The Origins of the Name ‘Isa:
JESUS AS GOD AND MAN AT THE TIME OF THE EMERGENCE OF THE QUR’AN,
AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR POSSIBLE NESTORIAN-INFLUENCED ORIGINS OF THE QUR’AN
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INTRODUCTION
The name of Jesus in the Qur’an - عِيسَى ʿīsā – has often been a source of controversy. The Islamic polemicist Ahmed Deedat infamously claimed it was the Arabic version of Esau:
The Holy Qur’ân refers to Jesus as Eesa, and this name is used more times than any other title, because this was his “Christian” name. Actually, his proper name was Eesa (Arabic), or Esau (Hebrew); classical “Yeheshua”, which the Christian nations of the West latinised as Jesus. Neither the “J” nor the second “s” in the name Jesus is to be found in the original tongue - they are not found in the Semitic languages.
The word is very simply “E S A U” a very common Jewish name, used more than sixty times in the very first booklet alone of the Bible, in the part called “Genesis”… The Muslim will not hesitate to name his son “Eesa” because it is an honored name, the name of a righteous servant of the Lord.
(Deedat, Ahmed, Desert Storm - has it ended?, previously entitled Christ in Islam, Durban: Islamic Propagation Centre International, 5th print October 1991, p. 6).
This was a howler by Deedat, since no Israelite/Jew in the Bible – or subsequently -ever game this name to his/her son. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes the hostility to him in Rabbinic literature:
Even while in his mother’s womb Esau manifested his evil disposition, maltreating and injuring his twin brother (Gen. R. lxiii.). During the early years of their boyhood he and Jacob looked so much alike that they could not be distinguished. It was not till they were thirteen years of age that their radically different temperaments began to appear (Tan., Toledot, 2). Jacob was a student in the bet ha-midrash of Eber (Targ. Pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. xxv. 27), while Esau was a ne’er-do-well (ib.; “a true progeny of the serpent,” Zohar), who insulted women and committed murder, and whose shameful conduct brought on the death of his grandfather, Abraham (Pesiḳ. R. 12).
(Frants Buhl, Emil G. Hirsch, Solomon Schechter: “Esau”, in Isidore Singer. Ph.D. [Ed.], The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York and London: Funk and Wagnall Company, 1916, p. 206)
The Biblical name of Jesus in the Greek New Testament is Ἰησοῦς Iēsous. In the second century BC, the Greek-speaking Alexandrian Jews translated the Old Testament into Greek, and they rendered the name Joshua by Ἰησοῦς. The Hebrew name for Joshua is יְהוֹשֻׁ֣עַ Yehoshua, which means “YHWH is salvation”. Therefore, the name of Jesus has nothing to do with Esau! Rather, it reflects the name of the successor of Moses – the man, who after Moses’ death, led the Israelites into Canaan. How then did the Qur’anic name ‘Isa emerge? The answer to this is found in the regional and Christological rivalries and controversies of the Early Church.
THE MIAPHSYITE/NESTORIAN DIVIDE
A major division occurred in the Church between Nestorius (c. 386– 450), Patriarch of Constantinople, and his antagonist, Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria (c. 376 – 444). This affected the Arabian Peninsula, for by Muhammad’s time, those who held to Cyril’s theology (usually called Monophysites or nowadays, Miaphysites), were the majority in Egypt and the Copts of Ethiopia, as well as the Syriac churches (nicknamed “Jacobite” after Jacob Bar Addai) of north Hijaz (Mingana, Alphonse, ‘Syriac influence on the style of the Kur’an’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester, 1927, volume 11, p. 83: “...the majority of the Christians round about Hijaz and South Syria belonged to the Jacobite community and not to that of the Nestorians”), whereas the followers of Nestorius were dominant in the Gulf area (such as what is now Iraq, Kuwait, the Saudi eastern Province, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman, – Trimingham, J. Spencer, Christianity among the Arabs in Pre-Islamic Times, London & New York, Longman, 1979, pp. 279-282).
