ʿAbdallāh Ibn Salām, whose full name is Abū Yūsuf ʿAbdallāh b. Salām b. al-Ḥārith al-Isrāʾīlī al-Khazrajī al-Anṣārī al-Madanī,Footnote 1 is a legendary figure from early Islam and, arguably, the pre-eminent Jew featured in the biographies of Muḥammad. Arabic literary sources portray Ibn Salām as a learned Jewish sage, the unrivalled scholar of Biblical scriptures in seventh-century Arabia, the archetypal Jewish convert to Islam,Footnote 2 and an eminent Companion of the Prophet. The traditions of Ibn Salām's conversion at the hand of Muḥammad figure prominently in the medieval literature on the Prophet's life and career (sīra). Narratives of the sage's conversion, along with traditions of the monk BaḥīrāFootnote 3 and Waraqa b. Nawfal,Footnote 4 were included in the sīra literature to legitimize the Prophet and substantiate the doctrine that Biblical scriptures predicted his mission. Muslims throughout classical Islam (until the thirteenth century ce) viewed the conversion as a pivotal moment in Muḥammad's career, as evidenced by the widespread transmission of Ibn Salām's conversions across several major genres of Arabo-Islamic literature, including historiography (taʾrīkh), biographical dictionaries (ṭabaqāt), prophetic biography, ḥadīth literature, and Quranic exegesis (tafsīr).
Traditions of Ibn Salām's conversion were circulated by his descendants and Muḥammad's Companions and were subsequently transmitted throughout classical Islam. While Ibn Salām's descendants preserved their own traditions to praise him, embellish his status in early Islam, and celebrate his memory, the traditions attributed to the Companions were fashioned primarily to highlight Muḥammad's legitimacy. Accounts of the conversion are reported not only in biographical dictionaries, the chapters of ḥadīth collections on the Companions' faḍāʾil (excellent qualities) and manāqib (outstanding character traits), and the sīra literature, but also in the Quranic commentaries where they serve as the “occasion of revelation” (sabab, pl. asbāb al-nuzūl)Footnote 5 that prompted the revelation of several verses in the Quran. The contradictory traditions on Ibn Salām's conversion reflect the divergent attitudes, ideological agendas, and biases of diverse groups of Muslims in classical Islam. As such, they shed light on evolving conceptions of Muḥammad's legitimacy, Ibn Salām's status in early Islam, and Jewish scriptures' confirmation of the Prophet's legitimacy.
Below I examine how Ibn Salām's conversion was portrayed, interpreted, and embellished in the biographical and exegetical literature of classical Islam. Our analysis also identifies the various topoi featured in the various accounts of the Jewish sage's conversion.Footnote 6 It is important to note that the traditions of the conversion do not necessarily shed light on an important episode in Muḥammad's relations with the Jews of Medina, or the role that Jews and Jewish converts may have played in the rise of Islam. They are the product of hagiography rather than the sober recollections of a Companion's conversion to Islam and, as such, have served in Arabic literature as prooftexts to underscore Muḥammad's legitimacy.
The contradictory reports in the sources concerning the date and circumstances of the conversion preclude a historical-critical reconstruction of Muḥammad's legendary Jewish Companion. Moreover, to approach the rich accounts of the conversion as sources to reconstruct the historical reality behind a moment in Muḥammad's career that has clearly been “subjected to a sustained mythological deepening”,Footnote 7 is to risk overlooking the symbolic significance of Ibn Salām's image and conversion in Islamic tradition. The ways that Ibn Salām's conversion was portrayed does, however, provide us with glimpses of how Muslims conceived of their prophet's legitimacy and Islamic origins vis-à-vis the Biblical heritage, Arabian Judaism on the eve of Islam, and Jewish scriptures. In other words, the representations of Ibn Salām's conversion in the sources are a reflection of the evolving Islamic self-image.Footnote 8
We begin by examining how the date of the conversion – a critical issue in Ibn Salām's biography that preoccupied biographical authorities and Quranic exegetes – is evaluated in the sources; followed by an analysis of the narratives recounting the circumstances of the conversion. Our textual analysis highlights the shared literary motifs and topoi featured in the accounts to shed light on the growth of legends surrounding Ibn Salām's conversion in classical Islam. The proliferation of traditions on the conversion demonstrates that the convert served as an enduring symbol of Muḥammad's Biblical legitimacy and the alleged attestation of Jewish scriptures to the rise of Islam. Below I argue that Ibn Salām's conversions were constructed as part of broader attempts to legitimize Muḥammad and discredit his Jewish opponents. I note the transmission history of the conversions where appropriate to highlight their scope and interpretive life in the biographical and exegetical literature. Parallel traditions found in the sīra literature that include topoi featured in Ibn Salām's conversions are also indicated to show how these tropes were recycled and used to depict the Prophet's encounters with other Jews in Medina.
The conversions were largely shaped by apologetics, exegesis, and polemics. For medieval Muslim scholars, Ibn Salām's image evoked the Bible's prediction of Muḥammad's mission, and his conversion was regarded as the fulfilment of the Quran's repeated appeals to the People of the Book (ahl al-kitāb) for confirmation of its scriptural status. On the one hand, Ibn Salām's conversion showed that Muḥammad was endorsed by the pre-eminent Jewish sage in seventh-century Arabia and, therefore, Muslim scholars viewed it as a decisive proof (dalīl, pl. dalāʾil) of his prophecy.Footnote 9 On the other hand, Ibn Salām was readily weaponized in anti-Jewish polemics given that the conversions often underscore the hypocrisy of Muḥammad's Jewish opponents.Footnote 10 As a result of the broad transmission of the conversions in Arabo-Islamic literature, Ibn Salām became a symbolic figure in the Prophet's biographies and the epitome of the ideal Jewish response to the rise of Islam.
As is the case with every Companion, biographical authorities closely examined the date of Ibn Salām's conversion. Determining whether he converted early on in Medina or at a later point in the Prophet's career allowed scholars to assess Ibn Salām's precedence in Islam (ṣābiqa). Accounts of the conversion were also included in the biographical notices on Ibn Salām to illustrate his faḍāʾil and manāqib. At the same time, Quranic exegetes were preoccupied with identifying the verses in Islamic scripture that they believed were revealed to praise Ibn Salām and applaud his conversion. The various dates assigned to the conversion in the sources had ramifications for the exegetes' broad attempts to construct a chronology of the Meccan and Medinan revelations in the Quran, as well as their specific task of identifying which Quranic verses referred to Ibn Salām.
