Byzantine Theology and Islam: Paul of Antioch’s Irenic Approach

Abstract

For the West, Islam has generally been seen as a typical example of exotic, dangerous and unknown culture, whereas for the Byzantines, Islam was much better known, since they have to live together with Muslims for centuries and therefore their attitude could not have been uniformly hostile but consisted of manifold attempts to hold a (theological) dialogue. The paper presents some key features of the heterogeneous Byzantine theology of Islam within the corpus of the theological polemical works which have been produced from 7th to the 13th century. After examining the first Byzantine theologian who wrote on Islam, John Damascene (ca. 676–749), who gained knowledge of Islam at first hand, as a civil servant in the court of the Umayyad Caliph in Damascus, the present study examines one relatively unknown work, Paul of Antioch’s Letter to a Muslim Friend (MS Sinai Arabic 448; 531), written in Arabic somewhere around 1200, which is a unique among Byzantine polemics for Paul’s irenic approach and its copious use of quotes from the Qur’an. Approach of this Melkite bishop of Sidon is characterized by presenting Muslim beliefs as misunderstandings rather as plainly false and heretic. Although still applies a clear apologetic approach, Paul’s Letter is investigated in the perspective of the theological dialogue between Christians and Muslims.