2 The Iconoclastic Effect of the Qur'anic Perception of the Trinity
2
The Iconoclastic Effect of the Qur’anic Perception of the Trinity
IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, I presented the Qur’anic understanding of the Trinity, which includes Mary as a divine person within the Godhead. Several scholars have been studying the Qur’anic reference of Mary for decades by using different methods and ending with different conclusions. This chapter surveys these studies briefly, examines the historical and theological beliefs about the Theotokos icons in the history of Christianity, and finally moves to argue the effect of the Theotokos icon on the Qur’anic perception of the Trinity for the purpose of studying the possible reasons why Mary is divinized in the Qur’an.
SURVEY OF PREVIOUS RESEARCH
Previous studies suggest several reasons for the Qur’anic belief about the Trinity. For example, Abū Mūsa al-Ḥarīrī, a Christian Arab scholar, suggested that Mohammad learned about Christianity from Waraqa bin Nūfal, an Ebionite monk who followed the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Early Fathers dedicated the name Ebionite to a Christian Jewish group who used the Gospel of Matthew and considered Paul an apostate from the law. The Ebionites did not believe in the divinity of Christ but accepted Jesus as a mere man. Al-Ḥarīrī relied heavily on Islamic resources to learn about Waraqa. He reports that Waraqa was the only one who translated the Gospel of the Hebrews into Arabic because of his extensive knowledge of Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew. Many Islamic resources mention him copying the Gospel and translating it from Hebrew to Arabic.
According to al-Ḥarīrī, Waraqa was well educated and knowledgeable in Gnosticism. This reason pushed al-Ḥarīrī to jump to the conclusion that the Gospel of the Hebrews is the only Gospel that was known to Waraqa and it is the Gospel that he used to teach Mohammad. Al-Ḥarīrī states, “The Arabic Qur’an mentions one Gospel, which proves that ‘the Gospel of the Hebrews’ was the only one known, especially because we find a complete match in the information concerning doctrines, dogmas, forms of worship, and the religious calendar . . .” It is true that several similarities exist between the Ebionites’ belief about Jesus and the Qur’an’s teachings about Jesus; however, their beliefs are not identical. For instance, the Ebionites denied the virgin birth and believed that Jesus was the biological son of Joseph and Mary; whereas the Qur’an approves the virgin birth of Jesus. Al-Ḥarīrī’s study seems to rely heavily on Islamic resources without taking into consideration other historical factors, such as the beliefs of the specific Arab Christians in South Arabia that Mohammad encountered. Al-Ḥarīrī even jumps abruptly to the conclusion that Waraqa was the president of the church in Makkah during the life of Abdul Mutalib (Mohammad’s uncle) and for a long period of time during Mohammad’s life.
Other scholars think that the Qur’anic view of the Trinity was influenced by Christian sects/cults that exalted Mary far above her usual Christian status. William Montgomery Watt, Scottish Anglican Islamologist, suggests that Mohammad’s attack on the Trinity was not against an orthodox Christian formulation but rather against a heterodox community—people who believed in God and yet introduced false doctrines. He explains that the idea that Mary was part of the Trinity “may have come from an obscure set of Collyridians, heard of in Arabia more than two centuries before Muhammad.” Collyridians were a cultic group in Arabia, composed mainly of women who worshiped Mary the mother of Jesus. Epiphanius of Salamis writes in his Panarion about a group of women who came from Thrace to Arabia who seemed to adopt a particular form of devotion to Mary, offering her loaves of bread on appointed days (called in Greek Kollyris). Furthermore, Jamāl al-Dīn Qāsimī, a Syrian Muslim scholar, supports Watt’s idea and argues for the possibility that Surah 5:73 refers to the Collyridians as a Christian sect. He states, “Among the Christians there was a group (firqa) called ‘Collyridians’ who said that gods are three: the Father, the Son, and Mary.” Despite the claim “Arabia is the mother of heresies,” this view has no historical evidence in early Islamic and Christian literature. There is no evidence that Mohammad was in touch with the Collyridians, and Epiphanius’s polemic implies they were an obscure sect of no great importance.
As for the origin of the Quranic reference to Mary as one of three gods, Watt mentions another possible explanation by referring to the goddess connotations of Mary found in the relatively early Christian Apocrypha. There is evidence that before the fourth century, scribes in ancient Syria described the Holy Spirit not only as a female but also as a mother. Susan Ashbrook Harvey explains that the Syriac church emphasized the birth of Jesus, his baptism in the Jordan, and his descent to Sheol as imagery in relation to baptism, whereas the Greco-Latin churches highlighted the “resurrection, of baptism as a dying and rising, and the baptismal water as the grave, following on the Pauline teachings of Rom 6:4-6 especially.” Ashbrook Harvey continues, “In early Syriac tradition Baptism was above all a rebirth, following John 3:3-7, and the baptismal water was the ‘womb’ that bore true sons and daughters for the heavenly kingdom. Baptism became the ‘Mother of Christianity,’ as Mary has been the Mother of Christ.” It seems that cults understood the baptismal imagery in this way: as Mary gave birth to Jesus through her womb, Christ gave birth to Christians through the womb of the baptismal waters. Thus, womb imagery might have been used in Gnostic and apocryphal literature to identify Jesus’ mother with the Holy Spirit, possibly due to the feminine form of the word Spirit in Syriac. Ashbrook Harvey indicates that the shift to the masculine form of the word Spirit that occurred during the fifth century was to bring the Syriac churches into closer conformity with those of the Greco-Latin West.
