Eastern Christians’ Engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān. Texts, Contexts and Knowledge Regimes 9783111096070, 9783111140766, 9783111140872

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
Abbreviations
Prolegomena to Eastern Christians’ Engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān
An Early Syriac Response to the Charge of Taḥrīf in George of Bʿeltan’s Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew
Qur’ānic Letter versus Spirit: Approaches to the Qur’ān in Kitāb Usṭāt al-rāhib and Masāʾil wa-ajwiba ʿaqliyya wa-ilāhiyya
“Becoming All Things to All People”: Positive Readings of Qur’ānic Christianity in Arabic Christian Apologetics
Continuities and Discontinuities in Byzantine Anti-Islamic Polemics from the Seventh to the Thirteenth Century: The Mount Athos, Great Lavra, MS gr. Ω 44
Michael Synkellos and His Lost Refutation of Islam in the Medieval Byzantine-Slavic Literary Tradition
The Qur’ān in Ethiopia and Eritrea, Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Qur’ān: Textual Connections and Circulation among Muslims and Christians of al-Ḥabasha
The Armenian Confutatio Alcorani and Its Polemical Function for the Armenian Communities in Pre-Modern Iran
Anti-Islamic Polemics, Scholarship and Encyclopedism in the Greek Orthodox World: Nicholas Karatzas and His Summa Saracenica
System and Muhammadan Religion by Sofroniy Vrachanski: The Bulgarian Translation of Dimitrie Cantemir’s Kniga Sistima
Russian Orthodox Qur’ān Translations of the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth Century and Tatar-Muslim Responses
Epilogue: Christian Reading of the Qur’ān in the Islamic World
List of Contributors
Index of Manuscripts and Prints
Index

Citation preview

Eastern Christians’ Engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān

The European Qur’an

Edited by Mercedes García-Arenal, Jan Loop, John Tolan, and Roberto Tottoli

Volume 6

Eastern Christians’ Engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān Texts, Contexts and Knowledge Regimes Edited by Octavian-Adrian Negoiță

The research leading to these results has been funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, SyG grant agreement no. 810141, project EuQu: The European Qur’an. Islamic Scripture in European Culture and Religion 1150–1850.

ISBN 978-3-11-109607-0 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-114076-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-114087-2 ISSN 2701-0554 Library of Congress Control Number: 2024952762 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, Genthiner Straße 13, 10785 Berlin Cover image: The Turks. Scene from the Last Judgment fresco of the Voroneț Monastery (Suceava, Romania). © Oana Iacubovschi. Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com Questions about General Product Safety Regulation: [email protected]

Acknowledgements The origins of this volume are anchored in an International Workshop entitled The Holy Book of the Ishmaelites in the World of Eastern Christianity held at the University of Copenhagen between May 11–12, 2022, which was generously funded by the ERC-Synergy Grant: The European Qur’an: Islamic Scripture in European Culture and Religion, 1150–1850 [EuQu] (Grant agreement No. 810141). The intention behind the event was to explore how Eastern Christians of various linguistic and religious traditions engaged with the Qur’ān and its Islamic interpretations from the medieval period until the dawn of the modern world in different historical contexts, and to focus on how entangled religious and cultural dynamics shaped their responses to Islam and its holy Scripture. I am grateful to the PIs of the project, Mercedes García-Arenal, John Tolan, Roberto Tottoli, and especially to Jan Loop for their support and enthusiasm regarding the workshop and this volume. Jan agreed immediately to host such an event in Copenhagen and aided me greatly in organizing it. I also thank my colleagues, Naima Afif, Paul Babinski, Asaph Ben-Tov, and Kentaro Inagaki for taking part in the workshop and offering me a stimulating environment for this volume to grow. I must thank Kira Storgaard Hansen for all her work that made the workshop possible in Copenhagen, especially after a long period of lockdown. As well, I owe thanks to the Department of Theology for hosting the event, and to Heike Omerzu and Thomas Hoffmann for their support and warm welcome in Denmark. My gratitude to all the scholars who accepted my invitation and participated in the workshop. Although not all of them were able to contribute to the volume, their valuable input was greatly valuable for its development. I thank Thomas A. Carlson, Alessandro Gori, Stefan Schreiner, and the late Mirosław J. Leszka, who accepted my invitation to publish their valuable research here. To Tijana Krstić, who offered a very stimulating lecture in Copenhagen, I thank for her valuable comments on the conceptual framework of the volume. This publication would not have been possible without the help of David Bertaina, who read all the contributions with a critical and sharp eye. His meticulous reading spared the volume of many errors, while his insightful suggestions and observations greatly improved the final product. I can only hope that my sentiments of gratitude will suffice to express my deep appreciation for his time and effort. I thank Teresa Madrid Álvarez-Piñer for her support, and to Jessica Bartz, Eva Frantz, Chandhini Magesh, and Torsten Wollina for their aid and patience in publishing this book. All the remaining errors are my own.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-202

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 Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the British Library, the Institute of Ancient Manuscripts “Matenadaran” of Yerevan, Princeton University Library, Library of the University of Ioannina, Foundation Georges et Mathilde Salem in Aleppo (Syria), Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HIMML) and sinaimanuscripts.library.ucla.edu, a publication of St Catherine Monastery of the Sinai in collaboration with EMEL and UCLA, for allowing us to publish images from their manuscript collections. To my colleague from the Institute of South-East European Studies (Romanian Academy), Oana Iacubovschi, I thank for allowing me to use one of her photos for the cover of the book. To Matei and Nicoleta, who constantly remind me of the beautiful things in life. Athens March 1, 2024

Contents Acknowledgements  V Abbreviations  IX Octavian-Adrian Negoiță Prolegomena to Eastern Christians’ Engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān  1 Bert Jacobs An Early Syriac Response to the Charge of Taḥrīf in George of Bʿeltan’s Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew  7 Barbara Roggema Qur’ānic Letter versus Spirit: Approaches to the Qur’ān in Kitāb Usṭāt al-rāhib and Masāʾil wa-ajwiba ʿaqliyya wa-ilāhiyya  45 Thomas A. Carlson “Becoming All Things to All People”: Positive Readings of Qur’ānic Christianity in Arabic Christian Apologetics  77 Manolis Ulbricht Continuities and Discontinuities in Byzantine Anti-Islamic Polemics from the Seventh to the Thirteenth Century: The Mount Athos, Great Lavra MS gr. Ω 44  101 Zofia A. Brzozowska, Mirosław J. Leszka (†) Michael Synkellos and His Lost Refutation of Islam in the Medieval Byzantine-Slavic Literary Tradition  125 Alessandro Gori The Qur’ān in Ethiopia and Eritrea, Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Qur’ān: Textual Connections and Circulation among Muslims and Christians of al-Ḥabasha  153 Anna Ohanjanyan The Armenian Confutatio Alcorani and Its Polemical Function for the Armenian Communities in Pre-Modern Iran  173

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Octavian-Adrian Negoiță Anti-Islamic Polemics, Scholarship and Encyclopedism in the Greek Orthodox World: Nicholas Karatzas and His Summa Saracenica  201 Nadezhda Alexandrova System and Muhammadan Religion by Sofroniy Vrachanski: The Bulgarian Translation of Dimitrie Cantemir’s Kniga Sistima  251 Stefan Schreiner Russian Orthodox Qur’ān Translations of the Eighteenthand Nineteenth Century and Tatar-Muslim Responses  277 Jan Loop Epilogue: Christian Reading of the Qur’ān in the Islamic World  309 List of Contributors  317 Index of Manuscripts and Prints  321 Index  325

Abbreviations BSOAS BZ CMR

PO RESEE

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Byzantinische Zeitschrift Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History. Edited by David Thomas et al. 21 vols. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2006–present. Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History II, 1500–1900. Edited by David Thomas and John Chesworth. Online Edition. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2009–present. Dictionaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques. 31 Vols. Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1912–2015. Dumbarton Oaks Papers O Eranistēs Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. Edited by Siegbert Uhlig and Alessandro Bausi. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–14. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Edited by Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz, and Lucas Van Rompay. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2011. Encyclopaedia of Islam. Second Edition. Edited by Peri J. Bearman et al. 10 Vols. Leiden– Boston: E. J. Brill, 1954–2005. Encyclopaedia of Islam. Third Edition. Online Edition. Edited by Kate Fleet et al. Leiden– Boston: Brill, 2005–present. Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān. Edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe. 6 Vols. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2001–6. Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān. Online Edition. Edited by Johanna Pink. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2005–present. Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations Intellectual History of the Islamicate World Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient The Muslim World Oriens Christianus Orientalia Christiana Periodica The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Edited by Alexander P. Kazhdan. 3 Vols. New York– Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca. Edited by Jean-Paul Migne. 161 Vols. Paris: Imprimerie Catholique, 1857–66. Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit Online. Edited by Ralph-Johannes Lilie et al. Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2013. Parole de l’Orient Revue des études sud-est européennes

AH EC

Anno Hegirae Ethiopian Calendar

CMRO2 DHGE DOP E EA e-GEDSH

EI2 EI3 EQ EQO ICMR IHIW JAAR JAOS JESHO MW OC OCP ODB PG PMZO

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-204

Octavian-Adrian Negoiță

Prolegomena to Eastern Christians’ Engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān Along centuries of interacting with Muslims and living either among them, in their vicinity or under Islamic rule, Eastern Christians speaking Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Georgian, Greek, Russian, Slavic or Syriac became accustomed with Islam and the Qur’ān and referred to them as “the religion of Muḥammad” and “the Holy Book of the Ishmaelites.” Their constant engagement with Muslims led to the formation of an anti-Muslim corpus of texts, which not only reflected various attitudes about Islam and patterns of communal contact, but it also informed Eastern Christian communities about Muḥammad, the Qur’ān and its teachings. In the past decades, discussions about this literary corpus are back on the agenda of historians, as scholarly developments in the field of Eastern Christian Studies tuned into trans-imperial, interreligious and cross-cultural approaches to explore the entangled histories of Eastern Christians of different linguistic, confessional or ethnic backgrounds with Muslim or European literati in larger historical and cultural areas.1 The renewed interest for their engagement with Islam the Qur’ān across the centuries opened the path to new conceptualizations of the Christian-Muslim interactions in given historical contexts and to the discovery of hitherto unknown texts that are now included into the scholarly circuit.2 These

1 For instance, Bernard Heyberger, “Eastern Christians, Islam, and the West: A Connected History,” IJMES 40, no. 3 (2010): 475–78; Jack Tannous, The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018); Aurélien Girard, Vassa Kontouma, Bernard Heyberger, eds., Livres et confessions chrétiennes orientales: Une histoire connectée entre l’Empire ottoman, le monde slave et l’Occident (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles), Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Etudes, Sciences Religieuses 197 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023). 2 Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2008); Michael P. Penn, Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World (Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); Zofia A. Brzozowska, Mirosław J. Leszka and Teresa Wolińska, Muhammad and the Origin of Islam in the Byzantine-Slavic Literary Context: A Bibliographical History, trans. Katarzyna Gucio and Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi, Byzantina Lodziensia 41 (Lodz: Lodz University Press, 2020); Seta B. Dadoyan, Islam in Armenian Literary Culture: Texts, Contexts, Dynamics, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 669: Subsidia 147 (Louvain: Peeters, 2021); Joachim Jakob, Syrisches Christentum und früher Islam: Theologische Reaktionen in syrisch-sprachigen Texten vom 7. bis 9. Jahrhundert, Innbrucker theologische Studien 95 (Innsbruck–Wien: Tyrolia–Verlag, 2021); Ayman S. Ibrahim, ed., Medieval Encounters: Arabic-Speaking Christians and Islam, Gorgias Handbooks 55 (Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022); along with the volumes of CMR. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-001

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studies revealed meaningful connections between texts, authors, and audiences that allowed more contextualized discussions over the production, transmission and circulation of knowledge about the Muslim religion among Eastern Christians between East and West, and from medieval times until modernity. By focusing on “knowledge” as an analytical category that transcends rigid geographical, chronological and cultural boundaries, historians of Eastern Christianity began to look more closely at how knowledge was formed, circulated, transmitted, preserved and moved both diachronically and synchronically.3 Informed by these historiographical developments, this collected-studies volume is a contribution to the entangled and cross-cultural history of Eastern Christians with Islam and the Qur’ān throughout the centuries, from the Eastern Mediterranean to Russia via Ethiopia, the Balkans and the Caucasus. The intellectual responses of various Eastern Christian communities to the religious challenges posed by Muslims were shaped by diverse multicultural and multiconfessional contexts, which ultimately played a significant role in defining their religious identity and the dynamics of communal life. By employing a long durée perspective, the volume explores diverse ideological positions among the Eastern Christians in their approach towards Muslim tenets, religious practices and interpretations of the Qur’ān. A particular attention is given to the knowledge regimes of text production to shed a new light on how Eastern Christians conceptualized Islam and its Scripture until the dawn of modernity. In order to sidestep parochialism and overcome compartmentalized discussions driven by neatly constructed confessional, ethnic, linguistical or areal categories, this volume explores the heuristic potential of “Eastern Christianity” as a plurivalent analytical framework that can bring together various Eastern Christian groups to investigate the engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān, and also to tackle connections between different Eastern Christian traditions.4 However, even if “Eastern Christianity” stands at the core of this volume, it is not conceptualized as a monolithic or homogenous block but as a transcultural and transconfessional milieu in which knowledge was not only produced and circulated widely from East to West, but it also resonated in different ways to various audiences.

3 See, for instance, Evelin Dierauff, et al., eds., Knowledge on the Move in a Transottoman Perspective: Dynamics of Intellectual Exchange from the Fifteenth to the Early Twentieth Century, Transottomanica: Osteuropäisch-osmanisch-persische Mobilitätsdynamiken 5 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage, 2021). 4 See, for instance, Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu, eds., Entangled Confessionalizations? Dialogic Perspectives on the Politics of Piety and Community Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th Centuries, The Modern Muslim World 15 (Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022).

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The long durée employed in the volume allows a broader diachronic perspective over the formation of the Eastern Christian anti-Muslim corpus, while also questioning more in-depth aspects regarding the texts and their impact on the Christian-Muslim contacts. Why some specific texts produced in the medieval period were copied, read or translated during early modern times and others did not receive as much attention from the Eastern Christian communities? How dynamic was the anti-Muslim corpus along the centuries? Can we observe any continuities or discontinuities in the circulation of the corpus from its formation during medieval times until modernity? By addressing these and other related questions, the contributions of this volume seek to depart from previous inquiries about the pure classification or transmission of polemical tropes along the centuries and focus instead on the knowledge regimes in which texts and ideas about Islam and the Qur’ān took shape and circulated in different Eastern Christian contexts.5 By applying the long durée approach, the purpose is to overcome the distinction between what has been considered in historiography to be the “classical” or “formative” period (i.e., the medieval era) — in which the corpus of anti-Muslim texts took shape — and the “post-classical” or “post-formative” period (i.e., the early modern era), which received little attention in scholarship mostly because it was considered that the texts produced now were derivative of their medieval models, they had no originality and usually replicated the polemical discourses of earlier works. Constructed by the nationalist scholarship — that tended to perceive the intellectual life of Eastern Christians that began in the aftermath of the fall of medieval empires to the Muslim rule (especially Ottoman and Safavid) and its domination over vast areas of South-Eastern Europe and the Eurasian zone as less dynamic and innovative — this “decline paradigm” began to change. In this regard, scholars of Eastern Christianity and Islamic studies began to (re)conceptualize this period and look at new or overlooked texts in their quest to offer more nuanced and historicized accounts of the Eastern Christian intellectual life during early modern times.6 5 For instance, Adel-Théodore Khoury, Les théologiens byzantins et l’Islam: Textes et auteurs (VIIIe– XIIIe S.), 2e tirage (Paris: Editions Béatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1969); Adel-Théodore Khoury, Polémique byzantine contre l’Islam (VIIIe–XIIIe S.) (Leiden: Brill, 1972); Adel-Théodore Khoury, Apologétique byzantine contre l’Islam (VIIIe–XIIIe S.) (Altenberge: Verlag für Christlich-Islamisches Schriftum, 1982). 6 See, for instance, Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu, eds., Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450–c. 1750, Islamic History and Civilization: Studies and Texts 177 (Leiden– Boston: Brill, 2020); Ahmed El Shamsy, Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition (Princeton, NJ–Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020); Krstić and Terzioğlu, Entangled Confessionalizations; Kostas Sarris, Nikolas Pissis and Miltos Pechlivanos, eds., Confessionalization and/as Knowledge Transfer in the Greek Orthodox Church, Episteme 23 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2021).

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It is in this framework that discussions over the authors and their erudite agendas, audiences, sources, literary genres or manuscript culture are of paramount importance to investigate the Eastern Christians’ engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān too. The essays of this volume look not only at the “formative” period of the anti-Muslim corpus but also the early modern period with its intellectual output in order to connect and consider them as equally important for the development of the Eastern Christian anti-Muslim literature. This will allow scholars to examine different ideological positions in Eastern Christianity about Islam and the Qur’ān throughout the centuries, but also to explore further the continuities and discontinuities of the polemical discourse(s). Moreover, this approach will provide more insight about the format and the literary genres in which knowledge about Islam circulated among Eastern Christians. For instance, why was the format of Christian-Muslim dialogues more prevalent in specific contexts, while in others literary pieces such as neomartyrologies, apocalyptical literature or dogmatic treatises were considered as the most viable formats to inform the communities about the religion of Muḥammad?7 Whereas in Western Europe the advent of Protestantism and Orientalist learning brought Christian intelligentsia on a new path that enabled it to interact more closely with the original texts of Islam and the Qur’ān and even develop new formats to capture knowledge about the Muslim East — as it is the case of renowned Orientalists such as Theodor Bibliander, Johann Heinrich Hottinger, Jacob Golius or Barthélemy d’Herbelot — in Eastern Christianity the situation was different.8 For instance, translations of the Qur’ān in the languages of Eastern Christianity 7 See, for instance, Astérios Argyriou, Les exégèses greques de l’Apocalypse à l’époque turque (1453– 1821): Esquisse d’une histoire des courants idéologiques au sein du peuple grec asservi, Hetaireia Makedonikōn Spoudōn: Seira Philologikē kai Theologikē 15 (Thessaloniki, 1982); and David Bertaina, Christian and Muslim Dialogues: The Religious Uses of a Literary Form in the Early Islamic Middle East, Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 29 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2011). 8 Ann M. Blair, Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (New Haven–London: Yale University Press, 2010); Jan Loop, Johann Heinrich Hottinger: Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Seventeenth Century, Oxford–Warburg Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Alexander Bevilacqua, The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment (Cambridge MA–London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018); Cándida Ferrero Hernández and John Tolan, eds., The Latin Qur’an, 1143–1500, The European Qur’an 1 (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2021); Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers, eds., The Iberian Qur’an: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times, The European Qur’an 3 (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2022); Federico Stella and Roberto Tottoli, eds., The Qur’an in Rome: Manuscripts, Translations, and the Study of Islam in Early Modern Catholicism, The European Qur’an 4 (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2024); Gulnaz Sibgatullina and Gerard Wiegers, eds., European Muslims and the Qur’an: Practices of Translation, Interpretation, and Commodification, The European Qur’an 5 (Berlin–Boston, De Gruyter, 2024).

Prolegomena to Eastern Christians’ Engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān 

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appeared quite late in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (with the exception of the lost Greek translation of the Qur’ān dated ante 870),9 which is connected with the low interest among Eastern Christians regarding the original language of the Qur’ān, and with their conceptualization of the Muslim holy book as a religious text whose tenets had to be refuted. In this regard, there is no wonder that Eastern Christians usually turned towards what they considered as the most authoritative polemical treatises of specific dogmatic and argumentative weight (Riccoldo da Montecroce or John Kantakouzenos) to articulate their own attitudes and positions about Muḥammad, Islam and the Qur’ān, which made of these treatises some of the most circulated texts of the anti-Muslim corpus across centuries. As it is the case of all the collective-studies volumes, this volume has an eclectic nature and hence the contributions included here will not cover all the Eastern Christian traditions, or all the aspects, texts or contexts in which the anti-Muslim polemical corpus developed or circulated. Instead, this volume is a contribution meant to encourage more nuanced, historicized and complex investigations of the entangled histories of Eastern Christians with Muslims across the centuries from East that will bring into light new connections between different Eastern Christian traditions and their cultural output.

Bibliography Argyriou, Astérios. Les exégèses greques de l’Apocalypse à l’époque turque (1453–1821): Esquisse d’une histoire des courants idéologiques au sein du peuple grec asservi. Hetaireia Makedonikōn Spoudōn– Seira Philologikē kai Theologikē 15. Thessaloniki, 1982. Bertaina, David. Christian and Muslim Dialogues: The Religious Uses of a Literary Form in the Early Islamic Middle East. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 29. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2011. Bevilacqua, Alexander. The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment. Cambridge MA–London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018. Blair, Ann M. Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. New Haven– London: Yale University Press, 2010. Brzozowska, Zofia A., Mirosław J. Leszka and Teresa Wolińska. Muhammad and the Origin of Islam in the Byzantine-Slavic Literary Context: A Bibliographical History. Translated by Katarzyna Gucio and Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi. Byzantina Lodziensia 41. Lodz: Lodz University Press, 2020. Dadoyan, Seta B. Islam in Armenian Literary Culture: Texts, Contexts, Dynamics. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 669–Subsidia 147. Louvain: Peeters, 2021.

9 See Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, “The Greek Translation of the Qur’ān (ante 870),” in EQO (with further bibliography); for the Armenian context, for instance, see Dadoyan, Islam in Armenian Literary Culture, 233–90.

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Dierauff, Evelin et al., eds. Knowledge on the Move in a Transottoman Perspective: Dynamics of Intellectual Exchange from the Fifteenth to the Early Twentieth Century. Transottomanica: Osteuropäisch-osmanisch-persische Mobilitätsdynamiken 5. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage, 2021. El Shamsy, Ahmed. Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition. Princeton, NJ–Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020. García-Arenal, Mercedes and Gerard Wiegers, eds. The Iberian Qur’an: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times. The European Qur’an 3. Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2022. Girard, Aurélien, Vassa Kontouma, Bernard Heyberger, eds. Livres et confessions chrétiennes orientales: Une histoire connectée entre l’Empire ottoman, le monde slave et l’Occident (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles). Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Etudes, Sciences Religieuses 197. Turnhout: Brepols, 2023. Griffith, Sidney H. The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2008. Hernández, Cándida Ferrero and John Tolan, eds. The Latin Qur’an, 1143–1500. The European Qur’an 1. Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2021. Heyberger, Bernard. “Eastern Christians, Islam, and the West: A Connected History.” IJMES 40, no. 3 (2010): 475–78. Ibrahim, Ayman S., ed. Medieval Encounters: Arabic-Speaking Christians and Islam. Gorgias Handbooks 55. Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022. Jakob, Joachim. Syrisches Christentum und früher Islam: Theologische Reaktionen in syrisch-sprachigen Texten vom 7. bis 9. Jahrhundert. Innbrucker theologische Studien 95. Innsbruck–Wien: Tyrolia– Verlag, 2021. Khoury, Adel-Théodore. Les théologiens byzantins et l’Islam: Textes et auteurs (VIIIe–XIIIe S.). 2e tirage. Paris: Editions Béatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1969. Khoury, Adel-Théodore. Polémique byzantine contre l’Islam (VIIIe–XIIIe S.). Leiden: Brill, 1972. Khoury, Adel-Théodore. Apologétique byzantine contre l’Islam (VIIIe–XIIIe S.). Altenberge: Verlag für Christlich-Islamisches Schriftum, 1982. Krstić, Tijana and Derin Terzioğlu, eds. Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450–c. 1750. Islamic History and Civilization–Studies and Texts 177. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2020. Krstić, Tijana and Derin Terzioğlu, eds. Entangled Confessionalizations? Dialogic Perspectives on the Politics of Piety and Community Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th Centuries. The Modern Muslim World 15. Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022. Loop, Jan. Johann Heinrich Hottinger: Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Seventeenth Century. Oxford– Warburg Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Negoiță, Octavian-Adrian. “The Greek Translation of the Qur’ān (ante 870).” In EQO. Penn, Michael P. Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World. Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Sibgatullina, Gulnaz and Gerard Wiegers, eds. European Muslims and the Qur’an: Practices of Translation, Interpretation, and Commodification. The European Qur’an 5. Berlin–Boston, De Gruyter, 2024. Stella, Federico and Roberto Tottoli, eds. The Qur’an in Rome: Manuscripts, Translations, and the Study of Islam in Early Modern Catholicism. The European Qur’an 4. Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2024. Tannous, Jack. The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018.

Bert Jacobs

An Early Syriac Response to the Charge of Taḥrīf in George of Bʿeltan’s Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew Abstract: This contribution studies a hitherto unidentified Syriac response to the Muslim charge of biblical falsification (taḥrīf), found in chapter 49 of the introduction to the Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew by the West Syriac Patriarch George of Bʿeltan (758–89/90). Besides its early date and comprehensiveness, two elements render this brief text unique in Syriac literature. First, it contains among the earliest quotations of the Qur’ān in Syriac, if not the very first. Second, it provides the earliest version of the so-called “True Religion Apology,” a discourse that soon thereafter becomes very popular in Arabic Christian apologetic texts but is much less common in Syriac. Besides introducing this original response to taḥrīf, this contribution provides an edition of the chapter with English translation.

1 Introduction It has become commonplace in recent scholarship to point out that Syriac Christians were among the first to interact with Muslims.1 It is, however, not the case that Syriac Christians and Muslims were engaged in debating intricate theological issues immediately after the conquests. Around the turn of the eighth century, the ruling caliphs in Damascus (and later Baghdad) more assertively began to promote the new religious profile of their conquered territories. It was only then that Islam,

1 A major guide to the earliest Syriac literature on Islam is Michael P. Penn, Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World (Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); Michael P. Penn, When Christians First Met Muslims: A Sourcebook of the Earliest Syriac Writings on Islam (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015). Acknowledgements: The research for this contribution was carried out in the context of my FNRS– F.R.S. postdoctoral project: Christian Exegesis of the Qur’ān in the Medieval Islamicate World, hosted at Université catholique de Louvain. This contribution has profited from discussions with and comments from Herman Teule, Mehdi Azaiez, and Kelli Gibson. I also thank Herman Teule, Philip Forness, and Gabriel Rabo for helpful suggestions and corrections to my edition and translation. All remaining shortcomings are my own. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-002

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and particularly Christian apostasy to Islam, became serious pastoral and theological concerns to church leaders. The emergence of a distinct genre of apologetic literature aimed at answering Muslim criticisms of Christianity and strengthening Christians in their faith should be seen in the light of these disruptive socio-religious circumstances.2 While the earliest examples of this literature were written in Syriac and Greek, apologetics directed at Islam were soon conducted predominantly in Arabic. By the ninth century, Christian intellectuals from the three major Syriac churches turned to the official language of the Caliphate to compose such apologies.3 As Syriac gradually became a minority language, at least in the central areas of the Abbasid Caliphate, it was used less frequently for writing apologetic treatises in response to Islam. However, a new series of Syriac responses to Islam emerged during the period of cultural and literary revival called the “Syriac Renaissance” (ca. 1026–1318).4 As a testimony to the dominance of Arabic in early Christian-Muslim controversy, only about eight major Syriac apologetic texts in response to Islam are attested before the eleventh century. Since these works have all been closely examined, most recently and comprehensively by Joachim Jakob,5 the following basic table should suffice here:

2 The standard survey of the principal Syriac materials is Sidney H. Griffith, “Disputes with Muslims in Syriac Christian Texts: From Patriarch John (d. 648) to Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286),” in Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter, ed. Bernard Lewis and Friedrich Niewöhner (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992), 251–73. See also Barbara Roggema, “Pour une lecture des dialogues islamo-chrétiens en syriaque à la lumière des controverses internes à l’islam,” in Les controverses religieuses en syriaque, ed. Flavia Ruani, Études syriaques 13 (Paris: Geuthner, 2016), 261–93. 3 For orientation, see Ayman S. Ibrahim, ed., Medieval Encounters: Arabic-Speaking Christians and Islam, Gorgias Handbooks 55 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022). 4 Herman Teule, “The Syriac Renaissance,” in The Syriac Renaissance, ed. Herman Teule, Carmen Tauwinkl, Bas ter Haar Romeny and Jan van Ginkel, Eastern Christian Studies 9 (Leuven– Paris–Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2010), 1–30, esp. 25–28. More recently, see Herman Teule, “Jacob bar Shakkō,” CMR, vol. 4, 240–44; Bert Jacobs, “Unveiling Christ in the Islamicate World: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Prophetology as a Model for Christian Apologetics in Gregory Bar ʿEbrōyō’s Treatise on the Incarnation,” IHIW 6, no. 1–2 (2018): 187–216; Bert Jacobs, “Syriac Testimonies Against the Muslims: The Qur’anic Quotations in Dionysius bar Ṣalībī’s Disputation against the Arabs” (PhD Thesis, Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2021); and Salam Rassi, Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World: ʿAbdīshōʿ of Nisibis and the Apologetic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022). 5 Joachim Jakob, Syrisches Christentum und früher Islam: Theologische Reaktionen in syrisch-sprachigen Texten vom 7. bis 9. Jahrhundert, Innsbrucker Theologische Studien 95 (Innsbruck–Wien: Tyrolia–Verlag, 2021).

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Author

Denomination

(Modern) Title

Dating

Anonymous

West Syriac

Dialogue of Patriarch John and the Emir

late 7th or early 8th century

Anonymous

East Syriac

Disputation of a Monk of Bēt Ḥālē and an Arab Notable

late 8th or early 9th century

Timothy I (d. 823)

East Syriac

Disputation with the Caliph al-Mahdī (Letter 59), Disputation with a Philosopher at the Caliph’s Court (Letter 40)

circa 782/3

Theodore bar Kōnī (8th century)

East Syriac

Scholion, Memrā X: Dialogue between a teacher, representing the Christians, and a student, representing the “pagans” (ḥanpē)

circa 792/3

Anonymous

East/West Syriac

Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā

early 9th century

Nonnus of Nisibis (d. 870)

West Syriac

Apologetic Treatise

mid/late 9th century

Moses bar Kephā (d. 903)

West Syriac

On Divine Providence, Mimrō II, chapter 6: “Against the Mhaggrōyē, who also take away freedom, and say that good or evil is prescribed for us by God”

late 9th century

A hitherto unidentified text from the second half of the eighth century should be added to this familiar list of early Syriac apologetic texts. This brings us to our main author, George of Bʿeltan, who served as the West Syriac Patriarch from 758 until his death in 789/90.6 George did not write a separate work on Islam. Rather, much

6 Since George’s chapter against Islam was later re-used in chapter 40 of Moses bar Kephā’s introduction to his Commentary of the Gospels (London, British Library, MS Add 17274, fol. 33vb), more than one text should be added to the list. For an edition of the remaining fragment of Bar Kephā’s chapter, see the annex of Bert Jacobs, “Appraising Bar Ṣalībī’s Knowledge of Islam: Insights from a Neglected Response to the Charge of Biblical Falsification,” in Dionysius bar Ṣalībī: Guardian of the Syriac Orthodox Tradition, ed. Bert Jacobs, Herman Teule, and Joseph Verheyden, Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity. Leiden–Boston: Brill, forthcoming. Kelli Gibson identified yet another early Syriac response to Islam in Mardin, Church of the Forty Martyrs, MS 356 (9th–10th century), fols. 125v–126v. This finding was presented during the 13th Symposium Syriacum in Paris (July 4–7, 2022). For a brief note “On the religion of the Ṭayyāyē” dating to sometime between the mid-9th and 13th centuries, see Yonathan Moss, “‘A Religion Assembled from Many Religions:’ A Syncretizing Characterization of Islam attributed to Cyril of Alexandria,” Henoch 39 (2017): 287–305. Another text that requires mention here has been by analyzed by Gerrit J.  Reinink, “The ‘Book of Nature’

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like Theodore bar Kōnī’s Scholion, he incorporated his response to Islam in a larger exegetical work. This work is his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, an unpublished text, preserved in a single, incomplete manuscript at the Vatican Library (MS Syriac 154). More specifically, George’s response is found in chapter 49 of the first part of the theological introduction prefaced to his Commentary. Different from most Syriac apologists, George does not provide a general apology covering all the major topics of Christian-Muslim controversy. George addresses only one central topic, similar to Moses bar Kephā’s chapter against the Muslims in his On Divine Providence. In the case of George, however, this topic is particularly contentious and arguably lies at the heart of all other theological disagreements between Christians and Muslims. It is the Muslim accusation that the true Gospel of Christ has been falsified, a teaching that is commonly referred to by the Arabic term taḥrīf (“falsification”). In one way or another, almost all Christian apologists responding to Islam in Syriac or Arabic touched upon Muslim suspicions or allegations of biblical corruption. What makes George’s case unique, however, is that he is the earliest known Christian author to formulate a concise yet comprehensive response to it. Moreover, many of his arguments would become staples in the later tradition of Christian apologetics vis-à-vis Islam. The purpose of this contribution is to provide a detailed study of George’s response to taḥrīf. Since our author is not well-known, I will begin by reviewing the main bio-bibliographical data before introducing his Commentary. Then, I turn to chapter 49 of the introduction and discuss its title, topic, audience, purpose, and literary structure. Thereafter, I analyze George’s arguments in the light of the later Christian apologetic tradition. Finally, I offer the editio princeps of chapter 49 together with an English translation.

2 George of Bʿeltan and his Commentary Born in the village of Bʿeltan, near Ḥims, sometime during the first half of the eighth century, George received his training in Greek and Syriac studies at the monastery of Qenneshre. After the death of Patriarch Athanasios IV Sandloyo in 758, he was elected patriarch at a synod in Mabbug due to his piety and erudition. A mere deacon at the time, his election was opposed by David of Dara and John of Callinicus, who rallied other Mesopotamian bishops in support of consecrating the and Syriac Apologetics Against Islam: The Case of Job of Edessa’s Book of Treasures,” in The Book of Nature in the Middle Ages, ed. A. Vanderjagt and K. van Berkel, Groningen Studies in Cultural Change 16 (Leuven–Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2005), 71–84.

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latter as Patriarch. After John’s death in 762, he was succeeded by David of Dara. This new anti-patriarch appealed to the Caliph Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh al-Manṣūr (r. 754–775; 136–158 AH) to accuse George of tax fraud, exercising his office without the Caliph’s permission, and refusing to carry anything bearing the name of the prophet Muḥammad. As a result of these charges, George was brought before the Caliph in Baghdad in 767, where he was imprisoned. Only nine years later, upon the ascension of al-Mahdī (r. 775–785), he regained his freedom. Although his release was staked on the condition that he would not exercise his office or title, he eventually was confirmed as Patriarch by the Muslim authorities in 777. After a short period of illness, he died in 789/90 at the monastery of Mōr Barṣawmō near Melitene and was buried there.7 Living during the tumultuous period following the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, George’s ecclesiastical career was quite troubled. During the nine years he spent in prison, he is reported to have composed “beautiful poems (mimrē), many hymns (madrōšē), and pleasant and accurate teachings (malfōnwōtō).”8 Unfortunately, none of these works are preserved, with the exception of his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, which dates, most probably, to this period.9 After his release, he wrote a synodal letter in 785,10 and a letter to the deacon Guria of Edessa concerning the liturgical formula “We break the heavenly bread,” the use of which later sparked some controversy.11 Finally, there are five monastic canons published

7 Our main Syriac sources are the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, the Chronicle of 813, the Chronicle of 819, and the Chronicle of Dionysius of Tell-Maḥrē (mainly via the Chronicle of Michael Rabō). The most detailed biography that pays close attention to inconsistencies in our sources is D. Bundy, “Georges de Beʿeltân,” in DHGE, vol. 20, 595–99. See also Philip Wood, The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, c. 750–850 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021), 283 (index); Witold Witakowski, “Giwargis of Bʿeltan,” in e-GEDSH, https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/ Giwargis-of-Beltan [Accessed May 24, 2023]; Anton Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, mit Ausschluss der christlich-palästinensischen Texte (Bonn: A. Marcus und E. Webers Verlag 1922), 269–70; and Ignatius Aphrem I Barsaum, Kitab al-lūʾlūʾ al-manthūr fī taʾrīkh al-ʿulūm wa’l-adab al-Suryāniyya, 4th edition (Glane–Losser: Passeggiata, 1987), 322–3. 8 J.-B. Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche Jacobite d’Antioche (1166–1199), 4 vols. (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1899–1904), xi, 26, vol. 2, 529 (trans.), and vol. 4, 478 (text). 9 See Witakowski, “Giwargis of Bʿeltan”; and Baumstark, Geschichte, 269–70. Barsaum (al-Lūʾlūʾ al-manthūr, 322) suggests that some of his poetry may have been added anonymously to the liturgy. 10 See Arthur Vööbus, The Synodicon in the West Syrian Tradition, vol. 2, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 376 (Leuven: Peeters, 1976), 2–7 (text), 2–7 (trans.); Arthur Vööbus, Syrische Kanonessammlungen: Ein Beitrag zur Quellenkunde, vol. 1: Westsyrische Originalurkunden I, A, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 307 (Leuven: Secrétariat du Corpus SCO, 1970), 3–13. 11 This letter is quoted by Michael, see Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, vol. 3, 5–8. See also Wood, The Imam of the Christians, 112–13.

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under the name of George, bishop of the Arab tribes, which, most probably, belong to our George.12 George’s Commentary has received scarce attention by scholars so far. However, its significance to the history of Syriac exegesis of the New Testament should not be underestimated. On the one hand, Anton Baumstark shows that the Commentary compiles earlier traditions from Greek and Syriac authorities like Eusebius, John Chrysostom, the Cappadocian fathers, Philoxenos of Mabbug, Jacob of Edessa, and George, bishop of the Arabs.13 On the other hand, Lorenz Schlimme points out that it was an important source for Moses bar Kephā (d. 903), whose exegetical work in turn was a major source for Dionysius bar Ṣalībī (d. 1171).14 George’s Commentary is only preserved today in Vatican, MS Syriac 154. This manuscript is written in the Esṭrangēlā script and consists of two parts: fols. 1–50, 57–77, 102–3 and 106 are written on parchment and date to between the eighth and tenth centuries; the rest of the manuscript is written on paper by a single hand from the thirteenth century. The manuscript suffered considerable damage, including several folios which are either lost or were displaced during rebinding. The latter observation is evident from the fact that fol. 1r has chapter 46 of the introduction, while a number of preceding chapters (nos. 20–22, 23–39, 40–43) are found towards the end of the manuscript.15 The only substantial study of this manuscript so far is Baumstark’s description in a 1902 survey of West Syriac Gospel exegesis.16 As Baumstark observes, George’s introduction consists of four discourses or mimrē, each divided into brief chapters 12 Ignatius Ortiz de Urbina, Patrologia syriaca, 2nd edition (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1965), 187. These canons are published in Arthur Vööbus, Syriac and Arabic Documents Regarding Legislation Relative to Syrian Asceticism (Stockholm: Etse, 1960), 99. 13 Anton Baumstark, “Die Evangelienexegese der syrischen Monophysiten,” OC 2 (1902): 151–69, 358–89, here 364–369; and Anton Baumstark, “Syrische Fragmente von Eusebios περὶ διαφωνίας εὐαγγελίων,” OC 1 (1901): 378–82, here 381. 14 Lorenz Schlimme, “Die Bibelkommentar des Moses Bar Kepha,” in A Tribute to Arthur Vööbus, Studies in Early Christian Literature and Its Environment, Primarily in the Syrian East, ed. R. H. Fischer (Chicago, IL: Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, 1977), 63–72, here 62. Unfortunately, Bar Kephā’s Gospel commentaries are only partially preserved, see, most recently, Abdul-Massih Saadi, Moshe Bar Kepha’s Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 59 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press 2020). Bar Ṣalībī’s Commentary on the Gospels has been published in several installments and was recently re-edited by Nahir Akçay, The Commentary on the Gospels by Dionysius Jacob Bar Salibi, Metropolitan of Amid (†1171) (Damascus: Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate, 2018). 15 Baumstark, “Evangelienexegese,” 360–1. Digital images of the MS are available online in the Digital Vatican Library: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.sir.154.pt.1, and https://digi.vatlib.it/view/ MSS_Vat.sir.154.pt.2 [Accessed May 24, 2023]. 16 Baumstark, “Evangelienexegese,” 360–9.

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of half a column to two-three columns in length. The chapters are mostly structured in the form of question and answer.17 Mimrē II–IV pertain to issues which are more specific to the interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew: Mimrō II (22 chapters) discusses various questions relating to the genealogy of Jesus.18 Mimrō III (7 chapters) covers alleged contradictions between Matthew and Luke relating to the nativity of Jesus.19 Finally, Mimrō IV (7 chapters) discusses the translation and meaning of the name “Christ,” the person of Matthew, the meaning of “Kingdom of God” versus “Kingdom of Heaven,” the baptism of Mary, and the approximative dates of the annunciation and the birth of Jesus.20 Mimrō I, on the other hand, is considerably longer with 51 chapters and has a broader scope. Sadly, the first 21 chapters are either lost or illegible. As for the extant chapters, these discuss such topics as the Eucharist, the value of faith versus works, the reasons for the Incarnation, the sources of the Evangelists, the virginity of Mary, the reason why the Old and New Testaments were given in the form in which they were given, why there are four Gospels, the chronology of the Gospel, the character of the Evangelists, the distribution of Jesus’ humble words across the four Gospels and its reasons, and the writing purpose of Matthew.21 It is also toward the end of Mimrō I that we find two chapters that are specifically written in response to particular religious opponents: chapter 50 responds to the Jewish claim that the Gospel is an unlawful addition to the Law of Moses which contradicts the latter.22 Chapter 49, entitled “Against the pagans concerning the truth of the Gospel” (Luqbal ḥanpē ʿal šrōreh d-Ewangelion), responds to the accusation that the Gospel has been altered.23 The latter chapter, as we shall see, is George’s response to the Muslim charge of taḥrīf. Before turning to this chapter, a final comment is warranted on the issue of authorship. In our principal survey of the extant Syriac commentaries on the New Testament, John McCullough does not discuss George’s Commentary, but only lists

17 For an overview of this genre, see Bas ter Haar Romeny, “Question-and-Answer Collections in Syriac Literature,” in Erotapokriseis: Early Christian Question-and-Answer Literature in Context, ed. Annelie Volgers and Claudio Zamagni, Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 37 (Leuven– Paris–Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2004), 145–63. 18 Vatican, MS Syriac 154, fols. 3ra–8vb. Several of these chapters preserve Eusebian materials which have been edited and translated in Gerhard Beyer, “Die Evangelischen Fragen und Lösungen des Eusebius in Jakobitischer Ǜberlieferung und deren nestorianische Parallelen,” OC 24 (1927): 80–97. 19 Vatican, MS Syriac 154, fols. 8vb–11vb. 20 Vatican, MS Syriac 154, fols. 11vb–15rb. 21 Baumstark (“Evangelienexegese,” 361–64) translates the titles of the extant chapters. 22 Vatican, MS Syriac 154, fols. 1.b.va–2ra. 23 Vatican, MS Syriac 154, fols. 1.b.ra–1.b.va.

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his name among the authors whose exegetical works have been presumably lost.24 McCullough bases this judgement on the doubts which Baumstark supposedly expressed about George’s authorship of the commentary preserved in Vatican MS Syriac 154. However, this appears to be a misreading of Baumstark’s Geschichte. In reality, neither Baumstark, nor any other scholar that I know of, has called into question George’s authorship. Baumstark does refer to a potential, second textual witness from the seventeenth century preserved in Urmia, only to go on and dismiss this possibility on the grounds that this lengthy commentary on Matthew is “too Nestorian” to have been written by a West Syriac Patriarch. Presumably, it is this note that lies at the basis of McCullough’s confusion.25 Although McCullough’s doubts seem ungrounded, his statement does raise the question of how George of Bʿeltan’s name became associated with the Vatican manuscript in the first place. Unfortunately, the Assemanis are not very explicit about their reasons for this attribution in their Catalogue.26 It is likely that closer attention to the manuscript as a whole might offer clues, but such a study is beyond the scope of the present contribution. Suffice to say here that there is nothing in the manuscript that excludes a dating to the second half of the eighth century. As mentioned above, the Commentary quotes Syriac authors like Jacob of Edessa (d. 708) and George, bishop of the Arab tribes (d. 724), but no later ones. It would also make much sense for our Patriarch to rely on these two authors, since they were two major precursors, who, like him, were associated with the monastery of Qenneshre. Moreover, the fact that this Commentary was re-used by Bar Kephā points to its authority in the ninth century West Syriac community. Finally, as we shall see, the Commentary’s terminology for Muslims and Arabs is entirely consistent with that of other Syriac texts from the seventh and eighth centuries. Therefore, I will assume that George’s authorship is securely established, until new evidence suggests otherwise.

24 John C.  McCullough, “Early Syriac Commentaries on the New Testament,” Theological Review 5, no. 1 (1982): 14–33 and 5, no. 2 (1982): 79–126, here 98. 25 Baumstark, Geschichte, 270, n. 1. 26 J. S. Assemani and S. E. Assemani, Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae codicum manuscriptorum catalogus in tres partes, vol. 3 (Rome: Maisonneuve, 1759), 293.

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3 Chapter 49 of the Introduction 3.1 Title and Appellation for Muslims Unlike the subsequent chapter against the Jews, it may not seem readily obvious from its title that chapter 49 engages Islam: “Against the pagans (ḥanpē) concerning the veracity of the Gospel.” Indeed, George does not use one of the more typical early Syriac nomenclatures for what we now call Muslims, like Ṭayyāyē (“Arabs”) or Mhaggr(āy)ē (“Hagarenes”), but rather uses ḥanpē.27 The latter term is usually translated as “pagans.” However, as Michael Penn observes, ḥanpē often had a broader meaning for Syriac authors of the early Islamic period: it could mean both literal polytheists, as well as monotheists who were considered “as errant as polytheists.”28 It was according to this broader sense that the term appears to have been applied to Muslims by Syriac apologists like Theodore bar Kōnī (ca. 792/3) and Nonnus of Nisibis (d. c. 870),29 as well as in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn (ca. 775/6).30 David Friedenreich further notes that Muslims often were treated as equivalent to pagans for legal purposes: this way, the same restrictions could be applied to interactions with them that already existed in pre-Islamic times to regulate relations between Christians and pagans (and Jews).31 It is in this connection that we find apparent references to Muslims in the canons of Gīwargīs I

27 For the various names for Muslims used in Syriac apologetic texts from the early Islamic period, see Sidney H. Griffith, “The Prophet Muḥammad: His Scripture and His Message According to the Christian Apologies in Arabic and Syriac from the First Abbasid Century,” in La vie du prophète Mahomet: Colloque de Strasbourg, Octobre 1980, ed. Toufic Fahd (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1980), 99–146, here 118–25. 28 Penn, Envisioning Islam, 67. 29 Sidney H. Griffith, “Chapter Ten of the Scholion: Theodore Bar Kônî’s Apology for Christianity,” OCP 47, no. 1 (1981): 158–88, esp. 176. Nonnus of Nisibis contrasts the “pagans of old” to the “pagans of now” or the “new pagans,” see Sidney H. Griffith, “The Apologetic Treatise of Nonnus of Nisibis,” ARAM 3 (1991), 115–38, esp. 127–8. 30 Penn, Envisioning Islam, 76. See, for instance, the passage on Christian apostacy in Amir Harrak, The Chonicle of Zuqnīn, Parts III and IV A.D. 488–775 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1999), 321–30, where he notes (323, n. 1) that “paganism in the context of this discourse is synonymous with Islam.” 31 David M. Freidenreich, “Muslims in Canon Law, 650–1000,” in CMR, vol. 1, 83–98, here 91.

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(d. 676),32 Athanasius II of Balad (d. 687),33 and Jacob of Edessa (d. 708).34 Another motive for referring to Muslims as ḥanpē has to do with its similarity to the Arabic ḥunafāʾ (sg. ḥanīf), which is considered to have the polar opposite meaning of “pagan,” namely “monotheist.”35 As Griffith points out, this word-play allowed Syriac writers to exploit “the nuisance potential inherent in the mutually exclusive senses of the two nouns.”36 Although this appellation was gradually eclipsed by others, most notably Ṭayyāyē, it was still applied to Muslims by an author as late as Jacob bar Shakkō (d. 1241).37 From the discussion that follows in George’s chapter, there can be little doubt that his “pagan” opponents were indeed Muslims.38 This becomes especially clear when he refers to the period before “the coming of their prophet (nbiyō),” and then goes on to quote that which this prophet claimed “was spoken to him” (§3). This conclusion is by no means diminished by the fact that George never mentions Muḥammad, the Qur’ān, or Islam by name. As scholars have noticed, early Christian apologists writing on Islam in Syriac and Arabic rarely did this.39 It should be noted that George uses the word Ṭayyāyē elsewhere in chapter 49, but not to refer to what we now call “Muslims.” This occurs when he argues that, since the rise of Islam, no synod has taken place in which the nations (ʿammē), i.e., “Greeks, Ṭayyōyē, Persians, barbarians, and Syrians,” gathered during which they decided to alter the Gospel, because it is “the same to all of them” (§3). Here,

32 Penn, When Christians First Met Muslims, 69–76, esp. 70. 33 Rifaad Y. Ebied, “The Syriac Encyclical Letter of Athanasius II, Patriarch of Antioch, which Forbids the Partaking of the Sacrifices of the Muslims,” in Orientalia Christiana: Festschrift für Hubert Kaufhold zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Peter Bruns and Heinz Otto Luthe, Eichstätter Beiträge zum Christlichen Orient 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013), 169–74, esp. 170. 34 Penn, Envisioning Islam, 67–68. 35 Elsaid M. Badawi and Muhammad Abdel Haleem, Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, vol. 1, Handbook of Oriental Studies – Section 1: The Near and Middle East 85 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2008), 239. According to Q 6:161, Abraham was a ḥanīf. 36 Griffith, “The Prophet Muḥammad,” 120. Likewise, see Milka Levy-Rubin, “Praise or Defamation? On the Polemic Usage of the Term Ḥanīf Among Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 28 (2003): 202–25. 37 Teule, “Jacob bar Shakkō,” 242. 38 Further evidence for George’s characterization of Muslims as pagans comes from his canons. Three of them (nos. 11–13) deal with interactions with Muslims, who are called ḥanpē and/or Mhaggrē (‘Hagarenes’), see Vööbus, Synodicon, 4 (text), 5 (trans.). 39 Griffith (“Chapter Ten of the Scholion,” 176–7) suggests that such oblique references to Islam were a protective measure, aimed at reducing the risk of being charged of speaking “unfittingly” about “the prophet, God’s Book, or his religion,” and thus being debarred from the protection (dhimma) of the Muslims. See also Sandra T. Keating, Defending the “People of Truth” in the Early Islamic Period: The Christian Apologies of Abū Rāʾiṭah (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2006), 64.

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the term has an ethnic appeal which is close to our word “Arabs,” including both Muslims and non-Muslims. It is the context that suggests that all participants to this non-existent synod would have to be Christians. George’s usage of the term Ṭayyāyē matches that of other early Syriac writers on Islam. Originally an ethnonym for a particular Arab Christian tribe called the Banū Ṭayy, by the sixth century the term was used more broadly to refer to Arabic-speakers living a nomadic or non-nomadic lifestyle, regardless of their religious affiliation. Following this pre-Islamic usage, the word was most frequently used by Syriac writers of the seventh century to refer to the new conquerors and rulers from the Ḥijāz.40 But it still did not denote a specific religious affiliation. As Penn notes, only in some ninth-century texts does the term Ṭayyāyē take on greater religious valence, to the point that a phrase like “Hagarene Ṭayyāyē” would seem like a tautology; for now, “all Tayyāyē were Muslims by definition.”41 Indeed, by the time of Bar Ṣalībī, Syriac writers generally use the word Ṭayyāyē to speak of Muslims.42

3.2 The Charge of Taḥrīf The authority of the Bible quickly became a major point of contention between Christians and Muslims. We already find evidence for this in the Qur’ān. On the one hand, the Qur’ān recognizes the Torah and the Gospel as true revelations which were sent down via true messengers to Jews and Christians from the same, heavenly “Mother of the Book” (umm al-kitāb) as the revelation to Muḥammad was (e.g., Q 3:3, 3:7, 19:30, 23:49). On the other hand, several verses assert that Jews and Christians, called the “People of the Book” (ahl al-kitāb), did not remain faithful to their Scriptures. The term taḥrīf traces its origin back to an accusation that is leveled four times against certain Jews (Q 2:75, 4:46, 5:13, 5:41), who are said to have tampered with or altered (yuḥarrifūna) words (kalim/kalām) from their places (mawāḍiʿ). Other verses allude to substituting words or letters for

40 For an excellent survey of the use of the term Ṭayyāyē before and after the period of Muslim rule, see Jack Tannous, The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), 525–31 (Appendix II). 41 Penn, Envisioning Islam, 59. 42 In this respect, it is interesting to note that whereas Bar Kephā maintains the title words “Against the pagans” when re-using George’s chapter (BL MS Add 17274, fol. 33vb), Bar Ṣalībī turns this into “Against the Ṭayyōyē” in the introduction to his Commentary on the Gospels (ed. Akçay, 32–3), see Jacobs, “Appraising Bar Ṣalībī’s Knowledge of Islam,” forthcoming.

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others, twisting or confounding words, or forgetting or concealing some. The Qur’ān does not provide a full picture of what exactly was falsified, how this was done, when, by whom, and for what reason. It was up to later commentators to fill in these blanks.43 Scholars have often dichotomized Muslims views of the Bible into two categories of taḥrīf: textual falsification (taḥrīf al-naṣṣ) and misinterpretation (taḥrīf al-maʿnā). Accordingly, it is argued that the strand of textual corruption is late, flourishing in the wake of polemicists like Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064; 456 AH), whereas the “weaker” strand of scriptural misinterpretation was the dominant early view.44 However, this characterization of early Muslim views of the Bible is untenable. As Ryan Schaffner demonstrates, allegations of textual corruption are well-attested in the earliest Muslim refutation texts of Christianity from the eighth and ninth centuries. In addition, Schaffner shows that textual corruption is the primary key through which Christians perceived early Muslim views of the Bible, as seen from early Christian apologies in response to Islam.45 Although not discussed by Schaffner, it should be pointed out that a potential allusion to textual falsification is already found in the earliest Syriac apology, the Dialogue of Patriarch John and the Emir. The first question which the Emir puts to the Patriarch is whether the Gospel of the Christians is “one and the same and does not vary in anything,” which seems to signal the Emir’s doubts regarding its authenticity.46 It is possible that some of George’s exegetical reflections elsewhere in his Commentary were influenced by Muslim readings which imply that Christians have misread the Gospel, however difficult it may be to pinpoint or prove this. As Martin Accad has demonstrated by analyzing the way in which later Syriac exegetes like Moses bar Kephā and Bar Ṣalībī reworked their sources, this is at least the case for them.47 Yet, there can be no doubt that George’s chapter 49 is specifically tailored to counter charges of textual corruption. This actually makes George’s commentary

43 A comprehensive study of the Qur’ān’s references to the earlier Scriptures and the treatment of the theme of taḥrīf by early mufassirūn is provided in Gordon Nickel, Narratives of Tampering in the Earliest Commentaries on the Qur’ān, The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 13 (Leiden– Boston: Brill, 2011), especially chapters 3 and 5. 44 See, especially, J.-M. Gaudeul and R. Caspar, “Textes de la tradition musulmane concernant (falsification) des écritures,” Islamochristiana 6 (1980): 61–104. 45 See Ryan Schaffner, “The Bible through a Qur’ānic Filter: Scripture Falsification (Taḥrīf) in 8thand 9th-Century Muslim Disputational Literature” (PhD Thesis, The Ohio State University, 2016). 46 Michael P. Penn, “John and the Emir: A New Introduction, Edition, and Translation,” Le Muséon 121, no. 1–2 (2008): 65–91, here 82 (text), 86 (trans). 47 Martin Accad, “Did the Later Syriac Fathers Take into Consideration Their Islamic Context When Reinterpreting the New Testament?,” PO 23 (1998): 13–32.

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one of our earliest pieces of evidence for the fact that Christians already during the first decades of Abbasid rule were pressed with such charges. In George’s formulation of the Muslim accusation, he speaks of “many things” (sagiyōtō) which allegedly have been changed in the Gospel. This resembles other early Christian apologies in which the allegation of taḥrīf is voiced in general terms, without specifying particular loci of corruption.48 Other apologists, however, typically responded to allegations of having suppressed the name of Muḥammad from the Scriptures or having put Trinitarian words in Jesus’ mouth.49 This should not necessarily be taken to mean that George was unaware of such charges. As he later points out, falsification basically applies to three categories of passages: laws and commandments, the creed, or practices (§2). Any particular Muslim charge of textual corruption would fit within these three broad categories.

3.3 Audience, Purpose, and Literary Structure Since George wrote his Commentary in Syriac, a language that hardly any Muslim would be able to read, he clearly wrote for Christian eyes only, and more particularly for learned monks, deacons, priests, and bishops. His purpose in including a chapter against Islam seems straightforward: he wants to equip his Christian readers with a ready-made response to an accusation which he deemed severe and frequent enough for it to require a response. George’s overall refutation strategy is two-fold. Having received a thorough training in Greek learning at the monastery of Qenneshre, George’s first strategy consists of adopting a rhetorical device which is common since antiquity for analyzing or solving problems: he instructs his readers to question the Muslim charge by asking “When?,” “Who?,” “Why?,” and “What?” (§1).50 Having set the stage by raising these counter-questions, he then explores each of them by arguing that out of one or two possible answers, none is valid: Which passages were altered and

48 See, e.g., Schaffner, “The Bible Through a Qur’ānic Filter,” 335 (Disputation of Bēt Ḥālē), 339 (Abū Rāʾiṭa), 344 (al-Kindī), 347–49 (Abraham of Tiberias). 49 See Schaffner, “The Bible Through a Qur’ānic Filter,” 332 (Timothy I), 338 (Abū Qurra), 352–3 (Letter of Leo III to ʿUmar II). 50 The other three of the so-called “seven circumstances” (i.e., “Where?,” “With what?,” and “How?”) are not addressed, although George does note in passing that the alleged falsification could not have taken place at a synod (§3). On the origins of this rhetorical device, see Michael C. Sloan, “Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as the Original Locus for the Septem Circumstantiae,” Classical Philology 105 (2010): 236–51.

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were they altered for material or spiritual gain (§2)? Did the falsification happen before or after the Muslims came to power (§3)? Were the apostles the ones who falsified the Gospel? (§4) Apparently, George was counting on the fact that Muslims would be unable to adequately answer these counter-questions. Such Christian rebuttals were likely one of the reasons why Muslim exegetes soon developed more detailed narratives of taḥrīf. Eventually, this would culminate in the systematized accounts by Muslim authors such as the Andalusian scholar Ibn Ḥazm.51 In addition to his primary appeal to a standard rhetorical device, George at the end of his chapter provides his readers with “another way” to respond to taḥrīf (§5). For this second strategy, he briefly lists five proofs through which the truth of the Gospel can be known. Interestingly, these proofs include both positive and negative criteria to identify the true scripture and religion. As we shall see below, George is pioneering here what has been called a “True Religion Apology.”

4 George and the Burgeoning Apologetic Tradition George’s chapter counts as one of our earliest extant Syriac apologetic texts in response to Islam. Since he died in 789/90, the Commentary certainly predates Bar Kōnī’s Scholion, which was composed around 792/3. If the Commentary indeed was written during (or before) his incarceration between 767 and 775, as assumed by Witakowski and Baumstark, then it would also predate Timothy I’s Disputation with the Caliph al-Mahdī (ca. 782/3), since it was al-Mahdī who released George from prison upon his ascension to the throne. If so, it follows that George’s apology is only predated by the Dialogue of Patriarch John and the Emir (probably late seventh century) and, possibly, depending on its dating, the Disputation of Bēt Ḥālē.52 Given its early date, it is striking to observe to what extent George’s arguments would become standard in later Christian apologetic texts. This is not to say that our Patriarch should be regarded as a pivotal figure, who decisively impacted the

51 See Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible from Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science: Texts and Studies 22 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 1996). 52 Long dated to the 720s, a late eighth or early ninth century date has recently been proposed by David G. K. Taylor, “The Disputation between a Muslim and a Monk of Bēt Ḥālē: Syriac Text and Annotated English Translation,” in Christsein in der islamischen Welt: Festschrift für Martin Tamcke zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Sidney H. Griffith and Sven Grebenstein (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015), 187–42, here 188–200.

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burgeoning tradition of Christian apologetics in response to Islam. Rather, this observation more likely attests to the fact that this kind of apologetic thought was already well underway during George’s tenure as Patriarch. In this section, I examine his three main argumentation strategies in the light of the later apologetic tradition: 1) the use of arguments based on psychology and history; 2) the appeal to testimonies from the Qur’ān; and 3) his use of the so-called “True Religion Apology.” I will pay attention especially to the latter two strategies, since George’s use thereof urges us to rethink their place in the Syriac apologetic tradition at large. I will illustrate the pervasiveness of George’s arguments mainly by drawing on other Christian apologies composed in Syriac and Arabic during the early Abbasid period. However, in order to draw attention to the long durée of the ideas expressed by George, I will occasionally also refer to later texts.

4.1 Psychological and Historical Arguments Faced with the charge of biblical falsification, a standard reflex of early Christian apologists was to appeal to “common-sense” arguments based on psychology and history. Timothy I’s response, for instance, was entirely based on such arguments. In response to al-Mahdī’s accusation that Christians have suppressed testimonies about Muḥammad in the Gospels, Timothy requests the Caliph to support this claim by bringing forth the unfalsified Scriptures. Timothy also points to the psychological impossibility for Christians to change their own Scriptures. What is there to gain by committing this act, Timothy asks, when the Scriptures are “witnesses to our truth.”53 Moreover, the Gospels’ account of Jesus matches what was announced about him in the Torah and Prophets.54 Furthermore, he argues that the enmity between Jews and Christians rules out the possibility that they could have agreed to collude on altering the Scriptures they hold in common.55 Finally, Timothy argues that if Christians were to have altered the Gospel, they would rather have omitted humiliating things and difficult verses, like Jesus’ fatigue, fear of death, the beatings he endured, and his crucifixion, but these are all still there.56

53 Martin Heimgartner, Timotheos I., Ostsyrischer Patriarch: Disputation mit dem Kalifen Al-Mahdī, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 631–2: Scriptores Syri 244–5 (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), §8:1–8, and 13:36–37. 54 Heimgartner, Timotheos I. Disputation, esp. §13:26–36. 55 Heimgartner, Timotheos I. Disputation, §13:39–55. 56 Heimgartner, Timotheos I. Disputation, §13:56–60.

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George provides very similar arguments. Like Timothy, he points to the psychological impossibility for Christians to alter the Gospel, by stressing that they have nothing to gain from such an act. He rules out that material gain could have been a motive for corrupting the Gospel, because we still find today in the Gospel that the first Christians “were living in voluntary poverty (ba-msarqutō) and commanded many to live this way (§2).” As for spiritual gain, he adds, this cannot be attained by consciously spreading false ideas about God. As we shall see, George is bringing up material gain here because he will later implicitly criticize Islam for having spread by offering such incentives to its followers. Many other Christian apologists raised the issue of the missing spiritual benefit to scriptural corruption. This argument was still convincing to Bar Ṣalībī in the twelfth century. Re-using Timothy’s argument, Bar Ṣalībī affirms that Christians are unable to falsify their Scriptures, since they are “the witnesses to our truth.”57 As mentioned, Timothy points to the discord between Jews and Christians to exclude any possibility of joint collusion to falsify their common Scriptures.58 George uses a variation of this argument and points to the historical spread of Christianity among different peoples in different languages to rule out the possibility of reaching an agreeing on a falsified Gospel. George says that there is no proof whatsoever of a synod that gathered representatives of all the nations, “Greeks, Arabs, Persians, barbarians, and Syrians,” where they determined to change the Gospel, because it is the same to all of them (§3). This echoes Patriarch John’s response to the Emir’s question of whether all Christians share the same Gospel: “It is one and the same to the Greeks, the Romans, the Syrians, the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Indians, the Arameans, the Persians, and the rest of all the peoples and languages.”59 A similar argument was developed by the ninth century apologist ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī, who appears to have been the first Arabic writer to do so.60 A testimony

57 Joseph P. Amar, Dionysius Bar Ṣalībī: A Response to the Arabs, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 614–5: Scriptores Syri 239–40 (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), xxiii, 98–99 (text); 91–92 (trans.). On Bar Ṣalībī’s re-use of Timothy’s Disputation, see Heimgartner, Timotheos I. Disputation, vol. 2 (trans.), xxxvii, n. 105. 58 Two other early Christian apologists to use this argument are al-Kindī (trans. in N. A. Newman, Early Christian-Muslim Dialogue: A Collection of Documents from the First Three Islamic Centuries (632–900 A.D): Translations with Commentary [Hatfield, PA: Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1993], 355–545, here 498), and Abū Rāʾiṭa, see Sandra T. Keating, “Refuting the Charge of Taḥrīf: Abu Rāʾiṭa (d. ca. 835) and his ‘First Risāla on the Holy Trinity’” in Ideas, Images, and Methods of Portrayal: Insights into Classical Arabic Literature and Islam, ed. Sebastian Günther, Islamic History and Civilization 58 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2005), 41–58, esp. 53–54. 59 Penn, “John and the Emir,” 86 (slightly modified translation). 60 Beaumont, The Theology of ʿAmmār al-Basrī, 73–100.

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to its endurance, the global spread of Christianity was used as the main argument against taḥrīf in the Disputation of Jirjī the Monk, a popular Arabic apology from the early thirteenth century.61 Finally, like Timothy, George asks the Muslims to present evidence to support their claim that Christians hold a falsified Gospel. George stresses that it is acknowledged by everyone that the true Gospel is in the hands of the Christians. If not, George asks, “what would be the true one according to him (i.e., Muḥammad), and (what would be) the true books of the prophets according to those (pagans)?” (§4). The demand to bring forth evidence of the unfalsified scripture is raised by many other apologists. For example, in the Letter of Leo III to ʿUmar II, Leo asks for the true books of Moses or the prophets, the psalms of David, or the Gospel of Jesus to be shown or cited. Knowing that his opponent will be unable to adduce such scriptures, he urges ʿUmar to admit that “even you have never seen them.”62 Building on George’s argument, Moses bar Kephā in his chapter against taḥrīf presents an interesting variation on this argument, which appeals to the central principle of the burden of proof in Islamic law. He asserts: “Either you make true witnesses swear that something in it is changed (by us), or (else) we will take the oath that nothing in it is changed (by us).”63 Then, he goes on to quote the ḥadīth which underpins this legal principle: “Proof is incumbent on the claimant, and the oath on the who denies.”64 This argument will later be borrowed by Bar Ṣalībī in his Commentary on the Gospels.65

61 Ayman S. Ibrahim and Clint Hackenburg, In Search of the True Religion: Monk Jurjī and Muslim Jurists Debating Faith and Practice, Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 69 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022), 25, 86–93 (text and trans.). Two other later Arabic text using this argument are the twelfth century East Syriac Commentary on the Nicene Creed (xx, §19–26, ed. Masri, vol. 3, 250), and Proofs of the Truth of the Gospel by Ishoʿyahb bar Malkon (d. 1246), see Herman Teule, “Ishoʿyahb bar Malkon,” CMR, vol. 4, 331–8, here 336. 62 Arthur Jeffery, “Ghevond’s Text of the Correspondence between ’Umar II and Leo III,” Harvard Theological Review 37, no. 4 (1944): 269–332, here 309–10. A similar argument is found in other ninth century Arabic texts, such as the Apology of al-Kindī (Newman, Early Christian-Muslim Dialogue, 498) and the Disputation of the Monk Abraham of Tiberias (Marcuzzo, Le dialogue d’Abraham de Tibériade, §394). 63 London, British Library, MS Add 17274, fol. 33v–b. 64 For the formation and development of this important legal ḥadīth (“al-bayyina ʿalā l-muddaʿī wa-l-yamīn ʿalā man ankara”), see Hiroyuki Yanagihashi, Studies in Legal Hadith, Studies in Islamic Law and Society 47 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2019), 480–543. 65 The ḥadīth quotation is only completely preserved in Bar Ṣalībī’s Commentary (ed. Akçay, 32).

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4.2 Testimonies of the Qur’ān Given the supreme reverence and authority which Muslims hold for the Qur’ān as God’s speech to mankind, it is not surprising that the Arabic scripture sooner or later would come to the attention of the Christians living among them.66 Although Christians did not consider the Qur’ān canonical scripture, they often quoted or alluded to certain passages as prooftexts for Christian doctrines and practices. Essentially, this is an extension of the very early tradition in Christianity of drawing support from Old Testament testimonia.67 This method of prooftexting the Qur’ān is already attested in the earliest Christian works in Arabic that have reached us: the two untitled apologetic treatises known as On the Triune Nature of God and the Christian Arabic Disputation, both dated to the second half of the eighth century.68 Besides quoting testimonies from the Bible, the anonymous Melkite authors of these works also quoted recognizably, though not always accurately, a few passages from the Qur’ān in defense of the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation.69 The use of prooftexts from the Qur’ān by Arabic Christians already came to maturity in the ninth century Disputation of Abū Qurra at the Court of al-Maʾmūn.70 Eventually, this apologetic use of the Qur’ān would reach its high point in Arabic around the

66 See the standard survey by Sidney H. Griffith, “The Qur’an in Christian Arabic Literature: A Cursory Overview,” in Arab Christians and the Qur’an from the Origins of Islam to the Medieval Period, ed. Mark Beaumont, The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 35 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2018), 1–19; and, similarly, Sidney H. Griffith, “Christians and the Arabic Qur’ān: Prooftexting, Polemics, and Intertwined Scriptures,” IHIW 2 (2014): 243–66. See also Gordon Nickel, “‘Our Friendly Strife’: Eastern Christianity Engaging the Qur’an,” in CMR, vol. 15, 255–79; and Clare E. Wilde, Approaches to the Qur’an in Early Christian Arabic Texts (750–1258 C.E.) (Bethesda–Dublin–Palo Alto: Academica Press, 2014). 67 See the excellent study on this by Martin C. Albl, “And Scripture Cannot be Broken”: The Form and Function of the Early Christian Testimonia Collections, Novum Testamentum: Supplements 96 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 1999). 68 See Mark N. Swanson, “Fī tathlīth Allāh al-wāḥid,” in CMR, vol. 1, 330–33; Mark N. Swanson, “A Christian Arabic Disputation (PSR 438),” in CMR, vol. 1, 386–7. 69 See Griffith, “The Qur’an in Christian Arabic Literature,” 5–8; and Mark N. Swanson, “Beyond Prooftexting: Approaches to the Qur’ān in Some Early Christian Arabic Apologies,” MW 88 (1998): 297–18, esp. 303–5. As Swanson demonstrates, the author of On the Triune Nature even went “beyond prooftexting,” by tacitly interweaving Qur’ānic phrases into his own explanations of the Trinity and the Incarnation, as if Muslim scripture and Melkite theology are in harmony. 70 See Sidney H. Griffith, “The Development of an Apologetic Argument: Abū Qurrah in the Mağlis of al-Maʾmūn,” PO 24 (1999): 203–33.

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end of the Abbasid period in the anonymous Commentary on the Nicene Creed (ca. 1170) and Paul of Antioch’s Letter to a Muslim Friend (ca. 1200).71 Since Christian Arabic apologetic literature developed out of the Syriac tradition, the Muslim scripture also made its presence felt in Syriac apologetic texts in response to Islam. A striking difference, however, is that in Syriac rarely any attempt is made to quote the Qur’ān directly. Most typically, one merely recognizes allusions to some of its teachings, like the very popular reference to Jesus’s epithet “Word and Spirit of God” (cf. Q 4:171).72 In fact, the few early Syriac apologists who did attempt to quote the Qur’ān directly, though not always accurately, were Timothy I and the anonymous author of the Disputation of Bēt Ḥālē.73 To find similar quotations after these two East Syriac writers, one has to wait until the period of the Syriac Renaissance. Gregory bar ʿEbrōyō (d. 1286) is one author to do so, especially in his apologetic theology.74 Another writer is, of course, Dionysius bar Ṣalībī (d. 1171), in whose Disputation against the Arabs the use of Qur’ānic

71 See Griffith, “The Qur’an in Christian Arabic Literature.” This fascinating but neglected Commentary, composed by an anonymous East Syrian in Baghdad around 1170, has recently been fully published by Pierre Masri, Commentaire du credo de Nicée: Anonyme du 12ème siècle, 3 vols., Patrimoine Arabe Chrétien 27–29 (Beyrouth: Éditions du CEDRAC, 2011–21). For Paul of Antioch’s Letter, see the contribution of Thomas Carlson in this volume. 72 For a discussion, see Barbara Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam, The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 9 (Leiden– Boston: Brill, 2008), 104–21; Jakob, Syrisches Christentum, 305–27. For a possible early reference to another passage, see G. Reinink, “An Early Syriac Reference to Qur’ān 112?,” in All Those Nations. . .: Cultural Encounters Within and With the Near East. Studies Presented to Han Drijvers at the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday by Colleagues and Students, ed. H. L. J. Vanstiphout et al., COMERS/ICOG Communications 2 (Groningen: Styx Publications, 1999), 123–30. 73 See Martin Heimgartner, “The Letters of the East Syrian Patriarch Timothy I: Scriptural Exegesis between Judaism, Christianity and Islam,” in Exegetical Crossroads: Understanding Scripture in Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Pre-Modern Orient, ed. Georges Tamer et al., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Tension, Transmission, Transformation 8 (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2018), 47–60, here 54–56; and Taylor, “The Disputation between a Muslim and a Monk of Bēt Ḥālē,” esp. §29, 48, and 53. Another eighth century East Syriac text which almost certainly would have contained quotations from the Qur’ān in Syriac is a lost Refutation of the Qur’ān by a writer from Timothy’s entourage, see M. Swanson, “Abū Nūḥ al-Anbārī,” in CMR, vol. 1, 397–9. 74 For Bar ʿEbrōyō’s quotations, see Joseph Khoury, Candélabre du sanctuaire de Grégoire Abou’lfaradj dit Barhebraeus. Quatrième base: de l’Incarnation, Patrologia Orientalis 31/1 (Paris: Firmin– Didot, 1963), 259–62 (index), as well as François Nau, “Deux textes de Bar Hébraeus sur Mahomet et le Qoran,” Journal Asiatique 210 (1927): 311–29. See also Herman Teule, “The Transmission of Islamic Culture to the World of Syriac Christianity: Barhebraeus’ Translation of Avicenna’s Kitāb alIšārāt wa l-Tanbīhāt: First Soundings,” in Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interactions in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam, ed. J. J. Van Ginkel, H. L. Murre-van den Berg, and T. M. Van Lint, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 134 (Leuven–Paris–Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2005), 167–84, here 169.

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testimonies reaches its absolute climax in Syriac literature.75 Moreover, of all the aforementioned Syriac authors, Bar Ṣalībī is the only one who cites the Qur’ān to counter charges of taḥrīf.76 Given the relatively limited use of the Qur’ān in Syriac texts, it is quite remarkable to encounter such a sustained endorsement of its probative value in a text as early as George’s. One of his proofs for the truth of the Gospel are “the testimonies of the Scriptures about it” (§5.5). These Scriptures (ktōbē) containing testimonies (sōhdwōtō) to the Gospel would not only be the Old Testament according to George, but also the Qur’ān.77 This is obvious from the preceding discussion in which he quotes two prooftexts from the Qur’ān and alludes to it once more. In order to demonstrate that the Gospel at the very least cannot have been falsified during the period before the coming of “their prophet,” George points out that the latter “has said that it was spoken to him that he should come to those who hold the Scriptures (aylēn d-īt b-īdayhūn ktōbē) to find the truth” (§3). Here, one clearly recognizes the allusion to the ahl al-kitāb, the “People of the Book,” as Jews and Christians (and Sabians) are called in the Qur’ān. George’s underlying assumption is that Muḥammad would not have been sent to ask guidance from Jews and Christians if their Scriptures were corrupt. This point is further developed by quoting two utterances of Muḥammad in which the People of the Book are highly spoken of as ones who possess authoritative knowledge in matters of scriptural interpretation. George’s second quotation is clearly based on the first half of Q 10:94. The only significant differences from the standard Arabic text of the Qur’ān are the omission of the phrase “about that which We have sent down to you,” and the general shift from the singular to the plural form: George of Bʿeltan, Ch. 49 (§3)

Q 10:94a

̇ ‫ܘܐܢ ܡܬܦܫܟܝܢ ܐܢܬܘܢ ̇ܫܐܠܘ‬ ‫ܠܗܢܘܢ‬ ̈ ‫ܕܐܚܝܕܝܢ‬ ‫ܟܬܒܐ ܩܕܡܝܟܘܢ‬ ̣

َ‫فَإِن ُكنتَ فِي ش ٍَّك ِ ّم َّما أَنزَ ْلنَا إِلَيْكَ فَاسْأ َ ِل الَّذِين‬ َ‫َاب ِمن قَ ْبلِك‬ َ ‫يَ ْق َر ُءونَ ْال ِكت‬

And if you are doubtful [. . .], ask those who have been holding the Scriptures before you.

So if you are in doubt about that which We have sent down to you, then ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you.

75 See Jacobs, “Syriac Testimonies against the Muslims.” 76 See footnote 88. 77 This is also how Bar Ṣalībī (ed. Akçay, 33) understood George’s argument, through the intermediary of Bar Kephā. The relevant part of Bar Kephā’s own response is lost.

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His first quotation, on the other hand, has no straightforward parallel in the Qur’ān: “O, (those) who hold the Scriptures, confirm the things which We have brought to you in words” (§3). Yet, the sentence has a distinct Qur’ānic ring to it. The first phrase echoes the direct address “O, People of the Book” (yā ahl al-kitāb), or similar phrases like “O, those who were given the Book” (yā alladhīna ūtū l-kitāb), which occur several times in the Qur’ān.78 The second phrase recalls the Qur’ān’s language of confirmation of earlier scriptures.79 Typically, the Qur’ān the active participle muṣaddiq, from ṣaddaqa, “to confirm” is used here. Most frequently, the object of confirmation is “what is between their hands” (mā bayna yadayhi) or “what is with them” (mā maʿahum).80 In both cases, this refers to the Scriptures that God had previously given to the Jews and the Christians. As for the subject of confirmation in these verses, this generally refers to the Qur’ān itself. For example, Q 3:3 says: “He sent down upon you the Book in truth, confirming what is between their hands. And He has sent down the Torah and the Gospel.”81 Thus, a major discrepancy between George and the Qur’ān is that the latter holds that the new revelation confirms the earlier Scriptures rather than vice versa. Given George’s recognizable but not very accurate quotations, it would be unreasonable to suppose that he had access to the text of the Qur’ān or excerpts thereof in written form. Moreover, while we know that he was at great ease with Greek, he clearly lacked proficiency in Arabic, in contrast to his East Syriac counterpart, Catholicos Timothy I.82 Therefore, the most likely explanation would be that he was simply quoting from memory as he recalled the probative value of these verses. And he could either have picked up these references from recitation by Muslims or from Christians who reported it to him. This mode of oral transmission was also how other Christian apologists from the early Abbasid period accessed the message of the Qur’ān.83 In fact, at one point in Timothy’s Disputation, he even explicitly says: “I heard that this is also written in your scripture,” to go on to loosely quote from it.84

78 See Moshe Sharon, “People of the Book”, in EQ, vol. 4, 36–43. 79 I rely here on Nickel, Narratives of Tampering, 47–48. 80 For mā bayna yadayhi, see Q 2:97; 3:3, 50; 5:48; 6:92; 35:31; 46:30; and 61:6. For mā maʿahum, see Q 2:41, 89, 91, 101; 3:81; and 4:47. 81 My translation. 82 For George’s lack of knowledge of Arabic, see Wood, The Imam of the Christians, 74–75. 83 For an insightful discussion of the ways in which Christian apologists accessed the text of the Qur’ān other than through a muṣḥaf of the Qur’ān, see Roggema, The Legend, 134–6. 84 Heimgartner, Timotheos I. Disputation, § 19, 31.

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George’s mode of access to the message of the Qur’ān will remain a matter of conjecture. What is clear, however, is the way in which his appeal to the Qur’ān’s praise of the People of the Book and their Scriptures would be shared by many later Christian apologists who sought to uphold the authenticity of the Bible vis-àvis Muslims. One of George’s prooftexts, Q 10:94, would become very common in this respect. A few decades after him, the Arabic writer al-Kindī also quotes it as the first of a series of four testimonies from the Qur’ān, to try to sway his Muslim correspondent to the fact that his own book bears witness to the veracity of the Bible.85 Likewise, the verse is quoted in the Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā to prove that the “Holy Gospel is truer than any book, and cannot be impaired by those who want to discredit it, nor can it be referred to in terms of falsification and corruption.”86 A similar argumentation is found in the refutation of Islamic origins by Būluṣ ibn Rajāʾ, and in the twelfth century Commentary on the Nicene Creed.87 As for Syriac texts, Q 10:94 would become a favorite anti-taḥrīf prooftext of Bar Ṣalībī. In fact, it is quoted by him no less than five times to this end, in combination with similar verses.88 George also pioneered another way to support the integrity of the Bible by means of the Qur’ān. As mentioned above, he provides a third, more allusive reference to one of its teachings. In his analysis of the “who”-question, George rules out that the apostles were the ones who falsified the Gospel on the grounds that the Muslims themselves “testify about them that they were excellent men (gabrē ṭarqē) who did not commit this act” (§4). Here, George appears to be referring to the high esteem for the disciples of Jesus in the Qur’ān, to support that they certainly would not falsify the proclamation of their master. The disciples of Jesus are mentioned four times in the Qur’ān (Q 3:52; 5:111, 112; 61:14). They are called ḥawāriyyūn (sg. ḥawārī), which is an Ethiopic loanword of ḥawāryā, meaning “messengers.” What would eventually become the most popular Muslim etymology, however, is the view that ḥawārī derives from the Arabic ḥawar, meaning “intense whiteness.” In this connection, some commentators report that the apostles wore pure white garments, or they hold that the term refers to the 85 Newman, Early Christian-Muslim Dialogue, 498–9 (trans.). The three subsequent prooftexts quoted by al-Kindī are Q 5:50, 5:70, and 5:72. 86 Roggema, The Legend, §16.19, 468–9 (text and trans.). 87 See David Bertaina, Būluṣ ibn Rajāʾ: The Fatimid Egyptian Convert Who Shaped Christian Views of Islam, Arabic Christianity: Texts and Studies 4 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2022), §18, 114–15 (trans.), and the discussion on p. 52; and Masri, Commentaire, chapter 20, §14 (vol. 3, 249), where it is quoted in a long sequence of similar verses against taḥrīf. 88 Amar, Reponse to the Arabs, 86, 97, 129, 134 (text); 79, 90, 123, 129 (trans.). Q 10:94a is also quoted in his response to taḥrīf in his Commentary (ed. Akçay, 33). Other verses quoted by Bar Ṣalībī in this connection include Q 3:110, 4:47, 5:46, 5:66, and 61:14.

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purity of their hearts. This respectful reading is also connected to the fact that Jesus is said to have called them “my helpers (anṣārī) unto God” (Q 3:52; 61:14).89 Given the term’s interpretation, it is not unlikely to suppose that George is referring to the positive view of the apostles of Jesus in the Qur’ān as it was emerging during the early Abbasid period. This way, he was hoping to make a bid for the credibility of their witness to Christ’s Gospel. This argument, too, would be repeated by many later Christian apologists. Several Arabic writers casually refer to the apostles by their Qur’ānic names to co-opt their high status.90 Many would also quote one or more of the four abovementioned verses. For example, the Disputation of the Monk Abraham of Tiberias underscores the fact that the apostles are called “helpers of God” (Q 3:52; 61:14) as proof of the reliability of their witness concerning the crucifixion and the preservation of Christ’s Gospel.91 The same verse is also quoted to underscore the apostles’ faithfulness and election in the Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā, the Commentary on the Nicene Creed, as well as by Paul of Antioch.92 In Syriac, it is even quoted three times by Bar Ṣalībī to argue that the apostles were upright and did not alter the Bible.93

4.3 True Religion Apology The label “True Religion Apology” was coined by Mark Swanson to describe a kind of apologetic discourse that became very popular among Christian Arabic apologists of the ninth century, and which continued to be frequently used in Arabic writings up until at least the fourteenth century. Its purpose was, as Swanson puts it, to discern “on the basis of reason [. . .] that Christianity is the true and

89 See A. H. Mathias Zahniser, “Apostle,” in EQ, vol. 1, 123. 90 See, e.g., Sidney H. Griffith, “Answers for the Shaykh: A ‘Melkite’ Arabic Text from Sinai and the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation in ‘Arab Orthodox’ Apologetics,” in The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam, ed. Emmanouela Grypeou, Mark Swanson and David Thomas, The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 5 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2006), 277–309, here 297; Masri, Commentaire, vol. 3, 414 (general index); Ibrahim and Hackenburg, In Search of the True Religion, 86–87; 94–95 (text and trans.). 91 Marcuzzo, Dialogue, 390–7 (text and trans.). 92 See Roggema, The Legend, §16.20, 468–9 (text and trans.); Masri, Commentaire, vol. 3, chapter 16, §47, 38 (text); and Paul Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, évêque melkite de Sidon (XIIe s.): Texte établi, traduit et introduit, Recherches publiées sous la direction de l’Institut des Lettres Orientales de Beyrouth 24 (Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique, 1965), 64✶ (text), 172 (trans.). 93 Amar, Dionysius bar Ṣalībī, 97, 129, 135 (text); 89–90, 123, 131 (trans.). This verse is also alluded to in his Commentary (ed. Akçay, 32).

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God-pleasing dīn among the various possibilities on offer.”94 In its bare outline, the argument has two components: Positively, it discusses the valid motives by which people have embraced a given religion as God’s true one. Negatively, it lists the worldly, all too human motives by which a religion other than the true one might be accepted. On the positive side, the appeal is made to two standard Christian apologetic arguments based on the miracles performed by Jesus and his followers, and the prophecies fulfilled in Christ. On the negative side, these humanly-understandable motives for the acceptance of a false religion typically include coercion, material gain, tribal or ethnic solidarity, personal approval of teachings, and license with regards to laws, to which individual apologists may add a few more. Although hardly any Christian apologists says this explicitly, Griffith observes that such lists were “devised specifically in the effort to exclude Islam from any claim to be the true religion.”95 One of the first Christian Arabic apologists to develop this argument was Theodore Abū Qurra (d. ca. 825). In his Theologus autodidactus, he lists six unworthy motives for which people have accepted a religion: constraint by the sword; the hope of gain, whether of wealth, power or status; ethnic or tribal solidarity; license to indulge lusts; or the personal approval (al-istiḥsān) of familiar or easy doctrines.96 Around the same time or slightly later, also Abū Rāʾiṭā, ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī, and Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq developed similar ideas in Arabic.97 Ibn Isḥāq (d. 873), for example, lists these six reasons in his response to Ibn al-Munajjim: coercion; deliverance from need or trial; gain in social status or power; a deceptive founder using elegant speech; an ignorant public; and kinship solidarity. In addition, he stresses that, of all the religions in the world, the doctrines of the Christians are “the most difficult, the farthest from convincing (people).”98 Griffith notes that no Christian

94 Mark N. Swanson, “Christians, Muslims and the True Religion,” in CMR, vol. 15, 73–97, here 84. 95 Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2008), 98. 96 As summarized in Swanson, “Christians, Muslims, and the True Religion,”, 86, based on Qunūʿ al-ʿaql al-sūqī, in “On the Confirmation of the Gospel,” in Qusṭanṭīn al-Bāshā [Bacha], Mayāmir Thāwudūrus Abī Qurra usquf Ḥarrān (Beirut, 1904), 73. 97 See Swanson, “Christians, Muslims, and the True Religion,” 84–91. For al-Kindī’s version of the argument, see also Mourad Takawi, “ʿAbd al-Masīḥ al-Kindī (d. ca. 830): On the Path of God and Discerning the True Religion,” in Medieval Encounters, 133–64. Several unworthy reasons are also briefly mentioned in the ninth century Disputation of the Monk Abraham of Tiberias (Marcuzzo, Dialogue, 396–9 [§293], text and trans.), and the tenth century Melkite text known as Answers for the Shaykh (Griffith, “Answers for the Shaykh,” 297). 98 As summarized in Swanson, “Christians, Muslims and the True Religion,” 90, based on Samir K. Samir and P. Nwyia, Une correspondence islamo-chrétienne entre Ibn al-Munaǧǧim, Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq et Qusṭa ibn Lūqā (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981), 698 (§78–80). See also Mark N. Swanson, “A

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before these ninth century Arabic writers attempted such an argument, and concludes that it is “an original contribution to apologetics on the part of anti-Muslim apologists of the first Abbasid century.”99 In a later publication, Griffith speculates that Ibn Isḥāq was “[p]erhaps the earliest Christian thinker to devise such a scheme.”100 More recently, Mark Beaumont suggests that it was Abū Qurra “who came up with the idea.”101 George’s chapter reveals that neither Ibn Isḥāq nor Abū Qurra, nor any other Arabic Christian writer of the ninth century could have come up with this idea. This is so because it already features in George’s text. This does not necessarily mean that it was our Patriarch who “invented” it. Rather, it would simply seem that reflexions of this kind were already circulating in Syriac Christian milieus during the second half of the eighth century. Historically, it makes sense that Christians around this time were busy discussing the reasons for why a religion other than the true one gained acceptance: It was then that the first waves of Christian conversion to Islam were taking place. In the wake of Caliph ʿUmar II’s (d. 720; 101 AH) fiscal reforms promoting tax equality for all Muslims, regardless of their ethnicity, it became very attractive for Christians to throw off the yoke of their dhimmī status in exchange for full participation in the life of Muslim society. A case in point is the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, which was written in northern Mesopotamia around 775, during George’s tenure as Patriarch. The chronicler expresses his bafflement about how Christians around him at a massive scale had “slipped toward apostacy with great eagerness.”102 George’s version of the apology appears at the end of his chapter, where he lists “another way” to refute the charge of taḥrīf. This other way consists of listing five causes (ʿelōtō) through which the truth of the Gospel can be known. George develops both positive and negative criteria to discern the truth of the Gospel. Positively, he draws on the classic Christian arguments based on miracles and prophecies. As such, he points to the ability of the Gospel’s commandments to heal the infirmities of the soul (§5.2), the Gospel’s knowledge of future events (ʿatīdōtō) (§5.3), as well

Curious and Delicate Correspondence: The Burhān of Ibn al-Munajjim and the Jawāb of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq,” ICMR 22 (2011): 173–83; and Diego R. Sarrió Cucarella, “‘On How to Discern the Truth of Religion,’ by Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq: The Impersonal Recension,” Islamochristiana 44 (2018): 163–71. 99 Sidney H. Griffith, “Comparative Religion in the Apologetics of the First Christian Arabic Theologians,” Proceedings of the PMR Conference 4 (1979), 63–87, here 75. 100 Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, 98, n. 80 101 Mark Beaumont, The Theology of ʻAmmār al-Basrī: Commending Christianity within Islamic Culture, Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 62 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press 2021), 96. 102 Harrak, Chronicle of Zuqnīn, 324.

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as the testimonies to the Gospel found in other scriptures (§5.5). Negatively, George argues that the Gospel was accepted in the absence of the following five motives: “compulsion of power,” “the gift of riches,” “elegance of speech,” “slyness of modes of ideas,” and “the acquisition of conviction of consolation” (§5.4). These motives clearly prefigure the ones that the apologists of the ninth century adduced. While coercion and material gain occur on every list without exception, the use of deception or trickery through elegant speech or cunning ideas is especially emphasized by Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq and ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī. George’s fifth motive, the assurance of consolation, is somewhat ambiguous. Probably, this refers to the consolation acquired from the promise of Paradise. In this respect, it may be similar to “the desire for the Hereafter, and the hope of its attainment,” listed by Abū Rāʾiṭa.103 George does not mention collusion or tribal or ethnic solidarity as one of the motives, while all ninth century apologists discuss this. George provides two more motives, which are formulated positively. By arguing that the first proof of the Gospel’s truth is the fact that its teaching “transcends all earthly lusts,” (§5.1) he is implicitly saying that the Qur’ān’s teaching does the opposite. If so, he could have been thinking of the pursuit of fleshly desires being promoted either in this life by licentious laws like polygamy or divorce, or by the promise of carnal delights in the afterlife. This, at least, are motives which are highlighted by later apologists.104 In addition, George stresses that the Gospel’s teaching “is beyond all minds, to the point that it is even considered folly (šīṭutō)” (§5.4). One recognizes here the allusion to Paul’s saying that the preaching of a crucified Christ is “a stumbling block for Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23). The turn side to this is, of course, that the Qur’ān’s message is presumed to have been accepted because its doctrine of God is simple and easy to grasp. Arabic authors typically use here the term al-istiḥsān, personal preference or reasoned approval. As mentioned, Ibn Isḥāq contrasts this to the Christian doctrines that are “the most difficult to understand,” which according to him indicates that these teachings were not man-made, but God-given. Earlier in the chapter, George had already set the stage for his argument by highlighting that none of these unworthy motives apply to the way in which the message of the Gospel was spread by the apostles. Accordingly, he makes the point that attracting followers by appealing to their desire for material gain cannot be suspected of them, because “they were living in poverty and commanded many to live this way” (§2). Moreover, they “were commanded to possess no purse, no bag,

103 Keating, Defending the “People of Truth”, 82–83 (text and trans.) (= Letter on the Proof of the Christian Religion and the Proof of the Holy Trinity). 104 Swanson, “Christians, Muslims and the True Religion,” 84–88.

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and no staff” (§4), a reference to Jesus’ words when he sent out the twelve Apostles (Mark 6:8). Furthermore, the apostles did not attract followers through the use of force, elegant speech or cunning ideas, because they were “simple people (hedyuṭē, from the Greek idiōtēs) who did not know to write” (§4).105 In addition to tracing the True Religion Apology to Syriac milieus of the later eighth century, George’s chapter also urges us to revisit its place in Syriac literature more generally. Despite its ubiquity in later Christian Arabic texts, it is usually considered quite rare in Syriac.106 Herman Teule points out that one of the few Syriac writers to develop this argument is Jacob bar Shakkō (d. 1241). Teule discovered that Bar Shakkō devoted an entire work to this topic which was called the Manifest Truth (Šrōrō Galyō). Although this work is not preserved, from a summary by the author himself in his Book of Treasures, we learn that his main argument is very similar to that of earlier apologists. While the true religion is strong and can subsist on its own, Bar Shakkō argues, a false religion requires the support of three external pillars to persist: the wealth (ʿutrō) of corrupting rulers and judges, the power (šulṭōnō) by which rulers can impose falsehood, and the use of cunning and deceitful language (mhīrut lešōnō).107 Another Syriac writer to systematically develop similar ideas is Gregory bar ʿEbrōyō (d. 1286). In the fourth part of his theological encyclopedia, the Candelabrum of the Sanctuary, Bar ʿEbrōyō adduces proof for Christianity on the basis of seven “intelligible miracles” (i.e., miracles that are conceivable by the mind, as opposed to being perceptible by the senses): the strange, good news (sbartō aksnōytō) of the Trinity and the Incarnation, which only the perfect can understand, was successfully preached by guileless people (nōšō tmīmē) and simple, illiterate workers; the apostles did not make any worldly promises to their followers; they used neither sword nor force against those who disbelieved or resisted; they lived without worldly ambition, material gain, or bodily pleasure; their message was accepted at a time when the world more than ever abounded with prophetic teachings and philosophies; their preaching was not only accepted in uncivilized places like the desert, but also in great and famous cities like Antioch,

105 Note in this respect that George devotes chapter 39 of his introduction to explaining why the Gospel was preached by fishermen and simple people, see Vatican, MS Syriac 154, fols. 218v–219r. 106 A case in point is Teule’s observation (“Jacob bar Shakko,” 241) that, besides Bar Shakkō, “only Bar Ṣalībī seems to have developed similar ideas [in Syriac literature].” 107 See Teule, “Jacob bar Shakkō,” 241; and, more extensively in Herman Teule, “Jacob bar Šakkō, the Book of Treasures and the Syrian Renaissance,” in Eastern Crossroads: Essays on Medieval Christian Legacy, ed. J.-P. Monferrer-Sala, Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 1 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press 2007), 143–54, here 152–3.

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Rome, and Athens; and, finally, their message was accepted not only by ordinary people, but also by men who were versed in the Torah and profane wisdom.108 Since these two West Syriac writers flourished in the thirteenth century, the Christian Arabic tradition could, of course, have exerted an influence on them.109 Nevertheless, the evidence from George’s chapter suggests that such ideas may have been more common to Syriac literature than hitherto assumed. Some traces are certainly found in Syriac apologetic texts. Nonnus of Nisibis (d. ca. 870), for instance, emphasizes the point that the twelve apostles were foreign, unlearned men, who had neither arms nor wealth at their disposal.110 However, it is not solely to this genre that one should turn. Another promising avenue of research is historiography. In this respect, one notices that Syriac chroniclers frequently depict Muḥammad or Muslim rulers after him as having appealed to the very kind of incentives as those discussed above in order to attract new followers or keep older ones in check.111 A case in point is the account of the rise of Islam in the Chronicle of Dionysius of Tell-Maḥrē (d. 845). Dionysius portrays Muḥammad as having established Islamic rule by promising and delivering great riches to those who followed him, subjugating by force all those who resisted, teaching familiar doctrines, indulging human lusts by promising carnal delights in Paradise, and allowing forbidden things like polygamy and divorce.112 Essentially, this narrativizes all the standard motives by which a false religion has spread that are listed by George and the Christian apologists of the ninth century. Since Dionysius of Tell-Maḥrē was also a monk at the monastery of Qenneshre and inherited the Patriarchal See of Antioch three decades after George’s death, it is even possible that he was directly influenced by him. In turn, Dionysius’ historical account was

108 Khoury, Candélabre du sanctuaire, iii, 1, 2, 56–63 (text and trans.). Bar ʿEbrōyō’s intriguing use of the true religion apology thus far appears to have remained unnoticed. 109 Since Bar ʿEbrōyō elsewhere in Base IV of the Candelabrum draws from Elias of Nisibis’ Kitāb al-majālis (Jacobs, “Unveiling Christ,” 199–201), this text may have been a source of inspiration for him here as well. For Elias’ argument, see Swanson, “Christians, Muslims and the True Religion,” 88. 110 Griffith, “Apologetic Treatise,” 128. 111 For the earliest Christian sources in Syriac and other languages, see Robert G. Hoyland, “The Earliest Christian Writings on Muḥammad: An Appraisal,” in The Biography of Muḥammad: The Issue of the Sources, edited by Harald Motzki, Islamic History and Civilization 32 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2000), 276–97. See, recently, also Charles Tieszen, Christian Encounter with Muhammad: How Theologians Have Interpreted the Prophet (London: Bloomsbury, 2020). 112 For a recent attempt to reconstruct the lost, original text, see Bert Jacobs, “The Rise of Islam according to Dionysius of Tell-Maḥrē: Tentative Reconstruction through Three Dependent Texts,” Le Muséon 133, no. 1–2 (2020): 207–34, here 222–6. Given the subversive character of Dionysius’ narrative, it has fittingly been described as an example of Islamic counter-history. For an excellent discussion of this concept, see Roggema, The Legend, 29–35.

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seminal for later Syriac conceptions of Islamic origins. This process was further amplified by its re-use in the Chronicle of Michael Rabō (d. 1199), the anonymous Chronicle of the Year 1234, as well as in Bar Ṣalībī’s Against the Arabs.113 A full diachronic study of such motives in Syriac chronicles in comparison to other sources, including Islamic ones, would be a welcome contribution.

5 Text and Translation Since the text is edited from a codex unicus, Vatican, MS Syriac 154, there are no textual variants. The text of chapter 49 is a little over two columns long and runs from fol. 1.b.ra to 1.b.va. Note that the first three folios of the MS are numbered 1, 1.a, and 1.b; from number 2 onwards, the foliation continues in the expected manner. Although the ink of a few words has faded, the Esṭrangēlā script remains legible throughout. I have applied as few as possible corrections to the Syriac text or to its punctuation, which have been indicated by brackets. The title of the chapter, the subheading of §5 (“Another way. . .”), and Syriac letters enumerating the five additional proofs are written in red ink in the MS, as has been reproduced in the edition. The facing English translation follows the principle of “as literal as possible, as free as necessary.” Sense words which I have supplied in the translation to aid the reader are placed within parentheses. References to scriptural citations are provided in the footnotes. Folio breaks and their numeration are included in the Syriac text and indicated by a fronted vertical line. Since the text in the manuscript is written in two columns, I have also indicated these column-breaks by -a and -b. In the facing English translation, I have indicated the corresponding places of these folio- and column-breaks with a vertical line. The division in paragraphs and their numeration in brackets is my own.

113 The text re-uses by these three authors are analyzed in Jacobs, “The Rise of Islam,” 215–22.

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̄ 1.bra ‫ܢܦܐ ܥܠ ܫܪܪܗ‬ ̣ ‫ ܠܘܩܒܠ ̈ܚ‬114 ‫ܡܛ‬ .‫ܕܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ‬ ̈ ̇ ]1[ ‫ܕܡܫܚܠܦ ܠܢ ܣܓܝܐܬܐ‬ ̣ ‫ܐܡܪܝܢ ܓܝܪ‬ ̇ ‫ ܗܠܝܢ ܓܝܪ ܢܫܬܐܠܘܢ‬.‫ܒܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ‬ ‫ܡܫܚܠܦ܆‬ ̣ ‫ ܕܐܡܬܝ ܐܫܬܚܠܦ ܐܘ‬.‫ܗܟܢܐ‬ ‫ ܘܡܛܠ‬.‫ܘܡܢ ܐܢܘܢ ܗܠܝܢ ܕܫܚܠܦܘܗܝ‬ ‫ ܘܐܝܠܝܢ ̈ܡܐܠ ܡܢܗ‬.‫ܡܢܐ ܫܚܠܦܘܗܝ‬ .‫̇ܫܚܠܦܘ‬

(Chapter) 49. Against the Pagans concerning the Veracity of the Gospel.

̈ ̈ ]2[ ‫ܘܦܘܩܕܢܐ ܟܐܡܬ܆ ܐܘ ܗܢܝܢ‬ ‫ܘܢܡܘܣܐ‬ ̇ ‫ ܐܘ ܗܢܝܢ ܕܡܛܠ‬.‫ܕܗܝܡܢܘܬܐ ܕܒܐܠܗܐ‬ ̈ ‫] ܐܘ‬.[‫ ܘܐܝܢܐ ܝܘܬܪܢܐ ˺ܨܒܘ‬.116‫ܥܒܕܐ‬ ̇ ‫ܦܓܪܢܝܐ‬ .‫ ܕܢܥܦܘܢ ܒܗܕܐ‬118‫ ܐܬܛܟܢܘ‬117 ̣ ‫ ܘܗܐ ܦܓܪܢܝܐ ܐܠ ܟܠ‬.‫ܐܘ ܪܘܚܢܝܐ‬ ‫ ܡܛܠ ܕܒܡܣܪܩܘܬܐ‬.‫ܕܒܥܘ‬ ̣ ‫ܟܠܗ ̇ܚܙܝܢܢ‬ ̇ ‫ܠܣܓܝܐܐ‬ ‫ ܘܦܩܕܝܢ ܗܘܘ‬.‫ܚܐܝܢ ܗܘܘ‬ ̣ ‫ ܪܘܚܢܝܐ ܕܝܢ ܐܝܟܢܐ‬.1.brb|‫ܕܗܟܢܐ ܢܐܚܘܢ‬ ‫ܠܗܘ[ܢ] ܡܬ ̣ܝܗܒ ܗܘܐ܇ ܟܕ ܒܕܠܚܘܒܐܠ‬ ̇ ‫ܚܙܐ ܡܢ ܗܠܝܢ‬ ̣ ‫ ܘܟܠ‬.‫ܐܠܠܗܐ ܡܠܦܝܢ‬ ̇ ‫ܐܪܒܥ܆ ܠܝܬ ܠܗܘܢ ܕܢܚܘܘܢ ܒܣܗܕܘܬܐ‬ .‫ܫܪܝܪܬܐ‬

[2] Perhaps (they changed the words of) the laws and the commandments, or those of the faith in God, or those concerning actions? But what gain did they desire or devise to increase by (doing) this: material or spiritual? Observe material (gain): We do not see at all that they desired (this), for they were living in (voluntary) poverty and commanded many to live this way. | As for spiritual (gain), how would this be delivered to them when — because they teach about God that which is corrupt, and everyone saw it from these four (Gospels) — they would have nothing to declare in true testimony?

[1] They say that many things in the Gospel have been changed by us.115 But these (charges) should be questioned as follows: When was it changed or being changed? Who are those who changed it? Why did they change it? And which words of it did they change?

114 In the margin. 115 It makes more sense to read mšahlaf, “have been changed” (pass. part.), rather than mšahlef (act. part.), “he changes,” although the number and genre do not match the subject sagiyōtō, “many things” (fem. pl.). Presumably, the simplest form of the participle (i.e., masc. sg.) was chosen instead of mšahlfōn (fem. pl.) because it appears at the beginning of the phrase. The same phraseology is ̈ ̈ ̇ , “They say to used by Bar Kephā: ‫ܐܡܪܝܢ ܠܢ ܓܝܪ ܚܢܦܐ ܕܡܫܚܠܦ ܠܟܘܢ ܣܓܝܐܬܐ ܡܢ ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ‬ us: ‘Many things from the Gospel have been changed by you,’” see Jacobs, “Appraising Bar Ṣalībī’s Knowledge of Islam,” forthcoming. 116 The ink of the word has faded. It could also be ‫ ܥܒ̈ܪܐ‬, “transgressions [of the law?],” but this seems less likely in this context. 117 Inserted in the margin by a Serṭō hand. ̇ 118 The words ‫ ܨܒܘ‬and ‫ ܐܬܛܟܢܘ‬are reversed in the manuscript, but this was corrected by using triple dots above each of the two words.

