ignaz Goldziher’s work on ḥadīth became known in Egypt.52 Some months after
contributing to the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference (13–23 June 1910),
Gairdner decided to take a Wanderjahr in Europe. The trip began in Germany in
September 1910 where he spent ‘three months […] for the purpose of learning
enough German to give [him] access to the incomparable German literature
on Islamic subjects.’53 In his correspondence with Duncan Black Macdonald of
the Hartford Theological Seminary in the United States, Gairdner states that ‘it
would have been worth learning German only for the sake of … Goldziher’s …
perfect gold-mine’.54

51 Rashīd Riḍā, ‘Al-Sunna wa ṣiḥḥatuhā wa al-Sharīʿa wa matānatuhā: radd ʿalā duʿāt al-
Naṣrāniyya bi Miṣr’ (two articles), Al-Manār 19 (June 30 & July 15, 1916): 24–50 and 97–109.
52 G.H.A. Juynboll, The Authenticity of the Tradition Literature: Discussions in Modern Egypt
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969), 30; Ignaz Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, 2 vols. (Halle:
Max Niemeyer, 1889–1890); English translation, Muslim Studies, trans. C.R. Barber and
S.M. Stern, 2 vols. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1971). See also W.H.T. Gairdner, ‘Moham-
medan Tradition and Gospel Record: The Hadīth and the Injīl’, The Moslem World 5 (1915):
349–379.
53 Padwick, Temple Gairdner, 198 ff.
54 Padwick, Temple Gairdner, 204. For more details about his contact with Macdonald, see
for example, J. Jermain Bodine, ‘Magic Carpet to Islam: Duncan Black Macdonald and the
Arabian Nights’, The Muslim World 67 (January, 1977): 1–11.
Gairdner expresses skepticism about the authenticity of almost all traditions

ascribed to the Prophet. He maintains that the considerations that he followed
would give ample ground for suspecting the stability of the foundations of
Islamic traditions, and consequently of the enormous superstructure that had
been erected thereupon. In his view, if the unreliability of traditions is estab-
lished, the Islamic system ought logically to be discarded. His main concern,
however, was to seek out similarities and differences between the authentic-
ity of the transmission of both the ḥadīth and the Gospels in order to reach
his polemical conclusion: ‘Thus Islam conducts us to a Book which truly was
given forth by its founder. Christianity conducts us to a Christ who truly lived,
wrought, taught, died, rose again on the third day and passed away alive into
the Unseen’.55
Many Muslims were disturbed by Gairdner’s ideas and urgently asked Riḍā
to respond. Riḍā berates missionary methods of investigating Muslim sources
because they always raise questions about Islam not to reach the truth, but
to cast doubt on others’ beliefs.56 For Riḍā, each Muslim must believe in the
authenticity of the Sharīʿa, which is only based on the ḥadīth. The doctrines of
Islam and the fundamentals of worship are supported by textual evidence from
the Qurʾan and the sound practical mutawātir traditions which have multiple
chains of transmissions in early normative canons. Other issues in the Sharīʿa,
such as muʿāmalāt (transactions), are derived from the legal principles in the
Quranic texts by using qiyās (analogical deduction) and maṣlaḥa (public inter-
est). Concerning the legal chapters on ādāb and akhlāq (good manners), Riḍā
admitted that there are precepts that are based only on āḥād (isolated) tradi-
tions. These traditions should be considered as an extension and a commentary
of the Qurʾān. To support his explanation, Riḍā quotes from the Qurʾan: ‘And We
have sent down to thee the Message; that thou mayest make clear to mankind
what is sent down to them; and that they may reflect’ (q 16:44). Riḍā links the
word ‘Message’ (dhikr) to the Sunna by which the Qurʾān is clarified.57
Riḍā asserts against Gairdner that Muslims will never unanimously reject
the Sunna nor the Sharīʿa in its entirety. Assuming only for the sake of argument
that it might happen, Riḍā maintains that people would definitely content
themselves in the end with the Qurʾān and the sound ʿamalī (practical) tra-
ditions, which have been transmitted through all generations up to the present
time.58 Riḍā concludes that if Gairdner’s only purpose is to convert Muslims,
55 Gairdner, ‘Tradition’, 379.

56 Riḍā, ‘Sunna’, 26.
57 Riḍā, ‘Sunna’, 27–28.
58 Riḍā, ‘Sunna’, 28–30; cf. Juynboll, The Authenticity, 31–32.
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he should rest assured that most of those Muslims who might abandon Islam
would never become real Christians; but rather turn into ‘atheists’ or ‘antag-
onists’. They would convert to Christianity only out of poverty and need for
missionary financial support, unlike western converts to Islam.59
Muslim Christology
Christology is one of the most contentious issues between Islam and Christian-
ity. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century Egyptian Muslim writers are
not reluctant to attack the beliefs of their missionary opponents by using Chris-
tology as a central point of departure in their polemics as well. For them, the
doctrines of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ are simply the deification of
a man. Other Christian doctrines are also portrayed as mythological absurdi-
ties, particularly the doctrines of original sin, atonement and salvation. As we
have already mentioned, Muslim writers make use of the Biblical criticism that
emerged in Europe in the nineteenth century as ‘a new weapon of offence’60
against missionaries.
The Gospel of Barnabas61

One of the most important ‘western’ documents affecting Muslim polemics
in the early twentieth century was the discovery of the Gospel of Barnabas
and its 1907 publication in a bilingual Italian edition by Lonsdale and Laura
Ragg.62 This medieval Gospel, which among other things denies the crucifixion
of Christ, gained popularity in the Muslim world thanks to Rashīd Riḍā’s Arabic
edition published by al-Manār in 1908. The Arabic translation of this Gospel is
actually a modern form of a long-enduring Islamic search for a Biblical witness
that approves Islamic tenets. At Riḍā’s request, the Arabic translation was made
by his Lebanese Christian friend Khalīl Saʿādeh (d. 1934).
Before Riḍā’s publication of this Gospel into Arabic, he had championed the
Russian author and philosopher Leo Tolstoy (d. 1910) and his attempt to write
his own ‘gospel’, published in 1879.63 Riḍā believed that Tolstoy’s liberation from
59 Ryad, Islamic Reformism, 159–160.

60 Jeffery, ‘Trends’, 310.
61 This section is based on Ryad, Islamic Reformism, 213–241.
62 The Gospel of Barnabas, trans. Lonsdale and Laura Ragg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907).
63 See David Patterson, ed. and trans., The Gospel according to Tolstoy (Tuscaloosa: The Uni-
versity of Alabama, 1992), xvii; Comte Léon Tolstoï, Les Évangiles, trans. T. de Wyzewa
the dogmas of the Church actually brought him closer to the Quranic vantage
point regarding the corruption of the Gospels. These views of Tolstoy were
therefore substantial proofs for the truth of Islam.
In his introduction to the Gospel of Barnabas, Riḍā sees the multiple ver-
sions of the Gospels as a result of the interest of each of Jesus’ disciples in
writing down a biography for his master including his sermons and history.
Riḍā stresses the importance of non-canonical gospels in providing historical
information about Christian conceptions that were not officially endorsed by
Christian clergymen.
Although Riḍā’s main interest in the Gospel of Barnabas emanated from
the fact that it echoed the Quranic image of Jesus and his servanthood to
God, he was not in 1908 actually concerned in his introduction to stress its
historical authenticity. However, almost twenty years later, he sternly argues
for its authenticity as ‘superior to these four Gospels in its divine knowledge,
glorification of the Creator, and knowledge of ethics, manners and values’.64
For Riḍā, the Mosaic laws were derived from Hammurabi, and the ethics of
the canonical Gospels emanated from Greek and Roman philosophy, but the
Gospel of Barnabas came far closer to the truth.
Riḍā’s edition provoked a Christian answer. A certain Iskandar Effendi ʿAbd
al-Masīḥ al-Bājūrī, an Egyptian Muslim convert to Christianity, a missionary in
Giza and a follower of Temple Gairdner, reacted vehemently to Riḍā’s publish-
ing of this Gospel, which the latter had done only to satisfy his ‘hidden fanatic
hostility […] boiling in his head’ against Christianity and Paul.65 Bājūrī deems
the ‘fallacies’ of this Gospel as harmful to Islam as well. Riḍā’s circulation of it
might lead many Muslims, just like him, to convert to Christianity. He praised
the translator Saʿādeh for his scientific introduction, while he berated Riḍā’s
introduction as ‘immature’ in its provocation against Christianity. In conclu-
sion, Bājūrī belittles Riḍā’s act as merely a ‘weapon’ that is directed against
simple-minded Christians.
and G. Art (Paris: Librairie Académique Didier, 1896); Richard F. Gustafon, Leo Tolstoy:
Resident and Stranger—A Study in Fiction and Theology (Princeton, nj: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1986); David Redston, ‘Tolstoy and the Greek Gospel’, Journal of Russian Studies
54 (1988): 21–33. Cf. other works of Tolstoy on religions, A Criticism of Dogmatic Theology
(1880–1883), What I Believe (1883–1884), and The Kingdom of God is Within You (1893).
64 Al-Manār, 9:245, as quoted in Ryad, Islamic Reformism, 235.
65 Iskander ʿAbd al-Masīḥ al-Bājūrī, Khūdhat al-khalāṣ min sharak Injīl Barnābā al-Frā Mārīnī
al-qannāṣ (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Tawfīq, 1908), 25.
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Pagan Doctrines in Christianity66

A significant polemicist in Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā’s circle was the Syrian
Muḥammad Ṭāhir al-Tannīr (d. 1933), who was also familiar with western criti-
cal studies on the Bible. His Al-ʿAqāʾid al-wathaniyya fī al-diyāna al-naṣrāniyya
(Pagan Doctrines in the Christian Religion) enjoyed wide popularity in Muslim
circles in Egypt and elsewhere.67 Al-al-Tannīr’s father ʿAbd al-Wahhāb made use
of critical western theories of the Bible in his anti-missionary writings as well.68
Following in his father’s footsteps, al-Tannīr published his treatise as a response
to contemporary Christian apologetic and polemic literature on Islam. In his
prelude, he sarcastically dedicates his work ‘to the crusaders of the twentieth
century, the missionaries’.69
In an attempt to prove the ‘illogical’ nature of the Christian faith, al-Tannīr
exploits a theory of ‘pagan Christs’ developed in several western sources such
as Huxley, Jameson and Bunsen.70 One of al-Tannīr’s reasons behind writing
66 This section is based on Ryad, Islamic Reformism, 57–59.

67 Muḥammad Ṭāhir al-Tannīr, Al-ʿAqāʾid al-wathaniyya fī al-diyāna al-naṣrāniyya (Beirut:
n.p., circa 1912).
68 Jeffery, ‘New Trends’, 310.
69 At the top of his list of missionary books, he mentions the journal The Moslem World which
is, according to him, full of slander and broadsides against Islam. Among books in Ara-
bic are al-Hidāya (The Guidance), 4 vols., (The American Mission, Egypt), found in the
Descriptive Guide, 39; Al-Bākūra al-shahiyya (Sweet First-Fruits) (The Nile Mission Press),
Descriptive Guide, Cat. No. 7; St. Clair Tisdall, Tanwīr al-afhām fī maṣādir al-Islām, which
is an Arabic version of Tisdall’s The Original Sources of the Qurʾān (London: Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1905); Misbāḥ al-hudā ilā sirr al-fidā (Torch of Guidance
to the Mystery of Redemption) (The American Mission, Egypt), found in the Descriptive
Guide, 41; Sir William Muir, Daʿwat al-muslimīn ilā muṭālaʿat al-Kitāb al-Muqaddas al-
thamīn (Invitation to Muslims to Read the Scriptures) (The American Mission, Egypt),
found in the Descriptive Guide, 40. Among English works, he mentions M.A. Rice, Cru-
saders of the Twentieth Century (London, n. p., 1910); and Samuel Zwemer, Arabia: The
Cradle of Islam (Edinburgh: Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier, 1900). On al-Tannīr’s book, see
‘Book Reviews’, The Moslem World 3 (1913): 197; this review was probably written by Gaird-
ner, as it is signed with ‘g’. See also the reaction of Louis Cheikho (d. 1927), the well-known
Jesuit Father, Refutation of the falsification of Muḥammad Tāhir al-Tannīr (Beirut, 1912), as
quoted in g., ‘Book Review’. See also Muḥammad Ṭāhir al-Tannīr, ‘Al-Radd al-matīn ʿalā
muftarayāt al-mubashshirīn (The Solid Reply to the Missionaries’ Allegations)’, Al-Manār
17.2 (January 26, 1914): 138–147; cf. Arthur T. Upson, ‘A Glance at Al-Manār’, The Moslem
World 4 (1914): 394–395.
70 Thomas Henry Huxley, Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature (London: Williams and Nor-
gate 1863); Mrs. Jameson and Lady Eastlake, The History of our Lord: as exemplified in Works
of Arts (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, 1892); Ernest De Bunsen,
the book was to counter objections and attacks against Islam. Due to its harsh
attacks, al-Tannīr’s work was banned in Beirut. A second reason was his interest
in calling on Christians to return to the ‘truth’ of Islam. The core of the book
draws similarities between the story of Jesus and the stories of deities in other
ancient religions. By these similarities, al-Tannīr tries to prove that the Biblical
story of Jesus is nothing more than a composite or rehash of ancient myths.
For example, the Jesus story was compared to the Krishna story found in the
Hindu Vedas, which date back at least to 1400bce, and the Horus myth, which
was also said to be identical to the Biblical tale of Jesus. Al-Tannīr further argues
for a wholesale influence of pagan mysteries found in ancient Egypt or India on
Christianity. The Trinity, the idea of the cross, the incarnation, the virgin birth of
Jesus, the appearance of the star in the East, and other events in the life of Jesus
were all borrowed from heathenism. The same holds true for the doctrine of a
suffering God who atones for the sins of men by his death; this was also traced
in the oldest records such as those of Buddha and Krishna. Another significant
aspect of al-Tannīr’s polemics was his analogy between the virgin birth and the
myths of the birth of Krishna from the divine Vishnu into the womb of Devaki.
Crucifixion and Redemption71

Rashīd Riḍā and his followers made use of ‘Pagan Christ’ theories as well. In
this regard, he composed his work ʿAqīdat al-ṣalb wa al-fidāʾ (The Doctrine
of Crucifixion and Redemption), in cooperation with his friend and student
Muḥammad Tawfīq Ṣidqī (d. 1922).72 In this work both authors employed such
works as those of European mythicists J.M. Robertson (d. 1933)73 and Arthur
Drews (d. 1935).74
As a medical student, Ṣidqī was able to read western works in English, and
so he urges missionaries to save their religion from the critical questions raised
The Angel-messiah of Buddhists, Essenes and Christians (London: Longmans, Green, and
Co., 1880); John Fiske, Myth and Myth Makers: Old Tales and Superstitions interpreted by
Comparative Mythology (London: Trübner, 1873); James Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Wor-
ship (London: India Museum, 1873).
71 This section is based in part on Ryad, Islamic Reformism, 243–259.
72 Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, ʿAqīdat al-ṣalb wa al-fidāʾ (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Manār, 1353/1934–
1935).
73 J.M. Robertson, Pagan Christs: Studies in Comparative Hierology, 2nd ed. (London: Watts,
1911); J.M. Robertson, A Short History of Christianity (London: Watts, 1902); J.M. Robertson,
Christianity and Mythology (London: Watts, 1900); J.M. Robertson. The Historical Jesus
(London: Watts, 1916).
74 Arthur Drews, Die Christusmythe (The Christ Myth) (Jena: Diederichs, 1910–1911).
306 ryad
by their fellow-citizens in Europe instead of travelling abroad to propagate

Christianity outside Europe. As for the Quranic verse 4:157 denying that the
Jews crucified Jesus, which was often interpreted to mean that the likeness of
Jesus was put on another person, Ṣidqī compared these events to examples of
illusions mentioned by European psychologists. For example, when a fire broke
out in the Crystal Palace in London in 1866, people thought that an ape had
tried to escape when in fact that had not happened.
With regard to the atonement, Riḍā argues that belief in this doctrine is
not compatible with rational evidence and reason. The Maker of the universe
should know all things. It is thus irrational to believe that God had been
unaware that Adam would sin when He created him and then even abandoned
Adam’s children in sin until he created Jesus to salvage them. In other words,
to believe in original sin implies that God was confused and did not know
how to combine both His justice and mercy for mankind until He recognized
thousands of years later that he should send Jesus to save mankind.75
What is mentioned in the Gospels about the crucifixion, Riḍā goes on,
contradicts the belief that Jesus sacrificed himself for the sake of humanity. The
Gospels signify that Jesus felt sorrowful and depressed at his impending death
(Matthew 26:37–43).76 As for Jesus’ death itself, Riḍā rejects the view that Jesus
was taken up from this world without dying. Instead he maintains that Jesus
first died a natural death, and then he was taken up to heaven, though in soul
only. Riḍā places his rational objections against the dogma of redemption and
satisfaction at the centre of his argument and explains how the Islamic way of
salvation is far more sublime and logical than that of Christianity.77
To elaborate his view of the God who dies and rises again, Riḍā quotes from
al-Tannīr’s above-mentioned work that this idea was associated with various
pagan salvation cults, that originally there was nothing mystic about the death
of Christ, but that later it was turned into a mystery by theologians who were
acquainted with the old pagan mystery-religions.78 Riḍā tries to show that it was
not Jesus who had died on the cross but someone else instead. Even some early
Christian sects, according to him, did not believe that Christ had died—it was
rather another person—and some modern European writers had evolved the
same theory to explain the story of the resurrection. To support this opinion,
Riḍā quotes from annotations in George Sale’s translation of the Qurʾān:
75 Riḍā, ʿAqīdat, 18–19.

76 Riḍā, ʿAqīdat, 39–40.
77 Leirvik, Images of Christ, 141.
78 Riḍā, ʿAqīdat, 29–32; cf. Jeffery, ‘Trends’, 315–316.
Several sects held the same opinion long before …. The Basilidians, in
the very beginning of Christianity, denied that Christ himself suffered,
but that Simon the Cyrenean was crucified in his place. The Cerinthians
before them and the Carpocratians next … did not believe the same thing
that it was not himself, but one of his followers, very like him, that was
crucified.79
Conclusion
To sum up, the modern Christian mission movement and the spread of its pub-
lications in the Muslim world was a major factor motivating a new generation of
Muslims to compose polemical works against Christianity. The Muslim authors
treated in this article took up the task of refuting books and tracts distributed by
Protestant missionaries.80 It was not only Muslim religious scholars who wrote
these polemics, but also journalists, as in the case of Ṭuwayrānī, and students
and civil servants, as in the cases of Zakī al-Dīn Sanad and Faraḥāt.
The integrity of the Scriptures occupies the greatest space in the debate
between the two sides, with the Qurʾān taking primary place. Nevertheless,
the discussion extended to include the ḥadīth, as we saw with Riḍā’s reply to
the article published in Al-Sharq wa al-gharb. Also, Muslims while defending
the Qurʾān as the Word of God often shifted to speaking about the corruption
of the Christian scriptures and other Christian doctrines such as the Trinity,
the person of Christ, redemption, etc.81 Put on the defensive, the Muslim
authors understood the aim of the missionaries to be attacking Islam, and their
resentment against missionary work led to counterattacks on Christianity.
The themes of controversy between the Muslim polemicists and the mis-
sionaries followed the same patterns found in earlier Muslim-Christian polem-
ical writings, including discussion of the Bible’s reliability, the person of Jesus,
etc. However, modern elements also appeared on both the Muslim and Chris-
tian sides. Muslim intellectuals, seeking any and all means to defend their
beliefs against missionary polemics, read books written by western free-think-
ers on historical criticism of the Bible and drew parallels between Christ and
various pagan deities of antiquity to undermine the uniqueness and reliability
of the Christian message. Similarly, the missionaries made use of western his-
79 Riḍā, ʿAqīdat, 53; cf. George Sale, The Koran, new edition (London: W. Tegg, 1863) 1:55–56.
80 Dorman, Towards Understanding, 43.
81 Jeffery, ‘Trends’, 311.
308 ryad
torical scholarship on Islam. Missionaries transformed the critical scholarship

of western Islamicists into attacks on Islamic norms, as in the case of Al-Sharq
wa al-gharb’s use of Goldziher’s criticism of the ḥadīth literature.
In a nutshell, Muslim polemicists drew extensively on western Biblical crit-
icism, but not exclusively so, and they were not hesitant to use whatever other
arguments they found useful in counterattacking Christian doctrines. Muslim
polemicists had resort to works of western rationalists and atheists on the Bible,
with which they attempted to show pagan elements in Christian belief about
Christ. Yet, despite this familiarity with and use of western literature on Chris-
tianity, ‘it seems that much material was borrowed from other Arabic sources
rather than investigated afresh’.82
82 Goddard, Muslim Perceptions, 94.

chapter 18
Three Pioneering Malay Works of Quranic Exegesis:

A Comparative Study
Peter G. Riddell
Introduction
Tafsīr studies in Malay-Indonesian languages received a surge of interest

throughout the 20th and into the 21st centuries. According to one recent study,
in Malaysia alone around 40 commentaries on part or all of the Qurʾān were
produced between 1901 and 2000.1 This figure takes no account of the consider-
able output from the much more populous Indonesia, where exegetical produc-
tion included significant commentaries upon the whole Qurʾān by prominent
scholars such as T.M. Hashbi Ash-Shiddieqy, Hamka and Muhammad Quraish
Shihab. Furthermore, in addition to such works which represented the cre-
ative output of their authors, translations into Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa
Malaysia of key Arabic commentaries were also produced, such as renderings
of Tafsīr al-Khāzin and of Sayyid Qutb’s popular Fī ẓilāl al-qurʾān.
Such prolific exegetical activity in the 20th and 21st centuries is by no means
representative of the history of Islam in the region in previous times. While
the modern day is characterised by a logjam of exegetical activity, the period
prior to the 20th century is characterised by a much more modest output of
commentary writing, with the earlier commentaries tending to endure and
exert a significant impact on the evolving Islamic faith. In this paper, we will
focus our attention on the three surviving examples of extended tafsīr in Malay
pre-dating or just crossing into the 20th century: Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf, Tarjumān
al-Mustafīd and Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān.2
1 Haziyah Hussin et al, ‘The Trend of Malay Quranic Commentary Writing in Malaysia in the
20th Century’, Journal of Applied Sciences Research 8(8) (2012), 4344.
2 Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān was composed between 1925–1927. However, its author received his edu-
cational and religious formation in the 19th century and in many ways represents a bridge
between the 19th and 20th. For the purposes of this study we group him with the earlier com-
mentators, not the rapidly emerging new schools of the 20th century.

310 riddell
Setting the Scene
Much has been written about the arrival and establishment of Islam in the
Malay-Indonesian world. There are conflicting theories about the origins and
timing of the earliest Muslim arrivals in the region, but there is general agree-
ment that the first significant communities of Muslims in Southeast Asia date
from around the turn of the 14th century. By 1300 there was evidently an Islamic
Sultan ruling over the kingdom of Samudera-Pasai in the area of present day
Aceh. Around the same time there appears to have been an Islamic commu-
nity in Terengganu on the Malay Peninsula, as evidenced by the Terengganu
inscription which records various legal injunctions for the community, carry-
ing a distinctly Islamic flavour.
If Islam was established by around 1300, scholars can only speculate as to the
detail of Islamic activity for the next 300 years. No doubt there was increasing
missionary activity by Muslim travellers and local figures, with instruction in
the various fields of Islamic studies available through prayer halls and mosques.
There was some circulation of Arabic literary materials, which have sadly not
survived due to the rigours of the climate. Religious teachers were probably
drawn heavily from immigrant groups: Arabs, Persians and Indians. Sufism
flourished among both the religious elite and the masses, as seen in the literary
brilliance of the great early Acehnese litterateur, Ḥamzah Fanṣūrī, who may
have lived on to around the turn of the 17th century.
We find the oldest surviving examples of original Islamic literary materials
dating from around 1600. It is no coincidence that this is also the approximate
date of the arrival of the British and the Dutch. Indeed, their arrival provided
the means for the acquisition of some Islamic literary works, their transport
back to Europe and subsequent preservation in library collections. So the oldest
manuscript of the whole Qurʾān from the region is represented by the beautiful
copy now held in the collection of Rotterdam Library and catalogued as ms 96
d 16. This manuscript was presented as a gift on 20 July 1606 to a Dutch mariner
by the Sultan of Johor, grateful for assistance received in the latter’s conflict
with Portuguese Malacca. The Dutchman, Admiral Matelieff de Jonge, handed
over the manuscript upon his return to Rotterdam, which is why we have access
to it today.3
A fragment of the Qurʾān, containing part of Sura 58 (al-Mujādila), appears
in Cambridge ms. Or. Gg.6.40. Elsewhere in this manuscript the date of 1 June
3 This ms is described in Peter G. Riddell, ‘Rotterdam ms 96 d 16: The Oldest Surviving Qurʾan
from the Malay World’, Indonesia and the Malay World 30/86 (2002), 9–20.
three pioneering malay works of quranic exegesis 311
1604 is given, and the copyist is identified as Pieter Willemsz. van Elbinck,
who visited Aceh on a Dutch vessel during that year.4 Thus this version of q58
is likely copied from an Acehnese original. Van Elbinck gathered a number
of Malay manuscripts, which found their way into the extensive collection
of the Dutch orientalist Thomas Erpenius (d. 1624) and, after his death, they
were ultimately acquired by the University of Cambridge in 1629. So with the
appearance of such early Qurʾān manuscripts, we are inevitably led further
on our journey into Malay tafsīr predating the surge in activity in the 20th
century. Let us first turn our attention to the authors of our three Malay tafsīrs,
considering them chronologically.
Perspectives on the Malay Commentators
The author of Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf

This work appears in another of the Erpenius Malay manuscripts: Cambridge
ms Or. Ii.6.45. Like the manuscript containing the excerpt from Sūra al-
Mujādila, this manuscript was probably collected in Aceh in the early years of
the 17th century, quite possibly by Pieter Willemsz. van Elbinck.
As for the original author of this work, we can speculate with confidence
on certain details of his life. He was almost certainly male, resident in Aceh
and a prominent member of the scholarly elite in Aceh in the second half
of the 16th century. He had clearly received a solid educational formation in
Islamic studies, covering Arabic language and the primary fields of Islamic
learning, including Qurʾān, ḥadīth, tafsīr, Sufism and so forth. He had a good
understanding of classical Arab exegetical sources and, as such, may well have
spent a period of study in Arabia. He was almost certainly associated with a Sufi
order, that being the norm for the Acehnese scholarly elite of his time. The fact
that no other copies of this commentary survive suggests that the author may
have been controversial, or at least was associated in the minds of some with
controversial figures. One is tempted to speculate that he was an ally of the great
monistic Sufis Ḥamzah Fanṣūrī and/or Shams al-Dīn al-Samatrāʾī (d. 1630)—or
was even perhaps the latter himself. The safer course at this stage, pending
further research, is to identify him simply as the anonymous author of this first
significant Malay commentary.
4 S. van Ronkel, ‘Account of Six Malay Manuscripts of the Cambridge University Library’,
Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 46 (2) (1896), 2.
312 riddell
ʿAbd al-Raʾūf (c. 1615–1693) and his Students

The author of our second commentary is well known. ʿAbd al-Raʾūf was born
around 1615 in Singkil, one of the vassal states of the Sultanate of Aceh during
its heyday. His first two decades of life were spent in a context where monistic
Sufism reigned supreme. But as a young adult he witnessed a bitter polemic
between the reforming zeal of Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānīrī (d. 1658), Shaykh al-Islām in
the Sultanate, and the followers of his monistic predecessors, Ḥamzah Fanṣūrī
and Shams al-Dīn al-Samatrāʾī. When he departed for a 19 year period of study
in the Arabian Peninsula in 1642, ʿAbd al-Raʾūf was determined to find answers
to the questions that had caused so much dissension in his homeland over the
previous five years.
ʿAbd al-Raʾūf’s sojourn in Arabia, and the diverse curriculum that he fol-
lowed, provides a model for observers of early Southeast Asian Islam who seek
to understand the process of educational formation of the great religious schol-
ars of the region. He studied diverse Islamic subjects with various teachers in
multiple locations over a 19 year period. Far from being a short gap year with
a brief exposure, ʿAbd al-Raʾūf’s two decades as a student in Arabia positioned
him perfectly to return in 1661 as a recognised authority, ideally equipped to
steer the theological direction of the Sultanate of Aceh over the next three
decades.
Between his return and his death around 1693, ʿAbd al-Raʾūf was prolific in
his writing. Some of his works were commissioned by the Sultan; others were
done on his own initiative. He wrote on diverse topics: sacred text, theology,
law, mysticism—in fact all the major areas of the Islamic sciences. He also
founded a Sufi order—the Shaṭṭariyya—in his region, and the efforts of his
students account for its subsequent spread throughout the Malay world. ʿAbd
al-Raʾūf’s legacy is not limited to his surviving library. On the contrary, he was a
great pedagogue, shaping his students through rigorous instruction, imparting
the benefit of his years of study in Arabia. Two deserve some discussion in their
own right.
Bābā Dāʾūd Jāwī b. Ismaʿīl b. Aghā Muṣṭafā b. Aghā ʿAlī Rūmī is mentioned
by name in the colophon to two of the surviving manuscripts of ʿAbd al-Raʾūf’s
commentary, Tarjumān al-Mustafīd. These references indicate that Dāʾūd Rūmī
was instructed by the master to insert paragraphs in the commentary to add
information on the Qurʾanic variant readings (qirāʾāt) and additional narrative
information drawn from al-Khāzin’s commentary. As such, Dāʾūd Rūmī has left
his own invaluable imprint on this seminal Malay tafsīr. Dāʾūd Rūmī was likely
of Turkish descent and belonged to the Turkish diaspora community that was
well-established in Aceh in the 17th century; Azra suggests that his father prob-
ably served as a Turkish mercenary soldier for the Sultan of Aceh in resisting
the Portuguese.5 The presence of the term Jāwī in his name suggests that he was
born in Sumatra. He must have been one of ʿAbd al-Raʾūf’s best students, if not
the best student, to be chosen for the specific role in question. He was a recog-
nised scholar in his own right, having authored Masāʾil al-muhtadī li ikhwān
al-mubtadī, a work which had some distribution across the Malay world.6 He
is probably buried in the graveyard of wives and disciples adjacent to the tomb
of ʿAbd al-Raʾūf himself.
Another prominent student of ʿAbd al-Raʾūf provides a link with the Malay
Peninsula. ʿAbd al-Malik bin ʿAbdallāh (1650–1736), better known as Tok Pulau
Manis, obtained his initial education in his native Terengganu, before pursuing
his studies in Aceh, where he sat at the feet of ʿAbd al-Raʾūf alongside other
students. Like his master, he continued his studies in Mecca for a time, before
returning to Terengganu to set up a pondok, from where he taught his students
the various Islamic sciences.7 This included tafsīr, for which he used ʿAbd
al-Raʾūf’s Tarjumān al-Mustafīd, ensuring its roots were firmly planted in the
Malay Peninsula.
Muhammad Saʿid b. Umar (1854–1932)

The third exegete who we will consider is the later scholar Muhammad Saʿid b.
Umar8 of Kedah, who was born in 1854. His life story fits the pattern discussed
with our previous scholars above: initial education in his native region of Kedah
(in his case under the tutelage of his father, a noted Islamic scholar); further
education away from home, in Patani and Mecca; return to Malaya to establish
himself as a teacher through his pondoks in both Perak and Kedah (from 1894);
devoting himself in his later years to writing.
Several features are notable about Muhammad Saʿid b. Umar. First, after his
return to Malaya, he juggled roles as both teacher of Islam and rice farmer (his
original occupation). Second he was diverse in his gifts and, because of this, he
left a legacy in a number of fields, especially jurisprudence—through his role
5 A. Azra, The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia: Networks of Malay-Indonesian

and Middle Eastern ʿUlamāʾ in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, (Honolulu: Univ. of
Hawai’i Press, 2004), 86.
6 M. Ozay, ‘Baba Daud: a Turkish scholar in Aceh’, In: Ottoman Connections to the Malay World:
Islam, Law and Society, ed. Saim Kayadibi. (Petaling Jaya: The Other Press, 2011), 32.
7 A. Azra, The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia: Networks of Malay-Indonesian
and Middle Eastern ʿUlamāʾ in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, (Honolulu: Univ. of
Hawai’i Press, 2004), 86.
8 We do not render his name with full Arabic diacritics in transliteration because by the late
19th century such names of Arabic origin were well established as Malay names.
314 riddell
as Qāḍī of Jitra region—and tafsīr, through his teaching which gave birth to his
commentary, Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān. Third, he was a member of the Naqshbandiyya
Aḥmadiyya Sufi order, as explained at the end of his commentary. In addition to
his commentary, he wrote Fatwa Kedah while serving as Kedah Qāḍī. However,
this work, with its various fatāwā giving particular attention to family law, was
never published.
The Commentaries Compared
Having surveyed the authors of the three earliest Malay works of extended
tafsīr, let us turn our attention to the works themselves. We will discuss their
respective sources and will refer to a random selection of verses, in order to
assess how the commentaries relate to each other and to determine whether
there is any evidence of stylistic development over the 300 year period covered
by the commentaries.
Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf

One of the first striking impressions in reading this commentary is in its use
of narrative to expound on individual Qurʾanic verses. The following table
presents the Hilali & Khan translation of q18:9 with the beginning—just the
beginning—of the commentary from Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf:
q18:9
Hilali & Khan (Do you think that the people of the Cave and the
Inscription) the news or the names of the people of the Cave
(were a wonder among Our Signs?)
ms Ii.6.45 (But do you consider), O Muḥammad, (that) concerning (all
those) who entered into (the cave and) into (raqīm, they
were one of Our marvellous signs)?
… Some commentators say that the Companions of al-raqīm
were three young men, who were out walking in the
direction of a village when it began to rain. So they went into
a cave, whereupon a rock fell across the mouth of the cave,
shutting them in so that they were not able to get out. Then
one of the three said: ‘Anyone of the three of us who has done
a good deed should tell us all about it. Hopefully God will
bless us with His mercy.’ …
It does not require a great deal of effort to discover that the commentator
has drawn upon the ḥadīth for this account: Saḥīḥ Bukhārī, Volume 3, Book 34,
Number 418. Nevertheless, the question arises as to whether the commentator
has directly accessed the ḥadīth or has rather drawn on a ḥadīth report pre-
sented in one of the commentaries that he had before him. I think it more likely
that the latter is the case.
Having had a taste of this commentator’s penchant for narrative exegesis, we
can proceed on to identifying other sources. The key pillar of his sources is the
narrative triumvirate of classical Arabic commentaries spread across several
generations: al-Kashf wa al-bayān ʿan tafsīr al-Qurʾān by al-Thaʿlabī (d. 1035),
Maʿālim al-tanzīl by al-Baghawī (d. 1117–1122), and Lubāb al-taʾwīl fi maʿāni al-
tanzīl by al-Khāzin (d. 1340).9 The commentator’s access to the commentary by
al-Thaʿlabī was probably indirect (as with the ḥadīth), depending on its pres-
ence in the two later commentaries by al-Baghawī and al-Khāzin. By drawing
on the above works, the Malay commentator showed that he liked a good story.
Indeed rich colourful narrative is the hallmark of this commentary from start
to finish. Nevertheless, the commentator has stepped out on a limb in choosing
these sources, given the controversy surrounding them among certain classical
writers. Consider the following quotations from earlier scholars, all of whom
cast doubt on the three above-mentioned Arabic commentaries.
– ʿAbd al-Ghaffār b. Ismāʿīl al-Fārisī: ‘… [al-Thaʿlabī’s commentary] contained

many traditions and many shaykh’s names. But there are some scholars who
considered that it could not be trusted and its reporting was not reliable.’10
– Al-Katānī: ‘There can be found in it—i.e. Maʿālim al-tanzīl—doctrines and
anecdotes which can be judged by their weakness or shallowness.’11
– Al-Dhahabī: ‘I read a great deal in this commentary and I found that it made
mention in detail of the Isrāʾīliyyāt:12 there was much which [al-Khāzin]
9 The process of identifying these sources has been discussed in detail in Peter G. Riddell,
‘Camb. ms. Or. Ii.6.45: The Oldest Surviving Qurʾanic Commentary from Southeast Asia’,
Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 16.1 (2014), 120–139.
10 From Siyāq Tārikh Nīsābūr, reported in M.H. al-Dhahabī, Al-Tafsīr wa al-Mufassirūn, 3rd
edn., (3 vols., Cairo: Wahba, 1985), vol. 1, 221.
11 From al-Risāla al-mustaṭrafa, reported in M.H. al-Dhahabī, Al-Tafsīr wa al-Mufassirūn, 3rd
edn., (3 vols., Cairo: Wahba, 1985), vol. 1, 229.
12 The Isrāʾīliyyāt were represented by a variety of narrative styles, ranging from essentially
historical accounts of Biblical figures, especially prophets, to fables based in folklore
derived from Jewish or Christian sources. It was especially the latter group, those stories
clothed in folklore and fantasy, which resulted in the Isrāʾīliyyāt being condemned per se
by many leading Muslim scholars.
316 riddell
copied from many commentaries which were concerned with this matter,
such as the commentary by al-Thaʿlabī and others. But he mostly does not
comment on that which is cited from the Isrāʾīliyyāt, nor does he look at
it with the eye of a discerning critic; on a number of subjects he passes on
from the story without clarifying for us its weaknesses or falsehoods, except
on rare occasions.’13
If occasionally the anonymous commentator digresses to present brief infor-

mation on the qirāʾāt, it is haphazard at best and gives the impression that
the commentator simply wanted to introduce his readers to the concept of the
qirāʾāt without doing so to such a degree that it would upset the narrative flow
of his work.
Tarjumān al-Mustafīd
While Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf represents the earliest surviving extended Malay com-
mentary on part of the Qurʾān, Tarjumān al-Mustafīd represents the first com-
mentary in Malay on the whole Qurʾān. The differences between the two works
could not be starker. While the earlier commentary uses narrative as the very
core of its exegetical method, Tarjumān al-Mustafīd allocates a clearly sec-
ondary role to narrative exegesis. Indeed, it seems that ʿAbd al-Raʾūf decided not
to draw on the narrative approach of Al-Khāzin in his prototype commentary,
only doing so in stage ii when he engaged his student Dāʾūd Rūmī to add narra-
tive paragraphs to the full and final version of Tarjumān al-Mustafīd. Was this
done as an afterthought? Did it represent a concession—perhaps somewhat
reluctant—to an audience that had been brought up on a regime of narrative
exegesis and which still expected that approach to be used? Did ʿAbd al-Raʾūf
see it as an important “selling point” for his new commentary?
Another key difference between these two early Malay commentaries relates
to the reputation of their respective core sources. As we saw above, by drawing
heavily on al-Baghawī and al-Khāzin, Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf risked its own reputa-
tion because of the controversial nature of these earlier Arabic works, accused
by some of being tainted by Isrāʾīliyyāt. In contrast, ʿAbd al-Raʾūf chose not to
sail close to the wind but rather to base his core commentary on uncontro-
versial commentaries that were to play a central role in exegetical pedagogy
across the Muslim world, even today. His primary source, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, is a
single volume, user-friendly, survey work that is arguably the most widely used
13 M.H. al-Dhahabī, Al-Tafsīr wa al-Mufassirūn, 3rd edn., (3 vols., Cairo: Wahba, 1985), vol. 1,
296.
commentary in the history of the science of tafsīr. Together with ʿAbd al-Raʾūf’s
second choice, the commentary by al-Bayḍāwī, Tarjumān al-Mustafīd was set
up to play a similar role to its core source in the founding and spread of Qurʾanic
exegesis in the Malay-Indonesian world.
A third key difference between the two earliest Malay commentaries relates
to the role of the qirāʾāt. As we saw, Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf paid lip service to
this field of specialisation but little more. In contrast, Tarjumān al-Mustafīd
includes extensive information on the qirāʾāt at regular intervals throughout
the commentary. Again, as with the narrative insertions, the hard work was
done by Dāʾūd Rūmī, who probably benefited from the knowledge acquired
by ʿAbd al-Raʾūf’s during his long Arabian sojourn. The discussion of the qirāʾāt
provides Tarjumān al-Mustafīd with a level of specialist exegetical credibility
that is absent from Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf. While one can visualise the earlier
work providing the focus of popular story-based discussions of the Qurʾanic
content, in contrast one can visualise rows of students poring over Tarjumān
al-Mustafīd, studying the detail of its content as they prepare for graduation
from a Qurʾanic school or similar institution.
It would be instructive at this point to examine several verses as they are
treated in Tarjumān al-Mustafīd. Consider the same verse that we discussed
previously in relation to the earlier commentary:
q18:9
Hilali & Khan (Do you think that the people of the Cave and the
Inscription) the news or the names of the people of the Cave
(were a wonder among Our Signs)?
ms Ii.6.45 (But do you consider) O Muḥammad (that) concerning (all
those) who entered into (the cave and) into (raqīm, they
were one of Our marvellous signs)?
… Some commentators say that the Companions of al-raqīm
were three young men, who were out walking in the
direction of a village when it began to rain. So they went into
a cave, whereupon a rock fell across the mouth of the cave,
shutting them in so that they were not able to get out. Then
one of the three said: ‘Anyone of the three of us who has done
a good deed should tell us all about it. Hopefully God will
bless us with His mercy.’ …
318 riddell
(cont.)
q18:9
Tarjumān (But do you consider) O Muḥammad (all those) who possess

al-Mustafīd (the inscription) on which is written all the names of those
from long ago, (they were one of Our marvellous signs) of
which there are others that are more marvellous?
It is mentioned in Tafsīr al-Khāzin that truly they are not the
most marvellous of Our signs. Indeed all that is created from
the earth and the sky, and all that which is marvellous within,
is more marvellous than they are.
It should be remembered that the commentary on verse nine which is pre-

sented in Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf, of which the above is simply a small fragment,
runs to 2300 words in English translation. In contrast, the above commentary
on the same verse in Tarjumān al-Mustafīd runs to barely 80 words in trans-
lation. This illustrates the markedly different styles between the storyteller
author of Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf and the commentator pedagogue authors of Tar-
jumān al-Mustafīd. Of course ʿAbd al-Raʾūf and Dāʾūd Rūmī are seen in the
commentary on the above verse to consult the narrative commentary of Tafsīr
al-Khāzin. But it is not detail for detail’s sake that is provided. Dāʾūd Rūmī’s
addition seems to be simply designed to give clarity to the phrase ‘of which
there are others that are more marvellous’ which concludes ʿAbd al-Raʾūf’s core
commentary on the verse.
Having seen how Tarjumān al-Mustafīd pares back the narrative detail of
Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf, let us consider the opposite; i.e. its method of greatly
developing discussion of the qirāʾāt from the rather embryonic approach of
Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf. The discussion of a particular variant reading in Verse 47
of Sūra 18 is helpful in this regard:
q18:47
ms Ii.6.45 Ibn Kathīr and Ibn ʿĀmir read this as wa tusayyaru al-jibāl.
With the tāʾ the meaning is ‘on the day the mountains move
from one place to another’.
q18:47
Tarjumān As for nusayyiru al-jibāl, Nāfiʿ and Ḥafṣ both agree in reading
al-Mustafīd it nusayyiru al-jibāl with a nūn and a kasra on the yāʾ, while
Abū ʿAmr reads it tusayaru with a tāʾ and a fatḥa on the yāʾ.
Its meaning when taking a tāʾ is ‘it was moved’.
We will say more about Tarjumān al-Mustafīd’s treatment of the qirāʾāt in the
next section. At this point it is sufficient to observe that a clear development
has taken place between Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf and Tarjumān al-Mustafīd. While
the earlier commentator was satisfied to simply mention a variant along with
the names of two readers, Dāʾūd Rūmī was determined to be much more
systematic. He specified the contrasting forms of the word in question, linking
the versions with their respective readers. So while students of the earlier
commentary may have come away from studying it with a vague awareness
of there being variant readings, students of Tarjumān al-Mustafīd would have
acquired a much more scientific understanding of the qirāʾāt and would have
been able to actively articulate information about the readers and the variant
forms.
In moving on to our third and final Malay commentary in this paper, it
is worth observing that so far Sufism has not made an appearance in our
discussion of exegetical text, though we have observed that ʿAbd al-Raʾūf and
in all likelihood the author of Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf were themselves associated
with Sufi orders. However their commentaries are not marked by a discernible
Sufi flavour to any significant degree, and certainly cannot be considered as
primarily Sufi commentaries.
Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān

In this commentary, which is widely regarded as the second commentary in
tafsīr in Malay on the whole Qurʾān, Muhammad Saʿid b. Umar sets out to pro-
vide his audience with a snapshot of exegetical discussion in classical Arabic
sources. To that end, he draws on a wide range of commentaries in compil-
ing his work. Sources mentioned in his introduction include Tafsīr al-Jalālyn,
Tafsīr al-Jamāl, Tafsīr al-Bayḍāwī, Tafsīr al-Khāzin, Tafsīr al-Baghawī, Tafsīr al-
Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Qurṭubī, Tafsīr al-Rāzī, Tafsīr al-Nasafī, Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr, and
Tafsīr al-Thaʿlabī. Many of these names are familiar from our discussion of the
two earlier commentaries. So the technique of creating an exegetical collage
was very much in keeping with the practice of his predecessors. It is also notable
320 riddell
that Muhammad Saʿid b. Umar selected one work to be a primary source; Yusuff
and Sahad argue that ‘the work that dominates the text of Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān is
Tafsīr al-Jalalyn’.14 So here we encounter a striking parallel with ʿAbd al-Raʾūf’s
Tarjumān al-Mustafīd and, indeed, a close reading of Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān sug-
gests that Tarjumān al-Mustafīd itself was also closely consulted by Muham-
mad Saʿid b. Umar as he went about his task.
Nevertheless, Muhammad Saʿid b. Umar was his own man. Like ʿAbd al-Raʾūf,
he considered that narrative was one useful device for engaging the exegetical
task, but not to the extent used by the earlier Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf. He does not
seem as interested in the qirāʾāt as ʿAbd al-Raʾūf and Dāʾūd Rūmī. But where he
does come into his own is in the area of Sufi exegesis, allowing his commentary
to detour into wide-ranging Sufi discussion from time to time.
It would be helpful to consider how the three commentaries in focus in this
paper address the same verses. For this exercise we will focus on verses 80 and
81 of Sūra 18, which report on the meeting between Moses and the unnamed
Al-Khiḍr, with the latter rebuking Moses for his impulsive curiosity and lack
of self-discipline in posing questions when he had been instructed not to do
so.
q18:80
Hilali & Khan And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared
lest he should oppress them by rebellion and disbelief
ms Ii.6.45 (As for the boy) whom you saw me kill, (both his parents
were believers. Truly we feared that) his behaviour (would
bring misfortune) on his parents (by his rebelliousness and
disbelief), so I killed [him].
tm (As for the boy) whom I killed, (both his parents were
believers and I feared that he would lead the pair of them
into impiety and disbelief) as they both cherished him.
tni (And as for the boy) whom I killed, (both his parents were
believers and we feared lest they fall into error and disbelief)
out of their love for him so that they would follow him.
14 Mohd Sholeh Sheh Yusuff, Mohd Nizam Sahad, ‘Bacaan Intertekstual terhadap Tafsīr Nur
al-Ihsan: Satu Kajian menurut Kaedah Parallel’, Labuan e-Journal of Muamalat and Society
7 (2013), 48.
q18:81
Hilali & Khan So we intended that their Lord should change him for them
for one better in righteousness and nearer to mercy.
ms Ii.6.45 ‘(So I wanted) to kill him so that (God would give a
replacement) to his parents, a child (who was righteous and
pure from sin and who was more loving) to his parents and
devoted to them.’
Qatādah says the meaning of aqraba raḥmān is a child who
was always close to his family and devoted to his parents.
Kalbī says God replaced [the child] with a daughter, who was
subsequently taken as wife by a prophet of God, and from
whom were born other prophets, who God used to show the
path of righteousness to several nations. Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad
says that the daughter who God gave as replacement was
ancestor to seventy prophets.
tm (So it was our wish that their Lord should provide them with
a child in his place who was more righteous from the
standpoint of piety) and devotion (and more obedient) to his
parents.
Pericope: Concerning the differences among the three
readers in reciting nukran [v. 74] and maʿiya [v. 75] and
ladunnī [v. 76] and la-ttakhadhta [v. 77] and an yabdilahumā
[v. 81].
As for nukran, Ḥafṣ and Abū ʿAmr both agree in reading it
nukran with an unvowelled kāf, and Nāfiʿ reads it with a
ḍamma on the kāf.
As for maʿiya, mention [of the variant readings] has already
been made.
And as for ladunnī, Ḥafṣ and Abū ʿAmr both agree in reading
it ladunnī with doubling of the nūn, while Nāfiʿ reads it
ladunī with a single nūn.
As for la-ttakhadhta, Nāfiʿ and Ḥafṣ both agree in reading it
la-ttakhadhta with doubling of the tāʾ and a fatḥa on the
khāʾ, while Abū ʿAmr reads it la-takhidhta with a single tāʾ
and a kasra on the khāʾ.
322 riddell
(cont.)
q18:81
As for an yabdilahumā, Nāfiʿ and Abū ʿAmr both agree in

reading it an yabaddilahumā with a fatḥa on the bāʾ and
doubling of the dāl, while Ḥafṣ reads it with an unvowelled
bāʾ and a single dāl.
Wa Allāh aʿlam.
tni (And we wished that their Lord would provide them with [a
son] better than that boy, more righteous and more
supportive) to his parents, so … Allah provided them with a
daughter who married a prophet. They had a child who
became a prophet and Allah bestowed on him a nation. He
had 12 children who became prophets. Some say there were
70 prophets who issued from him.
With regard to verse 80 above, all three commentaries are saying essentially the
same thing, with some minor modifications in terms of detail. While Tarjumān
al-Mustafīd and Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān are willing to include the exegetical gloss
‘whom I killed’, Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf is more fulsome in specifying ‘whom you
saw me kill’. Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf and Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān faithfully render the
Qurʾanic text as ‘we feared’, whereas Tarjumān al-Mustafīd adapts it to read ‘I
feared’. The two later commentaries specify the reason for fearing that the boy’s
parents might be influenced by him—out of a sense of parental love—whereas
Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf does not specify this. Nevertheless such differences in detail
are of little consequence overall.
The treatment of verse 81 across the commentaries raises more interesting
issues. Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf is more liberal in translating the Qurʾanic Arabic
with ‘I wished’, while the other two commentaries stay closer to the original
in translating ‘we wished’. But Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf and Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān are
committed to transmitting the narrative account of the son being replaced by
a daughter, with some differences in the accounts of the outcome. Tafsīr Sūra
al-Kahf identifies three exegetical sources by name, thereby acknowledging
the foundational concept of isnād. In contrast, Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān does not
bother to name its original sources. Meanwhile, Tarjumān al-Mustafīd is most
interested in transmitting information on the qirāʾāt, not bothering about the
exegetical narrative that interested the other commentators.
The above verses do not provide the opportunity to explore the interest of
Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān in addressing Sufi themes. So at this point let us leave our
discussion of Sūra 18. We will briefly consider how our two Malay commen-
taries on the whole Qurʾān treat verse 5 from the famous Sūra al-fātiḥa:
q1:5
Hilali & Khan You (Alone) we worship, and You (Alone) we ask for help (for
each and everything).
tm (We give You worship and seek Your help) in doing worship
and all things.
tni (To You we give worship) through prayer and fasting and
almsgiving and pilgrimage and so forth. (And to You we turn
for assistance) in acknowledging Your Oneness and faith and
reverence and hope and sincere worship of You, and in
performing dhikr of the tongue and heart and opening the
inner eye and cleansing through it and facing and devoting
oneself to You alone because the origin of the heart is pure.
Protect it from vain and lying words. And if evil deeds
become a black spot that is not pleasing [to You], namely
good thoughts that can be exemplary are not evident, but the
eyes of the heart are blind, then there is no deed that can
cleanse anew other than dhikr to Allah of the tongue and the
heart, or the heart alone, until internal cleanliness-like
nature is achieved such as that which was sent down to the
prophets.
This verse provides a fascinating contrast between the exegetical approach

of Tarjumān al-Mustafīd and that of Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān. The former offers a
telescopic commentary on this verse, barely saying more than the verse itself.
In stark contrast, Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān begins with a concise statement of the
five pillars of Islam (except for the shahāda) and then proceeds to offer a set
of explicit references to Sufi notions and themes, recalling various forms of
dhikr and implying a multilayered understanding of the verse which is strongly
reminiscent of Sufi approaches to exegesis which contrast surface meanings
with deep meanings of the sacred word. All these notions are expressed in
terms of prayer and supplication: ‘Protect [the heart] from vain and lying
words’. Furthermore, this exegetical exposition comes with a promise, as it
suggests that if the believer properly practices dhikr of the tongue, he/she can
attain internal cleanliness ‘such as that which was sent down to the prophets’.
324 riddell
Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān is still widely used in Malaysian pondoks, suraus and
mosques, and is increasingly the focus of research articles and dissertations
in Malaysia, Indonesia and beyond. Nevertheless its reputation is far from
being unambiguous; Hussin et al comment that ‘its usage among the local
community is still limited due to various factors such as style of language, use
of Jawi letters and difficulty to obtain a copy on the market’.15 In addition to
these criticisms, the author is also sometimes held to account for a perceived
uncritical approach to some of his materials,16 especially narrative materials.
This is somewhat reminiscent of the Isrāʾīliyyāt smear that was levelled against
the classical Arabic narrative commentaries which, according to Muhammad
Saʿid b. Umar’s own account, provided reference points as he drew up his
commentary.
Conclusion
This survey of the first three extended commentaries on the Qurʾān in Malay
has enabled us to make a number of important observations. First, our under-
standing of the early centuries of Islamic history in the Malay world was
assisted (unintentionally) by the efforts of the colonial powers, through manu-
script collection, which provided important insights into the nature of the
study of the Qurʾān at the turn of the 17th century. Second, the authors of the
three commentaries in focus share much—though the author of Tafsīr Sūra al-
Kahf is anonymous. They were all well-educated in the Islamic sciences, prob-
ably through travel to centres of Islamic learning outside their home regions.
They were members of the religious elite of their day, and they all had close
Sufi connections. Third, all three commentaries examined use narrative as an
exegetical tool, but to varying degrees. The commentary by the classical exegete
al-Khāzin is a common source for this process.
Tarjumān al-Mustafīd appears to have been more of a pedagogical tool than
the somewhat populist Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf. The detailed discussion of the qirāʾāt
in Tarjumān al-Mustafīd ensured that this work was destined for extensive
use in the pondok and madrasa networks that emerged in Muslim Southeast
Asia. Furthermore, Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān introduces more overt and extended
15 Haziyah Hussin et al, ‘The Trend of Malay Quranic Commentary Writing in Malaysia in
the 20th Century’, Journal of Applied Sciences Research 8(8) (2012), 4349.
16 Mohd Sholeh Sheh Yusuff, Mohd Nizam Sahad, ‘Bacaan Intertekstual terhadap Tafsīr Nur
al-Ihsan: Satu Kajian menurut Kaedah Parallel’, Labuan e-Journal of Muamalat and Society
7 (2013), 49.
discussion of Sufi themes to the Malay exegetical tradition. This reflects the
rich Sufi heritage of Muslim Southeast Asia and was no doubt a factor in
the popularity of this commentary, extending to today. Together, these three
commentaries set the scene well for the surge in exegetical activity that has
been a hallmark of the Malay-Indonesian world since the mid-20th century.
chapter 19
Christian-Muslim Engagement in
Contemporary India: Minority
Irruptions of Majoritarian Faultlines
Peniel J. Rufus Rajkumar
Introduction
Inter-religious dialogue and engagement have long captured the imagination

and attention of Indian Christianity as a means and method of being Christian
contextually. Though there are notable institutions like the Henry Martyn Insti-
tute in Hyderabad which specialise in Christian-Muslim dialogue, Christian-
interfaith engagements have tended to focus more on Hinduism. In the current
Indian context, the political rise and assertion of Hindu fundamentalist groups
like the Hindutva has resulted in the coalescence of religious majoritarianism
and nationalism with the result that religious communities such as Christians
and Muslims, which are minorities numerically, perceive and experience nega-
tive pressures on their religious freedom. This essay seeks to explore the value,
place and shape of ‘minority-identified’ interreligious dialogue between Chris-
tians and Muslims in India as both representing and being a space for solidarity,
mutual sustenance and the safeguarding of secularism.
i Indian-Christians and Indian-Muslims: Minorities Caught in the

Faultlines of Nationalistic Re-Imagination
Recent political developments in India have had an overtly religious dimension

aimed at reinforcing the secondary-citizen status often ascribed by fundamen-
talist Hindu majoritarianism to Indian Christians and Indian Muslims. Sadhvi
Niranjan Jyothi, a junior minister (a Hindu female ascetic—therefore Sadhvi)
in the present Indian government, in a polemical election speech spoke of the
need for people to choose between being governed by Ramzadon (children of
Ram) or Haramzadon (illegitimate children), inferring Christians and Muslims
as ‘illegitimate’ children of India.1 This language of ‘children’ is potent with dan-
1 http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/defiant-bjp-says-minister-of-hate-will-give-more

christian-muslim engagement in contemporary india 327
gerous possibilities in the context of the present re-imagination of the Indian

nation. Proponents of the Hindutva, a political movement of Hindu national-
ism, like Sadhvi Niranjan Jyothi and her fellow ascetic Sadhvi Rithambhara,
who transpose the notion of divine motherhood onto the Indian nation, call
on Hindus—as the legitimate children of the nation—‘to “save” divine “Mother
India” from the contaminating and impure presence of Muslims’.2 This ascribed
devotion towards the divine motherhood of the nation ‘morphs into the cur-
rent virulent politics of Hindutva’ whereby the son’s devotion to the deshmata
(mother goddess) is expressed ‘by becoming a “demon slayer” … waging war on
Muslims.’3
In a separate incident the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (rss), the ideolog-
ical wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, carried out a conversion cere-
mony of a few Bangladeshi immigrant Muslims working mostly as rag pickers
in a slum in the North Indian city of Agra under the guise of re-conversions.
Euphemistically termed as ‘ghar-wapsi’ (home coming) those organising these
‘re-conversion’ ceremonies argue that what they are indulging in is not con-
version but re-conversion of those Christians and Muslims whose ancestors
left the Hindu fold. All these are interpreted to be part of a minority-cleansing
programme as claimed by Rajeshwar Singh, a leader of the Hindu extremist
organisation the Dharm Jagran Manch, who declared publicly that Christian-
ity and Islam would be finished in India by December 31st 2021.4
These incidents are offshoots of an increasing tirade against Christians and
Muslims in India. One can remember the violence in Kandhamal district
against Dalit Christians in December 2007 and August 2008, and the massacre
of Muslims in Gujarat following the Godhra carnage a few years earlier in 2002,
as the intensification of a violent intimidation campaign of the Hindutva forces
against Christians and Muslims.5 There have been comparatively less violent
indications of this campaign against minorities when the present ruling party
during its previous tenure in Delhi declared that since about half an ounce of
-speeches-630346 http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/apology-wont-suffice
-sadhvi-niranjan-jyoti-must-resign-opposition-members/.
2 Susan Abraham, ‘Strategic Essentialism in Nationalist Discourses: Sketching a Feminist Agen-
da in the Study of Religion’, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Vol. 25, No. 1, (pp. 156–161),
p. 160.
3 Abraham, ‘Strategic Essentialism’, p. 160.
4 http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/hindu-outfit-plans-to-finish-islam
-christianity-by-2021/.
5 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/06/world/asia/modi-gujarat-riots-timeline
.html?_r=0#/#time287_8192.
328 rajkumar
wine was used to commemorate the Last Supper of Jesus, Churches were to be
considered not as religious houses but as places of entertainment and be taxed
as commercial centres.6
Further underlining its lack of sensitivity to the religious sentiments of its
religious minorities, the government declared that Christmas day would be
observed as ‘Good Governance Day’ to commemorate the birthday of two
prominent Hindu leaders with fundamentalist links—namely former Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee who led the first Hindu fundamentalist govern-
ment of India and Madan Mohan Malaviya, the founder of the Hindu Mahasab-
ha (Great Assembly) which is the progenitor of various Hindu fundamental-
ist organisations. Marking Christmas day as ‘good governance day’ obligated
government employees (including Christians) to report for work and under-
take activities focussing on extolling the government’s ‘progress’.7 Educational
institutions were also instructed to organise activities which would commem-
orate Christmas day as Good Governance Day.8 Though sounding innocuous
and without explicit malicious intent this move to observe December 25th
as good governance day cannot be beyond suspicion as an insidious attempt
to not just dislodge Christmas day from Indian calendars as a Christian fes-
tival but as a political opportunity to caricature Christian voices who might
oppose this move as anti-national and un-patriotic. A provocative gesture
verging on the cusp of politically and polemically imagined nationalist fault
lines!
Such incidents of increasing hostility against the two significant minority
communities mirror the convictions expressed by an erstwhile leader of the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (rss), Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, who in 1939
declared, ‘The non-Hindu peoples in Hindustan … must … stay in the country
wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no
privileges, far less any preferential treatment—not even citizen’s rights.’9 It
is not incidental that today the rss provides the political ideology for the
present government of India as is evidenced by the strong presence of rss
‘workers’ in Indian Government as ministers, including Sadhvi Niranjan Jyothi.
Thus public policy, governance and administration are insidiously entrenched
6 Walter Fernandes, ‘Attacks on Minorities and a National Debate on Conversions’, Economic

and Political Weekly (epw from now), January 16–23, 1999, (pp. 81–84), p. 83.
7 http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-12-16/news/57112651_1_prime-minister
-narendra-modi-governance-day-december.
8 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Govt-wants-schools-to-observe-good-governance
-day-on-Christmas/articleshow/45516752.cms.
9 M.S. Golwalkar, We, Our Nationhood Defined, (Nagpur: Bharat Prakashan, 1939), p. 48, 49.
in a pejorative and provocative view of Christians and Muslims as secondary

citizens of Hindu India, a view promulgated by the ideology of Hindutva which
holds various Hindu nationalist groups together. It would be helpful to explore
Hindutva briefly.
Hindutva is a political movement, which sees Hindutva or ‘Hinduness’ as
quintessentially defining Indianness. The conceptualisation of Hindutva can
be traced to a book published in 1923 named ‘Hindutva’ by Vinayak Damodar
Savarkar, an ideologue of this political development.10 Hindutva fabricates
the concept of the Indian nation along the lines of a pan-Hindu identity. It
effectively seeks to reduce India to a Hindu nation comprising of Hindus—thus
undermining the pluralistic ethos of the country. One of the chief arguments of
Hindutva was the accordance of primary citizenship status to ‘Hindus’—those
who considered India as both pithrubhumi (father land) and punyabhumi (holy
land)—as against adherents of other faiths like Christians and Muslims whose
punyabhumi was not India but Mecca, Rome or Palestine.11
Hindutva has used both myth and history to fabricate and foster hostility
towards Christians and Muslims. Wendy Doniger in her book Hindus: An Alter-
native History brings out how the popular Hindu myth the Ramayana is today
repressively retold to ‘use the mythological moment of Ram-raj (Rama’s reign)
as an imagined India that is free of Muslims and Christians and any Others,
in the hope of restoring India to the Edenic moment of the Ramayanas.’12 In
a context where ‘a retrospective history of antagonism is not difficult to man-
ufacture’,13 history has been used to emphasise the ‘Hindu’ as the native and
10 Vinyak Damodar Savarkar, Hindutva, (Nagpur: V.V. Kelkar, 1923).

11 Hindutva rests on three pillars of ‘geographical unity, racial features and common culture’.
It introduces a concept of nationalism defined in terms of culture which conflates Indian
culture with the term ‘Hindu’—a predominantly brahminnical and sanskritised version
of Indian culture. This becomes clear if we consider Savarkar’s definition of culture:
[W]e Hindus are bound together not only by the ties of love we bear to a common
fatherland and by the common blood that courses through our veins and keeps our hearts
throbbing and our affections warm, but also by the ties of common homage we pay
to our great civilization—our Hindu culture, which could not be better rendered than
by the word Sanskriti suggestive as it is of that language Sanskrit, which has been the
chosen means of expression and preservation of that culture, of all that was best and
worth-preserving in the history of our race. We are one because we are a nation, a race
and own a common Sanskriti (civilization). Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Hindutva: Who is
a Hindu? (2d ed.; Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1969), pp. 91–92.
12 Wendy Doniger, Hindus: An Alternative History, (London: Penguin, 2009), p. 667.
13 Dipankar Gupta, ‘Citizens Versus People: The Politics of Majoritarianism and Marginal-
ization in Democratic India’, Sociology of Religion, Vol. 68, No. 1, 2007, (pp. 27–44), p. 33.
330 rajkumar
the Muslim as the ‘invader’ by Hindutva ideologues like Savarkar through a

selective terming of the coming of the Muslims to India as ‘invasion’ and the
coming of the Aryans (forerunners of the Hindus) as ‘settling’.14 Nobel laure-
ate Amartya Sen points out how Hindutva in its rendering of Indian history
adopts a ‘narrowly Hindu view of Indian civilization’ separating out the period
preceding the Muslim conquest of India.15 The phenomenon of stereotyping
Muslims as outsiders who threaten the integrity of the Indian nation perme-
ates different spheres of contemporary life. In January 2015 the police depart-
ment in Gujarat state (the home state of Prime Minister Narenda Modi, which
had earlier in 2002 witnessed one of the worst massacres of Muslims) con-
ducted mock security drills in which fake ‘militants’ were dressed as Muslims in
long tunics and skull caps and were made to shout ‘Islam Zindabad’ (long live
Islam) reiterating the Hindu fundamentalist’s preferred stereotyping of Mus-
lims as ‘terrorists’.16 While the terrorist tag is attached to Muslims, Christians
are branded with an ‘imperial tag’—as foreign agents out to destabilise and
divide the Indian nation.17 This political condition, forged out of political myth-
making, insidious introduction of negative stereotypes, and the re-fabrication
of history, and which seeks to debilitate and disenfranchise Indian Christians
and Muslims, necessitates the need for greater conversation and collaboration
between Christians and Muslims in India today. It is in this context that this
paper seeks to explore the validity and value of a minority-identified engage-
ment between Christians and Muslims.
ii Moving Beyond Majoritarian Faultlines: The Validity and Value of

‘as Minorities’ Discourse in Contemporary India
In a context of majoritarian self-assertion by Hindu fundamentalists, the ratio-

nale behind conceiving Christians-Muslim engagement as minority-identified
engagement needs critical analysis. If the identity politics engaged in by Hindu
nationalists is one of religious majoritarianism would it make sense for Chris-
tians and Muslims to play the minority card or would it prove counter-intuitive?
14 Juli Gittinger, ‘Hindutva: From Nationalism to Secularism’, Journal of Theta Alhpa Kappa,
(2007), (pp. 18–37), p. 25.
15 Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian Culture, History and Identity,
(London: Penguin, 2005), pp. 9, 10.
16 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30654366.
17 Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakantan, Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dra-
vidian and Dalit Faultlines, (Amaryllis, 2011).
Would it further reinforce the majority-minority divide and, in an ethos which

seeks to justify majoritarian privilege, end up on the receiving end of the logical
stick?
Identity politics across the globe have taught the logic that any political resis-
tance that seeks ‘to effectively counter the roots of oppression’ needs to be ‘tied
to their identities in virtue of which one is subjected to oppression’.18 This, in
the case of Christians and Muslims in India, would imply invoking their minor-
ity identity. In India, using the minority identity may be needed in a context
where majoritarianism seeks to assert itself in a virulent and violent manner
because it may be one way of ‘speaking truth to power’ and naming the oppres-
sion. Hence the ‘as-minority’ discourse needs to be present in the political,
social and cultural domains of India as an inconvenient truth—a persistent,
perseverant and peaceable sign highlighting how majoritarianism threatens
India’s communal peace and integrity as a secular nation. In an Indian context
where majoritarians take recourse to the language of ‘us—the people’ against
‘them’ the natural enemies of the nation state whose ‘origins, heritages, and loy-
alties are rooted in other countries’,19 minority consciousness rooted in the ide-
als of inclusive citizenship can have a transformative effect. This is because con-
sciousness of the minority identity means being able to recognise one’s minor
status and being perceptive of the manifold manifestations of domination and
the underlying structural reasons for such domination which invests its propo-
nents with concrete and symbolic status. In many ways minority consciousness
and the mobilization of minority identity can be ‘potentially powerful’ as they
can facilitate the ‘subversion of power relations in a number of ways.’20
However, the mobilisation of a meta-identity using what can be called an
‘as-discourse’ (i.e. as minorities) has its own pitfalls—especially in a context
where the ‘as-discourse’ needs to be engendered from a multiplicity of voices.
This dilemma is brought out by the Asian-American feminist theologian Nam-
soon Kang who queries, ‘If the coherency required for any political movement
to get heard and to cause change requires a group to speak in a single voice of
‘as-discourse’, how will a single voice be shaped from the multiplicity of voices,
and whose voice will predominate?’21 This is a challenge in the Indian con-
18 Saba Fatima, ‘Who Counts as a Muslim? Identity, Multiplicity and Politics’, Journal of
Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 3 September 2011, (pp. 339–353), p. 339.
19 Dipankar Gupta, ‘Citizens Versus People’, p. 29.
20 Gill Siedel, ‘Right Wing Discourse and Power: Exclusions and Resistance’, in Gill Siedel
(ed.), The Nature of the Right: A Feminist Analysis of Order Patterns, (Amsterdam: John
Benjamin’s Publishing, 1988), (pp. 7–20), p. 9.
21 Namsoon Kang, ‘Re-constructing Asian Feminist Theology: Toward a Glocal Feminist
332 rajkumar
text because both the Indian Christians as well as Indian Muslims are remark-
ably heterogeneous groups each characterised by intra-divergences. However,
in such a context one can conceive of a minority-identified Christian-Muslim
engagement not just in terms of an ‘as-discourse’ but in terms of what Kang calls
a ‘with-discourse’ which is founded on the ‘firm ground’ of ‘the radical realiza-
tion of’ mutual interconnectedness and ‘the need for solidarity for the common
good’, a shift from a ‘politics of identity to a politics of solidarity’ so that one does
not ‘overlook the interactive mediations between differences, and obscure the
overlapping and hybridizing that takes place in the contact space in between
differences’.22
It is the argument of this essay that a minority-identified Christian-Muslim
engagement most relevant and response-able in the current Indian context
would be a ‘with-discourse’ characterised by the politics of solidarity and pre-
mised on empathy. It is important to understand Christian-Muslim Engage-
ment in India as a ‘with-discourse’ premised on empathy because the category
of empathy has the potential not just to connect Christians and Muslims on the
basis of shared experiences but bring an expansive and more inclusive dimen-
sion to Christian-Muslim engagement in a context of majoritarian nationalist
assertion.
Empathy has long been recognised as providing the epistemological frame-
work for inter-religious engagement as it provides the emotional and cognitive
grid by way of which what Edith Stein calls the ‘experiencing of foreign con-
sciousness’ is made possible.23 Empathy can be a strong basis for Christian-
Muslim relations in India. As the marginalised other of Hindu Nationalism,
Christian-Muslim solidarity in India can be founded on an empathy precondi-
tioned by what has been termed as ‘shared narratives’.24 Hollingsworth identi-
fies ‘shared narratives’ as preconditions for empathy, ‘which raise one to greater
levels of concern with the pain of others, and motivate one to stand in solidar-
ity with those who are suffering by weaving their stories into the fabric of our
own’.25
Theology in an Era of Neo-Empire(s)’ in Sebastian C.H. Kim, (ed.), Christian Theology in

Asia, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), (pp. 205–226).p. 214.
22 Kang, ‘Re-constructing Asian Feminist Theology’, pp. 214, 215.
23 Cited in Catherine Cornille, ‘Empathy and Inter-religious Imagination’, Religion and the
Arts, Volume. 12, Issue. 1, 2008, (pp. 102–117), p. 103.
24 See Dunia Haralji Berry and Vassili Joannides, ‘The Source of Empathy in our Lives:
An Explanatory Journey into the Realms of Spirituality’, Kathryn Pavlovich and, Keiko
Krahnke (eds.), Organizing Through Empathy, (London: Routledge, 2013), (pp. 34–47).
25 Andrea Hollingsworth, ‘Implications of Interpersonal Neurobiology for a Spirituality of
Compassion’, Zygon, Vol. 43, No. 4, 2008, (pp. 837–860), p. 853.
In the context of majoritarian nationalism, which emphasises clear-cut iden-

tities and binaristic categorisations in terms of ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ and
‘native’ and ‘foreign’ it may be possible that minority-identified solidarities can
often assume polemic shapes. However, such solidarities can undermine their
own purposes if they fall into the trap of exclusivism and parochialism. There-
fore, it is imperative for minority-identified solidarities to be expansive and
inclusive versions of solidarity. Empathy as an epistemological premise makes
expansive and inclusive solidarities possible. For example, drawing inspira-
tion and deriving compassion from the category of vulnerability—a consti-
tutive element of its minority memory—Christians and Muslims can reach
out to other vulnerable groups as well as work towards reducing vulnerabil-
ity by seeking to nurture the life and dignity of the most marginalised. This
constructive and non-polemic transposition of the constitutive memory of
vulnerability into the realm of collective and concrete action results in the
blurring of boundaries between minorities and other marginalised groups and
the creation of a hospitable hubris which can nurture a trans-religious soli-
darity characterised by humaneness and humanitarianism. In line with this
understanding of Christian-Muslim Dialogue as an inclusive ‘with-discourse’,
I will attempt to identify and analyse a few concerns that assume impor-
tance in the context of Christian-Muslim relations in the present Indian con-
text.
iii Christian-Muslim Engagement in India as a ‘With-Discourse’ of

Solidarity and Subversion
Christian-Muslim Engagement as a ‘With-Discourse’ Embracing

Subaltern Solidarity
In the contemporary Indian context the biggest threat for Hindutva is the sol-
idarity between religious minorities and the marginalised subaltern groups.
In this context it is important that the ‘with-discourse’ of Christian-Muslim
engagement engages positively with the subaltern communities and takes a
subaltern shape. Recognising that ‘trans-religious subaltern solidarity could be
the nemesis of the religion-based identity politics’ that it pursues,26 Hindutva
seeks to thwart any possibility for such solidarity by resorting to the wooing of
the subaltern Dalits and Adivasis (indigenous peoples) on the basis of a pan
26 Praful Bidwai, ‘Age of Empowerment Muslim obcs Discover Mandal’, The Times of India,
September 12, 1996. p. 12.
334 rajkumar
Hindu identity and the wounding of minorities.27 What is worrying about this
vitriolic process of wooing and wounding is that the Hindutva seeks to instru-
mentalise subaltern communities as Hindutva’s agents to attack the Muslims
and Christians.
On the basis of a survey of four Dalit slums in Madras city, S. Anandi in
her work Contending Identities: Dalits and Secular Politics in Madras Slums,28
points out how Hindutva seeks to assimilate Dalits into a pan-Hindu identity
and cultivate in them hatred against Muslims. The tactics employed by the
Hindutva forces include conducting night schools, bhajan sessions and shakhas
for young Dalits. Further, and in a complete distortion of his image, Hindutva
forces tried to co-opt the noted Dailt leader, Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar, as ‘a
Hindu fundamentalist rss activist’ in order to attract Dalits into the Hindutva’s
fold. They also fund the Hindu Vinayaka Chaturthi festival celebrations in
Dalit slums and, in a context where leadership of these festivities is considered
something of a status symbol, leadership roles in these festivities are accorded
to local Dalit leaders. Above all the Hindutva forces feed Dalits with rumours
aimed at fostering anti-Muslim riots so as to sunder Hindu-Muslim bonds.
According to Anandi:
A dialectical process of inclusion and exclusion thus sets deeper in the

dalit common sense through communal propaganda, institution-build-
ing and riots directed by the Sangh Parivar. On the one hand, the dalits
feel integral part of a pan-Hindu, identity/ honour and, on the other hand,
they develop an anti-Muslim consciousness.29
Analysing the present predicament of the co-option of the Dalits and Adivasis
in the perpetuation of violence against minorities across India, Dipankar Gupta
points out that the reason for Dalits and the tribal Bhils to be involved in the
riots against the minorities today ‘is because such participation links them
with a wider supra-local community which they find extremely appealing’.30
This infiltration of a communal ideology into the subaltern common sense
27 Sathianathan Clarke, ‘Hindutva, Religious and Ethnocultural Minorities and Indian Chris-
tian Theology’, Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 95, No. 2, 2002, (pp. 197–226), p. 205.
28 S. Anandi, Contending Identities: Dalits and Secular Politics in Madras Slums, (New Delhi:
Indian Social Institute, 1995), p. 36.
29 See Arun Kumar Patnaik’s ‘Dalit Common Sense against Hindutva’, epw, Nov 2, 1996,
p. 2926.
30 Dipankar Gupta, ‘Limits of Tolerance: Prospects of Secularism in India after Gujarat’, epw,
November 16, 2002, (pp. 4615–4620), p. 4618.
poses a particular problem because it threatens the possibility of a subaltern

solidarity between the minorities and the marginal groups, which can provide
a formidable counter-force to the Hindutva’s cultural nationalist strategy. It is
highly deplorable that the ‘social passion’ that is evoked in this whole process
helps create a terrorising atmosphere which serves as ‘the best way to suppress
the liberalism and the accompanying social space necessary for the struggles
of the oppressed groups’.31
It is in this context that Christian-Muslim engagement, as a truly ‘with-
discourse’, needs to become part of a more expansive and inclusive wider sub-
altern solidarity which will bring the marginalised and the minorities together
to subvert the polemical politics of the Hindutva which aims to divide the
marginalised and the minorities. A binding factor for such a solidarity would
be the realisation that all marginalised groups are ‘liminals in a society’ that
blocks them from seeing their common connectivity.32 A wider subaltern sol-
idarity which can resist Hindutva’s reification of identities is made possible
through a common understanding of subalternity (as a provisional identity
which includes both minorities and marginalised groups) as a process (in terms
of the Gramscian notion of contradictory-consciousness) than in a substantive,
essentialist and communal sense (as different communities/ethnic collectivi-
ties). This opens up the space for forging expansive and inclusive collaboration
between the minorities and the various marginalized communities.33
In a context where rigid identifications are invoked to destabilise the rela-
tions between subaltern and minorities, Christian-Muslim engagement can
effectively subvert Hindutva if it becomes part of a wider subaltern solidar-
ity built by stressing on ‘the activity of people who participate in countering
hegemony and embracing their own authentic freedom and dignity’, which for
Christians is a call ‘for experiencing God’s presence through the dynamic move-
ment of people struggling for life and liberty’.34 In a subaltern solidarity, the
category ‘subaltern’ would be ‘an alternate ideational framework that under-
cuts biological justification for forging collective identities in ethnic terms and
creates space for inter-sectarian and inter-parochial transfigurations of cor-
porate human identities’.35 Such a solidarity has the potential for furthering
31 P.R. Ram, ‘Left Ideology, Ends and Means and Hindutva’, epw, February 15, 1997, p. 1427.
32 Fatima, ‘Who Counts as a Muslim?’, p. 341.
33 Sathianathan Clarke, ‘Subalterns, Identity Politics and Christian Theology in India’, Sebas-
tian Kim (ed.), Christian Theology in Asia, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008),
(pp. 271–290).
34 Clarke, ‘Subalterns’, pp. 276, 277.
35 Clarke, ‘Subalterns’, p. 286.
336 rajkumar
solidarity among different groups, rather than estrangement, because this cat-
egory ‘posits human beings as socially constructible according to common
struggles and aspirations, conceiving of identity formation across traditionally
dividing categories.’36 The fruitfulness of a wider subaltern solidarity to coun-
teract Hindutva’s divisive politics lies in the possibilities it offers for various
marginalised and minority groups to discern points of convergence and forge
solidarity across divisions and borders through a ‘contradictory-consciousness
in order to live in freedom and dignity’.37
Re-visiting Indian-Christian Theology and Redressing Default Indian

Identities and Their Casualties
An important area that needs to be revisited in the context of Christian-Muslim
engagement is Indian Christian Theology. An important dimension of the story
of Indian Christianity’s development is one which has focussed on drawing
theological import for Indian Christian theology from Indian religions. In a
loose manner this can be classified under the dialogue of theological encounter
where Christian theology is cross-fertilised with the theology of other religious
traditions to give birth to what can be termed as ‘Indian Christian theology’.
One distinctive feature that needs to be mentioned about the dialogue of theo-
logical encounter is that such encounter has been predominantly undertaken
with Hindu religious traditions. More specifically this dialogue, in its more
overt and recognized forms, has captured the attention and imagination of
Indian-Christians hailing from those sections of the Indian-Christian commu-
nity that can be rightly described as having a dominant caste background.
This distinct feature of Indian Christian inter-religious engagement can be
duly explained by the fact that those engaged in articulating inter-religious the-
ologies initially were converts from caste Hindu communities whose primary
concern was to interpret their faith experiences in an ‘Indian’ thought form
(which again was predominantly based on their own upper caste upbringing).
So, it is understandable that the caste-Christian interpreters such as Brahma-
badhav Uphadhyaya and A.J. Appasamy used brahmannical philosophical con-
cepts such as advaita (Uphadhyaya) and vishistadvaita (Appasamy) to explicate
Indian Christian theology. Since most of the early Indian Christian theolo-
gians were Hindu converts there was the inherent desire among theologians to
express their own caste Hindu-situatedness in their discourses. Further, Chris-
tianity also had the challenge of incarnating itself as part of the national com-

munity. Thus, in order to prove that Indian Christian theology was an integral
part of an emerging national community a concerted effort was made to posi-
tively respond to the demand for national Christianity which ultimately led to
the incorporation of concepts and symbols from the Brahmannic tradition.38
The nationalistic strivings of this era meant that emphasis was placed on the
Hindu-Christian characteristic of the Christian community’s identity in India.
Thus, what emerged at the end of the 19th century was ‘the vision of a national
Christian Church which would be a haven for Hindu-Christians, with the Hindu
component seen primarily along Brahmannic lines’.39
On the basis of the above it can be said, in all fairness, that the major
efforts of Indian Christian theologians to engage theologically with other reli-
gions was not only inclined predominantly towards upper-caste Hinduism, but
also (as a consequence) tacitly inclined towards an inordinate reification and
reinforcement of ‘Indianness’ as ‘Hinduness’, with the latter being understood
in a parochial manner more identifiable with the dominant versions of Hin-
duism. Such interfaith engagement has the potential to undercut the plurality
that characterises India, which includes various subaltern traditions as well as
minority religious traditions.
This tendency, to identify India with dominant Hinduism, can have detri-
mental effects in contemporary India which has witnessed the resurgence
and re-strengthening of majoritarian Hindu nationalism under the tutelage of
Hindu fundamentalist groups. Hence one area of Christian-Muslim engage-
ment which would be important for Indian Christians would be developing
Christian theologies in creative conversation with Muslims. In a spirit of the
inclusive embrace of the ‘with discourse’, it needs to be emphasised that that
the dialogue of theological exchange between Christianity and Islam should
probably focus on the experiences of the margins of both these communi-
ties. One exciting and essential possibility is to explore further the convergent
matrices that a Dalit identity offers for Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims
in their ritual and spiritual life. Yoginder Sikand’s work, ‘Islamic Perspectives
on Liberation and Dialogue in Contemporary India: A Case Study of Muslim
writings in Dalit Voice’, is a good precursor for such explorations.40 Theolo-
gies which emerge from the conceptual womb of minority and marginalised
38 Clarke, Dalits and Christianity: Subaltern Religion and Liberation Theology in India, (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 37.
39 Clarke, Dalits and Christianity, pp. 38, 39.
40 Yoginder Sikand, ‘Islamic Perspectives on Liberation and Dialogue in Contemporary India:
A Case Study of Muslim writings in Dalit Voice’, Studies in Interreligious Dialogue, Vol. 12,
No. 1, 2002, (pp. 75–97).
338 rajkumar
identities have the potential to provide ‘a contrasting inspiration for Christian

theology in contemporary India’ which would involve ‘strengthening and net-
working the liberating energies that are forging spaces for their own survival’.41
Another good entry point would be to learn from the history of Christian–
Muslim dialogue in India, where the often rehearsed singular narrative of colo-
nial Christianity seeking to supplant other religions is not as flattened as is
often made to be, but is rather suffused and surcharged with narratives of
inter-religious engagement, exchange and edification. For example, narratives
in Pierre Du Jarric’s book, Akbar and the Jesuits, of Jesuits visiting Akbar’s court,
reveal that the relationship between the Jesuits and the Mughal emperor, which
even culminated in the emperor building the first Catholic Church in Agra
in 1598 fondly known as Akbar’s church, was much more complex than mere
Christian attempts at expansionism.42 The interreligious attempts of great
Mughal emperors like Akbar, who founded the syncretistic religion of Dinilahi,
need to be analysed for the religious-cultural transactions which took place at
the interstices of religion, nation-building and the empire consolidation, before
flattened versions of Muslims as iconoclastic invaders were mass produced in
the public imagination.
Another area of theological engagement between Christians and Muslims
would involve engaging with each other’s scriptures, which is often recognised
to be a problematic area of inter-faith engagement. As Heidi Hadsell acknowl-
edges ‘(so) often in human history scripture, both Christian and that from other
faith traditions, has been the cause of conflict and violence, rather than conflict
resolution and peace making’.43 Writing in the context of Jewish Muslim rela-
tionships, A. Rashied Omar and Rabia Terri Harris recognise the importance of
reading scriptures in a way which affirms life. According to them ‘in a context
where our sacred texts and stories provide opportunities for justifying violence
… What is needed is a reinterpretation of the narrative, so that healing and a
transformed relationship with the perceived enemy become integral parts of a
renewed spiritual vision.’44 This is very much needed in the context of Christian
Muslim relationships where scripture is invoked to fuel hostility.
41 Clarke, ‘Hindutva’, p. 212.

42 Pierre Du Jarric, Akbar and the Jesuits: An Account of the Jesuit Missions to The Court
Of Akbar. (Translated with Introduction and Notes By C.H. Payne), (New Delhi: Asian
Educational Services, 1996).
43 Heidi Hadsell, ‘Can Scripture be used Towards Peaceful Relationships?’ Anantanand Ram-
bachan, A. Rashied Omar and M. Thomas Thangaraj (eds.) Hermeneutical Explorations in
Dialogue: Essays in Honour of Hans Ucko, (New Delhi: ispck, 2007), pp. 52–64. p. 52.
44 A. Rashied Omar and Rabia Terri Harris, ‘Beyond ambivalence—Peacemaking through the
Prophetic Example’, Faces of the Other, (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2005), p. 22.
Recovery of Alternate Nationalism and Reaffirming Secularism

In a context where Hindutvavadis attempt to construct majoritarian nation-
alisms based on polemic identifications, one of the important challenges for
Christians and Muslims in India is to work towards the recovery of humane and
alternate nationalisms which uphold the secular fabric of the Indian nation.
Through its aggressive efforts to facilitate a re-imagining of Indian nation-
alism along religious lines, Hindutva ideologues have distorted the face of
Indian nationalism by shifting away from earlier ‘secular-territorial’ versions of
nationalism of the 1950’s which refused to make the nation co-terminus with a
particular religion.45 Such nationalism ‘was a humane nationalism, compre-
hending within it political freedom, economic justice, and social solidarity’
and today, ‘given the resurgence of a communal politics that conflates reli-
gion and culture’, this version of nationalism is under threat.46 Today there
is a need for Christians and Muslims to work towards the recovery of this
secular-territorial version of nationalism which duly recognised ‘the dangers
inherent in the religious and fascist varieties of aggressive nationalism’ and
did not accord general approbation to ‘nationalism not tempered with moral-
ity’.47
Catholic theologian Ambrose Pinto, in his critique of the misguided notion
of loyalty to the nation that is expected by the Hindutvavadis and the rightists,
comments against their acts of discrimination, destruction and ‘hatred towards
minorities’ that together are considered ‘a sign of loyalty to national culture and
heritage’, and reiterates that loyalty to the nation needs in fact to be redefined
‘in terms of a concern for the poor, compassion for the suffering and integrity
and rectitude.’48 Today one of the tasks of Christians and Muslims is to work
together to recover explicitly humane versions of nationalism in which the
defining category is not adherence to a particular ‘religious world view’ but con-
cern for our neighbours. There are enough ethical resources within the Chris-
tian and Muslim religious traditions which reinforce this aspect of concern for
the other and thus offer the spiritual resources for Christians and Muslims to
recover a humane nationalism. It is important that the spiritual wealth of these
two traditions are transposed and transported into the public square.49 South
45 K.N. Panikkar, Colonialism, Culture and Resistance, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2007), p. 87.
46 Panikkar, Colonialism, Culture and Resistance, p. 87.
47 Panikkar, Colonialism, Culture and Resistance, p. 87.
48 Ambrose Pinto, in Vinyak Damodar Savarkar, Hindutva, p. 3633.
49 A. Rashied Omar, ‘Taʾarul: Islam beyond Tolerance’, Anantanand Rambachan, A. Rashied
340 rajkumar
African Islamic scholar Rashied Omar talks of the Islamic concept of ‘Taʿaruf’
(which, according to him, ‘literally means getting to know “the other” ’),50 as a
rich concept that can aid this concern for our neighbours. In a context where
it has been recognised that tolerance does not suffice, and where religions will
have to learn to think about each other in terms beyond mere toleration ‘as
an unavoidable inconvenience or an evil that cannot be eliminated’,51 Omar
argues that the Quranic concept of ‘taʾaruf’ offers an alternate vision to that
of the tolerance paradigm and represents for him ‘the litmus test of good
religion: not how much one can tolerate the other but rather the extent to
which one is able to embrace “the Other” as an extension of myself’.52 Such rich
religious concepts like ‘taʾaruf’ and the Christian understanding of hospitality
often help us understand relations between religions beyond the redundant
and repressive rhetoric of tolerance.
The quest for the recovery of a humane nationalism should also be accom-
panied or complemented by a radical rethinking of the concept of secular-
ism. Christians and Muslims need to realise that a secular ideology by itself
is inadequate in the present context because the problem that confronts the
secular fabric of India in the form of the ideology of Hindutva is a particu-
larly complex and serious one in which, as the cultural critic Homi Bhabha
has perceptively pointed out, the enemies of secularism are today waging a
war not simply in opposition to secularism but within secularism and in fact in
and through secularism!53 In line with the above-mentioned view of needing
to move beyond tolerance in safeguarding secularism one needs to also con-
sider seriously Dipankar Gupta’s call for rethinking the notion of tolerance as a
hallmark of secularism.54 Arguing that it is crucial that the rhetoric of secular-
ism today needs to be recast in the language of intolerance, which emphasises
Omar and M. Thomas Thangaraj, (eds.), Hermeneutical Explorations in Dialogue: Essays in

Honour of Hans Ucko, (New Delhi: ispck, 2007), (pp. 65–73), p. 73.
50 Omar, ‘Taʾarul’, p. 71.
51 Martyn Marty, When Faiths Collide, (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2005).
52 Omar, ‘Taʾarul’, p. 71.
53 Interview with Homi Bhabha, The Book Review, Dec 1995, 19:12 cited in Brenda Crossman
and Ratna Kapur, (eds.), Secularism’s Last Sigh: Hindutva and the (Mis)Rule of Law, (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 1. This attack against secularism from within
is blatant with regard to the issue of conversions, because here the Hindutva forces
use the argument about the equality of all religions to protest against the attempts of
Christians and Muslims to convert people from other religions, effectively threatening the
fundamental right of these communities to propagate one’s religion.
54 Gupta, ‘Limits of Tolerance’, p. 4619.
that certain actions are just intolerable, Gupta argues that only an insistence
on certain inflexible principles, and that these principles relate to matters of
law, can help strengthen the secular ethic of India.55 For him, what is needed
in the present Indian context is an ‘intolerant secularism’ that insists on the
inalienable rights of citizens and in the due process of the law, only through
which one can mount ‘public pressure against minority hunters and sectarian
killers’.56
Alongside the recovery of a humane nationalism and the stress on an ‘intol-
erant secularism’ there is also need for an ‘active citizenry’ in such situations of
inequality where the needs and interests of the minority are likely to be side-
lined.57 Recognising the importance of an active citizenry in the transformation
of society along egalitarian lines, Duncan Forrester writes:
A democracy needs an active citizenry that is willing to put the common

good before sectional and individual interests, and sometimes make sac-
rifices for the benefit of others, and for a greater good. Usually this is only
possible when many people are gripped by a vision, and feel a sense of
solidarity, shared destiny and mutual accountability. But it also depends
on visionary leadership, for political leaders who have convictions which
they can share and a vision, a dream, of the future of the society that is
infectious.58
In this light, the challenge today is to conceive Christian-Muslim collaboration

in terms of the development of an active citizenry through which minorities
take up seriously the challenge of creatively imagining the shape of the future of
India. Outlining how citizenship has become a common concern in the context
of Lutheran-Muslim dialogue, Lutheran theologian Simone Sinn rightly points
out that in a context of marginalisation and exclusion of certain communities,
‘Christians and Muslims need to be active partners in civil society and advocate
together for citizenship rights’.59 The three areas discussed above are crucial
areas for Christian-Muslim engagement in contemporary India.

