Shoemaker (Stephen J.), A Prophet Has Appeared: The Rise of Islam through Christian and Jewish Eyes, A Sourcebook, University of California Press, 2021, 321 p. ISBN 978-0520299603

Author

Stephen J. Shoemaker is Professor of Religious Studies and Ira E. Gaston Fellow in Christian Studies at the University of Oregon. He is a specialist on early Christian apocrypha, devotion to the Virgin Mary, and the rise of Islam. He is the author of The Death of a Prophet, The Apocalypse of Empire, and Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion, among many other publications.

Presentation

Early Islam has emerged as a lively site of historical investigation, and scholars have challenged the traditional accounts of Islamic origins by drawing attention to the wealth of non-Islamic sources that describe the rise of Islam. A Prophet Has Appeared brings this approach to the classroom. This collection provides students and scholars with carefully selected, introduced, and annotated materials from non-Islamic sources dating to the early years of Islam. These can be read alone or alongside the Qur’an and later Islamic materials. Applying historical-critical analysis, the volume moves these invaluable sources to more equal footing with later Islamic narratives about Muhammad and the formation of his new religious movement.

Included are new English translations of sources by twenty authors, originally written in not only Greek and Latin but also Syriac, Georgian, Armenian, Hebrew, and Arabic and spanning a geographic range from England to Egypt and Iran. Ideal for the classroom and personal library, this sourcebook provides readers with the tools to meaningfully approach a new, burgeoning area of Islamic studies

Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 The Teaching of Jacob the Newly Baptized

2 Synodical Letter, Homily on the Nativity, and Homily on Epiphany
Sophronius of Jerusalem

3 A Syriac Fragment Concerning the Believers’ Invasion of Syria

4 Letter 14
Maximus the Confessor

5 Chronicle
Thomas the Presbyter

6 The Armenian Chronicle of 661 attributed to Sebeos

7 The Spiritual Meadow, Appendix to the Georgian Version
John Moschus

8 Homily on the End-Times
Ps.-Ephrem the Syrian

9 Letter 14C
Isho?yahb III of Adiabene

10 Edifying Tales, Homily on the Lord’s Passion, The Hodegos, and Questions and Answers
Anastasius of Sinai

11 The Khuzistan Chronicle

12 The Apocalypse of Rabbi Shim?on b. Yohai, The Secrets of Rabbi Shim?on b. Yohai

13 Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer 30

14 The Maronite Chronicle

15 On the Holy Places
Adomnán / Arculf

16 The Apocalypse of Ps.-Shenoute

17 The Book of Main Points
John Bar Penkaye

18 Fourth Letter to John the Stylite
Jacob of Edessa

19 The Passion of Peter of Capitolias

20 Excerpts from a Lost Seventh-Century Greek Source,
The Chronicle of Theophanes, The Chronicle of Agapius,
The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, and The Chronicle of 1234

Notes
Bibliography
Index