Философская апологетика Франсӣса ал-Марра̄ша

Ишрак: ежегодник исламской философии. 2026. Т. 4. № 1. С. 36–47.

Zolotukhin V. V.

This article, written in the style of a case study, is devoted to an overview of the apologetic arguments of a Greek Catholic writer from Aleppo, a figure in the literary Arab Renaissance, Francis Fathallah al-Marrāsh (1836–1874), in his posthumously published work Shahādat al-tabīʻa fī wujūd Allāh wa-l-sharīʻa (The Testimony of Nature on the Existence of God and the Testament). The arguments selected by Marrāsh demonstrate methodological kaleidoscopism—an effort to combine traditional theological approaches not only with rational Enlightenment-style theology, which refers to ancient philosophy of religion, but also with the latest achievements of Western natural science. Marr̄ash, albeit briefly, speaks of religious sentiment (g̣harīzat al-diyāna), and this is important evidence of the synchronous, selective reception of Western religious sentimentalism in the non-Western world. The arguments he puts forward in favour of the truth of religious sentiment do not coincide with the theses of German, French and Russian-speaking sentimentalists. The constraints of the Arabic language force Marrāsh to use the traditional Arab-Muslim categorical system, meaning that ideas borrowed from the West were inevitably subject to reinterpretation within the Middle Eastern Christian theologies. Demonstrating moderate exclusivism, Marrāsh’s arguments are more akin to today’s confessional apologetics than to the liberal constructs of his contemporaries. Marrāsh’s text deserves attention because the theme of theoretical apology for religion is uncharacteristic of Arab Renaissance literature and, consequently, understudied.   

Keywords: философия религии, philosophy of religion, Catholic theology, The Nahda, католическая теология, Арабское Возрождение