¹ See, e.g., Cook, Michael A., “The Origins of Kalīm,” BSO(A)S 43 (1980) 32 n. 7.Google Scholar

² See, e.g., Allard, Michel, Le Problème des Attributs Divins dans la doctrine d'al-ašʿarī et de ses premiers grands disciples (Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique, 1965) 164–65, 169–71Google Scholar; Frank, Richard M., Beings and Their Attributes: The Teaching of the Basrian School of the Muʿ tazila in the Classical Period (Albany: SUNY Press, 1978) 5Google Scholar; Ess, Josef Van, “The Beginnings of Islamic Theology,” in Murdoch, John E. and Sylla, Edith Dudley, eds., The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning (Dordrecht/Boston: Reidel, 1975) 87–111.Google Scholar

³ For an apt description of the stalemate concerning a closely related question—the dating of early Muslim theological works—see Cook, M. A., Early Muslim Dogma (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981) 144, 158.Google Scholar

⁴ To illustrate this point, one could mention the controversy over the (un)created Qurʾ an, which immediately calls to mind the Christian Logos. See Wolfson, Harry Austryn, The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976) 23ff.Google Scholar; Wansbrough, John, The Sectarian Milieu (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) 113–14.Google Scholar However, W. Madelung has recently argued that originally this Muslim debate was unrelated to Christian theology, and has shown that at its origin the argument pivoted around the question of anthropomorphism (tashbīh); see “The origins of the controversy concerning the creation of the Koran,” in Barral, J. M., ed., Orientalia Hispanica Sive Studia F. M. Pareja Octogenario Dicata 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1974) 504–25.Google Scholar Now, the question remains whether this very antianthropomorphist concern was not in its turn influenced by the encounter with Christianity—since tashbīh figures as one of the major faults Muslims find with Christianity; see, e.g., al-Balkh's al-radd ʿalā al-naṣārā quoted by Ibn Zurʿa, in Sbath, Paul, Vingt traités philosophiques et apologétiques d'auteurs arabes Chrétiens (Cairo: Friedrich, 1929) 52Google Scholar; al-Jāhiz, al-radd ʿalā al-naṣārā, thalāth rasāʿ il (ed. Finkel, J.; Cairo: al-matbaʿa al-ʿalafiyya, 1926) 25Google Scholar. In such a complex issue, however, no argument can be totally conclusive, and one's view of the topic must remain a matter of personal impression.

⁵ Sidney Griffith, H., “Comparative Religion in the Apologetics of the First Christian Arabic Theologians,” Proceedings of the Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance Conference (Villanova, PA, 1979) 75.Google Scholar

⁶ ʿAbd al-Jabbār dedicated to this complex no less than three volumes of his Mughnī (vols. 15, 16, and also vol. 7 in the Cairo edition).

⁷ See, e.g., ʿAbd al-Jabbār's Mughnī, 15. 7–8.

⁸ From al-Jāḥiẓ (Kitāb ḥujaj al-nubuwwa, Rasāʿ il al-Jāḥiẓ [ed. al-Sandūbf, ḥasan; Cairo: al-maktaba al-tijāriyya al-kubrā, 1933)Google Scholar to ʿAbd al-Jabbār (Tathbīt dalāʿ il al-nubuwwa (ed. al-Karīm, ʿAbd ʿUthmān; Beirut: Dār al-ʿArabiyya, 1966–1967).Google Scholar

⁹ Like al-Māwardf (Aʿlām al-nubuwwa [ed. Saʿd, ʿAbd al-Raʾ ūf; Cairo: Maktabat al- Kuliyyāt al-Azhariyya, 1971])Google Scholar or al-Māturīdf (Kitāb al-Tawḥīd [ed. Khuleif, Fatḥ; Beirut: Dār al-Machreq, 1970) 176–210.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Like Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānfi's Kitāb ithbāt al-nubʾ at (ed. Tāmir;, ʿArif Beirut, 1966).Google Scholar

¹¹ Like Abū Qurra; see Bāsha, Qustantfn, “Maimar fr ṣiḥḥat al-dfn al-masfhf lil-ab … abf Qurra usqūf ḥarrān,” al-Machriq 6 (1903) 633–43, 693–707, 800–809.Google Scholar

¹² Die Schriften des Jacobiten ḥabīb ibn ḥidma Abū Rāʿita (ed. Graf, Georg; Louvain: Durbecq, 1951) 131ff.Google Scholar

¹³ ʿAmmār al-Baṣrf, Kitāb al-burhān in ʿAmmār al-Baṣn;: Apologie et controverses (ed. Hayek, Michel; Beirut: Dar al-Machreq, 1977) 32ffGoogle Scholar; idem, Kitāb al-masāʿin ibid., 136ff.