57 Duncan B. Forrester, On Human Worth, (London: scm Press, 2001), p. 180.
58 Forrester, On Human Worth, p. 181.
59 Simone Sinn, ‘On Lutheran Theology and Practice in Relation to Islam’, Current Dialogue,
Vol. 52, No. 1, July 2012, (pp. 42–49), p. 45.
342 rajkumar
Conclusion
Having explored a few issues that may be important in the context of grow-
ing religious majoritarianism in India, a minority-identified Christian-Muslim
engagement, as an expansive and inclusive ‘with-discourse’, is arguably a rele-
vant form of Christian-Muslim engagement in a context where minorities may
need to take up a politics of ‘withstanding’ (in the sense of resilient resistance)
and a ‘politics of standing with’ (in the sense of solidarity). This is because, on
the one hand, as a subversive engagement, it can help in positing alternative
frameworks for nationalism and create safe spaces for secularism to thrive and,
on the other hand, as a solidarity of the engaged, it can enable minorities and
other marginalised subaltern groups to sow confidently the seeds of resistance
and renewal by way of which Indian nationalism can re-invent itself not as an
exclusive nationalism of some, but as an inclusive nationalism of and for all.
chapter 20
Scholarly Reception of Alphonse

Mingana’s “The Transmission of the
Ḳurʾān:” A Centenary Perspective
Gordon Nickel
One of the most interesting scholarly gatherings in the world during the past
three decades has been the Mingana Symposium, held every four years at the
Woodbrooke Study Centre in Birmingham, England. The gathering focuses on
the writings of Christians who lived within the Arab Empire during the early
centuries of the Muslim conquest and domination of the Middle East. Papers
from the gatherings have been published in collections such as Christians at
the heart of Islamic rule and The Bible in Arab Christianity.1 A special feature
of the symposium, besides taking place at peaceful Woodbrooke, is its prox-
imity to the Mingana Collection, a collection of over 3,000 Middle Eastern
manuscripts in over 20 languages brought together during the 1920s by the Iraqi
Christian scholar Alphonse Mingana (1878–1937). At the most recent Sympo-
sium, for example, a special session on early Qurʾanic manuscripts was held in
the very room of the collection at the University of Birmingham where the Ara-
bic manuscripts from the Mingana Collection are preserved. David Thomas has
been involved with organizing the Mingana symposia since the second sym-
posium in 1994. He has also edited the papers presented at the symposia into
handsome volumes for the “History of Christian-Muslim Relations” book series
or for the journal Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations.2
In the background of all of these gatherings and publications has been
the shadow of Alphonse Mingana or perhaps, better expressed, his linger-
ing glow. Among the considerable scholarly output of Mingana are a num-
ber of articles that were striking at the time of publication and are still men-
tioned regularly in academic discussions about the Qurʾan.3 For example, Min-
1 David Thomas, ed., Christians at the heart of Islamic rule: Church life and scholarship in
ʿAbbasid Iraq (Leiden: Brill, 2003); David Thomas, ed., The Bible in Arab Christianity (Leiden:
Brill, 2007).
2 For example, the articles published in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 22.2 (2011).
3 Samir Khalil Samir, “Alphonse Mingana, 1878–1937, and his contribution to early Christian-
Muslim studies” (Birmingham: Selly Oak Colleges, 1990), 53–60.

344 nickel
gana’s article, “Syriac influence on the style of the Kurʾān,”4 is still commonly
cited and even reprinted in current discussions of a possible Urtext of the
Qurʾan.5
The present essay focuses on another of Mingana’s articles, “The Trans-
mission of the Ḳurʾān,” published in 1915. In this article Mingana questioned
traditional Muslim accounts about the collection, editing and distribution of
the Qurʾan. Mingana clearly interacted with contemporary scholarship on the
Qurʾan written in Europe prior to the First World War. He was also responding
to a kind of German scholarly hegemony on study of the Qurʾan that had much
to do with the writings of Theodore Nöldeke. By expressing the new ideas in
English, however, and by adding materials with which he had become familiar
through his own research, Mingana produced an article that is still a touch-
stone of scholarly discussion and debate a century later.6 The issues which
Mingana raised concerning Muslim tradition continue to the present: not only
the question of evidence and the scholarly treatment of this evidence, but also
the approach to the subject area in general.
This essay describes the content of Mingana’s article and situates it within
the context of scholarly writings about the Qurʾan in the early twentieth cen-
tury. The essay then traces the scholarly reception of Mingana’s article and its
ideas up to the present.7 The discussion extends beyond Mingana to explore
trajectories flowing from his way of thinking, that is, developments in recent
years that Mingana may not have imagined but for which his thinking provided
4 A. Mingana, “Syriac influence on the style of the Koran,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 11
(1927), 77–98.
5 For example, Gabriel Said Reynolds, ed., The Qurʾān in its historical context (London: Rout-
ledge, 2008); and Ibn Warraq, ed., What the Koran really says: Language, text, and commentary
(Amherst, ny: Prometheus, 2002).
6 For example, Nicolai Sinai, “When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure?
Part i,”Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77 (2014): 273–292 (273 n. 3, 274 n. 6,
280 n. 45, 281 n. 50, 285 n. 72).
7 The same could be done for a number of other Mingana publications related to the Qurʾan,
including: Leaves from three ancient Qurâns possibly pre-ʿOthmânic with a list of their vari-
ants (with Agnes Smith) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914); “An important old
Turki manuscript in the John Rylands Library,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 2 (1915):
129–138; “Notes upon some of the Kurânic manuscripts in the John Rylands Library,” Bul-
letin of the John Rylands Library 2 (1915): 240–250; and “An ancient Syriac translation of the
Kurʾân exhibiting new verses and variants,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 9 (1925): 188–
235.
scholarly reception of alphonse mingana’s “transmission” 345
open space. Finally, the article offers an analysis of key themes in the discussion
of Mingana’s ideas.
Muslim Traditions about the Collection of the Qurʾan
Muslims account for the origins of the Qurʾan by telling stories of two main
collections during the first decades after the death of the messenger of Islam.
The stories attained their best-known expression in the collection of ḥadīth
by al-Bukhārī (d. 870) known as his Ṣaḥīḥ.8 The first story is set during the
reign of Abū Bakr (d. 634), the first caliph after the death of the messenger of
Islam. According to al-Bukhārī, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (d. 644) is concerned that
among the large number of deaths in the battle of al-Yamama may be many
Muslims who know the Qurʾan well (qurrāʾ). He fears that for this reason “a
large part of the Qurʾan may be lost.” ʿUmar therefore comes to Abū Bakr and
urges him to collect the Qurʾan. Abū Bakr then delegates the work to Zayd ibn
Thābit. According to Bukhārī, Zayd collects the Qurʾan from “the leafless stalks
of the date-palm tree and from pieces of leather and hides and from stones, and
from the chests of men.” After the death of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, the sheets are
deposited with ʿUmar’s daughter Ḥafṣa.
The second collection story takes place during the reign of the third caliph,
ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (d. 656). Again al-Bukhārī indicated a crisis on the battle-
field as the spur for action. Ḥudhayfa ibn al-Yamām is concerned about the
differences in the recitation of the Qurʾan by the Muslim soldiers fighting in the
conquest of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Hudhayfa says to ʿUthmān, “Commander
of the believers, set this people right before they disagree about the book in the
manner of the Jews and the Christians.” ʿUthmān sends for the sheets kept by
Ḥafṣa, and then commands Zayd and three others to edit the sheets. When the
editing work is completed, ʿUthman sends a copy of the edition to each part of
the empire, and orders that every sheet or volume remaining that contains a
part of the Qurʾan in a different form be burned.
8 Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (Beirut: Dār al-fikr, 1981), 6:98–99 (book 61, Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān,
bāb jamʿ al-Qurʾān). Also al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī musammā Jāmiʿ al-bayān fī taʾwīl al-Qurʾān
(Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2005), 1:48–50; and al-Suyūṭī, Al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān
(Riyad: Maktabat al-maʿārif, 1996), 1:163–181 (nawʿ 18). An English translation of two of the
most popular episodes is James Robson, trans., Mishkat Al-Masabih (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad
Ashraf, 1970), 1:468–470.
346 nickel
Mingana’s “Transmission”
Alphonse Mingana published his article, “The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān”, in

1915 at the start of the First World War.9 Mingana began his article by clarifying
that the Muslim traditions about the collection of the Qurʾan come from “oral
ḥadīth” rather than from history.10 He drew attention to the time gap between
the events in the traditions and their first setting down in writing by Ibn Saʿd
(d. 844), al-Bukhārī (d. 870), and Muslim (d. 874). Ibn Saʿd’s traditions, Mingana
pointed out, mention ten companions who had collected the Qurʾan during
the lifetime of Islam’s messenger.11 The traditions also tell about a collection by
ʿUthman during the reign of ʿUmar,12 as well as about a collection by ʿUmar,13
but no stories of a collection under either Abū Bakr or ʿUthmān.14 Mingana
asked why western scholars such as Theodor Nöldeke (1836–1930) should prefer
al-Bukhārī’s traditions of collections during the reigns of Abū Bakr and ʿUth-
mān, when Ibn Saʿd at least had the advantage of “priority of time.”15
Mingana noted the polemical atmosphere between Muslims and communi-
ties of the “people of the book” during the period the Muslim collection stories
were set down by al-Bukhārī, and wrote that this should be seen as a factor
in according them credence.16 The discrepancies in the Muslim sources, wrote
Mingana, continue into the various traditional Muslim lists of those who col-
lected the Qurʾan during the lifetime of Islam’s messenger, from such writers
as al-Bukhārī, al-Wāqidī (d. 822), al-Ṭabarī (d. 923) and Ibn al-Nadīm (d. c. 998)
in his Kitāb al-fihrist. Mingana described a “second series of traditions” from
Ibn Duqmāq (d. 1407), al-Maqrīzī (d. 1442) and al-Suyūṭī (d. 1505) that credits a
collection of the Qurʾan to the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik (d. 704) and his
governor al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf (d. 714).17 Finally he offered an account from Yāqūt
(d. 1229), attributed to al-Khaṭbī, of the arrest and flogging of Ibn Shanabūdh
(d. 939) for reciting the variant readings of Ibn Masʿūd and Ubayy ibn Kaʿb in
the fourth Islamic century.18
9 Alphonse Mingana, “The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān,” Journal of the Manchester Egyptian
and Oriental Society 5 (1915–1916): 25–47.
10 Mingana, “Transmission,” 26.
11 Ibn Saʿd, Al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā (Beirut: Dār ṣādir, 1957), 2:355–357.
12 Ibn Saʿd, Al-Ṭabaqāt, 2:356.
13 Ibn Saʿd, Al-Ṭabaqāt, 2:356–357.
17 Mingana, “Transmission,” 32–33.
In an attempt to get outside of the confusion he found among the Muslim

traditions, Mingana asked whether there were any written sources closer in
time to the alleged collections than Ibn Saʿd and al-Bukhārī. He proposed that
such sources may be found in works written by non-Muslims who witnessed
the Arab conquest and domination of the Middle East. Mingana noted that
these sources from the seventh and early eighth centuries do not mention the
Qurʾan.19 It is only toward the end of the first quarter of the eighth century, he
argued, that the Qurʾan became a subject of conversation in Christian writings.
Of early non-Muslim accounts related to the transmission of the Qurʾan,
Mingana highlighted the Apology of ʿAbd al Masīḥ al-Kindī, which he dated
to 40 years before al-Bukhārī.20 Al-Kindī had written about a collection made
by ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib immediately after the death of Islam’s messenger that had
spurred Abū Bakr to order his own collection.21 Even so, however, the Muslims
disagreed about which version to follow among the variant collections of Abū
Bakr, ʿAlī, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb or Ibn Masʿūd, according to al-Kindī. Al-Kindī wrote
that, because of this disagreement, ʿUthmān ordered a new collection and
edition, distributed the new version, then destroyed whatever remained. “Then
followed the business of al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf, who gathered together every single
copy he could lay hold of, and caused to be omitted from the text a great many
passages.”22 Al-Kindī wrote that al-Ḥajjāj distributed his new version in a way
similar to that found in the ʿUthmān story, “and destroyed all the preceding
copies.”23
Mingana concluded that the recitations were not written down at the time
of Islam’s messenger, but rather later by a number of the messenger’s compan-
ions, including Ubayy ibn Kaʿb and Ibn Masʿūd. He raised questions about the
development of the Arabic script and the prevalence of reading and writing in
Arabia in the first half of the seventh century, as well as the literacy level of the
companions. It was ʿAbd al-Malik and al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf, wrote Mingana, who
put the Qurʾan together in a book form from whatever materials existed by their
time.24

20 Mingana, “Transmission,” 39–42. Al-Kindī, Al-Risāla, ed. Anton Tien (London: spck, 1870),
English trans., Anton Tien, “The Apology of al-Kindi,” in The early Christian-Muslim dia-
logue: A collection of documents from the first three Islamic centuries (632–900a.d.), ed.
N.A. Newman (Hatfield, pa: Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1993), 381–516.
21 “Apology of al-Kindi,” 455.
22 Mingana, “Transmission,” 41; “Apology of al-Kindi,” 455.
23 Mingana, “Transmission,” 42; “Apology of al-Kindi,” 457.
348 nickel
Context in Early Twentieth-Century Scholarship
Mingana explicitly linked many of his ideas in the “Transmission” to the writ-
ings of a number of French scholars in the years immediately preceding World
War i. For example, Paul Casanova had advocated the idea of the edition under
ʿAbd al-Malik and al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf in a 1911 publication, apparently for the
first time among western scholars. Mingana also quoted favorably from the
writings of Henri Lammens, René Dussaud, and Clément Huart. On the other
hand, Mingana issued some new challenges to scholarly perspectives on the
Qurʾan that had become firmly established by this time.
Göttingen University professor Theodor Nöldeke (1836–1930) had been one
of the first academic scholars to write a full monograph on the Qurʾan. Nöldeke
presented the story of the Qurʾan’s formation basically as he found it in the
Muslim tradition. In his 1860 Geschichte des Qorâns Nöldeke related the ḥadīth
of al-Bukhārī about a first collection under Abū Bakr and a second collection
under ʿUthmān.25
By the time of the first revised edition of the Geschichte, however, scholars
had begun to take a more careful approach to these ḥadīth. Nöldeke’s student
Friedrich Schwally, who prepared the revised edition, included a much longer
section on “Die Sammlung des Qorāns” in which his conclusions were quite
different from Nöldeke’s.26 Schwally argued against the historical reliability of
the Muslim story of the collection under Abū Bakr.27
One of the factors that likely encouraged Schwally to take a more critical
approach to the traditions was the scholarly study on the ḥadīth by Ignaz
Goldziher in his Muhammedanische Studien.28 Goldziher argued that the ḥa-
dīth are not what they claim to be. He detected an historical progression from
sunna as the practice of the Muslim community during the Umayyad and ʿAb-
bāsid periods to sunna as the practice of the messenger of Islam. He concluded
that the ḥadīth gave authority to local rulings of a later time by associating them
with Islam’s messenger. From this Goldziher suggested that the isnād, or “chain
of transmitters” leading back to Islam’s messenger, is essentially a fiction.
25 Theodor Nöldeke, Geschichte des Qorâns (Göttingen: Verlag der Dieterichschen Buch-
handlung, 1860), 190–233.
26 Theodor Nöldeke and Friedrich Schwally, Geschichte des Qorāns, Zweite Auflage (Leipzig:
Verlag der Dieterichschen Buchhandlung, 1919), part 2, 1–121.
27 Friedrich Schwally, “Betrachtungen über die Koransammlung des Abū Bekr,” in Festschrift
Eduard Sachau zum siebzigsten Geburtstage (Berlin, 1915), 321–325.
28 Ignaz Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, vol. 2 (Halle: Niemeyer, 1899–1890), English
trans., Muslim Studies, C.R. Barber and S.M. Stern, trans. (London: George Allen & Unwin,
1971), 2:17–251.
Since the earliest traditions about the collection of the Qurʾan are part of
the same ḥadīth collections, Goldziher’s arguments affected the scholarly treat-
ment of the collection stories as well. For example, Italian scholar Leone Cae-
tani argued in his Annali dell’Islām that the tradition of a collection under Abū
Bakr was invented.29 The same argument appears later in Schwally’s revision of
Geschichte des Qurāns. Caetani and Schwally made the case that the traditional
lists of Muslims killed in the battle of al-Yamāma contain very few names that
are also found in traditional lists of persons well-known for their knowledge of
the Qurʾan.30
Even prior to Caetani, but going well beyond both Caetani and Schwally, was
the case made by Casanova in his 1911 study, Mohammed et la fin du monde.31
Professor of Arabic at the Collège de France, Casanova was the first academic
scholar to argue that contrary to the traditions of al-Bukhārī, the Qurʾan was
first collected and officially distributed during the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik (d. 705)
on the initiative of his governor al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf (d. 714).32 Casanova also
mentioned the Apology of al-Kindī and advocated its importance for the dis-
cussion of the history of the Qurʾanic text.33 On the other hand, wrote Casanova,
the story of a recension under ʿUthmān is nothing but a “child of whimsy” and
a “fiction.”34
Mingana therefore had significant precedent to question both the Muslim
traditions about the Qurʾan’s collection and the European scholarly consensus
that had formed around the writings of Theodor Nöldeke. His expression of
these questions in English, however, may help account for the prominence of
“The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān” to the present day in English language schol-
arship. Mingana’s article was reprinted soon after its initial publication in the
Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society in the larger-circulation
journal Moslem World.35
29 Leone Caetani, Annali dell’Islām (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1914), 7:388–418. An abridged
translation of Caetani’s argument about the collection stories appeared as “ʿUthman and
the recension of the Koran,” Moslem World 5 (1915): 380–390.
30 Caetani, Annali dell’Islām, 7:398–400; Schwally, Geschichte des Qorāns, part 2, 20; Schwally,
“Betrachtungen,” 321–325.
31 Paul Casanova, Mohammed et la fin du monde: Étude critique sur l’Islam primitif (Paris:
Librairie Paul Geuthner, 1911).
32 Casanova, Mohammed et la fin du monde, 110–142.
33 Casanova, Mohammed et la fin du monde, 119–122.
34 “… n’a qu’ une filiation fantaisiste” and “une fable.” Casanova, Mohammed et la fin du
monde, 127.
35 Mingana, “The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān,” Moslem World 7 (1917), 223–232, 402–414.
350 nickel
Reception in Subsequent Scholarship
At the end of his survey of scholarly perspectives on the traditional Mus-

lim collection stories up to the end of the twentieth century, Harald Motzki
gives a prominent place to Mingana and “The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān.”36
After describing Mingana’s article, Motzki writes, “For many decades this rad-
ical view was not adopted by most Western scholars, who followed the more
moderate position of Schwally, a few even that of Nöldeke which coincided
with the dominant Muslim tradition.”37 However, writes Motzki, the views
of Mingana subsequently became associated with some of the most remark-
able scholarship on the Qurʾan during the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury.
“This situation changed when in 1950 Joseph Schacht’s book, The Origins of
Muhammadan Jurisprudence was published,” writes Motzki.38 Following the
lead of Ignaz Goldziher, Schacht took another look at Muslim traditions. His
focus was Muslim legal thinking in the second century of Islam, shown in such
works as the Kitāb al-umm of al-Shāfiʿī (d. 820), the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik ibn Anas
(d. 795), the Kitāb al-Āthār of Abū Yūsuf (d. 798), and the Kitāb al-Āthār of
al-Shaybānī (d. 805).39 Schacht wrote that Muslim legal thinking grew out of
the “living tradition” of each of the ancient schools of law around the middle
of the second Islamic century, and moved from there to traditions attributed to
the messenger of Islam only toward the end of the second Islamic century at the
insistence of al-Shāfiʿī. He also found a tendency for isnāds to grow backwards
with time: first they go back to the figureheads of the schools of law, then later
back to the Successors, then further back to the Companions, and finally to the
messenger of Islam.40
Schacht laid out his investigation in detail in The Origins of Muhammadan
Jurisprudence.41 He commented specifically on the “historical” traditions that
include the stories of the collection of the Qurʾan. “The important point is that
to a much higher degree than hitherto suspected, seemingly historical infor-
36 Harald Motzki, “The Collection of the Qurʾān: A reconsideration of Western views in light
of recent methodological developments,” Der Islam 78 (2001): 8–14.
37 Motzki, “The Collection of the Qurʾān,” 10.
39 Joseph Schacht, “A Revaluation of Islamic Traditions,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2
(1949): 145–146.
40 Schacht, “A Revaluation of Islamic Traditions,” 147.
41 Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammad Jurisprudence (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1950).
mation of the Prophet is only the background for legal doctrines and therefore
devoid of independent value.”42 Schacht wrote that it was possible to observe
the growth of material concerning the messenger of Islam throughout the sec-
ond Islamic century, with new traditions appearing at every successive stage of
doctrine. He concluded, “A considerable part of the standard biography of the
Prophet in Medina, as it appeared in the second half of the second/eighth cen-
tury, was of very recent origin and is therefore without independent historical
value.”43
The writings of Schacht, drawn as they were from his careful study of Mus-
lim source materials, naturally exerted an influence on the academic study
of Islam.44 Two British scholars published major studies on the collection
and canonization of the Qurʾan in the 1970s. University of Aberdeen profes-
sor John Burton, and University of London scholar John Wansbrough, both
accepted the conclusions of Schacht about the ḥadīth,45 and they found the
Muslim traditions about the collections of the Qurʾan “confused and contra-
dictory.”46 Beyond this, however, they took very different approaches. Look-
ing for evidence outside of the traditional stories, Burton found a clue in
the tendency of Muslim legal scholars to distinguish between the Qurʾan and
the muṣḥaf. By “Qurʾan” Muslim scholars meant the concept of the totality
of revelation given to the messenger of Islam. By muṣḥaf they meant the
book that Muslims use. Burton found the Muslim scholars virtually unani-
mous that the entire Qurʾan was never collected.47 The traditional Muslim
accounts of the collection of the Qurʾan “are a mass of confusions, contra-
dictions and inconsistencies,” Burton concluded. “By their nature, they rep-
resent the product of a lengthy process of evolution, accretion and ‘improve-
ment’. ”48
Wansbrough also looked outside of the Muslim collection traditions for
another approach to the question of the Qurʾan’s formation. The clues he found,
however, were in the text of the Qurʾan itself. He scrutinized major themes and

45 John Burton, “The Collection of the Qurʾān,” Glasgow University Oriental Society, Transac-
tions 23 (1969–1970, pub. 1972), 42; John Wansbrough, Quranic Studies: Sources and Meth-
ods of Scriptural Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 44.
46 Burton, “The Collection of the Qurʾān,” 44. Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, 50.
47 Burton, “The Collection of the Qurʾān,” 42.
48 John Burton, The Collection of the Qurʾan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977),
140.
352 nickel
motifs, formulaic patterns, and differing versions of the same narratives, which
he called “variant traditions.”49 He argued that close literary analysis of the
Qurʾan suggests that Muslim scripture is composite and that the establishment
of its text must have taken more than a single generation.50 Wansbrough’s study
of the structure and content of the Qurʾan suggested to him “not the carefully
executed project of one or of many men, but rather the product of an organic
development from originally independent traditions during a long period of
transmission.”51 In other words, the Muslim collection stories do not match the
evidence that the Qurʾanic text itself gives about its origins.
Regarding canonization, Wansbrough also brought forward the use of the
Qurʾan in early Muslim legal sources. As a starting point, he accepted Schacht’s
thesis that in general terms, Islamic Law was not derived from the contents of
the Qurʾan. The practice of deriving law from the Qurʾan, Wansbrough argued,
flourished only in the ninth century. He also found it significant that the
Qurʾan is not mentioned in the Fiqh Akbar i, a Muslim legal text dated to the
middle of the eighth century. He explicitly referred to Mingana’s comment in
“The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān” about the silence about the Qurʾan in early
Christian writings.52 From this and other information Wansbrough concluded
that though Qurʾanic material existed during the first two centuries of Islam,
the establishment of a standard text of the Qurʾan—as the ʿUthmān collection
story implies—could not have taken place before the period of intense Muslim
literary activity at the end of the second Islamic century.
One of Wansbrough’s arguments was that the Muslim collection stories
show a polemical character.53 The Muslim stories about the collection of the
Qurʾan, after all, are part of a larger package of Muslim religious claims that
attempt to make the case that “the sequence of worldly events centered on
the time of Muḥammad was directed by God.”54 Islam was distinguishing its
scripture from the Torah and Gospel. Collection stories also had much to do
with making a case for the prophethood of Islam’s messenger. This should alert
the scholar to the fact that the stories come from the realm of religious truth
49 Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, 21.

52 John Wansbrough, The sectarian milieu: Content and composition of Islamic salvation his-
tory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 58 n. 2.
53 Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, 50; see also Wansbrough, Sectarian milieu, 58.
54 Andrew Rippin, “Literary Analysis of Qurʾān, Tafsīr and Sīra: The methodologies of John
Wansbrough,” in Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies, ed. Richard C. Martin (Tucson:
University of Arizona Press, 1985), 154; Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, 43.
claims. Scholars now acknowledge the significance of the time gap between
written Muslim accounts and the events in early Islam that they purport to
recount (150 years now seems to be the minimum agreed-upon gap). The
question for many scholars has simply been whether these written accounts
were trustworthy. In other words, it is a matter of faith. A unique feature
of Wansbrough’s research is that he asked, in the absence of both historical
evidence and a faith commitment to the truth claims of Islam, “What can the
scripture itself tell us about how it may have come together?”
At the end of the twentieth century, Motzki still found the views of Wans-
brough and Burton to be the two main scholarly perspectives to contend with,
and he put Mingana together with the modern British scholars.55 Motzki wrote
that the three scholars had in common the opinion that the traditional Mus-
lim collection stories were created in the third/ninth century, and that all three
debated the historicity of an official collection under ʿUthmān. Motzki took
issue with Mingana’s dating of the collection traditions, calling it erroneous.56
He questioned what he described as Mingana’s assumptions that the ḥadīth
reports are historically unreliable because they were transmitted only orally;
that the date of a report can be determined by the date of its first appear-
ance in writing; that later sources are less reliable than earlier sources; and that
the earlier, written Christian sources are more reliable than the later Muslim
sources. Motzki criticized Mingana’s argument from the silence of early Chris-
tian sources about the existence of the Qurʾan, and called al-Kindī’s account
“a distorted summary of several Muslim traditions” and therefore of limited
value.57
Motzki’s own position is that the Muslim traditions about the collections
were in circulation well before they were written down by Ibn Saʿd and al-
Bukhārī. He brought forward evidence of traditions about Abū Bakr’s collection
in earlier written sources, some of which have become available only recently.58
Motzki was not able to do the same for the story of a collection under ʿUthmān:
complete versions of this story are only found in works by authors who died
in the ninth century or later. However, he argued that “isnād analysis” leads
back to the figure of Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī (d. 742) as transmitter of both sto-
ries.59

57 Motzki, “The Collection of the Qurʾān,” 14, 20.
58 Motzki, “The Collection of the Qurʾān,” 15–20.
59 Motzki, “The Collection of the Qurʾān,” 21–29.
354 nickel
Another academic scholar who defended the reliability of ḥadīth was Leiden
scholar G.H.A. Juynboll.60 Juynboll noted that “the basic historicity of what [the
Abū Bakr and ʿUthmān collection] stories tell us remains a matter of dispute
among dispassionate historians.”61 At the same time he made a case for an
“historical source” for the tradition of the Abū Bakr collection even earlier than
Motzki’s examples. The Maghāzī of Mūsā ibn ʿUqba (d. 758), is said to have
contained the tradition. However, Juynboll’s reference for this appears in the
very late Fatḥ al-bārī of Ibn Ḥajar (d. 1448), and the Maghāzī itself is lost except
for a small fragment.62
Discussions in the Twenty-First Century
Motzki’s critique of Mingana and Wansbrough, and his case that the collection
traditions were in circulation prior to the writings of Ibn Saʿd and al-Bukhārī,
have not stopped many scholars from moving ahead in directions indicated by
the ideas in Mingana’s article.
Michael Cook’s 2000 book The Koran: A very short introduction offers at
the same time a summary of scholarly perspectives after Wansbrough and an
indication of things to come later. Cook reviews the Muslim tradition about a
collection under ʿUthmān and then addresses “problems in terms of both what
happened afterwards and what went before.”63 What happened afterwards is
that there were Muslim writers quoting Qurʾanic passages that do not match
the present text. Cook cites in particular the quotations in a letter that claims
to have been written around 700 by Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 728).64 Such sources
suggest that the text of the Qurʾan was not yet as firmly fixed in the decades
after ʿUthmān as it came to be later.65
As for “what went before” the date of a collection under ʿUthmān accord-
ing to al-Bukhārī, various other traditions give credit for the major collection to
60 Motzki, “The Collection of the Qurʾān,” 16. Motzki also includes Gregor Schoeler among
the scholars using “isnād analysis” and “matn analysis” to make a case for earlier dates for
the traditions.
61 G.H.A. Juynboll, “Ḥadīth and the Qurʾān,” Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, ed. Jane Dammen
McAuliffe (Leiden: Brill, 2001–2006), 2:376–397 (384).
62 Juynboll, “Ḥadīth and the Qurʾān,” 2:384.
63 Michael Cook, The Koran: A very short introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 120.
64 Cook, The Koran, 120–121; citing Hellmut Ritter, “Studien zur Geschichte der islamischen
Frömmigkeit i. Ḥasan al-Baṣrī,” Der Islam 21 (1933): 67–82.
65 Cook, The Koran, 121.
Abū Bakr or ʿUmar, and some tell that the material had already been assembled
during the lifetime of Islam’s messenger. Some traditions tell of ʿUthmān merely
editing a codex that had already been prepared before him, while other tradi-
tions describe ʿUthmān as actively collecting bits of text written on shoulder
blades of animals and stripped palm branches. “We thus face serious contra-
diction in our source material regarding two issues: who collected the Koran,
and what it was collected from. In historical terms, the differences between the
rival accounts are not trivial.”66
In 2005 and 2006 a number of scholars published studies that focused on the
figures of ʿAbd al-Malik and al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf. Chase F. Robinson writes that
the work of establishing the text of the Qurʾan suited the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik
much better than the reign of ʿUthmān.67 He questions the plausibility of the
official distribution of a fixed text by around 650. The processes of fixing the
text of other monotheist scriptures took a long time, Robinson reasons. In the
case of Arabic, moreover, the early script only imperfectly described vowels and
consonants. ʿUthmān was deeply unpopular in many quarters and his reign
was short and contentious. Did he really, Robinson asks, have the authority
and military power to do what he is credited with? There is also the evidence
of early Qurʾanic manuscripts that depart from the “official” version. Robinson
writes, “Scholars committed to the idea that the Qurʾan was fixed and closed at
a very early date minimize the myriad ways in which these texts differ from the
received version.”68 ʿAbd al-Malik, by contrast, had the motivation and would
have had the power to order a redaction of the Qurʾanic text and impose it,
concludes Robinson.69
Other scholars who have recently highlighted the role of ʿAbd al-Malik in-
clude Pierre Larcher,70 Alfred-Louis de Prémare,71 Omar Hamdan,72 Matthias
66 Cook, The Koran, 125.

67 Chase F. Robinson, ʿAbd al-Malik (Oxford: Oneworld, 2005), 100–104.
68 Robinson, ʿAbd al-Malik, 102.
69 Robinson, ʿAbd al-Malik, 103–104.
70 Pierre Larcher, “Arabe Préislamique—Arabe Coranique—Arabe Classique. Un Contin-
uum?” in Die dunklen Anfänge: Neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und frühen Geschichte
des Islam, ed. Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-R. Puin (Berlin: Hans Schiler, 2005), 248–265
(252).
71 Alfred-Louis de Prémare, “ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān et le processus de constitution du
Coran,” in Die dunklen Anfänge: Neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und frühen Geschichte
des Islam, ed. Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-R. Puin (Berlin: Hans Schiler, 2005), 179–212.
72 Omar Hamdan, “The Second Maṣāḥif Project: A step towards the canonization of the
Qurʾanic Text,” in The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and literary investigations into the
Qurʾānic milieu, ed. Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, and Michael Marx (Leiden: Brill,
2010), 794–835.
356 nickel
Radscheit,73 Stephen Shoemaker,74 and François Déroche.75 Larcher wrote in

2005, “For most Islamologists, the muṣḥaf ʿUthmān is the ‘conventional’ name
of the official version imposed by the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik.”76 Even
more recently, Stephen Shoemaker suggests that “The reign of ʿAbd al-Malik has
emerged as a period in which the Qurʾan’s final collection and standardization
seems highly likely.”77
The approach of evaluating Muslim tradition on the basis of historical cri-
teria is shared by Lawrence Conrad. He enquires into the circumstances of
the rule of the so-called Rāshidūn caliphs and suggests that their authority
remained at the level of tribal leaders. “So far as we can tell from the early Ara-
bic tradition, at no time in his career ʿUthmān enjoyed the vast ‘power over …’
that would have been required to compel Muslims everywhere to bow to his
will on a matter like codification of the Qurʾān.”78 Taking a slightly different
angle, Gerhard Böwering reasons that the Muslim community was focused on
conquest at the time of ʿUthmān, rather than on standardizing the text of the
Qurʾan.79
F.E. Peters treats the question of the Qurʾan’s formation in the context of
similar treatments of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament.80 Peters’
approach to the question is to enquire into the history of Arabic writing and
reading, and the development of the Arabic script in the seventh and eighth
centuries. In his view, literacy was not widespread in Mecca or Medina in
the seventh century. He notes the absence of Arabic literature at the time,
and finds the possibility of skilled scribes under ʿUthmān in Medina “highly
problematic.”81 Regarding the Arabic script, Peters writes that in the seventh
73 Matthias Radscheit, “The Qurʾān—codification and canonization,” in Self-Referentiality in

the Qurʾān, ed. Stefan Wild (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), 93–102 (96–99).
74 Stephen J. Shoemaker, “In Search of ʿUrwa’s Sīra: Some methodological issues in the quest
for ‘authenticity’ in the life of Muḥammad,” Der Islam 85 (2011): 311 n. 121.
75 François Déroche, Qurʾans of the Ummayads (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 96–99.
76 Larcher, “Arabe Préislamique,” 252.
77 Shoemaker, “In Search of ʿUrwa’s Sīra,” 311 n. 121.
78 Lawrence I. Conrad, “Qurʾānic Studies: A Historian’s perspective,” in Results of contem-
porary research on the Qurʾan: The question of a historio-critical text, ed. Manfred Kropp
(Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2007), 12. F.E. Peters, The Voice, the Word, the Books: The Sacred
Scriptures of the Jews, Christians and Muslims (Princeton University Press, 2007), 148, also
raises this concern: “There is no reason to think that in 650 the caliph’s reach was so broad
or his grip so firm that he was able to achieve such an end.”
79 Gerhard Böwering, “Chronology and the Qurʾān,” Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, 1:316–335
(333).
80 F.E. Peters, The Voice, the Word, the Books, 67–79, 127–150.
81 Peters, The Voice, the Word, the Books, 143, 147.
and eighth centuries, Arabic was a defective script. At first it had no way of
recording vowels and only a very limited supply of consonantal symbols. “At
that stage of its development the Arabic script was a crude instrument indeed
and hardly adequate for making notes, much less taking them down from
dictation.”82 For these and other reasons Peters finds it impossible that the text
of the Qurʾan was written down and fixed under ʿUthmān around 650 as Muslim
tradition claims.
Scholars of the development of the Arabic script and the earliest manu-
scripts of the Qurʾan have also commented on the Muslim traditions in the light
of their expertise. Peter Stein, a scholar of Ancient South Arabic, addresses the
question of the level of literacy in the area of Mecca and Medina in the first
half of the seventh century. He writes that a few people “may have possessed
the rudimentary kind of literacy necessary to conduct commercial activities,”
but that “mastery of the more advanced skills necessary to read literary works,
for example, can be ruled out.”83 François Déroche, director of studies at the
École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, views the Muslim traditions from
the perspective of what he has learned from the development of the Arabic
script in the earliest Arabic manuscripts. He concludes: “The various deficien-
cies noted in the ḥijāzī-style manuscripts mean that it was not, in fact, possible
to adequately preserve the integrity of the Qurʾan through writing as the caliph
ʿUthmān intended when, according to the tradition, he decided to document
the revelation.”84
At the present time, academic scholars are divided in their approach to Mus-
lim traditional sources.85 In a recent book titled The death of a prophet, Stephen
J. Shoemaker makes a vigorous case for the fixing of the Qurʾanic text during the
82 Peters, The Voice, the Word, the Books, 145–146.

83 Peter Stein, “Literacy in Pre-Islamic Arabia: An analysis of the epigraphic evidence,” in
The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and literary investigations into the Qurʾānic milieu, ed.
Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, and Michael Marx (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 255–280 (273).
84 François Déroche, “Written Transmission,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Qurʾān, ed.
Andrew Rippin (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 172–186 (173–174).
85 The disagreements are well represented by a number of recent scholarly collections,
including Reynolds, The Qurʾān in its historical context; Neuwirth, Sinai and Marx, The
Qurʾān in context; and Ohlig and Puin, Die dunklen Anfänge. Mention should also be made
of three collections of reprinted articles edited by Ibn Warraq, which make extensive use
of Mingana’s articles: The Origins of the Koran (Amherst, ny: Prometheus, 1998) (con-
tains “The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān”); What the Koran really says: Language, text, and
commentary (Amherst, ny: Prometheus, 2002); and Which Koran? Variants, manuscripts,
linguistics (Amherst, ny: Prometheus, 2011).
358 nickel
era of ʿAbd al-Malik.86 In doing so, he explicitly references Mingana and “The
Transmission of the Ḳurʾān.”87 Shoemaker again refers to Mingana and his arti-
cle when indicating contemporary Christian sources.88 Shoemaker notes the
element of “conviction” and “assumption” in the dedication of some scholars
to Muslim tradition, highlighting the comment of Angelica Neuwirth, whose
approach—in her own words—“presupposes the reliability of the basic data
of the traditional accounts about the emergence of the Qurʾan.”89 Shoemaker
argues that such an approach reveals the unevenness between scholarly study
of the Qurʾan and the New Testament. He asserts that in fact many of the his-
torical questions are the same, writing that the collection and standardization
of the Qurʾan “likely took place over an interval of time comparable in length
the gospel tradition.”
Nicolai Sinai, to the contrary, argues for the traditional Muslim dating of
the Qurʾan, and against the dating to ʿAbd al-Malik’s era, in a two-part article
in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.90 In doing so he
explicitly describes Casanova and Mingana as “triggering” the debate about the
historical reliability of the Muslim traditions about collections under Abū Bakr
and ʿUthman.91 Sinai also argues against Mingana’s thesis that Muslim reports
of the Abū Bakr and ʿUthmān recensions are not attested before the ninth
century, citing Motzki while acknowledging Shoemaker.92 Sinai further takes
issue with Mingana’s highlighting of al-Kindī’s account and his use of other
early Christian sources.93 That, after 100 years, a scholar interacts so directly
with “The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān” bears testimony to the power of the ideas
in Mingana’s article.
Sinai’s articles demonstrate the extent to which basic historical issues are
still being debated among the world’s top Qurʾanic scholars. Sinai argues for
86 Stephen J. Shoemaker, The death of a prophet: The end of Muhammad’s life and the begin-
nings of Islam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 137, 147–150, 152, 158.
87 Shoemaker, The death of a prophet, 321 n. 131.
88 Shoemaker, The death of a prophet, 322 n. 139.
89 Shoemaker, The death of a prophet, 141–142; Angelika Neuwirth, “Structural, linguistic and
literary features,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Qurʾān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 97–113 (100).
90 Sinai, “Consonantal skeleton of the Quran i,” 273–292; Nicolai Sinai, “When did the conso-
nantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure? Part ii,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies 77 (2014): 509–521.
91 Sinai, “Consonantal skeleton of the Quran i,” 274 (references to “The Transmission of the
Ḳurʾān” at 273 n. 3, 274 n. 6, 280 n. 45, 281 n. 50, 285 n. 72).
92 Sinai, “Consonantal skeleton of the Quran i,” 275.
93 Sinai, “Consonantal skeleton of the Quran i,” 282 and 285.
the traditional Muslim dating of around 650 for the fixation of the text of the
Qurʾan, with ʿUthmān as agent. He makes heavy use of the writings of Motzki,
Behnam Sadeghi, and Gregor Schoeler. His chief antagonists, on the other hand,
are Shoemaker, Wansbrough, de Prémare, Robinson and Patricia Crone.
Analysis of Main Themes
The scholarly reception of Mingana and the discussion of ideas expressed in

“The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān” seem to revolve around a number of distinct
themes in the thinking of scholars.
1 The Question of Historical Reliability

In the early stages of academic study of the Qurʾan, western scholars tended to
evaluate one particular Muslim tradition on the basis of other traditions that
came from the same body of traditional material. Later scholars realized that
they would need to make a decision on the historical reliability of the whole
body of traditional material before they could use one part to judge another. As
Hugh Kennedy notes, “For the historian approaching the early Muslim period,
it is vital to form an opinion as to how far this material can be trusted.”94
Mingana questioned what he considered the arbitrary choice of western
scholars like Nöldeke to accept the traditions crediting Abū Bakr and ʿUthmān,
but not the traditions about a collection during the lifetime of Islam’s messen-
ger. Nöldeke justified his choice by asking why—if the collection had already
been made previously—would Abū Bakr and ʿUthmān have gone to so much
trouble.95 Of course, this question betrays a prior commitment to the truth
of Muslim tradition on Abū Bakr and ʿUthmān. Wansbrough suggested, many
years later, that the advocacy of particular traditions by Nöldeke and Schwally
was “accepted with conspicuous lack of intellectual vitality by Orientalist schol-
arship.”96
The Muslim collections stories are part of a larger body of traditional mate-
rial about the origins of Islam. Goldziher and Schacht urged that scholars
approach this material with caution. More recently, University of California
professor R. Stephen Humphreys writes, “Both the accuracy and authenticity
of every report attributed to [the first decades of Islam] are open to credible
94 Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates (London: Longman, 1986), 353.
95 Nöldeke, Geschichte des Qorâns, 160; Mingana, “Transmission,” 30.
96 John Wansbrough, “Review of The Collection of the Qurʾān,”Bulletin of the School of Oriental
and African Studies 41 (1978): 370–371 (370).
360 nickel
challenge.”97 Similarly, F.E. Peters writes, “At every turn historians of Muḥam-
mad and of early Islam appear to be betrayed by the sheer unreliability of their
sources.”98
It is interesting to note that Motzki, though he goes to great lengths to argue
that the traditions of a collection under Abū Bakr and an official edition under
ʿUthmān were circulating by the beginning of the second Islamic century,
declines to express an opinion as to their plausibility, “let alone their historical
reliability.”99
2 Two-Century Time Gap

In the minds of some scholars, the trustworthiness of the collection stories
is related to the fact that the tradition of the collection under ʿUthmān first
appeared in writing around 200 years after the event it purports to describe.
Mingana seems to have been one of the first scholars to draw attention to the
time gap (“238 years after the Prophet’s death,” he wrote).100 Motzki, after a
careful study, could find no written source for the complete ʿUthmān story ear-
lier than versions attributed to authors who died in the third/ninth century.101
Princeton University professor Patricia Crone puts the time gap in perspective
in her comment about the challenge to historians from the earliest biography
of the messenger of Islam, written by Ibn Isḥāq (d. 767) but available only in an
edition by Ibn Hishām (d. 833): “Consider the prospect of reconstructing the
origins of Christianity on the basis of the writings of Clement [d. 215] or Justin
Martyr [d. 165] in a recension by Origen [d. 253].”102
3 Confusion among the Collection Stories

Burton and Wansbrough described the various Muslim accounts of the early
collections as confused and contradictory, as detailed above. Mingana was
one of the first to query the diversity among the Muslim collection traditions.
Burton has conveniently set out and discussed the details of different collection
accounts.103 A.T. Welch wrote, “Most of the key points are contradicted by
97 R. Stephen Humphries, “Taʾrīkh. ii. Historical Writing,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edi-
tion (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960–2009), 10:271–276 (274).
98 F.E. Peters, “The Quest of the Historical Muhammad,” International Journal of Middle East
Studies, 23 (1991): 291–315 (306).
101 Motzki, “Collection of the Qurʾān,” 28–29.
102 Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 202 n. 10.
103 Burton, Collection of the Qurʾān, 117–189.
alternative accounts in the canonical ḥadīṯẖ collections and other early Muslim
sources.”104 For example, he noted, “each of the first four caliphs is reported to
have been the first person to collect the Ḳurʾān.”105
4 The Roles of ʿAbd al-Malik and al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf

Within the past decade a number of scholars have affirmed a suggestion that
was first made more than a century ago: that rather than seeing Abū Bakr and
ʿUthmān as responsible for the fixing of the text of the Qurʾan, one should look
to the involvement of the Ummayad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik and his governor
al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf. This modern convergence seems to have surprised some
other scholars like Sinai.106 It was Casanova and Mingana who first highlighted
this Muslim story in the West. Both mentioned the account of al-Kindī in which
the role of al-Ḥajjāj is featured.107 Arthur Jeffery also noted the reference to
the role of al-Ḥajjāj in another early Christian document, the correspondence
attributed to Leo iii.108 After a considerable hiatus, the story has been picked
up by a wide range of scholars for a variety of reasons.
5 Plausibility and Other Questions

Academic scholars who are—as Chase Robinson puts it—“committed to the
idea that the history made by Muslims is comparable to that made by non-
Muslims,”109 take the freedom to ask a variety of questions of the traditional
Muslim collection stories. Böwering asks whether ʿUthmān would have had the
time and energy, not to mention the inspiration and insight, to guide the stan-
dardization of the Qurʾan at a time of vigorous conquest.110 Peters and other
scholars wonder whether ʿUthmān really had the power around 650 to enforce
a standardized text.111 “ʿUthmān was deeply unpopular in many quarters; his
reign was short and contentious.”112
104 A.T. Welch, “Ḳurʾān” (Sections 1–8), in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 5:400–429 (405).
105 Welch, “Ḳurʾān,” 405. Burton, Collection of the Qurʾān, 120–128. Schwally, Geschichte des
Qorāns, Zweite Auflage, 15–18.
106 Sinai, “Consonantal skeleton of the Quran i,” 274–275.
107 The importance of al-Kindī as a witness has been picked up recently by Robinson, ʿAbd
al-Malik, 103; and Clare Wilde, “Is there room for corruption in the ‘books’ of God?” in The
Bible in Arab Christianity, ed. David Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 225–240 (232).
108 Arthur Jeffery, trans. “Ghevond’s text of the correspondence between ʿUmar ii and Leo iii,”
Harvard Theological Review 37 (1944), 269–332 (298).
110 Böwering, “Chronology and the Qurʾān,” 333.
111 Peters, The Voice, the Word, the Books, 148; also Conrad, “Qurʾanic studies,” 12.
362 nickel
Scholars also ask questions about how the Arabic script in the mid-seventh
century would have been able to fix the sounds of the original “recitation.”
On the basis of his investigation of the earliest manuscripts of the Qurʾan,
François Déroche writes that it was not possible to preserve the integrity of
the Qurʾan at that time. On this basis he questions the traditional Muslim
account of ʿUthmān’s motivation. According to the famous ḥadīth, ʿUthman’s
edition intended to solve the problem of Muslim warriors reciting the Qurʾan
in differing ways. However, writes Déroche, the Arabic script at that stage of
development would not have allowed ʿUthman’s edition to do this:
the manuscripts of that period, with very few diacritics, no short vowels or
orthoepic marks, simply could not have provided the solution which the
caliph is said to have been seeking according to the classical account of
this event. The additional variants found in the manuscripts and a review
of the canonical lists suggest that the rasm itself did not reach the shape
we know until a later date.113
A number of scholars also ask whether it is possible for the canonization of

a major scripture to take place within something like two decades, as Muslim
tradition claims. Wansbrough quoted Schwally’s opinion that the formation of
the Qurʾanic canon was fundamentally different from that of the Jewish and
Christian scriptures,114 and then he wrote, “It seems to me at least arguable
that the evidence of the Qurʾan itself, quite apart from that of the exegetical
tradition, lends little support to that assertion.”115 Instead, Wansbrough argued
that the evidence indicates a longer period of development.116
6 Scholars Disagree
The last 40 years have seen a number of theories of Qurʾanic origins emerge that
question both Muslim tradition and the western scholarly “consensus.” Motzki
has suggested a reasonable way of approaching these new theories: “Each is a
sophisticated piece of scholarship that deserves to be carefully studied for the
quality of its arguments and methods.”117
113 Déroche, La transmission écrite du Coran, 178; Déroche, Qurʾans of the Ummayads, 72.
114 Nöldeke and Schwally, Geschichte des Qorāns, Zweite Auflage, part 2, 120.
116 Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, 43–51, 77–84. More recently, on this point, see Robinson,
ʿAbd al-Malik, 101–102; and Radscheit, “The Qurʾān—codification and canonization,” 93.
117 Harald Motzki, “Alternative accounts of the Qurʾān’s formation,” in The Cambridge com-
panion to the Qurʾān, 59–75 (71).
Academic scholars disagree with one another. Wansbrough modeled a way

of writing about ideas with which he strongly disagreed in a review of Burton’s
The Collection of the Qurʾān.118 Wansbrough acknowledged areas of agreement
and affirmed wherever possible; he was straightforward in disagreement, pro-
viding reasons; and he confined his comments to the arguments and methods
in Burton’s work, thus highlighting their importance. One wonders whether
Wansbrough’s Quranic Studies has been extended the same courtesy in the 38
years since its publication. Even when the theories of a particular scholar may
be doubted or even become very unpopular, the scholar’s careful research upon
which he based his conclusions may be helpful to many. Shoemaker writes, “…
although Wansbrough’s suggestion that the ne varietur Qurʾan dates only to the
early ninth century does not seem very likely, his arguments for the Qurʾan’s
formation much later than the Islamic tradition remembers are generally per-
suasive.”119
The approach of Wansbrough has come to be called “revisionist”120—a term
that is sometimes used in modern scholarly writing with a pejorative twist.121
However, explains Conrad, “Its results may be sceptical, but its methodology
simply asserts that in historical research all evidence must be considered and
its relative merits assessed: the great majority view of the sources is not correct
simply because it is the majority view.”122
Conclusion
Mingana’s article “The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān” has exerted a remarkable

influence since its publication a century ago. Though—as Motzki describes
it—Mingana’s “radical view” was not adopted by most western scholars in the
first half of the twentieth century, the article has enjoyed steady citation dur-
ing the past four decades. Perhaps even more significant than the article and its
author, however, may be the trajectories of the way of thinking demonstrated in
118 John Wansbrough, “Review of The Collection of the Qurʾān,” 370–371.

119 Shoemaker, “In Search of ʿUrwa’s Sīra,” 311 n. 121.
120 Nicolai Sinai and Angelika Neuwirth, “Introduction,” in The Qurʾān in Context: Historical
and literary investigations into the Qurʾānic milieu, ed. Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai,
and Michael Marx (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 2–10.
121 For example, Jacob Lassner, Jews, Christians, and the Abode of Islam: Modern scholarship,
medieval realities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 39–43. Ziauddin Sardar,
Muhammad: All that matters (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2012), chapter 1.
122 Conrad, “Qurʾānic Studies,” 15.
364 nickel
the article. Shoemaker has noted the element of “presumption” and “commit-
ment” in the “consensus” of many non-Muslim western scholars to assert the
historical reliability of Muslim tradition, even when there may be very little
outside independent evidence to support it.123 Shoemaker has also spotlighted
the unaccountable discrepancy between the western scholarly treatment of the
Qurʾan and the New Testament.124 As Conrad has expressed it, “There are …
times when it seems that the rules of evidence that prevail everywhere else
in historical studies are simply waived off when it comes to the study of early
Islam.”125
Mingana’s article took the freedom to question both Muslim tradition and
the emerging scholarly “consensus” on the basis of the evidence at hand, and in
so doing created open space for subsequent scholars to do the same. Other arti-
cles of his could be traced through in the same way, notably “Syriac influence on
the style of the Kurʾān.” Mingana’s articles lend color to the legacy of the Iraqi
scholar that one experiences in the halls of the Mingana Collection and the
happy Woodbrooke proceedings of the Mingana symposia. David Thomas felic-
itously organized the latest Mingana Symposium in September 2013 around the
theme “The Qurʾan and Arab Christianity.”
123 Shoemaker, Death of a prophet, 136–142.

124 Shoemaker, Death of a prophet, 136–153.
125 Conrad, “Qurʾānic Studies,” 15.
chapter 21
The Role of Religious Leaders in

Promoting Reconciliation in Sudan*
Sigvard von Sicard
No one who even casually scans the history of Sudan can have any doubts but
that its peoples have for millennia lived and are living through turbulent times
which have pitted economic, ethnic, political and religious groups against one
another. This has led to a deep seated suspicion between the different peoples.1
The relationship between religion, peace and conflict and what Islamic, Chris-
tian and other relevant religious texts and doctrines say about peace, conflict,
violence and reconciliation is as topical today as it has ever been. This chapter
is almost exclusively based on the Scriptural traditions of Muslims and Chris-
tians. Using the method developed by Scriptural Reasoning, which seeks to
offer the broader public a way of practicing peace at a time of inter-religious
tension and conflict, it challenges the religious leadership to set an example.2
The source of peace is not difficult to find because it lies within each tradi-
tion’s scriptural texts when their pages are opened to the members of the other
faith for shared study and for heart-felt dialogue about what these texts say
to each reader. There are few countries where this is more pertinent than in
Sudan, a country where the honorarius of this volume first experienced a call
to reconciliation which has become a hallmark of his pastoral and academic
life.
Although various efforts have been made toward promoting reconciliation
in Sudan, its real impetus is to be found in the establishment of the Sudan
Inter-Religious Council (sirc) in 2002 as a result of a coordinated effort of the
Council of International People’s Friendship, the Sudan Council of Churches,
the Society for Religious Dialogue and the Sudan Ministry of Guidance and
* This essay was originally prepared for a consultation on Post-Conflict Justice and Recon-
ciliation in Sudan organised by the Sudan Inter-Religious Council (sirc). In view of David
Thomas’ long academic engagement in Christian-Muslim relations it seems an appropriate
contribution by which to honour him.
1 P.M. Holt and M.W. Daly. History of the Sudan: From the Coming of Islam to the Present Day.
London: Routledge 6th ed. 2011.
2 See the end of this chapter for a note on key terminology.

366 von sicard
Endowments. By bringing together Sudanese religious leaders from different

religions and sects sirc has facilitated a mutual understanding and ability to
achieve common goals for the consolidation of peace, stability and unity by
strengthening the values of tolerance, co-existence and co-operation.
One of the ways in which sirc has sought to implement these aims and
objectives has been through a variety of consultations, workshops, symposia
and conferences in order to instil the potentials and values of co-operation
and communication between the Sudanese religious communities. Central to
its efforts has been to challenge the various religious leaders to revisit their
respective scriptures in order to more meaningfully fulfil their task as reli-
gious leaders in reconciliation. With this in mind the material presented in
this chapter is almost exclusively based on the Scriptural traditions of Mus-
lims and Christians, i.e. the Qurʾān al-Karīm and the Holy Bible. In so doing,
however, the writer has not been constrained by traditional exegetical meth-
ods but has rather tried to see the relevance of the texts to the given situation
in Sudan. Consequently, as contemporary jargon has it, the approach to the
material will be outside the proverbial exegetical box. In so doing he has been
influenced by a new development in exegesis—tafsīr known as Scriptural Rea-
soning.3
Scriptural Reasoning has its roots in academic institutions. It can equally
become a ‘civic practice’ to help the Abrahamic faiths engage with each other
locally. Its deepest purpose is to offer the broader public a way of practising
peace at a time of inter-religious tension and conflict. The source of peace
is not difficult to find because it lies within each tradition’s scriptural texts
when their pages are opened to the members of the other faith for shared
study and for heart-felt dialogue about what these texts say to each reader.
In the context of the three Abrahamic traditions, texts are chosen from the
three traditions that focus on a common figure or theme or issue. Scriptures
of the Hebrew Bible, The Greek New Testament and The Arabic Qurʾān are
the primary texts, although materials from secondary sacred literature such
as rabbinic Midrāsh and Talmud, Christian exegesis and Hadīth has also been
included. If religious leaders are to fulfil their role in promoting reconcilia-
tion they need ipso facto to take into account what their respective Scriptures
teach. Both the Qurʾān and the Bible are full of examples of the way in which
religious leaders sought to and were admonished to carry out their responsibil-
ities.
3 For further details of Scriptural Reasoning, see www.scripturalreasoning.org.uk.

the role of religious leaders in promoting reconciliation 367
In order to consider the base from which religious leaders should take
their inspiration, what better place to start than with the words from the
Qurʾān, repeated many times a day by Muslims in their prayers and devotion
to God, namely, ‘Show us the straight path’ (Al-Fātiḥah 1:6). And in the Hebrew
tradition, David, in one of his psalms prayed
Make me know Thy ways, O Lord; Teach me Thy paths.

Lead me in Thy truth and teach me, for Thou art the God of my
salvation;
For Thee I wait all the day.
Psalm 25:4–5
Another time, when David faced a difficult situation, he prayed in a similar vein
saying: ‘Teach me Thy way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path …’ (Psalm 27:11),
and the Prophet Isaiah was given this message:
Thus says the Lord …

I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit,
Who leads you in the way you should go.
If only you had paid attention to My commandments!
Then your well-being would have been like a river,
And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
Isaiah 48:17–18
In the New Testament we find Paul exhorting the leaders of the church in Eph-
esus saying: ‘Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the
Holy Spirit has made you bishops, to shepherd the church of God … Therefore
be on the alert …’ (Acts 20:28, 31).
The Appointment of Leaders
The 11th chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews enumerates the appointment
of many of the biblical and Quranic religious leaders such as Enoch, Noah,
Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Barak, Samson
etc. Sūrah al-Anʿām 6:84 in a like manner enumerates the religious leaders,
stating: ‘We gave him (Abraham) Isaac and Jacob: all we guided: and before
him. We guided Noah, and among his offspring, David, Solomon, Job, Joseph,
Moses and Aaron’. The same point occurs in Sūrah al-Anbiya 21:73.
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And We made them leaders (āʾimmah), guiding men by Our Command,

and We sent them inspiration to do good deeds, to establish regular
prayers, and to practice regular charity; and they constantly served Us and
Us only.
And Sūrah al-Qaṣaṣ 28:5 states: ‘And We wished to be Gracious to those who
were being depressed in the land, to make them leaders (āʾimmah) in Faith and
make them heirs’. Also, Sūrah al-Sajdah 32:24 which says:
And We appointed, from among them, leaders (āʾimmah), giving guid-

ance under Our command, so long as they persevered with patience and
continued to have faith in Our Signs.
Sūrah al-Ṣāffāt 37:118 also points out that Moses and Aaron were guided.
The Qualities and Qualifications of Leaders
The qualities a person must possess in order to qualify to be a religious leader

are spelled out in both the Bible and the Qurʾān. In the Bible the follow-
ing verses highlight the qualities of religious leadership. In the Psalms God
promises: ‘I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you’ (Psalm 32:8). The same assurance is
given in Isaiah 48:17, namely: ‘I am the Lord your God … who leads you in the
way you should go’. Because of human inability to perceive its condition, God
spells out what he is going to do in order to create the kind of leadership He
wants, saying,
I will lead the blind by a way they do not know, in paths they do not know I
will guide them. I will make darkness light before them, and rugged places
into plains.
Isaiah 42:16
Paul spells out the qualifications of a bishop and says
A bishop … must be above reproach … temperate, prudent, respectable,

hospitable, able to teach …. gentle …. free from love of money … one who
manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with
all dignity … and he must have a good reputation outside the church.
i Timothy 3:1–7
Paul goes on to describe the qualities of other church leaders known as

deacons saying that they, like the bishops,
Must be men of dignity, not double-tongued [or we might say two faced]
… or fond of sordid gain, but holding to the mystery of faith with a clear
conscience.
i Timothy 3:8–9
In another place Paul spells out the qualities of a leader as being one whom, he
says,
… must be above reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed, not quick-

tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain,
but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled,
holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching,
that he may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those
who contradict.
Titus 1:7–9
Qualities of mercy and forgiveness by the leader are also stressed in the Qurʾān,
for example:
Now there has come unto you a Messenger from amongst yourselves: it
grieves him that ye should perish: ardently anxious is he over you: to the
Believers is he most kind and merciful.
Sūrah al-Taubah 9:128
Ali, the fourth khalīfah, in discussing the qualities of a leader, is reputed to have
said:
O People! You know that it is not fitting that one who is greedy and par-
simonious should attain rule and authority over the honour, lives and
incomes of the Muslims, and the laws and ordinances enforced among
them, and also leadership of them. Furthermore, he should not be igno-
rant and unaware of the law, lest in his ignorance he misleads the people.
He must not be unjust and harsh, causing people to cease all traffic and
dealings with him because of his oppressiveness. Nor must he fear states,
so that he seeks the friendship of some and treats others with enmity. He
must refrain from accepting bribes when he sits in judgement, so that the
rights of men are trampled underfoot and the claimant does not receive
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his due. He must not leave the Sunnah of the Prophet and the law in
abeyance, so that the community falls into misguidance and peril.4
In the light of the above biblical and Quranic references the following qualities
for a religious leadership emerge:
1. ʿilm (knowledge) and hikmah (wisdom, insight);

2. taqwa (piety);
3. ʿadl (justice) and rahmah (compassion);
4. courage and bravery;
5. shūrā (mutual consultation);
6. decisiveness and being resolute;
7. eloquence;
8. spirit of self-sacrifice;
9. ṣabr (patience).
The Emergence of a Leader
For a religious leader to emerge there has to be a readiness to respond to God

in the first place. This is exemplified by David in Psalm 27:11 where he prayed:
‘Teach my Thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a level path’. It often seems that
a person is thrust into a position of leadership both by circumstances and by
his ability to motivate and lead others towards the realization of a particular
goal. This it must be remembered is an outcome of God’s providence. When a
group of people accept this vision, it creates a movement for change. The leader,
however, must first articulate the vision and demonstrate the ability to turn it
into action by aligning performance with vision to create a climate of success
for the realization of the stated goal. Religious leadership is not something that
a person can seek or desire. If a person desires power and glory rather than
seeking to serve the people of God by implementing the divine laws, he/she
is not fit to be a leader. This was stressed by the Prophet in the well-known
ḥadīth, which shows that he/she who seeks leadership is not fit to assume
it.5 On another occasion, the Prophet advised his companion, Abd al-Rahmān
4 Nahjul Balagha, p. 50, quoted in Imam Khomeini: Islam and Revolution: Writings and Decla-
rations of Imam Khomeini; Edited and annotated by Hamid Algar, Berkeley ca: Mizan Press,
1981, 67.
5 Z. Bangash, ‘The concept of leader and leadership in Islam’, Crescent International, August
2000 refers to Bukhari: Kitāb al-Ahkām, chapter 7; Muslim: Kitāb al-Amārah, Chapter 3.
al-Samurra not to seek a leadership position, for if he did, he would receive

no help from God, which is only given to those who do not hanker for posi-
tions.6
Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbour. (i Corinthians 10:24)
If seeking leadership is discouraged, what is the mechanism whereby a
person is identified or chosen for leadership? The answer lies in the tasks a
person performs that propel him into a leadership position. These may be
enumerated as follows:
1. Articulate the goal or vision clearly and demonstrate his personal conviction
for it;
2. Inspire a group of people to follow it;
3. Evaluate the prevailing situation accurately and devise appropriate strate-
gies for dealing with it, including surmounting problems, difficulties, etc;
4. Initiate, guide, direct and control change towards the desired goal;
5. Ensure continuous cooperation of the movement;
6. Continually expand the movement to strengthen it;
7. Inspire members of the movement to such a degree that they are prepared
to fight and even die for the cause;
8. Provide satisfaction so that the members feel their mission has a noble
purpose,
Legitimacy of Leaders
What then are the requirements for a religious leadership? Who qualifies to
be a leader? Who can be considered a legitimate religious leader? What is the
basis of religious legitimacy?
There are two types of legitimacy: the divine and the popular. Many contem-
porary societies consider popular legitimacy (that is, the will of the majority) as
the only determining criterion. This has proved to be an inadequate and unre-
liable basis. One only need study a few recent elections to see this. Religious
leadership requires divine legitimacy as an essential prerequisite. Divine legiti-
macy is acquired when a leader follows and obeys the divine guidance laid out
in the Scriptures.
6 Z. Bangash, ‘The concept of leader’, refers to Ibn Taimiyya: p. 87; Maudoodi: p. 74, ref: Kanz
al-Ammal vol. 6. no. 69.
372 von sicard
O ye who believe! Obey God, and obey the Apostle, and those charged
with authority among you. If ye differ in anything among yourselves, refer
it to God and His Apostle, if ye do believe in God and the Last Day: That
is best, and most suitable for final determination.
Sūrah al-Nisā 4:59
Divine legitimacy must go hand in hand with popular legitimacy. Religious

leadership must have both divine as well as popular legitimacy; without the
first, it cannot have validity; without the second, it remains unfulfilled. As
divine legitimacy is bestowed by God, it follows that all Prophets had divine
legitimacy. However not all of them acquired popular legitimacy. The Bible and
the Qurʾān tells us that only a few Prophets became rulers, e.g. Joseph/Yusuf,
David/Daud, Solomon/Sulaiman, etc. Other Prophets delivered their message
but the people to whom it was addressed refused to accept it.7 When Abra-
ham/Ibrahim was told that he had been appointed leader of all the people
he immediately showed concern for his successors. The reply he got was:
‘My covenant does not include the dhalimīn (oppressors)’ (Sūrah al-Baqarah
2:124).
The implication of this divine response was and is that an oppressor is not
fit to be a leader regardless of what other qualities he/she may possess. There
are two further implications in this passage regarding religious leadership,
namely that to be legitimate it must have divine sanction, and that hereditary
leadership does not necessarily follow; and that each person must qualify for it
on merit.
The Role of Leaders
Peter, too, exhorts the leaders of the church, whom he calls ‘elders’, to
… shepherd the flock of God … exercising oversight not under compul-

sion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and nor for sordid gain,
but with eagerness, nor yet lording it over those allotted to your charge,
but proving to be examples to the flock.
i Peter 5:2–3
And Paul sums up the role of the religious leaders by saying,
7 E.g. Sūrah Ya Sin 36:46; Sūrah al-Muddathir 74:16; al-ʿĀdiyah 100:6; iiChron. 25:27; iiTim. 4:4.
… admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be

patient with all men. See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but
always seek after that which is good for one another and for all men.
i Thessalonians 5:14–15
This is reminiscent of the quranic guidance regarding the ‘common good’—

maṣlaḥa al-ammah.
It is appropriate to note the relationship between this concept of maṣlaḥa
al-ammah and the root ṣalaḥa—be good, right, etc. and the 3rd form of the
verb ṣalaḥa—be reconciled as well as the forms iṣlāḥ—restoration, reforma-
tion, ṣulḥ—reconciliation, and muṣliḥ—peacemaker. The importance of the
concept comes out in Sūrah al-Shūrā 42:40 which states: ‘Yet anyone who over-
looks things and becomes reconciled shall have his payment from God’. Or in
Sūrah al-Ḥujurāt 49:9 where one finds: ‘Whenever two factions of believers fall
out with one another, then try to reconcile them’.
As descendants of Adam and Abraham it is important to think about sharing
a common origin and a common ancestor, and that therefore religious leaders
need to work together for peace. The Qurʾān says about Abraham,
Abraham was indeed a model, devoutly obedient to God, true in faith …

Sūrah al-Naḥl 16:120
And regarding David it states,
O David! We did indeed make you a vicegerent (khalīfah) on earth; so

judge between men in truth.
Sūrah Ṣād 38:26
However all this is summed up in Paul’s words,
All things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ,
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ
reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against
them, and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore,
we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God was entreating through us;
we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
ii Corinthians 5:18–20
This passage has a number of parallels in the Qurʾān when it speaks of the
tanzīl the purpose of which is to give guidance, or when it emphasises the
374 von sicard
vicegerency—khilāfa of human beings, which in the first instance must be the

responsibility of religious leaders. Sūrah al-Baqarah 2:30 and Sūrah al-Anʿām
6:165,
It is He who has made you the heirs (khalāʾifa) of the earth: He has raised
you in ranks, some above others: that he may try you in the gifts He has
given you …
Khālid Abu ʿl-Fadl argues that these passages imply that human beings must
organise their own society.8 Leaders are ‘sent to bring humanity out of darkness
into light’ (Sūrah al-Ṭalāq 65:11).
Leadership as exemplified by biblical and quranic leaders is an essential
pre-requisite for the transformation (iṣlāḥ) of any society. This process of trans-
formation is the quintessential model for both Christians and Muslims as they
struggle to transform their societies. They must choose their leaders accord-
ing to the guidelines provided in the Bible and Qurʾān. Both the Bible and the
Qurʾān stress that human beings are collectively God’s representatives on earth.
Then God said, Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;
and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and
over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creeps on the earth.9
Genesis 1:26
The meaning of this verse comes across even more clearly in another transla-
tion which reads,
Then God said, Let us make man (to act) as our representative (on earth),
(to be) someone (enough) like ourselves (to be able to understand what
we were about in creating the world).10
The concept of ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ does not mean that human beings are or
can claim to be ‘gods’ but that they are required to follow and implement the
way in which God has revealed his will and ways.
8 ‘Islam and democracy. The practice and the theory’, The Economist 12.1.08 p. 54.
9 Hebrew radah—‘have dominion’ is closer to the meaning than “rule over”, hence the
responsibility of humans is ‘to dominate’ or ‘lord over’ creation.
10 J.C.L. Gibson, Genesis, Louisville ky: Westminster John Knox Press 1981, vol. 1, p. 77.
Human beings need to be conscious of the fact that whatever power they
possess over creation, such powers are given them by God, and that they
exercise such power in God’s place, as God’s viceroys.11 Human beings can
only use such powers correctly if they use them as God himself would use
them. They are called upon to reflect the way God has revealed Himself in the
Scriptures.
And God blessed them (male and female) and God said to them, ‘Be
fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the
fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing
that moves on the earth’.12
Genesis 1:28
Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to
cultivate it and keep it.
Genesis 2:15
Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: ‘I will create a vicegerent on earth’.
Sūrah al-Baqarah 2:30
It is He Who hath made you (His) agents, inheritors of the earth: He hath
raised you in ranks, some above others.
Sūrah al-Anʿām 6:166
The two scriptures accord human beings a special status in creation, but insist
that it is a delegated status. Human beings are God’s representatives on earth,
they are His ambassadors, and do not possess any intrinsic rights or privi-
leges beyond those conferred on them by their divine Master, to whom they
have to render account. This is highlighted by the following directive to David/
Daūd
O David! We did indeed make thee a vicegerent on earth: so judge thou

between men in truth (and justice): Nor follow thou the lusts (of thy
heart), for they will mislead thee from the Path of Allah. For those who
11 Imago Dei concept.

12 kabash—‘trample on’ rather than ‘subdue’ or ‘subjugate’ as reflected in Ps. 8:6–8 ‘Thou
hast given him dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his
feet …’
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wander astray from the Path of Allah, is a Penalty Grievous, for that they
forget the Day of Account.
Sūrah Ṣād 38:26
This directive imposes certain constraints on David/Daūd and any religious

leader; he/she is not free to act as he/she chooses, nor must he/she submit
to the wishes of any group, be it a majority or an influential minority; he/she
must act only to implement the divinely revealed laws on earth. There is thus a
fundamental difference between the concept of religious leadership and that of
other systems, where aspirants to high office often say and do what the people
want irrespective of their merit.
In light of the above it would seem appropriate to clarify the difference
between the roles of a leader and that of a ruler. The two are often used inter-
changeably. However they are not the same. A leader has certain inherent
qualities quite independent of any office he may hold. These include both qual-
ities of personal character (taqwa—piety) and the ability to motivate others
towards the realisation of specific goals or objectives. Inherent in this is also
the assumption that his leadership is accepted by the people. By implication
a leader is not someone who has imposed him/her-self by physical force or
other coercive means. His/her authority is not dependent on any office he/she
may hold. Rather, it derives from a God-given charisma recognized by people
around him/her. A ruler’s authority, on the other hand, is linked directly to his
office; without it, he may be powerless and therefore quite ineffective.
Examples of this kind abound everywhere in the world today. Thus a mon-
arch, president or a prime minister may not necessarily be suited for the job but
each derives his authority from the office he holds based on a variety of more or
less flawed and manipulated political and economic systems. It is under those
circumstances one hears the dictum ‘might is right’ and human beings often
resort to it. Often the holder of office exercises power and authority over oth-
ers which can easily lead to abuse. Divinely ordained leadership on the other
hand, regulates power so that it does not lead to injustice in society. A divinely
ordained leader is called to bring out the best in society by constant exhorta-
tions, education and training. His/her role is not only to demonstrate his/her
own qualities but also to bring out the best in those whom he/she leads. His/her
job is to transform society so as to fulfil its divinely-ordained mission. A reli-
gious leader then is expected to ‘tend his flock like a shepherd; gather the lambs
in his arms; carry them in his bosom; gently lead the nursing ewes’ (Isaiah 40:11).
He will lead them safely so that they do not fear (Psalm 78:53) and teaches
the humble his way (Psalm 25:9). Such a leader is admonished to ‘live in the
fear of the Lord always,’ ‘be wise’ and direct his heart in the way. He/she must
not consort with ‘heavy drinkers of wine, or with gluttonous eaters of meat’
(Proverbs 23:17, 19, 20). And such a leader will shepherd his people ‘according
to the integrity of his heart and guide them with his skillful hands’ (Psalm 78:72).
In the Qurʾān the Prophet was advised:
It was by the mercy of God that you (O Prophet) were lenient with them,
for if you had been stern and hard-hearted, they would have dispersed
from around you. So forgive them and seek mercy for them and con-
sult with them in the conduct of affairs. And consult them in affairs (of
moment) and when you have come to a decision [on an issue], then put
your trust in God. For God loves those who put their trust in Him.
Sūrah Āl ʿImrān 3:159
This ayah highlights the following points. A leader must be kind, compassion-
ate and forgiving towards those whom he/she leads. If he/she is harsh with
them, they will abandon him/her. He/she must also consult them but, once a
decision has been made, God then commands that no weakness be shown and
the policy be pursued with single-mindedness of purpose, determination and
courage. It is perhaps appropriate at this point to note the warning in Sūrah
al-Anʿām 6:159:
As for those who divide their religion and break up into sects, you have
no part in them in the least: their affair is with God: He will in the end tell
them the truth of all that they did.
The same point appears in Sūrah al-Rūm 30:32, where
Those who split up their religion, and become sects, each party rejoicing
in that which is with itself are warned to turn in repentance to God.
But rather, leaders are called upon to establish the pattern according to which
God had made human beings,
So set your face truly to the religion being upright, the nature in which
God has made mankind.
Sūrah al-Rūm 30:30
This is not the place to elaborate on the need of religious leaders to repent;
repentance is an important challenge. In fact, there is a whole Sūrah on Repen-
tance—Sūrah al-Taubah 9.
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The Aim of Religious Leadership
The aim or goal of religious leadership is outlined in a number of biblical

passages such as Luke 1:79 where the person is expected to guide his/her people
into the way of peace.
The Qurʾān makes the same point when it states,
… if the enemy incline to peace, do you incline towards peace, and trust
in God; for He is the one that hears and knows.
Sūrah al-Anfāl 8:61
In John 16:13 the person is to guide his/her people into all truth and righteous-
ness which is echoed in Psalms 25:5 and 5:8 where such a leader prays that
he/she be led into God’s truth and righteousness. A religious leader is expected
to mediate between individuals, in domestic, civil, national and international
situations, all summed up in Paul’s challenge,
Let us pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one
another.
Romans 14:19
So far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.

Romans 12:18
Solomon is described as having ‘peace on all sides around about him’. (i Kings
4:24)
Likewise the Qurān points out,
If one exhorts to a deed of charity or goodness or reconciliation between

people: to him who does this, seeking the good pleasure of God, We shall
soon give a highest reward.
Sūrah al-Nisā 4:114
Peace is brought about through reconciliation, so the challenge is for believers

to live in peace by being likeminded. (iiCorinthians 13:11). They are challenged
to ‘pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace’ (ii Timothy 2:22). The challenge
to religious leaders is summed up by Peter,
Let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble

in spirit, not returning evil for evil, or insult for insult, but giving a blessing
instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a
blessing. For, Let him who means to love life and see good days, refrain
his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile and let him turn
away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it, for the
eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears attend to their
prayers.
i Peter 3:8–12
Perhaps one might sum up the challenge in the words of D. Kerr when he wrote,
… there can be no movement towards reconciliation without mutual

repentance, no reconstruction without the sacrifice of vested institu-
tional interests and no peace but through a common commitment to God
as the source of all peace.13
Religious leaders are called upon to trust in the promise so pointedly set forth
in Sūrah Ḥā Mīm al-Sajdah 41:34 (Fuṣṣilat)
The good deed and the evil deed are not alike. Repel the evil deed with
one that is better, then, lo! He, between whom and you there was enmity,
(will become) as though he was a bosom friend.14
Yusuf Ali’s commentary to this would seem very helpful when he writes,
You do not return good for evil, for there is no equality or comparison
between the two. You repel or destroy evil with something which is far
better, just as an antidote is better than poison. You foil hatred with
love. You repel ignorance with knowledge, folly and wickedness with the
friendly message of Revelation.
Conclusion
It would seem appropriate to conclude that religious leaders will possess intu-
itive knowledge which goes beyond rationality. They will have an intuitive
13 D. Kerr, ‘Islamic daʾwa and Christian Mission’, International Review of Mission vol. 89, 2000
p. 168.
14 Cf. Sūrah al-Muʾminūn 23:96.
380 von sicard
sense of a common responsibility before God. They intuitively distinguish

between ideology and religion, and also between culture and religion.
A Note on Terminology
Religious leaders by this is meant those who through preparation and di-
vine guidance are recognised by their communities as
spiritual leaders.
Religion implies not only the organised institutionalised struc-
tures within society but rather the faith based expression
of a spiritual reality.
Imām (pl. āʾimmah) the primary sense is that of being foremost: hence it may
mean 1) leader in religion; 2) leader in congregational
prayer; 3) model, pattern, example.
Bishop or elder one elected to lead and represent a group of Christians.
chapter 22
Patterns of Christian-Muslim
Encounters in Sub-Saharan Africa
John Azumah
Introduction
Islam emerged nearly seven centuries after Christianity and purports to be a

continuation and the culmination of the Judaeo-Christian tradition with its
own internal logic to account for Christianity. The Qurʾan is replete with refer-
ences to Christian beliefs and prescriptions for behaviour towards Christians.
Jane Dammen McAuliffe’s Qurʾanic Christians provides an excellent survey and
insight into the qurʾanic depiction of Christians. For Muslims, therefore, the
Qurʾan remains the standard authoritative source when it comes to relations
with Christians, taking priority over lived experience as far as Islamic ortho-
doxy is concerned. In addition to the Qurʾan, Muḥammad’s dealings and rela-
tionship with the ahl al-kitab or ‘People of the Book’ (Jews and Christians)
in the seventh century, ‘became the standard Muslim treatment for Jews and
Christians, and was subsequently extended to other faiths’.1 Muslims can talk
of a ‘standard’ or official treatment for Christians defined to a great extent by a
fixed text, the Qurʾan, and a set context, seventh century Arabia.2
In contrast to the paradigmatic model set out in the Qurʾan and prophetic
precedent or sunna for Muslims in their engagement with Christians, there
are no clear biblical references to Islam or Muslims, despite claims to the
contrary by Muslim apologists and polemicists. To go looking for references to
Islam or Muslims in the Bible is like looking for specific references to Christian
beliefs and Christians in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). The absence
of clear scriptural references has meant that ‘there has never been, and in
the nature of things never could be, a unified or official Christian attitude
towards Islam’.3 Christian encounters with Islam and Muslims have tended to
1 Fazlur Rahman, Islam, 2nd Edition, Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press (1979), p. 8.
2 The depiction of Christians and Christianity in the pages of Islamic source books is best
understood by Christians in the light of the depictions of Jews and Judaism in the pages of
the New Testament and medieval Christian sources.
3 Kate Zebiri, Muslims and Christians Face to Face, Oxford: Oneworld (1997), pp. 6–7.

382 azumah
be in the form of responses or reactions defined and marked to a large degree

by specific historical contexts and existential experiences. This situation, in
my view, accounts for ‘both the greater virulence of Christian anti-Islamic
polemic in the medieval period, and the greater flexibility and openness in the
contemporary period’ in Western Europe.4
It is against the background of the wider context of Christian Muslim en-
counters that we turn to examine the sub-Saharan African context. We use the
word ‘encounter’ to denote the wide spectrum of ways in which Christians and
Muslims have met and interacted over the years in Africa. This ranges from
casual meetings to confrontations and open conflicts as enemies, as well as
competition and co-operation on various fronts and levels as members of the
same families and communities. The main focus of the chapter is to chart the
various ways or patterns in which Muslims and Christians have historically
encountered one another in the African context.
Encounters as Hosts and Guests
Christianity was already well established in Africa, in Egypt, North Africa, the
Sudan and Ethiopia at the time Islam emerged in the seventh century. Coptic
(Monophysite) Christianity was well-entrenched and flourishing in Egypt and
Ethiopia by the seventh century. According to Muslim tradition, in 615 the
Prophet of Islam, in the face of severe persecution, advised over eighty male
converts and their families to seek asylum in Christian Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
on account of his belief that ‘it is a friendly country’. During this very first
meeting between Christians and Muslims on African soil in 615, one of the
female refugees, who later became a wife of Muḥammad, is reported to have
said: ‘When we reached Abyssinia the Negus [the Christian king] gave us a
kind reception. We safely practised our religion, and we worshipped God, and
suffered no wrong in word or deed’.5
Muslim traditions would have us believe that the meeting was more than
just warm African Christian hospitality accorded to refugees but a meeting of
minds. Islamic traditions recount that at the King’s request, Jaʾfar, the leader of
the delegation, recited a passage from Qurʾan chapter nineteen, the Chapter
of Mary. Upon hearing it: ‘The Negus wept until his beard was wet and the
4 Zebiri, Muslims and Christians Face to Face, p. 7.

5 Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah,
London: oup (1955), pp. 146–150.
patterns of christian-muslim encounters in sub-saharan africa 383
bishops wept until their scrolls were wet … then the Negus said, “of a truth,
this and what Jesus brought have come from the same niche”.’6 Some Islamic
sources claim that the Negus later converted to Islam, while other accounts
indicate that some of the refugees converted to Christianity and ridiculed their
former co-religionists that ‘We now see clearly, but you are still blinking’.7 While
the veracity of either of these claims may be hard to ascertain, what is not in
question is a number of curious similarities between the beliefs and practices
of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and those of Islam.
For example, the word Tewahedo is a Geʿez term denoting the unity or one-
ness of the Human and Divine Natures of Christ as opposed to the ‘two Natures
of Christ’ belief held by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and mainline
Protestant Churches. Tawhid is the Arabic Islamic equivalent which denotes
the unity or oneness of God in Islam. Other distinctive similarities between
the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Islam include the following: Fasting, belief
in angels, an official language for worship (Geʿez and Arabic respectively),
scriptures are chanted/recited during liturgical worship, followers traditionally
follow dietary rules specifically with regard to how an animal is slaughtered
while pork is prohibited. Women are prohibited from entering the church or
mosque during menses and are expected to cover their hair while in worship.
The sexes are segregated during worship, which includes prostration. Worship-
pers remove their shoes when entering the place of worship.
All the above points to the fact that while it may be difficult to draw firm
conclusions about the direct influences of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church on
nascent Islam, there is no doubt that the type of Christianity that Islam inter-
acted with most profoundly in the early phase of its encounters in the Mediter-
ranean and in Africa is the ‘Eastern’ Christianity of late antiquity.8 William Muir
has speculated that ‘if an Arab asylum had not at last offered itself at Medina,
the Prophet might happily himself have emigrated to Abyssinia’.9 As a direct
result of the hospitality and protection accorded to the early Muslim refugees,
and, no doubt, the high regard in which Abyssinians were held by early Mus-
lims, Abyssinia was granted a special status in classical Muslim jurisprudence.
Belonging to neither the ‘realm of Islam’ (dar al-islam) nor the ‘realm of war’
6 Guillaume, Muhammad, p. 152.

7 J.S. Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. (1965), p. 46.
8 John Voll, ‘African Muslims and Christians in World History: The irrelevance of the “clash of
civilizations” ’, in Benjamin F. Soares (ed.), Muslim-Christian Encounters in Africa, Leiden: Brill
Academic Publishing (2006), p. 22.
9 Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, p. 45.
384 azumah
(dar al-harb) and therefore a legitimate target for jihad, Abyssinia was assigned
its own category, the ‘realm of neutrality’ (dar al-hiyad).
The Abyssinian model of Christians receiving and hosting Muslims as their
guests provides us with some insights. In this first encounter, Muslims lived
as honoured minorities within an African (Christian) political system. This
host-guest encounter pattern was to be replicated in successive centuries in
many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the West and Central Sudan
region, with Muslims living under the patronage of traditional African rulers.10
Indeed, in some cases the relationship and exchanges were deeper than that of
a host-guest encounter. In Gonjaland of northern Ghana, for instance, officiat-
ing Muslim divines reminded traditional rulers during enskinment ceremonies
that ‘Mallams [Muslim “teacher” or “scholar” in Hausa] were to the chief as his
wives’.11 This proverbial statement had a double-edged meaning.
First, it confirmed the favoured position accorded to Muslim clerics within
the traditional system. Mallams should be provided for and protected by the
chief as he would his ‘wives’. The second meaning is a reminder to the Muslim
that he is a ‘wife’ and not a ‘son’ who should rival the chief for his office. This
principle was applied throughout most of tropical Africa in different ways and,
as the English adage has it, ‘behind every successful man there is a woman’, so
it can be said, ‘behind every successful traditional ruler in Africa there was a
Muslim cleric’. This was a very creative arrangement that kept the offices of the
cleric and the chief apart, but not divorced.
Lamin Sanneh discusses these arrangements, highlighting what he calls ‘the
tradition of “enclavement” (which accords guaranteed protection to strangers
and non-kin groups) on the one hand, and, on the other, the inclusive and
tenacious nature of local religions’.12 While these early encounters outside
Abyssinia were not, strictly speaking, between Muslims and Christians, but
rather between Muslims and traditional African societies, it is important to
bear in mind that:
Christian and Muslim Africa is for the most part enfolded within the
larger setting of the old Africa, with its deep-rooted hospitality, tolerance,
and generosity, and it would be surprising if nothing of that admirable
10 John Azumah, The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa: A Quest for Inter-Religious Dialogue,
Oxford: Oneworld (2001), pp. 24 ff.
11 N. Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, p. 58, n. 2.
12 Lamin Sanneh, ‘The Domestication of Islam and Christianity in African Societies: A
Methodological Exploration’, Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1980), p. 6.
heritage did not survive in the new religions. Both sides are involved in
a creative transformation process, and it cannot be stressed enough how
much Christian and Muslim Africans owe to traditional Africa, whatever
the rhetoric of religious propaganda.13
And it has to be said that this is not an ‘idealistic view of a “traditional Africa”
that Sanneh expects, or at least hopes, will have beneficent effects in the realm
of Muslim-Christian relations’ or ‘romantic yearnings for an idealized Africa’,
but a view shared by celebrated African Muslim thinkers like Ahmadou Ham-
pâtė Bâ (d. 1991).14 Bâ writes appreciatively of Islam’s interactions with tradi-
tional Bambara and Fulani religions and celebrates the fact that ‘Islam took
hold and grew in sub-Saharan Africa upon the foundations of traditional reli-
gion’. Bâ writes at length about the deep-rooted hospitality, tolerance, and gen-
erosity inherent in traditional Africa which accounts for several ‘great princi-
ples’ shared between African traditions and Islam.15 Bâ is therefore in agree-
ment with Sanneh that ‘it seems incontestable that more often than not Islam
was absorbed into pre-existing notions of flexibility and tolerance rather than
introducing these for the first time’.16 The point both Bâ and Sanneh are mak-
ing is that traditional Africa is vital in any discussion and understanding of the
encounters between Muslims and Christians in Africa because
as Africans became Muslims or Christians, they quickly created distinc-

tive syntheses of religious and faith experiences and traditions. This set
of encounters gives shape to the nature of Muslim-Christian encounters.
Muslim-Christian encounters in Africa increasingly become interactions
and encounters between African Christians and African Muslims.17
13 Lamin Sanneh, Piety & Power: Muslims and Christians in West Africa, Maryknoll, ny: Orbis
Books (1996), pp. 23–24.
14 Benjamin Soares highlights this as ‘a shortcoming to some of Sanneh’s research’, an accu-
sation that actually reflects the shortcomings of Soares’ own research and appreciation
of African religions. See Benjamin F. Soares, ‘Introduction’, in Benjamin F. Soares (ed.),
Muslim-Christian Encounters in Africa, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishing (2006), p. 8.
15 G. Asfar, ‘Ahmadou Hampâté Bâ and the Islamic Dimension of West African Oral Litera-
ture’, in K.W. Harrow (ed.), Faces of Islam in African Literature, Portsmouth: Heinemann
Educational Books (1994), pp. 147–149.
16 Lamin Sanneh, The Crown and the Turban: Muslims and West African Pluralism, Oxford:
West View Press (1997), p. 14.
17 Voll, ‘African Muslims and Christians’, p. 20.
386 azumah
The old Africa that gave Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity its distinctiveness
in its interactions with nascent Islam is the same that, in the view of Hampâtė
Bâ, gives Islam in Africa its distinctiveness, and, in the view of nearly all leading
African theologians, distinguishes Christianity in Africa today in different parts
of the continent, and in the Diaspora, from Christian expressions in other parts
of the world. And talking about the inherent hospitality, tolerance and inclusiv-
ity of traditional African religions is not the same as idealising or romanticising
the old Africa. Muslim-Christian encounters in Africa make this clear as we pro-
ceed to demonstrate.
Encounters in Conquest and Conflict
The second major encounter between Muslims and Christians on African soil
was during the first wave of the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640. Coptic Chris-
tians in Egypt, like their Nestorian and Jacobite counterparts in Palestine and
Syria, welcomed the invading Arab Muslim armies. At the time, these Christian
groups were declared heretics and suffered discrimination and persecution at
the hands of Christian Byzantium. Coptic Christians therefore saw the invading
Muslim armies as liberators and welcomed the new rulers with thankful hearts.
A thirteenth century Coptic historian offers the following interpretation for the
Muslim conquest of Egypt:
This was the period during which the [Byzantine] Emperor oppressed
the orthodox people, and required them to conform to his creed, which
was contrary to the truth. From these two men [i.e. Emperors Heraclius
and Muqauqas] the Christians suffered great persecution … But in their
time the Hanifite [i.e. Arab] nation appeared, and humbled the Romans,
and slew many of them, and took possession of the whole of the land of
Egypt. Thus the Jacobite Christians were freed from the tyranny [of the
Romans].18
The first Muslims came to Africa seeking refuge, the second group came as
invaders, yet both were welcomed with open arms! Copts, like their Nestorian
and Jacobite counterparts elsewhere in the region, allied themselves with the
new rulers who granted them freedom of worship in exchange for the payment
18 L.E. Browne, The Eclipse of Christianity in Asia: From the time of Muhammad till the Four-
teenth Century, London: Cambridge University Press (1933), p. 40.
of jizya. Many educated Christians rose to positions of influence and served as

doctors, scribes and scholars. The relationship periodically came under pres-
sure with sporadic persecution against Christians, arising mainly from pop-
ular anti-Christian sentiments whipped up by individual Muslim preachers,
or harsh policies by individual rulers and continued struggles with Christian
Byzantium. Indeed, apparently things didn’t always work out in practice as set
out in treaties. John of Nikiu, who lived towards the end of the seventh cen-
tury, records the following mixed feelings of the Copts towards the Muslim
conquest:
ʿAmr [the Muslim general who led the conquest] had no mercy on the
Egyptians, and did not observe the covenant they had made with him, for
he was of a barbaric race. And ʿAmr became stronger every day in every
field of his activity … And when he seized the city of Alexandria, he had
the canal drained in accordance with the instructions given by the apos-
tate Theodore. And he increased the taxes to the extent of twenty-two
batr of gold till all the people hid themselves owing to the greatness of
the tribulation, and could not find the wherewithal to pay.19
From the mid-thirteenth century onwards, Christians in Egypt, like their coun-
terparts in the rest of the Middle East, came under sustained and severe perse-
cution provoked partly by the Crusades from the West and partly by the Mongol
invasion from the East. During those difficult times, Christians were viewed as
a ‘fifth column’ and collaborators with foreign invaders, constantly accused of
various calamities and treated as terrorists. Severe and systematic persecution
of Christians started in Egypt from the beginning of the 14th century as an offi-
cial policy.
Muslim rulers in Egypt extended the standard Islamic treatment of Chris-
tians to the old Christian kingdom of Nubia. In a treaty known as the baqt,
Nubia was allowed to retain its ‘sovereignty’ in return for allowing free pas-
sage and settlement for Muslim traders and payment of an annual tribute in
the form of 360 slaves to their Muslim overlords in Egypt. This arrangement
lasted for centuries during which period Muslim merchants, itinerant teachers
and migrant groups swelled and gradually changed the demographics of the
weakened Nubian Christian state which was eventually overwhelmed by the
might of Mamluk Egypt and overrun in 1275. Nubian Christianity, which was
the state religion and a cult intimately associated with foreigners and Greek
19 Browne, The Eclipse of Christianity in Asia, p. 43.

