Theodore Abū Qurrah and ʽalī B. Rabbān Al-Ṭabarī—Two Comparative Theologians from Early Islam?

ISIT 2.1 (2018) 47–70 Interreligious Studies and Intercultural Theology (print) ISSN 2397-3471 https://doi.org/10.1558/isit.32587 Interreligious Studies and Intercultural Theology (online) ISSN 2397-348X

Interreligiosity as a Realist Learning Engagement: Theodore Abū Qurrah and ʽAlī b. Rabbān al-Ṭabarī—Two Comparative Theologians from Early Islam?

Najib George Awad

Hartford Seminary

[email protected]

Abstract The comparative theologian, Francis X. Clooney, once opined that much recent comparative theology is done with Hinduism and Buddhism, and Islam is hardly gaining a proportionately sufficient attention in this scholarship. This essay aims at contributing to the attempt at filling-in the gap of doing comparative theology in relation to Islam. I pursue this task by studying fī al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah (On Religion and State) by the Muslim ʽAlī b. Rabbān al-Ṭabarī in comparative conversation with Maymar fī Wjūd al-Khāliq wa-l-Dīn al-Qawym (Maymar on the Existence of the Creator and the Right Religion). by the Christian Theodore Abū Qurrah. It is my goal to shed comparative lights on Wa-l-Dīn al-Qawīm and Al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah by observing similarities and differences with regard to the following: the method of verification; the criterion of credibility acknowledged by each; and the telos of verification they seek. Toward the end of the comparison, I reflect briefly on whether or not Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī could be considered comparative theologians of the early Islam/middle Byzantine era and, if so, what kind of “comparative theology” are they presenting in their legacies?

Keywords Theodore Abu Qurrah, ʽAli b. Rabban al-Tabari, comparative theology, Christian-Muslim Kalam

Introduction This study is an experiment in comparative theology from a Christian Muslim case-study perspective. Francis X. Clooney, one of the founding fathers of the discipline of comparative theology, has pointed out that much recent comparative theology is done with Hinduism and Buddhism (thus seeming to receive the greater attention of this field’s scholars), and Islam is not attracting as much attention (2010, 198). This essay responds to the issue raised by Clooney, contributing to filling in the gap in comparative theology in relation to Islam. I pursue

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX 48 Najib George Awad this task by studying ʽAlī b. Rabbān al-Ṭabarī’s text Fī al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah (On Religion and State) in comparative conversation with Theodore Abū Qurrah’s text Maymar fī Wjūd al-Khāliq wa-l-Dīn al-Qawym (Maymar on the Existence of the Creator and the Right Religion). ʽAlī al-Ṭabarī and Theodore Abū Qurrah were, respectively, Muslim and Christian mutakallims, or theologians (Pines 1971, 224; Van Ess 1975, 1976, and 1982; Woflson 1976; Cook 1980; Frank 1999; Griffith 2008, 45-74; Treiger 2014).1 Both lived and wrote about their faith during the late eighth century AD/second century AH and early ninth century AD/third century AH. The Muslim theologian, Abū al-Ḥasan ʽAlī Ibn Sahl (Rabbān) al-Ṭabarī was born around 780 AD. He is believed to have been born in Merv, to have lived his life in Irāq, and to have died in Sāmarrā᾽ or Baghdād sometime around c. 860 AD (Thomas 2009, 669; al-Ṭabarī 1982, 5–19; Thomas and Ebied 2016). It is believed that the description “Rabbān,” a Syriac word meaning “our master,” must not be mistakenly read as an Arabic transliteration of the Hebrew word “Rabbi,” something that may suggest that al-Ṭabarī had a Jewish background (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 7-8). Rather, scholars seem in favour of translating “Rabbān” from within its Syriac Christian context to reveal al-Ṭabarī’s familial Christian origin. He was a son of a preeminent physician, whose intellectual rank made his society call him “the master/our master.” Scholars support this Christian background based on references al-Ṭabarī himself mentions in his al-Dīn wa-l- Dawlah about his paternal uncle Abū Zakkār yaḥyā Ibn an-Nuʽmān: al-Ṭabarī introduces his uncle as “a Christian scholar” (Thomas 2009, 669; Thomas and Ebied 2016, 1–24). Historians suggest that this uncle lived approximately between c. 760 AD and c. 830 AD, commenting that “he was known in Irāq and Khurāsān for his intellectual acumen and [he] had a following of disciples,” and that he was from the Syriac Oriental (probably Nestorian) Christianity that was popular in Irāq (Thomas 2009, 565). We have here, then, an author called ʽAlī b. Rabbān al-Ṭabarī who comes from a Christian background, who converted to

1 I do use this term to describe the theological discourses of these two figures because the science of Kalām is multiform and diverse in style and method: it can be developed after either as “question-answer” (“you say so”-“I say so”), or defensive polemic form, or comparative rationalization form, or as rational- philosophical hermeneutic. The two authors studied here follow a comparative rationalization form of Kalām discourse. These two authors do use other styles of Kalām in their other texts, especially either the defensive polemic or the “you say so”-“I say so” form. For this essay I have selected two texts that each follow an apologetic comparative method in order to make relevant conversation with comparative theology.

Islam, and who remained one of the defenders of this faith during his life in the Muslim court, and especially during the reign of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil (Jaʽfar b. Muḥammad al-Muʽtaṣim bi-Allāh) who ruled between 822 AD and 861. It is during that era (some years after 850 AD), and as a gesture of veneration and gratitude, that al-Ṭabarī wrote al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah to express his adherence to Islam before this Muslim Caliph. The Christian Arab mutakallim, Abū Qurrah, was the bishop of Ḥarrān and one of the earliest theologians to produce Arabic theological discourses to defend and explain Christian theology before Muslims (Awad 2015, 1–7; Griffith 1978; Dick 1982; Bacha 1904; Lamoreaux 2005, 2002, and 2009). Abū Qurrah belonged to the Melkite-Chalcedonian Church. He served as one of its prelates and most influential theologians during the Muslim Abbasid rule in the eight to ninth centuries AD, especially during the rules of the Abbasid caliphs al-Mahdī (775–785) through to his grandson al-Ma᾽mūn (813–833). Scholars deem him “a theological and intellectual link between Greek church fathers and the Arab Christian authors of the eighth and ninth centuries CE” (Awad 2015, 4), and as an innovative reconciler of the Greek patristic past with the Christian Arabic theological apologies during the early age of Islam (Awad 2015, 2; Dick 1986, 17). Contemporary scholars believe that Abū Qurrah was born and grew up in the famous city of Edessa (Urfa in today’s Turkey). They connect the largest proportion of his life to the city of Ḥarrān and to the Melkite diocese of Jerusalem; some even suggest his relation to the Mār Sābā monastery (Awad- 2015, 4–5). When it comes to the dates of his birth and death, we can merely presume possibilities. Of the various suggestions, it is generally conceded that Abū Qurrah must have lived sometime between the second half of the eighth century and the first third of the ninth. To be more precise, he lived and died more or less between 750 AD and 825/830. Finally, Abū Qurrah is believed to have composed the text of Maymar fī Wjūd al-Khāliq wa-l-Dīn al-Qawym (Maymar on the Existence of the Creator and the Right Religion) as one of his earliest writs in Arabic in defence of Christian faith. Scholars estimate its date of writing to be at the last decade of the eighth century (Awad 2015, 5; Abu Qurrah 1982, 52; Griffith 1993). It is also believed that although Abū Qurrah has Muslims primarily in mind as readers, the text is addressed to every potential group of readers who do not believe in Christianity (Awad 2015, 5; Abū Qurrah 1982, 52; Griffith 1993). In this essay, I utilize al-Ṭabarī’s Al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah and Abū Qurrah’s Wa-l-Dīn al-Qawīm for the following reasons: first, their authors both

