Closest in Friendship? Al-Jāḥiz'̣ Profile of Christians in Abbasid

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Closest in Friendship? Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Prole of Christians in Abbasid Society in “The Refutation of Christians” (Al-Radd ʿala ̄ al-Nasạ rā )̄

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures School of Arts and Sciences Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulllment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Nathan P. Gibson

Washington, D.C.

2015 Closest in Friendship? Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Prole of Christians in Abbasid Society in “The Refutation of Christians” (Al-Radd ʿala ̄ al-Nasạ rā )̄

Nathan P. Gibson, Ph.D.

Director: Sidney H. Grith, Ph.D.

Abbasid society in ninth-century Iraq faced the challenge of reconciling the role of its many non-Muslim citizens with Islamic norms and governance, as seen in “The

Refutation of Christians” by al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ (d. 868/869 [255 A.H.]). Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ moved in circles only one step removed from those of the Christian and Jewish intellectuals he came to criticize in the work, and he likely composed it just prior to Caliph al-Mutawakkil’s watershed reforms in non-Muslim policy. Thus, the “Refutation” is a primary source for understanding shifting Muslim sensibilities toward Christians’ societal role in a religiously diverse realm, but its polemic approach makes it problematic to analyze historically. This dissertation seeks to make “The Refutation of Christians” more accessible as a historical source by performing a contextual analysis of its argumentation.

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ rhetorical strategy is to explain away factors behind popular Muslim preferences for Christians over Jews, and then to advance positive reasons for considering Christians more harmful than Jews. Argumentation analysis using the pragma-dialectical approach highlights salient social points at issue between Christians and Muslims of the time. First, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ dispute is not directly with Christians, but with

Muslims who show them too much respect and liberality. Second, he must reframe certain facts about Christians that are too generally accepted to contradict, including memories of Arabs’ pre-Islamic and early Islamic contacts with Christians, and

Christian intellectuals’ crucial role in perpetuating Greek scientic works. He turns these favorable perceptions into liabilities, arguing that Christians’ intellectualism diverts weak Muslims from the faith and their social position violates Christian-Muslim agreements. Finally, in contrast to the jurists’ approach, he argues for enforcing the original intention of these agreements rather than trying to demonstrate specic historical stipulations.

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ ideology aligns with al-Mutawakkil’s Qurʾanically charged edicts, in that Christians, far from being “closest in friendship” (5:82), are those with whom believers must not make any alliance (5:51). As such, the “Refutation” reveals the battle lines between more lenient, popular Muslim attitudes and a stricter position promoted by al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ and enforced by al-Mutawakkil. This dissertation by Nathan P. Gibson fullls the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures approved by Sidney H. Grith, S.T., Ph.D., as Director, and by Shawqi N. Talia, Ph.D., and Wilhelmus Valkenberg, Ph.D., as Readers.

______Sidney H. Grith, Ph.D.

______Shawqi N. Talia, Ph.D.

______Wilhelmus Valkenberg, Ph.D

ii To my family, with gratitude for their unagging support— especially my wife, who cheered me on every step of the way

iii Contents

Chapter

ILLUSTRATIONS ...... vii

ABBREVIATIONS ...... ix

CONVENTIONS ...... x

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... xii

INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Theology & Culture...... 1 Literature Review ...... 3 Textual History, Editions, and Translations ...... 3 The “Refutation” as Theology ...... 6 The “Refutation” as Literature, History, and Argumentation ...... 7 Overview of Chapters ...... 11

PART I: AL-JĀḤIẒ AND HIS WORLD

ONE AL-JĀḤIẒ’ LIFE ...... 18 Sources...... 19 Education...... 20 Writings and Patronage ...... 26 Conclusions...... 34

TWO DATING THE “REFUTATION” ...... 35 The Dilemma ...... 35 Animals (Kitab̄ al-Ḥayawan̄ ): Before or After 847? ...... 38 One or Two “Refutations”?...... 41 Extant “Refutation” Equal to ... ?...... 43 Conclusions...... 49

THREE CRAFTING THE “REFUTATION” ...... 50 I. Introduction...... 54 A. Invocation (Praise) ...... 54 B. Acknowledgement of Letter ...... 54 C. Presentation of Christian Arguments ...... 59

iv Chapter B’. Intended Response to Letter...... 61 A’. Invocation (Prayer)...... 63 II. Response to Muslim Preferences toward Christians...... 64 A. Presentation and Rebuttal of Muslim Preferences toward Christians...... 64 B. Counterargument about Muslim Preferences toward Christians...... 66 III. Response to Christian Arguments...... 73 A. Response to Argument that Jesus Did Not Speak in Cradle...... 75 B. Response to Argument that if God Could Take a Friend He Could Take a Son...... 75 C. Response to Argument that Muslims Inaccurately Accuse Other Religions...... 76 D. Response to Argument that Qurʾan Dierentiates Jesus from Ordinary Humans ...... 77 IV. Conclusion...... 79

PART II: THE PROFILE OF CHRISTIANS IN THE “REFUTATION”

FOUR UNDERMINING THE BIASES...... 83 Introduction and Methodology ...... 83 Polemic as Historical Source Material?...... 86 Argumentation Analysis...... 89 The Opposing Standpoints ...... 92 Christians and Jews in Muslim Memory ...... 95 Christians and Jews in Medina and Abyssinia ....95 Christians and Jews in al-Māʾida...... 99 Respect for Christians among Arab Tribes ...... 102 Implications of the Historical Argument...... 111 A Qurʾanic Reading of Christians’ “Sovereignty” (Mulk) ...... 113 Christians’ Contemporary Relationship to Muslims .....116 Christian Intellectualism ...... 117 Christians’ Hereditary Traits ...... 126 Conclusions...... 132

FIVE REVERSING THE BIASES...... 136 Turning the Tables...... 136 Christians Transgressing their Stipulated Role ...... 139 Comparative Perspectives on Dhimm̄ Regulations...... 143 v Christians in Muslim Courts...... 170 The Arguments about Christians as Dhimm̄s ....180 Christians Confusing Weak Muslims with Heresy...... 185 Christians Outnumbering the Other Communities...... 191 Christians Practicing Castration...... 194 Christians Deling Society...... 198 Conclusions...... 202

CONCLUSIONS ...... 205

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 210 Primary Sources...... 210 Secondary Sources ...... 219

vi Illustrations

Figures

1. The structure of “The Refutation of Christians” 53

2. Detailed structure of Part I of “The Refutation of Christians” 66

3. Detailed structure of Part II of “The Refutation of Christians” 74

4. Diagramming argumentation using the Pragma-Dialectical Approach 91

5. Example argumentation diagram 92

6. Distance from the rst Muslims as a deciding factor 97

7. Christians’ help to Muslim refugees as a factor 99

8. Disassociation of contemporary Christians from the Nasạ rā ̄ of Q. 5:82-85 102

9. Arabs’ historical preference for Christians 105

10.Arabs’ historical respect for Christian individuals 109

11.Arabs’ historical kinship to Christians versus Jews 111

12.Comparison of Christian and Jewish intellectual engagement 118

13.Invalidating Christians’ intellectual credentials 122

14.The danger of Christian intellectualism 126

15.The religious versus hereditary merits of Christians and Jews 129

16.Hereditary traits of Christians and Jews compared 132

17.Overview of argumentation that Christians harm the community more than Jews 137

18.Christians’ impunity in violating agreements with Muslims 181

vii 19.Christian violations of their agreements with Muslims 184

20.The case against leniency toward Christians by Muslim judges 185

21.Christians’ responsibility for heretical confusion (part 1) 188

22.Christians’ responsibility for heretical confusion (part 2) 190

23.The demographic threat 194

24.Castration as evidence of Christian depravity 197

25.Christian impurities as a threat of delement 200

Tables

1. Comparison of topics in sources about dhimm̄ regulations 168

viii Abbreviations

Textual Sources of “The Refutation of Christians”

Note: Unless otherwise noted, citations of the text of “The Refutation of Christians” are to page and line numbers of Harū ̄n’s edition (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:302-351).

Azhar = Cairo, Azhar 6836 (1895)

BL = British Library Suppl. 1129 [=Or. 3138] (1877), folios 129v.-155v.

Hazinesi = MS Istanbul, Emanet Hazinesi 1358 (n.d.)

Kamil̄ = Marginalia of Mubarrad, al-Kamil̄ (1905-1906, 2:148-184)

Taymūriyya = Cairo, Dar̄ al-kutub al-misriyyạ 19 adab Taymūr (1897), pages 202-236

Sources of Dhimm̄ Regulations

AY = Abū Yūsuf, Kitab̄ al-Kharaj̄ (1933/1934), adapted from Levy-Rubin’s translation (2011, 71-72).

DMIZ = Al-Mutawakkil’s decree in Ibn Zabr, Shurūt ̣ al-Nasạ rā ̄ (Cohen 1999, 149-151). Translation mine.

DMṬ = Al-Mutawakkil’s decree in al-Ṭabar̄, Taʾr̄kh (1879-1901, 3.3:1390-1395). Translation adapted from Kraemer (al-Ṭabar̄ 1989b, 91-94).

IḤ = Shurūt ̣ of ʿUmar in Ibn Ḥanbal, Aḥkām ahl al-milal (1994, 357-359). Translation mine.

S = Dhimm̄ treaty in al-Shāʿ̄, Kitab̄ al-Umm. Translation adapted from Levy-Rubin’s (2011, 71-72) adaptation of Lewis (1974, 219-223).

SMIZ = Summary of al-Mutawakkil’s dhimm̄ policy in Ibn Zabr, Shurūt ̣ al-Nasạ rā ̄ (Cohen 1999, 148-149). Translation mine.

SMṬ = Summary of al-Mutawakkil’s dhimm̄ policy in al-Ṭabar̄, Taʾr̄kh (1879-1901, 3.3:1389-1390). Translation adapted from Kraemer (al-Ṭabar̄ 1989b, 89-91).

ix Conventions

Quotations

Curly brackets (“{“ and “}”) inside quotations are my additions to the quoted material.

Dates

All dates are in C.E. unless otherwise noted. I have included A.H. dates in a number of instances when a date is given in A.H. in a primary source, or when I have thought it helpful for other reasons.

Transliterations

For Arabic transliterations, I have followed the system of the International

Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES), with the following adaptations:

1. I have included diacritics for personal names (for example, “al-Jah̄ ̣iz”)̣ and titles of

works (Al-Ḥayawan̄ ), in order to aid readers who are working with the primary

sources in Arabic. However, Arabic names of modern authors or publishers that

appear in Latin script on the work’s title page are spelled as they are found there.

2. When transliterating Arabic titles of works, I have included full diacritics and have

capitalized proper nouns and the rst major term of the title, plus the

accompanying terms Kitab̄ or Risalā or the article alif it begins the title.

3. I have italicized and used diacritics for a few Arabic terms that are unfamiliar to a

general audience, even though they are included on the IJMES Word List as having

been accepted into English (for example, “qad̄ ̣̄” rather than “qadi”).

x 4. Where I have reproduced passages of Arabic that are longer than a short phrase, I

have used Arabic script rather than transliterating them. I have also used Arabic

script in many cases for manuscript variants, particularly when the correct

vocalization is not apparent.

For Syriac transliterations, I have followed the “academic style” of transliterating Hebrew as outlined by the Society of Biblical Literature in The SBL

Handbook of Style, Second Edition (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014).

xi Acknowledgements

A dissertation is, in one sense, supposed to be entirely one’s own work; in another sense, it cannot possibly be. It is the culmination of years of academic nurture and personal support. Here I wish to thank the people who have been most integral to that process.

My major professor, Prof. Sidney Grith, and my other committee members, Dr.

Shawqi Talia and Prof. Wilhelmus Valkenberg, have not only guided me through the dissertation process itself, but also played formative roles in my academic development prior to and during that phase. Prof. Grith’s unique expertise has deeply shaped my own understanding of the subject, and his kindness has been a personal blessing to me.

Dr. Talia patiently checked my translations, continually directed me to helpful sources, and has constantly encouraged me in my pursuit. Prof. Valkenberg has cultivated my growth as a teacher and has frequently helped me infer the contemporary implications of the topics I have been researching and teaching. Any errors or inaccuracies are, of course, my own.

The help of others here at The Catholic University of America has been indispensable. The curator of the Semitics/ICOR Library and my rst Syriac teacher,

Dr. Monica Blanchard, has often assisted me in locating or obtaining needed resources, and has shown patient forbearance in the face of my book-hoarding tendencies! My colleagues in the department have helped shape my thoughts by oering comments or just listening to my rambling ideas. This is especially true of Andrew Platt, Vince

xii Bantu, and Colby Scott. Nathan Ponzio assisted me with Pellat’s French. Faculty and sta at the Writing Center, particularly Dr. Kevin Rulo and Brian Chappell, helped me to organize the project and stay on track with my goals.

Among those in other places who have shaped me as an academic and cultivated my particular interests are my two previous advisors, Dr. Paul Wright and Dr. John

Neihof, as well as Dr. Petra Heldt.

It would be humanly impossible for anyone to oer greater support than my family has. Their faith in me over the years has often surpassed my own, and they have maintained me in innumerable tangible and intangible ways. I have the unique privilege of having parents who have nurtured me not just personally, but academically and spiritually. But my special and inexpressible gratitude goes to my wife, Tiany, who has made both life-altering and daily sacrices on my behalf and has never given up—or let me give up—the hope that I would complete this task. This accomplishment is as much hers as mine. For these reasons, I have dedicated this work to her and to my entire family.

Most of all, I thank God for empowering me to do what I could not have done in my own strength, including through the helping hands and willing hearts of the people mentioned above.

xiii Introduction

“I am completely infatuated with two things, listening to the accounts of the Bedouins (ḥadīth al-Aʿrāb) and to the contending arguments of two opponents in theological disputation (al-kalām). Nothing is better than these two; for both arouse amazing stores of good spirits that can hearten a bereaved person even in the extremities of sorrow, or cheer up an angry person even as ames of rage consume him. And if these two activities do not oer themselves, then one can nd in all subjects sucient types of entertainment, humor, pleasure, leisure, and distraction.” (al-Jāḥiẓ 1938-45, 3:6; trans. in Heath 2009, 168-169)

Theology & Culture

The great ninth-century Arabic prose writer Abū ʿUthman̄ ʿAmr b. Baḥr al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣

(c. 776-868/869 [c. 160-255 A.H.]) is remembered primarily for two things: his delightful and voluminous collections of cultural knowledge (including the masterpieces Animals, Eloquence, and Misers) and his adroit, idiosyncratic argumentation (typied in the essay-like art form called the risalā , or “epistle”). The title of his epistle known as “The Refutation of Christians” (Al-Radd ʿala ̄ al-Nasạ rā )̄ sounds deceptively like an abstract, theological treatise. In reality, it is every bit as much a work of cultural criticism as it is theological debate. This is probably no surprise to anyone who has read al-Jah̄ ̣iz—̣ an author for whom conning himself to one eld of inquiry was probably no more palatable than restricting himself to reading one book at a time.

The “Refutation” bills itself as a rebuttal of ve Christian arguments against the

Qurʾan, but it turns out to be much more than this. In the theological portion of his text, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ uses kalam̄ -style reasoning—that is, the classical mode of theological and

1 2 philosophical disputation in Arabic—to marshal scriptural evidence against Christians’ arguments. Some of his responses to Christians’ attacks on the Qurʾan seem to be lost, but the ones that remain are liberally interspersed with al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ counterarguments against Christian theology. The case he puts forward has themes that are familiar from other interreligious polemics of the time, particularly its emphasis on Jesus’ identity as a mere human rather than the Son of God as Christians claim him to be; nevertheless, the way he formulates his argumentation is rather unique. What is most singular about the work, however, is that between his introduction and his theological argumentation al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has placed an extensive social critique comparing Christians’ relationship to the Muslim community with that of Jews (and, occasionally, other groups) (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣

1927, 313; Reynolds 2001, 165). This is not to say that this social argumentation is not undergirded by and applied to theological concerns; rather it is signicant in both dimensions, since it gives a detailed account of concrete behaviors and popular perceptions that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ saw to be at issue between Muslims and other groups in his society.

As with so many medieval Arabic texts, “The Refutation of Christians” still has much left to oer to scholars of intellectual and social history, and to anyone interested in Muslim-Christian interaction. Many of the issues al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ raises remain relevant, in somewhat dierent permutations, to Christians in Muslim environments and even to

Muslims living as minorities in non-Muslim societies. The following brief literature review is intended to highlight the remaining work to be done on the “Refutation” and to clarify the contribution this dissertation makes toward that enormous endeavor. 3

Literature Review

Textual History, Editions, and Translations

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ “Refutation of Christians” has unfortunately not survived in its entirety. The extant version is composed of ten excerpts preserved in an anthology called Mukhtarā t̄ ascribed to ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ḥassān, whom Pellat identies as Abū al-

Qāsim ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Raqqī (981-1058 [371-450 A.H.]) (Pellat

1984, 119; Sandūb̄ 1931, 132).1 As the Mukhtarā t̄ dates to January or February of

1013 (Rajab 403 A.H.) (Pellat 1984, 119), the “Refutation” was excerpted about a century and a half after its composition. I am aware of four manuscripts of the

Mukhtarā t̄ , all of them late (see al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:vii-ix; 1927, 312-313; Thomas

2009d, 1:710-711; Pellat 1984, 119-120):

1. British Library Suppl. 1129 [=Or. 3138] (1877), folios 129v.-155v.2

2. Cairo, Azhar 6836 (1895)

3. Cairo, Dar̄ al-kutub al-misriyyạ 19 adab Taymūr (1897), pages 202-236

4. MS Istanbul, Emanet Hazinesi 1358 (n.d.)3

1. In addition to the manuscripts of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ minor works that Pellat (1984) mentions, note the Hyderabad manuscript described by Daiber, which, however, does not seem to contain any excerpts yet identied as coming from “The Refutation of Christians” (Daiber 2009, 223-224).

2. Marquart (1903, 271) identies the passage he reproduces (from a copy made for him by someone in London) as being from “Or. 3135, fol. 140v-142v.” This seems be a mistake for “Or. 3138.”

3. Below, I will refer to these manuscripts as “BL,” “Azhar,” “Taymūriyya,” and “Hazinesi,” respectively. The Azhar and Taymūriyya manuscripts were copied by the same scribe, Muḥammad al-Zamran̄ ̄, only two years apart, and likely from the same manuscript, which is mentioned in Taymūriyya as being from 403 A.H. [1012/1013] (see al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1927, 312 and 1964-79, 3:vii). 4

The rst published text of “The Refutation of Christians” was in the 1905-1906

[1323-1324 A.H.] Cairo edition of Mubarrad’s Al-Kamil̄ , which contained al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ epistles from the Taymūriyya manuscript in the marginalia (Mubarrad 1905-1906,

2:148-184; see Pellat 1984, 121), printed from an unidentied and, apparently, independent manuscript witness (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:ix).4 Subsequently, Joshua Finkel edited the “Refutation” on the basis of the Azhar and Taymūriyya manuscripts in a

1926 volume with the English title Three essays of Abu ʻOthman ʻAmr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz and the Arabic title Thalāth rasāʾil li-Abī ʿUthmān ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Jāḥīẓ (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1926,

10-38; see Pellat 1984, 122). About forty years later, an edition by Jam̄l Jabr of one of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ major works, Al-Bayan̄ wa-l-tabȳn, included the “Refutation” (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1968).5

In 1979, Harū ̄n, the great editor of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ works, added volumes three and four to his

Rasāʾil al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79). These two volumes comprised a comprehensive edition of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ epistles contained in the BL and Taymūriyya manuscripts (but not the Hazinesi manuscript) (see al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:viii; Pellat 1984, 122),6 including

“The Refutation of Christians” (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:302-351). Most recently,

Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh Sharqaw̄ ̄ provided an edition of the “Refutation” based on

Finkel’s and Harū ̄n’s editions in his brief study of the work (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1984b, 53-90).

4. Abbreviated below as “Kamil.”̄ The text in the margins of al-Kāmil breaks o in mid-sentence toward the end of the fourth excerpt (page 148, line 7) with the words “qawlinā f̄him” and continues with several excerpts from another composition, which Pellat identies as Kitāb f̄ al-Nubl wa-l-tanabbul wa-dhamm al-kibr (Pellat 1984, 152-153, no. 169). Hirschfeld in 1901 (230-232, 239-240; see also 1922, 200-202) and Marquart in 1903 (271-276) had each published short excerpts from the BL manuscript with English and German translations, respectively.

5. Unfortunately, I have not been able to access Jabr’s edition to determine its textual basis.

6. Harū ̄n did not make use of the Azhar manuscript, since it had the same scribe and same “corruptions, omissions, and additions” as the Taymūriyya manuscript (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:vii). 5

Finally, James Montgomery is planning an edition and English translation of the

“Refutation” as part of the volume Epistles I: Theology for the Library of Arabic

Literature series.

Several partial translations and a few complete ones have appeared in European languages. A year after editing the text, Finkel published an English translation of the

rst part of the “Refutation” with an introduction (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1927).7 This was followed by a summarizing paraphrase in German by Rescher (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1931, 40-67), and an essentially complete French translation by Allouche (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1939). For his M.A. thesis, Fletcher translated into English the remaining portions of the work and pieced them together with Finkel’s translation to make a complete translation of sorts

(Fletcher 2002, 60-98). In the same year, Colville published a fairly complete English translation (minus some of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ discussion of the ner points of Arabic etymology and grammar) under the title “Contra Christianorum” in his collection of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ shorter works (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 2002b, 70-93).

Despite the fact that the “Refutation” has fared better than many medieval

Arabic works in terms of its preservation and editing, the English translations of it still leave room for improvement. Finkel’s is uid and easy to read (in an early twentieth- century way), but inexact and sometimes tentative. Besides being more modern and more complete, Colville’s rendition is very readable and colloquial. However, it sometimes oversimplies al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argumentation and could sometimes use more

7. Reprinted with some additional notes in Newman (1993, 685-717). 6 accuracy on points relating to Eastern Christianity and heretical sects.8 For these reasons, I eagerly anticipate Montgomery’s forthcoming translation of the “Refutation.”

In the meantime, I have used my own provisional translation for the many excerpts I quote below (except where otherwise noted), followed by the page and line number from Harū ̄n’s edition.

The “Refutation” as Theology

Scholars have taken up a number of theological points of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Radd ʿala ̄ al-

Nasạ rā ,̄ though seldom in very much detail. In 1901, Hirschfeld used the BL manuscript to quote al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ views about anthropomorphism in Jewish translations of the Bible.

Yet it was not until 1970, when Pellat devoted an article to al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Christology, that any thorough study was published regarding the work’s theology. Pellat’s article is useful primarily for comparing al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Christological views across his several works and for understanding his use of both Qurʾanic and Biblical data about Jesus. Almost twenty years later, Schumann undertook to make sense of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ critique of Jesus’ divine sonship in the context of Muʿtazilite discussions regarding God’s attributes (1988

German; 2002 Eng. trans.).9 Finally, Kassis (2004, 237-243) compared al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ and Ibn

Hazm’s attacks on the reliability of Christian scriptures, concluding that two centuries before Ibn Hazm, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ had already “introduced the fallacy of the gospels as the foundation of a new methodology for the rebuttal of the Christians” (243). Though

8. For example, Colville translates “Daysanism”̣ and “Marcionism” as “obscure sects of Zoroastrianism” (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 2002, 78).

9. Schumann does not appear to be aware of Pellat’s 1970 article. 7 each of these treatments is useful in its own right, none of them represents a systematic, in-depth investigation of the theological argumentation in this text. Such an investigation is also beyond the scope of this dissertation, but I hope that the present study’s structural survey (chapter 3) and methodology of argumentation analysis

(chapters 4-5) will suggest a productive approach for future scholars to take in that regard.

The “Refutation” as Literature, History, and Argumentation

Finkel’s publication of an edition and partial translation of the “Refutation” seems to have been the most signicant factor bringing the work into the purview of historians and literary critics; nonetheless, studies of it have been few and far between.10 In his listing of Muslim apologists, Fritsch (1930, 13-14) gave an overview of the work that, despite being very brief, showed a keen understanding of its literary structure and audience. In the title of his edition of the “Refutation,” Sharqaw̄ ̄ (1984b) promised a “critical analytic study” of the text, but what follows appears to be mostly a summary of its contents that, moreover, relegates the cultural criticism in the epistle to only a few pages. Sadan (1986, 353-365) primarily addressed al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ opinions about

Jews, and, in the process, provided the most well rounded investigation into the dialectical tension between al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argumentative aims and his factual bases. The

M.A. thesis by Fletcher (2002)—the lengthiest treatment of the text to date— contextualized the “Refutation” by dealing with the history of Muslim-Christian

10. The notes Newman added in his reprint of Finkel’s translation are themselves a signicant addition to the study of the “Refutation” (Newman 1993, 685-717). 8 apologetics, suggested a literary structure, and gave a basic analysis of its social argumentation. Most recently, Hefter (2008, 83-91; 2014, 46-48) highlighted the epistolary features of the work, and Thomas (2009d) provided a brief overview of its textual history and the historical circumstances behind its composition.11 As is apparent from the above, only Fletcher’s thesis even attempts to treat the whole of the social argumentation in the “Refutation.” The following dissertation is intended to provide the most systematic and thorough analysis to date of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ cultural critique of

Christians in his Radd ʿala ̄ al-Nasạ rā .̄

Analyzing the argumentation of an author known for his versatility and uidity is a perilous endeavor, as evidenced by the opinions of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ modern and medieval readers regarding his reasoning in the “Refutation” and in his epistles more generally.

His own contemporary Ibn Qutayba (828-889), a Ḥanbalite qad̄ ̣̄ (judge) who shared a patron (al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n)̄ with al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ (Thomas 2009a), apparently found al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ approach perplexing:

Abū Muḥammad {Ibn Qutayba} said: Now we come to al-Jāḥiẓ, the last of the Kalām Masters, the one whereby his predecessors are gauged (muʿāyar). He was easily the best of them at arguing to his own preference, and the most prodigiously clever in the subtlety with which he magnied the trivial so that it became important, and diminished the important so that it became trivial. His ability for this was such that it enabled him to establish one thing and its opposite. . . .

11. The most useful bibliographic tools are Thomas (2009d), Pellat (1984, 151-152 no. 165), and Bihnam̄ (1978, 285-286). 9

He produced a treatise in which he lists the arguments of the Christians against the Muslims,12 but when he comes to rebut them, he patiently allows their argument to stand, as if he simply wanted to teach them something they did not understand13 and to cast doubts on the weak-minded members among the Muslims. (Ibn Qutayba 1995, 62 = 1908, 72; trans. in Montgomery 2013, 36; compare trans. in Kassis 2004, 241-242)

Both Kassis (2004, 243) and Pellat (1970, 220) seem to think al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is using arguments he knows are weak, and Finkel implies he is writing the “Refutation” out of a compulsion stemming from the tension between his own Muʿtazilite views and the policies of Caliph al-Mutawakkil (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1927, 315-316). Schumann sees the author’s line of reasoning as digressive and “not always clear” (2002, 59, 61, 63). But Beeston puts it most bluntly of all:

He was not a logician, and his Epistles were not always written with the object of convincing the readers and securing their adherence to a particular proposition or point of view, even though they frequently present a supercial appearance of argumentation; he was an observer of life, and his observations are as many-sided and mutually contradictory as life itself. (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1980, 1-2; cited in Fletcher 2002, 100)

Despite these disparagements of his logic and his sincerity, analyzing al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argumentation is not a hopeless cause. Sadan (1986, 353-365) has paved the way here by both taking into account al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ literary style and seriously considering the factual

12. On the basis of Ibn Qutayba’s statement here, Brockelmann (1996, 240) thinks this is probably a work separate from “The Refutation of Christians,” called “Christian Proofs against the Muslims” (Kitāb ḥujaj al-Nasạ ̄rā ʿalā al-Muslim̄n). However, the latter is not mentioned anywhere else, so far as I am aware. Rather, Ibn Qutayba’s description matches “The Refutation of Christians” if one simply allows him the opinion that al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ represented Christian arguments with too much plausibility and was therefore unsuccessful in refuting them.

”.perhaps, “warn them about something they did not know : ﺗﻨﺒﻴﻬﻬﻢ ﻋﻠﻰ ﻣﺎ ﻻ ﻳﻌﺮﻓﻮن .13 10 bases of the argumentation he puts forward. The layers of literary air and biased motives must be exposed, but it is worth investigating whether there lies still deeper a stratum of genuine argumentation rather than merely a “supercial appearance of argumentation” as Beeston would have it (compare Montgomery 2013, 8-9). It is incumbent on the reader and the scholar to hold open the possibility that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has a serious purpose in mind even where his style is entertaining and his reasoning less than obvious. I hope to do for al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ what he himself outlined as the best practice for understanding others’ argumentation, by elucidating his arguments in the way that best represents them:

When providing the account (qiṣṣa) of one’s disputant, and when describing someone else’s system, on must not turn his falsehood into a truth or render his defective ideas sound. However one must speak in accordance with how the creed (niḥla) can be interpreted and with what the position (maqāla) permits. And one should only quote one’s opponent’s words and provide an account of his position when at the very least one has the capacity to understand the position they have reached and the ability to grasp what they have comprehended. (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 4:50 [Kitab̄ al-Maʿrifa]; trans. in Montgomery 2013, 38)

My task, then, is to illuminate al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argumentation in the “Refutation” by evaluating its workings and contextualizing it as needed. For this, I will make reference to (1) contemporary historical sources and issues and (2) al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ other works with relevant scholarship about them. The author’s wide-ranging breadth of interests, however, makes it impossible for me to touch on all the relevant historical or intertextual points within the scope of this dissertation. Rather, my intent is to amplify 11 the usefulness of “The Refutation of Christians” as a source, by understanding it on a deeper, more cohesive level (see Montgomery 2013, 14).

Overview of Chapters

Part I of this dissertation lays the foundation needed for understanding “The

Refutation of Christians” as a product of al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ and his world. Pellat has done some of the most crucial work on al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ by synthesizing an account of his life, cataloguing his works (1956 and 1984), and translating portions of them (see esp. al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1949,

1967a, and 1969). His two-part biography is, for the most part, quite thorough, and his aim is to contextualize the well-known author in the rich intellectual and cultural life of Basra, Baghdad, and Samarra (1953 and 1952a).

But there are some major shortcomings in Pellat’s work that have not been adequately addressed in the following decades. The rst is that, in Pellat’s description, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ moves in an almost entirely Muslim world. While it is true that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ was raised in the predominantly Muslim city of Basra, and that most of the people he or others mention as his acquaintances were also Muslim (mostly Muʿtazilite), he was also only one step removed from a more diverse religious world. During his time in

Baghdad, if not already in Basra, he no doubt rubbed shoulders with Christian and

Jewish intellectuals moving in many of the same circles he did. At the caliph’s court in

Samarra, he presumably would have been acquainted with Christian secretaries in the ruler’s administration, familiar with multiple generations of Christian physicians attending the sovereign’s family, and aware of eunuchs and concubines of Christian origins who formed part of the caliph’s household. These are people he references 12 obliquely in “The Refutation of Christians,” and, on rare occasions, elsewhere in his works. One cannot understand what al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has to say about Christians without seeing him in this wider socio-religious context. In order to address this need, Chapter 1 provides a brief biography of al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ that summarizes Pellat’s work but also complements it with what is known about Christians in al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ social and intellectual world.

Chapter 2 confronts an issue that naturally arises from trying to contextualize the “Refutation”—at what point in his life did al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ write the work, and under what circumstances? The diculty in answering this question lies not so much in a lack of evidence, but in conicting evidence. Did he write the epistle before or during the reign of Caliph al-Mutawakkil? Pellat himself seems to oer contradictory opinions on the matter. A couple of scholars have briey commented on the issue since then, but none has oered a detailed or satisfactory solution. Since al-Mutawakkil’s reign marks a watershed in public policy toward the ahl al-dhimma (non-Muslims under protective pacts with the Muslim community), the date of the “Refutation” may be pivotal in understanding al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ social criticism of Christians. I conclude that while the evidence is not unanimous, there are good reasons to think al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ did complete the extant version in the early years of al-Mutawakkil’s incumbency.

The second weakness in Pellat’s monumental labor on the Jah̄ ̣iziaṇ corpus is his theory of the writer’s compositional method. Pellat and other scholars have typically seen al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ eclectic interests, amusing anecdotes, and wandering ideas as evidence that his approach to composing his works was often rambling and disorganized. 13

Furthermore, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ reputation in Arabic literature is that of a jester who in all likelihood did not really take his own ideas seriously. Behzadi, in her literary-critical work on Eloquence (2009b and see review in Montgomery 2011b, 623-627), and

Montgomery in his studies on al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ masterpieces, Eloquence (2008-9; see also

2011b) and Animals (2013), have done much to reverse these opinions. Although al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ wanted to entertain his readers along the way to his nal destination, he himself indicates that his playful approach is directed toward serious ends; in fact, subtle structural patterns lay just under the surface of even his most anecdotal works

(compare Fletcher 2002, 100-102). So far as I am aware, Chapter 3 is the rst serious attempt to apply this sort of thinking to understanding the structure and literary devices of “The Refutation of Christians” on more than a supercial level. In it, I argue that, far from being rambling, the work as a whole is organized into a perceptible ring structure, with major points typically consisting of the opponent’s argument followed by al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ rebuttal and sometimes counterargument. Further, the social argumentation that comprises most of the rst half of the epistle is placed in such a way that it is pivotal to the theological discussion and helps to frame it.

Part II of the dissertation hones in on this social portion of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argumentation, in which he takes up a host of issues about Christians in Abbasid society—including their societal inuence, their pretensions of intellectual expertise, and their social mores. Despite the fact that Finkel published an edition of the whole work and a translation of this particular section in the 1920’s (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1926 and 1927), it has never received the in-depth analysis it deserves. Scholars of historical Christian- 14

Muslim interaction have long been aware of it and occasionally reference it in their works (for example, Nau 1933, 119-122; Waardenburg 1999, 43-44; Reynolds 2001,

165). Yet, perhaps because of its genre as polemic, it is seldom mentioned outside of this context or taken seriously as a historical source, despite its relevance in general to intellectual and cultural history, and more specically to dhimm̄ law, al-Mutawakkil’s religious policy, and markers of social identity. Chapter 4 begins by making the case that the way to unpack the historical value of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ artful text is to analyze its argumentation. Tools from the eld of argumentation, coupled with clues from the historical context, can help expose the writer’s cardinal evidence and unearth his underlying assumptions. These, in turn, reveal as historical nuggets the realities on the ground that informed al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ arguments.

The core of Part II shows this type of analysis at work. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ divides his social argumentation into two halves. The remaining part of chapter 4 examines the rst half, in which he gives an “explanation” of the reasons Muslims came to like Christians better than Jews. Underneath the surface, though, it is really an extended argument invalidating these preferences. The historical factors that led Muslims to an appreciation for Christians are not justiable reasons for continuing this esteem for them; as such, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ retelling of them is, to an extent, a re-construal of their import.

Coming to a deeper understanding of his reasoning allows the historian to glimpse the

rst two centuries of Muslim-Christian-Jewish interaction through a third-century lens, but also to identify what al-Jah̄ ̣iz,̣ as an astute social observer, saw as the most serious ideological obstacles to implementing more restrictive social restrictions on Christians. 15

At the center of his case is his attempt to overturn the popular understanding of

Qurʾan 5:82-85, in which he argues that the Christians of his day are not to be identied with the “Christians” who are “closest in friendship” to the believers. Al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is warning his Muslim readers that, rather than valuing Christians as “closest in friendship,” they must take care not to take Christians as allies, a caution that strongly resonates with the ideology of al-Mutawakkil’s edict removing dhimm̄s from positions of authority in his government.

In the second half of his argumentation (which I address in chapter 5), he explicitly puts forward his contention that, though more liked because of their prestige and power, Christians are actually more deant and malicious toward Muslims than

Jews are. They use their wealth and power to spurn their rightful place in society, violating their covenants with Muslims. Their intellectual pursuits, instead of strengthening the faith of Muslims, push the weak toward apostasy. And their piety manifests in ways that stain the community with impurity. By implication, if Christians are worse than Jews, who are “ercest in enmity” toward the believers (Q. 5:82), then

Christians actually pose a threat rather than a benet to the Umma, or Muslim community.

Chapter 5 also juxtapositions al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ description of Christians’ social prestige with contemporary texts about the obligations of non-Muslims. Through this comparison, the historical kernel behind al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argumentation becomes evident: dhimm̄ relations were at a point at which the Muslim public could readily observe high-class Christians aunting their social status, even while there was a general 16 understanding that such behavior was contrary to their stipulated role. Further, enforcing dhimm̄ restrictions was no simple task in such an environment. If the caliph was going to unilaterally decree a more subordinate place for dhimm̄s, he was going to have to turn the tide of popular opinion about Muslims’ relationship to Christians. Al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ was just the sort of writer to do it. ______Part I Al-Jāhiẓ ̣ and his World ______

17 CHAPTER 1 Al-Jāhiẓ ’̣ Life

Sometime after the caliph al-Mutawakkil came to power in 847, the caliph’s secretary, al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n,̄ wrote a letter to the renowned writer Abū ʿUthman̄ ʿAmr b. Baḥr al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ urging him to nish o the “Refutation of Christians” (Al-Radd ʿala ̄ al-

Nasạ rā )̄ 1 (Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:72). Given that caliphs and court ocials had patronized al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ work for decades, such a request might seem unremarkable at rst glance.

However, the writer now found himself to be a conspicuous Muʿtazilite in a political climate that was on its way to becoming anti-Muʿtazilite. Of his two chief patrons, both of them Muʿtazilite, Ibn al-Zayyat̄ was dead, and Aḥmad b. Ab̄ Duʾad̄ was disenfranchised. Clearly then, the commission from al-Mutawakkil to compose a work of anti-Christian polemic came despite al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ theological views and political associations, raising the question: How did al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ achieve the literary appeal and religious outlook that would induce the caliph to hire him to write a refutation of

Christians? Answering this question may be one of the keys to understanding al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ perspective in his portrayal of Christians.

1. For a discussion of whether this is the same as the work now extant by the same title, see pg. 41-49.

18 19

Sources

Historical sources about al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ are plentiful but piecemeal. Due to his enduring renown as a literary gure, numerous medieval Arabic writers included him in their biographical dictionaries or historical compilations.2 Perhaps his earliest biographer was al-Masʿūd̄ (d. 956 [345 A.H.]), who, a little less than a century after al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ death, gives brief but invaluable biographical highlights in his historical-geographical work Meadows of Gold (composed 943-956 [332-345 A.H.]), including al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ death date in Muḥarram 255 A.H. (December 868/January 869) (al-Masʿūd̄ 1861, 8:33-36).