388 azumah
culture, was already weakened because it lost contact with the Coptic Church
in Egypt, its source of leadership and inspiration. Sudanese Christianity there-
fore eventually disappeared with the fall of the political structure it hitherto
depended upon.20
Islam continued its march as an ideological, political and military force.
Abyssinia’s special status had outlived its usefulness, with sporadic attempts
made to take it militarily. In the early sixteenth century, emissaries were sent
from Mecca to preach jihad against the Christian kingdom, leading to the
launch of a full-scale jihad in 1529 by Ahmad bin Ibrahim, called by his Abyssi-
nian adversaries Ahmad Gran (the ‘left-handed’). In the process he destroyed a
great number of churches and monasteries and it required help from the Por-
tuguese to defeat him in 1543. As John Voll points out, ‘these Ethiopian wars are
the only wars between formally Christian and formally Islamic states from the
early Muslim conquests until the era of modern European imperialism’.21
Muslim wars of conquests continued through the 17th to 19th centuries,
replacing old African Kingdoms and chiefdoms with Islamic states, empires
and caliphates, the most celebrated of which is the Sokoto Caliphate, initiated
by Uthman dan Fodio (d. 1817). These events had an impact on relationships,
leaving in their wake a legacy of suspicion, fear and outright hostility to Islam
amongst tribes who would become Christian in later periods. In Ethiopia, for
instance, by the late seventeenth century a royal decree of religious discrimi-
nation forced Muslims in Abyssinia to live in segregated ghettoes in order to
contain the ‘Muslim threat’. Subsequent emperors continued with this policy
more or less right up to the modern period, and an even harsher edict was
issued in 1878, requiring all Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or be
killed. It was not until 1994 that the constitution of Ethiopia granted equal
status to all citizens, including Muslims, and to all forms of religious expres-
sion.
It is worth pointing out that, during the medieval and modern eras, the
Christianity encountered by Islam (in Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia) was an impe-
rial and imperialistic tradition. Success on the military and political fronts was
regarded as a sign of divine favour and set-backs were viewed as divine retribu-
tion. In other words, Christianity was far from being a pacifist tradition. Both
traditions were locked in ideological and military struggles, in which Chris-
tendom won in Ethiopia while ‘Islamdom’ won in Egypt, North Africa and
Nubia!
20 Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, pp. 76–80.

21 Voll, ‘African Muslims and Christians in World History’, p. 25.
Encounters in Colonial Africa
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to venture south of the Sahara in
significant numbers in the 15th century. These were sailors and soldiers accom-
panied by missionaries. Portuguese encounters with Islam in Africa during
this period were mainly on the East African coast. Here they established a
stronghold, Fort Jesus, in Mombasa, engaged in a series of armed struggles with
the Ottoman Empire for control of the sea routes, and, by their subsequent
alliance with Abyssinia were successful in defeating Ahmad Gran in 1543. The
Portuguese fell out of favour with the Abyssinians as a result of an aggressive
policy of converting and re-baptising Orthodox Christians into Catholicism,
led by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), and Latinising the Orthodox Church. An
unholy alliance between Muslims and Ethiopian Christians led to the defeat
of the Portuguese. Fort Jesus fell to Muslims in 1698 and the Portuguese were
forced to abandon their mission work on the East African coast.22
On the West Coast, Diogo Gomes, a Portuguese who visited the Senegambian
region in 1456 and 1458, gives the following account of his discussion with a
Muslim cleric in the court of a chief:
A certain bishop of their church was there, a native of Mali, who asked
me about the God of the Christians, and I answered him according to
the intelligence God had given me. I finally questioned him respecting
Muḥammad, in whom they believe. What I said, pleased his lordship the
king so much that he ordered the bishop within three days to leave his
kingdom.23
European Christian involvement in Africa was curtailed following the Por-

tuguese debacle on the East Coast.24 This coincided with a period of great
internal turmoil within Christendom as a result of the fallout from the Protes-
tant Reformation Movement which began in 1517. The bloody and devastating
Catholic/Protestant wars that raged in Europe from that time meant that for
nearly three centuries European Christians had little time for foreign adven-
tures. The desire for outreach overseas was to resurface in the Protestant Mis-
sionary Movement and European colonial expansionism in the nineteenth
century. Muslim-Christian encounters in Africa from the fifteenth to the late
22 Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, pp. 98–100.

23 D.P. Gamble and P.E.H. Hair (eds.), The Discovery of the River Gambra (1623) by Richard
Jobson, London: Hakluyt Society (1999), p. 263.
24 The main enduring legacy of Portuguese missions was in Mozambique and the Congo.
390 azumah
nineteenth century were almost entirely the encounters between European

Christians and African Muslims. In these encounters, the two sides were pit-
ted against one another as rival competitors vying mainly for commercial and
political dominance, and converts.
European colonial encounters with African Muslims had more to do with
political and economic dominance than religious considerations, at least on
the part of the colonialists. The basic policy of the colonialists ‘was to avoid
offending [Muslim] religious sensibilities while supressing possible agents of
“fanaticism” and “rebellion”’.25 In many areas, the colonialist debarred Chris-
tian missionaries from operating in Muslim areas and actually actively pro-
moted Islam. For colonial policy makers in Africa, Islam was considered best
suited to the less sophisticated mind of the African, not just as a prepara-
tion for Christianity, but a religion in its own right. As rightly observed by
Lamin Sanneh: ‘Prejudice against Islam in Victorian as in later times was being
covertly perpetuated in the guise of tolerance, even paternalistic indulgence,
for Islamised Africa. This apparently tolerant attitude also concealed a corre-
sponding prejudice against black Africans’.26
Muslim responses towards European imperialism were mixed. There was
first the open resistance from individual Muslim warlords such as al-Hajj ʿUmar
al-Futi Tal (d. 1864) of Senegal; Muhammad Ahmad (d. 1885), the Sudanese
Mahdi; and Muhammad Abdullah Hasan (d. 1920) in Somalia, referred to by
the British as the ‘Mad Mullah’. The resistance to colonial rule was some-
times framed in religious language as a jihad against infidel invaders. For ordi-
nary Muslims, though, the situation was not that clear-cut. A Hausa Mus-
lim lady, recounting the British intervention in northern Nigeria, had this to
say:
We Habe wanted them to come, it was the Fulani who did not like it.
When the Europeans came the Habe saw that if you worked for them they
paid you for it, they didn’t say, like the Fulani, “Commoner, give me this!
Commoner, bring me that!” Yes, the Habe wanted them; they saw no harm
in them.27
On the Francophone side, a Muslim appreciation for the defeat of Samori Toure
(d. 1900) by the French, and the stability and security it brought, is contained

26 Sanneh, Piety & Power, p. 75.
27 M.F. Smith, Baba of Karo: A Woman of the Muslim Hausa. London: Faber and Faber (1954),
p. 64.
in an address from the ‘Muslims of Korhogo to the people of Mecca’ written

during the 1914 to 1918 war, and reads in part:
Whoever does not wish to see the French in our colony [Côte d’ Ivoire]
is also held in contempt by us Muslims, since our prosperity depends
entirely on the arrival of these latter in our colonies. It is moreover thanks
to the French that we are spared the ravages and pillages of Samori,
slavery, and wars between one village and another. At present, we are
free, we can live, work in peace, and perform our prayers in tranquil-
lity.28
On the part of the missionaries, as can be seen in the quote from Gomes
above, in their encounters with Muslims, European missionaries resorted to
a dogmatic presentation of Christianity with the view of eliciting intellectual
assent. They made it their duty to undermine the Islamic religious system, and
sought to prove to the Muslim, by argument and controversy, that Christianity
was superior to Islam. During the nineteenth century, Western thought had
become embroiled in a debate with Islam in the Indian sub-Continent, and an
academic debate about Islam back in Europe. On one side of the debate were
those like Reginald Bosworth Smith, who argued that even though Islam may
not be the highest religion and is irrelevant to Western society, it nevertheless
was able to meet and raise the social and national moral needs whenever it
encountered a people at a lower stage of development than itself. On the other
side of the debate were Christian missionaries, who took strong exception
to what they considered to be ill-informed liberal academic views on Islam.
Missionaries working in Africa pointed to the atrocities of jihadist Islam and the
evils of Muslim slavery and slave-raiding as evidence of the spiritual and moral
bankruptcy of Islam. Directly responding to views that Islam suited ‘native’
Africans, the Edinburgh 1910 mission conference in its report queried:
Can Islam effect the redemption of Africa? What has Islam made of the
Africa it has dominated for centuries? What can it make of the future of
Africa? It is a religion without the knowledge of the Divine Fatherhood, a
religion without compassion for those outside its pale, and to the whole
of womanhood of Africa it is a religion of despair and doom.29
28 Robert Launay, Beyond the Stream: Islam and Society in a West African Town. Berkeley: Univ.
of California Press (1992), pp. 59–60.
29 World Missionary Conference (1910), Report of Commission i: Carrying the Gospel to all the
392 azumah
The report is littered with missionary competitive zeal couched in com-

bative language. The Commission i Report states: ‘the threatening advance of
Islam in Equatorial Africa presents to the Church of Christ the decisive ques-
tion whether the Dark Continent shall become Mohammedan or Christian’. It
goes on to declare:
If we do not counteract the advance of Islam with all our energy and
along the whole line, we shall lose not only the large parts of the now
Pagan Africa but even the territories already Christianised. The main
battle against Mohammedanism in the immediate future will be fought
on East African soil. Here the enemy is already before our doors.30
The mission to ‘stay the advance of Islam’ in Africa will not be successful
‘until the foundations of Islam in the north are shaken and removed’. And in
any case, ‘the north needs Christ as much as Pagan Africa farther south, and
into this long-neglected field the church ought to send her specially trained
missionaries, not in units as hitherto, but in tens and hundreds’.31 Sanneh writes
about a parliamentary-style Christian debate held in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in
1888 with the motion: ‘Is Christianity or Islam best suited to promote the true
interests of the Negro race?’32
Leading African clergymen were caught up in the debate. E.W. Blyden, a cel-
ebrated nineteenth century African-American Presbyterian missionary, who
worked in Sierra Leone, in response to the Western demonisation and prej-
udice against Islam, romanticised Islam in the African context arguing that
it had made enormous contributions towards inter-tribal harmony, inspiring
‘new spiritual feelings’ and had hastened tendencies to independence and self-
reliance, all of which Christianity had failed to do. For Blyden: ‘Islam had done
for vast tribes of Africa what Christianity in the hands of Europeans has not yet
done. It has cast out the demons of fetishism, general ignorance of God, drunk-
enness, and gambling, and has introduced customs which subserve the highest
purposes of growth and preservation’.33 Blyden surely erred in his romanticism
of Islam. However, the core of his argument was that Islam had become an inte-
non-Christian World. Online version accessed at https://archive.org/details/

reportofcommi00worliala (July 2014), p. 243.
30 World Missionary Conference (1910), Report of Commission i, p. 435.
31 World Missionary Conference (1910), Report of Commission i, p. 244.
32 Sanneh, Piety & Power, p. 67.
33 Andrew F. Walls, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History: Studies in the Transmis-
sion and Appropriation of Faith, New York: Orbis Books (2002), p. 149.
gral part of African history and contributed to its heritage for which it must be
respected and not demonised.
It was in this context that Samuel Adjai Crowther (1806–1891), a Yoruba
cms missionary, emerged to chart a different path. Crowther’s encounter with
Islam started at a village school in Sierra Leone where, as a fervent young
teacher/evangelist he found a Muslim boy wearing an amulet. He cut it off
and warned the boy not to bring such superstitious things to school! Following
protest from the boy’s father, Crowther offered to debate and prove his point
before Muslim elders in the village. He turned up for the debate armed with
his Bible and Qurʾan, and, at the end, he recalls his disappointment as all his
well-marshalled arguments were rendered useless. The Muslims simply stuck
to the position that God could not have a son. The outcome, in Crowther’s own
words, ‘sobered me down a great deal in my zeal’.34 This led to a turning point
in Crowther’s approach to Islam and engagement with Muslims. He realised
straight away that confrontational polemics, which was the standard European
missionary approach to Islam, both in India and Africa, didn’t work!
Crowther then developed a more apologetic and respectful approach, rely-
ing solely on the Bible to answer Muslim objections. In contrast to his West-
ern missionary colleagues, Crowther developed what Andrew Walls calls ‘an
African Christian approach to Islam in an African setting’. He adds:
It parted company from the assumptions about Islam that had been
current in missionary writing in Crowther’s formative years; there was
no denunciation, no allegation of imposture or false prophecy … For the
future he looked to an African Christian community with an effective
knowledge of the Bible.35
Crowther recounts a dialogue with the Muslim ruler of Ilorin in 1872, this
time, armed with copies of an English Bible and Prayer Book and their Yoruba
translations. He relays the dialogue, which is identical in style to the dialogue
between the Nestorian Patriarch Timothy i and the Caliph al-Mahdi in 781.
Crowther talks about how his use of the Yoruba Bible and prayer from the
vernacular version of the Prayer Book impressed the Muslim ruler the most.36
Crowther was clearly looking for, and employing, the mother tongue as a
potential bridge with his Muslim kinsmen.
34 Samuel A. Crowther, Experiences with Heathens and Mohammedans in West Africa, Lon-
don: spck (1892), p. 8.
35 Andrew Walls, The Cross-Cultural Process, p. 146.
36 Crowther, Experiences with Heathens and Mohammedans, pp. 16–21.
394 azumah
Encounters in Independent Africa
On the whole, colonial rule in sub-Saharan Africa helped advance rather than
impede the spread of Islam. For instance, the Muslim population of sub-Saha-
ran African more than quadrupled during the colonial period, rising from 34.5
million in 1900 in the whole of Africa, to 145 million in 1960 in sub-Saharan
Africa alone.37 As at 2010, Muslims made up 30.2 % of the total population of
sub-Saharan Africa (248 million) while Christians made up 62.9%; the explo-
sion of Christianity took place during the post-colonial era, rising from about
10 million in the whole of Africa in 1900 (generally the start of colonial rule in
Africa), to 60 million in 1962 (generally the end of colonial rule in Africa), and
to 517 million in 2010.38 Indeed, during the independence struggle in the late
1950s and early 1960s, many Muslims had reconciled with colonial rule to the
extent that in countries like Ghana and Nigeria, Muslim elites were amongst
those opposed to ending colonial rule, fearing that such a move was potentially
detrimental to their interest. It was mostly African leaders of the Christian faith,
or those educated in Christian mission schools, who championed and led the
independence movements, even in majority Muslim countries like Senegal and
the Gambia.
Encounters between Christians and Muslims in independent Africa very
much mirror the historical pattern outlined above and are immensely im-
pacted by the colonial past and what happened immediately afterwards in
most newly independent nations. Christians and Muslims worked together to
achieve independence in many African countries, to fight against apartheid in
South Africa and against hiv/aids, and continue to partner together in many
other endeavours. In many places in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa, Muslims
and Christians now live side-by-side and share deeply in each others’ lives as
members of the same families, the same ethnic group, schoolmates and class-
mates, members of the same political parties and other professional bodies.
This dialogue of life has become an integral part of the lives of many African
Muslims and Christians. Muslims attend Christian religious ceremonies involv-
ing a Christian relation, colleague, friend or neighbour and vice versa. These
encounters go beyond the purely socio-political into the religious sphere, rang-
37 For how colonialism actually helped to facilitate the spread of Islam in Africa, see Robert
Launay and Benjamin F. Soares, ‘The Formation of an “Islamic Sphere” in French Colonial
West Africa’, in Economy and Society Vol. 28, No. 4 (1999), pp. 497–519.
38 Pew Research http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape
-christians/ accessed Jan. 2015. See also L. Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity: The
Gospel beyond the West. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing (2003), p. 37.
ing from instances where Muslims adopt aspects of Christian marriage cere-
monies, evangelism and outreach methods (including polemical attacks and
social services) and church organisational structures, and Christians incorpo-
rate Islamic terminology and ritual practices into their worship in what many
will regard as deeply syncretistic Christian and Muslim groups who blend the
beliefs and rituals of both traditions.39
The above are partly attributable to Muslim and Christian Africans taking
responsibility for their adopted faiths and integrating them into the old Africa.
The Pew Forum, in a recent survey, notes that; ‘Despite the dominance of
Christianity and Islam, traditional African religious beliefs and practices have
not disappeared. Rather, they coexist with Islam and Christianity. Whether
or not this entails some theological tension, it is a reality in people’s lives’.40
As missionary religions, Islam and Christianity are dogmatic and ideologically
exclusivist with little tolerance for ‘foreign’ elements and ‘outsiders’. Traditional
African religions, on the other hand, are very elastic, open to accommodation
and appropriation, and non-missionary, with no membership roll books. It
is this African worldview, which has, over the years, served as the wineskin
into which both Islam and Christianity have been received, and which both
Hampâtė Bâ and Lamin Sanneh write about.
One of the interesting findings of the Pew Forum survey is the level of
tolerance and respect that exist between African Muslims and Christians.
The survey finds that on several measures, many Muslims and Christians
hold favorable views of each other. … In roughly half the countries sur-
veyed, majorities also say they trust people who have different religious
values than their own. Sizable majorities in every country surveyed say
that people of different faiths are very free to practice their religion, and
most add that this is a good thing rather than a bad thing. In most coun-
tries, majorities say it is all right if their political leaders are of a differ-
ent religion than their own. And in most countries, significant minori-
ties (20% or more) of people who attend religious services say that their
mosque or church works across religious lines to address community
problems.41
39 Lamin Sanneh, ‘The Christian-Muslim Encounter in Africa’, in Kenneth Best (ed.), African
Challenge, Nairobi: Transafrica Publishers (1975), pp. 101–110.
40 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. 2010. http://pewforum.org/newassets/images/
reports/sub-saharan-africa/sub-saharan-africa-full-report.pdf accessed in July 2014.
41 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2010.
396 azumah
As observed by John Voll, during the colonial period, the separate devel-
opment of the Christian and Muslim communities in the Sudan (and many
African countries), as a direct result of official colonial policies, meant that face
to face encounters between African Muslims and African Christians was min-
imal to non-existent in many places. ‘When encounters occurred, they tended
to be shaped and mediated by the imperial rulers. Independence resulted in
the removal of this separating and mediating entity and the direct encounter
quickly became a framework for conflict’.42
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, perceptions continued to linger
within Muslim circles that ‘nineteenth-and-twentieth-century Christian evan-
gelism was a vehicle of Western imperialism, that was an act of cultural assault,
and that it has represented a profound and continuing threat to Islam and Mus-
lims’.43 A shared sense of nationalism and national unity during the early years
after independence led to what John Voll calls ‘post-nationalist Islamic features
and post-imperialist Christianity. In more positive terms, the new develop-
ments reflected the growing significance of a more clearly African Christianity
and an Islam less tied to nationalist priorities’.44 These trends were spurred on
by the political instability that beset many of the newly independent nation
states and by a global Islamic resurgence. The colonial authorities themselves
never implemented democratic rule during their time in Africa as governors
were appointed from Europe rather than elected by the masses they ruled over
in Africa. It was on the eve of independence struggles that the colonial author-
ities insisted on elected leadership in Africa.
Newly independent nations were therefore left with the onerous task of
building unified nation states out of disparate ethnic groups, some with mutual
deep-seated historic suspicions and animosities; and they had to do so with
an untried and untested democratic system of governance. No sooner was
independence granted to nation states than some, like Nigeria, descended
into civil conflict and many others reverted to authoritarian one-party rule.
This was followed by years of military dictatorships, more civil wars, armed
rebellions and economic hardship in many African countries. As a result, states
failed to provide basic things such as security and to deliver such crucial
services as education, healthcare, good roads etc. This general situation not
only undermined the credibility of the Western-trained elite who took over the
reins of power, but it eroded confidence in the very concept of the nation state

and, especially in Muslim communities, the very concept of secular democracy

and Western education. With nation states unable to earn the loyalties of
their citizens, Africans retreated into their older categories of identities, such
as ethnicity and religious affiliation, in the quest for what the nation states
seemed unable to provide.
Revivalist and reformist Muslim and Christian groups emerged in response
to the socio-political and economic instability and the failing secular nation
states. The Africanisation of Christianity, with nationalistic fervour on the
part of mainline Christians, was met by African Muslims, for many of whom
transnational Islamic identity was more important than national identities. For
Muslim revivalist/reformist groups, inspiration and support from pan-Islamic
movements and groups in the form of the Iranian Revolution, the Muslim
Brotherhood of Egypt, Wahhabi Islam of Saudi Arabia and other Salafi groups,
as well as radical-militant groups like al-Qaeda, were becoming increasingly
irresistible, thanks to globalisation. On the Christian side, neo-Pentecostal and
Charismatic groups, with a heavy dose of American influence and sponsorship,
sprang up with aggressive evangelistic strategies and prosperity preaching,
promising health and wealth in the midst of desperate poverty.45
Increased evangelistic efforts by both Muslim and Christian groups, rural-
urban migration, boarding school systems and posting of civil servants to dif-
ferent parts of the countries all contributed to bringing communities hitherto-
separated during colonial times into closer proximity. These closer contacts
fostered friendships and closer bonds across the religious divides as well as
bringing competition for resources and political power, which in turn resulted
in conflicts in some places. The 1990s and 2000s brought in their wake waves of
Christian-Muslim conflict and bloodletting in countries such as the Sudan and
Nigeria. Historical memories and local tensions, most often rooted in ethnicity,
chieftaincy and land ownership rights between indigenes and ‘settlers’, easily
assume religious overtones which, thanks to globalisation, are exported into a
cosmic ‘clash of civilizations’; in addition, incidents in other parts of the world,
such as the Danish cartoons, are imported and fed back into local conflicts.
After painting the picture of what he calls ‘The Next Christendom’, Philip
Jenkins examines the population growth of key Christian and Muslim major-
ity countries. He does this against the background of prevailing socio-political,
ethnic and religious tensions, economic and political challenges, and omi-
45 See Rosalind I.J. Hackett, ‘Radical Christian Revivalism in Nigeria and Ghana: Recent
Patterns of Conflict and Intolerance’, in Abdullahi A. An-Naʾim (ed.), Proselytization and
Communal Self-Determination in Africa, Maryknoll, ny: Orbis Books (1999), pp. 246–267.
398 azumah
nously talks of the ‘Next Crusade’, singling out Nigeria as a ticking bomb.46 Polit-
ical opposition in the Ivory Coast in the 1990s and 2000s turned into Christian-
Muslim conflicts, with places of worship targeted for destruction. A failed rebel
uprising in the Central Africa Republic in 2013 quickly degenerated into com-
munal violence along religious lines, pitting the largely (but not wholly) Mus-
lim Seleke against the largely Christian and animist anti-Balaka groups in an
orgy of blood-shed, and what some international groups have called ethnic
cleansing. Indeed, after highlighting the favourable views Muslims and Chris-
tians hold of each other in Africa, the Pew Forum report states:
On the other hand, the survey also reveals clear signs of tension and divi-
sion. Overall, Christians are less positive in their views of Muslims than
Muslims are of Christians; substantial numbers of Christians (ranging
from 20% in Guinea Bissau to 70% in Chad) say they think of Muslims as
violent. In a handful of countries, a third or more of Christians say many
or most Muslims are hostile toward Christians, and in a few countries a
third or more of Muslims say many or most Christians are hostile toward
Muslims.47
In the wake of a militant Islamic resurgence in the late 1990s and early 2000s,
the debate with and about Islam is raging in the West as it was during colonial
times. In this debate, the language used by nineteenth and twentieth century
missionaries and colonial rulers of Islam has been rehashed in some circles,
thinly veiled in academic sophistry. There are individuals and organisations
in the West, especially in Germany and the uk, whose declared mission is
to ‘confront and demolish the foundations of Islam’ in a war of words or
polemics. Some of these organisations and individuals are scouring Africa,
under the guise of providing support for ‘persecuted Christians’, organising
seminars on confrontational polemics, distributing inflammatory literature
demonising Islam and Muslims and literally stoking fear and hatred amongst
Christians towards all Muslims.
Similarly, radical Islamic groups like al-Qaeda and al-Shabab are doubling
their efforts to stoke and actively support African Muslim hostility towards
their Christian counterparts. For instance, after the Nigerian security forces
killed Muhammad Yusuf, the founder of Boko Haram, in 2009, al-Qaeda in
46 Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Oxford: oup
(2007), pp. 201–204.
47 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
the Islamic Maghreb (aqim) issued a statement of condolence and offered to

give Muslims training and weapons to fight Christians in Nigeria. The state-
ment read in part: ‘We are ready to train your people in weapons, and give you
whatever support we can in men, arms and munitions to enable you to defend
our people in Nigeria’.48 Boko Haram’s targeted attacks on Christians in Nige-
ria increased dramatically in the months after the death of their founder while
al-Shabab in recent times seems bent on provoking inter-communal violence
between Christians and Muslims in East Africa by deliberately targeting Chris-
tians for exceptionally brutal murders.
While there remains the danger that the brutal attacks by radical and mili-
tant groups on both sides may increase the risk of continued Christian-Muslim
violence in Africa, there is also the real possibility that the sheer brutality of
such attacks will shock and horrify Muslim and Christian leaders into closing
ranks against violence in the name of religion. In the midst of the brutal killings,
Christian and Muslim leaders in affected countries are reaching out to each
other and intensifying their efforts at reconciling their communities. The work
of ‘The Pastor and the Imam’ in Nigeria is well known and has been made into a
documentary. It involves a Pentecostal Pastor, James Wuye and Imam Muham-
mad Ashafa. These two led opposing armed militias in Christian-Muslim vio-
lence in Kaduna in the 1990s. Pastor Wuye lost his hand in the pitched battles
and Imam Ashafa lost his spiritual mentor and two close relatives. Now the
two men are co-directors of the Muslim-Christian Interfaith Mediation Centre
in Kaduna, leading task-forces working for reconciliation.
In the Central African Republic, since violence erupted in 2013 pitting the
Christian and Muslim communities against each other, three religious lead-
ers representing the Protestant, Muslim and Catholic communities have been
working together around the country to promote reconciliation. The Rev. Nico-
las Guėrėkoyame Gbangou, Imam Omar Kabine Layama, and Archbishop Dieu-
donnė Nzapalainga were friends involved in interreligious dialogue before the
conflict broke out and have since been travelling together around the country
holding workshops on reconciliation for the various religious communities.49
In the words of Imam Layama: ‘We came together to counter two military/polit-
ical groups—Seleka and the government—and to show that this was not a
religious crisis, that it wasn’t all Muslims against all Christians in the country.
48 Reuters, ‘North Africa Qaeda offers to Help Nigerian Muslims’, 2010, http://www.reuters
.com/article/2010/02/01/ozatp-nigeria-qaeda-muslims-idAFJOE6100EE20100201.
49 Thomas Reese, ‘Three wise men from Africa promote reconciliation through interreligious
dialogue’, National Catholic Reporter, Dec. 12, 2014. www.ncronline.org accessed on Jan 15,
2015.
400 azumah
In fact, a lot of Christians went to great lengths to protect Muslims. This is not,
in fact, a religious war’.50
This indeed, sums up Christian-Muslim encounters in sub-Saharan Africa.
The greatest single determining factor in Christian-Muslim encounters is the
nation state. Where the state and its institutions fail, as in the case of the Sudan,
Somalia, Central Africa Republic, and, for some time, in Nigeria and the Ivory
Coast, the potential for conflict is much higher. But where the state and its
institutions hold together and function effectively, there is a greater potential
for peaceful relations between Muslims and Christians as family relations,
neighbours, etc., and, at worst, a robust competition as rivals in the fields of
evangelism and daʿwa. African Muslims and Christians therefore have to find
ways, together, to build and strengthen the institutions of the state for all, rather
than vying for power to protect and promote the interest of their particular
tradition and communities.
50 Reese, ‘Three wise men from Africa’.

chapter 23
Italian Islam: Imam and Mosque Today

Davide Tacchini
Introduction
Millions of Muslim have become, in relatively recent years, citizens of Western

countries. As well as their being a minority, they experience life, for the most
part, in deeply secularized societies. Further, in several areas of the West, Islam
is not a religion of immigration any more, and Muslims may neither be consid-
ered, nor consider themselves, as foreigners. Today Muslims share all kinds of
public spaces such as schools, workplaces, hospitals, prisons, even graveyards,
with Christians, Jews, atheists, agnostics and the religiously apathetic. As well,
the capital cities of the Muslim world are not only Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo,
Tehran or Dhaka any more. Rather, cities like New York City, Chicago, Detroit,
Toronto, Sydney, London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Lyon, and even Rome or Milan
must be considered among the major cities of the Muslim world. And within
this world there are mosques and Imams.
In this essay, I first explore the meaning of the term ‘Imām’ then discuss
the function of the Imam in respect to the mosque and the leadership of
community prayers. I then examine the figure and meaning of Imam in the
Shiʿa context before turning to a general discussion of the contemporary figure
of the Imam, especially within Western and European contexts, and with a
particular focus on the situation of Italy. I conclude with reference to recent
developments and what that might portend for the situation of Italian Islam.
The Meaning of ‘Imam’
Imam or Imām, as the word should be correctly transcribed, is an Arabic term,

specifically a present participle (Ism Fāʾil). Its meaning is the one who leads, who
sets the pace. In the mainly nomadic pre-Islamic society the word Imām had the
meaning of caravan leader or, indeed, anyone who owned a number of camels.
In the Qurʾan there are some twelve instances of the word (7 of which singular,
Imām and 5 plural, A’imma)1 with the main meaning of leader, example, model
1 Qurʾan 2:124, 9:12, 11:17, 15:79, 17:71, 21:72–73, 25:74, 28:5, 28:41, 32:24, 36:12, 46:12.

402 tacchini
or even prototype. There are a few synonyms for Imām in Arabic, for example
Ḥādī and Khalīfa. Ḥādī has a broader meaning. It may be translated as leader, or
reference, but also a teacher at school, one who is a reference for his/her pupils,
or any group leader, such as the front-man of a rock band etc. Khalīfa2 may
not be strictly considered as a synonym. In fact, if Imām in the Sacred Book
frequently means something close to direction or guide, the meaning of Khalīfa
is leaning more towards that of successor.3 As early as the first centuries of
Islam, the two terms started to become interchangeable. However, prior to that,
the idea of ‘Imamate’ appeared for the first time connected to the Prophet’s
succession.4 The Umayyads identified the leader of the community by the term
Khalīfa, while the other term, Amīr al-Muʾminīn, which can be translated as
‘Prince of the Believers’, appeared soon after.
As far as the notion of ‘Imamate’, as a wider concept, is concerned the
companions of the Prophet and the members of the Quraysh tribe had their
own preference for a title.5 This was initially peacefully accepted, but the
controversy originating with this issue caused friction with the supporters of
‘Alī and eventually led to the civil war which in turn gave rise to the first dynasty
of the Muslim Empire (Muʿawiyya and the Umayyads) in 661 ce.6 However,
the idea of Imām, and so the Imamate, never lost its prescriptive meaning. As
early as the second century, it became a highly regarded title, even though it
was not used with reference to the head of state (the Caliph). Paradoxically,
since it had not been used as a title for the leader of the whole community,
traditionalists, jurists ( fuqahāʾ) and various savants (ʿulamā) who claimed
some kind of religious authority, ‘gained’ the title of Imam.7 Considering the
above, it is interesting to note that the term has since attained a political
meaning in many Muslim societies, although in the Qurʾan it has little or
no relationship at all with ideas of power and authority (more suitable for
2 Al-Qādī, W., ‘The Term Khalīfa in Early Exegetical Literature’, in Die Welt des Islams, 28 (1988),
pp. 392–411.
3 Dictionnaire du Qurʾan (ed., M.A. Amir-Moezzi), pp. 141–143.
4 For Sunni Muslims, the Prophet did not nominate any successor as a leader of his religious
and political movement, but had been the first (and, at that time, only) Imam and legislator
(through the revelation he had received).
5 After the death of the Prophet, two main traditions were predominant: the Muhājirūn, the
initial Muslims, who had made the Hijra from Mecca with Muḥammad and the Ansār, who
lived in Medina, who had accepted the Prophet and then converted to Islam. Both Abū Bakr
and ʿUmar belong to the first group.
6 Lambton, A.K.S., Imāma, in Encyclopédie de l’ Islam, Nouvelle Edition, Leyde (E.J. Brill) and
Paris (G.-P. Maisonneuve et Larose), 1971, Tome ii (h-iram), p. 1192.
7 Dictionnaire du Qurʾan, p. 141.
italian islam: imam and mosque today 403
Mulk and Malik, which may be translated as Royalty and King) that undergird
political dynamics.
The issue of the rightly guided caliphs (al-Khulafā ar-Rashīdūn) in relation
to the emergence of the term and concept of the Imamate, deserves wider
analysis.8 However, since this issue is not itself a main topic of this chapter,
I simply highlight how Abū Bakr, the first successor of the Prophet who was
elected by the Council of the Elders, as part of the then tribal system, was given
the title of Khalīfat Rasūli ʿllāh (literally, the successor of the Sent One by God).9
His only aim was that of keeping the community united under one leader. The
changes that would lead to the subsequent separation of rival factions within
the nascent Muslim community started under the third Caliph, ʿUthmān.
The Imam in the Mosque and His Role in the Community Prayers
With the rise of Islam as a religion, and with the codification of its rituals,
the term Imam has been connected with the one who leads the sequences
of any Rakʿa (phase of prayer10) during community prayers.11 In particular, in
the context of the Friday Jumʿa prayer, (in Arabic, Friday is Yawm al-Jumʿa,
the day of gathering, of meeting, of community) it is the Imam who is the
one representing the Muslims as a single community under God’s Will;12 a
community that has been created to worship God.13 Despite not being part
of a formal body or class of clergy (as is well known, such an institution is
8 On the succession to the Prophet, see Madelung, W., The Succession to Muhammad, a Study
of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997).
9 The Imam, immediately after the death of the Prophet, was to be his successor through
the rightly guided Caliphs (Al-Khulafā ar-Rashīdūn) but only as the one chosen to enforce
his law. This law had already been given (revealed), therefore he could not be his successor
as a Prophet by any means. The Imam or Caliph has no infallible authority, too, even
ex-cathedra. The need for the Imam as an institution is based by theologians on the idea
that one of the main points of the Prophet’s life was a good organization of social life in
his Community-State.
10 In Muslim ritual prayer, there is no room for free reflections, comments, or invocations. It
is made of a codified sequence of moves and psalmodies, mainly of Qurʾanic origin, recited
as one by those who take part in the prayer.
11 Huart, Cl. ‘Imām’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition (1913–1936). Edited by M.Th. Houts-
ma, T.W. Arnold, R. Basset, R. Hartmann (Brill Online, 2013).
12 The meaning of the word, Islām, in fact, is ‘submission’, ‘faithful abandonment in God’.
Therefore Muslims (Muslimūn) are those who ‘abandon themselves’ in God with full faith.
13 Qurʾan, 51:56 and 62:9–11.
404 tacchini
officially not present in Sunni Islam), the Imam, in community prayer, plays
a fundamental, twofold role. The first, as indicated above, is that of ‘setting the
pace’ of ritual movements, so that those who pray may move and recite as one;
and the other, also very important, is that of delivering the sermon, the Khutba,
at the Friday Jumʿa prayer. During this, the Imam may, in special situations,
or following particularly significant events, mention and comment on current
issues. The potential, and reality, for such sermons to take on a political tone
is very present. Normally, however, the sermon is quite structured and full of
Qurʾanic quotations.14
The Friday prayer as we know it today was structured and codified in Medina,
following the Hijra,15 when the first Muslims became organized as an inde-
pendent community, Umma,16 and were no longer a guest minority in a town
of refuge. Of course, at that time, the Prophet himself was leading the daily
prayers. He is, naturally, considered the first Imam of the community. It is inter-
esting to note that Muḥammad might be the last Imam, too. In fact according
to some eschatological theories, on the Day of Judgement (in Arabic appropri-
ately named Yawm ad-Dīn, the Day of Faith), the Prophet will rise and ask God
to save him with his community.
The Figure of the Imām within a Shiʿa Context
So far I have analysed the term within the Sunni Muslim context. In fact, it was
in the emerging Shiʿa context that the term Imam and the notion of Imamate
gained centrality, prestige, importance and the wider meanings that are fre-
quently assigned to it in the West, as we will see, below. During the years that
followed the death of the Prophet, Islam experienced a phase pervaded by a
sense of loss, with new forces showing up, for the first time, with the aim of
dividing the community. This critical period was to be overcome, or resolved,
as quickly as possible. The fact that Muḥammad did not designate a successor
made the whole process much more complicated for the first Muslims. In con-
trast to nascent Sunnism—until a clear split emerged, Sunnism would be the
14 On the connections between Mosque sermons and politics, see ‘Lā li tasiyis manānir
al-masājid’ (‘No to the politicization of pulpits in Mosques’), in Foda, F., Hattā lā yakūn
kalām fī ʾl-hawāʾ (not to let them be words in the wind), Al-Qāhira, w.e, 1992, pp. 11–21.
15 Migration, from Mecca to Medina, in 622, the first year of Muslim lunar calendar.
16 Branca, P., Quale Imam per quale Islam? (which Imam for which Islam?), in Ferrari, A. (ed.),
Islam in Europa/Islam in Italia tra diritto e società (Islam in Europe/Islam in Italy between
society and law), Bologna, Il Mulino, 2008.
default position of Islam—Shiʿa tradition asserts that the Prophet did, in fact,
name the one who should lead the community after him, namely ʿAlī ibn Abī
Tālib, his cousin and son-in-law. This was officially designated by the contro-
versial sentence, pronounced by Muḥammad during his last pilgrimage in 632
at the Khumm pond (Ghādir Khumm): Man kuntu mawlāhu fa-ʿAlī mawlāhu
(whoever believes I am his guide, will choose ʿAlī as his guide).17 The use of
the term Mawlā makes the meaning of the sentence quite obscure, and allows
several interpretations.18 The real ‘schism’ within Islam did not begin after the
death of ʿAlī, in 661, with the third Caliph, the aristocratic Meccan ʿUthmān.
ʿAlī’s followers explicitly accused him of having erased, on purpose, the verses
which designated ʿAlī’s succession to the Prophet from the first edition of the
Qurʾan, which was being shaped during his reign.19 An investigation of this does
not concern us here. What I am more interested in, rather, is the fact that among
the derivatives of the Arabic root w-l-y, the meaning of which is proximity and
being or becoming close, we can find the masdar (verbal noun), Wilāya. This
interesting term represents one of the pivotal points in Shiʿa Islam. It embodies
the mission of the Imam, which is mainly hermeneutical, and guarantees the
continued communication between the human and the divine spheres, even
after the end of Muḥammad’s prophethood.20
The Imam’s knowledge is epistemologically grounded in the interpretation
of the Holy Qurʾan. The Imam’s ability to interpret means, in the first instance,
being able to assess the importance and influence of the semiotic processes
that may originate from language.21 This kind of hermeneutic knowledge can
be found even in preceding Mesopotamian civilizations. Considering the level
of technology reached by pre-medieval and medieval Islam though, we could
say that in the tenth century the figure of the Imam was probably similar to that
of a jurist or a medical doctor. In this light, the Imam in the Shiʿa context is noth-
17 Capezzone, L.,—Salati, M., L’Islam Sciita, storia di una minoranza, (Shiʿa Islam, history
of a minority), Roma, Edizioni Lavoro, 2006, p. 40. On the Khumm pond event, see
Veccia Vaglieri, L., Ghadir Khumm in Encyclopédie de l’Islam, Nouvelle Edition, Leyden
(E.J. Brill)—Paris (G.-P. Maisonneuve et Larose), 1971, Tome 5, pp. 1276–1279.
18 Guide is only one of the meanings of the word. The idea of Mawlā involves the practice of
affiliation of an individual to a clan or a tribe, the relationships among relatives or clients.
The term looks so polysemic and ambiguous that even the one who is affiliated is a Mawlā
(Capezzone-Salati, cit., pp. 40–41).
19 See Modarressi, H., Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qurʾan, in Studia Islamica, 77 (1993),
pp. 5–39.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., pp. 82–83.
406 tacchini
ing but an individual, equipped with intellect (ʿIlm), who is divinely inspired
and is proficient within all the fields to which the hermeneutic methodology
may apply. The history of Shiʿa Islam, especially in its most widespread current
(Ithnāʾashariyya or Twelver Shiʿa) form, has been deeply marked and in certain
ways defined by a series of Imams, which started with ʿAlī Hasan and Husayn.
The central shift that happened in the Shiʿa world, from the claim of a power
to the statement of a knowledge (which occurred almost certainly with Imam
Muhammad al-Bāqir) appears to be based on Nūr Muhammadī (literally the
Light of Muhammad).
The Nūr Muhammadī is believed to be a particle of the Divine Light, handed
down from Adam to Muḥammad, through a series of biblical Prophets. After
Muḥammad it was passed down to his progeny, through Fātima and ʿAlī, and
then to the patriarchal lineage of the Husayinids. The messianic and prophetic
idea of Ghayba (occultation) perfectly fits in this process. In Twelver Shiʿa
Imams have always been present throughout its history, from the first, ʿAlī,
to the twelfth,22 named, not coincidentally Muḥammad al-Mahdī. This last
Imam did not die, but disappeared in the area of the well of Samarra in 874 ce.
According to Twelver Imami tradition, he was moved, or transferred, to a new
condition, the one of occultation, or Ghayba. In effect, the last Imam was set
aside from the realm of life and death, to await the right time to return. In this
way he started the messianic perspective in Shiʿa Islam: that of the expected
return (or ‘second coming’); Muḥammad al-Mahdī will show up again only at
the end of time, to restore original, pure Islam.
Nowadays Iran is the only country in which Shiʿa Muslims are the majority.
Since the Shiʿa Islamic Revolution, in 1979, the country is ruled through the
system of the so called Vilāyat-i Faqīh (literally, the mandate of the jurist). The
1979 coup d’état was inspired and lead by the charismatic figure of Ayatullāh
Khumaynī (usually spelled Khomeini), who at the height of the revolution was
referred to simply as al-Imam.23 He gave birth to the first Shiʿa Islamic republic
of modern times. In the ’60s and ’70s the Iranian sociologist ʿAlī Sharīʿatī had
already theorized that, during Ghayba, the people had the right and the duty
22 The twelve Imams are: ʿAlī (died 661), Hasan (d. 670), Husayn (d. 680), ʿAlī (d. 712),
Muḥammad (d. 732), Jaʿfar (d. 765), Mūsā (d. 799), ʿAlī (d. 817), Muḥammad (d. 835), ʿAlī
(d. 868), Hasan (d. 874), Muḥammad (Al-Mahdī, in occultation since 874). This topic has
been studied extensively in western languages. See, among others, Husseyn, J.M., The
Occultation of the Twelfth Imam. A Historical Background, London, Muhammadi Trust,
1982, and Sachedina, A., ‘A Treatise on the Occultation of the Twelfth Imamate Imam’,
Studia Islamica, 48 (1978), pp. 109–124.
23 Capezzone-Salati, op. cit., p. 331.
to act in the name of the hidden Imam.24 Contemporary Iran embodies the
most recent version of the Shiʿa Imamate. Its political life, power and society are
permeated by Imamism. The so called Council of Guardians, which is intended
to act as the protecting institution for the country’s political life, is a kind
of collective version of the supreme Imam (or Marjaʿ). Every section of the
government must be subordinated to the supreme and just jurist. A passage
from the constitution of post-revolutionary Iran states:
God only has absolute and total sovereignty over the world and human-
kind. He wanted that humankind had sovereignty on its own social des-
tiny (Art. 56).
The religious leader guarantees the application of the Divine Law and
acts as the ultimate judge and supervisor of the various branches of gov-
ernment. (…) The Islamic Republic is a system based on Faith, according
to the following principles: 1) Monotheism (…); 2) The Divine revelation
and its fundamental role in promulgating laws; 3) Resurrection (…); 4)
The Divine supreme justice since Creation 5) The Imamate, as continu-
ing guide, and its fundamental role for the future of the Islamic revolu-
tion.25
We can thus easily understand the importance of the figure and the idea of the
Imam in contemporary Shiʿa Islam, especially in post-revolutionary Iran.
The Contemporary Figure of the Imām
The term Imām, in the very diverse Muslim majority social contexts in which
it has been used, has become extremely polysemous. The Muslim Umma now,
more than ever, is an entity that goes beyond ethnic, cultural, geographic and
national borders. Furthermore, Muslims who live as minorities in the West
enjoy a greater freedom to practice their religion, in comparison to many of
their fellow Muslims who still live in their country of origin. They feel free to
experiment, to develop new ideas and approaches to religion and social life.
They actually have the chance to reform Islam, to re-shape it relative to new
local contexts—as in, for example, the notion of an emerging ‘European Islam’.
24 Khumayni presented the idea of Vilāyat-i Faqīh for the first time in 1965 in Najaf during a
series of workshops. He promoted it as a tool against imperialism and colonialism.
25 Selected passages taken from the section of the Iranian Islamic Revolution Constitution
have been published, in its Italian translation, in Capezzone-Salati, op. cit., p. 346.
408 tacchini
Their minority condition, closer to the situation in Mecca before the Hijra,
represents an immense opportunity to shape the future of their religion.
The globalizing message of Islam encounters, here at the beginning of

the 21st century, the chance for a complete realization of the project
that was begun more than 1400 years ago and re-dynamized by several
movements in the first half of the 20th century. A new form of contextual
type argument is to be applied to an old project, the globality of Islam, in
order to reinforce its relevance.26
Europe represents, perhaps even more than the United States, an important
place for experimentation as far as the Muslim places of worship are concerned.
A purpose-built Mosque in a non-Muslim majority country is a significant step
forward for a community that started as a group of immigrants. It is something
that affects the society of the host country too, of course. It may be perceived by
some non-Muslims as an interference and as the beginning of a silent invasion.
It may cause local and more widespread conflicts (usually harsher before the
building of the Mosque itself, when the perceptions and understanding of
the mosque and its consequences are limited and very much the subject of
prejudice). An interesting and rather meaningful example is that of the mosque
in Penzberg, in the south of Germany. Aluminium minarets, glass walls, and
prayers halls which can be seen into from the outside, are not something new,
even for Europe. The Penzberg Mosque, though, with the Adhan (the call to
prayer) text engraved in the minaret wall ‘does not call to prayer five times a day,
but twenty-four hours a day, without disturbing the (non-Muslim) neighbors’.27
It is, somehow, the physical representation of the situation experienced daily
by thousands of Muslims in the West, especially in metropolitan areas.28
The Penzberg case shows a radically new approach to the modern mosque
and the public role of Islam, within the framework of a plural society. The
deep change that Muslim architecture has been showing for the last few years
26 Maréchal, B., The Muslim Brothers in Europe, Roots and Discourse (Leiden-Boston, Brill,
2009), p. 14.
27 Alen Jasarevic, architect, in Power, C., Rebuilding the Faith, in “Time”, April 13, 2009,
p. 51.
28 In comparison to the Penzberg situation, the position of ʿAbd al-Hamīd Kishk deserves
special consideration. Back in the 1980s, he advocated delivering the Khutba through
the minaret’s loudspeakers, in order to reach the people in the neighbourhood who
did not attend the prayer in the mosque (Kishk, ʿA. al. H., Dawr al-masjid fī ʾl-mujtamaʿ
al-Muʿasir—the role of Mosque in modern society—, no publisher and place, pp. 48–49).
may play a prominent role in the future of Muslim identity in the West. In
reality, this demonstrates the fact that the Mosque is very much the physical
representation of an identity. This may be pivotal within the context of a period
of deep change like the one we are living through nowadays. This change
has been affecting Islam in Europe more than ever, since it has become a
fully European religion. Indeed, throughout history, mosques have always been
influenced by the period they were built in.29
Today, however, Islam is facing challenges that have never been experienced
before. It is, of course, not possible to ignore the so called human factor in
situations that involve the most intimate side of the believers in such depth.
The Sacred text may not be the only actor in the development of these changes
that are the result of long, complicated and extremely articulated historical and
social processes. Text and context are equally influential.
The Italian Context
The Italian situation is very complex, and the formation of an actual Italian
Islam still has a long way to go. Italy, in fact, is arguably the country that is
facing more problems than any other in Europe on these issues. Building a
mosque, or acquiring an existing building to provide a place for worship for
the community, is very hard to achieve. Even though the Italian constitution
guarantees religious freedom,30 a number of factors makes the foundation of
Muslim places of worship extremely difficult. These include: very old laws,
which have never been updated or even applied, a diverse Italian Muslim
population (not immune from conflicts within itself), controversial political
views and old misunderstandings related to immigration.
As of 2014 there are only 5 official mosques (two of them, in Ravenna and
Colle Val d’Elsa in Tuscany opened in 2013 after years of struggle, and one is no
longer open to the public) in Italy, which boasts a Muslim population estimated
between 1 and 1.5 million.31 There are more than 800 informal places of worship,
29 See Allievi, S. (ed.), Mosques in Europe, Why a Solution Has Become a Problem (London:
nef Initiative on Religion and Democracy in Europe, Alliance Publishing Trust, 2010). It is
the result of a long and detailed comparative fieldwork which involved 15 countries within
Europe.
30 See, articles 3, 7, 8, 19, 20 of the Italian Constitution and, for the latest updates (in Italian),
online: http://www.governo.it/Presidenza/USRI/confessioni/Esercizio_liberta_religiosa_
italia.pdf.
31 Caritas, Dossier Immigrazione 2009. Italian Law does not allow questions on religion in
410 tacchini
being often rented warehouses or gyms, supplied with carpet prayer-mats and
an imported Mihrab, used as prayer rooms.32 Usually these places are rented by
associations registered as cultural, or non-recognized associations on the local
register of associations. Any purpose-built Mosque represents a clear, visible,
and proud sign of the presence of Islam. You have to feel safe, self-confident and
proud of your identity to clearly stick out and openly show your presence in a
society, and to claim your role in the public sphere. Poor knowledge of cultures
different from one’s own, a lack of interest in pursuing a deeper knowledge,
and exploitable anti-Muslim policies all make this confidence quite difficult to
achieve for Italian Muslims.
Despite the so called second generations, who in Italy have become more
active within the public sphere in the last few years (even with different lean-
ings, especially in their major associations), Italian Islam is still a religion of
immigrants. Islam and immigration in Italy remain deeply connected one to
the other. Especially in the context of immigration, the social and political role
of the mosque as a gathering place is heavily enhanced. For example, it would
appear that a significant percentage of regular mosque goers in Italy never
used to attend community prayers in their country of origin. Further, several
Muslim-majority countries from whom immigrants have come to Italy, have
tried, in many different ways, to control their mosques and the workers con-
nected to them, through ministries, commissions, etc. However, the mosque
and its Imam may not be managed, run or controlled by anyone but its own
local community.33 This may, of course, be an issue in non-Muslim major-
ity countries, where concern for who is speaking in the name of the mosque
becomes important, for example with respect to the potential for radicalisa-
tion versus the promotion of inter-communal harmony.
Most of the informal prayer rooms in Italy were founded by the Muslim
communities shaped by the early immigration from North Africa in the last
three decades of the twentieth century. Some of the founders are still leading
their communities. The scenario of the early Muslim immigration was fairly
diverse and the choice of Imam was a priority. Even the term ‘Imam’ gained
a different and much wider meaning at that time. An Imam chosen by his
community in the ’80s was frequently a person older than the average within
official polls. Therefore analyses on the number of Muslims must rely on the country of
origin (of first and second generations). This may, of course, be misleading.
32 On this topic see: Bombardieri, M., Moschee d’Italia. Il diritto al luogo di culto. Il dibattito
sociale e politico (Italian Mosques, the right of a place of worship, the social and political
debate), Bologna, emi, 2011. It includes a map, region by region, of Italian organized Islam.
33 Branca, P., op. cit., p. 231.
the community, with an above average education (in any discipline) and, at that
time he was needed, jobless. So the Imam was per force required to act as the
guardian of the mosque (most likely a large box-like building, or a dilapidated
warehouse), to be as a counsellor for the members of his community, to be
a spokesperson for the Muslims in town, to act as treasurer etc., as well as,
of course, to lead the prayers of the community and be responsible for the
delivering of the weekly Khutba.
If the community was organized formally as an association, the Imam was
frequently its president, too. He became the contact person for the public
administration and sometimes, as it used to be centuries ago, became per-
ceived as a kind of Muslim priest or cleric. An interview in which a journalist
approached the Imam of the mosque in a small town in Northern Italy call-
ing him Father went viral in the early 2000s. For the average Italian an Imam
is still, often, all this. But in the last few years,34 the better structured Muslim
associations started to hire Imams from abroad. Sometimes the name of the
candidate may have been suggested by the foreign institution which had paid
for the building of the mosque. Recent purpose built Mosques in Italy in fact
(both mosques per se and headquarters of local ‘Muslim cultural centres’ which
look exactly like a mosque), have been financed by so called ‘Muslim money’,
often coming from the Gulf, through Saudi, Kuwaiti or Qatar-based founda-
tions. This may, of course, create obvious problems regarding the independence
of the mosque.
Conclusion
All this things considered, there is a desperate need for trained leaders of Italian
Muslim communities that deserve the immediate attention of relevant insti-
tutions. In many other European countries, as well as in the usa, appropriate
programs have been underway for many years. For example, one organized by
the Institute Catholique de Paris; those of the mihe (Markfield Institute for
Higher Education) in Leicester, uk; and that of the Hartford Seminary, in Hart-
ford, Connecticut, in the usa.35 However, even in Italy, there have been some
recent developments in respect to training and allied educational programmes.
Recent governments have formed, from time to time, special commissions,
34 But not only; see the Grand Mosque of Rome.

35 See their websites: http://www.mihe.org.uk/index.php; http://www.icp.fr/fr/Nous
-connaitre/Actualites/KTOTV-L-Institut-catholique-de-Paris-et-la-laicite-a-la-francaise;
http://www.hartsem.edu.
412 tacchini
committees, and other workshop events to examine issues and foster mutual
understanding. Local Muslim communities have organized a variety of short
private training programs.
However, the main step forward in the field of the formation of Muslim
religious leaders is the program set up by the fidr (International Forum for
Democracy and Religion) together with a pool of five universities, called Nuove
Presenze Religiose in Italia (New religious presences in Italy).36 This involved
more than 30 leaders of Muslim communities, mainly from Northern Italy, who
met 19 times over the span of three years. It was the very first course of its kind
supported by the Italian Ministry of the Interior. Among other things, during
this programme the first ever draft of the statute of a religious association
was laid down, that is, designed for an association that is clearly and openly
religious, not one that is hidden under the name of a cultural centre or private
club.37
36 http://fidr.it/progetto1_3.asp.
37 See A. Angelucci, M. Bombardieri and D. Tacchini, Nuove Presenze religiose in Italia,
un percorso di integrazione [New Religious Presence in Italy: A Course for Integration]
(Milano: Marsilio, 2014), published at the end of the course. Among other things it includes
the draft of the statute of a religious association, contributions from the members of
the fidr scientific committee, and a series of interesting interviews of the participants.
Hopefully, it will be translated into English in 2015.
part 3
Looking Ahead: From Present to Future
∵
chapter 24
The Current Situation of Christian-Muslim

Relations: Emerging Challenges, Signs of Hope*
Jørgen S. Nielsen
Two decades ago we were moving towards the close of a century which had
seen the Enlightenment ideals tested almost to destruction, but had survived
triumphant. Fascism and Nazism had been defeated and the Soviet system had
just collapsed. But there was also a growing feeling that the Enlightenment
heritage was now coming under pressure from a new direction with the return
of religion into the public space. Above all, the Islamic world was beginning to
be seen as a source of such a challenge, whether from outside Europe or in the
form of Muslim communities now settled in Europe itself. In this environment,
relations between Christianity and Islam moved from the margins to become
one of the key dimensions of developments.
There was a time during the 1970s and 80s that it was possible to have peace-
ful, relaxed and mutually confirming and generally optimistic meetings of
Christians and Muslims in various parts of Europe and even across the Mediter-
ranean. The events of 11 September 2001 tend to be cited as the moment when
reality caught up with us. The scenario quickly both absorbed existing political
processes, such as the Palestine question and tensions in the Caucasus, and fed
into the by now well-known new ones: the so-called ‘war on terror’ and the us-
led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Closer to home, even smaller countries
have made contributions to the scenario far outweighing their humble size: in
the Netherlands, events from Fortuyn to Wilders; in Denmark, cartoons. But
if our view is restricted to perspectives imposed by crisis management in the
context of such events, I would argue that the long-term possibilities of creat-
ing constructive relations internationally risk being held hostage for short-term
gain, gain which may not even be realised.
Economics and politics usually function with short-term goals: a profitable
contract, an improvement in gdp, a favourable treaty with a friendly govern-
ment. Politicians often find themselves forced to react to events and public
* An earlier version of this text was given as my inaugural lecture on taking up the Belle van
Zuylen Visiting Professorship, University of Utrecht, on 2 December 2008.

416 nielsen
pressures; they have to keep an eye on how the media will report and interpret
their actions. But if we want to create some space for longer-term views, the
horizon must be expanded. This is where a cultural, and with it the religious,
dimension comes in. It helps to provide depth: there is a long heritage which
colours present perspectives. It helps to provide breadth: there is life beyond
economics and politics.
In this short discussion I want to look especially at the depth, at the cultural
relationship between Europe and the Muslim, and in particular the Arab Mus-
lim world over time, and how this has interacted with political relationships. I
then want to try and break through the sense of crisis and point to more promis-
ing and constructive dimensions of the religious relationships especially.
Very immediately, any discussion of relations between Christians and Mus-
lims is caught up in what one might call the ‘Crusades syndrome’. Historically,
that series of conflicts across the Mediterranean was a multi-faceted affair—
and they were not called Crusades until some time after the events. In western
Europe it was an integral part of the process of establishing Catholic Christen-
dom, and crusading, although primarily targeted at Islam, struck out at any-
thing non-Catholic. Constantinople, the centre of Orthodox Christian faith and
power, was sacked in 1204; Scandinavians ravished the heathen regions of the
eastern Baltic and retain their Crusader banners until today as national flags;
the Jews of the Rhineland and elsewhere were made to suffer as were various
heterodox Christian sects in parts of France and Spain.1 But my use of the term
is not restricted to these historical events of the 12th–14th centuries. Rather, I
am using it to cover the whole range of conscious memory of a history of con-
flict on both sides of the Mediterranean, a memory which to a great extent is
mythology. This starts with the earliest capture of the Byzantine provinces of
the Middle East and North Africa by Arab Muslim expansion, the Muslim con-
quest and the Christian re-conquest of Spain and southern Italy, the Crusades
themselves, and the growth of the Ottoman Empire in the ruins of Byzantium.
The Crusades were revived as part of the imperial discourse of the European
powers in the 19th century, and both French and British generals referred to
their victories over the Ottoman armies towards the end of the First World
War in Palestine and Syria in crusading terms. Modern parallels grew with the
establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and comparisons between Israel and
the Frankish states of the Levant in the 12th–13th centuries became popular in
the history departments of Arab universities as well as in public discourse. The
conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and statements of Al-Qaida continue to keep
1 See particularly Christopher Tyerman, The invention of the Crusades, London: Routledge, 1998.
the current situation of christian-muslim relations 417
the image alive. The syndrome has lodged itself in our collective subconscious
in such a way that it is easily brought to the surface when circumstances
are right. Examples are easy to find. In the media and in daily conversation
in many parts of the Muslim world it finds expression in a lively trade in
conspiracy theories. Any prominent media personality or politician who is
perceived consistently to be against Arabs or Muslims is often assumed to
be a Crusader or a Jew and definitely Islamophobic, regardless of facts. Any
move by a western government or institution or statement by a significant
personality which is explicitly favourable to an Arab perspective is, in some
quarters, dismissed as yet another cynical move to retain control.
In Europe, in a similar fashion, the ‘Turks at the gates of Vienna’ clearly
coloured Luther’s attitude and thus added to an older medieval Christian fear of
Islam. In Germany the novels of Karl May consolidated a fear of things ‘oriental’
which makes the racist tones of the novels of Sir Walter Scott seem positively
gentle. The heroics of imperial adventure became part of everyday reading in
France and Britain, with the savage and primitive character of the opponent
being exposed to the civilising mission of the enlightened, usually Christian,
and European. And we are seeing these images being revived and exploited in
the present by extremist groups in both religions.
Most remarkable has been the way in which this historical mythology of
a Mediterranean ‘frontier’ has been adopted in other regions of the world. In
parts of South and South-East Asia, and especially in areas of sub-Saharan West
Africa, there are regions where Muslims and Christians have lived together
peacefully for centuries. Villages had inhabitants of both communities, and
extended families had Christian and Muslim members. In some cases, the
same family included both a Muslim imam and a Christian priest. In such
areas, the collective memory was often one of a common history and shared
collective identity and interests. Over the last half century or so, that memory
has gradually been replaced by one of the frontier. Someone else’s history has
taken the place of their own.
The mechanisms are varied but are in one way or another part of the gen-
eral process of globalisation. Christian mission and Muslim daʿwa have been
driven by particular trends within the respective religions, primarily those char-
acterised by aggressive and impatient attitudes to those who are different, be
they of their own religious family or of another. So resource-rich North Ameri-
can conservative evangelical Christianity meets oil-funded forms of Arab Islam
and together set the tone and the agendas. Both parties bring with them per-
ceptions of relations between Islam and Christianity at the core of which are
an innate enmity and distrust symbolised by the Crusades and the myths of the
Mediterranean frontier.
418 nielsen
The trouble with these perceptions and attitudes is that they are based at
best on a one-sided view of our history. The relationships across the Mediter-
ranean were never only those of conflict and confrontation. During the Cru-
sades themselves trade between Egypt, North Africa and the Italian city states
continued unabated; commercial treaties were regularly signed and renewed.
The long periods of flourishing cultural and intellectual progress in Islamic
Spain and Sicily have fortunately not been forgotten. Less attention has been
given to periods of lively Ottoman cultural interaction with its neighbours, not
to mention the tolerance of internal pluralism which for long periods char-
acterised both. Neither can one ignore the significance of the much earlier
absorption of elements of Hellenistic culture into the high Arabic-Islamic cul-
ture of the ʿAbbasid period, nor the much later and reverse fascination of 18th
and 19th century European writers and artists with Ottoman and Arab motifs.
So why is it that the conflict is remembered and restated, while the positive
interaction and interdependence is so easily forgotten? Apart from the obvi-
ous response that the former is more exciting, I suggest that there is a much
deeper reason. This has to do with religion, but not primarily in the sense of
religion as differences of belief, dogma and ritual; rather in the sense of reli-
gion as a marker of communal identity. At a key phase in the early development
of medieval Europe, Christianity became one of the most significant factors in
establishing a new polity, with all the social, cultural, institutional and polit-
ical elements which that implies. The term ‘European’ first appears to have
been applied to the region as a political-geographical entity in a contempo-
rary account, written by a Cordoban Christian, to describe the army of Charles
Martel at the battle of Poitiers in 732. By the end of the century Martel’s King-
dom of the Franks (Regnum Francorum) had become Charlemagne’s Christian
Empire (Imperium Christianum). Christianity was the glue which was to hold
together the nascent state structures of European Catholic Christendom. The
Crusades were an essential dimension in this project. They were the means by
which the Christianisation of Europe itself was confirmed as well as provid-
ing the ideology which moved the crusading armies against Baltic paganism,
central European Jewry, eastern Orthodox Christianity, and the Muslim Arab
world.
However, this process was taking place at the same time as Europe was
emerging from a period of deep intellectual decline. This was the era when
the foundations were laid for medieval humanism and Catholic scholasticism,
ultimately leading to the Renaissance and the turmoil of the Reformation. As
is increasingly well-known, many of the intellectual resources for this process
came from across the Mediterranean, through Spain and Sicily. George Makdisi
has convincingly shown that the scholastic traditions of the early universities
established in Bologna, Paris and Oxford can be traced directly back to Arabic-
Islamic models.2 Research in legal history also suggests that English Common
Law has been influenced by Islamic traditions.3 But precisely because these
resources were Islamic, their origins had to be subjected to collective amnesia:
the building of high medieval Christendom could not be admitted to rest in
part on Islamic foundations; Arabic could not be admitted to its rightful place
as a European classical language next to Greek and Latin.
Let me at once suggest, on the other side of the equation, that something
similar is going on around us today, but in reverse. The developments of the
Arab world over the last century or two have been undeniably profoundly
influenced by Europe, and not only in the sense of political and economic
power or technology. This extends to key conceptual components of educa-
tional, political, cultural and social discourse. Much of European thought has
been indigenised in the Arab and Muslim worlds. French and German politi-
cal philosophy became an integral part of the concepts of Asian nationalisms
as they rooted themselves through the Hashemite Arab revolt, Kemalism, the
Arab National Movement, the movement for a Pakistan separate from India,
the Baath party, the Algerian fln, and Nasserism. Indeed, Islamic thinkers have
also adapted and absorbed European ideas over this period.
Again, it is characteristic that those who most strongly deny such a rela-
tionship of intellectual interdependence are those who insist on the complete
and absolute otherness of the opponent against which they are trying to define
themselves. It used to be true of some extreme Arab nationalists; it is now true
of some extreme Islamists. The ‘otherness’ of the origin of the adopted ideas,
be it western or Christian, has to be suppressed, just as Christendom did it to
Islam all those centuries ago.
Today it has become common to see the events of 11 September 2001 (9/11)
as marking some form of turning point in Christian-Muslim relations. They
had their obvious political and military consequences, most immediately in
the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the increase in spectacular terrorist
operations. In many western countries, discussions about Islam and policies
towards Muslims became much more security-driven. The western responses
to 9/11 led also to a growing local mistrust towards Christians in Muslim major-
ity regions of the world. Networks of promising Muslim-Christian cooperation
came under external pressures which some were unable to survive, while in
2 George Makdisi, The rise of humanism in classical Islam and the Christian West, Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1990.
3 See H. Patrick Glenn, Legal Traditions of the World: Sustainable Diversity in Law, 2nd ed.,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, 222–270.
420 nielsen
other places new networks were created to resist the pressures towards con-
flict. I would, however, argue that in this field the major turning point within
the last decades has actually been the end of the cold war, now a quarter of a
century ago. It had a number of consequences, not least of which was the end
of the bi-polar world which had kept regional and other rivalries subdued on
a secondary level of priority compared to the pressures imposed by the global
contest between the Soviet bloc and the West.
While some analysts found optimism in the new situation, most triumphant-
ly expressed in Fukayama’s The end of history, others were apprehensive at the
complications which could rise to the surface now that the disciplines imposed
by the cold war had disappeared. More directly, the talk of a ‘peace dividend’
to come from the opportunity to cut defence budgets was a threat to certain
economic interests, including those of the ‘military-industrial complex’ which
President Eisenhower had warned against decades earlier. The new environ-
ment was probably also one which so challenged set and institutionalised ways
of thinking that inertia was easier and more comfortable than exploring new
visions.
Less than two years after the collapse of the Soviet system, a new range
of issues, encouraged by political and commercial interests, began to surface,
coalescing around the idea of ‘Islam, the new enemy’. By this time the public
debate had become heated. Although the phrase ‘clash of civilizations’ can be
traced some years further back, it became common currency in the wake of the
publication of Samuel Huntington’s article of that title in Foreign Affairs in the
summer of 1993. The then secretary-general of nato, Willi Claes, inadvertently
revealed how far this perspective had penetrated into the corridors of power
when in 1995 he publicly warned against the threats from Islam.
The consequent debates and the attention devoted to the ‘clash’ in the media
and by politicians contributed to strengthening an already existing tendency
to interpret certain political crises in religious terms. This first became com-
mon as a way of simplifying the complexities of the Lebanese civil war which
had started in 1975. It appeared in the frequent explanation of the war between
Iraq and Iran during the 1980s as in essence a conflict between Sunni and Shiʾi,
where previously a favoured explanation had tended to be found in a more
secular reference to primordial tensions between Semitic and Indo-European,
or even Aryan, races and cultures. The civil war in Sudan was often similarly
portrayed. But such an analysis, simplistic and lazy, was particularly danger-
ous when the conflicts sparked by the collapse of the Soviet bloc especially
lent themselves to be located on this matrix—I refer to the disintegration of
Yugoslavia in particular, but also to tensions in Central Asia, especially for a
time in Tajikistan, violence in the Caucasus, particularly in Chechnya and the
neighbouring regions, and in regions like northern Nigeria and elsewhere along
the southern Saharan fringes. The result was that assumptions arising from
ways of thinking focused on a clash of civilizations defined by religion, above
all by Islam and Christianity, became so deeply embedded in the frameworks
of analysis in political and media networks that the events of 9/11 could easily
and immediately be assimilated. The opportunities of starting on a radically
constructive reorientation offered to the United States by the global outbreak
of sympathy, best expressed in the French newspaper headline ‘Nous sommes
tous américains’,4 were squandered.
Through these marked changes in the context and the content of the public
debate, the character of Christian-Muslim dialogue has also radically changed.
It was in the 1950s that the earliest international dialogue meetings took place,
in Bhamdoun, Lebanon in 1954 and 1956 and in Alexandria, Egypt in 1955,5
although some of its Christian theological foundations can be traced a good
deal further back. Such meetings and the work of individual theologians led to
new openings towards Islam in the conclusions of the Second Vatican Coun-
cil in 1965 and in the establishment of a sub-unit on interfaith dialogue by the
World Council of Churches in 1971. In this early phase the dialogue was usu-
ally ‘asymmetrical’. It was a question of Christian initiatives, to which friendly
individual Muslims were invited. The participants were specialists and enthu-
siasts and, it is clear, were dealing with issues which were only marginal to
the priorities of the various churches. When such dialogues were initiated by
an official church body, the common complaint was that while the Christian
partners could in some way be seen as ‘representative’, the Muslims were not
and could not be. This was theoretically because there was no Muslim ‘church’
which they could represent, although a frequent suspicion was that the com-
plaint really was about the churches’ unwillingness to talk to less amenable
‘representative’ Muslim organisations. It seems that a meeting in 1973 between
the Vatican and a Libyan Muslim institution was an attempt to move beyond
this weakness but it was trapped by the political interests of the Libyan govern-
ment. Also during the 1970s the World Council of Churches sought more official
Muslim participation by co-operating with the Pakistan-based World Muslim
Congress. The problem here was that the Congress was in practice an arm of
the Saudi-dominated Muslim World League.
4 Editorial by Jean-Marie Colombani, Le Monde, 13 September 2001.

5 Juliette N. Haddad (ed.), Déclarations communes islamo-chrétiennes, Beirut: Dar el-Machreq,
1997; and Jutta Sperber, Christians and Muslims: the dialogue activities of the World Council of
Churches and their theological foundation, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000.
422 nielsen
These developments in Muslim-Christian relations were matched in west-

ern Europe, here especially driven by the realisation that Muslim commu-
nities had settled in our industrial cities through major immigration during
the period since 1945. Local and national initiatives were taken with varying
degrees of enthusiasm and institutional support. On both the Protestant and
the Catholic sides Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands were pioneers,
although in Britain the character of the process was multi-faith oriented rather
than specifically Christian-Muslim, simply due to the more varied character of
the immigration. At the end of the 1970s and into the early 1980s these various
national activities began to network across the European borders and to reach
out to Eastern Europe. At first this was informal in the network around the so-
called Journées d’Arras but it was soon formalised into a committee on Islam
in Europe run jointly by the Conference of European Churches and the Council
of European (Catholic) Bishops’ Conferences.
Within a few months of the publication of Samuel Huntington’s article on
‘The clash of civilizations’ there was a global explosion of dialogue meetings
and conferences. Many of them, if not a majority, were Muslim initiatives, many
by government-sponsored Islamic agencies or the Islamic studies department
at government universities and sometimes directly by government ministries.
Occasionally the official theme was relations between Islam and Christianity,
but much the most common title, in one way or another, involved relations
between Islam and the West. Of course, this reflects the agenda set by Hunt-
ington but it also reflects the general broadening of the dialogue agenda, from
working within the confines of a narrow concept of religion to one which paid
much more attention to the political, social and economic dimensions. Ironi-
cally, while these meetings and conferences were organised to combat Hunt-
ington’s vision of a clash, they unquestioningly accepted his simplistic concept
of distinct, clearly identifiable civilizations!
It is apparent that the comfortable little niche of Christian-Muslim dialogue,
which had been carefully nurtured in the decades after 1945, was being forced
to face new realities. The asymmetry, of which participants and observers had
complained, had ceased, but its cessation had been accompanied by a sharp
expansion of the field being covered and by the identities of the participants.
The issues had become too urgent to be left to theologians and too large to be
left in the hands of local and national community projects. In becoming politi-
cised at an intercontinental level, relations between Muslims and Christians
drew in politicians across the board. In the Barcelona agreement of Novem-
ber 1995, the European Union and the Mediterranean coastal states explicitly
included dialogue between the religions as part of the third, cultural ‘basket’
to provide some depth to the baskets of political and economic co-operation.
Under the heading ‘Partnership in social, cultural and human affairs’ the sig-
natories started by stating ‘that dialogue and respect between cultures and
religions are a necessary precondition for bringing the peoples closer’.6
Governments and politicians began to develop an interest in Muslim-Chris-
tian relations, usually under the guise of relations between the West and the
Arab and/or the Muslim world:
– The Swedish foreign ministry in 1994 opened a section entitled Euro-Islam

led by an official of ambassador status. In the summer of 1995 it staged an
international conference on this theme in Stockholm to be followed a year
later by one in Amman and two years after that in Cairo, all leading to the
establishment of a Swedish institute in Alexandria in 1998.
– In March 1996, the annual cultural festival of the Saudi National Guard for
the first time included a conference on ‘Islam and the West’ at which Samuel
Huntington was among the invited speakers.
– the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s conference centre
at Wilton Park has held several conferences in this field through the 1990s
and into the new century.
– The foreign ministries of countries such as Belgium, Switzerland, Germany,
Spain, and the United Kingdom appointed officials or even established de-
partments with a focus on relations with Islam.
These are just a few examples, and the events of 9/11 very quickly led govern-
ments in Europe and elsewhere to involve themselves ever more deeply in what
they saw as interreligious dialogue:
– As early as January 2002, an international Muslim-Christian conference

took place at Lambeth Palace at the joint initiative of the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the British Prime Minister’s office. This has since led to
a regular series of meetings of Christian and Muslim theologians initially
organised by Lambeth Palace and Qatar.
– The political perspectives were a core dimension at the Muslim-Christian
consultation called by the World Council of Churches in October 2002.
– During 2003 the religious affairs ministries of Algeria and Tunisia and the
Libyan Islamic Call Society all held large international conferences on rela-
tions between Islam, Christianity and the West.
6 Full text at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2005/july/tradoc_124236.pdf, accessed 24

January 2014.
424 nielsen
– In Germany the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, associated with the Social Demo-
cratic Party, built on previous activities to take part in organising a confer-
ence in early 2004 on Islam and the West in Beirut, together with a local
organisation close to Hezbollah, and subsequently started an annual series
of seminars in Berlin intended to support the development of what it called
‘progressive’ Islam.
– Part of the Saudi response to external pressures after 9/11 was the invitation
to a number of western academics to take part in a conference on Islam and
terrorism at the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh, in
April 2004.
And so I could go on. It is clear that there has been a major infiltration, if not
actually an attempt at a take-over of Christian-Muslim dialogue by political
interests. This brings with it its own dangers particularly that short-term con-
siderations of strategic and material interests will manipulate and corrupt the
religious dimensions. From being restricted to religious circles, where it was
marginal and comparatively simple, Christian-Muslim dialogue has become
central and complicated, explicitly involving social and political dimensions.
But we have also seen more recently that political and social considerations
can drive forward the religious dialogue. The last half dozen years have seen
two major initiatives from significant Muslim sources, initiatives which have
put Christians under pressure to respond positively and substantially in a field
which they had hitherto played the major role in defining and motivating. I
am referring to the open letter initially signed by 138 Muslim scholars and pub-
lished on 13 October 2007 and the initiative of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
soon after, which led to international conferences first in Mecca and then in
Madrid and then in September 2012 the establishment of the King Abdullah Bin
Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue in
Vienna.7
The first of these two initiatives arose directly out of the angry Muslim reac-
tion to the speech by Pope Benedict a year previously at Regensburg in which
he had quoted a Byzantine emperor for some critical views of Islam. A group
of Muslim scholars had at that time addressed a letter to the pope pointing
out where they thought he had gone wrong. The longer letter a year later was
headed ‘A common word between us and you’, a quotation from the Qurʾan,
3:64.8 The gist of the letter was a call to join together in common action based
7 http://www.kaiciid.org/.
8 www.acommonword.org includes the text of the letter, signatories, and the texts of, by early
2014, almost 300 responses from Christian theologians and churches.
on a shared belief in the one God and the commandment to love God and the
neighbour. It is probably the first time in history that a letter of this nature,
showing such repeated evidence of careful thought, organisation and formula-
tion and signed by such a wide range of Muslim scholars has ever been sent to
Christian leaders. It is one of those rare cases where the attribute ‘historical’ is
truly justified. The authors were assiduous in their research, making sure that
their presentation of Christian teachings is one which Christians can assent to.
They carefully identified their addressees and recognised the five church fam-
ilies into which the Middle East Council of Churches places its members. The
signatories represented the full range of Islamic tendencies and schools: Sunni
and Shiʾi; Sufis; Salafis and reformists; government and private. There are peo-
ple together in the list of signatories who would not normally want to be seen
in the same room. Within a year, the number of signatories had reached 280
from all over the world, and another 150 have signed up subsequently. This is a
truly ecumenical letter: an Islamic oikumene addressing a Christian oikumene.
The significance of the letter has been reinforced by the nature of the re-
sponse. During the first few weeks after publication a number of individual
and groups of Christian theologians sent welcoming letters. Some church lead-
ers responded by way of a positive acknowledgement. Then gradually over the
spring and summer of 2008 more considered responses started coming in, some
quite lengthy such as the seventeen pages from the Archbishop of Canterbury
dated 14 July 2008. The open letter has clearly challenged the main churches
nationally and internationally to strengthen their focus on the dialogue with
Islam. It has provoked a sharpening of internal debates in some countries,
where tendencies which have built up their profiles as critically against Islam
have been active in opposing the more constructive responses of the main-
stream church bodies. At the same time, the letter has challenged the churches
also to think internally about their attitudes to other religions in a world which
has become radically more integrated over the last couple of decades.
Although some political dimensions in the open letter initiative can be
discerned, the later Saudi initiative seems to have been much more overtly
political in its context. The background here was also implicitly Pope Benedict’s
Regensburg speech of September 2006. The threatening responses, coming as
they did after widespread violence in the Muslim world earlier in the year in
response to the publication of the Muḥammad cartoons in Denmark, had given
new urgency to an ongoing low-key dialogue between the Vatican and Saudi
Arabia.
This led, in November 2007, to an official visit by the Saudi king to the Vati-
can and an upgrading of the talks between the two sides, including, according
to some press sources, talks about the opening of churches in Saudi Arabia. The
426 nielsen
following March the king gave a widely publicised speech in which he called
for dialogue among Muslims, Christians and Jews. That this was no empty talk
was shown when the Muslim World League at the beginning of June hosted a
conference in Mecca in which Muslim scholars from around the world consid-
ered Muslim approaches to relations with other religions. Six weeks later, King
Abdullah and King Juan Carlos jointly opened an international dialogue con-
ference in Madrid to which representatives of all the major religions, as well
as interested political figures, had been invited. As noted above, one result was
the opening, in 2012, of the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre
for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (kaiciid) in Vienna.
Many observers initially placed this Saudi move in the context of King
Abdullah’s 2002 Middle East peace initiative which was subsequently adopted
by the Arab League, an interpretation which was denied by Saudi sources. A
more interesting comment was attributed to Muhammad al-Zulfa, member
of the Saudi Consultative Council, the Shura. He was reported by Associated
Press to have said that the king’s March speech was ‘a message to all extrem-
ists: Stop using religion’. This is, of course, a point which has regularly been
made by Muslim religious and political leaders, that the violent extremism, of
which the terrorist attacks in New York, Bali, Madrid and London were but the
most potent expressions, was to be condemned by all Muslims. As such attacks
increasingly threatened stability in Muslim societies themselves, it had gradu-
ally become necessary to take counter-action. Locally, this meant heightened
security measures in countries like Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia
itself. Internationally, it meant in the final analysis having to attract the atten-
tion of the media and politicians with some seriously high-profile initiatives.
Both the open letter and the Saudi move served this aim.
But these initiatives cannot be dismissed as merely cynical political manip-
ulation. There is a substance to them which involves a recognition that the
circumstances the world finds itself in today requires not only that the poten-
tials for conflict mobilised under the banners of Islam and Christianity be neu-
tralised, but also that these two religions in particular need to find ways of
working together. First of all, bridging the frontier between them is necessary
to defuse the pressures coming from their respective extremists. And, secondly,
the problems of globalisation, threatening shortages of food and energy, and of
climate change mean that humanity cannot afford the wastage and distractions
of backward-looking religious rivalries.
The fact that interreligious dialogue, particularly the Muslim-Christian vari-
ety, has become a dimension of national and international politics is an oppor-
tunity but also a challenge. On the one hand, the translation of interreligious
dialogue onto centre stage offers the opportunity that religions and religious
identities can become a positive force and no longer only sit there waiting
again to be used as ammunition in yet another conflict. On the other hand,
however, we have seen over the last three years in the Middle East how reli-
gion has again become a weapon mobilised for conflict. While we are obviously
seeing regional power rivalries playing out, the Sunni-Shiʾi divide in Islam has
become a handy instrument in that struggle, and, in between, Christians are
targeted by extremists on both sides. So as the dialogue has become politicised
it has become a dimension of Realpolitik and with that it will be subjected to the
manipulation, negotiation and compromise, clean and less clean, which are an
inevitable part of the political processes. The challenge is how to prevent the
political processes from executing a complete take-over.
chapter 25
The Future of the Christian-Muslim Past: Reflecting

with Charles Taylor on Interreligious Relations
Damian Howard SJ*
David Thomas has spent his scholarly career analysing ancient texts bearing on
the seminal unfolding of Christian-Muslim mutual understanding (or some-
times the lack of it). It would be odd were he never to have felt tempted to
question the value of such an endeavour, faced, as he will have been, by the
imperative to project ‘impact’ in the real world. If, as Donald Allchin avers, we
‘live at a moment when our ways of thinking, acting and feeling are chang-
ing so rapidly that there is a tendency to believe that only what is turned
towards the future can be of real importance’1 then why bother with the past
encounter of two religious communities, especially when it has been so much
less happy than that which we hope awaits future generations? Why devote
hours to poring over forgotten manuscripts instead of engaging in dialogue in
the present? The answer is, however, that, if you believe that the past is some-
how given in the here and now, and, furthermore, that the future can only grow
out of the resources currently available, then the meticulous investigation of
the Christian-Muslim past, far from being an eccentric displacement activity,
is an absolute pre-condition for the promotion of healthy relations between the
two religions. In this paper, I turn to the work of a celebrated scholar who has
given his life to excavating the multi-layered sediment of the past all around
us, the Canadian political philosopher, Charles Taylor, so as to better navigate
the treacherous waters of an uncertain future. His A Secular Age (2007) has, in
the seven years since its publication, attracted the attention of many Christian
intellectuals anxious to contest some of the more banal explanations of how
religion works in the modern world.2 He does not, of course, directly touch
* I am indebted to the helpful comments and advice of my colleague at Heythrop College, Dr

Patrick Riordan SJ.
1 The Dynamic of Tradition, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1981, 18.
2 For further reading see the text under discussion, Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, London:
Belknap, 2007. For a summary of the main argument, see the article to which my title alludes,
Taylor’s ‘The Future of the Religious Past’, in Charles Taylor, Dilemmas and Connections,
Cambridge ma: Belknap, 2011, 214–286, and for an insightful comment on the latter, Guido

the future of the christian-muslim past 429
on Christian-Muslim relations, and, indeed, leaves Islam almost entirely out

of his account of the progress of occidental civilisation. Yet, there are fruitful
exchanges to be had between Muslims and Christians in the West exploring
his ideas, exchanges which could help all sides to go beyond facile stereotypes
and polemics. I will address four themes, all related in one way or another to
the genesis and nature of ‘modernity’, so frequently the unacknowledged third
partner in any conversation between adherents of the two religions.
Islam and the Genealogy of Modernity
The colonial takeover of Muslim territories by western powers (notably Britain,

France, the Netherlands and Russia) left Muslims with a crisis of cognitive dis-
sonance centred on the question: how could the arrow of history which had
clearly been pointing towards the slow but sure establishment of Islam as the
religion of the world have been so suddenly and unexpectedly reversed? How
could Islam’s destiny have been so cruelly disrupted?3 This crisis provoked
diverse responses, including a call for a theoretical understanding of what occi-
dental modernity meant, where it came from, and how, if at all, it could be
appropriated by Muslims. One aspect of modernity was of particular fascina-
tion and is of on-going moment in Christian-Muslim relations today: whatever
it was, it had grown up in Christian lands, hence it was to be appraised along-
side the religion of the ‘people of the Gospel’ who must have played some role
in its coming into being. The coupling was both unavoidable and fateful.
Vanheeswijck, ‘Charles Taylor’s Dilemmas: a sequel to A Secular Age’, Heythrop Journal 54/3
(2013), 435–439. For secondary literature, see: Ruth Abbey (ed.) Charles Taylor, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004; Ian Fraser, Dialectics of the Self: transcending Charles Taylor,
Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2007; Christopher Garbowski, Jan Hudzik and Jan Kłos (eds),
Charles Taylor’s Vision of Modernity: reconstructions and interpretations, Newcastle upon Tyne:
Cambridge Scholars, 2009; Ian Leask et al. (eds), The Taylor Effect: responding to A Secular
Age, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010; Andrew O’Shea, Selfhood
and Sacrifice: René Girard and Charles Taylor on the crisis of modernity, London: Continuum,
2010; Mark Redhead, Charles Taylor: thinking and living deep diversity, Oxford: Rowman and
Littlefield, 2002; James K.A. Smith, How (Not) to Be Secular: reading Charles Taylor, Grand
Rapids mi: William B. Eerdmans, 2014; Michael Warner, Jonathan VanAntwerpen, and Craig
J. Calhoun (eds) Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age, Cambridge, ma: Harvard University
Press, 2010. Also see the section of a website called ‘The Immanent Frame’ devoted to A
Secular Age, http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/secular_age/ (accessed 7 June 2014).
3 I am alluding to the title of a book by Tamim Ansary, Destiny Disrupted. A History of the World
Through Islamic Eyes, New York: Public Affairs, 2009.
430 howard
Christian theologians have also, of course, struggled with precisely the same
question in order to craft an adequate response of their own to the modern
world and its concomitant challenges. There has been no Christian consensus
on an answer and the fragmentary state of contemporary Christianity is elo-
quent testimony to the fact that whereas some Christians are happy to assim-
ilate whatever the modern world has to teach them, others reserve the right
to keep their distance more or less radically. If the former approach is typi-
fied by liberal Protestantism, the latter can be seen in many different guises
in the counter-cultural stance of various Evangelical identities and the critical
engagement of post-Vatican ii Catholicism. What all these have in common
is the need to tell a story about how modernity came to be. Such accounts
usually fall into one of two groups, either stressing the continuity in ideas and
values between the Gospel and the modern project or underlining the rupture
involved. Christianity thus emerges either as an unsung hero or as a more or
less hapless victim.
Attempts by Muslims to ask the same question have, inevitably, relied to
some extent on answers already worked out by Christian and other western
writers. The evaluations of modernity and of Christianity can thus be reduced
to three broad categories:
i. That modernity is a Bad Thing and an outgrowth of the flawed essence of

Christianity (e.g. al-Attas);4
ii. That modernity is a Bad Thing, but opposed to a Christianity viewed
benignly (e.g. S.H. Nasr).5 Some ancillary account is required here to
explain the victory of modernity over Christianity and it is frequently
assumed that the Church was too weak to prevent its triumph or that her
doctrines were too easily colonised by erroneous views;
iii. That modernity is a Good Thing which grew up to counter the errors or
inadequacies of Christianity (e.g. Muhammad Iqbal and Muhammad ʿAb-
duh).6 Modernity in this instance is often understood as being organically
connected, in some sense, to Islam.7
4 Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam and Secularism, Kuala Lumpur: International Insti-
tute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, 1978, 1993.
5 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Knowledge and the Sacred, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1981.
6 Muhammad Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ash-
raf, 1962, p. 146; Muhammad ʿAbduh, The Theology of Unity, London: Allen and Unwin, 1966.
7 The seminal re-narration of this polemical type is that found in ʿAbduh which argues 1)
that Islam was defeated because it had been contaminated by foreign influences and 2)
that the West was victorious because Islamic ideas had taken deep root in Europe and
It is to be noted that the Muslims cited as examples here all rely on various
strands of Protestant thought: al-Attas drawing on the radical turn of theology
in the 1960s and 70s represented by Harvey Cox, Nasr on Jakob Böhme’s (c. 1575–
1624) esoteric Lutheranism, and Iqbal on the liberal Protestantism of Friedrich
Naumann (1860–1919). There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but it does
seem to have insinuated into areas of contemporary Islamic thinking the antag-
onistic dynamics of the European Reformation period, the polarising ‘either-or’
rather than the uniting ‘both-and’.
If the above taxonomy is correct then it is clear that one option has not,
to the knowledge of this author, generally found favour, and this for reasons
obvious to anyone with an understanding of the place Christianity occupies
in Islam’s account of revelation-history: the view that modernity is both (by
and large) a positive development in world history and suffused by Christian
values and ideas. The relative absence of this view from Muslim writing is not
difficult to understand: the task of retrieving the honour of Islam from the
colonial catastrophe was made easier by locating an opponent, either in secular
modernity or in Christianity or a mixture of the two. A positive account of both
would have been hard to stomach for those undergoing humiliation. And so
it is, grosso modo, that Muslim reformers have typically entered into rivalry
with Christianity over the question of ‘who owns modernity?’ whilst Muslim
traditionalists have tended to blame the Church(es) for allowing the rise of
secularism, a phenomenon which, so a polemical claim goes, could never have
taken place in an Islamic context.
But those of us interested in improving Christian-Muslim relations may
nevertheless ask why a ‘both-and’ formula should be off the table. And this is
where Charles Taylor’s work is a promising resource. For his project in recent
years has been to provide an alternative narrative of the growth of secular
modernity which stresses its origins in an impulse sparked off within Latin
Christendom itself and which only at a late stage fashions a world in which
contesting religious belief is an easier move than affirming it. The advent of
modernity is an astonishing achievement, if not quite an unmitigated Good
Thing (indeed, he rejects the partiality of those he calls ‘boosters’ who display
led to a regeneration of culture from within, ultimately leading to the Renaissance, the
Enlightenment and then full-blown modernity. The hypothesis of the Arab roots of cultural
renewal in the West was, in fact, the brainchild of a Spanish Jesuit, Juan Andrés (1740–1817), for
whom it was part of a revisionist historiography which sought to subvert confidence in the
thesis of the exclusively Franco-centric origins of the Enlightenment project. Entering the
Muslim world itself it seeded an altogether different triumphalism. See Roberto M. Dainotto,
Europe (in Theory), Durham: Duke University Press, 2007, 172–173.
432 howard
unconditional positive regard for all things modern or of ‘knockers’ for whom
the modern world is a disaster). Taylor is in favour of an inclusive and nuanced
evaluation which takes the modern world as a mixture of monumental artifice
and troublesome instability and partial-sightedness. His is, in other words, just
the kind of balanced and rigorous exploration of the question which promises
to help Muslims and Christians appreciate each other more profoundly and
possibly to help us to construct new narratives which are not structured around
polar oppositions.
A Secular Age is not a work of theology; it belongs to a philosophical genre
of genealogical accounts which situate modernity and Christendom as mutu-
ally interrelated.8 However, Taylor explicitly takes a different point of departure
than do most of the other instances of the genre by rejecting as insufficient
what he terms ‘intellectual deviation theories’.9 Here he has in mind those
accounts which focus exclusively on intricate variations in the metaphysical
systems espoused by this or that scholastic theologian, the ‘intellectual devia-
tion’ in question usually being located in the work of Duns Scotus or William of
Ockham (though for the Muslim Nasr it is the consequence of the importation
into Europe of the rationalism of the Arab Ibn Rushd). Taylor sees this line of
analysis as helpful but insufficient as an explanation of how a secular ‘take’ on
reality has become in our day not merely intellectually possible but a mass phe-
nomenon. Theorising this crucial social and cultural shift requires a great deal
more than the scrutiny of metaphysical developments in medieval scholasti-
cism. For Taylor, it needs a fresh analysis of how ordinary people actually frame
their perceptions of social existence, a much more complex and elusive task
which Taylor prosecutes by delineating the slow evolution of the ‘social imagi-
nary’.
Immediately, it will be appreciated how this takes us a step forward in the
Christian-Muslim exchange, for what Taylor appreciates is that a novel meta-
physical position adopted in the Middle Ages does not on its own bring about
the full scale transformation of human civilisation that we call modernity. Such
8 Key examples of the genre would include: Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity,
Islam, Modernity, Stanford ca: Stanford University Press, 2003; Hans Blumenberg, The Legit-
imacy of the Modern Age, London: mit, 1983; Michael J. Buckley, At the Origins of Modern
Atheism, New Haven ct: Yale University Press, 1987; Louis Dupré, Passage to Modernity: an
essay in the hermeneutics of nature and culture, New Haven ct: Yale University Press, 1993;
Marcel Gauchet, The Disenchantment of the World, Princeton nj: Princeton University Press,
1997; Karl Löwith, Meaning in History, Chicago: Chicago u.p., 1949 and John Milbank, Theology
and Social Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.
9 Cf. Taylor, A Secular Age, 773–774.
a transformation requires a re-working of the full panoply of institutions, struc-

tures of living and social practices if it is to inscribe an effective difference in
reality itself. Already, then, we are beyond the naïve idealism which, it turns
out, is the bedrock of some of the Muslim narratives, a consequence, perhaps,
of their being largely derivative of idealist assumptions embedded in Protestant
theology. The secular, we must insist, is not simply a matter of faulty meta-
physics but also of embodied practices. Taylor’s own narrative is unified around
a central category which draws the very many strands of his narrative together:
reform. In his own words:
Reform demanded that everyone be a real, 100 percent Christian. Reform

not only disenchants, but disciplines and re-orders life and society. Along
with civility, this makes for a notion of moral order which gives a new
sense to Christianity, and the demands of the faith. This collapses the
distance of faith from Christendom. It induces an anthropocentric shift,
and hence a break-out from the monopoly of Christian faith.10
Taylor is referring here to developments not in the sixteenth century Refor-

mation but in the much earlier period of Catholic centralisation and renewal
seen in the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and elsewhere.11 This
impulse needs to be seen within the context of a dominant paradigm, what Tay-
lor calls the post-Axial equilibrium, an ecclesial compromise which allowed
fundamental Axial convictions about individual responsibility to exist along-
side the assumption that only the spiritual elite (members of religious orders
and the clergy) could truly live up to such an exalted vocation, leaving lay-
Christians to be saved, if at all, through their association with them. Under
the pressure of a centralised move to reform, this equilibrium slowly began
to unravel and in its place emerged a powerful cultural imperative which pro-
moted full commitment from everyone. This process of reform within Chris-
tendom culminates in the eruption of Protestantism but its long-term impact
is a secularising one. This is because the tendency of the reform programme is
to enforce a certain rigour of religious practice in the here-and-now which had
the effect of lowering the horizon of transcendence previously figured by the
difference between the way of life of the religious elite (the religious orders) and
that of secular folk. The decisive breakthrough which makes secular humanism
conceivable is the idea that life’s purposes are exclusively limited to this world;
10 Taylor, A Secular Age, 774.

