Overview

The articles in this collection complement those in Professor Griffith's previous volume, ""Arabic Christianity in the Monasteries of 9th-Century Palestine"", studying the first efforts of Christians living in the early Islamic world to respond to the religious challenges of Islam. In particular, the author shows how Christian apologists who wrote in Arabic adopted in defence of Christian doctrines the modes of discourse (kalam) then employed by Muslim controversialists (mutakallimun) to advance the claims of Islam. The writers whose works are studied here developed a truly Christian 'ilm al-kalam, that is to say a science of defending Christianity in an Arabic idiom borrowed largely from Muslims.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sidney H. Griffith
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Variorum
Edition:   New edition
Weight:   0.453kg
ISBN:  

9780860788898

ISBN 10:   086078889
Pages:   345
Publication Date:   04 November 2002
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Contents: Preface; Comparative religion in the apologetics of the first Christian Arabic theologians; Habib ibn Abu Rat'itah, a Christian mutakallim of the first Abbasid century; 'Ammar al-Basri's Kitab al-Burhan: Christian Kalam in the first Abbasid century; The apologetic treatise of Nonnus of Nisibis; Disputes with Muslims in Syriac Christian texts: from Patriarch John (d. 648) to Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286); Muslims and Church councils; The apology of Theodore Abu Qurrah; Muhammad and the monk BahA (R)rAc: reflections on a Syriac and Arabic text from early Abbasid times; The Kitab Misbah al-'Aql of Severus ibn al-Muqaffa': a profile of the Christian creed in Arabic in 10th-century Egypt; The Muslim philosopher al-Kindi and his Christian readers: three Arab Christian texts on 'The dissipation of sorrows'; From Aramaic to Arabic: the languages of the monasteries of Palestine in the Byzantine and early Islamic periods; Bashir/Beser: boon companion of the Byzantine emperor Leo III: the Islamic recension of his story in Leiden Oriental MS 951 (2); Index.

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Author Information

Sidney H. Griffith, The Catholic University of America, USA

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