Besides al-Masʿūd̄, Pellat (1953, xvii) identies three authors from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries who compiled primary source material about al-Jah̄ ̣iz:̣ Ibn ʿAsakir̄

(1996, 45:431-444), al-Baghdad̄ ̄ (1931, 212-220), and Yaqū ̄t (1907-27, 6:56-80). Yet since these texts are largely composed of humorous anecdotes and extemporaneous poems, they leave relatively little for the historian to work with in piecing together al-

Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ major life events. In his Fihrist, Ibn al-Nad̄m mentions a few key details about the writer’s life, along with a voluminous list of his works (1970, 1:397-409).3 Other than these, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ own writings are, of course, an important source; but given that he typically speaks about himself only in passing, gathering the scraps of information scattered across his voluminous writings is no easy task. Pellat has been admirably thorough in synthesizing the data from both these types of sources, making his work

2. For an extensive list of these medieval biographies of al-Jah̄ ̣iz,̣ see Pellat 1953, xvii-xix.

3. The editions of the Fihrist Pellat used for his early works on al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ (1956 and prior?) were based on manuscripts that were missing the section on al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ (see Pellat 1984, 117-118). 20 the standard scholarly biography of al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ (see Pellat 1952a and 1953). Nevertheless, large gaps still remain: Pellat himself notes the dearth of information about both al-

Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ childhood (1953, 64) and his time in Baghdad and Samarra (1952a, 47), and

Montgomery points out the need for a prosopographical study of the people al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ mentions in his works (2011b, 627); such a study would also reect back on al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ himself. Some questions may be impossible to answer using the extant sources, but I suspect there is much still to be gleaned from al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ comments about himself, as well as from tracing his personal network through the many names of contemporaries he mentions in his works. Moreover, very little work has been done on the question of al-

Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ personal interaction with Christians. While the following refers at times to the primary sources mentioned above, it relies heavily on Pellat’s work, with the hope that future scholarship will more directly and thoroughly address the remaining gaps.

Education

Around the year 776 (160 A.H.),4 ʿAmr was born in what is now southern Iraq, in the city of Basra (Pellat 1953, 49-50; 1990, 78). His grandfather was “black” (aswad)

(Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 56), and his family were probably freedmen (mawālī) attached to the

4. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ birthdate is dicult to settle conclusively, since the biographical sources record contradictory information. Several biographers accept a tradition in which al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ states that he was born in the same year as Abū Nuwās, in 150 A.H. (767/768) (see, for example, Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:56); but this would make his age 105 lunar years at his death in Muḥarram of 255 A.H. (Dec. 868/Jan. 869) (see al-Masʿūd̄1861, 8:33; Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:56; Pellat 1952, 59; 1990, 81). Pellat (1953, 49-50), who considers this death date to be the only rm anchor, considers it signicant that the only mention of al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ living a century is in a late and unreliable source. Reasoning from the death date and two traditions that suggest al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ lived into his nineties, Pellat places his birth in approximately 160 A.H. (776). Perhaps this can be reconciled with the account Ibn al-Nad̄m knows, according to which al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ says he is “about the age of Abū Nuwas”̄ (1970, 1:398), rather than having been born in the same year. While I am not entirely convinced of Pellat’s assertion that the tradition of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ birth in the same year as Abū Nuwās is apocryphal (as the date itself [150 A.H.] may have been corrupted), I do accept his method of approximating al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ birthdate. 21

Banū Kinānah (relatives of Quraysh) (Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 56; see also Ibn al-Nad̄m 1970,

1:397-398; Pellat 1953, 51-53; 1990, 78). Later he would become known as “al-Jāḥiẓ” for his bulging eyes.5 Not long after his birth, his father, Baḥr, died (Pellat 1990, 78).

Since the madrasa did not yet exist and his family was not likely wealthy enough to hire a tutor, ʿAmr probably attended the local mosque for his education (see Pellat

1953, 65). Nothing suggests he traveled to other cities for scholarly training in his youth, as hadith scholars were wont to do (Pellat 1953, 68); rather he lingered around the mosque and the Mirbad (a stopover for Bedouin caravans), listening to discussions and scholarly lectures (Pellat 1990, 78; see also al-Jāḥiẓ 1969, 109).6 During his years there as a youth and young adult, the town was a center of Arabic literary and linguistic scholarship, as well as of Muʿtazilite thought (see Demichelis 2013). Its intimate connection with the Arabian peninsula made it possible for grammarians, philologists, and narrators (ruwat̄ ) to gather poems, stories, and patterns of speech from

Bedouins who halted with their caravans at the edge of town. The vast array of anecdotes al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ reproduces in his writings and his manifest appreciation for linguistic eloquence, not to mention his own rhetorical skill, demonstrate how much he gleaned from his hometown’s cultural riches. As Pellat points out, “Basra was a microcosm whose every facet Jāḥiẓ knew and was able to translate into literature”

(1990, 79). Moreover, his informal education was in a wide variety of subjects; his

5. Pellat gives his full (adult) name as Abū ʿUthmān ʿAmr b. Baḥr b. Maḥbūb al-Kinānī al-Baṣrī (Pellat 1990, 78).

6. In al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ own words: “I got to know the ruwāt who were among the regular attenders at the great mosque and the Mirbad” (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 109). 22 multidisciplinary perspective is evident when he reects on his experience listening to the various types of scholars who collected and recited poetry:

The grammarians only aimed to collect verses containing [characteristic] iʿrāb,7 while the transmitters8 cared only for verses containing a rare word or an abstruse image calling for laborious explanation. The transmitters of secular traditions, for their part, looked only for proverbs and key passages.

In contrast to such specialists, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ broad training must have helped forge the hallmark of his writings—communicating an encyclopedic grasp of knowledge in a charmingly down-to-earth package (see Pellat 1952a, 53).

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ would later become known for his passionate love of reading,9 but as a young man, his education must have at rst been primarily oral—learning to recite, listening to lectures, and hearing books explained rather than reading them independently. Since books were expensive, and a public library is not evidenced in

Basra at this time, his access to them must have been limited, at least until he started to be mentored by established scholars (Pellat 1953, 66-67), who may have eventually provided him access to books recently translated from Greek and Pahlavi, among others (Pellat 1990, 79).

7. The vowels indicating the case or mood of a word. Presumably, the grammarians al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ mentions were interested in using the iʿrāb vocalized in Bedouin poetry as data for their grammatical systems.

8. That is, transmitters of hadith.

9. Al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ was known to rent copyists’ shops and stay there overnight to read their books (Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:56). Fatḥ b. Khaqā n̄ reports that al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ “used to attend the majālisa of al-Mutawakkil and when he saw real necessity, he pulled a book out of his sleeve or boot and read it in the majlis of al-Mutawakkil” (Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:56). See also Ibn al-Nad̄m (1970, 1:398). 23

Among the scholars from whom al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ received his learning were noted academics of his hometown, including the famous Basran triad of al-Aṣmaʿī (d. 828

[213 A.H.]),10 Abū ʿUbayda (728-824/825 [110-209 A.H.]),11 and Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī

(d. 830/831 [214/215 A.H.]) (Pellat 1953, 69),12 all of whom were students of Abū

ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ, the Basran philologist who helped pioneer the method of seeking

Bedouin sources for grammar and lexicography (Lewin 1960, 717). The work of these three students in poetry, lexicography, and ḥadīth became the core curriculum for

Arabic studies (Pellat 1990, 78-79; see also Lewin 1960, 717). More signicant in tone, perhaps, is Yāqūt’s statement that al-Jāḥiẓ got his grammar from Abū al-Ḥasan al-

Akhfash13 (d. between 825-835 [210-221 A.H.]) (1907-27, 6:56; see also Pellat 1953,

69). Yaz̄d b. Harū ̄n and al-Sar̄ b. ʿAbdawayh appear in al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ own work as his hadith instructors (Pellat 1953, 69). Ibn ʿAsakir̄ adds to them Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b.

Ibrah̄ ̄m al-Qad̄ ̣̄ and al-Ḥajjaj̄ b. Muḥammad b. Ḥammad̄ b. Salama (Pellat 1953, 69).

While it is dicult to evaluate the merit of each individual claim about al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣

10. The philologist Abū Saʿ̄d ʿAbd al-Malik b. Qurayb al-Asmạ ʿ̄ worked in the court of the caliph Harūn al-Rash̄d in Baghdad, but apparently returned to Basra after Harū ̄n’s death in 809 (193 A.H.). This suggests that al- Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ studied under him in Basra sometime between 809 and 828.

11. Abū ʿUbayda Maʿmar b. al-Muthannā was a compiler of pre-Islamic and early Islamic traditions, and, according to some accounts, was Jewish (Gibb 1960, 158).

12. Al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ says he attended the majālis (jalastu ilā) of al-Aṣmaʿī and Abū ʿUbayda, among others (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1969, 109; 1975, 4:23). Yaqū ̄t reports that he listened (smʿ) to these as well as to Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī (Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:56).

13. Abū al-Ḥasan Saʿ̄d b. Masʿada al-Akhfash al-Awsaṭ was a Tam̄m̄ mawlā born in the city of Balkh (now in Afghanistan). He studied under the renowned grammarian Sibawayhi, and then taught and publicized Sibawayhi’s masterpiece on Arabic grammar, known simply as Al-Kitāb (Brockelmann and Pellat 1960; see Ibn al- Nad̄m 1970, 113-114). 24 intellectual ancestry, it is clear that at Basra he had access to a wealth of knowledge; the fact that he made use of it is clear from his writings.

Basra was also the home of Muʿtazilism—rational Islamic thought in conversation with classical philosophy (see Demichelis 2013, 209-210). Yaqū ̄t reports that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ received his kalam̄ , or theological reasoning, from the Muʿtazilite thinker

Ibrah̄ ̄m b. Sayyar̄ al-Nazẓ ạ m̄ (1907-27, 6:56; see also Pellat 1953, 69). Al-Jāḥiẓ and al-

Nazẓ ạ m̄ knew each other at Basra, where both may have attended the majalis̄ of the prominent theologian Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllaf,14 but al-Jāḥiẓ ocially became al-

Nazẓ ạ m’s̄ student later on at Baghdad (Pellat 1953, 69-70). Given that al-Jāḥiẓ was a few years older than his teacher,15 al-Masʿūd̄’s statement that he was al-Nazẓ ạ m’s̄ ghulam̄ , translated “page” in the French (1861, 8:35), must actually refer to his role as some kind of grown assistant (Pellat 1953, 69).

Even though Basra seems to have been founded as a Muslim military camp and was certainly a center for Islamic intellectualism (Demichelis 2013, esp. 191), al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ probably had opportunity to interact with not only Muslim, but also Christian intellectuals there even before he went to Baghdad. Timothy I (r. 780-823), the

Catholicos of the Church of the East during al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ time in Basra, wrote at least one letter in Syriac to the “priests and believers of the city of Basra and Hûbullat

[Ubullah],” in which he argued that despite the Biblical references to Jesus as the

14. See the episode al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ records in his book Bukhalāʾ (1999, 131) for one indication of his acquaintance with Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllaf.

15. Pellat (1953, 69) calculates al-Nazẓ ạ m’s̄ birthdate as no earlier than 796/797 (180 A.H.). 25

“slave” (ʿabdâ) of God, the Messiah could not be considered such in a Qurʾanic sense

(Timothy I 1914, 156-205 = Letter 34; see Grith 2007a, esp. 115-116).16 The letter gives a glimpse of a Christian congregation in Basra that must have been in close conversation with Muslims.

More importantly, though, Christian thinkers engaged in kalam̄ and frequented scholarly discussions known as majalis̄ (sing. majlis) alongside Muslims.17 In fact, the

Fihrist mentions that the Muʿtazilite Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllaf̄ , whose majalis̄ both al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ and al-Nazẓ ạ m̄ probably attended (Pellat 1953, 70), wrote a work apparently aimed at a contemporary Christian mutakallim in Basra, ʿAmmar̄ al-Basṛ ̄ (Grith 1983,

147; Ibn al-Nad̄m 1970, 1:388).18 ʿAmmar̄ al-Basṛ ̄ was, in turn, thoroughly conversant with the views of Abū al-Hudhayl, as Grith has detailed (1983). It is entirely possible that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ met ʿAmmar̄ al-Basṛ ̄ at one of these majalis̄ ; in any case, people in his

Muʿtazilite circle clearly interacted with Christians both in person and in writing.19, 20

16. Letters 35 and 36, addressed to Mar̄ Nasr,̣ probably had the same destination as Letter 34, since they continue the themes of Letter 34 and refer to earlier correspondence (Grith 2007a, 116-117).

17. See Grith 1983, 145-146 for examples. Al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ acknowledges Christian mutakallimūn in his Kitāb al- Akhbār (Gutas 1998, 85; al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 38).

18. The Fihrist gives its title as Kitāb ʿalā ʿAmmār al-Nasrạ ̄n̄ f̄ al-radd ʿalā al-Nasạ ̄rā.

19. A tantalizing possible example of just how familiar al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ might have been with Christian scholarship appears in the Kitāb al-ʿIbar wa-l-iʿtibār, a work of uncertain authorship that was attributed to al-Jah̄ ̣iz.̣ (Gibb thinks it is authentic [1948, 162]; Pellat thinks not [1956, 159].) The author mentions earlier writers who had addressed his topic, among them the Nestorian Arabic writer Jibr̄l b. Nuḥ al-Anbar̄ ̄, as well as Diodore of Tarsus and Theodoret of Cyrrhus, whose works, he notes, had been translated from Greek into Arabic via Syriac (Grith 1983, 153-154). If al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ was the author who made this reference, it shows he had more than a supercial acquaintance with Nestorian Christian thought. If al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ was not the author, the remark is nevertheless an example of the level of engagement Muslim scholars in a similar stream of thought had with their Christian counterparts.

20. In addition to the rich scholarly life of Basra in which Christians might participate, Christians had at least two major centers of intellectual activity south of Baghdad. One was Basra’s older rival to the north, al-Hira (Syriac: Ḥirtâ), home to a signicant Arab Christian population known as the ʿIbad̄ (see Toral-Nieho 2010). The 26

Writings and Patronage

By his own account, al-Jāḥiẓ preferred writing to speaking (al-Jāḥiẓ 1969, 104), and he ultimately began writing his own books.21 Which of his writings were the very

rst is uncertain, but the Basran grammarian al-Yaz̄d̄22 apparently introduced some of his early works on the imamate to the caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 813-833) around the year

815-816 (200 A.H.), when al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ was about forty years old (Pellat 1965, 385). The question of who was the rightful successor to lead the Muslim community was still a rather sensitive one for the Abbasids. Given the violent history among the dierent political factions and Basra’s involvement in the conict,23 al-Jāḥiẓ’ support for the

Abbasids was evidently valuable to al-Maʾmūn (see Pellat 1952a, 54).24 The latter said

other was Jundisapur (Syriac: Bet Lapat)̣ to the east, where Christian physicians and scholars trained, such as those of the Bukht̄shūʿ family, whom al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ mentions (1969, 115).

21. Pellat catalogs 193 titles attributed to al-Jah̄ ̣iz.̣ He notes that about 30 of these are extant and intact, including several he regards as apocryphal. About 50 are partially preserved. (Pellat 1984, 180)

22. Presumably Abū Muḥammad Yaḥyā b. al-Mubarak̄ al-Yaz̄d̄, who was from Basra and tutored al- Maʾmūn (see al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1969, 5, 108 and note in index). For more about Abū Muḥammad and his descendants who also took the laqab (epithet) “al-Yaz̄d̄,” see Ibn al-Nad̄m’s Fihrist (1970, 109-110).

23. A century before al-Jāḥiẓ’ birth, Basra had been embroiled in the struggle between the Umayyads and the shiʿat ʿAlī or “Shiʿites,” those who supported the leadership of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and his descendants. On the one hand, Basrans had been among the pro-ʿAlī party that traveled to Medina to urge the resignation of the Caliph ʿUthmān (Fahd 1996, 420). On the other, tribal chiefs opposed to the Shiʿite takeover of neighboring Kūfa (led by al-Mukhtār ibn ʿUbayd al-Thaqafī in 685 [66 A.H.]) had taken refuge in Basra and helped to retake Kūfa less than two years later (Fahd 1996, 421).

24. When al-Masʿūdī, who had Shiʿite sympathies (see Pellat 1991, 785), praised al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ neutrality on the Shiʿite issue, perhaps it is his pro-Abbasid stance that was actually in view:

The Kitāb al-Ḥayawān (Book of Animals), the Kitāb al-Ṭufayliyīn (Book of Parasites), the Kitāb al-Bukhalāʾ (Book of Misers), and the rest of his books achieve the utmost perfection in that none of them take up with Naṣb [a sect of the Khawarij̄ violently opposed to ʿAl̄], nor with rejecting what is true (al-Masʿūdī 1861, 34-35). 27 of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ books (at least according to al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ own account in Eloquence

[3:374-375]):

Someone whose intelligence we respect and whose reports enjoy our condence has given us an account of the sound workmanship and abundant interest these books contain. We said to him: Description, it is said, sometimes casts a better light than personal scrutiny, but having now read them ourselves we see that personal scrutiny casts a better light even than the description you gave us. On careful re-reading they show themselves better still, just as the rst reading disclosed greater merit than the original report. Here is a book which does not require the presence of its author [to be understood], and needs no advocate; the subject is conscientiously dealt with, and profound thinking goes hand in hand with elegance and lucidity; its appeal is both to princes and the common people, to the élite and the masses. (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 108-109)

Hereafter, Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ spent much of his time in Baghdad and Samarra (Pellat 1965,

385), where his success as a writer seems to have had much to do with the way his style connected with readers who now were not just elite scholars or administrators, but increasingly other literate professionals (Schoeler 2009b, 51-54).25 Schoeler points out that while many prose works up until this time were intended as teaching notes to be communicated orally, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ uid prose was meant to be read by individuals; or, as al-Maʾmūn put it, the author’s presence was not required. This was in contrast to writers such as the grammarian Abū al-Ḥasan al-Akhfash, reputed to be one of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ teachers (Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:56): when al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ asked al-Akhfash why he wrote books in such an incomprehensible style, he responded that he did so intentionally so that he could earn a living when his readers hired him to explain his own books (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣

25. Among other factors, the availability of paper was making a dierence; al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ himself had something to say about the advantages of paper over parchment (1969, 211-212). 28

1969, 134)! Perhaps al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ informal and largely oral education can be observed in the way he seems to “speak” to his readers rather than encoding terse thoughts onto the page. In any case, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to have been at the forefront of a movement that opened Arabic literary prose to a broader audience.

Accessible prose was not the only trend gaining momentum among Baghdad’s literate population during al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ time there. The translation of Greek classics, such as

Aristotle’s writings, into Arabic (usually via Syriac) was on the rise, infusing Arabic scholarly discussions with fresh material, but also providing a new substrate for the conversation between Christians and Muslims (see Grith 2008, 106-108). Evidently, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ relied on translations of one or more of Aristotle’s works about animals when he composed his own work known as Kitab̄ al-Ḥayawan̄ (Book of Animals); however, the question of who translated the version he used is still unresolved (Najim 1979; Miller

2013, 58-76).26 Christian translators, who were often philosophers in their own right

(Grith 2008, 106-108), were not far removed from al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ circles. One of the most prominent was Ḥunayn b. Isḥaq̄ (808-873), who became al-Mutawakkil’s physician

(Grith 2008, 119-222). Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ quotes him when he discusses cures for scorpion stings in his book Animals (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1938-45, 5:354).27 Other Christian translator- scholars during al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ time included Ḥunayn’s son, Isḥaq̄ b. Ḥunayn, as well as Qustạ b. Lūqa ̄ al-Baʿalbakk̄ (c. 830-912) and the Bukht̄shūʿ family from Jundisapur. A

26. Ibn al-Nad̄m mentions a translation by Ibn al-Bitṛ ̄q during al-Maʾmūn’s caliphate, and al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ quotes an extant translation attributed to Ibn al-Bitṛ ̄q, but there is debate over whether this translation was in fact done by Ibn al-Bitṛ ̄q (Najim 1979, 307-308; Miller 2013, 53 note 43).

27. Al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ only uses his given name, Ḥunayn, but the medical context and Ḥunayn b. Isḥaq’s̄ prominence strongly suggest he means Ḥunayn b. Isḥaq.̄ 29

“Bukht̄shūʿ” appears as a physician in a story al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ tells featuring persons of a variety of professions (1969, 115).28 On the whole, however, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ rarely refers in his works to his Christian associates at court. Notwithstanding that he frequented the intellectual spheres where these gures were active and must have been familiar with the breadth of their work, in “The Refutation of Christians” he generically labels

Christian scholars as mere translators, mechanical conveyers of pre-Christian Greek sciences, rather than true intellectuals (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 314-315).

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ precise situation at court is dicult to make out. Though it was al-

Maʾmūn’s approval that initially brought him to Baghdad (Pellat 1965, 385), it is unclear whether he maintained ocial responsibilities at court for any length of time.

By one report, he was given a position as a secretary in al-Maʾmūn’s administation, but only lasted three days before being asked to resign (Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:58; Pellat 1952a,

48; see also Ibn al-Nad̄m 1970, 1:398-399). By other accounts, he assisted Ibrah̄ ̄m b. al-ʿAbbas̄ al-Sụ ̄l̄ for a while at the chancellery (diwan̄ al-rasāʾil)29 (Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:62;

Ibn al-Nad̄m 1970, 1:398-399; compare Pellat 1952a, 48); the latter served from the reign of al-Maʾmūn through that of al-Mutawakkil (Pellat 1952a, 48). In any case, his administrative duties do not feature prominently in his own writings or in those of his biographers.

28. Note the enmity of Gabriel Bukht̄shūʿ toward Ḥunayn b. Isḥaq̄ in a story Grith relates (2008, 142-143).

29. Interpreting the word khilāfa, used by Yaqū ̄t, as “deputy” rather than “successor” (see Pellat 1952a, 48). 30

Rather, a signicant portion of his income was probably from patrons of his literature, as well as, perhaps, from teaching.30 One way for writers to make money o their works was to “dedicate” a work to a well-to-do person who remunerated the author accordingly.31 Presumably, the dedicatee was someone who appreciated a treatise on the particular subject and was willing to nancially support the writer’s eorts: “The authors expected rewards from the persons to whom their works were dedicated, much like the poets for their laudatory poems” (Schoeler 2009b, 55).32

Conceivably, the dedicatee might also hope the book would inuence the public in a particular direction. The dedications of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ books for which we have records reveal some of his major patrons to be the vizier Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik al-Zayyat̄

(Ibn al-Zayyat)̄ , the Grand Qad̄ ̣̄ Aḥmad b. Ab̄ Duʾad̄ , the qad̄ ̣̄’s son Muḥammad, and the Turkish secretary al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n̄ . On one occasion, as Ibn al-Nad̄m relates, al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ explained that he used the payment he received from three of his works—5,000 dinars each for Al-Ḥayawan̄ (Animals), Al-Bayan̄ (Eloquence), and Al-Zarʿ wa-l-nakhl

(Sowing and the Palm Tree)—to buy a well-mantained estate at Basra (Ibn al-Nad̄m

1970, 1:402). As Schoeler points out, such a price, if accurate, was very high compared to the 1,000 dinars Abū al-Faraj al-Isfahạ n̄ ̄ supposedly received for his “monumental” book Al-Aghan̄ ̄ (Songs) (Schoeler 2009b, 56).

30. Pellat suggests he did some teaching, based on the seemingly rst-hand experience from which he writes his book about schoolmasters (1952a, 49).

31. The term “dedicate” may be misleading here, as the dedicatee was not normally mentioned in the book (Schoeler 2009, 56).

32. For an example of a letter to the dedicatee of a book, see the translation of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ letter to Aḥmad b. Ab̄ Duʾad̄ regarding the Treatise on Legal Verdicts (Kitāb al-Futyā) in Montgomery (2013, 201-207). 31

Given that al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ literary patrons held inuential positions at court, they were also his political advocates—and, sometimes, political liabilities. During the reigns of al-Maʾmūn’s successors, al-Muʿtasiṃ (r. 833-842) and al-Wathiq̄ (r. 842-847), al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ primary advocate at court seems to have been Ibn al-Zayyat̄ (named vizier in 834/835

[219/220 A.H.], d. 847 [233 A.H.]) (Pellat 1952, 55-56; 1990, 80; al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 7).

Another of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ patrons was Aḥmad ibn Ab̄ Duʾad,̄ a fellow Muʿtazilite from Basra

(Ibn al-Nad̄m 1970, 1:410) whose duties as the Grand Qad̄ ̣̄ involved hearing cases related to the pro-Muʿtazilite inquisition, or Miḥna, including that of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal himself (Zetersteeń and Pellat 1960, 271).33 Since Ibn Ab̄ Duʾad̄ and his son Abū al-

Wal̄d Muḥammad were prominent Muʿtazilites, it is no surprise that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ dedicated some Muʿtazilite epistles to them (see al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 7). In another of his works, he takes issue with certain nuances of his teacher al-Nazẓ ạ m’s̄ theology (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969,

34-35). Unfortunately, though, few of his Muʿtazilite works survive.34

Shortly after al-Mutawakkil’s accession to power (r. 847-861), Ibn al-Zayyat,̄ who had been in conict with Aḥmad b. Ab̄ Duʾad,̄ was dismissed (847 [233 A.H.]) and then tortured in a spiked device he himself had made for punishing others (Sourdel

1971, 974). He died not long afterward, presumably from the wounds he received. At this point, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ naturally ed to Basra, not wanting to be the “second of two”

(Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:57; Pellat 1952, 56). Yet he would not remain banished from the

33. See al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ description of Ibn Abi Duʾad’s̄ role in examining Ibn Ḥanbal (1969, 48-50).

34. See van Ess (2009) for a description of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Muʿtazilite views and Pellat (1984) for a catalog of his works. Pellat’s anthology (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1969, 32-55) contains brief excerpts of his Muʿtazilite works in English translation. 32 capital for long; Ibn Ab̄ Duʾad̄ initiated his reinstatement (Pellat 1952, 56; see also al-

Baghdad̄ ̄ 1931, 218).

Ibn Ab̄ Duʾad̄ lasted somewhat longer than Ibn al-Zayyat̄ did in al-Mutawakkil’s administration, but lost his inuence early on during the caliph’s reign (Zetersteeń and

Pellat 1960, 271). His son Muḥammad took over his duties when Ibn Ab̄ Duʿad’s̄ health failed, but was dismissed in 851/852 (237 A.H.) and temporarily jailed

(Zetersteeń and Pellat 1960, 271). About two years later, in 854 (239/240 A.H.), both father and son died within a month of each other (Zetersteeń and Pellat 1960, 271).

It might seem that, as a Muʿtazilite writer who had just lost his advocate at the caliph’s court, al-Jāḥiẓ was not in a likely position to continue in political favor.

Nonetheless, he somehow gained the support of the Turkish secretary al-Fatḥ b.

Khaqā n,̄ who wrote the following letter (mentioned above) to al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ (preserved in

Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:72):

Abū Ḥayyan̄ [al-Tawḥ̄d̄?] said, “I heard Abū Muʿammar, the secretary in the Badū ̄rya35̄ chancellery, say, ‘Al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n̄ wrote a letter to al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ in which he said in part of it, “The Commander of the Faithful loves you and is cheered whenever you are mentioned. Given your distance from his assembly (majlis), if he did not think so highly of you for your scholarship and your knowledge, he would force you [to report] your opinion and conduct regarding what you are engrossed in and devoting yourself to. When he presented me with its title (ʿunwan̄ ),36 I caused him to think even more highly of you. Let that be the reward for your trouble. So ascribe this situation to me and make good on this favor regarding the treatise “The Refutation of Christians” (Kitab̄ al-Radd ʿala ̄ al- Nasạ rā ).̄ Finish it up, send it to me quickly, and prot yourself from it. You will be receiving your salary—I have requested what was overdue and have asked

35. A region near Baghdad.

36. Possibly “preface.” 33 that you be paid a whole year in advance. This is not the sort of thing you could have arranged yourself. I have read your epistle ‘On the Insight of Ghannam’̄ (risalatikā F̄ Baṣ̄ra Ghannam̄ ), and if I would not make you more arrogant, I would tell you what came over me upon reading it. Peace.”’” (Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:71-72)37

Al-Mutawakkil clearly approved of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ writing, to the point of authorizing his receiving a salary. Moreover, the essay “The Refutation of Christians,” apparently heightened that opinion. The more puzzling aspect of the letter is that the caliph appears to already know something about the “Refutation of Christians,” even before al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n’s̄ advocacy. Had the caliph commissioned the work directly, from the outset? Probably not, considering that al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n̄ seems to be negotiating payment after the essay was already underway. Perhaps—and this is merely a suggestion, given the incompleteness of the evidence—al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ had begun the work in the hope that it would nd approval from the caliph, and al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n,̄ as al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ advocate at court, helped to ensure that it did receive appropriate remuneration. The money exchanged suggests the essay’s agenda was set by the caliph. Nonetheless, it was presumably up to al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ how to validate that agenda with his perceptive observations, robust argumentation, and unique style.

37. See also Pellat’s translation of this letter into English (al-Jāḥiẓ 1969, 7-8) and French (Pellat 1952, 57-58). Schumann (1988, 49; 2002, 59) seems to take al-Fatḥ’s letter as referring to the caliph’s approval of an already complete work. 34

Conclusions

His encyclopedic knowledge, succulent prose style, and readiness to support the prevailing regime were all factors that guaranteed the Abbasid writer ʿAmr b. Baḥr al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ a place of inuence in the cosmopolitan centers of Baghdad and Basra. In fact, his career as a writer spanned the reigns of about nine caliphs, proving more resilient than the careers of the court ocials who kept him in business. Toward the end of his lifetime, he had achieved so much prestige as a popular essayist that the caliph al-

Mutawakkil found his services indispensable for his program against Christians and

Jews, despite al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ ties to personages who had lost political favor and the fact that al-Mutawakkil no longer continued his predecessors’ support of Muʿtazilite theology.

The incentives al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ had to promote this polemic ideology are clear, though how such an ideology mapped to his own persuasions is not. As he wrote for Muslim audiences, his acquaintance with Christians’ behavior and theological reasoning rarely came to the foreground in his works, but it must have provided the bank of observations on which he drew to write his “Refutation of Christians.” Thus, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ political savvy, literary prowess, and personal experience all shaped his portrayal of

Christians in Abbasid society. CHAPTER 2 Dating the “Refutation”

Before going on to examine in depth the way al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ characterizes Christians in his society, it is important to consider where this text intersects the historical record.

Can it really be identied with the work mentioned above, written during the reign of

Caliph al-Mutawakkil? The issue at stake is whether the themes and implications of the refutation’s arguments are connected with the drastic measures al-Mutawakkil instituted against Christians and Jews. Establishing the date of composition, to the extent possible, can help reveal al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ motivation and purpose in writing the work, as well as contextualize the social situations to which he refers.

The Dilemma

At rst glance, there seems to be contradictory evidence regarding when al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ

nished the “The Refutation of Christians,” since one line of reasoning puts it before, and another after, the year 847. From the letter of al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n̄ quoted by Yaqū ̄t

(1907-27, 6:71-72) and cited above (see pg. 32), it would seem clear that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ was writing “The Refutation of Christians” during al-Mutawakkil’s reign, which began in

847. Al-Mutawakkil must be the caliph referred to in the letter, since he was the one

35 36 who employed al-Fatḥ, a personal friend of his, in various government posts,1 and the two died together when al-Mutawakkil was assassinated in 861 (247 A.H.) (al-Ṭabar̄

1989b, 180; Pinto 1965, 837). There is no particular basis for doubting Yaqū ̄t’s information here. In fact, as I will attempt to demonstrate, this scenario for the work’s composition accords well with the internal evidence from the text itself.

However, in his book Animals, which Pellat assumes to have been completed by

847 (Pellat 1952a, 61; 1956, 158 no. 57; 1984, 139 no. 85; al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 10 n. 1), al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ twice mentions an apparently complete work that could be identied with “The

Refutation of Christians.” The rst is at the beginning of the work, where the author lists at great length his books which “you,” the addressee,2 criticized. Among these, he includes, “my book against3 the Christians and the Jews” (kitab̄ ̄ ʿala ̄ al-Nasạ rā ̄ wa-l-

Yahūd) (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1938-45, 1:9). (Titles tended to be exible, and authors did not necessarily insist on using one particular title for a book [Montgomery 2013, 72].) If this is in fact one work rather than two separate works opposing each of these religious communities (Thomas 2009d, 709),4 then it might well t the extant “Refutation of

1. Al-Fatḥ was at rst a personal secretary to al-Mutawakkil, then was put in charge of intelligence for Samarra and the Haruni Palace by 849/850 (235 A.H.), and later served as an administrator for al-Mutawakkil in Egypt (see al-Tabaṛ ̄ 1989b, 109 and n. 355; Sourdel 1959-60, 1:283-284; Pinto 1965, 837; Montgomery 2013, 234).

2. There is debate, which I will not try to resolve here, over whether the person or persons being addressed are dedicatees (Montgomery 2013, 224-238; el-ʿAṭṭār 1996, 334) or the readers more generally (Schoeler 2009b, 55-56; see also Hefter 2014, 65).

3. The preposition ʿalā, which I have translated “against,” could also be understood as “about,” but the phrase Kitāb ʿalā (lit. “Book against”) was often used as the equivalent for Kitāb al-radd ʿalā (“Book of the Refutation against”) (Gimaret 1993, 362-363). In this list al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ has provided of his books, he does use the preposition ʿalā for refutations (whether exclusively, I am not sure), as in kitāb̄ f̄ al-radd ʿalā al-mushabbiha (“my book refuting the anthropomorphists”).

4. Pellat considers that one refutation is plausible (1984, 163 no. 239), except for the fact that Ibn al- Nad̄m listed “Refutation of the Christians” and “Refutation of the Jews” separately in his Fihrist (1970, 404 and 37

Christians,” which devotes considerable space to explaining why Muslims of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ day mistakenly viewed Christians with greater respect than they did Jews.

The second instance is in volume four, where al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ takes up the topic of

Christian and Jewish practices of avoiding interaction with a person being sanctioned

(taḥr̄m al-kalam̄ ). As examples of this prohibition, he mentions

Michael,5 and Theophilos,6 who plucked out7 the eye of Manuel.8 Now in their judgment, someone who aids the Muslims against the Romans should be killed, but if he has his sight, then they put out both his eyes but do not kill him. So they did not follow their own policy (sunna) regarding him. Now we have recounted their matter elsewhere, in our book against the Christians (kitabunā ̄ ʿala ̄ al-Nasạ rā ).̄ So if you are interested in that, then look for it there. (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1938-45, 4:28-29)

This passage might lead the reader to surmise that al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ book against the Christians would contain further detail about Theophilos and Manuel. The extant text does not, but since it is unfortunately preserved only in excerpts, is is impossible to know whether it once did.

406, respectively). Brockelmann classies them as at least two separate works (1996, Suppl. 1:242 no. 13 and 245 no. 24, respectively), or even three, mentioning the book against the Christians and Jews in addition to the separate refutations of each of those groups (1996, Suppl. 1:244 no. 6; see Pellat 1984, 163 no. 239 for references to other scholars who list three separate works).

5. Probably the Byzantine emperor Michael II (r. 820-829) whose involvement in the iconoclastic debate put him in conict with church authorities.

6. Byzantine emperor (r. 829-842), son and successor of Michael II.

7. Reading samala instead of samla.

8. Manuel the Armenian, a Byzantine general who defected to the Abbasids in 829, returned to the Byzantines in 830, and probably died of battle wounds in 838 (see Kazhdan et al. 1991, 2:1289). So far, I have not found other references to Manuel’s eye being plucked out. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ comment about Manuel’s punishment for his defection implies that the terminus post quem for this particular passage is 830. 38

The primary reason for thinking that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ completed Animals by 847 is a statement from al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ transmitted by Maymūn b. Harū ̄n and recorded by Ibn al-

Nad̄m that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ received 5,000 d̄nar̄ s from Ibn al-Zayyat̄ when he presented the book Animals to him (Ibn al-Nad̄m 1970, 402).9 Since Ibn al-Zayyat̄ died November 2,

847 (19 Rab̄ʿ I, 233 A.H.) (al-Ṭabar̄ 1989b, 73), Pellat used this as an anchor to date the works al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ mentioned in Animals (including “Refutation of Christians”) to before 847 (see al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 10 n. 1; Pellat 1984, 126, 139 and throughout). If

Animals is to be dated before 847, and if it refers to the extant work known as “The

Refutation of Christians,” then it is dicult to see how al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n’s̄ letter could be referring to the same work.

Animals (Kitab̄ al-Ḥayawan̄ ): Before or After 847?

Nonetheless, several important objections have been raised against the assumption that Animals was composed before 847, primarily by Saʿ̄d Mansụ ̄r. First, as

Mansụ ̄r points out (1977, 95), al-Mutawakkil himself is mentioned in the nal volume of Animals: “He told me this story in the days when al-Mutawakkil ʿala ̄ Allah̄ arose [i.e., came to power]” (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1938-45, 7:253). Elsewhere in the work, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ refers to having been in Damascus and Antioch (1938-45, 1:56-57, 5:373-374), by which he seems to mean his trip to Damascus with al-Mutawakkil’s retinue in 858 (244 A.H.)

(Montgomery 2013, 236-237; Mansụ ̄r 1977, 96;10 see also al-Ṭabar̄ 1989b, 151-152).

9. See also Yaqū ̄t (1907-27, 6:75-76), who seems to be quoting from Ibn al-Nad̄m. Al-Ḥājirī has questioned whether this report is reliable (1963, 301). Also note that the Risāla fī al-Quḍāt wa-l-wuzarāʾ wa-l-wulāt (terminus ante quem 237 A.H./852) apparently quotes Kitāb al-Ḥayawān (see Daiber 2009, 226).

10. Mansụ ̄r cites Ibn ʿAsakir̄ (1929, 9.4:205) for al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ presence on this trip, but I have not been able to 39

Second, there may be reason to think that some of the works al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ lists in the

rst volume of Animals were written later than 847. One of these is the book Misers

(Kitab̄ al-Bukhalāʾ), which is “widely held to date from the caliphate of al-Mutawakkil and the nal decades of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’ṣ life” (Montgomery 2013, 236). Even Pellat makes an exception to his own rule by dating Misers to around 245-250 A.H. (859/860-865), despite acknowledging that it is cited in Animals (Pellat 1984, 134 no. 54). Moreover, the letter of al-Fatḥ about “The Refutation of Christians” has itself convinced Mansụ ̄r, among others, that some of the works mentioned in volume one of Animals were completed after 847 (Mansụ ̄r 1977, 94; see also Montgomery 2013, 236).11

Third, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ comments to his addressee, particularly in volume one, raise the question of whether this really could have been a book dedicated to Ibn al-Zayyat̄ during his lifetime. The author’s abrasive response to the criticism the addressee has leveled at his books seems incompatible with his receiving 5,000 d̄nar̄ s from him. Of course, the person or persons being addressed need not be the same as the work’s dedicatee; in fact, there is considerable debate over who received the brunt of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ remarks. Was it the general public (Schoeler 2009b, 56)? Was it a second addressee after Ibn al-Zayyat’s̄ death (el-ʿAtṭ ạ r̄ 1996, 334)? Or was it two patrons, Ibn al-Zayyat̄ and Aḥmad b. Ab̄ Duʿad,̄ both addressed posthumously (Montgomery 2013, 237-238)?

access this source myself.

11. Al-Fatḥ also mentions in his letter that he has read Baṣīra Ghannām al-Murtadd (“The Perspicacity of Ghannam̄ the Apostate”), which may imply that al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ had written this treatise recently, which would make it another example of a work mentioned in Animals (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1938-45, 1:9) but possibly composed after 847. See Pellat (1984, 136 no. 68) for other references and a note about Ghannām. 40

The dilemma cannot be resolved here, but it does complicate the argument that the extant version of Animals was completed before 847.

Finally, one might expect al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Muʿtazilite views to be less overt in Animals if he wrote the book after al-Mutawwakkil ended the Miḥna, than if he completed it while the Miḥna was still in force. This, of course, is a rather subjective measure, such that

Schoeler claims everyone knows Animals had “a strong Muʿtazil̄ tendency” (2009b,

57),12 while Mansụ ̄r identies Muʿtazilite lines of thought about in al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ themes of divine unity and justice (1977, 99-149, esp. 119-126) but thinks the writer intentionally veiled his Muʿtazilite allegiance (1977, 96). Personally, I nd this argument inconclusive until al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Muʿtazilism in the work is more comprehensively studied.

