Christian Apostate Literature in Medieval Islam Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Re

380 Pages·2015·2.49 MB·English

Voices of the Converted: Christian Apostate Literature in Medieval Islam
Dissertation
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Clint Hackenburg, M.A.
Graduate Program in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
The Ohio State University
2015
Dissertation Committee:
Kevin van Bladel, Advisor
Bilal Orfali
Hadi Jorati
Copyright by
Clint Hackenburg
2015
Abstract
This dissertation seeks to discuss the dialectical (kalām) and scriptural (both biblical and
qurʾānic) reasoning used to justify Christian conversion to Islam during the medieval
period (750 - 1492 C.E.). With this objective in mind, I will compare and contrast the
manners in which five different Arabophone authors, ʿAlī ibn Sahl Rabban al-Ṭabarī (d.
ca. 860), al-Ḥasan ibn Ayyūb (fl. ca. mid-tenth century), Naṣr ibn Yaḥyā (d. 1163 or
1193), Yūsuf al-Lubnānī (d. ca mid-thirteenth century), and Anselm Turmeda (d. 1423),
all Christian converts to Islam, utilized biblical and qurʾānic proof-texts alongside
dialectical reasoning to invalidate the various tenets of Christianity while concurrently
endorsing Islamic doctrine. These authors discuss a wide variety of contentious issues
pervading medieval Christian-Muslim dialogue. Within the doctrinal sphere, these
authors primarily discuss the Trinity and Incarnation, the nature of God, and the
corruption of the Bible (taḥrīf). Within the exegetical realm, these authors primarily
discussed miracles, prophecy, and prophetology. Moreover, this dissertation seeks to
discern how these authors and their works can be properly contextualized within the
larger framework of medieval Arabic polemical literature. That is to say, aside from
parallels and correspondences with one another, what connections, if any, do these
authors have with other contemporary Arabophone Muslim, Christian, and, to a lesser
extent, Jewish apologists and polemicists?

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In the course of my research on Christian apostate literature, I have come to two
primary conclusions. First, as opposed to the growing fashionability and usage of
dialectical reasoning (kalām), Christian converts to Islam principally relied upon scriptural
proof-texts in their works. Subsequently, the cultural bifocality with which Christian
converts to Islam refuted their former faith produced a unique genre within the greater
field of Muslim anti-Christian polemical writing, particularly due to their typological
exegesis of the Bible and its use as an apologia for conversion to Islam as well as a
validation of Muḥammad’s prophetic office. Second, the foundation of a standardized
Muslim narrative concerning the image of the Christian convert to Islam was largely
established in early Islamic literature (Qurʾān and Sīra) and during the ninth century with
the conversion of ʿAlī al-Ṭabarī. In many ways, subsequent Christian converts to Islam
simply recycled and repackaged the personal accounts and arguments presented by ʿAlī
al-Ṭabarī in his polemically titled “The Refutation of the Christians” (al-Radd ʿalā l-
Naṣārā) and his apologetic defense of Islam titled “The Book of Religion and
Empire” (Kitāb al-dīn wa-l-dawla).
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Dedication
This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my friend and colleague
Allen Tuazon
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Vita
2005………………………….B.A. History and Arabic Studies, Binghamton University
2009………………………….M.A. Arabic Literature, The Ohio State University
2010 to present………………Arabic Language Instructor

Department of Near Eastern Language and Cultures
Fields of Study
Major Field: Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
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Table of Contents
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………..………. ii
Dedication……………………………………………………………………….………. iv
Vita…………………………………………………………………..………………..….. v
Introduction………………………………………………………………..…………..… 1
Chapter 1 - Establishing the Parameters for Medieval Christian-Muslim Dialogue…… 23
Early Islamic Sources and Christianity – A Framework for Dialogue.…….……………… 23
Muslim Approaches Toward the Bible………………………….….….…………….… 36
The Sīra and Early Islamic Histories……………………………………………..…. 43
Christians, Muslims, and Taḥrīf………………………………...…..………………. 50
The First ʿAbbāsid Century – A Watershed for Christian-Muslim Relations…………....… 56
Chapter 2 - Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Sahl Rabban al-Ṭabarī………………………..…… 73
Life and Works……………………………………………………….…………….. 73