An Early Syriac Response to the Charge of Taḥrīf in George of Bʿeltan’s Commentary 

̇ ‫ܐܡܪ ܐܢܐ‬ ̇ ‫] ̇ܗܝ ܕܐܡܬܝ‬3[ ‫ܘܡܢ܇ ܘܡܛܠ‬ ‫ ܐܢ ܗܟܝܠ ܢܐܡܪܘܢ‬.‫ܡܢܐ܇ ܘܐܝܠܝܢ ̈ܡܐܠ‬ ‫ܗܘ‬ ̣ ‫ܕܩܕܡ ܡܐܬܝܬܗ ܕܢܒܝܐ ܕܝܠܗܘܢ܆ ܗܐ‬ ‫ܕܐܬܐܡܪ ܠܗ ܕܢܐܬܐ ܠܘܬ ܐܝܠܝܢ‬ ‫ܐܡܪ܆‬ ̣ ̣ ̈ ̈ .‫ܕܐܝܬ ܒܐܝܕܝܗܘܢ ܟܬܒܐ܆ ܘܢܫܟܚ ܫܪܪܐ‬ ̈ ‫ܒܐܝܕܝܗܘܢ‬ ‫ܐܡܪ ܓܝܪ ܕܐܘ ܕܐܝܬ‬ ̣ ̈ ‫ܐܫܪܘ ܠܗܠܝܢ ܕܐܝܬܝܢܢ ܠܟܘܢ‬ ̣ ‫ܟܬܒܐ܆‬ ̇ ̈ ‫ ܘܐܢ ܡܬܦܫܟܝܢ ܐܢܬܘܢ ܫܐܠܘ‬.‫ܒܡܐܠ‬ ̈ ‫ܠܗܢܘܢ ܕܐܚܝܕܝܢ‬ ̇ ‫ ܘܗܐ‬.‫ܟܬܒܐ ܩܕܡܝܟܘܢ‬ ̣ ̇ ‫ܨܝܕܝܢ‬ ‫ܡܐܬܝܬܗ ܐܠ‬ ‫ ܘܒܬܪ‬.‫ܡܫܕܪ ܠܟܘܢ‬ ̣ ̇ ̈ ‫ܚܘܝܬ ܣܘܢܘܕܘܣ ܟܘܠ[ ] ܐܝܬ ܥܡܡܐ܇‬ ‫ܐܬ‬ ̣ ̈ ̈ 119 ̈ ‫ܘܛܝ ܝܐ ܘܦܪܣܝܐ ܘܒ̈ܪܒܪܝܐ‬ ‫ܝܘܢܝܐ‬ ̇ ̇ ‫ܘܣܘ̈ܪܝܝܐ܇ ܕܐܬܟܢܫܘ‬ ‫ܘܬܚܡܘ܇ ܕܐܝܠܝܢ‬ ̇ ‫ ܡܛܠ ܕܨܝܕ‬.‫ܢܒܨܪܘܢ ܘܐܝܠܝܢ ܢܘܣܦܘܢ‬ ‫ ̣ܗܘ ܟܕ‬.‫ܟܠܗܘܢ ܐܝܬܘܗܝ ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ‬ .‫̣ܗܘ‬

̇ ]4[ .‫ܘܡܢ ܐܢܘܢ ̇ܗܢܘܢ ܕܫܚܠܦܘܗܝ‬ ̇ ̈ ‫ ܣܗܕܝܢ ̣ܗܢܘܢ‬: ‫ܐܢ ܫܠܝܚܐ ܢܐܡܪܘܢ‬ ‫ ܘܐܠ‬.‫ܗܘܘ‬ ‫ܥܠܝܗܘܢ ܕܓܒ̈ܪܐ ܛ̈ܪܩܐ‬ ̣ ‫ ܘܐܦ‬.‫̇ܥܒܕܝܢ ܗܘܘ ܗܕܐ ܥܒܝܕܬܐ‬ ̈ ‫ ܘܗܐ‬.‫ܣܦܪܐ‬ ‫ܗܕܝܘܛܐ‬ ̣ ‫ܗܘܘ ܕܐܠ ̇ܝܕܥܝܢ‬ ̣ ‫ ܘܐܠ‬.‫ܐܬܦܩܕܘ ܕܐܠ ̣ܢܩܢܘܢ ܟܝܣܐ‬ ̣ ‫ ܡܕܝܢ ܫܪܪܐ ܗܘ‬.‫ܬܪܡܐܠ ܘܐܠ ܫܒܛܐ‬ ̇ 1.bva ‫ܘܐܡܪ‬ |‫ ܘܟܠܢܫ ̇ܡܘܕܐ‬.‫ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ‬ ̈ ‫ ܘܐܐܠ‬.‫ܕܒܐܝܕܝ ܟ̈ܪܝܣܛܝܢܐ ܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬ ̈ ̇ ̇ ‫ ܘܠܗܢܘܢ ܟܬܒܐ‬.‫ܡܢܐ ̣ܗܘܐ ܠܗܘ ܫܪܝܪܐ‬ ̈ .‫ܕܢܒܝܐ ܫ̈ܪܝܪܐ‬

 37

[3] So, at which time, I ask (again), who, why, and which words? If they should say (that it happened) before the coming of their prophet, see: He said that it was spoken to him that he should come to those who hold the Scriptures to find the truth. For he said: “O (those) who hold the Scriptures, confirm the things which We have brought to you in words,”120 and “If you are doubtful, ask those who have been holding the Scriptures before you.”121 See: He sends you to us! And after his coming, there is no proof whatsoever of a synod of all nations (in) which Greeks, Arabs, Persians, barbarians, and Syrians were gathered, (during which) they determined which (words) they would omit and which (words) they would add. (This is) because the Gospel is the same to all of them. [4] And who are those who changed it? If they should mention the apostles: They testify about them that they were excellent men who did not commit this act. In addition, they were simple people who did not know to write. And observe, they were commanded to possess no purse, no bag, and no staff.122 Therefore, the Gospel is true. And everyone acknowledges | and says that it is in the hands of the Christians. If not, what

119 In the margin written in perpendicular direction. 120 Or: “confirm in words the things which We have brought to you.” There is no direct parallel in the Qur’ān, although it has a distinct Qur’ānic ring to it, see 3.2. 121 Q 10:94a, see 3.2. 122 See Mark 6:8 and parallels in Luke 10:4 and Matthew 10:10.

38 

 Bert Jacobs

would be the true one according to him (i.e., their prophet), and (what would be) the true books of the prophets according to those (pagans)?

‫ ܡܬ ̣ܝܕܥ ܗܟܝܠ ܫܪܪܗ‬.‫] ܙܢܐ ܐܚܪܢܐ‬5[ .‫ܕܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܡܢ ܗܠܝܢ ̈ܥ ̣ܠܬܐ‬ ̄ ̇ .‫ ܡܢ ܚܠܝܡܘܬܐ ܕܝܘܠܦܢܗ‬123 .‫ܐ‬ ‫ܕܡܥܠܝ‬ ̄.‫] ܒ‬.[‫ܡܢ ܟܠܗܝܢ ̈ܪܓܝܓܬܐ ܐ̈ܪܥܢܝܬܐ‬ ̈ ‫ܡܢ ̇ܗܝ‬ ‫ܕܦܘܩܕܢܘܗܝ ̇ܡܐܣܝܢ ܠܟܠܗܘܢ‬ ̄ ̈ ‫ܝܕܥܬܗ‬ ‫ ܡܢ‬.‫ ܓ‬.‫ܢܝܐ ܕܟܘ̈ܪܗܢܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܐ‬ ‫̈ܙ‬ ̣ ̈ ̄ ̇ ‫ ܡܢ ܗܝ ܕܩܒܠܘܗܝ ܟܠܗܘܢ‬.‫ ܕ‬.‫ܒܥܬܝܕܬܐ‬ ̈ ̈ ‫ܘܬܐ ܕܐܠ ܩܛܝܪܐ‬ ‫ܘܐܡ‬ ‫ܥܡܡܐ‬ ̣ ‫ܕܫܘܠܛܢܐ܇ ܐܘ ܝܗܝܒܘܬ ܡܡܘܢܐ܇ ܐܘ‬ ̈ ‫ܣܩܝܠܘܬ ܡܠܬܐ܇ ܐܘ ܨܢܝܥܘܬ‬ ‫ܗܘܦܟܝ‬ ̈ .‫ܚܘܫܒܐ܇ ܐܘ ܡܩܢܝܘܬ ܦ ̣ܝܣܐ ܕܡܡܐܠ‬ ̈ ‫ܕܝܘܠܦܢܗ ܠܥܠ ܡܢ ܟܠܗܘܢ ܗܘܢܐ‬ ‫ܡܛܠ‬ ̣ ‫ܛܘܬܐ‬ ‫ܝ‬ ‫ܫ‬ ‫ܕܐܦ‬ ‫ܥܕܡܐ‬ ‫ܐܝܬܘܗܝ܆‬ ̣ ̈ ‫ܣܗܕܘܬܐ‬ ̈ ‫] ܡܢ‬.[‫ܡܣܬܒܪ ܀ ̄ܗ‬ ‫ܕܟܬܒܐ‬ ̣ ̈ ‫ ܟܠ ܟܬܒܐ ܗܟܝܠ ܕܡܬܟܢܫܢ‬.‫ܕܥܠܘܗܝ‬ ‫ ̣ܗܘܝܘ ܫܪܪܐ ܓܡܝܪܐ‬.‫ܒܗ ܗܠܝܢ ܟܠܗܝܢ‬ .‫ ܘܟܠ ܕܚܣܝܪ ܡܢ ܗܠܝܢ ܡܕܡ‬.‫ܘܡܫܡܠܝܐ‬ ‫ܐܘ ܕܓܠ ܣܟ܆ ܐܘ ܐܠ ܡܫܡܠܝܐ‬ .‫ܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬

[5] Another way: The truth of the Gospel is known from these causes. First, from the soundness of its teaching, which transcends all earthly lusts. Second, from the fact that its commandments heal all sorts of infirmities of the soul. Third, from its knowledge of the things that are to come. Fourth, from the fact that all nations and peoples accepted it without compulsion of power, or the gift of riches, or elegance of speech, or slyness of modes of ideas, or the acquisition of conviction of consolation. (This is) because its teaching is beyond all minds, to the point that it is even considered folly.124 Fifth, from the testimonies of the Scriptures about it. Therefore, every book in which all these things are collected is the perfect and complete truth. And everything that is lacking from them is either entirely false or imperfect.

123 In the margins. 124 See 1 Cor 1:23. On these unworthy motives for accepting a religion, see 4.3.

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Bibliography Manuscripts Mardin. Church of the Forty Martyrs. MS 356. Vatican. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Syriac 154. London. British Library. MS Add 17274.

Primary Sources Akçay, Nahir. The Commentary on the Gospels by Dionysius Jacob Bar Salibi, Metropolitan of Amid (†1171). Damascus: Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate, 2018. Amar, Joseph P. Dionysius Bar Ṣalībī: A Response to the Arabs. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 614–15: Scriptores Syri 239–40. Leuven: Peeters, 2005. Bertaina, David. Būluṣ ibn Rajāʾ: The Fatimid Egyptian Convert Who Shaped Christian Views of Islam. Arabic Christianity: Texts and Studies 4. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2022. Chabot, J.-B. Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche Jacobite d’Antioche (1166–1199). 4 vols. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1899–1904. de Urbina, Ignatius Ortiz. Patrologia syriaca. 2nd edition. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1965. Ebied, Rifaad Y. “The Syriac Encyclical Letter of Athanasius II, Patriarch of Antioch, which Forbids the Partaking of the Sacrifices of the Muslims.” In Orientalia Christiana: Festschrift für Hubert Kaufhold zum 70. Geburtstag. Eichstätter Beiträge zum Christlichen Orient 3. Edited by Peter Bruns and Heinz Otto Luthe, 169–74. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013. Harrak, Amir. The Chonicle of Zuqnīn, Parts III and IV A.D. 488–775. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1999. Heimgartner, Martin. Timotheos I., Ostsyrischer Patriarch: Disputation mit dem Kalifen Al-Mahdī. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 631–32: Scriptores Syri 244–45. Leuven: Peeters, 2011. Ibrahim, Ayman S. and Clint Hackenburg. In Search of the True Religion: Monk Jurjī and Muslim Jurists Debating Faith and Practice. Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 69. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022. Jeffery, Arthur. “Ghevond’s Text of the Correspondence between ‘Umar II and Leo III.” Harvard Theological Review 37, no. 4 (1944): 269–332. Keating, Sandra T. Defending the “People of Truth” in the Early Islamic Period: The Christian Apologies of Abū Rāʾiṭah. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 4. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2006. Khoury, Joseph. Candélabre du sanctuaire de Grégoire Abou’lfaradj dit Barhebraeus. Quatrième base: de l’Incarnation. Patrologia Orientalis 31/1. Paris: Firmin–Didot, 1963. Khoury, Paul. Paul d’Antioche, évêque melkite de Sidon (XIIe s.): Texte établi, traduit et introduit. Recherches publiées sous la direction de l’Institut des Lettres Orientales de Beyrouth 24. Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique, 1965. Marcuzzo, Giacinto Bulus. Le dialogue d’Abraham de Tibériade avec ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Hāšimī à Jérusalem vers 820. Textes et études sur l’Orient chrétien 3. Rome: Institut Oriental et Université Pontificale du Latran, 1986.

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Masri, Pierre. Commentaire du credo de Nicée: Anonyme du 12ème siècle, 3 vols., Patrimoine Arabe Chrétien 27–29. Beyrouth: Éditions du CEDRAC, 2011–21. Nau, François. “Deux textes de Bar Hébraeus sur Mahomet et le Qoran.” Journal Asiatique 210 (1927): 311–29. Newman, N. A. Early Christian-Muslim Dialogue: A Collection of Documents from the First Three Islamic Centuries (632–900 A.D): Translations with Commentary. Hatfield, PA: Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1993. Penn, Michael P. “John and the Emir: A New Introduction, Edition, and Translation.” Le Muséon 121, no. 1–2 (2008): 65–91. Roggema, Barbara. The Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 9. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2008. Saadi, Abdul-Massih. Moshe Bar Kepha’s Commentary on the Gospel of Luke. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 59. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press 2020. Taylor, David G. K. “The Disputation between a Muslim and a Monk of Bēt Ḥālē: Syriac Text and Annotated English Translation.” In Christsein in der islamischen Welt: Festschrift für Martin Tamcke zum 60. Geburtstag. Edited by Sidney H. Griffith and Sven Grebenstein, 187–242. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015. Vööbus, Arthur. Syriac and Arabic Documents Regarding Legislation Relative to Syrian Asceticism. Stockholm: Etse, 1960. Vööbus, Arthur. Syrische Kanonessammlungen: Ein Beitrag zur Quellenkunde. Vol. 1: Westsyrische Originalurkunden I, A. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 307. Leuven: Secrétariat du Corpus SCO, 1970. Vööbus, Arthur. The Synodicon in the West Syrian Tradition. Vol. 2. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 375–76. Leuven: Peeters, 1976.

Secondary Literature Accad, Martin. “Did the Later Syriac Fathers take into Consideration their Islamic Context when Reinterpreting the New Testament?.” PO 23 (1998): 13–32. Albl, Martin C. “And Scripture Cannot be Broken”: The Form and Function of the Early Christian Testimonia Collections. Novum Testamentum: Supplements 96. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 1999. Assemani, J. S. and S. E. Assemani. Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae codicum manuscriptorum catalogus in tres partes. Vol. 3. Rome: Maisonneuve, 1759. Badawi, Elsaid M. and Muhammad Abdel Haleem. Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage. Vol. 1. Handbook of Oriental Studies–Section 1: The Near and Middle East 85. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2008. Barsaum, Ignatius Aphrem I. Kitab al-lūʾlūʾ al-manthūr fī taʾrīkh al-ʿulūm wa’l-adab al-Suryāniyya. 4th edition. Glane-Losser: Passeggiata, 1987. Baumstark, Anton. “Syrische Fragmente von Eusebios περὶ διαφωνίας εὐαγγελίων.” OC 1 (1901): 378–82. Baumstark, Anton. “Die Evangelienexegese der syrischen Monophysiten.” OC 2 (1902): 151–69, 358–89. Baumstark, Anton. Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, mit Ausschluss der christlich-palästinensischen Texte. Bonn: A. Marcus und E. Webers Verlag, 1922.

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Beaumont, Mark. The Theology of ʻAmmār al-Basrī: Commending Christianity Within Islamic Culture. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 62. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2021. Beyer, Gerhard. “Die Evangelischen Fragen und Lösungen des Eusebius in Jakobitischer Ǜberlieferung und deren nestorianische Parallelen.” OC 24 (1927): 80–97. Bundy, D. “Georges de Beʿeltân.” In DHGE. Vol. 20, 595–99. Cucarella, Diego R. Sarrió. “‘On How to Discern the Truth of Religion,’ by Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq: The Impersonal Recension.” Islamochristiana 44 (2018): 163–71. Freidenreich, David M. “Muslims in Canon Law, 650–1000.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 83–98. Gaudeul, J.-M. and R. Caspar. “Textes de la tradition musulmane concernant (falsification) des écritures.” Islamochristiana 6 (1980): 61–104. Griffith, Sidney H. “Comparative Religion in the Apologetics of the First Christian Arabic Theologians.” Proceedings of the PMR Conference 4 (1979): 63–87. Griffith, Sidney H. “The Prophet Muḥammad: His Scripture and His Message According to the Christian Apologies in Arabic and Syriac from the First Abbasid Century.” In La vie du prophète Mahomet: Colloque de Strasbourg, Octobre 1980. Edited by Toufic Fahd, 99–146. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1980. Griffith, Sidney H. “Chapter Ten of the Scholion: Theodore Bar Kônî’s Apology for Christianity.” OCP 47, no. 1 (1981): 158–88. Griffith, Sidney H. “The Apologetic Treatise of Nonnus of Nisibis.” ARAM 3 (1991): 115–38. Griffith, Sidney H. “Disputes with Muslims in Syriac Christian Texts: From Patriarch John (d. 648) to Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286).” In Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter. Edited by Bernard Lewis and Friedrich Niewöhner, 251–73. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992. Griffith, Sidney H. “The Development of an Apologetic Argument: Abū Qurrah in the Mağlis of al-Maʾmūn.” PO 24 (1999): 203–33. Griffith, Sidney H. “Answers for the Shaykh: A ‘Melkite’ Arabic Text from Sinai and the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation in ‘Arab Orthodox’ Apologetics.” In The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam. Edited by Emmanouela Grypeou, Mark Swanson, and David Thomas, 277–309. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 5. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2006. Griffith, Sidney H. The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2008. Griffith, Sidney H. “Christians and the Arabic Qur’ān: Prooftexting, Polemics, and Intertwined Scriptures.” IHIW 2 (2014): 243–66. Griffith, Sidney H. “The Qur’an in Christian Arabic Literature: A Cursory Overview.” In Arab Christians and the Qur’an from the Origins of Islam to the Medieval Period. Edited by Mark Beaumont, 1–19. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 35. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2018. Heimgartner, Martin. “The Letters of the East Syrian Patriarch Timothy I: Scriptural Exegesis between Judaism, Christianity and Islam.” In Exegetical Crossroads: Understanding Scripture in Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Pre-Modern Orient. Edited by Georges Tamer et al., 47–60. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Tension, Transmission, Transformation 8. Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2018. Hoyland, Robert G. “The Earliest Christian Writings on Muḥammad: An Appraisal.” In The Biography of Muḥammad. The Issue of the Sources. Edited by Harald Motzki, 276–97. Islamic History and Civilization 32. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2000. Ibrahim, Ayman S., ed. Medieval Encounters: Arabic-speaking Christians and Islam. Gorgias Handbooks 55. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022.

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Jacobs, Bert. “Unveiling Christ in the Islamicate World: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Prophetology as a Model for Christian Apologetics in Gregory Bar ʿEbrōyō’s Treatise on the Incarnation.” IHIW 6, no. 1–2 (2018): 187–216. Jacobs, Bert. “The Rise of Islam according to Dionysius of Tell-Maḥrē: Tentative Reconstruction through Three Dependent Texts.” Le Muséon 133, no. 1–2 (2020): 207–34. Jacobs, Bert. “Syriac Testimonies Against the Muslims: The Qur’anic Quotations in Dionysius bar Ṣalībī’s Disputation against the Arabs.” PhD Thesis. Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2021. Jacobs, Bert. “Appraising Bar Ṣalībī’s Knowledge of Islam: Insights from a Neglected Response to the Charge of Biblical Falsification.” In Dionysius bar Ṣalībī: Guardian of the Syriac Orthodox Tradition. Edited by Bert Jacobs, Herman Teule, and Joseph Verheyden. Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity. Leiden–Boston: Brill, forthcoming. Keating, Sandra T. “Refuting the Charge of Taḥrīf: Abu Rāʾiṭa (d. ca. 835) and his ‘First Risāla on the Holy Trinity’.” In Ideas, Images, and Methods of Portrayal: Insights into Classical Arabic Literature and Islam. Edited by Sebastian Günther, 41–58. Islamic History and Civilization 58. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2005. Levy-Rubin, Milka. “Praise or Defamation? On the Polemic Usage of the Term Ḥanīf Among Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 28 (2003): 202–25. McCullough, John C. “Early Syriac Commentaries on the New Testament.” Theological Review 5, no. 1 (1982): 14–33 and no. 2 (1982): 79–126. Moss, Yonathan. “‘A Religion Assembled from Many Religions:’ A Syncretizing Characterization of Islam attributed to Cyril of Alexandria.” Henoch 39 (2017): 287–305. Nickel, Gordon. “‘Our Friendly Strife’: Eastern Christianity Engaging the Qur’an.” In CMR. Vol. 15, 255–79. Nickel, Gordon. Narratives of Tampering in the Earliest Commentaries on the Qur’ān. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 13. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2011. Penn, Michael P. Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World. Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Penn, Michael P. When Christians First Met Muslims: A Sourcebook of the Earliest Syriac Writings on Islam. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015. Rassi, Salam. Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World: ʿAbdīshōʿ of Nisibis and the Apologetic Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Reinink, Gerrit J. “An Early Syriac Reference to Qur’ān 112?.” In All Those Nations. . .: Cultural Encounters Within and With the Near East. Studies Presented to Han Drijvers at the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday by Colleagues and Students. Edited by H. L. J. Vanstiphout et al., 123–30. COMERS/ICOG Communications 2. Groningen: Styx Publications, 1999. Reinink, Gerrit J. “The ‘Book of Nature’ and Syriac Apologetics Against Islam: The Case of Job of Edessa’s Book of Treasures.” In The Book of Nature in the Middle Ages. Edited by A. Vanderjagt and K. van Berkel, 71–84. Groningen Studies in Cultural Change 16. Leuven–Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2005. Roggema, Barbara. “Pour une lecture des dialogues islamo-chrétiens en syriaque à la lumière des controverses internes à l’islam.” In Les controverses religieuses en syriaque. Edited by Flavia Ruani, 261–93. Études syriaques 13. Paris: Geuthner 2016. Romeny, Bas ter Haar. “Question-and-Answer Collections in Syriac Literature.” In Erotapokriseis: Early Christian Question-and-Answer Literature in Context. Edited by Annelie Volgers and Claudio Zamagni, 145–63. Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 37. Leuven–Paris–Dudley, MA: Peeters 2004.

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Schaffner, Ryan. “The Bible through a Qur’ānic Filter: Scripture Falsification (Taḥrīf) in 8th- and 9th-Century Muslim Disputational Literature.” PhD Thesis. Ohio State University, 2016. Schlimme, Lorenz. “Die Bibelkommentar des Moses Bar Kepha.” In A Tribute to Arthur Vööbus, Studies in Early Christian Literature and Its Environment, Primarily in the Syrian East. Edited by R. H. Fischer, 63–72. Chicago, IL: Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, 1977. Sharon, Moshe. “People of the Book.” In EQ. Vol. 4, 36–43. Sloan, Michael C. “Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as the Original Locus for the Septem Circumstantiae.” Classical Philology 105 (2010): 236–51. Swanson, Mark N. “Beyond Prooftexting: Approaches to the Qur’ān in Some Early Christian Arabic Apologies.” MW 88 (1998): 297–318. Swanson, Mark N. “A Curious and Delicate Correspondence: The Burhān of Ibn al-Munajjim and the Jawāb of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq.” ICMR 22 (2011): 173–83. Swanson, Mark N. “Fī tathlīth Allāh al-wāḥid.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 330–33. Swanson, Mark N. “A Christian Arabic Disputation (PSR 438).” In CMR. Vol. 1, 386–87. Swanson, Mark N. “Abū Nūḥ al-Anbārī.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 397–99. Takawi, Mourad. “ʿAbd al-Masīḥ al-Kindī (d. ca. 830): On the Path of God and Discerning the True Religion.” In Medieval Encounters, 133–64. Tannous, Jack. The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. Teule, Herman. “Ishoʿyahb bar Malkon.” In CMR. Vol. 4, 331–38. Teule, Herman. “The Transmission of Islamic Culture to the World of Syriac Christianity: Barhebraeus’ Translation of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Išārāt wa l-Tanbīhāt: First Soundings.” In Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interactions in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam. Edited by J. J. Van Ginkel, H. L. Murre-van den Berg and T. M. Van Lint, 167–84. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 134. Leuven– Paris–Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2005. Teule, Herman. “Jacob bar Šakkō, the Book of Treasures and the Syrian Renaissance.” In Eastern Crossroads: Essays on Medieval Christian Legacy. Edited by J.-P. Monferrer-Sala, 143–54. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 1. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007. Teule, Herman. “The Syriac Renaissance.” In The Syriac Renaissance. Edited by Herman Teule, Carmen Tauwinkl, Bas ter Haar Romeny and Jan van Ginkel, 1–30. Eastern Christian Studies 9. Leuven– Paris–Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2010. Teule, Herman. “Jacob bar Shakkō.” In CMR. Vol. 4, 240–44. Tieszen, Charles. Christian Encounter with Muhammad: How Theologians Have Interpreted the Prophet. London: Bloomsbury, 2020. Wilde, Clare E. Approaches to the Qur’an in Early Christian Arabic Texts (750–1258 C.E.). Bethesda–Dublin– Palo Alto: Academica Press, 2014. Witakowski, Witold. “Giwargis of Bʿeltan.” In e-GEDSH, https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Giwargisof-Beltan. Wood, Philip. The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, c. 750–850. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021. Yanagihashi, Hiroyuki. Studies in Legal Hadith. Studies in Islamic Law and Society 47. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2019. Zahniser, A. H. Mathias. “Apostle.” In EQ. Vol. 1, 123.

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Qur’ānic Letter versus Spirit: Approaches to the Qur’ān in Kitāb Usṭāt al-rāhib and Masāʾil wa-ajwiba ʿaqliyya wa-ilāhiyya Abstract: Christians in the Middle East read, interpreted, and quoted the Qur’ān to find confirmation of their beliefs, in response to Muslim critique of Christianity. This paper analyzes the approaches of two Arab Christian thinkers, whose works are unedited. The first, Eustathius the Monk, challenges the consistency of Islamic views on the “Word of God” by means of the very text of the Qur’ān. The second author, an anonymous Palestinian monk, integrates the Qur’ān in a long list of writings of which he claims they reveal the truth of Christianity, albeit unknowingly. The two authors’ creativity and apologetic ingenuity are highlighted here.

1 Preliminaries In his book Faces of Muhammad: Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today John Tolan analyzes a wide variety of European writings about Islam and its prophet. He shows that they contain rather diverse forms of image-making and answers to the question as to where Islam came from and how it relates to Christian beliefs and ethics. In his attempt to show that European images of Islam are “anything but monolithic and far from being invariably hostile,” he reminds his readers of Louis Massignon (d. 1962), the twentieth-century Islamic scholar and Catholic thinker, who embraced Muḥammad as an Abrahamic prophet whose praiseworthy role was to bring people to the worship of one god.1 Tolan also draws attention to one of Massignon’s students, Giulio Basetti-Sani (d. 2001), a Franciscan whose thought about the Prophet evolved during his lifetime from initially viewing him as a satanically inspired figure to ultimately uncovering him as a true prophet — not as the Prophet of Islam, but rather as a Prophet of

1 John V. Tolan, Faces of Muhammad: Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), 15, and ch. 9 on Massignon. Acknowledgements: I thank David Bertaina and Octavian-Adrian Negoiță for their useful comments and corrections. Potential errors in this paper remain my own responsibility. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-003

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Christianity.2 Basetti-Sani was convinced that if readers follow his particular exegetical trail through the Qur’ān, they will come to understand how Qur’ānic critique of Christianity is restricted to its heretical forms, while in reality all that is good and right in the Qur’ān and in Islam only finds its most profound meaning and its perfect complement in Christ.3 Basetti-Sani’s interpretation of the Qur’ān was met with scorn and skepticism from Catholics and non-Catholics alike. In a review of The Koran in the Light of Christ, Josef Muzikář wrote: “This monograph is marked by a virtually spasmodic effort to see Muhammad as a link in the chain of Christian philosophy of salvation [. . .]. However, Basetti-Sani fails to explain, even on a speculative level, the problem of the ‘lateness in the time of Islam in relation to Christianity,’ and merely states that the reason why Jesus is veiled with mystery in the Koran still has to be found.”4 However farfetched or inconclusive Basetti-Sani’s approach may have seemed to contemporary readers like Muzikář, it is worth pointing out that his Christianizing hermeneutics of the Qur’ān are not as revolutionary as he and his European readers may have thought. Well-known examples from late medieval Europe are the Catholic thinkers Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64) and John of Segovia (d. 1458), both of whom hoped to find new, sophisticated, and nonviolent methods to convince Muslims of their faith. Although they were impregnated by their predecessors with virulently negative ideas about the Muḥammad’s alleged diabolical intentions and perverted views and lifestyle, they turned to the Qur’ān to demonstrate from its very text that Christian doctrine does, in fact, find support in it.5 The wheat of the Qur’ān had to be separated from the chaff.

2 Tolan, Faces of Muhammad, 239–41. 3 Giulio Basetti-Sani, Il Corano nella luce di Cristo: saggio per una reinterpretazione cristiana del libro sacro dell’islam (Bologna: Edizioni Nigrizia, 1972) and Giulio Basetti-Sani, Gesù Cristo nascosto nel Corano (San Pietro in Cariano: Il Segno 1994). 4 Josef Muzikář, “Review of Giulio Basetti-Sani O.F.M., The Koran in the Light of Christ: A Christian Interpretation of the Sacred Book of Islam,” Archiv orientální 53 (1985): 189–90. 5 In contrast to the Arabic works discussed in this paper, scholarly discussions of the thought of these two Latin authors are quite extensive. For some interesting recent discussions, see Nathan Ron, Nicholas of Cusa and Muhammad: A Critical Revisit (New York: Peter Lang, 2023); Jan Červenka, “Nicholas of Cusa on Islam: Conflict or Continuation of Ideas in De Pace Fidei and Cribratio Alkorani,” Studia Comeniana et Historica 46 (2016): 41–57; Davide Scotto, Juan de Segovia e il Corano: Convertire i musulmani nell’Europa del Quattrocento, Storie interreligiose 1 (Menaggio: Villa Vigoni, 2022); Davide Scotto, “Projecting the Qur’an into the Past: A Reassessment of Juan de Segovia’s Disputes with Muslims in Medina del Campo (1431),” in The Iberian Qur’an: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times, ed. Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers, The European Qur’an 3 (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2022), 107–32.

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An example of this very approach can be found in a work written in both Latin and Arabic by Michel Nau (d. 1683), a Jesuit missionary. In his Religio christiana contra Alcoranum per Alcoranum pacifice defensa ac probate (Ithbāt al-Qur’ān li-ṣiḥḥat al-dīn al-Masīḥī), he combed through the Qur’ānic text to find passages in support of Christian monotheism, morality, and truth.6 Nau worked in the Middle East as a Jesuit missionary, learnt excellent Arabic, and was probably inspired by Christian-Muslim debates written in Arabic. Among Arabic-speaking Christians it is not a rarity to find thinkers who believed that a Christian core can be extracted from the Qur’ān or that, even if it preaches a different religion, it at least contains an unambiguous endorsement of the Christian faith. They drew attention to the fact that Christians are characterized as “believers” in the Qur’ān and that it refers to the Bible as a source of truth and guidance. Two famous examples are the apologists Elias of Nisibis (d. 1046), who belonged to the Church of the East, and Paul of Antioch, a Melkite bishop who lived sometime between 1027 and 1235.7 Their approaches need not surprise us. They are examples from a centuries-long search by Middle Eastern Christians for persuasive approaches to Islam that could provide members of their communities with suitable answers to Islamic critique of Christianity and help to maintain the basic sense of coherence in their own doctrines. Highlighting the Christian thread in the Qur’ān was one possible approach and it turned out to be a successful one among Arabic-speaking Christians. Although making a sharp distinction between Western European attitudes to Islam and Middle Eastern Christian ones is perhaps unjustified, it seems that in the Middle East the type of sharp polemic in which Islam’s claim to a divine origin is attacked full-frontally is much less common than in Europe. This difference may be due to the fact that in the Middle East, Christians were challenged more frequently

6 See, among others, Beirut, Université Saint-Joseph, Bibliothèque orientale, MS 681, and Bernard Heyberger, “Michel Nau,” in CMR, vol. 9, 601–9. 7 For Elias of Nisibis, see, Nikolai Seleznyov, ed., Kitāb al-Majālis l-Mār Ilīyyā Muṭrān Nuṣaybīn wa-Risālatuhu ilā l-wazīr al-kāmil Abī l-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī (Moscow: Grifon, 2018) [Arabic and Russian]; and David Bertaina, “An Arabic Christian Perspective on Monotheism in the Qur’ān: Elias of Nisibis’ Kitāb al-majālis,” in Heirs of the Apostles: Studies on Arabic Christianity in Honor of Sidney H. Griffith, ed. David Bertaina, Sandra Toenies Keating, Mark N. Swanson and Alexander Treiger, Arabic Christianity: Texts and Studies 1 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2019), 3–21. For Paul of Antioch, see Herman Teule, “Paul of Antioch’s Attitude towards the Jews and the Muslims: His Letter to the Nations and the Jews,” in The Three Rings: Textual Studies in the Historical Trialogue of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ed. Barbara Roggema, Marcel Poorthuis and Pim Valkenberg (Leuven–Paris–Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2005), 91–110, and the contribution by Thomas A. Carlson in this volume. For contemporary ideas along the same lines, see Bishara Ebeid, “Can the Qur’ān be Read in the Light of Christ? Reflections on Some Melkite Authors and Their Use of the Holy Book of Islam,” Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 18 (2021): 37–74.

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to defend their own beliefs. Dismissive polemics are hardly effective in a social setting where the polemicist is living under a dominant Other, except as a limited means to strengthen one’s own communal solidarity. Such polemics, more often than not, fail to rebut the opponents’ counterarguments. This is why, as the result of contact between Muslims and Christians in Syria and Iraq from the seventh century onward, increasingly sophisticated apologetic methods were developed, in which aspects of Islam and the Qur’ān were carefully weighed.8 This does not mean that the overall purpose of these writings was not apologetic — in the sense that it defends a Christian’s position not to convert to Islam — or polemical — in the sense of convincing Muslims that rejecting Christianity is wrong. Besides, neat categorizations of genres and the intentions are hardly straightforward. What we see above all in the third/ninth century Middle East is an enormous laboratory in which the various religions experimented with arguments and rhetorical strategies in defense of their religion consisting of philosophical, exegetical, historical, and logical types of argumentations, probing the limits of each of these. For those who declined to convert to Islam and wanted to justify their adherence to their indigenous faith, Islam was a moving target during the first three centuries. While the pre-orthodox Islamic community at large was grappling with issues such as the (non-)creation of the Qur’ān, the reliability of Prophetic sayings, the definition of divine unity and theory of uṣūl al-dīn, not to speak of the debates regarding specific doctrines such as the resurrection, free will versus predestination, the definition of “Muslim” and “believer,” etc., the ideas of those who wanted to explain why they did not want to convert Islam were moving along on these waves of Islam’s internal debates. As the various schools of thoughts of Islam crystallized, in the side wings of this spectacle, Christians as well as freethinkers, Jews, Zoroastrians and Manichaeans tested and challenged the consistency of Islamic beliefs and doctrines.9 In debates with Muslims, the actual text of the Qur’ān played a major role. Arabic-speaking Christians used the Qur’ān to find words that express their own beliefs, at variance with Islam, while at the same time laying bare what they perceived as scriptural and doctrinal inconsistencies.10 The text perhaps best known

8 Some useful reflections on the main themes and approaches in their writings can be found in Gordon Nickel, “‘Our Friendly Strife:’ Eastern Christianity Engaging the Qur’an,” in CMR, vol. 15, 255–79. 9 For the intellectual dynamism of these early centuries, see especially Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam, 6 vols (Berlin: Walter de Gruyer, 1991–97). 10 Mark N. Swanson, “Beyond Prooftexting: Approaches to the Qur’ān in Some Early Arabic Christian Apologies,” MW 88 (1998): 297–318; Paul Khoury, Matériaux pour servir à l’étude de la

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for neatly dividing the Qur’ān into a category of Christian verses proper and a category of verses circumstantial to Muḥammad’s environment is the legend of Sergius Baḥīrā.11 According to this Christian aetiologia of the rise of Islam, which draws its inspiration from Muslim stories about a monk’s recognition of Muḥammad as a prophet, the Qur’ān was originally intended as a Christian scripture. Over the course of time, however, the inability of the Arabs to grasp the full truth led to doctrinal and ritual simplifications in later Qur’ānic verses as well as to susceptibility to Jewish influence. By describing the gradual development of the Qur’ān in this way, Islam was portrayed as a watered-down version of Christianity with a local purpose: the preaching of monotheism to pagans.12 In the same vein, but without any of the great detail of this legend, Timothy I (c. 740–823), the famous Patriarch of the Church of the East who disputed with the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdī (r. 775–85) in the late second/eighth century, asserted that the Trinity was present in the Qur’ān merely in a covert fashion, so as not to derail the evangelization of polytheistic people not quite prepared for subtle doctrines.13

controverse théologique islamo-chrétienne de langue arabe du VIIIe au XIIe siècle, vol. 6: Exégèse chrétienne du Coran, Religionswissenschaftliche Studien 11 (Würzburg–Altenberge: Echter Verlag–Telos Verlag, 1999); Clare E. Wilde, Approaches to the Qur’ān in Early Christian Arabic Texts (750–1258 C.E.) (Bethesda–Dublin–Palo Alto: Academica Press, 2014); Sidney H. Griffith, “Christians and the Arabic Qur’ān: Prooftexting, Polemics, and Intertwined Scriptures,” IHIW 2 (2014): 243–66; Sidney H. Griffith, “The Qur’ān in Arab Christian Texts: The Development of an Apologetic Argument: Abū Qurrah in the Mağlis of al-Maʾmūn,” PO 24 (1999): 203–33; Sidney H. Griffith, “The Qur’an in Christian Arabic Literature: A Cursory Overview,” in Arab Christians and the Qur’an from the Origins of Islam to the Medieval Period, ed. Mark Beaumont, The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 35 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2018), 1–19; Barbara Roggema, “Monotheism and Convivencia: A Karšūnī Text about Islam and the Qur’ān,” in From Moscow to Baghdad: Studies on Middle Eastern Christianity in Memory of Nikolai Seleznyov, ed. Sergey Loesov, Sergey Minov, and Alexander Treiger, Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2024), forthcoming. 11 This “legend,” which is in fact a Christian apologetic text, can be found in Barbara Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Bahīrā: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam, The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 9 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2009). For this twofold interpretation of the Qur’ān, see Barbara Roggema, “A Christian Reading of the Qur’ān: The Legend of Sergius-Baḥīrā and Its Use of Qur’ān and Sīra,” in Syrian Christians under Islam: The First Thousand Years, ed. David Thomas (Leiden–Boston–Köln: Brill, 2001), 57–73. 12 Barbara Roggema, “Salvaging the Saintly Sergius: Hagiographical Aspects of the Syriac Legend of Sergius Bahira,” in Entangled Hagiographies of the Religious Other, ed. Alexandra Cuffel and Nikolas Jaspert (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, 2018), 55–83. 13 The importance of this argument in Middle Eastern Christian apologetics is discussed in Barbara Roggema, “Muslims as Crypto-Idolaters: A Theme in the Christian Portrayal of Islam in the Near East,” in Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule: Church Life and Scholarship in ʿAbbasid Iraq, ed. David Thomas, The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 1 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2003), 1–18, and the chapter mentioned in the previous note.

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The Patriarch is clear about his own faith: it is the culmination of revelation to which Islam does not add anything. Here too it is made clear that Islam has a function in the divine plan but that its relevance is restricted to a (formerly) pagan audience. When reading texts written by Christians in the Muslim world, from any of the various communities, the idea of a Christian substrate in the Qur’ān appears frequently, and the Qur’ān is quoted as support for that claim. It is more common to find Christian texts that adduce verses from the Qur’ān that show agreement with Christianity than texts which focus on essential differences. In one of his ground-breaking articles, Mark Swanson showed that Christian Arabic apologetics exploit the Qur’ān in subtle and unexpected ways. Twenty-five years after this publication, I intend to show in this chapter that Swanson’s call for close readings of such texts continue to produce new insights. I would like to analyze two intriguing Christian Arabic apologetic texts that display particularly creative and judicious approaches to the Qur’ān to find support for Christianity. The texts to be discussed are The Book of Eustathius the Monk (Kitāb Usṭāt al-Rāhib), and Questions and Answers, Rational and Divine (Masāʾil wa-ajwiba ʿaqliyya wa-ilāhiyya). These texts are unedited and little studied until now. The question as to how they evaluate and exploit the Qur’ān can only be answered by taking a close look at the style, structure, and argumentation of these works. I will take a close look at how the Qur’ān features in these texts and what it tells us about the apologetic methods adopted by their authors. The few studies devoted to these two texts until now have not commented on this particular aspect.

2 The Book of Eustathius the Monk (Kitāb Usṭāt al-Rāhib) The first work, The Book of Eustathius the Monk, was known to Georg Graf, who pointed out that the Coptic author Severus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. 987) referred to this author in his Brief Exposition of the Faith (al-Bayān al-mukhtaṣar fī l-īmān).14 This fact provides us with a terminus ad quem for Eustathius’ life. Severus also refers to him as “our brother,” which attests to his miaphysite identity. Graf suggested that he might be the same person as the monk Eustathius who was active in the translation movement of the ninth-century and who is known to have worked

14 Georg Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, vol. 2, Studi e Testi 133 (Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1947), 256–57.

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for al-Kindī.15 This strikes me as likely, not only because the name is not all that common, but also because the author of the apologetic text is deeply versed in Islamic thought and must have been active in a milieu where he frequently interacted with Muslim scholars. Although the text remains unedited until now, Mark Swanson has drawn attention to its rich contents which cover more than 200 folios and to the ways Eustathius draws on the Qur’ān.16 The work is an extensive apology for Christianity, written in response to those who call themselves strict monotheists, “such as the Jews.” Several chapters are dedicated to explaining the differences between various Christian communities and defending the Syrian-Orthodox position, while other parts are clearly specifically constructed in response to Islam. In those parts the Qur’ān is quoted extensively.17 Yet, there is no systematic exploration of it and many quotations are not labelled as such. The Qur’ān seems rather a tool that can be used for the defense of Christianity or the undermining of Islamic doctrine at any given time where it could be useful and the reader is left with the task of identifying the added scriptural force of the argument.18 There is no doubt that Eustathius expected his readers to be comfortable with lengthy arguments featuring snippets of Biblical and Qur’ānic citations and to be acquainted with the concomitant Christian-Muslim debates about these verses from other writings or live encounters. At times we find the simple “they say” as an introduction to a discussion of a Qur’ānic passage, such as:

15 This hypothesis was supported by G. Strohmaier, “Usṭāt̲ h̲,” in EI2, vol. 10, 927–28. 16 Mark N. Swanson, “‘Our Brother, the Monk Eustathius:’ A Ninth-Century Syrian Orthodox Theologian Known to Medieval Arabophone Copts,” Coptica 1 (2022): 119–40; Mark N. Swanson, “‘Folly to the Ḥunafāʾ:’ The Cross of Christ in Arabic Christian-Muslim Controversy in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries A.D” (PhD Thesis, Rome: Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica, 1992), 31–34, 123–24, 133, 201–3, 261–65; Eid Salah and Mark N. Swanson, “Usṭāth al-Rāhib,” in CMR, vol. 1, 907–10. 17 Without proper headings and with loose connections between various topics, it is not easy to isolate such sections. Here I will concentrate on fols. 133a to 145a of Birmingham, col. Mingana, MS Chr. Ar. 52, which is most densely speckled with Qur’ānic quotations. Not all the text is to be found in the other easily accessible manuscript, Aleppo, Fondation Georges et Mathilde Salem, MS Ar. 209 (see fig. no. 1). Scholars have not yet managed to get access to the three Cairene manuscripts (Salah and Swanson, “Usṭāth al-Rāhib,” 909). 18 The allusive style of the work would be easier to deal with in a critical edition, yet this characteristic is probably precisely the reason why such an edition does not exist.

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Birmingham, col. Mingana, MS Chr. Ar. 52, fol. 139v.19 Another point: They say “God is one, unique, singular and eternal.” Then they say “We created,” “We revealed,” and “We saved,” and “We sent down,” “We made known” and “We sent” and “We are the Makers” and “the Sowers” and things like that which belong to the discourse of a plurality, not to the discourse of one singular being. And if one tells them they are wrong, they say that this is the language of the Arabs. But how can that be as they claimed, while it is already present in the Torah, which was written in Hebrew?

‫ ثم انهم‬. ‫ووجه اخر يقولون هللا واحد احد فرد صمد‬ ‫يقولون خلقنا واوحينا ونجينا وانزلنا ونبينا وارسلنا‬ ‫ وما اشبهه ذلك مما هو‬. ‫ونحن الفاعلون والزارعون‬ ‫ فان انكر‬. ‫ ال هو من قول واحد فرد‬. ‫قول جماعة‬ ‫ فكيف‬. ‫ قالوا ان هذه هي لغة العرب‬. ‫ذلك عليهم‬ ‫يكون هذا كما ذكروا وهو موجود في التوراة وانما‬ . ‫كانت بالعبرانية‬

It is an example of how the Qur’ān is held against Islamic doctrine. Eustathius is referring to the frequently found statement echoing Q 112, according to which God is ṣamad, to which he applies to the frequently found synonym farad, meaning one and unique. It is one of the passages from the Qur’ān adduced already in early Umayyad times, most famously in the Dome of the Rock and on coins, as a slogan against Trinitarian conceptions of God. In his biography of Muḥammad, Ibn Hishām (d. 833; 218 AH) narrates how the Christians from Najrān objected to the Prophet about such a restrictive conception of the divine and adduced verses from the Qur’ān in which God speaks in plural.20 Ibn Hishām lashes out against Christians who cite such verses to create confusion and doubt. For him it is obvious that clear-cut verses (muḥkamāt) in the Qur’ān, including those stating pure monotheism, should have precedence over ambiguous ones (mutashābihāt). Eustathius has another idea of what is clear versus what is ambiguous, and he argues that Muslim readers have no argument as to why these verses should be subordinated to those in which God speaks in the singular. He appeals to the Hebrew Bible to argue that both can be used interchangeably and that in this way the mystery of the triune God was there for believers to reflect on. He makes it clear that for Arabic-speakers to claim that God is simply using a common Arabic form of pluralis majestatis is to fail to see that this is a form already found in the Hebrew Bible and to realize that this needs an explanation — one that Christians had already provided for ages.

19 In the passages cited here and further below, I retain the non-classical orthography of the Christian Arabic manuscripts. A minimal amount of interpunction has been added. 20 For a discussion of the passage in Ibn Hishām, see Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā, 133–34.

Qur’ānic Letter versus Spirit 

 53

The discussion thus goes beyond the basic question of the demonstrability of the Trinity and includes reflections on the value of the Arabic language in interreligious debate. The monk asserts the significance of Arabic for its clarity and its suitability for kalām, but he is also eager to point out its limitations when scriptural language becomes allusive and calls for sharḥ wa-taʾwīl wa-qiyās (“explication, interpretation and analogical reasoning”). Here he uses three important terms from kalām and exegesis, which were still used in a rather fluid way in the ninth century.21 A recognition of the need to interpret non-literal, seemingly contradictory and potentially blasphemous statements in the Bible and the Qur’ān forms the basis of several controversial topics he raises, such as the problem of theodicy, free will versus predestination and the divine attributes (ṣifāt Allāh). In his exploration of these challenging issues, the question as to how Scripture should really be read is addressed too — for example how its anthropomorphic language about God and supernatural passages should be interpreted. Eustathius stresses the importance of the use of clear Arabic, which according to him is a condition of kalām.22 Yet, he finds enough examples of indecisive divine speech. Without explicitly labelling his examples as Qur’ānic, he presents several partial quotes from the Qur’ān where God sounds unsure. In a story about Moses, God exhorts Moses to go the Pharaoh and “speak gently to him” (Q 20:44a), “so that perhaps he will be mindful or be frightened” (Q 20:44b).23 Eustathius says that the “perhaps” was expressed “after the knowledge of the matter” and asks if this is possible or not. He does not elaborate — the point would be that this is coming from God and God would certainly not be unaware of what effect Moses’ words were going to have unless the belief in God’s omniscience is abandoned. In the citation that follows there is a more elaborate explanation. Eustathius quotes the well-known critique of Christians contained in Q 5:116: “And when God said: ‘Jesus, son of Mary, did you say to the people: Take me and my mother as gods besides God?’.” In this verse Christ is confronted by God about the idea that people worship both him and his mother as gods (i.e., as though they are the object of a polytheistic form of worship). By quoting the verse, Eustathius evokes the various polemical exchanges between Christians and Muslims that revolved around this verse. The most immediate Christian reaction had been that this verse was “wrong,”

21 Josef van Ess, The Flowering of Muslim Theology, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge, MA– London: Harvard University Press, 2006), 159–60; Sarah Stroumsa, “Logic as Interconfessional Weapon in the Early Islamicate World: Manṭiq, Qiyās, Kalām,” Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 72 (2020): 181–201. Another term Eustathius uses frequently is naẓīr, an explanatory based on a parallel, similar to qiyās. 22 Birmingham, MS Chr. Ar. 52, fol. 134r–v. 23 Birmingham, MS Chr. Ar. 52, fol. 134v.

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(i.e., that it accused Christians of something that they simply do not do, that is to say, to worship Mary mother of Jesus as a deity).24 Interestingly, Eustathius analyses the verse in the same way Muslim exegetes did: “as for His saying ‘did you say?,’ this is an inquiry, whereas the statement of his answer is an admonishment.” The admonishment is not included in the Qur’ānic verse, but the point made is that God did not ask Jesus for information that he did not have, but rather threatened to reproach him if the answer was not going to be what he wanted it to be. In other words, the deification of Jesus and Mary remains a hypothetical. In this way, the accusation that Christians worship two Gods is attenuated in tafsīr. Eustathius undoubtedly alludes to that interpretation.25 He probably presumes knowledge of this exegetical debate on the part of his readers, since his words are quite succinct. The word he uses for “admonishment” (tawbīkh) also features in tafsīr. Eustathius was not the only Christian Arabic apologist who used this exegetical twist. It also features in the long Arabic version of the legend of Sergius Baḥīrā.26 After having cited more verses that contain questions and seeming uncertainties on the part of God and which force the readers to take a stance on the literal reading, the author moves on to discussing the ways in which the term “Word” (kalima) is used in the Qur’ān to refer to Christ, what the relevant verses tell us about his divine essence and how apparent contradictions should be resolved.27 Several well-known verses are quoted, beginning with Q 3:39: “So the angels called out to him while he stood praying in the sanctuary, ‘God gives you good tidings of John who will confirm a Word from God’.” Then follows the verse most frequently cited in debates between Muslims and Christians (Q 4:171), which defines Jesus Christ as the Word cast into Mary. Eustathius comments:

24 See for example Georg Graf, “Christlich-arabische Texte: Zwei Disputationen zwischen Muslimen und Christen,” in Griechische, koptische und arabische Texte zur Religion und religiösen Literatur in Ägyptens Spätzeit, ed. Friedrich Bilabel and Adolf Grohmann, Veröffentlichungen aus den badischen Papyrus-Sammlungen 5 (Heidelberg: Verlag der Universitätsbibliothek, 1934), 1–31, here 16–19, and Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā, 132–33, 418–19. 25 For example, Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āyy al-Qur’ān, ed. ʿAbd al-Allāh ibn ʿAbd alMuḥsin al-Turkī, vol. 7 (Riyadh: Dār ʿĀlam al-Kutub lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2003), 89. 26 Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Baḥīra, 132–33, 418–19. 27 The author moves from topic to topic without clear transitions. This section opens a new theme but is introduced only by the words “and another issue” (wa-wajh ākhar); see Birmingham, MS Chr. Ar. 52, fol. 135r.

Qur’ānic Letter versus Spirit 

[fol. 135r] If we were to say to that: “We believe that the Word of God became flesh from Mary and became human and was called Christ,” then they would bring forth a denial of that, saying: “Christ is with God just like Adam whom He created from soil and He said to him: ‘Be!’ and he was.” (Q 3:59). This is a gruesome absurdity [to claim] that the Word of God and soil [fol. 135v] are the same, because He created the creatures by the Word of God. So how could it be that that which created soil is the equivalent of soil? If they were to say: “The Word of God,” that is to say Christ, “is created,” one should say to them: “It must be the case then that the creation of this Word of God was by means of another word.” If they say: “Yes,” one should say to them: “If this is possible, then it is also possible that that word had a word that preceded it and that which preceded it had another one preceding it, [and so on] without end. And then it would end with the Essential Word [of God] by which the creatures were created.” And if they then say: “The matter is not like that — rather: the Eternal Word of God was this created Word,” then one should say to them: “It needs a demonstration that God has two Words, one of which is creating and the other is created.”

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. ‫فان قلنا لذلك انّا نومن ان كلمة هللا تجسدت من مريم‬ ‫ ثم جاوا بتنقض‬. ‫وصار انسان وسمي المسيح‬ ‫ وقالوا ان مثل عيسى عند هللا كمثل ادم خلقه‬. ‫ذلك‬ ‫ ثم قال له كن فكان وهذا من المحال‬. ‫من تراب‬ ‫ الن‬. ‫ ان تكون كلمة هللا والتراب واحد‬. ‫المستشنع‬ ‫ فكيف يكون ما به خلق التراب‬. ‫بكلمة خلق الخاليق‬ . ‫ فان قالوا كلمة هللا هي المسيح مخلوقه‬. ‫مثل التراب‬ ‫فيقال لهم ينبغي ان قد خلقة كلمة هللا هذه بكلمة‬ . ‫ يقال لهم ان كان هذا جايز‬. ‫ فان قالوا نعم‬. ‫اخرى‬ ‫فجايز ايضا ً ان يكون لتلك الكلمة كلمة قد كانت‬ ‫ ثم ال‬. ‫ ولما قبلها قبل ايضا ً الى ما ال نهاية له‬. ‫قبلها‬ ‫ التي‬. ‫ الجوهرية‬28‫بد من ان يكون ينتهي الى كلمة‬ ‫ لكن‬. ‫ فان قالوا ليس االمر هكذا‬. ‫خلق الخاليق بها‬ ‫كلمة هللا االزلية كانت هذه الكلمة المخلوقة فيقال لهم‬ ‫ ان هلل كلمتين احدهما‬. ‫يحتاج في هذا الي برهان‬ . ‫خالقة واالخرى مخلوقة‬

It should be clear that Eustathius presents an extended reductio ad absurdum that pre-empts further statements about Christ not being the Word of God. The basic propositions that can be sustained on the basis of the Qur’ānic text are that: 1) the Creator of soil is the Word of God; 2) Christ is the Word of God and therefore Christ is the creator of soil. However, the cited verse Q 3:59 indicates that Christ is created. Rather than yielding to the Muslim view that Christ has no divine nature, Eustathius presses ahead by requesting a better explanation of what the Word of God means in the Qur’ān. He already foresees that ordinary language cannot explain it:

28 The word Allāh has erroneously been omitted by the copyist.

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[fol. 135v] And if they were to elucidate the proof with regard to it — which cannot possibly be done in ordinary speech — they would need to present another demonstration that Christ is the created Word of God, not the creating [Word of God], for they confess apodictically that Christ is the Word of God. Among the things that confirm [fol. 136r] to us that Christ is the essential Word of God is their saying in a sūra29 entitled [the Heights]:30 “Believe in God and His illiterate prophet, who believes in God and His Word and follow him — perhaps you will be guided” [Q 7:158], because the prophet does not believe in a created word. This is the equivalent of us saying that God and His Word are two hypostases and one essence.

‫ وال سبيل الي ذلك بكالم‬. ‫فان اوضحوا الحجة فيه‬ ‫ احتاجوا ان ياتوا ببرهان اخر ان المسيح‬. ‫عامي‬ ‫ النهم انما قالوا جزمأ‬. ‫كلمة هللا المخلوقة ال الخالقة‬ ‫ ومما يوكد هذا القول عندنا في‬. ‫ان المسيح كلمة هللا‬ ‫ قولهم في صورة‬. ‫ان المسيح هو كلمة هللا الجوهرية‬ ‫ فامنوا باهلل ورسوله االمي الذي‬. ‫تسمي االعراب‬ ‫ الن النبي‬. ‫يومن باهلل وكلمته واتبعوه لعلكم تهتدون‬ ‫ال يومن بكلمة مخلوقة وهذا هو نظير قولنا ان هللا‬ . ‫وكلمته اقنومين وانهما جوهر واحد‬

This is a sophisticated move that deserves a close look. Eusthatius chooses an interesting passage. This verse from Q 7 does not say that Christ is the Word of God, but it refers to “His Word” with a command to believe in it, just as the Prophet does. In short: the object of belief consists of God and His Word. Next, assuming that the Prophet believed in a created entity is blasphemy and hence this must refer to the uncreated Word of God. Now Eustathius does not then claim that the Qur’ān contains the proof that Christ is the uncreated Word of God, but rather asserts that there is no difference between this statement and the common statement of Christians that God and the Word are two hypostases and one essence. What makes this passage particularly interesting is the fact that Eustathius cites a Qur’ānic verse that occurs in two different readings (qirāʾāt) each with their particular explanation given to it in tafsīr. The most common reading would actually not be of use to Eustathius at all. It would read: “who believes in God and his words (kalimāt).” That reading removes all difficulty and can be paraphrased as “who believes in God and what He has revealed.” However, there was no consensus about the reading of word in the plural. Orthographically, the singular and the plural are easily to be confused, since the ligatures are the same and the plural is only distinguished by an extra vowel marker.31 In the earliest copies of the Qur’ān there is no distinction (see for example line 15 in fig. 3 below). The theological implications of the distinction are, of course, enormous.

29 As in many other Christian Arabic texts, the word sūra is spelled as ṣūra. 30 The term aʿrāf (“Heigths”) appears in a corrupted form as aʿrāb (Arabs). 31 That is to say by the dagger alif; in plural the word can also be spelled with the long ā written with a normal alif, in which case the word is more easily distinguishable from its form in the singular.

Qur’ānic Letter versus Spirit 

 57

Two things are worth noting. In the well-known eighth-century Christian Arabic apology conventionally called On the Triune Nature of God, this part of Q 7:158 features too. It has almost consistently been interpreted as an allusion to Q 4:171, while in reality it is a proper quote from Q 7:158.32 We may tentatively propose that the verse was part of a repertoire of verses Arab Christians adduced. Secondly, it is worth noting that both the alternative reading and the alternative interpretation have been recorded in tafsīr. Al-Ṭabarī (d. 923; 310 AH), for example, lists al-Suddī (d. 745; 127 AH) and Mujāhid (d. c. 722; c. 104 AH) as early authorities who read it as saying kalimatihi instead of kalimātihi and who interpreted it as a reference to ʿĪsā.33 Al-Ṭabarī prefers the plural reading, because it is obvious to him that God would call people to believe in all of His words. Several other mufassirūn pondered on what was not only a different interpretation but also a different qirāʾa.34 What would be interesting to know is if the author of On the Triune Nature of God and Eustathius were deliberately appealing to the notion of a divergent reading and tried to promote it, or whether their version was the only one they knew.

32 See fig. 2 and Margaret Dunlop Gibson, An Arabic Version of the Acts of the Apostles and the Seven Catholic Epistles from an Eighth or Ninth Century MS in the Convent of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, with a Treatise On the Triune Nature of God, with Translation, from the same Codex, Studia Sinaitica 7 (London, 1899), 5, 77*. Authors who regard it as a semi-quote or misquote of Q 4:171; see Mourad Takawi, “The Trinity in Qur’anic Idiom: Q 4.171 and the Christian Arabic Presentation of the Trinity as God, His Word, and His Spirit,” ICMR (2019): 1–23, here 6; Samir Khalil Samir, “The Earliest Arab Apology for Christianity (c. 750),” in Christian Arabic Apologetics during the Abbasid Period (750–1258), ed. Samir Khalil Samir and Jørgen Nielsen, Numen Book Series: Studies in the History of Religions 63 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 1994), 57–114, 73n54; Ebeid, “Can the Qur’an,” 49. Maria Gallo regarded it as a misquoted form of Q 7:158; see Maria Gallo, ed., Palestinese anonimo: Omelia arab-cristiana dell’VIII secolo, Testi patristici (Rome: Città Nuova, 1994), 60n47. 33 Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. 10, 500. 34 Al-Thaʿlabī mentions Muqātil instead of Mujāhid; see Al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa-l-bayān ʿan tafsīr al-Qurʾān, ed. Abū Muḥammad ibn ʿĀshūr, vol. 4 (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʼ al-Turāth al-ʻArabī, 2002), 293. Similarly, but without mentioning the earlier commentators, al-Māturīdī mentions the divergent qirāʾa in the singular with the meaning Jesus, “as though saying ‘believe in God and in Muḥammad and in Jesus’;” Al-Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt Ahl al-Sunna, ed. Majdī Bāsallūm, vol. 5 (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2005), 64. Al-Zamakhsharī also records it as an interpretation by Mujāhid and relates it to the fact that ʿĪsā was created by the Divine verbal command “be!”; see Al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf ʿan ḥaqāʾiq al-tanzīl wa-ʿuyūn al-aqāwīl fī wujūh al-taʾwīl, ed. Khalīl Maʾmūn Shīḥā (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 2009), 391.

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Next Eustathius discusses how his hypothetical interlocutors would answer: [fol. 136r] And if they say: “The matter is not like this; rather ‘the Word’ falls into three categories, as the learned say: one of them is the natural [word] belonging to Christ, one of them is what this word brings out to the listeners and one of them is what is entrusted in a scripture, and that what was said, ‘We believe in God and His Word,’ that is the natural Word, while Christ is the one who brought it out,” one should say to him35 that he went beyond the boundaries of the clear and lucid Arabic language to the language of the learned and to philosophical explanation. And this diverges from the set conditions of their dialectics and the substance of their Scripture and from what was said: that only precise expressions should be accepted.”

‫ لكن الكلمة تقع علي‬. ‫فان قالوا ان ليس االمر هكذا‬ ‫ منها الطبيعية‬. ‫ وكما قالت الحكما‬. ‫ثلثة انحاء‬ . ‫ ومنها ما ابرزته هذه الكلمة للسامعين‬. ‫المسيحية‬ ‫ والذي قد قيل انا نومن‬. ‫ومنها ما اودعته في كتاب‬ ‫ والمسيح ما‬. ‫باهلل وبكلمته فهي الكلمة الطبيعية‬ ‫ابرزته هذه الكلمة يقال له قد خرج من حد الكالم‬ ‫ الى كالم الحكما والشرح‬. ‫العربي الواضح البين‬ ‫ وال من‬. ‫الفلسفي وهذا ليس هو من شرط كالمهم‬ ‫ وال مما ذكر انه ال يقبل اال اللفظة‬. ‫شان كتابهم‬ . ‫بعينها‬

Although the passage is somewhat cryptic, I think Eustathius refers to capacity to speak, the audible word and the written word. He does not accept the tripartite interpretation or rather, one could say, does not see the need for it, since the plain language should not be overshadowed by “philosophical explanation.” Here we might say that he makes the letter prevail over the spirit. If Muslims claim that the spirit of the Qur’ān is to depict Christ as a mere human, Eustathius stays with the letter and breaks down his Muslim interlocutors’ prerogative to let this spirit overrule the letter. In the ensuing discussion Eustathius continues to appeal to the text of the Qur’ān to show that Christ’s identity as Word of God is equal to being in essence the Creator. A passage that plays a central role in his exposition is the fact that Christ turned clay birds into real birds that could fly. It proves that Christ gives life, a fact that he claims is far beyond any kind of miracle. It also leads him to state once again that Muslims diverge from their own Scripture when they insist on a purely human essence of Christ. Eustathius strives to let his readers come away with the sense that the letter of the Qur’ān is not what creates ambiguity — the problem is readers who do not take it at face value and read into it what is not there, only to then have to resort to sophistry to defend their dogmatic positions.

35 This long hypothetical question-and-answer moves from the plural ‘if they say’ to the singular ‘one should say to him’.

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Although Eustathius tends not to elaborate each argument to a conclusion, he does add general statements as to the methods and limits of scripture and scriptural interpretation. Besides the topic of the Word of God, he goes into the question of free will and predestination, the divine attributes, and anthropomorphic statements about God. Qur’ānic passages which are problematic because they are contradictory or anthropomorphic are not refuted but rather put in the context of his overall idea that Qur’ānic exegesis does not successfully bring out forceful arguments against Christian doctrines. In order to do that, one could apply speculative interpretations to these problematic passages, but then a Christian approach, as he tried to show, can be just as convincing. One could also take them literally, contradictions and all, and say these should be accepted by faith. He turns the table on this argument too, claiming that the decision to accept one’s scripture by faith can also be made by others. It creates an apologetic stalemate. Although Eustathius does not name names, there is little doubt that his ideas are meant as a commentary to, on the one hand, Muʿtazilī de-anthropomorphizing approaches and Ḥanbalī literalist approaches to the Qur’ān, on the other.

3 Questions and Answers, Rational and Divine (Masāʾil wa-ajwiba ʿaqliyya wa-ilāhiyya) This text is also written by an Arab monk. It is the anonymous apology contained in Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, MS Ar. 434, fols. 171r–181v (copied in 1139), written by an unknown Melkite in response to a Refutation of the Christians written by a Muslim.36 This text to which the monk responds has not been transmitted independently and is probably lost.37 The monk’s response displays an original rhetorical creativity more than theological expertise and in this respect the text distinguishes itself from better-known apologetic texts by Arab Christians. The title needs a note: ʿaqliyya (“rational”), would suggest that it is in part a reasoned defense of Christian doctrines. This aspect is nevertheless quite limited. Most of the discussion revolves around Scriptural proofs and those are what the author calls ilāhiyya, which does not mean “divine” here but “from God,” as in scripture, which he also calls proofs min al-sharʿ (“from revelation,” “the Law”), and min al-kutub al-ilāhiyya (“from the Divine books”), which turns out to be a category wide enough to include the Qur’ān.

36 A good introduction to the text can be found in E. Salah and Mark N. Swanson, “Masāʾil wa-ajwiba ʿaqliyya wa-ilāhiyya,” in CMR, vol. 1, 661–63. 37 See Barbara Roggema, “The Refutation of the Christians,” in CMR, vol. 1, 658–60.

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Sidney Griffith called the text Answers for the Shaykh, while Clare Wilde refers to it as the Anonymous Monk of Sinai Ar. 434.38 The first scholar to draw attention to the text was Rachid Haddad who dated it to the eighth century, but this may be too early.39 Eid Salah and Mark Swanson tentatively date it to the ninth, while Clare Wilde argues that a date in the Fatimid-Seljuq period is plausible.40 The broad spectrum of the monk’s scriptural proofs is exemplified in the section here below, where he tries to demonstrate the reality of the union of the divine with the human nature (al-ittiḥād) in Christ. The scriptural proofs are listed with brief explanations of what these verses indicate in terms of the veracity of this union. Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, MS Ar. 434, fol. 176v As for the veracity of the Union based on the Law, it consists of the sayings of the prophets about it.

. ‫اما صحة الإلتحاد من الشرع فهو قول األنبياء عليه‬

Among these is the following saying of the Prophet Isaiah, may his peace be with us: “Behold a virgin will conceive and bear a son whose name is Emmanuel” [Isaiah 7:14], “the meaning of which is ‘our God is with us’.” [Matthew 1:23]. The Prophet said that the one born, manifested in the flesh, was our God [cf. 1 Timothy 3:16] who dwells in us and is united with us, appeared to His world. And the Apostles said the following about the Union of the essence of God in our flesh: [177r] “God appeared on the earth, and He arose in His glory” [cf. Isaiah 60:2]. And the glorious Gospel said thus: “And the Word became flesh” [John 1:1], i.e., a temple was established for the Word of God, without mixing and mingling.”

‫منها قول اشعيا النبي سالمه معنا هكذى‬ ‫هاهو ذه العذرى تحبل وتلد ابنا ويدعي اسمه‬ . ‫عمانويل الذي تفسيره الهنا معنا‬ ‫قال النبي وان المولود يرى بشرا هو الهنا الحال‬ . ‫معنا متحدا يظهر لعالمه‬ ‫وقال الحواريين في اتحاد جوهر هللا في بشرنا هكذى‬ . ‫هللا ظهر على االرض وطلع بالمجد‬ ‫وقال االنجيل الجليل هكذا والكلمة صار لحما اي‬ . ‫كلمة هللا ثبت لها هيكال باالختالط واالمتزاج‬

38 Sidney H. Griffith, “Answers for the Shaykh: A ‘Melkite’ Arabic Text from Sinai and the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation in ‘Arab Orthodox’ Apologetics,” in The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam, ed. Emmanouela Grypeou, Mark N. Swanson, and David Thomas, The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 5 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2006), 277–311; Claire E. Wilde, “Produce Your Proof If You are Truthful (Q 2:111): The Qur’ān in Christian Arabic Texts (750–1258 C.E.)” (PhD Thesis, Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America, 2011); Wilde, Approaches to the Qur’ān. 39 Rachid Haddad, La Trinité divine chez les théologiens arabes (750–1050) (Paris: Beauchesne, 1985), 38. 40 Wilde, “Produce Your Proof,” 36–38.

Qur’ānic Letter versus Spirit 

And the Qur’ān said: “O, Zechariah, God gives you good tidings of a Prophet who confirms the Word of God, while in his mother’s womb, fearing God and among the righteous” [cf. Q 3:39; Q 19:7]. It was said that when he was in his mother’s womb, John brought good tidings that he was the Word of God who was concealed in a house taken from the pure one of God, Mary.41 And the Prophet Habakkuk said: “The Lord wanted to tread His feet on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem” [cf. Zechariah 14:4]. And Zechariah son of ʿIddo said the following about God the Exalted: “Rejoice, O Daughter of Zion” [cf. Zechariah 9:9].

 61

‫وقال القران يا زكريا ان هللا مبشرك بنبي مصدق‬ ‫بكلمة هللا وهو في بطن امه تقى ومن الصالحين فقد‬ ‫ذكر انه بشر به يوحنا وهو في بطن امه انه كلمة‬ . ‫هللا محتجب في بيت مأجود من صفية هللا مريم‬

‫قال حبقوق النبي شا الرب ان يطا قدماه طور‬ . ‫الزيتون شرقى اورشليم‬ ‫وقال زكريا بن عدو النبي عن هللا تعالى هكدى‬ . ‫افرحى يا بنت صحيون‬

At first sight this is a standard list of Old Testament testimonia, which, as has often been pointed out, were redeployed from Patristic Adversus Judaeos to serve as proofs to Muslims of the divine incarnation.42 Its peculiar feature, however, is the way the Qur’ān is cited among the Biblical verses. It is inserted as a prooftext for the incarnation and the central events in Christ’s life. The interweaving of Bible and Qur’ān leads to a coherent discourse in which the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Qur’ān reinforce each other. More subtle is the ensuing section which presents Christ’s miraculous deeds. [fol. 177r] And Solomon, son of David, said the following about the Union of the essence of God with God’s creation: “Wisdom has built her house, she has set up its seven pillars. She has prepared her table and mixed her wine and sent her messengers all over the world” [Proverbs 9:1–2].

‫وقال سليمان بن داود الحكم على اتحاد جوهر هللا‬ ‫بخلق هللا هكدى ان الحكمة ابتنت لها بيت وثبته على‬ ‫سبع عمد ونصبت مايدتها ومزجت كاسها وارسلت‬ ‫رسلها في االرض الى المشارق والمغارب فالحكمة‬ ‫كلمة هللا والبيت الحجاب والسبع عمد ايام الدهر‬ ‫السبعة الف سنة بجرى على سبعه ايام الجمعة اي‬ ‫دهري ومايده النعمة القربان الذي جعل المسيح‬ . ‫لرسله بجديد العهد بصهيون‬

41 The quotations are not exact. For its mixing of Q 3 and Q 19, see Claire E. Wilde, “Early Christian Arabic Texts: Evidence for Non-ʿUthmānic Qur’ān Codices, or Early Approaches to the Qur’ān,” in New Perspectives on the Qur’ān: The Qur’ān in its Historical Context 2, ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds, Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān (London–New York: Routledge, 2011), 358–71, here 365. 42 Swanson, “Folly to the Ḥunafāʾ,” 120–28; Mark N. Swanson, “Beyond Prooftexting (2): The Use of the Bible in Early Arabic Christian Apologies,” in The Bible in Arab Christianity, ed. David Thomas, The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 6 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2007), 91–112; David Bertaina, “The Development of Testimonia Collections in Early Christian Apologetics with Islam,” in The Bible in Arab Christianity, 151–73.

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“Wisdom” is the Word of God, “the house” is the veil43, and “the seven pillars” are the days of the seven millennia that passed as seven days of the week [fol. 177v] as epochs and “the table” of grace is the offering that Christ made to the Apostles at the new covenant in Zion.

Again, a verse from the Hebrew Bible serves as a prefiguration of the significant events during Christ’s life — this time from the Wisdom of Solomon. The Last Supper was announced, as well as the mission of the Apostles around the world. The Qur’ānic eyewink was probably not lost on the recipient of the monk’s treatise: “Wisdom prepared her table.” It is hard not to think of al-māʾida, the table that is mentioned in Q 5, to which it gives its name. The irony is that in the Qur’ān a precise link with events in the life of Christ, as known from the Gospels, is not easy to determine. It is not elaborate enough to understand if it evokes the miracles of the loaves and the fishes or else be an allusion to the Last Supper.44 The author of the Masāʾil benefits from the allusiveness of the reference and sets up a double intertextual relationship when, in the following passage, he also claims that “The Chapter of the Table” contains a confirmation of Christ’s miraculous multiplication of food. [fol. 177v] And He made bread come down from the heavens through his Divinity and He fed thousands with it twice – this is in the Qur’ān, in Sūrat al-Māʾida45 — and he taught the knowledge of the mysteries — all that is through his luminous Divinity and he walked on the waters.

‫وانزل خبزا من السما بالهوته فاطعم منه الوف‬ ‫الوف كثير في مرتين هو في القران في سورة‬ ‫المايدة وعلم علم الغايب كل ذلك بالهوته النوري‬ . ‫ومشا على الما‬

43 The ‘veil’ means the flesh which covered the Divine nature and made it visible. On this important Christian Arabic imagery, see Barbara Roggema, “Ḥikāyāt amthāl wa-asmār. . . King Parables in Melkite Apologetic Literature,” in Studies on the Christian Arabic Heritage in Honour of Father Prof. Dr. Samir Khalil Samir S.I. at the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Rifaat Ebied and Herman Teule, Eastern Christian Studies 5 (Louvain–Paris–Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2004), 113–31. 44 In modern scholarship the question as to what originally Christian story of the Table was meant to allude to has received interesting insights in Gabriel Said Reynolds, “On the Qur’ān’s Māʾida Passage and the Wanderings of the Israelites,” in The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam in Memory of John Wansbrough, ed. Carlos Segovia and Basil Lourié, Orientalia Judaica Christiana 1 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2011), 91–108, and Mohsen Goudarzi, “The Eucharist in the Qur’an,” ICMR 34 (2023): 113–33. 45 The word Sūra is clearly distinguishable in the manuscript, but the letter wāw is attached to the rāʾ. This is a palaeographical peculiarity of this unique manuscript that can also been noticed, for example, in the way the word ṭūr is written. Griffith read the word as ṣifr “Bible book” instead, which made the passage sound more intriguing than it is; see Griffith, “Answers for the Shaykh,” 296n96.

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 63

By establishing a connection between the Biblical miracles and Sūrat al-Māʾida of the Qur’ān, the author strengthens the perception of the veracity of the events. In a peculiar circularity, the Bible is first used to explain the historical context of a Qur’ānic passage, only for the latter then to be used as a confirmation of the former. The third and last question in the treatise deals with the authenticity of Christ’s deeds. In five and half folios the author brings together a wide variety of attestations of these from sources that are mostly external to the Christian tradition. Clearly, the author is aware that citations from the New Testament and other Christian texts alone are insufficient — they need external validation in order to be convincing. His first demonstration therefore is drawn from what he at least would label as generally accepted history. He describes how the Apostles went out into the world to preach the truth about Christ, his resurrection, and the miracles that testify to his divine essence. The Apostles were successful in their mission, despite the fact that they brought a demanding religion and yet had no sword or money or man force. The only power they had were the miracles they performed, raising the dead in the name of the crucified one. The author presents succinctly what was a major apologetic argument of Christians in the Muslim world: only a religion that was accepted without worldly incentives such as social and financial gain can be true. Sometimes referred to as the “asbāb al-dunyā motif,”46 it was an argument that formed the apologetic core of several Christian treatises from the early Abbasid period. A few words sufficed here for the author of the Masāʾil. He proceeds to argue that Christ’s divinity was already announced by John the Baptist to his mother before his birth, “as your Qur’ān already established for you, first of all, and seventy-two tongues testify to this and believe in him, each tongue [testifying] to his divinity.”47 Not only does the author construct a joint testimony of Qur’ān and Bible, he also plays with the important theme of language as a criterion for accepting a revelation. He specifies that John the Baptist bore witness to Christ in the language of his mother: “Yaḥyā ibn Zechariah testified to his divinity in the belly of his mother in the language of his mother.”48 This is likely an allusion to Q 3 where Zechariah prays to God to grant him offspring despite his old age. Angels then call him, and it is announced that John the Baptist will be born, “confirming a Word from God.” In his reference to this Qur’ānic story, the author of the Masāʾil indicates that this preannouncement of the birth of the herald of the Word of God 46 Sidney H. Griffith, “Comparative Religion in the Apologetics of the First Christian Arabic Theologians,” Proceedings of the PMR Conference 4 (1979): 63–87; Diego Sarrió Cucarella, “‘On How to Discern the Truth of Religion,’ by Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq: The impersonal recension,” Islamochristiana 45 (2019): 155–63. 47 Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, MS Ar. 434, fol. 178b. 48 Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, MS Ar. 434, fol. 177r.

64 

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was made “in the language of his mother” (fī lisān ummihi). Probably, the specification is meant to underscore that the good tidings were unmistakable. It furthermore evokes the Qur’ānic claim that prophets are always sent with a revelation in the language of their own community (Q 14:4: “We have not sent a messenger except in the language of his people”). The fact that Yaḥyā ibn Zechariah’s birth was announced by himself in his mother’s language confirms his prophetic status. Yet, in the next line, the author creates a deliberate challenge to this idea. Having provided the Qur’ānic proof, he returns to the Apostles and stresses that their testimonies of Christ’s divinity were spread in seventy-two languages. In other words, not only are the proofs of Christ’s divine nature solid, clear, and universal, they also form a contrast to the limited linguistic scope of the Arabian prophet.49 He underscores the magnitude of the apostolic witness by adding that: “The Book says that every witness statement is stipulated at two or three.” By “The Book” (al-kitāb), he obviously means the Bible, although he generally prefers to distinguish between the Old and New Testaments (both of which contain the stipulation of two or three witnesses).50 At the same time, he may hint at the fact that his statement is supported by the Qur’ān (Q 2:282). There is yet another Qur’ānic element which the author uses to highlight the veracity of the Apostles’ divine mission. He calls them “Helpers of God.” This alludes to the way the Qur’ān refers to the Apostles (and/or disciples), the so-called Ḥawāriyyūn. They feature in three different passages in the Qur’ān and in two of these they declare themselves before God to be “Helpers of God” (Anṣār Allāh). For example, in Q 61:14, we read: “O believers! Be helpers of God, as when Jesus, son of Mary, asked the apostles, ‘Who are my helpers unto God?’ The apostles replied, ‘We are the helpers of God’.” The verse recalls the exchange between Jesus and the Apostles to make it an exemplum for those in Muḥammad’s entourage who claim to be believers. In the second part of the verse, it becomes clear that God concretely rewards those who testify to their being Jesus’ and God’s helpers, leaving no doubt that their belief is genuine. The same exchange of words is imbedded in Q 3:52. Although much can be said about the covert rhetorical devices used here,51 when it comes to Arabic Christian exploitation of them, in the Masāʾil as well as in other texts, the point is that the verses equate being “Jesus’s helper” with being “God’s helper.” This simple equation endorses the Apostles’ faith as true belief and as a model for Muslims. In the words of our author: “The helpers of God, the Apostles, bear witness to [Christ’s divine nature]; ‘helpers of God’ in your book means ‘His 49 For the theme of a limited audience for Muḥammad’s mission, see above, 49–50. 50 Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:15; Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1; 1 Timothy 5:19; Hebrews 10:28. 51 See the interesting discussion in Gabriel Said Reynolds, “The Quran and the Apostles of Jesus,” BSOAS 76 (2013): 209–27.

Qur’ānic Letter versus Spirit 

 65

Apostles’.” In the following passages the term “helpers of God” is used frequently, to keep that supposed Qur’ānic confirmation on the forefront, as well as the fact that the Apostles should be seen as divinely sanctioned witnesses and promoters of Christianity, which is key in this third part of the text where the author attempts to prove the veracity of Christ’s miraculous deeds. As a further buttress of the Qur’ānic endorsement of the truth of the Acts of the Apostles and the New Testament in general, he turns to another well-known apologetic motif, i.e., the supposed true meaning of Q 2:1.52 [fol. 178v] And the book of the Gospel mentions some of his miracles from among very many and the Qur’ān testifies to that [179a] as it says “A-L-M, that is the Book in which there is no doubt, a guidance for the God-fearing” [Q 2:1]: the M is the beginning of the name of alMasīḥ; and the prior “book,” on account of his saying that, is the Christian Scripture and his book in which there is no doubt, a guidance for the god-fearing, i.e., his community and those obedient to him.”52

‫وكتاب االنجيل يذكر بعض اياته من كثير كثير‬ ‫والقران يشهد بذلك‬ ‫اذ يقول الميم ذلك الكتاب ال ريب فيه هدا للمتقين‬ ‫فالميم ابتدى اسم المسيح الكتاب القديم لقوله ذلك‬ ‫الكتاب المسيحي وكتابه الذي ال ريب فبه هدى‬ ‫للمتقين امته ومن اطاعه‬

The clue to the argument is the emphasis on dhālika, i.e., a demonstrative pronoun that refers to something distant, implying that if the Qur’ān had wanted to refer to itself, it would have used “this” (hādhā). It is one of many instances where the author presumes knowledge on the part of his reader to make good sense of the polemical point. Other apologists made the point, too, among whom Paul of Antioch, who spelled it out most clearly: “for that cannot be this!.”53 The demonstrative pronoun was thorny enough for al-Ṭabarī to devote attention to it in his exegesis of the verse.54 After this, the author continues to construct his demonstration, listing a wide variety of sources that take the reader far beyond the Qur’ān, yet, intriguingly it continues to feature as a useful prooftext. First on the list there are individuals and groups that resisted Christ but are nonetheless witnesses, in spite of themselves.

52 Griffith (“Answers for the Shaykh,” 298) and Wilde (“Early Christian Arabic Texts,” 358–71, 368) misread the passage and as a consequence the clue was lost. 53 Paul Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, évêque melkite de Sidon, XIIe s., Recherches publiées sous la direction de l’Institut de Lettres Orientales de Beyrouth 24 (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1964), ✶ 65, 173. 54 See the discussion in Herbert Berg, “Ṭabarī’s exegesis of the Qur’ānic term al-Kitāb,” JAAR 63 (1995): 761–74, here 767–78.

66 

 Barbara Roggema

Qur’ānic language is being used to underscore that the principal group in this respect are the Jews: [fol. 179r] They confirm it in ignorance and envy: “they want to extinguish the light of God but God shines his light even to the dismay of the oppressors.”55 Yes, and there are some who recall him secretly and others who say: “a sorcerer!” and others: “he stole the name of God from the Temple, practicing [magic] with it.”

. ‫وهم يحقون ذلك جهال وحسدا‬ ‫ نوره وان‬56‫يريدون يطفون نور هللا وهللا مظهره‬ ً ‫ نعم وفيهم من يذكر ذلك سرا‬. ‫كرهوا الظالمين‬ ‫واخرون يقولون ساحر اخرون سرق اسم هللا من‬ . ‫البيت كان يعمل بها‬

In just a few words, the author recalls the perpetual controversy between Jews and Christians about Jesus’ miracles. In the Gospel of Mark, there is already the accusation that these were based on some form of sorcery: “And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons, he is driving out demons’,” (Mark 3:22). This casting doubt on the divine origin of Christ’s miraculous deeds on the part of the Jews was spun out into what became the Jewish satirical tale about the life of Christ entitled Toledot Jeshu. The tale was also transmitted in several versions around the Arabic-speaking world.57 Rather than taking the bait of its main polemical stings, namely that Christ was an illegitimate child, impostor and sorcerer, the author of the Masāʾil presents the accusation as an indirect admission by the Jews of the fact that Christ did perform supernatural deeds. Intriguingly, the author claims that according to others “he made a sorcery book from the book of Exodus (al-Shāmūth), which Rabbinic Jews possess.” This seems to refer to something specific, but the modern reader is left to wonder. Why specifically Exodus? The clue can be found in studies on Jewish magic which show that some well-known passages from Exodus feature in Jewish apotropaic magic. Gideon Bohak describes how for example the verse Exodus 15:26, which promises God’s mercy to those who please him and keep his commands, appears on amulets, as a sort of “magical shortcut”

55 The phrase uses the language of Q 9:32 and Q 61:8. The substitution here of the Qur’ānic word “unbelievers” with “oppressors” is a subtle way to let the verses be applied specifically to the Jews. By pinpointing the Jews, the author not only removes the critique of Christians that is inherent in these Qur’ānic verses, but he also encourages an interpretation of “light of God” as Christ; cf. Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā, 491n107. 56 Read without the final ‫ه‬. 57 See now Miriam Goldstein, A Judeo-Arabic Parody of the Life of Jesus: The Toledot Yeshu Helene Narrative, Studies in Ancient Judaism 186 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023); Miriam Goldstein, “Early Judeo-Arabic Birth Narratives in the Polemical Story ‘Life of Jesus’ (Toledot Yeshu),” Harvard Theological Review 113, no. 3 (2020): 354–77.

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 67

for acquiring that very mercy.58 This does not yet answer the question as to why this would be relevant to our author who wants to show that Christ’s divine nature is indirectly acknowledged in Jewish magical texts. For this we need to turn to an aspect of such texts which has been detected by scholars interested in the image of Jesus in Jewish texts. Peter Schäfer gives the example of a Jewish-Aramaic magic bowl which has been deciphered as saying: “By the name of I-Am-that-I-Am (ehyeh asher ehyeh), the Lord of Hosts (YHWH Tzevaot), and by the name of Jesus (ʾIshu), who conquered the height and the depth by his cross and by the name of his exalted father, and by the name of the holy spirits forever and in eternity. Amen, amen, selah.”59 The spell combines the power of the God of the Hebrew Bible, who made Himself known with these powerful words as recorded in Exodus 3:14, with the power of Jesus and his Father. One can speculate about the context of such spell-writing and its intended audience. Magic objects, texts and practices were very easily interchanged between religious communities. This is how texts from one group could become known and beneficial to another, after which — as we see here — members of the original group could become aware of such borrowings.60 What the author of the Masāʾil understood about the purpose of cross-communal appropriations we cannot know, but he knew of their existence and regarded them as one more sign that Jews au fond also acknowledged Jesus as a divine figure. An interesting aspect is that he refers explicitly to Rabbinic Jews,61 only to move on to other groups, such as the ʿĪsawiyya (i.e., the followers of the sect of Abū ʿĪsā l-Iṣfahānī of the late seventh/eighth century), who indeed acknowledged the prophethood of Jesus.62 Again the author is very brief and perhaps he expected his audience to recognize the name of this sect. Without a specific label, he also mentions other Jews who will not confess that Christ was a descendent of Judah or the real Anointed one, yet they do call him al-Masīḥ (the Anointed). I presume he does not mean a specific sect, but rather Arabic-speaking Jews in general who might refer to Jesus with this name, without thinking about its meaning. All in all, the author claims that such divergent views are actually an indication of their hidden acknowledgement of Christ. 58 Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 57 and passim. 59 Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 38. 60 For a useful introduction to intercommunal exchange of magical material, see Henry Maguire, “Magical Signs in Christian Byzantium, Judaism and Islam: A Global Language,” in Global Byzantium: Papers from the Fiftieth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, ed. Leslie Brubaker, Rebecca Darley, and Daniel Reynolds (New York–London: Routledge, 2023), 172–90. 61 Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, MS Ar. 434, fol. 179r. 62 Yoram Erder, “Abū ʿIsā of Isfahan,” in Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World [Online], ed. Norman A. Stillmann (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2010).

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From here on the author moves on to pagan sages, whom he lists as having had foreknowledge of the divine incarnation. Unlike Eusebius of Caesareea’s Praeparatio evangelica or similar sources that he may have been drawing on, hardly more than a couple of words are devoted to the question as to how and why ancient Greek philosophers, such as “Hippocrates, Socrates, and Diogenes [. . .] and many others” were testimonies to Christ’s divine nature.63 By contrast, at least a few lines are devoted to the wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus. Copyists of the text have had difficulty keeping the passage intact, but it is clear that the author meant to adduce Hermes’ alleged gnostic ideas as a prefiguration of the Incarnation. He claims that in the Book of the Seven Tablets Hermes explains that the Cause of all Causes sends an eternal self-sustaining light to earth, which veiled itself through baptism and eternally ascends to the world on high without separation.64 When the treatise draws to a close, the author restates the cumulative value of his testimonies: the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, the Gospels, the Apostles, the Qur’ān, and the pagan Greek philosophers all testify to the truth of Christianity. Ancient sages may not have been prophets (min ghayr nabī), but their words provide ample evidence for the divinity of Christ, due to their being inspired by God (bi-ilhām Allāh iyyāhum).65 The bundling of all these testimonies constitutes the unique apologetic strategy of the Melkite monk, who sees them as mutually reinforcing each other’s evidentiary value. Rather than seeing the Qur’ān as a text that postdates the centuries-long process of encoded evangelization, he includes it as one more striking example of this phenomenon. The outcome of his apologetic method is not only a multifaceted defense of the Christian belief in Christ’s divinity, but also a defense of the Qur’ān’s Christian meaning, simply by categorizing it as an example of this distinct phenomenon of indirect testimonies. All these texts bring the same message, albeit with different voices and intentions.

63 Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, MS Ar. 434, fols. 179v–180r. 64 It would be interesting to know what the author has in mind with the Book of Seven Tablets, but no such a work is known from the Islamic Arabic Hermes tradition [Kevin van Bladel, The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science, Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)], while the Arabic Christian Hermes tradition has not yet been researched. The reference to baptism and divine veiling would point to Hermes in a Patristic garb. I thank Prof. van Bladel for reading the passage and pointing in the direction of a similar passage found in various versions in Pseudo-Didymus the Blind, De trinitate, and Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Julianum, which is also cited in the Byzantine historiography, notably in Malalas, Chronography, the Chronicon Paschale and Kedrenos. Cf. Matthew R. Crawford, “Reconsidering the Relationship Between (Pseudo-)Didymus’s De Trinitate and Cyril of Alexandria’s Contra Julianum,” Journal of Theological Studies 71, no. 1 (2020): 236–57. 65 Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, MS Ar. 434, fols. 179v and 181r.

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4 Concluding Remarks In his response to Giulio Basetti-Sani’s readings of the Qur’ān, Josef Muzikář commented that his work “fails to explain, even on a speculative level, the problem of the ‘lateness in the time of Islam in relation to Christianity’.”66 One might apply the same critique to Eustathius and to the author of the Masāʾil. They hoped their readers would come away with a sense that the Qur’ān forms an endorsement of Christianity. Eustathius tried to achieve this by showing that a close look at the letter of the Qur’ān undermines the main anti-Christian critique of Islam, on three grounds: passages that go against Islamic doctrines, such as tanzīh and predestination, passages which plainly reveal Christ to be the “Word of God,” and more generally what he perceives as the arbitrariness of Islamic exegetical methods. The Melkite monk, by contrast, uses the Qur’ān as one of his many sources of the Christian spirit shining through in history, even in the words of those “who are not a prophet.”67 As an answer to Muzikář’s question, would they have subscribed to the idea of Patriarch Timothy who portrayed Islam as an evangelization “after the fact” for the pagan Arabs? Perhaps they believed in such a historicizing explanation of Islam, yet it is significant that they did not express an opinion on Muḥammad. It is the text of the Qur’ān that they decided to let speak for itself. Notwithstanding the differences in their cross-scriptural hermeneutics, these two authors both used their benefit of being Arabic-speakers to the full. Their linguistic knowledge and agility gave them the opportunity to echo the Qur’ān, to scrutinize its text and its exegesis and to find hidden links to their own tradition. This is undoubtedly the most distinctive and fascinating characteristic of their works.

66 See above, 46. 67 See above, 66.

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Fig. 1: Kitāb Usṭāt al-rāhib in MS Salem Ar 209 HMML Pro. No. GAMS 01011 fol. 145a–b (Image courtesy of the Fondation Georges et Mathilde Salem in Aleppo, Syria and the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library. Published with permission of the owners. All rights reserved.)

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Fig. 2: On the Triune Nature of God (8th c.): Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, MS Ar. 154. With permission from sinaimanuscripts.library.ucla.edu, a publication of St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai in collaboration with EMEL and UCLA.

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Fig. 3: Q 7:158 in the 8th c. Qur’an manuscript MS London BL Or 2165, fol. 5v. Courtesy of the British Library Board.

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Bibliography Manuscripts Aleppo. Fondation Georges et Mathilde Salem. MS Salem Ar. 290 HMML Pro. No. GAMS 01011. Beirut. Université Saint-Joseph, Bibliothèque orientale. MS 681. Birmingham. Col. Mingana. MS Chr. Ar. 52. London. British Library. MS Or. 2165. Sinai. St Catherine’s Monastery. MS Ar. 154. Sinai. St Catherine’s Monastery. MS Ar. 434.

Primary Sources Basetti-Sani, Giulio. Il Corano nella luce di Cristo: Saggio per una reinterpretazione cristiana del libro sacro dell’islam. Bologna: Edizioni Nigrizia, 1972. Basetti-Sani, Giulio. Gesù Cristo nascosto nel Corano. San Pietro in Cariano: Il Segno, 1994. Dunlop Gibson, Margaret. An Arabic Version of the Acts of the Apostles and the Seven Catholic Epistles from an Eighth or Ninth Century MS in the Convent of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, with a Treatise On the Triune Nature of God, with Translation, from the same Codex. Studia Sinaitica 7. London, 1899. Gallo, Maria, ed. Palestinese anonimo: Omelia arab-cristiana dell’VIII secolo. Testi patristici. Rome: Città Nuova, 1994. Khoury, Paul, ed. Paul d’Antioche, évêque melkite de Sidon, XIIe s.. Recherches publiées sous la direction de l’Institut de Lettres Orientales de Beyrouth 24. Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1964. Al-Māturīdī. Taʾwīlāt Ahl al-Sunna. Edited by Majdī Bāsallūm. Vol. 5. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2005. Roggema, Barbara, The Legend of Sergius Bahīrā: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 9. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2009. Seleznyov, Nikolai, ed. Kitāb al-Majālis li-Mār Ilīyyā Muṭrān Nuṣaybīn wa-Risālatuhu ilā l-wazīr al-kāmil Abī l-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī. Moscow: Grifon, 2018. Al-Ṭabarī. Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āyy al-Qurʾān. Edited by ʿAbd al-Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī. 26 vols. Riyadh: Dār ʿĀlam al-Kutub lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2003. Al-Thaʿlabī. Al-Kashf wa-l-bayān ʿan tafsīr al-Qurʾān. Edited by Abū Muḥammad Ibn ʿĀshūr. Vol. 4. Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʼ al-Turāth al-ʻArabī, 2002. Al-Zamakhsharī. Al-Kashshāf ʿan ḥaqāʾiq al-tanzīl wa-ʿuyūn al-aqāwīl fī wujūh al-taʾwīl. Edited by Khalīl Maʾmūn Shīḥā. Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 2009.

Secondary Literature Berg, Herbert. “Ṭabarī’s exegesis of the Qur’ānic term al-Kitāb.” JAAR 63 (1995): 761–74. Bertaina, David. “The Development of Testimonia Collections in early Christian Apologetics with Islam.” In The Bible in Arab Christianity. Edited by David Thomas, 151–73. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 6. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2007.

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Bertaina, David. “An Arabic Christian perspective on monotheism in the Qur’ān: Elias of Nisibis’ Kitāb al-majālis.” In Heirs of the Apostles: Studies on Arabic Christianity in Honor of Sidney H. Griffith. Edited by David Bertaina, Sandra Toenies Keating, Mark N. Swanson, and Alexander Treiger, 3–21. Arabic Christianity: Texts and Studies 1. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2019. van Bladel, Kevin. The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science. Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Bohak, Gideon. Ancient Jewish Magic: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Červenka, Jan. “Nicholas of Cusa on Islam: Conflict or Continuation of Ideas in De Pace Fidei and Cribratio Alkorani.” Studia Comeniana et Historica 46 (2016): 41–57. Crawford, Matthew R. “Reconsidering the Relationship Between (Pseudo-)Didymus’s De Trinitate and Cyril of Alexandria’s Contra Julianum.” Journal of Theological Studies 71, no 1 (2020): 236–57. Ebeid, Bishara. “Can the Qur’ān be Read in the Light of Christ? Reflections on Some Melkite Authors and Their Use of the Holy Book of Islam.” Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 18 (2021): 37–74. Erder, Yoram. “Abū ʿIsā of Isfahan.” In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Edited by Norman A. Stillmann. Online. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2010. van Ess, Josef. Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam. 6 vols. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991–97. van Ess, Josef. The Flowering of Muslim Theology. Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Cambridge, MA– London: Harvard University Press, 2006. Goldstein, Miriam. “Early Judeo-Arabic Birth Narratives in the Polemical Story ‘Life of Jesus’ (Toledot Yeshu).” Harvard Theological Review 113, no. 3 (2020): 354–77. Goldstein, Miriam. A Judeo-Arabic Parody of the Life of Jesus: The Toledot Yeshu Helene Narrative. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 186. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023. Goudarzi, Mohsen. “The Eucharist in the Qur’an.” ICMR 34 (2023): 113–33. Graf, Georg. “Christlich-arabische Texte: Zwei Disputationen zwischen Muslimen und Christen.” In Griechische, koptische und arabische Texte zur Religion und religiösen Literatur in Ägyptens Spätzeit. Edited by Friedrich Bilabel and Adolf Grohmann, 1–31. Veröffentlichungen aus den badischen Papyrus-Sammlungen 5. Heidelberg: Verlag der Universitätsbibliothek, 1934. Graf, Georg. Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur. Vol. 2. Studi e Testi 133. Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1947. Griffith, Sidney H. “Comparative Religion in the Apologetics of the First Christian Arabic Theologians.” Proceedings of the PMR Conference 4 (1979): 63–87. Griffith, Sidney H. “The Qur’ān in Arab Christian Texts: The Development of an Apologetic Argument: Abū Qurrah in the Mağlis of al-Maʾmūn.” PO 24 (1999): 203–33. Griffith, Sidney H. “Answers for the Shaykh: A ‘Melkite’ Arabic Text from Sinai and the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation in ‘Arab Orthodox’ Apologetics.” In The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam. Edited by Emmanouela Grypeou, Mark N. Swanson and David Thomas, 277–311. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 5. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2006. Griffith, Sidney H. “Christians and the Arabic Qur’ān: Prooftexting, Polemics, and Intertwined Scriptures.” IHIW 2 (2014): 243–66. Griffith, Sidney H. “The Qur’an in Christian Arabic Literature: A Cursory Overview.” In Arab Christians and the Qur’an from the Origins of Islam to the Medieval Period. Edited by Mark Beaumont, 1–19. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 35. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2018. Haddad, Rachid. La Trinité divine chez les théologiens arabes (750–1050). Paris: Beauchesne, 1985. Heyberger, Bernard. “Michel Nau.” In CMR. Vol. 9, 601–69.

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Khoury, Paul. Matériaux pour servir à l’étude de la controverse théologique islamo-chrétienne de langue arabe du VIIIe au XIIe siècle. Vol. 6: Exégèse chrétienne du Coran. Religionswissenschaftliche Studien 11. Würzburg–Altenberge: Echter Verlag–Telos Verlag, 1999. Maguire, Henry. “Magical Signs in Christian Byzantium, Judaism and Islam: A Global Language.” In Global Byzantium: Papers from the Fiftieth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies. Edited by Leslie Brubaker, Rebecca Darley and Daniel Reynolds, 172–90. New York–London: Routledge, 2023. Muzikář, Josef. “Review of Giulio Basetti-Sani O.F.M., The Koran in the Light of Christ: A Christian Interpretation of the Sacred Book of Islam.” Archiv orientální 53 (1985): 189–90. Nickel, Gordon. “‘Our Friendly Strife:’ Eastern Christianity Engaging the Qur’an.” In CMR. Vol. 15, 255–79. Reynolds, Gabriel Said. “On the Qur’ān’s Māʾida Passage and the Wanderings of the Israelites.” In The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam in Memory of John Wansbrough. Edited by Carlos Segovia and Basil Lourié, 91–108. Orientalia Judaica Christiana 1. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2011. Reynolds, Gabriel Said. “The Quran and the Apostles of Jesus.” BSOAS 76 (2013): 209–27. Roggema, Barbara. “A Christian Reading of the Qur’ān: The Legend of Sergius-Baḥīrā and its Use of Qur’ān and Sīra.” In Syrian Christians under Islam: The First Thousand Years. Edited by David Thomas, 57–73. Leiden–Boston–Köln: Brill, 2001. Roggema, Barbara. “Muslims as Crypto-Idolaters: A Theme in the Christian Portrayal of Islam in the Near East.” In Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule: Church Life and Scholarship in ʿAbbasid Iraq. Edited by David Thomas, 1–18. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 1. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2003. Roggema, Barbara. “Ḥikāyāt amthāl wa-asmār. . . King Parables in Melkite Apologetic Literature.” In Studies on the Christian Arabic Heritage in Honour of Father Prof. Dr. Samir Khalil Samir S.I. at the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Edited by Rifaat Ebied and Herman Teule, 113–31. Eastern Christian Studies 5. Louvain–Paris–Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2004. Roggema, Barbara. “The Refutation of the Christians.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 658–60. Roggema, Barbara. “Salvaging the Saintly Sergius: Hagiographical Aspects of the Syriac Legend of Sergius Bahira.” In Entangled Hagiographies of the Religious Other. Edited by Alexandra Cuffel and Nikolas Jaspert, 55–83. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, 2018. Roggema, Barbara. “Monotheism and Convivencia: A Karšūnī Text about Islam and the Qur’ān.” In From Moscow to Baghdad: Studies on Middle Eastern Christianity in Memory of Nikolai Seleznyov. Edited by Sergey Loesov, Sergey Minov, and Alexander Treiger, forthcoming. Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity, Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2024. Ron, Nathan. Nicholas of Cusa and Muhammad: A Critical Revisit. New York: Peter Lang, 2023. Salah, Eid, and Mark Swanson. “Masāʾil wa-ajwiba ʿaqliyya wa-ilāhiyya.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 661–63. Salah, Eid, and Mark Swanson. “Usṭāth al-Rāhib.” CMR. Vol. 1, 907–10. Samir, Samir Khalil. “The Earliest Arab Apology for Christianity (c. 750).” In Christian Arabic Apologetics during the Abbasid Period (750–1258). Edited by Samir Khalil Samir and Jorgen Nielsen, 57–114. Numen Book Series: Studies in the History of Religions 63. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 1994. Sarrió Cucarella, Diego. “‘On How to Discern the Truth of Religion,’ by Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq: The Impersonal Recension.” Islamochristiana 45 (2019): 155–63. Schäfer, Peter. Jesus in the Talmud. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Scotto, Davide. “Projecting the Qur’an into the Past: A Reassessment of Juan de Segovia’s Disputes with Muslims in Medina del Campo (1431).” In The Iberian Qur’an from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. Edited by Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers, 107–32. The European Qur’an 3. Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2022.

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Scotto, Davide. Juan de Segovia e il Corano: Convertire i musulmani nell’Europa del Quattrocento. Storie interreligiose 1. Menaggio: Villa Vigoni, 2022. Strohmaier, G. “Usṭāt̲ h̲.” In EI2. Vol. 10, 927–28. Stroumsa, Sarah. “Logic as Interconfessional Weapon in the Early Islamicate World: Manṭiq, Qiyās, Kalām.” Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 72 (2020): 181–201. Swanson, Mark N. “‘Folly to the Ḥunafāʾ:’ The Cross of Christ in Arabic Christian-Muslim Controversy in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries A.D.” PhD Thesis. Rome: Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica, 1992. Swanson, Mark N.. “Beyond Prooftexting: Approaches to the Qur’ān in Some Early Arabic Christian Apologies.” MW 88 (1998): 297–318. Swanson, Mark N. “Beyond Prooftexting (2): The Use of the Bible in Early Arabic Christian Apologies.” In The Bible in Arab Christianity, 91–112. Swanson, Mark N. “‘Our Brother, the Monk Eustathius:’ A Ninth-Century Syrian Orthodox Theologian Known to Medieval Arabophone Copts.” Coptica 1 (2022): 119–40. Takawi, Mourad. “The Trinity in Qur’anic Idiom: Q 4.171 and the Christian Arabic Presentation of the Trinity as God, His Word, and His Spirit.” ICMR (2019): 1–23. Teule, Herman. “Paul of Antioch’s Attitude towards the Jews and the Muslims: His Letter to the Nations and the Jews.” In The Three Rings: Textual Studies in the Historical Trialogue of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Edited by Barbara Roggema, Marcel Poorthuis and Pim Valkenberg, 91–110. Leuven– Paris–Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2005. Tolan, John V. Faces of Muhammad, Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. Wilde, Clare E. “Produce Your Proof If You are Truthful (Q 2:111): The Qur’ān in Christian Arabic Texts (750–1258 C.E.).” PhD Thesis. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America, 2011. Wilde, Clare E. “Early Christian Arabic Texts: Evidence for Non-ʿUthmānic Qur’ān Codices, or Early Approaches to the Qur’ān.” In New Perspectives on the Qur’ān: The Qur’ān in its Historical Context 2. Edited by Gabriel Said Reynolds, 358–71. Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London–New York: Routledge, 2011. Wilde, Clare E. Approaches to the Qur’an in Early Christian Arabic Texts (750–1258 C.E.). Bethesda–Dublin– Palo Alto: Academica Press, 2014.

Thomas A. Carlson

“Becoming All Things to All People”: Positive Readings of Qur’ānic Christianity in Arabic Christian Apologetics Abstract: This chapter examines three Christian Arabic apologetic texts from the period 1000–1350 (by Eliyā of Nisibis, by Paul of Antioch, and the anonymous Letter from the People of Cyprus), to ask how their qualified affirmation of Islam (and, in the latter two texts, of the Qur’ān and Muḥammad’s prophethood) affected their presentation of Christianity itself.