The overall story of Ibn Salām's conversion is a variation of a well-known literary trope in the sīra in which Muḥammad encounters representatives of non-Islamic religions who recognize him as a legitimate prophet.Footnote 11 The conversions feature a number of reoccurring topoi in the biographical literature's portrayal of the Muḥammad's Jewish contemporaries and the many exchanges the Prophet reportedly had with the Jewish leaders in Medina. Scrutiny of these traditions may shed light on how Muslims understood their Prophet's legitimacy and constructed Ibn Salām's legendary image. The conversions also provide a window into how the Jews of Medina were conceived of and portrayed by medieval Muslim scholars. Moreover, the reception of the conversions in the classical exegetical literature shows that Ibn Salām's image was a major topos in the interpretation of the Quran.
1. The date of Ibn Salām's conversion
The question of when in Muḥammad's career Ibn Salam converted to Islam drew the attention of biographers and Quranic exegetes. Determining a date for the conversion allowed scholars to either embellish or diminish Ibn Salām's religious commitment, and his status in early Islam. Similarly, scholars of ḥadīth criticism approached the issue as one of the main criteria to evaluate whether Ibn Salām was a reliable and trustworthy transmitter of prophetic traditions. Biographical sources supply contradictory dates for the conversion. The most commonly reported date is the first year of the hijra (1/622) immediately following Muḥammad's emigration to Yathrib (later Medina).Footnote 12 Traditions dating the conversion to the time of the hijra suggest that Ibn Salām converted as soon as the Prophet arrived at his residence in Medina. This “early” conversion makes the apologetic claim that Muḥammad corresponded so clearly to the description in Jewish scriptures of a future Arabian prophet that Medina's pre-eminent sage embraced Islam at the earliest opportunity. The consensus that the conversion occurred in 1/622 led Ibn Salām's biographers, such as Ibn Saʿd (d. 230/845) and al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348), to accord him precedence in Islam on account of “his early conversion” (lahu islām qadīm).Footnote 13
However, the biographical literature reports minority opinions which are far less favourable to Ibn Salam's reputation. These traditions claim that the conversion did not occur until 8/630, or in other words, until two years before Muḥammad's death in 10/632.Footnote 14 Whereas the proposed date of 1/622 highlights Ibn Salām's piety and sābiqa, the minority traditions diminish his standing among the earliest Muslims and question his commitment to Islam. Dating the conversion towards the end of Muḥammad's career implies that it took eight years of the Prophet's political manoeuvring – in particular, the Muslims' military subjugation of the Jewish tribes, the Banū Qaynuqāʿ (2/624), Banū al-Naḍīr (4/625), and Banū Qurayẓa (7/627) – and public preaching to finally convince Ibn Salām to convert. The contradictory dates of the conversion cannot be reconciled and should be viewed as traditions that were circulated to advance a particular view of Ibn Salām's status in early Islam.
While biographers scrutinized the date of Ibn Salām's conversion, Quranic exegetes attempted to harmonize the prevailing view that it occurred following the hijra with the widely held opinion that a Meccan chapter of the Quran (Q. 46:10) directly addressed the conversion.Footnote 15 For the exegetes, then, the dates assigned to the conversion had ramifications for how they distinguished between Meccan and Medinan revelations in the Quran, and provoked competing interpretations of Q. 46:10. The verse states:
Say, “Have you considered? If it is from God and you do not believe in it, and a witness from the Children of Israel has testified to its like and has believed (wa-shahida shāhidun min banī Isrāʾīl), and you are haughty – God does not guide the people who do wrong”.Footnote 16
As several of the celebrated Quranic commentators readily acknowledge, the consensus during classical Islam was that the verse's mention of “a witness from the Children of Israel” referred to Ibn Salām. Al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/922), for example, states that the majority of the exegetes (akthar ahl al-taʾwīl) held this opinion.Footnote 17 This view is also attributed to renowned scholars among the Successors (al-tābiʿūn) who were students of the purported founder of Quranic exegesis, Ibn ʿAbbās (d. 68/687–688),Footnote 18 including Mujāhid (d. c. 100/718–104/722), ʿIkrima (d. 105/723–724), al-Ḍaḥḥāk (d. 106/724), and Qatāda (d. c. 117/735).Footnote 19 Additional traditions cited in the Quranic commentaries suggest that the Prophet also regarded Q. 46:10 as an allusion to Ibn Salām.Footnote 20 Even Ibn Salām reportedly boasted that the verse was revealed in his honour.Footnote 21 According to these family traditions,Footnote 22 which were circulated by his descendants, Ibn Salām claimed that Q. 46:10 “was revealed about me” (anzala/nazzalat fiyya).Footnote 23 Together, these traditions suggest that the most authoritative Quranic exegetes, including Ibn ʿAbbās, his disciples, and the Prophet, all understood Q. 46:10 to be a verse that was revealed in response to Ibn Salām's conversion. Although the family traditions were readily deployed in the exegesis of Q. 46:10, their ultimate purpose is hagiography. Ibn Salām's descendants likely circulated such traditions to show that the Quran praised their ancestor, respected his Jewish background, and celebrated his conversion. Ibn Salām's association with the verse was cherished by his descendants who, understandably, viewed it as a testament to his distinction in early Islam.