11 Taylor, A Secular Age, 61–62.
434 howard
it is the eventual insight of the providential Deism of the eighteenth century

but it has its roots in the Church’s own pastoral project.12
This story is clearly of interest to the kind of Muslim-Christian discussion
we alluded to earlier. For those modernising Muslims who, like Iqbal, criticise
Christianity for being too ethereal, too otherworldly to have had any impact on
the political domain, Taylor’s thesis is a challenge. It is not at all a Christian
withdrawal from the real world which led to secularisation but a strident
programme to implement the practice of Christian discipleship. It was the very
suppression of the figuring of the ‘otherworldly’ by the existence of religious life
(those Christian figures who receive such harsh treatment in the Qurʾan) which
led to the near-disappearance of God from the European landscape. Instead of
castigating the Church for its lack of worldly clout, Iqbal might helpfully have
asked himself to what extent his own religious revivalism had played into the
hands of secular modernity by promoting an immanentist ethos of this-worldly
activism and fulfilment. Certainly, the rugged ego-centredness of Iqbal’s khudi
spirituality, which can be regarded as an example of innovation that is often
found in the history of Sufism, looks very much as though it is in thrall to
modern individualism.
To those Muslims like al-Attas and Nasr, who profoundly regret the rise of
modernity, however, there is some succour to be had here. Taylor shares their
discontent with certain aspects of modernity, but he does not blame it on the
rise of scholastic rationalism, as does Nasr. Indeed, the kind of reform pushed
first by the Catholic Church and then by the Reformation was not primar-
ily rationalistic in nature; it may have been rigorist but it was also strongly
pietistic. For example, the Franciscan renewal which was a major prong of
ecclesial reform, centred on devotion to the crucified Christ and to a disci-
pleship lived out in poverty and obedience.13 The Protestant Reformation was
anything but rationalistic; quite the contrary, it had overly rationalistic scholas-
ticism squarely in its sights. But where Taylor does part company with Sufi
anti-moderns like Nasr is with regard to their assessment of the gravity of the
modern predicament. For Nasr, western secularism is an abominable creation
of the Kali Yuga which nothing can remedy, nothing less than an inversion of
the order of traditional civilisations founded on sacred revelation. For Taylor,
on the other hand, the modern secular ‘take’ in reality is an ambiguous achieve-
ment of western culture yet one in which access to an experience of God is still
on offer and conversion away from immanentism a real possibility, as we shall

see shortly. Taylor would be aghast at the traditional metaphysics of Nasr and
his traditionalist colleagues. He would probably be inclined to see their writ-
ings as an exercise in stubborn nostalgia rather than a way out of the thicket of
modern life’s immanent frame.
Religion and Science
A second area where Taylor has something to offer Christian-Muslim under-

standing is in the debate over science and religion. It is probably fair to say
that both Christians and Muslims frequently assume the worst about the capac-
ity of the other religion to come to terms with modern scientific method and
research. The result of both these manoeuvres is mutual intellectual contempt.
Christians might take this view out of ignorance, working from the assumption
that Islam’s high theology of revelation precludes the substantive input of sci-
ence. Muslims, for their part, often fall back on the typical modern narrative
exemplified by William Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Sci-
ence (1874), which, as the title suggests, takes it as axiomatic that science and
religion must always find themselves in mutual opposition. Muslims modify
this conflict thesis merely by pointing out that the only religion of which Draper
knew anything was Christianity which they judge to be inherently supersti-
tious, irrational and obscurantist. Had Draper and others known Islam, on the
other hand, with its essentially scientific outlook, surely they would have qual-
ified their position accordingly.
In reality, the question of each religion’s attitude toward science is much
more subtle and sophisticated than these stereotypes allow for.14 Taylor takes
his place among such contributions by offering a powerful argument against
the conflict thesis in the specifically Christian experience of the encounter
with modern science. As an explanation of how the modern world works it
is, he argues, uniquely persuasive to the modern mind to say that, little by lit-
tle, science replaces religious mumbo-jumbo with its own rationally derived,
empirically grounded theories and in so doing denies religion any real claim to
credibility.15 Self-evident as it may sound, it is a profoundly inadequate account,
failing as it does to take into account the fact that the sense of reality which
makes modern science possible was itself a product of the process of reform
14 See, for example, David Marshall (ed.) Science and Religion. Christian and Muslim Perspec-
tives, Washington dc: Georgetown University Press, 2012.
436 howard
described above. Human beings do not naturally and spontaneously experi-

ence the ‘outside world’ as impersonal, measurable, situated in an objectifiable
space which is the domain of quantifiable mechanical forces. Quite the con-
trary; throughout most of history, reality has been enchanted and inhabited by
quasi-personal agency. It is only the process of disenchantment, initiated by
Christian theology and practice, which makes modern scientific investigation
even thinkable.16 Modern science, a key component of modernity itself, grows
out of the matrix of medieval Christendom. If its results lead to conflict this is
not to be analysed a priori in terms of epistemological conflict.
Taylor’s preferred way of thinking about the tension between science and
religion is by understanding the project of modern science as an expression
of a moral project. The imperative of engaging with the moral dimension
springs from the fact that it is the moral vision which precedes the cognitive
programme of modern scientific discovery. As such a project, modern western
science embodies certain
“values”, virtues, excellences: those of the independent, disengaged sub-

ject, reflexively controlling his own thought processes, “self responsibly”
in Husserl’s famous phrase. There is an ethic here of independence, self-
control, self-responsibility, of a disengagement which brings control; a
stance which requires courage, the refusal of the easy comforts of con-
formity to authority, of the consolations of an enchanted world, of the
surrender to the promptings of the senses.17
The whole edifice of modern science comes laden with an anthropological

vision which finds itself, if not at loggerheads with Christianity, then at least
at odds with aspects of its moral project. There is, on Taylor’s view, plenty of
leeway and creative dialogue to be had between these two moral projects, not
least the possibility that one might adapt under the influence of the other.
This, surely, is how the relationship has tended to work in practice. Modern
America is both a highly religious and an extremely scientific place. Had the
conflict thesis been correct, one of these would have had to give. That is
not to deny serious stress points, especially with regard to the teaching of
evolution in that country. But again, they are perhaps not best analysed simply
in terms of conflict between science and religion, nor even between science
and Christianity.

Taylor’s analysis holds out a new possibility for Christian-Muslim relations

not merely restoring some dignity in Muslim eyes to the Churches’ track record
on science by challenging the notion that Christianity is somehow an enemy of
scientific discovery, but also because it refocuses the debate about science on
its moral aspect.18 Christians and Muslims would certainly do better to engage
in conversation about their respective moral visions and how they relate to that
of western science than trying to score points off each other with regard to their
scientific ethos.
Different Types of Self
A third powerful idea in Taylor’s armoury sheds light on some of the more subtly
complex aspects of Christian-Muslim encounter in the twenty-first century.
The advent of the modern era is made possible by a signal change in the
way in which we moderns apprehend our very experience of selfhood. We
move from being ‘porous’ to ‘buffered selves’.19 In times gone by, human beings
experienced no hard and fast boundary insulating their ‘selves’ from an ‘outside
world’. Hence, the porous self is reachable by the various agencies at work
in that world and, since personality is part of its experience, those forces
abroad in the world also have their personal aspect: spirits, evil-eyes, demons
etc. What occurs under the influence of the great Reform programme arising
from the Church’s medieval pastoral programme, however, is the erection of a
barrier between inside and out. As the ‘individual’ becomes more disciplined
and controlled, the membrane becomes ever more impermeable so that all
personality resides on the side of the subject, from now on an isolated monad
which experiences the world as exterior, observable by the subject without so
much as casting a causal shadow upon it. The constitution of this basic framing,
which we have seen makes possible the scientific worldview, far from being a
natural take on things, represents a contingent, if momentous, development in
human history. This buffered identity is set apart, self-governing and certainly
not open to the malign intrusions of bad spirits. The outside ‘cannot get to it’.
18 This is, in fact, how a number of Muslim writers have approached the science/religion
debate. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, for instance, stresses the metaphysical grounding of science
whilst Muhammad Iqbal gets closer to a liaison with modern science by deriving his
anthropology from a certain brand of evolutionary thought. See Chapter 2 of my Being
Human in Islam. The Impact of the Evolutionary Worldview, London: Routledge, 2011.
438 howard
Taylor does not explore in any detail the distribution of the two kinds of self-
hood in today’s world. It is evident, however, that the world we currently inhabit
contains buffered selves and more porous ones on some kind of continuum, all
the way from the denizens of Manhattan (extremely buffered) to uncontacted
peoples in the Amazon (extremely porous). Now, it should be very clear that
both sorts of self can be ‘religious’. But what religiosity looks like is very differ-
ent in each case. Porous selves inhabit a terrifyingly enchanted world in which
there is nothing they can do to keep themselves safe from the many spiritual
threats to which they are prone. Religion inevitably takes on a protective aspect.
God is the most powerful force in the spiritual world and if He is on your side,
who can be against you? Religious belief has a compellingly self-evident quality
to it. It’s just the way the world is. Porous religiosity knows nothing comparable
to self-defining, self-centred (in a non-moral sense) bufferedness. Whenever
the buffered self, by contrast, experiences dysfunction it will seek to engage in
practices which enhance its capacity for control and sovereignty (counselling
and therapy) and would take great offence at the notion that it might benefit
from the good offices of an external agent to ward off a spell, let alone exorcise
a malign spirit. Taylor gives a neat medical example:
A modern is feeling depressed, melancholy. He is told: it’s just your body

chemistry, you’re hungry, or there is a hormone malfunction, or whatever.
Straightway, he feels relieved. He can take a distance from this feeling,
which is ipso facto declared not justified. Things don’t really have this
meaning; it just feels this way, which is the result of a causal action utterly
unrelated to the meanings of things. This step of disengagement depends
on our modern mind/body distinction, and the relegation of the physical
to being “just” a contingent cause of the psychic.
But a pre-modern may not be helped by learning that his mood comes
from black bile, because this doesn’t permit a distancing. Black bile is
melancholy. Now he just knows that he’s in the grips of the real thing.20
Now, a question germane to Christian-Muslim relations might be: how do these

two quite different kinds of selfhood make themselves felt in interreligious
encounter? In a western country such as the uk, many of the Christians likely
to find themselves in an interreligious gathering are going to be highly buffered.
They are religious not out of social conformity, let alone because they see
their faith as guaranteeing them protection from dark forces. Rather, it is a
20 Taylor, Dilemmas and Connections, 220.

sophisticated creedal option resulting from a complex calculus of experience,

judgment and ‘fit’. Even if fiercely ‘conservative’ or ‘traditionalist’ (perhaps
especially so) they will be religious more or less entirely on their own terms.
The Muslim in such an encounter, is easier to describe in the abstract. If
they are immigrants from, say, the Indian subcontinent, then the chances
are, unless they have received a western education or been brought up in
a westernised family, that they will be at least somewhat porous. For such
people, the existence of God, angels and jinn is so obvious as not to be worth
arguing for. The sophisticated westerner’s tentative gropings towards faith or
their grudging doubts about the value of religious observance can only strike
them as tantamount to disbelief. Does this curious divergence in sensibility
stand for an essential difference between Christianity and Islam? Certainly not.
But nor does it simply represent the differential appropriation of a modern
sensibility for criticism and scepticism which can somehow be explained in
terms of epistemological categories. No, the interlocutors really do have two
fundamentally different ways of seeing things so that neither can translate
for the other what it is like to see what they see. The other just appears
muddle-headed.21
So much for the easy case. What is much harder to map is the case of the
highly buffered, western-born and -educated religious person who nevertheless
sounds porous.22 What we are facing here is a disintegrated identity. Dariush
Shayegan (b. 1935) has traditional societies in his sights when he diagnoses
‘le regard mutilé’23 of Muslims who have drunk deep at the well of western
modernity to the extent that they have to live out their lives in two separate
worlds.24 But the category applies just as well to those who live in developed
21 The buffered self may dress this difference up in the language of cultural relativism but
that is also, on Taylor’s view, an abrogation of responsibility. After all, it is not that there is
an indefinite number of ways of seeing the world here: there are just two.
22 The editor of the New Statesman is a case in point: ‘ “You believe that Muhammad went
to heaven on a winged horse?” That was the question posed to me by none other than
Richard Dawkins a few weeks ago, in front of a 400-strong audience at the Oxford Union.
I was supposed to be interviewing him for al-Jazeera but the world’s best-known atheist
decided to turn the tables on me. So what did I do? I confessed. Yes, I believe in prophets
and miracles’. Mehdi Hasan, ‘God is the best answer to: “Why is there something rather
than nothing?” ’ New Statesman, 19 December, 2012, available online at http://www
.newstatesman.com/religion/2012/12/god-best-answer-why-there-something-rather
-nothing (accessed 27th March 2014).
23 D. Shayegan, Le regard mutilé: schizophrénie culturelle: pays traditionnels face à la moder-
nité, Paris: Albin Michel, 1989.
24 See his Cultural Schizophrenia, Islamic Societies Confronting the West, translated from the
French by John Howe, London: Saqi books, 1992.
440 howard
countries and yet, when it comes to expressing their religious ideas, appear to
leave their modernity behind. The instability of the discourse lies in the fact
that such religious people have not, in fact, even grasped in any personal way, let
alone dealt with and integrated, the challenges which the modern world poses
to their beliefs. Instead, they repeat parrot-fashion the nostrums they have
received from their elders and which jar blatantly with the pre-suppositions
of the culture in which otherwise they participate without apparent difficulty.
Such a disintegrated identity, of course, is hardly the exclusive preserve of
Muslims in the West. The category should be extended to those many western
Christians and believers of other religious communities whose religiosity is
surrounded by a cordon sanitaire which guards it from contact with the secular
world. And there is no shortage of westerners who claim without any seeming
embarrassment that they adhere to beliefs which sound naively pre-modern.
If this is the case, then it needs to be taken into account when we reflect
on what is actually taking place in dialogical interaction between Christians
and Muslims. The more buffered among us need to beware lest we mistake
the porous interlocutor for an exemplar of their religion. Likewise, it will do
them no harm at all to imagine their way (as far as is possible) into the porous
mindset and then take a quick glance at people like themselves to gain a sense
of how mysterious they must appear. Porous folk are, for obvious reasons,
unlikely to be interested in all of this but at the margins it could help them
to understand that the odd utterances of the buffered fraternity actually do
amount to belief of sorts, though not as they know it. It is not necessarily
that religious belief is weaker nowadays, Taylor would have us think; it is just
differently configured. In a sense, Taylor’s insight could be summed up by
saying that the worldviews of the modern believer and the modern atheist
resemble each other far more than do the worldviews of the modern believer
and that of her co-religionist of, say, 500 years ago. This is, in Taylorian jargon, a
consequence of our inhabiting along with our contemporaries, an ‘immanent
frame’. The kind of religiosity which characterises the inhabitants of this frame
is tentative, vulnerable and anything but secure in itself.
Dialogue and Conversion
It is usually in a context dominated by fragmented, buffered religiosity that the

word ‘dialogue’ surfaces, either in a somewhat flippant manner as a politician’s
panacea for the ills of modern pluralism or in a more thoughtful way. There
is no doubt that, for many religious people, the evocation of dialogue is associ-
ated with the kind of fragile religious identity which is typical of modern secular
societies. Yet Taylor’s insights into the possibility of conversion out of the imma-
nent frame and its buffered identity suggest that dialogue can also be a way into
a rather different, even perhaps stronger kind of religious self-apprehension,
that of the post-buffered self, the convert who has found a way out of the stifling
claustrophobia of the immanent frame. For the purposes of understanding how
this is so, it will be helpful to make a threefold distinction: between ‘dialogue’
as envisaged by the traditional, porous self, by the ‘buffered’ identity and finally
the post-buffered self.
Dialogue is usually an activity promoted by buffered selves. Thought of as an
exchange between isolated monadic individuals, it is assumed in the first place
to be about mutual education and understanding. Once it has dealt with this
more pragmatic level of interaction, it can subsequently go in one of several
directions:
– either towards the attempt to persuade the other to change religious adher-
ence
– or towards a negotiated truce, finding common ground and even perhaps a
‘treaty’ formula
– or again towards a modus vivendi in which we accept and even celebrate our
differences.
The porous self tends to be somewhat dubious about dialogue, much to the
frustration of the buffered participant. This is because they know that dialogue
means the other ‘getting to us’ and changing who we are. Many members of
religious minorities in Europe’s inner cities are loath to engage in dialogue
precisely because they know it will change them, taking them out of their
familiar spaces and confronting them with unwelcome challenges. They want
to be left alone to live and pray in the way to which they are accustomed and
not to absorb too much from an ambient culture which they can find alien and
even threatening.
What of the convert away from the buffered identity? The last chapter of A
Secular Age, possibly the least read and understood of the whole book, opens
up the question of how some people find a way out of a buffered identity
into a world of communion and connection.25 Taylor cites three examples,
all converts to Catholicism, as it happens (though Taylor could undoubtedly
have used Muslim examples too, especially those who converted because of an
attraction to Sufi practice): Charles Péguy, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Ivan
25 Taylor, ‘Conversions’, A Secular Age, 728–772.

442 howard
Illich. The point in each case is the same. The convert has seen through the
buffered identity and in the wake of disillusionment has discovered something
of greater ontological import: that we are not truly monadic individuals whose
best hope is to live in heroic defiance of a meaningless world. Rather we
are beings-in-relationship, with one another and with God, and that these
relationships, at least in part, constitute our identity. We certainly do not create
ourselves.
This post-buffered conviction, writ large, is, surprisingly enough, that of the
post-Vatican ii Catholic Church and is palpable in her frequent deployment
of communion ecclesiology and personalist anthropology. Ever since the rise
of philosophical personalism to being something of a standard idiom for her
anthropological utterances, she has been teaching the infinite value of the
human person to a buffered world which sees the human person ontologically
in reductionist terms and ethically in utilitarian terms. Effectively, this involves
a project of re-enchantment, making the claim, so hard for modern people
to make any sense of, that the ultimate nature of reality is personal. More
particularly, she has now been preaching dialogue for half a century and, in
doing so, confirming the personalist intuition that every human being is a
mystery who is not only fashioned interpersonally but also comes to know
herself in interpersonal dialogue. Dialogue and person go together.
Now, some Christians have, as we have mentioned above, appropriated this
insight in buffered terms and in doing so have distorted it. They have taken
interreligious dialogue between Christians and Muslims to be the pursuit of
a negotiated settlement of differences which would bring peace to the world.
Buffered selves have to negotiate, to stake claims and define boundaries. Some
converts from bufferedness have grasped that dialogue is a risky business, for
what is at stake is nothing less than a reconfiguration of the ecclesial self. When
we open ourselves in dialogue to another religious community we cease to be
quite who we were; ‘they’ become interior to ‘us’ and so a new ‘we’ is brought
about.
Awareness of this risk can lead to hiatus.26 A Catholic hesitation is played
out all too visibly in the life and work of Joseph Ratzinger. A personalist who
recognised long ago that ‘person’ and ‘dialogue’ belong together,27 Ratzinger
26 A clear example of this hesitation is to be seen in a major work, Karl Joseph Becker and
Ilaria Morali (eds), Catholic Engagement with World Religions: a comprehensive study, with
the collaboration of Maurice Borrmans and Gavin D’Costa, Maryknoll ny: Orbis Books,
2010.
27 See Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, ‘Concerning the notion of person in theology’, Communio
17 (Fall 1990), 439–454.
spent much of his time as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith resisting the buffered approach to interreligious dialogue, a style
of argumentation which often ends up in some form of politically inspired
relativism. It was only in the last theological prise de position of his papacy as
Benedict xvi that he managed to bring to bear a profoundly theological riposte
to his own hesitation, viz. that the Christian is able to withstand the all-too-real
hazards of dialogue by virtue of the fact that Christ holds her by the hand:
To be sure, we do not possess the truth, the truth possesses us: Christ,
who is the truth, has taken us by the hand, and we know that his hand
is holding us securely on the path of our quest for knowledge. Being
inwardly held by the hand of Christ makes us free and keeps us safe:
free—because if we are held by him, we can enter openly and fearlessly
into any dialogue; safe—because he does not let go of us, unless we cut
ourselves off from him. At one with him, we stand in the light of truth.28
Benedict’s final embrace of interreligious dialogue brought to an end decades

of hesitation on the part of the Church and seems to have ushered in an
epoch of dialogical confidence and conviction, eloquently expressed in the
spontaneously dialogical style of Pope Francis.
The free expansion of the ‘we’ which is at stake here is also a theme explored
in the writings of one of Taylor’s ‘converts’, Ivan Illich. A Jewish convert to
Catholicism, who became a priest and eventually worked in Latin America
before eventually leaving the ministerial priesthood, Illich’s highly original
ideas have exerted a strong influence on Taylor’s recent thought.29 The essence
of the Gospel, for Illich, is the eruption of the possibility of gratuitous disym-
metrically proportionate friendships, such as that recounted by the parable of
the Good Samaritan, which, he believes, echoes the radically new kinds of rela-
tionship instantiated in the incarnation itself.
He [the Samaritan] is someone who not only goes outside his ethnic
preference for taking care of his own kind, but who commits a kind of
treason by caring for his enemy. In so doing, he exercises a freedom of
choice, whose radical novelty has often been overlooked. […] Jesus taught
the Pharisees that the relationship which he had come to announce to
28 Pope Benedict xvi, ‘Address on the occasion of Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia’,
Clementine Hall, 21 December 2012.
29 See Taylor, A Secular Age, 737–738.
444 howard
them as most completely human is not one that is expected, required or

owed. It can only be a free creation between two people, and one which
cannot happen unless something comes to me through the other, in his
bodily presence.30
This breaking out of customary relationship patterns into a new ‘we’ inaugu-
rates, in short, a new agape-network called the ‘Church’. This radical and novel
sociality, however, is slowly perverted by the desire which follows close upon
its heels. It becomes a Christian ‘duty’ to shore up the care and solidarity which
this spontaneous and essentially gratuitous network suddenly brings into being
with new impersonal rules and regulations. Spontaneous élan is superseded by
routine code. This bureaucratisation of the Gospel’s free and loving interper-
sonal encounter is, in Illich’s view, the mystery of the Antichrist to which the
New Testament alludes and which has continued to evolve and accompany the
mission of the Church at every turn. From the adoption of Christianity as a state
ideology in the Roman Empire to the modern welfare state, this monstrosity
has continued to pervert the Church’s mission, bringing about the systematised
and impersonal project of universal education and healthcare of the modern
world.
For Illich, the very essence of the Gospel is the new style of Christ which
involves nothing less than a rejection of all the ‘we-s or we’s’ which culture,
tribe and nation tend to construct in favour of a freely chosen, indeed trans-
gressive ‘we’ based on friendship. This living out of the style which informed
the incarnation itself was something he lived out in the most practical of ways,
too, and he did it because it was so profoundly subversive, scandalous, even, to
the impersonal imperative of bureaucratic welfare. The ecclesial commitment
to interreligious dialogue should, in fact, be as scandalous and as nonsensical.
It is surely a sign of the Antichrist at work, Illich would say, when even this
becomes government policy, yet another bureaucratic instrument to promote
social cohesion.
A post-buffered understanding of dialogue is as far from ‘buffered dialogue’
as the night is from the day. The ontological reality of the practice in each case,
of course, is the same. It reconstitutes us, reconfiguring our sociality (our ‘we’)
and transforming even our sense of ‘I’. It is just that the buffered interlocutor is
blind to the fact. The post-buffered convert, however, is in a position positively
to relish ‘the challenge of finding and sharing a “mystique” of living together, of
30 Ivan Illich, The Rivers North of the Future. The Testament of Ivan Illich as told to David Cayley,
Toronto: Anansi, 2005, 50–51.
mingling and encounter, of embracing and supporting one another, of stepping

into this flood tide which, while chaotic, can become a genuine experience of
fraternity, a caravan of solidarity, a sacred pilgrimage.’31
Conclusion: Towards a Both-And Narrative?
The religious landscape Taylor sketches is one of unquiet frontiers and unset-
tled horizons. He foresees no messianic breakthrough apt to retrieve us from
this situation, no creative post-modern happening offering exciting new pos-
sibilities. For those who look for such things, Taylor offers a bleak outlook. But
for those fearful that God Himself might disappear altogether from the Euro-
pean landscape, there is real hope, and not just because we know that the past
is always still with us.32 Taylor’s project entails the rewriting of the dominant
narrative of western history in such a way as to enable all those who partici-
pate in that civilisation to situate the other participants as reasonable and their
positions as intelligible. This is because the past is not irretrievably lost but
stored up around us, in attitudes and institutions, even in the recesses of our
inarticulate perceptions and all the subtle complexity of our social imaginar-
ies. The people of modernity, be they Christian, Muslim or profoundly secular,
share a sense of the past and consequently a sense of the present. The differ-
ences between our ‘takes’ on all of this are very much more modest than the
imaginary we have in common. It is true that we incline towards language of
stark division. It shores up our fragile sense of who we are. And behind that
language lies for each of us a narrative to which we attach our fragmentary
aspirations, those hints of the absolute which commend themselves to us. All of
which poses Taylor a question: why favour a narrative with irenic issue over the
many stories which divide? Why try and make belief and unbelief intelligible
to each other rather than entrench their opposition?33
There is arguably a dogmatic intuition underlying this: that we are beings in
communion, or that if we are not yet that then we are destined for it, if only we
knew it.34 Taylor’s ultimate aim is to commend communion, to encourage us
to taste the other in ourselves. This is a passion he shares with Illich, for whom
31 Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, 2014, 87.

33 A question inferred by Martin Jay in his discussion of A Secular Age, ‘Faith-based history’,
History and Theory 48 (2009), 76–84.
446 howard
the communion of friendship is gratuitous and sheer delight. It is what human

beings are deeply drawn to because it is how God is.
This brings me to a final thought: that the career of David Thomas provides
a living example of just such a free option for gratuitous friendship. David’s
name, as a result of choices he has made over the course of his life, will forever
be linked to Islam. That defining association has brought its great joys and
rewards. Yet, to many it will also seem nothing less than a transgression of
an important boundary. Why should a priest busy himself with the study of
Islam and the challenges faced by Muslims in the contemporary world instead
of serving the Christian community in a more direct manner? A life’s work of
genuine dialogue can only strike most of our contemporaries as a waste of time
and effort, not to say absurd and even perverse. Yet, these Taylorian reflections
suggest a different story, that such a life, in fact, figures the sacred in a human
life. For the final goal of dialogue, as of life, is to discover the one true God who,
in His incarnation, freely chose friendship with sinners. And to come to know
this is the only conversion that truly matters.
chapter 26
Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue: Towards a

More Interpersonal and Spiritual Engagement
Risto Jukko
It is not a particular novelty to say that ecumenical dialogue and interreligious

dialogue1 are similar in character, even if the world, including ecclesial and reli-
gious landscapes, is rapidly changing and sophisticated new technologies offer
ways of being in close contact with others. Until recently the forms and meth-
ods of both dialogues have remained more or less the same. This may be one
of the reasons why there has not been a real breakthrough either in ecumeni-
cal (or intra-Christian) dialogue, or in interreligious—interfaith—dialogue,
notwithstanding some exceptions. Even the language has not changed: ‘The
conceptual language of ecumenists has remained the same as it was forty or
even hundred years ago’.2 However, it is precisely the inherent personal char-
acter of both dialogues in their concrete forms which offers new approaches
that eschew old commonalities and priorities set by both dialogues, and takes
into consideration rapidly changing landscapes. Instead of pursuing dialogues
with old forms and methods, there are some new ways to learn from, and for,
these dialogues that constitute a step forward and also aids theological reflec-
tion in the pursuit of appropriate goals.3
In this paper I will first refer to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue in
the 20th century, from the point of view of the World Council of Churches and
the Roman Catholic Church,4 then show how these dialogues are at the same
1 The term ecumenical is used here to mean intra-Christian processes, the ultimate goal of
which is the overcoming of historic divisions. The term interreligious (or interfaith) refers to
processes between different religious traditions, e.g. between Christians and Muslims.
2 Kenneth Appold, L’oecuménisme contemporain: un changement de perspective?, in Michel
Deneken et Elisabeth Parmentier (eds.), La passion de la grâce. Mélanges offerts à André
Birmelé (Genève: Labor et Fides 2014), 261 (my translation).
3 I do not propose new goals for these dialogues. Instead, I try to show that through personal
and spiritual engagement, self-reflection and learning on both sides, it is possible to advance
towards appropriate goals. My point of view is one of a Christian theologian who is engaged
both in intra-Christian and interreligious dialogue.
4 These two entities cover some 75% of World Christianity. There were altogether some 2.376

448 jukko
time similar and dissimilar and how closely they have been in interaction, and
finally reflect on possibilities and limits of these two parallel, even convergent,
activities in changing landscapes to discover potentialities for both dialogues. I
will conclude with some tentative theological reflections on their meaning for
theology of dialogue.
Novelty, or Not?
At the beginning of the 21st century it may be somehow forgotten that the
modern understanding of the term dialogue—either in ecumenical or inter-
religious sense of dialogue—is really a ‘product’ of the 20th century and thus
a sort of novelty in the history of the Christian Church. It was not earlier than
after the Second World War that the term dialogue was brought into the Chris-
tian language and theology by the ecumenical movement. Even the Gospel was
said to be dialogic.5 There have been intra-Christian dialogues since the first
century of the Common Era (the most famous recorded in Acts 15), and Chris-
tians have encountered adherents of other religions or philosophies since the
very beginning of Christianity (see, e.g., Acts 17), generating a variety of the-
ological responses. And yet, the understanding we have today of ‘dialogue’ is
much impacted by the last 50–60 or so years. This is because two great pivotal
events took place in Christianity around the mid-20th century in the after-
math of World War ii. At Amsterdam in 1948 the World Council of Churches
(wcc) was established.6 The single biggest Christian church in the world, the
Roman Catholic Church, did not become a member of the wcc and still is not,
even though there are many institutional links between it and the wcc. But
the Roman Catholic Church held its own 21st ecumenical council, the Second
billion Christians in the world in mid-2014. More than 51% of them were Roman Catholic
Christians (International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 38, No. 1, January 2014, 29). For
lack of space, I will not deal with non-wcc churches other than the Roman Catholic Church.
5 Paul Löffler, Dialog mit anderen Religionen, in Hanfried Krüger, Werner Löser und Walter
Müller-Römheld (hrsg.), Ökumene-Lexikon (Frankfurt am Main: Lembeck 1983), 259–260.
Dialogue is not an invention of Christianity; for example Plato and the Socratic dialogues
were a dialogic phenomenon long before Christianity.
6 Even though Life and Work held its first meeting in Stockholm in 1925, and Faith and Order
in Lausanne in 1927, these movements needed a more solid framework to join in, which was
provided in the wcc. On the establishment of the wcc, see, e.g., Willem Adolf Visser ’t Hooft,
The Genesis of the World Council of Churches, in Ruth Rouse and Stephen Charles Neill
(eds.), A History of the Ecumenical Movement, Volume 1: 1517–1948 (Geneva: World Council
of Churches 2004), 697–724.
ecumenical and interreligious dialogue 449
Vatican Council, in 1962–1965, and this event was characterized by three key-
words: ressourcement, aggiornamento, and conversazione.7 The importance of
these two events in the field of intra-Christian and interreligious relations can
hardly be overestimated.8
The ecumenical vision of the 20th century was formulated in 1948 as follows:
‘The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of Churches which accepts our
Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour’.9 This may have appeared to constitute
an exclusive fellowship of Christian churches, the purpose of which is to foster
only Christian unity; but it was not only that. Unity implies openness to oth-
ers, whoever they are. Besides the intra-Christian dimension of the ecumenical
basis of the wcc, in the background of the modern ecumenical movement was
the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910, and the establishment
of the International Missionary Council (imc) in Lake Mohonk, u.s.a., in 1921.10
The imc was integrated into the wcc during its General Assembly in New Delhi
in 1961,11 but before that the imc had organized several World Missionary Con-
7 See, e.g., Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak (eds.), History of Vatican ii, Vol-
umes i–v. (Leuven: Peeters/Maryknoll, n.y.: Orbis 1995–2006).
8 ‘In the religious history of the twentieth century, ecumenical engagement among Chris-
tian churches, encounters of the world religions with each other, and the Second Vatican
Council of the Roman Catholic Church must each be considered of major importance’,
David F. Ford, Introduction—Interreligious Reading After Vatican ii: Scriptural Reason-
ing, Comparative Theology and Receptive Ecumenism, Modern Theology 29:4 (2013), 1.
In his article Ford omits one theologically crucial and inherent dimension of theology,
namely mission. Michael Barnes, Reading Other Religious Texts: Intratextuality and the
Logic of Scripture, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 46:3 (Summer 2011), 404 notes this vital
dimension in relation to Scriptural Reasoning: ‘sr [Scriptural Reasoning] quite overtly
asks its practitioners to recognize a world of broken relationships and to participate in
God’s work of healing—what Barth would have called the Missio Dei.’ Barnes empha-
sizes the task of Scriptural Reasoning to repair the brokenness of interreligious rela-
tions.
9 Cited, e.g., in Visser ’t Hooft 2004, 705.
10 See, e.g., Kenneth Scott Latourette, Ecumenical Bearings of the Missionary Movement
and the International Missionary Council, in Rouse and Neill (eds.) 2004, 353–402. On
Edinburgh 1910, see, e.g., Brian Stanley, The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans 2009).
11 ‘I have witnessed the enormous frustrations experienced by these general secretaries [of
the wcc] in their failed attempts to integrate the three movements [the imc, the Faith
and Order movement, and the Life and Work movement] through new program proposals
and by restructuring the Council’, S. Wesley Ariarajah, Mission and Ecumenism Today:
Reflections on the Tenth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Busan, Republic of
Korea, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 38, No. 2 (April 2014), 61.
450 jukko
ferences, and especially in Jerusalem 1928 and in Tambaram 1938 where non-
Christian religions were discussed from the point of view of Christian mission.
Since the 1961 integration, and especially at a Bangkok meeting in 1973, interre-
ligious dialogue has been on the agenda of the wcc. It can be argued that due
to the 1961 integration of mission into wcc structures, interreligious dialogue
could really step in, even though there had been preliminary wcc-sponsored
study programs of non-Christian religions already since the 1950s.12
The real point of entry of interreligious dialogue into the ecumenical move-
ment in the modern sense of dialogue happened in the 1960s. At the beginning,
the wcc was not sure how to proceed in respect to interfaith relations. The first
preparatory meetings for interreligious dialogue were intra-Christian meetings
(in Broumana, Lebanon, 1966, and Kandy, Sri Lanka, 1967). In 1969 the Central
Committee of the wcc decided to start dialogues with non-Christian tradi-
tions and with secular ideologies. The first wcc-sponsored Christian-Muslim
dialogue meeting took place in 1969 in Cartigny, Switzerland.13 In 1971 the Cen-
tral Committee of the wcc decided to establish a unit of interreligious dialogue
in the wcc structures. The first leader of this unit was Stanley J. Samartha, an
Indian theologian, followed by S. Wesley Ariarajah, a Sri Lankan theologian.
Under the leadership of these two Asian theologians, this wcc unit has been
the focus of many struggles, as well as wide support, within the wcc. At the
12 It seems that in recent years in the ecumenical movement, especially in the wcc, both
ecumenism and mission have come closer together, structurally and also in theological
understanding. This is explicit in two new wcc documents, one from the Commission of
Faith and Order (The Church: Towards a Common Vision, 2012) and one from the Commis-
sion on World Mission and Evangelism (Together Towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in
Changing Landscapes, 2012). However, the intimate relation between ecumenism, mission
and interreligious dialogue is not often emphasized enough in scholarly works. It opens
an interesting question of the relation between mission and ecumenism on the one hand,
and mission and interreligious dialogue, and ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, on
the other. Without going into more detail here, it is sufficient to say from the point of view
of Christian theology that mission is always ecumenical and dialogical, and ecumenism
and interreligious dialogue have always a missionary, or witnessing, dimension. Interreli-
gious dialogue does not lead into syncretism that would water down Christian mission or
ecumenism.
13 A good overview of the first wcc-sponsored Christian-Muslim dialogues can be found in
Stuart E. Brown, Meeting in Faith: Twenty Years of Christian-Muslim Conversations Spon-
sored by the World Council of Churches (Geneva: World Council of Churches 1989). A new,
interesting initiative coming from the Muslim side has been a letter signed by 138 Islamic
personalities and addressed to Christian leaders in 2007. It is entitled ‘A Common Word
Between Us and You.’ See www.acommonword.com (accessed on June 22, 2014).
wcc General Assembly in Nairobi in 1975, for example, it was accused of foster-
ing syncretism, a charge it resoundingly rebuffed.14
Since the 1990s, not least because of some modifications in the admin-
istrative structures, the enthusiasm and resources of the wcc for interreli-
gious encounters became somewhat diminished. In recent years, due in part
to decreasing wcc resources, theological reflection on interreligious dialogue
and theology of religions in the wcc has not been highly intensive.15 In the
interreligious dialogue activities of the wcc there seems rather to have been
two tendencies: a more liberal type of approach, represented by some wcc
interfaith officers in Geneva, producing sometimes radical-sounding material
for interreligious dialogue; and more conservative-traditional comments and
statements produced by decision-making bodies of the wcc. This seems to be
reflective of a larger dilemma within interfaith relations in general: there are
many interfaith organizations in the world that consist of enthusiastic individ-
uals, who do not represent anything and who do not engage anybody but who
make radical-sounding statements. With respect to ecclesial bodies, they tend
to follow a line of thinking and decisions that are more conservative and theo-
logically and doctrinally founded.16
For the Roman Catholic Church, the Second Vatican Council was a real
watershed in many ways. It opened the Church to ecumenical relations through
its decisions and documentation, especially the dogmatic constitution on the
Church, Lumen Gentium (lg, 1964), and the decree on ecumenism Unitatis Red-
integratio (ur, 1964).17 It must be remembered that the opening of the Roman
Catholic Church to ecumenical relations in the 20th century was rapid. After
the first Faith and Order meeting in 1927, at the beginning of the following year
14 ‘Nairobi, however, is remembered mostly for the acrimonious and heated debate over the
program Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies.’ (Ariarajah 2014, 59).
15 A new wcc report, A Faith That Does Justice: The Journey of the World Council of Churches
from Porto Alegre to Busan (Geneva: wcc, 2013) states (p. 55) that ‘total annual contribu-
tions income [of the wcc] decreased from chf 37.1 million in 2006 to chf 22.2 million
in 2011 (40 % decrease).’ As far as I could personally observe, interreligious dialogue was
not very visible during the Tenth General Assembly of the wcc in Busan, South Korea, in
2013.
16 Risto Saarinen, Johdatus ekumeniikkaan [‘Introduction to Ecumenics’] (Helsinki: Kir-
janeliö 1994), 244.
17 Both documents were approved on November 21, 1964. ur 22 announces subjects of ecu-
menical dialogue when it states that ‘doctrine about the Lord’s supper, about the other
sacraments, worship, and ministry in the church, should figure among subjects of dia-
logue.’ Austin Flannery (ed.), Vatican Council ii. The Basic Sixteen Documents: Constitu-
tions, Decrees, Declarations (Northport, n.y.: Costello 1996), 520.
452 jukko
Pope Pius xi (1922–1939) stated in his encyclical letter Mortalium Animos (Jan-
uary 6, 1928)18 that the Roman Catholic Church did not allow its members to
participate in non-Catholic ecumenical gatherings.19 Pope Pius xii (1939–1958)
in his encyclical Humani Generis (August 12, 1950)20 criticized ‘false eirenicism’,
referring to the ecumenical movement. And yet, the Secretariat for Promoting
Christian Unity was established in 1960 by Pope John xxiii (1958–1963), just
two years before the opening of the Second Vatican Council.
During this Council, Pope Paul vi went to pilgrimage to the Holy Land in
1964 and met with Patriarch Athenagoras i of Constantinople. Even though
the encounter was not received with satisfaction by all Orthodox leaders, it
showed, however, that a step was taken towards communion between Rome
and Constantinople and other patriarchates of the Orthodoxy. The step must
be set in the framework of Vatican ii, because a Catholic-Orthodox Joint Decla-
ration was made public on December 7, 1965, simultaneously during a Second
Vatican Council meeting and at a special ceremony in Constantinople. This
was the mutual lifting of the anathemas between Rome and Constantinople,
existing since 1054.21 It can be mentioned, too, that since 1968, the Roman
Catholic Church has been, among other things, member in the Commission of
Faith and Order of the wcc, and has engaged in several ecumenical dialogues.
Interreligious encounters and dialogue have been part of the life and history
of the (Roman Catholic) Church, probably more so than of any other Christian
denomination. This has been due to positive attitude toward cultures, and the
emphasis on nature, general revelation, and grace present in other religious tra-
ditions. Also many written statements exist in church documentation, given by
various authorities in the Church.22
The attitude or approach to other religions has been overwhelmingly that of
the dimension of salvation: can non-Christians be saved, and, more recently,
are non-Christian religions ways of salvation?23 These two questions have
18 Acta Apostolicae Sedis 20 (1928), 5–16.

19 ‘Itaque, Venerabiles Fratres, planum est cur haec Apostolica Sedes numquam siverit suos
acatholicorum interesse conventibus: christianorum enim coniunctionem haud aliter
foveri licet, quam fovendo dissidentium ad unam veram Christi Ecelesiam [sic] reditu,
quandoquidem olim ab ea infeliciter descivere.’
21 For historical reasons, the Eastern form of Christianity has always been closer to Rome
than Protestant churches at least since the second general council of Lyons (1274).
22 See, e.g., J. Neuner and J. Dupuis (eds.), The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of
the Catholic Church (New York: Alba House 2001), 415–460.
23 See, e.g., Francis A. Sullivan, Salvation outside the Church? Tracing the History of the
been dominant until Vatican ii, and the latter especially after Vatican ii.24
Taking these into consideration, the Vatican ii declaration on the relation of
the Church to non-Christian religions Nostra Aetate (na, 1965) is a huge step
forward. Nostra Aetate has been very important both interreligiously and ecu-
menically. It (na 2) declares that ‘the Catholic Church rejects nothing of what
is true and holy in these religions. It has a high regard for the manner of life
and conduct, the precepts and doctrines which, although differing in many
ways from its own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which
enlightens all men and women.’25 Nostra Aetate thus opens new possibilities
for interreligious dialogue and especially for Jewish-Christian encounters as
it does not accept any charges against Jews for murdering Jesus. On a prac-
tical level, the document asks Catholics to engage in dialogue and coopera-
tion with non-Christians: ‘The church, therefore, urges its sons and daughters
to enter with prudence and charity into discussion and collaboration with
members of other religions. Let Christians, while witnessing to their own faith
and way of life, acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral
truths found among non-Christians, together with their social life and culture’
(na 2).26
Lumen Gentium 15 speaks of those who are baptized and ‘honoured by the
name of Christian, but do not profess the faith in its entirety or have not pre-
Catholic Response (New York: Paulist Press 1992); and Jacques Dupuis, Toward a Christian
Theology of Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll: n.y.: Orbis 1997).
24 See, e.g., Dupuis 1997, 158–201.
25 Cited in Flannery 1996, 570–571; in Latin: ‘Ecclesia catholica nihil eorum, quae in his
religionibus vera et sancta sunt, reicit. Sincera cum observantia considerat illos modos
agendi et vivendi, illa praecepta et doctrinas, quae, quamvis ab iis quae ipsa tenet et
proponit in multis discrepent, haud raro referunt tamen radium illius Veritatis, quae
illuminat omnes homines.’ It must be noted that the passage immediately goes on as
follows: ‘Yet it proclaims and is in duty bound to proclaim without fail, Christ who is
the way, the truth and the life (Jn. 1:6). In him, in whom God reconciled all things to
himself (see 2 Cor. 5:18–19), people find the fullness of their religious life.’ On relations
between Nostra Aetate (interreligious dialogue) and Ad Gentes (mission) in Vatican ii
documentation, see, e.g., Kristin M. Colberg, The omnipresence of grace: revisiting the
relationship between Ad Gentes and Nostra Aetate 50 years later, Missiology 42:2 (April
2014), 181–194.
26 Cited in Flannery 1996, 571; in Latin: ‘Filios suos igitur hortatur, ut cum prudentia et
caritate per colloquia et collaborationem cum asseclis aliarum religionum, fidem et vitam
christianam testantes, illa bona spritualia et moralia necnon illos valores socio-culturales,
quae apud eos inveniuntur, agnoscant, servent et promoveant.’ The Latin word used here,
as in the majority of the conciliar documents, is colloquium, not dialogus.
454 jukko
served unity of communion under the successor of Peter.’27 Ecumenical and

interfaith dimensions are so closely attached in the document that immedi-
ately the following paragraph, Lumen Gentium 16, deals with ‘those who have
not yet accepted the Gospel’. It affirms the mystery of God’s love and states
that they are ‘related to the people of God in various ways’. Considering Jews,
‘that people to whom the covenants and promises were made, and from whom
Christ was born in the flesh’, they are said to be a people of election, and God
does not regret his gifts or his call (to them).28 With respect to Muslims, it states
that ‘the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator,
first among whom are the Moslems: they profess to hold the faith of Abraham,
and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, who will judge human-
ity on the last day’ (lg 16).29 No other non-Christian religion is mentioned by
name in the paragraph, but an inclusive concept of salvation is affirmed.30
The specific language of dialogue was introduced to the Second Vatican
Council by Pope Paul vi.31 He was elected to the papacy in July 1963, during
the Council, and he made public that he was working on an encyclical that
would address the mission of the Church. The encyclical came out on August
6, 1964, and was called Ecclesiam Suam.32 In the encyclical, Paul vi speaks of
a ‘dialogue of salvation’ which God engages with humankind.33 Its impact on
some Vatican ii documents that were published later, for example the decree
on ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, the declaration on religious liberty Dig-
nitatis Humanae (dh),34 and the pastoral constitution on the Church in the
modern world, Gaudium et Spes, is undeniable.
27 Cited in Flannery 1996, 21.

29 Cited in Flannery 1996, 21–22.
30 ‘Nor will divine providence deny the assistance necessary for salvation to those who,
without any fault of theirs, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God, and who,
not without grace, strive to lead a good life.’ (Cited in Flannery 1996, 22).
31 John W. O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican ii (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap
Press 2008), 203–204.
32 Acta Apostolicae Sedis 56 (1964), 609–659. See especially Evangelista Vilanova, The Inter-
session (1963–1964), in Alberigo and Komonchak (eds.), Volume iii, 2000, 448–457.
33 ‘The encyclical had a direct impact on the council in one important regard, the remarkable
prominence it gave to dialogue. Paul appropriated the word from Buber, it seems, through
the mediation of his friend Jean Guitton, the prominent philosopher-theologian, a French
layman’ (O’Malley 2008, 204).
34 E.g. dh 3: ‘The search for truth, however, must be carried out in a manner that is appro-
priate to the dignity and social nature of the human person: that is, by free enquiry with
the help of teaching or instruction, communication and dialogue.’ (Cited in Flannery 1996,
554).
More Similar Than Just by Name?
Ecumenical and interreligious dialogues are similar. To start with, both are
called ‘dialogues’. In Christian theology, an explanation for any dialogue is the
doctrine of creation: God did not create human beings as one, but to the diver-
sity of being human and also being man and woman.35 In theology, dialogue is
normally used to describe relations between various Christian churches (ecu-
menical dialogue), and relations between Christian and non-Christian persons
or religions (interreligious or interfaith dialogue).36
Dialogue is supposed to lead to a new attitude towards people belonging
to other churches, religions, or ideologies. It wants to understand better the
other and his or her faith, in the same way as the other understands himself
or herself. There can be no feeling of superiority or absoluteness or intention
to convince the other, but rather a willingness to learn from the other, keeping
one’s own conviction.37 A definition of interreligious dialogue says that people
come together
… as religiously committed persons with the view of enriching, deepen-

ing and broadening their religious life through mutual understanding of
one another’s convictions in obedience to truth and respect for freedom
and through witnessing and the exploration of respective religious con-
victions. Dialogue is a positive effort to arrive at a deeper understanding
of truth through mutual awareness of one another’s conviction and wit-
nessing.38
35 Bernhard Casper, Dialog. Dialogik i. Philosophisch, in Walter Kasper (ed.), Lexikon für
Theologie und Kirche. Band 3. Freiburg: Herder 1995, 192.
36 Interreligious dialogue always takes place between (adherents of) concrete religions: ‘Le
dialogue interreligieux en général n’existe pas. Il s’ agit toujours du dialogue entre deux
religions concrètes’, Claude Geffré, La portée théologique du dialogue islamo-chrétien,
Islamochristiana 18 (1992), 6.
37 John Cobb, who has been involved in Christian-Buddhist dialogue for many years, affirms:
‘Whereas much past competition among the traditions has been mutually destructive,
competition in learning from one another and being transformed by what is learned will
prove constructive.’ John B. Cobb Jr., Beyond ‘Pluralism’, in Gavin D’Costa (ed.), Christian
Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (Maryknoll, n.y.:
Orbis 1998), 92.
38 Mariasusai Dhavamony, Christian Theology of Religions: A Systematic Reflection on the
Christian Understanding of World Religions (Bern: Peter Lang 1998), 202.
456 jukko
The document of the Vatican’s Secretariat for Non-Christians called ‘The

Attitude of the Church toward Followers of Other Religions: Reflections and
Orientations on Dialogue and Mission’ (May 10, 1984)39 gives four forms of dia-
logue. The first is the dialogue of life, a daily encounter in a pluralistic situation,
where people strive to live in an open and neighbourly spirit, sharing their joys
and sorrows, their human problems and existential preoccupations. As a mat-
ter of fact, this kind of dialogue is probably the most common. The challenge of
religious pluralism is concretely experienced in daily life. This dialogue is open
and available to all (paragraphs 29–30 in the document). The second form is
the dialogue of action, or a common commitment to the works of justice, in
which Christians and others collaborate for some communal benefit or justice
and the integral development and liberation of people (31–32).40 The third form
is the dialogue of theological exchange, or intellectual dialogue (academic dia-
logue), where specialists seek to deepen their understanding of their respective
religious heritages, to appreciate each other’s spiritual values and to promote
communion and fellowship (33–34). Fourthly, in the dialogue of religious expe-
rience, or spiritual dialogue, people who are nevertheless rooted in their own
religious traditions concentrate on sharing their spiritual riches and experi-
ences, for example with regard to prayer and contemplation, faith and ways
of searching for God or the Absolute (35).41
Considering interreligious dialogue, it seems that those forms of dialogue
fostering cooperation and social action, aiming at better relationships, mutual
learning and removing misconceptions, are almost unanimously affirmed by
everybody. It is thus no wonder that especially in interreligious dialogue main
motives have been social justice, moral values, and peace. Statements concern-
ing the practice of dialogue are clear and unambiguous. There is generally no
debate concerning dialogue as an essential attitude expressing the Christian’s

40 A special attention must be paid to interreligious situations in Asia, where Christians
are in minority positions (the Philippines excluded) and permanently live among non-
Christians. In North America and Europe, Christians can invite non-Christians occasion-
ally for dialogue and conversation, whereas in Asia there is a daily and permanent engage-
ment in dialogue of life. Joys and sufferings are shared in a daily basis. See, for example,
Jonathan Y. Tan, Rethinking the Relationship between Christianity and World Religions,
and Exploring Its Implications for Doing Christian Mission in Asia. Missiology 39:4 (Octo-
ber 2011), 497–509.
41 Cited also e.g. in Francesco Gioia (ed.), Interreligious Dialogue: The Official Teaching of
the Catholic Church from the Second Vatican Council to John Paul ii (1963–2005) (Boston:
Pauline Books & Media 2006), 1125–1126.
approach to people of other religions and cultures (and also to other Chris-
tians).42 However, disagreements may appear when different kinds of expec-
tations beyond these generally accepted aims and the necessity of practicing
dialogue are proposed.43
Is there a form of dialogue among these four cited above that could not be
applied to both ecumenical and interreligious dialogue? The only suspect, at
first sight, could be the dialogue of action. And it is easy to discern that this is
exactly what churches together in Christian mission have been doing. It must
be remembered that both Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio insist that
Christian unity must be fostered because of mission. God has called the whole
humanity to the saving unity of a visible sacrament, and this sacrament is the
Church.44 Ecclesiology, Christology, and missiology are central to Christian the-
ology. In addition to similar forms, another convergence between ecumenical
and interreligious dialogue is that they have similar methods. There are so-
called institutional or hierarchical dialogues (third form in the list cited above),
where representatives of various institutions, normally leaders of religious tra-
ditions, or specialists of respective religions, meet and discuss some relevant
topics. Each church or religious tradition presents its point of view on the given
topic, and then listens to the others. The outcome may be a publication, for
example, in which those orally given speeches are published in written form.
It may be a common statement or a special study document, delivered in the
name of the group gathered. However, this kind of dialogue is felt to be the
most remote by ordinary believers, who often do not even know of such high-
level dialogues, and is felt to have practically no impact on anybody’s everyday
life.45 It can even be asked whether there is a true encounter at all, if it does not
engage anybody’s self-reflection. The fact itself of coming together is construc-
tive, but it does not take the dialogue very far if it is only listening to the other
42 James A. Scherer, Gospel, Church, & Kingdom: Comparative Studies in World Mission The-
ology (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House 1987), 230.
43 Cf. Jean-Claude Basset, Le dialogue interreligieux: Chance ou déchéance de la foi (Paris: Cerf
1996), 342.
44 E.g. ur 1: ‘… as if Christ himself were divided. Certainly, such division openly contradicts
the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages the sacred cause of preaching the
Gospel to every creature’ (Flannery 1996, 499). E.g. lg 9: ‘All those, who in faith look
towards Jesus, the author of salvation and the source of unity and peace, God has gathered
together and established as the church, that it may be for each and every one the visible
sacrament of this saving unity’, (Flannery 1996, 13–14).
45 E.g. Appold (2014, 256) states that in the u.s.a. ‘the dialogue between Lutherans, Angli-
cans, Presbyterians, and Catholics, for example, has not had any impact on the respective
parishes’ (my translation).
458 jukko
and then presenting one’s own point of view, if there is no learning from the
other, or engaging in self-critical reflection. In dialogues, some progress has no
doubt been made, but it seems that at least in ecumenical dialogues, this kind
of encounter is somewhat losing its dominant position. Either there must be a
change in methodology in these kinds of dialogues and their implementation
towards more interpersonal engagement, or ecumenical dialogues have to look
for other ways and forms to advance.
Another important similarity is that in many cases both ecumenical and
interreligious dialogue work on texts in order to find a consensus and/or to
affirm differences. In ecumenical dialogues, work often takes place on theolog-
ical and confessional texts. George A. Lindbeck has said that ‘canonical texts
are a condition, not only for the survival of a religion but for the very possibil-
ity of normative theological description’.46 Texts are in relation to other texts,
i.e., they are part of a wider intertextual framework. Engagement with texts is
an important but at the same time also a limiting factor in any ecumenical dia-
logue. Not everybody can participate in such a work; not every member of a
Lutheran church, for example, knows the text of the confessional basis of his
or her church tradition. Not every Lutheran pastor knows or has read the Book
of Concord, or the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Certainly,
this kind of textual-theological work is important, but does not necessarily
lead to new ways of reflecting or of self-critical thinking. It may do that, and
some scholars and religious leaders are more prone to it than others. However,
this similarity—of engagement with texts—between the different dialogues is
also dissimilarity for the engagements are by no means symmetrical. There is
a methodological difference between ecumenical and interreligious dialogue
when it comes to working with texts. Ecumenical dialogue typically concen-
trates on written texts, including statements of doctrine, faith or ethics; by
comparison, interreligious dialogue uses also practices of religions, in addi-
tion to written texts, as its material. This partly dissimilar basis leads to two
types of methodology. Ecumenical dialogue typically is deductive by nature.
It states and affirms principles of doctrine and confession, and then follows
consequences of these deductive affirmations. A weakness is that ecumenical
dialogue may remain on a highly theoretical level and may not dare to take any
decision or advance into the practical level in which the adherents of various
churches live and meet with one another. Another consequence is that partici-
pants typically are highly trained theologians and/or leaders of their respective
46 George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age
(Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press 1984), 116.
communities. The very dialogical process tends to exclude the ‘ordinary’ or

‘grassroots’ people, who typically are lay persons, often women or youth, and
most often not specialists in theology or religion.
Interreligious dialogue often is inductive by nature, based on praxis. It takes
as its starting point the reality as it is experienced today, from concrete appli-
cations to principles. ‘One begins with the praxis of interreligious dialogue
among the various traditions—lived, on either side, in one’s own faith, as is
fitting—and theological reflection concerning the relationship of these tradi-
tions follows as a “second act”.’47 One weakness is that inductive interreligious
dialogue may remain ineffectual or hesitant and may not dare, or is not capa-
ble, of advancing into theological discourse.48 Another consequence is that
participants—except in the case of theological dialogue—often are ordinary
people who want to take concrete steps and rapidly advance towards com-
mon expressions of their respective faiths, sometimes without considering the
larger context of dialogue and without following the guidelines adopted by the
decision-making bodies of their respective communities, which may lead to
tensions within faith communities between the leadership and the grassroots
level. These dissimilarities have paradoxically led to symmetrical movements
in recent years. In respect to interreligious dialogue this has meant a turning
to religious texts read, not (only) by the experts, but also by ordinary non-
specialist people. In ecumenical dialogue this has meant a search for new ways
to link up with ordinary folk, not (only) with texts, but also with shared stories
and narratives, sharing of real spiritual experiences of people.
Written and Oral Texts in Dialogue
One of the recent tendencies in interreligious dialogue is that there is a grad-

ual shift from bilateral dialogues to multi-lateral dialogues and enterprises.
Even if bilateral dialogue is the basic model, there is an increasing amount
of multi-lateral dialogues. In the field of interfaith issues, especially Jewish-
47 Dupuis 1997, 17.

48 Dupuis 1997, 17. David Lochhead in his The Dialogical Imperative: A Christian Reflection on
Interfaith Encounter (London: scm Press 1988), 60–61, remarks that the model often used
in Christian-Muslim dialogue is the so-called negotiation model. From a common starting
point (what is held in common), the parties try to work at clarifying their differences. Islam
shares with Christianity monotheism and “much of the mythology, legends, and history of
ancient Israel”.
460 jukko
Christian-Muslim dialogue is becoming more common.49 One example of this

tendency in multi-lateral interreligious dialogues is the discovery of a practice
of engaging scriptural intertextuality between the three monotheist religions.
Obviously requiring the existence of written texts of the traditions in dialogue,
this practice is called Scriptural Reasoning.50 As has been remarked, the ‘roots
of sr [Scriptural Reasoning] are … complex; in addition to the influence of
[Peter] Ochs and the Jewish Talmudic tradition, sr owes much of its specifically
Christian credentials to the ‘postliberal’ theology associated with Hans Frei
and George Lindbeck’.51 Scriptural Reasoning is an inter-Abrahamic52 study
process in which Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures are carefully and dis-
cerningly read together, the religious traditions practicing mutual hospitality
around these texts. It began in the 1990s, and on the Christian side it has been
ever ecumenical by nature.53 Concentrating on foundational texts in interreli-
gious dialogue has many advantages as a method. First, it does not necessarily
require high-level specialization in one’s own tradition, even though there is an
undeniable charge that Scriptural Reasoning is covertly elitist. Basically, to be a
believer committed to one’s religious tradition and loving one’s scriptures and
foundational texts is enough, as dialogue takes place on different levels, from
places of worship to academies. Second, concentrating on scriptures ensures
that interreligious dialogue takes into account core concerns of both (or those)
traditions present in the dialogue, even though there is an inherent risk in
49 It is not quite clear, to my knowledge, when exactly the term ‘Judeo-Christian-Islamic’ dia-
logue came into common usage. In the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland there has
been a working group for Jewish-Christian relations since 1977, and for Muslim-Christian
relations since 1988. A recent development has been a Jewish-Christian-Muslim gather-
ing, started two times a year in 2012. The group started to apply the practice of Scriptural
Reasoning in its meetings in 2013.
50 See www.scripturalreasoning.org (accessed on April 12, 2014). For a theological overview,
see, David F. Ford and C.C. Pecknold (eds.), The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning (Malden,
ma: Blackwell Publishing 2006). See also the online Journal of Scriptural Reasoning (http://
etext.virginia.edu/journals/ssr/).
51 Barnes 2011, 403.
52 Nothing prevents the practice from being used for the study of scripture across the borders
of Asian traditions as well, and some attempts have already been made.
53 Since Vatican ii, the Roman Catholic Church has exhorted its ministers and laypersons
to read the Bible: ‘Therefore, all clerics, particularly priests of Christ and others who, as
deacons or catechists, are officially engaged in the ministry of the Word, should immerse
themselves in the scriptures by constant spiritual reading and diligent study’ (Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum 25; cited in Flannery 1996, 113–114). Reading
scriptures of other, non-Christian, traditions is a logical step forward.
Scriptural Reasoning that the textuality of a religion becomes overly empha-

sized, as there is more to any religion than its written or oral teachings.
Third, it enlarges the comprehension of participants, as scriptures cannot
be said to belong to just one faith community or one confessional family only.
They are the common heritage of everybody, all humanity and all human
beings. They include richness and wisdom whose possible interpretations go
far beyond any single religious tradition. This attitude greatly promotes the idea
of togetherness, common sharing, and learning. The aim of Scriptural Reason-
ing ‘is not to defend particular meanings but to uncover the most significant
assumptions and inner logic that give a shape to the tradition as a whole’.54
Scriptural Reasoning offers an occasion to self-criticism, if and when needed,
as ‘recovering the Christian interpretive tradition in the presence of Abrahamic
fellowship offers the discipline of encounter with others, so that it becomes
more than a recovery, becoming instead a re-invigoration and re-imagination
of the deep wisdom of our own tradition’.55 One of the major advantages of
Scriptural Reasoning seems to be an open possibility of learning. This happens
from another, and includes self-critical reflection, too.56 Scriptural Reasoning
is above all a practice and only then a theory.
If in interreligious dialogue there has been a shift towards multi-lateral dia-
logue and more intensive study of scriptures, in ecumenical dialogue there has
been a shift towards more multi-lateral dialogue, too, but towards a form of dia-
logue less concentrated on the scriptures, or texts in general. There are several
reasons for this. It can be argued that ecumenical dialogues in the framework
of the World Council of Churches have suffered at least from three weaknesses.
The first one is that the wcc has typically concentrated on a hierarchically
high-level church-to-church dialogue, often felt to be elitist and too detached
from the life and realities of local parishes and ordinary Christians. In addition,
this has led to a tendency to functionalize dialogue as a means to come to a
54 Barnes 2011, 400.

55 Kevin L. Hughes, Deep Reasonings: Sources Chretiennes, Ressourcement, and the Logic
of Scripture in the years before—and after—Vatican ii. Modern Theology 29:4 (2013), 45
(emphasis in the original).
56 Paul D. Murray, in his ‘Families of Receptive Theological Learning: Scriptural Reason-
ing, Comparative Theology, and Receptive Ecumenism’, Modern Theology 29:4 (2013), 89,
points to the intra-Christian interplay between shared reading and shared Eucharist.
He mentions the fact that some Christian traditions are not able to break the bread of
Eucharist together, and remarks that ‘in this context … this emphasis on already being
capable of breaking the nourishing word of hallowed scripture across and between such
divisions is highly significant.’
462 jukko
doctrinal consensus. Another weakness is that it has not managed, even after
Vatican ii and its aggiornamento, to engage and include the Roman Catholic
Church as a member church, and it also had enormous difficulties to keep
Orthodox churches as members during the 1990s. In addition to the absence
of the Roman Catholic Church, the wcc has not managed to convince and
engage many smaller, denominationally independent churches in the Global
South, especially in Africa and Asia, and yet many of these are among the fastest
growing churches in the world, whereas many main-line Protestant churches in
the Global North are suffering from declining memberships.57 This leads to the
third weakness of the wcc. It has not been able to keep up with the changing
landscapes of World Christianity. At the end of 2013, the wcc had 345 member
churches, whereas according to a recent statistic there are over 45,000 Christian
denominations in the world.58 The result is that the World Council of Churches,
with approx. 550 million Christians, represents only some 25 % of the world’s
Christians.59 There is an urgent need to find and adapt new forms and methods
for dialogue.60
Around the same time as Scriptural Reasoning was taking its first steps, a
new way towards intra-Christian understanding and unity saw daylight in the
form of a movement called the Global Christian Forum (gfc).61 As a matter
of fact, it was proposed by the then General Secretary of the World Council of
Churches, Konrad Raiser, at the end of the 1990s. The basic idea is to create a
new place of encounter, independent of existing ecumenical structures, which
are often perceived to be too hierarchical. Arising out of the Eighth wcc Gen-
eral Assembly in Harare in 1998, the forum was entrusted to an autonomous
Continuation Committee, which since 1998 has convened various meetings in
order to refine and advance this vision. The Guiding Purpose Statement affirms
that the gfc wants ‘to create an open space wherein representatives from a
57 The Global North contained 80 % of Christians in 1910, and 40% in 2010; Wesley Granberg-
Michaelson, From Times Square to Timbuktu: The Post-Christian West Meets the Non-
Western Church (Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 2013),
8.
58 See www.oikoumene.org; www.philvaz.com/apologetics/a106.htm (accessed on May 31,
2014).
59 Granberg-Michaelson (2013, 14) notes that “the changing dynamics of world Christianity
are rapidly outpacing the ability of existing structures to comprehend and respond to
these new realities.”
60 See, e.g. Appold 2014, 261–262.
61 See www.globalchristianforum.org (accessed on April 12, 2014). See also, e.g., Granberg-
Michaelson 2013, 58–69.
broad range of Christian churches and inter-church organizations, which con-

fess the triune God and Jesus Christ as perfect in His divinity and humanity,
can gather to foster mutual respect, to explore and address together common
challenges’.62 The Global Christian Forum offers new opportunities—a new
ecumenical space—for broadening and deepening encounters on the way to
Christian unity. It especially promotes relationships between and among those
Christian churches and traditions that have not been in conversation with each
other previously. Doing this, it creates a space also for those churches that have
difficulties to understand the value of wcc-type ecumenical dialogue and its
methods and themes of working.63 Similar to Scriptural Reasoning, the Global
Christian Forum offers an opportunity to share stories and narratives. It all
happens more by discovery than by planned programs. In the same way as
Scriptural Reasoning, it is a spiritual place of engagement, learning, and crit-
ical self-reflection, if and when needed. This happens with and from another,
in interaction.
It is evident that any critical self-reflection is not possible without personal
commitment and personal change. A pragmatic aspect of both Scriptural Rea-
soning and the Global Christian Forum involves personal change. This personal
involvement has many consequences. ‘Even noticing differences and refining
attitudes toward such differences also changes those who have noticed and
honoured the differences. Learning to live with the fact of other claims, negoti-
ated differently, leads quickly to changes in how one relates to one’s own work
as well.’64 This is one of the important discoveries in both dialogues: we cannot
62 See www.globalchristianforum.org (accessed on April 12, 2014). In Limuru, November

2007, it was stated that ‘… in the spirit of John 17:21 “that all of them may be one … so that
the world may believe that you have sent me” and because of our faith in a reconciling
God (2 Cor. 5:18–21) a forum could pursue the following: deepen our commitment to
God’s Word and mission in the world; enhance our understanding of contemporary
expressions of Christian mission; pursue principles and practices that enable us to deal
freely, responsibly and peaceably with our Christian differences and distinctive qualities;
engage in theological reflection in areas of mutual concern; strengthen the wholeness of
the church by encouraging communication and cooperation; and foster relationships that
may lead to common witness’. Cf. Huibert van Beek (ed.), Revisioning Christian Unity: The
Global Christian Forum (Eugene, or: Wipf & Stock Publishers 2009).
63 ‘It also became clear from the start that such an initiative would have to function inde-
pendently from the wcc. A long history of suspicion and mistrust toward the wcc, partic-
ularly from evangelical and Pentecostal groups, could not be easily overcome’, (Granberg-
Michaelson 2013, 61).
64 Francis X. Clooney, SJ, In the Balance: Interior and Shared Acts of Reading. Modern
Theology 29:4 (2013), 183.
464 jukko
engage ourselves in dialogue, detaching it from our person, our spirituality, and
our work.
A Tentative Theological Explanation
A great emphasis in Christian theology in the 20th century has been the doc-
trine of Trinity; a veritable ‘Trinitarian Renaissance’. It has been a dogma since
the 4th century that the Christian concept of God is triune. The doctrine was
formulated so as to better understand the Christ-event and the life and the
experiences of the early Church.65 God is above all the Father, who has no prin-
ciple of origin. But God is also the eternal Son, born of the substance of the
Father. And God is also the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father (and from
the Son, according to the Western form of Christianity).66 These divine persons
are not to be divided from one another in being or in operation. They form
only one principle of action ad extra. The doctrine of Trinity has been strongly
emphasized in Christian theology especially since the 1960s, when in 1961 the
wcc re-formulated its basis to be more Trinitarian,67 and the Second Vatican
Council (1962–1965) in its documents adopted a clear Trinitarian theology.
To emphasize that God is triune has several consequences. Firstly, it high-
lights the importance of creation, and human being as made in God’s image.
Secondly, it also makes easier to explain how Christ’s presence, acts, and grace,
reach out from Christians to non-Christians: through the Holy Spirit. The Trin-
ity is a theological concept, which can include various theological readings. A
famous document of Vatican ii is the pastoral constitution on the church in the
modern world, Gaudium et Spes (gs, 1965). This opens new doors and a theolog-
ical motive for interreligious dialogue: ‘All this holds true not only for Christians
but also for all people of good will in whose hearts grace is active invisibly. For
since Christ died for everyone, and since all are in fact called to one and the
same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all
the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal
65 See, e.g., J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: Adam & Charles Black 1960).
66 The Eastern form of Christianity has not accepted the form that the Holy Spirit proceeds
from the Father and from the Son ( filioque). A consensus is sought by using the form ‘from
the Father through the Son’.
67 It is still valid: the World Council of Churches is ‘a fellowship of churches which confess
the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the scriptures, and therefore seek
to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.’ (www.oikoumene.org; accessed on May 10, 2014).
mystery’ (gs 22).68 Thirdly, God’s triune character emphasizes the importance
of Spirit-based relations, both intra-Trinitarian and also those between human
beings, Christians and non-Christians. Since Augustine (d. 430) the Spirit is
understood to be the bond of unity and love between Father and the Son, and
between God and believers.
Christian theologians have largely adapted a Trinitarian vision into their
work. Especially in interfaith relations—but also in ecumenical dialogue—it
has been of great help. First of all, the actions of the Spirit remind Christians
of Jesus Christ, and enable them to discover aspects in him that they had
not earlier known or recognized. The Spirit makes of Christians persons who
respect everybody and are ready to accompany and share. The Spirit also makes
possible a critical self-reflection and learning from the other, be s/he Christian
or not.69
The Holy Spirit is also the universal agent working in non-Christian reli-
gions, in the hearts and conscience of their adherents. The Spirit invites non-
Christians to surpass themselves. Those who are driven by God’s Spirit are
associated, in a certain way, with the death and resurrection of Christ. This is
the link between interreligious dialogue and church’s mission. The Vatican ii
decree on the church’s missionary activity, Ad Gentes (ag, 1965), notes that ‘mis-
sionary activity makes Christ present, who is the author of salvation. It purges
of evil associations those elements of truth and grace which are found among
peoples, and which are, as it were, a secret presence of God’ (ag 9).70 Espe-
cially Pope John Paul ii spoke extensively of the actions of the Holy Spirit in
non-Christian religious traditions. The Pope says e.g. in his encyclical letter
Dominum et Vivificantem (May 18, 1986)71 that the Holy Spirit is at work ‘in
every individual, according to the eternal plan of salvation’.72 In ecumenism,
68 Cited in Flannery 1996, 186. In Latin: ‘Quod non tantum pro christifidelibus valet, sed et
pro omnibus hominibus bonae voluntatis in quorum corde gratia invisibili modo operatur.
Cum enim pro omnibus mortuus sit Christus cumque vocatio hominis ultima revera una
sit, scilicet divina, tenere debemus Spiritum Sanctum cunctis possibilitatem offerre ut,
modo Deo cognito, huic paschali mysterio consocientur.’
69 It is emblematic that the Jewish philosopher Peter Ochs, ‘Re-socializing Scholars of Reli-
gious, Theological, and Theo-Philosophical Inquiry’, Modern Theology 29:4 (2013), 208,
calls scripture readings the ‘pistons’: ‘activities in which the Spirit that is present to some
participants gets ignited, generating abductions, or reasonings that open new hypothe-
ses about whatever issue the Scriptural Reasoning group is examining within a reparative
network.’
70 Cited in Flannery 1996, 453–454.
72 John Paul ii, Dominum et Vivificantem, The Holy Spirit in the life of the church and
466 jukko
too, the action of the Spirit within a Trinitarian framework was underlined by
Vatican ii. In Roman Catholic documents, for example, Unitatis Redintegratio
(ur, 1964), a movement ‘fostered by the grace of the Holy Spirit, for the restora-
tion of unity among all Christians’ is spoken of; ‘taking part in this movement,
which is called ecumenical, are those who invoke the Triune God and confess
Jesus as Lord and Saviour’ (ur 1).73
Not only Roman Catholic theology but also the ecumenical movement has
discovered in the doctrine of Trinity and thus in the person of the Holy Spirit
an important agent for both ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. Since the
Sixth wcc General Assembly in Vancouver 1983, there has been a visible shift in
wcc statements from a Christological position toward a more pneumatological
position. This can be easily discerned comparing some recent wcc documents,
for instance the Baar Statement (1990), Confessing the One Faith (1991), and a
report of the wcc conference on world mission and evangelism in 2005. A new
mission affirmation of the wcc, prepared by the World Commission on Mis-
sion and Evangelism, entitled Together Towards Life: Mission and Evangelism
in Changing Landscapes, is explicitly and intentionally pneumatological. Para-
graph 11 in the document says quite clearly: ‘This statement highlights some
key developments in understanding the mission of the Holy Spirit within the
mission of the Triune God (missio Dei)’.74 From this Christian pneumatolog-
ical perspective it is easier to understand the importance and relevance of
Scriptural Reasoning. Christian participants believe that a Scriptural Reason-
ing meeting takes place in the presence of God and for the sake of God. It is the
Spirit of unity which freely moves in the hearts and consciences of each partic-
ipant in interreligious dialogue. In addition, each scripture—the Tanakh, the
New Testament, and the Qurʾan—speaks about the Spirit, and each tradition
has given the Spirit a different theological explanation. The issue in dialogue
seems to be finding the balance between the integrity of Christian faith and
the relational nature of human existence; learning from one another leads also
to a better intra-religious dialogue.
From the point of view of creation and God’s Spirit ‘hovering over the waters’
(Genesis 1:2), it is easier to understand the importance of the Global Christian
the world 53. The Pope carefully keeps Christology and pneumatology together: ‘Grace,
therefore, bears within itself both a Christological aspect and a pneumatological one,
which becomes evident above all in those who expressly accept Christ.’ Dominum et
Vivificantem 53 (www.vatican.va; accessed on April 26, 2014).
74 See www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/wcc-commissions/mission-and
-evangelism (accessed on April 14, 2014).
Forum, giving great importance to the personal spiritual experience, as caused

by the Holy Spirit. There is no Christian experience better than the other;
they are only different and diverse. But, theologically speaking, it is the same
Spirit of the triune God, moving and acting in ordinary people’s lives. This
common sharing of spiritual experiences has gained importance as Christian
theology has returned to a more balanced and dynamic understanding of the
triune God. One way to illustrate the similarities and dissimilarities between
ecumenical and interreligious dialogue is to distinguish ‘auto-interpretation’
and ‘hetero-interpretation’. Joining the theological affirmation that the Holy
Spirit may be actively present also in non-Christian religions, Gavin D’Costa
argues that
this theological affirmation requires both a serious engagement with the

other religion on its own terms, which is an on-going process, and also
allows for what I will call legitimate hetero-interpretation, that is, a theo-
logical evaluation of the meaning of that religion, or various parts of it,
that may not necessarily be in keeping with the sense of those within
that tradition—what I call auto-interpretation. While auto and hetero-
interpretations may coincide, the latter is always reliant on auto-interpre-
tation.75
Applying this distinction to Scriptural Reasoning, it becomes clear that inter-

religious dialogue has become more bound with practices of personal engage-
ment and common reading, more reliant on auto-interpretation and relating
also to hermeneutical and pedagogical skills that the reading of religious texts
demands. It concerns ecumenical dialogue, too, as Christian theology basically
is a matter of ‘reading and re-reading foundational texts in their relationship
to ever-differing contexts’.76 These changing contexts or landscapes in World
Christianity—the centre of which has moved to the Global South—have led to
the creation of the Global Christian Forum.
Concluding Remarks
There are undeniably many convergences between recent developments of

ecumenical and interreligious dialogue. Without forsaking the fundamental
75 Gavin D’Costa, The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity (Edinburgh: t & t Clark 2000), 100.
76 Barnes 2011, 392.
468 jukko
one-to-one basis, they tend nevertheless to become multi-lateral, and there

is a growing understanding that it is faith communities themselves that can
provide the framework in which interpersonal engagement, leading to learn-
ing, can take place. Theology and spirituality must not be separated; neither in
ecumenical nor in interreligious dialogue. It can be said, too, that there is deep-
ening of relationships especially of those who engage themselves in new forms
of dialogue, either by studying scriptures or sharing testimonies, stories, nar-
ratives. New practices such as Scriptural Reasoning and the Global Christian
Forum create a space for a properly personal and interpersonal engagement,
commitment, and learning. They pay attention to the pedagogy of encounter,
forms of learning in the practice. In addition to engagement and commitment,
there is a better awareness of the other and learning from the other, as narra-
tives create their own meaning, of which one can learn. Narratives are traces of
personal or community’s relationship with transcendence. Being aware of this
and readiness for learning and change do not abolish differences or disagree-
ments, but it may lead to common Christian witness (ecumenical dialogue)
and common action and deepening friendship (interreligious dialogue). This
may sound simple, but in fact it is difficult as it tests our authenticity and iden-
tity in dialogue: are we really ready to listen to the other, and sincerely ready to
reflect on our own identity and attitudes as well as the other’s discourse? Are
we really ready to present other religious traditions in a manner that is recog-
nizable by their adherents (cf. D’Costa’s ‘auto-interpretation’)? In dialogue ‘the
human pursuit of meaning and the movement of the Spirit that is set deep in
the text work together in sometimes unnoticed and surprising ways’.77
For the wcc and the modern ecumenical movement in general, the aim is to
overcome historic divisions and to reach the visible unity, meaning full sacra-
mental communion. At the moment, this aim seems to be far from so-called
historic churches. Besides, the dividing-up of Christianity continues, especially
in the Global South. These developments have not vitiated the aim of ecumeni-
cal dialogue. And in interreligious dialogue and interfaith encounters, funda-
mental differences between religious traditions are a given fact, and must be
taken very seriously into consideration. The aim is not to search for unity, but
to look for mutual encounter, understanding, cooperation and common search
so that, as human beings, we may seriously consider the social and relational
nature of human being as such. The Global Christian Forum is a thoroughly
non-institutional ecumenical enterprise. Having only one staff person and a
tiny budget, it concentrates on sharing people’s stories and narratives. It wants
77 Barnes 2011, 400.

to create a relational space where all kinds of Christians can meet. In addition,
it has one strong emphasis that is weak in today’s ecumenical movement, and
has probably partly contributed to the creation of the gcf: the gcf strongly
emphasizes church’s mission, in seeking a missionary pilgrimage.78 The fact
that ecumenism and mission belong together is clear to most theologians, but
it is the gcf’s special emphasis to bring it down to the grassroots level. Unity,
mission, and witness are conceptually and practically linked together. Chris-
tians do not search for unity only because unity is good or desirable per se, but
because they understand it to be God’s will ‘that the world may believe’ (John
17:21). This dimension of witness is an important link between ecumenical and
interreligious dialogue. The Holy Spirit of unity is there to testify about Jesus
Christ and to lead everyone into God’s truth (John 15:26), but the Spirit’s work
does not exclude anyone sincerely learning from the others, be s/he Christian
or not.
78 Granberg-Michaelson (2013, 64) notes that ‘Three words can best describe the space
and style that have emerged in the process of the Global Christian Forum: testimonial,
relational, and missional.’
chapter 27
Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and the

Environment: The Case for a New Sacred Science
Andrew M. Sharp
If we are to have any hope of breaking the vicious circle of global environmen-
tal destruction, then we need an effort … involving people across religions,
races and continents … [embracing] leaders and thinkers across disciplines,
ranging from theology and religion to biology and economics.
– Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
∵
Orthodox Christians and Muslims have been among the world’s foremost reli-
gious leaders on the care of the environment. Indeed, among them were those
who were the earliest to draw attention to the current environmental crisis and
call for action to prevent or reverse the devastating consequences that are now
fully in view. For example, the Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr gave a series
of lectures on the topic in 1966 (published in a volume the following year) and
the Orthodox scholar Phillip Sherrard began his series of articles and studies
in this area in 1973.1 Around the same time one can mark the beginning of
a shift in attention among the science community toward climate change—
such as the landmark conference in Boulder, Colorado in 1965 on the “Causes
of Climate Change”—and the first trace of concern in the public mind over
potential environmental consequences of climate change.2 In this regard, send-
ing man into space and bringing back images of Earth from the moon began to
alter attitudes about the planet and point to the need to protect it. As Spenser
1 Seyyed H. Nasr, The Encounter of Man and Nature: The Spriritual Crisis of Modern Man (Lon-
don: Allen & Unwin, 1967); P. Sherrard, ‘The desanctification of nature,’ Studies in Church
History, vol. 10: Sanctity and secularity, ed. Derek Baker (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1973).
2 Spenser Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press,
2008), 39–40.

orthodox christians, muslims, and the environment 471
Weart put it, “Astronauts walk on the Moon, and people perceive the Earth as
a fragile whole.”3
Lynn White’s article from 19674 is often seen as the spark that started the
debate in the West over the degree to which Christianity should be held respon-
sible for modern day environmental degradation and it is also true that in a
similar way “critics have tried to include Islam in the same category.”5 White’s
work has become a classic in environmental literature and has inspired many
Christians and secularists to think seriously about environmental ethics. Yet as
John Chryssavgis and Bruce Foltz have pointed out, White “explicitly exempts
Christians of the East from his critique, commending rather than censuring its
view of creation.”6 Indeed, Eastern Christianity has been on a different track,
or at the very least in speaking about relations between man and the natu-
ral world “holds a set of views that is not entirely absent in Western thought
but that have not been grasped in their synergistic integrity outside Eastern
lands.”7
This unique perspective and approach to the environmental crisis can also
be seen among Muslim scholars and religious leaders. In fact, Orthodox Chris-
tian and Muslim thought converge on this topic in very interesting and impor-
tant ways, which have not been fully explored. Together they have centuries of
spiritual and theological writings from which to make the case that humans
have not only the responsibility to protect the planet but also that they are
directly connected to nature in significant ways. Having a better apprecia-
tion of these insights could be quite useful in informing efforts across the
sciences and humanities to stem the devastating consequences of global warm-
ing and help re-establish a healthier relationship between humans and the
earth.
3 Ibid., 204.
4 ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,’ Science, New Series, 155, no. 3767 (1967), 1203–
1207.
5 Ibrahim Ozdemir, ‘Toward an Understanding of Environmental Ethics from a Qurʾanic Per-
spective,’Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust, R.C. Foltz, F.M. Denny, and A. Buharuddin, eds.
(Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2003), 25 (3–37).
6 Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature,
and Creation, J. Chryssavgis and B.V. Foltz, eds. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 2
(1–8).
7 Ibid., 3.
472 sharp
Science: Friend or Foe?
Recent research has demonstrated that Orthodox Christians and Muslims have
experienced and responded to modernity in similar ways.8 In their dialogues
with each other in recent years on any number of topics, this has become
more and more evident. Sometimes the areas of commonality are theological
and at other times they involve practical or pragmatic concerns. Many have
found these encounters affirming and stimulating, particularly because in com-
ing together like this Muslims and Orthodox Christians have raised important
questions on any number of issues, including the issues and debates surround-
ing global warming and the worldwide ecological crisis. That said, there is much
more to be discovered and pursued in this way in relation to ecological con-
cerns.
One area that is particularly worth exploring is the theme, found in sev-
eral key Orthodox and Muslim writers, that today we are facing less of an
ecological problem than a crisis of knowledge, in terms of how we envisage
the world and relate to it. Unlike so many in the West who focus on environ-
mental ethics to address the symptoms of the problem, numerous Orthodox
Christians and Muslims have argued what is needed is a new worldview or
a new ‘sacred science’ on the order of nature.9 Those who have pursued this
theme, in search of the root causes of the environmental crisis, have generally
started their discussion with a historical analysis of the philosophical assump-
tions that led us to where we are today. For example, the late Philip Sher-
rard, mentioned earlier, who was an Orthodox theologian from England, said
that:
Modern science is now a world-wide phenomenon, and it has radically

altered, even indeed threatens totally to displace, the patterns of life
and the values which until its advent had characterized not only the
civilization of Europe and America but every other civilization as well.
Yet at the same time it is a phenomenon which first manifests itself in
8 Andrew Sharp, Orthodox Christians and Islam in the Postmodern Age (Brill, 2012). See espe-
cially, chapter 4, ‘Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and Identity,’ pp. 127–178.
9 The term ‘sacred science’ has been used by Seyyed Hossein Nasr in his writings and lectures—
from the The Encounter of Man and Nature in 1967, to Religion and the Order of Nature (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1996), to his lecture ‘God and Man: Religious Views and Scien-
tific Perspectives’ (at the Chautauqua Institution in 2001; available at: http://radiusfoundation
.org)—but Orthodox figures are saying something very similar, though perhaps using differ-
ent terminology.
changes of thought that took place in the European intellectual world.

