Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s Fiqh al-Naṣrāniyya: Translating and Recalling East Syriac Legal Texts in an Arabo- Muslim Context

Abū l-Faraǧ ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al-Ṭayyib (10th-11th c.) is one of the most important Christian authors of his time. He was a physician, philosopher and also theologian belonging to the East Syrian Church. He wrote many works on medicine, commentaries on most of the works of Aristotle, Galen and Hippocrates, exegetical works on most of the books of the Holy Scripture and dogmatic treatises. Additionally, he was one among the first East Syrian authors who produced collections of ecclesiastical and civil canons and laws in Arabic. His collection, entitled Fiqh al-Naṣrāniyya, that is, Law of Christianity, is not a simple translation of ancient and traditional East Syriac sources of ecclesiastical law but it should be considered a legal source for the East Syrians under the Islamic Caliphate, even if some parts of it are a reworking and rewriting of previous collections, like the Nomokanon of Gabriel of Basra. My contribution, consequentially, aims, to analyse how two specific topics, namely (1) the re-baptism of the converted, heretics and unbelievers and (2) divorce, are treated in Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s Fiqh al-Naṣrāniyya. The analysis aims to examine the way our author recalls and uses the East Syriac legal tradition, the criteria he follows in selecting material in support of his own position, how he tries to adapt this material to the new socio-political context in which he lives, and finally, whether the Islamic law tradition influences his methodology to any extent.