The widespread identification of Ibn Salām with Q. 46:10 in Islamic tradition led to an exegetical dilemma that is addressed in many tafsīr works. If the exegetes generally agreed that Q. 46 (al-Aḥqāf) was revealed during Muḥammad's time in Mecca (c. 610–621 ce), then how could the verse refer to Ibn Salām when he, by most accounts, did not convert until the Medinan period (622–632 ce)?Footnote 24 The apparent contradiction between the Meccan revelation of al-Aḥqāf and Ibn Salām's conversion in Medina was recognized early on by scholars such as Masrūq (d. 63/682) and al-Shaʿbī (d. between 103/721 and 110/728). According to Masrūq, the verse cannot refer to Ibn Salām because “he converted in Medina whereas the sūra is Meccan”.Footnote 25 Al-Shaʿbī reportedly rejected Ibn Salām's association with Q. 46:10 for the same reason.Footnote 26 He argues that Ibn Salām cannot be the subject of the verse because the conversion did not occur until two years before the Prophet's death.Footnote 27 Al-Shaʿbī further states in no uncertain terms that “Not a single thing in the Quran was revealed concerning ʿAbdallāh b. Salām” (mā nazzala fī ʿAbdallāh ibn Salām raḍiya allāh ʿanhu shayʾun min al-Qurʾān)”.Footnote 28 The adamant denial that Q. 46:10 or any other verse in the Quran alludes to Ibn Salām diminishes his reputation and was likely a response to the prevalent association of the verse with the conversion in early Islam.
The sources report several traditions that reconcile Ibn Salām's conversion during the Medinan period with the earlier revelation of Q. 46 in Mecca. For example, the exegete al-Kalbī (d. 146/763) states that all of al-Aḥqāf was revealed in Mecca except for verse 10, which was revealed later in Medina.Footnote 29 The renowned scholar Ibn Sīrīn (d. 110/729) also classified Q. 46:10 as Medinan even though it appears in a Meccan sūra.Footnote 30 He explains this exception to the general Meccan–Medinan classification of the sūras with an anecdote that relates how Muḥammad organized the Quran: “A verse would be revealed, and the Prophet would command that it be placed between verses in such and such a sūra. This [Q. 46:10] is considered one of those verses”.Footnote 31 According to Ibn Sīrīn, then, Q. 46:10 is one of the Medinan verses that Muḥammad incorporated into the Meccan sūras.
It is impossible to historically reconcile the contradictory dates of Ibn Salām's conversion. The traditions reflect the concerns of several groups that each brought their own ideological agendas and biases to the question of when the sage converted. On the one hand, Ibn Salām's biographers and authorities on the sīra viewed the issue as a measure of the convert's piety and Muḥammad's legitimacy. Establishing an early conversion during the Prophet's time in Medina was a way to simultaneously praise Ibn Salām, construct his precedence in Islam, and legitimize the Prophet. In the biographical literature, the conversion shortly after the hijra was regarded as undeniable proof of Muḥammad's legitimacy and the Quran's claim that his mission was anticipated in Jewish scriptures.Footnote 32 Quranic exegetes, on the other hand, were less concerned with evaluating the convert's precedence in Islam than with identifying and interpreting the allusions to Ibn Salām in the Quran. Exegetes approached the issue with two major desiderata in mind, namely, to distinguish between the Quran's Meccan and Medinan revelations and identify who was intended by verses that praise certain Jews in Muḥammad's audiences. The general agreement that Ibn Salām converted in Medina led the exegetes to classify Q. 46:10 as a Medinan verse that the Prophet inserted into the earlier Meccan sūra. As a result, the verse was considered an exception to the Meccan classification of al-Aḥqāf.Footnote 33 And finally, Ibn Salām's descendants contributed their own traditions to the debates reflected in the exegetical literature. These traditions were intended to praise Ibn Salām by claiming that God revealed the verse to celebrate his conversion. The contradictory traditions on the date of the conversion show the prominent role that hagiography and Quranic exegesis played in Ibn Salām's biography and the construction of his legendary image.
2. Narratives of Ibn Salām's conversions
Along with the date of the conversion, Ibn Salām's biographers and the Quranic exegetes were also preoccupied with the circumstances in Muḥammad's career that led the renowned Jewish sage to convert. Muslim scholars viewed Ibn Salām's conversion not only as the most critical moment in his biography, but also as a momentous event in Muḥammad's biography. For these reasons, Ibn Salām's conversions were particularly vulnerable to narrative expansion and embellishment over the course of their transmission in classical Islam. The contradictory accounts recorded in the sources illustrate how the story of the conversion served as a vehicle for Muslims to promote their religious doctrines and views of Muḥammad's Biblical legitimacy. The conversions also attest to the symbolic potency of Ibn Salām's image as the archetypal Jewish convert in Arabo-Islamic literature.
2.1. Anas b. Mālik's (d. c. 91/709–95/713) traditions: the questions (masāʾil) of Ibn Salām
According to traditions attributed to the Companion Anas b. Mālik, Ibn Salām converted in Medina after Muḥammad answered three of his questions to which only a true prophet could know the answers.Footnote 34 As Uri Rubin has noted, Ibn Salām's interrogation of Muḥammad is an example of a topos in the sīra literature in which “well-versed scholars from the People of the Book are often said to have tested Muḥammad”.Footnote 35 Presumably, Ibn Salām and other learned Jewish and Christian scholars in Arabia knew which questions to pose to Muḥammad because of their expertise in the Bible, apocrypha, and exegetical traditions.Footnote 36 The Jewish sages of Medina, in particular, are said to have interrogated Muḥammad on numerous occasions to evaluate his claims to prophecy, or confuse and humiliate him.Footnote 37 Traditions in which the Prophet is tested by Jewish scholars were so prevalent in early Islam that the earliest biography of Muḥammad describes the Jews as “the people of the question” (asḥāb al-masʾala).Footnote 38 Many Quranic verses were allegedly revealed in direct response to the questions the Jews raised.Footnote 39 In other words, Anas' traditions frame the conversion with a recurring literary trope in the sīra's portrayal of the exchanges between Muḥammad and the Jews of Medina.
