Bahīrā

Sergius Bahīrā ( Arabic بحيرى, Syriac-Aramaic : ܒܚܝܪܐ) was a Syrian Nestorian Christian monk around the year 600 who lived in the monastery in Bosra , a city in southern Syria.

Some sources give as names Jerji, Georgius, Sergius, Sarjisan, Bu airah, Bohaà¯ra. Bahira or Behîra means “excellent” in Aramaic .

Bahīrā legend

According to the Bahīrā legend in the biography of Muhammad from the early 8th century, he is said to have seen the seal of prophethood (a birthmark) between Mohammed's shoulders and the signs that Jews and Christians also supposedly had in their writings. He is said to have foretold his prophetic calling to the 12-year-old Mohammed and was considered to be Mohammed's teacher.

Sergius is mentioned by Petrus von Cluny in a letter around 1141 to Bernhard von Clairvaux about Mohammed.

“Meanwhile the devil, with the approval of him who is called 'terrifying in his plans for the sons of man' and who 'has mercy on whoever he wills' and 'obstinates whoever he wills', helped the erroneous belief to succeed; he sent the monk Sergius, a follower of the heretical Nestorius , who had been expelled from the church, to those areas of Arabia and brought the heretical monk together with the lying prophet. So Sergius added what Muhammad was missing: he interpreted the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments for him - admittedly according to the understanding of his teacher Nestorius, who denies that our Savior is God; partly at his own discretion. At the same time he funned him with the fables of the apocryphal scriptures and ultimately made him a Nestorian Christian. "

The American Zionist Richard Gottheil wrote a Christian Bahira legend around 1898 , a translation from the Syriac based on Eduard Sachau's copy of the record of Isho'yahb (Arabic: Mar Isho'yabh , short: Mar Yahb , Marhab ).

Variations of the Bahīrā legend can also be found in the Armenian tradition. While only a short section is dedicated to the founder of the Islamic religion in the history of Sebeos in the 7th century, in which the legend does not yet appear, Towma Arzruni describes Mohammed in more detail in the 10th century. He first describes how Mohammed came to power with Jewish help and then mentions the death of his teacher Bahīrā: When Bahīrā saw how Mohammed had become powerful, he went to Mohammed and reminded him that he had been his teacher and asked for his Favor. But Mohammed, who pretended to have been tutored by an angel, reacted angrily and secretly killed Bahīrā. According to Moses Daskhurants'i, a contemporary of Arzruni, Mohammed killed his teacher as an unwanted witness for the same motive. Muhammad's audience had learned from spies that the great knowledge he was proclaiming did not come from an angel as claimed. The Byzantine theologian Euthymios Zigabenos (second half of the 11th century) wants it to be quite different : Mohammed is said to have killed Bahīrā after he had consumed wine and therefore forbade alcohol.

The Armenian legend about the relationship between Mohammed and his teacher, which is most adorned with curiosities, is found in the preface of an anonymous text known as the pseudo-Shapuh Bagratuni , only fragmentarily preserved in other historical writings . The oldest text excerpt has come down to us in a manuscript written between 1185 and 1188. Not all text fragments contain a description of the life of Muhammad, the oldest is in a manuscript from the 16th century. Here Mohammed, who comes from Persia, is attacked by demons and, after no doctor could help him, is sent to Syria to meet a monk named Sargis (Armenian for Sergius). Sargis baptizes Mohammed in the Nestorian faith. Mohammed lives with Sargis for 23 years, makes peace with the demon in his body and learns all kinds of magical practices. Mohammed carries out all the instructions that Sargis gives him with the aim of becoming a great man. The teacher Sergius Bahīrā is embodied in the figure of the monk and magician Sargis; What is unusual is that Mohammed is presented as the idol worshiping Persian who later had the city of Baghdad built.

literature

• Reinhold F. Glei (ed.): Writings on Islam / Petrus Venerabilis. ( Corpus Islamo-Christianum , Series Latina, 1), Altenberge 1985.
• Barbara Roggema: The Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā. Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam. Brill, Leiden, 2009.
• Krisztina Szilágyi: Muḥammad and the Monk: the Making of the Christian Baḥīrā Legend. In: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam (JSAI), 34 (2008), pp. 169–214.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Petrus Venerabilis : Summa totius haeresis Saracenorum - overall representation of the heresy of the Saracens.
2. ^ Richard Gottheil : A Christian Bahira Legend. In: Journal of Assyriology. 1898–1903 ( at Internet Archive )
3. ↑ Sachau. Record of the Berlin State Library
4. ^ Robert W. Thomson: Armenian Variations on the Baḥira Legend. In: Harvard Ukrainian Studies , Vol. 3/4, Part 2. ( Eucharisterion: Essays presented to Omeljan Pritsak on his Sixtieth Birthday by his Colleagues and Students ) 1979–1980, pp. 884–895.