Apologetic Arguments in Ṣāliḥ ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Jaʿfarī’s Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā

ABSTRACT

Medieval Muslim scholars wrote substantial apologetic and polemical treatises to present and defend the truth of their religion and to invite people of different faiths to Islam. These texts belong to the so-called radd (‘refutation’) literature. It is still interesting today in so far as many radd authors avoided rhetorical polemics and sought serious rational arguments that provide deep insights in the dogmatic differences and peculiarities of various religions. An outstanding, because strongly argumentational, example is Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā (‘Book of refutation of the Christians’) by Ṣāliḥ ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Jaʿfarī (d. 668/1270). This article introduces al-Jaʿfarī’s life and work, outlines methodological premises for a critical analysis of radd arguments, gives an overview of al-Jaʿfarī’s most important arguments and an example of the analysis of such arguments, and indicates what the examination of these old texts can contribute to today’s interreligious discourses.

KEYWORDS:

• Apologetic arguments
• Ṣāliḥ ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Jaʿfarī
• Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā
• argumentation theory

Acknowledgements

The publication of this article has been made possible through the generous support of the Academy for Islam in Research and Society (AIWG) at Goethe University Frankfurt. The article is based on the results of the author’s doctoral thesis, which was accepted in 2020 by the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (Ince, ‘Argumentation’).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The earliest biographical information about al-Jaʿfarī can be found in Mūsā ibn Muḥammad al-Yūnīnī, who describes him as an outstanding person with a noble character, who was well versed in beautiful literature and many other subjects (al-Yūnīnī, Dhayl mirʾāt al-zamān, vol. 2, 438). Cf. also the brief note about al-Jaʿfarī’s life in Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, 262, and also Ḥajjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn, vol. 1, 379; but the latter only contains references to al-Jaʿfarī’s Takhjīl man ḥarrafa al-Tawrāh wa-al-Injīl.

2 The statement that al-Jaʿfarī was a convert from Christianity (Awad, ‘Al-Ṣafī ibn al-ʿAssāl’, 548) arises from an oversight in the production of the edited volume. The sources give no indication that al-Jaʿfarī or his immediate ancestors were Christians.

3 Besides the sources mentioned above, see also al-Ṣafadī (d. 764/1363), Kitāb al-wāfī bi-al-wafayāt, vol. 16, 148–9.

4 See al-Manṣūrī (d. 725/1325), Zubdat al-fikra, 127.

5 However, Diego Sarrió Cucarella and Marek Nasiłowski hold the view that al-Jaʿfarī was not governor of Qūṣ (Sarrió Cucarella and Nasiłowski, ‘Medieval Muslim Polemics’, 73).

6 See Demiri, ‘Al-Jaʿfarī’, 480–5.

7 See al-Yūnīnī, Dhayl mirʾāt al-zamān, vol. 2, 438.

8 Muḥammad Ḥasanayn rightly asks why little or nothing is known about al-Jaʿfarī’s life and especially nothing about the date of his death. He suggests as a possible answer that al-Jaʿfarī moved away from Egypt before he (and especially his writings) became famous. Another possibility is that al-Jaʿfarī, in spite of his influence in the field of radd, did not acquire any significance in the traditional Islamic sciences and either did not leave any writings on them or they have not been handed down, so he remained unknown. The sources did not take him into account, and we therefore have little or no information about his life (al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn 13f.).

9 Ibid., 13ff.

10 See Garcin, ‘Ḳūṣ’.

11 See Garcin, Centre musulman, 174.

12 The correct textual variant is probably man ḥarrafa and not min ḥarf (see Steinschneider, Polemische und apologetische Literatur, 36).

13 Brockelmann and Witkam, GAL, vol. 1, 430 with supplement I, 766.

14 See in general the extensive series edited by David Thomas et al., Christian-Muslim Relations, which shows the continuity of the radd.

15 See Orlandi, ‘Koptische Kirche’, 603.

16 Teule, ‘Christian-Muslim Religious Interaction’, 13.

17 See Steinschneider, Polemische und apologetische Literatur, 104.

18 See Graf, Geschichte, vol. 2, 389–90.

19 See Hoover, ‘Apologetic and Pastoral Intentions’.

20 Although this text cannot be dated unambiguously, it is probably an early work of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (see Hoover, ‘Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’, 996–1002).

21 See Demiri, ‘Al-Jaʿfarī’, 481–3.

22 See ibid., 485.

23 See al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 9f.

24 See Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 57, 70 and 80. A separate study comparing the two works intensively could provide more detailed insights in this respect and is a desideratum.