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 50 Najib George Awad belong to the same historical era (late eighth-early ninth centuries AD), and both developed their theological views within the same intellectual Abbasid, dominantly Muʽtazilite, sitz im leben. Second, both texts were written in an attempt from each author to verify the authenticity and truthfulness of his own faith (Christianity in Abū Qurrah’s case, Islam in al-Ṭabarī’s). It is my goal to shed comparative light on Wa-l- Dīn al-Qawīm and Al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah by observing their similarities and differences with regard to the following: (1) the method of verification each follows; (2) the criterion of credibility each acknowledges; and (3) the telos of verification they aim to reach. Toward the end of the comparison, I reflect briefly on whether or not Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī are valid examples of comparativist theologians for the early medieval/middle Byzantine era and, if so, what kind of “comparative theology” they seem to be presenting in their legacies. First, let me start with a comparative reading of their texts from the perspective of the three above-mentioned aspects. How do we verify a religion? Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī both wrote their Arabic treatises at a time when Christians and Muslims were deeply involved in attempts at defending their faiths in the most effective and efficient theological, philosophical, and textual methods they could think of. Inspired in general by Greek philosophy, and particularly by Aristotelian syllogistic logic—which the Muʽtazilites used intensively—Christian and Muslim apologists developed theological discourses (kalām) to prove the superiority and referential truthfulness of their religious belief. Abū Qurrah’s Wa-l-Dīn al-Qawīm and al-Ṭabarī’s Al-Dīn wa-l- Dawlah are the outcome of such kalām. They are written to show, using a strategy of comparison and contrast, how a certain rational method of verification demonstrates before the people of the opposite religions that Christianity, in Abū Qurrah’s case, and Islam, in al-Ṭabarī’s case, is the most truthful and accurate religion known. It is not my purpose to shed light on every claim each theologian makes in his text. This is neither my goal in this section nor in the ensuing ones. In this section, I will pause to see how each of them proposes to answer the question of his religion’s authenticity. Both Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī reveal in their texts that a key basis of authenticity the ability of its member’s to offer a lucid and explanatory defence of its content by means of pursuing an objective analysis of this content. What proves that a religious message is truthful is the rational evidence in the message itself; in other words first and foremost criterion of verification is pure reasoning. This emphasis on

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 Interreligiosity as a Realist Learning Engagement 51 reasoning stands as a unique choice in the context of an age where “prooftexting” was the dominant, popular apologetic methodology for both Christian and Muslim theologians (Awad 2017; Accad 2003; Swanson 1998; Griffith 2013). In Al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah, ʽAlī b. Rabbān al-Ṭabarī discloses his support of the above-mentioned rule of verification when he criticizes the argumentation styles of other Muslim mutakallims in their response to Christian polemics and defense of Islam. This is what al-Ṭabarī says against these styles: وأسلك يف ذلك سبيالً ُّأسد مام سلك غريي من مؤلفي الكتب يف هذا الفن، َّفإن منهم من َّ َ قصوبرت وأدغم ّحجته ومل يفرس، ومنهم من احتج عىل أهل الكتاب بالشعر ومبا مل يعرفوه من كتبهم، ومنهم من حىش دفتي كتابه مبخاطبة املسلمني دون املرشكني ثم ترجم حججه بأوعر كالم وأبعده من اإلفهام ]…[ َّإن الذي َّاحتج به ليس ببيان بل كتامن، وليس ُّبتبص بل تعوير، وال بتسهيل بل توعري. And I take in this an approach, which is far more unerring and useful than the one that was followed by those who compose books in this art [i.e., apology] other than me. For some of [these authors] short- ened or amputated or elided his proofing without interpretation/explanation. Some of them expostulated against the “people of the book” [i.e., Christians and Jews] by means of poetry and of what they do not gain knowledge of from their own books. And some of [these authors] stuffed their books’ covers with a discourse addressed [usually] to Muslims, not [relevant to address] the associators. He then translated his expostulation by the most precipitous and most inapprehensible speech […] Such [a method of] argumentation is not pronunciation but concealment; is not enlightening but blinding; is not simplifying but bumping. (1982, 35) For al-Ṭabarī, such styles of presentation are blinding acts of concealment and far from useful because they do not communicate with the people’s minds; they do not speak to their intellect and they do not lucidly and logically clarify claims to them. They are far from any reliable rule of verification. Non-Muslims who do not perceive the authentic truth of Islam are excused, because Muslim authors’ styles are precipitous and incomprehensible. When, then, is the criterion of rational verification truly operating in an apologetic text? al-Ṭabarī believes that this criterion is evident in one case only: ومن ألف كتابايف ًمثل هذا الفن الجليل الهادي املستنري العام املنفعة ألهل األديان كلهم كان جديراً أن يجعله مفهوماً سهالً وأن يخاصم ]…[ ويساجل خصمه وال يعلو عليه وال يريب، بل يُفهم وال يُ ِبهم ويُ ِنصف وال يظلم، ويستعمل الرفق ويحسن سياقه ]…[ بتنويره ويأيت بالرباهني واملعارضات التي إن ردها ]…[ خرج عن نحلته ودينه. فإنه إن فعل ذلك به ركبه ورماه بسهمه واقتاده بزمامه. And it is worthwhile for the one who composes a book on such an exalt- ed, enlightened, and guiding art, that is generally beneficial to all the

people of religions, to make it apprehensible and easy, and to quarrel […] and debate with his opponent, and not to condescend toward or usurp him. [He should, rather,] explain and not obscure, and be fair and not unfair, and use forbearance and improve its context […] by means of its schooling, and to bring forward evidences and objections, which if [the non-Muslim] rejected […] he would split from his very own religion and community. If [the Muslim author] did this, he would rise over [the non-Muslim] and shoot him with his own arrow and would lead him by his own rein. (1982, 35) Polemics, offensiveness, degradation, even apology, are not reliable tools for making others perceive, let alone show readiness to explore, the truth and authenticity of any religious message. Only the rational methods of evidence—explanation, argument, clarification, analysis— fulfil the purpose of demonstrating religion’s credibility. Unless non- Muslims apply reason to Muslim faith, and unless they accompany that reasoning on the credibility of Islam with a plausible comparison between Muslim texts and their own texts, non-Muslims will have every right, al-Ṭabarī states, to doubt Islam and condemn its message (1982, 36).2 In his turn, Abū Qurrah is emphatic about the reliance on reasoning, rational analysis, and explanation as the basis for verification. Every religious message must succumb to these criteria and be scrutinized by them. This is what he clearly proposes in his Wa-l-Dīn al-Qawym. In this treatise (maymar), Abū Qurrah discloses his concern about the diverse religious messages surrounding people during his era: old

