Can the Qur’ān be read in the light of Christ? Reflections on some Melkite authors and their use of the Holy Book of Islam

Can the Qur’ ā n be read in the light of Christ?


Introduction
The first Scripture for Christians was the Old Testament, which, however, they read in the light of Christ. For them, in disagreement with the Jews themselves, the prophecies of the OT regarding the Messiah were realized in Jesus Christ. In this case, Christians read the OT differently than did Jews, who continued to read the OT according to their tradition while refusing to accept Christ as the Messiah. The Qur'ān, however, accepts that Jesus Christ was al-Masīḥ, but rejects the doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ as the incarnate Son of God the Father. This was, in fact, one of the main differences between the two religions. For their part, Christians, although they did not recognize prophecy in Muḥammad, used the Holy Book of Muslims in their different writings, especially as proof-texting for apologetic purposes. In other words, I shall highlight a different reading of the Qur'ān: reading some of its verses in the light of Christ. A method that should be seen from a pastoral perspective and studied within the context of the Christians in the Islamic world when these texts were composed. This analysis aims also to understand the proposal and the eventual contribution of this reading of the Qur'ān to the modern interreligious dialogue. This paper will start by presenting the authors and the texts taken into examination. Next follows an analysis of some examples from these texts where Christian authors use Qur'ānic verses as proof texts for Trinitarian dogma and Christological faith to arrive at the end to some finale concluding remarks. 8

A) An Apology for Christian Faith
In 1899, Margaret Dunlop Gibson published an apologetic Arab Christian work that she found in a manuscript in the monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai which contains also an Arabic translation of the Acts of the Apostles and of the seven Catholic Epistles. 9 The manuscript dates back to the end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth century, and is cataloged under the code Ms. Sinai Arabic 154. 10 The scholar gave this work the title On the Triune Nature of apologetic work was composed between 753/754 or 754/755 A. D., i.e., the beginning of the second half of the 8 th century. 17 It is known that a monk by the name Mūsā al-Sīnaʼī copied the manuscript Ms. Sinai Arabic 154, 18 but he, unfortunately, did not mention the name of the author of the apology, who remains unknown to this day. Scholars were able to confirm that the work was written by a unique author 19 who belonged to the Melkite Church and was a monk in the region of Judaea or Sinai. 20 Particularities in his Arabic prove that he was an inhabitant of Palestine; we know that he also spoke Aramaic, since the work is full of influences of Aramaic-Syriac language of the region. 21 Indeed, the author's language belongs to what J. Blau called the ‚Old Arabic of South Palestine‛, the language used by Christians who lived in South Palestine, that is, from Judaea to Sinai. 22 Our work, then, is a Christian apology 23 written in the spoken Arabic 24 of South Palestine. Despite the simplicity of the work, it shows that the author knew very well the Bible, the tradition of his Church, 25 as well as the Qur'ān and Islamic doctrine until his time. 26 In this paper I will use the English partial translation of M. Swanson,27 and that of M. Gibson for the passages that are not translated by Swanson. I will also offer in footnotes the Arabic text according to Gibson's edition. 28

B) Al-Muğādalah between Abū Qurrah and al-Maʼmūn
Theodore Abū Qurrah was born in the city of Edessa (al-Rahā), likely between 740 and 755 AD. He studied medicine, philosophy, theology, and spoke Greek, Syriac and Arabic. According to some sources-although scholars today dispute this as a matter of historical fact 29 -he became a monk in the monastery of St. Saba in the desert of Judea that belonged to the Melkite Church. In the monastery, he studied in depth the Bible and the Church Fathers.
Despite the doubt regarding this information, a connection of our author with the monastic life of Palestine is probable. He frequently went to Jerusalem for religious rituals. He was consecrated in the year 795 the Bishop of the city of Ḥarrān (today in south Turkey at the border with Syria). According to one source, 30 Abū Qurrah left the episcopate, or he was deposed, and returned to Jerusalem, to his monastery, and spent his time studying and writing. It is known also that for many years he was the theologian of the Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem Thomas I (807-820). He was sent to Armenia where he had a dispute with the Miaphysite theologian Nonnus of Nisibis. Such a dispute probably took place between the years 813-817. 31 He traveled also to Baghdad and participated in dialogues with Muslim scholars (Mutakallimūn) and with other Christian theologians of different confessions. In the year 829, he met with the Caliph al-Ma'mūn (d. 833) and as requested by the Caliph, he participated in a dispute with Muslim scholars of the Muʻtazilah. 32 Abū Qurrah died shortly after this dispute, probably in the year 830. 33 He wrote in Arabic, Greek and Syriac, and his 29  literary corpus is large, even though not all the works attributed to him should be considered authentic. 34 In this paper, I am interested in the dispute of Abū Qurrah with the Caliph al-Maʼmūn. We know that the dispute really took place since it is mentioned by the historians of the time. In the last century, however, there was considerable debate among scholars concerning whether the text that reached us by a large number of manuscripts describes actually, what happened at al-Maʼmūn's court from the perspective of Abū Qurrah himself, or a composite dispute attributed to him. The editor of the critical text, W. Nasry, after making a detailed and in depth analysis of the content of the dispute, comparing it with other writings of Abū Qurrah, and searching for the historical information regarding the dispute, as well as, other points that we cannot present here, argued the authenticity of work and maintained that the content of the dispute and its doctrine scan be indeed attributed to Abū Qurrah. Moreover, he concluded that the text, as it arrived to us through the manuscripts, is not the one which, according to Michael the Syrian, was written by Abū Qurrah himself. 