«I remember a Mahometan story of Ahmed ben Edris»: free thinking uses of Islam from Stubbe to Toland

Abstract

This paper explores the intellectual context and learned sources of an unnoticed clandestine manuscript owned by Charles Hornby in 1701 which included a version of Henry Stubbe’s controversial Account of the rise and progress of Mahometanism and a translation of the first seven chapters of a Spanish work of Muḥammad Alguazir (fl. 1610) Apología contra la ley Cristiana. The paper sets out to examine how both freethinking figures like Stubbe and Toland and orthodox men of learning encountered, used and challenged Islamic anti-Christian polemic. To this end it esttablishes the diverse patterns of citation and usage of «orientalist» erudition between 1650 and 1720 —focusing in particular on the great works of Hottinger and Pococke. The paper argues that freetthinkers were very capable of appropriating both Christian erudition and Islamic theology (in particular that hostile to Pauline corruption of doctrine and scriptture) to their irreligious ends.