Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins (9 page)

The Caliph and the Cross

There is another arresting item among the surviving artifacts from the reign of Muawiya: an inscription, dating from the year 662, on a bathhouse in Gadara in Palestine. (Gadara is one possible setting of the Gospel story in which Jesus casts demons out of a young man and into a herd of pigs.) The Greek inscription identifies Muawiya as “the servant of God, the leader of the protectors,” and dates the dedication of the bathhouse to “the year 42 following the Arabs.” At the beginning of the inscription is a cross.
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This was a public installation, bearing the official sanction of the governing authorities. Muawiya himself most likely visited there, so he probably saw this inscription and apparently did not consider it to be anything amiss.
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Although the Umayyads were notorious (or at least so Islamic tradition tells us) for the laxity of their Islamic observance, it is one thing to be relaxed in one's Islam and another thing to allow for the promotion of the symbols of another religion altogether—much less one that is rebuked numerous times in the Qur'an.

Unless, of course, there was no Qur'an, and no Islam, at least in the form in which we know it today, when the public baths in Gadara were dedicated, as also when the cross-bearing Muhammad coin was minted in Palestine.

Still more striking is the identification on the bathhouse inscription of the year as “following the Arabs”—that is, the “era of the Arabs,” rather than the more expected “era of Islam” or “era after the Hijra.” The Arabian conquests are a historical fact; that the Arabian conquerors actually came out of Arabia inspired by the Qur'an and Muhammad is less certain. This inscription becomes perfectly understandable if the centrality of the Hijra—Muhammad's move from Mecca to Medina in 622, marked as the beginning of the Islamic calendar—and Islam to the Arabian conquerors was projected back into history, but was not actually a contemporary phenomenon when the bathhouse was dedicated.

What, then, was the beginning of the “era of the Arabians”? The Arabians used a lunar calendar, and a year in the lunar calendar was ten days shorter than the solar year. So forty-two lunar years equal forty solar years, and thus the year 622 was forty-two lunar years before the dedication of the bathhouse in 662. The year 622 saw the Byzantine Empire win a surprising and decisive victory over the Persians, which led to the collapse of Persian power. Not long thereafter the Arabians filled the power vacuum and took control of the Persian Empire. Soon they threatened Byzantine holdings as well. What became the date of the Hijra may have originally marked the beginning of the Arabians as a political force to be reckoned with on the global scene.

Similarly dating some momentous event to the year 622, and yet containing no specifically Islamic characteristics, is an inscription that dates itself from the year 64—that is, the Gregorian year 683, which is sixty-four lunar years from the year 622. This graffito found near Karbala in Iraq states:

In the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate

Allah [is] great in greatness and great is His Will

and prayer / praise to Allah morning, evening and a long night.

Allah! Lord of Gabriel and Michael and Asrafil,

forgive Tabit bin Yazid al-Asari [i.e., from Ashar]

his earlier transgression and his later one

and him who says aloud, Amen, Lord of Creation

and this document
(kitab)
was inscribed in

Sawal of the year 64.
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Sawal is the tenth month of the Islamic calendar, as well as of the pre-Islamic lunar calendar that the pagan Arabs used. Gabriel, Michael, and Asrafil are angels in the biblical tradition; it is extremely odd, if Tabit bin Yazid al-Asari was a Muslim who revered Muhammad as the last and greatest prophet, that he invoked Allah as the Lord of these angels rather than in some more conventionally Islamic manner. Likewise it is unlikely that Tabit bin Yazid al-Asari could have been a Christian or a Jew, for the same reason: Invoking God as Lord of the angels was not a common practice for either. After all, other inscriptions from roughly the same period invoke Allah as the “Lord of Musa and Isa,” that is, Moses and Jesus—but not, once again, Muhammad.
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This kind of inscription may, however, have been more common among those who considered themselves to be monotheists with a kinship to Jews and Christians but nonetheless distinct from them. This would fit in with what we have seen of Muawiya's Abrahamic but apparently creedally vague monotheism. Muawiya objected to the divinity of Christ but was apparently not hostile enough to Christianity to forbid the cross altogether, as Islam ultimately did. No surviving inscription indicates that he was aware of Muhammad or Islam, but he does mention Abraham and thus seems to have some knowledge of the founding figures of the Hebrew scriptures. Tabit bin Yazid al-Asari, who apparently lived in Muawiya's domains during his reign, could have been one who subscribed to precisely this religious perspective—indeed, it may have been an imperative for subjects of the new Arab domains.

If the explanation for the cross on the Gadara inscription is lost in the mists of history, it is reasonable to surmise that Islamic strictures against the cross and Christianity were ignored because those strictures
did not yet exist, at least in their present form. Coins that appear to depict Muawiya's successor, Yazid I (680–683), also feature a cross.
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It is even possible, given these coins and the official nature of the Gadara inscription, that Muawiya and Yazid thought of themselves in some way as Christian rulers. They would have been exponents not of any form of Christianity that survives today but rather of a faith that encompassed Christianity and was not incompatible with some form of it. A clue as to the nature of the Christianity to which Muawiya, Yazid, and many of their subjects may have adhered can be found in the inscriptions inside the Dome of the Rock, the imposing mosque that was constructed late in the seventh century on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and holy for Christians as well.
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The Dome of the Rock: The First Exposition of Islamic Theology?

Traditionally the Dome of the Rock has been understood as a manifestation of the triumph and superiority of Islam. Completed in 691, eleven years after the death of Muawiya, on the order of the caliph Abd al-Malik (685–705), the mosque contains inscriptions that appear to be taken directly from the Qur'an, although not in any orderly fashion.

