Debating the Faith in Early Islamic Egypt

Abstract

This article explores a series of doctrinal disputations held in early Islamic Egypt, and known through theHodegosof Anastasius of Sinai (fl. c. 670–c. 700). Using the text's prosopographical and contextual cues, it argues that these disputations occurred in the 680s, in the aftermath of Constantinople's Sixth Ecumenical Council (680/1), the decisions of which had thrown the Chalcedonian Christians of the caliphate into conflict and schism. In 686, it is argued, Anastasius had confronted the famed Edessene and Severan Athanasius bar Gūmōyē before the Marwānid prince ‘Abd al-'Azīz at Fusṭāṭ, and there been defeated. That defeat is indicative of the new-found position of the Egyptian Severan Church, which now flourished under Marwānid patronage.