A Survey of Byzantine

Responses to Islam
By Stefano Nikolaou

[The author received his M.A. in Theology from the Australian Catholic University in
2007. The following paper was an independent research project counting towards the
MA degree and receiving high recognition.]

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2
Introduction
The interaction between the Orthodox Christians of the Byzantine
Empire and Islam began with the initial Muslim invasion of the eastern
provinces in the seventh century and lasted until the final destruction
of the Byzantine Empire with the capture of Constantinople in 1453.
The initial meeting was on the battlefield as the Caliphate swept away
the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire. As the Islamic military
impetus petered out the two civilizations began a long period of
mutual distrust interspaced with periods of war and a grudging status
quo. Millions of Orthodox Christians were living under Islamic rule.
These Christians were the first to provide accurate information on
Islam. As the Byzantine Empire disintegrated, the citizens and
theologians within the empire began to take note of Islam more and
more. There was an increase in awareness in all sections of society.
The final years of Byzantium witnessed the most accurate and
extensive writings on Islam as the Byzantines attempted to challenge
Islam on the intellectual level.

Despite the long history between the two civilizations little has been
done in analysing the literary response to Islam by the Byzantines.
Some of the specifically polemical works have been studied but little
else. In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the
relationship between Islam and Byzantium the spectrum of Byzantine
literature needs to be surveyed and analysed. Few Muslims chose to
live in Byzantine lands. Many Byzantines would never have seen a real
life Muslim. Their encounters would usually have consisted of contacts
to travelling merchants or otherwise military encounters. However, the
frontier was more fluid for Orthodox Christians. A number of writings
by Christians under Islamic rule found their way to Byzantine territory
and were utilised by native theologians and authors.

The term ‘Byzantine’ encompasses a range of meanings. It does not

specifically refer merely to those who lived within the borders of the
Byzantine Empire. John of Damascus, for example, is very much a
Byzantine even though he never stepped foot in its borders. Orthodox
Christians writing in Arabic, Syriac or Georgian were also very much
part of the Byzantine cultural milieu. Non-Greek writings found

3
themselves translated and transported to the Byzantine Empire where
they shaped opinion.

Islam loomed large on the Byzantine psyche. The rapid success of

Islam shocked the Byzantines, as they understood their empire as
being protected by God. Islam was the most powerful rival religion to
Christianity and controlled a vast amount of territory that dwarfed
Byzantium. All this caused a demoralization of imperial theory.
Theologians searched to find a reason for the losses suffered at the
hands of Islam and determined that it was due to their sins. This
permeated into the Byzantine consciousness. As a result of the
numerous military encounters the majority of historians and
chroniclers had something to say on Islam. However, the Byzantines
were slow to see Islam as a serious ideological threat. They tended to
refer to Muslims by ethnic terms such as Arab, Saracens, Ishmaelites
or Hagarenes rather than religious terms.

The most informed Byzantine writings on Islam were those that

specifically polemicised against Islam. Despite the long tradition of
polemics Byzantine theologians have been accused of being ‘poorly
informed about Islam, particularly its historical origins, motivations,
ethical values, and spiritual content.’[1] However, the Byzantines
displayed a much more accurate understanding of Islam than Muslims
had of Christianity or the Latin West had of Islam at the time. This did
not stop major defections to Islam throughout the centuries, especially
after the 13th century, when Byzantium was no longer a political
power. These simple people only had the vaguest idea as to the
differences between the two religions.

The Byzantines inherited a long tradition of polemics from early

Christianity. They were faced with the challenges of Judaism and
Paganism. Theologians were then faced with heretics. Justin Martyr
and Irenaeus of Lyon composed attacks on Gnostics and the
Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries generated a
plethora of material. Anti-Islamic writings originated within a century
of Islam’s advent and continued for nearly a thousand years.
Byzantine theologians saw Islam through the lens of previous heresies.
They refused to see it as a separate religion. Hence, the Islamic denial
of the divinity of Christ was termed ‘Arianism’ and the abstinence from
pork as ‘Judaism.’

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It was in the nature of polemics to be as accurate as possible since
otherwise they would be worthless for the reader. Polemics were
expected to have some practical value. They were not merely some
rhetorical writing exercise. Thus, it was not likely to be purposely
deceptive or inaccurate. A number of the authors had intimate
knowledge of Islam while others had to rely on oral information.
Despite the language barrier, there was an attempt of accessing
Islamic sources such as the Quran, hadiths and oral traditions. Some
authors were certainly biased and prejudiced towards Islam. They had
the staunch belief that Christianity was the superior religion. Islam was
false in their opinion and they were tempted to make it look even
worse. In the mindset of a Byzantine, it was impossible to be objective
as it is the goal of modern authors. The polemicists did not pretend to
hide their religious affiliations. Where the opportunity arose, they were
happy to attribute the worst possible motives to Muhammad, the early
caliphs and Islamic clerics. Polemics were also concerned with topics
that were under dispute rather than give a complete and balanced
presentation of the rival religious system. The existence of Adam,
Abraham or Moses was never a point of dispute, as both sides had no
doubts as to their existence.

In order to understand how Byzantines viewed Islam, a broad

spectrum of documents and writings needs to be examined. This
includes not only polemics and histories but less well known genres
such as hagiography, martyrology diplomatic correspondence,
homilies, liturgical texts and poetry. Most Byzantine writings that have
references to Islam were aimed at a Byzantine audience. The language
barrier itself was the major obstacle. Few Muslims would ever have
ever mastered Greek. Polemics, however, had the possibility of being
read by a wider audience.[2] The information contained in them could
percolate to the masses. Polemics would have strengthened the faith
of those who were curious or wavering in their faith or those who were
detractors. However, it was probably the genre of hagiography that
was the most widely disseminated and had the most significant impact
on Byzantine popular perceptions. Hagiography was the most popular
Byzantine literary genre and would have been read by all sections of
society. The accounts of martyrs meant that Muslims were viewed as
the new persecutors.

Neither Byzantine polemicists nor the historians represented the

official policy of the government. They represent a range of voices.

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Authors generally represented the higher echelons of society. Literacy,
a skill not achieved by the majority of the population, was an absolute
necessity for the polemists. Illiterate or semi-literate peasants or
merchants could act as informants to authors but they rarely appear in
their own right. Byzantine authors needed to be part of the classically
educated elite to be able to write a work that would be widely
disseminated and continued to be copied.

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Issues in Dispute: The Life of
Muhammad and Islamic
Theology
Muhammad’s biography

Both Muslim apologists writing in Western languages (like English) and

Western secularists tend to go over the same ground when writing the
biography of Muhammad. The biography is based on a limited number
of early Arabic sources that are reworked and reinterpreted. Often in
an attempt to portray Muhammad in the best light they either omit,
gloss over, or attempt to explain away incidents that might be seen as
disparaging to Muhammad by the modern reader. Interestingly most
of these incidents are the same ones that Byzantine polemicist used to
prove the falsehood of Muhammad. The similarities between modern
polemics and Byzantine polemics indicate that the Byzantines were
quite well informed about his biography but were selective. They were
able to focus on the incidents that best suited their polemical purposes
rather than presenting an unbiased and balanced picture of
Muhammad. The following points were the main issues raised by
polemicists:

1. Muhammad as an Arab and orphan

Muhammad’s father was named Abdullah. He died a few months

before Muhammad was born. When he was six Muhammad’s mother
died and he passed into the care of his grandfather. The tribal group
of Muhammad is described as having fallen on hard times despite the
claim that it was a respected and noble family.[3] Byzantine
theologians were well aware of these details. They could be extremely
elitist and snobbish in using these aspects. For them, being an orphan
was a negative thing for Muhammad. Arabs had been saints and
martyrs, so Arab nationality was not necessarily a liability but in the
case of Muhammad, it was. Similarly, many saints had come from a
humble background but this was not an issue unless they chose to
make it one.

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2. Marrying an older widow

Byzantine theologians were aware of the Islamic tradition that when

Muhammad was 25 years old he married the widow Khadija, who was
some 15 years older than him. They knew that Muhammad had
worked for her previously.[4] Christian polemicists were willing to
attribute negative motives to Muhammad regarding this marriage. The
marriage was seen as opportunistic on Muhammad’s behalf in order for
him to acquire wealth and status.

3. The identity of Muhammad’s teachers

In the traditional biography of Muhammad, there are a number of

individuals who appear to influence Muhammad. Because Christians
did not accept the divine origin of the Quran, they used these incidents
to show that human teachers had taught Muhammad. There is even a
verse of the Quran (Q. 16:103) in which Muhammad denies that an
unknown individual is the source of the Quran. The Meccans were
accusing him of having learned his stories from this unknown
individual.[5] Muhammad lamely replies that the individual is a
foreigner while the Quran is in clear Arabic. However, no Byzantine
polemicist ever cited this verse to prove the point of human teachers
for Muhammad.[6]

Chronologically, the first such reference is to a monk, traditionally

named Bahira or Sergius, who recognised the prophethood of
Muhammad on a journey to Syria when he was 12 years old.[7] The
other important reference is to Waraqa, a cousin of Khadija. He is
reported to have been a Christian and in possession of the Christian
scriptures. On Muhammad’s initial revelation, he confirmed for
Muhammad that his revelations were from God.[8] He then promptly
died and disappeared from the scene. What Waraqa was doing for the
15 years Muhammad had been married to Khadija is never explained
or elaborated. There is also the curious reference to the Hanifs (Arab
monotheists) in the generation before Muhammad, who rejected the
existing polytheism. These four men made a pact to follow the
uncorrupted religion of Abraham. These men are known to have
associated with Muhammad. One of them was Waraqa and another
was ‘Ubaydullah, initially a Muslim but he became a Christian in
Abyssinia. In all, three of these four men eventually became
Christians.[9]

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4. The origins of Muhammad’s revelation

The Byzantines found it hard to accept the claim that Muhammad had
received any type of authentic revelation from God. There were a
number of reasons for this. Firstly, the fact that Muhammad’s
revelation contradicted core Christian doctrines made the Byzantine
doubt anything he had to say. Secondly, Muhammad’s life was in
sharp contrast to the ascetic model of the traditional holy man. That
Muhammad had multiple wives, had people assassinated and indulged
in a sensual life was enough for rejection. This led to two theories of
the source of Muhammad’s revelation. The first suggested that
Muhammad pretended to have revelations to hide his epilepsy. The
second was direct satanic revelation. Often there was a combination of
the two. The Byzantine could not accept the phenomenal growth of
Islam was solely due to human activity.

5. The Lack of Miracles

The Quran states that Muhammad did not need to work any miracles
other than the revelation of the Quran itself (Q. 6:125, 29:50). The
Quran claims itself that it is unable to be reproduced (Q. 17:88).
Christian polemicists contrasted the miracles of Jesus and the Old
Testament prophets like Moses to the lack of Muhammad’s miracles.
Muslims soon began to manufacture miracles to counter Christian
charges. The hadiths are full of miracles that are clearly created as
polemical counters to charges by Christians and Jews.

6. The Satanic Verses

Tabari and Waqidi tell the now infamous story of the ‘Satanic Verses’.
The story owes its origins to impeccable Islamic sources but Christians
were more than happy to use it for their own polemical purposes. The
term was not coined until the 1850s, when William Muir used it in his
biography of Muhammad.[10] This story is a source of great
embarrassment to Muslims but it served to justify to Byzantine
polemicists that Muhammad was satanically inspired. The great
success of Islam would have caused the Byzantines to naturally look
for some explanation in religious terms. Initially the punishment by
God was satisfactory but later a more sinister reasoning was needed.
In the religious mind of the Byzantines a Satanic explanation seemed
reasonable, even rational.

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The actual incident was that while Muhammad was in Mecca he tried to
persuade the Meccans to accept Islam. They were not receptive to him
and made life difficult for him and his followers, and so Muhammad’s
desire to see his people accept him and Islam remained unfulfilled.
This was until Muhammad recited the following verse. ‘Have you
thought of al-Lat and al-Uzza and Manat, the third ... these are the
exalted Gharaniq whose intercession is approved.’[11]

Al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat were some of the local idols worshiped in
Mecca and were venerated in the Kaaba. Previously Muhammad had
spoken against them in his monotheist preaching but now Muhammad
accepted the idols and recited that their ‘intercession is approved’. The
Islamic explanation as to why Muhammad accepted the idols is that
Satan put these words on Muhammad's lips. ‘Satan ... put upon his
(Muhammad's) tongue “these are the exalted Gharaniq whose
intercession is approved”’. [12]

Muhammad recited these words as if they were from God when, in

fact, they were from Satan. This is what is meant by the phrase, the
Satanic Verses: they are verses from Satan that Muhammad recited as
if they were from God. Now that Muhammad had recited that the idols
were acceptable, the Quraysh accepted him. When Quraysh heard
that, they were delighted and greatly pleased at the way in which he
spoke of their gods and they listened to him ... Then the people
dispersed and Quraysh went out, delighted at what had been said
about their gods, saying, "Muhammad has spoken of our gods in
splendid fashion". Muhammad's desire had been realised; the Quraysh
accepted him. The Quraysh accepted Muhammad because he had
accepted their gods and idols. However, after some time Muhammad
realised the error of what he had said. The Islamic explanation is that
angel Gabriel rebuked Muhammad and held him accountable for what
he had said. Then Gabriel came to the apostle and said, "What have
you done, Muhammad? You have read to these people something I did
not bring you from God and you have said what He did not say to
you." Muhammad now said that God had now told him to speak
against the idols and to reject them. What Muhammad recited now
changed. Now the verse became: ‘Have you considered El-Lat and El-
'Uzza and Manat the third, the other? What, have you males, and He
females? That were indeed an unjust division. They are naught but
names yourselves have named, and your fathers; God has sent down

10
no authority touching them.’ (Quran 53:19-23) This final form of the
verse is what is now in the modern Quran.

Muhammad now had to explain to his followers as well as to the

Quraysh why he had changed his mind about their idols and no longer
accepted them. The reason he gave was the following verse of the
Quran. “Never have We sent a single prophet or apostle before you
with whose wishes Satan did not tamper. But God abrogates the
interjections of Satan and confirms His own revelations.” (Q. 22:52).
Muhammad's explanation was that his momentary acceptance of the
idols was because Satan had tampered with his wishes and given him
words that he thought were from God, but that God had now removed
these verses and corrected the whole situation.

7. Polygamy

Muhammad married multiple times. Traditionally he is said to have had

eleven wives.[13] For Byzantine polemicists this was proof that
Muhammad was a sensualist and a fake. The Byzantines were perfectly
aware that the Old Testament patriarchs like Abraham and Jacob were
polygamous but the tradition from apostolic times was staunchly
monogamous.

8. Marrying Zeynab

The incident of Muhammad marrying his cousin, Zeynab, who had

previously been married to his adopted son Zayd, was a great scandal.
As early as John of Damascus, this incident is mentioned. The
marriage is often cited as a ‘demonstration of Muhammad’s insatiable
sexual appetite and his crafty manipulations of the revelations to
further his own desires.’[14] Armstrong and numerous other apologists
for Islam try to explain away the marriage along the lines of
Muhammad’s concern for the welfare of Zeynab after an unhappy
marriage but the Islamic sources give this incident a specific sexual
connotation. The timing of a Quranic revelation (Q. 33:2-7) to justify
the marriage is also seen as very convenient. For the Byzantines this
incident, cited early in polemical literature, was proof of Muhammad’s
insincerity. A modern critic of Islam like Ibn Warraq likewise finds the
apologetic unconvincing and the entire incident abhorrent.[15]

9. Marrying Aisha

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Muhammad married the six-year old daughter of his close companion
Abu Bakr. He waited until Aisha was nine years old before he
consummated the marriage. At the time, Muhammad was over fifty
years of age. Armstrong cites a variant tradition that Aisha reached
puberty before she had sex with Muhammad[16] in an effort to save
his reputation but the sources are clear. Both the hadiths collected by
Bukhari and Muslim cite the age of nine as the age at which Aisha
consummated her marriage to Muhammad. Marriages for pre-
pubescent girls were not uncommon in the ancient world but
polemicists found this further evidence of Muhammad’s insincerity.
That a spokesman from God lusted after a little girl was obviously
impossible, especially in the Byzantine world where abstinence and
asceticism were signs of spirituality and were highly valued.

10. Violence, Assassinations and Raids

In his lifetime, Muhammad was responsible for a number of massacres

and assassinations, especially against his ideological enemies, and
raids against his opponents. These date from Muhammad’s move to
Medina where he gained political authority. The most horrendous
atrocities committed by Muhammad included the murder of prisoners
in his care after the battle of Badr; the assassinations of the Jewish
poetess Asma bint Marwan, the Jewish poet Ka’b and the Jewish elder
Abu Afak. The exile of two Jewish tribes from Medina and the
execution of all the adult males of the third is another incident that
modern authors try to explain away.[17]

When the apostle heard what she had said he said, "Who will rid me of
Marwan's daughter?" `Umayr b. `Adiy al-Khatmi who was with him
heard him, and that very night he went to her house and killed her. In
the morning he came to the apostle and told him what he had done
and he [Muhammad] said, "You have helped God and His apostle, O
`Umayr!" When he asked if he would have to bear any evil
consequences the apostle said, "Two goats won't butt their heads
about her", so `Umayr went back to his people. Now there was a great
commotion among B. Khatma that day about the affair of bint
[daughter of] Marwan. She had five sons, and when `Umayr went to
them from the apostle he said, "I have killed bint Marwan, O sons of
Khatma. Withstand me if you can; don't keep me waiting." That was
the first day Islam became powerful among B. Khatma; before that
those who were Muslims concealed the fact. The first of them to accept

12
Islam was `Umayr b. `Adiy who was called the "Reader", and
`Abdullah b. Aus and Khuzayma b. Thabit. The day after Bint Marwan
was killed the men of B. Khatma became Muslims because they saw
the power of Islam.

When the fight at the trench and the affair of the B. Qurayza were
over, the matter of Sallam b. Abu'l-Huqayq known as Abu Rafi` came
up in connexion with those who had collected the mixed tribes
together against the apostle. Now Aus had killed Ka`b b. al-Ashraf
before Uhud because of his enmity towards the apostle and because
he instigated men against him, so Khazraj asked and obtained the
apostle's permission to kill Sallam who was in Khaybar. Muhammad b.
Muslim b. Shihab al-Zuhri from `Abdullah b. Ka`b b. Malik told me:
One of the things which God did for His apostle was that these two
tribes of the Ansar, Aus and Khazraj, competed the one with the other
like two stallions: if Aus did anything to the apostle's advantage
Khazraj would say, "They shall not have this superiority over us in the
apostle's eyes and in Islam" and they would not rest until they could
do something similar. If Khazraj did anything Aus would say the same.

When Aus had killed Ka'b for his enmity towards the apostle, Khazraj
used these words and asked themselves what man was as hostile to
the apostle as Ka'b? And then they remembered Sallam, who was in
Khaybar and asked and obtained the apostle's permission to kill him.

Five men of B.Salima of Khazraj went to him: 'Abdullah b.`Atik;

Mas`ud b. Sinan; `Abdullah b. Unays; Abu Qatada al-Harith b. Rib'i;
and Khuza`i b. Aswad, an ally from Aslam. As they left, the apostle
appointed `Abdullah b.`Atik as their leader, and he forbade them to
kill women or children. When they got to Khaybar they went to
Sallam's house by night, having locked every door in the settlement on
the inhabitants. Now he was in an upper chamber of his to which a
ladder led up. They mounted this until they came to the door and
asked to be allowed to come in. His wife came out and asked who they
were and they told her that they were Arabs in search of supplies. She
told them that their man was here and that they could come in. When
we entered we bolted the door of the room on her and ourselves
fearing lest something should come between us and him. His wife
shrieked and warned him of us, so we ran at him with our swords as
he was on his bed. The only thing that guided us in the darkness of the
night was his whiteness like an Egyptian blanket. When his wife

13
shrieked one of our number would lift his sword against her; then he
would remember the apostle's ban on killing women and withdraw his
hand; but for that we would have made an end of her that night. When
we had smitten him with our swords `Abdullah b. Unays bore down
with his sword into his belly until it went right through him, as he was
saying Qatni, qatni, i.e. it's enough. We went out. Now `Abdullah
b.`Atik had poor sight, and fell from the ladder and sprained his arm
severely, so we carried him until we brought him to one of their water
channels and went into it. The people lit lamps and went in search of
us in all directions until, despairing of finding us, they returned to their
master and gathered round him as he was dying. We asked each other
how we could know that the enemy of God was dead, and one of us
volunteered to go and see; so off he went and mingled with the
people. He said, "I found his wife and some Jews gathered round him.
She had a lamp in her hand and was peering into his face and saying
to them 'By God, I certainly heard the voice of `Abdullah b.`Atik. Then
I decided I must be wrong and thought, "How can Ibn`Atik be in this
country?"' Then she turned towards him, looking into his face, and
said, 'By the God of the Jews he is dead!' Never have I heard sweeter
words than those." Then he came to us and told us the news, and we
picked up our companion and took him to the apostle and told him
that we had killed God's enemy. We disputed before him as to who
had killed him, each of us laying claim to the deed. The apostle
demanded to see our swords and when he looked at them he said, "It
is the sword of `Abdullah b. Unays that killed him; I can see traces of
food on it".[18]

Islamic Law and Practise

The Islamic laws that were particularly distinct or contradicted

Christian practice were those that came up for discussion and criticism.
Often the source was not the Quran or collections of jurisprudence but
merely the observations of individuals.

1. Polygamy

The Quran allows Muslims to have up to four wives. The exact verses
state ‘And if you fear that you cannot do justice to orphans, marry
such women as seem good to you, two, or three, or four; but if you

14
fear that you will not do justice, then marry only one or what your
right hand possesses. This is more proper that you may not do
injustice’ (Q. 4:3). Armstrong sees polygamy as a practical problem
due to the number of Muslims who had died at Uhud[19] rather than
the continuation of the existing Arab practice. Even in classical times
only a small percentage of Muslims married more than one woman but
the potential was there for any Muslim to marry more than one wife if
the economic circumstances were right.

2. Prohibition of Pork

One of the most prevalent pieces of information known to Christians

with even the most cursory knowledge of Islam was that they
abstained from eating pork. It was so well known that historians often
fail to mention it. Theologians liked to use this as evidence of Islam’s
Judaistic roots. This was a good example of the cultural knowledge
rather than knowledge of the Quran. Few Christians would have been
aware that the Quran termed pork impure (Q. 6:145).

3. Prohibition of Alcohol

Byzantines were well aware that Muslims rejected the use of all
alcohol. The verses supposedly manifested themselves when Umar
approached Muhammad about a drunken Muslim. The Quran states ‘O
you who believe, intoxicants and games of chance and (sacrificing to)
stones set up and (divining by) arrows are only an uncleanness, the
devils work; so shun it that you may succeed. The devil desires only to
create enmity and hatred among you by means of intoxicants and
games of chance, and to keep you back from remembrance of Allah
and from prayer. Will you then keep back?’ (Q. 5:90-91) The
Byzantines were aware of this prohibition as a practical custom rather
then from knowledge of the Quran. Byzantines were always willing to
point out Muslim inconsistency in following this. Despite the prohibition
on alcohol, many Muslim leaders were openly drinking wine in their
courts in direct violation of the Quran. Wine was an integral part of
Byzantine liturgical life. Not only was wine allowed, but also it was a
necessity for communion. It was not prohibited in the Old Testament
either. Thus, the Byzantines could not attribute this prohibition to God.

4. Qibla

15
Originally, Muslims were directed to pray towards the direction of
Jerusalem but Muhammad’s frustration at not being recognised as a
prophet by the Jews of Medina caused a Quranic revelation (Q. 2:138)
that changed the direction to Mecca. The direction of prayer towards
Mecca was a public practice that non-Muslims would have found
curious. A devout Muslim would have gone to great lengths to find the
correct orientation for prayer. Orthodox Christians traditionally
orientated their prayers to the East so the Islamic practice was
different and distinct from theirs. From this practice Christians would
have gained some awareness of the existence of Mecca and its
importance for Muslims.

5. Fasting

During the month of Ramadan Muslims were required to fast from

sunrise to sunset. Fasting was nothing new for Orthodox Christians of
the Byzantine Empire as they had prolonged and rigorous fasts for
numerous festive periods such as Lent, Advent and Saints’ Days.
However, they criticised the Ramadan fast from their own perspective.
Both sides accused the other of laxity. Byzantines often claimed that
Muslims gorged themselves once the sun had set. The truthfulness of
claims like this is unclear but the Byzantines were aware of the nature
of the Ramadan fast.

6. Ritual Cleaning

The distinctive Islamic ablution before prayer was known and

commented on by the Byzantines. Despite the Quranic injunction, ‘On
you who believe! When you rise up to prayers, wash your faces and
your hands as far as the elbows and wipe your heads and wash your
feet to the ankles; and if you are under an obligation to perform a
total ablution, have a bath… God does not desire to put on you any
difficulty but He wishes to purify you and that he may complete His
favour to you so that you may be thankful…’ (Q. 5:16) it seems that
Orthodox Christians gained knowledge of this from their observations
rather then from knowledge of the text of the Quran. The very public
nature of the ablutions meant that even a casual witness could
observe them. This knowledge could be passed on to their fellow co-
religionists in the Byzantine Empire. Often the Byzantines would
contrast the outward cleanliness of Muslims with their internal
sinfulness.

16
7. Sexual Exploitation

The Quran allows Muslim men to cohabit with as many concubines as

they please (Q. 23:6; 33:50-52; 70:30). Muhammad set the example
by accepting a beautiful Coptic slave girl named Maryam into his
harem.[20] During the prolonged wars between the Byzantines and
the Caliphate many captive (Christian) women were enslaved and
exploited by Muslims. This helped to create the view among
Byzantines of free sexual licence among Muslims.

8. Ghazis and Jihad

The Quran states, ‘Allah has bought from the believers their lives and
their wealth in return for paradise; they fight in the ways of Allah, kill
and get killed. This is a true promise from Him… and who fulfils His
promise better than Allah? Rejoice then at the bargain you have made
with Him; for that is the great triumph.’ (Q. 9:111) The Islamic armies
of the seventh century dislodged the eastern provinces of the
Byzantine Empire. From that point, the Islamic threat loomed large for
Byzantines. During the eighth and ninth centuries the armies of the
caliphate made annual raids into Byzantine territory. The religiously
inspired ghazi warriors were a common sight in the frontier regions. It
was only natural that the Byzantines came to associate Islam with
violence because of this. This would have been in stark contrast to
Orthodox view of warfare. The Byzantines never created the concept of
‘crusade’ as developed in the west. For the Byzantines, war was a
necessary evil for the survival of the state. It was not sanctioned by
Jesus, the Apostles or the Church Fathers. The average layman for
cleric would have been unaware of the Quranic verses encouraging
jihad but would have presumed that Islam encouraged the practise of
raiding. The difference between the peacefulness of Jesus and the
violence of Muhammad could not have been greater in the mind of a
Byzantine Christian. They could not see that the same God could
sanction Muhammad’s aggression after the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

9. Iconoclasm

Muslims rejected any type of human representation in their Mosques

or public buildings, while Byzantine Christians held icons up for
religious devotion. The cross especially came up as a point of conflict
as the Pact of Umar forbad Christians from displaying it in public.

17
10. The Hajj and the Kaaba/Black Stone

Muslims claim that the Kaaba was a shrine built by Abraham and that
the pilgrimage to Mecca is an important element of Islam. The Quran
states ‘Verily! The first house (of worship) appointed for mankind was
that at Mecca, a blessed place, a guidance to the peoples’ (Q. 3:96).
Byzantine authors did not believe this for a minute. They stated that
these practices originated in Arabian paganism. The Arab veneration of
stones was well known to Greek authors. Even a modern critic of Islam
(and ex-Muslim) like Ibn Warraq can claim in all confidence that these
practices were derived from paganism.[21] The Byzantine accusations
do not seem to be as ludicrous as it may appear at first.

Christology

1. Jesus as a prophet and servant

The Quran is emphatic on the status of Jesus as a servant, Apostle of

God and prophet and even more emphatic in its denial of his
divinity.[22] Jesus is mentioned twenty-five times in the Quran and is
even called ‘Messiah’ on a number of occasions. This point was at the
heart of Byzantine polemics as the divinity of Jesus loomed large in
Orthodox Christology after the Arian disputes of the fourth century.

2. Denial of the Trinity

There are three verses in two suras that directly attack the Christian
understanding of a Triune God. ‘They are ‘Believe therefore in God and
His Apostles, and say not, “three.”’ (Q. 4:169), ‘They misbelieve who
say, “Verily God is a third of three.” … the Messiah, the son of Mary, is
only a prophet, … and his mother was a confessor, they both ate food’
(Q. 5:77) and ‘And when God shall say, “O Jesus son of Mary hast
thou said unto mankind, ‘Take me and my mother as two Gods besides
God?’” (Q. 5:116).[23]

3. Status of Mary

The Quranic affirmation (Q. 19:16-21; 3:37-45) of the Virgin Birth was
well known to Christians. Also known was the claim that Mary was the
daughter of Amran and the sister of Moses and Aaron. For Christians it

18
was clear that Muhammad had confused Miriam, the sister of Moses,
with Mary, the mother of Jesus.

4. Denial of the Crucifixion

The Quran claims that Jesus was not crucified[24]: ‘Yet they slew him
not, and they crucified him not, but they had only his likeness’ (Q.
4:155-56). This was one of the most widespread Islamic beliefs that
Christianity had to confront. This was a fundamental difference as it
could not be reconciled with the New Testament accounts of the
crucifixion. Either the Quran or New Testament had to be mistaken.

Quran

1. Authorship and Compilation

The Quran was not compiled until after Muhammad had died. Bukhari
has a tradition that the Caliph Abu Bakr tasked Zayd ibn Thabit to
collect the Quran at the instigation of Umar because numerous Quran
reciters had died at the battle of Yamamah in 633.[25] The collection
remained in the hands of Hafsa, daughter of Abu Bakr until the reign
of Uthman when it was used as the official codex. Rival versions were
ordered to be burnt. Later more changes were made under Hajjaj,
Umayyad Governor of Iraq, in which versions of the Quran and other
early Islamic literature were destroyed.[26] Despite the Muslim
insistence on the divine origin and immutability of the Quran, the
Byzantines were well aware of its worldly origins. Often they used this
information to counter the Muslim polemic against the Christian
Scriptures.

1. Genre of the Quran

The Quran did not conform to the traditional genres of Biblical

literature. It was neither historical, prophetic or wisdom. The disjointed
and seemingly random nature of the Quran, commented on even
today, convinced Byzantine theologians that it could not be divinely
inspired.

2. Allegation of the Corruption of Christian Scriptures

19
The Quran makes a number of ambiguous statements about the Torah
and the Gospels. Some seem positive like ‘He has verily revealed to
you this Book, in truth and confirmation of the Books revealed before,
as indeed He had revealed the Torah and Gospel’ (Quran 3:3). Initially
it seems that early Muslims understood that Christians and Jews
misunderstood their own Scriptures but the text was sound. However,
Muslims quickly learned that Muhammad was not foretold in the
Scriptures and that episodes in both the Old and New Testaments
contradicted Islam. Then the claim was made that Jews and Christians
had corrupted their Scriptures. The extent of the corruption was often
a cause of dispute among Muslims but it was claimed by most Muslim
theologians that it had occurred to some extent. The fact that the main
proof text of each religion, the Bible and the Quran, was not accepted
completely by each side caused this to be a singularly important point
in any religious dispute as they were scripturally based religions.[27]
Byzantine Christians constantly defended the truth of the Gospels
while simultaneously disparaging the Quran, while Muslims asserted
the truthfulness of the Quran against the Bible. Since proof texting
was difficult and generally pointless Christians began to use
Aristotelian logic in their arguments against Islam. As the Quran
became more accessible Christian theologians used Quranic verses
that seemed to support Christian positions. Similarly, Muslims used
logic and Bible verses that supported Islam. The supposed prophesies
in the Bible relating to the advent of Muhammad are the best
examples.

3. Proof Texts

The Quran implies that the Bible predicted the coming of Muhammad
and that Christians and Jews had either deleted or misunderstood
these prophecies. The result was a constant dispute over the meaning
of certain key verses. For example, in Ibn Ishaq’s biography he quotes
the Paraclete verse from John’s Gospel (John 15:23 ff) as a prophecy
for Muhammad.[28] This verse remained a constant source of conflict
between Christians and Muslims for the duration of the Byzantine
Empire.[29]

4. Versions of Old Testament Stories and Contradictions

The Quran has versions of stories that do not tally with accounts in the
Bible. For example the Quran has a character named Haman (Suras

20
28:38, 29: 39-40, 40:28)[30] as the minister of Pharaoh under Moses.
Muhammad seems to have confused the minister of the Persian King in
Esther 3:1 with an unnamed minister to the Pharaoh mentioned in
Exodus 7:11 under the terms ‘wise men and magicians’. The Quran
presumes the Pharaoh had a chief minister at the time of Moses even
though this is not mentioned in the Exodus account.

There was also the problem of prophets and personages mentioned in

the Quran, such as Luqman (Q. 31:12), Khidhr (Q. 18:65-82) and
Dhu’l Qarnain (Q. 18:81-98) that were non-Biblical.

5. Depictions of Paradise

Almost as well known as the Christological sections of the Quran to the

Byzantines were the references to heaven (or paradise). Byzantines
often failed to distinguish between the Quranic references and later
popular embellishments but it seems that this was common among the
general Muslim population. The Quranic depiction of heaven is that of
a garden wherein inhabitants enjoy shade, fruits, cool drinks, wine and
meat as they desire; they recline on couches adorned with armlets of
gold and pearls, wearing green and gold robes of embroidered silk,
and are waited on by servants. Male inhabitants of the garden are to
enjoy the company of beautiful dark-eyed companions (houris) (Q.
55:46-78; 44:54). Some Islamic commentators interpret the verses on
Paradise in purely symbolic terms.[31] But the Byzantines always
understood that the Muslims accepted heaven in very carnal terms.

Politics

1. The Caliphs

As both political and religious leaders, the caliphs were open to attack
for their behaviour as rulers of an empire. They were often portrayed
as sensuous, greedy and violent by Byzantine polemicists. The violent
deaths of three of the first four caliphs was noted by Byzantine
historians and the frequency of the fratricidal Muslim conflicts was also
known. The martyrdom of Husayn and the massacre of the Alids (or
proto-Shi’ites) at Karbala was also common knowledge. Even the

21
massacre of the Umayyad family at the hands of the Abbasids did not
go unnoticed.

2. Allegations of Polytheism

Byzantine theologians liked to turn the tables on Muslims by claiming

that they were the ones who were secretly pagans. Islam was seen as
a mixture of Judaism, (heretical) Christianity and Arab paganism.
Muhammad was often accused of accepting pagan elements into Islam
to make it more palatable for Arabs.

3. Allegations of Idolatry

As the inheritors of the Classical tradition, Byzantines were informed of

pre-Islamic religion and culture. Herodotus and Strabo had both
claimed that Arabs worshiped stones (litholatory), so the Black Stone
was seen as a continuation of this under the guise of Islam. It was
common in their refutations to throw the charges of idolatry back at
Muslims.

4. Religious Divisions

Serious religious divisions racked Islam, like Christianity. The

Byzantines were well informed of this and used it to prove the
falseness of Islam. Muslims were equally well informed of the divisions
within Christianity. The Monophysites of Syria (Jacobites), Egypt
(Copts) and Armenia were all within direct Muslim rule while the
Nestorians were numerous in the provinces of the former Persian
Empire. All these groups contributed to the intellectual ferment of the
early Islamic world. The Byzantines were allies to the Fatimid
Caliphate of Egypt.

22
Byzantine Sources

Historians and Chroniclers

Byzantine historians, unlike their counterparts in Western Europe,
were often drawn from secular society rather than monastic circles.
Even the historians drawn from the ranks of the clergy tended to join
the priesthood or adopt the monastic life late in life, having been
secular administrators, teachers or officials in their formative years.
Due to the turmoil of the 7th and 8th centuries there was a break in the
Byzantine historiographic tradition. No historian from the period
survives and there seems to have been very little actually written in
any literary genre. The struggle to survive the onslaught of the
caliphate, which resulted in two massive sieges of Constantinople,
meant that scare resources were focused on areas other than
literature. The writing of history only re-emerged with Nikephoros and
Theophanes. Thus the formative centuries of Islam do not have any
contemporary Byzantine historian. From that point on there was a
continuous tradition to the fall of Constantinople and the end of the
Byzantine Empire. Islam impacted the Byzantine Empire for the entire
length of this period. Sometimes the empire was stable like in the 9th
century and 11th and 12th centuries, sometimes it was on the offensive
like the 10th century and sometimes it was in sharp decline like the
14th and 15th centuries. The historians were mainly concerned with the
political clash between the two civilizations rather than religious
digressions.

