The Story of the Prophet Muḥammad's encounter with a Samaritan, a Jew, and a Christian: the version from Abū l-Fatḥ's Kitāb al-Tārīkh and Its Context
Abstract
In the year 756/1355 Abū l-Fatḥ ibn Abī l-Ḥasan al-Sāmirī al-Danafī wrote the Samaritan chronicle Kitāb al-Tārīkh, which concludes with a cycle of legends narrating the rise of Islam. Their narrative focuses on the story of the prophet Muḥammad's encounter with three astrologers, representatives of three Abrahamic religions: a Samaritan, a Jew, and a Christian.
They saw in the stars the end of the rule of Byzantium and the rise of the rule of Ishmael, i.e., Islam, and therefore came to Muḥammad in Medina to find out whether he was the man from the stock of Ishmael with whom the rule of Islam in the world had begun. When assured that Muḥammad was the king promised in the Scriptures, so the story goes, the Jew and the Christian converted to Islam, whilst the Samaritan stayed steadfast in his religion and negotiated with Muḥammad full protection for the Samaritans under Islam.
Abū l-Fatḥ's narrative presents a unique Samaritan version of a polemical story that was widespread among the Christians and Jews in the Middle Ages. The paper compares the Samaritan version of the story with the Christian and Jewish ones, and sets the story of Muḥammad's pact with the Samaritans into the context of the mid-14th century Mamlūk society and the Samaritans' position in it.
The thesis of the paper is that the Samaritan version responds to the increasing social and religious pressure of Islamic society directed towards the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam and the expropriation of their houses of worship.