25 However, one cannot rule out the possibility that al-Jaʿfarī may have written further works on Christianity or Judaism. After all, al-Dhahabī tells us that al-Jaʿfarī wrote texts on poetry and prose. He also wrote sermons and several other books, but al-Dhahabī does not tell us anything about these works. We also know that he was interested in the science of Hadith. He was a student of the Hadith expert ʿAlī ibn al-Bannāʾ (d. 622/1225) and is said to have handed down Hadiths to others as well (see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, 262).

26 MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye – Ayasofya 2246, 114 fols.

27 This controversy can already be observed in the Christian rejection of Docetism (see Löhr and van Ess, ‘Doketismus’) or in the Arian controversy, in which the Arians proposed that Jesus was not of the same essence or being as God the Father (see Beyschlag, Grundriß, vol. 1, 254-308, and Rusch, Trinitarian Controversy).

28 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 65.

29 See ibid., 71f.

30 The councils that were central to the formation of Christian dogma and which produced the groups addressed in the arguments of the Islamic radd, such as the Nestorians, Jacobites and Melkites, are in chronological order: Nicea I (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Constantinople II (553), Constantinople III (680), Nicea II (787).

31 Hägglund, Geschichte, 71f.

32 Ibid., 72f.; al-Jaʿfarī describes this in Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 71f.

33 See Gutas, Greek Thought, 131.

34 See Spuler, ‘Die nestorianische Kirche’, 149.

35 Graf, Geschichte, vol. 3, 103.

36 See Gutas, Greek Thought, 14, 118.

37 See Spuler, ‘Die nestorianische Kirche’, 142.

38 Fitschen, ‘Die syrischen Kirchen’.

39 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 71.

40 See Heimgartner, ‘Jakob Baradai’; Lange, ‘Jakob von Sarug’.

41 See al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 71.

42 See Chadwick, Die Kirche, 226–40.

43 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 71f.

44 These dogmatic concepts are confusing even for many Christians. Millard J. Erickson, a Baptist, draws attention to the difficulty of understanding these concepts and summarizes the Christian approach in this situation as follows: ‘We do not hold the doctrine of the Trinity because it is self-evident or logically cogent. We hold it because God has revealed that this is what he is like’ (Erickson, Christian Theology, 313). The Muslim authors’ criticism is directed precisely at this circumstance. They try to understand Christian theology using the same method by which they try to understand and construct Islamic theology: the method of rational argumentation, as is common in kalām, Islamic systematic theology.

45 Potthast, ‘Die Konstruktion’, 238f.

46 See for example al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 71. The fourth possible combination – one nature, two persons – does not need to be discussed by al-Jaʿfarī and other radd authors because it has probably never been advocated by any Christians and also seems contradictory in itself. Therefore, in practice the trichotomy is a complete typology of reasonable Christological positions.

47 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 72.

48 See ibid., 17ff.

49 See Section 1.1 above.

50 See al-Jaʿfarī, Takhjīl, ed. Qadaḥ, 250, 424, 428.

51 See al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 18.

52 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Qadaḥ discusses these sources in his edition of the Takhjīl (al-Jaʿfarī, Takhjīl, ed. Qadaḥ, 62–4).

53 al-Jaʿfarī, Bayān al-wāḍiḥ al-mashhūd, 115.

54 See Sarrió Cucarella and Nasiłowski, Medieval Muslim Polemics, 74–83.

55 See El Kaisy-Friemuth, ‘Al-Qarāfī’.

56 See Fritsch, Islam und Christentum, 22.

57 See Sarrió Cucarella and Nasiłowski, Medieval Muslim Polemics, 74; Sarrió Cucarella, Muslim–Christian Polemics, 74–82.

58 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 17f.

59 See, for example, his radd entitled Al-jawāb al-ṣaḥīḥ li-man baddala dīn al-Masīḥ. For a short description of this work see Hoover, ‘Ibn Taymiyya’, 834–44.

60 See, for example, al-Qarāfī, Al-ajwiba al-fākhira. For al-Jaʿfarī’s influence on al-Qarāfī, see Sarrió Cucarella and Nasiłowski, Medieval Muslim Polemics, 74–83.

61 See Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 11, and cf. Demiri, ‘Abū l-Faḍl al-Suʿūdī’, 640–3.

62 See Graf, Geschichte, vol. 2, 389.

63 Brockelmann and Witkam, GAL, vol. 1, 430 with supplement I, 766.

64 See al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 20.

65 See Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 4.1. (with further references).

66 For a concise systematic overview, see Lumer, ‘Argumentation/Argumentationstheorie’.

67 See especially Lumer, ‘Epistemological Approach’; idem, ‘Epistemological Theory’.

68 Classic works treating this subject are e.g. al-Ghazālī, Just Balance; al-Ṭūfī, ʿAlam al-jadal fī ʿilm al-jadal.

69 For detailed analyses, discussions and justifications of the stated reconstructions, see Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.

