The Convergence of Judaism and Islam. Religious, Scientific, and Cultural Dimensions

Polemic and Reality in the Medieval Story of Muhammad’s Jewish Companions r 85

19. Some other Jewish and Christians sages had this capacity for prognostication as
    well. Cf. Kister, Studies on the Emergence of Islam, 104–105.


20. Ahmad ibn Hajar Al- ̔Asqalānī, Al-’Isābah fī Tamyiz al-Sahābah, ed. Muham-
    mad al-Bajāwī (Cairo: Dār Nahdat Misr lil-tab ̔ wa-al-Nashr, 1970), 4:119, ll. 9–10. His
    respected place in Paradise was evident, as he was described as “the tenth of the first ten
    people there.”


21. An instructive example of his familiarity with such information is found in M. J.
    Kister and Menahem Kister, “The Jews in Arabia: Notes,” Tarbiz 48 (1979): 231–49 (He-
    brew), see 247 (citation of Mālik, Muwatt’a, 1:129–33).


22. Cf. the second section above, “The Jewish Companions of Muhammad,” between
    notes 7–9.


23. Nafar (in Arabic) is a party from three to ten men. Cf. Joseph G. Hava, Al-Faraid
    Arabic-English Dictionary (Beirut: Catholic Press, 1970), 787. On the number of ten Jew-
    ish sages, see the Byzantine and Jewish tales brought in the coming three chapters.


24. Ibn Hishām, Al-Sīrah al-nabawiyyah, 2:141–42 (with omissions). Only the third
    and fourth riddles are cited in full, because of their relevance to the discussion that fol-
    lows. See especially the excerpt from Theophanes’ Chronica in the next section.


25. As to the Dalā’il literature, see Al-Bayhaqī, Dalā’il al-nubuwah wa-Ma ̔rifat Ahwāl
    Sāhib al-sharī ̔ah, 7 vols., ed. ̔Abd al-Mu ̔tī Qal ̔ajī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al- ̔Ilmiyyah,
    1405h./1985); Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible (Leiden:
    E. J. Brill, 1996), 35–36, 148–50; Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad Is His Messenger
    (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 32–33.


26. Yehuda Even Shmu’el (Kaufmann), Midrashim of Redemption (Tel-Aviv: Dvir
    Publishing House and Mosad Bialik, 1954), 171 (Hebrew). The most common name,
    among others, given to this apocalyptic vision by its editors is “The Secrets of Rabbi
    Shimon Bar Yohāi,” as the apocalyptic visions were ascribed to the distinguished rabbi
    of the second century. See the critical edition of Even Shmu’el in his Midreshey Ge’ūlah,
    169–74.


27. Many scholars assumed that it had been composed in this early stage of Islamic
    history. Cf. Heinrich Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, 3d ed., vol. 5 (Leipzig: Oskar Leiner,
    1860), 406–10; Even Shmu’el, Midreshey Ge’ūlah, 169–74; Bernard Lewis, “An Apocalyptic
    Vision of Islamic History,” BSOAS 13 (1949/51): 308–38, see 309, 323–31.


28. On the marriage of Safiyya to Muhammad, see Ibn Hishām, Al-Sīrah al-nabawi-
    yyah, 3:271, 278, 4:219; Al-Wāqidī, 2:707–709; Julius Wellhausen, Muhammed in Medina
    das ist Vakidi’s Kitab al-Maghazī (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1882), 36, 172, 190. On Huyayy ibn
    Akhtab, cf. Ibn Hishām, Al-Sīrah al-nabawiyyah, 2:123.


29. Theophanes, Chronica, 342. This English version is based on the translation from
    the Greek made by Schwabé. Cf. Moshe Schwabé, “About the Ten Jewish Friends of Mu-
    hammad,” Tarbiz 2 (1931): 74–89 (Hebrew), see 75n1.


30. In Ibn Hishām (Al-Sīrah al-nabawiyyah, 2:129) this chapter was entitled “Who
    Were the Jewish Sages That Converted Hypocritically to Islam?” The Sīra also states
    explicitly that the sages feared Muhammad.


31. Cf. section 3 above: “A Collective Portrait,” note 23. The number of sages is also
    attested to in the hadīth of Muhammad ibn Ismā ̔īl Al-Bukhārī (Al-Jāmi ̔ al-Sahīh, ed.