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?
 ii 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). iii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my friend and colleague Allen Tuazon iv 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 v 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 vi 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 vii INTRODUCTION ———————————————————————————————————— “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. %1 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). %2