Near the end of his detailed discussion of Muḥammad'slife and the collection of the Qur ʾān, theChristian author of the Apologyof al-Kindī, a ninth-century polemicaltreatise against Islam, makes the followingstatement: “You do know that I am a man who read thescriptures and occupied himself with understandingthe roots of things and how they happened, in allmeticulousness (wa-antata ʿlamu annī rajulalladhī qara ʾtul-kutub wa- ʿunītubi-ma ʿrifat al-uṣūlwa-kayfa kānat min awwalihā ilāākhirihā)”. His claim is borne out by theabundance of his quotations from the Qur ʾān andother Muslim texts as well as by the familiaritywith Islamic theology and history he betrays. TheApology of al-Kindīis one of dozens of polemical writingspenned by the Christians of the Islamic world in avariety of languages between the eighth and thethirteenth century that have much to say about Islamand Muslim culture.

Scholarship on the first two centuries of Islam hasbeen reinvigorated thanks to its integration intoresearch of the rich material non- Muslim writingsof the time present. The study of contemporarychronicles, hagiographies, martyrologies, andapocalyptic and legal literature produced byChristians together with the small number of extantearly Muslim texts helped scholars move beyondstolid retellings of traditional accounts, andprovide striking and often perceptive reassessmentsof the period. But although Christians under Muslimrule continued to pro- duce substantial bodies oftexts in Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Arabic, and otherlanguages after the eighth century, scholars ofIslam rarely turn to them for insights for thislater period. This is especially true of polemicaltreatises which are the texts (besides chronicles)most informative about Islam and Muslim culture.When occasionally studied, they are regarded assources only for Christian perceptions of Islam,hardly ever sources on Islam itself. One reason forthis is surely their polemical character. Sincetheir openly stated purpose is to discredit Islam,modern scholars see them as crude propaganda, henceunreliable and misleading as historical sources.This observation may seem correct at first sight,but on further reflection it does not quite hold up.After all, Christian polemicists aimed to forestallconversions to Islam and equip their coreligionistswith ready answers to Muslim arguments againstChristianity, should they find themselves in asituation when they could not avoid debate. Whenthey wrote against Islam in this period, they werenot dealing with opponents they deemed unworthy, tooweak, or too insignificant to take seriously, orwith the theoretical threat of heretics longgone.