Recent critical scholarship of the Qur’an as represented by the works of Sidney Griffith and Gabriel Reynolds displays a shift from the heretical Quranic explanation to the emphasis on the rhetorical language of the Qur’an. According to these scholars, the misunderstanding of the Trinity should not be understood as referring to heretical sects but rather “as a rhetorical device developed by the Qur’an to win over an argument in such a polemical environment.” For example, when Mohammad claimed that Christians said “God is Jesus, the son of Mary” or “God is the third of three,” he was not simply repeating these narratives, but he was using polemical statements to allude to, add to, and even correct them. Sidney Griffith states that “the Qur’an’s seeming misstatement, rhetorically speaking, should therefore not be thought to be a mistake, but rather a polemically inspired caricature, the purpose of which is to highlight in Islamic terms the absurdity, and therefore the wrongness, of the Christian belief, from an Islamic perspective.” Reynolds echoes Griffith, saying that
Christians refer to Christ as the son of God, and the Qur’an explicitly rejects this appellation (Q 9:30), yet it also insists (against the Jews) that Christ had no father at all (Q 3:59), and so it cannot refer to him as “Son of his father.” Thus, the Qur’an refers to Jesus as the son of his mother, and thereby encapsulates its argument against both Christians and Jews.
Given their knowledge of Arabic culture and the way Arabs argue, Griffith and Reynolds’s suggestion seems very reasonable; however, taking into consideration the types of Christianity available to Mohammad in Arabia and the context of his conversations with Christians might reveal a better understanding of his statements about Christianity. In my estimation, there is no problem with any of the above-mentioned approaches. They are all prospects that scholars should pursue, but my study seeks to propose different possibilities. According to my research, a different explanation may account for the Qur’anic misunderstanding that scholars have not presented yet.
THE THEOTOKOS ICON: A HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The Theotokos icon was common among Christians in the Levant, Egypt, and Ethiopia. The few icons that survived were dated between the fourth and seventh centuries, indicating that such icons were widely spread among Christians well before the rise of Islam. One example of these is a fourth-century image of Mary and Child seated on a throne, which was discovered in the city of al-Fayyum in Egypt and is now in the Staatliche Museum in Berlin. Another is a fifth- or sixth-century image of a venerated virgin and child appearing on a fragmentary papyrus leaf from the Alexandrian Chronicle in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. A sixth-century ampulla from Palestine, now residing at Monza in the Treasury of the Collegiale, depicts the mother Mary and baby Jesus sitting in the same posture. There is also a surviving seventh-century image of Mary holding her child in an apse in Saqqara in Egypt. Besides these, excavators found a sixth-century mural painting of Mary (though her face did not survive) in Kom el-Dikka, Alexandria. She was seated on a throne and accompanied by angels, and the Child is seated in a frontal position on her left knee. According to Thomas Mathews and Norman Muller, the image is an important testimony to the veneration of Marian images in early Byzantine and Egyptian churches. The icons and images mentioned here are few among many that survived.
In a study about the term Theotokos, J. A. McGuckin expresses his belief that “the word is an ancient Alexandrian theologoumenon that made its way by the third century to an international arena because of its use by leading Logos theologians in Egypt, Palestine, and Rome.” Building on McGuckin’s study, Mathews and Muller conclude that Marian icons started in Egypt with the goddess Isis, who had been called both the Mother of the God (because she was the mother of the divine Horus) and the Great Virgin (because she miraculously conceived her son after he had died). The historicity of this theory is beyond the scope of this study. Nonetheless, if Mathews and Muller’s conclusion is right, then it is reasonable to say that when the Roman Empire was following pagan religions, people made images and venerated their pagan gods. In the same manner, once the Roman Empire moved to Christianity, people began making and venerating Christian figurative art. Without conscious thought about their pagan origins, they began forming a new theology about the holy images.
In the wider Christian world, a large number of the sixth- and seventh-century churches included mosaics, an art form that displayed the brilliant work of the era. In a church in Thessaloniki, now transformed into a mosque, “the Ascension of Christ is portrayed on the vault of the cupola, while on the apse, the Virgin, seated on a gem-encrusted throne, bears the Baby Jesus in her arms.” A similar iconography occurs in a mosaic of Mary and Jesus in the chapel of San Zeno in Santa Prassede in Rome (AD 817–824). In conclusion, the Theotokos icons were widely spread among Christians in most churches in different styles, shapes, and sizes before the seventh century. Christians adorned, venerated, and used them in their worship.
THE THEOTOKOS TITLE: A THEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
The theological argument before the sixth century. The theological conversation about the Theotokos started during the Council of Ephesus in AD 431, when Cyril of Alexandria advocated for venerating Mary by giving her the title Theotokos (the one who conceived or gave birth to God). Cyril anathematized Nestorius, the patriarch of Constantinople, who advocated for the Christotokos (the one who gave birth to Christ). The council ended up voting in favor of Cyril and for use of the title Theotokos.
Cyril taught that the Word of God was conceived in Mary’s womb in order to sanctify humanity. The immortal God united himself to mortal human flesh (even in death) to accomplish the incorruptibility and imperishability of the flesh in his own body for the whole human race. By uniting himself to human death in Christ, God who is immortal overcame death and thus enabled flesh to be set beyond death and corruption. Sarah Jane Boss describes it well when she says that Jesus “took what was ours to be his very own so that we might have all that was his.” In order to accomplish this purpose, God used Mary to bring forth corporally God made one with flesh. Cyril states,
For this reason we also call her Mother of God, not as if the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh. For “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God,” and he is the Maker of the ages, coeternal with the Father, and Creator of all; but, as we have already said, since he united to himself hypostatically human nature from her womb, also he subjected himself to birth as man, not as needing necessarily in his own nature birth in time and in these last times of the world, but in order that he might bless the beginning of our existence, and that that which sent the earthly bodies of our whole race to death, might lose its power for the future by his being born of a woman in the flesh.
