Interreligious Polemics

Materi kuliah Agama. Slide singkat dan sederhana tentang Prasangka dan Stereotip yang dikaitkan dengan relasi antaragama dan nilai-nilai skriptural beberapa agama. Isu yang didiskusikan antara lain definisi prasangka, sterotip, dan pertanyaan apakah prasangka dan stereotip dapat dihilangkan? Juga membahas tahapan-tahapan melampaui prasangka dan stereotip dalam kaitan dengan nilai antaragama.

Throughout history, Interfaith Dialogue has been a continuous activity in Muslims and Christians alike. According to the historian, incident of Wafad-e-Najran[i] (Najran’s Delegation) was the first ever regular interaction between Muslims and Christians.  Therefore, this incident has an academic and historic importance in Muslim -Christian perspectives.  The Holy Quran describes this incident in detail. First 80 verses of Surah Ale-Imran were revealed in this context.  Further information is found in the books of Hadith, Seerah and Islamic History. This incident can become a base for modern Muslim- Christian Dialogue and we can derive from it some basic principles of Dialogue. This article elaborates the incident of Wafad-e-Najran, its importance and also derives some important rules from it. These principles are: interfaith tolerance, harmony, communication, understandings, peaceful co-existence, honour and respect, wisdom and beautiful reasoning, common basis for interfaith dialog...

This article contributes to the documentation of the circulation and readership of Makarios Magnes’s Monogenes in the twelfth-century Norman Kingdom of Sicily. It discloses the existence of extensive Makarian appropriations in Philagathos of Cerami’s homilies For the Feast of the Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, and On the Man Possessed by a Legion of Demons. Philagathos appropriated several anti-Christian arguments together with their refutation from the late antique treatise. Overall, these findings provide new evidence on the transmission of a seminal repository of anti-Christian polemics across the Middle Ages, probably going back to Porphyry of Tyre’s Contra Christianos.

The textual basis of Islamic interreligious hermeneutics is found considering the concepts of the "other" in the Qurʿān. To be able to substantiate interreligious hermeneutics in an Islamic way, it is necessary to examine qurʾanic verses that deal with people of other faiths from the original community of the Qurʿān. In Muslim scholarship, the qurʾanic verses on the Christians and Jews of the Arabian Peninsula are mainly interpreted for the purpose of claiming absoluteness and establishing a Muslim identity. Obvious consideration of the Qurʿān leads to the impression that the adherents of the monotheistic faith traditions of the Ḥijāz form a milieu of origin which is characterized, above all, by the mystical objectivity and falseness of their theological arguments. In the centuries to come, the activity of Muslim exegetes shows that the formation of Islamic identity is related to the perspective of the People of the Book - mainly Arab Jews and Syro-Aramaic Christians. Apologetic tracts focus on the qurʾanic charge of taḥrīf (forgery), which is still present in Muslim thought today. The Qurʾānic term taḥrīf is mainly understood as a falsification of divine revelation, in this case as a deliberate modification of texts or oral traditions of the "book" (al-kitāb) revealed to a prophet. Here the accusation of the Qurʾān refers to al-injīl, which is often understood as "gospel". However, to better classify the culture of discussion in the Qurʾān and to create a hermeneutic basis for understanding the "other", it must be clarified what the Qurʾān means by "falsification" and "al-injīl". A detailed look at the verses in the Qurʿān in which the terms al-kitāb, al-injīl and at-taḥrīf are mentioned reveals a discrepancy with the interpretation of the early Muslim exegetes. In my contribution, I would like to dare to consider the qurʾanic taḥrīf thought, which elicits the textual immanence of the verses mentioned and embeds them in their revelational context. This article will also take up the qurʾanic accusation of taḥrīf against Christians and its reinterpretation by early Muslim exegetes up to the 9th century AD. So how different is "the other" in the qurʾanic sense, and how can considering the taḥrīf verses serve as the theological basis for Islamic interreligious hermeneutics?

The Holy Quran is the topmost and unanimously scripture of the Islamic religion. Although many, many introductory books have been written on the Holy Quran, there are still many untold aspects of it. This is no strange, for it is the intact Divine scripture, hence above all other books.

