Christian Arabic apologetics during the Abbasid period: (750 - 1258)

During the first six-seven centuries of the Islamic era there was a very lively exchange between Christian and Islamic thinking. It was a period when Christian theologians of various denominations had to find ways of expressing their traditional ideas in Arabic. In the process their thinking developed. The papers in this volume represent the wide range of this field, including detailed studies of such key writers as Ab? R?'itah, Ya'y? b. 'Ad? and Theodore Ab? Q'rrah, as well as probably the earliest, anonymous, Christian apology in Arabic. The Islamic context in which such writers worked is also dealt with, as is the wider geographical spread of Christian Arabic thought extending to Islamic Spain. CONTENTS Jxrgen S. Nielsen, Preface Sydney H. Griffith, 'Faith and reason in Christian kal'm: Theodore Ab? Qurrah on Discerning the True Religion.' Abdelmajid Charfi, 'La fonction historique de la polemique islamochretienne l'ipoque abbasside.' Samir Khalil Samir, 'The earliest Arab apology for Christianity (c. 750).' Mark N. Swanson, 'The Cross of Christ in the earliest Arabic Melkite apologies.' Tarif Khalidi, 'The role of Jesus in intra-Muslim polemics in the first two Islamic centuries.' Harald Suermann, 'Der Begriff sifah bei Ab? R?'itah.' Emilio Platti, 'Yahy? b. 'Ad? and his refutation of al-Warr'q's Treatise on the Trinity in relation to his other works.' Johannes den Heijer, 'Apologetic elements in Coptic-Arabic historiography: The life of Afraham ibn Zur'ah, 62nd Patriarch of Alexandria.' P.Sj. van Koningsveld, 'Christian Arabic literature from medieval Spain: An attempt at periodization.' Hugh Goddard, 'The persistence of medieval themes in modernChristian-Muslim discussion in Egypt.' Lucy-Anne Hunt, 'An exhibition of manuscripts from the A. Mingana Collection, Birmingham.'