13th centuries CE), most of it written by Muslims, although examples exist of
Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, and Manichaean writings of this kind. These
writings can be classified as theological writings on religious others, with
different degrees of openness to understanding religious others on their own
terms. In the case of Muslims writing on religious others, these ‘others’ are found
both within a broadly defined Islamic community, that is, different Islamic
schools of thought (madhÇhib), as well as beyond it, that is, religions other
than Islam, almost always starting with the people of the book (Jews, Christians,
and in some cases, Zoroastrians and Manichaeans) and then moving on to other
people. Most writings on religious others are written from the center to the
periphery, where the center is the author’s particular interpretation of Islam
and the rest depends on this center as well as the understanding, implicit more
often than explicit, of where the boundary between Islam and non-Islam lies.
Muslim writings on religious others do not all come in the form of one clear
genre. There existed a broader classification of writings on religious others,
summarized in the following chart:Islamic Centuries (AH) II III IV V VI–IX X–XIII Total
Common Era (CE) 8 9 10 11 12–15 16–19- Refutations 11 31 3 5 7 2 59
- Descriptions 773732 29
- General heresiographies or
literature on religious others 56682 27
Miscellaneous (histories,
encyclopedias, etc.) 6 1 7
TOTAL 18 49 13 18 18 6 122
This chart seeks to include all known pre-modern Muslim writings on
non-Muslim religious others. It is based on Monnot’s initial chart covering
thirteen Islamic centuries of literature on non-Biblical others (Monnot 1985:
44). In order to be inclusive of all non-Muslim religious others, I added
Anawati’s (1969: 375–451) list of pre-modern Muslim writings on Christianity
as well as Adang’s (1996) surveys of major Muslim Arabic writings on Jews
and Judaism up to the middle of the eleventh century CE(see also Lazarus-
Yafeh 1992: 19–49, and for Jewish views pp. 143–160).
This chart is useful for two reasons. First, it provides an overview of the
production of Arabic writings on religious others over the entire span of pre-
modern Islamic history produced in the geographical areas mostly included in
NAWA. Second, it contrasts three clear genres, and one miscellaneous category,80
PATRICE BRODEUR