Putting aside the problematic addressee of volume one and the unresolved

Muʿtazilite issues of the work as a whole, the reference(s) to al-Mutawakkil in volume seven (and implied in volume ve) and the appearance of late works in volume one more than justify reconsidering Pellat’s assumption about the date of Animals. If some version of the book was actually presented to Ibn al-Zayyat,̄ then, at the very least, certain volumes (including ve, seven, and probably one) were revised afterward

(Montgomery 2013, 237; see also el-ʿAtṭ ạ r̄ 1996, 334). Montgomery prefers to read the book as being unnished, and as a work that responds in large measure to the

“cataclysm” of al-Mutawakkil’s prohibition of debate about the createdness of the

12. Citing Pellat’s comment that al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ purpose is using all of nature to demonstrate the presence and wisdom of God (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1967a, 40; see 1938-45, 2:109). 41

Qurʾan (2013, 30-32, 238). I am in no position to judge exactly how much or which parts of Animals were written after 847, but I do nd the evidence to be compelling that some of it must have been.

One or Two “Refutations”?

Where, then, does this put the discussion of “The Refutation of Christians”?

Pellat was apparently aware of evidence both for and against identifying the extant

“Refutation” with the one mentioned in al-Fatḥ’s letter, for he dates the extant text prior to 232 A.H. (846/847) in both of his inventories of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ works (1956, 170 no.

125; 1984, 151 no. 165) as well as in his study of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Christology (1970, 219), but he comments elsewhere, “It is evident that this writing [‘Refutation of Christians’] directly relates to the measures Mutawakkil took against the Jews and Christians”

(1952a, 58 n. 1; see also Pellat 1990, 84-85; al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 18), that is, in the year 235

A.H. (850). However, so far as I can tell, Pellat did not suggest how to reconcile the conicting evidence.

Given the tensions in both the primary and secondary literature, it is not surprising that David Thomas has suggested there were two texts, identifying the extant

“Refutation” with the book against Christians al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ references in Animals (which he accepts as being before 847), and proposing that al-Fatḥ’s letter refers to a work by al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ that is now lost, known as “The Honey-Colored Letter” (Al-Risalā al-ʿAsaliyya)

(Thomas 2009d, 709-712). The latter is known only from a brief reference by the

Muʿtazilite qad̄ ̣̄ ʿAbd al-Jabbar̄ (d. 1025 [415 A.H.]) in his Conrmation of the Proofs of 42

Prophecy (Tathb̄t dalāʾil al-nubuwwa):13 “There are many [other texts] which question and refute them {the Christians}. Among them is the book of al-Jah̄ ̣iz,̣ {and} another of his books known as Al-Risalā al-ʿAsaliyya...” (ʿAbd al-Jabbar̄ 2010, 161). The “book of al-Jah̄ ̣iz”̣ presumably refers to “The Refutation of Christians,” which ʿAbd al-Jabbar̄ has mentioned earlier as “the book of Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ against the Christians [ʿala ̄ al-Nasạ rā ]”̄ (ʿAbd al-Jabbar̄ 2010, 85). Thus, Thomas does seem right in considering “The Honey-Colored

Letter” to be a separate work, and ʿAbd al-Jabbar̄ makes clear that it contains some kind of argumentation against Christians. “Honey-Colored” likely refers to the distinctive clothing that dhimm̄ peoples were required to wear—a reference that could conceivably link the work with al-Mutawakkil’s edict in that regard (Thomas 2009d,

712).14 Nevertheless, there is no clear link establishing the identity of “The Refutation of Christians” mentioned by al-Fatḥ with “The Honey-Colored Letter”; the latter could just as well have been a separate work written anytime after al-Mutawakkil’s reforms were instituted.

The reference in volume one of Animals to “my book against the Christians and the Jews” is easy to dismiss as being from a portion of Animals that was written or revised sometime after al-Fatḥ’s letter. But, since I am not aware of any evidence for whether volume four was written or revised after 847, the reference to “our book against the Christians” in that passage still leaves some room for debate. If volume four

13. Pellat seems to overlook “The Honey-Colored Letter” in his inventory (1984).

14. Reynolds and Samir see the “honey-colored” reference as linked more clearly to Jews than to Christians, citing the expression ʿasaliyyu al-yahūd from Lane (1863-93, 5:2046b) and suggesting that the work “may have been primarily an anti-Jewish treatise” (ʿAbd al-Jabbar̄ 2010, 161 n. 148). 43 was written before 847, it could refer to a work entirely dierent from the extant

“Refutation of Christians” (see Thomas 2009d, 709-712), or the extant work could be a revision of the one mentioned, since, as Montgomery has pointed out, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to have had a practice of “recycling” his works (2013, 132).15 If, however, volume four was completed after 847, then one may reasonably suppose that both Animals and al-

Fath’ṣ letter mention the same work now extant as “The Refutation of Christians.”

Thus, though the “Honey-Colored Letter” seems to be distinct from the “book against Christians” mentioned in Animals, it is still tenable that the latter is the same as the “Refutation” mentioned by al-Fath,̣ or is an earlier version of it. But even if Animals and al-Fatḥ’s letter refer to two separate works, one of which has been lost, I think there is good evidence to suggest that the extant “Refutation of Christians” is the one al-Fatḥ wrote about.

Extant “Refutation” Equal to ... ?

Regarding the extant “Refutation of Christians,” Thomas states:

There is no clear evidence in the work to support a connection with the caliph. In fact, the stated reason for its composition was a letter from a group of Muslims asking for al-Jah̄ ̣iz’ṣ help to answer a series of questions asked them by some Christians. This private and obscure origin (if it is not a literary ploy) does not t well with a work that was being solicited as political propaganda. (2009d, 710)

15. For example, both el-ʿAṭṭār (1996, 334) and Montgomery (2013, 131-132) have noticed the discrepancies between what al-Jāḥiẓ says in Animals about his work “Excellence of the Blacks” (Kitāb fakhr al-sūdān) and what he says about it in the preface to that work. Perhaps the extant version of that work is a revision of the one he mentioned in Animals, or perhaps it was not yet written and his plans for it changed after he described it in Animals. 44

Thomas is referring to the beginning of the “Refutation,” in which al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ frames the text of his essay:

I have read your letter [kitabakum̄ ] and understood what you describe in it: the questions put to you by the Christians, the confusion that has come upon the minds of the young and the slower-witted among you (dakhala ʿala ̄ qulūb aḥdathikum̄ wa-dụ ʿafāʾikum), your fear of being unable to respond to them and your request that I settle these questions for them and do the favour of helping them reply. (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:303; trans. in Hefter 2014, 48)

What Thomas sees to be a “private and obscure origin,” Mansụ ̄r sees as referring to al-

Fatḥ’s request on behalf of the caliph that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ write such a work (1977, 94; see also Montgomery 2013, 151, 236, 498-499 n. 129). It has been suggested that al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ use of the plural for his addressee(s) throughout the epistle, which Montgomery considers uncommon, could in principle be an honoric way of speaking to the caliph

(Montgomery 2013, 498-499 n. 129). Yet in other respects, the letter does not seem to show the kind of obeisance one might expect if its author were addressing the

Commander of the Faithful. Considering that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ takes the specic Christian arguments he discusses from this supposed “letter” by his addressee(s), I nd it more likely that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ was responding to a real or imaginary letter from less sophisticated readers as a way of executing the caliph’s commission (compare Hefter 2014, 71-72 n.

29). Framing his treatise as a response to such questions was a winsome and accessible way of presenting his case to his true audience—the reading Muslim public—who were, no doubt, those the caliph wanted to inuence when he funded the work. In any 45 case, the fact that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ represents the work as a response to such a letter does not seem to preclude the possibility that the caliph commissioned it.

Rather, there is a very tenable connection between al-Mutawakkil and the extant

“Refutation” which a number of scholars have taken to be evidence of its composition during al-Mutawakkil’s reign (Schoeler 2009b, 58; el-ʿAṭṭār 1996, 387-388; Pellat

1952a, 58 n. 1; see also al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 18): the social issues al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ raises relate quite integrally to the actions al-Mutawakkil took against Christians and Jews. In his History of Prophets and Kings (Taʾr̄kh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk), Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jar̄r al-

Ṭabar̄ (839-923 [224-310 A.H.]) provides an account of the restrictions al-Mutawakkil enforced on Christians and other dhimm̄16 peoples starting in 850,17 along with the letter al-Mutawakkil sent to his district governors asking them to implement certain of these policies (al-Ṭabar̄ 1989b, 89-94). The emphases of the caliph’s program, as al-

Ṭabar̄ relates them, correspond on many points to the social critique of Christians that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ lays out in his “Refutation.” Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ noted that the Christians’ occupying high positions both inside and outside of government was one of the reasons Muslims pay them undue respect (1964-79, 3:316); al-Mutawakkil forbade employing dhimm̄ peoples in government posts. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ commented on Christians wearing silk and playing polo—thus competing for social equality with Muslims (1964-79, 3:317); the

16. Non-Muslims to whom Muslims gave a guarantee of safety in exchange for their payment of a poll- tax (jizya) and abiding by certain requirements. See Part II for a detailed discussion of Christians’ legal status in Abbasid society.

17. Al-Tabaṛ ̄’s description of these restrictions comes in his section describing the year 235 A.H. (July 849-July 850). The letter of al-Mutawakkil to his district governors, in which he describes some of the policies al- Tabaṛ ̄ mentions, is dated Shawwal̄ 235 A.H. (April/May 850). It seems reasonable to assume that the caliph wrote this letter toward the beginning of implementing these policies. 46 caliph required that the ahl al-dhimma distinguish themselves from Muslims in dress and in their mounts. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ mentions both Christians’ unclean food (such as pork)

(1964-79, 3:323) and their strange fasting habits (1964-79, 3:321); al-Mutawakkil warned his subjects against the types of food eaten by people of other religions but prohibited by Islam. The correspondence is by no means rigid, but the caliph and the essayist seem to be in agreement about several salient issues.

Identifying this extant “Refutation” as the one commissioned by al-Mutawakkil is no stretch of the imagination. But the world al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ so poignantly describes in this text is one in which the Christian elite move about in society largely unchecked by

Muslim power, giving no indication that reforms are underway to remedy the situation; therefore, it was probably written before, or perhaps toward the beginning of, al-

Mutawakkil’s anti-dhimm̄ measures in order to turn the tide of public opinion in favor of such restrictions (compare Schumann 2002, 59-60). Thus, I think 848 to 850 or shortly after is the most likely date al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ nished his “Refutation of Christians.”18

Such a date also ts well with a span in which al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n̄ was in a position to write his letter to al-Jah̄ ̣iz.̣ That period would be sometime after al-

Mutawakkil appointed him as his secretary soon after ascending to the caliphate in 847

(232 A.H.) (Pinto 1965, 837), but before al-Fatḥ went to Egypt in 856/857 (242 A.H.)

(al-Ṭabar̄ 1989a, 110 n. 355; see also Pinto 1965, 837; Sourdel 1959-1960, 1:282 n.

18. When al-Mutawakkil had al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ patron Ibn al-Zayyat̄ arrested and tortured (September 22, 847 [7 Safar,̣ 233 A.H.] according to al-Tabaṛ ̄ [1989b, 68]), al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ ed to Basra and remained there for a time until Aḥmad b. Ab̄ Duʿad̄ reinstated him (see Yaqū ̄t 1907-27, 6:58-59; Pellat 1952a, 56). Al-Fatḥ’s letter must have been written after al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ restoration to favor at court. 47

4). By an account in al-Ṭabar̄, in 235 A.H. (849/850), the year of al-Mutawakkil’s decree against dhimm̄ peoples, al-Fatḥ was excercising administrative responsibilities, including intelligence, on behalf of al-Mutawakkil for the capital city of Samarra and the Haruni Palace (1989a, 109-110). Thus, he was likely in close contact with the caliph at this time.

A nal consideration regarding the date of “The Refutation of Christians” is its relationship to the Muʿtazilite school of thought. Given the shift in political policy regarding Muʿtazilism during al-Mutawakkil’s reign, one might hope to identify whether the tenor of the extant work is more consonant with a work commissioned by al-Mutawakkil or a work written earlier, during the Miḥna.

Certain Muʿtazilite tendencies are discernible. For instance, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ refers in places to classes of religious expertise, ranging from “the masses” (al-ʿammā ) or “the rabble” (al-raʿāʿ, al-sia) to “the elite” (al-khas̄ ṣ ạ ) (1964-79, 3:310)—a distinction that seems to have developed quite sharply among the Muʿtazilites during the Miḥna,19 but was also a useful rhetorical device for claiming the superiority of ocially sanctioned views. Moreover, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ criticizes Christians’ views of reason in a way that is

19. A natural corollary of emphasizing the necessity of the intellect in religion, as the Muʿtazilites did, was to elevate those with intellectual capability. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ view, according to Montgomery, was that

The occupation of this middle ground (between the human reasoning intellect and divine transcendence) was also in eect an expression of a moral elitism, according to which the appreciation of unity and transcendence was limited to the fully developed ‘man of reasoning intellect’ (a rare being, nearly as rare as, say, the sage was according to the Stoic philosophers). It was not available to the masses who did not meet al- Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ stringent criteria, though according to his thinking, they would not be punished for their failure to live up to any developed contractual obligations with God: one can only be rewarded and punished for that which one has been created as capable of. (2013, 321) 48 reminiscent of the critique a Muʿtazilite might level against non-Muʿtazilite traditionalist Muslims:

Moreover, they contend that the method of analogy [al-qiyas̄ ] should not be applied to religion, nor should the validity of faith be maintained by overcoming objections [al-masāʾil], nor should the verity of a dogma be made subject to the test of intellectual scrutiny [al-imtiḥan̄ ]. Faith must be based on the unqualied submission [al-tasl̄m] to the authority of the book [i.e., scriptures (al-kutub)], and on following blindly the traditions of old. (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:324; trans. by Finkel in al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1927, 334; see also Pellat 1970, 232)

Could al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ get by with making such a comment about the source of religious knowledge in a work commissioned by al-Mutawakkil, even if it was ostensibly directed toward Christians? The author’s criticism of anthropomorphism in this work

(see 1964-79, 3:330, 351) is another type of attack one might expect Muʿtazilites to direct against their opponents.

However, Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ does oppose his Muʿtazilite teacher al-Nazẓ ạ m̄ when he argues against the possibility that Jesus could have been spiritually adopted as the “son of God” in the same way that Abraham was the “friend of God” (Pellat 1970, 223-224), crucially demonstrating that his allegiance is not with his Muʿtazilite friends when they support Christian interests.20 Moreover, his implied rebuke of Christians disputing the

Qurʾan’s authenticity and meanings would only be heightened if it came during the period when al-Mutawakkil had prohibited debating the Qurʾan’s origins. Overall, “The

20. Montgomery points out that an expression al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ uses suggests that al-Nazẓ ạ m̄ had died by the time of writing (2013, 497 n. 121). Al-Nazẓ ạ m̄ died sometime between 835 (220 A.H.) and 845 (230 A.H.) (Van Ess 1993, 1057). 49

Refutation of Christians” is not blatantly Muʿtazilite, nor do its readers have to be

Muʿtazilite to accept most of its argumentation, but the leanings of its author are recognizable.

This ambiguity hardly allows one to pinpoint the work as having been written either during or after the Miḥna. Moreover, there seems to be just as much ambiguity regarding when the Miḥna actually ended. Melchert’s work has shown that although al-

Mutawakkil did not renew the Miḥna at his accession, it was not until 851-852 that he dismissed Aḥmad b. Ab̄ Duʾad,̄ the chief inquisitor (and al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ patron), and released those who were detained on account of the Miḥna (1996, 325-326). Even after this, the record of al-Mutawakkil’s appointments and dismissals can hardly be construed as unilaterally in favor of the traditionalists (Melchert 1996, 327-330). Thus, one need not suppose that a work commissioned by al-Mutawakkil early in his reign would necessarily lack all Muʿtazilite traces.

Conclusions

Despite possible references to it in Animals, the concurrence of this treatise’s internal features with al-Mutawakkil’s policies and al-Fatḥ’s letter leads me to believe that the preponderance of evidence best supports the view that the extant “Refutation of Christians” is the one mentioned by al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n̄ and was therefore written or, at least, revised around 848-850. Though I acknowledge that the evidence for this position is not conclusive, I will assume this date for the remainder of this study as I analyze al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argumentation against its historical backdrop. CHAPTER 3 Crafting the “Refutation”

If I am right that the “Refutation of Christians” was intertwined with Caliph al-

Mutawakkil’s plan to reduce the inuence of Christians and Jews on the Abbasid community, then the task set before the author was a complex one. He had to not only put forward compelling reasons to reject the Christians’ arguments (as any refutation must do), but also turn his readers’ sentiments against Christians themselves, paving the way for reforms that would necessarily cause great social disruption. To promote a vision that saw Christians as peripheral participants in Abbasid society meant maintaining that distinction even in one’s arguments against them. Just as al-

Mutawakkil’s edict removed Christians from any position of authority over Muslims and required them to engage with society dierently from members of the Muslim community, so too must Christians be prevented from having equal standing with

Muslims in theological dispute. Al-Mutawakkil had banned Muslims from the debates about the Qurʾan that had ercely split their community; how much more would such a prohibition apply to arguments brought by Christians against the Qurʾan!1 The

1. In his relation of the events of 237 A.H. (851/852), when he is describing al-Mutawakkil’s disposition of the corpse of Aḥmad b. Nasr,̣ who had been executed during the Miḥna, al-Tabaṛ ̄ gives this vague comment: “When al-Mutawakkil had become caliph, he prohibited debate concerning the Qurʾan and so on [al-jidāl f̄ al- Qurʾān wa-ghayrihi], and sent letters about this to distant regions” (al-Tabaṛ ̄ 1897-1901, 3:1412; trans. 1989b, 119, brackets mine). Exactly what kind of discussion was prohibited seems rather open to interpretation (Montgomery

50 51 conundrum al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ faced was how to refute both Christians themselves and their arguments without legitimizing them as equals in the debate—that is, how to put

Christians in their rightful place without giving them so much as a spot to stand on in the rst place. For this task, he marshaled his utmost rhetorical artistry in both the logical and literary spheres. The aim of this chapter is to witness him working his craft, particularly on the literary and architectural levels.

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has often been criticized, somewhat unfairly, for digressions and disorganization. Pellat considered his “untidy and confusingly digressive” method of composition to be intentional (1990, 94), and to be “a cardinal feature of Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ writing” (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 19). More recent scholars, particularly Montgomery in his analyses of Animals and Clarity and Clarication, have seen distinct patterns in al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ arrangement of material (2013, 333-363, esp. 334-335 and 362). He observes,

Classical Arabic compositions, both poetry and prose, can frequently incline to the minimalist and be devoid of the sorts of narrativisation or the devices of presentation we are familiar with, but they seem to me rarely, if ever, to be intentionally anarchic or haphazard: their schemes of discourse are often quite simply dierent.” (Montgomery 2013, 362)

[2013, 38] thinks it was a prohibition on kalām). In the context it appears that al-Mutawakkil was attempting to quell the divisive disputes between Muʿtazilites and proto-Sunn̄s over the origins of the Qurʾan. Perhaps the term jidāl (“debate” or “dispute”) in relation to al-Mutawakkil’s directive has something to do with the way the Qurʾan negatively portrays such dispute when it concerns the revelation given to Muḥammad (see Q. 6:25, 6:121, 18:56, 40:35, 40:56). Such passages would seem to apply even more to non-Muslims than to misguided Muslims. The irony of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ task is that he must combat jidāl using jidāl. According to the Qurʾanic injunction about disputing with Scripture People (ahl al-kitāb), he should not do so “except in a way that is best, except for those who commit —Q. 29:46, trans. Saḥ ̣̄ḥ International). To the latter point) (إِﻻَّ ﺑـِﺎ َّﻟـﺘـِﻲ ﻫـِﻲَ أَ ْﺣـﺴـَﻦُ إِﻻَّ اﻟـَّﺬِﻳـﻦَ َﻇـ َﻠـﻤـُﻮا) ”injustice among them the Christians’ wrongdoing—al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has devoted a large section of his treatise (see below). 52

I believe “The Refutation of Christians” deserves the kind of careful attention to structure that can expose its own “scheme of discourse,” and that such attention will be rewarded with a clearer view of how the author has constructed the logic of his argumentation.2

Since the extant version of the “Refutation” survives only as ten excerpts from an anthology by ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ḥassān (981-1058 [371-450 A.H.]) (see Introduction above; Pellat 1984, 119; Sandūb̄ 1931, 132), there are necessary limitations to this analysis. I will indicate in the footnotes where each excerpt begins. Page numbers, with line numbers as decimals, refer to Harū ̄n’s edition of “The Refutation of Christians” (al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:302-351) unless otherwise noted. Figure 1 shows the structure of the treatise on a macro level. To help show this structural logic, I have organized the chapter below in a way that reects the structure of the “Refutation” itself, commenting on al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ rhetorical devices as they appear in the text.

2. For an alternative view of how the treatise is structured, see Fletcher (2002, 99-105, 125-129). 53

Figure 1. The structure of “The Refutation of Christians”

Note: Curved connectors indicate thematic correspondence. Horizontal bars show breaks between excerpts. 54

I. Introduction (303.1-308.3)

A. Invocation (Praise) (303.1-4)

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ opens with a prayer of praise to God, emphasizing the distinctions between Islam and Christianity that will be themes of his work:

Praise be to God, who has graced us with (proclaiming) his oneness [see Q. 3:164, 112:1-4], and has included us among those who reject either comparing him to his creatures [shubhat khalqihi]3 or granting governance to his (mere) creatures [siyasat̄ ʿibadihī ].4 He has made us “not distinguish between any of his messengers” [Q. 2:285], neither denying any scripture he has required us to acknowledge [see Q. 29:47], nor receiving any that is not from him. “He is praiseworthy and glorious” [Q. 11:73]. “He is one who accomplishes what he intends” [Q. 11:107, 85:16]. (303.1-4; compare trans. by Colville in 2002, 70)

Already, by proering this unique invocation with its Qurʾanic allusions, in place of the standard bismillah̄ , he is soliciting his readers’ acquiescence to the scriptural justications for his text.

B. Acknowledgement of Letter (303.5-8)

Next, he frames the work as an epistle (risalā , pl. rasāʾil) responding to a letter sent by his addressees. He begins in a way that was standard for al-Jah̄ ̣iz,̣ as well as for

3. Colville’s translation takes shubha in the more typical sense of “sophistry,” which is also quite conceivable here: “reject mankind’s sophistry” (2002, 70). However, given that al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ criticizes Christians and Jews throughout the work for anthropomorphizing tendencies, I suspect that is in view here.

4. Siyāsa ʿibādihi could be read in a thoroughly Muʿtazilite way, as both Harū ̄n (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1964-79, 303 n. 2-3) and Sharqāwī (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1984b, 53 n. 1-2) have pointed out in their editions. They interpret siyāsa ʿibādihi as a reference to God’s creating human actions, an idea the Muʿtazilites rejected. I have translated it in a way I think relates it to the themes of this text—such as not giving undue authority to what al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ considers mere human traditions (as with the Gospels [see 328.1-329.4] or the doctrine of the Incarnation [see 324.1-12]), nor giving a superhuman place to Jesus (see 342.1-343.4). 55 other letter writers (Hefter 2014, 12)—the transitional marker amma ̄ baʿd followed by conrmation that he has read and understood the addressees’ letter:

I have read your letter [kitabakum̄ ] and understood what you describe in it: the questions put to you by the Christians, the confusion that has come upon the minds of the young and the slower-witted among you (dakhala ʿala ̄ qulūb aḥdathikum̄ 5 wa-dụ ʿafāʾikum), your fear of being unable to respond to them and your request that I settle these questions for them and do the favour of helping them reply. (303.5-8; trans. Hefter 2014, 48)

In Arabic literary development (which had Syriac parallels6), the risalā was a form that was often used to compose a formal treatise on a topic, prompting Grith to use the term “letter-treatise” (2008, 89).7 At least as early as al-Jah̄ ̣iz,̣ and certainly after him, writers conventionally framed their epistles as responses to an addressee’s questions

(Hefter 2014, 9; compare Schoeler 2009b, 55).8 Presumably, the author need not actually have received a letter in order to use this literary device to preview the issues that the composition would address (see Hefter 2014, 14; Grith 2008, 85-86). Thus,

5. See Hefter (2014, 72 n. 31) for a discussion of whether aḥdāthikum refers to young Muslims (so Hefter) or perhaps to recent converts to Islam (so Reynolds 2004, 193 n. 11).

6. See Grith (2008, 89) and Sako (1987, 384). For a comparison of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ use of the epistle format to Greek and Syriac epistles and Arabic papyri, see Hefter (2014, 9-14). For Greek epistolography during the Byzantine period, which also featured letters intended to be published for a general audience, see “Epistolography” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (ed. Kazhdan et al. 1991, 718-720).

7. The term “essay” might also be a suitable approximation, even if anachronistic. See Heath (2009, esp. 167-168), who explores some points of comparison between adab (particularly that of al-Jah̄ ̣iz)̣ and the modern essay. He does not, however, directly compare the risāla and the essay.

8. Even though al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ “Refutation” does not reproduce the text of an opponent’s letter, it does resemble the apologetic genre of “epistolary exchange” that Christians used during this period (Grith 2008, 85-88), at least in the sense that it rst gives the opponent’s arguments and then responds to them. 56 the “letter” al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ mentions may or may not have been real, but his referring to it is an important way of positioning the rest of his treatise.9

Whether or not the letter is ctitious, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is addressing an audience of real people, but who are they? As in most of his rasāʾil, he does not name his addressees, but he does—somewhat unusually according to Montgomery (2013, 498 n. 129; Hefter

2014, 1)—speak to them in the plural in both the opening and the closing of the epistle. His reference to receiving a letter (and perhaps the plural “you”), has led to the suggestion that the letter al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ means is the one al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n̄ sent requesting the work (Mansụ ̄r 1977, 94; compare Montgomery 2013, 151, 236, 498-499 n. 129), making the addressee either al-Fatḥ or the caliph himself. But I do not see any indication of this in the text itself, for the preserved portion of al-Fath’ṣ letter does not mention the issues or questions al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ says are contained in the letter to which he is supposedly responding. Moreover, as both Schoeler (2009b, 56-57) and Montgomery

(2013, 226) have pointed out, the addressee of a work need not be the same as its patron or its dedicatee. Further, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ does not use the kind of reverent tone or

attering salutation one would expect to accompany the exceptional deference indicated by an honoric plural.

I think it is more likely that by using the topos of responding to a letter containing dicult questions, the author is really addressing a general audience of educated readers. If al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ use of the plural has any intentional signicance at all,

9. For an excellent study of the way al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ uses the epistolary genre, see Hefter (2014). Also see Montgomery (2013, 193-201). 57 perhaps he has in view the communal eects of these theological disputes, since he says that the addressees are concerned for the “young and the slower-witted among you” (aḥdathikum̄ wa-dụ ʿafāʾikum). In doing so, he may even be reecting the way the

Qurʾan itself often speaks to believers (muʾminūn) using the second person plural, not least in sūra 5 (Al-Māʾida), a passage that seems to play a key role in the “Refutation.”

Whatever al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ may be trying to indicate by speaking to his addressees in the plural, what is most signicant about them is that he has explicitly made them Muslims rather than Christians. Apparently, he does anticipate that Christians will either read the work or hear his arguments from his Muslim readers, for at the end of the work he imagines the conversation he will have with them after writing this “Refutation”

(350.2-351.4). But this, I believe, is the only place in which he addresses Christians using the second person; elsewhere, the word “you” in al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ mouth always refers to his Muslim addressees. His argumentation, too, is particularly well calibrated for a

Muslim audience (as I will show in later chapters); he seems to make little attempt to construct lines of reasoning that will resonate with Christians. Notwithstanding the force with which he states his arguments, his method is ostensibly to direct his fellow

Muslims from the sidelines rather than join the contest on the eld.

Why does he take this approach? As he says in another risalā in which he refused to address his opponents directly, “On the Createdness of the Qurʾan” (Kitab̄ f̄

Khalq al-Qurʾan̄ ):

One only writes against those who oppose one as equals, or on behalf of friends against their enemies, and to those who see the validity of logical inquiry and the merit of learning, who believe in fairness and have the means to acquire 58 knowledge. (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:288; trans. Hefter 2014, 45; see alternate trans. in Montgomery 2013, 140-141)

In other words, he does not stoop to deliver his rebuttals at his opponents directly, for to engage them in argumentation would be to admit that they are, in some sense, on equal footing with him in the conversation (Hefter 2014, 46; see also 2008, 82).10

Moreover, as Hefter has astutely observed (2014, 48; 2008, 86-87), by framing his treatise as a means to help his addressees support Muslims weaker than themselves, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has acquitted his readers of the implication that they themselves might fall prey to the Christians’ schemes, while simultaneously withholding the honor of debate from his Christian opponents. In doing so, he has also (in typical Muʿtazilite fashion) stratied the religious community into several groups: scholars like himself who can rebut Christian attacks, educated readers who recognize the need for these rebuttals, weak-minded Muslims who are susceptible to these attacks, and Christian perpetrators, who are worthy of only second-hand participation in the discussion (compare Hefter

2014, 48).11

Thus it is that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has cleverly used the familiar epistle format to make

Christians a third party to a conversation between Muslim disputants, in the same way that (he makes clear later) he would wish to bar them from being full-edged

10. Al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ does not seem to follow this policy rigidly in his works, for in his “Refutation of Anthropomorphists” (Al-Radd ʿalā al-mushabbiha) (ed. 1964-79, 4:5-16; trans. 2002b, 94-100) he entertains something much closer to a conversation with his opponents.

11. Later in the “Refutation,” al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ bemoans the fact that “every Muslim thinks of himself as a scholastic [mutakallim] and just as qualied to dispute with heretics as anybody else” (320.15-16; trans. in 2002b, 78). Elsewhere, in The ʿUthmāniyya, al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ makes the point that the common people are eager to discuss technical theological issues, but “lack the attainments needed for understanding and discrimination” (1969, 79). 59 participants in Muslim society. Yet he certainly has not gagged them; their alarming voices are about to be heard from just outside the company.

C. Presentation of Christian Arguments (303.9-308.3)

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ immediately launches into presenting the Christians’ disruptive arguments with full force. As it turns out, all of them are attacks on the truth of the

Qurʾan, and he makes no apparent eort to diminish their impact.12 According to al-

Jah̄ ̣iz,̣ the Christians argue that the Qurʾan makes false claims (1) about the beliefs of

Christians and Jews (citing Q. 3:181, 5:64, 5:116, 9:30), (2) that Pharaoh spoke to

Hamā n̄ (citing Q. 40:36), (3) that John the Baptist was the rst to be named Yaḥya ̄

(citing Q. 19:7), (4) that God’s messengers before Muḥammad were only male (citing

Q. 16:43), and (5) that Jesus spoke from the cradle (see Q. 3:46, 5:110, 19:29-33).13 He lays each of these arguments out in considerable detail, without intruding, editorializing, or hinting at how he plans to rebut them.

This is an all-or-nothing strategy that raises both his readers’ suspense and their expectations for the quality of his response (see Hefter 2014, 49-50). If his rebuttals are weak, his audience will be able to recognize his failure to refute the Christians. If, however, he succeeds in neutralizing the force of such virulent attacks, his audience will be that much more convinced for his having defeated arguments that seemed so compelling at rst.

12. Hefter draws attention to the alternation of voices used when he presents these attacks in both direct and indirect quotation, and suggests that using the rst person for both the Christians’ accusations and the Muslim addressees’ concerns “brings to life the dynamic of circulating ideas” (2014, 49).

13. See Kassis (2004, 242-243) for a more detailed summary of these Christian claims. 60

Ibn Qutayba (d. 889 [276 A.H.]), a younger contemporary, clearly felt al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ failed in this task—not due to any lack of rhetorical skill, but rather owing to what he saw as al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ habit of irting with opposing viewpoints:

Abū Muḥammad [Ibn Qutayba] said: Now we come to al-Jāḥiẓ, the last of the Kalām Masters, the one whereby his predecessors are gauged (muʿāyar). He was easily the best of them at arguing to his own preference, and the most prodigiously clever in the subtlety with which he magnied the trivial so that it became important, and diminished the important so that it became trivial. His ability for this was such that it enabled him to establish one thing and its opposite. ...

He produced a treatise in which he lists the arguments of the Christians against the Muslims,14 but when he comes to rebut them, he patiently allows their argument to stand, as if he simply wanted to teach them something they did not understand15 and to cast doubts on the weak-minded members among the Muslims. (Ibn Qutayba 1995, 62 = 1908, 72; trans. in Montgomery 2013, 36, square brackets mine; compare trans. in Kassis 2004, 241-242)

Yet, as Montgomery points out, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ simply had very dierent standards from those of Ibn Qutayba for engaging in and recording debate (2013, 37). In his treatise called

“Knowledge” (Kitab̄ al-Maʿrifa), al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ explains:

14. On the basis of Ibn Qutayba’s statement here, Brockelmann (1996, 240) thinks this is probably a work separate from “The Refutation of Christians,” called “Christian Proofs against the Muslims” (Kitāb ḥujaj al-Nasạ ̄rā ʿalā al-Muslim̄n). However, the latter is not mentioned anywhere else, so far as I am aware. Rather, Ibn Qutayba’s description matches “The Refutation of Christians” if one simply allows him the opinion that al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ represented Christian arguments with too much plausibility and was therefore unsuccessful in refuting them.

”.perhaps, “warn them about something they did not know : ﺗﻨﺒﻴﻬﻬﻢ ﻋﻠﻰ ﻣﺎ ﻻ ﻳﻌﺮﻓﻮن .15 61 his position when at the very least one has the capacity to understand the position they have reached and the ability to grasp what they have comprehended. (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 4:50, trans. in Montgomery 2013, 38)

The paradox is that although al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ did not see Christians as worthy of participating directly in debates about the Qurʾan, he did make some attempt to represent their arguments credibly. What Ibn Qutayba did not see, was how by doing so he could achieve an even greater rhetorical victory.

B’. Intended Response to Letter (308.4-7)16

Having acknowledged the letter and the specic challenges it raised, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ next explains the approach his response will take:

We will use clear evidence, powerful proofs, and compelling inferences to discuss all of the challenges you brought up that have reached us, as well as their challenges that you have not come across.17 Then, after we respond to them, we will challenge them on those aspects where they know their proclamation unravels, their doctrine disintegrates, and their religion crumbles. (308.4-7)

The author apparently plans to rst rebut Christian arguments against Islam, then counter them with arguments that strike at Christian belief. It might seem that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ intends to repudiate all challenges before launching his counterattacks,18 but, in fact,

16. Excerpt 2 begins.

17. See al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ letter to Aḥmad b. Ab̄ Duʾad̄ about his work On Legal Verdicts (Kitāb al-Futyā; no longer extant), where he describes a similar approach of making his treatise comprehensive by including arguments his opponents could use, but have not (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 1:314; English trans. in Montgomery 2013, 203).

18. Fletcher understands al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ intent this way and posits that most of the second part of the treatise is lost, which would have contained his counterarguments, or attempts at “positive apologetics” (2002, 103-105). 62 he has inserted his counterarguments, where present, after each argument’s rebuttal, resulting in the following general pattern that is repeated a number of times in the text:

1. Presentation of Opponent’s Argument

2. Rebuttal of Opponent’s Argument

3. Counterargument

Whereas his rebuttal of the initial argument is typically a defensive attempt to nullify the force of his opponent’s argument, his counterarguments are oensive moves intended to take the battle into his opponent’s home territory. Occasionally, he has also included an additional layer in his rebuttal: his rebuttal of his opponent’s counter- rebuttal. Thus, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ begins each section of this treatise in an entirely defensive posture—parrying the attacks Christians make on Islam, as requested by his addressees—but often ends it with a lunging counterattack. This is similar to the approach he takes in his “Refutation of Anthropomorphists” (Al-Radd ʿalā al-

Mushabbiha) (1964-79, 4:5-16; trans. 2002, 94-100), except for the fact that rebuttals and counterarguments do not seem to be clearly dierentiated from each other in the latter treatise. Overall, the strategy seems to be the sort of common-sense tactical approach one might expect of someone with al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ level of familiarity with kalam̄ - style debate. Signicantly, it seems to be the key to unlocking the way he structures the main body of the text (see esp. Figure 3 below). 63

A’. Invocation (Prayer) (308.8-10)

Besides being a prayer, the second invocation, requesting “clarity of purpose in word and in deed” (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 2002, 72), serves to signal the end of the introduction and the beginning of the main part of the text. It also provides a clue to the way al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has organized his introduction, since it echoes the very rst element of the text. He seems to have used a ring structure here, working inward section-by-section toward the center of the introduction, then retracing his steps outward, treating in reverse order the themes he laid out at rst (see Figure 1 above). (This can be represented as A–B–C–

B’–A’.) Ring composition, also known as chiastic structure or symmetric composition, has been noted in regard to the Qurʾan (Cuypers 2009; Farrin 2010; Ernst 2011,

155-171, 223-228),19 not to mention several works of ancient literature more generally.

More to the point is that this structuring strategy can be found elsewhere in al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ writing. Montgomery has observed chiasmus and ring composition in Clarity and

Clarication (Kitab̄ al-Bayan̄ wa-l-tabȳn) (2013, 337-338), as well as the similar but less complex “reversion topos” that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ himself acknowledges in Animals.20 In the latter case, the author discusses one topic, moves on to another, and then “reverts” or returns

19. Again, notably, regarding sūra 5 (Al-Māʾida), which al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ quotes or alludes to several times in the course of the treatise.

20. See Montgomery’s inventory of paratexts (textual markers) for Animals (2013, 73-95). One example of the “reversion topos” is al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ discussion of re and water. First, he discusses the topic of re for over a hundred pages at the end of volume 4 and the beginning of volume 5 (1938-45, 4:461-5:89), then informs his readers: “We will deliver, with God’s assistance and aid, a comprehensive speech on water. Then we will move on to record the speech on re with which we began” (1938-45, 5:89.1-2; trans. in Montgomery 2013, 83). Thirty pages later, he remarks, “Now the discourse has brought us back to the discussion of re” (1938-45, 5:119.10; trans. in Montgomery 2013, 84). These comments seem to imply that his “reversions” of this sort are not merely careless digressions. Another example is his exegesis of the ode of al-Bahran̄ ̄ in volume 6, in the middle of which he has consciously placed a discussion of jinn (see Montgomery 2013, 88). 64 to the rst. In “The Refutation of Christians,” the ring structure of the introduction (in its present form at least21) is a neat ve pieces with ve Christian arguments as its center point.

II. Response to Muslim Preferences toward Christians (308.11-324.15)

A. Presentation and Rebuttal of Muslim Preferences toward Christians (308.11-316.14)

The reader waiting for al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ to respond to the critical points the Christians have raised about the Qurʾan is in for a surprise, because the rst topic he addresses is not a Christian argument at all. Instead, he takes up the Muslim popular assumption that

Christians are preferable to Zoroastrians22 or Jews. As he expresses the reasons for this preference, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ implies the arbitrariness of some explanations and directly rebuts others. The reasons he gives are the following (see gure 2)23:

(1) That the Christians’ relationship to Muslims has bred respect, especially from

a historical perspective (309.1-313.13)

(a) That the geographical proximity of the rst Muslims to Jews

engendered hatred, while their distance from Christians allowed for a

more amicable relationship. (309.1-310.8)

21. That is, there could have originally been material between excerpts 1 and 2 that would disrupt this structure.

22. Zoroastrians are hardly mentioned in the ensuing section of comparison, though al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ does contrast the Negus of Abyssinia’s warm welcome to Muslims with the Persian king’s treatment of them (312.11-14).

