Академия Корана:Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān/Apologetics

David Thomas, "Apologetics" in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: J. D. McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

A systematic argumentative discourse in defense of a religion or doctrine. In the history of encounters between Muslims of differing opinions and between Muslims and members of other faiths, the Qurʾān has usually been central as a guide and source in debates and has often been a significant topic in these discussions.

Within the Qurʾān itself there are arguments defending both its proclamations and its own status. Its fundamental emphasis that God is one and distinct from all other beings is most emphatically asserted in q 112, which is generally thought to have been delivered in the context of debates with polytheists, Jews or Christians (e.g. Rāzī, Tafsīr, ad loc.). The Qurʾān argues generally against anyone who thinks of God as a creature (q 2:255; 43:81, etc.); against those, including the Jews and Christians, who implicate him in humanlike relationships (q 5:116; 6:100-1; 9:30; see anthropomorphism) or suggest he is Trinitarian (see trinity; cf. q 4:171; 5:73); and against the notion that anyone else is capable of creating anything without his aid (q 6:1). Likewise, Muḥammad’s activity as God’s messenger is distinguished from the actions of soothsayers and people possessed by the jinn (q.v.; q 52:29-31; 68:2), authenticated (q 53:10-1) and supported by God against opponents (q 108:3; see opposition to muḥammad) and defined as a continuation of the work of previous messengers (q 4:163; 33:40; 37:37; 61:6; see messenger; prophets and prophethood). With equal emphasis, the divine origin of the Qurʾān is defended against its detractors (q 46:7-8) by reference to its inimitability (q.v.; q 2:23-4; 10:38; 11:13-4; 17:88).

On the whole, the Qurʾān counsels against involvement in pointless disputes about matters of faith (q 4:140; 6:68-70). The appropriate course of action is to point out true belief politely and tactfully (q 16:125; 29:46). It does, however, explicitly sanction confronting those who deny the plainly revealed truth, as is indicated by the injunction given in q 3:61 that the opposing parties should meet and ritually invoke a curse (q.v.) on the liars among them. This verse is connected with the mutual cursing (mubāhala) that was arranged to decide the outcome of the meeting between Muḥammad and the Christians, who are said to have come from Najrān (q.v.) in 10/631 to put questions to him (Ibn Isḥāq-Guillaume, 277). It is the first intimation of the long history of debate between Muslims and Christians in which the Qurʾān was nearly always crucial.

Among some Muslims the status of the Qurʾān was a matter of dispute from an early date. In the second/eighth century, Muʿtazilī (see muʿtazilīs) theologians (mutakallimūn, sing. mutakallim) rejected the Qurʾān’s uncreatedness as part of their perception of the strict unity and uniqueness of God (see createdness of the qurʾān). At the same time scholars of a more independent frame of mind have openly rejected the notion that its miraculous nature could be readily proven (al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Tathbīt, 412-3). The fragmentary form in which their views have come down to us makes it difficult to appreciate the real intention behind them, but if the early third/ninth-century Muslim Abū ʿĪsā l-Warrāq, who will be discussed further below, is in any way typical of them, it appears that they were rebutting apologetic arguments based upon the Qurʾān’s literary qualities. Remarkably, he denigrates the notion that the Qurʾān represents an inimitable literary achievement. Among the points he makes is that the Qurʾān stands out only because literary ability was lacking at the time it appeared, that Muḥammad’s opponents were too occupied with resisting him to meet the challenge to produce passages comparable to the Qurʾān and, maybe most telling, that literary abilities can be acquired naturally and are not necessarily indications of divine endowments (al-Māturīdī, Tawḥīd, 191; see also D. Thomas, Anti-Christian polemic, 28). These particularly provocative criticisms presuppose a lively and developed debate about the claims made within the Qurʾān itself for its distinctiveness and suggest that the opposition to which the text itself attests was by no means silenced in every quarter by the defensive responses it contains.

If such radical criticisms were relatively rare among Muslims themselves and leveled by marginal figures, they persisted among Christians who expressed views about the Qurʾān throughout much of the shared history of the two faiths. The first major figure whose opinions are clearly known is John of Damascus (d. ca. 132/750) who accuses Muḥammad of writing a work on his own on the basis of what an Arian monk had told him about the Bible (q.v.; J.-P. Migne, Patrologia graeca, xciv, col. 765; see informants). Here there is a clear allusion to the story of the monk who recognized Muḥammad as a prophet, which the classical biographies of Muḥammad (see sīra and the qurʾān) relate (e.g. Ibn Isḥāq-Guillaume, 79-81). However, the Christian apologists identify him as a heretic who was consciously exploited by Muḥammad. The accusation that the Qurʾān springs from Muḥammad’s own authorship became commonplace in the Christian anti-Muslim polemic in the Middle Ages, when it was generally accepted unquestioningly that he was driven by selfish ambition in composing it (N. Daniel, Islam and the West, 47-99). Some modern scholars have substantially reversed this received verdict. Their views concerning the sincerity of Muḥammad’s sense of vocation may suggest that Muslims and Christians can move closer together with regard to their view of the status of the Qurʾān in the light of present-day understandings about the incidence of inspiration (see revelation and inspiration).

