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Some Neglected Aspects of Medieval Muslim Polemics against Christianity*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Hava Lazarus-Yafeh
Hava Lazarus-Yafeh
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Extract

Muslim medieval authors were fascinated with religious issues, as the corpus of Arabic literature clearly shows. They were extremely curious about other religions and made intense efforts to describe and understand them. A special brand of Arabic literature—the Milal wa-Niḥal (“Religions and Sects”) heresiographies—dealt extensively with different sects and theological groups within Islam as well as with other religions and denominations: pagan, Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and others. Of course, most of the heresiographies were written in a polemical tone (sometimes a harsh one, like that of the eleventh-century Spaniard Ibn Ḥazm's: Al-Faṣl fi-l-Milal wa-l-Ahwā wa-l-Niḥal [“Discerning between Religions, Ideologies, and Sects”]), but some come close to being objective, scholarly descriptions of other religions (for example, Al-Shahrastānī's Milal wa-Niḥal book from the twelfth century).

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 89 , Issue 1 , January 1996 , pp. 61 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1996

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References

1 On Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064) see EI 2 s.v. “Ibn Ḥazm”; Arnaldez, Roger, Grammaire et théologie chez Ibn Ḥazm de Cordoue: Essai sur la Structure et les conditions de la penseé musulmane (Paris: Vrin, 1956)Google Scholar; Chejne, Anwar G., Ibn Ḥazm (Chicago: Kazi, 1982)Google Scholar.

2 See Muḥammad Shahrastānī (d. 1153), Book of Religions and Philosophical Sects (ed. Cureton, William; London: London Society for the Publication of Oriental Texts, 1846)Google Scholar; a French translation may be found in Livre des Religions et des Sectes (trans. Gisnaret, Daniel and Monnot, Guy; 2 vols.; Leuven: Peeters, 1986)Google Scholar.

3 For a detailed discussion of the medieval history of Jews under Islamic rule and a comparison with their history in Europe, see Cohen, Marc R., Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

4 See descriptions of such encounters in Cohen, Mark R. and Somekh, Sasson, “In the Court of Yaʿqūb ibn Killis: A Fragment from the Cairo Genizah,” JQR 80 (1990) 283–314CrossRefGoogle Scholar and compare (Ali) Maçoudi, Les Prairies d'or (9 vols.; eds. and trans. de Meynard, C. Barbier and de Courteille, Pavet; Paris: Société asiatique, Imprimèrie Nationale, 1863) 2. 319Google Scholar. Compare also Salo Baron, Wittmayer, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (2d ed.; 18 vols.; New York: Columbia University Press, 1957) 5. 83.Google Scholar

5 See Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava, Intertwined Worlds, Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) chap. 6, esp. 133–35.Google Scholar

6 See Vajda, George, “Juifs et Musulmans selon le Ḥadīt,” JA 229 (1937) 57–137Google Scholar; and compare, as an example of later literature, Samauʾal Al-Maghribī, Ifḥām al-Yahūd (“Silencing the Jews”) ( ed. and trans. Perlmann, Moshe; PAAJR 32; New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1964) 75Google Scholar; ET 65–66.

7 Ibn Qayyim al-Djawziyya [d. 1350] Hidāyat Al-Ḥayārā fi-l-Radd ʿalā-l-Yahūd wa-l- Naṣārā (“The Guidance of the Perplexed [!] in Answering the Jews and the Christians”) (ed. Sayf al-Dīn al-Kātib; Beirut: Manshūrāt Dār Maktabat al-Ḥayāt, n.d.) 196. This is part of the Muslim argument of taḥrīf—falsification of the scriptures—with which Muslim authors repeatedly charged both Jews and Christians. During and after the Crusades it seems to have been directed especially against Christians, as in this quotation.

8 See a detailed discussion of naskh in Adang, Camilla, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Bible from Ibn Rabban to Ibn Ḥazm (Nijmegen: Proefschrift Katholieke Universiteit, 1993) 141–65Google Scholar; compare also Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds, 35–41.

9 See ibid., 19–35. See also Bludau, August, Die Schriftfälschungen der Häretiker: Ein Beitrag zur Textkritik der Bibel (NTAbh 11.5; Münster: Aschendorff, 1925)Google Scholar; Adler, William, “The Jews as Falsifiers: Charges of Tendentious Emendations in Anti-Jewish Christian Polemics,” in Translations of Scripture: Proceedings of a Conference at the Annenberg Research Institute, May 15, 1989 (Philadelphia: The Institute, 1990) 1–27Google Scholar; and Williams, Arthur Lukyn, Justinus Martyr, The Dialogue with Trypho (London: SPCK, 1930) 150–55.Google Scholar

10 See more details in Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds, 19–22. The Qurʾanic quotations mostly follow Pickthall, Mohammed Marmaduke, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (New York: New American Library, n.d.)Google Scholar.

