How the Christians perceived Islam, Prophet Muhammad and Muslims from the 8th to the 15th Centuries – Part 1
Introduction
The early and medieval Christians have no theological or
legal (in terms of biblical) perspectives in their perceptions of Islam,
Prophet Muhammad and Muslims. Contrary to the Qur’an and Muslims who
theologically, and legally perceived Christians and Christianity perhaps
because of Christianity’s antecedents. Islam theologically presented a series
of quandaries to early and medieval Christianity, such that some of them viewed
Muslim's as pagans and some as heretics or schismatics.
The Christian polemicists hardly used the term Islam or Muslim
to identify their rivalry, instead, the preferences to terms such as ‘Saracens,
Hagarenes, Arabs, Turks, Pagans, Moors or simply, those who follow the Law of
Muhammad’ were prevalent.
This writing aims to examine by typologies, the polemics of Christians that cover from the 8th century to the 15th century and discussing Christianity's arguments from the perspectives of:
The scope of this writing is limited in terms of coverage of their positions, arguments and understandings. This writing does not promise to present a library of Christian polemical texts. Therefore, part 1 will focus on St. John Damascene (675-753), and Manuel I Comnenus (1143-1180).
St. John Damascene (675-753)
John Damascene’s biography put him in the position where he was fully in communication with the Muslims and conversant with Islam. Being born 43 years after the death of Muhammad, and into a family that had flourished well in high positions in government in Damascus for many years was enough experience to equip him with his arguments. His retiring into a monastery near Jerusalem gave him enough time and disposition to compose his polemics against Prophet Muhammad and Muslims. John Damascene’s method of attack was by orthodoxy debate.
Heresy and Heresiarch
His major polemical works: The
Heresy of the Ishmaelites and A Dialogue between a Christian and a
Saracen were the bases for early Christian polemics. John Damascene saw
Islam as he would see Arianism and his attitude towards it was to denounce it
as another Arianism. According to Tolan, orthodox theologians and polemicists
(beginning with John of Damascus in the eight century), argued that the Qur’an was
composed mostly of revealed character of both Judaism and Christianity. Because
of that, Islam could only be associated with the earlier heresies condemned by
the church (Tolan 1996, p.57).
Islamic
denial of Jesus Christ as Son of God (An-Nisa 4:171) but rather son of Mary,
and a messenger of Allah, and their denial of the presence of the Holy Spirit led
to Christianity’s association of Prophet Muhammad and Islam with Antichrist
(Tolan 1996, pp.57-58).
The
Qur’an is full of different titles associated with Jesus, such as “Word of God” and “a spirit from Him.” Muslims’
belief about Jesus ended there. They removed Jesus’ word from the person of Jesus
and removed God from God’s Word. According to Chapman, John Damascene considered Islam a Christian
heresy and not a religion and thought that Islam was one of those transient
heresies that would soon melt away. (Chapman 1998, p.87).
Source of revelation
John Damascene’s polemics
was also couched in the perceptions about Prophet Muhammad’s main source of inspiration as coming
from monk Bahira. However, two polemical arguments from John Damascene have
eventually become standard apologetic arguments for centuries.
The
first was that Prophet Muhammad could not have been a prophet because his
coming was not prophesied. But it did not take Muslims long to pinpoint at
several biblical chapters that they claimed predicted the coming of Prophet
Muhammad: Deuteronomy 18:15, where Moses predicts the coming of ‘a prophet like me’; and John 14:16 and 20, where Jesus
predicts the coming of the Paraclete).
Also,
the claim by Christian polemics that Prophet Muhammad did not work any miracles
was countered by Muslims claim that the Qur’an itself was the greatest miracle
of all. (Chapman 1998, p.89).
The
second was that Prophet Muhammad was never to be trusted, hence, Chapman noted
that John Damascene argued that ‘he won people over to his teaching by pretending
to be a holy person which made the polemics consider him as an “impostor”’ (Chapman
1998, p.89).
Christian polemics view Islam and Muslims from the Christian faith’s perspectives instead of considering Islam as a faith on its own right and Muslims as adherents to this belief system. Therefore, the focus of Christians’ attention should be on what Muslims believe; and on what they see and confess which are true and at the heart of the faith (Sahas 1972, pp.129-130).
Manuel I Comnenus (1143-1180)
Manuel I Comnenus (1143-1180), was a Byzantine emperor. His
reign caused some altercations from the church authorities especially with
regard to the way traditional Orthodox Christians perceived the “God of
Muhammad”.
