Muslim prisoners of war wrote anti-Christian polemics in response to missionary pressure

Evidence

There is some evidence of debate from the Muslim side. Two Muslim prisoners in Christian Europe, ‘Abd Allâh al-Asîr (fl. 1267) and Muhammad al-Qaysî (fl. 1309), composed works of anti-Christian polemics; al-Qaysî says that during his captivity he had been accosted by an “impudent monk” (probably a friar) with whom he debated the faith in the presence of the (unnamed) Christian king. Al-Qaysî’s Kitâb miftâh al-dîn gives his version of that debate. These works represent a new defensive stage in anti-Christian polemics in the Muslim west; along with other similar works of the period, they represent a clear reaction to the military success and missionary activity of Christian Europe. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1190

Categorization

• QUESTION: Are these prison-composed polemics (by al-Asîr and al-Qaysî) our main surviving record of Muslim-side disputation, and what does captivity do to the genre? Worth chasing how these texts were transmitted and preserved.