“The Abomination of Desolation”: Eastern Christian Apocalyptic Literature and the Symbolic Construction of Islam 1

Abstract

time-frame, the geographical location, the common language and culture and perhaps more importantly the common literary genre and agenda allows for the study of these texts as a specific body of literature.The shared literary discourse pertains to a long Jewish and Christian apocalyptic tradition evidenced in pre-Islamic apocalyptic texts, which serve as inspiration sources and literary models for the Christian literary production after the emergence of Islam.The texts in view share a common literary background and demonstrate certain literary and possibly also textual interdependence between them.Significantly, they are related to pre-Islamic apocalyptic texts, such as the Syriac Daniel Apocalypse, 6 the Syriac Testamentum Domini 7 and most importantly, the Syriac Alexander Legend 8 and the Syriac Song of Alexander. 9hristian apocalyptic literature, which specifically reacts to the emergence and rule of Islam develops into a specifically anti-Islamic sub-genre.This literature may be regarded as a special category of apocalyptic writing that emerges first in the Syrian cultural space and Syriac language but expands rapidly to other regions and languages.‚Anti-Islamic‛ apocalyptic texts also feature in Coptic, in Byzantine Greek, and Armenian but also soon in Arabic. 10Their popularity among Eastern Christians is attested at least until the tenth century. 11pocalyptic thinking permeates the literature of the time and is also documented in other literary genres, such as in contemporary homiletical and historiographical works.Significantly, Theophanes the Confessor in his Chronicle reports on the year AD 631/2: ‚At the same time an earthquake occurred in Palestine; and there appeared a sign in the heavens called dokites (δοκίτης) in the direction of the south, foreboding the Arab conquest.It remained for thirty days, moving from south to north, and was sword-shaped (ξιφοειδής)‛. 12ignificantly, this information is almost paralleled by pseudo-Ephraem in the Sermon on the End, who writes, applying biblical symbolism: ‚A sign will appear in the heavens, the one our Lord spoke of in His gospel (Matthew 24:30) (….) Rulers will quake and tremble; the forces arrayed by them will fall.The peoples of the earth will be terrified when they behold the sign set in the heavens‛. 13

Biblical Ishmaelites
Political and historical concerns of the Christian communities were generally expressed in the familiar and commonly understandable biblical language and terminology.Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem, Sermo V, 80. 14 Cf.John Lamoreaux: ‚The Christian authors, who first encountered the Muslims would not do so tabula rasa; rather they would bring to their first interpretation to Islam and its place in sacred history a whole The negative portrayal of the nomadic ‚sons of Ishmael‛ dominated the Christian literature of Late Antiquity and is later projected onto the Muslim Arabs.In this context, the Muslims are called 'the sons of Ishmael' (Ishmaelites) or the 'sons of Hagar' (Hagarenes), terms which become interchangeable in Christian literature.Indeed, Mohammed was soon identified as a ‚man from the sons of Ishmael‛, in several contemporary sources. 15he Apocalypse of John the Little explicitly links the Muslim rulers, with the prophecy spoken to Abraham by God in Genesis 17:20: ‚And every kingdom or people will be terrified at the report of this people (…) And twelve renowned kings shall rise up from that people according as it is written in the law when God talked with Abraham and said to him, 'Lo! Concerning Ishmael your son I have heard you, and twelve princes shall he beget along with many princesses'; and he, even he, is the people of the land of the South‛. 16oreover, Ishmael is typically described as the ‚wild ass of the desert‛ following the Syriac Peshitta text of Genesis 16:12, in which Ishmael is called ‚a wild ass‛. 17According to the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, the foraying Muslims are identified with ‚Ishmael, the wild ass of the desert, who will be sent with fierce anger against the whole earth: men, wild animals, domestic animals, and even trees and plants.It is to be a chastisement in which there will be no mercy‛. 18heir obvious backwardness according to the Christian sources implicitly discredits them from the Abrahamic promise.This understanding is consistent with the biblical exegetical approach, which viewed Ishmael as an illegitimate son, the son of the foreign slave girl, placed him outside the promises, outside commonly accepted social norms and even outside the ‚civilized‛ world. 19ccording to Sozomen, the Ishmaelites adopted the name ‚Saracens‛ in order to conceal their illegitimate descent from the slave Hagar.Due to their common ancestry from Abraham, they share several customs and rites with the Jews. 20Following this cultural stereotype, the Edessene Apocalypse, for example, recounts the oppression and the wrongdoings of the ‚Sons of Hagar‛.The title ‚Sons of Hagar‛ is loaded with pejorative connotations in the biblically minded authors and audience of these writings.Hagar was associated with foreignness, slavery, inferior social status and most importantly idolatry.
