¹ It was already regarded as well known by Becker (see Becker, C. H., ‘Christliche Polemik und islamische Dogmenbildung’, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und verwandte Gebiete, XXVI, 1912, 190Google Scholar = idem, Islamstudien, Leipzig, 1924–32, I, 445; further references to this article are to the reprint).

² van Ess, J., Anfänge muslimischer Theologie, Beirut, 1977, 24Google Scholar. (The book was due to appear in 1974, and in fact appeared in 1978.) In the parallel passage in the English summary of his findings, van Ess refuses to speak of Christian ‘influence’ (idem, ‘The beginnings of Islamic theology’, in J. E. Murdoch and E. D. Sylla (ed.), The cultural context of medieval learning, Dordrecht and Boston, 1975, 99 f.); I take this to represent a change of venue rather than of view

³ Cf. van Ess, , Anfäinge, p. 36Google Scholar, 1. 12, of the Arabic text.

⁴ See particularly pp. 12–31 of his introduction; the dating to the 70s is at pp. 17 f.

⁵ The core of his case rests on a set of arguments from silence (mostly summarized at p. 17): al-Ḥasan seems not to know of views elsewhere attested at a given date, and therefore wrote before that date. In this category fall: (a) certain exegeses attributed to Qatāda b. Di'āma; (b) the clear distinction between divine foreknowledge and predestination made in the Qadarite epistle of al-Ḥasan of Baṣra (pp. 16, 18); (c) the notion that a man can affect the term of his life, held by the addressees of ‘Umar II’s anti-Qadarite epistle; and (d) the absence of ḥadith. Objections of two kinds arise. First, the reliability of these termini is a matter of argument: ascriptions of exegeses to figures like Qatāada invite scepticism, ascriptions of epistles to early authorities are certainly open to it, and van Ess's dating of the beginnings of predestinarian ḥadīth turns on that of the epistles. Second, the meaning of the silences is beset with ambiguities. One can (and not infrequently does) ignore a view without being unaware of it, a point with significant application to (b): it is polemically inconvenient for a predestinarian propagandist to take cognizance of this obvious distinction, and Van Ess is taking too stringently Darwinian a view of religious disputation in arguing that al-Ḥasan could not afford not to take full account of the views of his opponents. Equally, one can be unaware of a view without being anterior to it, a point with a particular bearing on (c): van Ess argues that 'Umar II was addressing himself to a rather minor Qadarī group, and not to the Qadariyya at large (pp. 126–31); if al-Ḥasan seems not to have heard of them, it may effectively be countered that the same is true, as van Ess points out, of Ritter and Montgomery Watt. The absence of ḥadīth is undoubtedly the most attractive of the arguments presented. Yet it too is susceptible of alternative explanation—as that ḥadīth already existed but had yet to penetrate the rigid rules of al-Ḥasan's dialectical game, or that the author did not recognize its authority (compare Wansbrough, J., Quranic Studies, Oxford, 1977, p. 161Google Scholar, on the Qadarite epistle of al-Ḥasan of Basra). There is after all no lack of evidence of the persistence of predestinarian Kalām in the second century (contrast van Ess, , Anfänge, p. 25Google Scholar). (I do not, of course, intend to suggest that arguments from silence are invalid as such.) Further arguments adduced by van Ess include points arising from the politics of al-Ḥasan, and from his post-mortem reputation (or lack of it); I hope to treat these in another study (Early Muslim dogma: a source-critical study, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), and to do more justice there to van Ess's case for the authenticity of the early epistles.

⁶ Ess, Van, Anfänge, pp. 16 fGoogle Scholar.

⁷ Ibid., pp. 22 f.

⁸ See van Ess, , ‘Beginnings’, p. 104, n. 54Google Scholar.

⁹ For a statement of this and other problems regarding the date and integrity of the Dispute, see Khoury, A.-T., Les théologiens byzantins et L'Islam, Louvain, 1969, pp. 68–71Google Scholar.

