Muslim Readings of John's Gospel in the cAbbasid Period

Muslims in the (c)Abbasid period showed three broad attitudes to Christian scripture. First, there was the view of those such as al-Qasim ibn Ibrahim (d. 860 CE) and 'Ali al-Tabari (d. c. 855 CE), who accepted elements in the gospels that supported the Qur'an. Second, there was the approach of others such as Abu Muhammad ibn Hazm (d. 1064 CE), who rejected the gospels as largely fictitious accounts. A third approach, found in the writing of Abu Bakr al-Baqillani (d. 1014 CE) and in A Fitting Refutation of the Divinity of Jesus attributed to Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111 CE), was to regard sayings of Jesus in John's Gospel that seemed to be a claim to divine status as metaphors for a spiritual condition that could be experienced by other believers, and which Muslims could therefore accept as genuine. This Fitting Refutation engaged more perceptively with Christian scripture than any other known Muslim writing in the (c)Abbasid period.