Several aspects of the debate could be characterized as semantics - Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople (428-31), held to Christ being one Person (prosopon) in two natures (φύσις phusis), whereas his rival, Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria (412-44), held that Christ was one nature (φύσις phusis) after the union. The division in the Syriac language churches reflect this – the Assyrian Church of the East honors Nestorius, but the so-called Monophysites (usually termed “Miaphysites”), specifically the Syriac Orthodox Church (in communion with the Coptic Churches of Egypt, Eritrea and Ethiopia and the Armenian Apostolic Church) hold to Cyril’s position. Kelly comments:
A deep Christological cleavage lay behind these criticisms, but it was reinforced by a difference of terminology. In Antiochene circles the key-word φύσις or ‘nature’, connoted the humanity or the divinity conceived of as a concrete assemblage of characteristics or attributes. Cyril himself accepted this sense of the word, especially when adapting himself to the language of his opponents. In his normal usage, however, he preferred to give phusis the meaning which it had borne at Alexandria at least as early as bishop Alexander’s day, viz. concrete individual, or independent existent. In this sense phusis approximated to, without being actually synonymous with, hupostasis. For what the Antiochenes called the natures he preferred such circumlocutions as ‘natural property’ (ἡ ‘ἰδιοτης ἡ κατά φύσιν), ‘manner of being’ (ὁ ποῦ πῶς ἐιναι λόγος), or ‘natural quality’ (ἡ ποιότης φύσική).
(J.N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, London: Adam & Charles Black, 1958, Fourth Edition 1968, p. 318)
A modern example would be the word “jelly”, by which Americans describe what Britons call “jam”. Nestorius’ position is outlined in his work the Bazaar of Heracleides. He held that Jesus was both God and Man: “the incarnation of God took place justly: true God by nature and true man by nature.” (Nestorius, The Bazaar of Heracleides, Book I, Part I, 88, [Translated from the Syriac and edited with an Introduction Notes & Appendices by Driver, G. R., & Hodgson, Leonard, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925, p. 25]. Nestorius insisted upon the true two natures of Jesus: “For the union of the natures resulted not in [one] nature or in a confusion or in a change or in a change of ousia, either of divinity into humanity or of humanity into divinity, or in a mixture of natures or in the composition of one nature, being mixed and suffering together with one another in the natural activities of natures which are naturally constituted.” (Ibid., p. 92).
Cyril also believed that Jesus was both God and Man: “For they accuse, as something bastard and uncomely, yea rather as going beyond all fit language… dividing into two several sons, the One Lord Jesus Christ, and take away from God the Word the sufferings of the Flesh, though not even we have said that He suffered in His own Nature, as God, but we attribute rather to Him along with the Flesh the Sufferings also that befel the Flesh, that He too may be confessed to be Saviour…” (Cyril of Alexandria, Five Tomes Against Nestorius, Oxford: James Parker & Co., 1881, trans. Pusey, E. B. P.., Tome I, p. 6). In Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius, he refers to the Council of Nicæa and then states:
…though the natures joined together to form a real unity are different, it is one, Christ and Son coming from them-not implying that the difference between the natures was abolished through their union but that instead Godhead and manhood have given us the one Lord, Christ and Son by their mysterious and inexpressible unification.
4- This is what it means to say that he was also born of woman in the flesh though owning his existence before the ages and begotten of the Father: not that his divine nature originated in the holy Virgin or necessarily required for its own sake a second birth subsequent to that from the Father (to say that one existing before every epoch, co-eternal with the Father needed a second start to his existence is idle and stupid)-no, it means that he had fleshly birth because he issued from woman for us and for our salvation having united humanity substantially to himself.
(Lionel R. Wickham [Ed./trans.], Cyril of Alexandria: Select Letters, New York: Oxford University Press 1983, p. 7).
LATER DEVELOPMENTS
If we move to the fifth century, the most famous Nestorian was Narsai (died c. 502), who re-established the School of Nisibis after 489. In his Homily XVII (A) An Exposition of the Mysteries, he refers to:
…the Word, who was revealed in a body which is (taken) from us. The Creator, adorable in His honour, took a body which is from us, that by it He might renew the image of Adam which was worn out and effaced. A reasonable temple the Holy Spirit built in the bosom of Mary, (and) through (Its) good-pleasure the whole Trinity concurred. The natures are distinct in their hypostases (qěnôme), without confusion: with one will, with one person (parsôpâ) of the one sonship. He is then one in His Godhead and in His manhood; for the manhood and the Godhead are one person (parsôpâ). ‘Two natures/ it is said,’ and ‘two hypostases (qěnôme) is our Lord in one person (parsôpâ) of the Godhead and the manhood.’ Thus does all the Church of the orthodox confess; thus also have the approved doctors of the Church taught, Diodorus, and Theodorus, and Mar Nestorius. he was laid in a manger and wrapped in swaddling-clothes, as Man; and the watchers extolled Him with their praises, as God.
