Paul of Antioch
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Paul of Antioch (Arabic: Būlus al-Rāhib al-Anṭākī) was a Melkite Christian monk, bishop and author who lived between the 11th and 13th centuries. His best known works are defences of Christianity written for Muslims and a treatise urging the conversion of Muslims and Jews.
Almost all that is known of Paul is derived from his own surviving writings. He was a native of Antioch who became a monk and later served as the bishop of Sidon.[1] Even the century in which he lived is uncertain. He made use of the writings of Elias of Nisibis, who died in 1046, and the earliest known manuscript of his work dates to 1232.[1][2]
In his Letter to a Muslim Friend, Paul claims to have travelled to "the homelands of the Romans [i.e., the Byzantines], Constantinople, the country of Amalfi, some Frankish provinces, and Rome." There he met and discussed the Qurʾān with "eminent and learned men".[2] Doubt has been cast on the accuracy of these claims. Many commentators view them as a literary device, a fiction that allows Paul to distance himself from the objections to Islam expressed by his European interlocutors.[3][4] On the basis that these were actual journeys, Paul Khoury argues for placing Paul's activity in the period 1140–1180, because it was a period of relative calm after the establishment of the Crusader states and before the rise of Saladin. Herman Teule, on the other hand, places Paul's activity earlier, around 1100. David Thomas and Sidney Griffith suggest a late date, around 1200, as more likely, on the grounds that his polemical writings are unlikely to have gone unnoticed for long.[2][5]