فلعمري لو ميزوا الخرب وعقلوه لقبلوه ومل يدفعوه، وملا طلبوا ما عند الله مبخالفة أمر الله. فالواجب علينا أن نقصد لتثبيت الخرب .2 عندهم، ونفي الشك عنهم، ونبني لهم أصول األخبار وفروعها وعللها ومجاريها، والوجوه التي بها يعرف حقها من باطلها، واألسباب التي لها قبلت األمم أنبياءها وبها دانت لدعاتها. ثم نقابل أخبارنا بأخبارهم ومن نقلها إلينا مبن نقلها إليهم، فإن كانت حجتنا وحجتهم يف تصديقهم من يصدقون من أنبيائهم واحدة، فال حجة لهم عند الله وعند أنفسهم يف تكذيبهم صاحبنا وتصديق أصحابهم، ألنه إذا احتج مختلفان يف دعوى من الدعاوى بحجة واحدة فهام بها مشرتكان سيان، يجب ألحدهام بها ما يجب لآلخر ال محالة. I swear that if they discovered the news and rationalized it, they would concede it and not reject it, and they would not ask for what belongs to God by means of disobeying God’s command. It is our duty to deliberately aim at verifying the news for them, deny them scepticism, and demonstrate before them the news’s roots and branches, and its accounts and normalcy, and the means of discerning its truth from falsehood, and the reasons that made the nations admit [this news’s] prophets and by means of which they were indebted to their messengers. Then we compare our news with their news, and compare who conveyed ours to us with who conveyed theirs to them. So, if our argument and their argument for believing the prophets they believe in were the same, then they have no excuse before God or before themselves in belying our fellow and believing their fellows. For, if two adversaries are expostulated in a case by means of the same reasoning, they are then equally conjoint in it; what must be upon one of them [due to it] must inevitably be similarly upon the other.

Ḥunafā᾽, Majūs, Yahūd (Jews), Naṣārā (Christians), Mānawyyūn/Zanādiqa (Manicheans), Marqyūniyyūn (Marcians), Bardiṣāniyyūn (Bardisanies), and Muslimūn (Muslims). People find themselves faced with these religious groups and witness their members’ endeavours to win further affiliates to their faith. In the midst of this plethora of religiosity, Abū Qurrah states, the person asks himself: How am I going to know which of these religious messages is the right one that truly comes from God? (1982, 2.8.4–8). Is knowing this true religion possible by means of scriptural attestation or ethical codes or belief in God? Abū Qurrah opines that none of these three functions is a plausible criterion of verification to discover which among the diverse religious messages is the one religion from God. Why? Because all of them agree in claiming a deity, in speaking about right vs. wrong and righteousness vs. punishment, and they all have religious texts. The only difference between them on these matters is in the characteristics and predicates they attribute to their deity, as well as the detailed components of their understanding of what is good/righteous and what is evil/sinful (1982, 2.8.1–3). For Abū Qurrah, as for al-Ṭabarī, the only authentic criteria for verifying which religion is the one that is truly sent from God is reasoning, rational apprehension, and clarification. It is primarily “reason” and none other than reason that God bestowed upon the human to know Him (God), to know the good and do it, and to realize evil and abstain from it (1982, 2.8.30). Abū Qurrah verifies which religion is the true one by resorting to reason and reason alone. For him, reason, and not religious textuality (prooftexting), is the most authentic rule of verification. This is what إ َّن قصدنا يف كتابنا هذا أن نثبت ديننا“ he demonstrates when he states in his treatise īnnā qaṣdunā fī kitābinā hazā ann nuthbit dīnanā) ”من العقل، وليس من الكتب min al-ʽaql wa laysa min al-kutub/“Our purpose in this book is to prove our religion from reason, and not from scriptures”) (1982, 2.15.3). How do we proceed in fulfilling this? By exposing the message of each religion to rational, critical examination, without allowing the content of textual attestations to exert any influence on the verification process (1982, 2.8.3738). By relying on a rationalist rule of verification, Abū Qurrah aims at developing a positive apologetic discourse, not an aggressive or polemic one. It is a discourse that “aims to make Christianity look reasonable and credible to the sceptics” (Awad 2015, 104)—not one that seeks to prove Christianity’s hierarchical status above other religions. For Abū Qurrah, Christianity is one religion among many others and, like all of them, it is in need of being verified

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 54 Najib George Awad and proven by a criterion free from its textual constraints (2015, 104– 105). Reason stands superior—above religious convictions and ideas of the public, above the holy scriptures, and above prooftexting: “the scriptures must also be judged and measured by the rules of rational thinking” (2015, 105). How do we ascertain a religion’s credibility? Al-Ṭabarī and Abū Qurrah do not depend on reasoning as the primary rule of verification to show the truth and validity of religious faith. They both demonstrate in their texts that verifiability is incomplete apart from a reliable standard level of credibility: what if our reasoning is shaped by far from credible presumptions and preconceptions, by things that could eventually lead to speculative, and hardly evidential, conclusions? If one received a religious message, or news related to belief, how can this person ascertain that the message contains credible information, so that the ensuing rational judgment of the message (which she plans to exert on it) is not going to be wasted on false and inauthentic data? How can the rule of reasoning be backed up in such a manner that it will be protected from falling into incredible a priori news or messages? The concern about this leads Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī not only to point to the priority of the rational rule of verification, but also to reflect on the criterion of credibility in relation to defending the truth of religious belief. In al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah, ʽAlī b. Rabbān al-Ṭabarī touches upon this inquiry by means of speaking about the idea of ijmāʽ (general consensus) and its relation to the forms of news (akhbār) people embrace and believe in. Al-Ṭabarī explains that news is usually twofold: either true or false, and they belong either to the past (khabar māḍī), to the present (khabar muqīm), or to the future (khabar muntaẓar) (1982, 36). al-Ṭabarī contends that some news can be true on one occasion and false on another. Some other news is always true (ḥaq fī kul waqt) in the past, the present, and the future, and this is called holistic, forever lucid news (khabar kullī dā᾽im jalīī). On the other hand, other news is always false and exemplifies lying at every time in the past or the present or the future (kazib kullah) (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 37). Now, both true and false news may find people who unanimously would either accept or refuse them. Such a consensus may actually be found regardless of whether the news concerned is false or true in itself. Some of these cases of assent stem from people’s reliance on figurative speech, which these people know does not state facts but expresses incredible ideas. Nevertheless, these people continue using this figurative speech publicall, and no

