Umayyad Christianity 9781463207571, 1463207573

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Umayyad Christianity

John of Damascus as a contextual example of identity formation in Early Islam

Najib George Awad

gp 2018

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2018 by Gorgias Press LLC All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. ‫ܝ‬

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2018

ISBN 978-1-4632-0757-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is Available from the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

Umayyad Christianity: John of Damascus as a contextual example of identity formation in Early Islam

Najib George Awad

Do not delete the following information about this document. Version 1.0 Document Template: Template book.dot. Document Word Count: 12772 Document Page Count: 480 To Daniel Sahas & Sidney Griffith whose writings on John of Damascus stimulated the generation of this Monograph-long interlocution And to the martyrs, saints and wandering children of Syria …yesterday and today.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ..................................................................................... v Preface ...................................................................................................... vii Chapter One. Introducing the case ....................................................... 1 Chapter Two. On contextuality in historical–theological reasoning: a brief methodological exposition ............................. 9 On contextuality in today’s “context-centered” scholarship .. 10 Contextuality in late antiquity/early Islam studies ................... 19 Context-centered methodology and oriental church history .. 25 Contextuality and John of Damascus in this study .................. 31 Chapter Three. Who was John of Damascus? Or, centralizing Sitz im Leben .................................................................................... 35 John of Damascus’s Profile in Today’s Scholarship ................ 35 John of Damascus, the “Saracen-minded” Christian in Umayyad Syria ....................................................................... 44 Chapter Four. Yannah ManʛŠr ad-'LPDVKTĪE6DUMŠQE ManʛŠr ar-5ŠPĪWKHLQKDELWDQWRI'DPDVFXV .......................... 73 John’s Sitz im Leben and relation to Islam .................................. 73 On John’s image as a turban wearer: a gesture of defiance or of affinity? ......................................................................... 94 John’s Arabic name: using Arab patronyms in early Islam ...119 Chapter Five. John of Damascus’s Greek writings in the context of Umayyad Syria-Palestine........................................................153 Islam in the writings of John of Damascus: a contextual experiment ...........................................................................153 The Heresy of the Ishmaelites from a contextual perspective ....167 Hostility, identity formation, and chapter 100/101 .........167 The context of Palestine–Jerusalem and John’s religious zeal ..................................................................192 Traces of context in chapter 100/101 ................................207 Conclusion ..............................................................................313 v

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The trilogy of On the Divine Images from a contextual perspective ...........................................................................316 Iconoclasm in the context of Umayyad SyriaPalestine .........................................................................316 Some traces of the Sitz im Leben in On the Divine Images ...............................................................................331 Conclusion ..............................................................................362 Chapter Six. Umayyad Christianity: forming identity in a changing Sitz im Leben .................................................................367 Identity formation in late-antique Islam ..................................368 The Christian PDZćOĪ under Umayyad rule ..............................382 To be a Christian in a radically changing Umayyad world ....389 Arab Christians in the land of Islam: a brief reflection on today’s Middle East ............................................................402 Bibliography ..........................................................................................421 Index .......................................................................................................465

PREFACE In early summer 2014, I finished writing my monograph on TheoGRUH $EŠ 4XUUDK Orthodoxy in Arabic Terms (published by De Gruyter, 2015). I had spent the previous four years digging as deeply as I could into the theological legacy of this Eastern-Syrian father. In these four years of research I discovered the profound extent of his theological relationship to two other great theologians from that part of the world, John of Damascus and Maximus ConIHVVRU 7KH GHSWK RI $EŠ 4XUUDKpV UHOLDQFH RQ WKH 'DPDVFHQHpV theological legacy not only drew my mind sWURQJO\WR$EŠ4XUUah’s thought – it equally opened my eyes to the great legacy of John of Damascus himself. I decided then to embark on spending the ensuing years in a serious and careful study of the character and ideas of the great Christian child of Damascus and churchman of Palestine. After three years of painstaking research on John of Damascus I am now daring to put this monograph on this church figure from my homeland into the hands of readers. This is a monograph written out of an open-minded critical, analytical and meticulous investigation, but also with far from hidden or suppressed passion, LQWLPDF\ DQG HQJDJHPHQW , KDYH QRW MXVW ZULWWHQ a book from a SXUHO\QHXWUDODQGFROGO\REMHFWLYHSHUVSHFWLYHRIVRPHRQHZKRLV QRW SHUVRQDOO\ UHODWHG WR WKH UHVHDUFKpV VXEMHFW-matter. I am also pursuing this neutral DQG REMHFWLYH WDVN ZLWK VKDUS VHQVLWLYLW\ WR -RKQRI'DPDVFXVWKHoKXPDQSHUVRQpQRWMXVWoWKHPLQGpWKHKLstorical figure from a particular Sitz im LebenQRWMXVWWKHSUHVXPHG DXWKRU RI FHUWDLQ H[WDQW WH[WV WKH &KULVWLDQ RI D SDUWLFXODU ORFDO communiW\QRWMXVWWKH&KULVWLDQUHSUHVHQWDWLYHRIDXQLYHUVDOL]HG preserved tradition. It is the human person of that context (Syria, my own homeland), and of that life-setting, that I am trying to put center-stage and introduce. To do this, I have allowed myself to go beyond the narrow boundaries of John’s texts written in the Greek ODQJXDJHWKH texts that have made scholars in the West treat John vii

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of Damascus for so long, up until the present day, as a GreekByzantine church voice, who, though physically dwelling outside Constantinople, in a Muslim-Arab world, lived ‘in heart and mind’ in Byzantium. This is a study that allows itself to travel beyond that UDWKHUVXEMHFWLYHO\IL[HGDQGXQIDLUO\QDUURZODEHOLQJDQGFDWHJRUization. This is a study that departs from the belief that speaking and writing in Greek does not make John or any other Christian orthodox person from his homeland automatically ‘Greek’ or automatically intellectually and affiliation-wise ‘Byzantine’. This is also not the case in today’s multilingual world – those who speak ‘English’ are not all native ‘British’ or supporters of ‘British cause and traditions’ (whatever these are). Just as we live today in a multilingual world that no longer defines intellectual, cultural, convictional and personal identity by virtue of the languages used in an individual’s intellectual activities, John of Damascus also lived in a multilingual context, the sophisticated nature of which should not make us fall into associating everything written in ‘Greek’ with Byzantium and an affiliation to it. John of Damascus must not be treated DVDo%\]DQWLQHpWKHRORJLFDOYRLFHMXVWDVDVFKRODUOLNHPH– 1DMLE George Awad, the 6XUL\ćQĪ-Arab Eastern Christian son of Syria – is not to be considered a ‘British/American’ theological voice simply because I use English language in my scholarship and intellectual production. This is a monograph on John of Damascus that aims to bring this great church father back home. It dares to claim back our saint for the indigenous people of Syria-Palestine – QRWMXVWGHPRJUDShically, but also intellectually. It dares to treat him and the texts he left behind for us as records of our history, our suffering, our identity-IRUPDWLRQMRXUQH\our mind-strife, our theology, our Christianity. It is a book that tries humbly to bring John of Damascus back home to Umayyad Christianity, after decades of ‘byzantinizing’ his legacy and mind and imposing on his personality worldviews, allegiances and traditions – which he never ignored or undermined, yet cannot so easily be deemed a guardian for and representative of. As if this great churchman was living telepathically in Constantinople and not in the dramatically transforming and quacking land of Umayyad Syria-Palestine. I worked on this study following the advice of the great JewLVK*HUPDQSKLORVRSKHU:DOWHU%HQMDPLQJRRGVFKRODUVDUHWKRVH ZKR DLP DW IXOILOOLQJ WKHLU UHVHDUFK SURMHFWV LQ VLOHQFH Along the

PREFACE

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way, I have been blessed with a voice or two who offered encouragement. Among some of my colleagues, who have genuine sensitivity to the particular cultural, contextual, religious and intellectual character of the Christian communities in Syria-Palestine during the seventh century A.D., I found two who did not hesitate to encourage me to keep digging and proceeding in my daunting and chalOHQJLQJMRXUQH\,DPSDUWLFXODUO\JUDWHIXOEH\RQGZRUGVWRProfessor Mat. Immerzeel and Professor Sidney Griffith. Both wonderful scholars offered me good advice on my work via email (Mat) and in face-to-face conversation (Sidney). I am grateful to Father Griffith for warning me about traps that might lie in wait for me as I researchHGP\VXEMHFWDQGWKHQWULHG to find a publisher for my text. For this advice, I am immensely thankful, and I will always remain indebted to his friendship. Professor Immerzeel’s priceless advice and information in relation to images of John of Damascus (wearing a turban and with a dark-skinned face) in Eastern paintings and icons were beyond precious. To him I am deeply grateful too and delighted by his help. I remain also deeply indebted to Prof. Pim Valkenberg of the Catholic University of America, DC, for reading the entire text and appraising it positively and recommending its content and value to scholarship. But, I also would like to thank dearly those who hesitated seriously in supporting my research and who believed that I am not up to the task. I thank them too because their detaining voice worked perfectly well as a stimulator that pushed me forward to accept the challenge and dive deep in pursuing its track. To them, I also say ‘thank you’ for such a pressure and squeeze, which scholars do sometimes (if not always!) need, in my opinion, to create innovatively and dare to tread into uncharted territories. I also remain, as always since 2012, grateful to my friend, Dr, Terry Wright, for his work on reviewing and proof-reading the entire text and making sure it has been written in a readable English. Any errors or infelicities that remain in the text are my sole responsibility. I am more than humbled and graced by Gorgias Press’s acceptance of my monograph and its willingness to delve into the adventure of publishing it. To their editing and publication team I convey my most sincere gratitude. In this editing team I stand deeply indebted to the excellent, meticulous editorial work of Adam Walker, whose admirably professional, careful and painstaking work to ensure the

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production of the monograph in the best condition imaginable, cannot be paid back by mere words of thanks and appreciation. Finally, and as always, I am grateful from the bottom of my heart to my beloved wife, partner and best friend, Verena Elizabeth Kozmann, for every conversation and discussion I made with her in relation to her area of expertise in social and cultural anthropology and the implications of these social sciences’ methodology on WKHVXEMHFWVRIP\WKHRORJLFDODQGKLVWRULFDOUHVHDUFK. To me, these venues of idea-wrestling and method-interaction have and always remain tremendous occasions for learning, inspiration and intellectual stimulation that have left their indelible fingerprints on what I write and how I research. To her I remain always indebted and wholeheartedly grateful. Last but not least, whether I succeeded or failed in my invitation for dialogue and provocation of further thought is something that is yet to be decided by you, the reader. This is a study that aims to launch a conversation. I believe that scholarship and academia do not evolve by conformity and abidance with confessing the theses and convictions of mainline schools of thought PRVWO\HQMRying institutional or public power). Academia evolves by means of questioning, critiquing, doubting and controversy. I hope that this book will humbly pave the way for a new ‘controversy’ on John of Damascus and invite further scholars to search further into his legacy and person. If I have succeeded in creating such a debate, then my mission is, modestly speaking, accomplished. For me, personally, if I have succeeded in bringing John of Damascus ‘back home’, this will be the greatest reward. 1DMLE*HRUJH$ZDG Hartford CT, Fall 2018

CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCING THE CASE When scholars in the modern era visit the seventh century, whether to study the early chapters of the story of the Islamic Umayyad Empire, whose heart is Syria-Palestine, or to study Christianity in Late Antiquity and during the middle Byzantine period, they pause at the life and intellectual contribution of the Christian, SyrianDamascene, theologian and church figure, John of Damascus. For WKH PDMRULW\ RI VFKRODUV WKLV historical figure presents us with a very important bridge in the history of Christian theology and life in the Middle/Near East, between Byzantine Christianity and indigenous Eastern (later Arab) Christianity that was born and evolved in the shadow of early Islam. John of Damascus is known also with his indigenous Arab name, WKHLU@VXEMHFWRQIURPOLWHUDU\KLVWRU\WRWKHKLVWRU\RIFXOWXUHr 40 John Haldon also expresses in his own terms the same invitation to contemporary Byzantine studies students when he states that there are some historical eras that suffer from a serious reduction of the amount of available literature that belongs to them. Haldon echoes Cameron’s invitation when he states: In fact, it is increasingly seen now that the lack of traditional “historical” writing can be compensated for by a more careful and thoughtful analysis of – for example – theological writings, archaeology, art historical data, and sigillographical texts. It also entails an appreciation of the fact that cultures evolve priorities, not necessarily consciously or in a planned way, which reflect their conditions of existence, social relations, and economic realities, and that an understanding of how such priorities shift and change, and what the results of such shifts might be in terms of actual cultural production, can throw as much light on the process and course of historical change as a narrative text. 41

It is my belief that making contextuality the prolegomenon of research on the church’s past theologians, such as John of Damascus – that is, making the context of John’s Sitz im Leben guide our reading of his texts and form our understanding of his theological and intellectual orientations – is the most appropriate means for protecting the historical study of this church father, or any other figure for that matter, from what Lewis Ayres has warned about in recent years, namely, the tendency of scholars to interweave their historiVessey, “Literature,” p. 58, citing Averil Cameron, “Education and Literary Culture,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, XIII: The Late Roman Empire, A.D. 337–425, edited by A. Cameron and P. Garnsey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 665–707 (p. 707). 41 John Haldon, “Primary Sources,” in The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, edited by Elizabeth Jeffreys, John Haldon, and Robin Cormack (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 21–30 (pp. 23–24). 40

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cal–theological narratives with “assumptions about how theology [of that historical era] should be practiced and about how theology has developed that hold at arm’s length the real challenge that [this historical era’s contextual details] offer.” 42 By employing a “context-centered” methodology, I am issuing an invitation to study John of Damascus’s legacy and Umayyad Christianity afresh from the perspective of their historical Islamic context, and not from any assumed metanarrative or pre-tailored discourse composed by contemporary pro-Byzantine theologians about how studying this church father and these Christian communities should proceed and what assessment it should produce. 43

CONTEXT-CENTERED METHODOLOGY AND ORIENTAL CHURCH HISTORY

The attention to “contextuality” and centralizing it in hermeneutical studies of history has lately found a serious foothold in the working arena of scholars of oriental church history. In recent years, some historians of oriental Christianity have started to pursue a systematic borrowing of research methods from contextual and intercultural studies in social sciences and to apply them to Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 386. Ayres directs this accusation specifically against systematic theology, as he accuses modern systematic theologians of creating a metanarrative of fourth-century Nicene and pro-Nicene theology that is prefabricated according to ready-made presumptions and sweeping preconceptions about what this theology must have been. Yet a careful reading of Ayres’s argument reveals clearly that he himself adopts the very same sweeping strateJ\ WR ZKLFK KH REMHFWV +LV RZQ UHDGLQJ RI SDWULVWLF WKHRORJLDQV LV IDU IURPREMHFWLYHDQGUDWKHUPRQROLWKLFDQGWKHGLVFUHSDQFLHVEHWZHHQWKH various systematic theologians he mentions are far more serious and diverse than he is willing to admit. 43 I borrow this method of reasoning for my historical–theological study of John of Damascus because it is contextual theology and contextcentered scholarship in particular that “explicitly places the recognition of the contextual nature of theology at the forefront of the theological process” (Pears, Doing Contextual Theology, p. 1). 42

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WKHLU KLVWRULRORJLFDO UHVHDUFK 2QH RI WKH SDUWLFXODU VXEMHFWV VXFK scholars study carefully from this perspective is the issue of identity formation and the influence of sociocultural factors on the religious thought and identification process in the history of the Christian communities in the Orient. A few years ago, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) invited a group of scholars from diverse disciplines to study sociologically and contextually the processes of forming communal identity among the West Syrian Christians. 44 These scholars’ primary interest was to detect the theological, religious, ecclesial, and intellectual components that play a decisive role in the Syriac Orthodox communities’ attempts at selfidentification and differentiation from others in their living contexts. They decided to study this phenomenon in particular because they realized that “the Syrian Christian refugees in the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany intensely debate their identity,” 45 as they find themselves consistently challenged by the need to find a convenient connection between “what they believe in” and “where they live.” The working team decided, therefore, to trace the roots of the challenge to self-identity in the Syriac Orthodox community back to the soil of the Christological controversies of the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451). In these seemingly purely theological controversies over the identity of Jesus Christ, NWO scholars detected the beginning of a parallel non-theological biography on how the nonChalcedonians (Syriac Orthodox) found themselves in a weak sociopolitical, cultural, and ecclesial position that destined them, from the fourth century AD up to the Islamic era and onwards, perpetually to rethink their position and identity, and “to define and delineate the canon of their cultural heritage, their uniqueness and orthodoxy.” 46 The question “What does being Syriac Orthodox 44

2Q WKLV SURMHFW UHDG %DV WHU +DDU 5RPHQ\ 1DXUHV $WWR -DQ - van Ginkel, Mat Immerzeel, and Bas Snelders, “The Formation of a Communal Identity among West Syrian Christians: Results and ConcluVLRQVRIWKH/HLGHQ3URMHFWrChurch History and Religious Culture 89, nos. 1– 3 (2009), pp. 1–52. 45 Haar Romeny et al., “Communal Identity,” p. 5. 46 Romeny et al., “Communal Identity,” p. 3.

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mean?” became central in the historical narrative of this community’s survival – QRWMXVWLQWKHH[SDWULDWHODQGVEXWPRUHFUXFLDOO\LQ their own oriental homeland as well. What I construe as the most interesting and stimulating aspects in the abovePHQWLRQHG SURMHFW DUH WKH IROORZLQJ WZR. First, WKHSURMHFWpVWHDPZDVGHWHUPLQHGWRFDVW aside the common policy of compartmentalizing disciplines or dividing specialities, which usually makes scholars wonder in puzzlement: “But what could detailed theological discussions on Christology possibly explain about the identity development of the socioreligious community that was involved in such debates?” Instead of surrendering their experiment to the conventions of such compartmentalization, the NWO group decided to follow a different, more contextually driven track by asking if theological “heresies” (in this case, nonChalcedonian Christology) are but “social moments in disguise,” and whether a better examination of such theological phenomena could be achieved with the help of the new tools and more precise definitions of terms such as “ethnicity,” “nation,” and “identity” now offered by recent social sciences. 47 The second interesting methodological characteristic in NWO’s study of the history of Syriac Orthodoxy is the realization that no reliable and coherent understanding of the history of this Christian community and its non-Chalcedonian theology can be obtained apart from perceiving the impact of the Syriac Christians’ relations to cultural contexts and their endeavors at selfidentification. More significantly still, the NWO’s team persuasively FRQMHFWXUHG WKDW VXFK a perception must be gleaned from a clear interdisciplinary perspective. Thus, in their research program, the NWO’s team combined “five different disciplines: religious studies, history, art history, philology and social anthropology.” 48 The team expresses its opting for this method in these thought-provoking words: Over the past decade, communal identities in the late antique Graeco-Roman world have already received much attention. 47 48

Romeny et al., “Communal Identity,” p. 4. Romeny et al., “Communal Identity,” p. 6.

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UMAYYAD CHRISTIANITY Yet, in the area of Eastern Christianity much remains to be done. With one or two exceptions, specialists in this specific field have not tackled these issues in a systematic fashion, though, as we have seen, the area has already attracted the interest of sociologists and social anthropologists writing from a more theoretical perspective. We believe that the categories developed in social anthropology can indeed help to describe the complex cultural patterns of the Near East in the late antique and Islamic periods. 49

This methodological perspective is similar to the one that I depart from in my study of Umayyad Christianity and John of Damascus’s intellectual legacy. I do concur with the NWO team’s perceptive observation that the communal life and contexts of Eastern Christianity are still under-studied. I further surmise that the case is even more evidently insufficient in relation to Arab and Arab-speaking &KULVWLDQLW\ , DOVR VLGH ZLWK WKH /HLGHQ 3URMHFW WHDPpV FRQYLFWLRQ about the scientific value of the categories and forms of examination that are developed in the social sciences and their usefulness for theological and historiological studies. It is due to this agreement that I endeavor to pursue an interdisciplinary examination of John of Damascus and Umayyad Christianity and their historical background. As a systematic theologian and historian of ideas, I seek to scrutinize a possible connection between John’s writing style and his sociocultural identity as a Chalcedonian Christian belonging to the Umayyad Syro-Damascene context. In this attempt to integrate theological/religious hermeneutics with the sociocultural, anthropological, and even ethnic interpretations, there is a clear conceptual prioritization and methodological centralization of the element of “contextuality.” Some of the inquiries this contextualized, interdisciplinary strategy invites us to ponder are: What is the impact of John of Damascus’s cultural and social identity on his religious output? Could one read John’s writings, particularly his chapter 100/101 on the Ishmaelites in De Haeresibus and his trilogy on the veneration of icons, as textual marks of the birth of a new Christian community 49

Romeny et al., “Communal Identity,” pp. 5–6.

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in Muslim Syria-Palestine called the Melkite–Chalcedonian community or an Umayyad Christianity" ,Q WKHLU SURMHFW the NWO team found that “some elements of an identity can be very old, others can be newer.” 50 Upon this discovery, one might ask: Can the examination of John Damascene’s life and theological legacy offer us plausible data on the “very old” and the “newer elements” in the identity of these Christian Umayyads of Damascus and SyriaPalestine, who became known as “Melkites,” 51 and no longer as “Byzantines,” during the Islamic era? Can one speak about John of Damascus, from a contextual perspective, as a symptomatic figure of a newly formed community and its struggle for forming a communal identity in the midst of the Umayyad sphere? Can he represent a Christian group in the Umayyad era who was striving to inYHQWDQLQWHOOHFWXDOWUDGLWLRQRILWVRZQDWUDGLWLRQWKDWLVIDUIURP EHLQJMXVWUHOLJLRXVO\RUWKHRORJLFDOO\PRWLYDWHG"* W. Bowersock once observed from studying the mosaic images of the cities that belong to late antiquity and the early Islamic era that cities like Constantinople, Jerusalem, Damascus, Ma’daba, and Umm erRaʛćʛ each have their own distinctiveness that makes these cities and others in the region constituents of a fabric of great diversity. Bowersock reads this as an assertive expression of the continuation of “local identity within a larger framework of religion and empire.” 52 Could such contextual specifications be reliable data for constructing an understanding of John of Damascus’s personality and thought that is more historically and contextually sensitive to his local urban identity? This is what my study aims to explore.