What would one predict for the outcome for a crucial global debate in which one side forcefully insists on the truth and historicity of its claims and the other side only tentatively suggests vague "mythic" and "psychological" perceptions. Last year I began to write about Jordan Peterson's video conversations with Muslims on my substack "Writing about Islam". https://gordonnickel.substack.com/p/jordan-peterson-on-islam
When I got to the videos Peterson made with Mohammed Hijab, however, I realized that they needed a more vigorous level of analysis. At that time I wanted to write an essay in honor of Dr. Ron Dart, a friend colleague who had edited a book on Peterson amazon.com/dp/B086R83FGG/
So I picked up on Dr. Dart's analysis of Peterson in that collection and focused some of the important issues in Peterson's conversations with Hijab.
amazon.com/dp/B0CZPH667Q/

This is the first critical edition and study of a unique and important Muslim polemic against Christians and Jews. The Book of Disputation was written in Arabic by a Mudejar (subject Muslim living under Christian rule in late medieval Iberia) and offers new insight into the cultural and intellectual life of this Muslim minority. The text advances arguments drawn from natural philosophy—largely from Aristotle and Averroes—along with more traditional revealed sources such as the Qurʾān and the Bible.
Mudejar communities suffered a diminution of religious and political intelligentsia over time. This text, however, highlights the author's particular conception of the world as the creation of God in his defense of Islam, demonstrates the vitality of intellectual life among Muslims in medieval Christian Iberia, and documents the continued cultivation of natural philosophy within these Muslim communities.
https://brill.com/display/title/70056

Paper presented at the Seventh Annual Conference of the European Academy of Religion (EuARe2024), Palermo, Italy, 20-23 May 2024.
Panel: “The Nicene Constantinopolitan Symbol in its Arabic Version: between Christian Apologia and Islamic Controversy” – Biblioteca Giorgio La Pira, Palermo, 22 May 2024.

Sala Armi, Palazzo Malvezzi, via Zamboni 22, Bologna.
Nel mondo globale della Monarchia iberica, quali immagini e libri vennero utilizzati per promuovere pacificazione e salvezza, concordia e felicità? Il convegno esplora come tali opere agirono in un impero di conflitti sociali, politici e religiosi.
https://www.newberry.org/calendar/empire-of-concord-communities-and-authority-in-the-early-modern-iberian-worlds
Images and texts praising a merciful Catholic Church and a triumphant Habsburg Empire propagated a (fictitious?) projection of harmonious reality. Views of ideal communities committed to sharing instrumental virtues clashed with potentially disruptive factors: a planetary empire, political enemies, religious Otherness, and competitive sovereignties. Whereas the social and moral models promoted were presented under the banner of concord and perfection, the promise of happiness and salvation entailed a forced and centralizing pacification of dissents and conflicts.
What images and books were favored to captivate souls, soothe disparities, and uplift consciences? What practices were applied to propose a sense of belonging and legitimize authority? This symposium analyzes how religious orders, political rulers, images, and books conceived and distributed views regarding society and morality throughout the Habsburg Monarchy and its spaces of allegiance and interference. What works united, consoled, or (dis)connected the Iberian worlds? What–in the proximity granted by a newly expanded circulation–was transformed, omitted, or over-emphasized, and why?
Organizzato da: Maria Vittoria Spissu, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow.
In collaborazione con: Center for Renaissance Studies, The Newberry Library, Chicago.
Con: Saint Louis University Center for Iberian Historical Studies.

Tercüme Tarihinde Almanca Kur'an Meallerinin Farklılıkları Öz Bu çalışmada Almanya'da 18. yüzyıla kadar hazırlanmış bazı mealler hakkında kısaca bilgi verdikten sonra, söz konusu meallerin güvenirliği ve asıl kaynağa olan bağı ile ilgili yine Alman meallerindeki eleştiriler ele alınmıştır. O zamana kadar yazılan meallerin dayanağının 1143 yılında Latince hazırlanan meal olduğu ve bu mealin pek çok hata, eksiklik ve ifade bozukluğu içerdiği diğer meal yazarları tarafından ortaya konduğu görülmüştür. Bu tür eksiklikler sebebiyle yeni bir meal yazma gereksinimi dile getirilmiş ve 18. yüzyılda George Sale'in İngilizce Kur'an meali Almancaya çevrilmiştir. Bu meale kadar Almanların karşı karşıya kaldığı meallerin eksikliği ve hataları sebebiyle yüzyıllar boyu Almanya'da Kur'an tanınmamış ve önyargılar ile karşılanmıştır. Bu sebeple bu çalışma ile Almanca Kur'an mealleri arasında önyargılardan uzak hazırlanmış bir meal üzerinde durulmuştur.

