Early Muslim Polemic Against Christianity: Abu 'Isa Al-Warraq's "Against the Incarnation." (Book Review‪)‬

Early Muslim Polemic against Christianity: Abu 'Isa al-Warraq's "Against the Incarnation." By DAVID THOMAS. University of Cambridge Oriental Publications, no. 59. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2002. Pp. x + 314. $65. The response of the Jacobite (West Syrian) Christian theologian Yahya b. 'Adi (d. 362/972) to the polemic of the heterodox Mu'tazili Abu 'Isa al-Warraq (d. ca. 247/861, see pp. 23-25) has long been recognized as an exceptionally important example of Muslim-Christian theological interaction. Already in the early twentieth century A. Perier planned to publish a complete edition of this work in two parts (Trinity and Incarnation), when his manuscript was destroyed during the First World War. (1) A. Abel later edited Yahya's quotations of Abu 'Isa in the chapter on the Incarnation. (2) In 1987 E. Platti edited and translated the full text of this chapter in Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (vols. 490-91). Five years later D. Thomas edited and translated Yahya's quotations of Abu 'Isa in the chapter on the Trinity. (3) Thomas has now returned to the chapter on the Incarnation and, like Abel, edited and translated only the quotations of Abu 'Isa therein, adding to it his quotations in the introductory section at the opening of the chapter on the Trinity. Thomas also provides a substantial introduction to the context, life, and thought of Abu 'Isa.