ABSTRACT
Among the precious few cultural encounters between the Iranians and the Europeans in the early part of the nineteenth century, none perhaps is as remarkable, and so far under-studied, as the Christian-Muslim controversies which were instigated by the young and fiery English evangelical preacher and proto-Orientalist, Henry Martyn (1781-1812). During his relatively short stay in Iran between 1811 and 1812, mostly in Shiraz, he became something of a celebrity and a formidable theological challenge to the Sh¥ ¥ ulamå , and in turn, to the Qajar state. While in Iran he also entirely revised his new translation of the New Testament with the help of the Persian calligrapher and poet Sayyid Al¥ NawwÇb Sh¥rÇz¥, and it was published shortly afterwards in St Petersburg and in Calcutta. He also wrote a number of polemical tracts refuting Islam, and engaged in a disputation with a mujtahid of the city, a disputation which resonated in the Iranian clerical circles then and later. As his poor health deteriorated – he was suffering from tuberculoses – he headed back to England but died on the way in the Armenian town of Tukat in Eastern Anatolia in 1812.