The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem, probably the earliest apocalypse to be written in the aftermath of the Islamic conquest, mentions that they keep the ‚covenant of Abraham‛. 21This specific reference may suggest Abrahamic associations. 22However, the ‚Abrahamic covenant‛ in this context most probably simply refers to the practice of circumcision that was observed by the Arabic tribes. 23

A People from the Desert
Ishmael and his descendants served as a prototype for desert nomads who were perceived as a threat to the settled people and ultimately to the civilised world. 24The collective memory ascribed to the Muslims traditional cultural stereotypes, which are reflected in the apocalyptic writings and beyond.The most central and most characteristic signifier of the Muslims was for their Christian contemporaries their connection with the desert, that inhospitable place, from where they come.
From the fourth century onwards, the Christian literature identifies the descendants of Ishmael, the ‚sons of Ishmael‛ with the so-called Saracens, the nomadic Arab tribes of the desert.Ishmael and his descendants were linked with the wilderness of the desert from a geographical as well as from a cultural perspective. 25Significantly, Jerome refers to the Saracens, ‚who wander with no fixed abode invade all the nations who border on the desert; and they are attacked by all‛. 26Jerome further describes in the Life of Saint Malchus, a monk of Nisibis, the Ishmaelites as riding horses and camels, donning long hair and headbands, half-naked, raiding in order to plunder and take captives.Their barbarism is underlined by their consumption of half-cooked meat and camel milk. 27 detailed report about the customs of the ‚Saracens‛ is attested in Ammianus Marcellinus, the fifth-century historian, who calls them ‚rapacious kites‛; ‚warriors of equal rank, half-nude, clad in dyed cloaks as far as the loins‛, ‚without fixed abodes or lands‛ … ‚always on the move.‛He, further, stresses the lack of agriculture among them.28 A negative perception of the nomadic Arab tribes as culturally inferior pervades the Christian literature in the centuries before the rise of Islam.29 Moreover, the Christian writers of the 4 th and 5 th centuries would stress the barbarous custom of alleged human sacrifices -mainly of comely youths and maidens -as practiced among the pre-Islamic Arabs in honour of astral deities.Already Eusebius describes how these polytheistic barbarians practice human sacrifice.The identification of the Ishmaelites with the desert and their fundamental antithesis to the ‚civilised‛ world is also stressed in several pre-Islamic Syriac texts.We find similar descriptions in the work of Isaac of Antioch in the mid of the 5 th century CE, about ‚the heathen king in our borders, the locusts planted in our lands; the son of Hagar, a ravening wolf, (that) makes raids in the midst of our region‛.31 Moreover, according to the same writer, the 'Arabaye have disturbed the land in the portion of it that they have seized ... Furious are the wild asses, children of Hagar, and they have laid waste both good and bad …‛.32 This brief survey of sources demonstrates the familiarity of the local population with the Arab nomads before the rise of Islam.Furthermore, it demonstrates the local negative perception of their customs and their presence in the vicinity of the ‚settled‛ world.The depiction of the fearful, uncivilised robbers that stubbornly prevails in these reports is consistent with the description of the early Muslims in the Christian apocalyptic literature of the same time.Accordingly, the earliest reactions to the Muslim invasions by the local population should be examined and evaluated in the context of the long-established negative perceptions (and possibly occasional negative experience) towards the Arab nomadic tribes.The realisation among the local Christians that the raids of the ‚ravening wolf‛ are not a temporary phenomenon but acquire the character of a permanent reign might have given rise to apocalyptic sentiments.
