Article

1. The Tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwa of the chief qāḍī of Rayy ʿAbd al-Jab bār al-Hamadhānī (d. 1024 or 1025) contains a lengthy digression asserting early Christianity’s gradual corruption by the pagan Romans. One of the Muʿtazilī the ologian’s most striking claims regards the origin of Christmas, which he argues derives from a pagan holiday of the “Romans and Greeks” called the Nativity of Time. Previous scholarship has attempted to identify this holiday as a festival known from the ancient Graeco-Roman Mediterranean world. However, ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s construction of “Roman and Greek” paganism is highly indebted to Arabic reports on the Ṣābians of Ḥarrān, whom he mentions before and after his Christmas account. In turn, this article collects references in roughly contempo rary Arabic sources to a pagan Aramaean holiday called variously the Festival of the Nativity or the Festival of the Nativity of Time. The article argues that ʿAbd al-Jabbār in fact refers to this holiday, having learned of it from a report on Ḥar rānian religion. To conclude, the article situates the Christmas account within ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s broader comparative religious project and briefly treats its influ ence upon Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328).
2. Introduction
3. Besides his monumental catalog of Muʿtazilī doctrine, the chief qāḍī of Rayy ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī (d. 1024 or 1025) is best known for a remarkable narra tive outlining Christianity’s gradual corruption at the hands of the Romans. The narrative – which Gabriel Said Reynolds has labeled the Critique of Christian Origins – is in fact a long digression embedded in the Iranian theologian’s Kitāb tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwa, written in 995. On the dating and context of the Tathbīt, see Reynolds 2004, 58‒63. In keeping with the Tathbīt’s broader purpose, the Critique aims to prove that the prophet Muḥammad possessed miraculous knowledge of Christian doctrine, a sign of his prophethood. To achieve this goal, however, ʿAbd al-Jabbār believes he must reveal at length the scandalous truth about Christian history. Far from being the religion instituted by the prophet Christ, Christianity is little more than Roman polytheism in disguise. Prior Muslim apologists had been content to demonstrate the illogic of Christian doctrine, an abstract approach which the Muʿtazilī theologian had himself adopted years earlier in his Kitāb al-mughnī.2 As a detailed historical exposé of Christian corruption, the Critique is unparalleled in previous Muslim apologetic (Reynolds 2004, 163‒174 and Anthony 2009), a fact of which ʿAbd al-Jabbār is himself well aware (ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Tathbīt (2010), 161). One of ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s most striking claims regards the holiday of Christmas. According to the qāḍī, the celebration of the Nativity of Christ began as a pagan winter solstice holiday called the Nativity of Time. Claims about Christmas’s association with various pagan, often Grae co-Roman festivals are as old as the holiday itself, and in the modern period have been staples of mainstream European scholarship, fundamentalist Christian self-critique, and anti-Christian polemic alike (Roll 1995, 127‒164; Wallraff 2001, 174‒195; Hijmans 2003; Förster 2007 and Hijmans 2011).

Since ʿAbd al-Jabbār himself attributes his Nativity of Time to the “Romans and the Greeks” (al-rūm wa-l-yūnān), earlier scholars have attempted to iden tify it as a festival known from Graeco-Roman antiquity — the Saturnalia, the natalis invicti, or a festival of the god Aiōn. However, I will argue that these iden tifications are incorrect. It has gone unnoticed that the Critique’s construction of Graeco-Roman paganism is highly indebted to Arabic reports on the Ṣābians of Ḥarrān. In turn, a number of Arabic sources establish that the Nativity of Time was a late ancient Aramaean winter solstice festival heralding the start of the New Year and celebrated — perhaps into the Islamic period — at Ḥarrān and else where. I suggest that ʿAbd al-Jabbār learned of this winter solstice festival from a Mu‘tazilī heresiological report on the Ḥarrānian Ṣābians, perhaps a chapter in the lost Kitāb al-ārā’ wa-l-diyānāt (Views and Confessions) of the Shī‘ī scholar and Muʿtazilī ‘fellow traveler’ al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī. If such is indeed his source, then the connection between the Nativity of Time and Christmas is likely ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s own and anticipates, mutatis mutandis, the scholarly efforts of Europeans to discover a pagan origin for Christmas by some seven centuries. ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s conflation of Ḥarrānian religion with the religions of the ancient Greeks, of the Romans, and of all would-be Christians is conditioned by a unique and hitherto unremarked aspect of the qāḍī’s thought. In a brief but significant passage in the Critique, ʿAbd al-Jabbār posits an atavistic proclivity among western peoples toward the worship of material things — one illustrated most prominently, he suggests, by the Romans and the Egyptians.

ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Christmas Account

Gabriel Said Reynolds and Samir Khalil Samir divide ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Cri tique into three parts based on content: a first part which serves as an introduc tion, a second part concerning Christian doctrine and its corruption, and third part, by far the longest, concerning Christian practice and the historical process of its falsification (ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Tathbīt (2010), 1‒29, 30‒85, and 86‒179). Abd al-Jabbār’s account of Christmas’s pagan origin occurs in this third part, and in a particularly marked location. In this third section of the Critique, ʿAbd al-Jabbār has given an account of Christians’ falsification of the Bible and has followed up this narrative with an account of the apostle Paul’s and the Roman emperor Constantine’s further corruption of Christian practice (ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Tathbīt (2010), 92‒98, 98‒105, 106‒112). The account of Christmas occurs precisely at the end of the Constantine narrative and effectively introduces the text’s next section, a series of innovations in Christian practice which we are expected to believe occurred shortly after Constantine’s reign (ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Tathbīt (2010), 111‒112).

1. The account itself explicitly describes Christmas as a prominent Christian festival. In full, it runs as follows: The Romans and the Greeks had a festival (ʿīd) which they called the Nativity of Time (mīlād al-zamān). It was at the return of sunlight in Kānūn. They made it the Nativity of Christ (mīlād al-masīḥ), adding and subtracting [things from it]. This is a great festival for them, which the Christians celebrate and call the Nativity (al-mīlād) [i.  e. Christmas] and the Eve of the Nativity (laylat al-mīlād) [i.  e. Christmas Eve]. This is the cause (sabab) and basis (aṣl) of it. The Christians in the time of Christ and of his companions after him did not know this holiday and did not celebrate it (ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Tathbīt (2010), 112 = (1966), 164 = Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi MS Šehit Ali Paşa 1575 fols. 78a4‒8).
2. The basic structure and import of the narrative is simple: latter-day Roman Chris tians took a pagan institution, made various alterations to it, and renamed it to associate it with Christ. The Christmas account serves as a template for the topics that follow, namely the heathenish practices that lie behind Christian fasts, incense and icons.11 With little variation, ʿAbd al-Jabbār repeats this pattern in these following accounts: the phrase zādū wa-naqqaṣū (“they added and sub tracted”) even recurs nearly verbatim in his account of Christian fasts.12 The theologian correctly deploys Christian terminology regarding his holiday. As a qāḍī in Rayy, ʿAbd al-Jabbār was in closest contact with East-Syrian Christians (i.  e., ‘Nestorians’),13 who formed the Christian majority there, and the internal evidence of the Critique suggests he used written East-Syrian sources as well as oral reportage from Christian or formerly Christian informants.
3. Is the Nativity of Time a Festival of the Ancient Graeco-Roman Mediterranean?
4. Abd al-Jabbār’s Christmas account explicitly attributes the Nativity of Time to the ancient Greeks (al-yūnān) and to the Romans (al-rūm). In turn, scholars have twice attempted to identify the Nativity of Time as a festival known from the ancient Graeco-Roman Mediterranean world. However, neither attempt at identification has explained how knowledge of the Graeco-Roman festival might have reached ʿAbd al-Jabbār in Būyid-era Iran via East-Syrian Christians. Syriac literature, accessed indirectly via written or oral reportage, would necessarily have served as the qāḍī’s intermediary in all matters concerning Graeco-Roman antiquity. Reynolds and Samir identify the Nativity of Time as the Roman Saturnalia, a week of merrymaking and social topsy-turvy starting December 17 and hence coinciding with the winter solstice (Reynolds/Samir 2010, 112 n. 55). The literary Greek name for the Saturnalia was ta Kronia (τὰ Κρόνια), after Kronos (Κρόνος), the Greek name for the festi val’s presiding Roman deity, Saturn. It is conceivable that a Syriac source’s con flation, whether deliberate or confused, between Kronos and the Greek word for ‘time’, khronos (χρόνος), might lie behind ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Nativity of Time (von Gutschmid 1861, 61‒62; López-Ruiz 2010, 151‒170). Yet, in the Roman east, the Saturnalia was a marginal festival celebrated mainly by soldiers (Graf, F. 2015, 66‒68, 76‒77, 87‒89). By the sixth century, it was nothing more than a relic of the western Roman past, a curiosity cited by a learned Constantinopolitan author (John Lydus, De mensibus (1967 [1898]), 4.158). There is no evidence that Syriac-using Christians further east knew or cared about the Saturnalia,22 or even that the deliberate Kronos-khronos conflation attested in classical sources was meaningful or popular in Syriac literature (Brafman 1985, 115 and 165, and see generally Takahashi 2014).