35 Even if there are still doubts among scholars regarding the authenticity of attributing this text to Abū Qurrah, it was chosen to be analyzed in this paper. We follow the English translation made by Nasry 36 giving in footnote the Arabic text of his critical edition. 37 ‚Theodore Abū Qurra‛, David Thomas 55 Concerning his Letter to a Muslim Friend there is no doubt regarding its authenticity. According to Griffith, it was written before 1232, 56 other scholars date it about 1200. 57 It is a letter in which the Bishop of Sidon answers some questions of a Muslim friend concerning the opinion of the Byzantines regarding Islam, the Qur'ān and the prophet Muḥammad. According to the text of the letter, Paul had made a Journey in the Land of the Rūm (Byzantines) and visited Constantinople, Rome and other places. 58 Scholars today consider the journey fictional, a literary device created by Paul, and reject that the travel took place as a point of fact. 59 As a consequence, they do not see behind Paul's text a reply to a Muslim, at least in the direct sense. 60 According to them, the primary audience of Paul is Arab-speaking Christians ‚to whom he hoped to show how Christian convictions can be reasonably explained from a Christian perspective in the learned discourse of the now dominant Islamic intellectual establishment, including a Christian reading of passages of the Quran‛. 61

The Qur'ān as a proof-text for Trinitarian doctrine
In some of its verses, the Qur'ān accuses some Christians, or better to say, a group of the People of the Book (ahl al-Kitāb), to be infidels or polytheists, as in the following 65 : Indeed, they who disbelieved among the People of the Scripture and the polytheists will be in the fire of Hell, abiding eternally therein. Those are the worst of creatures. (Q 98:6) Say, ‚O People of the Scripture, come to a word that is equitable between us and you -that we will not worship except Allah and not associate anything with Him and not take one another as lords instead of Allah‛. But if they turn away, then say, ‚Bear witness that we are Muslims [submitting to Him]‛. (Q 3:64) 61  In other places those who are accused of tritheism are not mentioned by name, they are considered however, infidels. Usually, such verses, as the following, are seen also against Christians, or a group of Christians: They have certainly disbelieved who say, ‚Allah is the third of three‛. And there is no god except one God. And if they do not desist from what they are saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment. (Q 5:73) Even if the verse quoted above does not define who the unbelievers are, and what is really intended by ‚third of three‛ (ṯāliṯ ṯalāṯah), reading the verses that precede and follow it 66 one might notice that the unbelievers are probably followers of Christ that consider Him God. 67 Some modern Muslim thinkers and scholars, however, believe that the Qur'ānic verses that condemn the belief in three gods by some of the People of the Book are actually verses against the teaching of tritheism and not the Christian Trinity. 68 Since such an opinion is still in discussion, I will not enter into more details, what is important for this analysis is to notice that many Muslim Mutakallimūn read such verses as polemics against Christians, considering them polytheists, unbelievers and infidels. 69 Paul of Antioch, quoting other Qur'ānic verses, tries to show his readers the opposite opinion, that the Qur'ān does not consider Christians polytheists: Moreover [in this passage the Quran] specifically denies that the name 'polytheism' applies to us by saying, 'The Jews and those who practice polytheism are the strongest in enmity toward those who believe, and the Christians are the closest to them in affection.' (Q 5:82) It had already made this point clear when it said, 'Those who believe, those who act as Jews, the Christians, the 66   renewal in Christian thought, is that he applies the same exegetical methods Christians used in their reading for the OT to the Qur'ānic verses that use the plural form for God. In the aforementioned passage, it is notable that all Qur'ānic quotations with plural forms attributed to God come from the context of creation. In this way the author tries to make a real comparison between the texts he quotes from the OT, precisely from the Book of Genesis, and from the Qur'ān. In addition, according to our author's reading, the last two Qur'ānic quotations show the belief of Muslims in God, His Word and His Spirit, an indication, from his perspective, to the three persons of the Trinity. 74 The selection of these Qur'ānic verses, where it is mentioned the Word and the Spirit of God, is related to the verses the same author quotes from the OT where also there is a mention of the Word and the Spirit of God. 75 This correspondence demonstrates again the desire of our anonymous author to apply his Christian reading and exegesis of the OT to the same Qur'ān: the use of the plural from to God and the mention of the Word of God and His Spirit as an indication, revelation and even proof of the Trinitarian dogma. 76 Consequently, one might wonder if the author puts the Qur'ān and the Bible on the same level, or to say it in other words, if the Qur'ān and the Bible have the same status as revelation for Christians. A prima facie reading of the above quotation would suggest a positive response, 74   The author then makes a distinction between, on the one hand, his group (Christians) and says «we find in the Torah, the Prophets, the Psalms, and the Gospel», and on the other hand, the group of Muslims to whom he addresses his words saying «and you [Muslims] find it in the Quran». Our author then, as Griffith notes, does not consider the Qur'ān a Holy Book for Christians; it is the Muslims' Scripture. But at the same time he reads the Qur'ān in a Christian way, trying to prove that the Christian teaching on the Trinity is found also in the Qur'ān and that therefore Muslims should not accuse Christians of being polytheists or tritheists. 