Romeny et al., “Communal Identity,” p. 9. Thus in their research they do not only speak about the formation of identity, but about its maintenance and renewal as well. 51 On the history of the term “Melkite” as a nomenclature for the &KDOFHGRQLDQ&KULVWLDQVVHHIRUH[DPSOHʗDEĪE=D\\ćWϲϓϥϮϴϜϠϤϟ΍ϡϭήϟ΍ ϡϼγϹ΍ [ar-5ŠP DO-0DODNL\\ŠQ IĪ DO-ĩVOćP/“The Rum Malkites in Islam”] ʗDUĪʛć/E,PS6W3DXO  52 G. W. Bowersock, Mosaics as History: The Near East from Late Antiquity to Islam (London, UK/Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 65, 81. 50

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Strongly relevant to the attempt to find some answers to the inquiry that NWO’s proMHFWDQGP\VWXG\pVDSSURDFKGHSDUWIURP is the attention to locality and the notion of “place.” In the social sciences – and especially in anthropology, geography, and literary criticism – the notion of “place” is a significant category of analysis. 53 On the value of “space” as a hermeneutic tool for extracting historical, cultural, DQG VRFLDO ZHEV RI PHDQLQJ =D\GH $QWULP LQ an essay published in 2006, says the following: In the simplest terms, place may be defined as “space to which meaning has been ascribed,” and one way of ascribing meaning to space is to present it in writing. Thus, examining representations of spaces … in the written record of a society over a period of time reveals culturally and historically specific meanings and yields insight into peoples’ relationships to political and social realities. 54

Antrim borrows this implementation of “place” from the social sciences, and she invests it in the scholarly analysis of the historiographical representations of Muslim authors from the medieval era. Antrim focuses specifically on Islamic historiographies on Syria and Syrian cities in the Middle Ages, particularly the representation of the city of Damascus in AbŠ al-4ćsim ʲAlĪ Ibn ʲAsćkir’s ɝȼɭȮ ȭʈȲȆȕ ‫ف‬؈ȍɡɦȄ (TćrĪNK Dimashq al-KabĪr/“The Grand Historiography of Damascus”). Antrim suggests reading this text as a “discourse of place” and as a narration of “politics of belonging” among Muslims. 55 63F

53

=D\GH $QWULP q,EQ ʲ$VćNLUpV 5HSUHVHQWDWLRQV RI 6\ULD DQG 'amascus in the Introduction to the 7ćUĪNK 0DGĪQDW 'LPDVKT,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 38 (2006), pp. 109–129 (p. 110). For the notion of “place” in social sciences, one can also read Erica Carter, James Donald, and Judith Squires, eds., Space and Place: Theories of Identity and Location /RQGRQ /DZUHQFH DQG :LVKDUW   3DXO & $GDPV 6WHYHQ Hoelscher, and Karen E. Till, eds., Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001). 54 Antrim, “Ibn ʲ$VćNLUpV5HSUHVentations,” p. 110. 55 Antrim, “Ibn ʲ$VćNLUpV5HSUHVHQWDWLRQVrS

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Antrim’s attention to the notion of “place” in relation to the study of Muslim historiography is relevant to the contextual analysis I seek to construct on John of Damascus. John was a citizen of Syria and, for most of his life, an inhabitant of Umayyad Damascus. It is necessary to understand John of Damascus’s personality, life, and intellectual legacy within this particular framework. Locating him in Damascus and Jerusalem, between which he divided his life, may also offer us a valuable discourse of meaning that can shed starker light on dimensions and aspects of John’s life and personality that have so far been kept mostly in the dark and rarely examined. In addition, Ibn ʲAsćkir’s text on Damascus is also relevant for examining the impact of John Damascene’s location on his own contextual circumstances and these links to his legacy and identity as a Christian in the land of Muslim Umayyad rule. Rereading John’s Sitz im Leben in conversation with Ibn ʲAsćkir’s description of Damascus and its context in the latter’s TćrĪkh is, therefore, not only relevaQWWRWKHXVHRIWKHQRWLRQRIqSODFHrLt is also plausibly relevant to this study’s “from-context-to-text” methodology.

CONTEXTUALITY AND JOHN OF DAMASCUS IN THIS STUDY In the ensuing chapters, I attempt to borrow this “contextinfluences-the-text” aspect from contextual theology and contextcentered scholarship and implement it in pursuing a “fromcontext-to-text” re-reading of John of Damascus’s theological legacy. I will not allow the Greek linguistic form of the texts, or any content mirroring Greek–Byzantine orthodoxy, to monitor and lead the understanding of John’s role and stances in his context. Instead, I will gather all the possible data one can collect on his historical, social, and cultural Sitz im Leben influence and guide the re-reading of the contents of some of John of Damascus’s extant theological literature. If the methodological track of this study will follow “from-context-to-text” rather than “from-text-to-context” (or “from-text-to-text”), and if it aims at founding its hermeneutics on the “Sitz im Leben” components and constituents, then the study of John of Damascus must definitely exceed the mere examination of his (dominantly, if not exclusively) Greek textual and literary legacy. Rather, it must be oriented towards studying the sociocultural, artistic, and behavioral constituents that were inherent to his historical milieu: the elements that are symptomatic of daily com-

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munal contact in Umayyad Syro-Palestine, including personal and societal conduct, societal structures and ranks, dress fashions, identity and status, artistic and literary styles, and so on. These elements become the foundational and key hermeneutical instruments that underpin any coherent and accurate interpretation and appraisal of every text composed in the wake of a given historical era or historical figure’s legacy (in this case, John of Damascus). These data are so because they constitute before anything else the “Leben’s” characteristics and identity of the Damascene’s Sitzung, and they are also, in turn, the Sitzung of John’s intellectual mind and literary output. Be that as it may, a coherent and comprehensive understanding of John of Damascus the Christian theologian and apologist is untenable apart from pondering basic components of his historical character and contextual sociocultural life settings, such as (a) his Arabic name in relation to the genealogical naming and by-naming KDELWVRI8PD\\DGDQG0XVOLPVRFLHW\(b) his imaging in Christian icons and portraits, including the depiction of his dressing habits in relation to the fashion and artistic styles of the Byzantine Christian context of late antiquity in Syria-Palestine and the Byzantine ZRUOGVDQG(c) the possibility of his polemical writing against Islam out of sociological and not primarily theological reasons, withstanding the discriminative, superior attitude of the Arabs of the Umayyad society and their degradation of the non-Arabs (nonashrćf or mawćlĪ) in that society. From a “from-context-to-text” perspective, as I will show in this study, it becomes more plausible and perceptive to read John’s De Haeresibus 100/101 not as an intellectual theological apology against the religious discourse of Islam, but rather as John’s patriotic Syrian zealous degrading of the ArabPeninsulans’ cultural superiority, which was dominant in his historical context. It is a blunt and explicit refutation and rebuke of the social and state hierarchical system of “Arabs vs AʰćMLP” that afflicted the Umayyad heartland. From this contextual perspective, one must pause primarily at the following in the Damascene’s text: first, his calling of the Arabs “Ishmaelites” and not “Muslims,” naming them with their genealogical and not religious SDWURQ\PVHFRQGKLVDWWDFNLQJRIDVSHFWV in the life of these Ishmaelites that are mainly related to conduct, social relations, DQG KDELWV WKLUG KLV UHVRUWLQJ WR GHIDPatory and hostile language, instead of an apologetic, intellectual, or argumen-

2. CONTEXTUALITY

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WDWLYHRQHDQGIRXUWKDQGPRVWLQWULJXLQJO\KLV deliberate refusal to write the text in Arabic but in Greek, which may suggest a sort of a linguistic shuʰŠEL\\DK (Δ͉ϴΑϮόη/“populism”) designed to win him the sympathy of his non-Arab Christian community. From the “context-to-text” perspective, John’s opting for choices like polemically speaking on Islam in his chapter 100/101 on the Ishmaelites by means, for example, of calling them “Ishmaelites,” speaking about a camel story in their religious text, and claiming that their prophet gleaned his religious claims from an “Arian monk” and QRWKLQJ HOVH MXVW WR PHQWLRQ D IHZ RFFXS\ FHQWer-stage in the hermeneutic of this study. They are deemed central hermeneutical tools for reading and understanding not only John’s text, but also John and other Christians’ stances on and attitudes toward their Sitz im Leben in an Umayyad Syrian, and dominantly Muslim, society. These attitudes and stances reveal in turn how these Christians viewed themselves as “Christians” who belong to a non-Christian context and try to re-identify themselves in relation to it. This study, in other words, attempts to follow a method that suggests “possible relationships between ideas and social structures” 56 in relation to Christianity in the Umayyad context. While pursuing this approach, one must, finally, keep in mind that studying John of Damascus and the “Christianity” he belonged to vis-à-vis a “fromcontext-to-text” perspective does not offer an understanding of the nature and identity of Islam per se. Rather, it offers an understanding of what is Islam in the particular here and now of John of Damascus’s Sitz im Leben. 64F

56

Gill, Theology in Social Context, p. 106.

CHAPTER THREE. WHO WAS JOHN OF DAMASCUS? OR, CENTRALIZING S ITZ IM

L EBEN

JOHN OF DAMASCUS’S PROFILE IN TODAY’S SCHOLARSHIP Among the historians of Christianity in general, and oriental/Byzantine Christianity in particular, one detects primary attention paid to John of Damascus’s sociocultural identity and background. Some scholars try to probe the Damascene’s Syriac (or Arab) familial roots and demonstrate a tendency to take it into consideration in their attempts at perceiving John’s role and influence during the era of the Umayyads’ rule. Two contemporary scholars who offer to us valuable expositions of this background are Andrew Louth and Daniel Sahas. In his St. John Damascene, Andrew Louth starts his account of John of Damascus’s life and times by conceding the scarcity of reliable extant historical information about the events of John’s own life. All the hagiographical lives of John that we have in our hands today, Louth states, “are late and unreliable.” Also, Louth continues, John’s own writings “contain scarcely any personal clues” that can aid today in constructing a lucid and complete picture on this church father. 1 This fact admitted, Louth shows still that what one can mostly be certain about is that John of Damascus was an inhabitant of the Middle East for his entire life. He was born in Damascus, and he resided in the city during the Umayyad era. It is also believed that he served in the court of the Umayyad caliphs for a considerable part of his life, before he, eventually, resigned from Andrew Louth, St. John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 3. 1

35

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this service and moved to Palestine to reside there as a monk in Mar Sabas monastery until the end of his life. 2 John, Louth affirms, was born to an originally Syriac–Melkite family that was, from the time of John’s grandfather, “prominent in civil administration in Syria.” John’s grandfather, ManʛŠr, was appointed during the time of Byzantine presence in Syria (the epoch of Emperor Mauritius/Maurice) as the general financial administrator (logothetes) in Damascus (according to Eutyches 3). ManʛŠr presumably continued this post during the epoch of Islamic rule and then passed it on to KLVVRQ6DUMŠn, 4 who became the general logothetes during the rule of the caliph ʲAbd al-Malik (according to Theophanes 5). The social status of his family privileged John with the best classical education (enkyklios paideia) of the time, which, according to Louth, his admirable fluent command of Greek verse and prose clearly demonstrates. 6 Louth invites us to connect the relevance of John’s life in the Umayyad caliphate to his overall role as a churchman and theoLouth, St. John Damascene, p. 3. The linking of John of Damascus to Mar Sabas monastery has been recently challenged and claimed to be far from historically evident. On this, see Marie-France Auzépy, “De la Palestine à Constantinople (VIIIe-IXe siècles): Étienne le Sabaïte et Jean Damascene,” Travaux et Mémoires 12 (1994), pp. 183– -RKQ & /DPoUHDX[ q7KH %LRJUDSK\ RI 7KHRGRUH $EŠ 4XUUDK 5HYLVLWHGr Dumbarton Oaks Papers 56 (2002), pp. 25–40. 3 Eutyches, Annales, in Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalum, edited by L. Cheikho (Paris: Carolus Poussieglue Bibliopola, 1909), pp. 5, 7. 4 In a vita of John of Damascus written by an unknown author, -RKQpVIDWKHU6DUMŠQLVVDLGWRKDYHEHHQDqUXOHURI'DPDVFXVrDQGWKH citizens of the city used to call him “AmĪU” (“prince”). See A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Analecta Hierosolymitikes Stachiologias, vol. 4 (Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1963), p. 272. 5 The Chronicle of Theophanes, Anni Mundi 6095–6305 (A.D. 602–813), ed. and trans. Harry Turtledove (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 562, pp. 23–25. On John’s grandfather’s role in Damascus, I also benefited from Nicolas G. Abou Mrad, “Saint John Damascene: Historical Background, Life and Works” (MLitt dissertation, University of Durham, 1996), pp. 35–43. 6 Louth, St. John Damascene, pp. 5–6. 2

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logian more seriously than we might usually do. It is not for nothing that John used to be known among the Muslims, the Arabs, and the Byzantines alike, with his Arabic/Syriac name, Yannah ManʛŠU b. ʙDUMŠQE0DQʛŠUDG-'LPDVKTĪ“0DQʛŠU,” Louth relates, was also the name/title of his grandfather, who had been responsible for the fiscal administration of Damascus in the court of the Umayyad caliph, Muʲćwiya. 7 In his monograph John of Damascus on Islam, Daniel Sahas elaborates in even more detail on John of Damascus’s background and the implications of John’s sociocultural life on his character. Sahas JRHVEDFNWRWKHWLPHRI-RKQpVJUDQGIDWKHU0DQʛŠUEʙDUMŠQDQG QDUUDWHV KLV UROH LQ WKH FDSLWXODWLRQ RI 'DPDVFXV WR .KćOLG E DO:DOĪG 7KH KLVWRULRJUDSKLFDO GRFumentation of this event tells us that, as the friend of the Bishop of Damascus, who accompanied him to the negotiation meeting with Ibn al-:DOĪG0DQʛŠUPDQDJHG to make the Muslim army’s leader promise to spare the lives of 0DQʛŠUpVIDPLO\PHPEHUVDORQJZLWKDOOWKHLQKDELWDQWVRIWKHFLW\ – except the 5ŠP (ϡϭήϟ΍/the Romans or Byzantines). In return, 0DQʛŠUDQGWKHVHLQKDELWDQWVSOHGJHGWRRSHQWKHJDWHVRIWKHFLW\ before the Muslim troops. 8 Along the same lines, Hugh Kennedy reads John’s grandfather’s involvement in the surrendering of Damascus to the Muslims from the contextual perspective of the struggle of the Greek-speaking elite families of Syria to survive and maintain their positions and presence in the midst of the newly changing conditions that stemmed from the Muslims’ occupation and the collapse of Byzantium in their homeland. Kennedy articulates his rather intriguing proposal in the following words, which are worth quoting in full: 72F

Louth, St. John Damascene, p. 5. Daniel J. Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam: The “Heresy of the Ishmaelites” (Leiden: Brill, 1972), pp. 17–19. After recording the versions of this incident in extant Christian and Muslim historiographical texts of people such as Eutychius, Ibn al-ʱAmid, al-BaladhŠrĪ, Ibn Isʘaq, and Sayf b. ʲUmar, Sahas says, “It is difficult to aVVHVVH[DFWO\ZKDW0DQʛŠUpVUROHZDV in those events” (p. 19). 7 8

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UMAYYAD CHRISTIANITY The story of the survival of the family of St. John of Damascus is perhaps especially revealing in this regard. His grandfather 0DQʛŠUE6DUMŠQ6HUJLRV KDGEHHQDSSRLQWHGE\WKH(PSHror Maurice to supervise the collection of taxes but had failed, not surprisingly, to send anything to the fisc during the Persian occupation. He tried to excuse himself on the grounds that he had sent the money to the Persians but Heraclius had insisted on fining him 100,000 aurie. It may be because of his resentment over this that he negotiated the surrender of the city to the Muslims and took service under the new regime under which the family continued to run the fiscal administration. 9

Daniel Sahas brings to our attention two interesting elements inherent to the sociocultural context of Syria and Damascus during the age of John of Damascus. First, he points to the Arabic character of Syria even before the arrival of Muslims to it, and to the withdrawal of Heraclius from the region. Second, Sahas equally stresses the independent thinking of the Syrian inhabitants during that era, as these “preserved their religion, their culture and their language, and they kept themselves essentially intact from the influence of the Greco-Roman rulers.” 10 Being born to a family from Syria-Damascus, John must have also inherited the same Arabic character and independent, non-Greco–Roman thinking of his other Syrian compatriots. Sahas builds upon this factor of “Syrian particularity” in his ensuing reading of the life of John’s whole family and this family’s relations to the Muslim rule in Syria. In the light of the familiarity of the Damascenes with Arabic mentality, it is not unusual for someone like John’s grandfather, ManʛŠU E ʙDUMŠQ for instance, to occupy an authoritative public position in the House of Finance (ϝΎϤϟ΍ ΖϴΑ/Bayt al-Mćl) in the Umayyad adHugh Kennedy, “Syrian Elites from Byzantium to Islam: Survival or Extinction?”, in Money, Power and Politics in Early Islamic Syria: A Review of Current Debates, edited by John Haldon (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 181–200 (p. 187). In his reading of John’s family biography, Kennedy seems to be relying on Auzépy, “De la Palestine à Constantinople,” pp. 183–218. 10 Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 22. 9

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ministration), or even to be close to the caliphs, Muʲćwiya I (661– 680) and Yazid b. Abi Sufiyćn, who kept ManʛŠr in his position and made him one of their mawćlĪ. 11 It is even quite understandable that the loyalty of ManʛŠr senior’s family to the Muslim court would be rewarded by appointing his son, John’s father, ʙDUMŠn b. ManʛŠr, to the caliphal court (he was the official scribe of the Muslim court: ϥ΍ϮϳΪϟ΍ ΐΗΎϛ/Katib ad-DĪwćn) from the time of Muʲćwiya up to the time of ʲAbd Almalek ibn Marwćn (he was called “the mawlć of the caliph YazĪd b. Muʲćwiya,” according to al-AʛfahćnĪ and aʜ-ʝabarĪ 12). The same background also explains the inviting of Yannah ManʛŠUMXQLRUKLPVHOIWR inherit the position of “the Scribe of the Court” and to be trusted by the caliph with financial and 76F

Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 26. On this family’s three main figures (John’s grandfather, his father, and John himself), see Louis Cheïkho, 1517–622ˬϡϼγϹ΍ϲϓΎϬΑΎ˷ΘϛϭΔϴϧ΍ήμϨϟ΍˯΍έίϭ [:Š]DUćʯ an-Naʜrćniyyah wa Kuttćbuha fĪ al-Islćm, 622–1517/“Christianity’s Ministers and Scribes in Islam, 622–1517”] HGLWHG E\ &DPLOOH +HFKDƻPÆ 6- -RXQLHK /LEUDULH Saint-Paul/Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 1987), pp. 72–76. 12 Cheïkho, “Christianity’s Ministers,” p. 73. In his historiography, Dʜ-ʝDEDUĪ FDOOV ʙDUMŠQ E 0DQʛŠU qar-5ŠPPĪ” (ϲ˷ ϣϭ˷ήϟ΍) VHH Abu Jaʲfar 0XʘDPPDGE-DUĪUDʜ-ʝDEDUĪ ˰ϫ 310–224ˬϙϮϠϤϟ΍ϭϞγήϟ΍ΦϳέΎΗϱήΒτϟ΍ΦϳέΎΗ [7ćUĪNKDʞ-ʝDEDUĪ7ćUĪNKDU-Rusul wal-0XOŠN–310 AH/“The HistoriogUDSK\RIDʜ-ʝDEDUĪ7KH+LVWRU\RI0HVVHQJHUVDQG.LQJV–310 AH”], vol. 5, HGLWHGE\0XʘDPPDG$EŠDO-)DʡO,EUćKĪP&DLUR'ćDO-MaʲćULI 1963), p. 330. On the other hand, in his book, .LWćE DO-$JKćQĪ, Abu al)DUDMDO-$ʛIDKćQĪVD\VWKDWWKH6DUMŠQDVWKH0DZOćRIWKHFDOLSK0XʘDPPDG@VD\VrDQGqthey [the Ishmaelites] say,” instead of VD\LQJ qWKH 4XUʱćn says” or “the book of 0XʘDmmad says.” All ZKDW-RKQGRHVLQUHODWLRQWRWKH4XUʱćn, or the book of the Ishmaelites, harshly degrades its religious authenticity, 164 claiming that LWZDVIRUJHGE\0XʘDPPDG rather than made by God. Apart from GHQ\LQJ WKH DXWKHQWLFLW\ RI WKH 4XUʱćn, John does not try to give the impression that he had personally read it, or that he had obtained a comprehensive, masterful knowledge of its theology, which could merit him knowledge beyond that of average Muslims. Even when John gives the impression that he is naming specific suras, he only mentions them – he never discusses them. Also, the names by which he seems to be referring to the suras are not H[DFWO\WKHVDPHWLWOHVRQHFDQILQGLQWKHWH[WRIWKH4XUʱćn. John speaks about four suras using the labels “The Woman,” “The Table,” “The Little Ox” (in Greek, he uses the term boidion), 165 and “The Camel of God.” As any reader of the 4XUʱćn can easily and immediately notice, these titles do not prove John’s familiarity with and knowledge of these suras from the perspective of a first-hand reader. Rather, they prove the opposite. Instead of the Arabic ˯ΎδϨϟ΍/an-1LVćʯ (plural) WKDW ZH ILQG LQ WKH 4XUʱćn, John speaks about the sura of “The Woman” (singular), which would synonymous with Γ΃ήϤϟ΍/al-Marʯćh in the Arabic and not to an-1LVćʯ. Moreover, John cites a verse from that sura which does not actually exist in it. John cites that sura to be saying: “till the land that God JDYH\RXDQGEHDXWLI\LWDQGGRWKLVLQWKLVPDQQHUr 166 In fact, no 523F

“Thus, having drafted some pronouncements in his book, worthy (only) of laughter, he handed it down to them in order that they may comply with it” (Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, Appendix I, p. 133). 165 Thus Andrew Louth perceptively notices in St. John Damascene, p. 79 n. 63. In his English translation of this phrase in John’s text, Daniel Sahas offers an alternative to Louth, translating Boidion as “the Heifer” (Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, Appendix I, p. 141). 166 Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, Appendix I, p. 139. In another translation of the Greek text of chapter 100/101, this citation reads: “work the land which God hath given then and beautify it. And do this, and do it in such a manner” (Saint John of Damascus: Writings, trans. Chase, pp. 153–160 (p. 158). 164

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such verse exists in sura an-1LVćʱ. In his translation of John’s De Haeresibus, Frederic Chase suggests that this citation is an invocaWLRQRIWKH4XUʱćnic verse: ΍ϮϣΪϗϭ ϢΘΌη˶ ϰ͉ϧ΃ ϢϜ˴ΛήΣ ΍ϮΗ΄ϓ ϢϜϟ ΙήΣ ˲ Ϣϛ΅Ύδϧ ϦϴϨϣΆϤϟ΍ ήθ͋ Αϭ ϩϮϗϼϣ˵ ϢϜϧ΃ ΍ϮϤϠϋ΍ϭ ௌ ΍ϮϘΗ΍ϭ ϢϜδϔϧϷ (QLVćʯŠkum ʚarthun lakum fa-ćtŠ ʚarthakum annć shiʯtum wa qaddimŠ li-anfusikum wa attaqŠ Allah wa aʰlamŠ annakum mulćqŠhu wa bashshir al-MŠʯmĪnĪn/“Your women are your till, so attend to your till wherever you like and treat yourselves and fear God and know that you are meeting Him and convey the good news [of this] to the believers”). Yet this YHUVHH[LVWVLQWKH4XUʱćn as verse 223 in sura al-Baqara and not in sura an-1LVćʱ. Even if this verse happened to exist in the latter sura, whose name John had already miscalled, John does not cite this verse accurately at all, as though he had not personally read it in the 4XUʱćn, let alone in the suras of al-Baqara and an-1LVćʱ themselves, but had occasionally heard it vocalized by Muslims. Secondly, the awkward Greek word John uses with the meaning of “little ox” does not really translate the Arabic word for “cow” (ΓήϘΒϟ΍/al-Baqara). This latter term is feminine in Arabic, while “ox” is masculine, as it refers to “bull” (έϮΛ/thawr). Thirdly, there is no such sura in the 4XUʱćn called “The Camel of God,” as Andrew Louth accurately points out. 167 Finally, the only nomenclature John uses WKDWFDQEHIRXQGLQWKHWH[WRIWKH4XUʱćn is “The Table,” which can be a designation of the sura that in Arabic is called ΓΪ΋ΎϤϟ΍/al-0ćʯida. Yet this alone is not enough to prove his NQRZOHGJH RI WKH 4XUʱćn and it does not cover up his mistaken recollection of the names of the other suras. The four titles John mentions in chapter 100/101 can be treated as indications of his ignorance of the text RIWKHVH4XUʱćnic suras. He was trying to recollect these titles, which he must occasionally have heard during his serving days among Muslims in the caliph’s court, from memory alone. Some Muslims there must have mentioned them from time to time while exchanging views on religion and faith. John was probably trying to recall the names of these suras from memory after such a long time in Damascus and while he lived in seclusion from that past in a monastic life of worship and theology. His memory must have lost touch with that 167

Louth, St. John Damascene, p. 79.

