Writing and Reading Anti-Islamic Polemics in Byzantium: The Dialogue on the Faith of the Monk Euthymios with a Saracen Philosopher (Twelfth Century)

The Dialogue on the Faith, attributed to an unknown author conventionally known as Pseudo-Euthymios, is often regarded as an unoriginal patchwork of traditional apologetic and polemical arguments against Islam, compiled in the twelfth century. A closer analysis of its textual features (linguistic register, rhetorical structure, argumentative strategies) and manuscript tradition helps to shed light on the geographical and social milieu of its production and early circulation, its audience and its possible functions. This will contribute to a deeper understanding of the cultural significance of this text and open new avenues of approach to the literary genre of anti-Islamic controversies in late Byzantium.