Casa Árabe is dedicating a session to the study of theology and the Bible in the earliest times of Islam, to be presented by Pilar González Casado, a Doctor of Arabic Philology and Islam from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Aitor de la Morena, holder of a degree in Theology from the Ecclesiastic University of San Dámaso in Madrid, and David Thomas, a professor of Christianity and Islam and the Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Inter-religion Relations at the University of Birmingham.  

The seminar will consist of three presentations:

- The Arabization of Eastern monasteries and the earliest literature in Arabic, by Pilar González Casado.

- The treatise titled “On the triune nature of God” at the dawn of Christian apologetics in Arabic, by Aitor de la Morena.

- The Bible and its Islamic context, by David Thomas 

The event will begin at 11:00 a.m. in the Casa Árabe Ambassadors Hall (at Calle Alcalá, 62), with free entry until the maximum capacity is reached. In English without translation.

This second seminar on Christian Arab literature illustrates how Arabization transformed the literary and intellectual activity at Christian monasteries in the lands of Islam as of the eighth century. The many languages of Eastern Christian culture’s transmission gave way to Arabic: the new lingua franca and the language of the Qur’an. The Bible, the Fathers, theology, liturgy and hagiography all began to be written in and translated into Arabic. This new literary production also meant articulating traditional Christian ideas in the new religion’s language. The first Christian apologetics in Arabic would express the unity of the Trinity’s God, evoking the religious categories in the Qur’an. At the same time, the need was felt to translate Christian writings into Arabic so that they would continue to be understood. All of this contributed to the birth of Arabic literature at as early a time as the eighth century.

Doctor of Arabic Philology and Islam from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2000), a discipline in which she first earned her degree at the UAM (1987). Since 1993, she has taught Christian Arab and Syriac Language and Literature at the San Justino School and Christian and Classical Literature (UESD, Madrid), an institution at which she has been a tenured professor since 2012. Her publications deal with Arabic philology, apocryphal Christian literature and Christian Arab literature.

Holder of a degree in Theology from the Ecclesiastic University of San Dámaso in Madrid, he is a Master’s degree student of Christian and Classical Literature at the San Justino School of Christian and Classical Literature at that university. His research focuses on the earliest dialogue between Christianity and Islam.

A professor of Christianity and Islam, and the Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Inter-religion Relations at the University of Birmingham, in the Department of Theology and Religion, he holds a PhD from the University of Lancaster and is a specialist in the history of Christian-Muslim relations and Islamic thought. He is currently taking part in an international project about how the Bible is received in different religions and cultures. He has authored many publications about Christian-Muslim relations, the systematization of Islamic thought, the dialectics between Christian and Islamic theology, Arab Christianity and the central role of the Bible in Eastern churches in their relations with Islam.