One rival for the post was the elderly Ishoʿyahb, the superior of the monastery of Beth ʿAbe, and Timothy first frightened[citation needed] him by advising him that he might not be fit enough to survive the intrigues of high office, but honored him by offering him the position of metropolitan of Adiabene.
A second potential rival, Giwargis, was nominated at a synod convened by the bishop Thomas of Kashkar in the monastery of Mar Pethion in Baghdad.
Giwargis enjoyed the support of the caliph al-Mahdi's Christian doctor ʿIsa ibn Quraysh, and might have been a serious threat to Timothy had he not died suddenly in suspicious[citation needed] circumstances.
Timothy retorted with the same weapon and deposed Joseph of Merv, who, failing to find redress from the caliph al-Mahdi, converted to Islam.
One letter records him ordaining bishops for the Turks of Central Asia, for Tibet, for Shiharzur, Radan, Ray, Iran, Gurgan, Balad, and several other places.
One of Timothy's most famous literary productions was the record of an inconclusive debate on the rival claims of Christianity and Islam, supposedly held in 782 with the third Abbasid caliph Al-Mahdi (reigned 775–85).
argue was a literary fiction, offers a somewhat unorganized back-and-forth that lends credence to the argument that the debate took place and was recorded by Timothy himself.
[10] The topics addressed by the lawbook include ecclesiastical order and hierarchy, marriage and divorce, inheritance and dowries, and slavery and property law.