the invasion of Palestine, seems to preserve a particularly early account of the Islamic conquests, despite its survival only in a relatively late collection. Like the apocalypse of Rabbi Shimʿōn, the Continuatio’s strikingly positive attitude toward Muhammad and the invading Muslims, as well as its seemingly detailed and accurate knowledge of the conquests, suggests that its source for events of the mid-seventh century must have been composed in close proximity to the events themselves, perhaps on the basis of eyewitness accounts.
Finally, ʿUmar’s Letter to Leo provides important confirmation of this early tradition from the Islamic side. Although this epistolary polemic is one of the later texts that we have considered, it is for an Islamic source particularly early. By way of comparison, the oldest extant narrative of Islamic origins, Ibn Isḥāq’s biography of Muhammad, was composed only in the middle of the eighth century, and it is known only in two later recensions by ninth- and tenth-century authors. Moreover, as Hoyland notes, ʿUmar’s letter shows signs of having compiled earlier “exchanges,” and thus perhaps its tradition of Muhammad’s leadership during the invasion of the Near East is even older than this version of the letter itself, similarly predating Ibn Isḥāq’s biography. The apparent composition of ʿUmar’s letter in western Syria is especially important, inasmuch as the Medinan traditions of Muhammad’s pre-conquest death at Medina may have first spread into the Near East only at a later date largely through influence of Ibn Isḥāq’s biography, a work composed by this Medinan scholar in Baghdad at the caliph’s request. As a whole the canonical accounts of Islamic origins were composed under ʿAbbāsid rule almost entirely on the basis of Medinan and Iraqi authorities, and accordingly Syrian and (pro-)Umayyad traditions are very scarce in these eighth- and ninth-century collections.165 Yet by contrast, ʿUmar’s letter originates in the same geographic region as most of the sources considered in this chapter, that is, Syro-Palestine, the center of Umayyad rule. Quite possibly, this early Islamic apology preserves a common early memory of Muhammad’s role in the invasion of Syro-Palestine from this region and this era, shared by Muslim, Christian, Jew, and Samaritan alike. Of utmost importance is the independence of these four reports from one another, which makes their convergence regarding Muhammad’s leadership at the beginning of the Near Eastern conquests quite impressive to say the least. While it is of course possible that someone might have misunderstood Muhammad’s significance for the invading Muslims, it is extremely unlikely that these four documents and their sources would all have made the same mistake independently, particularly in the case of ʿUmar’s letter. Thus, in view of their high quality, these sources alone are compelling enough to warrant serious reconsideration of the traditional Islamic memory of Muhammad’s death.
The remaining seven reports all come from the Christian historical tradition, whose accounts no doubt depend on earlier oral and written traditions about the Islamic invasions. Nonetheless, several of these texts bear witness even more clearly to Muhammad’s leadership at the onset of the Near Eastern conquests. This agreement suggests that we are not misreading the earlier sources, or, at the least, we are interpreting their reports in the same way as the next generation of Near Eastern Christians and their historians. Like the previous four documents, these sources also represent the diverse religious communities of the early medieval Near East. Although one document, the short Syriac chronicle written in 775, was produced in an unknown context, the others were composed by authors from the Coptic, Maronite, East Syrian, and West Syrian communities, while one set of traditions survives in the Christian chronicles of early Islamic Spain. And most importantly, each of these witnesses appears to transmit this information independently.
We would add here briefly a later indication from the Islamic biographical tradition identifying Syria as the land of Muhammad’s rule. In a report assigned to Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, a legendary bearer of Jewish lore in the early Islamic tradition, Ibn Saʿd identifies Mecca as the place of Muhammad’s birth, Medina as the place of his migration, and Syria as the land of his rule (
Yet while each of these early sources indicates in various ways the same chronology of Muhammad’s survival into the period of the Near Eastern conquests, it should be noted that none of them actually relates any specific information concerning the manner and circumstances of his death. There are, however, a few Christian reports from the eighth or ninth century that in fact purport to describe the events of Muhammad’s death. As one might expect, these accounts are highly polemical, offering narratives of Muhammad’s demise that have been deeply colored by the Christian imagination. One of these, the Latin Istoria de Mahomet, is a brief biography of Muhammad that seems to have come into circulation in Spain sometime prior to the middle of the ninth century, when Eulogius of Cordova incorporated it into his Liber apologeticus martyrum.167 Interestingly enough, like the sources considered above, the Istoria de Mahomet also seems to present the Islamic conquest of the Roman Near East within Muhammad’s lifetime. This concise Christian “Life of Muhammad” begins with Muhammad “as an avaricious usurer,” whose frequent business travels brought him into contact with Christian communities.168 After drinking deeply of what he learned from the Christians, Muhammad was approached by “the spirit of error … in the form of a vulture,” who persuaded Muhammad that he was the angel Gabriel and directed Muhammad to present himself to his people as a prophet. Muhammad then began to preach, convincing many to abandon idolatry and ordering them “to take up arms on his behalf, and … to cut down their adversaries with the sword.” Then we learn that “first they killed the brother of the emperor who held dominion over the land and in recognition of the triumph of victory, they established the Syrian city of Damascus as the capital of the kingdom.” Immediately thereafter, the Istoria continues to describe how Muhammad fabricated the Qurʾān, followed by notice of his somewhat irregular marriage to the wife of Zayd, which took place after he had already “subjected her to his lust.”169 Then with the commission of such a heinous sin, “the death of his soul and body approached simultaneously,” and the Istoria concludes with an account of Muhammad’s death.
The flow of the narrative certainly seems to suggest that the conquest of Syria took place during Muhammad’s lifetime. It appears in this biography of Muhammad amid other major themes from his life, such as his career as a merchant, his doctrine of religious conquest, his composition of the Qurʾān, and his “irregular” marital life. If one did not know any better (from reading the accounts of the traditional Islamic sources), one would presumably understand the assault on Syria as also falling within Muhammad’s lifespan. Standing squarely at the center of this polemical vita, the conquest of Syria seems very much to belong among the accomplishments of Muhammad’s prophetic career. It is thus tempting to suppose that we meet here yet another witness to the early tradition of Muhammad’s survival during the invasion of Syro-Palestine, albeit at a slightly greater chronological distance. Although the source is admittedly a hostile one, there is no obvious polemical motive for placing the Near Eastern campaign within—as opposed to immediately after—Muhammad’s lifetime. That Damascus is here in focus, rather than Jerusalem, merely reflects its status as the first capital of the Islamic empire, and its capture in 634–35 fits with the time frame envisioned by the sources considered above. Likewise, Heraclius’s brother Theodore did in fact lead, unsuccessfully, the defense of Syria, even though there is no evidence that he died in battle against the Arabs, as suggested by the Istoria.170 Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the