This is to say that it is a phenomenon which can be truly understood
and evaluated only when these changes and their significance have been
properly grasped.10
For Sherrard there is a clear line of demarcation between pre-modern and mod-
ern thought, which, after it was constructed in the European mind, resulted in
dramatic changes to life patterns and values on a global scale over the past few
centuries.
A very similar statement about the consequences of the new modes of
thought that emerged from the West can be found in the writings of Seyyed
Hossein Nasr, the Islamic scholar also mentioned above. Nasr said:
Only in the West did a philosophy develop that was not only no longer the
love of wisdom [φιλοσοφία {philosophia} literally means “love of wisdom”
in Greek] but went so far as to deny the very category of wisdom as a
legitimate form of knowledge … [T]he mainstream of Western philosophy
turned against both revelation and noesis or intellection as sources of
knowledge, and limited itself to empiricism or rationalism, with results
that were catastrophic ….11
And he later stated:
[T]he seventeenth-century Scientific Revolution and the consequence of

the mechanization of the world picture … now threaten not only the
harmony of nature but also human life itself. Only perennial wisdom can
reveal to us objectively our plight that is the direct consequence of the
loss of that wisdom and that is now endangering earthly existence itself
the sake of which the celestial realities and eternal truths were so easily
sacrificed and relegated to oblivion.12
As Nasr points out, what is particularly significant is that the new ways of
thinking about nature directly led to the scientific and industrial revolutions,
which together led to the technologies that have been responsible for causing
such rapid environmental degradation. What was it about the combination
10 The Rape of Man and Nature: An Enquiry into the Origins and Consequences of Modern
Science (Suffolk: Golgonooza Press, 1987), 9.
11 Religion and the Order of Nature, 80–81.
12 Ibid., 113.
474 sharp
of modern philosophy, science, and industry that became so detrimental to

our species while at the same time provided us with the many comforts and
objects we enjoy so much today? How is it possible that during the same age
where mankind has visited the deepest point in the ocean and sent an object
into interstellar space he has also managed to set the planet internally on such
a dangerous course? Indeed, as Orthodox scholar Elizabeth Theokritoff says,
“The inventive and adventurous use of nature by man is not an aberration,
but something fundamental to his nature.”13 This may well be true. However,
even Theokritoff admits that at some point in the modern age we crossed
a line such that “the most [even conservationists] can do is intervene judi-
ciously to simulate natural conditions … [because] we have created a legacy
of destruction that will not go away even if we stop adding to it from this
moment.”14
What follows in the next few pages is a synthesis of what key Muslim and
Orthodox scholars have said about this new science that developed in the West
and why they think it has become so powerful and at the same time detri-
mental. This will not be an exhaustive treatment of what Muslim or Orthodox
scholars have written on the subject, nor will it cover the wide contours of their
scholarship on environmentalism. Instead it will be a modest attempt to pro-
vide a useful synthesis of what some have collectively said on this theme and
a demonstration of their intellectual solidarity in terms of the causes of the
environmental crisis and the necessary framework if mankind is to find any
plausible solutions to it.
Most accounts of how there was a clear change in the way human beings
think of themselves in relation to nature start with the rise of the new scientific
worldview that emerged in Europe at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
It was from this point, they say, that man began to see nature as a machine
made up of individual parts or as a thing to be studied and controlled, as
opposed to previous conceptions that considered nature a “living organism
with a nurturing earth at its center.”15 Central to this change, according to
numerous Muslim and Orthodox scholarly accounts, is the philosophy of René
Descartes. For example, as Ibrahim Özdemir explains:
13 On page 11 of ‘The Orthodox Church and the Environmental Movement,’ a paper delivered
in Neamt, Romania in 1994 at the Syndesmos Orthodox Youth and Ecology Seminar.
Accessed at http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith8024 on 13 March 2014.
14 Ibid., 10.
15 Ibrahim Ozdemir, ‘Science and the Environment: Is Science Responsible for Environmen-
tal Crisis?’ jess/çsbd, Vol. 1 No. 1–2 (1996), 42.
Cartesian philosophy triumphantly altered all previous world views from

the ancient cultures of East and West that considered the earth as active
and alive … [It] argued that Nature is distinct from us and nature is com-
posed of matter as such, which is here for man’s use, man’s use does not
change the essence of phenomena which is dead, inert and insensitive,
and there is no intrinsic value in nature. For nature is lifeless and valueless
on the one hand, and all values are regarded as subjective and relative on
the other.16
In other words, a particular kind of science begins to emerge from the Cartesian
worldview, which envisions nature as a lifeless material for human beings
to exploit by whatever means for whatever purposes he might desire. This
clearly was an innovation from the thinking in all previous periods of human
existence. It also marked the severing of any deep and significant connection
between mankind and the natural order, at least from the narcissistic point of
view of modern man.
The Orthodox bishop and theologian Kallistos Ware also makes the connec-
tion between environmental degradation and the Cartesian emphasis on the
human being without regard to nature. He says:
[T]he narrow concentration upon rational self-awareness that has dom-

inated Western philosophical tradition from Descartes onward—Cogito,
ergo sum, ‘I think therefore I am’—is one of the factors that has directly
contributed to the present ecological crisis.17
According to Ware, as with Özdemir, the extreme focus upon the individual
that begins in the age of Descartes continues to dominate Western thought to
the present day. At a very basic level, modern man gets lost in his preoccupation
with himself leading to his forgetfulness about the connections between things
and his long-standing inattention to nature.
In addition to the Cartesian emphasis on the individual, the Muslim scholar
Mawil Izzi Dien points to Cartesian dualism as central to the new science that
has led to the environmental problems we see today.18 He says that:
16 Ibid.
17 ‘Through Creation to the Creator,’ in Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration, 96.
18 Greek Orthodox theologians, such as Nikos Nissiotis and John Zizioulas have made a
similar critique of Cartesian dualism. See Nissiotis, ‘Nature and Creation: A Comment
on the Environmental Problem from a Philosophical and Theological Standpoint’ (194
[193–203]) and Zizioulas, ‘Proprietors or Priests of Creation?’ (163 [163–171]) in Toward and
Ecology of Transfiguration.
476 sharp
… with no recognition for concepts such as value, spirit, feeling, emotions,

intuition, and intrinsic goals … Cartesian duality (which separated mind
from body) set human beings apart from and over nature, thus opening
the way for a relationship that is primarily exploitive and manipulative.19
According to Izzi Dien, the separation of mind from the body, as put forward
by Descartes, very quickly stripped from nature those aspects or qualities that
had intimately connected pre-modern man to his natural environment.
A very similar analysis of the modern view of science and humanity’s rela-
tionship to nature can be found in the work of Philip Sherrard, who expands
the critique to include other proponents of the new science. Sherrard states
that in some ways the changes began with Francis Bacon’s “scientivization” of
nearly every discipline. He says that following this idea Galileo, Descartes, and
Newton “perfected (Bacon’s) mechanistic vision in accordance with which our
modern world has been built.”20 For Sherrard, the most significant feature of
the new science was its focus on the quantitative at the expense of the qualita-
tive aspects of things and of the world generally. According to him:
The Cartesian world is but a strictly uniform mathematical world, a world

of geometry in which there is nothing else but extension and motion …
For Newton, the celestial spheres are a machine, for Descartes, animals
are machines, for Hobbes, society is a machine, for La Mettrie, the human
body is a machine, eventually for Pavlov and his successors human behav-
ior is like that of a machine. There is nothing that is not reduced either to
phenomenon (fact) or to mathematical hypothesis (or, in less polite lan-
guage, fiction).21
Sherrard sees this reduction of nearly all living things—all facets of nature—to
their most basic (quantifiable) elements, as a clear demonstration of the break
between man and nature. When the natural world is reduced to its component
parts it is a small step to consider these as the means to production. This mecha-
nistic view of nature is a second point that is made repeatedly by Orthodox and
Muslim writers when they talk about the causes of the ecological crisis.
This mechanistic view of the world goes far beyond the “physical sciences”
and makes a significant impact of many fields of inquiry. According to Nasr:
19 ‘Islam and the Environment: Theory and Practice’ (107 [107–119]) in Islam and Ecology.
20 The Rape of Man and Nature, 68.
21 Ibid., 69.
The scientific view of the order of nature led to a positivism that spread far
beyond the confines of the physical sciences themselves and influenced
not only philosophy … but also the social sciences and the humanities
as well as the general outlook of modern man … Even today when many
scientists have disavowed [it] … the general influence of positivism con-
tinues in fields as diverse as philosophy and medicine. In fact, the exclu-
sivism of the modern scientific view and the refusal to accept other modes
of knowledge of nature, including the religious one, can be traced back to
the Newtonian synthesis itself.22
Nasr brings up another point that is often encountered in the writings of

Orthodox Christians and Muslims on the environment and that is just how
wide-spread and entrenched the reductionist view of nature has become in
the modern world. This “modern scientific view”—as Nasr calls it—seems to
be quite intolerant of any conceptions of the relationship between man and
nature that do not conform to its modern, mechanistic, and formulaic dogmas
about the ordering of things.
The Greek Orthodox theologian, Christos Yannaras has also shown the pro-
gression in Western thought vis-à-vis nature over time and into many fields and
how this inevitably led to the destruction of nature. For example, he states:
Res extensa/res cogitans: the antithetical distinction between man and

nature was set out by Descartes … Kant will also interiorize even the
objective external world in the subjective reason … Hegel will see in the
human tool a “meta-physics” and in technology a “materialized meta-
physics” … And in absolute accord with the idealist Hegel, the materialist
Marx will assert that “the history of industry is the open book of the essen-
tial powers of man” … From these theoretical opinions to the practice of
the violation of nature by technology is but a small step … [M]odernity …
has led, with an iron inevitability, to the destruction of the natural envi-
ronment that now threatens us.23
Yannaras’ notes the tragic irony that despite all his efforts to control nature in
his service, man has created a scenario in which nature itself now threatens his
existence.
22 Religion and the Order of Nature, 151.

23 ‘Existential Versus Regulative Approaches: The Environmental Issue as an Existential and
not a Canonical Problem,’ in Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration, 188.
478 sharp
Perhaps one of most articulate voices on the connection between the mod-
ern scientific thinking and the ecological crisis is Fazlun Khalid, who has been
called “the foremost expert on ecology from the Islamic perspective.”24 Khalid,
quite eloquently and succinctly, makes the connection between the modern
worldview and environmental degradation in the following quote:
[P]rior to the advent of modernity, the natural order functioned within its
own limits … [T]he seeds of the ecological crisis that breached these limits
were sown during the period that followed the Renaissance … [There was
a] shift in humankind’s perception of itself in relation to the natural order
… Having resided in nature’s bosom for aeons, humans suddenly became
its predator.25
Khalid’s image of modern man as “predator” of nature is quite useful in that it

conveys the aggressive way in which the human species has devoured other
living creatures, the fruits of the earth, and the basic elements of all life,
hording these things for himself without much thought for the consequences.
As Orthodox Christian and Muslim thinkers point out, this change has taken
place in such a small span of human history that if the momentum is not
stopped, the consequences could soon be catastrophic.
If, indeed, the root causes of the current environmental crisis stem from
the basic principles of the new science that emerged in Europe from the sev-
enteenth century and has subsequently spread throughout the word, infusing
nearly every field of knowledge, what is the solution? Orthodox Christians and
Muslims have pointed out that—since the current state of affairs is less of an
ecological problem than a crisis of knowledge, in terms of how humans envis-
age the world and relate to it—the solution will need to include finding an
alternative source of knowledge. They assert this new knowledge should envi-
sion the relationship between man and nature differently than the dominant
Cartesian view. They argue this is necessary because, as Muzaffar Iqbal has
pointed out, “the global penetration of science is a fait accompli, whether one
likes it or not … [since] whatever judgment we may choose to pass on mod-
ern science, there is no escape from it.”26 If the ecological problem is indeed
24 From Grist Magazine’s 2007 article ‘15 Green Religious Leaders,’ with Kate Sheppherd and
Grist staff. Accessed at http://grist.org/article/religious on 13 May 9, 2014.
25 ‘Islam, Ecology, and Modernity: An Islamic Critique of the Root Causes of Environmental
Degradation’ in Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust, 301.
26 Islam and Science (Burlington, vt: Ashgate, 2002), xvii.
a global crisis this may well be because, as Iqbal claims, “Modern science is …
the only part of the Western civilization that is unquestionably welcomed in all
cultures.”27 With this in mind, Orthodox Christians and Muslims have begun to
formulate an alternative approach first by looking back, both to their respective
philosophical and religious sources and to the pre-modern worldview from
which these sources emerged.
A Pre-Modern Worldview as Preserved in Orthodoxy and Islam
Though it is often taken for granted in the West that the genesis of science
was during the Renaissance, a growing body of scholarship is raising aware-
ness that scholars from the age of the great Islamicate civilization made huge
contributions to many fields of inquiry. As Ahmad Dallal put it, “The scope of
Islamic scientific activities is vast. Science in medieval Muslim societies was
practiced on a scale unprecedented in earlier or even contemporary human
history.”28 This sustained “scientific” inquiry included important work in math-
ematics, astronomy, medicine, optics, philosophy, agronomy, engineering, and
other disciplines to which Western thought is greatly indebted.29 According to
a number of Muslim and other scholars, having an appreciation of the scientific
tradition that developed in the Islamic world is very important today because it
illustrates the possibility of having a rich and robust scientific culture without
Cartesian dualism and the other pitfalls of modern science, as it developed in
the West.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr argued this point quite eloquently in Religion and the
Order of Nature. Noting that Islamic scholars, like the great thinkers of the
European Renaissance, “also knew the [great works of] Greco-Alexandrian
antiquity” and “developed a vast scientific tradition based to a large extent
upon that of the ancient world,” he asked why it was that they did so without the
same “catastrophic consequences [modern science] bears for man’s relation
with the natural environment.”30 The reason Nasr gives, is that:
27 Ibid., xv.
28 Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History (New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 2010),
11–12.
29 Ibid., ‘Beginnings and Beyond’ (1–53) provides a convenient summary of the key figures
and their contributions in these fields of study. For a more in depth treatment on the his-
tory of science in the Islamic tradition, see Muzaffar Iqbal, Islam and Science (Burlington,
vt: Ashgate, 2002).
30 Religion and the Order of Nature, 60.
480 sharp
Islam, heir like Judaism and Christianity to the spiritual universe of Abra-
ham, did not reject its religious understanding of the order of nature while
cultivating the natural sciences. And it has not done so to a large extent
even today despite the spread of modernism into the Islamic world during
the past century.31
Nasr’s point here, which he develops in greater detail in his book and expands
to nearly all pre-modern expressions of religion (including Shamanism, Egyp-
tian Religion, African religions, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Taoism,
etc.), is that the very specific kind of science that developed in the West was
problematic because it discarded what religion has to say on the order of nature
and mankind’s relation to it.
A very similar kind of argument can be found among certain Orthodox
thinkers, who have noted the high levels of scientific and technological achieve-
ments of Byzantine civilization, and which did not lead to negative conse-
quences for the environment. For example, Elizabeth Theokritoff challenged
the notion, first championed by Lynn White, that the Christian tradition is
responsible for the global ecological crisis. She said:
If exploitation is built into the Christian understanding of man’s relation-

ship with the rest of nature, it is very hard to explain why a Christian
civilization with the expertise and sophistication to build Agia Sophia or
invent Greek fire should have totally failed to develop exploitative tech-
nologies or policies as we know them today. Far from having its origins
in the heyday of Christian civilization, the exploitative mentality seems
to have gained currency only after the “Enlightenment”, which marks the
decline of the Christian influence on the way people looked at themselves
and their place in the world.32
Theokritoff, like Nasr, argues that there are proven alternative paths for sci-
entific development than the one that has emerged in the West and spread
across the globe. Likewise, she would agree that there must be something from
the pre-modern perspective that could be recovered today in order to alter the
course of history so humanity might avoid further devastating consequences
as a result of current exploitive technologies and policies.
31 Ibid.
32 ‘The Orthodox Church and the Environmental Movement,’ 4. Accessed on 5 Februrary 2014
at www.goarch.rog/ourfaith/ourfaith8024.
In order to fully appreciate what these Orthodox Christian and Muslim

scholars have been putting forward as an alternative to the current paradigm
for science, technology, economic and political policy, and environmental eth-
ics, it is important to examine how they have been drawing upon their respec-
tive religious and philosophical sources to formulate their arguments. The next
few pages will highlight the key themes found in much of this scholarship,
particularly those that demonstrate commonality between the traditions in
response to modernity.
In recent years, there have been a number of studies exploring the philo-
sophical and religious sources from the Islamic tradition that both demon-
strate and preserve the pre-modern understanding of the connection between
humans and the natural environment.33 These works emphasize key concepts
in Islamic theology, cosmology, and anthropology to show continuity of
thought in the Muslim tradition from pre-modern times to the present day vis a
vis God, man, and nature. This can be seen, for example, in the following state-
ment by Syed Nomanul Haq:
[T]he Qurʾanic notion of the natural world and the natural environment
is semantically and logically bound up with the very concept of God
… Qurʾanic discourse … [does] not manifest any independent concep-
tual self-sufficiency of, or a conceptual discontinuity between, the three
realms of the divine, of nature, and of humanity. Indeed … there is no
ontological separation between the divine and natural environments …
One may legitimately say that insofar as the Islamic tradition allows for
God’s entry into the flow of history … nature embodies one of the two
modes of this entry, the other mode being God’s Word, namely the Qurʾan
itself.34
On the level of theology, Haq points out that God is intimately connected
to the natural world and that nature itself should be considered a sign (aya)
that is pointing beyond itself (and its quantitative aspects, in the Cartesian
33 Examples include: Islam and Ecology (World Religions and Ecology Series), Fazlun Khalid
and Joanne O’Brien, eds. (New York: Cassell Publishers, 1992); Environmental Protection in
Islam, 2nd rev., A. Bagader, A. El-Sabbagh, M. Al-Glayand, and M. Samarrai, eds. (Gland,
Switzerland: iucn–The World Conservation Union, 1994); Mawil Izzi Dien, The Environ-
mental Dimensions of Islam (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2000); and William Chittick,
Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul: The Pertinence of Islamic Cosmology in the Modern
World (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007).
34 ‘Islam and Ecology: Toward Retrieval and Reconstruction,’ in Islam and Ecology, 125–126.
482 sharp
view) toward God. It is essential that mankind be aware of this connection

continually, because through nature “God communicates with humanity.”35 In
terms of cosmology, Haq affirms that it is God who creates the world and all
living things within it and that his creation and his Word are both expressions
of Himself. Finally, with regard to anthropology, we see that for Haq the Qurʾan
and the entire Islamic tradition indicate that man can only be man when he is
reliant upon and connected to both God and nature.
This connection between God, man, and nature has also been expressed in
Islamic tradition through the concept of fitra, a term that refers to the Muslim
belief that each person has an innate awareness and knowledge of God and
the good. Fitra in this respect is somewhat analogous to the English word
conscience. The term has also been used by figures such as Ibn Arabi to speak
about the origins of the universe, the splitting of the heavens from the earth.36
The concept of fitra has been used as well, particularly in recent years, to show
the deep connection between man and creation. For example, Fazlun Khalid
says,
We have lost the art of living in the fitra state, that is the natural state, in
balance and in harmony with creation … [O]ur every action affects other
people, other species and other places both near and far … Everything is
connected with each other and each with the whole.37
In other words, the current ecological crisis is the direct result of modern man
having nearly lost touch completely with his primordial state, in which he is
intimately connected with nature.
In a similar way, Saadia Khawar Khan Chishti develops the concept of fitra to
advocate for the protection of the natural environment. Pressing the idea even
further to connect it to the sacred text, the traditions, and Islamic law, Chishti
says:
Al-Qurʾan and Hadith refer to Islam as din al-fitra, or, literally, “the religion
of the primordial nature.” And adherent of Islam, according to this defi-
nition is acting according to the primeval instinct already present in him
… In accordance with the Shariʿa, a fitra model advocates regulation that
35 Ibid., 126.
36 William Chittick, The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-ʾArabi’s Cosmology (Albany,
ny: State University of New York Press, 1998), 255.
37 Islam and Ecology, 106.
encourages the altruistic behavior of humans toward their fellow humans,

other living co-communities, and the nonliving environment.38
Much like Khalid, Chishti sees fitra as an essential Islamic concept that has
been challenged in the modern age, particularly as a result of modernization
in Muslim lands, but that can be rediscovered and reasserted as a part of a
coherent response to the ecological crisis of today.
Numerous scholars have pointed out that this is indeed an imperative, par-
ticularly as mankind has largely forgotten the key role human beings are to
play as “God’s representative on earth.”39 Mawil Izzi Dien has pointed out, for
example, that the human being is intended to be the “executor of God’s injunc-
tions and commands” having been granted “stewardship [khalifah] to manage
the earth in accordance with the purposes intended by its Creator.”40 When
humanity does not fulfill this role, which is at the heart of the Islamic vision
of submission to God, it can have devastating consequences, such as what is
now coming fully into view through the environmental crisis. This is because,
according to Syed Nomanul Haq:
There is a due measure (qadr) to things, and a balance (mizan) in the

cosmos, and humanity is transcendentally committed not to disturb or
violate this qadr and mizan; indeed, the fulfillment of this commitment
is the fundamental moral imperative of humanity.41
In other words, all created things in the entire cosmos are connected in an
intricate ordering established by God. By forgetting this fact and attempting
to play God, humanity today has begun to sever the bonds that support all life
as we know it.42
In Orthodox Christianity one also finds a bridge to pre-modern thinking
and forgotten truths, which could potentially be rediscovered to form a new
paradigm today for science, technology, economic and political policy, and
environmental ethics. As with Islam, this can be seen most distinctly in the
38 ‘Fitra: An Islamic Model for Humans and the Environment,’ in Islam and Ecology, 77–78.
39 Mawil Izzi Dein, The Environmental Dimensions of Islam, 118.
40 Environmental Protection in Islam, 2.
41 ‘Islam and Ecology: Toward Retrieval and Reconstruction,’ in Islam and Ecology, 127.
42 In Religion and the Order of Nature, Seyyid Hossein Nasr also talks about the concept of
qadr (“measure”)—based on Sura 13.8—and discusses its connection with power (qud-
rah): “The very Power that created the world of nature and revealed the Quran is therefore
the origin of the order and harmony perceived throughout Creation.” (61).
484 sharp
areas of Orthodox theology, cosmology, and anthropology. This is a rich tradi-

tion with a very long history and there are numerous figures (historical and
contemporary) whose thought could be used as examples to demonstrate var-
ious aspects of it.43 Since space is limited here, a summary of basic Orthodox
theology and cosmology will be a useful starting point for understanding the
relationship between God, man, and nature in this tradition. Bruce Foltz does
this, conveniently, in his latest book. He says:
For Byzantine Christianity and for the Christianity of Late Antiquity gen-
erally prior to Charlemagne, the Fall is a disorder of the whole cosmos,
of nature as well as humanity. Redemption, then, must in all these tra-
ditions have the same cosmic dimensions: a restoration of humanity and
nature alike to their prelapsarian condition, transfiguring both nature and
humanity, and returning them to their paradisiacal state … [Through the
Incarnation of Christ that restores the] lost unity of heaven and earth …
humanity and nature are retrieved from opposition and confrontation
because both restore to unity with the Logos from whom they commonly
derive their own being.44
Note here, the similarity with the cosmic and primordial vision described above
in the Islamic tradition for the connection between God and nature, as well as
the role that man plays as mediator, or God’s representative on earth.
In the Orthodox tradition, this unity between God, man, and nature is
affirmed, practiced, and realized through worship. It is, in the words of John
Chryssavgis, “confirmed in the joy of creation” and “celebrated in the liturgy of
the Church.”45 By proclaiming the truth in worship (aka liturgy, from λειτουργία,
the “work of the people”) that “the heavens really are telling the glory of God,”
says Elizabeth Theokritoff, Orthodox Christians take “the first step toward
perceiving its reality in the world around [them].”46 It is the Church itself that
43 Examples include: Kallistos Ware, Through the Creation to the Creator (London: Friends
of the Centre Papers, 1997); Gennadios Limouris, ed. Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of
Creation: Insights from Orthodoxy (Geneva: wcc Publications, 1990); Metropolitan Paulos
Gregorios Verghese, Cosmic Man: The Divine Presence (New Delhi: Sophia Publications,
1980); and Elizabeth Theokritoff, Living in God’s Creation: Orthodox Perspectives on Ecology
(Crestwood, ny: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008).
44 The Noetics of Nature: Environmental Philosophy and the Holy Beauty of the Visible (New
York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 82.
45 Beyond the Shattered Image (Minneapolis: Light & Life Publishing, 1999), 58.
46 ‘Liturgy, Cosmic Worship, and Christian Cosmology,’ in Toward An Ecology of Transfigura-
tion, 306.
has as its central mission “to act as the priest of creation” through which it
“unites the world and refers it back to God, bringing it into communion with
him.”47 Though it does this in numerous ways and employs many references
to nature (God’s creation) in the daily cycle of services, and particularly in the
Blessing of the Waters at the Feast of Theophany, probably the most direct and
telling reference is found in the Oblation of the Anaphora, the most solemn
part of the Diving Liturgy, which is sung daily in monastic communities and on
every Sunday and on Feast Days in parish life. According to John Zizioulas,
The central point in [the Orthodox Church’s] liturgy is when the priest
exclaims: “Thine of Thine own we offer unto Thee.” This means precisely
that the world, the creation, is recognized as belonging to God and is
referred back to him.48
This is important because it shows that the very existence of the Church and
the central purpose of the Christian life is in service to all of God’s creation.
Put another way, humanity was created “to be that being through which the
divine image within all creation becomes realized, the nodal point through
which creation apprehends and consecrates its own inner divinity.”49 In this
sense, the human person, through Christ, completes creation through which
he himself is completed.
One other aspect of Orthodox Christian practice that should be mentioned
here because of its relevance to the connection between man and nature in
this tradition is theoria physike, which means “contemplation of nature” in
Greek. This is an ascetical practice, which though most pronounced among
monastics is wide-spread and well-known generally in Orthodox spirituality.
Anestis Keselopoulos describes it this way:
Man is led to an increase in faith and a growth in his love for God through
a variety of signs, among which is contemplation of the inner principles
of creation [aka theoria physike, contemplation of nature]. One cannot
acquire a perfect love for God as an inalienable possession without spir-
itual knowledge of the inner principle in the created things of the world
through which God, their Maker and Creator, is contemplated.50
47 John Zizioulas, ‘Proprietors or Priest of Creation,’ in Toward An Ecology of Transfiguration,

168.
48 Ibid., 169.
49 Bruce Foltz, The Noetics of Nature, 82.
50 Man and the Environment: A Study of St. Symeon the New Theologian, Elizabeth Theokritoff,
486 sharp
The idea that one should reflect upon and interact with nature is a long-
standing tradition expressed in many ways through Orthodox piety. For exam-
ple, there are numerous saints who could famously communicate and interact
with wild animals—bears, lions, birds, and so on—and even performed mira-
cles in the natural environment.51 They had cracked the code of nature and the
pious faithful have tried to emulate and internalize this in their own spiritual
practices.52
Articulating a New Sacred Science
If the Orthodox Christian and Muslim authors surveyed here are correct, what
humanity is facing at this present moment in history is a crisis of knowledge
in how we envisage the world and relate to it. They have argued that the
ecological degradation of this age stems from a certain philosophical, spiritual,
and systemic problems at the core of modern society with its devotion to
a particular kind of science, namely modern science. As these figures have
persuasively shown, strengthening environmental ethics—which as to now
has been the primary focus of academics, environmentalists, and policy makers
in the West—will not be sufficient to address the environmental crisis of this
age. They have pointed to something deeper and more radical, arguing that the
only hope is to push for a new sacred science. What they are speaking of, and
the terminology has varied somewhat though it is pointing to the same thing, is
“new” only in the sense that it is an attempt to recover and express the ancient
wisdom about God, man, and nature within our present day circumstances.
The arguments of environmental ethics, as well as most others advanced in
the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, will not be sufficient to
change the attitudes and behaviors that have got us to this point, because they
do not transcend the reductionist vision of modern science. Continuing to work
within this deeply entrenched intellectual framework will not lead to a differ-
ent result, nor significantly change human behavior at the necessary rate and
tr. (Crestwood, ny: 2001) 181. Keselopoulos mentions this as he is summarizing his work on
Symeon the New Theologian, whom he says “reject[s] consumption and the acquisition
of wealth as form of misuse of the world” and prefers a more ascetical approach.
51 See Joanne Stefanatos, Animals and Man: A State of Blessedness (Minneapolis: Light & Life
Publishing, 1992).
52 Vigen Guroian’s, Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening (Grand Rapids, mi: Wm.
B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999) does a great job of connecting traditional practices of
gardening with Orthodox theology of creation.
degree for our species to survive. The typical approaches lack persuasiveness
and fail to fully express the significance of what will be lost if the human species
does not find a way to change its course. As Bruce Foltz says:
[T]he destruction of the earth’s wild species and pristine places is odious
not just for its depriving certain people of recreational opportunities to
which they happened to be devoted, nor is even merely for its decreasing
of the aggregate of beauty on the earth, nor for depriving scientist of
species to study and pharmacists of pharmaceutical materials. It is, rather,
the progressive walling of windows, windows that we did not build and
cannot replicate, and that will thus be walled-over forever.53
In other words, we must be willing to go deeper in our thinking and look

through the window to again see the possibilities within the relationship be-
tween humans and nature.
But what is the content of this sacred science (alternatively referred to as a
science of nature, as in the quote below) and how does it related to today’s
scientific mindset? Phillip Sherrard explained it this way:
The only science of nature worthy of the title is one that includes an
understanding of the reality of this divine presence of which each sensible
form is the revelation or epiphany. It is one that helps us to discover
not what obscure or unconscious force produces things, but what divine
thought, or image, or idea, unfolding in the spiritual world, is at work in
each of them. It is to know why the opening of a flower is a form of divine
resurrection.54
At the heart of this sacred science is the affirmation that every creature, every
natural object is an expression of the Divine One and that, therefore, it is sacred
and full of mystery. From this perspective, it is very difficult to consider nature
as an objective other or as dead matter, which humans can consume endlessly
without consequence. The perspective of sacred science fills even the smallest
particle with a sense of wonder and grace.
Nasr makes a very similar point about the need for a renewed sacred science
and argues that to make it happen, religions must take a more prominent role
in articulating this vision and that they must take science seriously. He said:
53 The Noetics of Nature, 156–157.

54 Human Image: World Image—The Death and Resurrection of Sacred Cosmology (Ipswich:
Golgonooza Press, 1992).
488 sharp
At this moment in human history the revival of a sacred view of nature,

which can only issue from authentic religion, requires a drawing together
of various religions and providing a religious response on both the ethical
and intellectual level. It means not only the formulation of a religious
ethic towards nature, which would be comprehensible and compelling
for the vast majority of the inhabitants of the globe who still live in a
religious universe. It also means the formulation of the knowledge of the
order of nature and ultimately sacred sciences that can shine like jewels in
the light of each particular religious cosmos, which, possessing a light of
a color specifically its own, causes the jewels also to glitter in a particular
manner unique to its conditions.55
Nasr affirms that each authentic religious tradition has the capacity to fully
articulate a sophisticated understanding of nature and he suggests that to get
the full spectrum, religions should respect each other and work together toward
the common good.
Toward a Common Work in Ecology
The Orthodox Christians and Muslims surveyed above have made a compelling
argument about the need for humankind to rediscover a sacred view of nature.
They have led the way in this effort by articulating for a modern audience the
profound insights of their respective traditions on the relationship between
God, humanity, and nature. They have also argued that those from different
faith traditions could benefit from studying the other’s view of nature and
working together to have the greatest impact in promoting the necessity of
sacred science in this age. As Nasr says:
Religions serve as the source of both an ethics involving the environment

and knowledge of the order of nature. They can abet and strengthen one
another in both domains if authentic religious teachings are not compro-
mised and diluted in the face of secularism … A study of the religious
understanding of nature across religious frontiers also affords the pos-
sibility of religions enriching each other or certain religions recollecting
aspects of their heritage (now forgotten) through contact with a living
tradition.56
55 Religion and the Order of Nature, 288–289.

56 Ibid., 288.
Put quite simply, interreligious dialogue and the study of the world’s great
religions must be part of the solution to the environmental crisis of today. This
is a necessity and, quite contrary to the claims and rantings of the New Atheists
of today, to the extent that religions are able to engage each other and society
at large the entire planet will be better for it.
In the same way that they have been at the forefront of drawing attention to
the environmental crisis and calling for action, Orthodox Christians and Mus-
lims have led the way in interfaith dialogue and engagement between religion
and science. Perhaps the most well-know example is Patriarch Bartholomew,
who has become so associated with environmental causes that he is now com-
monly referred to as the “Green Patriarch.” One very concrete way he has simul-
taneously engaged religious figures of various faiths and scientists and aca-
demics from a variety of disciplines is through his series of ecological symposia
under the auspices of the non-governmental organization Religion, Science &
the Environment (rse). Seeking to “provide common ground among the worlds
of religion, science and the environment in the interest of protecting the envi-
ronment”57 these seven (and counting) water-based symposia have brought
together some of the world’s greatest minds and influential religious leaders
to tackle specific environmental issues in some of the world’s most important
ecosystems. Patriarch Bartholomew explained, in an interview with Trud Daily
in Bulgaria in 2010, why he and rse have placed such emphasis on bringing
science and religion together. He said:
We are called to protect the natural resources of our world and not exploit
or abuse the creation of God. In this respect, whereas the two disciplines
[of science and religion] have historically been suspicious of and even
hostile to one another, religion has been encouraged—almost obliged—
to dialogue with science … It is mandatory for religious and scientific
representatives to be in continuous dialogue in order gradually to con-
verge on the issues that are critical for our time …58
This statement, and his actions generally, should be understood as an effort

both to reassert in today’s world the relevance of the religious view on the order
of nature and to demonstrate that the aims of religion and science can come
together for the good of the planet.
57 From the rse website http://www.rsesymposia.org accessed 13 June 2014.

58 On Earth as in Heaven: Ecological Vision and Initiatives of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholo-
mew (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), 330.
490 sharp
Though interreligious dialogue and a rapprochement between religion and

science are essential, Fazlun Khalid has pointed out, wisely, that this is not
enough to make the necessary changes to avoid environmental catastrophe.
He says:
[T]here could be a coming together of the secular and religious world

as science gives us insight into the deeper mysteries of creation. But a
sensitive exploration of alternatives based on faith and deep spiritual
insights, in the absence of a complementary political framework to bring
these ideas to fruition, may not lead us to the changes we are seeking.59
Khalid’s statement about the need for a “complementary political framework”

to accommodate the vision of a sacred science, as discussed above, should be
understood in the context of the unprecedented historical developments of
modern times. What has elsewhere been called the “Great Western Transmuta-
tion,”60 Khalid is referring to the rise of the West—which eventually included
Western hegemony in international politics and trade, Western colonialism,
the rise and dominance of modern science and Western educational methods,
etc.—and the ways in which this continues to shape geo-political develop-
ments around the globe. He is right that putting forward a convincing alterna-
tive to modern science, which would be based on a more sacred and traditional
understanding of nature, will not be enough to tackle the systemic challenges
brought on by generations of modernization, including the global system of
modern nation-states.
One of the most insidious aspects of modern science is that it has placed in
the hands of the select few who wield it a seeming unbridled power. This, along-
side its skewed view of nature and mankind’s relationship to it, has brought
us to the point where now there seems to be no stopping the human species
from destroying the earth. This has led many to a feeling of complete helpless-
ness and despair. However, both the Orthodox Christian and Islamic traditions
speak of an end to the story much different than the dystopias and dooms-
day scenarios envisioned by many today. Theirs is a vision of hope in which
the creation is not destroyed, but is renewed. Their messianic traditions antici-
pate that justice and beauty will reign upon the earth and that believers will be
with their Lord in a Garden of Paradise ( jannah, in the Islamic tradition) and
59 ‘Islam, Ecology, and Modernity: An Islamic Critique of the Root Causes of Environmental
Degradation,’ in Islam and Ecology, 318.
60 Marshall Hodgson, ‘The great Western Transmutation,’Rethinking World History: Essays on
Europe, Islam, and World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 44–71.
“… a place of brightness, a place of verdure, a place of repose, whence all sick-

ness, sorrow, and sighing are fled away” (in the Orthodox tradition).61 Working
together toward a new sacred science and a renewed vision for the connection
between God, man, and nature could bring hope to humanity. Together Ortho-
dox Christians and Muslims form over a quarter of the world’s population and
could be a powerful force to rival the powers of this age that are destroying the
environment.62 This should be central to their future dialogues and common
work.
61 Service Book of the Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church, 8th ed. (Anti-
ochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, 1987), 185.
62 According to a recent Pew study (http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious
-landscape-christians, accessed 16 June 2014), the total combined Muslim and Orthodox
Christian (Eastern and Oriental Orthodox) percentage of the world’s population was 27%.
chapter 28
Provocation and Resonance:

Sacramental Spirituality in the Context of Islam
Michael Ipgrave
In this contribution, I wish to present and explore two complementary motifs

which I believe can be useful in describing the encounter between Christians
and Muslims at the level of spiritual experience: respectively, ‘provocation’ and
‘resonance’. The former is descriptive of the dynamic of interaction, the second
indicative of the potential for dialogue, between the two. I shall argue that
a case for ‘provocation’ as part of Christian-Muslim encounter can be made
through revisiting our primary paradigm of relationship with the religious
other, that of the Christian-Jewish reality; and I shall then use the example of
a Catholic sacramental spirituality in contact with Islam to give one instance
of what such provocation might look like. I shall then claim that, despite
the apparent aridity of the theme of the sacramental for most Muslims, it is
in fact possible to discern dimensions of Islamic experience which resonate
with sacramental spirituality. The two parts of my argument are linked in
that if a renewed sense of the importance of the sacramental can be one
of the consequences for Christians of the provocation of Islam, then it must
be incumbent upon us to ask, to what extent this sense of the sacramental
can in turn be seen to resonate with an Islamic spirituality. I trust that this
attempt to trace some links, however fragmentary, between a sacramental
spirituality and an encounter with Islam will seem not out of place in a tribute
to the achievement of David Thomas, who has combined throughout his life
a rigorous academic exploration of Christian-Muslim relations with a faithful
priestly ministry.
Provocation (1): From Isaiah to Paul
I take the theme of provocation from Louis Massignon, of whom more below.
The word has a depth of meaning in English. In contemporary usage, ‘provoke’
has a generally negative, somewhat insulting, connotation: ‘invite to anger’.
However, it still retains traces of an older, broader meaning: ‘to call forth, sum-
mon, invite’. In Shakespeare’s Tempest, for example, Miranda’s father Prospero

provocation and resonance 493
tells her the tale of her early years, when, before they landed on the enchanted
island where she has grown up, they were at the mercy of their enemies. She
asks her father: ‘Wherefore did they not then destroy us?’, and he replies: ‘Well
demanded, wench: my tale provokes that question.’1
The word here conveys a sense of stimulation into an appropriate response,
laced with some measure of being shocked, triggered into an action which
might not otherwise have happened. Miranda’s question opens a new hori-
zon in Prospero’s narrative of self-understanding. ‘Provocation’ is thus a little
different from ‘competition’, although there are points of similarity. ‘Compe-
tition’ between two communities, or two teams, means being spurred by the
example of the other to do the same thing as them, but in a more forceful and
effective way. In distinction from this, ‘provocation’, while likewise triggered
by the example of the other, elicits from one’s own community that which is
a distinctive expression of its identity and values, which might not have been
brought forth at all, or not in the same way, but for the catalytic role of the
provocateur. Such is the linguistic reference of ‘provocation’; but where can we
find a theological basis for this idea? I shall argue that the Bible presents us
with the starting point for a positive theological sense of provocation, through
tracing a trajectory which begins in the Old Testament account of Israel’s rela-
tionship with God, and then is developed in a significantly new direction with
the advent of the New Testament and the issues that raises in relationship to
Israel’s covenanted relationship with God.
The human encounter with God, charged by the divine jealousy which
demands a whole-hearted and exclusive commitment, has within it a poten-
tial for massive and destructive malfunction when the relationship is violated
or ignored by God’s people. One of the ways in which the Bible describes this
malfunction is through the language of ‘provocation’. A key passage exemplify-
ing this is to be found in Isaiah 65, where God complains as follows about those
who will not enter into a dialogue of salvation with him:
I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask,

to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, ‘Here I am, here I am’,
to a nation that did not call on my name.
I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people [el-ʿam sōrēr; lxx
pros laon apeithounta kai antilegonta],
1 Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act i Scene ii.

494 ipgrave
who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices;
a people who provoke [hāʿām hammakhʿisīm; lxx ho laos ho paroxunōn]
me to my face continually2
It is clear that the prophetic message of Isaiah here is directed solely to the
people of Israel. This people, whom God wants to call his own, are indeed
ignoring and disobeying him, not following the covenanted way he has set out;
but in the setting of Isaiah’s prophecy there is at least no doubt as to who they
are. However, in an inter-religious context the prior question of the identity of
God’s people is itself raised, and this in turn affects the meaning of ‘provocation’.
We can see this transformation of meaning within the New Testament, in
the seminal experience of the ‘parting of the ways’, the earliest and formative
phase of Jewish-Christian separation and self-definition. The early Christian
community had to confront the existence of more than one group claiming a
covenanted relationship with God. They had to wrestle with the reality of a
growing separation between Jewish people who did not accept Jesus as Mes-
siah and Gentiles who did recognise in him the decisive encounter of God with
humanity. Michael Barnes has pointed out with great insight how formative
for the whole of a Christian theology and praxis of interfaith relations is this
question of the Church’s relation to the Jewish people as the ‘primary other’.3
In parenthesis, we might add that it is interesting to reflect on the question:
to what extent is Judaism—rather than Christianity—the ‘primary other’ for
Islam also. The seminal figure whose thought has indelibly shaped Christian
perceptions of what we now call Christian-Jewish relationships is of course
St Paul, in particular the Paul of Romans 9–11. In these chapters, the apostle
writes in an intensely dialectical way, trying to understand, as a Jewish believer
in Jesus, the relationship between two groups both of whom claim a covenant
with God: Jews who do not believe in Jesus, and Gentiles who do. Paul’s chal-
lenge is to reconcile the identity of the newly shaped Christian community with
a recognition of the reality of the long-called Jewish community, and to do so as
a Christian for whom the knowledge of God is in some sense mediated through
those who have become for him the religious other, since: ‘They are Israelites,
and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law,
the worship and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them
according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed for ever.
Amen.’4
2 Is 65.1–3.
3 Michael Barnes SJ, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions (Cambridge: cup, 2002), 31.
4 Rom 9.4–5.
From his own deeply conflicted personal position, Paul writes passionately,
in language so dense and tortured that it cannot be simply ironed out and fitted
into neat theological categories, of the newness of the Christ event, and of the
continuing zeal of the Jews for God; of the universality of the Gospel for all
people, and of the particularity of the covenant with Israel; above all, of the
continuing faithfulness and mercy of God, despite the disobedience of Jews
and Gentiles alike. At the end of Romans 11, his writing comes to a climax of
unsurpassed paradox which leads directly into an acclamation of the divine
glory and wisdom:
Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy
through their disobedience [apeitheia], so they have now been disobedi-
ent in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may receive mercy.
For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to
all.
O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways!
‘For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counsellor?
Or who has given a gift to him,
to receive a gift in return?’
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory for ever. Amen.5
In reaching this conclusion, Paul seems to have had in his mind the Isaianic
message about provocation, which he indeed quotes, but it acquires a new twist
in this new situation where there are two parties with whom God seeks to be in
relationship. This becomes apparent in the striking way in which Paul actually
cites Is. 65.1–3, dividing up its verses to refer to different groups:
Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,

‘I have been found by those who did not seek me;
I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.’ [cf. Is. 65.1]
But of Israel he says,
‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary
people [apeithounta kai antilegonta].’ [cf. Is. 65.2]6
5 Rom 11.30–36.
6 Rom 10.20–21.
496 ipgrave
From Paul’s argument, it is clear that he takes the first part of Isaiah’s prophe-
cy to refer to Gentiles, and the second to Jews. It is with the latter that the
‘provocation’ of Is 65.3 would most naturally be associated. However, as Paul
develops his theme in Rom 11, the motif of provocation comes to operate not
only in the relationship between humans and God, but also between differ-
ent groups of humans in their respective relationships with God, expressed
in the language of ‘making one another jealous (parazēlōsai)’: ‘So I ask, have
they [Jews] stumbled so as to fall? By no means! But through their stumbling
salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous [parazēlō-
sai].’7
The argument, roughly, goes as follows: Jewish unbelief has provoked Gentile
faith; that Gentile faith can in turn provoke renewed Jewish belief; and final
Jewish belief will signal the salvation of all people. Applying this to his own
work, Paul says: ‘Inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify my
own ministry in order to make my own people jealous [ei pōs parazēlōsō],
and thus save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the
world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead!’8 Thus for Paul,
through the controlling motif of God’s mercy, the theme of ‘provocation’ is
turned around: although God’s provocation still arises in response to negative
behaviour, its results become positive, as that provocation becomes a stimulus
to another part of God’s people to embrace the way of holiness that is opened
to them. Paul’s thinking, then, has transformed the wholly negative sense of
provocation, as found in the context of Old Testament covenant-breaking, into
something potentially positive in its results, though it still arises in the first
place as a result of the negative behaviour of disobedience. It is important to
see that this happens in a situation where Paul has to address the complexities
of a plurality of groups claiming to be in relationship with God, so there is an
inter-human dynamic which generates his thought. At the same time, he traces
the positive outworking of this new dynamic of provocation to the salvific
mercy of God; it is a divine purpose, not a purely human interaction, which
produces this new possibility. The salvific working of provocation in some sense
arises from God; from being a measure of his irritation with his people, it is
transformed into a way in which he stimulates them to holiness through their
contested relationships with one another.
In Paul’s logic, the current provocation to holiness which his own Jewish
people offer to Gentile Christians arises from behaviour which he views as
7 Rom 11.11.
8 Rom 11.13–14.
negative—disbelief or disobedience. On the other hand, the reverse provoca-

tion to holiness which he anticipates will be offered in the future by Gentiles
to Jews will stem from the positive response which Gentiles are making to the
gospel. In other words, he looks forward to a provocation to holiness which
arises from positive behaviour on the part of one of the parties with whom God
is in a relationship of salvation. Given this development in the sense of provo-
cation, a further step to explore in the journey of transformations of meaning
would be to ask whether a mutually beneficial provocation between religious
communities could be something arising from behaviour on the part of either
which is viewed in a positive light, although embodying difference. That is to
say, in a situation where different groups were claiming to be in some sense
in a ‘dialogue of salvation’ with God, through religious beliefs, histories, values,
practices which were quite different from one another, would it be possible to
see them as in some sense provoking one another to greater holiness within
that dialogue? Or, to put the question with greater theological accuracy, would
it be possible to see God as provoking us to greater holiness through such inter-
human contexts of difference and encounter?
If we seek to apply this paradigm from its seminal Christian-Jewish context
to Christian-Muslim relationships, it becomes a question both for Christians
and for Muslims: can we be positively provoked in the way of holiness by one
another? However, it is only the question for Christians which I can appropri-
ately explore as a Christian.9 Of course, the potential material to be considered
here is vast; I propose merely to look briefly at the example of the historical
interaction with Islam of one particular form of Christian spirituality, that of a
sacramental spirituality, as shaped in the traditions of French Roman Catholi-
cism.
Provocation (2): Sacramental Spirituality in Encounter with Islam
It was as provocateurs to a deeper Christian spirituality that the renowned

scholar of Islam, spiritual thinker, intellectual and priest Louis Massignon
(1883–1962) encountered Muslims, but he was not alone in that experience.
‘Provocation’ marks out a distinguished and continuing tradition of Catholic
9 That said, a Muslim might perhaps point to a Qurʾānic foundation for a positive account of
provocation to holiness in al-Māʾida 5.48: ‘If God had so willed, He would have made of you
one community, but He wanted to test you through that which He has given you, so race to
do good; you will all return to God and He will make clear to you the matters you differed
about’.
498 ipgrave
spirituality in encounter with Islam, a tradition which emphasises the central-

ity of the sacrament of the Eucharist, and in which the saintly figure of Charles
de Foucauld is seminal. Massignon described himself as ‘provoked to holiness’
by the example of Muslims, both his contemporaries and the saints of earlier
generations; in 1948 he said: ‘Islam has awakened the Christian in me for forty
years.’10 Massignon’s approach was foundationally built on his discernment of
the authenticity of the God worshipped by Muslims. I want to note three points
in his response to Islam.
Firstly, there is an intense acknowledgement of the integrity of Islam, and
of its spiritual force. Nor is this acknowledgement made in a hostile sense:
uniquely, Massignon felt that he had been brought back to Catholic faith
through the intercession of Muslim saints. Relying as he does on Islam’s descent
from the faith of Abraham, Massignon did not share the hesitation of many of
his contemporaries over the identity of the God worshipped by Muslims.11 For
himself, he declared: ‘I believe in the same God of Abraham as the Muslims, as
Mary in her Magnificat.’12 The influence of Massignon may perhaps be traced
in the following key passage in Nostra Aetate:
They [Muslims] adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; mer-
ciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken
to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable
decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure
in linking itself [ad quem fides islamica libenter sese refert], submitted to
God.
10 Louis Massignon, ‘Le Signe mariale’—interview in Rhythmes du Monde, 5 (1948–1949),

10.
11 David Marshall, for example, refers to the doctoral viva of the leading French Dominican
scholar of Islam, Jacques Jomier, at the Sorbonne in the 1950s, at which Massignon was one
of the examiners: ‘In his thesis Jomier had used the word “Dieu” when referring to the God
of the Bible and “Allah” when referring to the God of the Qurʾān. This prompted Massignon
to ask pointedly whether the God of the Qurʾān is the God of Abraham: yes or no? Jomier,
however, was silent in response (at least in part, it must be said, because one of the
other examiners whispered to him not to answer!)’. ‘Marshall remarks that ‘this fascinating
episode could be taken as dramatizing the different impulses at work in modern Catholic
responses to the Qurʾān.’—David Marshall, ‘Roman Catholic Approaches to the Qurʾān
since Vatican ii’—posted on http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/publications/campion
-hall-seminar-papers-on-christian-theological-engagement-with-islam (accessed 19th
August 2014), 13.
12 In Jacques Keryell, L’ hospitalité sacrée—textes inédits (Paris: Nouvelle Cité, 1987), 295.
However, while the conciliar text does seem to make no distinction between
the God adored by Muslims and the Creator of heaven and earth, the Fathers
of Vatican ii were more cautious than Massignon in affirming the identity of
this God with the God of Abraham; at this point, thy simply describe the link
that is made with the patriarch by the Faith of Islam, rather than themselves
affirming the validity of that link.13
Secondly, despite, or maybe even because of, the identity which he recog-
nised between the God of Islam and the God of Abraham, Massignon was
equally clear about the distinctiveness of Islam and Christianity, even of their
opposition. Rather than in identifying predictable ‘common ground’ in terms of
shared or similar doctrines, he was profoundly interested in unexpected points
of contact,14 and so in the ways in which Islam challenged—‘provoked’—
Christianity. One of the key ways in which this was symbolised for him was
in the two sons of Abraham, the brothers Isaac and Ishmael. This appears as
an allegorical distinction in the Letter to the Galatians, where Paul uses it to
signify opposition of Christianity and Judaism.15 Massignon, by contrast, in his
exegesis links Judaism with Christianity through a common link to Isaac, distin-
guishing these together from Islam, whose affiliation he traces to Ishmael. His
account of this has been aptly summarised as follows: ‘Islam is the monotheism
of those who have been excluded from the privileges awarded to Isaac and so
to Israel and the Christian Church, and it calls these two to account for the use
made of their privileges.’16
Thirdly, as those words show, Massignon saw Islam primarily as something to
which Christianity was accountable, and therefore as something which served
the spiritual health of the Church. Describing the aim of the Badaliya, the
sodality of Christians which he established with an especial concern and prayer
for Muslims, he wrote:
Islam exists and continues to subsist because it is of Abrahamic faith,

to force the Christians to rediscover a more bare, more primitive, more
13 Nostra Aetate, cap. 3.

14 The most striking example in Massignon’s oeuvre of this discovery of an unexpected
resonance is the way in which he describes the mystic al-Hallāj as witnessing to ‘the
Christic’ through his martyrdom—and making this witness to Christians through Islam.
15 Gal 4.21–31.
16 Anthony O’Mahony, ‘ “Our Common Fidelity to Abraham is What Divides”: Christianity
and Islam in the Life and Thought of Louis Massignon’, 159, in Anthony O’Mahony and
Peter Bowe osb, ed., Catholics in Interreligious Dialogue: Studies in Monasticism, Theology
and Spirituality (Leominster: Gracewing, 2006).
500 ipgrave
simple form of sanctification, which Muslims admittedly only attain very

rarely, but through our fault because we have not yet shown it to them in
us, and this is what they expect from us, from Christ.17
The spirituality which Massignon developed through his provoking encounter

with Islam was in many ways startlingly original, not least in his development
of the idea of substitutionary prayer, and in his readiness to see the links
of intercession transcend the boundaries between Christians and Muslims.
However, Massignon also found himself provoked in a very specific direction,
to return to a given tradition of catholic spirituality. This was a tradition which
was emphatically sacramental in its focus. For Massignon, it was shaped by
the saintly witness of Charles de Foucauld (1858–1916). Massignon regarded
de Foucauld as his ‘older brother’ in the faith and in engagement with Islam,
and corresponded with him voluminously. Like Massignon, de Foucauld, who
as a young man had lost his faith, in some sense explicitly ascribed his return
to Roman Catholicism to his meeting with Muslims. He wrote to Henry de
Castries:
Islam turned my life completely upside down [bouleversement]—the

sight of this faith, of these souls living in the continual presence of God,
made me catch a glimpse of something greater and more true, more real,
than earthly occupations: ad maiora nati sumus [‘we were born for some-
thing greater’].18
De Foucauld here identifies in his meeting with Islam an unavoidable en-

counter with that which entirely transcends us yet is utterly present to us.
Ian Latham points out that this grew into an orientation of his whole life to
adoration, a principal theme in de Foucauld’s spirituality, and he relates this
acknowledgement of ‘the greater’ as maius to the Islamic confession of God as
‘the greater’, akbar.19 However, de Foucauld did not become a Muslim, nor did
he turn towards an Islamic understanding of God. On the contrary, the effect
of his bouleversement was to turn him back to the focus of adoration which his
catholic spirituality most immediately provided, namely the presence of Christ
in the sacrament of the altar. His first response was to start reading Bossuet’s
17 Massignon, ‘Le Signe mariale’, 16.

18 Charles de Foucauld, Lettres à Henry de Castries, ed. Jacques de Dampierre (Paris: Grasset,
1938), 86. The Latin quotation is from Cicero.
19 Ian Latham lbj, ‘Charles de Foucauld, Silent Witness for Jesus “in the face of Islam”’, in
Anthony O’Mahony and Peter Bowe, eds, Catholics in Interreligious Dialogue, 49.
Élévations sur les Mystères, a manual for communicants, and in 1886, as an

immediate sequel to his conversion and confession to Abbé Henri Huvelin at
St Augustin, Paris, he received the sacrament. Latham tellingly expresses the
fruits of de Foucauld’s conversion in eucharistic language: ‘He discovers the liv-
ing God not in the silent immensity and solitude of the desert, but in the living
presence of the man Jesus, who … feeds him with the living Bread of Life.’20
Thus the renewed sense of adoration provoked by Islam was for de Foucauld
focused on the sacrament, and a second theme which emerges in his spiritu-
ality from encounter with Muslims is also eucharistic in its fullest reference:
namely, that of hospitality offered and received. Returning to Algeria in 1902,
de Foucauld established a zawiya21 at Béni Abbès as a place through which he
could provide hospitality to those among whom he was living. However, this
was not a unidirectional exercise, of giving only on the part of the Christian. The
hospitality he offered to his Algerian neighbours was de Foucauld’s response to
the hospitality which he had received from them, and he sought to point to
the Eucharistic Christ as in some way the completion of this exchange of hos-
pitality. Massignon himself wrote of de Foucauld’s time at Béni Abbès in these
terms:
He came to share the humble life of the most humble, earning his daily
bread with them by the “holy work of his hands,” before revealing to them,
by his silent example, the real spiritual bread of hospitality that these
humble people themselves had offered him: the Word of Truth, the bread
of angels, in the sacrament of the present moment. Beneath the tissue of
empirical facts he would have them divine the transcendent act. Already
his contemplation saw the temporal torn aside by the invasion of the
eternal.22
The Eucharistic resonances are strong in this passage, as is the language of a

French spiritual tradition reaching back to Jean Pierre de Caussade’s L’ abandon
à la Divine Providence¸ with its teaching on ‘the sacrament of the present
moment’. The spirituality which de Foucauld had been provoked to re-appro-
priate is one which uses sacramental language to speak of the hidden reality
of the eternal within the temporal, the infinite within the finite, that of ulti-
20 Ibid., 50.
21 A zawiya is a lodge or meeting place in Sufi Islam in North Africa, the equivalent of a
khānaqah.
22 Cited by Christopher Bamford in ‘Sacred Hospitality’, mid Bulletin 73 (October 2004).
502 ipgrave
mate moment within the everyday. He described the treatise attributed to de

Caussade as ‘one of the books that most influences my life’.23
A third major sacramental theme in de Foucauld’s spirituality, alongside
and linked to ‘adoration’ and ‘hospitality’, is that of ‘presence’. Provoked like
the other themes by his encounter with Islam, ‘presence’ for de Foucauld was
not simply a happening to be in a place, but rather an intentional orientation
towards the Muslim other; it followed that the Eucharist itself was for him in
some sense a resource and an impulse to mission among Muslims. This did
not, however, involve explicit attempts on his part to convert his neighbours in
the sense of leading them to Baptism and the profession of the Catholic faith.
The understanding of mission which governed de Foucauld’s life, both at Béni
Abbès and later at Tamanrasset, was rather expressed as ‘making Jesus present’
through human friendship.24 This friendship could be described as missional
not because it was instrumentalised in the cause of proselytism, but because
it involved a joining of de Foucauld’s life in union with the Eucharistic Christ
whose mission brings to all the loving presence of God: ‘My work … is first of all
to bring into the midst of them Jesus, Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament, Jesus
coming down every day in the Holy Sacrifice [of the Mass].’25
De Foucauld’s spiritual themes of the completion of the religious impulse
to adoration and the humanitarian impulse to hospitality in the Eucharistic
presence of Christ, and his almost unconscious development of a missiology
of presence among and for Muslims, can be traced also in the dramatic story
of Massignon’s life and spirituality, particularly in the central episode of ‘the
Stranger’, the Visitation de l’Étranger, coming in gracious blessing and received
in humble hospitality. But whereas de Foucauld’s involvement was not with
‘Islam’ as such but rather with particular Muslims, and whereas he did not
engage in an activity which could obviously be described as ‘interreligious
dialogue’, Massignon and those whom he influenced built on the foundations of
this spirituality a theology for dialogical engagement with Islam. The influence
of Massignon’s approach may be traced to some extent in the Second Vatican
23 Letter to a White Sister, 24th December 1904—in Philippe Thiriez and Antoine Chatelard,
ed., Correspondances sahariennes, (Paris: Cerf, 1998), 957. The central principle taught by
de Caussade was, that acceptance of God’s will means accepting whatever God presents
me with in the present moment. This, it could be argued, is itself a spirituality with strong
Islamic resonances.
24 Latham, op. cit., 60.
25 ‘Mon oeuvre … est d’abord de mettre au milieu d’eux Jésus, Jésus dans le t-s Sacrement,
Jésus descendant chaque jour dans le Saint Sacrifice’—Charles de Foucauld, ‘L’Apôtre des
Musulmans’, in Écrits Spirituels, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1928), 254.
Council, but it is important also to recognise that, like de Foucauld, Nostra

Aetate speaks primarily about ‘Muslims’ rather than about ‘Islam’.
The spirituality and missiology I have been sketching have had an impact
among Christians beyond the Roman Catholic Church also, as has the fun-
damental orientation to Muslims and people of other faiths set out in Nostra
Aetate. To give just one example, the recent Anglican Communion theological
document on inter faith relations Generous Love declares that:
Our Christian presence among other religions is honoured by ourselves

as we keep faith with our witness in particular places, and it may also be
honoured by others through the respect which they can show for that
presence. Anglican churches are called to maintain a presence in very
different places around the world, to sustain there a sense of sacred place,
sacred time and consecrated lives, through which prayer and witness can
be generated in local communities.26
Generous Love is here articulating a ‘presence missiology’ which can be traced

back to de Foucauld’s hermitage at Tamanrasset.27 After that section, which is
headed ‘Celebrating the presence of Christ’s body’, the Anglican report goes on
to speak about ‘Practising the embassy and hospitality of God’, and explains,
with discernible echoes of Massignon’s Visitation de l’ Étranger, that:
At the heart of our life as a Christian community is a meal for those

who know themselves to be strangers and pilgrims upon earth. At the
26 Anglican Communion Network for Inter Faith Concerns, Generous Love: The Truth of the
Gospel and the Call to Dialogue—An Anglican Theology of Inter Faith Relations (London:
Anglican Consultative Council, 2008), 9.
27 This is apparent, for example, in the first stage of evangelisation described in Paul vi’s
Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975), § 21: ‘Take a Christian or a handful of
Christians who, in the midst of their own community, show their capacity for understand-
ing and acceptance, their sharing of life and destiny with other people, their solidarity
with the efforts of all for whatever is noble and good … Through this wordless witness
these Christians stir up irresistible questions in the hearts of those who see how they live:
Why are they like this? Why do they live in this way? What or who is it that inspires them?
Why are they in our midst? Such a witness is already a silent proclamation of the Good
News and a very powerful and effective one … Other questions will arise, deeper and more
demanding ones, questions evoked by this witness which involves presence, sharing, soli-
darity (praesentia, vitae consortio atque coniunctio), and which is an essential element, and
generally the first one, in evangelization’. The document goes on to make clear, though,
that this remains insufficient if it is not accompanied by proclamation.
504 ipgrave
breaking of the bread our Lord himself came to his disciples as one at first
unknown. The Eucharist opens us to an awareness that we too are guests
of the Father waiting for the completion of his loving purposes for all.28
Here too, it is what can in broad terms be called a sacramental spiritual-

ity which is ‘provoked’ by the encounter with Muslims and other people of
faith. This is not, of course, the only response of Christian spirituality to that
encounter, in any of the Christian traditions, but it does describe a widespread
and influential pattern. How fruitful might such a spirituality be in engaging
with Islam: how much resonance is there for Muslims in the experience of the
sacramental?
Resonances: Islam and the Sacramental
It would seem at first sight that the resonances are few and faint indeed. The
sacraments in general, the Eucharist in particular, have not been a prominent
theme in Christian-Muslim interaction.29 This is in marked contrast to the
history of Christian-Jewish relations in Western Europe; in the later Middle
Ages, the sacrament became a major theme of contest between Jews and
Christians. The former were regularly accused of desecration of the Eucharistic
host, leading to trials, executions, and sometimes massacres; on the other hand,
miraculous hosts were held responsible for the conversion of unbelieving Jews
to the Catholic faith. In turn, there developed a polemical literature from the
Jewish side dismissing claims of the sacramental presence of Christ: ‘They
believe that he stands always in heaven in a bodily manner, and crucified for
no purpose, and his qualities are null and void, and that he descends every
day once in all the thousands of thousands of breads and in each of them he
is whole. And how very unacceptable this is both to reason and to nature’,
wrote Rabbi Yomtov Lippmann (1387–1423).30 As far as I am aware, there is
28 Generous Love, 14.

29 For example, in the remarkable website set up by Christian Troll SJ, ‘Muslims ask, Chris-
tians answer’ (http://www.answers-to-muslims.com, accessed on 27th December 2011), of
the 244 questions submitted by Muslims, only 4 had any relation to the Eucharist.
30 Yomtov Lippmann, Book of Contention [Sefer ha-Nitsahon] (c. 1400), cited in Miri Rubin,
Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1999), 95. The reference to ‘qualities being null and void’ is presumably
a comment on the scholastic formulation of the doctrine of transubstantiation, with its
teaching that the accidents of bread and wine persist without inhering in a substance.
no corresponding profile for the Eucharist in Christian-Muslim controversies.31

This difference may in part reflect the non-public nature of the celebration
of the sacraments in dhimmī communities, as compared to their very public
cultus the context of Christendom.
When they have taken notice of the sacraments, Islamic attitudes have
tended to be critical on a number of related scores. The arguments typically
major on accusations of: idolatry (worship directed to a piece of bread); can-
nibalism (with the eating of flesh made still more distasteful through being
accompanied by the consumption of alcohol); illogicality (all as in Rabbi Yom-
tov); and social control (the sacraments being seen as instruments for exercis-
ing power by the clergy).32 It is interesting to see how much common ground
this polemic shares with the anti-sacramentalist strand of some Protestant
Christianity. Conversely, any full picture of Islamic attitudes to sacramental-
ity would need to be filled out by reference to some of the more sympathetic
approaches which might be found in Sufi traditions, or among the Shiʾa, and in
the world of ‘popular religion’.
In general, however, it is fair to say that sacramentality has not featured
as a significant theme in Christian-Muslim interaction. One major Qurʾānic
exception to this must be recognised in the final verses of al-Māʾida, ‘the Feast’,
in which the disciples ask of Jesus: ‘Jesus, son of Mary, can your Lord send down
( yunazzila) a feast to us from heaven?’33 and Jesus in turn asks of God: ‘Lord,
send down (anzil) to us a feast from heaven so that we can have a festival—the
first and last of us—and a sign (āya) from You.’34 Some Muslim commentators
elaborated these enigmatic verses into the story of the physical descent from
heaven of ‘a table on which were seven fish and seven loaves. It is also said that
31 A partial exception to this is that from time to time anxieties have been expressed from
the Christian side over the possibility of desecration of the sacraments in an Islamic
context.
32 The influential Shiʾa website, ‘Al-Islam’, for example, includes a long text by the Muslim
convert Thomas McElwain, Invitation to Islam: A Survival Guide, which explains (ch. 5):
‘From an Islamic point of view, the sacraments function primarily to establish the author-
ity of the Church and its power over the fate of the people. Sacraments are essentially non-
Islamic in form, function, meaning, and antecedents.’ (http://www.al-islam.org, accessed
27th December 2011). From a radical Islamist perspective, Sayyid Qutb wrote of transub-
stantiation that ‘The Church imposed this allegation upon its readers [sic] and forbade
rational discussion of it’—‘That Hideous Schizophrenia’, in Paul J. Griffiths, Christianity
through Non-Christian eyes (Maryknoll, ny: Orbis, 1990), 73–81.
33 al-Māʾida, 5.112.
34 Ibid., 5.114.
506 ipgrave
it was vinegar, pomegranates and fruits. It had a very strong aroma.’35 Within its
Qurʾānic context, though, it is important to notice two things about the request
for the māʾida. One is, that this is couched in the language of revelation. The
verbal root n-z-l, ‘send down’, appearing in both human requests and in God’s
response to those requests, is one of the two lexical items commonly used in the
Qurʾān to signal the communication of God’s knowledge, warning and promise
to humanity. Moreover, the disciples specifically seek the māʾida as an āya, a
‘sign’ in the sense of a process that both indicates and conveys divine purpose.
The other is the strong biblical and liturgical resonances which many have
detected at this point. The passage has been seen as referring variously to the
gift of the Manna in the Wilderness, the Feeding of the Five Thousand, and
the Last Supper. As long ago as 1945, Windrow Sweetman36 drew attention to
correspondences of the Qurʾānic text with the Farewell Discourse of John 14,
and in a recent rhetorical analysis of Sura 5, Michel Cuypers37 (who stands in
the lineage of Charles de Foucauld as a Little Brother of Jesus) further points
out the echoes of the ‘bread of life’ discourse in John 6. Yet the embedded
sacramentality of this text, whatever its source, has not been developed in
Islamic tradition.
There is, then, little historical evidence of the resonance of sacramental
language with Islamic attitudes, and so there might appear to be little prospect
of sacramentality being useful as a theme for a dialogue of spirituality between
Christians and Muslims. However, the discernment of potential resonances
should not depend only on what has been actualised in history. It should
also be open to the exploration of as yet unrealised, or only partially realised,
possibilities in the future. It is important to be clear about what is, and what
is not, being suggested here. George Dardess, for example, drawing on his own
experience as a Roman Catholic deacon of being present at Islamic worship,
suggests that sacramental language can in some way be used to describe the
latter. He writes: ‘As symbols of the communal celebration of the word in both
religions, the Qurʾān is more adequately compared with the Eucharist itself
than with the Bible. In both the Qurʾān and the Eucharist God shares with us
God’s self through the word.’38 This is perhaps phrased rather unfortunately,
35 ibn Kathir, cited in Brannon M. Wheeler, Prophets in the Quran: An Introduction to the
Quran and Muslim Exegesis (London: Continuum, 2002), 309.
36 J. Windrow Sweetman, Islam and Christian Theology: A Study of the Interpretation of
Theological Ideas in the Two Religions (London: Lutterworth, 1945), Vol. i, 12f.
37 Michel Cuypers lbj, The Banquet: A Reading of the Fifth Sura of the Qurʾan (Miami, fl:
Convivium, 2009).
38 George Dardess, Meeting Islam: A Guide for Christians (New York: Paraclete, 2005), 44.
since the emphasis on divine transcendence in Islam is such that most Muslims
would eschew any language of God sharing his ‘self’ with others; the divine
essence is incommunicable, and it is only the divine attributes which can be
known.39 Let us suppose, though, that we recast Dardess’ insight in terms of
the way in which the community of faith receives, celebrates and responds
to the Word of God which its members believe has been communicated to
them.40 At what level, or in what kind of discourse, would such a ‘comparison’
of Eucharistic celebration with Qurʾānic recitation operate? Various possible
answers suggest themselves.41
One approach would say that what is being offered are simply observations
drawn from the sociology, or phenomenology, of religion. In that case, a com-
parison of Eucharist and Qurʾān would be just a matter of drawing attention
to an interesting set of behavioural parallels between Christians and Muslims,
without investing those parallels with any theological significance. In fact, of
course, the comparison could not be as straightforwardly factual as this might
suggest. Liturgical actions such as Eucharistic celebration or Qurʾānic recita-
tion are already heavily invested with theological interpretation, so any ‘com-
parison’ of them inevitably draws us into theological exchange.
A second, very different, option, then, would be to judge that the comparison
being made was indeed between the same theological reality expressed in two
different ways: that is to say, that in both Eucharist and Qurʾān God is indeed
truly communicating his Word to the community of faith. Dardess himself
seems to incline to this view, though he realises that it leads him into a very
paradoxical place; a few lines after the words quoted above, he writes: ‘How
ironic that the Qurʾan opens our Christian eyes more fully to what the Qurʾan
itself denies, that Christ is Lord!’42 This highlights one of the problems involved
39 The differentiation of the divine attributes from God’s essence, or equivalently from
God ‘himself’ (nafsī) was vigorously made by al-Ashʿarī (c. 873–941) in opposition to the
teaching of the Muʿtazilites; the relationship between the two was classically expressed in
the formulation, lā huwa waʾlā gahyruhu, ‘Not He nor other than He’—cf. Michael Ipgrave,
Trinity and Inter Faith Dialogue: Plenitude and Plurality (Bern: Peter Lang, 2003), 248–252.
40 Similarly, from an Islamic perspective, Tim Winter has spoken about experiencing the
Divine Word in the Qurʾān as ‘Islam’s eucharistic moment’, as ‘real presence’, and ‘sacra-
ment’ (communication from Catriona Laing).
41 David Marshall remarks that: ‘In terms of confessional theology it would generally be
thought very bold for either a Muslim or a Christian to say, as Dardess implies here, that
the Qurʾān and the Eucharist are parallel and equally effective channels of the grace of
God. We have moved a long way beyond the silences of Vatican ii’—Marshall, ‘Roman
Catholic approaches to the Qurʾān since Vatican ii’, 11.
42 Dardess, Meeting Islam, 44.
508 ipgrave
in such a maximally theological approach to comparison: namely, that there

are real, and apparently irreducible, differences between the understanding of
the divine Word as it is received in Islam and in Christianity. Many would also
argue that the language of ‘sacrament’ cannot be applied to anything outside
the life of the Church: sacraments are specific means given by Christ through
the new covenant to lead his people to salvation, and to apply the term to other
religious rituals is just not possible.43
However, if we are looking for the possibility of a resonance of the sacrament
in the experience of Muslims, it seems to me that we are neither restricted to
detached anthropological observation nor committed to definitive theological
judgement. Rather, we are asking if there is that in Islamic spirituality which
can understand in terms of its own experience that devotion to the sacrament
which, I have argued, is one of the forms of Christian spirituality provoked
by Islam. To look for such an experiential reference point does not imply
that the two experiences are substantially of the same theological reality; it
merely tries to open up an area of language in Christian-Muslim discourse
where to speak of the sacrament does not appear nonsensical or meaningless.44
At the same time, such an exercise is not devoid of theological content. The
suggestion that a reference point for sacramental language might be found in
the experience of Qurʾānic recitation is of particular interest, since it correlates
with a comparison between the doctrinal structures of the two religions which
has long been noted.45 In Christian faith, it is Jesus who is the revealed Word
of God, while in Islam the Word of God is revealed in the Qurʾān. Doctrinally,
therefore, the most appropriate comparisons are those made between Jesus
and the Qurʾān, rather than between either Jesus and Muḥammad or the Bible
and the Qurʾān. If that is the framework of doctrine, a natural question for
43 The distinction is, for example, clearly drawn in the Declaration ‘On the Unicity and
Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ’, Dominus Iesus, issued by the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith in 200, which explained (§21): ‘Indeed, some prayers and rituals
of the other religions may assume a role of preparation for the Gospel, in that they are
occasions or pedagogical helps in which the human heart is prompted to be open to
the action of God. One cannot attribute to these, however, a divine origin or an ex opere
operato salvific efficacy, which is proper to the Christian sacraments’. Dominus Iesus at this
point referenced the Decree on the Sacraments of the Council of Trent.
44 Cf., for example, the criticisms of the Eucharist by Rabbi Yomtov Lippmann quoted above.
45 The comparison was, for example, made influentially, and with provocative succinctness,
in R.C. Zaehner, At Sundry Times: An Essay in the Comparison of Religions (London: Faber
& Faber, 1958), 198: ‘For the Word made flesh Muslim theology substitutes the Word made
book’.
spirituality is then, whether we can trace correlations also in the community’s

response to these two ‘instantiations’,46 respectively of Eucharistic celebration
and of Qurʾānic recitation.
It is possible to do no more than to suggest some pointers in response to
these vast questions, and these will be very personal, as they rely on individual
experience of participation in the community of faith. That said, there are
three dimensions of the Christian sacramental experience which seem to me
to have interesting possibilities of resonance with Islamic experience focused
on the Qurʾān; in each case, there is a complex, even paradoxical reality for the
worshipper to engage with. Firstly, the actualisation of the Word in its primary
sense takes place in an event which is a corporate happening: the Eucharist is
celebrated, and the Qurʾān is recited, at particular times, in particular places, in
the company of particular groups of the faithful. This is a performative reality,
and the performance provides an opportunity for the word to be appropriated
by those who participate in it. In fact, the primary Eucharistic presence is that of
Christ in the body of the Church: as the faithful receive the sacramental body of
Christ, they are built up into the ecclesial body of Christ. There is a sense also in
which the community which recites the Qurʾān become themselves the bearers
of the Qurʾān, in imitation of the Prophet: ‘Faithful Muslims [who] so deeply
memorise and interiorise the sacred text that it becomes a part of them’.47
However, in addition to this performative dynamic there is also a continuing
reality of the Word’s actualisation which persists beyond the opening and
closing of the event, or the gathering and dispersal of the community. In
Catholic Christianity, the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament was a practice
46 I use the word ‘instantiation’ here as a generic concept to include theories of both the
incarnation of the Word in Jesus and of the ‘inlibration’ of the Word in the Qurʾān. Karl
Rahner, in ‘Oneness and Threefoldness of God in Discussion with Islam’, Theological
Investigations xviii: God and Revelation, tr. Edward Quinn (London, dlt, 1983), 107, spoke
of the ‘incarnatory character’ of all true monotheism, meaning the recognition of God’s
specific actualisation in the ‘concreteness of history’. Adolfo Gonzaléz Montes, in ‘The
Challenge of Islamic Monotheism: A Christian View’, Hans Küng and Jürgen Moltmann,
ed., Islam: A Challenge for Christianity (London: scm, 1994), 69, built on this to write: ‘It
cannot be said that to accept any idea of incarnation would be completely incompatible
with the Islamic concept of revelation, if by incarnation is understood the instantiation
[of the Word] within history of divine revelation’. It seems to me that to apply the language
of ‘incarnation’ to Islam is simply misleading, hence my use (from Gonzaléz Montes) of
‘instantiation’.
47 Michael Ipgrave, ed., Bearing the Word: Prophecy in Biblical and Qurʾānic Perspective (Lon-
don: Church House, 2005), 140, citing the comments of Muslim participants in the Third
‘Building Bridges’ seminar, held at Georgetown, Washington dc in 2004.
510 ipgrave
originally instituted to enable the sharing in communion of those absent from

the Eucharistic assembly because of sickness or some other reason, but it
subsequently came to provide a focus for venerating the presence of the Christ
who remains with his faithful people at all times. In Islam, while the very
word Qurʾān points to its primary reality as proclamation,48 the pages of the
book which is the written or printed scripture are also to be treated with a
proper honour as a publication of the Word of God. In both cases, then, there
is a persistent presence to be reverenced as an expression of the objectivity
of the Word over against the individual subjects who have participated in its
actualisation as communal performance.
Secondly, the believer, Christian or Muslim, approaches and receives the
Eucharist or the Qurʾān, respectively, with the assurance that here is undoubt-
edly the presence of divine reality, in bread or book; and this assurance is
built on the fixity of divine attestation, and the specificity of divine institution.
Approaching the question of sacramentality as a Muslim, Caner Dagli iden-
tifies the key characteristics for Christians of a ‘sacrament or sacred mystery’
as ‘consisting of an outward sign (the form) and inward grace that is insti-
tuted by God’.49 He goes on to stress that the third point in particular, which
‘distinguishes mysteries of the special kind from the general mysteries of the
world’, makes this a fitting description of the Five Pillars, the central practices of
Islam, which claim for themselves a divine mandate. For Muslims, the Qurʾān
is received and trusted without question as the Word of God because it was
as such that it was delivered to the world through the Prophet. Similarly, for
Christians, a sacramentum is, according to its etymology, a ‘pledge’ from God,
an identifiably promised means of grace in which absolute trust can be placed.
The practical implications of this divinely attested reliability is expressed in
the principle of ex opere operato, that the efficacy of the sacraments depends
on ‘the work being done’, not on the merits of those who administer them; the
same principle for Anglicans is enunciated in Article xxvi, ‘Of the unworthiness
of the ministers, which hinders not the effect of the Sacrament’.50 However, for
48 al-ʿAlaq 96.1, ‘Recite [or read] (ʾiqraʾ) in the name of your Lord who created …’ is held to
be the first verse revealed of the Qurʾān.
49 Caner K. Dagli, ‘A Muslim Response to Christian Prayer’, in David Marshall and Lucinda
Mosher, eds, Prayer: Christian and Muslim Perspectives (Washington dc: Georgetown
University Press, 2013), 56.
50 Article xxvi of The Thirty Nine Articles asserts a strongly ex opere operato view of the
sacraments, ‘which be effectual because of Christ’s institution and promise, although they
be ministered by evil men’. Unlike sacraments, ‘sacramentals’ (sacramentalia) do depend
on the dispositions of their users (ex opera operantis); maybe Muslim practices are more
like sacramentals than sacraments.
both Christians and Muslims, this strength of assurance also poses a tempta-
tion: if the sacrament or the Qurʾān, charged with heavenly power, is indeed
given into human hands, then there is the danger that either could be manip-
ulated to serve human rather than divine purposes. Both religions have had to
contend against magical abuse of this kind, and have done so by complement-
ing the ex opera operato principle with reminders of the untrammelled freedom
of divine sovereignty.
Finally, the divine reality as experienced by Christians and Muslims is direct.
George Dardess rightly remarks that ‘both Qurʾān and Eucharist put us bodily
in God’s presence and make an overwhelmingly immediate appeal to us’—the
experience in both cases is one of a direct encounter with the divine. For
believers in both faiths, there is a sense in which the veil of created realities
is lifted as we feel ourselves to be addressed by the Creator whose Word breaks
into our everyday preoccupations. However, in both Christianity and Islam
this divine immediacy is in fact made present by mode of signification. A
sacrament is an ‘outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.’51
Central to Islam are the āyāt, both verses of the Qurʾān and wonders of creation,
signs which immediately convey the proximity of God—‘divine indicative and
transformative activities [which] demand human engagement’.52 Muslims and
Christians alike experience a sense of immediacy in their encounter with the
Creator, and try to make sense of that within a view of creation which sees it
as a semiotic web mediating the divine purpose. That is the challenge which
lies at the heart of a sacramental world, so that, as Kenneth Crag remarks in his
lapidary style, there must be ‘a salutation of the Qurʾānic view of signs by all
who are fed by the bread and wine’.53
51 Book of Common Prayer, Catechism; cf. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, iii.60:
sacramentum est in genere signi.
52 Aref Ali Nayed, ‘Ayatology and Rahmatology: Islam and the Environment’, 162, in Michael
Ipgrave, ed., Building a Better Bridge: Muslims, Christians and the Common Good (George-
town: gup, 2008), record of the Fourth ‘Building Bridges’ Seminar, held in Sarajevo in 2004.
53 Kenneth Cragg, Muhammad and the Christian: A Question of Response (Oxford: Oneworld,
1999).
chapter 29
Getting to Know One Another’s Hearts:

The Progress, Method, and Potential of the
Building Bridges Seminar
Very soon after the attacks on the usa in September 2001, George Carey (then
Archbishop of Canterbury) became convinced of the necessity and urgency of
bringing together a significant number of Christian and Muslim leaders and
scholars who were willing to explore positive ways forward at such a highly
fraught time. Thus, in January 2002, with co-hosts Prime Minister Tony Blair
and hrh Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, he convened a seminar entitled
Building Bridges: Overcoming Obstacles in Christian-Muslim Relations. More
than three-dozen Christians1 and Muslims joined them at Lambeth Palace (the
London offices of the Archbishop of Canterbury) in the hope of creating “new
routes for information, appreciation and respect to travel freely and safely in
both directions between Christians and Muslims, Muslims and Christians.”2
Their conversation was rich. To the question of whether such a gathering could
be held annually and purposefully, the answer of the 2002 participants was
resoundingly positive. Thus was launched the annual Building Bridges Semi-
nar. This chapter provides a synopsis of the history of this endeavor—its eleven
years under the auspices of Lambeth Palace; its transition to the steward-
ship of Georgetown University. It lays out the Building Bridges method as “a
distinctive enterprise” in conversation that is both inter-religious and appre-
ciative.3 Finally, it describes the pedagogical applications and potential for
1 David Thomas, to whom this volume is dedicated, was among them.