23. Italicized keywords in the list below are intended to show the correspondence of themes between the lists in sections (A) and (B) below. 65

(b) That the masses wrongly suppose that Christians are preferred over

Jews in Q. 5 (Al-Māʾida) 82-85. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ quickly straightens out this

misunderstanding. (310.9-311.3)

Christian rulers, to whom they have ties of blood (the Ghassanids̄ and

Lakhmids), friendship (the Negus of Abyssinia), and marriage (the

Byzantines). (311.4-312.16)

(d) That Christianity was widespread among a number of Arab tribes,

whereas Judaism was not. (313.1-313.13)

(2) That Christians’ professions and intellectual achievements are greater than

those of the Jews. Here, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ goes out of his way to undermine the idea that

Christians’ intellectual veneer has anything to do with the merits of their

religion. (314.3-316.9)

(3) That Christians are physically less repulsive than Jews, which is attributable

to their marital practices, since the latter do not marry outside their group.

(316.10-14)

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ rebuts the more weighty reasons for Muslims’ preference of Christians over Jews, but lets the others stand, allowing his readers to draw the fairly obvious conclusion that they do not adequately warrant this preference. 66

Figure 2. Detailed structure of Part I of “The Refutation of Christians”

B. Counterargument about Muslim Preferences toward Christians

(316.15-324.15)

Transitioning to his counterargument, he mentions some of the topics he has elucidated, and previews the points he intends to make about the threat Christians pose:

Now we—God have mercy on you!—do not disagree with the masses about how wealthy the Christians are, or that they have prominent authority, or that their clothes are cleaner, or that their professions are better. Where we dier, rather, is about the dierence between the two forms of unbelief—the two sects— regarding the extent of (their) obstinacy and importunity, (their) repaying the 67 people of Islam with every kind of deception, as well as the vileness of (their) axioms and the nauseousness of (their) ancestral traits. (316.15-317.3)

He trumps four popular perceptions of Christians (wealth, authority, cleanliness, and good professions) with ve insidious characteristics (obstinacy, importunity, deception, vile axioms, and nauseous ancestral traits). These ve characteristics relate to the main points in his counterargument, which in turn correspond to the general themes he raised in his exposition of Muslims’ perceptions about Christians (see Figure

2 above):

(1) That Christians show obstinacy and importunity in their relationship with

Muslims, agrantly violating the agreements they have made. (317.4-320.7)

(2) That they use their intellectualism to deceive and subvert weak-minded

Muslims, causing them to doubt and converting them to Christianity.

(320.8-322.12)

(3) 24That Christians practice ancestral customs which are morally impure and

which are rooted in the corrupted axioms of their doctrines. (322.13-324.15)

This time, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has responded to issues in the same order as he raised them; but, as will be seen later, he sometimes reverses the order.

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ social argument constitutes what I consider to be Part I of the

“Refutation,” and is the portion of the text I will examine in more detail in later chapters. As it stands (ignoring the possibility that some of it may have been lost), it

24. Excerpt 3 begins. 68 comprises about one-third of the entire treatise. Both its size and its position in the text—intervening between pressing questions and their answers—declare its signicance. But what is that signicance? For now, I will observe two particular ways that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has masterfully crafted this section, from both a rhetorical and a literary perspective.

First, he has set up a captivating contest between Christians and Jews, in which he draws on a variety of literary techniques that juxtapose two rivals—techniques with a long heritage, which he himself was helping to pioneer in new forms. Among these, the Arabic poetic tradition of hijāʾ, hailing from pre-Islamic times, was a method of insulting or satirizing one’s opponent, sometimes with so great an eect as to incite wars or blood feuds (see Pellat 1971, 352). In the ninth century, one of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ patrons, al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n̄ apparently used the poetic form, but, as Pellat indicates, al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ was able to do something similar in prose when he satirized Muḥammad b. al-

Jahm al-Barmakī (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1947, 55-62; English excerpt in al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 122), as well when he good-naturedly made fun of his friends in his epistles (Pellat 1971, 354-355).25

Hijāʾ could be used to criticize an individual or group for a whole host of faults; a few of the typical ones Pellat lists might arguably appear in “The Refutation of

Christians”: “avarice,” “lack of intelligence,” “failure to keep [one’s] word,” and

“various detestable habits” (Pellat 1971, 353). Moreover, hijāʾ had been used before in inter- and intrareligious dispute (Pellat 1971, 354). Just as hijāʾ could eect real and

25. See also al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ depiction of Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhab̄ in The Circle and the Square (Kitāb al-tarb̄ʿ wa- l-tadw̄r) (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1955, par. 1-3, English excerpt in al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 126-127). 69 lasting harm on someone’s reputation (Pellat 1971, 353), al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ critique of Christians could be that much more eective if it went beyond the realm of logical persuasion to that of artistry; hijāʾ was a technique known to evince the kind of pathos required for the task.

There was also a millennia-old Mesopotamian tradition of literary debates in which a single text represented the merits and faults of a pair of characters, often non- human and often as a dialogue.26 In Syriac, these survived as dispute poems, but how and to what extent these genres inuenced Arabic literature is more dicult to tell

(Wagner 1993, 566-567; compare Pellat 1952a, 64). By the tenth century, it seems, the genre of literary munaz̄ arạ had fully owered, in which the counterposed subjects spoke for themselves (Wagner 1993, 567). A century earlier, however, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to have played a key role in the development of this approach. He not only created prose descriptions of the merits (maḥasin̄ ) and faults (masaw̄ ̄) of certain persons, groups, or subjects (see Gériès 1986, 1223-1224; Wagner 1993, 567);27 but also wrote works describing the superiority (tafḍ̄l) or praise (madḥ) of one rival over against

26. See the introduction of Reinink and Vanstiphout (1991) for an overview of the development.

27. An approach that can be seen from a number of his works’ titles (see Pellat 1984). 70 another,28 and others that put two characters or groups in dialogue with each other29

(Wagner 1993, 567).

Yet munaz̄ arạ could also refer to a debate between proponents of rival theological positions, having the format of masāʾil wa-ajwiba (“questions and answers”)

(Wagner 1993, 565; see also Daiber 1991, 636). The oral form aected the way written disputations proceeded, but the methods Arabic authors used also paralleled those found in Greek and Syriac treatises (Daiber 1991, 636; Wagner 1993, 566; Grith

2008, 81-82). The masāʾil wa-ajwiba approach proved quite popular for apologetic works by both Muslims and non-Muslims (see Grith 2008, 81-85, Daiber 1991, 636), and seems closely connected with the origins of kalam̄ 30 itself (Cook 1980, 43).

What is fascinating about “The Refutation of Christians” is that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has set up a munaz̄ arạ -type competition of the literary sort between Christians and Jews inside a munaz̄ arạ -style inter-religious dispute between Christians and Muslims. He indicates that Christians are the audience’s favorite in the contest against their archetypal opponents, the Jews, enumerating one reason after another that the masses prefer

28. Examples include “Superiority of the Blacks to the Whites” (Kitāb fakhr al-sūdān ʿalā al-bīḍān) (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 1:177-226; English trans. 2002b, 25-52), “Superiority of Speech to Silence” (Tafḍl ̄ al-nutq̣ ʿalā al-samṭ ) (al- Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1964-79, 4:229-239; English trans. 2002b, 147-152), “Superiority of the Belly to the Back” (F̄ tafḍ̄l al-batṇ ʿalā al-zahṛ ) (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1964-79, 4:155-166; English excerpt in al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1969, 269), and “In Praise of Tradesmen and Disparagement of Ocialdom” (F̄ madḥ al-tujjār wa-dhamm ʿamal al-sultạ ̄n) (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1964-79, 4:253-258; English excerpt in 1969, 272-273).

29. “Boasting-Match between Girls and Pretty Boys” (Kitāb mufākharāt al-jawār̄ wa-l-ghilmān) (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1964-79, 2:91-137; English trans. 2002b, 205-230) and, most famously, the debate between the proponent of the dog and the proponent of the rooster in Animals, volumes 1-2.

30. Kalām in this sense refers to “the formal, intellectual exercise in the systematic defense of the credibility of religious doctrines, developed originally by Muslim apologists, but not without some debt to earlier, even Syriac-speaking Christians” (Grith 2008, 46; see also Frank 1992). 71

Christians to Jews. But he then invalidates these preferences by showing Christians to be at least as pernicious as Jews from a Muslim perspective. So while this portion of the text does not have the classic munaz̄ arạ format of two subjects maintaining a dialogue, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is using a literary process similar to ones he has used in several of his other works. Constantly leery of wearying his audience, he has provided them with a spectacle, which, despite its harshness, may even be humorous in places, if one is to judge from its apparent irony and hyperbole.31 More importantly, he has wielded a masterful rhetorical stroke. The vanquished Christians, once the audience’s favorite, now look at least as despicable as the Jews; but the real victor is the rhetorician, who has shown his artistry and won his audience’s respect by overturning the expected result.

The second point worth mentioning about his literary and rhetorical craftsmanship in this section is the way that he creates an opportunity to challenge his audience’s assumptions after raising the initial questions, but before addressing them.

In the suspense created during the pause, while he has his readers’ attention, he recontextualizes the entire debate. Again, this is something one might expect of an experienced persuader.

What is the new context—the dierent footing—on which he wants to address the challenges Christians have brought against the Qurʾan? He brings into question the motives and expertise of the challengers. Rather than being elite scholars committed to

31. Irony, hyperbole, and even humor do not negate the value of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ statements for social history. Although his portrayal may sometimes be exaggerated, it could only succeed rhetorically if it resonated with what his readers perceived to be true about Christians. 72 the well-being of the umma (Islamic community), he argues, they are impostors who endanger both the foundations and the superstructure of Muslim society, outing the agreements they have made and purposely undermining the faith of Muslims. His persuasive appeal here is directed not toward asking Christians to reform their ways, but toward castigating Muslims who are too accommodating of Christians. Given

Caliph al-Mutawakkil’s purpose in commissioning the work, this social argument may in fact be the most crucial part of the treatise. If the Christians’ questions are actually intended to subvert the Muslim community, then a social response is needed just as much as an intellectual one.

Thus, this particular section appears intended to erase Christians’ credibility in the minds of his readers and persuade them that Christians in fact have no right to ask these kinds of questions about the Qurʾan (compare Fletcher 2002, 104). It is the move of a masterful rhetorician: shearing the opponent’s arguments of their ethical appeal before responding to them substantively. Just as importantly, it continues al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ strategy of keeping Christians a third party to the conversation. Part I of the

“Refutation” is an aside to his Muslim hearers that helps them recognize that the response of al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ to the outsiders’ verbal attacks will be more for his friends’ peace of mind than because the challenges are legitimate. 73

III. Response to Christian Arguments (324.16-349.8)32

Having ended his social argument, in the second part of the “Refutation” al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ takes up the challenges to the Qurʾan that he mentioned in his introduction, along with additional arguments posed by the Christians, and his own counterarguments (see gure 3). The symmetry of his arrangement calls to mind the ring composition he used for his introduction. More signicantly, he makes good on the plan he had announced to rst rebut Christian arguments and then provide counterarguments. In the process, his prociency in kalam̄ (theological disputation) comes to the fore.

32. Excerpt 4 begins. 74

Figure 3. Detailed structure of Part II of “The Refutation of Christians” 75

A. Response to Argument that Jesus Did Not Speak in Cradle (324.16-329.4)

He starts out by addressing the last of the Christian attacks he had mentioned in his introduction33—that Jesus’ speaking in the cradle is neither known in Christian tradition nor recognized by any other religious group besides Muslims. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ rebuts the Christians’ arguments about this in reverse of the order they raised them in the introduction. First, he makes the case that the Christians’ attempted appeal to neutral third parties is irrelevant since these third parties do not acknowledge Jesus’ miracles anyway. Then he asserts the unreliability of the Gospel writers, a point that serves not only as a specic rebuttal explaining why the Christians have no knowledge of Jesus’ speaking in the cradle (Kassis 2004, 243), but also as a counterargument striking at the roots of Christianity itself.

B. Response to Argument that if God Could Take a Friend He Could Take a Son (329.5-343.4)34

The next section is the longest one devoted to any one doctrinal argument. Here al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ moves on to the topic of the Incarnation by presenting an argument that he had not mentioned in the introduction but to which, supposedly, the addressees had requested al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ response. This is that if God could take Abraham as his friend

(khal̄l), he might also take someone as his son. The author puts forward three sub- arguments by his opponents, none of which seem to be voiced by Christians. The rst

(a) and third (a’) (which reect each other chiastically) are both arguments by Muslim

33. That is, the one that falls at the end of excerpt one; there is no way of knowing whether there were others after it in the original text.

34. Excerpt 5 begins. 76 scholars in favor of the view that God could adopt a human being as his son. The second (b’) (in the middle of the chiasmus) is spoken ostensibly by Jewish objectors to the eect that God called Israel his son in the Torah itself. Each of these receives a rebuttal from al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ and, in the case of (b’) and (a’), a counterargument. Finally, the section concludes with the author’s counterargument aimed at the Incarnation more generally, in the style of a kalam̄ snare (342.1-343.4).35 Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is prepared to prove that regardless of whether the Christians claim Jesus’ sonship was by his special birth or by adoption, Adam had an even greater right to be called God’s son, a point which, if acknowledged, would undoubtedly destroy the Incarnational cornerstone of Christian theology.

C. Response to Argument that Muslims Inaccurately Accuse Other Religions (343.5-347.3)36

The third section of Part II responds to the rst Christian challenge al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ raised in his introduction: that Muslims accuse those of other religions of believing things they do not or could not believe. So far as it remains, this section is devoted entirely to proving the Qurʾan correct about Jewish beliefs, omitting any answer to the

Christians’ contention that they do not in fact worship Mary as seemingly implied by the Qurʾan in 5 (Al-Māʾida) 116. The author rst gives a general rebuttal to the accusation, pointing out the Jews’ biased motives in faulting the Qurʾan, then goes into specic arguments and rebuttals regarding each of the three Qurʾanic statements about

35. Comprising excerpts 6 (342.1-10) and 7 (342.11-343.4), both very short.

36. Excerpt 8 begins. 77

Jews mentioned at the beginning of the work, but in reverse, creating a mirror image of the order in which he had presented these statements earlier.

D. Response to Argument that Qurʾan Dierentiates Jesus from Ordinary Humans (347.4-349.8)37

In the nal extant section of Part II, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ again presents a Christian argument not mentioned before: that the Qurʾan’s own statements about Jesus make him out to be dierent from ordinary humans. After briey framing the discussion by explaining that this issue involves what can be asserted about the Qurʾan in the Arabic language, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ provides three rebuttals to this argument, all focusing on the meaning of rūḥun minhu (“a spirit from him [God]”) as applied to Jesus in Q. 4 (Al-Nisāʾ) 171. He contends that (a) Jesus is no more God’s son or another god than is the angel Gabriel who is likewise a spirit from God; (b) God breathing his spirit into Mary’s womb is comparable to breathing his spirit into Adam; and (c) “blowing” and “spirit” have multiple meanings that have to be determined according to context. Here, the text moves abruptly to the concluding excerpt; possibly, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ had developed this argument more thoroughly in the original text.

A few things may be observed about Part II of the “Refutation.” First, although it contains responses to two issues the author raised in the introduction, as well as to two additional issues, it does not address the three remaining points brought up at the beginning: the Christians’ claims that the Qurʾan is incorrect in stating that (2) Pharaoh spoke to Hamā n,̄ that (3) John the Baptist was the rst to be named Yaḥya,̄ and that

37. Excerpt 9 begins. 78

(4) God’s messengers before Muḥammad were all male. Further, it does not bring up the point about whether Christians worship Mary, which was raised in the introduction as part of the claim that the Qurʾan speaks inaccurately about other religions. All this is despite al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ earlier promise and later armation of comprehensiveness.

It seems reasonable to conclude that the responses to these issues were once contained in “The Refutation of Christians,” but that they were not preserved when

ʿUbayd Allah̄ b. Ḥassan̄ made his anthology. For example, ʿAbd al-Jabbar,̄ writing his

Conrmation of the Proofs of Prophecy (Tathb̄t dalāʾil al-nubuwwa) about a century and a half later, was apparently aware of a version of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ work in which he did discuss

Christians views of Mary (ʿAbd al-Jabbar̄ 2010, 85).38 Moreover, one might even hazard a guess as to the sequence and original placement of the responses that are now missing. Given that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to address the initial arguments in reverse order, beginning Part II with his response to (5) and placing his rebuttal of (1) toward its end, the rebuttals of arguments (4), (3), and (2) would most naturally t in the gaps between excerpts 4 and 5 and excerpts 7 and 8, which are some of the cleaner topical breaks and into which additional material could t structurally. His response to the

Christians’ point about Mary may have fallen between excerpts 8 and 9.

38. After producing evidence that Christians believe Mary to be a god, ʿAbd al-Jabbar̄ argues that Christians’ beliefs imply physical intercourse between God and Mary:

Know that the masses of the Christians believe that God chose Mary for himself and his son, that He selected her as a man chooses a woman and took her as a concubine because of His yearning for her. Naẓẓām and Jāḥiẓ have related this. [Jāḥiẓ] reports, “They only declare this outright to one who has their trust.” ... You will nd this in his {al-Iksh̄d’s} book al-Maʿūna and in the book of Jāḥiẓ against the Christians {wa fī kitābi al-Jāḥiẓ ʿalā al- Naṣārā}. (2010, 85 [2.521, 524]) 79

In spite of the missing pieces, there is nevertheless a symmetry that emerges from the four extant sections of Part II. Sections A and C both represent arguments mentioned in the introduction and involve Christians’ attacks on the Qurʾan, while sections B and D are both newly introduced arguments from Christians that attempt to support Christianity from the Qurʾan. It is possible that by interweaving Christians’ criticisms of the Qurʾan with their attempts to use it for their own purposes, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is subtly indicating their duplicity (compare Hefter 2014, 50)?

IV. Conclusion (349.9-351.10)39

The nal extant portion seems to be a conclusion in which al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ echoes themes from the introduction—the completeness (and fairness) of his response, and the way he has provided his fellow Muslims with an appropriate defense against the wiles of Christian disputants. Unexpectedly and artfully, he parts with one nal blow, occasioned by mentioning his expectation that Christians will have the opportunity to question him further, and he them. This last counterargument takes the shape of another kalam̄ riddle in which al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ asks whether the Messiah was only God, only man, or both. He previews his responses to the rst two possible answers, then goes on to comment that he would refute the Christians using the case against anthropomorphism. This, I suspect, is his way of handling the third possible answer

Christians might give to the question he has posed—the option that Jesus is both God and man—since he mentions Christians clinging to both anthropomorphism and

39. Excerpt 10 begins. 80 incarnation. His nal line is another invocation: “To God I turn for support” (351.9-10; trans. 2002b, 91).

Despite the criticisms al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has sometimes received for disorganization and rambling, what he has produced here is a methodical treatise that engages both the intellects and the passions of his readers. Its arrangement is certainly not rigid, but he has usually left his audience enough clues to follow not only his aesthetic course, but also his logical train of thought (compare Fletcher 2002, 100).

Two particularly signicant patterns emerge from the rhetorical architecture, or logos, of the work. First, he usually prefers to respond rst to the point he raised last and work back toward the rst point, as if crossing concentric rings into the center of a circle and back out again. Second, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is keenly aware of what it takes to neutralize the force of the opponent’s argument, and systematically does so before engaging the other in his own attack. Both of these insights in turn help identify the function of material that might otherwise appear aimless or out of place.

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is not an author who withholds his emotions, but the pathos of “The

Refutation of Christians” owes as much to the expert application of his literary craft as to the weight of his feelings. His calculated technique of addressing only Muslim readers, his constructing a contest between Christians and Jews with an unexpected outcome, and his insinuation of Christians’ duplicity through juxtaposing their arguments that employ the Qurʾan with ones that assail it all underscore the disingenuousness of a group he thinks should neither have a part in conversations about the Qurʾan nor exert any sway over the Islamic sector of society. That is how al- 81

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ responded to the intricate task of disentagling his fellow Muslims from any

Christian tendrils that had hold of them. ______Part II The Proﬁle of Christians in the “Refutation” ______

82 CHAPTER 4 Undermining the Biases

Introduction and Methodology

Why is it that Christians must be refuted? Is it that their theology is subversive to the Muslim community? Is their presence an annoyance, or are their practices repugnant? Do they pose a political threat to the empire, a fth column that could awaken in favor of the Byzantines or some other power? In other words, what is al-

Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ purpose in writing, and why does his treatise take on doctrinal and social concerns simultaneously?

In his study of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Christology, Charles Pellat divorces the theological reasoning of “The Refutation of Christians” from its socio-political dimension. He calls the writer’s attitude “very understandable” when he attacks Christians “on the socio- political level,” but thinks al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has an “ulterior motive” in his dogmatic campaign:

Just as Voltaire used Islam against Christianity, so also Jāḥiẓ (but with dierent intentions) used the example of Jesus’ teachings and the way they had been interpreted to stigmatize the methods employed by the Muslim fuqahāʾ. When he says he wants to show Christians ‘their own contradictions, the weakness of their doctrines, and the inconsistency of their religion’ {al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1939, 131}, and adds, ‘The Christians claim that reasoning by analogy cannot be used for knowing dogma, and that religion does not allow for free speculation; for them, faith consists of unconditionally acknowledging the content of Scripture and imitating the ancestors in a servile way’ {al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1939, 139}, one senses that his intention is not so much to demean the followers of an attractive, but now harmless,

83 84 religion, as much as to make clear by this approach that taqlīd {blind imitation} must be rejected and ‘free’ intellectual ‘speculation’ be accepted into the sphere of Islam itself. (1970, 232; emphasis mine)

That is to say, Pellat seems to consider al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ main purpose in the dogmatic portion of his text as criticizing the traditionalist Muslim camp by pejoratively comparing them to Christians.

While I agree that the “Refutation” clearly has these undertones of an intra-

Islamic dispute, Pellat’s premise that Christianity is a “harmless religion” (in a theological sense, presumably) by this point in Islamic history seems contrary to the very heart of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ claims. For him, the social menace Christians pose in his society is intertwined with the ideological contest between Christian and Muslim theologies.

On the dogmatic side, the entire epistle is framed as a response to Christians using the

Qurʾan to lead astray the weak—theological attacks perpetrated through social encounters. On the social side, the reason al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ sees Christians’ prestige and intellectualism as such a danger is precisely that they are using them to undermine the

Qurʾanic ideals of Muslim society. Despite the work’s two-part structure of social argumentation and theological argumentation, the dogmatic and societal concerns are inseparable.

In fact, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to be responding to a question that cropped up in a number of dierent forms during his lifetime: what was Christians’ place in an

Islamically governed society? For Muslim jurists, the theoretical question had practical ramications about whether a Christian’s testimony was valid against a Muslim, which punishments should be meted out against Christians, and so on (Friedmann 2003). The 85 legal scholars also advised caliphs about the appropriate treatment of non-Muslims on the level of state policy (Levy-Rubin 2011, 70-75). The Christian patriarchs Timothy and Ishoʿdad̄ issued law books delineating communal boundaries in regard to intermarriage, religious ceremonies, and more (see Weitz, forthcoming); yet Timothy also actively supported Christian intellectual involvement with Muslims in the translation movement (Gutas 1998, 61; Grith 2008, 47, 106-107). Caliphs, for their part, employed Christian scholars and administrators, had Byzantine concubines, and enforced restrictions on the protected people (ahl al-dhimma) of their empire, the latter culminating in al-Mutawakkil’s ideologically charged but pragmatically designed edicts of 850. None of these decisions were obvious ones. Behind all of them lay debates with both theoretical and pragmatic dimensions.

The issues al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ raises about Christians’ place in society are not, for the most part, unique, but his methods and synthesis are. As the premier cultural critic of his age, it was up to him to fashion arguments that had social observation not merely as application or ornamentation, but as their very fabric. Like so many thinkers of his time, Islamic ideals are the mortar in his reasoning; but, unlike most, he builds his case outward and upward from his perceptions of society, which are his prime evidence.

Why then must Christians be refuted? This is the question that al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ social argumentation attempts to answer, and this answer is the subject of Part II of this study. In the rst half (analyzed in this chapter), al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ elucidates the reasons the

Muslim masses have come to like Christians better than Jews or other religious communities. Cleverly, he explains Muslim popular preferences in ways that 86 simultaneously undermine their legitimacy (a variation of the presentation and rebuttal strategy noted in the previous chapter). In the second half (analyzed in chapter 5), he wields his counterarguments in an attempt to persuade his readers that Christians are actually a greater menace to Muslims than Jews or any other religious community. The etiologies and counterarguments al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ presents fall into roughly three themes, each of which are present in both halves of his social argumentation (though not in even measure): Christians’ social power and prestige, Christian intellectualism, and

Christians’ purity.

The research questions that drive these two chapters are the following:

(1) How does al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ construct his argumentation about Christians’ place in an

Islamically governed society?

(2) What do we learn about Christians’ socio-cultural state of aairs through the

process of studying his argumentation?

Polemic as Historical Source Material?

Ever since Joshua Finkel published an edition of the text (1926, 10-38) and translation of this portion of it (1927), scholars of Muslim-Christian and Muslim-Jewish interaction have known about its potential contribution and have made use of it in minor ways. Yet al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ broad-ranging perspective in this text also intersects the planes of social history, cultural history, and Islamic law; in these areas, it seldom surfaces in the scholarly literature.1 Such a text deserves to be treated as a historical source in a way that reects the truly interdisciplinary outlook of its author. Both al-

1. Gutas’ use of it in his study of Greco-Arabic literature is one of the exceptions (1998). 87

Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ descriptions of popular perceptions of Christians and his own revisionist views of them are studded with the kind of details that can enrich not just religious and intellectual history, but also several other sub-disciplines.

The biggest obstacle to gleaning such riches from a text of this nature is its genre as polemic. Historians are understandably hesitant to take at face value the “facts” garnered from a polemical text, and even more so when its author is infamous for sarcasm, indirectness, and the ability to argue any position. Perhaps this is the reason it has been relatively neglected. Despite the fact that it is a potentially lucrative store of knowledge from the interface between religion and society in the ninth century, actually gaining reliable information from “The Refutation of Christians” is a thorny task.

How should one proceed? The trouble with polemics, of course, is that the

“historical” evidence their authors contrive in favor of their own positions may seem to be constrained little, if at all, by historical realities. Polemicists appear free to invent

“facts” to suit their arguments. But this is not, in fact, the case. Even polemicists are constrained by their own purpose, which is to persuade. Any speaker who wants to convince her audience will try to gauge her audience. Truly eective persuaders know how to do this well, beginning from points their audiences already believe, stepping through logic their audiences are likely to nd plausible, and navigating around objections their audiences might raise. Polemicists’ real constraints, then, have to do with attaining goals whose achievement depends not just on themselves, but on other 88 people; neglecting to account for this is likely to end in complete failure and is not something one can expect a seasoned persuader like al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ to be guilty of.

The key, then, to mining al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ “Refutation” for its historical value is understanding his negotiations with his ninth-century readers. I have already given my reasons for thinking that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has calibrated his work to Muslim readers, rather than Christian ones; and to a general audience, rather than to specialists. Moving forward on this basis, I intend to investigate what al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ estimates his readers know about Christians. What facts about Christians does he expect his readers to accept unquestioningly, and which of these can they verify from their own experience? What modes of reasoning does he prefer, and why might these be more plausible to his audience than other ones? Which premises does he leave unstated, supposing that his readers have the necessary background to ll them in? And at what points does his audience’s knowledge about Christians constitute an obstacle he must acknowledge and work around? These are the hard edges that constrain his path, and I hope by uncovering them to make “The Refutation of Christians” useful as a historical source, not just for its polemical thought, but for its social and cultural details.

These kinds of questions, though, can only be answered by thoroughly analyzing al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argumentation to nd out how it works. For this task, I will be using the

“Pragma-Dialectical Approach,” pioneered by Eemeren, Grootendorst, and others.2 It is

2. For the essentials of this approach, see especially Eemeren, Grootendorst, and Henkemans (2002); as well as Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992 and 2003), and Eemeren (1993). My thanks goes to Prof. Eemeren for his kind direction that helped me better understand certain points of this approach; any errors in my understanding or application of it are, of course, my own. 89 my goal, naturally, to explicate the argumentation without imposing on it any framework that is unduly foreign to it; I also do not intend to evaluate its logical soundness. The Pragma-Dialectical method ts this purpose quite nicely, for although it has both descriptive and normative dimensions, the descriptive portion of it makes minimal assumptions about a speaker’s language, culture, or frame of reference, as I think will be evident from the following brief description.3

Argumentation Analysis

The relevant tool from Pragma-Dialectics is the “analytic overview,” described by Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992, 93) as consisting of four steps, which I will apply to the argumentation of the “Refutation” as follows:

1. Determine the points at issue between al-Jāḥiẓ and his rhetorical opponents (real or

hypothetical).

2. Recognize the positions that al-Jāḥiẓ adopts, as well as those he attributes

(explicitly or implicitly) to his opponents.

3. Identify al-Jāḥiẓ’ explicit arguments relating to the Christians’ social situation (and

those of his opponents, where he gives them), and make any implicit arguments

explicit using the procedure given in Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992, 60-72).

4. Analyze the structure of al-Jāḥiẓ’ argumentation about Christians in Abbasid

society, particularly by relating subordinate arguments to his overall argument(s).

3. Despite al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ apparent familiarity with Greek philosophical works, I see no evidence that he employs formal Greek logic in this text. Thus, I do not use classical Greek systems to describe his argumentation, because doing so would be evaluating his argumentation by a framework he did not apparently intend to use. 90

Most argumentation leaves out certain logical steps that the speaker supposes are obvious to the original audience, thus the requirement in step 3 to make implicit arguments explicit. More specically, it is quite common for speakers to leave one of the premises in their arguments unexpressed, expecting audiences to mentally bridge the gap.4 But to a dierent audience—particularly one as distant as modern readers are from al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ situation—these logical gaps require extra work to bridge.

The procedure for determining the content of an unexpressed premise has to do with nding the “pragmatic optimum”—a premise that completes the argument in a logically valid but also maximally informative way (Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992,

63-64). It is the context that must inform the analyst’s choices when lling these gaps, since the context determines which premises are reasonable to attribute to the speaker

(Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, 64). To ll out the context of “The Refutation of

Christians,” I will sometimes make reference in the following argumentation analysis to al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ other writings, to other contemporary texts, and to canonical texts, such as the

Qurʾan and hadith. However, I will only specify these unexpressed premises when I

nd the context is able to provide something more informative than a merely routine logical step.

Step 4 includes representing the argumentation structure visibly in a diagram.

The standpoint the argumentation is intended to establish is at the top, supported by one or more arguments, which consist of premises supporting a conclusion (including

4. Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992, 61) point out that an argument with an unexpressed premise might seem to be invalid (“x, therefore y” is not a valid argument), but that the unexpressed premise can instead be taken to be “a special sort of indirect speech act which is conveyed implicitly by the argument.” 91 unexpressed premises in parentheses if the analyst chooses to represent them). Each argument may, in turn, be supported by further arguments. Often, multiple arguments are given in support of the same conclusion, either through multiple argumentation (in which each argument independently establishes the conclusion) or coordinative argumentation (in which the arguments are taken together to establish the conclusion).

Figure 4 shows the diagram format with its various parts labeled.

Figure 4. Diagramming argumentation using the Pragma-Dialectical Approach

Figure 5 is an example from Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992, 84) showing how the diagram is used to represent an actual argument. 92

Figure 5. Example argumentation diagram

Diagramming any argumentation, let alone al-Jah̄ ̣iz’,̣ is a painstaking process that usually requires multiple trials before settling on an acceptable representation.

Moreover, I am certain that readers will disagree in places with my attempts to paraphrase, summarize, interpret, and ll in al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ lines of reasoning. Argumentation analysis lays bare my own understanding of the text in a way that invites criticism and debate. If nothing else, I trust that this attempt will suggest a helpful method for approaching this text as a historical source.

The Opposing Standpoints

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ starts into his social argument by previewing the opposing perspective with which he will take issue:

I will begin with an account of the causes of the Christians’ becoming more liked by the masses than the Zoroastrians, perceived among them as more open- minded than the Jews, closer in friendship [see Q. 5:82], less malicious, less 93 unbelieving, and less troubling. The causes of this are many, and its reasons apparent, (such that) anyone who has thought about it can perceive them, but whoever has not will remain ignorant of them. (308.11-15)

The historical, sociological, and exegetical observations that follow are not merely an academic excursus, since, midway through this social commentary, the writer transitions from this explanation of the origins of popular opinion to expressing more clearly his own view on the matter:

Now we—may God have mercy on you!—do not disagree with the masses concerning how wealthy the Christians are, that they have prominent authority,5 that their clothing is cleaner,6 or that their professions are better. Where we dier, rather, is about the dierence between the two forms of unbelief—the two sects—regarding the extent of (their) obstinacy and importunity, (their) lying in wait for the people of Islam using every kind of trickery, with vile manners and malicious by nature.7 (316.15-317.3)

In this transition, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ makes explicit his own standpoint, but also claries the nature of his dispute with the Muslim masses. Up to this point in the text, he had explained some of the “reasons” the masses might have for preferring Christians to

Jews, without always explicitly taking issue with them. Here, however, it becomes apparent that these explanations do, in fact, serve an argumentative purpose.

5. Or, “enduring authority”; or, possibly, “a reigning king” (see Allouche’s translation [al-Jāḥiẓ 1939, 135]).

6. Or, possibly, “their uid is purer,” interpreting māʾahum from Kamil,̄ possibly meaning “their semen.” See Q. 86:6; and Rescher (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1931, 48 n. 7). BL: mā bihim (lit., “what is with them”); Taymūriyya: māyahum (?). Harū ̄n suggests thiyābahum (“their clothes”) based on the parallel sentence in 323.9. This reading, however, seems to have little manuscript weight behind it. Although al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ has so far not discussed clothing, this could be an allusion to the dierence in Christian and Jewish professions.

7. These last two phrases, lit., “the ignobility of their roots and the vileness of their bones,” are perhaps contrasted with their “pure uid” mentioned above. 94

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ contention (standpoint) can be summarized as “The reasons the masses have for considering Christians less harmful than Jews are ill-founded.”8 Since he opposes the contrary standpoint among the Muslim masses,9 he evidently intends his long explanation of that viewpoint to invalidate argumentation for that popular opinion, while he means to use the argumentation he advances after this transition to establish his own point of view. In other words, poking holes in another’s argument does not automatically prove one’s own contention; al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ must do both to make a strong case.

The approach he takes toward “popular opinion” is not only logically, but also rhetorically strategic. First, by representing the opposing standpoint as that of “the masses,” al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has labeled that position as one that is uninformed and uneducated, and, therefore, below the dignity of someone who would read al-Jah̄ ̣iz.̣ The reader is invited, as a kind of third party, to observe those advancing this opposing perspective from a remote and scholarly vantage point. It is not necessarily the case that only the uneducated rabble hold to this point of view—the writer later admits that high-placed

Muslims have chosen Christians as secretaries and physicians (316.4-5) and that

Muslim legal scholars have advanced rulings favorable to Christians (318.1-7)—but, on the whole, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ wishes to portray his Muslim opposition as uneducated. Second, by explaining his opponents’ standpoint mostly in terms of origins and causality rather

8. Occasionally, he includes Zoroastrians in the comparison.

9. A “single mixed dispute” according to the terms of the pragma-dialectical model (Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, 17). 95 than logic, he conveys the impression that this standpoint was adopted arbitrarily and emotionally, rather than on a rational basis. In both of these ways, one glimpses al-

Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ discourse as something more than a set of logical propositions—as a speech act.

This impression that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ wishes to represent his opponents’ position as one arbitrarily taken is, in fact, a clue that helps elucidate the way his argumentation works logically as well. By examining individually the arguments al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ puts forward explaining the Muslim preference for Christians, I intend to show that the unexpressed standpoint (standpoint 1) to which all of them lead is the following: “The reasons the

Muslim masses have for considering Christians less harmful than Jews are ill-founded.”

Christians and Jews in Muslim Memory

The rst reasons al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ gives for the masses’ preference for Christians over

Jews are based on incidents recounted in the s̄ra, the body of literature devoted to narratives about the life of Muḥammad. The rst extant s̄ra is that of the Medinan historian Ibn Isḥaq̄ (704-767/768 [85-150 A.H.]), whose work was mostly preserved in an edition by Ibn Hisham̄ (d. 828-833 [213/218 A.H.]). Ibn Hisham̄ was a contemporary of al-Jah̄ ̣iz,̣ and was raised in Basra, but later moved to Fustat in Egypt.

While al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ was undoubtedly familiar with traditions about Muḥammad’s life from a variety of sources, the correspondences between the points he mentions and Ibn Isḥaq’s̄ s̄ra are signicant, as will be shown below.

Christians and Jews in Medina and Abyssinia

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ begins by arguing that when the early Muslims emigrated to Yathrib

(Medina), the Jews’ proximity to them there led to rivalry, jealousy, and outright war, 96 whereas the Christians did not ght against them (309.1-310.2). Not satised with merely recounting the way this incident helped turn Muslims’ feelings against the Jews, he makes a point of advancing and supporting the principle that one is likely to have greater animosity toward someone who is physically or relationally close:

Now enmity between neighbors is similar to enmity between relatives10 in the force with which it takes hold and the persistence of its malice. . . . The greater the love and proximity, the more hatred and estrangement11 there may be” (309.1-5).

Besides implicitly appealing to the experience of his readers, he supports this principle by noting its explanatory power for the erceness of wars between groups that are neighbors or relatives of each other (309.5-6).

Why is this principle so important to note? Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ had suggested earlier that the masses’ preferences for the Christians had to do with their perception of the

Christians’ character: “closer in friendship, less malicious, less unbelieving, and less troubling” (308.12-13). If, however, the deciding factor that swayed Muslim opinion in the incident at Medina was not the relative malice of Jews or Christians toward

Muslims but rather their relative distance from Muslims, then these popular opinions really had nothing to do with the relative merits of either group’s intentions (see gure

6 and compare Fletcher 2002, 109).

enmity between relatives”) to Abū Tạ lib’s̄ poem in Ibn Isḥaq̄“) ﻋــــــــــﺪاوة اﻵَﻗــــــــــﺎرب ̣’Compare al-Jah̄ ̣iz .10 Ibn Isḥaq̄) وَأَﻋْ ــﺪَاءُ ا ْﻟــﻌَ ــﺪُوِّ اﻷَْ َ ﻗــﺎرِبُ :regarding the Quraysh who had come to fetch the Muslim refugees from Abyssinia 1990) (“The bitterest enemies are oft the nearest in blood” [Ibn Isḥaq̄ 1955, 150]).