11 See Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds, 50–74 (“Ezra-Uzayr: The Metamorphosis of a Polemical Motif”).

12 Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) was a Ḥanabalite doctor of Islamic law and a prolific author. His main work against Christianity is Al-Djawāb al-Ṣaḥīḥ li-man Baddala Dīn al-Masīḥ (“The True Answer to those who Falsified the Religion of Jesus”). Ibn Qayyim al-Djawziyya (d. 1350) was his disciple and also wrote several books against Judaism and Christianity, among them Ḥidāyat al-Ḥayārā fī-l-Radd ʻalā-l-Yahūd wa-l-Naṣārā mentioned above in n. 7. On Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064) see above, n. 1.

13 Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds, 139–41.

14 Ibid., 50–74.

15 Justinus Martyr: The Dialogue with Trypho (ed. and trans. Williams, Arthur Lukyn; London: S.P.C.K., 1930) 150–55Google Scholar; see Stern, M., ed. and trans., Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (3 vols.; Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1980) 2. 480.Google Scholar

16 de Spinoza, Benedict, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (trans. Elwes, R. H. M.; London: Routledge, n.d.) 120–32, esp. 129–31.Google Scholar

17 Ginzberg, Carlo, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (trans. John, and Tedeschi, Anne; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980)Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., 11. The author does not enumerate this argument among those that the miller may have derived from Islam, although he mentions other such arguments. According to Ginzberg (ibid., 42), the Travels of Manderville (a spurious compilation probably composed in French in the fourteenth century, attributed to Sir John Manderville) and the Qurʾan itself could have been the miller's sources of anti-Christian arguments.

19 Ginzberg, The Cheese and the Worms, 30.

20 See Christine Schirrmacher, Mit den Waffen des Gegners: Christlich-muslimische Kontroversen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, dargestellt an dem Beispiel der Auseinandersetzung urn Karl Gottlieb Pfanders “Mīzān al-Ḥaqq” und Raḥmatullah ibn (K)Halīl al-Ut(h)mānī al-Kairānawī's “Iẓhār al-Ḥaqq” und der Diskussion über das Barnabasevangelium (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen 162; Berlin: Schwarz, 1992).

21 See Lewis, Bernard, “The Other and the Enemy: Perception of Identity and Difference in Islam,” in Lewis, Bernard and Niewöhner, Friedrich, eds., Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter (Wolfenbütteler Mittelalterstudien 4; Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 1922) 371–82Google Scholar, esp. 375–76. I cannot, however, accept Lewis's remark about “the paucity of Islamic religious polemics against either Christians or Jews” (p. 375) and about “the lack of (Muslim) curiosity about Christianity” (p. 278).

22 Muslim medieval authors usually designated both Jews and Christians as infidels (käfirün) although they were considered to be the People of the Book (Ahl al-Kitāb) or the Protected People (Ahl al-Dhimma), unlike the pagan idolaters (mushrikūn). See, for example, Abū Ḥāmid Al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), Faiṣal al-Tafriqa, baina-l-Islām wa-l-Zandaqa (“How to Distinguish Clearly between Islam and Heresy”) (ed. Muhammad M. Abū-l-ʿAlā; Cairo: Maktabat al-Djundī, n.d.) 128. Later Ottoman legal texts, however, often distinguish between the Jews and other infidels, including Christians. I am grateful to Prof. Bernard Lewis for this information. For details about Al-Qarāfī's book see below n. 47.

23 For knowledge of Islam in medieval Europe, see Daniel, Norman, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (1960; rev. ed.; Oxford: Oneworld, 1993)Google Scholar.

24 Muslim authors in general felt Arius and the Nestorians to be closest to the monotheism of Islam.

25 See Griffith, Sidney H., “The Monks of Palestine and the Growth of Christian Literature in Arabic,” The Muslim World, 78 (1988) 1–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “The Gospel in Arabic: An Inquiry into Its Appearance in the First Abbasid Century,” OrChr 69 (1985) 126–67. Both articles are reprinted in idem, Arabic Christianity in the Monasteries of Ninth Century Palestine (Hampshire: Variorum, 1992) 1–28, 126–67. Compare also Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds, 111–29.