1 Introduction When the Muslim polemicist and theologian Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328; 728 AH) took up his pen to write the largest Islamic refutation of Christianity yet authored, he responded point-by-point to a very unusual treatise that came to him. In his days, roughly seven centuries after Muḥammad, the process of differentiation between Islam and Christianity was substantially complete, and a long literary tradition authored by both sides clarified the claims and counter-claims between the two religions that lived alongside each other in the Middle East. Earlier Christian apologists had even quoted the Qur’ān in support of Christianity, without specifying their evaluation of Islamic scripture or Muḥammad’s prophetic claims. Yet what he was reading took a different approach: it was a Christian apologetic tract that affirmed the Qur’ān as a divine revelation and Muḥammad as a prophet, but it argued that Islamic scripture upheld Christian faith and that Muḥammad was sent only to pagan Arabs. The treatise concluded with the words: “Praise and blessing be to God, for he has brought unanimity of view and put an end to suspicion between his servants the Christians and Muslims, may God protect them all!”1 This was not just the usual Christian apologetic to Muslims using selected Qur’ānic prooftexts in 1 ‫وهلل الحمد والمنّة إذ قد وفّق اآلراء وأزال التهم من بين عباده النصارى والمسلمين حرسهم هللا جميعًا‬: Rifaat Ebied and David Thomas, eds., 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 Acknowledgements: The author thanks Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, Salam Rassi, and Mark N. Swanson for feedback on an earlier draft of this paper, and Mary Papadopoulos for assistance with the footnotes. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-004

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favor of Christianity; it was something perhaps more dangerous to Islamic supremacy, and it required a very lengthy refutation.2 What happens to a religion when it tries to accept and incorporate the scripture of a newer rival? Newer religions are often a threat to older religions, as they recruit converts from their predecessors. Therefore, the typical response to upstart rivals from those who maintain older religions is criticism and delegitimizing, arguing that the earlier form is still valid and indeed better, and conversion to the new fad is unnecessary. But between conversion and polemic there is a third possible response, and one which is occasionally taken, though with its own challenges: to maintain the old and incorporate the new. While historically most Christians either converted to Islam or repudiated the appeal of the new religion, a few related Christian texts, examined in this article, sought to enlist the Qur’ān itself in support of the older religion. The Qur’ān is a large and complex text, among whose various parts some extol Christians (under the name al-naṣārā) and others polemicize against central Christian ideas (such as the deity of Christ or the crucifixion). Muslim interpreters, of course, have found ways to deal with these tensions, in the medieval period most commonly by regarding the praises as irrelevant or inapplicable to their contemporary Christians, thus presenting the Qur’ān as a document criticizing Christian religion. In response, Christian authors developed two tactics. As Bertaina has written: “While some Arabic Christian authors wrote works intended to destroy the credibility of the Qur’ān, another tactic was to accept the Qur’ānic text as a tool for argumentation with a special sensitivity for reading it as sympathetic toward Christian equality” (i.e. with Muslims).3 Griffith showed even earlier that the two strategies were not mutually exclusive, and many Christian authors in the early Islamic period discussed the Qur’ān as a fundamentally flawed scripture which still bore witness to the truth of Christianity.4 But occasionally late medieval Christian

2 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2005), 146–47. For the discussion of Muḥammad’s mission to the “pagan Arabs” (‫)الجاهلية من العرب‬, see Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 58–61. 2 Ibn Taymiyya’s lengthy response has been published as Abū l-ʿAbbās Taqī l-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAbd alḤalīm Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawāb al-Ṣaḥīḥ li-man baddala dīn al-Masīḥ, ed. ʿAlī b. Ḥasan b. Nāṣir, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Ibrāhīm al-ʿAskar and Ḥamdān b. Muḥammad al-Ḥamdān (Riyāḍ: Dār al-ʿĀṣima, 1999). For a partial English translation, see Thomas Michel, A Muslim Theologian’s Response to Christianity: Ibn Taymiyya’s al-Jawab al-sahih (Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1984). 3 David Bertaina, “An Arabic Christian perspective on monotheism in the Qur’an: Elias of Nisibis’ Kitab al-majalis,” in Heirs of the Apostles: Studies on Arabic Christianity in Honor of Sidney H. Griffith, ed. David Bertaina, Sandra Toenies Keating, Mark N. Swanson and Alexander Treiger, Arabic Christianity: Texts and Studies 1 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2019), 10. 4 Sidney H. Griffith, “The Qur’ān in Arab Christian Texts: The Development of an Apologetical Argument. Abū Qurra in the Maǧlis of al-Maʾmūn,” PO 24 (1999): 203–33, here 232.

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authors went further, and in their apologetic approach to Muslims treated the Qur’ān as another divine scripture.5 This chapter examines three Christian authors whose works are linked by a chain of textual dependency, and asks how their reading of the Qur’ān as a witness to divine truth shaped their own presentation of Christianity itself. This analysis does not argue for what the Qur’ān “really means” or ought to mean to Christians today. The point instead is to provide evidence that a minority of medieval Christian authors’ apologetic presentations of their own religion were influenced by the Qur’ān. On the other hand, in exploring how some Christians’ description of Christianity was shaped by Islamic scripture, I am making no claims about the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of these developments. To claim that Qur’ānic influence delegitimizes the forms of Arabic Christianity discussed here would be to presume, falsely, that there is some other (legitimate) expression of Christianity independent of its own cultural context. No such culturally transcendent variety of Christianity exists. Rather, as with every local instantiation of any other world religion, Christianity is always developing in a dialogue between its received tradition and its current surroundings, whether that took the form of debating the influence and utility of Greek philosophical ideas in the late antique Mediterranean (which eventually came to characterize most Christianity globally) or deciding to promote white supremacy, race-based enslavement, kidnapping, and rape in the nineteenth-century United States of America (which has not come to characterize most Christianity globally).6 The point here is not to evaluate the legitimacy of one or another expression of Christianity, but merely to understand some mechanisms and forms of the enculturation of Christianity in the late medieval Arabic context.

5 One might compare Griffith’s analysis of the apologetic use of the Qur’ān by Theodore Abū Qurra with the uses analyzed in this paper. Abū Qurra already quoted Q 29:46: “We believe in what was sent down to us and to you. Your God and our God is one,” claimed to believe “what [the Muslims’] scripture sets forth and what [the Muslims’] prophet has uttered,” and referred to “God’s scriptures” with reference to a list including “the psalms, the gospel, and the Qur’ān”; see Griffith, “Qur’ān in Arab Christian Texts,” 230–32. Nevertheless, his use of the Qur’ān is more limited than that of Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus. 6 On the latter, see Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Boston MA: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845), [118]–122; Charles H. Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit, vol. 6 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1964), 155.

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2 Texts and Authors The earliest author discussed here, Eliyā bar Shennāyā (d. 1046),7 was metropolitan archbishop (Arabic muṭrān) of the city of Nisibis for the Christian denomination variously known as Eastern Syriac, the Church of the East, or “Nestorian.”8 He was also the author of several texts, both in Syriac and in Arabic, among which is an account of a series of discussions he reportedly had in the same city with the Muslim Abū l-Qāsim al-Maghribī (d. 1027; 418 AH), vizier of the regional Marwanid dynasty, in 1026.9 This Kitāb al-majālis is organized into seven “sessions,” each of which discusses a distinct issue related to the truth of Christianity in response to objections and questions from the Muslim interlocutor. He frequently quotes the Qur’ān to make his points and to support Christianity, although he is more cautious 7 Scholarly discussion of this author’s Arabic works tends to use the name Greek name “Elias,” e.g., Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala, “Elias of Nisibis,” in CMR, vol. 2, 727–41. Manuscripts of the Kitāb al-Majālis discussed here, however, consistently spell his name “Iliyā” or “Īliyyā,” representing the Syriac vocalization Eliyā. See also Herman Teule, “Eliya of Nisibis,” in e-GEDSH, https://gedsh. bethmardutho.org/entry/Eliya-of-Nisibis [Accessed April 10, 2023]. 8 Sebastian Brock has characterized the scholarly use of the term “Nestorian” as a “lamentable misnomer,” because of its historical and theological implications; see Sebastian Brock, “The ‘Nestorian’ Church: A Lamentable Misnomer,” Bulletin of John Rylands Library 78, no. 3 (1996): 23–35. Alexander Treiger has attempted to rehabilitate the term, pointing out for example that authors used the term sometimes even in self-reference; see Alexander Treiger, “The Christology of the Letter from the People of Cyprus,” Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 65 (2013): 44–46. This reasoning does not address the power differentials that sometimes constrain marginalized populations to use undesired terms in self-reference, nor the fact that English connotations of Christian theological terms are not regulated with reference to Arabic texts. There are also differences in usage between language traditions (Syriac vs. Arabic), between individual authors, and even sometimes among texts by the same author. Similar to the example of ʿAbdīshōʿ of Nisibis cited by Treiger, Eliyā of Nisibis uses the term “Nestorian” in his Kitāb al-Majālis, discussed here, but not in his Syriac chronicle (where the label only occurs in later manuscript notes added after Eliyā’s death); see Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni, Opus Chronologicum, ed. E. W. Brooks, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium: Scriptores Syri 7 (Paris: E Typographeo Reipublicae, 1910), 230–31. Rather than seeking to apply controversial labels to entire traditions, we might (as much as possible) follow the usage of particular works being analyzed. Since Eliyā of Nisibis does use the term “Nestorian” in self-reference in the text examined here, I have used it for him in this chapter; e.g., N. N. Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, mitropolita Nisivina, s vezirom Abū-l-Ḳāsimom al-Ḥusaynom ibn ʿAlī al-Maġribī i Poslanie mitropolita Ilii veziru Abū-l-Ḳāsimu (Moscow: Grifon, 2018), 59 [Arabic]. 9 Bertaina, “Monotheism in the Qur’ān,” 5–8. Bertaina, following Samir, argues that the dialogues actually happened, rather than being merely a literary device. See Samir Khalil Samir, “Deux cultures qui s’affrontent: une controverse sur l’iʿrāb au XIe siècle entre Elie de Nisibe et le vizir Abū l-Qāsim,” Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 49 (1975–76): 619–49, here 621. For the purpose of the arguments in this chapter it does not matter whether they are reporting real or imagined discussions.

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in his affirmations of Islamic scripture and of Muḥammad than the other texts considered in this chapter. In the third session Eliyā considered, but rejected, the idea that the Qur’ān’s references to Christianity were self-contradictory, by affirming them as monotheists (muwaḥḥidūn) in one place and condemning them for idolatry (shirk) in another; instead Eliyā affirmed the Qur’ān’s truthfulness by understanding its references to both “orthodox” and “heretical” Christians, while he also insisted that the Islamic scripture’s promise of salvation to Christians could not be abrogated.10 Nevertheless, when asked what Christians think of Muslims, though he praises their justice and prays for their state, he maintains that Christians disagree with Muslims regarding the prophethood of Muḥammad.11 Thus, while Eliyā of Nisibis insisted that the Qur’ān’s praises of and promises to Christians apply to his own community, there was a limit to his affirmation of Islamic scripture. Paul of Antioch, and a later anonymous revision of one of Paul’s texts, went further. Paul of Antioch is a historically obscure figure named as a monk and Melkite bishop of Sidon, and as the author of half a dozen or more Arabic treatises on the Christian faith. The era of his life and tenure as bishop is unknown, limited only by his use of the works of the earlier author Eliyā of Nisibis,12 on the one hand, and on the other by the summary of Paul’s Letter to a Muslim Friend by the Coptic author al-Ṣafī Ibn al-ʿAssāl in the mid-thirteenth century. In particular, it is not known whether Paul of Antioch was bishop in Sidon before, during, or after Crusader rule of the city.13

10 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 65–67 [Arabic]; Bertaina, “Monotheism in the Qur’ān,” 10–12. 11 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 144, 148 [Arabic]. 12 It has been known that Paul’s other texts quoted the works of Eliyā of Nisibis; see Sidney H. Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” in The Orthodox Church in the Arab World, 700–1700: An Anthology of Sources, ed. Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2014), 216–35 and 327–31, here 217. But there also seems to be a textual relationship between Paul’s supposed questions to the Christian leaders he interviewed, and their responses, regarding the potential for Trinitarian theological language to mislead the ignorant, and the questions put to Eliyā by the vizier al-Maghribī on the same issue, with Eliyā’s response. Compare Paul Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, évêque melkite de Sidon, XIIe s., Recherches publiées sous la direction de l’Institut de Lettres Orientales de Beyrouth 24 (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1964), 277–81 and Samir Khalil Samir, “Le premier entretien d’Élie de Nisibe,” Islamochristiana 5 (1979): 31–117, here 101–7. 13 For a summary of arguments, see David Thomas, “Paul of Antioch,” in CMR, vol. 4, 78–82; Diego R. Sarrió Cucarella, Muslim-Christian Polemics across the Mediterranean: The Splendid Replies of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī (d. 684/1285), The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 23 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2015), 69–72; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 217. Recent scholars are inclined to place Paul in the early thirteenth-century on the basis of the flurry of interest in his work by al-Ṣafī, the Muslim al-Qarāfī (d. 1285; 684 AH), and the anonymous author of the Letter from the People of Cyprus (1310s). Such views depend upon certain assumptions about the circulation of ideas in manuscript

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Griffith described Paul’s Letter to a Muslim Friend as the high-water mark of Christian apologetic use of the Qur’ān,14 yet its approach to Islamic scripture is not unreservedly affirmative. Griffith has commented that the Letter’s most striking characteristic is sixty-four Qur’ānic citations, alluding to parts of thirty-two different sūras.15 The accuracy of these quotations, as scholars have often noted, is not always very high, as Paul often adjusted the Islamic text to suit his apologetic arguments. And Paul acknowledged that he had left out parts of the Qur’ān from his discussion, an approach which he attempted to justify through the analogy of a bill of debt which had been marked as paid: only the acknowledgment of payment needs to be quoted.16 Paul of Antioch’s view of the Qur’ān therefore included affirming a divine origin for it while also excluding parts of it. Nevertheless, as we will see, there were also limits to Paul’s editorial work with quotations of the Qur’ān, and phrases from Islamic scripture still seem to have shaped Paul’s expression of both peripheral and even core Christian doctrines. An anonymous author or authors reworked Paul’s Letter to a Muslim Friend, producing what is known as the Letter from the People of Cyprus.17 Since the Muslim thinker Ibn Taymiyya received a copy in 1316, his contemporary al-Dimashqī (d. 1327; 727 AH) received a copy in 1321, and the earliest known manuscript is 1336, this text is typically dated to the early fourteenth century, a period in which Cyprus was the easternmost territory under Frankish rule, after the Mamluk state in Egypt

cultures, ideas which strike this author as uncertain, at best. If al-Ṣafī’s summary had not survived, for example, the same argument about the text’s reception would incline scholars to date the text to the mid- or even late-thirteenth century, which we know to be impossible only because of al-Ṣafī’s earlier use of it. This shows the argument’s fragility to surviving evidence. Paul could have written his Letter to a Muslim Friend, sent it, and kept a copy for himself, but not circulated it further among his Christian flock or monastic confrères, in which case the text may have lain in the episcopal library in Sidon for any number of decades or centuries before a subsequent nosy librarian opened it up and began to circulate it. 14 Griffith, “Qur’ān in Arab Christian Texts,” 204–5. In this context, Griffith did not distinguish between Paul’s original text and the later reworking of it as the Letter from the People of Cyprus, described below. 15 Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 218 and 328n14. 16 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 275; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 230. The analogy is easily reversed, however, and Muslim polemicists could claim that the portions of the Qur’ān quoted by Paul were the statement of debt rather than final acknowledgment of payment. 17 On this text in general, see David Thomas, “Paul of Antioch’s Letter to a Muslim Friend and The Letter from Cyprus,” in Syrian Christians under Islam: The First Thousand Years, ed. David Thomas (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2001), 203–21; David Thomas, “The Letter from Cyprus or Letters from Cyprus?” in Cultures in Contact: Transfer of Knowledge in the Mediterranean Context. Selected Papers, ed. Sofía Torallas Tovarand and J. Monferrer-Sala, Series Syro-Arabica 1 (Córdoba: Oriens Academic, 2013), 263–74.

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had driven the Crusaders out of the remainder of Syria. Alexander Treiger has shown that the Letter from the People of Cyprus revises Paul of Antioch’s Christological terminology in the direction of the usage of the (“Eastern Syriac” or “Nestorian”) Church of the East, and a community of this denomination was found in Famagusta at this time.18 However, the frame story of the text does not in fact present it as a letter sent by the people of Cyprus, but rather that the author went to Cyprus to consult with the Christians there and ask them questions about the Muslims,19 so the author or authors who revised the letter might have been on the Syrian mainland. The revision preserved most of the argumentation put forward by Paul of Antioch but thoroughly revised the frame story and made some other significant adjustments. In addition to the shift in Christological terminology observed by Treiger, many scholars have noted that the later text corrects deviations in Paul’s quotations of the Qur’ān while also supplying the title of each sūra throughout, and it supplements Paul’s arguments with many additional Qur’ānic citations and especially with florilegia of (largely paraphrased and misquoted) biblical references. The Letter from the People of Cyprus, perhaps due to its increased reliance upon Old Testament citations, also addresses a question not discussed by Paul of Antioch, which is why Jewish people interpret their own scriptures differently from Christians. Yet apart from increased scriptural proof-texting, it is conspicuous that the later author(s) did not introduce any additional arguments based on logic or reason, and indeed suppressed a few of Paul’s earlier arguments, which may have been felt to be too weak.20 Among the suppressed arguments is the dubious analogy of the debt quittance,21 which combined with the fuller and more precise quotations of the Qur’ān may suggest that the revised text’s author(s) had a higher view of Islamic scripture than the earlier bishop.

18 Treiger, “Christology,” 25–43. For a discussion of the term “Nestorian,” see note 8 above. Since the Letter from the People of Cyprus does not use the term, I have not preferred it in this chapter. 19 Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 54–55. 20 One example of a suppressed argument from the earlier text is where Paul of Antioch explained the “mysterious letters” at the start of sūrat al-baqara (Q 2:1) as an abbreviation of the Arabic word for Christ (al-masīḥ); see Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 253; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 223. The Letter from the People of Cyprus echoes Paul’s exegesis of Q 2:2–3, but silently drops the reference to the mysterious letters and Paul’s explanation of it; see Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 68–69. 21 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 275; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 230.

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3 Peripherals Several of the ways in which positive readings of the Qur’ān might influence Christian theology are peripheral to what medieval Christians identified as their core doctrines. For example, the ubiquitous Christian use of certain doxological formulae or certain phrases for God, including the phrase Allāh taʿālā, reflects Islamic usage in the broadest sense.22 Griffith has remarked on the Islamic character of the Arabic prose of Paul of Antioch.23 Even the use by Christians of the term naṣārā, which is the consistent term for Christians in the Qur’ān, must be ascribed ultimately to Qur’ānic influence, if perhaps mediated through the broader cultural dominance of elite Muslims.24 Indeed, one of the questions raised to Eliyā by the Muslim vizier al-Maghribī is whether the term naṣārā as used in the Qur’ān in fact refers to Christians of their own day.25 The Letter from the People of Cyprus also quotes a Qur’ānic disavowal of monasticism (Q 57:27), completing a quotation which Paul of Antioch had introduced, though the earlier author (himself a monk) had omitted the phrases that criticize his monastic lifestyle.26 Among the extensive (and inaccurate) paraphrases ascribed to the Hebrew prophets, the Letter from the People of Cyprus includes a reference to “the books of the messengers” (kutub al-rusul), an Islamic phrase, and also a prophecy of annual and monthly pilgrimages to “the holy house, the house of God” (bayt al-maqdis, bayt Allāh), using the typical Islamic name for Jerusalem and perhaps echoing Islamic practice around Mecca.27 The Letter from the People of Cyprus also claims that “both the Gospel and the Qur’ān attest” that David was God’s “representative on earth” (khalīfatahu fī al-arḍ, “caliph on earth”) and “at the side of God” (min jānib Allāh); the former term indeed appears in Q 38:26, but I cannot find any biblical parallel, nor support for

22 E.g., Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 2, 3, 6, 12, etc. [Arabic]. One might compare the more extensive adaptation of Qur’ānic doxological language in the eighth-century Christian text Fī tathlīth Allāh al-wāḥid, analyzed by Mark N. Swanson, “Beyond Prooftexting: Approaches to the Qur’ān in Some Early Arabic Christian Apologies,” MW 88 (1998): 297–319, here 305–8. On Islamic and specifically Qur’ānic influence on one tenth-century Christian Arabic text, see Luke Yarbrough, “Inter-Confessional Church History: East Syrian Christian Identity and Islam in the Ecclesiastical History of Kitāb al-Maǧdal,” Quaderni di Studi Arabi 16 (2021): 125–70, here 149–51 and 159–61. 23 Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 217. 24 E.g., Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 255; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 224; Ebied and Thomas, MuslimChristian Polemic, 54, 80. 25 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 79–80 [Arabic]; Bertaina, “Monotheism in the Qur’ān,” 3–4. 26 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 247; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 222; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 63. 27 Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 86–87.

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the latter idea in either the Qur’ān or the Bible.28 These are examples of Qur’ānic influence on the language of these texts, but not in ways that substantially affect Christian theology. Positive readings of the Qur’ān also encouraged Christians to rework their evaluations of other religions. Most obviously, it led to a positive reevaluation of Islam and Muḥammad, so that when the Muslim vizier al-Maghribī asked Eliyā of Nisibis directly what the Christians think of Muslims, the metropolitan archbishop’s answer was not only very tactful, but showed clear influence of Q 5:82 in his description that the milla closest to Muslims were Christians, due to their disagreement only about Muḥammad and agreement about Moses and Jesus.29 Eliyā even inserted a benediction following his mention of the disputed prophet, if an unusual one (raḥmat Allāh ʿalayhi, “God’s mercy be upon him”),30 whereas Paul of Antioch used the common Islamic benediction ʿalayhi al-salām after mentioning Muḥammad.31 While most Christian authors rejected Islam and ignored or criticized Muḥammad,32 Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus both present Muslims as well as Christians as servants of God, and their strategy of interpreting the Qur’ān in a pro-Christian manner as removing any cause for disagreement between the two religions.33 The worst that either text says about Islam is that it is perhaps superfluous, in that Jesus was perfect and anything following perfection is unnecessary.34 Indeed, Paul of Antioch even went further to declare, on the basis of the Qur’ān, that “Muslims and others” are in fact “equal” (sāwā) in their religious validity.35 Paul sought to neutralize the criticism of Muḥammad’s predecessors in Q 42:15 not only by omitting the first part of the verse, but also 28 Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 142–43. 29 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 144–47 [Arabic]. 30 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 148 [Arabic]. 31 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 242–43; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 220. It is unclear whether significance should be attached to the use of this form, more often used by Muslim authors for prophets other than Muḥammad, rather than the benediction reserved by Muslims for Muḥammad specifically, ṣallā Allāh ʿalayhi wa-l-salām. 32 For reflections on earlier Christian anti-Muslim polemics, see Mark N. Swanson, “Christians, Muslims and the True Religion,” in CMR, vol. 15, 73–97; Gordon Nickel, “‘Our Friendly Strife’: Eastern Christianity engaging the Qur’an,” in CMR, vol. 15, 255–79. 33 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 289; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 234; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 147. 34 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 287; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 233; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 145. 35 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 257; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 224. Oddly, here the edition of the Letter from the People of Cyprus changes Paul’s word “made equal” (fa-sāwā) to wa-afṣala (“divided”?), despite the fourth stem of the verb faṣala not being attested in any reference work I checked; despite the textual change, the translation preserves the translation of Paul’s term and does not

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by interpreting the latter part as testifying to a lack of contention between Christians and Muslims, and that God will bring both sides together, to him, an argument shared by the Letter from the People of Cyprus.36 Positive Christian readings of the Qur’ān encouraged these authors to affirm the acceptability of Islam itself, at least for some. Less obviously perhaps, a positive evaluation of the Qur’ān seems often to have sharpened anti-Jewish polemic. While medieval Christian authors writing in Arabic often criticized Judaism as a false religion that rejected Jesus as the Messiah,37 both Paul of Antioch and especially the Letter from the People from Cyprus go beyond expressions typical for their traditions. Indeed, anti-Judaism plays a particular role in their Christian appropriations of the Qur’ān. Not only are there specific Qur’ānic criticisms of Jews (such as Q 5:82, cited above for emphasizing Christian closeness to Muslims) that were taken to supplement common Christian polemics, but focusing on and broadening the reputed iniquities of the Jews allowed these authors to neutralize certain more general criticisms of the “People of the Book” (ahl al-kitāb) in the Qur’ān. Thus Paul of Antioch quoted Q 29:46’s injunction not to argue with People of the Book except “with those of them that do wrong” (alladhīn ẓalamū minhum), and identifies these wrong-doing non-Muslims as entirely Jewish by appealing to Psalm 105[106]:38–39.38 Anti-Jewish polemic also allowed both Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus to appropriate Q 1:7, which includes no religious labels, by interpreting “those who are favored” (alladhīn anʿamta ʿalayhim) as Christians, “those who are the object of anger” (al-mughḍūb ʿalayhim) as Jews, and “those who go astray” (al-ḍāllīn) as idol-worshippers.39 The Letter from the People of Cyprus goes far beyond Paul of Antioch in its anti-Judaism, with extensive paraphrases ascribed (loosely) to the Old Testament, taking every scriptural criticism of any Israelites as applicable to all late medieval Jews individ-

comment on the change; see Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 82–83. Perhaps it is merely a scribal corruption. 36 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 253; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 223; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 75. 37 Eliyā of Nisibis argued that Q 3:113–14 included some Jews or Christians among the righteous, but then argued that those righteous non-Muslims must be Christians because Jews (he contended) are hard-hearted; see Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 72–73 [Arabic]. 38 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 255; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 223–24; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 74–77. 39 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 259; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 225; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 89–91. Earlier Theodore Abū Qurra had interpreted “those who are favored” as Christians, without the reference to Jews; see Griffith, “Qur’ān in Arab Christian Texts,” 230.

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ually.40 But even if Paul of Antioch did not develop the theme to the same extent, the logic is the same in the briefer compass of Paul’s text, as seen above. On the other hand, these Christian texts that put forward a positive view of the Islamic scripture also develop a novel reflection on ethnic boundaries and the relationship between ethnicity and religion. Both Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus characterize the Qur’ān and Muḥammad’s ministry as directed exclusively to “pagan Arabs” (al-jāhiliyya min al-ʿarab), and assert the injustice of God requiring anyone to follow a messenger who was not sent to them in their own language.41 In these texts, this asserted relationship between prophets and language might be taken as a bid to limit the influence of the Qur’ān on Christian theology, so that Christians need not jettison every doctrine criticized by the Qur’ān, while still maintaining that the Islamic scripture is (in some sense) divinely inspired. Yet there is a tension here with the more common Christian understanding of the universal imperative to worship Jesus Christ, and indeed even these texts emphasize the fact that the Christian scriptures have been translated into many different languages.42 If one were to press the point that prophets’ ministries are ethnically or linguistically delimited, that might exclude most Christians (as gentiles) from using the Hebrew prophets, an exclusion acceptable neither to Paul of Antioch nor to the Letter from the People of Cyprus, while putting both those authors in an awkward position as Arabic-speaking Christians reporting the views of non-Arabophone Christians elsewhere.

4 Prophetology and Scripture We move closer to core doctrines by observing how the Qur’ān shaped these Christian authors’ discussions of saints and scriptures. In particular, the Islamic scripture facilitated a development of corresponding Christian prophetology, leading to new ways of expressing the roles of apostles, of Jesus’s mother Mary, and of the Bible itself. Yet these Christian authors’ use of the Qur’ān was not mere adoption of outside views, but instead reflected creative engagement with its text, and there were limits to how much they were willing to change certain Christian doctrines to accommodate the Islamic scripture.

40 Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 75–81, 111–13. 41 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 245; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 221; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 58–61. 42 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 251; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 223; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 73.

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The Qur’ān mentions the disciples of Jesus as undifferentiated bit parts in its narrative of the prophet whom it names as ʿĪsā, from which Paul of Antioch adopted the Qur’ānic presentation of the apostles as “God’s helpers” (ʾanṣār Allāh).43 More generally, however, the Qur’ān presents divine interventions in human history as structured around the notion of a succession of prophets, among whom Jesus was a prophet and his disciples were not.44 But perhaps in order to escape the implications of the claim that each people should only follow the prophets sent to them in their language, Paul of Antioch assimilated the apostles to the Qur’ānic idea of prophets, and explicitly stated that each people received apostles with the Gospel translated into their own language, while the apostolic mission was also expressed by these authors, in terms which the Qur’ān uses for prophets, as “to warn us” (li-yundhirūnā).45 Paul of Antioch reinterpreted certain verses of the Qur’ān which describe God sending his “messengers” (rusul and mursalīn, i.e. prophets) as referring to the disciples of Jesus, though in fact the Qur’ān uses a different term to refer to Christian apostles (al-ḥawāriyyūn in Q 5:111–12).46 The Letter from the People of Cyprus kept the reference to Q 57:25, but replaced the quotation of Q 36:20–21 with the more explicit claim in Q 2:213 that God “sent prophets as bearers of good tidings and warners,” thus even more explicitly assimilating the Christian apostles to Qur’ānic prophetology.47 The Virgin Mary is, perhaps surprisingly, a more prominent figure in the Qur’ān than in the New Testament texts, although the stories told of her in Islamic scripture are often related to Christian legends circulating from late antiquity onward.48 Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus both quote the Qur’ān’s description of Mary and her son Jesus as “a sign to the worlds” (āya li-l-ʿālamīn) and the characterization of Mary as chosen “above the women of the worlds” (ʿalā nisāʾ al-ʿālamīn).49 This latter phrase is then used by both authors even outside of

43 Q 3:52–53; 5111–15; 61:14; Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 249–51; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 222. 44 E.g., Q 19:30, 41, 49, 51, 53, 54, 56. 45 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 249; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 222; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 67. For Qurʾānic associations of this verb with prophets, cf. Q 26:208, 214; 37:72; 46:29. 46 Q 57:25; 36:20–21; Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 249; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 222. ّ ‫فبعث هللا النبيين مب‬: Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 66–67. 47 ‫شرين ومنذرين‬ 48 For example, see Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur’ān and the Bible: Text and Commentary (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018), 475–78 (discussing Q 19:16–26). 49 Q 22:91 and 3:42; Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 246–47; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 221; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 62–63, 144–45.

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quotations from Islamic scripture,50 showing that it was taken up into their own Christian idiom for describing the mother of Jesus.51 Similarly, the typical Qur’ānic verb for the divine inspiration of any scripture is that God “sent it down” (tanzīl), and Paul of Antioch quotes a verse referring to “whatever scripture God sent down” (bi-mā anzala Allāh min kitāb).52 Paul quotes Q 3:3 and 10:94 as references to the Qur’ān confirming Christian scriptures,53 using this verb, and the Letter from the People of Cyprus adds several additional Qur’ānic references to divine inspiration as a process of “sending down.”54 But even outside of quotations of the Qur’ān, the later text uses this verb for the revelation of Christian scriptures when it refers to “the books of God sent down through the mouths of the prophets.”55 Paul of Antioch also accepted the Qur’ān’s assertion that God never spoke to any prophets “except through revelation or from behind a veil” (Q 42:51), which the Letter from the People of Cyprus then elaborated upon to identify Christ’s humanity as the veil.56 The Qur’ānic verse may distantly echo the Bible’s description of God’s interaction with prophets in Numbers 12:6, though in that context the following verse identifies Moses as an exception to whom God speaks face-to-face (Numbers 12:7).57 No exception is identified for Moses or any other prophet by Paul of Antioch or the Letter from the People of Cyprus.

50 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 286–87; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 233; Ebied and Thomas, MuslimChristian Polemic, 142–43. 51 One might be tempted to suggest that the Qur’ān affected these Christian author’s views of holiness, with respect to holy people, holy text, and even holy food, as Paul of Antioch interpreted “the table” of sūrat al-Māʾidah (Q 5:112) as the Christian Eucharist: Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 256–59; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 224–25; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 82–85. But apart from applying the Qur’ān’s reported threat of unprecedented punishment (Q 5:115) to those who neglect “the table” of communion, this interpretation does not seem to have implications for Christian theological understanding of the sacrament. 52 Q 42:15; Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 252–53; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 223; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 74–75. 53 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 250–51; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 222. 54 Q 2:213; 3:1–4; 2:4; 5:46–47; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 66–69. ّ 55 ‫المنزلة على أفواه األنبياء‬ ‫كتب هللا‬: Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 106–7. 56 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 269; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 228; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 97–99. 57 For additional Arabic Christian appropriations of this verse, and possible roots of the Qur’ān’s metaphor of revelation “from behind a veil,” see Swanson, “Beyond Prooftexting,” 297–302.

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5 Revising the Trinity Two of the most central doctrines of medieval Christianity, and also two of the main points of contention between Muslims and Christians, were the doctrines of the Trinity and the deity of Christ. About these doctrines the Qur’ān has a certain amount to say, if not entirely unambiguously,58 and these were perhaps the points of highest pressure for Christians who sought to affirm the Islamic scripture as in some sense divinely inspired. Even here, Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus adopted and adapted Qur’ānic language in ways markedly different from the Trinitarian and Christological expressions of other late medieval Christians. As one example with relatively low stakes, these authors accepted the miracles that the Qur’ān, but not the New Testament, ascribes to Jesus himself, such as speaking in the cradle and forming a bird from clay.59 There is nothing particularly challenging to Christian theology in these miracle accounts, yet in this issue we see also how the Qur’ānic presentation of the miracles of Jesus had greater influence on Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus than on Eliyā of Nisibis earlier. Eliyā accepted the veracity of miracles ascribed by the Qur’ān to Jesus, but he insisted that the difference between Christ’s miracles and those of other prophets like Moses was that the other prophets needed to petition God for miraculous action whereas Jesus could just give a command and it happened immediately (ʿalā al-fawr).60 With contrasting emphasis, the Qur’ān presents these miracles as done by Jesus “by the permission of God” (bi-ʾidhn Allāh; Q 3:49; cf. Q 5:110). Even though Paul of Antioch demonstrated in many other instances a deft ability to quote only part of a Qur’ānic verse without including words which did not serve his argument, here he included the characterization of the miracles of Jesus as “by the permission of God.”61 The Letter from the People of Cyprus retains this characterization, and when it later argued for the unique virtue of the human Jesus, it did so based exclu58 Griffith suggested the influence of Qur’ānic prophetology on Christian incarnational theology in the early Islamic period, and likewise drew a link to how the Trinity came to be discussed in terms of ṣifāt Allāh, or God’s “beautiful names” (al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā); see Griffith, “Qur’ān in Arab Christian Texts,” 218. 59 Q 3:46, 49; 5:110, 19:29–33; Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 247; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 221; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 63. These Qur’ānic miracles of Jesus have parallels in late antique Christian apocryphal texts; see Reynolds, Qur’ān and the Bible, 120, 121–22, 215–16, 477. But it is unclear that the early Christian texts were accessible to Paul of Antioch or the author(s) of the Letter from the People of Cyprus in order to confirm for them the claims of the Qur’ān on the subject. 60 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 49 [Arabic]. 61 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 247; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 221.

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sively on a discussion of the words of self-blessing ascribed to the newborn Christ uniquely in the Qur’ān.62 Thus, the Qur’ānic characterization of Christ’s miracles as requiring God’s permission had a stronger influence on Paul of Antioch’s presentation of Christianity, and especially that of the Letter from the People of Cyprus, than on Eliyā of Nisibis, who earlier accepted the reported miracles as genuine but emphasized the difference between the miracles of Jesus and those of other prophets. Paul of Antioch ingeniously sought to neutralize Qur’ānic criticism of Christian doctrines by reinterpreting it in support of dyophysite Christology. Thus the verse of the Qur’ān which is usually interpreted as denying the crucifixion of Jesus, Paul explained as indicating that they did not crucify God the Word, the second person of the Trinity, but only the humanity of Jesus.63 Where the Qur’ān rhetorically asks how God can have a Son with no consort (Q 6:101), Paul of Antioch takes this to confirm divine asexual reproduction, and the Christian author reads into the Qur’ān’s cryptic reference to an oath by “a begetter and what he begot” (wālidin wa-mā walada; Q 90:1–3) as confirmation of the eternal generation of the Son of God from the Father.64 On the other hand, the Letter from the People of Cyprus surprisingly misquotes even the Gospel of Luke’s report of the angel Gabriel’s annunciation of the future birth of Jesus as “he who is born of you will be holy and mighty” (alladhī yūlad minki qaddusan ʿaẓīman) rather than “is holy and will be called the Son of God” as it stands in biblical manuscripts.65 Clearly, this was an accommodation to Islamic concerns regarding the idea of God having a son. A similar accommodation to Islamic concerns is seen in the sharp distinction drawn by Eliyā of Nisibis between the referents of “the Lord” (al-rabb) and “Jesus” in his discussion of the Trinity, understanding the former term with reference to the Word of God alone, and the latter with respect to “the human taken from Mary” (al-basharī al-maʾkhūdh min Maryam) alone.66 This revives the earlier attempt by Nestorius of Constantinople to delineate precisely between what could be asserted of the divine Logos, what could be said of the human Jesus, and what could be predicated of Christ as the union of the two. But an Eastern Syriac synod of 585 CE had 62 Q 19:33; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 63, 145. 63 Q 4:157; Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 269; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 228; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 126–27. 64 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 267; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 228. The Letter from the People of Cyprus did not reproduce these arguments. 65 Luke 1:35; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 145. The Arabic quotation is closer to the Peshitta (Syriac) translation than to the Greek, but the Peshitta includes “Son of God.” 66 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 32–35 [Arabic]; Samir, “Le premier entretien,” 110–13. On the Arabic phrase al-basharī al-maʾkhūdh min Maryam and its roots in the theology of Theodore of Mopsuestia, see Treiger, “Christology,” 41.

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acknowledged the communicatio idiomatum, which allowed the properties of the humanity or divinity of Christ to be verbally predicated of the other by virtue of the union, and Eliyā likewise acknowledged that the terms were in fact interchanged “in a number of places, on account of the union” (fī ʿiddat mawāḍiʿ li-ajl al-ittiḥād).67 Nevertheless, Eliyā came close to verbally contradicting the Nicene Creed’s phrase “one Lord Jesus Christ” in his subsequent statement: “So here Jesus is not the Lord and the Lord is not Jesus” (fa-lā al-rabb hū hāhunnā Īshūʿ wa-lā Īshūʿ hū al-rabb), and his later discussion of the incarnation never uses the word “Lord” of Jesus.68 Eliyā’s creed which he presented to the Muslim vizier uses the phrase “one Lord” not of Jesus, but of the divine Trinity.69 By contrast, the parallel attempt at a distinction between Christ’s divinity and humanity by Babai the Great (d. 628) four centuries earlier had used “Lord” for both the human and the divine.70 Catholicos Timothy I (d. 823) had responded to Muslim polemicists’ reservation of “the Lord” for God alone by insisting that Jesus was the Lord, not merely a servant of God.71 Eliyā shifted his tradition’s division of Christological epithets out of deference to the Islamic tradition, perhaps knowingly in response to the Qur’ānic criticism that Christians have taken Jesus the son of Mary as a lord in addition to God.72 Ironically, despite Eliyāʾs deployment of a sharp “Nestorian” distinction between the human and divine to accommodate Islamic concerns, the Qur’ān itself is not this precise in its use of language, as it identifies “Jesus, the son of Mary” with God’s Word (kalima).73

67 J. Chabot, ed., Synodicon Orientale ou Recueil de synodes nestoriens (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1902), 136; Sebastian Brock, “The Christology of the Church of the East in the Synods of the Fifth to Early Seventh Centuries: Preliminary Considerations and Materials,” in Aksum–Thyateira: Festschift Archbishop Methodios of Thyateira and Great Britain, ed. G. Dragas (London: Thyateira House, 1985), 125–42, here 137–38; Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 32–33 [Arabic]; Samir, “Le premier entretien,” 112–13. On the use and limits of the communicatio idiomatum in the Eastern Syriac tradition, see Salam Rassi, Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World: ʿAbdīshōʿ of Nisibis and the Apologetic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 152–65. 68 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 33, 36–63 [Arabic]; Samir, “Le premier entretien,” 112–13. 69 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 96. 70 Babai Magni, Liber de Unione, ed. Arthur Adolphe Vaschalde, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium: Scriptores Syri 61 (Paris: E Typographeo Republicae, 1915), 218, citing Luke 2:11. I thank Aleksandr Tamrazov for bringing the reference to my attention. Cf. Geevarghese Chediath, The Christology of Mar Babai the Great (Kottayam: Oriental Institute of Religious Studies, 1982), 150–51. 71 On this, see Joachim Jakob, Syrisches Christentum und früher Islam: Theologische Reaktionen in syrisch-sprachigen Texten vom 7. bis 9. Jahrhundert, Innsbrucker Theologische Studien 95 (Innsbruck–Wien: Tyrolia-Verlag, 2021), 475–80. 72 Q 9:31. 73 Q 4:171.

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Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus, like earlier Christian authors, both quoted Qur’ānic references to God’s “word” (kalima) and the “holy spirit” (rūḥ al-qudus) in order to support Christian Trinitarian theology, but this language came with a catch. Medieval Christians generally distinguished sharply between the Son of God and the Spirit, as two out of three separate hypostases (Ar. aqānīm, sg. uqnūm, from Syr. qnōmā) of the one Godhead, and each of these authors deploys the earlier Christian Arabic apologetic for the Trinity which identifies the Son of God with God’s “speech” (nuṭq) and the Holy Spirit with God’s “life” (ḥayāh).74 However, the Qur’ān itself was not so precise in its use of language, and at one point (Q 4:171) refers to the Messiah both as God’s Word (kalima) and “a spirit from him” (rūḥ minhu).75 This verse is quoted approvingly by both Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus, neither of whom raises the possible conflation of Trinitarian persons as a concern, and in this they went beyond the earlier Eliyā, who only once alluded to this verse in his assertion that Muslims believe that Christ is “the word of God most high” (kalimat Allāh taʿālā).76 But this verse was used by many earlier Christian authors; what sets these authors apart is their additional reference, outside of Qur’ānic citations, to the divinity of Jesus using the derived phrase “the Spirit of God and his Word” (rūḥ Allāh wa-kalimatuhu) without comment or qualification. For example, Paul of Antioch uses this phrase with a singular pronoun, which confirms that both nouns refer to the same person.77 While in this passage the Letter from the People of Cyprus made the pronoun plural, distinguishing the two references, in another passage with no parallel in Paul of Antioch’s earlier epistle, the later author(s) describe “two substances in the Lord Christ, the substance of the divine nature which is the substance of the Word of God and his Spirit, and the substance of the human nature which he took from the Virgin

74 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 18–26 [Arabic]; Samir, “Le premier entretien,”  76–95; Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 261; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 226; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 90–93. 75 For a discussion of earlier Christian appropriations of this verse, see Griffith, “Qur’ān in Arab Christian Texts,” 216–17, 226, 229. 76 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 146 [Arabic]; Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 247, 271; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 221, 229; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 129. This verse was cited already by Yaʿqūb of Edessa (d. 708), who, however, noted and complained of the confusion of Trinitarian persons: François Nau, “Lettre de Jacques d’Édesse sur la Généalogie de la Sainte Vierge,” Revue de l’Orient Chrétien 6 (1901): 512–31, here 518–19, 524. I thank Salam Rassi for the citation. For additional Christian apologetic uses of Qur’ānic verses in support of dyophysite Christology, see Rassi, Christian Thought, 183–86. 77 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 259; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 225; see also Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 271, 275; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 229, 230, only the last of which is retained in the revised text; see Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 124–25.

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Mary.”78 Evidently this phrase, derived from but not literally found in the Qur’ān, became a way to describe the deity of Christ acceptable to some Christian authors. Such a usage need not be anti-Trinitarian, and elsewhere in their texts both Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus include lengthy defenses of fully Trinitarian language.79 But this phrase does fly in the face of the more common Christian usage which separates the Word and the Holy Spirit more precisely, and in this way one might see the adoption of Qur’ānic usage as reopening what had been a live discussion regarding the relationship between the Word of God and the Spirit of God from the pre-Constantinian period through late antiquity.80 One perhaps surprising limitation of Qur’ānic influence on these Christians’ description of Christ himself, as presented by Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus, is that they almost never identify Jesus as a “prophet” (nabīʾ) or “messenger” (rasūl), despite the fact that the latter identification is also found in the same verse from which they draw the identification of the Messiah as God’s Spirit (Q 4:171). This is also despite the description of Jesus as a prophet occurring even in the New Testament.81 In this light, these authors clearly wished to maintain the superiority of Jesus over the other prophets (including Muḥammad), as their arguments conclude with a piece of logic to demonstrate that it was necessary for God to reveal the perfect religious law of grace through joining himself to the most perfect creation, which is the human nature born of Mary.82 By contrast, perhaps surprisingly given that his discussion is generally more conservative than that of Paul of Antioch or the Letter from the People of Cyprus, Eliyā of Nisibis presented a Christology more continuous with Islamic prophetology, as the earlier author sought to justify his language of the Word of God “indwelling” (ḥulūl) within Jesus as not essential but by will, and therefore continuous with God’s ḥulūl of the other prophets and the righteous.83 While this explanation has pre-Islamic origins, in an Islamic context it prompted the Muslim vizier al-Maghribī to claim that Jesus was

78 ‫ جوهر الهوتي الذي هو جوهر كلمة هللا وروحه وجوهر ناسوتي الذي أخذه من مريم العذراء‬،‫في السيّد المسيح جوهران‬: Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 128–29 (translation modified to align more closely with the Arabic). See also Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 142–43 and 144–45. 79 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 263, 281; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 226, 231; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 93–95, 133. 80 One might compare the (hostile) account of the views of Callistus of Rome (d. 222) in The Refutation of All Heresies associated with the name Hippolytus of Rome. See M. David Litwa, trans., Refutation of All Heresies, Writings from the Graeco-Roman World 40 (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2016), 650–53. 81 Matthew 13:53–58; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24; 13:33; John 4:44. Cf. Babai Magni, Liber de Unione, 218. 82 Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 287; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 233; Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 141. 83 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 39 [Arabic].

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no different from the other prophets, to which Eliyā responded in detail showing the superiority of Jesus to all the others.84 So while Eliyā himself drew an analogy between God’s relationship to Jesus and God’s relationship to other prophets, he like the later Christian texts maintained the unique perfection and superiority of Christ. This shared emphasis indicates a limit for these authors’ willingness to accept Islamic characterizations of Christianity and of Jesus.

6 Conclusions What we have learned goes beyond the rather unsurprising idea that those Christians who chose to read the Qur’ān positively, emphasizing the truth of its affirmations about Jesus and Christians, found their description of their own religion influenced by Islamic scripture. Christian authors’ uses of the Qur’ān were not simply a binary choice between entire rejection and adoption or agreement. Instead, the Christian authors whose works we have read here show a level of engagement and adaptation of the Qur’ānic words to suit their own purposes.85 For example, Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus used Qur’ānic prophetology to elevate the status of the apostles beyond any claims made by the Qur’ān itself.86 We should understand positive Christian readings of the Qur’ān as a more intense variety of engagement and adaptation which was qualitatively continuous with the adaptations of Islamic scripture employed by Christian authors whose evaluation of the text was, on the whole, more negative. The authors examined here were also not simply united in their assessment of the Qur’ān and its influence on their apologetic presentations of Christianity, but rather they occupied different places along the continuum of views regarding Islamic scripture, and simultaneously different views along the continuum of how influenced they were by it. The continuums were parallel, so that the more positively an author read the Qur’ān, the more significantly their apologetic presentation of Christian theology was adjusted to meet it. Thus, all the authors examined 84 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 40 [Arabic]. For a more detailed discussion of the tradition of the Church of the East on this question and its roots in pre-Islamic theology, see Rassi, Christian Thought, 158–65. 85 Mark Swanson likewise discussed how Arabic Christian authors in the early Islamic period adapted elements of Qur’ānic narratives into their retellings of biblical stories, in order to make distinctly Christian theological points; see Swanson, “Beyond Prooftexting,” 308–11. More generally, see his discussion of a typology for intertextual reflection, Swanson, “Beyond Prooftexting,” 314–18. 86 See above, nn. 43–47.

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here presented Christianity in ways influenced more strongly by Islamic scripture than the “flawed scripture” approach outlined by Griffith for the early Islamic period.87 Eliyā of Nisibis was closest to that older approach: when he discussed majāz (metaphor) as a defect in language, the Muslim vizier asked why then the Qur’ān was mostly majāz, and the metropolitan archbishop begged to be excused from discussing the majāz of the Qur’ān.88 He accepted the Qur’ānic miracles of Jesus, and argued that its promise of salvation to Christians could not be abrogated,89 yet his analysis of the distinctions among Trinitarian persons showed no influence from Islamic scripture. His discussion of Muslims as closest to Christians was highly tactful in context and also revealed the impact of Q 5:82,90 while his discussion of the continuity between the ḥulūl of Jesus and that of other prophets may suggest the influence of Qur’ānic prophetology. Nevertheless, he maintained the unique perfection of Jesus, and on the other hand, the biggest shift in his presentation of theology from the tradition of his predecessors, namely his revival of the sharp distinction between predicates of the human Jesus and predicates of “the Lord,” seems to have been determined more by the logic of his debate with the vizier than by the precise content of the Qur’ān. But Paul of Antioch’s heightened affirmation of the Qur’ān and Muḥammad went hand-in-hand with the greater impact of Islamic scripture on his expression of Christian theology. Paul regarded Muḥammad as a real prophet, merely sent to pagan Arabs rather than to Christians of any sort, and he accepts the “clear testimonies and evident proofs as come from the scripture that this messenger [i.e., Muḥammad] has brought.”91 This led him to regard Muslims as equally servants of God with Christians, with nothing to dispute between them, even as he reconceived Christian notions of the apostles and revelation through Islamic prophetology. Most significantly, he was willing to describe Jesus not only as “the Word of God” but also as “God’s Spirit,” crossing the firm boundaries between the descriptions of Trinitarian persons inherited from late antique theological debates. Yet there were limits: his analogy of the debt quittance suggests that some parts of the Qur’ān were not valid, he did not describe Jesus himself as a prophet, and he kept Eliyā’s insistence on maintaining Trinitarian language.

87 See above, n. 4. 88 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 125–26 [Arabic]. 89 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 50, 67–70 [Arabic]; Bertaina, “Monotheism in the Qur’ān,” 11–12. 90 Seleznyëv, Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, 144–47 [Arabic]. 91 ‫الشهادات البينات والداليل الواضحات من الكتاب الذي اتى به هذا الرسول‬: Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 273; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 229–30.

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The anonymous Letter from the People of Cyprus is a revision of Paul of Antioch’s Letter to a Muslim Friend, and thus it simply repeats most of the ways in which the Qur’ān influenced the earlier author, yet it also went further in a few ways. It removed Paul’s dubious analogy of the debt quittance, and therefore contains no criticism of the Qur’ān, only a statement that the Islamic scripture was intended primarily for pagan Arabs.92 On the other hand, it repeated the earlier author’s acceptance of the Islamic scripture’s “clear testimonies and evident proofs,”93 and ranked it parallel to the New Testament with the citation, “as the Gospel and Qur’an attest.”94 Perhaps most astonishingly, for a Christian text, while it made the Qur’ānic quotations align more precisely with the received text of Islamic scripture, its many “quotations” from the Bible added in the revision process were bizarrely inaccurate. These inaccuracies on the one hand greatly heightened the anti-Jewish dimension of Paul of Antioch’s earlier text, and in the case of the annunciation of Luke 1 even removed a biblical reference to Jesus as the Son of God.95 Hence we see among these authors a continuum of degrees of affirmation of the Qur’ān, and a correlated variation in the degree of influence Islamic scripture had on their apologetic presentation of Christian theology. One perhaps surprising element of the interreligious influence described here is the fact that the Qur’ān served also as a conduit for reintroducing Christian ideas and debates from late antiquity to the Christians of the late medieval Middle East. While late antique Christian texts had presented various legends regarding the childhood and miracles of Jesus, and the upbringing of Mary herself, the incorporation of such stories into the Qur’ān made them perennially relevant for Christian apologetic to Muslims. The theological approach to the conflicting predicates of the humanity and deity in Christ, as set out by Eliyā of Nisibis, curtails the notion of communicatio idiomatum which undergirded much Christian reflection on that issue in late antiquity,96 and was perhaps prompted by the need to deflect Qur’ānic criticisms, even as it also disallowed how the Qur’ān itself described Jesus, the son of Mary, as God’s “word” (Q 4:171). Indeed, the adoption of Qur’ānic language by Paul of Antioch and the Letter from the People of Cyprus in describing Jesus as “God’s Word and Spirit” seemingly reopened very early Christian debates about the precise reference of these words as they occur in the Bible. Because of the Qur’ān’s own engagement with Christian ideas in its late antique context, and because of 92 Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 58–59; cf. Khoury, Paul d’Antioche, 245; Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” 221. 93 Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 122–23. 94 ‫كما شهد اإلنجيل والقرآن‬: Ebied and Thomas, Muslim-Christian Polemic, 142–43. 95 See above, nn. 40, 65. 96 See above, n. 67.

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its canonization and diffusion among the worldwide Muslim community, Islamic scripture could function as a continuously available conduit of late antique Christian ideas to Arabic-speaking Christians of a later era.

Bibliography Primary Sources Babai Magni. Liber de Unione. Edited by Arthur Adolphe Vaschalde. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium: Scriptores Syri 61. Paris: E Typographeo Republicae, 1915. Chabot, J. ed. Synodicon Orientale ou Recueil de synodes nestoriens. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1902. Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Boston, MA: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845. Ebied, Rifaat and David Thomas, eds. 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 2. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2005. Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni. Opus Chronologicum. Edited by E. W. Brooks. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium: Scriptores Syri 7. Paris: E Typographeo Reipublicae, 1910. Griffith, Sidney H. “Paul of Antioch.” In The Orthodox Church in the Arab World, 700–1700: An Anthology of Sources. Edited by Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger, 216–35 and 327–31. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2014. Khoury, Paul, ed. Paul d’Antioche, évêque melkite de Sidon, XIIe s. Recherches publiées sous la direction de l’Institut de Lettres Orientales de Beyrouth 24. Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1964. Litwa, M. David, trans. Refutation of All Heresies. Writings from the Graeco-Roman World 40. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2016. Michel, Thomas. A Muslim Theologian’s Response to Christianity: Ibn Taymiyya’s al-Jawab al-sahih. Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1984. Nau, François. “Lettre de Jacques d’Édesse sur la Généalogie de la Sainte Vierge.” Revue de l’Orient Chrétien 6 (1901): 512–31. Seleznyëv, N. N. Kniga sobesedovaniĭ Ilii, mitropolita Nisivina, s vezirom Abū-l-Ḳāsimom al-Ḥusaynom ibn ʿAlī al-Maġribī i Poslanie mitropolita Ilii veziru Abū-l-Ḳāsimu. Moscow: Grifon, 2018. Abū l-ʿAbbās Taqī l-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Ibn Taymiyya. al-Jawāb al-Ṣaḥīḥ li-man baddala dīn al-Masīḥ. Edited by ʿAlī b. Ḥasan b. Nāṣir, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Ibrāhīm al-ʿAskar and Ḥamdān b. Muḥammad al-Ḥamdān. Riyāḍ: Dār al-ʿĀṣima, 1999.

Secondary Literature Bertaina, David. “An Arabic Christian perspective on monotheism in the Qur’an: Elias of Nisibis’ Kitab al-majalis.” In Heirs of the Apostles: Studies on Arabic Christianity in Honor of Sidney H. Griffith. Edited by David Bertaina, Sandra Toenies Keating, Mark N. Swanson and Alexander Treiger, 3–21. Arabic Christianity: Texts and Studies 1. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2019.

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Brock, Sebastian. “The Christology of the Church of the East in the Synods of the Fifth to Early Seventh Centuries: Preliminary Considerations and Materials.” In Aksum–Thyateira: Festschift Archbishop Methodios of Thyateira and Great Britain. Edited by G. Dragas, 125–42. London: Thyateira House, 1985. Brock, Sebastian. “The ‘Nestorian’ Church: A Lamentable Misnomer.” Bulletin of John Rylands Library 78, no. 3 (1996): 23–35. Chediath, Geevarghese. The Christology of Mar Babai the Great. Kottayam: Oriental Institute of Religious Studies, 1982. Cucarella, Diego R. Sarrió. Muslim-Christian Polemics across the Mediterranean: The Splendid Replies of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī (d. 684/1285). The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 23. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2015. Griffith, Sidney H. “The Qur’ān in Arab Christian Texts: The Development of an Apologetical Argument. Abū Qurra in the Maǧlis of al-Maʾmūn.” PO 24 (1999): 203–33. Jakob, Joachim. Syrisches Christentum und früher Islam: Theologische Reaktionen in syrisch-sprachigen Texten vom 7. bis 9. Jahrhundert. Innsbrucker Theologische Studien 95. Innsbruck–Wien: Tyrolia-Verlag, 2021. Nickel, Gordon. “‘Our Friendly Strife’: Eastern Christianity engaging the Qur’an.” In CMR. Vol. 15, 255–79. Rassi, Salam. Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World: ʿAbdīshōʿ of Nisibis and the Apologetic Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Reynolds, Gabriel Said. The Qur’ān and the Bible: Text and Commentary. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018. Sala, Juan Pedro Monferrer. “Elias of Nisibis.” In CMR. Vol. 2, 727–41. Samir, Samir Khalil. “Deux cultures qui s’affrontent: une controverse sur l’iʿrāb au XIe siècle entre Elie de Nisibe et le vizir Abū l-Qāsim.” Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 49 (1975–76): 619–49. Samir, Samir Khalil. “Le premier entretien d’Élie de Nisibe.” Islamochristiana 5 (1979): 31–117. Spurgeon, Charles H. The New Park Street Pulpit. Vol. 6. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1964. Swanson, Mark N. “Beyond Prooftexting: Approaches to the Qur’ān in Some Early Arabic Christian Apologies.” MW 88 (1998): 297–319. Swanson, Mark N. “Christians, Muslims and the True Religion.” In CMR. Vol. 15, 73–97. Teule, Herman. “Eliya of Nisibis.” In e-GEDSH. https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/entry/Eliya-of-Nisibis. Thomas, David. “Paul of Antioch’s Letter to a Muslim Friend and The Letter from Cyprus.” In Syrian Christians under Islam: The First Thousand Years. Edited by David Thomas, 203–21. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2001. Thomas, David. “Paul of Antioch.” In CMR. Vol. 4, 78–82. Thomas, David. “The Letter from Cyprus or Letters from Cyprus?” In Cultures in Contact: Transfer of Knowledge in the Mediterranean Context. Selected Papers. Edited by Sofía Sofia Torallas Tovarand and Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, 263–74. Series Syro-Arabica 1. Córdoba: Oriens Academic, 2013. Treiger, Alexander. “The Christology of the Letter from the People of Cyprus.” Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 65 (2013): 21–48. Yarbrough, Luke. “Inter-Confessional Church History: East Syrian Christian Identity and Islam in the Ecclesiastical History of Kitāb al-Maǧdal.” Quaderni di Studi Arabi 16 (2021): 125–70.

Manolis Ulbricht

Continuities and Discontinuities in Byzantine Anti-Islamic Polemics from the Seventh to the Thirteenth Century: The Mount Athos, Great Lavra, MS gr. Ω 44 Abstract: This chapter analyzes patterns of transmissions and circulations of ideological and theological argumentation attested in various texts of the anti-Islamic anthology preserved in the Mount Athos, Great Lavra, MS gr. Ω 44. The research focuses on intertextual relations between the texts preserved in this Greek manuscript in order to draw lines of continuities and discontinuities, to compare the knowledge on Islam provided in different texts, and to examine uniform and/or diverse forms of transmissions of various anti-Islamic polemics. When compared to later Byzantine polemics, the analysis of the anthology reveals how anti-Islamic knowledge transferred between different authors, texts, periods, and contexts. The chapter sheds light on the intellectual backgrounds of the authors and contexts of their works.

1 Introduction An important witness to Byzantine knowledge on Islam is the manuscript Mount Athos, Great Lavra, MS gr. Ω 44.1 The anthology of anti-Islamic texts preserved therein is an essential part of the chain of transmission between early and later Byzantine polemics against Islam. The manuscript contains anti-Islamic texts which have apparently been copied in later Byzantine times after the Fourth Crusade (1204) and collected as a codex. The authors of the works range from the seventh century theologian John of Damascus (c. 675–750) and his chapter  100

1 Antonio Rigo, “Niceta Byzantios, la sua opera e il monaco Evodio,” in ‘In partibus Clius’: Scritti in onore di Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli, ed. G. Fiaccadori, A. Gatti and S. Marotta, Biblioteca europea 36 (Naples: Vivarium, 2006), 147–87; Athina Kolia-Dermitzaki and Antonio Rigo, “Euodius the Monk,” in CMR, vol. 1, 844–8, esp. 848. Acknowledgements: This article was published in the frame of the project “Documenta Coranica Byzantina (DoCoByz). Byzantino-Islamica in the Age of Digital Humanities” (Principal Investigator: Manolis Ulbricht) funded under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (Grant agreement ID: 101063466). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-005

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from De haeresibus, up to the fourteenth century thinker Demetrios Kydones (1324–98) and his Greek translation of Contra legem Saracenorum by Riccoldo da Montecroce (1242/43–1320). The codex itself is dated to the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century.2 The catalogue of Spyridon Lavriotis and Sofronios Efstratiadis is the first to attest to the codex’s existence, with some additional remarks by Antonio Rigo.3 The context of the codex’s production remains unclear. We do not have any indication who commissioned it, for what purpose it was used, or the copyist’s identity. The codex also does not display marginalia, as is the case in other manuscripts or Qur’ānic translations. We are therefore unable to discern any further information of the manuscript, such as provenance, owners, or scribes. In contrast, this Athonite manuscript tells us much about the circulation of the works preserved therein, their intertextual relation to each other, and the chains of transmission and dissemination of specific theological aspects in anti-Islamic argumentation. In the following, I will focus on specific passages of selected works in this manuscript in order to illustrate aspects of continuities and discontinuities in anti-Islamic texts from Byzantium. Through the philological analyses of the works, we will see lines of transmissions, through unity and diversity in their argumentation against Islam. In this way, we will be able to compare the different ideological and theological approaches towards Muslim teachings.

2 Transmission of Anti-Islamic Knowledge in Byzantine Polemics After a florilegium on the Christian chronology (fols. 6r–13v), the MS Ω 44 starts with the work by George the Monk (fl. ninth century) known as Chronikon.4 The biographical information we have on George is limited. All that can be said with certainty is that he was a monk, adopting the then common epithet hamartolos (“sinner”), who

2 Antonio Rigo, “Theodore the Studite,” in CMR, vol. 1, 423–5, here 424. See also A. Rigo, “Niceta Byzantios,” 165. 3 Spyridon Lavriotis and Sophronios Efstratiadis, Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts in the Library of the Laura on the Mount Athos, Harvard Theological Studies 12 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925), 334. See also Rigo “Niceta Byzantios,” 165–7. 4 Georgius Monachus, Chronicon, ed. Carol de Boor, 2 vols., Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig: B. G. Teubneri, 1904) [reprinted with corrections by Peter Wirth, Stuttgart, 1978].

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lived during the reign of Michael III (842–867).5 Divided into three parts, his chronicle starts from the time of Adam and continues until his contemporary Michael III and the “restoration” of Orthodoxy.6 While there are several references to the Saracens throughout the text, a key area of interest is the section containing a biography of Muḥammad.7 The second work is the Greek text of Riccoldo da Montecroce’s Contra legem Saracenorum in the translation of Demetrios Kydones into Greek (fols. 49r–107v).8 This work is transmitted in several manuscripts,9 of which all but one is described by J.-M.  Mérigoux.10 Riccoldo heavily relies on two works: Kydones’s copy of the Qur’ān and the Liber denudationis siue ostensionis aut patefaciens, alias Contrarietas alfolica, a Latin translation of an Arabic treatise.11 Riccoldo cites and paraphrases the Liber denudationis and he also quotes from Mark of Toledo’s (fl. 1191– 1216) Latin translation of the Qur’ān. He had access to both the Arabic Qur’ān and Mark of Toledo’s translation. The Athonite codex starts with Riccoldo’s work containing standardized Christian arguments against Islam.12 The next work preserved in the Lavra manuscript is the chapter  100 on Islam from De haeresibus (fols. 108v–112v, 121r–121v) by John of Damascus. His text had, indeed, one of the most vibrant afterlives of Byzantine anti-Islamic texts. While the great number of manuscripts attest to the work’s circulation,13 the transmission of his theological positions may be illustrated by the following examples. In the following tables “Muslims as Idolaters” and “Marriage and Divorce”, I will give some passages of John’s text that greatly resemble the later works Armor of Doctrines (Panoplia dog5 Dmitry E. Afinogenov, “The Date of Georgios Monachos Reconsidered,” BZ 92, no. 2 (1999): 437– 47. See also Stephanos Efthymiadis, “George the Monk,” in CMR, vol. 1, 729–33, here 729. 6 Alexander Kazhdan, A History of Byzantine Literature (850–1000), ed. Christine Angelidi, Institute for Byzantine Research: Research Series 4 (Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2006), 46. 7 Georgius Monachus, Chronicon, vol. 2, 697–706. 8 Rigo, “Theodore the Studite,” 424. 9 Cf. Franz Tinnefeld, “Demetrius Cydones,” in CMR, vol. 5, 239–49. 10 Jean-Marie Mérigoux, “L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur florentin en Orient à la fin du XIIIe siècle: Le Contra legem Saracenorum de Riccoldo da Monte di Croce,” Memorie Dominicaine 17 (1986): 1–144, here 35–43. 11 David Bertaina, Būluṣ ibn Rajāʾ: How a Fatimid Egyptian Convert shaped Christian Views of Islam, Arabic Christianity: Texts and Studies 4 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2022). 12 For example, “that neither the Old nor the New Testament testifies to the validity of Muḥammad or his religion; that the style of the Qur’an is not suitable to revelation; that it contains obvious contradictions; that no miracles attest to Muḥammad’s prophethood; that the Qur’an contradicts reason; and that the Qur’an is a pseudo-revelation cooked up by Muḥammad with the advice of heretical Christians and Jews.” See Thomas E. Burman, “Riccoldo da Monte di Croce,” in CMR, vol. 4, 678–91, here 688. 13 Listed in Bonifatius Kotter, ed., Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol. 4: Liber de haeresibus: Opera polemica, Patristische Texte und Studien 22 (Berlin–New York: De Gruyter, 1981), 11–15.

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matikē) of Euthymios Zigabenos (fl. c. 1100), the Thesaurus orthodoxae fidei of Nicetas Choniates (c. 1155–1217), and the anonymous Abiuratio (ninth century):14 Tab. 1: Muslims as Idolaters. John of Damascus15

Euthymios Zigabenos16

Οὗτοι μὲν οὖν

Nicetas Choniates17 Οὔτοι μὲν οὖν,

εἰδωλολατρήσαντες καὶ προσκυνήσαντες τῷ ἑωσφόρῳ ἄστρῳ

εἰδωλολάτρουν, προσκυνοῦντες τῷ ἑωσφόρῳ ἄστρῳ

εἰδωλολατρήσαντες καὶ προσκυνήσαντες τῷ ἑωσφόρῳ ἄστρῳ

καὶ τῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ [. . .]

καὶ τῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ [. . .]

τῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ [. . .]

Abiuratio18 Ἀναθεματίζω

τοὺς τῷ πρωϊνῷ προσκυνοῦντας ἀστρῷ, ἤγουν τῷ ἐωσφόρῳ καί τῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ [. . .]

In the following example, we see, on the one hand, a continuity in the description of the marital relation between man and woman. On the other hand, we also observe a selection of information or, otherwise: a focus on specific anti-Islamic aspects as, for example, the very last passage in John’s treatise that is not passed down by the later sources.

14 For the so-called “Thematic Categories” and “Polemical Subcategories” of anti-Islamic Byzantine works, see Manolis Ulbricht, “Der Islam-Diskurs bei Niketas von Byzanz: Themen und Argumentation in seinem Hauptwerk „Widerlegung des Korans“ (Ἀνατροπὴ τοῦ Κορανίου),” BZ 114, no. 3 (2021): 1351–94. In the following, passages in italics do not literally correspond to John’s text, given in a synoptical way in the first column. 15 Kotter, Johannes von Damaskos, 60, lin. 7–8. 16 Karl Förstel, ed., Arethas und Euthymios Zigabenos: Schriften zum Islam. Fragmente der griechischen Koranübersetzung, Corpus Islamo-Christianum: Series Graeca 7 (Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden 2009), 44–82, here 44, lin. 10. 17 PG, vol. 140, 105–22, here 105, lin. A8–9. 18 PG, vol. 140, 124–136, here 132, lin. B11–13.

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Tab. 2: Marriage and Divorce. John of Damascus19

Euthymios Zigabenos20

Nicetas Choniates21

Abiuratio22 Ἀναθεματίζω τὰς νομοθεσίας

Οὗτος ὁ Μάμεδ πολλάς, ὡς εἴρηται, ληρωδίας συντάξας ἑκάστῃ τούτων προσηγορίαν ἐπέθηκεν,

Οὗτος

οἷον ἡ γραφὴ « τῆς γυναικὸς » καὶ ἐν αὐτῇ

ἐνομοθέτησε

Ἐν ταύτῃ δὲ τῇ λεγομένῃ γραφῇ τῆς γυναικὸς

τὰς περὶ γάμων καὶ λύσεως γάμων, καὶ καθαρισμοῦ μοιχευομένων γυναικῶν,

τέσσαρας γυναῖκας προφανῶς λαμβάνειν νομοθετεῖ

γυναῖκας μὲν τέσσαρας ἕκαστον ὑμῶν λαμβάνειν,

τέσσαρας γυναῖκας προφανῶς λαμβάνειν νομοθετεῖ,

καὶ ἀριθμοῦ γυναικῶν

καὶ παλλακάς, ἐὰν δύνηται, χιλίας, ὅσας ἡ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ κατάσχῃ

παλλακὰς δὲ χιλίας ἢ ὅσας ἂν τρέφειν δυνηθείη.

καὶ παλλακὰς, ἐάν τις δύνηται, χιλίας, ἢ ὅσας ἡ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ κατάσχῃ,

καὶ παλλακίδων·

ὑποκειμένας ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων γυναικῶν.

Ὑποκεῖσθαι δὲ ταῖς γυναιξὶ τὰς παλλακάς. Καί, ἣν ἂν ὁ ἀνὴρ βούληται, ἀπολύειν καὶ ἄλλην ἀντεισάγειν.

ὑποκειμένας ταῖς τέσσαρσι γυναιξίν·

Ἣν δ’ ἂν βουληθῇ ἀπολύειν, ἣν ἐθελήσειε, καὶ κομίζεσθαι ἄλλην, ἐκ τοιαύτης αἰτίας νομοθετήσας [. . .]

τοῦ Μωάμεδ,

ἣν δ᾿ ἂν βουληθῇ ἀπολύειν, καὶ κομίζεσθαι ἄλλην ἣν ἂν ἐθέλῃ, ἐκ τῆς τοιαύτης αἰτίας ἐνομοθέτησε.

19 Kotter, Johannes von Damaskos, 64–65, lin. 95–111. 20 Förstel, Arethas und Euthymios Zigabenos, 68, lin. 372–5. 21 PG, vol. 140, 105–22, here 110, lin. D1–7. 22 PG, vol. 140, 124–36, here 129, lin. B11–14.

καὶ πάντα τὰ περὶ τοιούτων ἀκάθαρτα διδάγματα.

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Tab. 2 (continued) John of Damascus

Euthymios Zigabenos

Nicetas Choniates

Abiuratio

τοιοῦτον ἔθηκε νόμον· Ὁ βουλόμενος ἀπολυέτω τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ. Ἐὰν δὲ μετὰ τὸ ἀπολῦσαι ἐπ’ αὐτὴν ἀναστρέψῃ, γαμείτω αὐτὴν ἄλλος. Οὐ γὰρ ἔξεστι λαβεῖν αὐτήν, εἰ μὴ γαμηθῇ ὑφ’ ἑτέρου. Ἐὰν δὲ καὶ ἀδελφὸς ἀπολύσῃ, γαμείτω αὐτὴν ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ ὁ βουλόμενος.

We have a quite different case in the next example where the Islamic rite of pilgrimage is described in Euthymios’s and Nicetas’s works almost identically with John’s account. Not only are the three authors, John of Damascus, Euthymios Zigabenos, and Nicetas Choniates, interrelated to each other, but we also find traces of John’s work in George the Monk’s Chronikon.23 In a Christological-Mariological passage, displayed in the following table “Christ and Mary,” we find some similarities across the texts of John of Damascus, Euthymios Zigabenos, and the Chronikon of George the Monk: Tab. 3: Christ and Mary. John of Damascus24

Euthymios Zigabenos25

Λέγει

Καὶ ὅτι

τὸν Χριστὸν λόγον εἶναι τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ,

ὁ Λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ

George the Monk26 τὸν δὲ Χριστὸν τιμᾶν ὡς λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ μέν, οὐχ υἱὸν δέ, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου γεγενημένον, λόγον δὲ καὶ πνεῦμα προφορικὸν καὶ εἰς ἀέρα χεόμενον ὑπονοεῖν, οὐκ ἐνυπόστατα οὐδὲ τῷ γεννήτορι ὁμοούσια, τὴν δὲ ἁγίαν παρθένον Μαρίαν μὴ λέγειν θεοτόκον, ἀλλὰ τὴν Ἀαρὼν καὶ Μωσέως ἀδελφὴν ὑπολαμβάνειν εἶναι.

23 Cf. also Erich Trapp, ed., Manuel II Palaiologos: Dialoge mit einem „Perser“, Wiener Byzantinische Studien 2 (Graz–Vienna–Köln: In Kommission bei Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1966), 16✶–18✶. 24 Kotter, Johannes von Damaskos, 61, lin. 18–22. 25 Förstel, Arethas und Euthymios Zigabenos, 46, lin. 43–46. 26 Georgius Monachus, Chronicon, vol. 2, 700, lin. 7–12.

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Tab. 3 (continued) John of Damascus

Euthymios Zigabenos

κτιστὸν δὲ καὶ δοῦλον, καὶ ὅτι ἐκ Μαρίας, τῆς ἀδελφῆς Μωσέως καὶ Ἀαρών, ἄνευ σπορᾶς ἐτέχθη.

κτιστὰ ὄντα εἰσῆλθεν εἰς Μαρίαν τὴν ἀδελφὴν Μωσέως καὶ Ἀαρών, καὶ ἐγέννησεν αὐτὴ δίχα σπέρματος

George the Monk

Ὁ γὰρ λόγος, φησί, τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὴν Μαρίαν, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Ἰησοῦν προφήτην ὄντα καὶ δοῦλον τοῦ θεοῦ.

Ἰησοῦν τὸν Χριστὸν προφήτην καὶ δοῦλον γεγονότα τοῦ Θεοῦ.

We see how information on Christ and Mary, extracted from the Qur’ān, has been continuously handed down from the seventh to the twelfth centuries from John of Damascus to Euthymios Zigabenos. We also find some disruptive aspects within the lines of traditions, as George the Monk adds new information to the ChristologicalMariological narrative in Byzantium. In the passage above, he gives information on the nature of Christ as depicted in the Qur’ān. It says that Christ does not share the essence of God. At the same time, George emphasizes the fact that, according to the Qur’ān, Christ is “not [God’s] son” and Mary is “not called the Theotokos (god-bearer).” George the Monk’s Chronikon is closely related to the next author in the MS Ω 44, Theophanes the Confessor (c. 760–818). His Chronographia (fols. 121v–123r) is attested in many manuscripts,27 and in the present Athonite codex only a small

27 Maria Vaiou, “Theophanes the Confessor,” in CMR, vol. 1, 426–36; Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. Carol de Boor, 2 vols., Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1883–5) [reprinted in Hildesheim: Olms, 1963]. Some of the manuscripts are Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Gr. 155 (late 9th, 10th or 11th c.); Oxford, Christ Church, MS Wake 5 (late 9th c.?); Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Gr. 1710 (10th c.); Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Gr. 1711 (11th c.); Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Gr. 978 (11th/12th c.); Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Coislin 133 (12th c.); Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Gr. 154 (12th c.) (best MS, according to de Boor); Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Barberini 553 (16th c.); Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Gr. 1709 (16th c.); Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Palat. 395 (16th c.); München, Staatsbibliothek, MS Gr. 391 (16th c.). For a 10th century fragment at Basle, Renaissance copies and the early Latin MSS of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, see Cyril Mango and Roger Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History, AD 284–813 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), xcvi–iii.

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part of his work is preserved, which focuses on Muḥammad.28 Theophanes’s text is then later used by George the Monk.29 It is noteworthy that the text of George the Monk, aside from its intertextual relation with Theophanes’s work, also contains several passages which show similarities to the work of Euthymios Zigabenos. In the following table “The Intertextuality between Euthymios Zigabenos and George the Monk,” I offer some examples: Tab. 4: The Intertextuality between Euthymios Zigabenos and George the Monk. Euthymios Zigabenos30

George the Monk31

Τότε δὲ ψευδοπροφήτης αὐτοῖς ἀνέστη Μωάμεθ [...] ἀπὸ μιᾶς τῶν ἐξ Ἰσμαὴλ φυλῶν καταγόμενος [...] (44/12–14)

Σαρακηνῶν ἀρχηγὸς καὶ ψευδοπροφήτης Μουχούμεδ ἐκ μιᾶς φυλῆς γενικωτάτης Ἰσμαὴλ υἱοῦ Ἁβραὰμ καταγόμενος ἀνεφύη. (697/13–15)

[...] ἐθήτευε παρὰ γυναικὶ χήρᾳ κατὰ γένος αὐτῷ προσηκούσῃ. (44/14–15)

[...] καὶ ὑπελθὼν τῇ γυναικὶ χήρᾳ οὔσῃ λαμβάνει αὐτὴν εἰς γυναῖκα. (698/12–13)

Καί ποτε παραγενόμενος εἰς Παλαιστίνην συνέτυχεν Ἑβραίοις, εἶτα καὶ Ἀρειανοῖς, ἔπειτα καὶ Νεστοριανοῖς. Καὶ δόξας φιλομαθὴς ἠρύσατο ταχέως ἐξ Ἑβραίων μὲν μοναρχίαν, ἐξ Ἀρειανῶν δὲ Λόγον καὶ Πνεῦμα κτιστά, ἀπὸ δὲ Νεστοριανῶν ἀνθρωπολατρείαν· καὶ σύνθετον ἐξ αὐτῶν θρησκείαν ἑαυτῷ συνεστήσατο. (44/18–23)

καὶ δὴ ἐπιχωριάζων ἐν Παλαιστίνῃ καὶ συναναστρεφόμενος Ἰουδαίοις τε καὶ Χριστιανοῖς ἐθηρᾶτο λόγους καὶ γραφικάς τινας ῥήσεις. [. . .] Οὗτος ὁ θεομισὴς καὶ παλαμναῖος περιτυχὼν Ἑβραίοις καὶ Χριστιανοῖς δῆθεν Ἀρειανοῖς καὶ Νεστοριανοῖς καὶ πανταχόθεν ἐρανισάμενος, ἐξ Ἰουδαίων μὲν μοναρχίαν, ἐξ Ἀρειανῶν δὲ λόγον καὶ πνεῦμα κτιστά, ἀπὸ δὲ Νεστοριανῶν ἀνθρωπολατρείαν, ἑαυτῷ θρησκείαν περιποιεῖται [...] (698/13–15, 699/11–700/4)

28 It corresponds to the part in Theophanes, Chronographia, vol. 1, 333–4. 29 See Efthymiadis, “George the Monk,” 730–1: “The section which refers to the Prophet Muḥammad at length (ed. de Boor, 697–706) is inserted in the section on the emperor Constans II (642–68). It repeats Muḥammad’s genealogy as sketched in Theophanes the Confessor’s Chronographia (q.v.), and so Muḥammad is portrayed as a poor man suffering from epilepsy who was hired by a rich woman to take care of her camels and trade with the Arabs in Egypt and Palestine, where he became acquainted with Jewish and Christian teaching. When she was widowed, his patroness became his wife and contributed both to the dissemination of his teachings among other women and the declaration of him as a prophet. The same account was later excerpted by Constantine VII Porphyrogenites and included in his treatise known as De administrando imperio (ch. 14, ed. G. Moravscik and R. Jenkins, 76–78).” 30 In the following lines, I will give the page/line numbers (in parenthesis) of this edition: Förstel, Arethas und Euthymios Zigabenos. 31 In the following lines, I will give the page/line numbers (in parenthesis) of this edition: Georgius Monachus, Chronicon, vol. 2.

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Tab. 4 (continued) Euthymios Zigabenos

George the Monk

Νοσήσαντος δέ ποτε παρέσει μελῶν ἡ δηλωθεῖσα τούτου γυνὴ σφόδρα ἠνιᾶτο καὶ ἤσχαλλεν οὐ μόνον ὡς πένητι συναφθεῖσα, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὡς παραλυτικὸν ἔχουσα τὸν γημάμενον. (46/24–26)

εἶχε δὲ τὸ πάθος τῆς ἐπιληψίας. ἡ οὖν γυνὴ αὐτοῦ διὰ τοῦτο ἐλυπεῖτο σφόδρα ὡς περιφανὴς καὶ πλουσία καὶ τοιούτῳ ἀνδρὶ συναφθεῖσα οὐ μόνον ἀπόρῳ, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπιληπτικῷ. (698/15–18)

[...] τὸν ἀρχάγγελον Γαβριήλ, μὴ φέρων αὐτοῦ τὴν φοβερὰν ἐπιφάνειαν [...] (46/30–31)

φοβερὰν ὀπτασίαν ἀγγέλου θεωρῶ Γαβριὴλ ὀνόματι [...] (698/19–20)

[...] ἐκήρυττε διαρρήδην ταῖς ἄλλαις γυναιξίν, ὅτι μέγας ἐστὶ προφήτης [...] (46/36–37)

[...] ἄλλαις γυναιξὶ συντυχοῦσα ὁμοφύλοις αὐτῆς ἐκήρυξε προφήτην αὐτὸν εἶναι. (699/4–5)

Ὁ δὲ Μωάμεθ ποίων θεοσημείων προηγησαμένων ἢ τίνων ὁρώντων ἐδέξατο τὴν θεόπεμπτον ταύτην, ὡς ἔλεγε, γραφήν; (48/69–71)

Ποία γὰρ θεόπνευστος γραφὴ περὶ τοῦ δυσσεβοῦς καὶ παραπαίοντος Μουχούμεδ προδιεστείλατο; (703/5–6)

Ἑαυτὸν λέγει τὰς κλεῖς τοῦ παραδείσου λαβεῖν. (74/447)

τοιοῦτόν τι μυθευσάμενος ἑαυτὸν κλειδοῦχόν φησι γεγενῆσθαι τοῦ παραδείσου [. . .] καὶ τούτου χάριν τοῦ παραδείσου κλειδοῦχον χρηματίσαι. (700/18–19, 701/7–8)

The most important source within the Athonite manuscript is the still unedited work of Evodios the Monk (c. ninth–tenth centuries) (fols. 123r–128v, 113r–120v, 129r–149v): Chapters from the Forged Book of the Unbelieving Muḥammad and of Destitution (Evodiou monachou kephalaia tēs pseudōnymou graphēs tou dussebous Mōamed kai penias).32 Only two manuscripts preserve this text.33 Evodios quotes extensively from Nicetas of Byzantium’s Refutation of the Qur’ān.34 By examining some key passages in Evodios’s text and comparing them to Nicetas, it appears that

32 The author is currently preparing the editio princeps of this work. 33 Manuscripts: Madrid, El Escorial, MS gr. Ψ.III.8 (463) (13th century), fols. 232r–242r; Mount Athos, Great Lavra, MS Gr. Ω 44 (1854) (15th century, according to Rigo, “Niceta Byzantios,” 165), fols. 123r–128v, 113r–120v, 129r–149v. In M. Ulbricht, “The Authorship of the Early Greek Translation of the Quran (Vat. gr. 681),” DOP 77 (2023): 221–43, I stated that the latter manuscript is dated to the “seventeenth century” (223, n. 23); this information is according to Lavriotis and Efstratiadis, Catalogue, 334. 34 Karl Förstel, ed., Niketas von Byzanz: Schriften zum Islam, Corpus Islamo-Christianum: Series Graeca 5 (Würzburg–Altenberge: Echter Verlag–Oros Verlag, 2000), esp. from the chapters (confutatio[nes]) i–xviii, xxv, xxii–xxx; cf. Rigo, “Niceta Byzantios,” 166, 168–74; and Kolia-Dermitzaki and Rigo, “Euodius the Monk,” 848.

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Evodios is indeed often condensing Nicetas’s arguments, while faithfully retaining the Qur’ānic quotations of the Coranus Graecus preserved in Nicetas’s work, as shown in the following table “Transmission of Knowledge through Evodios the Monk”:35 Tab. 5: Transmission of Knowledge through Evodios the Monk. Evodios the Monk36

Nicetas of Byzantium37

Ὁ δὲ Μωάμεδ φησὶ οὐκ ἔστιν εἰ μὴ ἀπόστολος·

«Ὁ δὲ Μωάμετ οὐκ ἔστιν εἰ μὴ ἀπόστολος». Ὡς ἔοικεν γάρ, διὰ τὰς μυρίας ψευδηγορίας πεφόβηται, μή τις μείζονα δόξαν περὶ αὐτοῦ ὑπολάβοι καὶ ἤτοι ἀρχάγγελον ἢ ἄγγελον αὐτὸν ὑποτοπάσαι. «Ὁ δὲ Μωάμετ οὐκ ἔστιν εἰ μὴ ἀπόστολος· παρῆλθον δὲ καὶ πρὸ αὐτοῦ ἀπόστολοι. Ἐὰν ἀποθάνῃ ἢ σφαγῇ, ἀποστρέφεσθε εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω».

παρῆλθον δὲ καὶ πρὸ αὐτοῦ ἀπόστολοι· ἐὰν ἀποθάνῃ ἢ σφαγῇ, ἀποστρέφετε εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω· Θαυμαστὸς ὁ τοῦ βαρβάρου θεός· μὴ εἰδὼς ἐντελῶς τὸ ἐκβησόμενον περὶ τὸν αὐτοῦ ἀπόστολον· ἀλλ᾿ ἐὰν ἀποθάνῃ ἢ σφαγῇ· (MS Ω 44, fol. 113v)

Θαυμαστὸς ὁ τοῦ βαρβάρου θεὸς μὴ εἰδὼς ἐντελῶς τὸ ἐκβησόμενον περὶ τὸν αὐτοῦ ἀπόστολον,

Διαβάλλει δὲ Ἰουδαίους ὡς ἀπειθεῖς θεῷ γεγονότας καὶ προφητοκτόνους· τὸ ἀσφαλὲς ἑαυτῷ

Διαβάλλειν γὰρ δῆθεν δοκῶν Ἰουδαίους ὡς ἀπειθεῖς Θεοῦ γεγονότας καὶ προφητοκτόνους τὸ ἀσφαλὲς ἑαυτῶν

νομίζων

ἐκ τῆς εἰς αὐτοὺς ἀγανακτήσεως τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐνόμισεν

περιποιεῖσθαι καὶ φησί·

περιποιεῖσθαι· φησὶ γάρ·

διὰ τὴν ἀδικίαν τῶν Ἰουδαϊσάντων

«Διὰ τὴν ἀδικίαν τῶν Ἰουδαϊσάντων ἐκωλύσαμεν ἐπάνω αὐτῶν, ἅπερ ἐξὸν αὐτοῖς ἦσαν, καὶ

ἡτοιμάσαμεν ἐξ αὐτῶν κόλασιν σφοδρᾶν·

ἡτοιμάσαμεν ἐξ αὐτῶν κόλασιν σφοδρὰν καὶ διὰ τὸ φονεῦσαι αὐτοὺς τοὺς προφήτας ἄνευ δικαίου.» (72/67–72)

ἀλλ᾽, «Ἐὰν ἀποθάνῃ ἢ σφαγῇ», φησιν, «ἀποστρέφεσθε εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω» (66/105–112)

35 For the term Coranus Graecus, see Ulbricht, “The Authorship of the Early Greek Translation,” 222–3, n. 18. 36 The text is taken from MS Ω 44, fols. 113v, 114v, 127r. The transcription has been normalized. 37 In the following lines, I will give the page/line numbers (in parenthesis) of this edition: Förstel, Niketas.

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Tab. 5 (continued) Evodios the Monk

Nicetas of Byzantium

φησί γοῦν καὶ τοῦ λέγειν Ἰουδαίους· ἡμεῖς ἐφονεύσαμεν τὸν υἱὸν Μαρίας ἀπόστολον θεοῦ·

«Καὶ τοῦ λέγειν Ἰουδαίους, Ἡμεῖς [sic] ἐφονεύσαμεν τὸν Χριστὸν τὸν Ἰησοῦν υἱὸν Μαρίας ἀπόστολον Θεοῦ·

οὐκ ἐφώνευσαν αὐτόν, οὐδὲ ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτὸν

οὐκ ἐφόνευσαν αὐτὸν οὐδὲ ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτόν, ἀλλ᾽ ὡμοιώθη αὐτοῖς. Οἵτινες δὲ ἀμφιβάλλουσι δισταγμῷ ἐξ αὐτοῦ, οὐκ ἔχουσιν εἰς αὐτὸν εἴδησιν εἰ μὴ ἀκολουθίαν τοῦ νομίζειν. Καὶ οὐκ ἐφόνευσαν αὐτὸν

ἐν ἀληθείᾳ μάλλον ὕψωσεν ἑαυτὸν ὁ θεὸς πρὸς ἑαυτὸν· (MS Ω 44, fol. 114v)

ἐν ἀληθείᾳ, μᾶλλον ὕψωσεν αὐτὸν ὁ Θεὸς πρὸς ἑαυτόν.» (72/78–83)

Δόξας γοῦν περὶ νηστείας διατάττεσθαι τοὺς βαρβάρους ταύτα φησί· Mὴν Ῥαμηδὰν ἐστὶν ἐν ᾧ κατήχθη ὑμῖν τὸ ἀνάγνωσμα· νηστεύσατε αὐτὸν· ἔξεστι δὲ ὑμῖν ἡ νὺξ τῆς νηστείας· εἰς μίξην τῶν γυναικῶν ὑμῶν·

Δόξας γοῦν περὶ νηστείας διατάττεσθαι τοῖς ἀθλίοις βαρβάροις ταῦτά φησιν· «Μὴν Ῥαμίδα ἐστίν, ἐν ᾧ κατήχθη ὑμῖν τὸ ἀνάγνωσμα. Νηστεύσατε αὐτόν. Ἐξέσται δὲ ὑμῖν ἡ νὺξ τῆς νηστείας εἰς μίξιν τῶν γυναικῶν ὑμῶν·

αὗται γὰρ ἡμῶν εἰσὶ σκεπάσματα καὶ ὑμεῖς αὐταῖς ἐστὲ σκεπάσματα· ἔγνω γὰρ ὁ θεὸς ὅτι παραβουλεύεται ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν ἐν τῇ νηστείᾳ· καὶ ἵλεος ὑμῖν γένηται·

αὗται γὰρ ὑμῶν εἰσι σκεπάσματα καὶ ὑμεῖς αὐταῖς ἐστε σκεπάσματα. Ἔγνω γὰρ ὁ Θεός, ὅτι παραβουλεύσετε ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν ἐν τῇ νηστείᾳ, καὶ ἵλεως ὑμῖν γίνεται.

μίχθητε αὐταῖς εἰς παράκλησιν, καὶ φάγετε ἑσπέρας καὶ πίετε·

Μίχθητε εἰς αὐτὰς εἰς παράκλησιν καὶ φάγετε ἑσπέρας καὶ πίετε,

ἕως ἂν τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦ σκότους φαινόμενον ῥάμα μέλαν· διὰ τῆς ἡμέρας φανῇ ἅσπρον·

ἕως ἂν τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦ σκότους φαινόμενον ῥάμμα μέλαν διὰ τῆς ἡμέρας φανῇ ἄσπρον.

καὶ πάλιν πληρώσατε τὴν νηστείαν ἕως τῆς ἑσπέρας

Καὶ πάλιν πληρώσατε τὴν νηστείαν ἕως τῆς ἑσπέρας

καὶ μίχθητε αὐταῖς· ὑμῶν συχναζόντων ἐν τῷ προσκυνητηρίῳ· αὕτη ἔστιν νόμος θεοῦ· (MS Ω 44, fol. 127r)

καὶ 38 μίχθητε αὐταῖς ὑμῶν συχναζόντων ἐν τῷ προσκυνητηρίῳ· αὕτη ἐστὶν νομοθεσία Θεοῦ καὶ μὴ ἐγγίσητε αὐτάς.» (58/341–350)

38 16  Concerning the insertion of the negation “μή,” see Manolis Ulbricht “Die Klassifizierung in ,Philologische Kategorien‘ der im Coranus Graecus überlieferten Koranfragmente: Eine Einteilung in Wörtliches Zitat, Freies Zitat, Paraphrase und Anspielung,” De Medio Aevo 12, no. 1 (2023): 125– 45, here 135; and Manolis Ulbricht “Die Verwendungsweise der griechischen Koranübersetzung durch Niketas von Byzanz,” Byzantion 92 (2022): 491–519, here 500.

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Evodios is all but copying the text of Nicetas. Antonio Rigo has shown that the former is the key transmitter of the latter: only through Evodios’s work has Nicetas’s argumentation been transmitted to Euthymios Zigabenos and later on to Nicetas Choniates.39 Another author, however, whose work has not been studied too much in relation to other Byzantine anti-Islamic works is Theodore the Studite (759–826). His Discourses in Verse against Heresies (Stichistikoi logoi kata haireseōn) (fol. 149v–151) are verses, which “deal with the names by which Muslims are called (i.e., Hagarenes, Ishmaelites) and their genealogy, the idolatry of the pre-Islamic Arabs, and Muḥammad’s mission.”40 Theodore discusses theological and doctrinal aspects mainly deriving from the so-called ‘thematic categories’ of “Theology” and “Ethics,”41 such as “God, Jesus Christ, the story of the ‘holy camel’, the Islamic paradise, various Muslim practices (rejection of the Jewish Sabbath and Christian baptism, marriage customs, circumcision) and dietary rules.”42 By comparing Theodore’s description of Islam with John of Damascus’s De haeresibus, as displayed in the following tables “The ‘Polemical Subcategory’ of ‘Idolatry’” and “The ‘Polemical Subcategory’ of ‘Christ and Mary’,” it becomes clear that Theodore’s “verses are therefore representative of certain Byzantine circles at the beginning of the 9th century, in which the inheritance of John of Damascus was preserved and revived.”43 Tab. 6: The ‘Polemical Subcategory’ of “Idolatry”. John of Damascus44

Theodore the Studite45

Οὗτοι μὲν οὖν

Οἷσπερ καταρχὰς

εἰδωλολατρήσαντες καὶ προσκυνήσαντες τῷ ἑωσφόρῳ ἄστρῳ καὶ τῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ

τῇ κατειδώλῳ πλάνῃ ἄστρῳ προῆγον προσκυνεῖν ἑωσφόρῳ σὺν Ἀφροδίτῃ τῇ καλουμένῃ Χάβαρ·

39 Rigo, “Niceta Byzantios,” 164. 40 Rigo, “Theodore the Studite,” 425. 41 Ulbricht, “Islam-Diskurs,” 1359–63 (“Methodological framework” on the ‘thematic categories’ and ‘polemical subcategories’), 1363–75 (“Theology”), 1376–80 (“Ethics”). 42 Rigo, “Theodore the Studite,” 425. 43 Rigo, “Theodore the Studite,” 425. 44 Kotter, Johannes von Damaskos, 60, lin. 7–8. 45 Antonio Rigo, “La sezione sui Musulmani dell’opera di Teodoro Studita contro le eresie,” Revue des études byzantines 56 (1998): 213–30, here 228, lin. 10–12.

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Tab. 7: The ‘Polemical Subcategory’ of “Christ and Mary”. John of Damascus46

Theodore the Studite47

Λέγει τὸν Χριστὸν λόγον εἶναι τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ, κτιστὸν δὲ καὶ δοῦλον, καὶ ὅτι ἐκ Μαρίας, τῆς ἀδελφῆς Μωσέως καὶ Ἀαρών, ἄνευ σπορᾶς ἐτέχθη. Ὁ γὰρ λόγος, φησί, τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὴν Μαρίαν, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Ἰησοῦν προφήτην ὄντα καὶ δοῦλον τοῦ θεοῦ.

Χριστὸν τετέχθαι πλὴν σπορᾶς διαγράφη ἐκ Μαρίας τῆσδε τῆς ἀδελφῆς Μωσέως Θεοῦ μὲν αὐτὸν πνεῦμα καὶ λόγον λέγει κτιστὸν δὲ δοῦλον τοῦ Θεοῦ πεφηνότα [...]

As a final example for the diachronic transmission of texts, I will focus on the report about Muḥammad being called a false prophet. His encounter with a heretical monk is described in Theodore the Studite, John of Damascus, Theophanes the Confessor, and George the Monk. Tab. 8: Diachronic Transmission of Anti-Islamic Arguments in Greek-Byzantine Polemics. Theodore Studites48

John of Damascus49

Theophanes the Confessor50

George the Monk51

[...] παρεισαγωγῇ δῆθεν ἐννόμῳ τέως ψευδοπροφήτου τοῦ Μάμεδ καλουμένου. (228/16–17)

[...] ἀφ᾿ οὗ χρόνου καὶ δεῦρο ψευδοπροφήτης αὐτοῖς ἀνεφύη Μάμεδ ἐπονομαζόμενος [...] (60/10–12)

Τούτῳ τῷ ἔτει ἀπεβίω Μουάμεδ, ὁ τῶν Σαρακηνῶν ἀρχηγὸς καὶ ψευδοπροφήτης [...] (333/1–2)

καὶ ὁ τῶν Σαρακηνῶν ἀρχηγὸς καὶ ψευδοπροφήτης Μουχούμεδ ἐκ μιᾶς φυλῆς γενικωτάτης Ἰσμαὴλ υἱοῦ Ἁβραὰμ καταγόμενος ἀνεφύη. (697/12–15)

46 Kotter, Johannes von Damaskos, 61, lin. 18–22. 47 Rigo, “La sezione sui Musulmani,” 229, lin. 27–30. 48 Rigo, “La sezione sui Musulmani” (for page/line numbers, see above in parenthesis). 49 Kotter, Johannes von Damaskos (for page/line numbers, see above in parenthesis). 50 Theophanes, Chronographia, vol. 1 (for page/line numbers, see above in parenthesis). 51 Georgius Monachus, Chronicon (for page/line numbers, see above in parenthesis).

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Tab. 8 (continued) Theodore Studites

John of Damascus

Theophanes the Confessor

George the Monk

Ὅστις συναφθεὶς ἀνδρί που κακιστάτῳ σκαιῷ μοναστῇ τῆς τοῦ Ἀρείου πλάνης [...] (228/18–19)

[...] ὁμοίως ἀρειανῷ προσομιλήσας δῆθεν μοναχῷ ἰδίαν συνεστήσατο αἵρεσιν. (60/12–13)

αὕτη [i.e., Muḥammad’s wife] δὲ ἔχουσα μοναχόν τινα διὰ κακοπιστίαν ἐξόριστον ἐκεῖσε οἰκοῦντα, φίλον αὐτῆς, ἀνήγγειλεν αὐτῷ πάντα καὶ τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ ἀγγέλου (334/10–12)

ἐπιστεύθη δὲ συμψευδομαρτυροῦντος αὐτῷ Ἀρειανοῦ τινος μοναχοῦ ψευδωνύμου δι’ αἰσχροκέρδειαν τοῦ καὶ τελείως ἀπατήσαντος αὐτόν. (699/1–3)

3 The Historical and Intellectual Context of Byzantine Authors and Their Anti-Islamic Polemics The knowledge regimes of the different authors and their works encourage us to consider the intellectual context in which each individual text was produced. John of Damascus, for example, the earliest among these authors, was a Melkite Christian born around 675 in Muslim-ruled Damascus.52 He was employed by and served the Muslim administration of the Umayyad Caliphate as a secretary, but later retired to the monastery of Mar Sabas near Jerusalem where he became a monk.53 A combination of personal and political factors are likely to have influenced this decision.54 One of those may have been that Caliph ʿUmar II (680–720; 99–101 AH) prohibited non-Muslims from holding high offices in government unless they converted to Islam, thus limiting John’s chances of advancement within the administration.55 Due to the environment in which he was raised and educated, John of Damascus

52 Reinhold Glei, “John of Damascus,” in CMR, vol. 1, 295–301, here 295. 53 Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Claudia Ludwig, Beate Zielke and Thomas Pratsch, “Ioannes Damaskenos: Ἰωάννης,” in PMZO, https://www.degruyter.com/database/PMBZ/entry/PMBZ14100/html [Accessed February 17, 2023]. 54 Daniel J. Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam: The ‘Heresy of the Ishmaelites’ (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972), 45. 55 Glei, “John of Damascus,” 295.

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probably knew Arabic.56 This knowledge also gave him access to primary Muslim sources in the original Arabic, from which he could draw for his work. His familiarity and clashes with the Muslim administration may also account for the especially caustic tone in John’s anti-Islamic polemic. The book De haeresibus is the second part of his larger work, Fount of Knowledge (Pēgē gnōseōs), a work on Christian theology. The Fount of Knowledge was written during John’s stay at the monastery, in the late years of his life and probably sometime around 743, at the request of his adopted brother Cosmas.57 The inclusion of Islam in De haeresibus points to John’s understanding of this faith: he did not conceptualize Islam as a religion in its own right, but as one of many heretical sects. It is, however, worth noting that a variety of religious groups and beliefs, for example, Judaism and certain Jewish sects, Platonism, and other philosophical schools, were included in his work and received the same label of being “heresies.”58 While the other chapters are relatively brief and follow a certain pattern in the way they introduce a heresy, chapter 100 against Islam (thrēskeia tōn Ismaēlitōn)59 is much longer and breaks this pattern. While the first eighty chapters of De haeresibus reuse material from the Panarion of Epiphanios of Salamis (c. 310/320–403), John’s chapter  100 does not depend on any writing of previous authors.60 John makes reference to key Islamic doctrines, as well as religious practices and laws; the chapter also contains excerpts from sura Q 4 and alludes to suras Q 2 and Q 5, as well as other parts of the Qur’ān. John’s primary aim is polemical, and his work had an undeniable influence on later authors, who treated several of the same topics as he did, while also reinforcing themes and motifs that can already be identified in John’s work.61 A prime example of this would be Theodore the Studite, a monk and eventually hēgoumenos (abbot) of the Sakkoudion monastery in Bithynia.62 Theodore was born in 759 in Constantinople and, as the first-born son of a wealthy and influential family, must have been well-educated.63 His Discourses in Verse against Heresies, which are preserved only in the MS Ω 44, faithfully follow the themes and structure 56 Sahas, John of Damascus, 45–47. 57 Sahas, John of Damascus, 54. 58 Glei, “John of Damascus,” 295–6. 59 Kotter, Johannes von Damaskos, 60, lin. 1–2. 60 Sahas, John of Damascus, 56, 58–59. 61 Glei, “John of Damascus,” 298–9. 62 Rigo, “Theodore the Studite,” 423. 63 Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Claudia Ludwig, Beate Zielke and Thomas Pratsch, “Theodoros Studites: Θεόδωρος,” In PMZO, https://www.degruyter.com/database/PMBZ/entry/PMBZ18819/html [Accessed February 17, 2023].

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of chapter 100 of De haeresibus. But Theodore also draws from the Greek translation of the Qur’ān — whether directly, or based on the fragmentary transmission by Nicetas of Byzantium’s Refutation of the Qur’ān.64 Theodore’s Discourses received relatively little attention in research, presumably, at least partially, due to the single excerpt of his work we have available.65 Around 798, Theodore became abbot of the Studion monastery in Constantinople, and thanks to him an alliance of the monasteries Studion, Sakkudion, Kathara, Hagios Christophoros, and Tripyliana was formed under the leadership of the Studion monastery.66 Theodore’s efforts aimed at the creation of a monastic community that would be self-reliant and subsequently less vulnerable to “imperial coercion.”67 Under Theodore’s rule, the monastery’s prominence grew, and in the ninth century it went on to become an intellectual center.68 Much of Theodore’s writing activity was likely completed during the years he spent in the Studion monastery.69 We see a joint interest in Theodore’s and John’s writings both dealing with anti-iconoclastic and anti-Islamic views, including the incorporation of John’s chapter against Islam from De haeresibus into Theodore’s work. Theodore was avidly opposed to iconoclasm, which put him in opposition with the emperors of his time and drove him into exile twice.70 John of Damascus had also written three orations against iconoclasm,71 and was known for his fierce opposition to the iconoclasts. The situation escalated in so far as he received a condemnation (anathema) during the Synod of Hiereia in 754.72

64 Rigo, “Theodore the Studite,” 425. 65 For an edition and a study of this work, see Rigo, “La sezione sui Musulmani,” 213–30 (edition at 228–30). 66 Lilie, Ludwig, Zielke and Pratsch, “Theodoros Studites.” 67 Alexander Kazhdan, “Theodore of Stoudios,” in ODB, vol. 3, 2044–5. 68 Alexander Kazhdan, Alice-Mary Talbot, and Anthony Cutler, “Stoudios Monastery,” in ODB, vol. 3, 1960–1. 69 Lilie, Ludwig, Zielke and Pratsch, “Theodoros Studites.” 70 Rigo, “Theodore the Studite,” 423. 71 Edition: Bonifatius Kotter, ed., Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol. 3: Contra imaginum calumniatores orationes tres, Patristiche Texte und Studien 17 (Berlin–New York: De Gruyter, 1975), 65–200. 72 In the Synod’s definition (horos), he is pejoratively named Manṣūr, the Arabic name of his predecessors, and called a ‘Saracene friend’: Γερμανοῦ, Γεωργίου καὶ Μανσοὺρ τῶν κακοδόξων φρόνημα ὑμεῖς διελύσατε. […] Μανσοὺρ τῷ κακωνύμῳ καὶ σαρρακηνόφρονι, ἀνάθεμα. Τῷ εἰκονολάτρῃ καὶ φαλσογράφῳ Μανσούρ, ἀνάθεμα. Τῷ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὑβιστῇ καὶ ἐπιβούλῳ τῆς βασιλείας Μανσούρ, ἀνάθεμα. Τῷ τῆς ἀσεβείας διδασκάλῳ καὶ παρερμηνευτῇ τῆς θείας γραφῆς Μανσούρ, ἀνάθεμα. See Torsten Krannich, Christoph Schubert, and Claudia Sode, ed., Die ikonoklastische Synode von Hiereia 754. Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar ihres Horos, Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 15 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 68, 356 C/D.

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John’s influence can also be found in the work of our next author, George the Monk. A precise dating of his life has not been achieved so far. As mentioned earlier, George lived during the ninth century and specifically during the reign of Michael III, and was a monk, like our previous two authors, John and Theodore. Where George differs is in the genre of his work, which is a historical chronicle not a theological-polemical treatise. But nevertheless, it retains many of the stereotypical and negative portrayals of Islam and Muslims. Given the length of his work and the chronological range it covers, the percentage dealing with Islam is rather small. However, one of his self-proclaimed goals, as laid out in the beginning of his work, is to refute “the beliefs of the wicked and ill-minded Saracens, their bestial life and the teachings of the deceiver of the people and pseudo-prophet.”73 When George pens a polemic against the Muslims, he relies on both John of Damascus and Theodore Abū Qurra (c. 720–825), while in his lengthier section concerning Muḥammad, he is clearly drawing from a similar section in the Chronographia of Theophanes the Confessor.74 In turn, Theophanes the Confessor shares many similarities with the above authors. Born in Constantinople around 760, he was opposed to the iconoclastic policies of his time as it was the case with Theodore. This is reflected throughout Theophanes’s writings, as he is critical of contemporary rulers and especially iconoclasts.75 He held the positions of basilikos strator76 and perhaps spatharios,77 then eventually became a monk and hēgoumenos (abbot) of the Megas Agros monastery.78 Theophanes hailed from a wealthy family, and was the “spiritual godfather” of Theodore the Studite.79 Like George the Monk, he was a historiographer, so the main aim of his work was not polemic. He, thus, only deals with Islam in small but valuable sections. His Chronographia thereby enhances the previous unfinished chronicle of George

73 English translation by Efthymiadis, “George the Monk,” 731. Georgius Monachus, Chronicon, vol. 1, 3, lin. 23–26: τήν τε τῶν ἀτασθάλων καὶ κακοφρόνων Σαρακηνῶν καταγέλαστον δόξαν καὶ τὴν κτηνώδη ζωὴν καὶ μέντοι καὶ τὴν διδασκαλίαν τοῦ λαοπλάνου ψευδοπροφήτου αὐτῶν. 74 Efthymiadis, “George the Monk,” 731. 75 Alexander Kazhdan, “Theophanes the Confessor,” in ODB, vol. 3, 2063. 76 The basilikos strator was the owner of a seal. See G. Zacos and A. Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals, vol.  1/2: Nos.  1096–2671A, Non-imperial Seals: VIth to IXth Centuries (Basel, 1972), 1269–70 (no. 2312). 77 Lit. “sword-bearer”. In the late Roman Empire, the term designated a bodyguard, either private or imperial. See Alexander Kazhdan, “Spatharios,” in ODB, vol. 3, 1935–6. 78 Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Claudia Ludwig, Beate Zielke and Thomas Pratsch, “Theophanes Homologetes: Θεοφάνης,” PMZO, https://www.degruyter.com/database/PMBZ/entry/PMBZ19364/html [Accessed February 17, 2023]. 79 Lilie, Ludwig, Zielke and Pratsch, “Theophanes Homologetes.”

