The Birmingham Manuscript

Pat Andrews

31 May

INTRODUCTION

In 2015, the BBC website announced that ‘What may be the world’s oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham.’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33436021) Reynolds comments: ‘At the heart of the article is the news… that two leaves of a Qur’an manuscript studied by Alba Fedeli and held at Birmingham’s university library had been carbon dated to somewhere between AD 568–645 (carbon dating allows only for a range of years, and not a precise date). Several academics and Muslim leaders are quoted in the article, and they agree that this finding reveals something of immense importance about the origins of Islam.’ He goes on to comment: ‘However, the BBC article – like a subsequent New York Times article (also July 22) – misses the most significant point about the dating of this Qur’an manuscript (which contains only a small section of the text: parts of chapters 18, 19, and 20).’ Reynolds then states: ‘Yet the very early dating of the Birmingham manuscript (568–645) – almost certainly before the reign of Uthman – casts doubt on the traditional story. The Birmingham manuscript does not appear to be a scrap, or a variant version kept by some companion, which somehow escaped the Caliph’s burning decree. It appears to be the standard Qur’an which Muslims attribute to Uthman. In other words, the dates of the Birmingham manuscript are not simply early. They’re too early. Instead of rejoicing, the news about this manuscript should lead to head-scratching.’

His comments were a welcome message of caution to the extravagant claims made at the time of the publication of the message. In this paper we examine the fragments and what they say to us about the nature of the Qur’an.

1. Date:

Kaplony and Marx state:

The University of Birmingham Library had been asked by our project in 2013 to give permission for carbon dating of an ancient fragment of the Qurʾān (M 1572). The university took samples of that fragment to send them to the laboratory of Oxford University. The obtained measurement dated the carbon of M 1572a (a fragment containing 2 fol.) to be from the interval between 568 and 645CE. In what appeared to be a kind of competition, Birmingham turned out to hold the most ancient Qurʾānic manuscript although precise rankings are impossible to give.

On p. 216the book gives this table:

TABLE 6.2 Fourteen carbon-dated manuscripts, listed according to the calculated time span in increasing chronological order

No.

Collection

Manuscript

Radioactive carbon age in BP (= years before 1950)

Time span to which the carbon was dated in CE

Script

(Déroche

1983)

Birmingham*

(Oxford laboratory

1572a

[1456, 21], fol. 1 or

fol. 7

568–645

ḥiǧāzī I

On p. 174 it comments: ‘… results do not give the time when the manuscript was written, but only the time of death of the vegetable or animal organism serving as the writing support. In addition, results are severely skewed in case of opistography or of long storage of a writing support before actual use.’

The Russian scholar Efim Rezvan delivered a paper at the University of Birmingham in 2015:

…The oldest manuscripts of the Qur’ān are present in several historical contexts. In my short lecture I would like to speak about only four of them, which seem to me the most important from both a scholarly point of view and then a broad public one. In both cases sharp discussions sometimes arise, comparable to ones like what we have seen recently in the press with the Birmingham Qur’ān pages.

The first and probably most important historical context I would like to call “The Prophet and His Qur’ān”. This was the time of the creation of the earliest Qur’ānic copies. The Birmingham manuscript appears to be the part of the standard Qur’ān, the result of a comparatively long corresponding tradition of development. It is dated in between 568—645 AD. We can add here the radiocarbon dating of the famous San’ā’ palimpsest: 75.1 percent chance of dating before 646 AD (laboratory in Arizona); 543—643 AD and even 433—599 AD (of two other fragments of the same MS from a laboratory in Lyon). Analysis of three samples of the manuscript parchment of the Qur’ān fragment from the University of Tübingen Library concluded that it was more than 95 percent likely to have originated in the period 649—675 AD. The very early dating of all these fragments — before the reign of ‘Uthmān — casts doubt on both the Islamic tradition as well as the scholarly theory of the history of the Qur’ānic text’s fixation. The Birmingham fragments show several textual variants as well as verse numbering differences. Recently Dr Brubaker found in ten early Qur’āns over 800 “corrections”, proving that these variations and corrections continued to be made and used for another 200 years…

More over, at the beginning MS Mingana Islamic Arabic 1572 was composed of nine folios coming from two different manuscripts (two folios + seven folios). Not long ago after publication of Dr Alba Fedeli article in “Manuscripta Orientalia”2, two groups have been separated: 1572a (two folios which became famous because of the dating and the BBC) and 1572b (seven folios with completely different layout: quality of parchment, margins, rulings, decoration, number of lines, using of red dots, etc). It is important that seven folios of 1572b together with Russian National Library Marcel 17 (ff. 1—17) and Museum of Islamic Art in Doha MIA 67 (four folios) composed previously one and the same manuscript (identical layout and sequence of the text).

The fact that the folios were kept for centuries “dans un coffre de fer, qu’il cacha dans un souterrain” can partly explain the early radiocarbon dating. The radiocarbon analysis of the parchment gives the date of death of the animal. Thus, today we should explain the gap of at least 50—70 years between stocking of the blank parchment and its use for the copying of the texts of the Qur’ān. I have only one basic explanation. Parchment was an expensive material (the skin of the entire animal was used to produce the big folio). Monastic and state scriptoria, located on the territory of Greater Syria (al-Shām), Antiochia, al-Hīra and Alexandria areas, could store this valuable material (including the donations of the pious laity). These stocks became part of the loot captured by the Arabs in the first years of the conquest. Captured leaves were used for writing the Qur’ān. To test this hypothesis, it is necessary to reread the existing historical sources dedicated to the first years of the Arab conquests.

The text of the manuscript seems to be ‘Uthmanic:

À ce sujet, on pourra ajouter les remarques suivantes. Régis Blachère (Le Coran III, Paris, 1951, p. 966) mentionne une leçon incorrecte de la vulgate ʿuṯmānienne au verset 162 de la sourate 4, al-Nisāʾ (al-muqīmīn au lieu d’al-muqīmūn, qui s’accorde avec al-muʾtūn et al-muʾminūn dans ce verset), et il note (no 160) que «cette leçon incorrecte de la vulgate est corrigée par I. Mas’ûd, Ubayy, Anas, Sa’īd i. Jubayr », avec une référence à Arthur Jeffery, Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’ān: the Old Codices, p. 38 128. Or, cette même leçon incorrecte se retrouve dans l’édition Déroche (La transmission, p. 68-69). Ce qui confirme une de ses conclusions, que «le Parisino-petropolitanus, ainsi que les autres manuscrits anciens, montre – pour ce que nous possédons – un texte qui, si nous nous en tenons au rasm nu, correspond pour l’essentiel à la vulgate ʿuṯmānienne » (p. 165). Or, à regarder de près le folio 2, recto (Mingana 1572a), de la Cadbury Research Gallery de l’université de Birmingham, on s’aperçoit qu’il s’agit de la fin de la sourate Maryam (S. 19, versets 91-98), suivie, après un trait et demi séparant deux sourates, du début de la sourate Ṭāhā (S. 20, versets 1-13a). Or, là aussi, le rasm nu, ainsi que le texte des deux sourates, correspond parfaitement au texte de la vulgate ʿuṯmānienne.

That is, Mingana 1572a ‘corresponds perfectly to the text of the ‘Uthmanic vulgate’. Blatti goes on to point out differences with the Ṣan’ā codex – unquestionably the oldest manuscript, which therefore means that this fragment is subsequent to the oldest manuscript:

À certains endroits de son livre sur La transmission, le professeur Déroche se réfère à un palimpseste de Sanaa, dont les reproductions qui étaient à sa disposition à cette époque ne lui ont pas permis de pousser très loin son analyse. Il revient à ce sujet dans sa Leçon (p. 54) et nous offre à la Figure 7 la reproduction de la couche inférieure d’un feuillet du palimpseste (DAM 01-27.1) de Sanaa. Ceci nous permet de constater que la séquence des deux bouts de sourates qui se suivent, la fin de la sourate 9 (al-Tawba) et le début de la 19 (Maryam), n’est pas conforme à la vulgate ʿuṯmānienne. Il y a là déjà une différence majeure avec le folio de Birmingham qui contient lui aussi une séquence de deux sourates (19 et 20), qui, elle, est bien conforme à la vulgate ʿuṯmānienne.

There is a diversity of opinion among scholars about the dating.

Mustafa Shah, from the Islamic studies department at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, says the “graphical evidence”, such as how the verses are separated and the grammatical marks, show this is from a later date.

In this early form of Arabic, writing styles developed and grammatical rules changed, and Dr Shah says the Birmingham manuscript is simply inconsistent with such an early date.

Prof Deroche also says he has “reservations” about radiocarbon dating and there have been cases where manuscripts with known dates have been tested and the results have been incorrect.

Keith Small warned against the extravagant claims made for the fragments at the time:

Concerning zeroing in on the later part of the date range for the manuscript’s composition - this unfortunately ignores that the 95.4% reliability figure applies to the entire date range; all the way back to 568, two years before Muhammad’s birth. Even if there is a statistical advantage for the latter half of the date range, it would only be a very slight one and not something decisive upon which one could make definitive or confident assertions. Referring to this part of the date range as the probable time of composition, without referring to the equal or extremely close probability of the earlier part of the range is irresponsible. The most one can assert is the possibility, not the probability, of the manuscript being composed during any particular part of this date range. To do otherwise is to cherry-pick evidence to support your favoured view, as Joseph Lumbard aptly puts it in the BBC article.

The level of quality of production is very good for what is preserved for these early kinds of Qur’an manuscripts. This however, is not an automatic argument for it being such a notable Qur’an. Any Qur’an on parchment would have been a costly commission ordered by a wealthy patron or organization, and all of the surviving Hijazi script Qur’an manuscripts, like this one, are on parchment. Some of them have an equally high level of quality in their execution. This one does not stand out as such an exceptional example to merit being a Caliph’s special commission. It is possible, but not probable.