Cyril of Alexandria calls Mary the Mother of God not because he thought she was divine but because Jesus is God, and she played a role in the divine plan for saving humanity. To Cyril, refusing to call Mary the Mother of God equals denying Jesus’ divinity. Cyril sent letters of condemnation to Nestorius, stating that “if anyone refuses to confess that the Emmanuel is in truth God, and therefore that the holy virgin is Mother of God (θεοτόκος), for she gave birth after a fleshly manner to the Word of God made flesh; let him be anathema.”
It was in honor of the definition by the Council of Ephesus of Mary as Theotokos that Pope Sixtus III built the most important shrine to Mary in the West, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. The theological argument and the council of Ephesus helped to spread the icon of the Theotokos among churches in the West and the East after the sixth century, especially after Mary officially became known as the Mother of God.
The theological argument after the sixth century. After the council of Ephesus, the veneration of Mary started developing into different cults. According to Hans Belting, in the seventh century “a new and decisive phase of the Virgin’s cult began when the capital and the hard-pressed empire needed a support in the age of wars against the Avars and the Persians, and ultimately against Islam.” By AD 626, after the great siege of the city of Constantinople by the Avars and the Persians, Mary had emerged as the special protectress. People believed that her icon saved them from their enemies, which made her veneration even stronger.
According to Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon, the earliest images to acquire cult status were the acheiropoeta of images (made without hands). They are of two kinds: either they are images believed not to be made by human hands or they are the mechanical impressions of the divine face or the body—miraculous impressions of the celestials. Three acheiropoeta manifested during the second half of the sixth century:
The so-called mandylion of Edessa, an imprint of Christ’s face on a piece of linen, was a contact relic, the sanctity of which was multiplied by the miraculous portrait that immediately appeared on it. It is first attested c. 590 by Evagrios, and at about the same time we hear of two more acheiropoieta of Christ: one, in Memphis (Egypt), is mentioned by the so-called Piacenza pilgrim c. 570, the other in kamoulianai (Syria), is described in a Syriac epitome of a chronicle by Zachariah of Mitylene written by an anonymous monk in 569. Like relics, acheiropoieta had intercessory and salvatory power: they superseded the role of Roman urban palladia—statues that housed the soul of the city—and channeled divine force to Christian community. Evagrios credited the Edessa portrait with the salvation of that city, and, in 626 an acheiropoieton image of Christ (perhaps the Kamoulianai portrait) famously saved Constantinople from the Avars.
The fact that churches and individual people perceived this as a miracle played a great role in increasing veneration of images and leading to the formation of several cults. This concept persisted until the last quarter of the seventh century because it was believed that the holy images and relics had miraculous or intercessory powers.
In most pre-iconoclastic representations, Mary is depicted as holding Jesus, the Child, and presenting him to the world. She is not only venerated because of her role in the incarnation but also as an intercessor. Among the many examples of pre-iconoclastic imagery that have been given, Mary is also “identified by an inscription as HAΓIA MAPIA and is flanked by the archangels. A suggestion of her role as intercessor is made by the enthroned figure of Christ placed directly over her.” There is an icon by the south door of the church of Hagia Sofia in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) depicting the Virgin with Constantine and Justinian on either side of her. In her lap sits the Christ child. This mosaic has stood in its place for over one thousand years. While it is not known when it was created and concealed under the whitewash and plaster, the current image dates back to the tenth or eleventh century, witnessing the important role that medieval Christians gave to Mary.
By the seventh century, churches had begun incorporating Christian symbols in their designs (such as the shape of the cross and Christ’s image) because they resemble the physical likeness and the work of God in human form. Ernst Kitzinger reports that the cult of Christian images increased and intensified from the middle of the sixth century until the imposition of iconoclasm in AD 730. It is beyond the scope of this research to study the history of iconoclasm; however, it is important to mention that many Christians saw iconoclasm as a response to a strong and steady rise in the importance of sacred images from the sixth century onwards.
By contrast, Palestinian iconoclasm, according to Brubaker and Haldon, “was not consistently applied; and, in Palestine, it seems to have been a localized response rather than the realization of some anti-image edict by the ruling caliph.” Under the Umayyads in Damascus and during the period of Leo III’s rule in the Byzantine empire, five churches attest to active construction and a skilled artisanal workforce employed by Christians. People facing day-to-day consequences of Umayyad rule were in a different situation from people living under Byzantine rule. Iconoclasm in Palestine was neither inspired by Byzantine iconoclasm nor spurred by any official Islamic policy. The Byzantine iconoclasm was not accepted by Christian churches in the East after AD 754. It was condemned in AD 760, 764, and 767 by Eastern synods and patriarchs. The Byzantine iconoclasm did not affect the prevalence of the Theotokos as drastically as one might think. While the Western iconoclasts rejected the images of Christ, Mary, and the saints, the Eastern iconophiles acknowledged, defended, and even actively advanced the decoration of their churches with pictorial renderings of secular themes.
MOHAMMAD’S EXPERIENCE WITH THE CHRISTIANS DURING HIS LIFE
The Arabic appellation for Christians (masīḥīyūn) never appears in the Qur’an. The writer of the Qur’an used instead several other terms that we understand to refer to Christians. For instance, the most common appellation that Mohammad and Muslims deploy is Naṣārā. According to Griffith, “In the early Islamic period, Arabic-speaking Christians and Muslims alike regularly used the Qur’an’s term Naṣārā as the functional equivalent of the name ‘Christians’ (Χριστιανοι masīḥīyyūn) for the several ecclesial communities of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 11:26), who lived in the world of Islam.” Today, Arab Christians do not use this word to refer to their religion; however, many Muslims still use it to refer to Christians. It is also important to note that the English translation of Naṣārā always appeared as Christians in the Islamic scripture. Naṣārā, however, is not the only appellation that is used to refer to Christians. Labels such as “Scripture People” (ahl al-kitāb) and “Gospel People” (ahl al-injīl) have been used as well (Surah 5:47, 59, 65, 68, 77, 57:29).