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the Synkellos (d. 810), and contains more information on Islamic history and contemporary Muslim-Christian interactions than George the Monk’s work.80 Theophanes partially equates the Arabs with iconoclasm. Emperor Leo III (680–741), whose stance and actions on the icon controversy Theophanes frowns upon, is described in the same condemning terms as the Arabs (“God’s enemies”), and is even directly portrayed as having an Arab mindset (sarakēnophrōn).81 In this association between the Arabs and iconoclasm, George the Monk follows Theophanes.82 Theophanes’s work preserves a variety of historical information concerning contemporary Muslims and their interactions with the Byzantines. However, this is not an unbiased narration, but rather influenced by his opposition to all “enemies of Orthodoxy” and closely tied to his critical outlook on iconoclasm and the correlation he perceives between the Arabs and the outbreak of this controversy.83 Like the work of George the Monk, Theophanes’s Chronographia is a primarily historical text whose main objects are not the Arabs or Muslims; but when dealing with them, his tone is polemical. With our next author, in contrast, we return to a work solely focused on Muslims and with a clear polemical aim. It is difficult to say whether Evodios the Monk has anything in common with the authors we have examined so far, besides his monkhood; the details of his life remain a mystery. This places Evodios in the same group as several other monks, named or anonymous, who we know through their authorship of works, but about whose biographies and careers we retain no information.84 It is hypothesized that Evodios was the author of the Canon for Joseph the Hymnographer, and subsequently Joseph’s disciple and a monk in his monastery.85 His better-known work The Martyrdom of the Forty-Two Martyrs of Christ of Amorion is also set up in a way as to contain polemical arguments made by Christians towards Muslims and vice versa. The martyrs engage in a theological discourse with the Muslims, face the temptation of becoming Muslims, and refute Islam.86 Evodios revisits this theme in his lesser-known work Chapters from the Forged Book of the Unbelieving Muḥammad and of Destitution, which may well be described as an abridged version of Nicetas of Byzantium’s Refutation of the Qur’ān.

80 Vaiou, “Theophanes the Confessor,” 428. Efthymiadis, “George the Monk,” 731: “Unlike Theophanes the Confessor, his major source, George is not interested in Islamic history: his references to the Arabs are confined to their military campaigns against the Byzantines.” 81 Vaiou, “Theophanes the Confessor,” 429. 82 Efthymiadis, “George the Monk,” 731. 83 Vaiou, “Theophanes the Confessor,” 431. 84 Kazhdan, Byzantine Literature, 318. 85 Kolia-Dermitzaki and Rigo, “Euodius the Monk,” 844. 86 Kazhdan, Byzantine Literature, 208.

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Evodios’s version is more concise, and it chooses not to relay the philosophical-theological Christian argumentation in Nicetas’s work, retaining only the polemical argumentation against the Muslims.87 While the context and purpose of Evodios’s refutation is unknown, it seems reasonable to assume that at least part of his aim was to provide and make known Nicetas’s polemic in a more accessible and succinct form. Nicetas’s refutation, which had a great influence on later anti-Islamic works, including those of Euthymios Zigabenos and Nicetas Choniates, was circulated through Evodios’s abbreviated version.88 But Evodios also shows a similarity to some of our previous authors. While they associated Islam with the iconoclasm, he holds it responsible for the establishment of Monothelitism, reaching this conclusion independently of Nicetas.89 So we may point out a general tendency in these texts of blaming the influence of Islamic beliefs for what our authors considered to be heretical views among Christians. As previously mentioned, one of the authors who used Evodios’s epitome was Euthymios Zigabenos. Euthymios’s exact dates of birth and death are unknown, but he likely lived from the middle of the tenth until the beginning of the eleventh century. Euthymios resided in Constantinople, as did several of the other authors, like Nicetas of Byzantium, Theodore the Studite, Theophanes the Confessor, Evodios the Monk, most probably, and Nicetas Choniates. Perhaps their dwelling in the same city and being in the capital of the empire, where writing and copying activity would have been most active, made it easier for their works to become accessible and to be passed down. Euthymios was a monk and theologian tasked by Alexios I Komnenos (1057–1118) to write, like many of our other authors, a refutation of heresies, called the Armor of Doctrines.90 He is the only one of our group of authors of whom we know for sure that he did not work alone, but with a team of fellow theologians.91 Once again, details on his life remain sparse; but we do know that he worked under imperial order, and with a clear polemical aim. Given the shared views of previous authors within this group, it is perhaps relevant to mention that a chapter of Euthymios Armor of Doctrines is also dedicated to the refutation of the iconoclasts. The last of the 28 chapters, however, deals with the Muslims. Euthymios’s argumentation is not original, but relies on two sources: first, on John of Damascus’s chapter 100 of De haeresibus against Islam, and second,

87 Kolia-Dermitzaki and Rigo, “Euodius the Monk,” 848. 88 Rigo, “Niceta Byzantios,” 164. 89 Kolia-Dermitzaki and Rigo, “Euodius the Monk,” 848. 90 Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, “Euthymius Zigabenus,” in Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, ed. André Vauchez (Oxford: James Clarke & Co, 2005), https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/ acref/9780227679319.001.0001/acref-9780227679319-e-979 [Accessed February 17, 2023]. 91 Antonio Rigo, “Euthymius Zigabenus,” in CMR, vol. 3, 338–40, here 338.

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on Evodios the Monk’s abridged version of Nicetas of Byzantium’s Refutation of the Qur’ān.92 Euthymios’s anti-Islamic polemic reuses the theological arguments, information about Islamic laws and practices, the Islamic holy scripture he finds in their texts, and it further perpetrates the stereotypes and motifs assigned to Muslims by these previous authors. Our final author, Nicetas Choniates (1155/7–1217), wrote a work complementary to that of Euthymios. Nicetas was native to Chonia but his studies brought him to Constantinople at a young age, where he established his career and reached the office of logothetēs tōn sekretōn.93 He was the son of a wealthy family, and not the only prominent member of it; his brother Michael (c. 1140–1215) was also an author and considered a famous scholar.94 So far, the works of our authors have split into either the historical or polemical/anti-heretical genre; Nicetas has dabbled in both. His main work is the Chronikē diēgēsis or simply the History, but he also wrote a refutation of heresies which shares the title Armor of Doctrines with Euthymios’s work, also known as Thesaurus orthodoxae fidei. Book 20 of Nicetas’s Armor is dedicated to the Muslims or “Hagarenes,” and just like Euthymios’s polemic it is composed of content taken from previous sources and put together. In the first chapters  of book 20, Nicetas “reproduce[s] verbatim” John of Damascus’s anti-Islamic chapter, while also drawing from another author we have seen, George the Monk. In the later chapters, Nicetas relies on Euthymios Zigabenos’s homonymous Armor and summarizes several chapters of it.95 Since Euthymios used Evodios the Monk’s epitome of Nicetas of Byzantium’s Refutation of the Qur’ān, Nicetas Choniates is indirectly referring all the way back to Nicetas of Byzantium, too. His goal and method are similar to Euthymios: compiling past anti-Islamic sources, keeping alive and further fueling stereotypical perceptions of Muslims and Islam found therein with a genuinely polemical aim.

4 Conclusion Having examined authors of anti-Islamic works preserved in the Mount Athos, Great Lavra, MS gr. Ω 44, spanning from the ninth to the thirteenth century, we 92 Rigo “Niceta Byzantios,” 163–64. 93 Nicolo Zorzi, “Nicetas Choniates,” in CMR, vol. 4, 132–44, here 132; logothetēs tōn sekretōn was a high official of a Patriarchal court or council. See Alexander Kazhdan, “Logothetes,” in ODB, vol. 2, 1237. 94 ✶✶✶, “Nicetas Acominatos,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. F. L. Cross, 3rd edition, ed. E. A. Livingstone (London–New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1147. 95 Zorzi, “Nicetas Choniates,” 140–41. See also quotation above (ibid. 141).

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may summarize some of the similarities and deviations we find in their texts. All authors wrote either historical or polemical/anti-heretical works. Those who lived around the time of iconoclasm had strong sentiments against iconoclastic beliefs and actions taken by the administration. Particularly, Theophanes the Confessor and George the Monk seem to partially blame iconoclasm on an Arab influence, while Byzantine iconoclasts and Arab enemies are portrayed in the same negative terms in their works. The majority of the authors were monks, many of them coming from wealthy, influential backgrounds and residing at least for a portion of their lives in Constantinople. Especially two of them, John of Damascus and Nicetas of Byzantium, composed original argumentation in their polemics against Islam. The rest of the authors rely directly or indirectly on at least one of those two for their anti-Islamic arguments and stereotypes. In the case of the historiographical works, polemic is not the main focus. When touching, however, polemical topics, they draw from the existing tradition. In anti-heretical anthologies, such as those of Euthymios Zigabenos and Nicetas Choniates, or even Evodios the Monk’s compilation of Nicetas of Byzantium’s work, the goal seems to rather preserve pre-existing knowledge and rhetoric against a series of heresies, in this particular case Islam, than creating new lines of argumentations. In these cases, it is difficult to trace textual influences to specific historical contexts because the works presented here depict a certain line of tradition, although with substantial entanglement.

Bibliography Manuscripts Madrid. El Escorial. MS Gr. Ψ.III.8 (463). Mount Athos. The Great Lavra. MS Gr. Ω 44 (1854). München. Staatsbibliothek. MS Gr. 391. Oxford. Christ Church. MS Wake 5. Paris. Bibliothèque nationale de France. MS Gr. 1709. Paris. Bibliothèque nationale de France. MS Gr. 1710. Paris. Bibliothèque nationale de France. MS Gr. 1711. Paris. Bibliothèque nationale de France. MS Coislin 133. Vatican. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Gr. 154. Vatican. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Gr. 155. Vatican. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Gr. 978. Vatican. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Barberini 553. Vatican. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Palat. 395.

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Primary Sources Bertaina, David, ed. Būluṣ ibn Rajāʾ: How a Fatimid Egyptian Convert Shaped Christian Views of Islam. Arabic Christianity: Texts and Studies 4. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2022. de Boor, Carol, ed. Theophanis, Chronographia. 2 vols. Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1883–5. Reprinted in Hildesheim: Olms, 1963. de Boor, Carol, ed. Georgius Monachus Chronicon. 2 vols. Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Leipzig: B. G. Teubneri, 1904. Reprinted with corrections by Peter Wirth. Stuttgart, 1978. Förstel, Karl, ed. Niketas von Byzanz: Schriften zum Islam. Corpus Islamo-Christianum: Series Graeca 5. Würzburg–Altenberge: Echter Verlag–Oros Verlag, 2000. Förstel, Karl, ed. Arethas und Euthymios Zigabenos: Schriften zum Islam. Fragmente der griechischen Koranübersetzung. Corpus Islamo-Christianum: Series Graeca 7. Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden, 2009. Kotter, Bonifatius, ed. Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos. Vol. 3: Contra imaginum calumniatores orationes tres. Patristische Texte und Studien 17. Berlin–New York: De Gruyter, 1975. Kotter, Bonifatius, ed. Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos. Vol. 4: Liber de haeresibus: Opera polemica. Patristische Texte und Studien 22. Berlin–New York: De Gruyter, 1981. Krannich, Torsten, Christoph Schubert and Claudia Sode, ed. Die ikonoklastische Synode von Hiereia 754. Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar ihres Horos. Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 15. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022. Mérigoux, Jean-Marie “L’ouvrage d’un Frère Prêcheur florentin en Orient à la fin du XIIIe siècle: Le Contra legem Saracenorum de Riccoldo da Monte di Croce.” Memorie Dominicaine 17 (1986): 1–144. Zacos, Georgios and A. Veglery. Byzantine Lead Seals. Vol. 1/2: Nos. 1096–2671A, Non-Imperial Seals: VIth to IXth Centuries. Basel, 1972.

Secondary Literature . “Nicetas Acominatos.” In The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross. 3rd Edition. Edited by E. A. Livingstone, 1147. London–New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Afinogenov, Dmitry. E. “The Date of Georgios Monachos Reconsidered.” BZ 92, no. 2 (1999): 437–47. Burman, Thomas E. “Riccoldo da Monte di Croce.” In CMR. Vol. 4, 678–91. Congourdeau, Marie-Hélène. “Euthymius Zigabenus.” In Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. Online Version. Edited by André Vauchez. Oxford: James Clarke & Co, 2005, https://www. oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780227679319.001.0001/acref-9780227679319-e-979. Efthymiadis, Stephanos. “George the Monk.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 729–33. Glei, Reinhold. “John of Damascus.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 295–301. Kazhdan, Alexander. History of Byzantine Literature (850–1000). Edited by Christine Angelidi. Institute for Byzantine Research–Research Series 4. Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2006. Kazhdan, Alexander. “Logothetes.” In ODB. Vol. 2, 1237. Kazhdan, Alexander. “Spatharios.” In ODB. Vol. 3, 1935–6. Kazhdan, Alexander. “Theophanes the Confessor.” In ODB. Vol. 3, 2063. Kazhdan, Alexander. “Theodore of Stoudios.” In ODB. Vol. 3, 2044–5. Kazhdan, Alexander, Alice-Mary Talbot, and Anthony Cutler. “Stoudios Monastery.” In ODB. Vol. 3, 1960–1. ✶✶✶

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Kolia-Dermitzaki, Athina and Antonio Rigo. “Euodius the Monk.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 844–48. Lavriotis, Spyridon and Sophronios Efstratiadis. Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts in the Library of the Laura on the Mount Athos. Harvard Theological Studies 12. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925. Lilie, Ralph-Johannes, Claudia Ludwig, Beate Zielke and Thomas Pratsch. “Ioannes Damaskenos: Ἰωάννης.” In PMZO, https://www.degruyter.com/database/PMBZ/entry/PMBZ14100/html. Lilie, Ralph-Johannes, Claudia Ludwig, Beate Zielke and Thomas Pratsch. “Theodoros Studites: Θεόδωρος.” In PMZO, https://www.degruyter.com/database/PMBZ/entry/PMBZ18819/html. Lilie, Ralph-Johannes, Claudia Ludwig, Beate Zielke and Thomas Pratsch. “Theophanes Homologetes: Θεοφάνης.” In PMZO, https://www.degruyter.com/database/PMBZ/entry/PMBZ19364/html. Mango, Cyril and Roger Scott. The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History, AD 284–813. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Rigo, Antonio. “La sezione sui Musulmani dell’opera di Teodoro Studita contro le eresie.” Revue des études byzantines 56 (1998): 213–30. Rigo, Antonio. “Niceta Byzantios, la sua opera e il monaco Evodio.” In ‘In partibus Clius’: Scritti in onore di Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli. Edited by G. Fiaccadori, A. Gatti and S. Marotta, 147–87. Biblioteca europea 36. Naples: Vivarium, 2006. Rigo, Antonio. “Theodore the Studite.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 423–5. Rigo, Antonio. “Euthymius Zigabenus.” In CMR. Vol. 3, 338–40. Sahas, Daniel J. John of Damascus on Islam: The ‘Heresy of the Ishmaelites’. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972. Tinnefeld, Franz. “Demetrius Cydones.” In CMR. Vol. 5, 239–49. Trapp, Erich ed. Manuel II Palaiologos: Dialoge mit einem „Perser“. Wiener Byzantinische Studien 2. Graz–Vienna–Köln: In Kommission bei Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1966. Ulbricht, Manolis. “The Authorship of the Early Greek Translation of the Quran (Vat. gr. 681).” DOP 77 (2023): 221–43. Ulbricht, Manolis. “Die Klassifizierung in ,Philologische Kategorien‘ der im Coranus Graecus überlieferten Koranfragmente. Eine Einteilung in Wörtliches Zitat, Freies Zitat, Paraphrase und Anspielung.” De Medio Aevo 12, no. 1 (2023): 125–45. Ulbricht, Manolis. “Die Verwendungsweise der griechischen Koranübersetzung durch Niketas von Byzanz.” Byzantion 92 (2022): 491–519. Ulbricht, Manolis. “Der Islam-Diskurs bei Niketas von Byzanz: Themen und Argumentation in seinem Hauptwerk „Widerlegung des Korans“ (Ἀνατροπὴ τοῦ Κορανίου).” BZ 114, no. 3 (2021): 1351–94. Vaiou, Maria. “Theophanes the Confessor.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 426–36. Zorzi, Niccolò. “Nicetas Choniates.” In CMR. Vol. 4, 132–44.

Zofia A. Brzozowska, Mirosław J. Leszka (†)

Michael Synkellos and His Lost Refutation of Islam in the Medieval Byzantine-Slavic Literary Tradition Abstract: The aim of this article is to present the polemical, anti-Muslim treatise, which was written in the late eight and early ninth century in Palestine by Michael Synkellos, an Orthodox Christian monk of Arab origin. The text has not been preserved in its entirety in its original Byzantine-Greek version. However, it circulated in the Church Slavic literary tradition in the eleventh and sixteenth century both in the Balkans and Rus’, gaining popularity in different contexts.

1 Introduction The medieval literary tradition of the Orthodox Slavs, that is those who in accepting Christianity of the eastern rite found themselves within the sphere of direct influence of Byzantine civilization, was characterized by considerable selectiveness. The Slavic inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula (i.e., Bulgarians and Serbs) and of the vast areas of Eastern Europe, where in the tenth century the state of Rurikids (Rus’) was formed, were unable to assimilate the entire body of literature available in Greek for many reasons. From the abundant body of Byzantine literature, they made selective use of those works that could constitute a theoretical underpinning for the state and ecclesiastic structures they were creating at the time, or which could assist them in developing their own identity and a set of ideas about their place in the Christian, that is “civilized,” oikoumene. The process of translating Greek-Byzantine texts into Old Church Slavic, which from the second half of the ninth century until the beginnings of the modern era functioned as the main literary language for the Orthodox Slavs, was initiated in Bulgaria, apart from a brief, about twenty-year period of Christianizing mission in the Great Moravian state. The first translations emerged due to the initiative of the

Acknowledgements: This chapter has been written under the research project Muhammad and the Origin of Islam: Stereotypes, Knowledge and Notions in the Byzantine-Russian Culture (financed by the National Science Centre, Poland, No. DEC-2016/23/B/HS3/01891) and the research project Orthodox Slavic Polemical Writings in the Middle Ages (financed by the National Science Centre, Poland, No. DEC-2017/26/M/ HS2/00335). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-006

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ambitious rulers Boris-Michael (852–89), Simeon I the Great (893–927) and Peter (927–69), who exhibited high cultural aspirations for their own people. The Rurikids who ruled Kievan Rus’ had a somewhat easier task in front of them. In addition to commissioning new translations from Greek, they were also able to bring to their courts Slavic manuscripts produced in Bulgaria. In the beginning of the thirteenth century, the first rulers from the Serbian Nemanjić dynasty found themselves in a similar and, in fact, an even more advantageous position. By then, they had at their disposal extensive collections of Church Slavic books, preserved in multinational monastic repositories, the most important being those of Mount Athos. In these conditions the propagation of works throughout the territory of Slavia Orthodoxa — or their complete absence — may have been a consequence of translation decisions made during the emergence of Church Slavic literature. What factors shaped whether a particular work of Byzantine provenance would be translated and adapted by Orthodox Slavs? During the earliest phase of the development of Church Slavic literature, practical issues played a considerable role in the degree to which the given text was necessary for the ongoing functioning of the state and ecclesiastic structures (e.g., legal compilations, liturgical books) and its genre characteristics, such as brevity and conciseness. Moreover, it is possible that medieval Slavs preferred over works of their contemporary authors the works older than the ninth-eleventh century, whose authors had an impeccable reputation as moral authorities in the world of the Eastern Christianity due to their engagement in theological disputes and the defense of the Orthodox faith.1

2 Michael Synkellos: A Christian Arab in the Byzantine Intellectual Milieu One renowned Byzantine author for the Orthodox Slavs was Michael Synkellos. Our knowledge about this author comes primarily from the anonymous Life devoted to him, written shortly after his death in 846, most likely at the Chora Monastery of Constantinople, where he was the hegoumenos.2 According to this

1 Simon Franklin, Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus, c. 950–1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 12–14, 101–3, 129–56. Cf. Timofei V. Guimon, Historical Writing of Early Rus (c. 1000–c. 1400) in a Comparative Perspective, East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450 71 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2021), 24–25. 2 Mary B. Cunningham, The Life of Michael the Synkellos: Text, Translation and Commentary, Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations 1 (Belfast: Belfast Byzantine Enterprises, 1991), 5. On Michael Synkellos, see Robert Browning and Alexander P. Kazhdan, “Michael Synkellos,” in ODB, vol. 2,

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Life, Michael was born in Jerusalem around 761/62. He was of “Persian origin”, namely an Arab (persogenēs). When he was a child, his mother sent him to the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem where he became a reader. Further, the Life informs us, Michael received a thorough education, as he learned grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, astronomy, and poetry.3 In 786, after his father’s death, when he was twenty-five years old, Michael became a monk at the monastery of Saint Saba, and later he was ordained a priest by the patriarch of Jerusalem, George (797–807). Around 800, while at Saint Saba Monastery, Michael joined the community of the Graptoi brothers, Theodore and Theophanes, and became their spiritual guardian. In the years 797, 809 and 813, the Monastery of Saint Saba was attacked several times by the Arabs, while Michael resided there, and this might have influenced his attitude towards Muslims. He could even be an eyewitness of the most fateful of them all, the raid of the Arabian troops in 797, during which — as Stephen the Hymnographer testifies in his Martyrdom of the 20 Martyrs of St. Saba — twenty monks from the community were killed.4 At the turn of the first and second decade of the ninth century, he was appointed as a synkellos of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Thomas I (807–20) and moved with his pupils to the Monastery of Spudaioi, located near the Church of the Resurrection. Around 812/13, he was a member of an official delegation sent by the Patriarch of Jerusalem Thomas I to Pope Leo III (795–816), along with Theodore, Theophanes and Job, with his letters addressed to the Bishop of Rome, containing information about Arab injustices against the Palestinian Christians. Unfortunately, the delega1369–70; Carmelo Crimi, Michele Sincello: Per la restaurazione delle venerande e sacre immagini (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1990), 5–11; Claudia Sode, Jerusalem–Konstantinopel– Rom: Die Viten des Michael Synkellos und der Brüder Theodoros und Theophanes Graptoi, Altertumswissenschaftliches Kolloquium 4 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2001); Athina Kolia-Dermitzaki, “Michael the Synkellos,” in CMR, vol. 1, 625–32; Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Claudia Ludwig, Beate Zielke and Thomas Pratsch, “Michael Synkellos Μιχαήλ,” in PMZO, www.degruyter.com/database/PMBZ/ entry/PMBZ16236/html [Accessed March 17, 2023]; Zofia A. Brzozowska and Mirosław J. Leszka, “Michael Syncellus: Unknown Refutation of Islam,” in Zofia A. Brzozowska, Mirosław J. Leszka and Teresa Wolińska, Muhammad and the Origin of Islam in the Byzantine-Slavic Literary Context: A Bibliographical History, trans. Katarzyna Gucio and Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi, Byzantina Lodziensia 41 (Lodz: Lodz University Press, 2020), 124–26. 3 Cunningham, The Life of Michael, II, 46–48. 4 Joseph Patrich, “The Impact of the Muslim Conquest on Monasticism in the Desert of Jerusalem,” in Le Proche-Orient de Justinien aux Abbassides: Peuplement et dynamiques spatiales. Actes du colloque international “Continuités de l’occupation entre les périodes omeyyade et abbasside au Proche-Orient (VIIe–IXe siècles)”, ed. Antoine Borrut, Muriel Debié, Arietta Papacostantinou, Dominique Pieri, Jean-Pierre Sodini, Bibliothèque de l’Antiquité tardive 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 207, 211, 213.

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tion did not reach Rome. Michael remained in Constantinople at the Chora Monastery where he became involved in the iconoclastic conflict, which resurged during Emperor Leo V’s reign (813–20). As a defender of the cult of the icons, Michael was persecuted for nearly thirty years, until the death of Emperor Theophilos (829–42). After the condemnation of iconoclasm at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787) and the repudiation of the iconoclast Patriarch John the Grammarian (837–43), Michael was offered the position of Patriarch of Constantinople. However, he declined the offer, being satisfied with the position of a synkellos of the new Constantinopolitan Patriarch Methodios (843–47), and of the hegoumenos of the Chora Monastery. Michael died on January 4, 846. In addition to his ecclesiastical career, Michael Synkellos was a prolific author too. There is however a debate regarding some particular texts ascribed to him because, at the time when he was active, there were several individuals named Michael who held the position of synkellos. There are eight works that can be ascribed to him with a considerable certainty,5 among them the Encomion of Dionysios Areopagites and one of the versions of the Martyrdom of the 42 Martyrs of Amorion. Michael was probably the author of an anti-Islamic polemical text too, in which he refuted the tenets of Islam and analyzed the religious customs of Muslims.6 In producing his own polemical argumentation, Michael used earlier Byzantine accounts as sources, such as chapter 101 of the treatise On heresies (De haeresibus) by John of Damascus (675/6–749). In his treatise, Michael inserted two quotations from the Qur’ān (Q 5:116 and Q 47:15).7 It cannot be ruled out that Michael Synkellos, apart from On heresies by John of Damascus, was also familiar with the works of other, earlier Eastern Christian authors, who wrote about Islam,8 as well as texts from the Arab tradition, such as Theodore Abū Qurra.9

5 Kolia-Dermitzaki, “Michael the Synkellos,” 628. Cf. Cunningham, The Life of Michael, 36–38. 6 Kolia-Dermitzaki, “Michael the Synkellos,” 632. 7 Brzozowska and Leszka, “Michael Syncellus,” 125. 8 For writings on Islam before the mid-8th century, see, among others Theodore A. Khoury, Les théologiens byzantins et l’Islam: Textes et auteurs (VIII–XIII s.) (Louvain–Paris: Éditions Nauwelaerts, 1969); Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008); Teresa Wolińska, “Elity chrześcijańskie wobec islamu (VII–X w.)” [Christian Elites about Islam (7th–10th Centuries)], Vox Patrum 64 (2015): 529–67. 9 For this author and his works about Islam, see Ignace Dick, “Un continuateur arabe de saint Jean Damascène, Théodore Abuqurra, évêque melchite de Harran: La personne et son milieu. 1. Les études antérieures sur Abu-Qurra,” Proche Orient-Chrétien 12 (1962): 209–33; John C. Lamoreaux, “Theodore Abū Qurra,” in CMR, vol. 1, 439–91.

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The aim of this paper is to trace the circulation of Michael Synkellos’ treatise in the Byzantine literature and among the Orthodox Slavs between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries both in the Balkans and Rus’. His text was present in the literary tradition of Slavia Orthodoxa in three different societal contexts: as a part of legal compilations (nomocanons), historical writings (intended as a reading for Church leaders, as well as secular people, e.g., rulers) and collections of hagiographic sources, prepared for monastic libraries. We will also discuss its influence on the Church Slavic anti-Islamic polemical writings in the Middle Ages.

3 Michael Synkellos’ Polemical Treatise in the Byzantine Literary Tradition The anti-Muslim polemical text by Michael Synkellos is partially preserved, surviving only in fragments included in the Historia syntomon of George the Monk, called Hamartolos (ninth century).10 George was probably a monk in one of the Constantinopolitan monasteries. The production date for his Historia is not clear. Scholars believe that it was written during the reign of Michael III (842–67), sometime between 846/47,11 or before 867,12 or after his death,13 or even after 870.14 The later dating, to the reign of Leo VI the Philosopher (886–912), proposed by Regel, did not gain a wider acceptance.15 But George was a compiler. He would often quote his sources verbatim, and his activity as an author is clearly visible. The Historia was 10 On George the Monk, see Stephanos Efthymiadis, “George the Monk,” in CMR, vol. 1, 729–33; Warren T. Treadgold, The Middle Byzantine Historians (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 114– 20; Leonora Neville, Guide to Byzantine Historical Writing, with the assistance of David Harrisville, Irina Tamarkina, Charlotte Whatley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 87–92. 11 Dmitri Afinogenov, “The Date of Georgios Monachos Reconsidered,” BZ 92, no. 2 (1999), 437–47; Dmitri Afinogenov, “Le manuscrit grec Coislin 305: La version primitive de la Chronique de Georges le Moine,” Revue des études byzantines 62 (2004): 239–46. 12 Herbert Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, vol. 1 (München: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1978), 347; Johannes Karayannopulos and Günter Weiss, Quellenkunde zur Geschichte von Byzanz (324–1453), vol. 2/4: Hauptquellen, Allgemeine Quellenlage (nach Jahrhunderten geordnet). Anhang: Die wichtigsten urkundenkomplexe und Archive, Schriften zur Geistesgeschichte des östlichen Europa 14 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1982), 342–43. 13 For example, see Gyula Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica, vol. 1: Die byzantinischen Quellen der Geschichte der Türkvölker (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1958), 277. 14 Athanasios Markopoulos, “Symbolē stē chronologēsē tou Geōrgiou Monachou” [Contribution to the Chronology of George the Monk], Symmeikta 6 (1985): 223–31; Treadgold, The Middle Byzantine, 116. 15 Vasilii E. Regel, Analecta byzantino-russica (Petropoli: Eggers & S. et I. Glasunof, 1891), i–xiii.

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written with no concern for the chronology of the events, but with a tendency for presenting stories of moral or anecdotal nature. The author was also polemically inclined, as George was writing against the Jews, heretics (i.e., Manicheans, Paulicians), iconoclastic emperors or against the Muslims too. In one of the Byzantine manuscript copies of George’s chronicle, preserved in the collections of the National Library of France, in a passage devoted to Muḥammad and a critique of Islam, we find a mention that an earlier work about Muḥammad by Michael Synkellos has been intercalated into the text.16 The manuscript is the only surviving complete copy of the first redaction of the chronicle. A fragment of Michael Synkellos’ treatise appears also in these manuscripts with the work of George the Monk, which represent its second, more popular redaction, the so-called vulgate redaction. Here, however, it was incorporated into another sequence of the tale of Muḥammad and Islam, directly following a brief sketch of the Prophet, and also shortened. A fragment of the treatise, nearly identical to the one in the older version of the chronicle preserved in the Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Coislin 305 can also be found in the third redaction of Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles (Syntagma kanonikon), a Byzantine compilation of Church law, commissioned by the Patriarch of Constantinople Tarasios (784–806).17

4 Church Slavic Translations of Michael Synkellos’ Anti-Islamic Work As a supporter of the cult of the icons in the Eastern Church, Michael Synkellos was counted by the Orthodox Slavs among the authoritative writers whose works had to be translated from the Byzantine Greek, copied, and then distributed in the Slavic milieu. Within the area of Slavia Orthodoxa, Michael’s works were known at least from the eleventh century onwards, and among them one can count his A 16 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Coislin 305, fol. 312. 17 Zofia A. Brzozowska, “O heretyku Mahomecie: Opowieść o narodzinach islamu w Latopisie helleńskim i rzymskim drugiej redakcji” [On the Heretic Muḥammad: An Account of the Origin of Islam in the Second Redaction of the Hellenic and Roman Chronicle], Slavia Antiqua 61 (2020): 104. More on the topic of the creation of the Nomocanon and its development, see Kirill Maksimovich, “Byzantine Law in Old Slavonic Translations and the Nomocanon of Methodius,” Byzantinoslavica 65 (2007): 9–18; Bernard H. Stolte, “Search of the Origins of the Nomocanon of the Fourteen Titles,” in Byzantine Law: Proceedings of the International Symposium of Jurists, Thessaloniki 10–13 December 1998, ed.  Charalambos Papastathis (Thessaloniki, 2001), 183–94; David Wagschal, Law and Legality in the Greek East: The Byzantine Canonical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 381–883.

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Word on the Orthodox Faith (Михаила Сунькела Иерусалимьскааго написание о правеи вере) and several other polemical texts directed against the Latins (Catholics), whose authorship was ascribed to him.18 The anti-Muslim treatise examined in this essay has not been adopted by the Orthodox Slavs in full, but only its abbreviated redaction was translated into Church Slavic. This abbreviated redaction featured as an intrinsic part of larger works in Byzantine literature, such as the chronicle of George the Monk, and in the collections of Church law (nomocanons). As it will be argued further, the name of Michael Synkellos as author is not even mentioned in most of the preserved redactions of the Slavic text, and his views on Islam were ascribed to other writers.

4.1 The First Church Slavic Translation (Before 927, Bulgaria) The abbreviated redaction of the anti-Muslim treatise by Michael Synkellos was translated for the first time into Church Slavic only a few decades after the mission of Saints Constantine-Cyril and Methodios into Great Moravia and the Christianization of Bulgaria. It was not however adopted by the Orthodox Slavs as a work in its own right, but as part of the third redaction of the so-called Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles from the turn of the eighth and ninth centuries, namely the Syntagma, which was translated in full, most probably, at the order of Simeon I the Great (893–927) in the beginning of the tenth century in Preslav, the capital of Bulgaria at the time. Simeon was an ambitious ruler, much like his father, Boris-Michael (852–89). He commissioned translations of Byzantine legal compilations to ensure a solid theoretical basis for the administrative structures of the Bulgarian state and the young autocephalous Bulgarian Church, for the elevation of which to the rank of a Patriarchate he insistently strived.19 The Rurikids also very quickly realized that the Slavic translation of the Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles could be of great use for their young state, which emulated the Byzantine model, and for the church organization within its territory. Copies of this compilation reached Rus’ from the Balkans

18 Gerhard Podskalsky, Christentum und theologische Literatur in der Kiever Rus’ (988–1237) (München: C.H. Beck, 1982), 185, 260, 284; Dmitrij M. Bulanin, Katalog pamjatnikov drevnerusskoj pis’mennosti XI–XIV vv. (Rukopisnye knigi) [The Catalogue of the Written Monuments of the Old Rus’, 11th–14th Centuries (Manuscripts)], Studiorum Slavicorum Orbis 7 (St. Petersburg: Studiorum Slavicorum Orbis, 2014), 244; Dmitri Afinogenov and Larisa V. Prokopenko, “Mikhail Sinkell,” in Pravoslavnaja Enciklopedija [The Orthodox Encyclopaedia], vol. 46 (Moscow, 2017), 20. 19 Maksimovich, “Byzantine Law,” 10; Mirosław J. Leszka and Kirił Marinow, eds., The Bulgarian State in 927–969: The Epoch of Tsar Peter I, Byzantina Lodziensia 34 (Lodz: Lodz University Press, 2018), 80–81.

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most likely as early as mid-eleventh century. Until the 1270s, it constituted the legal basis for the functioning of the Rus’ Orthodox Church, which — unlike its Bulgarian counterpart — was a part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople during the entire medieval period. It is also from the Eastern Slavic area that we have the oldest copy of the Old Bulgarian translation of Syntagma with the first translation of the work by Michael Synkellos, entitled Efrem Kormchaia, which dates from the early twelfth century.20 The abbreviated redaction of the anti-Muslim treatise by Michael is found at fols. 273v–274v and it is entitled On the Hagarenes, Who Call Themselves Ishmaelites (О Агарѧньхъ иже Измаилите гл҃ ютьсѧ). As mentioned above, Michael’s name is found neither in this manuscript, nor in its later copies, such as Moscow, Russian State Library, MS 304.I.207, fols. 237a–238a. The text about Islam was presented by the compilers as part of the Panarion of Epiphanios of Salamis (310/20–403).21 In fact, because the polemical work of the Cypriot Bishop from the fifth century was far too long to be included within the confines of a legal compilation, only its abbreviated redaction was included in the nomocanon. This abbreviated redaction was produced by John of Damascus after 743, and was known as the treatise On heresies, which is itself a part of the work The Fount of Knowledge (Pēgē gnōseōs), produced by the renowned monk. Byzantine compilers working on the third redaction of the Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles decided to replace the last chapter devoted to Islam by John of Damascus with a much shorter text by Michael Synkellos, most probably to make the text as compact as possible.22 The Old Bulgarian translators of the anti-Muslim treatise of Michael Synkellos from the eighth-ninth century included it as part of the work of John of Damascus, On heresies, thinking that they were working on the Panarion of Epiphanios, the bishop of Cyprus, who in fact died nearly two hundred years before Muhammad’s birth. Islam was not at the center of the attention of either the Byzantines working on the third redaction of the Nomocanon, nor of the Bulgarians translating it into 20 Moscow, State Historical Museum, MS Sin. 227. See Francis Dvornik, “Byzantine Political Ideas on Kievian Russia,” DOP 9–10 (1956): 80–85; Walter K. Hanak, “The Impact of Byzantine Imperial Thought upon Vladimirian-Jaroslavian Russia,” Byzantine Studies / Etudes Byzantines 8, 11, 12 (1981, 1984, 1985): 123; Franklin, Writing, 137–38; Maksimovich, “Byzantine Law,” 10–11. 21 Vladimir N. Beneshevich, Syntagma XIV titulorum sine scholiis secundum versionem Palaeo-Slovenicam, adjecto textu Graeco e vetustissimis codicibus manuscriptis exarato, vol. 1 (Petropoli: Typis Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae, 1906), 701–4. 22 Heinz Miklas, “Zur kirchenslavischen Überlieferung der Häresiengeschichte des Johannes von Damaskus,” Monumenta Linguae Slavicae 15 (1981): 331–33; Paul Bushkovitch, “Orthodoxy and Islam in Russia 988–1725,” in Religion und Integration im Moskauer Russland: Konzepte und Praktiken, Potentiale und Grenzen 14.–17. Jahrhundert, ed. Ludwig Steindorff, Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 76 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), 125–26.

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Church Slavic. The reason for including John’s treatise On heresies on the pages of the compilation was the necessity of providing the Church dignitaries with a competent review of the heterodox trends within Christianity. At the time, Islam was sometimes portrayed as one of the Christian heresies.

4.2 The Second Church Slavic Translation (Tenth–Eleventh Century, Bulgaria) The history of the later reception of the treatise in the literature of the Orthodox Slavs is connected with the development of historiography in Church Slavic. As we have mentioned above, a substantial fragment of the text was used by the ninth-century chronicler George the Monk. A chronicle of his authorship, and specifically its second, more popular redaction (the vulgate) was translated in Bulgaria at the end of the tenth or in the early eleventh century along with an anonymous continuation, which included a description of the events from the Byzantine history from 842–963. This translation reached Rus’ very quickly. Perhaps its copy was brought to the east of Europe by one of the Southern Slavic emigrees who, after the final dissolution of the Bulgarian state in 1018 and incorporation of its territories into Byzantium, sought a place for themselves in the culturally related Rurikids’ state.23 The Old Bulgarian translation of the chronicle of George the Monk enjoyed an exceptional popularity in Slavia Orthodoxa, especially in its Eastern territories.24 Approximately twenty Eastern Slavic manuscripts dating from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, which contain the work in full or fragmentary, are preserved today. The only other work that was as frequently copied, redacted, and read was the historical work of John Malalas (c. 490–578), a Syrian author from the sixth century, and the accounts of John Zonaras (c. 1074–c. 1145) and Constantine 23 Vera A. Matveenko and Ljudmila I. Ščegoleva, Vremennik Georgija Monacha: Chronika Georgija Amartola [The Times of George the Monk: The Chronicle of George Hamartolos] (Moscow: Bogorodskij pečatnik, 2000), 8–9; Tatʹjana V. Anisimova, Chronika Georgija Amartola v drevnerusskich spiskach, XIV–XVII vv. [The Chronicle of George Hamartolos and the Old Rus’ Works, 14th–17th Centuries] (Moscow: Indrik, 2009); Guimon, Historical Writing, 46–47. For further information and literature references, see Zofia A. Brzozowska and Mirosław J. Leszka, “George the Monk (Hamartolus) Chronicle,” in Brzozowska, Leszka, Wolińska, Muhammad and the Origin of Islam, 190–97. 24 Tatiana L. Vilkul, “Drevneslavjanskij perevod Chroniki Georgija Amartola v Povesti Vremennych Let i Novgorodskoj Pervoj letopisi mladšego izvoda” [An Old Slavic Translation of the Chronicle of George Hamartolos from the Tale of the Past Years and the Earliest Edition of the First Chronicle of Novgorod], Drevnjaja Rus’: Voprosy medievistiki [The Old Rus’: Issues in Medieval Studies] 56 (2014): 5–15.

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Manasses (c. 1120–c. 1175), two Greek historiographers from the twelfth century. The influence of Byzantine literature on the literature of Orthodox Slavs in historiography was exceptionally strong. Bulgarians adapted it and considered it their own to such a degree that most likely throughout the entire medieval era they did not create an indigenous historiographic tradition, being content with editing and adding details of their own statehood found in the works of Byzantine authors. Eastern Slavs for geographic reasons could not find therein such exhaustive information about themselves. They considered it primarily a source of knowledge about universal history, describing the history of Rus’ in their own annals (letopisi) which were produced during the eleventh-twelfth centuries and modeled according to the Byzantine chronographs.25 Both Southern and Eastern Slavs considered the events of universal history through the eyes of the Byzantines. It was through these optics that they saw the activity of Muḥammad and the birth of Islam. George the Monk included in his chronicle a large text on this subject, using considerable parts from the text of Michael Synkellos. For example, in the manuscript Moscow, Russian State Library, MS 310.1289, which became the basis for the edition of the Church Slavic translation, it occupies almost two pages: fols. 315v–316v.26 However, in neither the Greek nor the Slavic variant of the vulgate is there any mention that this passage was taken from the work of Michael Synkellos.

4.3 The Third Church Slavic Translation (After 1219, Serbia) The third translation of the polemical treatise by Michael Synkellos was produced in Serbia. Unlike Bulgaria and the Rus’, which since the time of their Christianiza-

25 Zofia A. Brzozowska, “Zapożyczona czy własna wizja dziejów powszechnych? Wpływ autorów bizantyńskich na świadomość historyczną Słowian Południowych i Wschodnich (na przykładzie opowieści o Mahomecie i Historii paulicjan Piotra z Sycylii)” [Borrowed or Native Vision of Common History? The Influence of Byzantine Authors on the Historical Consciousness of South and East Slavs (Based on the Story of Muhammad and Peter of Sicily’s History of the Paulicians)], in Widmo Mahometa, cień Samuela: Cesarstwo Bizantyńskie w relacji z przedstawicielami innych religii i kultur (VII–XV w.) [Phantom of Muhammad, Shade of Samuel: Byzantine Empire in Relation to Members of Other Cultures and Religions (7th–15th Centuries)], ed. Zofia A. Brzozowska, Mirosław J. Leszka, Kirił Marinow and Teresa Wolińska, Byzantina Lodziensia 39 (Lodz: Lodz University Press, 2020), 13–19; Guimon, Historical Writing, 30–31. 26 Vasilij M. Istrin, Knigi vremennye i obraznye Georgija Mnicha: Chronika Georgija Amartola v drevnem slavjanorusskom perevode [Historical and Imagery Works by George Mnich: The Chronicle of George Hamartolos in an Old Slavic Rus’ Translation], vol. 1 (Petrograd: Rossijskaja gosudarstvennaja akademičeskaja tipografija, 1920), 449–54.

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tion (ninth-tenth centuries) remained within Constantinople’s sphere of influence, Serbia found itself for many centuries at the crossroads between the Byzantine-Orthodox and the Latin West. A reorganization of the Serbian statehood and culture in line with the models taken from Byzantium was initiated at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by the Great Župan of Raška, Stefan Nemanja (1170–96) and his two sons, king Stefan Nemanjić “the First-Crowned” (1196–1228) and Rastko-Sava (c. 1175–1236). In 1219, Rastko-Sava managed to create an independent and autocephalous Serbian Orthodox Church, with the agreement of the Patriarch of Constantinople, which was led by an archbishop. To ensure legal and theoretical foundations for the new ecclesiastical organization, Sava personally undertook work on a new version of the nomocanon (Zakonopravilo), compiled based on the Byzantine sources available to him. Rastko-Sava, the Serbian prince-archbishop, included in his nomocanon a separate entry devoted to Islam (ch. 61, paragraph 21, which also featured a Church Slavic translation of On heresies by John of Damascus), entitled There is a Cult of Ishmaelites, that is the Faith of the Saracens, Which Exists until Today and Deceives People (Есть же и дон҃ ня дрьжещии прѣльщающия люди слоужба Измаильтьска рекше вѣра Срациньска).27 The text is a combination of the final chapter (100) of On heresies, devoted to Islam, and of the abbreviated redaction of the treatise by Michael Synkellos.28 It begins with the introductory sentences of John of Damascus’ work (100.1–11), after which there is an interjected brief fragment of the work by Michael Synkellos: (fol. 370a) He had discussions with Jews and with Christians, i.e., with Arians and with Nestorians, from them all taking some evil [ideas]: from the Jews he took monotheism, from the Arians — [a concept, that] the Word and the Spirit had been created, and from the Nestorians — anthropolatry.

27 Zagreb, Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, MS III c. 9, fol. 369d–373d. See Miodrag M. Petrović, Zakonopravilo or the Nomocanon of Saint Sava: The Ilovica Manuscript from 1262. Photoprint reproduction (Gornji Milanovac: Dečje Novine, 1991), fol. 369d–373d (facsimile). Cf. Jovan Gardović, Sarajevski prepis Zakonopravila Svetog Save iz XIV v. [The Sarajevo Copy of the Nomocanon of Saint Sava from the 14th Century] (Dobrun: “Dabar” Izdavačka kuća Mitropolije dabrobosanske, 2013), fol. 338b–341d (facsimile). 28 M. Petrović, Zakonopravilo Svetog Save o Muhamedovom učenju [The Nomocanon of Saint Sava about Muḥammad’s Teaching] (Belgrade: Novi dani, 1997), 7; Slobodan Prodić, Knjiga ‘O jeresima’ prepodobnog Jovana Damaskina kao 61. poglavlje sarajevskog rukopisa ‘Zakonopravila’ svetog Save Srpskog [The Work On Heresies by the Venerable John of Damascus as the 61st Chapter from the Sarajevo Manuscript of the Nomocanon of Saint Sava Srpski] (Šibenik: Eparhija Dalmatinska, 2016), 9–14.

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иже бесѣдовавь сь Ѥврѣи и сь хрстияны рекше сь ариани и с несторияны ѿвсоудоу почрьпь злая. ѿ Ѥврѣи оубо ѥдиноначелиѥ. ѿ ариянь же слово и дх҃ ь створена ѡба. ѿ несториянь же чловкосложениѥ.

After this, we find again the text On heresies (100.12–157), and in the continuation at its end, the compiler resumes the treatise of Michael Synkellos.29 In the Nomocanon of Saint Sava the fragments of Michael Synkellos’ work are less substantial than in the earlier compilations. Moreover, the combining of the works of John of Damascus and Michael Synkellos seems to have been unreflective and mechanical: the creators of the collection did not remove even the most apparent contradictions of the account. For example, in fol. 372c we read, after John of Damascus’ text, that in the Muslim Paradise there are rivers of water, wine and milk,30 and in fol. 373c we find a remark taken from Michael Synkellos’ account that these are rivers of honey, milk and wine.31 Along with the Serbian redaction of the anti-Muslim treatise of Michael Synkellos, the Nomocanon of Saint Sava became known in Rus’ ca. 1270. At that time, when the Metropolitan of Kyiv Cyril II (ca. 1247–81) sought new legal and administrative solutions for the Rus’ Orthodox Church, which was forced to function in different political conditions in the aftermath of the Mongol conquest, the metropolitan received a copy of this compilation from the Bulgarian Despot Jacob Svetoslav (c. 1210–c. 1275). The oldest Eastern Slavic copy of the aforementioned legal compilation is the Ryazan Kormchaia from 1284.32 The compiled work about Islam, which includes passages from Michael Synkellos’ treatise, is found at fols. 374a–378b.

4.4 The Fourth Church Slavic Translation (Fourteenth Century, the Balkans) During the first half of the fourteenth century, an abbreviated redaction of Michael Synkellos’ treatise was again translated in the Balkan area into Church Slavic, only this time as an integral part of the older version of the chronicle of George the Monk, which was concurrent with the variant preserved in the Greek manuscript Paris, BnF, MS Coislin 305. The place of production for this translation (Bulgaria, 29 Zagreb, Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, MS III c. 9, fols. 373a–373d. 30 Zagreb, Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, MS III c. 9, fol. 372c. 31 Zagreb, Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, MS III c. 9, fol. 373c. 32 St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, MS F.п.II.1. See Podskalsky, Christentum, 299–301; Franklin, Writing, 137–38; Marija V. Korogodina, Kormčie knigi XIV–pervoj poloviny XVII v. [Kormchaia Books from the 14th to the First Half of the 17th Centuries], vol. 2: Opisanie redakcij [Description of Editions] (Moscow–St Petersburg: Alʹjans-Archeo, 2017), 14–64.

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Serbia, or perhaps Mount Athos) and its influence on the East Slavic literature require further in-depth studies. Suffice for this essay is to note that it does indeed include a very substantial fragment of the text, borrowed from Michael Synkellos’ treatise. In the manuscript Moscow, State Historical Museum, MS Sin. 148 in fols. 316v–317v.33 Moreover, it is the only Church Slavic redaction in which Michael Synkellos is mentioned by name: About Them [i.e., Muslims] also by the Blessed Michael, Protosynkellos of the Holy City [of Jerusalem] Briefly Said What Follows (Ѡ нихже что и Михаиль бл҃женыи и протосигг҃ ель ста҃ го града реч вькратцѣ сицевая). The abbreviated redaction of the treatise was also cited here to the greatest extent, and in the form closest to the author’s archetype. Based on the contents of the manuscript from Moscow, MS Sin. 148, we may therefore attempt to reconstruct the content of the lost Byzantine polemical work: 1. Explanation of the labelling terms applied to Muslims in Eastern Christian texts: Ishmaelites, Hagarenes, Saracens (Измаилите иже и Агаране и Саракины, fol. 316v); along with reference to the three characters from the Old Testament Book of Genesis: Ishmael, his mother Hagar, and Sarah, the wife of Abraham, to whom they both belonged as slaves (Gen. 16:1–16). 2. Presentation of religious context in which the Arabs lived before the emergence of the “false prophet” Muḥammad (льжепррокь Моухоумедь), whose teachings coincided with the reign of Emperor Heraclius, Ираклїа цр҃ я (r. 610–41). During the pre-Islamic period the Arabs were said to have worshipped idols, among which the highest position was identified with dawn Aphrodite, called the Great (Kubar, Habar), (Афродитѣ. ѥюже и Коуварь своимь именоваше ѥзыкѡмь. ѥже ѥс великаа, fol. 316v). 3. Muḥammad was supposed to have been in contact with the followers of Judaism and of various Christian heresies, and subsequently created his own religion based on the ideas he heard from them: monotheism (ѥдиноначелиѥ) was borrowed from the Jews, the idea of the created Word and Spirit (слово и д҃хь сьздана) from the Arians, and anthropolatry (чл҃кослоужениѥ) from the Nestorians (fols. 316v–317r). 4. Overview of the most important teachings and religious recommendations of Muḥammad: the practice of circumcision, worship of one God (tawḥīd), considering Christ as dissolving in the air along with the Holy Spirit as Word of God (Слово же и Дх҃ ь носимь и на вьъдоусѣ излиянна, fol. 317r), and not as the Son born of the Holy Spirit, consubstantial with the Father; the denial of Mary 33 For the facsimile of the manuscript, see Pavel P. Novickij, Letovnik sʹkraščenʹ ot različnych letopisʹcʹ zhe i povedateli i izbranʹ i sʹstavlenʹ ot Georgia greshnaa inoka [Chronicle Abbreviated from Various Chronicles and Texts, Compiled and Composed by Saint George the Monk] (St. Petersburg, 1878–81), fols. 316v–317v.

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5.

6.

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as the Mother of God, but her identification as the sister of Aaron and Moses (сто҃ую же Дв҃оу Марїю не гла҃ ти Бц҃оу. нь Арѡна и Мѡусея сестроу, fol. 317r); the rejection of the sacrament of Christian baptism and of the Sabbath; the denial of the precepts of the law and of the Gospel; the lack of worshipping the cross and the accusation of the apparent crucifixion of Christ (гноушатисе крста и сѣни распетѣ Хсвѣ исповѣдати, fol. 317r); and forbidding the consumption of pork and drinking wine. Presentation of the Muslim eschatological ideas, according to which Muḥammad held the keys to Paradise (ключара реч быти раю, fol. 317r). On the Judgement Day, Moses and the Israelites will be thrown into fire and delivered to torment. Then, the judgment of Jesus will take place, who will testify before God that he never called himself the Christ (ѿврѣщисе прѣдь Бм҃ь яко не гл҃ахь себе быти Хса Бж҃ ия, fol. 317r). Christians will be sentenced to death in the fire of Gehenna. God will consider Muḥammad and his followers as the most pious of men. When the Muslim Prophet will open the gates of Paradise, seventy thousand Muslim faithfuls will enter there with him and, from then on, they will be able to enjoy all the delights found there without limits. The sinners will be judged and will subsequently be able to enter Paradise with tablets tied to their necks, and they will be called the “freedmen of God and Muḥammad” (свободници Бж҃ ии и Моухоумедови, fol. 317v). There are three rivers of honey, milk and wine flowing through Paradise, and each of the saved will be able to freely drink from them. Women will be there along with the men, to braid their hair and please them in every possible way with their “pleasure-loving bodies” (всачьскыи оугаждати тѣмь сластолюбивымь тѣлесемь, fol. 317v). While the Jews and Christians will be burning in fire, the Samaritans will be forced to clean Paradise and remove excrement from it. The belief in predestination is ascribed to Muslims. Every human who in life is experiencing wealth or poverty will not change their status after death, and God is responsible for all the mortal’s deeds, the good ones as well as the offenses or felonies. An acid criticism of Muslims. According to Michael Synkellos, Muslims are like pigs wallowing in excrement (якоже свинѥ вь калѣ валяющїихсе, fol. 318r), knowing only pleasures and physical urges (ничтоже ѡ инои сладости и желании вѣдоущиихь, fol. 318r), the teachings of Muḥammad blind and stupefy them to such an extent that they do not even feel the blows falling on them (безоумнїи бо биѥни бывше, нечювьствоують, fol. 318r), for they walk in the light of the fire and flames they kindled themselves (ходите вь свѣтѣ ѡгня вашего и пламене ѥгоже раждегосте, fol. 318r).

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5 The Qur’ān and Islamic Tradition in Michael Synkellos’ Polemical Text There is no doubt that Michael Synkellos had a very negative attitude towards Islam and Muslims, as he openly refuted many of the Islamic customs and practices. As someone who originated from an area of permanent cultural and religious contact with Muslims, and, most probably, as someone who was proficient in Arabic as well as with the texts of earlier Eastern Christian polemists, Michael Synkellos was able to read and use Muslim accounts in his works. There are many indications that he knew the Qur’ān. In the preserved fragments of his treatise, we find two quotations from the Islamic holy book. Due to the Slavic translations of the nomocanons and the chronicle of George the Monk, these fragments appear then in the literature of the Slavia Orthodoxa area where there had been no complete translation of Qur’ān up until the sixteenth century, and the primary source of knowledge about its contents were the texts of Byzantine authors, who read it either in the original form or in the Greek translation from the mid-ninth century.34 The Church Slavic versions of the Qur’ānic passages cited in the work of Michael Synkellos are presented in the table below.

6 Michael Synkellos: The Christian Arab in the Eastern Slavic Intellectual Milieu From the discussion above, it is clear that the Church Slavic translations of the abbreviated redaction of Michael Synkellos’ treatise were produced in the Balkans, namely Bulgaria, Serbia, or Mount Athos. The transmission of the work in Rus’ was 34 Zofia A. Brzozowska and Mirosław J. Leszka, “The Qur’ān in Medieval Slavic Writings: Fragmentary Translations and Transmission Traces,” Vox Patrum 83 (2022): 367–412. For more information about the Byzantine-Greek translation of the Qur’ān, see Erich Trapp, “Gab es eine byzantinische Koranübersetzung?,” Diptycha 2 (1980–81): 7–17; Kees Versteegh, “Greek Translations of the Qur’ān in Christian Polemics (9th Century A.D.),” Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 141 (1991): 52–68; Astérios Argyriou, “Perception de l’Islam et traductions du Coran dans le monde Byzantin Grec,” Byzantion 75 (2005): 25–69; Karl Förstel, ed., Schriften zum Islam von Arethas und Euthymios Zigabenos und Fragmente der griechischen Koranübersetzung, Corpus Islamo-Christianum: Series Graeca 7 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009); Christian Høgel, “An Early Anonymous Greek Translation of the Qur’ān: The Fragments from Niketas Byzantios’ Refutatio and the Anonymous Abjuratio,” Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 7 (2010): 65–119; Christos Simelidis, “The Byzantine Understanding of the Qur’anic Term al-Șamad and the Greek Translation of the Qur’an,” Speculum 86 (2011): 887–913; Zofia A. Brzozowska and Mirosław J. Leszka, “The Quran,” in Brzozowska, Leszka and Wolińska, Muhammad and the Origin of Islam, 66–70.

1st Slavic Translation: before 927, Bulgaria (in the Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles)

MS Sin. 227, fol. 274r абие же Ис҃соу прѣдъстати. и ѿврѣщисѧ прѣдъ Бм҃ ь, яко не нарече себе сн҃а Бж҃ ия

MS Sin. 227, fol. 274r трьмъ же рече рѣкамъ быти въ раи. единоу медоу, а дроугоую млѣка, а третиюю вина

Sūrah

Sūrat al-Māidah 5:116 And [beware the Day] when Allah will say, “O Jesus, Son of Mary, did you say to the people, ‘Take me and my mother as deities besides Allah?’” He will say, “Exalted are You! It was not for me to say that to which I have no right.”

Sūrat Muḥammad 47:15 A description of Paradise, which the righteous are promised, wherein are rivers of water unaltered, rivers of milk the taste of which never changes, rivers of wine delicious to those who drink, and rivers of purified honey. MS 310.1289, fol. 316v соут же три рѣкы в раи, реч, едина медвенаа, едина молочна, етера винна

MS 310.1289, fol. 316r абие же Їссоу предстоати и ѿврещисѧ пред Бгм҃ ъ, яко не гл҃ахъ себе соуща сн҃а Бж҃ иа

2nd Slavic Translation: late 10th-early 11th century, Bulgaria (in George the Monk’s Chronicle)

MS III c. 9, fol. 373c трии же реч рѣкы боудоуть вь раи, едина медьвна, и дроугая млѣчна, и третия виньна

MS III c. 9, fol. 373b потом же Їс҃ви прѣдьстати рече и ѿмѣтати се прѣдь Бм҃ ь, яко не нареч се сн҃ь Бж҃ и

3rd Slavic Translation: after 1219, Serbia (in the Nomocanon of Saint Sava)

MS Sin. 148, fol. 317v быти же тремь рѣкамь вь раи рече. ѥдина медѣна. инна млѣчна. и дроугая вино

MS Sin. 148, fol. 317r абиѥ же Іс҃оу прѣдстати и ѿврѣщисе прѣдь Бм҃ ь яко не гл҃ахь себе быти Хса Бж҃ ия

4th Slavic Translation: 14th century, Balkans (in George the Monk’s Chronicle)

140   Zofia A. Brzozowska, Mirosław J. Leszka

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in turn a secondary phenomenon. Eastern Slavs imported and transcribed Southern Slavic manuscripts at a large scale. Many of the original or translated relics of Bulgarian and Serbian literature survived to our times only in Rus’ copies, among them the oldest Church Slavic translation of the chronicle of George the Monk. The inhabitants of Rus’ however not only copied and read texts brought from the Balkans, but they also edited and modified these works, and incorporated them in their compilations.

6.1 The Text by Michael Synkellos and Ecclesiastical Law in Rus’ The treatise of Michael Synkellos was an important part of the subsequent collections of ecclesiastic law produced from the mid-thirteenth century, namely the nomocanons described by the Orthodox Slavs as the Kormchaia books (from Church Slavic кормчий, “helmsman”), that is, books intended for the governance of the Church.35 The Rus’ had to develop new theoretical and legal foundations for the functioning of the ecclesiastical structures under the conditions of a foreign and infidel Tatar/Mongol rule, fueled the production of the nomocanons. Thus, the oldest Bulgarian translation of Michael Synkellos’ work, taken from the Slavic version of Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles, was included within the Rus’ Kormchaia, which was compiled as a result of the decisions of the synod gathered in the city of Vladimir on Klyazma river in ca. 1274. Its oldest surviving copy is the Novgorodian Synodal Kormchaia from 1282.36 The fragment by Michael Synkellos, presented as the final chapter of the treatise On heresies by John of Damascus, is also found in the later copies of this compilation: Moscow, Russian State Library, MS 304.I.205, fols. 414r–415r and Moscow, Russian State Library, MS 304.I.206, fols. 426v–427v. The entry devoted to Islam from the Nomocanon of Saint Sava, compiled from the fragments of the last chapter of On heresies and from Michael Synkellos’ work, appears between the pages of the Kormchaia by Ivan “Volk” Kuricyn37 35 Ivan Žužek, Kormčaja kniga: Studies on the Chief Code of Russian Canon Law, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 168 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1964), 7–10; Franklin, Writing, 137–38. 36 Moscow, State Historical Museum, MS Sin. 132. See Miklas, “Zur kirchenslavischen Überlieferung,” 331–43; Maksimovich, “Byzantine Law,” 11; Bushkovitch, “Orthodoxy,” 126; Korogodina, Kormčie knigi, 65–94. 37 Ivan Vasilʹevich “Volk” Kuricyn was a Russian official and diplomat, staying at the service of the Grand Prince of Moscow, Ivan III (1462–1505). He was a co-author, editor, and scribe of some legal compilations from the late 15th century. He was executed as a heretic by the order of the Grand Prince in 1504.

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(Moscow, Russian State Library, MS 173.I.187, fols. 265r–272v). The same text was also included in the manuscript from Moscow, Russian State Library, MS 173.I.191, dating from the sixteenth century, in an Eastern Slavic copy of a (not very popular) Byzantine legal compilation, namely the nomocanon of the Constantinopolitan Patriarch John IV the Faster (582–95), which was supplemented at a later period (fols. 142v–161r).

6.2 The Text by Michael Synkellos and the Eastern Slavic Historical Tradition For several centuries, the work of Michael Synkellos functioned within the Orthodox Slavic literature as part of the legal and historical compilations outside of the context of religious polemic. This is due to a wider tendency, characteristic for the literatures of the Slavia Orthodoxa from that time. Until the fourteenth century the works of the Eastern Church Fathers, which included critiques of heterodox currents within Christianity or even other religions, were known, translated, and read here. The attention of Slavic authors, however, was primarily drawn by heretical movements (in the Balkans), or the Latin Christianity and Judaism (in Rus’).38 Until the arrival of the Ottoman Turks in the South-East Europe, Islam was perceived by the Southern Slavs as a rather peripheral phenomenon, and by their eastern brethren, who after all had direct contact with Muslims (e.g., in the Volga-Kama Bulgaria) as a phenomenon which posed no spiritual threat to Orthodox Christians, and was easily encapsulated in a stereotypical cliché of “paganism.” From the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, the texts which had a primary purpose of presenting and critiquing the religious beliefs and customs of the followers of Islam became more common among the Slavs.

6.2.1 On Bohmit the Heretic Due to its conciseness and clarity, the work of Michael Synkellos was a perfect source for the production of polemical works. Fragments of the abbreviated redaction of his work started to become more common in the Eastern Slavic literature as an intrin-

38 Dmitrij S. Lichachev, Poètika drevnerusskoj literatury [The Poetics of Old Rus’ Literature] (Moscow: Nauka, 1979), 10–11; Mark Batunsky, “Islam and Russian Mediaeval Culture,” Die Welt des Islams 26 (1986): 22; Bushkovitch, Orthodoxy, 118–21, 142–3.

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sic part of the compilation text titled On Bohmit the Heretic (О Бохмите еретицѣ).39 It  was a faithful borrowing from the Bulgarian translation of George the Monk’s work, occasionally enriched with brief interpolations or, on the contrary, subject to very substantial abbreviations. The tale about the “heretic Muḥammad” can be found primarily on the pages of the Old Rus’ chronographs, that is within the historiographic works which presented the universal history from the creation of the world, compiled primarily from the fragments of the Byzantine chronicles available in Slavic translations (e.g., John Malalas, George the Monk, or John Zonaras). An extensive redaction of this work that includes fragments of Michael Synkellos’ treatise taken from the vulgate redaction, survives today between the pages of the second redaction of the Hellenic and Roman Chronicle from the mid-fifteenth century, and in the third volume of the Illuminated Chronicle preserved in St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, MS F.IV.151, which is a lavishly illustrated and unique historical compilation produced for Ivan IV the Terrible (1533–84), during 1568–76. In the Eastern Slavic area, the polemical work On Bohmit the Heretic was also included within other, non-historical collections of texts. It appears, for example, in a miscellaneous manuscript from the first quarter of the fifteenth century (St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, MS 728.1285, fols. 105d–108a), which is considered by some scholars to be a copy of an archetype from the pre-Mongol period, and thus it includes texts known in Rus’ as early as the eleventh-twelfth century. During the second half of the fourteenth or the fifteenth century, fragments of the chronicle of George the Monk, along with the interpolated parts of Michael Synkellos’ treatise, were intercalated into an anonymous work entitled A Word on the Elevation of the Venerable and Life-Giving Cross (Слово на Въздвиженїе честнаго и животворящаго Креста), which addressed the subject of the necessity of defending the doctrinal purity of Eastern Christianity from the threat posed by the infidels and heretics. Michael’s work can be found within the confines of the Menaion from the fifteenth-sixteenth century, in the volume for the month of September, day 14.40 With the Menaion, fragments of Michael Synkellos’ treatise started to appear in yet another literary context, as the Menaions were narrative text collections, characteristic for the culture of Slavia Orthodoxa, intended for personal, individual reading,

39 For more detailed information about the Eastern Slavic text On Bohmit the Heretic, further bibliographical references as well as the edition of the source and its English translation, see Zofia A. Brzozowska, “On Bohmit the Heretic: Portraying Muhammad as One of the Heresiarchs in Medieval Rus’ Literature,” Studi Medievali 63 (2022): 259–84. 40 Moscow, Russian State Library, MS 304.I.666, fols. 53v–56v; Moscow, Russian State Library, MS 113.590, fols. 65r–68r; Moscow, Russian State Library, MS 304.I.663, fols. 252v–257v; Moscow, State Historical Museum, MS Sin. 169, fols. 97v–100r; Moscow, Russian State Library, MS 173.I.88, fols. 167v–171r.

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and were continuing the tradition of the Byzantine menologia. Encompassing twelve large volumes (one for each month, starting with September and ending with August), one set of Menaions was used throughout the year in the Eastern Church for the liturgical needs of a monastery or church. The volumes included hagiographical works (i.e., lives of saints, encomia, martyria), as well as theological, homiletic, or polemical writings, and they were arranged according to the liturgical year of the Eastern Church. A particular crowning of the practice of making such compilations was an initiative undertaken in the mid-sixteenth century by the Metropolitan of Moscow Makarios (1542–63), who had previously held the office of Archbishop of Novgorod the Great. Making use of the abundant library of the cathedral of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom in Novgorod, with which he was familiar, Makarios undertook the task of organizing within a single collection all of the hagiographical texts known in Rus’ during medieval period which were available in his times.41 A Word on the Elevation of the Venerable and Life-Giving Cross, which included fragments of the work by Michael Synkellos — like many other texts from the earlier redactions of Rus’ Menaions — was incorporated into this compilation as well.42

6.2.2 The Tale of the Shameful Saracen Faith The Tale of the Shameful Saracen Faith (Сказаніе о хулиѣи вѣрѣ Срациньстѣи) was a much less popular work than On Bohmit the Heretic in Rus’. It is another compilation of polemical works from the fifteenth century, and includes fragments from Michael Synkellos’ treatise, which were compiled most likely from the Nomocanon of Saint Sava. Its earliest, perhaps original form is found in an Eastern Slavic miscellaneous manuscript dating from the end of the fifteenth century (Moscow, Russian State Library, MS 113.506, fols. 60r–66v). The anonymous author of the tale about the “faith of the Saracens” combined rather mechanically three Byzantine works known in Church Slavic translation: a chapter dedicated to Islam from the treatise On heresies by John of Damascus, a part from the polemical work by Michael Synkellos, and 41 Christian Voss, Heide Warkentin and Eckhard Weiher, eds., Abhandlungen zu den Großen Lesemenäen des Metropoliten Makarij: Kodikologische, miszellanologische und textologische Untersuchungen, vol. 1, Monumenta linguae Slavicae dialecti veteris 44 (Freiburg: Weiher, 2000); Elina Maier and Eckhard Weiher, eds., vol. 2 (Freiburg: Weiher, 2006); Dmitri Afinogenov, Evgenij A. Ljachovickij and Michail A. Shibaev, “Minei-Chet’i” [The Menaion], in Pravoslavnaja Enciklopedija [The Orthodox Encyclopaedia], vol. 45 (Moscow: Cerkovno-nauchnyj centr ‘Pravoslavnaja Enciklopedija,’ 2014), 262–67. 42 See St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, MS 728.1317, fol. 171с–172с; Moscow, State Historical Museum, MS Sin. 986, fols. 336c–338a; Moscow, State Historical Museum, MS Sin. 174, fols. 385b–386d.

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fragments of a rite of abjuration of Islam, most probably produced in Constantinople in the mid-ninth century.43 We suggest that the Rus’ compiler was relying on one of the copies of the Nomocanon of Saint Sava, because the texts of all of the abovementioned Byzantine works were included in the MS 113.506 in a Serbian translation. Moreover, parts of the treatise On heresies and of the work by Michael Synkellos were intertwined here in exactly the same manner as on the pages of the Nomocanon of Saint Sava. Therefore, only combining these with the fragments of the rite of abjuration of Islam should be considered a consequence of the Rus’ scribe’s work. In the polemical text The Tale of the Shameful Saracen Faith one can distinguish three rather large fragments of Michael Synkellos’ work: 1) on fol. 60v (inc. иже бѣсѣдовав сь Еврѣи и съ христианы, des. ѿ несторьян же чл҃кослуженїе); 2) on fol. 65v–66r (inc. и единомуж точию клѧнѧтисѧ Бо҃у, des. но Моисеѡву и Аронову сестру сию мнѣти. Сице баснословив); and 3) on fol. 66r–66v (inc. себе же оубо ключѧрю раискому быти реч, des. яко нечестиви и хулници). Between 1526 and 1530, the Tale of the Shameful Saracen Faith was included in the initial version of the Nikon Chronicle, a monumental, multi-volume work of Rus’ historiography, created in the circles directly connected with the Metropolitan of Moscow. One of the editors of the compilation, perhaps the Metropolitan Daniel (1522–39) himself, who was personally supervising the creation of the work, decided to enrich the text of the tale about the “faith of the Saracens” with a few additions. One of these was included into the first fragment of the interpolated work of Michael Synkellos, more specifically into his tale of the contacts between Muḥammad and the representatives of different religions and faiths. The Rus’ scribe expanded this specific catalogue of heretics, with whom Islam’s founder was supposedly in contact in his youth, to draw from their teachings, namely the Manichaeans, Jacobites (the Syrian Monophysites), Armenians, the christorazdorniky — most likely the Christolytae, i.e., those “splitting the nature of Christ” — Donatists and Lampe-

43 The anonymous rite of abjuration of Islam and (re)conversion to Christianity could have been written as early as the 8th century, but surely before the mid-9th century. It consists of anathemas and shows some knowledge of the Qur’ān, Hadiths, and the use of existing anti-Islamic polemics. It features, 13 quite loose quotations from the Qur’ān. The ritual was translated into Church Slavic three times: before 927 in Bulgaria, after 1219 in Serbia and in the late 14th century in Rus’. Little is known about the practical application of the formula in Byzantium. It could have been useful during the Byzantine victories over the Arabs in the 10th century. In the mid-16th century, when the Kazan Khanate was annexed to the Moscow State and, consequently, there was an increase in the number of conversions from Islam to Eastern Christianity, the discussed formula gained in interest in the Eastern Slavic area. Daniel J. Sahas, “Ritual of Conversion from Islam to the Byzantine Church,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 36 (1991): 57–69; Antonio Rigo, “Ritual of abjuration,” in CMR, vol. 1, 821–24; Zofia A. Brzozowska and Mirosław J. Leszka, “The Formula of Abjuration of Islam,” in Brzozowska, Leszka and Wolińska, Muhammad and the Origin of Islam, 183–9.

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tians. One may suppose that the names of the latter three groups were borrowed by the author of the Nikon Chronicle from the treatise by John of Damascus. This is confirmed by the fact that within the aforementioned work the views of Christolytae, Donatists and Lampetians were discussed in the same part of the narrative (as heresies 93, 95 and 98). It is also worth noting that this interpolation, most likely made by the Metropolitan Daniel, is the most substantial editorial interference in the work of Michael Synkellos in the Slavic milieu.44

7 Conclusions Generally, the polemical text by Michael Synkellos was copied by Slavic authors very faithfully, with omissions rather than additions that might have changed its meaning. An interesting tendency comes to the fore here. Slavic authors, editing the text of the monk from the Monastery of Saint Saba in Palestine, who knew Arabic and had direct contact with Muslims, in their compilations usually retained those portions of his work that, according to them, could contain reliable knowledge of Islam. Consequently, in almost all the Orthodox Slavic variants of Michael Synkellos’ text, we find two quotations from the Qur’ān (Q 5:116 and 47:15) that he passed on. The emotional final section of his work, full of invectives directed at Arabs-Muslims, is quoted in only one version: a fourteenth-century South Slavic translation of the chronicle by George the Monk. At the same time, the account of Michael, in its translated and abbreviated, but simultaneously relatively unchanged form, became one of the most important sources which shaped the ideas of Southern and Eastern Slavs about Islam from the tenth until the mid-sixteenth century. The extent of this author’s influence on the formation of the image of Muḥammad and his followers and tribesmen in the medieval writing of the Slavia Orthodoxa region can only be compared with two texts. One is the treatise of John of Damascus — on whose message Synkellos leaned to some degree — and the other is the fragment of the chronicle dedicated to Islam by George the Monk, who, in turn, relied on the discussed author. Over the centuries, the spheres in which the influence of Michael’s message manifested also changed. In the first centuries of Slavic Orthodox writing, his treatise functioned primarily within heresiological discourse. From the tenth century onward, it appeared in collections of church law (nomocanons), in a list of heresies that clergymen could

44 For more detailed information about this text and further bibliographical references, see Zofia A. Brzozowska, “The Tale of the Shameful Saracen Faith,” in Brzozowska, Leszka and Wolińska, Muhammad and the Origin of Islam, 342–6.

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encounter in their pastoral ministry. At the turn of the eleventh century, it entered the historical literature of the Southern and Eastern Slavs, within the work of George the Monk. It should be noted that of all the Byzantine chronicles assimilated in the Slavia Orthodoxa region in the Middle Ages, it contained the most extensive sequence devoted to Muhammad and the birth of Islam. The accounts of later Byzantine historians, translated into Church Slavic by John Zonaras and Constantine Manasses, focused on Arab expansion in the Mediterranean after Muhammad’s death, rather than on his teachings. By contrast, for several centuries, the work of Michael Synkellos was not used by Orthodox Slavs in the role it was created to perform: as a polemical treatise directed against the followers of Islam. This is because anti-Muslim literature developed in Slavia Orthodoxa rather late, at the end of the Middle Ages. In Rus’, Michael’s message had not been included in compilations on this subject matter until the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries.

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 Zofia A. Brzozowska, Mirosław J. Leszka

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Brzozowska, Zofia A. “Zapożyczona czy własna wizja dziejów powszechnych? Wpływ autorów bizantyńskich na świadomość historyczną Słowian Południowych i Wschodnich (na przykładzie opowieści o Mahomecie i Historii paulicjan Piotra z Sycylii)” [Borrowed or Native Vision of Common History? The Influence of Byzantine Authors on the Historical Consciousness of South and East Slavs (Based on the Story of Muhammad and Peter of Sicily’s History of the Paulicians)]. In Widmo Mahometa, cień Samuela: Cesarstwo Bizantyńskie w relacji z przedstawicielami innych religii i kultur (VII–XV w.) [Phantom of Muhammad, Shade of Samuel: Byzantine Empire in Relation to Members of Other Cultures and Religions (7th–15th Centuries)]. Edited by Z.A. Brzozowska, M.J. Leszka, K. Marinow and T. Wolińska, 13–44. Byzantina Lodziensia 39. Lodz: Lodz University Press, 2020. Brzozowska, Zofia A. “On Bohmit the Heretic: Portraying Muhammad as One of the Heresiarchs in Medieval Rus’ Literature.” Studi Medievali 63 (2022): 259–84. Brzozowska, Zofia A., and Mirosław J. Leszka. “The Qur’ān in Medieval Slavic Writings: Fragmentary Translations and Transmission Traces.” Vox Patrum 83 (2022): 367–412. Bulanin, Dmitrij M. Katalog pamjatnikov drevnerusskoj pis’mennosti XI–XIV vv. Rukopisnye knigi. [The Catalogue of the Written Monuments of the Old Rus’, 11th–14th Centuries (Manuscripts)]. Studiorum Slavicorum Orbis 7. St. Peterburg: Studiorum Slavicorum Orbis, 2014. Bushkovitch, Paul. “Orthodoxy and Islam in Russia 988–1725.” In Religion und Integration im Moskauer Russland: Konzepte und Praktiken, Potentiale und Grenzen 14.–17. Jahrhundert. Edited by Ludwig Steindorff, 117–43. Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 76. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010. Crimi, Carmelo. Michele Sincello: Per la restaurazione delle venerande e sacre immagini. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1990. Cunningham, Mary B. The Life of Michael the Synkellos: Text, Translation and Commentary. Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations 1. Belfast: Belfast Byzantine Enterprises, 1991. Dick, Ignace. “Un continuateur arabe de saint Jean Damascène, Théodore Abuqurra, évêque melchite de Harran: La personne et son milieu. 1. Les études antérieures sur Abu-qurra.” Proche OrientChrétien 12 (1962): 209–33. Dvornik, Francis. “Byzantine Political Ideas on Kievian Russia.” DOP 9–10 (1956): 73–121. Efthymiadis, Stephanos. “George the Monk.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 729–33. Förstel, Karl, ed. Schriften zum Islam von Arethas und Euthymios Zigabenos und Fragmente der griechischen Koranübersetzung. Corpus Islamo-Christianum: Series Graeca 7. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009. Franklin, Simon. Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus, c. 950–1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Griffith, Sidney H. The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. Guimon, Timofei V. Historical Writing of Early Rus (c. 1000–c. 1400) in a Comparative Perspective. East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450 71. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2021. Hanak, Walter K. “The Impact of Byzantine Imperial Thought upon Vladimirian-Jaroslavian Russia.” Byzantine Studies / Etudes Byzantines 8, 11, 12 (1981, 1984, 1985): 117–29. Høgel, Christian. “An Early Anonymous Greek Translation of the Qur’ān: The Fragments from Niketas Byzantios’ Refutatio and the anonymous Abjuratio.” Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 7 (2010): 65–119. Hunger, Herbert. Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner. Vol. 1. München: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1978.

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Karayannopulos, Johannes and Günter Weiss. Quellenkunde zur Geschichte von Byzanz (324–1453). Vol. 2/4: Hauptquellen, Allgemeine Quellenlage (nach Jahrhunderten geordnet). Anhang: Die wichtigsten urkundenkomplexe und Archive. Schriften zur Geistesgeschichte des östlichen Europa 14. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1982. Khoury, Théodore A. Les théologiens byzantins et l’Islam: Textes et auteurs (VIII–XIII s.). Louvain–Paris: Éditions Nauwelaerts, 1969. Kolia-Dermitzaki, Athina. “Michael the Synkellos.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 625–32. Korogodina, Marija V. Kormčie knigi XIV–pervoj poloviny XVII v. [Kormchaia Books from the 14th to the First Half of the 17th Centuries]. Vol. 2: Opisanie redakcij [Description of Editions]. Moscow–St Petersburg: Alʹjans-Archeo, 2017. Lamoreaux, John C. “Theodore Abū Qurra.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 439–91. Leszka, Mirosław J. and Kirił Marinow. The Bulgarian State in 927–969: The Epoch of Tsar Peter I. Byzantina Lodziensia 34. Lodz: Lodz University Presss, 2018. Lichačev, Dmitrij S. Poètika drevnerusskoj literatury [The Poetics of Old Rus’ Literature]. Moscow: Nauka, 1979. Lilie, Ralph-Johannes, Claudia Ludwig, Beate Zielke, Thomas Pratsch. “Michael Synkellos Μιχαήλ.” In PMZO, www.degruyter.com/database/PMBZ/entry/PMBZ16236/html. Maksimovich, Kirill. “Byzantine Law in Old Slavonic Translations and the Nomocanon of Methodius.” Byzantinoslavica 65 (2007): 9–18. Markopoulos, Athanasios. “Symbolē stē chronologēsē tou Geōrgiou Monachou” [Contribution to the Chronology of George the Monk]. Symmeikta 6 (1985): 223–31. Miklas, Heinz. “Zur kirchenslavischen Überlieferung der Häresiengeschichte des Johannes von Damaskus.” Monumenta Linguae Slavicae 15 (1981): 323–87. Moravcsik, Gyula. Byzantinoturcica. Vol. 1: Die byzantinischen Quellen der Geschichte der Türkvölker. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1958. Neville, Leonora. Guide to Byzantine Historical Writing. With the assistance of David Harrisville, Irina Tamarkina, Charlotte Whatley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Patrich, Joseph. “The Impact of the Muslim Conquest on Monasticism in the Desert of Jerusalem.” In Le Proche-Orient de Justinien aux Abbassides: Peuplement et dynamiques spatiales. Actes du colloque international “Continuités de l’occupation entre les périodes omeyyade et abbasside au Proche-Orient (VIIe–IXe siècles)”. Edited by Antoine Borrut, Muriel Debié, Arietta Papacostantinou, Dominique Pieri, Jean-Pierre Sodini, 205–218. Bibliothèque de l’Antiquité tardive 19. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012. Petrović, Miodrag M. Zakonopravilo Svetog Save o Muhamedovom učenju [The Nomocanon of Saint Sava about Muḥammad’s Teaching]. Belgrade: Novi dani, 1997. Podskalsky, Gerhard. Christentum und theologische Literatur in der Kiever Rus’ (988–1237). München: C.H. Beck, 1982. Prodić, Slobodan. Knjiga ‘O jeresima’ prepodobnog Jovana Damaskina kao 61. poglavlje sarajevskog rukopisa ‘Zakonopravila’ svetog Save Srpskog [The Work On Heresies by the Venerable John of Damascus as the 61st Chapter from the Sarajevo Manuscript of the Nomocanon of Saint Sava Srpski]. Šibenik: Eparhija Dalmatinska, 2016. Regel, Vasilii E. Analecta byzantino-russica. Petropoli: Eggers & S. et I. Glasunof, 1891. Rigo, Antonio. “Ritual of abjuration.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 821–24. Sahas, Daniel J. “Ritual of Conversion from Islam to the Byzantine Church.” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 36 (1991): 57–69. Simelidis, Christos. “The Byzantine Understanding of the Qur’anic Term al-Șamad and the Greek Translation of the Qur’an.” Speculum 86 (2011): 887–913.

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Alessandro Gori

The Qur’ān in Ethiopia and Eritrea, Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Qur’ān: Textual Connections and Circulation among Muslims and Christians of al-Ḥabasha Abstract: This chapter aggregates and analyzes data on the presence and circulation of the Qur’ān in Ethiopia and Eritrea (al-Ḥabasha). In particular, it focuses on three main fields: 1) passages of the Qur’ān interpreted as referring to al-Ḥabasha and its people; 2) Qur’ānic words considered of Ḥabashī (Gəʿəz) origin; 3) some evidence of the diffusion of the Qur’ān in Arabic and in local versions among the Muslims and Christians of al-Ḥabasha. This contribution will shed light on the multifaceted relationship the Qur’ān has with the peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea and foster new research in this understudied field.

1 Introductory Remarks Apart from some initiatory contributions,1 studies on the presence, diffusion, religious and cross-cultural relationships of the Qur’ān, Ethiopia and Eritrea (Ar. al-Ḥabasha)2 remain so far scanty and limited in scope. Full-fledged research on this topic needs to be conducted and the data relevant to the topic are scattered in sources encompassing a diversity in origin, genre, and diffusion.3 The following

1 See, for example, the pioneering article by Sana Mirza, “The visual resonances of a Harari Qur’ān: An 18th century Ethiopian manuscript and its Indian Ocean connections,” Afriques 8 (2017): http:// journals.openedition.org/afriques/2052 [Accessed January 16, 2023], which opens the way for further research not only on the aesthetic aspects of Qur’ānic manuscripts in Harar but also on their historical and cultural background. 2 To avoid misunderstandings often occurring in many milieus after the independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993 and to prevent polemics, it is necessary to specify here that the main area focus of the following article is the Arabic geographic (and anthropologic) concept of al-Ḥabasha. See Eduard Ullendorff, John Spencer Trimingham, Charles Fraser Beckingham, and William Montgomery Watt, “Ḥabash/Ḥabasha,” in EI2, vol. 3, 3–8. The names of the modern states of Ethiopia and Eritrea will be used in the text — together or separately, according to the context — as an imperfect contemporary geopolitical rendering of the Arabic word al-Ḥabasha. 3 A first, very general, assessment of the problem including a quick panorama of the sources is found in Alessandro Gori, “al-Qur’ān,” in EA, vol. 4, 308–10. The short entry on Ethiopia by Ruben https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-007

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chapter is thus a first, tentative attempt to comprehensively deal with all of the most relevant issues directly connected with the presence and circulation of the Qur’ān in Ethiopia and Eritrea and the connections linking the holy book of Islam to the Horn of Africa. On account of limited research in the field, this chapter will be mostly based on first-hand data. The novelty of the topic limits my evaluation of the information to a tentative, sometimes partial, assessment. In the first place, my main aim is to provide the reader with a certain number of fresh findings on the main facets of the relationships between the Qur’ān and al-Ḥabasha. Moreover, I hope that this paper will foster further research and pave the way for the enhancement of the scholarly activity on this aspect of Muslim and Christian civilization in the whole Horn of Africa.

2 The Qur’ān and al-Ḥabasha: Some Textual Connections Apart from the relationship with Ethiopia — and the birth of the Prophet — that the Islamic exegetical tradition claims for the much renowned Sūrat al-Fīl (Q 105),4 some Arabic Islamic Qur’ānic literature connects a scanty number of passages of the Qur’ān to al-Ḥabasha. This less credited but still accepted interpretation is attested in the books of al-Wāḥidī (d. 1075) and al-Suyūṭī (d. 1505) on the asbāb al-nuzūl, the “circumstances of the revelation,” i.e., the historical or ideal setting in which a verse or a group of verses have been communicated to the Prophet.5

Firestone, “Ethiopia,” in EQ, vol. 2, 79 simply addresses the reader to the more relevant entry on Abyssinia, which is Ruben Firestone, “Abyssinia,” in EQ, vol. 1, 20–21; this is a concise article but contains interesting historical-cultural notes. The Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics has a survey article on the linguistic relationships of the Ethiopian (both Islamic and Christian) languages and literatures with the Arabic Language; see Andreas Wetter, “Ethiopia,” in Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. 2, ed. Kees Versteegh (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2007), 51–56. This entry includes the sub-article by Stefan Weninger, “Ethiopic Loanwords,” in Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. 2, ed. Kees Versteegh (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2007), 56–57 devoted specifically to the Ethiopic loanwords in Arabic, some of which have to do with the Qur’ān as shown below. 4 It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss in detail this extremely famous episode of the pre-Islamic Arabian history, which commentaries set in direct connection with the birth of the Prophet. For a general description of the episode and its sources see, among others, Irfan Shahid, “People of the Elephant,” in EQ, vol. 4, 44–46. 5 ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī, Asbāb al-nuzūl (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1994); Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Asbāb al-nuzūl (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, n.d.).

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Sometimes authoritative Qur’ānic commentaries, in particular those based on the tradition of the Companions of the Prophet (bi-al-maʾthūr; e.g., the Durr al-manthūr fī al-tafsīr al-maʾthūr by al-Suyūṭī),6 contain more marginal traditions, which further provide raw material for texts on the good qualities of the Ḥabasha people, a well-known genre in classical Arabic literature. Works of this literary genre (faḍāʾil), part erudite exercise, part anthropological essay, and part history of the salvation. They represent the most complete collections of these Qur’ānic exegetical traditions, together with Prophetic sayings, poetical excerpts, adages and popular clichés about al-Ḥabasha and its people.7 It is possible to classify the Qur’ānic passages on al-Ḥabasha into two main categories: 1) a handful of verses connected to pre-Muḥammadan Prophets and monotheistic sages considered to be of ḥabashī origin; and 2) some passages referring to the story of the Ethiopian Najāshī (nǝgus; king) and Muḥammad’s Companions.8 It must be underlined that these Qur’ānic passages and their interpretations are of little or no use to reconstruct the factual history of the early connections of Islam with Ethiopia and Eritrea. They nevertheless remain uppermost in the consciousness of the Muslims of the region and shape the general reciprocal relationships between Ḥabasha and the rest of the Muslim world, as they give this African region an outstanding place at the very center of the Islamic sacred landscape and at the very beginning of history of the faith. To start from the first category, al-Suyūṭī transmits an exegetical tradition about Q 4:164 and Q 40:78 claiming that one of the Prophets about whom God did not tell stories in His book was a Ḥabashī (possibly a slave).9 Further on, connecting these two passages with Q 85:4–8, where the famous “People of the Ditch” (aṣḥāb al-ukh-

6 Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Durr al-manthūr fī al-tafsīr al-maʾthūr, 8 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 2011). 7 For the most famous texts of this genre, see Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ, “Fakhr al-Sūdān ʿalā alBīḍān,” in Rasāʾil al-Jāhiẓ, vol. 1, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1964), 176–226; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī, Tanwīr al-ghabash fī faḍl al-Sūdān wa-al-Ḥabash, ed. Marzūq ʿAlī Ibrāhīm (Riyadh: Dār al-Sharīf, 1998), and especially the above-mentioned Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, who dedicated two monographs to the description of the Ḥabasha (al-Suyūṭī, Azhār alʿurūsh fī akhbār al-ḥubūsh, ed. ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ʿĪsā al-Ghazālī [Kuwait: Markaz al-makhṭūṭat wa-al-turāth wa-al-wathaʾiq, 1995]; ed. Yaḥyā ʿAnābna and Ḥānī Hayāǧina [Irbid: n.p., 2006]), and Rafʿshaʾn al-Ḥubshān, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Faḍl (Cairo: At the author’s expenses, 1991). Later compilations, like the one by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Bukhārī al-Makkī, al-Ṭirāz al-manqūsh fī maḥāsin al-Ḥubūsh, ed. Yaḥyā Anābna and Ḥānī Hayāǧina (Irbid: Dār al-kitāb althaqāfī, 2017), and the other by Aḥmad al-Ḥifnī al-Qināʾī al-Azharī, al-Jawāhir al-ḥisān fī taʾrikh al-Ḥubshān (Būlāq: al-Maṭbaʿa al-amīriyya, 1903) are also precious mines of very interesting data. 8 On the history of the Najāshī the bibliography is huge. For a general introduction to the topic, see Emeri Johannes van Donzel, “Naǧašī”, in EA, vol. 3, 1109–10. 9 al-Suyūṭī, Durr al-manthūr, vol. 2, 746; vol. 7, 306.

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dūd) are mentioned,10 the same author claim that this unnamed Ḥabashī Prophet was sent specifically to the people of Najrān, who were also of Ḥabashī origin.11 Q 31:11 mentions the wise man Luqmān “to whom We bestowed wisdom” and the following verses Q 31:12 and Q 15–19 recount how he instructs his son with sage admonitions and advice.12 Many traditions identify him and his son as a black man and al-Suyūṭī mentions a Prophetic saying, where Muḥammad calls him a Ḥabashī slave and a carpenter.13 The second group of Qur’ānic verses connected to al-Ḥabasha is more conspicuous and possibly more important, via the story of the Companions of the Prophet, who took refuge in Ethiopia from the persecution of the Meccan polytheists. The Ethiopian Najāshī has become a kind of foundational myth for all the Islamic communities in the Horn of Africa. According to the most popular version of the story, commonly accepted and transmitted by local Muslims, the righteous Ethiopian king Aṣḥama b. Abjar (d. 630; 8 AH), “a king in the country of which country no one is mistreated,”14 warmly welcomed the fleeing Companions in 615 (or 613 and then in 615 according to different interpretations of the sources). Ibn Hishām in his Sīra al-nabawiyya narrates how the Ethiopian king defended the Muslims from the attacks of the polytheists’ delegation, who had come to Ethiopia to extradite the fugitives. He summoned Jaʿfar b. Abī Ṭālib, the cousin of the Prophet, who recited Sūrat Maryam (the chapter about the Virgin Mary, Q 19) to make him acquainted with some aspects of the creed of the refugees. The Ethiopian king was very impressed by what he heard attesting publicly that Islam was very close to Christianity.15 This episode is, however, only a literary and theological framework to allege there was a legitimate conversion of the Najāshī to Islam. The Sīra al-nabawiyya narrates that some subjects of the Ethiopian king accused him of betraying their common faith. In a public discussion with them, the Najāshī used a stratagem to

10 On the “People of the Ditch” the available bibliography is significant. For a general article on the topic, see Roberto Tottoli, “People of the Ditch”, in EQ, vol. 4, 43–44. 11 Al-Suyūṭī, Durr al-manthūr, vol. 8, 465–67. 12 Few commentaries tend to consider this divine wisdom as synonymous with prophecy, but the wider consensus is that it was just a monotheistic sagaciousness without a proper inspiration and mission. However, even if Luqmān is not considered a Prophet by most of the exegetes, he is almost always mentioned in works of the genre “Stories of the Prophets” (qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ). 13 Al-Suyūṭī, Durr al-manthūr, vol. 6, 509–10. 14 Fa-inna bi-hā malikan lā yuẓlamu ʿindahu aḥad, according to the word transmitted in the biography of the Prophet (Sīra al-nabawiyya) by Ibn Hishām. See ʿAbd al-Malik Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-nabawiyya, vol. 1, ed. ʿUmar ʿAbd al-Salām Tadmurī (Beirut: Dār al-kitāb al-ʿarabī, 1990), 349; English translation by Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955), 146. 15 Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-nabawiyya, 366–67; Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 154–55.

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appease them and at the same time to confirm his entrance into Islam.16 The legend is supported by some ḥadīth recounting how Muḥammad prayed the ṣalāt al-ghayb (prayer recited for the dead in absentia of the corpse), when he was informed about the death of Aṣḥama. In particular, according to one of the traditions transmitted by Jābir b. ʿAbdallāh, “Muḥammad said: ‘There died today the pious servant of God, Aṣḥama’. So, he stood up and led us in (funeral prayer) over him.”17 The Ethiopian king’s conversion to Islam is confirmed also by the divine word, which was revealed exactly in the framework of this scene. According to different exegetic traditions,18 the verse Q 3:199 came to allay the perplexity of the “hypocrites” (munāfiqūn) and of some Muslims, who did not want to pay the last tribute to an “infidel, who died in the land al-Ḥabasha”.19 Beside this passage, there are a few other verses in the Qur’ān that are interpreted as references to the Najāshī’s conversion to Islam. The first is Q 5:83, which was interpreted as a description of the reaction of the Najāshī and the priests and monks of his court, while listening to Ja‘far reading Sūrat Maryam: they were moved to tears and “they believed in the Qur’ān.”20 The second and third passages are Q 28:54 and Q 57:28, which were interpreted as underlining the fact that, through his conversion to Islam, the Najāshī would be granted “a double reward” in the Hereafter.21 Remember in this connection that al-Ḥabasha Christians rarely accept the reliability of the Islamic sources about the conversion and most of them simply dismiss the idea of a Muslim Ethiopian king as a falsehood.22 A Muslim shrine of

16 The king wrote the Islamic profession of faith on a sheet of paper and put under his gown. When the people accused him of reducing Jesus to a slave, he responded asking: “What do you say of Jesus?” They answered that he was the Son of God. At that point the Najāshī put his hand on the hidden paper and attested that “ʿIsā b. Maryam is nothing more than this” (lam yazid ʿala hādhā shayʾan), intending not what the people affirmed but what was written on the paper under his dress. See Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-nabawiyya, 359–63; Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 150–53. 17 Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, 952b, book 11 (kitāb al-janā’iz), ḥadith 86. 18 See, for example, al-Wāḥidī, Asbāb al-nuzūl, 140; al-Suyūṭī, Rafʿ šaʾn al-Ḥubshān, 115–16; and al-Suyūṭī, Asbāb al-nuzūl, 70. 19 ʿIlj māta fī arḍ al-Ḥabasha. Other versions of the traditions are: “An infidel Christian, who the Prophet never saw and does not follow his religion” (ʿIlj naṣrānī ḥabashī lam yarahu qaṭṭ wa-laysa ʿalā dinih) and “A Ḥabashī slave” (’Abd ḥabashī). 20 Al-Wāḥidī, Asbāb al-nuzūl, 203–4 and al-Suyūṭī, Asbāb al-nuzūl, 107–8. Another interpretation links the verse to the Ethiopians sent by the — already Muslim at that point — Ethiopian king to the Prophet together with the Muslim refugees travelling back to Medina. 21 See al-Qināʾī al-Azharī, al-Jawāhir al-ḥisān, 44. Another interpretation connects theses verses to the Ethiopians who joined the Prophet in Mecca and converted to Islam. See al-Suyūṭī, Asbāb al-nuzūl, 253–54. 22 See, for example, Efrem Ǝshäte, Akrari ǝslǝmǝnna bä’ityopya [Fundamentalist Islam in Ethiopia (Amharic)] (Silver Spring: n.p., 2008), 17–20 and abba Samuʾel, Bäʾityopya yähaymanot mäčačal

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the Ethiopian king was built (and recently restored) in the overwhelmingly Christian Orthodox Ethiopian region of Tigray. The memory of the Najāshī is every year renewed on the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ (the tenth day of Muḥarram, the first month of the Islamic calendar), when groups of pilgrims from all over the Horn of Africa gather at the tomb in pious devotion and in ardent desire to revive the fasts of his glorious past. The mausoleum became an object of harsh dispute during the last conflict in the area and different politically oriented discourses and narratives on the Najāshī and his relationship to Islam have been sharply debated.23

3 The Linguistic Factor: Ethiopic Loanwords in the Qur’ān As further proof of the special connections between Islam and al-Ḥabasha, Islamic exegetic literature mentions the presence of many Ethiopic (i.e., from Classical Ethiopic, Gəʿəz) words in the Qur’ān. Al-Suyūṭī in his handbook of Qur’ānic studies lists 28 words, which different exegetes consider of ḥabashī origin.24 The same author mentions 27 loanwords in the Kitāb al-Mutawakkilī25 and only 25 in the Kitāb al-Muhadhdhab,26 two short treatises he fully devoted to the topic of the non-Arabic lexical items in the Qur’ān. Experts in Semitic linguistics are more or less in agreement on the real Gəʿəz origin of the following Qur’ānic words: Shayṭān “Satan,”

allänǝ [Is There Religious Tolerance in Ethiopia?] (Addis Abäba: n.p., 2000 EC [2007–8]), 57–66. It is interesting to note that a much renowned Ethiopian Islamic scholar, Muḥammad Sani Ḥabib (d.  1989), admits that there is a doubt about the conversion of the Najāshī Aṣḥama to Islam in an Amharic booklet first published in 1960 EC [1967–8], under the (Christian) imperial state. See Muḥammad Sani Ḥabib, Ǝslǝmǝnnana yätallaqu näbiy yämuḥammad tarik (Addis Ababa: Bǝrhanǝnna Sälam, 1967), 54. 23 The topic is out of the scope of the present paper. Just to have an idea of what is going on, see for example: https://twitter.com/TigrayEAO/status/1497178146805800960 and https://www.ethiopiancitizen.com/2022/02/tigray-did-not-embrace-muslim-refugees-in-the-7th-century-ethiopian-orthodox-christians-did.html [both Accessed August 3, 2023]. 24 Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-Qur’ān, ed. Shuʿayb al-Aranuʾūt (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 2008), 288–300. 25 William Y. Bell, The Mutawakkili of as-Suyuti: A Translation of the Arabic Text with Introduction, Notes and Indices (Cairo: Nile Mission Press, 1924), 17–22 (Arabic text), 37–47 (English translation). 26 Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Al-Muhadhdhab fī-mā waqaʿa fī al-Qurʾān min al-muʿarrab, ed. al-Tihāmī al-Rājī al-Hāshimī (Mohammedia: Maṭbaʿat Faḍāla, s.d.), passim.

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“Devil;”27 Ṭāghūt (“False God,” “Satan,” “idol[s]”),28 Jibt (“idol”),29 māʾida (“dining table,” “table prepared with dishes and food,” “banquet”).30 Moreover, mishkāt (“niche”),31 tābūt (“Chest,” “box,” “case ark [of the Convenant]”),32 ḥawāriyyūn,33 and fāṭir34 are also generally accepted as Ethiopic loanwords. A partial discrepancy can be noticed between the academic linguistic analysis of these words and the Islamic sources. For example, Shayṭān, māʾida, tābūt and fāṭir are not included in Suyūṭī’s lists of Ethiopian loanwords, while ḥawāriyyūn is attributed to Nabatean. More interestingly, al-Suyūṭī mentions other lexical items, which linguists did not analyze, or did not classify as Ethiopic loanwords.35 For the Ethiopian and Eritrean Muslims, the Gǝʿǝz loanwords included in the sacred text are proofs of the special status of their region in the Islamic world. All 27 Manfred Kropp, “Der äthiopische Satan  = Shayṭān und seine koranische Ausläfe; mit einer Bemerkung über verbales Steinigen,” Orientalia Christiana 89 (2005): 93–102 [English version in Kropp, “The Ethiopic Satan = Šayṭān and its Quranic Successor: With a Note on Verbal Stoning,” in Christianisme oriental: Kérygme et histoire. Mélanges offerts au Père Michel Hayek, ed. Charles Chartouni (Paris: Geuthner, 2007), 331–41]. 28 For an analysis of the different meanings of this word, see Toufic Fahd, “Ṭāg̲h̲ūt,” in EI2, vol. 10, 93–94. 29 Jibt is a hapax legomenon in the Qur’ān. It appears only in Q 4:51 together with ṭāghūt. On jibt see, among many, Khaled M. Abdu El Fadl, “Jibt,” in EQ, vol. 3, 34–35. 30 This word gives also the name to surah 5 and recurs in Q 5, 111, 114. On māʾida, see Manfred Kropp, “Viele fremde Tische, und noch eine im Koran: Zur Etymologie von äthiopisch maʾǝd(d)ǝ und arabisch māʾida/mayda,” Orientalia Christiana 87 (2003): 140–43. For a detailed and convincing analysis of the context in which all these four words came into Arabic and the Qur’ān, see Mandred Kropp, “Beyond Single Words: Māʾida – Shayṭān – jibt and ṭāghūt. Mechanism of Transmission into the Ethiopic (Gəʿəz) Bible and the Qur’ānic Text,” in The Qur’ān in its Historical Context, ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008). 31 Hapax legomenon in Q 24:35 (i.e., the renowned “Verse of the Light”). See Theodor Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (Strassburg: Verlag von Karl J. Trübner, 1910), 51. 32 Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge, 49 points also to a possible direct loan from Aramaic. Arthur Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’ān (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1938), 88–89 (rep. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2006). 33 Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge, 48; Jeffery, The foreign vocabulary, 115–16. 34 Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge, 48, Jeffery, The foreign vocabulary, 221. For a list of more possible loanwords from Ethiopic into Arabic (both Qur’ānic and non-Qur’ānic), see Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge, 46–59 and Jeffery, The foreign vocabulary, index, 305–7. 35 Just to mention a random selection from al-Suyūṭī, al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān: al-arā’ik (“Couches,” Q 18:31), la-awwāh (“tender-hearted,” Q 9:114; possibly from Ethiopic yäwwah), awwāb (“constantly turned to God,” Q 38:18), sinīn (“the Mount Sinai,” Q 95:2; Ṭūr sinīn, the famous Qur’ānic commentators Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī connect sinīn to the adjective “beautiful” in Ethiopic [actually sännay]: “the beautiful mountain,” following a tradition coming from ʿIkrima the manumitted slave of the Companion of the Prophet, Ibn ʿAbbās). Interesting to note that most of the words mentioned in al-Suyūṭī’s lists are hapax legomena.

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the works on the good qualities of the Ḥabasha include a separate chapter listing words of their language mentioned in the Qur’ān36 and Qur’ānic words of Ethiopic origin are highlighted in the introduction to the first Amharic version of the Qur’ān. In these sources, some Ethiopic loanwords are presented side by side with a selection of those from Persian, Hebrew and Latin to show how they are more abundant.37 The mention of words from their country in the Qur’ān together with the existence of an Ethiopian Muslim king are sources of pride for all the Islamic communities in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In this respect, the “Gəʿəz / Ḥabashī ” elements in the text of the Qur’ān and the Muslim Najāshī become pivotal elements of a wider discourse on the identity of the Muslims in the area. They testify that the Eritreans and Ethiopians were the first to accept Islam outside the Arabian Peninsula and their king was the first ruler of the world to embrace the true faith, which prospered in his country during his lifetime. Even before the birth of the first Islamic community in Medina, Ethiopia was the place, where Islam was freely practiced and the ruler fostered its flourishing. The very linguistic texture of the Qur’ān supports the pre-eminence of al-Ḥabasha among the Muslim countries, according to this imagination of the past. On the basis of linguistic, historical, and mythical elements, the Muslims of al-Ḥabasha have been convinced that they occupy an exceptionally honorable rank in the Islamic world. This honor was preserved thanks to the piousness of the Ḥabasha believers from generation to generation.

4 The Qur’ān in al-Habasha: The Earliest Circulation of the Text As elsewhere in the Muslim world, in al-Ḥabasha the text of the Qur’ān was commonly circulated in both an oral and written form. Focusing here only on the written way of circulation, in the following, I will make use of the relatively abundant Islamic epigraphic material from Eritrea and Ethiopia to collect and present some data on the history of the spread of the Qur’ān in the two countries. It is the

36 See, for example, Aḥmad al-Ḥifnī al-Qināʾī al-Azharī, al-Jawāhir al-ḥisān, 106–11. 37 See Muḥammad Thānī Ḥabīb, Sayyid Ṣādiq Muḥammad et al., trans., Qǝddus Qur’an [The Holy Qur’ān in Amharic] (Addis Ababa: Artistik Mattämiya Bet, 1961 EC [968–9]), 11.