Also, with so many Qur’ans in the Muslim world attributed to having been owned or written by important early figures (like the Caliphs Uthman or ‘Ali, or early Shi’ite Imams), it seems that one of such significance would have been preserved with more care. The Islamic traditions, however, say that Uthman had all Qur’ans prior to his version (c. 650 CE) ordered destroyed after he finished his task of producing a standard edition of the Qur’an. Tradition also states that a version passed from the Caliph Umar to his daughter Hafsa, which many have thought was originally from Abu Bakr, did escape Uthman’s order only to be destroyed by the later Caliph Muʻawiya (reigned 661-680).

After this observation about carbon dating, he goers on to make this comment:

The level of quality argument can also act as a two-edged sword. It takes time for scribal conventions to develop to a degree that there are formal script styles and established ways of laying out pages so that a scribal culture can be traced in its development from simple to more complex. This Qur’an has clear signs it was copied from a written exemplar- an already established type of Qur’an with an established script style, pattern of verses, system of spelling, and a system of laying out a page for transcription. These scribal conventions take time to develop- even decades. The traditions about Abu Bakr’s collection of the Qur’an, of the Caliph Umar’s efforts to collect it, and of the Caliph Uthman’s efforts to standardize it, do not present a setting with an established Arabic scribal culture for the early 600s. Also, there are numerous inconsistencies between the Qur’an collection stories concerning these three caliphs that have led many scholars to question their veracity. Also, the Caliphs were not the only available wealthy patrons who could have been commissioning Qur’ans. Many of Muhammad’s companions were enriched during the conquests of Islam’s first century.

Also, very few of the available early Hijazi manuscripts have been carbon dated, so there is still the real possibility that earlier manuscripts are out there. There is already one Qur’an manuscript that has returned earlier dates than the Birmingham one, one of the pages of the Sanaa palimpsest, one of its pages coming back with a date span completely before 600 CE. This brings us to the point François Déroche made in the BBC article that there might be a problem with the carbon dating that is as yet unidentified. He pointed out that there are Qur’ans with known dates of composition that have returned mismatched radiocarbon dates. No one knows yet why this is so, but it keeps in the picture a point for legitimate questioning concerning the extremely early dates.

We should also note this article by Fedeli:

The results of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit placed the death of the animal used for manufacturing this writing surface somewhere in a span of time between 568 and 645 CE with a 95.4% probability… Birmingham is a particular case of a rediscovery presented as a discovery, because the radiocarbon analysis gave a “new dating.” The new dating is in disagreement with that mentioned in the 1948-63 catalogue (i.e. from the 8th to 9th century according to mainstream studies at the beginning of the last century), whereas experts were aware of the fact that it was part of the corpus of early manuscripts from the 7th century (e.g. Gerd R. Puin in 2009)… Scholars’ cautiousness in presenting their hypotheses about the possible dating of the Birmingham manuscript mainly based on paleographical features contrasts with the reliability that scientific analyses offer. Thus, paleography gives a hypothesis, while radiocarbon analyses produce results that the common public seem to accept with greater confidence… Two numbers, i.e. 568-645, don’t tell us a lot. Only the analysis of all of the manuscripts of the corpus – of which the ‘Birmingham Qur’ān’ forms a tiny piece – and of their connections will tell us part of the story. The use of phylogenetic software in understanding the connections between manuscripts, i.e. phylomemetics, makes the research even more fascinating.

Fedeli states that ‘paleography gives a hypothesis’ – it is not exact, and carbon-dating informs us only about the date of the death of the animal. Other scholars also questioned the very early date:

Scholars continue to express diverse opinions on the allegedly oldest Quran that was recently found in Birmingham University’s library. A scholar from Yalova University said the Quran must belong to the Umayyad era, claiming it cannot be the oldest version

Assistant Professor Süleyman Berk and collector Mehmet Çebi challenge Birmingham University’s suggestion that it has found the world’s oldest Quran. Birmingham University announced that it had the oldest Quranic manuscript. The pages, written in Hejazi Arabic script, were found by a doctoral student in the Middle Eastern books and transcripts archive in the university library. When they were carbon tested, the pages were found to be 1,370 years old.

However, according to Berk, a faculty member of Yalova University’s Islamic Studies Faculty Turkish Islamic Art History Department, the script used on the pages of the Quran belong to the Umayyad era (661 to 750), meaning that it cannot be the oldest copy of the Quran. Berk insisted that the pages could not belong to the era of third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, or earlier. “I read the news over and over again, and I was shocked. According to the carbon testing, the pages are 1,370 years old, but the scripture tells a different story,” he claimed, adding: “This finding did not cause any excitement in me. It is clear that the Quran pages they have belong to the Umayyad era, which is around the end of the seventh century and the beginning of the eighth century. We have seen many copies of the Quran written with that script in that era. The Turkish Islamic Arts Museum even has the largest collection of such transcripts.”

Berk said that there are no scripts definitely used during the time of the Prophet Muhammad and the four caliphates. He said: “As you know, there are some scripts that are said to have been used during the era of Uthman ibn Affan. However, academic investigation indicates that three of those were made by copying scripts written during his time, not during that era.”

Berk said that they have been investigating this issue for about a year because of an exhibition organized for the 1,400th year of the Quran. He said: “We have published our research, ‘The Quran in its 1,400th Year.’ In this work, there are also articles written by French academic François Deroche about this issue. According to our research, it is clear that the Quranic pages at Birmingham University and the ones that we have belong to the same era.”

Interestingly, Corpus Coranicum gives only the date according to carbon-dating: fol. 1 und 7 (=1572a): 568-645, σ2 (95,4%) [¹⁴C-Datierung durch Cadbury Research Library]. It has subsequently emerged, as Déroche observed, that the fragments belonged to a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris: ‘It seems likely the fragments in Birmingham, at least 1,370 years old, were once held in Egypt’s oldest mosque, the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As in Fustat. This is because academics are increasingly confident the Birmingham manuscript has an exact match in the National Library of France, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. The library points to the expertise of Francois Deroche, historian of the Koran and academic at the College de France, and he confirms the pages in Paris are part of the same Koran as Birmingham’s. Alba Fedeli, the researcher who first identified the manuscript in Birmingham, is also sure it is the same as the fragments in Paris.’ The University of Birmingham states: ‘It has been suggested on palaeographic grounds that the fragment matches sixteen pages held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France and catalogued as BnF Arabe 328c, and that they form part of the same original manuscript codex. The folios held in Paris are believed to have a provenance from the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As at Fustat, south of Misr (Cairo), which was built in 642; the first mosque built in Egypt and Africa.’ The BnF website provides this information:

Département des Manuscrits > Arabe > Corans: Arabe 324-589 et dispersés (F. Déroche)

Arabe 328

Index

Réservation

GallicaArabe 328 (cote) • Coran. • القرآن.

division: Arabe 328 c: ff° 71 à 86

Coran

Graphie ḥiğāzī I, l’écriture présente quelques ressemblances avec 328 b (cf. alif, mīm et nūn);

- le ğim et le ʿayn en position finale ont une queue beaucoup plus longue et incurvée que ce que l’on rencontre dans Ar. 328 b ou même a;

- la queue du qāf final s’achève parallèlement à la ligne sans descendre autant que dans les autres spécimens de cette graphie, et s’étend plus vers la gauche de la tête de la lettre;

- le hāʾ est assez nettement à cheval sur la ligne d’écriture.

Diacritiques: quelques traits obliques d’origine; vocalisation absente. Des groupes de cinq ou six traits obliques séparent les versets (1.1.3) ; les groupes de cinq ou dix versets ne sont pas indiqués.

Un bandeau sépare les sourates l’une de l’autre:

Parchemin. 16 feuillets. Page: [333 mm. × 245]. 24 à 25 lignes. Encre brune. Réglure à l’encre visible au r° et au v° des feuillets; on distingue les horizontales et la verticale de la marge extérieure. Surface d’écriture: 300/312 mm. × 215.

Bibliographie

F. Déroche, Catalogue des manuscrits arabes. 2ème partie. Manuscrits musulmans. Tome 1, 1: Les Manuscrits du Coran: aux origines de la calligraphie coranique. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 1983, n° 4.

Bibliographie

Bausi, Alessandro, Sokolinski, Eugenia... [et al]. Comparative oriental manuscript studies: an introduction, Comparative oriental manuscript studies, 2015.

Présentation du contenu

F° 71 à 77: X, 35-XI, 110; f° 78 à 86: XX, 99-XXIII, 27.

Copie anonyme et non datée

F° 73 v°: trois filets ondulés de couleur rouge-orange sur lesquels ont été portés des points noirs courent parallèlement sur toute la largeur; dans les deux intervales qui les séparent, des points de la même couleur ont été disposés. Dans la marge extérieure, les trois filets se rejoignent pour dessiner une palmette stylisée très grossière, en partie rognée.

F° 79 r°: un filet rouge-orange sur lequel ont été portés des points noirs et d’où partent des vrilles de même couleur part de la marge extérieure et se dédouble vers le milieu du feuillet jusqu’à la marge intérieure. Là, il forme un motif grossier analogue du f° 73 v°; dans la marge extérieure, on trouve une forme de palmette lancéolée.

F° 82 v°: deux filets rouge-orange courent sur toute la largeur de feuillet et s’achèvent dans la marge extérieure par un motif grossier analogue à celui du f° 73 v°.

F° 86 r°: un filet rouge-orange d’où partent des vrilles occupe toute la largeur du feuillet; dans la marge extérieure, il s’achève en un motif grossier analogue à celui du f° 73 v°.

A rappocher du manuscrit conservé à Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham, MS Islamic Arabic 1572 (cf. A. Fedeli)

Bibliographie

A. Fedeli, ‘The provenance of the manuscript Mingana Islamic Arabic 1572: dispersed folios from a few Qur’anic quires’. Manuscript Orientalia, 17, 1 (2011), pp. 45-56.