11. Sharqaw̄ ̄ (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1984b, 58) inexplicably leaves out wa-l-buʿd (“and estrangement”). 97

Figure 6. Distance from the rst Muslims as a deciding factor in Muslim preferences for Christians

Second, the author references the support Muslim refugees received from the

Christians in Abyssinia as a further cause of this preference for Christians over Jews

(see 1.1a.1b in gure 7). Once again, he implies, even more strongly than in the preceding case, that Muslims’ fondness for Christians and dislike for Jews was not actually based in their intentions: 98

Then there was the matter of those who immigrated to Abyssinia and the support they received from that refuge,12 which further endeared13 the Christians to the Muslim masses. Now whenever hearts soften toward one people, they harden against that people’s enemies; and their aversion toward the Jews increased to the same extent that it decreased toward the Christians.14 It is human nature to love someone who does one good, or through whom good comes,15 whether or not God intended to use this means,16 and whether it was on purpose or by accident. (310.3-7)

With this last statement, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is casting serious doubt on the idea that the

Christians’ actions toward the refugees had any intentions behind them that would merit Muslims’ aections. Rather, simply being a conduit of the good Muslims received was sucient cause to make Muslims love the Christians, regardless of their actual intentions, which were in fact unknown. Further, the Muslims’ increased aections for

Christians was a sucient cause of their greater dislike for the Jews, who, by this reasoning, received disapprobation simply for being the Christians’ “enemies” as al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ saw it, independent of any additional grievances. Once again, the author has

12. Harū ̄n (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:310 n. 2) glosses janba as jānib (“side, neighborhood, vicinity”), and notes that Kamil̄ has jaha (“side”).

13. BL: JBHM (jabbahum?, “surpassed them”) instead of ḥabbabahum (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:310 n. 3).

14. Perhaps referring not merely to Christians’ antagonism toward Jews generally, but specically to the exchange of hostilities between the Abyssinians and the Jews in Yemen shortly before the time of Muḥammad.

15. Kamil̄ missing from here through “by accident” (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:310 n. 4).

16. Perhaps an allusion to Q. 33:17:

ﻗُﻞْ ﻣَﻦ ذَا اﻟَّﺬِي ﻳَﻌْﺼِﻤُﻜُﻢ ﻣِّﻦَ اﻟﻠَّﻪِ إِنْ أَرَادَ ﺑِﻜُﻢْ ﺳُﻮءًا أَوْ أَرَادَ ﺑِﻜُﻢْ رَﺣْﻤَﺔً ۚ وَﻻَ ﻳَﺠِﺪُونَ ﻟَﻬُﻢ ﻣِّﻦ دُونِ اﻟﻠَّﻪِ وَﻟِﻴًّﺎ وَﻻَ ﻧَﺼِﻴﺮًا

“Say, ‘Who is it that can protect you from Allah if He intends for you an ill or intends for you a mercy?’ And they will not nd for themselves besides Allah any protector or any helper.” (Saḥ̄ḥ International) Finkel (al-Jāḥiẓ 1927, 323) and Allouche (al-Jāḥiẓ 1939, 133), however, interpret al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ ’̣ statement as referring to whether someone does something to please or glorify God. 99 combined his sociological insight with historical reasoning to invalidate the popular opinion about Christians.

Figure 7. Christians’ help to Muslim refugees as a factor in Muslim preferences toward Christians

Christians and Jews in al-Māʾida

As part of his contention that the masses are unjustied in having a higher opinion of Christians than Jews, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ next explains what he considers to be “one of their soundest rationales and strongest points” (310.8):

... the interpretation of a passage about which the common people are mistaken, to the point that they debate it with the educated,17 (a passage) which the

17. Finkel (al-Jāḥiẓ 1927, 324) understands nāzaʿat al-khāssa as “the wrong interpretation ... supplanted that of the learned,” but taʾw̄l seems to me unlikely to be the subject of the feminine verb. Colville (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 2002, 74) and Allouche (al-Jāḥiẓ 1939, 133) interpret it as I do. 100 Christians have learned by heart and use in argument, winning over the hearts of the ri-ra and the rabble. (310.8-10)

The author is referring to Qurʾan 5 (al-Māʾida):82-85, which he indicates by quoting the rst and last parts and relying on his audience to ll in the rest. The entire passage reads:

{82} You will surely nd the most intense of the people in animosity toward the believers [to be] the Jews and those who associate others with Allah; and you will nd the nearest of them in aection to the believers those who say, “We are Christians {Nasạ rā }.”̄ That is because among them are priests {qiss̄sūna} and monks {ruhban̄ } and because they are not arrogant. {83} And when they hear what has been revealed to the Messenger, you see their eyes overowing with tears because of what they have recognized of the truth. They say, “Our Lord, we have believed, so register us among the witnesses. {84} And why should we not believe in Allah and what has come to us of the truth? And we aspire that our Lord will admit us [to Paradise] with the righteous people {al-qawm al- sạ lih̄ ̣ūna}.” {85} So Allah rewarded them for what they said with gardens [in Paradise] beneath which rivers ow, wherein they abide eternally. And that is the reward of doers of good. (Saḥ ̣̄ḥ International)

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ then explains his point of disagreement with the popular interpretation of this passage:

In the passage itself is the greatest indication that God (may he be exalted) meant neither these Christians nor their counterparts—the Melkites and the Jacobites—but rather meant (Christians of) the sort of Baḥ̄ra18̄ and the sort of monks whom Salman̄ used to serve.19 There is a dierence between our

18. According to Ibn Hisham’s̄ S̄ra, Baḥ̄ra was a Christian monk who recognized Muḥammad’s prophethood and protected him from harm (Harū ̄n [al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:311 n. 1] cites pgs. 115-117).

19. So Finkel (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 1926, 14). Harū ̄n (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:311) suggests the same, which he gets from Ibn Hisham’s̄ al-S̄ra (138), where Salman̄ says to a bishop in Syria, “I will serve you” (akhdimuka). BL: “monks, some .(al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:311 n. 2) {?=} ـﻳﺠـﺬ ـﺑﻬـﻢ ــﺳﻠﻤـﺎن ̄:Kamil ;{?=} ـﻳﺠـﺬ ـﻣﻬـﻢ ــﺳﻠﻤـﺎن :of whom helped Salman”̄ {?}; Taymūriyya According to Ibn Hisham’s̄ al-S̄ra, Salman,̄ who later converted to Islam, was a Christian who served “ve good and wise upholders of the faith,” the last of whom predicted Muḥammad’s prophethood. Harū ̄n (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 101 acknowledging20 that they really are Christians (Nasạ rā )̄ and their mistakenly applying21 labels (to themselves) in his statement, “Those who say, ‘We are Christians [Nasạ rā ].’”̄ (310.13-311.3)

The point at issue here is not primarily one of terminology but one of identity, for although the writer objects to Christians referring to themselves as Nasạ rā ̄ in the

Qurʾanic sense, he himself consistently uses Nasạ rā ̄ to refer to his Christian contemporaries. Rather, his standpoint is that the Christians should not be identied with the Nasạ rā ̄ of Q. 5:82, notwithstanding their misappropriation of that term (see

gure 8).

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ justication for this position is less than direct. When he says, “In the passage itself is the greatest indication...” (310.13), he most likely has in mind the fact that verses 83-85 (to which he has made a special point of referring) mention that

“they” (the Nasạ rā ,̄ presumably) would recognize and believe truth revealed to

Muḥammad. He conrms this when he gives Baḥ̄ra ̄ and the monks whom Salman̄ served as examples of the sort of Christians meant, since they gure in the s̄ra literature as those who accepted Muḥammad’s prophethood. The unexpressed premise, then, is that contemporary Christians such as “Nestorians,”22 “Melkites,” and

“Jacobites” do not accept the truth revealed to Muḥammad. Baḥ̄ra ̄ and the monks

3:311 n. 2) cites Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalan̄ ̄, Al-Isạ ̄ba f̄ tamyiz al-saḥ ̣āba, 3350 and the S̄ra, 136, 345, 663, 677. in context} (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:311 ?=} ـﻧﺠـﺮى ̄:From Taymūriyya. BL: “our sinning against them.” Kamil .20 n. 4).

21. See Hans Wehr, s.v. ḤML. BL, Taymūriyya are missing ḥaml (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:311 n. 3). Finkel (al- Jāḥiẓ 1926, 14 n. 1) says ḥaml is missing from his original, but he adds it from Kamil.̄

22. As al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ calls them elsewhere. Here he simply says “these Nasạ ̄rā.” 102

Salman̄ served have a second purpose as well—as a counter-example of “monks” for those who might object that the terms “priests” and “monks” indicate the known

Christian establishment.

Figure 8. Disassociation of contemporary Christians from the Nasạ rā ̄ of Q. 5:82-85

Respect for Christians among Arab Tribes

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ returns to his historical vein for the next couple pages, in which he advances two lines of argumentation to explain the way his contemporary Muslims’ respect for Christians is rooted in the respect Arabs had for Christians when Islam arrived on the scene. Both lines of argumentation relate to the causes that engendered this respect among Arabs. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ summarizes his causal explanation at the end of this section, “So it was that the prominence (mulk) the Christians had among the Arabs and 103 their kinship with them inclined the hearts of their multitudes toward them”

(313.14-15). But it is important to distinguish the chain of causes and eects from the chain of argumentative reasoning, which is often less explicit. In a polemic work such as this, it is reasonable to assume that these explanations do serve a purpose as part of the larger argumentation containing them. Readers of al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ have all too commonly presumed him to be guilty of interesting, but ultimately superuous, asides; but to presuppose such here—in the middle of an argumentative work—runs the risk of missing portions of the argumentation that the writer considered important.

The easiest way to discover his logical chain of reasoning here is to nd the connection between his causal explanation and the higher level standpoint he is advancing (see gure 9). As I mentioned above, his ultimate claim in the larger section seems to be, “The reasons the Muslim masses have for considering Christians less harmful than Jews are ill-founded.” The question here, then, is whether al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ gives any indication about why the respect earlier Arabs had for Christians is not a sound basis for the preferences the masses now have for Christians. This connection shows up in the middle of this passage about the Arab tribes—in the transition from the writer’s argumentation about Christian prominence (mulk) among the Arabs to his argumentation about their kinship with the Arabs: “People who come later follow those who went before, honoring what they honor and belittling what they belittle”

(312.15-16).

This phenomenon of imitating one’s predecessors might seem to be a reasonable explanation of contemporary Muslims’ behavior, but al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ knows—and trusts his 104 readers to recognize—that it is not a sound moral justication for their actions, particularly when many of these predecessors had not yet received the superior truth of

Islam or the Christians whom they respected had not yet been given a chance to do so.

If it turns out that the masses have no better justication for their preferential view of

Christians than this, then their behavior amounts to blindly following one’s ancestors while ignoring the real truth about Christians. Were I to speculate on how al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ would support this unexpressed premise (that doing something because your predecessors did it is an insucient basis for doing it), I would guess that he may have had Qurʾanic warnings in mind, such as that of 5:104:

And when it is said to them, “Come to what Allah has revealed and to the Messenger,” they say, “Sucient for us is that upon which we found our fathers.” Even though their fathers knew nothing, nor were they guided? (Saḥ ̣̄ḥ International; see also 2:170) 105

Figure 9. Arabs’ historical preference for Christians as an insucient justication for modern preferences

From the perspective of argumentation, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ ensuing explanation of the

Arabs’ former respect for Christians functions as support for his contention that Arabs had a widespread general preference for Christians at Islam’s advent (1.1c.1’). His rst line of argumentation supporting this is to note several points of contact between Arabs and inuential Christians, whose wealth, power, and generosity engendered respect among the Arabs for Christians in general.

In the rst place, he mentions the Ghassanid̄ and Lakhmid rulers, who, according to him, were both Christians when Islam arrived on the scene. Being subject to Christian rulers made them respect them, which turned into a general respect for

Christianity. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ implication that respect for specic individuals translates into respect for an entire class of people is a clue to identifying the premise (1.1c.1’.1’ in 106

gure 10) that connects what he is saying about Arabs’ respect for inuential Christian personages (1.1c.1’.1a-b) to his claim about Arabs’ respect for Christians more generally (1.1c.1).

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ anticipates an important objection: the people of Tihama,̄ the western coastal region of Arabia that included Mecca, were not subject to either the Ghassanids̄ or Lakhmids. Since Muḥammad’s rst followers were from Tihama,̄ it would be a major

aw in al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argument to claim that the preference Muslims had for Christians stemmed from their predecessors’ respect for them, if in fact their most important predecessors had no such connection to Christians. Foreseeing this problem, the author notes that the people of Tihama,̄ despite their independence, still honored those whom others honored. Yet he does not leave it there. Tihamā seems to be the subject of the next two paragraphs, which provide specic examples (and specic arguments) regarding Tihama’s̄ positive connection with (and thus respect for) Christians having wealth and power: rst (1.1c.1’.1b.1), their trading contacts with wealthy Christians in places like Syria, Yemen, Abyssinia, and even Byzantium; and, second (1.1c.1’.1a.1c), the generous and hospitable treatment the Negus of Abyssinia gave them when they took refuge there: 107

When they23 immigrated to Abyssinia and arrived24 at the gate of the Negus,25 he generously gave to them (expecting nothing in return)26 and bore their fates patiently,27 whereas Chosroes did not do so, or befriend28 them at all.29 Since Caesar and the Negus were both Christians, this too was to the (credit) of the Christians rather than the Jews. (312.11-14)

This is the second time al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has mentioned the Muslims’ migration to

Abyssinia. The rst time, he downplayed the Christians’ own agency in their treatment of the Muslims, in order to suggest that Muslims’ preference for Christians over Jews was really a byproduct of historical circumstances. Here, though, he does not seem at pains to do so, merely listing the kindness of the Negus as a historical factor in

Muslims’ regard for Christians.

The Negus features prominently in Ibn Isḥaq’s̄ s̄ra as a just and generous king who eventually professes Islam, and it is traditions such as these to which al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is alluding. Muḥammad himself suggested taking refuge in Abyssinia, saying, “The king will not tolerate injustice and it is a friendly country” (Ibn Isḥaq̄ 1955, 146). The refugees made the monarch’s “every hospitality” the subject of more than one poem

23. Again, Tihamā seems to be indicated by the feminine singular verb and the fact that by other accounts it was Muslims from Mecca who immigrated.

24. Or, possibly, “as a delegation” as in Colville (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 2002, 74).

25. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ mentions the Negus in Al-Ḥayawān (1938-45, 1:98, 2:10-11).

ـــ ـــ ـــﻓﻴﺤﻴـــﻮﻫـــﻢ :So Harū ̄n (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:312 n. 7) who links this with the root ḤBW. BL, Taymūriyya .26 .(”he saved their lives“) ﻓﻴﺤﻴﻴﻬﻢ ̄:they saved their lives”); Kamil“)

27. Or, possibly, “supported them with (his) wealth,” or “acknowledged their dignity”?

28. Strangely, Harū ̄n makes this a II conjugation where I seems to t better.

29. Finkel’s translation also seems possible, which makes the Muslims the ones who did not know Chosroes (al-Jāḥiẓ 1927, 325). 108

(Ibn Isḥaq̄ 1955, 148, 150) and remembered in fervent detail his willingness to defy even his generals in order to do justice toward them (Ibn Isḥaq̄ 1955, 151-152). In addition to the well-known account of his tears at hearing Sūrat Maryam (19) read and his assertion, “Jesus, son of Mary, does not exceed what you have said by the length of this stick” (Ibn Isḥaq̄ 1955, 152); Ibn Isḥaq̄ and certain other traditions have him eventually professing Islam (Ibn Isḥaq̄ 1955, 155; compare Raven 1998, 202-209).30 In fact, some asbab̄ al-nuzūl traditions connect the tears of the Negus or his delegation with those of the Ṇasạ rā in Q. 5:83 (Ibn Isḥaq̄ 1955, 179; Raven 1998, 202 Khabar 5),31 a verse al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ mentioned only a few paragraphs earlier (310.8-311.3). Is it signicant that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ dismisses the Abyssinians’ intentionality in harboring Muslim refugees when he speaks of the Christians generically, but is willing to acknowledge the magnanimity of the Negus specically-––a Christian he perhaps believed to have accepted Islam? This is certainly in keeping with his interpretation of the Nasạ rā ̄ commended in sūra 5.

The author says little about how this respect for Christians compared to respect for Jews or Zoroastrians, only noting briey that the Chosroes did not befriend the people of Tihamā like the Christian rulers (particularly the Negus) did.32 Presumably,

30. There were, however, contradictory traditions. See Raven (1999, 207 Khabar 12a, 210-211 Trad. 5).

31. Others connect them with the Najran̄ delegation (see Ibn Isḥāq 1955, 179).

32. Al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ peripherally mentions Muḥammad’s letters to Caesar, the Negus, and the Chosroes, among others, in a short section on “Using Letters in Religious and Civil Aairs” in Animals (1938-1945, 2:98). Compare his emphasis in the “Refutation” with Ibn Isḥaq’s̄ account of these letters (1955, 653-659, 698-699), according to which the Negus responded by accepting Islam, the Caesar (Heraclius) would have converted but was too afraid, and the Chosroes responded most negatively, tearing up the letter and intending to do violence to Muḥammad. See the summary of both Ibn Isḥaq̄ and al-Tabaṛ ̄ in Mourad (2009, 66-70). 109 he mentions the Chosroes as a Zoroastrian representative, but it is unclear why he then states, “This too, was to the (credit) of the Christians rather than the Jews.” Is it because the Jews did not have rulers who treated the Arabs as well as the Negus did, or because the Jewish people of the southern Arabian peninsula were considered to be in league with the Chosroes? In any case, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ clearly does not think the Jews and

Zoroastrians had the same sorts of factors working in their favor as the Christians did.

Figure 10. Arabs’ historical respect for Christian individuals

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ second line of argumentation (see gure 11) regarding the Arabs’ historical preference for Christians is a straightforward one that is based on

Christianity’s penetration among Arab tribes. He lists in quite some detail a number of tribes among whom Christianity became prevalent, juxtaposing them with the small 110 number of tribes that had a signicant Jewish presence, and claiming that the Jews living in the major Jewish centers in Arabia were not Arab, but rather of Aaronic descent. He is careful to pay special regard to Muḥammad’s ancestors, the tribal group of Muḍar (which included the Quraysh), excepting them from having been Christian,

Jewish, or Zoroastrian, noting that the only people who accepted Christianity among this tribe were the ones in al-Ḥ̄ra. Still, as al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ would have it, the Arabs in general had stronger kinship ties with the Christians than with the Jews, nurturing a preference that would last through the time of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ contemporaries.33

33. In keeping with the emphasis in the rest of his text, he does not mention to what extent Zoroastrianism was a factor among Arab tribes (other than denying that it had any place among Muḍar), leaving the reader to guess that it had less traction among the Arabs than either Christianity or Judaism. 111

Figure 11. Arabs’ historical kinship to Christians versus Jews

Implications of the Historical Argument

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ presentation of Christians and Jews in Muslim memory leads to a few interesting conclusions. First, by the time this text was composed, certain features of the Christian and Jewish encounters with early Muslims—such as Jewish opposition to the emigrants in Medina, the gures of Salman̄ and Baḥ̄ra, and the Negus’ hospitality to Muslim refugees—had been indelibly etched into Muslim memory. This is evident from the fact that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ considers it an important piece of evidence for the opposing standpoint (that Christians are less harmful than Jews), since he spends several pages explaining and undermining it; but even more strikingly from the fact that he does not 112 in any way attempt to deny these features that his Muslim readers accepted as historical. None of his rebuttals or insinuations is an eort to revise the events themselves, only to reinterpret them, sometimes in strained ways. As much as he might want to, he is clearly not at liberty to alter the basic outlines of these accounts or cast doubt on their validity. Rather, the Christians’ historical kindnesses to Muḥammad and his followers, and Jewish opposition to them, were canonical enough by this point that he had to work around them, rather than denying or ignoring them.

Second, this means that if al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is going to reinterpret Christians’ relationship to Muslims, he must nd a compelling way to recast the s̄ra accounts, which he does using the Qurʾanic concepts of prophethood and divine sovereignty. In one of the few explicitly exegetical passages in his treatise, he maintains that the “Christians” the

Qurʾan commends to the believers as “closest in friendship” are only those who accept

Muḥammad’s prophetic message. Further, he implies that one’s ancestors’ attitudes toward Christians before the coming of Muḥammad are not a sucient basis for preferring them now. To al-Jah̄ ̣iz,̣ it would seem Muḥammad’s coming was a kind of watershed, after which Muslims had no reason to prefer Christians as more enlightened than other groups.

Finally, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ miniature atlas of Christianity and Judaism among the tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia may be rather helpful, if approached with sucient caution. While, on the one hand, it would serve the purpose of his argument to overplay the Christian presence in Arabia so that he can better “explain” why Muslims prefer Christians to

Jews, he does not nd it particularly necessary to marshal specic evidence for this 113 widespread Christianity, noting only in one place that he could, if necessary, demonstrate the Christianity of Nuʿman̄ and the kings of Ghassan̄ “with well-known poems and authentic accounts” (312.4-5). Moreover, he seems to be trying to use some precision regarding the degree to which dierent tribes accepted Christianity. Most telling, however, are the exceptions he has to make for Judaism that run counter to his larger narrative:

But when Islam came, Judaism was not prevalent in a single tribe, except among some people from the south and a small remnant from (the tribes of) Iyad̄ and Rab̄ʿa. Judaism was, however, signicant in Yathrib, Ḥimyar, Taymāʾa,34 and Wad̄ ̄ al-Qura,̄ 35 among the descendants of Aaron—not among the Arabs. (313.10-13)

It would appear that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is forced (by his audience’s knowledge?) to acknowledge that Judaism was more widespread in Arabia than he is ready to admit.

Overall, then, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ expertise in old Bedouin accounts is one he would like to use to make his point, but one which may also benet the scholarly quest for information about pre-Islamic Arabia.

A Qurʾanic Reading of Christians’ “Sovereignty” (Mulk)

Before following al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ further, into his comments about Christians’ current place in society, I must stop to examine a signicant term he uses in both his historical and contemporary accounts of Christian’s relationship to Muslims. The word mulk,

34. Rescher (al-Jāḥiẓ 1931, 46) notes this as the place of the story of the Jewish chief and the poeet al- Samawal.

35. An oasis about 7 miles from Yathrib. 114 which can be translated variously as “sovereignty,” “control,” “possession,” or

“inuence,” has immense Qurʾanic signicance that subtly but powerfully helps to drive al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argument.

Over and over again, the Qurʾan emphasizes that God alone has mulk, and he does not share it with any partner (Q. 17:111; 25:2). Sura 67 is named al-Mulk after the message put forward in verse 1: “Blessed is He in whose hand is dominion {mulk}, and

He is over all things competent” (Saḥ ̣̄ḥ International). Signicantly, this idea appears several times in the context of the believers’ relationship to Christians and Jews, including a number of times in al-Māʾida (which seems to be a very signicant sura for al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ in the “Refutation”):

Those who say, ‘God is the Messiah, the son of Mary,’ are defying the truth. Say, ‘If it had been God’s will, could anyone have prevented Him from destroying the Messiah, son of Mary, together with his mother and everyone else on earth? Control {mulk} of the heavens and earth and all that is between them belongs to God: He creates whatever He will. God has power {qad̄r} over everything.’ The Jews and the Christians say, ‘We are the children of God and His beloved ones.’ Say, ‘Then why does He punish you for your sins? You are merely human beings, part of His creation: He forgives whoever He will and punishes whoever He will. Control {mulk} of the heavens and earth and all that is between them belongs to Him: all journeys lead to Him.’ (Q. 5:17-18, trans. Abdel Haleem; see also 5:40, 120; 7:157-158)

In another passage discussing the People of the Book, mulk is used to contrast the stinginess of those who have received “a share of the Scripture” with God’s generosity toward the descendants of Abraham:

Do you not see how those given a share of the Scripture, [evidently] now believe in idols and evil powers? They say of the disbelievers, ‘They are more rightly guided than the believers.’ Those are the ones God has rejected: you [Prophet] 115 will not nd anyone to help those God has rejected. Do they have any share of what He possesses {mulk}? If they did they would not give away so much as the groove of a date stone. Do they envy [other] people for the bounty {fadḷ } God has granted them? We gave the descendants of Abraham the Scripture and wisdom—and We gave them a great kingdom. (Q. 4:51-54, trans. Abdel Haleem)

Moreover, God’s mulk goes hand-in-hand with the injunction that the believers do not have any protector/ally (wal̄y, pl. awliyāʾ) or helper (naṣ̄r) besides God, as is stated in 2 (al-Baqara):

Do you not know that control {mulk} of the heavens and the earth belongs to Him? You [believers] have no protector {wal̄y} or helper {naṣ̄r} but God. Do you wish to demand of your messenger something similar to what was demanded of Moses? Whoever exchanges faith for disbelief has strayed far from the right path. Even after the truth has become clear to them, many of the People of the Book wish they could turn you back to disbelief after you have believed, out of their selsh envy. Forgive and forbear until God gives his command: He has power {qad̄r} over all things. (107-109, trans. Abdel Haleem; see also 3:26-28, 189-192)

The message that God is the believers’ only ally gures prominently in al-Māʾida (5:51,

55-57; compare 5:80-81), most conspicuously for al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argument in verses 51-52:

You who believe, do not take the Jews and Christians as allies {awliyāʾ}: they are allies only to each other. Anyone who takes them as an ally becomes one of them—God does not guide such wrongdoers—yet you [Prophet] will see the perverse at heart rushing to them for protection, saying, ‘We are afraid fortune may turn against us.’ But God may well bring about a triumph or some other event of His own making: then they will rue the secrets they harboured in their hearts. (trans. Abdel Haleem)

These particular themes are ones that appear strongly in the edict of al-

Mutawakkil that prohibits non-Muslims from exercising authority over Muslims: 116

{God} did not give to {the caliphs} or to any of those whom he appointed to guide his people need or necessity for any member of the non-Muslim communities in any of their religious or worldly aairs. Rather, he made right and rm judgement to reside in banishing them from appointments and casting them far away from any appeal for their aid. For what the ruler seeks for his appointments is the people of good will and trustworthiness; in the dhimm̄s these two qualities are altogether lacking. As for trustworthiness, not one of them is to be trusted over the monies collected and the aairs of the Muslims because they are enemies of the religion and rebels against it. As for good will, it does not exist among those whose place among the Muslims is one of compulsion, subjugation, humiliation, and abasement. God (mighty and glorious is He) has plainly forbidden befriending them in his Book . . . . (Yarbrough 2012a, 389)

The caliph goes on to cite Qurʾan 3:118, 5:51, and 4:144, which forbid taking non-

Muslims as intimates (bitạ nā ) or allies (awliyāʾ).

In emphasizing the Christians’ mulk, then, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ may be appealing to a

Qurʾanic standard in order to judge his own society’s esteem for Christians’ wealth and inuence; he is also supporting the same ideal on which Caliph al-Mutawakkil ostensibly based his dhimm̄ employment policy.

Christians’ Contemporary Relationship to Muslims

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ transitions now from historical to contemporary factors that lead people to like Christians more than Jews, several of which continue what he has represented as the historical trend:

So it was that the dominance (mulk) the Christians had among the Arabs and the kinship they had with them inclined the hearts of their multitudes toward them. Moreover, since our common people have seen that the Christians continue to 117 have dominance (mulk) among them,36 that there are many Arabs among the Christians, that the daughters of the Byzantines have borne children to the rulers of Islam,37 and that among the Christians there are mutakallimūn, physicians, and astronomers, they have come to consider the Christians intelligent people and wise philosophers—whereas they have not seen this among the Jews. (313.14-314.2)

Christian Intellectualism

The comparison between Christian and Jewish intellectualism is one of the reasons, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ indicates, that the masses view Christians as the more favorable of the two groups, since, according to him, they see intellectuals among the Christians but not among the Jews. First o, he ascribes this dierence to the supposed fact that Jews voluntarily refuse to engage in such intellectual professions because they consider disciplines such as kalam̄ , medicine, and astronomy to be antithetical to their religion.

One cannot conclude from this that Christians are intellectually superior—only that they do not have the same reservations about involving themselves in such professions

(see gure 12).

36. Colville (al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 2002, 75): “The Emperor of Byzantium is Christian.” Similarly Allouche (al-Jāḥiẓ 1939, 134).

37. This clause is inexplicably missing in Allouche (al-Jāḥiẓ 1939, 134). 118

Figure 12. Comparison of Christian and Jewish intellectual engagement

More to the point, however, his next several moves are intended to make clear that Christians’ veneer of intellectualism should put them in no better stead with the

Muslim community than the Jews’ refusal to embrace such intellectualism:

But if the masses knew that the Christians and the Byzantines have no wisdom or eloquence or thoughtful perception other than knowing how to (work) with (their) hands in woodworking, carpentry, fashioning artistic representations,38 and embroidering brocade, then they would exclude them from the ranks of the

38. E.g., painting or sculpting. Note that sụ ̄ra can refer to making something “after the likeness of any of God’s creatures, animate or inanimate” (Lane 1863-93, 1745). 119 culturally rened and blot them out of the registers of the philosophers and sages.39 (314.9-12)

How does he support such a contention that Christians have no real intellectual expertise? Immediately, he starts setting the record straight by listing the authors of a number of well-known Greek intellectual works (most or all available by then in

Arabic), and declaring after each one, “who was neither Byzantine nor Christian”:

For Logic,40 (On) Generation and Corruption,41 Meteorology,42 and other books were by Aristotle, who was neither Byzantine nor Christian. The Almagest is by

39. Finkel (al-Jāḥiẓ 1927, 326) notes al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ comment in Al-Bayān (Cairo 1332, 1:76, 204) that only the Arabs, Persians, Hindus, and Byzantines have culture.

40. Presumably the collection of Aristotle’s works on logic known as the Organon, or some work within it. Ibn al-Nad̄m lists eight works by Aristotle on logic, adding Rhetoric and Poetics to the six ordinarily included as part of the Organon. Either Ibn al-Muqaaʿ (d. 756) or his son Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allah̄ al-Muqaaʿ was responsible for a translation of the rst three works of the Organon (Categories, On Interpretation, and Prior Analytics), and Patriarch Timothy I was involved in a translation of the Topics (also belonging to the Organon) during al-Mahd̄’s reign (775-785) (D’Ancona 2013). In al-Kind̄’s circle, Ibn al-Bitṛ ̄q translated the Prior Analytics, and ʿAbd al-Mas̄ḥ b. Nāʿima al-Ḥims̄the Sophistical Refuations (D’Ancona 2013 and see references). In al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ day, Ḥunayn b. Isḥaq̄ and Isḥaq̄ b. Ḥunayn were involved in rendering most of the Organon into Syriac and then into Arabic, though some of the Arabic versions were done by colleagues or later scholars (D’Ancona 2013; cf. Ibn al- Nad̄m 1970, 2:598-602). Several of these translations are extant (see D’Ancona 2013, n. 55-61 for references).

41. Syntactically unclear whether al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ considers this to be the same or a dierent work from Logic. The earliest Arabic translation of On Generation and Corruption mentioned in Ibn al-Nad̄m’s Fihrist would seem to be either that of Isḥaq̄ [b. Ḥunayn] (who translated his father’s Syriac version) or that of Qustạ ̄ [b. Lūqa],̄ who translated only the rst section (1970, 2:604). Either of these, if already complete, must have been quite recent at the time al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ was writing, since Isḥaq̄ and Qustạ ̄ were still young men. Ibn al-Nad̄m mentions elsewhere that al-Ḥasan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakht̄, a contemporary of Isḥaq̄ b. Ḥunayn, made an abridgment of On Generation and Corruption (1970, 1:441).

42. Al-ʿUlwiyy, probably referring to Al-Āthār al-ʿulwiyya (Signs on High), which was the Arabic title for Aristotle’s Meteorology (see Ibn al-Nad̄m 1970, 2:604 and n. 125) and the title by which al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ mentions this book in Animals (6:270; cited by Harū ̄n [al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:314 n. 6]). So Allouche (al-Jāḥiẓ 1939, 134). (Colville [al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 2002, 76], however, interprets it as The Metaphysics.) An Arabic compendium of Meteorology by Yaḥyā b. al-Bitṛ ̄q was certainly available by al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ time, and one by Ḥunayn b. Isḥaq̄ may have also been (both edited by Schoonheim [Aristotle 2000]; cf. ed. by Daiber of Ḥunayn’s text [Aristotle 1975]). Ḥunayn also translated (and his son Isḥaq revised) a text purporting to be Olympiodorus’ commentary on the Meteorology (ed. by Badaw̄ ̄ [Olympiodorus of Alexandria, 1971]), but which has substantial dierences from the Greek (see Lettinck 1999, 3). See also D’Ancona (2013) and Schoonheim (2003). 120 Ptolemy, who was neither Byzantine nor Christian. The book of Euclid43 is by Euclid, who was neither Byzantine nor Christian. Medicine is by Galen, and he was neither Byzantine nor Christian. The same goes for the books of Democrates,44 Hippocrates, Plato, and so on. (314.12-315.2)

He not only implies by way of this clarication that the masses regarded the

Christians as having been in some way responsible for these works, but he also explicitly charges the Christians with “attributing” the Greeks’ books to themselves

(adạ fū ̄hu ila ̄ anfusihim) and “appropriating them to their religion” (ḥawwalūhu ila ̄ millatihim) (315.5-6), even though the Greeks had long perished and did not share the

Christians’ religion or culture. Thus, he is attempting to falsify the Christians’ own claims about their intellectual pedigree.

In a further eort to show the Christians’ claims false—even absurd—al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ rails about their using their connection to the Greeks to claim superiority over other religions, to the point that they even assert “that our sages were followers of their sages, that our philosophers imitated (Christian) examples” (315.9-10). Of course, such a statement belies the tenuousness of this connection between Christians and the ancient Greeks, as al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has already pointed out. He apparently nds such an idea preposterous, for he does not attempt to further contradict it, only ending the thought with an exclamation indicating his disgust (fa-hadhā ̄ hadhā ).̄

43. “Euclid” is perhaps being used as a title here.

44. Probably Democritus is meant rather than Democrates (so Colville [al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ 2002, 76], Allouche [al- Jāḥiẓ 1939, 134], and Rescher [al-Jāḥiẓ 1931, 47]), or perhaps Pseudo-Democritus the alchemist. See the Fihrist (Ibn al-Nad̄m 1970), index, under “Democritus” and “Democritus (Pseudo).” 121

Identifying the logical workings of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argument here requires careful attention (see gure 13), for he starts listing facts without clarifying their relationship to his larger claims. He clearly leaves something unsaid when he jumps immediately from the bold claim that Christians have no real intellectual expertise to listing the

Greek intellectual masterpieces and their provenance. He has just explained why it is the Jews do not have intellectual professions; here, it seems, he implicitly invokes a reason Christians do have intellectual professions, in spite of their lack of intellectual skill. One may infer that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is substantiating the idea that having possession of the Greek books is really the only reason Christians have the intellectual professions they do. It would seem that the treatises which Christians were largely responsible for translating over the course of the last several decades had a weighty inuence in his audience’s perception of Christians’ claims to intellectualism. If his audience is willing to accept the fact that these treatises are the Christians’ only substantial claim to intellectual superiority, and if he can further show that Christians do not have these books through any intellectual merits of their own, then he will have successfully disabused his audience of the notion that Christians’ having intellectual professions constitutes evidence for their superiority over the Jews. 122

Figure 13. Invalidating Christians’ intellectual credentials

What is more, the evidence he has presented does not merely serve to invalidate any preference for the Christians’ intellectual abilities; it also makes the Christians out to be boasting liars, since, as al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ would have it, they use false attributions and an apparently false ethnic pedigree to claim that their traditions trump those of other pre-

Islamic religions and that Muslim intellectuals followed in their train. In fact, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ representation of Christian claims was the converse of the anti-Byzantine propaganda al-Maʾmūn seems to have used in connection with the translation movement—that it 123 was the Arabs, not the Byzantines, who were the true intellectual heirs of classical

Greek knowledge (Gutas 1998, 85-95). The invalidation of Christian intellectualism smacks of both the tone and the line of argumentation he will adopt in the second part of his social argumentation, his counterargument, in which he attempts to show

Christians to be more harmful to the Muslim community than Jews.

Having voiced his exasperation with Christians’ purported link to Greek intellectualism, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ next reveals what he sees to be Christianity’s real kinship—a connection to zandaqa and dahriyya, the most pernicious of worldviews in his society.

What is the nature of this similarity? “Christians are one of the causes of every perplexity and doubt” (315.12).45 As evidence for this, he puts forward the observation that Christians comprise the community with the highest proportion of zandaqa and the most confusion and vacillation, “and such is the case with all who investigate obscure matters with weak minds” (315.15). He supports this statement on Christians’ rate of zandaqa with the detail that most of those who have been put to death for apostatizing to zandaqa after professing Islam had Christian parents.

How do these allegations about the relationship between Christianity and zandaqa relate to al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ larger argument (see gure 14)? Can one infer here that he is continuing his comparison between Christians and Jews? In fact, the terms he uses remind the reader of his earlier explanation of the reason Jews do not engage in

45. Al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ assigns several of the same characteristics to the dahr̄s as he does to Christians. Both are morally inferior and criticize the Qurʾan (Crone 2010-2011, 67-68). Moreover, Muslims become dahr̄s because of the issues of anthropomorphism and the tension between transmitted traditions and reason (Crone 2010-2011, 72), both of which are ways he holds the Christians to err. 124 intellectual professions—that such occupations lead to doubt (shubha), zandaqa, and dahriyya. These hypothetical results of would-be Jewish intellectualism are the real results of Christian intellectualism. That al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has in mind not just Christianity or

Christian doctrine in general, but Christian intellectual eorts specically, he indicates with his statement about “all who investigate obscure matters with weak minds”

(315.15). Thus, the various forms of skepticism that result from weak-minded inquiry establish the comparison between Christians and Jews and bookend this section of argumentation about Christian intellectualism.

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ assertion that all who probe obscurities with weak minds end up in confusion and vacillation could easily be taken as an argument that arms the consequent, making it formally invalid:

(1) Christians are confused and wavering.

(2) This is what happens to all who investigate obscurities with weak minds.

(3) Therefore, Christians have weak minds.

The principle of charity, however, directs me to grant the writer the benet of the doubt and understand the argument in a way that is formally valid. Actually, al-

Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ primary point does not seem to be to make Christians out to be weak-minded, though he certainly implies that they are, but to demonstrate the negative eects of their intellectualism on the society at large. Thus, his comment about weak minds is better taken as an assertion that their weak-minded attempt at intellectualism is the cause of their confusion and wavering. Further, the skepticism Christians cause in their own community can be taken to have an eect on the larger society. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is 125 probably not concerned about Christians causing their own kind to doubt; his statement that Christians “are one of the causes of every perplexity and doubt” makes the most sense if one understands it to be warning of a danger that applies to Muslims as well.

In fact, his description of the eects of Christian intellectualism is likely an alternate etiology for the observable phenomenon of skepticism in the writer’s day.

Zandaqa and dahriyya constituted threats to the Umma (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ refers to those put to death for zandaqa), and, no doubt, people wanted to guard against their skepticism by doing away with whatever caused it (see Fletcher 2002, 113). Was Greek rationalism its cause? According to al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ the Muʿtazilite, the cause was not rationalism or the intellectual disciplines themselves, but their misuse by feeble minds, such as Christian ones. Christian intellectualism was akin to the worst forms of intellectualism—those that cause perplexity and doubt, such as zandaqa and dahriyya. Thus, in an ironic twist, the Jews were right about where intellectualism leads, at least in the Christians’ case, and the Christians’ claims about their own intellectual superiority prove starkly unreal. 126

Figure 14. The danger of Christian intellectualism

Christians’ Hereditary Traits

The nal bit of argumentation in the rst part of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ social argument (the part in which he neutralizes the masses’ reasons for preferring Christians to Jews) might seem, at rst glance, to trail into one of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ digressions. He compares

Christians’ elevated professions to ignoble professions among the Jews: 127

But what has elevated them in the opinions of the masses and endeared them to the vulgar is that they include secretaries to the rulers, attendants46 to the monarchs, physicians to the nobles, perfumers, and money changers; whereas the only (kind) of Jew you will nd is a dyer, tanner, bloodletter, butcher, or bowl repairer.47 So when the masses see the Jews and the Christians, they suppose that the religion of the Jews ranks among religions the same as their professions rank among professions, and that their disbelief is the foulest since they themselves are the foulest community. (316.4-9)

Then he elaborates on the reason Christians are less disgured than Jews, which he suggests has to do with Jews limiting their marriages to ones within their own group.