¹⁴ To mention just two examples, see chap. 3 of Saʿadya's Kitāb al-Amānāt waʾ l-iʿ tiqādāt (ed. Qafiḥ, ; Jerusalem/New York: Sūra, 1970) 117 ffGoogle Scholar; Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānf, Kitāb al-anwār waʾ l-marāqib, Code of Karaite Law (ed. Nemoy, Leon; New York: A. Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1939–1943) 3. 576, 583.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Deut 12:2–7; 18:15–2

¹⁶ Philo Spec. leg. 1.315–18 (LCL 7. 283–84).

¹⁷ See, e.g., Abū-Qurra, 639–40; Abū Rāʾita, 137:12–18; Bāqilānf, Al-bayān ʿan al-farq bayna al-muʿjizāt wa'l-karamāt waʾ l-naranjāt (ed. McCarthy, Richard Joseph; Beirut: Librairie Orientate, 1957) 59–60Google Scholar; Saʿadya, Amānāt, 127–28.

¹⁸ Philo Vit. Mos. 1.96 (LCL 6. 325ff.).

¹⁹ See esp. Spec. leg. 6.50–51 (LCL 7. 39) and Vit. Mos. 2.185ff. (LCL 6. 541ff.).

²⁰ On Philo's view of prophecy, see Wolfson, H. A., “The veracity of scripture in Philo, Halevi, Maimonides and Spinoza,” Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950) 604Google Scholar; Kennedy, Harry A. A., Philo's Contribution to Religion (London, 1919) 226–30Google Scholar; Bréhier, Emile, Les idées philosophiques et religieuses de Philon d'Alexandrie (Paris: Vrin, 1950) 180 ff.Google Scholar One should, however, note the tendency of these works to articulate and systematize Philo's remarks more than he might have cared for.

²¹ Gregory of Nyssa, La vie de Moïse ou traité de la perfection en matière de vertu (trans. Jean Daniélou; SC 1; Paris: Cerf, 1955) 48ff.

²² See, e.g., Baqilānf, Bayān, 26:9–11.

²³ Sometimes referred to as the dahriyya; see al-Jāḥiẓ, ḥujaj, 119:7. See also Māturfdī, Tawḥīd, 187:19 (cf. Qirqisānf, Anwār, 3. 578:6–7); Paul Kraus, “Raziana,” Or n.s. 5 (1936) 369:22–25; Pines, Salomon, Beiträge zur islamischen Atomenlehre (Berlin: Heine, 1936) 90 n. 2.Google Scholar

²⁴ It could be interpreted as another proof for the late, fictitious nature of the Barāhima. See Kraus, Paul, “Beiträge zur islamischen Ketzergeschichte, Das Kitäb al-Zumurrud des Ibn ar-Räwandi,” RSO 14 (1933) 93–129; 14 (1934) 335–79Google Scholar; but it can also be seen as further circumstantial evidence for the argument that the Barahima theme reflects the impact on Islam of real encounters with Indian religions, as I have argued in my article, “The Barähima in Early Kaläm,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 6 (1985). On the other hand, the absence of the Barähima from later, post-Islamic Christian (and, in particular, Christian Arabic) texts, remains puzzling. As a tentative explanation I would suggest that, although often incorporated in Muslim prophetology, the Barāhima theme was still perceived as part of Muslim heresiography. Generally speaking, Christian writers showed little interest in Muslim heresiography; they turned to it mainly when it served their own polemical anti-Muslim purposes. The Barāhima were of no use for the Christians in their debate with Islam, and since the Christians already had their own traditional pattern for proving the idea of prophecy, they did not feel the need to change it by adding the Barāhima.

²⁵ Origen C. Cel. 7.3. The same argument was brought up against the Montanists by Eusebius (.Hist. eccl. 5.16.7–9, referred to in TDNT s.v. προφήτης, 861). On other early Christian references to true prophecy, or true religion, see Wolfson, “Veracity of Religion,” 604–5.

²⁶ See, e.g., Origen C. Cel. 1.51ff; see also Dictionaire de Théologie Catholique s.v. “prophécie,” 711.

