The Jewish Theme in Theophanes the Confessor’s Testimony on the Prophet Muḥammad

Bibliographic Data

ID21219939
AuthorsBłażej Cecota (0000-0002-4746-0325, corresponding author)
Year2023
Publication date2023-10-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueStudia Ceranea Journal of the Waldemar Ceran Research Centre for the History and Culture of the Mediterranean Area and South-East Europe (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2084-140X • E-ISSN: 2449-8378
PublisherUniwersytet Lodzki (University of Lodz) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.18778/2084-140x.13.02
OpenAlexW4387606492
LanguageEN
References cited31

Theophanes’ account regarding the rise of Islam and the history of the Prophet Muḥammad appears to be the most detailed and precise one that can be found in Byzantine historiography. The Confessor’s aim was to reproduce as many details about Muḥammad’s life as possible. Since his focus was not on religious ideas, but on key events surrounding the rise of the new religion, his account is not predominantly concerned with discussing Islam’s ideology. However, this does not allow us to regard it as in any way objective. Some of the views it contains were included with the clear goal of discrediting Islam as a religion that rivalled Christianity. This, for example, can be said of Theophanes’ remarks about the relationship between Muḥammad and the Jews. In this article, I focus on this aspect of Theophanes’ account, discussing it in the context of the long-running (the last several decades) scholarly debates regarding Jewish-Muslim relations

Byzantine architecture · Christianity · Epistemology · Historiography · Ideology · Islam · Judaism · Political science · Politics · Theology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Byzantine Studies and History · Classics · Computer Science · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies

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