Islam e Cristianesimo durante il regno di Manuele Comneno: la disputa sul "Dio di Maometto" nell'opera di Niceta Coniata

In 1180, at the end of Manuel I Comnenus\u2019s reign (1143-1180), a theologic controversy opposed the emperor to Patriarch Theodosius Boradiotes and to other members of the church, among whom Eustathius of Thessalonica. The dispute arose because of the emperor\u2019s effort to modify the formula of abjuration for the converts from Islam to Christianity, eliminating the anathema against \u2018the God of Mohammad\u2019. The paper examines the reasons for, the development and the meaning of the controversy, comparing for the first time all the available sources: first and foremost Nicetas Choniates\u2019s version in his Chronik\ue8 diegesis (book VIII) and in his Panoplia dogmatica (book XXVI), and then the synodal tomos of April 1180. The reasons for the controversy are viewed on one hand within the frame of XII century Turkish-Byzantine relationships (when several Turks converted to Christianity), on the other within the frame of the polemical Byzantine tradition against Islam. Manuel I Comnenus\u2019s position can be interpreted as a minority tendency, distancing itself from the Byzantine polemical tradition against Islam and acknowledging the common monotheism of Christians and Muslims, who adore the same God: this view would deserve a greater emphasis in the historical reconstruction of \u2018interreligious\u2019 relationships between Islam and Christianity