ABSTRACT
A debate between the Patriarch of the East Syrian Church, recognized as head of all Eastern Christians, and the Caliph Mahdi himself, only some 150 years after the time of Muhammad. Harris says on p,2; ",,#in a literary sense we are even nearer still to the Islamic beginnings, for we have no earlier document ary evidence than the one before us of the relations between what is commonly regarded as decadent Christianity and dominant and minatory Islam, The period to which we refer is almost a tabula rasa for the history of Islam itself." Harris notes the conciliatory tone of this early debate, unlike later dia tribes ,
The work itself is in the form of a private debate be tween the two men, not distorted by later editors' interpreta tions. Mingana's introduction surveys the apologists of the day, such as the Christian al-*.KindT and Yahyâ ibn 'Adi, and the Muslim al-Tabar^ and al-Hashimi, The translated text begins on p,15.