The God of Muhammad
The
phrase the “God of Muhammad” was a coined phrase from Surah Al-Ikhlas:
“Say: He is Allah, The One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth
not, Nor is He begotten....” (Al-Ikhlas 112:1-3). To tackle the claims
of Surah (Ikhlas 112), Nicetas of Byzantium translated samad as όλόσφαιρος
(“all-spherical”) and later as όλόσφυρος (“made of solid, hammer-beaten
metal”). According to Hanson such a translation
“allows Nicetas to ridicule Islam as an alien, even pagan, religion espousing a
materialist conception of God – a God who is unable to see, hear, comprehend,
or act without assistance” (Hanson 1996, p.64). The term samad is
difficult to translate by one word. Yusuf ‘Ali, one of greatest Qur’anic translators
interprets samad by using two words: “Eternal” and “Absolute”. He uses
such translation to separate the idea of One God from “the idea of gods and
goddesses who ate and drank, wrangled and plotted, depended on the gifts of
worshippers” (Yusuf ‘Ali 2008, p.1714).
Based upon this interpretation, and Byzantine imperial
ideology, Hanson argues that Byzantium maintains that “Orthodox Christianity
represented the world’s “true” faith, exclusive and unique in character, and claimed
that Byzantium itself, is the inspired earthly approximation of God’s kingdom
(Hanson 1996, p.57).
The church hierarchies of Byzantium in the nineth century tried to obfuscate Islam with their “heresiological technique.” They exposed a heresy through Christian orthodoxy, that is, Christians judge the Muslim from the perspectives of Christian sources, Bible, thinking and arguments which placed the Muslim in a disadvantageous position. (quoted in Hanson 1996, p.59).
Conversions and renunciation
From
the perspective of conversions: The Byzantine polemical tradition created
rites of reception of Muslim converts to Christianity. The Muslim convert was
expected to renounce and denounce all he/she ever believed about God and about
Christ. Among many other things, the Muslim initiate must do the following:
“… anathematize
Muhammad, all the Prophet’s relatives (each by name), all the caliphs through
Yazid (680-683), the Qur’an and its doctrines and traditions, the Muslim
conceptions of paradise and predestination, the practice of polygamy, the
“angels” of Muhammad, his interpretation of the Old and New Testaments and many
other aspects of Islam (Hanson 1996, p.61).
The
formula of the rites of conversion contained 22 anathemas that were
incorporated into the ‘Formula of Abjuration’ which sounded this way: “And
before all, I anathematize the God of Muhammad, about whom he [Muhammad] says,
“He is God alone, God made of solid, hammer-beaten; He begets not and is not
begotten, nor is there like unto Him anyone.” (quoted in Hanson 1996, p.61).
There was what Nicetas
called όλόσφυρος controversy. That is, when a new Muslim convert to
Christianity performed the rite of conversion, he/she was deemed to have rejected
the “God of Muhammad” that is, “the όλόσφυρος god fabricated by the prophet.”
(Hanson 1996, p.67).
Indeed, Emperor Manuel I Comnenus thought that it was not
proper. Hence, in 1180 A.D Nicetas noted that Manuel I was determined to strike
out the final anathema (No. 22) of the “Formula of Abjuration” for Muslims
which was directed against the ‘God of Muhammad.’ The emperor Manuel I “proposed
to expunge anathematization from all the catechetical books beginning with the
codex of the great church. He argued that it was scandalous to see the Hagarenes,
that is Muslims who were being converted to Christian faith should be made to
blaspheme God in any manner whatsoever. (quoted in Hanson 1996, p.73).
Manuel I Comnenus succeeded
in expunging the final anathema (No. 22) from the catechetical books not
without some internal diatribe with the ecclesiastical hierarchy in Byzantium.
Summary
Some salient points to note
from above include:
The way Christian polemics perceived Islam and the
Muslims from the 8th century could be described as barbaric,
brutish, nasty and arrogant.
The Qur’an refers to Christians as people who associate partners with
God, and therefore idolaters.
Christian polemics argued that Islam has no place in
the Bible. They were of the view that neither Prophet Muhammad, Qur’an nor
Muslims were mentioned in anywhere in the Bible.
Because the Qur’an and Muslims deny that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Christian polemics construed the Muslims as anti-Christs and the Qur’an as a heresy. This makes it very difficult for Christians to accept the Qur’an as the word of God.
Sources
Sahas, DJ 1972, John of
Damascus on Islam: The Heresy of the Ishmaelites, E.J. Brll, Leiden.
Tolan, JV (ed) 1996,
Medieval Christian Perception of Islam: A Book Essays, Garland Publishing,
Inc., London.
Chapman, C 1998, Islam and
The West: Conflict, Co-existence or Conversion? Paternoster Press, Cumbria-UK.
Hanson, C.L 1996, “Manuel I Comnenus and the “God of Muhammad”: A Study in Byzantine Ecclesiastical Politics” in Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam, Routledge.
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