Research atlas for early Christianity. Claims are tagged attested, traditional, or disputed. Copyrighted full texts, including CCEL editions, are not included.

Jesus to Muhammad

A dated chain from about 30 to 632, built from Sage's bridge nodes. Badges mark what is attested, what is traditional, and what is a scholarly hypothesis. The Birmingham Qur'an and the Dome of the Rock sit in the epilogue.

Where scholars disagree · Bridge on the map

Walk the chain

In date order. Each step links to its record, where the sources and the status note sit together.

c. c. 30 – c. 33
personattested
Jesus of Nazareth (crucifixion in Jerusalem)
The chain's starting point: a Galilean Jewish teacher executed under Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem around 30–33 CE. Every later dispute in this chain — over his nature, his mother, and the reality of his death — goes back to how his followers and opponents remembered these events.
Source: Wikipedia: Crucifixion of Jesus
c. c. 34 – c. 37
eventattested
Paul goes to 'Arabia' after his conversion
Paul says that after his conversion he went 'into Arabia' and then back to Damascus (Gal 1:17), and Acts lists 'Arabs' among the Pentecost crowd (Acts 2:11). It is the earliest written link between the Jesus movement and Arabia, then the Nabataean kingdom.
Source: Galatians 1 (KJV, PD)
c. c. 30 – 62
personattested
James the Just and the Jerusalem church
James, called the brother of Jesus, led the Jerusalem community of Torah-observant followers until he was executed in 62 CE. Later Jewish-Christian groups (Ebionites, Nazoraeans) and the Pseudo-Clementine writings treated him as their great authority.
Source: Josephus, Antiquities 20 (Whiston trans., PD)
66 – 135
eventtraditional
War with Rome and the dispersal of Jerusalem's Jesus-followers (incl. the Pella tradition)
Rome destroyed the Temple in 70 and refounded Jerusalem as a pagan city after 135. Jewish Jesus-followers scattered east of the Jordan and into Syria. Eusebius and Epiphanius say the Jerusalem church fled to Pella before the siege.
Source: Eusebius, Church History Book 3 (NPNF trans., PD)
c. c. 100 – c. 400
textattested
Jewish-Christian gospels (Hebrews, Nazoraeans, Ebionites)
Several gospels used by Jewish Jesus-followers survive only in quotations by church fathers. Jerome says Nazoraeans at Beroea (Aleppo) showed him a Hebrew or Aramaic gospel, and Epiphanius quotes an Ebionite gospel that omitted the virgin birth.
Source: Jerome, De viris illustribus (NPNF trans., PD)
c. c. 100 – c. 400
ideaattested
Docetism: Christ only 'seemed' to suffer
Docetism is the claim that Christ's body or suffering was only an appearance. Ignatius of Antioch was already arguing against it around 110. Versions of the idea ran through several Gnostic schools, which matters later because Q 4:157 says the crucifixion was 'made to appear so to them'.
Source: Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans (ANF trans., PD)
c. c. 130 – c. 180
textattested
Basilides' substitution teaching, as reported by Irenaeus
Irenaeus (Against Heresies 1.24.4, c. 180) says the Alexandrian teacher Basilides taught that Simon of Cyrene was crucified in Jesus' place while Jesus stood by laughing. It is the earliest clear statement that someone else died on the cross, which makes it the classic comparison for later Muslim 'substitution' readings of Q 4:157.
Source: Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.24 (ANF trans., public domain) — hostile source
c. c. 150 – c. 350
textattested
Second Treatise of the Great Seth (NHC VII,2)
A Gnostic text in which the Savior says others — including Simon — bore the cross while he looked on from above, laughing at the error of those who thought they had killed him. It survives in Coptic in a codex buried near Nag Hammadi in the 4th century.
Source: Second Treatise of the Great Seth, NHC VII,2 (Bullard & Gibbons trans.; copyrighted — link only)
c. c. 150 – c. 350
textattested
Apocalypse of Peter (Coptic, NHC VII,3)
In this Gnostic revelation, Peter sees one figure being nailed to the cross while the 'living Jesus' laughs above it. The text separates the true Savior from the body that suffers — a view that later comparisons with Q 4:157 often cite.
Source: Apocalypse of Peter, NHC VII,3 (Brashler & Bullard trans.; copyrighted — link only)
c. c. 150 – c. 200
textattested
Protevangelium of James
A 2nd-century account of Mary's own miraculous birth to Joachim and Anna, her upbringing in the Temple fed by angels, and the drawing of lots to choose her guardian. Sura 3 also has Mary dedicated before birth, fed miraculously in a sanctuary, and lots cast over who would care for her (Q 3:35–37, 3:44).
Source: Protevangelium of James (ANF trans., PD)
c. c. 150 – c. 200
textattested
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
A collection of childhood miracle stories about Jesus, including one where he shapes birds from clay and brings them to life. The Qur'an twice has Jesus make clay birds that fly 'by God's permission' (Q 3:49, 5:110). Syriac, Ethiopic and later Arabic versions show how widely the stories spread in the East.
Source: Infancy Gospel of Thomas (ANF trans., PD)
c. c. 170 – c. 450
textattested
Tatian's Diatessaron (single harmonized gospel)
Tatian, a Syrian student of Justin, wove the four gospels into one continuous story around 170. In Syriac churches it was the standard gospel until bishops such as Rabbula of Edessa and Theodoret replaced it with the separate gospels in the 5th century. The Qur'an speaks of 'the Gospel' (al-injil) in the singular.
Source: Tatian, Diatessaron (Arabic version, ANF vol. 9 trans. Hill/Hogg, PD)
c. c. 220 – c. 380
textattested
Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions
A Syrian novel about Peter and Clement that builds on Jewish-Christian sources. It teaches a 'True Prophet' who appears again and again from Adam to Jesus, honors James, and plays down Paul. That model of prophecy is often compared with the Qur'an's series of prophets confirming one message.
Source: Clementine Homilies (ANF vol. 8, PD)
c. c. 230 – c. 400
textattested
Didascalia Apostolorum
A 3rd-century Syrian church order that keeps some biblical purity and food rules for Gentile believers while rejecting others as a later 'second legislation'. Zellentin argues the Qur'an's law on food, purity and women follows this kind of Jewish-Christian legal culture, which reached Arabia in revised forms.
Source: Didascalia Apostolorum (Connolly 1929 trans.)
c. c. 238 – c. 250
eventattested
Origen's disputes in Roman Arabia (Bostra)
Eusebius reports that Origen was called to Arabia twice: once to correct Bishop Beryllus of Bostra on Christ's pre-existence, and once to settle a group who taught that the soul dies and rises with the body. These are early examples of Christological arguments taking place in the province of Arabia.
Source: Eusebius, Church History Book 6 (NPNF trans., PD)
216 – 277
personscholarly hypothesis
Mani and the 'seal of the prophets'
Mani grew up in a Jewish-Christian baptist community (Elchasaites) in Mesopotamia and founded a world religion that presented him as the last in a line of messengers after Zoroaster, the Buddha and Jesus. Manichaean sources later called him the 'seal'. The Qur'an calls Muhammad 'the seal of the prophets' (Q 33:40), and scholars disagree about whether the two titles are connected.
Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'Mani'
325 – 381
eventattested
Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381): the Trinity defined
Nicaea declared the Son 'begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father' against Arius, and Constantinople in 381 extended the creed to the Holy Spirit. That creed became imperial orthodoxy. Its language of begetting is what the Qur'an later answers with 'He begets not, nor is He begotten' (Q 112:3).
Source: Wikipedia: First Council of Nicaea
c. c. 330 – c. 360
eventattested
Frumentius and King Ezana: Aksum becomes Christian
A Syrian captive, Frumentius, rose at the Aksumite court, was made bishop by Athanasius of Alexandria, and helped bring King Ezana to the Christian faith. Ezana's coins switch from the crescent-and-disc to the cross. This Christian kingdom across the Red Sea is the one that later hosts Muhammad's followers.
Source: Socrates Scholasticus, Church History Book 1 (NPNF trans., PD)
c. c. 306 – 373
personattested
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem is the greatest Syriac poet-theologian. He moved from Nisibis to Edessa when Rome gave Nisibis to Persia in 363. His hymns on paradise, judgment and Mary shaped the Syriac preaching that Arab Christians heard, and that is why scholars go back to him when comparing Qur'anic imagery.
Source: Wikipedia: Ephrem the Syrian
363 – 489
placeattested
School of the Persians at Edessa
Edessa's famous school trained Syriac-speaking clergy from both empires and translated the Greek theologian Theodore of Mopsuestia into Syriac. Emperor Zeno closed it in 489 because it was suspected of 'Nestorian' teaching, and its teachers moved across the border to Nisibis.
Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'Edessa'
c. c. 375 – c. 378
personattested
Queen Mavia's revolt and her Arab bishop Moses
Mavia, a queen of Arab federates, defeated Roman armies until Emperor Valens agreed to her terms, which included an orthodox desert monk named Moses as bishop for her people. Hers is an early recorded case of an Arab ruler choosing a Christian bishop, and of Arabs being pulled into the Arian–Nicene dispute.
Source: Socrates Scholasticus, Church History Book 4 (NPNF trans., PD)
c. c. 374 – c. 377
textattested
Epiphanius, Panarion ('Medicine Chest' against 80 heresies)
Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis catalogued 80 'heresies', including Nazoraeans, Ebionites, Elchasaites and an Arabian group of women who offered bread-cakes to Mary. It is a key source for groups whose own writings are lost, and it is consistently hostile to them.
Source: Wikipedia: Panarion
c. c. 375 – c. 377
ideascholarly hypothesis
Collyridians: Marian devotion in Arabia (per Epiphanius)
Epiphanius says women who came from Thrace into Arabia offered small cakes (kollyris) to Mary as if she were divine. Shoemaker argues the report is a hostile reading of genuine early Marian devotion of the kind described in the oldest Dormition narratives. Some modern discussions connect this group with Q 5:116, where Jesus is asked whether he told people to take him and his mother as gods.
Source: Stephen J. Shoemaker, 'Epiphanius of Salamis, the Kollyridians, and the Early Dormition Narratives', Journal of Early Christian Studies 16.3 (2008), 371–401
c. c. 380 – c. 525
eventattested
Himyar's official monotheism (Rahmanan)
Around 380 the kings of Himyar in Yemen stopped naming the old gods in their inscriptions and began invoking a single 'Rahmanan, Lord of Heaven'. The ruling elite leaned toward Judaism. This is the background to the Jewish–Christian conflict of 523 and to the Qur'an's use of al-Rahman as a name of God.
Source: Christian Julien Robin, 'Ḥimyar, Aksum, and Arabia Deserta in Late Antiquity: The Epigraphic Evidence', in G. Fisher (ed.), Arabs and Empires before Islam (2015)
c. c. 150 – c. 450
textattested
Peshitta (standard Syriac Bible)
The Peshitta became the common Bible of all Syriac churches by the 5th century, with separate gospels replacing the Diatessaron. Through Syriac clergy, its wording and the stories around it fed into the language Arab Christians used for scripture. Scholars look to it for the source of Qur'anic religious vocabulary.
Source: Wikipedia: Peshitta
410 – 424
eventattested
Synods of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (410, 424): the Church of the East organizes
Under Shah Yazdegerd I, the Persian bishops adopted the Nicene creed and set up a hierarchy headed by the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The lists name bishops for al-Hira and for Mashmahig (Bahrain) in the Gulf, and the synod of 424 declared independence from the western patriarchs. From then on, Christianity among the Arabs of Iraq and the Gulf ran through this Persian church.
Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'Christianity i. In Pre-Islamic Persia: Literary Sources'
c. c. 410 – 633
placeattested
al-Hira, Lakhmid capital and Arab Christian center
Al-Hira, on the edge of the desert near the later city of Kufa, was the seat of the Lakhmid Arab kings who were allied with Persia. From 410 it had bishops of the Church of the East, monasteries and Christian Arab families (the 'Ibad), and Arabic poetry and possibly early Arabic writing were cultivated there. Merchants from Mecca traded there.
Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'Hira'
c. c. 350 – 428
personattested
Theodore of Mopsuestia, 'the Interpreter'
Theodore was a biblical scholar of Antioch who stressed Christ's full humanity alongside his divinity. Translated into Syriac at Edessa, he became the authority of the Church of the East, while the imperial church condemned him in 553. The Qur'an's insistence on Jesus as a human 'servant' of God has been compared with this Antiochene emphasis.
Source: Wikipedia: Theodore of Mopsuestia
431 – 433
eventattested
Council of Ephesus (431): Mary as Theotokos
Cyril of Alexandria had Nestorius deposed for refusing to call Mary Theotokos ('God-bearer'), preferring 'Christ-bearer'. The council raised Marian devotion across the empire and permanently split off the Persian church, which rejected the outcome. The Qur'an's Mary, honored but fully human and the mother of a human prophet, enters a world shaped by this argument.
Source: Wikipedia: Council of Ephesus
c. c. 386 – c. 451
personattested
Nestorius, deposed patriarch of Constantinople
Nestorius was a monk from Antioch who became patriarch in 428, was deposed in 431 and died in exile in Egypt. The Church of the East honored the theology of Theodore rather than Nestorius himself, but outsiders, including later Muslim writers, called that church 'Nestorian' (Nasatira).
Source: Wikipedia: Nestorius
c. c. 423 – 459
personattested
Simeon Stylites and the conversion of Arab pilgrims