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 Interreligiosity as a Realist Learning Engagement 55 one denounces itced manner (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 37). Some other cases of public unanimity are subjected to geographical or communal relativity; for Muslims, Christians, and Jews, the claim that Adam and Eve are the parents of humanity is true, while the same news is totally false for other people, like the people of India, the Ṣābiʾites, and others (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 37). Other cases of consensus stem from a total assent to some news in every location and at every time because there is a basic unanimity that the evidences of this news are credible (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 38-39). Finally, some cases of consensus originate from people’s reliance on a tradition passed from one generation to another without interrogation or suspicion. Such consensus turns certain inherited news into a belief by means of inheritance (tawāruth), habit (ʽadāt), and acquaintance (ta᾽āluf) (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 40). Al-Ṭabarī holds that relying on any one of these forms of consensus is very dangerous, because the news it circulates lacks sufficient credibility. One must avoid reliance on consensus and escape from it toward wisdom (ḥikmah), thinking (fikr), and consideration (iʽtibār) (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 41).3 Consensus, al-Ṭabarī affirms, cannot be a reliable method for discerning the credible news from the false news, because consensus is usually based on human witnesses and testimony. Such a tool is unreliable to ascertain the credibility of the news that is conveyed to the people by figures who were construed prophets from God (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 42).4 Al-Ṭabarī maintains that leaning on consensus (ijmāʽ) is the cause of sedition (fitnah) and aberrance (ḍalalah). Consensus alone is insufficient to prove the credibility of prophecy. Such credibility is not proved apart from the testimonies of

وإمنا ذكرت ذلك، ليعلم من يقرأه بأن قد يجب ُّز التحروالهرب منها إىل مالجيء الحكمة ومحال الفكرة واالعتبار، فإنها أرض باألنفس .3 وأرسع فيها من السهام القاتلة واالستهيام، ومدخلها عىل القلوب من بابني طاملا َّا غروكذبا مبا يعروهام من التخاييل والظن، وهام حاستا السمع والبرص اللتان بهام تُدرك سوانح األخبار. I have pointed this out so that he who reads it will know that one should avoid [consensus] and escape from it toward the shelters of wisdom, and the places of idea and consideration. For [consensus] is more harmful to souls, and [it penetrates them] faster than lethal arrows and ardent love, and its entrance to the hearts is via two doors, which have always lied and are betrayed by what characterizes them as speculations and imagination; [namely,] the two senses of hearing and vision, by means of which the available news is grasped. فأما خرب األنبياء فألنه يؤدي إما إىل الجنة أو إىل النار، فلن نكتفي فيه بشاهدين وال بقسامة وال بأمة دون أن يكون معهم شهادات .4 الحق ومقياس العرب التي أنا ذاكرها. But, the news of the prophets, and because it leads either to paradise or to hell fire, we will not suffice on it with two witnesses or with swearing orwitha nation’s [testimony] without associating them with certification of truth and the measurement of morals that I mention.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 56 Najib George Awad truth and its content that are obtained by means of understanding the given news, and perceiving their limits and purpose (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 45). How do we know which religious news is credible enough to merit rational verification? Al-Ṭabarī answers that this is achievable first by giving up the reliance on public consensus and, second, by searching for the existence of similar news in other texts, whose content is already deemed truthful and authentic. Al-Ṭabarī calls this method of البحث seeking equal authenticity by means of comparative examination al-baḥth ʽan shahādāt al-ḥaq wa maqāyys) عن شهادات الحق ومقاييس العرب al-ʽibar/“searching for the testimonies of truth and the measurements of lessons”). Al-Ṭabarī implements this method by highlighting ten specific, comparatively detectable ideas on the life and identity of both the prophet Muḥammad and Jesus the Christ (1982, 46). He argues that if the Christians believe in the rational plausibility of Jesus Christ’s religious message by trusting the credibility of these ten factors, then they should similarly believe in the rational plausibility of Muḥammad’s message on the basis of the credibility of the very same ten factors— especially if al-Ṭabarī succeeds in demonstrating their applicability to the Muslims’ prophet as they are applicable to the Christian Messiah al-Ṭabarī 1982, 46–47). The ten factors are the following: (1) Muḥammad’s call for monotheism (chapter one in al-Ṭabarī’s text); (2) the supreme moral nature of his laws and canons (sharā᾽iʽ wa-sunan) (chapter two); (3) his miracles (chapter three); (4) his prophesying abilities (chapter four); (5) the fact that his prophecies took place as he stated them (chapter five); (6) the divine nature of the book that descended upon him—it has not been made by human hands (chapter six); (7) his victory over his enemies (chapter seven); (8) the people immediately believe in him, and in the credibility and trustworthiness of his followers (chapter eight); (9) his fulfilment, in his person and work, of the prophecies of the prophets who preceded him and predicted his coming (chapter nine); and (10) the fact that the Messiah himself predicted the coming of the prophet. If any rational, logical person compared Islam to Christianity, she will realize that these ten factors are similar in nature and orientation, and can equally be implemented rationally to verify the truth and authenticity of the religious message of Islam and Christianity alike. Al-Ṭabarī relies on such a comparison because he is convinced that those non-Muslims who refuse to concede the truth of Islam and the authenticity of Muḥammad’s prophecy will not change their mind unless he invites them to perceive vis-à-vis their

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 Interreligiosity as a Realist Learning Engagement 57 own religious scriptures that those who deny the similarity between Muḥammad and the Messiah are untrustworthy swindlers (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 52).5 Al-Ṭabarī reaches here the ultimate conclusion of his refusal to consider consensus (ijmāʽ) a reliable criterion for deciding which religious news merits attention and rational examination, and which does not. He leans explicitly toward comparing the news in Islam with similar news in Christianity, and then considers these things worthy of rational verification in Islam because their equals and parallels in Christianity merit rational appraisal. On the contrary, Abū Qurrah seems more willing to pay attention to the religious news that people of all religions tend to adopt through publically communal and collectivist assent. This is not to say that Abū Qurrah follows consensus (ijmāʽ) unreservedly or construes it an efficient criterion of credibility. Initially, he does not at all use the term consensus in its Arabic vocabulary (ijmāʽ) in his text, Wad- Dīn al-Qawym. He rather speaks more clearly about “ratification” or “credence” (taṣdīq). If al-Ṭabarī construes comparison an alternative method that should replace the strategy of relying on consensus (ijmāʽ), Abū Qurrah seems willing to acknowledge a certain level of attention and appreciation to collectivist assent in other religions as a useful stage in the comparison process. This is what Abū Qurrah reveals to be his stance when he endeavours in Wa-l-Dīn al-Qawym to collect the credible religious news that is to be eventually measured and scrutinized by reason. Like al-Ṭabarī, Abū Qurrah pays attention to the news that is commonly conceded and co-shared by all the religions in his time: each religion speaks about a deity; all have moral rules that specify the inviolable (ḥarām) and the admissible (ḥalāl); and each believes in requital (thawāb) and retribution (ʽiqāb) (Abū Qurrah 1982, 2–82). Abū Qurrah’s attention to collectivist ratification in his comparative approach appears in his attention to discrepancies and not just to similarities (as al-Ṭabarī one-sidedly does) between the religious news. He pays attention to the fact that, despite their similarities, religions disagree in their specification of their deities’ characteristics, in the details of what is considered admissible and inviolable, in the particularities of their understanding of requital