(Narsai, The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, Translated into English with an Introduction by Dom R. H. Connolly; with an Appendix by Edmund Bishop, Cambridge: University Press, 1909, pp. 13-14).
From Narsai we move on to Babai the Great (c. 551 - 628), whose timeline crosses that of Muhammad. Babai “was born in Beth Ainata in Beth Zabdai on the west bank of the Tigris, near modern day Cizre.” (Johnson, Dale Albert, Forty Days on the Holy Mountain: The Mountain, the Monks, the Mission, USA: New Sinai Press, 2016, p. 243). He became a leading Nestorian monk and theologian. Among other works, Babai wrote “the Teshbokhta or (Hymn of Praise) explaining the theology of the Church of the East”:
One is Christ the Son of God,
Worshiped by all in two natures;
In His Godhead begotten of the Father,
Without beginning before all time;
In His humanity born of Mary,
In the fullness of time, in a body united;
Neither His Godhead is of the nature of the mother,
Nor His humanity of the nature of the Father;
The natures are preserved in their Qnumas (substance),
In one person of one Sonship.
And as the Godhead is three substances in one nature,
Likewise the Sonship of the Son is in two natures, one
person.
So the Holy Church has taught.
(Ibid., pp. 249-250.)
Another Nestorian figure is Isaac of Nineveh (c. 613 – c. 700), a native of the Arabian Peninsula, whose timeline crosses that of Muhammad. In his treatise “Six Treatises on the Behaviour of Excellence”, he refers to:
…Jesus Christ, the mediator of God and mankind, who was one in his two natures. Though the legions of the angels are not able to look upon the glory surrounding His majestic throne, yet for thy sake He has appeared before the world the most contemptible and humble of man; without form or comeliness; and while His invisible nature was not within the reach of the apprehension of created beings, He accomplished His providential dealings by [covering Himself) with a veil [made of the stuff] of our limbs, in order to save the life of all.
(Mystic Treatises by Isaac of Nineveh: Translated From Bedjan’s Syriac Text With An Introduction And Registers [A. J. Wensinck], Amsterdam: Uitgave der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1923, p. 28)
Before we move to the Monophysites (or Miaphysites), we should look at the works of Athanasius, who as a presbyter attended the Council of Nicæa, and later became bishop of Alexandria. In his “Letter To Maximus, Philosopher” he states: “Wherefore, by the good pleasure of the Father, being very God, and by nature the Word and Wisdom of the Father, He became corporeally Man, for the sake of our salvation…” (Pusey, E. B. [Ed.], Later Treatises of S. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1881, p. 75). That is a clear statement that the Egyptian church held to the Biblical idea of Jesus being both God and Man.
This also becomes relevant when we consider alleged Islamic history. According to Muslim claims, Muhammad at one point sent some of his followers to Christian kingdom of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) for their own safety. To this day, the Ethiopian church is part of the Coptic communion. The Ethiopian Coptic Orthodox Church traces its foundation as the official religion to the mission of Frumentius (Selassie, Sergew Habele, The Establishment of the Ethiopian Church, http://www.ethiopianorthodox.org/english/ethiopian/prechristian.html). Frumentius was a native of Tyre who had been shipwrecked off the Red Sea coast and was taken in servitude to the royal court of the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum (Appleyard, David, ‘Ethiopian Christianity’, in Parry, Ken (Ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity, Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 2010, p. 118.). Through his involvement, the Negus (king), Ezana, was converted (MacCulloch, Diarmaid, A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, London: Allen Lanes, 2009, p. 240). Eventually, Frumentius was allowed to return to his homeland, but he also visited Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, asking him to send a bishop to Aksum (Socrates Scholasticus, Church History, Book I, Chapter XIX). Athanasius decided that Frumentius himself was the best person for the role. This is confirmed by a letter from the Arian Emperor Constantius to the king of Aksum, noting that ‘Frumentius was advanced to his present rank by Athanasius’ (Athanasius, ‘Letter of Constantius to the Ethiopians against Frumentius’, Chapter 31, NPNF 204).