Simeon lived on top of a pillar near Aleppo for decades. Theodoret, who knew him, describes crowds of 'Ishmaelites' (Arabs) coming to him, smashing their idols and accepting baptism. Holy men like him were one of the main ways the Christian message reached Arab tribes.
Source: Wikipedia: Simeon Stylites
451
eventattested
Council of Chalcedon (451): Christ 'in two natures'
Chalcedon defined Christ as one person in two natures. Much of Egypt, Syria, Armenia and Ethiopia rejected this as too close to Nestorius and became the 'Miaphysite' churches. By 600 Arabia's neighbors held three rival Christologies — Chalcedonian (Byzantine), Miaphysite (Ghassanid, Aksumite, Najrani) and Church of the East (Persian, Hira) — and the Qur'an treats Christian division as a sign of error (e.g., Q 19:37).
Source: Wikipedia: Council of Chalcedon
c. c. 456 – c. 800
placescholarly hypothesis
Church of the Kathisma ('Seat' of Mary) between Jerusalem and Bethlehem
An octagonal church was built around 456 over a rock where Mary was said to have rested on the way to Bethlehem. Local tradition linked the spot with a palm and a spring, and the Feast of the Theotokos was celebrated there. In the early Islamic period the building gained a mihrab, and scholars connect its traditions with Q 19:22–26, where Mary gives birth under a palm by a stream.
Source: Wikipedia: Kathisma Church
c. c. 450 – c. 600
textattested
Legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
In this legend, young Christians walled into a cave near Ephesus during the persecution under Decius wake up two centuries later under a Christian emperor, as proof of the resurrection. It spread quickly in Syriac (a homily by Jacob of Serugh) and Greek. Sura 18:9–26 tells the story of the 'Companions of the Cave' and adds commentary on arguments about how many they were and how long they slept.
Source: Sidney H. Griffith, 'Christian Lore and the Arabic Qur'an: The Companions of the Cave in Surat al-Kahf and in Syriac Christian Tradition', in G. S. Reynolds (ed.), The Qur'an in Its Historical Context (2008)
c. c. 451 – 521
personattested
Jacob of Serugh
Jacob was a Syriac bishop-poet whose hundreds of verse homilies were sung in churches across the Syriac world, including one on the Seven Sleepers. A Syriac poem on Alexander was later attributed to him, though it actually dates from about 630. Through this liturgical verse, biblical and legendary stories reached Arab congregations.
Source: Wikipedia: Jacob of Serugh
c. 489 – c. 650
placeattested
School of Nisibis
Teachers expelled from Edessa, led by Narsai and backed by Bishop Barsauma, re-founded the school at Nisibis on the Persian side of the border. Its statutes (496, 590) describe a disciplined community studying scripture, and it trained much of the clergy of the Church of the East, including clergy for Arab and Gulf congregations.
Source: Adam H. Becker, Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia (2006)
c. c. 399 – c. 502
personattested
Narsai, founder-teacher of the School of Nisibis
Narsai was a poet and exegete called the 'Harp of the Spirit'. He brought Theodore's interpretive tradition from Edessa to Nisibis. His verse homilies on creation, Christ and the last judgment were part of the East Syriac preaching heard at al-Hira and in the Gulf.
Source: Wikipedia: Narsai
512 – 568
textattested
Pre-Islamic Christian inscriptions in Arabic script (Zabad 512, Jabal Usays 528, Harran 568)
A trilingual church dedication at Zabad near Aleppo (512), a graffito at Jabal Usays (528) and a martyrium inscription at Harran in the Hawran (568) are among the earliest texts in the Arabic script. Two of them are explicitly Christian. They show Christian Arabs writing Arabic in the century before the Qur'an.
Source: Wikipedia: Zabad inscription
c. c. 517 – c. 525
personattested
Yusuf As'ar Yath'ar (Dhu Nuwas), Jewish king of Himyar
Yusuf took power in Himyar around 522, attacked Aksumite garrisons and Christian towns, and besieged Najran. His own inscriptions at Bir Hima record the campaign. Christian sources call him a persecutor, while later Arabic tradition remembers him as Dhu Nuwas.
Source: Wikipedia: Dhu Nuwas
523
eventattested
Martyrdom of the Christians of Najran
In 523 Yusuf's forces took Najran, the main Christian (Miaphysite) town of South Arabia, and killed many who refused to give up their faith, including the leader al-Harith (Arethas) and a noblewoman, Ruhayma. Letters about it reached Constantinople, Aksum and the Syriac world and set off an Aksumite invasion.
Source: Wikipedia: Martyrs of Najran
c. c. 525 – c. 535
textattested
Book of the Himyarites and the Letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham
Syriac Miaphysite texts written soon after 523 tell the Najran story as martyrology: Simeon's letter is an eyewitness-style report from al-Hira, where the Lakhmid king received news of the massacre. The fragmentary Book of the Himyarites was found in a damaged manuscript.
Source: Wikipedia: Book of the Himyarites
c. c. 525 – c. 540
personattested
Kaleb (Ella Asbeha) of Aksum invades Himyar
With Byzantine encouragement, the Christian Aksumite king Kaleb crossed the Red Sea in about 525, defeated Yusuf and put Christian rulers in Himyar. That brought South Arabia under Ethiopian Christian control for about 50 years.
Source: Wikipedia: Kaleb of Axum
c. c. 535 – c. 565
personattested
Abraha, Christian ruler of Yemen
Abraha was an Aksumite general who made himself king of Himyar. He repaired the Marib dam in 548 — his inscription opens by invoking 'Rahmanan and his Messiah and the Holy Spirit' and records a church service at Marib — and he campaigned into central Arabia in 552. Arabic tradition says he built a great church (al-Qalis) at Sanaa and marched on Mecca with an elephant.
Source: Wikipedia: Abraha
c. c. 550 – c. 750
placetraditional
al-Qalis, Abraha's cathedral at Sanaa
Arabic historians describe a magnificent church (al-Qalis, from Greek ekklesia) that Abraha built at Sanaa, intended to draw Arab pilgrims away from the Ka'ba. They say it was later dismantled under the Abbasids. The story ties Christian Yemen directly to the rivalry over pilgrimage to Mecca.
Source: Wikipedia: Al-Qalis Church
c. c. 552 – c. 570
eventtraditional
The 'Year of the Elephant': Abraha's march on Mecca (Q 105)
Islamic tradition says Abraha attacked Mecca with an elephant in the year Muhammad was born (conventionally 570) and was turned back by birds sent by God, the story told in Sura 105. Inscriptions show Abraha really did campaign in central Arabia in 552. The date and the link to Mecca are debated.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Fil (105)
c. c. 500 – 636
placeattested
Ghassanids: Christian Arab kings for Byzantium (al-Jabiya)
The Ghassanid clan of Jafna were Byzantium's Arab allies, and their center was at al-Jabiya in the Golan. Justinian made al-Harith ibn Jabala supreme phylarch in about 529. The Ghassanids were committed Miaphysites who sponsored bishops, monasteries and the cult of St Sergius, and Arabic poets visited their courts. Muslim tradition has Muhammad's envoys and early raids (Mu'ta 629) meeting them.
Source: Wikipedia: Ghassanids
c. c. 500 – 578
personattested
Jacob Baradaeus and the Miaphysite church network
At the request of the Ghassanid al-Harith, Empress Theodora arranged in 542 for Jacob to be consecrated bishop of Edessa, and Theodore as bishop for the Arabs. Jacob travelled widely ordaining clergy and built the separate Miaphysite ('Jacobite') hierarchy that served Syria and Christian Arab tribes.
Source: Wikipedia: Jacob Baradaeus
c. c. 500 – c. 750
placeattested
Resafa (Sergiopolis), shrine of St Sergius
The desert shrine of the soldier-martyr Sergius drew Arab nomads from both empires. Persian Christian queens and kings sent gifts to it, and the Ghassanid al-Mundhir built an audience hall outside its walls. Fowden calls Sergius the 'patron saint of the Arabs', and the shrine shows Christianity becoming part of the culture of steppe Arabs.
Source: Elizabeth Key Fowden, The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran (1999)
c. c. 550 – c. 600
persontraditional
'Adi ibn Zayd, Christian poet of al-Hira
'Adi was an 'Ibadi Christian Arab who served as a secretary at the Persian court and as a poet-diplomat at al-Hira, and he was finally imprisoned and killed by al-Nu'man III. Verses attributed to him retell creation and the fall in Arabic, which shows biblical stories being told in Arabic poetry before Islam.
Source: Wikipedia: Adi ibn Zayd
c. c. 580 – 602
personattested
al-Nu'man III, last Lakhmid king, becomes Christian
Al-Nu'man was raised among Christians and was baptized into the Church of the East in the 590s. Khosrow II deposed and killed him around 602 and abolished the Lakhmid kingdom. That removed Persia's Arab buffer and led to the Arab victory at Dhu Qar a few years later.
Source: Wikipedia: Al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir
c. c. 550 – c. 600
persontraditional
Quss ibn Sa'ida, Christian preacher at the 'Ukaz fair
Arabic tradition remembers Quss of the Iyad tribe — sometimes called bishop of Najran — preaching about one God and the coming judgment from his camel at the 'Ukaz market fair, with the young Muhammad said to be in the audience. He became the model of pre-Islamic Arab eloquence.
Source: Wikipedia: Quss Ibn Sa'ida al-Iyadi
c. c. 410 – c. 700
placeattested
Beth Qatraye: Christianity on the Gulf coast
'Beth Qatraye' was the Syriac name for the Gulf coast from Qatar to Bahrain. It had Church of the East bishops from 410 (Mashmahig), and in the 7th century it produced writers such as Isaac of Nineveh (born c. 613) and Dadisho Qatraya. Churches such as the one at Jubail in eastern Arabia show a Christian presence near Arabia's markets.
Source: Wikipedia: Beth Qatraye
c. c. 590 – c. 750
placeattested
Gulf monasteries: Siniya Island and Sir Bani Yas
Excavations in the UAE have found monasteries of the Church of the East on Siniya Island (Umm al-Quwain), occupied from the late 6th or early 7th century to the mid-8th, and on Sir Bani Yas, from the second half of the 7th century. They show that the Gulf's Christian communities lasted through Muhammad's lifetime and well into Islamic rule.
Source: 'Excavations at a late antique to early Islamic pearling town and monastery on Siniya Island, Umm al-Quwain', Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies
c. c. 600 – c. 650
textattested
Palm-tree miracle (Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and Dormition texts)
In the Latin Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (ch. 20), a palm bends down to feed Mary on the flight to Egypt and a spring bursts from its roots. Older Eastern Dormition narratives tell the same miracle. Q 19:23–26 has a palm and a stream given to Mary — but at the birth itself — so it is a close but rearranged parallel.
Source: Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (ANF vol. 8, PD)
c. c. 500 – c. 1000
textattested
Syriac/Arabic Infancy Gospel (Jesus speaks in the cradle)
The Arabic Infancy Gospel, based on Syriac material, opens with the infant Jesus speaking from his cradle to announce that he is the Son of God sent by his Father. The Qur'an also has the newborn Jesus speak from the cradle, but to call himself 'God's servant' and a prophet (Q 19:29–33; 3:46).
Source: Arabic Gospel of the Infancy (ANF vol. 8, PD)
c. c. 629 – c. 636
textattested
Syriac Alexander Legend (Neṣḥānā d-Aleksandros)
This Syriac text makes Alexander a God-fearing king who travels to where the sun sets and rises and builds an iron-and-brass gate against Gog and Magog until the end of time. It serves as propaganda for Heraclius after his victory over Persia. Q 18:83–102 tells a closely parallel story of Dhu al-Qarnayn ('the two-horned one').
Source: E. A. Wallis Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, being the Syriac Version (1889, PD)
c. c. 570 – 632
personattested
Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah
Muhammad was born in Mecca, began preaching around 610 and moved to Medina in 622, where he led a growing community until his death, traditionally in 632. The Qur'an he proclaimed presents Jesus as a prophet and Messiah born of Mary, and he is the chain's end point.
Source: Wikipedia: Muhammad
c. c. 582
persontraditional
Bahira the monk meets the young Muhammad at Bostra
Ibn Ishaq tells how a Christian monk at Bostra recognized signs of prophethood in the boy Muhammad on a caravan journey with his uncle. A later Christian legend turned Bahira (Sergius) into Muhammad's teacher, so the same figure serves opposite purposes in Muslim and Christian tradition.
Source: Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, trans. A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (OUP 1955) — insider tradition, compiled c. 750, recension of Ibn Hisham d. 833
c. c. 600 – c. 683
eventtraditional
The icon of Mary and Jesus in the Ka'ba
Al-Azraqi's 9th-century history of Mecca says that when the Ka'ba's images were removed in 630, Muhammad put his hand over a painting of Mary with the child Jesus and ordered that it be spared. The image is said to have survived until the Ka'ba burned in 683.
Source: 'The Prophet Muhammad Safeguards Jesus and Mary's Icons in the Ka'ba' (on al-Azraqi, Akhbar Makka)
c. c. 570 – c. 632
ideatraditional
The hanifs: Abraham's 'pure monotheism'
The Qur'an calls Abraham a hanif, 'neither Jew nor Christian' (Q 3:67). Islamic tradition names a few Meccans before Islam who rejected idols and searched for Abraham's religion. Whether these hanifs were a real movement, and what the word meant, are long-running questions.
Source: Qur'an 3:67 (Abraham as hanif)
c. c. 550 – c. 605
persontraditional
Zayd ibn 'Amr ibn Nufayl
Tradition remembers Zayd as a Meccan who refused idol sacrifices, condemned the burying alive of infant girls, and travelled to Syria and Iraq questioning Jewish and Christian scholars before settling on 'the religion of Abraham'. He is said to have died shortly before Muhammad's call.
Source: Sahih al-Bukhari 3826–3828 (on Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl)
c. c. 550 – c. 610
persontraditional
Waraqa ibn Nawfal, Khadija's Christian cousin