The appellations above and the evidence of an exchange of information between Muslims and Christians suggest that Mohammad was in contact with Christians in different places and at different times throughout his life. According to Muhammad Hamidullah, Makkah was a developed city that contained people from different religions. While Medina was a less-developed city, compared to Makkah it was “a single house that encompasses people of diverse beliefs within its walls.” Islamic literature mentions several Jewish tribes such as Banī Quraẓa and Banī Nuḍair who lived in Medina, and it also affirms that Mohammad was in contact with Christians. Actually, Mohammad met with Christians in several places: in the Levant, Makkah, and Medina. Both Surah al-Nisā’ and Surah al-Mā’da are Madni Surahs (written in Medina) that include speeches related to Christians (Surah 4: 171; 5:78). This evidence indicates that Mohammad was in contact with Jews and Christians, and this contact was formative to Islamic identity.
In the Levant. Mohammad’s initial interaction with Christians possibly occurred early in his life when he traveled to the Levant with his uncle for trade. Most Syrian monasteries appear to have been situated near the major trade routes because these monks sought interaction with travelers. According to Islamic biographer Ibn Isḥāq, Mohammad traveled to Syria with his uncle on a merchant caravan. While they were near Buṣra in Syria, they met with monk Baḥīrā “who was well versed in the knowledge of Christians. A monk had always occupied that cell. There he gained his knowledge from a book that was in the cell so they allege, handed on from generation to generation.” Christian literature written between the sixth and the tenth centuries does not mention Baḥīrā nor the encounter between him and Mohammad. Richard Gottheil has translated Syriac and Arabic documents about the legend of Sergius Baḥīrā, who is believed to be the same monk that Mohammad met in Syria; however, he dates these documents to the late eleventh and probably early twelfth centuries. These documents seem to be written for polemic purposes, emphasizing that Baḥīrā was the original channel for Muhammad’s revelations. As Guillaume mentions in his introduction to the Life of Muhammad, it is hard to authenticate this story. The part that describes Baḥīrā owning an ancient book that was handed down from one generation to another does not give enough information regarding whether this book is an apocryphal book, such as the Gospel according to the Hebrews, one of the four Gospels, the Diatessaron, or another book. Despite the lack of detail, this story does offer a glimpse of Mohammad coming into contact with Christians of some sort—however, it is hard to know whether they were orthodox or heretical.
In Arabia. It is possible that the first thorough interaction between Mohammad and Christians took place in Arabia. Most Islamic scholars agree that Khadija, the first wife of Mohammad, was a Christian, and her cousin was a monk. Khadija was a rich merchant woman in Makkah who hired Mohammad to transport and sell her goods in Syria after she heard about his admirable character. After their marriage, Khadija arranged for Mohammad to meet with her cousin, monk Waraqa bin Nūfal, who was introduced in Islamic literature as a “blind, elderly Christian sage with profound knowledge of the Bible.” Like the story of monk Baḥīrā, the narrative of the life of Waraqa is equivocal. Some Islamic sources suggest that Waraqa died shortly after recognizing Mohammad as a prophet. Others suggest that Waraqa learned from those who followed the Torah and the Gospel, wrote the Gospel to the Hebrews, and helped Mohammad launch his new religion. A study written by Brian C. Bradford suggests that the Hebrew books Waraqa read “could have included groups who possessed a Hebrew Matthew, the Diatessaron, According to the Hebrews, or any of the other texts that have been shown to have Qur’anic parallels.” Finally, the above-mentioned study by al-Ḥarīrī affirms that Waraqa was not a Christian but an Ebionite monk who helped Mohammad to launch his new religion and that all the references to the word Naṣāra in the Qur’an were added later by ‘Uthmān. Regardless of the background of Waraqa (orthodox or nonorthodox), the salient point for our discussion is that Mohammad’s biography shows that he was in contact with Christians, that he probably met with them in their churches, and that Waraqa was one of them.
The second contact between Mohammad and Christians is well-documented in Islamic literature. While Christians were not numerous in Makkah, South Arabia was home to several well-organized Christian communities. Excavations in the city of Sana’a in Yemen revealed a big cathedral called Qalis church, which represents a strong Christian presence in South Arabia. Islamic sources tell the story of King Abraha al-Ashram, who built a great cathedral in Sana’a and called it Qalis. Ibn-al-Kalbī cites Abraha explaining to the king of Ethiopia after having completed the building of the church, “I have built to you a church / the like of which no one has ever built. I shall not let the Arabs alone until I divert their pilgrimage away from the house to which they go and turn its course to this church.” It seems that the purpose of Abraha was to create a turning point in the pilgrimage in Makkah to Sana’a by making a great cathedral that competes with Kacba, instituting a great center for Christianity in South Arabia. This story informs the reader that Christianity was well-established in the Arabian Peninsula before the birth of Mohammad.
In addition to Sana’a, a famous area in South Arabia called Najrān has surfaced in both Christian and Islamic hagiographies. Christianity was well-rooted for more than a century in this area before the birth of Mohammad. According to Ifran Shahid, “Najrān converted to Christianity in the first half of the fifth century by Ḥayyān, one of its merchants, who brought the Christian Gospel from Ḥīra before the birth of the Monophysite movement.” Philostorgius writes in his Church History about Theophilus, who was sent to the Ḥimyarite ruler Ta’ran Yuhan’im, who then converted to Christianity. As a result of his conversion, three churches were constructed, one in the capital city of Ẓafār, one in Aden, and one near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Moreover, The Najrānite Christian community was linked with Abyssinia (Ethiopia), which had strong political relations in Yemen in AD 525, a connection that subsequently strengthened the Christian life in Najrān. According to Islamic resources, Najrān used to have its own Kacba to compete with the one in Makkah.