²⁷ See the classic work of Daniélou, Jean, Sacramentum Futuri: Etudes sur les origines de la typologie biblique (Paris: Beauchesne, 1950).Google Scholar

²⁸ See TDNT, 861. See also the intriguing passage in Abū Qurra's defense of orthodoxy, 669–70, esp. 670 1.22

²⁹ The rabbinic interest in miracles versus magic was rarely linked to prophetology. See Urbach, E. E., The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (in Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1971) 81–102, 502–13Google Scholar; idem, “When Did Prophecy End in Judaism?“Tarbiẓ 17 (1946) 1–11 (in Hebrew).Google Scholar

³⁰ John of Damascus De haer. 101 in Saint John of Damascus: Writings (trans. Chase, F. H., Jr.; FC; Washington: Catholic University Press, 1981) 153–54Google Scholar; Sahas, Daniel J., John of Damascus on Islam: The “Heresey of the Ishmaelites” (Leiden: Brill, 1972) 79ff.Google Scholar

³¹ For a few examples see Fihrist (ed. Gustav Flügel; reprinted Beirut, 1964) 162:15 (Bishr b. al-Muʾtamir); 177:3 (Abū Sahl al-nubakhtf); 259:15 (al-Kindr)-all from the ninth century. Of earlier books dedicated to this subject we have no knowledge.

³² For examples of various criteria of true prophecy and their place in the discussion, see Vajda, George, “La prophétologie de Dawūd ibn Marwān al-Raqqr al-Muqammiṣ, théologien Juif arabophone du IX^e siècle,” Journal Asiatique 265 (1977) 227–35.Google Scholar

³³ See n. 8 above.

³⁴ al-Jāḥiẓ, ḥujaj al-nubuwwa, 118:16.

³⁵ Ibid., 118:17–22.

³⁶ Ibid., 139:19ff., 143:5.

³⁷ Wolfson remarks that when Saʿadya refers to tradition “he means knowledge based upon revelation as recorded in Scripture” (Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947] 62–63).Google Scholar

³⁸ al-Jāḥiẓ, ḥujaj al-nubuwwa, 136:1–7, 11–14; 138:14–17; 141:20ff; 143:4ff.

³⁹ Griffith, “Comparative Religion,” 80.

⁴⁰ Cf. ibid., and see idem, “ʿAmmār al-Baṣrfs Kitäb al-Burhān: Christian Kalām in the First Abbasid Century,” Le Muséon 96 (1983) 165.Google Scholar

In fact, al-Jāḥiẓ's epistle, which addresses itself at first broadly to many opposing religious beliefs (see ḥujaj al-nubuwwa, 119), eventually narrows its scope and concentrates on the vindication of Islam against Christianity (ibid., esp. 125:23–126:1; 128:19–23; 131:15ff.). On this literary technique see Khalidi, Tarif, Islamic Historiography: The Histories of Masʿūdi (Albany: SUNY Press, 1975) 22–23.Google Scholar

⁴¹ al-Jāḥiẓ, ḥujaj al-nubuwwa, 129:22–130:5; 136:2–8, 11–12; 138:14–17.

⁴² See, e.g., ibid., 132:3–4: “mā naqalathu al-jamāʿāt ʿan al-jamāʾāt”; cf. Schacht, Josef, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979) 42, 51. See below, n. 45Google Scholar

⁴³ Cf. Matūridr, Tawḥīd, 209:4: “wajada kitāb Allah nātiqan bi-iẓhār dīhihi.”

⁴⁴ See al-ʿAskarf, Abū-Hilāl, al-Awāʾil (ed. al-Miṣrf, Muḥammad and Qaṣṣāb, Walīd; Damascus, 1975) 2. 134:6–7; Pines, Atomenlehre, 126 n. 2.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ See Schacht, Origins, 134–35. The supposition that this list had its origin in a traditionalist setting, from which it was passed over to Kalām (rather than the other way around) is established by the very nature of the criteria in the list. Three of the four criteria are of a nonintellectual character. It is, therefore, more plausible to see the origin of these three criteria in a traditionalist setting, than in the intellectually oriented early Kalām. This supposition is strengthened by another such list, in which the intellectual argument is absent altogether. Al-Dārimī (al-radd ʿalā al-Jahmiyya [ed. Vitestam, Gösta; Lund/Leiden: Gleerup, 1960] 93)Google Scholar mentions only a revealed book (kitāb nāiq), tradition (athar), and consensus (ijmāʿ.