In the hadith of the first revelation, Khadija takes the shaken Muhammad to her elderly cousin Waraqa, who had become a Christian, 'wrote the Gospel in Hebrew' (or Arabic, in other versions) and confirms that the same divine messenger who came to Moses has come to Muhammad. Waraqa dies soon afterwards.
Source: Sahih al-Bukhari 3 (Beginning of Revelation) — insider tradition, compiled 9th c.
c. c. 580 – c. 627
persontraditional
'Ubayd Allah ibn Jahsh, the hanif who became a Christian in Ethiopia
Tradition lists 'Ubayd Allah among the hanifs. He accepted Islam, emigrated to Ethiopia with his wife Umm Habiba, and there became a Christian and died. His widow later married Muhammad.
Source: Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, trans. A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (OUP 1955) — insider tradition, compiled c. 750, recension of Ibn Hisham d. 833
c. c. 560 – c. 631
persontraditional
Umayya ibn Abi al-Salt, monotheist poet of Ta'if
Poems attributed to Umayya retell biblical and apocalyptic themes — creation, the flood, judgment — in Arabic, and some resemble Qur'anic passages. Tradition says he hoped to be the awaited prophet himself and never accepted Muhammad.
Source: Wikipedia: Umayya ibn Abi as-Salt
c. c. 610
eventtraditional
First revelation on Mount Hira
Islamic tradition dates the first Qur'anic revelation to about 610, when Muhammad was praying alone in the cave of Hira above Mecca. Waraqa then interprets the experience in biblical terms as the coming of the 'namus' (law or messenger) who came to Moses.
Source: Sahih al-Bukhari 3 (Beginning of Revelation) — insider tradition, compiled 9th c.
c. c. 615 – c. 628
eventtraditional
First hijra: Muslim refugees at the court of the Negus
Under persecution in Mecca, Muhammad advised a group of his followers to seek refuge with the Christian king of Aksum, 'a land where no one is wronged.' Ibn Ishaq says they crossed from the Hijaz (later accounts often name the port of Shu'ayba and an arrival via Adulis) and were received at the Aksumite court. When Quraysh envoys, including 'Amr ibn al-'As, demanded their return, Ja'far ibn Abi Talib is said to have explained their religion and recited the opening of Surat Maryam. The king wept, declared that their faith and his came from the same source, and refused to surrender them. That courtroom scene is a literary set-piece of the sira; it should be presented as tradition, not as a stenographic report. The migrants' later association with the village of Negash, and the tombs shown there, belong to Ethiopian Muslim memory and are first attested in writing in the 16th century. The event is one of the earliest reported encounters of the new Muslim community with a Christian kingdom in Africa.
Source: The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah
c. c. 610 – c. 630
persontraditional
al-Najashi (Ashama ibn Abjar), the Christian Negus
Al-Najashi is not a personal name. It is the Arabic form of Ge'ez nəgus, 'king,' used in Islamic sources for the Christian Aksumite ruler who, according to Ibn Ishaq and later sira and hadith, gave shelter to Muhammad's followers around 615 and refused a Quraysh demand to hand them over. Arabic tradition names that king Aṣḥama (Ashama) ibn Abjar, with spelling variants (Ashama, Asmaha, Sahama, Ella-Seham, Asbeha). Islamic accounts add that he later accepted Islam in private and that, when he died in 630, Muhammad prayed the funeral prayer for him in absentia from Medina. Ethiopian royal lists do not preserve the name Ashama. Some lists instead mention a king Adǝrʿaz / Adriaz / Aderaz as Muhammad's contemporary; one later Ethiopian notice dates that reign 603-623, though sources disagree whether that span is given in Ethiopian or Julian years. Attempts to equate Ashama with Ǝllä Ṣäḥam fail on chronology (those Saham kings fall before Kaleb in the lists). Stuart Munro-Hay suggested, as a chronological possibility only, that the Najashi might be Armah, one of the last Aksumite kings to issue coins. That remains a hypothesis. Wolfgang Hahn's numismatic work identifies Armah with Alla Amidas on the coins; it is not, on the evidence opened this turn, a demonstration that Armah was or was not the king of the hijra story. No Aksumite coin or inscription opened this turn carries the Arabic name Ashama.
Source: Aṣḥam b. Abǧar (Asham b. Abjar)
602 – 628
eventattested
Byzantine–Sasanian war; Persians take Jerusalem (614); Q 30:2–5
Khosrow II's armies took Syria, Jerusalem (614, carrying off the True Cross) and Egypt, and they were defeated by Heraclius only in 627–628. Sura 30 opens: 'The Romans have been defeated in the nearest land, but after their defeat they will be victorious.' Monk Strategius' lament and the mass grave at Mamilla witness the fall of Jerusalem.
Source: Wikipedia: Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem
630
eventattested
Heraclius returns the True Cross to Jerusalem
In 630 Heraclius entered Jerusalem in triumph and restored the Cross, at the height of a Christian imperial mood that expected the end of the age. That same year Muhammad took Mecca and led the Tabuk expedition toward the Byzantine frontier. The Syriac Alexander Legend, which glorifies Heraclius, dates from these years.
Source: Wikipedia: Heraclius
c. c. 628 – c. 637
eventtraditional
The Muqawqis of Egypt and Maria the Copt
Islamic tradition says Muhammad wrote to the ruler of Egypt ('al-Muqawqis', often identified with Patriarch Cyrus), who sent gifts including Maria, a Coptic Christian woman who bore Muhammad's son Ibrahim. The story links Medina to Coptic Egypt.
Source: Wikipedia: Maria al-Qibtiyya
630 – 631
eventtraditional
Tabuk expedition: pacts with Christian Ayla and Dumat al-Jandal
Islamic tradition says that on the Tabuk campaign in 630, Christian and Jewish communities of the north — Yuhanna ibn Ru'ba of Ayla (Aqaba), and later the Christian ruler Ukaydir of Dumat al-Jandal — made treaties to pay tribute in return for protection. These are the first agreements between the Muslim community and Christians under its rule.
Source: Wikipedia: Expedition of Tabuk
631 – 632
eventtraditional
Christian delegation from Najran in Medina; the mubahala
Tradition says Christian leaders of Najran came to Medina in 631 and argued about Jesus. Muhammad proposed a mutual invocation of God's curse (mubahala, Q 3:61), the Christians declined, and a tribute treaty followed. Exegetes connect the opening of Sura 3 on Jesus and Mary with this visit.
Source: Wikipedia: Mubahala
c. c. 135 – c. 632
ideascholarly hypothesis
Did Jewish-Christian groups survive to shape the Qur'an?
One school argues that Torah-observant Jesus-groups (Ebionites, Nazoraeans, Elchasaites), or at least their ideas, survived in Syria and Arabia into the 7th century, which would explain the Qur'an's Jesus: Messiah and prophet, not divine, with purity and food laws. Others say the Qur'an's views can be explained from mainstream Syriac Christianity and its own polemics.
Source: Patricia Crone, 'Jewish Christianity and the Qur'an (Part One)', Journal of Near Eastern Studies 74.2 (2015), 225–253
c. c. 600 – c. 632
ideascholarly hypothesis
Why does the Qur'an call Christians 'Nasara'?
The Qur'an calls Christians al-Nasara rather than a word based on 'Christ'. De Blois argues the name echoes the Nazoraeans and points to a Jewish-Christian group. Griffith argues it reflects ordinary Syriac and Persian usage, where Christians were called 'Nasraye', and that the Qur'an uses it rhetorically for Christians in general.
Source: François de Blois, 'Naṣrānī (Ναζωραῖος) and ḥanīf (ἐθνικός): Studies on the Religious Vocabulary of Christianity and of Islam', BSOAS 65.1 (2002), 1–30
c. c. 400 – c. 700
ideascholarly hypothesis
Was there an Arabic Bible before Islam?
Arab Christians worshipped largely in Syriac or Greek. Griffith argues no written Arabic Bible existed before Islam and that Arabic translations began only in the 8th century, so the Qur'an's knowledge of biblical stories was oral and liturgical. Kashouh and others argue some Arabic gospel versions may go back to before Islam.
Source: Sidney H. Griffith, The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the 'People of the Book' in the Language of Islam (2013)
c. c. 600 – c. 632
ideascholarly hypothesis
Who were the Qur'an's 'Sabians'?
The Qur'an names the Sabians alongside Jews and Christians as people who will be rewarded (Q 2:62, 5:69, 22:17). Their identity was forgotten early. Proposals include Mandaeans, Manichaeans, Elchasaites and the star-worshippers of Harran.
Source: Qur'an 2:62 (Jews, Christians, Sabians)
c. c. 610 – c. 690
ideascholarly hypothesis
The 'Believers' movement: an open monotheist community?
Donner argues that Muhammad's early movement saw itself as a community of 'Believers' (mu'minun) that pious Jews and Christians could join. In this view a separate Islamic identity hardened only around the 690s under 'Abd al-Malik, which ties the chain's end directly to the Dome of the Rock.
Source: Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam (2010)
c. c. 612 – c. 622
textattested
Qur'an, Sura 19 (Maryam)
Sura 19 is traditionally dated to the Meccan period. It tells of John's birth to Zechariah, the annunciation to Mary, the birth under a palm, and the infant Jesus speaking: 'I am the servant of God; He has given me the Scripture and made me a prophet' (19:30). Verses 34–40 then deny that God takes a son.
Source: Qur'an, Surat Maryam (19)
c. c. 624 – c. 632
textattested
Qur'an, Sura 3 (Al 'Imran): Mary's family and Jesus
Sura 3 is a Medinan text. It tells of Mary's dedication by her mother, her upbringing in the sanctuary under Zechariah with miraculous food, the casting of lots for her care, and Jesus' miracles (the clay birds, healing, raising the dead). It also has the mubahala challenge to Christians (3:59–61), comparing Jesus to Adam.
Source: Qur'an, Surat Al Imran (3), Arabic with translations
c. c. 625 – c. 632
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 4:157–159: 'they did not kill him, nor crucify him'
Answering people it describes as boasting 'we killed the Messiah', Q 4:157 says 'they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them (shubbiha lahum)', and 4:158 says God raised him up. Most classical commentators read this as substitution, with someone else made to look like Jesus. Some modern scholars read it as denying that the killers were really in control, not denying the death.
Source: Qur'an 4:157–159, 4:171
c. c. 625 – c. 632
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 4:171 and 5:73: 'Do not say Three' / 'God is the third of three'
Q 4:171 calls Jesus 'the Messiah, son of Mary, messenger of God, His word cast into Mary and a spirit from Him' and warns 'do not say Three'. Q 5:73 condemns those who say 'God is the third of three'. Griffith argues the Arabic phrase echoes the Syriac title for Christ, 'the Treble One', making it a rhetorical jab at Christian formulas rather than a misunderstanding of the Trinity.
Source: Qur'an 4:157–159, 4:171
c. c. 628 – c. 632
textattested
Qur'an, Sura 5 (al-Ma'ida): the Table and 'me and my mother as two gods'
Sura 5 is late Medinan. The disciples ask Jesus for a table spread from heaven (5:112–115), which echoes Eucharistic and Gospel feeding stories. In 5:116 God asks Jesus whether he told people to take him and his mother as two gods besides God, and Jesus denies it.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Ma'ida (5)
c. c. 615 – c. 622
textattested
Qur'an, Sura 18 (al-Kahf): Companions of the Cave and Dhu al-Qarnayn
Sura 18 is traditionally Meccan. It tells of the sleepers in the cave (18:9–26) and of Dhu al-Qarnayn, who travels to the setting and rising sun and builds a barrier against Gog and Magog (18:83–102). Both stories closely parallel Syriac Christian legends. Tradition says Jews of Medina suggested these questions to test Muhammad.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Kahf (18)
c. c. 610 – c. 632
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 112 (al-Ikhlas): 'He begets not, nor is He begotten'
This short sura declares God One, Eternal (al-samad), neither begetting nor begotten, with none equal to Him. Neuwirth reads it as a deliberate counter-creed to the Nicene language of the Son 'begotten of the Father' and 'of one substance'. In 691 it is inscribed in the Dome of the Rock.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Ikhlas (112)
c. c. 625 – c. 750
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 61:6 ('a messenger after me named Ahmad') and the Paraclete
In Q 61:6 Jesus announces 'a messenger to come after me whose name is Ahmad'. Ibn Ishaq (c. 750) quotes John 15:23–16:1 in a Christian Palestinian Aramaic form, rendering the Paraclete as 'Munahhemana', and identifies it with Muhammad. The connection to the Johannine Paraclete is therefore attested by the 8th century.
Source: Qur'an 61:6
c. c. 610 – c. 622
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 85:4–10: 'the People of the Ditch'
Q 85 curses 'the companions of the ditch' who burned believers in a fire. Most classical exegetes identify this with the Najran massacre of 523. Silverstein argues the passage is best read against Daniel 3 and Near Eastern martyr traditions, while noting the Najran link.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Buruj (85)
c. c. 614 – c. 622
texttraditional
Qur'an 30:2–5 (al-Rum): 'The Romans have been defeated'
The opening of Sura 30 refers to a Roman (Byzantine) defeat 'in the nearest land' and predicts a reversal within a few years. Tradition dates it to the Persian conquests of Syria and Palestine (613–614), and Heraclius' recovery after 622 fulfils it in the traditional reading. It is the Qur'an's clearest reference to the great war that framed the end of the chain.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Rum (30):2–5
c. c. 626 – c. 632
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 33:40: Muhammad as 'seal of the prophets'
Q 33:40 says Muhammad 'is not the father of any of your men, but the messenger of God and the seal of the prophets'. Islamic tradition reads 'seal' as last. Comparisons with Mani's title, and with Christian uses of 'seal' for confirmation, are scholarly discussions.
Source: Qur'an 33:40