26 See ʿAlī b. Rabban Al-Tabarī's, Kitāb Al-Dīn wa-l-Dawla (“The Book of Religion and Empire”) (ed. and trans. Alphose Mingana; Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1923): a semiofficial defense and exposition of Islam written by order of the Caliph Mutawakkil (847–861) with his assistance (ʿAli b. Rabban Al-Ṭabari [d. ca. 865] was a former Nestorian from Khorasān who converted to Islam); Pseudo Al-Ghazzālī, Al-Radd al-Djamīl li-Ilāhiyat ʿĪsā bi-Ṣariḥ al-Indjīl (“An Excellent Refutation of the Divinity of Jesus Christ”) (published as Réfutation excellente de la divinité de Jesus Christ [ed. and trans. Chidiac, Robert; Paris: Leroux, 1939] 39–40)Google Scholar. On this book see Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava, “Étude sur la polémic Islamo-Chrétienne: Qui était l'auteur de al-Radd al-Ǧamil bi-Ilāhiyat ʿĪsā bi-ṣarīḥ al-InǦīl attribué à Al-Ghazzālī?” Revue des Études Islamiques 37 (1969) 219–38Google Scholar; ET in idem. Studies in Al-Ghazzālī (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975) 458–77 (Pseudo Al-Ghazzālī may have been a Coptic convert to Islam, a contemporary of the famous Al-Ghazzālī [d. 1111] to whom his book was attributed). Other authors were less learned. See, for example, Sourdel, Dominique, “Un Pamphlet musulman anonyme d'époche Abbaside contre les Chrétiens,” Revue des Études Islamiques 34 (1966) 1–33.Google Scholar

27 Some Muslim authors also vigorously attacked the cult of Mary. See, for example, Ibn Qayyim Al-Djawziyya, Hidāyat Al-Ḥayārā, 191–92.

28 See Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava, Some Religious Aspects of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1981) 38–47.Google Scholar

29 This trend becomes clear in Daniel J. Lasker's work, although he does not explicitly point out the Muslim origins of the Jewish arguments against Christianity. See, for example, his The Jewish Critique of Christianity under Islam in the Middle Ages (PAAJR 57; New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1991) 121–52; and idem, “The Influence of Jewish-Christian Polemics under Islam on Jewish-Christian Polemics under Christianity” Peʿamim 57 (1994) 4–16 [Hebrew]. See also, Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava, “More on the Judeo-Christian Polemic and its Muslim Sources,” Peʿamim 61 (1994) 49–56 [Hebrew].Google Scholar

30 On the consistency in the Muslim arguments (not changing even after the Reformation), see Bernard Lewis, “The Other and the Enemy,” 377.

31 See below nn. 38 and 65.

32 On the inscriptions in the Dome of the Rock, see Grabar, Oleg, The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973) 62–68Google Scholar; Griffith, Sidney H., “Images, Islam and Christian Icons: A Moment in the Christian-Muslim Encounter in Early Islamic Times,” in Canivet, Pierre and Coquais, Jean Paul Rey, eds., La Syrie de Byzance á I'Islam VIIe-VIIIe Siècles (Actes du Colloque International 1990; Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1992) esp. 123–24Google Scholar and the bibliographical references given in n. 10 there.

33 There are a few Muslim polemicists who mention the Crusades; one is Abū-l-Baqā Ṣāliḥ b. Ḥusayn al-Djaʿfarī (d. 1234) who in his Al-Radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā (“In Answer to the Christians”) ([ed. Muhammad Ḥasanayn; Cairo: Muktabat Wahba, 1988] 56), states that the Crusaders “sent questions to the Muslims in order to test them.” His book seems to be an answer to them and is apparently an abridged version of his longer Takhdjīl Man Ḥarrafa-l-Indjīl (“Putting to Shame Those who Falsified the Gospels”) (published as Disputatio pro religione Muhammedanorum adversus Christianos [ed. van den Ham, F. J.; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1877, 1890])Google Scholar.

34 See Sivan, Imanuel, L'Islam et la croisade, idéologie et propagande dans les réactions des muslumanes aux croisades (Paris: Librairie d'Amaique et d'Orient, 1968)Google Scholar.

35 I am grateful to Dr. Reuven Amitai-Preiss for this information. See also Northrup, Linda S., “Muslim Christian Relations during the Reign of the Mamlūk Sultān al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn, A.D. 1278–1290,” in Gervers, Michael and Bikhazi, Ramzi J., eds., Conversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands, Eighth to Eighteenth Centuries (Papers in Medieval Studies 9; Toronto: Pontificial Institute of Medieval Studies, 1990) 253–61Google Scholar.

