Abu 'Isa al-Warraq's Against the Trinity is the longest sustained attack on the Trinity to survive from the early centuries of Islam, and is a key work in the history of the early relations between Islam and Christianity. It contains refutations of the arguments and explanations represented by the Nestorians, Melkites and Jacobites, and comprises the first part of an attack on the major Christian doctrines. It was composed during the early ninth century, and is the only known extant work of the Shi'ite scholar Abu 'Isa al-Warraq. Although his ideas met with scepticism and rejection his works were widely influential in the centuries after his death. David Thomas presents the Arabic text of this treatise, with a facing English translation. In the introduction he shows how the work is both more profound and better researched than other contemporary attacks and traces its influence upon later polemical works. He also draws together details of Abu 'Isa's life and thought from the works of contemporary writers and attempts to give an impression of what the author was trying to achieve in his teachings.

Publisher Description

This collection takes a new approach to understanding religious plurality in the Iberian Peninsula and its Mediterranean and northern European contexts. Focusing on polemics—works that attack or refute the beliefs of religious Others—this volume aims to challenge the problematic characterization of Iberian Jews, Muslims, and Christians as homogeneous groups. From the high Middle Ages to the end of the seventeenth century, Christian efforts to convert groups of Jews and Muslims, Muslim efforts to convert Christians and Jews, and the defensive efforts of these communities to keep their members within the faiths led to the production of numerous polemics. This volume brings together a wide variety of case studies that expose how the current historiographical focus on the three religious communities as allegedly homogeneous groups obscures the diversity within the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities as well as the growing ranks of skeptics and outright unbelievers. Featuring contributions from a range of academic disciplines, this paradigm-shifting book sheds new light on the cultural and intellectual dynamics of the conflicts that marked relations among these religious communities in the Iberian Peninsula and beyond. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Antoni Biosca i Bas, Thomas E. Burman, Mònica Colominas Aparicio, John Dagenais, Óscar de la Cruz, Borja Franco Llopis, Linda G. Jones, Daniel J. Lasker, Davide Scotto, Teresa Soto, Ryan Szpiech, Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld, and Carsten Wilke.

In Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity politico-cultural, philosophical, and religious forms of critical conversation in the ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, Graeco-Roman, and early-Islamic world are discussed. The contributions enquire into the boundaries between debate, polemics, and intolerance, and address their manifestations in both philosophy and religion.

"This study intends to examine a ninth century anti-Christian polemic work written by the great Muslim litterateur al-Jahiz. The historical background of the treatise is presented within the contexts of the early `Abbasid regime (750-900), the Christian communities of the time, the impact of the translation movement, the rise and development of polemic discourse between Muslims and Christians, and the life and works of al-Jahiz. The study provides the manuscript background of the letter along with a translation supplemented by the work of Joshua Finkel. The analysis of the work is limited to one section, which reflects al-Jahiz's most original contribution to antiChristian Muslim polemic. The actual analysis is focused thematically in order to better ascertain al-Jahiz's portrayal of Christians before his Muslim readers." --