Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Attitude
Toward Christianity in Hidāyat al-ḥayārā
fī ajwibat al-yahūd wal-naṣārā*
Dominik Schlosser
Introduction
When different religions encounter each other, they can deal with this
situation in various ways. If they take the position that the respective
other religions also offer legitimate paths to salvation, they generally
regard the coexistence of different religious systems as an acceptable
state. But if they lay an absolute claim to their own definite superiority
to all other religions, then they regard themselves as being in competi-
tion on principle. Well into the 20th century, Christianity and its histor-
ically younger competitor Islam were especially characterized by this
latter stance. It is well known and has often been taken as a theme that,
in the Middle Ages,^1 the conflict between Islam and Christianity as
systems of meaning was conducted not only militarily and politically,
but also in theological controversies with the respective other religious
community, and that debates and polemical writings both functioned
as vehicles for this.^2 The function and aim of such works has also often
been a focus of interest – though usually only in relation to the respec-
- This paper is based on a MA thesis presented at the Institute for Religious Stud-
ies at the University of Leipzig in 2004. I would like to express my gratitude to
Birgit Krawietz and Georges Tamer for their readiness to incorporate it in the
present volume. Special thanks are also due to the Zentrum Moderner Orient
(ZMO), Berlin, for financing the English translation.
1 In the following, I use the term “Middle Ages” to designate the period from the
middle of the 1st/7th century until the end of the 9th/15th century, although I am
aware that it is doubtless problematic to apply the term – a creation of the Euro-
pean Enlightenment and Romantic Period – to Islamic (intellectual) history.
2 On this, see, for instance, Busse, Heribert: Die theologischen Beziehungen des
Islam zu Judentum und Christentum, 2nd ed., Darmstadt 1991, pp. 1–2.
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