78 Of course, his use of the Qur'ān, quoting some of its verses as proof-texts, manifests his attempt to read the Qur'ān in a Christian way, a pastoral instrument through which he tried to warn his Christian audience, as Samir notes, not to become Muslims since Islam and its Holy Book do not deny the Christian faith. 79 The same mechanism of exegesis is found in Paul of Antioch when he tries to demonstrate that God, His Word and His Spirit are one God for Christians. Paul asserts that since the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit correspond to God In this scripture [the Quran] it also says, 'He is the One who gives life and brings death. When He determines something He just says to it, ‚Be,‛ and it comes to be.' (Q 4:68) There is also, 'Our Word has come before to our good servants.' (Q 37:171) And also, 'God said, ‚O Jesus, Son of Mary, will call My blessing down upon You and upon Your mother; I have aided You by the Holy Spirit.‛' (Q 4:164) Also, 'God spoke with Moses in a conversation.' (Q 5:110) Also, 'Mary, the daughter of 'Imran, is the one who guarded her private parts and We breathed of Our Spirit into them. She affirmed the truth of her Lord's words and of His scriptures; she was one of the humble ones.' (Q 66:12) All the Muslims say that the Quran is God's speech; only someone who is alive and rational has speech. 83 Paul, then, has as basis the traditional Trinitarian Triad ‚God the Alive and the Rational‛, a rational approach used by Christians to explain the Trinitarian dogma. 84 This triad, Paul argues, is affirmed by Muslims since they believe that the Qur'ān is God's speech and that whoever possesses speech is alive and rational being. 85  Life, and therefore He is a life-giver, as the OT and the Qur'ān testify. Both Scriptures affirm that God creates through His Word. In this way, the OT and the Qur'ān prove that God has a Life and a Word, and since these are called by Christians the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as mentioned in the NT, the Trinitarian dogma can be founded also through these two Scriptures, the OT and the Qur'ān. In other words, if Christians of the first centuries saw in verses like those quoted by Paul, i.e. the Trinitarian Testimony of the OT, 86 revelation of the Trinitarian dogma, Paul, and other Christians, as the anonymous of the Apology mentioned above, 87 see the same thing in some verses of the Qur'ān. I think that these verses might be called Qur'ānic Testimony especially when the methods used of selecting the verses are similar: choosing the verses that deal with the Christian faith, or can be interpreted through allegory, typology and even rhetoric based on rational argumentations as proof of the Christian doctrine, 88 and then using them out of their context. 89 Putting however, the Old and New Testaments on one level and the Qur'ān on another level, as the anonymous author does, suggests to us that Paul, like the anonymous author already discussed, does not talk or debate just with Muslims; 90 he also addresses his speech to Christians, the people of his religion, and tries to confirm their faith through the Qur'ān so they might remain faithful to their Christian religion. This, as I said above, is a part of the pastoral mission of our authors. Moreover, this differentiation in consideration between the Scriptures putting them in two distinct levels manifests a main difference between the vision our authors have for the OT Testimony and what I call Qur'ānic Testimony, for them, as well as for the first Christians and Church Fathers, the OT, even if it is considered the Holy Book of the Jews, is their Holy Scripture, the Qur'ān, in the contrary, is not.  confusion between the two types of generation show that for the Qur'ān Trinity is three gods: Father, Jesus and Mary. 93 This means, in fact, that the Qur'ān, despite affirming that Christ did great miracles, 94 does not recognize a divine character in Him, which of course Christians accept as a principle dogma of their faith, 95 as it is clear, for example, in the correspondence, occurred during the ninth century between the Muslim Ibn al-Munağğim and the Christian Quṣṭā ibn Lūqā and the topics they dealt with. 96 As for Trinitarian dogma, the opinion of the Qur'ān and Islam is also clear for Christology. How, then, could Christians use it to prove the divinity of Christ, while the Qur'ān so insistently rejects this? The Apostles and the first Christians, to say nothing of subsequent early Christian tradition and the patristic literature, already in their dialogue with Jews tried to read the OT and its prophesies regarding the Messiah in a special way in order to prove the realization of those prophesies and to demonstrate that the Messiah was really Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word and Son of God. 97 It is known also that the OT, followed by the different Jewish traditions, despite mentioning the Messiah, does not declare His divinity. 98 Christians, however, through their different exegetical methods tried to see behind some verses and symbols of the OT indications and proofs for the divinity of Christ the Messiah. With the Qur'ān things are different. The Holy Book of Muslims, as shown above, affirms that Jesus-whom the Qur'an calls al-Masīh, 'Īsā ibn Maryam-came, but rejects the divinity of Jesus as well as rejecting the Trinity. In the following pages will see how our Christian authors could apply a special reading to some Qur'ānic verses to demonstrate Christ's divinity even if they were aware of the opposite opinion of the Qur'ān and Muslims of their time.