E. Rezvan, “The Mingana folios in their historical context (notes in the margins of newspaper publications)”. Manuscripta Orientalia, 21, 2 (2015), pp. 32-38.

2. Contents:

Déroche has observed the presence of variants in Arabe 328 c:

These variants are typologically close to some of those, which are said by the tradition to be characteristic of the maṣāḥif al-amṣār, for instance law instead of wa-law or alladhīna instead of wa-alladhīna.108 The typology of a quarter of the canonical variants is similar, for instance the Syrian reading qālū instead of wa-qālū (2: 116) or the Medinan and Syrian alladhīna instead of wa-alladhīna (9:107). As the lists of variants also include cases in which qāla is a reading against qul (17: 93; 21: 4; 23: 112 and 114),1 one wonders whether these lists reflect a later stage of transmission, when the orthographic difference between qāla and qul was completely established. And it is only the growing use of diacritics which could make the difference in Q 27: 67 between a hamza and a nūn. The still defective state of the script, with few diacritics and no vowels and orthoepic marks, and the old orthography are quite certainly at the root of variant readings.

The fact that Déroche includes Arabe 328 c among his list of Umayyad manuscripts surely excludes the idea that the Birmingham fragments are early. The University page ‘The Birmingham Qur’an Manuscript’ (https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/facilities/cadbury/TheBirminghamQuranManuscript.aspx) states:

What parts of the Qur’an does the manuscript contain?

Parts of Surahs 18 - 20.

Surah 20 Ta-Ha verses 13-40

3.
Surah 19 Maryam
‘Mary’ verses 91-98
Surah 20 Ta-Ha verses 1-13

Surah 18 Al-Kahf
‘The Cave’ verses 23-31

Surah 18 Al-Kahf
‘The Cave’ verses 17-23

N.B. The page also states:

Who was the scribe?

It is not possible to say who was the scribe.

When was it made?

It is not possible to say with certainty when the manuscript was made. Combining the palaeographic analysis with the radiocarbon dating result we would describe this manuscript for the purposes of the catalogue as mid 7th century.

Where was it made?

It is not possible to say with certainly where this manuscript was made. From the handwriting we can deduce that it may have been created in the Hejaz area to the west of Arabian Peninsula, which includes the Islamic sacred cities of Mecca and Medina…

Have you dated the inks?

No. Radiocarbon analysis will not provide a date range for the time the ink was created or applied. This is not a process that has been carried out on any other early Qur’ans to date.

What is the brown ink?

The brown ink could be made from a carbon-based pigment. We have not analysed the pigments.

What is the red ink?

The red ink could be made from kermes lake pigment. We have not analysed the pigments.

If we begin with Surah Al-Kahf 18:17-31:

17. And thou mightest have seen the sun when it rose move away from their cave to the right, and when it set go past them on the left, and they were in the cleft thereof. That was (one) of the portents of Allah. He whom Allah guideth, he indeed is led aright, and he whom He sendeth astray, for him thou wilt not find a guiding friend.

18. And thou wouldst have deemed them waking thou they were asleep, and we caused them to turn over to the right and the left, and their dog stretching out his paws on the threshold. If thou hadst observed them closely thou hadst assuredly turned away from them in flight, and hadst been filled with awe of them.

19. And in like manner We awakened them that they might question one another. A speaker from among them said: How long have ye tarried? They said: We have tarried a day or some part of a day, (Others) said: Your Lord best knoweth what ye have tarried. Now send one of you with this your silver coin unto the city, and let him see what food is purest there and bring you a supply thereof. Let him be courteous and let no man know of you.

20. For they, if they should come to know of you, will stone you or turn you back to their religion; then ye will never prosper.

21. And in like manner We disclosed them (to the people of the city) that they might know that the promise of Allah is true, and that, as for the Hour, there is no doubt concerning it. When (the people of the city) disputed of their case among themselves, they said: Build over them a building; their Lord knoweth best concerning them. Those who won their point said: We verity shall build a place of worship over them.

None knoweth them save a few. So contend not concerning them except with an outward contending, and ask not any of them to pronounce concerning them.

23. And say not of anything: Lo! I shall do that tomorrow,

24. Except if Allah will. And remember thy Lord when thou forgettest, and say: It may be that my Lord guideth me unto a nearer way of truth than this.

25. And (it is said) they tarried in their Cave three hundred years and add nine.

26. Say: Allah is best aware how long they tarried. His is the Invisible of the heavens and the earth. How clear of sight is He and keen of hearing! They have no protecting friend beside Him, and He maketh none to share in His government.

27. And recite that which hath been revealed unto thee of the scripture of thy Lord. There is none who can change His words, and thou wilt find no refuge beside Him.

28. Restrain thyself along with those who cry unto their Lord at morn and evening, seeking His countenance; and let not thine eyes overlook them, desiring the pomp of the life of the world; and obey not him whose heart We have made heedless of Our remembrance, who followeth his own lust and whose case hath been abandoned.

29. Say: (It is) the truth from the Lord of you (all). Then whosoever will, let him believe, and whosoever will, let him disbelieve. Lo! We have prepared for disbelievers Fire. Its tent encloseth them. If they ask for showers, they will be showered with water like to molten lead which burneth the faces. Calamitous the drink and ill the resting place!

30. Lo! as for those who believe and do good works, Lo! We suffer not the reward of one whose work is goodly to be lost.

31. As for such, theirs will be Gardens of Eden, wherein rivers flow beneath them; therein they will be given armlets of gold and will wear green robes of finest silk and gold embroidery, reclining upon thrones therein. Blest the reward, and fair the resting place!

The origins of this story are found in the Christian legend of the Sleepers of Ephesus and Companions of the Cave. Witakowski gives the background of this story:

The Legend tells about seven (in Syriac most often eight) young Christian men who during the period of the persecution of the Christians by the Roman emperor Decius (249–251) refused to offer sacrifice to pagan gods, and taking advantage of the emperor’s temporary absence from Ephesus, escaped to the mountains outside the city, where they hid in a cave and fell asleep. Having returned, the emperor gave orders to wall up the cave so that the young men would die buried alive. However, 195 years later, in the 38th year of the reign of the Christian emperor Theodosius II (401–450), i.e., 445/6, they woke up, and since the wall had been removed they left the cave, convinced that they had slept just one night. When one of them, whom they had sent to the city, tried to pay for food with the coins from the epoch of Decius, the shopkeeper thought that they had found a hoard of old money. The bp. of the city, however, having investigated the matter, understood that a great miracle had happened. The young men then fell asleep again, this time for good. There is also the mention of the heresy, that became known in the same period, of Theodore bp. of Aegae, who denied the bodily resurrection of the dead. The Sleepers of Ephesus’s awakening ‘proved’ that Theodore was wrong, thus giving a clue to the function of the Legend.

In Ephesus soon the cult of the Sleepers of Ephesus developed, and a church devoted to them, as a pilgrim’s narrative attests (Theodosius the Archdeacon, ‘De situ terrae sanctae’, between 518 and 530), was built there (it was discovered by the German archeological expedition in the 1930s)…

The Legend was originally, as it seems, composed in Greek.

Verses 21-26 imply that those reading/hearing the recitation of the Qur’an were aware that that a shrine was built to commemorate the Sleepers, and the subsequent verses display knowledge of the variant numbers, identities and duration of the ‘sleep’ of those in the story. The Qur’an does not answer these issues, beyond pointing to the omniscience of Allah. The verses also indicate that the hearers were aware of the story – which would indeed be the case, for those hearing either Syriac Jacobites or Nestorians.

Witakowski observes: ‘In Syriac the Legend of the Sleepers of Ephesus is perhaps first attested by the ms. Saint-Petersburg no. 4 of the 5th cent., if M. van Esbroeck’s dating is accepted, and then by Yaʿqub of Serugh, who devoted to it a memrā, written at the beginning of the 6th cent. (ed. Guidi, ‘Testi orientali’, two versions, 358–63, 363–9).’ Pieter Willem van der Horst has written an excellent study of the Seven Sleepers, where he noted even possible ancient pagan antecedents, but observes that ‘The first author to tell us the story of the Seven Sleepers is the Syrian bishop Jacob of Sarug (ca. 450-521), although he bases himself upon an older source. Also, the other early witness, Gregory of Tours (ca. 538-594), states that his knowledge of the story comes from a Syriac source.’ He sees the story as being ‘based upon a Greek original from the latter half of the fifth century which, unfortunately, is now lost.’ van der Horst then presents the essential story:

Much abbreviated, Jacob’s version may be summarized as follows:

The Emperor Decius comes to Ephesus and orders everyone to sacrifice to the pagan gods. Some boys of the leading families refuse and go into hiding, but they are denounced. Decius orders that they be flogged and kept until he returns. The boys escape and hide in a cave near Ephesus. They take some of their parents’ money with them. In the cave they pray to God; God raises their spirits into heaven and sends a watcher to guard their bodies. On his return, Decius orders the cave’s entrance to be blocked. When, after the pagan era, God wants to awaken them, a man in need of building materials reuses the stones at the cave’s entrance, and the boys are awakened by the daylight. Then they decide to send one of their number, Iamlikha (=Iamblichus), to the city, in order to see if Decius has already returned; they give him some small change to buy bread. Iamlikha is utterly surprised to see crosses above the city gates and wonders whether this is really Ephesus. He tries to buy bread but among the bread-sellers his archaic coins raise the suspicion that he has found a treasure. He denies it but is taken to the bishop, who questions him. He says that he is the son of one of the leading citizens, but he fails to recognize anyone in the crowd who might rescue him. When he asks where Decius is, people think he has gone mad since that would make Decius 372 years old. Then the boy tells the bishop how he and his companions escaped to the mountain to hide in a cave. The people go up to the mountain, and the bishop enters the cave, where he greets the boys. He sends a message to the Emperor Theodosius, who immediately comes to Ephesus. Theodosius offers to build a shrine on the spot, but the boys decline and say all this has happened to prove the truth of the resurrection. They lie down, the Emperor covers them with his mantle, and again they sleep peacefully; i.e., they die.