Patriarch Nikephoros of Constantinople – Breviarium (Short

History)

Nikephoros was born in Constantinople around 750 A.D. and went into
exile to Nicaea with his father due to the latter’s veneration of icons
under the iconoclastic emperor Constantine V. After the restoration of
icons, Nikephoros served as a secretary to the Empress Irene and her
son, the Emperor Constantine VI. However, he went into voluntary
monastic retirement when Irene seized the throne and deposed
Constantine. At the Seventh Ecumenical Council, in 787, Nikephoros
participated as a monk by reading a Greek translation of a papal

23
letter. In 802, Nikephoros returned to Constantinople as director of
the largest poorhouse in the city. After the death of Patriarch Tarasios
in 806, the new emperor, Nikephoros I, appointed him patriarch. As
Patriarch of Constantinople, Nikephoros I supported icon veneration,
and continued to hold the position of patriarch until 815, when the
emperor died. The new iconoclastic emperor, Leo, forced Nikephoros
to resign and go into exile and appointed a more compliant candidate
in his place. Nikephoros spent his remaining years writing a number of
anti-iconoclastic works and died around 828.[32]

The Short History (Breviarium) is a concise history of the years 602-

769 based on earlier sources that Nikephoros abbreviates
substantially. It was probably composed when Nikephoros was a young
man, sometime between 775-797.[33] It appears that there were two
drafts, the first concluding in 713.[34] The second version extended
the chronicle and revised the language in a more literary style.
Nikephoros is concerned with the conduct of the emperors and their
foreign wars. As a staunch Orthodox Christian Nikephoros does not
hesitate to condemn heretical emperors or those he sees as enemies
of the faith. Since the Short History concludes in 769, when
Nikephoros was a relatively young man, he is entirely dependent on
existing sources. The period between 600 to 800 is not well
represented in primary historical sources and the Short History is a
witness to the revival of the Byzantine historiographic tradition.
Nikephoros issued a second edition of the Short History later in life,
but the changes were stylistic rather than content based.

The brevity of the Short History did not allow Nikephoros the
opportunity for an excursus on the Arabs, their religion, or an
elaboration on their motives for attacking the Byzantine Empire that a
full history might have provided. The Short History is a compendium of
events with little room for comment by the author but his selection of
incidents is informative. As head of the Byzantine church Nikephoros
would probably have had an awareness of Islam as a religion or at
least had access to those who had detailed knowledge on the topic but
there is little indication of this in his history.[35] Either Nikephoros was
unaware of Islam’s monotheistic claims, or he simply did not believe.

Nikephoros usually refers to the Arabs as Saracens and in only one

place does he refer to their religion specifically. Nikephoros knows that
Yathrib (later named Medina) is a place in Arabia and the location

24
where the Saracens ‘… began to appear’ (Breviarium 18)[36] but does
not ascribe the place any religious significance. When recounting the
negotiations surrounding the surrender of Alexandria he explicitly calls
the leader of the Muslims in Egypt Amr (Ambros) a ‘pagan,[37] an
enemy of God and an opponent of the Christians.’ (Breviarium 26)[38]
The comment implies that other Saracens are equally pagan if their
leader is so designated. Even as a young bureaucrat, Nikephoros
would have heard of the monotheism of the Saracens but he chooses
to ignore or deny this. Nikephoros never mentions the names of
Muhammad, the name Muslim or the Quran.

Nikephoros recounts the military clashes between the Byzantines and

the Arabs and the impact they had on the civilian population. His
readers would automatically understand that the Saracens were
aggressors. They were invading the territory of the Byzantine Empire.
He recounts the two sieges of Constantinople and other Arab
incursions into Byzantine territory including the usual sacking of cities,
enslavement of the population, and massacring of civilians. When the
Arabs attacked Tyana they massacred the peasant auxiliaries called up
by the emperor even though they are unarmed and then proceed to
Chrysopolis where they massacre the local population and burn their
boats. (Breviarium 44)[39] In the account of the second siege he
states ‘the enemy was able to overrun the Roman State with impunity
and to cause much slaughter, abduction and the capture of cities.’
(Breviarium 52)[40]

In his account the Arabs are portrayed in the same way as the other
barbarian tribes swarming around the empire in the 7th and 8th
centuries, like the Avars. The barbarity of the Saracens is illustrated by
the brief but irrelevant anecdote on the early Arab conquest of
Palestine where they capture a Roman general named Sergius and put
him to death by sewing him up in a camel skin. (Breviarium 20)[41]
The story is unlikely but illustrates the oriental barbarity of the Arabs.
Nikephoros might as well have been referring to the pre-Islamic Arabs
rather than a new religious phenomenon. It is plain that he sees the
Arabs as cruel and violent and that Christians are their specific targets.
There is a curious episode where Kyros, Patriarch of Alexandria, makes
an agreement with Ambros to pay him tribute. He requests the
emperor to send him a daughter for Ambros to marry in the hope of
him becoming a Christian. The emperor refuses the request and the
negotiations come to nothing. (Breviarium 23)[42] The episode might

25
or might not be historical but the sequence plays out like the
negotiations between the Byzantines and any other barbarian tribe.
This suggests that Nikephorus did not see the Arabs as distinctive from
other non-Christian groups that were attacking the empire.

Theophanes the Confessor – Chronicle

Theophanes was born in Constantinople around 760 to a strategos

(general) of the Theme (a Byzantine province) of the Aegean Sea
named Isaac. As indicated by his father’s rank Theophanes came from
the highest strata of Byzantine society. As a young man Theophanes
married and joined the imperial court but after a while, he along with
his wife, decided to abandon secular life and adopt the monastic habit,
much to the displeasure of Leo V, the emperor, who was his godfather.
Due to his outspoken criticism of Leo’s iconoclastic policy Theophanes
was exiled to the island of Samothrace. Theophanes was given the
name ‘confessor’ and canonised by the Orthodox Church for his
suffering at the hands of the iconoclasts.[43] After a long illness
Theophanes died in 818.

The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor is a strictly annalistic work

covering the years 285–813. The Chronicle is a continuation of that of
George Synkellos who wrote a universal chronicle from the creation of
the world to 284 but he died before he could complete it. Theophanes
had access to the notes that George had gathered, including a Greek
translation of the lost chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa. As a result,
Theophanes is well informed about events in the east. The chronicle
was seen as such an important historical source that the Papal
librarian, Anastasius Bibliothecarius in 875, translated it into Latin. The
rubric of the chronicle has dates from the beginning of creation, the
five patriarchs that were in power in the various Sees, the Byzantine
emperor and the king of the Persians (later the Islamic caliph).

Theophanes includes a brief account of Muhammad, which was widely

disseminated in the Byzantine world. It is a mixture of authentic and
confused information.

In this year died Muhammad, the leader and false prophet of the
Saracens, after appointing his kinsman Abu Bakr to his chieftainship.

26
At the same time his repute spread abroad and everyone was
frightened. At the beginning of his advent the misguided Jews thought
he was the Messiah who is awaited by them, so that some of their
leaders joined him and accepted his religion while forsaking that of
Moses, who saw God. Those who did so were ten in number, and they
remained with him until his murder. But when they saw him eating
camel meat, they realised that he was not the one they thought him to
be, and were at a loss what to do; being afraid to abjure his religion,
those wretched men taught him illicit things directed against us,
Christians, and remained with him.

I consider it necessary to give an account of this man’s origins. He was

descended from a very widespread tribe, that of Ishmael, son of
Abraham; for Nizaros, descendant of Ishmael, is recognised as the
father of them all. He begot two sons, Moudaros and Rabias. Moudaros
begot Kourasos, Kaisos, Themimes, Asados and others unknown. All of
them dwelt in the Midianite desert and kept cattle, themselves living in
tents. There are also those farther away who are not of their tribe, but
of that of Lektan, the so-called Amanites, that is Himerites. And some
of them traded on their camels. Being destitute and an orphan, the
aforesaid Muhammad decided to enter the service of a rich woman
who was a relative of his, called Khandija[44], as a hired worker with a
view to trading by camel in Egypt and Palestine. Little by little he
became bolder and ingratiated himself with that woman, who was a
widow, took her as a wife, and gained possession of her camels and
her substance. Whenever he came to Palestine he consorted with Jews
and Christians and sought from them certain scriptural matters. He
was also afflicted with epilepsy. When his wife became aware of this,
she was greatly distressed, inasmuch as she, a noblewoman, had
married a man such as he, who was not only poor, but also an
epileptic. He tried deceitfully to placate her by saying, ‘I keep seeing a
vision of a certain angel called Gabriel, and being unable to bear his
sight, I faint and fall down’.

Now, she had a certain monk living there, a friend of hers (who had
been exiled for his depraved doctrine), and she related everything to
him, including the angel’s name. Wishing to satisfy her, he said to her,
‘He has spoken the truth, for this is the angel who is sent to all the
prophets.’ When she had heard the words of the false monk she was
the first to believe in Muhammad and proclaim to other women of her
tribe that he was a prophet. Thus, the report spread from women to

27
men, and first to Abu Bakr, whom he left as his successor. This heresy
prevailed in the region of Ethribos, in the last resort by war: at first
secretly, for ten years, and by war another ten, and openly nine.

He taught his subjects that he who kills an enemy or is killed by an

enemy goes to Paradise; and he said that this paradise was one of
carnal eating and drinking and intercourse with women, and had a
river of wine, honey and milk, and that the women were not like the
ones down here, but different ones, and that the intercourse was long-
lasting and the pleasure continuous; and other things full of stupidity.
Also, that men should feel sympathy for one another and help those
who are wronged. (From the Year 6122 (629/630 AD).[45]

Theophanes includes some basic facts about Muhammad; his descent

from an Arab tribe, his occupation as a camel-driver, his marriage and
claims to prophethood. Waraqa,[46] Khadija’s cousin and a Christian
who is supposed to have confirmed Muhammad’s divine mission, is
turned into a depraved exiled monk. Muhammad’s career is expanded
to 29 years rather than the traditional 23 years. Some of the errors
include the mistake that Muhammad was murdered and that Jews
recognized him as the Messiah. Muhammad’s murder probably owes
its origin to the story that Muhammad was poisoned by a Jewess from
Khaybar. It might have been circulated by Muslims to explain why
Muhammad had died at the relatively young age of 63. Sanctity was
linked with longevity. Theophanes picked up the story. The account of
the Jews owed its origin to a number of early Muslim converts from
Judaism. Byzantines viewed the Jews as inordinate enemies of the
Christians so their role in the advent of Islam would not have surprised
them. The Muslim concept of heaven captured Theophanes attention.
He explicitly calls it ‘stupidity’, especially the idea of food, drink, houris
and long lasting sex. The concept of brotherhood is the only positive
doctrine that Theophanes mentions in his very negative account.

Later in the Chronicle Theophanes recounts the martyrdom of a certain

Peter under the heading of the year 742. This Peter had worked closely
with Muslims and even considered them his friends. Thinking he was
on his death bed he decided to say the things he would never say
under normal circumstances. He cursed Muhammad and the Quran,
which he termed ‘fables.’ Obviously despite his cordial relations with
Muslims Peter was not impressed in the slightest about Muhammad.

28
Unfortunately Peter recovered his illness and was executed.
Theophanes’ account of the incident is as follows:

Peter of Maiouma [the port of Gaza] proved a voluntary martyr on

behalf of Christ. Having fallen ill, he invited the prominent Arabs who
were his friends – for he served as chartulary of the public taxes – and
said to them: “May you receive from God the recompense for visiting
me, even if you happen to be infidel friends. I wish you, however, to
witness this my will: anyone who does not believe in the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, the consubstantial and life-giving Trinity within a
unity, is spiritually blind and deserving of eternal punishment. Such a
one was Muhammad, your false prophet of the Antichrist. If you
believe me as I testify to you today by heaven and earth – for I am
your friend – abandon his fables, that you may not be punished along
with him.” When they had heard him utter these and many other
words about God, they were seized by astonishment and fury, but
decided to be patient, thinking he was out of his mind on account of
his illness. After he had recovered from his illness, however, he started
to cry out even louder: “Anathema on Muhammad and his fables and
on everyone who believes in them!” Thereupon he was chastised with
the sword and so became a martyr. (Listed under the Year 6234).[47]

This evidence indicates that there must have been a great divide
between what Christians were thinking privately and the public
discourse they gave to their Muslim overlords. It was only the fear of
death that prevented Christians from openly expressing their opinions.
The polemics written within the bounds of the Caliphate are much
milder than those in Byzantine territory. The difference is not so much
as a difference between Syriac and Greek writers but rather what they
could get away with. Greek writers are much more willing to criticize
Muhammad in the most abusive terms than their Syriac counterparts
because they lived safely in the territory of the Byzantine Empire.

Theophanes recounts the incident of the Muslim attack on the village

of Mu’ta. This battle was fought around 629 and resulted in a Muslim
defeat but Theophanes places it in the wrong year, after the death of
Muhammad. It became famous in Islamic historiography and was
greatly exaggerated and manipulated. Khalid later became a military
hero and was rehabilitated. The account in Theophanes indicates that
he had access to Islamic traditions.[48] The mention of the Muslims
‘intending to fall upon the [Christian] Arabs on the day they sacrificed

29
to their idols’[49] is obviously from an Islamic perspective, describing
the celebration of a Christian feast day.

Theophanes’ eastern source serves him well with some accurate

information on early Islamic political history. He knows that a ‘Persian
apostate who found him in prayer and pierced his stomach with a
sword’ assassinated Umar[50], that rebellious Arabs assassinated
Uthman and that there was discord between factions that supported Ali
and Muawiya.[51] Theophanes is aware that Ali was also assassinated
after the battle of Siffin and that Muawiya won the civil war and
established his residence at Damascus.[52] Theophanes is aware that
the Kharijites were a religious faction as he specifically calls them a
‘heresy.’ He has no information about their beliefs but recounts their
defeat by Muawiya. He mentions the pro-Shi’ite rebellion of Mukhtar at
Kufa in 684 but does not link it to Alid claims. That the rebellion had
religious overtones is clear when Theophanes reports that Mukhtar
‘called himself a prophet.’[53] He knows of the anti-Umayyad rebellion
of Abdallah ibn al-Zubair but thinks it was at Yathrib (Medina) rather
than Mecca. Theophanes does not seem to know about Mecca as he
fails to mention it in his summary of Muhammad’s career in the year
6122.

Joseph Genesios – History of the Reigns of the Emperors

The biography of Genesios is very sparse. A historian by the name of

Joseph Genesios is mentioned in the preamble of the chronicler
Skylitzes and the surviving text is ascribed to him in a marginal note
even though the single surviving manuscript is anonymous. Genesios
flourished (944-959 A.D.) during the reign of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, whose grandfather was Basil I.[54] There are
indications that his family might have had Armenian ancestry.[55]

The History of the Reigns of the Emperors covers the reigns of Leo V,
Michael II, Theophilus, Michael III and Basil I (the years 813-886) in
four books. The history continues the Chronicle of Theophanes the
Confessor but does not retain its annalistic structure.[56] It is strongly
pro-Macedonian in its views. Basil I had murdered Emperor Michael III
and assumed the throne. Genesios disparages the memory of Michael
in favour of Basil I, whose dynasty was still reigning in the mid tenth

30
century. Some modern commentators have even seen the history as
the ‘official’ history of the birth of the Macedonian Dynasty.

Genesios uses conventional terms to refer the Arab Muslim enemies of

the Byzantine Empire. They are generally referred to as Hagarenes,
Saracens and Ishmaelites. Genesios is generally neutral in his
accounts of military conflict between the Abbasid Caliphate and the
Byzantine Empire and religious differences rarely enter into the
narrative. Vilifying epitaphs rarely appear with only one reference to
Muslims as ‘impious.’ (On the Reigns IV.13)[57] However, this is
merely a traditional literary convention. Even when the opportunity
arises to include religion Genesios passes over the incidents in silence.
The account of the Persian defector Theophobos and the account of
Manuel’s defection to the Arabs are opportunities that Genesios
neglects.

The mid-ninth century included a number of military disasters for the

Byzantine Empire. The most spectacular were the fall of Crete, the
sacking of Amorion, and the capture of Syracuse in Sicily. Genesios
was well informed about the Spanish Muslim takeover of Crete
between 824/27. The Muslim pirates are said to have ‘enslaved’ 28
Cretan cities (one surrendered and was given special privileges). The
martyrdom of the metropolitan of Crete is expressed in specifically
religious terms ‘Cyril, the Bishop of the city of Gortyna, was
slaughtered like an unblemished sacrificial lamb for his faith in Christ’
(On the Reigns II.10-11).[58] The capture of Amorion in 838, by the
Abbasid caliph al-Mu’tasim, resulted in the death or enslavement of
thousands of prisoners and, in 845, the execution of 42 officers on the
banks of the Euphrates. This was the major military disaster during the
reign of Theophilus. The caliph refuses peace with Theophilus, despite
promises of great gifts, because he senses the weakness of the
Byzantine military. Rather than giving a detailed account of the
sacking of Amorion Genesios purposely gives a brief account. He
mentions the fate of the captured officers, ‘All the generals were once
led away to Syrian captivity, among whom were Patrikioi and
dignitaries who shared the same fate. Some of them were decapitated
and thus became victims worthy of lamentation.’ (On the Reigns
III.11)[59] By the 10th century there were numerous hagiographic
accounts of the 42 Martyrs of Amorion in circulation so, perhaps,
Genesios did not see the need to elaborate further. The caliph is called
a ‘new Sennacherib’, the destroyer of the kingdom of Israel in the Old

31
Testament. The Byzantines are obviously the Jews (the ones favoured
by God) thus bringing a distinctly religious symbolism to the defeat.
The final military defeat was the fall of Syracuse. Genesios repeats a
report given to a Byzantine general named Adrianos with the report
that the city was ‘filled by the Christian blood spilt there.’ (On the
Reigns IV.33)[60] Adrianos had been confined to the Peloponnesian
port of Hierax due to bad weather with a large fleet assigned to relieve
Syracuse from the Arab siege. After the news was confirmed Adrianos
returned to Constantinople and sought asylum in a church begging for
forgiveness.

Genesios has little time for religious reflection. His history is

unashamedly secular in its outlook. Arabs are a dangerous enemy,
with whom there is little room for sympathy, understanding or
compromise. The term ‘Christians’ for Genesios is a synonym for
‘Romans’ and is not indicative of the enemy having a rival religious
system in itself but the undertone of the history is primarily a clash
between the two peoples (Romans and Arabs) but not the two
religions (Christian and Muslim).

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus – De Administrando Imperio

Constantine was the son of the emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife,
Zoë Karbonopsina. He was born in 905 but was excluded from power
for nearly forty years by a succession of regents who took control of
government after Leo died in 912 and Constantine was in his infancy.
The admiral Romanos I held government for twenty years but was
deposed by his sons, who in turn were deposed by the supporters of
the legitimate dynasty. Constantine assumed power in his own right in
945 and continued until his death in 959. He fought a number of
moderately unsuccessful wars against Muslim powers including a failed
attempt to recapture Crete in 949 and campaigns over the Euphrates
between 952-958.[61]

For much of his life Constantine was excluded from power so he

devoted himself to scholarship and gathered around him a circle of
educated men. They produced a series of encyclopaedic works on
diplomacy, history and biography, including an untitled work on
foreign policy and ethnography that was given the modern title De

32
Administrando Imperio. The work is based on earlier sources and
covers the range of the empire’s enemies. The section on Islam
depends heavily on the chronicle of Theophanes but also includes
some independent information. The document was meant only for the
highest ranks of the civil administration and was meant to be a
practical guide in diplomacy.[62] As a result the information needed to
be as accurate as possible so ambassadors could familiarise
themselves with the political situation.

Constantine has excellent knowledge of political Islam such as the

succession of caliphs and the sectarian splits within Islam but he
knows little about Islam as a religion. Most of the information is taken
directly from the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor and quoted
verbatim. Constantine begins his account with a brief biography of the
prophet Muhammad. It is worth quoting the text in full:

The blasphemous and obscene Mahomet, whom the Saracens claim for
their prophet, traces his genealogy from the most widespread race of
Ishmael, son of Abraham. For Nizaros, the descendant of Ishmael, is
proclaimed the father of them all. Now he begat two sons, Moundaros
and Rabias, and Moundaros begat Kousaros and Kaisos and Themimes
and Asandos and various others whose names are unknown, who were
allotted the Madianite desert and reared their flocks, dwelling in tents.
And there are others further off in the interior who are not of the same
tribe, but of Iektan, the so-called Homerites, that is, Amanites. And
the story is published abroad thus. This Mahomet, being destitute and
an orphan, thought fit to hire himself out to a certain wealthy woman,
his relative, Chadiga by name[63], to tend her camels and to trade for
her in Egypt among the foreigners and in Palestine. Thereafter by little
and little he grew more and more free in converse and ingratiated
himself with the woman, who was a widow, and took her to wife. Now,
during his visits to Palestine and intercourse with Jews and Christians
he used to follow up certain of their doctrines and interpretations of
scripture. But as he had the disease the epilepsy, his wife, a noble and
wealthy lady, was greatly cast down at being united to this man, who
was not only destitute but an epileptic into the bargain, and so he
deceived her by alleging: ‘I behold a dreadful vision of an angel called
Gabriel, and being unable to endure his sight, I faint and fall’; and he
was believed by a certain Arian, who pretended to be a monk, testified
falsely in his support for love and gain. The woman being in this
manner imposed on and proclaiming to other women of her tribe that

33
he was a prophet, the lying fraud reached also the ears of a head-man
whose name was Boubachar (Abu Bakr). Well, the woman died and left
her husband behind to succeed her and to be heir of her estate, and
he became a notable and very wealthy man, and his wicked imposture
and heresy took hold on the district of Ethribos (Yathrib). And the
crazy and deluded fellow taught those who believed on him, that he
who slays an enemy or is slain by an enemy enters into paradise, and
all the rest of his nonsense. And they pray, moreover, to the star of
Aphrodite, which they call Koubar, and in their supplication cry out:
‘Alla wa Koubar’, that is, ‘God and Aphrodite’. For they call God ‘Alla’,
and ‘wa’ they use as the conjunction ‘and’, and they call the star
‘Koubar’, and so they say ‘Alla wa Koubar.’ (De Administrando Imperio
14)[64]

There are a number of things that Constantine Porphyrogenitus gets

correct about Muhammad’s biography. He knows that Muhammad was
an orphan, that he married a rich widow for whom he worked for as a
merchant. He knows that Muhammad claimed to have received
revelations from the archangel Gabriel and that he preached as a
prophet to his followers. The city of Yathrib (later named Medina) is
named as a place where Islam took hold. The idea that a Muslim who
dies for his faith or is killed fighting will go to paradise is also an
authentic Islamic belief. The call to prayer is authentic but the words
used are mistranslated and misunderstood. Constantine is a firm
believer in the crypto-paganism of Islam as indicated by his translation
of the takbir.

Constantine is writing a polemic so he tailors his information to

present Muhammad in the worst possible light. The visions are
attributed to epilepsy and Muhammad is specifically called a ‘lying
fraud’ and ‘crazy.’ The mention of the ‘Arian’ monk describes Byzantine
perceptions of the origins of Islamic Christology in the tradition of John
of Damascus.

Constantine has more information on Muslim political history. He is

aware of the succession of caliphs and correctly names Abu Bakr,
Umar and Uthman. He is aware that Abu Bakr is related to Muhammad
but does not elaborate on this. He gives approximately correct dates
for their reigns. He also recounts the incident of Umar going to
Jerusalem, meeting Sophronius, accepting the surrender of the city
and building a mosque on the remains of the Temple of Solomon. (De

34
Administrando Imperio 17-20) There is a difference from the
traditional numbering of caliphs as Constantine counts Muhammad as
the first chief of the Arabs. This implies that he views Muhammad in
political, not religious, terms. Ali is not included in Constantine’s
succession list but goes to Muawiya with the statement ‘This Muawiya
also made an expedition against Constantinople … and after the death
of Uthman was fifth chief of the Arabs for twenty-four years.’[65] Later
Constantine gives a brief account of the civil war between Muawiya
and Ali. The account of the civil war follows the usual Muslim outline,
even the story of the arbitration at Siffin but gets mixed up as
Constantine thinks Ali’s sons died in the civil war soon after their
father’s death (De Administrando Imperio 21). The disputed reign of
Ali is probably not counted, as it was never accepted in Syria where
Muawiya was ruling as governor in Damascus. In his account of
Muawiya Constantine seems to have used an anti-Umayyad source as
he says that the Umayyad arbitrator at Siffin ‘was devout only in
appearance, but in all else deceitful and arrogant and surpassing all
men in mischief.’[66]

Finally, Constantine accurately describes the division of the Islamic

world of the 10th century as being the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad,
the Fatimid Dynasty in Egypt and the Umayyad Caliphate in Cordoba in
Spain. (De Administrando Imperio 25)[67] He knows that the Fatimids
claim descent from Ali and Fatima and that Fatima was the daughter of
Muhammad but there is no hint that he is aware that there are
underlying religious disputes (Sunnis and proto-Shi’ites) between the
two groups. Constantine even makes the mistake of claiming that a
warlike Arab tribe of Fatimids exists in Arabia but not related to Fatima
or the Fatimids of Egypt. (De Administrando Imperio 15)[68] Initially,
this seems to be a grossly stupid error but the existence of rival Shi’ite
groups in Iraq and Arabia and their constant rebellions against the
central authority probably account for this reference.

John Kaminiates – The Capture of Thessalonike

John Kaminiates was a cleric from Thessalonike at the beginning of the

10th century. His account of the capture of the city is his only extant
work. That John was a native of Thessalonike is obvious from his
sincere patriotic references.

35
John Kaminiates work gives an account of the siege and capture of
Thessalonike in 904 by Arabs. He recounts the suffering of the
population as the city was sacked and the helpless citizens were
enslaved and taken into captivity. He claims to have been an
eyewitness to the events he describes. Numerous detailed references
point to the authenticity of the text despite some modern doubt.[69]

The horrific account of the sack of Thessalonike leaves John

Kaminiates scope to portray the Muslim aggressors in the blackest
terms. The people of Thessaloniki are the innocent victims of the
naked aggression of a savage and merciless enemy. The Muslim
pirates are usually refereed in ethnic terms as ‘barbarians’,
‘Hagarenes’ and once even ‘Ishmaelites’. Kaminiates is probably aware
of the claims of Muslims to be literal descendants of Hagar. Often
Kaminiates uses abusive epitaphs such as ‘accursed Hagarenes’
(Kaminiates, Capture 12)[70] and ‘cut-throats and desperadoes.’
(Kaminiates, Capture 18)[71] There is no indication that they share a
common monotheistic faith with the Christians whatsoever by their
conduct in warfare. That the Muslims were religiously scrupulous,
however, is indicated by a number of references such as their
avoidance of wine (Kaminiates, Capture 54), the observation of the
Muslims at mid-day prayer (Kaminiates, Capture 55) and the use of
water for their ritual ablutions. (Kaminiates, Capture 77) A vivid image
that Kaminiates paints is that of the spilt wine mixing with the blood of
the slain and flowing into the gutters. The wine was in the captured
port waiting for export but was of no use to the Muslims so they
dumped it in the streets. Kaminiates exact words are ‘On the way we
met with fearful and unexpected sights. The bodies of the slain lay still
dripping with blood, a gruesome spectacle, persons of every age all
condemned alike to a single sentence of death by the sword and all
alike bereft of burial. Wine ran in rivulets down every street, mingled
with the blood of the fallen and intoxicated the ground on which the
city stood.’ (Kaminiates, Capture 54)[72] After the graphic account of
the slaughter of the Thessalonians, Kaminiates then proceeds to
recount the suffering of the prisoners in some detail. The inhumane
manner in which they are treated suggests to the reader that their
captors knew little of mercy. Kaminiates says that there were 800
prisoners on a single ship and that the death toll among the infants
was especially high; one of Kaminiates own infants was among the
dead. ‘We were afflicted by many other unpleasant forms of constraint
such as hunger and thirst and were black and blue from the

36
overcrowding … on top of which there were the pitiful cries of infants
unable to bear the full rigour of hardships whose intensity merely
hastened their untimely death.’ (Kaminiates, Capture 67)[73] At a
stop at Patmos there was a multitude of deaths due to lice,
contaminated water and spoiled food. In all Kaminiates states that
22,000 Christians were enslaved, most of them young. (Kaminiates,
Capture 73)[74]

Kaminiates saves his worst condemnation for Leo of Tripoli, the Muslim
admiral in charge of the raid. Kaminiates is fully aware that Leo was a
convert to Islam from Christianity so it clear that he knows Islam as a
rival religious system. However, he neglects to explain that Leo was
captured as a child and enslaved, only to be subsequently converted
and freed by a patron. He seems to omit this information so Leo
cannot be excused on account of his young age. That Kaminiates views
Islam negatively is clear from his reference to Islam as ‘impiety’. He
especially disapproves of Leo’s mercilessness and brutality. The link
between Islam and violence is clear; either Leo was violent due to the
influence of Islam or Islam was unable to moderate Leo’s savagery. It
is worth quoting John Kaminiates exact words ‘He [Leo of Tripoli] was
a sinister and thoroughly evil person, who flaunted a style of
behaviour singularly appropriate to the wild animal after which he was
named and for whose ferocious ways and ungovernable temper he was
more than a match. Assuredly, you yourself also know the man by
reputation, a reputation which celebrates his wickedness with the
claim that he outshone all previous paragons of impiety by descending
to such depths of madness as to gaze insatiably upon the spilling of
human blood and to love nothing better than the slaughter of
Christians. He too was once a Christian, was reborn in the saving
grace of baptism and taught the precepts of religion. But when he was
taken prisoner by the barbarians, he embraced their impiety in
exchange for true piety of the faith and there is no way in which he
more eagerly seeks to ingratiate himself with them than by making his
deeds conform to his name and by taking a particular pride in flaunting
the actions of a felon and a brigand.’ (Kaminiates, Capture 24)[75]
Kaminiates sees Leo’s savagery not as an exception but the rule. Leo
merely outdoes his fellow Muslims in violence.

Leo the Deacon – History

37
Leo was born in Kaloe in Asia Minor sometime around 950 and was
educated at Constantinople, where he became a palace deacon. His
History indicates that he accompanied the emperor Basil II on his
Bulgarian campaign in 986.[76] Leo was one of the few ordained
ecclesiastics to engage in historiography. The recent translators of
Leo’s History note his pro-church stance when in conflict with imperial
policy. He may have become a bishop later in his career.

The History of Leo the Deacon encompasses the years 959-976 in 10

books. Leo focuses on the reigns of Romanos II, Nikephoros II Phocus
and John I Tzimiskes. It is very favourable to Nikephoros Phocus but
Leo does not idealise any of his main characters. The History gives an
account of the ascendant Byzantine Empire in their wars against the
Arabs of Crete and Asia Minor and against the Bulgars and Russians in
Europe, which for the first time in centuries, demonstrated the military
superiority of the empire. That Leo was a well-educated individual is
indicated by his numerous quotes from authors including classical
authors like Homer and Herodotus and allusions to other historians.
Leo was no religious bigot in any sense of the word despite his staunch
attachment to Orthodox Christianity.

Leo has no extended discussion on Islam but he offers clear

characterisation. Typical of Byzantine historians Leo refers to Muslims
in ethnic terms, either as Hagarenes, Arabs or simply barbarians. Leo
characterises Muslims with negative traits such as being ‘arrogant’,
‘murderous’ and ‘rash’. Leo puts a speech into the mouth of
Nikephorus before the attack on Chandax in Crete in which Nikephorus
states to his troops ‘I think that none of you is unaware of the cruelty
and ferocity of the descendants of the maidservants, and the raids and
enslavement that they have murderously perpetrated against the
Romans… Isn’t it true that almost all of our coastline is uninhabited as
a result of their rapine? Aren’t most of the islands deserted because of
their raids? (Leo the Deacon, History I.6)[77] The Cretan Arabs were
renowned as pirates. Their brutal reputation was proverbial. The rule
of the Cretan Arabs is described as a ‘tyranny’ obviously because they
ruled as an Arab Muslim elite over a Greek Christian majority. Despite
the intense animosity Nikephorus Phocus restrained his troops from
massacring the defeated Arabs.[78]

The direct conflict between Islam and Christianity is only alluded to in

Leo’s History. In the account of the capture of Tarsus, Leo specifically

38
mentions the destruction of churches. He makes mention of the
murder of Christopher, Patriarch of Antioch, who had been killed by
Muslims in the city before its capture by the Byzantines. The religious
aspect of the incident is stressed by Leo the Deacon. He calls
Christopher ‘an apostolic and divinely inspired man’ and the ‘crime of
reverence for Christ the Saviour’ being his only trespass. (Leo the
Deacon, History VI.6)[79] Christopher is portrayed as blameless.
There were perhaps political overtones to Christopher’s murder but,
for Leo the Deacon, it is clearly a martyrdom.

There are two exceptions to Leo’s negative attitude to Muslims. The

first is his rather grudging respect for Hamdan. Leo calls him ‘shrew
and energetic’ and even praises him for the lack of bloodshed that
some of his raids caused on Byzantine territory. Soon after this, Leo
reverts to the standard accusations. The Christian inhabitants of the
region inform Leo Phocus that Hamdan had caused them severe
suffering. Leo Phocus ‘began to hear about Hamdan’s insolence and
lack of mercy, and to see churches and villages that had been burnt,
the ruins of fortresses, and the land that was deserted because of the
violent abduction of its inhabitants.’ (Leo the Deacon, History II.2)[80]
The conflict that Leo the Deacon then goes on to describe is, basically,
a war of liberation.

The other reference is to Anemas, the son of the last Muslim Emir of
Crete. Leo identifies him and singles him out for his bravery in combat.
It seems that he became an imperial bodyguard. In the first instance
Anemas killed the second-in-command of the Russians, who was a
renowned warrior (Leo the Deacon, History XI.6); the other mentions
his death after killing many Russians with the concluding remark ‘a
man surpassed by no one his age in brave feats in battle.’ (Leo the
Deacon, History IX.8)[81] It is reasonable to assume that Anemas
retained his Muslim religion in imperial service. The tenth century
Byzantine armies had a reputation for ethnic diversity. The lack of a
Christian name, which a convert would have to assume on baptism,
would be conclusive in demonstrating Anemas’s religious affiliation.
The praise that Leo gives Anemas is thus more remarkable.

Leo makes two references to Muhammad; the first during the siege of
Chandax in Crete and the second during the Syrian campaign of
Nikephorus Phocas. Both references are in passing and offer no
substantial biographical information on Muhammad. Leo comments

39
that the Cretan Arabs were very superstitious, in Leo’s own words they
were ‘…addicted to divination, ribaldry and wrongful belief…’ (Leo the
Deacon, History II.6).[82] Leo attributes this by name to the influence
of Muhammad. The ‘wrongful belief’ indicates Islamic rejection of the
incarnation, Trinity and crucifixion while the ‘ribaldry’ must refer to the
Muslim sexual exploitation of women in the form of polygamy and
concubinage. The other reference is to a diplomatic gift by Nikephorus
Phocas to the Fatimid Caliph of a sword that was supposedly once
owned by Muhammad. Byzantine armies had captured the sword on
the Syrian campaign. When referring to Muhammad, Leo cannot help
but give Muhammad the epitaph ‘most accursed and impious’ (Leo the
Deacon, History V.1).[83] It is unclear what Leo knew of Muhammad’s
biography but the reference to the sword suggests that he was aware
of Muhammad’s military campaigns. In typical Byzantine fashion, this
aspect of Muhammad’s career would have repulsed Leo.

Michael Psellos – Chronographia

Michael Psellos was born in Constantinople in 1018 with the baptismal

name of Constantine. He made a career in the civil administration and
belonged to a group of intellectuals who had hopes of exercising power
at the imperial court. Psellos fell briefly out of favour and retired to
Mount Olympus where he became a monk and took the monastic name
of Michael. On his return to the capital Psellos became a court
philosopher (or hypatos ton philosophon) and tutor to the Caesar John
Doukas. Psellos was a literary polymath and author of numerous works
covering a range to topics. After the disastrous reign of Michael VII,
whom Psellos had tutored, he went into voluntary retirement and died
in obscurity some time after 1081.

Psellos lived at a time of Byzantine military ascendency. The

boundaries of the empire were relatively secure and Islam was a
distant threat. His own concerns were with court life and the capital so
he was little concerned with Muslims and Islam as a religion, which he
never mentions. He does refer to Muslim powers in his account but
only in passing. The Chronographia consists of seven books covering
the years 976 -1078. Psellos’s life revolved around the imperial court
and Constantinople. As a result his history is basically a series of
imperial biographies.

