Byzantine religious dialogues with Muslims in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

Abstract

In the late and post-Byzantine period, increase of encounters and intensification of communications between Byzantine and Muslim intellectuals gave an impetus to the composition of 'dialogues with Muslims on religious issues' by several Byzantine literati. In the present dissertation entitled 'Byzantine religious dialogues with Muslims in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries', Tomoo Uegaki analysed three of these dialogical works based on real discussions with Muslims in which the authors (Manuel II Palaiologos, George Amiroutzes, Gennadios Scholarios) participated, with special attention to the communicational medium used to discuss religious topics with 'infidels' and the ideals about relationship between the Byzantine intellectuals and Muslims represented by the authors via a variety of images of the Byzantine and Muslim interlocutors in the works. As the result of this analysis, it became clear that the authors valued 'philosophical and rational arguments' to smooth the communication with those not having Christian faith, and that the final objectives intended by adopting these arguments varied according to the authors, reflecting the change of the sociopolitical environment under which they composed the works: while Manuel used them to reinforce the Byzantine imperial ideology, Amiroutzes and Scholarios employed them to secure their status in the Ottoman regime