Undoubtedly, the Qurʾān has been the most important single influence upon Muslim thinking about other faiths. This is attributable to the explicit teachings it contains concerning the leading figures and beliefs of Judaism and Christianity, and even more importantly to the relationship it asserts both between itself and previous revelations and between the faith it proclaims and earlier beliefs. Among the most detailed, though nevertheless incomplete, teachings in the Qurʾān are the explanations about the person of Jesus (q.v.), the Messiah, and the community who claimed to follow him. Muslims who were involved in encounters with Christians in the early centuries of Islam often made these teachings the basis of arguments with which they attempted to show that Jesus was only human, that God was one and not triune, and that Christians had been misled in a number of their beliefs. One of the earliest surviving, though incomplete, examples of this demonstrative literature, perhaps dating from as early as 210/825, is the now incomplete Response to the Christians (al-Radd ʿalā l-naṣārā) of the Zaydī imām al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm (d. 246/ 860). This relatively short tract contains full and accurate information about Christian doctrines and beliefs. Nevertheless, its author remains loyal to what he understands to be the qurʾānic view of Christianity. Thus his main argument that Christianity is wrong about the divinity of Christ, which he adduces Gospel texts to support, is essentially a vindication of the teaching on this point given in the Qurʾān (see jews and judaism; christians and christianity; scripture and the qurʾān).

It might be assumed that polemical literature of this type runs the risk of failing to carry its arguments home to Christians for the reason that it was not addressing their understanding of the doctrines but rather the qurʾānic interpretation of them. Nevertheless, in numerous later instances it is still evident that Muslim authors were guided primarily by the teachings of the Qurʾān. Even when they took Christian doctrinal explanations into account, they still generally conformed to the tendency to follow the Qurʾān’s guidelines in their approach. The most striking exception to this general trend appears to be the independent thinker Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq, from the early third/ninth century, one of the most intense periods of intellectual encounter between Muslims and Christians. His long and concentrated refutation of the doctrines of the Trinity and Christ’s divine and human nature is based upon exhaustive research into the teachings of the major Christian denominations. It relies for its effect entirely upon stringent logical reasoning, which reveals the inconsistencies and contradictions in the doctrines he examines. Thus, his arguments stem from the structure of Christian thought itself. It is little wonder that within a few decades Christians recognized the cogency of his attack and saw the need to marshal responses. Nonetheless, the work tacitly acknowledges the pervasive influence of the Qurʾān, since its twin attacks are effectively amplifications of the qurʾānic denial of the Christian assertion of the Trinity (tathlīth, cf. q 4:171; 5:73) and the divine sonship of Jesus (q 9:30; 19:34-5). Therefore, despite its stance of rational impartiality, the attack is as much a defense of absolute unity (tawḥīd) as a refutation of Christian doctrines. In this respect it conforms to the typical model of Muslim anti-Christian polemic.

The general stance of Muslim polemicists may be linked to the attitude expressed in the Qurʾān itself that it was revealed to confirm the earlier revelations (q 3:3-4; 5:48; 6:92; 10:37; 46:12) and that it should be taken as the complete guide to the truth (q 9:33; 25:1). Believing that the Qurʾān was the source of the truth and that Islam was the authentic expression of this truth, polemicists viewed other religions as either incomplete or incorrect forms of Islam (q.v.; see also belief and unbelief). It followed that one main purpose of their arguments was to show where the inadequacies of the other faiths were to be found. Another was to establish the truth of Islam by demonstrating that other attempted versions of the truth did not have the inner consistency or comprehensiveness of their own. Some of the fullest examples of this approach are to be found in the theological compendiums of the two leading fourth/tenth century theologians, the Book of preparation (Kitāb al-Tamhīd) of the Ashʿarī theologian al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1013) and the Only work necessary on the various aspects of [divine] unity and justice (al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-l-ʿadl) of the Muʿtazilī al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Ham ;nī (d. 415/1025). In both of these works a refutation of the main doctrines of other religions as understood by Islam follows the exposition of the corresponding Islamic doctrine. A refutation of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation follows the exposition of the Muslim doctrine of God’s unity. In the same way, Jews are criticized for their rejection of prophets who succeeded Moses and this is combined with an exposition of Muḥammad’s authenticity as a prophet. In such cases the refutations of the rival doctrines serve to adumbrate the soundness of the Islamic formulation. This is a large-scale expression of the way in which qurʾānically-inspired religious thinking in Islam gives arguments against the validity of other religions a character which is both instructive and apologetic. Again, this approach accords with the qurʾānic injunction to desist from unedifying discussions about matters of faith (q 4:140; 6:68-9) and to use the best means when arguing with the other so-called « People of the Book» (q.v.; q 29:46).

