الحوار الإسلامي المسيحي من خلال الكتابات العربية لمسيحيي فلسطين خلال القرون الأولى للفتح الإسلامي

Abstract

With the conquest of Palestine by the Muslim Arabs (637/638) the whole area started a new age: all, Christians, Jews and Muslims lived under the Islamic rule. The most important element of this period was the adoption of the Arabic language by the Christians, as a new lingua franca. Arabic, slowly became the ecclesiastical, liturgical, theological and cultural language after having been used for years as the daily language. The monks translated into Arabic the ancient Greek treasures of philosophy and science and for that reason some ancient works survived up to date. In addition, Christian theologians felt necessary to write apologetic and theological works in Arabic to explain for the new religion’s followers, i.e. the Muslims, what does it mean to believe in the Trinitarian God and the incarnated Word and Son of God.

 In this article I will show how the Muslim-Christian dialogue was realized. It will be made through an examination of the first three apologetic works of the Melkite school of Palestine: 1) “On the Trinitarian nature of God”, 2) “The dialogue between Abū Qurrah and the Caliph al-Maʼmūn”, and 3) “The dialogue between the Monk Ibrāhīm of Tiberias and the Emir ʻAbd ar-Raḥmān al-Hāšimī”. The objective of this article is to show: 1) How important is to have an honest dialogue between Muslims and Christians; 2) The necessity to know the other’s Scriptures and faith as it is expressed and explained; 3) To respect him even if he was opposed to the personal believe; and 4) How the Arab Christian heritage could be a key and instrument to build a good Muslim-Christian dialogue in an academic level today.