The struggle between Christianity and Judaism before the rise of Islam reached its climax in the sixth century in Najrān. A major Ethiopian military intervention “brought about the downfall of the Ḥimyaritic kingdom of South Arabia and spread the Christian faith as well as the dominion of the Negus across the Red Sea.” Recently discovered Syriac manuscripts reveal several events of severe persecution that happened in the city of Najrān in AD 523 against the Christians, led by a pagan king who converted to Judaism. Thus, Najrān became the Arabian martyropolis, a place of pilgrimage for the Arabic Christian tribes in the Arabian Peninsula.
Several historians believe that Christians in Najrān were Monophysites. Monophysites believe that Jesus Christ only has one nature, the divine nature, and that his humanity was either dissolved in a sea of divinity or absorbed into the divine at the moment of incarnation. According to Shahid, “It was in the reign of Anastasius and through the vision of Philoxenus that Najran acquired its strong Monophysite character, which determined the confessional stance of South Arabia for a century till the rise of Islam.” If this claim is true, then it is reasonable to conclude that the Christians of Najrān—or the ones who were in contact with Mohammad, at least—were Monophysites. This piece of information should clue us in on why primary Christian terms such as Trinity, Father, and Holy Spirit were not mentioned in the Qur’an, and why Mary was understood to be included in the Trinity.
It seems that Monophysites had an opposite christological belief from the Muslims, who denied the divine nature of Jesus and emphasized his humanity, claiming that he was just a prophet. Monophysites, on the other hand, denied the human nature of Jesus after the incarnation and emphasized the divine nature. Their major concern when they shared their belief with others was the divine nature of Christ. The emphasis on Jesus’ divinity is obvious in the Syriac documents of the mass martyrdom of the Najranites. These documents include several stories recounting that many men and women were martyred because they refused to deny the divinity of Christ. The Jewish king killed the women’s husbands and gave the women another chance, saying:
You have seen with your very own eyes your husbands put to death because they refused to renounce Christ and the cross, and because they blasphemously claimed that Christ is God and son of Adonay. But do you have pity on yourselves now, and on your sons and your daughters: deny Christ and the cross, and become Jewish like us; then you shall live. Otherwise you will certainly be put to death.
The women were scared neither of death nor being burned alive. They replied, “Christ is God and Son of the Merciful One; we believe in him and we worship him; for his sake we will die. Far be it from us to deny him or to go on living after the deaths of our husbands. No, like them and alongside them we shall die for Christ’s sake.” As mentioned above, Christian terms such as Trinity, Father, and Holy Spirit are not mentioned in this story. These women acknowledged their belief in the Father by referring to him as the Merciful One and emphasized the divinity of Jesus by being willing to die for his sake. It is interesting to see the Najrānites willing to die for the sake of Jesus, not the Father or God. The prominence they gave to Jesus’ divinity in contrast to the Trinity might explain the Islamic denial of Jesus’ divinity and the omission of the Trinity in the Qur’an. Mohammad’s emphasis on God’s unity, solidarity, and singularity speaks directly against the Monophysite belief in Jesus being divine. Mohammad probably refused Monophysitism because it conveys double divinities.
The scholarship of C. Jonn Block renders this circumstance increasingly likely. He reports that a certain kind of Monophysitism was short-lived in the late sixth century, a variant of orthodox Monophysitism. He calls it “Philoponian Tritheism.” It was “dominant in South Arabia, in which Christians worshipped three distinct gods. No longer one nature and three persons, the Philoponians recognized doctrinally three distinct natures. The doctrine came from John Philoponus and was spread by the bishops Conon and Eugenius.” The theology of John Philoponus propagated three individual natures for the three persons of the Trinity and further denied any common substance between them. Philoponus states in a surviving fragment of his book On the Trinity:
They [divine persons] do not have equality of substance with respect to their properties, that is, in those things by which this one is Father, this one Son, and this one Holy Spirit. In accordance with these [distinctions], they are different in species and separate from one another. . . . It is the same with “animal,” which is generally said of all animals, though they vary by species. When “rational” or “irrational” is added to “animal,” then they are differentiated in species from one another: one animal is rational, another animal irrational. Therefore, when “Father” and “Son” and “Holy Spirit” are added to “divinity,” it makes God the Father not the same as God the Son and the divine Spirit. And so, each one of them is subsequently different from the other two.
It seems that Philoponian Tritheism acknowledges the existence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three individuals, and it does not accept the creedal position on the Trinity. If the people of Najrān were following this particular type of Monophysitism, then it makes sense that Mohammad understood trinitarianism as believing in three gods, as he expresses in the Qur’an (Surah 2:135; 3:67; 4:171).
Islamic resources record that the Christians of Najrān visited and communicated their belief to Mohammad on several occasions. This study will focus on two of them. The first group of Christians from Najrān visited the prophet when he was living in Makkah. They asked him questions about Islam, and at the end of the meeting, they listened to him reciting the Qur’an: “their eyes flowed with tears and they accepted God’s call, believed in him, and declared his truth.” It seems that this group returned to Najrān and reported what happened to their leaders, who in turn sent another larger and more religiously knowledgeable group to converse with Mohammad.
The second group of Najrānites visited Mohammad after he moved to Medina. This cohort of sixty included fourteen of their best men, their prince, their bishop, and their pontiff. Mohammad allowed them to pray in the mosque when their time of prayer came. After a long theological discussion, the Najrānites recognized Mohammad as a prophet, but they decided to hold to their religion. Al-Waḥidī details the conversation they had with Mohammad when he asked them to surrender to Allah. They said, “We have surrendered to Allah before you.” Mohammad replied, “You lie! Three things prevent you from surrendering to Allah: your worship of the cross, eating pork and your claim that Allah has a son.” They asked him back, “Then who is the father of Jesus?” Mohammad refused to give them an answer and asked to come back the next day. Al-Waḥidī mentions that Allah, on this occasion, revealed Surah 3:59 as an answer to the Najrānites. Allah said, “Surely the likeness of Isa is with Allah as the likeness of Adam, He created him from dust, then said to him, Be, and he was” (Surah 3:59). The reason behind revealing this Surah might seem contradictory to the Islamic explanation of the origin and the virgin birth of Jesus; however, it is not the purpose of this study to make such analysis. What the reader needs to note is that the Najrānites had a long theological conversation with Mohammad about the nature and the origin of Jesus. Mary and her divinity were not mentioned in this conversation, according to Islamic writings, which suggests another source for Mohammad’s belief that Christians held to her divinity.