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past. No wonder that two names of the four suras were remembered inaccurately and one of them totally invented. +RZFDQRQHH[SODLQWKLVODFNRINQRZOHGJHRIWKH4XUʱćnic suras’ precise content in the case of someone who had grown up and lived in the land of Islam, who had possibly been educated with Muslims before serving most of his life among them? Here, contextuality is capable of offering a tenable answer. Today’s scholarship on the historical context of the formation of the 4XUʱćQ VXSSRUWV WKH FRQMHFWXUH WKDW 0XVOLPV’ and non0XVOLPVp NQRZOHGJH RI 4XUʱćnic teaching was derived from the oral preaching and practices of recitation in early Muslim circles of learning. Scholars take seriously today the philological fact that “the very word ‘qurʯćn’ seems to mean ‘recitation’, particularly recitation for liturgical purposes.” 168 The Arabic word qaraʯć means “to recite,” “to declaim,” or “to read aloud,” while the original Syriac term (THU\ćQć) from which the Arabic one was derived means “reading,” “scripture,” or “lectionary”. 169 This philological realization has led scholars to speak about a historical process wherein the oral teaching of the Prophet’s statements on faith – now called now qurʯćn in the sense of “reciting” – transformed during the eighth century into a specific codex, or PXʜʚDI. 170 In relation to this transformation process, it is also conceded today that the process of WUDQVPLWWLQJ WKH 4XUʱćn from a recitation into a codification after

Fred M. Donner, “The Historical Context,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Qurʯćn, edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 23–39 (p. 31). 169 Claude Gilliot, “Creation of a Fixed Text,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Qurʯćn, edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 41–57 (p. 41). 170 Angelika Neuwirth, “Structure and the Emergence of Community,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Qurʯćn, edited by Andrew Rippin (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), pp. 140– *HUKDUG %ᠰwering, “Chronology and thH4XUʱćn,” in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʯćn, vol. 1, edited by Jane D. McAuliffe (Brill: Leiden, 2001), pp. 316–335. 168

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the Prophet’s death is not particularly clear. 171 Scholars do relate that HYHQ ZKHQ WKH 4XUʱćn became a specific text, recitation and oral transmission of its content did not cease to influence its perception among Muslims. “The recitation of the text,” as Fred Donner opines, “was [itself] far from uniform.” Thus “for much of the text,” Donner concludes, “a strong tradition of oral recitation may have existed, and … the ʲUthmćnic text served mainly as a mnemonic device to aid in recitation.” 172 This means that the act of vocalization aQGUHFLWDWLRQRI4XUʱćnic teaching was more common and publically trusted than the written, textual transmission in conveying the message of the Prophet. Islamic records suggest that various collections of written 4XUʱćns existed after the death of the Prophet and that when the followers of each collection started to face dissensions among themselves, the caliph ʲUthmćn decided to make an official collecWLRQ RI WKH 4XUʱćQ 7KH FDOLSK LV VDLG WR KDYH RUGHUHG WKDW KLV 4XUʱćn (the “ʲ8WKPćQLF &RGH[r) be sent to the main centers of 0XVOLPUXOH0HFFD%DʛUD.ŠID, and Damascus. 173 Yet the copies of this official codex sent to each of these cities were far from identical, even containing mistakes that were not unknown to the caliph himself. 174 In addition, the suras that we have from this presumably official collection – there is an extant copy in the National Library in Paris that goes back to the end of the seventh century – appear in that codex with no titles at all. 175 Claude Gilliot suggests that having an official collection of written suras did not automatically entail that codification replaced recitation at the center-stage of As the classical discussion demonstrates in Theodor Nᠰldeke et al., The History of the Qurʯćn, ed. and trans. Wolfgang H. Behn (Leiden: Brill, 2013). 172 Donner, “Historical Context,” p. 32. 173 Gilliot, “Fixed Text,” p. 45. 174 Gilliot, “Fixed Text,” p. 47. 175 Gilliot, “Fixed Text,” p. 48. It is believed that this and other copies are all incomplete, surviving only in fragmentary form (François Déroche, “Written Transmission,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Qurʯćn, edited by Andrew Rippin (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), pp. 172– 186 (p. 173)). 171

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Muslim education. The codified text took over from the recited preaching during the ninth FHQWXU\ DV ,EQ 4XWD\ED G   IRU example, tells us. 176 This notwithstanding, there are no sufficient data to confirm that this was already the case during the seventh and eighth centuries. More importantly still, no canonical codified text called “The 4XUʱćQr was available during that early time. Some scholars go as far as suggesting that at that time, the only Islamic religious writings that had been attested to by external, non-Islamic sources, and that ODWHUH[LVWHGLQWKH4XUʱćn we have today, are the mosaic inscriptions in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. These LQVFULSWLRQV GR QRW H[LVW WRGD\ LQ WKH 4XUʱćQLF WH[W DQG WKH\ DUH “organized in different ways, and with grammatical variants due to different arrangements or to a different syntactical context.” 177 The followers of this proposal read these inscriptions as “fragments that were still scattered, attesting to the existence of a sort of Ur4XUʱćn, still being drafted, selected and assembled, some of which at the same time could have been used in the inscriptions on the [Dome of the Rock].” 178 As Harald Motzki reminds us, this is not to say “that there ZHUH QRW DQ\ WH[WV ODEHOOHG 4XUʱćn before [the ninth century].” It MXVW PHDQV WKDW qD FDQRQLFDO DQG WKXV DXWKRULWDWLYH FROOHFWLRQ RI >WKH4XUʱćn] did not yet exist.” 179 Recitation in a setting of religious preaching/teaching and ritual worshipping seems to have been the predominant context of sharing the faith of the 4XUʱćn, which the Muslims relied on and non-Muslims knew of, during the seventh and eighth centuries. Thus it is plausible to pay attention with GaGilliot, “Fixed Text,” p. 49. Alfred-Louis de Prémare, “ʲAbd Al-Malik B. Marwćn and the ProcHVVRIWKH4XUʱćn’s Composition,” in The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into its Earliest History, edited by Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-R. Puin (New York: Prometheus, 2010), pp. 189–221 (p. 190). 178 'H3UÆPDUHq7KH4XUʱćn’s Composition,” p. 193. 179 HaUDOG 0RW]NL q$OWHUQDWLYH $FFRXQWV RI WKH 4XUʱćn’s Formation,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Qurʯćn, edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 59–75 (pp. 61–62). See also John Wansbrough, Qurʯćnic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (New York: Prometheus, 2004), pp. 33–52, 170–202. 176 177

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briel Said Reynolds to the “homiletical feel or quality” of the writWHQ4XUʱćnic codex. 180 The Muslims’ reliance on the oral and auditive transmission of 4XUʱćnic faith is supported by studies produced by scholars such as Gregor Schoeler, Nabia Abbott, and Fuat Sezgin on orality and writing in early Islam. 181 These scholars suggest that reliance on writing was sporadic during early Islam. Muslims were familiar with learning via listening (VDPćʰ), when the teaching shaykh (cleric) or his representatives would recite the religious message either on the basis of written notes or from memory. According to Gregor Schoeler, such oral teaching used to be delivered “in majćOLV or mujćODVćW (sessions) and ʚDODTćW (circles), which in earlier times often took place in mosques, sometimes also in other places, for example, a scholar’s home.” 182 Schoeler suggests that in light of this emphasis on oral and auditive communication, one should understand in the extant resources such topoi as ˷ςϗ  ˱ ΎΑΎΘϛ ϩΪϳ ϲϓ Ζϳ΃έ Ύϣ (PćUDʯaytu fĪ yadihi kitćban qaʞʞu/“I have never ever seen a book in his hand”) or φϔΤϳ ϥΎϛ ΎϤϧ· ΏΎΘϛ Ϫϟ ϦϜϳ Ϣϟ (ODP \DNXQ ODKX NLWćE ʯinnamć kćna yaʚfaʲ/“he has no book he preferred to memorize”). 183 One can actually read Ibn ʲAsćkir’s narration of the Christians’ peace agreement with the Muslims more perceptively and coherently in the light of this orality-centered context. Ibn ʲAsćkir 540F

*DEULHO6DLG5H\QROGVq5HDGLQJWKH4XUʱćn as Homily: The Case of Sarah’s Laughter,” in The Qurʯćn in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʯćnic Milieu, edited by Angelika Neuwirth, Nicoli Sinai, and Michael Marx (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 585–591. 181 Gregor Schoeler, The Oral and the Written in Early Islam, trans. Uwe Vagelpohl, ed. James E. Montgomery (London/New York: Routledge,  1abia Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri (Chicago, IL: Oriental Institute Publications/University of Chicago, 1957–  )XDW 6H]JLQ Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums (Leiden: Brill, 1967). See also Clare Wilde, “Early Christian Arabic Texts: Evidence for non-ʲUthamnic 4XUʱćQ&RGLFHVRU(DUO\$SSURDFKHVWRWKH4XUʱćn?”, in New Perspectives RQ WKH 4XUćQ 7KH 4XUćQ LQ LWV +LVWRULFDO &RQWH[W , edited by Gabriel Said Reynolds (London/New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 358–371. 182 Schoeler, Oral and the Written, p. 30. 183 Schoeler, Oral and the Written, p. 31. 180

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claims that the Christians of Damascus pledged not to learn the 4Xrʱćn or teach it to their children. Presuming that Ibn ʲ$VćNLUpV narrative conveys something historically not impossible about the Christians’ relatedness to the Muslims’ religiosity, and in light of the mentioned Sitz im Leben we glean from the history of the 4XUʱćQpVVFKRODUVKLS, the Christians’ alleged promise can be read as alluding to the 7th century Christians’ avoidance of attending any of the PXüćODVćW (preaching sessions) or ʚDODTćW, which Muslims conducted in the mosques (or in other places of worship, including churches which Christians and Muslims sometimes co-used for UHOLJLRXV SUDFWLFHV  WR OHDUQ WKH PHVVDJH RI WKH 4XUʱćn, and they would not allow their children to intrude into such settings. This reading of the pledge makes contextual sense of it (even of such a treaty was never actauuly historically been made) in a context where “it was not strictly necessary to have written records in order to transmit material.” 184 I am not trying here to delve into the rather quicksand-like debate on the quest for WKHKLVWRULFDO4XUʱćQDQG the theory of the “Ur-4XUʱćn,” which occupies a considerable space within the arena RIFRQWHPSRUDU\4XUʱćnic studies in the West. My point, that is, is QRWRQWKH4XUʱćn’s original orality, but on possible presumptions onHFDQFRQMXUe XSRQWKHXVHRIWKH4XUʱćn and the knowledge of LWVFRQWHQWIURPWKHH[WDQWGDWDRQWKH4XUʱćn’s transmission during early Islam: Was it communicated in written or in oral form? Scholars of Islam concede today that this transmission was firmly controlled by the practice of oral recitation. Nonetheless, scholars equally admit that this oral process may not have been applicable to WKHHQWLUHSDUWVRIWKH4XUʱćn which we have today. It is believed Schoeler, Oral and the Written, p. 32. Schoeler gives an example for WKLV LQ WKH IROORZLQJ OLQHV q&RQFHUQLQJ WKH OHFWXUHV RI WKH HDUO\ 4XUʱćn commentator Muüćhid (d. 104/722), we learn that only one of his students, al-4ćVLPE$EĪ%D]]DKSURGXFHGDZULWWHQYHUVLRQ0XüćKLGKLmself never edited his lectures in book format … all of the transmitters of 0XüćKLGpVH[HJHWLFDOPDWHULDOLUUHVSHFWLYHRIZKHWKHUWKH\KHDUGLWIURP their teacher or not, are said to have copied al-4ćVLPpVERRNLQWKHSUoduction of their own written versions, without, incidentally, ever mentioning al-4ćVLPpVQDPHLQWKHUHVSHFWLYHʯisnćds” (p. 32). 184

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that at some stage, some parts of the “Ur-4XUʱćn” were transmitted in written form “without the benefit of a controlling tradition of active recitation.” 185 One can, for example, glean such a possibilLW\IURPWKHH[WDQWGLVSXWDWLRQEHWZHHQWKH0RQNRI%ĔWʗćOĔDQG an Arab notable (the 720s). This text is believed to be the oldest non-0XVOLPWH[WWRPHQWLRQWKH4XUʱćn. The author of the Dispute seems to think that sura al-Baqara (“The Cow”) is a separate scripWXUHIURPWKH4XUʱćn. 186 Some scholars also suggest that in some of the ninth-century Christian–Muslim NDOćP literature, such as the al-+ćVKLPĪDO-.LQGĪ correspondence, the Christian mutakallim (al-.LQGĪ  DOOXGHV WR WKH existence of an “Urtext RI WKH 4XUʱćn which, while it might not have qualified as a book of divine revelation, nevertheless did contain some religious truth,” 187 as though early Muslim awareness of an “Ur-4XUʱćQpVr existence was taken as a matter of fact. Consequently, it has been suggested that HYHQLIVRPHSDUWVRIWKH4XUʱćn were codified as early as one can imagine, such written forms of the “Ur-4XUʱćQr during that early age were not publically spread and not broadly used by the hands of Muslim and non-Muslim commoners, DVWKH4XUʱćnic text is today. These written parts, if they existed, were available to a narrow and select circle of Muslim believers, and they were used “as a memory aid for those who already knew [the 4XUʱćn] by heart, since reading it ‘cold’ with any accuracy would have been virtually impossible.” 188 )UHG0'RQQHUq7KH4XUʱćn in Recent Scholarship: Challenges and Desiderata,” in The Qurʯćn in its Historical Context, edited by Gabriel S. Reynolds (London/New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 29–50 (p. 40). 186 Barbara Roggema, “The Disputation between a Monk of %ĔW ʗćOĔ DQG DQ $UDE 1RWDEOHr in Christian–Muslim Relations: A Biographical History, Volume 1: 600–900, edited by David Thomas and Barbara Roggema (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 268–273 (pp. 269–  6LGQH\ *ULfILWKq7KH4XUʱćn in Arab Christian Texts: The Development of an Apologetical Argument: AbŠ 4XUUDK LQ WKH 0DüOLs of al-MaʱmŠn,” Parole de L’Orient 42 (1999), pp. 203–233 (pp. 205–206). 187 *ULIILWKq7KH4XUʱćn in Arab Christian Texts,” pp. 213–214. 188 'RQQHU q7KH 4XUʱćn in Recent Scholarship,” p. 41. After the GLVFRYHU\RIHDUO\IUDJPHQWVRIWKH4XUʱćn in the ʙanʲćʱ mosque in Yem185

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What the above indicates in my view is that the available writWHQ4XUʱćnic parts during seventh and eighth centuries would have been “memory aids” to Muslims who studied faith, or who taught and preached it in mosques. However, it would not have been so for Christians of Damascus (such as John) who promised to stay away from the Muslims’ religious venues and affairs. The latter would already know by heart what they heard from WKH 4XUʱćn, whereas the former would not. The Christians would rely instead on what they may have heard the Muslims cite in public from that teaching if they wanted to glean any information on the content of WKH4XUʱćn. This is why it is not quite persuasive to presume either WKDW WKH 4XUʱćn was available as a text (the reading of which was accessible to every person in society), or that Christians such as John of Damascus had a solidly profound knowledge of the 4XUʱćn, which he could have developed from his personal reading RI WKH 0XVOLPVp UHOLJLRXV WH[W .QRZLQJ WKH 4XUʱćn fully and in depth was not even a common feature of being a “Muslim” during early Islam. Only professed Muslim shaykhs, preachers, and memorizers (ʚDIDʲDK) – who could have had access to read from it whatever existed in written form at that time – were considered authorities oQWKH4XUʱćn. In a society where the ability to read and write was the highest level of literary education, reliance on orality and VDPćʰ KHDULQJ  LQ VKDULQJ WKH 4XUʱćn’s content is to be expected, especially when WKHDELOLW\WRUHDGWKH4XUʱćn (if there was a written text at this time) was restricted to those called “al-TXUUćʯ” (the read-

en, there has been more reliance on the credibility of the Muslim tradition which says that, in addition to “ʲUthmćn’s codex,” others also existed, such as those of Ibn MasʲŠd and of Ubayy. Scholars pay attention to the potential in the variation in the ductus and the arrangements of suras between them (Pierre Larcher, “Pre-Islamic Arabic—Koranic Arabic— Classical Arabic,” in The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into its Earliest History, edited by Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-R. Puin (New York: Prometheus, 2010), pp. 263–*HUG-53XLQq2EVHUYDWLRQVRQ(DUO\4XUʱćn manuscripts in ʙanʲćʱ,” in 7KH4XUpćQDVD7H[W, edited by Stefan Wild (Leiden: Brill, 1996).

