A Muslim theologian in the sectarian milieu: `Abd-al-Jabbar (415/1025) and the 'Critique of Christian Origins' (Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad al-Asadabadi).

摘要

In 285 AH/AD 995, the Muslim scholar `Abd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1025) wrote a work entirely unlike his theological and legal handbooks: the Tathbīt dalā'il al-nubuwwa (Confirmation of the Proofs of Prophecy). The Tathbīt is distinguished by a long section (approximately 1/3 of the work) devoted to a refutation of Christianity, a section referred to in this dissertation as the “Critique of Christian Origins.” `Abd al-Jabbār's description of Christian history, scripture and practice therein (which he himself claims is “hardly found in [another] book”) is so unusual that certain observers, including S. Pines and P. Crone, argue that it is actually the product of an unknown Judaeo-Christian community. Their argument is refuted in the present dissertation; I look instead to `Abd al-Jabbār's historical environment, to Islamic polemical and historical writings, and to non-Islamic apologetical literature as sources for the “Critique of Christian Origins.”; The first chapter of the dissertation has three components: a history of anti-Christian polemic in `Abd al-Jabbār's Mu'tazilī school, a biography of `Abd al-Jabbār (incorporating new material from Tawh&dotbelow;īdī and S&dotbelow;afadī) and a description of `Abd al-Jabbār's city of Rayy (Iran), focused on the Christian community therein. In the second chapter I analyze how `Abd al-Jabbār uses pericopes of various types—scriptural (Qur'ānic and biblical), historical (narratives on the origin of the Bible and the Creed, on Paul and on Constantine) and anecdotal (accounts of contemporary Christian liturgy, religious life and popular narratives)—to build theological arguments (theologumena) against Christianity. This method contrasts with the dialectical (masā'il wa-ajwiba ) style of `Abd al-Jabbār's other anti-Christian writings. In the third chapter I discuss the relation of the “Critique of Christian Origins” to earlier Islamic works, in the genres of polemic, history and “sign literature” (dalā'il). The fourth chapter is devoted to `Abd al-Jabbār's non-Islamic sources, and reveals the relative importance of Christian Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic debate (jadal) writings to his work. In the end, `Abd al-Jabbār emerges as a scholar fully engaged with the inter-religious controversies in the “sectarian milieu” of the medieval Islamic world. Those controversies, meanwhile, emerge as the fundamental shaping influence behind his “Critique of Christian Origins.”