36 See, for example, Thomas, David, ed. and trans, Anti-Christian Polemic in Early Islam: Abū ʻĪsā al-Warrāq's “Against the Trinity” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; and see the general surveys such as Fritsch, Erdmann, Islam und Christenthum im Mittelalter (Breslau: Mueller & Seiffert, 1930)Google Scholar; Bouamama, Ali, La littérature polèmique musulmane contre le Christianisme depuis ses origines jusquʼau XIIIe siècle (Algiers: Enterprise Nationale du Livre, 1988)Google Scholar; and Anawati, Georges C., Polemique, apologie et dialogue islamochretiens, positions classiques medievales et positions contemporaines (Rome: n.p., 1969)Google Scholar. See also Waardenburg, Jacques, “World Religions as Seen in the Light of Islam,” in Welch, Alford T. and Cachia, Pierre, eds., Islam, Past Influence and Present Challenge (Albany: SUNY Press, 1979) 245–79Google Scholar; Wolfson, Harry Austryn, The Philosophy of the Kalām (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976)Google Scholar; and Madelung, Wilfred, Der Imam Al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 According to the Qurʾan, Jesus was a prophet and the uncorrupted Gospel was a divine revelation, like the true Torah and the Qurʾan itself.

38 As in early Jewish-Christian circles, Paul is for the Muslims the main suspect. (Muslims also tended to vilify Emperor Constantine, who is supposed to have introduced the cross.) According to Shlomo Pines, Muslim authors not only retained Jewish-Christian traditions, but preserved in Arabic translations of authentic early Jewish-Christian writings and incorporated them into writings against Christianity. See, for example, Pines, Shlomo, “The Jewish-Christians of the Early Centuries of Christianity According to a New Source,” Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 2 (1966)Google Scholar; idem, “Gospel Quotations and Cognate Topics in Abd al-Jabbār's Tathbīt in Relation to Early Christian and Judeo-Christian Readings and Traditions,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 9 (1987) 195–278; and idem, “Judeo-Christian Materials in an Arabic Jewish Treatise,” PAAJR 35 (1967) 187–217, esp. 213.

39 Al-Iʿlām bimā fī Dīn al-Naṣārā min al-Fasād wa-l-Awhām wa-Iẓhār Maḥāsin Dīn al-Islām wa-Ithbā Nubuwwat Nabiyyina Muḥammadʿalayhi al-Ṣalāt wal-Salām (ed. al- Saqqā, Hidjāzī; Cairo: Dār Al-Turāth Al-ʿArabī, 1980)Google Scholar. Some scholars (for example, Brockelmann, Carl, Geschichte der arabischen Literatur [2 vols. and 3 suppl. vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1937]Google Scholar suppl. 1. 737 n. 7 and Pines, “Gospel Quotation and Cognate Topics,” 265 n. 42) identified this author with the Qurʾanic exegete Shams Al-Dīn al-Qurtubī (d. 1273). It is more plausible, however, to follow Al-Saqqā's suggestion (pp. 5–6) that the author (whose first name we do not know) died later, because he finished his book only in 1325, apparently answering a now lost Christian polemic composed in 1280. I am grateful to Prof. J. Sadan who first drew my attention to this author.

40 Ibid., 407.

41 Ibid., 409. This attitude echoes biblical verses in which God is considered to be the exclusive political sovereign, and human political institutions are viewed as a kind of idolatry. See, for example, Judg 8:23 (where Gideon says: “I will not rule over you myself, nor shall my son rule over you. The Lord alone shall rule over you”) or 1 Sam 8:7 (“For it is not you that they have rejected; it is Me that they have rejected as King”). See also Halbertal, Moshe and Margalit, Avishai, Idolatry (trans. Goldblum, Naomi; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992) 214–35Google Scholar. (“Idolatry and Political Authority”).

42 See Aḥmad, Rifat Sayyid, ed., Al-Nabī al-Musallaḥ (“The Armed Prophet”) (2 vols.; London: Riad El-Rayyes, 1991)Google Scholar 1. 40 [Arabic] (the book includes material from documents issued by the Egyptian militant group Al-Djihād Al-Islāmi). See also Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, “Self Criticism in Jewish and Islamic Traditions,” in the W. Z. Brinner Jubilee Volume, forthcoming.

43 Aḥmad, Al-Nabī al-Musallaḥ, 2. 188.

44 See, for example. Qurʾan 9:34 and compare Al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm's (d. 860) accusation that all Christian clergy are greedy and gluttonous in di Matteo, Ignazio, “Confutazione contro i Christiani dello Zaydita Al-Qasim b. Ibrahim.” RSO 9 (1921–23) 320.Google Scholar

45 See, for example, Aḥmad b. Idrīs Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī (d. 1285), Al-Adjwiba al-Fākhira an al-Asʾila al-Fadjira (“Glorious Answers to Sinful Questions”) (ed. Bikr Zakī ʿAwad; Cairo: n.p., 1986) 60–61.

