The Death of a Prophet. Stephen J. Shoemaker
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them whose name was Muhammad. They also called this man a prophet, because he turned them away from cults of every sort and taught them that there is one God, the maker of creation. And he established laws for them, because they were especially devoted to the worship of demons, the veneration of idols, and especially the veneration of trees. And because he had shown them the one God, and they had defeated the Romans in battle under his leadership [
The entry for this year concludes with some brief polemical remarks accusing the Arabs of being “an especially greedy and carnal people,” who follow only such laws as suit their desires.111
Excepting these final remarks, the Zuqnin Chronicle’s account of the rise of Islam is relatively free from polemic: it does not serve any obvious apologetic agenda and is not linked with any sort of totalizing explanation. With regard to Abū Bakr, the chronicle notes only his death and the length of his rule (five years), without any indication of his involvement in the conquest of the Near East. The conquests are not mentioned again until the second year of ʿUmar’s reign, when “the Roman Emperor Heraclius went down to Edessa, and the battle of Gabitha took place, and the Persians were defeated and they left Mesopotamia.” Following this is a notice that four years later the Arabs crossed into northern Mesopotamia and defeated the Romans there.112 The chronology is in fact rather chaotic here as elsewhere in the chronicle, but its identification of Muhammad as alive and leading the Muslims during the conquest of Palestine is unmistakable.
A Report from the Continuatio of Abū l-Fatḥ’s Samaritan Chronicle (seventh century?)
Among the sources signaled by Crone and Cook as witnessing to Muhammad’s leadership of the assault on Palestine is the Samaritan Chronicle compiled by Abū l-Fatḥ al-Sāmirī al-Danafī at only the rather late date of 1355.113 Yet despite the comparative youth of this collection, it is widely acknowledged that Abū l-Fatḥ’s chronicle assembles much earlier material from a variety of older sources, several of which Abū l-Fatḥ identifies at the beginning of his composition.114 Commissioned by the Samaritan high priest, the chronicle of Abū l-Fatḥ spans the period from Adam through the appearance of Muhammad, and it is generally regarded as one of the most important sources for the history of the Samaritan people. Although it was compiled only relatively recently, this chronicle is broadly recognized as preserving a great deal of much older material.115 Abū l-Fatḥ’s original composition concluded with Muhammad’s appearance, drawing to a close with a Samaritan version of the Baḥīrā story, an Islamic legend according to which a Christian monk named Baḥīrā met the young Muhammad and identified him as a prophet on the basis of a distinctive birthmark on his back. In Abū l-Fatḥ’s version, three astrologers, a Jew, a Christian, and a Samaritan, discerned Muhammad’s appearance from the stars, and traveling together to his hometown, they each spoke with the young man, but it was (of course) the Samaritan who identified the sign on his back.116 Immediately thereafter, Abū l-Fatḥ’s chronicle appends a list of Samaritan high priests up until the appearance of Muhammad, concluding with the date at which the chronicle was completed.117 Nevertheless, several of the most important manuscripts continue beyond this point, extending the narrative either to the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd (786–809) or, in one manuscript, until the time of the caliph al-Rāḍī (934–40). There is a clear consensus that Abū l-Fatḥ’s chronicle came to a close with Muhammad’s discovery by the three astrologers,118 and thus the account of the Islamic conquests often preserved in this Samaritan chronicle was not originally part of Abū l-Fatḥ’s late medieval compilation. Rather, these reports belong to another anonymous Samaritan chronicle, known as the Continuatio, that has been appended to Abū l-Fatḥ’s composition to extend its scope into the early Islamic period.
This Continuatio has recently been translated and subject to careful historical analysis by Milka Levy-Rubin, who determines that despite its distinction from Abū l-Fatḥ’s original compilation, the Continuatio is in fact a particularly important source for the history of Palestine in the early Muslim period.119 Levy-Rubin translates the most complete version of the Continuatio, known from only a single manuscript, which ends with the rule of al-Rāḍī, and her arguments for the value of this unique witness are convincing. The manuscript is reproduced following the translation, in lieu of an edition. Nevertheless, in the section covering the period between the Islamic conquests and the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd, for which additional witnesses exist, Levy-Rubin has made comparative use of the other relevant manuscripts, as reflected in her extensive critical annotations. Even though almost nothing is known regarding the provenance or date of this nameless chronicle, Levy-Rubin’s careful analysis has demonstrated the exceptional value of its witness to the history of early medieval Palestine.
The Continuatio opens with the events of the Islamic conquest of Palestine, and it names Muhammad as a key participant in the assault. Immediately after the “Baḥīrā” legend from Abū l-Fatḥ’s chronicle, the Continuatio describes the Arab invasion and its consequences for the Samaritans in some detail.
After this the Ishmaelites, Muḥammad and all his army, went forth to wage war against the Byzantines; they conquered the land and defeated the Byzantines and killed them as they fled before them. The imām120 in those days was ʿAqbūn ben Elʿazar, who lived in Bayt Ṣāma. When the Muslims attacked and the Byzantines fled, all of the Samaritans who lived along the coast fled with the Byzantines from the advancing Muslims, [thinking] that they would return. When the Samaritans began to leave with the Byzantines for Byzantium (Rūmīya), they came to the raʾīs ʿAqbūn ben Elʿazar, to Bayt Ṣāma, because he lived there, and said to him, “You are a trustworthy man, so we will deposit our possessions with you until we return,” thinking that they would be returning soon…. The people who deposited [their wealth] were the people of Caesarea, Arsūf, Maioumas, Jaffa, Lydda, Ascalon, Gaza, and all of the interior villages and those along the coast. And after this they left for Byzantium and remained there and have not returned to this day. The Muslims rose and entered the land of Canaan, and took control of it; they seized all the cities and inhabited them, and ruled over all the places until there was no place left which they had not taken over but Caesarea, which rebelled and did not submit to them because it was called the mother of cities and took precedence over them. [The Muslims] set up camp against it and besieged it for six years before they conquered it…. After they captured it, every place else stood in awe of them.121
As Levy-Rubin observes, this account has much to recommend it, and even at considerable historical distance from the events in question its verisimilitude is impressive.122 Excepting only the indication that Muhammad participated in the assault, which Levy-Rubin regards as an error adopted from the Syriac chronicle tradition,123 the details of this narrative comport well with the current understanding of how the conquest of Palestine unfolded. The Continuatio reports that while the Samaritans living on the coast felt threatened by the invaders and fled with the Byzantines, the inland areas were not as disrupted by the incursion: in fact, the region was sufficiently tranquil that the coastal Samaritans decided to entrust their belongings to the high priest living there. This description agrees with the apparent concentration of the Arab forces on the Byzantine cities along the coast, and the decision by many inhabitants to abandon their cities rather than offer resistance is consistent with the increasing recognition that the conquest of Palestine was largely a nondestructive affair.124 Both literary evidence and the archaeological record suggest a picture of the Arab takeover as a mostly peaceful transition: numerous recent excavations have revealed “no sign of any traumatic break or crisis in the seventh century” that would indicate a pitched struggle for control of the region.125 Moreover, the Continuatio’s indication that Caesarea in particular offered fierce resistance to the invaders is also confirmed by other sources, which describe the city’s capture only after a long and arduous siege, as reflected in the text.126
More importantly, as Levy-Rubin notes, the author of this account “seems to have been familiar with the layout of