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ers), and its understanding always needed the interpretation of highly skilled exegetes. 189 If this was the case among the Muslims, could a Christian VXFKDV-RKQKDYHKDGGLUHFWDFFHVVWRDZULWWHQ4XUʱćn? Could he have read it carefully, studied it, and developed such knowledge about its content that it would make him more knowledgeable of it than the Muslims themselves? Ibn ʲAsćkir’s speech on the nonMuslims’ pledge not to learn the Muslims’ 4XUʱćn or teach it to their children makes contextual sense, as it illustrates before us the QDWXUH RI WKH UHODWLRQ EHWZHHQ WKH 4XUʱćn and the accessibility of its content to the Umayyad Damascus of the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Even if John speaks in chapter 100/101 about a “book” (¹À¹ÂţÑÅ  WKDW FRQWDLQV 0Xʘammad’s “constitutions” (ÊÍÅÌŠºÄ¸Ì¸), this does not imply per se that John personally knew this book or had the chance to read it, let alone develop reliable first-hand knowledge of it. Actually, presuming that John speaks DERXWWKH4XUʱćnic suras as separate compositions or scriptures (Ţ ºÉ¸ÎŢ) militates against the view that John had knowledge of the FRQWHQWRI0XʘDPPDGpVERRNIRUWKH PHUHLGHDRIWKHH[LVWHQFH of one book contradicts John’s speech about various separate texts. ,QKLVUHIHUUDOWRVSHFLILFWH[WVDVSDUWVRIWKHZULWWHQ4XUʱćn, John is not showing more knowledge or better precision in speaking DERXWWKHVHWH[WVWKDQRWKHUV7KH0RQNRI%ĔWʗćOĔVSHDNVDERXW a text called al-Baqara using the Syriac word “VŠUʞć,” which may indicate fragmentary writing rather than a complete book or chapter such as WKHRQHZHNQRZLQWRGD\pV4XUʱćn. 190 Both John and WKH0RQNRI%ĔWʗćOĔVHHPWRPHQWLRQ something they know Muslims communicate about the teaching which the Prophet left behind. Even if, for the sake of sheer argument, we presumed that -RKQpV NQRZOHGJH RI WKH 4XUʱćn is credible, his speech on the 4XUʱćn in chapter 100/101 (and the mistaken information he provides about the suras’ names, as I showed above) does not offer reliable evidence of such masterly knowledge. Far from any evidence of “prooftexting,” -RKQpV XVH RI WKH 4XUʱćn would simply Theodore Nᠰldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, trans. John Sutherland Black (London/Edinburgh: A&C Black, 1892), pp. 50–51. 190 'H3UÆPDUHq7KH4XUʱćn’s Composition,” p. 194. 189

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suggest someone mis-citing tKH WH[W RI WKH 4XUʱćn and failing to show “WKH VOLJKWHVW DWWHQWLRQ WR 4XUʱćnic context, let alone to communal consensus of interpretation.” 191 Thus John is not presented as an expert in Muslim scripture and a learned person on Muslim faith, contrary to what modern scholarship wants. If Ibn ʲ$VćNLUpV UHFRUGLQJ RI WKH SHDFH WUHDWy between the Damascene Christians and their new Muslim rulers contains reliable memories on that era (though not necessarily historical in every detail), one can probably understand John’s knowledge of the scriptural beliefs of the Muslims in light of the Damascenes’ avoidance of learning WKH 4XUʱćn or teach it to their children – such a 4XUʱćn was not publically available in first place for them to do so. It seems to be more plausible to surmise that John had not read the 4XUʱćnic suras, and what he knew about their content more than likely came from hearing Muslims conversing about religious issues before the caliph (or with him) in the court, in meetings, or at other venues. As a Christian, John must have been fortunate to hear these Muslims speaking about Islam and other religions before him, for this was not possible or often in Damascus’s public squares – if, that is, WKH FRQFOXVLRQV RI WRGD\pV KLVWRU\ RI 4XUʱćn scholarship are correct. There are data from the context of that era that make it likely to presume that eYHU\DOOXVLRQWR4XUʱćnic suras in chapter 100/101, even the names of suras, is not John’s remembrance of things he had read and learnt, but rather his recollection of things he had heard the “Ishmaelites” say before him. John Meyendorff once suggested that John of Damascus and his family lived in the Umayyad caliphate in Damascus in a “Christian ghetto” that granted him a mere “casual and superficial acquaintance with Islam.” 192 While I do agree with Meyendorff’s note on John’s casual acquaintance with Islamic thought and the Muslims’ UHOLJLRXV WH[W , GR QRW FRQFXU ZLWK KLV FRQMHFWXUH RI -RKQpV living in a secluded, hermetically sealed Christian circle in the middle of his Syro-Damascene, non-Islamic atmosphere. I believe that 191

0DUN6ZDQVRQq%H\RQG3URRIWH[WLQJ$SSURDFKHVWRWKH4XUʱćn in Some Early Arabic Christian Apologies,” The Muslim World 88, nos. 3–4 (1998), pp. 297–319 (pp. 305–307). 192 Meyendorff, “Byzantine Views,” pp. 117–118.

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John and his family had an open and lively connection with Damascus’s newly born Islamic cultural and social context, and they were integrated into it and occupied with the new multifaceted challenges this context produced – more than the idea of a “Christian ghetto” allows. Pointing to John’s unUHOLDEOH NQRZOHGJH RI WKH 4XUʱćn does not aim to imagine him a Christian who was fully secluded and alienated from his Muslim Sitz im Leben. What one, rather, gleans from the previous is that departing from the contextual premises in reading the textual ones helps to shed fresh light not only on the identity of John, the author of chapter 100/101, but also on the content, form, and goal of the texts he produced as this, and no other, author. The contextual hermeneutics of John’s speech on Islam in chapter 100/101 makes highly unlikely the claim that in this text “the Damascene shows a thorough knowledge of the 4XUpDQZKLFKKHFLWHVYHUEDWLPDQGRIWKHʗDGĪWKRU0XVOLPWUadition.” 193 The Forerunner of the Antichrist In his text, John uses this phrase as one of the main descriptions of the Ishmaelites (Muslims). Speaking about Islam in association with the Christian understanding of the end of days’ apocalyptic expectations, where the figure of the Antichrist is central, is not John of Damascus’s unique contribution to Christian thinking in Islam. We do know that within the theological circle of the Melkite– Chalcedonian Church, such an association of Islam with the Antichrist during that era is detectable elsewhere. Maximus Confessor, for example, reads the invasion of “the barbaric nation from the desert,” as Maximus calls the Saracens, a sign of the impending arrival of the Antichrist in human history. 194 Robert Hoyland and Daniel Sahas also remind us that some Christian Melkite figures Thus Chase, “Introduction,” in Saint John of Damascus: Writings, trans. Chase, p. xxxi. 194 Maximus Confessor, Epistle 14, cited by Sebastian Brock, “Syriac Views of Emergent Islam,” in Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society, edited by G. H. A. Juynboll (Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), pp. 9–22 (p. 9). 193

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were violently persecuted by Muslims when they associated 0XʘDPPDG ZLWK WKH $QWLFKULVW +R\ODQG SRLQWV RXW WKDW -RKQ RI Damascus wrote an oration on the martyrdom of Peter of CapitoOLDV %D\W 5ćV  G   ZKR DQWDJRQL]HG 0XVOLPV DQG FDOOHG 0XʘDPPDG a false prophet and precursor of the Antichrist, and ended up being persecuted and killed in Damascus. 195 Hoyland intriguingly opines that John of Damascus could have been the original author of Peter’s martyrdom as an eyewitness of its occurrence in Damascus. 196 On the other hand, Daniel Sahas relates that during AD 743, when John was in the process of composing his magnum opus, The Fount of Knowledge, Peter of Maiuma was persecuted and sentenced to death because he called the PURSKHW0Xʘammad the “forerunner of the Antichrist.” 197 Generally speaking, one can also say that this association of Muslims with the Antichrist is also symptomatic of other nonMelkite Christian texts from that era. This factor validates Andrew Louth’s belief that during the era of John of Damascus “anticipation of the coming of the Antichrist was very much alive” 198 among the Christians of the region and it was one-sidedly used to speak about the Prophet of Islam. Daniel Sahas concurs with Louth’s perception and states that the very same expression (“Antichrist”/“forerunner of the Antichrist”) was also used by Christian authors to express their differentiation between “orthodox” and “non-orthodox” faith. The iconophile authors, for instance, would use “Antichrist” peMoratively to describe the Byzantine iconoclast emperors, Leo III and Constantine V the Patriarch of Constantinople, John VII Grammaticus in addition to other Christian political and religious leaders. 199 Nonetheless, John of Damascus himself gives “Antichrist” particular connotations in his theological cateHoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 354–360. Hoyland, Seeing Islam, p. 358. This is quite interesting. If this was the case, then John was still living in Damascus at that time and he was still in the caliphal court of al-:DOĪG,, 7KLVLVWKHSRVVLELOLW\ZKLFK I propose to be the case in this study. 197 Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 68. 198 Louth, St. John Damascene, p. 189. 199 Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 69. 195 196

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chism when he says that “Antichrist” is designative of every man “who does not confess that the Son of God came in flesh, is perfect God and He became perfect man while at the same time He was God.” 200 In Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, John describes the Antichrist as the one who “will come with signs and lying wonders, fictitious and not real, and he will deceive and lead away from the living God those whose mind rests on an unsound and unstable foundation, so that even the elect shall, if it be possible, be made to stumble.” 201 Far from being merely expressive of a purely theological interpretation and spiritual thinking about the end of days and the Antichrist, John’s words here are no less loaded with historical and contextual data that indirectly allude to the Christians’ struggles and aspirations during their oppressed life in the midst of the Umayyads’ imposition of their policy of Islamization–Arabization. To come back to the theological dimension of John’s speech on the Antichrist in his theological catechism, John is also using “Antichrist” as the description of those who do not follow “orthodox” faith. In this, John seems to be following another theologian from the circle of 0ćU 6DEćV $QWLRFKXV WKH 0RQN ZKR LQ the 620s used the term “Antichrist” to degrade the Jacobite Patriarch, Athanasius of Antioch, due to his Monophysite faith. 202 One of the interesting aspects of apocalyptic Christian literature on the Antichrist in the seventh and eighth centuries is the association of the rising of the Antichrist with the inauguration of the apocalyptic victory of Christianity over other non-Christian powers, Islam primarily implied. This is what the apocalypse of Ps.Methodius demonstrates when it states the following: As soon as the [Antichrist] is revealed, the king of the Greeks [that is, of the Christians] will go up and stand on Golgotha, Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 69. See also John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wallace (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2007), 4.26, pp. 98–99 (p. 98). 201 John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 4.26, p. 99. 202 Hoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 261–262 n. 9. 200

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UMAYYAD CHRISTIANITY and the Holy Cross will be put in that place where it had been erected when it bore Christ. And this last Emperor will put his crown on top of the Holy Cross and stretch out his hands to heaven, and he will hand over the kingdom to God the Father. 203

The rising of the forerunner of the Antichrist and his temporary dominion over the land, then, inaugurates the beginning of the triumph of the nation of the Son of Man over the believers’ persecutor, thereby marking the advent of the Lord Christ “in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory (Matt. 24:30).” 204 Though the Arabs’ kingdom did not collapse, and the Umayyad caliphate lasted for many additional decades, associating the Ishmaelites’ presence and fate in the land with the “forerunner of the Antichrist” remained part (though not the only one) of the Christians’ spiritual and theological imagination of the Muslims’ role and purpose in God’s overall Heilsgeschichte. The Saracens’ fate has always been linked with the Umayyad Christians’ belief that God would at a particular historical moment send “the last Emperor” who “would terminate Arab dominion and reinstate Christianity.” 205 In their theological elaborations on the Antichrist, the Umayyad Christians’ apocalyptic texts sometimes define the Antichrist as Satan personified, yet they equally speak about the Antichrist as a mere human figure distinguished from Satan. In his Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, John of Damascus describes this man as “the offspring of fornication and receiveth all the energy of Satan.” He then states that God, according to his plan, allowed Satan to “take up his abode in [this man].” 206 Similarly, in the extant fragments of a text known with the name, The Edessene Apocalyptic Fragment, the unknown author (who seemingly draws from Ps.-Methodius’s apocalypse) speaks about the “False Messiah” (Antichrist), whose sins “will be even greater than Satan’s,” before this author then Hoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 265–266. Hoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 532. 205 Hoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 534. 206 John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 4.26, p. 99. 203 204

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suggests that “Satan will be united with this false Christ” 207 as though, that is, Satan and the “False Christ” are two separate and distinguished entities. This Antichrist seems to be a human being inhabited by demons and driven by them into Jerusalem, as the fragment says. 208 In his study of the Byzantine apocalyptic tradition, Paul Alexander points to the identification of the Antichrist with a human figure. Alexander relates that “from the fifth century onward, church fathers, both in the East and in the West, insist that the Antichrist is not to be identified with the Devil, but is a human being.” 209 Moreover, this human messianic figure is believed to rule as a king or emperor (¹¸ÊÀ¼ŧË), and that this animated king will act as “a pseudo-Messiah.” 210 This kingly Antichrist will proclaim his power from the temple of Jerusalem, and he will order the morphing of that temple into a monument that glorifies the Antichrist’s name. 211 One must presume here that the authors of this apocalyptic theological tradition from the Melkite Church of Greater Syria are indirectly referring to the Umayyad caliph, ʲAbd al-Malik b. Marwćn, and his decision to declare his dominion in and from Jerusalem (not even from the capital, Damascus), and to his replacement of the Christian and Jewish symbolic emblems on the holy mount with a Muslim one. In light of the above brief exposition of the use of “Antichrist” in Greek and Syriac apocalyptic theology, one cannot but pause at the distinctive use of “Antichrist” in the text of John of Damascus on the Ishmaelites. There, John says the following: “There is also the still-prevailing deceptive superstition of the Ishmaelites, the fore-runner (ÈÉŦ»ÉÇÄÇË) of the Antichrist (ÌÇÅ Andrew Palmer, Sebastian Brock, and Robert Hoyland, The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1993), p. 247. 208 Palmer, Brock, and Hoyland, West-Syrian Chronicles, p. 248. 209 Paul J. Alexander, The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, edited by Dorothy de F. Abrahamse (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985), p. 195. 210 Alexander, Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, p. 203. 211 Alexander, Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, p. 203. 207

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ÅÌÀÏÉÀÊÌÇÍ).” 212 One can read in this sentence the use of “Antichrist” either as John’s description of the Ishmaelites, or his characterization of the superstition they propagate. Either way, “Antichrist” (or even his forerunner) neither designates Satan, a particular human being, QRU D UXOLQJ NLQJO\ ILJXUH 0XʘDPPDG WKH NLQJ of the Arabs, or any caliph). Either it seemingly names the specific tribal community, the Ishmaelites, presenting them as the ushers of the arrival of the age of darkness associated with the false Messiah or it might be saying that the Ishmaelites’ deceptive teaching and implausible belief are going to lead, through dissemination and imposition, to the prevalence of false and sinful faith in the Christians’ holy land. Either way, John is here presenting a particular Umayyad Christian–Melkite contextual interpretation of the notion of “Antichrist” that is distinguished from the Byzantine and the Syriac ones. Interesting in the above-cited sentence from chapter 100/101 on the Ishmaelites is John’s speech on a “still-prevailing superstition.” The Greek phrase here is ÌÇÍÅÍÅÏɸÌÇŧʸ¸ÇÈŠÅÇË. The word “¸ÇÈŠÅÇË” can mean “one who deceives other people,” or “one who manipulates others by a plan,” one who would either be a demon, a pagan god, a heretic, or a believer in a pagan deity. 213 This suggests that John is here talking about the people called “Ishmaelites,” and not about their superstitious, deceptive belief. His concern is not about their thinking and its religious context, at least not primarily. It is rather the fact that these deceivers managed until that moment (some time around the 720s–V  QRW MXVW WR remain in the region, but also to prevail and dominate despite their plan to deceive the commoners. For John, explaining the prevalence and longevity of the Umayyads’ rule and their deceptive planned policy (Islamization–Arabization) in the land of Christianity, especially in the holy city, Jerusalem, cannot be attributed to their power, virtue, or religious belief. Instead, it must be part and parcel of a higher will of God, who is going to use these deceivers in his eschatological salvation. To describe this role, John borrows Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 133. “¸ÇÈŠÅÇË,” in A Patristic Greek Lexicon, edited by G. W. H. Lampe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), p. 792. 212 213

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from the available contemporary Christian literature the common association of God’s final victory over Satan with the arrival of the forerunner of the Antichrist, whom God permits to use his sinful deception in the service of the divine sending of the victorious king. God’s sent king will establish God’s glory in the land, where the Ishmaelites’ will manage to remain. Their success in this land is to be accredited only to God’s use of them to play the role of the Antichrist in the divine drama. The attentive reading of John’s introduction to the Ishmaelites demonstrates that there is no straightforwardly conspicuous evidence in any text John possesses of a coherent and comprehensive knowledge about how the Saracens historically and theologically transformed from polytheists into monotheists. John says the following about the Ishmaelites: [The Ishmaelites], then, were idolaters and they venerated the morning star and Aphrodite, whom notably they called Chabar (ϸ¹ŠÉ) in their own language, which means “great”WKHUHIRUH until the times of Heraclius they were undoubtedly idolaters (¼À»ÑÂÇŠÌÉÇÍÅ). From that time on, a false prophet appeared among them, surnamed Mameth (ĊļÌ) … he says that there exists one God (¼Å¸¿¼ԉÅ), maker of all. 214

John could have gathered this information via communication with Muslims. Or, if he relied on written materials, he could have read Christian portrayals of Islam and its Prophet in the writings that were available in WKHOLEUDULHVRI0ćU6ćEćV and the Jerusalem patriDUFKDWH/RRNLQJDWVRPHRIWKH&KULVWLDQSRUWUD\DOVRI0XʘDPPDG from the seventh and eighth centuries suggests that John’s exposition merely repeats these representations. This is what Robert Hoyland invites us to consider when he opines that many of the Christian texts depict the Ishmaelites as idolaters and worshippers of stones. One example of this is Germanus of Constantinople (715– 730), who in his Epistle to Thomas of Claudiopolis speaks about the Saracens in this particular way. Germanus even states that the Sara-

214

Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 133.

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cens’ idolatry drives them to worship a stone called Chabor, and they do this as a tradition they inherited from their fathers. 215 On the other hand, these Christian texts speak about 0Xʘammad as the one who brought the Ishmaelites to monotheism in his speech about one God. Hoyland refers, for example, to texts such as the Armenian chronicle, Patmut’iwn Sebeosi (c. The ChronicOH RI WKH .KŠ]LVWćQ (c  WKH ZULWLQJV RI -RKQ %DU 3HQND\H   WKH KLVWRULRJUDSK\ History of the Alexandrian Patriarchs (the seventh-century SDUWV  The ChronicOH RI =XTQĪQ   DQG The Chronicle of Siirt. These texts and others state that “‘as a result of this man’s guidance [that is, 0XʘDPPDGpV@ WKH\ >WKH ,VKPDHOLWHV@ KHOG to the worship of the one God in accordance with the customs of ancient law’ (JohQ %DU 3HQND\H  o>0XʘDPPDG@ Ueturned the worshippers of idols to the knowledge of the one God’ (History of the Alexandrian Patriarchs oKH KDGWXUQHGWKHPDZD\IURPFXOWVRIDOO kinds and taught them that there was one God, maker of Creation’ (&KURQLFOH RI =XTQĪQ  oKH HQMRLQHG WKHP WR EHOLHI LQ WKH RQH *RG ZKRKDVQRFRPSDQLRQDQGWRUHMHFWLGRODWU\p$JDSLXV oKHVXmmoned the Arabs to the worship of God almighty’ (Chronicle of Siirt).” 216 Rather than showing John’s profound and comprehensive knowledge of Islamic theological development, the similarity between his representation and the abovementioned statements invite us to conclude that John knew this Christian literature and possibly relied on them when writing on Islam. This is not to say, however, that John did use the content of these Christian texts ad litteram, for he did not shy away from adding some extra ingredients to the conceptual recipes he found in other Christian writings. This is what he seems to be doing here as KHOLQNVWKHVSHHFKRQ0XʘDPPDGpVPRQRWKHLVWLFPHVVDJHSDUWLFularly to his emphasis on the Ishmaelites’ and their Prophets’ deception as the forerunner of the Antichrist. Such an association is not Germanus of Constantinople, Epistle to Thomas of Claudiopolis, in The Seventh Oecumenical Council, trans. J. Mendham (London, 1849), pp. 229–249 (pp. 230– +R\ODQGSeeing Islam, pp. 103–107 (pp. 105–106). 216 5*+R\ODQGq7KH(DUOLHVW&KULVWLDQ:ULWLQJVRQ0XʘDPPDG An Appraisal,” in 7KH%LRJUDSK\RI0XʚDPPDG7KH,VVXHRIWKH6RXUFHV, edited by Harald Motzki (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 276–297 (pp. 283–284). 215

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present in the other Christian texts. It is John’s unique point of view. Just to offer one explanatory example of this here, let us compare John’s attestation with a text written some time during early eighth century, $0RQNRI%ĔW ʙćOĔDQGDQ$UDE1RWDEOH. In this text, the following conversation takes place: Arab: tHOOPHWKHWUXWKKRZLV0Xʘammad our prophet considered in your eyes? Monk: as a wise and God-fearing man who freed you from idolatry and brought you to know the one true God. 217

In his text on the Ishmaelites, -RKQ DOVR DGRSWV WKH 0RQN RI %ĔW ʗćOĔpV GHVFULSWLRQ RI WKH 3URSKHW DV a “God-fearing” person (¿¼Çʼ¹¼ţ¸Ë). Yet John implements it in the service of a different purpose. The text of the conversation between the monk and the Arab nobleman suggests that the Christian was challenged to reveal his true feelings toward the Prophet of the Muslims. Let us notice here that the presumed date of the conversation is at the peak of WKH0DUZćQLGFDOLSKVp]HDODQGVWULFWLmposition of their Islamization–Arabization policy: they were far from tolerant or forgiving toward any critique of Islam or the Arabs’ belief and culture. As I showed earlier, John’s friend, Peter of Damascus, for instance, lost his tongue because he dared to reveal his disapproval of the Arabs’ piety (their God-fearing character). 218 Let us also notice that the monk is not conversing with any Muslim commoner. Rather, he is almost being interrogated by one of the caliphate’s Arabian DVKUćI, those most fanatical in the caliphate about applying the Islamization–Arabization policy. Saying any negative word against the PURSKHW0Xʘammad before them would not have been welcomed, but might have generated death. The MRQNRI%ĔWʗćOĔ, therefore, had to be very prudent and careful in choosing his words. “Godfearing” is here used to convey the most positive and peaceguaranteeing impression possible. To the contrary, John is not speaking about the Prophet of the Arabs before any Muslim, and he is not under the pressure of 217 218

HoylaQGq:ULWLQJVRQ0XʘDPPDGrS Theophanes, Chronicle, 416–417, pp. 107–108.