Al-Radd ʿalā l-Nāṣārā……………………………………………………………… 76
The Seven Silencers……………………………………………………….… 79
The Twelve Principles…………………………………………………...… 108
The Miracles and Titles of Christ…………………………………….……. 120
Conclusions of al-Radd ʿalā l-Naṣārā…………………………………….… 125
The Kitāb al-dīn wa-l-dawla and the Earliest Biblical Testimonia………………..…… 134
A New Apology: Motivations and Lasting Influence……………………..……. 139
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Muḥammad: Signs of Prophethood……………………...……….……….… 149
The Inimitability of Scripture……………………………………………… 157
Translation, Tranmission, and Taḥrīf…………………………………..…… 162
Islam and Violence……………………….….………………….………… 171
The Bible and the Qurʾān: Conflict or Congruence……………………….…… 175
Conclusions……………………………………………………………..… 187
Chapter 3 - Al-Ḥasan ibn Ayyūb………………………………………………...……. 196
Introduction………………………………………………...….…………. 196
Procedural Polemics……………………………………………..………… 200
The Formation of Trinitarian Theology: Criticizing Nicaea……………...…… 214
The Bible in al-Ḥasan’s Risāla…………………………………….………. 231
Between Taḥrīf al-Maʿnā and Taḥrīf al-Naṣṣ………………………………. 247
Conclusions…………………………………………………………..…… 266
Chapter 4 - The Later Converts……………………………………………….……… 272
Naṣr ibn Yaḥyā ibn ʿῙsā ibn Saʿīd al-Mutaṭabbib al-Muhtadī………………… 272
Yūsuf al-Lubnānī al-Muhtadī………………………………………..……. 288
Anselm Turmeda / ʿAbd Allāh al-Turjumān………………………………… 312

Conclusions………………………………………………………………………...….. 337
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………… 351

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INTRODUCTION

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“When we look at the polemical literature as a social phenomenon, the
point is not so much the contents but the occasions on which, the precise
reasons why and aims for which particular tracts were written by particular
individuals for specific groups.”1
––– Jacques Waardenburg
During the medieval period numerous refutations of Christianity were written by
Muslims of various sects and disciplines. The authors of these works hailed from many
different regions and wrote in a wide range of cultural contexts. Some of these authors
included Christian converts who were from diverse traditions and circumstances as well.
Throughout the medieval period (800-1400 C.E.),2 anti-Christian polemics included
many schematized and formulaic works. However, written alongside these conventional
polemics were many writings that demonstrated both innovative style and encyclopedic
knowledge. No individual Christian, regardless of status, reputation, or intellectual
acumen, was protected from religious confrontation, nor was the discussion of Christian
belief, whether theological, historical, or even seemingly inconsequential considered illicit,
rude, or futile. Who better to explicate and confute Christian doctrine than former
1 Jean Jacques Waardenburg, Muslim Perceptions of Other Religions: A Historical Survey (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999), 24.
2 This six hundred year period roughly coincides with the birth of ʿAlī al-Ṭabarī (b. ca. 780) and
the death of Anselm Turmeda (d. 1424-1430). In other words, “medieval” has been arbitrarily placed
within the parameters of the Christian apostate literature discussed in this dissertation.
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Christians themselves? Indeed, the Qurʾān, in Sūrat Yūnus (10:94), states, “So if you are in
doubt about what We have sent down to you, ask those who read the Book [revealed]
before you…”3 In this sense, the dual heritage of Christian converts to Islam made them
a repository of revealed knowledge. Therefore converts, especially priests and intellectuals
who knew multiple languages and were conversant with ecclesiastical works and pre-
qurʾānic scriptures, i.e., the Torah, Psalms, and Gospel referred to in Arabic as the
Tawrāh, Zabūr, and Injīl respectively, possessed a well-sought-after theological capital in the
Muslim community. Additionally, prior to the translation and subsequent widespread
distribution of the Bible in Arabic during the ninth and tenth centuries, a demonstrable
expertise in biblical materials would have been valuable for polemical purposes.4
In the mid-ninth century a Nestorian Christian physician named ʿAlī ibn Sahl
Rabban al-Ṭabarī (d. ca. 860) converted to Islam. Subsequently, ʿAlī al-Ṭabarī penned
two refutations of his former faith, thus inaugurating a distinct sub-genre of anti-
Christian polemic, which will be referred to as “Christian apostate literature.” During the
mid-ninth century when ʿAlī al-Ṭabarī was writing his al-Radd ʿalā l-Naṣārā (The Refutation
of the Christians) and Kitāb al-dīn wa-l-dawla (The Book of Religion and Empire), the lands under
3 The English translations of all subsequent qurʾānic verses are taken from A.J. Arberry, The Koran
Interpreted (London: Allen & Unwin, 1955).
4 For more information on the Bible and its appearance in Arabic, see Sidney H. Griffith, The Bible
in Arabic: The Scriptures of the “People of the Book” in the Language of Islam (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 2013). Sidney H. Griffith, “The Gospel in Arabic: An Inquiry into its Appearance in the First
Abbasid Century,” Oriens Christians 69 (1985): 126-167. Albert Isteero, “ʿAbdullah Muslim Ibn Qutayba’s
Biblical quotations and their source: An inquiry into the earliest existing Arabic Bible translations” (Phd
diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1991). For a more detailed analysis of the extensive manuscript tradition of
the Bible in Arabic, see Hikmat Kashouh, The Arabic Versions of the Gospels: The Manuscripts and Their Families
(Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011).
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