Epilogue

Later witnesses of the same argument, after 632.

568 – 645
textattested
Birmingham Qur'an folios (radiocarbon 568–645)
Two parchment leaves at the University of Birmingham, radiocarbon-dated with 95% probability to 568–645, carry parts of Suras 18–20 in Hijazi script, including Q 19:91–98 ('it is not fitting for the Merciful to take a son'). They are among the oldest physical witnesses to Qur'anic text about Jesus.
Source: 'Birmingham Qur'an manuscript dated among the oldest in the world' (press release, 22 July 2015)
691 – 692
placeattested
Dome of the Rock inscriptions (691/2)
'Abd al-Malik's shrine on the Temple Mount carries a long mosaic inscription addressed to Christians. It quotes Q 4:171–172 ('the Messiah Jesus son of Mary was only a messenger of God'), Q 19:33–36 and Sura 112. It is the first dated public statement of the Qur'anic Jesus, set up in Jesus' own city, and closes the chain as an epilogue.
Source: Estelle Whelan, 'Forgotten Witness: Evidence for the Early Codification of the Qur'an', JAOS 118.1 (1998), 1–14

Research atlas for early Christianity. Claims are tagged attested, traditional, or disputed. Copyrighted full texts, including CCEL editions, are not included.

Jesus to Muhammad

Where scholars disagree · Bridge on the map

Walk the chain

In date order. Each step links to its record, where the sources and the status note sit together.