Here is a selection from the text of Jacob’s homily:

O Son of God, whose door is open to whoever calls on him,

Open your door to me, so that I may sing of the beauty of the children of light…

The emperor Decius set out from his place to another one.

To visit the towns and cities in his realm;

He entered Ephesus and threw it into great commotion,

Making a festival to Zeus, Apollo, and to Artemis too.

He wrote a missive to the lords of his realm

That everyone should come and place incense before the gods…

Now there were some dear boys, sons of leading men,

Who despised the order and did not subject themselves to it, like their companions.

They went in and hid themselves in the sheepfold of Jesus,

So that the unclean smell of impure incense should not ascend for them.

Their companions saw, and d enounced them in the emperor's presence: “There are some boys here who have rebelled against your order.”

The emperor listened and was clothed in anger against the innocent…

The emperor saw how admirable were their persons,

And he spoke to them with blandishments, saying,

“Tell me, boys, why have you transgressed my orders?”

Come along and sacrifice, and I will make you leaders.”

The son of a cavalry officer opened his mouth, along with his seven companions,

“We will not worship deaf images, the work of [human] hands:

We have the Lord of heaven, and he will assist us.

It is him that we worship, and to him do we offer the purity of our hearts.

You have as king, Zeus and Apollo, along with Artemis.

We have as king, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In view of the subsequent development of this story in the Qur’an, it is noteworthy that the Christians in the narrative reject idolatry and polytheism, and any compromise therewith, and also identify the God they worship as ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’ rather than ‘Jesus, Mary and God’. At this point we should compare the homily with Surah al-Kahf 18.14: ‘And We made firm their hearts when they stood forth and said: Our Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth. We cry unto no god beside Him, for then should we utter an enormity.’ The homily continues:

The emperor gave orders and they beat them with rods,

He gave orders again: “Leave them until I come;”

For he was in a hurry to visit the towns and the cities…

There was a rock cave on the top of the mountain

And the dear boys deliberated among themselves,

“Let us leave and escape from this town of Ephesus

Before the accursed emperor comes to judge us.”

There was a rock cave on the top of the mountain

And the dear boys decided to hide there.

The story goes on to relate how they took some ‘pagan coinage’ with them, but nothing else, then pray to the Lord saying:

“We beg you, good shepherd who has chosen his sheep,

Preserve your flock from that wolf who is thirsting for our blood.”

The Lord saw the faith of the dear lambs

And came to give a good reward as their recompense.

He took their spirits and raised them up above, to heaven

And left a watcher to be guarding their limbs.

Upon the Emperor’s return, he hears of their place of concealment, and orders that they be sealed up there. The Qur’an render the story as follows:

10. When the young men fled for refuge to the Cave and said: Our Lord! Give us mercy from Thy presence and shape for us right conduct in our plight

11. Then We sealed up their hearing in the Cave for a number of years.

12. And afterward We raised them up that We might know which of the two parties would best calculate the time that they had tarried.

Whereas in the homily, the Emperor seals them in the Cave, in the Qur’an it is Allah. Perhaps this means nothing more than that God providentially arranged for the Emperor to fulfil His plan. Intriguingly, the Qur’an goes on to mention the presence of a dog, which is absent in the homily:

18. And thou wouldst have deemed them waking though they were asleep, and We caused them to turn over to the right and the left, and their dog stretching out his paws on the threshold. If thou hadst observed them closely thou hadst assuredly turned away from them in flight, and hadst been filled with awe of them…

22. (Some) will say: They were three, their dog the fourth, and (some) say: Five, their dog the sixth, guessing at random; and (some) say: Seven, and their dog the eighth. Say (O Muhammad): My Lord is best aware of their number. None knoweth them save a few. So contend not concerning them except with an outward contending, and ask not any of them to pronounce concerning them.

Reynolds offers some important observations on this issue:

18:18 The presence of a dog in the Qurʾānic account of the Companions of the Cave poses a problem to Muslim interpreters. Why would a dog, a ritually unclean animal (Muslims are to wash seven times after contact with a dog’s saliva), be found together with the pious companions of the cave? Why would a dog be inside their “house” when a well-known hadith relates that angels do not enter houses with dogs in them? Ibn Kathīr (Tafsīr, 3:72) resolves this problem by insisting that the dog actually remained outside of the cave, to protect them.

However, the dog poses no problem when the account of the Companions of the Cave is read in the light of the Qurʾān’s Biblical subtext. In Jacob of Serugh’s mēmrā on the Sleepers the boys describe themselves—using a Gospel metaphor — as sheep, Christ as their shepherd, and Decius as a wolf. Christ responds by sending a “watcher” to guard them. This watcher is presumably meant to be an angel (indeed the term “watcher” ʿirā is used for certain angels in Syriac Christian texts), but the Qurʾān takes the metaphor used in Jacob’s text literally and imagines it to be a dog (one might say a sheepdog):

We beg you good shepherd who has chosen his sheep, / preserve your flock from that wolf who is thirsting for our blood. / He took their spirits and raise them up above, to heaven / and left a watcher to be guarding their limbs. (Jacob of Serugh, Mēmrā on the Sleepers of Ephesus, 23, ll. 55–60)

Indeed we know a dog already featured in Christian accounts of the legend from the report of a Byzantine traveler (also) named Theodosius who describes Ephesus as the city of “the seven sleeping brothers, and the dog Viricanus their feet” (The Pilgrimage of Theodosius, 16).

Theodosius (c. 530) was Byzantine traveler about whom we know little. This is his account of the Sleepers:

76 In the province of Asia there is the city of Ephesus, where are the seven Sleeping Brothers, and the dog Viricanus at their feet. Their names were Achillides, Diomedes, Eugenius, Stephen, Probatius, Sabbatius and Quiriacus; their mother is called in Greek, Caratina, in Latin, Felicitas.

Bernard goes on to comment: ‘The author here mixes up the story of the martyrdom of Felicitas and her seven sons at Rome under Antoninus Pius with the famous legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. The names of the sleepers given in the text are, as Gildemeister points out, not the names usual in the west but identical with a list current in Syriac. The dog is an embellishment to the story not found elsewhere in Christian versions of the legend, but he appears in the Mohammedan account (Sale’s Koran, chap, xviii.).’ This suggests further Syriac Christian influence upon the Qur’an.

After their sealing in the mountain, the homily notes that there was a hope of resurrection attached to their de facto tomb:

There were there two sophists, sons of the leading men,

And they reckoned that the Lord would resurrect them,

So they made tablets of lead and placed them beside them;

On them they wrote down the names of the children of light,

and for what reason the Boys, having entered the cave, hid themselves there

And why the young men had gone to hide in the cave,

And at what time they had fled from the presence of the emperor Decius.

The text goes on to mention the end of pagan rule, and the desire of the Lord to ‘arouse these children of light’, and the instrument thereof was a wealthy man who, wishing to build a sheepfold, tore down the ‘cut stones’. The result was:

The light entered and awoke the children of light.

They shook off sleep and sat up on the ground - a wonder to tell.

The dear boys deliberated among themselves,

“Who will go down and see if the Emperor has come,

And [so] we will learn and see what he has ordered concerning us.

Let him go down and show us whether he has required us or not.”

There was there one of them whose name was Iamlikha;

He said, “I will go down and find out…

They answered him and said, “Take some small change and bring back some bread:

Ever since evening we have been short of bread, and we have not had a meal.

The Qur’an’s equivalent is:

20. For they, if they should come to know of you, will stone you or turn you back to their religion; then ye will never prosper.

The homily does not explicitly state that the youths thought they had been there only a day but giving the reference to their lack of bread since the evening, it could be a valid inference. In the homily, Iamlikha goes down to Ephesus and sees a cross above the gate, which disconcerts him, and obviously uses coinage from the age of Decius, which baffles the merchants and people of Ephesus. Eventually, leading figures and others – including a bishop - go up to the cave, and see the boys:

They saw the boys sitting on the ground,

And they greeted them, saying: “Peace be with you.”

And straightway wrote a missive to the emperor Theodosius:

“Come, my lord, and see a living treasure that has been revealed to us.”

The emperor made haste and came down and saw them;

He greeted them, saying, “Peace be with you.”

He took the lead tablet and began to read

[The reason] the youths had gone into the cave to hide.

Theodosius urged them to come down with him

In the midst of Ephesus, and he build a shrine over their bodies.

They say in reply, “Here we shall be, for here we love;

The shepherd who chose us is the one who bade us to be here.

For your sake has Christ our Lord awoken us

So that you might see and hold firm that the resurrection truly exists.”

He took a mantle [with which] he was covered, and covered them up;

And he left them, and they slept the sleep of repose.

Blessed is the shepherd who chose the lambs from his sheep

And caused them to inherit the bridal chamber, the garden, and the kingdom on high.

The Qur’anic narrative reads:

Despite the redaction, the central story is preserved. The Qur’an ends the story with a mysterious comment on the length of the stay of the youths: ‘25. And (it is said) they tarried in their Cave three hundred years and add nine. 26. Say: Allah is best aware how long they tarried…’ As we have seen, the actual time was one hundred and ninety-five years. The nearest reference in the homily is that one sophist speaks to the risen Iamlikha and says of Decius: ‘By the reckoning and accounting among the Greeks The emperor [would be] 372 years [old]!” The boy said, “It was from him that I and my companions ran away…’

Grysa comments on the literary debt of Islam to the Syriac tradition on this story:

The Legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, in the Syriac tradition known as Aḥē Dmīḥē or Ṭalyē d-Efesōs, in Arabic as Ahl al-Kahf or Aṣḥāb al-Kahf, is one of many examples of borrowings from the Christian tradition made by the Muslim one and above all by the Koran. In the region where Islam evolved in the beginning, there was a population professing Judaism and Christianity. Judaism was professed by ca. 1 per cent of the population of the Arabian Peninsula. Christianity, for its part, was professed by ca. 10 per cent.

