Article

Introduction

Patriarch Timothy I was born in the first half of the eighth century in Hazzā, a village near Arbelā, in Iraq. As a child, he studied at a monastery in Bashosh near Mosul. On 7 May 780, he was consecrated catholicos-patriarch of the East-Syrian Church. He died on Saturday, 9 January 823. During his life he wrote prolifically, but his only surviving works are a book of law and 59 letters (Heimgartner, ‘Timothy I’, 515; Bertaina, Christian and Muslim Dialogues, 145–7). To scholars of Christian–Muslim relations, his most important work is ‘Letter 59’, or the Disputation. Originally written in Syriac between 782 and 783, the letter is an account of a conversation that allegedly took place in Arabic over two days between Timothy and the ‘Abbāsid Caliph al-Mahdī (r. 775–785). After their discussion, Timothy wrote down a record of the encounter and sent it as a letter to a friend. The account represents Timothy’s memory of the event and is presented as a question-and-answer dialogue. According to the record, al-Mahdī posed theological questions to Timothy, at times offering his own perspective. Their conversation covered topics related to Christology, the Trinity, the role of Muhammad with respect to Islam and Christianity, and other matters such as religious practices (Heimgartner, ‘Letter 59’).

Authentic dis cussions like these were not uncommon and a genre of literature arose based on them, what Sidney Griffith calls ‘the monk in the emir’s majlis’ (Griffith, ‘Monk in the Emir’s Majlis’, 54, 60). Texts in this genre feature a monk or ecclesiastic in the presence of Muslim authorities where they are asked to defend Christian faith and practice. More importantly, the report is especially similar to other Syriac disputational texts, such as The Disputation between a Muslim and a Monk from Bēt Hālē, which very likely comes from sometime in the 720s (Roggema, ‘Disputation’). Their similarities suggest that authors drew from a common Syriac tradition of thinking and talking about Christian faith in the context of Islam (Penn, Envisioning Islam). The caliph began the exchange with the question put rather matter-of-factly: ‘What do you say about Muhammad? (Mingana, ‘Timothy’s Apology’, 61). But Timothy’s reply is unique because it is both eloquent and provocative. In turn, it is oft-quoted in literature devoted to Christian– Muslim relations.

1. He answered the caliph: Muhammad is worthy of all praise, by all reasonable people … He walked in the path of the prophets, and trod in the track of the lovers of God. All prophets taught doctrine of one God, and since Muhammad taught the doctrine of the unity of God, he walked, therefore, in the path of the prophets. Further, all the prophets drove men away from bad works, and brought them nearer to good works, and since Muhammad drove his people away from the bad works and brought them nearer to the good ones, he walked, therefore, in the path of the prophets. Again, all the prophets separated men from idolatry and polytheism, and attached them to God and to His cult, and since Muhammad separated his people from idolatry and polytheism, and attached them to the cult and the knowledge of one God, beside whom there is no other God, it is obvious that he walked in the path of the prophets. Finally, Muhammad taught about God, His Word and His Spirit … Muhammad walked, therefore, in the path of all the prophets … Who will not praise … the one whom God has praised, and will not weave a crown of glory and majesty to the one whom God has glorified and exalted? These and similar things I and all God-lovers utter about Muhammad (Mingana, ‘Timothy’s Apology’, 61–2). Samir Khalil Samir points out that, in a short Arabic recension of the debate text, Timothy warned ‘against accepting the prophets and christs who may come after his coming’. Samir suggests that Timothy ‘applies this warning to Muhammad, who cannot therefore be a prophet, even though he claims to be’, but in context this seems to be an argument meant to bracket off Christ’s identity from those who are meant to point to him. In any case, this passage does not appear in the oldest textual record of the debate and is not a part of the discussion in which al-Mahdī pointedly asked Timothy what he thought about Muhammad.

Is Timothy’s answer only an evasive, diplomatic response?

Madigan and Marshall also add that the seeming elusiveness of Timothy’s response was calculated in order to avoid theological stumbling. ‘To say “Muhammad is a prophet”’, Madigan proposes, ‘is in effect to pronounce the second part of the shahāda, the Muslim profession of faith’. Instead, Timothy only suggested that Muhammad behaved like a prophet, a distinction I shall return to below, to stop short of declaring himself a Muslim (Madigan, ‘Jesus and Muhammad’, 92). Similarly, David Bertaina explains that if ‘Timothy declared [Muhammad] a prophet, he would become a Muslim, but if he denied his prophethood, he could be charged with blasphemy’. So, in Bertaina’s view, Timothy allowed that Muhammad did some things that were like real prophets, ‘but he does not intend this to mean that Muhammad was a prophet’ (Bertaina, Christian and Muslim Dialogues, 153). There is a pragmatism in this assessment that is difficult to discard. Surely Timothy would have felt compelled on some level to measure his responses since he was a subject in the presence of a sovereign. And he certainly would have advocated the same for anyone reading the account of his debate. As I have mentioned, the question of how Christians ought to think about Muhammad was one of the most commonly dis cussed topics in the history of Christian–Muslim relations. Indeed, it should be con sidered one of the topoi of Muslim–Christian disputational literature. The way Christians might offer a respectful assessment of Muhammad without fully affirming his prophethood was even a topic of Mālikī jurisprudence (Sahner, Christian Martyrs, 120–5; Tieszen, Christian Encounter, 97). And there are examples in which Christians were indicted for insulting Muhammad and subsequently sentenced to death.

