A pragma-dialectic study of interreligious polemics

الملخص EN

The paper is an attempt at studying one particular type of polemics, viz, interreligious polemics.

It is concerned with the debate held between Jamal Badawi and Samuel Green on the former’s leaflet "Muhammad in the Bible" and Green’s reply to it in the Christian-Muslim Discussion Paper (2004 Appendix1 ).

An eclectic pragma-dialectic model has been designed for the analysis of the issues raised in the debate.

The analysis reveals that the debate between Badawi and Green is an eristic one.

This indicates that the goal behind polemical activities is to win the debate by violating standard norms.

There seems no agreement between the disputants on a specific procedure that could be followed to decide on their problems.

The disputants follow a contest model.

Each of Badawi and Green just seeks to be acknowledged as the winner as each begins and ends the debate with the sense that he is the only right.

Therefore, the debate, in the end, proposes no solution, nor is it resolved; all its issues have just been dissolved.