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the threatening consequences of speaking about Islam in any public setting similar to the one of the monk. As I have already proposed, John is writing this text privately and for the purpose of offering a secret disclosure of Islam to a carefully selected, private Christian circle of personalities and authors who share with John the monastic and intellectual life of Mar Sabas, which the late Robert Pierpont Blake once talked about. 219 John knows that other ChrisWLDQV GR HQWHUWDLQ WDONLQJ DERXW 0Xʘammad as a “God-fearing” man. He plans, therefore, to uncover the falsehood of this description. John does it by adding the following to the monk’s characterization: And after, by pretense, [Mameth] managed to make the people think of him as a God-fearing (¿¼Çʼ¹¼ţ¸Ë) fellow … 220

0XʘDPPDG-RKQFRQMHctures, is a cunning deceiver: he could bluff his followers (and some Christians, John might be thinking) and make them believe he is a righteous believer in God. John suggests that if people, Muslims and Christians alike, happen to believe that 0Xʘammad is a “God-fearing” man, they must have been pulled LQWRWKLVGHOXVLRQE\PHDQVRI0Xʘammad’s skillful deceit. Linking “God-fearing” with pretense and deception (rather than with wisdom, as does the MRQNRI%ĔWʗćOĔ logically serves John’s departure from his description of the Ishmaelites and their Prophet as the “forerunner of the Antichrist.” Everything related to the Antichrist has to do with deception, pretense, and falsehood. What we have here is a Christian polemicist trying to achieve a twofold goal: (a) to disclose WKHGHFHSWLYHQDWXUHRI0XʘDPPDGpVUHOLJLRVLW\, and Robert P. Blake, “Greek Literature in Palestine in the Eighth Century,” in Languages and Cultures of Eastern Christianity: Greek, vol. 6, edited by Scott Fitzgerald Johnson (Surrey, UK: Ashgate/Variorum, 2015), pp. 365–374 (p. 369). One can assume that the circle of Mar Sabas monks had a radically offensive stance on Islam and probably gained a reputation IRU H[FKDQJLQJ YHU\ EHOLWWOLQJ DQG SHMRUDWLYH YLHZV DERXW WKH 0XVOLPV’ faith and culture. Such a probable reputation might be one of the reasons behind the massacre of twenty Sabait monks by Arab guerrillas in AD 797, for example. 220 Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 133. 219

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(b) to correct RWKHU &KULVWLDQVp YLHZ RI ,VODP DQG 0XʘDPPDGpV religiosity by means of qualifying the positive appraisal of the Prophet of the Arabs in some Christian texts. For John, these Christians, then, are falling into the trap of the forerunner of the Antichrist by buying into the Prophet’s appearance as a Godfearing man. It is within this IUDPHZRUNRI0XʘDPPDGpVsupposed deception and pretense that one should read John’s insistence on the lack of any prophetic witness about the coming of a godly messenger from among the Ishmaelites: And which of the prophets foretold that such a prophet would arise? … How is it that, although in your scripture he commanded not to do anything or receive anything without witnesses, you did not ask him “you first prove with witnesses that you are a prophet and that you come from God, and which scripture testifies about you?” … You [Ishmaelites] have women, and properties, and asses and everything else, through ZLWQHVVHVDQG\HWRQO\\RXUIDLWKDQG\RXUVFULSWXUH\RXKDYH without a witness. And this is because the one who handed it down to you does not have any certification from anywhere, nor is there any one known who testified about him in advance. 221

All this speech on the criterial importance of witnesses (ĸÉÌŧÉÑÅ) serves John’s attempt to expose the deception of the “forerunner of the Antichrist” and the charlatanism and “God-fearing” pretense of its Prophet. It is far from a counter-theological apology on the notion of authentic vs false witness. In other words, this is not an example of a Christian theology developed in dialogue or apologetical encounter with Muslim theology, nor is it the opposite. 222 John is not developing here a Christian theological NDOćP on an Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 135. I borrow here the idea of a theology that originates as a product of an encounter with another theology from Sarah Stroumsa, “The Signs of Prophecy: The Emergence and Early Development of a Theme in Arabic Theological Literature,” Harvard Theological Review 78, nos. 1–2 (1985), pp. 101–114 (p. 101). 221 222

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already existing Muslim discourse about 0Xʘammad’s “signs of prophecy” (ʰalćmćt an-nubŠwwa) or on proving his prophetic identity (ĪWKEćWDQ-QXEŠZZD), 223 such as that which one can detect in the extant Christian–Muslim NDOćP of the ensuing eras. John of Damascus is not an early Umayyad mutakallim like Timothy I, Theodore $EŠ4XUUDK$EŠ5ćʱiʜah, and ʲAmmćr al-BaʛrĪ, to name a few. By the ninth century, Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike started to develop theological theses on discerning the right prophet from the false one. But WKLVZDVQRW\HWDWKHRORJLFDOVXEMHFWrequiring fullyfledged discourses at the time of the seventh and eighth centuries. &ODLPLQJWKHIDOVHKRRGRI0XʘDPPDd’s prophecy is John of Damascus’s means to expose the fraudulent nature of the Islamic manifestation of the Antichrist. One can surmise that John of Damascus’s above-cited lines form one of the oldest Christian examples of such an attempt to expose falsehood. But it is not persuasively possible to consider it one of the earliest Christian NDOćPV on the meaning of false prophethood and the nature of authentic witQHVV -RKQ LV KHUH VHHPLQJO\ VSHDNLQJ DERXW 0XʘDPPDGpV GHFHption and pretense upon a personal collection of claims about him IURP0XVOLPV%\HPSKDVL]LQJWKDW0XʘDPPDGpVSURSKHF\LVQRW founded on any witness, John is indirectly referring to personal H[SHULHQFH+HLVVXJJHVWLQJWKDWDOOWKHFODLPVDERXW0XʘDPPDG his piety, and his stories are all the production of personal observation, appraisal, and interpretation. On the basis of the previous exposition, I propose that John is not primarily offering a new, fully-fledged theological teaching on the meaning of the Antichrist in relation to and interlocution with Muslim faith. He is rather using a common, popular Christian concept to comment on the secret behind the persistence of the Umayyads and the success of their Islamization–Arabization policy, notwithstanding its evil ramifications for the church of God. “Antichrist” is not used here primarily as a crudely theological– doctrinal perspective to offer a hermeneutic of Islam as a faith within the framework of Christian eschatology. It uses religious– apocalyptic vocabulary to mirror a particular political, cultural, and existential context that the Christians of Palestine and Jerusalem 223

Stroumsa, “Signs of Prophecy,” p. 102.

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considered a radical threat to their very existence. John’s driving motif is probably similar to the one that makes an apocalyptic author like Ps.-Methodius emphasize that Jerusalem was and would forever remain the heart of Christendom, notwithstanding the length of the occupancy of the forerunner of the Antichrist (the Ishmaelites) and their policy of deception. 224 The Muslim story of Jesus’s identity In his exposition of the teaching of the Ishmaelites’ Prophet, John of Damascus narrates what he knows of this teaching’s content on Jesus in the following words: He says that there exists one God maker of all, who was neither begotten nor has he begotten. He says that Christ is the word of God, and his spirit, created and a servant, and that he was born without a seed from Mary, the sister of Moses and Aaron. For, he says, the word of God and the spirit entered Mary and she gave birth to Jesus who was a prophet and a servant of God. And that the Jews, having themselves violated the law, wanted to crucify him and after they arrested him they crucified his shadow, but Christ himself, they say, was not cruFLILHG QRU GLG KH GLH IRU *RG WRRN KLP XS WR KLPVHOI LQWR heaven because he loved him. And this is what he says, that when Christ went up to the heavens God questioned him saying: “O Jesus, did you say that ‘I am son of God, and God?’ And Jesus, they say, answered: “Be merciful to me, Lord, you know that I did not say so, nor will I boast that I am your VHUYDQWEXWPHQZKRKDYHJRQHDVWUD\ZURWHWKDW,PDGHWKLV statement and they said lies against me and they have been in error.” And God, they say, answered to him: “I know that you would not say this thing.” 225

These lines are PRUHHQLJPDWLFWKDQOXFLGPRUHORDGHGZLWKgeneral or incomplete information than with a solidly precise outline or analysis of the Muslim teaching on Jesus’s life and identity that one ILQGV LQ WKH 4XUʱćn. The primary impression the reader extracts 224 225

Reinink, “Ps.-Methodius,” p. 184. Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, pp. 133, 135.

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from DFDUHIXODQGREMHFWLYHORRNDWWKHVHOLQHVLVWKDW-RKQLVQRW presenting here any seriously theologically or hermeneutically precise description of the Muslim NDOćP on Christ (Muslim “Christology”). I find it difficult to see here an example of an apologetical Christological elaboration that by any means could be deemed an early version of Christian–Muslim NDOćP on Jesus Christ in the first half of the eighth FHQWXU\,ILQGWKLVWREHWKHFDVHQRWMXVWEHFDXVH of the contrast between John’s discourse here and the Christological NDOćP we have from the second half of the eighth up until the tenth century, but also because of the noticeable difference between the impression John gives us about his theological learnedness and meticulousness in The Fount of Knowledge and the impression one gleans from his far from precise or theologically thorough presentation in chapter 100/101. First of all, the idea that the dialogue John represents between God and Jesus after the latter’s death and ascension to heaven demonstrates his knowledge of surat al-0ćʱidah (5:116) is not persuasive,QWKH4XUʱćn, sura 5:116 reads as follows: ϥϭΩϦϣϦϴϬϟ·ϲϣ΃ϭϲϧϭάΨΗ΍αΎϨϠϟ ˴ΖϠϗΖϧ΃΃ϢϳήϣϦΑ΍ϰδϴϋΎϳௌ ϝ˴ ΎϗΫ·ϭ ΪϘϓ ϪΘϠϗ ΖϨϛ ϥ· ϖΤΑ ϲϟ βϴϟ Ύϣ ϝϮϗ΃ ϥ΃ ϲϟ ϥϮϜϳ Ύϣ ϚϧΎΤΒγ ϝΎϗ ௌ ΏϮϴϐϟ΍ϡ͉ϼϋΖϧ΃Ϛϧ·ˬϚδϔϧϲϓΎϣϢϠϋ΃ϻϭϲδϔϧϲϓΎϣϢϠόΗˬϪΘϤϠϋ And when God said: “O ʲĩsć son of Maryam, did you say to people, ‘Take me and my mother as two gods instead of [min GŠQ] God?’”, he [that is, Jesus] said: “BHJORULILHGLWLVQRWPLQH to say what is not my right [to say]. Had I said it, you would KDYHNQRZQLW\RXNQRZZKDWLVZLWKLQPHDQG,GRQRWNQRZ what is within you. You are the knower of the hidden things.” 226

One can easily detect D VHULRXV GLIIHUHQFH EHWZHHQ WKH 4XUʱćnic verse and its presumed citation in John’VWH[W7KH4XUʱćnic verse says that God is investigating if Jesus asked people to worship him and his mother as deities instead of God. To the contrary, John 7KH(QJOLVKWUDQVODWLRQVRIWKH4XUʱćnic verses are my own unless stated otherwise. On this verse and Jesus’s divine sonship in Melkite NDOćP, see Awad, Orthodoxy in Arabic Terms, pp. 314–358. 226

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claims that God accuses Jesus of calling himself “a son of God” or “God.” John does not say if Jesus asked the people to call him so, or if he personally called himself God’s son or God before them. (LWKHU ZD\ -RKQpV YHUVLRQ LV GLIIHUHQW IURP 4  7KHUH WKH issue is not about Jesus’s divine sonship, and it is not about Jesus alone. Rather, it expands the notion of deity by asking people to ZRUVKLSWZRVXEMHFWV – Jesus and his mother – as gods instead (min GŠQ) of God. On the other hand, Jesus’s answer to this accusation LQ4LVFRQIHVVLQJ*RGpVRPQLVFLHQFHDQGaffirming that he (Jesus) has no right to say such things. John’s narration of Jesus’s response to God’s inquisition is starkly different and hardly alludes WR WKH 4XUʱćnic content. John makes Jesus ask God for mercy, stressing that he never boasted about his servanthood to God, and shifting the blame to false rumors and lies that were spread about him by people who have been in error. It is very difficult to glean an affirmative conclusion about John’s authentic and first-hand NQRZOHGJH RI WKH 4XUʱćnic faith from his words in chapter 100/101. Indeed, John himself invites us to such an observation as he keeps stating that his information is taken from what the Muslim Prophet (or his followers) personally said: “he says,” “they say.” -RKQpV NQRZOHGJH RI 0XʘDPmad’s teaching does not circle around the replacement of God with Jesus and his mother as alterQDWLYHGHLWLHVDV4VWDWHV-RKQpVNQRZOHGJHRIthe 4XUʱćnic faith focuses on the Muslims’ attempt to show that Jesus never said to the public that he is God’s son. The core issue here, then, is whether God could have “a son” or not. It is actually neither about Jesus’s divinity per se, nor the Christian Christological understanding of Jesus’s identity. John is here conveying some information on how he thinNV0XʘDPPDGVSHDNVDERXW-HVXVLQKLVRZQUHOLJLRXV book. He is not really conveying an Islamic reflection or appraisal of Jesus in Christian faith. The question here is: From where did John derive his information about this in Islam? Looking at the 4XUʱćnic text reveals that John is not taking his information from this sura, because what John states is so different from the verse in al-0ćʱidah in terms of both wording and content. Could John have read these cited lines in an old, no longer extant, edition of the 4XUʱćnic sura that could have existed as a separate text once, beIRUHLWZDVODWHUHGLWHGDQGLQFRUSRUDWHGLQWRWKH4XUʱćQDVVXUDW al0ćʱidah?

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We do not have in our hands any textual or historiographical data whatsoever to back up such a speculative hypothesis. My proposal for answering this question is to resort to the available extant data we can find in the remaining elements of John’s Sitz im Leben in Palestine. What I have in mind is the Dome of the Rock. There are enough indications to surmise that John lived in the environs of Jerusalem and produced his intellectual legacy from there during the first half of the eighth century. He was present, that is, in that context long after ʲAbd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock and produced coinage marked ZLWK4XUʱćQLFZRUGV. The zeal for calligraphy as the art of his rule made ʲAbd al-Malik’s architects end up executing a 240–meter-long inscription inside the Dome’s building alone. 227 There, on the external façade and internal design of the monument, ʲAbd al-Malik ordered his architects to leave Arabic inscriptions as an inauguration of the central place calligraphy would occupy in the Islamized–Arabized kingdom. On these inVFULSWLRQV*ÙOUX1HFLSRüOXRQFHVWDWHGWKHIROORZLQJ ʲAbd al-Malik’s … inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock have been related to the heightened public prominence given to 4XUʱćnic citations in his personal seal, coins, milestones, and papyrus rolls, which quote a similar set of verses or closely related variants that reiterated the main dogmas of Islam officially upheld by the Marwanid polity. His partially preserved inscriptions on the building combine verbatim quotations from WKH 4XUʱćnic passages with repeated professions of faith (shahada) and invocations, forming a continuous litany. 228

Of the Arabic Kufic inscriptions that were executed on the upper part of the inner octagonal arcade, two in particular are relevant to our study here: the inscriptions that state ϥϮϜϳ ϥ΃ ϪϨΤΒγ ΪΣ΍ϭ Ϫϟ· ௌ ΎϤϧ· Ϊϟϭ Ϫϟ (ĪQQDPć$OODKĪODKXQZćʚLGVXEʚćnDKXDQ\DNŠQa lahu walad/“God is but one God, glorified is he not to take for himself a son”), and Grabar, Islamic Art, p. 52. *ÙOUX 1HFLSRüOX q7KH 'RPH RI WKH 5RFNDV 3DOLPSVHVW ʲAbd al-Malik’s Grand Narrative and Sultan Süleyman’s Glosses,” in Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, vol. 25, edited by Gülru 1HFLSRüOXDQG-XOLD%DLOH\/HLGHQ%ULOO SS–106 (p. 46). 227 228

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Ϊϟϭ Ϧϣ άΨΘϳ ϥ΃ Ϳ ϥΎϛ Ύϣ (PćNćQDOL-Allah ann yatakhiza min walad/“It is not for God to have a son”). 229 ,QWRGD\pV4XUpćQWKHVHVWDWHPHQWV exist as part of longer verses in surat an-1LVćʱ (4:171) and surat Maryam (19:33–36). John of Damascus does not cite the claim that Jesus is “a son of God” in any verbatim manner that evokes the SUHVHQFHRIWKLVLGHDLQWKH4XUʱćnic text or in the inscriptions of the Dome of the Rock. Yet John seems to be conveying the core idea as it appears on the calligraphic paintings of the monument in Jerusalem. He even mentions it almost exactly as it appears in Islam: Jesus is said to be seen as a son to God. In Islam, speaking about the idea of sonship in relation to God is never associated with the theological connotations of the Christian speech about Jesus’s divine sonship by means of the definite article “the” (that is, Jesus is the 6RQRI*RGQRWMXVWDVRQWR*RGDPRQJPDQy others). The definite article in Christology designates ontological and functional uniqueness. In Islam, the speech about Jesus’s claimed sonship is never viewed from such perspective. The idea of sonship per se is VLQJXODUO\UHMHFWHG6R ZKHQHYHUWKH4XUʱćn mentions the idea of sonship, either in relation to Jesus or in general, in association with God, there are no connotations whatsoever that Jesus is the Son of God. Now, John seems to be aware of this, and his perception is also reflected in the Dome of the Rock’s inscription, where one finds the idea of “God having a son,” not the idea of “the Son of God.” One can at least presume that in chapter 100/101, John is alluding to something he himself could have spotted on the internal upper part of the octagonal building of the Dome of the RockDQLGHDKH Grabar, Islamic Art, pp. 62–&KULVWRSK/X[HQEHUJq$1HZ,nterpretation of the Arabic Inscription in Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock,” in The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into its Earliest History, edited by Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-R. Puin (New York: Prometheus, 2010), pp. 125–151 (pp. 127–129). See also the exposition in Friedrich Erich DobEHUDKQ q0XʘDPPDG RGHU &KULVWXV" =XU /X[HQEHUJpVFKHQ 1HXGHXWXQJ GHU.ŠIĪ-Inschriften von 72h (= 691/692 n. Chr.) in Felsendom zu Jerusalem,” in Orientalische Christen und Europa: Kulturbegegnung zwischen Interferenz, Partizipation und Antizipation, edited by Martin Tamcke (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2012), pp. 123–157. 229

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also happened to have heard Muslim public discussing at some occasions in Damascus and Jerusalem. For him, then, spotting the UHMHFWLRQRI*RGpVKDYLQJRIDVRQRQWKHZDOORIWKHFHQWUDOMuslim monument in Jerusalem, and then hearing Muslims reflect on it, led John to conclude that this idea is central to the belief of the Muslims’ Prophet and the teaching of his book. But how could John the Christian be able to enter into the Muslims’ holy place (the Dome) and observe its inscriptions if Christians were not allowed to set foot in the Muslims’ places of worship? What if this access was possible for John and other Christians because the Dome of the Rock had not been intended, at least not at first, to be exclusively a temple for worship or a place for spiritual and theological meetings? Oleg Grabar invites us to ponder such a possibility when he reminds us that the Dome of the Rock is “in all probability the first Islamic monument that was meDQWWREHDPDMRUDHVWKHWLFDFKLHYHPHQWr 230 It was built to deepO\ LPSUHVV WR DPD]H DQG GD]]OH HYHQ WR EOXVWHU , have already pointed out that ʲAbd al-Malik wanted to emphasize his sovereignty in Palestine and affirm the Islamization–Arabization policy he had exerted on the Umayyad caliphate. Scholars concede that “the exact function of the Rock in earliest times is still a matter of conMHFWXUHr 231 However, I believe that the Islamization–Arabization Sitz im Leben can offer us considerable data for constructing such a reason. ʲAbd al-Malik wanted to use this monument as a declaration of his sovereignty in the heart of that Palestinian territory where the Marwćnids’ were not exactly popular and favored rulers. There is a possibility that from its very beginning, the Dome of the Rock was not considered a Muslim holy place for worship and religious practices restricted to the Muslims alone. ʲAbd al-Malik and his successors could have imagined it as a visual (iconic!) manifestation open to all the public of Jerusalem and Palestine, especially the Christian antagonists of his rule, to testify before their eyes to the Grabar, Islamic Art, p. 49. On the Islamic narratives concerning the building of the Dome of the Rock, see also Nasser Rabbat, “The Dome of the Rock Revisited: Some Remarks on al-:ćVLWĪpV $FFRXQWVr Muqarnas 10 (1993), pp. 67–75. 231Grabar, Islamic Art, p. 52. 230

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impeccable glory, creativity, skillfulness, and superiority of the Islamic faith. This entails that the non-Muslims must have been allowed, even encouraged, to visit the Dome and to read its inscriptions with their own eyes. Thus someone such as John of DamasFXVDQGRWKHU&KULVWLDQVUHVLGLQJLQWKDWUHJLRQFRXOGKDYHHQMR\HG access to the inner building of the Dome of the Rock during the early period of its existence. The possibility, therefore, of John having read these inscriptions personally and sensing in them the affirmation that God could never have a son is not actually unlikely. Yet one needs also to reckon with John’s ensuing elaboration of the conversation between Jesus and God. John’s narration does not convey the details of that conversation aVZHILQGWKHPLQ47KXV the attempt to speculate about possible echoes of various phrases from 4XUʱćnic suras and verses in John’s wording seems to me to be rather eisegetical in nature. Only a preGHWHUPLQHG4XUʱćnization of John’s text can validate the claim that “these and the many other DOOXVLRQV WR DQG HYHQ GLUHFW TXRWDWLRQV IURP WKH 4XUʱćn interspersed throughout the chapter demonstrate that the author [that is, John] had access to that work.” 232 7KHPRUHKLVWRULFDOO\DQGFRQWH[WXDOO\SODXVLEOHFRQMHFWXUHLV that John’s source of the story of God’s conversation with Jesus was something he had heard from Muslims in Jerusalem (or Damascus). These Muslims were articulating from memory the religious teaching and preaching they had learned from the theology classes (jamʰćt) they had attended in the mosques. As I have explained in an earlier section, only Muslim shaykhs and ʰulamćʯ had DFFHVV WR WKH 4XUʱćnic texts at that time, and it was they who, in their teaching circles (ʚDODTćW), taught WKH4XUʱćnic faith and orally conveyed its content to the Muslim public. If Muslims themselves KDGRQO\RUDODFFHVVWRWKH4XUʱćQLFWHDFKLQJYLa the teaching and preaching of the ʰulamćʯ, why and how would a Christian figure, who was not from the circle of the believers, let alone of the ʰulamćʯ, have actual DFFHVV WR WKH 4XUʱćn? It is more plausible to Thus Hoyland, Seeing Islam S  3DXO .KRXU\ q-HDQ Damascène et l’Islam,” Proche Orient Chrètien 7 (1957), pp. 44–  pp. 313–339. 232

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surmise that in cKDSWHU-RKQLVMXst echoing from memory alone what he had KHDUGDERXW WKH4XUʱćn’s view on Jesus’s sonship to God from Muslims. He could be linking what he remembered of this Islamic speech and mosque teaching with something he himself had read on the walls of the Dome of the Rock (and on the Umayyad coinage) when he had once visited the place. More important than how John gleaned his knowledge of the Muslims’ view of Jesus’s identity is the content of John’s exposition of the view. The John of Damascus, the highly sophisticated and passionate theological mind who offers in De Fide Orthodoxa a meticulous and comprehensive re-presentation of patristic orthodox Christology, is not actually seen in the words and writing style of the John of Damascus of chapter 100/101 on the Ishmaelites. In chapter 100/101, John MXVW VHems to be repeating what is commonsense public knowledge, which other Christians also knew and spoke about at that time. In a letter written by a seventh- or eighth-century author called Jacob of Edessa, written in correspondence with John the Stylite, there is a suggestion that the Muslims disagree with the Christians’ claim that Jesus is “son of God.” However, Jacob affirms that, except on this point, the Muslims concur with the Christians: They nevertheless confess firmly that he is the true Messiah ZKR ZDV WR FRPH DQG ZKR ZDV IRUHWROG E\ WKH SURSKHWV RQ this they have no dispute with [the Christians] … they say to all at all times that Jesus is … the word of God … they also add, in their ignorance, that he is the spirit of God, for they are not DEOHWRGLVWLQJXLVKEHWZHHQZRUGDQGVSLULWMXVWDVWKH\GRQRW assent to call the Messiah God or son of God. 233

In his turn, Anastasius of Sinai also points out that the Muslims’ religious teaching accuses the Christians of making Jesus another God and making God a begetter of a son: Before any discussion we must first anathematize all the false notions which our adversaries might entertain about us. Thus, 233

Hoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 165–166.

