al-Malkāniyya, or the Malkaites: one of the Christian sects. They are the followers of “Malka,” who appeared in the lands of the Romans and gained control over them. Their doctrine holds that the Word (al-Kalima)—which they regard as a hypostatic person—united with Christ and assumed His humanity. They do not consider the Word before that assumption to be the Son; rather, Christ, together with what He assumed, is the Son. Some among them even claimed that the Word was blended with Christ’s body just as wine mixes with water or milk. The Malkaites explicitly distinguished the divine “substance” (jawhar) from the “persons” (aqānīm), analogous to the relationship between a describer and an attribute. They thus affirmed the Trinity, asserting that God is one in essence yet three in persons—neither additional to the divine essence nor identical with it. They taught that the Word united with Christ’s body neither by mixture (as the Malkaites themselves claimed) nor by mere appearance (as the Jacobites claimed), but like sunlight shining through a window onto a pane of crystal, or like a seal imprinting wax. They also applied both “prophethood” (nabūwah) and “fatherhood” (ubūwah) to God—may He be exalted above what the wrongdoers assert—and likewise to Christ. They held various other errors and absurdities, which the authors of doctrinal treatises have detailed. See, for example, al-Shahrastānī, al-Milla wa-l-Nuḥal, vol. I, pp. 22, 224; Ibn Hazm, al-Fasl, vol. I, pp. 48–49; Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Iʿtiqādāt Furūq al-Muslimīn wa-l-Mushrikīn; and Maʿa al-Murshid al-Amīn, pp. 131–132. (1) Nestorianism: a Christian sect named after Nestorius the Wise, who appeared during the reign of al-Maʾmūn and arranged the Gospels according to his own views. This sect predominates in Mosul, Iraq, Persia, and Khorasan. They assert that God is one Being with three persons (as the Jacobites before them held), that these persons are neither additions to the divine substance nor identical with it, and that the Word united with Christ’s body neither by mixture (as the Malkaites claimed) nor by mere appearance (as the Jacobites maintained), but like sunlight illuminating crystal or like a seal stamping wax. Concerning the Crucifixion and death, they argue that it befell Christ only in His humanity and not in His divinity, for the divine nature cannot undergo suffering. For other of their false doctrines—may God be exalted and sanctified above them—see al-Shahrastānī, al-Milla wa-l-Nuḥal, vol. I, pp. 224–225; Ibn Hazm, al-Fasl, vol. I, p. 49; and al-Rāzī, Iʿtiqādāt Furūq al-Muslimīn wa-l-Mushrikīn.