The Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati, often abbreviated Doctrina Jacobi,
is, as Ibn Warraq noted, "the earliest Greek source
" for the Islamic conquests.
However, until recently the only references to it I could find ultimately derived from...
Ibn Warraq, who has not (as yet) published the non-Islamic source material in English.
To this day I have not been able to find the primary source for the Doctrina Jacobi.
And Ibn Warraq has an admitted bias against Islam, which colours his presentation of the
evidence concerning it - or at least did during the 1990s.
Kaegi for his part quotes much more, this time from N Botwetsch (Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-historische Klasse, N.F. Bd. XII, Nr. 3 [1910]), 62. It also apparently exists in French, within Travaux et Memoires v. 11; and Robert Hoyland has quoted more of it.
This project will investigate the Doctrina Jacobi according to the quotes of Kaegi and Hoyland, rather than the paraphrases of Ibn Warraq and Patricia Crone. Hopefully that will clear up what this document says and what it does not say.
Kaegi introduces his quotations, 'The Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati is a dialogue
which apparently took place on 13 July 634 [CE] between Jacob, a recent compulsory convert
to Christianity, and several Jews. The tract airs contemporary doubts about the condition of
the "Roman (i.e. Byzantine) Empire", ...'
.
As supplemented by Antonio Carile, La marineria bizantina in Adriatico nei secoli VI-XII; and L. I. Klimovich,
Book about the Koran, its Origin
and Mythologies, Moscow 1986; Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam, Darwin Press 1998; and Nevo & Koren p. 208:
(62) ... of the oceans, that is of Caledonia, Britain, Spain, Egypt, and Africa; and those parts of Africa where the feet of the bronze and marble steles of the Roman emperors can be still observed, unquestionable signs of the domination the Romans at one time had imposed, through the will of God, over all of the races. But today we see the Romans humbled... (63) If the fourth beast, that is, the Roman Empire, is reduced, torn asunder, and shattered, as Daniel said, verily there will be no other, except the ten claws and ten horns of the fourth beast, and afterwards a little horn, completely different, which has knowledge of God. Immediately there will take place the end of the universe and the resurrection of the dead...
(86-87) [Justus said, "my brother Abraham of Caesarea] wrote to me saying that 'a deceiving prophet appeared among the Saracens... When the candidatus was killed by the Saracens, I was at Caesarea and I set off by boat to Sykamina. People were saying "the candidatus has been killed," and we Jews were overjoyed. And they were saying that the prophet had appeared, coming with the Saracens, and that he was proclaiming the advent of the anointed one, the Christ who was to come. I, having arrived at Sykamina, stopped by a certain old man well-versed in scriptures, and I said to him: "What can you tell me about the prophet who has appeared with the Saracens?" He replied, groaning deeply: "He is false, for the prophets do not come armed with a sword. Truly they are works of anarchy being committed today and I fear that the first Christ to come, whom the Christians worship, was the one sent by God and we instead are preparing to receive the Antichrist. Indeed, Isaiah said that the Jews would retain a perverted and hardened heart until all the earth should be devastated. But you go, master Abraham, and find out about the prophet who has appeared." So I, Abraham, inquired and heard from those who had met him that there was no truth to be found in the so-called prophet, only the shedding of men's blood. He says also that he has the keys of paradise, which is incredible...' These things my brother Abraham wrote me, Justus, from the east."
And Robert Hoyland adds a tidbit, in Seeing Islam as Others Saw It p. 58,
if the Jews and the Saracens take hold of me and cut my body into little pieces, I will not deny Christ, the son of God.
Patricia Crone summarises that, in an oft-quoted passage, "The oldest Greek source ... speaks of the Jews who mix with the Saracens, and of the danger to life and limb of falling into the hands of these Jews and Saracens.
"
Ibn Warraq claims, "the earliest Greek source speaks of Muhammad being alive in 634
" (p. 79).
The Doctrina Jacobi can be read in that manner, but there are good reasons not to.
That source is firstly ambiguous concerning dates; Justus's brother may have held the
conversation in a preceding year. It secondly hails from Caesarea, a city that
did not enter the Arabs' imperium until 640 CE (by
Islamic consensus; also c.f.
Kenneth G. Holum's
excavation).
Abraham moreover gives the impression that his meetings with Muhammad's followers were
uninformative, even violent.
Ibn Warraq is on shaky ground here.
The source does not even name the prophet, which gave Nevo and Koren
cause to suspect the prophet was not Muhammad at all.
Those authors pointed out many differences between the Muhammad
of the Traditional Account, and the unnamed prophet here.