Here is the text of the inscription on the southeast portion of the octagonal arcade within the Dome of the Rock. The translator, Estelle Whelan, has added in brackets material indicating where various portions of the inscription appear (and do not appear) in the Qur'an:

“In the name of God, the Merciful the Compassionate. There is no god but God. He is One. He has no associate” [this is the beginning of the
shahada]
. “Unto Him belongeth sovereignty and unto Him belongeth praise. He quickeneth and He giveth death; and He is Able to do all things” [a conflation of 64:1 and 57:2].
“Muhammad is the servant of God and His messenger” [variant completion of the
shahada].
“Lo! God and His angels shower blessings on the Prophet. O ye who believe! Ask blessings on him and salute him with a worthy salutation” [33:56 complete]. “The blessing of God be on him and peace be on him, and may God have mercy” [blessing, not in the Qur'anic text]. “O, People of the Book! Do not exaggerate in your religion
(dini-kum)
nor utter aught concerning God save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of God, and His Word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in God and His messengers, and say not ‘Three’—Cease! (it is) better for you!—God is only One God. Far be it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And God is sufficient as Defender. The Messiah will never scorn to be a servant unto God, nor will the favoured angels. Whoso scorneth His service and is proud, all such will He assemble unto Him” [4:171–72 complete]. “Oh God, bless Your messenger and Your servant Jesus son of Mary” (interjection introducing the following passage). “Peace be on him the day he was born, and the day he dies, and the day he shall be raised alive!” [19:33 complete, with change from first to third person]. “Such was Jesus, son of Mary, (this is) a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt. It befitteth not (the Majesty of) God 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” [19:34–35 complete]. Lo! God is my Lord and your Lord. So serve Him. That is the right path” [19:36 complete, except for initial “and”]. “God (Himself) is witness that there is no God save Him. And the angels and the men of learning (too are witness). Maintaining His creation in justice, there is no God save Him, the Almighty, the Wise. Lo! religion with God (is) The Surrender (to His will and guidance). Those who (formerly) received the Book differed only after knowledge came unto them, through transgression
among themselves. Whoso disbelieveth the revelations of God (will find that) lo! God is swift at reckoning” [3:18–19 complete].

Another Dome of the Rock inscription, on the outer portion of the arcade, reads this way:

“In the name of God, the Merciful the Compassionate. There is no god but God. He is One. He has no associate” [beginning of the
shahada].
“Say: He is God, the One! God, the eternally Besought of all! He begetteth not nor was begotten. And there is none comparable unto Him” [112 complete except for the introductory
basmala]
. “Muhammad
is the Messenger of God” [completion of the
shahada]
, “the blessing of God be on him” [blessing]. “In the name of God, the Merciful the Compassionate. There is no god but God. He is One. He has no associate. Muhammad is the Messenger of God”
[shahada
, complete]. “Lo! God and His angels shower blessings on the Prophet. O ye who believe! Ask blessings on him and salute him with a worthy salutation” [33:56 complete].

“In the name of God, the Merciful the Compassionate. There is no god but God. He is One” [beginning of the
shahada]
. “Praise be to God, Who hath not taken unto Himself a son, and Who hath no partner in the Sovereignty, nor hath He any protecting friend through dependence. And magnify Him with all magnificence” [17:111 complete except for the initial “And say”]. “Muhammad is the Messenger of God” [completion of the
shahada]
, “the blessing of God be on him and the angels and His prophets, and peace be on him, and may God have mercy” [blessing].

“In the name of God, the Merciful the Compassionate. There is no god but God. He is One. He has no associate” [beginning of the
shahada]
. “Unto Him belongeth sovereignty and unto Him belongeth praise. He quickeneth and He giveth death; and He is Able to do all things” [conflation of 64:1 and 57:2]. “Muhammad is the Messenger of God” [completion of the
shahada]
, “the blessing of God be on him. May He accept his intercession on the Day of Judgment on behalf of his people” [blessing and prayer].

“In the name of God, the Merciful the Compassionate. There is no god but God. He is One. He has no associate. Muhammad is the Messenger of God” [the
shahada
complete], “the blessing of God be on him” [blessing].

“The servant of God Abd [Allah the
Imam al-Ma'mun
, Commander] of the Faithful, built this dome in the year two and seventy. May God accept from him and be content with him. Amen, Lord of the worlds, praise be to God” [foundation notice].
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This Qur'anic material is the earliest direct attestation to the existence of the book—sixty years after the Arab armies that had presumably been inspired by it began conquering neighboring lands. And yet the mixture of Qur'anic and non-Qur'anic material is odd. Would pious Muslims really have composed an inscription that combined Qur'anic material—which they would have understood as the perfect and unalterable, eternal word of Allah—with merely human words, however eloquent? Would Muslims who believed that the Qur'an was the perfect and unalterable word of Allah have dared to change the Qur'an's words “Peace be upon me, the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I am raised alive!” (19:33) to the Dome of the Rock's “Peace be on him the day he was born, and the day he dies, and the day he shall be raised alive!”? The change is not substantial, but it would still involve taking liberties with the perfect word of Allah, which presumably would give the pious pause.

Likewise, the presentation of material from all over the book, although it is thematically related, is curious. If the authors of the inscription intended to include all the Qur'an's statements that rebuke Trinitarian Christianity, there are some notable omissions—especially the claim that “they did not slay him, neither crucified him” (4:157). Or if the main thrust of the inscription is to deny the
divinity of Christ and assert the prophethood of Muhammad, the omission of the Qur'anic passage in which Jesus prophesies the coming of Muhammad is odd: “Children of Israel, I am indeed the Messenger of God to you, confirming the Torah that is before me, and giving good tidings of a Messenger who shall come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad” (61:6).