⁴⁶ See above, nn. 34–37.

⁴⁷ Ess, J. Van, “L'autorité de la tradition prophétique dans la théologie muʿtazilite,” La notion d'autorité au Moyen Age: Islam, Byzance, Occident (Paris: P.U.F., 1980) 221–22.Google Scholar On the Muʿtazilite rejection of tradition, see Schacht, Origins, 4–42, and 258; Michael A. Cook, “ʿAnan and Islam: The Origins of Karaite Scripturalism,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam (forthcoming). I wish to thank Professor Cook for making this paper available to me before publication. For all we know, however, what the Muʿtazilites rejected was not the very idea of tradition (for they did accept ijmāʿ, a concept which implies some nonscriptural source of knowledge). Their objections seem to have been limited to “traditions” in the sense of ḥadīth, separate traditions about the Sunna of the prophet as a basis for legal judgment. Considering the profusion of spurious and contradictory ḥadīths, such a skeptical attitude is hardly surprising.

⁴⁸ The phenomenon is not uncommon; Muʿtazilites also use in their discussions with the mujbira arguments which according to their own testimony were hurled at the muʿtazila by Manichaeans. The same practice is found also among Christians. See, e.g., K. Vollers, “Das Religionsgespräch von Jerusalem (urn 800 D),” ZKG 24 (1908) 65, 11.7–13, 69, 11.10–14.

⁴⁹ Cf. Van Ess, “L'autorité,” 213. Other quotations of Wāṣil by Al-ʿaskarf, which do refer specifically to ḥadīth, do so explicitly; see Awāʾil, 134:8ff.

⁵⁰ See above p. 105.

⁵¹ For a detailed description and analysis of this theme see Khalil, Samir, “L a liberté réligieuse chez les théologiens arabes Chrétiens du 9^e siecle,” Witness of Faith in Life and Worship (Tantur Yearbook, 1980–1981Google Scholar; Jerusalem, 1982) 93–160; Griffith, “Comparative Religion,” 63–87.

⁵² Sometimes the differences between Jesus and the prophets are clearly spelled out. See Vollers, “Religionsgespräch,” 45–46, 61, and 64. 11.20–22 (where, for argument's sake, the monk includes Muhammad with all the prophets); Khalifé, I. A. and Kutsch, M., “Ar-Radd ʿala-n-naṣārā de ʿAlf-at-ṭabarī,” Mélanges de l'Université Saint Joseph 37 (1959) 139:7–8Google Scholar, where the juxtaposition of Jesus and the prophets, stressing the prophets’ weakness (ʿAsjaz), might be a pun designed to play down their miracles (muʿjizāt); and Abū- Rāʾita, 38.

⁵³ The fear of the sword, ethnic or familial ties, and the hope for worldly gains (wealth or sexual pleasure, both in this world and the next) are regularly mentioned in this context. See, e.g., ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī, Burhān, 32; idem, Masāʾil, 136.

⁵⁴ Because of Jesus’ humble birth, and because of his teaching which rejects accumulation of wealth and imposes sexual restrictions, the growth of Christianity was suprising. See, e.g., Vollers, “Religionsgespräch,” 62–63; ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī, Burhān, 36–38.

⁵⁵ See the references in nn. 11–13 above.

⁵⁶ ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī, Burhān, 27.

⁵⁷ See, e.g., ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī 15. 148:3: “Nothing but miracles is a proper proof for the sending of (divine) messengers”; the traditions are accepted as proofs for past events only (māḍiyāt), fame de mieux. The same view, which technically relies only on traditions, but ultimately gives a theoretical preference to the miracle, was probably held by ʿAbbād b. Sulaimān (Mughnī, 15. 257–58; 312–38; 16. 242.8–10). Cf. Van Ess, “L'autorité,” 220.

⁵⁸ This sometimes appears to be Jāḥiẓ's view; see above, n. 41.

⁵⁹ See above, n. 5.

⁶⁰ The development of the Christian version out of the Muslim one can be witnessed in al-Muqammiṣ's version of this theme; see below, pp. 112–13.

