Muslim-Christian Polemics in Safavid Iran.

• Author: Ghereghlou, Kioumars

Muslim-Christian Polemics in Safavid Iran. By ALBERTO TlBURCTO. Edinburgh: EDINBURGH UNIVER-SITY PRESS, 2020. Pp. viii + 223. $125.

The existing literature on Safavid Iran's (1501-1722) encounter with Christianity can be divided into two categories. One consists mainly of critical editions of polemical treatises and biblical translations composed under the later Safavids (and also directly after, during the Afsharid reign 1735-1747). The other ranges more broadly in scope, bringing into focus the trends and events that shaped the development of Muslim-Christian engagement in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Iran. The volume under review by Alberto Tiburcio is one of the latest additions to the second category, the growing body of historical research on Muslim-Christian polemics in early modern Iran: its publication is preceded by John M. Flannery's study of the Augustinian Catholic mission in Isfahan The Mission of the Portuguese Augustinians to Persia and Beyond (1602-1747) (Leiden: Brill. 2013) and. more recently, by Scott D. Ayler's The Letters of Henry Martyn: East India Company Chaplain (Woodbridge: Boydell Press. 2019). The significance of Martyn's (d. 1812) correspondence for the history of Muslim-Christian polemics under the Safavids and their immediate successors notwithstanding, the volume under review omits mention of his references to various aspects of Christian-Muslim engagement in late Safavid Iran (especially pp. 293-327 of Ayler's edition), possibly due to the close publishing timetable.

Concentrating on the work of the Portuguese convert and polemicist Antonio de Jesus, also known as 'A1i Quli Jadid al-Islam (d. 1734), Tiburcio takes an interpretative approach in his consideration of polemical sources. The book consists of six chapters plus an introduction and conclusion. The introduction is rather brief, providing a quick literature review, which may prove confusing rather than enlightening. For instance, Tiburcio brings up theories and concepts such as "confessionalization," "ahl al-bayt," and "ahl al-baytism," and then fails to make clear how these notions relate to the study of the life and works of a European convert in Safavid Isfahan.

Chapter one provides a short history of missionaries in the country in the seventeenth century and concludes with an account of the life and times of Padre Antonio de Jesus. Tiburcio's examination of the Safavid authorities' mistreatment of Christian communities in Iran is...