The important point is that the Ethiopian Church received its first bishop from the same Athanasius whose treatise affirmed the traditional idea of Jesus being both God and Man. From the appointment of Frumentius, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church remained in communion with Alexandria, and the Coptic Church there continued to appoint the presiding bishop until 1951, when the Ethiopian church became self-governing (MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, p. 242). There is also the Ethiopian tradition of the arrival of the ‘Nine Saints’ (Syriac Monophysties) at Axum in 502, who had a strong influence on the spread of Christianity, specifically Monophysitism, in the country (Frend, W. H. C., The Rise of the Monophysite Movement: Chapters in the History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972, pp. 305-306). We have already noted Mingana’s comment that the churches in the Hijaz were Syriac Monophysite, so even if the Muslim tradition of the hijra to Abyssinia is true in parts, this only emphasizes that the Christology which they encountered would come from Monophysites.
If we turn to Syria, the obvious person whose works are pertinent is Severus of Antioch, who was Patriarch there, and thus head of the Monophysite Syriac Church 512 – 538. In his letter ‘LXV. ---- From the Letter of the same Holy Severus to Eupraxius the Chamberlain and about the questions which he addressed to him’, he refers to how the Devil encountered Jesus: “He fought with the second Adam who is Christ, and found him to be God and man at the same time…” (Brooks, E. W. [ed. & trans.], Severus of Antioch: A collection of letters from numerous Syriac manuscripts, Paris: Graffin, 1915, 44)
This testimony is clear – Jesus is God and Man. Given that the churches in the Hijaz were Syriac Orthodox (Jacobite), and that Severus died the same century Muhammad is said to have been born, this is significant. We should also consider the petition of the Monophysites to Emperor Justinian in 532 (from Zacharias Rhetor, Ecclesiastical History IX.15):
One of the persons of this holy Trinity, that is, God the Word, we say by the will of the Father in the last days for the salvation of men took flesh of the Holy Spirit and of the holy Virgin the Theotokos Mary in a body endowed with a rational and intellectual soul, passible after our nature, and became man, and was not changed from that which He was. And so we confess that, while in the Godhead He was of the nature of the Father, He was also of our nature in the manhood. Accordingly He Who is the perfect Word, the invariable Son of God, became perfect man
(Frend, p. 363)
Remember, this was issued only a few decades before Muhammad was born, so this represents the standard faith of Copts and Jacobites who were the majority in areas Muhammad and his followers are said to have visited or even, in which they lived. Brock notes the differences within Syriac Christianity and from Chalcedonianism:
It is well known that one of the complicating factors in the Christological controversies of the fifth and sixth centuries lay in the varying understandings that different parties had of the central technical terms ουσία, φύσις, ύπόστασις and πρόσωπον. This situation became all the more complex when the controversy was being conducted in Syriac rather than Greek, for two different reasons: (i) The standard equivalent terms in Syriac had a rather different semantic range from that of their Greek counterparts; thus, for example, the connotations of Syriac kyana and qnoma are by no means precisely the same as those of φύσις and ΰπόστασις which they regularly represent (see further below); (ii) Over the course of the late fifth to the seventh century Syriac translation technique underwent many refinements, above all in West Syrian circles. Theologians of the Church of the East, however, living outside the Roman Empire, were not always aware of these developments which took place in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, and chiefly in Syrian Orthodox circles.