Whether al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ considered it to be an accepted fact that Jews were more disgured than Christians is hard to tell. His somewhat verbose description of their unwillingness to marry outside their group might simply be an informative explanation of this

“observable” greater disgurement; but it might, rather, be intended as support for the claim that Christians are less disgured than Jews. In any case, he supports his contention about the cause of this disgurement by appealing to the results of inbreeding in animal species. This abrupt comparison to animals is in keeping with the undertone of his description of Jewish marriage practices, for in that description he uses vocabulary that is at least as suited to animal breeding as to human marriages.

46. Harū ̄n vocalizes as farrāsh̄, and says that farrāsh is meant, that is, “one who attends to the bed and furniture of the house,” citing Ḥawl d̄wān al-buḥtarā, 39-40 and Al-Ḥayawān 3:435.

47. Five Christian occupations are compared with ve Jewish occupations. The ve Jewish occupations are all the same type of noun, having the same vocalization, and some of them rhyme. Dr. Shawqi Talia from the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures has informed me that during his teenage years in Baghdad in the 1950’s, Jewish people sometimes came door-to-door oering their services to repair dishes. 128

How these two groups’ occupations and their deformities are connected is less than obvious, but the writer does seem to explicitly link them by using the word wa- innama ̄ (“on the contrary”) immediately after mentioning the masses’ supposition that the Jews’ “disbelief is the foulest since they themselves are the foulest community”

(316.9), saying: “On the contrary, the Christians have become less disgured than the

Jews—despite how disgured the Christians are—because Israelites only marry

Israelites...” (316.10-11). Thus, the hereditary inferiority of the Jews is actually an explanation for their lower professions: “They have not given birth to those who excel48 in intellect, in natural strength, or in beauty49” (316.13-14). If this is the case, this preference of the masses is not actually based on the relative objectionability of

Christian and Jewish religious practices, but on hereditary factors that should have no place in evaluating the intentions and earned merits of these groups (see gure 15).

48. If the verb NJB is read as IV. Alternatively, reading as I, “they have not excelled in....”

49. Alternatively, “knowledge” (see Allouche’s translation [al-Jāḥiẓ 1939, 135) or “suckling” (see Finkel’s translation [al-Jāḥiẓ 1927, 328]). 129

Figure 15. The religious versus hereditary merits of Christians and Jews

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ apparently assumes the higher level professions the Christians occupy to require intellect, strength, or beauty. But who is it that decides Christians have the requisite characteristics to hold such positions? Two factors lead me to think that al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is referring to Muslims’ greater willingness to employ and patronize Christians in these higher professions than Jews. First, the connection between occupations and physical deformities seems to be one of repulsion—which group is “fouler” (aqdhar) by occupation and has more “disgurement” (masakhā ). Second, most or all of the specic occupations he lists for Christians are not merely prestigious or respected, but ones 130 which involve patronage by highly placed Muslims. Thus, the reason the masses would infer from Christian and Jewish professions that the Christian religion (d̄n, “religious practices”) is superior to the Jewish one is not merely associative thinking; rather, they might readily conclude that Muslim elites prefer Christian practices over Jewish ones because they employ Christians close to themselves while keeping Jews farther away and making them do more menial tasks.

The implied disparagement of Muslims hiring Christians in these capacities is similar to the ideological basis of al-Mutawakkil’s decree prohibiting non-Muslims from being employed in any public oces in which they would have authority over

Muslims:

He did not give to them or to any of those whom he appointed to guide his people need or necessity for any member of the non-Muslim communities in any of their religious or worldly aairs. Rather, he made right and rm judgement to reside in banishing them from appointments and casting them far away from any appeal for their aid. For what the ruler seeks for his appointments is the people of good will and trustworthiness; in the dhimm̄s these two qualities are altogether lacking. As for trustworthiness, not one of them is to be trusted over the monies collected and the aairs of the Muslims because they are enemies of the religion and rebels against it. . . .

The Commander of the Faithful has decided . . . that the assistance of the dhimm̄s is not to be sought in any of the Muslims’ aairs and revenues . . . . (Yarbrough 2012, 379-380)

In the course of his argument about professions and heredity, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to make a few interesting assumptions. His reasoning that inbreeding in the Jewish community is the cause of its not producing people noted for intellect, strength, or beauty who might have the kinds of high-ranking professions Christians do implies (1) 131 that Christians do not practice this kind of inbreeding (at least not to the same extent) and (2) that the Christian community has produced people with at least a relative measure of intellect, strength, and beauty. The writer judges that his audience will be willing to accept his assertion that the Jewish community does not have such prominent individuals, but would not be willing to accept the same regarding the

Christian community (see Sadan 1986, 353-365). Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ moderates this implication by clarifying that Christians, too, are deformed—just not to the same extent as Jews.

Further, he apparently assumes that the intellect, strength, and beauty needed to have such occupations are hereditary, since he makes heredity the distinguishing factor between the ability of Christians and Jews to occupy these posts. Finally, in this portion of the argumentation, one can observe the kind of biological reasoning one might expect from the renowned author of Animals: that phenomena observed among a variety of animal species can be taken to apply to humans as well. These presuppositions provide intriguing points of inquiry for the historian. 132

Figure 16. Hereditary traits of Christians and Jews compared

In all, the author’s description of each group’s occupations and physical features is more than simply an explanation of why the masses prefer Christians to Jews, but rather part of his argumentation that the reasons for those preferences are unjustied.

If Christians’ perceived suitability for higher professions really has to do with the agreeableness of their physical features rather than that of their religious practices, then the masses’ aection for Christians is again undeserved.

Conclusions

In his etiology of popular Muslim preferences for Christians over Jews, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ adopts a strategy that ultimately reveals several realities of Abbasid Iraq’s interreligous climate. Certain facts about Christians had become more or less generally accepted and, in his view, were the basis for his coreligionists’ overly tolerant posture toward them. 133

Convincing his audience to reject these acknowledged realities would be considerably more dicult than providing alternate accounts of their origins—in other words, his task as a persuader was to replace the assumption that Christians’ positive merits were at the root of their favorable reputation with the contention that external factors were actually responsible for these circumstances.

What were these generally accepted facts that determined al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ strategy?

First, it was believed, and conrmed by the s̄ra, that the Jews in Medina had acted maliciously toward the early Muslims, but that Christians, where encountered, oered them hospitality and kindness. Such a view even seemed to nd support in the Qurʾan, where Jews were described as “strongest in enmity to those who believe,” as opposed to “those who say, ‘We are Christians,’” who were “closest in friendship” to them (Q.

5:82). Moreover, pre-Islamic history was remembered to include Arab Christian kings and a signicant number of Christians among the Arab tribes, as well as favorable contacts between Meccans and the Christian rulers of lands where they traded—none of which could be said regarding Jews. (Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ admitted a Jewish Arab population, but downplayed its signicance.) All in all, then, there seemed to be a strong case to be made for respecting and even appreciating the historical friendship of Christians.

These memories seem to have constrained al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ considerably, since he chooses to recast them rather than contradict them. The determining factors in

Christian kindness and Jewish animosity were the will of God and external circumstances. The honor in which Arabs held their ancestors and their ancestors’ benefactors had been heedlessly applied to present Christians. But, most importantly 134 and at the center of his argument, the “Christians” commended in the Qurʾan were those who ultimately believed in Muḥammad and his message. Could the latter be said about the Christians of his own time? Hardly.

Second, it was beyond doubt that Christians formed an integral part of Abbasid intellectual activity. Scholars depended on the Greek classics that Christian translators had made available, and the masses admired the professions, intellect, and appearance of the Christian intelligentsia. But here al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ decidedly downplays Jewish contributions to the intellectual sphere, claiming that the Jewish community sharply discouraged free thought and had weaker hereditary skills due to in-group marriages.

To make this kind of argument, he must have believed that his audience could not bring to mind substantive evidence to the contrary and was ready to trust his authority on the matter. Again, he has taken the tack of implying that external circumstances

(Christians’ vicinity to the ancient Greeks’ homeland) and Jewish practices are the cause of Christians having more cultured professions than Jews, as opposed to anything positive in Christians’ own culture, achievements, or religion.

The master stroke of his argument, however, is the case that the same intellectualism for which the masses admire Christians is actually at the root of “every perplexity and doubt” (315.12). Where disbelief and apostasy plague the Muslim community, he claims, they can often be traced back to Christians with their intellectual pretensions. The fact that they often occupy high positions should not deceive the observer. 135

The congruity of this argument with al-Mutawakkil’s decree dismissing

Christians from administrative positions is striking (compare Fletcher 2002, 115).

Whereas the caliph’s instructions emphasize dhimm̄s’ corruption and graft, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣

“Refutation” underlines the spiritual dangers they pose; but both can decidedly agree that Christians “are enemies of the religion and rebels against it” (Yarbrough 2012a,

379) and that the applicable Qurʾanic injunction is to not “take as intimates those other than yourselves, for they will not spare you [any] ruin” (Q. 3:118 [Saḥ ̣̄ḥ

International]).50

Regarding both past and present, in the communal, intellectual, and public spheres, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ perspective on Christians in his society is inextricably bound up with theological interpretation. He engages with his audience’s interpretation of Qurʾan and s̄ra, and overturns it. But he does so not in order to liberate his audience from scriptural ideas in favor of pragmatic ones. Instead, as the next chapter will show, he does so to put Christians in dierent scriptural and ideological categories. If Christians are worse than Jews, who are “strongest in enmity,” then what does that make

Christians?

50. Quoted by al-Mutawakkil in his decree (Yarbrough 2012a, 379). CHAPTER 5 Reversing the Biases

Turning the Tables

The time has come for al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ to present his counterargument.1 Whereas he has been advancing an implicit rebuttal of his fellow Muslims’ reasons for preferring

Christians to Jews, he now claries his own position:

Now we—may God have mercy on you!—do not disagree with the masses concerning how wealthy the Christians are, that they have prominent authority (mulk qāʾim),2 that their clothing is cleaner,3 or that their professions are better. Where we dier, rather, is about the dierence between the two forms of unbelief—the two sects—regarding the extent of (their)4 obstinacy and importunity, (their) lying in wait for the people of Islam using every kind of trickery, with vile manners and malicious by nature.5 (316.15-317.3)

In other words, he plans to demonstrate that Christians’ stubbornness and malicious intent toward Muslims is greater than that of Jews. In the course of the argument, it

1. See chapter 3 about al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ technique in this work of rst presenting his opponent’s argument and rebutting it, then giving his counterargument.

2. Or, “enduring authority”; or, possibly, “a reigning king” (see Allouche’s translation [al-Jāḥiẓ 1939, 135).

3. See pg. 93, n. 6.

4. Or, “which one is worse in . . . .”

5. If there is a reference to “purer uid” above (see note on “their clothing is cleaner”), then it may be contrasted with these last two phrases, lit., “the ignobility of their roots and the vileness of their bones.”

136 137 becomes apparent that he is not referring to their mere intentions, but to actual harm they have brought on the Muslim community. His overarching claim (Standpoint 2, see

gure 17) can thus be summarized as, “Christians harm our community more than

Jews.”

As in the previous section, discussed in chapter 4, he again touches especially on three main themes: Christians’ relationship of power and prestige vis-à-vis Muslims,

Christians’ intellectual pretensions, and the purity (or, rather, impurity) of Christian practices. The ve lines of argument he advances to support his standpoint are ones I have taken to be working cumulatively (in coordinative argumentation). For now, these are represented in gure 17 without their unstated premises, which will be unraveled below.

Figure 17. Overview of argumentation that Christians harm the community more than Jews

If the previous section had to do with perceptions of Christians based on their circumstances rather than their real intentions, this section is all about actions—

Christians’ actions that threaten the Muslim community, and Muslims’ actions that 138 enable these threats to continue. Each of these dangers al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ imbues with theological signicance, and each of them has marked currency in contemporary discussions. Christians’ transgression of their obligatory place in society and Muslims’ allowance of it jeopardize the enduring authority of compacts made by the rightly guided imams, but also reect the ongoing tension between legal discussions rooted in hadith and their application in an increasingly Islamicized public square. Christian intellectualism, he maintains, both creates doctrinal confusion that imperils the right belief enjoined on the Umma and accounts for the recent availability of dangerous heretical books. Christian practices forbid what the Qurʾan allows and allow what the

Qurʾan forbids, in addition to threatening the borders of the Muslim community with impurities that would have to be condemned from the mouth of the caliph himself. The fact that al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ work deals with down-to-earth social matters and not just theological ones does not make it pragmatic; it is theological and ideological to the core. Yet the only viable response he leaves open to his readers is a practical one—to take action, to put a stop to the kind of tolerance that allows Christians to keep endangering the

Umma (compare Fletcher 2002, 122).

As such, it is not surprising that he spends much of the second half of his social argumentation discussing the enforcement of agreements pertaining to the rightful place of the protected peoples (ahl al-dhimma) in an Islamically governed society. This was an evolving and debated matter at his time, and it is one that has also occasioned much modern scholarly discussion. Thus, I have devoted the most in-depth portion of this study to unpacking and contextualizing his richly textured and unique 139 argumentation on this particular point. The rst part of this chapter compares in detail al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ description of Christians’ socially prestigious behavior with various texts coming from approximately the same time period. The second part uses the results of that comparison to resume the study of his argumentation, which continues through the rest of the portion of the text relating to social concerns.

Christians Transgressing their Stipulated Role

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has indicated that his counterargument will demonstrate the degree of

Christians’ stubbornness and malicious intent toward Muslims. Thus, he maintains that the very things for which Muslims respect Christians—their prominence, professions, and appearance—are ways they transgress their rightful place in an Islamically governed society.

His counterargument begins with a litany of ways in which Christians assert their social status:

As for their prominence, professions, and appearance, we know that they acquire horses that are Arabian crosses and swift steeds, hire bands of horse pasturers, play polo, cut their hair in the Medinan fashion, wear blended silk fabrics and double-layered tunics, hire guards, name themselves al-Ḥasan, al- Ḥusayn, al-ʿAbbas,̄ al-Faḍl, and ʿAl̄, and also use all of these as kunyas.6 The only thing left is for them to name themselves Muḥammad and use the kunya Abū al-Qasim.̄ 7 Thus, Muslims are fond of them, and many of the Christians leave o wearing their zunnar̄ waistbands, while others tie them on underneath their robes. Many of their well-to-do refuse to hand over the poll-tax (jizya), and,

6. Filionyms, such as Abū al-Ḥasan.

7. Muḥammad’s kunya. 140 despite their wealth,8 scorn paying it. They insult anyone who insults them and strike those who strike them. (317.4-12)

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ indictments clearly reect the ongoing concern in the Muslim community over the status of the ahl al-dhimma and the restrictions by which they should abide. While payment of the jizya (poll tax) features regularly in the earliest records of surrender agreements between the conquering Muslim armies and non-

Muslim peoples (Levy-Rubin 2011), the history of certain other restrictions is much more dicult to trace.

The imposition and enforcement of ghiyar̄ regulations—requirements for dress and personal appearance intended to distinguish non-Muslims from Muslims—has made for a particularly knotty problem. Since they are not extant in the earliest texts of the surrender agreements, their development must be tracked through hadith reports, later chronicles, and the problematic family of documents known as the “Pact of

ʿUmar.” Tritton (1930) and Fattal (1958, 97) both dismissed the ghiyar̄ requirements as a product of an established Islamic state; whereas Noth (1987, 302-307 = 2004,

114-118) argued that they genuinely reected the concerns of Muslims shortly after the conquest, but only with the intent of dierentiating Muslims and non-Muslims, not with that of humiliating them as later came to be the case. More recently, Levy-Rubin

(2011, 89) has claimed that the Umayyad caliph ʿUmar (II) b. ʿAbd al-ʿAz̄z (r. 717-720

[99-101 A.H.]) was the rst to implement the ghiyar̄ , marshaling a number of reports that associate these measures with him. On the other hand, Yarbrough (2014)has laid

8. Or “despite their ability to pay it.” 141 out an equally impressive array of accounts that relate the ghiyar̄ to caliphs as early as

ʿUmar (I) b. al-Khatṭ ạ b̄ (r. 634-644 [13-23 A.H.]) and as late as the Abbasid Harūn al-

Rash̄d (r. 786-809 [170-193 A.H.]). Ultimately, he concludes, the evidence for the origins of the ghiyar̄ is, for the present, “inconclusive” (2014, 121). Whatever the case may be, it is clear that at least as early as the late eighth century (the period of the earliest written reports and several decades before al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ wrote his “Refutation of

Christians”), there were attempts to restrict Christian and Jewish modes of appearance in a number of ways, and that memories of earlier such attempts (authentic or otherwise) had found their way into Islamic consciousness by this time.

By all accounts, the eorts of Caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 847-861) to limit dhimm̄ inuence in Islamicate society in the mid-ninth century were a watershed in the enforcement of restrictions on Christians and Jews. At least two edicts of his pertaining to the ahl al-dhimm̄ have been preserved in Ibn Zabr al-Qāḍī (d. 940) (in Cohen 1999,

148-153) and al-Ṭabar̄ (1989b, 89-94). Accounts from the Samaritan Continuatio chronicle and from the Christian chronicles of Severus b. al-Muqaaʿ and Gregory Bar

Hebraeus conrm that the types of measures al-Mutawakkil ordered were indeed enacted and their eects felt in the dhimm̄ communities (see Levy-Rubin 2011,

106-108). As I have explained in chapter two, I think there is good reason to date the completion of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ “Refutation of Christians” to the short period between al-

Mutawakkil’s rise to power in 847 and the rst of his decrees relating to the ahl al- dhimma in 850. 142

Simultaneous with the eighth and ninth century developments in ghiyar̄ restrictions, there were important developments in one of the most signicant—and most debated—groups of texts bound up with dhimm̄ restrictions in general—the “Pact of ʿUmar” (ʿAhd ʿUmar or Al-Shurūt ̣ al-ʿUmariyya). The Pact is a purported agreement between ʿUmar (I) b. al-Khatṭ ạ b̄ and the Christians9 of al-Shaʾm (Syria) or, alternatively, of al-Jaz̄ra (northern Mesopotamia). Its signicance is threefold. For one, it encompassed a wide range of restrictions on the ahl al-dhimma, including a number that are not attested from the surrender agreements. For another, since it had the form of a petition from the Christians that was ratied by the caliph (see Cohen 1999),

Muslims could reference it as something to which Christians had supposedly bound themselves in exchange for their own safety. Finally, the Pact of ʿUmar became an essentially canonical concept (even though the texts themselves varied), giving it a great deal of traction throughout the medieval period.

The timeframe during which the Pact of ʿUmar is rst attested encompasses the years in which al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ wrote his “Refutation” and al-Mutawakkil imposed his edicts.

The earliest extant versions of the Pact in an identiable form (including the frame story in which one of ʿUmar’s commanders forwards him the Christians’ petition) were written down in approximately the early tenth century (Cohen 1999, 109; Levy-Rubin

2011, 60).10 One of these is a record of Ibn Ḥanbal’s (d. 855) teaching (see Cohen 1999,

9. Even though many of the same restrictions mentioned in the Pact of ʿUmar presumably also applied to Jews, these texts are explicitly framed as an agreement with “Christians.”

10. These include that of Ibn Zabr al-Qad̄ ̣̄(d. 940), Abū Bakr al-Khallal’s̄ (d. 923) collection of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal’s (d. 855) responsa, and Ibn Ḥibban’s̄ (884-965) lost work that is quoted by later authors. For a transcription of Ibn Zabr’s text, see Cohen (1999, 137 .); for references to the others, see Cohen (1999, 109 n. 25) or Levy-Rubin 143

109 and n. 24), pushing the Pact into the mid-ninth century, and Levy-Rubin notes that the isnad̄ s of two versions show it to go back to the mid-eighth century if one remains

“within the methodological limitations of recent isnad̄ research” (2011, 61). Moreover, by the late eighth century, there is lively juridical discussion about the rights and obligations of dhimm̄ peoples, and Levy-Rubin has shown that texts by Abū Yūsuf (d.

798) and al-Shāʿ̄ represent other attempts to create a generalized dhimm̄ agreement that would replace the localized surrender treaties (2011, 62, 70).

Comparative Perspectives on Dhimm̄ Regulations

Evidently, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ “Refutation” stands in the middle of a period that was extremely formative for dhimm̄ restrictions (see Stillman and Stillman 2003, 104). His unique perspectives, put in the context of the ongoing discussions surrounding him, can help illuminate the rather murky evolution of Islamic ideology and practice in regard to the dhimm̄ peoples. Moreover, it can also bring to light details of Christian social behavior that are sparse in other texts. Naturally, the language of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ polemic is not the technical terminology of the “Pact of ʿUmar” or juridical discussions, but the rich vocabulary of an author who excels in cultural observation and criticism. To understand the contribution the “Refutation” can make, it is necessary to situate it in the framework of other Islamic texts pertaining to the ahl al-dhimma, and then unpack its argumentation. Below, I have juxtaposed al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ statements in this portion of the text line-by-line with what I consider to be the most relevant texts from his period

(2011, 60 and notes). Through his study of the literary form of the Pact, Cohen convincingly argues that earlier texts that have sometimes been considered versions of the Pact should not actually be deemed such (1999, 103-104). 144 relating to dhimm̄ issues. From earliest to latest, these texts are as follows with their abbreviations:

(1) AY (Abū Yūsuf, late 8th cent.)—A treaty (sulḥ ̣) purportedly made by Abū

ʿUbayda b. al-Jarrah̄ ̣ with the people of al-Sham̄ (Syria), transmitted by Makḥūl

al-Sham̄ ̄ (d. 731 [113 A.H.]), and quoted by Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb (d. 789), one of

the founding Ḥanaf̄ jurists during the reign of Harūn al-Rash̄d, in his Kitab̄ al-

Kharaj̄ . This record comes earlier than extant versions of the Pact of ʿUmar were

written down, and Levy-Rubin sees it as one of the preliminary attempts to move

from stipulations enforced by the surrender agreements made with individual

cities and regions toward general stipulations that applied to all ahl al-dhimma in

non-Muslim territories (2011, 71-72).

Translation: Adapted from Levy-Rubin’s (2011, 71-72) adaptation of

Lewis (1974, 219-223)

(2) S (al-Shāʿ̄, early 9th cent.)—A prescriptive template treaty written by the

jurist al-Shaʿ̄ (767-820 [150-204 A.H.]) in his Kitab̄ al-Umm. This document

has sometimes been misunderstood as somehow being a version of the Pact of

ʿUmar, when it is actually more like a suggested template for any new treaty

that might be enacted (see Levy-Rubin 2011, 79; Cohen 1999, 119-120). Rather

than tracing its origins in any historical agreement, al-Shāʿ̄’s pact begins, “If

the Imam̄ wishes to write a document for the poll-tax (jizya) of non-Muslims, he

should write . . .” (Levy-Rubin 2011, 173).11 Thus, this text provides a point of

11. Cohen calls it “a juridical elaboration of the ‘actual’ Pact [of ʿUmar] . . . generalizing the original letter-form into a formulary for a treaty” (1999, 119). From the perspective of literary form (which is one of his 145

comparison with what one jurist thought should be enforced, in contrast to what

was enforced in practice or could be enforced by historical precedent.

Translation: Adapted from Levy-Rubin (2011, 173-176)

(3) SMIZ and SMṬ (Summaries of al-Mutawakkil’s dhimm̄ policy by Ibn Zabr and

al-Ṭabar̄, mid-9th cent., preserved in early 10th)—There are two summaries of

the measures al-Mutawakkil took against Christians starting around the year

850. The one I have designated SMIZ is preserved in an early tenth century

hadith collection by the Qad̄ ̣̄ Ibn Zabr (Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allah̄ b. Aḥmad b.

Zabr al-Qad̄ ̄, 870-940 [255-329 A.H.]; see Cohen 1999, 110-111). The other,

which I have designated SMṬ, is recorded in al-Ṭabar̄’s history, completed in

915. These two quite similar passages both claim to summarize al-Mutawakkil’s

orders, but also agree on several points that neither author has recorded in the

text of the decrees themselves. This fact leads me to believe that either al-

Mutawakkil issued further decrees regarding the Christians of which we have no

explicit record, or that Ibn Zabr and al-Ṭabar̄ were summarizing not just al-

Mutawakkil’s orders but also his actions. In any case, the additional information

these “summaries” provide justies including them for comparison here. They

supply a perspective on measures that were actually taken (or attempted)

major concerns), Cohen may be right. In terms of the actual stipulations, however, al-Shāʿī’s text has only a very loose relationship to the Pact of ʿUmar as his main purpose seems to be to suggest a treaty that, if signed as a newly binding agreement, would take care of contemporary judicial concerns. See Levy-Rubin, who points out the relationship between the template pact and al-Shāʿ̄’s perspective in the rest of Kitāb al-umm (2011, 79), as well as the fact that the jurist’s version leaves out a number of the stipulations found in other versions of the Pact of ʿUmar (2011, 83). 146

regarding the Christians, as opposed to juristic ideals of restrictions on

Christians.

SMIZ Arabic Text: Cohen (1999, 148-149)

SMIZ Translation: Mine

SMṬ Arabic Text: Al-Ṭabar̄ (1879-1901, 3.3:1389-1390)

SMṬ Translation: Adapted from Kraemer (al-Ṭabar̄ 1989b, 89-91)

(4) DMIZ and DMṬ (al-Mutawakkil’s decree in Ibn Zabr and al-Ṭabar̄, mid-9th

cent., preserved in early 10th)—Both Ibn Zabr and al-Ṭabar̄ also record the text

of a decree by al-Mutawakkil relating to the public behavior of Christians (DMIZ

and DMṬ, respectively). The two versions are largely, but not entirely, in

verbatim agreement, as if one or both had an oral source as an intermediary.

Their colophons match, giving the date as Shawwāl, 235 A.H. (April/May, 850)

and the scribe as Ibrah̄ ̄m12 b. al-ʿAbbas̄ (al-Sụ ̄l̄)—a known scribe of al-

Mutawakkil.13 Ibn Zabr’s version of the decree (DMIZ) appears to me to be more

complete and possibly more reliable. Al-Ṭabar̄’s version (DMṬ) seems to

occasionally skip words (more often than DMIZ), and to add ʿazza wa-jalla in

several places after the word Allah̄ .14 In one case, DMṬ skips an entire line or

so.15 Otherwise, most of the dierences are occasional variations in wording

12. DMIZ uses the spelling “Ibrah̄m.”

13. By some reports, al-Jāḥiẓ had assisted him in the chancellery in earlier days.

14. I take this to be an addition by al-Tabaṛ ̄ or his source rather than an omission by Ibn Zabr, since it seems much more likely that a Muslim writer would add this phrase to a text than omit it.

15. “And answer any concern from them [your ocers?] about this and write to the Commander of the Faithful what you do about it so that he may be aware of it . . .” (Cohen 1999, 151; missing in al-Tabaṛ ̄ 1879-1901, 147

(often synonymous) and abbreviating quoted Qurʾanic verses in diering ways.

Like SM, DM gives evidence of an attempt to actually enforce certain

restrictions.

DMIZ Arabic Text: Cohen (1999, 149-151)

DMIZ Translation: Mine

DMṬ Arabic Text: Al-Ṭabar̄ (1879-1901, 3.3:1390-1395)

DMṬ Translation: Adapted from Kraemer (al-Ṭabar̄ 1989b, 91-94)

(5) IḤ (Ibn Ḥanbal, mid-9th cent., preserved in early 10th)—This is a version of

the Shurūt ̣ of ʿUmar appearing in a collection made by Abū Bakr al-Khallal̄ (d.

923) of responsa (jamī ʿ) by Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 855), whose opposition to the

doctrine of the created Qurʾan had been so troublesome during the miḥna (see

Cohen 1999, 109 and n. 24).16 The latest transmitter in the chain is Ibn Ḥanbal’s

son ʿAbd Allah̄ (828-903 [213-290 A.H.]), and the earliest is “Ismāʿīl b. ʿAyyāsh,

who said, ‘more than one of the ahl al-ʿilm related to us . . . .’” So far as I am

aware, this is the extant version of the Pact closest to the time al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ wrote his

“Refutation.” Being from a source with theological views quite dierent from al-

Jah̄ ̣iz’,̣ it allows a comparison with the normative behavior expected of

Christians on the basis of historical agreements.

3.3:1393).

16. Cohen considers this text to be the earliest example of the “Jaz̄ra” version of the Pact, in which it is the Christians of Jaz̄ra rather than Syria (al-Sham)̄ that request protection (1999, 122-123). 148

Arabic Text: Ibn Ḥanbal (1994, 357-359)

Translation: Mine

I will begin by examining the often obscure wording of each phrase from this passage of the “Refutation” that deals with Christians’ markers of social prestige and power and will then compare it to relevant points from the other texts.

ﻓﻘﺪ ﻋﻠﻤﻨﺎ أَﻧَّﻬﻢ اﺗَّﺨﺬوا اﻟﺒﺮاذﻳﻦ اﻟﺸﻬﺮﻳﺔ، واﻟﺨﻴﻞَ اﻟﻌﺘﺎقَ

“We know that they acquire horses that are Arabian crosses and swift steeds . . .” (317.3-4)

Lane (1863-93, 1612) glosses birdhawn shihriyy as “A birdhawn [or hackney] between the rakama [or mare of mean breed] and the horse of generous breed . . . ; a horse of which the dam is Arabian but not the sire.” Khayl can refer both to Arabian horses and the inferior baradh̄n (Lane 1863-93, 835). In al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ risalā “On the Merits of the Turks,” the Khurasā nis̄ boast of having “Shihry steeds” (khuyūl shihriyya) (al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1915, 646). A horse described as ʿat̄q is one that “precedes, outstrips, or outgoes,” or, more generally, is “excellent” (Lane 1863-93, 1947).

The prescriptive template in S orders, “You shall dierentiate yourselves by your saddles and your mounts,” while in the purportedly historical Pact of IḤ, Christians agree they “will not ride on a saddle.”17 The summaries of al-Mutawakkil’s decrees in the year 235 A.H. (850) (SM) and the texts of the decree itself (DM) state that dhimm̄s must use saddles with wooden stirrups and with pommels on the front and/or back of the saddles. Thus, the caliph’s edict initially takes a more pragmatic, enforceable

17. Abū Yūsuf species pack saddles as the alternative (1933/1934, 117 cited in Levy-Rubin 2011, 230 n. 269). 149 approach than the idealistic Shurūt,̣ and seems meant primarily to make dhimm̄ riders easily distinguishable, as well as, perhaps, to prevent their using the richly ornamented saddles that become a fashionable mark of prestige through their use by the Persian nobility (Levy-Rubin 2011, 150-152). But al-Ṭabar̄ records that just a few years later, in Safaṛ of 239 A.H. (July/August, 853), al-Mutawakkil prohibited the ahl al-dhimma from riding horses at all—even pack horses—allowing them only mules and donkeys

(1989b, 128).18

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ concerns are much more in the spirit of the caliph’s later decree than his earlier one—his distress is regarding Christians’ agrant infringement on marks of honor that should belong to Muslims alone rather than about ner distinctions relating to saddle styles. As will be seen a bit further in his text, he believes the conditions according to which Christians should live among Muslims are dictated by Qurʾanic ideals and the overarching intentions of Muslim agreements with dhimm̄s, rather than by the letter of the written stipulations, by hadith reports, or by artful juristic reasoning.

واﺗَّﺨﺬوا اﻟْﺠَﻮْﻗﺎت، وﺿَﺮَﺑﻮا ﺑﺎﻟﺼَّﻮاﻟﺠَﺔِ

“ . . . hire bands of horse pasturers, play polo, . . .” (317.5-6)

A jawqa is generally a troop or group of people, but more specically can refer to a group of herders (ruʿa/̄ riʿāʾ, pl. of rāʿin) sharing the same business (see the Lisan̄ al-

ʿArab [Ibn Manzụ ̄r n.d., 730] under jwq). In this context about well-bred horses and

18. See also the Samaritan Continuatio (Levy-Rubin 2011, 106). 150 polo, these may have been groups that pastured the horses, but perhaps they provided other types of care (as grooms) or assisted with sporting activities (as equestrian teams)

(compare Harū ̄n’s note in al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:317 n. 2). The range of care that might be provided to horses is well illustrated by al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ description of Turks’ horsemanship:

“The Turk is at one and the same time herdsman, groom, trainer, horse-dealer, farrier and rider: in short, a one-man team.” (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 94)

Whatever the specic role of the jawqat̄ that Christians hire, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to be commenting on the fact that Christians have the kind of wealth to hire them.

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ comments about polo and horse pasturers are another example of his rhetorical rather than juristic aim. Obviously, one must ride ne horses and use good- quality saddles if one plays polo and employs assistants for equine care, but that is not the point. The point is, rather, the sensational impression Christians make by participating in such a prestigious activity.

Judging from various references about the caliph’s court, polo was a sport that some of the most highly placed members of Abbasid society played. Al-Ṭabar̄ relates a story from Muḥammad b. Rash̄d told by Caliph al-Muʿtasim’ṣ (r. 833-842) trusted associate, Abū al-Ḥusayn Isḥaq̄ b. Ibrah̄ ̄m b. Muṣʿab, whom the caliph personally invited to play a game of polo. Al-Muʿtasim,̣ who “was wearing a silk-embroidered waistcoat (sudraḥ ), a girdle of gold, and red boots,” insisted that Isḥaq̄ dress “in the same fashion as I,” then proceeded to mount “a horse caparisoned with gold trappings”

(al-Ṭabar̄ 1991, 212-213). In fact, the capital at Samarra may have had up to twelve 151 polo grounds (though some were perhaps racecourses) (al-Ṭabar̄ 1991, 213 n. 634).

Legends recorded by al-Ṭabar̄ associated polo with the Persian kings Darius and

Ardash̄r (1987a, 89; 1999, 26). For his part, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ occasionally mentions polo in other contexts, noting that schoolchildren learned it (see al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1969, 112), and that

Khorasanis̄ claimed to use it as training for combat (1915, 646). The sport might not be limited to the caliph’s courtesans, but it was certainly patronized by them.

Signicantly, a twelfth-century Muslim account mentions polo in connection with al-Mutawakkil’s edict (Yarbrough 2012a, 381-390). According to this, the caliph’s edict was a response to the eort of Christian scribes to oust Muslim scribes on accusations of corruption. The frame story is late and its generalizations seem to be a convenient eort by someone perhaps centuries later to explain why al-Mutawakkil’s administration had Christian scribes that needed to be expelled in the rst place. But its concerns about the Christian elite becoming wealthy through oppression certainly resonate with the tone of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ text. In the frame story, the Christian scribe Salama b. Saʿ̄d,19 speaking with al-Mutawakkil, falsely accuses the Muslim scribe ʿAbd Allah̄ b.

Yaḥya ̄ of abuses:

I swear by God, O Commander of the Faithful, [someone?] has fashioned for him bats {sawạ lij̄ } and balls worth thirty thousand [gold] dinars. I said to him, “The Commander of the Faithful hits a ball made from skins with a bat made from wood, while you hit a silver ball with a golden bat?” (trans. Yarbrough, 2012a, 386)

19. Al-Tabaṛ ̄ gives a report from Salama b. Saʿ̄d al-Nasrạ n̄ ̄, who claims to have witnessed one of al- Mutawakkil’s audiences a few days before the latter’s death (1989b, 183). 152

This story is another window into the status symbol that polo was and its potential ostentation.

وﺗﺤﺬَّﻓﻮا اﻟﻤﺪِﻳﻨﻲَّ

“ . . . cut their hair in the Medinan fashion, . . .” (317.6)

Editors and translators have struggled with this phrase, since the taḥaddaqū present in the manuscripts does not seem to make sense.20 Finkel, following D. S.

Margoliouth’s suggestion, opted for taḥadhdhaqū, which he translated, “they acquire by heart21 the works of Mālik” (that is, the jurist of Medina) (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1927, 328 n. 52).

Harū ̄n’s suggestion of taḥadhdhafū is more likely, since its transformation to taḥaddaqū is easily explained by the migration of a single dot (from dh to q), and since it ts the context of personal appearance and signs of wealth. Lane explains ḥadhdhafa (II) al- shaʿar/al-raʾs as cutting the hair “so as to form a turrạ [q. v.], by taking from its sides so as to make it even [with the cut portion over the forehead]” (Lane 1863-93, 535). More specically, according to al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ older contemporary, al-Naḍr b. Shumayl (d. 820?), who grew up in Basra (Pellat 1993, 873), ḥadhdhafa turrạ is making the kind of turrạ called sukayniyya like the Christians do.22 A turrạ is the hair above a girl or woman’s forehead cut as a single straight edge, or as one edge above the other, or as something like an ʿalam (an “ornamental” or “variegated” border) (Lane 1863-93, 1834, 2140). Al-

20. Ḥaddaqa (II) is “he stared”; taḥaddaqa (V) does not seem to be attested among the lexicographers.

21. Citing Fagnan (1923), “learn the Koran by heart”; but compare Lane (1863-93, 536) who glosses taḥadhdhaqa as, “He feigned . . . skillfulness.”

22. Al-Naḍr’s original work is lost, but this gloss is cited in the Miṣbāḥ of al-Fayūmī (Lane 1863-93, 535) and in the Lisān (Ibn Manzụ ̄r n.d., 810). 153 turratụ al-sukayniyya purportedly got its name from Sukayna bt. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Abī

Ṭālib (Lane 1863-93, 1394). Since Sukayna hailed from Medina, taḥadhdhafū al- mad̄niyya could plausibly be taken to refer to this style of haircut (see Arazi 1997).

If this is the correct reading, then al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ description clearly has something to do with the manner in which Christians (specically Christian women?) cut the hair at the sides of their heads. In the text from Ibn Ḥanbal (henceforth IḤ), Christians that they “will not imitate Muslims . . . in parting the hair” and “will clip (the hair on) our foreheads and not part our forelocks (nawas̄ iyyanạ ).”̄ The various reports of the ghiyar̄ edict by ʿUmar (II) ʿAbd al-ʿAz̄z are not consistent among themselves regarding how

Christians were supposed to wear their hair (Yarbrough 2014, 118; compare Levy-

Rubin 90 and 206 n. 20), but several of them commanded either cutting or parting the forelocks. Unacceptable behavior was said to include growing one’s hair long or parting it (Levy-Rubin 206 n. 20; Yarbrough 2014, 118). I am not certain whether these restrictions were gender-specic.

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ complaint, then, seems to be that while Christians may be complying with a requirement to cut the hair on their foreheads, they are doing so in a way that imitates Medinan style. Given that neither al-Shāʿ̄’s template nor al-Mutawakkil’s orders mention hairstyles, and that this supercial compliance is the worst al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has to accuse Christians of in regard to their hairstyles, perhaps this point had become largely moot during his time. Nonetheless, he wished to point out the Christians’ pretentiousness even in this area.

