Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Attitude Toward Christianity 439
beyond Ibn Taymiyya’s presentation,^86 remarking that the Antiochian
patriarch was the first to corrupt the Christians and their religion.
Before Paul of Samosata (Būlus as-Shimshāṭī) spread his teachings,
Ibn al-Qayyim states, the Christian communities had, unanimously
and without making exceptions, adhered to the precept that Jesus was
merely a servant and messenger of God, whereas Paul of Samosata
had forwarded the teaching of Jesus’ divine and human nature.^87 The
reason for this conspicuous difference might be that Ibn al-Qayyim
erroneously confounded Paul of Samosata with his namesake, the
apostle Paul,^88 which latter in turn is occasionally blamed in numer-
ous medieval Muslim anti-Christian polemics for the falsification of
the “original” Christianity, for instance in Ibn Ḥazm’s Kitāb al-Fiṣal^89
and in the work of the Mālikī jurist al-Qarāfī, al-Ajwiba al-fākhira ʿan
al-asʾila al-fājira (The Excellent Replies to the Execrable Enquiries).^90
At the center of Ibn al-Qayyim’s description of the period between
Jesus’ assumption into heaven and Constantine’s conversion to Chris-
tianity, however, are fewer events that he designates as the Christians’
corruption of the divine revelation brought by Jesus or as deviations
from his religious conduct. Instead, adopting Ibn Taymiyya’s represen-
tations^91 that in large part follow Eutychios’ Annales,^92 Ibn al-Qayyim
extensively treats the persecution of the Christians at the hands of
the Roman state, whereby he paints a picture of Christian communi-
ties’ constant tribulations as a result of their persecution and does not
neglect to mention that the Gospels were composed in this conflict
situation.^93 But the idea implicit in this depiction – that under these
circumstances the Christians could hardly have preserved the Gospel
sent down to Jesus – remains unspoken. To take away the impres-
sion that Ibn al-Qayyim’s historical outline extended attention to the
86 See the section in ibid., vol. 3, pp. 14–15.
87 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Hidāyat al-ḥayārā, p. 548.
88 On this, see especially van Koningsveld, Pieter Sjörd: The Islamic Image of Paul
and the Origin of the Gospel of Barnabas, in: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam 20 (1996), pp. 200–228, here pp. 206–207.
89 See Ibn Ḥazm, al-Fiṣal fī al-milal, vol. 2, p. 204. On this, see also van Konings-
veld, The Islamic Image of Paul, pp. 210–212.
90 See al-Qarāfī, Kitāb al-Ajwiba, pp. 171–175.
91 See the corresponding passages in Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawāb al-ṣaḥīḥ, vol. 3,
pp. 7–14.
92 See Ibn al-Baṭrīq, Annales, vol. 1, pp. 96–123.
93 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Hidāyat al-ḥayārā, pp. 541–543.
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