Thus Mohammed had an easy access to the monotheistic religious ideas that existed on the Arabian Peninsula.

He observes the different numbers in variant narratives, reflecting the Jacobite/Nestorian split: ‘There is no consensus in the texts concerning the number of the Brothers or their names: once they were three, sometimes five, seven or even eight. They probably relate to some different traditions: Jews and western Assyrians (“Jacobites”) from Nağrān believed that they were three. Yet eastern Assyrians (“Nestorians”) argued that there were five.’ In terms of venue, Ephesus is definitely the place in view, from around the fifth to sixth century:

The so-called Cemetery of the Seven Sleepers… is an extensive burial area outside the city of Ephesos. According to the legend, seven young men were walled up in a cave for their Christian belief during the persecution of Decius (249–251). But instead of dying, God merely let them fall asleep. About 200 years later, around the year 446, he re-awoke them in order to confirm to Emperor Theodosius II (408–450) the resurrection of the body. Above the cave in which they were buried shortly thereafter, the emperor, in reverence, arranged for a church to be erected…

While the pilgrim Egeria, who visited pilgrimage sites at Ephesos around 400, did not yet mention the Seven Sleepers, in about 530 Theodosios Archidiakonos included their church in his list of pilgrimage sites at Ephesos. This is, next to the legend, the oldest source for a pilgrimage monument of the Seven Sleepers and originally both the legend and their monument were directly connected to Ephesos.

Griffith has noted echoes of Syriac Christian writers in the Qur’an:

It is something of a truism among scholars of Syriac to say that the more deeply one is familiar with the works of the major writers of the classical period, especially the composers of liturgically significant, homiletic texts such as those written by Ephraem the Syrian (c. 306–73), Narsai of Edessa and Nisibis (c. 399–502), or Jacob of Serugh (c. 451–521), the more one hears echoes of many of their standard themes and characteristic turns of phrase at various points in the discourse of the Arabic Qur’an.

Obviously, this is notably true with respect to Jacob of Serugh and the story of the Seven Sleepers. How would this be possible, unless whoever produced the Qur’an were familiar with the basic messages of these Syriac Christian writers? Griffith makes this very point:

...the fact remains that it is in this largely Meccan sura that the Qur’an evokes the memory of the Christian legend of the “Sleepers” with the clear expectation that it is already known to Muhammad and presumably also to other members of the Qur’an’s audience, a number of whom may well have been Arabic-speaking Christians. How else would one explain the currency of such a detailed reminiscence of a Christian legend, together with so many other elements of Christian scripture, doctrine and ecclesiastical lore that are to be found broadcast throughout the Qur’an?33 Not only are they present in the Qur’an, but often the text evokes them in such a way that there is evidently a presumption that the audience too is thoroughly familiar with them.

This is a vital observation. In this case, we are not speaking about a well-known Biblical narrative, but rather a post-Biblical story in Asia Minor. Again, Griffith observes that the Qur’anic text indicates knowledge about the division of opinion as to the number of the Sleepers, which we have seen reflected the Jacobite/Nestorian split, and of the memorial shrine far to the north of the Arabs: ‘In the first place, God himself takes responsibility for the fact that the legend was well known among members of the Qur’an’s audience, including the information that somewhere there was a shrine or martyrion in their memory and that opinion was divided about how many companions there were.’

Griffith also notes that in regard to the original Christian narrative, ‘the earliest extant texts are in Syriac and date from the sixth century.’ He later states: ‘The earliest Syriac texts which feature the story of the “Youths (tlāyê) of Ephesus,” as the “Companions of the Cave” or “Seven Sleepers” are always called in Syriac, are two recensions of a liturgical homily (mêmrâ) attributed to Jacob of Serugh (c. 451–521),39 who spent most of his life as a monk composing homilies on biblical and other liturgical themes.’ It follows, therefore, that this story came to Arabia via Syriac Christian writings, which are the sources of the redacted Qur’anic material. Griffith comments on the Syriac doctrinal divide in this respect:

Jacob of Serugh’s mêmrê circulated widely among those who would later be called “Jacobites,” the “Syrian Orthodox Church,” whose faith would be championed among the Arab Ghassanids and eventually the Christians of Najran. Toward the end of his life, Jacob himself wrote a letter of consolation at a time of persecution addressed to his brother Christians and confessors among the Himyarites of southern Arabia. The other confessional community among the Syriac-speakers, the so-called Nestorians, the “Church of the East,” whose faith had spread among the Arab Lakhmids and along the coast of southern Arabia, cherished the mêmrê of Narsai of Edessa and Nisibis (399–503), a rival of Jacob of Serugh at the time of the break-up of the School of Edessa in the course of the controversies precipitated by the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon (451).

We can see from this the direct contact between a major Syriac Christian writer responsible for this narrative - Jacob of Serugh – and Arabia. This further elaborated:

In connection with the inquiry into the Syriac background of the evocation of the legend of the “Companions of the Cave” in the Arabic Qur’an, the recognition of the fact that it circulated only among the “Jacobites” prompts one to draw the conclusion that in the Qur’an’s milieu, the narrative circulated first among Arabic-speaking, “Jacobite” Christians in the Ghassanid confederation in the Syro-Jordanian steppe land as well as in the environs of Najran in southern Arabia. From these centers it would have circulated among Arabic-speaking Christians throughout Arabia. Furthermore, given the likely, oral form of the legend’s circulation in this milieu it is reasonable to suppose that the liturgy and its wider ecclesial ambience was the primary setting in which the legend circulated among Arabic-speaking, “Jacobite” Christians. This being the case, it is also reasonable to suppose that the recollection of the details of the legend in the liturgically inspired mêmrâ of Jacob of Serugh is, textually speaking, the most likely, still extant, single narrative ancestor in Syriac in the background of the Arabic Qur’an’s evocation of the legend.

The significance of this for our study is that it shows how Syriac Christian narratives, Biblical and otherwise, would be spread among Arabs through public, liturgical proclamation. Considering how what we may define as the Qur’anic redaction of the story, Griffith suggests straight translation in one aspect: ‘Reading from the perspective of the Syriac texts, two terms are of immediate interest in this verse. The first of them is the term “companions” to refer to the youths whose story is in the offing. It is a term which frequently appears in the Christian texts in its Syriac equivalent (habrê) to refer to the youths hidden in the cave, and for which the Qur’an’s Arabic term (ashāb) may be considered an apt translation.’ This is important, because much of the critique of Luxenberg’s position is his emphasis on the Qur’an as a translation from Syriac in many ways.

Griffith also notes the controversy over the meaning of al-raqīm, which ‘springs both from the rarity of the word in Arabic lexicography, its grammatical form in this verse, and from the perceived awkwardness of its possible meaning in the present context’ He refers to Luxenberg’s treatment of the issue: ‘…Christoph Luxenberg has argued that on the basis of their failure to recognize a common, underlying, Syro-Aramaic orthography, the transmitters of the Arabic Qur’an’s text changed a misunderstood, original al-ruqād (“sleep,” “slumber”) into the puzzling al-raqīm, which has yielded the well known array of suggestions regarding its possible significance in the works of the later Muslim commentators. Luxenberg then takes the restored text to be saying, “Die Leute der Höhle und des Schlafes.”’

A further connection with Jacob of Serugh is the reference in Surah 18.9 to ‘the Inscription’. Griffith observes:

Reading the verse in question from the perspective of the several, pre-Islamic Syriac accounts of the “Youths of Ephesus,” with the traditional association in Arabic of the root consonants r-q-m with “writing,” and the understanding that al-raqīm could just possibly mean “inscription” or “tablet,” one recalls the importance in the narrative of the “lead tablet(s)” which record the names of the youths and give an account of their entombment in the cave. There are two important moments in the narrative in which the “tablet(s)” are mentioned: the moment of the entombment and the moment when the Christian emperor arrives at the cave/tomb to verify the miracle of the resurrection of the youths.

This reflects Jacob of Serugh’s narrative:

According to Jacob of Serugh’s mêmrâ, at the moment of the entombment

Two sophists, sons of princes, were present there,

and they thought that the Lord was going to resurrect them.

They made tablets of lead and they set them beside them;

they wrote on them the names of the sons of light,

and the reason why the youths went into the cave to hide,

and at what era they had fled from Decius the king.73

(Guidi, Testi Orientali Inediti,

1, 20, ## 68–73)

When Emperor Theodosius II (408–50) arrived at the cave to verify the miracle of the resurrection of the youths, according to Jacob of Serugh

He took up the tablet of lead and he began to read

why the children had entered into the cave to hide.

(Guidi, Testi Orientali Inediti,

1, 22, ## 176–7)

With this background in mind, Allāh’s question to Muhammad, “Do you reckon that the companions of the cave and of the inscription are wondrously among our signs?” (18:9) makes complete narrative sense. In the Syriac texts, the “Companions” really are portrayed as “Companions of the Cave” and of the “inscription,” they belong in both of them.