¹⁰ This is the central weakness of Becker's argument for Christian influence on the content of Muslim theology in the article cited above, note 1.

¹¹ van Ess, J., ‘Disputationspraxis in der islamischen Theologie’, Revue des études islamiques, XLIV, 1976Google Scholar.

¹² Ibid., p. 25.

¹³ John, of Damascus, , Adversus nestorianorum haeresim, in MPG, XCVGoogle Scholar, col. 189.

¹⁴ Their other appearances are at cols. 188 and 196, the former being by far the most striking example in the work (see below, n. 31). But for most of the course the hypothetical Nestorian adversaries are either asleep or too polite to interrupt, and towards the end they seem to have disappeared altogether.

¹⁵ Origen, Contra Celsum, VI: 68 (= Borret, M. (ed. and tr.), Origéne centre Celse, Paris, 1967–1976, in, p. 348 = 349Google Scholar).

¹⁶ van Ess, J., ‘The logical structure of Islamic theology’, in von Grunebaum, G. E. (ed.), Logic in classical Islamic culture, Wiesbaden, 1970, 24Google Scholar.

¹⁷ von Grunebaum, G. E., A tenth-century document of Arabic literary theory and criticism, Chicago, 1950, p. 1, n. 1. (Von Grunebaum also gives the direct reference to Origen, but cf. below, n. 19.)Google Scholar

¹⁸ Norden, E., Agnostos Theos, Berlin, 1913, 89Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Cf. the restitution of the Alēthēs logos by Glöckner, O., Bonn, 1924, 53Google Scholar. It seems clear from his comments that already von Grunebaum had lost sight of the fact that Origen's ‘if he asks…’ served not to introduce a hypothetical question, but to repeat one actually asked and already under discussion.

²⁰ Ess, Van, ‘Disputationspraxis’, 56Google Scholar.

²¹ Cf. Crone, P. and Cook, M., Hagarism, Cambridge, 1977, 3fGoogle Scholar.

²² For one example of such material, see below, note 66; and for another, Crone, and Cook, , Hagarism, 163Google Scholar, n. 23.

²³ The oddity is easily explained. There is a very useful survey of Christian polemic against the Jews (Williams, A. L., Adversus Judaeos, Cambridge, 1935)Google Scholar, but nothing comparable for intra-Christian polemic. When Bardy, G. wrote th e relevant section of the article ‘Dialog’for the Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum (Stuttgart, 1950–)Google Scholar, he was accordingly able to give a good list of dialogues directed against the Jews (cols. 946 f.), but had little to offer against heretics. Van Ess's list in turn is in the main a transcription of Bardy's.

²⁴ A reference to a Syriac text bearing on a historical point does appear in the ‘Nachträge’to van Ess's, Anfänge thanks to a visit to Oxford in 1976Google Scholar.

²⁵ The split between Monotheletes and Dyotheletes divided the Chalcedonian community from late in the reign of Heraclius.

²⁶ Brock, S. P., ‘A Syriac fragment on the Sixth Council’, Oriens Christianus, LVII, 1973Google Scholar.

²⁷ Idem, ‘An early Syriac Life of Maximus the Confessor’, Analecta Bollandiana, XCI, 1973.

^27a Cf. also below, notes 39, 41, 55, 56.

²⁸ Add. 7192, fols. 66b, 67a, 69b. I would like to thank the British Library for permission to publish these texts, and Dr S. P. Brock for transcribing my edition into a fairer Syriac hand; he is not, of course, responsible for any misreadings. The scribe normally writes 'n (not 'yn) for ‘yes’; Brock has emended this to 'yn in two places.

²⁹ Ess, Van, Anfänge, p. 13Google Scholar of the Arabic text. Van Ess has also given an English translation of this and the following question in his ‘Beginnings’, 91 f.

³⁰ The disjunction must of course be one in which the alternatives exclude each other.