46 Islam does not favor celibacy and even members of the Ṣūfī mystical orders generally marry.

47 Criticisms of such fraud can be found in Christian literature as well. The miracles' ubiquity is related to the wisdespread belief in Christianity in the efficacy of images and icons, which, of course, predates Islam and iconoclasm. See Kitzinger, Ernst, “The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm,” DOP 8 (1954) 83–150Google Scholar.

48 Al-Qarāfī, Al-Adjwiba al-Fākhira, 61–65.

49 Ibid.

50 A later Christian convert to Islam revealed that the holy water in the churches never becomes putrid, not because of the priests' blessing, but because they put salt and balms in it. See ʿAbdallāh Al-Tarjumān Al-Mayūrqī (d. 1420 in Tunisia), Tuḥfat al-Arīb fī-l-Radd ʻalā Ahl al-Ṣalīb 26. On this author see de Epalza, Mikel, La-Tuḥfa (Rome: n.p., 1971)Google Scholar.

51 A1-Qarāfī attacked the irrationality of Christian dogmas and supported his views with allegedly historical anecdotes. See, for example, his story (Al-Adjwiba al-Fākhira, 56) about European Christian communities in France, Italy, and Spain who each year, for three consecutive days, robbed and killed Jews for having “stolen their religion,” but stopped when the priest told them that their religion had been refound. Al-Qarāfī also ridicules the European custom of duels. See, ibid., 57–58.

52 See, for example, Andrae, Tor, Die Person Muhammeds in Leben und Glauben seiner Gemeinde (Archives d'Etudes Orientales 16; Stockholm: Kungl. Boktrykeriet, 1918)Google Scholar. Compare also Adang, Muslim Writers, 101–40. Ibn al-Layth (ninth century) is one of the earliest Muslim authors to discuss the topic of miracles. See his Risāla (“epistle”) in Aḥmad Zakī Safwat, ed., Djamharat Rasā'il al- ʿArab (4 vols.; Cairo: Muḥammad Al-Ḥalabī, 1937) 3. 252–324; see also the anonymous text published in Sourdel, “Un Pamphlet musulman anonyme,” 13. See also, Stroumsa, Sarah, “The Signs of Prophecy: The Emergence and Early Development of a Theme in Arabic Theological Literature,” HTR 78 (1985) 101–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Later Muslim authors dealt with this topic frequently, especially when engaged in anti-Christian polemics. See, for example, Watt's, W. Montgomery translation of Abū Ḥāmid Al-Ghazzālī's (d. 1111) much-printed autobiography, The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazzālī (London: Allen & Unwin, 1953) 67–68Google Scholar. Compare also Muḥammad b. Muhammad Al-Māturīdī's (d. 944) more theological Kitāb al-Tawḥīd (ed. Kholeif, Fatḥalla; Beirut: Dār el-Mashriq, 1970) 211–12.Google Scholar

53 Al-Naṣīḥa al-Īmaniyya fī Faḍīḥat al-Milla al-Naṣrāniyya (ed. Al-Sharqāwī, Muḥhammed A.; Cairo: Dār al-Ṣaḥwa li–1-Nashr wa-l-Tawzīc, 1986) 108–17Google Scholar. There is some confusion about the identity of this author; see Steinschneider, Moritz, Polemische und apologetische Literatur in arabicher Sprache (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1877) 57–58Google Scholar and Al-Sharqawī's introduction to the Cairo edition of the book.

54 Most of these stories appear in 2 Kings 4, 5 and in Ezekiel's vision (here taken as an actual event) in Ezekiel 37–38. From the ninth century on, other Muslim authors compared the miracles of Jesus unfavorably with those of Moses, arguing that feeding the people of Israel with manna and quails is more miraculous than feeding the five thousand with five loaves of bread, and that splitting the sea is more miraculous than walking on water. See, for example, the anonymous text published in Sourdel, “Un Pamphlet musulman anonyme,” 27–28. Such arguments seem to be a direct answer to earlier pre-Islamic Christian claims that the miracles of Jesus were greater than those of Moses. See also Lasker, Daniel J., “Against Whom Did Saadia Polemicize Concerning Abrogation of the Torah?” Da'˓;at 32–33 (1994) 8.Google Scholar

55 This is how Jesus' miracles are described in the Qur˒an (3:45–49), with the recurring stress on the fact that Jesus performed his miracles “with the permission of God” (bi-idhn Allāh).