Even when it came to his answer concerning the Prophet Muhammad, al- Mahdī found it affirming enough to suggest that Timothy may as well convert to Islam. ‘You should, therefore, accept the words of the Prophet’, the Caliph reasoned. Timothy demurred and argued that everything he said about Muhammad pointed him not to Islam, but to Christ and a triune God (Mingana, ‘Timothy’s Apology’, 62).

Is Timothy’s apparent praise of the Prophet tempered?

Timothy affirmed some aspect of Muhammad’s prophethood but seek to temper that affirmation. For example, David Thomas considers Timothy’s response ‘diplomatic language’ (Thomas, ‘Cultural and Religious Supremacy’, 302), but quickly moves beyond this description to look at what might lie beneath his assessment. In doing so, Thomas focuses on how Timothy high lights the things Muhammad did that ‘resemble[d] the ancient prophets’. In short, like the prophets before him, Muhammad turned his listeners away from idolatry and toward worship of the one God. Most importantly for Timothy, according to Thomas’s interpretation, Muhammad’s prophetic role, like that of those who went before him, pre pared the way for Christ. While anachronistic, the theological function of Muhammad was to prepare his listeners for a turn from idolatry to a Triune God. In Thomas’s view, Timothy had Muhammad do in his context what the ancient prophets did in theirs (Tieszen, ‘“Can You Find Anything”, 132–6, and idem, Christian Encounter, 38–41). Tempering Muhammad’s prophethood in this way allowed Timothy to speak admiringly and respectfully of him because he functioned within Christianity’s economy of salvation.

Another common tempering of Timothy’s comments about Muhammad is to grant that he went a certain way toward affirming Muhammad as a prophet. But Timothy stopped short because to say that Muhammad behaved like a prophet is not the same as saying that he was a prophet. Put another way, Muhammad may have played the part of a prophet – he acted like one – but Timothy was not saying he actually was one (Madigan, ‘Jesus and Muhammad’, 92; Marshall, ‘Muhammad’, 163; Thomas, ‘Cultural and Religious Supremacy’, 303; Tieszen, ‘“Can You Find Anything”’, 135; Tieszen, Christian Encounter, 41; Samir, ‘Prophet Muh .ammad’, 96; Bertaina, Christian and Muslim Dialogues, 153; Bennett, ‘Christian Perceptions’, 163; Denari Duffner, ‘Muh .ammad’s Character’, 57–8). This is the main argument of Martin Heimgartner, who concludes that, for Timothy, Muhammad was not a prophet, but a teacher used by God for the purposes of his salvation history. Muhammad had prophet-like qualities and imitated actual pro phets in the things he said and did. Ultimately, however, God’s purpose was for him to be a judgement for wayward Christians and a logos spermatikos, borrowing Justin Martyr’s (d. c. 165) concept, for the Arabs (Heimgartner, ‘Die disputatio’, 46–7). Muhammad is affirmed as a prophet but only when his actions or proclamations supported Christianity. For Samir Khalil Samir, Timothy seems to cite examples from Muhammad’s life when they reflect the messages of other prophets, but ‘not quoting others when he thinks they are not similar’ (Samir, ‘Prophet Muhammad’, 96). Harley Talman suggests that ‘Timothy cautiously affirmed Muhammad as a prophet’ when his message did not contradict ‘a trinitarian under standing of God’ (Talman, ‘Is Muhammad Also among the Prophets?’, 183).

Talman’s suggestion follows C. John Block who writes that ‘Timothy cautiously concedes the prophethood of Muhammad … and founds his con cession on an understanding of trinitarian monotheism’. In other words, Muhammad can be understood as a prophet but only based on ‘the contingency that [Timothy’s] recognition … be attached to his trinitarian interpretation of the Qur’ān’ (Block, Qur’an, 134–5, 147–9 n. 34).