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first ever attempt in this field and all the results have to be considered tentative and subject to further scrutiny.38 On the Dahlak al-Kabīr island in the Red Sea, hundreds of inscriptions — 269 according to Madeleine Schneider or 302 according to Giovanni Oman —39 were deciphered in one of the most outstanding Islamic necropolises in sub-Saharan Africa. From the epitaphs of the Dahlak, it is possible to collect quotations from twenty-five different suras of the Qur’ān.40 According to Schneider, the three oldest inscriptions containing a Qur’ānic text, namely inscriptions number 4 (paraphrase of Q 56:49–50), number 23 (Q 33:21) and number 48A (paraphrase of Q 56:49–50) can be dated to the eighth century.41 It is noteworthy that two of these possibly old occurrences are paraphrases and not word by word citations: this may hint at a mnemonic quotation of the Qur’ān by the lapicide and therefore a diverse representation of the Qur’ānic text. Moreover, according to Schneider, the occurrence of paraphrases of Q 56:49–50 on epitaphs may strongly support the idea of the existence of a close connection between the Dahlak islands and the Ḥijāz, where the same usage of the Qur’ān is testified in different cemeteries.42 The first surely dated Qur’ānic verse in a Dahlak inscription is Q 3:16, found engraved on a funerary stele of 299 AH (912).43 This is so far the earliest Qur’ānic text attested in the whole North-eastern African region. 38 Qur’ānic codices from al-Ḥabasha are becoming increasingly known. Their usage as source of information for the earlier phases of the spread of the text in the region is, however, made complicated by the fact that the ones found so far are not earlier than the beginning of the seventeenth century. I will therefore not mention them in this short note. A first catalogue of Qurāʾnic manuscripts kept in Harar, with a rich and insightful description of their codicology and illumination has been recently published: Anne Regourd, Sana Mirza, Catalogue des manuscrits du Sherif Harar Municipal Museum. Les corans - Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Sherif Harar Municipal Museum. The Qur’ans (Paris: Geuthner, 2024). The oldest manuscript found there dates to 1013 AH (1604–5). 39 Madaleine Schneider, Stèles funéraires musulmanes des îles Dahlak (mer Rouge), vol. 1 (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1983), 50, 431–39; Giovanni Oman, La necropoli islamica di Dahlak Kebir (Mar Rosso), vol. 3 (Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale–Scuola di Studi Islamici, 1987), xiii. 40 Q 2:36, 2:38, 2:255, 2:256, 2:285–86, 3:16, 3:17, 3:18, 3:71, 3:165, 3:182, 3:185, 4:69, 4:71, 4:87, 4:89, 5:76, 9:21–22, 9:128, 9:129, 9:129–30, 15:45–49, 21:34, 21:35, 21:36, 21:101–2, 23:29, 23:30, 23:88, 28:67–68, 29:44, 29:57, 33:21, 33:21–23, 33:40, 35:31–32, 35:34–35, 37:67–68, 38:50, 38:50–51, 38:50– 53, 38:67–68, 41:30, 41:30–32, 41:31–32, 44:51–54, 44:54–55, 51:15–19, 54:54–55, 55:26–27, 56:49–50 (not a real quotation but a paraphrase), 76:19–22, 78:1–5, 89:27–30, 102:1–4, 112:1–4. A chronological analysis of the quotations could yield some interesting data on the usage of Qur’ānic texts in funerary inscriptions but would be beyond the scope of this article. 41 Schneider, Stèles funéraires musulmanes, 117–18, 141–42, 171–72. 42 Madaleine Schneider, “Points communs aux stèles funéraires musulmanes du Ḥiǧāz et des iles Dahlak,” Aula Orientalis 19 (2001): 53–78. 43 Schneider, Stèles funéraires musulmanes, 180–83 (stèle no. 55).

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In the Northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, 84 inscriptions were found in Wägri Ḥariba, Kwiha, Billet, and Wǝqro.44 They contain the following Qur’ānic quotations: Q 2:255 (est. date 1055 or 1057), 3:185 (1072), 3:182–5 (1006), 3:30 (1072/73), 9:128– 30, 21:104 (1116), 33:21, 48:1–3, 55:26–7. One more quotation of Q 2:255 could be dated tentatively to 1001 according to Schneider.45 The first certainly dated attestation of the presence of the Qur’ān in the territory of the modern state of Ethiopia can be found in a funerary discovered in Billet (in the vicinity of Mekelle, Tigray) and recently published by Julien Loiseau, Simon Dorso, Yves Gleize, Yves, David Ollivier, David, Amélie Chekroun, Bertrand Hirsch, Deresse Ayenachew. It is the epitaph of Ḥafṣ b. ʿUmar al-Yamāmī who died on the fourth jumādā al-awwal of the year 361 AH (February 22, 972),46 and contains the quotation of two passages of the Qur’ān: Q 56:49–50 and Q 4:69.47 In the Eastern Ethiopia region of Harar eighteen inscriptions were brought to light.48 Five of them contain passages from the Qur’ān: Q 3:182; 48:1–3; 55:26–7; 55: 27 (alone) and Q 112:1–4. Unfortunately, none of these are dated but two other inscriptions in the area with no Qur’ānic texts are dated respectively to the decade 440 AH (1048–58) and to 657 AH (1259–60). Besides, the naskhī script of the inscrip-

44 Costantino Pansera, “Quattro stele musulmane presso Uogher Hariba nell’Enderta,” in Studi Etiopici, ed. Carlo Conti Rossini (Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente, 1945), 3–6; Madaleine Schneider, “Stèles funéraires arabes de Quiha,” Annales d’Ethiopie 7 (1967): 107–18; Wolbert Smidt, “Eine arabische Inschrift aus Kwiha, Tigray,” in Studia Aethiopica in Honour of Siegbert Uhlig on Occasion of his 65th Birthday, ed. Verena Böll, Denis Nosnitsin, Thomas Rave, Wolbert Smidt, and Evgenia Sokolinskaia (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004), 259–68. 45 Schneider, “Stèles funéraires arabes de Quiha,” 108n2. 46 Possibly a merchant, whose family originated from the region of Yamāma in the centre of the Arabian Peninsula, as shown by his adjective of relation (nisba) al-Yamāmī. Madaleine Schneider, “Des Yamāmī dans l’Enderta (Tigre),” Le Muséon 122, no. 1–2 (2009): 131–48 sets this Yamāmī in the framework of the diffusion of people originating from the Yamāma region in Northern Africa, Egypt and Sudan. 47 Julien Loiseau, Simon Dorso, Yves Gleize, David Ollivier, Amélie Chekroun, Bertrand Hirsch, Deresse Ayenachew, Excavations and Surveys in Bilet (Tigray, Ethiopia), 1–20 December 2018: Preliminary Report (July 2019), https://horneast.hypotheses.org/files/2020/07/Bilet_report_sea son_2018_V1_very_compressed.pdf [Accessed August 3, 2023]; J. Loiseau, “Two unpublished Arabic inscriptions from Bilet Tigray, Ethiopia,” ERC HornEast [Online Bulletin]: https://horneast.hypothe ses.org/files/2018/06/Two-unpublished-Arabic-inscriptions-from-Bilet-Tigray2c-Ethiopia-2.pdf [Accessed August 3, 2023]. 48 Enno Littmann, “Arabische Inschriften aus Abessinien,” Zeitschrift für Semitistik 3 (1924): 236–46; Paul Ravaisse, “Stèles et inscriptions arabes du Harar,” in Cinq années de recherches archéologiques en Ethiopie, province du Harar et Ethiopie méridionale, ed. François Azaïs and Roger Chambard (Paris: Guethner, 1931), 284–309; George Wynn Brereton Huntingford, “Arabic Inscriptions in Southern Ethiopia,” Antiquity 29, no. 116 (1955): 230–33.

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tion containing Q 55:26–27 and Q 3:182 is considered by Schneider not without similarities with some stelae of the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk periods.49 The epigraphic material shows that the Qur’ān arrived in Eritrea together with the first Muslims landing and establishing themselves in the eighth century on the shores of the country, the Dahlak archipelago, which was one of the main gateways for the Islamic merchants and learned men travelling towards the highlands. The Qur’ān being the fundament of the belief and the practice of the faithful, such an early arrival of the text in Eritrea is unsurprising. As for Ethiopia, the available inscriptions point to a presence and usage of Qur’ānic passages in epitaphs starting from at least the tenth century. While the diffusion of the text could have started even earlier, a time gap between the Eritrean and the Ethiopian material, apart from the difference in quantity and quality of the epigraphs, can also be explained as an almost natural consequence of the geographical and historical landscape. Muslims started spreading from the shores of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean towards the mostly Christian hinterland and they certainly needed some time to reach the highlands and establish there more or less organized communities, where the Qur’ān could come to play its due social and religious role.

5 The Qur’ān and the Muslims and Christians of al-Ḥabasha Our knowledge of the extent to which the Qur’ān might have shaped the Muslim and Christian intelligentsia of al-Ḥabasha is extremely limited. As it is central to the reflection of the learned elite throughout the Islamic world, the Qur’ān has also been the focus of learned (ʿālim) Muslims in al-Ḥabasha. Literature produced by local Muslim scholars shows clear influences from the Qur’ān; this is evident in the widespread use of Qur’ānic quotations and paraphrases in religious as well as in profane works. This is the case, for instance, in the much renowned The Conquest of Harar (Fatḥ Madīnat Harar), the main traditional historiographical and hagiographical work on the early legendary history of the Islamic town of Harar (Eastern

49 Timothy Insoll, Nadia Khalaf, Rachel MacLean, Hannah Parsons-Morgan, Nicholas Tait, Jane S. Gaastra, Alemseged Beldados, Alexander J. E. Pryor, Laura Evis and Laure Dussubieux, “Material Cosmopolitanism: The Entrepot of Harlaa as Islamic Gateway to Eastern Ethiopia,” Antiquity 380 (2021): 487–507; Madeleine Schneider, “Stèles funéraires de la région de Harar et Dahlak (Ethiopie),” Révue des études islamiques 37 (1969): 340–41.

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Ethiopia).50 In this text, the author uses quotations of the Qur’ān to highlight some important passages in his narrative. At the same time, he makes the protagonists of the events cite the Qur’ān to underline their piety and their deep knowledge of the word of God.51 Another way to assess how deep the Qur’ān influenced the intellectual landscape of Ethiopia and Eritrea is certainly the study of the translations into the vernacular languages of the region. The process of “indigenization” of the Qur’ān into the cultures of al-Ḥabasha went through many different phases. The first attested translations of excerpts of the Qur’ān in al-Ḥabasha were made by a Christian scholar. In many regions of al-Ḥabasha, Muslims and Christians shared the same geographical and cultural landscape and it was almost natural that the Christian intelligentsia developed an interest in reading the neighbor’s sacred text in a language that could be easily understandable without the necessary command of Arabic. On the other hand, Muslims apparently had the necessary linguistic skills to approach the book in its original idiom and did not feel the need of a translation. In the New Amharic Dictionary (ʿAddis yamarǝňňa mäzgäbä qalat), the traditional Amharic dictionary compiled by Dästa Täklä Wäld (d. 1985),52 it is mentioned that the famous high-ranking ecclesiastic ʿƎnbaqom (d. 1565), himself a Yemenite convert from Islam to Christianity, produced a complete Amharic version of the Qur’ān, which was further translated into Gǝʿǝz by another cleric called Zurambe Ǝngǝda.53 As no trace of these versions has been found so far in known manuscripts, it can be surmised that the idea of the production of a translation of the 50 The text is attributed to an otherwise unknown Yaḥyā Naṣrallāh and is basically a collection of illustrious deeds and miracles that shaykh Abādir ʿUmar al-Riḍāʾ, the national hero of Harar, and his 405 holy companions accomplished in Eastern Ethiopia. The work is widely attested in manuscripts copied in Harar. It was critically edited by Ewald Wagner, Legende und Geschichte: Der Fatḥ madīnat Harar von Yaḥyā Naṣrallāh (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1978). For an introductory description of the Fatḥ, see also Ewald Wagner, “Fatḥ madīnat Harar,” in EA, vol. 2, 505–6 and “Abādir ʿUmar al-Ridāʾ,” in EA, vol. 1, 4–5. 51 See Wagner, Legende und Geschichte, 53 (Q 49:10), 63 (Q 49:13), 96 (reference to a collective reading of the whole Qur’ān during a funerary ceremony), 107 (Q 3:160). Wagner, Legende und Geschichte, 129–30, contains also a reference to the usage of the sūrat Yāsīn (Q 36) for measuring land, a practice described in Southern Somalia by Ernesto Milanese and Renato Sassaroli “Traditional Land Measures among the Somali People: Evolution and Common Usage,” in Dynamics of Populations, Movements and Responses to Climatic Change in Africa, ed. Barbara E. Barich and Maria Carmela Gatto (Roma: Bonsignori, 1997), 177–82. For an introductory description of the Fatḥ, see also Wagner, “Fatḥ madīnat Harar,” and “Abādir ʿUmar al-Ridāʾ.” 52 Dästa Täklä Wäld,ʿAddis yamarǝňňa mäzgäbä qalat (Addis Ababa: Artisitk Mattämiya Bet, 1962 EC [1970]), 12. 53 Zurambe Ǝngǝda is probably to be identified with the high-ranking monk of the famous monastery of Däbrä Libanos of Shoa, originally coming from the monastery of Zuramba (Northwestern

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whole Qur’ān almost naturally developed from the work done by ʿƎnbaqom on the Qur’ānic text in his famous treatise The Gate of the Faith (Anqaṣä Amin).54 In this work, ʿƎnbaqom quotes a substantial amount of excerpts from the Qur’ān in Gǝʿǝz, expounding them from a Christian point of view to support his apology of Christianity against Islam. For example, the exceptional Night of the Destiny (Laylatu al-Qadr) described in Q 97 is claimed to be the night of the Nativity and the isolated initial letters YS opening the sūrat Yāsīn (Q 36) are said to be a hidden reference to the name of Jesus (Yasūʿ).55 More than three centuries later, long passages of the Qurʾān were translated into Amharic by the followers of another convert from Islam to Christianity, shaykh Zakariyā (d. ca. 1920) who, in a way closely resembling ʿƎnbaqom’s exegetical approach, used them in his Arabic Sylloges to refute Islam and prove the truth of Christianity.56 Both ʿƎnbaqom and shaykh Zakariyā extensively used the Qur’ān for their apologetic treatises but did not apparently carry out a full-fledged translation of the sacred Islamic text, which was realized in the 1960s once again as a Christian enterprise. The work was indeed personally commissioned in 1965 by Ḫaylä Sǝlasse, the last Christian Ethiopian emperor who died in 1975, who was convinced of the cultural and political utility of an “Amharic Qur’ān” (not a “Qur’ān in Amharic”). Through the translation of the Qur’ān the imperial regime aimed at spreading the Ethiopia), who took part in the famous council of Boru Meda in May 1878, where the Ethiopian Orthodox Church discussed some fundamental Christological issues. 54 The text of the Anqaṣä Amin was critically edited by Emeri Johannes van Donzel in 1969. See Ĕnbāqom, Anqasa Amin (La Porte de la Foi): Apologie éthiopienne du Christianisme contre l’Islam à partir du Coran, ed. Emeri J. van Donzel (Leiden: Brill, 1969). For a general description of the personality of ʿƎnbaqom and his Anqaṣä Amin, see A. Gori, “ʿƎnbaqom,” in CMR, vol. 7, 794–800. 55 ʿĔnbāqom, Anqaṣa Amin, 72–73, 186–89. For an analysis of the apologetical arguments which Ǝnbāqom takes from the Qur’ān, see ʿĔnbāqom, Anqaṣa Amin, 57–86. In this connection, it is interesting to notice that according to some Islamic exegetes, such as Ibn ʿAbbās and Ibn Abī Ḥātim the letters YS mean “Yā insān!” or “Yā rajul” (“O human being!,” “O man”) in Ethiopic. See, for example, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, al-Itqān, 298. 56 For a general description of shaykh Zakariyā’s personality and activity, see Alessandro Gori, “Zäkaryas,” in EA, vol. 5, 116–17. His Arabic Sylloges has been published by Alessandro Gori, La “Silloge” di šah Zakkāryās: Testo arabo originale, introduzione traduzione e note (Roma, 2001) [= Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Atti, Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, Memorie (Serie 9) 13, no. 4 (2001), 453–583]. The Amharic translation of this work, made by one of the shaykh’s disciples, has been edited by Alessandro Gori, La “Silloge” di šah Zakkāryās sull’Islam – Versione amarica: Testo amarico originale, introduzione, traduzione e note (Roma, 2003) [= Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Atti, Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, memorie (Serie 9) 16, no. 2 (2003): 57–319]. For a comparison of the exgetical attitudes and proecedures of ʿƎnbaqom and shaykh Zakariyā, see Alessandro Gori, “Esegesi testuale e polemica religiosa in Etiopia: il Versetto della Luce nell’ Anqaṣa Amin e nella Silloge di šah Zäkkareyas,” Annali dell’Istituto Orientale di Napoli 53 (1993): 353–74.

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usage of the Amharic language (traditionally labelled “the language of the king” in Ethiopia) among Muslims and so to better include them into to a common Ethiopian national identity. The translation was undertaken by a group of Ethiopian Muslim learned men, led by the famous scholars Muḥammad Thānī Ḥabīb (d. 1989) and Sayyid Ṣādiq Muḥammad (d. 1977). The version was published in Addis Ababa in 1961 EC (1968–69) under the Amharic title Qǝddus Qur’an (The Holy Qur’ān).57 To support the plan of eventually substituting the “Arabic Qur’ān with this national ‘Amharic Qur’ān’ and thus sever the Ethiopian Muslims from their fellow believers, binding them more strictly to their “mother country Ethiopia”,58 the Amharic version was printed without being accompanied by the Arabic text. A short anonymous introduction to the translation praised the good willingness and charitableness of the emperor, who graciously provided his Muslim subjects with a translation of their sacred book in their mother tongue, just as he had done with the Christians, who were given an Amharic version of the Bible and of other ecclesiastical books originally written in classical Ethiopic.59 No reliable information is available on the circulation of the text among Muslims. However, the “emperor’s Amharic Qur’ān” was reprinted in 2005 by the Islamic al-Najāshī printing press in Addis Ababa with some minor changes in format and style (e.g., the traditional Ethiopic numerals are substituted with the Western Arabic ones). Significantly enough, the section praising the emperor Ḫaylä Sǝlasse was substituted with a long anonymous preface where some harsh criticism was addressed to the previous edition and a completely new translation of the Qur’ān was called for. The main shortcomings of the “emperor’s Qur’ān” were found to be the absence of the Arabic original, which it was felt, ought to have been printed together with the translation, and the excessively literal nature of the translation, which made it hard to understand. According to the preface, these two limitations could make the text misleading for the faithful and induce them to misinterpret the word of God.60

57 Muḥammad Ḥabīb et al., Qǝddus Qur’an. 58 An acute analysis of this first Amharic translation of the Qur’ān is in Lanfranco Ricci, “Review of Qǝddus Qur’an, by Muḥammad Thānī Ḥabīb, Sayyid Ṣādiq Muḥammad et al. (tr.) (Addis Ababa, Artistik Mattämiya Bet, 1961 E.C./ 1968–69),” Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 24 (1969–70): 261–4. 59 The comparison with Christians who can read the Bible in Amharic instead of Gəʿəz thanks to various initiatives of the Church and the Emperor is only partially accurate, as Gəʿəz does not enjoy in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church the same cultural and religious status that Arabic has in Islam. However, the juxtaposition clearly reveals the intention to equalize the faithful of the two main religious communities in the country. 60 It is actually true also for unbiased judges that the “Amharic Qur’ān” was linguistically and lexically so close to Arabic that many passages could be hardly understood by the common speakers of

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It is very difficult to assess the real impact that the Qur’ān had in Arabic and in local languages on the religious practices of the Muslims and Christian of al-Ḥabasha. Research on these aspects of the presence of the sacred book in the region is still in its infancy and practically no literature is available. Some very general data on the quotation of Qur’ānic excerpts in amulets both Islamic and Christian61 and on the protective powers attributed to the letters composing verses of the Qur’ān are available, scattered in anthropological and philological literature.62 The use of the muṣḥaf as a mantic tool to foresee the future but also to diagnose illness is widespread also among the Muslims of Ethiopia and Eritrea, as it is everywhere else in the Islamic world.63

6 Concluding Remarks While the details of the history of the first arrival and spread of the Qur’ān in Ethiopia and Eritrea are still unknown, the available epigraphic material shows that the sacred text reached the shores of the Red Sea with the first Muslims settling there in the eighth century. As for the further circulation of the Qur’ān in al-Ḥabasha and the influence it exerted on both the scholarly class and the average faithful (Muslim and Christian alike), it must be admitted that our knowledge is extremely limited and interested scholars have to struggle with scanty data. Perhaps one of the most remarkable observations of the presence of the Qur’ān in the region is the peculiar

the language. For a linguistic analysis of the first Amharic Qur’ān beside the above-quoted Ricci’s review, see Thomas Leiper Kane, “Arabic Translations into Amharic,” BSOAS 37 (1974): 608–27. 61 Manuscript amulets with Qur’ānic verses are contained in many Islamic codices of the area. For the Qur’ān’s use in Christian magical texts, see Marcel Griaule, Le livre de recettes d’un dabtara abyssin (Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie, 1930), 109–11, where Q 73:1 and 9–15 are mentioned. The famous and widespread Christian Ethiopic magical Prayer against the evil eye (Ṣälot bä’ǝntä aynä ṭǝla) is made up of a conglomerate of verses of the Qur’ān more or less literally quoted. It is also remarkable that most of the times the verses used in Christian magical texts are considered to have some mystical force also among Muslims, such as the famous throne verse (ayat al-kursī), Q 2:255. 62 It was observed also among Muslims of al-Ḥabasha the therapeutic use of written texts containing verses of the Qur’ān, which are not only carried but very often also diluted and drunk. See Leendert Jan Slikkerveer, Plural Medical Systems in the Horn of Africa (London: Kegan Paul, 1990), 191. 63 See, for example, Maxime Rodinson, Magie, médicine et possession à Gondar (Paris: Mouton, 1967), 45 and 80.

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connection that was created between it and all the different population layers of al-Ḥabasha, a phenomenon seldom to be found elsewhere.64 As confessional groups of the region became aware of their special relationship to the sacred book of Islam, they adopted strategies to utilize its content in ways that were beneficial to them. Thus, for example, al-Ḥabasha Muslims repeatedly underline the fact that the Qur’ān itself justifies the respect and esteem that they — the inhabitants of the land of the Najāshī — deserve from rest of the Islamic world. For their part, the Christians of Ethiopia and Eritrea are more or less consciously acquainted with the Qur’ān and with the multifaceted, complex meanings, which are embedded in it. Whether they use the power of its words to heal and protect themselves, try to contest at least some of its theological stances, or use it as a tool to reinforce the political loyalty of Muslim “subjects,” they consider it an unavoidable part of their intellectual and cultural spectrum.

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64 Possible typological parallels with the religious and cultural landscape of al-Ḥabasha could be perhaps established with the Balkan region, the Caucasus or the Turkic areas in the Russian Federation, where both Christian and Muslim communities have been sharing a common cultural environment.

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Websites https://twitter.com/TigrayEAO/status/1497178146805800960. https://www.ethiopiancitizen.com/2022/02/tigray-did-not-embrace-muslim-refugees-in-the-7th-cen tury-ethiopian-orthodox-christians-did.html.

Anna Ohanjanyan

The Armenian Confutatio Alcorani and Its Polemical Function for the Armenian Communities in Pre-Modern Iran Abstract: The Qur’ān was translated into Armenian in seventeenth century Safavid Armenia. Around the same time, a compilation titled Refutation of the Qur’ān started circulating among Iranian Armenians. The current paper discusses the authorship, structure, content, and sources of the Armenian Refutation, establishing its affinity with the Latin tradition and linking it with the name of Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi. Through contextualization, the paper further attempts to reveal the polemical function this refutation assumed among Armenian literati in pre-modern Iran.

1 Introduction Islam-related literature in Armenian, composed by Armenians in the Armenian milieu, is relatively scarce. Apart from the short accounts on the genealogy of Islam in the works of Medieval Armenian historiographers from the seventh to thirteenth centuries — from Sebēos (sixth-seventh centuries) and Ghevond (eighth century) to Mkhitʿar Anetsʿi (thirteenth century) and Vardan Areweltsʿi (d. 1271) — only two polemical treatises have survived from the Middle Ages attributed to the prominent Armenian Apostolic1 theologians Grigor Tatʿewatsʿi (1346–1409),2 and his student Mattʿēos Jughayetsʿi (d. c. 1411).3 The early modern period bequeathed two other solid compositions addressing Muslim tenets penned by the Armenian Apostolic 1 For the followers of the Armenian Apostolic (Miaphysite or non-Chalcedonian) Church, I use the modern-day term “Apostolics.” 2 For his polemics with Muslims, see Grigor Tatʿewatsʿi, “Ěnddēm Tachkatsʿ” [Against Muslims], in Islamĕ Hay Matenagrutʿean mēj [Islam in Medieval Armenian Literature], ed. Babken Kiwuleserian (Vienna: Mekhitarist Press, 1930), 50–186. For its French translation, see Frederic Macler, “L’Islam dans la litterature arménienne,” Revue des études arméniennes 1 (1932): 493–522. 3 For both authors, see Seta B. Dadoyan, “Islam and Armenian Political Strategies at the End of an Era: Mattʿēos Jowłayecʿi and Grigor Tatʿewacʿi,” Le Muséon 114, no. 3 (2001): 305–26; Sea B. Dadoyan, The Armenians in the Medieval Islamic World: Paradigms of Interaction, Seventh to Fourteenth Centuries, vol. 3: Medieval Cosmopolitanism and Images of Islam, Thirteenth to Fourteenth Centuries (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2014). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-008

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archimandrite from New Julfa-Isfahan, Yovhannēs Mrkʿuz Jughayetsʿi (1643–1715),4 and his contemporary rival, an Armenian Catholic merchant, a former theologian from New Julfa Stepʿanos Dashtetsʿi (1653–1720).5 Even more so, Qur’ān-related literature in Armenian is considerably scarcer. Short Qur’ānic passages that have survived in Armenian from the medieval period,6 such as the second sura of the Qur’ān al-Baqarah (“The Cow”), were allegedly rendered from Arabic.7 Other passages of unknown origin that crop up in various miscellanies and books of questions were intended to vindicate Christian doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation.8 For the first time, the entire Qur’ān was translated into Armenian in seventeenth-century Safavid Armenia by the Armenian monk Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi (Stephen of Poland), also known as Stepʿanos Ilovtsʿi (Stephen of Lvov) (d. 1689).9 He translated it between 1670 and 1680 from Robert of Ketton’s Latin translation of the Qur’ān — a part of the Toledan Collection commissioned by Peter the Venerable (d. 1156) in the twelfth century.10 The translation was based on Theodore Bibliander’s (1509–64) edition of Robert of Ketton’s Latin Qur’ān, published in Basel in 1543.11 Bibliander’s edition reached Safavid Armenia presumably through Armenian merchants from New Julfa-Isfahan, heavily invested in the printing enterprise in Europe — Amsterdam, Venice, Marseille, Livorno, and Vienna.12 Armenian manu4 In Persian sources, he was known as Avanus Khalifa. Among his students, Persian Muḥammed Ali Hazīn Lahījī is remembered, who studied the Gospels with Yovhannēs. For Yovhannēs Mrkʿuz’s biography and bibliography, see Denis Halft, “Hovhannēs Mrkʿuz Jułayecʿi,” in CMR, vol. 12, 260–65. 5 Briefly on Stepʿanos Dashtetsʿi, see A Reference Guide to Modern Armenian Literature, 1500–1920: with an Introductory History, ed. Kevork B. Bardakjian (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2000), 66–67. 6 Armanush Kozmoyan, Ghuraně hayotsʿ mej [Qur’ān among Armenians] (Yerevan: Mughni Press, 2003), 24–25. 7 Aram Ter-Ghevondyan, Armeniya i arabskiy khalifat [Armenia and the Arab Caliphate] (Yerevan, NAS ASSR Press, 1977), 263. 8 Zhoghovatsu [Miscellanea], Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 482, fols. 18r–20v; Zhoghovatsu [Miscellanea], Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 2118, fols. 318r–319r. 9 Seta B. Dadoyan, “Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi,” in CMR, vol. 10, 631–48. 10 James Kritzeck, Peter the Venerable and Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964), 62–66, 73–75; Thomas E. Burman, Reading the Qur’an in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560 (Pennsylvania, PA: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 29–35; John Tolan and Cándida Ferrero Hernández, eds., The Latin Qur’an, 1143–1500: Translation, Transition, Interpretation, The European Qur’an 1 (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2021). 11 Theodor Bibliander, Machumetis Saracenorum principis eiusque successorum vitae ac doctrina ipseque Alcoran, 3 vols. (Basel: Ex officina Ioannis Oporini, 1543). It is impossible to detect which version of Bibliander’s edition Stepʿanos had at hand. For the current paper I consulted both versions with and without Martin Luther’s preface. 12 Sebouh D. Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa (Berkeley–New York–London: University of California Press, 2011).

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script heritage presents another, a better translation of the Qur’ān produced allegedly in the eighteenth century,13 but the translator and the original language of the rendering remain unknown. A lesser-known fact is that the Armenian translation of Robert of Ketton’s Latin Qur’ān was accompanied by a writing titled Refutation of the Words of the Qur’ān (Ěnddimadrutʿiwn banitsʿ Ghuranin). It appeared around the same time as the translation of the Qur’ān. Remarkably few manuscript copies of this Armenian version of the Confutatio Alcorani, as I call it, either follow the translation of the Qur’ān or come with miscellaneous texts. This Armenian Confutatio has not been properly studied by scholars of the field, presumably because it has been considered an apocryphal writing with little to no value. A close inspection of its content reveals its affinity with the Latin polemical tradition. It links the text with Theodor Bibliander’s edition on the one hand and the first translator of the Qur’ān into Armenian, Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi, on the other hand. The current paper examines the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani to reveal its translator, sources, structure, and content. Through contextualization, the paper displays the polemical function and significance of the Confutatio for the pre-modern Iranian Armenian literati of the Safavid part of Armenia.

2 Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi, the Translator of the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani Since the mid-sixteenth century, the territory of Armenia had become a battlefield for the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran. In 1603/4, Safavid Shah ʿAbbās I (1587–1629; 995–1038 AH) forcibly resettled Armenians in Iran, segregating them in the district of New Julfa of the city of Isfahan.14 New Julfa gradually became an 13 For example, see Yerevan, Matenadaran MS 2826, 2968, 6984, and Jerusalem, St. James’ Monastery, MS 3264. At the end of this new translation, the medieval story of Muḥammad’s decree with Armenians is placed. On the decree, see Ahmed El-Wakil and Nasrallah Walaa, “The Prophet Muḥammad’s Covenant with the Armenian Christians: A Critical Edition based on the Reconstructed Master Template,” in Islām and the People of the Book, vol. 2, ed. John A. Morrow (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), 502–7; Gayane Mkrtumyan, “An Historical Evaluation of the Covenants of the Prophet Muḥammad and ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib in the Matenadaran,” Religions 12, no. 2 (2021): https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12020138 [Accessed January 26, 2023]. 14 Aṛakʿel Davrizhetsʿi, Girkʿ patmutʿeantsʿ [Book of History], ed. L. A. Khanlarean (Yerevan: NAS ASSR Press, 1990), 89–98. For the English translation, see Aṛakʿel of Tabriz, Book of History, trans. George A. Bournoutian (Cosa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2010), 71–80. Vazgen Ghougassian, The Emergence of the Armenian Diocese of New Julfa in the Seventeenth Century (Atlanta, GA: Scholars

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important cultural and economic center and the central merchant hub of the Armenian communities worldwide.15 The ongoing wars resulted in the Treaty of Zuhāb signed in 1639, officially dividing Armenia between the Ottoman and Safavid Empires. Meanwhile, Armenian communities in Europe continued flourishing. Poland, among others, hosted one of the largest Armenian Apostolic (Miaphysite or non-Chalcedonian) communities in Europe,16 to which the translator of the Qur’ān Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi belonged. Stepʿanos was born to a notable and prosperous family in Lvov (Lemberg), where after the launch of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (1622), the Armenian community was heavily targeted by Catholic missionaries to win them over for unity with Rome. Since 1626, when a young latinizing notable Armenian Nikol Torosovichʿ (Mikołaj Torosowicz) (1605–81) was consecrated as a bishop by the fugitive coadjutor Catholicos Melkʿisetʿ against the will of the Armenian community of Lvov, the community had struggled to renounce him. In 1630, however, when Nikol officially made unity with Rome and reconfirmed it in 1635, the entire community was forced to gradually embrace Catholicism.17 To preserve Stepʿanos from the turmoil and conversion, in his twenties, his parents sent him to the Holy See of Ējmiatsin in the Safavid part of Armenia — the main spiritual center and Catholicosate of All Armenians — at the feet of the then Catholicos Pʿilipos Aghbaketsʿi (1633–55). According to his contemporary and colleague in Ējmiatsin Armenian historiographer Aṛakʿel Davrizhetsʿi (d. 1670), well-trained in Latin, Polish, grammar, and philosophy, Stepʿanos mastered the Armenian language within a short period.18 He was ordained as a celibate priest in Ējmiatsin sometime before 1652. Between 1653 and 1656, he was bestowed the rank of archimandrite and doctor of theology (vardapet), later assuming the chief tutor’s duties in Ējmiatsin seminary.19 Stepʿanos held administrative offices: in 1673, he was the custodian and treasurer

Press, 1998), 17–32; Henry R. Shapiro, The Rise of the Western Armenian Diaspora in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire: From Refugee Crisis to Renaissance (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022), 3–28. 15 Ghougassian, The Emergence; Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean, 23–43. 16 For Armenian communities in medieval Poland, see Krzysztof Stopka, Armenia Christiana: Armenian Religious Identity and the Churches of Constantinople and Rome (4th–15th Century) (Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2017); Arshak Altʿunean, Teghagrutʿiwn hayotsʿ gaghtʿakanutʿean orkʿ i Moldo-Valakʿio, Hungaria ew i Lehastan [Topography of the Armenian Diaspora in Moldova, Wallachia, Hungary, and Poland] (Fokshan, 1877). 17 Davrizhetsʿi, Girkʿ patmutʿeantsʿ, 293–311; Aṛakʿel of Tabriz, Book of History, 283–301. 18 Davrizhetsʿi, Girkʿ patmutʿeantsʿ, 322–3; Aṛakʿel of Tabriz, Book of History, 316–8. 19 For Stepʿanos’ bio-bibliography, see Nersēs Akinean, “Vardapet Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi” [Archimandrite Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi], Handēs Amsōrea 1 (1912): 61–63, and 2–3 (1912): 147–53.

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of the Catholicosate.20 In 1679, he replaced the locum tenens of the then Catholicos Yakob Jughayetsʿi (1655–80), Mik‘ayel archimandrite, when the latter traveled to the region Goghtʿan (modern-day Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic) as a legate (nuirak).21 Stepʿanos’ translations are widely known to scholars of the field. Among them are Pseudo-Dionysius’ Corpus Areopagiticum,22 Pseudo-Aristotle’s Book of Causes, Josephus Flavius’ The Jewish War, excerpts from Thomas Aquinas’ Summa, A Garden of Prayers, all rendered from Latin, and a Catholic spiritual-ethical collection Mirror of Life, translated from Polish.23 It is doubtless that Stepʿanos was the translator of the Qur’ān, evidenced in the colophons of manuscript copies that read: “The Ghuran is completed, translated from the Latin language into Armenian by the hands of philosopher and philologist Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi (kataretsʿaw Ghuran, tʿargmaneal i latinatsʿwotsʿ barbaṛoy i hayotsʿ lezu dzeṛamb Lehtsʿi Stepʿannos vardapeti imastnoy ew banasiri).”24 What is more obscure is that he was the translator and compiler of the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani. In one of the manuscript colophons, there is a brief notice about Stepʿanos having penned a refutation of the Qur’ān: “Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi translated from Latin into Armenian. . . 9. Muḥammad’s Qur’ān, [and] 10. its Refutation (Stepʿanos vardapet Lehtsʿi tʿargmaneatsʿ i latinatsʿwotsʿ i hay barbaṛ. . . Tʿ. Ghuran, ZH. zNorin Ěnddimutʿiwn).”25 Scholars fell short of taking this into serious consideration: Mekhitarist 20 Galust Tēr-Mkrtchean, “Haykakankʿ” [Armenian Sources], Ararat 8 (1899): 355. 21 Zakʿaria Aguletsʿu oragrutʿyuně [The Journal of Zakaria of Agulis], ed. S. V. Ter-Avetisyan (Yerevan: Armfan Press of NAS ASSR, 1938), 145. 22 Corpus Areopagiticum was first translated into Armenian in the eighth century by Stepʿanos Siwnetsʿi (635–735) from the Greek language. For the critical edition, see Robert Thomson, “The Armenian version of Pseudo-Dionysius: Introduction,” in The Armenian Version of the Works Attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, ed. Robert W. Thomson, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 488: Scriptores Armeniaci 17 (Leuven: Peeters, 1987), vii–xv. However, the Hellenizing Armenian translation was unintelligible for early modern Armenians; therefore, Stepʿanos initiated a new translation from Latin to make it accessible to Armenian intellectual circles in Iran. Aṛakʿel of Tabriz, History, 317. See also Stepʿanos’ colophon to the translation of Pseudo-Dionysius’ Corpus dated 1662, where he explains his reasons for starting a new translation, one of them being the request of his colleagues in Ējmiatsin. See Dionysios Arispagatsʿi, Matenagrutʿyun [Corpus Areopagiticum], Yerevan, Matenadaran MS 109, fols. 404r–405v. 23 On this collection, see Kʿnarik Ter-Davtʿyan, “Hayeli Varutsʿ-i hayeren tʿargmanutʿyan hartsʿi shurj” [On the Issue of the Armenian Translation of the Mirror of Life], Lraber 10 (1981): 90–99. Scholars remain reluctant about the original language of the translation; however, in his colophon Stepʿanos states it to be Polish. See M109, fol. 405r. 24 Ghuran ew Ěnddimadrutʿiwn banitsʿ Ghuranin [The Qur’ān and Refutation of the Words of the Qur’ān], Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 3109, fol. 231r. 25 Tsʿutsʿak dzeragratsʿ Khachʿik vardapeti Dadean zhoghovatsʿ, 1878–1898 [The Manuscript Catalogue of archimandrite Khach’ik Dadean collected in 1878–1898], Part 1 (Vagharshapat: Holy Ējmiatsin Press, 1898), 92.

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father Nersēs Akinean mentioned this testimony, but failed to acknowledge manuscripts containing the refutation.26 On the other hand, in a bibliographical entry, later turned into a chapter in her recent book, Seta Dadoyan mentioned the refutation enclosed in Yerevan, Matenadran, MS 3109 calling it the Sequel but refrained from tracing its source, or attributing it to Stepʿanos or anyone in general.27 Other than Akinean’s testimony, nothing explicitly gives away Lehatsʿi’s authorship, except for the latter’s student deacon Nersēs in Ējmiatsin, who was the devoted copyist of Stepʿanos’ translations. In the colophon to the copy of Corpus Areopagiticum, deacon Nersēs mentioned Lehatsʿi as: My teacher and tutor, Stepʿanos of Lvov, valiant rhetorician and master translator, a man full of graces and genius, and cleansed by the Holy Spirit, for through God-given graces, he continuously perfected the entire brethren in philosophical education. Zusutsʿichʿn im ew zvarzhichʿn zStepʿannos Ilovatsʿi kʿachʿ heṛetor ew tʿargmanichʿ rabuni, or ēr ayr li shnorhōkʿ ew hanchʿarov ew srbeal Hogwov Srbov, zi hanapaz ěst astuatsatur pargevōkʿn zamenayn eghbars katarelagortsēr pʿiklisopʿayakan krtʿutʿeamb.28

The same Nersēs, already elevated to the archimandrite’s rank, revealed himself as the scribe of the earliest copy of the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani copied in Ējmiatsin in 1675 (Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 3182). The partly distorted colophon penned by Nersēs proves that the Armenian Confutatio indeed was a translation or, rather, an adaptation of Latin texts and that Stepʿanos was the translator of it. This book was copied within seventeen days in 1675, and on June twenty-fifth, at the doors of the Great See of Holy Ējmiatsin, and during the Catholicosate of lord Yakob Jughayetsʿi, and his locum tenens, lord [Mikʿayel, and lord Yohanēs]29 by my, Nersēs the philologist’s hands [who is] the student of this [book’s] translator, for my [delight] and enjoyment of my students. Gretsʿaw girkʿs ZHĒ. awurbkʿ i tʿvin ṚCHID. ew Yunisi IE., i duṛn Surb Ējmiatsni metsi atʿoṛoyn ew i katʿoghikosutʿean teaṛn Yakobay amenayn hayotsʿ ew i yatʿoṛakalutʿean teaṛn [Mikʿayēli ew teaṛn Yohanēsi], dzeṛamb imov Nersisi banasiri ew sorin tʿargmanchʿi ashakerti, aṛ i vayels indz ew ashakertelotsʿ imotsʿ.30

26 Akinean, “Vardapet Stepʿanos,” 153. 27 Dadoyan, “Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi,” 644–45. Seta B. Dadoyan, Islam in Armenian Literary Culture: Texts, Contexts, Dynamics, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 699: Subsidia 147 (Louvain: Peeters, 2021), 261–72. I thank Octavian-Adrian Negoiță for drawing my attention to this book. 28 Zhoghovatsu [Miscellanea], Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 110, fol. 467r. 29 Although the words in brackets are erased in the original, it is possible to recover the sentence. 30 Ěnddimadrutʿiwn banitsʿ Ghuranin [Refutation of the Words of the Qur’ān], Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 3182, fol. 170v. See fig. no. 1.

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The date of this earliest copy displays that the Armenian Confutatio was finished years before the translation of the Qur’ān was accomplished by Lehatsʿi in 1679/80. Besides the Confutatio, Nersēs included the versified Armenian version of the Alexander Romance in his copy, which was equally popular among Armenians and Iranian Muslims.31 Apart from Nersēs’ Ējmiatsin complete copy, only three manuscript copies of the Armenian Confutatio survived, all from the seventeenth century, commissioned by wealthy Armenian merchants and notables of Isfahan: 1) Yerevan, Matenadaran MS 2993, copied in 1679, New Julfa-Isfahan; 2) Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 3109, copied in 1680, Isfahan; and 3) New Julfa-Isfahan, All Savior’s Monastery, MS 39 (old no. 361), copied in the seventeenth century, [New Julfa-Isfahan].32 In M3109 and MS All Savior’s 39, the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani follows the translation of the Qur’ān and is complete, while M2993 has it separate and incomplete as part of a miscellanea. M3109 amends various stories about Muḥammad’s life collected mainly from medieval Armenian historical accounts. The sources of the Armenian Confutatio are found in Bibliander’s edition. In addition to Robert of Ketton’s Latin Qur’ān, Bibliander’s edition encloses various refutations of the Muslim holy book. Among those refutations, the Liber de Doctrina Mahumet (The Book of Muḥammad’s Doctrine) or The Questions of Abdallāh ibnSalām, translated from Arabic by Herman of Carinthia (1143),33 Riccoldo da Monte di Croce’s Contra legem Sarracenorum (1299–1300),34 and Nicholas of Cusa’s Cribra-

31 For the reception among Armenians, see Albert Mugrdich Wolohojian, The Romance of Alexander the Great by Pseudo-Callisthenes (New York–London: Columbia University Press, 1969), 1–21. Alex MacFarlane, “Alexander Re-Mapped: Geography and Identity in the Alexander Romance in Armenia” (PhD Thesis, University of Oxford, 2020). For the Iranian tradition, see Josef Wiesehöfer, “The ‘Accursed’ and the ‘Adventurer’: Alexander the Great in Iranian Tradition,” in A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages, ed. Zachary D. Zuwiyya, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 29 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2011), 113–32; Minoo S. Southgate, “Portrait of Alexander in Persian Alexander-Romances of the Islamic Era,” JAOS 97, no. 3 (1977): 278–84. 32 Other three manuscripts — Vienna, Mekhitarist Library, MS 575, MS 576, and Bzzomar, Collection MS 649 — are incomplete eighteenth-nineteenth-century copies of MS All Savior’s 39. 33 “Incipit doctrina Machumet, quae apud Saracenos magnae authoritatis est” in Machumetis Saracenorum, 189–200. For a brief description of the content, see Kritzeck, Peter the Venerable, 89–96. On the Latin translation, see Ulisse Cecini, “Qur’an Quotations in the Liber de Doctrina Mahumet,” in The Latin Qur’an, 317–48. 34 “Richardi ex Ordine Fratrum, Confutatio legislatae Saracenis,” in Machumetis Saracenorum, 83–165. This is not the original Latin of Riccoldo’s Contra Legem Sarracenorum, but a re-translation by Bartholomaeus Picenus De Monte Arduo from Demetrios Kydones’ (1324–98) Greek translation done between 1360/9. For the Latin critical text of Riccoldo’s Contra legem Sarracenorum, see Jean-Marie Mérigoux, “L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur florentin en Orient à la fin du XIIIe siècle: Le Contra legem Sarracenorum de Riccoldo da Monte di Croce,” Memoire Dominicaine 17 (1986):

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tio Alcorani (1461)35 are central to the Armenian Confutatio. The close inspection of the manuscript copies proves that Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi translated, abridged, paraphrased, and merged these three texts to create an Armenian anti-Qur’ānic corpus. Before questioning the purpose of such a corpus in Armenian, one should examine its structure, considering the selection of Latin sources, the style of paraphrasing, and the tone of the translation.

3 The Structure and Sources of the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani As a corpus of anti-Qur’ānic texts, the Armenian Confutatio is divided into three major Volumes, compiled from above mentioned three Latin refutations in Bibliander’s edition.36 The First Volume encloses the Liber de Doctrina Mahumet (Vardapetutʿiwn Mahmeti).37 Stepʿanos translated the Doctrina entirely and incorporated it into the Armenian Confutatio.38 He also incorporated some of the marginal inscriptions in Bibliander’s edition, occasionally paraphrasing them. In the process of copying, scribes, in their turn, deliberately amended marginal notes whenever they omitted a word or a sentence. The marginal inscriptions in the Armenian variant appear as follows: “This is why it is called Qur’ān,”39 “fasting days are ten,”40 “not an

1–144. For the Italian translation by Emilio Panella, see Riccoldo da Monte di Croce, o da Firenze, Contra legem Sarracenorum, trans. Emilio Panella, https://www.e-theca.net/emiliopanella/riccoldo2/cls000.htm [Accessed January 29, 2023]. In the current paper I follow Bibliander’s edition as it was Stʿepanos’ source. For Riccoldo’s biography, see Thomas E. Burman, “Riccoldo da Monte di Croce,” in CMR, vol. 4, 678–91; John V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 245–54. 35 “Cribratio Alcorani,” in Machumetis Saracenorum, 21–82. For the English translation, see Nicolas of Cusa’s De Pace Fidei and Cribratio Alcorani, trans. Jasper Hopkins (Minneapolis, MN: The Arthur J. Banning Press, 1994), 75–122. For Latin critical edition, see Nicolai de Cusa, Opera Omnia, vol. 8: Cribratio Alkorani, ed. L. Hagemann (Hamburg: In Aedibus Felicis Meiner, 1986), 1–190. For Cusa’s polemical books on Islam, see Ian Christopher, Levy Rita George-Tvrtković and Donald F. Duclow, eds., Nicholas of Cusa and Islam: Polemic and Dialogue in the Late Middle Ages, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 183 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2014). 36 For the titles of all volumes and chapters, see Dadoyan, Islam in Armenian Literary Culture, 262–70. 37 M3182, fols. 1r–25r, M3109, fols. 231v–246v, Ěnddimadrutʿiwn banitsʿ Ghuranin [Refutation of the Words of the Qur’ān], Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 2993, fols. 237r–256r. 38 See Figure no. 2. 39 M3109, fol. 232v. 40 M3182, fol. 4r corresponds to Bibliander’s “Dies ieiunii 10,” Incipit doctrina, 190.

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angel, but a prophet, that is Nathan,”41 “about how the seven heavens were established,”42 “seas over the heavens,”43 “the cause of the eclipse of the moon. A lie,”44 “three rows of the stars,”45 “see the legend about the sun,”46 “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a tree of wheat,”47 “that is, he divided,”48 “riddle about the night,”49 “riddle about Jonah,”50 “the funeral and death of Moses full of legends,”51 “the way paradise is organized according to Muḥammad’s dream,”52 “when he says Father, how come you deny the Son?,”53 “the reason for not drinking wine,”54 “an utter lie,”55 “fourteen lamps hung above the Lord’s throne,”56 “riddle about Eve and Christ,”57 “the reason for not eating pork.”58 More detailed, lengthy, or sarcastic marginal notes, such as the one about Hesiod’s Theogony are completely omitted.59 As an explicit for Doctrina, Stepʿanos writes: “The doctrine of Muḥammad, full of deceit and legends, is completed” (kataretsʿaw vardapetutʿiwn Mahmeti li stutʿeamb ew aṛaspelabanutʿeamb).60 The Second Volume encloses the Vision of Muḥammad (Tesil Mahmeti),61 a satirical retelling of the seventeenth chapter of the Qur’ān, Sūrat al-isrā, abridged from Riccoldo da Monte di Croce’s Contra legem Sarracenorum’s fourteenth chapter (De

41 M3138, fol. 5v, “Non angelus, sed propheta fuit,” Incipit doctrina, 191. 42 M3182, fol. 7r. 43 M3182, fol. 7r. 44 M3182, fol. 8r, “Causa eclipsis lunae,” Incipit doctrina, 192. 45 M3182, fol. 8v, “Stellarum tres ordines,” Incipit doctrina, 192. 46 M3182, fol. 9r. 47 M3182, fol. 10v, “Arborem scientiae boni et mali, dicit arborem tritici,” Incipit doctrina, 193. 48 M3182, fol. 11v. 49 M3182, fol. 12r, “Aenigma de nocte,” Incipit doctrina, 194. 50 M3182, fol. 12r, “Aenigma de Iona,” Incipit doctrina, 194. 51 M3182, fol. 13r, “Sepultura Mosis et mors fabulosissima,” Incipit doctrina, 194. 52 M3182, fol. 16v, “Paradisus iuxta somnium Machumetis,” Incipit doctrina, 196. 53 M3182, fol. 18r, “Si patrem appellat, cur uos negatis filium,” Incipit doctrina, 197. 54 M3182, fol. 20r, “Causa, ob quam a uino abstinetur,” Incipit doctrina, 197. 55 M3182, fol. 22r. 56 M3109, fol. 233v, “XIIII candelae pendentes circa thronum Dei,” Incipit doctrina, 190. 57 M3109, fol. 238r, “Aenigma de Eua et Christo,” Incipit doctrina, 194. 58 M3109, fol. 242r, “Causa, cur a porcina carne abstinendum, plena stoliditatis et blasphemiae,” 197. 59 “Origo rerum fabulosior quam in Theogonia Hesiodi. Angeli duo custodes singulis hominibus, qui annotant in tabula res uniuersas,” Incipit doctrina, 191. 60 M3182, fol. 25r. In M2993 instead has “The end of the prophecy of Muḥammad” (kataretsʿaw margarēutʿiwn Mahmeti), fol. 256r. M3109, fol. 246v has the same text as in M3182. 61 M3182, fols. 25r–27v, M3109, fol. 246v–248r, M2993, fols. 256r–258r.

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fictione improbatissimae uisionis, On the Fiction of the Most Improbable Vision).62 Riccoldo’s chapter is seriously paraphrased. Marginal notes are missing. The only explanatory inscription in one of the manuscripts reads, “speaks of the devil (zdivē asē).”63 The Third Volume is the Refutation of the Words of the Qur’ān (Ěnddimadrutʿiwn Banitsʿ Ghuranin), divided into four Chapters with their respective subchapters — the way Stepʿanos chose to compile it for the Armenian readers. The First Chapter has seventeen subchapters, each titled accordingly to its content.64 It introduces the legend of Sergius Baḥīra65 partly collected from Riccoldo’s thirteenth chapter (De Alcorani Institutione, Concerning the Institution of the Qur’ān),”66 and partly from stories popular among Armenians since the Middle Ages, where Sergius is depicted either as an Arian or a Nestorian.67 In accord with Nicholas of Cusa, Stepʿanos calls Muḥammad “the disciple of Sergius the Nestorian,” whose true intention was the refusal of Christ’s divinity rather than the establishment of monotheism.68 The Baḥīra legend is followed by the First Book of Nicholas of Cusa’s Cribratio Alcorani (De Alcoran, On the Qur’ān, has twenty chapters),69 where Cusa speaks of the purpose of the Qur’ān, the superiority of the Gospels over it, and, more importantly, vindicates the divinity of Christ through Qur’ānic passages. Lehatsʿi heavily curtails Cusa’s original chapters: he completely cuts out the sixth chapter of Cusa’s First Book (Quod Evangelium sit lux ueritastis Alcoran, The Gospel is the Light of the Truths of the Qur’ān) where in the light of the Gospels Qur’ānic authority is diminished,70 something dangerous for the Iranian Armenians to circulate. Instead, he incorporates bits and pieces from Riccoldo’s sixteenth chapter (De Evangeli ad Alcoranum excellentia, The Superiority of the Gospel to the Qur’ān),71 which touches

62 Confutatio legislatae Saracenis, 143–6. I give the titles of Riccoldo’s chapters the way they stand in Bibliander’s edition. 63 M3182, fol. 25v. 64 M3182, fols. 28r–51r, M3109, fols. 249r–264r, M2993, fols. 258r–276v. 65 M3182, fols. 28r–29v. M2993, fols. 258r–259v. For the legend’s development, see Barbara Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Baḥīra: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam, The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 9 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2009); David M. Freidenreich, “Muḥammad, the Monk, and the Jews: Comparative Religion in Versions of the Baḥīrā Legend,” Entangled Religions 13, no. 2 (2022), 10.46586/er.13.2022.9644 [Accessed January 26, 2023]. 66 Confutatio legislatae Saracenis, 139–43. 67 For the Armenian version of the legend, see Robert W. Thomson, “Armenian Variations on the Baḥira Legend,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3–4 (1979–80): 884–95; Roggema, The Legend, 170–3. 68 M2993, fol. 261r. On Baḥīra the Nestorian, see Roggema, The Legend, 173–9. 69 Cribratio Alcorani, 26–43. Nicolai de Cusa, Cribratio, 21–71. 70 Cribratio Alcorani, 31–32. 71 Confutatio legislatae Saracenis, 158–63.

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upon the same topic. Eventually, he cuts it short by writing, “This much will do on this subject.”72 Stepʿanos also excludes the twentieth chapter of Cribratio’s First Book. Marginal notes for this chapter are missing in all manuscript copies. The scribes occasionally indicated on the margins their omissions when they jumped a sentence or two. The Second Chapter of the Third Volume has seventeen subchapters,73 enclosing the translation of Cribratio’s entire Second Book (De Theologia Mystica, On Mystical Theology, has nineteen chapters)74 dedicated to the vindication of the Trinity against the Islamic understanding of monotheism. Lehatsʿi preserves the main title, On Mystical Theology (Yaghags Khorhdrakan Astuatsabanutʿean), because the subchapter discusses Pseudo-Dionysius’ homonymous work translated by Stepʿanos into Armenian years ago, around 1662.75 Cusa’s nineteen chapters are abridged into seventeen and have no marginal notes. The Third Chapter has twenty-one subchapters. It is the abridged and paraphrased version of the Third Book of Cribratio (Quod Alcoran fide unius Dei salua, The Qur’ān while Preserving Faith in One God, has twenty-one chapters),76 where the author speaks about the militant ways of Muḥammad in spreading Islam, the transcendency and immanency of God, the divinity and humanity of Christ accepted in the Qur’ān, the latter’s difference from Abrahamic law, and in like manner. No marginal inscriptions are found in any of the manuscripts. Stepʿanos compiles the Fourth Chapter in the form of questions and answers, organizing them under twenty-three subchapters. Twenty subchapters are based on Riccoldo’s third to twelfth, and fifteenth chapters and start with a question posed from a Christian’s point of view. The twenty-first subchapter provides Muslims’ answers based on Riccoldo’s seventeenth chapter.77 The concluding two subchapters are penned by Stepʿanos himself. Here he, as he puts it, “philosophizes” on the Incarnation of Christ, his actual sufferings on the Cross rejected by Muslims, the economy of Salvation, and paradise devoid of sensual pleasures.78 A glance suffices to understand that Stepʿanos’ intention was to compile a solid polemical treatise structured according to the fashion of pre-modern polem72 M2993, fol. 265r. 73 M3182, fols. 51r–79v, M3109, fols. 264r–285r, M2993, fols. 276v–301r. 74 Cribratio Alcorani, 43–61; Nicolai de Cusa, Cribratio, 72–128. 75 See M110, and Dionysios Arispagatsʿi, Matenagrutʿyun [Corpus Areopagiticum], Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 111. 76 Cribratio Alcorani, 61–82; Nicolai de Cusa, Cribratio, 129–190. 77 For Muslims’ responses to Christians, see Tamara Albertini, “Ibn Ḥazm’s and al-Ghazzālī’s Most Divergent Responses to Christianity: A Question of Epistemology and Hermeneutics,” in Nicholas of Cusa and Islam, 218–34. 78 M3182, fols. 163r–170v, M2993, fols. 312r–318v.

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ical books that would include an introduction, a refutation of other’s religion, an apology of Christian doctrine, and practical instructions in the form of questions and answers on how to engage in polemics with “religious others,” in this case, Muslims without being trapped and carried astray. To this end, he carefully selected his sources, matched, and merged them, and organized them under a specific structure, paraphrasing and abridging the textual material to best serve his objectives.

4 The Paraphrasing and the Selection of the Sources In his Armenian translation of the Qur’ān, Lehatsʿi was not extremely precise, mainly regarding the marginal inscriptions in Bibliander’s edition.79 Although he retained the distorted form azoara standing for sura in Robert of Ketton’s Latin Qur’ān and rendered 124 azoaras instead of 114 suras of the Arabic Qur’ān,80 he seriously abridged the marginal notes, transmitted them into his translation, already paraphrased, additionally writing his explanatory notes on the margins for his Armenian readers. The same abridging technique is found in his translation of the Latin refutations into Armenian, except that this time he gave himself even more liberty to combine whatever sources he wanted, added his expressions, and left out the information he found inappropriate, boring, or reader-burdening to be incorporated into the Armenian Confutatio. To keep it simple, Stepʿanos omits the names of suras and occasionally excludes quotations from the Qur’ān. Similarly, he extracts proper names he deems unnecessary to include. For example, following Nicholas of Cusa’s original, he calls Muḥammad an “idolater” but excludes “that he was worshiping Venus” (Venerem colentem);81 or instead of Riccoldo’s “in the chapter Amram [al-Imrān], Muḥammad instructs Muslims” Lehatsʿi puts “in other places [in the Qur’ān, Muḥammad] teaches Tajiks”82 (Ews aylurekʿ usustsʿanē zi tachikkʿ).83 The omission of the sura names is noticeable throughout the entire Armenian translation. In the translation of Cribratio, the numbers of suras vary by one: if chapter twenty-five is indicated

79 For the Armenian translation of the Qur’ān, see M3109, fols. 2r–231r. 80 For more details, see Dadoyan, “Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi,” 634–48; Vrej N. Nersessian, ed., A Catalogue of Armenian Manuscripts in British Library, vol. 2 (London: The British Library, 2012), 853–9. 81 M2993, fol. 259v; cf. Cribratio Alcorani, 27; Nicolai de Cusa, Cribratio, 23. 82 Since the Middle Ages, the Armenian word “Tachik” has generally denoted Muslims. Later, in the Ottoman milieu, it also denoted the Ottoman Turks in particular. 83 M2993, fols. 308v–309r; cf. Confutatio legislatae Saracenis, 154–5.

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in Cusa’s original, Stʿepanos translates it as chapter twenty-six; if the original has sixteen, in the Armenian translation, it becomes seventeen. Lehatsʿi reduces significant passages into one sentence, retaining the passage’s original meaning, as noticed in Cusa’s paragraph about the messengers of God in the Qur’ān — Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Moses, Christ, and others — who will inherit paradise.84 He eliminates this passage replacing it with his thoughts to convey his ideas on Islam to his Armenian readers. Along the same lines, Lehatsʿi cuts a passage in Cribratio where Cusa speaks about Muslim converts clandestinely practicing their Christian faith, who would eventually reveal their true convictions on their deathbed.85 Here Stepʿanos, as someone living in a Shi’ite Muslim milieu where dissimulation was not a rare occurrence (among Christian converts to Islam as well),86 prefers to refrain from inserting provocative information into his translation. Instead, he embarks on theologizing about Christ, who fulfilled the Father’s will through his sufferings on the Cross as an act of complete selflessness.87 The tone of the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani is much milder than the tone of its Catholic sources. Stepʿanos chooses to curtail or completely exclude the chapters speaking with spite against the Qur’ān or overtly attacking Muslims. An Armenian monk living under Muslim rule could hardly allow himself the tone and wording a Catholic or a Protestant polemicist would adopt. It explains the heavily paraphrased paragraphs in Stepʿanos’ translation and the fact that in its entirety, the Armenian text is less precise, more abstract, yet informative. The enormous amount of deliberate redaction of the Latin original makes comparing the Armenian and Latin texts futile. The only assumption one might arrive at through such a comparison is that Lehatsʿi heavily adapted The Latin refutations fashioning his adaptation the way he considered suitable for his purpose and audience. On the other hand, the selection of the sources discloses both his personal theological preferences and the overall intention behind the translation/compilation project of the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani. Stepʿanos’ selection of the sources is at times ambivalent. Out of all refutations in Bibliander’s edition, he picks Riccoldo’s hostile account about the Qur’ān and Muḥammad. Riccoldo considered the Qur’ān a fabrication based on the Old and

84 Cribratio Alcorani, 28; Nicolai de Cusa, Cribratio, 28. 85 Cribratio Alcorani, 28; Nicolai de Cusa, Cribratio, 29. 86 The copious neomartyrologies prove that Christians could dissimulate their faith on the fear of execution. See Hayotsʿ nor vkanerě (1155–1843) [Armenian New Martyrs (1155–1843)], ed. Hrachya Acharian and Yakob Manandian (Vagharshapat, 1903). 87 M2993, fols. 261r–261v.

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New Testaments and pictured Muḥammad as an impostor and heresiarch.88 Next to Riccoldo’s polemics, Stepʿanos puts Nicholas of Cusa’s treatise written in a positive “pia interpretatio” (“pious interpretation”) that sought to justify Muḥammad’s conduct and “errors” in the Qur’ān.89 It is possible that Lehatsʿi’s choice was based on the authority and popularity of those two works — he could have heard of their fame while living in Poland. More possible, though, is that choice fell on those detailed refutations because he wanted to find a middle way between extremely hostile and accommodative paths, his intention being the composition of a new Confutatio for Armenians. As for his interest in the refutations in question, it seems that Riccoldo’s work attracted Stepʿanos’ attention with its “question and answers” as a heuristic device. At the same time, the preference of Cusa’s Cribratio reveals the translator’s interest in the vindication of Christian doctrines rather than solely the refutation of the Qur’ān. Even though in Cribratio Cusa emphasizes the Qur’ān’s ambivalent nature, speaking harshly against it,90 his earlier works on Islam gravitated towards inclusivity and an irenic approach that could reverberate with Lehatsʿi’s realities of cohabitation under Muslim rule. Another reason for a particular focus on Cusa’s Cribratio was Lehatsʿi’s theological interest in interpreting Christian doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation so meticulously addressed in the Second Book of Cribratio. It becomes apparent in the light of the correspondence between Stepʿanos and his contemporary New Julfan theologian Yovhannēs Mrkʿuz Jughayetsʿi, a prominent Armenian polemicist who penned a bilingual Persian-Armenian treatise on Islam titled A Polemical Book to Shah Süleyman of Persia (Girkʿ patmutʿean aṛ Shah Slēmann Parsitsʿ).91 The entire correspondence did not survive; however, Yovhannēs’ response letter written in 1689 before Lehatsʿi’s death reveals the topic the two theologians discussed.92

88 John V. Tolan, Faces of Muhammad: Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today (Princeton, NJ–Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019), 63–65. 89 Tolan, Faces of Muhammad, 90–91. See Morimichi Watanabe, “Cusanus, Islam, and Religious Tolerance,” in Nicholas of Cusa and Islam, 9–19. 90 Walter A. Euler, “A Critical Survey of Cusanus’s Writings on Islam,” in Nicholas of Cusa and Islam, 20–29. 91 The bilingual version exists only in manuscript copies, while the Armenian text was published separately in 1797. Yovhannēs Mrkʿuz, Girkʿ patmutʿean arareal i Norn Jughayu Srboy Amenapʿrkchʿi gerahrash vani miaban Yovhannēs chgnazgeatsʿ vardapetin vichabanutʿiwn aṛ Shah Slēmann Parsitsʿ [Book of History: Polemical Book to Shah Süleyman of Persia by the Monk of the Splendid (All Savior’s) Monastery, Vardapet Yovhannēs the Hermit: Composed in the All-Savior’s Monastery] (Calcutta, 1797). 92 Anpitan yamenayni Yovhannēs vardapeti tʿughtʿ aṛ Lehatsʿi Ěstepʿanos vardapet zor gretsʿaw i tʿvin ṚCHLĚ ew yunvari IE [Worthless in Everything Yovhannēs Archimandrite’s Letter to Lehatsʿi Stepʿanos Archimandrite Written on January 25, 1689], Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 575, fols. 56r–61r.

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Stepʿanos’ relatively Western way of theologizing about the Trinity moving from the unity of Nature toward the Three Persons was somewhat alien to the Julfan theologian’s Eastern approach gravitating from the concept of Personhood toward the unity of Nature. Judging from the letter, Stepʿanos saw “distinction” (zanazanutʿiwn) in the Persons of the Trinity, which Yovhannēs interpreted as something bringing about “separation,” prompting him to embark on a theological journey through patristic thought on the distinction in Persons and unity in Nature of the Trinity.93 Lehatsʿi’s Trinitarian vocabulary may have been informed by the theological works he once translated — Pseudo-Dionysius and Nicholas of Cusa; however, the two surviving subchapters he authored demonstrate his close connection to the Armenian theological tradition. Concerning the Incarnation of Christ, Lehatsʿi’s interest and knowledge are expressed in the first subchapter he penned and placed at the end of his Confutatio under the title The Reason for the Incarnation of the Word of God (Patchaṛ mardeghut‘ean banin Astutsoy).94 It is a pure apologetical text written in line with the Armenian exegetical tradition filled with quotations from the Old and New Testaments on the Incarnation and sufferings of Christ. This subchapter is of high significance for two reasons. Firstly, Armenian manuscript heritage has not preserved any authentic theological work attributed to Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi, and the content of the subchapter displays what kind of theologian he was. Secondly, it gives away Stepʿanos’ twofold intention to vindicate the Incarnation and the sufferings of Christ on the cross rejected by the Muslims and to covertly refute dyophysite, in this case, Catholic claims that Miaphysite Armenians confessed the actual sufferings of Divinity on the cross. In this regard, Lehatsʿi writes: And the Qur’ān denies the death of Christ and suggests that others were killed instead of Him, and it does not recognize that God incarnated and was crucified or died. We preach to everyone that God incarnated, suffered, and we testify that it happened because of the salvation of man [. . .] as the God-Incarnated (astuatsn mard) redeemed man. On this matter, one of the theologians eloquently spoke about the mystery of the incarnation of the divinity, that [. . .] the impassible nature united with the passible one, and the perfect God and the perfect man united [. . .], and he [Christ] could die with humanity, and [he] could rise with divinity, for if he was not a perfect God, he could not lend remedy to cure, and if he was not a perfect man, he could not become an epitome [for imitation]. Do you see how elegantly the Son of God wore a body as God and tasted death as a man? Ew Ghuran uranay zmahn Kʿristosi ew zaylokʿ pʿokhanak nora spaneal varkani ew ochʿ zastuats marmnatsʿeal chanachʿē ew ochʿ zi xachʿeal ē kam meṙeal. Mekʿ zerkakʿanchʿiwrn kʿarozemkʿ zi astuats eghew mard ew chʿarchʿaretsʿaw ew vasn pʿrkutʿean mardoy zaysosik egheal vkayemkʿ

93 M575, fol. 56r. 94 M3182, fols. 162r–167r; M2993, fols. 312r–315v.

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[. . .] zi astuatsn mard pʿrkestsʿē zmardn. Vasn aysorik yomn yastuatsabanitsʿn barevayelchʿapēs asatsʿ vasn khorhrdean astuatsaynoyn mardeghutʿeann [.  .  .] anchʿarchʿareli bnutʿiwnn miatsʿaw ěnd chʿarchʿareloyn ew astuats chshmarit ew mard chshmarit i miutʿiwn gtaw [. . .] ew meṛanel karēr mardkutʿeamb, ew yaṛnel astuatsutʿeamb, kʿanzi etʿē ochʿ ēr chshmarit astuats, ochʿ hasutsʿanēr degh bzhshkutʿean, ew etʿē ochʿ ēr chʿshmarit mard ochʿ tar zōrinak. Tesanes ziard vayelchʿabar ordi astutsoy zmarmin zgetsʿaw ibrew astuats ew zmah chashakeatsʿ ibrew zmard.95

The last subchapter, On the Terminal Beatitude (Yaghags verjin eranutʿean), again authored by Stepʿanos himself, is no less significant as it juxtaposes the Muslim and Christian paradise intending to eulogize Christian afterlife and exhorts Armenian Christians to stay firm in the face of engulfing Islam in order to inherit beatitude. It expresses Lehatsʿi’s deep concern for Armenians surrounded by Muslims, which reveals at least one of the purposes for which he commenced translating and compiling his Confutatio.

5 The Purpose for Compiling an Anti-Qur’ānic Corpus in Armenian The very few copies of the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani all produced among Iranian Armenians testify that it never acquired enough popularity to surpass the reputation of the fourteenth-century polemical treatise Against Muslims (Ěnddēm Tachkatsʿ) by Grigor Tatʿewatsʿi. It was probably never meant to do so. The question then is why Lehatsʿi commenced a futile enterprise to translate Latin polemical pieces printed by Protestant publishers to compile an Armenian refutation of the Qur’ān. The most straightforward answer is that it was timely: a) to familiarize the Iranian Armenian intellectual circles with Western perceptions of Islam and the Qur’ān; b) to compose a refutation in Armenian as a panoply during the private and public polemics with Muslims of his time; c) to warn educated readers against the traps leading to conversions to Islam. The first and most important purpose had to do with the Armenian liberation movement — a pan-Armenian project the Armenian Catholicos in Ējmiatsin Yakob Jughayetsʿi intended to carry out with the help of wealthy Julfan Armenian families (khoja), and noblemen (melikʿ) from Artsʿakh through the connections he

95 M2993, fols. 312r, 313r–313v; M3182, fols. 163r, 164r–164v.

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established with Catholic missionaries in Safavid lands.96 Catholicos Yakob was a towering figure of his time whose tenure, albeit complicated by internal and intra-communal disputes, was successful in his activities, impelling cultural revival and enlightenment. The Catholicos’ significant projects included the renovations of monastic scriptoria and martyriums, the launch of a printing enterprise in Europe, and, most importantly, the publication of the Armenian Bible. In 1656, Catholicos Yakob sent the deacon Mattʿēos Tsaretsʿi (d. 1661) to Europe, who settled in Amsterdam.97 After Mattʿēos’ death, the wealthy Armenian merchant Awetis Ghilchentsʿ,98 and his brother, Armenian archbishop Oskan Erewantsʿi (1618–1674) dispatched by Catholicos Yakob to Europe in 1662, undertook the publication of the Bible and published it in Amsterdam between 1666 and 1668.99 Around the same time, a manuscript repository and a library were established at the Holy See of Ējmiatsin, where Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi’s student deacon Nersēs was the library keeper in 1662.100 In this very scriptoria, after a lengthy dearth in Armenian manuscript production, dozens of manuscripts were penned and copied by Lehatsʿi and his students.101 Another major project initiated by the Catholicos was the long-conceived liberation plan, which aimed to seek assistance from the Christian West to liberate Iranian Armenians from Muslim rule. It is deemed that the idea crossed Yakob’s mind when he first traveled to Smyrna, Jerusalem, and from there to Constantinople during 1665–67 to settle harsh intra-communal disputes over the patriarchal thrones in Constantinople and Jerusalem.102 Catholicos Yakob had long established

96 Ashot Hovhannisyan, Drvagner hay azatagrakan mtkʿi patmutʿyunitsʿ [Fragments of the History of the Armenian Liberationist Thought], vol. 2 (Yerevan: 1959), 163–201. 97 Maghakʿia Ōrmanian, Azgapatum [History of the Nation], vol. 2 (Constantinople: Tēr-Nersissean Press, 1914), 2511. 98 On Awetis’ printing activities, see Hrachʿik Mirzoyan, “Avetis Erevantsʿi. vachaṛakan, tʿe tpagrichʿ,” Bulletin of Yerevan State University 18, no. 3 (2015): 2–18. Also, see Sebouh D. Aslanian, Early Modernity and Mobility: Port Cities and Printers across the Armenian Diaspora, 1512–1800 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023), 159–70. 99 For more details on Oskan and Armenian printing enterprises, see Ōrmanian, Azgapatum, 2240–546. Rafael Ishkhanyan, Hay grkʿi patmutʿyun [History of the Armenian Book], vol. 1, Hay tpagir girkʿě 16–17-rd darerum [The Armenian Printed Book in the Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries] (Yerevan: Hayastan Press, 1977), 405–43. Also, see Aslanian’s Early Modernity and Mobility, 159–225. 100 “Matenadarani dzeṛagrakan havakʿatsunerě” [Manuscript Collections of Matenadaran], in Tsʿutsʿak dzeṛagratsʿ Mashtotsʿi anvan Matenadarani [The Main Catalogue of Manuscripts of Mashtots Matendaran], ed. Ōnik Eganyan, Andranik Zeytʿunyan, Pʿaylak Antabyan, and Levon Khachʿikyan, vol. 1 (Yerevan: NAS ASSR Press, 1965), 20. 101 Fifty-seven of these manuscripts are kept in Matenadaran today. “Matenadarani dzeṛagrakan havakʿatsunerě,” 20. 102 Ōrmanian, Azgapatum, 2608.

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good connections with Dominican (Aṛakʿēl Bobik)103 and Capuchin (Raphael Du Mans)104 missionaries in Iran to negotiate his way to Rome and the court of Louis XIV (1643–1715). His profession of faith to Marquise de Nointel (1635–85) against Protestants on the issue of “transubstantiation” is vivid evidence of his amicable disposition for Catholics.105 Moreover, he was in correspondence with Popes Alexander VII (1599–1667) and Clemens IX (1667–69), whose sole condition for assistance was converting the Armenian people to Catholicism.106 Yakob Jughayetsʿi, however, intended to make a political move toward the West through Armenian and European go-betweens without signing a profession of faith to Rome. Along the lines of his intentions, in 1677, he summoned a secret council in Ējmiatsin, during which he discussed his plans with notable Armenians from New Julfa and Artsakh, among them, melikʿ Israēl Ōri (1659–1711),107 who later became the key figure in negotiations with Imperial Russia.108 The Ējmiatsin council decided to send a delegation of notable Armenians with the Catholicos Yakob in charge to Europe. Right after the council, under the pretext of being persecuted by the Sefi-Ghuli khan of Yerevan, the Catholicos fled to Georgia, where he had to prepare for his journey.109 Ultimately, the delegation failed as the aged Catholicos died in Constantinople in 1680.110 103 More about him, see Grigoris Galēmkērean, Kensagrutʿyunner erku hay patriarkʿneru ew tasnerku episkoposneru ew zhamanakin katʿoghikeaykʿ [Biographies of Two Armenian Patriarchs and Twelve Bishops and the Catholics of the Time] (Vienna: Mekhitarist Press, 1915), 280–83. 104 Francis Richard, “Du Mans, Raphael,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. VII/6, 571–2, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/du-mans [Accessed February 8, 2023]. 105 Tʿughtʿ dawanutʿean Yakob Katʿoghikosi [Profession of Faith by Catholicos Yakob], Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Arm. MS 145, fol. 7. For Nointel’s collection and the issue of “transubstantiation,” see Margarita Voulgaropoulou, “Orthodox Confession Building and the Greek Church between Protestantism and Catholicism: The Mission of the Marquis De Nointel to the Levant (1670–1673),” in Entangled Confessionalizations? Dialogic Perspectives on the Politics of Piety and Community-Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th Centuries, ed. Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu, The Modern Muslim World 15 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022), 521–62. 106 A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia: The Safavids and the Papal Mission of the 17th and 18th Centuries, trans. and ed. H. Chick, vol. 1 (London: Spottiswood, 1939) [reprint London: I.B. Tauris, 2012], 380–2. 107 Ōrmanian, Azgapatum, 2610–1; Hovhannisyan, Drvagner, 202–22. 108 Gerasim Jezov, Snoshenija Petra Velikogo s armjanskim narodom: Dokumenty izvlechennye iz Moskovskogo glavnogo i S.-Peterburgskogo Arhivov Ministerstva Inostrannyh del [. . .] i drugih uchrezhdenij [The Relations of Peter the Great with the Armenian Nation: Documents Extracted from the Main Archives of Moscow and the Archive of Foreign Affairs of Saint-Petersburg (. . .) and from Other Institutions] (St.-Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences Press, 1898); Hovhannisyan, Drvagner, 227–83, 346–414, 494–537, 560–624. 109 Hovhannisyan, Drvagner, 208–9. 110 Ōrmanian, Azgapatum, 2611–16.

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Against this backdrop, the translation of the Qur’ān into Armenian and the compilation of Western refutations of the Muslim holy book should be analyzed. There is a high possibility that the Catholicos commissioned this translation/compilation as the essential part of his liberation project to familiarize themselves with the Western views on Muḥammad and Islamic doctrine, given that it was his idea to launch a translation school from Latin to ameliorate his relations with Westerners. As mentioned, Bibliander’s edition could have reached Armenia through wealthy merchants or Armenian printers in Venice and Amsterdam, or the Catholicos could have put his hands on it while traveling across Ottoman lands. A handful of extant copies of the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani commissioned by the Iranian Armenian elite or copied by the deacon in Ējmiatsin for his “delight and enjoyment of his students” suggests that it was intended for the use of a small intellectual circle — theologians and notables of Isfahan. There could be another reason to commence this translation/compilation hinted at by Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi himself in one of the subchapters of Confutatio. In the thirteenth chapter of his refutation, Riccoldo da Monte di Croce has a passage referring to Muslim philosophers who “adopted the writings of Aristotle and Plato” and began to detest Islam and the Qur’ān.111 In virtue of this, the caliph in Baghdad established a new school for the study of the Qur’ān. Here the students had to refrain from studying philosophy; otherwise, they would not be considered good Muslims because they would all despise the Qur’ān.112 Lehatsʿi’s translation has a significant addition at the end of this passage: And [the caliph] ordered that none of those who read the Qur’ān study the art of philosophy. That is why those who study philosophy are not considered good Muslims, as they detest the Qur’ān and refuse to polemicize with philosophers publicly. [emphasis mine]. Ew hramayeatsʿ zi ochʿ orkʿ ěntʿeṛnun zghuran mi usanitsʿēn zaruest imastasirutʿean vasn oroy orkʿ parapin imastasirutʿean znosa ochʿ hamarin baris gol mahmetakan, aynu zi ochʿ hawanin ghuranin ew hrazharin hraparakaw hakachaṛel ěnd imastasērs.113

By so doing, Stepʿanos stressed the polemical importance of the study of the Qur’ān, implying that the Armenian translation of the Muslim scriptures as well as a bundle of texts speaking against its authority, might carry a polemical function, especially when one considers the provenance of the copies survived. In pre-modern Iran, mainly in Isfahan, both private and public disputations on faith and religion between Shi’a Muslims and renowned Christian theologians were frequent. Private

111 Confutatio legislatae Saracenis, 142‒3. 112 Confutatio legislatae Saracenis, 143. 113 M3182, fols. 29v‒30r; M2993, fol. 259v.

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polemic conversations (sohbet)114 could transpire in Muslims’ houses, squares (maidans), caravanserai, or commercial ships to far-flung countries.115 Public theological debates equally accepted among the Shi’ite elite were organized by notable Muslims or Iranian Shahs on the condition that their opponent would be equal in status or education.116 Catholic missionaries usually fell under this category, such as Paolo Piromalli (1592–1667),117 who was summoned to the court in Isfahan in 1647 to participate in a theological debate with grand vizier Khalifa Sultan (d. 1654).118 For the Shahs, missionaries represented the power of Popes and Europe; hence they were considered valuable opponents to exchange knowledge with or to win over to Islam. Missionaries acted as go-betweens in the economic negotiation of the Shahs with the European courts, as was the case with Shah Süleyman (Solaymān) I (1666–94; 1077–1105 AH) and Louis XIV.119 Wealthy Armenian Catholics were welcomed, too. In rare cases, renowned Miaphysite Armenians, the subjects (raya) of Shahs, were honored to be summoned to solemn public disputes or conversations with Shahs.120 Such was the case with above mentioned Yovhannēs

114 For sohbet in the Ottoman milieu, see Helen Pfeifer, Empire of Salons: Conquest and Community in Early Modern Ottoman Lands (Princeton, NJ–Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2022), 133‒65. 115 From the pre-modern Iranian context seven Conversations with Muslims by an Armenian Catholic merchant-theologian from New Julfa Stepʿanos Dashtetsʿi survived enclosing the variety of topics and places sohbet could occur. Anna Ohanjanyan, “Narratives of the Armenian Polemics with Muslims from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in NEC Yearbook: Pontica Magna Program 2018‒2019, ed. Irina Vainovski-Mihai (Bucharest, 2021), 155‒8. 116 For inter-religious polemics in Iran, see Alberto Tiburcio, Muslim-Christian Polemics in Safavid Iran (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020). For polemic dialogues, see Bernard Heyberger, “Polemic Dialogues between Christians and Muslims in the Seventeenth Century,” JESHO 55 (2012): 495‒516. 117 On Piromalli, see Denis Halft, “Paolo Piromalli,” in CMR, vol. 10, 518‒23. Based on his conversation with Khalifa Sultan in 1651, Piromalli wrote a polemical treatise titled On the Veracity of Christian Faith to the Persian King Shah Abbas. It was in Persian, later was translated into Armenian and Latin. For Persian original, see Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Pers. 49. For Latin, see Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Borg. Arm. 40/II/1, fols. 1r‒158v. Armenian version was published in Rome, Yaghags Chshmartutʿean kʿristoneakani aṛ Shah Appas arkʿayn Parsitsʿ i Poghosē Pʿiromalyē kargēn kʿarozoghatsʿ vardapetē ew arhiepiskaposē Nakhijewanay nahangin sharadreal [On the Veracity of Christianity to King Shah Abbas, Composed by Paolo Piromalli, OP, Archimandrite, and Archbishop of Nakhijevan] (Rome: Apud Paulum Monetam, 1674). 118 Khalifa Sultan occupied the office of grand vizier during the reigns of Shah ʿAbbās I, Shah Sefi, and Shah ʿAbbās II. 119 Hovhannisyan, Drvagner, 176. 120 For more about Armenian converts to Islam, see Rudi Matthee, “Conversion of an Armenian Convert: The I’tirafnama of Akbar (Ali Akbar) Armani,” in The Empires of the Near East and India: Source Studies of the Safavid, Ottoman and Mughal Literate Communities, ed. Hani Khafipour (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019), 14–18.

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Mrkʿuz Jughayetsʿi, with whom Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi was in correspondence. Yovhannēs engaged in a polemic dialogue with Shah Süleyman on the necessity of icons when the Shah visited the splendid All Savior’s Monastery in New Julfa, where Yovhannēs was a monk.121 There is no evidence that Stepʿasnos Lehatsʿi himself engaged in actual debates on faith, nor did any polemical writing against Muslims attributed to him survive. It testifies that he was not a polemicist but a translator who found it essential to have a corpus of polemical texts as a panoply for intellectual and religious debates. Stepʿanos compiled the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani during the reign of the same Shah Süleyman. The situation for Iranian Armenians grossly deteriorated during this period on account of a decree by the Shaykh al-Islam of Isfahan Baha al-Din Amali. According to it, any Christian subject converted to Islam would inherit the property of his Christian relatives.122 In addition, during Süsleyman’s reign, SefiGhuli khan of Yerevan (1670‒75; 1080/81‒1085/86 AH) started a persecution campaign against Iranian Armenians to which even the Catholicos Yakob Jughayetsʿi fell victim.123 This situation prompted multiple conversions to Islam on the one hand and instigated mass migration of Armenians to Europe and India on the other hand. In the last chapter of the Armenian Confutatio, Lehatsʿi warns his readers about the stumbling stones in Muḥammad’s teachings, mainly the lures of Qur’ānic paradise, exhorting them not to fall for it: “Let you not be defeated by carnal pleasures, let you not be deceived by vain promises of the Qur’ān, let you not follow the falsehood, let you not be scared by their [Muslims’] threats, let you not abandon the truth (mi haghtʿicʿukʿ i heshtutʿeantsʿ marmnoy, mi khabestsʿukʿ i snoti khostmantsʿ ghuranin, mi hetewestsʿukʿ stutʿean, mi zarhurestsʿukʿ i spaṛnaleatsʿn notsʿa, mi tʿoghtsʿukʿ zchshmartutʿiwn)” so that to inherit the heavenly life (erkni arkʿayutʿean arzhani litsʿukʿ), since “our fathers” endured tortures and sorrows to enter the eternity.124 This passage reveals Stepʿanos’ apprehension about Armenians converting to Islam, proving that the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani was not only an attempt to familiarize learned Armenians with the Western image of Muḥammad and the Muslim holy book but an effort to provide them with additional rhetorical ammunition against Islam.

121 Yovhannēs Mrkʿuz, Girkʿ patmutʿean. 122 A Chronicle of the Carmelites, 288. For the text of the decree by Shaykh al-Islam, see Ghougassian, The Emergence, 221‒2. 123 Ōrmanian, Azgapatum, 2576‒81. 124 M2993, fol. 318v.

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6 Conclusion To evaluate the role of the translation of the Qur’ān along with its refutations from Latin into Armenian, one should piece together all the factors that laid the foundation for such a translation. The socio-political situation in pre-modern Iran for the Armenian communities, the Armenians’ coexistence with Shi’a Muslims, their relations with Catholic missionaries attempting to convert Eastern Christians of Iran, and the growing relations of the Iranian Shahs with Western Christians and Popes’ emissaries all played a role in shaping the environment that propelled the fulfillment of such a translation project. Nevertheless, the most crucial factor was the great spiritual and cultural revival within the Armenian communities that started with the Catholicoi Movsēs Tatʿewatsʿi (1629–33) and Pʿilipos Aghbaketsʿi and reached its apogee during the tenure of Catholicos Yakob Jughayetsʿi. The synthesis of the intellectual potential of clerics in Ējmiatsin with the connections and wealth of Julfan Armenian merchants enabled the Catholicoi to initiate renovation and reconstruction projects. The building of the belfry of the Holy See of Ējmiatsin, the reconstruction of monasteries, the productive scriptoria in the monasteries of Ējmiatsin, Yovhannavank, All Savior’s monastery, the translations of theological and spiritual literature from Latin and Polish, the commissioning of historiographies, chronicles, and hagiographic literature, and the printing of the Armenian Bible in Amsterdam all were part and parcel of the cultural revival in the Iranian part of Armenia. Under the patronage of the Catholicos and the skillful Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi, the network of Armenian literati got together to produce a translation project to make the Qur’ān accessible for Armenians, as well as create a solid, multi-functional refutation to serve their various projects. The Armenian Confutatio Alcorani suggested novel patterns of engaging with the Qur’ān and demonstrated the Western perception of Islam hardly known to the Armenians as enclosed in Riccoldo’s or Nicholas of Cusa’s treatises. A century or less after Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi translated the Qur’ān, an alternative and a better translation started to circulate among Armenians. Nevertheless, no solid refutation of the Qur’ānic texts in Armenian other than Lehatsʿi’s compilation is found in the Armenian manuscript heritage. Provided the scarcity of copies, the Armenian Confutatio Alcorani, albeit quite timely, turned out to be a temporary project aimed at a quite small circle of notable Iranian Armenians, never reaching a broader audience. Moreover, neglected in the shade of Lehatsʿi’s other translations from Latin, it long-awaited its turn to be unearthed today and attributed to its translator.

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Fig. 1: The Colophon by Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi’s student deacon Nersēs. Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 3182, fol. 170v.

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Fig. 2: Doctrina Mahumet in Armenian. Yerevan, Matenadaran, MS 2993, fol. 237r.

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Bibliography Manuscripts Jerusalem. St. James’ Monastery. MS 3264. New Julfa-Isfahan. All Savior’s Monastery. MS 39 (All Savior’s 361). Paris. Bibliothèque nationale de France. Arm. MS Arm. 145. Fol. 7. Vatican. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Borg. Arm 40/II/1. Fols. 1r‒158v. Vatican. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Pers. 49. Vienna. Mekhitarist Library. MS 575. Vienna. Mekhitarist Library. MS 576. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 109. Fol. 405r. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 110. Fols. 467r–467v. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 111. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 482. Fols. 18r–20v. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 575. Fols. 56r–61r. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 2118. Fols. 318r–319r. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 2826. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 2968. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 2993. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 3109. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 3182. Yerevan. Matenadaran. MS 6984.

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Nersessian, Vrej N., ed. A Catalogue of Armenian Manuscripts in British Library. Vol. 2. London: The British Library, 2012. Pfeifer, Helen. Empire of Salons: Conquest and Community in Early Modern Ottoman Lands. Princeton, NJ–Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2022. Ohanjanyan, Anna. “Narratives of the Armenian Polemics with Muslims from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” In NEC Yearbook: Pontica Magna Program 2018‒2019. Edited by Irina Vainovski-Mihai, 141‒65. Bucharest, 2021. Ōrmanian, Maghakʿia. Azgapatum [History of the Nation]. Vol. 2. Constantinople: Tēr-Nersissean Press, 1914. Richard, Francis. “Du Mans, Raphael,” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. VII/6, 571–2. http://www. iranicaonline.org/articles/du-mans. Roggema, Barbara. The Legend of Sergius Baḥīra: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 9. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2009. Shapiro, Henry. The Rise of the Western Armenian Diaspora in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire: From Refugee Crisis to Renaissance. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022. Southgate, Minoo S. “Portrait of Alexander in Persian Alexander-Romances of the Islamic Era.” JAOS 97, no. 3 (1977): 278–84. Stopka, Krzysztof. Armenia Christiana: Armenian Religious Identity and the Churches of Constantinople and Rome (4th–15th century). Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2017. Ter-Ghevondyan, Aram. Armeniya i arabskiy halifate [Armenia and the Arab Caliphate]. Yerevan, NAS RA Press, 1977. Ter-Davtʿyan, Kʿnarik. “Hayeli Varutsʿ-i hayeren tʿargmanutʿyan hartsʿi shurj” [On the Issue of the Armenian Translation of the Mirror of Life]. Lraber 10 (1981): 90–99. Tēr-Mkrtchean, Galust. “Haykakankʿ” [Armenian Sources]. Ararat 8 (1899): 354–7. Thomson, Robert W. “Armenian Variations on the Baḥira Legend.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3–4 (1979–80): 884–95. Thomson, Robert W. “The Armenian version of Pseudo-Dionysius: Introduction.” In The Armenian Version of the Works Attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. Edited by Robert W. Thomson, vii–xv. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 488: Scriptores Armeniaci 17. Leuven: Peeters, 1987. Tiburcio, Alberto. Muslim-Christian Polemics in Safavid Iran. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020. Tolan, John V. Saracens. Islam in the Medieval European Imagination. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Tolan, John V. Faces of Muhammad: Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today. Princeton, NJ–Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019. Voulgaropoulou, Margarita. “Orthodox Confession Building and the Greek Church between Protestantism and Catholicism: The Mission of the Marquis De Nointel to the Levant (1670–1673).” In Entangled Confessionalizations? Dialogic Perspectives on the Politics of Piety and Community-Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th Centuries. Edited by Tijana Krstić, Derin Terzioğlu, 521–62. The Modern Muslim World 15. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022. Watanabe, Morimichi. “Cusanus, Islam, and Religious Tolerance.” In Nicholas of Cusa and Islam, 9–19. Wiesehöfer, Josef. “The ‘Accursed’ and the ‘Adventurer’: Alexander the Great in Iranian Tradition.” In A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages. Edited by Zachary David Zuwiyya, 113–32. Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 29. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2011.

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Anti-Islamic Polemics, Scholarship and Encyclopedism in the Greek Orthodox World: Nicholas Karatzas and His Summa Saracenica Abstract: This study offers the first analysis of a hitherto unknown Phanariot miscellaneous codex preserved in the collections of Princeton University Library (MS Gr. 112) that contains anti-Islamic Greek polemical texts. Entitled Sarakēnika, it was produced by the famous Phanariot intellectual and bibliophile Nicholas Karatzas in Constantinople. Taking this codex as a starting point, this paper tackles the larger discussion about the format and genres in which Greek-speaking audiences were informed about Islam, Prophet Muḥammad and the Qur’ān during the Ottoman rule. I argue that Sarakēnika is not a simple miscellany of polemical texts, but it can be considered a Summa Saracenica in which the Phanariot intellectual gathered the most authoritative literary pieces and arranged them according to specific criteria that reflect his encyclopedic approach towards anti-Muslim literature.

1 Introduction Among the manuscripts that have recently joined the special collections of Princeton University Library there is a massive Greek miscellaneous codex entitled Sarakēnika (fol. 1r), which was compiled between 1770 and 1780 in Constantinople by the renowned Phanariot bibliophile and Church official Nicholas Karatzas

Acknowledgements: This paper is published in the framework of the project entitled The European Qur’an: Islamic Scripture in European Culture and Religion, 1150–1850, which has received funding from the European Research Council — Synergy Grant under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program, Grant agreement No. 810141. My sentiments of gratitude are directed towards Dimitris H. Gondicas and Molly Greene, who brought this codex to my attention. I thank András Kraft and Squirrel Walsh for helping me to acquire digital copies of the entire codex. I want to express my gratitude to Nikolaos Chrissidis, Tijana Krstić, Jan Loop, Ovidiu Olar, Cătălin Pavel, Nicholas Pissis, and Kostas Sarris for their suggestions and comments on the earlier drafts of this paper and allowing me to read their forthcoming publications. All remaining shortcomings are my own. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-009

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(c. 1705–87).1 The play on the term “Saracen” in the title, which was widely used by medieval and early modern Christian writers to designate Muslims, is suggestive of the codex’s contents: “Works about Muslims.”2 However, the longer version of the title reveals further specific detail (fol. 1v): Against Muḥammad, ruler and teacher of the Ishmaelites and Saracens, the pseudo-prophet and interpreter of their heresy; the laws established by him on the religion of the Turks, extracted from his book called Qur’ān, and their refutations. Kata Mōameth phylarchou kai didaskalou Ismaēlitōn kai Sarakēnōn, tou pseudoprophētou kai eisēgētou tēs haireseōs autōn: Ta hypo tou Mōameth nomothetēnta peri tēs thrēskeias tōn Tourkōn, parekblēthenta ek tēs tou bibliou kaloumenēs Koran, kai eis auta antirrēseis.

From this we learn that Sarakēnika is in fact a compilation of anti-Islamic polemical texts in Greek containing works directed against the Prophet Muḥammad and Islamic tenets originating from the Qur’ān. The emergence of this hitherto unknown Greek manuscript is of paramount importance for the Greek intellectual history and, by extension, for the Greek Orthodox engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān during the Ottoman rule. In this paper I offer the first detailed analysis of Sarakēnika. Karatzas’ codex is a remarkable piece of evidence pointing to the texts that informed Greek Orthodox audiences about Islam before the dawn of modernity, but, at the same time, it is an opportunity to investigate the relation between the production of knowledge and the

1 Princeton, Princeton University Library, MS Gr. 112 was acquired in 2015 by Princeton University with the support of Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund. The entire codex can be now consulted online at https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9989154683506421 [Accessed September 21, 2023]. Due to the brittleness of some leaves, the codex is now divided into two volumes: 1) fols. 1–196, 387–440; and 2) 197–386. In my opinion, the brief online description of the codex erroneously assigns the title Sarakēnika, written in Greek capital letters, to a 19th century scribal hand, as I strongly believe that this title too was written by Karatzas himself. For a preliminary brief description of this codex, see also Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, “Nicholas Karatzas,” in CMRO2; and Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, “Discursul anti-islamic în tratatele apologetico-polemice grecești din perioada post-bizantină (secolele XVI–XVIII)” [The Anti-Islamic Discourse as Reflected in the Post-Byzantine Apologetical and Polemical Treatises (16th–18th Centuries)] (PhD Thesis, Bucharest: University of Bucharest, 2020), 165–204. 2 Besides the term “Saracen,” the nomenclature used by Christian authors to refer to Muslims — and to the Ottoman Turks from the fifteenth century onwards — includes also “Hagarenes,” a designation derived from the name of Hagar, the servant of the Old-Testament Patriarch Abraham, cf. Genesis 21:9–21, or “Ishmaelites,” from the name of Ishmael, Hagar’s son. See, for instance, John V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002); Nancy Bisaha, Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks (Philadelphia, PA: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Margaret Meserve, Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).

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erudite practices employed in its making. I argue that Karatzas offers through his compilatory practices an encyclopedic picture over the format in which knowledge about Islam was transmitted in early modern Greek Orthodox milieu. Sarakēnika is not a mere representation of his preferences regarding anti-Islamic polemics or a compilation of randomly organized texts, but, instead, it can be considered a Greek Summa Saracenica, in which the Phanariot erudite gathered the most read and circulated Byzantine and early modern Greek anti-Islamic polemical works, which he organized according to specific criteria that are indicative of their degree of authority in the larger Greek Orthodox world. Lastly, as this paper will suggest, Sarakēnika offers a remarkable opportunity to investigate “encyclopedist” trends in early modern South-Eastern European context.

2 From Constantinople to Wallachia and Back Again or the Making of a Phanariot Intellectual Nicholas Karatzas has been recognized as a celebrated bibliophile, collector and copyist of Greek manuscripts, antiquarian of Greek literature, translator from French and fervent reader of Molière and Voltaire, devout Orthodox Christian, student of the Classics and theology of the Fathers of the Church, official of the Great Church of Constantinople and adviser at the Wallachian court.3 Indeed, besides the offices he occupied, he was an active intellectual, known among his contemporaries as “Karatzas the erudite” (ho logios Karatzas), a description that modern historians also apply to him in order to distinguish him from other contemporary family members to whom his manuscripts were assigned sometimes.4 But

3 Georgios Papazoglou, Ho logios Phanariōtēs Nikolaos Karatzas kai hē bibliothēkē tōn cheirographōn kōdikōn tou [The Phanariot Erudite Nicholas Karatzas and the Library of His Manuscript Codices], 2 vols. (Thessaloniki: Ekdotikos Oikos K. & M. Ant. Stamoulē, 2016–19). 4 Due to his scribal hand and compilatory style, scholars were able to identify him as the author of many codices and to discover more pieces that belonged to his library. For instance, contrary to the assumptions of Lambros and Camariano, Apostolopoulos argued that the paternity of Bucharest, Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR], MS Gr. 974, a compilation of Greek letters, should be assigned to Karatzas instead of Nicholas Kritias, his teacher. See Dimitris Apostolopoulos, “Ho kōdikas ‘Kritiou’ einai tou Nikolaou Karatza: Problēmata patrotētas tou chph. 974 tēs Roumanikēs Akadēmias” [The Codex ‘Kritiou’ Is by Nicholas Karatzas: Problems on the Paternity of MS 974 of the Romanian Academy], E 24 (2003): 125–37; Spyridon Lambros, “Nikolau Kritiou tou megalou ekklēsiarchou syllogē autographōn epistolōn tou dekatou ebdomou kai dekatou ogdoou aiōnos” [The Collection of Autograph Letters of the 17th and 18th Centuries by Nicholas Kritias], Neos Hellēnomnēmōn 4 (1907): 220; Nestor Camariano, Biblioteca Academiei Române: Catalogul manuscriptelor

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even if scholarly interest in his life, literary achievements and impressive library increased in the past years, he still remains, in many ways, a poorly studied figure. Despite bits of information regarding his polymathic interests, erudite agenda and professional career, the contemporary sources are, however, limited. They include documents, which he signed as official of the Patriarchate, letters, the journal of his son, the grand hatman Constantine Karatzas, scattered mentions in the testimonies of intellectuals who had encountered him, and personal notes extracted from his own manuscripts. All these allowed scholars to reconstruct Karatzas’ profile to a certain extent, but there are other aspects of his biography that remain subject to discussions. Perhaps he did not attract as much scholarly attention as his contemporaries because, unlike other Phanariots, he never produced any original works of his own but devoted his entire career to collecting and compiling material for his library, thus displaying antiquarian inclinations and an encyclopedic spirit, which he imprinted on his compilations.5 From Constantinople to Wallachia and back again was usually the standard path followed by most Phanariots in their careers, and Nicholas was not an exception. This Orthodox Greek group of elites — commonly called the Phanariots due to their origin from the Phanar neighborhood of Constantinople — dominated the political and cultural spheres of the Greek-speaking world from the second half of the seventeenth until the beginning of the nineteenth century.6 With vast social networks built on their considerable political and cultural capital that was in turn dependent on their role in Ottoman diplomacy and administration,7 the Phanariots grecești [The Library of the Romanian Academy: The Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts], vol. 2 (Bucharest, 1940), 72–73. 5 Machi Paizi-Apostolopoulos, “Gnōsta kai agnōsta istorika erga tēs Tourkokratias se cheirographo kōdika tou Nikolaou Karatza” [Known and Unknown Historical Works about the Turkish Rule in a Manuscript Codex by Nicholas Karatzas], E 27 (2011): 193–210; Dimitris Apostolopoulos, “Harmogē sparagmatōn: Neotera gia tē bibliothēkē Nikolaou kai Kōnstantinou Karatza” [Piercing Fragments Together: Recent Evidence about Nicholas and Constantine Karatzas’ Library], E 29 (2016): 89–132; Georgios Koutzakiotis, “Symplērōmatika gia ton Nikolao Karatza kai tē Bibliothēkē tou” [Supplements on Nicholas Karatzas and His Library], E 29 (2016): 310–18. 6 From the extensive bibliography on the Phanariots, see Ch. Fragistas, ed., Symposium ‘L’Époque Phanariote’, 21–25 octobre 1970: À la mémoire de Cléobule Tsourkas (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974); Andrei Pippidi, “Phanar, Phanariotes, Phanariotisme,” RESEE 13, no. 2 (1975): 231–9; Christine M. Philliou, Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011); Radu G. Păun, “Some Remarks about the Historical Origins of the ‘Phanariot Phenomenon’ in Moldavia and Wallachia (16th–19th Centuries),” in Greeks in Romania in the Nineteenth Century, ed. G. Harlaftis and R. Păun (Athens, 2013), 47–94. 7 Kostas Sarris, Nikolas Pissis, and Miltos Pechlivanos, “Accumulating Cultural Capital: Intellectual Networks and Political Power of the Mavrokordatos Dynasty (1641–1730),” in Power Networks in the Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Balkans (18th–20th c.), ed. Dimitris Stamatopoulos, forthcoming.

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occupied key positions in the political and ecclesiastical spheres. They served either as high dignitaries within the administrative apparatus of the Sublime Porte (with the post of the grand dragoman being the most important function they occupied), as chief advisers to the princes or even as rulers (i.e., hospodars) established by the Ottomans in the Danubian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, or as high officials of the Great Church of Constantinople. Despite the negative image painted of them sometimes by their own contemporaries and adopted subsequently by nation(al)ist historiographies, this group of “well-born of the Polis” left a distinctive mark on the cultural landscape of Eastern Europe through their works, patronage, learning, and impressive libraries.8 Himself a “well-born of the Polis,” Nicholas was a prominent member of the wealthy and influential Karatzas family, which claimed — as many other noble Greek families — a Byzantine ancestry.9 He was born around 1705 in the multilingual and cosmopolitan capital of the Ottoman Empire. The scarce evidence on the early stage of his life does not allow much insight into his primary education but later, as many Phanariots, Nicholas pursued his studies at the Patriarchal Academy of Constantinople, where he became pupil of the influential teacher Nicholas Kritias of Bursa, the grand sacristan (megas ekklēsiarchēs) of the Patriarchate.10 His ascension to the ecclesiastical administration was facilitated through the inter-

For the concept of “capital,” see Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. John Richardson (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 241–58. 8 Term coined by Radu G. Păun, “»Well-Born of the Polis«: The Ottoman Conquest and the Reconstruction of the Greek Orthodox Elites under Ottoman Rule (15th–17th Centuries),” in Türkenkriege und Adelskultur in Ostmitteleuropa vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Robert Born and Sabine Jagodzinski (Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2014), 59–85. For instance, on the cultural output of the Phanariots, see Ariadna Camariano-Cioran, Les Académies princières de Bucarest et de Jassy et leurs professeurs (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974); Peter Mackridge, “Enlightenment and Entertainment: The Intolerable Lightness of Phanariot Literature, 1750–1800,” RESEE 58, no. 1–4 (2020): 119–38; Nicholas Pissis, “La bibliothèque princière de Nicolas Mavrocordatos: practiques de collection et de lecture,” in Bibliothèques grecques dans l’Empire ottoman, ed. André Binggeli, Matthieu Cassin and Marina Detoraki, Bibliologia 54 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), 339–54; Nir Shafir, “Phanariot Tongues: The Mavrokordatos Family and the Power of the Turkish Language in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Empire,” Oriente Moderno 101 (2021): 181–220. 9 C. Karadja, “Sur l’origine des Karadja,” Revue historique du sud-est européen 15, no. 7–9 (1938): 222–6; Mihail-Dimitri Sturdza, Dictionnaire historique et généalogique des grandes familles de Grèce d’Albanie et de Constantinople, 2nd edition (Paris 1999), 257–9. 10 On Kritias, see E. Skouvara, “Nikolaos Kritias Prousaeus: Symbolē stē biographia tou” [Nicholas Kritias of Bursa: A Contribution to His Biography], Mikrasiatika Chronika 9 (1961): 53–112; Eleni Angelomatis-Tsougarakis, “Nikolaos Kritias: Biographika kai ergographika” [Nicholas Kritias: Biography and Works], Mesaiōnika kai Nea Hellēnika 1 (1984): 281–402 and 2 (1986): 197–303.