Ibn Kathīr records a detailed explanation of this verse and the conversation between Mohammad and the Najrānites. While the Christians insisted on their belief in the divinity of Jesus, Mohammad could not provide evidence for his opposing belief. In order to save the situation, he invited them for al-Mubāhaleh (Surah 3:60-61). This term means “to curse one another and then appeal to Allah” for an answer. In other words, when performing al-Mubāhaleh, one party curses the belief and the people of the other party and asks Allah to intervene by revealing who is the winning party. The Najrānites were safe and peaceful people who had experienced mass martyrdom in their history. They feared losing and asked Mohammad to give them another option. He offered three alternatives: to convert to Islam, to pay jizya, or to go to war. The Najrānites decided to pay jizya. It is commonly believed that they were the first to pay jizya among non-Muslims, for jizya became a decree after opening Makkah in Surah 9:29.
The interactions with Christians described above are not the only ones that scholars know of. Historians record more collaborations between Mohammad and Christians. Since they are of less significance, this study will only mention them briefly. The biography of Mohammad refers to him discussing the Christian religion while sitting at the Marwa (a spot in Makkah), at the booth of a young Christian slave called Jabr, learning what he has to say about Christianity. It is also said that Mohammad learned about Christianity from his Coptic concubine, Mariyah. He listened to Christian sermons by the bishop of Najrān while attending a merchant festival near Makkah. All these interactions are documented in both Islamic and Christian sources, and they agree that Mohammad visited Christian monasteries, possibly churches, and conducted theological discussions about their christological beliefs. None of these recorded interactions directly mention Christians teaching Mohammad about the divinity of Mary.
MOHAMMAD’S AWARENESS OF CHRISTIAN ICONOGRAPHY, ESPECIALLY THE THEOTOKOS
It is highly likely that Mohammad saw the Theotokos image during his visits to Buṣra or the Levant as a boy. According to Mathews and Muller, “In Byzantine art the most important Mary and Christ icons were also door images, namely the proskynetarion icons of the icon screen, which are located left and right respectively of the door to the sanctuary.” If this is true, then Mohammad might have seen the image of the venerated Mary and Child for the first time in a Christian monastery in Syria.
Al-Balādhurī, a Muslim historian who collected documents and possessed the text of the peace treaty between Mohammad and the Christians of Najrān about jizya, offers an insightful note regarding Mohammad’s awareness of Christian iconography usage. The peace treaty made in exchange for the Najrānites’ safety includes a note about Christian images. After Mohammad defined the amount of jizya, the treaty mentions that “Najrān and their followers are entitled to the protection of Allah and the security of Muhammad the prophet, the Messenger of Allah, which security shall involve their persons, religion, lands and possessions, including those of them who are absent as well as those who are present, their camels, messengers and images.” Al-Balādhurī indirectly suggests that the Christians of Najrān had images and relics most likely in their churches, and Mohammad was aware of them because he mentioned that they were to be protected with the other properties belonging to Christians.
Another Ḥadīth suggests that Mohammad saw the Theotokos image in al-Kacaba in Makkah. Most Islamic studies reveal that Makkah was a metropolitan center for pagan religions. It is said that the interior of al-Kacaba was filled with pictures and relics of many gods. One of the pictures that Islamic resources mention is a sculpture of Mary and her Son Jesus. Al-Azraqī makes a detailed description of the exterior and the interior decorations of al-Kacaba, saying, “They paint on its pillars pictures of the prophets, trees, and angels; there was the picture of Abraham the friend of God (as an old man) dividing the arrows, a picture of Issā the son of Mary and his mother, and a picture of the angels.” Al-Azraqī includes several other authenticated and non-authenticated Ḥadīths related to the same topic. The authenticated Ḥadīths are the ones that have an uninterrupted chain of speakers going back to the prophet or one of his close ṣaḥāba (followers). Al-Azraqī includes several authenticated Ḥadīths stating that the relic of Jesus and his mother was inside al-Kacaba, engraved on one of the pillars. For instance, Ḥadīth no. 180, which is classified as authenticated, states that “Abū al-Walīd told us, my grandfather said, whose own source was Da’ūd b., whose source was camrū bin Dinār, ‘Before the demolition of al-Kacaba, I have seen (the sculpture) of Issā bin Maryam and his mother.’” Al-Azraqī includes also several Ḥadīths about Mohammad ordering cOmar his companion (who became the second caliph) to obliterate all the relics and images of al-Kacba. Few of these Ḥadīths suggest that Mohammad asked to eliminate all relics and images except the one of Jesus and his mother. It does not concern this study whether Mohammad actually destroyed the images or not: the main concern is to know whether he saw these images. It seems that most of these Ḥadīths affirm that Mohammad saw the Theotokos sculpture. Ḥadīth no. 179 references Jesus seated on Mary’s lap, and they both were ornamented and embellished. The iconography of the seated Virgin with Jesus in her lap adorned is a universal piece of Christian art. This Ḥadīth echoes the aforementioned resources and affirms that it was already widespread among Christians in the seventh century, even in Makkah.