A crucial piece of evidence for the divinity of Christ is the miracles He performed. 99 Such an argument had an important role for the early Christian tradition and its dialogue with Jews. 100 The Qur'ān recounts some of Jesus's miracles, 101 and this was again a point of reference for our authors. The anonymous author of the Apology for Christian Faith, for example, quotes some of the Qur'ānic verses where the miracles of Christ are mentioned to prove that the Qur'ān affirms the divinity of Christ: The Christ created, and no one creates but God. You will find in the Quran ‚And He spoke and created from clay like the form of a bird, and breathed into it, and lo! It was a bird by permission of God.‛ (Q 5:110; 3:49) He forgave trespasses (cf. Lk 7:48), and who forgives trespasses but God? He satisfied the hungry (cf. Mt 14:1-14; Mk 6:14-29; Lk 9:7-9; Jn 6:1-15), and no one does that nor provides food but God. You will find all this about the Christ in your Book. He gave the Apostles the Holy Ghost, and gave them authority over devils and over all sickness (cf. Jn 20:21-23). No one gives the Holy Ghost but God, He who breathed into Adam, and lo! He was a man with a living soul (cf. Gen 2:7; Q 38:71-74; 15:28-31). He went up to Heaven from whence He had come down, on the angels' wings (cf. Mk 16:19; Lk 24:50-53; Act 1:9-11). No one can do that but God, He who came down from Heaven upon Mount Sinai and talked with Moses and gave him the Law (cf. Es 19). 102 It seems that our author is aware of the fact that in the Qur'ān, only two agents are subjects of the verb ‚to create‛ (ḫalaqa): God and Christ. 103 The author quotes Qur'ānic verses that recount this fact without, however, noting that the Qur'ān underlines that Christ performed 99 Cf. Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, pp. 269-290. 100  the miracles not by himself but with the permission and willingness of God. This is, actually, how the Qur'ān implicitly denies Christ's divine character. In this case, according to the Qur'ān, God performed all Christ's miracles through him; Christ did not perform these mighty works by his own power. 104 Not noting such an important element is, according to my opinion, one characteristic of the special reading the anonymous author applies to the Qur'ān. The same method, as mentioned above, was used also by the first Christians when they refer to the OT's verses choosing what they consider important for their argumentation and quoting them partially.
The reference to the Qur'ānic verses is not the only proof our author uses. In addition, he incorporates this reference with one of Christ's miracles mentioned in the Qur'ān and puts it in the context of the Christian teaching regarding Christ. In this way Christ: 1) created, as stated in the Qur'ān; 2) breathed into Adam a living soul, a common image of creation in the OT and Qur'ān, 105 to express the Christian faith in the creative Word of God, identified with Christ, as stated in the same Qur'ān (cf. 3:45); 3) forgave sins, fed the hungry and gave the Apostles the Holy Spirit and sent them to preach and ascended to heaven, as the Gospel recounts; and 4) spoke with Moses at Sinai and gave him the Law, according to the Christian interpretation of the OT. 106 Using at the same time the OT, NT and the Qur'ān to prove the Christian faith in Christ is a real challenge. However, our anonymous author is again careful in his use of the Qur'ān describing it ‚your Book‛, that is, the Scripture of Muslims.
It is worthy of note, moreover, the anonymous author's method. He, in fact, refers to those Qur'ānic verses that are in agreement with the Christian image concerning Christ, even if such references are partial and selective. A selective reading of the Qur'ān is applied also by Paul of Antioch in order to convince his readers that, since the Qur'ān affirms the basic doctrines of the Gospel and Christian life, there is no need for conversion to Islam: Then too we found in the Quran an expression of great esteem for the Lord Christ and His mother. God made the two of them a sign for the worlds. Here is what He said: 'We breathed of Our Spirit into the one who guarded her chastity and We made her and her Son a sign to the worlds.' (Q 21:91) There is also, 'The angels said, ‚O Mary, God has chosen you and purified you above the women of the worlds‛.' (Q 3:42) There are accompanying testimonies to the Lord Christ by way of miracles. [According to the Quran], He was conceived without any intercourse with a man. Rather, it was by way of the Annunciation of God's angel to His mother. (cf. Q 3:47; 19:20-21) He spoke in the cradle, He brought the dead to life, He cured the lame, He cleansed the leper, He made clay into the shape of a bird and breathed into it and it flew away, by God's permission. (cf. Q 3:49; 5:110) He was God's Spirit and His Word. (cf. Q 4:171) This is all in agreement with what we think and believe. We also found there that God raised Christ up to Himself, (cf. Q 4:158) and He put those who followed [Christ] above those who disbelieved, up to the day of the resurrection. That is what it says: 'God said, ‚O Jesus, Son of Mary, I am going to take You to myself and raise You up to Me; I am going to cleanse You of those who have disbelieved and I am going to put those who follow You above those who have disbelieved, up to the day of resurrection.