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when we wish to debate with the Arabs, we first anathematize whoever says two gods, or whoever says that God has carnally begotten a son, or whoever worship as god any created thing at all, in heaven or on earth. 234

Moreover, eighth-century Muslim authors invite us to ponder the possibility that John could have gathered from them the idea that Islam accuses Christians of falsely claiming that Jesus made himself “son of God” or “God.” Claude Gilliot, for example, points out WKDW0XTćWLOE6XOD\PćQDQG,EQ-XUD\MERWKUHODWHWKDW among the Christians, the Nestorians are those who say Jesus is God’s son, the Jacobites say Jesus is God, and the Melkites say Jesus is a third among three gods (WKćOLWKXWKDOćWKD). 235 In his turn, Suleiman Mourad GUDZV RXU DWWHQWLRQ WR WKH IDFW WKDW ,EQ +LVKćP LQ KLV 6ĪUD also conveys a similar traditional Muslim understanding of the ChrisWLDQVpYLHZRI-HVXV,EQ+LVKćPQDUUDWHVWKDWDPHHWLQJWRRNSODFH EHWZHHQ &KULVWLDQV IURP 1DMUćQ DQG WKH 3URSKHW 0XʘDPPDG ,Q this meeting, the Christians spoke about Jesus as simultaneously “God, son of God and [third of the three] (WKćOLWKX WKDOćWKD).” 236 These Christian and Muslim attestations lead to the conclusion that John’s reflection on the Muslims’ view of Jesus in chapter 100/101 is not exceptional, extraordinary knowledge uniquely possessed by John. What John expresses seems to be common and generally shared ideas about Islam and Christianity in the public imagination of the Umayyad Sitz im Leben’s inhabitants. John does not even spend the time to offer a theological explanation as to what the Hoyland, Seeing Islam, p. 94. Claude Gilliot, “Christians and Christianity in Islamic Exegesis,” in Christian–Muslim Relations: A Biographical History, Volume 1: 600–900, edited by David Thomas and Barbara Roggema (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 31–56 (p. 44). 236 Suleiman A. Mourad, “Christians and Christianity in the 6ĪUD of 0XʘDPPDGrLQChristian–Muslim Relations: A Biographical History, Volume 1: 600–900, edited by David Thomas and Barbara Roggema (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 57–71 (p. 65). In his sentence, Mourad translates WKćOLWKX WKDOćWKD to mean ‘part of the Trinity’. This translation is not quite accurate, because the Trinity, in the Christian theological understanding, does not have parts. It is thus better to translate it as I did above. 234 235

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Christians mean by speaking about Jesus as son of God. He does not, for example, follow an approach similar to what one spots in the debate between the MRQN RI %ĔW ʗćOĔ DQG DQ $UDE QRWDEOH There, the question of Jesus’s sonship to God is also tackled, and the monk offers a theological explanation for this claim, constructing it on Syriac biblical exegesis and referring his Muslim interlocuWRU WR 0XʘDPPDGpV SRWHQWLDO IDPLOLDULW\ ZLWK WKH *RVSHO RI Luke. 237 The MRQNRI%ĔWʗćOĔWKDWLVSD\s positive attention to the Muslim understanding of Jesus’s sonship in Christianity. He endeavors to engage theologically with it. To the contrary, John tenders the common public Muslim view of Jesus without expressing any intention to converse or reason with it theologically. Rather, it seems that John simply wants to expose 0XʘDPPDGpVSXblic sayings as examples of what he considers as “worthy (only) of laughter.” 238 On the cross and its veneration In his text, John mentions the Muslims’ narrative of Jesus’s cruciIL[LRQZKHQKHWDONVDERXWKRZ0XʘDPPDGYLHZV-HVXVpVLGHQWLW\ There, John conveys his knowledge of the Muslim account in the following words: … and that the Jews, having themselves violated the law, wanted to crucify him and after they arrested him they crucified his shadow, but Christ himself, they say, was not crucified QRUGLG+HGLHIRU*RGWRRN+LPXSWR+LPVHOILQWRKHDYHQ because He loved Him. 239

Again, John here does not suggest that this is what he personally gathered from reading the Muslim scripture. Rather, he invites us to conclude that this is what he had heard Muslims say about Jesus’s fate. He uses the expression “they say” to point to this oral– Roggema, “Disputation,” p. 270. See also G. J. Reinink, “Bible DQG 4XUʱćn in Early Syriac Christian–Islamic Disputation,” in Christians and Muslims in Dialogue in the Islamic Orient of the Middle Ages, edited by Martin Tamcke (Beirut: Oriental Institute, 2007), pp. 57–72. 238 Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 133. 239 Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 133. 237

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DXGLWLYH UHVRXUFH 0XVOLPV ZHUH SUREDEO\ MXVW UHSHDWLQJ IURP memory what they were taught in the mosques’ classes (ʚDODTćW) by their religious pedagogues (ʰulamćʯ and VKX\ŠNK). Neither these Muslim figures nor John were actually citing written verses from SDUWLFXODU4XUʱćnic texts7KH4XUʱćnic attestation on Jesus’s crucifixion exists in surat an-1LVćʱ (4:157–158): ˴Ϫ͋Βη ˵ ϦϜϟϭϩϮΒϠλΎϣϭϩϮϠΘϗΎϣϭௌϝϮγέϢϳήϣϦΑ΍ϰδϴϋΎϨϠΘϗΎ͉ϧ·ϢϬϟϮϗϭ ΎϣϭϦψϟ΍ωΎΒ˷Η΍ϻ·ϢϠϋ Ϫ˶ ΑϢϬϟΎϣϪϨϣ ͈ϚηϲϔϟϪϴϓ΍ϮϔϠΘΧ΍ϦϳάϠϟ΍ ͉ϥ·ϭϢϬϟ ˱ΎϤϴϜΣ˱΍ΰϳΰϋௌϥΎϛϭ Ϫϴϟ·ௌϪόϓέϞΑ˱ΎϨϴϘϳϩϮϠΘϗ And their [the Jews] saying: “We killed ʲĩsć the son of Maryam, the messenger of God.” They killed Him not and they crucified Him not, but it was made to appear as so to them, and those who disagree on it are suspicious about it. They have no knowledge of it but only presumption and they did not kill Him certainly, but God raised Him up to Him, and God was glorious and prudent. 240

7KH GLVFUHSDQFLHV EHWZHHQ WKH 4XUʱćnic verses in an-1LVćʱ 157– 158 and John’s conveyance are so conspicuous that they cannot be ignored or undeUUDWHG )LUVW WKH 4XUʱćn does not state that the Jews arrested Jesus, but that the Jews claimed (TDŠOLKLP) that they killed Jesus. In contrast, John claims that the Muslims relate that the Jews “arrested him” because “they wanted to crucify him.” 241 Second, WKH4XUʱćn says that “they killed Him not and they crucified Him not, but it was made to appear as so to them” (4:157). To the contrary, John relates that the Muslims state that the Jews “crucified [Jesus’s] shadow.” 242 7KH4XUʱćnic attestation does not speak about a shadow, nor does it exactly describe the nature of who or what tKH -HZV FUXFLILHG 7KH 4XUʱćnic verse instead seems to be For a study of the Christian mutakallimspXVH RI 4 –158 in their apologetic interlocution with Muslims in early Christian NDOćP, see my forthcoming essay, “‘If his crucifixion was figurative as you claim, then so be it’: How Two Christian Mutakallims from the Abbasid Era Used an-1LVćʱ 4:157–158 in their Dialogues with Muslims,” to be published in Journal of Eastern Christian Studies during 2016. 241 Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 133. 242 Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 133. 240

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speaking about the situation and imagination of those who carried out the crucifixion: the Jews were in a state of delusion because they mistakenly imagined that they had killed/crucified God’s messenger. John’s rearticulation of the Muslim story indicates that he – and the Muslims he had heard – had both gathered that Islamic teaching suggests an alternative understanding of the identity of the FUXFLIL[LRQpVREMHFWZhat was crucified was not Jesus in person, but his shadow or appearance (ÊÁÀŠ  7R WKH FRQWUDU\ WKH 4XUʱćnic verse in an-Nisćʱ suggests something about the mental state of the FUXFLIL[LRQpV VXEMHFWV WKH -HZV ZHUH WRWDOO\ GHFHLYHG RU EHJXLOHG when they thought that they had killed/crucified the messenger of God. )LQDOO\4 4:158 states that God raised Jesus up to him. But it does not offer any causal explanation for such a divine action. To the contrary, John suggests that the Muslims do offer an explanation for this action: “because [God] loved [Jesus].” 243 Again, this is not something John could have quoted verbatim from any 4XUʱćnic book we have in our hands. In conclusion, John is not here presenting evidence of his engagement in a theological NDOćP on the Christian understanding of the crucifixion in interaction with a Muslim counter-theology on WKH VDPH VXEMHFW Rather, he seems only to be rearticulating the Muslim folk conveyance of the Islamic religious teaching on the crucifixion of Jesus. He does this without personally delving into any theological interlocution with it. John does not hide that his awareness of this story is derived from what the Muslims say. I find it quite difficult to prove that John here is offering any kind of NDOćP on soteriology or Christology. What I believe is more plausibly verifiable and demonstrable in chapter 100/101 is that, though he is not engaging in any debate with Islam on the crucifixion per se, John seems more ready to interact with Islam about the cross itself. This perrenially seems not so different from what one spots in John’s other writings, especially his hymns, where “the cross emerges often,” as Alexander Ka]KGDQ RQFH RSLQHG qDV WKH WRRO RI WKH FUXFLIL[LRQ FDQ  RQ the cross Christ spread his hands (can.8.7–9) – the gesture of pas-

243

Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 133.

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sion not of victory.” 244 Yet one should not read John’s chapter 100/101 as an echo of these writings and totally consistent with them. John’s speech on the cross in the latter text is remote from his approach in the former ones. One cannot point to any clear theological connection with the spiritual meaning, or even the historical event, of the crucifixion in Christian faith in chapter 100/101. Instead, John dedicates considerable space in his text to counter the Muslims’ criticism of the Christians’ veneration of the cross: “[The Muslims] also defame (calumniate) us (»À¸¹ŠÂÂÇÍÊÀ) as being idolaters because we venerate the Cross, which they despise.” 245 How can one explain John’s decision to elaborate at length in response to the Muslims’ stance on cross-veneration but not to do the same for the Muslims’ account of the crucifixion event? Again, the historical and intellectual Sitz im Leben of the seventh and eighth centuries helps to find a plausible explanation for John’s choice. There are sufficient data in the extant texts from that time to make us realize that, contrary to the NDOćPdiscourse in the Abbasid era, the Umayyad epoch witnessed Christian–Muslim interaction on the veneration of crosses (and icons) far more than on the Christian theology of crucifixion. Sidney Griffith is the scholar who offers seminal readings of the stance on venerating crosses during the early Islamic era. According to Griffith, venerating the cross was one of the main characterizing elements of the spirituality of the Melkite Christians, especially in Jerusalem. “The significance of the Cross,” Griffith relates, was prized in Jerusalem in particular, where the remnants of the “true Cross” were enshrined in the church of the Anastasis, the Holy Sepulcher, until well into Islamic times. And in the monastic literature of the Jerusalem and Judaean desert monasteries, many of the miracle stories … are full of references to the Cross and to the miraculous oil which was said to Alexander Kazhdan, “Kosmas of Jerusalem: Can We Speak of His Political Views?”, in Authors and Texts in Byzantium, edited by Alexander Kazhdan (Aldershot: Ashgate/Variorum, 1993), pp. 329–346 (p. 343). 245 Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 137. 244

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The belief in the miraculous power of the cross, especially in its manifestation against the suppression and persecution attempts of the non-Christians, drove some Christian Melkites in the Holy Land, but probably more particularly in the Lavra of Mar Sabas, to support and champion a quasi “cult of the cross,” deeming it a “very strong feature of Holy Land piety, especially in monastic circles.” 247 Against this passionate Christian adoration of the cross’s spiritual, miraculous power, Griffith demonstrates that the Muslims reacted with rage and condemnation. Griffith suggests that what particularly disturbed the Muslims was “what the Christians did, in honoring [crosses], particularly their practice of bowing down (asVXMŠG) to them.” 248 Such an action proved to Muslims that the Christians were idol worshippers, for the Muslims strictly believed that “prostration was a gesture of worship to be paid to God alone.” 249 7KHUHIRUH*ULIILWKFRQFOXGHVLWZDVQRWMXVWWKHIDFWRI venerating crosses in public that appalled the Muslims, but primarily “the Christian practice of openly paying homage to them in the liturgical gesture of public worship.” 250 Scholars believe today that Muslims’ public stance on venerating crosses (or religious symbols) during the Umayyad era witSidney H. Griffith, “Christians, Muslims and the Image of the One God: Iconophilia and Iconophobia in the World of Islam in Umayyad and Early Abbasid Times,” in Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die altestamentliche Wissenschaft, edited by John Barton et al. (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2007), pp. 347–380 (p. 355). See also S. H. Griffith, “The Signs and Wonders of Orthodoxy: Miracles and Monks’ Lives in Sixth-Century Palestine,” in Miracles in Jewish and Christian Antiquity: Imaging Truth, edited by John C. Cavadini (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), pp. 139–168. 247 Griffith, “Christians, Muslims and the Image,” p. 636. 248 Griffith, “Christians, Muslims and the Image,” p. 359, my italics. 249 Griffith, “Christians, Muslims and the Image,” p. 359. 250 Griffith, “Christians, Muslims and the Image,” p. 360. 246

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nessed gradual development from initial tolerance and leniency to UHVWULFWLRQ DQG UHMHFWLRQ ,Q KLV VWXG\ RI WKH &KULVWLDQVp OLIH ZLWK Islam in Palestine, Robert Schick, for instance, proposes that durLQJ WKH 6XI\ćQLG G\QDVW\ GLVSOD\LQJ FURVVHV GLG QRW VHHP WR be banned by Muslims. Schick forms his conviction from archaeological data, pointing out that a GHGLFDWRU\ LQVFULSWLRQ IURP +DPPćW *DGHU UHFRUGV WKH Ueconstruction of the baths in 42/662 during the reign of Muʲćwiya by the Muslim governor … the inscription is in Greek and is marked with a Cross, which would scarcely have escaped the notice of Muslims who frequented the baths. 251

Schick points also to the archaeological remains in Ader, Duweikhla, Karak, Muhei, and Shivta St. George, where the tombstones are apparently marked with crosses. He also points to the crosses that were “carved on lintels of churches and other buildings and houses where they would have been visible to the general public.” 252 I think that Sidney Griffith has such archaeological data in mind as well when he persuasively relates that the Muslims’ problem with crosses did not primarily center on displaying them in public UDWKHU Lt was related to the Christians’ prostration before these crosses and their religious attitude toward them. Such an attitude led Muslims eventually to erase the images of crosses, even entirely banning ritual symbols, from the public scene. This seems evidently to have been the policy during the second (0DUZćQLG) dynasty. Griffith suggests that one of the twofold practices of the Islamization–Arabization policy, which the 0DUZćQLGVH[HUWHGPRVWIRUFHIXOO\DQGV\VWHPDWLFDOO\RQ-HUXVDOHP (the center of Christianity in the region), was “the correlative campaign to erase the public symbols of Christiany, especially the ubiquitous sign of the Cross.” 253 We have much data in extant literature Schick, Christian Communities of Palestine, p. 164. Schick, Christian Communities of Palestine, p. 165. 253 Sidney H. Griffith, “Answering the Call of the Minaret: Christian Apologetics in the World of Islam,” in Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam, edited by J. J. Van Ginkel, H. L. Murre-van Dem Berg, and T. M. Van Lint (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 251 252

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on such attempts to erase crosses and Christian symbols from the public square. We know, for instance, that CDOLSK0XʘDPPDG@ZDVLQIDFWSURFODLming the advent of the messiah, and at the same time provides independent confirmation of its authenticity” (p. 5). 285 Crone and Cook, Hagarism, pp. 6–9. 286 Crone and Cook, Hagarism, p. 9. 287 Crone and Cook, Hagarism, pp. 10–15 (p. 11). 288 Crone and Cook, Hagarism, p. 24. 289 Crone and Cook, Hagarism, p. 78. 284

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the nomenclature “Ishmaelites” was almost emancipated from its religious–theological Jewish use, and it became a defining name that signified the uniqueness of the Muslims’ tribal ethnic, cultural, and genealogical (mainly non-Jewish) identity. In their study, Crone and Cook seem to be proposing that the Muslims opted to liberate their Ishmaelite genealogical byname from any religious significations that may have linked them to the Jews because they wanted instead to gain the acceptance of the Near Eastern Christians and clear the air from any ideological element that might prove an obstacle to such a proximity and rapprochement. The Muslims had done this by trying to call themselves “the children of Ishmael,” because “Ishmael” in the mind of the local Christians not only expressed religious, Old Testamental teaching, but, more importantly, designated the father of the Arabspeaking Christians (Ghassanids, Jafnids, Nasrids, and so on) in Syria-Palestine. When the Peninsulans invaded the region, nothing sounded more relevant to the invaders’ attempt to create peaceful and harmonious relations with the locals than by saying to them, “We the Muslims are your relatives, for all of us originated from the same forefather, Ishmael.” “Ishmaelites” here has been dereligified and a-theologized and transformed into a potential sociocultural, ethnic, and contextually inclusive and collective common denominator. At least, that was the hope generated by the Muslims’ prioritization of their name “Ishmaelites” before the local Christians of the invaded territories. But hope is one thing the outcome in reality is another, as the extant data of the early Islamic era shows. As I outlined above, the Christians of Greater Syria did not react to the fact that these Muslims were Arab-speakers and of Arabic origin (Ishmaelites) as positively as the Muslims had hoped for and expected. Speaking Arabic and descending from a potentially common ancestral origin did not impress WKH&KULVWLDQVDWDOOLWVHHPV not even on the social, cultural, and ethnic levels. Christian texts from the early Muslim era show that the local Christians (Arabspeakers included) used the name “Ishmaelites” not to praise those who might be next of kin to them, but rather to degrade them and insult their ethnic, tribal, cultural, and social status by means of (rather than despite) it. Calling the Muslims “Ishmaelites” in particular, as, for example, the seventh-century apocalyptic text of Ps.Methodius does, became the mark of demonstrating that these

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barbarian tyrants [the Ishmaelites] were not men but “children of desolation … they are destroyers … they are destruction … they are defiled and they love defilement … they are insolent murderers, destructive shedders of blood.” 290 The &KULVWLDQGHJUDGDWLRQDQGUHMHFWLRQRIWKe Ishmaelites led the Muslims to use no less offensive countermeasures to demean the local Syrians (Christians and non-Christians alike) socially, culturally, and ethnically. During the early Umayyad age, as I argued in previous sections of this study, the Muslim Peninsulans had started to create a hierarchical system in the newly established society that was not shaped by religious affiliation (Muslims vs Muslims), but rather by an ethnic, tribal, genealogical, and cultural one: Arabs vs non-Arabs. “Arab” here meant more than mere language. It designated ethnic roots, geographical origin, genealogical lineage and tribal-cultural heritage. The Arabs were those who had originated from a Peninsulan tribal genealogical lineage and who were, so to speak, “Ishmaelites” in their ethnic roots. The genealogical lineage WR,VKPDHOZKLFK&KULVWLDQVOLNH'LRQ\VLXVRI7HO0DʘUÇ used to show the lowly, shameful tribal and ethnic origin of the Prophet of the Muslims, is now made the criterial standard by these Muslims for distinguishing the genuine “Arab” (the descendants of Ishmael) elites of the society (DVKUćI) from the secondary or even tertiary class of members (the non-Arabs) of the same society, who now compose either the PDZćOĪ, the servants/slaves or the GKLPPĪ communities in the Umayyad empire. I have already shown that this social ranking of elite Arabs (DVKUćI) and common non-Arabs led to the restrictions that the ruling elites applied to the use of the Arabic system of naming and bynaming. Such a system was exclusively the privilege of those who were Ishmaelites in origin (or in cultural, ethnic affiliation) or those among the non-Ishmaelites who were privileged by the elites to become PDZćOĪ. By calling themselves “Ishmaelites,” these Arab-Peninsulan elites wanted to redeem their integrity and counter the locals’ humiliation and undermining by a no less aggressive and discriminative cultural, ethnic, and societal degradation. Palmer, Brock, and Hoyland, West-Syrian Chronicles, 11.17–18, pp. 222–242 (p. 234). 290