2 Michael Ipgrave, The Road Ahead: A Christian-Muslim Dialogue (London: Church House
Publishing, 2002), 1.
3 Rowan Williams has called the Building Bridges Seminar “a distinctive enterprise in inter
religious conversation”. See his Preface to Prayer: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, David
Marshall and Lucinda Mosher, editors (Washington, d.c.: Georgetown University Press, 2013),
xv. Writing about the first Building Bridges Seminar, Gillian Stamp described it as an exercise
in “appreciative conversation.” See Gillian Stamp, “And they returned by another route,” in
Ipgrave, The Road Ahead, 112.

getting to know one another’s hearts 513
local or regional use of the wealth of resources this ongoing project has gener-
ated.4
The Seminar’s Progress
Archbishop Carey retired in October 2002. Nevertheless, plans were well under-
way for a second Building Bridges seminar. By accepting the invitation of His
Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar, to
bring the project to Doha in March 2003, a pattern was begun whereby con-
venings of the Building Bridges Seminar would alternate between Christian-
and Muslim-majority venues. Where the initial seminar had been a two-day
event, subsequent meetings would be longer: Muslim and Christian scholars
(some fifteen of each) would be invited to three full days of deliberation on a
theological theme with three well-delineated subtopics. At its core, the sem-
inar would entail collaborative study of scripture, most of this taking place in
pre-assigned small groups; but ample opportunity for plenary discussion would
also be provided. Pairs of lectures would be given, offering a Christian and
a Muslim perspective on the overarching theme and its three sub-categories.
The initiative continues in this essential format to this day. In fact, the Build-
ing Bridges Seminar was a significant priority during Rowan Williams’s term as
Archbishop of Canterbury (2003–2012).
In preparation for addressing the 2003 topic, Scriptures in Dialogue: Chris-
tians and Muslims Studying the Bible and the Qurʾān Together, participants
wrote and shared short responses to the question, “When, where, how and
with whom do I read scripture?” In plenary, participants heard papers on ways
in which the Bible functions for Christians; “listening” as a Qurʾanic notion;
the Qurʾan as theophany; the ethics of gender discourse in Islam; and the his-
tory of biblical interpretation, with special attention to exegetical methods of
4 This essay is informed by the published proceedings of the Building Bridges Seminars; David
Marshall’s digest of a 2007 survey of participants in the first five seminars; and my own inter-
viewing of a number of participants and seminar staff. Earlier forms of the information and
reflections presented here include my many public lectures since March 2002 about Angli-
can Communion interfaith initiatives; my essay reflecting on the Building Bridges Seminar’s
first five years, published online at http://repository.berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/Mosher
-Building-Bridges-Article.pdf; and my essay “A Decade of Appreciative Conversation: The
Building Bridges Seminar Under Rowan Williams” for David Marshall and Lucinda Mosher,
eds., Death, Resurrection, and Human Destiny (Washington, dc: Georgetown University Press,
2014), 259–274.
514 mosher
African women theologians. One pair of papers analyzed some of the biblical
and Qurʾanic material pertinent to questions of “the religious Other.” In pre-
assigned small groups, participants studied pairs of texts—for example, Psalm
19 with al-Rūm (30) 19–30 as passages on “signs of God” and al-Aḥzāb (33) 28–36
and Proverbs 31:10–31 on “righteous women.” The Doha meeting went well, even
with its proximity to the staging ground for the us invasion of Iraq. Williams
later would call Doha the seminar’s “seedbed,” in that it was from that city that
participants came away encouraged “to believe that it was possible, desirable,
and indeed necessary that the conversations which we had begun should be
continued.”5
For its third meeting, the Building Bridges Seminar accepted an invitation
from Georgetown University to bring the initiative to Washington, dc, a deci-
sion which inaugurated a unique and fruitful relationship between the uni-
versity and Lambeth Palace. The theme for Building Bridges 2004 was “Bear-
ing the Word,” since—as Michael Ipgrave puts it—“our mutual recognition of
one another as people who bear within ourselves the transforming burden
of the divine Word is the surest ground on which to build friendship, trust
and cooperation” between Christians and Muslims.6 Lectures and text study
explored Christian and Muslim perspectives on the nature of prophecy; the
calling of prophets and apostles; prophets and their peoples; the place of Jesus
and Muḥammad in prophetic religion; and the completion of prophecy.
Building Bridges 2005, Muslims, Christians, and the Common Good, stands
as unique in character among the seminars held to date. A seminar’s loca-
tion is always integral to how attendees think and interact, one participant
has asserted. In the case of Sarajevo, however, the place itself—described by
one attendee as a city sanctified by prayer and suffering—was a participant
in the conversation. The seminar’s global theme had particular pathos and
weight, in the Bosnian context. Many attendees found the bridge at Mostar—
reconstructed after its destruction by war in 1993—a profound symbol for the
seminar’s theme. Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim institutions in Sarajevo were
joint hosts for a meeting which focused on several specific concerns that had
been raised at the founding seminar in 2002: the interplay of faith and national
identity; governance and justice—with attention to the safeguarding of reli-
gious freedom; and, under the heading “caring together for the world we share,”
perspectives on addressing global poverty and environmental issues. Differ-
5 Rowan Williams, opening remarks, Building Bridges 2012. See Preface to this volume.
6 Michael Ipgrave, “Bearing the Word: Prophecy in Christian and Islamic scriptures,” in Bearing
the Word, 124–140.
ent from other Building Bridges seminars, closed-door plenaries attended to

regional case-studies from Bosnian, British, Malaysian, and West African con-
texts; and, rather than centering on close reading of texts, small group discus-
sion was rather free-ranging.
That in 2006, Building Bridges (an Anglican initiative) was hosted for a
second time by Georgetown University (a Jesuit institution) is a reminder
that the seminar’s Christian delegation has always been ecumenical. Christian
and Muslim understandings of divine justice, political authority, and religious
freedom—concerns raised in 2002 and discussed to an extent in 2005—were
its focus. This meeting returned to the practice of close reading of texts. How-
ever, in addition to Bible and Qurʾān passages, the study booklet included
writings of Augustine, al-Ghazālī, Martin Luther, and Ayatollah Khomeini, as
well as the Barmen Declaration (which established Germany’s “Confessing
Church” in opposition to the Nazi “German Christian” movement) and mod-
ern Islamic declarations on human rights. Inclusion of so many non-scriptural
texts encouraged breadth, but was not without difficulties. None of the post-
biblical Christian texts were authoritative for or well known by all Christians;
similarly, it was unlikely that all Muslim attendees had a strong relationship to
each of the assigned Islamic texts. Further complicating matters was the fact
that most of the non-scriptural items were too long for thorough discussion in
the time allotted. In short, interfaith discussion of texts other than scripture,
while worthwhile, was a different experience from “scripture-dialogue.”
When plans to meet in Malaysia went awry, the 2007 Building Bridges sem-
inar was postponed from spring until December. Singapore’s National Univer-
sity was the venue; scripture-study was restored as the primary activity. The
overarching theme was Christian and Muslim understandings of what it is to
be human. Public lectures and small group discussion explored the nature of
human dignity, human alienation and human destiny, human diversity, and the
relationship of humans to the wider environment. Intra-religious conversation
on these topics proved to be every bit as lively as the interreligious exchanges.
A mere five months later, it was time for Building Bridges 2008. The setting
was Villa Palazzola, an ancient monastery near Rome; the topic: Communicat-
ing the Word. Returning to elements of the 2004 meeting on Bearing the Word,
subthemes for 2008 included the pre-history of revelation; the historical partic-
ularity and universal significance of the ultimate revelation; the possibility of
continuing revelation; translation of scripture; and passages in which scripture
itself reflects on how scripture is to be interpreted. Additionally, participants
considered interfaith issues related to scriptural interpretation by studying
excerpts from Generous Love (a theology of interfaith relations prepared in early
2008 by the Anglican Communion Network for Inter Faith Concerns) and the
516 mosher
final section of A Common Word Between Us and You (the pan-Muslim call for
dialogue issued in October 2007). Excerpts from the writings of St Augustine
and Ibn Taymiyya were provided as examples of classical Christian and Mus-
lim perspectives on scriptural interpretation, but were not studied during the
seminar itself. The 2008 meeting differed from all previous Building Bridges
seminars in that no public sessions were included in the schedule. Assuredly,
this—plus the decision to meet in a cloister—encouraged profoundly frank
discussion.7
The year 2009 being the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin—
whose legacy, Rowan Williams noted, “is by no means uniformly hostile to reli-
gious faith”—saw the Building Bridges Seminar meet that spring at Istanbul’s
Bahçeşehir University to consider the interface between science and religion
from past and present Christian and Muslim points of view. Informing public
and closed plenary lectures and closed small group discussions were excerpts
from the writings of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Thomas
Aquinas, al-Ghazālī, Ibn Rushd, Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Pope John
Paul ii, Sayyid Quṭb, Shaykh Muhammad Mitwallī al-Shaʿrāwī, Zaghloul el-
Naggar, and others—in addition to passages from the Bible and the Qurān. In
May 2010, Building Bridges met in Washington, dc, for a third time. Georgetown
University, through its Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs, had
by this time taken over some of the seminar’s administrative needs. To engage
the theme of Tradition and Modernity, public lectures considered changing pat-
terns in religious authority and different conceptions of freedom emerging in
the modern world—thus echoing and expanding upon certain of the topics
addressed in Sarajevo in 2005. With a caution from Rowan Williams that “tradi-
tion” and “modernity” are not “natural opposites” in all circumstances,8 closed
discussions in plenary and small groups took up excerpts from the writings
of outstanding Christian and Muslim modern thinkers: John Henry Newman,
Muhammad ʿAbduh, Abul Aʿla Mawdudi, Lesslie Newbigin, Alasdair MacIntyre,
Seyyid Hossein Nasr, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, and Tariq Ramadan.
The new level of relationship between Building Bridges and Georgetown
University was further evident when the seminar came to Doha for a second
time in May 2011. Once again, the hospitality of the Emir was enjoyed; however,
this time, all sessions took place at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service
7 See “Archbishop’s Reflections on the 7th Building Bridges Seminar” http://rowanwilliams

.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/1118/archbishops-reflections-on-the-7th-building
-bridges-seminar. Last accessed: 19 January 2013.
8 Rowan Williams, ‘Afterword’ in David Marshall (ed.), Tradition and Modernity: Christian and
Muslim Perspectives, (Washington, dc: Georgetown University Press, 2013), 221.
in Qatar (sfs-q), which had opened in 2005. The topic being prayer, matters
of personal faith, practice, and experience to their place alongside academic
concerns to a degree not typical of past seminars. In preparation, each invitee
was asked to pen a brief essay answering the question, “What does prayer mean
to you?” Two seminar evenings featured demonstrations of worship practices.
The Christians presented a version of the Church of England’s Evening Prayer
rite. The Muslim offering included Qurʾān recitation, an example of dhikr, and a
lengthy supplication from Imam ʿAlī, and more. Theologies of prayer, Christian
and Islamic practices of prayer, and Christian and Muslim perceptions of the
other community at prayer were the topics of public lectures. Closed sessions
featured short lectures (with small-group discussion ensuing) on the Lord’s
Prayer, the Fātiḥa, and other scripture passages, plus reflections on learning to
pray and growth in prayer.
For his last Building Bridges as convener, Rowan Williams brought the sem-
inar “home”—to London, where the inaugural meeting had been held in 2001,
and to Canterbury—his seat as Archbishop and spiritual head of the Angli-
can Communion. In preparation for discussion of “Death, Resurrection, and
Human Destiny,” participants each wrote a short essay on resources within
their own religious tradition which they found helpful in responding to the
deaths of others or when contemplating the prospect of their own death.
These pieces became part of the study booklet for the seminar; but given their
intensely personal nature, they were published without attribution. Pairs of lec-
tures during the open sessions at King’s College, London, took up scriptural and
traditional treatments of the seminar themes, plus the notion of “dying well”
from Christian and Muslim perspectives. Closed sessions in Canterbury fea-
tured prepared responses to each of the opening lectures—a Muslim scholar
responding to a Christian paper, and vice versa—with plenary discussion of
each. Small-group discussion of 1Corinthians 15, several Qurʾān verses, portions
of al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ, and excerpts from Dante’s The Divine Comedy was pre-
ceded in each case by a short exegetical lecture. A fifth small-group session
focused on a pair of lectures on funerals in the Church of England and in Islamic
practice.
In July 2012, stewardship of the Building Bridges Seminar was transferred
from Lambeth Palace to Georgetown University. A member of the George-
town faculty when she participated in the 2003 Doha seminar,9 the acclaimed
9 Jane Dammen McAuliffe was Dean of Georgetown College at Georgetown University faculty
1999–2008, with appointments to the Department of History and the Department of Arabic
and Islamic Studies.
518 mosher
Qurʾan scholar Jane Dammen McAuliffe brought the significance and potential
of Building Bridges to the attention of President John J. DeGioia. As we have
seen, Georgetown’s support began immediately with an offer to host the 2004
seminar—an offer which was repeated in 2006 and 2010. A number of George-
town faculty members participated in the dialogue under Rowan Williams—
including DeGioia himself. The Rev. Dr. David Marshall, who had been instru-
mental in the planning of the seminars since their inception,10 was made a
research fellow at Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World
Affairs, thus providing him a base from which to continue his service as to the
Building Bridges Seminar. All of this contributed to a smooth transition.
Since 2013 invitations to the Building Bridges have come from the Office
of the President of Georgetown University. Dr. Thomas Banchoff, Director of
the Berkley Center, continues to offer support, notably in maintaining the
Building Bridges website. Through the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s
Secretary for Inter Religious Affairs, the Church of England continues to take
an active role in Building Bridges. Daniel Madigan, s.j., Ruesch Family Asso-
ciate Professor in Georgetown’s Department of Theology and a leading Chris-
tian scholar of Islam, now serves as Chair of the Building Bridges Seminar. He
works closely with David Marshall, now Associate Professor of the Practice of
Christian-Muslim Relations and Director of the Anglican Episcopal House of
Studies at Duke Divinity School, who remains the seminar’s Academic Director.
I joined the Building Bridges team in July 2012 as Assistant Academic Direc-
tor.
Thus, under these new circumstances the seminar convened in Doha in
2013—its third meeting in that city, and its second time on the Georgetown
sfs-q campus. The theme, the Community of Believers, generated lectures and
small group discussion of community’s nature and purpose; its unity and dis-
unity; and issues with regard to continuity and change. As had been the case for
several preceding years, the first day was given over to pairs of lectures on these
three topics; the second and third days featured small group discussion focused
on pre-selected texts. However, in a deliberate return to the practice of the sem-
inar’s early years, the assigned material came only from the Bible, Qurʾan, and
Hadith. When the seminar returned to Georgetown’s Washington, dc, campus
in 2014, another move was made to return to early practice: the public portion
was limited to a pair of lectures providing an overview of the year’s theme—Sin,
10 David Marshall, a Christian-Muslim relations scholar, became chaplain to the Archbishop

of Canterbury in 2000, thus was involved in the planning of the initial and subsequent
seminars. While he left the Archbishop’s office 2005, he has remained one of Building
Bridges’ primary planners and has attended almost every annual seminar.
Forgiveness, and Reconciliation—from a Christian and a Muslim perspective;

each of these three terms received more detailed treatment by means of pairs of
lectures during closed sessions on the second and third days—each pair of lec-
tures followed by small group discussion of relevant sacred texts. The rhythm
of lecture and discussion was enhanced by the fact that the scholars had been
relocated to a conference center in northern Virginia for the second and third
days of the seminar. This provided something of the cloistered atmosphere so
appreciated when the seminar met near Rome in 2008. In 2015 the Building
Bridges Seminar met on the sfs-q campus in Doha once again.
Building Bridges Methodology
As this survey of its history reveals, the Building Bridges Seminar has not been
a rigid enterprise; over the years, there has been experimentation, evaluation,
and return to earlier practice. However, a distinctive methodology has indeed
emerged.
First, at its core, the Building Bridges Seminar is a theological dialogue
between Christian and Muslim scholars with deep commitment to their reli-
gion. Its style aligns well with the Pontifical Council of Interreligious Dialogue’s
definition, in 1991, of “the dialogue of theological exchange:” a forum in which
“specialists seek to deepen their understanding of their respective religious
heritages, and to appreciate each other’s spiritual values.”11 A dialogue of theo-
logical exchange is not about achieving interreligious (or even intra-religious
agreement);12 rather, it is at least as much about exploring difference as it
is about finding common ground. At Building Bridges 2004, Rowan Williams
underscored the importance of investigating “what is disbelieved in other reli-
gious discourses,” as a means for finding “appropriate language in which differ-
ence can be talked about rather than used as an excuse for violent separation.”13
11 Pontifical Council of Interreligious Dialogue, Dialogue and Proclamation, 1991, accessed at

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_
interelg_doc_19051991_dialogue-and-proclamatio_en.html on 20th February, 2014, article
42.
12 Michael Ipgrave has noted that, during a Building Bridges seminar, the dialogue between
co-religionists (between Christian and Christian, or Muslim and Muslim) is often as
intense as that between Christians and Muslims. See his “Humanity in Context,” in Hu-
manity: Texts and Contexts (Washington, dc: Georgetown University Press, 2011), xv.
13 Rowan Williams, “Analysing atheism: Unbelief and the world of faiths,” in Bearing the
Word, edited by Michael Ipgrave (New York: Church Publishing, 2005), 1–13.
520 mosher
So, in contrast to the ongoing scholarly dialogue between Lambeth Palace and
al-Azhar, also launched in January 2002, the formulation and issuance of a for-
mal statement at the conclusion of each meeting has never been an intent of
the Building Bridges Seminar.
Second, the Building Bridges Seminar depends on a well-constructed dia-
logue circle. Participation is by invitation only. Much care is taken to create
a circle of participants in which Muslims and Christians are equal in num-
ber (or nearly so). Each year, women comprise some 25 % of the circle. The
Christian delegation has always been ecumenical: each year, Anglicans and
Roman Catholics have been most numerous, but Orthodox Christians, Luther-
ans, Methodists, and others have been included. Sunnis always predominate
in the Muslim delegation, but Shiʿites have always been present. Most impor-
tantly, because “dialogue” is a process rather than event, those who accept an
invitation to a Building Bridges seminar are expected to be present for the
entire three days. The invitation list will be tailored to the topic; for example,
in 2009—when the theme was Science and Religion—scholars with particular
expertise in that arena were sought out. However, continuity has been main-
tained by re-inviting several past participants each year. Prior to the opening
session, the list of participants is divided into four well-constructed break-out
groups that remain intact for the entire seminar. Each group has a designated
moderator—and, some years, a scribe. Care is taken to assure Christian-Muslim
balance, denominational variety, the presence of women in each group, and
that newcomers are well distributed.
Third, the Building Bridges Seminar involves significant periods of small-
group time devoted to the dialogical close reading of texts—most often, pas-
sages from the Bible and the Qurʾan. Some weeks before the seminar, all par-
ticipants receive a booklet of the selected texts in English translation; in 2014,
all scripture passages were supplied in their original language as well. Every-
one also receives a near-final draft of all lectures. Participants are expected
to prepare for the three-day meeting by—at the least—reading all of this
material. Some years, the topic has demanded that non-scriptural readings be
included. Discussion of non-scriptural material is a very different experience
from scripture-dialogue. Such Christian material is unlikely to be universally
familiar to all Christians in the circle, or to have equal importance for all of
them; likewise, the Islamic material for the Muslims in the group. Some partic-
ipants have relished close reading of such wide-ranging items; other have found
it a frustrating experience. Support has been quite consistent, however, for
dialogical reading of scriptures as the “spiritual heart” of the Building Bridges
methodology. Many participants have noted that the Building Bridges Semi-
nar presents a rare opportunity—not only for Muslims to study the Qurʾān
with Christians and for Christians to study the Bible with Muslims—but also
to wrestle in front of other adherents of their own religion and in front of mem-
bers of the other religion-community with a word or phrase that (because it is
scripture) cannot be relativized or dismissed.
Fourth, Building Bridges promotes a particular method for conducting
small-group discussion. Step One: the moderator invites a short period of
silence. Step Two: the passage under consideration is read aloud. One person
may read it in its entirety for the group; or it may be read verse by verse (or sen-
tence by sentence), with each person taking a turn. A group may opt to have
the passage read in its original language before hearing it in English transla-
tion. Step Three: each group member selects a word, phrase, or sentence he or
she found particularly compelling or puzzling, and offers only the briefest of
explanations for this choice. Only after everyone has spoken should the group
proceed to Step Four: free discussion of the passage and related concerns. The
moderator’s task is to make sure all have an opportunity to contribute, and
that—while digressions may be worthwhile—to see that, eventually, the group
returns to deep discussion of the designated text. Step Five: small-group time
is followed by plenary reflection—not in the form of a report on questions
answered or points made, but rather a sharing of delightful moments or linger-
ing concerns. Whether in small group or plenary, over meals, or in the seminar
venue’s various informal settings, the goal is the conduct and cultivation of con-
versation during which, as Rowan Williams has put it, participants come “to
know each other’s hearts.”14
Toward a Building Bridges Seminar Pedagogy
A dozen years of Building Bridges have produced a rich trove of resources,

much of which is available without cost on the Building Bridges Seminar
website.15 Each year of the seminar has a web-page summarizing its theme
and providing photos and bios of all participants, photos, and (in some cases)
videos. Often, the study booklet of assigned texts for that seminar is available
as a pdf. The proceedings of each iteration of the Building Bridges Seminar,
2002–2013, is available as a paperback book, as will be the proceedings of
14 Rowan Williams has described Building Bridges as such. See his Preface to Death, Resurrec-
tion, and Human Destiny: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, David Marshall and Lucinda
Mosher, editors (Washington, d.c.: Georgetown University Press, 2014), xxii.
15 http://buildingbridges.georgetown.edu.
522 mosher
2014 and 2015 in due course.16 The complete texts of the early volumes and
portions of more recent books may be downloaded from the seminar website
as a pdf. Beginning with Communicating the Word (the proceedings of the 2008
seminar), Building Bridges books are also available in ebook format. In short,
the Building Bridges Seminar has generated a readily accessible online and
print library of pairs of Christian and Muslim texts (many from the Bible and
the Qurʾan; some from other classical and contemporary sources), plus pairs
of scholarly essays: theological reflections; exegeses; case-studies; explanatory
pieces; and dialogue summaries on a wide range of topics. To what uses might
this material be put? Here are five possibilities.
1 Building Bridges Materials as Reading or Viewing Assignments

Most Building Bridges essays are ten to fifteen pages long; some are much
shorter; a very few exceed twenty pages. They are, therefore, adaptable to
many uses. For the non-specialist, individual essays, or even an entire Building
Bridges book, may provide a good introduction to a particular topic of interest.
More formally, instructors may include selections from the Building Bridges
collection in the syllabus for a course in Christian-Muslim comparative theol-
ogy, or for more specialized courses such as “Jesus in Christianity and Islam,” or
even in an introductory theology course for first-year university students. Build-
ing Bridges sourcebooks—the collections of texts assigned for each seminar—
are also a fine resource for instructors looking for interesting pairs of primary-
source items on a theological topic. Similarly, certain Building Bridges Seminar
videos might be assigned. Students might be asked to compare and contrast
the approaches taken by a pair of speakers to the topic at hand—for example,
from Building Bridges 2011, Caner Dagli reflecting on Muslim perceptions of
Christians at prayer, followed by Daniel Madigan offering Christian perceptions
of Muslims at prayer17—either during class discussion or by means of written
responses. In my experience, these materials provoke valuable discussion and
personal reflection.
2 Building Bridges Methods as Classroom Activities

The Building Bridges method of discussing these texts—reading the text aloud
together; taking turns at lifting up a provocative word or phrase; then engaging
each other in conversation about that text—is an effective classroom activity.
16 The proceedings of Building Bridges 2002, 2003, and 2004 were produced by Church House
Publishing, London; the proceedings of the seminars since 2005 have been published by
Georgetown University Press.
17 http://vimeo.com/26970083.
I have, for example, asked my students to work in teams (of two, three, or four)
for an hour or so. Conceivably, this process of collaborative close reading of
a pair of texts could be translated into an online course activity. In that case,
the teams could meet in real time via Skype, or asynchronously conversing via
email or instant messaging.
Certain pre-Building Bridges Seminar exercises transfer well to the class-
room. For example, in anticipation of the second Building Bridges Seminar,
attendees were asked to write a brief essay (approximately 500 words) answer-
ing the question, “When, where, how, and with whom do you read scripture?”
I have found this to be an effective exercise at the beginning of a course on
Sacred Texts of the Middle East, or Christian-Muslim Encounter, or Faith and
Critical Reason. So is reading and responding to some or all of the twenty such
short pieces included in Scriptures In Dialogue.18
3 Building Bridges as a Semester Course

One Building Bridges participant has argued that an entire university course
could be based on the Building Bridges collection. During the semester, she
proposes, students would read and discuss one Building Bridges volume per
week. In reflecting on this notion, it seems to me that the order of engagement
need not be chronological. For example, since both volumes deal with personal
practice as well as academic concerns, it might interesting to follow Scriptures
In Dialogue (2003 seminar) immediately with Prayer: Christian and Muslim
Perspectives (2011 seminar); likewise, study of Communicating the Word (2008
seminar) might follow directly on the heels of Bearing the Word (2004 seminar).
4 Replicating the Building Bridges Seminar

Moving away from the classroom, it has often been asked whether the Building
Bridges Seminar is a dialogical model that is replicable regionally or locally. For
many years, I have argued that it is.19 From time to time, the notion of satellite
dialogues has been proposed. For example, one participant has expressed inter-
est in launching a “Building Bridges: Africa” Seminar that could bring together
African Christian and Muslim scholars working on the continent or in the dias-
pora. If planned as a three- to four-day retreat, then recreating the Building
18 Michael Ipgrave, editor, Scriptures in Dialogue: Christians and Muslims studying the Bible
and the Qurʾan together (London: Church House Publishing, 2004), 1–24.
19 I make this point in my essay, “Appreciative Conversation: The Archbishop of Canter-
bury’s “Building Bridges” Seminars,” which has been posted on the Building Bridges Sem-
inar website since May 2010. See http://repository.berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/Mosher
-Building-Bridges-Article.pdf.
524 mosher
Bridges Seminar style should be quite possible. One of the previous seminar
topics and collections of texts could be revisited, but with fresh lectures com-
missioned from the present invitees. And, of course, an entirely new topic and
set of texts could be chosen—all the while honoring the seminar’s rhythm
of plenary lectures and conversation and small-group close reading and its
method of discussion of texts.
Another approach would be for a group of Muslims and Christians in a given
city or region to meet regularly (monthly, perhaps) to cover the same ground:
an overarching theme, its three sub-topics, and the associated pairs of lectures
and texts. For a local dialogue in an extended format to replicate the Building
Bridges Seminar style and method, the list of participants should comprise a
nearly equal number of Muslims and Christians and sufficient time for study
must be delineated. In a typical Building Bridges Seminar, over the course of
four days, some eight to ten hours are earmarked for plenary lectures and
discussion; another ten to a dozen hours are set aside for small-group work.
A dialogue in the Building Bridges style wishing to engage all of the texts and
topics of a given Building Bridges seminar would need to keep that in mind.
Thus, to engage all of the topics and texts of the 2011 seminar on prayer, a
group might plan to meet for two hours every Monday night for ten weeks:
three sessions for discussing the three pairs of public lectures (to have been
read as homework); three or four sessions devoted to close reading of scrip-
ture (Matthew 6:5–15 and Luke 11:1–13; al-Fātiḥa; Romans 8; q 3:190–194 and
29:45); two or three sessions on the selection of excerpts from Christian and
Muslim writings on prayer; and a final session for summarizing—perhaps also
considering the brief personal reflections on prayer contributed by the 2011
seminar participants. The same commitment of time could be configured as
ten monthly meetings, as three eight-hour days (perhaps a month apart) with
a break for lunch; or even as a three-day retreat (which most closely approx-
imate the Building Bridges pace). However the time is configured, it should
make it clear to invitees that attendance at each session is expected. Consis-
tency of participation is essential. During the sessions, the convenor and small
group moderators must be willing to lead from behind, facilitating rather than
dominating the conversation. If these conditions are fulfilled, then the deep,
appreciative conversation so characteristic of the annual Building Bridges sem-
inars is likely.
5 Dialogue Informed by Building Bridges Resources and Method

Alternatively, one might mount a dialogue drawing on Building Bridges mate-
rials and methods—inspired by the seminar rather than attempting to repli-
cate it. Indeed, in late 2013, a number of Episcopal clergy and Muslim leaders
covenanted to do just this. Their plan was to meet in New York City several
times during the first half of 2014, in order to work their way through Com-
municating the Word.20 Having noted that conversation over shared meals has
always been an important aspect of Building Bridges seminars, each session has
included somewhat informal conversation over lunch plus an hour of more for-
mal exchange. At the first meeting, held in a diocesan meeting room, the Chris-
tians provided the main meal and the Muslims brought dessert; for the second
meeting, held at a Muslim venue, responsibilities were swapped. Eventually, it
was decided that prayers of thanksgiving for the meal should be said, and that
responsibility was also shared. While having a meal together does impinge on
the time given over to collaborative study, participants have reported to me that
this sharing of fellowship has been delightful; enjoying each other’s hospitality
and has been at least as formative as has been the actual discussions of texts.
Almost immediately, this project encountered a major problem: consis-
tency of participation. In spite of genuine enthusiasm for the project and real
effort to be systematic, it proved very difficult to gather the same group of
busy Christian and Muslim leaders at each of the four lunchtime dialogue
sessions held between January and June 2014, putting the initiative at risk
of becoming a somewhat fluid reading circle rather than a sustained dia-
logue. Misunderstandings arose because not everyone was thoroughly aware
of the early stages of planning—particularly the fact that the overarching
theological concepts to be explored had been set before the dialogue began
in earnest. Patience prevailed, however; immediate difficulties were resolved.
Clearly, progress was being made toward getting to know each other’s hearts.
The group re-committed itself to the cultivation of appreciative conversation
by continuing its dialogical study of Communicating the Word during the 2014–
2015 academic year, using the Building Bridges format for close reading of texts.
Conclusion
I am often asked about the impact of the Building Bridges Seminars. Having
studied the initiative since its founding, I believe that students, colleagues, and
constituents of the Seminar participants do, indeed, benefit indirectly from
this dialogue. There exist, of course, other dialogical initiatives in which study
20 David Marshall, Communicating the Word: Revelation, Translation, and Interpretation in

Christianity and Islam (Georgetown University Press, 2011) is a record of the 2008 Building
Bridges seminar.
526 mosher
of scripture figures prominently. The Society for Scriptural Reasoning (ssr),

which describes itself as “circles of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim text scholars
and theologians who bring both their sciences and their faiths to the table
while they engage together in extended periods of [comparative] scriptural
study,”21 is the project to which the Building Bridges Seminar is most often
compared. However, these two projects provide different experiences—as is
confirmed by scholars who have participated in both. Most obviously, ssr
includes Jewish scholars; Building Bridges does not. ssr has quite intentionally
fostered numerous local study-circles; Building Bridges, while not averse to
the notion of local uses of its method and materials, has preferred to keep its
concentration on a single annual international gathering. Thus, in comparison
to ssr’s reach, the number of people involved directly in the Building Bridges
Seminar is significantly smaller.
Without doubt, after each convening, Building Bridges participants have car-
ried home new insights, anecdotes, and attitudes; that has fed an important
“ripple-out” effect. However, the Building Bridges Seminar’s process is long-
term, requiring sustained commitment over years. Gradually, over time, as
they have theologized in each other’s presence, participants have acquired and
honed the habit of what Daniel Madigan likes to call “mutual theological hos-
pitality”. The topics and texts engaged have, of course, been significant; but,
he stresses, “what matters in the end is the ability to have a common theolog-
ical conversation in which the quality of our disagreements (of which Rowan
Williams spoke) becomes more and more refined.”22 My hope is that awareness
of the Building Bridges Seminar repository can be expanded and its contents
put to robust use, so that others might experience the fruit of this habit mutual
theological hospitality as it has developed among seminar participants and per-
haps begin the slow process of cultivating it in their own contexts.
21 See http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/jsrforum/writings/OchFeat.html. Last accessed:

27 January 2013. Other initiatives with which Building Bridges has some similarity include
the Elijah Interfaith Institute in Jerusalem and Groupe de Recherches Islamo-Chrétien
(which conducts its dialogues in French).
22 From correspondence between Daniel Madigan and the author, July 10, 2014. For exam-
ples of Rowan Williams’ thinking on improving the quality of disagreement in theolog-
ical dialogue, see his “Analysing atheism: Unbelief and the world of faiths” in Michael
Ipgrave, editor, Bearing the World: Prophecy in Biblical and Qurʾanic Perspective (Lon-
don: Church House Publishing, 2005), 5; also, his “Justice and Rights—Fifth Building
Bridges Seminar, Opening Remarks, Tuesday 28th March 2006” at http://rowanwilliams
.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/1275/justice-and-rights-fifth-building-bridges
-seminar-opening-remarks. Last accessed 11 July 2014.
chapter 30
Anglican Interreligious Relations in Generous Love:

Indebted to and Moving from Vatican ii
Richard J. Sudworth
Generous Love, ‘an Anglican theology of inter faith relations’,1 was published by
the Anglican Communion Inter Faith Network in February 2008 and discussed
at the Lambeth Conference later that year. It is the culmination of a series of
official Anglican documents on interfaith issues and was ‘an attempt to provide
a statement that was as definitive as possible’.2 Generous Love was received by
the Anglican Communion of bishops at the Lambeth Conference and then by
the General Synod of the Church of England in January 2009. As the Anglican
Communion has no formal Magisterium, the authority of such a document
consists in its status as ‘a teaching resource’ and ‘agreed reference point for
Anglican teaching on inter faith relations’.3 Generous Love is thus a significant
guide to contemporary Anglican understandings of inter faith relations. This
essay will analyse what Frederick Quinn describes as the ‘lineage of the Vatican
landmark document, Nostra Aetate (1965)’4 evident in Generous Love, noting
both its indebtedness to Nostra Aetate, and its departures in the light of more
recent theological and political developments. Before so doing, Generous Love
will be situated in the context of previous Anglican documents on interfaith
issues since Nostra Aetate, in particular, The Way of Dialogue of 1988.
1 The subtitle to the document, Generous Love: the truth of the Gospel and the call to dialogue,
London: The Anglican Consultative Council, 2008, available to download at: http://nifcon
.anglicancommunion.org/resources/generous_love/index.cfm, 10th June 2014.
2 Clare Amos, ‘For the Common Good: The Church of England, Christian-Muslim Relations
and A Common Word’, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 20.2. (April 2009): 183–196, p. 183.
Amos was a member of the Anglican Communion Inter Faith Network in 2008 and one of the
principal drafters of Generous Love.
3 Michael Ipgrave, ‘The Use of Scripture in Generous Love’, in David Marshall (ed.), Communi-
cating the Word: Revelation, Translation, and Interpretation in Christianity and Islam, Wash-
ington, dc, Georgetown University Press, 2011, pp. 142–152, p. 147.
4 Frederick Quinn, ‘Toward “Generous Love”: Recent Anglican Approaches to World Religions’,
Journal of Anglican Studies, 10.2. (2011): 161–182, p. 164.

528 sudworth
Jews, Christians and Muslims: The Way of Dialogue (1988) and

Vatican ii
About a century prior to 1988, the Lambeth Conference of 1897 had framed
relations with Jews and Muslims in the context of ‘preaching His Gospel to the
world’ as ‘one great religious body, which holds the truth in part not in its full-
ness, the Jews; with another which holds fragments of the truth embedded in a
mass of falsehood’.5 The engagement with other faiths is seen through the prism
of the desire to evangelise, and correct misunderstanding and error (Islam), or
to complete a partial knowledge of the gospel (Judaism). Seventy years later, in
the Lambeth Conference of 1968 and in the wake of Vatican ii, there is another
reference to inter faith relations, but for the first time this includes the man-
date to foster dialogue. Thus, the language of dialogue becomes apparent with
a resolution that encourages ‘positive relationship to the different religions of
men’ to ‘set forward the common unity of mankind and a common participa-
tion in its present history’.6 In the Lambeth Conference of 1978, a resolution
was determined which affirms the mission of the Gospel again, but this time
it is opened out to embrace ‘the obligation to open exchange of thought and
experience with people of other faiths’.7 This resolution offers a tentative theo-
logical basis for dialogue by suggestively noting the need for ‘sensitivity to the
work of the Holy Spirit among them’.8 It is in the 1988 Lambeth Conference
that a more substantive theology of dialogue is presented following the posi-
tive steps taken in the post-Vatican ii era of Lambeth Conferences in 1968 and
1978.
This backdrop of a gradual opening out of relations with other faiths to
include the imperative to dialogue following Vatican ii, and the publication
of Jews, Christians, and Muslims: The Way of Dialogue in 1988 is an important
context to Generous Love. Alongside The Way of Dialogue, the 1988 Lambeth
Conference endorsed the ‘Four Principles of Dialogue’ that had been formu-
lated by the British Council of Churches together with the World Council of
Churches:
5 ‘Encyclical Letter, Lambeth Conference, 1897’, in G.R. Evans, & J. Robert Wright (eds.), The
Anglican Tradition: A Handbook of Sources, London: spck, 1991, p. 360.
6 ‘Resolution 11, Lambeth Conference, 1968’, in G.R. Evans, & J. Robert Wright (eds.), The
Anglican Tradition, p. 473.
7 ‘Resolution 20, Lambeth Conference, 1978’, in Michael Ingham, Mansions of the Spirit: The
Gospel in a Multi-Faith World, Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1997, p. 143.
8 Ibid.
anglican interreligious relations in generous love 529
(1) dialogue begins when people meet each other; (2) dialogue depends
upon mutual understanding, mutual respect and mutual trust; (3) dia-
logue makes it possible to share in service to the community; (4) dialogue
becomes a medium of authentic witness.9
These four principles were then accompanied by The Way of Dialogue as an

illustration of how such dialogue could be embodied in the relations between
Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
Michael Ipgrave has noted how the evolution of The Way of Dialogue ‘par-
tially mirrors’ that of the key Vatican ii document, Nostra Aetate. It, too, orig-
inated from an intention to reflect on Christian-Jewish relations and, con-
sequent upon pressure from Asian and African bishops, was subsequently
enlarged to include Christian-Muslim issues.10 While Nostra Aetate extends its
scope to all non-Christian religions, there is a sense in which the Abrahamic
faiths are given particular attention, with Judaism the more privileged dialogue
partner in a ‘concentric schema’ of revelation that is fulfilled in the Church
at Vatican ii. As Neal Robinson observes, Nostra Aetate has a ‘Massignonian
ring’ about it, referring to the influence of the pioneering Catholic Islamicist
and advocate of the Abrahamic theologoumenon for Christian-Muslim rela-
tions, Louis Massignon (1883–1962).11 Massignon had argued for the historical
and religious plausibility of the connection between Abraham, through Ish-
mael, with Islam, as well as for the designation of Islam as a patriarchal faith
alongside Jews and Christians. The original draft of the accompanying Vati-
can ii Lumen Gentium on the ‘Dogmatic Constitution of the Church’ reveals
the direct influence of Massignon more explicitly: ‘The sons of Ishmael, who
acknowledging Abraham as their father also believe in the God of Abraham,
are not total strangers to the revelation made to the Patriarchs.’12 That the final
9 ‘Resolution 20, Lambeth Conference, 1988’, in The Truth Shall Make You Free: The Lambeth
Conference 1988, The Reports, Resolutions & Pastoral Letters from the Bishops, London: The
Anglican Consultative Council, 1988, p. 218.
10 Michael Ipgrave, ‘Understanding, Affirmation, Sharing: Nostra Aetate and an Anglican
Approach to Inter-Faith Relations’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 43.1. (Winter 2008): 1–16,
p. 6.
11 Neal Robinson. ‘Massignon, Vatican ii and Islam as an Abrahamic Religion’, Islam and
Christian-Muslim Relations, 2.2. (December 1991): 182–204, p. 195. See also, Anthony O’Ma-
hony, ‘The Influence of the Life and Thought of Louis Massignon on the Catholic Church’s
Relations with Islam’, The Downside Review, 44. (July 2008): 169–192.
12 Christian S. Krokus, ‘Louis Massignon’s influence on the teaching of Vatican ii on Muslims
and Islam’, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 23.3. (July 2012): 329–345, p. 332.
530 sudworth
versions of Nostra Aetate and Lumen Gentium preferred the altogether more
qualified language that Islam ‘takes pleasure in linking itself’13 to Abraham and
‘professes to hold’14 the Abrahamic faith suggests a degree of equivocation over
Massignon’s theologoumenon. Confirming the verdict of Robert Caspar, Chris-
tian Krokus rather sees a ‘deferred judgment on Islam as an “Abrahamic Faith”
pending further research’.15 The seminal break that Vatican ii heralded, though,
is the belief that Christians and Muslims worship the same God in a relation-
ship that finds expression in the language of the Jewish patriarchs: ‘We cannot
ever say again that we do not adore the same God, even if we call Him by dif-
ferent names.’16
The Way of Dialogue follows the pattern of Nostra Aetate by acknowledg-
ing their worship of the one God, recognising a ‘special relationship’ whereby
‘All three of these religions see themselves in a common relationship to Abra-
ham’.17 Where Nostra Aetate extended an account of dialogue to all faiths, The
Way of Dialogue stays within the Abrahamic fold, only providing an aside that
‘dialogue with all faiths is desirable’.18 Indeed, where Nostra Aetate privileged
relations with Judaism, The Way of Dialogue puts Islam on a par with Judaism
and thus underlines a stronger Massignonian tone suggestive of a shared, patri-
archal faith that Vatican ii otherwise eschews. As Bert Breiner, the principal
drafter of The Way of Dialogue, admits, ‘the finished product goes much further
than its elder cousin, Nostra Aetate’.19
13 Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, Pro-
claimed by His Holiness Pope Paul vi on October 28, 1965, §3, downloaded from: http://www
.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_
nostra-aetate_en.html, on 11th June 2014.
14 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, Solemnly Promulgated by His Holi-
ness Pope Paul vi on November 21, 1964, § 16, downloaded from: http://www.vatican.va/
archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen
-gentium_en.html, on 11th June 2014.
15 Christian S. Krokus, ‘Louis Massignon’s influence on the teaching of Vatican ii’, p. 333.
16 Robert Caspar, ‘Islam according to Vatican ii’, Encounter: Documents for Muslim-Christian
Understanding, 21. (1976): 1–7, p. 3.
17 Appendix 6, ‘Jews, Christians and Muslims: The Way of Dialogue’, §1, in The Truth Shall
Make You Free, p. 299.
18 Ibid.
19 For an annotated commentary of The Way of Dialogue informed by contemporaneous
notes of discussions and the records of the principal drafter, Bert Breiner, I am indebted
to Lucinda Mosher’s unpublished historical-critical analysis of 1997 for the General The-
ological Seminary, New York: ‘Christ and People of Other Faiths’ and ‘Jews, Christians and
Muslims: The Way of Dialogue’, the Statements on Interfaith Relations of The Anglican Com-
Daniel Madigan has referred to the ‘open questions’ left by Nostra Aetate,
and ‘the rather ambiguous—perhaps we should say judicious—silence of Vat-
ican ii’.20 Nostra Aetate points to the influence of Massignon but is decid-
edly ambiguous about accepting the Abrahamic fold of religions. There is an
acknowledgment of the salvific potential of other religions, but silence as to the
means and extent of such salvation. The status of Muḥammad is sidestepped
in favour of a positive recognition of aspects of Islamic devotion, and there is
silence over the nature of the corporate life of contemporary Judaism. As Neal
Robinson notes, it cannot be said that the conciliar documents ‘brackets Islam
with Judaism as an Abrahamic religion different from other non-Christian reli-
gions. The most one can argue is that they do not close the door to future
explorations which might show that it is one’.21
That The Way of Dialogue should follow Nostra Aetate and yet go further than
its Catholic forbear suggests that the conciliar documents were either misin-
terpreted or that a doctrinal distinction was being made. Gavin D’Costa has
made clear his view that ‘The emerging Catholic position [articulated in the
Vatican ii’s attitude to other religions] is based on theological principles that
still require further articulation and explication within the Catholic tradition’.22
Indeed, D’Costa’s analysis foregrounds the need for an understanding of the
hermeneutical structures of the Roman Catholic Magisterium before any theo-
logical principles can be deduced from Nostra Aetate. Thus, the Dogmatic Con-
stitutions, such as Lumen Gentium (1964) on the nature of the Church, embody
the highest authority which should be used to interpret the lowest level of doc-
ument, the Declaration Nostra Aetate, and not the other way round.23 By being
attentive to the hermeneutical implications of the Magisterium, a more holistic
understanding of doctrine, theology that is decidedly systematic, is brought to
bear on the continuities and discontinuities apparent in Vatican ii. By contrast,
The Way of Dialogue stands alone as an account of the reasons for construc-
tive dialogue across Christians, Jews, and Muslims, without any substantive
munion prepared by The Dogmatic & Pastoral Concerns Section, Lambeth Conference 1988,
p. 16.
20 Daniel Madigan, ‘Nostra Aetate and the questions it chose to leave open’, Gregorianum,
87.4 (2006): 781–796, p. 784.
21 Neal Robinson, ‘Massignon, Vatican ii and Islam’, p. 195.
22 Gavin D’Costa. ‘Hermeneutics and the Second Vatican Council’s Teachings: Establishing
Roman Catholic Theological Grounds for Religious Freedoms in Relation to Islam. Con-
tinuity or Discontinuity in the Catholic Tradition?’ Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations,
20.3, (July 2009): 277–290, p. 278.
23 Ibid., p. 279.
532 sudworth
reflections on the corresponding nature of the Church, mission, or Christology,

for example. The subsequent controversy that The Way of Dialogue generated
amongst evangelicals and bishops from Asia and Africa in particular24 sug-
gest that the Anglican document may have pushed its interpretation of Nostra
Aetate further than could be readily received by much of the Anglican Com-
munion. There is a danger that The Way of Dialogue confirms the judgment of
the 1986 Anglican theological and doctrinal commission report, For the Sake
of the Kingdom, that ‘For too long Anglicans have appeared willing to evade
responsible theological reflection and dialogue by acquiescing automatically
and immediately in the coexistence of incompatible views, opinions and poli-
cies’.25
Evangelism in The Way of Dialogue, or proclamation in the language of Vat-
ican ii (which is addressed in the Decree Ad Gentes, 1965, and thus of a higher
authority than Nostra Aetate) is an incidental element of a wider thrust to
dialogue based on a theological underpinning of the Abrahamic unity of Chris-
tians, Jews, and Muslims. How Anglicans are to understand the nature of the
Church and the centrality of Christ in relation to Jews and Muslims is unclear.
The doctrine of the trinity is not even mentioned in The Way of Dialogue. Nostra
Aetate, however, is accompanied by Dei Verbum (1965), a Dogmatic Constitu-
tion and the highest authority, which sets the revelation of God in the life of the
trinity and thus the source of any divine encounter by other faiths. The wider
conciliar reading has the effect of framing any analysis of the revelation of God
within other faiths, as Nostra Aetate admits, in trinitarian terms. While Nostra
Aetate does not answer the question of salvation, for example, though it clearly
moves from an exclusive to an inclusive position, there is an openness that
requires interpretation of such an issue though the broader Magisterium of the
Roman Catholic Church. The Way of Dialogue contains familial resemblances to
Nostra Aetate but more emphatically positions Christians, Jews, and Muslims
as Abrahamic faiths without any accompanying doctrinal resource that allows
for a coherent, systematic Anglican theology of interreligious relations.26
24 Cf. Lucinda Mosher, ‘Christ and People of Other Faiths’ and ‘Jews, Christians and Muslims’,
pp. 14–15.
25 Quoted in Stephen Sykes. Unashamed Anglicanism, London: Darton, Longman & Todd,
1995, p. 120.
26 See Martin Ganeri, ‘The Catholic Magisterium and World Religions’, in Anthony O’Maho-
ny, Timothy Wright & Mohammed Ali Shomali (eds.), A Catholic-Shia Dialogue: Ethics in
Today’s Society, London: Melisende, 2008, pp. 26–43 for a summary account of the theo-
logical positioning of relations with other faiths subsequent to Vatican ii.
The Context of Generous Love
It is perhaps not surprising, then, following the difficult reception of The Way
of Dialogue at Lambeth 1988 that the subsequent 1998 Lambeth Conference
avoided any substantive theological account of other faiths in favour of an
extensive sharing of stories from across the Communion of encounters with
Islam. Instead, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali takes the opportunity to espouse
the missionary values of ‘embassy’ and ‘hospitality’ in an address on mission
and dialogue.27 Coming to the Lambeth Conference of 2008, with the anxiety
around the debates over homosexuality an additional locus of potential dis-
unity in the Anglican Communion,28 any discussion of other faiths needed to
be able to achieve a level of acceptance that earlier documents had failed to
do. This is why Ipgrave highlights the influence of Nostra Aetate on the Angli-
can position embodied in The Way of Dialogue, while expressing envy at the
systematisation of the Roman Catholic Magisterium:
Anglicans, like other more or less organized Christian communions, see

such great value in the coherence that can be lent to the task of under-
standing other religions through the kind of discipline and coordinated
work that can be undertaken by the Roman Catholic Church, of which
Nostra Aetate represents the ground plan.29
When Clare Amos, along with Ipgrave amongst the team of authors of Gen-
erous Love, articulates the desire that it would ‘provide a statement that was as
definitive as possible’, she has the problematic reception of The Way of Dialogue
in mind.30 The theological focus of Generous Love is thus markedly less ambi-
tious than its antecedent 1988 publication: it acts as ‘a theology of inter-faith
27 Michael Nazir-Ali, ‘Embassy, Hospitality and Dialogue: Christians and People of Other
Faiths’, The Official Report of the Lambeth Conference, Harrisburg, pa: Morehouse Publish-
ing, 1999, pp. 268–327. ‘Embassy’ and ‘Hospitality’ are themes particularly redolent of the
Anglican bishop and missionary scholar of Islam, Kenneth Cragg. See, Kenneth Cragg. The
Call of the Minaret, London: Collins, 1986. 2nd ed. (rev. and enlarged), first published in
1956.
28 See Norman Doe, An Anglican Covenant: Theological and Legal Considerations for a Global
Debate, Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2008, for an overview of the published Anglican
documents on homosexuality and their context within the threatened break-up of the
Anglican Communion.
29 Michael Ipgrave, ‘Understanding, Affirmation, Sharing’, p. 9.
30 Clare Amos, ‘For the Common Good’, p. 183.
534 sudworth
relations—rather than, say, a theology of religions’.31 There is a self-consciously

systematic theology in the setting of those relations which avoids discussion
of the practical out-workings expounded in The Way of Dialogue that were
deemed “irrelevant” by many African and Asian bishops.32 Instead, the con-
textual nature of Anglicanism was proposed as a distinctive of the tradition
without offering a hostage to fortune by restricting what that ‘experience’ of
tradition may be: ‘this variety [of different Anglican contexts] has contributed
to the marked pluriformity of Anglican theological approaches to inter faith
issues.’33
Another aspect of the context to Generous Love is the notably less sanguine
tone to interfaith relations. Nostra Aetate contains what Madigan describes as
an ‘optimistic call’ to ‘forget the past’,34 including the ‘many quarrels and hostil-
ities’ between Christians and Muslims.35 Rowan Williams, the then Archbishop
of Canterbury, uses the Foreword to express his view that ‘the situation has
moved on, both in theology and in practical relations between communities’
since Vatican ii.36 In an interview, Ipgrave identifies the religiously motivated
violence of the events of 9–11 as indicative of a greater pessimism around inter-
faith relations since Vatican ii and as an illustration of the change in ‘practical
relations’. The roll-call of religiously-motivated violence from within many dif-
ferent religious traditions cautions the optimism that histories of interreligious
conflict can indeed be swept aside so readily. Embodied in Generous Love is a
very pragmatic notion that the attempt to ground a theological model that can
embrace a unity of all faiths is liable to be blind to the realities of conflict and
division that exist across all faiths. It has to be noted, again, that that pragma-
tism extends to internal Anglican relations, too, in the articulation of a theology
of interfaith relations that can command extensive agreement.
Williams’ sense that the theological scene ‘has moved on’ underlies the alto-
gether less ambitious intent to theologise about interfaith relations as opposed
to ‘the religions’. That is, Generous Love represents a move back into the Chris-
tian self-understanding as a way of exploring the nature of interreligious en-
counter. This is in contrast to a theology of religions which attempts to observe
31 Ibid.
32 Richard Sudworth, ‘Anglicanism and Islam: the ecclesial-turn in interfaith relations’, in
Living Stones Yearbook 2012, London: Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust, Melisende, 2012,
pp. 65–105.
33 Generous Love, p. 7.
34 Daniel Madigan, ‘Nostra Aetate and the questions it chose to leave open’, p. 782.
35 Nostra Aetate, § 3.
36 Generous Love, p. v.
what are ostensibly the same or similar phenomena, ‘religions’, from an outside
viewpoint. In interview, Williams expands on his assessment of the changed
theological climate by noting the influence of the seminal collection of essays
in The Myth of God Incarnate in 1977.37 For Williams, this represents a time
when theologies of religion, what he describes as ‘mega-theories’, were at their
highpoint.38 These accounts of religions exhibit ‘the English university tradi-
tion at its narrowest and a particular kind of New Testament culture’.39 Here
one can detect Williams’ own sympathies for a ‘Christian theology that is quite
robust and quite deep-rooted’ exemplified by the likes of von Balthasar, Lossky
and Stanilaoe, who draw from the patristic milieu.
How the neo-patristic sensibility is echoed in Generous Love will be returned
to subsequently, but Williams’ aversion to mega-theories comes also from his
commitment to the potential of concrete and local encounters. Another aspect
of the change since Vatican ii is that the interreligious challenge is ‘on our
doorstep’40 whether through migration or globalisation. The unworkability of
the mega-theories is not an assertion that reconciliation is impossible but that
the work of reconciliation will be effected across encounters of difference at the
local level, and not through the imposition of grand theological schema from
the outside that elide difference. This is why Williams is keen to free interre-
ligious dialogue from the straitjacket of a shared value system. Williams views
the recognition of difference as a substantive prelude to constructive dialogue
rather than its obstacle: ‘The exercise I have been describing [interreligious
dialogue] is not about finding a common core at all; it is about finding the
appropriate language in which difference can be talked about rather than used
as an excuse for violent separation.’41 His priority is the primacy of the local
interaction, constitutive of a political theology of ‘interactive pluralism’ notably
evident in his controversial Shariʿa law lecture of 2008.42 Consonant with Gen-
erous Love, Williams would want to find ways of making space for the inherent
37 John Hick (ed.), The Myth of God Incarnate, London: scm Press, 1977.
38 From an interview with Rowan Williams by the author on 6th September 2012, at Lambeth
Palace.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 Rowan Williams, ‘What is Dialogue?’ in Michael Ipgrave (ed.), Bearing the Word: Prophecy
in Biblical and Qurʾanic Perspective, London: Church House Publishing, 2005, pp. 1–13, p. 12.
42 Rowan Williams, ‘Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective’, Ecclesias-
tical Law Journal, 10, (2008):262–282; Mark D. Chapman, ‘Rowan Williams’ Political The-
ology: Multiculturalism and Interactive Pluralism’, Journal of Anglican Studies, 9.1, (2011):
61–79.
536 sudworth
universalism in Christianity to explore how such speech can avoid totalising the
other so that there is a shift from ‘the language of universal claim away from
that of universal power’.43 The retrieval of Christian systematics as a ground
for interfaith relations acts then to consolidate the Church’s self-understanding
while allowing for a diversity of encounters of dialogue, evangelism, and mutual
spiritual enrichment without prior judgement. Thus, Generous Love celebrates
the work of the Holy Spirit when met in the encounter with people of other
faiths as ‘it is not for us to set limits to the work of God’44 while ‘beginning with
God’ and stating at the outset that ‘through the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus of Nazareth the One God has made known his triune reality as Father, Son
and Holy Spirit’.45
A necessary reading of Nostra Aetate in the context of the other conciliar
documents that affirms the ongoing proclamatory ministry of the Church is
underlined by the trajectory of subsequent Roman Catholic encyclicals and
exhortations, and is a trend evidenced in Generous Love. Thus Evangelii Nun-
tiandi, in 1975, on evangelization46 and Dialogue and Proclamation, in 199147
both act to remind and reaffirm the Catholic faithful of the cause of procla-
mation. For Jacques Dupuis this amounts to an ‘unravelling’ of the steps taken
forward, expressing his ‘disappointment and dissatisfaction’ at the perceived
hardening of the ambiguities of Nostra Aetate away from a more pluralistic
evaluation of other religions.48 That there are interpretative differences and
emphases even with regard to the theological bases of Nostra Aetate within
the Roman Catholic Church points to the extraordinary difficulty the Anglican
authors have in achieving a measure of consensus for Generous Love and their
reluctance to engage in the contentious field of the theology of religions.
The tendency of the post-Vatican ii climate to affirm the task of proclama-
tion alongside the responsibility to dialogue seems to be echoed in the imme-
diate context of Generous Love. While Generous Love was first intended for the
43 Rowan Williams, ‘Afterword’ in Frances Ward and Sarah Coakley (eds.), Fear & Friendship:
Anglicans Engaging with Islam, London: Continuum, 2012, pp. 145–154, p. 148.
45 Ibid. p. 1.
46 http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_
19751208_evangelii-nuntiandi_en.html downloaded on June 22nd 2014.
47 http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_
interelg_doc_19051991_dialogue-and-proclamatio_en.html downloaded on June 22nd
2014.
48 Jacques Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions: From Confrontation to Dialogue, Maryknoll,
ny: Orbis, 2002, pp. 66–68.
Anglican Communion, Lambeth Conference of 2008, an important working

document providing stories of diverse encounters with other faiths was the
Church of England Presence and Engagement report of 2005. Using 2001 cen-
sus statistics, the report analyses 900 parishes out of a total of 13,000 parishes
that had at least 10 % of their population as a member of another faith. Signif-
icantly, Presence and Engagement speaks of conversion, a word that: ‘captures
the worst fears and the highest hopes of many people whether of Faith and sec-
ular. But it is not a word that can be banished, nor is the concept behind it one
that can be removed from the place it occupies at the heart of Christianity and
Islam.’49 The report illustrates a range of experiences, positive and negative, at
the level of parish, and a diversity of engagements with people of other faiths,
without any attempt to judge or assess specific models of encounter. Rather,
the guiding principles of ‘identity’, ‘confidence’, and ‘sustainability’ are offered
in a spirit of catholicity that affirms the breadth of engagement or the Church
of England at the same time as acknowledging the normative nature of inter-
religious encounter post Vatican ii.
This diversity of engagement that can hold together dialogue and evange-
lism was highlighted by the report Sharing the Gospel of Salvation (2010), pub-
lished by the House of Bishops in response to a Private Members Motion to
General Synod in 2009 on the place of evangelism to other faiths in the min-
istry of the Church. Beginning with a historical survey, and concluding with
examples of good practice and the need for dialogue and work towards the
common good, Sharing the Gospel of Salvation yet shows ‘that there is nothing
new or abnormal about members of the Church of England bearing witness
to members of other religions in the hope that this will lead them to come to
faith and be baptised’.50 This accords with the tenor of Generous Love which
notes the Church’s task to ‘proclaim Jesus Christ as the one who shows us God’s
face’ even while ‘Our witness to Jesus as Lord must be attested by Christ-like
service and humility’.51 Where The Way of Dialogue prioritised dialogue, and
for some evangelicals even seemed to qualify its role in the mission of the
Church, Generous Love reaffirms the ministry of evangelism by offering a much
more inclusive theology of relations that is able to embrace both dialogue and
proclamation. An approach to dialogue that can sit alongside evangelism fits
with a hermeneutical reading of Nostra Aetate, and the subsequent trajectory
49 Presence and Engagement: the churches’ task in a multi Faith society, London: Church House
Publishing, 2005, commended by General Synod in July 2005, p. 50.
50 Sharing the Gospel of Salvation, London: Archbishop’s Council of the Church of England,
2010, p. 6.
538 sudworth
of conciliar documents, and finds confirmation in Presence and Engagement

and Sharing the Gospel of Salvation.
Generous Love, Vatican ii and Eucharistic Ecclesiology
We have seen how Rowan Williams’ rejection of mega theories of religions in

preference for a theology of interreligious relations is reflected in the shift of
emphasis from The Way of Dialogue to Generous Love. His embrace of de Lubac,
Lossky, von Balthasar and Daniélou as exemplars of a more ecclesial, conti-
nental tradition reveal Williams’ own theological predilections.52 For many
in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Georges Florovsky’s 1936 call for a ‘Neo-
patristic synthesis’ was a way for the Church to ‘follow the ‘mind’ (phronema)
of the Church Fathers rather than slavishly to quote them.53 This became a pro-
gramme for renewal that had at its root a commitment to the mystical theology
of the undivided Church of the patristic era.
For Roman Catholic theologians such as Congar, de Lubac, and Daniélou,
the turn to the Church Fathers was the ‘ressourcement’ that energised the
reforms of Vatican ii. It is thus instructive that Williams cites theologians from
across a range of traditions as alternatives to the mega theories of religions.
These theologians are commonly attentive to the trinitarian roots of the Chris-
tian faith and the consequent self-understanding of the Church. As Michael
Plekon notes, the neo-patristic sensibility of Florovsky, Sergei Bulgakov, and
Nicolas Afanasiev provided a strong ecclesial hue to the encyclical documents
of Vatican ii. Indeed, Afanasiev (1893–1966) is the only Orthodox theologian
explicitly cited in the preconciliar deliberations (known as ‘acta’) and is cel-
ebrated for his dictum that ‘the eucharist makes the Church’.54 An important
move in Vatican ii was a clear espousal of the eucharistic ecclesiology artic-
ulated by Afanasiev as supported by de Lubac and Congar, among others.55 A
52 Richard Sudworth, ‘Eastern Orthodoxy, Rowan Williams and Islam: Exploring the Impact
of Eastern Orthodoxy on Rowan Williams’ Anglican Engagement with Islam’, Aram, 25
(2013): 501–518.
53 Theodore G. Stylianopoulos, ‘Scripture and tradition in the Church’ in Mary B. Cunning-
ham and Elizabeth Theokritoff (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian
Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 21–34, p. 31.
54 Michael Plekon, ‘The Russian religious revival and its theological legacy’, in Mary B. Cun-
ningham and Elizabeth Theokritoff (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Chris-
tian Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 203–217.
55 For a summary outline of the ecclesiological debates within the Roman Catholic Church
eucharistic ecclesiology emphasised the identity of the Church from within the
source of the trinity made visible in the holy sacraments. This at turns deep-
ens the reality of the Church as a sacramental body while emphasising the
very mystery of the divine presence. It is striking that this eucharistic eccle-
siology is the vehicle for the theology of interreligious relations in Generous
Love.
Generous Love sets its stall out by ‘Beginning with God’ so that: ‘the One God
has made known his triune reality as father, Son and Holy Spirit. The boundless
life and perfect love which abide forever in the heart of the Trinity are sent out
into the world in a mission of renewal and restoration in which we are called
to share.’56 The Trinity, here, becomes the foundation for any thinking about
relations with those of other faiths, and Christians are ‘members of the Church
of the Triune God’ and ‘signs of God’s presence with them’. The mission of
proclamation, or evangelism, is thus clearly endorsed as a natural consequence
of the knowledge by the Church of what is described as the ‘mystery of his
being’, Jesus Christ; ‘the one who shows us God’s face’.57 Where the Trinity in
The Way of Dialogue is notable by its absence, in Generous Love it frames a high
Christology which serves to affirm the proclamatory message of the Church.
This same gospel suggests a corresponding pneumatology that accounts for the
work of God amongst those of other faith; ‘for the energy of the Holy Spirit
cannot be confined’.58
The eucharistic ecclesiology becomes explicit in the re-casting of Cragg’s
notions of ‘embassy and hospitality’ that had been touched upon by Nazir-Ali
in the Lambeth Conference of 1998. The ‘going out’ and ‘welcoming in’ of the
trinitarian life within the Church is energised by and patterned in the Eucharist
where ‘our Lord himself came to his disciples as one at first unknown’.59 Again,
a high view of the Church is tempered by the mystery of God’s presence,
and the gift of hospitality commended to Christians qualified by the Church’s
own status as guests of a divine host inviting all of humanity to a banquet.
A further nod to a neo-patristic sensibility is evidenced in the final section,
‘Sending and Abiding’, where the foundational Trinitarianism is reiterated: ‘our
relationships with people of different faiths must be grounded theologically in
at Vatican ii and the eventual ‘victory’ of the Ressourcement scholars, see Tracey Rowland.
Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict xvi, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008,
pp. 17–29.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid. p. 2.
59 Ibid. p. 14.
540 sudworth
our understanding of the reality of the God who is Trinity’. This trinitarian life
is described as ‘a dynamic, eternal and unending movement of self-giving’ and
directly quotes from an agreed ecumenical statement between the Anglican
Communion and the Orthodox Church to underline the Orthodox influenced
trinitarianism of the document.60
Generous Love refrains from assessing other faiths or accounting for their
existence in the providence of God. Rather, it provides a theological under-
standing of what Christians do know of God in Christ, and the promise of God’s
presence in the Church as a springboard for hospitable and searching encoun-
ters with God through the religious other. This measured conviction is what
Ipgrave describes as the ‘Anglican experience’ and ‘speaks more in terms of
humans’ participation in the truth of God rather than of possession of that
truth’.61 The theology of ‘participation’ accords with a particularly Anglican
theme that can be traced back to the Elizabethan Anglican apologist, Richard
Hooker, himself influenced by Thomistic notions of sacramentalism.62 If one
reads Nostra Aetate in the light of Lumen Gentium, the dialogue with other
faiths is set in the context of the desire of God to ‘dignify men with a partic-
ipation in His own divine life’.63 The Church anticipates and embodies this
participatory life who ‘through the sacraments, are united in a hidden and real
way to Christ who suffered and was glorified’.64
Generous Love in many ways condenses the eucharistic ecclesiology of Vati-
can ii as a means of providing a participatory ontology of the divine presence
in the Church, and the mystery of the trinitarian life in the world beyond the
Church. Dialogue is part of the mission of the Church not because of an abstract
notion of ‘the religions’ but because of what is known of God’s ways with the
world in Christ, drawing creation to himself, and present as a deposit in the
60 The Church of the Triune God—The Cyprus Agreed Statement of the International Commis-
sion for Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue (acc, 2006), ii.5. Generous Love, p. 15.
61 Michael Ipgrave, ‘Anglican Approaches to Christian-Muslim Dialogue’, Journal of Anglican
Studies, 3.2. (2005): 219–236, p. 228.
62 Charles W. Irish, ‘ “Participation of God Himselfe”: Law, the Mediation of Christ, and
Sacramental Participation in the Thought of Richard Hooker’, in W.J. Torrance Kirby (ed.),
Richard Hooker and the English Reformation, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003, pp. 265–184. See
also, A.M. Allchin, Participation in God: A Forgotten Strand in Anglican Tradition, London:
Darton, Longman and Todd, 1988. Allchin analyses participation as an Anglican mystical
tradition through Hooker, Lancelot Andrewes, and the Oxford Movement, that converges
with the classic Eastern Orthodox theology of deification.
63 Lumen Gentium, § 2.
64 Ibid., § 7.
Church. It is pertinent that the Orthodox theologian Nicholas Lossky makes

a point of distinguishing interreligious relations that propound an ‘ecclesial-
consciousness’ from those that consist in ‘putting Jesus Christ between brackets
and in speaking about One God in order to be able to dialogue’.65 Both Gen-
erous Love and Nostra Aetate are to be understood as ‘ecclesially-conscious’
theologies of interreligious relations that rely upon a trinitarian theology of rev-
elation, decidedly not bracketing Christ in the impetus to dialogue.
Conclusion
Generous Love (2008) owes a clear debt to Nostra Aetate in urging dialogue with
other faiths and eschewing a condemnatory approach to religions in favour of
an inclusive and irenic disposition that is open to an encounter with God in the
faith other.66 This follows on the earlier work of The Way of Dialogue but steps
away from the more Massignonian, Abrahamic theology of dialogue that the
1988 document had espoused to consolidate an ecclesially-conscious rationale
for the interreligious encounter. While the driving force for Generous Love was
the achievement of consensus in the articulation of a theologically orthodox
trinitarianism, it is closer to Nostra Aetate by reflecting the eucharistic ecclesi-
ology evident in the wider conciliar canon of Vatican ii.
The political exigencies of the 2008 Lambeth Conference have arguably
provided the Anglican Communion with a basis for inter-religious relations
as opposed to inter-faith relations. That is, the encounter with other faiths is
seen from within the community of the Christian tradition and not from a
free-standing vantage point outside of that, nor from a ‘new’ place that assumes
a common-core of religions. Indeed, Ipgrave notes the ‘Trinitarian logic that
is at the heart of the Christian understanding of the One God and which
runs through the whole text’ of Generous Love.67 Observations are made about
the particularly Anglican use of scripture in Generous Love, highlighting the
contextual nature of Anglican method. This has been of especial significance
to the practice of Scriptural Reasoning,68 noted as an important expression of
65 Nicholas Lossky, ‘An Interview’, One in Christ, 44.2 (Winter 2010): 101–109, p. 108.
66 Michael Ipgrave admits wryly that the various draft versions of Generous Love were held
in his computer files under the working title ‘Anglican Nostra Aetate’.
67 Michael Ipgrave, ‘The Use of Scripture in Generous Love’, p. 148.
68 See David Ford and C.C. Pecknold (eds.) The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning, Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
542 sudworth
dialogue that affirms the centrality of the Bible to Anglican identity whilst also
liberating the interpretation and application of scripture to the community.69
As David Thomas states, it must be questioned ‘whether the progress made
by the official bodies in the churches has been noticed by many churchgoing
Christians, or even their priests and ministers’.70 There is no doubting the
persistent legacy of Nostra Aetate to the wider Christian tradition of formal
ecclesial reflections on other faiths, as evidenced in The Way of Dialogue and
Generous Love. Yet it is still unclear whether any of these documents filter
down to inform the practice of Christians. The enduring capacity of Nostra
Aetate to capture something of the Christian disposition towards other faiths
is perhaps enabled by the sheer fact of its ambiguity and openness, though. It
remains a contested document but probably reflects the reality of the mystery
of the divine encounter in being open to genuine diversity of application. This,
too, is a characteristic of Generous Love, refusing any foreclosure of what may
transpire from a hospitable encounter with a religious other.
An apparent danger in tying the interreligious encounter so closely to a
Christian doctrine of God and the Church is that the messiness of individuals’
faith journeys is occluded. How might Generous Love account for the divine
presence for someone whose religious allegiance is a hybrid of traditions, or
for whom the Eucharist represents one expression among a number of different
and even contrasting strands of faith practice? A major contribution of David
Thomas to interfaith thinking has been his commitment to the link between
the Church and the Academy and it seems that Generous Love raises questions
for the Church about its ability to foster intellectual inquiry and interrogation
beyond its own fold. How might the Church plausibly respond to the questions
of faith and inter-faith in a way that deals with the contemporary realities
of religious hybridity that the Academy sees? Generous Love gives space for a
range of context and application whilst proposing an impulse to the divine
encounter in the only way that the Church can: through the God made known
in Christ. It must be noted, too, that Generous Love, like Nostra Aetate, is a
pastoral document aimed at equipping Christians for their engagement with
other faiths. Further work is required, then, so that the parties to interreligious
dialogue, as Thomas observes of the emblematic Christian-Muslim interface,
can ‘talk to each other’ in mutually comprehensible ways.71
69 Generous Love, pp. 5–8.

70 David Thomas, ‘Relations between Christians and Muslims’, in Hugh McLeod (ed.), The
Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 9: World Christianities c. 1914–c. 2000, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 494–502, p. 502.
71 David Thomas, ‘Christian Theologians and New Questions’, in Emmanouela Grypeou,
For all the indebtedness of Generous Love to Nostra Aetate, the sober realism
of conflict between faiths and the tragedy of religious persecution inform a
much less optimistic tone than the conciliar document. Dialogue, in Generous
Love, is no guarantor of peaceable relations, and the high Christology is used to
commend an ethic that can ‘transcend retaliation’ and offer solidarity to ‘fellow
members of the body of Christ’ who are persecuted.72 In a continuing spirit
of Anglican openness to context, the Anglican Communion has provided an
annotated version of Generous Love that can be added to with illustrations of
practice that flow from the theologies outlined in the document.73 Though it
is over fifty years since Nostra Aetate, the concrete realisation of good relations
between communities of faith remains a continuing challenge that needs to be
fleshed out in local terms.
Mark Swanson, and David Thomas (eds.), The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early
Islam, Leiden: Brill, 2006, pp. 257–276, p. 276.
73 http://nifcon.anglicancommunion.org/resources/generous_love/index.cfm downloaded
on 1st July, 2014.
chapter 31
The Interfaith Landscape and Liturgical Places

David Cheetham
In this chapter, I propose to explore the question of inter-religious dialogue

from an Anglican perspective. My research interests are largely philosophi-
cal and have recently been concerned with the potential spaces that might be
opened up for inter-religious engagement by taking advantage of architecture,
particular locations, events, the arts, certain rituals, and so on.1 In addition to
recognising the potential for such activities, I want to suggest that the liturgi-
cally rich and complex traditions of Anglicanism (albeit as just one example)
may provide creative resources for hospitality towards the ‘other’—especially if
we think of the elaborate spaces that can be entertained when liturgical imagi-
nation is applied. So, this chapter is essentially a theoretical exploration of the
possibility of more elaborate spaces/places, but the focus on liturgical prac-
tise in the public square could easily generate a further discussion about the
political dimension of Christian action in multi-faith contexts. This is an aspect
developed by Graham Ward who draws attention to the Greek word leitourgia
(from which we derive ‘liturgy’) as meaning ‘public service’.
Ward argues that ‘all specifically religious practices … such as prayer, con-
fessions, praise, (and) participation in ecclesial liturgies’ are political.2 This
means that living with other faiths in society involves a ‘complex co-abiding’
and an experience of inter-relationships that ‘move beyond the ecclesial and
sacramental bodies of Christian living to the civic, national and international
bodies of believers that form other faith communities.’3 Ward’s recognition of
the complexity of ‘co-abiding’ is insightful. Living together, celebrating com-
mon humanity in a way that also expresses the depth of religious observances,
is indeed a complex challenge for religious leaders in multi-cultural societies
and in significant public moments (national and international crises, moments
of public celebration or mourning and so on). This could lead us to explore
the political aspect of encounter and the Christian engagement in the public
1 See my Ways of Meeting and the Theology of Religions (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013).
2 G. Ward, ‘A Christian Act: Politics and Liturgical Practice’ in R. Rashkover and C.C. Pecknold
(eds.), Liturgy, Time and the Politics of Redemption (London: scm Press, 2006), p. 38.
3 Ward, ‘A Christian Act’, p. 38.

the interfaith landscape and liturgical places 545
square, perhaps concentrating less on the clash of comprehensive doctrines

of religious faith and more on the pragmatic agreed expediencies of inter-
religious interaction. Alternatively, more in the vein of Ward’s thinking, we
could consider liturgical practices as a provocative or transformative public
narrative, or even consider the eros of Christianity as a public voice. Notwith-
standing these possibilities, my suggestion is that the focus for development in
inter-religious encounter at a community level might be less on the intellec-
tual work of the theology of religions, or theologies of the public square, and
more on the inhabiting, the co-abiding that is expressed in terms of significant
or meaningful places, certain kinds of ritual action and a greater instrumental
use of liturgy.
The proposal that liturgy or ritual offer areas of further development for
theological and philosophical thinking is resonant with much recent work that
has been produced by contemporary writers who are seeking new ways of doing
theology and philosophy.4 Until recently, it might have been argued that the
body, the notion of place, the practice of ritual and liturgy are overlooked, or
at least under-used, aspects of theoretical discourses in philosophical theology.
In 2004, Kevin Schilbrack claimed that
Philosophers including philosophers of religion almost never analyse rit-

ual behavior; those who study ritual almost never refer to philosophy. The
primary reason for this absence of a philosophical contribution to the
study of rituals, in my judgement, is the assumption that ritual activities
are thoughtless. That is, rituals are typically seen as mechanical or instinc-
tual and not as activities that involve thinking or learning.5
4 This is present in the writings of those associated with the Radical Orthodoxy movement, but
perhaps one of the chief advocates of this is Catherine Pickstock, see After Writing: On the
Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1997). See also the recent
work of James K.A. Smith (discussed in this chapter), especially the volumes in his ‘Cultural
Liturgies’ series: Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009) and Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013). See also his ‘Philosophy of Religion Takes Practice: Liturgy as
Source and Method in Philosophy of Religion’ in D. Cheetham and R. King (eds.), Contempo-
rary Practice and Method in the Philosophy of Religion: New Essays (London: Continuum, 2008).
Although not expressly liturgical, the philosopher Mark Wynn has also explored the signifi-
cance of place in his ‘Knowledge of God, Knowledge of Place and the Practice and Method of
Philosophy of Religion’ in Cheetham and King, Contemporary Practice.
5 K. Schilbrack, (ed.), Thinking Through Rituals: Philosophical Perspectives (London: Routledge,
2004), p. 1.
546 cheetham
In the same volume that Schilbrack edits, Nick Crossley argues that one
should see rituals as ‘a form of embodied practical reason’.6 However, how
might we utilize such ideas? For Crossley, rituals possess a ‘demonstrable in-
strumental value’7 in how we deal with each other. Influenced by the French
philosopher, Pierre Bourdieu,8 he notes the capacity of ritual ‘to “condense”
meaning and circumvent verbal negotiation’.9 Further, he acknowledges a sub-
tle conceptual complexity in a ‘handshake, the funeral rite, the wedding cer-
emony’ and this results not in precise meanings but in a ‘fuzzy logic’.10 Yet,
despite potential misgivings about vagueness, he makes the evocative sugges-
tion that rituals bring things to pass.11 That is, they bring things to resolution, or
they satisfy, or they appear to give utterance to the things that we find hard to
systematize but that nevertheless need expression or exhibition. Crossley pon-
ders the significance of such outcomes and how they are achieved. What is
concretely evidenced by rituals that nonetheless seem to defy a sharp theologi-
cal treatment? His answer is that rituals ‘affect transformation in our subjective
and intersubjective states’.12 This is a significant conclusion because, in my
judgement, it appears to suggest that we can employ ritual or liturgy to achieve
something that does not require precise or objective theological articulation
but, even so, can have a profoundly meaningful role in practical religious action
both public and private. We might even go further and suggest that rituals and
liturgies—by virtue of speaking to our ‘subjective and intersubjective states’—
can provide vehicles for engagement that escape strict theological embargoes.
This presents a unique opportunity for the use of liturgical practices that take
place in the presence of (and participation from) people of other faiths. Under-
pinning this opportunity there is perhaps a more important claim that relates
particularly to the alleged ‘subjectivity and inter-subjectivity’ of ritual—this is
the idea that the excess of meanings that can emerge from ritual or liturgical
acts are useful for inter-religious meetings between communities of faith. It is
this possibility that I propose briefly to explore.
As mentioned above, the conceptual use of liturgy in philosophical theology
is receiving close attention by some contemporary thinkers. This move towards
6 N. Crossley, ‘Ritual, Body and (Inter)subjectivity’ in Schilbrack, Thinking Through Rituals,

p. 31.
7 Crossley, ‘Ritual, Body and (Inter)subjectivity’, p. 38.
8 See P. Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990).
the ‘embodiment of reason’ is aligned to a preference for phenomenology as

a philosophical approach over more analytic philosophical traditions in con-
temporary western philosophy. For example, the phenomenological approach
is given support and an extended treatment by James K.A. Smith in his ‘Cul-
tural Liturgies’ trilogy. Like many critics of secular modernity, Smith argues
that modernist readings of religion have tended to prioritise the rational aspect
of religious beliefs and, as a consequence, have reduced religious confessions
down into a set of propositions. Thus, there arises the illusion that the real
focus of religion is somehow primarily associated with beliefs and their sys-
tems. The modernist tradition ‘tends to operate within an overly cognitivist
picture of the human person and thus tends to foster an intellectualist account
of what it means to be or become a Christian’.13 Contrasting this, Smith claims:
‘… we are not primarily homo rationale or homo faber or homo economicus; we
are not even generically homo religiosis. We are more concretely homo litur-
gicus …’14 In language very similar to Crossley, Smith’s agenda is made plain:
‘The point is to emphasize that the way we inhabit the world is not primarily as
thinkers, or even as believers, but as more affective, embodied creatures who
make our way in the world more by feeling our way around it.’15 For him, the
main purpose of advancing this liturgical view is educational. That is, it vivifies
learning, changing it from being merely informative—concerned with acquir-
ing knowledge—to being a formative exercise, and understanding of the ‘rich
complexity of being human’.16 However, what is not so clear is the philosophical
or theological cash value of such views. That is, if we recognise that we are more
homo liturgicus than homo rationale as Smith suggests, then there is a question
about how we pass on the insights gained from our concrete experiences.17 The
resulting insights perhaps serve merely to chasten the certainties of rational-
ism by seeking to vivify or contest meanings through phenomenology. But it
is here that we can perceive that the really useful aspect of the homo liturgi-
cus has perhaps less to do with Smith’s agenda for overhauling the method-
ology in philosophy of religion in toto, and more to do with the illumination
13 Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, p. 42.

17 Similar dilemmas face the Scriptural Reasoning movement with its emphasis on ‘friend-
ship rather than consensus’. I have written about this in ‘Scriptural Reasoning: Texts and/or
Tents’ Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 21/4, 2010, pp. 343–356; and ‘Scriptural Rea-
soning as a “Classic”: The Aesthetics of Interreligious Politics’ Islam and Christian-Muslim
Relations, 24/3, 2013, pp. 299–312.
548 cheetham
we get from phenomena, events—arguably things are local rather than univer-
sal.18 Moreover, Crossley’s idea that rituals bring things to pass is not so much
about achieving universal clarity of meaning, but about the insights gleaned
from liturgical actions between people and community—and these happen in
places.
John Inge, in his A Christian Theology of Place (2003), makes a plea for a kind
of ressourcement—re-instating the tangible particularities of places that char-
acterised pre-modern thinking rather than modern conceptual ‘spaces’ which
have superseded them. He interprets the move away from a sense of place
towards more abstract concepts of ‘space’ as a consequence of the increas-
ing effect of the universalising concerns of the Enlightenment. He links this
partially with the effects of Protestantism and its stripping of objects, ritual,
liturgies and the surpluses of Catholicism during the Reformation.19 The west-
ern mind moved away from the particularities of sacred places and objects and
instead towards the spiritual or metaphysical principles that lay behind them.
That is, concrete places were replaced with conceptual spaces—the Reformed
and Enlightened world became de-cluttered and sterilized. The concomitant
effect on theology was to endorse a greater degree of rationalism in theology.
Philosophy became the primary foundation for theological construction with
‘contexts’ being seen as instances that illustrate a more fundamental abstracted
truth. In support of this view, Inge cites Edward Casey:
In the past three centuries in the West—the period of ‘modernity’—place

has come to be not only neglected but actively suppressed. Owing to
the triumph of the natural and social sciences in this same period, any
serious talk of place has been regarded as regressive or trivial. A discourse
has emerged whose exclusive cosmological foci are Time and Space […]
For an entire epoch, place has been regarded as an impoverished second
cousin of Time and Space …20
Inge’s complaint is that the modern shift towards space is ultimately dehuman-
ising. Thus, he recommends a return to the traditions of place, pilgrimage and
ritual: ‘the notions of inhabiting’ are ‘vital in the formation and nurture of com-
18 Smith outlines his thinking regarding the philosophy of religion in Smith, ‘Philosophy
Takes Practice’ in Cheetham and King, Contemporary Practice.
19 See chap. 1 & 3 of J. Inge. A Christian Theology of Place (Farnham: Ashgate, 2003).
20 E. Casey, Getting Back into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place World
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), p. xiv, cited in Inge, A Christian Theology
of Place, p. 11.
munity.’21 In some ways, this marks a return to an emphasis on the local. It is

not just that Inge is recommending that we take concrete places as being pos-
sessive of meaning and a deeper sense of humanity, but that these are only
really possible if we forget, or at least distract ourselves from, the concerns
of universality. This is a significant insight—we meet in ‘places’ rather than
spaces. Applied to inter-religious meetings, the strategy is therefore to gather
in particular places (perhaps familiar to all present, significant landmarks, civic
squares, community monuments, and so on)—just because they are inhabited,
messy and complex rather than cleared-out areas designated as neutral meet-
ing points. Ironically, it is sometimes the ‘designated’ spaces that turn out to be
so difficult to negotiate.
Something of this is also present in the historical difference that the French
Jesuit, Michel de Certeau, draws between ‘tours’ (or itineraries) and ‘maps’.22
Whereas early medieval maps were largely ‘rectilinear’ and would be charac-
terised by itineraries of ‘performative indications concerning pilgrimages’—
where to make stops along a journey, with walking distances and perhaps even
local hazards mentioned—the modern map has been ‘disengaged’23 from such
intimate directions and has become more ‘autonomous’.24 Summing up, de
Certeau appears to describe the modern map as a kind of forgetfulness, or dis-
avowal, of the itineraries that were its antecedent:
The map, a totalizing stage on which the elements of diverse origin are
brought together to form the tableau of a “state” of geographical knowl-
edge, pushes away into its prehistory or into its posterity, as if into the
wings, the operations of which it is the result or the necessary condition.
It remains alone on the stage.25
If this forgetting of places and ‘itineraries’ in favour of spaces represents a kind

of impoverishment of the way people inhabit the world, then we can perhaps
see something of this mirrored in the arguments for comparative theology as
opposed to the theology of religions when it comes to the meeting of religions.
Thus, contemporary work in comparative theology by scholars such as Francis
Clooney has also stressed a concentration less on the global concerns of ‘the-
21 Inge, A Christian Theology of Place, p. 127.

22 See Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley and la: University of
California Press, 1984), pp. 118–122.
23 de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, p. 120.
550 cheetham
ology of religions’ (maps?) and more of an interest in limited or local engage-

ments (itineraries?) between faiths.26 Clooney therefore characterises the com-
parative theologian as a marginal person: ‘partial, improvised, eclectic and
unfinished.’27 The marginal comparativist does not seek to relate their close
contextual comparative studies to a general theological ‘map’, and this means
that they do not relate wholly to the ‘truth’ that is held unquestioningly in their
own religious community, neither are they entirely comfortable with the ‘objec-
tivity’ of the academy. However, it is, what might be called, the situated-ness
of comparative theology that is interesting when we consider other possibili-
ties for engagement; that is, comparative theology appears content to remain
within its local contextual interests and suspend—if only temporarily—the
global theological enquiry. This is a shift of focus—away from the big theo-
logical questions that gloss our interfaith meetings and towards the detailed
considerations of the texts, events and situations.
In a related way, can we consider rituals and liturgies as local itineraries
or particular moments of shared engagement that bring to pass resolutions in
the midst of the contingencies of human life and community? In this sense,
liturgical practices—certainly in the context of special events such as an ‘inter-
national prayer for peace’, or regional civic meetings hosted by churches, mos-
ques, gurdwaras and so on—engage us with meaningful acts that, by virtue of
their ritual activity and their particular places, cannot be contained by the strict
boundaries drawn by rational theological discourse. Obviously, this depends on
the kind of liturgies we are using, the intention behind them and their specific
purpose.
In an article about interreligious prayer between Christians and Muslims,
Gavin D’Costa distinguishes between cultic liturgy (e.g. the Eucharist) and
‘other forms of gathering’.28 D’Costa readily approves of multi-religious prayer
because the focus is not towards each other but simply involves people of dif-
ferent faiths praying in their different ways towards some common purpose.
He quotes John Paul ii, who said: ‘We don’t come to pray together, but we
26 The comparison with maps and itineraries seems justified when Clooney writes: ‘the
theology of religions relies on shorthand characterizations of other religions, and com-
parative theology—because it is theological and comparative—will help theologians of
religions to be more specific, fine-tuning their attitudes through closer attention to spe-
cific traditions.’ F.X. Clooney, Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Bor-
ders (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), p. 14.
27 Clooney, Comparative Theology, p. 158.
28 G. D’Costa, ‘Interreligious Prayer between Christians and Muslims’, Islam and Christian-
Muslim Relations, 24/1, 2013, p. 2.
come together to pray.’29 However, because prayer is an expression of belief (lex

orandi, lex credendi),30 inter-religious prayer is, to say the least, difficult to con-
ceive. We cannot just appeal to mysticism either—that God is beyond human
understanding—for this is to already assent to the assumption that the ‘same
reality’ is being apprehended by all the participants.31 D’Costa may be correct
about this, but if we steer more towards an emphasis on the phenomenology of
liturgy and ritual there may open up the possibility for ‘embodied’ forms of spir-
ituality and symbolic action that, as we have been indicating, are more flexible.
However, as he points out, this is unlikely to involve liturgy that serves a directly
cultic purpose, so what kinds of liturgy or ritual action would be appropriate?
One suggestion is that liturgies that are not established rites as such but
which are improvised, or simply ‘apt’, can be constructed for interfaith engage-
ment. To use a phrase advocated by the Anglican community theologian Ann
Morisy, ‘apt liturgy’ is a kind of spontaneous liturgy that is tailored for specific
needs. Sometimes, ‘the art is not so much in devising the liturgy, but in recognis-
ing a moment when it would be significant’.32 Moreover, apt liturgy may occur
before worship is fully embraced or appropriated. Morisy writes:
Most people only “half-believe”, or have what David Martin describes as

“inchoate beliefs”. The experience of worship is not feasible in this con-
text. Something else has to happen before they can engage with worship.
To be able to worship, people have to be able to let go of a cerebral anal-
ysis which keeps sifting out what is believable from what is beyond their
tentative understanding.33
Morisy describes numerous examples of liturgy conjured up on the spot (or

‘customized’34) that help people with their daily concerns and troubles. For
example, she describes a minibus trip by an old peoples’ centre in the East End
of London to visit the sites of their evacuation during the Second World War.
The visit was a moving experience for all concerned. Upon their return, the
29 D’Costa, ‘Interreligious Prayer’, p. 4.

30 D’Costa, ‘Interreligious Prayer’, p. 5.
31 D’Costa, ‘Interreligious Prayer’, p. 3. In this regard, D’Costa draws our attention to S.T. Katz,
‘Language, Epistemology, and Mysticism’ in (ed.), Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 22–74.
32 A. Morisy, Beyond the Good Samaritan: Community Ministry and Mission (London: Contin-
uum, 1997), p. 55.
33 Morisy, Beyond the Good Samaritan, p. 41.
34 Morisy, Beyond the Good Samaritan, p. 55.
552 cheetham
minister improvised a liturgy of remembrance and reconciliation.35 This sort of

liminal liturgy is hardly bereft of theological content, but given its momentary
character and its intention—not as full-blown worship but perhaps as some-
thing for those who ‘half-believe’ or with ‘inchoate beliefs’—we could begin
to see how, in the context of interfaith events, liturgy could serve a somewhat
different purpose from those carefully calibrated or ‘cultic’ moments of spiritu-
ality which require finely-tuned theological articulation and preparation.36
David Bookless provides a number of examples of interfaith worship.37 One
typical approach will be familiar to many who have been involved in organising
such events. For example, recounting a closing multi-faith ‘observance’ held in
an English cathedral, he writes:
On entering, everybody is given an order of service that begins by stating

that the goal of the occasion is to promote greater understanding and
tolerance. People are invited to join in with what they feel happy with, and
simply observe the rest—it is stated clearly that agreement with all that
occurs is not implied. Each religious group in turn performs a ceremony of
some kind, and then there is a short time of silence before the next group
takes over.38
Nevertheless, what is interesting about some of Bookless’ further examples

is that they represent the full spectrum of engagement possibilities ranging
from the small-group friendships between Christians and Muslims (who pray
together for the healing of one of their members), to organising the faith
elements of a uk school assembly.39
Many years ago, my wife (who originates from a Hindu background) and I
were invited by the Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham to lead a morning inter-
faith service for the College community. We carefully chose readings from both
35 See Morisy, Beyond the Good Samaritan, pp. 55–56.

36 This is not, of course, to imply that people involved in such events only half-believe or
have inchoate beliefs, rather it indicates the provisionality (or liminality) operating at such
events.
37 David Bookless, Interfaith Worship and Christian Truth (Bramcote: Grove Books, 1991),
pp. 4–5.
38 Bookless, Interfaith Worship, p. 5.
39 I say they are interesting because they do not just include those events where there is
a careful balance of equality between the faiths, instead any meeting between faiths—
formal or informal, dialogical or ‘competitive’—is deemed to constitute an interfaith
engagement.
Christian and Hindu scriptures that concentrated chiefly on the human yearn-
ing for God (passages from the Psalms and the Bhagavad Gita). Interspersing
the readings was the lighting of candles and the playing of music. Like many
attempted ‘interfaith’ services that have to be tailored for the religious sensi-
tivities of those present, there was no intention to explicitly speak of a unity
between the religions. Perhaps, a close theological analysis of the meaning of
our actions and reading selections may well have raised fundamental questions
about the assumptions implied. Nevertheless, my point is that this would be an
analysis too far and had strictly theological objections been raised they would
have not constituted a complete critique, phenomenologically speaking. Any-
one who was present would not have discerned a theological difficulty as such,
instead the occasion, actions and experience were accepted by all present—
our crude liturgy seemed to bring to pass an engagement that seemed appro-
priate, even if it was, relatively speaking, inarticulate.
Liturgy is always seeking to make vivid the theological meaning of the
tradition for its communities of faith and for significant civic events. However,
there is also the sense that liturgy is that which allows us to proceed to express
theological meaning even though there may exist a mystical lacuna that defies
rational expression. Writing about negative theology and the Eucharist, Denys
Turner considers the role of the mystical in theology, liturgy and architecture:
‘… the tensions between affirmation and negation within all theological speech
are, precisely, what determine it to be theological speech, and to be, in the only
worthwhile sense of the term, “mystical”.’40 Turner takes this further when he
argues that these ‘tensions’ are
finally unresolvable: the necessity of our linguistic resources of theology

can never supply their deficiency; nor can the perception of their defi-
ciency ever reduce the necessity for them […] And, if these constraints of
thought and speech hold for theology generally, they will hold a fortiori
for any account of Eucharistic presence, whether formally theological or
materially realised in liturgical or architectural symbolisms.41
In the final analysis, it is not just that words fail when it comes to articulat-
ing theological truth, it is that they fail even more so for our explanations
of the significance of certain liturgies and places. But then, this is surely the
40 D. Turner, ‘The Darkness of God and the Light of Christ: Negative Theology and Eucharistic
Presence’ Modern Theology, 15/2, 1999, p. 147.
41 Turner, ‘The Darkness of God’, p. 147.
554 cheetham
advantage of using liturgy for expressing difficult moments—not only in the

context of bereavement, mourning or when cultivating a sense of awe, but
also for meetings that appear hard to transcribe theologically. With regard to
places, Turner gleans an architectural analogy from the cathedral at Bern in
Switzerland. Looking at the interior of this cathedral one is struck by the ‘visi-
bly Calvinist architectural revision.’42 That is, the post-1500 interior has been
stripped of its Catholic ornamentation such that there is an ‘overwhelming
sense of “absence”.’43 By way of contrast, Turner takes us back to the pre-1500
Cathedral. He simply notes that ‘it is full’, by which he means that it is a ‘space
filled with presence and with a community in that presence’; it is ‘full of sign.’44
Nevertheless, because he is keen to express the outworking of negative theol-
ogy, Turner appreciates the way the post-1500 evacuated spaces help express a
sense of mystical absence.
I want to move somewhat in the opposite direction of Turner’s apprecia-
tion of emptiness, and instead build a picture of excess complexity. If Turner
presents a positive spin on an evacuated space that ‘ “sacralises” absence’, Terry
Eagleton, drawing on the work of Frank Farrell, mourns the loss of an excess
of meaning that has been purged by Protestantism.45 This has stemmed the
overflow of meaning that was represented by the ‘gothic’ intricacies of mean-
ing found in pre-Reformation exuberance. Eagleton is clearly resentful of this
move and believes that it constricts the possibility of a diversity of meaning.
Spelling out what he sees as a Protestant reductionism, he notes that
… if God is to be all-powerful, the world cannot be allowed to have inher-

ent or essential meanings, since these would inevitably constrain his free-
dom of action […] reality for some Protestant thinkers had accordingly to
be thinned out, stripped of the thickness which Catholic theologians like
Thomas Aquinas ascribed to it.46
Of course, Eagleton’s preference for an exuberance of meaning does not reflect

any affinity on his part with Catholicism. However, he clearly appreciates
the greater degree of luxuriant excess in meaning that he thinks that the

45 cf. Frank Farell, Subjectivity, Realism and Postmodernism: The Recovery of the World (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
46 Terry Eagleton, The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2008), p. 72.
pre-Reformation conditions afforded. When critiquing the alleged reduction

of reality by Protestantism, Eagleton does not make a connection to its lack of
liturgical practices as such. However, this is a connection made explicitly by the
Reformed Christian philosopher, Nicholas Wolterstorff, who writes of a ‘tragedy
of liturgy in Protestantism’.47 Thus:
Deeply embedded in the thought framework of the modern church as

a whole, and especially in that of churches of my own tradition, the
Reformed/Presbyterian, is the conviction that the liturgy has not impor-
tance of its own, that its importance lies entirely in the benefit its renders
to our life in the world—so that if one has the inner strength to live that
life without the benefit of liturgy, then liturgy can be nicely passed by.48
For Wolterstorff, this preference for the ‘inner life’ rather than its ritual ‘exterior’
expression leads to a diminution of worship. That is, he thinks that worship
should be a richly-textured thing that embraces our whole humanity and to
strip away such richness removes, one might say, the very aspects that can help
to energise, vivify and connect worship with the rest of life. Again, we see here
a preference for the density of rich liturgical symbolism and action over the
alleged clarity of ‘purified’ practices.
Similarly, addressing the ‘simple’ spaces that have emerged from modernity,
some other contemporary writers have argued eloquently that the secular
modernity that dominates western culture, and which has had a profound
influence on recent theology, merely subjects Christian thinking to a slimmed
down impoverished parody of its true richness. Thus, John Milbank speaks of
a complex space that is in contrast to the ‘simple spaces’ of modernity. Like
Turner’s architectural analogy, but relishing complexity rather than Calvinistic
absences, Milbank finds parallels with the Gothic church which he portrays as
‘a building which can be endlessly added to, either extensively through new
additions, or intensively through the filling in of detail’.49 He draws attention
to a number of virtues symbolised by the Gothic that can be made to relate
to my argument concerning the complexity (and hospitality) of liturgy for
interreligious gathering.
47 Cf. N. Wolterstorff, Hearing the Call: Liturgy, Justice, Church and World, eds. M.R. Gornik &
G. Thompson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), pp. 29–38.
48 Wolterstorff, Hearing the Call, p. 31.
49 J. Milbank, The Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997),
p. 276.
556 cheetham
Firstly, for Milbank, the gothic excess expresses something of the imper-
fection and fragmentary nature of Christian striving and its ‘finite and fallen
insufficiency’.50 That is, something about its very elaborate nature—constantly
being added to and changed—that simultaneously combines the truth it sup-
posedly embodies with the often convoluted nature of its expression. Might we
conceive of the richness of liturgy in this way? Unlike the puritanical simplicity
of non-liturgical expressions of Christianity, the truth is expressed in liturgy in
a way that allows for its multifaceted and embodied qualities. Indeed, some of
the practices that are incorporated into liturgical actions may be redundant or
an unnecessary overflow.
Secondly, Milbank draws an analogy with the gothic in noticing that it is
‘only the principle of redundancy [in architectural excess] which is able to
mediate between style and function.’51 This is a somewhat obscure notion, but
Milbank gives the example of a window that is cut into gothic architecture
which, in order to fulfil the need to let in the light, is placed in an asymmet-
rical or ‘irregular’ spot. He maintains that this can only be made harmonious
with the rest of the building if redundant ornamentation is already seen to
be an essential part of the building’s architecture. Thus, in the midst of such
gothic excess there is the possibility of the combination of stylistic aesthetic
appeal with functional requirements. Or rather, such is the nature of gothic
design that Milbank believes that architectural anomalies can be unobtru-
sively accommodated within it.52 Translating this into social interaction, Mil-
bank sees the virtue of what he calls ‘complex spaces’,53 he argues that such
spaces permit ‘room to adjust to the innovations made by free subjects, without
thereby surrendering the quest for harmonic coherence’.54 Finally, the ‘gothic
vision therefore acknowledges sublime indeterminacy and the inescapability
of an aesthetic judgment …’55 That is, there is something important about the
way human imagination is profoundly involved in our interpretations of social
spaces; true interpretation is not just a matter of finding the right formula or the
‘correct’ view—instead ‘in a complex space every judgement “exceeds” …’56 In
saying this, he is seeking to contrast the freedom of gothic complexity with the
Enlightenment simple space that neatly organises the world from a ‘centre’.57
50 Milbank, The Word Made Strange, p. 276.