A last feature of Muslim apologetics worth noting is the manner in which the scattered remarks given in the Qurʾān regarding the concealment and corruption of earlier revelations (q 2:75, 140; 3:78; 4:46; 5:15, 41) are systematized into the general principle that the Torah (q.v.) and Gospels (q.v.) are unreliable. Some authors proceeded on the assumption that, while the actual text of the biblical books was more or less sound, the Jewish and Christian interpretations of them were confused. Among these were the aforementioned al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm, who adduces long quotations from the Gospels to support his argument that Jesus was only human. Another was the Christian convert to Islam ʿAlī b. Rabbān al-Ṭabarī(d. ca. 250/864), whose Book of religion and empire (Kitāb al-Dīn wa-l-dawla) contains about 150 verses translated from throughout the Bible together with ingenious and sometimes tortuous interpretations to show the ways in which they foretell the coming of Muḥammad and Islam. The author of The beautiful response (al-Radd al-jamīl), which has often been attributed to al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), also followed this course. Other scholars adopted the position that the texts themselves had been corrupted. They postulated that this came about when the early Christians attempted to reconstruct the original Gospels, which they had lost, or when the apostle Paul introduced extraneous material into the sacred text. The anti-Christian polemic of the famous littérateur al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/869) implies that the evangelists have lied (al-Radd ʿalā l-naṣārā, 24). Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār argued at length that Paul corrupted the original purity of Jesus' message (Tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwa). The Andalusian theologian and littérateur Ibn Ḥazm(d. 458/1065) composed one of the most searching critiques of the biblical texts (Milal). Al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085) attempted to show that textual corruption had taken place (Shifāʾ al-ghalīl). Whether exposing misinterpretations or misrepresentations of the original texts, Muslim authors produced their arguments in conformity with the belief that the Qurʾān itself provided unimpeachable guidance.

A small but instructive indication of the trust placed in sacred text by Muslim polemicists is that for many of them a proof verse against the divinity of Jesus was John 20:17, where Jesus says to Mary Magdalene, «Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my father, but go to my brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to my father and your father, to my God and your God’». They could presumably feel confident in citing this because it was close enough to Jesus' words to the people of Israel in the Qurʾān, «It is God who is my lord and your lord. So worship him» (q 3:51), for them to consider it authentic. See debate and disputation .

Bibliography

Primary

• ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Aḥmad, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-l-ʿadl, various eds., Cairo 1958-65
• id., Tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwa, ed. ʿA.-K. ʿUthmān, Beirut 1966
• Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq, Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā l-thalāth firaq min al-naṣārā, ed. and trans. D. Thomas, Anti-Christian polemic in early Islam. Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq’s «Against the Trinity», Cambridge 1992
• al-Bāqillānī, Kitāb al-Tamhīd, ed. R.J. McCarthy, Beirut 1957
• al-Ghazālī (attributed), al-Radd al-jamīl li-ilāhiyyat ʿĪsā bi-ṣarīḥ al-injīl, ed. and trans. R. Chidiac, Réfutation excellente de la divinité de Jésus Christ d’après les evangiles, Paris 1939
• al-Jāḥiẓ, al-Radd ʿalā l-naṣārā, in Thalāth rasāʾil li-Abī ʿUthmān ʿAmr b. Baḥr al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. J. Finkel, Cairo 1926
• al-Juwaynī, Shifāʾ al-ghalīl fī bayān mā waqaʿa fī l-tawrāh wa-l-injīl min al-tabdīl, ed. M. Allard, Textes apologétiques de Ǧuwaynī, Beirut 1968
• al-Māturīdī, Kitāb al-Tawḥīd, ed. F. Kholeif, Beirut 1970
• J.-P. Migne, Patrologia graeca, xciv, col. 765
• al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm, al-Radd ʿalā l-naṣārā, ed. and trans. I. di Matteo, Confutazione contro i Cristiani dello zaydita al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm, in rso 9 (1921-2), 301-64
• al-Ṭabarī, ʿAlī b. Rabbān, Kitāb al-Dīn wa-l-dawla, ed. A. Mingana, Manchester 1923

Secondary

• N. Daniel, Islam and the West. The making of an image, Oxford 1960, 19932
• D. Kerr, «He walked in the path of the prophets». Toward Christian theological recognition of the Prophet Muḥammad, in Y.Y. Haddad and W.Z. Haddad (eds.), Christian-Muslim encounters, Gainsville 1995
• H. Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined worlds. Medieval Islam and biblical criticism, Princeton 1992
• I. Shahīd, The martyrs of Najrān. New documents, Bruxelles 1971
• W.M. Watt, Muslim-Christian encounters. Perceptions and misperceptions, London 1991