Other Islamic sources suggest that Mohammad gained an awareness of the Christian images, relics, and statues from his wives who went to Ethiopia at the beginning of Mohammad’s dacwa (calling). When Mohammad started calling his tribe Quraysh to Islam, he and many of his companions faced persecution. These circumstances led a large number of his followers to migrate to Ethiopia in approximately AD 615. Early Muslims muhājirūn (immigrants) encountered Christian paintings in the churches of Ethiopia as they sought refuge and help from Negus the king of Ethiopia. They even expressed their admiration of these images at the deathbed of Mohammad. This information is reported by authentic Islamic sources. In Ṣaḥīḥ Bukharī, “Um Habiba and Um Salama mentioned a church they had seen in Ethiopia in which there were pictures. They told the Prophet (ﷺ) about it.” Imam Khatib at-Tabriz includes a similar Ḥadīth, stating that cAisha (the wife of the prophet) said that “when the Prophet was ill some of his wives mentioned a church called Mariya. Umm Salama and Umm Habiba who had gone to Abyssinia mentioned its beauty and the statues it contained.” While these Ḥadīths do not prove that Mohammad saw the paintings in the Ethiopian churches, it shows that he was aware of their glory and beauty from his wives and friends.
THE ISLAMIC BELIEF ABOUT IMAGES, ICONS, AND FIGURATIVE ARTS
Islam is a monotheistic religion that believes in one God, Allah, the creator. It claims a kind of restorative bridge to Abraham, and it follows the footsteps of Moses in prohibiting the use of holy religious images because of their association with idolatry and apostasy. Apart from the warning against idolatry, the Qur’an does not include an explicit prohibition of images. The Ḥadīths, however, contain clear and consistent statements against them. Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī mentions that “the people who will receive the severest punishment from Allah will be the picture makers.” Any kind of picture (pictures of plants, animals, or humans) that might distract the faithful person is forbidden in Sunni Hadīths. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim also includes many similar Ḥadīths, stating that “all the painters who make pictures would be in the fire of Hell. The soul [of the figure represented in the image] will be breathed in every picture prepared by him and it shall punish him in the Hell, and he (Ibn cAbbas) said: If you have to do it at all, then paint the pictures of trees and lifeless things.” Even the painters of figurative art representations will face severe punishment and torment in hell because they have tried to imitate the creation of Allah.
The Islamic prohibition of images is a result of the unique view of Allah, the creator. All creation is under the influence of his creative power. Allah is the only creator responsible for imparting life in the world by breathing into his creation. The supreme meaning of the Arabic key term rūḥ (spirit) in Islam was thus “never first the soul or the lifebreath of man, but the spirit of God, which at most, as in the conception of Mary, can be breathed into a man.” Any attempt to imitate Allah—the only soul maker—is considered blasphemous. Any anthropomorphic representation of the transcendental Allah is considered an attack of his innermost being/person. For this reason, Islam can be classified as “a phenomenon of iconophobia rather than a phenomenon of iconoclasm.”
Vasile-Octavian Mihoc compares the decorations of the mosques to the decorations of the churches, stating,
While the walls of the churches are adorned with pictures, the mosques present the Muslim faithful with phrases from the Qur’an, as once Mohammed did, thus instrumentalizing the iconic dimension as the bearer of the divine message. As a result of the anchoring of the earthly counterpart of the Qur’an in the heavenly archetype, “the mother of the script” (umm al-kitab, Q 43:4), this imagery was clear: the written word becomes an opening toward the transcendent, a non-figural icon of the divine.
The Arab geographer Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad al-Muqaddasī (AD 991) mentions that the Dome of the Rock in Palestine and the Umayyad mosque in Damascus served as a counterbalance to the abundantly decorated churches. This is to say that Muslims substituted the figurative art of the divine with Arabic calligraphy to imitate Christianity without offending the inner being of Allah.
With the Muslim conquest of the Levant, Muslims found the cross and Christian images a stumbling block and folly. Politically speaking, the cross retained imperial/military connotations, and within the new Islamic order, it was a symbol of a hostile and despised power. Muslims saw the Christian icons as visual references to the doctrine of the Trinity and the incarnated God. They accused Christians of worshiping the materials rather than the reference that these images implement. The fact that Christians venerated the holy icons by kissing and prostrating themselves before them no doubt convinced many Muslims that their worship was little different from the idols which the pagan Arabs had worshiped before the coming of Islam. In reality, Christians believe that the relics and images are pure materials that do not possess any divine quality. Images were created as expressions of divine essences intended to help the worshiper remember the person behind the material.
cAbd al-Malik and al-Walīd, the Umayyad rulers who conquered Palestine and Syria, were aware of the differences between Muslims, Christians, and Jews, especially in their manner of worship and decorating sacred spaces. They, however, wished to compete with and surpass monuments like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Cathedral of Saint John in Damascus, which they turned later on into the Umayyad Mosque. The Umayyad caliphs built their shrines and decorated them in a way that aligns with their theological convictions. Just as the Christian iconography and church decoration communicated doctrinal beliefs, so Islamic decoration of certain shrines and mosques asserted emerging theological views—the interior inscriptions of the Dome of the Rock, which is a calligraphic statement used to express doctrinal statement. In the heart of the Christian East, those inscriptions declared Islamic opposition to the Trinity by making multiple references to the absolute unity of Allah and the status of Jesus as a prophet.
CONCLUSION
Several studies have attempted to discover the reason behind the misunderstanding of the Trinity in the Qur’an. While this study acknowledges the previous efforts of several scholars and studies, it follows a different route to examine the iconographic effect on Mohammad’s understanding of the Trinity. This study explores the effect of the Theotokos icon and the possible reason behind Mohammad’s assumption of Mary’s inclusion in the Trinity.