Médialité et interprétation contemporaine des premières guerres de Religion Cet ouvrage réunit les communications présentées lors d'un atelier qui s'est tenu les et 9 octobre 2012 à l'Institut historique allemand de Paris. La conception de cet atelier comprend trois éléments qui, chacun, nécessitent une explication: la concentration sur les premières années des guerres de Religion, avant la Saint-Barthélemy; l'accent mis sur l'interprétation donnée à ces guerres par les contemporains; enfin l'attention particulière attribuée à la dimension médiatique des conflits de ces années. I. Si nous proposons de focaliser les conflits avant la Saint-Barthélemy, nous ne mettons pas en question le concept historiographique des guerres de Religion. Ce concept permet non seulement d'analyser, dans son ensemble, la période de crise que traversa la France dans les décennies qui suivirent la mort d'Henri II 1 , mais aussi de saisir, dans un horizon européen, un type de conflit qui toucha un nombre considérable de corps politiques des XVI e et XVII e siècles 2. Au contraire de maints autres concepts historiographiques de l'époque moderne, celui des guerres de Religion se fonde sur une sémantique contemporaine. En France, Jean Bodin était parmi les premiers à parler de »guerres touchant le faict de la Religion«. En 1576, dans les »Six livres de la République«, il désigna de cette expression 1 Il n'est pas possible (ni nécessaire) de citer ici le grand nombre d'ouvrages sur les guerres de Religion françaises. Notons néanmoins que, si le début de cette période en 1562 (avec des antécédents depuis la mort d'Henri II) n'est guère mis en doute, sa fin est plus controversée. Car malgré l'importance indéniable de l'édit de Nantes, les conflits militaires sur le statut des huguenots ne se terminèrent qu'en 1629, après la chute de La Rochelle et l'édit d'Alès; cf. pour une datation tardive de la fin de cette période Mack P.

In August 1412, Gerónimo de Santa Fe, a recently Jewish convert to Christianity who was formerly known as Joshua ha-Lorki (i.e. of Lorca), submitted a 12-chapter polemical treatise titled Ad convincendum perfidiam Iudaeorum ('To Prove the Perfidy of the Jews') to the anti-pope Benedict XIII. The purpose of this treatise was to demonstrate how Talmudic and other Jewish homiletical sources substantiate the assertion that the Messiah has already come, and that the conditions under which the true Messiah should be examined were thoroughly fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Nearly all the excerpts in this treatise are taken from the magnum opus of a 13 th century Dominican friar named Raymundus Martini-Pugio fidei ('Dagger of Faith'). This is to a large extent a monumental collection of rabbinical texts designed to serve as a handbook for the Christian polemicist. Ha-Lorki composed his treatise as an outline for what would become one of the milestones in the pre-expulsion decline of Spanish Jewrya public debate later known as the Tortosa disputation (named for the Catalonian city where it was located). This debate of 69 sessions, took place between February 1413 and November 1414 in the presence of the pope, high clergymen and other notables, alongside many local residents. Aragonese and Catalan Jewish communities were ordered by the pope to send their representatives to the papal curia in Tortosa, no later than January 15 th 1413. They appointed roughly 20 people who

A Conversation between a Muslim and a Christian is, effectively, a written debate. The joint introduction states that the book embodies the kind of friendship that is a "perpetual dog-fight". (xii) That accurate summary determines the book's achievements and limitations. Peter Barnes and Mohamad Younes have, respectively, a doctorate in church history and a Master's degree in Islamic Ethics. The content is decidedly popular not academic, and is easily accessible. A Conversation covers eleven diverse topics in 122 pages: God's identity, scripture, scriptural reliability, prophets, humankind, Jesus, Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, Muhammad in the Bible?, Paul, salvation, and living as a believer. Rather than careful academic discussion, both authors trade in apologetics and polemics. Points are heaped up on top of one another in a racy style that is typical of Muslim-Christian debates. The arguments in this book embody the quote attributed to Stalin: quantity has a quality all of its own.

