St. John of Damascus on Islam (Pt. 2): Against the Heresy of the Ishmaelites

This brings us to what I believe to be the strongest argument in favor of St. John’s erudite understanding of both Islam and the Qur’an: his treatise against Islam, Against the Heresy of the Ishmaelites. Although the text is quite short, it is still valuable in assessing Damascene’s understanding of Islam and the Qur’an. Its length is not an indication of a lack of knowledge, but fits in with the theme of his larger work Against Heresies, which consists of brief overviews of various heresies. In fact, the section on Islam is actually the longest in comparison to the other 102^[1] heresies addressed in the text. The rest of this paper will be spent analyzing the treatise against Islam and attempting to demonstrate from the text that Damascene did in fact have a proper understanding of the Qur’an and Islamic faith.