EXEGETICAL CULTURES 2 | 197shall have more to say in the last. Both help define the First Millennium, the
thugs announcing the maturation of an early schism in Islam whose durabil-
ity recent events have illustrated; while the sages in their discussion circles
point to the channels for dialogue opened up by the period from Christ to
Ibn Sīnā, through contacts between traditions whose self- understanding—
but also differences—had been deepened over the centuries by the exegetical
communities surveyed in this chapter.