⁶¹ See ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī, Burhān, 32, 41, 72; idem, Masāʾil, 141; Abū Qurra, “maymar ff taḥqīq al-Injil,” Mayāmir Thaudūrūs Abī Qurra (ed. Q. Bāsha; Beirut) 74; Ignace Dick, “Deiix écrits inédits de Théodore Abū Qurra, “Le Muséon 72 (1959) 64:1 Iff; Abū Rāʾita, Rasāʾil, 136. Al-Bāqilānf sees this argument as typical of Jews and Christians (Kitāb al-tamhīd [ed. McCarthy, R. J.; Beirut: Librairie Orientale, 1957] 160ff.Google Scholar and esp. 161:14–17; 173:1–6; 385:13–20).

⁶² ʾAmmār al-Baṣrf, Burhān, 26:10–13. Cf. al-Jāḥiẓ's proof, above, pp. 106–7.

⁶³ Ibid., 31–32.

⁶⁴ The proof thereof is the logical pretense of Manichaeism, which might seem congenial to the human intellect, but (as all ʿAmmār's readers are supposed to know) is Falsehood Incarnate. Ibid., 31, 35; idem, Masāʾil, 136.

⁶⁵ Ibid., 136, 138.

⁶⁶ ʿAmmār al-Baṣrf, Burhān, 25:19–20; 64–65.

⁶⁷ See Lubac, Henri de, “Les religions humaines chez les Pères de l'Église,” in his Paradoxe et Mystère de l'Église (Paris: Beauchesne, 1967) 120–40.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ See Gardet, Louis and Anawati, M.-M., Introduction a la théologie musulmane (Paris: Vrin, 1970) 350Google Scholar; D. B. MacDonald, s.v. fiṭra, El² 2. 932 and cf. Griffith, “Comparative Religion,” 80.

⁶⁹ This doctrine is understood to contain both the trinitarian and the christological aspects of Christian theology. See, e.g., al-Jāḥiẓ, ḥujaj, 131:19–132:7. We have no indication that ʿAmmār was already aware of the “intellectual,” “anti-prophecy” Barāhima. However, if he was, this position would have the additional benefit of avoiding the “Barāhima-catch”: for, if it is openly stated that the human intellect is not the proper vehicle for religious knowledge, the Ilzām used by the Barāhima becomes void.

⁷⁰ For biographical outline, see Vajda, George, “La finalité de la création de l'homme selon un théologien juif du IX^e siècle,” Oriens 15 (1962) 61–85.Google Scholar For the text and analysis of ʿIshrūn Maqāla, see my “Dawūd ibn Marwān al-Muqammiṣ and his ʿIshrūn Maqāla (in Hebrew; Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1983).Google Scholar

⁷¹ The first lines of this chapter are, unfortunately, missing in the only extant manuscript. A French summary and partial paraphrase of chap. 14 was published by Vajda (see n. 32 above).

⁷² See above, n. 57.

⁷³ See n. 61 above. For later, more sensitive adaptations of the Christian argument in Jewish texts, see Stroumsa, Sarah, “Jewish-Muslim and Jewish-Christian Polemics in Light of the Judaeo-Arabic Texts,” in Golb, Norman, ed., Proceedings of the First Conference on Judaeo-Arabic (Chicago, May 1984), forthcoming.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ See, e.g., ʿAmmār al-Baṣri, Burhān, 31.

⁷⁵ Al-Qiriqisānf, Anwār, 1. 44:10–16. According to Qirqisānf, al-Muqammiṣ had actually converted to Christianity. His ʿIshrun Maqāla, however, was clearly written after his return to Judaism.

⁷⁶ A Muslim source is excluded by the above mentioned antimilitary remark. The possibility of a Jewish source, earlier than al-Muqammiṣ and yet so well structured, is improbable. The reference to the transmission of scriptures by “many nations” renders the possibility of a Jewish source even more unlikely. The “source” enumerates only the conditions; it is clearly al-Muqammis who applies the conditions to Moses, and thus adapts the general frame provided by his source to Jewish theology. Moreover, the Christian identity of al-Muqammiṣ's source is apparent also in his use of “covenant” (ʿhd) to designate the revealed book. See J. Schach, EI² s.v. ʿAhd, 1. 255.

⁷⁷ ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Tathbīt, 8:16–17, 24:4–5; idem, Mughnī 16. 21:13–14, 27:5–6. Although some of these elements appear already in Jāḥiẓ's ḥujaj al-nubuwwa, Qāḍf stands out in his consistent depiction of the meekness of the Prophet.

⁷⁸ I wish to thank Professor Sidney H. Griffith, Professor Michael A. Cook, and Dr. G. Stroumsa for reading a draft of this paper and for their valuable comments.