‛' (Q 3:55) There is also, 'We sent Jesus, Mary's Son; We brought Him the Gospel and We have put mercy and compassion into the hearts of those who have followed Him.' (Q 57:25) We have also found [the Quran] extolling our Gospel, putting our monks' cells and churches before the mosques, and testifying in their regard that God's name is much recalled in them. That is what it says: 'Were it not for God's repelling some people with others, the monks' cells, the churches, the synagogues, and the mosques, in which God's name is much recalled, would have been destroyed.' (Q 22:40) These and other things require us to hold on to our own religion and not to neglect our doctrinal allegiance, neither to abandon what we have, nor to follow someone other than the Lord Christ, the Word of God, and His apostles, whom He sent to us to warn us. 107 According to Paul's exegesis, the Qur'ān affirms what Christians believe: 1) the election of Mary; 2) Christ and Mary are signs for the World; 3) Christ performed miracles; 4) Christ is the Word of God and His Spirit; 5) the ascension of Christ; 6) the Gospel of Christ is from God; and 7) the prayer of Christian to God in churches and cells are exalted and mentioned before those in the mosques. All these elements and doctrines are truly mentioned in the Qur'ān. Paul's argumentation in this passage starts with one clarification concerning the Incarnation of God the Word and His generation from Mary. It has been mentioned above that the Qur'ān confuses the eternal and the temporal generation of the Son of God, and thus rejects the idea that God has a wife and a son. Paul seems aware of such rejection and he states that Christ was generated by Mary according to His human nature. To found the dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary -a doctrine held in common with the Qur'ān, or at least with Islamic tradition 109 -our author applies, as Griffith notes, the patristic allegorical and typological reading of the burning bush that Moses saw aflame without burning up. 110 Paul clearly affirms that such an event was seen as prophesy realized already in Christ's birth. Explaining this dogma, our author affirms that Christians do not believe that God generated a son through sexual relations with a wife. Consequently, Paul was able to see an agreement with the Qur'ān itself which rejects such doctrine. It is interesting, according to me, to note how Paul succeeds to transform the Qur'ānic accusation against Christians into confirmation of Christian faith. He bases his argumentation on Qur'ānic verses where it is said that God is not begotten and has not begotten, explaining it as rejection of human generation and sonship, but affirmation of the Father and the Son. Along with his use of some exegetical methods, it is evident that Paul argues this topic using rationality and syllogisms.
In addition, our author explains the reason for the Incarnation, referring to the Qur'ānic verse which uses the image of the veil. References to this image were defused in many Arab Christian writings. 111  this veil, according to Christian faith expressed in our case by Paul, is the body of Christ. In fact, in the Semitic Christian tradition, the Incarnation was described through the image of dressing or putting on humanity-body. 112 In my opinion, the existence of such tradition was one of the reasons to use the Qur'ānic image of veil. The veil and the dress were symbols of Christ's humanity, through which Christians tried to explain the reason of the Incarnation. God cannot talk to humans directly, as Paul affirms referring to the philosophical principle ‚subtle things do not become manifest except in material things‛. 113 Therefore God talked to prophets through a veil, to Moses through the box-thorn bush, and to us through His perfect body, i.e. the human nature, the most honorable thing God created. 114 In this case the veil mentioned in the Qur'ān is not simply interpreted allegorically, i.e. a type of Christ's flesh (humanity), like the way patristic exegesis saw Christ in some persons, figures and images of the OT types, but rather it is used as a confirmation of the Christian doctrine on the Incarnation. The dogma of the two natures of Christ was the means through which Paul again transforms an Islamic accusation against Christians into confirmation of Christian faith. The Qur'ān denies the crucifixion of Christ (cf. Q 4:157). 115 Stating however, that Christ was crucified in His humanity and not in His divinity is in agreement, according to Paul, with the Qur'ān's doctrine in this regard. In other words, the Qur'ān, according to Paul's Christian reading, rejects not the crucifixion itself but the consideration that Christ was crucified according to His divinity, a doctrine refused also by Christians. In this way our author was able to see in the Qur'ān a confirmation to this important Christian faith and not a rejection or a scandalous doctrine.
Christians, especially the Church Fathers during the Christological controversies, through their allegorical and typological hermeneutic of the Gospels consider the expressions, used for Christ, ‚Son of God‛ and ‚Son of man‛ 116 indications of His two natures, divinity and humanity. 117 Paul applies the same reading to the Qur'ān: According to Paul's exegetical method of the Qur'ān, when Christ is called ‚the Spirit of God and His Word‛, this indicates His divinity, just as when He is called ‚Jesus, Son of Mary‛, the Qur'ān indicates His human nature. Such a method, even if it might be rejected by Muslims themselves, shows that Christians could read the Qur'ān and apply their own exegetical methods to it to validate their own faith and dogma. According to me, Paul, in fact, does not address his letter to Muslims; rather, his aim is to stop Christian conversions to Islam. For this reason, he addresses his speech to Christians in order to convince them that the Qur'ān agrees with their doctrine and that therefore they should not convert. By extension, if his letter were really addressed to Muslims, his aim might have been to convince Muslims to stop forcing Christians to convert to Islam with the claim that their faith is wrong.