The signifier of the frightful desert follows the cultural description of the Arab Muslims throughout the Christian literature of the period.According to Pseudo-Sebeos' History: ‚He (i.e. the Lord) clearly indicates that the fire was kindled in the desert, by saying: 'You shall send nooses upon them, the wild beasts of the desert, who will drag them hither and thither across the earth'.(cf.Deut 23:24) Concerning this the prophet Daniel cried out: 'The fourth wild beast, fearsome and astonishing …' (Dan 7:7). 33And further: ‚… and in that direction (i.e. the south) the nations dwelling in the great desert who are the sons of Abraham born from Hagar and Kʿetura: Ismael, … etc. (…) from the great and fearsome desert where Movses and the sons of Israel dwelt, whom the prophet described: ‚Like a tempest it shall run from the south, coming from the desert, an awesome place‛ (cf.Is 21:1).That is the great and fearsome desert whence the tempest of those nations emerged in a storm and occupied all the land, trampled and smote it.So the saying was fulfilled: ‚The fourth beast, the fourth kingdom will stand on the earth, which surpassed in evil all kingdoms, which made the whole earth a desert‛ (Dan 7:23). 34he Muslim Arabs represented in the contemporary literature a non-urban culture par excellence.They were stereotypically described as the ‚threatening nomads‛, 'uncivilized' desert-dwellers; the ‚outsiders‛ to the civilisation of the settled communities.This view is explicitly expressed by Maximus the Confessor, who writes between the years 630 and 640 and despairs over the present evils now encompassing the civilized world.… To see a barbarious nation of the desert overrunning another land as if it were their own, to see civilization itself being ravaged by wild and untamed beasts whose form alone is human‛. 35imilarly, John bar Penkaye, writing in the late seventh century in North Mesopotamia, calls the Muslim Arabs the ‚barbarian people of the desert‛ -or the ‚barbarian kingdom of the sons of Hagar‛-‚a people that is not open to persuasion (cf.Is 65:2) which acknowledges no treaty or agreement, which affects no flattery or blandishment, whose comfort lies in blood that is shed without reason, whose pleasure is to dominate everyone, whose wish it is to take captives and to deport.Hatred and wrath is their food; they take no comfort in what they are offered‛. 36ollowing traditional imagery that understood the Ishmaelites as a people beyond the limits of the inhabited world, the apocalyptic literature of the period, draws a line between the ‚desert‛ of Yathrib and the civilised world.
Significantly, both Pseudo-Ephrem and Pseudo-Methodius begin their respective apocalyptic narratives about the time of the Muslims with those -nearly identical -words: ‚A people will emerge from the desert‛. 37Pseudo-Methodius stresses the antithesis between the desert and the civilisation (the inhabited world and the cultivated land) and the uncivilised Ishmaelites.Their barbarious customs underline their ‚primitive‛ nature.Accordingly: ‚They (i.e., the pre-Islamic Ishmaelites) fled from the desert of Yathrib and entered into the cultivated land.(…) They were like locusts; they used to walk naked; they ate flesh from vessels of flesh and drank the blood of animals.‛And as the same text predicts: ‚In the future, however, they will come out and devastate the earth and rule over it.‛ 38he reference to the consumption of flesh from vessels of flesh is probably an allusion to the consumption of raw meat, which was considered as a particularly barbarous custom in Late Antique culture. 39More specifically, the Greek version of Pseudo-Methodius remarks that they used to consume camel meat (κρέας καμήλων). 40The consumption of camel meat was equally abhorrent.Interestingly, Theodoret of Cyrrhus praised Simeon the Stylite for having influenced the pagan Ishmaelites to renounce their ancestral custom of eating ‚wild asses and camels‛. 41heophanes in his Chronography informs that at the beginning of Muhammad's advent ‚the misguided Jews thought he was the Messiah who is awaited by them, so that ten of their leaders joined him and accepted his religion (…) but when they saw him eating camel meat, they realised that he was not the one they thought him to be‛. 42he image of the barbarian desert dweller that walks around naked, consumes raw flesh, and raids the settled people develops into a persistent stereotypical motif assigned to the early Muslims by the Christian apocalypses. 43

