Spoerl / The Levantine Review Volume 2 Number 1 (Spring 2013)
name of Bahira” (p. 79). After consulting certain unnamed Christian books and locating the seal of prophethood on Muhammad’s back, Bahira identifies Muhammad as a prophet and then warns Abu Talib: “Take your nephew back to his country and guard him carefully against the Jews, for by Allah! If they see him and know about him what I know, they will do him evil…” (p. 81). Indeed, we are told, several “people of the scriptures” noticed in Muhammad what Bahira had noticed, and “they tried to get at him, but Bahira kept them away and reminded them of God and the mention of the description of him which they would find in the sacred books… He gave them no peace until they recognized the truth of what he said and left him and went away” (p. 81). Ibn Ishaq tells us that “Jewish rabbis, Christian monks, and Arab soothsayers had spoken about the apostle of God before his mission when his time drew near. As to the rabbis and monks, it was about his description and the description of his time which they found in their scriptures and what their prophets had enjoined upon them” (p. 90). With only one exception, Ibn Ishaq gives no specific citations of texts allegedly foretelling Muhammad’s coming. The one exception is his reference to the Gospel of John 15:23ff, the verses referring to the coming of the Comforter or paraclete or the spirit of truth (which Christians interpret as referring to the sending of the Holy Spirit) (pp. 103-4).
Ibn Ishaq mentions several specific accounts of Jews in Arabia right before the time of Muhammad predicting the coming of a prophet with Muhammad’s attributes, only to reject Muhammad out of “wickedness and envy” when they actually encountered him (pp. 93-95). One of these accounts quotes the Koran 2:89: “And when a book from God came to them confirming what they already had […,] when what they knew came to them, they disbelieved it. The curse of God is on the unbelievers” (p. 93).
After Muhammad began to preach Islam publicly in 613 (the revelations having begun in 610), Ibn Ishaq tells us of a delegation of some twenty Christians from Abyssinia (or Najran) who came to Mecca to investigate his claims. “When they had asked all the questions they wished the apostle invited them to come to God and read the Quran to them. When they heard the Quran their eyes flowed with tears, and they accepted God’s [note omitted] call, believed in him, and declared his truth. They recognized in him the things which had been said of him in their scriptures” (p. 179; cf. pp. 271, 277). This passage shows that Muhammad saw the Christian scriptures in the same way he saw the Jewish scriptures, namely, as plainly foretelling his coming as a prophet.[1] However, the Jews were
- ↑ Ibn Ishaq (somewhat tentatively) links this incident in Muhammad’s life to a specific verse in the Koran, 28:51: “Those to whom We gave the Scriptures before this believe in it. When it is recited to them they say: ‘We believe in it; it is the truth from our Lord. We submitted to Him long before it came.’” (p. 179). The moral of the story is that Christians (like Jews) who are faithful to their own scriptures will convert to Islam as soon as it is presented to them.