40
As a courtier and secular scholar for most of his life, Islam was far
removed from Psellos’s thoughts. He demonstrates no specific
knowledge of Islam in his Chronographia but on the other hand he
does not make any outlandishly ignorant comment either. The exact
state of his knowledge is unclear. Psellos was author of a number of
theological works as a layman, so the expectation is that he was
knowledgeable about religion to some degree. Psellos recounts with
seeming disapproval the Syrian campaign of the emperor Romanus III.
He emphasises the unprovoked nature of the war in an effort for the
emperor to gain fame. ‘For these reasons, although no real pretext for
war existed, he made an unprovoked assault on the Saracens…The
leading generals tried to dissuade him from this offensive – they were
not a little fearful of the outcome…’ (Psellos, Chronographia III.8).[84]
This text suggests that Psellos was quite happy to coexist with Muslims
as long as they were not aggressive towards the empire. However,
later Psellos demonstrates his patriotism when he states he refused to
write a humble letter to the ruler of Egypt and instead wrote that: ‘I
conveyed exactly the opposite impression by subtle allusion: what I
wrote had one meaning for Constantine [the reigning emperor] and
another for the Sultan. I had sly digs at the latter and hurt his dignity
without being too overt (Psellos, Chronographia VI.190).[85] This
reference does not strictly indicate religious sensitively but just good
old-fashioned Byzantine cultural superiority.

The references to Islam in the Chronographia are meagre but as a

courtier and intellectual little more could be expected of Psellos.

Anna Komnena – The Alexiad

Anna Komnena was the daughter of the emperor Alexios I Komnenos.

Alexios assumed the throne in 1081 and ruled for nearly forty years.
Anna was born in 1083 after her father had assumed the throne. She
was originally engaged to Constantine Doukas, son of Michael VII, who
was regarded as the heir to the throne. On his premature death she
wed Nikephoros Bryennios. After her father’s death in 1118 she
attempted to usurp the throne from her brother John but was
unsuccessful and was forced to retire to a monastery although she
only became a nun on her deathbed. At the monastery she was a
patron of scholars and established a circle of literary men.

41
The Alexiad was written after 1148, more than twenty years after
Alexios’ death. The history covers the forty years of Alexios’ reign,
from 1081 to 1118, in fifteen books. As the title suggests the history’s
focus was Alexios and is laudatory towards him. Anna was well
informed on the events she describes but occasionally her biases get
the better of her.

Anna Komnena was a well-educated individual and, as a historian,

took care to investigate her sources but her comments on the Turks
and on Islam are remarkably ignorant, especially when compared to
her accurate statements on heresies.[86] Anna is aware of the person
of Muhammad and mentions him is passing (Anna Comnena, Alexiad
VI.13). She knows that Muslims are circumcised but knows little else
of the Islamic religion. She refers to the Turks as ‘godless’ early on in
her history (Anna Comnena, Alexiad III.11) and suggests their
religious allegiances are fickle when her father tempts a number of
Turkish envoys on separate occasions to convert to Christianity with
gifts and flattery. (Anna Comnena, Alexiad VI.9, VI.13). Anna is also
unclear about the ethnic relationship of the Turks to the Arabs. On a
number of occasions she refers to ‘Arabs’ when she is definitely talking
about the Turks. In only one section does Anna discuss the religion of
the Turks, where she makes these inadequate statements:

The Ishmaelites are indeed dominated by Dionysos and Eros; they

indulge readily in every kind of sexual licence, and if they are
circumcised in the flesh they are certainly not so in their passions. In
fact, the Ishmaelites are nothing more than slaves – trebly slaves – of
the vices of Aphrodite. Hence they reverence and worship Astarte and
Ashtaroth, and in their land the figure of the moon and the golden
image of Chobar are considered of major importance. (Anna Comnena,
Alexiad X.5).[87]

Georgina Buckler calls this section ‘an absurd travesty of

Mohammedanism.’[88] The Turks had recently swarmed into Anatolia
after defeating the Byzantines at the battle of Manzikert in 1071. Anna
considers the Turks to be polytheists, seemingly worshiping an ancient
triad of gods and goddesses that she gained from her classical reading.
Possible explanations for this strange passage include that some of the
Turks entering Anatolia might still have been polytheists or semi-
Islamicised or that she believed in the charge of crypto-paganism that
was levelled against Islam. Also, Anna would have seen Islam as a

42
non-monotheistic religion because of their denial of the divinity of
Christ.

Anna has a low opinion of Turkish morality and the corollary of this is
Islamic ethics. In keeping with Byzantine historiography Anna sees the
Turks as arrogant. Her exact words are ‘…for the Turks are an arrogant
people, with their heads in the clouds’ (Anna Comnena, Alexiad
XV.6).[89] On receiving a letter from a Turkish sultan asking for a
marriage alliance Alexius responded with laughter ‘at the Turk’s
presumption, muttering, “The devil must have put that into his head”’
(Anna Comnena, Alexiad VI.12).[90]

Violence is a constant theme in Anna’s history. Anna gives a rather

gruesome account of the murder of sultan Malek Shah by the
assassins,[91] who Anna refers to as Chasioi, at the instigation of his
brother. Anna states ‘The Chasioi delight in that sort of bloodshed;
their idea of pleasure is merely plunging of a sword into human
entrails. As for the future, if some other folk happen to attack them at
the very same moment and cut them up into mincemeat, they regard
a death as an honour, passing on these bloody deeds from one
generation to another like some family heritage’. Anna Comnena,
Alexiad VI.12). The mention of the gods and goddess might be Anna’s
metaphors for the true sensual nature of the Turks. The Turks are
lustful and addicted to drinking wine so they ‘worship’ Dionysius, the
ancient Hellenic god of wine. In a number of places she comments on
the habitual drunkenness of the Turks (Anna Comnena, Alexiad VI.12,
IX.3, X.5, XV.1). The lustful remark may be due to the Islamic custom
of polygamy and concubinage or simply the abuse of Greek women by
Turkish invaders, who would have considered the Christian women
infidels and consequently taken sexual advantage of them. The
mention of the ‘vices of Aphrodite’, the ancient Hellenic goddess of
love, obviously refers to sexual excesses. The golden image of Chabor
is perhaps a garbled reference to the black stone in the Kaaba in
Mecca mixed with the story of the Golden calf in the Old Testament.
Perhaps Anna is trying to show that the Muslims are just old-fashioned
idolaters.

John Kinnamos – The Deeds of John and Manuel Komnenos

43
John Kinnamos was a minor bureaucrat in the service of Emperor
Manuel Komnenos. He was born before 1143 and died some time after
1185. Little else is known about him. His broad education is implied by
his imperial service. He appears briefly in the contemporary History of
Niketas Chionates in an episode where Kinnamos and Euthymius,
Metropolitan of Neai Patrai, argue a point of theology in the emperor’s
tent and are threatened by him.[92] This incident took place under the
Emperor Andronikos Angelus.

His history covers the years 1118-76 in seven brief books, the reigns
of John and Manuel Komnenos, but breaks off at the end before the
account of the battle of Myrokephalion and the end of Manuel’s reign.
Kinnamos is highly disposed towards Manuel but his account is
generally reliable and sober. The history only survives in a single
manuscript. Niketas Chionates used it in his own historical work
without acknowledgement. All this suggests that the work only
enjoyed a limited circulation.

Despite the indication that Kinnamos enjoyed a theological discussion

there is little in the way of discussion on Islam. The only indication of
the belief of the Turks is a passing reference to the Khazars who had
migrated into Hungary. Kinnamos, who refers to them as Chalisioi,
mentions that they follow the Mosaic Law. Later he states again ‘…they
are heterodox, agreeing with the Turks’ (Deeds V.16).[93] This
indicates that not only Kinnamos but also his readers were perfectly
aware of the Mosaic nature of Islam and the role that Moses played in
their theology. Kinnamos is well informed of the political realities of
the 12th century and names the rulers of the various Turkish emirates
that were in conflict with Byzantium. He names Danishmend and
Muhammad (Deeds I.6), Mas’ud of Ikonion (Deeds II.5), Suleiman
(Deeds II.11), Yaghi-Basan (Deeds III.6), Shahan-Shah (Deeds IV.24)
and Kilidj Arslan (Deeds V.3). Kinnamos is even aware of Nur-ad-Din
in Syria, the enemy of the Crusaders and sometime Byzantine ally
(Deeds IV.21).

His accounts of the numerous battles between the Byzantines and the
Turks are very conventual, similar to the battles between the
Byzantines and the Hungarians that were occurring at the same time.
In places where a remark would be expected Kinnamos remains
reluctant to give his own judgement. Kinnamos attributes the
aggressiveness of the Turks to purely materialistic motives rather than

44
religious. ‘For the barbarians suffer in no respect so much as in loss of
money and goods’ (Deeds IV.23).[94] He either is unaware of the
Islamic idea of Jihad or thinks that the religious motives are secondary
to simple greed. Kinnamos is aware that Egypt was once part of the
Byzantine Empire and explains that it was detached ‘when Asia was
severely afflicted and the Arabic people prevailed for the moment, it
too was taken and fell under the sway of the Easterners.’ (Deeds VI.9)
[95]

On a number of occasions Kinnamos mentions by name Turks who

were raised by the Romans (Byzantines) or were in Byzantine service.
Specifically named are John Axouchos (Deeds I.2), Prosouch (Deeds
II.14), Ishaq (Deeds III.18), Bairam (Deeds IV.13), John Ises (Deeds
V.13) and Michael (previously Ishaq) (Deeds VII.3). The phrase
‘Roman upbringing and education’ is elusive but is does imply a
conversion to Christianity, especially when a Christian name is given in
the cases of John Ises and Michael. All this Kinnamos passes over
without comment as to the positive benefits of imperial service and
conversion. Perhaps Kinnamos took it for granted. There is a brief
account of how Andronikos Komnenos deserted to the Turks after an
affair with Theodora. Andronikos participated in raids against
Byzantine territory. Kinnamos calls Andronikos ‘a wretch’ and mentions
his excommunication by the church but little else. (Deeds VI.1)[96]

Kinnamos describes the devastation wrought by the Turks on the

Anatolian heartland of the Byzantine Empire. Early in his history he
mentions rather euphemistically that the Turks ‘maltreat the Romans’
(Deeds I.5) and that the Romans were ‘enslaved to the Turks for a
long time’ (Deeds I.9). His brief account of the fate of city of Dorylaion
is indicative of the conduct of the Turks.

This Dorylaion was once as great a city as any in Asia and worthy of
much note. A gentle breeze blows over the land, and plains extend
around it, extremely smooth and exhibiting an extraordinary beauty,
so rich and fertile that they yield abundant grass and produce splendid
grain. A river, fair to see and sweet to taste, sends its course through
the midst. Such a multitude of fish swims in it that, while fished in
abundance by people there, there is no lack. Splendid dwellings had
been erected there by a former Caesar of the Melissenoi, and there
were populous villages and natural springs and porticoes and baths;
whatever brings pleasure to men, the place used to offer in

45
abundance. But the Turks, when their assault against the Romans
reached its peak, threw down the city to its foundations and rendered
it entirely bereft of inhabitants; everything vanished, even to the
barest trace of its former splendour. Such was this city. (Deeds
VII.2)[97]

Other Byzantine citizens were blunter in their condemnation of the

Turks. The orator Euthymios Malakes, in his speech to Manuel I, gives
a wishful account of how the emperor should treat the Turks due to
their aggressive attacks on the empire. ‘For you, barbarians, Hell is the
only proper abode. Even though you are not rushing thereto, the
emperor will send you there against your will. Your gold that you had
collected as tribute while crossing the plains of Dorylaion has perished,
your herds of horses and cows and sheep have perished and you have
suffered misfortune, even your most important limbs are severed’.[98]
That this similar hatred existed among the troops is indicated by the
desecration of Turkish tombs at Ikonion by the besieging Byzantine
army (Deeds II.6) and the parading of the head of Gabras by the
Byzantine soldiers in their camp (Deeds II.8). Gabras came from a
noble Byzantine family, of which one branch had gone over to Turkish
service, embraced Islam and reached the rank of emir. The troops saw
him as a traitor and dealt with him harshly. That the feeling was
mutual is indicated by Kinnamos’s reference that the Turks nurtured
hatred toward the Byzantines (Deeds IV.21).

One of the few specifically religious incidents recounted by Kinnamos

concerns a state visit to the capital of the sultan Kilidj Arslan in 1162.
Manuel wished Kilidj Arslan to visit the Church of Holy Wisdom but was
refused permission by Patriarch Loukas. Loukas stated that ‘impious
men must not pass by consecrated furnishings and priestly
adornments.’ (Deeds V.3)[99] This indicates a high level of religious
intolerance within Constantinople at the time. Manuel pressed the
issue. Later that night there was an earthquake that seemed to the
population to be divine approval of the patriarch’s stand. Kinnamos
explains that the earthquake was really a foreboding of the military
defeat at Myrokephalion in 1176 by Kilidj Arslan. Obviously, Kinnamos
did not believe the popular view of the incident because, ideologically,
he was unwilling to put Manuel in the wrong.

46
Niketas Choniates – Roman History

Niketas Chionates was born in the town of Chonai (ancient Collossae)

in Phrygia some time between 1155 and 1157. His older brother was
Michael Chionates, who became archbishop of Athens. He called
Niketas to Constantinople where he received a good classical
education. He began his career before 1182 when he served as an
official on the Black Sea coast but retired due to the excesses of the
reign of Andronikos. He returned when Andronikos was deposed and
witnessed the capture of Constantinople by the 4th Crusade. He died in
obscurity in 1217.

Niketas’s History contains a number of theological disputes. The

account of the controversy regarding the Formula of Abjuration is
justly the most famous. It is one of the few controversies between
Christians and non-Christians recounted by Byzantine historians. The
controversy broke out towards the end of Manuel’s reign, perhaps
1178.[100] Manuel wished to change the formula because of his
ambition in reconquering lands in Anatolia lost to the Turks. A member
of the Gabras family, who had been raised as a Muslim and served as
the vizier to the sultan, named Iktiyar al-Din Hasan ibn Gabras made
the suggestion to the emperor that he would be willing to convert if
the formula was changed to remove the anathema on the ‘God of
Muhammad’. Consequently, a synod was called to discuss the issue.
Manuel concluded that there would be many within the Seljiq court
willing to convert if the formula was less stringent.[101] At issue was
the use of the word ‘holosphyros’ and its synonyms in an attempt to
render the Arabic word samad (used in sura 112:2) into Greek.[102]
The word was translated as meaning ‘all-spherical’ or ‘hammer-beaten
metal.’[103] The Orthodox bishops viewed this understanding of God
as blasphemous and merely served to convince them that their God
and the god of Muhammad were different.

Byzantine churchmen recognised that Muslims claimed to be

monotheists but it seems that since they could not grant Muhammad
any genuine revelation they could not agree that his god was the
Judeo-Christian God. It was merely a construct of Muhammad’s
distorted mind or satanically inspired. The polemics of Niketas of
Byzantium from the ninth century demonstrate that there was a strong
opinion that the god of Muhammad was really the Devil. Any relation
to authentic Christian revelation was merely plagiarism. This attitude

47
seems to explain Eustathios of Thessaloniki’s statement that ‘My brains
would be in my feet and I would be unworthy of this garb were I to
regard as true God the pederast who was as brutish as a camel and
master and teacher of every abominable act as God’ (Niketas
Choniates, Roman History VII.216).[104] Magoulias mistakenly claims
that Eustathios is equating Muhammad with God (‘an inexcusable
mistake’)[105] but it is highly unlikely that after five centuries of
polemics the well-informed Eustathios would make such a simplistic
mistake.

There were a number of other factors in play. Previous Ecumenical

canons had stated that Christians with a grossly heretical Christology
were to be treated as ‘heathens.’ Canon XIX of the Council of Nicaea
states: ‘Concerning the Paulinists who have flown for refuge to the
Catholic Church, it has been decreed that they must by all means be
rebaptised.’[106] while Canon VII of the Council of Constantinople in
381 similarly decreed that: ‘…Eunomians, who are baptised with only
one emersion, and Montanists….all these, when they desire to turn to
orthodoxy, we receive as heathen.’[107] The ‘low’ Christology of Islam
would have been seen by the Byzantines in the same terms as the
previous heresies. The Paulinists were followers of Paul of Samosata, a
bishop of Antioch from the third century. He had advocated an
Adoptionist Christology in which Christ had been adopted as the ‘Son
of God’ at his baptism due to his goodness. The Eunomians were a
radical Arian sect, who claimed that the incarnate Word (Jesus) was
‘unlike’ the Father.[108] Byzantine theologians always looked back at
previous heresies to formulate responses to new movements. This
would have been reinforced by their perception of Islam as a Christian
heresy. The result is that Byzantine theologians would have seen and
treated Muslims, for all practical intents and purposes, as non-
monotheists.

George Akropolites – History

Akropolites was born in Constantinople but in his sixteenth year he

was sent by his father to the court of John Ducas Vatatzes, emperor of
Nicaea, where Acropolites continued his studies under Nikephorus
Blemmydes. The emperor afterwards entrusted him with important
state missions, as did his successors (Theodore II Lascaris and Michael

48
VII Paleologus). The office of Grand Logothete, or chancellor, was
bestowed upon him in 1244.

As commander in the field in 1257 against Michael II of Epirus, he

showed little military ability. He was captured and kept for two years
in prison, from which he was released by Michael Paleologus.
Meanwhile, Michael Paleologus was proclaimed emperor of Nicaea,
afterwards expelling the Latins from Constantinople, and became
emperor of the whole East; and from this moment Acropolites
becomes known in the history of the eastern empire as one of the
greatest diplomats. After having discharged the function of
ambassador at the court of King Constantine of Bulgaria, he retired for
some years from public affairs, and made the instruction of youth his
sole occupation. But he was soon employed in a very important
negotiation. Michael, afraid of a new Latin invasion, proposed to Pope
Clement IV to reunite the Greek and the Latin Churches; and
negotiations ensued which were carried on during the reign of five
popes. In 1274, at the Council of Lyon, he confirmed by an oath in the
emperor's name that that confession of faith, which had been
previously sent to Constantinople by the pope had been adopted by
the Greeks. The reunion of the two churches was afterwards broken
off, but not through the fault of Acropolites. In 1282, Acropolites was
once more sent to Bulgaria, and shortly after his return he died, in the
month of December of the same year.[109]

Acropolites’ historical work, The Histories, embraces the period from

the capture of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade by the Latins
(1204) to its recovery by Michael Paleologus (1261), thus forming a
continuation of the work of Niketas Choniates. It is valuable as written
by a contemporary, whose official position as Grand Logothete,
military commander, and confidential ambassador afforded him
frequent opportunities of observing the course of events. The
orientation of the history is definitely focused on the west.

The Turks were a constant threat to the eastern frontier of the Nicaean
successor state. According to Ruth Macrides, the translator of
Akropolites into English, he displays the traditional negative view of
Islam.[110] Typical comments include mentioning that the Turcoman
nomads enjoy plundering Roman (Byzantine) territory (George
Akropolites, History 65).[111] There are two interesting incidents that
Akropolites relates in his history: the first concerns the baptism of a

49
Seljek sultan, while the second the defeat of the Turks by the Tatars
(Mongols). He recounts how an exiled sultan was adopted and baptised
by Alexis III (George Akropolites, History 8).[112] The other is a brief
account of the Turkish defeat, where he gives a character sketch of the
sultan Iathatines. He states; ‘When, as we said, the army of the
Muslims was destroyed by the Tatars, a sultan, whose name was
Iathatines, ruled them, a son of the sultan Azatines, a bad leader who
was born of a good one. For he [Iathatines] took pleasure in drinking
and licentiousness, in strange and unnatural sexual intercourse, and
always in the company of creatures who no longer knew reason or
indeed anything of human nature.’ (George Akropolites, History
41)[113] Akropolites goes on to praise Azatines as a better ruler and
military leader because he was ‘kindly disposed towards the emperor’
despite still being prone to ‘licentiousness’ as well. The criteria for
praise that Akropolites uses is the extent that the Muslim Turks are
pro-Roman[114] or not. Those who are pro-Roman are better people
than those who are not.

Akropolites mentions the siege of Baghdad by the Mongols (George

Akropolites, History 42).[115] This passing reference demonstrates his
disinterest in Muslim history and current affairs. He must have heard
about the sack of Baghdad and the murder of the caliph but chose not
to discuss it. Speros Vryonis mentions an Orthodox official in the
palace of Seljuk sultans who taunted the chronicler Badi al-Din with
the words: ‘I understand that your caliph has been killed.’[116] The
violent death of the religious head of Islam by the pagan Mongols was
a valuable polemical point to those Christians who chose to use it.

A positive comment concerns Nikephoros Rimpsas. Even thought

Akropolites states he came from Turkish stock he is called ‘a most
orthodox Christian’ (George Akropolites, History 81),[117] evidently
with some approval. Rimpsas was an adult convert to Christianity but
had also assimilated into Byzantine society.

John Kantakuzenos – History

John Kantakuzenos came from an aristocratic family who originated

from the vicinity of Smyrna. John was a close friend and advisor to
Andronikos III and supported him in his rebellion against his

50
grandfather Andronikos II. He usurped the throne in 1347 and laid
down his power in 1354 and became a monk by the name of Joasaph.
During the civil wars John married his daughter Theodora to Umar,
ruler of Smyrna and used Ottoman troops as allies. Thus, he was well-
informed due to his personal relations as well as his own personal
reading.

The four books of history by John Kantakuzenos cover the years 1320
to 1356. The work is basically a political memoir where Kantakuzenos
uses the history to justify his own actions but he always refers to
himself in the third person. In the dedicatory letter John Kantakuzenos
uses the pseudonym Christodoulos.[118]

Unlike most other Byzantine historians Kantakuzenos was on intimate

terms with Muslims to the extent that his son-in-law was a Muslim. As
a result Muslims appear in quite a favourable light in a number of
places in his history. He gives a brief account of a banquet at Skutari,
a place opposite the capital on the Asia Minor coast, between the
Ottoman Sultan Orhan and himself in celebration for his victory in the
civil war.[119] The entire episode is very civilized with Kantakuzenos
and Orhan sharing the same table and offers no hint of any religious
difference. Orhan is even said to have engaged in drinking, against the
Islamic prohibition of alcoholic beverages.

Later in book four, Kantakuzenos gives an account of a Turkish (in

Kantakuzenos’ classicising ethnology they are called ‘Persians’) raiding
party that was engaged in combat and is defeated by the
emperor.[120] A group of survivors surrender to the emperor but are
attacked by hot-headed Greek soldiers. A brief mêlée ensues in which
some (unarmed) Turkish soldiers are killed. The entire incident shows
the Muslims to be trusting and honourable while the Greeks are violent
and aggressive, very much in contrast to the traditional bellicose
depiction of Muslims in Greek historians. The other accounts of warfare
between the Turks and the Byzantines are fairly conventional.

It is only in Kantakuzenos’ account of the persecution of Melkite (and

Latin) Christians in the Mamluk realm that Muslims emerge in a
negative light as persecutors and enemies of Christians. The Mamluks
spared the native Coptic population, referred to by Kantakuzenos as
Jacobites, ‘…but all the others they attacked in such a violent fashion
that they sent many to a martyr’s death by diverse and varied forms

51
of punishment, and what was most to be mourned, they turned quite a
number from their faith in Christ and persuaded them to adopt their
religion.’[121] In his account of Lazarus, Patriarch of Jerusalem,
Muslims are portrayed in a negative light but these are the Mamluks of
Egypt rather than the Anatolian Turks. Earlier in his history Lazarus is
praised by the author for rejecting union with the Latins and is
persecuted unjustly by a renegade monk who invents false charges.
On his return to the Holy Land Lazarus is apprehended and first
flattered and then tortured to force him to renounce his faith.
Kantakuzenos continues ‘…when their flattery offered no hope – for he
[Lazarus] was ready rather to endure anything for his faith in Christ
and invoke the hands of the executioners and preferred to suffer
skinning and racking, saying “Nothing that exists will be able to turn
me from my faith in Christ” – the barbarians abandoned conversion
and rejected flattery as useless and then turned to their usual and
customary savagery.’[122]

Leontios Makhairas – Chronicle on the Sweet Land of Cyprus

Makhairas was a native of Cyprus and served the court of the

Lusignans. He was born around 1380 and died after 1432[123]. The
last mentioned reference concerns an event in the 1480s. Leontios
Makhairas was a patriotic Orthodox Christian but was willing to support
the Lusignans.[124] He is generally impartial but reserves a special
dislike for the Genoese.[125]

The chronicle covers ecclesiastical history from Constantine I to times

contemporary with Makhairas. The information becomes more detailed
by the mid 14th century and generally concerns secular history.
Makhairas uses vernacular Greek with a distinct Cypriot dialect, along
with numerous loan words from French. It treats in detail the reigns of
four kings of the Lusignan dynasty, Peter I, Peter II, James I and
Janus, covering the period 1359 to 1432.

The majority of Makhairas’s references to Turks and Saracens concern

the periodic raiding and warfare that was endemic in the 14th and 15th
centuries. A typical account is the following:

52
When the Turks heard that the plague had wiped out the men of
Cyprus, and the king was in France, all the Turks together fitted out
twelve galleys and appointed a captain named Mahomet Reis, and
came to Cyprus and landed at Pentayia and raided many people: and
he carried them off prisoners and went away (to Turkey). And when
the prince heard of it, he sent men on foot and men at arms and
knights to Lefkosia, and they went to Pentayia and found that the
Turks had gone (Leontios Makhairas, Chronicle 137). [126]

The Cypriots are weakened by plague and unprepared. The Turks take
advantage of this weakness and attack the island, carrying off
innocent civilians as their booty. They are the quintessential enemy
because they show no mercy and take advantage of the helpless,
those peasants least able to defend themselves. When the king’s
forces arrive, it is too late. The cowardly Turks are unwilling to risk a
stand-up fight. This account and others demonstrate that Makhairas
had no love for the Turks and simply regarded them as enemies.

The first passage relevant in understanding Makhairas’s view of Islam

is an episode concerning a miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary. A
Turkish ruler, the Great Karaman, was attacking a fortress belonging
to the Cypriot kings that contained the icon. Mary appeared to him in a
vision and blinded him. He withdrew his forces and donated candles,
lamps, oil and money. He was afterwards restored his sight. (Leontios
Makhairas, Chronicle 115)[127] The story portrays little of the
complexity of Muslim belief and reads like a traditional Byzantine
miracle story. There is no indication that Muslims have a devotion to
the Virgin Mary and there is no hint that Muslims consider icons to be
idolatrous. The reaction of the sultan in providing gifts to promote the
veneration of the icon is that of a Christian rather than a Muslim.
However, the sultan is not converted by this episode. Later he joined
forces with other Turkish leaders in ravaging Cyprus.

A short anecdote about the native Orthodox Christians of Cyprus

illustrates the fear that the Cypriots had of the Turks. A sixteen-year-
old peasant boy named George was inspired to go on a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land. His mother tried to dissuade him due to the danger.
She said: ‘My son, you see that the Saracens are hostile to the
Christians and are at war with them; and will you travel among them,
going from place to place?’ (Leontios Makhairas, Chronicle 668).[128]

53
The mother has no doubt that the Muslims will do her son harm, even
if he is on a pilgrimage.

Makhairas reports with some satisfaction the burning to death of a

Muslim convert to Christianity named Thomas. Even though he had
converted to Christianity he had remained a slave. During a Turkish
attack he denied his baptism and escaped with raiders. Later he was
caught and executed. That the charge was heresy rather than piracy is
indicated by the sentence ‘…caught him again afterwards in 1429, and
burned him because he had denied his baptism.’ (Leontios Makhairas,
Chronicle 653).[129] The inclusion of this episode suggests that
Makhairas approved of the action, despite it being carried out by the
Latin Church authorities. Soon after this account, Makhairas praises
Muslim converts who remained loyal to their new religion. They had
been imprisoned to prevent them from joining the Turks in a raid as
Thomas had done previously. Some managed to escape to the
mountains while those that remained behind suffered at the hands of
the Turks as apostates and were martyred. It is worth quoting
Makharias’s text in full as his comments on the governments policy is
telling:

And the (numerous) Saracen slaves who had been baptised and were
at Lefkosia, they were forcibly prevented (from leaving the town on
pain of death, for fear they should turn and) join the Saracens. And
this was a foolish thing to be doing, for there were many baptised
Saracens who (as soon as they heard of the king’s defeat,) ran away
(from fear) and hid themselves in the mountains, that they might not
be caught by the Saracens. And among these were George of Damat,
who made powdered sugar and syrup, being a sugar-boiler; also
Theotoki, the king’s builder, and Nicholas the son of the bathman,
Michael the tax-gatherer, the Syrian freedman, Paul the bishop’s slave,
the slave of the Makhaira monastery, and the slave called Stavrias of
the monastery of Megalos Stavros, and many others who chose rather
to die than fall into the hands of the Saracens. But, since God chooses
to deprive the officers and the councillors of wisdom, they did
everything perversely; thus too they dealt with the lives of the poor
folk, to wit the poor envoy and the poor baptised Saracens as well.
(Leontios Makhairas, Chronicle 677).[130]

Makhairas clearly has sympathy with these converts. The list indicates
that many were personally known to him. To judge by the names

54
many were probably Orthodox Christians. Makhairas sees the
authorities as misguided and foolish for viewing all Saracens are
treacherous and fickle. Despite their Arab or Turkish background
Makhairas sees them as noble converts who would rather die than
renounce their faith.

Laonikos Chalkokondyles – History

Laonikos Chalkokondyles was born at Athens around 1423. His father

fled to the Peloponnesus in 1435 after an unsuccessful coup against
the ruling Acciajuoli family. In 1447 Chalkokondyles became a student
of George Gemistrios Plethon. He adopted an Attic form of his name
and dropped his original name of Nicholas. He spent his life in the
Aegean region but his exact location and occupation is unknown.[131]

Chalkokondyles wrote a history in 10 books covering the years 1298-

1463. In his style and ethnography he emulates classical authors,
especially Thucydides. The history was written towards the end of
Chalkokondyles’ life, some time in the 1480s. The weakness of the
history is its lack of a strong chronological framework. It includes
many digressions on various peoples including Muslims, Germans,
Russians, South Slavs and Spaniards.[132]

Chalkokondyles gives a brief overview of Islam in his account of the

Turks. This is characterised as showing ‘no trace of bigotry in his
sketch of the Muslim religion; he alludes to the fatalism which it
engenders.’[133] However, he is the third Byzantine historian, after
Doukas and Kantakuzenos, to make mention of the Turkish practice of
human sacrifice. During his account of Murad II’s invasion of the
Peloponnese he said: ‘Afterward, purchasing six hundred slaves, he
offered up a sacrifice to his father, appeasing him by the death of
these men.’[134] As with Doukas and Kantakuzenos,
Chalkokokondyles is unaware that this is a non-Islamic custom. The
suggestion is that the relation between violence and Islam was so
deeply ingrained in the Byzantine imagination that they could easily
accept human sacrifice as an Islamic practise.

55
Doukas – Turko-Byzantine History

The first name and date of birth of Doukas is unclear. The author’s
grandfather, a supporter of John Kantakuzenos, fled to the sultan of
Smyrna in 1345 and befriended his son Isa (Doukas, History
V.5).[135] Doukas was probably born at the start of the 15th century
and, if he was the eldest son, probably had the same name as his
grandfather, Michael. Doukas spent his life in the service of the
Genoese, firstly in Nea Phokaia and later on Lesbos. He spoke Turkish
and Italian, a rarity for Byzantine historians. He saw that the
Byzantine Empire was in terminal decline so was an advocate of
church union for purely pragmatic reasons and considered the
Orthodox to be schismatics.

The Turko-Byzantine History of Doukas covers the years 1341 to 1462.

It breaks off in mid-sentence in the account of the Ottoman siege of
Mytilene in Lesbos. Doukas was an eyewitness to many of the events
he describes. He specifically states that he saw the impaled bodies of
Italian sailors and describes an embassy to the sultan where Mehmed
tired to extort a double tribute from the Genoese.

Despite the fact that Doukas lived in close proximity to the Turks he
has little good to say about them. Time and again, Doukas makes
scathing remarks about the sultans. The history is a litany to the
atrocities committed by the Ottoman sultans. In only a few places
does Doukas directly link the horrors of the Ottoman conquests with
the religion of the Turks. In discussing Bayazid he makes a connection
between the sultans as Muslims and as persecutors. ‘Bayazid was
acclaimed ruler of the Turks. He was a feared man, participated in
deeds of war, a persecutor of Christians as no other around him, and
in the religion of the Arabs a most ardent disciple of Muhammad,
whose unlawful commandments were observed to the utmost, never
sleeping, spending his nights contriving intrigues and machinations
against the rational flock of Christ’ (Doukas, History III.4). [136]
Doukas makes some positive comments regarding the sultan Murad
but, it seems, in spite of Murad being a Turk (and a Muslim). Doukas
gives a series of especially harsh epithets on Mehmed II including ‘the
truly flesh-wearing demon’ (Doukas, History XXXIII.12), ‘Antichrist’
(Doukas, History XXXIV.5), ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ (Doukas, History
XXXVI.1), and ‘impious tyrant and implacable enemy and murderer of
our nation’ (Doukas, History XLII.14). Other crimes that Doukas

56
exposes include the fratricide that normally occurred when a reigning
sultan died and has Mehmed murder his eight-month old half-brother
(Doukas, History XXXIII.10). The homosexual lust of Mehmed is
depicted in the account of the grand duke, Lukas Notaras, execution. A
drunk Mehmed demands the youthful son of Notaras to sate his
pleasures and sends a servant to fetch the boy. Notaras refuses and
goes nobly to his death along with his son and son-in-law (Doukas,
History XL.5-7).

It is unclear what connection Doukas makes between the Muslim

religion and Turkish conduct. Either the religion of the Turks failed to
moderate their savage natures or it simply encouraged them to even
greater excesses. The evidence seems to favour the second
interpretation. Statements like ‘This nation is intemperate and lustful
as no other people, incontinent beyond all races and insatiate in
licentiousness’ (Doukas, History IX.1)[137] and calling their traditions
‘savage customs (Doukas, History XIX.13)[138] and finally saying ‘The
nation of the Turks, more than any other, is a lover of rapine and
injustice. This is true even against their own kinsmen; if their attacks
are aimed at Christians, what more need be said? … They rush against
the Christians and seize them like sheep…’ (Doukas, History
XXIII.8)[139] all point to Doukas’ low opinion of everything Turkish.
Doukas does not stop at vague diatribes but gives numerous examples
of the atrocities suffered by the Greek Christians at the hands of the
Turks. He gives a rather pathetic story of how the Turks let their
horses graze on the crops of a local Greek peasant, who vainly tries to
protect his livelihood. The farmer is brutally cut down and so is a
relative who rushes to his aid. A skirmish ensures with the local
villagers. The next day Turkish troops attack and massacre all the
peasants while they are in their fields, killing forty of them (Doukas,
History XXXIV.10).[140] Two more serious accounts of Turkish
atrocities are the looting and enslavement of the cities of Thessalonike
(Doukas, History XXIX.5) and Constantinople (Doukas, History
XXXIX.15-27). A remark by Doukas on the funeral ceremonies for
Mehmed I, which he calls ‘inhuman customs’ indicates that he was
aware that the Turks were still practising human sacrifice over the
graves of their leaders.[141] Like John Kantakuzenos and
Chalkokondyles, Doukas probably attributed this to the influence of
Islam.

57
There are a number of incidents that are specifically anti-Christian.
These include the torture of the archbishop of Philadelphia in an
attempt to force him to renounce his faith (Doukas, History XXII.7),
the forced conversion of Michael Pylles, a corrupt and despicable Greek
scribe in the service of the Turks (Doukas, History XXVIII.3) and the
burning of icons to roast meat by ignorant Turkish soldiers after the
sack of Constantinople (Doukas, History XLII.1).

George Sphrantzes – Chronicon

George Sphrantzes was born in 1401 and as a young man became a

courtier in the service of Manuel II. After Manuel’s death, Sphrantzes
joined the retinue of Constantine Paleologus who later became the last
emperor of Constantinople. The friendship was so close that
Constantine Paleologus served as Sphrantzes best man and godfather
to his son. He held a number of administrative posts including the
governorship of Patras in 1432 and that of Mistras in 1446. He was
taken prisoner at the fall of Constantinople and enslaved[142]. He was
eventually released and travelled widely. Sphrantzes ended his life as
the monk Gregory in 1477/8 on Kerkyra.

The Chronicon or Chronicle of George Sphrantzes was based on his

own personal diary and covers the years 1413-77. It is written in a
very unpretentious style and includes personal information like the
birth of children and details he gained from his own observations. Most
of the entries are brief but occasionally Sphrantzes expands on an
incident.

Sphrantzes was a quite knowledgeable individual for his time due to

his extensive travels in the service of the emperor and his time as an
administrator. He recounts numerous personal dealings with the Turks
but never brings a direct religious element into his narrative.
Sphrantzes generally portrays the Turks in a negative light without
directly linking this to religion. The only hint that Sphrantzes gives of
the religious difference between the Turks and the Greeks is the brief
account of the Ottoman prince named Yusuf who converted to
Christianity and adopted the name Demetrios but died of the plague.
(Chronicle III)[143] He knows the succession of Ottoman sultans
which he enumerates at the start of his chronicle ‘The first had been

58
Ertoghrul, who was followed by Othman, after whom this dynasty was
named; the third was Orhan, the fourth was Murad, the fifth was
Bayazid, the sixth was Mehmed, and the seventh was Murad. Mehmed
was the eighth sultan, who enslaved us and expelled us from
Constantinople.’ (Chronicle I)[144] Interestingly Sphrantzes makes the
comment that Mehmed enslaved the Greeks, a very negative
comment.

