Al-Radd al-jamil, A Fitting Refutation of the Divinity of Jesus Attributed to Abu Hamid al-Ghazali.

• Author: Cucarella, Diego R. Sarrio
• Position: Book review

Al-Radd al-jamil, A Fitting Refutation of the Divinity of Jesus Attributed to Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. Edited by MARK BEAUMONT and MAHA EL KAISY-FRIEMUTH. History of Christian-Muslim Relations, vol. 28. Leiden: BRILL, 2016. Pp. vii + 207. $125, [euro]104.

The volume under review is essentially a new critical edition and English translation of al-Radd al-jamil li-ilahiyyat 'Isa bi-sarih al-lnjil (A Fitting Refutation of the Divinity of Jesus from the Evidence of the Gospel), based on three extant manuscripts, two of which attribute this work of anti-Christian polemic to Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111), one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Islam. The two editors, Mark Beaumont (London School of Theology) and Maha El Kaisy-Friemuth (Erlangen-Nurnberg University), are already known from previous publications on al-Radd al-jamil, which are the groundwork for the introductory essays of the present volume. Described as "the most extensive and detailed refutation of the divinity of Jesus by a Muslim author in the classical period of Islam" (back cover), al-Radd al-jamil has been on the radar of scholars interested in medieval Muslim-Christian polemics ever since the French orientalist Louis Massignon published his article "Le Christ dans les Evangiles, selon al-Ghazali" in Revue des etudes islamiques in 1932. The first edition of al-Radd al-jamil, based on the aforementioned three manuscripts, was published seven years later by the Lebanese Jesuit Robert Chidiac, with a side-by-side French translation. The Arabic text established by Chidiac (1939) served as the basis for a German translation (Wilms 1966) and for the more recent Italian translation (Peta 2013). Chidiac's edition was likewise the basis for Arthur J. Arberry's English translation of a section from al-Radd al-jamil (1964) and for James Sweetman's extended presentation of the arguments of the entire work (1955). Thus, while Beaumont and El Kaisy-Friemuth cannot be said to be navigating totally uncharted waters here, they do have the distinction of presenting the first complete English translation of al-Radd al-jamil based on their new critical edition of the three known manuscripts.

They must also be credited with putting the spotlight back on a remarkable work that has not yet yielded all its secrets, the first and foremost being the identity of its author. El Kaisy-Friemuth devotes the first chapter (pp. 1-32) to reviewing the scholarly debate on the authorship of al-Radd al-jamil. Massignon's conviction that al-Ghazali authored this polemical work, apparently shared by Roger Arnaldez (1953), has long since been abandoned. Likewise, the view first advocated by Chidiac has also lost...