Lull expected lay merchants to win theological debates with Muslims using Trinitarian syllogisms

Evidence

Merchants, he said, who often did business in Islamic countries, were asked about the Christian religion by Muslims anxious for discussions; out of ignorance they often did not know how to answer and were ‘in doubt about the religion of Muhammad’. Now Lull would dispel this difficulty. He would show them how to demonstrate that the Christian religion is better, greater and truer than any other, by a method, in fact, that was equally efficacious against the Jews. Of course, it was solely concerned with the Trinity. He did indeed make some concessions to the weakness of the laity; he omitted to use symbols for ideas in the course of this argument, which is by so much the easier to follow. … A little doubtful whether the laity were really following, after all (‘indeed the laity are not accustomed to subtleties like this’), he suggested a homely comparison based upon the King of Majorca, who rules there by and through justice, but through whom justice cannot be known if he does not make use of it. It is natural to suppose that there were merchants whom even this comparison would not greatly illuminate. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 990

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the theme of interfaith disputation as practical proselytizing — reminiscent of the missionary debates in ‘The Defeat of the Spanish Armada’ era and to how religious argument was weaponized between faiths. — connects to: Lull taught lay Christian merchants to prove the Trinity to Muslims; Even Lull doubted laypeople could grasp his Trinitarian proofs