Note 168 — Chapter III · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF WESTERN ASIA.
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It is very probable that the occasion of this visit of Yazdānbak͟ht to Bag͟hdād was the summoning of a great assembly of the leaders of all the religious bodies of the period, by al-Maʼmūn, when it had come to his ears that the enemies of Islam declared that it owed its success to the sword and not to the power of argument: in this meeting, the Muslim doctors defended their religion against this imputation, and the unbelievers are said to have acknowledged that the Muslims had satisfactorily proved their point. (Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍạ̄: Al-munyah wa’l-amal fī sharḥ kitāb al-milal wa’l-niḥal. British Museum, Or. 3937, fol. 53 (b), ll. 9–11.) ↑