فإن قلتم إنا نافرنا النبي وجانبناه ألنه ال نبي بعد املسيح، أوضحت لكم من كتبكم أنَّ مننفث يف أسامعكم وأجراه عىل ألسنتكم غري .5 ناصح لكم بل غاش وال موثوق به بل متهم. So, if you said we averted the prophet and avoided him because there is no other prophet after the Messiah, I clarified to you from within your own scriptures that the one who breathed this in your ears and conducted it on your tongues is not advising but cheating on you, and is not trustworthy but indicted

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 58 Najib George Awad and retribution actions (Abū Qurrah 1982, 2.8.3). Acquiring such ability to know even the similarities and the differences presupposes the examiners’ readiness to listen with openness and tolerance to the entire, collectively assented news of every religion, even if major portions of this news were accepted by these religious groups through consensus (ijmāʽ) and not credibility. This is why Abū Qurrah starts his discourse with a metaphorical narration. He imagines himself an old man, who grew up secluded on a mountain, and who decided one day to go down from his seclusion into the world to discover that people there follow different religions (1982, 2.8.1).6 Instead of avoiding these different religious followers or evading paying attention to their consensual religious claims and assents (something al-Ṭabarī calls for disregarding), Abū Qurrah welcomes these peoples’ invitations and listens carefully and attentively to what each group collectively states about its religiosity (1982, 2.8.2–69). After listening to the news collectively adopted by all religions, Abū Qurrah admits that the challenge for any rational, wise person is to discern which news is credible and reliable enough to spend time rationally scrutinizing them. Far from resorting to a principal, a priori confidence in one religious message and comparing one’s own religion with it (as al-Ṭabarī opts for by comparing Islam strictly to Christianity, presuming the reliability of Christian message), Abū Qurrah confesses his confusion and ambivalence after hearing all the messages. Each religion, he relates, offers attractive and appealing descriptions of its deity, yet each deity ends up being very different from the other. Each one of them also offers clear-cut, direct, and solid moral codes and commandments. Yet they differ starkly from each other in what they include and exclude (Abū Qurrah 1982, 2.8.19). In the light of this, Abū Qurrah asks, how can we know which message is truly from God, and which messenger is the right carrier of the message? Abū Qurrah suggests that the best way to do this is to compare and contrast the contents of all the messages, and then discover which ones resonate with human, natural, innate reasoning. So to know which news about God, for instance, is true, we need to compare what each message states about God with what common human, natural reason teaches us about divine attributes (Abū Qurrah 1982, 2.9.1-42). And to know which news on inviolables and admissibles

1. أقول: إين نشأت يف جبل مل أعلم ما الناس فيه. فنزلت يوما ًلحاجة عرضت يل إىل املداين وجامعة الناس، فرأيتهم يف أديان مختلفة. .6 1. I say: I grew up on a mountain, wherein I did not know what the peoples were. So, one day I went down [from the mountain], due to an incidental need, into the squares and peoples’ gatherings, and I saw them [following] different religions.

(Abū Qurrah 1982, 2.9.1-42), or on salvation and judgment (Abū Qurrah 1982), must be deemed credible and which should be cast aside, we need also to compare what religions say on these matters with what we already perceive about them by common human, naturally innate reason. Instead of categorically rejecting or mocking the religious news that is followed by people according to collectivist consensus (ijmāʽ), Abū Qurrah opts for a more positive and lenient stance that respects what these religions say, and listens carefully and attentively to it (taṣdīq). He moves beyond this initial investigative approach in order to reach a more serious stage of assessing the validity and plausibility of the claims of all religions—about themselves, as well as against each other—by means of an external, reliable criterion of investigation that makes it possible to see: (1) which religion’s claims about God’s characteristics are in harmony with God’s reality and which are not; and (2) whose prescription for healing from sin concurs with what is known about “healing” and whose does not. (Awad 2015, 90; Abū Qurrah 1982, 2.12.1–2)7 Achieving this goal logically requires listening neutrally to the followers of all other religious ways. It requires treating them not as misled blind forgers far from reason and truth, but as real interlocutors; and requires giving them “the space to introduce their beliefs without interacting personally with what they say or debating its content” (Awad 2015, 89). This neutrality paves the way for listening to this news with an open ear and the possibility of ratification (taṣdīq), even if what this news transmits are claims that originate from mere public consensus (ijmāʽ). By allowing such a space for this level of ratification, and by disallowing any consideration to ratify any collectively assented religious news, Abū Qurrah, in opting for the former, and ʽAlī al-Ṭabarī, in his preference for the latter, reveal a significant difference between their use of comparison as the most appropriate method of

.1. فاآلن إذ عرفنا ذلك ينبغي لنا ]…[ أن نقدم جميع األديان التي لقينا فننظر يف قول كل واحد منهم .7 1. So now, as we knew this, we should […] introduce all the religions we found by viewing the saying of every one of them.

2. فالذي نجده موافقا ًملا علمتنا طبيعتنا من ذلك، علمنا بيقني أنه الحق الذي جاء به من عند الله والذي يجب]أن[ يعبد به وحده وال بغريه فنقبله ونتخذه ونقيم عليه ونعبد الله به ونرمح غريه ونبعده ونبغضه. 2. The one we find conforms to what our nature teaches us, we know certainly that it is the truth that comes from God, and we must adore [God] by means of it alone and with no else. So we accept it, we assume [it] and base [our lives] on [it], and we worship God by it and cast away anything else. We do away with it and abhor it

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 60 Najib George Awad examination for allocating the credible news that consequentially merits rational verification. But what is the telos of the verification? What is the ultimate goal of Abū Qurrah’s and al-Ṭabarī’s texts and their decisions to seek a plausible and valid method for verifying the truth and authenticity of religious belief? The following paragraphs are my comparative attempt at finding answers to this inquiry in Abū Qurrah’s Wa-l-Dīn al-Qawym and al-Ṭabarī’s Al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah. In his text, al-Ṭabarī states that his search for the most appropriate rule of rational verification aims at proving the credibility and truthfulness of the prophet Muḥammad against three claims the Christians make to justify their rejection of the Muslim prophet’s religious news: أناَّ مل نجد أحدا ًمن األنبياء تنبأ عليه قبل مجيئه. أنا ملّ نجد يف القرآن ذكر آية وال نبوة ملن جاء ِبه َّأن املسيح أنبأنا أنه ال نبي بعده. We have not found any prophet prophesying about [Muḥammad] before his advent. We have not found in the Qur᾽ān any mention to a verse or a prophecy on who brought [the Qur᾽ān] into being. The Messiah imparted to us that no prophet is going to follow after him. (1982, 48) Demonstrating the authenticity and divine origin of Muḥammad’s وافر“ prophecy is al-Ṭabarī’s means of showing that any person who is wāfir al-rāʽī, salīm aṭ-ṭabʽ, murīdān) ”الرأي، سليم الطبع، مريدا للحقً املحض ال غريه ll-ḥaq al-maḥḍ lā ghayrih/“ample in opinion, sound in disposition, and desiring the absolute truth—no less”) (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 208) must definitely concede that what proves the authentic truthfulness of the Christian Messiah applies evidently and rationally to the prophecy of Muḥammad. This person must, therefore, attribute to the Muslim prophet and his religious message what is already bestowed upon Christ and his message (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 36).8

إن كانت حجتنا وحجتهم يف تصديقهم من يصدقون من أنبيائهم واحدة، فال حجة لهم عند الله وعند أنفسهم يف تكذيبهم صاحبنا .8 وتصديق أصحابهم، ألنه إذا احتج مختلفان يف دعوى من الدعاوي بحجة واحدة فهام مشرتكان سيان، يجب الحدهام بها ما يجب لآلخر ال محالة. If our demonstration and their demonstration in confirming whom they believe from their prophets were one and the same, they have [then] no plea before God and before themselves in disavowing our companion and believing theirs; for if two adversaries expostulated, in one of the cases, by means of the same pretence, they then are sharers like one another; what is duly to one is inevitably duly to the other.

