Abstract
It is very difficult to constitute effective dialogues, even though religious dialogue concerning Islam is an urgent subject. Among the documents of Islamic Theology from the 9th to 12th century, we can find traditional Muslim perceptions of other religions. In this paper I examine 'Abd al-Jabbar's understanding of Christianity in his al-Mughni fi abwab al-tawhid wa-l-'adl as the instrumental materials for the religious dialogue today. The Mu'tazilite developed their unique theories on the attributes of God, and their arguments look near to the logic of the Trinity. 'Abd al-Jabbar grasped the meaning of the Definition of Chalcedon and the positions of the Eastern Churches and criticized them, skillfully adopting the methods for his arguments on the attributes of God. Thus in the classical studies of the Islamic theology we can find many materials which would contribute much toward building an effective religious dialogue or peaceful co-existence between Islam and other religions.