³¹ Only once does the Maronite begin tūv m^esha'linan, ‘again we ask’ (question 11 on fol. 69a). Contrast the way in which John of Damascus opens his refutation of the Nestorians: ‘This is how one must begin arguing against those who agree with Nestorius: “Tell us … And if they say … while if they say…”’ (Adversus nestorianorum haeresim, col. 188).

³² The alternative would be to attribute the absence of such phrases in al-Hasan's Questions to omission by al-Hādī.

³³ A difference of some interest which does not concern us here lies in the character of the authorities cited. The Maronite makes occasional reference to the New Testament for Christological data, but also cites the Church Fathers and, conversely, seeks to embarrass his adversaries by referring to the doctrine of ‘your teachers and your heresiarch … Maximus your lord’ (question 4 on fol. 67b). By contrast al-Ḥasan adduces only scripture, and that in formidable quantities (cf. Wansbrough cited above, n. 5).

³⁴ Question 7 on fol. 68a. Occasionally emar lan, like al-Ḥasan's akhbirūnā 'an, appears within the body of a question. Cf. also the ‘tell us’ of John of Damascus in the passage cited above, note 31.

³⁵ Ess, Van, Anfänge, 23Google Scholar.

³⁶ On balance it would probably be fair to say that al-Ḥasan uses a wider range of diction than the Maronite, and has more passages of ‘free composition’.

³⁷ Brock, , ‘An early Syriac Life’, 344Google Scholar.

³⁸ See above, note 13; also notes 14, 31.

³⁹ For the manuscript and its contents, see Wright, W., Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum, London, 1870, 967 ffGoogle Scholar. The manuscript is dated by Wright to the eighth or ninth century; the contents relate overwhelmingly to the theological debates of the sixth century (Julianism, Tritheism, etc.). The probability is thus that what we find here is pre-Islamic.

⁴⁰ Add. 14,533, fol. 138b. The sun-worshippers bear the uninteresting designation ḥanpē; for a brief account of sun-cults in this area, see Cahen, C., ‘Simples interrogations hérésiographiques (Yezidis, Nusayris, Shamsiyya, etc.)’, in Gramlich, R. (ed.), Islamwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen: Fritz Meier zum sechzigsten Oeburtstag, Wiesbaden, 1974, 31 fGoogle Scholar.

⁴¹ Question 3 on fol. 106a; and fol. 146a. For John Barbūr and Probus, see Baumstark, A., Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, Bonn, 1922, 177Google Scholar. Their relative insignificance suggests a nearcontemporary (and so pre-Islamic) date for the polemic against them.

⁴² For the manuscript, its contents and its date, see Wright, , Catalogue, 921Google Scholar if.

⁴³ Draguet, R., Julien d'Halicarnasse et sa controverse avec Sévère d'Antioche sur l'incorruptibilité du corps du Christ, Louvain, 1924, 83–8Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Add. 12,155, fols. 180b–182b, 182b–183a, 185b–186b.

⁴⁵ Draguet, , Julien d'Halicarnasse, 86Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Add. 12,155, fol. 187b.

⁴⁷ For the Arabic form, see for example nos. 2, 12, 16, etc. (van Ess, , Anfänge, 12Google Scholar, 17, 19, etc., of the Arabic text). The Syriac may be rendered literally ‘he has given that which was sought’.

⁴⁸ The passage from the Dispute of John of Damascus adduced by van Ess (see above, note 8) is likewise defensive.

⁴⁹ Ess, Van, Anfänge, 35 f. of the Arabic textGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁰ Add. 12,155, fol. 187b. The technique of posing a counter-question, prominent in the Syriac and Greek material, is not attested in the Questions; it appears, however, in the early Hanafite al-Fiqh al-absaḥ (edited together with the Kitāb al-'ālim wa'l-muta'allim, likewise attributed to Ḥanīfa, Abū, Cairo, 1368/1949, 43)Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Abramowski, L. and Goodman, A. E., A Nestorian Collection of Christological Texts, Cambridge, 1972Google Scholar.

⁵² See the editors' introduction to vol. II.

