Ibn al-Munaǧǧim - Qusṭā ibn Lūqā, Una corrispondenza islamo-cristiana sull’origine divina dell’Islam, introduzione, traduzione, note ed indici a cura di Ida Zilio-Grandi, testo arabo a cura di Samir Khalil Samir, 3rd edition revised (2018), 314p.
ISBN 978-1540332868
Is it possible to reconcile faith and reason? Can a religious conversion be motivated by logic? Is it possible to induce others to reject their religious beliefs and through the instrument of reason impose the Truth upon them? At the end of the ninth century A.D., in the splendid Baghdad of the Abbasid Caliphate, the center of science, art, and philosophy, the Muslim Mu‘tazilite Ibn al-Munaǧ–ǧim and the Melkite mathematician and physician Qusṭā Ibn Lūqā, addressed these crucial issues in their correspondence. In his letter the Muslim author tried to demonstrate mathematically (burhān handasi) the truth of Islam and the miracle of the Koran by appeals to reason and aesthetics. In his response Qusṭā Ibn Lūqā refutes his Muslim friend’s argument point by point in a single clear dissertation by appeals to logic and Greek science.