53 Milbank uses ‘complex’ space and ‘gothic’ space synonymously, cf. p. 275.
57 The simple space is characterised by ‘a “scientific” central direction of society, and of indi-
Conclusion
Drawing together the preceding discussion, what I want to suggest is that the
elements of contrast illustrated by the difference between space and place,
or complex (gothic) versus simple, or itinerary versus map, are also mirrored
in the way we do theology—perhaps seen in the contrast between the mod-
ern systematic theology and the local theologies. If there can be meaningful
theological engagements with other faiths, then we can use complex, ‘gothic’
spaces, theological itineraries that are suggested by the ‘places’ lurking in litur-
gical moments and in the places that we inhabit. In terms of church practice,
my claim would be that the more liturgical habits of episcopal traditions are
perhaps better suited to such tasks than the stripped down practices that have
cleared away and laid bare ornamentations—settling for the denuded spaces
of ‘protestant’ locations. Again, Wolterstorff complains about his Reformed her-
itage:
What naturally results from the diminution of the worship dimension

in liturgy is the starkness that is so characteristic of much of Protestant
liturgy and its setting. So little of the multifaceted richness of our human-
ity is here manifested! So many renunciations! Here words rule all.58
The Anglican Church has undertaken considerable reflection on how it shows

hospitality to other faiths in the community. Some of the guidelines that have
emerged from these reflections have been influenced by the work of Kenneth
Cragg.59 In particular, there is the 2008 reflection that the Anglican Church
produced called Generous Love. In my view, the reflections expressed underline
the emphasis on particular occasions and contexts rather than on extended
theoretical worries. So, ‘it has treated with caution generalised claims made
for timeless and ahistorical systems, preferring to make judgements including
those relating to other religions—through seeking to discern the implications
viduals simply “realizing” unproblematic productive potentials […] the “complexity” that
interrupts autonomous space is denied: the irreplaceability of individual vantage-points
for the making of judgements is disregarded from the centre …’ (Milbank, The Word Made
Strange, p. 274).
58 Wolterstorff, Hearing the Call, p. 37.
59 See R. Sudworth, ‘Hospitality and Embassy: The Persistent Influence of Kenneth Cragg on
Anglican Theologies of Interfaith Relations’ The Anglican Theological Review, 96/1, 2014.
See also D. Thomas and C. Amos, (eds.), A Faithful Presence: Essays for Kenneth Cragg
(Sawbridgeworth: Melisende, 2003).
558 cheetham
of the catholic faith within particular and social situations.’60 This is a local
agenda that I would argue is very much attuned to the comparative theology
agenda, the importance of place and particular circumstances, ‘itineraries’
rather than maps, and the engagement between religions in the light of local
community concerns. Again, Generous Love talks about the Church being a
‘stable presence in each place.’61
What I have tried to suggest briefly is that this is the precisely the kind of
engagement that might help us to move away from stiff conceptual territo-
ries. In the end, it is not any particular religious host that possesses a sacred
space: ‘We come to learn that the spaces in which we meet one another do
not ultimately belong to either host or guest; they belong to God, as do the
so-called ‘neutral’ spaces of public life.’62 If there was anything to be added to
this it would be the preference for place rather than space, and a recommen-
dation to explore rich liturgies that can encompass the gothic complexity of
human engagement—the use of ‘redundant’ gestures which allow momentary
meetings take place that—even if they are difficult to neatly categorize—bring
things to pass.
60 Anglican Communion Network for Inter Faith Concerns, Generous Love: The Truth of the
Gospel and the Call to Dialogue—An Anglican Theology of Inter-faith Relations (London:
Anglican Consultative Council, 2008), p. 4.
61 Generous Love, p. 10. My emphasis.
chapter 32
Textual Authority and Hermeneutical Adventure:

Three 21st Century Dialogue Initiatives*
Douglas Pratt
Introduction
Christians and Muslims presume, for the most part, that the substance of
their respective revelation—the divine message or ‘word’—as recorded in
the relevant Holy Text is, by virtue of its origin, absolute, immediate and
clear: in short, apodictic. This holds for Christians reading the Holy Bible and
Muslims reading or reciting the Holy Qurʾān. God speaks; we listen. God’s
word is clear; our hearing of it requires only that we be attentive—except that
the once-spoken word is now conveyed via a written medium, even within a
tradition that prizes memory and oral recitation. For the most part we ‘hear’ the
word of God by virtue of reading, and attending to, its written manifestation.
But whereas an assumption of apodicity can yield to presumptions of ‘literal’
readings of scriptural text, the fact remains that such an assumption is itself a
hermeneutical act: it is the selected, or assumed, lens of interpretation whereby
sense and meaning is made of the words of the text. Manifestly, there are others.
The history of both faiths is replete in debates and developments concerning
the interpretation of scripture. And the scriptural record, especially the Holy
Bible (and also the Holy Qurʾān, although differently in terms of range) contains
many different modes of language, from direct statement to poetic allusion, and
much else besides. The so-called ‘literalist’ reading of either text is, in reality, an
applied hermeneutic that seeks to uphold the authority of scripture by way of
presuming one lens of interpretation is not only normative but also exclusive.
Such reading is generally identified, at least within the Christian community, as
‘fundamentalist’. And such reading of scripture contends with other readings:
* In this essay I draw upon, and re-develop, some of my previously published work, including
‘Necessary Non-Apodicity: Hermeneutic Priority and Textual Authority in Christian-Muslim
Dialogue’, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations Vol. 20.3 (2009): 291–303, and ‘An Uncommon
Call: Prospect for a New Dialogue with Muslims?’ Asian Christian Review Vol. 2 No. 2 & 3
(Summer/Winter 2008), 36–53.

560 pratt
the history of commentary upon the respective scriptural texts of Islam and
Christianity testifies to that.
To be sure, Christians and Muslims take their holy texts seriously. The neces-
sity of interpretation that has perforce accompanied the reception and appli-
cation of sacred text in both Christianity and Islam is a function not of any
human limitation to hear and respond to the word of God, but rather it is evi-
dence of the priority of interpretation that a proper reception and application
of the text demands. For, as believers, the message of the text is taken seriously.
And taking scriptural texts seriously requires these texts to be interpreted in
order to be understood aright and appositely apprehended within the life of the
believer and the community of faith. And so it is of the essence of revelation to
require interpretation: indeed, it could be argued that revelation occurs only
within the frame of the interpretive act. This neither downplays nor negates
the importance of the revelatory text as such: its authority remains sacrosanct.
Thus in both Christianity and Islam it is arguably the case today that predom-
inant views on revelation support the realisation that scriptural texts which
convey revelation necessarily require close and careful interpretive reading.
How does this observation impact upon, or otherwise relate to, the issue of
Christian-Muslim dialogical engagement?
One avenue of exploration can be found by turning to three significant
initiatives in the field of Christian-Muslim relations that have occurred in the
first decade of the 21st century of the Common Era. There are two by Christians
reaching out and engaging the Muslim world that are of particular interest,
and one significant act of Muslims reaching out to Christians. Of the former,
the Building Bridges seminar series (hereafter: bbs) was begun in 2002 by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey. Also in 2002 the Theologisches Forum
Christentum-Islam (hereafter: tfci) was initiated by an ecumenical group of
young scholars in Germany. If the formation of the bbs took something of a
‘top-down’ approach—for, together with the Archbishop, the Prime Minister of
England and a Jordanian Royal were co-hosts—the inception of tcfi was more
a ‘bottom-up’ or grassroots-initiated event. Both, however, quickly settled into a
regular, more or less annual, conference-style meetings with quality published
outcomes. Just five years after these two initiatives were established, in October
of 2007, an ‘Open Letter and Call from Muslim Religious Leaders’ was issued
to the Christian Church, signed by some 138 Muslim clerics and academics.
A Common Word between Us and You is a significant document with respect
to Christian-Muslim relations and, indeed, for the wider arena of interfaith
engagement with Islam and Muslim peoples. It has sparked a host of responses,
including various conferences and publications, from diverse quarters. In this
essay I discuss and contrast these three initiatives both with respect to their
textual authority and hermeneutical adventure 561
inception and respective developments, but also, albeit in a necessarily cursory

fashion, with regard to the manner in which each promotes respect for textual
authority on the one hand and yet, on the other and in varying measure, is
open to what might be termed the ‘hermeneutical adventure’ requisite for
any dialogue between the adherents of Islam and of Christianity that seeks
theological depth and integrity.
Building Bridges
In January 2002 Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, hosted thirty-eight

Christian and Muslim scholars at Lambeth Palace, London, for a seminar enti-
tled Building Bridges: Overcoming Obstacles in Christian-Muslim Relations.1 The
aim was to establish a new environment for theological bridge-building be-
tween Muslims and Christians.2 A pattern of seminar engagement was estab-
lished, and a road-map agenda articulated. Accordingly, at this first meeting of
bbs, the first of five general topics to be addressed was the place of Christians
and Muslims relative to each other, to the world, and to God. This was followed
by the challenge of learning from the 1000-plus years of interaction between the
two faiths; identifying problems and opportunities each community faces in a
pluralistic world; exploring contemporary challenges which transformations in
societies pose to each religion; and finally the task of setting a joint agenda for
future dialogue and common action. The piles for the bridge were thus firmly
established. Each year since, a group of invited Muslim and Christian schol-
ars has met for three days of deliberation on a theological theme by means
of public lectures, closed plenaries, and small-group sessions. From this first
seminar there quickly arose a sense that these conversations should be regu-
lar, extended, and searching; and that they should alternate between Christian-
and Muslim-majority venues from one year to the next.
Following Carey’s retirement in 2002, his successor, Rowan Williams, made
this series a priority of his Archbishopric, and the second bbs meeting was
convened in Doha, Qatar, in 2003, on the subject of Scriptures in Dialogue: Chris-
tians and Muslims Studying the Bible and the Qurʾān Together. Intensive engage-
ment with Biblical and Quranic texts occurred in small sub-groups, while the
1 See also in this volume, ‘Getting to Know One Another’s Hearts: The Progress, Method, and
Potential of the Building Bridges Seminar’ by Lucinda Mosher.
2 See Michael Ipgrave, The Road Ahead: A Christian-Muslim Dialogue (London: Church House
Publishing, 2002).
562 pratt
plenary sessions addressed major themes, including Christian understandings

of the Bible and Muslim views of the Qurʾān, among others. In the following
year, utilising public presentations by pairs of scholars, and intensive small-
group discussion of Biblical and Quranic texts, the 2004 seminar held at George-
town University in Washington, dc, considered perspectives on the nature of
prophecy. Small-group sessions of ‘scripture dialogue’ involved intensive close
reading of pre-selected, challenging pairs of texts. Also, at this meeting, pre-
seminar public lectures analysed the emerging Building Bridges methodology
by addressing the question: What is Dialogue? Miroslav Volf applauded what he
called the ‘methodological sophistication’ that was operative in the 2003 meet-
ing, seeing it as setting a clear pattern with the ‘momentous decision’ to make
‘the practice of Christians and Muslims reading their scriptures together’3 the
main feature of that seminar. Mustansir Mir, from the Muslim side, offered a
critique of the emerging methodology but also asserted that a credible Qurʾān-
based ‘post-prophetic theology of inter faith dialogue’ is both necessary and
possible.4
The fourth seminar, in 2005, was hosted jointly by Catholic, Orthodox, and
Muslim institutions in Sarajevo. The undergirding theme was the Common
Good and the seminar addressed topics of faith and national identity. A fea-
ture of this meeting was the concluding public reception that attracted a large
gathering and which was addressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and three
senior Bosnian leaders. bbs was clearly influential in the bridge-mending pro-
cess of the region. Indeed, the Common Good theme registered with the par-
ticipants of the seminar in a very particular way given that a decade previ-
ously ‘Serbian Orthodox, Croatian Catholics, and Bosniac Muslims had all been
engaged in a series of bitter conflicts where religious belonging had been impli-
cated with ethnicity and culture in a complex nexus of contested identities’.5
The fifth meeting, in 2006, took place once again at Georgetown University
in Washington, dc, with the theme ‘Justice and Rights’.6 Views of divine jus-
tice as found in scripture, the development of traditions of interpretation and
3 Miroslav Volf, ‘Hospitable readings: Comments on Scriptures in Dialogue’, in Michael Ipgrave

(ed.), Bearing the Word: Prophecy in biblical and Qurʾanic Perspective (London: Church House
Publishing, 2005), 20–28.
4 Mustansir Mir, ‘Scriptures in dialogue: are we reckoning without the host?’ in Ipgrave (ed.),
Bearing the Word, 13–19.
5 Michael Ipgrave (ed.), Building a Better Bridge: Muslims, Christians, and the Common Good
(Washington, dc: Georgetown University Press, 2008), 1.
6 Michael Ipgrave (ed.), Justice and Rights: Christian and Muslim Perspectives (Washington, dc:
Georgetown University Press, 2009).
application within both religions, with a focus on political authority, and con-
temporary issues of rights and religious freedom were topics of discussion. In
addition to Bible and Qurʾān passages, several classic non-scriptural texts from
both faiths were also utilized. The use of texts other than scripture marked
a departure from the scripture-dialogue pattern that had thus far predomi-
nated.
The sixth seminar was held in Singapore in December 2007. With the theme
of ‘Humanity in Context’, its focus was Christian and Muslim understandings
of what it is to be human. In his ‘Afterword’ to the seminar, Rowan Williams
noted that ‘what human beings believe about themselves’ lies at the heart of
most contemporary global issues and crises with, as an extreme yet widespread
conception, the idea of humanity as
… essentially identical with its own will to domination, as though to

be human (is) to be involved in a struggle to become more and more
completely emancipated from “nature” and free to exercise the choice to
be (and do) whatever we will … Most dramatically, this mindset stands
behind our environmental crisis, but it is also visible in some of our
mythology about technology and its capacity to free us from humiliating
limits, a mythology that operates in the medical world as well as the world
of management of what lies around us.7
It is this contested arena of human self-understanding that the Singapore bbs

meeting sought to address. Discussions focused initially on topics of human
identity, diversity, and relationship to the wider environment, then engaged
an exploration of scriptural texts, pairing biblical and Quranic references to
human dignity, alienation, destiny, gender, diversity and the environment.
The next seminar, meeting in Rome in May 2008, had as its primary task
the consideration of scripture.8 Held at a university in Istanbul, bbs 2009—
the bicentenary of Charles Darwin—focussed on the interface between science
and religion. Together with, per usual, the use of appropriate scriptural texts,
this seminar also engaged in readings of selected other works from classical
Christian and Muslim sources.9 Building Bridges came to Georgetown Univer-
7 Michael Ipgrave and David Marshall (eds.), Humanity: Texts and Contexts—Christian and
Muslim Perspectives (Washington, dc: Georgetown University Press, 2011), 145.
8 See David Marshall (ed.), Communicating the Word: Revelation, Translation, and Interpretation
in Christianity and Islam (Washington, dc: Georgetown University Press, 2011), 142–162.
9 David Marshall (ed.), Science and Religion: Christian and Muslim Perspectives (Washington,
dc: Georgetown University Press, 2011).
564 pratt
sity for a third time, in May 2010, for the ninth seminar. With Tradition and
Modernity as the theme, changing patterns in religious authority and different
conceptions of freedom emerging in the modern world were considered, along
with the writings of some outstanding modern Christian and Muslim thinkers.
Rowan Williams noted the paradox latent in several of the seminar’s lectures,
namely ‘that it is modernity of a certain kind that makes it possible to talk about
tradition as we do’.10
bbs returned to Qatar in 2011 for its tenth seminar, albeit meeting on the
campus of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Doha. In a
memo to invitees to this particular seminar, Williams pointed out that since the
topic was prayer, this meeting, more so than in any previous year, would take up
matters of personal faith, practice, and experience alongside academic ques-
tions. The mini-essays on the personal meaning prepared by attendees became
part of the seminar’s resource anthology, along with scripture selections and
excerpts from a broad range of classical and modern Christian and Muslim
writings about prayer. A seminar on prayer offered, as Williams commented,
an opportunity to ‘reflect not simply on one isolated subject in Christian or
Muslim discourse’, but
… on what it is for a human creature to be related to the Creator … As we

enter more deeply into that mystery we enter more deeply, surely, into an
understanding of all those other topics we have discussed such as justice,
human nature, tradition and modernity, religion and science. We put all
those discussions into a new and greater context.11
The eleventh seminar, held in 2012, was the final for Rowan Williams as Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. It had as its theme ‘Death, Resurrection and Human Des-
tiny’.12 This event was also unique in that it was held over two locations. The first
was King’s College, London, where three pairs of public lectures on death, res-
urrection, and human destiny in relation to scripture, the Christian and Islamic
traditions, and of ‘dying well’ were given. Small-group study periods considered
biblical and Quranic passages as well as excerpts from al-Ghazālī’s Revival of the
10 Rowan Williams, ‘Afterword’ in David Marshall (ed.), Tradition and Modernity: Christian
and Muslim Perspectives (Washington, dc: Georgetown University Press, 2013), 221.
11 Rowan Williams, ‘Preface’, David Marshall and Lucinda Mosher (eds.), Prayer: Christian
and Muslim Perspectives (Washington, dc: Georgetown University Press, 2013), xvii.
12 David Marshall and Lucinda Mosher, (eds.), Death, Resurrection, and Human Destiny:
Christian and Muslim Perspectives (Washington, d.c.: Georgetown University Press, 2014).
Religious Sciences and portions of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Thus was con-
cluded a decade of bbs with the Archbishop Rowan Williams taking the lead.
Following the retirement of Williams, and so the end of the era of bbs hosted
by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Georgetown University in the United States
has assumed the key organisational role from that of Lambeth Palace. What
began as an Anglican initiative, albeit with a very ecumenical face, has now
a Catholic (Jesuit) responsibility, but is no less ecumenical for that. Indeed,
Building Bridges has been a distinctly ecumenical venture from the outset with
significant numbers of Roman Catholics having participated from the begin-
ning; as well, participants have come from a range of other Christian traditions
including Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Reformed. Under new
leadership, and marking the beginning of the new era with Georgetown at the
helm, the theme of the twelfth seminar, held once again in Doha, Qatar, in May
2013 was ‘The Community of Believers: Christian and Muslim Perspectives’. The
most recent bbs, the thirteenth, held in April 2014, had as its theme ‘Sin, For-
giveness, and Reconciliation: Christian and Muslim Perspectives’.13
bbs participants do not represent a geographical or national constituency;
rather they bring their own specialist perspective to the discussion. The style of
the seminars has been described as an exercise in ‘appreciative conversation’
during which one remains rooted in one’s own tradition ‘whilst at the same
time reaching beyond it’ engaging in an exchange in which ‘people listen
without judgement, do not seek consensus or compromise, but share the sole
purpose of continuing the conversation in order to sustain relationships of
mutual respect’.14 This has much in common with David Lochhead’s definition
of the dialogical relationship: a relationship of openness and trust which is clear,
unambiguous, and has no other purpose than itself.15 Building Bridges falls
into the category of dialogical projects marked by both religious conviction and
academic rigor. The bbs style, according to Rowan Williams, involves ‘working
together, studying sacred texts together, and above all learning to listen to one
another speaking to God and also to watch one another speaking to God. It is
a style which has been patient, affirming, and celebrating’.16 Attention to texts
has been of primary importance to this dialogical enterprise, and I shall explore
13 For further information, and other bbs matters, see the website: http://buildingbridges
.georgetown.edu.
14 Gillian Stamp, ‘And they returned by another route’, in Ipgrave (ed.), The Road Ahead, 112,
113.
15 David Lochhead, The Dialogical Imperative: A Christian Reflection on Interfaith Encounter
(Maryknoll, ny: Orbis, 1988).
16 Rowan Williams, ‘Preface’, Marshall and Mosher (eds.), Prayer, xv.
566 pratt
that motif a little more below. In the meantime, Building Bridges is a work in
progress, as, too, is the German Christian-Muslim Theological Forum, to which
I now turn.
Theologisches Forum Christentum-Islam
In 2002 a group of young German theologians, interested in fostering a dialogue

with Muslim scholars, began a process that led to the founding of the Theolo-
gisches Forum Christentum-Islam (tfci). The driving motivation was to foster
a dialogical engagement that was balanced and equal in terms of the level of
the engagement and the expertise of the interlocutors. The specific goal was to
facilitate an academic theological dialogue between Christians and Muslims
in the German language on the basis that such dialogue can make a significant
contribution to the common life of Muslims and Christians within Germany.
It was realised from the outset that such dialogue, if it is to be successful and
capable of development, requires an operational and organisational base, and
security of continuity. This was gained in having both a committed organisa-
tional group and a home-base provided by the Academy of the Catholic Dio-
cese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart. In other words, there was recognition of the need
of intentionality and commitment, and appropriate action was undertaken.
Further, the originating concept was of specialist symposia of invited or reg-
istered participants, not open public meetings as such. There was a sense that
something had to be carefully nurtured. Thus, whereas Building Bridges began
in top-down pomp and fanfare, the German initiative began with a phase of
academic grassroots ecumenical, or inner-Christian, conversation and reflec-
tion.
In the event, two initial conferences—in 2003 and 2004—were held with
only Christian participants who had particular interest or speciality in
Christian-Muslim relations in attendance.17 The purpose of these meetings was
for preliminary Christian reflection and discussion about engaging in dialogue
with Islam. In April 2004 a meeting involving Muslims was held to further
develop the idea and a programme for an on-going Forum. This resulted in
17 The record of these conference meetings (Tagungen) can be found in Andreas Renz, Han-
sjörg Schmid und Jutta Sperber (eds), Herausforderung Islam. Anfragen an das christliche
Selbstverständnis Theologisces Forum Christentum-Islam. (Stuttgart: Akadedmie der Diö-
zese Rottenburg-Stuttgart, 2003), and Andreas Renz, Hansjörg Schmid und Jutta Sperber
(eds), Heil in Christentum und Islam. Erlösung oder Rechtleitung? Theologisches Forum
Christentum-Islam. (Stuttgart: Akadedmie der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart, 2004).
the establishment of a joint Christian-Muslim core group to attend to confer-

ence organisation and resultant publications. An ancillary aim to emerge at the
outset was that the Forum should allow younger and new scholars an oppor-
tunity to share the results of their research. The tfci was indeed to prove a
seed-bed for new and emerging scholarship in the area of Christian-Muslim
dialogue more widely, as well as the development of Islamic theological schol-
arship within the German context. The instituting in the early years of this
century of Islamic Studies and allied Chairs in German Universities can in part
be attributed to the work of the Forum.
One of the Forum’s founders, Hansjörg Schmid, has noted that Christian
theologians who deal with Islamic themes were, in many cases, considered
somewhat exotic on account of Islam having taken a back seat in German
academia for a long time, abetted by the fact that there have been only a
few Muslim scholars available as potential dialogue partners in any case.18 He
also noted that a key theme to emerge out of the preliminary conferences
and meetings was that, because each religion manifests internal diversities,
therefore between them there is a multiplicity of possible relationships: the
lived reality is that there is no one Islam and no singular Christianity that
dialogically engage—there are rather many Christianities and many Islams.
Christian-Muslim dialogue takes place in the context of a matrix of various
Christian-Muslim relations.
In March 2005 the first symposium of tfci proper, that is, involving Chris-
tians and Muslims together, was held.19 All tfci conferences and meetings up
to then, and since, have been hosted in Stuttgart-Hohenheim at the Academy
of the Catholic Diocese. However, from the outset, Christian participation
has been fully ecumenical. And although, at the beginning, Muslims were in
the minority, nevertheless, as numbers of Muslim attendees has built since
2005 this too has been reflective of Islamic diversity in Germany. At the first
Forum, guiding principles and values—namely self-critical awareness, multi-
perspectival approaches, mutual consultation and learning, the application of
interdisciplinary hermeneutical-critical scholarship, with interreligious learn-
ing and study as the grounding paradigm—were formulated. A relatively con-
sistent working and conference structure was developed and the commitment
18 Cf Hansjörg Schmid, ‘Das Theologische Forum Christentum-Islam: Eine Initiative für

Christlich-Islamische Studien’, Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissen-
schaft 89 (2005), 147–149.
19 See Andreas Renz, Hansjörg Schmid und Jutta Sperber (eds), “Im Namen Gottes …” Theolo-
gie und Praxis des Gebets in Christentum und Islam (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet,
2006).
568 pratt
to publish the conference proceedings and findings was made; a commitment

that has been consistently honoured.
The first Forum had prayer in the two religious traditions as its theme. The
roles of Jesus and Muḥammad were explored in relation to the theology and
practice of prayer with attention paid to the distinctive differences of the Trini-
tarian character of Christian prayer on the one hand, and the public character
of Muslim prayer on the other. The second Forum, in 2006, had as its theme
‘Boundaries and Borders: Identity through Difference?’20 Here the aim was
to explore the notion of knowing identity through knowing boundaries. An
important point was to pursue this without, in the process, devaluing others.
It was recognised that identity can never be something static and essentialist,
but is rather dynamic, open to learning and the processes of change. Identity
is forged through concrete interpersonal relationships, and this applies to reli-
gious identity as much as to any other form of identity. In 2007, the third Forum
event dealt with the sensitive topic of suffering and pain in Christianity and
Islam.21 A key point to emerge from this conference is that only through a differ-
entiated and contextualised exploration of suffering is it possible to effectively
oppose political and religious abuse and suffering.
The fourth Forum, in 2008, explored the subject of ethics in the two faith
traditions.22 Here opportunity was given to scholars of Christianity and Islam
to focus on the rationality of ethics, not in order to subvert the sources of rev-
elation, but to employ methods of rational argument in open discourse so as
to provide non-religious reasoning and consideration of the findings of mod-
ern natural, social, and human sciences. Scriptural interpretation in Islam and
Christianity was the theme for the fifth conference, held in 2009.23 In both reli-
gions there has been a monopoly of interpretations which has displaced con-
textual hermeneutics and has been rather inclined to misogynistic views. Yet,
in both faiths there can be found great variety of interpretation and hermeneu-
20 See Hansjörg Schmid, Andreas Renz, Jutta Sperber und Duran Terzi (eds), Identität durch
Differenz? Wechselseitige Abgrenzungen in Christentum und Islam (Regensburg: Verlag
Friedrich Pustet, 2007).
21 See Andreas Renz, Hansjörg Schmid, Jutta Sperber und Abdullah Takim (eds), Prüfung
oder Preis der Freiheit? Leid und Leidbewältigung in Christentum und Islam (Regensburg:
Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2008).
22 See Hansjörg Schmid, Andreas Renz, Abdullah Takim und Bülent Ucar (eds), Verantwor-
tung für das Leben: Ethik in Christentum und Islam (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet,
2008).
23 See Hansjörg Schmid, Andreas Renz und Bülent Ucar (eds), “Nahe ist dir das Wort …”
Schriftauslegung in Christentum und Islam (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2010).
tical method, and there are extensive parallels between the Bible and Qurʾān
that the wider public knows little of. In 2010 the interrelated topics of mission
and conversion were addressed.24 Conversion is only possible by the activity
of God, not because of human efforts or strategies. Christian and Muslim the-
ologians are together called on to undertake a self-critical approach to their
faith communities in respect to conversion stories and the wider problematic
aspects of the history of missions. The two virtually classic theological topics of
God and Prophethood were the focus, respectively, of the tfci meetings in 2011
and 2012.25 The 2013 ninth meeting took the community of believers—Eccelsia
and Umma—as its focal theme.26 And the tenth anniversary tfci gathering,
held in March 2014, addressed the broad theme of how theology is understood
and engaged in from within the perspective of the two religions, as well as reg-
istering a celebratory element, having completed a full decade of these annual
gatherings, and a measure of ‘looking ahead’.27 The 2015 tfci meeting focussed
on Christian and Muslim perspectives on poverty and justice.
Underlying aims and hopes for the Forum and its sequence of meetings have
ever been to foster networking of scholars, to broaden perspectives on Christian
and Islamic theology, and to contribute to the emergence of German language
Islamic theology. Further, there has been since the outset a clear aim to have
a broader impact through publications and the development of youth interest
through the annual study week. Annual funding support for both the confer-
ence and the youth study week programme has been forthcoming from the
Federal Ministry for the Interior. In 2005 there were only 53 invited attendees
and proportion of Muslims participating was just 13.2%. In 2010, Muslims were
24 See Hansjörg Schmid, Ayse Basol-Gürdal, Anja Middlebeck-Varwick und Bülent Ucar
(eds), Zeugnis, Einladung Bekehrung. Mission in Christentum und Islam (Regensburg: Ver-
lag Friedrich Pustet, 2011).
25 See Andreas Renz, Mohammad Gharaibeh, Anja Middelbeck-Varwick und Bülent Ucar
(eds), Der stets größere Gott. Gottesvorstellungen in Christentum und Islam (Regensburg:
Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2012); Anja Middelbeck-Varwick, Mohammad Gharaibeh, Han-
sjörg Schmid und Aysun Yaşar (eds), Die Boten Gottes. Prophetie in Christentum und Islam
(Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2013).
26 See Hansjörg Schmid, Amir Dziri, Mohammad Gharaibeh und Anja Middelbeck-Varwick
(eds), Kirche und Umma: Glauensgemeinschaft in Chrsitentum und Islam (Regensburg:
Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2014).
27 See Mohammed Gharaibeh, Esnaf Begic, Hansjörg Schmid and Christian Ströbele (eds),
Zwischen Glaube und Wissenschaft: Theologie in Christentum und Islam (Regensburg: Ver-
lag Friedrich Pustet 2015); see also Gritt Klinkhammer und Tabea Spiess, Dialog als “dritter
Ort”. Zehn Jahre Theologisches Forum Christentum-Islam: eine Evaluation (Bremen: Univer-
sität Bremen, 2014).
570 pratt
44.6% of the total of 139 invited participants. Whereas, initially, the annual con-
ference was a closed affair, by invitation only, since 2009 the commencing Fri-
day lecture has been open to the public and the media. Indeed, since its incep-
tion the Forum has attracted media interest, with interviews taking place at the
fringes of the meetings but also Press conferences being held. For the first time,
however, in 2010 there were five places at the Forum allocated to journalists. At
the 2014 tenth anniversary Forum, the meeting hall at the Stuttgart-Hohenheim
academy was full to overflowing and there was much media interest in this
now well-established component of very high-level Christian-Muslim engage-
ment.
From the outset the tfci organizers identified as measures of success of
the dialogical enterprise the development of inter-personal friendship between
Muslim and Christian participants; the establishment of functional networks
of scholars and others; engagement in the dialogue process as equals in the
context of an intentional theological mode and level of discourse, together
with a secure location for meetings and consistency of core personnel, the
academic format of the events with the aim of assured outcomes, sound public
relations, and the development of appropriate ancillary activities such as the
annual Christian-Muslim study week for young scholars. On all counts these
key indicators have been well met. This brief sketch cannot, of course, do justice
to the range and depth of engagement that took place at each meeting of the
tfci. The annual publications contain a very full record and comprise a rich
source for both investigating the work of the Forum itself as well as further
investigation of the topics that have been engaged by it. The impact and success
of this initiative in Christian-Muslim dialogue reaches well beyond the annual
gatherings themselves. If tfci and bbs represent two key and significant 21st
century Christian initiatives in the quest for better relations with Islam, what
of the significant Muslim initiative?
Muslim Invitation to Dialogue: A Common Word
The ‘Common Word’ (acw) letter, issued in October 2007, and its aftermath
in terms of the many responses, including a raft of conferences and collo-
quia in many different settings, has been something of a landmark event in
Christian-Muslim relations. The fifth anniversary document noted the ‘acw
has generated a huge amount of debate, a multitude of articles and conferences
and given rise to a host of other initiatives’ and goes on to observe how it has
contributed to other activities such as the un Resolution with respect, from
2011, to observing World Interfaith Harmony Week in the first week of Febru-
ary each year, and the formation of the Christian-Muslim peace delegation to
Nigeria in May 2012.28 The acw Website (www.acommonword.com) carries a
very full record of the responses and reactions to the letter. As I have discussed
the letter more fully elsewhere.29 I shall for the purposes of this essay simply
give a cursory indication of the letter’s content and note one important rep-
resentative response from the Christian side, as the intention here is to focus
more specifically on this initiative as an example of Christian-Muslim dialogue
taking textual authority seriously and, at the same time, engaging matters of
interpretation.
The document is in two sections: a Summary and Abridgement of little over
a page; then the substantive letter of some thirteen pages divided into three
parts—(i) Love of God, (ii) Love of the Neighbour, and (iii) Come to a Common
Word between Us and You—followed by Notes and the list of signatories. The
opening paragraph of the Summary gives the immediate context of the letter:
the pursuit of the peace. Specifically, it asserts: ‘The future of the world depends
on peace between Muslims and Christians’ (p. 2). The letter is premised on
the moral and theological responsibility of these two global faith communities
that together comprise over half of the world’s current population, to live up to
their own precepts. And the basis for this is to hand in ‘the very foundational
principles of both faiths: love of the One God, and love of the neighbour’
(p. 2). These principles, which thread throughout their respective scriptural
texts—two examples of which are given from the Holy Qurʾān (q 112.1–2; q 73.8)
and one from the New Testament (Mark 12.29–31)—form the basis of ‘the
common ground between Islam and Christianity’ (p. 2).
Furthermore, the Summary makes pivotal reference to the Quranic injunc-
tion to Muslims to engage dialogically with Christians as well as Jews by virtue
of all three being ‘Peoples of Scripture’, in order to arrive at ‘a common word
between us and you …’ in matters of fundamental theological values. This dia-
logical call and its justification are linked to the view that the two command-
ments of love expressed by Jesus in his citation of Torah—love of (or for) God;
love of (or for) neighbour—are also embedded within Islamic scriptural text
and theological sensibility. Hence the summary concludes: ‘in obedience to the
Holy Qurʾān, we as Muslims invite Christians to come together with us on the
28 A Common Word Between Us and You: 5-Year Anniversary Edition. mabda English Mono-
graph Series, No. 20 (Amman: The Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2012),
9–10.
29 Douglas Pratt, ‘An Uncommon Call: Prospect for a New Dialogue with Muslims?’ Asian
Christian Review Vol. 2 No. 2 & 3 (Summer/Winter 2008), 36–53.
572 pratt
basis of what is common to us, which is also what is essential to our faith
and practice’. Love—of God and neighbour—is the basis for dialogue and the
foundation of peaceful coexistence. The substantive letter then spells this out.
There is a raft of responses on record from Church leaders, councils, and
various Christian and academic institutions, both denominational and ecu-
menical. Among the more substantial is a carefully considered response by
the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who undertook a wide-
ranging ecumenical consultation before composing his formal reply. Entitled
‘A Common Word for the Common Good’, his letter is addressed to ‘the Mus-
lim Religious Leaders and Scholars who have signed A Common Word Between
Us and You and to Muslim brothers and sisters everywhere’.30 Williams’ notes
the Muslim letter’s spirit of ‘a helpful generosity of intention’ (p. 1) and inter-
prets the Muslim invitation to Christians as not seeking a facile quick accord
but the more modest quest to ‘find a way of recognising that on some mat-
ters we are speaking enough of a common language for us to be able to pursue
both exploratory dialogue and peaceful co-operation with integrity and with-
out compromising fundamental beliefs’ (p. 2). Indeed, the Muslim invitation is
‘a powerful call to dialogue and collaboration between Christians and Muslims’
for which the ‘very wide geographical (43 countries) and theological diversity
represented among the signatories … provides a unique impetus to deepen and
extend the encounters’ (p. 15). Williams identifies five areas for further explo-
ration: i) understanding ‘the love of God’; ii) practical implications of ‘love of
neighbour’; iii) the nature, interpretation and use made of respective scriptural
texts; iv) relating from the basis of humble piety—‘from the heart of our lives
of faith before God’; v) the common awareness that, despite real differences,
there is a shared ‘responsibility before God that we shall seek to hold before us
as a vision worthy of our best efforts’.
With reference to the four-fold typology of interfaith dialogues—life, action,
theological exchange, religious experience—Williams enunciates three im-
peratives for dialogical engagement between Christians and Muslims: to
strengthen practical programmes; intensify intellectual endeavours by way of
research and colloquia; to foster deeper mutual appreciation to the life of faith
of each other. The applied focus with which Williams draws his paper to an end
affirms mutual education, the continued engagement in living practical issues,
and the commitment to a long-haul process as being of the essence of the prac-
tical response to the Muslim letter: thus ‘to your invitation to enter more deeply
30 See: http://www.acommonword.com/lib/downloads/Common-Good-Canterbury-FINAL
-as-sent-14-7-08-1.pdf.
into dialogue and collaboration as a part of our faithful response to the revela-
tion of God’s purposes for humankind, we say: Yes! Amen’ (p. 17).
Williams’ response on behalf of the Anglican Communion is perhaps repre-
sentative of many Christian responses across the wide ecumenical spectrum.
Indeed, the acw website, which is itself a rich repository of response docu-
ments and related material, carries William’s missive along with many more,
including some that are negative to acw, and also reports of the many con-
ferences and colloquia that have been held directly in positive response to
it. Within the first year of the letter’s publication, some 60 formal Christian
responses from leaders, organizations, and individuals were posted on the site,
together with some Jewish responses and nearly 500 recorded news items,
a dozen audio-visual items, and many personal comments. Many more have
since been added, of course, and the website is updated with new items from
time to time. The original list of 138 signatories to the letter has since grown to
more than 400. The letter is clearly now well-established as a land-mark event
in terms of Christian-Muslim relations.
Text and Interpretation
In what ways can we see these three initiatives exemplifying, even beyond
what has been intimated above, the combination of textual authority and
hermeneutical adventure vis-à-vis Christian-Muslim dialogue?
A Common Word
Space does not permit a detailed analysis, but it can be quickly seen that
the Muslim authors premised the letter on a deep regard for, and with close
reference to, both the Muslim and the Christian scriptural texts. The letter cites
the full text of q 16.125—the call to Muslims to engage in dialogue with their
co-religionist—and commences with a section on the ‘Love of God’, explored
first with respect to Islam then with respect to the Christian Bible. It includes
a lengthy explication of the Love of God motif (albeit of human love for God
rather than God’s love of us) within the Islamic framework of theological
reflection and praxis, and is followed by a shorter, but quite apt, presentation
of this Love with respect to the Bible, specifically referring to the ‘first and
greatest commandment’, the Shema of Deuteronomy 6.4–5. Acknowledging
its source within Jewish text and liturgy, its Christian usage is validated with
reference to a citation from the Gospels (Matthew 22.34–40; Mark 12.28–31) in
which Jesus recites the Shema in answer to the question: ‘What is the greatest
commandment in the law?’ To the first response, Jesus adds the quintessential
574 pratt
second—also drawn from Torah—‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself’.

Thus Torah, endorsed by the Gospel of Christ, reinforces the love of God as
the first and greatest commandment. This is a universal injunction, re-echoed
within Islam; it is the bedrock of common ground and the call to a common
word between Muslim and Christian. Further textual references from the Bible
are given to reinforce the point.
The second substantive section of the letter addresses ‘love of neighbour’ as
a motif within Islam, on the one hand, and within the Bible on the other. In
Islam ‘love’ is closely associated with mercy: mercy is a quality, or expression,
of love. The letter simply notes the association and asserts ‘love of neighbour’
as an essential corollary to love of God: ‘without love of the neighbour there
is no true faith in God and no righteousness’ (p. 11). Two sayings of Muḥam-
mad, as recorded in Hadith, together with two citations from the Holy Qurʾān
(2.177 and 3.92) both underscore the point and, significantly, highlight the link
of this love to righteous actions of ‘generosity and self-sacrifice’. The second
great dominical commandment, as already cited in Matthew 22.38–40, is reit-
erated together with noting its pedigree in Torah (Leviticus 19.17–18) and the
assertion that the biblical injunction to love one’s neighbour likewise demands
righteous actions of generosity and self-sacrifice. The motif that the two great
love commandments—love of God and of neighbour—are pivotal to the Abra-
hamic religious tradition (‘the Law and the Prophets’) is re-emphasised.
The third and final substantive section expounds the dialogical call: ‘Come to
a Common Word between Us and You’. Noting that there are real and formal dif-
ferences between the religions of Islam and Christianity, the letter nonetheless
asserts that the basis of dialogical engagement between them is the common-
ality of the ‘Two Greatest Commandments’ that interlink Qurʾān, Torah and
the New Testament. Further, the letter asserts that these commandments, in
terms of their being found in both Torah and Christian scripture, in each case
arise out of the oneness or singularity—the letter says ‘Unity’—of God. Hence
the letter boldly states: ‘Thus the Unity of God, love of Him, and love of the
neighbour form a common ground upon which Islam and Christianity (and
Judaism) are founded’. The message brought by the Prophet Muḥammad is
affirmed as adding nothing new to that which had been previously conveyed,
and that observation is itself attested within the Qurʾān (41.43 and 46.9). Hence
the ‘common word’—that which underlies true religion as such and is the basis
for dialogue—is none other than the eternal truths or theological values: the
reality of the one God; the response of love and devotion to God (love of and
fidelity to the One God and so the spurning of ‘false gods’); the necessary corol-
lary of justice with respect to our fellow human beings (love of the neighbour).
Love is no mere sentiment; it is a call to right living and action.
Having established the substantive theological content of the ‘common

word’, at least from a Muslim perspective, the letter goes on to expound on the
motif of invitation: ‘Come to a Common Word’. The principle Islamic reference
is to q 3.64, which exhorts Muslims to invite Christians and Jews, as fellow ‘peo-
ples of the Book’ to the worship of the One God, the preservation of the Unity of
God (‘ascribe no partner unto Him’) and the maintenance of theological fidelity
(‘none of us shall take others for lords’). Along with the assertion of the oneness
of God, this call is regarded as having embedded in it the essence of the ‘First
and Greatest Commandment’—the total unsullied love of God. And with ref-
erence to the authoritative Quranic commentary by al-Tabari, the letter affirms
that ‘Muslims, Christians and Jews should be free to each follow what God com-
manded them’ (p. 14); that is to say, in matters of religious identity and practice
there is to be openness and freedom. This is endorsed by citing q 2.256: ‘Let
there be no compulsion in religion’, together with the viewpoint offered that
this openness and freedom in matters of religion is consonant with the second
dominical commandment, the love of neighbour—and that implies the exer-
cise of justice and the freedom of religion. The letter concludes on a hortatory
note—let differences not be the cause of strife; let the pursuit of ‘righteousness
and good works’ be the only just basis of rivalry and comparison; let mutual
respect, fairness, justice and kindness rule in the quest for peace, harmony and
reciprocal goodwill. And this is summed and capped by the quoting of q 5.48—
religious plurality is a consequence of God the Creator, who could have made
everyone the same, choosing not to do so; yet all difference and variety is, in
the end, resolved by virtue of the fact that God is both our common beginning
and our encompassing ending.
Theologisches Forum Christentum-Islam

It is not possible, of course, to rehearse or review even a small sampling from
all ten Forum meetings that have taken place up to 2014. Furthermore, a variety
of methodologies and disciplines have come into play as the various topics of
each Forum meeting were addressed and engaged. Nevertheless, it is clear that
within the context of multiple perspectives being brought to bear on both the
annual themes addressed, and the way in which resources, including scripture,
have been utilised gives evidence of nuanced readings and appropriately criti-
cal rethinking of the ways in which texts can be interpreted and so theological
meaning derived. For instance, at the 2006 Forum concerning matters of iden-
tity, key issues addressed included the relationship between self-description
and the external perspective of ‘the other’ in Christian-Muslim relations. A
Muslim interlocutor stressed the Qurʾān does not contain universal standards
but simple, contextual explanations regarding specific situations in the life of
576 pratt
the Prophet and his followers.31 It is important for readers of the Qurʾān to sep-
arate religious statements from political statements and the separate universal
standards from specific, situational statements. Because of this particularity,
it is necessary to analyse the text carefully in order to properly understand the
original meaning as well as what may be taken from it as relevant for today. The
Qurʾān should not be read as the simple expression of God’s absolute will but
as commentary on historic conditions within which divine revelation occurs.
Thus, for example, Jews and Christians have never been, and are not to be,
forced to convert to Islam. Ömer Özsoy states that the Qurʾān knows a differ-
ence between Islam as proclaimed by Muḥammad and Islam as ‘submitting to
God’ to which Abraham is counted as adherent, as well as Christians and Jews.
The 2009 meeting of tfci, as noted above, addressed the issue of scrip-
tural interpretation, discussing a variety of issues of hermeneutics, matters of
translation, and different interpretive trajectories, such as feminist and exclu-
sivist, for example. The simple point to be made in the context of this essay is
that the tfci has, in accord with its own methodology and guiding principles,
ever allowed for, and has borne witness to, deep reflection upon and use made
of scriptural texts—both Muslim and Christian—that reflects both profound
respect for the authority of the these texts, and also openness to hermeneutical
novelty and fresh perspective. Respect and openness are not mutually exclu-
sive; indeed, without the two working together dialogue is likely to collapse
into a parallel monologue of simple restatement of received tradition.
Building Bridges
As noted above, it was the 2008 meeting of bbs that focused on the issue of
scripture: revelation, translation and interpretation in the two traditions were
closely considered, including issues of history and significance, closed versus
open or continuing revelation, and translation. The record of this meeting
reflects the three components of the seminar which, first, discussed the topic
of particularity, universality and finality in revelation before, secondly, exam-
ining issues of translation. In the final section, on methods and authority in
interpretation, this seminar featured a discussion of scriptural interpretation in
the context of interfaith engagement with respect to texts arising out of other
dialogical contexts and reflections, including the final section of A Common
Word, and the Anglican Generous Love document.32 A Christian contribution
31 Ömer Özsoy, ‘ “Leute der Schrifte”oder Ungläubige? Ausgrenzungen gegenüber Christen

im Koran’ in Schmid et al, Identität durch Differenz? 107–118.
32 Anglican Communion Network for Inter Faith Concerns, Generous Love: the truth of the
began with a quotation from John Henry Newman indicating the human need
for interpretation. And Abdullah Saeed noted the Islamic regard of the text of
the Qurʾān as the direct speech of God, thus affording the text of the Qurʾān the
primacy of authority with the Prophet Muḥammad, as the textual intermedi-
ary, holding secondary authority.33
Saeed notes three hermeneutical approaches: ‘text-based’, which looks to
a faithful ‘following’ of the texts, mainly with respect to legal and theological
matters; the ‘reason-based’ approach which takes a more rational explanatory
route, including reference to historical and situational context; and the ‘mysti-
cal’ approach that looks to discerning meanings otherwise hidden within the
words of the scriptural text. Later generations that were somewhat removed
from the historical time and conditions of the Prophet and the first Muslim
community tended to interpret the Qurʾān so as to derive universal applicabil-
ity of the meaning of the text. However, in the modern period, there has been
a renewal in stress upon the relevance of historical and socio-cultural contexts
which contrasts with the Salafi movement that seeks to interpret the Muslim
text through the lens of the life of the earliest Muslims in order to achieve
a more personal and individual as well as collective authority. This approach
deems the 1400 years of Muslim scholarship and tradition as giving rise to con-
fusion. In reality, as Saeed notes, the
first few centuries of Islam, which were highly fluid, led to the emer-
gence of a range of interpretive communities, and in the modern period
Muslims are again functioning in such an environment. … The emerging
authorities in interpretation may well be very different from those of the
pre-modern period, but they will be just as valid and they will better equip
Muslims to live out their faith in our contemporary world.34
Conclusion
The Muslim letter to the Christian community is an invitation to engage dia-

logically on the premise of a common revelatory thread, common theological
Gospel and the call to dialogue. An Anglican theology of inter faith relations (London: The
Anglican Consultative Council, 2008).
33 Abdullah Saeed, ‘Authority in Qurʾanic Interpretation and Interpretive Communities’, in
David Marshall (ed.), Communicating the Word, 115–123.
34 Saeed, ‘Authority in Qurʾanic Interpretation’, in Marshall (ed.), Communicating the Word,
123.
578 pratt
values, and a common desire for peaceful co-existence. Textual authority is

the starting point. Hermeneutical priority is clearly signalled, for despite the
acknowledgement of common scriptural reference and parallel textual author-
ity, differences in interpretation and concept that are applied signal that dia-
logue will quickly reduce to parallel monologues unless proper attention is
given to hermeneutics. These same patterns and elements are found threaded
throughout the work of the Theologisches Forum Christentum-Islam as well
as the Building Bridges Seminar. Difference in the nature and content of the
respective scriptures yields significant differences in theological position and
principal beliefs that no amount of commonality affirmation can overcome.
Dialogue demands close attention to and respect for the authority of scriptural
texts but also, in order to advance mutual understanding, there is a require-
ment for openness to the possibilities inherent in hermeneutical adventuring.
This gives dialogue its sharp edge of relevance and its critical role in addressing
the thorny issues and problematic interactions that presently beset the worlds
of Christianity and Islam and relations between them. These initiatives in dia-
logue exemplify, and indeed require, the twin towers of textual authority and
an adventuring in hermeneutics. In an era when extremist stridency reinforced
by a hermeneutical straitjacketing of scriptural reference, critical openness and
mutual respect are both well-needed.
chapter 33
Transfiguring Mission:
From Arabic Dallas to Interfaith Discovery
Clare Amos
For a number of years in the opening decade of this millennium I was a

dangerous person to know. On an honorary basis and in my spare time I
edited The Reader, the national journal for Church of England Readers and
lay ministers. My friends and acquaintances soon discovered that my modus
operandi was to approach them with a warm email or perhaps phone call
inviting them, in terms that were difficult to refuse, to contribute an article to
a particular issue of the magazine which was focusing on a topic on which,
as I assured them fervently, they had special wisdom to share with the 10,000
plus Readers of the Church of England. I suspect that after they had agreed, a
number of them probably cursed me silently on the side—though of course
they were mostly gracious enough not to tell me so directly.
One of my victims was David Thomas himself. David and I first met in 1979
when my husband and I spent several months at Queens College, Birmingham,
as a sort of sabbatical from our work in Lebanon. At the time David was
a research student working on his doctorate from Lancaster University but
because he was also completing pastoralia requirements for ordination he was
resident in the College. We got to know each other a little over our shared
interest in the Middle East and North Africa and our mutual commitment to
Christian-Muslim relations.
However it wasn’t until I began to work with nifcon (the Network for Inter
Faith Concerns of the Anglican Communion, of which David had been one
of the original founders) in 2001 that I got to know David much better. By
then of course David was a senior lecturer in Christian-Muslim relations at
the University of Birmingham, so when, a couple of years later I needed to
find contributors for an issue of The Reader which focused on interreligious
relations, David was an obvious candidate for my attention.
David’s article was characteristically thoughtful and thought-provoking. It
began by telling the story of how he had first began to engage with Islam. He
had gone, as a young graduate, to teach English in Sudan in the 1970s. The first
Arabic word he knowingly read was ‘Dallas’. As he put it at the beginning of his
article:

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d–a–l–l … Umm, try again. d–a–l–l–a–s. Dallas! Done it!’ Dallas?

Spelled out in blue neon squiggles above a café in a Sudanese market-
place, these letters, that made up the name of the 1970s tv soap opera,
were the first Arabic word I knowingly read. I still do not know how
I picked up the alphabet, though I suspect that as a volunteer school
teacher I had taken them in through lists of pupils’ names. However it hap-
pened, from that time the Arabic language began to interest and intrigue
me, and slowly enticed me to learn it and immerse myself in the study of
medieval Arabic texts in which I now find some of my most pleasurable
moments.
The article, by the way, is accompanied by some delightful pictures of a much

younger David Thomas, along with his Sudanese friends.1 It is of course a ques-
tion to ponder, whether such an American television show would make so
prevalent a mark in Sudan these days. Somehow I rather suspect not. Times
have very definitely changed. That, however, is not the focus of my reflec-
tion.
Rather, I am interested in the particular life path that David took, and how
it has led him to where he is now, his life-work, and what we are celebrating
in this book. David’s first steps, as he described them, into the Arabic Muslim
world came through his involvement with the uk government-based vso (Vol-
untary Service Overseas) programme, being sponsored by them to work among
Muslims in Sudan. He was not a ‘missionary’ as such. However, when through
the benefit of hindsight I read of his experiences in the Sudan coming shortly
after his religious conversion while at university, I suspect a perhaps inchoate
aspiration for ‘mission’ may have been a factor in his time in the country. I have
never asked David what was his exact motivation for going to Sudan; extrap-
olating from my own experience and that of my husband, it may have been a
combination of slightly ingenuous aspirations to share the Gospel and improve
the world, a desire to explore wider horizons, and an uncertainty as to where
exactly life might lead immediately after finishing university undergraduate
studies.
What I find interesting, however, is how David’s initial commitment in Sudan
led ultimately to his involvement in interreligious concerns. In this, of course,
he stands in a considerable line of Christian scholars and clergy who, begin-
1 David Thomas, ‘A Journey of Faith’, The Reader Vol. 100 No. 4, Winter 2003, pp. 10–11. The copy
of the The Reader containing David’s article is still available as a pdf on the internet at http://
www.readers.cofe.anglican.org/u_d_lib_pub/m1004.pdf.
transfiguring mission 581
ning their work in some sense as missionaries, have gradually shifted their focus
to become deeply committed to interreligious dialogue and engagement. Sev-
eral names spring to mind, some of whom are part of David’s own circle of
friends. There is Andrew Wingate, whose work in India and ongoing theologi-
cal engagement (not least in his influence on the Church of England report The
Mystery of Salvation) exemplifies this pattern; so too does Christopher Lamb,
whose missionary work in Pakistan led eventually to significant national roles
in interreligious relations based in England. Colin Chapman also reflects this
model; though Colin’s later work was perhaps still more obviously ‘missionary’
in its impetus. There was also Roger Hooker whose remarkable immersion into
the religious world of Varanasi is documented for us in Graham Kings’ book
Christianity Connected. All of the above—and indeed my husband Alan Amos
and myself—were supported for their missionary work by cms, the Church
Missionary Society. Although based on my own experience as a woman I am
quite critical of this organisation, I want nevertheless to honour the way in
which in the 1970s, particularly under the leadership of John V. Taylor, it was
willing to encourage long term immersion on the part of its missionaries in reli-
giously ‘other’ worlds without demanding immediate ‘results’. It is a great pity
that this more open spirit of cms in relation to other faiths does not seem to
continue these days. Financial stringencies and creeping conservatism appear
to have killed off that wider vision.
The four figures I have mentioned above are contemporaries, or near con-
temporaries, of David. But of course they, and many others who have travelled
similar paths, stand on the shoulders of Kenneth Cragg, the doyen of Anglican
interest in Christian-Muslim relations, for whose 90th birthday in 2003 David
Thomas and I collaborated on a festschrift, A Faithful Presence.2 Cragg notably
came from a very conservative evangelical background, training for the Angli-
can ministry at Tyndale Hall, and travelling to Lebanon to begin his missionary
career under the auspices of the interdenominational and strongly evangel-
ical organisation, the British Syrian Mission. Cragg’s remarkable life journey
then took him far afield, both theologically and geographically. It was Cragg
who in his later years made the insightful comment, ‘Mission is not about the
claims we make but the discoveries we enable’ which perhaps undergirds the
thesis of this present essay. In fact the pattern of movement from missionary
to interfaith engagement goes back in history well beyond Kenneth Cragg and
it also reaches well beyond Anglican figures. It would certainly include the
2 David Thomas with Clare Amos (eds.), A Faithful Presence, essays for Kenneth Cragg (London:
Melisende Press, 2003).
582 amos
Methodist missionary and scholar Kenneth Cracknell, as well as significant

Roman Catholic figures, several of whose lives are documented in the book
Christian Lives Given to the Study of Islam.3 But I do believe that the Angli-
can ethos—in particular the weight Anglican theology gives to the doctrine of
the incarnation—means that there is a particular contribution Anglicans can
make in this area.
What I want to explore, therefore, in this essay is the relationship between
‘mission’ and ‘interreligious engagement’. My argument will be that interreli-
gious engagement can be understood in some senses as the ‘transfiguration’ of
mission. Although prompted very specifically by my desire to contribute to this
celebration for David, whose work as a scholar I admire, and whose collabora-
tion and friendship over a number of joint projects I am grateful for, my essay
also forms part of a wider process of reflection I have been pursuing over the
last few years, wrestling with how far the theme of transfiguration can act as
an integrating motif for theology, in particular Christian theology, and specif-
ically Anglican theology. Accordingly, I present my thinking in three sections.
First I explore what I mean by ‘transfiguration’. Second, I offer some reflections
on ‘mission’ and interreligious dialogue. And then, finally, I draw together my
thinking by asking how my understanding of the motif of transfiguration may
lead to the transfiguration of mission.
Transfiguration
In his book The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ, A.M. Ramsey
reflects on the importance of the theme of transfiguration. He sees it as lying
at the heart of the New Testament.
[The transfiguration] stands as a gateway to the saving events of the

Gospel, and is as a mirror in which the Christian mystery is seen in its
unity. Here we perceive that the living and the dead are one in Christ,
that the old covenant and the new are inseparable, that the Cross and
the glory are of one, that the age to come is already here, that our human
3 It is notable however that nature of the training of Roman Catholic missionary priests meant
that even before they reached the ‘mission field’ they had often received the intellectual
resourcing for academic interreligious engagement which in the case of Anglican or Protes-
tant missionaries tended to be ‘picked up’ later on their own initiative as their interests
widened.
nature has a destiny of glory, that in Christ the final word is uttered and
in Him alone the Father is well pleased. Here the diverse elements in the
theology of the New Testament meet.4
When I speak of ‘transfiguration’, I speak first of the New Testament narra-

tives of Jesus’ own transfiguration. The story appears in all three synoptic
Gospels (Matthew 17.1–9, Mark 9.2–9, Luke 9.28–36) and intriguingly it is also
recounted in another New Testament book, 2Peter 1.16–19. Admittedly, 2 Peter
would hardly be considered by many as a ‘core’ text of the New Testament,
but it is interesting to note that with the possible exception of the cross and
resurrection no other event of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry is ‘narrated’ in
the New Testament outside the Gospels and Acts, and it is noteworthy that
the use made of the narrative by the author of 2Peter is specifically to confirm
the apostolic teaching. At the very least it suggests that at the time and in the
place where 2Peter was written the gospel transfiguration narrative was seen as
of particular importance. Motifs linked to transfiguration, and the actual verb
metamorphoomai are also to be found at two points in Paul’s letters (Romans
12.2; 2Corinthians 3.7–4.6), and the language and imagery of transfiguration
appears various points in the Gospel of John.
On the basis of the normally accepted chronology of the writing of the New
Testament, namely that the undisputed letters of Paul were written before
the final composition of any of the New Testament Gospels, the references
in those two letters are the earliest with respect to the theme of transfigu-
ration in the New Testament. The more detailed—2 Corinthians—draws on
the Old Testament account of the veiling of Moses’ face to explore how ‘all
of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected
in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of
glory to another’ (2Corinthians 3.18, nrsv translation). The passage seems to
imply that Christ is the source of transfiguration for others, though it does not
explicitly state that Christ is himself transfigured. It is interesting to consider
what might be the relationship between Paul’s reflection here and the Synop-
tic Gospel accounts of Jesus’ transfiguration which obviously depends in part
on one’s view of the literal nature of the Gospels. However if one sees (as I
do) some relationship—theological and possibly also physical—between Paul
and the community/individual responsible for the Gospel of Mark, it is not
4 Arthur Michael Ramsey, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ (Longmans, Green
& Co, 1949).
584 amos
inappropriate to use Paul’s reflection in 2Corinthians as possibly influencing

the presentation of the account of Jesus’ transfiguration in the Gospels, and
being a hermeneutical key for understanding this account.
I now turn to an exploration of the transfiguration narrative in the Gospels,
focusing particularly on the Gospel of Mark. I am not attempting to give a
complete exegesis, but rather I focus on aspects that lend themselves to my
reflection on mission. It is noteworthy that, structurally, Mark’s account of
Jesus’ transfiguration comes exactly half way through the Gospel. It seems
designed also to act as a theological mid-point of Mark’s narrative. From ‘the
high mountain apart’ (Mark 9.2) to which Jesus leads the inner circle of his
disciples, we are invited to look back and reflect on Jesus’ Galilean ministry; yet
we are also being required to look forward to the second half of the Gospel, the
journey to Jerusalem and what will await Jesus there. That is made clear by the
narrative itself as the episode concludes with Jesus’ injunction ‘to tell no one
what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.’ (Mark
9.9) But there are other hints as well.
When I was privileged to live and work in the Holy Land, as Course Director
at St George’s College, one of the places I most enjoyed taking our students to
be the top of Mount Tabor which, since the fourth Christian century, has been
the location for the commemoration of the transfiguration. (In reality I sus-
pect that the Gospel of Mark intends us to think of the transfiguration as being
located in the region of Mount Hermon—but Mount Tabor was much more
convenient of access for the Byzantine pilgrimage trail, as well as looking like
a perfectly rounded hill: such considerations were important when holy places
were being originally established.) There has been a church on the mountain
commemorating the Transfiguration since the 4th century, but the present
Catholic church was built in the 1920s by the Italian architect Barluzzi. It is a
stunning example of doing theology in stone. For Barluzzi was also the archi-
tect of the better known Church of the Nations in Gethsemane, and he built
the two churches to function as a contrasting pair. That of the Transfiguration
is designed to symbolise light—reflecting the brightness of the transfiguration;
the blacks and purples used in the Church of Gethsemane reinforce the dark-
ness of Jesus’ agony in the garden: ‘This is your hour and the power of darkness’
(Luke 22.53).
Barluzzi’s architecture reflects the real connection intended by Mark’s Gos-
pel between these two lynchpin moments. On both the mountaintop of trans-
figuration and in the valley of the agony, the same small inner group of Jesus’
disciples are privileged to enter more deeply into the heart of the mystery of
faith. On the mountain-top, the divine voice had addressed them—referring
to Jesus—with the words: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him’ (Mark
9.7). Often, and rightly, a link is drawn between these words and those spo-
ken to Jesus himself at his baptism (Mark 1.11). There is a deliberate echo, but
with the crucial difference that ‘This’ has replaced ‘You’, and now the words
are not addressed to Jesus alone. The circle is being enlarged as Peter, James
and John are incorporated within it. But as well as the link BACK to Jesus’
baptism there is also the connection FORWARD to the events of Gethsemane.
For, in one sense, it is only there that we finally hear the words of Jesus which
the disciples have been commanded to ‘listen to’ on the mountain-top, when,
seemingly to echo deliberately the term ‘Son’ spoken on the mountain, Jesus
prays at his time greatness vulnerability and weakness, ‘Abba, Father, for you
all things are possible: remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what
you want’ (Mark 14.36). It is at least notable that on the mountain of transfig-
uration we do not hear any direct command of Jesus, or assertion by him of
his power and authority. In this respect, and given the overall theme of this
reflection, it is also interesting to compare and contrast the gentler tenor of
the mountain of transfiguration (in both Mark and Matthew’s Gospels) with
the so-called ‘Great Commission’, also issued on a mountain-top as the conclu-
sion to Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 28.19–20) which became for a couple of
centuries at least the keystone biblical text for much western missionary activ-
ity.
There are two other aspects of the Gospel transfiguration story to which I
want to draw attention, before drawing my thoughts together and relating them
to wider biblical and theological motifs. First those words which Peter blurts
out, because ‘he did not know what to say’, namely: ‘It is good for us to be here’
(Mark 9.5). Poets and hymn writers have sometimes picked up what I think is an
intended allusion here to the creation narrative of Genesis 1, which is marked
by its repeated assertion about the various stages of creation ‘and God saw that
it was good.’ So the transfiguration story recalls creation, but creation as it was
always intended to be, and points us from the despoiled world of our time to the
promise of a world made new. It is interesting to notice that there is what seems
to be an account of the transfiguration given in a second century apocryphal
text, the Apocalypse of Peter, in which the setting of the story is described as
Paradise/Eden. It is also worth noting that a line can be drawn from the refer-
ence to the ‘holy mountain’ in the transfiguration account of 2 Peter 1.18, to the
‘holy mountain of God’ of Ezekiel 28.14, which is clearly seen as being a garden
of creation. Neither of these proves that the expression ‘it is good’ of Mark 9.5
must definitely be an allusion to creation: but both suggest that there is a hint
offered by Mark who led many to interpret it in this way. It is notable that the
story of the transfiguration has become a significant resource, particularly in
Eastern Orthodox theology, for an exploration of environmental and ecologi-
586 amos
cal concerns.5 It is of course a bitter irony that the first ever explosion in war of
a nuclear bomb, which fell on Hiroshima in 1945, took place on August 6, the
traditional date within the religious calendar for commemoration of the trans-
figuration of Christ. There is a powerful prayer which asks humanity to decide
whether it wants to travel towards the death-dealing radiance of the bomb or
the life-giving radiance of Christ’s transfiguration.
Second, those other figures, Elijah and Moses, who appear in the transfigura-
tion story, before floating off and leaving ‘Jesus alone.’ What is their significance
in the tale? I think there may be a double dimension. Part of the reason may be
that in Jewish tradition both of were understood to have escaped death—most
famously Elijah of course, given the narrative of 2 Kings 2.1–12, but also, by the
time of the New Testament there had also grown up the belief that the rea-
son ‘no one knows his [Moses’] burial place to this day’ (Deuteronomy 34.6)
was because there wasn’t one. In some mysterious way God had preserved him
from human death. The enigmatic order in which Mark places the two figures
in his narrative, ‘Elijah with Moses’, could suggest that for this gospel writer at
least that was their primary function in the story. However in the accounts of
Matthew, Luke and in later Christian history the respective roles of Moses as
symbolising the Law, and of Elijah as symbolising the prophets seem to have
been significant as well. In other words they are seen as partial pointers to be
later fulfilled in Christ before whom they will eventually disappear. I will come
back to this role as ‘partial pointers’ later, as my thesis is that the function of
‘partial pointer’ is one to be played by mission vis-a-vis interreligious engage-
ment.
What is the function of the transfiguration within the gospel story? I think
it is to challenge and unsettle over-simplistic theologies and chronologies and
mono-directional ways of looking at reality. The transfiguration was once fa-
mously described as a ‘misplaced resurrection narrative’. If by this is meant
that Mark made a mistake and accidentally and incompetently stuck the trans-
figuration in the middle rather than at the end of his story, then I think this
comment is ludicrous. If, however, what is meant is that the biblical under-
standing of resurrection is to be found in the middle of life—not simply at its
end—and that glorification and suffering belong together rather than one sim-
ply following on from the other, then I would heartily concur. Such tension and
5 See for example the work of Kallistos Ware e.g. Kallistos (Ware), Metropolitan. ‘Safeguarding
the Creation for Future Generations: Symposium on the Adriatic Sea’, June 6, 2002. In Trans-
forming the World: Orthodox Patriarchs and Hierarchs Articulate a Theology of Creation, ed.
F. Krueger, 104 Santa Rosa, ca: The Orthodox Fellowship of the Transfiguration, 2008.
paradox is well expressed in a comment by Walter Wink, which of course also

alludes to the link between transfiguration and creation:
Transfiguration is living by vision; standing foursquare in the midst of

a broken, tortured, oppressed, starving, dehumanizing reality, yet seeing
the invisible, calling it to come, behaving as if it is on the way, sustained
by elements of it that have come already, within and among us. In those
moments when people are healed, transformed, freed from addictions,
obsessions, destructiveness, self-worship, or when groups or communi-
ties or even, rarely, whole nations glimpse the light of the transcendent
in their midst, there the New Creation has come upon us. The world for
one brief moment is transfigured. The beyond shines in our midst—on
the way to the cross.6
Within Eastern Christian theology the transfiguration is very important—in-

deed in Orthodox iconography it is traditional that the first icon ‘written’ by any
new iconographer is that of Christ’s transfiguration. This is because the story of
the transfiguration, with its depiction of the divine glory shining through the
human form of Jesus is fundamental to the very theology of icons, namely that
the material and earthly can be a channel for the immaterial and divine. The
transfiguration is the ultimate sacrament of the incarnation.
The traditional depiction of the transfiguration in iconography alerts us to
some important keys to understanding the biblical story. Normally in the icon
the figure of Jesus is surrounded by a mandorla, an oval or circle coloured in
bright light. The circle/oval represents the world, and the message being con-
veyed is that the transfiguration of Christ is not finally completed until the
entire world has been transfigured. How is this to happen? The Gospel narrative
provides a clue. The voice which had proclaimed ‘You’ at Jesus’ baptism now
incorporates Peter and James and John by addressing them with the ‘This’ of
the transfiguration: the disciples are being drawn into the circle. As they expe-
rience the transfiguration of Jesus, they are being invited, or rather compelled,
to be transfigured themselves; to become part of the process of suffering and
glorification, for others to gaze upon and be transfigured in their turn so that
the circle becomes ever wider. Something of this is caught by Paul’s reflection in
the 2Corinthians 3.18 passage, where the nrsv translation reads ‘And all of us
with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror,
are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.’
6 Walter Wink, ‘Expository article on Mark 9.2–8’ Interpretation 1982, 63–67.

588 amos
It is not actually certain how the Greek word katoptrizomai should be trans-
lated, whether as ‘seeing’ or ‘reflecting’—the nrsv seems to be trying to hedge
its bets! However that is perhaps exactly the point: namely that unless we are
prepared to ‘reflect’ we cannot ‘see’—or at least it is too dangerous for us to do
so. There is a traditional saying, repeated at significant points of the Old Testa-
ment, ‘You cannot see God and live.’ In the New Testament the transfiguration
suggests that human beings can now see God and live—but only if they are
willing themselves to be changed by the experience. One of the features of the
iconography of the transfiguration is that the disciples are normally pictured
‘bouleversé’—upside down—with their footwear forcibly removed from their
feet. That also seems to echo the widespread tradition—common to all three
Abrahamic faiths—that the correct response to meeting the divine is to take
off one’s shoes.
One last—but very important for our theme—aspect to notice about the
transfiguration and its iconography. It is brilliantly expressed by Metropolitan
Anthony Bloom in a comparison of two well-known Russian icons of the trans-
figuration, one by Andrei Rublev and the other by Theophan the Greek.
The Rublev icon shows Christ in the brilliancy of his dazzling white robes
which cast light on everything around. This light falls on the disciples,
on the mountain and the stones, on every blade of grass. Within this
light, which is the divine splendour—the divine glory, the divine light
itself inseparable from God—all things acquire an intensity of being
which they could not have otherwise; in it they attain to a fullness of
reality which they can have only in God. The other icon is more difficult
to perceive in a reproduction. The background is silvery and appears
grey. The robes of Christ are silvery, with blue shades, and the rays of
light falling around are also white, silvery and blue. Everything gives an
impression of much less intensity. Then we discover that all these rays
of light falling from the divine presence and touching the things which
surround the transfigured Christ do not give relief but give transparency
to things. One has the impression that these rays of light touch things
and sink into them, penetrate them, touch something within them so that
from the core of these things, of all things created, the same light reflects
and shines back, as though the divine life quickens the capabilities, the
potentialities of all things, and makes all reach out towards itself. At that
moment the eschatological situation is realized, and in the words of St
Paul, ‘God is all in all’.7
7 Anthony Bloom, Metropolitan, in A.M. Allchin (ed.) Sacrament and Image: Essays in the
Christian understanding of man: Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, 1967, 40.
What might this means for the transfiguration of mission?
Mission
I had not realized until I started working at the wcc in September 2011 just
how hard fought the struggle to take seriously the demands of genuine inter-
religious engagement had been—and in some ways still is—in the Council.
I had certainly been aware of the great missionary councils of the first half
of the 20th century—Edinburgh (1910), Jerusalem (1928), Tambaram (1938)—
which see-sawed between a more positive and a more negative approach to
other religions. But even when the wcc’s office for interreligious dialogue was
first established in 1971 the tension between those committed to ‘dialogue’ and
those who felt that the priority was ‘mission and evangelism’ still continued.
The obituary of Stanley Samartha, the first Director of the office for ‘Dialogue
with Living Faiths and Ideologies’, published after his death in 2001, noted that
it is not easy to appreciate the often lonely struggle in which Stanley

Samartha was engaged during those early years against strong forces of
resistance, fears and suspicion. The theological concerns of his opponents
clustered around the fear that engaging in dialogue with people of living
faiths would lead to syncretism and undermine the Christian calling to
mission and evangelism.
It seems that the office for interreligious dialogue had a particularly rough rite
of passage at the 1975 Nairobi Assembly of the wcc—the first Assembly follow-
ing the office’s establishment. For a while, its continued existence and future
was in doubt. In fact I found my own experience of the 10th Assembly of the
wcc, held in Busan Korea in October–November 2013, quite eye-opening. Dur-
ing the whole period of the Assembly, every day, there were demonstrations
outside the conference hall, often quite large and threatening in character,
orchestrated by conservative Korean Christians, whose continual chant was
‘wcc go-home’. What was interesting was that the primary target for their anger
was the wcc’s supposed commitment to interreligious dialogue, about which
leaflets and pamphlets were distributed. Sometimes, their disapproval of what
they understood to be the wcc’s position on issues of sexuality also got fac-
tored in to the demonstration, but it was certainly the case that interreligious
dialogue was top of their hit list. Of course, the demonstrators were Christians
who belonged to churches which are not members of the wcc, but inevitably
their attitudes rubbed off on the more mainstream Korean churches which are
590 amos
members, and there was a definite nervousness about interreligious dialogue

throughout the period of the Assembly, with what felt like a determination to
ensure that it was not too high profile. One of the results of this personal expe-
rience has been to want to reflect further on the dynamics of the relationship
between mission and interreligious dialogue, as I am seeking to do here.
In a foundational article for on Interfaith Dialogue for the Dictionary of the
Ecumenical Movement Wesley Ariarajah, has noted:
A wcc conference in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 1967, proved to be a land-

mark both as the beginning of serious interest in interfaith dialogue as
such in the wcc, and as the first involvement in the ecumenical dis-
cussion of the Vatican Secretariat for Non-Christians. In Kandy Kenneth
Cragg challenged in a fundamental way the Barth-Kraemer attitude to
religions that had so dominated Protestant thinking during the previous
decades.8
I am grateful to Ariarajah for drawing my attention to the contribution of Cragg

at that critical juncture (although Ariarajah’s comment is slightly misleading,
as Cragg was not actually present at the Kandy meeting, but rather sent a
paper which was used as a resource document at it). My instinct—which
proved correct—was that Cragg’s paper would be worth re-reading. I duly did,
and in fact ensured that it was re-published in issue number 54 of Current
Dialogue (appeared July 2013) partly as a tribute to Cragg himself who had
died a few months earlier. Although the paper had been circulated in a wcc
in-house publication in the late 1960s it had not received the attention I believe
it deserved. Some of Cragg’s comments—though now feeling slightly dated
in their expression—are still valuable. I quote a few extracts from it, chosen
partly because I believe that they express key resources for the ‘transfiguration
of mission’. Given David’s and my previous joint commitment to honouring
the work of Kenneth Cragg through our editing of his festschrift, it seems
appropriate to give Cragg special space in this essay also.
– Is there not a sense in which much missionary theology is drifting or steering

towards a view of the Christian task in the world that insufficiently cares for
the scruples, the doubts, of the other party, that does not satisfactorily reckon
8 http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/wcc-programmes/interreligious-
dialogue-and-cooperation/interreligious-trust-and-respect/ecumenical-dictionary-
interfaith-dialogue.
with the credibility of Christianity? … Missionary theology, in its proper

awareness of the ‘givenness’ of the faith and a concern for its ‘uniqueness’,
has tended to high-handed and distant attitudes in presenting it.
– The Incarnation may be defined as truth undertaking whatever its compre-
hensibility requires.
– The essential persuasiveness of the Gospel is not rightly dismissed by con-
siderations of ‘uniqueness’ or ‘distinctiveness’. … For they cannot feasibly or
finally be matters of assertion and claim … They are only discoverable in the
wake of recognition.
– There is no significant Exodus where there is no significant ‘ecology’. God is
not in the Exile, if He is not evermore in the harvest and the seasons. God is
not in the Incarnation if He is not within the mystery of the natural order.
– It is a plea for the closer attention to the theology of nature and of the
incarnation, to human experience as all men know, question and interpret
it, for a Christian care to think cooperatively with other creeds and their
wistfulness and thus to serve the Gospel of Christ in the sort of commitment
to men’s ideas and needs which the incarnation itself exemplifies. It was not
after all, by a Word reverberating from high heaven that God redeemed us,
but by the Word made flesh, housing its glory in the common world and
freely awaiting recognition as its only pledge of truth.
– We love and serve the incredible creed of a Babe in a manger and a Man
on the Cross as the point and the power of the Lord of the universe … Let
us not cloud that sublime mystery with assertive, belligerent or insensitive
postures of our own.9
What I understand Kenneth Cragg is seeking to suggest is that a proper under-

standing of the mystery of the Incarnation requires Christians also to take seri-
ously the resources of natural theology through which a respectful engagement
with the riches of other faiths can be facilitated. Perhaps it is worth reinforcing
this by turning to another wcc document which, though framing the question
in a different way to that proposed by Cragg, seems to me to come to a similar
conclusion. The cwme (the wcc’s Commission on World Mission and Evan-
gelism) conference held in San Antonio in 1989 eloquently stated: ‘We cannot
point to any other way of salvation than Jesus Christ; at the same time we can-
not set limits to the saving power of God … we appreciate this tension, and do
9 All these quotes come from a tribute to Kenneth Cragg authored by myself in Current Dialogue
No. 54 (July 2013), 83–90, and which also incorporated Cragg’s original paper sent as a resource
for the 1967 conference in Kandy.
592 amos
not attempt to resolve it.’ As David Bosch has observed, at the conclusion of the
section in his magisterial Transforming Mission which is devoted to the ques-
tion of interreligious engagement.
Such language boils down to an admission that we do not have all the
answers and are prepared to live within the framework of penultimate
knowledge, that we regard our involvement in dialogue and mission as
an adventure, are prepared to take risks, and are anticipating surprises
as the Spirit guides us into fuller understanding. This is not opting for
agnosticism, but for humility. It is however a bold humility—or a humble
boldness.10
Transfiguration, Mission and Presence
In my earlier reflection on the Gospel account of the transfiguration I did not,

deliberately, explore the word skene which appears in Peter’s comment ‘Let us
make three dwellings (skene), one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah’. The
nrsv footnote suggests the alternative translation of ‘tents’ for skene, implicitly
implying that skene is theologically loaded language. As indeed it is. In its
verbal form it appears as the climax to the Prologue of John 1.14, ‘And the Word
became flesh and lived (eskenosen) among us’ … It also makes an appearance
as both verb and noun near the close of Revelation: ‘See the home (skene) of
God is among mortals. He will dwell (skenosei) with them …’ (Rev. 21.3). In all
these references, including its appearance in the transfiguration story, I think
that the root ‘sken-’ is intended to allude in a special way to God’s presence
with humanity and creation, in a manner that hints (or more) at incarnation.
The symbol of skene of course also reminds us of the imagery of the Feast of
Tabernacles (skenopegia) which celebrated God’s presence with people in the
wilderness as a foretaste of God’s more complete presence in the eschatological
era. The allusion is strengthened by the fact that through a fortuitous linguistic
accident the same three consonants, s, k, n, in the Greek root sken- make up
the Hebrew word Shekinah which was regularly used in post-biblical Judaism
to speak of the divine presence.
Of course, in the transfiguration story Peter’s offer to build those three ‘tents’
is implicitly rejected. That is because in the theology of the Gospel writers
10 David J. Bosch Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll,

ny: Orbis, 1991), 489.
the divine presence now no longer needs to be kept in ritual safety but can
be perceived in the transfiguring presence of a vulnerable human body. It is
fascinating to explore for a moment what each of the three potential recip-
ients of Peter’s offer might reveal to us about mission. First, those two ‘partial
pointers’—Elijah and Moses. Elijah was certainly fervent, and undoubtedly fer-
vency and excitement are a necessary part of mission. But the flaw of Elijah,
it might be said, was that his fervency became rather overly fervent: hardly a
proponent of interreligious dialogue. Certainly, that was not how he was expe-
rienced by the 400 prophets of Baal (1Kings 18)! Although one hopes that few
Christians in mission today would want to follow in Elijah’s footsteps in their
dealing with those of other faiths, one has to acknowledge that there have
been times in Christian history when Elijah’s vision of the religious other has
been the norm. We also—sadly—need to note that the intolerant spirit of Eli-
jah seems to be becoming a paradigm which Christians, certainly in the Mid-
dle East, are today increasingly suffering as recipients themselves. As regards
Moses—in what sense is he a partial pointer for mission? Perhaps Moses takes
us too far the path of ordering and organization and control: at least in so far
as he is identified with the biblical law corpus which has traditionally been
given his name. Mission needs both fervency and organization, but it cannot
stop there. It needs to break through all sorts of barriers, and permit itself to
be surprised by uncontrollable joy. Otherwise it will find itself floating off the
mountain-top rather than allowing God’s presence to be embedded incarna-
tionally in the lives of human beings. It is notable that the next event in the
Gospels immediately after Jesus’ transfiguration as he sets off bodily towards
his passion is his engagement on the plain with the human messiness of a
sick child and the suffering that has brought to the child’s family. And perhaps
mission which takes seriously the incarnation—the real presence of God with
humanity—can find itself tip-toeing towards an openness towards other faiths.
Could it be that the focus on the incarnation in much Anglican theology and
practice can actually provide a resource to facilitate constructive engagement
with our multireligious world?
When David and I edited the festschrift for Kenneth Cragg our deliberate
choice for the book’s title was A Faithful Presence. The title was selected partly
to honour Cragg’s own spirit of faithfulness over many decades both to devel-
oping Christian and Muslim mutual understanding and to the support for the
Church in the Middle East. But the title was also selected because the theme of
‘presence’ was a key motif in much of Cragg’s (and other Anglican) thinking
about interreligious engagement. The motif of presence has been expressed
particularly powerfully in the preface written by Max Warren for the ‘Chris-
tian Presence’ series which he edited, published by scm between 1959–1966.
594 amos
Appropriately it appears therefore in the book which Cragg himself wrote for
that series in 1959, Sandals at the Mosque:
When we approach the man [sic] of another faith than our own it will be
in a spirit of expectancy to find how God has been speaking to him and
what new understandings of the grace and love of God we may ourselves
discover in this encounter.
Our first task in approaching another people, another culture, another
religion, is to take off our shoes, for the place we are approaching is holy.
Else we may find ourselves treading on men’s dreams. More serious still,
we may forget that God was here before our arrival. We have, then, to ask
what is the authentic religious content in the experience of the Muslim,
the Hindu, the Buddhist, or whoever he may be. We may, if we have asked
humbly and respectfully, still reach the conclusion that our brothers have
started from a false premise and reached a faulty conclusion. But we must
not arrive at our judgement from outside their religious situation. We
have to try to sit where they sit, to enter sympathetically into their pains
and griefs and joys of their history and see how those pains and griefs and
joys have determined the premises of their argument. We have, in a word,
to be ‘present’ with them.11
The motif of presence also resonates with that group of Anglican mission
practitioners cum-interfaith specialists whom I referred to earlier. Several of
them, including David himself, worked with me and others (especially Michael
Ipgrave who also spent time in a missionary context in Japan) to produce
the Anglican Communion report on interreligious relations Generous Love: the
Truth of the Gospel and the call to Dialogue. Within the Trinitarian framework of
the report, the figure of Christ was explored in terms of incarnational presence
as follows:
Our commitment to be a stable presence in each place, to sanctify the life

of the local community through prayer and witness, and in so doing to
learn to value more deeply and share more widely the treasure entrusted
to us, is a response to the incarnational logic that lies at the heart of the
Christian story. The presence which we are living is that of the Body of
Christ: the presence of the God who expresses himself in our midst in
body language, by living a life, dying a death, and rising to a new life.
11 Kenneth Cragg, Sandals at the Mosque, scm, 1959, 9–10.