⁵³ Fragment IIb. The ascription is rejected by the editors, which leaves the dating uncertain.

⁵⁴ A stray instance of ‘and if they say… say…’ occurs at p. 97 = 57.

⁵⁵ See for example ibid., 157 = 93, 170 ff. = 101 ff. The first example is from a document of A.D. 612. (See p. xlii of the introduction to vol. II.)

⁵⁶ Ibid., 110 = 64. The author was a pupil of Ḥenānā, of Adiabene (see xxxiv of the introduction to vol. II).

⁵⁷ Ibid., 199 = 118 f., in a text apparently dating from the first half of the sixth century (see xlviii of the introduction to vol. II).

⁵⁸ An account of this process is given in Frend, W. H. C., The rise of the Monophysite movement, Cambridge, 1972Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Ess, Van, Anfänge, 23Google Scholar; Crone, and Cook, , Hagarism, 95Google Scholar. This agreement is however some-what illusory. Van Ess takes a very negative view of our sketch of the role of Syria in the formation of Islamic culture (see The Times Literary Supplement, 8 September 1978, 997). Conversely, his emphasis on the role of 'Abd al-Malik rests on a view of al-Ḥasan's politics which I believe to be mistaken, and hope to discuss in the study mentioned at the end of note 5 above.

⁶⁰ Ess, Van, ‘Beginnings’, 99Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Becker, , ‘Christliche Polemik’, 433et passimGoogle Scholar.

⁶² Ess, Van, ‘Beginnings’, 100 (and of. his article ‘Ḳadariyya’ in The Encyclopaedia of Islam (second ed.), 371)Google Scholar.

⁶³ Ess, Van, ‘Beginnings’, pp. 99–101Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ Becker, , ‘Christliche Polemik’, 434 f.Google Scholar; van Ess, , ‘Disputationspraxis’, 56Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ In substantiation of this latter point van Ess states that ‘Christians seem to have regarded Islam as a new sect in the long series of heresies they were accustomed to’ (‘Beginnings ’, 100 f.). If this means that Christians did not see Islam as a new religion, it needs to be revised in the light of the early sources.

⁶⁶ For the text and translation, see Nau, F., ‘Un colloque du Patriarche Jean avec l'émir des Agaréens’, Journal asiatique, XI^e série, V, 1915Google Scholar; and for the date, Crone, and Cook, , Hagarism, 162Google Scholar, n. 11 (tacitly correcting Lammens). I use ‘Hagarene’ here and below to render the Syriac mahgrāyā and related forms.

⁶⁷ Bardy, G. (ed. and tr.), Les trophées de Damas: controverse judéo-chrétienne du VII⁶ siècle, in Patrohgia Orientalis, XV, 2, 1920, 233 f. (for the date, see 175 f.)Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Ess, Van, ‘Disputationspraxis’, 46Google Scholar; for the passage see also below, note 78.

⁶⁹ Nau, F., ‘Lettre de Jacques d'Edesse sur la généalogie de la sainte Vierge’, Revue de l'Orient chrétien, first series, VI, 1901, 518Google Scholar = 523 f.; also Crone, and Cook, , Hagarism, 11Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Nau, , ‘Lettre’, 519Google Scholar = 526. The syllogism is pitched considerably above the level of common sense.

⁷¹ See Beck, H.-G., Kirche und theotogische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich, Munich, 1959, 442Google Scholar f. (the reference to Anastasius in Crone, and Cook, , Hagarism, 171Google Scholar, n. 4, should be deleted). This handbook on theological disputation with heretics might make as good a starting-point for comparison with Muslim practice as the long shadow of the Hellenistic rhetorician Hermagoras (of. van Ess, , ‘Disputationspraxis’, 53Google Scholar).

⁷² Anastasius the Sinaite, Hodigos, in MPG, LXXXIX, col. 41. The beliefs anathematized show that there can be no question of referring the passage to pagan or heterodox Christian Arabs.

⁷³ I am not here concerned with Becker's main thesis, which was that Christian polemic strongly influenced the content of Muslim theology.