1. Some scholars suggested ʿAbd al-Jabbār was referring to:
   • A festival of Aiōn celebrated on January 6th, mentioned by Epiphanius
   • A generic pagan solar festival on December 25th, mentioned by later Christian authors
   However:
   • The Aiōn festival was likely local and not widely known
   • Epiphanius’ work mentioning it wasn’t translated into Syriac
   • Later Greek authors updated the account to fit with the December 25th date, omitting Aiōn
   These Roman and Greek festivals are unlikely to be what ʿAbd al-Jabbār was referring to. ʿAbd al-Jabbār might have been referring to a festival from a different cultural group, despite his attribution to “Romans and Greeks.”

1. Ḥarrānian Ṣābian Religion as the Basis of the Critique’s Construction of Ancient Graeco-Roman Paganism
2. • ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s view of Greek and Roman religion is heavily influenced by Arabic reports on the Ṣābians of Ḥarrān.
   For medieval Muslim intellectuals:
   • Ancient Greeks (al-yūnān) were seen as a vanished nation.
   • Romans (al-rūm) referred to both pre-Christian Romans and contemporary Byzantines.
   • ʿAbd al-Jabbār argues that Christian Byzantine practices are a continuation of pre-Christian Roman paganism.
   • He views Graeco-Roman religion as primarily star worship mixed with idolatry.
   • ʿAbd al-Jabbār associates the Romans not only with ancient Greeks but also with the Ṣābians.
   • The term ‘Ṣābian’ originally appeared in the Qurʾān but later became associated with polytheists in Ḥarrān.
   • ʿAbd al-Jabbār specifically refers to the Ḥarrānian Ṣābians, who he believes share religious practices with Greeks and Romans.
   • Many of ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s descriptions of “Roman and Ṣābian” practices have parallels in Arabic reports about Ḥarrānian Ṣābians.
   • ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s account of the “Nativity of Time” festival might also be based on Ḥarrānian Ṣābian practices, rather than solely on Graeco-Roman sources as previously thought.
3. Arabic Sources on the Festival of the Nativity of Time and Its Connection with Ḥarrān
4. • The festival was called the “Festival of the Nativity” (ʿīd al-mīlād) or the “Festival of the Nativity of Time” (ʿīd mīlād al-zamān).
   • ʿAbd al-Jabbār, a Muslim scholar, mentions this festival in his work, connecting it to Christian Christmas celebrations.
   • Various Arabic sources, including Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Bīrūnī, and the Kitāb al-filāḥa al-nabaṭiyya (Aramaean Agriculture), provide information about this festival.
   • For the Ḥarrānians, this festival was connected to their New Year celebrations, though there are conflicting reports about whether their New Year was in winter or spring.
   • The Kasdānī Aramaeans celebrated the “Nativity of Time” on December 24th, describing it as a period of seasonal renewal associated with the Sun deity.
   • The festival involved ritual feasting and was believed to influence one’s fate in the coming season.
   • This festival once served as a New Year celebration for some Mesopotamian groups, competing with the traditional spring equinox New Year.
   • The relationship between these pagan celebrations and the Christian Christmas is complex and not fully understood. It’s possible that the Christian holiday influenced the pagan celebrations, rather than vice versa.