Anas' account begins with Ibn Salām approaching Muḥammad when the latter arrived in Medina to question him about “three things which no one except a prophet knows” (thalātha ashyāʾ lā yaʿlamuhunna illā nabī).Footnote 40 Similar traditions recorded in the sources depict other sages who also interrogated Muḥammad with questions that “no one except a prophet knows”.Footnote 41 The phrase appears to be a formulaic description in the sīra literature of the various questions that Jewish scholars used to evaluate Muḥammad's claims to prophecy. The specific questions Ibn Salām put to Muḥammad, which were augmented, embellished, and eventually collected and transmitted as an independent work under the title “The questions of ʿAbdallāh Ibn Salām” (Masāʾil ʿAbdallāh Ibn Salām),Footnote 42 are reported by Anas as:
1) What is the first portent of the Day of Judgment? 2) What is the first food eaten by the inhabitants of Paradise? 3) What causes a child to resemble his father, and a child to resemble his mother?Footnote 43
Muḥammad responds by stating that the angel Gabriel has already provided him with the answers to all of Ibn Salām's questions. The tradition's anti-Jewish polemic becomes apparent as Ibn Salām reacts strongly to Muḥammad's mention of Gabriel and describes the angel as the “enemy of the Jews” (ʿaduww al-yahūd min al-malāʾika).Footnote 44 Ibn Salām's claim that Gabriel is the Jews' enemy evokes the allusion in Q. 2:97–8 to “the enemies of Gabriel”.Footnote 45 For this reason, the conversion reported by Anas was at times deployed by the Quranic exegetes as the occasion of revelation for Q. 2:97.Footnote 46 Gabriel as the enemy of the Jews is a prominent topos in early Muslim anti-Jewish polemics.Footnote 47 It is featured, for example, in additional occasions of revelation cited in the commentaries on Q. 2:97. Several of these traditions relate how a group of Medinan Jews admitted to Muḥammad that they considered Gabriel their enemy after testing him with various questions.Footnote 48 The narrative portrays Ibn Salām as an honest native informant who readily admits to the Prophet that the Jews are Gabriel's enemies, the angel revered in Islamic tradition as the messenger who delivered divine revelation to Muḥammad. The convert's honest testimony specifies a vague reference in Islamic scripture to Gabriel's enemies and proposes an explanation for why most of the Jews denied that the Quran was authentic revelation.
The narrative's anti-Jewish polemic resumes after the Prophet successfully answers Ibn Salām's questions. Immediately following his conversion, Ibn Salām confesses to Muḥammad that the Jews are a “nation of liars” (qawm buht) who will slander him once they learn of his conversion.Footnote 49 To demonstrate the corrupt nature of his former co-religionists, Ibn Salām devises a ruse to trick the Jews into revealing their ingrained deceit. He tells Muḥammad to hide him, summon the Jews to a meeting in the room, and then question them about his status among them.Footnote 50 The Jews who promptly arrive to meet Muḥammad are unaware that Ibn Salām is hidden from view in the room and will overhear the ensuing exchange. Muḥammad begins by asking the Jews to describe Ibn Salām, to which they respond with the following words of unreserved praise:
He is the best of us and a descendant of our best (khayrunā wa-ibn khayrinā); our chief and a descendant of our chiefs (sayyidunā wa-ibn sayyidinā); our most learned and a descendant of our most learned (aʿlamunā wa-ibn aʿlaminā).Footnote 51
After admitting the high regard in which they hold Ibn Salām, Muḥammad then asks if the Jews would convert to Islam were their revered sage to do so.Footnote 52 Although they have yet to learn that Ibn Salām has already converted, the Jews respond emphatically: “May God protect him [Ibn Salām] from that!”, meaning, becoming a Muslim.Footnote 53 Ibn Salām suddenly emerges from hiding and announces his conversion by reciting the Islamic profession of faith (shahāda): “I testify that there is no god but God and Muḥammad is his messenger”.Footnote 54 The Jews now reveal their deceitful nature by going back on their earlier praise for Ibn Salām, and slander him as “the most wicked among us and a descendant of our most wicked (sharrunā wa-ibn sharrinā); the most ignorant among us and a descendant of our most ignorant (jāhilunā wa-ibn jāhilinā)”.Footnote 55
Anas' account of the conversion prominently features the topos from the sīra of the Jewish sages interrogating the Prophet. In these traditions, Muḥammad – typically with Gabriel's assistance – bests the Jews and proves his prophetic credentials. Although the narrative purports to describe the circumstances surrounding Ibn Salām's conversion, it ultimately discredits Muḥammad's Jewish opponents and provides an explanation for their obstinate rejection of him. In addition to legitimizing Muḥammad and polemicizing against the Jews, the tradition also specifies a vague allusion in the Quran to Gabriel's enemies. Ibn Salām's performance as an honest native informant in the account illustrates how anti-Jewish polemics and exegesis shaped the conversions.
2.2. A family tradition of the conversion in Ibn Hishām's (d. 218/833) al-Sīra al-nabawiyya
Ibn Hishām's recension of Ibn Isḥāq's (d. c. 151/768) seminal work on the sīra reports a tradition of the conversion that achieved a certain renown on account of its transmission in what is the most widespread medieval biography of the Prophet.Footnote 56 Likely for the same reason, Ibn Isḥāq's account of Ibn Salām's conversion received the most attention in Western scholarship and has been translated into English and other European languages several times.Footnote 57 Ibn Isḥāq introduces the tradition by identifying his source: “This is one of the reports of ʿAbdallāh b. Salām, the learned sage (ḥabr ʿālim), that one of his family members (baʿḍ ahlihi) reported to me about him and his conversion”.Footnote 58 Whereas the previous tradition is reported by one of the Prophet's Companions, this account is presented as Ibn Salām's first-person narration of his conversion, preserved by his descendants. In other words, the account is an example of a family tradition in the sīra. Michael Lecker assesses this kind of report in the following:
Family accounts included in Muḥammad's biography are part of the general Islamic heritage, which does not render them significant for the study of Muḥammad's life. They should be studied for what they are, namely autobiographical or pseudo-autobiographical accounts. They are by definition partial and indifferent to competing family accounts, as well as to chronology, and sometimes even to Muḥammad's image.Footnote 59
Therefore, we should be aware that the account likely reflects the particular biases and concerns of Ibn Salām's descendants who continued to circulate reports about their famous ancestor's conversion in the eighth century ce.