If the Christians believe that God is one, who alone is an infinite kingship (mulk) and might (jabarūt), who is the merciful and benevolent (al-raḥman al-raḥīm), the Alpha and Omega (al-aūwal wa-l-ākhir), they must then concede Islam’s religious truth and credibility, for they themselves also believe in these claims (unlike other faiths, like the Majis’ (al-majūs), the Zendiqs (al-zanādiqah), and the Jews (al-yahūd) (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 208). It is interesting here that al-Ṭabarī does not seem to be trying to attack Christianity per se (though he criticizes the Christian Christological belief in Jesus’s divinity and divine sonship) as he seems to be doing against Judaism and other religious ways. Even when he admits that the ultimate goal of his text is to demonstrate the unique and superior authenticity and truthfulness of Islam, he states that this demonstration contrasts Islam with Judaism, dualism (thanawiyya), and materialism (dahriyyah)—and their aberrations—but it is not in contrast with Christianity (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 210). For al-Ṭabarī, the sagacious among the dhimmi people (ʽuqalā᾽ ahl al-ẓimmah)—that is, the Christians—deserve to share the light he personally enjoyed when he became a Muslim, and the victory he aspired at in following Islam, for in doing this there is benefit and goodness for him and them alike (al-Ṭabarī 1982, 209).9 Had al-Ṭabarī considered the belief of the Christian (dhimmi people) false and aberrant, he would not have said that his discourse aims at sharing truth and benefits with them, but rather that it defies them, and proves their faith and their rejection of Islam as worthy of condemnation—just as he stated in regard to other religious news. Al-Ṭabarī's goal, rather, is to show that the comparison of Islam to Christianity proves that they are equally truthful and their prophets are similarly sent by God. In the telos of their verification, al-Ṭabarī and Abū Qurrah clearly differ more than they do in regard to other comparative aspects. Contrary to al-Ṭabarī’s aim at showing the comparatively equal authenticity and even truthfulness of Islam and Christianity, Abū Qurrah seems to be more explicitly willing to demonstrate that the Christian gospel—and no other—represents the right and true message of God according to

وأملت بذلك من خيار املسلمني واكرامهم وعقالء أهل الذمة وأماثلهم الشكر واملحبة، إذ كنت قد بينت لعوامهم ما استبنت وكشفت .9 لهم ما استبطنت وأفهمتهم ما فهمت ونويت مشاركتهم يف النور الذي أوتيت والفوز الذي أملت فخري ذلك وربحه يل ولهم إن كنت أصبت. I have hoped by this from the very best of Muslims and their dignitaries, and from the sagacity of the dhimmi people and their likes, gratitude and amity, for I have shown their commoners what I have discovered, and I revealed to them what I have fathomed, and explained to them what I have apprehended, and I intended to share with them the light I have received, and the victory I aspired to, for the good of this and its profit are mine and theirs if I was correct.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 62 Najib George Awad standard rational verification. In his Wa-l-Dīn al-Qawym, Abū Qurrah suggests that using reasoning to verify credible religious news in all religions, and then comparing each with the others, demonstrates persuasively and plausibly that the only religious content that really describes and echoes what our natural, innate cognition already teaches us exists exclusively in the gospel message and no other text (1982, 2.12.3-6; 14-16). Abū Qurrah posits that the Christian good news (the gospel) alone teaches what our natural, innate reason teaches on what is lawful (ḥalāl) and what is forbidden (ḥarām) (1982, 2.13.1-22), arguing that it alone promises the true recompense (thawāb), which our cognitive nature longs for (982, 2.14-1-31). The Christian news is, first and foremost, the only credible religious message that merits rational attention and appraisal, because a detailed comparison between all the religious news upon mere rational assessment made it conspicuously evident that the Gospel alone, Abū Qurrah affirms, is from God and the rest are not (1982, 2.15.21). Abū Qurrah’s standpoint can here be challenged by questioning his optional reliance on the collectivist assent of the Gospel’s truth that is adopted premeditatedly by the Christians (i.e., the biased followers of the gospel) instead of on a neutral logical appraisal. In response to this plausible challenge, Abū Qurrah argues that the singular truthfulness of the gospel and no other is evident because the Christian message has spread around the world and has miraculously been adopted by various people who did not live with Christians, and who belonged to a totally different cultural and intellectual context from theirs (Abū Qurrah 1982, 2.16.1). It was Christianity alone, Abū Qurrah argues, that was globally adopted despite its lack of power and influence. This religion was accepted only and strictly by God’s power; thus it is inevitable and certainly the true and real religion from God (Abū Qurrah 1982, 2.16.28). In conclusion, Abū Qurrah does not develop his comparative methodology to show, like al-Ṭabarī, that Christianity is as truthful and authentic divine message as the religious message of others (Islam, mainly). For Abū Qurrah, his chosen method of rational comparative verification is developed for only one purpose: to demonstrate by every rational examination possible that the one and only true religion God bestowed upon humanity is conveyed exclusively and supremely in the gospel message of Jesus Christ. In terms of the telos of the text’s content, al-Ṭabarī’s Al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah does not argue for superiority, but for equal authenticity as the basic common feature between Islam

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 Interreligiosity as a Realist Learning Engagement 63 and Christianity. But Abū Qurrah’s Wad-Dīn al-Qawym does not seem to be willing to argue for equality, but rather for singular credibility as the central feature that separates Christianity from other religions, including Islam. Al-Ṭabarī and Abū Qurrah: two comparative theologians from early Islam? As I stated in the introduction, I ventured this study as an experiment in comparative theology. Since I started by noting some current trends in comparative theology scholarship, I would like to end it with some concluding remarks on the following inquiry: do we have in Abū Qurrah’s and al-Ṭabarī’s treatises textual examples of ancient comparative theology that goes back to the eight to ninth centuries AD? In his book, Comparative Theology, Francis Clooney states that the scholarly Christian enterprise called “comparative theology” centralizes comparison as the key notional and methodological tool of investigation. This theological trend of reasoning is thus comparative because it is learning [that is] sought for the sake of fresh theological insights that are indebted to the newly encountered tradition/s as well as the home tradition. […] Comparative theology is therefore comparative because it is interreligious and complex in its appropriation of one’s own and another tradition in relation to one another. […] The priority is more simply the dynamics of a back-and-forth learning. (2010, 10–11, 191–200) In his turn, James Fredericks describes the comparative character of comparative theology as the Christians’ chance not only to learn about non-Christians, but also to show readiness to learn from them. He then opines that it is comparative theology that makes the Christians realize that the truth of non-Christian religions can stimulate Christians to look into their own religious tradition with new questions and emerge, perhaps, with new insights. Comparative theology may lead Christians to see the challenge posed by their non-Christian neighbours not as a threat, but as a blessing in the deepest sense of the word. (Fredericks 1999, 9; cf. Clooney 2010a, ix–xix) The two fathers of comparative theology in the twentieth century, as we see above, emphasize that the centralization of comparison stems from serious and sincere attention to non-Christian faiths’ willingness to engage with these other faiths’ messages, and a determination to relate to them in a relationship of learning. “Learning” and “engagement” are basic defining notions in the process of comparison.