Some of the negative comments include calling the sultan Mehmed an

‘impious man’ for secretly planning to capture Constantinople. Manuel
is called ‘our holy emperor’ who refuses to break his oath and seize
Mehmed when the opportunity arises. (Chronicle VII.1)[145] Later the
Ottoman usurper Mustafa is portrayed as a liar as he reneged on his
promise to hand back the city of Kallipolis despite giving an oath to do
so. Mustafa dismisses his oath with a haughty comment about refusing
to give a conquered city back to Christians. (Chronicle IX.1)[146] The
contrast between the noble Manuel (a Christian) and the deceptive
Mehmed and Mustafa (Muslims) is obvious.

The Chronicle has the usual accounts of Turkish aggression and

cruelty. In two places Sphrantzes refers to victims of the Turks as
‘martyrs’ bringing in a distinct religious connotation to the references.
Sphrantzes makes mention of the Italian captain, Antonio Rizzo, who
was captured an impaled as part of the Turkish blockade of the
Bosphorus (Chronicle XXXII.1)[147] and, of course, the emperor
Constantine XI Dragas who died defending Constantinople. (Chronicle
XXXV.10)[148] Other examples of Turkish cruelty are the massacres of
inhabitants of the Morea during the Turkish invasion with the words ‘…
[they] found suitable occasions to take prisoners and to slaughter the
inhabitants, while they laughed at our lords and nobles for using their
swords against each other’ (Chronicle XXXIX.9)[149] and the impaling
of a Greek nobleman named Michael Rhaoul who had been taken
prisoner. (Chronicle XLIII.6)[150]

In two places Sphranzes makes positive comments about the Turks.

These comments concern treaty of friendship between Murad and
Manuel (Chronicle XII) but these are the exception rather than the
rule.

59
Michael Kritovoulos – History of Mehmed the Conqueror

The date of birth of Michael Kritovoulos is unclear. He was an adult in

1444 when Cyriacus of Ancona visited him on Imbros. In 1456 he
surrendered the islands of Lemnos and Imbros to the Turks. As a
result he was made governor of Imbros (Kritovoulos, History
II.83)[151] and remained in this position until 1466 when the
Venetians occupied the island (Kritovoulos, History III.78-90).[152] He
then fled to Constantinople and probably died soon after the great
plague, which he survived, sometime around ca. 1470.[153]
Kritovoulos was very much a political realist and correctly predicted
the destruction of the Byzantine Empire so he was keen to reach an
accommodation with the Turks. He states in the prologue to his
history: ‘Kritovoulos the Islander, originally of the inhabitants of
Imbros, wrote his history in the belief that events so great and
wonderful, occurring in our own times, should not remain
unrecorded…’[154] Despite serving the Ottoman government
Kritovoulos remained a Christian.

Kritovoulos’ work is unique in Byzantine historiography in that it has

an extremely favourable portray of a Muslim leader, that of the sultan
Mehmed II the Conqueror. The History of Mehmed the Conqueror
covers the years 1451-67 in five books. The laudatory stance of the
history is hard to tally with the picture of Mehmed provided by other
Greek sources.

Kritovoulos was eager to curry favour with the Ottoman court. He

repeatedly refers to the sultan as ‘basileus’ (king) and ‘autocrator’
(emperor), titles normally reserved for the Byzantine Emperor. He
praises Mehmed’s noble birth and intelligence and excuses him of any
excesses carried out by him. Of Mehmed, Kritovoulos states: ‘For this
man excelled not only his own predecessors, but also the kings who
were of his generation, in valour and courage, generalship and good
fortune, and in his experience in military matters…’ (Kritovoulos,
History I.8).[155] Mehmed is described as knowledgeable and wise in
the wisdom of the Persians and the Arabs. He invents a new and better
type of cannon and even goes to visit Athens on his return from
campaigning in the Peloponnese because of his interest in the Classical
past. Mehmed visits the Acropolis and other ancient sites and admires
the antiquities like a Byzantine Emperor. Kritovoulos even calls
Mehmed a ‘Philhellene.’ On seeing the looting of Constantinople

60
Kritovoulos depicts Mehmed as weeping (Kritovoulos, History
I.256).[156] Kritovoulos even excuses Mehmed of some of the crimes
perpetuated by him. Lucas Notaras, the Mega Dux of Constantinople,
is executed in an unfair manner. It is clear that Kritovoulos admires
Notaras as he calls him a ‘hero’ in the face of death (Kritovoulos,
History I.285-287).[157] Later Kritovoulos explains that Mehmed had
ordered Notaras’ death due to false information by treacherous
informants. Similarly, Kritovoulos fails to mention the execution of
David Comnenus, the defeated ruler of Trebizond. He merely states
that David lived in comfortable retirement. (Kritovoulos, History IV.46-
53)[158] After describing the massacres of various garrisons in the
Peloponnese, Kritovoulos states that Mehmed had no choice because
he had previously asked them to surrender but they had declined to do
so. (Kritovoulos, History III.133-134)[159]

Kritovoulos tries to avoid passing blame on the Byzantines for the

disintegration of the Byzantine Empire. He says that ‘First, then, let
me say that I would not place any censure on my nation or proceed to
slander or speak evil of my people.’ (Kritovoulos, History I.10)[160]
However, his account prompts him to recount a number of clashes
between Turks (Muslims) and Byzantines (Christians) where the
Byzantines are portrayed in a sympathetic light. The sacking of
Constantinople has Kritovoulos describe the atrocities committed on
the population by the Turks. His account is as follows:

Then a great slaughter occurred of those who happened to be there:

some of them were on the streets, for they had already left the houses
and were running toward the tumult….Other women, sleeping in their
beds, had to endure nightmares. Men with swords, their hands
bloodstained with murder, breathing out rage, speaking out murder
indiscriminate, flushed with all the worst things – this crowd, made up
of men from every race and nation, brought together by chance, like
wild and ferocious beasts, leaped into the houses, driving them out
mercilessly, dragging, rending, forcing, hauling them disgracefully into
the public highways, insulting them and doing every evil thing….And
the desecrating and plundering and robbing of the churches – how can
one describe it in words? Some things they threw in dishonour on the
ground – icons and reliquaries and other objects from the churches.
The crowd snatched some of these, and some were given over to the
fire while others were torn to shreds and scattered at the crossroads.
The last resting-places of the blessed men of old were opened, and

61
their remains were taken out and disgracefully torn to pieces, even to
shreds, and made the sport of the wind while others were thrown on
the streets.

Chalices and goblets and vessels to hold the holy sacrifices, some of
them were used for drinking and carousing, and others were broken up
or melted down and sold. Holy vessels and costly robes richly
embroidered with much gold or brilliant with precious stones and
pearls were some of them given to the most wicked men for no good
use, while others were consigned to the fire and melted down for the
gold. And holy and divine books, and others mainly of profane
literature and philosophy, were either given to the flames or
dishonourably trampled under foot. Many of them were sold for two or
three pieces of money, and sometimes for pennies only, not for gain
so much as in contempt. Holy altars were torn from their foundations
and overthrown. The walls of sanctuaries and cloisters were explored,
and the holy places of the shrines were dug into and overthrown in the
search for gold. Many other things they dared to do. (Kritovoulos,
History I.237-246).[161]

Despite his claim to neutrality there are a number of points where

Kritovoulos comments negatively on the Turkish occupation. When
commenting on the preparations for the defence of Constantinople just
before the conquest he states: ‘Instead, the hapless Romans were
destined finally to be brought under the yoke of servitude and suffer
its horrors’ (Kritovoulos, History I.230).[162]

Kritovoulos mentions the bravery of a number of Turks, especially the

leading generals at the siege of Constantinople. He names Karaja,
Ishak, Mahmud and Halil but gives special praise to Baltaoglou, who
was admiral of the Turkish navy (Kritovoulos, History I.117-124).[163]
Later in the narrative Mahmud is identified as a Byzantine convert to
Islam. His grandfather was named Philaninos and held a high ranking
position in the Morea (Byzantine Peloponnese). Not only is Mahmud
not denounced in the usual Byzantine manner as a traitor and apostate
but he is lavishly praised by Kritovoulos. He is described as: ‘This man
had so fine a nature that he outshone not only all his contemporaries
but also his predecessors in wisdom, bravery, virtue and other good
qualities’ (Kritovoulos, History I.303).[164] At the death of Karaja at
the siege of Belgrade, Kritovoulos praises him by saying ‘He was a fine
man, one of the most powerful of the sultan’s entourage, renowned for

62
his courage and military skill and valour.’ (Kritovoulos, History
II.107)[165]

63
Hagiography
Anonymous – Life of Michael the Synkellos

An anonymous life exists of Michael the Synkellos written in Greek by

a monk of the Chora monastery, where Michael served as abbot. The
saint was born in Jerusalem in 761 and spent all of his early life under
Islamic rule. In 811, Michael was appointed synkellos (or secretary) to
Patriarch Thomas of Jerusalem. Michael was bilingual in Arabic and
Greek. He translated Theodore Abu Qurrah’s Letter to the Armenians
into Greek at the request of Patriarch Thomas and composed a basic
grammar of Greek to encourage Greek in the Jerusalem Patriarchate
as Arabic was beginning to make in-roads. Later in 815, he was sent
on a mission to Byzantine territory with his two disciples, Theodore
and Theophanes, and became involved in the resurgent controversy
over icons. The most recent editor of the Life of Michael the Synkellos
suggests that it was probably written within a generation of Michael’s
death.[166] Michael died on the 4th of January 846 without ever
returning to Palestine.

For a biography of a man who spent half of his life under Islamic rule
there is little reference to Islam. There are a number of reasons for
this; firstly the author was a Byzantine so he was less informed about
Michael’s early activities in the Holy Land; secondly Michael was not
involved in any controversies with Muslims; and finally the main focus
of the biography was Michael’s opposition to iconoclasm.

The one and only direct reference to Islam concerns the increase in
taxation that the Muslims imposed on the Christian community. ‘It
came to pass in those days that a certain heavy fine was imposed by
the impious Hagarenes on the holy church of the Resurrection of Christ
our God….to the extent that those who lived in the holy city of Christ
our God were unable to pay this monetary fine’ (Life of Michael the
Synkellos 6).[167] The reference speaks for itself. The harsh tax is
unjust and designed to make life unbearable for the monks. Another
minor reference occurs later in Michael’s Life when Michael and his
disciples, Theodore and Theophanes, have an audience with the
iconoclastic emperor Theophilus. The monks are severely beaten and
the brothers are tattooed with insulting iambic verses. As part of their
punishment Theophilus declares that he will ‘hand them over to two

64
sons of Hagar that they may conduct them to their own country’ (Life
of Michael the Synkellos 20).[168] The implication of the threat is that
the Muslims will be really harsh to the saints, who were considered
foreigners in Byzantium, and will deport them to Muslim territory and
execute them. This part of the sentence was never actually carried out
as the emperor decided to deal with them himself but the implied
threat was seen as a real possibility.

Life of Constantine (Cyril) the Philosopher

Constantine, better known by his later monastic name of Cyril, was the
brother of Methodius and one of the famous ‘Apostles of the Slavs’.
There exists a long life of Constantine written in Slavonic based on
Greek sources. The author of the life is unknown but candidates
include Methodius or his disciple, Clement of Achrida. It was composed
soon after Constantine’s death.

Constantine was a highly educated individual and served as a diplomat

before his conversion to the monastic life. Two embassies are
mentioned in his biography and both involved encounters with
Muslims. One was a mission to Samarra, the Abbasid capital, when
Constantine was twenty-four years old, and the other was to the court
of the Khazars. The diplomatic nature of the embassy to Samarra is
lost on Constantine’s hagiographer, who focuses on the religious
debates that took place.[169] Constantine was seen as the most
capable person for the job of ambassador by the emperor and the
imperial court.[170] His hagiographer depicts Constantine in glowing
terms. He confounds his adversaries and outwits them at every turn.
Constantine is well informed of Muslim beliefs. The sixth chapter has
the encounter in the form of a dialogue between the protagonists,
clearly based on the diary of Constantine, which was translated into
Slavonic by Methodius and then abbreviated and incorporated into the
Life of Constantine.[171] Both encounters with Islam are incidental;
the main focus of the life is Constantine’s mission amongst the Slavs.

Muslims are described as mocking Christianity and doing everything to

humiliate the local Christians. The issues raised by the Muslims are
those typical in Christian-Muslim debates. These include a lauding of
Muhammad’s superiority as a prophet and a praise of his successful

65
mission, an attack on the Christian understanding of God in the form
of the Trinity (which the Muslims take in very carnal terms), an
emphasis on the superiority of Islamic culture and a pointing out of a
perceived inconsistency in Christian morality by claiming that
Christians were not following Christ’s instructions to love one’s
enemies (Luke 6:27-29 and Matthew 5:44) when they fought Muslim
armies. Constantine has a very low opinion of Muhammad. He, if his
hagiographer reports him correctly, emphatically disbelieved that
Muhammad had received any revelation. Rather than restraining the
baser instincts of humanity, he catered to it. ‘By not curbing your
wrath and your lust, but only letting loose, did he fling you into the
abyss?’ Another line of attack was the stance that Islamic culture was
superior to Byzantine culture. To this, Constantine responds bluntly ‘All
the arts have come from us’ (Life of Constantine the Philosopher 6)
which ends that line of argument.[172] However, the hagiographer
does pay the Muslims the compliment that they were ‘intelligent men
well-versed in geometry and astronomy and other sciences…’[173] The
Muslims return to the attack on the Trinity but are immediately
silenced by Constantine quoting the Quranic Sura (Q. 19:17) on the
virginal conception of Jesus. Most probably at this stage of Arab-
Byzantine relations, Constantine received this helpful information from
a local Christian informant rather than knowing the Quran before he
left Byzantine territory.

The second embassy occurred in 860 when Constantine, with his

brother as an assistant, was sent to the Khazar court to cement a
military alliance and debate religion.[174] The Khazars and the
Byzantines had been allies against the Caliphate for a century and the
emperor had even built a fortress on the River Don for the Khazars. At
the time, the Khazars were in the process of converting to Judaism so
they had an interest in monotheistic faiths. A number of other sources
describe the type of three-way dialogues in which Constantine
participated. In the lengthy discussions between rabbis, the Kagan
(the Khazar ruler) and Constantine the Muslims hardly get a look in.
Rather than appearing in their own right it is the rabbis who bring up
Muhammad in order to confound Constantine. As with his previous
discussion on Muhammad, Constantine is very blunt in his criticism.
‘As for Muhammad, who spewed forth his greatest deceptions from
malice and dissoluteness, we all know him to be a liar and the bane of
everyone’s salvation’ (Life of Constantine the Philosopher 10).[175]
From other sources it is evident that Christians sided with the Jews on

66
a number of issues resulting in the Khazars declaring the rabbis
victorious. The evidence shows that, for Constantine, the person of
Muhammad was a central issue. The truth or falseness of Islam
depended on Muhammad.

Leontius of Damascus – Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas

Leontius was a native of Palestine who was attracted to the monastic

life. He joined Mar Sabas and became a disciple of Stephen. Soon after
the Stephen’s death, Leontius resolved to write his biography in Greek.
The life is full of incidents and sayings for the edification of the reader.
The epilogue of the Arabic translation states that it was translated
from Greek into Arabic by Abba Yannah ibn Istafan al-Fakhuri in 290
of the Muslim Era. (Leontius, Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas 82.2)[176]

The Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas is full of pious anecdotes and wise
sayings that involve Stephen, the monks of Mar Sabas and
surrounding monasteries.

Interaction with Muslims was part of the everyday life of the

monastery. The evidence in the Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas points to
rather cordial relations between Christians and Muslims in 8th century
Palestine. The monks did not live in complete isolation but had close
links with the local Christian community. One monk, Christopher, is
described as having ‘compassion and mercy not only on the people of
his own religion, but also for unbelievers and the Bedouin.’ (Leontius,
Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas 20.2)[177] and Stephen is equally
praised as similarly showing compassion to Muslims at the end of his
life. (Leontius, Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas 81.5)[178] There is even
an anecdote that involves a Muslim pilgrim who accompanies a
Christian to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. They both decide to visit the
Monastery of Mar Sabas, where the Muslim is converted to Christianity
by Stephen. The Muslim states as part of his confession of faith:

From this moment on I am a Christian and a believer in Christ the Son

of the Living God, he who took away the sins of the world. I reject the
devil and all his angels and all his shame, as well as the vain religion
of the Muslims. (Leontius, Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas 52.8)[179]

67
There is no indication that a Muslim visitor to Mar Sabas was in any
way unusual. However, the ex-Muslim denounces his old religion as
‘vain’ and mentions it in the same breath as the devil. It seems that
the monks of Mar Sabas considered Islam to be part or all demonic in
origin.

There are a number of other incidents that portray Muslims in a

negative light. The first is an anecdote in which three nuns (two young
nuns and their mother) are attacked by Bedouins on their way to visit
Stephen. The Bedouin are described in rather base terms:

The Bedouin rushed up behind them [the nuns] like dogs, barking as
they chased their prey, with their threats and menacing behaviour
striking terror into the hearts of these rational sheep of Christ. It was
their hope that the strength of the women’s fear would cause them to
stop and to be too weak to run, and that thus they would fall into their
filthy hands….When the Bedouin had got hold of that holy woman, one
of them grabbed her pure hair, wishing to defile her chaste body. He
became furious with her. Barking like a dog, he dragged and pulled her
about and pushed her. (Leontius, Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas
50.4)[180]

The Bedouins are then struck down by the power of God and the nuns
escape unharmed. It is then revealed that Stephen had witnessed the
entire event and had helped the nuns by praying with his arms
outstretched. The Bedouins are referred to as Amalek, drawing a
comparison with the incident in the Old Testament where the Israelites
defeated the Amalekites by having Moses hold out his hands (Exodus
17:8-13). Not only are the Bedouin portrayed as base and animal-like
but a dichotomy is established where the Christians are the ones true
and loyal to God while the Muslims are the enemies of God.

Two other anecdotes are disparaging to the Muslim authorities. The

first concerns Stephen’s reaction to the imprisonment of Elias, the
Patriarch of Jerusalem, in Baghdad on some flimsy pretext. The monk
Christopher wanted to go to Baghdad to intercede on Elias’s behalf and
requested Stephen’s help. Stephen rejects this with the words ‘We
must not subject ourselves to toils in which there is no profit, while
leaving aside God who is beneficent and merciful, by going to
tyrannical and unjust authorities with whom we have no freedom of
access.’ (Leontius, Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas 23.4)[181] Clearly

68
Stephen thinks talking to the authorities is a waste of time because
they will not listen to reason.

The second anecdote is an incident where Leontius’ aunt becomes very

sick on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. She is worried because the local
[Muslim] authorities seek to confiscate her property because she does
not have any heirs present. The text states: ‘…the sultan in this
country is a tyrant who seizes and plunders the property of others,
especially that of the sick and the pilgrims, and against whomsoever
he can find a pretext’ (Leontius, Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas
64.3)[182] Eventually she is restored to health with her property
intact. The implication of this anecdote is the corrupt behaviour of the
local authorities; however a link between religion and behaviour is not
stressed.

69
Martyrology
Monks and monasteries were often the victims of Islamic aggression
due to their wealth and status. On a raid in 785 Abbot Michael of the
monastery of Zobe and 36 of the monks were martyred for refusing to
convert to Islam.[183] Other times monks were victims along with the
rest of the population. For example, in the raid that resulted in the
capture of the city of Amorion in 838 the raiding Islamic armies
massacred 30,000 soldiers and civilians with the fall of the city. On the
difficult retreat 6,000 Byzantine prisoners were beheaded because
some prisoners managed to escape.[184] Comparatively few accounts
of martyrdoms survive from the Byzantine period. There must have
been many occasions where the names of the victims remained
unknown for want of an author to write an account.

The Sixty Martyrs of Gaza and the Sixty Martyrs of Jerusalem

There exists in a crude Latin translation an account translated from

Greek of the execution of the Byzantine garrison of Gaza during the
early Islamic conquest translated from Greek.[185] After the surrender
of the city of Gaza, the soldiers were imprisoned at Eleutheropolis and
exhorted to renounce Christianity and accept Islam. After some
months of captivity, they were transported to Jerusalem where ten
were arbitrarily executed. The rest were taken back to Eleutheropolis
and executed a month later. The dramatic setting is the year 638. The
author gives the account a religious context as the soldiers are
described as ‘servants of Christ.’ The conflict is seen is terms of
religion rather than politics. Hoyland is dubious on the veracity of the
details but considers that the text might have some historicity.[186]
He acknowledges that forced conversions and executions at this early
stage only involved Arab Christians or apostates from Islam but he
makes the plausible suggestion that the garrison was made an
example to other garrisons. It is evident that the Arab armies
encountered their stiffest resistance from wall towns and cities and
had great difficulty in capturing them.

Another related text is an account of the execution of sixty Byzantine

pilgrims to Jerusalem in 724 during a seven-year truce between Leo

70
III and the caliph. The hagiographer states he translated the text from
Syriac but Huxley supposes an earlier Greek text as the source; a text
related to the previously mentioned Sixty Martyrs of Gaza.[187] The
account has no other support from other historical sources and is
considered apocryphal by most scholars.[188] There is no evidence of
any truce or the account of the atrocity of the execution of pilgrims in
any martyrology. The main value of the text is the view that the
author had of Islam. The hagiographer had an intense hatred of Islam.
He lived ‘in a harsher and more truculent society than that of St. John
Damascene’ so he ‘invented an atrocity in order to give vent to his
hated.’[189] The probable connection between the two accounts is a
historical core relating to the garrison of Gaza that was later altered
into the text of the Sixty Martyrs of Jerusalem by some mischievous
monk with the aim of discrediting any peace-treaty with Muslims.

Life of Elias the Younger of Damascus

The anonymous Life of Elias survives in a 12th century manuscript

written in Greek. Nothing is known about the author except he had
written two previous accounts of martyrs that he mentions in the
preface (Life of Elias the Younger of Damascus 1). These other works
do not survive. The Life of Elias is one of the first in the genre of neo-
martyrs who suffered at the hands of Muslims rather than the martyrs
who suffered and died in the early years of the Roman Empire.
Hoyland dates the death of Elias to 779, the early years of the Abbasid
caliphate when Damascus had ceased to be the centre of the Islamic
world but was still an important Islamic centre.[190]

The story of Elias is told in a straightforward manner. Elias is a poor

young carpenter who travels from Heliopolis to Damascus with his
mother and two brothers in an effort to earn a living. He is apprenticed
to a Syrian Christian who had apostatized to Islam. At this stage Elias
is only 12 years old. At a party to celebrate the birth of a son to his
Syrian master’s Arabic patron Elias is made to serve the guests.
During the festivities he is tricked into loosening his belt. In the
morning he is accused of having converted to Islam. Removing the
belt was seen as a sign of conversion of Islam. Elias denies this and
his family flee the city and do not return for eight years. On their
return the family attempts to retrieve Elias back wages from the

71
Syrian. Elias is taken to a judge, who is unsympathetic and decides to
agree with the accusers. Subsequently, Elias is brutally executed.

It is clear from the narrative that the author views Muslims as

persecutors in the same vain as the pagan Roman persecutors. The
governor of Damascus is called ‘tetrarch’,[191] an anachronistic title,
harkening to New Testament usage where Herod Antipas is given the
same designation in Luke’s Gospel. The hagiographer makes parallels
to the interview of Jesus with Herod Antipas. The tetrarch, Muhammad
ibn Ibrahim, is portrayed as tempting Elias with offers of wealth,
status and women to apostatize (Life of Elias the Younger of Damascus
15). The Muslim characters emerge in an extremely unfavourable
light. The hagiographer emphasises the drunken state of the (Muslim)
guests at the birthday party (Life of Elias the Younger of Damascus 7).
The Islamic prohibition on drinking alcohol was well known to non-
Muslims so the guests can only have been seen as hypocrites by the
reader as they were trying to force Elias to accept a religion that they
themselves were not scrupulous in following. The judge that interviews
Elias recognises his innocence but refuses to declare Elias exonerated.
He states ‘Let it be conceded that you had never renounced [your
faith], but because you were presented [before the court], we
encourage you to apostatize and come to the religion of the Arabs’ …
‘As the witnesses have brought charges against you, I accept the
testimony against you and insist that you renounce [Christianity] (Life
of Elias the Younger of Damascus 10).[192] The Muslim judge can only
be condemned by the reader as unfit for the title. Hoyland calls the
Life of Elias of Damascus a ‘well-crafted piece of anti-Muslim
polemic’[193] because Elias is perfectly willing to coexist with Muslims
but is trapped by their baseness. The conclusion is that a young
uneducated Syrian peasant boy is morally superior to all the Muslims
he encounters. Even a Muslim noble who was uninformed about Elias
and the circumstances of his execution is amazed and exclaims, ‘It is a
great thing to die for your faith. This one did not die, but lives.’ (Life of
Elias the Younger of Damascus 21).[194] This is much like the Roman
centurion at the site of Jesus’ crucifixion. The sentiments expressed
are those of the audience listening to the account of Elias.

Martyrdom of Abo the Perfumer

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The Martyrdom of Abo, the Perfumer from Baghdad is a Georgian work
that recounts the martyrdom of an Arab convert to Christianity.
Culturally, Georgia was very much within the Byzantine cultural sphere
as they shared the same Orthodox Chalcedonian faith as the
Byzantines. In his list of Melkite martyrs of the Umayyad and early
Abbassid period Mark Swanson fails to mention Abo even though he
mentions nine other martyrs.[195] The text states that he was
martyred on the 6th of January, 786.[196] The account was written by
a Georgian cleric by the name of John, son of Saban at the behest of
the Catholicos Samuel. There is no indication that John knew Abo
personally but he certainly had access to first hand information. The
text indicates that Abo had become something of a celebrity in
Georgia, strongly implying that conversions to Christianity were a
rarity. The account follows a similar pattern to an earlier martyrdom,
that of Eustace the Cobbler, a Zoroastrian convert to Christianity, who
lived in 5th century Georgia.

The account of Abo is a straightforward and unadorned narrative.

Miracles are saved to the end to confirm the saintliness of Abo. The
account begins with a prologue that laments the pitiful condition of the
Christians in Georgia as a result of Arab rule. This prologue is not
included in Lang’s English translation. Then follows the account of
Abo’s gradual conversion. His descent from Arab stock is stressed in
the narrative to emphasise his allegiance to Arab culture and religion
‘He was born of the line of Abraham, of the sons of Ishmael and the
race of the Saracens. He had no foreign blood in him, nor was he born
of a slave-woman, but of pure Arab stock on both his father’s and his
mother’s side of the family.’[197] Abo is only seventeen or eighteen
when he arrives in Georgia in the service of Duke Nerses in 772.[198]
The age of Abo is mentioned because being young he was still
impressionable. Abo learnt to read and write Georgian while in service
in the royal court and soon found himself reading the Bible, attending
church services and discussing religion with expert theologians. The
impression is that Abo is being immersed and assimilated into
Georgian culture. Duke Nerses fell foul of the Arab authorities so he
escaped north with a small entourage, including Abo. It was at this
time that Abo was baptised. The faith of the people of Abkhazia,
including the local prince, strengthened and encouraged Abo but he
decided to return to Tiflis and openly profess his Christianity.[199] The
emir of Tiflis has Abo arrested on the charge of apostasy at the
instigation of local Muslims. Their words to the emir are: ‘…order his

73
arrest and have him tortured and beaten until he confesses the faith of
our prophet Muhammad. If he refuses, then kill him, so that his words
may not win him a lot of imitators.’[200] Abo is imprisoned and
interviewed. He refuses to recant and is eventually beheaded.

The account is distinguished by a distinct lack of polemical invective

against Islam. The entire narrative is couched in a language that is
pro-Christian rather than anti-Muslim. There is a recurring motif of the
ignorance of the Arabs; twice Abo states that ‘I was educated in the
religion of Muhammad, and lived according to it as long as I remained
in ignorance’; and ‘Although I once sunk in ignorance and foolishness,
nevertheless I later became worthy of Christ.’[201] Abo specifically
calls Islam a ‘man-made’ religion but there is no talk of demonic
inspiration and Muhammad, who is mentioned a number of times, is
not vilified in the slightest.

The Passion of Anthony Ruwah

The Passion of Anthony Ruwah is an account of the martyrdom of a

Muslim official who converted to Christianity. It is part of a small group
of texts that have the motif of a Muslim official who converts to
Christianity and suffers the price of martyrdom for his action. This is in
contrast to the typical neo-martyr narrative that involves an ex-
Christian who reverts to Christianity after previously having embraced
Islam.

The text is designed to encourage the repressed Christians who are

living under Islamic rule[202] and is full of pious embellishments. The
original narrative was written in Arabic. The account is as follows:
Anthony was a noble but bigoted Muslim. He enjoyed harassing monks
and generally making life difficult for Christians. A miraculous series of
visions led to his conversion to Christianity. Anthony saw a vision of a
white lamb and dove during a celebration of the Eucharist, not the
slaughter of a child, as in the vision recounted by Gregory Dekapolites
in his similar account. This took place in a church of St. Theodore in
Palestine. The Arab adopted the name Anthony on his conversion and
was remembered under this name in Christian circles. On the
discovery of his conversion Anthony was offered wealth and honour by
the authorities to renounce Christianity but refused. These were the

74
very same temptations that were offered to Anthony were those that
contemporary Christians found equally attractive and prompted them
to convert to Islam. Lamoreaux points out that these conversion
narratives ‘attempt to portray in the sharpest colours the contrast
between Christian perseverance and Islamic roguery.’[203] Anthony
refused the offer and was beheaded on Christmas Day, 799 AD.

The account was so famous that the Melkite theologian, Theodore Abu
Qurrah, referred to it in his tract on the defence of icons. He states:

In our own day there was a well-known martyr, from a family of the
highest nobility among the outsiders, whose story is wide-spread. May
he remember us to Christ in his prayers, he is called St. Anthony. He
used to tell everyone he met that he came to believe in Christianity
only because of a miracle he saw in connection with an icon that
belonged to St. Theodore, the martyr. (Theodore Abu Qurrah, A
Treatise on the Veneration of the Holy Icons XVI)[204]

There is nothing inherently unlikely about an Abbasid prince being

attracted to Christianity and being executed for it, especially with the
early testimony of Theodore Abu Qurrah. Accounts like this must have
amazed contemporary Byzantine Christians and given hope and
encouragement to the Melkite Christians living under Muslim rule. The
fame of Anthony Ruwah was such that it cut across the sectarian and
national divide. He was venerated by Maronites and Monophysites and
in places as far apart as Ethiopia and Georgia.[205] Clearly, oppressed
Christians were seeking inspiration, hope and comfort in stories like
the Martyrdom of Anthony Ruwah.

The 20 Martyrs of Mar Sabas (BHG 1200)

Basil, the abbot of the monastery commissioned Stephen to write an

account of the incident. He was renowned as a poet and author.

Mar Sabas was an import Orthodox monastery on the Dead Sea coast.
In 797, 20 monks were murdered by a band of Bedouin raiders. The
entry in the Roman Martyrology is for John, Sergius, and companions
– a group of 20 monks of the Laura of Mar Sabas near Jerusalem, who

75
were killed in one of the anti-Christian Arab raids. Many more were
wounded, and a few escaped.

One of the victims was a monk by the name of Theoctistus, a disciple

of Stephen of Mar Sabas. The sanctity of Theoctistus was indicated by
visions that he experienced, as well as his life and death. Leontius has
this to say about him:

All bear witness to it, that it was true – not only on account of the
virtuous and pure way of life of this disciple, but also because his
death and departure from the world took place through the baptism of
martyrdom, which admits of no stain, for he was one of the holy
fathers who were martyred, killed by the Bedouin in the laura of this,
our father, the great Mar Sabas. What befell them and their
martyrdom – this has been written about by the excellent and virtuous
wise man, Abba Stephen the son of Mansur, the Damascene, an
honour and a glory to our laura.’ (Leontius, Life of Stephen of Mar
Sabas 77.5)[206]

A laura was a monastic settlement or monastery. It was first

established in the Holy land in the 4th century and was built along a
path or central building. These monasteries were pivotal to the
intellectual life of Christianity under Islam.

The 42 Martyrs of Amorion by Evodius

There are a number of differing versions of the account of the

martyrdom of 42 Byzantine officers on the banks of the Tigress River
in 845. In Byzantine calendars, they are commemorated on the 6th of
March. The author of the primary version is an otherwise unknown
monk Evodius. His account includes numerous theological discussions.
It seems the initial account was composed within a generation of the
executions. The genre of collective martyrdoms already had a long
history in Byzantine literature and the account of the 42 Martyrs of
Amorion owes much to the account of the Martyrdom of the 40 Martyrs
of Sebaste.

The main characters are the highest-ranking officers, including

Constantine, Aetius, Theophilus, Theodore, Melissenus, Callistus and

76
Basoes. The other versions such as one composed by Michael the
Synkellos focus on the life of a single officer such as Callistus, the dux
of Koloneia. No version names the entire group of martyrs. More than
a dozen versions of the incident survive, probably because
martyrology was an immensely popular genre in Byzantine literature.

At the fall of the city of Amorion[207] in Phrygia in 838, the Arab

forces captured a number of important officers and soldiers. After a
number of years of imprisonment, they were asked to convert to
Islam. They were promised the highest honours and privileges if they
would convert and threatened with the most horrible consequences if
they refused. On their refusal to convert, they were executed.
Treadgold suggests that the motivation for the martyrdoms was
‘frustration’,[208] while Athina Kolia-Dermitzaki sees the executions as
a deliberate demonstration of hard-line Islam in the face of popular
criticism.[209]

The longer version by Evodius is full of theological exchanges between

the captive Byzantine officers and their Muslim captors. Byzantines
prided themselves on their theological knowledge and enjoyed
engaging in theological discussion so it can be presumed that some
type of exchange took place. Unfortunately, Evodius was far away in
Byzantine territory and was not an eyewitness to events. The
exchanges were what Evodius imaged what the officers might have
said. He was eager to use the account for his own anti-Islamic
polemic. However, the dialogue is probably not far from the actual
discussions that took place. Typical of Evodius’ methodology is the
following exchange:

When the Saracens told the generals that Mahomet was a true prophet
and Christ was not, the generals asked them: ‘If two men were to
quarrel about a field, with one saying “It's mine!”, and the other
saying, “No, it's mine!”, and one had many witnesses that it was his
field and the other had not a single witness but himself, what would
you say — whose field was it?’ The Saracens replied, ‘His, of course,
who had the many witnesses.’ ‘You have judged right’, the generals
answered them. ‘So it is with Christ and Mahomet. Christ has many
witnesses: the ancient prophets, whom you also recognise, from
Moses to John the Baptist, witnessed to Him. But Mahomet only
witnesses to himself that he is a prophet, and has no other witness.’
The Saracens were confounded, but attempted then to defend their

77
faith thus: ‘That our faith is better than Christianity is seen in this:
that God has given us victory over you, that He gives us the best lands
on earth and an empire much greater than the Christian.’ To this the
generals replied: ‘If that were so, then the idol-worship of Egypt and
Babylon, and of Greece and Rome, and the fire-worship of Persia,
would have been true faiths, for at some time each of these peoples
has conquered others and governed them. It is obvious that your
victory and power and wealth do not prove the truth of your faith. We
know that God sometimes gives victory to Christians, and sometimes
leaves them in torture and suffering to correct them and bring them to
repentance and cleansing from sin.’

The shorter versions of the 42 Martyrs of Amorion lack the theological

complexity of the account by Evodius.[210] The shorter version links
the rivalry between the two empires to Biblical times with the
Byzantines taking the role of Isaac and the Arabs that of Ishmael, their
supposed ancestor. In their attack on Amorion the Arabs massacre the
population, down to suckling infants and commit atrocities on the
civilian population. The Arabs are portrayed as bloodthirsty barbarians
while the 42 Martyrs are lauded and praised for their resistance to the
temptations offered to them by the Arabs to convert.

Martyrdom of ‘Abd al-Masih al-Najrani al-Ghassani

There exists in Arabic an account of an Arab Christian who joined a

group of ghazi warriors fighting against the Byzantine Empire. His
association with them resulted in his conversion to Islam. After a
number of years, an encounter with a priest prompted ‘Abd al-Masih to
rediscover his lost Christianity and become a monk. The underlying
guilt over his previous conduct prompted him to provoke the
authorities into executing him, which they happily obliged on the
grounds of apostasy. The name of the martyr suggests tribes of
Christian Arabs; the Ghassanids of Palestine (long-time Byzantine
allies) and the Arabs of Najran (Yemen).

