John of Damascus and Islam Christian Heresiology and the Intellectual Background to Earliest Christian-Muslim Relations

includes index and biblioraphy

1 Heresy and heresiology in late antiquity ...20 Problems in associating Islam with heresy ...22 Manichaeism : The exception that proves the rule ...26 Heresy as opposition to the church ....28 Other understandings of heresy in late antiquity ...32 Early christian use of heresiology ...36 The Demonic nature of heresy ...39 Heresy as the result of philosophical speculation ...42 Other typical traits of heresiology ....47 2 Aspects of the intellectual background ...49 The encyclopedism of christian palestine ...49 Heresiology as history ? ...56 The sociological imperative to institution building as a force for Islam`s inclusion ...63 From heresiology to panarion and from panarion to anacephalaeosis : The shifting nature of heresiology ...65 John of damascus and non christian philosophy ...75 The definition of heresy in John`s works ....82 Demons and the heresiology of John ...93 3 The life of John of Damascus, his use of the quram and the quality of his knowledge of Islam ...97 The life of John of Damascus ...98 John of damascus and arabic ....102 The quran and its apparent use among christians ...110 John of damascus and the quran ....112 Anastasius of sinai and the quran ...119 The alleged leo umar correspondence ...124 Lives of the prophets and other sources ...132 4 Islamic and para- islamic traditions ...141 Scholarly accounts of early Islam ...142 Revisionist Islamic studies and its antecedents ...144 Contemporary islamic studies ...147 John of damascus, the black stone and the kaba ....150 The kaba the black stone and the Maqam ibrahim in the islamic tradition ...151 An untraditional perspective ...155 The damascene`s observations given the untraditional perspective ...159 Rivers in paradise ...160 The monk and an nasara ...166 Female circumcision ...173 Pillars of faith ...178 5 John of Damascus and theodore abu qurrah on Islam ...182 Problems authenticating abu qurrah`s greek corpus ...185 Theodore abu qurrah on islam ...192 Theodore, the quran and muhammad ...194 The arian monk ...197 Theodore and heresy ...199 Abu qurrah and john of damascus : some differences and conclusions ...204