The conversion in Ibn Hishām's Sīra consists of two parts. The first is Ibn Salām's first-hand account of his conversion when Muḥammad first arrived in Medina. This was likely initially an independent tradition. The second part of the account, which was integrated with the family tradition at a later stage, recounts the familiar ruse that Ibn Salām devised to outwit the Medinan Jews. This version of the Jews slandering Ibn Salām after learning of his conversion is virtually identical to Anas' traditions. That the Jews slander and renounce Ibn Salām in both traditions reported by Anas and Ibn Hishām indicates that the conversion was – at a very early point in its reception history – weaponized by Muslims in anti-Jewish polemics. Below I have provided a translation of the initial part of Ibn Salām's first-person account:
When I heard about God's messenger I knew by his description (ṣifatihi), name, and time (zamānihi) [of his advent] that he was the one we were expecting. I was overjoyed about this but kept it to myself until God's messenger arrived in Medina. While he was staying in Qubāʾ among the Banū ʿAmr b. ʿAwf,Footnote 60 a man came with news of his arrival while I was working at the top of a date tree with my aunt Khālida bt. al-Ḥārith seated below me. When I heard the news of his arrival I cried out “God is great!” When my aunt heard this, she said to me: “If you had heard of Moses the son of ʿImrān's arrival you wouldn't have been more excited.” I replied: “O aunt, by God he is the brother of Moses the son of ʿImrān, following his religion, having been sent on the same mission.” She said: “O nephew, is he the prophet whom we have been told would be sent at this hour?” And I answered: “Yes!” and then she said: “Then this is it!” I promptly went to God's messenger and became a Muslim. Then I returned to my family and ordered them to become Muslims also.Footnote 61
The tradition conveys several apologetic messages that legitimize Muḥammad and supply him with Biblical legitimacy. Ibn Salām's statement at the beginning of the account voices the claim made elsewhere in the sīra literature that the Jews of Arabia had been eagerly anticipating the arrival of a prophet who was described in the Biblical scriptures they studied.Footnote 62 Ibn Salām acknowledges in the narrative that what he learned about Muḥammad before the hijra corresponded to the prophet that the Jews were expecting. Presumably, Ibn Salām recognized Muḥammad as the anticipated prophet because he had studied his description and the signs of his imminent arrival in Jewish scriptures. That Muḥammad is the prophet anticipated by the Jews is made explicit in the narrative when Ibn Salām confirms to his aunt that he is indeed “the prophet whom we have been told would be sent at this hour”. The tradition further legitimizes Muḥammad and constructs his Biblical legitimacy by linking his mission to Moses. The firm link between Moses' and Muḥammad's mission is also presented in the discussion Ibn Salām has with his aunt. Her statement, “If you had heard of Moses the son of ʿImrān's arrival you would have not been more excited”, prompts Ibn Salām to describe the Prophet as Moses' “brother” and affirm that both prophets follow the same religion. The convert's depiction of Muḥammad lends him Biblical legitimacy by equating his mission to that of the prophet who received the Torah.
Given the important role assigned to messianic expectations and Moses in the narrative, the family account would seem to be preoccupied with constructing Muḥammad's Biblical legitimacy. It is not difficult to imagine that Ibn Salām's Muslim descendants may have had a vested interest in showing that their famed Jewish ancestor understood, on the one hand, reverence for Jewish scriptures and Moses, and on the other, belief in Muḥammad's mission, to be entirely compatible. In fact, the family tradition suggests that it was specifically Ibn Salām's expertise in Jewish scriptures and adoration for Moses that led him to convert. The family tradition also depicts a stark contrast between Ibn Salām's recognition of the Prophet and the hypocrisy of the Jews who, initially, announced a prophet's emergence in Arabia before Islam, only to then reject Muḥammad once his mission began.Footnote 63 The emphasis on the convert's recognition of Muḥammad based on Jewish sources and traditions reflects a concern on the part of Ibn Salām's descendants to distinguish him from the Jews of his time.
2.3. Ibn Salām converts in the synagogue of Medina
According to traditions attributed to the Companion ʿAwf b. Mālik (d. 73/692), Ibn Salām's conversion occurred in the synagogue of Medina on an unspecified Jewish holiday.Footnote 64 The tradition shares several major themes featured in the conversions discussed above, including the Bible's description of Muḥammad, and Ibn Salām's unrivalled Jewish pedigree and religious learning. Also like the other conversions, the tradition is framed with a popular topos in the sīra to portray the various exchanges Muḥammad had with the Jews, namely, the topos of Muḥammad visiting Jewish houses of prayer and study in Medina in the hope of convincing the Jews of his mission. Many traditions in the sīra literature and Quranic commentaries, for example, describe how Muḥammad and some of his renowned Companions visited Medina's Jewish school (bayt al-midrās)Footnote 65 and debated points of Biblical history, theology, and prophecy with the Jews there.Footnote 66 ʿAwf narrates what occurred when he and the Prophet visited the synagogue:
The Prophet set out, and I accompanied him, until we entered the synagogue of the Jews in Medina on one of their holidays (kanīsat al-yahūd bi-’l-madīna yawm ʿīd lahum), and they were offended by our intrusion. God's messenger said to them: “O company of Jews, show me twelve men who will testify that there is no god but Him and Muḥammad is God's messenger, then God will rescind the anger that He has for every Jew under the surface of heaven”. Then they were silent and not a single one answered him. Muḥammad asked them three more times and not a single one responded to him. He turned away, and I followed him when, suddenly as we were about to leave, someone behind us cried out: “As you wish, Muḥammad”. Then the man came forward, and said: “O company of Jews, what is my standing among you?” They said: “By God, we do not know anyone among us who is more learned in God's scripture than you (mā naʿlam annahu kāna fīnā rajul aʿlam bi-kitāb allāh wa-lā afqah minka), or your father, and your grandfather before him”. Then he said to them: “By God, I testify that he is the prophet that you all find [described] in the Torah and the Gospels (al-nabī alladhī tajidūnahu fī al-Tawrāt wa-’l-Injīl)”, and they responded, “You have lied!” Then they refuted what the man said and slandered him. So God's messenger said to them: “You have lied, and we will not accept your words. Just now you commended this man with the highest praise. And then once he believed, you called him a liar and said what you did. So, we will not accept your words!” And the three of us left: me, God's messenger, and ʿAbdallāh b. Salām. Then God revealed Q. 46:10 concerning Ibn Salām.Footnote 67
The narrative depicts Muḥammad trying to gain Jewish followers during one of his visits to the bayt midrās. He proposes a deal: namely, that if twelve Medinan Jews recognize him as a prophet then God will remove the curse placed on the Jewish nation and forgive their sins. The exact number of Jewish converts proposed by Muḥammad is primarily symbolic. Here twelve represents completeness and is intended to convey a “representative number” of the Jews. The number also immediately evokes the Biblical twelve tribes of Israelites. As we have seen before, the Jews are asked to describe Ibn Salām's reputation, although in this instance, it is the convert himself rather than Muḥammad who poses the question. The laudatory description of Ibn Salām's learnedness is apologetic and is intended to show that Medina's pre-eminent authority on Jewish scriptures recognized Muḥammad. At the same time, their initial recognition of Ibn Salām's stature and scholarly pre-eminence sets the stage for later in the narrative when the Jews venomously slander their sage.