وﻟﺒِﺴﻮا اﻟﻤُﻠْﺤَﻢ واﻟﻤﻄﺒَّﻘَﺔ 154

“ . . . wear blended silk fabrics and double-layered tunics, . . .” (317.6)

Mulḥam is a fabric with a warp of silk and a woof of something dierent

(Stillman and Stillman 2003, 44; compare al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-79, 3:317 n. 4). In contrast to the wool that the working-class typically wore (Stillman and Stillman 2003, 51), mulḥam garments were suitable for the culturally elite. Less than a century after al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ completed his “Refutation,” Abū al-Ṭayyib Muḥammad al-Washshāʾ (d. 936 [325

A.H.]) prescribed a mulḥam jubba (narrow-sleeved tunic) of Nishapur as one of the items a stylish gentleman might wear over his qam̄s,̣ along with a mulḥam taylasạ n̄

(cowl), also Nishapur̄, to be worn over his turban (Stillman and Stillman 2003, 44).

For a woman, he recommended a Khurasan̄ ̄ mulḥam izar̄ as her outermost wrap

(Stillman and Stillman 2003, 45).

Harū ̄n explains mutabbaqạ (lit., “tting” or “matching”) as coming from the expression tạ baqā bayna qam̄sayni,̣ “He wore one tunic on top of another” (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣

1964-79, 3:317 n. 4; see also Lane 1863-93, 1825). Presumably, wearing additional layers of clothing was another indication of the Christians’ wealth.

Clothing as a symbol of status was another issue that pertained to ghiyar̄ guidelines, but by no means a straightforward one. A number of reports had it that

Muḥammad himself rejected ne apparel such as silk, but the Umayyads became keen on luxurious clothing (Stillman and Stillman 2003, 31-32). Christians were caught in the middle as their Muslim neighbors were pulled between upholding an ideal of pious simplicity and not wanting to dress below the level of non-Muslims. ʿUmar (II) ʿAbd al-

ʿAz̄z, who himself had a reputation for simple clothing (Stillman and Stillman 2003, 155

32-33), was quoted by Abū Yūsuf as writing to a governor, “No Christian should wear a qabāʾ, a garment of khazz silk, or an ʿasḅ turban” (Stillman and Stillman 2003, 103).

Excesses continued, of course, in the Abbasid era, and so did the paradoxes. Al-

Mutawakkil himself had a physician from a Christian family, Bukht̄shūʿ b. Jibrāʾ̄l, who possessed “a jubba of washy silk reported to have cost 1000 dinars” (Stillman and

Stillman 2003, 103-104). Principles were one thing; practice another.

Much of the discussion about dhimm̄ clothing in the ninth century concerned headwear. The Pact of ʿUmar sometimes included a clause about this, as in Ibn Ḥanbal

(IḤ):

That we will maintain our own appearance wherever we may be. That we will not imitate Muslims in wearing a qalansuwa, a turban, or footwear.

وأن ﻻ ﻧﺘﺸﺒﻪ ﺑﺎﻟﻤﺴﻠﻤﻴﻦ ﻓﻲ ﻟﺒﺲ ﻗﻠﻨﺴﻮة وﻻ ﻋﻤﺎﻣﺔ وﻻ ﻧﻌﻠﻴﻦ

Did not imitating Muslims in wearing a qalansuwa or turban mean not wearing them at all, or simply distinguishing them somehow? The turban, along with silk clothes, was among the items of clothing that ʿUmar (II) b. ʿAbd al-ʿAz̄z did not allow the ahl al- dhimma to wear (Levy-Rubin 2011, 148), but the qalansuwa was presumably not an issue yet. The qalansuwa was a cone-shaped hat that looked somewhat like a miter, and became a symbol of royalty during the Umayyad period, being worn by the caliph and his associates (Stillman and Stillman 2003, 35). Under the Abbasids, it became so popular that Harū ̄n al-Rash̄d (r. 786-809) reportedly felt the need to prohibit commoners from donning it—a decision that was reversed by al-Muʿtasiṃ (r. 833-842 156

[218-227 A.H.]) decades later (see Stillman and Stillman 2003, 47 and references in n.

46). Yet al-Shāʿ̄ (S), who died only eleven years after Harū ̄n al-Rash̄d, did not try to forbid dhimm̄s from wearing the qalansuwa, only requiring them to “distinguish your and their headgear (qalansuwa) by a mark which you shall place on your headgear.”

The statement assumes that some dhimm̄s (presumably ones in high positions) were wearing the qalansuwa and would continue to do so.

Al-Mutawakkil’s decree is similarly pragmatic, and explicitly references class distinctions among headgear worn by the ahl al-dhimma. His concern regarding clothing, at least, is apparently not to remove class symbols but to make dhimm̄s of any station or gender be easily distinguishable from Muslims. According to DMṬ:

[The Commander of the Faithful decided to] compel all the Dhimmis, elite and common, in his presence and in his near and distant provinces, to make their hoods (tayalisah)—which some of their merchants, secretaries, their old, and young wear—the color of yellow clothing.23 None of them shall evade this.

And those of their humble followers beneath these in station,24 whose circumstance prevents them from wearing hoods, shall ax two pieces of cloth of the same color [to their clothing]. The circumference of each piece shall be a complete span, and shall be axed in like manner on the outer cloak that he wears, front and rear. And all of [the Dhimmis] shall fasten buttons to their caps having a color dierent from that of the caps. They shall protrude where they are fastened, so that they not adhere and be hidden, and so that what is axed by plaiting not be concealed.”

SMIZ gives quite similar restrictions, but adds a couple points:

23. DMIZ: “To make their hoods . . . dierent in color, like the color of yellow clothing.”

24. SMIZ calls them “slaves.” 157

Any of them who wear turbans (ʿamāʾim), their turban should be yellow or a similar (color) after being dyed. . . . Their women should go out only in yellow izārs.

By contrast with the specic regulations in the Pact of ʿUmar, in al-Shāʿ̄’s juristic template, and in al-Mutawakkil’s policies, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems far less concerned with the colors and shapes that would distinguish Christians from Muslims at a moment’s glance, and more intent on denouncing Christians’ displays of wealth and power in whatever form they took. This is not to say he is indierent toward Christians’ wearing hats or hoods (though the extant text does not mention them). Rather, the point he apparently wishes to communicate to his Muslim readers is that Christians are violating and threatening the intent of Islamic class structure, whether or not they are overstepping specic regulations.

واﺗَّﺨﺬوا اﻟﺸﺎﻛﺮﻳَّﺔ

“ . . . hire guards . . .” (317.6-7)

Shakiriyyā comes from the Persian word chakir̄ , which was used in Central Asia to refer to a rulers’ personal guard; under the Abbasids, it seems to have denoted the caliph’s private, professional militia of non-Arab origin (probably Iranian, Turkish, and

Central Asian) (see al-Ṭabar̄ 1991, n. 506 and references; also ʿAthaminā 1996). Al-

Ṭabar̄ records that al-Mutawakkil sent 900 of the shakiriyyā to help ght the rebel Ibn al-Baʿ̄th in the year 234 A.H. (848/849) (1989b, 79). When al-Mutawakkil designated his successors, he forbade the crown prince al-Muntasiṛ from transferring any of the shakiriyyā serving his brothers (al-Ṭabar̄ 1989b, 99, 102). In one of his epistles, al- 158

Jāḥiẓ explains that shakiriyyā has the same meaning as jund (“soldiers” or “army corp”)

(1964-79, 1:30); but by this he must be referring to the new sort of jund, which were non-Arab and paid, rather than to the old sort of Arab ghters (see al-Ṭabar̄ 1991, n.

506; Sourdel 1965). Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is evidently claiming that Christians have both the wealth and the audacity to hire the same sort of private soldiers that the caliph himself employs in his personal retinue.

So far as I can tell, the point al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ makes here is fairly unique among contemporary discussions of the ahl al-dhimma, but it may have something to do with the clause that appears in the Pact of ʿUmar in which Christians agree to “not acquire or carry any weapon or wear swords” (IḤ).25 A similar clause appears in the earlier text by Abū Yūsuf (AY): “That they would not wear arms on their holidays nor keep them in their houses.” The idea behind these clauses may have had as much to do with social stratication as it did with protecting against uprisings or personal violence; for, following Persian customs, the weapons carried by Abbasid courtiers signied their special social status (Levy-Rubin 2011, 146). In fact, the topics of personal violence and loyalty to the state appear separately from those about bearing arms in both AY and IḤ.

Weapons clauses are conspicuously absent, however, from both al-Shāʿ̄’s treaty template (S) and al-Mutawakkil’s policies (SM and DM). The reasons for this can only be speculated, since silence does not make for solid evidentiary arguments.

Nonetheless, it is worth asking whether al-Mutawakkil and al-Shāʿ̄ did not consider the issue to need addressing, either because dhimm̄s had stopped carrying weapons or

25. Note that both al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ and IḤ use the verb “acquire” (ittakhadha). 159 because their doing so was no longer felt to be a threat to the social order. One wonders whether the weapons clause was outdated by this time and remained in the

Pact of ʿUmar simply because it was traditional. But these questions cannot be answered on the basis of the evidence here.

Returning to al-Jah̄ ̣iz,̣ it seems as if he has again used Christians’ excesses to show them in violation of the intention of their compacts with Muslims and their rightful place in Islamically governed society. If Christians are not even supposed to carry weapons, what about hiring elite guards that make them appear to be miniature caliphs? Such a thing may have never been explicitly forbidden, but it goes against the very ber of the proper Muslim-Christian relationship, in al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ view.

وﺗﺴﻤَّﻮْا ﺑﺎﻟﺤَﺴَﻦ واﻟﺤُﺴَﻴﻦ، واﻟﻌﺒَّﺎس واﻟﻔﻀﻞ وﻋﻠﻰٍّ، واﻛْﺘَﻨَﻮْا ﺑﺬﻟﻚ أَﺟﻤﻊ، وﻟﻢ ﻳﺒﻖَ إِﻻِّ [sic] آَنْ ﻳﺘﺴﻤَّﻮا ﺑﻤﺤﻤّﺪ،

وﻳﻜﺘَﻨُﻮا ﺑﺂَﺑﻲ اﻟﻘﺎﺳﻢ.

“ . . . name themselves al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusayn, al-ʿAbbās, al-Faḍl, and ʿAlī, and also use all of these as kunyas. The only thing left is for them to name themselves Muḥammad and use the kunya Abū al-Qāsim.” (317.7-9)

Some of these names (particularly ʿAl̄ and al-Ḥasan) were among the most popular names for Muslim men in Abbasid society, as can be seen from a quick glance at the index to Ibn al-Nad̄m’s Fihrist (1970, 2:932-933, 952-957, 984-985, 997-1000,

1007-1009; see also Appleton 2003); but more to the point is that all of these names represented some of the closest and most pious members of Muḥammad’s family.

As for kunyas (Abū X, “Father of X”), they went beyond merely expressing family relationships—they conveyed respect and could be given even to people who were 160 childless.26 According to certain hadiths, Muḥammad instructed his followers to name themselves with his name, but not with his kunya (al-Bukhar̄ ̄ 3:331, 3:332, 4:345). By using such rst-rate Muslim names and kunyas, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to argue, Christians are claiming a status they do not deserve.

It is, in fact, possible to nd examples of Christian contemporaries of al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ with some of the names al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ mentions. Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAl̄ b. Sahl Rabban al-Ṭabar̄

(c. 780-c. 860) was a Christian scholar known for his medical expertise who worked in the service of several caliphs (Thomas 2009b, 669). He eventually converted to Islam in the latter part of his life, possibly as late as the reign of al-Mutawakkil—a conversion he marked by writing his own Refutation of Christians (Radd ʿala ̄ al-Nasạ rā )̄ (Thomas

2009b, 669-670).27 Both his forename (ʿAl̄) and his kunya (Abū al-Ḥasan) seem to be instances of the sort of thing al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ objected to. It seems likely that he was called ʿAl̄ while still a Christian, for it is apparently to him that Ibn al-Nad̄m refers in one place as “ʿAl̄ ibn Zayn al-Nasrạ n̄ ̄” (1970, 2:741; see Thomas 2009b, 669). If “Abū al-Ḥasan” indicates that he named his son “al-Ḥasan,” this too must have been before his conversion, if one takes seriously his claim to have been a Christian for seventy years

(Thomas 2009b, 669-670). Earlier on, a Christian by the name of al-Faḍl b. Marwan̄ had served as vizier under the caliphs al-Maʾmūn and al-Muʿtasiṃ (Ibn al-Nad̄m 1970,

278). No doubt there were other Christians with such names, but the critical point is

26. Al-Jāḥiẓ himself used the kunya “Abū ʿUthmān,” though I have not found any evidence of his having children. In fact, Yaqū ̄t relates a story of al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ forgetting his kunya and having to be reminded of it (1907-27, 6:56).

27. It is clear from the internal references that ʿAl̄ al-Tabaṛ ̄ wrote his book Religion and Empire (Kitāb al- dīn wa-l-dawla) under al-Mutawakkil’s purview (see Thomas 2009b, 669). 161 that al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ readers could have brought to mind examples conrming his claim that some Christians had the audacity to go by Muslim names of nearly the highest pedigree.

Among the documents relating to dhimm̄s that I have been using here to contextualize al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ statements, only the Pact of ʿUmar (IḤ) has a restriction on the ahl al-dhimma using kunyas: “We will not be known by their kunyas.” Does this mean dhimm̄s were not supposed to use kunyas at all, or just not Muslim ones? There are traditions related by ʿAbd al-Razzaq̄ and Ibn ʿAsakir̄ that indicate calling the ahl al- dhimma by their kunyas would unduly honor them (Levy-Rubin 2011, 149). This is parallel to the fact that mawal̄ ̄ (non-Arab “clients”) were also not supposed be addressed by kunyas (Levy-Rubin 2011, 142). Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ himself says in another place, comparing Arab cultures to others,

[The Arabs] are the only ones to give kunyas in addition to names, desiring to honor those who bear them. . . . No non-Arab has a kunya, unless the Arabs give him one. (trans. Pellat in al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1967b, 83)

Thus, guardians of Arab Muslim culture, like Abū ʿUthman̄ ʿAmr b. Baḥr al-Jah̄ ̣iz,̣ may have considered the mere fact of Christians using kunyas at all to be presumptuous, let alone their brazen appropriation of the most respected Muslim names for their kunyas.

Again, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ has identied a way in which Christians far exceed the position he believes they should have vis-à-vis Muslims. By this point in its development, the

Pact is in at least partial agreement with him, but neither the scholar al-Shāʿ̄ nor the caliph al-Mutawakkil seem interested in trying to legislate Christian names. 162

ﻓﺮﻏﺐ إِﻟﻴﻬﻢ اﻟﻤﺴﻠﻤﻮن، وﺗَﺮَك ﻛﺜﻴﺮٌ ﻣﻨﻬﻢ ﻋَﻘْﺪَ اﻟﺰَّﻧﺎﻧﻴﺮ، وﻋَﻘَﺪﻫﺎ آﺧﺮونَ دون ﺛِﻴﺎﺑﻬﻢ،

“Thus, Muslims are fond of them, and many of the Christians leave o wearing their zunnar̄ waistbands, while others tie them on underneath their robes.” (317.9-10)

Wearing a particular kind of belt is, of course, one of the most frequently cited ghiyar̄ stipulations. By al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ time, there was a clear distinction between the terms zunnar̄ and mintaqạ . Earlier, Abū Yūsuf had used mintaqạ when quoting ʿUmar (II) ʿAbd al-ʿAz̄z’ edict saying that the ahl al-dhimma “have abandoned the belts” (Levy-Rubin

2011, 154). But in al-Mutawakkil’s edict, the various belts worn by dhimm̄ groups28 were evidently distinguished from the decorative, ornamented manat̄ iq̣ worn only by the elite: “Their male and female slaves, and those of this class who wear girdles

(manat̄ iq̣ ), shall wear zunnar̄ belts and kustij girdles in place of the girdles (manat̄ iq̣ ) that were on their waists” (DMṬ). Why slaves are specied here is not evident to me, when in both summaries of al-Mutakkil’s decrees (SM), it appears that all dhimm̄s were required to wear zunnar̄ belts. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to think all Christians (of any class) should be wearing the zunnar̄ .

The fact that some Christians were apparently trying to hide their zunnar̄ belts suggests that wearing it was one stipulation that many Christians were already aware of—why wear a concealed zunnar̄ rather than none at all unless one fears breaking the regulation? Al-Shāʿ̄ implies that he is aware of the problem as well, since he tries to close this loophole by making his template pact more explicit than the typical Pact of

28. The zunnār for Christians, hamyānā for Jews, and kust̄g for Zoroastrians (Levy-Rubin 2011, 154-155). 163

ʿUmar (than IḤ for example): “You shall wear the girdle (zunnār) over all your garments, your cloaks and the rest, so that the girdles are not hidden” (S).

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ thus indicts Christians of a direct breach of covenant (not wearing the zunnar̄ ) and an indirect infraction whose excuse is a mere technicality (wearing the zunnar,̄ but invisibly).

واﻣﺘﻨﻊ ﻛﺜﻮرٌ ﻣﻦ ﻛُﺒﺮاﺋﻬﻢ ﻣﻦ إِﻋﻄﺎءِ اﻟﺠﺰﻳﺔ، وأَﻧِﻔﻮا ﻣﻊ أَﻗﺪارﻫﻢ ﻣﻦ دﻓﻌﻬﺎ.

Many of their well-to-do refuse to hand over the poll-tax (jizya), and, despite their wealth,29 scorn paying it.” (317.10-11)

Paying the jizya was referenced in the Qurʾan (9:29), and was a prerequisite of the protection the ahl al-dhimma received.30 Several questions about the jizya were being discussed during al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ lifetime, including which individuals among the dhimm̄s were required to pay the poll-tax. In addition, certain traditions stated that the ahl al-dhimma should not be taxed beyond what they could bear—Yaḥya ̄ b. Ādam’s hadith collection about taxation contains sucient examples of this, including a report quoting ʿUmar (I) b. al-Khattab:̄

I commend to the Khal̄fa after me, that he aord good treatment to the ʾAhl al- Dhimma, that he keep to the covenants with them, ght those who are after

29. Or “ability to pay it.”

30. Examples are numerous, but note especially the wording of the surrender agreement from Jerusalem in al-Tabaṛ ̄’s History: “If they pay the poll tax according to their obligations, then the contents of this letter are under the covenant of God, are the responsibility of His Prophet, of the caliphs, and of the faithful” (al-Tabaṛ ̄ 1992, 192). 164 them, and not tax them above their capacity (Yaḥya ̄ b. Ādam, 1967, 60 no. 232;31 emphasis mine).

Muḥammad himself is reported to have said, “He who robs a confederate, or imposes on him more than he can bear, I shall be his opponent to the Day of Resurrection!”

(Yaḥya ̄ b. Ādam 1967, 61 no. 235).

Documents in the Pact of ʿUmar genre do not necessarily mention the jizya, since it is assumed to be a condition for even making the pact in the rst place. By the early ninth century, though, al-Shāʿ̄ (S) clearly thinks it necessary to clarify in the text of his template dhimm̄ agreement who must pay the tax:

Every free adult male of sound mind among you shall have to pay a poll-tax (jizya) of one d̄nar̄ , in good coin, at the beginning of each year. . . The poor among you is liable for the poll-tax, which should be paid for him. Poverty does not free you from any obligation, nor does it abrogate your pact (dhimma). . . . Your children under age, boys below puberty, persons of unsound mind, and slaves are not liable for the poll-tax. But if the madman recovers his reason, the child attains puberty, or the slave is emancipated and follows your religion, they are all liable for the poll-tax.

The fact that he has to make explicit that none can claim an exemption on the basis of poverty suggests that such exemptions were sometimes requested.

During the reign of al-Maʾmūn, Ṭahir̄ b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 822 [207 A.H.]), the famous governor of Khurasā n,̄ wrote an epistle of advice to his son ʿAbd Allah,̄ who was also taking up oce (al-Ṭabar̄ 1987b, 110). The epistle was eventually read to the caliph, who liked it so much he had it sent out to all his governors (al-Ṭabar̄ 1987b,

31. Similarly Yaḥya ̄ b. Ādam 1967, 61 no. 236. See also 26-28. 165

128-129). Among the many subjects on which Ṭahir̄ advised his son, one was collecting taxes:

Look carefully into this matter of the land-tax,32 which the subjects have the obligation to pay. God has made this a source of strength and might for Islam, and a means of support and protection for His people; but He has made it a source of chagrin and vexation for His enemies and the enemies of the Muslims, and for the unbelievers in treaty relationship with the Muslims a source of abasement and humiliation. Apportion it amongst the taxpayers with justice and fairness, and with equal treatment and universal applicability for all. Do not remove any part of the obligation to pay land tax from any noble person just because of his nobility; nor from any rich person on account of his richness; nor from any of your secretaries or personal retainers. Do not require from anyone more than he can bear, and do not exact an amount which is in excess of the normal rate. (al-Ṭabar̄ 1987b, 121-122)

Unlike al-Shāʿ̄, who emphasizes the obligation of the poor to pay (or of others to pay on their behalf), Ṭahir̄ stresses not to exempt rich or powerful dhimm̄s out of favoritism—the very sort of situation to which al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to be referring.

It is the exemptions for the rich, not those for the poor, that catch al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ attention, for he is writing to expose Christians’ arrogance—their “obstinacy and importunity” (al-muʿanadā wa-l-lajajā ), as he said earlier (317.1-2). Neither al-

Mutawakkil’s decree (DM) imposing ghiyar̄ nor the summaries of it (SM) mention the jizya, but a year after it (and perhaps within a few years or less of al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ completing

“The Refutation of Christians”), the caliph brought Ṭahir’s̄ grandson, Muḥammad b.

ʿAbd Allah,̄ to Baghdad and put him in charge of the security police and the jizya, among other responsibilities (al-Ṭabar̄ 1989b, 116). If Muḥammad heeded his

32. Kharāj, which in this instance apparently includes the jizya (see al-Tabaṛ ̄ 1987b, 121 n. 369). 166 grandfather’s well-known advice, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ now no longer needed to be concerned that

Christians in Baghdad were outing their jizya obligations.

وﺳَﺒُّﻮ ﻣَﻦ ﺳﺒَّﻬﻢ، وﺿﺮﺑﻮا ﻣﻦ ﺿَﺮَﺑﻬﻢ.

“They insult anyone who insults them and strike those who strike them.” (317.11-12)

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ clearly does not think Christians have the right to strike or insult

Muslims even in retaliation. In some versions of the Pact of ʿUmar (including IḤ), the caliph adds an amendment to the Christians’ letter before ratifying it, saying that whoever intentionally strikes a Muslim has forfeited the pact. Implied is that such people no longer have legal recourse for wrongs committed against them, and may be harmed with impunity. By contrast, al-Shāʿ̄ wants to impose Muslim legal penalties on dhimm̄s for manslaughter, murder, theft, and slander. Instead of the violator forfeiting the pact of protection, a dhimm̄ who intentionally kills someone “is subject to retaliation unless the heirs are content to receive the blood price, in which case they must get it at once” (S). What does cause forfeiture of the covenant is speaking

“improperly of Muḥammad, may God bless and save him, the Book of God, or of His religion,” in which case the dhimm̄

forfeits the protection (dhimma) of God, of the Commander of the Faithful, and of all the Muslims; he has contravened the conditions upon which he was given his safe-conduct; his property and his life are at the disposal of the Commander of the Faithful, like the property and lives of the people of the house of war (dar̄ al-ḥarb). (S)

Do dhimm̄s have the right of legal retribution for Muslim oenses against them?

The Pact does not address this directly; it only guarantees “protection,” which must 167 mean that Muslims will somehow be held responsible for oenses against dhimm̄s. Al-

Shāʿ̄ again improves on the generic stipulations of the Pact by stating the following principle:

We owe you protection for yourselves and for your property which it is lawful for you to hold according to our laws, against anybody, Muslim or other, who seeks to wrong you, as we would protect our own persons and property, and we administer justice to you in matters under our own jurisdiction as we would do with our own property. (S)

While this might seem to imply that a Muslim who harms a dhimm̄ should receive the same penalty as a dhimm̄ who harms a Muslim, that is, equal retaliation (qisạ s̄ ) or the blood price (diyya); al-Shāʿ̄ elsewhere maintains that a Muslim is not to be killed for a dhimm̄, and that the blood price for a Christian or Jewish victim is one-third of the amount for a Muslim. Abū Ḥan̄fa, on the other hand, does uphold equal retribution and an equal blood price for dhimm̄s as for Muslims. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ vehemently disagrees with Abū Ḥan̄fa’s approach, and he is about to make his case for why he does.

It will be helpful to step back and view the above comparisons on a broader level before considering the rest of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argument. Table 1 lists each topic that is addressed in two or more of the sources I have been using for comparison, regardless of whether these sources approach those topics in similar or dierent ways. Some are ones addressed above, others al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ raises elsewhere in his text, and a few he does not discuss at all. 168 Table 1. Comparison of topics in sources about dhimm̄ regulations

Topics Abū Yū suf al-Mutawakkil al-Shā fiʿı̄ Ibn Haṇ bal al-Jā hị z ̣ (AY) (SM & DM) (S) (IH)̣ Mounts/Saddles ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Hair ✓ ✓ Clothing (incl. zunnā r) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Bearing Arms ✓ ✓ ✓a Names ✓ ✓ Jizyab ✓ ✓ Striking Muslim ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Maligning Muslim ✓ ✓ c ✓ Blasphemy ✓ ✓ Proselytism/Conversion ✓ ✓ ✓ Arabic/Qurʾan Educat. ✓ ✓ ✓ Marriage ✓ ✓ ✓ Food/Pork Raising ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Drink ✓ ✓ ✓ Church Sharing ✓ ✓ Church/Syn. Renovation ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ d Public Relig. Displays ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Govt. Employment ✓ ✓ Loyalty/Treachery ✓ ✓ ✓ Guidance/Hospitality ✓ ✓ Seating/Road Priority ✓ ✓

Note: This table should not be taken as a precise taxonomy of the topics listed.

aAl-Jāḥiẓ does not mention bearing arms directly, but he does talk about Christians hiring guards.

bPayment of the jizya is probably assumed in all cases.

cIn IḤ, dhimmīs do agree to “show respect to Muslims in their seats of honor (majālis).”

dAl-Jāḥiẓ does mention some monasteries when he raises the issue of celibacy. 169

Table 1 and the point-by-point comparisons I have made evidence that although al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ takes up many salient points from discussions about dhimm̄s in his period, neither his topics nor his approach consistently match those of the sources compared here. He raises many of the subjects found in the Pact of ʿUmar (IḤ), but does not treat all of them, nor focus exclusively on them. In some cases, his concerns echo those of contemporary jurists, as evidenced by al-Shāʿ̄’s template pact (S), but the correspondence here, too, is only partial. Most of the items al-Mutawakkil attempted to enforce have a correspondence in “The Refutation of Christians,” but a few do not. In all cases, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ gives his attention to excessive Christian behavior rather than to specic regulations. All this leads me to believe that, despite the work’s apparent connection with al-Mutawakkil’s program, it was al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ himself that determined its detailed outline—not the caliph or any preexisting text.

Moreover, a few of the topics absent from the “Refutation” appear in most or all of the other texts. The most striking are church building or renovation and public religious displays, such as holiday processions, displaying crosses, and beating the naqū ̄s (a clapper for calling people to worship). The Pact of ʿUmar’s restrictions on such matters was not just a historical remnant: Abū Yūsuf had to explain to Harū ̄n al-Rash̄d the historical basis for allowing Christians to process on holidays (Levy-Rubin 2011,

71-72), and al-Mutawakkil prohibited such processions (SM). Moreover, al-Mutawakkil destroyed a number of new or renovated churches, as had certain of his predecessors

(see SM). Why the “Refutation” does not address these issues is not immediately 170 apparent, and trying to draw any conclusions from this fact would be an argument from silence, not to mention that the extant text may be missing some pieces.

Christians in Muslim Courts

The primary diculty of any dhimm̄ regulation was how to enforce it; and, in order to enforce it, one needed at least judicial or executive support, if not both.

Presumably, disputes with dhimm̄s could be judged according to a dhimm̄ pact if the qad̄ ̣̄ (judge) accepted its terms as a valid bilateral agreement, or at least as hadith establishing how the “rightly guided caliphs” (al-Rashidū ̄n) dealt with the ahl al- dhimma. Yet, as shown by Ibn Zabr’s collection (Cohen 1999), there was no single version of the Pact that was universally recognized as authoritative. Al-Shāʿ̄’s attempt

(S) at renewing the pact or pacts with clarications added may have only been a hypothetical exercise and never actuated. But even more problematic, as al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ saw it, was that dhimm̄s could nd loopholes in the agreements, or worse, that their social status could exempt them from such requirements. Al-Mutawakkil’s unilateral, top- down, executive approach was designed to ensure compliance through the police force rather than judges, but it still needed an ideological basis in order to gain the cooperation of the general populace and maintain the perceived legitimacy of the caliph’s actions in the eyes of the scholars and jurists. As will be seen, he sought this basis in the Qurʾan rather than explicitly in dhimm̄ pacts, but he may have also hoped al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ “Refutation” could help establish this basis (compare Fletcher 2002, 115, 117,

123-124). 171

For his part, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ does not entirely dispense with the dhimm̄ agreements, but neither does he depend on their minute regulations to realize the Qurʾan’s ideals of

Islam’s relationship to other communities. He claims, as shown below, that it is the responsibility of the qad̄ ̣̄ to interpret the intent of those agreements and take action accordingly; rather than to conne oneself to narrow denitions. Because al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ emphasizes the original intent over specic regulations, he can also aord to be vague about the origins, authority, and stipulations of these agreements. I interpret this ambiguity as a rhetorical strategy: instead of dividing his audience by entering the fray of opinions on which texts are authentic, his deliberate vagueness allows him to garner support from all who agree that Christians are bound by agreements made long ago, whatever their opinions about the exact nature of those agreements. While arguing for a maximalist juristic approach to interpreting dhimm̄ pacts, he uses fairly minimalistic assumptions about those texts themselves.

After listing specic Christian excesses, the text seamlessly transitions into an argument about Muslim judges’ enforcement of punishments for dhimm̄ oenses:

They insult anyone who insults them and strike those who strike them. And why would they not do this and more, when our judges and their masses33 consider the blood of the patriarch or metropolitan or bishop to be equivalent to the blood of Jaʿfar or ʿAl̄ or al-ʿAbbas̄ 34 or Ḥamza? They think that a Christian who slanders the mother of the prophet (peace and blessing be upon him), accusing

33. aw ʿāmmatuhum. Finkel (al-Jāḥiẓ 1927, 329) translates, “or, at least the majority of them” (that is, the judges), but “their masses” (the Christian masses) ts better with al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ usage of ʿāmma elsewhere. Kamil̄ has wa instead of aw (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:318 n. 1).

34. Harū ̄n (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:318) has “al-ʿAyyas”̄ with no explanatory footnote, even though both Finkel (al-Jāḥiẓ 1926, 18) and Kamil̄ (171) have “al-ʿAbbas.”̄ Colville (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 2002, 77) also says ʿAyyas.̄ 172 her of immorality, should only get discretionary punishment (taʿz̄r)35 and discipline (taʾd̄b). Then they justify saying this by the fact that the mother of the prophet (peace and blessing be upon him) was not a Muslim. May God exalted be praised! How incredible this statement is, and how obviously jumbled! (317.11-318.7)

By mentioning the relative value of Christian and Muslim “blood,” al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is evidently referring to the punishments of qisạ s̄ ̣ (legal retribution) and diya (blood money) for unlawful killings. During al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ lifetime and beforehand, there was considerable discussion among jurists about the appropriate punishment for Muslims who killed dhimm̄s.36

The concepts of qisạ s̄ ̣ and diya are both found in Qurʾan 2:178:

O you who have believed, prescribed for you is legal retribution {al-qisạ s̄ } for those murdered - the free for the free, the slave for the slave, and the female for the female. But whoever overlooks from his brother anything, then there should be a suitable follow-up and payment {adaʾāʾ} to him with good conduct. This is an alleviation from your Lord and a mercy. But whoever transgresses after that will have a painful punishment. (Saḥ ̣̄ḥ International)

Qisạ s̄ ̣ also appears in 5:45, where the Israelites are said to have been given the ordinance of “a life for a life, an eye for an eye,” and so on. These passages were generally understood to mean that someone (Muslim or otherwise) who intentionally took the life of a Muslim was to be killed (according to qisạ s̄ ),̣ unless the family of the

35. A penalty at the judge’s discretion for an oense that does not have a specically prescribed penalty (ḥadd).

36. For internal matters, dhimmīs were generally allowed to resolve their own legal disputes, but either party could opt to take the case to an Islamic court. By contrast, however, cases involving a Muslim disputant or certain criminal oenses were handled in Islamic courts (see, e.g., Freidenreich 2009, 106). Thus, when mentioning oenses against Muslims, al-Jāḥiẓ’ statements are about cases in which Christians were required to appear in court. 173 victim agreed to accept diya (blood money) instead. Interpreters debated how these principles applied to murdered dhimm̄s. Was the life of a non-Muslim victim who was under a pact of protection considered equal to that of a Muslim, whether by virtue of the pact or otherwise?

Complicating the issue was the fact that by the second century of Islam, there were contradictory hadiths about the matter. On the one hand, Muḥammad himself was reported to have upheld his “duty” toward the People of the Book under his protection by ordering the execution of a Muslim man who had killed one of them

(Yaḥya ̄ b. Ādam 1967, 61 [no. 238]; see other references in Friedmann 2003, 40 n.

147). Ibn Masʿūd, one of the Companions of the Prophet, allegedly declared, “If anyone has a treaty or protection, his dȳ a is the same as that of a Muslim” (Yaḥya ̄ b. Ādam

1967, 61 [no. 239]). On the other hand, in a hadith recorded by al-Saṇ ʿan̄ ̄ (d. 744

[126 A.H.]), Ibn Ḥanbal, and al-Tirmidh̄, Muḥammad supposedly said after bringing

Mecca under his control,

The Muslims are united against the others, their lives are equal . . . , a believer is not to be killed for (the killing of) an unbeliever, and the blood-money of an unbeliever is half that of a Muslim . . . . (Friedmann 2003, 40; see n. 146 for references)

Not surprisingly, the conicting traditions, taken together with pragmatic concerns, led to considerable controversy among legal scholars.

Friedmann (2003, 39-53) has thoroughly described the issues involved and the various positions the dierent madhahib̄ , or legal schools, took. Here it is sucient to 174 point out two things from his study. First, the idea of an equal diya for Muslims and dhimm̄s was strongest in the early period, and came under increasing attack as the discussion developed (Friedmann 2003, 41, 52-53). Second, by the time the dust settled, it was just the Ḥanaf̄ school that held that a Muslim could be killed in qisạ s̄ ̣ for a dhimm̄, and that the blood price, if paid instead, was the same as that for a Muslim victim (Friedmann 2003, 41-45, 52).

Abū Yūsuf, one of the founding Ḥanaf̄ jurists who by some accounts taught al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ hadith, nearly caused a public outcry once when he ruled in favor of qisạ s̄ ̣ for a dhimm̄ killed by a Muslim. Upon advice from the caliph, Harū ̄n al-Rash̄d, he was able to prevent the perpetrator’s death by requiring the dhimm̄’s family to prove the dead man had paid the jizya, which they could not (Friedmann 2003, 42-43). If al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ did study under Abū Yūsuf, he certainly did not agree with him on this point by the time he wrote the “Refutation.”

The Malik̄ ̄ and Ḥanbal̄ schools took intermediate positions, and al-Shāʿ̄ maintained that in no situation was a believer to be killed for an unbeliever

(Friedmann 2003, 45). Instead, he puts the diya for a Jew or Christian at one-third that of a Muslim, and prescribes discretionary punishment (taʿz̄r) and no more than a year’s imprisonment for the oender (Friedmann 2003, 45, 48; see also Margoliouth 1914,

113).

The four Muslims al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ names in his comparison with Christian hierarchs

(Jaʿfar, ʿAlī, al-ʿAbbās, and Ḥamza) are three generations of early martyrs from the 175 family of Muḥammad.37 Thus, he is using the technique of reductio ad absurdum, showing that those who judge the death of a dhimm̄ equivalent to that of a Muslim are really putting Christian deaths on the same level as the most noble deaths any Muslim has suered. A few lines later, he references a hadith in which Muḥammad species that “they” do not sit equal with “us,” and “If they insult you, then strike them; and if they strike you, then kill them” (318.8-9).38 This is one of the only times he uses hadith in the “Refutation.” He does not give an isnad̄ (chain of transmission), nor mention that the context is ʿAl̄ speaking to a Jew, not a Christian. More important than the hadith’s origins for him, presumably, is that it unambiguously gives Muslims a dierent legal status from dhimm̄s.

Next, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ criticizes his fellow Muslims for letting Christians o lightly when they slander the Prophet’s mother. What is the justication for a mild punishment?

That the Prophet’s mother was not a Muslim, a technicality that apparently excused them from facing the eighty stripes prescribed for falsely accusing a Muslim woman of adultery (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1927, 329 n. 54). Naturally, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ takes the oense as one against

Muḥammad himself. Christians argue that “inventing lies against the prophet does not violate the covenant or dissolve the pact” (318.11-12), whereas al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ thinks it ridiculous to need to specify such terms in a pact:

37. Ḥamza b. ʿAbd al-Mutṭ aliḅ (Muḥammad’s uncle), Jaʿfar b. Ab̄ Tạ lib̄ and ʿAl̄ b. Ab̄ Tạ lib̄ (sons of another of Muḥammad’s uncles), and the latter’s son al-ʿAbbas̄ b. ʿAl̄ b. Ab̄ Tạ lib.̄ Three died in battle; ʿAl̄ was assassinated at a mosque (Veccia Vaglieri 1960, 385).

38. The earliest collection in which I have found this hadith is Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ by Abū Nuʿaym al-Isfahạ n̄ ̄ (948-1038 [336-430 A.H.]), no. 5204. 176

To tell someone who is the lowest of the low and the smallest of the small—who asks and begs of you to accept his ransom, whom you are doing a favor by taking his payment of the poll-tax (jizya) and sparing his blood—to tell him, “You are required by the covenant not to fabricate lies against the mother of the Messenger of the Lord of the Worlds, the Seal of the Prophets, the Lord (sayyid) of the First and Last,” is something inconceivable for (even) ordinary people to do, let alone for the illustrious and elite, the leaders of all humanity . . . . (319.14-320.5)

Al-Shāʿ̄ had apparently found such defamatory statements to be enough of a problem that he did decide to specify something very similar in his template pact:

If any one of you speaks improperly of Muḥammad, may God bless and save him, the Book of God, or of His religion, he forfeits the protection (dhimma) of God, of the Commander of the Faithful, and of all the Muslims; he has contravened the conditions upon which he was given his safe-conduct. (S)

Such defamation was blasphemous enough that when spoken by Muslims, it could be taken as apostasy. Al-Ṭabar ̄ records that al-Mutawakkil had ʿIs̄ a ̄ b. Jaʿfar, who was presumably a Shiʿite, ogged to death and thrown into the Tigris for defaming Abū

Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿAʾisha, and Ḥafsa; his oense was interpreted as coming out “in opposition against God and His Messenger” (1989b, 135-136 and n. 148). Much later, the Ḥanbal̄ jurist Ibn Qudamā (d. 1223 [620 A.H.]) includes “falsely impugning the honor of the Prophet’s mother” as one of the indications of apostasy (Friedmann 2003,

122 and see n. 6). Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ takes this no less seriously, so the fact that some judges practically encourage this behavior by giving such a slight punishment is deeply 177 disturbing to him—as evidenced by the long diatribe that follows and is intended in part to address such reasoning.