(Brock, Sebastian, Studies in Syriac Christianity, Brookfield: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1992, p. 130)
He later notes the differences between East and West Syriacs:
Underlying the varying opposing formulations are several different understandings of the connotations of the term ‘nature’: to the Church of the East kyana ‘nature’ is associated much more closely with ituta (‘essence’, ουσία) than with prosopon, while in Syrian Orthodox tradition ουσία and φύσις are sharply distinguished, and φύσις is associated rather with πρόσωπον. This difference of usage is reflected very clearly in sixth century translation practice in connection with the term ομοούσιος…
(Ibid., p. 131)
As for ‘Byzantine-rite’ Christians, the most obvious step to take is to examine the creedal statement that the Monophysites rejected – the Chalcedonian Definition, the creed of the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which will tell us what the non-Monophysites at Constantinople and the adherents thereof believed. The Council affirmed Creed of Nicæa, and also that of Constantinople, stating:
Following, then, the holy Fathers, we all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us One and the same Son, the Self-same Perfect in Godhead, the Self-same Perfect in Manhood ; truly God and truly Man; the Self-same of a rational soul and body; coessential with the Father according to the Godhead, the Self-same co-essential with us according to the Manhood; like us in all things, sin apart; before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead, but in the last days, the Self-same, for us and for our salvation (born) of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to the Manhood; One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, in separably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis not as though He were parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ…
(Bindley, T. Herbert, Oecumenical Documents of the Faith: The Creed of Nicaea, Three Epistles of Cyril, the Tome of Leo, the Chalcedonian Definition, (London: Methuen & Co., 1899, p. 297).
In the light of all this, how do we understand the failure of the Qur’an to address the fact that Christians have always held to the doctrine of Christ being both God and Man? The Qur’an only ever attacks the idea that Jesus is God, not that He is both God and Man:
Surah 4.171
O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him.
Surah Al-Maidah 5.75. The Messiah, son of Mary, was no other than a messenger, messengers (the like of whom) had passed away before him. And his mother was a saintly woman. And they both used to eat (earthly) food. See how we make the revelations clear for them, and see how they are turned away!
5.116. And when Allah saith: O Jesus, son of Mary! Didst thou say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah? he saith: Be glorified It was not mine to utter that to which I had no right. If I used to say it, then Thou knewest it. Thou knowest what is in my mind, and I know not what is in Thy mind. Lo! Thou, only Thou art the Knower of Things Hidden.
Given that all professing Christians held to the doctrine that Jesus was both God and Man, how could whoever put together the Qur’an have failed to notice this? If the Qur’an is divinely-inspired, how could Allah be unaware of what Christians actually believed about Jesus?
3. SYRIAC BIBLE TRANSLATIONS AND THE NAME ‘ĪSĀ
The Western (Jacobite/Syriac Orthodox) and Eastern (Nestorian/Assyrian Church of the East) effectively split in 431 over the rival Miaphysite and Nestorian Christological stances. The version used was the Peshitta: “… toward the close of the fourth or at the beginning of the fifth century a version of twenty-two books of the New Testament was available in a translation which came to be called at a later date the Peshitta Syriac version.” (Metzger, Bruce, The Early Versions of the New Testament, New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1977, p. 3). Metzger observes (p.48): “The Peshitta version antedates the division of Syrian Christianity into two rival communities, and hence it was accepted by the Nestorians as well as by the Jacobites.” (Ibid., p. 48). Subsequently, the two diverged:
One of the most influential leaders of the Monophysite branch of the Church at the beginning of the sixth century was Philoxenus (Mar Aksenaya’) of Mabbûg in eastern Syria, who, with his contemporary, Severus of Antioch, founded Jacobite Monophysitism… The work of translating the New Testament was performed in 507-8... Inasmuch as Philoxenus did not know Greek, he commissioned Polycarp, chorepiscopus in the diocese of Mabbûg, to revise the Peshitta version in accordance with Greek manuscripts. Polycarp sometimes replaced Syriac words with synonyms, sometimes used different prepositions, and generally gave preference to the independent possessive pronoun over against the suffixes. It appears that Polycarp sought to make a more theologically accurate rendering of the Greek than the current Peshitta rendering. In addition to the books included in the earlier translation, the Philoxenian included (seemingly for the first time in Syriac) 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and the Book of Revelation. Since the Philoxenian version was made and sponsored by Jacobite ecclesiastics, it was used only by the Monophysite branch of Syriac-speaking Christendom.