⁷⁴ Ess, Van, ‘Logical structure’, 24Google Scholar. The parallel passage in his ‘Disputationspraxis’(also p. 24) is slightly more guarded.

⁷⁵ van Ess, J., Die Erkenntnislehre des 'Aḍudaddin al-Īci, Wiesbaden, 1966, 57–9Google Scholar.

⁷⁶ 1 am not sure why van Ess selects the form dialexis rather than dialektikē; it is not used by Horovitz or van den Bergh in the passages he cites. It is however well-attested as a term for a (theological) disputation (Anastasius, , Hodigos, cols. 37, 53, 161Google Scholar, and cf. the use of lalein at col. 36), and to that extent is clearly germane.

⁷⁷ Smith, R. Payne, Thesaurus Syriacus, Oxford, 1879–1901, cols. 2114 fGoogle Scholar. Jacob of Edessa makes contemptuous use of the diminutive m^elīlōnā in an epistle there cited.

⁷⁸ The dialogue of 644 is described in the heading as a mamlā which the Patriarch had (mallei) with the emir (Nau, , ‘Colloque’, 248 = 257)Google Scholar. The Maronite Life of Maximus offers mamlā da-sfīstūtā (‘sophistic discourses’), mell^etā da-v'ātā and mell^etā da-drāshā (Brock, , ‘An early Syriac Life’, 305Google Scholar,1. 7 f., 311,1. 6). But note that mell^etā does not here appear alone in the relevant sense, and is pleonastic: the second elements in each case appear by themselves with the same sense in the Maronite chronicle (see Nöldeke, T., ‘Zur Geschichte der Araber im 1. Jahrh. d. H. aus syrischen Quellen’, ZDMG, XXIX, 1876, 90, 11. 3, 12)Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ The Encyclopaedia of Islam (first ed.), art. ‘Kalām’. Macdonald's examples are clearly taken from the Thesaurus.

⁸⁰ Payne Smith, Thesaurus, col. 2110; this regularly translates theologos as the epithet of Gregory of Nazianzus. In general, m^emallel renders the Greek -logos (m^emallel k^eyānāyātā = physiologos, etc.). It is accordingly not a valid objection to Macdonald that one occasionally hears of mutakallims in fields other than theology in Islam (van Ess, , Erkenntnislehre, 57)Google Scholar.

⁸¹ Smith, Thesaurus, col. 2116. The term appears frequently in the section of the polemic of Peter of Callinicum (d. 591) against Damian of Antioch contained in the Monophysite first half of Add. 7192 (see for example fols. 38b, 39b; for this polemic, see Baumstark, , Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, 177Google Scholar).

⁸² The term is used of a rather pedestrian collection of ‘demonstrations against various heresies’ in Add. 12,155, these being referred to at fol. 32b as ‘chapters of mamlā allāhāyā or divine theology’ (the last word is Greek in transcription).

⁸³ Vajda, G., Introduction à la pensée juive du moyen âge, Paris, 1947, 27 (my italics). The passage on p. 26 regarding kalām in the sense of ‘argument’ is not concerned with pre-Islamic originsGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁴ Draguet's comment on the genre is scathing: ‘La valeur doctrinale de la dialectique de ces deux pièces est mince, et l'interêt qu'elles offrent pour l'histoire des doctrines est minime’ (Julien d'Halicarnasse, 86).

⁸⁵ See Crone and Cook, Hagarism, part III.

⁸⁶ Pines, S., ‘A note on an early meaning of the term mutakallim’, Israel Oriental Studies, I, 1971Google Scholar. Van Ess has criticized this argument in two places (‘Beginnings’, 104, n. 64; Anfänge, 20, n. 1), and extended its documentation in another (‘Untersuchungen zu einigen ibāditischen Handschriften’, ZDMG, CXXVI, 1976Google Scholar, item 6, especially pp. 49–52).

⁸⁷ I would like to thank Dr F. W. Zimmermann for encouragement, comments, and discussion.