As the first Christians to encounter Muslims, Syriac authors were at the forefront of non-Muslim constructions of Islam, an increasingly dominant entity whose own identity claims were frequently tied to discourses of religious distinction and supersessionism. (p. 99)
Muhammad Didn’t Perform Any Miracles (c. 724)
But unlike the Syriac translator of the Chronicle ad 724, Timothy did not unquestionably adopt Muslim views of Muḥammad, and he remained uncompromising on one crucial issue. However much Muḥammad may have “walked on the path of the prophets,” Timothy was darn sure that Muḥammad was not himself a prophet. Throughout his dialogue, Timothy returned to this topic, presenting arguments centered around two main points: Muḥammad could not be a prophet because (1) he never performed any miracles, and (2) scripture never foretold his coming. By Timothy’s day, Muslim scholars had already extensively debated the question of Muḥammad’s performance of miracles. In their exegesis of Qur’an 6:109, which instructed Muḥammad not to perform any signs because these came only from God, Muslim scholars quickly developed a tradition that Muḥammad’s only miracle was the icjāz al-Qur’ān (inimitability of the Qur’an). Nevertheless, the emerging sīra (biographical) tradition began to attribute other miracles to Muḥammad as well. In Timothy’s Apology, however, the caliph used neither of these traditions to refute Timothy’s claim regarding Muḥammad’s lack of miracles. Timothy and the caliph did, however, actively contest whether the Bible ever referred to Muḥammad. Central to their debate was the Muslim doctrine of taḥrīf (tampering). In several places the Qur’an speaks of the “people of the book” tampering with Scripture. Although the Qur’an remained ambiguous about what this tampering actually consisted of, later Muslim theologians more explicitly charged Jews and Christians with directly changing sacred texts. They often argued that as part of this process of scriptural corruption, Jews and Christians removed biblical prophecies that originally referred to Muḥammad. In Timothy’s Apology, al-Mahdi explicitly told Timothy, “There were many testimonies [about Muḥammad] but the scriptures were corrupted by you and you removed them.” In response, Timothy listed several objections to charges of taḥrīf ranging from outright denials (e.g., no Christian would dare) to rather innovative reasoning (e.g., Christians’ and Jews’ hatred for each other would prevent them from making the same changes to the biblical text). As with the issue of Muḥammad and miracles, al-Mahdi remained surprisingly silent and simply accepted Timothy’s defense of the Bible’s integrity. (p. 109)
Syriac vs. Byzantine and Latin Portrayals of Muhammad and Islam
Unlike the Greek writings of John of Damascus, Syriac texts never portrayed Muḥammad as the harbinger of the Antichrist or spoke of him as “blasphemous and obscene,” as did Constantine Prophyrogenitus.42 Nor was he an impure enemy of God taught and possessed by demons or a stupid man writing with a perverse pen who loved debauchery, massacres, pillage, and blasphemy, as depicted by the Byzantine writers Nicetas of Byzantium and George the Monk.43 Nor was he an idol-worshiping slave to sin who made his own religion by combing the errors of Jews, Arians, and Nestorians.44 In Syriac sources, Muḥammad did not receive his teaching from a demon in the form of a vulture, as reported in the Istoria de Mahamed, or from a wicked angel, as in the Latin writings of Eulogius. (p. 113)
Some Syriac Christians Thought the Quran Was Crypto-Christian
It is as if Syriac authors took the Qur’anic depiction of Christians as “people of the book” at its most literal to argue that Christians were people of the book. From this perspective, either the Qur’an was not legitimate Scripture or it also belonged to Christianity. (p. 115)
When Timothy spoke of Muḥammad, he did not, however, limit his scriptural exegesis to the Bible. The catholicos also provided a Christian interpretation of the Qur’an. Timothy argued that the Qur’an’s use of the first-person plural for God and the appearance of untranslatable letters preceding several Qur’an suras (chapters) proved that Muḥammad knew of the Trinity: (p. 110)
He openly taught about one God. But as for the Trinity, he professed it with symbols and with signs by (expressions) such as “His word,” and “His spirit,” and “We have sent our spirit,” and “We have formed a completed man.” And thus he did not teach openly about (the Trinity) lest they be scandalized by it as by polytheism. But also he did not completely hide it lest he stray from the way of Moses and of Isaiah and of all the prophets. But he professed (the Trinity) with symbols, with the three letters at the beginning of the suras. (p. 110)
Umayyad Caliph Hisham (r. 724-743)
In the early eighth century, the Umayyad caliph Hishām (r. 724–743) decided to reside in Rusafa. While there, he funded a new Umayyad mosque. The site Hishām chose for his mosque was a surprising one. He built it (quite literally) on unstable ground. Despite the presence of several sinkholes that had already damaged the surrounding buildings, he constructed the mosque immediately north of Basilica A. Clearly, the caliph’s overarching concern was not geological. Instead, his aim was to situate the mosque within a few dozen meters of Sergius’s relics. Even more surprising, Hishām built a door in the mosque’s qibla wall (the wall facing Mecca) that opened directly into the church courtyard. This architectural innovation resulted in Christians and Muslims sharing a common hall. It also provided Muslim worshippers quicker access to Sergius’s shrine.
Marriage
As with much canonical literature, it may also be useful to read these canons backward. That is, their prohibition of intermarriage suggested that it was a sufficiently frequent phenomenon to attract the attention of a late eighth-century council. I t is also noteworthy that the canons spoke only of women intermarrying, implying that the underlying concern was conversion. The council assumed that a woman was more likely to take on the religious practices of her husband than the other way around. Contemporary East Syrian legal sources presented a similar picture, although they more often spoke of Christians generally marrying nonbelievers, as opposed to specifying the partners as being Hagarenes. Isho’bokht (ca. 770) stated that a Christian man could not marry a non-Christian woman, nor a Christian woman a non-Christian man. In 805 Timothy I ruled differently depending on the gender of the Christian. He did not allow a Christian woman to marry a non-Christian lest she and her children become non-Christian. A Christian man, on the other hand, could marry a non-Christian woman if he had reason to believe she would subsequently convert to Christianity. Soon afterward, Isho’barnun (d. 824) made similar decisions. A Christian woman who willingly married “a ḥanpē, a Jew, or a man of another religion” was to be expelled from the church, along with her parents. A Christian man, however, was to be expelled only if he allowed his non-Christian wife to keep her religion. Both Isho’bokht and Isho’barnun also spoke of a spouse’s apostasy as acceptable grounds for divorce. (p.153)
Inheretence
Of related concern to intermarriage was the question of interfaith inheritance. For example, Timothy I was asked what should be done if a Christian bequeathed his estate to a Muslim. He responded that if other God-fearing Christians were nearby, the bequest should not be honored. However, if there were no good Christians in the area, the church should consider inheritance by a Muslim to be legitimate. In contrast, Isho’bokht declared that only Christians could inherit from other Christians. Non-Christian children could not inherit from Christian parents, nor could a non-Christian woman inherit from a Christian husband unless she converted to Christianity. A century later, Gabriel of Basra repeated Isho’bokht’s ruling in his own canon collection.