The same mechanism can be seen in the Muğādalah of Abū Qurrah where the author tries also to transform a Qur'ānic accusation against Christian faith into confirmation of it: The Word of God became [Incarnate] in the likeness of a human without sin (cf. Rm 1:1-4). He is God, able to do wonders He did. Furthermore, your book witnesses to this since it says 'We sent to Mary from Our Spirit, and He appeared to her as a human in all respects'. (Q 19:17) I mean by this that He became [man] in the likeness of a human via the body (cf . Rm 1:1-4) Applying a special method of interpretation to the Qur'ān Abū Qurrah confirms the mystery of the Incarnation. 120 First he underlines that Christ is God since Christ performed miracles, as the Qur'ān attests. The same Holy Book of Muslims affirms Christ's incarnation since it mentions that the Spirit was sent by God to Mary and He became human being, i.e. was incarnated. Abū Qurrah, to support his opinion, uses a kerygmatic expression: ‚He became [man] in the likeness of a human via the body‛. Then, he quotes another verse from the Qur'ān which is very important, as said above, to comprehend the Qur'ānic understanding of Trinity, i.e. God, Mary and Christ. Abū Qurrah tries to interpret this verse applying a linguistic method, based on rational argumentation and syllogism. According to this verse, God asks Christ why he had told his followers to adore Him and His mother as gods. Abū Qurrah does not merely reject this accusation but explains the verse by saying that Christ did not claim that He and His mother are gods. He Himself claimed, however, to be God. This last affirmation, according to our author, is not denied by the Qur'ānic verse. In other words, the verse rejects that Christ and His mother are gods, which Abū Qurrah considers false doctrine. Abū Qurrah agrees with the Qur'ān, but he warns that the verse does not deny that Christ alone is God. The doctrinal error, then, is considering Mary a goddess, which is, of course, not a Christian teaching. Abū Qurrah's explanation is based on the difference between the two expressions ‚considering me and my mother gods‛ and ‚considering me God‛. He, though, underlines a linguistic difference, based on Christian exegetical method, to transform the accusation into confirmation, approved by, as mentioned, rationality and syllogism. The fact that Christ is called in the Qur'ān ‚Word of God‛ remains for Abū Qurrah, as for other authors such the anonymous of the Apology for the Christian Faith, 121 an essential indication for His divinity: In his argumentation Abū Qurrah starts by affirming that the Qur'ān states that Christ is the Word of God and that He is alive in heaven. For him, however, following the Christian faith, the Word of God is the Creator. Such faith was revealed in the OT and in the NT, and therefore he quotes as support 1) a verse from a psalm of the prophet David, and 2) the beginning of the prologue of John's Gospel. The reader might expect now a quotation from the Qur'ān that confirms this doctrine. The author however, who knows that no Qur'ānic verse clearly considers the Word of God as Creator, or that God created through his Word, quotes a verse that does not contain such a doctrine. The Qur'ānic verse, however, as Griffith notes, 123 functions again as a confirmation of the Christian faith regarding the role of the Word of God and His divine character. In addition, as J. Bridger notes, our author supports his argumentation stating that Muslims agree that God Created through His Word. 124  opinion, bases his opinion on later Islamic doctrine. In fact, Muslim scholars interpreting the Qur'ānic expression from the context of creation «He (God) only says to the thing, 'Be' and it is» (cf. Q 36:82; 40:68; 2:117) affirmed that God created the world by His word. 125 This reading and interpretation of the Scriptures in the light of the Christian faith, described by Takawi creative, 126 allows Abū Qurrah to use the Qur'ān as a proof-text to confirm his faith.
We can note the same method of reading and exegesis in the Apology for Christian Faith, applied this time to the event of the ascension of Christ. For the anonymous author, Christ's ascension, as an event mentioned also in the Qur'ān, might be a proof of Christ's divinity: 127 David also prophesied by the Holy Ghost and said about the Christ ‚The Lord said unto my Lord, 'Sit Thou at my right hand, until I put Thine enemies beneath Thy footstool'‛ (Ps 110:1). The Christ went up to heaven and [from] heaven was not separated, 128 and sat at the right hand of the Father (cf. Mk 16:19; Lk 24: 50-53 and Act 1:9-11). He put His enemies who were disobedient to Him below His footstool, and below the feet of those who believe in the Christ. Thus you will find in the Qur'ān ‚I have appointed Thee and raised Thee up to Myself, and have purified Thee from those that are unbelievers. I will make those who follow Thee above the unbelievers until the day of the resurrection‛ (Q 3:55). Say not that we believe in two Gods, or that we say there are two Lords. God forbid! Verily God is one God and one Lord in His Word and His Spirit. 129 Our author tries to prove that 1) the OT, Psalm 110 in particular, prophesied about the ascension of Christ, and this is a Christian reading of the Law and the Prophets; 130 2) the prophesy was realized by the ascension of Christ to heaven attested in the NT; and 3) the Qur'ān affirms and confirms this event. Again, then the anonymous author quotes a Qur'ānic 125  verse to demonstrate the difference of Christ from the other prophets. Christ ascended to heaven and is alive there; he cannot be like the other prophets, and thus for the anonymous author, the Qur'ān affirms Christ's divinity. It is clear, in addition, that the author puts this Qur'ānic verse together with the prophesy of David, but each has a distinct function for him: the Psalm, revealed before Christ, was a prophesy on Him, while the Qur'ān, which is chronologically after Christ, read and interpreted in the light of Christian faith, is considered an after-the-fact confirmation of the realization of Davis's prophecy in the person of Christ, revealed in the Gospel. As said above, Christ for the Qur'ān is a simple prophet. He is considered created as Adam, as attested in the following verse ‚Indeed, the example of Jesus to Allah is like that of Adam. He created Him from dust; then He said to him, 'Be,' and he was‛ (Q 3:59). This analogy between Adam and Christ was an argumentation in the Mugādalah of the monk Abraham of Tiberia, where, as Griffith has already noted ‚the author employs the words and phrases of the Qur'ān explicitly, much more frequently than is the case with almost any other Christian text from the early Islamic period‛: 131 The Bāhilī said ‚don't you say that the Christ is created, son of created [woman]?