Islamic jurists used Arabic grammatical case to turn forced Christian confessions into orthodoxy

Evidence

If they say, “Jesus is the son of God,” say that if they force you to, but let it be your intention to say it without the words in the possessive case [i.e., “of God”], namely, that servant of Allah, the son of Mary, who is rightly revered. If they say, “Say the Messiah is the son of God,” then say that, but intend it to be a genitive possessive phrase, in the same way as one can say “the house of God,” without meaning that God actually resides there. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 329

Categorization

• DEFINE: The genitive (idafa) construction ‘son of God’ vs ‘God’s son’ — a grammatical escape hatch: utter the same words but intend the possessive as ‘belonging to God’ in the biblical ‘house of God’ sense, not literal filiation.
• QUESTION: How would this equivocal grammatical reading sound in Castilian rather than Arabic? Does the escape hatch survive translation? The mufti’s ruling was presumably written in Arabic for an audience being forced to speak Spanish.
• DEEPTHINKING: This is theology conducted entirely through syntax — the entire doctrinal dispute reduced to a genitive case. It’s a startling instance of language philosophy bearing the full weight of mortal spiritual peril.