The Unclean Nation
As observed, our sources describe their first encounter with the Muslim armies primarily as a cultural shock.The Ishmaelites dwell beyond the borders of civilisation and incorporate all the stereotypical traits of exotic but dreadful barbarians.Significantly, they will even be able to exercise super-human powers.The apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem clearly alludes to their super-natural abilities, describing how these robbers will fly across the gorges and over the peaks of the mountains. 44ertain features attributed to the early Muslims reflect descriptions of the mythical eschatological unclean nations Gog and Magog as documented in the Syriac Alexander literature. 45Thus, they are further described as monstrous, impure and, once more, beyond the borders of civilisation. 46imilar to the stereotypical description of the ‚mythical‛ nations of Gog and Magog, the Ishmaelites are perceived as deeply inhuman.Pseudo-Methodius describes how ‚these barbarian rulers are not men, but sons of destruction.They are spoilers, and they are sent for desolation.They are ruination and they come forth for the ruin of everything, being abominable people who love abomination.At the time of their coming forth from the desert (they will tear open pregnant women); and they will take babies by force from their mothers' arms and dash them against the rocks like unclean animals‛. 47hese atrocious crimes are an additional manifestation of their inhumanity and correspond to descriptions of the people of Gog and Magog in the earlier Syriac literature.According to the Syriac Song of Alexander, which was attributed to Jacob of Sarug, the people of Gog and Magog are: ‚filthy, haughty (…).They rend and devour the flesh of man and of beasts.They all wash in blood which has flowed from mankind‛. 48(…) ‚They shall fly and fill the face of earth with wars and slaughters‛. 49(…) ‚They shall dash weaned children on the stones without sparing and they shall rip women with child and cast them down with their offspring‛. 50urthermore, their barbarian nature is also manifested in their physical appearance.In the Syriac Song of Alexander, the unclean nations are famously terrible of aspect. 51ccording to the Apocalypse of John the Little, the Ishmaelites is a people of deformed aspect and their appearance and manners resemble those of women. 52The physical deformity and unnatural appearance as a cultural feature is often attributed to exotic peoples beyond the limits of the civilised world.

The People of the Land of the South
The Christian texts read in the days of the Muslims the fulfilment of typical biblical prophecies about the end of the world.Most significantly, the Muslims become part of the Danielic apocalyptic scheme.The emergence of the Muslims is perceived as the fulfilment of the Danielic prophecy regarding the kingdom of the South, which will ultimately be defeated by the kingdom of the North.This pattern is perhaps most characteristically to be found in the Apocalypse of John the Little that prophesies the coming of the king of the North, who will devastate the Muslim armies.Accordingly: ‚Then suddenly the prophecy of Daniel shall be fulfilled: God shall send forth a mighty wind, the Southern one‛. 53imilarly, Pseudo-Methodius remarks that the sons of Ishmael were called by Daniel, the ‚arm of the South‛. 