Qādī ʿAbd al-Jabbār's Perception of Christianity

When examining the history of thought, we see that there have been some debates between Christians and Muslims on religious issues. Christian polemicists and Muslim theologians, however, conducted these debates on an academic level, resulting in profound ideas and research. Qadi Abdul Jabbar, being one of the later Mu'tazili theologians, examined the religious debates and refutations that preceded him and raised certain objections against Christians. In our study, we aimed to investigate the accuracy of Qadi's statements and claims based on the Christians' approach to themselves and their texts. We examined the issues based on topics and figures and compared his statements with current historical data and the Gospels. In doing so, we tried to point out the issues that we thought were wrong in light of historical information and concrete data. In doing so, we tried to pay particular attention to logical consistency. In the first section, we sought to examine Qadi's general approach to Christianity, his method of criticising narrations, and his statements regarding the practices of the Qur'an and the Prophet. In the second section, we sought to show how he approached the historical journey and transformation of Christianity, while also examining whether the points he based on ancient heritage were consistent with historical facts. In the third section, we examined his statements on divinity and his discussions with Christians, comparing them with discussions among theologians and other views within the sect. Ultimately, we attempted to analyse Qadi's thoughts and background by drawing on several different academic disciplines. In the end, we observed that although Qadi Abdul Jabbar possessed some important knowledge, he attributed some views that did not belong to Christians to them. At the same time, we noted that he had superficial knowledge on some issues and made statements that could be considered inconsistent, and we tried to highlight these.