A Shi'i-Jewish "debate" (munazara) in the eighteenth-century

Surviving records of Jewish-Muslim polemical literature originate almost entirely from the Sunni milieu. It is therefore difficult to establish whether polemical exchanges existed in the Shi'i world and how Shi'i arguments against Judaism may have differed from their Sunni counterparts. One record, albeit a "second-hand" one, recounted by some modern editors but based on earlier records, relates a "munazara" ("debate") between the famous Shi'i divine, Sayyid Muhammad Mahdi ibn Murtada Tabataba'i Burujirdi ("Bahr al-'Ulum") and a few Jews in Dhul-Kifl (Iraq). The encounter is said to have occurred in 1796 and the account sheds some light not only on the nature and extent of Shi'i-Jewish polemical exchanges but also on Shi'i-Jewish relations toward the end of the eighteenth-century. This "munazara" may have been little more than a literary and educational exercise in promoting Bahr al-'Ulum's erudition and the account we have of it shows clearly a predilection to rehash traditional Sunni arguments against Judaism. The voices of the Jewish interlocutors are muted and they present questions and answers that are difficult to believe. Nevertheless, there may be a kernel of historicity behind this rather unique account which makes it worthy of our attention.