» segue le procedure internazionali della blind peer review. Il contenuto di «Chiesa e Storia» è indicizzato (completamente o parzialmente) o fatto og getto di abstracts analitici nel seguente strumento di ricerca: Progetto Riviste online (a cura di F. Testaferri, Italia). La rivista è presente in Ebsco Publishing.

This is a thematic investigation into defamatory practices in the Republic of Letters of the late sixteenth century and first half of the seventeenth century, especially among the humanist networks centring on France and the Low Countries and their contacts in German-or English-speaking regions. Against a background of civil war in either region, scholars of repute or of high public visibility were prone to being vilified in intellectual and personal terms; indeed, they were often themselves no strangers to abusive language. Taking into account both historical and recent studies of polemics and drawing on a variety of humanist writing (emblems, poetry, letters, etc.), the paper reviews how gossip and calumny were conceived of in the period (c. 1560-1650) and what strategies were deployed in dealing with malicious tongues. Most importantly, the present study demonstrates that preserving the memory of such clashes and altercation contributed to the sense of self and community amongst a scholarly elite, not just across borders but also in some cases across generations.

Bassam Zawadi "The Qur'an acknowledges the textual integrity of the Bible" is a favored argument employed by Christian missionaries in their discourse against Islam. Fortunately, numerous Muslims, myself included, have previously addressed these flawed arguments; see here: Does Islam Endorse The Bible? .

This paper applies Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue, specifically focusing on the process of reading the sacred Scriptures of others alongside one's own. The dialogue process in this study is promoted as a means of mutual understanding and spiritual enrichment. An exercise in dialogue is framed as an exercise in listening, encompassing active listening to 'the other' and self-reflection to understand one's prejudices and strengths. Themes covered in this article include the stories of religious communities and their prophets, as well as different perspectives from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures describing the dynamics of the God-human relationship. The didactics of various sacred scriptures are brought to light, whether to their own religious communities or to humanity due to their universal appeal. The study examines the Qur'an, Torah, Halachah: Talmud and Mishna, Midrash, Gospels, and Christian exegesis. Overall, this study offers an opportunity and a fruitful way of studying the scriptures of others for personal benefit in cultural, religious, social, and theological spheres.

One of the main topics throughout Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā's long career as a religious and social reformer was the issue of educational reform as a necessary precondition for all other kinds of renewal. Apart from general articles on the importance of knowledge and education which he penned for his journal al-Manār, he made two more concrete and specific efforts in this regard: First, Rashīd Riḍā himself founded an institution of higher learning (Dār al-daʿwa wa-l-irshād) which was intended to train graduates according to his vision of a combination of religious and worldly subjects. And secondly, the discussion of the relevance of natural sciences also took place in al-Manār, mainly in contributions by Muḥammad Tawfīq Ṣidqī, a trained physician whose articles illustrate the balancing act religious reformers had to perform in order to reconcile their religious convictions with scientific findings.

The word nabtahil, which appears only once in the Qur’an in Q 3:61, has become the basis of a fairly well-known practice in pre-modern and modern Islam called mubāhala, “mutual cursing” due to the verse’s alleged connection to a cursing duel  between  Muhammad  and  Christians  from  Najran.  Some  exegetes,  however,  took it to mean “to pray humbly/sincerely”. This article argues that among the two explanations offered by Muslim scholars and exegetes for ibtahala, “to pray” and “to curse”, the latter is quite probably incorrect and arose from a misinterpretation of the word’s solitary usage in the qur’anic verse whereas the former explanation fares  better  in  view  of  the  comparative  Semitic  evidence.  Having  evaluated  the  attestations of the word in Muslim sources and in other languages, I offer a third explanation, namely that the word ibtahala means “to debate”, based on a Classical Ethiopic cognate.