Finally, Griffith shows how this story would have reached Arab ears and arrived in its current form in the Qur’an:

What is more, it seems that this reading of the verse yields more consistent intelligibility, on the hypothesis that the Syriac narrative of the legend is in the background, than does either of the suggested textual emendations or any understanding of the meaning of the term al-raqīm other than one which bespeaks “writing.” There remains only the perceived awkwardness of the grammatical form of the word in Arabic. In this connection one wonders why an awareness of the Syro-Aramaic background of the Arabic diction in such a context should not suggest that the form could be understood to be a “Syriacism.” That is to say, the likely scenario would be that the form of the Syriac passive participle (f‘îl), used as a substantive adjective (fa‘îl), has been imported into Arabic diction to produce the anomalous al-raqīm, presumably originally by an Arabic-speaking Christian with a Syriac-speaking background, who was concerned with translating the legend of the “Youths of Ephesus” into Arabic. The Qur’an simply “quoted” this usage, presumably current among Arabic-speaking Christians, along with its evocation of the rest of the legend. In this interpretation, one might plausibly claim that a philological possibility gains probability from a consideration of the historical and cultural background of the narrative.

Hence, this story shows the influence of the Syriac language; Syriac theology and writing; Syriac Christian proclamation among Arabs which has influenced the Qur’an. Griffith’s conclusion is thus very apt:

It would seem that much Christian lore in Syriac lies behind the Qur’an’s evocation of the Christian scriptures, the beliefs and practices of the churches, and their homiletic traditions, as they must have circulated among many Arabic-speaking Christians in the Qur’an’s original audience in the time of Muhammad.

If we move to Surah 19 Maryam verses 91-98, the contents are these:

91. That ye ascribe unto the Beneficent a son,

92. When it is not meet for (the Majesty of) the Beneficent that He should choose a son.

93. There is none in the heavens and the earth but cometh unto the Beneficent as a slave.

94. Verily He knoweth them and numbereth them with (right) numbering.

95. And each one of them will come unto Him on the Day of Resurrection, alone.

96. Lo! those who believe and do good works, the Beneficent will appoint for them love.

97. And We make (this Scripture) easy in thy tongue, (O Muhammad) only that thou mayst bear good tidings therewith unto those who ward off (evil), and warn therewith the froward folk.

98. And how many a generation before them have We destroyed! Canst thou (Muhammad) see a single man of them, or hear from them the slightest sound?

Initially this could be taken as a criticism of the Christian doctrine of the divine filiation of Jesus. However, it must be remembered that the text is fragmentary. If we take the standard text, v35 might support this analysis: ‘It befitteth not (the Majesty of) Allah that He should take unto Himself a son. Glory be to Him! When He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only: Be! and it is.’

Most definitely, Surah Maryam starts as a redaction of Christian apocrypha. The oldest manuscript of The Protoevangelium of James islate 3rd/early 4th century, found in the Bodmer papyri. Syriac version - c. 5th century. Its earliest mention is in the early third century by Origen, in his Commentary on Matthew. The academic consensus is that it was written c. 150, probably in Syria. This possibly explains the mistake of referring to the area around Bethlehem as ‘desert’. The main theme is the history of Mary, such that the book acts as a kind of ‘prequel’ to the canonical Gospels. A major concern is the virginity of Mary, and there are clear indications of the doctrine of her ‘perpetual virginity’. As part of this, it depicts a young Mary and an older Joseph, sometimes considerably more advanced in years. This is what Surah Maryam 19 states.

16. Relate in the Book (the story of) Mary when she withdrew from her family to a place in the East.

17. She placed a screen (to screen herself) from them; then We sent her our angel, and he appeared before her as a man in all respects.

18. She said: “I seek refuge from thee to (Allah) Most Gracious: (come not near) if thou dost fear Allah.”

19. He said: “Nay, I am only a messenger from thy Lord, (to announce) to thee the gift of a holy son.”

20. She said: “How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and I am not unchaste?”

21. He said: “So (it will be): Thy Lord saith, ‘that is easy for Me: and (We wish) to appoint him as a Sign unto men and a Mercy from Us’: It is a matter (so) decreed.”

22. So she conceived him, and she retired with him to a remote place.

Compare this with the Protoevangelium of James Ch. 11:

And she took the pitcher, and went out to fill it with water. And, behold, a voice saying: Hail, thou who hast received grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women! And she looked round, on the right hand and on the left, to see whence this voice came. And she went away, trembling, to her house, and put down the pitcher; and taking the purple, she sat down on her seat, and drew it out. And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood before her, saying: Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found grace before the Lord of all, and thou shalt conceive, according to His word.

And she hearing, reasoned with herself, saying: Shall I conceive by the Lord, the living God? and shall I bring forth as every woman brings forth? And the angel of the Lord said: Not so, Mary; for the power of the Lord shall overshadow thee: wherefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of the Most High. And thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. And Mary said: Behold, the servant of the Lord before His face: let it be unto me according to thy word.

The Protoevangelium of James is not only the apocryphal influence - Surah Maryam 19:

23. And the pangs of childbirth drove her unto the trunk of the palm-tree. She said: Oh, would that I had died ere this and had become a thing of naught, forgotten! 24. Then (one) cried unto her from below her, saying: Grieve not! Thy Lord hath placed a rivulet beneath thee, 25. And shake the trunk of the palm-tree toward thee, thou wilt cause ripe dates to fall upon thee. 26. So eat and drink and be consoled. And if thou meetest any mortal, say: Lo! I have vowed a fast unto the Beneficent, and may not speak this day to any mortal.

Compare that with the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, late fifth to early seventh centuries, which calls itself ‘the book of the Birth of the Blessed Mary and the Infancy of the Saviour. Written in Hebrew by the Blessed Evangelist Matthew, and translated into Latin by the Blessed Presbyter Jerome.’ Chapter 20 reads:

‘...she looked up to the foliage of the palm, and saw it full of fruit, and said to Joseph: I wish it were possible to get some of the fruit of this palm. And Joseph said to her: ...thou seest how high the palm tree is... I am thinking more of the want of water, because the skins are now empty, and we have none wherewith to refresh ourselves and our cattle. Then the child Jesus... said to the palm: O tree, bend thy branches, and refresh my mother with thy fruit. And immediately… the palm bent its top down to the very feet of the blessed Mary; and they gathered from it fruit... Then Jesus said to it: ...open from thy roots a vein of water which has been hid in the earth, and let the waters flow... And it rose up immediately, and at its root there began to come forth a spring of water exceedingly clear and cool and sparkling...

Some have contested the date of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, but Shoemaker has shown that the tradition of Mary and the date palm precedes the work, irrespective of its date:

Recent efforts by the present writer have shown that the story of Mary and the date palm circulated in the Christian Near East perhaps as early as the third century, and beyond any doubt by the early fifth century. The earliest extant version of this legend is found among the ancient traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption, a collection of narratives that describe the events of Mary’s departure from this life. As I have demonstrated in my recent book on these traditions, the narrative that best preserves the story of Mary and the date palm was first composed by the early fifth century at the latest, although the peculiar theology reflected in this narrative very strongly suggests its formation sometime in the third century, if not even earlier. Several Syriac fragments copied in the later fifth century form the earliest witness to this narrative, and by the end of the sixth century, this version was widely dispersed throughout the cultures and languages of the Byzantine Near East. In contrast to the Gospel of Ps.-Matthew then, the ancient Dormition traditions present clear evidence that the story of Mary and the date palm circulated widely in the pre-Islamic Near East, providing favorable circumstances for its usage in the Qur’ānic account of Jesus’ Nativity.

An example of this is the Liber Requiei Mariae - the Book of Mary’s Repose. Shoemaker comments:

The entire work survives only in a translation into Classical Ethiopic (Geʿez), which seems to have been made sometime during late antiquity, probably not long after the conversion of Ethiopia, but there are also substantial early fragments in Syriac as well as in Old Georgian. No doubt this narrative’s preservation in these less- known languages in part explains why it has been so long overlooked.

The Greek original of the Book of Mary’s Repose dates most likely to the third century, although it is possible that it may be even earlier.

In this work, Jesus performs the miracle thus: ‘And the child turned and said to the date-palm, “Incline your head with your fruit, and satisfy my mother and father.” And it inclined immediately.’ Jesus is presented as a child who is still breastfed, yet He speaks: ‘“Give your breast to your child.” At once you gave it to him, as you went forth to the Mount of Olives, fleeing from Herod.’ The text indicates that He was around five months old. This is the probable origin of the following ayat:

29. Then she pointed to him. They said How can we tale to one who is in the cradle, a young boy?

30. He spake: Lo! I am the slave of Allah. He hath given me the Scripture and hath appointed me a Prophet,

31. And hath made me blessed wheresoever I may be, and hath enjoined upon me prayer and alms giving so long as I remain alive,

32. And (hath made me) dutiful toward her who bore me, and hath not made me arrogant, unblest.

33. Peace on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive!

However, in between the references to Jesus and the ayat present in the Birmingham fragment, we are treated to the story of Abraham, which in the Qur’anic redaction, presents him as rejecting his father’s gods:

41. And make mention (O Muhammad) in the Scripture of Abraham. Lo! he was a saint, a Prophet.

42. When he said unto his father: O my father! Why worshippest thou that which beareth not nor seeth, nor can in aught avail thee?

43. O my father! Lo! there hath come unto me of knowledge that which came not unto thee. So follow me, and I will lead thee on a right path.

44. O my father! Serve not the devil. Lo! the devil is a rebel unto the Beneficent.

45. O my father! Lo! I fear lest a punishment from the Beneficent overtake thee so that thou become a comrade of the devil.

46. He said: Rejectest thou my gods, O Abraham? If thou cease not, I shall surely stone thee. Depart from me a long while!

47. He said: Peace be unto thee! I shall ask forgiveness of my Lord for thee. Lo! He was ever gracious unto me.

48. I shall withdraw from you and that unto which ye pray beside Allah, and I shall pray unto my Lord. It may be that, in prayer unto my Lord, I shall not be unblest.

49. So, when he had withdrawn from them and that which they were worshipping beside Allah. We gave him Isaac and Jacob. Each of them We made a Prophet.