They asserted that the prophet's language was "more likely proclaimed
in Aramaic than in Arabic, for if his proclamations worried people,
they must have been in a language widely understood by both the Christians
and the Jews of the area.
" Also, the religion assumes a future Christ,
which is possible for Judaism and "even Christian belief
" but never Islam (p. 209).
But one must remember that we are not dealing with a time in which anyone had the Traditional Account in mind. Muhammad preceded the Traditional Account, starring in material dated at least as far back as 70 AH / 691 CE. So instead of basing one's search on the third-century tradition, one should first pin down the first-century tradition and base one's search from that. As for the "likelihood" of the prophet not preaching in Arabic, the DJNB's tale comes to us through a Palestinian named Abraham; Nevo & Koren elsewhere note this as a common name among contemporary Arab monotheists (pp. 188-9). In addition Nevo & Koren had taken great pains in earlier chapters to explain how Arabs had been imported into the region in vast numbers. This prophet could be Aramaic; but to worry Abraham, he could equally be Arab. Finally, Abraham by not considering paganism or Zoroastrianism strongly implied that this prophet was a product of the Judaic tradition. Just so the Qur'an and Islamic tradition claims Muhammad as the seal of a line of Jewish and Christian prophets (with some Thamudic Arabs thrown in).
I do agree with Koren over our lack of evidence for said first-century tradition. Later projects will hopefully tease out further documents to this end.
Of outside accounts of the 630s CE, I agree with Patricia Crone that the first Arab conqueror 'Umar's title, al-faruq, which meant "Redeemer" in Syriac, parallels the prophetic messianism to which the Doctrina Jacobi bears witness. According to Crone, the first Muslim authorities had that honorific being conferred by ignorant Christians, and later ones had it conferred by Muhammad with a different meaning. The Doctrina Jacobi offers little evidence for a Prophet, but much for a Prophecy. This Arab invasion seems to have put the Byzantines on an apocalyptic footing in turn.
That the Arab takeover begins with a Jewish-tradition prophet is a credal point on which we, Muslims, and the Doctrina Jacobi all agree. But, like anything else about this time, it may not be so simple...
A highly-placed Arab commander, approximately a decade after the Doctrina Jacobi, expressed disdain for the Hebrew prophets who came before the Arab prophet, and failed even to mention that latter prophet. If this commander was not 'Umar himself, he was at least close to him.
The next dateable commentator on Muhammad
was, like the author of the Doctrina Jacobi, not an Arab - but he too failed to call Muhammad
a prophet. According to the Khuzistan Chronicle,
in front of "the sons of Ishmael
" against the Persians was merely
"their leader Muhammad
".
As late as 'Abd al-Malik, John bar Penkayé could write of Muhammad that he was a "teacher" of "tradition", but did not relate that anyone considered him a prophet.
One of the first recorded Arabic references to Muhammad's position as nabi would be
Qur'an sura 33 verse 56. In Pickthall's translation -
"Lo! Allah and His angels shower blessings on the Prophet. O ye who believe! Ask blessings on him and salute him with a worthy salutation.
" This ayah sports a Syriacism (malak),
and cites the angels as deliverers of blessing alongside Allah.
33:56 is likely a slogan coined by Syrian angel-worshippers (probably Christian)
newly converted to the evolving Muhammadan faith.
The Arabs thought of Muhammad as a religious interpreter and warrior. It was at first the Arabs' opponents who cast Muhammad as a prophet, primarily to accuse him of being a false one. Later, I would say in the 680's or so, Christian converts to the religion of the Arabs would accept him as a real prophet. Finally, in 691 CE Abd al-Malik canonised Muhammad's new title in his coinage, and in the inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock.
So far, there is little enough to report, since continuous copies of the Doctrina Jacobi are so hard to come by. But enough exists in quotation to pose limits upon Ibn Warraq's revisionism, and to verify that the Arabs were acting according to one whom Christians deemed a prophet.
Any thoughts? e-mail me :^)
zimriel@sbcglobal.netThe first version of this project was written 16-17 March 2003, after I found Kaegi, who cleared up the bias I'd found on the Internet and in Ibn Warraq's polemic. I had to muddy the waters myself, though, because not having Bonwetsch I had to make do with Internet-translated quotes from an Italian and a Russian.
24 July: Nevo's new book. 8 August: precision. 4 Feb 2004: Hoyland by way of Peter Kirby.
4 May 2005: a correspondent who requested anonymity points out that Patricia Crone's Hagarism isn't fully endorsed even by Crone anymore. Besides I've since got hold of the full book by Hoyland. In addition some links have gone dead; and I really did need to explain myself better (again). I have corrected this project accordingly.