A reappraisal

To recover this understanding, it may help to recall first how Timothy’s words reflect similar comments in the Hebrew Bible, especially those pertaining to Hebrew prophets and exemplary figures. In Deuteronomy 5:33, for example, Moses commanded the Israelites to ‘walk in all the way which the Lord your God has commanded you’. Similarly, God appeared to King Solomon in a dream and promised him an enduring kingdom if he ‘walk[ed] before me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart’ (1 Kings 9:4). Micah prophesied, ‘Though all the peoples walk each in the name of his god, as for us, we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever’ (Micah 4:5). This notion of walking is carried forward to the Christian New Testament, where John reminded his readers that ‘the one who says he abides in [Christ] ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked’ (1 John 2:6). Similarly, Paul exhorted his readers in Galatia to ‘walk by the Spirit’ (Galatians 5:16), a proposition in which Paul imagined believers would not merely act like the Spirit but embody the Spirit who was already present among them by entering into the Spirit’s reality (Matera, Galatians, 198–212; Denari Duffner, ‘Muh .ammad’s Character’, 167).

Jacob of Serugh (d. 521) employed figural language in his ‘Homily on Habib’, where he described Habib’s martyrdom as a ‘pathway of death’. In typical hagiographical language the martyr ‘rejoiced that in the path of [Christ’s] sufferings he had begun to walk’ (Jacob of Serugh, ‘Homily’, 711). Similarly, in a homily devoted to the prophet Elijah, Jacob wrote, ‘Our Lord did not walk in the footsteps of his prophets’. In other words, Christ did not do what the prophets did; instead, in a typological reversal of chronology, the ancient prophets walked like him and, in so doing, pointed towards his life and work. Followers walk in the path of the one to whom their lives point; they depict in their footsteps the origins of their path. As Jacob put it, ‘they gazed upon him and depicted his types through their deeds’. Further, in his articulation of the way in which the incarnate Christ became a man, Jacob described the divine, self-emptying act as ‘a path that he had begun to walk’ (Joseph, ‘Theology of Baptism’, 20). Similar references can be found in Narsai (d. c. 502), a theologian contemporary to Jacob. In his ‘Homily on Job’, Narsai framed Job as the ideal ascetic, a monastic prototype that subsequent ascetics imitated. According to Narsai, God ‘made him a path so that [followers] might journey [upon] a man in the example of his labors’ (Potter, ‘Narsai’s Homily on Job’, 29).

This iconographic way of thinking moves beyond the poetics of figurative language. For in Syriac thought, as in broader iconophilic Orthodox theology (Tieszen, Cross Veneration, 11; idem, ‘Discussing Religious Prac tices’, 496–7; Teule, ‘Isho‘yahb bar Malkon’s Treatise’, 168–9. Cf. Landron, Chrétiens et musulmans, 238–9), the distinction between image, or symbol, and referent, or prototype, was very thin. For example, according to the Chalcedonian Theodore the Studite (d. 826), ‘The prototype and the image have their being, as it were, in each other’ (Theodore the Studite, On the Holy Icons, 110). The East Syrian Bishop Isaac of Ninevah (d. c. 700) wrote that looking upon the cross of Christ was to ‘contemplat[e] the face of Christ’ and to be ‘brought close to the body of Christ’. To walk like a monk, like Job, like a prophet was not merely to mimic them; it was to be them. The same conclusion can even be drawn in reference to Christ. To walk like Christ was to participate in the fullness of his reality and embody his presence. To walk like Christ was to be in union with him.

1. Conclusion
2. So, what did Timothy mean when he told al-Mahdī that Muhammad ‘walked in the path of the prophets and trod in the track of the lovers of God’? To begin with, his response, and particularly his use of ‘walk’, surely drew upon the biblical and liturgical language with which he was fluent, having learned and used it from his school days. In that language, to walk a path was to share in the movement of a prototype who walked it f irst. And, by Timothy’s account, Muhammad shared in the work of what the prophets did before him. He walked the walk that prophets walked. He stepped in time with the prophets before him. He harmonized with what the previous prophets proclaimed. In this activity, Muhammad loved God and drew others along the path of loving God. According to Timothy, Muhammad was not simply impersonating a real prophet because, in Timothy’s worldview, the potential distinction between acting like a prophet and being a prophet disappeared. To walk the path of a prophet and a lover of God was to be a prophet and a lover of God. Was Muhammad a prophet? Timothy said yes. Yet, Timothy did not profess, in part, the shahāda. He rather gave this affirmation a Christian frame so that, in looking through it, one should see Christ. For in Timothy’s mind, Muhammad had not brought a universal, corrective revelation. Instead, he offered to his community and those who wished to follow along, what the previous prophets had offered to their communities. Thus, in Timothy’s worldview, all these messages led to Christ and a Triune God.