The basic story of Abraham’s rejection of idolatry and polytheism is indeed found elsewhere than the Qur’an – in the Jewish apocryphal legends. Specifically, it is found in the Midrash Genesis Rabbah, with the tale merely re-worked for the Qur’an:

13. AND HARAN DIED IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS FATHER TERAH (xi, 28).

R. Hiyya said: Terah was a manufacturer of idols. He once went away somewhere and left Abraham to sell them in his place. A man came and wished to buy one. ‘How old are you?’ Abraham asked him. ‘Fifty years,’ was the reply. ‘Woe to such a man!’ he exclaimed, ‘you are fifty years old and would worship a day-old object?’ At this, he became ashamed and departed. On another occasion, a woman came with a plateful of flour and requested him, ‘Take this and offer it to them.’ So he took a stick, broke them, and put the stick in the hand of the largest. When his father returned he demanded, ‘What have you done to them?’ ‘I cannot conceal it from you,’ he rejoined. “a woman came with a plateful of fine meal and requested me to offer it to them. One claimed, “I must eat first.” Thereupon the largest arose, took the stick, and broke them.’ ‘Why do you make sport of me,’ he cried out; ‘have they any knowledge?’ ‘Should not your ears listen to what your mouth is saying?’ he retorted.

Interestingly, the Rabbinic editors of the book here quoted state: ‘The considerable indebtedness of Mahommed to the Midrash for the legendary and other material which he incorporated in the Koran has already been proved over a century ago by Abraham Geiger in his work, Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen?' The Midrash was created about the third century AD, completed about the sixth century. So, it is clearly older than the Qur’an, though much younger than the Old Testament. Similarly, The Apocalypse of Abraham VI, VII presents him as speaking to Terah:

I answered and said: “O father Terah, whichever of these thou praisest as a god, thou art foolish in thy mind…

[But]1 hear [this], Terah my father; for I will make known to the3 the God who hath made everything, not these we consider as gods. Who then is He? or what is He? Who hath crimsoned the heavens, and made the sun golden, And the moon lustrous, and with it the stars; And hath made the earth dry in the midst of many waters… “Yet may God reveal Himself to us through Himself!”

It is dated c. 70 AD to the early second century, and so precedes the Qur’an. The question is: why Surah 19: 46 is where it is, as the Christians were not guilty of polytheism, at least, in the eyes of the Qur’an, of the sense at this juncture? Indeed, v81 would seem to point to the pagans instead: ‘And they have chosen (other) gods beside Allah that they may be a power for them.’ We shall return to this when we examine the next Surah.

Surah 20 Ta-Ha verses 13-40:

13. And I have chosen thee, so hearken unto that which is inspired.

14. Lo! I, even I, am Allah. There is no God save Me. serve Me and establish worship for My remembrance.

15. Lo! the Hour is surely coming. But I will to keep it hidden, that every soul may be rewarded for that which it striveth (to achieve).

16. Therefor, let not him turn thee aside from (the thought of) it who believeth not therein but followeth his own desire, lest thou perish.

17. And what is that in thy right hand, O Moses?

18. He said: This is my staff whereon I lean, and wherewith I beat down branches for my sheep, and wherein I find other uses.

19. He said: Cast it down, O Moses!

20. So he cast it down, and Lo! it was a serpent, gliding.

21. He said: Grasp it and fear not. We shall return it to its former state.

22. And thrust thy hand within thine armpit, it will come forth white without hurt. (That will be) another token.

23. That We may show thee (some) of Our greater portents,

24. Go thou unto Pharaoh! Lo! he hath transgressed (the bounds).

25. (Moses) said: My Lord! Relieve my mind

26. And ease my task for me;

27. And loose a knot from my tongue,

28. That they may understand my saying.

29. Appoint for me a henchman from my folk,

30. Aaron, my brother.

31. Confirm my strength with him.

32. And let him share my task,

33. That we may glorify Thee much.

34. And much remember Thee.

35. Lo! Thou art ever Seeing us.

36. He said: Thou art granted thy request, O Moses.

37. And indeed, another time, already We have shown thee favour,

38. When We inspired in thy mother that which is inspired,

39. Saying: Throw him into the ark, and throw it into the river, then the river shall throw it on to the bank, and there an enemy to Me and an enemy to him shall take him. And I endued thee with love from Me that thou mightest be trained according to My will,

40. When thy sister went and said: Shall I show you one who will nurse him? and We restored thee to thy mother that her eyes might be refreshed and might not sorrow. And thou didst kill a man and We delivered thee from great distress,

In these verses, Moses, the monotheist, is engaged in battle with Pharaoh, the idolatrous polytheist. In the parts not found in the fragment, we encounter this polemic against polytheism:

5. The Beneficent One, Who is established on the Throne

6. Unto Him belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth, and whatsoever is between them,

and whatsoever is beneath the sod.

7. And if thou speakest aloud, then Lo! He knoweth the secret (thought) and (that which is yet) more hidden.

8. Allah! There is no God save Him. His are the most beautiful names.

This definitely seems to be a polemic against polytheism rather than Christianity. The question is the identity of the pagan mushrikun – those who ‘associate’ other gods with Allah. Another, related question is the nature of their religion. Hawting comments on how Islamic Tradition depicts the religious situation of Arabia at the time of Jahiliya – the time of ‘ignorance’:

Islam’s own tradition portrays the religion as originating in a rather remote part of Arabia, practically beyond the borders of the monotheistic world as it existed at the beginning of the seventh century AD. Initially, according to the tradition, it arose as the result of a revelation made by God to the Prophet Muhammad and its first target was the religion and society within which Muhammad lived. That society’s religion is described as polytheistic and idolatrous in a very literal and crude way. Only after the Arabs had been persuaded or forced to abandon their polytheism and idolatry was Islam able to spread beyond Arabia into lands the majority of the people of which were at least nominally monotheists.

However, Hawting rejects the picture presented by the Tradition: ‘This book questions how far Islam arose in arguments with real polytheists and idolaters, and suggests that it was concerned rather with other monotheists whose monotheism it saw as inadequate and attacked polemically as the equivalent of idolatry.’ Certainly, we have seen that polemical hyperbole against even fellow-Christians whose Christological views were distinct was often a feature of Syriac literature. Hawting also makes the vital observation that we mainly know about the character of pre-Islamic Arabia from the Tradition:

It should be remembered that Muslim tradition is virtually our only source of information about the jāhiliyya: it is rather as if we were dependent on early Christian literature for our knowledge of Judaism in the first century AD. In spite of that, modern scholars have generally accepted that, as the tradition maintains, the jāhiliyya was the background to Islam and that the more we know about it the better position we will be in to understand the emergence of the new religion.

Surely, we must read the Qur’an in its own terms: ‘…the identification of the mushrikūn as pre-Islamic idolatrous Arabs is dependent upon Muslim tradition and is not made by the Koran itself; the nature of the koranic polemic against the mushrikūn does not fit well with the image of pre-Islamic Arab idolatry and polytheism provided by Muslim tradition…’ Hawting’s assertions are echoed by Crone:

The first part of this article examines the Qurʾānic evidence; the second part deals with the well-known hypothesis that the pagan Allāh was a “high God” and tries to relate the Qurʾānic evidence to the late antique context. The Islamic tradition is excluded from both parts on the principle that we have to start by understanding the Qurʾān on the basis of information supplied by the book itself, as opposed to that of later readers, and to understand this information in the light of developments known to have preceded its formation rather than those engendered by the book itself.

Crone goes on to present a template of identification, which we will employ. However, before so doing, we should note the identity of the group who Syriac Christians lambasted as ‘pagans’ – Zoroastrians:

… East Syrian texts commonly refer to Zoroastrians as ‘pagans’ and Zoroastrianism as ‘paganism,’ making use of the word ḥanpā and its derivatives: see, e.g., History of Karka d-Beth Slokh, p. 514, ln. 21 (ḥanpē, ‘pagans,’ as Zoroastrians) (ed. Bedjan, AMS, vol. 2); Babai the Great, History of George the Priest, p. 435, ln. 15 (ḥanpāyā, ‘pagan,’ used adjectivally to refer to George’s pre-Christian, Persian/Zoroastrian name); p. 436, ln. 3 (ḥanputā, ‘paganism,’ used to identify George’s sister’s name while she was still ‘in paganism,’ i.e., before she was a Christian — cp. with p. 564, ln. 6); p. 523, lnn. 7, 17 (a Zoroastrian as a ḥanpā, ‘pagan’); Martyrdom of Gregory Pirangushnasp (ed. Bedjan, Histoire de Mar-Jabalaha), p. 347, ln. 8 (ḥanpē, ‘pagans,’ as Zoroastrians), p. 349, ln. 2 (ḥanputā, ‘paganism,’ as Zoroastrianism), etc.

We need to remember that apart from the Persian Empire itself, Zoroastrians were to be found in Eastern Arabia, including Arab converts. The name ‘Zoroaster’ is the Greek form of Zarathushtra:

The Greek form Zoroastres was first used by Xanthos of Lydia in the mid-fifth century CE, and was the base for subsequent European versions of the name until Nietzsche popularized the Iranian form Zarathushtra. Some adherents choose to refer to their religion by the ancient Iranian terms Mazdayasna (‘worship of Ahura Mazda’), daena Mazdayasni (‘the religion of Mazda worship’) or daena vanguhi. This latter term, usually translated as ‘the good religion’, occurs in the Gathas, the oldest texts of the religion (Gathas 5.53.4).

So, what did Zarathustra teach about Ahura Mazda? He did not seem to teach monotheism, but he did display Ahura Mazda as the greatest deity: ‘Zoroaster… in a startling departure from accepted beliefs proclaimed Ahura Mazda to be the one uncreated God, existing eternally, and Creator of all else that is good, including all other beneficent divinities.’ Elsewhere Boyce presents the essence of divine ontology in Zoroastrianism: ‘For Zarathushtra God was Ahura Mazda, who, he taught, had created the world and all that is good in it through his Holy Spirit, Spenta Mainyu, who is both his active agent and yet one with him, indivisible and yet distinct.’