(Ibid., pp. 65-66)
A later version, the Harclean version, was produced by Thomas of Harkel around 616, “The chief characteristic of the Harclean version is its slavish adaptation to the Greek, to the extent that even clarity is sacrificed.” (Ibid., p. 69). Brock, contributing to Metzger’s book, makes this observation:
Basically there are two ways open to the translator: the names may be transliterated, or they may be given their appropriate Semitic form (where applicable). In general it will be found that S, C, and P will provide the correct Semitic form for names of Semitic origin, whereas H and CPA are inconsistent (the latter providing many hybrids, as Iuhannis, quoted above). Obviously, wherever a genuine Semitic form is found, one is left with no indication of the precise form of the translator’s underlying Greek…
Elsewhere well-known names of Semitic origin, such as Elizabeth, Jesus, John, Mary, Simon, etc., are normally rendered in their correct Semitic form, and only H and CPA provide exceptions, although in neither version is usage very consistent…
Burkitt pointed out that S in particular was apt to render Ἰησοῦς by maran, ‘our Lord’, while the converse, išo‘ representing Kυρίος where this refers to Jesus in the Greek, is common in S, C, and P. Throughout the Syriac versions there is a strong tendency to add the pronominal suffix ‘my/our’ to ‘Lord’. A not dissimilar situation is found in CPA, where Ἰησοῦς is almost always rendered by mare Isus, ‘the Lord Jesus’.
(Ibid., pp. 85, 86, 87; Curetonian [Old Syriac]; CPA = Christian Palestinian Aramaic [Palestinian Syriac]; H = Harclean; P = Peshitta; S = Sinaitic [Old Syriac])
Significantly, Ephraim the Syrian, d. 373, a prominent controversialist and theologian, admired by both sides of the Syriac divide, has a contribution to make here:
The ordinary Syriac for ‘Jesus’ is (pronounced ‘Isho‘ by Nestorians but Yeshu‘ by Jacobites), which is simply the Syriac form of the Old Testament name Joshua. This form was used not only by the orthodox, but also by the Manichees. It was therefore a surprise to find that Ephraim in arguing against Marcionites, and certainly in part quoting from their books or sayings, uses the form , a direct transcription of the Greek Ἰησοῦ (or Ἰησοῦσ). As it is always written , never , I suppose the pronunciation intended is IESU rather than ISU....
(C.W. Mitchell, completed by A.A. Bevan and F.C. Burkitt. S. Ephraim's Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan, Volume II, London: Williams & Norgate, 1921 p. cxviii)
We return to Mingana’s comment about the churches in the Hijaz being Jacobite, rather than Nestorian. Yet, in the same paper (p. 83), he makes these observations:
Another very remarkable fact emerging from all the above words is their pronunciation. I am at present engaged in the study of the early history of Christianity in Arabia as a sequel to my Early Spread of Christianity in Central Asia, and Early Spread of Christianity in India, published in 1925 and 1926 respectively. From that study it will be seen that the majority of the Christians round about Hijaz and South Syria belonged to the Jacobite community and not to that of the Nestorians. This was the state of affairs even in the middle of the ninth Christian century in which a well-informed Muslim apologist, ‘Ali b. Rabban at-Tabari, was able to write: “What (Christians) are found among the Arabs except a sprinkling of Jacobites and Melchites.”
Now the pronunciation used in the Arabic proper names mentioned above is that of the Nestorians and not that of the Jacobites. The latter say ishmō’īl, isrōīl and Ishōk etc., and not Ishmā’īl, Isrā’il, and Ishāk, as they appear in the Kur’an.
On pp. 84-85, he makes these observations:
So far as the word ‘Isa (the name given to Jesus in the Kur’an) is concerned, it was apparently in use before Muhammad, and it does not seem probable that it was coined by him. A monastery in South Syria, near the territory of the Christian Ghassanid Arabs, bore in A.D. 571 the name ‘Isaniyah, that is to say, “of the followers of Jesus,” i.e. of the Christians. See fol. 84b of the Brit. Mus. Syr. MS. Add., 14, 602, which is of the end of the sixth, or at the latest of the beginning of the seventh century. The Mandean pronunciation ‘Iso is of no avail as the guttural ‘é has in Mandaic the simple pronunciation of a hamzah. The Mandean pronunciation is rather reminiscent of ‘Iso, as the name of Jesus was written in the Marcionite Gospel used by the Syrians.
Despite Mingana’s reservations, the Nestorian origin of ‘Īsā seems likely. Robinson makes the connection:
It is unlikely that the canonical Christian scriptures or other Christian writings were translated into Arabic before the rise of Islam. Thus we should probably think in terms of an indirect knowledge of Christian sources based on hearsay or ad hoc translation rather than on literary borrowing. But what were these sources? In broad terms Syriac Christian literature seems a strong candidate for several reasons. First, Syriac accounts for a large proportion of the borrowed words in the Qur’an and for the Qur’anic spelling of many Biblical names. The peculiar spelling of ‘Īsā still remains something of an enigma but the most plausible explanation is that it is derived from Isho, the Syriac name for Jesus.