Au printemps 1560, le cardinal de Lorraine, Charles (1525-1574), dit avoir réuni sur son bureau vingt-deux »plaquars et libelles diffamatoires« 1 écrits contre lui. Il est alors la principale cible politique des calvinistes. Son frère aîné, le duc de Guise François (né en 1520), représente le principal chef nobiliaire défenseur du catholicisme en 1561 et, surtout, durant la première guerre de Religion (1562-1563) 2. Lorsqu'il est assassiné, en février 1563, il est alors loué comme le héros et le martyr de la cause catholique, ou voué aux gémonies par ses ennemis. Les deux frères, désignés par leurs contemporains comme »les Guises«-bien qu'ils aient quatre frères cadets-sont les principales figures médiatiques politiques depuis la mort d'Henri II (10 juillet 1559) jusqu'à la fin de la première guerre de Religion (19 mars 1563), que ce soit sous le règne de leur jeune neveu François II (1559-1560) ou bien lors des premières années de celui de Charles IX, roi encore mineur. Car derrière ces différentes séquences historiques, les années 1559-1563 affichent bien une unité: d'une part, parce qu'elles représentent l'entrée violente du royaume de France dans la crise politico-religieuse, le règne de François II étant déjà, à sa manière, marqué par une guerre de Religion; et d'autre part, parce que les Guises sont au coeur de cette période, comme acteurs politiques et comme figure(s) omniprésente(s) à travers les médias.

Muslim apologists argue that, yes, the original Bible contained the apocryphal story of Jesus making and animating clay birds, and that the Quran was actually correcting a wrongful exclusion of this apocryphal from the canon. Fine. Oscar Wilde thumbed his nose at such nitpicking: talent borrows, genius steals.

R. Menahem and I worked together on the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, who are hired at various hours of the day yet all receive the same payment (Mt. 20:1-16), producing a pair of articles. His article was published in the same issue of Immanuel, this was mine.

Sendo uma das principais obras de vikuah, o sefer Hizuk Emuná (Fé Fortalecida) é um dos tratados apologéticos mais famosos e lembrados da história judaica. Escrito originalmente em hebraico, em 1593, pelo rabi Isaac ben Avraham de Troki, sua versão final foi publicada com um prefácio e um índice acrescido por um de seus mais distintos discípulos, o rabi Yosef ben Mordechai Malinovski da Cracóvia. Em seu conteúdo, o autor sistematiza os resultados e conclusões que obteve de várias disputas religiosas realizadas com teólogos cristãos; entre eles, luteranos, calvinistas e unitaristas na cidade de Troki. O objetivo dele ao escrever sua obra, foi dar uma resposta completa a várias interpretações messiânicas da Bíblia Hebraica, especialmente aquelas que diziam respeito a passagens tradicionalmente usadas como prova dos dogmas cristãos.

An extensive research on the Sīrah (Biography of Prophet‫)ﷺ‬ has been conducted by both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars, resulting in diverse perspectives. Numerous authors have explored the life of the Prophet‫,ﷺ‬with mixed flavours-some based on biased research and some based on unbiased research. One among the non-Muslim voices who offers an unbiased assessment of the life of Prophet Muḥammad‫ﷺ‬ is K.S Ramakrishna Rao. He has authored a book titled "Muḥammad‫,ﷺ‬ The Prophet of Islam" which would be reviewed in the following pages. The book under review comprises of six insightful chapters,each delving into the life of Prophet Muḥammad‫ﷺ‬ with a nuanced perspective.What sets K.S. Ramakrishna Rao apart is his unique vantage point as a non-Muslim author. Despite his non-Islamic background, Rao's portrayal of the Prophet‫ﷺ‬ is notably favorable. Throughout the exploration of Prophet Muḥammad's‫ﷺ‬ life,Rao accentuates his role as a peacemaker and catalyst for social change. He describes Prophet Muḥammad‫ﷺ‬ as the perfect model for human life. He contends that comprehending the entirety of Muḥammad's‫ﷺ‬ personality is challenging, only allowing glimpses of it. Rao portrays Muḥammad‫ﷺ‬ as a multifaceted figure,encompassing roles such as the Prophet, Warrior, Businessman, Statesman, Orator, Reformer, Protector of Slaves, Emancipator of Women, and Judge. Within these diverse facets of human activity, Rao portrays Muḥammad‫ﷺ‬ as a hero, embodying excellence across various domains.