70 See al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 57, 80, etc.

71 See ibid., 60–1 (quoting from Mark 3.7–12 and Luke 4.40–1); cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.1, argument 2.

72 This is not a literal quotation, but a formulation of the reconstructed argument that is as concise as possible. Such summaries are marked here and in the following by italics.

73 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 60-61; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.1., argument 1.

74 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 59-60; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.1.

75 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 64; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.7., b.

76 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 63; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.2.

77 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 61; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.7., a.

78 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 57; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.4.

79 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 58f; cf. Lumer and Ince, ‘Islamic Theological Arguments’, for a detailed analysis.

80 For details, see Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.1.–9.2. and 9.6.–9.7.

81 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 65; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.5.

82 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 65; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.3.

83 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 69–70; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.9.

84 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 73; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.10., a.

85 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 74, 75f.; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.10., b.

86 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 72; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.6.

87 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 72; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.8.

88 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 77; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.11.

89 This idiosyncratic interpretation of the hypostases was not invented by al-Jaʿfarī; al-Qarāfī attributes it to the Christian Būlus al-Rāhib (see Stieglecker, Glaubenslehren, 267).

90 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 77–79. For the taṣnīf argument type, see Section 3.1 above.

91 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 80f.; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.13.

92 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 80; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.13.

93 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 81; cf. Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9.12.

94 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 58f.; cf. Section 3.1 above.

95 Following Lumer’s approach, the ‘S’ (for ‘sentence’) numbers in brackets are inserted before the individual propositions or statements of the argumentation text and used in the analysis for reference purposes (Lumer, ‘Interpreting Arguments’, 717).

96 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 65; this argument has already been mentioned briefly above (Section 3.2).

97 Lumer, ‘Interpreting Arguments’, 717, step 1.

98 See Sections 1.2 and 3.2 above, and especially the repetition in § 97 immediately before this argument: ‘And that, you see, is a clear refutation for those who claim that he [Christ] is a god which has united himself with a man.’

99 Lumer, ‘Interpreting Arguments’, 717–18, steps 2 to 5. With complex arguments, it can be necessary to divide this process into two and rephrase the premises and theses again in the light of the next steps ‘to establish a uniform and completely explicit diction’ (ibid., 718, steps 11–12).

100 For these principles, see ibid., 716–17.

101 Ibid., 718, steps 6 to 9.

102 Ibid., 718, step 10; for the various types of arguments see e.g. Lumer, ‘Argument Schemes’; idem, Praktische Argumentationstheorie, 180–279.

103 Lumer, ‘Interpreting Arguments’, 718, steps 11–13.

104 See ibid., 718, step 13; idem, Praktische Argumentationstheorie, 79–84. Adding supplemental premises is necessary for the reconstruction and evaluation of arguments regardless of the argumentation theory used; but a major advantage of epistemological argumentation theory is that it provides clear criteria for permissible supplemental premises.

105 For the original Aristotelian conception, see Aristotle, Prior Analytics, book I, with Gisela Striker’s excellent commentary. We use the more common S, M, P notation here instead of Striker’s A, B, C.

106 An explicitly monotheistic version would use instead of the predicate G(x) a second individual variable g for God; then the formalization runs ∀(x)[H(x) ⊃ x ≠ g], H(j) ∴ j ≠ g. The result is the same.

107 For an introduction, see e.g. Hacınebioğlu, ‘Demonstration’.

108 See Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 4.1.

109 See e.g. Lumer, ‘Epistemological Theory’, 225–31.

110 See ibid., 221–4; Lumer, Praktische Argumentationstheorie, 45–8; 280–1.

111 See Lumer, ‘Epistemological Theory’, 221; order of items adapted to the needs of the following discussion.

112 See Section 1.1 above.

113 See Section 1.3 above; this also applies to the following.

114 From the Chalcedonian Creed.

115 See sections 1.2, 1.3 above.

116 See e.g. Lumer, ‘Epistemological Approach’, 189–92.

117 Al-Jaʿfarī, Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā, ed. Ḥasanayn, 57.

118 See Hacınebioğlu, ‘Demonstration’, 180.

119 For a detailed account, see Ince, ‘Argumentation’, ch. 9; for a short example, see above, Section 4.

120 See Hacınebioğlu, ‘Demonstration’, 180.

121 See al-Ghazālī, Al-radd al-jamīl, 113–25.

122 See Lumer, Argumentation/Argumentationstheorie, 92f.

123 See Gardet, ‘Dialectique’.

124 See Wagner, Die arabische Rangstreitdichtung, 442f.