Hoyland categorises the account of ‘Abd al-Masih as dubious as there

are unanswered questions about the original language of the text and
the date of ‘Abd al-Masih’s execution.[211] Both Hoyland and Griffith

78
agree in placing the martyrdom in the 860s, disregarding the scribal
dating that places the martyrdom in Umayyad times.[212]

The Martyrdom stresses the difference in conduct of ‘Abd al-Masih as a

Christian and as a Muslim. As a young man of twenty he is described
as ‘correct in worship, knowledgeable in what was his right and what
was his duty’ but he fell in with Muslims on a journey to Jerusalem and
decided to go raiding with them. He converted to Islam and committed
numerous atrocities against the civilians of the Byzantine Empire for
thirteen years. The martyrologist describes his behaviour thus: ‘He
killed, he plundered, he burned, and following their example, he
engaged in everything forbidden. He prayed with them, and became
even more furious and harder of heart against the Romans then
they.’[213] The description suggests that ‘Abd al-Masih has forgotten
the difference between right and wrong on his conversion to Islam.

A chance encounter with a priest at Baalbek caused ‘Abd al-Masih to

reappraise his conduct. The priest reads from the Gospel of Matthew,
which reduces ‘Abd al-Masih to tears. He declares to the priest that ‘I
once was of the adherents of this Gospel. But today I am of its
enemies’ and proceeds to tell him his history. Further discussion with
the priest caused ‘Abd al-Masih to realise he could repent. The
Martyrdom does not hint at this but the constant slaughter must have
been psychologically crushing to a young man like ‘Abd al-Masih,
especially for an ex-Christian. A telling incident is that as ‘Abd al-Masih
decides to embrace Christianity he throws away his sword. The
implication is that to renounce Islam is to renounce violence; to
embrace Christianity is to embrace peace.

After a decade as a monk at various Palestinian monasteries, ‘Abd al-

Masih goes to Ramlah to provoke the authorities into executing him.
He throws a message into the mosque, which declares him an apostate
and names his location. The crowd raised a tumult but was unable to
find him, protected by the power of God according to the
martyrologist. ‘Abd al-Masih returns to Mount Sinai and is appointed
Abbot of the monastery, apparently renouncing his earlier attempt at
martyrdom.

Circumstances do not result in a happy ending. Returning to Ramlah

some years later to appeal to the Islamic authorities about the
excessive taxation of the monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai

79
‘Abd al-Masih is recognised by one of his raiding companions and is
denounced.[214] After he refuses to accept Islam, ‘Abd al-Masih is
beheaded and his body is burnt. His final words are not a denunciation
of Islam but a declaration in the truth of Christianity.

The Martyrdom of ‘Abd al-Masih al-Najrani al-Ghassani demonstrates

the dangers of assimilation by Arabic-speaking Christians to the
broader Islamic culture. A young man like ‘Abd al-Masih can easily be
led astray by the bad company of Muslims. The Martyrdom is also an
object lesson that repentance is always possible, no matter what the
circumstances might be. The crimes of murder, rape and denial of the
divinity of Christ were some of the most serious that a Christian could
commit but they were forgiven ‘Abd al-Masih.

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Polemical Works
John of Damascus – On Heresies

The biography of John of Damascus is obscure and contains a number

of legendary features but the broad outline seems to be as follows:
John was born into a Hellenised aristocratic family in Damascus
sometime in the late seventh century. The family served as
government functionaries to the Umayyad Caliphate. His grandfather
had surrendered the city to the Arabs in the initial conquests of the
eastern Byzantine provinces and served them as an administrator as
the language of government remained Greek. John began his career in
the Umayyad court as a tax collector. Sometime in the early eighth
century John withdrew from his post into a monastic retirement at the
monastery of Mar Saba because of Caliph al-Walid’s policy of replacing
the Greek administration with Arabic. As a monk, John composed
numerous works on a range of subjects including homilies, liturgical
poetry, polemical tracts and the first systematic theology. The
iconoclastic emperors at the Council of Hiera in 754 vilified him as
‘John the Bastard’ because of his support for icon veneration. John
died sometime before this council as he is spoken of in the past
tense.[215]

John was author of a variety of works ranging from specific polemical

tracts against rival Christian groups, homilies, religious poetry and
theological tracts.[216] Even though he was living in Arab territory
John chose Greek as the language of his works. His most famous work
is his Three Treatises against Those Who Attack the Holy Icons,
directed against Byzantine iconoclasm.[217] His major work was the
first systematic theology called The Font of Knowledge. It was
composed of three sections; The Dialectica, On Heresies and On the
Orthodox Faith. John’s refutation of Islam is the 101st chapter of the
section On Heresies. The chapter on Islam is by far the longest
chapter, comprising 20% of the entire work. However, the work was
not intended to be exhaustive or extensive in its coverage. The nature
of a compendium like On Heresies is its succinct analysis, and John
does exactly this. In fact, John is remarkably informative in the short
space he gives to Islam and its refutation. Despite some controversy
regarding the authenticity of the section on Islam, the scholarly
consensus is that it is genuine.[218]

81
John’s refutation is the most famous and early Christian response to
Islam in Greek. Andrew Louth justly calls John a ‘pioneer’ in the area
of Islamic polemics as John did not have any patristic sources to draw
on. The Font of Knowledge was written sometime in the first half of
the eighth century about the same time that Ibn Ishaq was composing
his Sirat Rasual Allah, thus this Byzantine Greek source is
contemporaneous with the earliest Arabic source for the life of
Muhammad, something not often acknowledged. The verdict on John’s
chapter on Islam has varied widely. Some theologians such as John
Meyendorff have concluded that John only had a superficial
understanding of Islam. He states that ‘his [John’s] contribution to the
history of Byzantine polemics against Islam is slight’ and ‘he is
certainly much better informed about events in Constantinople than
about Islam.’[219] Meyendorff considers John to be living in a
Christian ghetto having little contact with Islam. He even doubts that
John had read the Quran, even though he quotes from four Quranic
suras.[220] However, the increasing consensus, most eloquently
advocated by Daniel Sahas, has shown that the opposite was true.
John’s brief account demonstrates an excellent summary of Islamic
belief filtered through the eyes of Christian theology.

Louth sums up the content thus: it ‘starts off defining Islam, situating
Muhammad historically, and summarizing his teaching, especially as it
bears on Christianity; it then deals with Muslims objections to
Christianity, and goes on to discuss various suras from the Quran, the
last of which is no more than mentioned, after which there is a brief
and rather inconsequential list of Muslim practices.’[221]

He concludes that ‘There is no doubt from this that John has a fairly
accurate picture of Islam.’[222]

John of Damascus has the following to say in his chapter on Islam:

‘There is also the superstition of the Ishmaelites which to this day

prevails and keeps people in error…..These used to be idolaters and
worshiped the morning star and Aphrodite…..and so down to the time
of Heraclius they were very great idolaters. From that time to the
present a false prophet named Muhammad 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, devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into

82
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. 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. For, he
says, the word and God and the spirit entered into Mary and she
brought forth Jesus, who was a prophet and servant of God. And he
says that the Jews wanted to crucify him in violation of the law, and
that they seized his shadow and crucified this. 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.

Then, when we say: “How is it that this prophet of yours did not come
in the same way, with others bearing witness to him? And how is it
that God did not in your presence present this man with the book to
which you refer, even as he (God) gave the Law to Moses, with the
people looking on and the mountain smoking, so that you, too, might
have certainty?” – they answer that God does as he pleases. “This,”
we say, “We know, but we are asking how the book came down to the
prophet.”

Then they reply that the book came down to him while he was asleep.
Then we jokingly say to them that, as long as he received the book in
his sleep and did not actually sense the operation, then the popular
adage applies to him (which runs: You’re spinning me dreams).

When we ask again: “How is it that when he enjoined us in this book

of yours not to do anything or receive anything without witnesses, you
did not ask him: ‘First do you show us by witnesses that you are a
prophet and that you have come from God, and show us just what
Scriptures there are that testify about you’” – they are ashamed and
remain silent.

“Although you may not marry a wife without witnesses, or buy, or

acquire property; although you neither receive an ass nor possess a
beast of burden unwitnessed; and although you do possess both wives
and property and asses and so on through witnesses, yet it is only

83
your faith and your scriptures that you hold unsubstantiated by
witnesses. For he who handed this down to you has no warranty from
any source, nor is there anyone known who testified about him before
he came. On the contrary, he received it 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 (the black stone) in your
Kaaba and kiss and embrace it? Then some of them say that Abraham
had relations with Hagar 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,
and then he left the asses behind with the two young men, why talk
nonsense? For in that place neither is it thick with trees nor is there
passage for asses.” And they are embarrassed, but they still assert
that the stone is Abraham’s. Then we say: “Let it be Abraham’s, as
you foolishly say. Then, just because Abraham had relations with a
woman on it or tied a camel to it, you are not ashamed to kiss it, yet
you blame us for venerating the cross of Christ by which the power of
the demons and the deceit of the Devil was destroyed.”

As has been related, this Muhammad wrote many ridiculous books, to

each one of which he set a title. For example, there is the book On
Women, in which he plainly makes legal provision for taking four wives
and, if possible, a thousand concubines – as many as one can
maintain, besides the four wives. He also made it legal to put away
whichever wife one might wish, and, should one wish so, take to
oneself another in the same way. Muhammad had a friend named
Zeid. This man had a beautiful wife with whom Muhammad fell in love.
Once, when they were sitting together, Muhammad said: “Oh, by the
way, God has commanded me to take your wife.”

The other answered: “You are an apostle. Do as God has told you and
take my wife”. (John of Damascus. On Heresies 101).[223]

That John was well informed can be seen by the details he mentions.
He begins with biographical information on Muhammad and provides a
selective history of the rise of Islam. He knows when Muhammad
flourished and his teaching, especially as it impinges on Christian
doctrine. He knows a number of scandalous incidents in the life of

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Muhammad like his marriage to Zeynab,[224] his multiple marriages,
his account of receiving revelations alone in a cave, his claim to be a
prophet and his authorship of ‘books.’ John is aware of the Quran, or
at least a proto-collection of suras that Islamic tradition had gathered
from its earliest times.[225] John quotes or summarises a number of
suras and knows the sura titles. This means he had access to Arabic as
there were no Greek versions at this stage.

There are a number of features that become immediately striking. The

issues that John raises are those that time and again come up in
Christian-Muslim polemics. John had gained his knowledge from actual
discussions with Muslims. This is not surprising as Damascus was the
capital of the Umayyad Caliphate and an important intellectual centre.
The only exception to this is that of the Muslim accusation that the
Jewish and Christian Scriptures had been corrupted. At this stage,
Muslims were only dimly aware of them as they had not been
translated into Arabic. It was only later that their familiarity increased
and they were forced to level this charge because they contradicted
the Quran. That the work was intended to be practical seems obvious
from the nature of the ‘If they say…’ to the ‘you say…’ type responses.
Some of the answers are defensive answers to Muslim objections while
others are offensive responses to challenge Muslims.

Theodore Abu Quarrah – Various Works

Theodore Abu Quarrah was the first significant Christian theologian to

write in Arabic. He was trilingual in Greek, Syriac and Arabic with
Syriac most likely to be his first language. Although the exact dates of
Theodore are uncertain, the definite dates in his life place him as being
active in the late eighth century and early ninth century. He is usually
considered to have been born circa 740-50 and died ca. 820-25. At
one stage, Theodore was the Melkite bishop of Harran, he then
became a wandering controversialist and polemicist as a result of
some unspecified ecclesiastical dispute.[226] The long held opinion
that Theodore was a disciple of John of Damascus has been recently
shown to be erroneous on chronological grounds and his links to the
Mar Sabas Monastery have also been shown to be tenuous.[227]

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Theodore was author of a number of directly polemical tracts, while
others are more apologetic. His most aggressive work is entitled
Refutations of the Saracens [or Dialogues] by Theodore Abu Qurrah,
the Bishop of Harran, as Reported by John the Deacon. The recently
discovered preface shows that the work was actually composed by the
otherwise unknown John the Deacon. Other polemical treatise includes
his tract on Free Will and Questions on Free Will against Muslim
fatalism. His tract On the Trinity and On Icons also have a Muslim
audience in mind. Other tracts deal with inter-Christian rivalries. Being
a Melkite, Theodore disputed with Nestorians, Monophysites and
Maronites. Theodore even composed a traditional Tract against the
Jews.

A brief perusal of Theodore’s works shows that he was well informed

about Islam. Theodore quotes the Quran more than twenty times in
his collected works.[228] He is well aware of some Islamic traditions
and mentions by name the hadith on the Forgiveness of Aisha.[229]
He was composing his works just when Muslims were formalising their
traditions and setting them down in writing. He had a specific pastoral
concern in his teaching. His language and arguments in the Dialogues
are kept deliberately simple for the sake of his audience.[230] Other
works demonstrate that Theodore could write in a sophisticated
manner.

The Dialogues were written in Greek so this work was easily accessible
to Byzantine theologians.[231] The language of the Dialogues probably
explains their combative and dismissive attitude, despite being written
within the boundaries of the Abbasid Caliphate. Few Muslims would
have had the language skills to read the contents. The preface, for
example, states the view that Islam is a pseudo-religion: ‘…he
[Theodore] worthily held up to public scorn the impious religion of the
Hagarenes and showed to all that it was worthy of complete
derision.’[232] John the Deacon also states that he considers Islam to
be ‘a heresy.’[233]

The Dialogues are simplistic but accurate in content and seem to be

condensed accounts of actual debates between Theodore and Muslims.
The most aggressive section is the discussion on the career of
Muhammad. Theodore is brutally blunt about Muhammad. He states:
‘Muhammad, the insane false prophet of the Hagarenes. This can be
shown from his own boastful and lying remarks. Under the power of a

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demon, he said, “God sent me to spill the blood of those who venerate
the divine nature as three hypostases and of all those who do not say,
‘God is one, barren-built, who did not beget and was not begotten,
who has no partner.’’ This is the theology of one who is insane.’[234]
It is difficult to believe that Theodore would have been actually been
able to get away with his comments. Perhaps it is wishful thinking by
John the Deacon.

Other topics in the Dialogues deal with issues that were at the heart of
the differences between Christianity and Islam. Theodore defends the
text of the Bible[235] and disputes the claim that Muhammad was
predicted in the Scriptures.[236] He is aware that Muslims deny the
Trinity,[237] the crucifixion[238] and the deity of Christ.[239] These
Theodore defends as best he can and is depicted as getting the better
of his opponents. Theodore even defends monogamy against the
Muslim insistence on polygamy by using the example of Adam and
Eve, something a Muslim would accept.[240] The Dialogues
demonstrate that there was available to Byzantine scholars a work
against Islam that was accurate and comprehensive from the early 9th
century.

Niketas of Byzantium
– Response and Refutation
– Refutation of the Quran

Little is known about the biography of Niketas of Byzantium. He is

given the title ‘philosopher’ and ‘teacher’ as well as ‘of Byzantium’ in
manuscripts of his works. His exact dates are unclear but he was
active in the second half of the 9th century. He was most probably a
student of Photius of Constantinople.

Niketas wrote the first formal systematic refutation of Islam and the
Quran in Greek on Byzantine territory. His work was indicative of the
rise of learning in the 9th century and the theological engagement at
the time. Niketas composed ‘A Refutation of the Falsely Written Book
of the Arab Muhammad’ often known as ‘The Refutation of the Quran.’
He also wrote a ‘Refutation of the Epistle of the Hagarenes’ which was
a response on behalf of the Emperor Michael III of a letter from the
caliph for the emperor to embrace Islam. Niketas was also author of

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polemical works against the Armenians and the Latins.[241]
Meyendorff claims that Niketas had probably never even met a Muslim
and that his Refutation was merely a scholarly exercise.[242] That
Niketas would go through some trouble for a work that would be
unusable seems improbable. Niketas made the effort to read previous
works against Islam in preparation for his own polemics. He had read
Theodore Abu Qurrah’s works.[243] Polemics were meant to be
practical or their usefulness would be negligible. That the work
survived suggests that some in the Byzantine Church found it useful;
however, it was definitely aimed at a Christian rather than a Muslim
audience.[244]

Niketas had access to a Greek translation of the Quran which he used

in his refutations. It is unclear if the translator of the Quran was a
Christian or Muslim but given the Islamic prohibition of translating the
Quran it is most probable he was a Christian. Niketas did not know any
Arabic so he used the translation in good faith. Niketas cites the Quran
numerous times, giving exact quotations under their sura title and
number.[245] For example he knows the exact words of the Quran
that accuse Christians of being polytheists and deny the Trinity: ‘those
who ascribe associates to God.’[246] These are key verses in the
dispute over the nature of God. Niketas is even aware of the Islamic
charge that a ‘Son of God’ requires the existence of a woman.[247]

The translations contained a number of errors that led Niketas astray

but he can hardly be accused of deliberate misrepresentation. The
most significant error concerns the title of God as ‘samad’ in Arabic
meaning both ‘eternal’ and ‘solid’, ‘massive’ and ‘permanent.’[248]
The Christian translator probably did not have the grounding in the
theological vocabulary. Other Christians knew better but were willing
to leave it to make Muslims look ridiculous.

Niketas can, in fact, be applauded for his attempt to go to the sources

in his examination of Islam, something that was not done in the west
until the 12th century when Abbot Peter the Venerable had the Quran
translated into Latin.[249]

Niketas begins his treatise with an apologetical exposition of the

Christian faith, concentrated mainly on the doctrine of the Trinity.
Niketas then proceeds with a systematic refutation of the Quran in
thirty chapters. He is not impressed whatsoever with the Quran or its

88
contents, calling it the ‘most pitiful and most inept little book of the
Arab Muhammad’, full of blasphemies against the Most High, with all
its ugly and vulgar filth.[250] He knows that the Quran teaches the
Virgin Birth but sees this as ‘an act of effrontery and contrary to his
[Muhammad’s] own wishes.’[251] Niketas then mocks the Quran for
claiming that the Virgin Mary was the sister of Moses and Aaron.

On the grounds of morality Niketas condemns Islam because it

sanctions murder, supposedly at the behest of God. Niketas says: ‘…all
murder, insofar as it is murder, is either corruption of a human being
or effects corruption of a human being, and if it is that, it is bad
itself.’[252] Krausmuller sums up Niketas case thus: ‘the Muslim God
cannot be the true God because his law does not reflect the objective
truth about homicide; and that the Muslims themselves only adhere to
this law because they are uncouth and ignorant barbarians…’[253]
Krausmuller claims that Niketas ‘departs from … earlier Christian
positions’ regarding murder[254] but fails to differentiate the exegesis
of Old Testament killing like that committed by Moses, Phineas and
Samuel[255] from that committed by Muslims. Obviously Christians
needed to explain the actions in the Old Testament without resorting
to claims like it was a different god, as the Gnostics claimed, or that it
didn’t happen or the practitioners were not inspired by God. Rather
than go into detail, Niketas is just responding to the contemporary
situation of Islamic Jihad and aggression directed towards the
Byzantine Empire. Krausmuller even quotes a poem of George of
Pisidia on Heraclius’ Persian War to show that the Byzantines approved
of divinely sanctioned war.[256] What Krausmuller fails to recognise is
a poet’s bombastic praise rather than theological accuracy. George
was no theologian, nor did he pretend to be, so his remark that
Heraclius fought under ‘Christ’s command’ is merely a poetic conceit.
However, Niketas knew perfectly well that Jihad was a religious
obligation for Muslims. He took the high moral stance because
Byzantines were fighting a defensive war. Byzantines took the view
that war was necessary for the survival of their civilization but they did
not glorify it the way Islam and the west did.

Niketas concludes that the Quran contains some things that are from
God but many others that are not. He speculates that God is either
changeable or does not exist, neither is an option he is willing to
accept. Niketas is responding to the Muslim claim of a progressive
revelation. This was a difficult case for Christians to argue as Muslims

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used the same arguments against Christianity as Christians used
against Jews.[257] Since Niketas cannot accept the options that God is
changeable or non-existent he makes the connection that the god of
Muhammad is the devil.[258] In reaching this conclusion Niketas was
drawing on Saint Paul. New Testament texts like II Corinthians (II Cor
11:3-4) make it clear that the Islamic doctrine of a human Christ who
was a mere apostle (Paul’s ‘another Jesus whom we have not
preached’) must be satanic. The Byzantines often believed that the
devil would mix truth with deception in order to trap believers.

Eutychius of Alexandria – The Book of the Demonstration

(Kitab al-Burhan)

Eutychius was the Melkite Patriarch of Alexandria in the early 10th

century. He was born in Egypt in 876, at Fustat (Cairo) and died in
940. He was an Egyptian Arab, named Sa'id ibn Batriq; his father's
name was Batriq (Patricius). He first studied medicine and history, and
practised for a time as a physician. He then entered a monastery and
eventually became Patriarch of Alexandria, taking the name Eutychius,
in 933. Being the Melkite (Orthodox) patriarch, he spent most of his
reign in strife with the great majority of Egyptian Christians who were
(Monophysite) Copts, and with his Coptic rival. His works (all written in
Arabic) are treatises on medicine, theology, and history. His most
famous view is a chronicle of the history of the world from Adam to
938. The work is dedicated to his brother, Isa ibn Batriq, and is meant
to supply a short account of universal history.

The Book of Demonstration is a compendium of Christian theology in

Arabic. Eutychius offers little new or innovative in the way of doctrine.
He is heavily dependent on earlier sources, especially John of
Damascus. However, there are a number of places where Eutychius
responds specially to the challenge of Islam.[259]

In one section of the Book of the Demonstration Eutychius discusses

the direction of prayer. He states that ‘Christ has given us the east as
a direction for worship, which He reserved for those who believe in
Him….The east is the original direction for worship, for there God
established the Garden for Adam…’ (Eutychius, Book of the
Demonstration I.300-301)[260] The Arabic word for direction is ‘qibla’

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so Eutychius is directly challenging the Islamic direction of prayer
towards Mecca.

Euthymius Zigabenus
– Dogmatic Panoply
– Disputation on the Faith with a Saracen Philosopher

Euthymius appears in the history of Anna Comnena as the court

theologian of the emperor Alexios I who helps interview Basil, leader
of the Constantinoplian Bogomils. This episode has been convincingly
dated to 1112. Anna writes: ‘However, those who would like to know
all are referred to the so-called Dogmatic Panoply, a book compiled on
my father’s orders. He sent for a monk named Zigabenus, known to
my grandmother on the maternal side and to all the clergy, who had a
great reputation as a grammarian, was not unversed in rhetoric and
had an unrivalled knowledge of dogma. Zigabenus was commanded to
publish a list of heresies, to deal with each separately and append in
each case the refutation of it in the texts of the holy fathers’ (Anna
Comnena, Alexiad XV.9).[261] Euthymius also wrote a separate
account of his interrogation of Basil.

Among the heresies attacked by Euthymius in his Dogmatic Panoply

were the contemporary heresies including those of the Armenians,
Paulicians and Bogomils as well as Muslims and Jews.[262] The section
on Islam occupies the last section of the treatise. Euthymius was a
careful theologian. In his essay against the Paulicians he goes to the
trouble of consulting a Paulician commentary on the New Testament.
Euthymius was also author of a dialogue Disputation on the Faith with
a Saracen Philosopher in which he argues with a Muslim
theologian.[263]

Euthymius Zigabenus begins his refutation of Islam with a mocking

biography of the ‘pseudo-prophet Moameth’. He knows a number of
authentic details of Muhammad’s life, including the early death of
Muhammad’s parents, his marriage to Khadija and his participation in
trade with Syria. He knows that the archangel Gabriel supposedly
appeared to Muhammad but really thinks that Islam is a hodgepodge
of half-understood doctrines gleaned from ‘Jews, Arians and
Nestorians’ during Muhammad’s travels. Muhammad’s revelations are

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considered epileptic attacks rather than demonic manifestations.
Despite the fact that Zigabenus uses the material for polemical
purposes he is quite well informed as to the biography of Muhammad.

Zigabenus is aware of the Quran but considers it an absurd concoction

of gossip and misunderstanding. He singles out the claim that Mary
was a contemporary of Moses and Aaron and that Jesus spoke from
the womb as particularly erroneous and a good example of the
contents of the Quran. The Quranic injunction on polygamy is
described as: ‘He legislated that everyone could take four wives and a
thousand concubines, as many as he could feed’ but is dismissed as so
carnal that it reduces morality to the level of dogs or pigs. As for Jihad,
Zigabenus makes a damning comment that invalidates Islam because
of its aggressiveness and lack of humanity: ‘a murderous tendency of
a murderous prophet of a murderous people.’[264] Zigabenus is quite
aggressive in his method but singles out objections that his Christian
readers would readily agree with. He is not interested in the subtleties
of Trinitarian theology.

Bartholomew of Edessa
– Against the Hagarenes
– Anonymous Tract Against Muhammad

Bartholomew of Edessa was the author of a polemical work against

Islam written probably in the 12th or 13th centuries in Greek.[265] The
place of his birth is not clear but it was probably Edessa or some
neighbouring town, for he was definitely a monk of that city, and in his
refutation of the Hagarenes, he calls himself several times ‘the monk
of Edessa’. Edessa was on the outer fringes of the Byzantine Empire
and was often in Islamic hands.

Bartholemew’s tract is known as the ‘Refutation of the

Hagarenes.’[266] The beginning of Bartholomew’s treatise is
unfortunately lost. The treatise, as it now stands, opens with a
statement of the objections of Muslims against Christianity, among
which are the dogmas of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, and of
confession. Bartholomew then gives his answers, and makes many
counter-charges against Muhammad and his so-called revelation. The
main lines of argumentation are taken from the life of the prophet

92
himself. Bartholomew shows that nothing either in his parentage,
education, or life betrays any God-given mission. From this he
concludes that Muhammad was an impostor, preaching without any
divine credentials. Bartholomew is well acquainted not only with the
Christian position which he defends vigorously, but also with the
position of his adversaries; he knows the customs, practices, and
beliefs of the Arabs, and he boasts that he has read ‘all of your sacred
books.’[267] That Bartholomew has some knowledge of the Quran is
indicated by his use of the passages that are favourable to Jesus and
Mary. He throws this back at Muslims by saying: ‘…in the entire Quran
there do not occur any praises of Muhammad or his mother Aminah,
such as are found about our Lord Jesus Christ and about the Holy
Virgin Mary, the Theotokos.’[268] This passage also shows that
Bartholomew knew Muhammad’s mother’s name, something he could
only have learned from Islamic tradition.

Daniel Sahas has shown that Muslims were responding to Christian

polemics against Muhammad by manufacturing miracles to validate
Muhammad’s status as a prophet. Christians had used the miracles of
the prophets (and Jesus) to validate their authenticity and
Bartholomew is no exception. He states explicitly: ‘We (Christians)
have such a prophet who foretells the future as well as what took
place in the past, and who shows signs and marvels. We know,
however, nothing of this sort from Muhammad, so that we may call
him a prophet or apostle.’ By the 9th century Muslims collectors of
hadiths, like Ibn Sa’d (764-845) in his Book of Classes, could include
numerous miracles of Muhammad, many of them emulating those
performed by Jesus in the Gospels.[269] Bartholomew will have none
of this and outrightly dismisses the claims to Muhammad’s miracles,
which Sahas terms ‘apocryphal.’[270] Even the more ‘canonical’
miracles of Muhammad like the ascent of Muhammad into heaven and
the splitting of the moon do not impress Bartholomew. Consequently
the role of miracles played a lesser part in polemics as the significance
of the character and morality of Muhammad came to the
forefront.[271]

A second treatise Against Muhammad [272] is attributed to

Bartholomew of Edessa; but, in spite of the numerous resemblances to
the previous work, probably due to the use of the same sources, the
differences are of such a nature as to make the ascription of it to
Bartholomew unjustified. For example the names and the number of

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Muhammad’s wives and children; the editor of the Quran and the
Nestorian monk who taught Muhammad Christianity are all named
differently.

Paul of Antioch
– Letter to a Muslim Friend
– Letter from the People of Cyprus

Very little is known about Paul’s biography. His extant works indicate
that he originated from Antioch, entered the monastic life and
eventually became the Melkite bishop of Sidon. The exact dates of his
most famous work are unclear, but evidence from existing manuscripts
and internal references place his activity between 1140-1200.[273]
Paul was a native speaker of Arabic and all his existing works were
composed in this language.

Paul’s Letter to a Muslim Friend adopts a tactic that is much less

combative and polemical than typical Byzantine works against Islam
but the friendly tone does not hide the underlying message that
‘salvation depends upon the proper use of one’s understanding’. The
rest of the Letter is an explanation of how the friend might apply his
perceptiveness more acutely in interpreting the Quran properly, and so
see the truth of Christian teaching.’[274] The actual letter is rather
brief, comprising 64 short paragraphs. It resulted in two massive
refutations by leading Muslim scholars - Shihab al-Din Ahmad b. Idris
al-Qarafi (made before 1285) and Ibn Taymiyya of Damascus (written
at the beginning of the 14th century).[275] The conclusion is that the
letter was considered a serious threat despite its brevity. Ibn
Taymiyya’s refutation was many times longer than the letter. It seems
that Ibn Taymiyya wanted to crush Paul’s arguments by the mere
weight of words.

Later an anonymous scholar from Cyprus in the 14th century redacted

and enlarged Paul’s letter in a slightly more polemical manner.

The Letter to a Muslim Friend is unique among Byzantine polemics for

Paul’s irenic approach and its copious use of quotes from the Quran.
He makes six points:

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 1. Muhammad was only sent to the Arabs and Islam is not a
universal religion.
2. The Quran praises Christ so Christians need not convert to
Islam.
3. The prophecies of the Old Testament confirm Christian doctrines
like the Trinity and the incarnation.
4. Christian doctrines can be proved by reason.
5. Quranic terms support the Christian concept of God.
6. That Christianity was perfect and any new revelation was
unnecessary.[276]

Accepting the blind devotion that Muslims hold for Muhammad and the
Quran, Paul’s tactic is not to dismiss them as false but to present them
as misunderstood. In this manner Paul is turning a common Muslim
polemical tool against them. Muslims often claimed that the Apostles
had misunderstood Christ. Both Paul and his Cypriot redactor
demonstrate a ‘prodigious’ knowledge of the Quran.[277] Paul uses all
the pro-Christian Quranic suras that he can muster and the Cypriot
adds more and even includes the names of the suras quoted by Paul.
The key to the argument is the limited scope of Islam and the
universality of Christianity. This was a strong case as Byzantine
Christianity was nowhere near as culturally imperialistic as Islam or
Western Christianity. Orthodoxy had a strong tradition of allowing
vernacular translations of the Scripture and worship in native
languages.

The method of both authors can be demonstrated by the section on

the defence of the authenticity of the Gospels. The beginning section
using logic and history is from the Cypriot scholar while the following
section using the Quran is what he has incorporated from Paul:

‘If the book which they have in the one language of Arabic and is in
one location cannot have been altered and not one letter of it is
substituted, how can our books which are written in seventy-two
languages be altered? In each of them there are thousands of copies,
which were accepted for six hundred years before the coming of
Muhammad. They came into people’s hands, and they read them in
their different languages despite the size of their countries and the
distance between them. Who can speak seventy-two languages? Or
who could make the decision to collect them from the four corners of
the earth to change them? If some of them were changed and some

95
were left – this was not possible because they are all one message, all
the languages. So such a thing cannot ever be said.

Indeed, we have found a proof that is more impressive than this in his
words in Counsel, ‘Say: I believe in whatever scripture Allah hath sent
down, and I am commanded to be just among you. Allah is our Lord
and your Lord. Unto us our works and unto you your works; no
argument between us and you. Allah will bring us together, and unto
him is the journeying’. As for those who are not People of the Book, it
says in The Disbelievers, ‘Say: O disbelievers! I worship not that which
ye worship. Nor will ye worship that which I worship. Unto you your
religion, and unto me my religion.’ It also says in The Spider, ‘And
argue not with the People of the Scripture unless it be in (a way) that
is better, save with such of them as do wrong ; and say We believe in
that which hath been revealed unto us and revealed unto you; our God
and your God is one, and we surrender unto him’. It does not say: You
surrender to him, but ‘and we’, i.e. himself and the Arabs who followed
what he brought.’[278]

Demetrios Kydones / Ricoldo da Monte Croce – Refutation of

the Koran

Ricoldo da Monte Croce was a Dominican monk. He was born in

Florence about 1243 and died there in 1320. After studying in various
great European schools, he became a Dominican in 1267; was a
professor in several convents of Tuscany (1272-99), made a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1288), and then travelled for many years
as a missionary in western Asia, having his chief headquarters at
Baghdad. He set out for Baghdad in 1288 with the express reason of
acquiring knowledge of Islam to be better able to refute its claims.
Ricoldo returned to Florence around 1302 and achieved high status
among the Dominicans.

Ricoldo was author of a number of works. He wrote his Itinerarium or

Itinerary as a guidebook for missionaries working in the Middle East. It
takes the form of a diary that describes the counties, people and
customs of the people visited by Ricoldo. The Epistolae de Perditione
Acconis are a series of five letters written in lament over the fall of the
city of Acre, the last Crusader foothold in the Holy Land in 1289.

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Ricoldo’s best-known work is the Contra Legem Saracenorum or
Against the Law of the Saracens. It was written in Latin in Baghdad so
the local Muslim authorities were totally unaware of the nature of his
work. Ricoldo was clearly one of the better-informed Latin authors on
Islam having spent four years in Baghdad learning Arabic, the Quran
and Islamic traditions. He was not impressed with what he learnt. He
found many points in the biography of Muhammad that were worth
criticizing.

Demetrios Kydones was a leading Byzantine intellectual in the 14th

century. He became an advocate of church union and eventually a
convert to Roman Catholicism. He translated Ricoldo’s polemic into
Greek under the title Against the Followers of Muhammad.[279] The
translation ‘may have been little more than a literary exercise to
improve his knowledge of Latin’[280] but it was extensively used by
following Byzantine theologians like John Kantakuzenos, which implies
it had some practical knowledge. It was even re-translated back into
Latin during the Renaissance.[281] Despite all the effort that Ricoldo
had put into his polemic it only survives in three manuscripts. It was
only with the re-translation that it became widely disseminated in the
west.[282] Later Manuel II Palaeologos, who was grandson of John
Kantakuzenos, used the work for his own anti-Islamic writing. It was
from this Greek translation that the knowledge possessed by Ricoldo
passed into the Byzantine intellectual mainstream.

Ricoldo gives an account of Muhammad’s teachers. He cannot accept

the divine origin of the Quran so he searches Islamic sources for
evidence to show that Muhammad had teachers who taught him what
he later put in the Quran. He pin-points two human sources; one
Jewish and one Christian. He states that Salman the Persian, an early
Muslim convert, was a Jew who provided Muhammad with information.
He is incorrect in this, probably by combining stories about Salman
and Rabbinical converts mentioned in both Muslim and Christian
sources. The other source is a Christian monk named Bahira, who
Ricoldo refers to as a Jacobite. He is generally depicted as a Nestorian,
even though he is called an ‘Arian’ in the earliest sources.

As well as attacking the source of Islamic revelation, Ricoldo attacks

Muhammad himself: ‘They can also be easily confounded by the
scandalous life of their own prophet Muhammad, who led a life
consumed by indulgence, adultery and rapine down to his last

97
breath…The Saracens themselves say that Muhammad, a single man,
could not produce the Quran without God’s help, with its many
references to the Old and New Testament. In fact, there are many
things there against the Old and New Testaments.’[283] Ricoldo also
brings up the issue of Muhammad’s lack of miracles. He understands
miracles as a guide to truthfulness, citing the example of Moses and
Jesus. He is aware of the Muslim claim of the miracle of Muhammad’s
splitting of the moon but is dismissive of it as he knows what Muslims
assert is not in the Quran.[284] By attacking the two central pillars of
Islam, Muhammad and the Quran, Ricoldo tries to undermine the
assurance of Muslims.

In an effort to show the Quran is a ‘haphazard collection of human

documents’ he gives an account of how Uthman burnt rival versions of
the Quran.[285] Ricoldo even states that rival Muslim factions resorted
to killing each other over rival readings. He is scathing in attacking the
lack of order and coherence in the Quran. He states of Muhammad
that ‘Very often he seems to speak like a man dreaming, and
especially towards the end of the Book, where there seem to be some
words missing.’[286] As a result Ricoldo finds the Quran full of
inconsistencies. He knows and quotes the Quranic verse (Q. 4:82) that
claims the Quran is true because it lacks contradictions but turns the
tables on Muslims by claiming that its own criteria prove it false. He
then summarises the account of Solomon in the Quran and the Bible to
show that Islamic tradition is false.[287] He identifies these as
originating from Jewish ‘fables’. Ricoldo is correct in identifying the
Talmud, which he names specifically, as a source for the Quran;
modern scholarship has vindicated this position. He knows that the
apocryphal birth and infancy narratives in the Quran and the story of
the Seven Sleepers can only have originated from a Christian source.