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cession of his teacher, who secured for him a high-ranking office (logothetēs tou genikou) at the Patriarchate from Paisios II (d. December 11, 1756), which he occupied from 1730/31 until 1749. Here Nicholas worked as secretary, as testified by an official paper dated February 1734 issued by the patriarchal synod presided by Patriarch Seraphim I (r. 1733–4) that refers to the canonization of the Byzantine theologian and fervent anti-Latin Mark of Ephesus (1392–1444), which mentions Nicholas among the signatories.11 His Wallachian sojourn began around 1750, after Nicholas resigned his office at the Patriarchate and headed towards Bucharest with his wife, Cassandra Vlastos. A letter dated around 1750 that accompanied Nicholas is indicative for the mediation of his former teacher. Kritias advocated for him to be hosted in the house of prince Gregory II Ghika (1695–1752), who was ruling for the second time in Wallachia, and offered the position of secretary at court.12 In the following years, Nicholas’ status improved, more precisely during the fifth reign in Wallachia of Constantine Mavrokordatos (1710–69), who offered Nicholas the prestigious office of komisos (supervisor of the princely stables), which came along with considerable revenues. As a member of the impressive network of the Mavrokordatos family, he was able to develop contacts at court and among the renowned professors of the Princely Academy of Bucharest. His proximity to the court allowed him to partake in the commercium litterarium developed since the early eighteenth century by the renowned Phanariot prince Nicholas Mavrokordatos (1680–1730),13 which linked Eastern European intellectuals with the European Republic of Letters. As 11 See Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus, “Markos ho Eugenikos hōs patēr hagios tēs Orthodoxou Katholikēs Ekklēsias” [Markos of Ephesus as Holy Father of the Orthodox Universal Church], BZ 11 (1902): 50–69, here 64–67; for other documents about Nicholas’ activities, see Nomikos Vaporis, “A Study of the Ziskind MS No. 22 of the Yale University Library: Some Aspects of the History of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 14 (1969): 85–124. 12 Eudoxiu de Hurmuzaki, Documente privitoare la Istoria Românilor [Documents concerning the History of Romanians], Vol. 14/2: Documente grecești privitoare la Istoria Românilor, 1716–1777 [Greek Documents concerning the History of Romanians, 1716–77], ed. Nicolae Iorga (Bucharest, 1917), 1126–7. 13 Andrei Pippidi, “Aux confins de la République des Lettres: La Valachie des antiquaries au début du XVIIIe siècle,” Studii clasice 17 (1977): 233–46 [republished in A. Pippidi, Hommes et idées du SudEst européen à l’aube de l’âge modern (Bucharest–Paris: Editura Academiei–Éditions du C.N.R.S., 1980), 215–35]; Radu G. Păun, “Réseaux de livres et réseaux de pouvoir dans le sud-est de l’Europe: Le monde des dragomans (XVIIe–XVIIIe) siècles,” in Contribution à l’histoire intellectuelle de l’Europe: Réseaux du livre, réseaux des lecteurs, ed. Frédéric Barbier and István Monok (Budapest: Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, 2008), 63–108; Sarris, Pissis, and Pechlivanos, “Accumulating Cultural Capital.” For the concept of commercium litterarium, see Hans Bots and Françoise Waquet, La République des Lettres (Paris: De Bœck, 1997); H. Bots and F. Waquet, eds., Commercium Litterari-

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such, Nicholas was able to stay informed about new books that were published in Western Europe and to acquire editions for his own library. While in Wallachia, Nicholas travelled on many occasions back to Constantinople, where he continued to gather material for his library, as he acquired copies of Byzantine imperial decrees, patriarchal and Ottoman official documents, as well as chronicles, homilies, hagiographical texts, and theological treatises. The notes and marginalia of his manuscripts offer clear indications that Nicholas used extensively the repositories of the Library of the Metochion of the Holy Sepulcher, especially manuscripts belonging to the Patriarch of Jerusalem Chrysanthos Notaras (1655–1731). Moreover, Nicholas made extensive use of the books in either printed or manuscript form preserved in the private libraries of his erudite friends or other members of the Church hierarchy, such as the collections of the former grand logothetēs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople John Karyophyllis (c. 1619–92), or the library of his friend the renowned theologian Nicephoros Theotokis (1731–1800). He turned regularly to booksellers and collectors to acquire manuscripts and editions, as proved by a note dated November 7, 1756, in which he relates the purchase of a fifteenth century manuscript of the Liturgy of John Chrysostom from a bookshop in Galata.14 His bibliophile interest can be observed also from the contacts he had with other intellectuals. For instance, the correspondence between him and the renowned Greek erudite Constantine Kaisarios Dapontes (1713–84) is indicative in this regard,15 as well as the dialogue he had with Paisy Velicikovsky (1722–94), the famous abbot of Neamț Monastery in Moldavia and promoter of the monastic reform known as “Paisianism,” which concerned a book on Eastern Christian ascetism that Nicholas had in his library.16 Unfortunately, although it can um: La communication dans la République des Letters 1600–1750, Études de l’Institut Pierre Bayle 25 (Amsterdam–Maarssen: APA-Holland University Press, 1994). 14 Mt Athos, Panteleimon Monastery, MS Gr. 17 (5523), fol. 56r. Spyridon Lambros, Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts on Mount Athos, vol. 2 (Cambridge: University Press, 1900), 283 (the manuscript), 597 (the note). 15 See Nestor Camariano, “Constantin Dapontès et les Principautés Roumaines,” RESEE 8, no. 3 (1970): 481–94; Claudia Rapp, “Kaisarios Dapontes (1713–1784): Orthodoxy and Education between Mount Athos and the Danubian Principalities,” Analele Putnei 14, no. 1 (2018): 61–80; Elina Tsalicoglou, “Introduction,” in Konstantinos Dapontes: Selected Writings, trans. E. Tsalicoglou (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), xiii–lxii. 16 Constantine Karatzas, “Ephēmerides,” in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor [Documents concerning the History of Romanians], ed. Eudoxiu de Hurmuzaki, vol. 13: Texte grecești [Greek Texts], ed. A. Papadopulos-Kerameus (Bucharest, 1909), 108–10. On Paisy and “Paisianism,” see Michel Schwartz, “Un réformateur du monachisme orthodoxe au XVIIIe siècle: Paisios Velicikoskij,” Irénikon 11 (1934): 561–72; Anthony-Emil Tachiaos, The Revival of Byzantine Mysticism among Slavs and Romanians in the 18th Century: Texts Relating to the Life and Activity of Paisy Velichovsky (1722–1794) (Thessaloniki, 1966); Valentina Pelin, Paisianismul în contextul cultural și spiritual sud-

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be assumed that Nicholas had contacts also with Ottoman intellectuals or officials, there is little evidence to substantiate this aspect. Nicholas concluded his Wallachian stay in 1763, which coincided with the end of Constantine Mavrokordatos’ reign. Having returned to Constantinople, he acquired yet another office at the Patriarchate (komisos kai logothetēs), which he held until 1769/70. His return allowed him to increasingly focus on enriching his own library, especially after he left the office, as he began to work extensively on his manuscripts for which he also received help from his son. Although he was by now elderly and had health issues, Nicholas invested an enormous amount of energy in compiling and commenting upon the material he gathered for many years, and, because of his efforts, he developed his own system of managing and ordering the texts. Among the Western intellectuals who have encountered him in his old age was the Swedish orientalist from Lund, Jacob Jonas Björnståhl (1731–79), who met Nicholas in June 1777 during his travels to the East. In his travelogue, Björnståhl stated that Nicholas was an “old Greek intellectual” (“Mr Nicolao Carazia, en gammal lård Grek”), who was well versed in Greek, Turkish and Greek history and literature, but had a poor command of Latin.17 According to the testimony of his son, Nicholas died on October 23, 1787, at 9 o’clock in the morning in Constantinople and was buried the next day in the Church of St Phocas of Ortaköy, the resting place of his family.18 His books joined the library of his son, Constantine, but after 1787 some of them were sold in Constantinople.19 Nicholas’ contribution to Greek intellectual history can be evaluated through the manuscripts he produced for his library that are scattered today in collections all over the world, from Yale and Princeton to Athens and Mount Athos via Paris, London and Vienna. Due to his antiquarian inclinations and bibliophile activity, he became an important agent of thesaurization of knowledge in the Greek Orthodox world.

est european (secolele XVIII–XIX) [Paisianism in South-Eastern European Cultural and Spiritual Context (18th–19th Centuries)], ed. Andrei Eșanu and Valentina Eșanu, Biblioteca Paisiană–Studii 1 (Iași: Doxologia, 2017). 17 J. J. Björnståhl, Resa til Frankirke, Italien, Sweitz, Tyskland, Holland, England, Turkiet och Grekland, vol. 5, ed. Carl Christof Gjörwell (Stockholm: Trykt hos And. Jac. Nordstróm, 1788), 60; Koutzakiotis, “Symplērōmatika,” 315. 18 Petre P. Panaitescu, “Un manuscris necunoscut al ‘Efemeridelor’ lui Constantin Caragea Banul” [An Unknown Manuscript of the Ephemerids of Ban Constantine Karatzas], Buletinul Comisiei Istorice a României 3 (1924): 115–71, here 114. 19 Papazoglou, Ho logios phanariōtēs, 136.

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3 A Summa Saracenica: Texts, Sources and Format During the early modern period, the European literati faced an increase in the amount of information and textual material that had to be organized in new meaningful formats that would serve specific erudite purposes. In this regard, they rapidly realized the heuristic use of large compendiums for preserving and transmitting knowledge.20 In the West, the Christian engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān benefited from encyclopedic approaches quite early on during the early modern period, especially with the advent of the Reformation and the rise of Oriental and Arabic Studies in Europe. In this regard, the first “encyclopedia” on Islam was authored by Theodor Bibliander (1509–64), who brought together the Corpus Toletanum and several other medieval and early modern authoritative texts in his Machumetis Saracenorum principis that was published first in 1543. It was later that the French Orientalist Barthélemy d’Herbelot de Molainville (1625–95) integrated various aspects of Muslim religion and culture through no less than 8.158 articles in his Bibliothèque Orientale, thus presenting knowledge about the Muslim world in a new format.21 This was not the case, however, with the Islam-related literature of the Orthodox Greek (or of the Eastern Christians in general), who did not produce a work of such ambitious cultural impact. Although consensus over a definition of “encyclopedism” in Greek Orthodox context is far from being reached, scholars detected encyclopedic trends in Greek literature since Byzantine times, in a culture labelled by Paolo Odorico as “cultura della syllogē” (i.e., collecting culture), and described by Paul Magdalino as “continually collecting, summarizing, excerpting and synthesizing earlier texts”.22 In this regard, Sarakēnika is representative of this collecting 20 Richard R. Yeo, “Lost Encyclopedias: Before and After the Enlightenment,” Book History 10 (2007): 47–68; Ann M. Blair, Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (New Haven–London: Yale University Press, 2010). 21 Theodor Bibliander, Machumetis Saracenorum principis eiusque successorum vitae ac doctrina ipseque Alcoran, 3 vols. (Basel: Johannes Oporin, 1543; second edition 1550); Barthélemy d’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, ou Dictionaire universel [. . .] sur toutes sortes de Sciences, d’Arts, et de Professions (Paris, 1697). See Hartmut Bobzin, Der Koran im Zeitalter der Reformation: Studien zur Frühgeschichte der Arabistik und Islamkunde in Europa, Beiruter Texte und Studien 42 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1995), 159–275; Alexander Bevilacqua, The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment (Cambridge, MA–London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018), 108–35. 22 Paul Magdalino, “Byzantine Encyclopaedism of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries,” in Encyclopedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance, ed. Jason König and Greg Woolf (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 219. For encyclopedic trends in Byzantium, see Paolo Odorico, “La cultura della συλλογή: 1) Il cosiddetto enciclopedismo bizantino; 2) Le tavole del sapere di Giovanni Damasceno,” BZ 83 (1990): 1–21 [republished in P. Odorico, Méthode et contexts dans la littérature byzantine: Recueil d’articles, ed. Ovidiu Olar and Andrei Timotin, Supplementa ‘Études Byzantines

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culture, but it differs from previous medieval and early modern “encyclopedic” approaches towards Islam and the Qur’ān produced in the Greek-speaking milieu, which mainly counted the Muslim religion only as a heresy and offered it a limited place of discussion in their anthologies and florilegia, whose purpose was to offer manuals of instruction about all antique and medieval heresies. This is the case, for instance, of the renowned theologian John of Damascus (c. 675/6–749), who discussed Islam in his On heresies, as part of his Fount of Knowledge, and Euthymios Zigabenos (fl. 1100), who included Islam in his Armor of Doctrines (Panoplia dogmatikē), a representative work for the genre of panoplia.23 In their turn, the scribes that compiled anti-Muslim polemical texts often dedicated entire codices to the topic. The criteria for ordering their material were not always evident nor were there traces to suggest that they pursued any “encyclopedic” approach to their compilations — most probably, the main purpose was to include authoritative refutations of Islam and not to produce comprehensive overviews of anti-Islamic polemics.24 In this respect, Sarakēnika is a unique endeavor into which its editor invested an impressive effort to collect the texts and order them in a meaningful way that is suggestive of the Orthodox Greek engagement with Islam and the Qur’ān throughout the centuries. Nicholas Karatzas compiled Sarakēnika late in his life, after he gathered all the texts for the final form of the codex. He did not note or reveal his name anywhere in the codex — most probably because he produced it for his own library — but the authorship can be rightfully assigned to him based on his unique scribal hand and the compilatory style he frequently employed, which is recognized today as et Post-Byzantines’ 4 (Heidelberg: Herlo Verlag, 2023), 119–50]; Peter van Deun and Caroline Macé, eds., Encyclopedic trends in Byzantium? (Leuven–Paris–Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2011). 23 P. Bonifatius Kotter, ed., Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol. 4: Liber de haeresibus: Opera polemica (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1981), 60–67; PG 130, cols. 20–1360. Daniel Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam: The “Heresy of the Ishmaelites” (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972); Antonio Rigo, “La Panoplie dogmatique d’Euthyme Zigabène: Les Pères de l’Église, l’empereur et les hérésies du present,” in Byzantine Theologians: The Systematization of Their Own Doctrine and Their Perception of Foreign Doctrines, ed. A. Rigo and P. Ermilov (Rome, 2009), 19–32. See also M. Ulbricht’s contribution in this volume. 24 See, for instance, Bucharest, Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR], MS Gr. 1300, a miscellany of polemical theology compiled on August 18, 1765, in Bucharest by a certain John Diamandi Dimarios of Ioannina that contains the Byzantine polemical works by John Kantakouzenos and chapter 28 of Zygabenos’ Panoplia; Mihai Caratașu, Catalogul manuscriselor grecești: BAR 1067–1350 [The Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts: BAR 1067–1350] (Bucharest, 2004), 313–5. See also Patmos, Monastery of St John the Theologian, MS Gr. 371 that features Kantakouzenos’ anti-Muslim works and other polemical texts; Ioannis Sakkelion, Patmiakē bibliothēkē ētoi anagraphē tōn en tē bibliothēkē tēs kata tēn nēson Patmou [The Library of Patmos, that is a List of the Books in the Library on the Island of Patmos] (Athens: Ek tou typographeiou Alexandrou Papageōrgiou, 1890), 167–8.

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his trademark. For compiling, Nicholas applied his own criteria of textual selection and excerpting, developing thus a unique style of information management. The internal fabric of his compilations shows that he arranged his texts according to topics, he created sections in which the compiled works received meaning, he provided his codices with tables of contents, lists of works, authors or rulers, and annotations that usually acted as references. Although the scribal hand is very legible and the codex displays no corrections, major abbreviations, ink stains or other scribal peculiarities, there is no indication that Nicholas intended it for print. In fact, Nicholas never published any of his codices, and it would have been particularly difficult to print such a repertoire of polemical texts given the Ottoman political context. For instance, the 1710 edition of the Armor of Doctrines of Zygabenos that was published in Târgoviște (Wallachia) by the renowned Metropolitan Antim of Iviria (c. 1650–1716) under the patronage of prince Constantin Brâncoveanu (r. 1688–1714), had chapter 28 about Islam removed from its contents.25 Nicholas produced Sarakēnika to satisfy his own bibliophile interests, but the ordering of contents is indicative of the larger Greek Orthodox anti-Muslim polemical repertoire.26 An important feature of Nicholas’ compilatory style is the introductory or explanatory excerpts he constantly placed around the main works. Their purpose was to introduce the texts and their authors, or to offer important information about dating, genre or context of production. Nicholas did not author these excerpts, but he rather turned to works he considered authoritative from which he excerpted the information he considered relevant for the text in question, which made excerpting his favorite method of selection.27 In this regard, he used chronicles, theological treatises, official documents, epistles or verses. But only two specific works were excerpted by Nicholas in all his codices with a higher frequency than others. The first is the Brief List of Greek Erudite (Epitetmēmenē eparithmēsis tōn kata ton parelthonta aiōna logion Graikōn, kai peri tinōn en tō nun aiōni anthountōn) by Dimitrios Prokopios (end of seventeenth–beginning of the eighteenth centuries), the former secretary of Nicholas Mavrokordatos, which Nicholas used in the bilingual Greek and Latin edition included in Bibliotheca Graeca by the German Classicist Johann

25 Euthymios Zygadenos, Panoplia dogmatikē [. . .] (Târgoviște, 1710); Nadia Miladinova, The Panoplia Dogmatike by Euthymios Zygadenos: A Study on the First Edition Published in Greek in 1710, Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity 4 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2014). 26 Malcolm Parkes, “The Influence of the Concepts of Ordinatio and Compilatio on the Development of the Book,” in Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to Richard William Hunt, ed. Jonathan J. G. Alexander and Margaret T. Gibson (Oxford, 1976), 115–41. 27 See Helmut Zedelmaier, “Excerpting/Commonplacing,” in Information: A Historical Companion, ed. Ann Blair et al. (Princeton, NJ–Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2021), 441–7.

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A. Fabricius (1668–1736).28 Most probably, Nicholas preferred this text as it mapped out the early modern Greek intellectuals in brief biographical entries. According to Björnståhl, Nicholas owned a copy of Bibliotheca Graeca in his library, but because of his poor command of Latin, he used it for the Greek text.29 The second work is the Ecclesiastical History (Ekklēsiastikē historia) of the Metropolitan of Athens Meletios [Michael Mitros] (1661–1714), a former professor of philosophy in Constantinople. It was composed between 1707 and 1713 and published posthumously in three volumes in Vienna.30 With a large circulation that can be observed through the numerous manuscripts and translations, it acquired a high degree of popularity among Eastern Christian audiences. Kostas Sarris argued that Meletios wrote a “non-confessional history” in an “attempt to re-organize the memory and the history of the Church of Constantinople in the early eighteenth century.”31 As such, it can be assumed that Nicholas turned towards this work to provide his compilations with excerpts about people and works connected to the Church history, as it offered him a reliable reference instrument for his compilations. It is not known if Nicholas owned a private manuscript copy of Meletios’ History. It is possible that he used the complete copy that was kept in the Library of the Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre of Constantinople, which was also used by Polyzois Labanitziotis (c. 1720–99), the publisher of Meletios, for the Viennese edition.32 However, Nicholas used a manuscript and not the printed edition since

28 Dimitrios Prokopios Pamperis, “Epitetmēmenē eparithmēsis tōn kata ton parelthonta aiōna logion Graikōn, kai peri tinōn en tō nun aiōni anthountōn; Succinta Eruditorum Græcorum superioris et præsentis sæculi recensio, conscripta mense Junio A.C. MDCCXX transmissaque Bucuresto, et nunc primum edita, cum Latina versione,” in Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. 11, ed. Johann A. Fabricius (Hamburg, 1722) [hereafter Prokopios, List of Greek Erudite]. It was Nicholas Mavrokordatos who sent Prokopios’ text to Fabricius for publishing. See Copenhagen, Royal Library, MS Fabr. 52,4°, which entered the collections along with other books and manuscripts that belonged to Fabricius (Bjarne Schartau, Codices Graeci Haunienses: Ein deskriptiver Katalog des griechischen Handschriftenbestandes der Königlichen Bibliothek Kopenhagen [Copenhagen, 1994], 512). On Fabricius, see Erik Petersen, Johann Albert Fabricius: En Humanist i Europa, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1998). 29 Björnståhl, Resa, 315. 30 Meletios of Athens, Ekklēsiastikē historia Meletiou Mētropolitou Athēnōn [. . .] Nun proton typois ekdotheisa di’ epistasias, kai akribous epimeleias Polyzōē Lampanitziōtē tou ex Iōanninōn, 3 vols. (Vienna, 1783–4) [hereafter Meletios, History]. 31 See Kostas Sarris, “Composing and Publishing a Non-Confessional History in the Age of Greek-Orthodox Confessions: The Ecclesiastical History by Meletios of Athens,” in Livres et confessions chrétiennes orientales: Une histoire connectée entre l’Empire ottoman, le monde slave et l’Occident (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles), ed. Aurélien Girard, Vassa Kontouma, Bernard Heyberger, Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études–Sciences religieuses 197 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023), 347–80, here 379. 32 The copy used by Labanitziotis is lost, and the Library of the Metochion of the Holy Sepulcher hosts today only an incomplete manuscript of Meletios’ History. See Athens, Metochion of the Holy

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the publication of Meletios’ History took place after his death. This is also clear from his referencing method. Generally, whenever Nicholas references an excerpt from a manuscript (the case of Meletios), he writes the chapter and paragraph in Greek numbers, but when referencing a printed edition (the case of Prokopios), he refers to the page number(s) of the edition in Arabic figures, which also applies to Sarakēnika. With the purpose of providing Sarakēnika with basic information about Christian labelling of Islam, the Muslim calendar, and Christian polemical writings, Nicholas prefaced his codex with an introduction that he assembled from a combination of introductory excerpts, to which he added a list of works and a table of contents. It begins with a group of excerpts, entitled Notes on the Saracens (Aposēmeiōseis peri tōn Sarakēnon, fol. 2r–v) that contains eight paragraphs intended to describe the Christian classification of Muslims based on the well-known episode from Genesis 21:9–21 about Hagar, the servant of Abraham, and her son Ishmael. In the margins there are four glosses added in a different ink, probably at a later stage, that act as references for these excerpts. While for two of them Nicholas writes the phrase “from manuscript” (apo cheirographou), which indicates that he used a certain manuscript, the other two read: 1) “From Seviros, Seira, vol. 1, From Genesis, ch. 25, §13” [Sebērou, Seira, proton, eis tēn Genean, keph⟨alaiō⟩ keʹ, edaph⟨iō⟩ igʹ], which is a reference to the first volume of Nicephoros Theotokis’ edition published in Leipzig in 1722, a book that Nicholas had in his library; and 2) Theophylaktos of Simocatta from Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. 9, 295 [Theophylakt⟨os⟩ Simok⟨attēs⟩ para Phabr⟨ikios⟩ Biblioth⟨ēka⟩ Hell⟨ēnika⟩, tom⟨os⟩ 9, sel⟨ides⟩ 295].33 Further, Nicholas included two more excerpts. The first is from the Interpretation of the Syntaxis of Persians by the Byzantine astronomer George Chrysokokkes (c. 1335–50) that details About the Age of the Turks (Peri tēs epochēs tōn Tourkōn, fol. 3r). Extracted from Meletios’ History, the second discusses the Muslim calendar (fol. 3r).34 The introduction is followed by a list of the Greek anti-Muslim works, refutations and dialogues with Muslims, that have been produced until Nicholas’ own times (fols. 4r–6r). In his attempt to deliver a diachronic perspective over the entire Sepulcher [ΜΠΤ], MS Gr. 225; A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Hierosolymitikē bibliothēkē, ētoi Katalogos tōn en tais bibliothēkais tou hagiōtatou apostolikou te kai katholikou orthodoxou patriarchou thronou tōn Hierosolymōn kai pasēs Palaistinēs apokeimenōn hellēnikōn kōdikōn [The Library of Jerusalem, that is the Catalogue of the Greek Codices Preserved in the Libraries of the Holy Apostolic and Universal Seat of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Entire Palestine], vol. 4 (St. Petersburg, 1899), 193. 33 Nicephoros Theotokis, Seira henos kai pentēkonta hypomnēmatistōn eis tēn oktateuchon kai ta tōn Basileiōn, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1772), 308; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, 295. 34 David Pingree and John Scarborough, “Chrysokokkes, George,” in ODB, vol. 1, 453–4; Meletios, History, vol. 2, 155.

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body of Greek anti-Islamic works, Nicholas arranges the titles chronologically (with their years of production in Arabic script on the left side of the titles), beginning with John of Damascus (750) and ending with a seventeenth-century text about Mecca and Medina by a certain George Byzantios Bozantzoglou (c. 1700). However, Nicholas creates a second section to the list that he dedicates to Byzantine and early modern Greek chronicles (fol. 5v–6r), which narrate the emergence of Muḥammad (e.g., George Kedrenos, John Skylitzes, John Zonaras). The second part of this list was not completed, as he continues to note on fol. 6r the titles and authors of other chronicles he omitted to place at the right place (e.g., Matthew Kigalas, Giovanni Sagredo, or Nektarios of Jerusalem). Noteworthy is that he provides detailed information about their transmission. For instance, for Riccoldo da Montecroce’s (1243– 1320) Contra legem sarracenorum, Nicholas states: 1210 — The Florentine Riccoldo, Dominican Friar from the Catholic order called the Preacher Brothers, who flourished in the year 1210 after Christ according to John Kantakouzenos, and in 1295 according to Daniel de Nessel, wrote his refutation against the cursed Muḥammad, the founder of the law of the Saracens, namely the Alcoran; it was translated from the Latin language into Greek by Demetrios Kydones, and printed in Greek and Latin in Basel in 1543. Nessel, Cat. Bibl., p. 363. 1210 — Rikardos phlōrentinos monachos dominikanos ek tou tagmatos tōn para latinois kaloumenōn adelphōn praidikatorōn, hos ēkmaze kata men Iōannēn ton Kantakouzēnon peri ta 1210 etē apo Christou, kai Daniēl ton Nessel peri ta 1295, egrapsen anaskeuēn tēs para tou kataratou Machoumeth tois Sarakēnois tetheisēs nomothesias, ētoi tou Alkoranou, metenechtheisan ek tēs latinikēs dialektou eis tēn hellada dia Dēmētriou tou Kydōnē, kai typōtheisan graikolatinisti Basileia 1543. Nessel, Kat. Bibl., sel. 363.

It can be observed from this that Nicholas was informed about the works he compiled. Using the catalogue of Greek manuscripts from the Viennese Imperial Library by Daniel de Nessel (1644–99), Nicholas provided Sarakēnika with information about the transmission of texts in medieval and early modern Europe.35 Although he mentions in this note Bibliander’s Basel edition it is not clear if he had a copy of it in his library or if he used exclusively what he learned from de Nessel’s catalogue. The table of contents Nicholas offers after this list is very suggestive concerning his intentions for organizing the codex (fol. 7r–v). According to it, Nicholas compiled 24 main works divided into three sections, but as I will argue below, there are, in fact, 29 texts. Moreover, it shows that Nicholas operated a tripartite division of the contents: 1) works on the biography of Muḥammad and the rise of Islam

35 Daniel de Nessel, Breviarium et supplementum commentariorum Lambecianorum, sive catalogus, aut recensio specialis omnium codicum manuscriptorum graecorum, nec non linguarum orientalium, augustussimae Bibliothecae Caesareae Vindobonensis (Vienna, 1690).

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(Biographia, ētoi peri tou biou kai tēs haireseōs autou); 2) refutations against the Qur’ān (Antirrēseis eis ta nomothetēthenta hyp’ autou, ētoi kata tou Alkoranou); and 3) dialogues with Muslims (Dialexeis meta Sarakēnōn).36 For the first part of Sarakēnika, Nicholas compiled historical accounts about Prophet Muḥammad’s life and the rise of Islam. He begins with an excerpt from the chronicle of Pseudo-Georgios Sphrantzes, which discusses the numbering of years from Adam until the fall of Constantinople and other information about the genealogy of Muḥammad (fols. 12r–13v). Nicholas was not aware at the time that he excerpted in fact from the Chronicon maius of Metropolitan of Monemvasia Makarios Melissenos (fl. 1570) that circulated as the authentic chronicle of Sphrantzes, being later denounced as a false by modern scholarship.37 Five other chronologically-arranged excerpts follow about Prophet Muḥammad extracted from very popular early modern Greek chronicles printed in Venice: 1) (fol. 17r–v) the Book of Histories of Pseudo-Dorotheos of Monemvasia (fl. sixteenth century); 2) (fols. 17v–18v) the New Synopsis of the Cypriot Matthew Kigalas (1580–1640); 3) (fols. 19r–20r) the Compendium of Sacred-Secular History of the Patriarch of Jerusalem Nektarios (1602–76); 4) (fols. 21r–22r) a translation into Greek by the prince of Wallachia Nicholas Karatzas (r. January 15, 1782–July 17, 1783) of a fragment from the French edition of Memorie istoriche of the Venetian Giovanni Sagredo (1616–82); 5) (fols. 24r–26r) the History of Meletios.38 Nicholas compiled these excerpts from

36 Fol. 8r–v was damaged and inserted at a later stage. The recto side contains the same list of Greek chronicles as fol. 6r, while on the verso it presents 11 lines in which Nicholas speaks about Filioque, one of the main differences between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church. 37 Georgios Sphrantzes, Memorii (1401–1477): În anexă Pseudo-Phrantzes: Macarie Melissenos, Cronica (1258–1481), ed. Vasile Grecu, Scriptores byzantini 5 (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1966), 436–8, 444–6; Franz Dölger, “Ein literarischer und diplomatischer Fälscher des 16. Jahrhunderts: Metropolit Makarios von Monembasia,” in Otto Glauning zum 60. Geburtstag: Festausgabe aus Wissenschaft und Bibliothek, vol. 1, ed. H. Schreiber (Leipzig, 1936), 25–35. The fragment is preceded by two introductory excerpts (fol. 11r–v) about the author and his chronicle from the History of Meletios (History, vol. 3, 310–11). 38 Dorotheos of Monemvasia, Biblion historikon: Periechon en synopsei diaphorous kai exochous historias (Venice, 1631), 365–6 [Radu G. Păun, “Pseudo-Dorotheos of Monemvasia,” in CMR, vol. 10, 174–84]; Matthew Kigalas, Nea synopsis diaphorōn historian archomenē apo ktiseos kosmou kai lēgousa heōs tē nun echronia (Venice, 1637), 420–1 [Paschalis Kitromilides and Ioannis Kyriakantonakis, “Matthaios Kigalas,” in CMR, vol. 10, 200–8]; Nektarios of Jerusalem, Epitomē tēs hierokosmikēs historias, eis pente meristheisa tmēmata (Venice, 1677), 267–8 [Kostas Sarris, “Nektarios of Jerusalem,” in CMR, vol. 10, 308–18]; Giovanni Sagredo, Memorie istoriche de Monarchi Ottomani (Venice, 1679), and Sagredo, Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, trad. M. Laurent, vol. 1 (Paris, 1730), 7–11) [Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, “The Grand Dragoman and the Bibliophile: Thoughts on an Unknown Fragment from the Greek Translation of Memorie istoriche de’ monarchi ottomani,” RESEE

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editions he most probably owned in his library as they circulated widely in the Greek-speaking world. The first text Nicholas offers in full is an anonymous work entitled History of the Birth and Upbringing of Muḥammad (Historia tēs gennēseōs kai anatrophēs tou Mōameth; fols. 29r–63v).39 Besides Sarakēnika, this is preserved only in one more manuscript copy, Athens, National Museum of History, MS Gr. 71, fols. 53r–105v, which indicates that Nicholas must have consulted it for his codex. The text offers an account on Muḥammad’s biography, the production of the Qur’ān and the Turkish rule. Although the authorship of the text is still considered anonymous, an autograph note placed by Nicholas on fol. 29r brings new information: In the year 1663, under sultan Mehmet IV, this author was in the service of the Ottomans, being the same person as lord Panagiotakis, the dragoman of the Sublime Porte. Ho parōn syggrapheus ēn kata to ͵achxgʹ eto⟨us⟩ epi tou tetartou dʹ soultan Mechmetē, eis hypēresian tōn othōmanōn, hōs ho autos sēmeioi kyrios ho Panagiōtakēs hermēneus tēs krataias basileias.

This important reference assigns the authorship of the treatise to Panagiotis Nikousios (1613–73), the Greek grand dragoman of the Ottoman Porte, an influential figure in the ecclesiastical affairs of the early modern Orthodox world. Moreover, the choice of including this work after the excerpts from the Greek chronicles was well considered by Nicholas, since its last part dives into apocalyptical discussions concerning the Turkish rule, which allowed for a swift transition to the subsequent excerpts included in the codex. As such, the first of these is a note from a manuscript that belonged to the library of John Karyophyllis (fol. 64r), which contains an apocalyptical explanation about the end of times, the Antichrist, and the Turks. Its numerological calculations are for the year 1688 and take as a starting

(2024): 223–35; editio princeps of the fragment]; Meletios, History, vol. 2, 154–7 [this is preceded by an excerpt from Prokopios about Meletios; Prokopios, List of Greek Erudite, 784]. 39 Partially edited in Armand Delatte, “Extraits d’un Pamphlet contre Mahomet,” in Anecdota Atheniensia, vol. 1: Textes grecs inédits relatifs à l’histoire des religions, Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l’Université de Liège 36 (Liège–Paris, 1927), 333–57. For discussions, see Alexandros Kariotoglou, Islam kai christianikē chrēsmologia [Islam and the Christian Oracular Literature] (Athens: Armos, 2000), 120–2; Astérios Argyriou, “O kōdikas ar. 71 tēs Istorikēs kai Ethnologikēs Etaireias Athēnōn: Mia ‘Istoria tou Mōameth’ se mia prospatheia merikēs ermēneias tēs Apokalypseōs tou Iōannē” [The Codex 71 of the Museum of History and Ethnology in Athens: A ‘History of Muḥammad’ as an Attempt to Interpret the Apocalypse of John], Deltio Biblikōn Meletōn 29B (2011): 131–72. It should be noted that this work is preceded by notes concerning the calculations of years from the biography of Muḥammad based on information provided by Greek chronicles, which are followed by a table of sixteen lines and four columns on his successors (Diadochoi tou Mōameth), which count the years, months and days they ruled (fol. 27r–v).

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point the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Phokas (547–610).40 The next excerpt is chapter 41 of the Treatise on Muḥammad and against the Latins (fol. 64v) by the Greek monk Anastasios Gordios (1654/5–1729), one of the most circulated texts of its genre among Orthodox audiences, which describes the Muslim kingdoms and discusses the number of years they will rule over the world.41 The last excerpt (fol. 64v) is from an unnamed work by Patriarch of Constantinople Dionysios IV (multiple offices between 1671 to 1694). After these, Nicholas turns his attention to the Muslim holy places through four works. The first is a hitherto unknown text entitled On Mecca and Medina, the famous cities of Muḥammad (Peri tēs Mekkas kai Medinēs tōn diasēmōn poleōn tou Mōameth; fols. 65r–72v) by a certain George Byzantios Bozantzoglou.42 This is followed by an excerpt about the Kaaba from the Compendium of Sacred-Secular History of Nektarios of Jerusalem (fol. 73r),43 and another from the Geography of Meletios of Athens describing Mecca and Medina (f. 73v; most probably Nicholas owned a copy of this edition).44 This first part of Sarakēnika concludes with another

40 The calculations for this year might be based on Protestant exegetical works. During the early modern times, there are other cases of Protestant influences in the Greek apocalyptical interpretations. For instance, Germanos Lokros (1645–1700), a pen pal of Karyophyllis, translated himself Calvinist apocalyptical treatises, while another text similar to the one from Sarakēnika, written by a certain abbot Jacob and preserved in a manuscript from the Koutloumousios Monastery of Mt Athos, has been adapted and updated for the year 1745. See K. Zisios, “Ereuna kai meletē tōn en Makedonia christianikōn mnēmeiōn” [Research and Study of the Christian Monuments in Macedonia], in Praktika tēs en Athēnais Archaiologikēs Hetaireias tou etous 1913 [Proceedings of the Athens Archaeological Society for the Year 1913], ed. B. Konstantinos (Athens, 1914), 119–250, here 232. 41 Anastasios Gordios, Anastasios Gordios (1654/5–1729): Sur Mahomet et contre les Latins, ed. Astérios Argyriou, Hetaireia Stereoelladikōn Meletōn–Keimena kai Meletai 3 (Athens, 1983), 46–47. See Astérios Argyriou, Les exégèses grecques de l’Apocalypse à l’époque turque (1453–1821): Esquisse d’une histoire des courants idéologiques au sein du peuple grec asservi, Hetaireia Makedonikōn Spoudōn–Seira Philologikē kai Theologikē 15 (Thessaloniki, 1982), 305–54; Astérios Argyriou and Chariton Karanassios, “Anastasios Gordios,” in CMR, vol. 14, 298–303. 42 Under this title Nicholas combined two treatises by Bozantzoglou: 1) On Mecca and Medina (Peri tēs Mekkas kai Medinēs; fols. 65r–71v); and 2) About the Causes why the Ishmaelites Honor and Worship Medina and Mecca, and about Their Pilgrimage (Peri tōn aition, di’ hōn hoi Ismaēliai timōsi kai proskynousi tēn Medinan, kai Mekkan kai ta en aut’ alla proskynēmata; fols. 72r–72v). To my knowledge Sarakēnika is the only known codex that preserve these texts. The only information we have on the author is the epithet “Bozantzoglou,” his Constantinopolitan origin (“Byzantios”), and his family relation (son-in-law) to a certain rhetor Photios. I am working on publishing the editio princeps of these treatises. 43 Nektarios, Epitomē, 411–12. 44 Meletios of Athens, Geōgraphia palaia kai nea (Venice, 1728), 518. See Konstantinos Kyriakopoulos, “Meletios (Mētros) Athēnōn ho geōgraphos (1661–1714): Symbolē stē meletē tou biou kai tou ergou tou kai genikotera tēs epochēs tou Thrēskeutikou Houmanismou” [Meletios (Mitros) of Ath-

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text offered in full designed to offer information about the status of Christian communities under Islam, which is in fact a translation into Greek of the famous Covenant of Muḥammad (Diathēkēs tou Mōameth, fols. 75r–80v) by the Patriarch Sophronios V of Jerusalem (1771–5) and II of Constantinople (1775–80). Nicholas offered information about the translator in a marginal note (fol. 75r): Translated from Arabic into simple Greek by Sophronios, Metropolitan of Ptolemais in 1750, and, subsequently, Patriarch of Jerusalem and Constantinople, who died in office on Wednesday, October 8, 1780. Metephrastē kata lexin ek tou arabikou eis tēn haplēn tōn rhōmaiōn dialekton pra Sōphroniou mētropolitou Ptolemaidos en etei ͵apsnʹ, kai meta toutōn P⟨at⟩riarchou Hi⟨eroso⟩lymōn, kai K⟨ōnstaninoupo⟩leōs, tou teleutēsantos eis ton thronon autou en etei ͵apspʹ, oktōbriou kʹ, hēmera eʹ.

This translation is preserved today only in Nicholas’ codex, and it is unknown how he had access to the text. It is very possible that he received it from Sophronios himself. A textual analysis of this translation has shown recently that Sophronios translated a specific version of the Covenant of Muḥammad with the Christians of the World preserved in a manuscript from the archives of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem inscribed by Burhān al-Dīn al-Shāfiʿī.45 The second part of Sarakēnika contains six theological refutations of Islam and the Qur’ān. In this section, Nicholas arranged the refutations according to their degree of authority and circulation in the Greek-speaking milieu, for which a solid proof are the introductory excerpts or works he placed around the main texts. The first refutation is the translation into Greek of Contra legem Sarracenorum by Riccoldo da Monte di Croce, produced in Byzantium by the erudite Demetrios Kydones (1324–98) (fols. 85r–127v).46 This is preceded by no less than eleven excerpts that discuss either Riccoldo, the original author of the work, Kydones, its translator into Greek, or theological aspects of the differences between the Eastern and Western Church: 1) excerpt from the first Discourse against Muḥammad by John Kantakouzenos, in which he talks about Riccoldo as source for his own anti-Islamic works

ens the Geographer (1661–1714): Contribution to the Study of His Life and Work and Generally to the Period of Religious Humanism] (Ph.D. Thesis, Athens: Kapodistrian University of Athens, 1988). 45 For Sophronios, see Joseph Nasrallah (with Rachid Haddad), Histoire du mouvement littéraire dans l’Église Melchite du Ve au XXe siècle: Contribution à l’étude de la literature arabe chrétienne, vol. 4/2: Époque Ottomane: 1724–1800 (Louvain: Peeters, 1989), 95–99. For the editio princeps and a discussion, see Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, “Preliminaries on an Unknown Greek Translation of the Covenant of Muḥammad by Sophronios of Kilis,” Scrinium 19 (2023): 49–69. 46 There is no modern edition of Kydones’ translation. The standard edition is still in PG, vol. 154, cols. 1037–70. See Franz Tinnefeld, “Demetrius Cydones,” in CMR, vol. 5, 239–49.

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(fol. 82r), which alludes to the authority of Riccoldo’s work among Greek polemists; 2) excerpt from the History of Meletios about Kydones (fol. 82r); 3) excerpt from the Introduction to the anti-Catholic compilation Tome of Love by the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem Dositheos II (1669–1707) (fol. 82v); 4) two excerpts from the History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem by the same Dositheos (fol. 82v) about Kydones and his pro-Catholic beliefs; 5) two excerpts from a refutation on Purgatory against Thomas Aquinas’ treatise about the Purgatory by Matthaios Angelos Panaretos (fl. 1350–60) (fol. 83r), which speaks about Kydones as translator of Aquinas; 6) excerpt from the History and Geography of Meletios (fol. 83r); and 7) verses belonging to an anti-Catholic refutation by Adamantios Rusios that polemicizes against Kydones’ Discourse about death (fol. 83v).47 Based on the form in which the Greek text of Kydones’ translation was compiled, it is tempting to suggest that he followed the Bibliander edition, but, unfortunately, Nicholas provides no additional information to substantiate this. After Kydones’ translation, Nicholas adds another text assigned to Riccoldo (fols. 127v–133v) in Bibliander’s edition, which he separates from the text of the translation exactly as in Machumetis. The next refutation is the anonymous formula of abjuration of Islam (fols. 134r–136r), which was well-known due to its usage in the ritual for the Muslim converts to Christianity from Byzantine times onwards. It is preserved in many manuscript copies and translations, containing anathemas that reject Muḥammad and his successors, as well as the Qur’ān and its teachings.48 It is very possible that Nicholas rendered the text according to the Greek and Latin edition of Saracenica sive moamethica by the German Philologist Friedrich Sylburg (1536–96), but a marginal note (fol. 134r) — that is possible only a cross-reference — indicates de Nessel’s catalogue and the manuscript Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS Theol. Gr. 306, fols. 24v–27r, which contains the Abjuratio.49

47 For these excerpts, see Johannes Kantakuzenos, Christentum und Islam: Apologetische und polemische Schriften, ed. Karl Förstel, Corpus Islamo-Christianum–Series Graeca 6 (Altenberge: Oros Verlag, 2005), 258; Meletios, History, vol. 3, 176; Dositheos, Tomos agapēs (Iași, 1698), 13; Dositheos, Historia peri tōn en Hierosolymois patriarcheusantōn (Bucharest, 1715), 856, 862; A. Demetrakopoulos, ed., Orthodoxos Hellas (Leipzig, 1872), 48–49 [Dositheos attempted to publish Panaretos’ work, but the initiative was abandoned; see Marcus Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 109–10]; Meletios, History, vol. 3, 217; Meletios, Geōgraphia, 392; Adamantios Rusios, Latinōn thrēskeias elegchoi 36, kai tis ho hekastou logos (Venice, 1748), 98–99. 48 Edouard L. Montet, “Un rituel d’abjuration des Musulmans dans l’Église grecque,” Revue de l’histoire des religions 53 (1906): 145–63 (partial edition). For discussions, see Antonio Rigo, “Ritual of Abjuration,” in CMR, vol. 1, 821–24. 49 Friedrich Sylburg, Saracenica sive Moamethica (Hamburg, 1595), 74–91; Antonio Rigo, “Saracenica di Friedrich Sylburg (1595): Una raccolta di opera byzantine contro l’Islam,” in I Padri sotto il torchio: Le edizioni dell’antichità Cristiana nei secoli XV–XVI, ed. Mariarosa Cortesi (Florence:

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The third and fourth refutations should be considered together as they represent the anti-Islamic polemical corpus of the former Byzantine Emperor and Monk John Joasaph Kantakouzenos (c. 1295–1383). First, Nicholas copied the Byzantine original version of the Four Discourses against Muḥammad (fols. 155r–192r), without including the Four Apologies that usually accompany these in manuscript culture.50 It follows the entire corpus of Kantakouzenos’ anti-Islamic polemical works (fol. 200r–344v) in the recension of the Cretan theologian Meletios Syrigos (1585–1663), who translated them into vernacular Greek around 1635.51 But the Four Discourses are preceded by no less than nine texts. It begins with the full text of the Life of John Kantakouzenos (fol. 141r–148r) by the Greek erudite and medic John Hierotheos Komnenos (1657–1719), which is itself introduced by two excerpts (fol. 140r–v).52 Nicholas offers two very similar versions for the Life’s title, and only the first mentions the place of production (Bucharest) and the date (April, 1679, during the reign of Constantin Brâncoveanu). The Life is followed by an excerpt from the History of Dositheos that contains the text of a letter received by Kantakouzenos from the Mamluk Sultan al-Nāṣir Hasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Qalawun (1334/5–61); Dositheos himself took the text of the letter from the History of John Kantakouzenos.53

Sismel, 2002), 298–310, here 307–10. De Nessel, Breviarium et supplementum, 415; Herbert Hunger et al., eds., Katalog der griechischen Handschriften der österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, vol. 3/3: Codices theologici 201–337 (Vienna, 1992), 375. 50 Kantakuzenos, Christentum und Islam, pp. 235–368 (Greek text and German translation); Klaus-Peter Todt, Kaiser Johannes VI. Kantakouzenos und der Islam: Politische Realität und theologische Polemik im palaiologenzeitlichen Byzanz (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1991); Klaus-Peter Todt, “John VI Cantacuzenus,” in CMR, vol. 5, pp. 165–78. 51 There is no modern edition of Syrigos’ recension. On Syrigos, see Gerhard Podskalsky, Griechische Theologie in der Zeit der Türkenherrschaft, 1453–1821: Die Orthodoxie im Spannungsfeld der nachreformatorischen Konfessionen des Westens (München: C. H. Beck, 1988), 207–13. 52 Edition in Anesti Keselopoulos, ed., “Bios tou autokratoros Iōannou STʹ tou Kantakouzēnou (e Iōasaph monachou) (1295–1383)” [The Life of the Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (Joasaph the Monk) (1295–1383)], Theologia 46 (1975): 573–610. For discussions, see Edmond Voordeckers-Gent, “La Vie de Jean Cantacuzène par Jean-Hiérothée Comnène,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 20 (1971): 163–9; Donald M. Nicol, “The Doctor-Philosopher John Comnen of Bucharest and His Biography of the Emperor John Kantakouzenos,” RESEE 9 (1971): 511–26. For the first excerpt, see Prokopios, List of Greek Erudite, 785. The second excerpt is a series of verses by Komnenos in honor of stolnik Cantacuzino, with whom he produced a Map of Wallachia (Index geographicus celsissimi principatus Wallachiae) between 1694 and 1699; see Alexandru Ionuț Cruceru, “The Map of Wallachia Published in Padua in 1700: Production, Content and Early Use,” RESEE 60, no. 1–4 (2022), 97–123. 53 Dositheos, Historia, 865; and L. Schopen and B. Niehbur, Ioannis Cantacuzeni eximperatoris historiarum libri IV, vol. 3 (Bonn 1832), 94–99. Savvas Kyriakidis, “The Letter of the Mamluk Sultan al-

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The excerpts following these two larger introductory texts are: 1) excerpt from the New Synopsis of Matthew Kigalas (fol. 151r); 2) excerpt from the Introduction to the Tome of Love by Dositheos (fol. 151r); 3) excerpt from an encomium to stolnik Constantine Cantacuzino (fol. 151v); 4) verses by the Byzantine poet Manuel Philes (fol. 152r–152v); 5) excerpt from a work by Simon Atoumanos (1366–80) (fol. 154r); 6) an excerpt from the History of Meletios (fol. 158v); and 7) an excerpt from the Dedicatory letter by Dositheos to Brâncoveanu.54 After the full text of the discourses, Nicholas includes also a brief list of titles of Kantakouzenos’ polemical works and a colophon (fol. 192v). The recension by Meletios Syrigos bears the following title (fol. 200r): 1 December 1635 in Moldo-Wallachia. This book was composed in Greek by our Christ-loving emperor, lord John Kantakouzenos, who took the tonsure of the holy and angelic habit with the name Joasaph in the year 1360 from the Incarnation, translated into the common language by Meletios Syrigos at the request of the most-wise and most-pious ruler of the entire Moldo-Wallachia, lord Ioan Vasile [Lupu, 1595–1661] voivode. ͵achleʹ dekembriou prōtē eis Moldoblachian. To paron biblion esunthesen eis hellēnikē glōttan ho philochristos basileus hēmōn kyrios Iōannēs Kantakouzēnos, hopou hysteron ōnomasthēke dia tou theiou kai aggelikou schēmatos Iōasaph monachos, eis tous ͵atxʹ chronous apo tēn ensarkon oikonomian, metefrasthē de eis koinēn glōttan hypo Meletiou tou Syrigou me parakinēsin tou elamprotatou, kai theosebestatou authentos pasēs Moldoblachias kyriou Iōannou Basileiou boeboda. Nāṣir Hasan to the Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (30 October 1349),” Proceedings Ekklesiastikos Pharos 1 (2014): 144–53. 54 For these excerpts, see Kigalas, Nea synopsis, 414; Dositheos, Tomos Agapēs, 88. The verses by Philes are not yet published, and Manuel Gedeon stated that there are verses by him which were part of a larger collection of his poetry that was compiled by Nicholas sometime around 1780; Gedeon states that Nicholas acquired the manuscript and offered it to the library of George Mavrokordatos, son of the prince Nicholas Mavrokordatos, and indicates as a source the manuscript from the Athens, Metochion of the Holy Sepulcher [ΜΠΤ], MS Gr. 351; Manuel Gedeon, “Manouēl tou Philē historika poiēmata” [Manuel Philes’ Historical Poems], Ekklēsiastikē Alētheia 3 (1882–3): 215; G. Papazoglou, “Ho kōdikas Metochiou 351 kai ta poiēmata tou Manouēl Philē” [The Codex Metochion 351 and the Poems of Manuel Philes], Klēronomia 17 (1985): 176–86. The verses by Simon are usually incorporated in the manuscripts containing Kantakouzenos’ polemical works; for an edition, see J. Quétif and J. Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum, vol. 1 (Paris, 1719), 737; for a discussion, see Marco Fanelli, “Polemisti antislamici in cerca d’autore: Riccoldo da Monte di Croce, Demetrio Cidone e Giovanni VI Cantacuzeno,” in Translation Activity in the Late Byzantine World: Contexts, Authors, and Texts, ed. Panagiotis Athanasopoulos, Byzantinisches Archiv–Series Philosophica 4 (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2022), 263–309, here 288–96. Meletios, History, vol. 3, 216. For the Dedicatory letter, see Tou makaritou Meletiou Syrigou didaskalon te kai prōtosyggelon tēs en Kōnstantiou polei Megalēs Ekklēsias, kata tōn kalbinikōn kephalaiōn, kai herōtēseōn Kyrillou tou Loukareōs antirrēsis kai Dositheou patriarchou Hierosolymōn Egcheiridion kata tēs kalbinikēs phrenoblasbeias (Bucharest, 1690), unpaginated (see I. Bianu and N. Hodoș, eds., Bibliografia Românéscă Veche, 1508–1830 [The Old Romanian Bibliography, 1508–1830], vol. 1: 1508–1716 [Bucharest: Socec, 1903], 301–7).

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This title is found in many manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth century of Syrigos’ recension, such as Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF] MS Gr. 1243Α, and Mt Athos, Great Lavra, MS Gr. I 35 (Efstratiadis 1119), but it is very possible that Nicholas used Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS Suppl. Gr. 22 that was copied by Michael Byzantios in 1700 (Bucharest) and belonged to the stolnik Constantine Catacuzino (1639–1716), since Nicholas used books from this Wallachian humanist’s library that were still in Bucharest when he moved there.55 In its turn, Syrigos’ recension is preceded in Sarakēnika only by three texts that concern the authorship of the Cretan theologian: 1) the full text of Syrigos’ Life by Dositheos of Jerusalem, which was placed as a preface to the anti-Calvinistic work sponsored by prince Brâncoveanu (fols. 197v–198r) because of Meletios’ confessional activities; and 2) two excerpts from the History of Meletios and Prokopios’ List of Greek Erudite (fol. 198v).56 The multitude of texts that gravitate around Kantakouzenos’ texts is indicative that this corpus constitutes the core of Sarakēnika. Moreover, its textual authority is evidenced by the many manuscripts through which it circulated between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries. So far there are 47 attested Greek manuscripts of both the Byzantine version and Syrigos’ recension until the nineteenth century, along with a fifteenth-century translation into Slavonic, and one into Romanian dated ante 1699.57 The next refutation Nicholas includes is On the Religion of Muḥammad and against the Turks (fols. 347r–384v) by the Cretan Metropolitan of Philadelphia Gerasimos Vlachos (1607–85).58 The addition of Vlachos’ treatise in Sarakēnika is even more remarkable as this refutation is known to survive in a single seventeenth-century 55 See Corneliu Dima-Drăgan, Biblioteca unui umanist român: Constantin Cantacuzino Stolnicul [The Library of a Romanian Humanist: The Stolnik Constantine Cantacuzino] (Bucharest: Comitetul de Stat pentru Cultură și Artă, 1967), 200–1; Herbert Hunger et al., eds., Katalog der griechischen Handschriften der österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, vol. 4: Supplementum graecum (Vienna, 1992), 44–46. 56 Dositheos, “Bios Meletiou tou Syrigou,” in Tou makaritou Meletiou Syrigou, unpaginated (Bianu and Hodoș, Bibliografia, 311–13); Meletios, History, vol. 3, 451n.αʹ; and Prokopios, List of Greek Erudite, 777. 57 Manchester, John Rylands, Moses Gaster collection, MS 2082; see C. J. G. Turner, “A Slavic Version of John Cantacuzenus’s Against Islam,” Slavonic and East European Review 51, no. 122 (1973): 113–17; Zofia A. Brzozowska, Mirosław J. Leszka and Teresa Wolińska, Muhammad and the Origin of Islam in the Byzantine-Slavic Literary Context: A Bibliographical History, trans. Katarzyna Gucio and Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi, Byzantina Lodziensia 41 (Lodz: Lodz University Press, 2020), 312–16. For the Romanian translation, see Virgil Cândea, “Une version roumaine du XVIIe siècle de l’Apologie contre Mahomet de Jean Cantacuzène,” RESEE 4, no. 1–2 (1966): 233–7. 58 For the edition, see Gerasimos Vlachos, Peri tēs tou Mōameth thrēskeias kai kata Tourkōn, ed. Astérios Argyriou (Heraklion: Etaireia Krētikōn Istorikōn Meletōn, 2017). For discussions, see Wolfram von Scheliha and Ovidiu Olar, “Gerasimos Vlachos,” in CMR, vol. 10, 271–81 (addition by Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, in CMRO2, forthcoming); Dimitris Paradoulakis, Loyal to the Republic, Pious to the Church: Aspects of Interconfessionality in the Life and Work of Gerasimos Vlachos

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manuscript (Mt Athos, Xenophontos Monastery, MS Gr. 213, fols. 147r–236) copied from a lost autograph by a certain hieromonk Kalliopios Kalliergis. It can be assumed that Nicholas used this manuscript. The last text of this section is an excerpt from a popular Greek apocalyptical text, namely the Interpretation to the Apocalypse of John (fol. 387r–v) by the grand theologian of the Church of Constantinople George Koressios (c. 1570–1659/60), which discusses the breaking of the seventh seal according to the biblical apocalyptical account. Since Koressios’ work survives in many manuscripts, it is impossible to identify which copy Nicholas used for compiling, but it should be mentioned that Koressios’ Interpretation was copied in full by the Phanariot intellectual in another manuscript (Mt Athos, Esphigmenou Monastery, MS Gr. 2320 [307], 90 fol.).59 The last part of Sarakēnika concerns the dialogues with Muslims, which are offered in full. It opens with two pieces (fols. 390r–397r and 397v–399r) whose authorship is assigned to Euthymios the Monk,60 and continues with the Dialogue with an Unbeliever (fols. 401r–420v) by the Byzantine intellectual monk Joseph Bryennios (1350–1431/38).61 This text is introduced by no less than six excerpts about the author: 1) excerpt from the History of Meletios (f. 400r); 2) an excerpt from an unidentified ancient work (fol. 400r–v); 3) excerpt from a letter sent by Neophytos Rhodinos to John the Referendarion of Paramythias (fol. 400v); 4) excerpt from the Description of Kykkos Monastery by Ephrem of Athens (fol. 400v); 5) excerpt from the chronicle of Sphrantzes (fol. 400v);62 and 6) verses from the tombstone of

(1607–1685), The Early Modern World Texts and Studies 6 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2022). 59 See Argyriou, Les exégèses grecques, 249–301; Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, “Geōrgios Koressios,” in CMRO2; N. Stoupakis, Geōrgios Koressios (c. 1570–1659/60): Hē zōē, to ergo tou kai hoi pneumatikoi agōnes tēs epochēs tou [George Koressios (c. 1570–1659/60): His Life, Works and the Spiritual Struggles of His Time] (Chios, 2000). For the manuscript of Esphigmenou, see Spyridon Lambros, Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts on Mount Athos, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1895), 198; G. Papazoglou, “Manuscrits inconnus de Nicolaos Karatzas,” Byzantion 71, no. 1 (2001): 38. 60 Adel Theodor Khoury, “Gespräch über den Glauben zwischen Euthymios Zigabenos und einem sarazenischen Philosophen,” Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 48 (1964): 192–203; Luisa Andriollo, “Writing and Reading Anti-Islamic Polemics in Byzantium: The Dialogue on the Faith of the Monk Euthymios with a Saracen Philosopher (Twelfth Century),” in Byzantium and Its Neighbours: Religious Self and Otherness in Dialogue, ed. Luisa Andriollo and Luigi D’Amelia, Alterum Byzantium 1 (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2024), 51–92. 61 Astérios Argyriou, “Iōsēph tou Bryenniou meta tinos Ismaēlitou Dialexis” [Joseph Bryennios’ Dialogue with an Ismaelite], Epeteris Hetaireias Byzantinōn Spoudōn 35 (1966–7): 141–95; M. Salzmann, “Joseph Bryennius,” in CMR, vol. 5, 334–8. 62 Meletios, History, vol. 3, 240–1; Neophitos Rhodinos, Apokrisis eis tēn epistolēn Iōannou presbyterou, kai Repherendariou tēs Ekklēsias tēs Paramithias eis tēn palaian Ēpeiron (Rome, 1659), 37–38; Ephrem of Athens, Perigraphē tēs sebasmias kai basilikēs Monēs tou Kykkou (Venice, 1751), 36; Sphrantzes, Memorii, 262.

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Bryennios from the Charsianites Monastery (fol. 400v). There are only three manuscripts preserving the Dialogue of Bryennios (i.e., Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana MS 27 [B 128], fols. 142r–156r, fifteenth century; Athens, Benaki Museum, Alexios Kolybas col. MS 49, fols. 62r–79r, eighteenth century; and Patmos, Monastery of St John the Theologian, MS 415, eighteenth century), but there is no indication about which one could have been used by Nicholas for Sarakēnika. The next text is the famous Dialogue between the grand dragoman Panagiotis Nikousios and the learned Muslim scholar Vani Efendi (d. 1685), the leader of the puritan mosque preachers known as Kadızadelis (fols. 422r–433r).63 This dialogue was written in vernacular Greek and circulated widely not only in Greek-speaking circles, but also in Europe and the Turkish world.64 Given the phrase “translated from the language of the Turks” (metaphrastheita apo tēs tōn Tourkōn dialektou), which Nicholas preserved in the title, I assume that the text was compiled from one of the two manuscripts that render the same title, preserved in the collections of Zagora, Municipal Library, which belonged previously to the library of Patriarch Kallinikos Mavrikios (1713–91).65 On fol. 421r, the Dialogue is preceded by two excerpts about Nikousios.66 Under them Nicholas adds (most probably at a later stage) the following note: 63 There are many editions of the text, but none according to all the extant manuscripts. See I. Sakellion, “Panagiōtou Nikousiou tou gegonotos diermēneutou tēs othōmanikēs aulēs hē meta tou sophou othōmaou Banē-Ephentou” [The Dialogue of Panagiotis Nikousios, the Interpreter of the Ottoman Porte, with the Learned Ottoman Vani-Efendi], Pandōra 18, no. 427 (1868): 361–71 (edition of Patmos, Monastery of St John the Theologian, MS 371, fols. 221r–240r, 18th century); I. Sakellion, “Panagiōtakē tou Mamōna tou chrēmatisantos megalou hermēneōs, prōtou christianou, tēs tōn othōmanōn basileias dialexeis meta tinos Banē ephendē” [Dialogue of Panagiotis Mamonas the Illustrious Grand Interpreter, the Lead Christian, with a Certain Vani Efendi], Deltion tēs Historikēs kai Ethnologikēs Hetaireias tēs Hellados 3 (1889), 235–73 (edition of Athens, Museum of History and Ethnology, MS 55, fols. 1r–19r, 18th century]; Negoiță, “Discursul anti-islamic,” 114–43 (edition of Bucharest, Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR], MS Gr. 85, fols. 260r–270v). For discussions, see Georges Koutzakiotis, Attendre la fin du monde au XVIIe siècle: Le Messie juif et le grand dragoman, trad. Danielle Morichon (Paris, 2014); Georges Koutzakiotis and Marinos Saryiannis, “Panagiotes Nikousios,” in CMR, vol. 10, 421–30. 64 On the partial French translation, see M. de la Croix, La Turquie crétienne sous la puissante protection de Louis le Grand, protecteur unique du cristianisme en Orient, contenant l’état present des nations et des églises greqcue, armenienne et maronite, dans l’Empire ottoman (Paris, 1695), 381–401; and M. de la Croix, État présent des nations et églises grecque, arménienne, et maronite en Turquie (Paris, 1741), 247–60 [on this translation with an excerpt, see Marinos Sariyannis (trans.), “L’interprète et le prédicateur: Extrait d’une conversation entre Panayotis Nicoussios alias Mamonas et Vani Efendi (1662),” in Les Ottomans par eux-mêmes, ed. Elisabetta Borromeo and Nicolas Vatin (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2020), 323–7]; for a discussion, see Duygu Yıldırım, “Comparing Faiths: The Making of Religious Dialogue between the Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe,” History of Religions 63, no. 2 (2023): 198–227. 65 Zagora, Municipal Library, MS 11, fols. 91r–99v; and MS 117, fols. 283v–292v. 66 Meletios, History, vol. 3, 473 and Prokopios, List of Greek Erudite, 781.

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It seems that he [Nikousios] also composed a work about the birth and upbringing of Muḥammad in which he narrates about himself and the time he flourished; the work is considered anonymous, and it begins [with the words]: in the Muslim year 900 [sic!], see above [in this codex] for the biography of M⟨uḥammad⟩. It is claimed that he is also the author of the Mournful Narration in simple political verse for the death of the grand postelnik Constantine Cantacuzino, printed in Venice in 1666. Phainetai hoti, ho autos sunegrapse kai historian tēs gennēseōs kai anatrophēs tou Mōameth, ex hōn diēgeitai en autē peri heautou, kai ek tou chronou kath’ hon ēkmazen hētis pheretai anōnymos, hēs hē archē, kata to etos tōn Tourkōn ϡ́, ide opisthen eis tēn biographian tou M⟨ōame⟩th legetai eti tou autou poiēma einai kai hē thrēnētikē diegesis dia stichōn politikōn haplōn eis ton thanaton Kōnstantinou Kantakouzēnou, megaloud postelnikou, typōtheisa Enetiēsi, 1666.

This note is of paramount importance for two reasons. First, it testifies again to Panagiotis’ authorship of the History of the Birth and Upbringing of Muḥammad, included in the first part of the codex (fols. 29r–63v), linking to the note from fol. 29r discussed above. It also shows Nicholas’ knowledge regarding the circulation of texts within the intellectual circles of his time by referring to a work about the tragic death of Constantine Cantacuzino (1593–1663), a Wallachian official and close friend of Nikousios, which was printed in Venice in 1666, but today is considered lost. This work survives only through a Romanian translation by the Wallachian chronicler Radu Greceanu (1654–1714) printed in Snagov between 1696 and 1699, but since this is considered lost too, the only manuscript that survives is, in fact, an incomplete piece from Blaj (Romania) by a certain official Dumitru dated 4 February 1735 (Cluj, Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR], Blaj Fund, MS 216, fols. 104r–113v).67 Sarakēnika concludes with seven texts about heresiology. Nicholas opens this section with an unknown Oracle of Mehmet on the End of Ages (fol. 435r), composed in prose in Greek alphabet but infused with Turkish words. It contains no Christian elements as it draws upon the classical Muslim and Ottoman apocalyptic accounts: the banū al-aṣfar “blond nations” theme, Yājūj and Mājūj (Gog and Magog), and so on. This oracle is complemented by a list of heresies (fol. 435v) based on the Panarion (Against Heresies) of Epiphanios of Salamis (c. 310/20–403).68 Nicholas’ purpose is to offer a schematic outline of the heresies that inspired Muḥammad, which thus turns Islam into a “sum of all heresies,” a well-known trope among Eastern Christian authors. This section continues with a text by Patriarch Kallinikos Mavrikios

67 See Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, “‘A Very Good and Dear Friend’: Is Panagiotis Nikousios the Author of the ‘Mournful Story Concerning the Unjust Death of the Grand Postelnic Constantine Cantacuzenus’?,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 44, no. 2 (2020), 276–88. 68 See K. Holl et al., eds., Epiphanius I: Ancoratus und Panarion haer. 1–33, (Berlin–Boston, 2013); and K. Holl et al., eds., Epiphanius II: Panarion haer. 34–64 (Berlin, 1980).

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entitled the Mohammedans (fols. 436r–438r), that was compiled from a miscellaneous codex that belonged to Patriarch of Jerusalem Chrysanthos Notaras, according to a note from fol. 436r. Besides Sarakēnika, this brief text is preserved today only in Athens, Metochion of the Holy Sepulcher [ΜΠΤ], MS 441, fols. 106r–108v, which makes Nicholas’ codex an important link for its textual transmission.69 It discusses briefly the branches of Islamic law and schools of theology, which are considered heresies.70 The heresiology part ends with an excerpt from the Compendium of Sacred-Secular History of Nektarios of Jerusalem, which concerns “the heresy of the Druses,”71 and few passages from the History of Meletios about Shah Ismael Sofi (1501–24), founder of the Safavid dynasty of Iran, and the Muslim dervishes.72

4 Summa Saracenica – Islam and the Qur’ān After surveying the contents and the overall format of Sarakēnika, it is worth exploring what works Nicholas left out of the codex, and what his editorial choices can reveal about the texts that informed Orthodox Greek-speaking audiences about Islam.73 It is quickly noticeable that the codex does not include a translation of the Qur’ān either in full or partial through excerpts or paraphrases. Although this might seem surprising for such a huge opus dedicated to Islam and its holy book, this is, however, not an unusual absence from the Eastern Christian polemical repertoire. In the Christian East, translations of the Qur’ān into Armenian, Greek or any other languages of Eastern Christianity from the original Arabic were produced late starting with the eighteenth century, while in the West such translations can be traced much earlier to medieval times.74 The political and religious contexts in which 69 Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Hierosolymitikē bibliothēkē, pp. 416–19. 70 Agamemnon Tselikas, ed., Kallinikos III, Ta kata kai meta tēn exorian episumbanta (Athens: MIET, 2004), 463–68. The English translation by the late Peter Mackridge, remains, unfortunately, unpublished but accessible at https://www.academia.edu/70563285/Patriarch_Kallinikos_III_on_ Muslim_religious_sects_1750s_1760s_) [Accessed March 24, 2023]. 71 Nektarios, Epitomē, 283–4. 72 Meletios, History, vol. 3, 219, 336–7, 353. 73 Anja-Silvia Goeing, Anthony Grafton and Paul Michel, eds., Collectors’ Knowledge: What Is Kept, What Is Discarded, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 227 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2013). 74 For instance, the first Armenian translations date from the eighteenth century; see Seta B. Dadoyan, Islam in Armenian Literary Culture: Texts, Contexts, Dynamics, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 669: Subsidia 147 (Louvain: Peeters, 2021). Further, Byzantinists argued the existence of a today lost translation of the Qur’ān into Greek dated before 870, which is preserved through some polemical texts, but until the eighteenth century and further to the nineteenth century there was produced no other Greek translation; see Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, “The Greek

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Orthodox Greeks lived under the Muslim rule shaped their engagement with the Qur’ān, and polemists were very much invested in the contents of the Muslim holy book, but they often turned towards authoritative refutations that could provide for them the necessary tools to articulate their own polemical discourse (e.g., the Greek translation of Riccoldo da Monte di Croce’s treatise or the polemical corpus of John Kantakouzenos). Although it can be observed that he was aware of the entire corpus of Byzantine and early modern Greek texts about Islam, according to the list he provides in the beginning of Sarakēnika, Nicholas does not include all of them in his codex, which points to clear editorial decisions he employed for his compilation. Many polemical works to which modern scholarship awarded a distinctive place in the discussions over the Greek anti-Islamic literature were left out (e.g., Gregory Palamas or Manuel II Palaiologos), since Nicholas was aware of which texts circulated in printed or manuscript form and enjoyed authority in the community of believers. Further, recent studies showed that hagiographies and neomartyrologies were instrumental texts for conceptualizing the communal and confessional boundaries between Orthodox Greeks and Muslims during the Ottoman rule, but Nicholas did not include any fragments of this genre into Sarakēnika, although these texts flourished during the early modern period.75 Most probably, Nicholas

Translation of the Qur’ān (ante 870),” in EQO (with further bibliography). The translation of the Qur’ān into Latin attributed to Patriarch Cyril Loukaris (1572–1638), requires more discussions; see Óscar de la Cruz Palma, La traducción Latina del Corán atribuida al patriarca de Constantinopla Cirilo Lúcaris (1572–1638), Colección Nueva Roma 26 (Madrid: CSIC, 2006); Pier M. Tommasino, “Traduzioni del Corano,” al-Qanṭara 31 (2010): 647–52; Roberto Tottoli, “La traduzione Latina del Corano attribuita a Cirillo Lucaris (M. 1638) nel MS Berlin, SBPK ar. 1032 e in altri manoscritti,” Quaderni di Studi Arabi 11 (2016): 135–48. For the Qur’ān in the West, see Thomas E. Burman, Reading the Qur’ān in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007); Alastair Hamilton and Francis Richard, André du Ryer and Oriental Studies in Seventeenth-Century France, Studies in the Arcadian Library 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 2004); Bevilacqua, The Republic of Arabic Letters, 44–74; Cándida Ferrero Hernández and John Tolan, eds., The Latin Qur’an, 1143–1500: Translation, Transition, Interpretation, The European Qur’an 1 (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2021). 75 Nomikos Vaporis, Witnesses for Christ: Orthodox Christian Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Period, 1437–1860 (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000); Tijana Krstić, Contested Conversions to Islam: Narratives of Religious Change in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), 143–64; Yorgos Tzedopoulos, “Orthodox Martyrdom and Confessionalization in the Ottoman Empire, Late Fifteenth–Mid-Seventeenth Century,” in Entangled Confessionalizations? Dialogic Perspectives on the Politics of Piety and Community-Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th Centuries, ed. Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlou, The Modern Muslim World 15 (Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022), 335–81.

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excluded them because they did not provide intricate theological discussions on Islam, and references about Muḥammad, Islam or the Qur’ān were included only as part of the brief answers that Christians offered in front of Muslim authorities before receiving their sentence for their transgressions against the Muslim faith. Sarakēnika is revealing also for the format and genres in which knowledge about Islam and the Qurʾān circulated among the Orthodox. First, the creation of a specific section that includes excerpts on the biography of Muḥammad from chronicles printed in Venice composed in simple Greek language indicates that Greek-speaking audiences were familiar with these historical accounts that emulated the literary tradition of writing universal history. These chronicles not only borrowed from their Byzantine models the template but also concrete knowledge about Muḥammad and the beginnings of Islam. Their main purpose was not necessarily polemical (although tropes can be identified), but rather to discuss the emergence and development of Islam in the larger framework of Christian history. Secondly, the core of Sarakēnika includes Byzantine and early modern systematic refutations of the Qur’ān, which is indicative of the fact that polemical treatises that contain complex theological arguments and biblical reasoning remained the most appealing format for polemists to discuss the Qur’ān. But Islam-related literature produced in Greek during the Ottoman rule was scarce and the pieces produced now were complemented by Byzantine treatises that were constantly copied and circulated among the Orthodox. Moreover, Nicholas is aware of another type of texts that flourished in the early modern period among Greek theologians, namely the apocalyptical and oracular literature, and, in particular, the commentaries on the Book of Revelation, which emphasizes the prominence of the apocalyptic framework within which early modern Greek literati perceived their subjection to the Ottoman rule.76 Lastly, Nicholas deliberately created a section in Sarakēnika for the dialogues, a genre that began to develop among Eastern Christians since the earliest encounters with Muslims, and allowed Christian authors to articulate apologetical arguments against Islam in a dynamic format.77 This genre is well represented in Eastern Christianity not only for disputing with Muslims but also for engaging in theological debates with Jews or other Christian religious traditions.

76 Argyriou, Les exégèses grecques; Kariotoglou, Islam kai christianikē chrēsmologia; Marios Hatzopoulos, “Oracular Prophecy and the Politics of Toppling Ottoman Rule in South-East Europe,” The Historical Review 8 (2011), 95–116; Nicholas Pissis, “Apokalyptik und Zeitwahrnehmung in griechischen Texten der osmanischen Zeit,” in Das Osmanische Europa: Methoden und Perspektiven der Frühneuzeitforschung zu Südosteuropa, ed. Andreas Helmedach et al. (Leipzig, 2014), 463–86. 77 See, for instance, David Bertaina, Christian and Muslim Dialogues: The Religious Uses of a Literary Form in the Early Islamic Middle East, Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 29 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2011).

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Considering the anti-Muslim polemical repertoire of Sarakēnika, alongside the multilayered and complex format of the codex, one can ask what was Islam and the Qur’ān for this dedicated Phanariot intellectual? The longer version of the Sarakēnika’s title is revealing, as Islam was the religion of the Turks established by the Muḥammad through the laws he gave through the Qur’ān, which was an idea that circulated among Christians since medieval times and transmitted throughout the early modern period. The interest the Orthodox generally displayed in the Qur’ān and Islam was shared by other Eastern Christians too, being shaped by the historical contexts in which these religious communities speaking Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Georgian, Greek, Slavonic or Syriac lived under Muslim rule. For Nicholas, the Qur’ān was the Muslim law followed by the Ottomans, while labelling Islam as “the religion of the Turks” places them at the core of the polemical discourse. Through Sarakēnika, Nicholas engaged with Islam and the Qur’ān by using a large repertoire of anti-Muslim texts, stretching from Byzantium to the early modern Ottoman times, which he arranged in order to show better what he considered to be the Orthodox Greek positions and attitudes towards the Muslim religion during Ottoman rule, while his bibliophile and erudite efforts points to the fact that he was very aware of the intellectual trajectories and cultural heritage of the Greeks under the Ottomans.78

5 Othōmanika Nicholas’ interest in Islam and the Turks can be observed in another massive codex he produced between 1770 and 1780 that is hosted now in the manuscript collection of the University of Ioannina (Greece).79 Its 540 folios feature a total of 41 works in 78 For the Byzantine and Orthodox Greek anti-Muslim polemics, see Adel-Théodore Khoury, Les théologiens byzantins et l’Islam: Textes et auteurs (VIIIe–XIIIe s.), 2e tirage (Paris: Editions Béatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1969); Adel-Théodore Khoury, Polémique byzantine contre l’Islam (VIIIe–XIIIe s.) (Leiden: Brill, 1972); Adel-Théodore Khoury, Apologétique byzantine contre l’Islam (VIIIe–XIIIe s.) (Altenberge: Verlag für Christlich-Islamisches Schriftum, 1982); Argyriou, Les exégèses grecques; Angeliki Ziaka, Metaxu polemikēs kai dialogou: To Islam stēn Byzantinē, metabyzantinē, kai neoterē hellenikē gramateia [Between Polemics and Dialogue: Islam in the Byznatine, Post-Byzantine and Modern Greek Literature] (Thessaloniki: Ekdoseis Pournara, 2010); Astérios Argyriou, “Hē hellenikē polemikē kai apologētikē grammateia enanti tou Islam kata tous chronous tēs Tourkokratias” [The Greek Polemical and Apologetic Literature against Islam during the Ottoman Rule], Theologia 84, no. 1 (2013): 133–65; Negoiță, “Discursul anti-islamic”; Daniel Sahas, Byzantium and Islam: Collected Studies on Byzantine-Muslim Encounters (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2022). 79 Ioannina, Library of the University of Ioannina, MS Kourilas 5, 540 fols. [hereafter EK5]. Accessible online at https://olympias.lib.uoi.gr/jspui/handle/123456789/28770 [Accessed March 3, 2023]. See Paizi-Apostolopoulos, “Gnōsta kai agnōsta istorika erga.”

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Greek about the history of the Ottoman Empire. As in Sarakēnika, his name is not mentioned, but the authorship was assigned to him by observing to his scribal hand and renowned compilatory style. Because the first folios are missing, the codex begins directly with a table of contents, which shows an internal organization of the material along chronological lines. In the online catalogue, the title simply reads Miscellaneous historical codex (Symmeiktos istorikos kōdikas) but given the general emphasis on historical texts about the Sublime Porte, I propose that the codex should conventionally be entitled Othōmanika. Whereas there is no available information on the circulation of Sarakēnika to attempt any mapping of its whereabouts, the data on Othōmanika is more detailed. It was donated to the Ioannina University Library by the Metropolitan of Korytsa (Korçë, Albania), Evloghios Kourilas (1880–1961), who, according to an autograph note placed at the end of the codex, purchased it in Athens on January 15, 1944, from a certain antiquities dealer Christophoros Sakoraphos for 700,000 drachmae.80 Moreover, Paitzi-Apostolopoulos argued that, before it was in the possession of Kourilas, the manuscript belonged to Constantine Kanellakis (1840–1916), a famous Greek autodidact scholar from Chios interested in linguistics and folklore.81 How the manuscript found its way into Kanellakis’ library is unknown, but most probably it was sold in Constantinople — maybe along with Sarakēnika — some years after Nicholas’ death. Besides having Karatzas as compiler, both Sarakēnika and Othōmanika share common characteristics linked by the compilatory style of their author. The main texts compiled in Othōmanika in full or excerpt are introduced through the table of contents placed at the beginning of the codex, and address the roots of the Ottomans in Asia, their expansion into Europe and Africa and the capital, Constantinople, through a wide array of genres (e.g., chronicles, official documents, biographies). Although not all the main texts are known to modern scholarship,

80 For metropolitan Kourilas see M. Zagkli-Bozios, Eulogios Kourilas (1880–1961): To archeio tou sto Panepistēmio Iōanninōn (Ioannina: University of Ioannina, 2009). For the note, see EK5, fol. 540r: Ēgorasthē tē 15 Ian. 1944 meta tou Nomokanonos para tou palaiopōlou Chr. Sakoraphou (en Athēnais hodos Pandrosou 40) anti 700.000 dr. Heptakosiōn chiliadōn. †Ho mētropolitēs Korytsas Eulogios Kourilas [Purchased on 15 January 1944, along with a Nomocanon from the antiquities dealer Chr. Sakoraphos (in Athens, Pandrossou street 40) for 700.000 drachmae. †Metropolitan of Korytsa Evloghios Kourilas]. 81 Machi Paizi-Apostolopoulos, “Barnabas ho Kyprios kai hē pyrkagia tou 1696 stēn Kōnstantinoupolē” [Barnabas the Cyprios and the Fire of 1696 in Constantinople], E 23 (2001): 19–34, here 28–29. For Kanellakis, see Athina K. Zacharou-Loutrari, Kōnstantinos N. Kanellakēs (1840–1916): Ho autodidaktos logios tēs Chiou kai hē polypleurē prosphora tou sto chiako politismo [Konstantinos N. Kanellakis (1840–1916): The Autodidact Erudite of Chios and His Multifaceted Contribution to the Culture of Chios] 7 vols. (Chios, 2017).

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some of them are easily identifiable, such as an excerpt from the Chronicle of Pseudo-Sphrantzes about the Ottoman history from their origins until Sultan Mehmet II, a fragment from the Journal (Ephēmerides) of Alexander Mavrokordatos about the suite of Sultan Süleyman during his return journey from his European military campaign, or a translation of the peace treaty of Küçük Kaynarca that concluded the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74), which is in fact the last text compiled by Karatzas.82 From the bulk of the unknown texts, the most famous is a Life of George “Skanderberg” Kastrioti (1405–68), the notorious Albanian commander, which is preserved only in Othōmanika.83 The paratextual activity resembles the one in Sarakēnika. Having the same function, the Ecclesiastical History of Meletios of Athens and Dimitrios Prokopios’ List of Greek Erudite serve again as introductory excerpts, while several marginal notes by Karatzas provide information about texts and authors. Whereas in Sarakēnika Karatzas arranged texts into sections according to their topic, format, and genre, in Othōmanika he preferred a different ordering to offer a diachronic perspective over the history of the House of Osman from the founding of the dynasty until 1774, on various aspects concerning the political and military achievements of the Ottomans. All the editorial choices he assumed for Othōmanika point to again to his agency for the transmission and thesaurization of knowledge in Greek-speaking milieu. If one considers the connections between the two codices and their texts, the format, structure, and other features of their internal fabric, along with the labelling of Islam as “the religion of the Turks” (tēs thrēskeias tōn Tourkōn) — offered in the long title of Sarakēnika — whose history is surveyed by Karatzas in Othōmanika, it is very tempting to assume that the Phanariot intellectual produced in fact a massive opus in two tomes that would cover the religious and politico-historical aspects of the Ottoman Empire and Islam. And such a hypothesis would not be improbable if one adds to the entire equation the bipartite approach towards studying Islamic history and religion in separate volumes, embraced by Western erudition since the publication of Bibliander’s edition. But in the absence of contemporary evidence, there is no indication that the two codices should be

82 EK5, fols. 20r–26v (Sphrantzes, Memorii, 212–5); EK5, fol. 230r–v (A. Mavrokordatos, “Historiai,” in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor [Documents concerning the History of Romanians], ed. E. de Hrumuzaki, vol. 13: Texte grecești [Greek Texts], ed. A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus [Bucharest, 1909], 21–22); EK5, fols. 516r–525v. 83 EK5, fols. 35r–104v. Edited now in Machi Paizi-Apostolopoulos, Geōrgiou Kastriōtē tou epilegomenou Skentermpeē: Bios kai politeia. Mia athēsauristē biographia sta hellēnika [George Kastrioti Nicknamed Skanderbeg: Life and Conduct. A Precious Biography in Greek] (Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2018).

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envisioned as one comprehensive work. Moreover, if the texts of Sarakēnika were compiled by Karatzas in his own hand from manuscript or printed editions, in the case of texts he included in Othōmanika, some of them were in different hands, pointing to the fact that he only collected and bonded them together, while he organized them to fit his purposes. Nevertheless, Sarakēnika and Othōmanika remain solid proofs of Nicholas’ erudite interest in Islam and the Ottoman Empire and unique examples of erudite engagement with the Muslim world in the early modern Greek-speaking milieu.

6 Final Thoughts Sarakēnika and Othōmanika are representative for the knowledge culture of the eighteenth-century Phanariot world. These multi-layered codices display not only the erudite interests of a Phanariot bibliophile, but a larger cultural trend in the Greek Orthodox world that aimed to collect, systematize, and thesaurize Classical, medieval and early modern texts that were subsequently presented in new meaningful “encyclopedic” formats to serve various religious or political purposes. As such, Nicholas was not the only intellectual of the period who collected, excerpted and organized earlier texts but he aligned himself with erudite practices already in place by the second half of the eighteenth century. For instance, the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem Dositheos II — whose editions of polemical texts were extensively used by Nicholas — gathered Byzantine and early modern Greek theological texts for his anti-Catholic editions and organized them to articulate a polemical stance against the proselytizing activities funded by the Jesuits in Eastern Europe. He subsequently printed them in the presses established under princely patronage in the Danubian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in three volumes: Tome of Reconciliation (Tomos Katallagēs, 1682), Tome of Love (Tomos Agapēs, 1698), and Tome of Joy (Tomos Charās, 1705).84 Although it is not possible at this stage to dive into discussions about the impact of Nicholas’ Sarakēnika among its readers, it is not an exaggeration to observe its unicity in the Greek-speaking Orthodox milieu, as it allows a view into what was considered as the anti-Muslim polemical repertoire during the early modern period.

84 See Norman Russell, “From the ‘Shield of Orthodoxy’ to the ‘Tome of Joy:’ The Anti-Western Stance of Dositheos II of Jerusalem (1641–1707),” in Orthodox Constructions of the West, ed. George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 71–82; Klaus-Peter Todt, “Dositheos II von Jerusalem,” in La théologie byzantine et sa tradition, vol. 2: (XIIIe–XIXe), ed. Carmelo-Giuseppe Conticello and Vassa Conticello (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), 659–720.

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The texts included are indicative regarding the genres and format in which knowledge about Islam and the Qur’ān circulated among Orthodox Greek audiences during Ottoman times. It can be argued that Nicholas’ role exceeds that of a simple compiler, as his conscious editorial choices, along with the marginal notes, introductory excerpts, references, tables and lists reflect his complex understanding about the knowledge regimes in which those texts were produced and circulated in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. In the end, it is the sum of all the texts and its internal fabric that makes Sarakēnika a Summa Saracenica of the Greek anti-Muslim polemical corpus that circulated from Byzantium to the modern times.

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Fig. 1: Princeton, Princeton University Library, MS. Gr. 112, Sarakēnika, fol. 4r – List of Anti-Islamic Works.

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Fig. 2: Princeton, Princeton University Library, MS. Gr. 112, Sarakēnika, fol. 7r – Table of Contents (I).

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Fig. 3: Princeton, Princeton University Library, MS. Gr. 112, Sarakēnika, fol. 7v – Table of Contents (II).

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Fig. 4: Ioannina, Library of the University of Ioannina, MS Kourilas 5, Othōmanika, fol. 1r – Table of Contents.

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Sarakēnika Volume 1 Title page (fol. 1r–1v) Sarakēnika: Against Muḥammad, ruler and teacher of the Ishmaelites and Saracens, the pseudo-prophet and interpreter of their heresy; the laws established by him on the religion of the Turks, extracted from his book called Qur’ān, and their refutations [Sarakēnika: Kata Mōameth phylarchou kai didaskalou Ismaēlitōn kai Sarakēnōn, tou pseudoprophētou kai eisēgētou tēs haireseōs autōn: Ta hypo tou Mōameth nomothetēnta peri tēs thrēskeias tōn Tourkōn, parekblēthenta ek tēs tou bibliou kaloumenēs Koran, kai eis auta antirrēseis].

Introduction 1. (fol. 2r–2v) Notes on Muslims [Aposēmeiōseis peri tōn Sarakēnon]. 2. (fol. 3r) George Chrysokkokes, Excerpt from the Introduction to the Syntaxis of the Persians: About the Age of the Turks [Peri tēs epochēs tōn Tourkōn, en tōn Geōrgiou Crysokokkē, iatrou kai astrologou]. 3. (fol. 3r) Meletios of Athens, Excerpt from the History: About Hegira [Ek tēs Ekklēsiastikēs Historias Meletiou tou Athēnōn: Heggira]. 4. (fol. 4r–6r) General List of Greek Anti-Islamic Works against Muḥammad and Dialogues with the Muslims [Hosoi egraphoun kata tou Mōameth kai dialexis meta Sarakēnōn epoiēsanto]. 5. (fol. 7r–8r) Table of Contents for the Works about Muḥammad, His Religion and Its Development Included in the Codex [Pinax tōn periechomenōn en tō paronti syggrapheōn peri Mōameth kai tēs thrēskeias autou kai anatropēs].

The Emergence of Muḥammad and Beginning of Islam 1. (fol. 12r–13v) Pseudo-George Sphrantzes [Makarios Melissenos], Excerpt from the Chronicle: The Counting of Years from Adam to the Fall of Constantinople and Some Other Things about Muḥammad [Ek tēs Historias Geōrgiou tou Phrantzē: Arithmēsis tōn etōn apo Adam achri tēs Poleōs tēs alōseōs kai allōn tinōn peri tou Mōameth]. — Preceded by two excerpts about Pseudo-Sphrantzes and his chronicle from Meletios’ History (fol. 11r–v). 2. (fol. 17r–17v) Pseudo-Dorotheos of Monemvasia, Excerpt from the Book of Histories: About Muḥammad [Ek tēs Historikēs Synopseōs tou pezou chronographou Dōrotheou Monembasias: Peri tou Mōameth].

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3.

(fol. 17v–18v) Matthew Kigalas, Excerpt from the New Synopsis: The Genealogy of Muḥammad, and How His Religion Spread and the Kingdoms of the Turks Emerged from It [Ek tēs Neas Synopseōs tou pezou chronographou Mathaiou Kigala. Genealogia tou Mōameth, kai pōs emegalynen hē thēskeia tou, kai ex autou katagountas hoi basileis tōn Tourkōn]. 4. (fol. 19r–20r) Nektarios of Jerusalem, Excerpt from the Compendium of Sacred-Secular History: Brief Narration about the Birth and Life of Muḥammad [Ek tēs Epitomēs tēs hierokosmikēs historias: Syntomos diegesis peri tēs gennēseōs kai biou tou Mōameth]. 5. (fol. 21r–22r) Giovanni Sagredo, Excerpt from the History of the Ottoman Empire: About Muḥammad [Ek tēs Othomanikēs historias Iōannou Sagredou: Peri tou Mōameth]. 6. (fol. 24r–26r) Meletios, Excerpt from the History: About the Pseudo-Prophet Muḥammad and His Heresy [Ek tēs Ekklēsiastikēs Historias Meletiou tou Athēnōn: Peri tou pseudoprophētou Mōameth kai tēs autou haireseōs]. — Preceded by an excerpt about Meletios from Prokopios’ List of Greek Erudite (fol. 23r). 7. (fol. 29r–63v) Anonymous [Panagiotis Nikousios], The History of the Birth and Upbringing of Muḥammad [Historia tēs gennēseōs kai anatrophēs tou Mōameth]. 8. (fol. 64r) John Karyophyllis, Notes of Chronological Calculations about the End of the World, and the Coming of the Antichrist [Apo idiocheirou sēmeiōmatos Iōannou Karyophyllou]. 9. (fol. 64v) Anastasios Gordios, Excerpt from the Treatise about Muḥammad and against the Latins: About the Kingdom of Muslims, How Many Years It Has Yet to Rule [Ek tōn tou Anastasiou tou Gordiou: Peri tēs basileias tōn mōamethitōn, posous chronous echei na kratēsē akomi]. 10. (fol. 64v) Dionysios of Constantinople, Note about the Antichrist [Ek tōn tou Dionysiou patriarchou Kōnstantinoupoleōs].

Muslim Holy Places 1. (fol. 65r–72v) George Byzantios Bozantzoglou, About Mecca and Medina, the Famous Cities of Muḥammad [Geōrgiou Byzantiou tou eponomazomenou Mpozantzoglou: Peri tēs Mekkas kai Medinēs tōn diasēmōn poleōn tou Mōameth]. 2. (fol. 73r) Nektarios, Excerpt from the Compendium of Sacred-Secular History: About the Almsgiving at Kaaba [Ek tou arabikou chronographou tou patriarchou Hierosolymōn Nektariou: Peri tēs eleēmosynēs tou Kiampe]. 3. (fol. 73v) Meletios, Excerpt from the Geography: About Mecca and Medina [Ek tēs Geōgraphias Meletiou tou Athēnōn: Peri tōn autōn poleōn].

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Christian-Muslim Relations 1. (fol. 75r–80v) Sophronios II of Constantinople, Copy of the Covenant of Muḥammad, that is of the Agreement Made between Him and the Christians [Ison tēs Diathēkēs tou Mōameth, ētoi tēs symphōnias tēs genomenēs metaxu autou kai tōn christianōn].

Refutations 1. (fol. 85r–133v) Riccoldo da Montecroce (trans. Demetrios Kydones), Against the Laws of the Saracens—Contra Legem Sarracenorum [Rikardou tou tō tagmati tōn para latinois kaloumenōn adelphōn predikatorōn kateilegmenou, anaskeuē tēs para tou kataratou Machoumeth tois Sarakēnois tetheisēs nomothesias, metenechtheisa ek tēs italikēs dialektou eis tēn ellada dia tinos Dēmētriou Kydōnē]. — Preceded by ten excerpts about Riccoldo and Kydones: a) (fol. 82r) John Kantakouzenos, Excerpt from the First Discourse against Muḥammad about Riccoldo; b) (fol. 82r) Meletios, Excerpt from the History about Kydones; c) (fol. 82v) Dositheos of Jerusalem, Excerpt from the Introduction to the Tome of Love; d) (fol. 82v) Dositheos, Excerpt from the History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem about Kydones’ interest in Latin works; e) (fol. 82v) Dositheos, Excerpt from the History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem; f) (fol. 83r) Panaretos, Excerpt from Refutation against Thomas Aquinas’ Treatise on the Purifying Fire; g) (fol. 83r) Panaretos, Excerpt from an old note on the Book of Nations about Kydones’ translation; h) (fol. 83r) Meletios, Excerpt from the History; i) (fol. 83r) Meletios, Excerpt from the Geography; j) (fol. 83v) Adamantios Rusios, Excerpt from the Refutation against the Latin Religion about the restoration of things and against Kydones’ Discourse about death. 2. (fol. 134r–136r) Anonymous, Formula of Abjuration of Islam for the Converted Muslims [Taxis ginomenē epi tois apo Sarakēnōn epistrephousi pros tēn katharan, kai alēthē pistin hēmōn tōn Christianōn]. 3. (fol. 155r–192r) John Kantakouzenos, Four Discourses against Muḥammad [Tou eusebestatou kai philochristou basileōs kai autokratoros Rhōmaiōn, Iōannou tou Kantakouzēnou dia tou theiou kai monachikou schēmatos metonomeatentos Iōasaph monachou logoi tessares kata tou Mōameth]. — Preceded by a Life of Kantakouzenos and a series of eight excerpts. The Life was written by John Hierotheos Komnenos, Life of John Kantakouzenos [Bios tou eusebestatou kai aeimnēstou basileōs kai autokratoros Rhōmaiōn Iōannou tou Kantakouzēnou, tou hysteron dia tou theiou kai aggelikou schēmatos Iōasaph monachou metonomasteutos hōs en synnopsei syllegeis dia Iōannou Komnēnou tou iatrou] (fol. 141r–148r). — The Life is also preceded by two excerpts: a) (f. 140r) Prokopios,

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List of Greek Erudite about John Komnenos; and b) (fol. 140v) Stolnik Constantin Cantacuzino, Eulogy to John Kantakouzenos. — The eight excerpts about Kantakouzenos following the Life are: a) (fol. 149r–150v) Dositheos, History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem: The Letter of the Mamluk Sultan al-Nāṣir Hasan to the Emperor Kantakouzenos; b) (fol. 151r) Kigalas, New Synopsis (excerpt); c) (fol. 151r) Dositheos, Introduction to the Tome of Love (excerpt); d) (fol. 151v) Stolnik Cantacuzino, Encomium to John Kantakouzenos; e) (fol. 152r–152v) Manuel Philes, Verses to John Kantakouzenos; f) (fol. 154v) Simon Atumano, Verses to John Kantakouzenos; g) (fol. 158v) Meletios, History; h) (fol. 158v) Dositheos, Dedicatory Letter to Constantin Brâncoveanu from his Tome against Calvinists and Lutherans. These works by John Kantakouzenos are followed by a brief list containing his polemical works alongside a colophon.

Volume 2 4.

5.

(fol. 200r–344v) John Kantakouzenos (trans. Meletios Syrigos), Apologies against Islam and Discourses against Muḥammad [͵achleʹ (1635) dekembriou prōtē eis Moldoblachian. To paron bibliou esunthesen eis hellēnikēn glōttan ho philochristos basileus hēmōn kyrios Iōannēs Kantakouzēnos, hopou hysteron ōnomastēke dia tou theiou kai aggelikou schēmatos Iōasaph monachos, eis tous ͵atxʹ (1360) chronous apo tēn ensarkon oikonomian: Metephrasthē de eis koinēn glōttan hypo Meletiou tou Syrigou meparakinēsin tou eklamprotatou kai theosebestatou authentos pasēs Moldoblachias kyriou Iōannou Basileiou Boebonda]. — Preceded by a Life of Meletios Syrigos composed by Dositheos of Jerusalem [Bios Meletiou tou Syrigou syggrapheis para Dositheou patriarchou Hierosolymōn] (fol. 197v–198r), and two excerpts about Syrigos: a) (fol. 198v) Meletios, History; and b) (fol. 198v) Prokopios, List of Greek Erudite. (fol. 347r–384v) Gerasimos Vlachos, About the Religion of Muḥammad and against the Turks [Peri tēs tou Mōameth thrēskeias kai kata Tourkōn ekdosis para Gerasimou Blachou tou Krētos]. — Preceded by two excerpts about Blachos: a) (fol. 345r) Meletios, History; and b) (fol. 345r) Prokopios, List of Greek Erudite.

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Volume 1 (continuation) 6.

(fol. 387r–387v) George Koressios, Excerpt from the Exegesis to the Apocalypse: “About the Seventh Seal” [Ek tēs eis tēn Apokalypsin Hermēneia Geōrgiou Koressiou tou Chiou: Peri tōn hepta sphragid].

Dialogues with Muslims 1. (fol. 390r–397r) Euthymios the Monk, Dialogue with a Certain Muslim Philosopher about Muḥammad and Other Matters [Dialexis tou monachou Euthymiou meta tinos philosophou sarakēnou peri tou Mōameth kai hetera erōtēmata]. 2. (fol. 397v–399r) Euthymios the Monk, Dialogue of a Pious-Loving Christian with a Certain Muslim about the Orthodox Faith [Dialexis phileusebous christianou meta tinos sarakēnou peri tēs orthodoxou pisteōs]. — These dialogues are preceded by an excerpt about Euthymios from Meletios’ History (fol. 398r). 3. (fol. 401r–420v) Joseph Bryennios, Dialogue with an Unbeliever [Tou panosiōtatou en monachois sophōtatou te kai sunetōtatou kyrou Iōsēph Bryenniou tou didaskalou dialexis meta apistou]. — Preceded by six excerpts about Bryennios: a) (fol. 400r) Meletios, History; b) (fol. 400r–v) Anonymous, Excerpt from an unknown old work; c) (fol. 400v) Neophitos Rhodinos, Letter to John of Paramythias; d) (fol. 400v) Ephrem of Athens, Description of the Kykkos Monastery of Cyprus; e) (fol. 400v) Pseudo-Sphrantzes, Chronicle (excerpt); and f) (fol. 400v) Funerary Verses from Joseph Bryennios’ Tomb at the Charsianites Monastery. 4. (fol. 422r–433r) Panagiotes Nikousios, Dialogue with Vani Efendi [Dialexis tou sophōtatou megaloud hermēneōs Panagiōtou kai ek tōn sekretōn tēs othōmanikōn basileias prōtosymboulou prōtou christianou hermēneōs chrēmatisantos en tē tōn othōmanōn basileia meta tinos Banē mousoulmanou didaskalou tōn Tourkōn, metaphrasseita apo tēs tōn Tourkōn dialektou]. — Preceded by two excerpts about Nikousios: a) (fol. 421r) Meletios, History; and b) (fol. 421r) Prokopios, List of Greek Erudite.

Oracular Literature and Heresiology 1. (fol. 435r) Anonymous, The Oracle of Mehmet about the End of Times [Chrēsmos tou Meemet peri tēs suneteleias tou aiōnos].

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2.

3. 4. 5.

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(fol. 435r) Epiphanius of Salamis, List of Heresies from Which Muḥammad Borrowed the Laws of His Religion [Hosa ek tōn haireseōn elabon ho Mōameth kai hoi tēs thrēskeias tou]. (fol. 436r–438r) Kallinikos III of Constantinople, The Muslim Sects [Mōametistai]. (fol. 438r) Nektarios, Excerpt from the Compendium of Sacred-Secular History: About the Druze [Hairesis tōn Ntrouzidōn]. (fol. 439r–440v) Meletios, Excerpts from the History: About Sofi, the Interpreter of the Persian Heresy; About Ismael Sofi; About Dervishes [Sophi ho eisēgētēs tēs persikēs haireseōs; Ismaēl Sophi; Derbisades].

Bibliography Manuscripts Athens. Benaki Museum. Alexios Kolybas col. MS 49. Athens. Metochion of the Holy Sepulcher [ΜΠΤ]. MS Gr. 225. Athens. Metochion of the Holy Sepulcher [ΜΠΤ]. MS Gr. 351. Athens. Metochion of the Holy Sepulcher [ΜΠΤ]. MS 441. Athens. National Museum of History. MS 55. Athens. National Museum of History. MS 71. Bucharest. Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR]. MS Gr. 85. Bucharest. Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR]. MS Gr. 974. Bucharest. Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR]. MS Gr. 1300. Cluj. Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR]. Blaj Fund. MS 216. Copenhagen. Royal Library. MS Fabr. 52,4°. Ioannina. Library of the University of Ioannina. MS Kourilas 5. Manchester. John Rylands Library. Moses Gaster collection. MS 2082. Mt Athos. Esphigmenou Monastery. MS Gr. 2320 [307]. Mt Athos. The Great Lavra. MS Gr. I 35 (Efstratiadis 1119). Mt Athos. Panteleimon Monastery. MS Gr. 17 (5523). Mt Athos. Xenophontos Monastery. MS Gr. 213. Paris. Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF]. MS Gr. 1243Α. Patmos. Monastery of St John the Theologian. MS Gr. 371. Patmos. Monastery of St John the Theologian. MS 415. Princeton. Princeton University Library. MS Gr. 112. Rome. Biblioteca Vallicelliana. MS 27 [B 128]. Vienna. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. MS Theol. Gr. 306 Vienna. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. MS Suppl. Gr. 22. Zagora. Municipal Library. MS 11. Zagora. Municipal Library. MS 117.

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Prints Bibliander, Theodor. Machumetis Saracenorum principis eiusque successorum vitae ac doctrina ipseque Alcoran. 3 vols. Basel: Johannes Oporin, 1543. Second edition in 1550. Björnståhl, J. J. Resa til Frankirke, Italien, Sweitz, Tyskland, Holland, England, Turkiet och Grekland. Vol. 5. Edited by Carl Christof Gjörwell. Stockholm: Trykt hos And. Jac. Nordstróm, 1788. de la Croix, M. La Turquie crétienne sous la puissante protection de Louis le Grand [. . .]. Paris, 1695. de la Croix, M. État présent des nations et églises grecque, arménienne, et maronite en Turquie. Paris, 1741. Dorotheos of Monemvasia, Biblion historikon: Periechon en synopsei diaphorous kai exochous historias. Venice, 1631. Dositheos of Jerusalem. Tou makaritou Meletiou Syrigou didaskalon te kai prōtosyggelon tēs en Kōnstantiou polei Megalēs Ekklēsias, kata tōn kalbinikōn kephalaiōn [. . .]. Bucharest, 1690. Dositheos of Jerusalem, Tomos agapēs. Iași, 1698. Dositheos of Jerusalem, Historia peri tōn en Hierosolymois patriarcheusantōn. Bucharest, 1715. Ephrem of Athens. Perigraphē tēs sebasmias kai basilikēs Monēs tou Kykkou. Venice, 1751. d’Herbelot, Barthélemy. Bibliothèque Orientale [. . .]. Paris, 1697. Kigalas, Matthew. Nea synopsis diaphorōn historian archomenē apo ktiseos kosmou kai lēgousa heōs tē nun echronia. Venice, 1637. Meletios of Athens. Geōgraphia palaia kai nea. Venice, 1728. Meletios of Athens. Ekklēsiastikē historia Meletiou Mētropolitou Athēnōn [. . .]. 3 vols. Vienna, 1783–4. de Nessel, Daniel. Breviarium et supplementum commentariorum Lambecianorum, sive catalogus [. . .]. Vienna, 1690. Nektarios of Jerusalem. Epitomē tēs hierokosmikēs historias, eis pente meristheisa tmēmata. Venice, 1677. Prokopios Pamperis, Dimitrios. “Epitetmēmenē eparithmēsis tōn kata ton parelthonta aiōna logion Graikōn [. . .].” In Bibliotheca Graeca. Vol. 11. Edited by Johann A. Fabricius. Hamburg, 1722. Quétif J. and J. Echard. Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum. Vol. 1. Paris, 1719. Rhodinos, Neophitos. Apokrisis eis tēn epistolēn Iōannou presbyterou [. . .]. Rome, 1659. Rusios, Adamantios. Latinōn thrēskeias elegchoi 36, kai tis ho hekastou logos. Venice, 1748. Sagredo, Giovanni. Memorie istoriche de Monarchi Ottomani. Venice, 1679. French edition in Giovanni Sagredo, Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman. Translated by M. Laurent. Paris, 1730. Sylburg, Friedrich. Saracenica sive Moamethica. Hamburg, 1595. Theotokis, Nicephoros. Seira henos kai pentēkonta hypomnēmatistōn eis tēn oktateuchon kai ta tōn Basileiōn. Vol. 1. Leipzig, 1772. Zygadenos, Euthymios. Panoplia dogmatikē [. . .]. Târgoviște, 1710.

Primary Sources Argyriou, Astérios, ed. “Iōsēph tou Bryenniou meta tinos Ismaēlitou Dialexis” [Joseph Bryennios’ Dialogue with an Ismaelite]. Epeteris Hetaireias Byzantinōn Spoudōn 35 (1966–7): 141–95. Argyriou, Astérios, ed. Anastasios Gordios (1654/5–1729): Sur Mahomet et contre les Latins. Hetaireia Stereoelladikōn Meletōn–Keimena kai Meletai 3. Athens, 1983. Argyriou, Astérios, ed. Gerasimos Vlachos. Peri tēs tou Mōameth thrēskeias kai kata Tourkōn. Heraklion: Etaireia Krētikōn Istorikōn Meletōn, 2017.

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de la Cruz Palma, Óscar, ed. La traducción Latina del Corán atribuida al patriarca de Constantinopla Cirilo Lúcaris (1572–1638). Colección Nueva Roma 26. Madrid: CSIC, 2006. Delatte, Armand, ed. “Extraits d’un Pamphlet contre Mahomet.” In Anecdota Atheniensia. Vol. 1: Textes grecs inédits relatifs à l’histoire des religions, 333–57. Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l’Université de Liège 36. Liège–Paris, 1927. Demetrakopoulos, A., ed. Orthodoxos Hellas. Leipzig, 1872. Förstel, Karl, ed. Johannes Kantakuzenos, Christentum und Islam: Apologetische und polemische Schriften. Corpus Islamo-Christianum–Series Graeca 6. Altenberge: Oros Verlag, 2005. Grecu, Vasile, ed. George Sphrantzes. Memorii (1401–1477): În anexă Pseudo-Phrantzes: Macarie Melissenos, Cronica (1258–1481). Scriptores byzantini 5. Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1966. de Hurmuzaki, Eudoxiu. Documente privitoare la Istoria Românilor [Documents concerning the History of Romanians]. Vol. 13: Texte grecești [Greek Texts]. Edited by A. Papadopulos-Kerameus. Bucharest, 1909. de Hurmuzaki, Eudoxiu. Documente privitoare la Istoria Românilor [Documents concerning the History of Romanians]. Vol. 14/2: Documente grecești privitoare la Istoria Românilor, 1716–1777 [Greek Documents concerning the History of Romanians, 1716–77]. Edited by Nicolae Iorga. Bucharest, 1917. Keselopoulos, Anesti, ed. “Bios tou autokratoros Iōannou STʹ tou Kantakouzēnou (e Iōasaph monachou) (1295–1383)” [The Life of the Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (Joasaph the Monk) (1295–1383)]. Theologia 46 (1975): 573–610. Montet, Edouard L., ed. “Un rituel d’abjuration des Musulmans dans l’Église grecque.” Revue de l’histoire des religions 53 (1906): 145–63. Paizi-Apostolopoulos, Machi, ed. Geōrgiou Kastriōtē tou epilegomenou Skentermpeē: Bios kai politeia. Mia athēsauristē biographia sta hellēnika [George Kastrioti Nicknamed Skanderbeg: Life and Conduct. A Precious Biography in Greek]. Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2018. Panaitescu, Petre P., ed. “Un manuscris necunoscut al ‘Efemeridelor’ lui Constantin Caragea Banul” [An Unknown Manuscript of the Ephemerids of Ban Constantine Karatzas]. Buletinul Comisiei Istorice a României 3 (1924): 115–71. Sakellion, I. “Panagiōtou Nikousiou tou gegonotos diermēneutou tēs othōmanikēs aulēs hē meta tou sophou othōmaou Banē-Ephentou” [The Dialogue of Panagiotis Nikousios, the Interpreter of the Ottoman Porte, with the Learned Ottoman Vani-Efendi]. Pandōra 18, no. 427 (1868): 361–71. Sakellion, I. “Panagiōtakē tou Mamōna tou chrēmatisantos megalou hermēneōs, prōtou christianou, tēs tōn othōmanōn basileias dialexeis meta tinos Banē ephendē” [Dialogue of Panagiotis Mamonas the Illustrious Grand Interpreter, the First Christian, with a Certain Vani Efendi]. Deltion tēs Historikēs kai Ethnologikēs Hetaireias tēs Hellados 3 (1889), 235–73. Tselikas, Agamemnon, ed. Kallinikos III, Ta kata kai meta tēn exorian episumbanta. Athens: MIET, 2004.

