St. John of Damascus and his criticism of the Muhammandan cult.

St. John of Damascus (675-749 A.D) lived during a high tide of Muhammandan imperialism in the Near East and beyond.  His father was a tax collector within the local Muslim government or occupying state and John succeeded him in that role.  Around 730 A.D. he left and became a monk.  His ‘Sources of Knowledge’ is a foundational text for the Greek Orthodox Church and greatly influenced the development of the Western Latin Church, suffused with neo-Platonism and moral exhortations.  He fought to retain the worship of Icons providing logical and theological arguments for their retention, in opposition to official Byzantine policy.  St. John was renowned as a writer, speaker and expert of the cult of Muhammad. 

St. John’s penned the ‘Fount of Knowledge’ and describes Muhammadanism in part 2 on Heresies in Epitome: How They Began and Whence They Drew Their Origin. The Fount of Knowledge is considered one of the:

“most important single works produced in the Greek patristic period,…offering as it does an extensive and lucid synthesis of the Greek theological science of the whole period. It is the first great Summa of theology to appear in either the East or the West.”  (translator’s note in the beginning of the book)

St. John is considered one of the great Fathers of the Church, and his writings hold a place of high honour in the Church. His critique of Islam, or “the heresy of the Ishmaelites,” is especially relevant for our times.  To summarise some of his comments on Muhammadanism, we can note that Muhammad mis-understood the Old Testament, did not believe Christ was divine, did not tolerate the Cross as a symbol of divine power, created a book to manage women, engaged in random revelations which have no basis in the prophetic literature, created a long and rather inane story about a camel and its offspring being a divine provider for Arabs, a declaration that Christ is really a Muslim working for the Al-Lah, and the observation that Muslims are engaged in pagan practices such as stone rubbing and kissing. He could have written volumes on the hate and bile within the Koran adjuring Jihad, war and supremacist domination of the Infidel. 

St. John’s assessment of Islam from ‘Heresies’, abridge and summarised

There is also the superstition of the Ishmaelites which to this day prevails and keeps people in error, being a forerunner of the Antichrist. They are descended from Ishmael, [who] was born to Abraham of Agar, and for this reason they are called both Agarenes and Ishmaelites. They are also called Saracens, which is derived from Sarras kenoi, or destitute of Sara, because of what Agar (Sara’s slave woman who bore Abraham’s child) said to the angel: ‘Sara hath sent me away destitute.’ (exiled once Isaac the legitimate son was born) [1] These used to be idolaters and worshiped the morning star and Aphrodite, whom in their own language they called Khabár, which means great. [2] And so down to the time of Heraclius they were very great idolaters. From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst. This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, [3] devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into the good graces of the people by a show of seeming piety, he gave out that a certain book had been sent down to him from heaven. He had set down some ridiculous compositions in this book of his and he gave it to them as an object of veneration.

He says that there is one God, creator of all things, who has neither been begotten nor has begotten. [4]

He says that the Christ is the Word of God and His Spirit, but a creature and a servant, and that He was begotten, without seed, of Mary the sister of Moses and Aaron. [5]

For, he says, the Word and God and the Spirit entered into Mary and she brought forth Jesus…But the Christ Himself was not crucified, he says, nor did He die, for God out of His love for Him took Him to Himself into heaven. [6]

And he says this, that when the Christ had ascended into heaven God asked Him: ‘O Jesus, didst thou say: “I am the Son of God and God”?’ And Jesus, he says, answered: ‘Be merciful to me, Lord. Thou knowest that I did not say this and that I did not scorn to be thy servant. But sinful men have written that I made this statement, and they have lied about me and have fallen into error.’ And God answered and said to Him: ‘I know that thou didst not say this word.” [7]

There are many other extraordinary and quite ridiculous things in this book which he boasts was sent down to him from God. But when we ask: ‘And who is there to testify that God gave him the book? And which of the prophets foretold that such a prophet would rise up?’—they are at a loss. And we remark that Moses received the Law on Mount Sinai, with God appearing in the sight of all the people in cloud, and fire, and darkness, and storm. And we say that all the Prophets from Moses on down foretold the coming of Christ and how Christ God (and incarnate Son of God) was to come and to be crucified and die and rise again, and how He was to be the judge of the living and dead. [8]

… On the contrary, he (Muhammad) received it (Koran) while he was asleep.’

They furthermore accuse us of being idolaters, because we venerate the cross, which they abominate. And we answer them: ‘How is it, then, that you rub yourselves against a stone in your Ka’ba [9] and kiss and embrace it?’

Then some of them say that Abraham had relations with Agar upon it, but others say that he tied the camel to it, when he was going to sacrifice Isaac. And we answer them: ‘Since Scripture says that the mountain was wooded and had trees from which Abraham cut wood for the holocaust and laid it upon Isaac, [10] and then he left the asses behind with the two young men, why talk nonsense?

As has been related, this Mohammed wrote many ridiculous books, to each one of which he set a title. For example, there is the book On Woman, [11] in which he plainly makes legal provision for taking four wives and, if it be possible, a thousand concubines—as many as one can maintain, besides the four wives. [12,13]

Then there is the book of The Camel of God. [14] About this camel he says that there was a camel from God and that she drank the whole river and could not pass through two mountains, because there was not room enough. There were people in that place, he says, and they used to drink the water on one day, while the camel would drink it on the next. Moreover, by drinking the water she furnished them with nourishment, because she supplied them with milk instead of water. Then, because these men were evil, they rose up, he says, and killed the camel. However, she had an offspring, a little camel, which, he says, when the mother had been done away with, called upon God and God took it to Himself…..

Again, in the book of The Table, Mohammed says that the Christ asked God for a table and that it was given Him. For God, he says, said to Him: ‘I have given to thee and thine an incorruptible table.’ [15]

And again, in the book of The Heifer, [16] he says some other stupid and ridiculous things, which, because of their great number, I think must be passed over. He made it a law that they be circumcised and the women, too, and he ordered them not to keep the Sabbath and not to be baptized. And, while he ordered them to eat some of the things forbidden by the Law, he ordered them to abstain from others. He furthermore absolutely forbade the drinking of wine.

Notes used by St. John

1. Cf. Gen. 16.8. Sozomen also says that they were descended from Agar, but called themselves descendants of Sara to hide their servile origin (Ecclesiastical History 6.38, PG 67.1412AB).

2. The Arabic kabirun means ‘great,’ whether in size or in dignity. Herodotus mentions the Arabian cult of the ‘Heavenly Aphrodite’ but says that the Arabs called her Alilat (Herodotus 1.131)

3. This may be the Nestorian monk Bahira (George or Sergius) who met the boy Mohammed at Bostra in Syria and claimed to recognize in him the sign of a prophet.

4. Koran, Sura 112.

5. Sura 19; 4.169.

6. Sura 4.156.

7. Sura 5.Il6tf.

8. The manuscripts do not have the adage, but Lequien suggests this one from Plato.

9. The Ka’ba, called ‘The House of God,’ is supposed to have been built by Abraham with the help of Ismael. It occupies the most sacred spot in the Mosque of Mecca. Incorporated in its wall is the stone here referred to, the famous Black Stone, which is obviously a relic of the idolatry of the pre-Islam Arabs.

10. Gen. 22.6.

11. Koran, Sura 4.

12. Cf. Sura 2225ff.

13. Sura 2.223.

14. Not in the Koran.

15. Sura 5.114,115.

16. Sura 2.

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