Finally, Ricoldo cannot believe that the success of Islam is solely due
to human success so he adds that ‘But his chief teacher was, I think,
the devil.’ Ricoldo is very critical of Islamic law, which he terms
‘rambling, confused, opaque, irrational and violent.’[288] He is
obviously contrasting Islamic law with Christian canon law. He gives an
account of temporary marriage that was practised as a way of
circumventing the Islamic prohibition regarding fornication. Ricoldo
even quotes the verse from the Quran that Islamic theologians use to
justify their conduct.[289]

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John Kantakuzenos
– Four Orations Against Muhammad
– Four Apologies Against the Muslim (Muhammedan) Sect

The anti-Islamic polemical works of John Kantakuzenos consist of Four

Apologies and Four Orations Against Muhammad. He was also the
author of polemical works against anti-Palamites, like Prochoros
Kydones and Isaac Argyros, and a refutation of the Jews.[290]
Assisting him in the composition of his anti-Islamic polemics was a
Greek translation of a Latin anti-Muslim polemical tract composed by
Ricoldo da Monte Croce, who John specifically acknowledges in his own
work ‘a monk of the Order of Preachers – of the name of Ricaldus,
went to Babylon…and, having worked much, learned the dialect of the
Arabs’.[291] Also of assistance was a convert from Islam named
Meletius who had formerly been a member of the Ottoman court. He
encouraged John Kantakuzenos to compose his polemical works after a
former co-religionist had composed a letter calling for Meletius to
return to Islam[292]. Such high-ranking converts were increasingly
rare. Meletius would have provided practical advice on Muslim beliefs
and customs. In a deluxe contemporary manuscript that contains four
of John Kantakuzenos’ theological and polemical tracts is a dual
portrait of the emperor as both emperor, in full regalia, and the monk
Joasaph. In his left hand he holds a scroll bearing the words ‘Great is
the God of the Christians’. These are the words he begins his anti-
Islamic works.[293] The interpretation of this is that Kantakuzenos
considered his polemical tracts his most significant literary works and
something he wished to be remembered for in the future.

In his preface to his Four Apologies Against the Muslim Sect

Kantakuzenos expresses his disappointment that conversions of
prominent Muslims to Christianity were infrequent.[294] Kantakuzenos
makes a direct link between Islam and the Turkish onslaught against
Byzantine. He claims that Muslim conversions to Christianity would
lessen the wars against Byzantium. The disastrous civil wars that
sapped Byzantine strength in the 14th century left little appeal for the
Turks except the most idealistic to convert.

Kantakuzenos is aware of the accusations that Muslims made against

Christianity. He mentions the Muslims claim that Christians ‘worship

99
three persons, the Father and the Mother and the Son’.[295] This is a
direct reference to the Quran injunction that says exactly this.
Kantakuzenos then proceeds to vindicate Christian monotheism
against these charges. He aware of Islamic determinism and
commented on its irreconcilability with the traditional view of human
free will to do both good and evil.[296]

In a similar vane to Niketas Byzantinos John Kantakuzenos condemns

Islam for being a violent and aggressive religion. He states, ‘What
could be worse then such cruelty and misanthropy when they
[Muslims] murder the innocent. For whenever the Muslims go to war
and one of them falls in battle, they do not blame themselves, as
causers of the war…’[297] John Kantakuzenos even confuses the
human sacrifice committed by the Turks with Islamic customs,
whereas it was actually a pre-Islamic custom still retained by the
Turks. Vryonis considers the report of human sacrifice as totally
reliable.[298] The important point is that Kantakuzenos was willing to
believe that Muslims were willing to commit murder, despite his close
ties with Muslims.

Gregory Palamas – Letter on his Captivity

The biography of Gregory Palamas is well known; he was the subject

of a contemporary biography by Philotheos Kokkinos and a number of
modern studies. Briefly, Gregory Palamas was born in Constantinople
to an aristocratic family in 1296 and was set for imperial service but,
instead, chose the monastic life. In 1316 he went to Mount Athos
where he stayed briefly at Vatopedi and at Lavra. He then joined the
skete of Glossia. In 1326 Palamas was ordained priest but continued a
life of prayer and contemplation. In 1336 the Hesychast controversy
with Barlaam of Calabria broke out. The dispute was over visions of
the uncreated light of God during Athonite monks’ contemplative
prayer. Palamas was elected Archbishop of Thessalonike in 1347. He
was officially canonised soon after his death in 1360.

On a journey to Constantinople Gregory and his companions were

captured by the Turks when they stopped off at the city of Kallipolis.
He was subsequently held from March 1354 to July 1355. Gregory sent
a pastoral letter to his flock recounting his experiences, probably

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written during his relatively comfortable captivity at Nicaea during the
last days of his imprisonment.[299] Gregory’s account makes it clear
that Christians under Turkish rule flocked to him and begged him to
provide answers to their questions. The Turks used the opportunity to
try to humiliate Gregory and the Christian faith ‘as a proof of the
ineffectiveness of our faith’.[300] Often under Turkish rule priests and
bishops were expelled from their sees, property was confiscated and
the church was reduced to poverty and the people were left without
leaders to respond to the Muslim propaganda. One of the most
commonly asked questions was why God had ‘abandoned’ their nation.
It is evident from other sources that the Turkish conquests led to a low
morale amongst the Christians who were subsequently easily
converted to Islam.

The letter demonstrates Gregory’s relative ignorance of Islamic

doctrine. He used his time to familiarise himself with the main areas of
dispute and inform his flock. The debate also shows up many of the
misconceptions that Muslims had of Christian doctrine; for example the
Turks ask Gregory Palamas why the Christians adore the wood of the
cross and believe God had a wife.[301] That Gregory’s letter is an
authentic account of his encounter with Turkish Muslims is beyond
doubt. The points of debate ‘demonstrate a popular rather than a
sophisticated knowledge of Islam.’[302] The letter consists of three
encounters;

1. An interview with Ishmael, the grandson of the Emir on the topic

of almsgiving
2. A dialogue with a group known as the Chiones on the Mosaic Law
recorded by Taronites, a Christian doctor and friend of Gregory
Palamas
3. An encounter with a Turkish imam (or Tasimanes) at the eastern
gate of Nicaea comparing Muhammad and Jesus[303]

Gregory is not afraid to criticise the Turks in the most abusive terms;
he calls them ‘this impious and god-hating and all-abominable race –
[who] boast that they dominate the Romans [Greek Orthodox] on
account of their own faith in God’ and ‘they live a reproachful,
inhuman, and God-hating life ….to live a prodigal life in swords and
knives, indulging in slavery, murder, plundering, rape, licentiousness,
adultery and homosexuality.’[304] It is certain that he was much more
courteous in his actual discussions while remaining staunch in his

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views. His letter was never meant for Turkish eyes so the contents
remained unknown to them.

By the conclusion of his captivity Gregory was well informed and had a
good understanding of Islam but his experiences led him to dismiss
their claims to a divine revelation as baseless. Sahas makes the
comment that Palamas was rather ignorant of Islam as revealed by his
initial discussion with Ishmael.[305] The limited scope of the
discussion between the two on the nature of almsgiving is not
conclusive. Certainly, Gregory must have learnt much about Islam
during his captivity but it is impossible to measure his knowledge
before he was captured. The low level of Turkish morality was probably
the deciding factor for Gregory’s rejection of Islam since the Turks
claimed that ‘God gives them his consent’ to abuse the helpless
Anatolian Christian population. Gregory’s concluding remarks on
Muhammad that he propagated Islam by ‘means of war and the sword,
with pillage, enslavement and executions’ shows that Islam was to
blame for Turkish aggression against the Christians.[306]

At one point, a group called the Chiones, enters debate with Gregory
in front of the sultan. They are recent converts to Islam but their
identity is uncertain. Meyendorff considers them to be Christian
converts to a type of Mosaic Judaism in an effort for them to find some
kind of accommodation with the Turks.[307] Sahas sees them as
Jewish converts to Islam.[308] Gregory has nothing but scorn for the
Chiones and their knowledge. He calls them ‘…men who, taught by the
Satan, had studied nothing else but blasphemies and shameful
things…’[309] The Chiones try to argue that circumcision is a necessity
since it is in the Old Testament but Gregory silences them as being
inconsistent. He says that ‘Since you are referring to the old law and
to what was handed down by God to the Hebrews at the time – for
traditions of God also were the keeping of the Sabbath, the Jewish
Passover, sacrifices which were to be offered exclusively by the
priests, the altar in the interior of the temple, and the dividing curtain
– since all these and other such things have also been handed down
by God, why do you not cherish any of them and you do not practice
them?”[310] Neither the sultan nor the Chiones seem to be aware of
the usual Islamic retort of Scriptural corruption.

The final dispute with Tasimanes on the divinity of Christ caused huge
crowds to gather. Tasimanes is aware of the traditional charge of

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Scriptural corruption and claims that ‘There was reference to
Muhammad in the Gospel but you cut it out’.[311] He also uses Muslim
victories as an indication of Islamic truth. Gregory responds with the
usual defence that the Gospel is too widespread to be altered in every
place. It is, however, his response to the second proof that is telling.
He says ‘Muhammad marched from the East and he progressed
victoriously to the West. He did so, however, by means of war and the
sword, with pillage, enslavement and executions, none of which has its
origin in God…’[312] Gregory, as a good Byzantine, even brings up
Alexander the Great, as a similar example of a great conqueror. The
difference was that others did not entrust their souls to Alexander on
account of his victories. As the dispute was growing heated Gregory
called it to a halt, probably fearing violence on behalf of the Turks.

Manuel II Palaeologos – Dialogue with a Persian

Manuel lived in the time of terminal political and economic decline for
the Byzantine Empire. He was the second son of the emperor John V
Palaeologos. He rejected his father’s personal conversion to Roman
Catholicism and remained staunchly Orthodox all his life. He was born
in Constantinople in 1350 and named co-emperor in 1373. He
succeeded his father as sole emperor in 1391 and ruled until 1425
when, after a long illness, he renounced the world and became a
monk. He died soon afterwards. His foreign policy alternated between
serving as a vassal to the Turks to finding western help against them.
To that end Manuel made a long futile journey to the west between
1399-1403, visiting leaders like the Pope and the kings of France and
England, trying to find military assistance against the Turks.

In 1391 Manuel was forced to campaign in eastern Anatolia as the

vassal of the Ottoman sultan Bayazid. In the best tradition of
Byzantine emperor-theologians, Manuel composed a dialogue of the
discussions he had with Turkish Muslims under the title Dialogue Which
was Held with a Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Ankyra in
Galatia he had with Muslim scholars he met during the campaign.[313]
The interpreter for the discussion was a bilingual Greek who had
voluntarily converted to Islam. This interpreter was not completely
trusted by his Muslim lord so the muderris of Ankyra and his sons
would converse with each other in Persian during difficult points during

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the dialogue.[314] By the time Manuel was writing the tide had
definitely turned against Christianity. ‘The Turks had greater powers of
assimilation than the Latins. There were many more Turks, and they
promoted conversion to Islam, which virtually insured that a Greek’s
descendants would consider themselves Turks. As the Turks raided
and conquered, they enslaved many Christians, selling some in other
Muslim regions and hindering the rest from practicing their faith.’[315]

Unlike more literary dialogues within Byzantine polemical literature

there is every indication that Manuel’s work is an authentic account of
an actual discussion. Manuel had read earlier polemics against Islam
so was rather well informed and prepared for a discussion. Vryonis
concludes that Manuel had read the polemics of John Kantakuzenos,
and in turn was influenced by Demetrius Kydones and Ricoldo.[316]
Manuel chose to use the name ‘Persian’ for the Turks because he was
following conventional classicising vocabulary of Byzantine
intellectuals. About half of the Dialogue with a Persian concerns
Manuel’s defence of the doctrine of the Trinity.[317] The Trinity was
central part of Orthodox doctrine. Its acceptance implies other key
doctrines like the Incarnation, Resurrection, etc., so Manuel was wise
to concern himself with this key doctrine.

The Emperor stated: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that

was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as
his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Many
Muslims were offended by what was perceived as a denigration of
Muhammad. In his book, Manuel II then continues, saying, “God is not
pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's
nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead
someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason
properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable
soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any
other means of threatening a person with death...”

Manuel’s correspondence contains few references to the Turkish threat

to the empire with the exception of a letter penned in 1391, and
addressed to Demetrius Cydones. It is numbered as Letter 16 in the
corpus of Manuel’s letters and was written at the same time as the
Dialogue. The letters paints a black picture of the state of Anatolia
under the Turks. Cities are desolate and depopulated to such an extent
that their names have been forgotten. ‘It has been deserted by the

104
inhabitants[318], who have fled to the clefts in the rocks, to the
forests, and to the mountain heights in an effort to escape a death
from which there is no escape, a very cruel and inhuman death
without any semblance of justice…Nobody is spared, neither very
young children nor defenceless women. For those whom old age or
illness prevents from running away there is no hope of escaping the
murderous blade.’[319] Manuel claims that the lawlessness was so
great that even Muslim holy men, or ‘Muslims priests’ as Manuel dubs
them, are victims of Turkish aggression. This puzzling statement could
refer to various Shi’ite or syncretist Muslim imams or perhaps
bystanders who got in the way of assaults.

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Diplomatic Correspondence
Leo III – Letter of Leo III to Umar

There exists, incorporated into the History of the Armenian historian

Ghevond a set of letters written between the Caliph Umar II (717-720)
and Byzantine emperor Leo (717-741) at the beginning of the eighth
century. The authenticity of the correspondence between Leo III and
Umar II has been hotly disputed but the scholarly consensus is that
the letters are substantially genuine. Arthur Jeffery is of the opinion
that the correspondence is genuine[320] and this is supported by John
Meyendorff.[321] Of the modern scholars John Tolan rejects the
authenticity of Leo’s response as a ‘clumsy attempt’ at forgery by
Ghevond on the authority of Gaudel.[322] Jeffery’s examination of the
evidence suggests there is nothing improbable about Umar’s and Leo’s
correspondence. Byzantine, Armenian and Christian Arabic historians
all mention the correspondence.[323] Jeffery, however, is quite willing
to accept that Leo’s response has been interloped and expanded by
some unknown ‘monkish’ editor.

There are Islamic traditions that Muhammad sent letters to the

leaders[324] of the world to convert to Islam. The authenticity of this
correspondence is highly doubtful but it inspired other rulers to
emulate Muhammad.

Leo’s Letter to Umar shows he is aware of the contents of the Quran

and an extensive number of Muslim traditions and arguments. Leo
grew up on the Byzantine/Muslim frontier so his knowledge might have
been from first hand experience or he might have had some help from
court theologians in drafting the letter.

Leo rejects the heavenly origin of the Quran but he does not resort to
the usual claim that the monk Bahira or renegade Jewish Rabbis were
responsible for the teaching of Muhammad. He states that it was
Umar, Ali and Salman the Persian who composed the Quran. The
divine authorship was merely ‘rumour’ that had spread amongst the
Arabs.[325] This seems to be a combination of the various stories of
Muhammad’s teachers and the collection of the Quran under the early
Caliphs. Leo singles out the reference in the Quran to Miriam (Mary,
the mother of Jesus) being the sister of Aaron and daughter of Amram

106
as an example of the absurdities in the Quran. Leo takes this to mean
that Muhammad has confused the two personalties due to the
similarity of names despite there being 1370 years difference between
the two… ‘The Christ, according to the promise of God, ought to come
from the tribe according to the promise of God, ought to come from
the tribe of Judah, whereas Miriam, the daughter of Amram, belonged
to that of Levi. Your objections are full of inconsequences, and offer
nothing but a multitude of gross and inadmissible falsifications. The
source of so many such subterfuges and contradictions is naught but
human invention…’[326] The ‘objections’ probably refer to Muslim
explanations of Mary being Aaron’s sister as a figurative expression
but Leo will have none of this because Mary was not from the priestly
Levite tribe but rather from David’s tribe, that of Judah.

The Sirat Rasual Allah of Ibn Ishaq mentions John 15:23 that the
Paraclete is a prophecy of Muhammad.[327] Leo totally rejects this
interpretation of the passage. If Leo was responsible for the letter then
this was the earliest reference to this Islamic apologetic point. Leo also
knows of the Muslim claim that Abraham built the Kaaba in Mecca. He
knows perfectly well that the Kaaba was ‘pagan altar of sacrifice not
the House of Abraham that Muslims claimed.’[328] Leo strongly
implies on this point that despite their claims to monotheism, Muslims
are stained with a crypto-paganism. This is a recurring theme in other
Byzantine polemics.[329] Leo is even aware of the incident of Zeynab
when he states ‘he [Muhammad] succeeded in seducing the woman
Zeda’ in his discussion of the immorality of Islamic sexual ethics.[330]

Leo was accurately informed of other points of controversy such as

Islamic Christology, the charge of tampering with the Scripture and
that Muslim conquests were a vindication of the truth of Islamic claims
to be divinely inspired. Interestingly enough these same arguments
are still used today by Muslim apologists.

Arethas of Caesarea in Cappadocia – Letter to the Emir of

Damascus

Arethas was a well-known personality in tenth-century Byzantium. He

was born in the city of Patras in the mid-ninth century. He was
educated in Constantinople, probably by Photius, the great scholar and

107
Patriarch of Constantinople. He was renowned as a classical scholar
and author. He wrote scholia on a number of classical authors such as
Plato, Aristotle, Lucian and Dio Chrysostom. He was appointed
Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia in 902 but spent most of his
time in Constantinople. He seems to have died some time around
932.[331]

Among the minor works of Arethas exists a letter refuting Islam in the
most abusive and blunt terms. The authorship of the letter is disputed.
Some scholars like Daniel Sahas[332] and Patricia Karlin-Hayter are
willing to acknowledge Arethas’ authorship while others like Romily
Jenkins deny the authorship. Jenkins even goes as far as to claim the
authorship actually belongs to a diplomat named Leo Choirosphactes.
Whatever the authorship, it is doubtful that the letter would have ever
been sent. Not only would it have caused diplomatic uproar but no
Muslim would have been convinced by its arguments. The letter
probably circulated as a scurrilous pamphlet among Arethas’ circle of
literary friends.

The letter itself deals with many of the same topics of previous
polemics. Sahas divides the letter into thirteen sections:

1. The title which states ‘To the Emir of Damascus at the instigation
of Romanos the King’
2. Acknowledgement of receiving of previous correspondence from
the emir
3. An opening remark on Islam
4. The truth and reliability of Christianity
5. On the divinity of Jesus and a comparison between Jesus and
Adam
6. The divinity of Jesus and a comparison between Jesus and
Ezekiel
7. Muslim misconceptions about the divinity of Jesus
8. The veneration of the cross
9. Defense of the divinity of Jesus
10. Military success and religious truth
11. A critique of Muslim teaching on Paradise
12. The meaning and purpose of the incarnation
13. Closing of the letter

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Arethas can hardly be accused to ignorance regarding Islam; not only
did he go on a diplomatic mission to Egypt and Syria for the emperor
but he also copied works by Theodore Abu Qurrah. The letter itself
begins with an insulting statement:

But how did you venture to call the faith of the Saracens pure and
immaculate…Isn’t that a faith full of filth, that subjects you mostly to
sexual acts with women and many other shameful and improper
deeds?[333]

The letter goes on to deal with the standard topics like the veracity of
the incarnation and the divinity of Jesus against the misconceptions of
the Muslims. Arethas uses the proof of the Old Testament prophecies,
the miracles of Jesus and the success of Christianity ‘through poor and
simple men, twelve in number.’ Arethas even knows of the Muslim
comparisons of Jesus to Adam and Ezekiel that try to disprove the
uniqueness of Jesus. Adam was used because, like Jesus, he had no
father and Ezekiel was used because he raised people from the dead.
The most insulting aspect of the letter is Arethas’ attack on the Muslim
understanding of Heaven. Meyendorff, who rejects the Arethan
authorship, says of the work that ‘the pamphlet consists essentially of
a number of jokes in poor taste about the Muslim concept of
Paradise.’[334] Arethas takes the high moral ground in his attack on
Islam. He was renowned as a staunch defender of the canons of the
church and it would be expected that he took the moral code of the
canons quite seriously too. He finds the polygamy, concubines, easy
divorce and the carnal understanding of paradise all distasteful. For
example, Arethas states that if in Heaven there would be eternal
eating and drinking then Heaven would be overflowing with excrement
as a result. He states ‘Thus you and your paradise are full of
excrement and stink. Where, then, are you going to find so much
perfume in order to anoint yourselves with, as you are doing now in
this life, which is so corruptible.’[335] This letter points to a
widespread popular knowledge in Byzantium of the Muslim concept of
paradise. The jokes were probably circulating around Constantinople
and Arethas probably picked them up form there. Arethas resorts to
sarcasm and exaggeration but he does not totally misrepresent his
enemies. There were many Muslims who took a literal understanding
of Heaven.

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Michael III – Letter in Response to the Hagarenes

In the middle of the ninth century the Emperor Michael received a

letter ‘From the Hagarenes (Arabs)’ calling him to convert to Islam.
Michael passed the letter on to his court theologians and two
responses were written by Niketas of Byzantium.[336] Niketas opened
with the important point that the Christian concept of the Trinity was
not at odds with the Islamic concept of monotheism. Niketas is less
overtly aggressive in these letters than in his polemical treatise
pointing to a difference between the polemics directed toward a
Christian audience and the requirements of ‘diplomatic courtesy’. It is
unclear if the letter were ever sent but there is ample evidence of a
lively correspondence so it is not beyond the bounds of plausibility.
Translating the letter into Arabic would not have been much of an
obstacle at this stage as there were plenty of bilingual translators in
Greek and Arabic in both the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid
Caliphate.

Nicholas Mysticus – Letter to the Emir

Nicholas was born in southern Italy to Greek-speaking parents in 852.

He was a friend and possibly student of Photius. He rose through the
ranks of the clergy. He was appointed Mysticus (or Patriarchal
secretary) by Emperor Leo VI and eventually succeeded to the
Patriarchal throne in 901. Nicholas refused to support the emperor on
the issue of his fourth marriage (known as the Tetragamy
Controversy), was deposed in 907, and was replaced by Euthymios. He
was restored to the Patriarchate by Romanos and served in the office
until his death in 925.[337]

Nicholas was author of a series of minor works including an extensive

correspondence, poetry and sermons. The letter was originally thought
to have been addressed to the Emir of Crete but Romilly Jenkins
comprehensively proved that this was a misreading and in actuality,
the letter was addressed to the caliph al-Muktadir (908-932) in
Baghdad.[338] The letter is dated between August 913 and February
914.[339]

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The most striking aspect of Nicholas’ Letter to the Emir is its civility
and the cordial manner which he addresses the caliph despite the long
history of animosity between the Muslims and the Byzantine Empire.
Friendly remarks include the term ‘most glorious and brilliant Emir’
and ‘my beloved friend’ in the opening subscription. Nicholas even
composed a homily on Thessalonike so he knew perfectly well the
savagery with which the Arab pirates had treated the citizens when the
city was captured in 904,[340] a mere decade before the letter. It is
apparent that Nicholas is using the same kind of discretion that
Niketas of Byzantium used in his letter on behalf of Michael III. The
most famous statement of Nicholas is that in which he views the
Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate as the two great earthy
powers. His exact words are ‘…there are two lordships, that of the
Saracens and that of the Romans, which stand above all lordship on
earth, and shine out like two mighty beacons in the firmament.’[341]

Nicholas chastises the caliph for the treatment of the Christians of

Cyprus. The Byzantines had a treaty with the caliphate in which
Cyprus was treated as a demilitarized zone, which the Byzantines had
broken. The Muslim powers had retaliated by attacking the island,
bringing ‘…swords and wars and murders…on the miserable
Cyprians.’[342] The perpetrator of the atrocities was a Christian
apostate named Damian. In contrast to the majority of Byzantine
authors, Nicholas stresses that this behaviour was not in accordance
with the traditional tolerance displayed towards the Christians of
Cyprus. Nicholas gives the caliph a history lesson of the three hundred
years of the treaty about the neutral status of Cyprus. He even calls
the Muslims ‘the law-abiding Saracens’. Nicholas calls Damian ‘…a
disgrace to the Saracen religion’, ‘the most criminal Damian’ and
speaks of the ‘brutality and inhumanity of Damian’, implying that the
violence perpetuated by Damian was not in accordance with Islam but
rather he was acting as a renegade and the excesses are totally his
own.

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Homilies and Sermons
Sophronius of Jerusalem – Homilies

Sophronius was born in Damascus in ca. 560 and died in Jerusalem on

March 11th, 638. He spent his early years as a wandering teacher and
was friends with John Moschus, author of the Spiritual Meadow. He is
referred to as Sophronius the Sophist in the works of John Moschus.
With John Moschus Sophronius went to Egypt, Palestine and Rome but
he eventually returned to Palestine and joined a monastery. Due to his
staunch opposition to Monoenergism Sophronius was appointed
Patriarch of Jerusalem in 634. He witnessed the Arab conquest of
Palestine and surrendered Jerusalem to Caliph Umar in 638.[343]

Sophronius was author of a number of extant works. These include 23

Anacreontic Odes on liturgical feasts in classical meter, a Synodal
Letter against Monoenergism, a series of homilies on liturgical feasts
and an Encomium on Saints Kyros and John. It is Sophronius’ homilies
that are important to Byzantine responses to Islam due to their
references to current events and their early date.

The first important reference is in Sophronius’ Nativity (or Christmas)

Homily. He makes this statement to his audience: ‘We, however,
because of our innumerable sins and serious misdemeanours, are
unable to see these things, and are prevented from entering
Bethlehem by way of road. Unwillingly, indeed, contrary to our wishes,
we are required to stay at home, not bound closely by bodily bonds,
but bound by fear of the Saracens.’[344] The Christians could not
make their traditional journey to Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas
owing to the chaos caused by the Arab invasions. The motif of
Christians being punished for their sins is the way that Sophronius
understands the invasion. This was already an old motif by the time
Sophronius was writing and was to reappear for the entire period of
time that Byzantine Christians encountered Islam.

Another reference comes from an Epiphany Homily. The information is

lengthy and more informative but far from clear. Sophronius states:
‘However, the present circumstances are forcing me to think differently
about our way of life, for why are [so many] wars being fought among
us? Why do barbarian raids abound? Why are the troops of the

112
Saracens attacking us? Why has there been so much destruction and
plunder? Why are there incessant outpourings of human blood? Why
have churches been pulled down? Why is the cross mocked? Why is
Christ, who is joyousness of ours, blasphemed by pagan mouths so
that he justly cries out to us: “Because of you my name is blasphemed
among the pagans,” and this is the worst of all the terrible things that
are happening to us. That is why the vengeful and God-hating
Saracens, the abomination of desolation clearly foretold to us by the
prophets, overrun the places which are not allowed to them, plunder
cities, devastate fields, burn down villages, set on fire the holy
churches, overturn sacred monasteries, oppose the Byzantine armies
arrayed against them, and in fighting raise up the trophies [of victory
in war] and add victory to victory.’[345]

The most obvious fact revealed by the text is the violence that the
invasions brought to the province. Often the initial invasion is
portrayed as practically bloodless due to the speedy collapse of
Byzantine resistance. However, even with typical rhetorical
exaggeration of Byzantine literature, Sophronius paints a blood-chilling
portrait. Also noticeable is the references to the Arabs as ‘pagans’.
Was Sophronius aware that they were monotheists or was he relying
on his own extensive reading of classical ethnography? Or perhaps
Sophronius had heard that the Arabs were monotheists but their
actions made him doubt this? Other questions also arise. The first
question is whether the targeting of Christian symbols like churches
and crosses is a result of Islam or just part of the general destruction.
The mention that the cross is ‘mocked’ has a distinctive Islamic ring to
it. Sophronius, at this early date, probably did not know of the Quranic
denial of the crucifixion but he is likely to have witnessed the tearing
down of crosses as specified in the Pact of Umar.

Pseudo-Chrysostom – Sermon on the Pseudo-Prophets

Among the numerous spuria attributed to John Chrysostom is a homily

concerned with heretical prophets who were troubling the community
in Antioch. The reference in the homily to the writings of Dionysius the
Areopagite places the homily beyond the lifetime of John Chrysostom
as the works were first cited in the 530s by Monophysite supporters of
Severus of Antioch. An analysis of the work by Alice Whealey places

113
the homily in Antioch due to the references to local saints like Evodius
and Ignatius.[346] The use of Greek as a literary language and the
parallels to an apocalypse attributed to Hippolytus places the homily
sometime in the seventh or eighth centuries. The seventh century was
a time of famine and war and it resulted in much apocalyptic
speculation.[347] The author may or may not have been named John
as it was a common name in antiquity and misattributed to the more
famous John Chrysostom.

The main target of the Homily on the Pseudo-Prophets is some

unnamed heretics in Antioch but there seem to be some allusions to
Islam. The Christians are warned from eating ‘pagan sacrifices.’
However, in the seventh century there were no pagans in Antioch so
the term must refer to Muslims.[348] The term ‘pagans’ was often
applied to Muslims by the Byzantines. Perhaps the Antiochian
preacher was struck by the distinctive dietary practices of Islam. The
mention of those who ‘hate the Word of God’ might be a reference to
Islamic Christology. Calling Jesus a mere prophet might well have
been interpreted as hating the Word (logos) of God by denying His
divinity.

The reference to wars between the kingdoms in the homily refers to

the conflict between the Byzantines and the Umayyad caliphate. The
political understanding of the war between kingdoms was a typical
Byzantine reaction to the Islamic conquests. The religious nature of
the Islamic conquests as a conflict between rival religious systems was
not at the forefront of Byzantine thinking at this early point.

The discussion of false prophets in the homily might refer to

Muhammad as Whealey considers the attack on the false prophets
distinct from that against heretics.[349] The problem with this
interpretation is that the homily refers to ‘false prophets’ not a single
false prophet as Muhammad would be later viewed. Does this mean
that the Antiochian preacher was unaware that the Muslims had only
one prophet or did he consider the caliphs somehow as prophets? The
solution is unclear. The homily demonstrates only rudimentary
knowledge of Islam and even then, it is synthesised in a Christian
context. The Antiochian preacher does not even seem to distinguish
Islam as a separate religion.

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Gregory Dekapolites – Historical Sermon on What the Saracen
Saw

Gregory was born in the city of Eirenopolis, in the Isaurian Dekapolis

(hence the surname Dekapolites) before 797 and died in 842. After
completing his elementary education, Gregory stayed at a monastery
run by his maternal uncle for 14 years. After this time, Gregory left the
monastery and proceeded to travel widely. He spent time in Ephesus,
Constantinople, Thessalonike, Sicily, Rome and then Mt Olympus. He
lived through the second period of iconoclasm but did not suffer any
persecution because of his iconophile sympathies. Ignatios the Deacon
wrote a hagiographic Life of Gregory the Dekapolite soon after
Gregory’s death.[350] This life contains an incident where a Saracen
soldier tried to kill Gregory in Italy but his hand immediately withered
when he tried to strike Gregory.

The Historical Sermon on What the Saracen Saw is the only extant
work by Gregory. It is a sermon on the conversion of a Muslim prince,
who is converted to Christianity by a miraculous vision of the Christ
child in the Eucharist. The historicity of the events described by the
sermon have been doubted by some owing to the miracles and the
existence of a number of similar parallel tales.[351] In the version
translated by Daniel Sahas[352] he places the setting in Egypt but
Hoyland sees the term Ampelos as a corruption of Rempli, the Greek
version of Ramala (Diospolis). The church and the priest that the
Saracen attended was evidently a Melkite, hence the passing of the
story on to Gregory, and this indicates that the setting was Palestine.
Most likely there were no Melkite churches in rural Egypt in the ninth
century.

The sermon was written in Greek so it was probably written for an

audience within the Byzantine Empire. The audience would have
enjoyed the exotic setting and entertaining story. This explains the
survival of the text. There is a distinctive contrast between the
behaviour of the Saracen before his conversion and his behaviour
afterwards in the account. The conversion calmed the convert and
made him ready to face martyrdom. The persecutor has become a new
man. Before his conversion he is described as ‘pitiless and
stubborn’.[353]

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The narrative shows some sympathy for the Emir, who is reluctant to
execute his kinsman, but he is prompted by his advisors and the
attack on Muhammad as a false prophet to execute the Christian
convert. The irony of the situation would not have been lost on
Gregory’s audience.

The Emir laughed again and said to the officials who had gathered in
the palace: “This man is mindless. What shall we do with him? Take
him out and expel him.” Those, however, sitting by the king said: “He
meant to desecrate and corrupt the religion of the Saracens. Do you
not hear how he curses and anathematizes our great prophet?”

The monk and former Saracen cried out loudly: “I feel sorry for you
Emir because you, unfortunate one, do not want to be saved. Believe
in our Lord Jesus Christ, the crucified one, and anathematize the
religion of the Saracens and their false prophet, as I did.” And the
Saracen Emir said: “Take him out as I am ordering you. He is mindless
and does not know what he is talking about.” Those sitting by with him
said: “Well, you heard that he anathematized the religion of the
Saracens and that he is blaspheming against the great prophet, and
you say, ‘He does not know what he is talking about?’ If you do not
have him killed we will also go and become Christians.”

Isidore Glabas of Thessalonike – Homily on the Seizure of the

Children

Isidore was Metropolitan of Thessalonike during the turmoil at the end

of the fourteenth century. Isidore was born in 1341 and had the
baptismal name of John before he became a monk in April 1375. He
became bishop in 1380 but withdrew in 1383 to Constantinople during
the Turkish siege of Thessalonike. Isidore was briefly deposed from his
position at this time. He returned in 1386 and remained in position for
the next decade until his death. He travelled to Asia Minor in 1387 to
negotiate with the Turks on behalf of the citizens of Thessalonike. He
died in office in 1396.[354]

Isidore’s Homily on the Seizure of the Children is an early reference to

the practice of levying young children from the non-Muslim population
of the Ottoman Empire and forcibly converting them to Islam as

116
Janissaries. Isidore considers the practice to be inhuman in the
extreme. The introduction to the homily indicates that it was delivered
during the First Sunday of Lent in 1395.[355] Typical of the time
Isidore offers the explanation that the Turkish conquests were a result
of the sins of the Byzantines.

The homily demonstrates a number of common features with previous

works. It sees the Turks as God’s instruments in punishing the sinful
Byzantines, a recurring motif in Byzantine religious literature. Isidore
seems to think that the devsirme was a typical feature of Islam.
Certainly the tradition of slave-soldiers was old, going back to the
early Abbasid Empire. It found its fruition in the Turkish Gulum of the
11th century and the Mamluks of Egypt but there was nothing
specifically Islamic about the practice.

Isidore refers to the Turks as ‘infidels’ and ‘barbarians’ rather than

Muslims or Turks in his homily. The anguish that Isidore feels for the
parents whose children have been taken is clearly seen in the homily:

For what would a man not suffer, were he to see the child he had
begotten, whom he had raised, for whose sake his eyes had shed
many tears many times, praying that [his son] would attain the
pinnacle of happiness – [what would he not suffer, were he to see this
child] seized by the hands of men from another race suddenly and
violently and forced to change over to strange habits and expected to
become soon thereafter the [bearer] of barbaric garb and speech and
the vessel of impiety and other foulness.[356]

Isidore is concerned that not only are the children converted to Islam,
which he calls ‘impiety’ and ‘foulness’ but also that they are being
assimilated into another culture. To convert to Islam was to be
assimilated into Turkish culture.

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Liturgical References
Pseudo-Niketas Chionites – Formula of Abjuration

There exists a document entitled the Formula of Abjuration for Muslim

converts to Christianity. The full title of the formula is ‘Order followed
for those of the Saracens who return to the pure and true faith of us
Christians’.[357] It is ascribed to Niketas Chionites in manuscripts,
probably due to the account of the controversy regarding the formula
contained in his Roman History and his reputation as a lay theologian,
but this is rejected by all modern scholars.[358] The text consists of
22 anathemas against Muslim beliefs. The convert is required to curse
Muhammad, the relatives of Muhammad and all the caliphs up to Yazid
(680-683). Other anathemas are directed against the Quran, the
Islamic concept of paradise and polygamy.[359] These were the
doctrines that the Byzantines found most objectionable about Islam.
The most famous anathema was that against ‘the God of Muhammad,
of whom he [Muhammad] says that he is one God, holosphyros, who
neither begat nor was begotten, and no-one has been made like him’.
The origin of the text, in all probability, goes back to the ninth century
as one of the suppositions regarding a ‘solid’ (holosphyros) God of the
Muslims goes back to the polemics of Niketas of Byzantium.[360] The
text presupposes a need for a ceremony for converts to Christianity,
which was the case in the late ninth and tenth centuries as Byzantium
was militarily ascendant. The text does not indicate the liturgical
requirements for the converts, perhaps because it depended on the
individual. Theoretically it may have been used for both returning
apostates, those originally baptised as Christians but subsequently
turning to Islam and then, realising their error, returning to
Christianity and those who were born and raised as Muslims but, for
whatever reasons, wished to embrace Christianity. Most probably it
was converts in the first category that made most use of the formula
as direct converts from Islam to Christianity were never a large group.
The rubric of the Formula of Abjuration indicates that non-Greek
speakers used it. Presumably, they were Arabic-speaking converts. It
states that ‘if he [the initiate] happens to speak no Greek’ he could
give consent through an interpreter.[361] The main conversion traffic
was definitely in the direction of Christianity to Islam. The formula
shows similarities to the formulas used for Jewish and Manichean
converts to Christianity.[362]

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It is often overlooked that the Formula of Abjuration is actually an
accurate account of those Islamic doctrines that Christians found
incompatible with Christianity. That the formula was actually used is
beyond doubt. Prospective converts would hardly anathematise beliefs
they did not hold. They certainly would have pointed this out to those
in authority if that was the case. The Formula of Abjuration is evidence
that the Orthodox Church had practical experience with Muslim
converts and that some Muslims did find Christianity appealing enough
to convert. This can be seen by the constant flow of converts like
Beser under Leo and Thephobos under Theophilus during the lengthy
history of the Byzantine Empire. An Arabic Muslim historian, Al-
Qalanisi in his Damascus Chronicle, mentions in passing that when the
castle of Buza in 1138 was captured by Byzantine forces the qadi and
four hundred other Muslims converted to Christianity.[363] These
converts almost certainly used some version of the Abjuration
Formula.

Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople – Order of Service

Methodius was a monk of southern Italian origin. He was imprisoned

and tortured under Emperor Michael II for his support of icons during
the revival of iconoclasm in the ninth century. When the Empress
Theodora restored icon veneration in 843, at the death of her husband
Theophilus, she freed Methodius and appointed him patriarch in place
of the previous patriarch who refused to recant his iconoclastic views.
Methodius served as patriarch from 843 until his death in June
847.[364]

A short work by Patriarch Methodius of Constantinople called Order

about those various persons and ages who have denounced and are
returning to the Orthodox and true faith concerns how returning
apostates were to be treated by the ecclesiastical authorities. Being a
level headed and saintly individual Methodius gives practical and
reasonable advice. He divides prospective converts into three groups;
those who had apostatized as children who were captured and
‘denounced their faith out of fear, naïveté or ignorance’, those who
were older and were coerced or tortured into renouncing their faith,
and finally, those renegades who abandoned their ancestral religion of
their own free will. For the first group Methodius prescribes seven days

119
prayer and chrismation, for the second group Methodius requires
fasting for ‘two Lents’ and then chrismation and the final group is
received back but is banned from taking communion for life.[365]

The Order of Conversion is a testimony that reversion to Christianity

was fairly common in this period. The document can be seen as a
practical handbook rather than some abstract theoretical tract.
Methodius had obviously put a lot of thought into his categories. The
relative leniency of the first category demonstrates that, despite
Islamic prohibitions on forced conversion it was very common, even in
this relatively early period. The constant wars probably resulted in a
constant flow of Christian slaves into Muslim territory. The pressure to
convert must have been enormous, which few children would have
been able to resist.

While never expressed in the text it seems that the conversion would
have occurred within the territory of the Byzantine Empire. There
would have been little inclination for slaves to revert to Christianity
under Islamic rule as the penalty was rather harsh.

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Miscellaneous References
The Doctrine of Jacob the Newly Baptised Jew

The Doctrina Jacobi is a Greek apologetic tract resulting from the

decree of Emperor Heraclius that all Jews in the Byzantine Empire be
baptised. The date of the tract seems to be 634 and the setting is
Carthage, capital of the Roman province of Africa.[366] The tract is in
the form of a dialogue between a recently baptised Jew named Jacob
and a group of Jews. In the prologue, a man named Joseph claims to
have written the account. Jacob had been forcibly baptised but he had
become genuinely convinced of the truth of Christianity and tried to
convince his fellow Jews to abide by their baptisms. One of the leading
protagonists is a friend of Jacob’s named Justus, recently arrived from
Palestine. The tract introduces a letter from Abraham, Justus’ brother,
recounting events at home.

A false prophet has appeared among the Saracens… “He is an

impostor. Do the prophets come with swords and chariot? Truly these
happenings today are the works of disorder…But you go off, Master
Abraham, and find out about the prophet who has appeared.” So I,
Abraham, made enquiries, and was told by those who had met him:
“There is no truth to be found in the so-called prophet, only
bloodshed; for he says he has the keys of paradise, which is
incredible.[367]

The tract is the earliest reference to Muhammad outside the Quran. It

makes some interesting points but there are some curious features. It
asserts that Muhammad was still alive at the time of the dialogue
(634), two years later than the traditional date of Muhammad’s death.
It also suggests that the Islamic invasion had some messianic
overtones. Even at this early stage the Jihad and Islamic concept of
paradise seem to have made an impression. The level of
understanding must have been rudimentary and not dependent on
texts but rather observation and oral communication.

Anastasius of Sinai – The Hodegos (The Guide)

121
The exact identity of Anastasius is a controversial issue as no reliable
biographical information survives outside of the corpus of his own
works. The historian Eutychios of Alexandria (877-940) makes the
claim that Anastasius was the monastic name of the retired Byzantine
general Mahan (Vahan) who was defeated by the Arabs at
Yarmuk.[368] The authenticity of the works attributed to Anastasius is
also unclear. What is clear is that Anastasius was a monk from the
monastery of St. Catherine sometime during the seventh century.
There are about a dozen works attributed to Anastasius, including ‘a
collection of Interrogations et Responsiones,[369] a commentary on
Psalm 6 and a Good Friday sermon’.[370]

Traditionally John of Damascus is seen as the first Orthodox theologian

to write a theological response to Islam but it has become increasingly
clear that the works Anastasius contain references to Islam more than
a generation before John.[371] Anastasius’ principal work was titled
the Hodegos (or the Guide). Sidney H. Griffith considers it to date
before the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 680/81.[372] The main purpose
of the Hodegos was to counter the claims of the Monophysites so all
references to Islamic theology are considered incidental There are
three points that seem to reflect a refutation of Islamic belief. Firstly,
Anastasius condemns those who claim Christians believe in two gods
or that god gave birth to a son in a physical sense. Secondly, he
condemns Arabs, along with Jews, Pagans and Manicheans, for not
accepting the Scriptures in their entirety but selectively. Finally, he
groups Monophysites and Arabs together as misunderstanding the
words ‘nature’ and ‘bearing’ [giving birth].[373] The incidental nature
of the references to Islamic doctrine can be illustrated by a quote from
the last reference:

Whenever they[374] hear ‘natures’, they think they are shameful and
outrageous things, the members which essentially go with the bodies
of men and women. Thanks to this, they flee from such an expression,
as if they were pupils of the Saracens. For these people, hearing the
birth of God, or the generation of God, immediately thinking of
marriage, blasphemously speak of insemination and carnal union.[375]

Anastasius never refers to the Muslim religion or Muhammad in his

writing.[376] The term Arab and Saracen that he uses are pre-Islamic
ethnic terms that had no religious connotation at first. However, it is
clear he is referring to Islamic beliefs and customs and not pagan

122
Arabs. Daniel Sahas confirms that Anastasius is dealing with Islam but
also recognises that it is on a very rudimentary level when he states
that ‘Anastasius Sinaites lacks the sophistication and the
comprehensiveness of John of Damascus on matters regarding
Islam.’[377]

Germanus of Constantinople – Letter to Thomas of Claudiopolis

Germanus was Patriarch of Constantinople at the start of the

iconoclastic controversy. Germanus does not demonstrate any detailed
knowledge of Islam but he does make one interesting reference in his
Letter to Thomas of Claudiopolis.[378] Thomas was a proto-
iconoclastic bishop from Anatolia.

Germanus states ‘the Saracens, in the desert, address themselves to

an inanimate stone and make an invocation to the so-called
‘chobar’.’[379] Germanus has heard of the black stone in the Kabaah
and its veneration by Muslims but links it to paganism. He is either
unaware of the Islamic traditions regarding the black stone (sent by
God) and the Kabaah (built by Abraham) or chooses to ignore them;
most probably the later. The significance is that Germanus refuses to
believe that these practices owe anything to Judeo-Christian tradition.
He knows the Islamic invocation of ‘Allahu Akbar’ but confuses this
with the name of a pre-Islamic goddess. Germanus is perfectly aware
of the classical Arab ethnography contained in Herodotus and Strabo.
This is a theme that reoccurs in other polemicists like John of
Damascus and Niketas of Byzantium. A possible explanation of the
confusion of Byzantine authors on this point is that they were aware of
a pre-Islamic invocation to Aphrodite and they confused the Islamic
invocation with the pre-Islamic.[380]

It is often claimed that Germanus was ignorant of everything relating

to Islam. Hoyland, for example, expresses doubt but forgets that
Germanus was present during the two great Islamic sieges of
Constantinople. The sieges may not have given Germanus the
opportunity to explore Islam in detail but his own observations would
have let him see that Muslims rejected images and recited the
tashahhud[381] and the Allahu Akbar.[382] He even composed a
sermon commemorating the deliverance of the city.[383] He probably

123
did not have access to any Islamic texts like the Quran or religious
treatises but rather his own observations and hearsay. All the
references to Islam that Germanus supplies point to this as his source
of information.

Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council

The Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council that denounced

iconoclasm include a discussion on the origin of the hatred of icons.
The presbyter John gave an account that attributed iconoclasm to the
caliphs and said so at the council. John was from the caliphate so had
first hand knowledge of the policies of the caliphs. ‘When Omar had
died, he was succeeded by Yazid, a frivolous and fickle man….Won
over by the promise of longevity…the senseless tyrant replied:
“Anything you suggest to me I shall readily do…” Whereupon, the
Jewish sorcerer said to him, “Give an order without delay or
postponement, be it on boards or in wall-mosaic or on holy vessels or
alter-cloths, or anything else of the sort that is found in all Christian
churches should be obliterated and entirely destroyed.” …The wicked
tyrant was easily persuaded by him and sent out emissaries
throughout his dominions to pull down the holy icons and other
images….The most-holy bishop of Messene said: “I, too, was a boy in
Syria when the Caliph of the Saracens was destroying images.”’[384]
In this account, the Muslims who desecrate churches are called
‘miserable Arabs.’

The Iconoclastic controversy cemented the perception in the minds of

the Byzantines that Islam was militantly anti-image (anti-icons). The
Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council demonstrate that most
Byzantines were convinced that Iconoclasm within the Byzantine
Empire had been inspired by Islam. Leo III had been raised in Arab
territory and was often accused by his Iconophile opponents as
‘Saracen-minded.’ Theophanes the Confessor even claimed that Leo III
had as his accomplice a former Muslim named Beser, who shared his
Iconoclastic views (From the Year 6215 (722/23 AD).[385]

Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius

124
The original language of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius was
Syriac but it was quickly translated in Greek.[386] It was one of the
few Syriac texts to have this privilege. Later the text was translated
into Latin and Slavonic, resulting in an even wider distribution. The
author seems to have been a Chalcedonian Christian writing in Syriac
due to his loyalty to the Byzantine Empire and the popularity of the
work among Chalcedonian audiences.[387] The work was composed
around 690, after seventy years of Arab rule, when there was great
apocalyptic speculation due to civil war, plague and famine.[388] The
author has great hope that Islamic rule would be overturned soon by
the Christian Empire of Byzantium. With the advent of Christian rule
the parousia would be imminent.

The author of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius paints the Muslim

conquest of the Persian Empire and the Eastern provinces of the
Byzantine Empire in the blackest terms. This is in contrast to the usual
interpretation of the Islamic conquest that it was welcomed by the
local people.

The land of Persia was given to desolation that it might bring

destruction upon it and its inhabitants to captivity and to murder and
to desolation. And Syria was given to destruction of desolation and her
inhabitants to captivity and to murder. Sicily was given to ruin and
destruction and her inhabited places to captivity and to murder. Hellas
was given to destruction and to desolation and her inhabitants to
captivity and to murder. The land of the Romans was given to
desolation and destruction and her inhabited places to flight and to
spoiling and to captivity. And the islands of the sea were given to flight
and their inhabitants to captivity of ruins. Egypt and Syria and the
places of the East will be harnessed under the yoke of tribute and tax,
that is tribute, in suffering seven times that of prisoners.[389]

The tribute demanded by the Islamic government is also attacked as

unjust. The caliphate is called ‘slavery’. The tribute being applied to
those in society least able to pay is condemned.

‘And he will take a poll tax from orphans and from widows and from
holy men. And they will have no mercy upon the poor and they will not
give justice to the oppressed. And they will treat with insolence people
of old age and they will sadden the spirit of those that are
troubled.’[390]

125
Digenes Akrites

The Digenes Akrites is a Byzantine epic poem composed sometime in

the 10th or 11th centuries. Little is known about its authorship or origin
but it seems to have originated in the eastern provinces of the
Byzantine Empire where border warfare between aristocratic land
barons and Muslim ghazis was a fact of life.

In the opening verses the ‘Agarenes and Ishmaelites’ are described as

Digenes ‘adversaries’ on the frontier region of eastern Anatolia.[391]
Digenes father is an Emir who participates in raids against the
Byzantine Empire. He is described as destroying many cities and
taking innumerable captives. All this is seen as believable to a reader
of the goings on at the frontier. The brothers come across some Arabs
who tell them their sister might be among the dead of a group of
women who they recently killed. ‘There yesterday we killed some
lovely ladies, because they would not do the things we told them….and
many slain they [the brothers] found, bathed in their blood, of whom
some had no hands, no heads nor feet, some had no limbs at all, and
their guts out…’[392] The incident confirms the popular belief of Arabs
as murderous and sexual predators. The reader can presume that the
women in question were Christians and the Arabs were ghazi warriors
who attempted to enslave the women (for sexual exploitation as
concubines) or rape them immediately.

The Emir is enticed to accept Christianity for the love of Digenes’

mother. The poem sees the change of faith in religious terms as well
as cultural terms. The poem specifically states he ‘denied his faith, his
kin and country’.[393] Defecting to the Byzantine side of the frontier
the Emir is seen as a change of culture as well as religion. The
Trinitarian aspect of Christianity is emphasised at the Emir’s
conversion.[394] The confession of faith, really a poetic summary of
the Nicene Creed, mentions the Trinity three times. The mother of the
Emir utters ‘I believe through you on God in Trinity…’[395]

After such a significant beginning with the theme of religion and

culture looming large the poem lapses into an epic tale of love,
bravery and warfare against brigands. It is these things that would
appeal to an aristocratic audience rather than a monastic one.[396]

126
God, Christ and the saints are constantly referred to in the poem but
they are part of the cultural milieu rather than a central part of the
narrative.

John Phocas – A General Description of the Settlements and

Places Belonging to Syria and Phoenicia on the Way from
Antioch to Jerusalem, and of the Holy Places of Palestine

Little is known of John Phocas but he mentions his birth in Crete and
his service in the military.

John Phocas wrote a brief account of his travels to the Holy Land
around 1185. It is concerned with his visits to Orthodox holy men
living in the various monasteries along the path of his pilgrimage.[397]

John either encountered or heard about the Ishmaelis (or Assassins) in

his travels. He is one of the few Byzantine authors who mentions
them. The passage suggests that one of Phocas’ informants was a
Sunni Muslim because they denied that the Ishmaelis were Muslims,
something a Sunni might say about the Shi’ite extremists like the
Ishmaelis. The passage demonstrates a popular perception of the sect.

Thus as far as Tripolis there are important castles along the coast, but
inland there runs a large range in which live the Assassins. They are a
Saracen race, and are neither Christians nor of the Muhammedan
persuasion. Rather they are a sect on their own. They acknowledge
God and call their leader God’s Ambassador, and at his command they
are sent to the rulers of great nations and kill them with the sword.
They too die in the adventure, for they are outnumbered when they
have undertaken the deed, and this martyrdom they believe to be the
way to immortality.[398]

John is aware of the claims of infallibility that the Ishmaelis attributed

to their imams. He knows of the reputation that the Ishmaelis had for
political assassination to compensate for their lack of numbers.

Theodore Metochites – Peri Skython (On the Skythians)

127
Theodore Metochites was the prime minister to the emperor
Andronikos II. His portrait exists as a mosaic in the Chora monastery.
It depicts Metochites presenting the gift of the church to Christ.
Theodore was a great student of the classics and wrote poetry, letters
and a collection of essays on a variety of subjects.

The tract Peri Skython appears, at first glance, to be an objective

account of the superior qualities of the Turks but in actuality
Metochites draws on the classical tradition of the ‘noble savage’ and
little of the tract is based on objective observations of Turkish customs
and beliefs.[399] The main sources of information for Metochites are
Herodotus, Diodorus, Dionysius, Aelian and Homer, not his own
observations or experiences or any Turkish, Arabic or Persian source.
Metochites fails to realise that the Turks had developed beyond being
simple nomads. If this had not been the case then they would not
have been able to effectively challenge the Byzantines for control of
Anatolia.[400]

Since Metochites is drawing from classical sources, Islam has no place

in his description of the Turks. The positive attributes he gives them
such as bravery, loyalty and love of freedom are in stark contrast to
the usual condemnation of Turkish vices. Metochites is simply
conducting a theoretical moralising exercise aimed at shaming his
contemporaries rather than providing anything historical on the Turks.

Patriarch John XIV Kalekas – Letter on the Christians of Nicaea

John Kalekas served as Patriarch of Constantinople between 1334 and

1347. He served as regent to the young emperor John V Paleologus
and came into conflict with John VI Kantakuzenos, whom he
excommunicated. He also came into conflict with Gregory Palamas
over the issue of Hesychasm. In 1344 he called a synod, which
excommunicated Gregory, but in 1347 the emperor’s mother deposed
him. John Kalekas died later in the same year.[401]

The Patriarchal Register of Constantinople records numerous letters by

John Kalekas to communities and individuals within his jurisdiction.
One such letter was to the recently conquered Christians of Nicaea
who had passed under Ottoman rule. The letter itself is brief. It is an

128
exhortation for them to remain loyal to the Church. It is probably in
response to a letter by the Nicaean Christians to the patriarch on their
status.

‘As many as wish to live in secret practising and keeping in their heart
the Christian way, because of fear of punishment against them, these
also shall attain salvation’. This is in contrast to the traditional
Byzantine attitude of remaining firm in the faith even against overt
persecution. Anthony Bryer even chides John Kalekas for having
forgotten Matthew 10:33.[402] This is the first evidence for the
phenomenon of crypto-Christianity under Ottoman rule.

Pittakion of the Patriarchs of Constantinople to the Christians in

Nicaea.

Those who turn away from sin, the church of God, the general healing
place of souls, opens the gates of its healing, dispenses the
corresponding medication and therewith arranges the healing of all.
So no-one needs to become weary or fall into doubt and
underestimate its healing, because there is really no sin which is
victorious over the benevolence of God; the holy writings give
numerous examples for those who turn away from their previous
badness and show real peace and change, among others that of the
glutton, that of the prostitute, that of the robber, that of the people of
Nineveh and that of the people of Manasseh, who instigated the people
for forty years to idolatry and turning away from the Creator. God
pushes no-one away and does not turn away, he has a boundless sea
of goodness, if we only sincerely repent and humbly and tearfully ask
for his mercy.

Now the tolerance of God has overpowered us through the mass of

sins of the attack of the Ismaelites. They captured many of ours,
enslaved and dragged them away with force, so that they also - woe! -
also choose this badness and godlessness. But those who fall so
deeply into badness become aware how far they have descended into
evil. This drives them to turn again to Christianity; another thought
overcomes them and they doubt and search to experience something
certain, to see if they are not completely on the wrong path, rather
they will find their salvation. The church of God guarantees and gives
them therewith binding certainty; those who choose the true belief in
God and who desist from the badness of the Muslims, with whom they

129
have been thrown, the church will count them among the Christian
flock, heal them and care for them; they will not find any hindrance for
the wellbeing of their soul because of their, as mentioned, earlier
erring. Much more will all those amongst them who openly and
willingly show their regret, so that they prefer to suffer for their belief
in God even achieve the martyr’s crown. A sure proof of this is the
great martyr Christi Iakobos the Persian. All of them, though, who
want to live for themselves and in seclusion out of fear of punishment,
who therewith internalise and realise Christianity, will similarly find
salvation, in as far as they strive to obey the commandments of God.
In connection with this guarantee the document of the church of God
under consideration was enacted.

Neophytos the Recluse of Cyprus – Various Works

Neophytos was born in the Cypriot mountain village of Lefkara in

1134. At the age of 18 Neophytos became convinced of the vanity of
the world and decided to become a monk. As a novice, Neophytos was
given the task of tending the vineyards of the monastery of St. John
Chrysostom at Koutsovendes, where he also learnt to read and write.
Soon Neophytos decided to become a hermit so he dug an artificial
cave, which he named enkleistra (place of seclusion). The bishop of
Paphos, Basil Kinnamos, made Neophytos his protégé, ordained him a
priest in 1170, and asked him to take on disciples. A monastic
community soon gathered around him. He died on April 12th probably
after the year 1214.[403]

Neophytos wrote no specific work against Islam but there are a

number of references in his works. Most of Neophytos’ works consist of
letters, panegyrics to the saints, biblical commentaries and a semi-
autobiographical typicon.[404] Even though Neophytos lived in Latin-
occupied Cyprus but still considered himself a loyal Byzantine citizen.

Neophytos was not particularly deep in his remarks about Islam. He is

especially virulent when he perceives that a group is threatening the
Orthodox Church, either through belief or military power or both. Most
of his comments consist of terms of abuse hurled at Muslims like
‘barbarians’ and ‘infidels’. Saladin, the conqueror of Jerusalem, is
called ‘wretched’ and the ‘the godless’ in Neophytos’ Panegyric on

130
Saint Sabas due to his recent conquest of Jerusalem.[405] The
annihilation of the Byzantine army at Myriokephalon by the Muslim
Turks in 1176 was an event that Neophytos found very distressing.
Muhammad is referred to as a pseudo-prophet and a servant of the
devil. In his Commentary on the Apocalypse Muhammad is referred to
as the Anti-Christ due to his teachings, which Neophytos sees as
morally degenerate because of their sexual licence.[406] Neophytos
represents the typical Byzantine attitude towards Islam. The level of
understanding was not well informed but the little that he did know
was enough for him to judge the religion harshly.

Gennadios II Scholarios – Confession of Faith

George Kourtesis Scholarios was born in 1405 and studied at Mystra in

the Morea (Peloponnese). He served as secretary to Emperor John VIII
and attended the Council of Florence in 1439 in this capacity. At the
council, he signed the document of union of the churches, but under
the influence of Mark Eugenikos, Metropolitan of Ephesus, he changed
his mind and joined the ranks of the anti-unionists. In 1450 he was
tonsured a monk and adopted the name Gennadios. He was captured
at the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 but was released and
appointed first patriarch under Ottoman rule by Mehmed II. He served
in this capacity three times, each time retiring from office. He died in
1472.[407] Gennadios is often viewed as the last Byzantine
theologian.[408]

Mehmed the Conqueror asked Gennadios to provide him with an

outline of Christian doctrine. Mehmed’s motive behind the request was
probably an effort to learn something about the faith of his conquered
subjects rather than a genuine interest in conversion to
Christianity.[409] Gennadios complied but Mehmed found the
document too tedious so Gennadios composed an abbreviated version.
The second confession consists of twelve short chapters. Both
documents were translated into Turkish.[410] While not overtly
polemical the document is definite about the core beliefs, some of
which challenge Muslim concepts. Padadakis comments that ‘The work
does not contain anything to offend Mehmed nor does it attack Islam
directly, although it does pass numerous indirect judgements on the
Quran’.[411]

131
Gennadios dwells at length on the Christian understanding of the
Trinity and the divinity of Christ. This exposition takes up eight of the
twelve chapters of Confession of Faith. Gennadios tires to avoid
technical terms but he is clear in his statements. In section four he
says, ‘We thus believe one God in Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
as our Lord Jesus taught us. And since he is truthful and absolute
truth, we believe this also to be true, and this his disciples taught us
thus more broadly.’[412] Gennadios uses the term ‘Trinity’, a term not
used in the Nicene Creed. It directly challenges the Quran statement
that God is not three. Gennadios is also emphatic that the church has
followed the teaching of Jesus truthfully to counter the Muslim
accusation that his teaching was corrupted. Gennadios stresses this by
mentioning the ‘disciples’ which not only includes the Apostles and
Gospel authors, but also the Church Fathers in general. In section nine
Gennadios is clear on the crucifixion. He states ‘We believe that our
Lord, the Christ, was crucified and died, through his own will, for many
and great advantages, that require many reasons [to explain] – all this
according to his humanity. For the Word of God is neither crucified or
dies, nor is he raised [from the dead], but rather raises the dead
himself just as he raised the flesh he put on’.[413]

The Confession of Faith shows that Gennadios could be conciliatory

and maintain a civil relationship with Mehmed. However, other
statements by Gennadios indicate he could be more critical. For
example, he calls the Turks ‘the bloodthirsty dogs of Hagar’.[414] This
set the tone for later polemics as Orthodox would not always say in
public what they felt privately.

132
Conclusion
Byzantine views towards Islam display a wide variety of knowledge
and opinion. They range from disinterest and ignorance to well
informed and sophisticated. The Byzantine tradition in response to
Islam began outside the borders of the empire. Over time, this
knowledge passed into Byzantine territory. Initially Islam was a
political rather than a religious threat to the Byzantine Empire and the
Orthodox Church. As the threat of Islam (as a religion) increased so
did the religious response by the ecclesiastical authorities. The
Byzantines remained negative and hostile to Islam. However, aspects
of Islam that were seen as derived from or compatible to Christianity
were often admired and praised by the Byzantines.

The concept of Arabs [Muslims] as violent and aggressive was the

overriding view of both religious and secular authors. They understood
Islam as encouraging the already violent tendency of the Arabs. The
Byzantines often portrayed themselves as innocent victims of Muslim
aggression. The Byzantines maintained a status quo with Islamic
states and were even willing to ally themselves to them. The cultural
achievements of Islam did not impress the Byzantines whatsoever.
Due to their tradition of Classical scholarship, direct descent from the
Ancient Greeks and the idea that they were a continuation of the
Roman Empire, the Byzantines maintained their cultural and ethical
superiority throughout the period of cultural contact.

The average Byzantine would have viewed Islam as an Arab or

national phenomena rather than a religious one. Their view was
clouded by the classical ethnography of Islam. For them there was
little difference between a pagan Arab and a Muslim Arab. Some
aspects of Islam were common knowledge: such as the Islamic
avoidance of pork and the direction of Muslim prayer. They would have
been aware of these ritualistic aspects of Islam as Byzantium was a
deeply ritualistic society and these would have made the greatest
impact. Ethical differences would also have been widely known.

However, Byzantines were less inclined to be critical if the Muslim was

a Byzantine ally or pro-Byzantine. If a Muslim converted to Christianity
and assimilated to Byzantine culture (the two were usually
complementary) then they were generally well treated in the texts.

133
Byzantine historians often refer to the ethnic designations of members
of the Byzantine nobility. This sometimes included Arabs and Turks.
These indications of nationality are no different from that of Italians,
Normans or Slavs who joined Byzantine society. If they were loyal to
Byzantine traditions then those from Muslim backgrounds were praised
and respected.

Despite the long history of polemics, there were few significant

converts from Islam to Christianity. As Byzantium’s political power
diminished this caused an increase in defections to the assurgent
Islam and even the few converts that had been made ceased.
Interestingly, no ex-Muslim authored a polemic against Islam and no
convert is recorded reading the polemics produced within the
Byzantine Empire. The closest was Meletius who assisted John
Kantakuzenos in his polemic. Converts tended to be idealistic
individuals who accepted the claims of Islam rather than ambitious
opportunists. To complicate matters conversion often meant cultural
and linguistic assimilation.

Religious polemicists demonstrated the most extensive knowledge of

Islam. This was to be expected. It was necessary to investigate Islamic
traditions in order to refute them, especially those that Christians
found distasteful or heretical. There was little development in the
issues in dispute between the two religions. The same polemical points
raised by John of Damascus in the eighth century were those
discussed by Manuel Paleologus in the fourteenth century. There is a
progression of more sophisticated arguments and greater use of the
Quran and Hadiths in Byzantine polemicists after the 12th century.
Historians rarely engaged in any extensive discussion on Islam,
perhaps they thought that their comments would be too obvious. Their
level of knowledge is difficult to gauge but their passing comments
indicate they were aware of more than they said. Byzantines were
ahead of their western contemporaries in understanding of Islam. The
language barrier was less significant as numerous Orthodox lived
under Islamic rule and spoke Arabic. They acted as informants to their
co-religionists in the Byzantine Empire. It was not until the crusades
that the Latin West began to turn its eyes towards Islam. The quality
that this polemical writing eventually reached can be judged by the
example of Ricoldo and Petrus Alphonse. Ricoldo was seen as such an
invaluable source on Islam that he was translated into Greek. Petrus
Alphonse similarly wrote an extensive work in Spain that provided

134
accurate information in Latin for the first time. Interestingly, no
Byzantine polemicist is recorded as travelling to the Islamic world to
study Islam as Ricoldo had done. The views of these medieval authors,
like their Byzantine contemporaries, were clouded by their own cultural
and theological biases but they did look at the sources of Islam to
provide an accurate portrait. However, this was something the
Byzantines had been doing for hundreds of years previously.

135
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145
Document Appendix
An Unpublished Passion of the 42 Martyrs of Amorium[415]

The Passion of the 42 Martyrs of Amorium concerns an important

group of Byzantine officers taken prisoner by the Arabs at the siege of
Amorium in 838. They were taken in captivity to the Tigris region.
After seven years of inhuman treatment they were asked to give up
the Christian religion and adopt Islam, having all refused, except a
traitor, they were executed in 845. Many versions of this passion of
these martyrs (BHG 1209-14) were published in 1905 by P. Nikitin.
The version translated below is found in Manuscript 736 of Patmos,
BHG 1214c. It does not give any new information, as it is based on a
known source, the Passion BHG 1209 by Evodius. However, it does
give a new example that reproduces some characteristic expressions
of hagiography. The brevity of the text and the concluding prayer
indicates that the work was designed to be read in a monastic
refectory during mealtime.

1. The Scourge of Arab Invasions

When his servant Ishmael became angry with Isaac, Sarah became
cross with him and chased him from his master's house, at the same
time as his mother, disinheriting him completely and not leaving the
smallest share to him. By a prophetic warning she foresaw the future
and announced the arrogance of the expelled Ishmael against the
elected people. Ishmael had treated Christ's martyrs with injustice
and we will talk about these martyrs.

2. The Siege of Amorium

Constantine's sceptre was in the hands of Theophilos, the husband of

the very pious widow of Theodora. At the head of the Arabs,
Ameroumnes was the enraged enemy of the Christians. Theophilos
took over the big towns which belonged to the Arabs and returned with
an escort as far as Byzantium, taking with him the spoils and a crowd
from Agarenes. He showed the master triumphed over the servant.
But the damned soul left the following year with a big army to besiege
Amorium, the second city in the empire. The emperor left the capital
with his 43 men and went in haste to Amorium.

146
3. The Traitor

[The caliph] ordered them to go into the compound to fortify it. He

stayed on the outside to sow disorder in the enemy army. Soon he
started the siege in front of the town with his troops and installed
rolling towers. He used arms, stones, menaces and bait. Pushed back
everywhere, he didn’t know what to do and dreamt of shamefully
withdrawing. Such was not the opinion of the hidden rebel (the
demon) as he didn’t want his servants to distance themselves without
achieving anything. As the first man, Adam, fell from paradise, and in
the group of twelve apostles the traitor Judas and the deserter in the
group of forty martyrs – he was driven by envy – he is going to find
one of the elite officers, one of the champions of the orthodox faith.
He distanced himself from the others, associated himself with the
partisans (horsemen) or rather he made a traitor of his soul no less
than Amorium. This man spent the night at the house of
Amouremnes, imitating Judas he said these words: “What do you
promise to give me if I give you this populated town without combat?
I will also adopt your religion.” Oh impure words, why did you fill the
soul of the Master with sadness? It is the keeper who betrays and the
son of the free woman who becomes a servant of the servant! The
soldier abandons his post and the Christian, marked by the sword of
Christ, renounces the real faith, he erases the writing of the Master
and bears the marks of the apostate.

4. Bag of the Conquered Town

The impudent rejoiced in the promises that were made to him, he let a
good part of the army which he brought leave; they did not have
flames or torches. The traitor judged the night would help him. He
distributed scabbards, sticks and arms. The traitor, then, being in the
tower he should have kept, sent the men off after swearing to not
injure anyone. He left the besiegers to penetrate the town and they
rushed in. The father had his throat cut in front of the son, the son
was taken into captivity in front of the father, fire devoured the
daughter and a brother saw his brother mowed down by the double-
edged sword. Babies received blood from their mothers rather than
milk and the mothers’ teats were cut off. These babies had their
throats cut. Once a barbaric army abandons itself to anger it does not
give way to sympathy. It just considers how to gorge itself on human
blood and not let anyone escape death.

147
5. Captivity in the Orient

After this inhuman massacre the cruel people came upon the forty-two
martyrs of piety. They put them in iron chains and drove them to their
country with a multitude of Christians. Arriving at a place nominated
by the local Pankalion, the brute had them die by the double-edged
sword, he gave some as a gift to important people in the state and
locked others in prison in the company of the saints. It would have
been preferable to die than to have a life of unhappiness. Children of
free women are reduced to slavery by the slave, the enemy and the
rejected. For seven whole years, the courageous captives remained
tolerating the dirt, hunger, vermin, with naked feet. Their food was
examined and finally the noblemen left the prison for one near the
Tigris, as they had decided it would be there that they would be
interrogated. They went by horseback followed by an escort who would
frighten them. He tried to reach one man and get them to give way.
But the forty-two resisted like a single man – same opinion, same
decision. The judge met not one man, but the whole group.

6. Theodore the Martyr and Three Others

They then brought out the eunuch Theodore with the surname of
Krateros, fortified by his divine soul. He appeared in front of the
infamous governor who flattered him and made promises if he gave up
Christ. But he recognised that his faith was able to resist the flattery
and affirmed he [the governor] would never attract servants of Christ
to his religion. The soldier of Christ, having attacked the tyrant with
frankness, was condemned to have his head cut off. His clothes were
torn off, his belt was attached to his head and the double-edged sword
sent him to paradise. The virtuous Constantine was brought out and
when they saw that he also refused to obey orders his tunic was torn
up and he was also decapitated. Next they executed Theophilos and
after him Callistus. They must have firstly cut off the tyrant’s head
with their plain speaking and were then subjected to the double-edged
sword. In the future they were to become honoured with the title of
protospatharios.

7. Martyrdom of Basoes

They come finally to the courageous Basoes, who engaged his

companions in resisting for Christ and said he would remove from their

148
company anyone who had a fearful soul. This Basoes, when he saw
that the tunics of the martyrs were ripped up, removed his own
clothes, calling: “Naked I came out of my mother, naked I will return
to my Master. I ripped my clothes at the time of approaching the
martyr’s test. I will expect that Agonothere arrives and he will crown
me.” When he had been executed, a brilliant, powerful light came
down from the sky and as the saints were singing for the third hour, it
showed that it was Basoes’ lamp which shone among the martyrs.
After him the others were also decapitated, the sixth of March, Michael
and Theodora governing the Roman Empire with piety.

8. An Apostate

Until now our discourse has told of the victories of the soldiers of
Christ showing that the order in the sky followed that on earth. After
the courageous ones had finished their battle, a Christian was taken
out of prison and he was asked if he would give up his faith. As a
reward, he would receive palace honours and many favours. He
promised to conform to the royal edict. And he was told to stand on
the cross when it arrived as if it was vile and despicable, which he did
do. Oh, the most impious of men, why did you do that? One should
have told you to walk on aspic and basil and not desecrate the trophy
of the king of the universe. Genesis had prescribed to observe the
head of the snake and ordered him to observe your heel. His heel (or
his trickery) ran the risk of being observed miserably. He has
condemned his soul to death. The guilty one did not win, as the chiefs
of Amaregnes suggested to their king to put him to death. It is not
fair, they said, that he renounced his religion and someone who can’t
stand by his religion would distance himself more easily from a foreign
religion. Ameroumnes [the caliph al-Wathiq] decided then that he
would cut off his head as well.

9. The Mortal Laying Bare of the Martyrs

Which voices does the unhappy one hear, what does he think and
reason, when he is led to his death? What did you gain in committing
this crime, unhappy one? You lost your faith and didn’t win life, after
having lost the first, you also lost the second. After the execution, the
body was flung into the river with those of the saints, on the judges’
orders. The bottom of the river swallowed him up: he wasn’t judged
worthy of associating with the glory of the others, he who had

149
dishonoured divinity. The martyrs’ bodies, it transported them as they
advanced, swimming/drifting, it escorted them and celebrated their
triumph as champions of the faith. The crowd of Christians gathered
the precious leftovers and perfumed them with rich essences, then put
them in a chosen place, glorifying the Holy one who glorified them. All
honour and adoration to him now and forever and to the ages of ages.
Amen.

150
Footnotes

[1] Hanson, Craig L, “Manuel I Comnenos and the ‘God of Muhammad’: A Study in
Byzantine Ecclesiastical Politics,” John Victor Tolan (ed.). Medieval Christian
Perceptions of Islam. p. 59.