c. c. 30 – c. 33
personattested
Jesus of Nazareth (crucifixion in Jerusalem)
The chain's starting point: a Galilean Jewish teacher executed under Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem around 30–33 CE. Every later dispute in this chain — over his nature, his mother, and the reality of his death — goes back to how his followers and opponents remembered these events.
Source: Wikipedia: Crucifixion of Jesus
c. c. 34 – c. 37
eventattested
Paul goes to 'Arabia' after his conversion
Paul says that after his conversion he went 'into Arabia' and then back to Damascus (Gal 1:17), and Acts lists 'Arabs' among the Pentecost crowd (Acts 2:11). It is the earliest written link between the Jesus movement and Arabia, then the Nabataean kingdom.
Source: Galatians 1 (KJV, PD)
c. c. 30 – 62
personattested
James the Just and the Jerusalem church
James, called the brother of Jesus, led the Jerusalem community of Torah-observant followers until he was executed in 62 CE. Later Jewish-Christian groups (Ebionites, Nazoraeans) and the Pseudo-Clementine writings treated him as their great authority.
Source: Josephus, Antiquities 20 (Whiston trans., PD)
66 – 135
eventtraditional
War with Rome and the dispersal of Jerusalem's Jesus-followers (incl. the Pella tradition)
Rome destroyed the Temple in 70 and refounded Jerusalem as a pagan city after 135. Jewish Jesus-followers scattered east of the Jordan and into Syria. Eusebius and Epiphanius say the Jerusalem church fled to Pella before the siege.
Source: Eusebius, Church History Book 3 (NPNF trans., PD)
c. c. 100 – c. 400
textattested
Jewish-Christian gospels (Hebrews, Nazoraeans, Ebionites)
Several gospels used by Jewish Jesus-followers survive only in quotations by church fathers. Jerome says Nazoraeans at Beroea (Aleppo) showed him a Hebrew or Aramaic gospel, and Epiphanius quotes an Ebionite gospel that omitted the virgin birth.
Source: Jerome, De viris illustribus (NPNF trans., PD)
c. c. 100 – c. 400
ideaattested
Docetism: Christ only 'seemed' to suffer
Docetism is the claim that Christ's body or suffering was only an appearance. Ignatius of Antioch was already arguing against it around 110. Versions of the idea ran through several Gnostic schools, which matters later because Q 4:157 says the crucifixion was 'made to appear so to them'.
Source: Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans (ANF trans., PD)
c. c. 130 – c. 180
textattested
Basilides' substitution teaching, as reported by Irenaeus
Irenaeus (Against Heresies 1.24.4, c. 180) says the Alexandrian teacher Basilides taught that Simon of Cyrene was crucified in Jesus' place while Jesus stood by laughing. It is the earliest clear statement that someone else died on the cross, which makes it the classic comparison for later Muslim 'substitution' readings of Q 4:157.
Source: Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.24 (ANF trans., public domain) — hostile source
c. c. 150 – c. 350
textattested
Second Treatise of the Great Seth (NHC VII,2)
A Gnostic text in which the Savior says others — including Simon — bore the cross while he looked on from above, laughing at the error of those who thought they had killed him. It survives in Coptic in a codex buried near Nag Hammadi in the 4th century.
Source: Second Treatise of the Great Seth, NHC VII,2 (Bullard & Gibbons trans.; copyrighted — link only)
c. c. 150 – c. 350
textattested
Apocalypse of Peter (Coptic, NHC VII,3)
In this Gnostic revelation, Peter sees one figure being nailed to the cross while the 'living Jesus' laughs above it. The text separates the true Savior from the body that suffers — a view that later comparisons with Q 4:157 often cite.
Source: Apocalypse of Peter, NHC VII,3 (Brashler & Bullard trans.; copyrighted — link only)
c. c. 150 – c. 200
textattested
Protevangelium of James
A 2nd-century account of Mary's own miraculous birth to Joachim and Anna, her upbringing in the Temple fed by angels, and the drawing of lots to choose her guardian. Sura 3 also has Mary dedicated before birth, fed miraculously in a sanctuary, and lots cast over who would care for her (Q 3:35–37, 3:44).
Source: Protevangelium of James (ANF trans., PD)
c. c. 150 – c. 200
textattested
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
A collection of childhood miracle stories about Jesus, including one where he shapes birds from clay and brings them to life. The Qur'an twice has Jesus make clay birds that fly 'by God's permission' (Q 3:49, 5:110). Syriac, Ethiopic and later Arabic versions show how widely the stories spread in the East.
Source: Infancy Gospel of Thomas (ANF trans., PD)
c. c. 170 – c. 450
textattested
Tatian's Diatessaron (single harmonized gospel)
Tatian, a Syrian student of Justin, wove the four gospels into one continuous story around 170. In Syriac churches it was the standard gospel until bishops such as Rabbula of Edessa and Theodoret replaced it with the separate gospels in the 5th century. The Qur'an speaks of 'the Gospel' (al-injil) in the singular.
Source: Tatian, Diatessaron (Arabic version, ANF vol. 9 trans. Hill/Hogg, PD)
c. c. 220 – c. 380
textattested
Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions
A Syrian novel about Peter and Clement that builds on Jewish-Christian sources. It teaches a 'True Prophet' who appears again and again from Adam to Jesus, honors James, and plays down Paul. That model of prophecy is often compared with the Qur'an's series of prophets confirming one message.
Source: Clementine Homilies (ANF vol. 8, PD)
c. c. 230 – c. 400
textattested
Didascalia Apostolorum
A 3rd-century Syrian church order that keeps some biblical purity and food rules for Gentile believers while rejecting others as a later 'second legislation'. Zellentin argues the Qur'an's law on food, purity and women follows this kind of Jewish-Christian legal culture, which reached Arabia in revised forms.
Source: Didascalia Apostolorum (Connolly 1929 trans.)
c. c. 238 – c. 250
eventattested
Origen's disputes in Roman Arabia (Bostra)
Eusebius reports that Origen was called to Arabia twice: once to correct Bishop Beryllus of Bostra on Christ's pre-existence, and once to settle a group who taught that the soul dies and rises with the body. These are early examples of Christological arguments taking place in the province of Arabia.
Source: Eusebius, Church History Book 6 (NPNF trans., PD)
216 – 277
personscholarly hypothesis
Mani and the 'seal of the prophets'
Mani grew up in a Jewish-Christian baptist community (Elchasaites) in Mesopotamia and founded a world religion that presented him as the last in a line of messengers after Zoroaster, the Buddha and Jesus. Manichaean sources later called him the 'seal'. The Qur'an calls Muhammad 'the seal of the prophets' (Q 33:40), and scholars disagree about whether the two titles are connected.
Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'Mani'
325 – 381
eventattested
Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381): the Trinity defined
Nicaea declared the Son 'begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father' against Arius, and Constantinople in 381 extended the creed to the Holy Spirit. That creed became imperial orthodoxy. Its language of begetting is what the Qur'an later answers with 'He begets not, nor is He begotten' (Q 112:3).
Source: Wikipedia: First Council of Nicaea
c. c. 330 – c. 360
eventattested
Frumentius and King Ezana: Aksum becomes Christian
A Syrian captive, Frumentius, rose at the Aksumite court, was made bishop by Athanasius of Alexandria, and helped bring King Ezana to the Christian faith. Ezana's coins switch from the crescent-and-disc to the cross. This Christian kingdom across the Red Sea is the one that later hosts Muhammad's followers.
Source: Socrates Scholasticus, Church History Book 1 (NPNF trans., PD)
c. c. 306 – 373
personattested
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem is the greatest Syriac poet-theologian. He moved from Nisibis to Edessa when Rome gave Nisibis to Persia in 363. His hymns on paradise, judgment and Mary shaped the Syriac preaching that Arab Christians heard, and that is why scholars go back to him when comparing Qur'anic imagery.
Source: Wikipedia: Ephrem the Syrian
363 – 489
placeattested
School of the Persians at Edessa
Edessa's famous school trained Syriac-speaking clergy from both empires and translated the Greek theologian Theodore of Mopsuestia into Syriac. Emperor Zeno closed it in 489 because it was suspected of 'Nestorian' teaching, and its teachers moved across the border to Nisibis.
Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'Edessa'
c. c. 375 – c. 378
personattested
Queen Mavia's revolt and her Arab bishop Moses
Mavia, a queen of Arab federates, defeated Roman armies until Emperor Valens agreed to her terms, which included an orthodox desert monk named Moses as bishop for her people. Hers is an early recorded case of an Arab ruler choosing a Christian bishop, and of Arabs being pulled into the Arian–Nicene dispute.
Source: Socrates Scholasticus, Church History Book 4 (NPNF trans., PD)
c. c. 374 – c. 377
textattested
Epiphanius, Panarion ('Medicine Chest' against 80 heresies)
Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis catalogued 80 'heresies', including Nazoraeans, Ebionites, Elchasaites and an Arabian group of women who offered bread-cakes to Mary. It is a key source for groups whose own writings are lost, and it is consistently hostile to them.
Source: Wikipedia: Panarion
c. c. 375 – c. 377
ideascholarly hypothesis
Collyridians: Marian devotion in Arabia (per Epiphanius)
Epiphanius says women who came from Thrace into Arabia offered small cakes (kollyris) to Mary as if she were divine. Shoemaker argues the report is a hostile reading of genuine early Marian devotion of the kind described in the oldest Dormition narratives. Some modern discussions connect this group with Q 5:116, where Jesus is asked whether he told people to take him and his mother as gods.
Source: Stephen J. Shoemaker, 'Epiphanius of Salamis, the Kollyridians, and the Early Dormition Narratives', Journal of Early Christian Studies 16.3 (2008), 371–401
c. c. 380 – c. 525
eventattested
Himyar's official monotheism (Rahmanan)
Around 380 the kings of Himyar in Yemen stopped naming the old gods in their inscriptions and began invoking a single 'Rahmanan, Lord of Heaven'. The ruling elite leaned toward Judaism. This is the background to the Jewish–Christian conflict of 523 and to the Qur'an's use of al-Rahman as a name of God.
Source: Christian Julien Robin, 'Ḥimyar, Aksum, and Arabia Deserta in Late Antiquity: The Epigraphic Evidence', in G. Fisher (ed.), Arabs and Empires before Islam (2015)
c. c. 150 – c. 450
textattested
Peshitta (standard Syriac Bible)