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To come back now to John of Damascus’s writing on Islam in chapter 100/101, it is within this particular contextual framework that one should first and foremost interpret his use of the term “Ishmaelites.” John is the child of the Umayyad sociocultural context, where the local Christians of Syria-Palestine had not immediately welcomed the Muslims with open arms. Though many Christian authors were ready to offer a theological appreciation of the Ishmaelites’ invasion (that is, they saw it as part of God’s apocalyptic plan), nonetheless they were not at all willing at the beginning to treat these invaders as culturally, socially, and ethnically equal to WKHPQRWHYHQZKHQWKH0XVOLPVtried to build bridges of mutual acceptance by emphasizing the common Arabic tribal origin that, as they had tried to show, united them with the local Christians of the region. In chapter 100/101, John of Damascus seems to be trading on the same track of church fathers such as Jerome in the latter’s insistence on linking the Muslim Arabs to Hagar’s low social status and calling them derogatively and degradingly the Ishmaelites. His concern here seems to be dominantly or primarily driven by specific contextual, societal, and cultural factors that were symptomatic RIKLVKLVWRULFDOHUD%\WKHWLPHRI0DUZćQEDO-ʗakam (623–685), the fourth caliph, and his ancestors, the Umayyad Muslim state had started to witness a pivotal, substantial identity transformation. These caliphs decided totally to Islamize and Arabize the state and society by (a) identifying “Islam” and “Arab” DOPRVW WRWDOO\ (b) conflating “Islam as religion” with “Islam as a cultural contextr and thus (c) replacing the non-Arab, local officers in state and society (who were until then PDZćOĪ, that is, loyally affiliate to Islam as a culture and Sitz im Leben, despite their non-Islamic religiosity) with Arab–Muslim ones (who now represented the elite Ishmaelite aVKUćI). In the midst of this paradigmatic transformation, the Arab– Muslim elites intensified their racial, ethnic, social, and tribal maltreatment of the non-Arabs and non-Muslims, even those nonMuslims who had voluntarily pledged their allegiance to the Muslim Umayyad cultural and social worldview (those who willingly became “Saracen-minded”), such as the family of John of Damascus. As a reaction against this escalating discrimination vis-à-vis Islamization–Arabization ideology, John of Damascus decided to withdraw from public life into the secluded realm of church life

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and service. Yet while fully occupied with his spiritual devotion and worldlessness, John never gave up his sensitive and profound perception of and solidarity with his local Christian, non-Arab, and non-Muslim brothers and sisters in their struggle to survive in the midst of the new context of discrimination. Thus he decided to write a text on the Muslims that would disclose everything he could know about these people’s origin, culture, ethnic status, and intellectual claims and reveal its low value and worthlessness. Nothing was more relevant to this purpose than calling the Muslims with the name “Ishmaelites,” which John knew well its implications for the ears of the Christian readers. Nothing was equally more subtle than associating what these Muslims believed in and identified with culturally and socially with the fact that these people were, after all, the so-called “Ishmaelites,” whose barbarism, savagery, ignobility, and inferior origin were known to all and recorded in the writings of all. Emphasizing their other names (that is, “Hagarenes,” “Saracens,” and “Muslims”) would not have served this particularly contextual purpose – far from theological in nature – as does the nomenclature “Ishmaelites.” John’s sociocultural approach that is manifested specifically in calling Muslims “Ishmaelites” is not one that is detected in John’s text alone. Offending the others’ sociocultural and tribal backgrounds by means of religious or theological accent seems to have been inherent to that era’s Sitz im Leben. One relevant example to demonstrate this contextuality is found in David Cook’s essay, “Syria and the Arabs.” There, Cook speaks about the aggressive, verbal tribal polarity and partisanism that affected the life of the tribes in Syria during the Umayyad rule. He refers particularly to some apocalyptic texts from Muslim tradition, particularly the text of NuʲD\P E ʗDPPćG DO-0DUZć]Ī G AD 844). In his text, al0DUZć]ĪQDUUDWHVDVSHHFKDUWLFXlated by the Yemenite tribes, who inhabited the city of ʙLPʜ in Syria, opposing the other nonYemenite inhabitants of the city by degrading their religiosity and places of worship: There are three mosques in ʙLPʜ: one belonging to Satan and his people – meaning Satan’s – and a mosque belonging to God whose people are Satan’s, and a mosque belonging to God whose people are God’s. The church of Mary and its people are the “mosque” belonging to Satan and Satan’s peo-

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UMAYYAD CHRISTIANITY SOHDVWRWKHPRVTXHEHORQJLQJWR*RGZKRVHpeople are Satan’s – [their] mosque and its people are a mixture of people, and the mosque belonging to God whose people are God’s is the “mosque” RUWKHFKXUFKRI=DNDUL\\D,WVSHRSOHDUHʙLmyar and the people of Yemen gather in it. 291

Let us notice here the intriguing fact that these Yemenite Muslims refer to the places of worship – Christian and Muslim alike – as “mosques.” In Arabic, “mosque” can be either masjid (“prostrating place”) or MćPLʰ (“gathering place”). It seems that these Yemenites perceived the connotations of these terms in the city’s places of worship, terms which were more dominantly sociological and not necessarily theological in their implications. The language of these Yemenites does not express a particular theological understanding of the notion of “mosque.” Rather, it designates what the Christians and Muslims do and how they act in their places of worship: they gather together (MćPLʰ) and they prostrate (masjid). These two features, for these Yemenites, characterized the sociocultural context of all the inhabitants of ʙLPʜ, whether Christian or Muslim. On the other hand, notice that the Yemenites deemed only one particular place of worship (mosque) as “a mosque belonging to God whose people are God’s.” For them, the mosque that represents this waV DFWXDOO\ D &KULVWLDQ FKXUFK WKH FKXUFK RI =DNDriyya, and not a Muslim place of worship. Why did the Yemenites deem this particular church a gathering place for the true people of God? Not because this church was congruent to these Muslims’ theology of “mosque,” but first and foremost because those who gathered (MćPLʰ) and prostrated in it (masjid) were from Yemen and ʙLP\DU. What we have in al-0DUZć]ĪpV QDUUDWLRQ WKHUHIRUH LV DQ Hxample of speaking about something that is contextual in nature in a form of religious and theological language. This is exactly what is also exemplified in John’s chapter 100/101. There, John despises and defames the Muslims’ tribal, social, and cultural identity by David Cook, “Syria and the Arabs,” in A Companion to Late Antiquity, edited by P. Rousseau and J. Raithel (Chichester: Blackwell, 2009), pp. 467–478 (p. 474). 291

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means of quasi-theological expressions such as the “forerunner of the Antichrist.” John’s purpose is not to avail a theological interpretation of Islam from the perspective of Christian Messianic apocalypticisPDQGHVFKDWRORJ\1RHODERUDWLRQRQVXFKVXEMHFWVLV actually detectable in chapter 100/101. John uses this phrase without any further explanation, which is strange in a text believed by many to have been written to explain to the Christians in a clear and explicit manner the heretical details and nature of Islamic theology. It is more likely that a better perception of John’s language here would be obtained if we read John’s text from within the framework of the sociocultural tribal partisanism of the Umayyad rule, to which the narrative of al-0DUZć]Ī invites us to pay attention. As the Yemenites in ʙLPʜ associated “mosque” with their degradation of the non-Yemenites, John is using “Antichrist” in the service of his exposition of the inferiority of the Ishmaelites. This is also an expression of a contextual tribal discrimination prevalent in the Umayyad Sitz im Leben. John of Damascus’s belittling of the Ishmaelites’ origin and status seems to have gained popularity among the Christians in the ensuing decades. It seems that the Christians frequently demeaned the Muslims’ cultural and religious roots by pointing sarcastically to their descent from the cursed and barbarian son of Abraham. What suggests such a possibility is how the Muslim mutakallims in the following centuries developed apologetical discourses on the truthfulness of Islam, where they defended the authenticity of Muʘammad’s prophetic identity and message by means of proving the blessed and graced value of Ishmael, the son of Abraham. This is, for example, what we witness in the apologetic text of the ninthcentury Muslim mutakallim$OĪE5DEEćQDʜ-ʝDEDUĪ ΔϟϭΪϟ΍ϭ ϦϳΪϟ΍ ϲϓ ()ĪDG-'ĪZDO-Dawlah/“On Religion and the State”). In chapter nine RIWKDWERRNDʜ-ʝDEDUĪDUJXHVfor 0XʘDmmad’s authentic prophetic identity. One of the evidences of such authenticity he offers in that chapter is the fact that the appearance of 0XʘDmmad in history fulfilled the prophecies of the earlier prophets (in Judaism and

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Christianity) about Ishmael. 292 $ʜ-ʝDEDUĪVKRZVWKDWGLYLQHSURSKecies had been sent from God to Abraham and Hagar (his parents), which should$ʜ-ʝDEDUĪDUJXHVVKXWWKHPRXWKVRIWKRVHZKRXndermine the status of Ishmael and counter their false allegations that Ishmael is not blessed by God and is not construed as one of Abraham’s chosen and blessed sons. 293 :KDWPDNHV$ʜ-ʝDEDUĪ opt to verify the prophetic identity of 0XʘDmmad by means of defending the high status and blessedness of Ishmael stems from the particular contextual factor related to Christians such as John of Damascus who would deliberately call the Muslims “Ishmaelites” as a belittling and degrading nomenclature. For such an offence, defending Ishmael’s status becomes a relevant contextual response. An “Arian monk?” In chapter 100/101, John of Damascus states the following: From that time on a false prophet appeared among them, surnamed Mameth, who, having casually been exposed to the Old and the New Testament and supposedly encountered an Arian monk, formed a heresy of his own. 294

What are the contextual connotations that lie in associating the Prophet of the Ishmaelites with a monk with a heretical Arian background? Scholars pause at the “Arian monk” phrase in John’s text and try to figure out its implications and significance in relation to Arianism’s existence in the region during late antiquity. They notice that there are Byzantine texts from the tenth century, such as the one of the chronicler Constantine Porphyrogennetos, which IROORZVWKHWUDGLWLRQRIDVVRFLDWLQJ0XʘDPPDGZLWKDQ$ULDQILgure from a monastic background. 295 Yet this figure’s name or iden$OĪE5DEEćQDʜ-ʝDEDUĪΔϟϭΪϟ΍ϭϦϳΪϟ΍ϲϓ [)ĪDG-'ĪZDO-Dawlah/“On Religion and the State”), edited by Adil NŠZ\KLʡ%HLUXW'ćUDO-$IćTDO-DGĪGDK SS–136. 293 $ʜ-ʝDEDUĪq2Q5HOLJLRQDQGWKH6WDWHrSS–134. 294 Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, Appendix I, p. 133. 295 Thus in Barbara Roggema, 7KH /HJHQG RI 6HUJLXV %DʚĪUć: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2009), p. 184. 292

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tity are not specified, which may suggest, as Barbara Roggema RSLQHV WKDW &RQVWDQWLQH LV MXVW UHO\LQJ KHUH RQ ZKDW -RKQ RI 'amascus writes in chapter 100/101 without any further exploration. Nevertheless, in addition to the background of “Arian teaching,” there are anFLHQWDXWKRUVZKRDOVRVXJJHVWWKDW0XʘDPPDGKDGD teacher, known by the name “Arianus,” and that this teacher was an excommunicated monk, expelled from the Kallistratos monastery in Constantinople. 296 Roggema explains this claim by suggesting that these authors probably wanted “to fill in some blanks in the narrative [of other chroniclers] and [sought] to locate 0XʘDPPDGpVIULHQGLQDPRQDVWHU\DVVRFLDWHGZLWKKHUHV\DQGDstronomy.” 297 In their reflection on the presence of Arianism during late antiquity and early Islam, scholars suggest that Arianism persisted for a long time after the fourth-century theological controversies. This Arianism, they suggest, never existed in one consistent or monolithic form, and it was not a literal or direct replica of fourthcentury Arianism. 298 There are data that go back to the fourth century, which indicate that some traces of both Christian Athanasian orthodoxy (from Athanasius of Alexandria) and Arianism were being spread into the Abyssinian territories and to South Arabia, DQGWKDWWKHʗ\PLDULWHVRI$UDELD)HOL[HPEUDFHGWKHVHWZRWUHQGV as their adopted Christianity. 299 James Sweetman, for instance, argues that along other Christological trends such as Nestorianism DQG0RQRSK\VLWLVP$ULDQLVPOHIWPDUNVRQWKH4XUʱanic context.

Roggema, /HJHQGRI6HUJLXV%DʚĪUć, p. 184. Roggema, /HJHQGRI6HUJLXV%DʚĪUć, p. 184. 298 Albert Davids and Pim Valkenberg, “John of Damascus: The Heresy of the Ishmaelites,” in The Three Rings: Textual Studies in the Historical Trialogue of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 71–90 (p. 81). 299 On this and the Christian presence in Arabia before Islam, see Richard Bell, The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment: The Gunning Lectures, new ed. (New York: Routledge, 2012), especially Lecture II, pp. 33–63. 296 297

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Thus one KDVWRUHDGWKH4XUʱćn with such an influence in mind. 300 Sweetman suggests that such Arian traces appear, for example, in WKH4XUʱćn’s emphasis that Jesus was only a man in the likeness of Adam. It can also be detected in WKH4XUʱćnic tendency to bestow upon Christ an angelic nature either by means of calling him “messenger,” speaking about him in parallel to angels, assimilating him to Adam (who “was created in a heavenly Eden amid the court of Heaven”), or by speaking about Christ as the “Spirit from Him [Allah]” – the main claim that suggests to Sweetman that Christ for the Muslims was angelic in nature, since the Holy Spirit is identified LQ WKH 4XUʱćn with the angel Gabriel. 301 For Sweetman, these aspects seriously allude to Arian concepts in the 4XUʱćn. In addition, the Arian influence exceeds in its scope the Christology of the 4XUʱćn. It also permeates the writings of Muslim philosophers, mutakallims, and mystics. One can find in some Islamic writings (for example, ૜bn SĪnćps .LWćEDO-ĩsharćt) Arian-like ideas when their authors speak about (a) “the emanational pattern which allows some possibility of a vicegerent or a supernatural character mediating between the transcendent one and creation,” and (b) about alʚDTĪTD (the truth) in terms that are Arian in nature, such as calling it “supreme in regard to dignity and rank” above every angel. 302 In his survey of Arianism in the world of Islam, Daniel Sahas seems inclined to follow Sweetman in the latter’s conviction that WKH4XUʱanic content is influenced by Arian and Nestorian thought. On this influence, Sahas states: 2QHPD\VD\WKDWEHKLQGWKH4XUʱanic Christ there is Arianism with its created Word of God teaching, while behind the MusOLPWKHRORJLFDOFRQWURYHUV\RYHUWKHGRFWULQHRIWKH4XU’an as the Word of God, is Nestorianism. A variant text supports this FRQFOXVLRQZKHQLWVWDWHVWKDW0Xʘammad received “from Ari-

James W. Sweetman, Islam and Christian Theology: A Study of the Interpretation of Theological Ideas in the Two Religions, pt. 1, vol. 1 (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2002), p. 28. 301 Sweetman, Islam and Christian Theology, p. 29. 302 Sweetman, Islam and Christian Theology, pp. 59–60. 300

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anism (the doctrine) that the Word and Spirit are creatures, and from Nestorianism the worship of a (mere) man.” 303

On the other hand, in relation to their examination of Arianism in John’s text, scholars also speculate on the identity of the Arian monk to whom John points in chapter 100/101. In his reading of John’s chapter 100/101, John Tolan tends to read “Arian monk” as referring WRWKHPRQN%DʘĪUćEHIRUHKHH[SODLQV-RKQpVVSHHFKparticularly on Arianism using the following words: -RKQPDNHV>%DʘĪUć@DQ$ULDQKHUHWLFLQRUGHUWKHEHWWHUWRGLscredit Islam by associating it with familiar errors already attacked in previous chapters of Against the Heresies. 304

Nevertheless, Tolan’s contention here is not especially persuasive in my view. In chapter sixty-nine of this text, John introduces the Arians with the following words: The Arians, who are also called Ariomanites and Diatomites, are they who say that the Son of God is a creature and that the Holy Ghost is the creature of a creature. They assert that Christ did not receive His soul from Mary, but only His body. 305

There is nothing to clearly indicate that John has this understanding of Arianism in mind when he talks in chapter 100/101 about 0Xʘammad’s meeting with an “Arian monk.” John does not speciI\IRUXVWKH$ULDQLGHDVWKDW0Xʘammad derived from this monk to conclude that John is connecting his mention of Arianism in chapter 100/101 with what he states on Arianism in chapter sixtynine of De Haeresibus. Unless one wants to read more theological claims and ideas into John’s lines their content allows, one cannot truly affirm that John is here making a genuinely theological appraiVDO RI 0Xʘammad’s religious ideas. Far from theological asVHVVPHQW-RKQLVMXVWWU\LQJWRVD\WKDWWKHProphet of the Ishmaelites has socially, culturally, and contextually intermingled with the Sahas, “Arab Character,” p. 199. Tolan, Saracenes, p. 52. 305 Saint John of Damascus: Writings, trans. Chase, p. 127. 303 304

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ZURQJSHUVRQVILJXUHVWKDWLVZKRVHFUHGLELOLW\DQGgood standing within the Christian circle is highly questionable and untrusted. If John was speaking in today’s American–English slang, he could have said something such as: “and this pURSKHWFDOOHG0XʘDPPDG tumbled over some kind of an unknown, fake monk with ridiculous ideas.” This can be John’s way of degrading and deconstructing WKHYDOXHRI0XʘDPPDGpVLQWHOOHFWXDODQGFXOWXUDODXWKHQWLFLW\ by means of belittling the background of the one who conveyed knowledge of the Christian and Jewish scriptures to the Ishmaelites’ Prophet: WKLV $ULDQ PRQN ZDV MXVW DQ LQVLJQLILFDQW unimportant figure with false belief, who, having been dismissed from the churchly and monastic circles and totally abandoned by Christian society, had sheltered among the Arabs, who were similar to him in their inferior culture and intellect. 306 It was customary of Christians at that time to associate the Islamic views on ʲ,Vć E Maryam with Christian trends of thought that were deemed heretical by orthodoxy. Thus many Christian authors during the mideighth century, as Sidney Griffith notes, spoke about this Islamic Christology employing Christian terms such as “Arian” and “Nestorian” to offer what Griffith calls “an intra-Christian theological MXGJPHQWrDERXW,VODPLFFODLPV 307 While all this could truly have been the goal of these Christian authors, it does not seem to me to be an obvious goal for John of Damascus in chapter 100/101. John never names this monk, never narrates anything about his personal background, never shares any information reminiscent of the story of his meeting 0XʘDPPDG, and never details the Arian elements in his thought. The absence of these features entails, to say the least, a reading of John’s text from a perspective that is not necessarily or primarily theological, or even Sidney Griffith points to other historiographical texts from the ninth century (e.g. the Chronicle of Theophanes (d. 817) and the chronicles of George Hamartolos (fl. 866)) that speak condescendingly about this $ULDQ PRQN 6LGQH\ + *ULIILWK q0XʘDPPDG DQG WKH 0RQN RI %DʘĪUć Reflections on a Syriac and Arabic Text from Early Abbasid Times,” in The Beginnings of Christian Theology in Arabic, edited by Sidney H. Griffith (Burlington, VT: Variorum/Ashgate, 2002), pp. 146–174 (p. 153)). 307 *ULIILWKq0XʘDPPDGDQGWKH0RQNRI%DʘĪUćrS 306

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intellectually apologetical, in nature. Had theology been John’s focus, he would probably have followed the other Christian narrators in naming this monk “SergiuV%DʘĪUćr while building his ecclesiastical profile, or even in echoing what other authors had passed along about this monk’s context when they stated it was “a churchly historical context of unambiguously ‘Nestorian’, East Syrian character.” 308 In the extant Syriac text containing %DʘĪUćpV WHDFKLQJ WR 0XʘDPPDG WKLV PRQN LV HYHQ VDLG WR KDYH WDXJKW 0Xʘammad “Jacobite orthodoxy.” 309 Attestations such as these plausibly serve as theological labels that are expected to permeate the texts written for theologically and intellectually apologetical purposes. Since none of these features discloses itself in John’s text on the Ishmaelites, one seriously questions the belief that John’s text is actually written with theological apologetical tendencies truly in mind. I even am inclined to quesWLRQ6LGQH\*ULIILWKpVVXJJHVWLRQWKDWDVVRFLDWLQJ0XʘDPPDGZLWK a KHUHWLFDOPRQNLVqDQH[SUHVVLRQRIDWKHRORJLFDOMXGJPHQWDERXW Islamic teaching, rather than as a statement of how historically 0XʘDPPDG FDPH E\ KLV GLVWLQFWLYH GRFWULQHr 310 Contrary to this reading that departs from treating “Arian” as a theological label, I tend to pay close attention to John’s eschewing of any elaboration on this monk’s identity and thought. I deem this choice as a deliberate intellectual option John made because his concern was not about the theological nature of Islam or the theological sources of its doctrine. It seems to me to be more plausibly the case that John was pointing to the historical background of the Ishmaelites’ Prophet’s intellectual and cultural caliber. “Historical” here does not mean “historiographical,” for John does not at all offer any biographical data on the Arian monk or on his meeting with 0Xʘammad. “Historical” here designates the sociocultural, contexWXDO OLQNLQJ RI 0Xʘammad with a social and cultural outcast and disparaged Christian figure (whether Arian or Nestorian in theology). It serves John’s purpose of degrading and defaming the sociocultural legacy of the Ishmaelites, and it does not primarily serve 308

*ULIILWKq0XʘDPPDGDQGWKH0RQNRI%DʘĪUćrS *ULIILWKq0XʘDPPDGDQGWKH0RQNRI%DʘĪUćrS 310 *ULIILWKq0XʘDPPDGDQGWKH0RQNRI%DʘĪUćrS 309