In the seventh century, Mohammad started the Islamic religion, which emphasized the absolute unity of Allah and rejected the divinity of Jesus. Mohammad had several interactions with Christians during his life. His first wife was a Christian, and one of his concubines was a Coptic Christian. The most important and thorough interaction he had with Christianity involved the Christians of Najrān. A number of Islamic resources place the Surahs that talk about the Trinity (Surah 4:171 and 5:73) within the context of the prophet’s meeting with the Christians of Najrān. Many historians think that Najrānites were Monophysites, who believed in the Trinity but emphasized the divine nature of Christ and underestimated his human nature. Mohammad rejected their belief in the divinity of Jesus and called for absolute oneness because he could not reconcile Jesus’ deity with the divinity of Allah.
The Najrānites challenged Mohammad by asking him who is the father of Jesus. At first, Mohammad did not know how to answer them. The next day, Allah revealed to him that the resemblance of Jesus is like the resemblance of Adam. This is to say that Jesus had no father: he is fatherless, and God is not his father. This message is also conveyed every time Jesus is called “the son of Mary” in the Qur’an, which Mohammad purposely used several times (2:87, 253; 3:45; 4:157, 171; 5:17, 46, 72, 75, 78, 110, 112; 9:31). In comparison to other prophets, only Jesus is called by the name of his mother. The Qur’an does not call Abraham or Moses by the names of their fathers or mothers. It seems that Mohammad was trying to make a point when he called Jesus “the son of Mary” as if he were stressing Jesus’ origin by calling him “the fatherless Jesus.”
Islamic writings include some of Mohammad’s sources about Jesus; however, there is no historical evidence that Mohammad learned about the divinity of Mary from Christians. There is no record, neither in Islamic resources nor in the early history of Christianity, of Christians believing or teaching the divinity of Mary. On the contrary, there is historical evidence that early Fathers condemned such teaching and considered it heretical. The lack of resources makes it reasonable to think that Mohammad’s understanding of Mary and her role was acquired by inference rather than conversations with Christians.
In comparison to biblical data, Mohammad seems to be confused about Mary’s family. He conflates Mary the mother of Jesus with Mary the sister of Moses (Surah 19:28; 66:11). Certain aspects of the story of Mary the mother of Jesus were mentioned several times in the Qur’an, such as information about her family, her experience with Zakaria, and her pregnancy; but her divinity was alluded to only once (Surah 5:116). By contrast, the number of times the divinity of Jesus was mentioned surpasses the few times Mary is mentioned. This is probably because Christians (likely Monophysites) did not mention Mary much, instead focusing on Jesus, his virgin birth, and his divinity. What Mohammad learned about Mary was mostly inferences from the Theotokos icons we know he saw in Kacba, Buṣra, and other places.
Extant icons in Egypt inform us of the early evolution of the son-and-mother pairing, beginning in pagan art and possibly evolving to Christian art (as Jesus and Mary’s pairing) in the Levant, Ethiopia, and South Arabia by the sixth century. However, theological conversations among Christians took place at the council of Ephesus. In AD 431, Mary was given the title Theotokos (bearer of God) against the title Christotokos (bearer of Christ). After the council of Ephesus, the veneration of Mary started developing into different cults, especially in Byzantium, which led to the iconoclastic age. While the iconoclasm took effect in the Byzantine churches, it was rejected by the Eastern churches, and as the construction of new churches continued even in South Arabia, Holy images and relics were included in the new churches’ decorations.
Islamic writings show that the relic of Jesus and his mother in al-Kacba was not isolated but was part of a movement that has started, spread, and continued among the Christians in many locations. While the Islamic description of the relic of Mary and her son in al-kacba is terse, it is similar in some ways to the description of the Theotokos icon. The Ḥadīth provided by al-Azraqī states that Mary is seated, Jesus is on her lap, and both of them are ornamented. This description is very similar to the Theotokos icon, in which Jesus and Mary are seated on a throne, Jesus is in Mary’s lap, and they both look adorned and venerated because of the halos around their heads. Christians throughout history have developed the habit of standing in front of these icons, touching, crying, praying, and asking for personal blessings and physical healing. While Muslims (including Mohammad) know Christians divinize Jesus, they see Christians performing the same worship/adoration acts in front of the image of Mary. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that a misconception can be acquired easily by someone who is not deeply rooted in Christian theology. In other words, it is easy to believe that Christians divinize Mary as well as Jesus because of the adorned guise that the paintings conveyed and the divinized worship acts that the Christians performed in front of the holy images.
The Islamic understanding of iconography is similar to the Jewish understanding. Icons and images are linked to spiritual idolatry. The Islamic prohibition of images is a result of the unique view of Allah. He is the only creator, and any attempt to imitate his creation is a direct blasphemous act against his inner being. The fact that Christians venerated the holy icons by kissing and prostrating themselves before them no doubt convinced the Muslims that Christians worship the idols. Perhaps this is why Mohammad presumed that Christians venerated Mary. Unfortunately, extant literature about the Christians of Najrān does not provide information about their iconography belief, what it meant to them, or how important it was in their worship. The aforementioned Islamic testimonies about the Christian churches in Arabia and the surviving ancient ruins of some of these churches suggest that Christians in Arabia venerated and used images, relics, and statues. Maybe Mohammad not only saw the holy icons but also witnessed Christians venerating, kissing, and bowing in front of the holy images, leading him to conclude that Christians divinized Mary as they divinize Christ.
In a nutshell, clues from Islamic and Christian literature as well as history point to the idea that Mohammad learned about the divinity of Jesus from Christians—most likely Monophysites—but none of the Christians he met actually believed in the divinity of Mary. There is no historical evidence that Christians taught Mohammad that Mary was divine. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that Mohammad reached this conclusion by inference—by observing Christian holy images and their adoration, especially to Mary and Jesus’ relics. The Theotokos icon is painted in a way that gives equal adoration to Jesus and Mary: both are enthroned and venerated with halos around their heads. When Christians bow and kneel in front of the Theotokos, they convey the idea that they are worshiping and praying to two divine beings, Jesus and Mary, and since Christians believe in three, then Mohammad, by inference, thought Mary is part of the Trinity.