CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Grigoryan, Sona Norayr |
|---|---|
| Title | Anti-Chritsian Polemics of Ibn Taymiyyah: Corruption of the Scriptures |
| Summary | The thesis deals with anti-Christian polemic of Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328), taking it as the crystallization of Muslim anti-Christian polemics, a tradition which originates as early as eight century. The specific focus of the research is an old polemical theme, namely taḥrīf--the accusation of Jews and Christians of deliberate or unintended corruption of the Bible. This polemical topos, which originates from the Qur’an has been in the centre of attention of any Muslim author who wrote on Christianity. Ibn Taymiyyah, however, treated the issue in the most detailed manner putting all the existing arguments in a comprehensive logical system and eventually drawing his own unique conclusion. The thesis showed that Ibn Taymiyyah neither accepted the Gospels as historical sources as some previous Muslim authors did, nor did he deprive the Gospels of the scriptural value of as did Ibn Ḥazm, d. 1064. The thesis argued that Ibn Taymiyyah did not reject the Gospels but only reduced their status to a secondary source of knowledge through making a parity between them and the Sunnah. The latter is a secondary yet important source of knowledge even if it contains erroneous materials. Ibn Taymiyyah suggests that Christians must follow the Gospels in a way Muslims follow the Sunnah. The thesis discusses also other anti-Christian polemical themes such as the Trinity and the divinity of Christ which were represented by Ib Taymiyyah as outcomes of taḥrīf. |
| Supervisor | Azia Al-Azmeh |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/grigoryan_sona.pdf |
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