Apology of al-Kindy (book)

Apology of al-Kindy (also spelled al-Kindi) is a medieval theological polemic. The word "apology" is a translation of the Arabic word ‏‎, and it is used in the sense of apologetics. The work makes a case for Christianity and draws attention to perceived flaws in Islam. It is attributed to an Arab Christian referred to as Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi. This Al-Kindi is otherwise unknown, and is clearly different from the Muslim philosopher Abu Yûsuf ibn Ishâq al-Kindī.

The significance of the work lies in its availability to Europe's educated elite from as early as the twelfth century as a source of information about Islam.

The date of composition of the Apology is controversial. The earliest surviving manuscripts of the Arabic text are seventeenth century. However, the Arabic manuscripts are predated by a twelfth-century Latin translation made in Spain, where the Arabic text is assumed to have been circulating among Mozarabs.

The translation into Latin was a collaborative work on which a Spaniard Peter of Toledo was the main translator. Professor van Koningsveld has identified various errors in the Latin translation attributable to a limited knowledge of classical Arabic on the part of the translator. While Peter of Toledo's Arabic appears to have been less than perfect, it was better than his Latin, and a French scholar Peter of Poitiers polished the Latin text. Both men were part of a team recruited by Peter the Venerable, who also commissioned translations of other Arabic texts including the Qur'an. Peter the Venerable's aim was to convert Muslims to Christianity, and for that reason it can be argued that his interpretation of Islam was inherently negative, but he did manage to set out “a more reasoned approach to Islam…through using its own sources rather than those produced by the hyperactive imagination of some earlier Western Christian writers.” After circulating in manuscript, the collection was published in print in the sixteenth century with a preface by Martin Luther.

Excerpts from the Apology of al-Kindy became available in English through William Muir's translation of 1882. Like its Latin predecessor, Muir's (partial) translation was intended for missionary purposes, as he states in the preface.

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