Christians and Tafsīr

Interreligious Readings of Muslim Exegetical Sources from the Middle Ages to Early-Modern Times

Ulisse Cecini

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN:
  9783111444796
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Religion

Most of the scholarly research about the Christian textual production engaging with Islam in medieval and early modern times concentrates on the role of the Qur'anic text in such works. The role of Tafs?r (Qur'an commentary) in those texts has not been directly and systematically object of research. This book reunites contributions by international specialists that look for the presence of Tafs?r in texts by authors that go from Syrian and Coptic Christians from the 8^th and 11^th centuries (like John of Damascus and B?lu? ibn Raj??) to Latin scholars on the Iberian Peninsula in the high Middle Ages (Robert of Ketton, Ramon Martí) and at the Renaissance court of the Duke of Urbino (Flavius Mithridates), finally dealing with the use of Tafs?r by early-modern intellectuals in eastern and western Europe in their efforts in the fields of philology, interreligious polemics, linguistics and historical studies (with contributions, among others, on the Lead Books of Granada, Abraham Wheelock, Germanus de Silesia, Ludovico Marracci and Dimitrie Cantemir). This shows the relevance of Tafs?r in Christian textual production and fills the gap about this fundamental aspect of Christian-Muslim relations.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Frontmatter
• Contents
• Introduction
• Qur’an Commentaries in Medieval Christian Arabic Texts
• Towards the Identification of the Exegetical Material Used by Robert of Ketton in His Latin Translation of the Qur’an (536–37/1142–43)
• Ramon Martí and Tafsīr
• Reading Qur’an and Tafsīr from a Hebrew Perspective? Remarks on Flavius Mithridates’ Translations and Commentaries in Manuscripts Urb. Lat. 1384 and Vat. Ebr. 357
• Latin Translation of Muslim Exegesis in the Margins of the “Qur’an of Flavius Mithridates” (Manuscript Vat. Ebr. 357, fol. 51r–156r). Content, Preliminary Analysis and Questions
• Ludovico Marracci’s Use of Tafsīr and His Interpretation of Jesus’ Demise in the Sacromonte Lead Books
• Between Exegesis and Linguistics: Ludovico Marracci’s Latin Translation of the Qur’an
• An Analysis of Dominicus Germanus de Silesia’s Incorporation of Tafsīr in His Interpretatio Alcorani Litteralis (ca. 1652–70)
• Fábulas de Mahoma: a Late Antialcorán Literature Work by the Franciscan Pedro de Alcántara, Marrakech (17th century)
• Shaping a Christian Arabic Vocabulary through European Orientalism in the 16th–17th Centuries
• The Orientalist Turn to Tafsīr: Abraham Wheelock’s Qur’an
• In the Workshop of an Eastern Christian Orientalist: Dimitrie Cantemir (d. 1723) and the Islamic Sources of the System or Structure of the Muḥammadan Religion
• Indices