My comparative reading of Wa-l-Dīn al-Qawym and Al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah demonstrates that through the Christian Abū Qurrah and the Muslim al-Ṭabarī, we meet two ancient Arab mutakallims (theologians) who also believed in comparison as the best method of verification and interpretation, who equally evinced their open engagement with religions other than theirs, and who, finally, pursued an investigation that illustrated a reliance on, and an endeavour to obtain, credible learning about one’s own religion in comparison and contrast with other faiths. “Comparison,” “engagement,” and “learning” are evident in their approaches and rationale. One can detect, nevertheless, nuances between the ultimate goals and achievements such a method of comparison produces for theologians, as expressed by Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī on one hand, and by contemporary comparative theologians like Clooney and Fredericks on the other. Both Clooney and Fredericks do not stop engaging other religions to learn about them. They claim further that Christians’ engagement would lead to learning from other religions and so change these Christians’ views about their own faith (Fredericks 2010, xv; Clooney 2013, 52).10 This “learning from” approach is either minimal or missing in Abū Qurrah’s and al-Ṭabarī’s texts. On the occasions when these Christian and Muslim theologians reflect a “learning from” stance on the religious discourses they examine, they do gain coherent and credible information about these religions’ news, so that they can comparatively highlight the superior credibility and rational authenticity of either Christianity (Abū Qurrah) or Islam (al-Ṭabarī). Learning from the other is here relied on as learning from the other about this other’s claims, so that one can grant one’s self a solid knowledge of the adversary: “Know- thy-enemy!” It is not a learning from the other that consequentially transforms or changes each author's understanding of his own faith. What Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī definitely do is try to acquire accurate, perceptive, attentively receptive, but also objective and embracing, information about the other in order to obtain from this knowledge strategies for using the comparison in demonstrating their faith’s truthfulness and authenticity.

10 James Fredericks expresses this “learning from” attitude when, for example, he criticizes theologies of religions for being apriorist and ideological because they protect the Christian from “the necessity of changing their minds […] in response to the encounter with the Other.” Clooney also emphasizes the “learning from” method when, for instance, he says that comparative theology differs from theology in general and religious dialogue in particular in that it “ventures into learning from one or more other faith traditions.”

Does the above entail that the comparative studies Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī conduct clearly lack the transformative and self-change experience that Clooney’s and Fredericks’s “learning from” principle presumes? Not necessarily. The mere fact that Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī are moving from the narrow circle of self-understanding by taking their Christianity and Islam into the open space of comparing one’s religious understanding with the others indicates that they let themselves freely get exposed to the potential of such transformative and changing impact. In Abū Qurrah’s and al-Ṭabarī’s approaches we have comparative interaction that is open to the potential consequence of each religion influencing the other, and possibly transforming the religious views of the one who conducts the comparison. This disposition to such potential or possibility is detectable, though Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī do not consider “transformation-by-learning- from” one of the preconditioning and ruling criteria of the success of any practice of comparative theology. In their promotion of comparative theology as the area of study that exceeds other trends of theology in its effectiveness and importance, contemporary comparative theologians tend not to treat “transformation-by-learning-from” as a potential outcome for which to hope or aspire. They almost construe it as the foundational goal and inevitable outcome of the process of comparison. This is, for example, what one may glean from James Fredericks’s statement that “the purpose of comparative theology is to assist Christians in coming to a deeper understanding of their own religious tradition. Doing Christian theology comparatively means that Christians look upon the truths of non-Christian traditions as resources for understanding their own faith” (1999, 139–140). From this prolegomena, Fredericks concludes: by exploring the truths of Christianity in dialogue with the teachings and traditions of other religious believers, Christians will come to embrace their own cherished beliefs in new ways. In the process, Christianity will be enriched and Christians will forge bonds of respect and even admiration with their non-Christian neighbours. (1999, 139–140) It is interesting that Fredericks does not articulate his claim by means of the “would” tense, but the more affirmative and certain “will” one: Christians will come to embrace; they will forge bonds of respect and even admiration. But, this affirmative accent notwithstanding, how can the scholar assess that the anticipated embrace has happened, and how can she detect that the rule of respect and admiration was definitely practiced? How can this be scrutinized and detected scientifically? Is there a criterion of respect, admiration, and embrace to demonstrate

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 66 Najib George Awad this objectivity? If there is one, who conjured it up, and upon which presumptions and preconceptions? And who guarantees that the one who developed the criterion did not do this from the perspective of her own religious belief, from which she conducts the comparison to transform this belief by a “learning from” methodology in the first place? Fredericks states that “living responsibly with non-Christian believers means living with non-Christians in a way that is true to what is most basic and most demanding about the Christian tradition” (1999, 163). Now, what if the things that are true to Christian tradition clash with what one learns about “what is true” in other religions, and what if this prevents the Christian from living responsibly with non- Christian believers in a way that is adherent to what is most basic and most demanding about the Christian tradition? In this case, conducting comparative theology and abiding with its inevitable and certain obligation of “changing-by-the-other” will not necessarily be transformative of belief, but rather possibly eliminative and deconstructive. Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī conduct serious comparisons based on a coherent, perceptive and rational “learning-about” methodology. Yet they do not pursue a “learning-from” strategy like the one displayed above from today’s comparative theology arena. Both Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī are open and positive toward comparing their faith to other faiths, and toward learning about these faiths as accurately and sufficiently as they can. Thus they seem open to the possibility or the potential of gaining something valuable and respectable from these faiths that can serve the purpose of demonstrating the truth of their own faith. This is why both resort to a criterion of comparison that is not derived from their religion’s scriptural texts or their fellow believers’ inherited consensus. They both propose reason and cognitive verification as the best instrument for gleaning from the comparison the true message of God. This is why they both want to reveal the truth of their faith either from within the discourses of the others (al-Ṭabarī) or from within the common natural innate reason that all humans own (Abū Qurrah). The intriguing factor in Abū Qurrah’s and al-Ṭabarī’s comparative studies worth pondering is that they allow a theoretical space for the occurrence of the “learning-from” experience and for its potential transformative impact. They do not turn this “transformation-by- learning-from” into a rule or a preconditioning and prerequisite expectation in the comparison. Yet Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī do

