Muslim-Christian Polemics in Safavid Iran
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
Published:3rd Mar '22
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

This book explores the history of Muslim-Christian theological exchanges in Iran during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Focused on the work of the renegade missionary ‘Ali Quli Jadid al-Islam (d. 1734), it contributes to ongoing debates on the nature of confessionalism, interreligious encounters, and cultural translation in early modern Muslim empires. By disentangling the connections between polemics and other forms of Islamic learning and by emphasizing the Shi‘i character of the case in question, this study accounts for the dynamism of polemics as an ever-evolving genre capable to adapt to different historical contexts.
On the whole Tiburcio provides a coherent analysis of Jadīd al-Islām’s writings, and his close attention to primary sources in non-European languages is commendable [...] Tiburcio is able to situate Jadīd al-Islām’s writings within the broader intellectual context of Muslim-Christian engagement in Safavid Iran. -- Kioumars Ghereghlou * Journal of the American Oriental Society *
A welcome addition to the small but growing literature on the role of European missionaries and the effect of their activities in Safavid Iran. It makes a particularly valuable contribution to the question of conversion and religious disputation at the time, with an eye to the question whether the originally European concept of confessionalism is applicable to early modern Iran. * Rudolph Matthee, Munroe Chaired Professor of History, University of Delaware *
A welcome addition to the literature on the polemical and sectarian milieu of the early modern empires, Tiburcio’s monograph demonstrates how polemical literature can shed light on the theological and philosophical debates of the period and draw attention to the exchange of ideas in a wider connected intellectual history of the period. At its heart it is a deep case study of what happened to a European Christian as he became vernacularized and transformed in a non-European context, and how the resources of confessional missionary activity were turned onto their proponents. A valuable contribution to Safavid intellectual history. * Sajjad H. Rizvi, University of Exeter *
ISBN: 9781474440479
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
232 pages