[2] Hanson, Craig L, “Manuel I Comnenos and the ‘God of Muhammad’: A Study in
Byzantine Ecclesiastical Politics,” John Victor Tolan (ed.). Medieval Christian
Perceptions of Islam. pp. 58-59.

[3] Armstrong. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. pp. 75-79.

[4] Armstrong. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. pp. 79-81.

[5] Sura 16:103 “We know well that they say ‘only a man teaches him,’ [but] the
language of him to whom they allude is foreign, whereas this is clear Arabic speech.”

[6] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. p. 505, note 182.

[7] Ibn Ishaq (trans. Guillaume). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 79-81.

[8] Ibn Ishaq (trans. Guillaume). The Life of Muhammad. p. 107.

[9] Ibn Ishaq (trans. Guillaume). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 98-103.

[10] Warraq. Why I Am Not a Muslim. p. 101.

[11] Ibn Ishaq (trans. Guillaume). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 165-166.

[12] Ibn Ishaq (trans. Guillaume). The Life of Muhammad. p. 166.

[13] Armstrong. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. pp. 144-5, 157, 181, 192,
195-7, 202-3, 233-40.

Armstrong lists Muhammad’s wives as the following: Khadija (p. 80), Sawdah (p.
144), Aisha (p. 145), Zaynab bint Kuzaymah (p. 192), Hind bint al-Maghria, who was
also called Umm Salamah (p. 195), Zaynab bint Jahsh (p. 196), Umm Habibah, who
was also called Ramlah (233), Safiyah (p. 233), Maymunah (p. 234), Jayayriyah (p.
199) and Hafsah (p. 236). Maryam, the Coptic slavegirl, was a concubine and not a
wife (p. 236).

[14] Armstrong. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. p. 196.

[15] Warraq. Why I Am Not a Muslim. pp. 99-100.

[16] Armstrong. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. p. 157.

151
[17] Armstrong. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. p. 185.

[18] Ibn Ishaq (trans. Guillaume). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 714-15.

[19] Armstrong. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. p. 190.

[20] Armstrong. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. p. 236.

[21] Ibn Warraq. Why I Am Not a Muslim. pp. 35-36, 39-41. Ibn Warraq is a convert
to secular humanism so the debates between Islam and Christianity so not really
concern him.

[22] Geisler and Saleeb. Answering Islam. p. 61.

[23] Ibn Warraq. Why I Am Not a Muslim. p. 64.

[24] Geisler and Saleeb. Answering Islam. p. 64.

[25] Geisler and Saleeb. Answering Islam. pp. 90-91.

[26] Ibn Warraq. Why I Am Not a Muslim. p. 83.

[27] A Muslim would simply not be convinced by a New Testament assertion on the
divinity of Christ. If a Christian were to quote John 1:1-17 the Muslim would say that
was a corrupted passage.

[28] Ibn Ishaq (trans. Guillaume). The Life of Muhammad. p. 104.

[29] This same verse features prominently in modern Muslim apologetic.

[30] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haman_(Islam)

[31] Geisler and Saleeb. Answering Islam. p. 121.

[32] Alexander Kazhdan, “Nikephoros I,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. p.

1477.

[33] Alexander, The Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople. p. 162.

[34] Alexander, The Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople. p. 158.

[35] There is evidence that Nikephoros revised his work but the main changes are
stylistic. If Nikephoros later discovered that Muslims were monotheists he chose not
to do anything about it.

[36] Nikephoros (trans. Mango). Short History. pp. 65-67.

152
[37] Nikephoros literally calls Amr a ‘Hellene.’ In 8th century usage he means a
classic polytheist like the ancient Greeks.

[38] Nikephoros (trans. Mango). Short History. pp. 75-77.

[39] Nikephoros (trans. Mango). Short History. pp. 105-107.

[40] Nikephoros (trans. Mango). Short History. p. 121.

[41] Nikephoros (trans. Mango). Short History. p. 69.

[42] Nikephoros (trans. Mango). Short History. pp. 71-73.

[43] Nicol. A Biographical Dictionary of the Byzantine Empire. p. 127.

[44] Khadija was the first wife of Muhammad. Armstrong. Muhammad: A Biography
of the Prophet. pp. 79-81. There are various spellings of her name.

[45] Mango and Scott. The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. pp. 464-65.

[46] Armstrong. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. pp. 70, 80.

[47] Hoyland. Islam as Others Saw it. pp. 355-56.

[48] Conrad, Lawrence I. “Theophanes and the Arabic Historical Tradition: Some
Indications of Intercultural Transmission.”, (Chapter 12), Arab-Byzantine Relations in
Early Islamic Times. Michael Bonner (ed). p. 341.

[49] Mango and Scott. The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. p. 466.

[50] Mango and Scott. The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. p. 477.

[51] Mango and Scott. The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. p. 483.

[52] Mango and Scott. The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. p. 485.

[53] Mango and Scott. The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. p. 502.

[54] Nicol. A Biographical Dictionary of the Byzantine Empire. p. 42.

[55] Genesios (trans. Kaldellis). On the Reigns of the Emperors. p. xv.

[56] Genesios (trans. Kaldellis). On the Reigns of the Emperors. p. x.

[57] Genesios (trans. Kaldellis). On the Reigns of the Emperors. p. 81.

153
[58] Genesios (trans. Kaldellis). On the Reigns of the Emperors. pp. 40-41.

[59] Genesios (trans. Kaldellis). On the Reigns of the Emperors. p. 60.

[60] Genesios (trans. Kaldellis). On the Reigns of the Emperors. p. 104.

[61] Nicol. A Biographical Dictionary of the Byzantine Empire. p.27.

[62] Constantine Porphyrogenitus (trans. Moravcsik and Jenkins). De Administrando

Imperio. pp. 13-14.

[63] Another variant spelling of Khadija.

[64] Constantine Porphyrogenitus (trans. Moravcsik and Jenkins). De Administrando

Imperio. pp. 77- 79.

[65] Constantine Porphyrogenitus (trans. Moravcsik and Jenkins). De Administrando

Imperio. p. 85.

[66] Constantine Porphyrogenitus (trans. Moravcsik and Jenkins). De Administrando

Imperio. p. 91.

[67] Constantine Porphyrogenitus (trans. Moravcsik and Jenkins). De Administrando

Imperio. p. 107.

[68] Constantine Porphyrogenitus (trans. Moravcsik and Jenkins). De Administrando

Imperio. p. 79.

[69] Kaminiates. (trans. Frendo and Fotiou). The Capture of Thessaloniki. pp. xxxvii-
xxxix.

[70] Kaminiates. (trans. Frendo and Fotiou). The Capture of Thessaloniki. p. 23.

[71] Kaminiates. (trans. Frendo and Fotiou). The Capture of Thessaloniki. p. 33.

[72] Kaminiates. (trans. Frendo and Fotiou). The Capture of Thessaloniki. p. 91.

[73] Kaminiates. (trans. Frendo and Fotiou). The Capture of Thessaloniki. p. 109.

[74] Kaminiates. (trans. Frendo and Fotiou). The Capture of Thessaloniki. p. 121.

[75] Kaminiates. (trans. Frendo and Fotiou). The Capture of Thessaloniki. p. 45.

[76] Nicol. A Biographical Dictionary of the Byzantine Empire. p. 75.

[77] Leo the Deacon (trans. Talbot and Sullivan). The History of Leo the Deacon. p.
65.

154
[78] Leo the Deacon (trans. Talbot and Sullivan). The History of Leo the Deacon. p.
79.

[79] Leo the Deacon (trans. Talbot and Sullivan). The History of Leo the Deacon. pp.
149-50.

[80] Leo the Deacon (trans. Talbot and Sullivan). The History of Leo the Deacon. p.
72.

[81] Leo the Deacon (trans. Talbot and Sullivan). The History of Leo the Deacon. pp.
192-96.

[82] Leo the Deacon (trans. Talbot and Sullivan). The History of Leo the Deacon. p.
77.

[83] Leo the Deacon (trans. Talbot and Sullivan). The History of Leo the Deacon. p.
126.

[84] Sewter. Fourteen Byzantine Rulers. pp. 66-67.

[85] Sewter. Fourteen Byzantine Rulers. p. 253.

[86] Buckler. Anna Comnena: A Study. p. 330.

[87] Sewter. The Alexiad of Anna Comnena. p. 310.

[88] Buckler. Anna Comnena: A Study. p. 331.

[89] Sewter. The Alexiad of Anna Comnena. p. 489.

[90] Sewter. The Alexiad of Anna Comnena. p. 208.

[91] Anna is mistaken in this account. Malek Shah was poisoned. The account is that
of the murder of Malek Shah’s vizier, Nizam-al-Mulk, by the Assassins. The inherit
violence of the group is stressed by Anna. Buckler. Anna Comnena: A Study. p. 423.

[92] Nicol. A Biographical Dictionary of the Byzantine Empire. p. 70.

[93] Brand. Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus. p. 186.

[94] Brand. Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus. p. 148.

[95] Brand. Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus. p. 208.

[96] Brand. Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus. pp. 188-89.

[97] Brand. Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus. p. 220.

155
[98] Kazhdan and Epstein. Change in Byzantine Culture. p. 257.

[99] Brand. Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus. p. 157.

[100] Meyendorff. “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. Crestwood, New York: SVS Press, 1982. p.103.

[101] Angold. Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni 1081-1261. pp.
112-113.

[102] Sahas. ‘“Holosphyros”? A Byzantine perception of “the God of Muhammad”’.

Christian-Muslim Encounters. Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 1991. p. 111.

[103] Meyendorff. “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. Crestwood, New York: SVS Press, 1982. p. 100,
p.104.

[104] Magoulias. O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates. p. 122.

[105] Magoulias. “Doctrinal Disputes in the History of Niketas Choniates.” The

Patristic and Byzantine Review 6:1 (1987), p. 199-217.

[106] Schaff, Philip and Wace, Henry. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series. Volume XIV: The Seven Ecumenical
Councils. p. 40.

[107] Schaff, Philip and Wace, Henry. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series. Volume XIV: The Seven Ecumenical
Councils. p. 185.

[108] Timothy G. Gregory and Alexander Kazhdan, “Eunomios” in The Oxford

Dictionary of Byzantium. p. 1159.

[109] R. J. Macrides, “Akropolites, George” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. p.

49.

[110] Akropolites, George (trans. Ruth Macrides). George Akropolites: The History.
pp. 92-94.

[111]Akropolites, George (trans. Ruth Macrides). George Akropolites: The History.

p. 315.

[112]Akropolites, George (trans. Ruth Macrides). George Akropolites: The History.

p. 124.

[113]Akropolites, George (trans. Ruth Macrides). George Akropolites: The History.

p. 220.

156
[114] In this case pro-Roman can either be pro-Christian or pro-Byzantine or more
probably both.

[115]Akropolites, George (trans. Ruth Macrides). George Akropolites: The History.

p. 223.

[116] Vryonis. The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of
Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century. p. 425.

[117]Akropolites, George (trans. Ruth Macrides). George Akropolites: The History.

p. 361.

[118] Alice-Mary Talbot, “John VI Kantakouzenos,” in The Oxford Dictionary of

Byzantium. p. 1050-1051.

[119] John Kantakuzenos (trans. Miller), History IV.5. p. 165.

[120] John Kantakuzenos (trans. Miller), History IV.23. pp. 199-200.

[121] John Kantakuzenos (trans. Miller), History IV.37. p. 232.

[122] John Kantakuzenos (trans. Miller), History IV.38. pp. 232-33.

[123] Alice-Mary Talbot, “Machairas, Leontios,” in The Oxford Dictionary of

Byzantium. p. 1263.

[124] Makhairas, Leontios (trans. Dawkins). Recital Concerning the Sweet Land of
Cyprus entitled the ‘Chronicle.’ Volume 2. p. 3.

[125] Ibid. p. 4.

[126] [126] Makhairas, Leontios (trans. Dawkins). Recital Concerning the Sweet
Land of Cyprus entitled the ‘Chronicle.’ Volume 1. p. 121.

[127] Makhairas, Leontios (trans. Dawkins). Recital Concerning the Sweet Land of
Cyprus entitled the ‘Chronicle.’ Volume 1. p. 103.

[128] Makhairas, Leontios (trans. Dawkins). Recital Concerning the Sweet Land of
Cyprus entitled the ‘Chronicle.’ Volume 1. p. 649.

[129] Makhairas, Leontios (trans. Dawkins). Recital Concerning the Sweet Land of
Cyprus entitled the ‘Chronicle.’ Volume 1. p. 633.

[130] Makhairas, Leontios (trans. Dawkins). Recital Concerning the Sweet Land of
Cyprus entitled the ‘Chronicle.’ Volume 1. p. 657.

157
[131] Alice-Mary Talbot, “Chalkokondyles, Laonikos,” in The Oxford Dictionary of
Byzantium. p. 407.

[132] Miller, William. ‘The Last Athenian Historian: Laonikos Chalkokondyles’, The
Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 42, Part 1 (1922), p. 38.

[133] Miller, William. ‘The Last Athenian Historian: Laonikos Chalkokondyles’, The
Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 42, Part 1 (1922), p. 44.

[134] Vryonis Jr, “Evidence on Human Sacrifice Among the Early Ottoman Turks,”
Studies on Byzantium, Seljuks and Ottomans. p. 145.

[135] Magoulias. The Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks. p. 66.

[136] Magoulias. The Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks. p. 62.

[137] Magoulias. The Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks. p. 73.

[138] Magoulias. The Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks. p. 110.

[139] Magoulias. The Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks. p. 133-
34.

[140] Magoulias. The Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks. p. 198.

[141] Vryonis Jr, “Evidence on Human Sacrifice Among the Early Ottoman Turks,”
Studies on Byzantium, Seljuks and Ottomans. pp. 143.

[142] Alice-Mary Talbot, “Sphrantzes, George,” in The Oxford Dictionary of

Byzantium. p. 1937.

[143] Philippides. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire. p. 22.

[144] Philippides. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire. p. 21.

[145] Philippides. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire. pp. 24-25.

[146] Philippides. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire. p. 26.

[147] Philippides. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire. p. 60.

[148] Philippides. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire. p. 70.

[149] Philippides. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire. p. 79.

[150] Philippides. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire. p. 88.

158
[151] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. p. 110

[152] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. pp. 142-145.

[153] Alice-Mary Talbot, “Kritoboulos, Michael,” in The Oxford Dictionary of

Byzantium. p. 1159.

[154] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. p. 9.

[155] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. p. 10.

[156] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. p. 76.

[157] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. p. 84.

[158] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. pp. 175-176.

[159] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. p. 156. The
castle of Kastrion had its 300 survivors executed and a similar fate befell the people
of Gardikion.

[160] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. p. 11.

[161] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. pp. 71-74.

[162] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. p. 70.

[163] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. pp. 41-42.

[164] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. p. 88.

[165] Kritovoulos (trans. Riggs). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. p. 115.

[166] Cunningham. The Life of Michael the Synkellos. p. 5.

[167] Cunningham. The Life of Michael the Synkellos. pp. 57-59.

[168] Cunningham. The Life of Michael the Synkellos. p. 85.

[169] Tachiaos. Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica. p. 30.

[170] Tachiaos. Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica. p. 39.

[171] Tachiaos. Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica. p. 200.

[172] Kantor. Medieval Slavic Lives of Saints and Princes. p. 39.

159
[173] Kantor. Medieval Slavic Lives of Saints and Princes. p. 37.

[174] Tachiaos. Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica. pp. 39-51.

[175] Kantor. Medieval Slavic Lives of Saints and Princes. p. 61.

[176] Lamoreaux. The Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas. p. 133.

[177] Lamoreaux. The Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas. p. 31.

[178] Lamoreaux. The Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas. p. 131.

[179] Lamoreaux. The Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas. p. 82.

[180] Lamoreaux. The Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas. p. 78.

[181] Lamoreaux. The Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas. p. 82.

[182] Lamoreaux. The Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas. pp. 37-38.

[183] Treadgold. The Byzantine Revival 780-842. p. 79.

[184] Treadgold. The Byzantine Revival 780-842. p. 303.

[185] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. p. 347.

[186] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. p. 349.

[187] Huxley. “The Sixty Martyrs of Jerusalem,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine
Studies 18 (1977), pp. 372-3.

[188] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. p. 362.

[189] Huxley. “The Sixty Martyrs of Jerusalem,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine
Studies 18 (1977), p. 374.

[190] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. p. 365.

[191] McGrath, “Elias of Heliopolis: The Life of an Eighth-Century Saint,” Byzantine

Authors, Literary Activities and Preoccupations. p. 100.

[192] McGrath, “Elias of Heliopolis: The Life of an Eighth-Century Saint,” Byzantine

Authors, Literary Activities and Preoccupations. p. 97.

[193] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. p. 363.

160
[194] McGrath, “Elias of Heliopolis: The Life of an Eighth-Century Saint,” Byzantine
Authors, Literary Activities and Preoccupations. p. 105.

[195] Swanson, Mark N, “The Martyrdom of Abd al-Masih, Superior of Mount Sinai,”
David Thomas (ed.), Syrian Christians Under Islam, the First Thousand Years.
Leiden: Brill, 2001. pp. 116-118.

[196] Lang. Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints. p. 115.

[197] Lang. Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints. p. 117.

[198] Nerses is a client king serving under Arab rule.

[199] Lang. Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints. p. 122.

[200] Lang. Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints. p. 123.

[201] Lang. Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints. p. 124, p. 129.

[202] Tolan. Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination. p. 56.

[203] Lamoreaux, John, “Early Eastern Christian Response to Islam,” John Victor
Tolan (ed.). Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam. p. 22.

[204] Theodore Abu Qurrah (trans. Sidney H Griffith), A Treatise on the Veneration
of the Holy Icons. p. 74.

[205] Lamoreaux, John, “Early Eastern Christian Response to Islam,” John Victor
Tolan (ed.). Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam. p. 23.

[206] Lamoreaux. The Life of Stephen of Mar Sabas. pp. 125 - 126.

[207] Amorion or its Latinised name of Amorium was capital of the Byzantine
province of Phrygia.

[208] Treadgold. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. p. 448.

[209] Kolia-Dermitzaki, Athina. “The Execution of the Forty-two Martyrs of Amorion:

proposing an interpretation,” Al-Masaq 14 (2002). pp. 150-151.

[210] See Document Appendix. pp. 97-99.

[211] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. pp. 381-383.

[212] Griffith. “The Arabic account of ‘Abd al-Masih an-Nagrani al-Ghassani”, in

Arabic Christianity in the Monasteries of Ninth-Century Palestine. Variorum, 1992.
Study X, pp. 352-354.

161
[213] Ibid. pp. 370-71.

[214] Ibid. p. 373.

[215] Louth. St. John Damascene. pp. 3-14.

[216] Louth. St. John Damascene. pp. xiv-xv.

[217] Louth. St. John Damascene. pp. 198-208.

[218] Louth. St. John Damascene. pp. 76-77.

[219] Meyendorff. “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. pp.93-94.

[220] Meyendorff. “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. p. 94.

[221] Louth. St. John Damascene. p. 77.

[222] Louth. St. John Damascene. p. 80.

[223] Chase. John of Damascus: Writings. pp. 153-160.

[224] Unfortunately John thinks Zaid is Muhammad’s friend and not his adopted son.

[225] Louth. St. John Damascene. p. 81.

[226] Sidney H. Griffith, “Theodore Abu-Qurra,” in The Oxford Dictionary of

Byzantium. p. 2041.

[227] John C. Lamoreaux, “ The Biography of Theodore Abu Qurrah Revisited,” Alice-
Mary Talbot (ed.), Dumbarton Oaks Papers 56. pp. 32-35.

[228] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. p. 269.

[229] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. p. 225.

[230] Lamoreaux, John, “Early Eastern Christian Response to Islam,” John Victor
Tolan (ed.). Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam. p. 21.

[231] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. p. xxix.

[232] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. p. 212.

[233] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. p. 211.

162
[234] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. p. 224.

[235] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. p. 216.

[236] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. p. 215.

[237] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. pp. 222-224.

[238] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. p. 217.

[239] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. p. 220.

[240] Lamoreaux. Theodore Abu Qurrah. pp. 220-222.

[241] Pelikan. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. xviii.

[242] Meyendorff uses the word ‘spoken’, suggesting a religious exchange rather
than casual pleasantries. Meyendorff. “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John
Meyendorff, The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church. p. 99.

[243] Hanson, Craig L, “Manuel I Comnenos and the ‘God of Muhammad’: A Study in
Byzantine Ecclesiastical Politics,” John Victor Tolan (ed.). Medieval Christian
Perceptions of Islam. p. 64.

[244] Daniel, Norman. Islam and the West. p. 15.

[245] Meyendorff. “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. p.99. The citations that Niketas do not always
conform to those in modern editions of the Quran.

[246] Pelikan. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. 230.

[247] Pelikan. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. 232.

[248] Pelikan. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. 233.

[249] Daniel. Islam and the West. pp. 39-47.

[250] Meyendorff. “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. pp.99-100.

[251] Pelikan,. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. 240.

[252] Krausmuller, “Killing at God’s Command,” Al-Masaq 16 (2004). p. 165.

[253] Krausmuller, “Killing at God’s Command,” Al-Masaq 16 (2004). p. 166.

163
[254] Krausmuller, “Killing at God’s Command,” Al-Masaq 16 (2004). p. 170.

[255] The references are Exodus 32:27, Numbers 25:7-8 and I Kings 13:33.

[256] Krausmuller, “Killing at God’s Command,” Al-Masaq 16 (2004). p. 167.

[257] Pelikan. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. 235.

[258] Daniel, Norman. Islam and the West. p. 15.

[259] Eutychius of Alexandria. Watt. The Book of the Demonstration. Volume 1. p.

III.

[260] Eutychius of Alexandria. Watt. The Book of the Demonstration. Volume 1. Pp.
131-132.

[261] Sewter. The Alexiad of Anna Comnena. p.500.

[262] Kazhdan and Epstein. Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth
Centuries. p. 163.

[263] Pelikan. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. xiv.

[264] Kazhdan and Epstein. Change in Byzantine Culture. pp.186-87.

[265] Meyendorff. “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. p.101.

[266] Pelikan,. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. xii.

[267] Pelikan,. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. 229.

[268] Pelikan,. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. 241.

[269] Sahas. “The Formation of Later Islamic Doctrines as a Response to Byzantine

Polemics: The Miracles of Muhammad.” GOTR. 27 (1982), pp. 314-15.

[270] Sahas. “The Formation of Later Islamic Doctrines as a Response to Byzantine

Polemics: The Miracles of Muhammad.” GOTR. 27 (1982), p. 317.

[271] Sahas. “The Formation of Later Islamic Doctrines as a Response to Byzantine

Polemics: The Miracles of Muhammad.” GOTR. 27 (1982), pp. 318-20.

[272] It is often known by its Latin name ‘Contra Muhammedum’. It is printed in

Migne PG 104.

164
[273] Thomas, “Paul of Antioch’s Letter to a Muslim Friend and The Letter from
Cyprus,” David Thomas (ed.), Syrian Christians Under Islam, the First Thousand
Years. pp. 203-04.

[274] Ibid. p. 205.

[275] Ibid. p. 213.

[276] Siddiqi. “Muslim and Byzantine Christian Relations: Letter of Paul of Antioch
and Ibn Taymiyah’s Response” in Nomikos M. Vaporis (ed). Orthodox Christians and
Muslims. Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1986. p. 37.

[277] Ebied and Thomas (ed.). Muslim-Christian Polemic during the Crusades. p. 6.

[278] Ebied and Thomas (ed.). Muslim-Christian Polemic during the Crusades. pp.
73-75.

[279] Pelikan. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. xiii.

[280] Nicol. The Reluctant Emperor. p. 146.

[281] Daniel. Islam and the West. p. 260.

[282] Daniel. Islam and the West. p. 403.

[283] Peters. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Volume 2. p. 71.

[284] Daniel. Islam and the West. p. 96-97.

[285] Daniel. Islam and the West. p. 55.

[286] Daniel. Islam and the West. p. 81.

[287] Daniel. Islam and the West. p. 83-84.

[288] Peters. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Volume 2. p. 326.

[289] Peters. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Volume 2. p. 327.

[290] Nicol. The Reluctant Emperor. pp. 145-146.

[291] Meyendorff. “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. pp. 101-102.

[292] Vryonis. The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of
Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century. pp. 424-425.

165
[293] Nicol. The Reluctant Emperor. p. 180.

[294] Sahas. “Ritual of Conversion from Islam to the Byzantine Church.” GOTR. 36
(1991), p. 69.

[295] Pelikan. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. 232.

[296] Pelikan. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. 235.

[297] Vryonis Jr, “Evidence on Human Sacrifice Among the Early Ottoman Turks,”
Studies on Byzantium, Seljuks and Ottomans. pp. 144.

[298] Vryonis Jr, “Evidence on Human Sacrifice Among the Early Ottoman Turks,”
Studies on Byzantium, Seljuks and Ottomans. pp. 145.

[299] Sahas. “Captivity and Dialogue: Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) and the
Muslims, ” GOTR. 25 (1980), p. 411.

[300] Sahas. “Captivity and Dialogue: Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) and the
Muslims, ” p. 415.

[301] Sahas. “Captivity and Dialogue: Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) and the
Muslims, ” p. 417.

[302] Sahas. “Captivity and Dialogue: Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) and the
Muslims, ” p. 431.

[303] Sahas. “Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) on Islam.” The Muslim World 73

(1983), p. 17.

[304] Sahas. “Captivity and Dialogue: Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) and the
Muslims, ” p. 414-15.

[305] Sahas. “Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) on Islam.” The Muslim World 73

(1983), p. 14.

[306] Sahas. “Captivity and Dialogue: Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) and the
Muslims, ” p. 429.

[307] Meyendorff. A Study of Gregory Palamas. pp. 106-07.

[308] Sahas. “Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) on Islam.” The Muslim World 73

(1983), p. 8-9.

[309] Sahas. “Captivity and Dialogue: Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) and the
Muslims, ” p. 418.

166
[310] Sahas. “Captivity and Dialogue: Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) and the
Muslims, ” p. 423.

[311] Sahas. “Captivity and Dialogue: Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) and the
Muslims, ” p. 427.

[312] Sahas. “Captivity and Dialogue: Gregory Palamas (1296-1360) and the
Muslims, ” p. 428.

[313] Barker. Manuel II Palaeologus. p. xxiv.

[314] Vryonis. The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of
Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century. p. 428.

[315] Treadgold. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. p. 812.

[316] Vryonis. The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of
Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century. p. 424.

[317] Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700). p. 231.

[318] Manuel means the native Byzantine Christians who populated the region.

[319] Palaeologus, Manuel II. (trans. Dennis). The Letters of Manuel II Palaeologus.
p. 42

[320] Jeffery, Arthur. “Ghevond’s Text of the Correspondence between Umar II and
Leo III”, The Harvard Theological Review 37 (1944) pp. 269-276.

[321] Meyendorff, John, “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The

Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church. Crestwood, New York: SVS Press, 1982.
p. 105.

[322] Tolan. Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination. p. 60.

[323] Jeffery, Arthur. “Ghevond’s Text of the Correspondence between Umar II and
Leo III”, The Harvard Theological Review 37 (1944) p. 270.

[324] These leaders were the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, the Persian Emperor
Cheoroses, the Negus of Ethiopia and the Governor of Alexandria.

[325] Jeffery, Arthur. “Ghevond’s Text of the Correspondence between Umar II and
Leo III”, The Harvard Theological Review 37 (1944) p. 292.

[326] Jeffery, Arthur. “Ghevond’s Text of the Correspondence between Umar II and
Leo III”, The Harvard Theological Review 37 (1944) p. 309.

167
[327] Ibn Ishaq (trans. Alfred Guillaume). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 103-104.

[328] Jeffery, Arthur. “Ghevond’s Text of the Correspondence between Umar II and
Leo III”, The Harvard Theological Review 37 (1944) p. 310.

[329] Tolan. Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination. p. 44.

[330] Jeffery, Arthur. “Ghevond’s Text of the Correspondence between Umar II and
Leo III”, The Harvard Theological Review 37 (1944) p. 324.

[331] Alexander Kazhdan, “Arethas of Caesarea,” in The Oxford Dictionary of

Byzantium. p. 163.

[332] Sahas, ‘Arethas “Letter to the Emir at Damascus”: Official or Popular Views on
Islam in the 10th Century Byzantium’, The Patristic and Byzantine Review, p. 77.

[333] Sahas, ‘Arethas “Letter to the Emir at Damascus”: Official or Popular Views on
Islam in the 10th Century Byzantium’, The Patristic and Byzantine Review, p. 73.

[334] Meyendorff, “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. p.110.

[335] Sahas, ‘Arethas “Letter to the Emir at Damascus”: Official or Popular Views on
Islam in the 10th Century Byzantium’, The Patristic and Byzantine Review, p. 76.

[336] Meyendorff, “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. p.108.

[337] Alexander Kazhdan, “Nicholas I Mystikos,” in The Oxford Dictionary of

Byzantium. pp. 1466-1467.

[338] Jenkins, Romilly J.H. “A Note on the ‘Letter to the Emir’ of Nicholas Mysticus”,
Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Volume 17, 1963, p. 399.

[339] Nicholas Mystikos (trans. Jenkins and Westerink) Letters. p. 525.

[340] John Kaminiates wrote an extensive account on the capture of Thessaloniki.

[341] Nicholas Mystikos (trans. Jenkins and Westerink) Letters. p. 3.

[342] Nicholas Mystikos (trans. Jenkins and Westerink) Letters. p. 7.

[343] Aristeides Papadakis, “Sophronios,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. p.

1928.

[344] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. p. 70.

168
[345] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. pp. 72-73.

[346] Whealey. “Sermo De Pseudoprophetis of Pseudo-John Chrysostom: A Homily

from Antioch under Early Islamic Rule,” Byzantion LXIX (1999), p. 179.

[347] Whealey. “Sermo De Pseudoprophetis of Pseudo-John Chrysostom: A Homily

from Antioch under Early Islamic Rule,” Byzantion LXIX (1999), p. 182.

[348] Ibid. p. 184.

[349] Ibid. pp. 183-84.

[350] Alice-Mary Talbot, “Gregory of Dekapolis,” in The Oxford Dictionary of

Byzantium. p. 880.

[351] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. pp. 385-86.

[352] Sahas, Daniel J. “What an infidel saw that a faithful did not: Gregory
Dekapolites (d. 842) and Islam.” Greek Orthodox Theological Review. 31 (1986), pp.
47-67.

[353]Sahas, Daniel J. “What an infidel saw that a faithful did not: Gregory
Dekapolites (d. 842) and Islam.” Greek Orthodox Theological Review. 31 (1986), p.
52.

[354] Alexander Kazhdan, “Glabas, Isidore,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium.

p. 852.

[355] Hero, Angela Constantinides, “The First Byzantine Eyewitness Account of the
Ottoman Institution of Devsirme: The Homily of Isidore of Thessalonike Concerning
the ‘Seizure of the Children’”, in Milton V. Anastos (ed.), To Hellenikon: Studies in
Honour of Speros Vryonis, Jr. p. 135.

[356] Hero, Angela Constantinides, “The First Byzantine Eyewitness Account of the
Ottoman Institution of Devsirme: The Homily of Isidore of Thessalonike Concerning
the ‘Seizure of the Children’”, in Milton V. Anastos (ed.), To Hellenikon: Studies in
Honour of Speros Vryonis, Jr. p. 136.

[357] Sahas. “Ritual of Conversion from Islam to the Byzantine Church.” GOTR. 36
(1991), p. 57.

[358] Sahas. “Ritual of Conversion from Islam to the Byzantine Church.” GOTR. 36
(1991), p. 58.

[359] Meyendorff. “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. pp. 102-103.

169
[360] Sahas. “Ritual of Conversion from Islam to the Byzantine Church.” GOTR. 36
(1991), p. 59.

[361] Hanson, Craig L, “Manuel I Comnenos and the ‘God of Muhammad’: A Study in
Byzantine Ecclesiastical Politics,” John Victor Tolan (ed.). Medieval Christian
Perceptions of Islam. p. 60.

[362] Sahas. “Ritual of Conversion from Islam to the Byzantine Church.” GOTR. 36
(1991), p. 67.

[363] Gibb (trans.). The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades. pp. 248-49.

[364] Nicol. A Biographical Dictionary of the Byzantine Empire. p. 85.

[365] Sahas. “Ritual of Conversion from Islam to the Byzantine Church.” GOTR. 36
(1991), pp. 61-63.

[366] Alexander Kazhdan, “Doctrina Jacobi Nuper Baptizati,” in The Oxford

Dictionary of Byzantium. p. 643.

[367] Maas. Readings in Late Antiquity. p. 354.

[368] Griffith. “Anastasius of Sinai, the Hodegos, and the Muslims.” GOTR. 32
(1987), p. 343.

[369] A series of questions and answers to theological problems.

[370] Griffith. “Anastasius of Sinai, the Hodegos, and the Muslims.” GOTR. 32
(1987), p. 342-43.

[371] Griffith. “Anastasius of Sinai, the Hodegos, and the Muslims.” GOTR. 32
(1987), p. 341.

[372] Griffith. “Anastasius of Sinai, the Hodegos, and the Muslims.” GOTR. 32
(1987), p. 347.

[373] Sahas, Daniel J. “Anastasius of Sinai (c 640-700) and the ‘Anastasii Sinaitae’
on Islam,” in Contacts between Cultures, vol 1. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen
Press, 1992. pp. 336-337.

[374] The ‘they’ refers to Monophysites.

[375] Griffith. “Anastasius of Sinai, the Hodegos, and the Muslims.” GOTR 32
(1987), p. 351.

[376] Griffith. “Anastasius of Sinai, the Hodegos, and the Muslims.” GOTR 32
(1987), p. 352.

170
[377] Sahas, Daniel J. “Anastasius of Sinai (c 640-700) and the ‘Anastasii Sinaitae’
on Islam,” in Contacts between Cultures, vol 1. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen
Press, 1992. p. 337.

[378] Alexander Kazhdan, “Germanos I,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. pp.
846-847.

[379] Meyendorff, “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. p. 95.

[380] Meyendorff, “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in John Meyendorff, The Byzantine

Legacy in the Orthodox Church. p. 96. See note 24 for a detailed explanation.

[381] The tashahhud was the Islamic creed that stated that ‘There is no god but God
and Muhammad is His prophet.’

[382] The Allahu Akbar was the cry that ‘God is great.’

[383] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. p. 107.

[384] Mango. The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312-1453. pp. 150-51.

[385] Mango and Scott. The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. p. 555.

[386] Alexander. The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition. p. 7.

[387] Palmer. The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles. p. 226.

[388] Hoyland. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. pp. 263-264.

[389] Alexander. The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition. p. 45.

[390] Ibid.

[391] Mavrogordato. Digenes Akrites. p. 3.

[392] Mavrogordato. Digenes Akrites. p. 17.

[393] Mavrogordato. Digenes Akrites. p. 25.

[394] Mavrogordato. Digenes Akrites. p. 55.

[395] Mavrogordato. Digenes Akrites. p. 57.

[396] Kazhdan and Epstein. Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth
Centuries. p. 117.

171
[397] Wilkinson. Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099 – 1185. pp. 22-23.

[398] Wilkinson. Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099 – 1185. p. 317.

[399] Vryonis. The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of
Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century. p. 411.

[400] Ibid. p. 412.

[401] Nicol. A Biographical Dictionary of the Byzantine Empire. pp. 61-62.

[402] Bryer, Anthony. ‘The Cypto-Christians of the Pontus and Consul William Gifford
Palgrave of Trebizond’ (Article XVII) in Peoples and Settlement in Anatolia and the
Caucasus. pp. 13-14.

[403] Galatariotou. The Making of a Saint. pp. 13-18.

[404] Galatariotou. The Making of a Saint. p. 261.

[405] Galatariotou. The Making of a Saint. p. 206.

[406] Galatariotou. The Making of a Saint. pp. 229-230.

[407] Nicol. A Biographical Dictionary of the Byzantine Empire. p. 42.

[408] Turner. ‘The Career of George-Gennadios Scholarius.’ Byzantion 39 (1969), p.

420.

[409] Turner. ‘The Career of George-Gennadios Scholarius.’ Byzantion 39 (1969),

pp. 446-47.

[410] Papadakis. ‘Gennadios II and Mehmet the Conqueror.’ Byzantion 42 (1972), p.

95.

[411] Papadakis. ‘Gennadios II and Mehmet the Conqueror.’ Byzantion 42 (1972), p.

97.

[412] Papadakis. ‘Gennadios II and Mehmet the Conqueror.’ Byzantion 42 (1972), p.

103.

[413] Papadakis. ‘Gennadios II and Mehmet the Conqueror.’ Byzantion 42 (1972), p.

104.

[414] Turner. ‘The Career of George-Gennadios Scholarius.’ Byzantion 39 (1969), p.

445.

172
[415] Halkin. Hagiologie Byzantine. pp. 152-169. Thank you to Claire Douglass for
her assistance in translating this text.

173