Selective Secondary Literature Apostolopoulos, Dimitris. “Ho kōdikas ‘Kritiou’ einai tou Nikolaou Karatza: Problēmata patrotētas tou chph. 974 tēs Roumanikēs Akadēmias” [The Codex ‘Kritiou” Is by Nicholas Karatzas: Problems on the Paternity of MS 974 of the Romanian Academy]. E 24 (2003): 125–37.

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Khoury, Adel-Théodore. “Gespräch über den Glauben zwischen Euthymios Zigabenos und einem sarazenischen Philosophen.” Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 48 (1964): 192–203. Khoury, Adel-Théodore. Les théologiens byzantins et l’Islam: Textes et auteurs (VIIIe–XIIIe S.). 2e tirage. Paris: Editions Béatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1969. Khoury, Adel-Théodore. Polémique byzantine contre l’Islam (VIIIe–XIIIe S.). Leiden: Brill, 1972. Khoury, Adel-Théodore. Apologétique byzantine contre l’Islam (VIIIe–XIIIe S.). Altenberge: Verlag für Christlich-Islamisches Schriftum, 1982. Kitromilides, Paschalis and Ioannis Kyriakantonakis. “Matthaios Kigalas.” In CMR. Vol. 10, 200–8. Koutzakiotis, Georgios and Marinos Saryiannis. “Panagiotes Nikousios.” In CMR. Vol. 10, 421–30. Koutzakiotis, Georgios. “Symplērōmatika gia ton Nikolao Karatza kai tē Bibliothēkē tou” [Supplements on Nicholas Karatzas and His Library]. E 29 (2016): 310–18. Krstić, Tijana. Contested Conversions to Islam: Narratives of Religious Change in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011. Lambros, Spyridon. “Nikolau Kritiou tou megalou ekklēsiarchou syllogē autographōn epistolōn tou dekatou ebdomou kai dekatou ogdoou aiōnos” [The Collection of Autograph Letters of the 17th and 18th Centuries by Nicholas Kritias]. Neos Hellēnomnēmōn 4 (1907): 220. Mackridge, Peter. “Enlightenment and Entertainment: The Intolerable Lightness of Phanariot Literature, 1750–1800,” RESEE 58, no. 1–4 (2020): 119–38. Magdalino, P. “Byzantine Encyclopaedism of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries.” In Encyclopedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Edited by Jason König and Greg Woolf, 219–31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Meserve, Margaret. Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. Miladinova, Nadia. The Panoplia Dogmatike by Euthymios Zygadenos: A Study on the First Edition Published in Greek in 1710. Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity 4. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2014. Negoiță, Octavian-Adrian. “Discursul anti-islamic în tratatele apologetico-polemice grecești din perioada post-bizantină (secolele XVI–XVIII)” [The Anti-Islamic Discourse as Reflected in the Post-Byzantine Apologetical and Polemical Treatises (16th–18th Centuries)]. PhD Thesis, University of Bucharest, 2020. Negoiță, Octavian-Adrian. “Nicholas Karatzas.” In CMRO2. Negoiță, Octavian-Adrian. “Geōrgios Koressios,” In CMRO2. Negoiță, Octavian-Adrian. “The Greek Translation of the Qur’ān (ante 870).” In EQO. Nicol, Donald M. “The Doctor-Philosopher John Comnen of Bucharest and His Biography of the Emperor John Kantakouzenos.” RESEE 9 (1971): 511–26. Odorico, Paolo. “La cultura della συλλογή: 1) Il cosiddetto enciclopedismo bizantino; 2) Le tavole del sapere di Giovanni Damasceno,” BZ 83 (1990): 1–21. Republished in P. Odorico. Méthode et contexts dans la littérature byzantine: Recueil d’articles. Edited by Ovidiu Olar and Andrei Timotin. Supplementa ‘Études Byzantines et Post-Byzantines’ 4. Heidelberg: Herlo Verlag, 2023. Paizi-Apostolopoulos, Machi. “Gnōsta kai agnōsta istorika erga tēs Tourkokratias se cheirographo kōdika tou Nikolaou Karatza” [Known and Unknown Historical Works of the Turkish Rule in a Manuscript Codex by Nicholas Karatzas]. E 27 (2011): 193–210. Papazoglou, Georgios. Ho logios Phanariōtēs Nikolaos Karatzas kai hē bibliothēkē tōn cheirographōn kōdikōn tou [The Phanariot Erudite Nicholas Karatzas and the Library of His Manuscript Codices]. 2 vols. Thessaloniki: Ekdotikos Oikos K. & M. Ant. Stamoulē, 2016–19.

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Nadezhda Alexandrova

System and Muhammadan Religion by Sofroniy Vrachanski: The Bulgarian Translation of Dimitrie Cantemir’s Kniga Sistima Abstract: This essay will present the insertions and omissions made by the Bulgarian bishop Sofroniy Vrachanski in his translation practice based on his 1805 Bulgarian translation of Dimitrie Cantemir’s treatise The System or the Structure of Mohammadan Religion (St. Petersburg, 1722). In its first part I will present the translation and the biography of Sofroniy of Vratsa (Vrachanski) by searching for biographical equivalences and parallels between the original author and his Bulgarian translator. Basing my argument on their biographical and ideological background, I will explain their common arguments about refuting the Qur’ān as a book fabricated by a false prophet. In order to distinguish the motivation of Sofroniy’s translation strategy, in my essay I will reflect on the language and composition, contents and sense of authorship on the part of the translator. Finally, I will link the Bulgarian translation with another important work in Sofroniy Vrachanski’s career — his own autobiography, standing next to his translation of Cantemir’s treatise in the same codex. In its turn, this original text resonates with Cantemir’s Kniga sistima, especially regarding Ottoman Muslims and their interactions with Christians.

1 Introduction For nearly five centuries (1396–1878) Bulgarians were part of the Christian-Orthodox population of the Ottoman Empire. For the most part of this period the level of literacy was low and education was a prerogative of local churches and monastic centers. While the common people rarely came across any written studies on Islam or the prophet Muḥammad, Bulgarians received instruction from the clergy in the precepts of the Christian faith. The representatives of the clergy, persistently preached about the danger of conversion to Islam,1 and targeted especially 1 Conversion to Islam was a frequent topic in the writings of Bulgarian authors from the eighteenth century. See Boniu Angelov, “Tematika: Otnoshenie kam robstvoto” [Thematics: Attitude to the Turkish yoke], in Săvremennitsi na Paisiy [Paisiy’s Contemporaries], vol. 1 (Sofia: BAN, 1963), 58–63. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-010

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a certain kind of “creeping islamization,”2 which took place on an individual level, often being motivated by economic and social benefits. Bishop Sofroniy Vrachanski (1739–1813) was part of this intellectual context. In 1805, while he was affiliated to the Ungro-Wallachian Metropolitanate in Bucharest, he translated from Russian to Bulgarian the polemical treatise of the renowned intellectual Dimitrie Cantermir (1673–1723), entitled The System or Structure of Muhammadan Religion (Kniga sistima ili sostojanie mohammedanskija religii).3 Throughout the whole translation Sofroniy continuously entailed his wish, claimed in the preface, to convince his readers of the superiority of Christianity over Islam and to refute Islamic tenets, customs and religious practices in order to discourage those among the Christians who were tempted to convert to the Muslim faith. Despite the implication of compositional and stylistic adaptations, and the compression of the seven parts of last chapter from the original “On Sciences” into one final entry, Sofroniy Vrachanski was the first person who made a substantial effort to translate the whole treatise.4 Its Bulgarian title is long and descriptive: The System and Muhammadan Religion and On the Life of Muhammad, Whom They Consider the Last Prophet, according to the Book Called Mohamedia and a Lot of Other Rites Which They Believe and Follow (Sistima i religia mohamedanskiya i o zhitie Mohamedovoe izhe oni veruyut ego proroka biti poslednago, kakwoto pishi im u knigu Mohamediya narechennaya i oshe mnogo drugo shto oni veruvat i derzhat). However, when the translator was presenting the contents of the work (fol. 182), he also introduced a shorter version entitled The Muhammadan System and the Religion of Muslims (Sistima mohamedanskaya i religia ih),5 which is the object of this essay.

2 Rossitsa Gradeva, “Conversion to Islam in Bulgarian Historiography: An Overview,” in Religion, Ethnicity and Contested Nationhood in the Former Ottoman Space, ed. Jørgen Nielsen (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2012), 187–222. 3 Dimitriy Kantemir, Kniga sistima ili sostoyanie muhammedanskoi religii [The System or Structure of Muhammadan Religion] (St. Peterburg: V tipografii tsarstvujushego, 1722). For the edition, see Dimitrie Cantemir, Sistemul sau Întorcmirea religiei muhammedane [The System or Structure of Muhammadan Religion], ed. Virgil Cândea and Anca Irina Ionescu, Opere Complete 8/2 (Bucharest: Ed. Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1987). 4 There was only one effort to translate fragments from the book before Sofroniy’ translation. Daniel Ernst Jablonsky (1660–1741), a theologian and Orientalist from the Berlin Academy, was interested in Cantemir’s book. His translation consists of few excerpts and, according to some scholars, it is inconsistent. See Virgil Cândea, “Studiu introductiv” [Introduction], in Cantermir, Sistemul, v–xlii, here xxxii. 5 The literal translation of the concise title includes a shorter form of the possessive adjective their (ih), which substitutes the followers of the religion, i.e., the Muslims. For the sake of clarity, the English translation of the title is rendered The Muhammadan System and the Religion of Muslims.

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This polemical treatise on Islam is just one of the four texts, which the Bulgarian bishop included in a collection of works, known as The Book of the Three Religions (Kniga za trite religii), which is today preserved in codex St. Petersburg, RNA, col. Mikhail Pogodin 1204. The intended purpose of this opus is the glorification of Christianity and denouncement of the other Abrahamic religions. The codex consists of 362 fols. (33 × 23) and 7 additional spare sheets of paper used for the binding. The book contains three translated texts and one original work by Sofroniy Vrachanski. At the beginning he wrote a title page containing the topics of the three translated works, the languages of translation (Greek and Russian), and a note that he performed the translation in “simple and direct Bulgarian” (простий и краткий болгарский язик) for the sake of the “simple and illiterate Bulgarian community” (простий и невежий болгарский народ). The title also contains the date of completion, which is May 24, 1805 (fol. 1). The text begins with an epigraphy consisting of 12 epigrams, followed by a general introduction. At the outset of the first translation there is also a self-portrait of the bishop in full attire (fol. 5). Then comes the first work, which, for the most part, is a translation of Peter Mogila’s (1596–1647) On the Christian Orthodox faith (Pravoslavnoe izpovedanie veriy).6 The second is an adaptation of the work against Judaism by Paolo Medici, entitled A Narration on the Jewish Faith and Rites (Povest o vere i obichai evreiskia).7 After these pieces follows the work to which this essay is dedicated, namely System and Muhammadan Religion, which is, in fact, the translation of Cantemir’s refutation of Islam. Lastly, Sofroniy Vrachanski added his autobiography The Life and Sufferings of the Sinful Sofroniy (Zhitie i stradania greshnago Sofronia). On the last page of this autobiography (fol. 362) the author described the hardship that led to his exile to Bucharest and expressed his feeling of guilt caused by the incapability to preach in person to his congregation. Instead, he devoted his time in writing several books “for the benefit of his fellow Bulgarians” (а тие да прочитат писание мое и да уползуется). So far there is no indication if anyone read or copied this collection during Sofroniy’s lifetime. The only solid fact is that the book left Bucharest and ended up in Moscow from where it appeared during the 6 The part on Christian Orthodox faith is compiled together with some didactic work, some of which are adaptations from Russian religious fables, and others are considered original stories. See Sofroniy Vrachanski, “Pravoslavnoe izpovedanie veriy” [On the Christian Orthodox Faith], in Katechizicheski, omileticheski i nravouchitelni pisania iz răkopisnoto nasledstvo na Svetitelya [Catechisms, Homiletics and Didactic Writings from St. Sofroniy’s Manuscript Heritage], ed. Episkop Kalinik Vrachanski (Sofia: Sinodalno izdatelstvo, 1989), 33–187. 7 Sofroniy made certain elisions while translating the text from its Greek version. See Giuseppe del Agata, “I riti e costumi degli Ebrei confutati  del livornese Paolo Sebastiano Medici nell’opera di Sofronij Vračanski, figura centrale nella ‘Rinascita’ culturale bulgara,” Nuovi Studi Livornesi 13 (2006): 173–80.

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mid-nineteenth century in a collection of ancient artifacts of the Russian historian Mikhail Pogodin (1800–75).8 It was Viktor Grigorovich (1815–76), an Ukrainian scholar, familiar with Sofroniy Vrachanski’s previous writings, who identified the bishop’s script and sent a copy only of the fourth part, namely the autobiography, to the Bulgarian journalist and revolutionary Georgi Rakovski (1821–67).9 In such circumstances the text of the autobiography was published for the first time in 1861 and facilitated the process of a national awakening among Bulgarians, known as the “National Revival.”10 From its first publication until today it has received large scholarly attention both as a historical witness account of the conditions of the Bulgarian population in the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth century, and as a literary work. In contrast to the autobiography, the other three translated polemical treatises on Christianity, Judaism and Islam remained in obscurity until the beginning of the twentieth century. Gradually, they have garnered scholarly interest and their original authors have been identified and their characteristics formally described.11 Still, the polemic treatise on Islam has been rarely studied in comparison to Cantemir’s original. The first part of this essay introduces the portrait of Sofroniy Vrachanski as a scribe and translator, and compares elements of his biography with that of Dimitrie Cantemir on the basis of a few common features in their life-trajectories. The

8 Mikhail Pogodin was a Russian professor in Slavic Studies, known for his interest in the origins of Slavs in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. His large private collection of artifacts was known as “the ancient repository” (drevnehranilishte). In 1852, he moved it from Moscow to St. Petersburg and donated it to the Russian National Library, where the manuscript of The Book of Three Religions is preserved today. 9 Georgi Rakovski, “Dragotsenni pamiatnitsi za bŭlgarska nova istoria: Zhitie i stradania greshnago Sofronia” [Precious Testimonies for Contemporary Bulgarian History: Life and Sufferings of the Sinful Sofroniy], Dunavski lebed 55–61 (1861): 220–45. 10 The term “National Revival” is used in the Bulgarian historiography to indicate the period between the second half of the 18th and the 19th century. It is still widely used for indicating several major tendencies of Bulgarian society under Ottoman rule, such as the establishment of Bulgarian communal institutions for education and social life, the autonomy of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church from the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, and the evolution of the Bulgarian liberation movement. Lately, the concept has been challenged as exclusionary in view of the entangled histories of the Balkans, and the need to distinguish the accurate positioning of these major tendencies within the reformist climate of the Ottoman empire during the Tanzimat period. See Alexander Vezenkov and Tchavdar Marinov, “The Concept of National Revival in Balkan Historiographies,” in Entangled Histories of the Balkans: Shared Pasts, Contested Legacies, vol. 3, ed. Roumen Daskalov and Alexander Vezenkov, Balkan Studies Library 16 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2013), 406–63. 11 Klimentina Ivanova, Bălgarski, srăbski i moldo-vlahiyski kirilski răkopisi v sbirkata na M.P. Pogodin [Bulgarian, Serbian and Moldo-Wallachian Cyrillic Manuscripts in the Collection of Mikhail Pogodin] (Sofia: BAN, 1981).

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next part of the study displays the changes, which the Bulgarian translator made, adapting his translation to the respective audience in terms of language and composition, interventions and original contributions. Lastly, I will highlight possible conceptual linkages between Sofroniy’s Sistima and his autobiography as part of the corpus of The Book of Three Religions. While translating Cantemir’s Kniga sistima, the Bulgarian writer became accustomed to the style of the Moldavian prince to combine previous sources and polemic legends about the Qur’ān and the prophet Muḥammad together with his own ethnographic details, legends, and city rumors, which he recalled from his life in Constantinople. On the whole, he translated Kniga sistima accurately, yet he adapted the contents to his prospective readers, peppered the narrations with his own comments and added several new fragments, which reflect the nature of his source; they rely on previous sources and on orally transmitted legends. Furthermore, in his autobiography, Sofroniy Vrachanski put his own experience at work and recalled his interactions with the Turks presenting himself as a victim of Ottoman oppression, violence, and forced conversion.

2 Dimitrie Cantemir and Sofroniy Vrachanski: Two Ottoman Subjects in Exile The Bulgarian translator of Kniga sistima lived most of his life in the Ottoman province of Rumelia, in the territories situated between Constantinople and the Danube.12 During the eighteenth century, the lands of Rumelia were an arena of internal clashes between local Ottoman authorities and the civilian population, which often fell prey to the attacks of mountain bandits.13 He was from Kotel, a village in a gorge in the eastern Balkan Mountains, a part of the so-called Crimean Road (Rumeli Sağ kol; Kırım Yolu), used by the Ottoman troops for their conquests up north to Central Europe. The strategic location of the village brought prosperity to its inhabitants, who profited from providing the Ottoman army with supplies and also from livestock farming. Due to its economic growth the village established a literary center for scribes, calligraphers and book binders.14

12 Nadezhda Alexandrova, “Sofroniy Vrachasnki”, in Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History, vol. 22: Central Europe (1800–1914), ed. David Thomas and John A. Chesworth (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2025), 801–2, 805–9. 13 Ali Yaycıoğlu, Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016). 14 Darinka Karadzhova, Kotlenskiyat knizhoven tsentăr prez XVIII vek [The Literary Center in Kotel during the 18th Century] (Plovdiv: Izdatelstvo Hristo G. Danov, 1994).

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Sofroniy Vrachanski was born to a family of wealthy Bulgarian livestock merchants under the name Stoyko Vladislavov. In 1762, he was ordained priest in his birthplace where he taught at a local church school and copied a number of Slavonic books. In 1792, he moved from Kotel to Anchialo eparchy, and then, in 1794, he reunited with his family in the village of Arbanasi. This place had an exclusive social importance, as its inhabitants were mostly wealthy Christians, who maintained strong connections with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and Mount Athos. During the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, the village was a temporary residence of the Tărnovo Metropolitanate.15 It also accommodated representatives of several noble families of Wallachia, such as Brâncoveanu and Văcărescu, and distinguished Phanariots, like the Moruzis.16 Priest Stoyko’s family — especially his son Tsonko Stoykov and his grandsons Atanas Stoykov and Stoyko Stoykov (later known under the family name Bogoridi/Vogorides — were on good terms with their distinguished neighbours. In view of this social climate it does not come as a surprise that in 1794 priest Stoyko was offered to become a bishop of Vratsa, a strategic military, administrative and religious center in the northwest part of Rumelia. In September the same year he was consecrated as a bishop and fulfilled his office as a church tax-collector and a representative of the Christians before the local Ottoman authorities for six years. He took part in the “theatre of selection of local Muslim representatives ayans (аяни),”17 and witnessed the looting of the kărdzhali (кърджали), and accommodated state representatives or military squads while passing Rumelia by issuing documents, known as konaks (конаци). Sofroniy Vrachanski demonstrated a good command of spoken Turkish, 15 On Arbanasi see Gergana Georgieva Arbanasi prez XV–XIX vek: Socialno-ikonomicheski profil [Arbanasi between the 15th and 19th Centuries: Social and Economic Profile] (Varna: Izdadetlska kăshta Steno, 2014). 16 The Phanariots were predominantly members of Greek noble families who served as dragomans for the Sublime Porte and usually resided at the Phanar neighborhood in Constantinople, next to the premises of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Since 1714/15, in order to diminish the power of local boyars in the Romanian principalities, the Ottoman sultan started appointing Phanariot princes as rulers of Wallachia and Moldavia. The so-called “Phanariot era” lasted until 1831. See Alex Drace-Francis, The Making of Modern Romanian Culture: Literacy and the Development of National Identity (London–New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 10–26; Christine M. Philliou, Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution (Berkeley, CA: California University Press, 2010), 5–30; Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire (London–New York: Tauris, 1995), 48. 17 Mariya Shusharova, “Sofroniy Vrachanski (pop Stoyko) kato predstavitel na rayata v Osmanskata darzhava” [Sofroniy Vrachanski (priest Stoyko) as a Representative of the Reaya in the Ottoman Empire], in Sofroniy Vrachanski, knizhovnik i politik ot Novoto Vreme [Sofroniy Vrachanski, a Writer and Politician of Modern Times], ed.  Plamen Mitev and Vanya Racheva (Sofia: Univestitetsko izdatelstvo “Sv. Kliment Ohridski,” 2013), 93–108.

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and he was a connoisseur of the administrative and legal terms that applied to the status of the unprivileged Ottoman subjects (reaya, рая). Moreover, he displayed inventive abilities in his interaction with Muslim authorities that allowed him to escape without punishment from the situations when he was liable to a sanction. Actually, most of the episodes in his autobiography deal with the ploys he entailed in order to escape from aggravating situations, which could lead to detainment or torture. As a result of power rivalries and intrigues at the turn of the century Sofroniy Vrachanski resided for three years in the court of Osman Pazvantoğlu (1758–1807), the infamous governor of Vidin, who disobeyed the sultan’s authority in his quest for power and recognition. The Bulgarian bishop stayed within the fortress of Vidin from 1800 to 1803 until Pazvantoğlu’s protégé, a prelate named Kallinikos, was appointed bishop of Vidin, as part of the ruler’s plan for extending his influence over the Christians in the region.18 Despite Sofroniy’s own description in his autobiography that he was kept forcefully as a hostage in Vidin, other accounts infer that he has made trips to Wallachia,19 and that he might have acted as a secret agent, delivering information about Pazvantoğlu’s plans to the Wallachian voivodes or to the representatives of pro-Russian diplomatic circles.20 Perhaps due to his favors and to his family’s good relations with the ruling families of Wallachia, he received a warm welcome when he decided to reside in Wallachia for the rest of his life. The Phanariot ruler Constantin Ypsilanti (1760–1816) paid Sofroniy’s debt to the Ecumenical Patriarchate for the time he was detained in Vidin. The Bulgarian bishop also participated in different councils and ceremonies at the Ungro-Wallachian Metropolitanate in Bucharest. He was very active in the political sphere too. Starting with 1807, he was supporting the efforts of Bulgarians who were lobbying in Russia for the interests of the Slavic speaking Christian Orthodox population in the Balkans. In turn, chief Russian diplomats and generals endorsed his authority. During the last years of the Russo-Turkish War, he became abbot of the Mihai Vodă Monastery in Bucharest but towards the end of 1812 his health deteriorated and he was forced to retire, and thus returned to his family house in Bucharest. He died

18 Rositsa Gradeva, “Osman Pazvantoğlu of Vidin: Between Old and New,” Princeton Papers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 13 (2005): 115–61 [republished in R. Gradeva, War and Peace in Rumeli: 15th to Beginning of 19th Century (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2008), St. I]. 19 Nicolae Dură, “New Discoveries on the Basis of Original Documentary Materials on the Life and Activity of Bishop Sofronij Vrachanski (1739–1813) in Wallachia, His Adoptive Country (1802– 1813),” Bulgarian Historical Review 19–20, no. 1 (1991): 29–46, here 30. 20 Vera Mutafchieva, Kniga za Sofroniy [Book about Sofroniy] (Sofia: Voenno izdatelstvo, 1878), 132.

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in the autumn of 1813 in Bucharest and was buried in the yard of the Şerban Vodă Church.21 This brief sketch on Sofroniy Vrachanski’s biography displays several parallels with Cantemir’s biography. Common features between the two authors include their origin, their exile and their involvement with Russian imperial politics of the time. These parallels can be interpreted in view of the motivation of the authors to write and translate, respectively, the treatise on Islam. Both of them had personal experience interacting with Ottoman Turks and other Muslims, and witnessed them perform their confession of faith and the rites related to it. While migrating north towards a Christian ruled polity, they developed a more polemical perspective towards the Ottoman Empire as a state in decline, while their patriotism reflected the writings they produced in exile. Such a political positioning made them prone to the influence of the representatives of the Russian imperial court. Their political ambition as representatives of Moldavia and Bulgaria, respectively, and their willful acts of loyalty to the Russian tsar can explain their decision to deal with such a piece of polemic literature as Kniga sistima. Both Dimitrie Cantemir and Sofroniy Vrachanski share a common background as Ottoman subjects. The former was the second son of the voivode of Moldavia Constantin Cantemir (1612–93). He lived in Constantinople for 22 years as beyzade, a guarantee to his father’s loyalty to the Ottomans.22 In the multicultural and cosmopolitan capital of the Ottoman Empire, he studied the works of ancient philosophers and of both Christian and Muslim theologians and intellectuals, he discussed with princes and Sufis, and became a virtuoso of the bağlama (a long-necked lute).23 As mentioned above, Sofroniy had intense interactions with representatives of Ottoman authorities, yet, mostly with those who belonged to the provincial elite in Rumelia. When those two authors penned their works on Islam, they both had previous experience driven from everyday life, which they applied to their contents. In Kniga sistima, Cantemir often recollects stories, which he had heard at court, or local rumors and legends, such as the one called “Funny story” (Утешная повесть) about a Dutch diplomat from Constantinople who took the challenge to visit the sacred Muslim sites in Jerusalem.24 In his translation Sofroniy also recalls

21 Nicolae Dură, “New Data Concerning Sofronij Vrachianski,” RESEE 29, no. 1–2 (1991): 103–19. 22 Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan, 81–85. 23 Cem Behar, “Music and Musicians in the City,” in A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul, ed. Shirine Hamadeh and Çiğdem Kafescioğlu, Brill’s Companions to European History 26 (Leiden– Boston: Brill, 2021), 634–54; Walter Feldman, Music of the Ottoman Court: Makam, Composition and the Early Ottoman Instrumental Repertoire, Handbook of Oriental Studies–Section 1: The Near and Middle East 177 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2024). 24 Cantemir, Sistemul, 159–60.

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his knowledge of certain legends, spread among the Muslims he had met, such as his original fragment about the love story between a Russian girl and a Turkish boy, which I will discuss later in this essay. Another similarity in the life-trajectories of Dimitrie Cantemir and Sofroniy Vrachanski is their period of exile. In a decisive moment of their life, they both chose to emigrate up North and spend time rejoicing with their family. In 1711 the former went to Russia, and in 1803 the latter crossed the Danube to reside in Bucharest. They both died without being able to return to their homeland, and compensated their nostalgia with writings for the benefit of their countries that later became cornerstone works for the national consciousness of those respective nations. Written between 1714 and 1716, Dimitrie Cantemir’s Description of Moldavia (Descriptio Moldaviae) was translated into Romanian in 1825, and reached a wide reception during the nineteenth century when the Romanian national idea was established. Similarly, Sofroniy Vrachanski’s Kiriakodromion, sirech Nedelnik printed in 1806 had four editions during the nineteenth century, which secured his prestige as a significant figure in Bulgarian national consciousness even before his other hand-written manuscripts were even discovered. Another meaningful resemblance in the life-trajectories of the Moldavian prince and his Bulgarian translator is their pro-Russian political inclination. Both Dimitrie Cantemir and Sofroniy Vrachanski eventually took the side of the Russian army in the Russo-Turkish conflicts that they witnessed during their lives. Cantemir’s decision to switch camps during the military conflict known as “the Prut River Campaign” of 1711 was probably part of his theory of rise and decline of empires.25 He considered the Ottoman Empire in decline and found more prospects in the rising Russian empire under Peter the Great (r. 1721–25). His defection to the Russian tsar happened less than a year after he was named governor of Moldavia. He sacrificed his throne for a life-long service to tsar Peter I and gradually received a place in his closest circle of friends and advisors in St. Petersburg. It was prior to the expedition to the Caucasus and the Azov Sea (1721–23) that Peter I especially requested a printed book about the customs and beliefs of the Muslims population in accordance with his plans for submission of these territories. The request fell within the domain of Cantemir’s expertise and The System or Structure of the Muhammadan Religion or Kniga sistima was published in 1722. Even though the sources are silent about the way in which Sofroniy got hold of a copy of Kniga sistima, one possible hypothesis is that he got the book as a

25 Ştefan Lemny, Dimitrie Cantemir: A Romanian Prince at the Dawn of the European Enlightenment (Bucharest: Ed. Institutului Cultural Român, 2009), 94.

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reward for his cooperation with Russian agents and diplomats, who were putting efforts into spreading Russian political influence upon Balkan Slavic Christians. Pavel Oreshkov and Vasil Zlatarski infer that, already in 1800, a Russian agent was crossing Rumelia with secret missions to engage the local elites with the cause of a future alliance and protection of the Bulgarians from the Russians.26 The name of the Russian consul, Luca de Kiriko (1765–1830), appears in Sofroniy Vrachanski’s network as early as his stay in Vidin at Osman Pazvantoglu’s court, which signifies that such a connection existed prior to his exile in Bucharest. Luca de Kiriko is also mentioned later in Vrachanski’s correspondence in relation to a package, which de Kiriko had to deliver from Trieste to Bucharest upon a request from the Bulgarian bishop.27 Russian diplomats and generals, as well as Bulgarians who shared such pro-Russian views, approached Sofroniy Vrachanski during the last decade of his life. Eventually, after 1807, the bishop was convinced to act as a political representative of Bulgarians in front of the Russian military forces and wrote official declarations, letters and requests to the Russian emperor Alexander I (r. 1801–25) for mercy, protection and guidance for the suffering Bulgarians. In these official documents the common Slavic language and Christian identity were pointed out as grounding motives for acquiring protection from the tsar. The common denominator of evil were the Ottoman Turks, who “impose violence, robbery and tyranny, obviously to provoke forced conversion that would guarantee forever the wellbeing of the Ottoman Porte” (за да правят насилия, грабежи и тиранства, под предлог на който, разумява се, принуждават ги да си променяват вярата и с това навсегда да утвърдяват безопасността на Османската порта).28 The arguments in the letter resemble those, which the Bulgarian writer included in the foreword of his translation of Kniga sistima. Despite the initial similarities between Cantemir’s foreword and the one in the translation, towards their end the two introductory

26 Vasil Zlatarski, “Politicheskata rolya na Sofroniy Vrachanski prez rusko-turskata voina 1806– 1812 god” [Sofroniy Vrachanski’s Political Role in the Russo-Turkish War 1806–1812], Godishnik na sofijskiya universtitet 19 (1923): 3–85, here 10; Pavel Oreshkov, Njakolko dokumenta za Pazvantoglu i Sofroniya Vrachanski [Some Documents about Pazvantoglu and Sofroniya Vrachanski] (Sofia: Dărzhavna pechantnitsa, 1914), 46. 27 Oreshkov, Njakolko dokumenta, 54. 28 Since 1807, Sofroniy Vrachanski provided two Bulgarians, Atanas Nekovich and Ivan Zambin, with letters of recommendation that would legitimize their diplomatic mission in Sankt Petersburg to request support for Bulgarians from the Russian tsar. The quotation is from a letter to Ivan Zambin, dated January 10, 1808. See Sofroniy Vrachaski, Sofroniy Vrachanski săchinenia v dva toma [Sofroniy Vrachanski Collected Works in Two Volumes], vol. 2, ed. Afrodita Aleksieva, Vărban Vătov, Nikolay Aretov, Klimentina Ivanova, Maria Kondova and Ivan Radev (Sofia: Bălgarski pisatel, 1992), 506–7.

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pieces put an emphasis on different topics. Dimitrie Cantemir generously praised tsar Peter I as an inspiration for his study on Islam, and expressed his scholarly readiness to provide the requested volume, whereas Sofroniy Vrachanski referred mostly to the suffering flock of Bulgarian Christians who needed such a treatise as a polemic weapon against those prone to conversion. The existing archives do not contain any information to understand to what extent the Bulgarian translator knew Cantemir’s literary heritage. He chose to omit the name of the original author from his work and signed the preface as his own. Even though such a gesture might seem common in view of the medieval monastic practice of anonymity and adaptation, Sofroniy Vrachanski did not react in the same way to another of his sources in The Book of Three Religions: he announced Paulo Medici as the original author of the treatise on Judaism in the foreword of the second part of the volume (fol. 78r). A possible explanation for the omission of Cantemir’s name is that Sofroniy Vrachanski knew of the defection of the Moldavian prince to Peter I and was cautious to mention his name in a text, written in Wallachia under unstable political circumcises. Despite the fact that almost a century had passed since this event, Cantemir still could have been considered a traitor by the rulers installed to govern the Danubian Principalities of the Ottoman Porte.29 As it was mentioned above, the political constellation within which Sofroniy Vrachanski operated while in exile was complicated and he could have concealed Cantemir’s name to avoid any possible critique. Above all, he tried to protect the evolving Bulgarian national interests and to work for the sake of Bulgarians. His mission is declared at the end of the whole manuscript at the finale of his autobiography: That is why, day and night I labor to deliver several books in our own Bulgarian language. Since it was not possible for me to preach to them in person so they could hear my useful advice, let them read what I have written for their own benefit, pray the Lord for me, the unworthy, to amend my ignorance and send mercy to the laboring ones, to grant a right place at Doomsday. Amen! Затова ся трудя и аз сеги денем и нощем, да изпиша няколико книги по нашему болгарскому язику. Та ако не би возможно меня да сказувам им сас уста моя, да чуят от мене грешнаго някое полезное поучение, а тие да прочетут писание мое и да са уползуется и за мене недостойнаго Бога да молят невежеството мое изправити и трудившаго ся прощение сподобити. Да би получити и нам десних стояних в ден страшнаго воздаяния. Амин!

29 Lemny suggests that Cantemir’s name was “forbidden in his homeland on account of the anathema imposed on him by the Porte for his betrayal.” See Lemny, Dimitrie Cantemir, 120.

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3 Sofroniy Vrachanski and His Translation There are only a handful of studies that discuss the textual strategies employed by Sofroniy in his translations. Anca Irina Ionescu, who translated his works into Romanian, has classified the textual changes as “voluntary and involuntary,” while Tatyana Kopreeva labelled them as “artistic and philological.”30 Moreover, Nikolay Aretov has described the translation as a mixture between the medieval writing practice and the gradual birth of modern authorship.31 Olga Torodova considered the Bulgarian refutation project as a reproduction of Cantemir’s “theological, political and moralistic argumentation” with a strong emphasis on the latter.32 In line with these observations, and especially with Todorova’s opinion, in this essay I will display Sofroniy Vrachanski’s textual tools that assisted him in objecting further and explaining better the above-mentioned argumentation lines. His interventions will be discussed in terms of language, composition, contents and authorship.

3.1 The language Dimitrie Cantemir had the confidence of a scholar, a writer and expert on the Qur’ān and Islam. He wrote his work on Islam in Latin and then it was subsequently translated into Russian, which at that time was a language based on Church Slavonic infused with the reformist efforts of Peter I to modernize the script of the alphabet between 1708 and 1710. In his turn, Sofroniy Vrachanski, who also had experience in interfering with Muslims, did not express such a confidence in his manner of translation whenever he was translating tenets of the Lex Mohammetana. However, when he had to deal with legal or administrative issues that he had often came across in his everyday life as a priest and representative of the Bulgarian Christians, he did not follow Cantemir’s original explanation but he left the terms in Ottoman Turkish with Slavic orthography. For instance, when the names of the Qur’ān had to be translated in Bulgarian, Sofroniy followed strictly the orig30 Anca Irina Ionescu, “Considérations sur la traduction du livre sur le Système de la religion des Musulmans de Cantemir par Sofronie Vračanski,” RESEE 15, no. 1 (1977): 101–12; Tatyana Kopreeva, Nemerknushtii svjet: Iz istorii kniznih svhazej Bolgarii i Rosii XI–nachalo XIX vekov [An Unfading World: Examples from the Literary Connections between Bulgaria and Russia between the 11th–the Beginning of the 19th Century] (Veliko Tărnovo: Izdatelstvo Pik, 1996), 199–236. 31 Nikolay Aretov, Sofroniy Vrachanski, zhivot i delo [Sofroniy Vrachanski, Biography and Writings] (Sofia: Kralitsa Mab, 2017), 69–87. 32 Olga Todorova, “Sofroniy za drugite religii: njakoi nabljudenia vărhu islamskija razdel na ‘Kniga za trite religii’” [Sofroniy on the Other Religions: Some Observations on the Islamic Part of the ‘Book of Three Religions’], in Sofroniy Vrachanski knizhovnik i politik, 234–51, here 241–42.

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inal source in the spelling of the names of the sacred books in Cantemir’s original orthography: „It has four names Koran, Elkoran, Furkan, Kelamullag” (Четири имена има Коран, Ел Коран, Фуркан, Келамуллаг, fol. 248r). But when he came across a word he knew from his everyday contacts with the Turks, he did not hesitate to use it thus making his translation easier for his prospective readers. In the same opening paragraph, Cantemir used the Slavonic word for infidels nevernitsi (неверници), which Vrachanski knew, yet he deliberately added the term which the Turks used for the infidels, gâvur (гиявури), knowing that it was used in his homeland Rumelia. Another example for such an adaptation driven from experience, can be observed in the chapter where Cantemir describes the rite of circumcision (sünnet) for newly converted individuals (Obrezanie novopriemshih veru mohamedanskuju, fol. 309r). The Moldavian prince explained to his Russian readers the hierarchy of examination that had to be followed by those wishing to convert. Starting from the grand vizier, who would be a governmental figure from the divan in Constantinople, Cantemir explained that the lower levels in the hierarchy would be the pasha, which in the Russian administrative vocabulary would mean governor (губернатор), and then the kadı, whose position corresponds to that of the provincial judge (провнциялного судия). In his translation of the same paragraph, Sofroniy Vrachanski did not provide such explanations, assuming that his fellow Bulgarians knew well the Ottoman administrative hierarchy: When a Christian or a Jew, or a subject of some other confession turns [to the] Muslim faith and is subject to sünnet, if he is in Constantinople, first they take him to the vizier’s divan. If that happens elsewhere, then they take him to the pasha, or to the ayan, or to the kadı, dressed in his own clothes. Някой християнин, или евреин, или от някоя друга вяра, ако се обарне на веру мохамеданскую и хочут да го обрежат, ако е на Цариград, перво го приведут на везирскую диван. Ако ли на некое другое место, пред пашата, или пред аянина, или пред кадиа приводят го в своити си одежди облечен.

Sofroniy knew Church Slavonic well because it was widely accepted in religious and liturgical literature of the Slavic-speaking Christians in Eastern and Southeast Europe. However, he intentionally used colloquial expressions, Turkish or Greek words, that have replaced the original Slavonic ones, or were introduced in accordance with the social realities in the Ottoman state. For instance, instead of the Slavonic word for witness (свидетел) he used the Greek one (martyras) (fol. 321r); instead of the Slavonic word for cloth cover (покривало) he used the Turkish word secale (седжале) (fol. 276r), and sometimes he replaced Slavonic words with neologisms based on Slavic roots, such as the word for relief (облекчение) with legchina (легчина) (fol. 318r).

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In terms of syntax, whenever possible the Bulgarian translator rephrased Cantemir’s pompous baroque language. At the very beginning of The Book of Three Religions (fol. 1), he declared in detail that he wishes to write in “simple and short Bulgarian” (на болгарский простий и краткий язик). He often omitted sayings by ancient philosophers and scholars ancient philosophers and scholars whom Cantemir included. He preferred to retain biblical references and quotations from the Church fathers or he even added his own comments as conclusions. For instance, when translating the chapter about Muslim views on the creation of the world, Sofroniy kept the sequence of names of ancient philosophers (e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Equids, Ptolemais) but reduced a very complicated argumentation that Cantemir initially had used to prove that Christian views of creation are true and that Muslims rely on miraculous stories and fables. The Bulgarian translator got the general idea, omitted the mathematical and physical argumentation, retold the naïve legends that Muslims had invented, and finally concluded with an original remark: The Muslims know physics and know well that these [legends] are impossible to happen but above all they believe in the deceitful Qur’ān, and not in that, which is the real truth. Фисика учение учат и добре знаят, како то не е возможно никак, ала повише веруват ложное учение Корановое, а не що е известно истина.

The profile of Sofroniy Vracanski emerges similar to those of “vernacular translator who attempted to frame the Qur’an in ways that could explain the religion of the Turks to his readers in simpler, less academic terms.”33 This profile is congruent with the initial hypothesis of this essay on the motivation of the Bulgarian bishop to deliver such a text in his own language in order to offer arguments against Islam and raise awareness regarding the process of conversion to Islam among Bulgarians.

3.2 The composition The compositional changes shortened Cantemir’s original text. Sofroniy dismissed the original division into six books and did not follow the logic of Cantemir’s arrangement strictly. He moved the chapter on the creation of the world (Book IV in Cantemir) before the chapter on Muslim apocalypse (Book III in Cantemir). The explanation for this rearrangement is that Cantemir knew better the importance of Muslim eschatology in Islam and followed previous treatises when writing his own. In contrast, Sofroniy was not so familiar with this and created his 33 John V. Tolan, Faces of Muhammad: Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today (Princeton, NJ–Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019), 130.

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own format, derived from the structure of the Bible.34 In addition to these major changes, the Bulgarian translator transformed some subdivisions into chapters, producing 128 chapters in total, and abandoned the last sections of Cantemir’s treatise on Islamic scholarship. When giving titles to most of the chapters he used the genre “story,” “narration,” povest (повест), which was in line with the medieval Slavonic tradition. The reason why Sofroniy Vrachanski decided to compress the last seven parts of the final chapter “On Sciences” by Dimitrie Cantemir is not clear. Perhaps he found those parts irrelevant to his initial goal: he was designing an instructive volume against conversion and not a study on Muslim scholarly achievements. Still, there could have been other, rather pragmatic reasons, that instead of a detailed presentation of issues that Sofroniy was not competent with, he would shorten the description and create a list of all known sciences with their Arabic or Ottoman names and the corresponding Slavic correlations (fols. 351v–352r). Despite the fact that the Bulgarian translator did not explain the reasons for these compositional changes in his introduction they obviously correspond with his own logic about the structure of a polemic treatise against a rival religion.

3.3 The content There are also changes in terms of content, which can be divided into two categories: 1) regarding the full narrations; and 2) regarding his comments, which are quite abundant in some chapters and express his indignation in polemic terms. In total, there are three full original fragments, which Sofroniy Vrachanski inserted in his translation. So far, scholars have marked out two of them: 1) “A Greek Fable” (Grecheskaya istoria, fols. 186r–187r); and 2) a fragment from “A Story about Burial and Commemoration of the Muslims Who Died,” (Povest o pogrebanie i pominanii umershih mohamedanskih, fols. 318r–319). To these, I will add the foreword of the translation itself, entitled “A Foreword to the Dearest Reader” (Predislovie ljubesnejshemu chitatelju, fols. 180r–181r). The introduction starts as a recension to Cantemir’s preface and contains some of the arguments put forward by the author of Kniga sistima. However, the Bulgarian author shares his own thoughts and examples, and expresses the purpose of his translation. He signs the introduction as “Sofroniy, the bishop of Vratsa.” It resembles Cantemir’s introduction, as it presents quotations from the Psalms (Ps. 119:110) and John the Evangelist (1 John 4:1), that speak about the danger of the false prophets and the need to test the spirits if they

34 Cândea, “Studiu introductiv,” xxxii.

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are the spirit of God. But in Sofroniy’s version there is a larger quotation from John (1 John 4:1–3) as an epigraph at the outset of the first chapter (fol. 184v). It alludes to Sofroniy’s conviction that there is a connection between the Prophet Muhammad and the Antichrist, in the way the Prophet of Islam seduces Christians (fol. 181r): Then, at the right moment came Mohamed, the disdained by God, revolting against all Christian churches and attacked them like a wolf against the Christian flock of sheep. And seduced only the simple-minded people with his sensual and nonsensical preaching and invaded so many countries and kingdoms, as the prophet David says: “O, God, the nations have come into Your inheritance; Your holy temple they have defiled.” Тогива наишел време богопротивний Мохамед и возмутил все церкви християнския и устремил ся на них яко волк на стадо Христово. И прелестил толико простии души сас своя плотская и безсловесная мудрования и толко страни и царства обладал, каквото Давид пророк дума: “Боже, приидоша езичници в наследие твое и оскверниха завет твой.”

Although the very beginning of the introduction is similar to Cantemir’s, it diverges from it in inquiring about the rapid expansion of Islam, which is regarded as a “false prophecy.” The answer provided states that since it offers delights for the flesh, which are bound in beautiful and lustful wording, it easily attracts followers. The Bulgarian bishop explicitly declared that he copied the book to elucidate the stunning gap between the true words of God and the deceptive teachings of the Qur’ān. Sofroniy describes the saddening of his soul at the sight of those who have already been seduced and converted. Referencing John Chrysostom, Vrachanski adds the fable of the apple of Sodom, which seems pretty on the outside but turns to dust and ashes when one touches it.35 He uses this example to illustrate the moral damage, which the Muhammadan religion could bring to those who follow it. For the Bulgarian translator Islam is best denigrated when accused of perversion and sexual debauchery. In the introduction, he promises to reveal to his readers such cases, and indeed in the translated text he retains scenes which describe intense sexual appetite, orgies or sodomy. There are fragments in the translation, in which Dimitrie Cantemir did not mention homosexuality but Sofroniy Vrachanski added it to give a greater polemical spin to his translation (see fols. 198r and 206r). If we consider the introduction as the first full narration introduced by Sofroniy in his translation, the second full narration appears thus in the first chapter when he narrates the early years of the Prophet. Vrachanski follows Cantemir here,

35 For an English translation of the passage from John Chrysostom’s work entitled An Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring Up Their Children, see Max L. W. Laistner, Christianity and Pagan Culture in the Later Roman Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1951), 13.

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who himself used as a source the Book Muhammedia (Kniga Muhammedia).36 This initial story about Muhammad’s early prophetical mission is called by the Bulgarian translator “a Turkish fable” (turetska istoriia). He then interrupts the narration and announces that he will retell a “Greek fable.” We are not certain about Sofroniy Vrachanski’s sources because he did not give any reference to which author from the Byzantine or early modern Greek polemic tradition he could have cited. Moreover, the story contains several widespread legends. It starts by mentioning the plans of Muhammed “the trickster” (hitrokovarnen) to marry a rich woman and secure his livehood.37 In Vrachanski’s translation, the woman’s name is lady Kadiska (gospozha Kadiska). Then comes the narration about epilepsy, which he describes in Slavonic terms as “a fainting disability” (paduchii nedug). After this, Sofroniy Vrachanski introduces the legend of Sergius Baḥīrā, the Nestorian monk who instructed Muḥammad. Sergius is described in detail as a hardworking and talented heretic, who did his best to spread further the glory of the new Prophet. The name of Sergius appears also in Cantemir’s Kniga sistima. However, the place of this legend differs between Kniga sistima and the Bulgarian translation, and Vrachanski’s portrayal of the Nestorian monk is more detailed in description.38 The last full narration included in the translation discusses the rites of the Muslims. However, it is rather an ethnographic account about superstitions concerning death rituals than about burial according to the Sunna. It is situated in the chapter about the burial practices of true Muslims (fol. 319r). Vrachanski announces it as a popular fable, so widespread that “all Turks speak about it” (Tuka da skazhim edna fabula, shto ja vsi turci neprestanno govorjat). As a typical legend it could mention some significant event but does not give any exact timeframe of it. In this case the legend is about events, that happened after a Russo-Turkish War but it is not specified which military operation was in question. A young Muslim man became a slave in a rich Russian Christian family. The daughter in that family fell in love with him and started secretly believing in the Muslim religion. But she got sick and just before her death she asked her parents to set the slave free and convinced him to dig up her grave and take all her jewelry for himself. When he did that during the night, he found out that the beautiful woman was not in that grave but there lied his hoca who once taught him to believe in Allah. Startled and perplexed, he ran from the Russian lands, went back to his homeland and found out that the same hoca had recently died. He requested digging up of his grave and there was the corpse of his beloved woman. The explanation of this replacement 36 The source is identified as Risale-i Muhammediye, a mystical poem by Mehmed Yazıcioğlu Efendi (d. 1451; 855 AH), written in 1449. See Cantemir, Sistemul, 606. 37 Tolan, Faces of Muhammad, 44–73. 38 Cantemir, Sistemul, 102.

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done by angels was that in his heart the hoca was a secret believer in Christianity, therefore his body was transferred to the land of the infidels. And the maiden who wanted to convert and became a true believer, was brought by angels to the land of the Turks. Sofroniy Vrachanski angrily calls such stories “deceitful fables for grannies” (babini basni i fabuli lozhnaya) and ridicules the Muslims for believing in such sensational tales (fol. 319r). With this in mind, it becomes obvious that he chose specific examples, which would expose Muḥammad as a deceitful “impostor,” and his followers as falling into delusion and believing in invented stories. In addition to these fragments, the Bulgarian translator also added many commentaries to the original text. Generally, they appear in square brackets, but sometimes they can also be found in the margins of the manuscript. I have identified three types of such comments. The first type of comments are translations of Cantemir’s comments. The Moldavian prince produced many explanations of words, which he placed between parentheses, and, in many cases, his translator in Bulgarian does not interfere in their text during the translation process, but at times he rephrased them entirely. The second type of comments are the philological clarifications of which we talked earlier. Vrachanski placed in brackets synonyms or translations. For instance, he translated the Russian word for money to Bulgarian (e.g., dengi-pari), he translated Church-Slavonic words with colloquial Turkish ones (e.g., “wrongdoers,” zlochintsi-hayırsız) or latinized Russian words into Church-Slavonic or Turkish (e.g., “conditions,” kondicii-sostoyania-şartlar). These changes nourish the lexical diversity of the translation and display Sofroniy’s efforts to teach while preaching and to experiment with language while translating the Russian original. The third kind of comments are Sofroniy Vrachanski’s own thoughts to the original text. They are full sentences and usually display a temperamental reaction to statements. It is usually a mixture of anger, surprise and aversion. Their presence is rather intense in the chapters about the miracles of the Prophet Muḥammad (fols. 194r–199r), Muslim theology and the prophets and saints (fols. 214r–228v) and the Muslim interpretations of the Apocalypse (fols. 229r–236v). Since Cantemir includes so many polemical legends with degrading and obscene character, it is no wonder that his translator into Bulgarian considered them scandalous and often exclaimed that these are blasphemies or lies: “See the blasphemy!” (Vizhte khula!, fol. 217v); “See the big lie when did Moses live and when did Mohamed live!” (Vizhte lzha goliama, kogi bil Moĭseĭ, kogi bil Mokhamed?, fol. 198v). He also used irony when speaking of Muhammad conquering Medina (fol. 201v): “See the perfidious man, he found the right time” (Vizhte kovarnago cheloveka, naĭde vremia). Their polemical effect is achieved with verbs in imperative constructions, performative verbs, rhetorical questions, exclamations, a multitude of epithets to one noun, such

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as in the example: “Oh, a great blasphemy and rampage, and a pale mean preaching of Mohamed” (O, velikaja hula i buĭstvo i bledniie slova merzkiie Mokhamedoviĭ, fol. 236r). Thus, they appear to question and refute the information from the original text. Moreover, their idea is to reject the logic of certain causality in the narrative, and eventually to accuse the people who practice Islamic faith of being misled and turned into fools. These interventions contribute to the instructive function of the translation. They are short polemical comments, which can assist the readers of the translation in preparing their own disputation in defense of Christian faith and in denouncement of Islam. Regarding the way Sofroniy Vrachanski quoted the Qur’ān, the general observation is that he trusted Kniga sistima entirely and did not introduce new references to suras or verses. The most he could do is to add a commentary or a stylistic expression that served his refutation purposes. For instance, at the beginning of the chapter on the Qur’ān (fol. 202v) the Bulgarian writer preferred to replace a highly referential argumentation by Cantemir on the rhythmical structure of the Qur’ānic verses with his own opening words assuring his readers that the Sacred book of the Muslims is a human invention: Although there are many more who would accuse and underline that he is a false prophet and show that his creed is devilish and pertaining to the flesh, you, dear wisdom-loving reader, diligently reflect and regard this issue and see that this faith and this law are historically and poetically designed by wise men upon men’s will because according to the faith and law, which are from God, Mohamed is a false prophet and his creed is deceitful. Макар и много другии противно да сказуват и сас силное начертание лъжепророка го назовават и учението му показуват како е диаволско и по плотское угодие съчинено, ала ти, любомудрий читателю, прилежно разсуди и разсмотри тая вещ и вижд, како е тая вера и той закон историческая и стихотворная и от мудрих человеков составлена по хотению человеческму, почто по божественная вера и закон явно са несумнено показува, како е Мохамед лъжливий пророк и учение неговое лъжливо ест.

The scholarship on Dimitrie Cantemir agrees that he does not follow one singular standard when he quotes the Qur’ān.39 Sometimes he points out a certain sura by its number. At other occasions he recalls and rephrases some verses learned by heart. He used also to just quote a verse without referencing it at all. This tendency is developed further by his Bulgarian translator. Sofroniy tries to render the numbers of the suras from the original, but tends do some formal changes, due to his instruction in Slavonic. Very often he uses the Slavonic numeral system with letters and diacritic signs instead of Latin digits (see, for instance, “On Hell and what is it and what kind of Hell it is,” Povest mohamendanska o ade, chto kakovij est 39 Cândea, “Studiu introductiv,” x–xii.

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ad, fol. 242 v), while, on other occasions, he replaces Cantemir’s verbal expressions (nineteenth) with Arabic letters (e.g., “A fable about the names of Qur’ān,” Povest o imenah Korana, fols. 248r–249v). There are also some occasions when Sofroniy Vrachanski contributed to the original quotation by adding expressions which serve his own refutation agenda. For instance, in the above-mentioned chapter on the Qur’ān there is a story in which Muhammad polemicized with non-believers who accused him of consulting with Jews and Persians before writing his sacred book. Initially Cantemir retold the story eliciting the quotation: “To those who deny you, say: yours will be yours and mine will be mine” (Противляющимся рцы: твоя-твоя да будуд, а моя-моя). It adheres to verse Q 10:41: “If they deny you, then say, ‘My deeds are mine and your deeds are yours. You are free of what I do and I am free of what you do!’.” The Bulgarian translation of the same verse replaces “denial” with “murder”: “The one who opposes you, but you are incapable of murdering him, then you tell him: let yours be yours, and mine be mine” (Кой стои противо тебе насреща и не си возможен да го убиеш, а ти му речи: твоя, твоя да будет и моя, моя, fol. 203v). For him in the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims violence comes first, and the possibility of a peaceful resolution could follow only on the condition that for some reason the Muslim refuses to attack his opponent. Such observations correspond not only with Sofroniy’s introductory words but also with the weak and vulnerable position of his protagonist in the last piece of The Book of Three Religions — the autobiography. There is another decision of the Bulgarian translator, which probably comes both from his everyday experience and from his previous writing practice as a copyist.40 There are quite a few times in the translation where Sofroniy included a transliteration of the shahāda, in places where Cantemir did not mention it in Arabic (see, for example, fols. 207r, 216r, 241r). Strangely, for the Bulgarian translator it was not enough just to translate the text of the Muslim confession of faith. Each time he mentioned it, he insisted on quoting the whole text in Arabic. He wrote the full text two times in capital letters LAGI ILLAGI IL ALLAH MOHAMMEDUN RESUL ALLAH (fol. 207r); at other occasions he made mistakes in the translit-

40 While he was still a young priest, Stoiko of Kotel copied two times a History of Slavobulgarians, a very influential historical account for Bulgarian national consciousness during the National revival. In his second copy he added two new stories about neomartyrs to the original list of “Bulgarian” martyrs, created by Paisiy Hilendarski. See Stoyan Romanski, Nov Sofroniev prepis na Paisievata istoria ot 1781 god., săpostaven s prepisa ot 1765 [New Copy of History of Slavobulgarians by Sofroniy from 1781, Compared from the Earlier Copy from 1765] (Sofia: BAN, 1938), xiv–xv. See also Istoriya slavjanobolgarska, kritichesko izdanie s prevod i komentar [History of Slavobulgarians, a Critical Edition], ed. Dimitar Peev et al. (Mount Athos: Slavjanobalgarska zografska obitel, 2015), 367.

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eration but still wrote it down diligently as such: lai lai il Allah Mohamedun resul ullah (fol. 216), or he replaced certain vowels or consonants while rendering it on paper: Lagi, lagi, alla Allag, Muhammedu resulullag (fol. 241r). A possible interpretation of this frequency could be that Sofroniy Vrachanski wanted to raise awareness among his prospective readers about the danger of the words of the shahāda, which could evoke involuntary conversion of Christians. They might hear and just accidentally repeat the words, without knowing that they are a confession of the Muslim religion. This story was one of the typical narrative plots in the hagiographical texts about neomartyrs that the Bulgarian writer knew well. Such possible interpretation goes in line with a fragment from Kniga sistima about the young and beautiful Nikolae, a Christian whom the Janissaries convinced to learn Turkish and mislead him to pronounce the shahāda without knowing it and who eventually became tortured and killed, becoming thus a neomartyr (Zde skazhem istoria blagochestivaja i sladostnejshaja, fol. 310r). The original source for this story comes from the hagiographical text describing the martyrdom of Saint Nicholas the grocer from Karpenesi.41 Cantemir included it, saying that he was a witness of this tragic incident in Constantinople. In his turn, Sofroniy Vrachanski translated it, adding an original commentary at the beginning of the episode that such incidents happen not only to Greeks, as Cantemir wrote in brackets, but “to Greeks and Bulgarians” (kolko е teshkoe i bednoe zhiveeneto hristianskoe, a naj-mnogo na greki bolgari, shto vozdishat i dosega pod tureckoe i mohamedanskoe teshkii i zhestokii jarem i nikak ne si otdăhvat, fol. 310r).

3.4 From Mimicry to Authorship The last change in Sofroniy Vrachanski’s adaptation strategy over Cantemir’s Kniga sistima is related to his sense of authorship. As mentioned above, Sofroniy omitted the name of the original author. There are many episodes in Kniga sistima where Cantemir recalled the time he lived in Constantinople and spent his time in the court, in the company of learned men, Sufis and musicians. All these curious and even anecdotal episodes, which attach a rich ethnographical perspective to his study on Islam, are represented as if the Bulgarian translator himself has experienced them. Cantemir and Sofroniy overlap in the position of the narrator. This approach may have turned into stimulus for the latter to create his own personal record of events at the end his The Book of Three Religions. This imitation of author-

41 Nomikos Vaporis, Witnesses of Christ: Orthodox Christian Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Period 1437–1860 (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir Seminary Press, 2000), 123.

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ship brought up the birth of an original text, namely the autobiography entitled Life and Suffering of the Sinful Sofroniy. Beside the thematic coherence between the Bulgarian translation of Dimirie Cantemir’s work and Sofroniy Vrachanski’s autobiography, which include experience of their writers with the Ottoman Turks, there is also a formal aspect of their convergence. The translation from Cantemir and the autobiography are bound together and have continuous foliation; there is just a blank verso page between them.42 The Book of Three Religions has a circular composition. It starts with a self-portrait of the Bulgarian bishop (fol. 5), and it ends with the author’s autobiography, a written self-portrait displaying the narrator as a humble victim of uncontrollable violence, and a witness of wickedness and abuse of power (fols. 353–362). Indeed, the contents of the original text contain many fragments, which display confrontations between the narrator and various Muslims (i.e., local Ottoman authorities, passing army leaders, Crimean sultans, Janissaries or pashas). Those episodes unfold from his earlier years as a priest and end with his exile in Bucharest. They display a common structure of an adventure in which “the innocent” Bulgarian Christian faces a life-threatening danger coming most often from Muslims who have acquired higher social position. The “sinful Sofroniy” (greshniia Sofroniĭ) escaped the danger by exercising his skills to negotiate, to beg for mercy, or just to run and hide as fast as he could. The whole text is a chain of dramatic fragments, micronarratives in which the protagonist is threatened by seemingly unavoidable menace. He faces the danger of sexual harassment, of impalement, of shooting, of hanging, or of forceful conversion to Islam.43 In a possible intertextual comparison between translation of the Sistima and the autobiography, it can be suggested that the Bulgarian translator of Kniga sistima might have been influenced by Cantemir’s text not only in terms of the genre of the memoir but also in regard to some aspects related to the violence and inferiority of Christians in Ottoman society. If his autobiography is examined not as an autonomous text but as a part of a codex full of polemical works, then we can regard the autobiography as some kind of an autonomous signature, an experiment of the translator as an author of his own life under the threat. Unfortunately, Sofroniy Vrachanski’s contemporaries did not have the chance to make parallels between the manuscripts in The Book of Three Religions. As it was mentioned at the beginning of this essay the Ukrainian scholar who discovered the autobiography in the collection of Mikhail Pogodin did not pay attention to the polemic treatises. In this sense, almost all interpretations of Sofroniy’s original text that exist until today have dealt with the text either as

42 Kopreeva, Nemerknushtii svjet, 208–9. 43 Some of these episodes were classified as highly improbable by Mutafchieva, Kniga, 77–86.

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inscribed in the political context of late eighteenth-century Rumelia and Wallachia, or as a literary masterpiece, which infers the beginning of a “modern” type of fiction.

4 Conclusions Instead of analyzing each text from The Book of Three Religions separately, in this essay I attempted to distinguish a common conceptual and formal coherence between certain texts included in it, especially between the translation into vernacular Bulgarian of Cantemir’s Kniga sistima and Sofroniy Vrachanski’ s autobiography. The essay regards the Bulgairan translation as an intellectual tool for fighting the menace of Islam in an Ottoman context. The purpose Kniga sistima was to show the moral degradation of Muslims and to confront the theological foundations of the Muhammadan religion. After discussing the biography of the Bulgarian translator, it became clear that during the period of translation from Russian to Bulgarian at the beginning of the nineteenth century Sofroniy Vrachanski had a political career that resembled pretty much that of Dimitrie Cantemir in St. Petersburg at the beginning of the previous century during the era of tsar Peter I. The analysis of their parallel life-trajectories reveals Sofroniy’s emphasis on the topic of the danger of conversion. Therefore, the adaptation strategies he undertook while translating the piece were to simplify the complexity of the theological line of the argument, and to pepper his work with stories and comments, which emphasize the moral line of objection to the tenets of the Muslim religion. In order to secure his image of a Christian victim under Ottoman oppression at the end of the volume, the Bulgarian bishop added his original contribution, namely his autobiography. As a whole, he has designed his Book of Three Religions to become a fully-fledged polemical weapon in the hands of future Bulgarian priests and preachers. Moreover, with his translation, Sofroniy Vrachanski became a late representative of a long tradition of polemic literature on the Qur’ān and the Sunna, which he adapted in vernacular language for the sake of the religious education of his fellow Bulgarians.

Bibliography Manuscripts St. Petersburg. RNA. col. Mikhail Pogodin. MS 1204.

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Primary Sources Cantemir, Dimitrie. Sistemul sau Întorcmirea religiei muhammedane [The System or Structure of Muhammadan Religion]. Edited by Virgil Cândea and Anca Irina Ionescu. Opere Complete 8/2. Bucharest: Ed. Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1987. Kantemir, Dimitriy. Kniga sistima ili sostoyanie muhammedanskoi religii [The System or Structure of Muhammadan Religion]. St. Peterburg: V tipografii tsarstvujushego, 1722. Laistner, Max L. W., trans. Christianity and Pagan Culture in the Later Roman Empire. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1951. Vrachanski, Sofroniy. “Pravoslavnoe izpovedanie veriy” [On the Christian Orthodox Faith]. In Katechizicheski, omileticheski i nravouchitelni pisania iz răkopisnoto nasledstvo na Svetitelya [Catechisms, Homiletics and Didactic Writings from St. Sofroniy’s Manuscript Heritage]. Edited by Episkop Kalinik Vrachanski, 33–187. Sofia: Sinodalno izdatelstvo, 1989. Vrachaski, Sofroniy. Sofroniy Vrachanski săchinenia v dva toma [Sofroniy Vrachanski, Collected Works in Two Volumes]. Vol. 2. Edited by Afrodita Aleksieva, Vărban Vătov, Nikolay Aretov, Klimentina Ivanova, Maria Kondova and Ivan Radev. Sofia: Bălgarski pisatel, 1992.

Secondary Literature del Agata, Giuseppe. “I riti e costumi degli Ebrei confutati del livornese Paolo Sebastiano Medici nell’opera di Sofronij Vračanski, figura centrale nella ‘Rinascita’ culturale bulgara.” Nuovi Studi Livornesi 13 (2006): 173–80. Alexandrova, Nadezhda. “Sofroniy Vrachasnki”. In Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. Vol. 22. Central Europe (1800–1914), ed. David Thomas and John A. Chesworth, 801–2, 805–9. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2025. Angelov, Boniu. Săvremennitsi na Paisiy [Paisiy’s Contemporaries]. Vol. 1. Sofia: BAN, 1963. Aretov, Nikolay. Sofroniy Vrachanski, zhivot i delo [Sofroniy Vrachanski, Biography and Writings]. Sofia: Kralitsa Mab, 2017. Behar, Cem. “Music and Musicians in the City.” In A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul, ed. Shirine Hamadeh and Çiğdem Kafescioğlu, 634–54. Brill’s Companions to European History 26. Leiden– Boston: Brill, 2021. Cândea, Virgil. “Studiu introductiv” [Introduction]. In Cantermir, Sistemul, v–xiii. Drace-Francis, Alex. The Making of Modern Romanian Culture: Literacy and the Development of National Identity. London–New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006. Dură, Nicolae. “New Discoveries on the Basis of Original Documentary Materials on the Life and Activity of Bishop Sofronij Vrachanski (1739–1813) in Wallachia, His Adoptive Country (1802–1813).” Bulgarian Historical Review 19–20, no. 1 (1991): 29–46. Dură, Nicolae. “New Data Concerning Sofronij Vrachianski.” RESEE 29, no. 1–2 (1991): 103–19. Faroqhi, Suraiya. Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire. London–New York: Tauris, 1995. Feldman, Walter. Music of the Ottoman Court: Makam, Composition and the Early Ottoman Instrumental Repertoire. Handbook of Oriental Studies–Section 1: The Near and Middle East 177. Leiden– Boston: Brill, 2024.

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Georgieva, Gergana. Arbanasi prez XV–XIX vek: Socialno-ikonomicheski profil [Arbanasi between the 15th and 19th Centuries: Social and Economic Profile]. Varna: Izdadetlska kăshta Steno, 2014. Gradeva, Rossitsa. “Osman Pazvantoğlu of Vidin: Between Old and New.” Princeton Papers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 13 (2005): 115–61 [Republished in R. Gradeva. War and Peace in Rumeli: 15th to Beginning of 19th Century. Istanbul: Isis Press, 2008, St. I]. Gradeva, Rossitsa. “Conversion to Islam in Bulgarian Historiography: An Overview.” In Religion, Ethnicity and Contested Nationhood in the Former Ottoman Space. Edited by Jørgen Nielsen, 187–222. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2012. Hilendarski, Paisiy. Istoriya slavjanobolgarska, kritichesko izdanie s prevod i komentar [Istoriya slavjanobolgarska, kritichesko izdanie s prevod i komentar [History of Slavobulgarians: A Critical Edition]. Edited by Dimitar Peev et al. Mount Athos: Slavjanobalgarska zografska obitel, 2015. Ionescu, Anca Irina. “Considérations sur la traduction du livre sur le Système de la religion des Musulmans de Cantemir par Sofronie Vračanski.” RESEE 15, no. 1 (1977): 101–12. Karadzhova, Darinka. Kotlenskiyat knizhoven tsentăr prez XVIII vek [The Literary Center in Kotel during the 18th Century]. Plovdiv: Izdatelstvo Hristo G. Danov, 1994. Klimentina, Ivanova. Bălgarski, srăbski i moldo-vlahiyski kirilski răkopisi v sbirkata na M.P. Pogodin [Bulgarian, Serbian and Moldo-Wallachian Cyrillic Manuscripts in the Collection of Mihail Pogodin]. Sofia: BAN, 1981. Kopreeva, Tatyana. Nemerknushtii svjet: Iz istorii kniznih svhazej Bolgarii i Rosii XI–nachalo XIX vekov [An Unfading World: Examples from the Literary Connections between Bulgaria and Russia between the 11th–the beginning of the 19th Centuries]. Veliko Tărnovo: Izdatelstvo Pik, 1996. Lemny, Ştefan. Dimitrie Cantemir: A Romanian Prince at the Dawn of the European Enlightenment. Bucharest: Ed. Institutului Cultural Român, 2009. Mutafchieva, Vera. Kniga za Sofroniy [Book about Sofroniy]. Sofia: Voenno izdatelstvo, 1878. Oreshkov, Pavel. Njakolko dokumenta za Pazvantoglu i Sofroniya Vrachanski [Some Documents about Pazvantoglu and Sofroniya Vrachanski]. Sofia: Dărzhavna pechantnitsa, 1914. Philliou, Christine M. Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution. Berkeley, CA: California University Press, 2010. Rakovski, Georgi. “Dragocenni pamiatnitsi za bŭlgarska nova istoria: Zhitie i stradania greshnago Sofronia” [Precious Testimonies for the Contemporary Bulgarian History: Life and Sufferings of the Sinful Sofroniy]. Dunavski lebed 55–61 (1861): 220–45. Romanski, Stoyan. Nov Sofroniev prepis na Paisievata istoria ot 1781 god., săpostaven s prepisa ot 1765. [New Copy of History of Slavobulgarians by Sofroniy from 1781, Compared from the Earlier Copy from 1765]. Sofia: BAN, 1938. Shusharova, Mariya. “Sofroniy Vrachanski (pop Stoiko) kato predstavitel na rayata v Osmanskata darzhava” [Sofroniy Vrachanski (priest Stoyko) as a Representative of the Reaya in the Ottoman Empire]. In Sofroniy Vrachanski, knizhovnik i politik ot Novoto Vreme [Sofroniy Vrachanski, a Writer and Politician of Modern Times]. Edited by Plamen Mitev and Vanya Racheva, 93–108. Sofia: Univestitetsko izdatelstvo “Sv. Kliment Ohridski,” 2013. Todorova, Olga. “Sofroniy za drugite religii: njakoi nabljudenia vărhu islamskija razdel na ‘Kniga za trite religii’” [Sofroniy on the Other Religions: Some Observations on the Islamic Part of the “Book of Three Religions”]. In Sofroniy Vrachanski knizhovnik i politik, 234–51.

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Tolan, John V. Faces of Muhammad: Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today. Princeton, NJ–Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019. Vaporis, Nomikos. Witnesses of Christ: Orthodox Christian Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Period 1437–1860. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 2000. Vezenkov, Alexander and Marinov, Tchavdar. “The Concept of National Revival in Balkan Historiographies.” In Entangled Histories of the Balkans: Shared Pasts, Contested Legacies. Vol. 3. Edited by Roumen Daskalov and Alexander Vezenkov, 406–63. Balkan Studies Library 16. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2013. Yaycıoğlu, Ali. Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016. Zlatarski, Vasil. “Politicheskata rolya na Sofroniy Vrachanski prez rusko-turskata voina 1806–1812 god.” [Sofroniy Vrachanski’s Political Role in the Russo-Turkish War 1806–1812]. Godishnik na Sofijskiya universtitet 19 (1923): 3–85.

Stefan Schreiner

Russian Orthodox Qur’ān Translations of the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth Century and Tatar-Muslim Responses Abstract: This essay offers an overview of the development of Russian Orthodox and Tatar-Muslim studies on Islam, with a focus on Arabic philology and Qur’ān in their formative period in the eighteenth- and nineteenth centuries. The chapter surveys the context and the impact of tsarist policies and Islamic enlightenment, as well as reformist ideas. This period marked a remarkably productive chapter of Orthodox Christian-Muslim relations.

1 Introduction There is a long history of encounter between Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Eastern Europe and its adjacent Asian regions.1 In the wake of Tatar-Mongol expansion, Islam spread into areas that were inhabited by Orthodox Christians who engaged with Islam.2 These arguments were based on translations of Greek polemic-apologetic texts as they were adopted into Slavonic and Russian literature.3 Other than this theological debate, most academic studies on Islamic texts began only in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.4 1 On the special relations that Russia had developed from its very beginning with the world of Islam, that were much different from those between the West and Islam, see the summary by Galina M. Yemelianova, Russia and Islam: A Historical Survey, Studies in Russian and East European History and Society (Hampshire–New York: Palgrave, 2002), esp. 1–98. 2 Mark A. Batunskiĭ, Rossiia i Islam [Russia and Islam], vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress–Traditsiia, 2003), 7–160, 194–327. 3 On this significance of theological Byzantine literature and its influence cf. Fëdor A. Kurganov, Zametka k voprosu o vizantiĭskoĭ protivomusulʹmanskoĭ literature [A Note to the Question of Byzantine Anti-Muslim Literature] (Kazan: Tipografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1878); Stefan Schreiner, “Riccoldo da Monte di Croce in East European Context: Some Remarks on the Reception of Riccoldo’s Works in Russian and Polish Literature,” in Riccoldo da Monte di Croce (†1320): Missionary to the Middle East and Expert on Islam, ed. Kurt Villads Jensen and Davide Scotto, Konferenser 112 (Stockholm: The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, 2024), 331–82. 4 See the overviews by Svetlana A. Kirillina and Mikhail  S.  Meyer, “Qur’anic Studies in Russia: Traditions and Accomplishments,” Vestnik moskovskogo universiteta [Ser. 13: Vostokovedenie] 4  (2013):  3–22 (with extensive bibliography);  and Efim A. Rezvan, “Koran v Rossii [The Qur’ān https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-011

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Theological debate gained popularity when Ivan IV the Terrible (r. 1547–84) ascended the throne of the Muscovite Rus’ in 1547. Assuming the title of tsar or imperator, Ivan turned the Muscovite Rus’ into the Tsardom of Russia (Russkoe tsarstvo), the cradle of the later Russian Empire.5 During this time, relationships between Eastern European Orthodox Christians and Muslims began to shift. As Russia expanded towards the Volga and Ural regions in the south and the east, this resulted in the incorporation of Islamic societies. With the conquests of the Tatarian Khanates of Kazan (1552) and Astrakhan (1556), for the first time Muslims became subjects of an empire that claimed to be based on the three pillars of “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality” (Pravoslavie, Samoderzhavie, Narodnostʹ). Initially, there was little need for people perceived as “godless Hagarenes,” as Mark A. Batunskiĭ wrote. Tatar-Muslims living in these newly-conquered provinces were perceived as barbarian peoples who first had to be civilized (i.e., Christianized).6 For this purpose, Kazan (1555) and Astrakhan (1607) were elevated to the rank of sees of bishops whose foremost task was to develop and implement missionary activities to convert Tatar-Muslim subjects to the Orthodox Church and turn Muslim subjects into Russian subjects. For the Tatar-Muslims this was a difficult time of persecution and forced conversion. Ivan’s successor, the Tsar Fëdor I Ivanovich (r. 1584–98) decreed in 1593 that mosques in mixed Christian-Muslim towns were to be destroyed. These policies continued until the reign of Tsar Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725).7 He established chairs for Oriental and “Islamic” languages at some universities and ordered that the Qur’ān should be translated into Russian.

in Russia]” in Islam na territorii byvsheĭ Rossiĭskoĭ imperii: Ėntsiklopedicheskiĭ slovarʹ [Islam on the Territory of the Former Russian Empire: Encyclopedic Dictionary], vol. 1, ed. S. M. Prozorov (Moscow: Izdatelʹskaia firma ‘Vostochnaia literature’ RAN, 2006), 201b–216b; Efim A. Rezvan, “The Qur’ān and Its World: VIII/2, West-Östliche Divans (the Qur’ān in Russia),” Manuscripta Orientalia 5, no. 1 (1999): 32a–62b; and Rezvan, Al-Qur’ān al-karīm fī Rūsīya (Dubai, 2011). 5 Batunskiĭ, Rossiia i Islam, vol. 1, 161–93, 327–81; Matthew P. Romaniello, The Elusive Empire: Kazan and the Creation of Russia, 1552–1671 (Madison, WI–London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2012). 6 See Mark A. Batunskiĭ, “Islam i russkaia kulʹtura XVIII veka: Opyt istoriko-epistemologicheskogo issledovaniia” [Islam and the Russian Culture in the 18th Century: An Attempt at Historical-Epistemological Research], Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 27, no. 1 (1986): 45–70, and Jaroslaw Pelenski, Russia and Kazan. Conquest and Imperial Ideology (1438–1560s). Near and Middle East Monographs 5 (The Hague–Paris: Mouton & Co. N. V., 1974), 177–281. 7 From the large bibliography on the topic, see Robert D. Crews, For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009); Agnès Nilüfer Kefeli, Becoming Muslim in Imperial Russia: Conversion, Apostasy, and Literacy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014); and Mustafa Tuna, Imperial Russia’s Muslims: Islam, Empire, and European Modernity, 1788–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

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These books were printed and distributed among the Muslims living in the governorates of Kazan and Astrakhanat the State Treasury’s expense.8

2 Translations of the Qur’ān into Russian The first translation of the Qur’ān into Russian, which was produced in order to implement the Tsar’s decree, was completed and printed anonymously in Saint Petersburg in 1716 under the title The Alcoran of Mahomet or the Turkish [Religious] Law.9 The book begins with a short opening letter “To the Reader” (K chitateliu) and a brief introductory essay “About the Turkish Faith” (O Vere Turetskoĭ), after which follows the Russian translation of the Qur’ān. As stated on the title page, the Qur’ān was not translated from its original Arabic, but “translated from the French into Russian. Printed by order of His Imperial Majesty.” Although this translation does not mention the original title or the author, the organization demonstrates it was based on the French translation of the Qur’ān by the diplomat André Du Ryer, Sieur de la Garde de Malezair (c. 1580–1660/72).10 The Russian text faithfully reproduces its French source, which includes Du Ryer’s letter “To the Reader” (Av Lectevr) and his “Summary of the Religion of the Turks” (Sommaire de la Religion des Tuvrcs) with all its inaccuracies and mistakes.11 Around 1722, an anonymous editor/translator 8 Rezvan, “Koran v Rossii,” 203b–205a; Efim A. Rezvan, Vvedenie v koranistiku [Introduction to Qur’ānic Studies] (Kazan: Izdatelʹstvo Kazanʹskogo Universiteta, 2014), 256–61; I. J. Kratschkowski, Die russische Arabistik: Umrisse ihrer Entwicklung, ed. Otto Mehlitz (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1957), 40–41; Horst Röhling, “Koranausgaben im russischen Buchdruck des 18.  Jahrhunderts,” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 52 (1977): 205–10; Dmitriĭ Arapov, “Islam v pëtrovskoĭ Rossii” [Islam in Petrine Russia], Vestnik moskovskogo universiteta [Ser. 8: Istoriia] 4 (2012): 3–11; Dmitriĭ Arapov, “Musulʹmane Rossii pri Pёtre I” [Muslims in Russia under Peter I], Pax Islamica 1–2 [8–9] (2012): 54–61. 9 Alkoranʺ о Magomete, ili Zakonʺ turetskiĭ, prevedënyĭ sʺ frantsuzskago iazyka na rossiĭskiĭ; napechatasia poveleniemʺ tsarskago velichestva (Saint Petersburg: Vʺ Sanktpeterʺburgskoĭ Tipografii, 1716). 10 André Du Ryer, L’Alcoran de Mahomet (Paris: Chez Antoine de Sommaville, 1647). On Du Ryer and his translation, see Damir V. Mukhetdinov, “Istoricheskiĭ analiz razvitiia traditsii perevoda Korana na frantsuzskiĭ iazyk: V poiske sinteza estetiki i nauki” [Historical Analysis of the Development of Translating the Qur’ān into French: In Search of a Synthesis of Aesthetics and Scholarly Accuracy], Islam v sovremennom mire – Islam in the Modern World 17, no. 2 (2021): 91–118; Alastair Hamilton and Francis Richard, André Du Ryer and Oriental Studies in Seventeenth-Century France, Arcadian Library Series 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 2004). A new bilingual edition of the Russian translation and its French source, with a long introduction on its emergence, was published by Tatʹyana V. Pentkovskaya and Elizaveta Ẻ. Babaeva, Perevod Korana Petrovskoĭ epokhy [The Qur’ān Translation of the Petrine Epoch] (Moscow: MAKS, 2022), 243–551 (Russian translation), 553–798 (French source). 11 Rezvan, Vvedenie v koranistiku, 261.

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revised the French source anew, giving it the title Alcoran or Mohammedan Law (Alkoranʺ ili zakonʺ Magometanskiĭ). This time, the author mentioned the French source explicitly: “translated from the Arabic into the French language by Sieur Du Ryer” (Perevedёnniĭ s arapskago na frantsuzskiĭ iazyk cherez gospodina diu Rie).” However, the only extant copy includes just the first twenty surahs. Usually, the first translation and edition of the Qur’ān into Russian is attributed to Pëtr Vasilʹevich Postnikov (1666–after 1716).12 He was a well-known physician, philosopher, and diplomat, who had trained at Moscow’s famous Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy.13 In 1694, he obtained a doctorate in medicine and philosophy from the University of Padua. Between the years 1699 and 1710, he lived abroad in the Netherlands, England, and France, holding a diplomatic position in Paris.14 When Postnikov returned home, he brought several books, including a copy of Du Ryer’s Qur’ān translation (the Paris edition of 1672), which he is said to have then rendered into Russian.15 Postnikov’s authorship, however, is still a matter of debate.16 During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, there were scholars who denied Postnikov’s authorship of the first (or second) translation completely and attributed it, instead, to the well-known polymath Prince Dimitrie Cantemir (1673–1723).17 Cantemir was a Moldavian prince and statesman, who in 1710 had allied with the Russian Tsar against the Ottomans. Since 1711, he lived in Russia where he became famous as

12 On him, see Clare Griffin, “Pyotr Vasilevich Postnikov,” in CMR, vol. 14, 605–7. 13 On the Academy, see Nikolaos A. Chrissidis, An Academy at the Court of the Tsars: Greek Scholars and Jesuit Education in Early Modern Russia (Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2016). 14 For biographical data, see Juriĭ A.  Gavrilov and Aleksandr G.  Shevchenko, “Koran v Rossii: perevody i perevodchiki” [The Qur’ān in Russia: Translations and Translators], Vestnik Instituta Sotsiologii 5 (2012): 81–96, esp. 82–86. 15 Pavel V. Gusterin, “Pervyĭ perevodchik i pervoe izdanie Korana na russkom iazyke” [The First Translator and the First Edition of the Qur’ān in Russian], Islamovedenie 1 (2010): 84–92; Pavel V. Gusterin, “K voprosu o pervenstve v perevode Korana na russkiĭ iazyk” [On the Question of the First One Having Translated the Qur’ān into Russian], Voprosy istorii 12 (2013): 159–63. 16 Contrary to Gusterin, who insists on Postnikov’s authorship of the 1716 edition and attributed the revised version or second translation to an anonymous person, Rezvan considers the first translation having been made anonymously, and only the revised version or second translation by Postnikov. Rezvan, “Koran v Rossii,” 205; Rezvan, Vvedenie v koranistiku, 261; similarly, Andreĭ A. Kruming, “Pervye russkie perevody Korana, vypolnennye pri Pëtre Velikom” [The First Russian Translations of the Qur’ān Produced under Peter the Great], Arkhiv russkoĭ istorii 5 (1994): 227–39. 17 On this intellectual, see Petre P. Panaitescu, Dimitrie Cantemir: Viața și opera [Dimitrie Cantemir: Life and Works], Biblioteca istorică 3 (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1958); Kalus Bochmann and Vasile Dumbrava, eds., Dimitrie Cantemir: Fürst der Moldau, Gelehrter, Akteur der europäischen Kulturgeschichte, Veröffentlichungen des Moldova-Instituts Leipzig 3 (Leipzig: Universitätsverlag, 2008); Ştefan Lemny, Les Cantemir: L’aventure européenne d’une familie princière au XVIII-e siècle (Paris: Éditions Complexe, 2009).

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“Russia’s first orientalist,” due to his focus on Islam and the Ottoman Empire.18 His book The System or Structure of Muhammadan Religion (Kniga sistima ili sostoianie mokhammedanskiia religii) was published in 1722 in Saint Petersburg.19 Known under its Russian title Kniga sistima, the book served Peter I as his most important source of information about Islam.20 Since Cantemir wrote all his works in Latin and all his Russian books are translations made by others, and because he had based his Kniga sistima on a Latin version of the Qur’ān which he called Curanus, it is unlikely that he authored the first Russian translation and edition of the Qur’ān. This interpretation of the Qur’ān did not remain the only one based on Du  Ryer’s text.21 Several decades later it was translated by Mikhail Ivanovich Verёvkin (1732–95), a poet, professional translator, and member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.22 In addition to the Qur’ān, Verёvkin also translated the first volume of Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson’s (1740–1807) Tableau général de l’Empire Othoman (La Législation Mahométane).23 Although Verёvkin’s edition included the mistakes made by Du Ryer, his translation was more successful and — perhaps due to his use of Church-Slavonic vocabulary — more accessible and easier to read than its predecessor. Under the title The Book Al-Koran of the Arab Mahomet, Who Edited It in the Sixth Century after It Has Been Sent Down from Heaven Upon Him, Regarding Himself the Last and Greatest of God’s Prophets, Verёvkin’s translation appeared in print in two volumes in Saint Petersburg in 1790.24 Almost at the same time Verёvkin was working on his translation, Alekseĭ Vasilʹevich Kolmakov (d. 1804) prepared a fourth Russian translation of the Qur’ān 18 Pavel V. Gusterin, Pervyĭ rossiĭskiĭ vostokoved Dmitri Kantemir [Dimitrie Cantemir, the First Russian Orientalist] (Moscow: Vostochnaia kniga, 2008). 19 Dimitriĭ Kantemir, Kniga sistima ili sostoyanie mukhammedanskoĭ religii [The System or Structure of Mohammadan Religion] (Saint Petersburg: V Tipografii Tsarstvuiushchago Sanktʺpiterburkha, 1722). For the edition, see Dimitrie Cantemir, Sistemul sau Întorcmirea religiei muhammedane [The System or Structure of Muhammadan Religion], ed. Virgil Cândea and Anca Irina Ionescu, Opere Complete 8/2 (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1987). About this work, see Ovidiu-Victor Olar, “Dimitrie Cantemir,” in CMR, vol. 14, 317–22, and the essay by Nadezhda Alexandrova in this volume. 20 Rezvan, “Koran v Rossii,” 205a; Rezvan, Vvedenie v koranistiku, 261–64; Rezvan, “The Qur’ān and its World,” 35b; Kratschkowski, Die russische Arabistik, 39–40. 21 On the ongoing debate, see Gusterin, “K voprosu o pervenstve v perevode Korana,” and extensively, Pentkovskaya and Babaeva, Perevod Korana Petrovskoĭ epokhy, 43–186. 22 Gavrilov and Shevchenko, “Koran v Rossii,” 88–91; Kratschkowski, Die russische Arabistik, 54. 23 Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson, Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman, divisé en deux parties, dont l’une comprend la Législation Mahométane; l’autre l’Histoire de l’Empire Othomane, 3 vols. (Paris, 1787–1820). 24 Mikhail Ivanovich Verёvkin, Kniga Al’-Koranʺ aravlianina Magometa, kotoryĭ vʺ shestomʺ stoletii vydalʺ onuiu za nisposlannuiu kʺ nemu cʺ nebesʺ, sebia zhе poslednimʺ i velichaĭshimʺ izʺ Prorokovʺ Bozhikhʺ, 2 vols. (Saint Petersburg: V Tipografii Gornago Uchilishcha, 1790).

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called The Mohammedan al-Koran (Alʺ Koranʺ Magomedovʺ), which was printed in two volumes in Saint Petersburg in 1792.25 Kolmakov was an official translator for the English language in the service of Saint Petersburg’s Admiralty.26 He did not follow his predecessors who translated from a French model, but chose the English version of George Sale (1697–1736) instead, which was published in London during 1734 and hailed as a “Landmark Koran Translation.”27 Kolmakov translated Sale’s Qur’ānic text as well as all of his footnotes, although he shifted them to endnotes. Kolmakov also omitted Sale’s “Preliminary Discourse,”28 and preface “To the Reader.”29 Instead he added an introductory essay “About the Qur’ān itself” and a “Detailed Description of the Life of the False Prophet Mahomet,”30 which was based on a treatise by Dean Humphrey Prideaux (1648–1724).31 Unlike the previous translations, Kolmakov’s Qur’ān enjoyed some popularity among Russian intellectuals and seems to have played a role in the history of Russian literature. Poets like Aleksander S. Pushkin (1799–1837), novelists like Lev N. Tolstoĭ (1828–1910) and Mikhail Mikhaĭlov (1829–65), and philosophers like Pëtr Chaadaev (1794–1850) and Vladimir Solovëv (1853–1900) used it as a source of inspiration.32 The series of Qurʾān translations into Russian based on existing translations into other European languages continued in the nineteenth century too. Again, it was a French translation that found its way into Russia and Russian, and it is closely related to the work of Albert Félix Ignace (Albin Wojciech) de Biberstein-Kazimirski (1808–87), a French Orientalist of Polish origin, who after the defeat of the so-called

25 Alekseĭ Vasilʹevich Kolmakov, Alʺ Koranʺ Magomedovʺ, 2 vols. (Saint Petersburg: Pri Imperatorskoĭ Akademii Nauk, 1792); on this translation, see Rezvan, “Koran v Rossii,” 206a–b. 26 Gavrilov and Shevchenko, “Koran v Rossii,” 87–88. 27 George Sale, The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed (London: S. Hazard, 1734; facsimile edition: New York: Garland, 1984; latest new edition: New York, 2020). On Sale’s translation, see Bruce B. Lawrence, The Koran in English: A Biography; Lives of Great Religious Books (Princeton, NJ–Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), 38–44; and Pavel V. Gusterin, “Russkoiazychnaia koranistika dosovetskogo perioda” [Russian Qur’ānic Studies in Pre-Soviet Times], Voprosy istorii 5 (2015): 160–7 [revised and enlarged version in Rossiia: istoriia gosudarstva (July 12, 2018): https://statehistory.ru/5803/Russkoyazychnaya-koranistika-dosovetskogo-perioda/ [Accessed February 10, 2023]. 28 Cf. “Table of the [eight] Sections,” xiii. 29 Kolmakov, Alʺ Koranʺ, vol. 1, i–v. 30 Kolmakov, Alʺ Koranʺ, vol. 1, vii–xxvi. 31 Humphrey Prideaux, The True Nature of Imposture Fully Display’d in the Life of Mahomet, with a Discourse annex’d for the Vindicating of Christianity from this Charge; Offered to the Consideration of the Deists of the present Age (London: William Rogers, 1697) [two editions the same year and very often reprinted]. Also [George Sale], Reflections on Mohammedanism, and the conduct of Mohammed: Occasioned by a late learned translation and exposition of the Koran or Al Koran (London: J. Roberts, 1735). 32 Rezvan, “Koran v Rossii,” 206b; Rezvan, “The Qur’ān and its World,” 40a.

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“November uprising” of 1830/31 had left Poland for France. In France, and not only there, he became known rapidly as a celebrated Orientalist, who for some time had served as an official interpreter (dragoman) for the French ambassador to the Sublime Porte in Istanbul and as an attaché of the French Embassy in Teheran. As early as at the end of the 1830s, he authored a new translation of the Qurʾān into French based upon the Arabic text, which he supplemented some years later with a comprehensive Arabic-French dictionary, and a Persian grammar and FrenchPersian glossary.33 As can be learned from its many editions and reprints, this French Qurʾān translation was a great success, not only in France, but also in his native country — the major part of which being part of the Tsarist Empire since the end of the eighteenth century — as well as in Russia. No surprise, therefore, that it was used as a model for others. Thus, it served in a way as a model for a Polish Qurʾān translation that came out of the press in Warsaw in 1858, mistakenly attributed to the Polish Tatar-Muslim Jan Murza Tarak Buczacki (1830–57),34 as this edition was not a translation of de Bib-

33 Albert de Biberstein Kazimirski, Le Koran: traduction nouvelle, faite sur le texte arabe (Paris: Charpentier, 1840). On the author and his work, see Abdelhamid Drira, “Kazimirski dans l’histoire du Coran: histoire de la traduction du Coran du XIIe s. au debut du XXe s.,” The Arabist: Budapest Studies in Arabic 40 (2019): 11–45; Abdelhamid Drira and Grzegorz Kubacki, “Wojciech Biberstein-Kazimirski: orientalista i dyplomata” [Wojciech Biberstein-Kazimirski: Orientalist and Diplomat], Pamiętnik Biblioteki Kórnickiej 37  (2020): 129–44; Albert de Biberstein-Kazimirski, Dictionnaire arabe-français, 2 vols. (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1860); Albert de Biberstein-Kazimirski, Dialogues français-persans: précédés d’un précis de la grammaire persane et suivis d’un vocabulaire français-persan (Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck, 1883). 34 Jan Murza Tarak Buczacki, Koran (Al-Koran) z arabskiego przekład polski [The Qurʾān (al-Koran) a Polish Translation from the Arabic], 2 vols. (Warsaw: Nakładem Aleksandra Nowolęckiego, 1858) [reprints Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1985 and 1988; new edition as Tłumaczenie znaczenia Świętej Księgi muzułmanów Al-Qur’an, według Jana Murzy Tarak Buczackiego [Translation of the Meaning of the Muslims’ Holy Book al-Qurʾān according to J. M. T. B.] (Nottingham: Nottingham Islam Information Point, 2015; second edition 2017). On the emergence of the translation and edition, see Zbigniew J. Wójcik, “Filomacki przekład Alkoranu dla Tatarów nowogródzkich” [The Philomaths’ translation of the Qurʾān made for the Tatars of Nowogródek], Literatura Ludowa 39, no. 3 (1995): 15–28; Andrzej Drozd, “W sprawie autorstwa ‘Koranu Buczackiego’” [On the Issue of the Authorship of Buczacki’s Qurʾān], Z  Mekki do Poznania (Materiały 5. Ogólnopolskiej Konferencji Arabistycznej Poznań 9–10 czerwca 1997), ed. Henryk Jankowski (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza, 1998), 69–83; Czesław Łapicz, “Spór o autorstwo polskiego przekładu Koranu z 1858 roku” [The Dispute about the Authorship of the Polish Qurʾān Translation of the year 1858], in Dialog chrześcijańsko-muzułmański, vol.  3: Teoria, praktyka, perspektywy, ed. Magdalena Lewicka and Czesław Łapicz (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2013), 245–60; Czesław  Łapicz, “Niezwykłe losy pierwszego drukowanego przekładu Koranu na język polski” [The Unusual Fate of the First Printed Translation of the Qurʾān into Polish], Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne: Seria językoznawcza 20 [40], no. 2 (2013): 129–43;

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erstein-Kazimirski’s French, but a revised version of a Polish translation that three decades earlier was authored by Ks. Dionizy Chlewiński (1793–1870),35 a Catholic priest, and Ignacy Domeyko (1802–89),36 who became famous as an explorer of Latin America and founder of the University of Santiago de Chile. However, neither Chlewiński nor Domeyko knew any Arabic, but translated literally the French Qurʾān translation made by Claude Savary (1750–88).37 Since in the 1820s, Chlewiński and Domeyko were actively involved in the Vilna based ‘conspiratorial’ Society of the Friends of Learning (Towarzystwo Filomatów or Towarzystwo Filomatyczne; filomaci in short), their translation became known as the “Philomaths’ Qurʾān”, of which, however, only the first part Surah 1–11:85 (āyāt 86–123 are missing) appeared in a preliminary or rather private print in Poznań in 182838 lacking cover, title page, and imprint. However, as the extant further parts of that translation, discovered few years ago,39 prove, the Philomaths translation was completed and existed at least in manuscript. Though Buczacki was not the interpreter of the Qurʾān attributed to him, it seems very likely that he corrected the Philomaths’ Qurʾān with the help of de Biberstein-Kazimirski’s translation and inserted the numbers of the āyāt which were not given in Savary’s translation and, therefore, are missing in the Philomaths’

Zbigniew J. Wójcik, “Filomacki przekład Koranu i jego losy – spojrzenie po latach” [The Philomaths’ Translation of the Qurʾān and Its Fate: A Look Back after Years], in Rękopis z Czombrowa. Filomacki przekład Koranu – edycja i studium historyczno-filologiczne zabytku [The Manuscript from Czombrów. The Philomath Translation of the Qur’an: The Edition and Historical and Philological Study of the Monument], ed. Joanna Kulwicka-Kamińska and Czesław Łapicz (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2019), 75–84. 35 See Leon L.  Lauresh, “Ksёndz Dzianisiĭ Chliavinskiĭ, Filamat” [Ks. Dionizy Chlewiński, Philomat], in Navahrudčyna ǔ histaryčna-kulʹturnaĭ spadčyne Eǔropy, ed. A. A. Kavalenia et al. (Minsk: Ryftur, 2010), 172–74. 36 See Zbigniew Wójcik, Ignacy Domeyko: Litwa, Francja, Chile [Ignacy Domeyko: Lithuania, France, Chile] (Warsaw: Polskie Towarzystwo Ludoznawcze, 1995). 37 Claude Savary, Le Coran, traduit de l’Arabe, accompagné de notes, et précédé d’un abrégé De la Vie de Mahomet, Tiré des Écrivains Orientaux les plus estimés, 2 vols. (first published with the fictitious imprint: “A la Mecque [sic]: L’an de L’Hégire 1165” [= 1752], and, then, with the correct one: “A Paris: Chez Knapen & Fils, Impr.-Libraire de la Cour des Aides; et Onfroy, Libraire,” 1783). 38 A copy of this edition is stored in the Biblioteka Kórnicka of the Polish Academy of Sciences. According to its catalogue entry, the print is attributed to Andrzej Bernard Count Potocki (1800–74), a French writing Polish author and interpreter. The copy (Koran [Poznań: Bernard Potocki, 1828], 352 pp.) is accessible online at: https://platforma.bk.pan.pl/pl/search_results/992603?q[q]=Koran&tab=description (Accessed June 15, 2024). New edition in Koran. Przekład filomatów, przełożyli Ks. Dionizy Chlewiński  & Ignacy Domeyko [Qurʾān, the Philomaths’ Translation by Ks. Dionizy Chlewiński and Ignacy Domeyko], ed. Julian Edgar Kassner (Sandomierz: Wydawnictwo Armoryka, 2010). 39 See Kulwicka-Kamińska and Łapicz, eds., Rękopis z Czombrowa.

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Qurʾān as well.40 Although de Biberstein-Kazimirski’s French Qurʾān has not been translated into Polish, it served as the basis for a new Russian Qurʾān translation that was made by K. Nikolaev and first published in 1864 with notes and a biography of Muḥammad under the title Koran Magometa (Muḥammad’s Qur’ān).41 As its various editions prove, Nikolaev’s translation apparently enjoyed the same fame and popularity like its French original.

3 Catherine the Great and the Muslims of the Empire A new stage in the study and printing of the Qur’ān in Imperial Russia developed when Tsarina Catherine II the Great (1762–96) ascended the throne of the Russian Empire. This period was also marked by the Russian advancement into the Muslim lands, due to the Russian victories in the Turkish Wars and the conquest of the Crimean Khanate in 1783.42 Influenced by ideas of the German and French enlightenment, and her correspondences with Voltaire (1694–1778) and Denis Diderot (1713–84), Catherine introduced fundamental changes to the policies towards Islam and the treatment of her Muslim subjects. Less than two years after her ascension to the throne in 1764, she ordered the closing of the Office for Neo-Christians’ Affairs (Novokreshchenskaia Kontora), which was founded in 1731 in order to develop and implement intensive missionary activities in the governorates of Kazan, Astrakhan, Novgorod and Voronezh to convert Muslims and other “heathens” to Christianity.43 The

40 For further details, see Józef Sobolewski, Darlegung islamischen Glaubens und Lebens, ed. Stefan Schreiner, Sapientia Islamica 8 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2024), 34–40. 41 K. Nikolaev, Koran Magometa, perevedënnyĭ s arabskago na frantsuzskiĭ perevodchikom frantsuzskago posolʹstva v Persii Kazimirskim, s primečaniem i žizneopisaniem Magometa [Muḥammad’s Qur’ān, translated from the Arabic into French by Kazimirski, Interpreter of the French Embassy in Persia, with Notes and Biography of Muḥammad] (Мoscow: K. Shamov, 1864; and various reprints). 42 Alan W. Fisher, “Enlightened Despotism and Islam under Catherine II,” Slavic Review 27, no. 4 (1968): 542–53; Rezvan, Vvedenie v koranistiku, 261–5; Daniil’ D. Azamatov, “The Muftis of the Orenburg Spiritual Assembly in the 18th and 19th Centuries: The Struggle for Power in Russia’s Muslim Institution,” in Muslim Culture in Russia and Central Asia from the 18th to the early 20th centuries, vol. 2, ed. Anke von Kügelgen, Michael Kemper and Allen J. Frank, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen 216 (Berlin, 1998), 91–112; D. Arapov, “Islamskaia politika Ekateriny Velikoĭ” [Islamic Policies of Catherine the Great], Vestnik moskovskogo universiteta [Ser. 8: Istorija] 5 (2014): 25–37. 43 Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, “Les missions orthodoxes en pays musulmans de moyenne et basse Volga, 1552–1865,” Cahiers du monde russe 8, no. 3 (1967): 369–403.

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closure of this office ended the practice of Orthodox mission among Muslims and other non-Christian subjects of the Empire. The end of the practice of Christianization (and Russification) of non-Christian subjects was proclaimed on June 17 [28], 1773, when Catherine introduced a principle of religious tolerance, which read: De la tolérance de toutes les confessions et de l’interdiction faite aux évêques de s’occuper des affaires concernant les confessions étrangères et la construction de maisons de prière selon leur rite, en laissant tout cela aux autorités civiles.44 O terpimosti vseh veroispovedanij i o zapreshhenii arhierejam vstupat’ v dela, kasajushhiesja do inovernyh ispovedanij i do postroenija po ih zakonu molitvennyh domov, predostavljaja vse sie svetskim nachal’stvam.

Although the Russian Orthodox Church continued its evangelization of other groups,45 the Ukaz defined the Muslims (Tatars) as a “tolerated religious community,” exempting them from being subject to the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church, deprived “the bishops of the right to interfere in affairs of Muslim and other heterodox confessions,” and granted Muslim communities certain rights. These permissions included the right to practice their religion freely, to build mosques (among them the mosque erected in Moscow in 1782),46 and to open religious schools in Kazan and other places.47 An echo of the repercussions of these policies can be found in the second volume of the voluminous travelogue by Johann Gottlieb Georgi (1729–1802).48 Georgi was a German working in Russia who had visited the

44 Text available in Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiĭskoĭ imperii [Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire], vol. 19: 1770–1774 (Saint Petersburg: v Tipografii II Otdeleniia Sobstvennoĭ Ego Imperatorskago Velichestva Kancelarii, 1830), 775a–76a (No. 13,996). 45 See Radik R. Iskhakov, Missionerstvo i musulʹmane Volgo-Kamʹia (poslednaia tretʹ XVIII–nachalo XX v.) [Missionary Work and Muslims of the Volga-Kama Region (Last Third of the 18th–Beginning of the 20th Centuries] (Kazan: Tatarskoe knizhnoe izdatelʹstvo, 2011), 38–86. 46 Already in 1766, during her visit to Kazan, Catherine II had given permission to build a “stone mosque” in the city, that subsequently was erected there in the years 1767–71 and named after its founders, the Yunusov family, the The Yunusovs’ Mosque. Today it bears the name Märcani Mosque after the Tatar Imam Şihabetdin Märcani [Shihabutdin Mardzhani] (1818–1889), committed enlightener and first professional historian of the Tatars. 47 Nikolaj P.  Ostroumov, “Musulʹmanskie maktaby i russko-guzemnye shkoly w Turkestanskom krae” [Muslim Maktabs and Russian-Native Elementary Schools in the Turkestan Region], Narodnoe obrazovanie: Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia [N.S.] 1 (1906), 113–66; Rezvan, “The Qur’ān and its World,” 36a. On context and significance of this Ukaz, see Aĭdar I. Nogmanov, Tatary Srednego Povolzhʹia i Priuralʹia v rossiĭskom zakonodatelʹstve vtoroĭ poloviny XVI–XVIII vv. [The Tatars of the Middle Volga and Ural Regions in the Russian Legislation of the Second Half of the 16th–18th Centuries] (Kazan: Fėn, 2002). 48 Johann Gottlieb Georgi, Beschreibung aller Nationen des russischen Reichs, ihrer Lebensart, Religion, Gebräuche, Wohnungen, Kleidungen und übrigen Merkwürdigkeiten, vol. 2: Tatarische Na-

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central Russian, West Siberian, and Transbaikal provinces between the years 1768 and 1774.49 In his travelogue, Georgi outlined the immediate impact of Catherine’s II policies on the everyday life of the Muslim community. He also described Muslim reactions in the central provinces of Russia, in Povolzhʹe and Priuralʹe. Georgi reported the introduction of a “modern” school system among the Tatar Muslims providing primary and secondary school education for boys and girls. By Ukaz of January 28 [February 08], 1783,50 Catherine II granted the Muslim community autonomy, insofar as the leadership of the community was transferred to a newly created “Muslim Spiritual Assembly” (Magometanskoe dukhovnoe sobranie) with its seat in Ufa. The (Tatar) Muslims called this assembly Muftiyat and saw in it the implementation of the Qur’ānic principle of aš-šūrā.51 Renamed “Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Council” in September 1788, the Muslim community received an official “church-like” status (Ukaz No. 16.710 of September 22 [October 03], 1788). Muslims were granted the right to elect their religious leaders themselves (Ukaz No. 16.711 of September 22 [October 03], 1788).52 Serving as a “higher” government agency for Muslim affairs in the Russian Empire, this Muslim Spiritual Council had to fulfil a twofold task. On the one hand, it had to superintend the religious life of the Muslim community, and, on the other, to regulate the relations between the Russian state and its Muslim subjects.53 These political and legal developments provided the context for the first printing of the Arabic text of the Qur’ān in Russia. Whereas it is still a debated topic to

tionen (Saint Petersburg: bey Carl Wilhelm Müller, 1776), 86–271 [editions available also in French, English and Russian]. 49 Peter Simon Pallas, Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs, 5 vols. (Saint Petersburg: Kayserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1771–6) [also available in Russian translation]. 50 Text available in Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiĭskoĭ imperii [Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire], vol. 21: 1781–1783 (Saint Petersburg: V Tipografii II Otdeleniia Sobstvennoĭ Ego Imperatorskago Velichestva Kancelarii, 1830), 805b (No. 15,653). 51 Aĭdar Khabutdinov, Orenburgskoe magometanskoe dukhovnoe sobranie: Ot rozhdeniia do sozdaniia avtonomii [The Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly: From its Birth to the Creation of Autonomy], Ramazanskie chtenija 3 (Moscow–Niznyĭ Novgorod: Izdatelʹstvo ‘Medina,’ 2008). 52 Texts available in Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiĭskoĭ imperii [Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire], vol. 22: 1784–1788 (Saint Petersburg: V Tipografii II Otdeleniia Sobstvennoĭ Ego Imperatorskago Velichestva Kancelarii, 1830), 1107a–b (No. 16,710); and in Polnoe sobranie, vol. 22, 1107b–8a (No. 16,711). 53 On history and function of the muftijat, see Rinat Bekkin, « Liudi v vernosti nadëzhnye… »: Tatarskie muftiiaty i gosudarstvo v Rossii (XVIII–XXI veka) [‘Truly Loyal People:’ Tatar Muftiates and the State in Russia (18th–21st Centuries)] (Мoscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2022); Aĭdar Khabutdinov, Istoriia Orenburgskogo magometanskogo dukhovnogo sobraniia (1788–1917): Instituty, idei, liudi [History of the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly (1788–1917): Institutions, Ideas, People] (Niznyĭ Novgorod: Izdatelʹstvo ‘Medina,’ 2010).