Through his cross and resurrection, Jesus gives us forgiveness, healing and
new life, and shapes us into a community which offers these blessings to
our neighbours in a pattern of gracious and generous discipleship. Most
particularly, as we worship one who was rich but for our sake became
poor, emptying himself to take the form of a slave, we remember that Jesus
is present not only in the ministry and the sacraments of his Church but
also in the persons of the poor, the hungry and the oppressed. Our pres-
ence among them must be one of service, advocacy and empowerment,
whatever their faith. We believe that in Christ God has come among us as a
human living among humans, and as one who in his humanity crossed the
boundaries which separated people of different groups from one another.
Seeking to sum up why I believe that the theme of transfiguration can be a

gateway through mission into interreligious encounter, I would want to say the
following: The transfiguration summarises and expresses the ultimate meaning
of incarnation, so that in St Irenaeus’ dictum, ‘The glory of God is humanity
alive, and the life of humanity is the vision of God.’ That incarnation requires
us to take seriously the possibility of the presence of the boundary-crossing God
in other religions. That (as in the icon of Theophan the Greek) transfiguration
can quicken the divine light which is already present in us and all people. That
we who are witnesses to transfiguration cannot be left unchanged by it. That it
is through our listening rather than our speaking that we can have a small part
in helping to transfigure the world. That the transfiguration indeed forces us to
take off our shoes as we stand before what is holy to us and to others. That the
God of transfiguration is a generous God whose generosity is shown not simply
in the particularities of history but also through the universal glory and beauty
of creation in which all can rejoice.
In the article that David Thomas wrote for The Reader, he reflected on
the austere majesty of Islam which he found both challenging and worthy of
admiration. And then he concludes with the following:
The journey into the world of Islam and attempted empathy with its
towering intellects and spiritual treasure-stores is both stimulating and
disturbing. But there is then the journey home. I have never (at least not
yet) not wanted to make that return, coming back with questions, lessons
learnt and challenges to meet. It is, after all, the generosity that I see in
the faith to which I belong that takes me out to this related religion. This
generosity that is reflected from the God of Christianity has always been
enough. There is no better elsewhere.
596 amos
Thank you, David, for those words of yours which provide such a splendid
conclusion to my contribution to your festscrift. You have said it here so well.
It is the very generosity which we both cherish in our own Christian faith
which transfigures our understanding and requires us to take most seriously
the endeavour of interreligious engagement.
David R. Thomas Academic Publications
The following lists David Thomas’ books, edited volumes, scholarly articles, and
book chapters in descending date order. It has not been possible here to record
his numerous reference articles, conference reports, book reviews and jour-
nalistic contributions. However, it should be noted that these include many
reference entries in Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, of
which David is chief editor; in the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception,
of which he is Islam editor; and in the Encyclopaedia of Islam. He also con-
tributes to academic publication through serving as managing editor of the Brill
book series History of Christian-Muslim Relations, co-editor of the Brill series
Studies on the Children of Abraham, and senior editor of the journal Islam and
Christian–Muslim Relations.
and John Chesworth (eds), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. Vol-

ume 7. Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and South America (1500–1600), Lei-
den: Brill, 2015
‘Christian Borrowings from Islamic Theology in the Classical Period: The Witness of
al-Juwaynī and Abū l-Qāsim al-Anṣārī’, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 2
(2014) 125–142
and John Chesworth (eds), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. Vol-
ume 6. Western Europe (1500–1600), Leiden: Brill, 2014
and Alex Mallett (eds), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. Volume 5
(1350–1500), Leiden: Brill, 2013
and David Cheetham and Douglas Pratt (eds), Understanding Interreligious Relations,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013
‘Islam and the Religious Other’, in Understanding Interreligious Relations, eds David
Cheetham, Douglas Pratt, and David Thomas, 148–171
‘The Letter from Cyprus or Letters from Cyprus?’, in Cultures in Contact: Transfer of
Knowledge in the Mediterranean Context: Selected Papers, eds Sofia Torallas Tovar
and Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, Cordoba: Oriens Academic, 2013, 263–274
(1200–1350), Leiden: Brill, 2012
‘Christianity in Islamic theology: The Case of al-Juwaynī’, in Mission in Dialogue. Essays
in Honour of Michael L. Fitzgerald, eds Catarina Belo and Jean-Jacques Pérennès,
Louvain: Peeters, 2012, 211–221
(1050–1200), Leiden: Brill, 2011
‘Miracles in Islam’, in The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, ed. Graham H. Twelftree,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, 199–215
598 david r. thomas academic publications
and Alex Mallett (eds), Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History. Volume 2

(900–1050), Leiden: Brill, 2010
‘Christian-Muslim Misunderstanding in the Fourteenth Century: The Correspondence
between Christians in Cyprus and Muslims in Damascus’, in Towards a Cultural His-
tory of the Mamluk Era, eds Mahmoud Haddad, Arnim Heinemann, John L. Meloy,
and Souad Slim, Beirut: Orient-Institut; Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2010, 13–30.
‘Christian Voices in Muslim Theology’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 36 (2009)
357–380
‘Apologetic and Polemic in the Letter from Cyprus and Ibn Taymiyya’s Jawāb al-ṣahīh
li-man baddala dīn al-Masīḥ’, in Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, eds Yossef Rappoport
and Shahab Ahmed, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010, 249–255
‘Christian Voices in Muslim Theology’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 36 (2009)
357–379
and Barbara Roggema (eds), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. Vol-
ume 1 (600–900), Leiden: Brill, 2009
‘Idealism and Intransigence: a Christian-Muslim Encounter in Early Mamluk Times’,
Mamlūk Studies Review 13.2 (2009) 85–103
and Barbara Roggema, ‘“Christian-Muslim Relations”: A Bibliographical History Project
Summary’, Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 5 (2008) 437–440
Christian Doctrines in Islamic Theology, Leiden: Brill, 2008
‘Relations with Other Religions’, in The Islamic World, ed. Andrew Rippin, Routledge:
London, 2008, 246–258
ed. The Bible in Arab Christianity, Leiden: Brill, 2007
‘The Bible and the Kalām’, in The Bible in Arab Christianity, ed. David Thomas, Brill,
Leiden, 2007, 175–191
‘The Past and the Future in Christian-Muslim Relations’, Islam and Christian-Muslim
Relations 18.1 (2007) 33–42
‘Arab Christianity’, in The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity, ed. Ken Parry,
Oxford: Blackwell, 2007, 1–22
‘ʿAlī ibn Rabban al-Ṭabarī: A Convert’s Assessment of His Former Faith’, in Christians and
Muslims in Dialogue in the Islamic Orient of the Middle Ages. Christlich-muslimische
Gespräche im Mittelalter, ed. Martin Tamcke, Würzburg: Ergon, 2007, 137–155
and Emmanouela Grypeou and Mark N. Swanson (eds), The Encounter of Eastern
Christianity with Early Islam, Leiden: Brill, 2006
‘Christian Theologians and New Questions’, in The Encounter of Eastern Christianity
with Early Islam, eds Emmanouela Grypeou, Mark N. Swanson, and David Thomas,
Brill: Leiden, 2006, 257–276
‘Receiving and Acquiring Wisdom in Islam’, Journal of Chinese Philosophy 33 (2006)
439–452
‘Regard and Disregard in Early Relations between Muslims and Christians’, Chronos 14
(2006) 7–30
david r. thomas academic publications 599
and Rifaat Y. Ebied (eds), Muslim-Christian Polemic during the Crusades: The Letter
from the People of Cyprus and Ibn Abī Ṭālib al-Dimashqī’s Response, Leiden: Brill,
2005
‘Explanations of the Incarnation in Early ʿAbbasid Islam’, in Redefining Christian Iden-
tity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam, eds J.J. van Ginkel,
H.L. Murre-van den Berg and T.M. van Lint, Leuven: Peeters, 2005, 127–149
‘Cultural and Religious Supremacy in the Fourteenth Century: The Letter from Cyprus
as Interreligious Apologetic’, Parole de l’Orient 30 (2005) 297–322
‘A Muʿtazilī Response to Christianity: Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī’s attack on the Trinity and the
Incarnation’, in Studies on the Christian Arabic Heritage in Honour of Father Prof. Dr.
Samir Khalil Samir s.i. at the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, eds Rifaat Ebeid
and Herman Teule, Leuven: Peeters, 2004, 279–313
with Clare Amos (eds) A Faithful Presence: Essays for Kenneth Cragg, London: Melisen-
de, 2003
‘The Use of Scripture in Discussions between Christians and Muslims’, in A Faithful
Presence: Essays for Kenneth Cragg, eds David Thomas with Clare Amos, London:
Melisende, 2003, 293–306
ed. Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule, Church Life and Scholarship in ʿAbbasid Iraq,
Leiden: Brill, 2003
‘Early Muslim Responses to Christianity’, in Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule:
Church Life and Scholarship in ʿAbbasid Iraq, ed. David Thomas, Brill: Leiden, 2003,
215–230
Early Muslim Polemic against Christianity, Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq’s ‘Against the Incarnation’,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002
‘The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Abbasid Era’, in Islamic interpretations of
Christianity, ed. Lloyd Ridgeon, Curzon: Richmond, 2001, 78–98
ed. Syrian Christians Under Islam: The First Thousand Years, Brill: Leiden, 2001
‘Paul of Antioch’s Letter to a Muslim Friend and The Letter from Cyprus’, in Syrian
Christians under Islam: The First Thousand Years, ed. David Thomas, Brill: Leiden,
2001, 203–221
‘The Question Better not Asked’, in Islam in the Contemporary World, ed. Theodore
Gabriel, New Delhi: Vikas, 2000, 20–41
‘Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī on the Divinity of Jesus Christ’, Islamochristiana 23 (1997)
43–64 (Republished in Islamic Philosophy and Theology: Critical Concepts in Islamic
Thought, Vol. 3. Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism, ed. Ian Richard Netton, Rout-
ledge: London, 2007, 68–90)
‘Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq and the History of Religions’, Journal of Semitic Studies 41 (1996)
275–290
‘The Bible in Early Muslim Anti-Christian Polemic’, Islam and Christian-Muslim Rela-
tions 7 (1996) 29–38
600 david r. thomas academic publications
‘The Miracles of Jesus in Early Islamic Polemic’, Journal of Semitic Studies 39 (1994)
221–243
Anti-Christian Polemic in Early Islam. Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq’s “Against the Trinity”, Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992
‘Two Muslim-Christian Debates from the Early Shīʿite tradition’, Journal of Semitic
Studies 33 (1988) 53–80
‘Tabari’s Book of Religion and Empire’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of
Manchester 96 (1986) 1–7
Index
Aaron 162, 367, 368 Ahl-i Ḥadīth 265, 271–274, 280, 282, 286
ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (prefect) 29 Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal 284, 285
ʿAbd al-Jabbār 73 Ahmad Khan, Sayyid 264, 264n4, 265,
ʿAbd al-Malik 6, 346–349, 355, 356, 358, 361 268n12, 271n28, 272, 272n32, 272n34, 278,
ʿAbd al-Masīḥ, son of Isaac 171 278n72, 279, 279n76, 279n78, 280, 281,
ʿAbd al-Raʾūf of Singkel (c. 1615–1693) 312, 281n89, 281n90, 281n91, 282, 282n93, 283,
313, 316–320 283n104, 284, 287
ʿAbduh, Muhammad 430, 430n6, 430n7, Akbar 280, 338
516 Aleppo 102, 127
Abdullah, King of Saudi Arabia 424, 426 Alexander of Aphrodisias 62n11
Abgar, King of Edessa 172, 172n23, 184, 185 Alexandria 26, 66–68, 387, 421, 423
al-Abīwardī 95, 96n2 Algeria 423, 501
Abraham 4, 54, 108, 135, 152, 172, 182, 182n114, Algiers 248
327n2, 327n3, 367, 372, 373, 454, 480, 498, ʿAlī (4th Imam of Twelver Shīʿa, d. 712)
498n11, 499, 529, 530, 576 406n22
Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Dārimī see al-Dārimī, ʿAlī (8th Imam of Twelver Shīʿa, d. 817)
Abū ʿAbd Allāh 406n22
Abū Bakr (1st Sunnī Caliph) 345–349, ʿAlī (10th Imam of Twelver Shīʿa, d. 868)
353–355, 358–361, 402n5, 403 406n22
Abū Bishr Mattā see Mattā, Abū Bishr ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (4th Caliph) 109, 286, 347,
Abu Dāʾūd 280, 282 405, 406, 406n22, 517
Abū Ḥanīfa 284, 284n108, 285, 286 Ali, Ameer 286
Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf see al-ʿAllāf, Abū al-ʿAllāf, Abū al-Hudhayl 53
al-Hudhayl Allchin, A.M. 428, 540n62, 588n7
Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq see al-Warrāq, Abū ʿĪsā Alonso, C. 214n27
Abū Maʿshar 67n26 Alvarus, Paulus 141n87
Abū l-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī al-Maghribī Amalfi 93
see al-Maghribī Ambedkar 334
Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Rāzī 75, 76 Ameer Ali, Syed 265, 282, 283, 283n101,
Abū Rāʾiṭa 42, 51, 51n42, 51n43, 51n44, 51n45, 283n102, 284, 285, 285n113, 285n116, 286,
52, 52n46, 52n47, 52n48, 52n49, 56 286n120
Abū Yūsuf 350 America 243, 289, 436, 443, 456n40, 472
Aceh, Sultanate of 310–313 Amirutzes, George 253
Ad Gentes 453n25, 465, 532 Amman 423
Adam 43, 217, 306, 373, 406 ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī 42, 52, 53n54, 53n55, 53n56,
al-Ādamī al-ʿAṭṭār, Abū Bakr 76 54n57, 54n58, 58, 189, 190n23
Adamson, Peter 62n10, 65n18, 66n25 Ammonius Hermiae 67, 68
Afanasiev, Nicolas 538 Amos, Clare 10, 527n2, 533, 533n30, 557n59,
Afghanistan 268, 415, 416, 419 581, 581n2
Afghans 266, 271n26, 272 Amsterdam 448
Africa 7, 210n14, 223, 243n3, 248, 258, 268, Anabaptists 256
381–386, 388–394, 394n37, 395, 396, Anatolia 100
398–400, 410, 416, 418, 462, 501n21, 523, Anawati, G. 207n1
532, 579 Anbā Ruways (d. 1404), Egyptian saint 186n1
Agia Sophia 480 al-Andalus 207
ahad 320, 320n14, 324n16 Andrewes, Lancelot 540n62
602 index
Angelovic see Mahmud Pasha Angelovic Asia 282n97, 420, 456n40, 462, 532
Anglican Church 19, 503, 557 Asín Palacios, M. 210n14, 212n21
Anglican Communion 9, 17, 503, 503n26, Athenagoras i, Patriarch 452
513n4, 515, 517, 527, 527n2, 531n19, 532, 533, Athens 66–68
533n28, 537, 540, 541, 543, 558n60, 573, Atrīb 27
576n32, 579, 594 al-Attas, Syed Muhammad Naquib 430,
Anglican(ism) 1, 5, 9, 10, 12, 17, 289, 503, 430n4, 431, 434
503n26, 513n4, 515, 517, 518, 527, 527n2, Augustine 141, 465, 515, 516
530n19, 532, 533, 533n27, 533n28, 534, 536, Avicenna 60
537, 540, 540n62, 541–544, 551, 558n60, Awlād al-ʿAssāl 82
565, 573, 576, 576n32, 577n32, 579, 581, 582, al-Azhar 269, 520
582n3, 593, 594 Azumah, John 7, 384n10
Antichrist 25, 444
Antioch 3, 66, 68, 93n29, 102, 127 Baath Party 419
Antitrinitarians 256 Babinger, Franz 236n33, 251n33
Antony of Tagrit 92 Babylon 183
Aquinas, Thomas 69, 511n51, 516, 554 Bacon, Francis 476
Arab 2, 4, 8, 25–33, 62, 64, 66n25, 85, 86, 89, Badaliya 499
209, 215, 218n34, 273, 311, 343, 347, 364, 383, al-Baghawī (d. 1117–1122) 315, 316
386, 416–419, 423, 426, 431n7, 432 Baghdad 3, 46, 60, 62, 65–68, 76, 88–91, 102,
Arab National Movement 419 103, 107, 109, 245n8, 401
Arab revolt 419 Bahçeşehir University 516
Arabia 2, 25, 135, 136, 271, 311, 312, 347, 381 Baḥīrā 130, 130n26
Arabic 1, 3, 4, 6, 12, 25, 27–29, 29n24, 30, 31, Baḣīrā (Apocalypse of) 34, 36
31n41, 33, 34, 37, 38n71, 44, 44n6, 45, 46, Baḣr al-favāʾid 100, 100n14, 101n15
46n13, 47, 47n13, 51, 56, 62, 63n14, 64–66, al-Bajuri see Iskandar Effendi
66n23, 75, 80, 83, 85, 85n2, 86–88, 88n11, Balāṭ, Battle of 102
88n12, 89, 89n15, 90, 90n19, 91–93, 93n29, Balkans 229, 249, 255–257
93n31, 94, 99, 100n13, 101n16, 103, 105, al-Balkhī, Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbdallāh 64, 73
109, 128n6, 128n7, 137–139, 139n77, 140, Balthasar, Hans Urs von 535, 538
167, 169, 169n12, 170, 172, 172n26, 173, 191, Banchoff, Thomas 518
208–210, 213, 214, 215n30, 218n34, 220, 221, Bangkok 450
221n39, 233, 233n24, 262, 269, 280, 289, 292, Bangladesh 19, 21
298, 298n42, 300, 302, 304n69, 308–311, Barak 367
313n8, 315, 316, 319, 322, 324, 343, 347, 349, Baranowski, Bohdan 226, 226n1, 232n20,
355–357, 362, 366, 383, 401–405, 418, 419, 235n29, 236n34, 236n35
517n9, 579, 580 Barcelona Agreement (1995) 422
Arafat, Walid 13 Barelvi, Sayyid Aḥmad 271, 272
Arafe, Mazen 228n5 Barnes sj, Michael 449n8, 460n51, 461n54,
Ariarajah, S. Wesley 449n11, 450, 451n14, 590 467n76, 468n77, 494, 494n3
Aristotle 67, 74n49, 78, 83, 112, 112n2, 113, Barrios Aguilera, M. 215n29, 215n30
113n7 Barth, Karl 449n8, 590
Armenians 227, 238 Bartholomaeo, Georgius 232
Arminians 255 Bartholomew, Patriarch 470, 489
Articles of Religion, Thirty-Nine 510n50 Bartoszewicz, Julian 230n11
Arts and Humanities Research Council 16 Basil of Caesarea 516
Ascension, College of the 2n2, 14 Basler 289
al-Ashʿarī, Abū al-Ḥasan 65, 68–70, 70n37, al-Bayḍāwī (d. 1286–1292) 317
71, 72, 75, 507n39 al-Bayhaqī, Żāhir al-Dīn 66n25
index 603
Bazylow, Leon 230n11 Brandenburgians 231

Beaumont, Mark 2, 42n1, 189n19 Bristol 147, 151
Belarus 227 Britain see United Kingdom
Belgium 423 British Council of Churches 528
Benedict, Pope 424, 425, 442, 442n27, 443, Broumana (Lebanon) 450
443n28 Brussels 401
Béni Abbès 501, 502 Brzeski, Mikołaj 231
Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Buaben, Muhammad Jabal 269, 269n20
Affairs 516, 518 Buddha 305
Berlin 16, 246n14, 401, 424 Building Bridges Seminar 9, 10, 509n47,
Bernabé Pons, L.F. 4, 208n6, 209n9, 209n12, 511n52, 512, 512n3, 513, 513n4, 514, 514n5,
211n16, 215n30, 217n32, 218n34, 220n36, 515–518, 518n10, 519, 519n12, 520, 521,
220n37, 223n40 521n14, 522, 522n16, 523, 523n19, 524,
Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) 327 525, 525n20, 526, 560–563, 565, 566, 576,
Bible 6, 7, 34, 35, 55, 58, 93, 94, 134, 134n44, 578
202, 219n36, 279, 289, 290, 292, 293, al-Bukhārī 213n25, 293, 345, 345n8, 346–349,
296–299, 304, 307, 308, 366, 368, 372, 374, 353, 354
381, 393, 460n53, 493, 498n11, 506, 508, 513, Bukovina 229
515, 516, 518, 520–522, 542, 559, 562, 563, Bunsen, Ernest De 304, 304n70
569, 573, 574 Burton, John 351, 351n45, 351n46, 351n47,
Bieliński, Henryk 236n34 351n48, 353, 360, 360n103, 361n105, 363
Bin Talal, El Hassan, hrh Prince 512 Byzantine 31, 132, 246n16, 253, 386, 416, 424,
Birgivī 260 480, 484, 584
Birmingham, University of 1, 15, 19, 21, 167, Byzantine Empire 25, 31, 250
343, 579 Byzantium 386, 387, 416
Bishr ibn Finḥās 64
Black Sea 5, 225, 229 Cabanelas, D. 136n57, 137n58, 137n59,
Blair, Tony 512 138n64, 217n33
Blane, William 168, 169n10 Caetani, Leone 349, 349n29, 349n30
Blois, William de (Bishop of Worcester) Cairo 78n58, 171, 171n20, 186, 259, 260, 262,
158 291, 292n19, 293n22, 401, 423
Bloom, Anthony 588, 588n7 Callimach, Philip Buonacorsi 231n17
Bodin, Jean 255 Calvinists 255
Bogucka, Maria 235n30, 235n31, 238n38, Cambridge 12–14, 17, 64n16, 137n62, 170, 173,
239n41, 240n45 212n21, 289, 310, 311
Böhme, Jakob 431 Campbell, W.F. 222n39
Bohnstedt, John W. 242n1, 243n3, 257, Candia 251, 252
257n62, 257n63, 257n64, 257n65, 257n66 Canterbury 152, 157, 517
Bologna 149, 419 Canterbury, Archbishop of 9, 147, 153, 154,
Bookless, David 552, 552n37, 552n38 157, 158, 266, 423, 425, 512, 513, 517, 518,
Book of the Bee 169, 169n12 518n10, 523n19, 534, 560–562, 564, 565,
Bosch, David 592, 592n10 572
Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne 500 Cardaillac, L. 208n7, 209n9
Bourdieu, Pierre 546, 546n8 Carey, George 9, 512, 513, 560, 561
Bouvines, Battle of 147 Carpenter, David 149n9, 153n16, 153n17,
Böwering, Gerhard 356, 356n79, 361, 156n21, 161, 161n28
361n110 Cartigny (Switzerland) 450
Bowker, John 12, 13 Cartwright, John 242, 242n2, 243n3, 257,
Brague, Rémi 64, 64n17 257n61, 257n67, 258n68
604 index
Casanova, Paul 348, 349, 349n31, 349n32, 263n80, 272, 273, 286, 288, 290, 292, 294,
349n33, 349n34, 358, 361 301–308, 326, 327, 336–338, 360, 364,
Casas, I. de las 215n31, 219n35 381, 381n2, 382, 383, 386–388, 390–392,
Casey, Edward 548, 548n20 394–397, 415, 417, 418, 421–423, 426, 430,
Caspar, Robert 211n19, 212n21, 530, 530n16 431, 433–437, 439, 444, 447n4, 448, 448n5,
Castilian 137, 139, 220n36 452n21, 456n40, 459n48, 462, 462n59, 464,
Castries, Henry de 500 464n66, 467, 468, 471, 480, 483, 484, 494,
Castro, P. De (Archbishop of Granada) 214, 499, 505, 508, 509, 511, 522, 536, 537, 545,
215, 215n30, 215n31 556, 560, 561, 567, 568, 571, 574, 578, 591,
Catholic 8, 9, 211, 215n30, 225, 236, 238, 595
238n39, 240, 256, 257, 294, 338, 339, 383, Christians 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 13–16, 29, 30, 33,
389, 399, 416, 418, 422, 433, 434, 442, 447, 42–48, 51, 53, 55–59, 62–64, 64n15, 66,
448, 448n4, 449n8, 451–453, 460n53, 462, 68, 73, 74, 80, 83, 85, 85n1, 86, 89, 93n30,
466, 492, 497, 498, 498n11, 502–504, 506, 94, 126–128, 131–133, 133n38, 138–140, 142,
509, 514, 529, 531, 531n22, 532, 533, 536, 143, 145, 146, 150, 151, 154–162, 166, 187,
538, 538n55, 554, 562, 565–567, 582, 582n3, 188, 191, 193, 197–200, 202–204, 208, 209,
584 211–213, 216, 218, 219n35, 220n36, 222–224,
Catholicism 239n43, 240, 389, 430, 441, 443, 232, 237–239, 242, 243n3, 247n17, 248, 249,
497, 500, 548, 554 251–253, 253n40, 255–257, 259, 260, 261n77,
Caussade sj, Jean Pierre de 501, 502, 502n23 262, 269, 279, 294, 298, 299, 302, 303, 305,
Cecilio, Saint 214 326–340, 340n53, 341, 343, 345, 365, 366,
Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian 374, 380, 381, 381n2, 382, 384–387, 389,
Muslim Relations (csic) 14, 15, 19, 21, 22 390, 394–401, 415–417, 419, 422, 424–427,
Certeau, Michel de 549, 549n22, 549n23, 429, 430, 432, 433, 435, 437, 438, 440, 442,
549n24, 549n25 447n1, 448, 448n4, 452, 453, 456, 456n40,
Cervantes, Miguel de 209 457, 461, 462, 462n57, 464–466, 469–472,
Chapman, Colin 581 477–479, 484, 488, 489, 491, 492, 496,
Chapman, Mark 535n42 497, 499, 499n14, 500, 503, 503n27, 504,
Charlemagne 418, 484 506, 507, 510–515, 517, 519n12, 520–522,
Charles Martel 418 524, 525, 528–532, 534, 539, 540, 542, 550,
Charter of Runnymede (or Magna Carta) 552, 559–562, 566, 567, 571, 572, 575, 576,
147 589–591, 593
Chechnya 420 Chronica roffense 162, 165
Cheetham, David 10, 545n4, 548n18 Chryssavgis, John 471, 471n6, 484
Cheragh Ali 265, 276, 276n59, 276n60, Church Missionary College (Islington) 5,
276n61, 285, 285n116, 285n117, 286n118, 265
286n119 Church Missionary Society (cms) 265, 266,
Chesworth, John 11, 232n21, 233n23, 233n24, 267n7, 292, 298n42, 393, 581
245n9, 260n75 Church of England 1, 12, 21, 161, 266, 517, 518,
Chicago 401 527, 537, 579, 581
Chishti, Saadia Khawar Khan 482 Cirillo, L. 220n37
Chittick, William 118n23, 119n26, 121n34, Claes, Willi 420
122n38, 122n39, 122n41, 481n33, 482n36 Clement 360
Chocim 235n31, 239 Clooney, Francis 463n64, 549, 550, 550n26,
Christianity 5, 6, 13–15, 21, 28, 41, 42, 44, 550n27
55, 65, 67, 84, 85, 130, 135, 137, 140, 143, Colle Val d’Elsa (Italy) 409
172n23, 186, 188, 190, 198, 199, 201, 207–209, Common Law 276, 419
212–214, 215n30, 216–218, 220, 225, 226, Commonwealth of Both Nations see
229, 232, 236, 238, 240, 241, 243, 244n6, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
index 605
A Common Word 10, 424, 450n13, 516, 560, Dante 517, 565
570, 571, 571n28, 572–576 al-Daqqāq, Abū Bakr 76
Companions of Muḥammad 106, 107 Dar es Salaam 19
Conference of European Churches 422 Dardess, George 506, 506n38, 507, 507n41,
Congar, Yves 538 507n42, 511
Conrad, Lawrence 31n39, 356, 356n78, al-Dārimī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh 75, 76
361n111, 363, 363n122, 364, 364n125 Darwin, Charles 516, 563
Constantine (Emperor) 40, 41, 126n1 Dāʾūd Rūmī 312, 316–320
Constantinople 40, 93, 98, 136, 200, 246, David (biblical) 182, 370, 372, 375, 376
247n16, 249, 253, 260, 261n77, 293n22, 416, David (commentator on Aristotle’s Logic)
452 68
Cook, Michael 28n21, 62n10, 82n67, 354, Davies, John 1, 2, 11
354n63, 354n64, 354n65, 355n66 Davies, Norman 227n2, 227n4, 238n39,
Coptic 3, 4, 25, 27, 28, 29n24, 29n25, 30, 239n43
31, 34, 35n58, 38n71, 62, 78, 78n58, 82, Dawkins, Richard 439n22, 516
83, 171n20, 186, 192n34, 199n60, 382, 386, D’Costa, Gavin 442n26, 455n37, 467, 467n75,
565 468, 531, 531n22, 550, 550n28, 551, 551n29,
Coptic Church 388 551n30, 551n31
Coryat, Thomas 255, 256n55 Declaration of Independence, American
Cossacks 254 262
Council of Basel 136 DeGioia, President John J. 518
Council of European Bishops’ Conferences Dehlavi see Abd al-Haqq Dehlavi
422 Dei Verbum 460n53, 532
Council of Lateran iv 149, 150, 154–156, 166, Deism 275, 286, 434
433 Denmark 415, 425
Cox, Harvey 431 Deobandis 271
Cracknell, Kenneth 582 Derby Cathedral 15
Cragg, Kenneth 511n53, 533n27, 539, 557, 581, Derbyshire 15
590, 591, 591n9, 593, 594, 594n11 Déroche, François 356, 356n75, 357, 357n84,
Crone, Patricia 100n12, 100n13, 359, 360, 362, 362n113
360n102 Descartes, René 474–477
Crossley, Nick 546, 546n6, 546n7, 546n9, Detroit 401
546n10, 546n11, 546n12, 547, 548 Devaki 305
crucifixion 187–189, 191–196, 201–203, 217, Dhaka 19, 401
220, 292, 302, 306 Dhikr 116, 301, 323, 517
Crusades 95–97, 101, 109, 110, 387, 416–418 Dialogue and Proclamation 519n11, 536, 537
Current Dialogue 590, 591n9 Dihlawī, ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq Muḥaddith 280
Cuypers lbj, Michel 506, 506n37 Dinilahi 338
cwme (Commission on World Mission and Doe, Norman 533n28
Evangelism) 450n12, 591 Doha 513, 514, 516–519, 561, 564, 565
Czyżewski, Piotr 234n27 Doniger, Wendy 329, 329n12
Draper, William 17, 435
Dagli, Caner 510, 510n49, 522 Drews, Arthur 305, 305n74
Dalits 333, 334 Duchy of Moscow 231
Dallal, Ahmad 479 Duke Divinity School 518
Damascus 29, 44, 71n41, 102, 401 Duns Scotus, John 432
Daniel (Book of) 2, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 297 Dupuis, Jacques 452n22, 453n23, 453n24,
Daniel, Norman 211n18, 269, 269n20 459n47, 459n48, 536, 536n48
Daniélou, Jean 538 Dussaud, René 348
606 index
Eagleton, Terry 554, 554n46, 555 al-Fārābī, Abū Naṣr 60, 62, 63, 65, 65n20,
East End (London) 551 65n21, 66, 66n22, 66n24, 67, 67n26, 67n28,
Eastlake, Jameson and Lady 304n70 68–70, 70n40, 71, 71n41, 79, 82, 83
Ebied, Rifaat 4, 26n8, 72n42, 127n5, 170n13 Faraḥāt, Muḥammad Ḥasan 296, 296n35,
Ebûssuʿûd 250 296n36, 307
Edessa 93n29, 102, 172, 172n23, 183, 184 Fātima (The Prophet’s Daughter and ʿĀlī’s
Edinburgh 13, 211n18, 266, 300, 391, 449, wife) 406
449n10, 589 Fatwa Kedah 314
Edinburgh World Missionary Conference Fergusson, James 305n70
300, 391n29, 392n30, 392n31, 449 Fī ẓilāl al-Qurʾān 309
Edward i, King of England 162, 166 Field of Blood, Battle of 102
Egypt 4, 29–31, 35, 40, 41, 56, 78n58, 82, 192, Fiske, John 305n70
193n39, 223, 234, 269, 272, 288, 291, 292, 296, Fitzwilliam College (Cambridge) 12
299, 300, 304, 305, 382, 386–388, 397, 418, fln (Algeria) 419
421, 426 Foltz, Bruce 471, 471n5, 471n6, 484, 485n49,
Ehrig-Eggert, Carl 77, 77n57, 78 487
Eisenhower, President 420 For the Sake of the Kingdom 532
El Alaoui, Y. 219n35 Forrester, Duncan 341, 341n57, 341n58
Elbinck, Pieter Willemsz. van 311 Forty-Nine Martyrs 186n1, 192n35, 204,
Elbląg 227 204n73
Elias (commentator on Aristotle’s Logic)|Elias Foucauld, Charles de 498, 500, 500n18, 501,
of Nisibis 68, 86, 87, 87n11, 88, 89, 89n15, 502, 502n25, 503, 506
90, 94 Fourth Lateran Council see Council of
Elias of Ṭirhān 94 Lateran iv
Elijah 586, 592, 593 France 147, 153, 167n2, 168n3, 168n6, 200,
Elijah Interfaith Institute 526n21 349, 416, 417, 422, 429
Endress, Gerhard 60n2, 61, 61n8, 67n27, Francis, Pope 443, 445n31
68n31, 74n49, 75, 76, 76n55, 82 Franks 40, 95–100, 100n14, 101n14, 101n15,
Engineer, Asghar Ali 69, 69n36 102–109, 110n35, 150, 418
England 145, 145n1, 146–150, 152–154, 159–161, Frei, Hans 460
166, 167, 258, 265, 266, 270, 271, 280, 289, Frémaux, M. 220n37
343, 472, 560, 581 French, T.V. 289
Enoch 34, 36, 367 Friedrich Ebert Stiftung 424
Epalza, M. de 207n2, 207n3, 209n9, 209n11, Fukayama, Francis 420
212n23, 221n38 Fulk Basset, Bishop of London 159
Erpenius, Thomas (d. 1624) 311
Ethiopia 7, 38, 40, 200, 382, 388 Gabriel (the Angel) 43, 46, 219, 278
Europe 5, 8, 145, 150, 153, 225, 226, 229n9, Gairdner, William Temple 289, 289n3,
237, 243, 255–258, 289, 300, 302, 306, 310, 289n6, 300, 300n52, 301, 301n55, 303,
344, 382, 389, 391, 396, 408, 409, 409n29, 304n69
415–419, 422, 423, 430n7, 432, 441, 456n40, Galata 246, 250, 260, 261n77
472, 474, 478, 504 Galatians, Letter to the 191, 499
European Union 422 Galilei, Galileo 476
Evangelii Nuntiandi 503n27, 536 Galmés de Fuentes, A. 209n10
Exodus (Bible book) 168, 298, 591 Ganeri, Martin 532n26
García-Arenal, M. 208n7, 210n14, 215n28,
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī see al-Rāzī, Fakhr 215n29, 215n30, 218n34
al-Dīn Gaudeul, J.M. 211n19, 212n21
Fanṣūrī, Ḥamzah 310–312 Gdańsk 227, 238n40
index 607
General Synod 527, 537, 537n49 Gospel 50, 92, 93, 134, 167, 194–198, 200, 202,
Generous Love: The Truth of the Gospel and the 218, 219, 219n35, 220n36, 222, 265, 294, 298,
Call to Dialogue 9, 503, 503n26, 504n28, 299, 302, 303, 352, 429, 430, 443, 444, 448,
515, 527, 527n1, 527n2, 528, 533, 534, 534n33, 454, 457n44, 495, 503n26, 508n43, 527n1,
534n36, 535, 536, 536n44, 537, 537n51, 538, 528, 558n60, 574, 577n32, 580, 582–585, 587,
539, 539n56, 540, 540n60, 541, 541n66, 542, 591, 592, 594
542n69, 543, 543n72, 557, 558, 558n60, Gospel of Barnabas 4, 5, 207, 220–223, 223n41
558n61, 558n62, 576, 576n32, 594 Graf, Georg 26n8, 27n12, 27n15, 51n42, 61,
Geneva 451 61n5, 78n58, 79n59, 170n14, 171n20, 172n25
George, St. 170 Granada 4, 137, 137n59, 207, 208, 213–215,
Georgetown University 512, 514–517, 517n9, 215n30, 218, 218n34, 220, 220n37
518, 562, 564, 565 Grand Duchy of Lithuania 226, 238
Germany 300, 398, 408, 417, 422–424, 515, Grant, Richard (Archbishop of Canterbury)
560, 566, 567 158, 158n23
Gethsemane, Garden of 167, 194, 196, 202, Great Western Transmutation 490
584, 585 Greene, Molly 251, 251n32, 252n35, 252n39
Ghar-wapsi 327 Gregory ix 158, 159
al-Ghazālī 3, 67, 67n29, 69, 70, 74n47, 84, 100, Gregory of Nyssa 516
100n12, 100n13, 101, 101n16, 103, 104, 110, 277, Griffith, Sidney 43, 43n3, 45n7, 45n8, 47n16,
515–517, 564 53, 53n52, 62, 63n12, 64, 64n16, 79n59,
Gidelli, Iça 139 93n31, 93n32, 128, 128n7, 128n8, 128n9,
Gideon 367 129n15, 131n28, 133n38, 141n87
Giza 303 Grodź, Stanisław 5, 233n24
Gloucester 146 Groupe de Recherches Islamo-Chrétien
God 3, 33, 35, 37, 40–59, 62, 63n14, 65, 67–73, 526n21
75, 77–84, 98, 105, 107, 108, 111–116, 116n17, Guala Bicchieri 149, 149n10
117–123, 125, 131, 131n28, 134–136, 141, 154, Guenther, Alan 5
158, 168, 169, 182, 182n114, 183, 185, 188–191, Gulf region 298, 411
204, 211–213, 215n30, 216, 216n31, 217–219, Gupta, Dipankar 329n13, 331n19, 334,
219n35, 220–224, 234, 242, 257, 260, 261, 334n30, 340, 340n54, 341, 341n55, 341n56
277, 278, 295, 299, 303, 305–307, 314, 317, Guroian, Vigen 486n52
321, 335, 352, 361n107, 367–380, 382, 383, Gutas, Dimitri 65n21, 68, 68n33
389, 392, 393, 403, 403n12, 404, 407, 425, Gwagnin, Aleksander 232n19, 233, 233n22
434, 438, 439, 442, 445, 446, 449, 449n8, Gwanadoli, Philip 234
453n25, 454, 454n30, 455–457, 457n44,
463, 463n62, 464, 464n67, 465–467, 469, Habsburgs 236
481–486, 488, 489, 491, 493–497, 497n9, Haddad, Rachid 49, 49n24, 52, 52n50, 421n5
498, 498n11, 499–502, 502n23, 503, 505–507, Ḥadīth 5, 6, 69, 210, 212, 222, 264–266,
507n39, 507n41, 508, 508n43, 509n46, 510, 273–284, 286, 287, 292, 293, 300, 301, 307,
511, 514, 529, 530, 532, 536, 537, 539–542, 308, 311, 315, 345, 346, 348, 349, 351, 353, 354,
551, 553, 554, 558–561, 565, 569, 571–577, 362, 370, 482, 518, 574
585, 586, 588, 591–595 Hadsell, Heidi 338, 338n43
Godoy Alcántara, J. 217n33 Ḥafṣa bint ʿUmar 345
Goffman, Daniel 246n11, 250n26, 252n34, Al-Hajari, A. 219n35
253n41, 255n52, 255n53, 256, 256n57, Ḥajj 129
256n59, 256n60, 261n77 al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf 6, 346–349, 355, 361
Goldziher, Ignaz 207n1, 300, 300n52, 308, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, His Highness
348, 348n28, 349, 350, 359 Sheikh 513
Golwalkar, Madhav Sadashiv 328, 328n9 Hamdan, Omar 355, 355n72
608 index
Hamka (Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah) 279n77, 279n79, 280, 280n83, 280n84,
(1908–1981) 309 280n85, 280n86, 281, 281n86, 281n87,
Ḥamza ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib 107 281n88, 281n89, 281n91, 281n92, 282,
Haq, Syed Nomanul 481–483 282n95, 282n96, 282n98, 282n99, 282n100,
Harare 462 283, 284, 286, 287, 461n55
Ḥarrān 65, 66, 66n23, 67n26, 79, 79n59, 80 Huguenots 256
Hartford Theological Seminary 300, 411 Humphreys, R. Stephen 359
Harvey, L.P. 208n4, 209n8 Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq 65, 66, 87, 90
Hasan (11th Imam of Twelver Shīʿa, d. 874) Hunter, William Wilson 271, 271n28, 272
406n22 Huntington, Samuel 420, 422, 423
Ḥasan al-Baṣrī 354 Hüsâm Çelebi 246
Hebron 102 Husayn (ʿĀlī’s son, 3rd Imam of Twelver Shīʿa)
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 477 406, 406n22
Henry de Valois 230 Huvelin, Henri 501
Henry iii, King of England 145, 145n1, 146, Huxley, Thomas Henry 304, 304n70
146n4, 148, 149, 152, 153, 155, 157, 159–162,
166 Iberia 246, 256
Hick, John 535n37 Iberian Peninsula 207
Hillenbrand, Carole 95n1, 96, 96n2, 97, 97n6, Ibn ʿAbbas 212
99n11, 100n12, 100n13, 101n14, 101n15, 102n17, Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Muḥammad 273
104n20, 110n36 Ibn Abī ʿUṣaybiʿa 65
Hilwān 291 Ibn ʿArabī, Muḥyī al-Dīn 3, 111, 112, 112n4,
Hindutva 326, 327, 329, 329n11, 330, 333–336, 118, 119, 119n24, 119n25, 119n27, 120, 120n28,
339, 340, 340n53 120n29, 120n30, 120n31, 120n32, 120n33, 121,
Hippocrates 67 121n34, 121n35, 121n36, 121n37, 122, 122n38,
Hiscio 214 122n40, 122n41, 123, 123n42, 123n43, 123n44,
Hobbes, Thomas 476 123n45, 123n46, 124, 124n47, 125
Hodgson, Marshall 490n60 Ibn ʿAtār 214
Höfert, Almut 232n21 Ibn al-Athīr 96n2, 283
Holy Land 95, 234, 256, 329, 452, 584 Ibn Duqmāq 346
Honorius iii 149, 153, 154, 156–158 Ibn Ḥajar 280, 354
Hooker, Richard 540 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī 280
Hooker, Roger 581 Ibn Hazm 207
Hoover, Jon 11 Ibn Hishām 283, 360
Hopkins, Gerard Manley 441 Ibn Isḥāq 55, 360
Horne, Thomas Hartwell 290, 290n8 Ibn al-Jawzī 72, 89n16, 104n19
Hotin 254 Ibn Khaldūn 275, 284n108
Howard, Damian 8 Ibn Khallikān 283
Huart, Clément 348, 403n11 Ibn Mājah 282
Ḥudhayfa ibn al-Yamām 345 Ibn Masʿūd, ʿAbd Allāh 346, 347
Hughes, Thomas Patrick 5, 265, 265n5, Ibn Masʿūd, ʿUbayd Allāh al-Maḥbūbī 283
266, 267, 267n7, 267n8, 267n9, 267n10, Ibn al-Munajjim 91, 91n22
268, 268n11, 268n12, 268n14, 269, 269n15, Ibn al-Nadīm 53, 62, 65, 68, 76, 76n52, 346
269n16, 269n17, 269n18, 270, 270n24, Ibn Quraysh, Abū Bakr Aḥmad 76
270n25, 270n26, 271, 271n27, 271n28, 272, Ibn Rushd 432, 516
272n33, 272n34, 272n35, 273, 273n37, Ibn Saʿd 346, 346n11, 346n12, 346n13, 347,
273n38, 273n39, 273n40, 274, 274n44, 275, 353, 354
275n50, 275n51, 276, 276n56, 276n57, 277, Ibn Sahl, Abū l-ʿUlāʾ Saʿīd 86
277n62, 277n63, 277n64, 278, 278n72, 279, Ibn Shanabūdh 346
index 609
Ibn Sīnā 111, 112, 112n1, 112n3, 116, 116n15, 120, 132, 133, 133n38, 135–141, 141n87, 142, 142n94,
120n33, 124, 124n49 143, 144, 188, 204, 209–213, 216, 216n31,
Ibn Taymiyya 291, 291n16, 516 217–219, 222, 224–226, 228, 229, 231–233,
Ibn al-Ṭayyib, Abū al-Faraj 60 233n23, 234–236, 236n34, 237–241, 243n3,
Ibn al-Zaynabī, Abū ʿUmar Saʿd 72 248, 249, 252–254, 258, 258n69, 263,
Ibn Zurʿa, ʿĪsā 60, 63, 64, 73 263n80, 264–270, 270n26, 271–277, 280,
Ibrahim 372 281, 281n91, 284–291, 294–296, 299–304,
Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAdī 63 304n69, 305, 307–310, 312, 313, 323, 327,
Ibrahim Beg (a Polish convert to Islam) 231, 330, 337, 345–348, 350–353, 355, 359, 360,
240 364, 381–383, 385, 386, 388–394, 394n37,
Ibrāhīm al-Fānī (d. 1396) (Egyptian saint) 395–398, 401, 402, 402n5, 403–410, 410n32,
186n1 415–417, 419–427, 429, 430, 430n7, 431, 435,
Illich, Ivan 442–444, 444n30, 445 439, 446, 459n48, 471, 479, 480, 482, 483,
ʿImād al-Dīn Zengī 96 492, 494, 497, 498, 498n11, 499, 499n14,
Imber, Colin 246n13, 250n28, 251, 251n31 500, 501, 501n21, 502–504, 507, 507n40, 508,
Imrūʾ al-Qays 89 509n46, 510, 511, 513, 518, 522, 528–531, 533,
Incarnation 42, 45n7, 46, 85, 137, 141, 190, 533n27, 537, 560, 561, 566–568, 570, 571, 573,
484, 591 574, 576–579, 595
India 5, 6, 200, 264–266, 268, 269, 271–273, Islamic 2, 3, 5, 9, 12, 13, 17, 19, 21, 26–33, 42,
276n58, 277, 280, 281n91, 284, 286, 287, 57, 63, 64, 69–71, 80, 83, 84, 88–90, 95, 96,
291, 292n19, 298n42, 299, 305, 326–334, 98–103, 105–107, 109–111, 126, 128, 128n7, 130,
337–342, 393, 419, 581 132, 133, 133n38, 135, 139, 140, 142n93, 189,
Inge, John 10, 548, 548n19, 548n20, 549, 201, 202, 207–211, 213–215, 217, 218, 220–224,
549n21 228, 230, 232, 244, 245, 245n8, 246, 246n15,
Ingham, Michael 528n7 248n19, 251, 260, 262, 286, 287, 289, 295,
Innocent iii 147, 149, 150, 153 297, 300–302, 306, 308–313, 324, 337, 340,
Ipgrave, Michael 9, 507n39, 509n47, 511n52, 346, 350–352, 360, 363, 365, 381, 381n2,
512n2, 512n3, 514, 514n6, 519n12, 519n13, 382, 383, 387, 388, 391, 395–399, 401, 406,
523n18, 526n22, 527n3, 529, 529n10, 533, 407, 407n25, 415, 418, 419, 422–425, 430n7,
533n29, 534, 535n41, 540, 540n61, 541, 431, 450n13, 460n49, 470, 473, 478, 479,
541n66, 541n67, 561n2, 562n3, 562n4, 562n5, 479n29, 480–484, 490, 492, 500, 502n23,
562n6, 563n7, 565n14, 594 505, 505n31, 505n32, 506, 507n40, 508, 509,
Iqbal, Muhammad 430, 431, 434, 437n18 515, 517, 517n9, 520, 531, 564, 567, 569, 571,
Iqbal, Muzaffar 478, 479, 479n29 573, 575, 577
Iraq 102, 103, 169, 415, 416, 419, 420, 514 Israel 168, 188, 189, 191, 220, 223, 297, 299,
Irenaeus 141, 595 416, 459n48, 493–496, 499
Isaac (biblical, son of Abraham) 54, 172, 182, Isrāʾīl of Kashkar 64n14
367, 499 Isrāʾīliyyāt 315, 315n12, 316, 324
Isaac of Norwich 148, 149 Istanbul 236, 246, 249, 252, 261, 516, 563
Isaiah 52, 367, 492, 494–496 Italy 7, 153, 401, 409–412, 416
Isaiah, Book of the Prophet 52, 297, 367, 368, Izzi Dien, Mawil 475, 476, 481n33, 483
376, 493
Ishmael 92, 220, 499, 529 Jacob 54, 367
Iskandar Effendi ʿAbd al-Masīḥ al-Bājūrī Jacob of Serug 170, 171
303, 303n65 Jaʿfar (6th Imam of Twelver Shīʿa, d. 765)
İskenderoğlu, Muammer 3 406n22
Islam 1–6, 8, 9, 13–17, 21–23, 25, 42, 44, 59, Jagiełło, the king of Poland and the Grand
65, 66n25, 67, 70, 84, 85, 88, 89, 93, 99, Duke of Lithuania 226, 229
101n14, 102, 105, 106, 108, 126, 129, 130n26, Jan Olbracht, the king of Poland 229
610 index
Jan Sobieski, the King of the Commonwealth Jordan 216, 222, 426, 512
231, 235n31, 239 Joseph, father of Jesus 185
Jarric, Pierre Du 338, 338n42 Joshua 299, 367
Jazīra 96 Journées d’Arras 16, 422
Jeffery, Arthur 290, 291, 291n15, 291n16, Juan Carlos, King of Spain 426
291n17, 292n18, 292n19, 292n20, 294n23, Judas Iscariot 167, 168, 182, 185
296n32, 302n60, 304n68, 306n78, 307n81, Jukko, Risto 8
361, 361n108 Justin Martyr 360
Jeremiah (Bible book) 36, 168 Justinianus 68
Jerusalem 25, 41, 72n42, 98, 102, 108, 182, 183, Juynboll, G.H.A. 300n52, 301n58, 354,
245n10, 255n51, 260, 291, 292, 450, 526n21, 354n61, 354n62
584, 589
Jesuit 215n31, 219n35, 234, 236n34, 262, al-Kafrawi, Shaikh Hasan 259
304n69, 431n7, 515, 549, 565 Kandhamal 327
Jesus Christ 4, 6, 25, 43–45, 45n7, 47, Kant, Immanuel 477
48, 50, 51, 54–57, 88, 94, 105, 130, 131, al-Kashf wa al-bayān ʿan tafsīr al-Qurʾān 315
134–136, 158, 160, 167, 168, 172, 172n23, Katz, S.T. 551n31
182, 183, 185, 187–196, 199–203, 212, 213, al-Kayranāwī, Rahmatullah 289, 290, 297
216–221, 221n39, 222, 223, 233, 236n34, Kedah 313, 314
248, 265, 275, 278, 289, 296–299, 301–303, Kemalism 419
305–308, 328, 373, 383, 389, 392, 434, Kennedy, Hugh 359, 359n94
443, 444, 449, 453, 453n25, 454, 457n44, Kerr, D. 379, 379n13
460n53, 463, 464, 464n67, 465, 466, Keselopoulos, Anestis 485, 486n50
466n72, 469, 484, 485, 494, 495, 500–509, Khālid Abu ʿl-Fadl 374
509n46, 510, 510n50, 514, 522, 532, 536, 537, Khalid, Fazlun 478, 481n33, 482, 483, 490
539–543, 568, 571, 573, 574, 582–588, 591, Khalifat, Sabhan 61, 61n9, 72, 72n42, 73n44,
593–595 75, 75n51, 76, 76n52, 76n54, 76n55, 77,
Jews 4, 56, 62–64, 127, 145, 146, 146n4, 77n56
147–163, 166, 167, 170n13, 182, 185, 194, 211, al-Khāzin (d. 1340) 309, 312, 315, 316, 318, 320,
212, 218, 220n36, 227, 238, 240, 246, 248, 252, 324
253, 255, 256, 259, 260, 261n77, 262, 298, Khomeini, Ayatollah 406, 515
306, 345, 381, 381n2, 401, 416, 426, 453, 454, Khumm (Ghādir Khumm) 405, 405n17
494–497, 504, 528, 529, 531, 532, 571, 575, Kīmiyā-yi saʿādat 110
576 al-Kindī, ʿAbd al-Masīḥ 88–91, 347, 347n20,
Jihad 95, 104 349, 353, 358, 361, 361n107
Jirjī 3, 127, 128, 128n6, 129, 130, 130n26, al-Kindī, Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb 60, 63, 63n14, 65,
131–133, 136, 143 66, 66n25, 67, 68
Job 367 King, Rolfe 545n4
John of Damascus (Yūḣannā Ibn Manṡūr) King’s College (London) 517, 564
28, 42, 44–47, 56, 57, 80 Kings, Graham 581
John the Deacon 50 Kishk, ʿAbd al-Hamīd 408n28
John, Gospel of 54, 583 Kitāb al-jihād 96n2, 97, 98, 103
John, King of England 147–149, 151, 153, 160 Klein, Revd Frederick Augustus 33n46, 292,
John Moores University (Liverpool) 13 292n19, 293, 295
John Paul ii, Pope 465, 465n72, 516, 550 Knolles, Richard 255, 256n55
John Philoponus (Yaḣyā al-Naḣwī) 68, 82 Köhler, Michael 96, 96n5
John xxiii, Pope 452 Kolovos, Elias 250, 250n28, 250n29, 251n30
Johor, Sultan of 310 Koningsveld, P.S. van 219n35
Jomier, J. 220n37, 498n11 Konopacki, Artur 227n3, 233n23, 234n27
index 611
Konstantin, Michailović 232 Lochhead, David 459n48, 565, 565n15

Kopański, Bogdan 226n1, 228n7, 231n13, Locke, John 255, 255n54
232n19, 240n44 London 17, 145, 145n1, 146, 151, 152, 159,
Krishna 305 159n25, 169n12, 265, 265n5, 266, 280n86,
Krokus, Christian 529n12, 530, 530n15 282n97, 299, 300, 306, 351, 401, 426, 512, 517,
Kryczyński, Stanisław 238n40 551, 561, 564
Kunt, Metin 249, 249n24 López-Morillas, C. 138n64, 208n5
Kuwait 298 Lossky, Nicholas 541, 541n65
Louis ii, King of Hungary 229
La Mettrie, Julien Offray de 476 Louis, Prince of France 148, 149
al-Labbān, Mustafa al-Rifaʾi 298, 299, Lubāb al-taʾwīl fi maʿāni al-tanzīl 315
299n43, 299n44, 299n45, 299n46, 299n47, Lubac, Henri de 538
299n48, 300, 300n50 Lubieniecki, Marcin 236
Ladislaus iii Jagiellon, the King of Poland and Lumen Gentium 451, 453, 454, 457, 529, 530,
Hungary 229 530n14, 531, 540, 540n63
Lake Mohonk (New York, u.s.a.) 449 Luna, M. de 218n34
Lamb, Christopher 581 Luther, Martin 255, 257, 417, 515
Lambeth Conference 527, 528, 531n19, 533, Lutheran 341, 458, 460n49, 565
537, 539, 541 Lyon 401
Lambeth Palace 9, 423, 512, 514, 517, 520,
535n38, 561, 565 Maʿālim al-tanzīl 315
Lambeth, Treaty of 148 Macdonald, Duncan Black 300, 300n54
Lammens, Henri 348 MacIntyre, Alasdair 516
Lamoreaux, John 48n22, 49n32, 50n33, Madigan, Daniel, s.j. 518, 522, 526, 526n22,
50n34, 50n35, 50n36, 50n37, 50n38, 50n39, 531, 531n20, 534, 534n34
50n40, 50n41, 79n59, 80n62, 81n63, 81n64, Maghreb 258n69, 399
81n65, 81n66, 82n67 al-Maghribī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī
Lancaster University (uk) 13, 579 86
Langton, Stephen 147, 153, 153n15, 154, Magna Carta 147, 153, 153n16, 156
156–159 al-Mahdī, Caliph 4, 42, 46–48, 54, 126, 133,
Larcher, Pierre 355, 355n70, 356, 356n76 133n39, 134–136, 142, 143, 189n18, 202n69
Łaszcz, Marcin 236n34 al-Mahdī, Muhammad (12th Imam of Twelver
Latham lbj, Ian 500, 500n19, 501, 502n24 Shīʿa, in occultation since 874) 406
Latin 36n65, 132, 137, 138, 138n64, 139, 140, Mahmud Pasha Angelovic 253
151n13, 158n23, 159n25, 169, 234, 238, 256, Makdisi, George 418, 419n2
419, 431, 443, 453n25, 453n26, 465n68, al-Makīn Jirjis ibn al-ʿAmīd “the younger” (fl.
500n18 late 14th c.) 4, 186
Law, the 64, 99, 119n24, 120, 121, 123, 124, 146, al-Makīn “the elder” (13th c.-historian) 186
164, 233, 284, 352, 407, 409n31, 574, 586 Malaysia 19, 21, 309, 324, 515
Lebanon 421, 426, 450, 579, 581 Mālik ibn Anas 285
Leicester 2n2, 411 al-Malik al-Mushammar 127, 129, 132
Leirvik, O. 211n17, 297n37, 306n77 al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Ghāzī b. Yūsuf b. Ayyūb 127
Levant 95, 101, 103, 110n35, 416 Mallet, Alex 3, 102n17, 127n4, 137n63, 138n64,
Limuru 463n62 232n18
Lincoln 146, 157 Mamlūk 4, 192
Lincolnshire 145, 151 al-Maʾmūn, caliph 67, 191n33
Lindbeck, George A. 458, 458n46, 460 al-Manār 296, 297n38, 298n40, 300n51, 302,
Lippmann, Yomtov 504, 504n30, 508n44 303n64, 304n69, 305n72
Lithuania 226–228, 238 Mansfield, Peter 244, 244n7
612 index
al-Maqrīzī 346 556n50, 556n51, 556n52, 556n53, 556n54,

Mār Sābā 28, 245n10 556n55, 556n56, 557n57
Mar Simʿān al-Barḥi 127 Mingana, Alphonse 6, 7, 15, 46n13, 133n37,
Marini, M. 223 133n38, 134n41, 134n43, 134n45, 134n46,
Marqus al-Anṭūnī (d. 1386), Egyptian saint 134n47, 134n48, 134n49, 135n50, 135n51,
186n1 135n52, 135n53, 135n54, 167, 167n1, 169, 170,
Marshall, David 435n14, 498n11, 507n41, 170n16, 171, 171n17, 171n18, 171n19, 173, 343,
510n49, 512n3, 513n4, 516n8, 518, 518n10, 344, 344n4, 344n7, 345, 346, 346n9, 346n10,
521n14, 525n20, 527n3, 563n7, 563n8, 563n9, 346n14, 346n15, 346n16, 346n17, 346n18,
564n10, 564n11, 564n12, 565n16, 577n33, 347, 347n19, 347n20, 347n22, 347n23,
577n34 347n24, 348, 349, 349n35, 350, 352–354,
Marx, Karl 355n72, 357n83, 357n85, 363n120, 357n85, 358, 359, 359n95, 360, 360n100, 361,
477 363, 364
Mary 43, 44, 171, 196, 215, 216, 219, 382, 498, Mir, Mustansir 43n2, 562, 562n4
505 Miranda 492, 493
maṣlaḥa (public interest) 301, 373 Mirrors for Princes 96, 99, 100, 100n12,
Massignon, Louis 492, 497, 498, 498n10, 101n15, 104, 109, 110
498n11, 499, 499n14, 500, 500n17, 501–503, Mishkāt al-Maṣābīḥ 280
529, 530, 530n15, 531 Missionsgesellschaft (Basel Missionary
al-Masʿūdī 68, 76 Society) 289
Mattā, Abū Bishr 62n11 Moczar, Diane 244, 244n5, 244n6, 263
Matteo, I. di 56n69, 211n19 Modi, Narendra 330
Matthew (Bible book) 4, 37, 54, 167, 168, Mohacs 229, 230
191n29, 194n41, 195n44, 216, 298, 306, 524, Moldavia 254
573, 574, 583, 585, 586 Moldova 229
Matthew i (d. 1408), Patriarch 186n1, 192n35, Monferrer-Sala, Juan Pedro 2, 25n3, 26n6,
204 28n19, 29n27, 37n67, 38n72, 170n13
Matthews, Arnold Nesbit 280 Monk of Bēt Ḣālē 133n38
Mawdudi, Abul Aʿla 516 Monnot, Guy 73, 73n46
Maximilian, Emperor 231 Monro, James 298, 298n42, 299
May, Karl 417 Morisy, Ann 551, 551n32, 551n33, 551n34,
McAuliffe, Jane Dammen 43n3, 354n61, 552n35
358n89, 381, 517n9, 518 Moses 35, 40, 135, 146, 150, 233, 248, 297, 320,
Mecca 252, 260, 313, 329, 356, 357, 388, 391, 367, 368, 583, 586, 592, 593
402n5, 404n15, 408, 424, 426 Moses son of Abraham 152
Medina 7, 252, 351, 356, 357, 383, 402n5, 404, Mosher, Lucinda 9, 10, 510n49, 512n3, 513n4,
404n15 521n14, 530n19, 532n24, 561n1, 564n11,
Mediterranean 35, 140, 256, 383, 415–418, 422 564n12, 565n16
Mehmed ii, Sultan 246, 249, 250 Mosque 401, 403, 404n14, 408, 408n28, 409,
Menn, Stephen 61n7, 75n50 410, 411n34
Mesitón 214 Mosul 171
Mesopotamia 26 Motzki, Harald 350, 350n36, 350n37, 350n38,
Methodist 565, 582 351n44, 353, 353n55, 353n56, 353n57,
Michael (Archangel) 26 353n58, 353n59, 354, 354n60, 358–360,
Middle East 26, 85, 85n2, 86n5, 343, 347, 387, 360n99, 360n101, 362, 362n117, 363
416, 426, 427, 523, 579, 593 muʿāmalāt (transactions) 301
Miechowita, Maciej z Miechowa 233, 233n23 Muʿawiyya, 1st Umayyad Caliph 402
Milan 401 Muhammad (5th Imam of Twelver Shīʿa,
Milbank, John 432n8, 555, 555n49, 556, d. 732) 406n22
index 613
Muhammad (9th Imam of Twelver Shīʿa, 510n50, 512–518, 518n10, 519, 519n12, 520,
d. 835) 406n22 522–526, 529, 542, 560–577, 579–581, 593,
Muhammad al-Bāqir (Imam) 406 594
Muhammad Hasan Farahat see Farahat, Muslim historians 95
Muhammad Hasan Muslims 1–3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13–17, 25, 36, 42–44,
Muḥammad (Machomet), Prophet 3, 5, 7, 44n5, 45, 46, 48, 59, 62, 63, 63n14, 73–75,
25, 42, 43, 46, 48, 54, 55, 143, 106–108, 110, 83, 85, 85n1, 87–89, 92, 93n29, 93n30,
126, 127, 129, 130, 130n24, 130n26, 131, 131n28, 94–96, 98, 99, 100n14, 102, 103, 105, 105n22,
132–134, 134n44, 135, 136, 140, 141, 141n87, 106, 108, 109, 126–131, 133, 135–143, 150,
203, 233, 234, 264, 267, 269, 270, 274–283, 188, 193, 202, 204, 207–210, 212, 213, 216,
285n116, 293, 314, 317, 318, 352, 360, 381, 382, 218, 221, 223, 224, 226, 228, 234, 236, 239,
574, 577, 576 240, 242, 244, 244n6, 245, 245n8, 245n11,
Muhammad Rashid Rida see Rida, 246, 246n15, 247, 247n17, 248, 250–254,
Muhammad Rashid 254n48, 255, 256, 258–264, 264n3, 265–267,
Muhammad Saʾid b. Umar of Kedah (1854– 269–272, 274, 276–278, 283, 287, 288,
1932) 313, 319, 320, 324 290–295, 297–299, 301–303, 307, 310,
Muhammad Tawfiq Sidqi see Sidqi, 326, 327, 329–334, 337–340, 340n53, 341,
Muhammad Tawfiq 345–347, 349, 351, 356, 361, 365–367, 369,
Muir, William 5, 264, 264n1, 264n2, 264n4, 374, 381–386, 388–391, 393–401, 402n4,
265, 268–270, 276, 279, 279n79, 280n86, 402n5, 403, 403n12, 404, 406–408, 410,
281–284, 286, 304n69, 383 410n31, 411, 415–417, 419, 421, 422, 426,
Mundill, Robin 161 429–432, 434, 435, 437, 439, 440, 442, 446,
al-Muqtadir (Caliph) 91 447n1, 454, 470, 472, 477–479, 488, 489, 491,
Mūsā (7th Imam of Twelver Shīʿa, d. 799) 492, 497–504, 504n29, 506–512, 514, 519n12,
406n22 520–522, 524, 525, 528–532, 534, 550, 552,
Mūsā ibn ʿUqba 354 559–562, 566, 567, 569, 571–573, 575, 577,
Muṣʿab ibn al-Zubayr 107 580
Muscovites 229n9, 231 Mustafa al-Rifaʾi al-Labban see al-Labban,
Muslim 1–10, 12–17, 20–22, 42, 44–46, 48, Mustafa al-Rifaʾi
50–57, 59, 60, 62, 63n14, 64–66, 66n25, al-Muʾtaman ibn al-ʿAssāl 82n69
67–69, 71–73, 75, 77, 79, 85–88, 90–96, mutawātir 301
96n5, 97–99, 101–105, 107, 109, 111, 126–130,
130n24, 131, 132, 133n38, 134n44, 136, 137, Nablus, Council of 150
137n59, 139, 140, 143, 187, 188, 190, 191n33, el-Naggar, Zaghloul 516
192, 193, 193n39, 195–198, 201–203, 207–213, Nagykanizsa castle 254
216–218, 222, 224, 227n3, 228, 232–234, Nairobi 451, 451n14, 589
237–247, 247n16, 249–252, 254, 254n48, Najaf (Iraq) 407n24
255, 256, 259–268, 268n12, 269–272, Namsoon Kang 331, 331n21, 332, 332n22
274–278, 280, 281n91, 282, 284, 287–293, Naqshbandiyya Aḥmadiyya Sufi order 314
295, 295n32, 296–299, 301–304, 307, 308, Nasāʾī 282
310, 315n12, 316, 324–326, 330, 332–339, Nasi, Joseph 253
341–354, 356–362, 364, 365n1, 381–391, Naṣīḥat al-mulūk 100, 100n13, 101n16, 103
393–403, 403n10, 404, 404n15, 407–412, Nasr, Seyyid Hossein 430, 430n5, 431, 432,
415–419, 421–426, 428, 429, 431, 431n7, 434, 435, 437n18, 470, 470n1, 472n9, 473,
432–435, 437, 437n18, 438, 439, 441, 445, 476, 477, 479, 480, 483n42, 487, 488, 516
450, 450n13, 459n48, 460, 460n49, 471, 472, Nasserism 419
474–476, 478, 479, 481–483, 486, 491n62, Nau, Michael 234, 234n26
492, 497, 497n9, 498, 500, 502, 504, 505, Naumann, Friedrich 431
505n32, 507n41, 508, 508n45, 509n47, 510, Nazir-Ali, Michael 533, 533n27, 539
614 index
Nebuchadnezzar 172, 172n26, 182, 183 Ochs, Peter 460, 465n69

Nestorian 65, 85n1, 130, 130n26, 135, 189, 386, Ockham, William of 432
393 Ockley 248, 248n22, 256n56
Netherlands 415, 422, 429 Okeley 248, 248n20, 256n56
Network for Interfaith Concerns (nifcon) Olszewski, Henryk 228n6
17, 579 Olympiodorus 68
Neuwirth, Angelica 355n72, 357n83, 357n85, O’Mahony, Anthony 499n16, 500n19, 529n11,
358, 358n89, 363n120 532n26
New Atheists 489 Omar, A. Rashied 338, 338n43, 338n44,
New Delhi 449 339n49, 340, 340n49, 340n50, 340n52
New Testament 33, 36, 37, 289, 292, 297, 366, Origen 360
367, 381n2, 444, 466, 493, 494, 535, 571, 583, Orthodox 31, 41, 86, 92, 93, 229n9, 238, 250,
586, 588 256, 294, 383, 386, 389, 416, 418, 452, 462,
New York City 266, 401, 426, 525 470–472, 472n9, 474, 474n13, 475, 475n18,
Newbigin, Lesslie 516 476–481, 483–486, 486n52, 488–491,
Newman, John Henry 516, 577 491n62, 514, 520, 538, 540, 540n62, 541, 562,
Newton, Isaac 476 565, 585, 586n5, 587
Nickel, Gordon 6 Orzechowski, Stanisław 238n38
Nielsen, Jørgen S. 7, 8, 29n28, 45n7 Osborn, Robert Durie 276, 276n58
Nigeria 390, 394, 396–400, 421, 571 Osney 155
al-Nīl newspaper 293, 293n22, 294 Otto iv 147
al-Nīl Press 293 Ottoman 5, 136, 225, 226, 226n1, 229–232,
Nīqiyūs (island) 40 235, 235n31, 236, 237, 237n38, 239, 240, 243,
Niranjan Jyothi, Sadhvi 326–328 244, 244n6, 245, 245n8, 245n11, 246–249,
Nishapūr 103 249n25, 250–253, 253n44, 254, 254n44,
Nisibis 86, 89, 90, 94 255–257, 259–262, 416, 418
Nissiotis, Nikos 475n18 Ottoman Empire 140, 225, 228–231, 238–240,
Niẓām al-Mulk 104 242, 243, 243n3, 244, 245n8, 246, 247,
Nizārīs 109 249, 250, 252, 254–256, 256n60, 260, 262,
Noah 367 262n79, 271, 284, 389, 416
Nöldeke, Theodore 344, 346, 348, 348n25, Otwinowski, Samuel 232, 232n20, 235
348n26, 349, 350, 359, 359n95, 362n114 Oxford 12, 145, 146, 152, 155, 157, 160, 161,
Norfolk 146, 152 169n12, 419, 439n22, 540n62
Normandy 147 Özdemir, İbrahim 474, 475
Northampton 146 Özsoy, Ömer 576, 576n31
Northamptonshire 145
Norton, Claire 5, 243n4, 247n18, 248n19, Pakistan 223, 419, 421, 581
258n69, 259n70 Palestine 26, 329, 386, 415, 416
Norwich 148, 149, 157 Pandulf of Masca 149, 153
Nosowski, Jerzy 233n22, 233n24, 233n25, Papa 254
234n27, 235n29, 236n34 Paraclete 48, 54, 55, 59, 134
Nostra Aetate 9, 453, 453n25, 498, 499n13, Paris 357, 401, 411, 419, 501
503, 527, 529, 529n10, 530, 530n13, 531, Paris, Matthew 147, 147n5, 162, 163
531n20, 532–534, 534n34, 534n35, 536, 537, Patani 313
540, 541, 541n66, 542, 543 Paul (the Apostle) 212, 213, 303, 367–369,
Nowak-Dłużewski, Juliusz 235n32 372, 373, 378, 492, 494–496, 499, 583, 584,
Nubia 38, 40, 387, 388 587
Nukhba al-Fikr 280 Paul of Antioch 93, 93n30, 93n33
Nūr al-Dīn 97, 100 Paul of Burgos 141, 141n87
index 615
Paul vi, Pope 452, 454, 454n33, 503n27 Protestant 238, 240, 257, 258, 272, 273, 294,
Pavlov, Ivan 476 307, 383, 389, 399, 422, 431, 433, 434, 452n21,
Pecknold, C.C. 460n50, 541n68, 544n2 462, 505, 554, 557, 582n3, 590
Péguy, Charles 441 Protestantism 227, 430, 431, 433, 548, 554,
Penzberg (Germany) 408, 408n28 555
Perak 313 Prussia 227
Périer, Augustin 61, 61n5, 83, 83n71 Pseudo-Athanasius (Apocalypse of) 25–27,
Persia 25, 35, 102, 103, 268 31–34, 36–38
Persian 25, 36, 65n20, 89, 90, 99, 100, punyabhumi 329
100n13, 103, 105, 109, 183, 237n36, 258, 269,
280 al-Qaida 416
Perugia 158 al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm 2, 42, 56, 56n69,
Peshawar 266, 267n7, 269, 271n26, 280 56n70, 57
Peter (apostle) 216, 372, 378, 454, 585, 587, Qatar 411, 423, 513, 561, 564, 565
592, 593 al-Qināʿī, Yūsuf ibn ʿĪsā 298
Peters, F.E. 356, 356n78, 356n80, 356n81, 357, qirāʾāt (variant readings of the Qurʾān) 312,
357n82, 360, 360n98, 361, 361n111 316–320, 322, 324
Pfander, Karl Gottlieb 282, 289 qiyās (analogical deduction) 273, 279–280,
Pharaoh 182 301
Philip ii, King of France 147 Quakers 256
Pickstock, Catherine 545n4 Quinn, Frederick 527, 527n4
Piedmont 149 Qunawī, Ṣadr al-Dīn 112, 112n5, 124, 124n48,
Pines, Shlomo 61, 72, 72n42, 80, 80n59, 125
80n61, 82 Quraish Shihab, Muhammad 309
pithrubhumi 329 Qurʾan 3, 4, 6, 7, 29n28, 42–46, 48, 55–58, 70,
Pitts, Joseph 248, 248n21, 256n56 88, 88n12, 89, 91–94, 99, 105, 121, 123–126,
Pius xi, Pope 452 129, 131–134, 134n42, 134n45, 137, 137n59,
Pius xii, Pope 452 138, 138n64, 139, 139n71, 140, 142–144,
Plato 67, 448n5 207–213, 218, 220, 221, 235n29, 265, 271,
Platti, Emilio 3, 60n4, 61n7, 62n11, 63n12, 273–275, 277–279, 281, 283–285, 292–298,
65n19, 68n30, 70n38, 70n39, 72n42, 72n43, 298n42, 299–301, 306, 307, 309–311, 316,
74n48, 74n49, 76n53, 82n68, 83n70, 190n21 319, 323, 324, 343–359, 361–364, 366–369,
Plekon, Michael 538, 538n54 372–374, 377, 378, 381, 382, 393, 401, 401n1,
Poitiers 418 402, 403n10, 403n13, 405, 405n19, 424, 434,
Poland, Kingdom of 226, 226n1, 227–229 466, 481, 482, 483n42, 498n11, 506, 507,
Polish Brethren 236 507n40, 507n41, 508, 509, 509n46, 510,
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 5, 510n48, 511, 513, 515, 517, 518, 520, 522, 559,
225–227 562, 563, 569, 571, 574–577
pondok 313, 324 Qusṭā ibn Lūqā 90, 91, 91n21, 91n22
Pontifical Council of Interreligious Dialogue Qutb, Sayyid (1906–1966) 309, 505n32
519, 519n11
Potter’s Field 168, 185 Radscheit, Matthias 356, 356n73, 362n116
Pratt, Douglas 10, 11, 571n29 Radziwiłł, Mikołaj Krzysztof 234, 234n28
Prémare, Alfred-Louis de 355, 355n71, 359 Ragg, Lonsdale and Laura 302, 302n62
Presence and Engagement 537, 538 Raiser, Konrad 462
‘Principle of Sufficiency’ 98 Rajkumar, Peniel 6
Prophethood 569 Ramadan, Tariq 516
Prophets, the 88, 189, 190, 295, 372, 406, 574 Ramayana 329
Prospero 492, 493 Ramsey, Arthur Michael 582, 583n4
616 index
al-Rānīrī, Nūr al-Dīn (d. 1658) 312 Rycaut, Paul 255, 256n55
Rāshidūn (the Rightly-Guided Caliphs) 98, Saʿādeh, Khalīl 302, 303
356 Saadi 235
Rashkover, R. 544n2 Saadia Khawar Khan Chishti 483
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (rss) 327, Sabians 127
328, 334 Sacromonte 4, 214, 216, 218, 223
Ratzinger, Joseph see Benedict xvi Sadeghi, Behnam 359
Ravenna (Italy) 409 Sadhvi Niranjan Jyothi see Niranjan Jyothi,
al-Rāzī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad 67n26 Sadhvi
al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn 3, 111, 113n6, 117n19, 199, Sadhvi Rithambara see Rithambara, Sadhvi
199n60, 203, 203n71 Saeed, Abdullah 211n20, 577, 577n33,
Reader, The 579, 580n1, 595 577n34
Reformation 225, 227, 236, 238–240, 389, 418, Safavids 254, 257, 258
431, 433, 434, 548, 554, 555 Safed 246
Reformed 548, 555, 557, 565 al-Ṣafī ibn al-ʿAssāl 189n19
Religion, Science, and the Environment (rse) Saḥīḥ Bukhārī 315
489, 489n57 Said, Edward 269, 269n19
Renaissance 226n1, 418, 431n7, 464, 478, 479 Salafi 296, 299, 397, 577
Reynolds, G.S. 211n20, 212n22, 344n5, 357n85 Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn 127
Richardson, Henry 146, 146n3, 152, 152n14 Sale, George 306, 307n79
Rida, Muhammad Rashid 221n39 Salonica 246
Riddell, Peter 6, 310n3, 315n9 Samarra (Iraq) 406
Ridley Hall (Cambridge) 12, 13 al-Samarrai, Q. 219n35
al-Rifaʾi, Mustafa see al-Labban, Mustafa Samartha, Stanley J. 450, 589
al-Rifaʾi Samson 367
Rithambara, Sadhvi 327 Samudera-Pasai 310
Robertson, J.M. 305, 305n73 al-Samurra, Abd al-Rahmān 371
Robinson, Chase F. 355, 355n67, 355n68, San Miguel de la Escalada 33
355n69, 359, 361, 361n107, 361n109, 361n112, Sanad, ʿAbduh Muḥammad Zakī al-Dīn 295,
362n116 295n31, 295n32, 296n33, 296n34, 307
Robinson, Neal 529, 529n11, 531, 531n21 Santanella, Gonzalez Tirso de 234, 234n26
Rodríguez Mediano, F. 215n28, 218n34 Sarah 367
Romans, Letter to the 378, 494, 495, 524, Sarajevo 511n52, 514, 516, 562
583 Sarakhsī 63n14, 67n26
Rome 25, 35, 93, 98, 149, 153, 160, 200, Saudi Arabia 397, 424–426
203n70, 214, 329, 401, 411n34, 452, 452n21, Savarkar 329, 329n10, 329n11, 330
515, 519, 563 Savoy 139
Roth, Cecil 146, 146n2 Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi see Barelvi, Sayyid
Rottenburg-Stuttgart (Catholic Diocese of) Ahmad
566, 566n17 Schacht, Joseph 100n12, 350, 350n39,
Rowland, Tracey 539n55 350n40, 350n41, 351, 351n42, 351n43, 352,
Rubiera Mata, M.J. 208n6 359
Rublev, Andrei 588 Schilbrack, Kevin 545, 545n5, 546, 546n6
al-Rummānī, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī 76, 76n53 Schilder, Klaas 168, 168n7, 168n8
Ruthenians 227 Schirrmacher, C. 223n42, 288n2, 289n7, 290,
Rutka, Teofil 233n22, 234 290n10, 290n11, 297n37
Ryad, Umar 5, 290n12, 297n37, 297n38, Schmid, Hansjörg 566n17, 567, 567n18,
298n39, 298n40, 302n59, 302n61, 303n64, 567n19, 568n20, 568n21, 568n22, 568n23,
304n66, 305n71 569n24, 569n25, 569n26, 569n27, 576n31
index 617
Schoeler, Gregor 354n60, 359 ash-Shiddieqy, T.M. Hashbi (1904–1975)

School of Foreign Service in Qatar (George- 309
town University) 517 Shīʿism/Sh̄ ʿī 7, 274, 282, 283, 286, 294, 401,
School of Oriental Studies in Cairo 290 404–407, 520
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth 516 Shoemaker, Stephen 356, 356n74, 356n77,
Schwally, Friedrich 348, 348n26, 348n27, 357, 358, 358n86, 358n87, 358n88,
349, 349n30, 350, 359, 361n105, 362, 358n89, 359, 363, 363n119, 364, 364n123,
362n114 364n124
Scott, Sir Walter 417 Shura (Saudi Arabia) 426
Segovia, Juan de 4, 126, 136, 138n65, 138n66, Sicily 98, 418
138n67, 138n68, 138n70, 139, 139n71, 139n73, Sidon 93
139n74, 139n78, 140n79, 140n80, 141n83, Ṣidqī, Muḥammad Tawfīq 305, 306
141n84, 141n85, 141n86, 142, 142n92, 143 Sigismund August, King of Poland and Grand
Selim ii, Sultan 253 Duke of Lithuania 226, 229
Sell, Edward 5, 265, 265n5, 266–268, 268n13, Sigismund i the Old, King of Poland 229,
269, 270, 270n22, 270n23, 271, 273, 273n41, 230
273n42, 274, 274n43, 274n45, 274n46, Sinai, Mount 146
274n47, 275, 275n48, 275n49, 275n52, Sinai, Nicolai 344n6, 355n72, 357n83,
275n53, 275n54, 275n55, 276, 277, 277n65, 357n85, 358, 358n90, 358n91, 358n92,
277n66, 277n67, 277n68, 278, 278n69, 358n93, 361, 361n106, 363n120
278n70, 278n71, 278n73, 278n74, 278n75, Singapore 515, 563
279, 279n80, 280n81, 280n82, 283, 283n103, Singkel see ʿAbd al-Raʾūf of Singkel
283n104, 283n105, 283n106, 284, 284n107, Sirāj al-mulūk 101n15, 104, 110n35
284n108, 284n109, 284n110, 284n111, 285, Sivan, Emmanuel 96, 96n2, 96n4, 97, 98n10,
285n112, 285n113, 285n114, 285n115, 285n116, 99n11
286, 287 Sixtus v, Pope 223
Selly Oak Colleges 14, 15, 552 Siyāsat-nāma 104
Semendire 254 Slomp, J. 220n37
Sen, Amartya 330, 330n15 Smart, Ninian 13
Sergius of Reshʿayna 67, 68 Smith, James K.A. 429n2, 545n4, 547, 547n13,
Sermon on the Mount 298 547n14, 547n15, 547n16, 548n18
al-Shāfiʿī 284, 285, 350 Smith, R. Bosworth 266, 267, 267n6, 268,
Shakespeare, William 492, 493n1 268n12, 279, 391
Shams al-Dīn al-Samatrāʾī (d. 1630) 311, Society for Scriptural Reasoning 7, 365,
312 366, 366n3, 449n8, 460, 460n49, 461–463,
al-Shaʿrāwī, Shaykh Muhammad Mitwallī 465n69, 466–468, 526, 541, 547n17
516 Socinians 236
Sharīʿatī, ʿAlī 406 Socrates 67
Sharing the Gospel of Salvation 537, 537n50, Soesillo Vijoyo, A. 212n25
538 Solomon (biblical) 182, 185, 367, 372, 378
Sharp, Andrew 8, 9, 472n8 Solomon, Metropolitan of Basra 169,
al-Sharq wa al-gharb 300, 307, 308 169n12
Shaṭṭariyya Sufi Order 312 South East Asia 6, 310, 324, 325, 417
al-Shaybānī 350 Soviet 415, 420
Shayegan, Dariush 439, 439n23 Spain 98, 136, 141n87, 207, 209, 211, 213, 214,
Shaykh al-Islām 312 218, 218n34, 416, 418, 423
Shenūte (Vision of) 27 Spanish 5, 139, 208–211, 215, 219n36, 220,
Sherrard, Phillip 470, 470n1, 472, 473, 476, 220n37, 221–224, 431n7
487 Sprenger, Aloys 269
618 index
Sri Lanka 450, 590 taʿaruf 340

St. James 214 al-Ṭabarī, ʿAlī 55
Stamp, Gillian 512n3, 565n14 al-Ṭabarī (the historian and Qurʾan commen-
Stanford 152, 432n8 tator) 291, 319, 345n8, 346, 575
Stanilaoe, Dmitri 535 Tabor (Mount) 584
Stefanatos, Joanne 486n51 Tacchini, Davide 7, 412n37
Stein, Peter 357, 357n83 Tafsīr al-Jalālayn 316
Steinschneider, Moritz 207n1, 290, 290n13, Tafsīr Nūr al-Iḥsān 309, 309n2, 314, 319, 320,
290n14 322–324
Stephanus (Commentator on Aristotle) Tafsīr Sūra al-Kahf 309, 311, 314, 316–320,
68 322, 324
Stephen Batory, Prince of Transylvania and Tajikistan 420
King of the Commonwealth 230 Tamanrasset 502, 503
Strasz, Joachim see Ibrahim Beg Tambaram 450, 589
Strauss, David Friedrich 290, 290n9 al-Tannīr, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb 304
Stryjkowski, Maciej 232n19, 233, 233n22 al-Tannīr, Muḣammad Ṫāhir 304, 304n67,
Stuttgart-Hohenheim (Academy) 567, 304n69, 305, 306
570 Tardieu, Michel 66n23
Stylianopoulos, Theodore G. 538n53 al-Tarjumān, ʿAbd Allāh 207, 207n3
Sudan 7, 17, 365, 365n1, 366, 382, 384, 396, Tarjumān al-Mustafīd 309, 312, 313, 316–320,
397, 400, 420, 579, 580 322–324
Sudworth, Richard 9, 534n32, 538n52, Tatars 227, 231, 233, 237–241
557n59 Taybili, I. 220n36
Suffolk 152 Taylor, Charles 8, 428, 428n2, 431, 432,
Sugar, Peter 249, 249n24 432n9, 433, 433n10, 433n11, 434, 434n12,
Sulaiman 372 434n13, 435, 435n15, 436, 436n16, 436n17,
al-Sulamī 95, 96n2, 96n5, 97, 98, 103, 107, 437, 437n19, 438, 438n20, 439n21, 440, 441,
109, 110 441n25, 443, 443n29, 445, 445n32, 445n34,
Suleiman i, Sultan 231 581
Sunni 274, 283–285, 294, 402n4, 404, 420, Taylor, John V. 432
425, 427 Tazbir, Janusz 229n10, 230n12, 231n14, 231n15,
Sutter Fichtner, Paula 243, 243n4 231n16, 236n33, 237n37, 238n39, 239n41,
al-Suyūṭī 345n8, 346 240, 240n46
Swanson, Mark 4, 27n13, 29n25, 29n28, Tempest, The 492
45n7, 91n21, 91n22, 126n2, 127n4, 128n6, Terah (biblical) 4, 172, 182
186n1, 187n5, 187n6, 189n18, 190n23, Terengganu inscription 310
198n54, 202n69, 203n71, 203n72, 204n73, Teule, Herman 3, 26n8, 72n42, 86n6, 87n11,
543n71 93n29, 93n30, 93n33, 94n34, 127n5
Swedes 231, 239 Thābit Ibn Qurra 67n26
Sweetman, James Windrow 506, 506n36 al-Thaʿlabī (d. 1035) 315, 316, 319
Switzerland 423, 450, 554 Theodore Abū Qurra 42, 48, 48n22, 49,
Sykes, Stephen 532n25 49n23, 49n25, 49n26, 49n27, 49n28, 49n29,
Syria 35, 97, 98, 98n9, 102–104, 106, 109, 126, 49n30, 49n31, 50, 51, 51n42, 56, 59, 62, 66,
291, 386, 416 79, 79n59, 80, 80n62, 81, 81n63, 81n64,
Syriac 4, 26n5, 27, 28, 30, 34, 34n51, 36, 46, 81n65, 81n66, 82n67, 191n33
46n13, 47, 47n13, 66–68, 86, 87, 87n11, 88n11, Theokritoff, Elizabeth 474, 480, 484, 484n43,
89, 89n15, 90, 90n19, 92, 94, 141n87, 167, 169, 485n50, 538n53, 538n54
169n12, 170–172, 172n23, 172n24, 172n26, 173, Theologisches Forum Christentum-Islam 10,
178, 182, 364 560, 566, 567, 569, 570, 575, 576, 578
index 619
Theophan the Greek 588, 595 294n25, 294n26, 294n27, 295, 295n28,
Thomas, David 1, 2, 7, 9–13, 13n1, 14–22, 295n29, 295n30, 307
42, 53n53, 55n67, 56, 56n71, 57n72, 60, Twardowski, Samuel 240n45
60n1, 64n15, 68, 72n43, 73n45, 87n10, Tyszkiewicz, Jan 239n42, 239n43
93n28, 127n4, 132n34, 133n39, 135n55,
136n56, 137n63, 138n64, 187, 187n5, 189n18, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb 346, 347
213n26, 232n18, 232n21, 233n23, 233n24, Ukraine 227, 237
245n9, 260n75, 343, 343n1, 361n107, 364, ʿulamāʾ 102, 107, 110
365n1, 367, 373, 428, 446, 492, 512n1, ʿUmar [ibn al-Khaṭṭāb] (2nd Sunnī Caliph)
542, 542n70, 542n71, 543n71, 557n59, 245n8, 345, 346, 355, 402n5
579, 580, 580n1, 581, 581n2, 582, 590, Unitarians 236, 236n34
593–596 United Kingdom (Britain) 159n25, 417, 422,
Thornton, Douglas M. 289 423, 429
Tieszin, Charles 3, 4 United States 266, 289, 300, 408, 421, 565
Timothy i, Patriarch of the East Syrian church University of Salamanca 136
4, 42, 46, 46n12, 47, 48, 54, 55, 126, 132, 133, ʿUthmān [ibn ʿAffān] (3rd Sunnī Caliph) 91,
133n38, 133n40, 134–136, 142–144, 189n18, 345–349, 352–362, 403, 405
202n69, 393
Timothy Isaac, Metropolitan of Amed 171 Valencia 208
al-Tirmidhī 282 Valide Sultan Mosque 252
Tok Pulau Manis, (ʿAbd al-Malik bin ʿAbdal- Vallat, Philippe 60n3, 65, 65n21, 66, 66n22,
lāh) (1650–1736) 313 66n24, 67, 67n26, 67n28, 70, 70n40, 71n41
Tolan, John 4, 132n34, 132n36, 140n81, 151n13, Valparaíso Mountain 214
154n18, 157n22, 158n23, 160n27 van den Boogert, Maurits 1
Tolstoy, Leo 302, 303, 303n63 Vancouver 466
Torah 54, 55, 93, 134, 213, 294, 297–299, 352, Varna 229, 229n8
571, 574 Vatican 17, 421, 425, 456, 590
Toruń 227 Vatican ii (Second Vatican Council) 9, 421,
Transylvanians 231 430, 442, 449, 449n8, 451–453, 453n25, 454,
Trinity 42, 42n1, 45–48, 51–54, 56–59, 63, 460n53, 462, 464–466, 499, 503, 507n41,
63n14, 64, 76, 76n53, 85, 133, 135, 137, 141, 527–532, 532n26, 534–538, 540, 541
216, 233, 233n22, 289, 296, 302, 305, 307, Veinstein, Gilles 232n18
464, 466, 539, 540 Venus 234
Tuḥfat al-mulūk 3, 95, 96, 96n3, 101, 101n16, Vienna 230, 239, 417, 424, 426
103, 104, 105n21, 105n22, 105n23, 105n24, Villa Palazzola 515
106n25, 106n26, 106n27, 107, 107n28, 107n29, Vilnius 234
107n30, 108n31, 108n32, 108n33, 109, 109n34, Vincent, Nicholas 149n10, 154, 154n19, 158n23
110 Virginia 519
Turkey 256, 268, 291 Vishnu 305
Turks 225, 229–231, 234, 236, 237n36, 238n38, Volf, Miroslav 562, 562n3
239, 240, 240n45, 241, 242n2, 248, 417 Voluntary Service Overseas 12, 580
Turmeda, Anselm see al-Tarjumān, ʿAbd von Sicard, Sigvard 7
Allāh
Turner, Denys 553, 553n40, 553n41, 554, Wad Medani (Sudan) 12, 13, 17
554n42, 554n43, 554n44, 555 Wahhabi 397
al-Ṭurṭushī 101n15, 104, 110n35 Walī Ullāh, Shāh 282
Ṭūs 103 al-Walīd i (caliph) 29
al-Ṭuwayrānī, Ḥasan Ḥusnī Pasha ibn Husayn Wallachia 229
ʿĀrif 293, 293n21, 294, 294n23, 294n24, Walters, Albert Sundararaj 2, 21n1
620 index
Wansbrough, John 212n24, 351, 351n45, Wisnovsky, Robert 61, 61n6, 61n7, 62n10, 63,
351n46, 352, 352n49, 352n50, 352n51, 63n13, 68, 68n34, 75, 75n50, 76, 82
352n52, 352n53, 352n54, 353, 354, 359, Wolterstorff, Nicholas 555, 555n47, 555n48,
359n96, 360, 362, 362n115, 362n116, 363, 557, 557n58
363n118 Worcester 146, 158
al-Wāqidī 268, 282, 283, 346 World Council of Churches 8, 338n44, 421,
Ward, Graham 544, 544n2, 544n3, 545 423, 447, 448, 448n6, 449, 449n11, 450n13,
Ware, Kallistos 475, 484n43, 586n5 461, 462, 464n67, 528
al-Warrāq, Abū ʿĪsā 2, 42, 52, 57, 57n72, World Interfaith Harmony Week 570
57n73, 57n74, 57n75, 58n76, 58n77, World Muslim Congress 421
58n78 Wynn, Mark 545n4
Warren, Max 593
Warwick 146 Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī 3, 60, 61n9, 62, 63, 65, 67–76,
Washington, dc 509n47, 514, 516, 518, 562 76n53, 77–80, 82, 83, 189
Watt, Montgomery 13, 69, 69n37 Yaḥyā al-Naḥwī see John Philoponus
Way of Dialogue, The 527–530, 530n17, Yannaras, Christos 477
530n19, 531–534, 537–539, 541, 542 Yāqūt 346
Wazīr Khān 289, 290 Yemen 40, 41
Weart, Spenser 470n2, 471 Yugoslavia 420
Weil, Gustav 269 Yuḥanna ibn Ḥaylān 66
Welch, A.T. 360, 361n104, 361n105 Yūḥannā Ibn Manṣūr see John of Damascus
Wells (England) 12 Yusuf 372
West Africa 417 Yusūf b. al-Mawl 136
Westminster 157, 159, 160
White, Lynn 471, 480 Zarfati, Rabbi Isaac 256
Wieczorkowski, Michał 233n22 Zayd 77, 130, 345
Wiegers, G. 138n64, 210n14, 219n35, 223n41 Zayd ibn Thābit 345
Williams, Rowan 9, 10, 512n3, 513, 513n4, Zaynab 130
514, 514n5, 516, 516n8, 517–519, 519n13, Zechariah (Bible book) 35, 105, 168, 168n5,
521, 521n14, 526, 526n22, 534, 535, 535n38, 191
535n41, 535n42, 536n43, 538, 561, 563, Zizioulas, John 475n18, 485, 485n47
564, 564n10, 564n11, 565, 565n16, 572, al-Zuhrī, Ibn Shihāb 353
573 al-Zulfa, Muhammad 426
Wingate, Andrew 2, 2n2, 14, 581 Żurawno 235n31
Wink, Walter 587, 587n6 Zwemer, Samuel Marinus 289, 298, 304n69

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The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter

Jon Hoover (University of Nottingham)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hcmr

Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

1 David Thomas: The Hearing of Two Vocations—A Biographical

2 Professor David Thomas—A Representative Reminiscence 19

4 The Holy Spirit in Early Christian Dialogue with Muslims 42

5 Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, Disciples and Masters: On Questions of Religious

6 The Theme of Language in Christian-Muslim Discussions in the

7 A Neglected Piece of Evidence for Early Muslim Reactions to the

9 “Can You Find Anything Praiseworthy in My Religion?” Religious

10 The First Imposition of a Badge on European Jews: The English Royal

11 An Arabic Version of the Treatise on the Origin and History of the

12 Debating According to the Rules: A Conversation about the

13 Islamic Anti-Christian Polemics in 16th Century Spain: The Lead

14 Islam: An (Almost) Redundant Element in the

15 (In)tolerant Ottomans: Polemic, Perspective and the Reading of

16 The Hadith in Christian-Muslim Dialogue in 19th Century India 264

17 Muslim Responses to Missionary Literature in Egypt in the Late

18 Three Pioneering Malay Works of Quranic Exegesis: A Comparative

19 Christian-Muslim Engagement in Contemporary India: Minority

20 Scholarly Reception of Alphonse Mingana’s ‘The Transmission of the

21 The Role of Religious Leaders in Promoting Reconciliation in

22 Patterns of Christian-Muslim Encounters in Sub-Saharan Africa 381

23 Italian Islam: Imam and Mosque Today 401

24 The Current Situation of Christian-Muslim Relations: Emerging

25 The Future of the Christian-Muslim Past: Reflecting with Charles

26 Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue: Towards a More

27 Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and the Environment: The Case for a

28 Provocation and Resonance: Sacramental Spirituality in the Context

29 Getting to Know One Another’s Hearts: The Progress, Method, and

30 Anglican Interreligious Relations in Generous Love: Indebted to and

31 The Interfaith Landscape and Liturgical Places 544

32 Textual Authority and Hermeneutical Adventure: Three 21st Century

33 Transfiguring Mission: From Arabic Dallas to Interfaith

David R. Thomas Academic Publications 597

In the field of Christian-Muslim relations, Professor David Thomas is a towering

Festschrifts, we put an embargo on all external information as well as on the

Maurits van den Boogert

Stanisław Grodź svd

graphical History 1500–1900 (cmr1900) project. He co-edited, with G.G. Smith,

include ‘Ġazālī and Bonaventure on the Criticism of Philosophical Knowledge’,

Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala

Lucinda Allen Mosher

Luis F. Bernabé Pons

Peniel Jesudason Rufus Rajkumar

tianity, Islam, and Muslim-Christian relations, including ‘Modern Encounters

Sigvard von Sicard

Albert Sunderaraj Walters

David Thomas is a widely-regarded and much-beloved colleague and mentor

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/9789004297210_002

1 Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 1500–1900.

in Muslim polemical writings, namely mounting defences against modern

situation of Christian-Muslim relations’, gives a masterly overview of emerg-

logical problem than a crisis of knowledge, in terms of how we envisage the

at by Williams will become apparent in the resistance to any all-encompassing

We have included, at the end of this Festschrift, a bibliography of David

Douglas Pratt, Jon Hoover, John Davies & John Chesworth

David Thomas: The Hearing of Two Vocations

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/9789004297210_003

Fulfilling Two Vocations

2 Personal correspondence with the editors, November 2014.