Ibn Salām's image functions in the tradition to assert two related theological claims from early Islam that are formulated in the sīra literature. First, he serves as an honest native informant who acknowledges that Muḥammad is the prophet anticipated in the scriptures studied by the Jews of Medina. At the same time, his conversion provides the fertile literary ground in which Muḥammad's Jewish opponents can be discredited and portrayed as deceitful hypocrites. While Ibn Salām testifies to the truth of Islam, his honest testimony also underscores the error of the Jews who failed, or were unwilling, to accept what their own scriptures said about the Prophet.
2.4. Ibn Salām's conversion in Mecca and Q. 112 (al-Ikhlāṣ)
Whereas most of the sources describe a conversion in Medina shortly after the hijra, several traditions report that Ibn Salām converted even earlier, when he met Muḥammad in Mecca. The biographical authority Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 571/1176), for example, briefly recounts the circumstances of the conversion in Mecca as follows:
Ibn Salām saw the Prophet when he reached Mecca. He began to observe Muḥammad's back and saw the seal of prophecy (khātam al-nubuwwa).Footnote 68 Then he knew that he was the Prophet announced by the scriptures, and so he and his household converted to Islam. Then [Ibn Salām] asked the questions (al-masāʾil) that we previously mentioned.Footnote 69
Ibn Salām's encounter with Muḥammad in Mecca closely resembles traditions in the sīra literature of the monk Baḥīrā, who famously recognized the seal of prophecy on Muḥammad's body when the Prophet was a young boy.Footnote 70 Ibn ʿAsākir's abridged report of the conversion also mentions several important themes that are developed more fully in the conversions examined above, namely, the Bible's anticipation of Muḥammad, the conversion of Ibn Salām's household, and the masāʾil.
Additional traditions of the conversion in Mecca are cited in the commentaries on Q. 112 (al-Ikhlāṣ). As we have seen, the conversion in Medina is typically regarded by the exegetes as the occasion of revelation for Q. 46:10. Several exegetes, however, identify Ibn Salām's earlier conversion in Mecca as an occasion of revelation for Q. 112 which, along with Q. 46, is also traditionally classified as a Meccan sūra. In other words, despite the widespread view that it occurred in Medina, Ibn Salām's conversion served as an occasion of revelation for at least two different verses in the Quran, both of which occur in sūras that the exegetes dated to the Meccan period. The conversions featured in the commentaries on Q. 112 are family traditions attributed to a great-grandson of Ibn Salām, whose full name is given as Muḥammad b. Hamza b. Yūsuf b. ʿAbdallāh b. Salām.Footnote 71 He relates the following about his ancestor's conversion:
ʿAbdallāh b. Salām, may God be pleased with him, said to the Jewish sages (aḥbār al-yahūd): “I want to make a covenant at our father Abraham's place of worship” (masjid abīnā Ibrāhīm). So he hurried to God's messenger who asked, “Are you ʿAbdallāh b. Salām?” He replied, “Yes, I am”. Then he said, “Come here”, and so he approached him. He then said, “I implore you by God, do you find me [described] in the Torah as God's messenger?” (anshuduka bi-llāh a-mā tajidunī fī al-Tawrāt rasūl allāh). Ibn Salām replied, “Describe your Lord to us”. Then Gabriel came and recited “Say, ‘He is God, One…’” until the end of the sūra, and God's messenger recited it. Ibn Salām said “I testify that there is no god but God, and you are God's messenger”. Then he left for Medina and kept his conversion hidden (wa-katama islāmahu).Footnote 72
Ibn Salām's initial statement to the sages suggests he venerated the Kaʿba before his conversion to Islam. More broadly, the tradition implies that Jews in pre-Islamic Arabia, along with their pagan Arab neighbours, regarded the Meccan sanctuary as a shrine dedicated by Abraham to God. After arriving in Mecca to pray at the Kaʿba, Ibn Salām meets Muḥammad who, apparently, has already heard of him and his reputation as a learned sage. He promptly asks, “Are you ʿAbdallāh ibn Salām?”Footnote 73 His prior knowledge of Ibn Salām in the family tradition betrays the concerns of the converts' descendants who wanted to portray their ancestor as a towering figure among the Arabian Jews of the Prophet's era. His familiarity with Ibn Salām also serves to embellish the significance of the ensuing conversion. Muḥammad promptly asks the sage if Jewish scriptures describe him as a prophet. Ibn Salām avoids the question and instead requests that Muḥammad describe God. Gabriel then arrives with Q. 112, and the Prophet recites what has just been revealed to him: “Say, ‘He is God, One, God, the Eternal, Who has not begotten nor has been begotten. There is no equal to Him’.” After hearing the sūra's recitation, Ibn Salām professes his belief in the Prophet.
The family tradition shares several distinct features with the conversion reported by Anas. Both accounts, for example, are variations of the topos where Jewish scholars test Muḥammad; and in both traditions the Prophet is assisted by Gabriel and passes Ibn Salām's test. However, the family account concludes with a novel detail that is not included in the conversions we have previously examined, namely, that after his encounter with the Prophet, Ibn Salām kept his conversion secret. This seemingly minor detail reconciles the family tradition with the prevailing accounts of Ibn Salām's conversion in Medina. The family tradition suggests that Ibn Salām converted very early at some point in the Prophet's Meccan career, but only announced his new religion later in Medina. Ibn Salām's descendants, therefore, propose two stages in Ibn Salām's conversion: first, a private conversion at the hand of the Prophet in Mecca, followed later by a public conversion before the Jews in Medina. The alleged secret conversion in Mecca reflects one of the primary goals of Ibn Salām's descendants in circulating their traditions: to establish the earliest possible date for their Jewish ancestor's conversion to Islam.
