Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Attitude Toward Christianity 441
by also works on the basis of Ibn Taymiyya’s al-Jawāb al-ṣaḥīḥ, from
which he adopts portions of the corresponding sections, themselves
dependent on the Annales of Eutychios – whereby he offers no own
interpretations of the passages he copies; so that while events that are
not directly connected to the councils may not be omitted entirely,
they play a markedly subordinate role in this section.
Two tendencies are crucial to Ibn al-Qayyim’s depiction of the
councils,^100 in which he treats the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople
(381 A. D.) and Ephesus, the Second Council of Ephesus, which is also
called the Robber Synod (449 A. D.), the Council of Chalcedon (451
A. D.), the fifth general Council of Constantinople (553 A. D.), and
the two Councils in Trullo (680 A. D. and 691/692 A. D.). First, his
depiction underscores how the clerics who appeared at the councils
as authorized representatives of Christianity dissented over a central
component of the Christian faith, namely Christology. Second, he
sketches therein the disputes that resulted from doctrinal differences
and that were publicly conducted in advance of and at the councils
over the proper understanding of the person of Jesus, which in his
depiction culminated in individual groups’ doctrinal opinions advanc-
ing to dogmas not least because the state takes their side, while oth-
ers are condemned and rejected as error. On the whole, in this section
Ibn al-Qayyim conveys the impression that the history of Christian-
ity since Constantine’s assumption of power was a series of vehement
disputes among theologians anathematizing each other – disputes that
sometimes led to violent conflicts or even deaths.
Ibn al-Qayyim’s overview of the first centuries of Christianity
concludes with a summary in which he takes up essential elements of
his basic view of Christianity and makes an overall evaluation of the
Christian religion and its adherents. It begins with the observation that
the religion of the Christians is based on nothing else than the recipro-
cal damnation of the council participants. Afterwards, Ibn al-Qayyim
states that despite their temporal proximity to Jesus’ life and work-
ing, the existence of a Christian state, a flourishing scholarship, and
their intense concern for the preservation of their religion, the coun-
cils participants did not reach any unified statement about the object
of their worship.^101 In this context, Ibn al-Qayyim once again notes
100 On Ibn al-Qayyim’s perception of the councils, see also his Ighāthat al-lahfān
min maṣāʾid al-shayṭān, edited by Muḥammad Ḥāmid al-Fiqī, Beirut n. d.,
vol. 2, pp. 270–281.
101 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Hidāyat al-ḥayārā, p. 573.
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