54s the Armenian History attributed to Sebeos, written c.660 CE, elucidates, there are four world empires, which correspond to the four cardinal points: the Greeks are in the West, the Sassanians are in the East, Gog and Magog in the North and finally, Ishmael in the South.Pseudo-Sebeos explicitly associates the Muslim Arabs with the fourth and most horrible beast from the prophecy of Daniel, which will appear in the South and 'will consume the whole world'.As he further remarks: ‚They are as a storm which comes moving from the south, from the terrible desert‛ (cf.Is. 28:15, 18).‚This fourth, arising from the south is the kingdom of Ishmael‛. 55e Forerunners of the Antichrist Borrowing a very well-known motif from John's Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius envisions the final tyranny caused by the Ishmaelites as preceded by four disasters: death, destruction, ruin and desolation. 5653 Trans.Harris, The Gospel of the 12 Apostles, p.36; the gathering of the four winds of heaven is a common apocalyptic topos, see Dan 7:7; Dan 8:8; Zech 2:6; 6:5; Matt 24:31.In the apocalyptic literature they represent the four points of the compass, see 4 Ezra 13:5; 2Baruch 64:3; 1 Enoch 18:2; 76:14; 77:16. 54Pesh.Dan.11:5.The identification of Ishmael with the South is here unambiguous.And further in the same text: ‚the people of the land of the South‛, (trans.Martinez, Eastern Christian Apocalyptic, p. 139).On the reception and impact of this motif on the later understanding of the Muslims, see Bo Holmberg, ‚Ahl/fariq at-tayman -ein rätselvolles Epitheton,‛ Oriens Christianus 78 (1994), pp.86-103. 55Trans.Thomson, Ps-Sebeos.The Armenian History, p. 105; four kingdoms not successive but associated with four quarters of the earth, see Hoyland, Seeing Islam, p. 535;.On the early identification of the foraying Muslims with the fourth beast from the Book of Daniel (7:23ff.), see the Doctrine of Jacob Recently Baptised V.16.209.As Thomson remarks: ‚The connection between Arab expansions and the end of the world is reinforced at the end of the main text (176-177) by the image of fire used of both, flaming up from God's anger and kindled in the desert‛ (Ps-Sebeos.The Armenian History, p. lxxvi); cf.also: ‚who could describe the fearful calamity of the Ishmaelite brigand who set fire to sea and land?However, the blessed Daniel had earlier prophesied such a disaster which befell the land‛ (Ps-Sebeos.The Armenian History, p. 105). 56‚These four captains of the chastisement: are to be sent at their head against all the earth; Ruin and the Destroyer, Desolation and the Spoiler‛ (Martinez, Eastern Christian Apocalyptic, p. 141); cf.Rev 6.
Most typically, however, the ‚Ishmaelites‛ are perceived to be the forerunners of the Antichrist.The idea that the ‚Muslims‛ are announcing the advent of Antichrist dominates the perception of the Muslims in contemporary literature. 57In the Chronicle by Theophanes it is recounted how Oumaros (i.e. the Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab) entered the Holy City dressed in filthy garments made of camel-hair.Accordingly, 'Umar stood as the prototype of the uncivilised desert-dweller in front of the aged patriarch, Sophronios.As the story goes, ‚the patriarch asked him to accept a linen garment to wear until his own cloak was washed.'Umar (…) showing a devilish pretence, sought the Temple of the Jewsthe one built by Solomon -that he make it a place of worship for his own blasphemous religion.Seeing this, Sophronios said, -in a much-quoted phrase-: 'Verily, this is the abomination of desolation standing in a holy place, as has been spoken through the prophet Daniel'‛. 58n pre-Islamic Christian apocalyptic literature, the motif of the 'presence of the abomination in the Holy Place' is associated with the appearance of the Antichrist.Accordingly, whereas the Muslim rule is commonly understood as a precursor of the eschatological reign of the Antichrist, the description of the Muslim rule itself follows traditional apocalyptic motifs attributed to the times of the Antichrist.The reign of the Antichrist is typically depicted as a demonic, ungodly rule that will bring harsh persecutions und unprecedented tribulations on the faithful.