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the purpose of “his defence of Greek Orthodoxy and his emphasis on the first ecumenical Council of Nicaea.” 311 One of the contextual elements relevant to the attempt to read John’s mention of “Arian monk” socially and culturally rather than theologically is the possible identity of this Arian monk: who was this monk? One of the scholars who have paid attention to the question of this monk’s identity is Barbara Roggema. According to Roggema, “the association of Islam with Arianism in the minds of mainstream Christians found its roots in the similarities between the Islamic notion of Christ as a creature with a human nature and Arius’s subordinationist Christology.” “Muslim theologians,” Roggema explains, “recognized the similarity as well and praised WKHIROORZHUVRI$ULXVIRUQRWJRLQJDVWUD\LQWKHZD\WKHPDMRULW\ of Christians had.” 312 Yet Roggema equally affirms that “Arianism was no longer an existing sect in the seventh century Neat East,” 313 before stressing that scholars today tend to believe that the Arian impact on Islam was much less influential than other Christian trends of thought, and that various other Christian “strands within the polemic outdid the tradition about the Arian connection.” 314 The scholarly belief today is that Islam was rather more substantially shaped after “Nestorianism,” “Nicolaitism,” and “Sabellianism” so much so, Roggema states, that one of the copyists of De Haeresibus edited “Arian monk” from John’s text to say WKDW0Xʘammad’s informants were “Jews, Christians, Arians and Nestorians.” 315 Roggema concludes that writers of that era “never gave much weight to the notion that Arianism stood at the root of Islam.” 316 5RJJHPDEHOLHYHVWKDWWKHOLQNLQJRI0XʘDPPDGWR$ULDQLVP has been mainly inspired by the association of the Prophet with the &KULVWLDQPRQN6HUJLXV%DʘĪUć,QWKHWH[WRIThe Legend of Sergius %DʚĪUć, Roggema notices that it LV WKH PRQN %DʘĪUć KLPVHOI ZKR Davids and Valkenberg, “John of Damascus,” p. 81. Roggema, /HJHQGRI6HUJLXV%DʚĪUć, pp. 168–169. 313 Roggema, /HJHQGRI6HUJLXV%DʚĪUć, p. 169. 314 Roggema, /HJHQGRI6HUJLXV%DʚĪUć, p. 169. 315 Roggema, /HJHQG RI 6HUJLXV %DʚĪUć, p. 169. See also Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam, p. 73. 316 Roggema, /HJHQGRI6HUJLXV%DʚĪUć, pp. 172–173. 311 312

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LQYLWHV WKLV FRQQHFWLRQ ZKHQ KH VWDWHV WKDW 0Xʘammad believed “that Christ is created, because ‘the confession of the cursed Arius became firmly rooted in his [that is, 0XʘDPPDGpV@ PLQGpr 317 Roggema intriguingly opines here tKDWLWLVQRW%DʘĪUćKLPVHOIZKR LVqSURIHVVLQJWKLVFRQIHVVLRQ,WLV0XʘDPPDGpVPLQGWKDWFDXVHV his faith to become similar to Arianism.” 318 Be that as it may, Roggema proposes that this association of 0Xʘammad with an “Arian monk” never became dominant. Instead, she backs up a conviction that the main Christian theological influence on the Prophet of Islam was Eastern–Syriac, specifically Nestorian, in nature. 319 In her study, Roggema takes her criticism of associating Islam with Arianism directly to John’s chapter 100/101 to argue that John’s “Arian monk” is historically inauthentic and so unreliable information about Christian influence on Islam. Her conviction is based methodologically on her agreement with the belief that the monk alluded to in John’s text must have been no one other than 6HUJLXV %DʘĪUć EHFDXVH ZH KDYH RYHUZKHOPLQJO\ UHOLDEOH H[WDQW LQIRUPDWLRQ RQ 0XʘDPPDGpV FORVH DIILQLW\ ZLWK D PRQN of that QDPH 1RZ VLQFH RXU DYDLODEOH GDWD RQ %DʘĪUć GR QRW YHULILDEO\ state that he was truly an Arian in theology, it is unlikely that Roggema, /HJHQGRI6HUJLXV%DʚĪUćS2Q6HUJLXV%DʘĪUćVHH DOVR 6WHSKHQ *HUR q7KH /HJHQG RI WKH 0RQN %DʘĪUć WKH &XOW RI WKH Cross and Iconoclasm,” in La Syrie de Byzance à l’Islam, VIIe–VIIIe Siècles, edited by Pierre Canivet and Jean-Paul Rey-Coquais (Damas: Alef-Ba (Sidawi), 1992), pp. 47–58. 318 Roggema, /HJHQGRI6HUJLXV%DʚĪUć, p. 173. 319 Roggema, /HJHQGRI6HUJLXV%DʚĪUć, pp.173–174. On the Monophysite and Nestorian influence on Islam, see John Bowman, “The Debt of Islam to Monophysite Syrian Christianity,” in Essays in Honor of G. Wheeler Thatcher, 1863–1950, edited by E. C. B. Maclaurin (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1967), pp. 191–&-RQQ%ORFNq3KLORSRQLDQ0RQRSKysitism in South Arabia at the Advent of Islam with Implications for the English Translation of ‘7KDOćWKDpLQ4XUʱćn 4.171 and 5.73,” Journal of Islamic Studies 23, no. 1 (2012), pp. 50–+DUU\$:ROIVRQq$Q8QNQown Splinter Group of Nestorians,” Revue d’Etudes Augustiniennes et Patristiques 6, no. 3 (1960), pp. 249–253. 317

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0XʘDPPDGpVDIILOLDWLRQZLWK%DʘĪUćshaped his mind toward Arian theology. Roggema herself, as I have pointed out, is not content to OLQN%DʘĪUćWR$ULDQLVP%HWKDWDVLWPD\ZKLOH-RKQpVDVVRFLDWLRQ RI 0XʘDPPDG with a Christian “monk” is acceptable by Roggema’s argument, defining this monk as “Arian” is categorically questioned and doubted. Eventually, John Damascene’s information about 0XʘDPPDGLVQRWUHOLDEOH I concur with Roggema that John’s information about 0Xʘammad and even Islam are shaped too much by what he has heard about them than what he has read. However, I do still think that the description “Arian monk” can be reliable information about the historical context of John’s discourse on the origin of Islam. There is nothing in John’s text per se that really suggests that the “Arian monk” -RKQKDVLQPLQGLVDFWXDOO\6HUJLXV%DʘĪUć-RKQ does not go as far as to suggest any relation of discipleship between 0XʘDPPDG DQG this “Arian monk,” whether this was Sergius %DʘĪUćRUsomeone else. He merely points to a “supposed encounter” or “conversation” EHWZHHQ0XʘDPPDGDQGDPRQNIURP an Arian background. If we insist on identifying this monk aV%DʘĪUć we must recognize that there is nothing in the text itself that makes this explicit. Thus there is no need to deny, in my view, the historical accuracy of the “Arian” DGMHFWLYHMXVWEHFDXVH%DʘĪUćZDVPRVW probably Nestorian rather than Arian. This last factor proves nothing in John’s text nor does it disprove anything, either, since it is not necessarily true that John is alluding here to the non-Arian, 1HVWRULDQ6HUJLXV%DʘĪUćLQWKHILUVWSODFH Maybe a more methodologically appropriate approach is to try to figure out the implications of the identity of the “Arian monk” in John’s text from a historical–contextual perspective, rather than a purely theological one. Reading this phrase “Arian monk” purely theologically would lead us to assume that John mistook here the theological thought of the mRQN %DʘĪUć ZKHUHDV reading “Arian monk” from a rather broader historical context other than a merely theological one would invite us to see if John refers here to something he had heard about a specific person who had lived in the region, and who had been known in one way or another as holding Arian-like ideas. First, there are textual indications that John could have JOHDQHGWKHLGHDRI0XʘDPPDGEHLQJLQIOXHQFHGE\DQ$ULDQPRQN from things he either heard from or read in other Christian ac-

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counts of the origin of Islam. In our hands today, for instance, is an Armenian manuscript of a text compiled in the early tenth century AD, yet it contains materials from the seventh and early eighth centuries, called Patmutʰiwn Aghuanitsʰ ashkharhi (“History of Aghuank”) in Armenian. In book three of this text, the author critLFL]HV 0XʘDPPDG LQ D KRVWLOH PDQQHU DWWDFKLQJ KLP WR DQ $ULDQ HGXFDWRUFDOOHG%DʘĪUć7KLVWH[WDOVRtells of a close connection and ongoing exchange of communication between the Armenian Church’s prelates and the Umayyad caliph, ʲAbd al-Malik b. 0DUZćQ 320 Now, we believe that John of Damascus served as a trusted scribe in ʲAbd al-Malik’s court, and so probably read to the caliph, or heard the caliph sharing with him, what an Armenian catholicos like Eghia waV VD\LQJ DERXW 0XʘDPPDGpV DVVRFLDWLRQ ZLWKDQ$ULDQFDOOHG%DʘĪUć,WLVTXLWHOLNHO\WKDW-RKQRI'DPDVFXV was familiar with the claim that the Prophet of the Ishmaelites was greatly influenced by an Arian monk’s teaching, and that he could have easily either gathered it from Christian sources heard it frequently mentioned by Muslim figures in the court of the caliph as an idea these Muslims had heard from Christians or even knew that these Muslims, even the caliph himself, had read this in a text written by Christians. Yet John’s mention of this idea almost in passing and without further elaboration on it can also suggest that KLV NQRZOHGJH RI WKH GLVFRXUVH RQ 0XʘDPPDGpV UHODWLRQ WR WKLV Arian monk is in the best case scenarios shallow or insufficient. John does not even recall the name of this monk, as though he had not paid serious attention to the Arian monk’s story when he heard Muslims tell it on some occasions. Secondly, in his association of the Ishmaelites’ Prophet with the influence of a Christian monk with a heretical Arian background, John of Damascus seems to have been using expressions which he knew would transmit social, cultural, and religious connotations to the minds of his Christian readers that were used to articulate the inferior, degraded, and unworthy status of the land and Tim Greenwood, “Works on Christian–Muslim Relations: Patmutʰiwn Aghuanitsʰ ashkharhi (History of Aghuank),” in Christian–Muslim Relations: A Biographical History, Volume 1: 600–900, edited by David Thomas and Barbara Roggema (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 263–267 (p. 265). 320

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identity of the Ishmaelites – humanly, culturally, and religiously, the Ishmaelites and their Prophet are inferior and unworthy of praise. They belong to a geographical zone of the Arab Peninsula, which KDG DPRQJ WKH RUWKRGR[ &KULVWLDQV DV ,UIDQ 6KDKĪG VWDWHV qWKH reputation of being Arabia haeresium ferax, ‘Arabia the breeding ground of heresies’.” 321 $FFRUGLQJWR6KDKĪGRQHRIWKH&KULVWLDQ heresies that could have flourished in the oriental region of South $UDELDXQWLOWKHVL[WKRUVHYHQWKFHQWXULHVLV$ULDQLVP6KDKĪGFRnstructs his conviction on the data we have on Emperor Constantius, who earlier in the fourth century had sent his emissary Theophilus Indus to Christianize South Arabia. 322 6KDKĪG QRtes that this royal figure was an Arian and that the Arianism which Constantius had inherited from his father Constantine could most probably have been the Christianity which Theophilus carried in his liege’s name to the people of South Arabia. 323 These two points invite us to realize that there are some historical and contextual data that make us conceive a plausible contextual factor behind John’s speech about an Arian monk in relation to the Prophet of Islam. Dissociating John’s speech on “Arian monk” from an easily and rather hastily allusion to the Nestorian ,UIDQ6KDKĪGq,VODPDQGOriens Christianus: Mekka 610–622 AD,” in The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam, edited by Emmanouela Grypeau, Mark Swanson, and David Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 9–31 (p. 18). 322 In The Chronicle of John of Nikiu, it is said that a woman named Theognosta converted the Yemenites to Christianity in the mid-fourth century. On the other hand, the History of Nicephorus narrates that Frumentius of Tyre was sent to Axum (in today’s Ethiopia) to convert the Abyssinians to Christianity and that the Abyssinians’ close relationship to South Arabia in pre-Islamic times allowed Christianity passage from Axum to that region (Block, “Philoponian Monophysitism,” pp. 52–53). Other chronicles attribute the arrival of Christianity to Yemen and the ,QGLDQ2FHDQWRDPLVVLRQDU\FDOOHG0ćU0ćUĪ6HH$PLU+DUUDNThe Acts RI0ćU0ćUĪWKH$SRVWOH (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005). 323 6KDKĪG q,VODP DQG Oriens Christianusr S  6KDKĪG WDONV PRUH extensively about this in ,UIDQ6KDKĪGByzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1984), pp. 86–106. 321

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PRQN6HUJLXV%DʘĪUćPD\EHPRUHFRQJHQLDOZLWK-RKQpVWH[W,Q KLVWH[W-RKQVSHDNVDERXW0XʘDPPDGpVOLQNWRD&KULVWLDQ$ULDQ heretic by saying, “having … supposedly encountered an Arian monk, [MXʘDPPDG@IRUPHGDKHUHV\RIKLVRZQrLQ6DKDVps EngOLVK WUDQVODWLRQ  RU qLW VHHPV KDYLQJ FRQYHUVHG ZLWK DQ $ULDQ monk, devised his own heresy” (in Chase’s English translation). 324 This means that John avoids the following. First, he does not make this monN 0XʘDPPDGpV WHDFKHU RU mentor. In the Christian stories about 0XʘDPPDGpVUHODWLRQWRthe mRQN %DʘĪUć WKHUH LV DQ LQGLFDWLRQ RI D quasi mentor/apprentice link between them. Such a relation is not what John seems to indicate. He merely speaks about an “encounter” and a “conversation” EHWZHHQ0XʘDPPDGDQGVRPH$ULDQILJXUHUHGXFLQJWKHFRQWDFW between the two men to occasional communication, and avoiding any proposal of more a substantial connection such as mentorship. This would actually resonate with the Muslims’ public discourse DQG 4XUʱanic content on Muʘammad’s intellectual background. 325 This means that John himself does not have (nor does he pretend to offer) here authentic knowledge, or his own story, of 0XʘDPPDGpV GHULYDWLRQ RI WKHRORJLFDO OHDUQLQJ IURP &KULVWLDQ mentors. Rather, he is conveying LQ D SHMRUDWLYH DOPRVW VDUFDVWLF, manner some news that he had heard Muslims entertain before him on the Prophet’s exposure to Christianity. This is why chapter 100/101 uses terms like “supposedly encountered an Arian monk” or “it seems, having conversed …” Such expressions suggest that the speaker is not sharing first-hand knowledge, but secondary news. Secondly, John does not care about naming the monk. He simply does not do this, because he might not have heard this monk’s name uttered by Muslims before him to know what this name might have been. Let us notice here that even if John is derivLQJKLVLQIRUPDWLRQRQ0XʘDPPDGpVDSSUHQWLFHVKLSWRa Christian monk from Byzantine–Greek sources, this will not support the FRQMHFWXUH WKDW -RKQ PHDQV KHUH WKH PRQN %DʘĪUć 7KH PDLQ UHaSahas, John of Damascus on Islam S  Saint John of Damascus: Writings, trans. Chase, p. 153. 325 6KDKĪG q,VODP DQGOriens Christianus,” p  6KDKĪG SRLQWVKHUH WR4 324

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son for this is that “the monk [with whom the prophet was associated] of the early Byzantine Tradition is anonymous,” and “the Greek equivaOHQWRIWKHGHVLJQDWLRQ%DʘĪUćILUVWRFFXUVLQWKHth century work of Bartholomew of Edessa.” 326 On the other hand, John’s emphasis might also rest oQWKHIDFWWKDW0XʘDPPDGZDVQRWPHntored by a Christian, but only encountered one and listened to one on certain occasions. This might have been John’s way of saying that 0XʘDPPDGpV UHOLJLRVLW\ RULJLQDWHG IURP VKDOORZ SUHFDULRXV hearing and not at all from a reliable, substantial, and qualitative education. This expression aims to denude the inferiority of the Ishmaelites by underrating and ridiculing the intellectual background of their leading figure. It is my conviction that we should consider here the possibility that John heard WKH 0XVOLPV WDON DERXW 0XʘDPPDGpV LQWHUDction with another Christian figure different from the monk %DʘĪUć What if, before John, the Muslims were actually speaking about 0XʘDPPDGpV shaping by the teaching of another Christian public ILJXUH IURP 1DMUćQ QDPHO\ WKH SRSXODU ILJXUH 4XVV E 6ćʲida al,\ćGĪ",QWKHHQVXLQJSDUDJUDSKV, will pursue the possibility of this proposal. In his study of Islam’s first encounter with Oriens Christianus in WKH$UDE3HQLQVXOD,UIDQ6KDKĪGSRLQWVWRWKHPDUNHWRIʲ8NćʴDQG highlights its significance during the sixth and seventh centuries in availing to the PURSKHW0XʘDPPDGDYHQXHIRUHQFRXQWHULQJSXblic Christian preachers like the BLVKRSRI1DMUćQ4XVVE6ćʲida al,\ćGĪ 327 $FFRUGLQJWR6KDKĪGYLVLWLQJʲ8NćʴZDVQRWMXVWGXHWRWKH Prophet’s occupation as a merchant, who would frequent the markets where Arabs bought and sold. ʲ8Nćʴ ZDV DOVR 6KDKĪG VWDWHV “the venue for Christian preachers, where they tried to wean away the Arabs from their paganism.” 328 6KDKĪG VXJJHVWV WKDW LW LV LQ ʲ8Nćʴ qZKHUH 4XVV DQG KLV $UDELF VHUPRQV FRPH LQ DV WKH PRVW naWXUDOVRXUFHRIVW\OLVWLFLQIOXHQFHRQWKH4XUʱan.” 329 4XVVZRXOG visit ʲ8Nćʴ frequently to preach because this city was “the venue 326

*HURq/HJHQGRIWKH0RQN%DʘĪUćrS 6KDKĪGq,VODPDQGOriens Christianus,” pp. 24–31. 328 6KDKĪGq,VODPDQGOriens Christianus,” p. 25. 329 6KDKĪGq,VODPDQGOriens Christianus,” p. 27. 327

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for most of the pagan Arabs of the entire Peninsula.” 330 There, the Christian preacher would compete with other preachers (for example, the Nestorians), orators, and poets in attempting to win the attention of the audiences. ,W LV WKHUH DV 0XVOLP VRXUFHV WHOO XV WKDW 0XʘDPPDG KHDUG 4XVV VSHDNLQJ ,Q 0XVOLP VRXUFHV ZKLFK DUH XQIRUWXQDWHO\ RXU only extant source for any informatLRQRQ4XVV 4XVVE6ćʲida is said to have been one of the Christians most frequently praised by the PURSKHW 0XʘDPPDG ,Q VRPH ʚDGLWKV LW LV QDUUDWHG WKDW 4XVV used to preach that “indeed, there is no religion with God which is better than the religion that you follow,” and in grateful reaction to this the PURSKHW 0XʘDPPDG qLQYRNHG GLYLQH PHUF\ XSRQ >4XVV@ DQGVDLGoKHVKDOOEHUDLVHGXSRQMXGJPHQWGD\DVDVHSDUDWHQation’.” The French Arabist Charles Pellat also cites this ʚDGLWK, though LQ WKH IROORZLQJ ZRUGV q, >0XʘDPPDG@ KRSH WKDW DW WKH GD\RIUHVXUUHFWLRQKH>4XVV@ZLOOUHWXUQWROLIHDQGIRUPWKHSHRSOH of his own.” 331 One of the most valuable studies on the enigmatic figure of 4XVVE6ćʲida al-,\ćGĪLVDQHVVD\ZULWWHQE\0DUHNDziekan, published in 2012. In this essay, Dziekan collects all the available (scarce and mostly legendary in nature) data on this Christian figure, who is mentioned only in Muslim historiographical texts. 332 4XVV ']LHNDQ VKRZV ZDV WKH ELVKRS usquf) of Christians in the YemeQLWH FLW\ RI 1DMUćQ \HW KH ZDV DOVR D PRQN RU DVFHWLF DV well. 333 Many Muslim historiographers – such as $EŠ ʗćWLP DV6LMLVWćQĪ,EQʲAbd Rabbih, al-MasʲŠGĪDO-%D\KDTĪ, DQG$EŠʗD\\ćQ at-7DZʘĪGĪ – mention him with admiration and by using the language of legend (for example, it is claimed that 4XVVOLYHGIRUKXndreds of years) ']LHNDQ KLPVHOI SURSRVHV WKDW WKH GHDWK RI 4XVV 6KDKĪGq,VODPDQGOriens Christianus,” p. 28. 7KXV LQ 0DUHN 0 ']LHNDQ q4XVV ,EQ 6ćʲida al-,\ćGĪ th–7th FHQW $'  %LVKRS RI 1DMUćQ $Q $UDELF DQG ,VODPLF &XOWXUDO +HURr Studia Ceranea 2 (2012), pp. 27–135 (p. 27). 332 Dziekan’s full study is a monograph published in Polish: M. M. Dziekan, 4XVVLEQ6ćʰida al-,\ćGĪ/HJHQGD=\FLD,7ZÐUF]RŔFL (Warszawa: Instytut Orientalistyczny, 1996). 333 ']LHNDQq4XVV,EQ6ćʲida al-,\ćGĪrS 330 331

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occurred in AD 610, and his burial place was somewhere in Northern Syria, probably in Jabal SimʲćQ, that part of Syria also connected with Simeon the Stylite (SimʲćQDO-ʲ$PŠGĪ  334 4XVVLVNQRZQDV a superior orator, poet, and rhetorician, as well as a preacher of theology and monotheism. Legends about his teaching tell of a famous sermon he preached in ʲ8Nćʴthat was highly regarded, preserved, and memorized by generations of Muslims. 335 Stories also QDUUDWH WKDW 4XVV ZDs the pioneer of certain postures and sayings the Arabs had not encountered or known before him, such as leaning on a staff (ʰDʜć) during his preaching (NKXʞED), and being the first to use the phrase “DPPćEaʲd” (furthermore) at the beginning of a sentence. 336 Dziekan suggests that in a predominantly oral context such as that of pre-Islamic and Islamic Arabia, where information was transferred “almost exclusively through personal contacts,” preserving an oral and written tradition in Muslim history on 4XVV E 6ćʲida means that, for the Muslims, this Christian figure (who was ignored by Christian tradition) was seen as “a cultural hero … treated as a giver and teacher of culture, situated between God’s and men’s world, between sacrum and profanum.” 337 It is my belief that there is no serious reason against the proposal that the “Arian monk” with whom John of Damascus associDWHV0Xʘammad is not the monk Sergius BaʘĪUćEXWUDWKHU4XVVE 6ćʲida al-,\ćGĪ -RKQ KHUH intends antagonistically to degrade the ruling Muslims of Syria-Palestine (whom he deliberately calls “Ishmaelites” rather than “Muslims”) by using every piece of information which he had heard spread about their Prophet and the origin of their faith, and performing this in a starkly and aggressively sarcastic, insulting manner. Such a goal would not have been ']LHNDQq4XVV,EQ6ćʲida al-,\ćGĪrS ']LHNDQq4XVV,EQ6ćʲida al-,\ćGĪrS129. Dziekan even points RXWWKDW4XVVpVPHPRU\LQ