2.5. Ibn Salām's conversion to Shīʿism in the Tafsīr of al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (d. 260/873–874)
Like their Sunnī counterparts, Shīʿī scholars also reported traditions on Ibn Salām's conversion in their religious literature.Footnote 74 A particularly striking Shīʿī account of the conversion occurs in the Quranic commentary ascribed to the eleventh Imām of the Imāmī-Shīʿa, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-ʿAskarī. As Meir M. Bar-Asher has convincingly argued, although the attribution of the Tafsīr to al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī cannot be definitively proven or disproven, the contents of the work, which only provides commentary on the first two chapters of the Quran, indicate that it belongs to the pre-Buwayhid (r. 334/945–447/1055) school of Imāmī exegesis.Footnote 75 He describes the commentary as a “treasure trove of early Imamī tradition”Footnote 76 replete with “legendary and hagiographic tales about the life of Muḥammad and the Imams”.Footnote 77 The traditions included in Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī typically focus on the relationship between Muḥammad and his cousin and son-in-law ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), and reflect the overall “strong hagiographic approach” of the commentary.Footnote 78 Ibn Salām's conversion in Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī displays these distinct features of the commentary. For example, while the account certainly addresses Ibn Salām's belief in Muḥammad, it emphasizes the convert's recognition of ʿAlī as the Prophet's rightful heir. Whereas in Sunnī tradition the conversion is deployed to legitimize the Prophet, Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī uses Ibn Salām to legitimize ʿAlī and establish Biblical warrant for his role as Muḥammad's divinely appointed successor and the first Imām of the Imāmī-Shīʿa.
The tradition, which is attributed to the fourth Imām of the Imāmī-Shīʿa, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (“the ornament of the worshippers”) ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 94/712 or 95/713), is introduced with what appears to be a statement made by a redactor: “When ʿAbdallāh ibn Salām accepted him [Muḥammad] after his questions (masāʾiluhu) that he asked God's Messenger and his answers to them”.Footnote 79 The commentary assumes that its audiences are already familiar with the story of Ibn Salām's conversion, specifically, the traditions transmitted by Sunnī authors in which Ibn Salām converts after testing Muḥammad. Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī's tradition is, therefore, yet another conversion that is framed with the masāʾil motif featured in the traditions reported by Anas. The commentary recounts the circumstances that led to the conversion as follows:
[Ibn Salām] said to him: “O Muḥammad, there is one more question remaining. It is the greatest question (al-masʾala al-kubrā) that concerns the ultimate aim (al-gharaḍ al-aqṣā) [of all my questions]: Who is the one that will be the successor after you, and settle your debts (yaqḍī duyūnaka), and utterly defeat your enemies (yunjiz ʿudātaka), and oversee your trusts (yuʾaddī amānātaka), and clarify your signs and manifest proofs (yūḍiḥ ʿan āyātaka wa-bayyinātika)?” God's messenger said, “Over there are my Companions sitting together”, and he glanced at them. “A radiant light (nūr sātiʿ) among them will guide you to the finest among them and my successor (walī ʿahdī).Footnote 80 Your scroll (ṭūmārak)Footnote 81 will speak, saying that he is the legatee (al-waṣī),Footnote 82 and your limbs will testify to that.”
Then ʿAbdallāh went over to the Companions and saw ʿAlī, and a light was shining from his face that was brighter than the light of the sun. His scroll and limbs spoke, each one saying: “O Ibn Salām, this is ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, the one who fills God's heavens with lovers of Him and Hell with those who hate Him, who spreads God's religion throughout the land and the remotest parts of the world, and removes disbelief. So, take firm hold of devotion to him (walāyatihi)Footnote 83 and you will be prosperous, and remain firm in submission to him and you will be rightly guided.”
Ibn Salām said: “O God's messenger, this is your successor who was promised in the Torah (waṣiyyuka alladhī wuʿida fī al-Tawrāt). I testify that there is no god but God alone, he has no associate. And I testify that Muḥammad is His slave, chosen messenger, trustee, and commander over all mankind. And I testify that ʿAlī is his brother and friend (akhūhu wa-ṣafiyyuhu); the one who shall rise by his command (al-qāʾim bi-amrihi);Footnote 84 who defeats his enemies, and oversees his trusts, and clarifies his signs and manifest proofs, and repels falsehoods with his signs (dalāʾilihi) and miracles (muʿjizātihi). I testify that you were both announced by Moses and the prophets before him (annakumā alladhān bashshara bikumā Mūsā wa-min qablihi min al-anbiyāʾ), and the elect among the saints (al-mukhtārūn min al-aṣfiyāʾ) also pointed to both of you.”Footnote 85
The tradition is clearly familiar with the masāʾil traditions transmitted in Sunnī biographical and exegetical literature. Ibn Salām's description of his final question to Muḥammad presents Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī's tradition as a more complete and definitive account of his conversion than those supplied by Sunnī authors. The “greatest question” (al-masʾala al-kubrā) concerning Muḥammad's successor suggests that Sunnī sources have omitted, or even intentionally concealed, the most important question the Prophet answered which ultimately brought about Ibn Salām's conversion. According to Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī, the conversions reported by Sunnīs are incomplete and spurious because they omit Ibn Salām's question concerning the Prophet's successor and legatee of his political and spiritual authority.