The capture of Jerusalem and the conquest of the Holy Land by the Muslims was most probably one of the main events that triggered apocalyptic anxieties among the local Christian population. 59A crucial event was the construction of the Dome of the Rock by 'Abd al-Malik, which was seemingly considered by the contemporaries as the re-building of the Temple; 60 an action that in the classical Christian apocalyptic discourse is commonly ascribed to the reign of the Antichrist. 61igns or phenomena that are commonly mentioned in the pre-Islamic apocalyptic literature, for example in the Testament of our Lord, in connection with the rule of the Antichrist are stereotypically repeated in connection with the Muslim rule.Typical signs of the Muslim rule include serious draught, the dissolution of family bonds, the disturbance of the social order, et al.As in several other apocalyptic texts, these apocalypses stress that many people will wish their death. 62ccording to the Edessene Apocalypse: ‚At that time, the rainfalls will decrease, the waters of the springs come to an end, and the fruits of the trees and all the bounty of the ground fail, from the impiety of the sons of Ismael‛. 63‚There will be wars everywhere‛. 64inally, these early Christian apocalyptic texts apply various scenarios about the end of the world followed by the end of the Islamic rule.Pseudo-Ephraem maintains that the Muslim conquests are a precursor for the final invasions of the apocalyptic nations that will be sent by God so that the earth will be cleansed from the impurity.In a way, the Arabs are the forerunner of the unclean nations and they are implicitly associated with them as an apocalyptic nation that has already invaded the earth announcing its final destruction.
According to the apocalyptic scenario developed by the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, the liberation from the Muslim oppression will be ushered through the emergence of the messianic figure of the Last Emperor, the ‚King of the Greeks‛. 65seudo-Methodius depicts the last Emperor, as someone who was asleep and will go out with great anger to destroy the Ishmaelites and to send them back to Yathrib, their homeland.The text stresses in particular their expulsion from the Promised Land, which is viewed as occupied by the Muslims.
‚The king of the Greeks will come out with great anger and pour desolation and destruction in the desert of Yathrib.(...) The sons of the king of the Greeks will seize the regions of the desert and will finish by the sword any survivor left among them in the Promised Land.Fear will fall upon them from all sides.They will be given over to the sword, to destruction, captivity and slaughter‛. 66The Christian apocalyptic plan for the return of the Ishmaelites to 'Yathrib' implies a final restoration of the geopolitical order of the time, which was -according to these texts -disturbed after the Islamic conquests.
The Apocalypse of John the Little recounts how the king of the North will devastate their armies and captivate their sons.‚Bitter wedlock and misery shall fall upon them.The Lord shall cause the spirit of the South to return to his homeland and shall bring to nought his name and fame.They shall enter again the place from whence they came out‛. 67he Christian apocalyptic texts hope for perfect peace and tranquillity during the last kingdom of the king of the Greeks.The vision of perfect peace paints a radically contrasting image to the previous sufferings and tribulations imposed by the Muslims.
The expulsion of the Muslim rulers according to the apocalyptic scenario of these texts will introduce the restoration of the natural and social order.Pseudo-Methodius hopes for a final unprecedented peace, during which the captives will return to their homes, the churches will be renovated, the cities rebuilt, and joy will prevail on the whole earth [XIII].Similarly, the Edessene Apocalypse foresees the return of prosperity and abundance on earth.Then: ‚There will be peace and tranquillity in the whole creation, in every people and nation‛. 68stract: This article focuses on the Christian apocalyptic literature that was produced as a specific reaction to the Resumen: Este trabajo se centra en la literatura apocalíptica cristiana que fue producida como una reacción específica al emergence of Islam and the consolidation of the Islamic rule in the Eastern provinces of Byzantium.The discussion examines how these texts re-cycled, used and manipulated long established cultural stereotypes, biblical exegetical topoi and traditional apocalyptic motifs in order to construct an image of the Muslims as the symbolic ‚Other‛.surgimeinto del islam y la consolidación del dominio islámico en las provincias orientales de Bizancio.La discusión examina cómo estos textos reciclaron, usaron y manipularon estereotipos culturales arraigados, topoi exegéticos bíblicos y motivos apocalípticos tradicionales para construir una imagen de los musulmanes como el ‚otro‛ simbólico.