ABSTRACT
Responses to the Islamic challenge from the Christian communities who spoke Syriac appear in the surviving documents of a number of genres of writing. The topical agenda of the religious disputes with Muslims in Syriac are set under two basic headings: doctrinal claims and religious practices. There is nothing unexpected in the apologetic stance the patriarch adopts. The caliph raises the standard Islamic objections to Christian doctrines and practices, and the patriarch provides suitable apologetic replies. The Arab notable then poses the questions, and the monk answers with long explanations of Christian beliefs and practices. Nonnus is a bilingual writer, with compositions in both Syriac and Arabic to his credit. Moshe bar Kepha was an important figure in the life of the Monophysite community in Iraq in ninth century, both as a Syriac writer and teacher, and as an ecclesiastical official. Bar Hebraeus' Candelabra of the Sanctuary is an encyclopaedic work of theology that amounts to a veritable Summa Theologiae.