‛. The monk said ‚according to His Father's substance, He is the Creator, but according to His mother's substance He is born from a created [woman]‛. The Bāhilī said ‚So it is not correct to adore Him‛. The monk said ‚don't you say that a created nation adored a created [being], and [this created nation] is the most honorable nation to God? And I tell you regarding a nation that said 'don't adore a created [being]', which now is the worst nation to God‛. The prince said ‚We don't know this nation!.‛ The monk said ‚Is it not written in your book 'When God said to the angels, 'Prostrate before Adam‛; so they prostrated, except for Iblis. He refused and was arrogant and became of the disbelievers' (Q 2:34). The Bāhilī said ‚This is God's saying [and] it is true and certainty no one can deny it‛. The monk said ‚So, are the angels polytheists or are Iblis and his soldiers believers? Or do you see that God (Who is Powerful and Lofty!) is in favor of the angels and unjust regarding the demons?.‛ The Bāhilī said ‚No, I swear with my life that it is not like this, but the angels are obedient and the demons are disobedient and disbelievers!‛. The monk said ‚My lord, you should know and should be certain that God did not create the creatures, and did not manifest the sings and the miracles, in the past through the righteous and the good [ To answer the question of the Muslim scholar ‚Why Christians adore a creature?‛ our monk makes a reference to the Qur'ān and its teaching about the creation of man and the adoration of the angels to him, 133 and then, he uses a rational argumentation based on syllogism to prove the divinity of Christ, quoting eventually an evangelical verse, and underling that Christ himself is higher than Adam, and if the angels adored Adam, it is more correct that humans adore Christ.
The theological logic in this passage, in my opinion, is very important and deserves an analysis: despite the fact that angels prostrated to Adam, a creature, under the command of God, they are still believers and obedient to God. The devil and his angels, by contrast, refused to prostrate to Adam the creature and were arrogant, so they thus find themselves forsaken even though they had made the seemingly superior decision to avoid the worship of a creature. In this way our author proves that if prostration to a creature were an error this would oppose the Qur'ān and its teaching, making God unjust in his treatment of the angels and the demons! As for Christ, He is not a creature, but as the Gospel states, He is the Son of God, and He is 132  higher and more honorable than Adam, and prostrating him is not a prostration of creature to creature, but of creature to the Creator. The way the monk links these Qur'ānic verses and their teaching with the evangelical verse and the Christian belief about Christ is very important. Even if he declares, in another passage, that he neither consider Muḥammad a prophet nor the Qur'ān a revealed Scripture, 134 with this approach, he tries to find a confirmation for the Christian faith in the same Qur'ān, and this is the paradox in our authors' methodology (which is common characteristic for the four authors). The monk, then, interprets typologically the doctrine according to which God asked the angels to prostrate and adore Adam asserting that it is a (pre-)figuration of the prostration before Christ from His believers. This is, in fact, the way Christians interpreted the relationship between the old Adam and Christ, who was considered, first by the Apostle Paul, 135 as the new Adam. Adam, then, is a type, a pre-figuration of Jesus Christ. 136 The analogy between Adam and Christ is not a strange thing to the same Qur'ān, as I mentioned. The Qur'ān uses the analogy to affirm that Christ is created; our author, however, reading the Qur'ān through the Gospel, or in other words, in the light of Christ, confirms the opposite doctrine.

Final remarks
In my paper I highlighted a special reading of the Qur'ān applied by some Christian Melkite authors of Palestine and Syria. Through my analysis it was clarified that when a Christian uses the Qur'ān as a proof-text for his faith, mainly Trinity and Incarnation, his reading of the Holy Book of Muslims is different from the one used by the Muslims themselves. The use of the Qur'ān in this case is based on selected verses that deal with these special two dogmas of the Christian faith. 134 We read, in fact, the following affirmation: « The approach to the Qur'ān of the four authors is not always identical. From one hand, all of them use it as proof text for the Christian faith considering it Holy Book just for Muslims, from the other, however, there is a difference in the way they quote the Qur'ān and in the grade they use it. In addition, because of the different literal genre of the texts taken into examination, the tune of the interpretation the authors give to the selected verses is different: the two authors of the disputes refer to the Qur'ān defending themselves from direct accusations that, according to the texts, were addressed to them from Muslim scholars present with them in the court of a Muslim authority, and therefore, one might fell the tune in Abū Qurrah's Muğādalah more violent; the other two texts, in the contrary, refer to the Qur'ān to explain the Christian faith, therefore they quote its verses along with Biblical ones, applying to them identical methods of exegesis.
If the selection of OT verses by the first Christians and the Church Fathers were called Old Testament Testimony of the Christian faith, one might call the selected Qur'ānic verses, used by our authors here, Qur'ānic Testimony for Christian doctrine, especially when one note that a significant group of these verses becomes an integral part in the apologetic writings of the Arab Christians against Muslim accusations. In both cases, the way of selecting the verses is similar: they are taken out of their context to be interpreted as proof of the Christian faith. Moreover, if the OT Testimony, being chronologically before Christ, was seen a Messianic prophesy realized in Christ, the Qur'ānic Testimony, being chronologically after Christ, might be considered a confirmation of the Gospel. This can be noted in the way and the order the authors usually quote Biblical and Qur'ānic verses: they begin with quotations from the OT (prophesy), then verses from the NT (realization), and finally verses from the Qur'ān (confirmation).