(Robinson, Neal, Christ in Islam and Christianity, Albany: State University of New York Press,1991, p. 17)
According to the Hadith, Muhammad’s earliest encounter with Christians came as a boy when visiting Syria with his uncle on a trading expedition:
Narrated by AbuMusa
Mishkat Al-Masabih 5918
AbuTalib went to ash-Sham (Syria) accompanied by the Prophet (may Allah bless him) along with some shaykhs of Quraysh. When they came near where the monk was they alighted and loosened their baggage, and the monk came out to them although when they had passed that way previously he had not done so.
While they were loosening their baggage the monk began to go about among them till he came and, taking Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him) by the hand, said, “This is the chief of the universe; this is the messenger of the Lord of the universe whom Allah is commissioning as a mercy to the universe.”
Some shaykhs of Quraysh asked him how he knew, and he replied, “When you came over the hill not a tree or a stone failed to bow in prostration, and they prostrate themselves only before a prophet. I recognize him by the seal of prophecy, like an apple, below the end of his shoulder-blade.”
He then went and prepared food for them, and when he brought it to them the Prophet (peace be upon him) was looking after the camels, so he told them to send for him. He came with a cloud above him shading him and when he approached the people he found they had gone before him into the shade of a tree.
Then when he sat down the shade of the tree inclined over him, and the monk said, “Look how the shade of the tree has inclined over him. I adjure you by Allah to tell me which of you is his guardian.” On being told that it was AbuTalib he kept adjuring him to send him back until he did so.
AbuBakr sent Bilal along with him and the monk gave him provisions of a bread and olive-oil.
Tirmidhi transmitted it.
This is how the Seerah of Ibn Hisham presents the encounter:
Verily he travelled to Syria and alighted at a halting place; a monk came to him and said: Verily there is a pious person among you. He said: Verily among us are persons who receive guests, get prisoners liberated and do noble deeds, or he said something like this. The he (monk) said: Verily there is a pious person among you. Then he asked: Where is the father of this youth? Thereupon he said: Here I am, his guardian, or he said: this is his guardian. He (monk) said: Protect this youth and do not take him to Syria, Verily the Jews are jealous and I fear them regarding (his life). He said: It is not thou that speakest but Allah speaketh. The he returned with him and said: O Allah! I entrust Muhammad to Thee. Subsequently he died.
Ibn Sa’d said: Muhammad Ibn ‘Umar informed us: Muhammad Ibn Salih, ‘Abd Allah Ibn Ja’far and Ibrahim Ibn Isma’il Ibn Abi Habibah related to me on the authority of Dawud Ibn al-Husayn; they said: When the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him, attained (the age of) twelve years, Abu Talib took him to Syria along with a caravan which travelled for purposes of trade. They stayed with the monk Bahira, who said what he liked to Abu Talib about the Prophet, may Allah bless him, and asked him to guard him.
Muslim tradition identifies this town as Bosra, a stronghold of both Monophysitism and Nestorianism. Generally, Bahira has been represented in history as a Nestorian. Why would Nestorian terms be more prominent in the Qur’an than Jacobite terminology, given the Jacobite predominance in the Hijaz? The Nestorians were prominent among the Lakhmid Arab kingdom. The Lakhmids performed for the Persians a role similar to that which the Ghassanids played for the Byzantines: “The Lakhmids were the counterparts of the Ghassanids in pre-Islamic times in almost every aspect of their life and history. They were foederati of Sasanid Persia in much the same way that the Ghassanids were those of Byzantium... Both had a strong Arab identity...” (Shahid, Irfan, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Volume 2 Part 1, Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 2009, p. 392).
The influence of the Lakhmids, like that of the Ghassanids, continued after the collapse of the Byzantines and Persians: “... both exercised some influence on the two Arab Islamic dynasties that came to power after the brief patriarchal period of the four orthodox caliphs, namely the Umayyads and the ‘Abbāsids.” (Ibid.) Even during the Islamic period, the former Lakhmid capital, Hīra, remained ‘for a long time a flourishing cultural center’. (Ibid., p. 393) Indeed, ‘Three of the early ‘Abbāsid caliphs were associated with Hīra...’ ((Ibid.)
