94 r Yehoshua Frenkel
community from other religious denominations was implemented.^25 This
led to the articulation of the Islamic creed (kalima or shahada) and to
a redefinition of the term believers (mu’aminun).^26 If in the Quran this
term could apply to the pietistic monotheists in general, from the Abbasid
period onwards the term referred solely to pious Muslims.^27 Coins and
inscriptions indicate that along with this development, the name of the
prophet Muhammad became visible.^28 It is used as a confirmation of Islam
as the sole true religion and its prophet as the last messenger.^29 To bear
witness that Muhammad is the seal of the prophets (khatam al-nabiyyin/
khatim al-anbiya) became one of the principal tenets of Islam.^30 Recalling
the Islamic vision of the history of God’s revelation to humanity, it is not
surprising that Muslim authors claimed Islam to be the correct version
of the true religion that past messengers had taught (inna al-dina ̔inda
allahi al-islahmu).^31
Muslim theologians and jurists were active simultaneously in articu-
lating the Islamic worldview and belief principles and in collecting infor-
mation on the inhabitants of the Near East.^32 Some of these works reflect
familiarity with the pre-Islamic history of the indigenous communities of
the Fertile Crescent as well as with their sacred scriptures.^33 This is evident
as well from non-historical genres of medieval Arabic literature such as
catalogs of faiths and religions (milal wa-nihal). From collections of an-
ecdotes it is visible that the narratives of the People of the Book were not
terra incognita.^34 These Arabic texts seem to reveal a certain communica-
tion between their writers and the non-Muslim population.^35 Yet history
and heresiography were used not only to narrate the past or describe the
present. Muslim authors employed these branches of knowledge as tools
to establish the hegemony of Islam and to refute the worldview of non-
Islamic religions.^36
It seems sound to argue that these writings reflect both the problems
encountered by the caliphate in the vast territories under its control and
the efforts made by Muslim jurists to legitimize the political and social
order that they aspired to enforce in the Abode of Islam.^37 Moreover, those
Muslim scholars who were troubled by questions regarding the relation-
ships between Muslim and non-Muslim may have manipulated pseudo-
historical accounts and used them in order to support their political and
social agenda.^38