Yet, more importantly, this is an occasion for al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ to explain what constitutes a breach of covenant—a concept that, as it turns out, undergirds the rest of his argument about Christian social status:

Even an ignorant person does not have to be informed that the only reason the rightly guided imams and the preeminent ancestors did not stipulate that, along with receiving the poll-tax (jizya) and making a pact of protection (al-dhimma), lies must not be invented against the prophet (peace and blessing be upon him) or his mother is that they saw this as so grave and felt so strongly about it that they did not need to eternalize it in books, spell it out as a condition, or establish it by testimonies. On the contrary, if they had done so, it would have been a sign that they were weak and an incentive (for opposition), and people would have supposed that they needed (to write down) this and other (stipulations) of this sort.

The things people stipulate in contracts and specify in covenants, however, are ones about which there may be uncertainty, regarding which error may arise, or which a judge might not (otherwise) know, which a witness might forget but the adversary maintain. But there is no reason to stipulate or bother to record things that are clearly evident and so obvious as to not be in doubt.

Whenever they did need to stipulate something in writing, or there was something that might conceivably be claried in a covenant, they did so, such as with (the dhimmī’s) humiliation and inferior status, paying the poll-tax (jizya), sharing churches, not aiding one Muslim faction against another, and others like these. (319.1-14)

In other words, an agreement consists not just of the written terms and explicit stipulations, but also of unwritten or even unspecied expectations that the contracting parties both understand. In this, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ no doubt reects his understanding of an 178 earlier era of Arab history in which orality played a larger role. At the same time, he is far from providing the kind of technical denition that jurists used in their legal discussions or that judges needed to decide cases, but neither are they the primary audience he wants to persuade. As in the situation mentioned above with the qad̄ ̣̄ Abū

Yūsuf, the outcome of a case could be heavily inuenced by the weight of the general public, and it is this audience to which al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is appealing.

In the process of discussing these agreements, the author reveals something about the state of discussions regarding dhimm̄s and his own relationship to that discussion. He uses a variety of terms to describe the agreements between Christians and Muslims (ʿahd, ʿaqd, and shurūt),̣ but he never explicitly refers to the “Pact of

ʿUmar” or any other document stipulating terms of dhimma. His statements make clear that he knows early Islamic leaders made compacts with those they were conquering, and he lists a few terms that he evidently considers typical of these agreements:

humiliation (al-dhilla) and inferior status (al-saghạ rā 39), paying the poll-tax (jizya), sharing churches (muqasamat̄ al-kanāʾis), not aiding one Muslim faction against another, and others like these. (319.13-14)

BL, Taymūriyya) (al-Jāḥiẓ) وا ــ ــﻟﺼﻴــﺮﻓــﺔ Kamil)̄ or) ا ــ ــﻟﺼﻔــﺎرة Harū ̄n amends this, I think correctly, from .39 1964-79, 3:319 n. 9). A few paragraphs earlier, he says, “For them God decreed humiliation (al-dhilla) and poverty (al-maskana),” no doubt referencing Q. 3:110-112:

You are the best nation produced [as an example] for mankind. . . . If only the People of the Scripture had believed, it would have been better for them. . . . They have been put under humiliation {al-dhilla} [by Allah ] wherever they are overtaken, except for a covenant from Allah and a rope from the Muslims. And they have drawn upon themselves anger from Allah and have been put under destitution {al-maskana}. . . . (Saḥ ̣̄ḥ International) 179

Yet he does not expressly indicate that there is a single covenant governing all

Christians; in fact, his references to “imams,” “predecessors,” and “leaders” in the plural as those who stipulated the terms of protection for dhimm̄s imply that there are multiple covenants in eect. When he details specic wrongs by Christians, he does not point to specic written terms they have transgressed. Any Christian can be assumed to be under a pact that includes such terms as inferiority, jizya payment, and so on, but that does not necessarily mean all Christians are governed by the same historical agreement.

Thus, the rhetorical approach he takes indicates the historical state of aairs. On the one hand, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ can assume his audience’s consent to the idea that Christians are under certain covenant obligations to Muslims, and that many of those obligations have to do with certain social indicators of an inferior status. Moreover, the repertoire of stipulations is known broadly enough that he can refer to these stipulations obliquely, and, more importantly, cannot simply add the terms he thinks should be included.

Instead, he must take the more convoluted approach of arguing for unwritten stipulations. On the other hand, he avoids referencing specic terms, probably because there are so many dierent versions that he would run the risk of not being able to substantiate those particular terms well enough to satisfy his entire audience. Further, the whole point of his argument is that the ahl al-dhimma are not actually being held to these obligations, by Muslim judges, or by anyone else. Clearly, dhimm̄ regulations are at an adolescent stage when al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is writing. All this ts well with the picture 180 suggested by Levy-Rubin: that on the eve of al-Mutawakkil’s enforcement of anti- dhimm̄ measures, there was no universally accepted covenant governing Muslim-

Christian interaction, but that there was discussion about the norms that should apply to dhimm̄s generally and not just locally. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ attempt to generalize dhimm̄ regulations does not involve collating or reformulating the old pacts, but rather projecting their original intent onto the current situation through the lens of Qurʾanic ideals.

The Arguments about Christians as Dhimm̄s

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ began the second half of his social argumentation by putting forward the claim that, contrary to the popular opinion of his readers, Christians are more stubborn and malicious than Jews (317.1-3). In other words, they do more harm to the

Muslim community. The wealth, power, and inuence for which Christians are liked and respected should instead be seen as a threat to the Umma.

When he develops this theme with regard to Christians’ social status, he begins with a list of behaviors that I have shown above are closely connected with the evolving repertoire of dhimm̄ restrictions. He conrms this connection in the ensuing discussion about the nature of the agreements made between Muslims and the ahl al- dhimma. Three additional claims surface clearly in this passage: (1) that Christians are bound by certain covenant obligations to Muslims, (2) that Christians have violated both the letter and the intent of these obligations, and (3) that Muslim judges have permitted these violations to continue by not enforcing adequate punishments. He will also, in short order, demonstrate that Muslim judges take far too lenient an approach 181 toward Christians who do violate these agreements. This combination of Christians’ violations with Muslims’ leniency leads to an ongoing, or perhaps even escalating, situation of Christians being able to act with impunity toward Muslims (see gure 18).

The juxtaposition with Jews, however, slides under the surface. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ clearly still intends some kind of comparison, for he has just stated that he intends to show

Christians to be more malicious than Jews. What must be implied here, if the argumentation is to succeed, is either that Jews do not violate their agreements with

Muslims to the same extent as Christians, or that they are held to greater account when they do so. Which of these he intends (or both) seems impossible to guess, since he does not refer to the Jews again in this section.

Figure 18. Christians’ impunity in violating agreements with Muslims 182

The implied connection between covenant violations and Christians’ harmfulness is that breaking an agreement harms the community—and all the more so when little is done to chastise oenders.

There are two practical implications of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argumentation. First, if it is

Christians’ impunity that makes it possible for them to continue to act in these ways toward Muslims, then, he implies, Muslims must stop granting them such impunity.

Second, the reader is left to wonder, if Christians have violated their part of the covenants, then do Muslims still have any obligation to protect them? Judging from the fact that jurists sometimes explicitly stated that a particular kind of violation annulled the dhimm̄ pact (see al-Shāʿ̄ [S], for example), it was only the more serious infringements, or not paying the jizya, that dissolved the mutual obligation.

Nonetheless, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ was prompting astute readers to reconsider whether or in which situations Christians had crossed the line.

As can be seen in gure 19, the list of Christian behaviors that constitute covenant infractions is one of the foundations for the rest of his argument. From a historical perspective, one would like to know whether al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ description of

Christians playing polo, strutting in silk, and so on is intended as hyperbole, or whether it truly reects his perspective on Christian cultural life in Abbasid society. In the third century of Islam, were there really a signicant number of Christians so prominently placed that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ felt he needed to discredit not only their theological tenets but also their social behavior? I have tried to nd examples of the phenomena he describes, which I have noted in the relevant places above. But the structure of the argument is 183 itself also a clue to how al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ perceived the situation. He does not attempt to support these descriptions with additional evidence—no names, stories, places, or sources. Although most of the “Refutation” does not provide these kinds of supporting details, he has included them where he apparently felt they were important, such as the names of places and tribes in his discussion of Christianity among the Arabs, or the titles of specic works and authors in his list of classical Greek works. Here, however, he considers short descriptive phrases to be enough. Supposing that he did truly want to persuade his audience of his argument, the most tenable reason for his not delving deeper into specics is that he believed his audience to be familiar with the behaviors he described. They themselves could call to mind examples of Christians who wore silk, or named their sons ʿAl̄, or did not visibly wear a zunnar̄ belt. This is not to say that al-

Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ statements should be taken at face value as an accurate portrayal of the way most Christians behaved—only that there were apparently enough cases of these types of situations that he believed it unnecessary to weigh down his text by citing specic instances. 184

Figure 19. Christian violations of their agreements with Muslims

By contrast, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ makes few assumptions when it comes to demonstrating that Muslim judges’ unsound rulings give Christians license and even encouragement to continue their oenses (see gure 20). The extensive, even amboyant, reasoning he gives in support of this point is a sign of just how controversial legal rulings about dhimm̄s could be, both in theory and in practice. In regard to the relative value of

Christian and Muslim victims, his evidence at bottom is a hadith of questionable authenticity, but obvious and forceful in its implications: dhimm̄s are not equal to

Muslims and do not have the right of equal retribution. As for slandering the prophet’s mother, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ buttresses his contention about implicit covenant obligations using a sociological argument. His explanation gives quite some insight into his unique style of legal reasoning. Suce it to say, court cases in ninth-century Baghdad might have had quite dierent outcomes had al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ been the qad̄ ̣̄! 185

Figure 20. The case against leniency toward Christians by Muslim judges (condensed)

Christians Confusing Weak Muslims with Heresy

In the next portion of his counterargument that Christians are more harmful to the Muslim community than Jews, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ returns to the theme of Christian intellectualism, again associating it with zandaqa. His purpose is to lay much of the blame for the pernicious threat of zandaqa squarely on Christian shoulders, and his argument has three prongs: (1) that Christians confuse weak Muslims by targeting them 186 with heretical ideas they are incapable of refuting, (2) that Christians are responsible for the transmission of heretical books to the Muslim community, and (3) that

Christians themselves are sympathetic to zandaqa.

He starts o by saying, “This community has not been aicted by the Jews,

Zoroastrians, and Sạ bians̄ as much as it has been aicted by the Christians” (320.8-9).

By implication, the accusations against Christians that follow this are not true of these other groups, or, at least, not to the same extent, as they are of Christians.

First, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to be alleging that Christians intentionally create confusion and dissent among “weak” Muslims (see gure 21).40 This is an indirect assault on the

Christian representation of their apologetic task, since much of the apologetic literature from this period sets a tone of honestly and openly helping others in their search for truth. By contrast, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ asserts that Christians specically choose weak hadiths and ambiguous Qurʾanic verses (see Q. 3:7), then privately dispute with uninformed people who think themselves capable of taking on such a discussion. The strong insinuation here is that Christians are purposely “hitting below the belt,” so to speak, since ambiguous verses and weak hadiths should be left to the experts (see Fletcher 2002,

118 and n. 41). By confronting solitary amateurs, they make sure these people have no access to the real mutakallimūn who could provide real answers. One must also remember that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is setting the stage to give an expert response to Christian criticisms of the Qurʾan.

40. See note 45 on page 123. 187

Something else probably in view are the prohibitions on proselytism and getting a Muslim education. In Ibn Ḥanbal’s Pact of ʿUmar (IḤ), Christians agree they will not

“make anyone desire our religion, nor summon anyone to it,” nor teach their children the Qurʾan. Al-Mutawakkil went so far as to prohibit “their children from studying in

Muslim elementary schools (katat̄ ̄b), or being taught by Muslims” (SMṬ). Yet I do not think the primary point of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argument here is that Christians are transgressing the Pact; instead, his focus is on the results of their actions in the Muslim community

(compare Fletcher 2002, 118).

His second piece of evidence, that Christians are the ones who have acquainted

Muslims with heretical works, seems a bit overstated, considering that at least some of these groups were still around to speak for themselves. Nonetheless, a partial truth may lay behind it. Ibn al-Nad̄m discusses these and other various sects at some length in chapter nine of his Fihrist. While he claims in at least one place to have a Manichaean source at his disposal (1970, 2:804), in other places (such as in his discussion of the

Ḥarranian̄ “Sạ bians”),̄ he is using Christian sources (1970, 2:751, 755). Christian works of the time were, in fact, quite interested in heresiography. Moreover, since many of the writings of these sects were originally in Greek and various forms of Aramaic, it would have been entirely plausible to al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ audience that Christians were the ones to translate them, since they had been the ones to translate the Greek classics. Even if the argument was not as foolproof as al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ makes it sound, it was still likely to resonate with his readers, many of whom would not have been in a position to verify its accuracy. Once again, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ turns a trait for which the Christians were 188 appreciated (translating ancient works) into one that was actually harmful to the

Umma.

Figure 21. Christians’ responsibility for heretical confusion (part 1)

The next argument in support of Christians’ responsibility for heresy is a comparison between Christian practices and those of zandaqa, by which al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ probably means Manichaeanism in this case (compare Fletcher 2002, 113):

When you hear what they have to say about forgiveness and pardon, their account of ascetic roaming, their reproach of everyone who eats meats, their craving for grains and seeds and refraining from (eating) animals, their renouncement of marriage and abstaining from seeking to have children, their praising the Catholicos, the Metropolitan, the bishop, and the monks for renouncing marriage and abstaining from seeking to procreate, and their exalting ecclesiarchs—when you hear all this, you know that their religion is 189 related to zandaqa and that they are sympathetic to that doctrine (madhhab). (321.6-11)41

At rst glance, the description seems exaggerated, considering that Christians did not actually prohibit eating meat or marrying. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ certainly knows this, but his language is calculated to show the parallels between Christian asceticism and

Manichaean practices—particularly in ways that are not parallel with Judaism or

Zoroastrianism. Renunciation of meats, sexual abstinence, and honor for hierarchs all feature in Ibn al-Nad̄m’s account of Manichaeanism (1970, 2:773-775, 788-789,

804-805); presumably, they were also familiar to al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ audience.

But the correlation between the groups does double duty in the argumentation.

The specic points al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ mentions are not only ones that overlap with

Manichaeanism, but also ones on which Islam’s prohibitions and allowances dier from

Christian monastic piety. That Muslims “enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong” goes hand-in-hand in the Qurʾan with their being the “best community” (3:110). In his edict on dhimm̄ restrictions, al-Mutawakkil makes this even more explicit:

He distinguished it among the religious laws by making it the most pure and virtuous, among precepts by making it the most pristine and noble, among statutes by making it the most just and convincing, and among actions by making it the most beautiful and tting. He has honored its professors by what he has permitted and prohibited for them. He expounded for them His laws and statutes, set down for them His rules and customs, and prepared for them His expansive reward and recompense. He says in His Book, by which He commands and prohibits, urges and counsels: “Verily Allah commands justice and kindness, and giving to kindred, and He forbids indecency and disreputable conduct and

41. On fasting and so on, see ʿAbd al-Jabbar’s̄ comments about how Christians have supposedly changed the religion of Jesus (2010, 86-88). 190 greed: He admonishes you, mayhap you will be reminded.” (al-Ṭabar̄ 1989b, 91)

With this sort of ethical ranking of religions in mind, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ seems to be saying in the

“Refutation” that if Islam’s moral code shows it to be the best religion, then the

Christian moral code puts Christianity on a level with despised Manichaeanism. This passage, in fact, may be the end of his explicit argumentation about Christianity’s promotion of zandaqa, but it is only the beginning of the ethical comparison.

Figure 22. Christians’ responsibility for heretical confusion (part 2) 191

Christians Outnumbering the Other Communities

Having brought up celibacy in the paragraph on zandaqa, he now continues in that theme by pointing out the most ironic of Christian threats to the Umma—the size of the Christian population:

The amazing thing is that although no Catholicos marries or seeks to have children—nor does any Metropolitan or bishop, nor any of the Jacobites who live in cells, nor the people who live in the monasteries and in the Nestorian houses, nor any (single) monk or nun in the (entire) land—and despite how many monks and nuns there are, despite that most priests are like them in this, despite the number of wars among (the Christians), and despite having barren women and sterile men as everyone does, despite the fact, moreover, that whoever of them does marry a wife cannot replace her, cannot marry another one alongside her, and cannot take a concubine in her place—despite all this, they have covered the earth,42 lled the far corners, and exceeded the (other) communities in population and in the number of (their) ospring. This is one of the things that has added to our misfortunes and made our aiction worse.

Another thing that has added to their (population) and increased their number is that they take (converts?) from the other communities without giving to them, since every religion that comes after another takes many (converts?) from it, while giving few (back) to it. (322.1-12)

Of the various adherents to religions other than Islam, Christians seem to be the most prolic. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is, of course, dealing here with perceptions, rather than with tangible realities, but it is appropriate to ask what occasions these perceptions. Note that he seems to be including Christians both far and near in his calculations. In regard to the “far corners,” it was largely Christian populations that surrounded the

Abbasids—Abyssinia in the south, Byzantium in the west, and Armenia in the north,

42. Or “land.” 192 not to mention the signicant number of Christians in Central Asia to the east. During this period of stale wars with the Romans, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ perhaps felt dierently about

Muslim dominance over the globe from the way the Muslim army ocer in Maslama’s entourage felt in Umayyad times when he used the still recent triumphs of Islam over world powers to argue for the superiority of his religion:

Whatever its proportional strength vis-à-vis Islam, Christian societies were certainly more of a force to be reckoned with on the periphery of the Abbasid empire than

Jewish or Zoroastrian ones were.

Within the empire, too, the Christian population must still have been substantial enough that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ could rely on his Muslim readers’ perceptions to resonate with his statement that Christians had “covered the earth.” No matter the actual proportion, he took it for granted that they were at least more populous than the other non-Muslim sects, and that, despite their various restrictions on procreation (and, no doubt, the passage of many into Islam), their numbers did not seem to be decreasing. Moreover, in accordance with the typical Islamic chronological hierarchy of religions, he supposes that Christians gain more non-Muslim converts than any other religion—but whether he is basing this on his own observations or merely on ideological speculation is dicult to say. The upshot of all this is that at home and abroad, Christians, rather than Jews or Zoroastrians, are the ones Muslims should be most concerned about (see

gure 23).

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ brief but textured descriptions of Christian celibacy and Christian marriage seem intended as a further jibe at Christians prohibiting what is lawful, but 193 also grant a little further insight into his knowledge of Christianity. The Qurʾan implies that Christians invented monasticism even though it was not prescribed (57:27), and al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ lists the signicant prohibitions Christians place on marriage (regarding divorce, polygamy, and concubinage). None of these help the case for Christianity’s moral code, so far as he is concerned. But in identifying these prohibitions, he puts his nger on some of the pressures Christians felt in the face of Islam, with its dierent understanding of marital ethics. In fact, two Church of the East patriarchs, Timothy I

(r. 780-823) and Išōʿ bar Nūn (r. 823-828), both published law books in which they dealt with marriage extensively: Timothy devoted about thirty canons to the subject, and Išōʿ forty (Weitz forthcoming). The topics addressed included divorce, intermarriage with Muslims, and incest laws. Dierences with Islamic law were not the only factors necessitating these treatments, but they must have been a factor. Further, the way al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ references the ecclesiastical establishments suggests he is aware of distinctions between “Jacobites” and “Nestorians,” between anchoritic and communal dwellings, and between priests who marry and priests who do not. His knowledge is not intricate, but neither is it entirely remote and generic. 194

Figure 23. The demographic threat

Christians Practicing Castration

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ is not nished with the topic of procreation (and lack of it), for in the next of the preserved excerpts, he turns to one of his own particular interests, castration:

One of the things that evidences their lack of compassion and the depravity43 of their hearts is that of all the communities they are the masters of castration— and castration is the worst mutilation and the greatest wrong that can be done to a man. They even do it to children,44 who are innocent of any wrong and cannot resist them. We know of no people known for castrating people wherever they are except for the countries of Byzantium and Ethiopia. Elsewhere, there are exceedingly few (who practice castration),45 and, moreover, they could have only learned it from the Christians, since they had no other reason to do so. They (the Christians?) castrate their sons and deliver them over to their churches. There is no castration in any (other) religion except that of the Sạ bians,̄ in which the worshiper often castrates himself, but castrating his son is not lawful. If only the Christians’ desire to castrate their sons, and to renounce marriage and trying to procreate—as I mentioned to you earlier—were actually

43. fasād. See Q. 5:33, 64.

44. Or “infants.”

45. Harū ̄n (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:323 n. 1) cross-references Al-Ḥayawān (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1938-45, 1:119, 124).” 195 fullled, then at least (they would) stop procreating, (their) religion would die out, and (their) kind (khalq)46 would dry up. (322.13-323.8)

Why does al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ spend so much space speaking of castration? Eunuchs played very visible roles in Abbasid society, but their presence raised an ethical quandary. Was the practice of castration morally permissible? And, if not, was it permissible to buy and sell eunuchs as slaves? The Qurʾan does not explicitly deal with castration,47 but castrating oneself is forbidden in several variations of the following hadith recorded in al-Bukhar̄ ̄’s Ṣaḥ̄ḥ collection:

We used to participate in the holy wars carried on by the Prophet and we had no women (wives) with us. So we said (to the Prophet). “Shall we castrate ourselves?” But the Prophet forbade us to do that and thenceforth he allowed us to marry a woman (temporarily) by giving her even a garment, and then he recited: “O you who believe! Do not make unlawful the good things which Allah has made lawful for you.” (al-Bukhar̄ ̄ vol. 6, book 60, no. 139)

According to another hadith, this one in Abū Dawūd’s collection, castrating one’s slave was subject to qisạ s̄ ̣ (legal retaliation) just as cutting o the slave’s limb would be: “If one castrates his slave, we shall castrate him” (Abū Dawūd book 34, no. 4502). From what al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ says in this passage, he seems to clearly agree that castrating is a cruel and reprehensible practice.

46. “Creation” or “humankind,” but some interpreters understand khalq as “religion” in Q. 4:119 and 30:30 (see Lane [1863-93, 801] and Ibn al-Jawz̄ [1964-8] on these verses). Signicantly, other interpreters understand “changing the khalq of Allah”̄ in Q. 4:119 to refer to castration (see Lane [1863-93, 801]). If al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ has Q. 4:116-122 in mind regarding Christians, then he signicantly implies that they have taken Satan as an ally.

47. See previous note. 196

He talks about castration in two other places in his works, in his epistle called

“Boasting Match between Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls” (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1964-1979, 2:87-137, esp. 123-125) and in Animals (1938-1945, 1:119-125).48 Ironically, in Animals, it is al-

Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ who is at pains to defend Islam in this regard, for he responds to criticism of

Muḥammad for accepting a eunuch sent as a gift by the Egyptian ruler al-Muqawqis

(Moussa 1982, 185-188). The writer’s solution to the question about Muḥammad ts the situation of his own day as well: to acquire a eunuch is the same as acquiring any slave with particular characteristics; it does not imply condoning castration itself (see

Moussa 1982, 185-188).

This makes sense when one recognizes that eunuchs often served Muslims, including the caliph himself, but that they frequently came from outside the empire.

Pellat, in fact, takes the view that the task of castration “was left to Christians and

Jews, preferably outside the Dar̄ al-Islam̄ ,” allowing Muslims to obtain the eunuchs

“without contravening their law” (Pellat 1978, 1089). Arabic geographers, such as al-

Masʿūd̄ and al-Muqaddas̄, talk about the ethnic and regional origins of eunuchs as being Sudanese, Byzantine, Chinese, Abyssinian, Berber, and Saqạ libā (generally

Eastern European) (Ayalon 1985, 304). There does seem to be an assumption, then, that eunuchs came from foreign places; many, but not all, of them were Christian lands. Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ may not have known that castration was often criticized or condemned by Byzantine religious authorities; what he did know was that eunuchism thrived in

48. In both places, al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ uses the word khāṣ̄, which indisputably refers to a castrated man, but there is debate about whether another term he uses, khādim, is always a “eunuch” or sometimes just “servant.” See Ayalon’s original article (1979), Moussa’s opposing view (1982), and Ayalon’s response (1985). 197

Byzantium regardless, and that Byzantines sometimes castrated their children (Ringrose

2003, 3, 68, 111). Like Constantinople, the caliph’s capital at Samarra had its share of eunuchs involved in aairs of state,49 but al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ reminded his audience that it was

Christians who most typically perpetrated the act of castration itself, and argued that was an indicator of their cruelty as compared with the other religious communities (see

gure 24).50

Figure 24. Castration as evidence of Christian depravity

49. For a few named examples of men who are called khādim (see previous note), see al-Tabaṛ ̄(1989b, 38, 42, 198).

50. If eunuchs were often brought from Christian lands, one would like to know how many identied themselves as Christians initially, and how many eventually converted to Islam. When al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ referred to inuential Christians in the caliph’s court and high society, did they include eunuchs? 198

Christians Deling Society

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ wraps up his discussion of Christian practices with a description of impurities:

The Christian, though he has cleaner clothes and a better occupation and is not as ugly, is inwardly baser, lthier, and more horrid because he is uncircumcised, does not cleanse himself of sexual uncleanness, and eats pork. His wife is also sexually unclean, since she is not puried from (her) menstrual blood, nor from the blood of childbirth. He sleeps with her in menstrual lth, and on top of all this she is not circumcised. (323.9-12)

Why does he choose these particular points? Not only are they ones that distinguish Christians from Muslims, but they also distinguish Christians from Jews.51

Outwardly, Christians may appear cleaner and less ugly than Jews, as he said earlier, at the end of the rst part of his social argumentation. But this supercial appearance hides the impurities Christians contract in their day-to-day mode of life.

Does Christians’ delement actually threaten the Muslim community in any way, or does it just make Christianity rank lower than Judaism in the hierarchy of religions?

A major clue comes from the somewhat overlooked theological preface to al-

Mutawakkil’s decree ordering dhimm̄ restrictions (DM). The decree’s specic, enforceable requirements are ones that make dhimm̄s distinguish themselves from

Muslims. But there is another side to it. Approximately the rst half of the edict has to do with God’s exalting Muslims above people of other religions through his superior

51. This is much the same point made by al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Muʿtazilite heir, ʿAbd al-Jabbar,̄ who considers Christians’ uncircumcision, eating pork, and lack of ablutions as ways Christians altered the religion of Jesus (2010, 86-88). 199 moral commands. God “distinguished” Islam “among the religious laws by making it the most pure and virtuous” (DM). A string of Qurʾanic citations follows, framed by introductory comments or summaries. For example, the caliph introduces sura 5 (Al-

Māʾida):3-4 about forbidden food by explaining that God is “prohibiting His people from partaking of oensive food, drink and sexual relations, exalting them above this, purifying their religion, and making His people superior over others” (DM). He makes a point of showing that the specic injunctions contained in that verse end with, “This day those who disbelieve have despaired of [defeating] your religion; so fear them not, but fear Me. This day I have perfected for you your religion (Q. 5:3, Saḥ ̣̄ḥ

International).” Overall, the verses the caliph cites have to do with prohibitions on three things: “abominable and impure foods of members of other religions,” “the drink of theirs that most arouses enmity and hatred and that most impedes mentioning God’s name and praying,” and “the most sinful and the most unlawful of their marriages”

(DM). These set Muslims apart morally, and these are the areas where the Commander of the Faithful is most concerned about maintaining the purity of the Umma. In other words, al-Mutawakkil’s decree is intended not merely to humiliate dhimm̄s or to disenfranchise them from social and political power, but to enable Muslims to maintain the kind of separation from dhimm̄s that will guard the former’s purity and ethical superiority.

There is every reason to think al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ remarks have a similar import (see gure

25). Living alongside Christians means one may interact with them in potentially deling ways, perhaps being tempted to eat with them or even to intermarry with 200 them, thus tainting the purity of the Muslim community. By his account, Muslims might naturally avoid Jewish people because of their more repulsive professions and appearance, but it is actually Christians who are more likely to make them religiously impure.

Figure 25. Christian impurities as a threat of delement

From here, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ begins his transition to the doctrinal portion of his text.

First, continuing in the vein of Christians’ moral inferiority, he remarks that

Christianity does not provide any eective moral restraints:

Despite the evil streaks52 in their natures and the dominance of their passions, their religion has nothing that would check (these), such as everlasting re in

52. Sharāra, literally, “sparks,” though the root sharra refers to being evil. Harū ̄n (al-Jāḥiẓ 1964-79, 3:323 n. 5) cross-references Al-Ḥayawān (al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ 1938-45, 4:297, 6:460).” 201 the afterlife, or punishments (ḥudūd),53 retaliation (qawad), or legal retribution (qisạ s̄ )̣ in this life. (323.13-14)

Next, he claims it is impossible to understand their Christology, for even two Nestorian brothers of the same mother would tell you dierent things about it (324.1-7)! Finally, he nishes priming his readers for his theological arguments by contemptuously painting Christians with the same brush as his fellow Muslim traditionalists (see Pellat

1970, 232; Fletcher 2002, 121), and sarcastically indicating their snobbish approach toward religions he has shown are actually better than theirs:

For this reason, we have come to the point of not being able to comprehend the truth of Christianity in the way we are able to be familiar with all the (other) religions.

Moreover, they claim that religion cannot be explained syllogistically (qiyas̄ ), cannot be defended propositionally (masāʾil),54 and is not substantiated by examination; but that it is, rather, submitting (oneself) to what is in the scriptures and emulating (one’s) predecessors (without questioning).55 By my life, whoever has Christianity for a religion is obliged to make some kind of excuse like theirs! (In fact,) they claim that any Zoroastrian, Sabean, or zind̄q who rmly believes something dierent from Christianity will be excused as long as he did not mean (to adhere to) falsehood or to reject the truth out of mere obstinacy. But when they come to the Jews, they force obstinate disputes on them56 and “turn them away” from (their) “mistaken and dubious course.”57

53. Note the two senses of the word ḥadd in Lane (1863-93, 525): prohibition and punishment.

54. On masʾala, see McCarthy’s comments in al-ʿAshar̄ (1953, 8.).

55. Al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ is pointing out the irony that Christians base their beliefs (particularly about Christology) on “submission” and unquestioning imitation—the same things with which they might indict certain of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ Muslim colleagues.

.([III] ﻋﻨﺪ Muʿānada. See Lane (1863-93, 2170, under the verb .56

57. Al-Jah̄ ̣iẓ is probably using sarcasm here to suggest that Christians are acting hypocritically toward 202

Conclusions

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ argumentation that Christians do more harm to the Muslim community than Jews (or any other religion) takes the reader through a host of salient issues regarding Muslim-Christian relations in the mid-ninth century. In places, it may appear to be merely a list of objectionable Christian behaviors, but deeper probing reveals a system of arguments, many of them carefully calibrated to address timely issues in contemporary debates. Many of the points on which he criticizes Christians are matters of their conduct in society; but his motivating concerns are religious.

Al-Jāḥiẓ approaches social indicators and identity preservation very dierently from those formulating general suḷ ḥ agreements, or even from al-Mutawakkil. While the

Covenant of ʿUmar was undoubtedly in circulation by the time al-Jāḥiẓ wrote his text,

Levy-Rubin points out that there were also other attempts to universalize stipulations that were understood to come from the original surrender agreements. The diculty all of these attempts faced was that of providing an authentic historical basis for terms that would address current, pressing issues, not just those of the original conquest. Al-

Shāʿī’s approach was one method of trying to provide this basis; Abū Yūsuf’s and the

Covenant’s were another. But al-Jāḥiẓ went at it from a completely dierent angle. For him, the way to bridge the gap between the outdated and generic stipulations of the conquest treaties and current aairs was to point to the original intention of those treaties. Though his priorities seem to reect those of the Pact of ʿUmar on a number of

Jews when they try to argue them into a “more correct” position. 203 points, he skirts around the diculty of authenticating specic stipulations by showing that Christian excesses are in clear violation of the spirit of their agreements. Despite his clearly polemic intent, these excesses provide additional historical information about the Christian upper class at the time. His approach also diers from al-

Mutawakkil’s eort to unilaterally dictate terms in that, although they have very similar concerns, al-Jāḥiẓ’ goal is to turn the tide of popular opinion rather than to regulate; as such, the details he takes up do not necessarily involve enforceable restrictions. His text complements al-Mutawakkil’s edicts ideologically more than juristically (compare Fletcher 2002, 117, 123-124).

Moreover, he claims that Christians are to blame for the heresy nipping at the heels of the Muslim community. His accusations that they intentionally mislead weak

Muslims by misusing the Qurʾan, that they are the sole preservers of heretical books, and that their practices are akin to those of Manichaeanism all seem exaggerated. But underneath them lie the realities of Christian apologetic eorts, heresiographical obsession, and ascetic practices that Muslims found mystifying—realities that needed only re-construal by an outsider to make Muslim readers suspicious of them.

Finally, a number of miscellaneous arguments buttress the case about

Christianity’s danger to the Umma. The sheer number of Christians makes them the most threatening of the non-Muslim groups; Christian cultures’ penchant for castration shows them to be exceptionally cruel; and their impure practices loom on the margins of a Muslim community that wants to preserve its rank of moral superiority. In all of 204 these ways, it is Christians, not Jews, who should be the object of concern to the

Umma. Conclusions

Al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ saw Christians in his world not as a dwindling, subordinate population, nor merely as a group with theological beliefs that diered from his, but as an active threat to the integrity of the “best community” (Q. 3:110), the Muslim umma. No doubt the contours of this portrayal had something to do with the caliph’s intended policies, but the evidence he used to nurture it must have been rooted in the very real observations of al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ and his readers. Christian ocials of the Muslim government rode well-bred horses, Christian intellectuals translated scientic works into the dominant language of the Muslim community, and Christian plaintis and defendants received lenient judgements in Islamic courts. Such were the undeniable realities of

Abbasid Iraq in the ninth century, which al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ not only acknowledged, but used to build his case.

What kind of connection did the work have with the caliph? I have argued on the basis of al-Fatḥ b. Khaqā n’s̄ letter and the correlation between the “Refutation” and al-Mutawakkil’s policies that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ most likely completed the extant version of the text during al-Mutawakkil’s early reign (c. 848-850). But it is not just the dhimm̄ restrictions themselves (ghiyar̄ and the prohibition on non-Muslims in public oce) that coincide with the themes of al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ epistle; it is also the ideology of the caliph’s decrees, which use Qurʾanic ideals as the basis for a doctrine of Muslim primacy—the same sort of doctrine that seems to undergird al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ social critique. Much as previous

205 206 caliphs had declared the authority of Islam over the public sphere by inscribing

Qurʾanic statements on public buildings and coins, al-Mutawakkil now proclaimed

Islam’s ascendancy by visibly labeling the non-Muslim population and cordoning o public oces. Yet the correspondence between al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ criticisms and the caliph’s policies is not exact. Perhaps this is because he was writing before the precise regulations had been determined, or perhaps it is because the author was allowed a fair degree of freedom in composing an epistle that would promote al-Mutawakkil’s program.

Notwithstanding the fact that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ was on the side of the caliph and writing a “Refutation of Christians,” his rhetorical opponents were not Christians but Muslims.

He makes this evident explicitly in his prologue, but also from the normative assumptions he makes, the types of evidence he uses (Qurʾan, hadith, s̄ra), and the primary standpoint with which he takes issue in his social argumentation (that

Christians are less harmful to Muslims than Jews are). In the process, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ says almost as much about his coreligionists’ respect and liberality toward Christians as he does about his own lack of them.

When al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ marshaled his arguments against this opposing standpoint, he was not merely shadowboxing with an imaginary challenger. His maneuvering betrays a very real opponent, or, at least, accepted facts with which he had to contend.

Christians were remembered as being more hospitable to the rst Muslims than Jews were, and more preeminent among Arab tribes. Christian professionals had an undeniable connection with the revered Greek classics and positions of inuence 207 among Muslims. Crucially, all of this resonated with the Qurʾan’s statement that seemed to declare Christians to be “closest in friendship” to Muslims and make Jews

“ercest in enmity” (5:82). The fact that al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ had to work around these points, reinterpreting them rather than denying them, indicates the weight he presumed they had among his audience.

Ultimately, al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ strategy seems to have been to turn the very things for which Christians were liked (power, prestige, intellectualism, and ascetic devotion) into ones that showed them to be a threat. One of the ways he did this was to give alternate etiologies for the realities accepted about Christians; rather than being explained by Christians’ inherent goodness and superiority, they were the result of arbitrary or external circumstances. Another way was to add more points of observation to the repertoire of acknowledged facts about Christians, thus changing the trajectory of biases toward Christians.

In using these methods, al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ was not creating a new classication for

Christians, but attempting to transfer them from certain set categories into others: from closest in friendship to ercest in hatred (Q. 5:82), from intellectuals whose endeavors helped to defend faith to heretical zind̄qs who undermined it, from respectable people of inuence to proud personages that refused to occupy their rightful place (Q. 9:29), and from a clean community to an impure sect that prohibited what was lawful and allowed what was prohibited (Q. 5:87, 9:29). Some of these categories had Qurʾanic implications; others were salient because of historical circumstances. To whatever 208 extent al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ succeeded in persuading his audience of this shift, he also paved the way for concrete social changes that corresponded to this classication.

By all indications, al-Mutawakkil’s reforms marked a watershed not only in the legislation of restrictions on non-Muslims, but also in the enforcement of them (Levy-

Rubin 2011, 103-112). Al-Jah̄ ̣iz’̣ “Refutation of Christians” may have played a small part in making these reforms more socially acceptable. Christians did not immediately and permanently cease to have positions of inuence, but al-Mutawakkil’s program had set a precedent of restrictions that would be reenacted multiple times in the following centuries (Levy-Rubin 2011, 108-112). Three centuries later, the situation had changed so drastically that a transmitter of Caliph al-Mutawakkil’s decree prohibiting non-

Muslims from holding public oce felt it necessary to use a conspiracy to explain why

Christian scribes had occupied positions in al-Mutawakkil’s administration in the rst place (Yarbrough 2012a, 385-386).

This is not the place to discuss the many other factors that have led to Christians becoming such a minority—sometimes a tiny minority—in the lands of the former

Abbasid empire, but it is applicable to mention that some of the issues al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ raised remain relevant to Christian communities today. Obviously, Christians do not typically occupy positions of power to the same extent or in the same numbers that concerned al-Jah̄ ̣iz.̣ Nonetheless, the rights of non-Muslims in an Islamically governed society, the dierences between the practices of Muslims and Christians living in their midst, and even the question of which religious communities (if any) are most friendly to Muslims are all subjects of modern discussions. “The Refutation of Christians,” then, serves to 209 highlight the way relatively favorable relations between these communities can turn sour through the combination of political means with an ideological campaign that reinterprets positive factors as neutral or negative ones. As such, the “Refutation” might provide insight not just regarding Christians in majority Muslim countries, but regarding any minority or subordinate group facing marginalization. Given the chance,

I imagine al-Jah̄ ̣iz ̣ would raise the same question today as he did over a millennium ago—whether or not Christians are indeed “closest in friendship” to Muslims. Bibliography

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