Note that Surah 20:8 states: ‘Allah! There is no God save Him. His are the most beautiful names.’ The issue of Allah’s names occurs elsewhere in the Qur’an. They are equated with his attributes. This is only partly true in the Bible, but there is a clear parallel in Zoroastrianism. We may learn something about the attributes of Ahura Mazda from this section in the Hymn to Ahura Mazda, the Ohrmazd Yasht:

5. Then Zarathushtra said: ‘Reveal unto me that name of thine, O Ahura Mazda! that is the greatest, the best, the fairest, the most effective, the most fiend-smiting, the best-healing, that destroyeth best the malice of Daêvas and Men;

6. That I may afflict all Daêvas and Men; that I may afflict all Yâtus and Pairikas; that neither Daêvas nor Men may be able to afflict me; neither Yâtus nor Pairikas.’

7. Ahura Mazda replied unto him: ‘My name is the One of whom questions are asked, O holy Zarathushtra!

‘My second name is the Herd-giver

‘My third name is the Strong One

‘My fourth name is Perfect Holiness.

‘My fifth name is All good things created by Mazda, the offspring of the holy principle.

‘My sixth name is Understanding;

‘My seventh name is the One with understanding.

‘My eighth name is Knowledge;

‘My ninth name is the One with Knowledge.

8. ‘My tenth name is Weal;

‘My eleventh name is He who produces weal.

‘My twelfth name is AHURA (the Lord).

‘My thirteenth name is the most Beneficent.

‘My fourteenth name is He in whom there is no harm.

‘My fifteenth name is the unconquerable One.

‘My sixteenth name is He who makes the true account.

‘My seventeenth name is the All-seeing One.

‘My eighteenth name is the healing One.

‘My nineteenth name is the Creator.

‘My twentieth name is MAZDA (the All-knowing One).

This presents a deity who is the omniscient and powerful Creator. The twelfth name is parallel to the way the Qur’an often presents Allah by the title ‘Lord’, which is clearly honorific rather than a translation of YHWH. His thirteenth name is interesting in that ar-Rahman in the Qur’an is often translated ‘beneficent’. Crone refers to this name several times in her paper on the Qur’anic pagans:

God reassured the Messenger that no such gods existed: “Ask the messengers whom We sent before you: have We set up gods to be worshipped apart from al-Raḥmān?” (43:45).

But the Messenger takes the language of procreation literally. “They say, al-Raḥmān has begotten offspring (ittakhadha waladan)” (21:26; cf. 43:81; 19:88, 91f.).

Most references to this belief take the form of denials that the lesser deities have the power to do what is expected of them. “Should I adopt gods apart from Him?”, a believer from a vanished city asks, adding that “if al-Raḥmān wants to inflict some harm on me, their intercession (shafāʿa) will not be any use, nor will they be able to save me” (36:23).

The alleged offspring of al-Raḥmān are just servants raised to high honour who act by His command and offer no intercession, except for those who have found favour (with Him) (21:26–28).

“If al-Raḥmān had wanted, we would not have worshipped them” (43:20).

She addresses this in more detail in section 10 Allāh and al-Raḥmān:

Though the Messenger and his opponents worshipped the same God under the name of Allāh, the modern literature often says that the Messenger also knew Him by a name with which the pagans were not familiar, namely al-Raḥmān, implying that his concept of God was shaped by additional monotheist ideas which the pagans did not share. But both sides call Him al-Raḥmān in the Qurʾān.

Crone goes on to observe about the interchangeability of the terms both to the monotheists and the pagans:

That God and al-Raḥmān were interchangeable to both sides is also suggested by the fact that nothing is said about the latter which is not said about the former as well, whether by the Messenger or by the pagans. This does not completely solve the problem, for elsewhere the Messenger is instructed to say, “Call upon Allāh or call upon al-Raḥmān: by whatever name you (sg.) call, His are the beautiful names” (17:110).

Once we understand that Arabian Zoroastrians would have rendered the Avestan ‘Beneficent’ (Spenta) by the Arabic al-Raḥmān, it becomes clear why both sides could use the name. As for ‘the beautiful names’, it should be noted that Zoroastrianism attributed sacred names to Ahura Mazda:

(12) (The Creator Hormazd says): I am the Protector, I am the Creator and the Nourished, I am the Discerner (or prognosticator) and the Most Beneficent Spirit. I am the Healer, the Best Healer, I am Athravan (i.e. Mobed-Dastur), the Best Athravan; I am Ahura (i.e. Giver of Life): I am Mazda (i.e. Omniscient); I am the Righteous, the Most Righteous; I am the Glory by name, I am the Most Glorious: I am the All Seeing omniscient.

(13) I am the Watcher1 and the All-Pervading by name: I am the Bestower; I am the Protector; I am the Nourisher and the Discerner (i.e. Omniscient); I am the Most-Discerning; I am the Increaser, I am the Hymn of Prosperity and the Ruler at Will by name: I am the Most Ruling at Will; I am the most renowned Ruler by name.

(14) I am the Non-deceiver, I am Far from the Deceiver: I am the Equable Protector. I am the Destroyer of Malice: I am the Smiter at one stroke: I am One who smites everybody every wrong door: I am the Modeller of all. I am All-Light (or Comfort): I am Full-Light (or Comfort-happiness): I am One Possessing Light by name.

(15) I am Brilliant in Work by name, I am Useful-in-Work: I am the Beneficent: I am the Valiant81, I am the Most Profitable by name: I am Righteousness, I am the Exalter; I am the Sovereign by name, I am the Greatest Sovereign; I am1 Possessed of Good Wisdom; I am Possessed of Best Wisdom by name: I am Having-a-piercing-Look. Such (are) these Names (of mine).

At this point we should recall some of the verses in the Birmingham fragment in Surah 19:

91. That ye ascribe unto the Beneficent a son,

92. When it is not meet for (the Majesty of) the Beneficent that He should choose a son.

93. There is none in the heavens and the earth but cometh unto the Beneficent as a slave.

The Qur’an in several places denounces the idea that Allah has a son, e.g., Surah Yunus 10.68: ‘They say: Allah hath taken (unto Him) a son. Glorified be He! He hath no needs! His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. Ye have no warrant for this. Tell ye concerning Allah that which ye know not?’ Rather than seeing all such references as being to Christian Christology, we should consider what Zen-Avesta scripture of the Zoroastrians states:

15 (49). O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! What shall be the place of that man who has carried a corpse alone [3]?

Ahura Mazda answered: ‘It shall be the place on this earth wherein is least water and fewest plants, whereof the ground is the cleanest and the driest and the least passed through by flocks and herds, by Fire, the son of Ahura Mazda, by the consecrated bundles of baresma, and by the faithful.’

The reference to ‘Fire’ is Atar, the son of Ahura Mazda. Dhalla comments about this entity: ‘The Iranian word for fire as well as for the Yazata presiding over fire is Atar… Atar, or Fire, is most frequently called the son of Ahura Mazda in the Younger Avestan texts. The devout hunger in heart to reach Mazda through him as a mediary.’ Hence, in many cases in the Qur’an, and probably this was the original meaning, the denunciations of the idea of the (singular) ‘son of Allah’ refer to Zoroastrian Atar rather the Jesus of Christianity.

In Zoroastrianism, Heaven and Earth were deities, as well as being cosmic spheres: ‘…the sun-yazata, Asman, spirit of the sky... The earth yazata herself, Zam…’ In regard to the physical sky and earth, Ahura Mazda was held to be their creator: ‘One Gathic passage (2.44.3–7) delineates Ahura Mazda’s generation of the universe… first asha; then the course of the sun and stars, and the cycle of the moon; the earth below and the sky above…’ Related to this, is the concept of the Seven spheres:

The Zoroastrians originally distinguished four spheres: (1) stars, (2) moon, (3) sun, (4) paradise, to which the “station of the clouds” is sometimes added as a fifth and lowest… The later scheme of six spheres (or seven, with the “clouds”). is due partly to juggling with numbers (six Amasa Spantas, seven with Ohrmazd, etc…)

This helps to explain the Qur’anic idea of the ‘seven heavens’, e.g.:

Surah Al-Talaq 65

12. Allah it is who hath created seven heavens, and of the earth the like thereof. The commandment cometh down among them slowly, that ye may know that Allah is Able to do all things, and that Allah surrounds all things in knowledge.

All of this suggests that what is being attacked at the end of Surah 19 and in Surah 20 is not Christianity, but rather Zoroastrianism. This would make sense in the historical context of the Persian-Roman (Byzantine) war and the Persian conquest of Jerusalem and Palestine. Surah Ar-Rum 30 displays the pro-Byzantine view of the Qur’an, and that the polemic against paganism should be understood as an anti-Persian/anti-Zoroastrian diatribe.

CONCLUSION

It can be seen that there was a great deal of ‘hype’ at the time of the publication about the findings concerning the Birmingham fragments. More sober reflection reveals how speculative and extravagant were the claims made at the time as to the antiquity and significance of the fragments. What is perhaps more embarrassing for Muslims is the obvious dependence of the fragments on earlier, but post-Apostolic/post-Biblical apocryphal material, albeit redacted. The story of Seven Sleepers is a Christian legend – there is nothing historical about it, yet the Qur’an treats it as though the event was indeed an historical fact. Surah 19 is largely based on Syriac Christian and Rabbinic apocrypha, such as the Protoevangelium of James and the Apocalypse of Abraham. Far from proving the historicity of the Qur’an, all the fragments do is to point to the derivative nature of the Qur’an from material that was never considered canonical, not least by virtue of its late date.

Jon Harris

The Birmingham Manuscript

Surah 19 Maryam in the Birmingham Manuscript

Elagabalus And The Black Stone

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