The Peshitta became the common Bible of all Syriac churches by the 5th century, with separate gospels replacing the Diatessaron. Through Syriac clergy, its wording and the stories around it fed into the language Arab Christians used for scripture. Scholars look to it for the source of Qur'anic religious vocabulary.
Source: Wikipedia: Peshitta
410 – 424
eventattested
Synods of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (410, 424): the Church of the East organizes
Under Shah Yazdegerd I, the Persian bishops adopted the Nicene creed and set up a hierarchy headed by the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The lists name bishops for al-Hira and for Mashmahig (Bahrain) in the Gulf, and the synod of 424 declared independence from the western patriarchs. From then on, Christianity among the Arabs of Iraq and the Gulf ran through this Persian church.
Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'Christianity i. In Pre-Islamic Persia: Literary Sources'
c. c. 410 – 633
placeattested
al-Hira, Lakhmid capital and Arab Christian center
Al-Hira, on the edge of the desert near the later city of Kufa, was the seat of the Lakhmid Arab kings who were allied with Persia. From 410 it had bishops of the Church of the East, monasteries and Christian Arab families (the 'Ibad), and Arabic poetry and possibly early Arabic writing were cultivated there. Merchants from Mecca traded there.
Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'Hira'
c. c. 350 – 428
personattested
Theodore of Mopsuestia, 'the Interpreter'
Theodore was a biblical scholar of Antioch who stressed Christ's full humanity alongside his divinity. Translated into Syriac at Edessa, he became the authority of the Church of the East, while the imperial church condemned him in 553. The Qur'an's insistence on Jesus as a human 'servant' of God has been compared with this Antiochene emphasis.
Source: Wikipedia: Theodore of Mopsuestia
431 – 433
eventattested
Council of Ephesus (431): Mary as Theotokos
Cyril of Alexandria had Nestorius deposed for refusing to call Mary Theotokos ('God-bearer'), preferring 'Christ-bearer'. The council raised Marian devotion across the empire and permanently split off the Persian church, which rejected the outcome. The Qur'an's Mary, honored but fully human and the mother of a human prophet, enters a world shaped by this argument.
Source: Wikipedia: Council of Ephesus
c. c. 386 – c. 451
personattested
Nestorius, deposed patriarch of Constantinople
Nestorius was a monk from Antioch who became patriarch in 428, was deposed in 431 and died in exile in Egypt. The Church of the East honored the theology of Theodore rather than Nestorius himself, but outsiders, including later Muslim writers, called that church 'Nestorian' (Nasatira).
Source: Wikipedia: Nestorius
c. c. 423 – 459
personattested
Simeon Stylites and the conversion of Arab pilgrims
Simeon lived on top of a pillar near Aleppo for decades. Theodoret, who knew him, describes crowds of 'Ishmaelites' (Arabs) coming to him, smashing their idols and accepting baptism. Holy men like him were one of the main ways the Christian message reached Arab tribes.
Source: Wikipedia: Simeon Stylites
451
eventattested
Council of Chalcedon (451): Christ 'in two natures'
Chalcedon defined Christ as one person in two natures. Much of Egypt, Syria, Armenia and Ethiopia rejected this as too close to Nestorius and became the 'Miaphysite' churches. By 600 Arabia's neighbors held three rival Christologies — Chalcedonian (Byzantine), Miaphysite (Ghassanid, Aksumite, Najrani) and Church of the East (Persian, Hira) — and the Qur'an treats Christian division as a sign of error (e.g., Q 19:37).
Source: Wikipedia: Council of Chalcedon
c. c. 456 – c. 800
placescholarly hypothesis
Church of the Kathisma ('Seat' of Mary) between Jerusalem and Bethlehem
An octagonal church was built around 456 over a rock where Mary was said to have rested on the way to Bethlehem. Local tradition linked the spot with a palm and a spring, and the Feast of the Theotokos was celebrated there. In the early Islamic period the building gained a mihrab, and scholars connect its traditions with Q 19:22–26, where Mary gives birth under a palm by a stream.
Source: Wikipedia: Kathisma Church
c. c. 450 – c. 600
textattested
Legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
In this legend, young Christians walled into a cave near Ephesus during the persecution under Decius wake up two centuries later under a Christian emperor, as proof of the resurrection. It spread quickly in Syriac (a homily by Jacob of Serugh) and Greek. Sura 18:9–26 tells the story of the 'Companions of the Cave' and adds commentary on arguments about how many they were and how long they slept.
Source: Sidney H. Griffith, 'Christian Lore and the Arabic Qur'an: The Companions of the Cave in Surat al-Kahf and in Syriac Christian Tradition', in G. S. Reynolds (ed.), The Qur'an in Its Historical Context (2008)
c. c. 451 – 521
personattested
Jacob of Serugh
Jacob was a Syriac bishop-poet whose hundreds of verse homilies were sung in churches across the Syriac world, including one on the Seven Sleepers. A Syriac poem on Alexander was later attributed to him, though it actually dates from about 630. Through this liturgical verse, biblical and legendary stories reached Arab congregations.
Source: Wikipedia: Jacob of Serugh
c. 489 – c. 650
placeattested
School of Nisibis
Teachers expelled from Edessa, led by Narsai and backed by Bishop Barsauma, re-founded the school at Nisibis on the Persian side of the border. Its statutes (496, 590) describe a disciplined community studying scripture, and it trained much of the clergy of the Church of the East, including clergy for Arab and Gulf congregations.
Source: Adam H. Becker, Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia (2006)
c. c. 399 – c. 502
personattested
Narsai, founder-teacher of the School of Nisibis
Narsai was a poet and exegete called the 'Harp of the Spirit'. He brought Theodore's interpretive tradition from Edessa to Nisibis. His verse homilies on creation, Christ and the last judgment were part of the East Syriac preaching heard at al-Hira and in the Gulf.
Source: Wikipedia: Narsai
512 – 568
textattested
Pre-Islamic Christian inscriptions in Arabic script (Zabad 512, Jabal Usays 528, Harran 568)
A trilingual church dedication at Zabad near Aleppo (512), a graffito at Jabal Usays (528) and a martyrium inscription at Harran in the Hawran (568) are among the earliest texts in the Arabic script. Two of them are explicitly Christian. They show Christian Arabs writing Arabic in the century before the Qur'an.
Source: Wikipedia: Zabad inscription
c. c. 517 – c. 525
personattested
Yusuf As'ar Yath'ar (Dhu Nuwas), Jewish king of Himyar
Yusuf took power in Himyar around 522, attacked Aksumite garrisons and Christian towns, and besieged Najran. His own inscriptions at Bir Hima record the campaign. Christian sources call him a persecutor, while later Arabic tradition remembers him as Dhu Nuwas.
Source: Wikipedia: Dhu Nuwas
523
eventattested
Martyrdom of the Christians of Najran
In 523 Yusuf's forces took Najran, the main Christian (Miaphysite) town of South Arabia, and killed many who refused to give up their faith, including the leader al-Harith (Arethas) and a noblewoman, Ruhayma. Letters about it reached Constantinople, Aksum and the Syriac world and set off an Aksumite invasion.
Source: Wikipedia: Martyrs of Najran
c. c. 525 – c. 535
textattested
Book of the Himyarites and the Letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham
Syriac Miaphysite texts written soon after 523 tell the Najran story as martyrology: Simeon's letter is an eyewitness-style report from al-Hira, where the Lakhmid king received news of the massacre. The fragmentary Book of the Himyarites was found in a damaged manuscript.
Source: Wikipedia: Book of the Himyarites
c. c. 525 – c. 540
personattested
Kaleb (Ella Asbeha) of Aksum invades Himyar
With Byzantine encouragement, the Christian Aksumite king Kaleb crossed the Red Sea in about 525, defeated Yusuf and put Christian rulers in Himyar. That brought South Arabia under Ethiopian Christian control for about 50 years.
Source: Wikipedia: Kaleb of Axum
c. c. 535 – c. 565
personattested
Abraha, Christian ruler of Yemen
Abraha was an Aksumite general who made himself king of Himyar. He repaired the Marib dam in 548 — his inscription opens by invoking 'Rahmanan and his Messiah and the Holy Spirit' and records a church service at Marib — and he campaigned into central Arabia in 552. Arabic tradition says he built a great church (al-Qalis) at Sanaa and marched on Mecca with an elephant.
Source: Wikipedia: Abraha
c. c. 550 – c. 750
placetraditional
al-Qalis, Abraha's cathedral at Sanaa
Arabic historians describe a magnificent church (al-Qalis, from Greek ekklesia) that Abraha built at Sanaa, intended to draw Arab pilgrims away from the Ka'ba. They say it was later dismantled under the Abbasids. The story ties Christian Yemen directly to the rivalry over pilgrimage to Mecca.
Source: Wikipedia: Al-Qalis Church
c. c. 552 – c. 570
eventtraditional
The 'Year of the Elephant': Abraha's march on Mecca (Q 105)
Islamic tradition says Abraha attacked Mecca with an elephant in the year Muhammad was born (conventionally 570) and was turned back by birds sent by God, the story told in Sura 105. Inscriptions show Abraha really did campaign in central Arabia in 552. The date and the link to Mecca are debated.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Fil (105)
c. c. 500 – 636
placeattested
Ghassanids: Christian Arab kings for Byzantium (al-Jabiya)
The Ghassanid clan of Jafna were Byzantium's Arab allies, and their center was at al-Jabiya in the Golan. Justinian made al-Harith ibn Jabala supreme phylarch in about 529. The Ghassanids were committed Miaphysites who sponsored bishops, monasteries and the cult of St Sergius, and Arabic poets visited their courts. Muslim tradition has Muhammad's envoys and early raids (Mu'ta 629) meeting them.
Source: Wikipedia: Ghassanids
c. c. 500 – 578
personattested
Jacob Baradaeus and the Miaphysite church network
At the request of the Ghassanid al-Harith, Empress Theodora arranged in 542 for Jacob to be consecrated bishop of Edessa, and Theodore as bishop for the Arabs. Jacob travelled widely ordaining clergy and built the separate Miaphysite ('Jacobite') hierarchy that served Syria and Christian Arab tribes.
Source: Wikipedia: Jacob Baradaeus
c. c. 500 – c. 750
placeattested
Resafa (Sergiopolis), shrine of St Sergius
The desert shrine of the soldier-martyr Sergius drew Arab nomads from both empires. Persian Christian queens and kings sent gifts to it, and the Ghassanid al-Mundhir built an audience hall outside its walls. Fowden calls Sergius the 'patron saint of the Arabs', and the shrine shows Christianity becoming part of the culture of steppe Arabs.