Using Qur'ānic Testimony as confirmation of the Christian faith is a common method applied by the four texts taken into examination. It is clear, moreover, that the hermeneutic our authors apply to the Qur'ān differs from that of the Muslims themselves, similarly to the way that the Church's reading of the OT differs from that of the Jews. In both cases the applied hermeneutic is done in the light of Christ's Incarnation. This explains the similarity in some of the exegetical methods our authors use interpreting the quoted Qur'ānic verses with those methods applied by the first Christians and the patristic tradition interpreting the Bible, like allegory and typology. The example of considering Adam as ‚type‛ of Christ, applied by Abraham of Tiberia to a Qur'ānic verse is plausible, since he sees in the mentioned in the Qur'ān prostration of the angles to Adam a ‚type‛ and ‚pre-figuration‛ of the prostration before Christ from His believers. Being, however, the Qur'ān chronologically after Christ, our author does not use technical terms like ‚type‛, ‚figure‛ or ‚figuration‛; but, since the prostration of the angles took place before the Incarnation, the approach of Abraham to these Qur'ānic verses remains based on this exegetical method. The same one might say concerning the approach of Paul of Antioch to the two Qur'ānic expressions used for Christ: the ‚Spirit of God and His Word‛ and ‚Jesus, Son of Mary‛. He interprets them as indications to Christ's two natures, a method based on the exegesis the Church Fathers, especially in the Antiochene school, applied to the evangelical expressions ‚son of man‛ and ‚Son of God‛. In this way our authors tried to demonstrate that also the Qur'ān affirms the Christian faith, and consequently they attempted to transform the Islamic accusations against Christians into confirmation of Christian faith, purpose that we do not find in the Christian interpretation of the OT Testimony, and therefore, we can consider it an originality of the Arab Christians' approach. Moreover, the way of presenting the verses and their interpretation is also different from that of the Church Fathers, our authors, in fact, use more syllogisms and rational elements.
In addition, it is also worthy of note the fact that when some of our authors quote in the same passage both Biblical and Qur'ānic verses they apply to them the same exegetical methods, like allegory, typology, rationality and syllogism, as when they: 1) interpret the use of the first-person plural attributed to God as indication of the Trinity; 2) consider the mention of the Word and Spirit of God as allusions to the Son and the Holy Spirit; and 3) use the Biblical account when God talked to Moses through a box-thorn bush and the Qur'ānic verse where it is said that man can converse with God just from behind a veil as an affirmation to the philosophical principle ‚the subtle things do not become manifest except in material things‛ which was then used to confirm the correctness of the Incarnation and that God was manifested and spoke to us through the flesh. Despite, however, the same way they approach both Biblical and Qur'ānic Testimonies one must notice a very essential difference of consideration: the Old and the New Testaments are their Holy Scriptures, the Qur'ān, in the contrary, remains a Holy Scripture for Muslims.
Taking, finally, into consideration that these authors address their texts mainly to Christians, trying to confirm their faith through the Qur'ān in order to encourage them to remain faithful to their Christian religion and not to convert to Islam, one might understand that this Christian reading and especial use of the Qur'ān is part of their pastoral mission. And even if for them the Qur'ān remains the Holy Scripture of Muslims, one might maintain that, by using it as a proof-text of their doctrine through the selection of those verses which, applying to them a Christian exegesis, can realize their objective, they could see in the Qur'ān, indirectly, a divine inspiration, based on the early Christian doctrine of Semina Verbi. Therefore, the contribution of such texts can be significant for the modern Christian-Muslim dialogue.
Abstract: Even Christians' first Scripture was the Old Testament they read it in the light of Christ. For Christians, in disagreement with the Jews themselves, the prophecies of the Old Testament regarding the Messiah were realized in Jesus Christ. Christians thus read the Old Testament in a different way from that of the Jews as these latter continued to read the Old Testament according to their tradition, refusing to accept Christ as the Messiah. The Qurʾān, however, accepts that Christ was the Messiah, but rejects the Christian doctrine on Trinity and denies the divinity of Christ and that he is the incarnate Son of God the Father. This is, in fact, one of the main differences between the two religions. For their part, Christians, although they did not recognize prophecy in Muḥammad, used the Holy Book of Muslims in their different writings, especially as prooftexting for apologetic purposes. In this paper, I will examine the reading of the Qurʾān by some Christian Arabic writings of the Melkites in Palestine and Syria, namely the Apology for Christian Faith known as On the triune nature of God, the Al-Muğādalah between Abū Qurrah and al-Maʼmūn, the Al-Muğādalah between Abraham of Tiberias and ʻAbd al-Raḥmān al-Hāšimī and Paul of Antioch's Letter to a Muslim Friend. My analysis will include an investigation concerning the exegetical methods and instruments these texts and authors used in their making apology. It will be argued, then, whether these early Christian Arabic texts, although affirm that the Qurʾān remains the Holy Scripture of Muslims, they, at least indirectly, could see a kind of divine inspiration in it, and therefore could read some of its verses in the light of Christ.