56 See Qur˒an 3:47 (as against Jewish doubts cast on the chastity of Mary): “She said: My Lord! How can I have a child when no mortal has touched me? He [the angel] said: So [it will be]. Allāh createth what He will. If He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only: Be! and it is.”

57 Sourdel, “Un Pamphlet musulman anonyme,” 27.

58 See, for example, de Gusit, Sargis Istunaya, The Disputation of Sergius the Stylite against a Jew (2 vols.; ed. and trans. Hyman, A. P.; CSCO 338–39; Louvain: Secretariat du Corpus, 1973)Google Scholar. See also Blumenkranz, Bernhard, Juifs et Chrétiens dans le monde occidental, 430– 1096 (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études, Études Juives 2; Paris: Mouton, 1960) 286–87Google Scholar. For the cross in early Muslim-Christian polemics, compare also Marcuzzo, Giacinto Bulus, Le Dialogue d'Abraham de Tibériade avec 'Abd al-Raḥmān al-Hāshimī (Texts et Études sur l'Orient Chrétien 3; Rome: n.p., 1986) 503–15Google Scholar; Williams, Arthur Lukyn, Adversus Judaeos: A Bird's Eye View of Christian Apologiae until the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935) 138Google Scholar (on Chrysostom) and passim; Baynes, Norman H., “The Icons Before Iconoclasm,” HTR 44 (1951) 99–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar (on Leontius), For the cross in early Muslim-Christian polemics, see Griffith, Sidney A., “Theodore Abu Qurrah's Arabic Text on the Christian Practice of Venerating Images,” JAOS 15 (1985) 62, 69–70Google Scholar; and idem, “Images, Islam and Christian Icons,” 126–28, 132–33.

59 See Qur˒an 4:157: “And because they [the Jews] said: we killed the Messiah, 'Īsā b. Maryam, God's messenger. They killed him not and crucified him not, but it so deemed unto them.”

60 See Sourdel “Un Pamphlet musulman anonyme,” 29. The English translation quoted here is from Griffith, Sidney H., “Jews and Muslims in Christian Syriac and Arabic Texts of the 9th Century,” Jewish History 3 (1988) 78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also idem, “Images, Islam and Christian Icons,” 133; and Sergius, The Disputations ofSergius, 24 (note that the Jew employs similar polemics to that of the Muslim author).

61 See, for example, Al-Qarāfī, Al-Adjwiba al-Fākhira, 299, 304.

62 Stories about Constantine were well known to many Muslim authors. See the full account by the Egyptian historian Taqī al-Dīn al-Maqrīzī (d. 1442) in Robert Griveau's edition of Maqrīzī's Al-Mawā˓iz wa-l-I˓tibār: Les Fêtes des Copies (Martyrologies et Ménologes Orientaux 15–18; PO 10.4; Paris: Didot, 1914) 153–55 (including the stories about Sylvester converting Constantine to Christianity, after he refused to bathe in the blood of several hundred babies in order to be cured from his leprosy).

63 This title (Al-Maszīḥ) is considered to be one of the names of Jesus (derived from the Qur˒an), but has no eschatological meaning in Arabic. It is supposed to stem from Arabic roots that denote touching or wandering. See Anawati, Georges C., “˓Īsā,” EI2 4 (1978) 81–86Google Scholar; and compare Hayek, Michael, “L'Origine des Termes ˓Īsā Al-Masīḥ (J.C.) dans le Coran (étude),” OrSyr 7 (1962) 223–54, 365–85Google Scholar; and Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava, “The Role of Jesus in Islam,” Tantur Yearbook (1975/6) 19–20Google Scholar.

64 A1-Qurtubī, Al-I˓lām bimā fī Dīn al-Naṣārā, 432.

65 See Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art, 138. One can, of course, view Arabic calligraphy as a kind of visual symbolism.

66 See, for example, the Isma˓ili interpretation of the cross in Corbin, Henry, ed., Trilogie Ismaélienne (Teheran: Institut Franco-iranian, 1961) 143–46Google Scholar. Compare also Stern, Samuel M., Studies in Isma˓ilism (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1983) 65.Google Scholar

67 See Sidney H. Griffïth, “Disputes with Muslims in Syriac Christian Texts,” in Lewis and Niewöhner, Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter, 262–63.