Geōrgios Koressios was a prolific theologian of the Greek Orthodox Church, but his personal details, literary corpus and theological thinking are still little known. His contemporaries were divided over his intellectual contribution. Whereas some admired him, such as Patriarch Nektarios of Jerusalem (1602-76), who considered him a wise and learned man and even wrote a eulogy about him, others such as Leo Allatius (1586-1669) or the Patriarch Kyrillos Loukaris (1572-1638) criticised him for his unpolished theological reasoning and lack of eloquence. Even more surprising is the fact that Koressios was the only layperson who was officially recognised as a 'grand theologian' of the Great Church of Constantinople (megas theologos tēs Megalēs Ekklēsias), a distinction he received in 1631. He was a polymath, with a keen interest in theology, natural sciences and philosophy. Besides marking him as a theologian, the manuscripts containing his works also refer to him as a medical doctor and philosopher (iatrophilosophos), which links him to the intellectual group of the iatrophilosophoi that flourished during the early modern Greek period. Koressios was born on the island of Chios around 1570 and died there in 1659 or 1660. Following the trend of Greek intellectuals of his time, he pursued a medical and philosophical education at the University of Padua in northern Italy. Before returning to his native island after the completion of his studies Koressios had a fruitful sojourn in Italy, which brought him both intellectual recognition and a professional career. Between 1611 and 1615, he taught Greek at the College of Pisa, which was supported by the Medici family. He entered into a dispute with the renowned Galileo Galilei regarding the Italian's hypotheses on the nature of solid bodies, which did not conclude to Koressios's advantage. While in Italy, he also published two treatises: one, The description of the famous ballgame that the Florentines name calcio, was composed in Greek and printed in Venice (1611), while the Treatise against the opinions raised by Galileo about solid bodies, was published in Florence in Italian (1612) as a response to Galileo's ideas. After 1615, Koressios travelled to Livorno and Marseille to practise medicine. Koressios returned to Chios in 1618 and remained there until his death, although he travelled on multiple occasions to Constantinople. In October 1627, he declined an offer of a teaching position in Venice. In Chios, he taught at the school founded on the premises of the Monastery of the Holy Anargyroi ('silverless doctors') Cosmas and Damian, two saints who performed medical work An edition of Exēgēsis, based on the best mss edited by O.-A. Negoiță is currently under preparation.

Touristic place provides discourses that are worth examining as to which how the management of the site, its internal contestation and development, as well as experiences of its visitors. Examining a heritage of the ancient Majapahit kingdom in Java, this article discusses the assemblage of tourism and religious sites and the extent the site serves as a reservoir for interreligious dialog in contemporary Indonesia. It tries to point out how interreligious dialogue is at work in this site and how surrounding communities participate and respond to the perseverance of the site. Finally, accentuating Swidler's theory of dialogues, this paper looks at the practice of interreligious dialogue at a touristic site and how religious harmony is negotiated by Buddhist and Muslim through the site and the construction of "the other" by both religious communities. [Artikel ini secara spesifik mengkaji tentang dialog antaragama dalam konteks wisata. Isu pertama dalam artikel ini memotret bagaimana berbagai komunitas menarik yang eksis dengan identitas agama yang berbeda-beda. Kemudian dilanjutkan dengan bagaimana relasi antaragama yang tercipta di tempat wisata dengan menggunakan pendekatan teori Swidler tentang definisi dialog, khususnya "dialogue of hand," tentang bagaimana mencari sisi baik dari

The meaning of uli al-abṣār in the Qur'an is generally the same. The context of the verse also does not make a significant difference. The interpretation of uli al-abṣār leads to people with vision and the ability to think. Sayyid Quṭb, on the other hand, holds a different viewpoint. These differences cannot be separated from his intellectual journey and the character of his interpretation, Fī Dhilāl al-Qur'ān. His interpretation demonstrates that the heart plays an important role in drawing lessons from Allah's stories and verses. This paper will explain the concept of uli al-abṣār from Sayyid Quṭb's interpretation. This study concludes that uli al-abṣār has four concepts: first, uli al-abṣār is not only associated with the zahir eye; second, uli al-abṣār is a person who consistently reads written verses and kauniyah; third, uli al-abṣār is the nature of the prophets; and fourth, uli al-abṣār is associated with good deeds.