   • ʿAbd al-Jabbār likely learned about this festival from a source reporting on Ḥarrānian religion, rather than directly from the Aramaean Agriculture.
5. Excursus: Why Does ʿAbd al-Jabbār Attribute the Nativity of Time to “Romans and Greeks” Rather Than to “Romans and Ṣābians”?
   • ʿAbd al-Jabbār and other medieval Arabic authors considered Ḥarrānian religion to be identical with that of ancient Greeks.
   • The winter solstice festival and New Year’s Day starting in January might have reminded ʿAbd al-Jabbār of the Roman (Julian) solar calendar.
   • Muslim authors were aware that the old Roman New Year began on January 1st (Kānūn II).
   • The Kalends of January, an ancient Roman holiday marking the New Year, was known to ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s contemporaries and was described as the New Year’s Day of both Romans and Greeks in some sources.
   • Al-Bīrūnī’s report compares the Ḥarrānian New Year’s Day to the Byzantine Kalends.
   • The Ḥarrānian Festival of the Nativity may have been seen as a prelude to their New Year, similar to how Christmas related to the Kalends.
   • Ḥarrānian intellectuals in Baghdad might have viewed their Festival of the Nativity as connected to the Julian calendar and thus as a Graeco-Roman import.
   • A passage from al-Bīrūnī’s Āthār, based on work by the Ḥarrānian scientist Sinān ibn Thābit, mentions a “Great Nativity” on December 17th, which might have influenced this perception.
   • These factors may have led ʿAbd al-Jabbār or his source to view the Nativity of Time as an originally Greek and Roman festival, making it easier to associate with Christmas in a narrative of Byzantine Christian corruption.

1. ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Source for Information Concerning the Nativity of Time Festival
   • It’s disputed whether ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s source directly associated the Ḥarrānian “Nativity of Time” with Christmas, or if this connection was ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s own contribution.
   • It’s considered unlikely that ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s source directly linked the two festivals, based on available evidence.
   • The possibility of a lost Ḥarrānian anti-Christian polemic as a source is mentioned but considered unlikely due to lack of substantial evidence.
   • Syriac Christian sources are considered, but they don’t provide specific information about the “Nativity of Time” festival.
   • ʿAbd al-Jabbār likely learned about the “Nativity of Time” from a report on the Ḥarrānian holy year, possibly from Muʿtazilī heresiographical literature.
   • A likely candidate for ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s source is identified as al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī’s lost work “Kitāb al-ārāʾ wa-l-diyānāt,” which ʿAbd al-Jabbār had previously used and commented on.
   • The connection between Christian and Ḥarrānian practices was likely ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s own contribution, as there’s little evidence of such detailed comparative religious analysis in his potential sources.
   • Brief, isolated parallels in 10th-century Arabic literature are mentioned, but they don’t match the scale and scope of ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s work.
   • Lacking concrete evidence to the contrary, we should consider ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s historical approach to Christianity as original, as he claimed.