68 See Caspar, Robert, “Les Versions arabes du Dialogue entre le Catholicos Timothée I et le calif Al-Mahdī (II/VIII siécle),” Islamochristiana 3 (1977) 140Google Scholar. Timothy also mentioned the blossoming of Aaron's stick (Num 17:23), but the context is not clear. The same motifs appear already in the pre-Islamic Jewish-Christian debates; see The Disputation of Sergius, 11; Griffith, Sidney H., “˓Aramār Al-Baṣrī's ‘Kitāb al-Burhān,’ Christian Kalam in the First Abbasid Century,” Mus 96 (1983) 180Google Scholar (where the symbol of the cross is held in contrast to the Muslim worship of the Black Stone at the Ka˓ba). The Syriac and Arabic versions of the Apology of Timothy have been edited, translated, and analyzed several times. See, for example, Mingana, Alphonse, “Woodbrooke Studies: The Apology of Tymothy the Patriarch before the Caliph Mahdi,” BJRL 12 (1928) 147–298Google Scholar; Brown, L. E., “The Patriarch Timothy and the Caliph Al-Mahdi,” The Moslem World 21 (1931) 38–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Putnam, H., L'Église et l'Islam sous Timothée I (780–823): Étude sur l'église nestorienne au temps des premier ‘Abbasides avec une nouvelle édition et traduction du dialogue entre Timothée et al-Mahdī (Or Chr 3, Nouvelle Série; Beirut: Institut de Lettres Orientales de Beyrouth, 1975)Google Scholar.

69 See. B. Z. Kedar, “Intellectual Activities in a Holy City: Jerusalem in the Twelfth Century” in B. Z. Kedar and R. J. Z. Werblowsky, eds., Sacred Space: Shrine, City, Land (Proceedings of the 1992 International Conference in Memory of Joshua Prawer, forthcoming). I cannot agree with Griffith who claims (“Images, Islam and Christian Icons,” 134–35) that after the ninth century the veneration of the cross hardly appears in Muslim polemics as “if the matter had been settled.” Almost all the later Muslim authors mentioned in this paper polemicize at length against the cross.

70 See Goldziher, Ignaz, “Die Entblössung des Hauptes,” Der Islam 6 (1915) 301–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71 A traditional girdle or article of cloth that indigenous Christians were required to wear according to Muslim regulations. See Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, 62–63.

72 See Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā, Al-Naṣīḥa al-Īmāniyya, 75.

73 See the early Christian answer to Muslim polemics against the Eucharist in Sidney H. Griffith, “˓Ammār al-Baṣrī,” 179.

74 See, for example, ˓Abdallāh Al-Mayūrqī, Tuḥfat al-Arīb, 32.

75 See above n. 37.

76 Muslim orthodox authors used Mu˓;tazilite arguments in this context, although in general they rejected the allegorical interpretation of the Qur˒an that proponents of the early rationalistic Mu˓tazilite movement (as well as of Shi˓ites and mystics) employed. The Mu˓tazila flourished from the eighth to the tenth centuries and propogated the belief in the free will of humans and Reason as a means to understand scripture and religion. They employed allegorical interpretation to explain away anthropomorphic descriptions of God in the Qur˒an. They usually limited allegorical interpretation to cases where no other rational reading of the scripture was possible.

77 These claims were widespread among medieval Muslim authors. See, for example, Al-Dja˓farī, Al-Radd ˓alā al-Naṣaārā, 59. See also Pines, Shlomo, “Israel My Firstborn and the Sonship of Jesus: A Theme of Moslem Anti-Christian Polemics,” in Urbach, Ephraim E., Werblowsky, R. J. Zvi, and Wirszubski, Chaim, eds., Studies in Mysticism and Religion Presented to G. Sholem on His Seventieth Birthday (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1967) 177–90Google Scholar; and Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism, 163. See also Al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm's remarks about Christian Ta˒wīl (“allegorical interpretation”) in di Matteo, “Confutazione contro i Christiani,” 319.

78 Muslim authors quoted gospel verses showing that Jesus considered himself and was viewed by his disciples as a teacher and prophet (as he is described in the Qur˒an), distinct from the father (for example. Matt 13:37, 26:29; Mark 13:32, 15:34; Luke 24:19). See, for instance, Al-Mayūrqī, Tuḥfat al-Arīb, 28–29.

79 Here the author quotes to prove that Jesus lived in certain places at a certain time.

80 See Ar-Radd ˓Alā-n-Naṣāra de ˓Alī At-Ṭabari (eds. Khalifé, Ignace Abdo and Kutsch, Wilhelm; MUSJ 36; Beirut: Imprimerie Catolique, 1959) 126Google Scholar, see also 123 and passim.

