Re-Negotiating Interconfessional Boundaries through Intertextuality: The Unborn in the Kṯāḇā ḏ-Huddāyē of Barhebraeus (d. 1286)

Abstract

The article analyzes the Kṯāḇā ḏ-Huddāyē, a legal work of the Syriac polymath and ecclesiastic leader Barhebraeus. The intertextual strategies are assessed, such as compilation, redaction and adaption of the Huddāyē’s source material, i.e. legal compendia by al-Ghazālī, by the Ḥanafī al-Qudūrī and texts from Christian tradition. It is argued that the different normative boundaries established by these source texts and then intertextually reworked by Barhebraeus in the Huddāyē can be read as (re-)negotiation of communal identity for a Christian community in an Islamic environment. Two treatments of unborn life and pregnancy are taken as an example: the funeral prayer for the miscarried child and financial compensation in case of induced miscarriage.