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what extent the afore-mentioned Russian Qur’ān translations reached the Muslim community, especially because they were written in Cyrillic. Tatar-Muslims, however, were used to writing their languages in Arabic script. In 1787, Catherine II ordered the preparation for printing the “complete Arabic text of the Qur’ān,” and its free of charge, complimentary “distribution among the Kirghizes [i.e., Muslims].” To appease her Christian Orthodox critics who accused her of contributing to the dissemination of “false, anti-Christian doctrines,” she countered the allegations by stating it was meant “not to propagate Islam, but to lure [the Muslims]” (ne dlia vvedeniia Magometanstva, no dlia primanki na udu).54 Catherine II entrusted the printing of the Arabic Qur’ān to the Asiatic Press (Aziatskaia Tipografiia) of Saint Petersburg, a joint venture of the printing press of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the publishing house of Johann Karl Schnoor (1738–1812).55 The text of this Qur’ān edition was prepared by the calligrapher and mullah ʿUṯhmān Ismāʿīl, who had also designed the Arabic typeset (shrift) that was used for that edition. In addition to that, ʿUṯmān wrote a tafsīr on the Qur’ānic text that was printed on the margin of each page, thus giving this edition a much more Muslim style than previous Arabic editions.56 Of this first printing, known as Corani editio Petropolitana or Le  Coran de Saint-Pétersbourg respectively,57 less than a handful of copies are still extant.58 Catherine’s Qur’ān was met with mixed responses. Whereas Orthodox theologians, especially the mission-oriented among them, were strongly opposed to it, the Muslims seem to have accepted the Donum Catherinae (i.e., Catherine’s gift) and “swallowed the bait,” to use the Empress’ words.59 Very soon, the printing of the Arabic Qur’ān edition became a success story. Within the following ten years, the Coran de Saint-Pétersbourg saw no less than five new editions (1789, 1790, 1793, 1796, and 1798). Furthermore, as Griaznevich already stated, “throughout the nine-

54 Rezvan, “Koran v Rossii,” 205b; Rezvan, Vvedenie v koranistiku, 265. 55 I. A. Novitskaya, “Aziatskaia tipografiia: Tipografiia v Peterburge” [The Asiatic Press: A Printing House in Saint Petersburg], in Tatarica: Tatarskaja Ėnciklopediia Online, https://tatarica.org/ru/ razdely/kultura/izdatelskoe-delo/aziatskaya-tipografiya-1 [Accessed March 3, 2023]. 56 Rezvan, “The Qur’ān and its World,” 36a. 57 al-Qur’ān al-šarīf (Saint Petersburg: V Tipografii Ioganna Karla Shnora, 1787 [?]). 58 One of them is preserved in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg (Strasbourg, MS BNU, C.11.080), and contains on the end paper before the title page the following personal dedication: Corani editio Petropolitana. Donum Catharinae II. imperatricis Russorum. Samuel Theophilus Wald. Samuel Gottlieb Wald (1762–1828) was professor of Theology and Greek language at the University of Königsberg. 59 Rezvan, “The Qur’ān and its World,” 36a.

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teenth century it was also used as basic text for all further editions of the Qur’ānic text,” as well as studies on it.60

4 The Kazan Qur’ān Catherine’s policy of religious tolerance was continued by her son and successor to the throne, Tsar Pavel I Petrovich (1796–1801) as well as by his successor, Tsar Aleksander I Pavlovich (1801–25). Pavel I commissioned the Imperial Asiatic Press by Ukaz dated December 27, 1797 “to print 3,600 copies of the Qur’ān in Arabic and distribute them in those governorates where people of Mohammedan religion live.”61 At Muslims’ repeated request, formally submitted in May 1800, to be given permission to open their own printing press in Kazan and to print Islamic religious books, Pavel I lifted the ban on printing (and importing) non-Christian books and decreed by Ukaz of September 13, 1800 that the Muslims be given the permission for which they had asked.62 On October 20, 1800, he ordered that the Arabic typeset (shrift) used in the Asiatic Press in Saint Petersburg be transferred to Kazan. Together with his Tatar colleagues Gali (ʿAlī) Rakhmatullin and Khamza (Ḥamzāʾ) Mamyshev, Gabdel’gaziz (ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz) Toktamysh ulu Burashev started printing Islamic books in Kazan in February 1801, and within five years they printed no less than 41,200 Islamic books, of which 3,500 were copies of the Qur’ān.63 The print of the first Kazan edition of the Arabic Qur’ān in 1,500 copies produced by Muslims was completed in 1803 under the Arabic title Kalām šarīf;64 in later editions also titled al-Muṣḥaf aš-šarīf,65 known in Russian as Kazanskiĭ Koran or Kazanskiĭ shrift, 60 P. A. Griaznevich, “Koran v Rossii (izuchenie, perevody i izdaniia)” [The Qur’ān in Russia: Studies, Translations, Editions], in Islam: Religiia, obshchestvo, gosudarstvo, ed. P. A. Griaznevich and S. M. Prozorov (Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo ‘Nauka,’ 1984), 76–82, here 78. 61 Text available in Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiĭskoĭ imperii [Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire], vol. 24: 1796–1798 (Saint Petersburg: V Tipografii II Otdeleniia Sobstvennoĭ Ego Imperatorskago Velichestva Kancelarii, 1830), 852b (No. 18,287). 62 G. G. Gabdelʹganeeva, “Tatarskaia kniga Kazani v pervoĭ polovine XIX veka” [The Tatar Book of Kazan in the First Half of the 19th Century], Vestnik Kazanskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta kulʹtury i isskustv: Zhurnal 3, no. 1 (2012): 126–30, esp. 126–7. 63 Elmira I. Amerkhanova, “Kazanskie izdaniia Korana v pervoĭ polovine XIX veka” [Kazan Editions of the Qur’ān in the First Half of the 19th Century], in Nasledie islama v muzeiakh Rossii (Kazan, 2010. N. G. Garaeva, Kazanskie izdaniia Korana iż sobraniia Muzeia-zapovednika «Kazanskiĭ Kreml′». Katalog [Kazan Printings of the Koran Held at Collections of the Kazan Kremlin Museum-Complex. Catalogue] (Kazan: Izdatel′stvo «Zaman», 2019). 64 Kalām šarīf (Kazan: v Aziatskoĭ tipografii, 1802–3) [facsimile edition in Kazan, 2005]. 65 For instance, the Karimov brothers published in the same year a Kalām šarīf (Kazan: Maṭba‘a Karīmīya, 1914), and an edition of al-Muṣḥaf aš-šarīf (Kazan: Tipo-litografiia bratʹev Karimov, 1914)

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and Kazan basma or basmasy among the Tatar-Muslims. The supervision of this edition was entrusted to Mukhammed Abdraziakov (Muḥammad ʿAbd ar-Razzāq), who was holding at that time the office of the Mufti of Orenburg and assured the correctness of the Arabic text printed.66 The Kazan Qur’ān spread to Muslim communities living outside the borders of the Russian Empire and was welcomed in Asia and the Near East as well. Therefore, it is no surprise that within the following decades no less than 150,000 copies of this Qur’ān saw the light of the day.67 It should be noted, however, that the Arabic text of the Kazan Qur’ān differs from other editions of the Arabic text that appeared on the market in the nineteenth century,68 as well as from the “canonical” text of the Qur’ān as published later in the Cairo editions of 1919, 1923, 1928, etc. Despite these differences, Tatar-Muslims continued to use the Kazan Qur’ān as their Holy Book that became known and celebrated as the first Arabic Qur’ān ever printed by Muslims.69

5 The Beginning of Modern Arabic Studies in Russia The availability of the printed Arabic Qur’āns spurred further studies among Muslim and Christian scholars alike, primarily on lexicography and grammar, but also on exegesis, and eventually gave rise to the emergence of new Russian translations that were no longer based on existing French or English models but made directly from the Arabic text. A further impetus for the promotion and advancement of these [reprinted in Kazan, 2019]. On the latter, see: Elmira Gafiiatullina, “«  Kazan basmasy  »: Istoriia odnogo Korana” [‘Kazan Qur’ān:’ History of One Qur’ān], in Islam segodnia–Islam Today (October 23, 2018), https://islam-today.ru/istoria/kazan-basmasy-istoria-odnogo-korana/ [Accessed February 10, 2023]. 66 E. Amerkhanova, “Pervye musulʹmanskie pechatnye izdaniia Korana (1 Chastʹ)” [The First Muslim Printed Editions of the Qur’ān, Part I], in Islam segodnja–Islam Today (January 24, 2013), https:// islam-today.ru/istoria/pervye_musulmanskie_pechatnye_izdaniya_korana_1_chast/ [Accessed February 10, 2023]. 67 Cf. the detailed statistics in Rizaetdin Fakhretdin, Koran i knigopechatanie [Qur’ān and Book-Printing], reprinted edition (Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo ‘Medina,’ 2022), esp. 27–29 and 32–33. On Fakhretdin and his work, see Gaĭnutdin’s introduction to this reprint, 5–12. 68 Discussed at length by Fakhretdin, Koran, 34–46. 69 Griaznevich, “Koran v Rossii,” 80–81; Efim A. Rezvan, “A History of Printed Editions of the Qur’an,” in The Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies, ed. Mustafa Shah and M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 255–76, esp. 261–2; for further details, see Ghānim Qaddūrī al-Hamad, Ṭibā‘at al-Muṣḥaf aš-Šarīf fī madīnat Qāzān, ‘arḍ ta’rīḫī wa-taḥlīl mawḍū’ī (Amman: Ğam’īyat al-muḥāfaẓa ‘alā l-Qur’ān al-karīm, 2020).

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studies came with the decision (1804) of Tsar Aleksander I to establish chairs for Oriental and Islamic languages at a number of Russian universities, such as Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and above all Kazan, where a Department of Oriental languages was opened in 1807 at the Imperial University.70 Nevertheless, the progress made in studying and translating the Qur’ān throughout the nineteenth century remained closely related to and connected with Kazan and its academic institutions, primarily with the Imperial University and with the Kazan Spiritual Academy (Kazanskaia Dukhovnaia Akademiia), which was re-established in 1842 by order of the Holy Synod, thus seeing Muslim and Christian scholars in cooperation and competition.71 In the 1850s, the Kazan Spiritual Academy began to train missionaries in the Department for Mission with a particular focus on Oriental and Islamic studies. At the Imperial University of Kazan, it was Mirza (Aleksander Kazimovich) Kazem-Bek (1802–70), a polyglot of Azeri (Persian) origin born in Rasht,72 who was the founder of the Department of Oriental languages (1826) and committed promoter of the study of Islamic languages and the Qur’ān.73 In addition to his native Azerbaijani and Persian, Kazem-Bek mastered Russian, Arabic, Turkish and Tatar, English and French, as well as German and biblical Hebrew. His most important contribution to Qur’ānic studies was his Miftāḥ kunūz al-Qur’ān: Concordance com70 Lev E. Kubbel, “L’école russe des études arabes, la arabistika (1804–1917), introduction et traduction par Maryta Espéronnier,” Stratégique 88, no. 1 (2007): 53–98, esp. 53–68; Ramil M. Valeev, Rosa Z. Valeeva and Damir R. Khaĭrutdinov, “Arab Studies and Arab-Islamic Languages and Research in Imperial Russian Universities: Kazan and St. Petersburg Universities (1804–1855),” Journal for Educators, Teachers, and Trainers 12, no. 1 (2021): 94–103, esp. 97–100. 71 On this cooperation and competition, Iakhia G. Abdullin, ed., Islamo-khristianskoe pograniche: itogi i perspektivy izucheniia. Sbornik statʹeĭ [Islamic-Christian Borderland: Outcomes and Perspectives of Research. Collection of Articles] (Kazan: Institut iazyka, literatury i istorii im. G. Ibragimova, 1994). The history of the Kazan Theological Academy has been dealt with at length by Pëtr V. Znamenskiĭ, Istoriia Kazanskoĭ dukhovnoĭ akademii za pervyĭ (doreformennyĭ) period eë tsushchestvovaniia (1842–1870 gody) [The History of the Kazan Theological Academy During the First (Pre-Reform) Period of Its Existence (1842–70)], 3 vols. (Kazan: Tipografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1891–2). 72 On his biography and scholarly legacy, see Andreĭ Kostin and Tatʹiana Kostina, “Inostrannye professora Kazanskogo universiteta 1830–1850-kh gg.” [Foreign Professors of Kazan University in the 1830s–50s], Gasyrlar avazy: Ekho vekov 3–4 (2014): 108–17, esp. 113–5; and Ramil M. Valeev, ed., Nasledie Mirzy Kazem-Beka: Istoriia i sovremmenostʹ. Doklady i soobshcheniia Mezhdunarodnoĭ nauchnoĭ konferentsii (g. Kazanʹ, 20–21 noiabria 2013 g.) [The Legacy of Mirza Kazem-Bek: History and Modernity. Lectures and Communications of the International Scientific Conference (Kazan, 20–21 November 2013)] (Kazan: Foliant, 2015). 73 The Obshchaia grammatika turetsko-tatarskogo jazyka [General Grammar of the Turkish-Tatar Language] (Kazan, 1846) of A. Kazem-Bek was published also in German translation in A. KasemBeg, Allgemeine Grammatik der türkisch-tatarischen Sprache, ed. Julius Theodor Zenker (Saint Peterburg–Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1848–9) [reprinted in Amsterdam: APA Oriental Press, 1981].

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plete du Coran contenant tous les mots et les expressions des textes, guider les orientalistes dans les recherches sur la religion, sur la législation, sur l’histoire et la literature de ce livre, published in Saint Petersburg in 1859 in Arabic with introductions in Russian and French.74 Kazem-Bek’s lexicographical studies on the Qur’ān were continued and augmented by Joseph Gottwaldt (1813–97) and Vladimir Fëdorovich Girgas (1835–87). Gottwaldt was a German orientalist who came to Russia in 1838.75 After working some years as librarian in Saint Petersburg, he was appointed professor of Arabic and Persian at Kazan University in 1849. His Attempt at an Arabic-Russian Dictionary of the Qur’ān, the Seven Muʿallaqāt and the Poetry of Imruʾ al-Qais, first published in 1861 in the Learned Notes of Kazan University (Učenye zapiski Kazanskago Universiteta) is the first ever printed comprehensive Arabic-Russian dictionary on the Qur’ān.76 Gottwaldt explicitly mentioned the details of the occurrences of the words in the Qur’ān as well as in the Diwān of Imruʾ al-Qais and the Muʿallaqāt, thus, his dictionary serves as a concordance as well. Before receiving an appointment as professor of Arabic and Islamic studies in Kazan, Vladimir Girgas focused on Arabic philology and literature while in France (1859–61), Syria and Egypt (1861–64). He was an expert in the legal status of Christians in Muslim countries according to Islamic law.77 In cooperation with Baron Viktor Romanovich Rozen (1849–1908), Girgas compiled a chrestomathy of Arabic literature to provide reading material for their students.78 The work on this chrestomathy together with his studies on Arabic grammar and literature79 in turn paved 74 Cf. the Arabic index to the Qur’ān Nuǧūm al-furqān (Calcutta 1226 [1811]) [Reprinted in Leipzig: Bredtius, 1898; and with the title: Nuǧūm al-furqān fī aṭrāf al-Qur’ān (Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press, 1965; Westmead–Farnborough: Gregg, 1971)]; and Gustav Leberecht Flügel, Concordantiae Corani arabicae, ad literarum ordinem et verborum radices (Leipzig: Sumptibus et Typis Caroli Tauchnitii, 1842). 75 Kratschkowski, Die russische Arabistik, 170–73; Kostin and Kostina, “Inostrannye,” 111–13. 76 Published separately (without mentioning Gottwaldt’s name on the title page) as Opytʺ arabsko-russkago slovaria na Koranʺ, semʹ moallakatʺ i stichotvoreniia Imrulʹkeĭsa (Kazan: V Universitetskoĭ Tipografii, 1863). 77 V. Girgas, Prava khristianʺ na vostoke po musulʹmanskimʺ zakonamʺ [Rights of Christians in the East under Muslim Laws] (Saint Petersburg: Pechatniia V. Golovina, 1865). 78 V. Girgas and Viktor R. Rozen, Arabskaia khrestomatiia dlia chteniia na arabskomʺ iazyke [Arabic Chrestomathy for Reading in Arabic], 2 vols. (Saint Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoĭ Akademii Nauk, 1875–6). 79 V. Girgas, Ocherkʺ grammaticheskoĭ sistemy arabovʺ [Outline of the Grammatical System of the Arabs] (Saint Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoĭ Akademii Nauk, 1873); V. Girgas, Ocherkʺ arabskoĭ literatury [Outline of Arabic Literature] (Saint Petersburg, 1873) [in manuscript only]. On the latter, see Dmitriĭ V. Mikulskiĭ, “« Ocherk arabskoĭ literatury » V. F. Girgasa (1835–1887) v kontekste otechestvennoĭ arabistiki XIX v. i nyneshnego sostoiania nasheĭ nauki [The ‘Outline of Arabic Liter-

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the way to his opus magnum, the no less voluminous Dictionary to the Arabic Chrestomathy and the Qur’ān published in Kazan under Gottwaldt’s supervision.80 As a Tatar-Muslim response to these Christian concordances and dictionaries, the Tatar-Muslim polymath81 Kaium Nasyri (Gabdelʹkaium Gabdennasyrovich Nasyrov; ʿAbd al-Qayūm ʿAbd an-Nāṣir, 1825–1902) prepared a comprehensive dictionary-concordance on the Qur’ān that he completed in 1886.82 The first volume consists of a facsimile edition of the Qur’ān that Gottwaldt had prepared for print in Kazan in 1861, and Nasyri had used as the basic text of his concordance, while the second volume contains a facsimile edition of Nasyri’s manuscript of the concordance, which Aĭdar G. Khairutdinov praised as “the first Qur’ān concordance in the Muslim world.”83 These and similar philological, lexicographical studies largely contributed to preparing the groundwork for further translations of the Qur’ān into Russian, which now were made directly from its Arabic text. One of the first Orientalists to translate directly from the Arabic text was Dmitriĭ Nikolaevich Boguslavskiĭ (1826–93). He finished his studies at the Faculty of

ature’ by V. F. Girgas (1835–87) in the Context of Russian Arabic Studies of the 19th Century and the Present Situation of Our Scholarship],” Orientalistika 4, no. 3 (2021): 735–57. 80 V. Girgas, Slovar′ k arabskoĭ khrestomatii i Koranu [Dictionary to the Arabic Chrestomathy and the Qur’ān] (Kazan: Tipografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1881) [Reprint with the title Arabsko-russkiĭ slovarʹ k Koranu i khadisam [Arabic-Russian Dictionary to Qur’ān and Hadith], ed. S. M. Prozorov and M. G. Romanov (Moscow–Saint Petersburg: Izdatelʹstvo ‘Dilia,’ 2006)]. On these works, see T. E. Sedankina, “Mesto nauchnogo naslediia rossiĭskikh vostokovedov, XVIII–XX vekov v sovremennykh teologicheskikh issledovaniiakh: Arabsko-russkie slovari k Koranu” [The Place of the Scientific Heritage of Russian Orientalists of the 18th–20th Centuries in Modern Theological Research: Arabic-Russian Dictionaries to the Qur’ān], Minbar: Islamic Studies 15, no. 1 (2022): 133–52. 81 Elena L. Iakovleva called him a “Tatar Leonardo da Vinci;” see her Vozvrashchenie k istokam: Kaium Nasyri v optike sovremennosti: filosofskiĭ triptikh o tatarskom Leonardo da Vinci [Return to the Sources: Kaium Nasyri in the Light of Modernity: A Philosophical Triptych about the Tatar Leonardo da Vinci] (Kazan: Izdatelʹstvo ‘Poznanie,’ 2016). Nasyri was particularly famous for his philological studies on the Tatar language and its revival as a modern spoken and written, literary language. On him, see Sh. Ramazanov, Kayum Nasyri: Osnovatelʹ tatarskogo literaturnogo jazyka [Kayum Nasyri: Founder of the Tatar Literary Language] (Moscow, 1945). 82 It was not printed and remained in manuscript until its publication in 2015 under the title Miftāḥ al-Qur’ān in two volumes. Kaium Nasyri, Miftāḥ al-Qur’ān, ed. Aĭdar G. Khairutdinov and Raushaniia F. Shafigullina, 2 vols. (Kazan: Izdatel’stvo ‘Poznanie,’ 2015). 83 Aĭdar  G.  Khairutdinov, “Miftāḥ al-Qur’ān  Kaiuma Nasyri: Pervyĭ v musulʹmanskom mire konkordants Korana” [Kaium Nasyri’s Miftāḥ al-Qur’ān: The First Concordance of the Qur’ān in the Muslim World], Islam v sovremennom mire 12, no. 1 (2016): 57a–76b; R. Shafigullina and A.  Khairutdinov, “Nasledie vydaiushchegosia tatarskogo uchënogo-ẻntsiklopedista Kaiuma Nasyri v svete vostochnoĭ i zapadnoĭ nauchnoĭ paradigmy” [The Legacy of the Outstanding Tatar Encyclopedist-Scholar Kaium Nasyri in the Light of Eastern and Western Scholarly Paradigms], Vestnik Bibliotechnoĭ Assambleĭ Evrazii 1 (2018): 83a–90b.

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Oriental Languages in Saint Petersburg, before he started his career in the Russian army (1847–61) and then in the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and official interpreter for the Russian Embassy in Istanbul (1862–70). During his last years, he worked in the Ministry of War.84 As he noted in the preface to his translation, his intention was not only to translate the Qur’ān directly from its Arabic original “as literal as possible,” but also to base his translation and commentary on Muslim Qur’ān interpretations (tafsīrs). For the Qur’ānic interpretations, Boguslavskiĭ chose those that were popular among Muslims in the Ottoman Empire during his lifetime. According to a short note in the preface, his first and foremost source was İsmail Ferruh Efendi’s (1747–1840) Mevakib,85 which in turn is a translation of Ḥusayn Vā’iẓ Kāshifī’s (c. 1426–1504/05) influential Persian commentary Mawāhib-i ʿaliyya.86 Boguslavskiĭ completed his translation in May 1871. But in the very first sentence of his preface, he confessed that “it was not meant for publication.” And, indeed, it survived in manuscript only and had to wait almost 125 years before it was published in 1995.87 This edition of Boguslavskiĭ’s Qur’ān88 remained almost unknown to the public, and it took another six years before it was re-published, this time in Istanbul, where it enjoyed remarkable popularity as its seven further editions indicate.89 Since Boguslavskiĭ had made his translation on the basis of an Arabic text that differed in a number of instances from the accepted standard text (among them the numbering of verses in surahs 7, 8, 9, 26, 27, 45, 47, 71, 74, 78, and 101), the Turkish editors corrected and adapted them to the standard text.90 84 On him, see Gavrilov and Shevchenko, “Koran v Rossii,” 91–95. 85 On him, see Mehmet Alaaddin Yalçinkaya, “İsmail Ferruh Efendi,” in EI3, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_32597 [Accessed March 13, 2023]. 86 Rezvan, “Koran v Rossii,” 208a. 87 Koran (kollektsionnoe izdanie), perevod i kommentarii D. N. Buguslavskogo [The Qur’ān (Collector’s Edition): Translation and Commentary by D. N. Boguslavskiĭ], ed. Efim A. Rezvan and A. N. Veĭraukh (Moscow–Saint Petersburg: Izdatelʹskaia firma ‘Vostočnaia Literatura’ RAN–Peterburgskoe Vostokovedenie, 1995). On this translation, see Ignatiĭ Iu. Krachkovskiĭ, “Perevod Korana D. N. Boguslavskogo” [D. N. Boguslavskiĭ’s Qur’ān Translation], Sovetskoe vostokovedenie 3 (1945): 293–301. 88 On this edition, see Pavel  Gusterin, “Ob izdanii Korana v perevode D.  N.  Boguslavskogo” [About the Edition of the Qur’ān in D. N. Boguslavskiĭ’s Translation], in Proza.ru (April 24, 2017), https://proza.ru/2017/04/24/2366 [Accessed February 27, 2023]. 89 al-Qur’ān aš-šarīf bir-rasm al-ʿuṯmānī: Koran perevod s arabskogo i kommentarii vypolneny D. N. Boguslavskim [Qur’ān Translation from the Arabic with Commentary by D. N. Boguslavskiĭ], ed. Çagrı Yayınları and Şaban Kurt (Istanbul: Çevik Matbaacılık, 2001). On this edition, see Pavel Gusterin, “O Turetskom izdanii Korana v perevode D. N. Boguslavskogo” [About the Turkish Edition of the Qur’ān in D. N. Boguslavskiĭ’s Translation], in Rossiia v kraskakh (December 4, 2013), https://ricolor.org/history/eng/vs/4_11_2013/ [Accessed February 27, 2023]. 90 See the Preface of the editors, x.

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Boguslavskiĭ’s Qur’ān translation was overshadowed by another contemporary “Christian” translation of the Qur’ān that, like his was made directly from the Arabic text. Its author was Gordiĭ Semënovich Sablukov (1804–80), who was a student of the Spiritual Seminary in Orenburg and afterwards the Spiritual Academy in Moscow. In 1849, Sablukov was appointed professor at Kazan’s Spiritual Academy, being soon regarded as the best connoisseur of Arabic, Persian and Tatar languages and literature, and the most important scholar at the Spiritual Academy.91 The first (and posthumously published) second edition of his Qur’ān, the Legislative Book of the Mohammedan Faith with Appendices to the Translation92 was printed without any introduction, commentary or appendices, and contained just the Russian text. Only the third revised edition, entitled Kalām šarīf: Qur’ān. Translation from its Arabic Language, provided the readers with parallel Arabic and Russian texts.93 The appendices to the translation, however, referred to in the title of its first and second editions, were published separately in 1879.94 Along with those, Sablukov augmented and enriched his translation with a systematic, detailed and annotated subject index to the Qur’ān that, according to Gusterin,95 resembles in a way Jules La Beaume’s (1806–75) Le Koran analysé d’après la traduction de M. Kasimirski et les observations de plusieurs autres savants orientalistes.96 Sablukov provided a

91 Kratschkowski, Die russische Arabistik, 177–9; Pavel Gusterin, “Gordiĭ Semënovich Sablukov kak vostokoved” [Gordiĭ Semënovich Sablukov as Orientalist], Rossiia v kraskakh (March 17, 2013), http://ricolor.org/history/eng/vs/18_03_2013 [Accessed February 27, 2023]. 92 Gordiĭ Semënovich Sablukov, Koranʺ, zakonodatelʹnaia kniga mokhammedanskago veroucheniia, perevodʺ i prilozeniia kʺ perevodu (Kazan: Tipografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1877; second edition in 1894). 93 G. Sablukov, Kalām šarīf: Koran, Perevod c arabskago iazyka (Kazan: Centralʹnaia Tipografiia, 1907) [Reprint in Moscow: Moskovskaia ordena Trudovogo Krasnogo Znameni Tipografiia, 1991]. 94 G. Sablukov Prilozheniia k perevodu Korana [Appendices to the Translation of the Qur’ān] (Kazan: Tipografiĭa Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1879; second edition in 1898). 95 Pavel Gusterin, “Russkoiazychnaia koranistika dosovetskogo perioda” [Russian Qur’ānic Studies in Pre-Soviet Times], Voprosy istorii 5 (2015): 160–7 [revised and enlarged version in Rossiia–istoriia gosudarstva (July 12, 2018), https://statehistory.ru/5803/Russkoyazychnayakoranistika-dosovetskogo-perioda/ [Accessed February 10, 2023]. 96 Jules La Beaume, Le Koran analysé: d’après la traduction de M. Kasimirski et les observations de plusieurs autres savants orientalistes (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1878). Together with Edouard Louis Montet’s, Le Coran (Paris, 1925), this was also translated into Arabic with the title Tafṣīl āyāt alQur’ān al-ḥakīm, waḍa‘ahū bil-firansawīya Ğūl Lābūm, trans. Muḥammad Fuʾād al-Bāqī (al-Qāhira: Iḥyā’ al-kutub al-‘arabīya, 1955; second edition al-Qāhira: ʻĪsá al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1955) [Re-edition: Beirut: Dār al-kitāb al-‘arabī, 1969].

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comprehensive introduction to the Qur’ān and its teachings with his Appendices, that were further worked out in his Information about the Qur’ān.97 Sablukov was a dedicated Orthodox Christian and mission-oriented theologian. Despite his profound knowledge of Islamic languages and literature and his familiarity with Tatar-Muslim life and lore, his main interest seems to have been to promote and to contribute to the theological debate with Islam for missionary purposes. This can be learned not only from the Christian Orthodox echoes to his works,98 but from his early studies comparing Christian and Muslim theological traditions, which reveal his apologetic intentions, as can be observed in his Comparison of the Islamic Teaching on the Names of God with the Christian Teaching on Them.99 The ultimate goal of his Islamic studies and educational efforts was to provide “a Compendium of Information about the Mohammedan Faith, that helps a Christian to speak to a Mohammedan about the Truths of the Faith.”100 And Sablukov was by no means the only one to put his studies on Islam at the service of missionary purposes. Evfimiĭ Aleksandrovich Malov (1835–1918),101 Mikhail Aleksandrovich Mashanov (1852–1924),102 Nikolaĭ Petrovich Ostroumov (1846–1930),103

97 G. Sablukov, Svedeniia o Korane, zakonopolozhitelʹnoĭ knige mokhammedanskago veroucheniia [Information on the Qur’ān, the Legislative Book of the Muslim Faith] (Kazan: V Universitetskoĭ Tipografii, 1884). 98 N.  A.  Erundov, “Perevod Korana G.  S.  Sablukova v ocenke otechestvennykh vostokovedov” [G. S. Sablukov’s Qur’ān Translation in the Assessment of Russian Orientalists], Vestnik Orenburgskoĭ dukhovnoĭ seminarii 1, no. 9 (2018): 85–95. 99 G. Sablukov, Slichenie mokhammedanskago ucheniia o imenakh Bozhikh s khristianskim o tem ucheniem [Comparative Study on the Mohammedan Teaching of the Names of God and the Christian Teaching on Them] (Kazan: v Universitetskoĭ Tipografii, 1872). 100 Quoted by the publisher in his preface to the edition of Sablukov’s Svedeniia o Korane, iii. 101 See, for instance, Evfimiĭ A. Malov, Moiseevo zakonodatel′stvo po ucheniiu Biblii i po ucheniiu Korana [The Mosaic Legislation according to the Teachings of the Bible and the Teachings of the Qur’ān] (Kazan: Tipografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1890); E.  Malov, Missionerstvo sredi mukhammedan i kreshchënykh tatar: Sbornik stateĭ [Missionary Work among the Muhammedans and Baptized Tatars: Collection of Articles] (Kazan: Tipo-Litografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1892). On him see, Kratschkowski, Die russische Arabistik, 179–80. 102 Mars Z.  Khabibullin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Mashanov: missioner i islamoved [Mikhail Aleksandrovich Mashanov: Missionary and Islamic Scholar] (Kazan: Kazanskiĭ Gosudarstvennyĭ Universitet, 2003). 103 N. Ostroumov, Arabiia i Koran: proiskhozhdenie i kharakter islama: Opyt istoricheskago issledovaniia [Arabia and the Qur’ān: The Origin and Nature of Islam: Preliminary Historical Research] (Kazan: Tipo-litografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1899); N. Ostroumov, Islamovedenie: Vvedenie vʹ kursʹ islamovedeniia [Islamic Studies: Introduction into the Course of Islamic Studies], 4 vols., second edition (Tashkent: Tipografiia pri kancelarii Turkestanskogo General-Gubernatora, 1910–12). On him, see Kratschkowski, Die russische Arabistik, 184–85; L.  M.  Faizrakhmanov, “Ostroumov:

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and others followed the same path.104 Despite their profound knowledge of Tatar, Arabic, Persian, Turkic, and other Islamic languages, along with their expertise in respective literatures, they contributed to a phenomenon that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, which was described as the conflict of the “competing with each other concepts” of: 1) “missionary Islamology,” 2) “Muslim Islamology,” and 3) “secular Islamology,” a topic that in recent years has become the subject of numerous publications.105 Sablukov’s missionary outlook overshadowed the Qur’ān translation and its Rezeptionsand Wirkungsgeschichte.106 Though in terms of philological correctness, scholars of Arabic and Islam saw his Qur’ān translation as one of the best translations into Russian and one of the most important contributions to the understanding of the Arabic text, Muslim theologians continue to be skeptical about its reliability. It may not be a coincidence that the Muslim edition of the Kazan Qur’ān of 1889 was published with not only the Arabic text, but also a tafsīr.107

6 Final Remarks The ideas of the great Muslim reformers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, like Ghamāl ad-Dīn al-Afghānī (1839–97), Muḥammad ʿAbdūh (1849–1905), Rashīd Ridāʾ (1865–1935), as well as those of European enlighteners that spread into the Russian Empire, did not stop at the doors of the Tatar Muslim commu-

missioner i islamoved” [Ostrumov: Missionary and Islamic Scholar], Izvestija Altaĭskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 4, no. 1 (2008): 146a–50b. 104 See the overviews by Ramil M. Valeev, Mars Z. Khabibullin, and Guzel Z. Khabibullina, “The Phenomenon of Historical and Confessional Study of the Peoples in the Middle Volga Region, the Urals and Siberia in Kazan Theological Academy (the Second half of the XIX–the Beginning of the XX Centuries),” Man in India: Quarterly Anthropological Journal 96, no. 3 (2016): 889–97; and the extensive bibliography by Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, “Musulmans et missions orthodoxes en Russie orientale avant 1917: Essai de bibliographie critique,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 13, no. 1 (1972): 57–113. 105 One of the first scholars to start studying and outlining this conflict was Mark  Batunskiĭ, “Russian Missionary Literature on Islam: An Attempt at an Epistemological and Culturological Analysis of Some Episodes in Its Institutional and Intellectual History,” Zeitschrift für Religionsund Geistesgeschichte 39, no. 3 (1987): 253–66. 106 Rezvan, “Koran v Rossii,” 207b–8b. 107 In a recent reprint of Sablukov’s Qur’ān that the internet portal islam-love.ru advertises, the reader finds at the bottom of the first page the warning: “This translation is not recommended for Muslims to read. It contains many mistakes. Just for information only.” See, https://www.islam-love. ru/books/perevody-i-tafsiry/sablukov-g-s-koran-perevod-smyslov [Accessed February 10, 2023].

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nity. On the contrary, they inspired an intellectual, religious, and socio-cultural renewal combined with ethnic-national awakening among the Tatars that started in the nineteenth  century. On the one hand, it gave rise to an Islamic modernization and enlightenment movement known as džadidism (derived from uṣūl-i-ğadīd; old sources studied and interpreted anew),108 and to a revival of traditionalism, on the other,109 a development that was described as oscillating between (renewed) iğtihād and (revitalized) taqlīd.110 The adherents of the latter primarily sought to restore what they believed to be the original, well-established and authoritative Islamic tradition. The promotors of the former, relying on what in Russian is called obrazovanie or prosveshchenie (Bildung) and prosvetlenie or prosvetitelʹstvo (Aufklärung), respectively, advocated a new theoretical and practical education and promoted an “enlightened knowledge,” that is acquired by combining traditional Islamic learning, with the study of modern, “secular” subjects and applying methodologies of modern European scholarship.111 The antagonism of these two movements was a “confrontation between the Jadidists (reformers) and Kadimists (old school adherents).” It marked “a new starting point in the study of the heritage of Tatar theologians of the nineteenth and

108 For a brief information, see Edward J. Lazzerini, “Jadidism,” in EI3, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733912_ei3_COM_32675 [Accessed March 21, 2023]. For a different perspective, see Alfrid Bustanov and Daria Dorodnykh, “Jadidism as a Paradigm in the Study of Islam in the Russian Empire,” trans. Markian Dobczansky, State, Religion and Church 5, no. 1 (2018): 64–81. 109 In the last two, three decades, this topic became subject of intensive research, mostly in Russian and Tatar, but also, though to a much lesser degree, in Western languages. See Michael Kemper, Sufis und Gelehrte in Tatarien und Baschkirien 1789–1889: Der islamische Diskurs unter russischer Herrschaft, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen 218 (Berlin, 1998); Tuna, Imperial Russia’s Muslims; Аĭdar N. Iuseev, Filosofskaia myslʹ tatarskogo naroda: Osnovnye napravleniia razvitiia (X-nachalo XX vv.) [The Philosophical Thought of the Tatars: Main Directions of Development (10th–20th Centuries)] (Kazan, 2007); Аĭdar N. Iuseev, Prosvetitelʹskaia myslʹ tatarskogo naroda (XIX-nachalo XX vv.) [Ideas of Enlightenment among the Tatars (19th–Beginning 20th Centuries)] (Kazan, 2014). 110 Michael Kemper, “Imperial Russia as Dar al-Islam? Nineteenth-Century Debates on Ijtihad and Taqlid among the Volga Tatars,” Encounters 6 (2015): 95–124. 111 See for instance, the programmatic text written by Ismail Beğ Gasprinskiĭ, Russkoe musulʹmanstvo: Mysli, zametki i nabliudeniia musulʹmanina [Russian Muslims: Thoughts, Notes, and Observations of a Muslim] (Simferopol: Tipografiia Spiro, 1881) [German translation with introduction by Michael Kemper, “Ismail Gasprinskijs «  Russisches Muslimentum  » (1881),” and “Ismail Bej Gasprinskij, ‘Das russische Muslimentum: Gedanken, Anmerkungen und Beobachtungen’,” Frankfurter Zeitschrift für Islamisch-Theologische Studien 4 (2018): 125–38, 139–69]. On the intertwined relation between enlightenment and religious reforms among the Tatars, see R. R. Fakhrutdinov, “Tatarskoe prosvetitelʹstvo i religioznoe reformatorstvo v XIX v.” [Tatar Enlightenment and Religious Reformation in the 19th Century], Integraciia obrazovaniia 3–4 (2007): 42a–48b.

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twentieth centuries.”112 With their often-contradicting positions, they prepared the groundwork for various inner-Islamic theological discourses and legal debates, and new Qur’ānic studies that at the same time had an impact on Muslim arguments with Christian theologians and their studies on Islam and the Qur’ān. Although the Tatar-Muslims had a tradition of translating and interpreting the Qur’ān in Slavic languages that goes back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in the wake of the afore-mentioned ethnic-national awakening that contributed to the emergence of a new Tatar-Muslim identity with Tatar language as its medium of expression, they now switched to this Tatar language making it (in addition to Arabic) a native language for this theological education. Muslim enlighteners of the first generations wrote mostly in Arabic, while later generations increasingly preferred to write in Tatar. Tatar-Muslim studies on the Qur’ān gained special momentum during the nineteenth century, due to the availability of printed Qur’ānic texts, and advanced philological studies on Arabic and Tatar grammar and lexicography. Some key scholars included Abdarraḥim al-Bulgari (1754–1834), Abdannasir al-Kursavi (1776–1812), Ibrahim Khalfin (1778–1829) Gabdelʹdžabbar Kandalyj (1797–1860), Khusain Faizkhanov (1828–66), and Musa Dzharullakh Bigiev (1875–1949), the “last theologian of the Tatars.”113 A detailed review and evaluation of Tatar-Muslim contributions to the modern study of the Qur’ān in response to contemporary respective Orthodox-Christian scholarship must be left, however, to future studies.

112 Yazgul R. Rakhimova et al., “Tatar Comments on Qur’an: Historical Features and Cultural Traditions of the Tatars (the End of 19th–Beginning of 20th Centuries),” Laplage em Revista (Sorocaba) 6 (2020): 109–15, quote 110.  113 His historical-critical approach to the study and exegesis of the Qur’ān eventually found its way also into his Qur’ān translation into Tatar which was ready for print in 1912, but because of its “unorthodox” character was “forbidden,” and saw the light of the day only in 2010. M. Bigiev, Blagodarnyĭ Koran: Perevod Sviashchennogo Slova (reprint perevoda, podgotovlennyĭ k izdaniiu v 1912 godu) [The Blessed Qur’ān: A Translation of the Sacred Word (A Reprint of the Translation Prepared for Publication in 1912)] (Kazan: Izdatelʹstvo ‘Medina,’ 2010). On the emergence of this translation and its transmission, see now Selcuk Altuntas, “One Hundred Years of Mystery: The Curious Case of Mūsā Jārullah Bigiyev (1875–1949)’s Tatar Translation of the Qur’ān,” Tiurkologicheskie issledovaniia–Turkological Studies 1, no. 1 (2018): 129–46.

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Selective Bibliography Primary Sources Alkoranʺ о Magomete, ili Zakonʺ turetskiĭ, prevedënyĭ sʺ frantsuzskago iazyka na rossiĭskiĭ; napechatasia poveleniemʺ tsarskago velichestva. Saint Petersburg: Vʺ Sanktpeterʺburgskoĭ Tipografii, 1716. Alkoranʺ ili zakonʺ Magometanskiĭ. Saint Petersburg, 1722 [?]. al-Qur’ān al-šarīf. Saint Petersburg: V Tipografii Ioganna Karla Shnora, 1787 [?]. Biberstein-Kazimirski, Albert. Le Koran: traduction nouvelle, faite sur le texte arabe. Paris: Charpentier, 1840. Biberstein-Kazimirski, Albert. Dictionnaire arabe-français. 2 vols. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1860. Biberstein-Kazimirski, Albert. Dialogues français-persans: précédés d’un précis de la grammaire persane et suivis d’un vocabulaire français-persan. Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck, 1883. Bigiev, Musa Dzharullakh. Blagodarnyĭ Koran: Perevod Sviashchennogo Slova (reprint perevoda, podgotovlennyĭ k izdaniiu v 1912 godu) [The Blessed Qur’ān: A Translation of the Sacred Word (A Reprint of the Translation Prepared for Publication in 1912)]. Kazan: Izdatelʹstvo ‘Medina,’ 2010. [Boguslavskiĭ, D. N.]. al-Qur’ān aš-šarīf bir-rasm al-‘uṯmānī: Koran perevod s arabskogo i kommentarii vypolneny D. N. Boguslavskim [Qur’ān Translation from Arabic with Commentary by D. N. Boguslavsky]. Edited by Çagrı Yayınları and Şaban Kurt. Istanbul: Çevik Matbaacılık, 2001. Boguslavskiĭ, D. N. Koran (kollektsionnoe izdanie), perevod i kommentarij D. N. Buguslavskogo [The Qur’ān (Collector’s Edition): Translation and Commentary by D. N. Boguslavskiĭ]. Edited by E. Rezvan and A. N. Veĭraukh. Moscow–Saint Petersburg: Izdatel’skaja firma “Vostočnaja Literatura” RAN– Peterburgskoe Vostokovedenie, 1995. Buczacki, Jan Murza Tarak. Koran (Al-Koran) z arabskiego przekład polski [The Qur’ān (al-Koran) a Polish Translation from the Arabic]. 2 vols. Warsaw: Nakładem Aleksandra Nowolęckiego, 1858. Reprints in Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1985 and 1988. New edition as Tłumaczenie znaczenia Świętej Księgi muzułmanów Al-Qur’an, według Jana Murzy Tarak Buczackiego [Translation of the Meaning of the Muslims’ Holy Book al-Qur’ān according to J. M. T. B.]. Nottingham: Nottingham Islam Information Point, 2015. Second edition in 2017. Cantemir, Dimitrie. Sistemul sau Întorcmirea religiei muhammedane. [The System or Structure of Muhammadan Religion]. Edited by Virgil Cândea and Anca Irina Ionescu. Opere Complete 8/2. Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1987. Du Ryer, André. L’Alcoran de Mahomet. Paris: Chez Antoine de Sommaville, 1647. Gasprinskiĭ, Ismail Beğ. Russkoe musul’manstvo: Mysli, zametki i nabliudenia musul’manina [Russian Muslims: Thoughts, Notes, and Observations of a Muslim]. Simferopol: Tipografiia Spiro, 1881. German translation with Introduction by M. Kemper. “Ismail Gasprinskijs « Russisches Muslimentum » (1881).” And “Ismail Bej Gasprinskij, « Das russische Muslimentum: Gedanken, Anmerkungen und Beobachtungen ».” Frankfurter Zeitschrift für Islamisch-Theologische Studien 4 (2018): 125–38, 139–69. Georgi, Johann Gottlieb. Beschreibung aller Nationen des russischen Reichs, ihrer Lebensart, Religion, Gebräuche, Wohnungen, Kleidungen und übrigen Merkwürdigkeiten, vol. 2: Tatarische Nationen. Saint Petersburg: bey Carl Wilhelm Müller, 1776. Girgas, Vladimir Fëdorovich. Prava khristian na vostoke po musulʹmanskim zakonam [Rights of Christians in the East under Muslim Laws]. Saint Petersburg: Pechatniia V. Golovina, 1865. Girgas, Vladimir Fëdorovich. Ocherkʺ grammaticheskoĭ sistemy arabovʺ [Outline of the Grammatical System of the Arabs]. Saint Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoĭ Akademii Nauk, 1873.

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Girgas, Vladimir Fëdorovich. Ocherkʺ arabskoĭ literatury [Outline of Arabic Literature]. Saint Petersburg, 1873 (in manuscript only). Girgas, Vladimir Fëdorovich, and Viktor R. Rozen, Arabskaia khrestomatiia dlia chteniia na arabskom iazyke [Arabic Chrestomathy for Reading in Arabic]. 2 vols. Saint Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoĭ Akademii Nauk, 1875–6. Girgas, Vladimir Fëdorovich, Slovarʹ k arabskoĭ khrestomatii i Koranu [Dictionary of Arabic Chrestomathy and the Qur’ān]. Kazan: Tipografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1881. Reprint as Arabsko-russkiĭ slovarʹ k Koranu i khadisam [Arabic-Russian Dictionary to the Qur’ān and Hadith]. Edited by S. M. Prozorov and M. G. Romanov. Moscow–Saint Petersburg: Izdatelʹstvo ‘Dilia,’ 2006. Gottwaldt, Joseph. Opytʺ arabsko-russkago slovaria na Koranʺ, semʹ moallakatʺ i stichotvoreniia Imrul’keĭsa [Attempt at an Arabic-Russian Dictionary of the Qur’ān, the Seven Muʿallaqāt and the Poetry of Imruʾ al-Qais]. Kazan: v Universitetskoĭ Tipografii, 1863. Kalām šarīf. Kazan: v Aziatskoĭ tipografii, 1802–3. Facsimile edition in Kazan, 2005. Kalām šarīf. Kazan: Matbaʿa Karīmīya, 1914. Kantemir, Dimitriĭ. Kniga sistima ili sostoianie mokhhammedanskoĭ religii. [The System or Structure of Mohammadan Religion]. Saint Petersburg: v Tipografii tsarstvujushego, 1722. Kazem-Bek, Mirza (Aleksander Kazimovich). Obshchaia grammatika turetsko-tatarskogo iazyka [General Grammar of the Turkish-Tatar Language]. Kazan, 1846. German Translation in Allgemeine Grammatik der türkisch-tatarischen Sprache. Edited by Julius Theodor Zenker. Saint Peterburg– Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1848–9. Reprinted in Amsterdam: APA Oriental Press, 1981. Kazem-Bek, Mirza (Aleksander Kazimovich), Miftāḥ kunūz al-Qur’ān: Concordance complete du Coran contenant tous les mots et les expressions des textes, guider les orientalistes dans les recherches sur la religion, sur la législation, sur l’histoire et la literature de ce livre. Saint Petersburg: V tipografii Imperatorskoĭ Akademii Nauk, 1859. Kolmakov, Alekseĭ Vasilʹevich. Al Koran Magomedov. 2 vols. Saint Petersburg: pri Imperatorskoĭ Akademii Nauk, 1792. La Beaume, Jules. Le Koran analysé: d’après la traduction de M. Kasimirski et les observations de plusieurs autres savants orientalists. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1878. Arabic translation in Tafṣīl āyāt al-Qurʼān al-ḥakīm, waḍa‘ahū bil-firansawīya Ğūl Lābūm. Translated by Muḥammad Fuʾād al-Bāqī. al-Qāhira: Iḥyāʾ al-kutub al-ʿarabīya, 1955. Second edition in al-Qāhira: ʻĪsa al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1955. Re-edition in Beirut: Dār al-kitāb al-ʿarabī, 1969. Malov, Evfimiy A. Moiseevo zakonodatelʹstvo po ucheniiu Biblii i po ucheniiu Korana [Mosaic Legislation according to the Teachings of the Bible and the Teachings of the Qur’ān]. Kazan: Tipografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1890. Malov, Evfimiy A. Missionerstvo sredi mukhammedan i kreshchenykh tatar: Sbornik stateĭ [Missionary Work among the Muhammedans and Baptized Tatars: Collection of Articles]. Kazan: Tipo-Litografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1892. Mouradgea d’Ohsson, Ignatius. Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman, divisé en deux parties, dont l’une comprend la Législation Mahométane; l’autre l’Histoire de l’Empire Othomane. 3 vols. Paris, 1787–1820. al-Muṣḥaf aš-šarīf. Kazan: Tipo-litografiia bratʹev Karimov, 1914. Reprinted in Kazan, 2019. Nasyri, Kaium. Miftāḥ al-Qur’ān. Edited by Aĭdar G. Khairutdinov and Raushaniia F. Shafigullina. 2 vols. Kazan: Izdatelʹstvo ‘Poznanie,’ 2015. Nikolaev, K. Koran Magomeda, perevedënnyĭ s arabskogo na frantsuzskiĭ perevodchikom frantsuzskogo posolʹstva v Persii Kazimirskim. Мoscow: K. Šamov, 1864.

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Kostin, Andreĭ and Tatiana Kostina. “Inostrannye professora Kazanskogo universiteta 1830–1850-kh gg.” [Foreign Professors of Kazan University in the 1830s–1850s]. Gasyrlar avazy: Ekho vekov 3–4 (2014): 108–17. Krachkovskiĭ, Ignatiĭ Iu. “Perevod Korana D. N. Boguslavskogo” [D. N. Boguslavskiĭ’s Qur’ān Translation]. Sovetskoe vostokovedenie 3 (1945): 293–301. Kratschkowski [Krachkovskiĭ], I[gnatsy] J. Die russische Arabistik: Umrisse ihrer Entwicklung. Edited by Otto Mehlitz. Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1957. Kruming, Andreĭ A. “Pervye russkie perevody Korana, vypolnënnye pri Pëtre Velikom” [The First Russian Translations of the Qur’ān Produced under Peter the Great]. Arkhiv russkoĭ istorii 5 (1994): 227–39. Kubbel, Lev E. “L’école russe des études arabes, la arabistika (1804–1917), introduction et traduction par Maryta Espéronnier.” Stratégique 88, no. 1 (2007): 53–98. Kurganov, Fëdor A. Zametka k voprosu o vizantiĭskoĭ protivomusulʹmanskoĭ literature [A Note to the Question of Byzantine Anti-Muslim Literature]. Kazan: Tipografiia Imperatorskago Universiteta, 1878. Łapicz, Czesław. “Spór o autorstwo polskiego przekładu Koranu z 1858 roku” [The Dispute about the Authorship of the Polish Qur’ān Translation of the year 1858]. In Dialog chrześcijańsko-muzułmański. Vol. 3: Teoria, praktyka, perspektywy. Edited by Magdalena Lewicka and Cz. Łapicz, 245–60. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2013. Łapicz, Czesław. “Niezwykłe losy pierwszego drukowanego przekładu Koranu na język polski” [The Unusual Fate of the First Printed Translation of the Qur’ān into Polish]. Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne: Seria językoznawcza 20 [40], no. 2 (2013): 129–43. Lawrence, Bruce B. The Koran in English. A Biography; Lives of Great Religious Books. Princeton, NJ– Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017. Lazzerini, Edward J. “Jadidism.” In EI3, https://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_32675. Lemercier-Quelquejay, Chantal. “Les missions orthodoxes en pays musulmans de moyenne- et basse Volga, 1552–1865.” Cahiers du monde russe 8, no. 3 (1967): 369–403. Lemny, Ştefan. Les Cantemir: L’aventure européenne d’une familie princière au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Éditions Complexe, 2009. Mikulskiĭ, Dmitriĭ V. “« Ocherk arabskoĭ literatury » V. F. Girgasa (1835–1887) v kontekste otechestvennoĭ arabistiki XIX v. i nyneshnego sostoiania nasheĭ nauki [The ‘Outline of Arabic Literature’ by V. F. Girgas (1835–87) in the Context of Russian Arabic Studies of the 19th Century and the Present Situation of Our Scholarship].” Orientalistika 4, no. 3 (2021): 735–57. Mukhetdinov, Damir V. “Istoricheskiĭ analiz razvitiia traditsii perevoda Korana na frantsuzskij iazyk: v poiske sinteza ėstetiki i nauki” [Historical Analysis of the Development of Translating the Qur’ān into French: In Search of a Synthesis of Aesthetics and Scholarly Accuracy]. Islam v sovremennom mire 17, no. 2 (2021): 91–118. Nogmanov, Aĭdar I. Tatary Srednego Povolz’ia i Priural’ia v rossiĭskom zakonodatelʹstve vtoroĭ poloviny XVI–XVIII vv. [The Tatars of the Middle Volga and Ural Regions in the Russian Legislation of the Second Half of the 16th–18th Centuries]. Kazan: Fėn, 2002. Novitskaya, I. A. “Aziatskaia tipografiia: Tipografiia v Peterburge.” [The Asiatic Typography: A Printing House in Saint Petersburg]. In Tatarica: Tatarskaia Enciklopediia Online, https://tatarica.org/ru/ razdely/kultura/izdatelskoe-delo/aziatskaya-tipografiya-1. Olar, Ovidiu-Victor. “Dimitrie Cantemir.” In CMR. Vol. 14, 317–22. Ostroumov, Nikolaĭ P. “Musulʹmanskie maktaby i russko-guzemnye shkoly w Turkestanskom krae” [Muslim Maktabs and Russian-Native Elementary Schools in the Turkestan Region]. Narodnoe obrazovanie: Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia [N.S.] 1 (1906): 113–66.

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Jan Loop

Epilogue: Christian Reading of the Qur’ān in the Islamic World The essays in this book shed light on different aspects of interactions of Eastern Christian communities with the Qur’ān and the beliefs of the Islamic communities that surround them. David Nirenberg introduced the concept of religious “coproduction” to describe the interpretative processes by which neighbouring religions, through their interactions, imagine, delineate, and refine their theological identities.1 This concept highlights the understanding that religious identity does not develop in isolation but is continuously shaped and reshaped through engagement with other faiths. In recent years, several research initiatives have deepened our insight into these dynamics. Nirenberg himself, alongside Katharina Heyden, leads a large international project on “Co-produced Religion”.2 Tijana Krstić’s work on confession-building in early modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire (OTTOCONFESSION),3 and the “Recognizing Religions” project hosted by NYU in Abu Dhabi share a theoretical framework that emphasizes the entangled development of religious identities. The “European Qur’an” (EuQu) project, in the frame of which this book has been conceived and produced, is another critical research initiative exploring these complex interactions. Islam and the Qur’ān were part of the religious landscape in early modern Europe, and they played a central role in continuous shaping of confessional identities all over Christian Europe. Particularly in Iberia, and across early Modern Central and Eastern Europe – areas in close proximity to Muslim population – catechetical instruction was not only performed in demarcation to intra-Christian denominations. It also engaged with Islam and the Qur’ān, aiming to counter the dangerous attraction they might exert, for example on Christians coming under Ottoman rule. Protestant and Catholic preachers held sermons in which they tried to demonstrate, often through detailed analysis of Qur’ānic passages, that despite

1 David Nirenberg, Neighboring Faiths. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today (Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 5. 2 https://coproduced-religions.org [Accessed October 7, 2024]. 3 Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu, eds., Entangled Confessionalisations? Dialogic Perspectives on the Politics of Piety and Community Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th centuries, The Modern Muslim World 15 (Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022).  https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-012

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deceptive similarities and shared reverence for Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and other central Christian figures, the Qur’ān does not offer a path to salvation.4 Throughout the shared history of Christianity and Islam we find that this was not the only possible interpretation of the similarities between Qur’ān and Bible and that historically, other forms of engagement with the Qur’ān have taken place too. There is, for example, a long tradition of using the Qur’ān as an external, or even “impartial” testimony in inter-Christian, dogmatic debates. The idea that the Qur’ān, besides all its falsehood, also contains bits of truth is a persistent trope in Christian interaction with Islam. Based on this the Qur’ān, in the eyes of certain Christian writers, seems to have acquired at least some authority, particularly as a historical document and an independent confirmation of certain contested theological (or historical) problems. Throughout the early modern period, the Qur’ān and other central Islamic texts (hadith, tafsīr) were used in dogmatic and ecclesiological debates to back up certain doctrinal or historical claims. A case in point is the late medieval dispute about the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. Since the fourteenth century Franciscan authors have used sayings of the Prophet Muḥammad in defense of the immaculate conception.5 The respective polemical strategy – “even the infidels support this dogma, how much more does it need to be supported by righteous Christians” – was to have a long career in other dogmatic debates too. Structurally, however, this form of using the Qur’ān as a “prooftext” for Christian theological positions is much older and develops in the first centuries of Christian engagement with the Qur’ān, as the first contributions in this volume show.6 Widely attested among Arab authors since the ninth century, Bert Jacobs identifies such an apologetic use of Qur’ānic passages against the charge of taḥrīf already in a Syriac Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew from the eighth century by the West Syriac Patriarch George of Bʿeltan. Thomas Carlson locates such positive readings of the Qur’ān and the respective influence these readings had on the apologetic presentation of Christianity on a continuum, exemplified in three Christian Arabic texts from the tenth to the fourteenth century. It ranges from the claim that the Qur’ān endorses Chris-

4 Damaris Grimmsmann, Krieg mit dem Wort. Türkenpredigten des 16. Jahrhunderts im Alten Reich, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 131 (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2016). 5 See Asaph Ben-Tov, “Der Blick nach Osten: Die Islamische Maria im konfessionellen Zeitalter,” in Maria in den Konfessionen und Medien der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Bernhard Jahn and Claudia Schindler, Frühe Neuzeit: Studien und Dokumente zur deutschen Literatur und Kultur im europäischen Kontext 234 (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2020), 107–23. 6 On the early Christian use of the Qur’ān as a prooftext in general see Sidney H. Griffith, “Christians and the Arabic Qur’ān: Prooftexting, Polemics, and Intertwined Scriptures,” IHIW 2 (2014): 243–66.

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tianity to the argument that it is, in fact, a Christian text adapted for evangelizing Arabs. This latter view is expressed in an anonymous revision of Paul of Antioch’s famous Letter to a Muslim Friend. These positive readings of the Qur’ān shaped the presentation of Christianity in these texts. Paul of Antioch, for example, regarded Muḥammad as a real prophet, sent to pagan Arabs, and he blurred the traditional distinctions of Trinitarian persons by describing Jesus not only as “the Word of God,” but also as “God’s Spirit.” Other early Christian apologetics however tried to bring this Qur’ānic concept (Q 1:171) in line with Christian Trinitarianism. In an extensive apology written most probably in the ninth century, Eustathius the Monk makes sophisticated use of the Qur’ān, presenting it as an endorsement of Christianity and of the divinity of Christ. Similarly, in an anonymous apology by a Melkite Monk, Qur’ānic verses are included alongside prooftexts from the Old Testament in support of Christ’s incarnation. Here, Hebrew Bible, New Testament and Qur’ān reinforce each other on the central Christian doctrine. Alessandro Gori in his contribution points to similar efforts in Ethiopian texts. In The Gate of the Faith (Anqaṣä Amin), ʿƎnbaqom, a Muslim convert and the abbot of the Ethiopian Orthodox monastery of Däbrä Libanos in Šäwa (d. 1560/1), argues too that the Qur’ān contains elements of Christian truth and can be used in support of certain fundamental Christian beliefs.7 Alongside such efforts to reconcile doctrinal and polemical differences and to present the Qur’ān as a text that endorses Christianity, we also encounter, from the outset, opposing endeavors aimed at demarcation and denying Islam the status of a true religion. George of Bʿeltan’s Syriac response to the charge of scriptural falsification offered again a blueprint, using an argument now referred to as the “True Religion Apology.” This argument lists both positive and negative criteria for discerning the truth of the Gospel and of Christianity, anticipating many of the standard arguments used against Islam in the following centuries, including accusations of coercion, or promise of material gain and carnal delights. It appears from the chapters in this book that the early Islamic period was characterized by a dynamic and protean religious landscape, in which arguments were tested and developed in constant interaction, leading to the formation of a polemical and apologetical canon. A towering figure in this process is John of Damascus (d. 749), a Melkite monk whose famous chapter on Islam in his work On Heresies was to influence Christian anti-Islamic polemics for centuries, in Arabic, Byzantine and Latin traditions. Conceptualizing Islam as a heresy and interpreting it in eschatological light as harbinger of Antichrist had a long and “productive” future far into the

7 See also Alessandro Gori, “ʿƎnbaqom,” in CMR, vol. 7, 794–800.

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early modern times.8 In some of the Byzantine texts analyzed by Manolis Ulbricht and found in a fourteenth or fifteenth-century anti-Islamic anthology from Mount Athos, Islam is not only seen as a heresy. It is also made responsible for the rise of new heresies (e.g. Monothelitism) and it is instrumentalised in intra-Christian debates, for example against iconoclastic movements. The canonisation of certain texts in anti-Islamic anthologies such as the one of Mount Athos, but also the collection compiled by the Phanariot scholar Nicholas Karatzas in the late eighteenth century, raises interesting questions about changing modes of knowledge production and, more particularly, processes of canonisation and preservation of such knowledge from the early to the late Byzantine periods. Octavian-Adrian Negoiță argues that these collections formed authoritative encyclopedic collections from which later authors often picked together arguments and tropes. The longevity and transnational impact of certain anti-Islamic texts and the arguments contained therein are remarkable. Their transmission stories reveal much about the changing social contexts in which they were received and used. A case in point is the polemical treatise written by the Orthodox Christian monk Michael Synkellos around 900 in Palestine. Zofia Brzozowska and the late Mirosław Leszka trace the text’s different stages and transformations from its original Byzantine-Greek version to its various transmissions in Church-Slavic literary tradition between the eleventh to the sixteenth century. Itself a compilation of existing anti-Islamic arguments, the text doesn’t survive as an independent text but is characterised by the constantly shifting contexts within which it is used in the Slavic world. From the seventeenth century on, the influence of the Latin Qur’ān translation on Eastern Christian discourse about Islam is noticeable, and the medieval Latin translation, edited by Theodor Bibliander and printed in Basel by Johannes Oporinus in 1543, plays an important role. For the Greek Orthodox scholar Gerasimos Vlachos (1607–85) for example, access to Bibliander’s edition opened a path to breaking with the limited and often distorted Byzantine and post-Byzantine polemical tradition against Islam. His Peri tēs tou Mōameth thrēskeias kai kata Tourkōn, “On the religion of Muḥammad and against the Turks,” written between 1664 and 1671, and preserved in two manuscript copies,9 quotes extensively from the Alcoran, as well as from the the Risāla of al-Kindī, the Dialogue with Abdias, the Cribatio Alchorani by

8 Reinhold Glei, “John Damascene on Islam: A Long-Term History in Byzantium,” in Negotiating Co-Existence: Communities, Cultures and Convivencia in Byzantine Society, ed. Barbara Crostini and Sergio La Porta, Bochumer Altertumswissentschaftliches Colloquium 96 (Trier: Wissenschaftliche Verlag, 2013), 31–44.; Reinhold Glei, “John of Damascus,” in CMR 1, 295–301. 9 Mount Athos, Xenophontos Monastery, MS Gr. 213, fols. 147r–236 (17th century; a copy of the lost original by the hieromonk Kalliopios Kalliergēs) and Princeton, Princeton University Library, MS Gr. 112, fols. 347r–384v (18th century; a copy by Nicholas Karatzas).

Epilogue: Christian Reading of the Qur’ān in the Islamic World 

 313

Nicholas of Cusa, and Contra legem saracenorum by Riccoldo da Monte di Croce, all printed in Bibliander’s editing. Although harking back on a medieval translation, Gerasimos’ text marked a significant development in Greek engagement with Islam, as he introduced new sources, and an extended range of newly translated Qur’ānic passages into Greek. The work can thus be seen as an important milestone in the reception of the Alcoran in the world of Greek Christianity. It also underlines just how deep and extensive the impact of Bibliander’s edition was on Christian polemical traditions also in the Eastern Christian world. This is confirmed by Anna Ohanjanyan’s contribution, in which she discusses the first Armenian translation of the Qur’ān by Stepʿanos Lehatsʿi (d. 1689). This translation too was based on Bibliander’s edition, which probably reached Safavid Armenia through Armenian merchants from New Julfa-Isfahan. The translation of the Alcoran is accompanied by a refutation, which merges the Liber de Doctrina Mahumet, Riccoldo’s Contra legem Sarracenorum and Nicholas of Cusa’s Cribratio Alcorani taken again from the Bibliander edition. Ohanjanyan convincingly situates this work within the broader context of the Armenian elite in Isfahan, who sought to familiarise themselves with anti-Islamic texts in response to religious and political pressures, and as part of a general orientation toward the West. Bibliander’s edition continued to be used occasionally into the 18th century. According to Florentina Nicolae, Dimitrie Cantemir (1673–1723) made use of it when composing his work De Curanus, an extended version of which was later translated into Russian at the request of Peter the Great and published in 1722 as Kniga sistima ili sostoianie muhammedanskiia religii.10 This work, written with a characteristic enlightened claim to objectivity, aimed to provide an instructive account of Islamic beliefs. Ovidiu Olar suggests, based on a comparison between Latin original and Russian translation, that the intended audience of this compendium about Islam included Peter’s jolly company, the “All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod of Fools and Jesters,” with the intention of mocking the Ottoman adversary as flawed and far from invincible.11 The Kniga sistima was meant to complement the 1716 anonymous Russian translation of the Qur’ān, based on André du Ryer’s 1649 translation. The production, printing and distribution of this translation were also ordered by Peter, as part of his efforts to engage with his Muslim subjects living in the governates of Kazan and Astrakhan as Stefan Schreiner explains in his overview of Russian translations of the Qur’ān. In 1805, Cantemir’s Kniga sistima was

10 Dimitrie Cantemir, Curanus, Collectanea Orientalia, De muro Caucaseo, ed. Florentina Nicolae, trans. Ioana Costa (Bucharest: Academia Română, 2018), xiv. 11 Ovidiu Olar, “Kniga sistima ili Sostoianie muhammedanskiia religii,” in CMR, vol. 14, 317–22.

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 Jan Loop

translated into Bulgarian by Bishop Sofroniy Vrachanski (d. 1813). Nadezhda Alexandrova’s detailed analysis reveals how Vrachanski adapted the text on linguistic, structural as well as polemical levels to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity and refute Islamic religion and culture for Bulgarian readers. Here too, the objective was to oppose mass conversions and “creeping Islamisation” among Bulgarians under Ottoman rule in the early 19th century. The experience of Christian minority groups living among or in close vicinity to Muslims is diverse, complex and ever changing. The essays in this volume offer a panorama of different ways in which these Christians engaged with Islamic beliefs, rituals and, particularly, with the Islamic revelation. The book demonstrates the fluidity and complexity of religious identity formation in the early Islamic period, shaped by both polemical and apologetic engagements with the Qur’ān across different Christian traditions.

Bibliography Manuscripts Mount Athos. Xenophontos Monastery. Gr. 213. Princeton. Princeton University Library. Gr. 112.

Secondary Literature Ben-Tov, Asaph. “Der Blick nach Osten: Die Islamische Maria im konfessionellen Zeitalter.” In Maria in den Konfessionen und Medien der Frühen Neuzeit. Edited by Bernhard Jahn and Claudia Schindler, 107–23. Frühe Neuzeit: Studien und Dokumente zur deutschen Literatur und Kultur im europäischen Kontext 234. Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2020. Cantemir, Dimitrie. Curanus, Collectanea Orientalia, De muro Caucaseo. Edited by Florentina Nicolae and translated by Ioana Costa. Bucharest: Academia Română, 2018. Glei, Reinhold. “John Damascene on Islam: A Long-Term History in Byzantium.” In Negotiating Co-Existence: Communities, Cultures and Convivencia in Byzantine Society. Edited by Barbara Crostini and Sergio La Porta, 31–44. Bochumer Altertumswissentschaftliches Colloquium 96. Trier: Wissenschaftliche Verlag, 2013. Glei, Reinhold. “John of Damascus.” In CMR. Vol. 1, 295–301. Gori, Alessandro. “ʿƎnbaqom.” In CMR. Vol. 7, 794–800. Griffith, Sidney H. “Christians and the Arabic Qur’ān: Prooftexting, Polemics, and Intertwined Scriptures.” IHIW 2 (2014): 243–66. Grimmsmann, Damaris. Krieg mit dem Wort. Türkenpredigten des 16. Jahrhunderts im Alten Reich. Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 131. Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter 2016.

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Krstić, Tijana and Derin Terzioğlu, eds. Entangled Confessionalisations? Dialogic Perspectives on the Politics of Piety and Community Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th centuries. The Modern Muslim World 15. Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022. Nirenberg, David. Neighboring Faiths. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Olar, Ovidiu. “Kniga sistima ili Sostoianie muhammedanskiia religii.” In CMR. Vol. 14, 317–22.

List of Contributors Alexandrova, Nadezhda (Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”) Nadezhda Alexandrova is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Slavic Studies of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski.” Her research interests focus on Ottoman and Balkan literature and culture from the 18th and the 19th centuries, with a special attention to the history of emotions, gender studies and reception studies. She is the author of two monographs in Bulgarian: Slaves, Dolls and Individuals: The Woman Question in Bulgarian Periodicals from the 19th Century and Luben Karavelov’s Prose (Sofia: Sonm, 2012) and The Jenissaires: Entangled Histories in the Ottoman Context of the 19th Century (Sofia: Iztok-Zapad, 2018). Brzozowska, Zofia A. (University of Lodz) Zofia A. Brzozowska is Associate Professor at the Department of Slavic Philology, Faculty of Philology of the University of Lodz, and member of the CERANEUM Center of the same university. As a Paleoslavist and Byzantinist, she focuses on the East and South Slavic literature and culture in the Middle Ages. She is the author (with Mirosław J. Leszka and Teresa Wolińska) of Muhammad and the Origin of Islam in the Byzantine-Slavic Literary Context: A Bibliographical History, trans. Katarzyna Gucio and Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi (Lodz: Lodz University Press, 2021). Carlson, Thomas A. (Oklahoma State University) Thomas A. Carlson is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern History at Oklahoma State University. His research focuses on Christian-Muslim relations and religious diversity in the medieval Middle East, especially 1000–1500 CE. He is the author of Christianity in Fifteenth-Century Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018) and editor of the Historical Index of the Medieval Middle East (HIMME; https://medievalmideast.org/). Gori, Alessandro (University of Copenhagen) Alessandro Gori is Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies of the University of Copenhagen. His specialist subject area is the Islamic literature and culture in the Horn of Africa, on which he has published extensively. Among his latest contributions is (with Irmeli Perho and Adday Hernandez), Arabic Literature of Africa, Volume 3b: The Writings of the Muslim Peoples of Northeastern Africa, Handbook of Oriental Studies–Section 1: The Near and Middle East, 13/3b (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2022). Jacobs, Bert (Université catholique de Louvain) Bert Jacobs is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve. He specializes in Syriac and Christian Arabic literature with a special interest in the history of Christian-Muslim relations. In his PhD defended at KU Leuven in 2021 he examined the Syriac quotations of the Qur’ān in Dionysius bar Ṣalībī’s (d. 1171) Against the Arabs. Building on this research, his current project, funded by the National Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.–FNRS), studies the reception of the Qur’ān in late medieval Christian Arabic literature. (†) Leszka, Mirosław J. (University of Lodz) Mirosław J. Leszka was Professor of Byzantine studies at the Department of Byzantine History, Faculty of Philosophy and History, University of Lodz. He was also member of the CERANEUM Center of the same university. His scholarly interests included Byzantine historiography and imperial power in https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-013

318 

 List of Contributors

the early and middle Byzantine periods, with a special attention to the history of Bulgaria (7th–11th centuries). With Zofia A. Brzozowska and Teresa Wolińska, he authored Muhammad and the Origin of Islam in the Byzantine-Slavic Literary Context: A Bibliographical History, trans. Katarzyna Gucio and Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi (Lodz: Lodz University Press, 2021). Loop, Jan (University of Copenhagen) Jan Loop is Professor of Early Modern History and Religious Cultures at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at New York University Abu Dhabi and one of the PIs of the ERC Synergy Project The European Qur’an. Islamic Scripture in European Religion and Culture. His teaching and research interests are in the intellectual, religious and cultural history of Europe and the Near East, with a special focus on Western knowledge of the Arab, Ottoman and Persian world between 1450–1800. He is the author of Johann Heinrich Hottinger: Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Seventeenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) and Hiob Ludolf and Johann Michael Wansleben: Oriental Studies, Politics, and History between Gotha and Africa, 1650–1700 (Leiden– Boston: Brill, 2023), edited with Asaph Ben-Tov and Martin Muslow. Negoiță, Octavian-Adrian (Romanian Academy and EuQu Project) Octavian-Adrian Negoiță is Junior Researcher at the Romanian Academy, and member of the EuQu ERC-Synergy Grant’s Copenhagen team. His research interests are anchored in the field of religious and intellectual history of medieval and early modern Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on theological debates, Christian-Muslim relations, and the experience of Greek Orthodox communities under the Ottoman rule. He is currently preparing a monograph on the early modern Greek Orthodox anti-Muslim polemical corpus. Ohanjanyan, Anna (Mesrop Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts “Matenadaran”) Anna Ohanjanyan is the Head of the Department for the Study of Armenian Sources of the 15th–19th Centuries at the Mesrop Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts “Matenadaran” (Armenia), Associate Professor at Yerevan State University, Senior Researcher at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Department of Source Studies. She is the author of The Book ‘Key of Truth’ and Its Historiographical Significance (Yerevan: YSU Press, 2015). Currently, she is preparing a new monograph entitled Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy in Armenian Polemical Literature from Ottoman and Safavid Context (17th–18th Centuries). Roggema, Barbara (University of Florence) Barbara Roggema is associate professor of history of the Muslim world at the University of Florence. She earned her PhD in 2007 from the University of Groningen. Her research focuses on the history of interreligious interaction in the Middle East. She is the author of The Legend of Sergius Bahīrā: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam, The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 9 (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2009). Schreiner, Stefan (University of Tübingen) Stefan Schreiner is Professor emeritus of the University of Tübingen. He taught on the Comparative Study of Religions, with a special attention on Islam, and Jewish Studies, focusing on the history and culture of Jews in Eastern Europe and the Islamic World. Since his retirement, he works as Senior Professor and Advisor to the Presidency of the University of Tübingen for the further development of its Centre of Islamic Theology.

List of Contributors 

 319

Ulbricht, Manolis (University of Notre Dame) Manolis Ulbricht is a postdoctoral Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at the Medieval Institute of the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA). His EU-funded research project Documenta Coranica Byzantina (DoCoByz), hosted by the Universities of Nantes (France, 09/2023-02/2024) and Copenhagen (Denmark, since 03/2024), explores Greek translations of the Qur’ān and anti-Islamic polemics in Byzantium. Manolis Ulbricht recently edited the volume From Oriens Christianus to Islamic Near East (Trier, 2024) with a comparative study on religious musical traditions in the Eastern Mediterranean, correlating the Byzantine modal system of the Orthodox Church with the Maqām system used in Islamic worship.

Index of Manuscripts and Prints Manuscripts Aleppo Fondation Georges et Mathilde Salem. MS Ar. 209 51n17, 70, 73

London British Library. MS Add 17274 9n6, 23n63, 39 British Library. MS Or. 2165 72, 73

Athens Benaki Museum. Alexios Kolybas col. MS 49 224, 243 Metochion of the Holy Sepulcher [ΜΠΤ]. MS Gr. 225 212‒13n32, 243 Metochion of the Holy Sepulcher [ΜΠΤ]. MS Gr. 351 221n54, 243 Metochion of the Holy Sepulcher [ΜΠΤ]. MS 441 226, 243 National Museum of History. MS 55 224n63, 243 National Museum of History. MS 71 216, 243

Madrid El Escorial. MS Gr. Ψ.III.8 (463) 109n33, 121

Beirut Université Saint-Joseph, Bibliothèque orientale. MS 681 47n6, 73 Birmingham Col. Mingana. MS Chr. Ar. 52 51n17, 52, 73 Bucharest Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR]. MS Gr. 85 224n63, 243 Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR]. MS Gr. 974 203n4, 243 Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR]. MS Gr. 1300 210n24, 243 Cluj Library of the Romanian Academy [BAR]. Blaj Fund. MS 216 225, 243 Copenhagen Royal Library. MS Fabr. 52,4° 212n28, 243 Ioannina Library of the University of Ioannina. MS Kourilas 5 229n79, 237, 243 Jerusalem St. James’ Monastery. MS 3264 175n13, 197 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-014

Manchester John Rylands Library. Moses Gaster collection. MS 2082 222n57, 243 Mardin Church of the Forty Martyrs. MS 356 9n6, 39 Moscow Russian State Library. MS 113.506 144, 147 Russian State Library. MS 113.590 143n40, 147 Russian State Library. MS 173.I.88 143n40, 147 Russian State Library. MS 173.I.187 142, 147 Russian State Library. MS 173.I.191 142, 147 Russian State Library. MS 304.I.205 141, 147 Russian State Library. MS 304.I.206 141, 147 Russian State Library. MS 304.I.207 132, 147 Russian State Library. MS 304.I.663 143n40, 147 Russian State Library. MS 304.I.666 143n40, 147 Russian State Library. MS 310.1289 134, 147 State Historical Museum. MS Sin. 132 141n36, 147 State Historical Museum. MS Sin. 148 137, 147 State Historical Museum. MS Sin. 169 143n40, 147 State Historical Museum. MS Sin. 174 144n42, 147 State Historical Museum. MS Sin. 227 133n20, 147 State Historical Museum. MS Sin. 986 144n42, 147 Mt Athos Esphigmenou Monastery. MS Gr. 2320 [307] 223, 243 The Great Lavra. MS Gr. I 35 (Efstratiadis 1119) 222, 243 The Great Lavra. MS Gr. Ω 44 (Eftratiadis 1854) 101, 109n33, 120‒1 Panteleimon Monastery. MS Gr. 17 (5523) 207n14, 243

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 Index of Manuscripts and Prints

Xenophontos Monastery. MS Gr. 213 223, 243, 312n9, 314

National Library of Russia. Col. Mikhail Pogodin. MS 1204 253, 273

München Staatsbibliothek. MS Gr. 391 107n27, 121

Sinai St Catherine Monastery. MS Ar. 154 71, 73 St Catherine Monastery. MS Ar. 434 59‒60, 63n47‒48, 67n61, 68n63, 68n65, 73

New Julfa-Isfahan All Savior’s Monastery. MS 39 (All Savior’s 361) 179, 197 Oxford Christ Church. MS Wake 5 107n27, 121 Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF]. MS Arm. 145 190n105, 197 Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF]. MS Gr. 1243Α 222, 243 Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF]. MS Gr. 1709 107n27, 121 Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF]. MS Gr. 1710 107n27, 121 Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF]. MS Gr. 1711 107n27, 121 Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF]. MS Coislin 133 107n27, 121 Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF]. MS Coislin 305 130, 147 Patmos Monastery of St John the Theologian. MS Gr. 371 210n24, 224n63, 243 Monastery of St John the Theologian. MS 415 224, 243 Princeton Princeton University Library. MS Gr. 112 201, 202n1, 234‒6, 243, 312, 314 Rome Biblioteca Vallicelliana. MS 27 [B 128] 224, 243 Sankt Petersburg National Library of Russia. MS 728.1285 143, 147 National Library of Russia. MS 728.1317 144n42, 147 National Library of Russia. MS F.IV.151 143, 147 National Library of Russia. MS F.п.II.1 136n32, 147

Vatican Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Gr. 154 107n27, 121 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Gr. 155 107n27, 121 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Gr. 978 107n27, 121 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Barberini 553 107n27, 121 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Borg. Arm 40/ II/1 192n117, 197 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Palat. 395 107n27, 121 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Pers. 49 192n117, 197 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Syriac 154 10, 12, 13n18‒20, 13n22‒23, 14, 33n105, 35, 39 Vienna Mekhitarist Library. MS 575 179n32, 197 Mekhitarist Library. MS 576 179n32, 197 Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. MS Theol. Gr. 306 219, 243 Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. MS Suppl. Gr. 22 222, 243 Yerevan Matenadaran. MS 109 177n22, 197 Matenadaran. MS 110 178n28, 197 Matenadaran. MS 111 183n75, 197 Matenadaran. MS 482 174n8, 197 Matenadaran. MS 575 186n92, 197 Matenadaran. MS 2118 174n8, 197 Matenadaran. MS 2826 175n13, 197 Matenadaran. MS 2968 175n13, 197 Matenadaran. MS 2993 179, 180n37, 196‒7 Matenadaran. MS 3109 177n24, 179, 197 Matenadaran. MS 3182 178, 195, 197 Matenadaran. MS 6984 175n13, 197

Prints (before 1800) 

Zagora Municipal Library. MS 11 224n65, 243 Municipal Library. MS 117 224n65, 243

 323

Zagreb Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences. MS III c. 9 135n27, 136n29‒31, 147

Prints (before 1800) Alkoranʺ о Magomete [. . .]. Sankt Petersburg, 1716 279n9, 300 Alkoranʺ ili zakonʺ Magometanskiĭ [. . .]. Sankt Petersburg, 1722 280, 300 Bibliander, Theodor. Machumetis Saracenorum principis [. . .]. Basel, 1543 (1550) 174n11, 197, 209n21, 219, 244, 312‒13 Björnståhl, J. J. Resa til Frankirke [. . .]. 5 vols. Stockholm, 1788 208n17, 212n29, 244 de la Croix, M. La Turquie crétienne [. . .]. 1695 224n64, 244 de la Croix, M. État présent des nations et églises grecque [. . .]. Paris, 1741 224n64, 244 Dorotheos of Monemvasia, Biblion historikon [. . .]. Venice, 1631 215, 238, 244 Dositheos of Jerusalem. Tou makaritou Meletiou Syrigou [. . .]. Bucharest, 1690 221, 222n56, 241, 244 Dositheos of Jerusalem, Tomos agapēs. Iași, 1698 219n47, 221, 232, 244 Dositheos of Jerusalem, Historia [. . .]. Bucharest, 1715 219-20, 240‒1, 244 Ephrem of Athens. Perigraphē [. . .]. Venice, 1751 223, 244 Fabricius, Johann A. Bibliotheca Graeca [. . .]. Vol. 11. Hamburg, 1722 212n28, 213, 244 Georgi, Johann Gottlieb. Beschreibung aller Nationen [. . .]. Sankt Petersburg, 1776 286, 300 d’Herbelot, Barthélemy. Bibliothèque Orientale [. . .]. Paris, 1697 209, 244 Kantemir, Dimitriy [Demetrius Cantemir]. Kniga sistima [. . .]. Sankt Petersburg, 1722 251‒2, 255, 258‒60, 265, 267, 269, 271‒4, 281, 301, 313, 315 Kigalas, Matthew. Nea synopsis [. . .]. Venice, 1637 215, 221, 239, 241, 244

Kolmakov, Alekseĭ Vasilʹevich. Al Koran Magomedov. 2 vols. Sankt Petersburg, 1792 282, 301 Meletios of Athens. Geōgraphia [. . .]. Venice, 1728 217, 219n47, 244 Meletios of Athens. Ekklēsiastikē historia [. . .]. 3 vols. Vienna, 1783–4 212‒13, 215, 215‒16n38, 219, 221‒4, 226, 231, 238‒44 Mouradgea d’Ohsson, Ignatius. Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman. 3 vols. Paris, 1787–1820 281, 301 de Nessel, Daniel. Breviarium [. . .]. Vienna, 1690 214, 219‒20n39, 244 Nektarios of Jerusalem. Epitomē tēs hierokosmikēs historias [. . .]. Venice, 1677 215, 217, 226, 239, 244 Pallas, Peter Simon. Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen [. . .]. 5 vols. Sankt Petersburg, 1771–6 287n49, 302 Prideaux, Humphrey. The True Nature of Imposture [. . .]. London, 1697 282n31, 302 Quétif J. and J. Echard. Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum. Vol. 1. Paris, 1719 221n54, 244 al-Qur’ān al-šarīf. Sankt Petersburg, 1787 288, 300 Rhodinos, Neophitos. Apokrisis [. . .]. Rome, 1659 223n62, 242, 244 Rusios, Adamantios. Latinōn thrēskeias elegchoi 36 [. . .]. Venice, 1748 219, 240, 244 Du Ryer, André. L’Alcoran de Mahomet [. . .]. Paris, 1647 279n10, 300, 313 Sagredo, Giovanni. Memorie istoriche [. . .]. Venice, 1679 (French: Paris, 1730) 215, 239, 244 Sale, George. The Koran [. . .]. London, 1734 282n27, 302

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Sale, George. Reflections on Mohammedanism [. . .]. London, 1735 282n31, 302 Sylburg, Friedrich. Saracenica sive Moamethica [. . .]. Hamburg, 1595 219n49, 244 Theotokis, Nicephoros. Seira henos kai pentēkonta hypomnēmatistōn [. . .]. Vol. 1. Leipzig, 1772 213n33, 244

Verёvkin, Mikhail Ivanovich. Kniga Alʹ-Koranʺ [. . .]. Sankt Petersburg, 1790 281n34, 302 Zygadenos, Euthymios. Panoplia dogmatikē [. . .]. Târgoviște, 1710 211, 244

Index ʿAbbās I, shah 175–6, 192n118 ʿAbbās II, shah 192n118 ʿAbdūh, Muḥammad 297 Abdraziakov, Mukhammed [Muḥammad ʿAbd ar-Razzāq] 290 Abī Ṭālib, Jaʿfar b. 156 Abraham 16n35, 137, 185, 202, 213 Abraham of Tiberias 19n48, 29 Abū Rāʾiṭa 19n48, 22n58, 30, 32 Accad, Martin 18 Addis Ababa 166 al-Afghānī, Ghamāl ad-Dīn 297 Aghbaketsʿi, Pʿilipos 176, 194 Akinean, Nersēs 178 Alexander I, tsar 260 Alexander VII, pope 190 All Savior, Monastery 179, 193–4, Amsterdam 174, 189, 191, 194 Anetsʿi, Mkhitʿar 173 Antim of Iviria 211 Antioch 33, 34, 47, 81 Apostolopoulos, Dimitris 203n4 Aquinas, Thomas 177, 219, 240 Arbanasi 256 Aretov, Nikolay 262 Areweltsʿi, Vardan 173 Astrakhan 278, 279, 285, 313 Aṣḥama b. Abjar of Ethiopia 156, 157 Athanasius II of Balad 16 Athens 34, 208, 212, 230 Atoumanos, Simon 221 Babai the Great 92 Baghdad 7, 11, 191 Baha al-Din Amali 193 Balkans 2, 125, 129, 131, 136, 139–42, 254n8, 254n10, 257 Basel 174, 214, 312 Basetti-Sani, Giulio 45–46, 69 al-Baṣrī, ʿAmmār 22, 30, 32 Batunskiĭ, Mark A. 278 Baumstark, Anton 12, 14, 20 de Biberstein-Kazimirski, Albert Félix Ignace [Albin Wojciech] 282, 284–5 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111140766-015

Bibliander, Theodor 4, 174–5, 179–80, 182n62, 184–5, 191, 209, 214, 219, 231, 312–13 Bigiev, Musa Dzharullakh 299 Billet 162 Bithynia 115 Björnståhl, Jacob Jonas 208, 212 Blaj 225 Bobik, Aṛakʿēl 190 Boguslavskiĭ, Dmitriĭ Nikolaevich 293–5 Bohak, Gideon 66 Boris-Michael, king 126, 131 Bozantzoglou, George Byzantios 214, 217, 239 Brâncoveanu, Constantin 211, 220–2, 241, 256 Bryennios, Joseph 223–4, 242 Bucharest 206, 210n24, 220, 222, 252–3, 257–60, 272 Buczacki, Jan Murza Tarak 283–4 al-Bulgari, Abdarraḥim 299 Bulgaria 125–6, 131, 133–4, 136, 139–40, 142, 145n43, 258 Būluṣ ibn Rajāʾ 28 Byzantios, Michael 222 Callistus of Rome 94n80 Camariano, Nestor 203n4 Cantacuzino, Constantine, postelnik 225 Cantacuzino, Constantine, stolnik 220n52, 221, 241 Cantemir, Dimitrie 251, 252n4, 253–5, 258–73, 280–1, 313 Catherine II the Great 285–9 Chaadaev, Pëtr 282 Charsianites, Monastery 224, 242 Chlewiński, Dionizy 284 Choniates, Nicetas 104–6, 112, 119–21 Chora, Monastery 126, 128 Chrysokokkes, George 213 Chrysostom, John 12, 207, 266 Clemens IX 190 Constans II 108 Constantine-Cyril 131 Constantinople 115–17, 119–21 Cosmas 115 Cyprus 82–83, 132, 242

326 

 Index

Cyril of Alexandria 68n64 Cyril II of Kyiv 136 Dadoyan, Seta 178 Damascus 7, 114 Daniel of Moscow 145–6 Dapontes, Constantine Kaisarios 207 Dashtetsʿi, Stepʿanos 174, 192n115 David, prophet 23, 61, 84, 266 David of Dara 10–11 Davrizhetsʿi, Aṛakʿel 176 Däbrä Libanos, Monastery 164n53, 311 Diderot, Denis 285 Dimarios, John Diamandi 210n24 al-Dimashqī, Ibn Abī Ṭālib 82 Diogenes 68 Dionysios IV of Constantinople 217, 239 Dionysius bar Ṣalībī 12, 25, 34 Dionysius of Tell-Maḥrē 11n7 Domeyko, Ignacy 284 Dositheos II of Jerusalem 219–22, 232, 240–1 Du Mans, Raphael 190 Dumitru, official 225 Du Ryer, André 279–81, 313 Efstratiadis, Sofronios 102 Elias of Nisibis [Eliyā of Nisibis; Eliyā bar Shennāyā] 32n109, 47, 77, 80–81, 84–85, 86n37, 90–97 Epiphanios of Salamis 115, 132, 225 Ephrem of Athens 223, 242 Erewantsʿi, Oskan 189 Eusebius of Caesarea 12, 68 Eustathius the Monk 46, 50–59, 69, 311 Euthymios the Monk 223, 242 Evodios the Monk 109–12, 118–21 Ējmiatsin 176, 177n22, 178–9, 188–91, 194 ʿƎnbaqom 164–5, 311 Fabricius, Johann A. 211–13 Faizkhanov, Khusain 299 Ferruh, İsmail 294 Flavius, Josephus 177 Friedenreich, David 15 Galata 207 George, bishop of Arabs 12

George of Bʿeltan 7, 9 – 23, 26 – 29, 31–34, 310–11 George of Jerusalem 127 George the Monk 102, 106–9, 113–14, 117–18, 120–1, 129–31, 133–4, 136, 139–41, 143, 146–7 Georgi, Johann Gottlieb 286 Ghevond 173 Ghika, Gregory II 206 Ghilchentsʿ, Awetis 189 Girgas, Vladimir Fëdorovich 292, 293n79 Gīwargīs I 15 Golius, Jacob 4 Gordios, Anastasios 217, 239 Gottwaldt, Joseph 292–3 Graf, Georg 50 Greceanu, Radu 225 Gregory bar ʿEbrōyō 25, 33 Griffith, Sidney 16, 30–31, 60, 62n45, 65n52, 78, 79n5, 82, 84, 90n58, 96 Grigorovich, Viktor 254 Guria of Edessa 11 Haddad, Rashid 60 Hagios Christophoros, Monastery 116 Harar 153n1, 161n38, 162–3, 164n50 d’Herbelot de Molainville, Barthélemy 4, 209 Herman of Carinthia 179 Hermes 68 Heyden, Katharina 309 Ḥijāz 17, 161 Hippocrates 68 Hippolytus of Rome 94n80 Hottinger, Johann Heinrich 4 Ḥabīb, Muḥammad Sani 157–8n22 Ḥabīb, Muḥammad Thānī 166 Ḥims 10 Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq 30–32 Ibn ʿAbbās 159n35, 165n55 Ibn Hishām 52, 156 Ibn Ḥazm 18, 20 Ibn al-Munajjim 30 Ibn Taymiyya 77, 78n2, 82 Ioannina 210n24, 229, 230 Iraq 48 ʿĪsā 57, 88

Index 

Isaac 185 Isfahan 174–5, 179, 191–3, 313 Ishmael 137, 185, 202n2, 213 Ishoʿyahb bar Malkon 23n61 al-Iṣfahānī, Abū ʿĪsā 67 Ivan III 141n37 Ivan IV the Terrible 143, 278 Ivanovich, Fëdor I 278 Jablonsky, Daniel Ernst 252n4 Jacob, abbot 217 Jacob bar Shakkō 33 Jacob of Edessa 12, 14, 16 Jacob Svetoslav 136 Jakob, Joachim 8 Jerusalem 61, 66, 84, 114, 127, 137, 189, 207, 215, 218, 258 Jesus Christ 13, 19, 21, 23, 25, 28–30, 33, 46, 53–54, 57n34, 64, 66–67, 85–97, 112, 138, 140, 157n16, 165, 310–11 John of Callinicus 10 John of Damascus 101, 103–7, 112–14, 116–17, 119–21, 128, 132, 135–6, 141, 144, 146, 210, 214, 311 John of Segovia 46 John the Baptist 63 John the Evangelist 265 John IV the Faster 142 John the Grammarian 128 John the Referendarion 223 Joseph the Hymnographer 118 Jughayetsʿi, Mattʿēos 173 Jughayetsʿi, Yakob 177–8, 188, 190, 193–4 Jughayetsʿi, Yovhannēs Mrkʿuz [Avanus Khalifa] 174, 186, 193 Kaaba 217, 239 Kallinikos, official 257 Kanellakis, Constantine 230 Kandalyj, Gabdelʹdžabbar 299 Kantakouzenos, John [Joasaph the Monk] 5, 210n24, 214, 218, 220–2, 227, 240–1 Karatzas, Constantine 204 Karatzas, Nicholas, Phanariot erudite 201 – 4, 210, 230–2, 312 Karatzas, Nicholas, Phanariot prince 215

 327

Karyophyllis, John 207, 216, 217n40, 239 Kastrioti, George “Skanderberg” 231 Kathara, Monastery 116 Kazan 278–9, 285–6, 289–93, 295, 313 Kazem-Bek, Mirza [Aleksander Kazimovich] 291–2 Kāshifī, Ḥusayn Vā’iẓ 294 Kedrenos, George 28n64, 214 Khairutdinov, Aĭdar G. 293 Khalfin, Ibrahim 299 Kigalas, Matthew 214–15, 221, 239, 241 al-Kindī 19n48, 22n58, 28, 30n97, 51, 312 de Kiriko, Luca 260 Kolmakov, Alekseĭ Vasilʹevich 281–2 Komnenos, Alexios I 119 Komnenos, John Hierotheos 220, 240–1 Kopreeva, Tatyana 262 Koressios, George 223, 242 Kotel 255–6 Kourilas, Evloghios 230 Kritias, Nicholas 203n4, 205–6 Krstić, Tijana v, 201, 310 Kuricyn, Ivan “Volk” 141 al-Kursavi, Abdannasir 299 Küçük Kaynarca 231 Kwiha 162 Kydones, Demetrios 102–3, 179n34, 214, 218–19, 240 La Beaume, Jules 295 Labanitziotis, Polyzois 212 Lahījī, Muḥammed Ali Hazīn 174n4 Lambros, Spyridon 203n4 Lavriotis, Spyridon 102 Lehatsʿi, Stepʿanos [Stephen of Poland; Stepʿanos Ilovtsʿi; Stephen of Lvov] 173–80, 182–9, 191, 193–5, 313 Leipzig 213 Leo III 19n49, 23, 118, 127 Leo V 128 Leo VI the Philosopher 129 Livorno 174 Lokros, Germanos 217n40 London 208, 282 Louis XIV 190, 192 Loukaris, Cyril 226–7n74

328 

 Index

Lupu, Vasile Ioan, lord 221 Luther, Martin 174n11 Lvov [Lemberg] 176 Mabbug 10 Magdalino, Paul 209 al-Maghribī, Abū l-Qāsim 80, 81, 84–85, 94 al-Mahdī, caliph 9, 11, 20–21, 49 Makarios of Moscow 144 Malalas, John 68n64, 133, 143 Malov, Evfimiĭ Aleksandrovich 296, Mamyshev, Khamza [Ḥamzāʾ] 289 Manasses, Constantine 133–4, 147 al-Manṣūr, Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh 11 Mark of Ephesus 206 Mark of Toledo 103 Marseille 174 Mary, the Virgin 13, 53–55, 61, 64, 87–88, 91–92, 94, 97, 106–7, 112–13, 137, 140, 156, 310 Mashanov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich 296 Massignon, Louis 45 Matthew the Evangelist 7, 10–11, 13–14, 37, 60, 64, 94, 310 Mavrikios, Kallinikos 224–5 Mavrokordatos, Alexander 231 Mavrokordatos, Constantine 206, 208 Mavrokordatos, George 221n54 Mavrokordatos, Nicholas 206, 211, 212n28, 221n54 al-Māturīdī 57n34 Märcani, mosque 286n46 Märcani, Şihabetdin 286n46 McCullough, John 13–14 Megas Agros, Monastery 117 Mecca and Medina 84, 157n21, 214, 217, 239 Medici, Paolo 253, 261 Mehmet II 231 Mehmet IV 216 Meletios of Athens [Michael Mitros] 212–13, 215, 215–16n38, 217, 219, 221 – 4, 226, 231, 238–43 Melitene 11 Methodios, patriarch 128 Methodios, saint 131 Michael III 103, 117, 129 Mihai Vodă, Monastery 257 Mogila, Peter 253

Moldavia 205, 207, 232, 256n16, 258–9 Mikhaĭlov, Mikhail 282 Molière [Jean-Baptiste Poquelin] 203 da Montecroce, Riccoldo 5, 102–3, 214, 240 Mōr Barṣawmō, Monastery 11 Moses 13, 23, 53, 85, 89–90, 138, 181, 185, 268 Moses bar Kephā 9–10, 12, 18, 23 Mount Athos 101, 120, 126, 137, 139, 208, 217n40, 256, 312 Muḥammad, the Prophet 1, 4–5, 11, 16–17, 19, 21, 23, 26, 34, 45–46, 49, 52, 64, 69, 77–78, 81, 85, 87, 94, 96, 103, 108–9, 112–14, 117–18, 130, 132, 134, 137–8, 143, 145–7, 155–6, 175n13, 177, 179, 181–6, 191, 193, 201–2, 214–20, 222, 225, 228–9, 238–42, 251–2, 255, 266–8, 270, 285, 310–12 Muḥammad, Sayyid Ṣādiq 166 Mujāhid 57 Muzikář, Josef 46, 69 Nau, Michel 47 Naṣrallāh, Yaḥyā 164n50 Nasyri, Kaium [Gabdelʹkaium Gabdennasyrovich Nasyrov; ʿAbd al-Qayūm ʿAbd an-Nāṣir] 293 Neamț, Monastery 207 Nekovich, Atanas 260n28 Nektarios of Jerusalem 214 – 15, 217, 226, 239, 243 de Nessel, Daniel 214, 219 Nestorius of Constantinople 91 Nicetas of Byzantium 109–12, 116, 118–21 Nicholas of Cusa 46, 179, 180n35, 182–7, 194, 313 Nicholas of Karpenesi, saint 271 Nikolaev, K. 285 Nikousios, Panagiotis 216, 224–5, 239, 242 Nirenberg, David 309 Nisibis 80 de Nointel, marquise 190 Nonnus of Nisibis 9, 15, 34 Notaras, Chrysanthos 207, 226 Novgorod 144, 285 Odorico, Paolo 209 d’Ohsson, Ignatius Mouradgea 281 Oman, Giovanni 161 Orenburg 287, 290, 295 Oreshkov, Pavel 260

Index 

Ortaköy 208 Ostroumov, Nikolaĭ Petrovich 296 Ōri, Israēl 190 Paisios II of Constantinople 206 Paitzi-Apostolopoulos, Machi 230 Palaiologos, Manuel II 227 Palamas, Gregory 227 Panaretos, Matthaios Angelos 219, 240 Paris 9n6, 280 Paul of Antioch 25, 29, 47, 65, 77, 79, 81–97, 311 Pavlovich, Aleksander I 289 Pazvantoğlu, Osman 257, 260 Penn, Michael 15, 17 Peter, king 126 Peter the Great 259–62, 273, 278, 281, 313 Peter the Venerable 174 Petrovich, Pavel I 289 Philes, Manuel 221, 241 Philoxenos of Mabbug 12 Phokas, emperor 217 Piromalli, Paolo 192 Pogodin, Mikhail 254, 272 Porphyrogenites, Constantine VII 108n29 Postnikov, Pëtr Vasilʹevich 280 Potocki, Andrzej Bernard 284n38 Prideaux, Dean Humphrey 282 Prokopios, Dimitrios 211, 212n28, 213, 215–16n38, 222, 231, 239–42 Pseudo-Aristotle 177 Pseudo-Didymus the Blind 68n64, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite 177, 183, 187 Pseudo-Dorotheos of Monemvasia 215, 238 Pseudo-Sphrantzes [Makarios Melissenos of Monemvasia] 215, 223, 231, 238, 242 Pushkin, Aleksander S. 282 ibn Qalawun, al-Nāṣir Hasan ibn Muḥammad 220 al-Qarāfī, Shihāb al-Dīn 81n13 Qenneshre, Monastery 10, 14, 19, 34 Rabō, Michael 11n7, 35 Rakhmatullin, Gali [ʿAlī] 289 Rakovski, Georgi 254 Rasht 291 Rastko-Sava, king 135,

 329

al-Rāzī, Ibn Abī Ḥātim 159n35, 165 Rhodinos, Neophytos 223, 242 Ridāʾ, Rashīd 297 al-Riḍāʾ, Abādir ʿUmar 164n50 Rigo, Antonio 102, 112 Robert of Ketton 174–5, 179, 184 Rome 34, 127–8, 176, 190, 192 Rozen, Viktor Romanovich 292 Rusios, Adamantios 219, 240 Sablukov, Gordiĭ Semënovich 295–7 Sagredo, Giovanni 214–15, 239 Sakkudion, Monastery 116 Sakoraphos, Christophoros 230 Salah, Eid 60 Sale, George 282 Sandloyo, Athanasios IV 10 Sarris, Kostas 212 Savary, Claude 284 Schaffner, Ryan 18 Schneider, Madeleine 161–3 Sebēos 173 Sefi, shah 192n118 Sefi-Ghuli, khan 190, 193 Seraphim I of Constantinople 206 Serbia 134–5, 137, 139–40, 145n43 Sergius Baḥīrā 9, 28–29, 49, 54, 182, 267 Sǝlasse, Ḫaylä 165–6 Shoa 164n53 Sidon 81, 81–82n13 Simeon I the Great 126, 131 Siwnetsʿi, Stepʿanos 177n22 Smyrna 189 Snagov 225 Socrates 68 Sofi, Shah Ismael 226, 243 Solomon 61–62 Solovëv, Vladimir 282 Sophronios of Kilis [Sophronios V of Jerusalem and II of Constantinople] 218, 240 Sphrantzes, Georgios 215 Spudaioi, Monastery 127 St. Petersburg 143, 251, 253, 254n8, 259, 260n28, 273, 279, 281–2, 288–9, 291–2, 294 St Saba, Monastery 114, 127, 146 Stefan Nemanja 135 Stefan Nemanjić “the First-Crowned” 135

330 

 Index

Stephen the Hymnographer 127 Stoiko of Kotel 270n40 Studion, Monastery 116 al-Suddī, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 57 Sultan, Khalifa, grand vizier 192 al-Suyūṭī, Jalāl al-Dīn 154–6, 158–9 Süleyman I, shah [Solaymān I] 186, 192, 193 Süleyman I, sultan 231 Swanson, Mark 24n69, 29, 50 – 51, 60, 95n85 Sylburg, Friedrich 219 Synkellos, Michael 125–6, 128–32, 134–9, 141–7, 312 Syria vi, 48, 70, 83, 292 Syrigos, Meletios 220–2, 241 Tarasios of Constantinople 130 Tatʿewatsʿi, Grigor 173, 188 Tatʿewatsʿi, Movsēs 194 Târgoviște 211 Teheran 283 Theodore Abū Qurra 19n49, 24, 30–31, 79n5, 86n39, 117, 128 Theodore and Theophanes, Graptoi brothers 127 Theodore bar Kōnī 9–10, 15, 20 Theodore of Mopsuestia 91n66 Theodore the Studite 112–15, 117, 119 Theophanes the Confessor 107, 108n29, 113 – 14, 117, 118n80, 119, 121 Theophilos, emperor 128 Theophylaktos of Simocatta 213 Theotokis, Nicephoros 207, 213 Thomas I of Jerusalem 127 Tigray 158, 162 Timothy I 9, 19n49, 20–21, 25, 27, 49, 92 Toktamysh ulu Burashev, Gabdel’gaziz [ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz] 289 Tolstoĭ, Lev N. 282 Torodova, Olga 262 Torosovichʿ, Nikol [Mikołaj Torosowicz] 176 Treiger, Alexander 80n8, 83 Trieste 260 Tripyliana, Monastery 116

Tsaretsʿi, Mattʿēos 189 al-Ṭabarī, ibn Jarīr 57, 65, 159n35 ʿUmar II 19n49, 23, 31, 114 Urmia 14 Vani Efendi 224, 242 Velicikovsky, Paisy 207 Venice 174, 191, 215, 225, 228 Verёvkin, Mikhail Ivanovich 281 Vienna 174, 208, 212 Vlachos, Gerasimos 222, 241, 312 Vladimir, city 141 Vlastos, Cassandra 206 Voltaire [François-Marie Arouet] 203, 285 Vrachanski, Sofroniy [Sofroniy of Vratsa; Stoyko Vladislavov] 251–63, 265–73, 314 Wald, Samuel Gottlieb 288n58 Wallachia 203–7, 211, 215, 220n52, 221, 232, 256–7, 261, 273 al-Wāḥidī, ʿAlī b. Aḥmad 154 Wägri Ḥariba 162 Wäld, Dästa Täklä 164 Wǝqro 162 Wilde, Clare 60, 65n52 Yaḥyā ibn Zechariah 63–64 al-Yamāmī, Ḥafṣ b. ʿUmar 162 Yovhannavank, Monastery 194 Ypsilanti, Constantin 257 Zakariyā, shaykh 165 al-Zamakhsharī, Abū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd ibn ʿUmar 57n34 Zambin, Ivan 260n28 Zigabenos, Euthymios 104–9, 112, 119–21, 210 Zlatarski, Vasil 260 Zonaras, John 133, 143, 147, 214 Zuramba, Monastery 164n53 Zurambe, Ǝngǝda 164