The Lakhmids long had a strong sense of Arab identity, and one of their early kings dreamed of uniting the Arabs under his rule:
...Imru’ al-Qays (d. 328) is described in Muslim sources as governor for the Persians ‘over the frontier lands of the Arabs of Rabi‘a, Mudar, and the rest of the tribes in the deserts of Iraq, Hijaz and Mesopotamia’ (Tabari 1.833–34). His tomb lies in Byzantine territory, by the fort of Nemara in the basalt desert southeast of Damascus, possibly because ‘he became a Christian’ (Tabari 1.834) and went over to the Byzantines or maybe because he died while on a raiding expedition in enemy country. On it is inscribed the following epitaph...:
This is the monument of Imru’ al-Qays son of ‘Amr, king of all the Arabs, who... ruled both sections of al-Azd and Nizar and their kings, and chastised Madhhij, so that he successfully smote, in the irrigated land of Najran, the realm of [the Himyarite king] Shammar. And he ruled Ma‘add... And no king had matched his achievements up to the time when he died, in prosperity, in the year 223, the seventh day of Kislul [AD 328].
This is an extremely important document for charting the emergence of a sense of identity among Arabs, not only for its use of the expression ‘king of all the Arabs’, but also for its deployment of the Arabic language, albeit written in Nabataean script.
(Hoyland, Robert G., Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the coming of Islam, London & New York: Routledge, 2001, p. 79)
It is noteworthy that it was in neighboring Kufa, originally a garrison encamp ment of the Muslim conquerors, that the famous Kufic script was developed from that existing in Ḥīra. Within the Lakhmid-Sasanian borderlands, Arab identity remained strong:
... in spite of a degree of cultural assimilation that made it difficult to distinguish sedentary Arabs from Aramaeans ... total assimilation was prevented by the preservation of an Arabic identity language, and tribal social organization — the main aspects of Arab distinctiveness– among sedentary Arabs in late Sasanian Iraq.
(Morony, Michael G., Iraq After the Muslim Conquest, Piscataway: Gorgias Press LLC, 2005, p. 222.)
However, eventually the relationship between the Lakhmids and the Persians collapsed. This seems to have come about when the Lakhmid king, Numān III (580–602), followed the example of most of his subjects and became a Nestorian Christian:
The Lakhmids held out as pagans until 593, when the king Nu’man made his conversion as a result of being relieved by three Nestorian churchmen of a demon. And “when God wished in his bounty and generosity to save the pagans of ‘Ayn al-Namir and turn them from error, the son of the chief’s sister fell ill and drew near to death,” thus giving the Nestorian monk Mar ‘Abda the chance to assert the supremacy of, and win round the chief’s followers to, the true faith.
(Hoyland, Robert G., Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam, Princeton: Darwin Press, 1997, p. 189, quoting Chron. Siirt LX, PO 13, 468-69 [Nu’man]; XCVII, 586-89 [Mar ‘Abda].
CONCLUSION
The Qur’an fails to present an accurate depiction of Christian Christology, whether Byzantine, Miaphyiste or Nestorian. All believed that Jesus was both God and Man, yet the picture presented in the Qur’an is that the Christians all believed that Jesus was God, but not Man – the references to supposed Christian Christology therein make no sense unless all Christians were characterized by an extreme form of Eutychianism, which was not the case. Given the Christian presence on both sides of the Arabian Peninsula, it is difficult to suppose that such a presentation is not deliberate – a smear, rather than a misunderstanding. At any rate, God does not make mistakes – yet the Qur’an gets Christian Christology wrong.
The other point is the implications of the Qur’anic name for Jesus - ‘Īsā, deriving from the Eastern Syriac (Nestorian) ‘Isho‘ rather than the Western Syriac (Jacobite) Yeshu‘ as we would expect, given the Jacobite prevalence in Hijaz, where supposedly the Qur’an came into being, whereas the Nestorians were found in the eastern coast of the Peninsula. Together with the Nestorian origin of other names ion the Qur’an, and the legend of the Nestorian monk Bahira, does this raise questions about the true geographical (and theological) origins of the Qur’an?