Inhalt: | Front Matter /Rifaat Ebied and David Thomas -- ʿAlī ibn Rabban al-Ṭabarī, Fragments of a Life /Rifaat Ebied and David Thomas -- The Manuscripts and Language of ʿAlī al-Ṭabarī’s Polemical Works /Rifaat Ebied and David Thomas -- Al-radd ʿalā l-Naṣārā, Introduction /Rifaat Ebied and David Thomas -- The Refutation of the Christians /Rifaat Ebied and David Thomas -- Kitāb al-dīn wa-l-dawla, Introduction /Rifaat Ebied and David Thomas -- The Book of Religion and Empire /Rifaat Ebied and David Thomas -- Bibliography /Rifaat Ebied and David Thomas -- Indexes /Rifaat Ebied and David Thomas. Acknowledged as a leading medical expert in his day, and secretary to a succession of caliphs in the mid-ninth century, the Nestorian Christian ʿAlī ibn Rabban al-Ṭabarī converted to Islam around the age of 70. He then wrote Radd ʿalā l-Naṣārā , a recantation of his former faith, and Kitāb al-dīn wa-l-dawla , a defence of the Prophet Muḥammad based substantially on biblical proof-texts. The range of arguments he produced against the soundness of his former faith in these two works influenced sections of Islamic scholarship for many centuries. These new editions and translations of his works are based on all the available evidence for the texts, accompanied by extensive introductions and studies of their place in Islamic thought |
