Muslim-Christian Polemic During the Crusades: The Letter From the People of Cyprus and Ibn Abi Talib Al-Dimashqi's Response (The History of Christian-Muslim Relations)

525 Pages·2005·11.12 MB·English

by  Rifaat Ebied

Muslim-Christian Polemic during the Crusades
The History of
Christian-Muslim
Relations
Editorial board
David Thomas
University of Birmingham
Tarif Khalidi
American University of Beirut
Gerrit Jan Reinink
University of Groningen
Mark Swanson
Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota
VOLUME II
Muslim-Christian
Polemic during the
Crusades
The Letter from the People of Cyprus and
Ê •§ Ê
Ibn Ab lib al-Dimashq ’s Response
Edited by
Rifaat Y. Ebied
David Thomas
BRILL
LEIDEN BOSTON
•
2005
On the cover: a Mamluk standard from Syria. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of
George C. Stone, 1936 (36.25.1961) All rights reserved, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
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.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Muslim-Christian polemic during the Crusades : the letter from the people of Cyprus and
Ibn Abi Talib al-Dimashqi's response / edited by Rifat Y. Ebied, David Thomas.
p. cm. — (The history of Christian-Muslim relations, ISSN 1570-7350 ; v. 2)
English and Arabic.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 90-04-13589-8
1. Apologetics-Early works to 1800. 2. Christianity and other religions-Islam-Early
works to 1800. 3. Islam-Relations-Christianity-Early works to 1800. 4. Letter from the
people of Cyprus. 5. Koran-Criticism, interpretation, etc. -Early works to 1800. 6.
DimashqÊ, Shams al-DÊn MuÈammad ibn AbÊ•§lib, 1256 or 7-1327. Response to the
letter from the people of Cyprus. 7. Church history-Middle Ages, 600-1500. I. Ebied, R.
Y. II. Thomas, David (David Richard), 1948- III. Dimashqi, Shams-al-Din Muhammad
ibn Abi Talib, 1256 or 7-1327. Response to the letter from the people of Cyprus. English
& Arabic. IV. Letter from the people of Cyprus. English & Arabic. V. Series.
BT1100.M83 2004
261.2'7'09023-dc22
2004058526
ISSN 1570–7350
ISBN 90 04 13589 8
© Copyright 2005 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
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acknowledgments v
CONTENTS
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
The Letters and their Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Manuscripts of the Letters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
The Language of the Letters: Divergences from Classical
Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
The Letter from the People of Cyprus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Al-DimashqÊ’s Response to the Letter from the People of Cyprus . . . . 149
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Section 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Section 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Section 3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Section 4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Section 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Section 6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Section 7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Section 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Section 9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Section 10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
Section 11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
Section 12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
Section 13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
Quotations and References from the Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Quotations and References from the Qur"an. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
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acknowledgments vii
FOREWORD
We publish here an edition and translation of one of the most
substantial exchanges of ideas between Christian and Muslim scholars
that has survived from the medieval period. Our hope is that it will
both inform students and scholars about aspects of inter-faith relations
at the time the letters that comprise it were sent, and will also assist
those who are engaged in the crucial task of building constructive
relations between the faiths to avoid repeating past mistakes. It is the
second volume in the History of Christian-Muslim Relations series,
which is intended to make accessible in reliable editions and translations
the record of encounters between members of the two faiths.
We acknowledge with gratitude the assistance we have received
from the librarians of the University Library, Utrecht, the Bodleian
Library, Oxford, and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, in supplying
photocopies of the manuscripts, responding to queries and granting
permission to publish the texts. In addition, Rifaat Ebied acknowl-
edges the generous financial support he has received from the Aus-
tralian Research Council which has enabled him to travel to Europe
to examine the manuscripts and to consult with his co-editor, while
David Thomas acknowledges the support he has received from the
University of Birmingham which has enabled him to travel to Australia
for the same purpose.
This page intentionally left blank
the letters and their authors 1
THE LETTERS AND THEIR AUTHORS
In the spring of 721/1321, the Damascus scholar Shams al-DÊn Abå
#Abdall§h MuÈammad Ibn AbÊ •§lib al-AnߧrÊ al-‘åfÊ was presented
with a letter from Christians in Cyprus. He quickly perceived its pro-
vocative nature and set about composing a response, completing it by
the early summer of the same year, and so bringing to a conclusion a
correspondence that had originally started maybe a century earlier.
This complicated episode in Christian-Muslim relations is unparal-
leled for the knowledge of one another’s faith displayed by authors on
both sides, and also for their readiness to manipulate information to
their own advantage and to argue from behind a façade of decorum
with vehement ferocity.
The story begins with neither the Cypriot author of the Christian
letter nor al-DimashqÊ in the eighth/fourteenth century, but with the
monk Paul of Antioch, Melkite Bishop of Sidon, about a century
before. The little that is known about this personality comes from his
own correspondence, and it is not even possible to fix the period of
his activity with much certainty. He may have lived any time between
the mid fifth/eleventh century, since he draws on the works of Elias
of Nisibis who died in 437-8/1046, and the early seventh/thirteenth
century, when the first known copy was made of his Letter to a Mus-
lim Friend, one of the works we are concerned with here. This was a
subversive piece of writing, as we shall see, and it is unlikely that its
arguments would have long been unanswered. In fact, the Egyptian
jurist Shih§b al-DÊn AÈmad b. IdrÊs al-Qar§fÊ (626/1228-684/1285)
appears to have done this in the mid or late seventh/thirteenth cen-
tury in his Al-ajwiba al-f§khira #an al-as"ila al-f§jira, ‘Proud Answers to
Insolent Questions’. So it may not be too inaccurate to date Paul’s
main period of activity and his composition of this letter to the early
seventh/thirteenth century.1
1 Cf. P. Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, évêque melkite de Sidon (xiie s.), Beirut, 1964, pp.
8-18, for a discussion of the facts relating to his biography, and also S.K. Samir,
‘Notes sur la “Lettre à un musulman de Sidon” de Paul d’Antioche’, Orientalia Lovani-
ensia Periodica 24, 1993, pp. 180-90, who corrects some of Khoury’s facts; also more
briefly, D. Thomas, ‘Paul of Antioch’s Letter to a Muslim Friend and The Letter from
Cyprus’, in D. Thomas, ed., Syrian Christians under Islam, the first thousand years, Leiden,
2001, pp. 203-4.