The Kathisma Church and Quranic Composition
By
Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
25 February
2023
A Church
near Jerusalem Sheds New Light on the Quranic Sura Related to Jesus’ Birth
Main
Points:
1. The Quranic
story of the birth of Jesus differs in some detail from the Bible.
2. The Quranic
narrative is closer to some Christian apocryphal texts rather than to the New
Testament.
3. The
excavation of a church near Jerusalem now sheds light on how these stories
might have become part of the Islamic tradition.
4. The Kathisma
church was the prototype on which the Dome of Rock was constructed.
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The ruins of the Kathisma today: The stone in the center of the octagon
marks where Mary sat down to rest on her journey to Bethlehem (Photo credit:
GIL ZOHAR)
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In 1997,
there was a significant archaeological discovery on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
What was unearthed was a large octagonal church. Historians would later
identify this structure as the ‘Church of Kathisma of the Theokotos’ or the
‘Seat of the God-Bearer’. Long believed to be lost to the vagaries of time, the
church was constructed at the very same spot where Mary, the mother of Jesus,
rested while being heavily pregnant. But why must we discuss it here? It is
because this important find has an important bearing on certain verses of the
Quran.
In Sura
Maryam, the Quran tells the following story of Jesus’ birth:
So she conceived him and withdrew with him to a
remote place. Then the pains of labour drove her to the trunk of a palm tree.
She cried, “Alas I wish I had died before this, and this was a thing long
forgotten!” So a voice reassured her from below her, ‘Do not grieve! Your Lord
has provided a stream at your feet. And shake the trunk of this palm tree
towards you, it will drop fresh, ripe dates upon you. So eat and drink, and put
your heart at ease. But if you see any of the people, say, ‘I have vowed
silence to the Most Compassionate, so I am not talking to anyone today’. Then
she returned to her people, carrying him. They said in shock, ‘O Mary, you have
done a horrible thing! (Quran 19:22-27).
Now there
are two details in the Quranic story of Jesus’ birth that are not found in any
of the canonical Christian texts. The first difference is that while in the
Bible Jesus is born in Bethlehem, the Quranic verse cited above mentions his
birth at a ‘remote place’ which historians have generally identified to be
between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The second difference is that the stream and
the palm tree which God provides for Mary are missing from the Christian Bible.
Arguably, the Bible predates the Quran and, hence, it is logical to ask where
does the latter derive the information about such details from when they are
absent from the Bible itself. Now one can certainly argue that since Quran is
the word of God, it can provide any detail that it wants. But while this answer
may satisfy the believer, it does not satisfy those who are looking for a
historical explanation. If we think that the Quran is a text which was produced
in history, then it is logical to ask where it got this information from, if
not from the Bible? Such an enquiry can also tell us something about the
nature, time and circumstances under which the Quran was composed.
The
different details mentioned in Quran in fact can be found in what are called
the apocryphal or the non-canonical Christian texts. The birth of Jesus ‘at a
remote place’ (and not in Bethlehem) is mentioned in the Protevangelium of
James, a Christian yet non-canonical text, written somewhere in the second
century. It is in this text that we find Mary telling Joseph, “Take me down
from the ass, for the child within me presses me, to come forth.” Joseph helps
Mary get off and takes her to a nearby cave, where she gives birth to Jesus.
There is no mention of a stream underneath or of the fruit-laden palm tree,
which we find in the Quran. This detail occurs in another non-canonical
Christian text called the Gospel of Pseudo-Mathew, which many scholars believe
to be written in the 6th or the 7th century. It appears that both these texts
might have been known to the compilers of the Quran. One can alternatively
argue that the latter text of Pseudo Mathew may have been a reworked version of
the story in the Quran. However, the possibility is remote since this text was
composed in Latin in the Western Christendom and was unknown in the Christian
east. So, while we might argue that the information of Christ’s birth at a
remote place might have been taken from the Protevangelium of James, there is
no way one can say that the Gospel of Pseudo-Mathew had a similar influence on
the Quran. Is it possible then that the information about the stream and the
palm tree in the Quran came from some other source?
Stephen
Shoemaker, who studies the correspondence between early Christianity and early
Islamic period, has argued that the legend of Mary and the date palm tree
started circulating in the area from around the 3rd century and is found in the
tradition of Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption, which is basically a
collection of narratives that describe Mary’s death. Shoemaker says that the
legend of the date palm was memorialized in the form of a pilgrimage to these
sites associated with Mary. And it is in the Kathisma Church that these legends
come together. For it is at this location, that we see the amalgamation of both
the apocryphal traditions: Jesus’ birth at a remote location as well as the
presence of a stream near the church and the image of a palm tree inside it.
Even after the canonization of the Bible, this church continued to be revered
as the site where Mary rested and gave birth to Jesus. There exists a
pilgrimage guide, written between 560 and 570, which talks about this Church
and the stream of water nearby. The church was known as the seat of Mary
because it was the place where Mary sat to rest before giving birth nearby. The
early Christians honored the place by building a church over the rock on which
she rested and it was part of the early Christian pilgrim circuit. During the
excavation of the church, one of its mosaics was found to have the image of a
fruit-laden date palm, very similar to what is mentioned in the Quran. Thus,
this church has all the elements of the Jesus’ nativity story found in the
Quran.
However,
the importance of this church for Quranic history does not stop here. This
church was the prototype on which Muslims would later build the Dome of the
Rock. Both the structures are similar not just in terms of design and
dimension, but both have a rock at the centre of their structures. It should be
recalled that the Dome of the Rock is the first known site on which verses of
the Quran were written. In fact, the Dome is the very first evidence of the
existence of the Quran outside the Islamic narrative. How then should we
understand the similarities with the Church of Kathisma? In some ways, it
appears highly probable that the church had deep influences in the construction
of the Dome. As already mentioned, the Kathisma church had a mosaic with an
image of a huge palm tree flanked by two small palm trees laden with fruits.
But it is also a fact that during the Arab conquest of Jerusalem, this church
was converted into a mosque. And the mosaic with palm relief was not originally
a part of the church but was put there by Muslims when they converted this
church into a mosque. All this again underlines that this church must have been
important to the early Muslims.
Thus, it
appears that by the time of the conversion of this church into a mosque, the
Islamic narrative had already merged the two apocryphal traditions related to
the birth of the Jesus, which is present in the Quran. Does this mean that the
composition of the Quran was staggered? That its standardization as a fixed
text took some time and that it was still an open template during the time of
the Arab conquest of Jerusalem? Of course, I am assuming here that Muslims who
ventured to these lands must have heard about these apocryphal stories, which
they then put into their own holy text. But it is also entirely possible that
the Arabs in the Hejaz could have independently fused these stories together
much before reaching the holy land. However, considering the importance of the
Dome of Rock and the significant role that the Kathisma Church played into its
construction, it appears that it was Jerusalem and its apocryphal stories that
might have influenced the composition of the Quran. We should also not forget that
the Caliph who constructed the Dome of the Rock, Abd al Malik, is also credited
with making changes in the Quran.
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A
regular contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Arshad Alam is a writer and researcher
on Islam and Muslims in South Asia.
URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/kathisma-church-quranic-composition/d/129195
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