L’Apologie de ʿAbd al-Masīḥ al-Kindī: interprétation et falsification de la Parole de Dieu

Among the works that fuelled the Islamic-Christian controversy, one of the most prominent, for various reasons, is the Risālat al-Hāšimī wa-Risālat al-Kindī (Epistle of al-Hāšimī and Epistle of al-Kindī), known as the Apology of al-Kindī, written during the caliphate of al-Maʾmūn. Formally the Apology consists of two letters of unequal length, one by the Muslim, ʿAbd Allāh al-Hāšimī and the other by the Christian, ʿAbd al-Masīḥ al-Kindī. In the first letter, the Muslim invites the Christian to convert to Islam in cordial and succinct terms. In the second letter, al-Kindī refutes every as¬sertion of his interlocutor at great length. The Christian not only resorts to the major arguments of Muslim-Christian polemic, but, differently from eve¬ry other apologist of the first Abbasid era, reserves an entire section of his Epistle to the analysis of the Qur’an. In fact in the second part of book two, he focuses his attention on the genesis and transmission of the Islamic Holy Book and its interpretation. The Qur’an, in fact, is not only the object of investigation but also becomes an exegetical instrument.