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 Interreligiosity as a Realist Learning Engagement 67 concur with the belief that “differences can be as illuminating and as useful as the similarities that link religions” (Fredericks 1999, 158). Yet they persuasively seem to avoid turning the prerogatives of illumination and usefulness into an obligatory and inevitable outcome. Such an outcome might transpire—or it might not. Either way, the comparative process’s value and usefulness are to be assessed by how each investigator comparing religions endeavours to gain sufficient understanding and authentic learning about other religions, and also by the rational rule of verification the comparing agent uses to study all religions (the agent’s own included) from without them. In the above-mentioned sense, if contemporary comparative theologians are “idealist” in their appraisal of “comparison,” “engagement,” and “learning,” and in what they expect from them, then Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī are, quite persuasively, realist in their adoption of “comparison,” “engagement,” and “learning.” Their realism appears in the fact that neither of them denies his commitment to his religious belief or his determination to examine this faith’s reliability. Contemporary comparative theologians emphasize that comparative theology is done by Christians who adhere to their religious identity and speak from it, open to the possibility of transforming this identity through learning from other faiths. However, when it comes to the ultimate guiding telos of their process of comparison, contemporary compartative theologians seem to be idealistically over-confident about the transformative outcome of the experience—so much so that they seem to be willing to give up their Christian identity: “comparative theology need not be a Christian enterprise” (Clooney 2010b, 199). A realist comparative approach like Abū Qurrah’s and al-Ṭabarī’s contribute necessary voices to balance the above, rather over-ambitious belief in the transformative outcome of pursuing comparison between religions that is conducted by scholars who are expected to depart from a clear and explicit commitment to their religious belief before and after they per- form a comparison. Finally, my study of Abū Qurrah’s Christian and al-Ṭabarī’s Muslim theologies from a comparative perspective shows that neither the former nor the latter would define themselves as comparative theologians in either identity or label. Yet they both offer us in their texts what I propose to be a considerable and valuable sample of comparative theological practice from the middle Byzantine/early Islamic era. In an age dominated by polemics and rigorously defensive interactions between Muslims and Christians over faith, we find in Abū Qurrah and al-Ṭabarī two thinkers who relate their belief to other

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 68 Najib George Awad religions vis-à-vis open engagement, not antagonistic condemnation; by means of objective and positive comparison, not offensive degradation; and by willingness to learn, not determination to defeat the other. The image of comparative theology they display in the two text examined is valuable in its depth, rationalism, and realism. It places in our hands a useful instrument for critically scrutinizing and assessing our practice and expectations of comparative theology today and in the future. References Abū Qurrah, Theodore. 1982. Maymar fī Wjūd al-Khāliq wa-l-Dīn al-Qawym (Maymar on the Existence of the Creator and the Right Religion). Edited by Ignace Dick Jounieh. Librairie St. Paul/Rome: Papal Oriental Institute. Accad, Martin. 2003. “The Ultimate Proof-Text: The Interpretation of John 20:17 in Muslim-Christian Dialogue (Second/Eighth-Eighth/Fourteenth Centuries).” In Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule: Church Life and Scholarship in Abbasid Iraq, edited by David Thomas, 199–214. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Awad, Najib George. 2017. “Min al-‘Aql wa-Laysa min al-Kutub”: Scriptural Evidence, Rational Verification and Theodore Abū Qurra’s Apologetic Epistemology.” In Exegetical Crossroads: Understanding Scripture in Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Pre-Modern Orient, edited by George Tamer, Regina Grundmann, Assaad Elias Kattan, and Karl Pinggéra, 95–118. Berlin: De Gruyter. ———. 2015. Orthodoxy in Arabic Terms: A Study of Theodore Abū Qurrah’s theology in its Islamic Context, Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi. org/10.1515/9781614513964 Clooney, Francis X. 2013. “Comparative Theology and Inter-Religious Dialogue.” In The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Inter-Religious Dialogue, edited by Catherine Cornille, 51–63. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi. org/10.1002/9781118529911.ch4 ———. 2010a. “Response,” in The New Comparative Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation, edited by Francis X. Clooney, 191–200. London: T&T Clark/Continuum. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444318951 ———. 2010b. Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444318951 Cook, Michael. 1980. “The Origins of Kalām.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 43: 32–43 Frank, Richard M. 1999. “The Science of Kalām.” Arabic Science and Philosophy. 2: 9–37. Fredericks, James L. 1999. Faith among Faiths: Christian Theology and Non- Christian Religions. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2018 Interreligiosity as a Realist Learning Engagement 69 Fredericks, James L. 2010. “Introduction,” The New Comparative Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation, edited by Francis X. Clooney, ix–xix. London: T&T Clark/Continuum. Griffith, Sidney H. 2013. The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the ‘People of the Book’ in the Language of Islam, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400846580 ———. 2008. The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ———.1993. “Reflections on the Biography of Theodore Abū Qurrah.” Parole de l’Orient 18: 143–170. ———. 1978. “The Controversial Theology of Theodore Abū Qurrah (c. 750–c. 820 AD): A Methodological, Comparative Study in Christian Arabic Literature.” PhD. diss., Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. Lamoreaux, John (trans). 2005. Theodore Abū Qurrah. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press. Lamoreaux, John. 2002. “The Bibliography of Theodore Abū Qurrah Revisited,” in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 56: 25–40. https://doi.org/10.2307/1291852 ———. 2009. “Theodore Abū Qurrah.” In Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, Volume 1 (600–900), edited by D. Thomas, Barbara Roggema, Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala, Johannes Pahlitzsch, Mark Swanson, Herman Tuele, and John Tolan, 439–491. Leiden: Brill. Pines, Shlomo. 1971. “A Note on An Early Meaning of the Term Mutakallim.” Israel Oriental Studies 1: 224–240. Swanson, Mark. 1998. “Beyond Prooftexting: Approaches to the Qur’an in Some Early Arabic Christian Apologies.” The Muslim World 88: 287– 319. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-1913.1998.tb03663.x Thomas, David. 2009. “ ʽAlī al-Ṭabarī.” In Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, Volume 1 (600–900), edited by D. Thomas, Barbara Roggema, Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala, Johannes Pahlitzsch, Mark Swanson, Herman Tuele, and John Tolan, 669–674. Leiden: Brill. Al-Ṭabarī, ʽAlī b. Rabbān. 1982. Fī al-Dīn wa-l-Dawlah: fī Īthbāt Nubūwāt an-Nabī Muḥammad (On Religion and State: On Verification of the Prophecies of Muḥammad), edited by ʽAdil Nūwayhiḍ. Beirut: Dā al- Āfāq al-Jadīdah. Thomas, David and Rifaat Ebied (eds). 2016. The Polemical Works of Alī al- Ṭabarī. Leiden: Brill. Thomas, David. 2009. “Abū Zakkār yaḥyā Ibn an-Nuʽmān.” In Christian– Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, Volume 1 (600–900). edited by D. Thomas, Barbara Roggema, Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala, Johannes Pahlitzsch, Mark Swanson, Herman Tuele, and John Tolan, 565–566. Leiden: Brill.

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