Ibn Salām's question concerning Muḥammad's successor uses language that describes several of the duties and functions that, according to the Imāmī-Shīʿa, reside exclusively with the Imāms, such as defeating the enemies of the Shīʿa and providing the authoritative interpretation of the Quran (“clarify your signs and manifest proofs”). The legendary and hagiographic nature of the tradition is featured in Muḥammad's response to Ibn Salām. The Prophet points to a divine light emanating from one of the Companions, and a talking scroll in Ibn Salām's possession that will identify his designated successor. Muḥammad further explains that Ibn Salām's body and limbs will begin shaking once the successor's identity has been revealed. Although it is not explicitly stated in the text, Ibn Salām's scroll presumably contains Jewish scripture that he has studied as part of his religious practice as a Jew. The talking scroll in the narrative conveys the idea that Muḥammad's successor is confirmed by, and anticipated in, Jewish scriptures. These features of the narrative are an example of the “mythic and figurative imagery” employed throughout the Tafsīr to highlight the special significance of the doctrine of walāya.Footnote 86
Virtually all of the accounts we have seen conclude with Ibn Salām signalling his commitment to Islam by pronouncing the shahāda. The convert's profession of faith in the Tafsīr, however, goes beyond the two tenets of the shahāda in Sunnī Islam (God's absolute unity, and Muḥammad's apostleship). While in the Sunnī traditions Ibn Salām affirms Muḥammad and the Bible's confirmation of his mission, here he also acknowledges ʿAlī's designation as the Imām. The shahāda that Ibn Salām pronounces in Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī is, in other words, the so-called “three-tenet shahāda” of Imāmī Shīʿism, which includes: 1) God's oneness; 2) the commission of Muḥammad as His messenger; and 3) the designation of ʿAlī as the Prophet's rightful heir.Footnote 87 Additionally, Ibn Salām testifies in Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī that both the Prophet and his successor are described in God's revelation to Moses. The tradition has appropriated a celebrated figure from the sīra and embellished the story of his conversion to legitimize Imāmī-Shīʿī doctrine, specifically, the doctrine that ʿAlī, the institution of the Imāmate, and Muḥammad's mission are all anticipated by Jewish scripture. In contrast to the majority of the traditions reported by Sunnī authors, Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī does not adopt Ibn Salām's conversion to discredit Muḥammad's Jewish opponents.Footnote 88 Rather, Ibn Salām serves in the Tafsīr as a tool to delegitimize competing Sunnī traditions of the conversion. Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī's account, perhaps more than any other tradition of the conversion, illustrates how Ibn Salām's image was used by Muslims to legitimize and claim Biblical warrant for a number of their religious doctrines.
Conclusion
The traditions of Ibn Salām's conversion in the Arabic biographical literature and Quranic commentaries were fashioned to praise the convert, embellish the significance of his conversion, and legitimize the Prophet. The story of the conversion afforded Muslims an ideal literary venue in which Judaism could be discredited, and Jewish scriptures appropriated and placed in the service of legitimizing the prophet of Islam. The varying accounts of the conversion, along with the contradictory opinions on its date, were shaped by competing views of Ibn Salām's status in early Islam, the biases of his descendants, and the general desire of biographical authorities to secure the earliest possible conversion for the great Jewish sage of Muḥammad's era. In early Islam, the question of when the conversion occurred was intertwined with the hagiography of the Companions, Quranic exegesis, and the doctrine of the Bible's prediction of Muḥammad. Careful analysis of the contradictory traditions sheds important light on the construction of Ibn Salām's legendary image in classical Islam, principally in the genres of literary biography and Quranic exegesis.
This study has argued that identifying the topoi featured in the conversions is critical to our understanding of Ibn Salām's image and reception in classical Islam. The conversions of Ibn Salām recycle literary tropes displayed in traditions on other legendary Jews and Christians who reportedly acknowledged the truth of Islam at various points in Muḥammad's life, such as Baḥīra, Waraqa b. Nawfal, Salmān al-Fārisī, and Kaʿb al-Aḥbār. These tropes include Ibn Salām's distinguished ancestry and unrivalled religious learning, his anticipation of Muḥammad's mission, and his recognition of Muḥammad's description in Biblical scriptures. That a common set of topoi was drawn from to portray these figures suggests that their collective image played an important role in how Muslims constructed and interpreted Muḥammad's legitimacy. As such, Ibn Salām, along with these other legendary figures, occupies a unique place in the history of Muslim perceptions of Judaism and Jewish scriptures.
Close examination of Ibn Salām's conversion also reveals a common set of topoi that were used to portray both the conversion and the numerous encounters Muḥammad had with the Jews of Medina. These include: 1) the Jewish test of Muḥammad; 2) Muḥammad's debates with the Jews in the bayt al-midrās; and 3) the Jews' hypocrisy. Although this study has focused specifically on the figure of Ibn Salām, the topoi that are displayed in his conversions belong to the broader study of Muḥammad's biography, the history of Muslim perceptions of Judaism, and how medieval Muslims understood Islam's initial encounter with Jews and Judaism. At the same time, examining the various traditions of Ibn Salām's conversion sheds light on broader questions concerning the hagiography of Muḥammad's Companions in classical Arabo-Islamic literature, most notably, how their legendary image and biographies were constructed, manipulated, and embellished.
The contradictory evidence provided by the sources does not allow us to render a verdict on the date of the conversion or identify the specific circumstances that led the sage to endorse the Prophet. Some traditions suggest that the conversion happened either at some point during the Meccan period, the first year of the hijra, or much later towards the end of Muḥammad's life. The sources relate a variety of circumstances in Muḥammad's career that brought about the conversion. According to some traditions, the momentous encounter between the Prophet and the sage occurred in Mecca near the precincts of the Kaʿba. In this instance, the conversion was prompted either by the revelation of Q. 112, or alternatively, because Ibn Salām observed a distinct mark on Muḥammad's body. Other accounts claim that Ibn Salām did not meet Muḥammad until after the hijra, either at the Prophet's home, or the bayt al-midrās. According to some traditions, Ibn Salām's conversion in Medina was prompted by the Prophet's answers to his questions or because Muḥammad visited the bayt al-midrās and invited the Jews there to embrace Islam.
One study of biography in classical Islam makes the insightful claim that contradiction is an inescapable part of the representation of exemplary or symbolic figures in pre-modern texts.Footnote 89 It would seem that Ibn Salām – a figure who is portrayed in classical Arabo-Islamic literature as the exemplary Jew par excellence – provoked multiple interpretations, divergent opinions, and alternative accounts specifically because Muslims regarded his conversion as an episode in Muḥammad's career that was pregnant with meaning. For believers, the conversion symbolized Muḥammad's legitimacy and highlighted the error of the Prophet's Jewish opponents, as well as subsequent generations of Jews who rejected Islam.