Source: Elizabeth Key Fowden, The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran (1999)
c. c. 550 – c. 600
persontraditional
'Adi ibn Zayd, Christian poet of al-Hira
'Adi was an 'Ibadi Christian Arab who served as a secretary at the Persian court and as a poet-diplomat at al-Hira, and he was finally imprisoned and killed by al-Nu'man III. Verses attributed to him retell creation and the fall in Arabic, which shows biblical stories being told in Arabic poetry before Islam.
Source: Wikipedia: Adi ibn Zayd
c. c. 580 – 602
personattested
al-Nu'man III, last Lakhmid king, becomes Christian
Al-Nu'man was raised among Christians and was baptized into the Church of the East in the 590s. Khosrow II deposed and killed him around 602 and abolished the Lakhmid kingdom. That removed Persia's Arab buffer and led to the Arab victory at Dhu Qar a few years later.
Source: Wikipedia: Al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir
c. c. 550 – c. 600
persontraditional
Quss ibn Sa'ida, Christian preacher at the 'Ukaz fair
Arabic tradition remembers Quss of the Iyad tribe — sometimes called bishop of Najran — preaching about one God and the coming judgment from his camel at the 'Ukaz market fair, with the young Muhammad said to be in the audience. He became the model of pre-Islamic Arab eloquence.
Source: Wikipedia: Quss Ibn Sa'ida al-Iyadi
c. c. 410 – c. 700
placeattested
Beth Qatraye: Christianity on the Gulf coast
'Beth Qatraye' was the Syriac name for the Gulf coast from Qatar to Bahrain. It had Church of the East bishops from 410 (Mashmahig), and in the 7th century it produced writers such as Isaac of Nineveh (born c. 613) and Dadisho Qatraya. Churches such as the one at Jubail in eastern Arabia show a Christian presence near Arabia's markets.
Source: Wikipedia: Beth Qatraye
c. c. 590 – c. 750
placeattested
Gulf monasteries: Siniya Island and Sir Bani Yas
Excavations in the UAE have found monasteries of the Church of the East on Siniya Island (Umm al-Quwain), occupied from the late 6th or early 7th century to the mid-8th, and on Sir Bani Yas, from the second half of the 7th century. They show that the Gulf's Christian communities lasted through Muhammad's lifetime and well into Islamic rule.
Source: 'Excavations at a late antique to early Islamic pearling town and monastery on Siniya Island, Umm al-Quwain', Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies
c. c. 600 – c. 650
textattested
Palm-tree miracle (Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and Dormition texts)
In the Latin Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (ch. 20), a palm bends down to feed Mary on the flight to Egypt and a spring bursts from its roots. Older Eastern Dormition narratives tell the same miracle. Q 19:23–26 has a palm and a stream given to Mary — but at the birth itself — so it is a close but rearranged parallel.
Source: Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (ANF vol. 8, PD)
c. c. 500 – c. 1000
textattested
Syriac/Arabic Infancy Gospel (Jesus speaks in the cradle)
The Arabic Infancy Gospel, based on Syriac material, opens with the infant Jesus speaking from his cradle to announce that he is the Son of God sent by his Father. The Qur'an also has the newborn Jesus speak from the cradle, but to call himself 'God's servant' and a prophet (Q 19:29–33; 3:46).
Source: Arabic Gospel of the Infancy (ANF vol. 8, PD)
c. c. 629 – c. 636
textattested
Syriac Alexander Legend (Neṣḥānā d-Aleksandros)
This Syriac text makes Alexander a God-fearing king who travels to where the sun sets and rises and builds an iron-and-brass gate against Gog and Magog until the end of time. It serves as propaganda for Heraclius after his victory over Persia. Q 18:83–102 tells a closely parallel story of Dhu al-Qarnayn ('the two-horned one').
Source: E. A. Wallis Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, being the Syriac Version (1889, PD)
c. c. 570 – 632
personattested
Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah
Muhammad was born in Mecca, began preaching around 610 and moved to Medina in 622, where he led a growing community until his death, traditionally in 632. The Qur'an he proclaimed presents Jesus as a prophet and Messiah born of Mary, and he is the chain's end point.
Source: Wikipedia: Muhammad
c. c. 582
persontraditional
Bahira the monk meets the young Muhammad at Bostra
Ibn Ishaq tells how a Christian monk at Bostra recognized signs of prophethood in the boy Muhammad on a caravan journey with his uncle. A later Christian legend turned Bahira (Sergius) into Muhammad's teacher, so the same figure serves opposite purposes in Muslim and Christian tradition.
Source: Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, trans. A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (OUP 1955) — insider tradition, compiled c. 750, recension of Ibn Hisham d. 833
c. c. 600 – c. 683
eventtraditional
The icon of Mary and Jesus in the Ka'ba
Al-Azraqi's 9th-century history of Mecca says that when the Ka'ba's images were removed in 630, Muhammad put his hand over a painting of Mary with the child Jesus and ordered that it be spared. The image is said to have survived until the Ka'ba burned in 683.
Source: 'The Prophet Muhammad Safeguards Jesus and Mary's Icons in the Ka'ba' (on al-Azraqi, Akhbar Makka)
c. c. 570 – c. 632
ideatraditional
The hanifs: Abraham's 'pure monotheism'
The Qur'an calls Abraham a hanif, 'neither Jew nor Christian' (Q 3:67). Islamic tradition names a few Meccans before Islam who rejected idols and searched for Abraham's religion. Whether these hanifs were a real movement, and what the word meant, are long-running questions.
Source: Qur'an 3:67 (Abraham as hanif)
c. c. 550 – c. 605
persontraditional
Zayd ibn 'Amr ibn Nufayl
Tradition remembers Zayd as a Meccan who refused idol sacrifices, condemned the burying alive of infant girls, and travelled to Syria and Iraq questioning Jewish and Christian scholars before settling on 'the religion of Abraham'. He is said to have died shortly before Muhammad's call.
Source: Sahih al-Bukhari 3826–3828 (on Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl)
c. c. 550 – c. 610
persontraditional
Waraqa ibn Nawfal, Khadija's Christian cousin
In the hadith of the first revelation, Khadija takes the shaken Muhammad to her elderly cousin Waraqa, who had become a Christian, 'wrote the Gospel in Hebrew' (or Arabic, in other versions) and confirms that the same divine messenger who came to Moses has come to Muhammad. Waraqa dies soon afterwards.
Source: Sahih al-Bukhari 3 (Beginning of Revelation) — insider tradition, compiled 9th c.
c. c. 580 – c. 627
persontraditional
'Ubayd Allah ibn Jahsh, the hanif who became a Christian in Ethiopia
Tradition lists 'Ubayd Allah among the hanifs. He accepted Islam, emigrated to Ethiopia with his wife Umm Habiba, and there became a Christian and died. His widow later married Muhammad.
Source: Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, trans. A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (OUP 1955) — insider tradition, compiled c. 750, recension of Ibn Hisham d. 833
c. c. 560 – c. 631
persontraditional
Umayya ibn Abi al-Salt, monotheist poet of Ta'if
Poems attributed to Umayya retell biblical and apocalyptic themes — creation, the flood, judgment — in Arabic, and some resemble Qur'anic passages. Tradition says he hoped to be the awaited prophet himself and never accepted Muhammad.
Source: Wikipedia: Umayya ibn Abi as-Salt
c. c. 610
eventtraditional
First revelation on Mount Hira
Islamic tradition dates the first Qur'anic revelation to about 610, when Muhammad was praying alone in the cave of Hira above Mecca. Waraqa then interprets the experience in biblical terms as the coming of the 'namus' (law or messenger) who came to Moses.
Source: Sahih al-Bukhari 3 (Beginning of Revelation) — insider tradition, compiled 9th c.
c. c. 615 – c. 628
eventtraditional
First hijra: Muslim refugees at the court of the Negus
Under persecution in Mecca, Muhammad advised a group of his followers to seek refuge with the Christian king of Aksum, 'a land where no one is wronged.' Ibn Ishaq says they crossed from the Hijaz (later accounts often name the port of Shu'ayba and an arrival via Adulis) and were received at the Aksumite court. When Quraysh envoys, including 'Amr ibn al-'As, demanded their return, Ja'far ibn Abi Talib is said to have explained their religion and recited the opening of Surat Maryam. The king wept, declared that their faith and his came from the same source, and refused to surrender them. That courtroom scene is a literary set-piece of the sira; it should be presented as tradition, not as a stenographic report. The migrants' later association with the village of Negash, and the tombs shown there, belong to Ethiopian Muslim memory and are first attested in writing in the 16th century. The event is one of the earliest reported encounters of the new Muslim community with a Christian kingdom in Africa.
Source: The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah
c. c. 610 – c. 630
persontraditional
al-Najashi (Ashama ibn Abjar), the Christian Negus
Al-Najashi is not a personal name. It is the Arabic form of Ge'ez nəgus, 'king,' used in Islamic sources for the Christian Aksumite ruler who, according to Ibn Ishaq and later sira and hadith, gave shelter to Muhammad's followers around 615 and refused a Quraysh demand to hand them over. Arabic tradition names that king Aṣḥama (Ashama) ibn Abjar, with spelling variants (Ashama, Asmaha, Sahama, Ella-Seham, Asbeha). Islamic accounts add that he later accepted Islam in private and that, when he died in 630, Muhammad prayed the funeral prayer for him in absentia from Medina. Ethiopian royal lists do not preserve the name Ashama. Some lists instead mention a king Adǝrʿaz / Adriaz / Aderaz as Muhammad's contemporary; one later Ethiopian notice dates that reign 603-623, though sources disagree whether that span is given in Ethiopian or Julian years. Attempts to equate Ashama with Ǝllä Ṣäḥam fail on chronology (those Saham kings fall before Kaleb in the lists). Stuart Munro-Hay suggested, as a chronological possibility only, that the Najashi might be Armah, one of the last Aksumite kings to issue coins. That remains a hypothesis. Wolfgang Hahn's numismatic work identifies Armah with Alla Amidas on the coins; it is not, on the evidence opened this turn, a demonstration that Armah was or was not the king of the hijra story. No Aksumite coin or inscription opened this turn carries the Arabic name Ashama.
Source: Aṣḥam b. Abǧar (Asham b. Abjar)
602 – 628
eventattested
Byzantine–Sasanian war; Persians take Jerusalem (614); Q 30:2–5