81 Ps 82:6.

82 Exod 7:1.

83 This last sentence is meant as a rebuke to Christians who remain with their erroneous beliefs in spite of the Muslim proofs that they are false.

84 The author is referring to Exod 7:1 and perhaps to Jer 31:10, 19.

85 Pseudo Al-Ghazzālī, Al-Radd al-Djamīl, 39*–40*.

86 Muslim arguments mocking Christian descriptions of Jesus (the son of God, as it were) being born and growing up like every other person circulated as early as the ninth century; see, for example, Sourdel, “Un Pamphlet musulman anonyme,” 27.

87 The opposite possibility, that Muslim authors used earlier Jewish anti-Christian arguments, also exists, of course.

88 See n. 29 above.

89 This motif is stressed in detail by Muslim authors from the ninth century on, in particular Jesus' prayer to God to take the cup away from him and his cry on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46 and Mark 15:34).

90 This detail is especially repellent to Muslim authors who from the tenth century on considered all prophets (including the biblical patriarchs) to be infallible.

91 Ibn Qayyim al-Djawziyya, Hidāyat al-Ḥayārā, 191. Compare The Book of Covenant of Joseph Kimhi (trans. Frank Ephraim Talmage; Toronto: Pontificial Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1972) 36: “The great and mighty God Whom no eye has seen, Who has neither form nor image, Who said, For man may not see Me and live (Exod 33:20)—how shall I believe that this great inaccessible Deus absconditus needlessly entered the womb of a woman, the filthy, foul bowels of a female, compelling the living God to be born of a woman, a child without knowledge or understanding, senseless, unable to distinguish between his right hand and his left, defecating and urinating, sucking his mother's breasts from hunger and thirst, crying when he is thirsty so that his mother will have compassion on him. Indeed, if she had not suckled him, he would have died of hunger like other people.” There are also other “Muslim” arguments in his book. See Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, “More on the Judeo-Christian Polemic,” 53– 55.

92 It is impossible in this essay to provide details about the Shi˓a—the only important schismatic sect in Islam. Suffice it to say that there are many similarities between the Shi˓ite religion and Christianity, and there may have been Christian influences on its development. Shi˓ites also employed symbolic and allegorical interpretations of the Qur˒an and could therefore better understand Christian approaches. They rarely polemicized against them.

93 According to Miguel Asin Palacios (Le Expiritualidad de AlGazel Yu Sentido Christiano [Publicationes de las Escuelas de estudios arabes de Madrid y Granada, first series, A, 2; Madrid: 1934–1941]), Ṣūfī thought in general and Al-Ghazzālī (d. 1111) in particular accepted many Christian notions, and Jesus figured predominantly in Sufi writings. See also n. 101 below.

94 See Massignon, Louis, The Passion ofal-Ḥallāj (4 vols.; trans. Mason, Henri; Bollingen Series 98; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982)Google Scholar.

95 See Al-Ghazzālī, , Al-Maqṣad al-Aṣnā, fi Sharḥ Asmā Allāh al-Ḥusnā (ed. Shehadi, Fadlou A.; Beirut: Dar El-Mashreq, 1982) 166Google Scholar and compare Lazarus-Yafeh, Some Religious Aspects of Islam, 56–57 and n. 44, ibid., 148.

96 Ibid., 167. The translation is from Gairdner, T. W. H., Al-Ghazzālī's Niche of Light (London: RAS, 1924) 61Google Scholar. It is unclear to me whether Al-Ghazzālī, whose knowledge of Christianity in his authentic writings is rather meager, knew anything about the Jacobite concept of incarnation as wine and water mixed. Some Muslim polemicists knew. See, for example, Abū ˓Īsā Al-Warrāq's views in Thomas, Anti-Christian Polemic in Early Islam, 69 and especially Ibn Ḥazm, Al-Faṣl fi-Milal wa-l-Ahwā wa-l-Niḥal (2 vols.; n.p.: n.p., 1321 [=1903]) 1. 53, where he also provides the Nestorian (water and oil) and Melkite (fire and metal) explanation of the incarnation.

97 A1-Ghazzālī, Al-Maqṣad al-Aṣrā, 167.

98 Ibid., 166.

99 Al-Ghazzālīi, , Iḥyā ˓Ulum al-Dīn (Cairo: Ladjnat Nashr al-Thaqāfa al-Islāmiyya, 1956–57) 4. 2602.Google Scholar

100 See Palacios, Miguel Asin, Logia et Agrapha Domini Jesus apud Moslemicos Scriptores (Paris: Didot, 1916–17).Google Scholar