436 Dominik Schlosser
“brothers of the swine” (ikhwān al-khanāzīr).^68 The Damascene theo-
logian unmistakably expresses his judgment of the Christian faith as a
wrong path that leads directly to the fires of hell,^69 not least by repeat-
edly using the pejorative term borrowed from the Fātiḥa “those who
have strayed [from the right path]” (al-ḍāllūn)^70 and “the community
of error” (ummat al-ḍalāl).^71
Preferring such generalizing terms, Ibn al-Qayyim puts those so
designated into three or four specific categories only when he examines
the differences in the Christological and Mariological doctrines among
the Christian denominations. Here he takes recourse to the terms cus-
tomary in the Christian historiography of dogma and the Church:
“Jacobites”, “Melkites”, “Nestorians”, and “Arians”.
3.1. The Historical Genesis of Christianity Until 691/692 A. D.The argumentative power that Ibn al-Qayyim attributes to a discus-
sion of the constitution and development of Christianity in the context
of a critical debate with it can be judged by the fact that he presents a
self-contained outline of the early history of Christianity in the Hidāyat
al-ḥayārā. For this historical overview, he adapts parts of the Annales of
Eutychios, whom – as mentioned above – he apparently did not receive
directly, but via Ibn Taymiyya’s al-Jawāb al-ṣaḥīḥ, whereby he deals with
his model independently in that he occasionally abridges it or slightly
changes its wording. Beginning with what he calls the supposed cruci-
fixion of Jesus, he not only focuses on it as the beginning of Christianity,
but also traces Christianity’s genesis against the background of the coun-
cils up to the year 691/692 A. D. in particular. For the most part, Ibn al-
Qayyim eschews adding commentary to the material that Ibn Taymiyya
presents from Eutychios’ Annales, making a judgment all the clearer in
his concluding remarks. It is less the form of depiction than the emphases
he places and the aforementioned announcement that make it clear that
his viewpoint (of the early history) of Christianity is based on a particular
idea that he sees confirmed in Eutychios’ description of Church history.
Presenting it is the only reason why he includes such a historical overview
in the Hidāyat al-ḥayārā: this is the presentation of, in Ibn al-Qayyim’s
68 See ibid., p. 432.
69 Ibid., p. 225.
70 See, for example, ibid., p. 425.
71 See, for instance, ibid., p. 480.
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