Khosrow II's armies took Syria, Jerusalem (614, carrying off the True Cross) and Egypt, and they were defeated by Heraclius only in 627–628. Sura 30 opens: 'The Romans have been defeated in the nearest land, but after their defeat they will be victorious.' Monk Strategius' lament and the mass grave at Mamilla witness the fall of Jerusalem.
Source: Wikipedia: Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem
630
eventattested
Heraclius returns the True Cross to Jerusalem
In 630 Heraclius entered Jerusalem in triumph and restored the Cross, at the height of a Christian imperial mood that expected the end of the age. That same year Muhammad took Mecca and led the Tabuk expedition toward the Byzantine frontier. The Syriac Alexander Legend, which glorifies Heraclius, dates from these years.
Source: Wikipedia: Heraclius
c. c. 628 – c. 637
eventtraditional
The Muqawqis of Egypt and Maria the Copt
Islamic tradition says Muhammad wrote to the ruler of Egypt ('al-Muqawqis', often identified with Patriarch Cyrus), who sent gifts including Maria, a Coptic Christian woman who bore Muhammad's son Ibrahim. The story links Medina to Coptic Egypt.
Source: Wikipedia: Maria al-Qibtiyya
630 – 631
eventtraditional
Tabuk expedition: pacts with Christian Ayla and Dumat al-Jandal
Islamic tradition says that on the Tabuk campaign in 630, Christian and Jewish communities of the north — Yuhanna ibn Ru'ba of Ayla (Aqaba), and later the Christian ruler Ukaydir of Dumat al-Jandal — made treaties to pay tribute in return for protection. These are the first agreements between the Muslim community and Christians under its rule.
Source: Wikipedia: Expedition of Tabuk
631 – 632
eventtraditional
Christian delegation from Najran in Medina; the mubahala
Tradition says Christian leaders of Najran came to Medina in 631 and argued about Jesus. Muhammad proposed a mutual invocation of God's curse (mubahala, Q 3:61), the Christians declined, and a tribute treaty followed. Exegetes connect the opening of Sura 3 on Jesus and Mary with this visit.
Source: Wikipedia: Mubahala
c. c. 135 – c. 632
ideascholarly hypothesis
Did Jewish-Christian groups survive to shape the Qur'an?
One school argues that Torah-observant Jesus-groups (Ebionites, Nazoraeans, Elchasaites), or at least their ideas, survived in Syria and Arabia into the 7th century, which would explain the Qur'an's Jesus: Messiah and prophet, not divine, with purity and food laws. Others say the Qur'an's views can be explained from mainstream Syriac Christianity and its own polemics.
Source: Patricia Crone, 'Jewish Christianity and the Qur'an (Part One)', Journal of Near Eastern Studies 74.2 (2015), 225–253
c. c. 600 – c. 632
ideascholarly hypothesis
Why does the Qur'an call Christians 'Nasara'?
The Qur'an calls Christians al-Nasara rather than a word based on 'Christ'. De Blois argues the name echoes the Nazoraeans and points to a Jewish-Christian group. Griffith argues it reflects ordinary Syriac and Persian usage, where Christians were called 'Nasraye', and that the Qur'an uses it rhetorically for Christians in general.
Source: François de Blois, 'Naṣrānī (Ναζωραῖος) and ḥanīf (ἐθνικός): Studies on the Religious Vocabulary of Christianity and of Islam', BSOAS 65.1 (2002), 1–30
c. c. 400 – c. 700
ideascholarly hypothesis
Was there an Arabic Bible before Islam?
Arab Christians worshipped largely in Syriac or Greek. Griffith argues no written Arabic Bible existed before Islam and that Arabic translations began only in the 8th century, so the Qur'an's knowledge of biblical stories was oral and liturgical. Kashouh and others argue some Arabic gospel versions may go back to before Islam.
Source: Sidney H. Griffith, The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the 'People of the Book' in the Language of Islam (2013)
c. c. 600 – c. 632
ideascholarly hypothesis
Who were the Qur'an's 'Sabians'?
The Qur'an names the Sabians alongside Jews and Christians as people who will be rewarded (Q 2:62, 5:69, 22:17). Their identity was forgotten early. Proposals include Mandaeans, Manichaeans, Elchasaites and the star-worshippers of Harran.
Source: Qur'an 2:62 (Jews, Christians, Sabians)
c. c. 610 – c. 690
ideascholarly hypothesis
The 'Believers' movement: an open monotheist community?
Donner argues that Muhammad's early movement saw itself as a community of 'Believers' (mu'minun) that pious Jews and Christians could join. In this view a separate Islamic identity hardened only around the 690s under 'Abd al-Malik, which ties the chain's end directly to the Dome of the Rock.
Source: Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam (2010)
c. c. 612 – c. 622
textattested
Qur'an, Sura 19 (Maryam)
Sura 19 is traditionally dated to the Meccan period. It tells of John's birth to Zechariah, the annunciation to Mary, the birth under a palm, and the infant Jesus speaking: 'I am the servant of God; He has given me the Scripture and made me a prophet' (19:30). Verses 34–40 then deny that God takes a son.
Source: Qur'an, Surat Maryam (19)
c. c. 624 – c. 632
textattested
Qur'an, Sura 3 (Al 'Imran): Mary's family and Jesus
Sura 3 is a Medinan text. It tells of Mary's dedication by her mother, her upbringing in the sanctuary under Zechariah with miraculous food, the casting of lots for her care, and Jesus' miracles (the clay birds, healing, raising the dead). It also has the mubahala challenge to Christians (3:59–61), comparing Jesus to Adam.
Source: Qur'an, Surat Al Imran (3), Arabic with translations
c. c. 625 – c. 632
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 4:157–159: 'they did not kill him, nor crucify him'
Answering people it describes as boasting 'we killed the Messiah', Q 4:157 says 'they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them (shubbiha lahum)', and 4:158 says God raised him up. Most classical commentators read this as substitution, with someone else made to look like Jesus. Some modern scholars read it as denying that the killers were really in control, not denying the death.
Source: Qur'an 4:157–159, 4:171
c. c. 625 – c. 632
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 4:171 and 5:73: 'Do not say Three' / 'God is the third of three'
Q 4:171 calls Jesus 'the Messiah, son of Mary, messenger of God, His word cast into Mary and a spirit from Him' and warns 'do not say Three'. Q 5:73 condemns those who say 'God is the third of three'. Griffith argues the Arabic phrase echoes the Syriac title for Christ, 'the Treble One', making it a rhetorical jab at Christian formulas rather than a misunderstanding of the Trinity.
Source: Qur'an 4:157–159, 4:171
c. c. 628 – c. 632
textattested
Qur'an, Sura 5 (al-Ma'ida): the Table and 'me and my mother as two gods'
Sura 5 is late Medinan. The disciples ask Jesus for a table spread from heaven (5:112–115), which echoes Eucharistic and Gospel feeding stories. In 5:116 God asks Jesus whether he told people to take him and his mother as two gods besides God, and Jesus denies it.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Ma'ida (5)
c. c. 615 – c. 622
textattested
Qur'an, Sura 18 (al-Kahf): Companions of the Cave and Dhu al-Qarnayn
Sura 18 is traditionally Meccan. It tells of the sleepers in the cave (18:9–26) and of Dhu al-Qarnayn, who travels to the setting and rising sun and builds a barrier against Gog and Magog (18:83–102). Both stories closely parallel Syriac Christian legends. Tradition says Jews of Medina suggested these questions to test Muhammad.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Kahf (18)
c. c. 610 – c. 632
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 112 (al-Ikhlas): 'He begets not, nor is He begotten'
This short sura declares God One, Eternal (al-samad), neither begetting nor begotten, with none equal to Him. Neuwirth reads it as a deliberate counter-creed to the Nicene language of the Son 'begotten of the Father' and 'of one substance'. In 691 it is inscribed in the Dome of the Rock.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Ikhlas (112)
c. c. 625 – c. 750
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 61:6 ('a messenger after me named Ahmad') and the Paraclete
In Q 61:6 Jesus announces 'a messenger to come after me whose name is Ahmad'. Ibn Ishaq (c. 750) quotes John 15:23–16:1 in a Christian Palestinian Aramaic form, rendering the Paraclete as 'Munahhemana', and identifies it with Muhammad. The connection to the Johannine Paraclete is therefore attested by the 8th century.
Source: Qur'an 61:6
c. c. 610 – c. 622
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 85:4–10: 'the People of the Ditch'
Q 85 curses 'the companions of the ditch' who burned believers in a fire. Most classical exegetes identify this with the Najran massacre of 523. Silverstein argues the passage is best read against Daniel 3 and Near Eastern martyr traditions, while noting the Najran link.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Buruj (85)
c. c. 614 – c. 622
texttraditional
Qur'an 30:2–5 (al-Rum): 'The Romans have been defeated'
The opening of Sura 30 refers to a Roman (Byzantine) defeat 'in the nearest land' and predicts a reversal within a few years. Tradition dates it to the Persian conquests of Syria and Palestine (613–614), and Heraclius' recovery after 622 fulfils it in the traditional reading. It is the Qur'an's clearest reference to the great war that framed the end of the chain.
Source: Qur'an, Surat al-Rum (30):2–5
c. c. 626 – c. 632
textscholarly hypothesis
Qur'an 33:40: Muhammad as 'seal of the prophets'
Q 33:40 says Muhammad 'is not the father of any of your men, but the messenger of God and the seal of the prophets'. Islamic tradition reads 'seal' as last. Comparisons with Mani's title, and with Christian uses of 'seal' for confirmation, are scholarly discussions.
Source: Qur'an 33:40

Epilogue

Later witnesses of the same argument, after 632.

568 – 645
textattested
Birmingham Qur'an folios (radiocarbon 568–645)
Two parchment leaves at the University of Birmingham, radiocarbon-dated with 95% probability to 568–645, carry parts of Suras 18–20 in Hijazi script, including Q 19:91–98 ('it is not fitting for the Merciful to take a son'). They are among the oldest physical witnesses to Qur'anic text about Jesus.
Source: 'Birmingham Qur'an manuscript dated among the oldest in the world' (press release, 22 July 2015)
691 – 692
placeattested
Dome of the Rock inscriptions (691/2)
'Abd al-Malik's shrine on the Temple Mount carries a long mosaic inscription addressed to Christians. It quotes Q 4:171–172 ('the Messiah Jesus son of Mary was only a messenger of God'), Q 19:33–36 and Sura 112. It is the first dated public statement of the Qur'anic Jesus, set up in Jesus' own city, and closes the chain as an epilogue.
Source: Estelle Whelan, 'Forgotten Witness: Evidence for the Early Codification of the Qur'an', JAOS 118.1 (1998), 1–14