The Prophet and Palestine: A Conquest Too Great to Forget?

Challenging the Claim that Muhammad (ﷺ) Lived to 634

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
"In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."
By the winter of 634 CE, Palestine stood at a crossroads of prophecy and conquest. The Roman Empire, battered by years of war with Persia and still recovering from internal collapse, now faced a new storm rising from the desert: the Saracens. It was said that a prophet rode among them—a man who spoke of the One God, of the Day of Judgment, and of Paradise promised to the faithful. Rumors from Caesarea to Carthage swirled: a new power had come bearing the sword and preaching the end of empires.

In Christian and Jewish circles, fear mixed with fascination. Some said the prophet was but a brigand cloaked in sanctity; others whispered that he carried the keys of heaven. The Doctrina Jacobi, penned in North Africa just months after the death of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, according to Islamic tradition, claimed he was still alive, advancing with his warriors into Roman lands. And in the shadows of Jewish apocalyptic texts, a new kingdom of Ishmael was foretold—guided by a prophet, subduing Edom, restoring lands in grandeur.

From these fragments and their likes, a theory has emerged: that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ did not die in 632, as Muslims unanimously hold, but lived two years longer—long enough to witness, or even lead, the Muslim conquest of Palestine. At its boldest, this claim rewrites sacred geography, shakes the bedrock of early Islamic chronology, and reimagines the Prophet not just as the founder of a faith but as the first general of a global empire.

And yet, the silence is louder than the rumor. No early Muslim historian—from Ibn Isḥāq to al-Ṭabarī—places the Prophet in Palestine. No shrine marks his path there. No battle standard bears his name on those fields. The Umayyads, whose empire was born in Syria, never claimed their founder walked those lands. The Ayyubids and Mamluks, warriors of Jerusalem and guardians of the thughūr, never invoked the Prophet's sword in al-Quds. The Crusaders, bent on humiliation, never claimed to have seized the Prophet's shrines commemorating conquest.

This blog post will examine that silence, and the few voices that speak against it. It will interrogate the sources cited to revive the 634 theory: the Doctrina Jacobi, Jewish apocalypses, and Christian chronicles. It will ask what it would mean—politically, theologically, and culturally—if the Prophet ﷺ had died in Palestine, and why, if that were true, a millennium of Muslim memory left it unremembered.

This is not just a question of dates. It is a question of monuments unbuilt, poetry unwritten, sermons unspoken. It is a question of why the greatest moment of early Islam—the conquest of the Holy Land—was never claimed for the Prophet who inspired it.

This is the story of a Prophet, a conquest, and a silence too deep to ignore.

Part I – The Heart of the Claim: Life Beyond 632?

1. What the 634 Theory Argues

In The Death of a Prophet, Stephen Shoemaker advances a provocative thesis: that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ did not die in 632 CE, as unanimously reported in Islamic tradition, but lived into the period of the Muslim conquests—possibly until 634, long enough to lead or witness the campaign into Palestine.
Shoemaker bases this theory on eleven non-Muslim sources written between the 7th and 8th centuries CE. According to him, while these texts vary in date, detail, and origin, they present a surprisingly consistent image: that Muhammad ﷺ was alive and actively leading his community when the Arab armies began to invade the Roman Near East. Some sources, like the Doctrina Iacobi, imply the Prophet’s presence among the Saracens as they entered Palestine. Others, like The Apocalypse of Rabbi Shimʿōn b. Yoḥai and the Continuatio of the Samaritan Chronicle, frame Muhammad ﷺ as a divinely sanctioned conqueror. Still others—such as the Letter of ʿUmar to Leo and certain Syriac chronicles—suggest that Muslim, Christian, and Jewish memory in the early medieval Near East shared a belief in Muhammad’s continued leadership during the first waves of Islamic expansion.
Shoemaker acknowledges that some of these texts suffer from chronological confusion, a common flaw in medieval writing, including in Islamic sources. But he insists that their relative sequencing, thematic convergence, and independence from one another make their witness striking and difficult to dismiss. In his words:

“Their collective witness to Muhammad’s continued leadership of the early Islamic community during the assault on the Roman Near East is unmistakable... In every case, the notice of Muhammad’s survival and leadership during the Near Eastern campaigns is mentioned almost in passing, so unobtrusively that its dissonance with the received tradition could easily be overlooked.”

According to Shoemaker, this quiet, matter-of-fact style increases their reliability. He argues that none of the sources had an ideological reason to fabricate the Prophet’s involvement, and that even hostile Christian texts—such as the Latin Istoria de Mahomet—appear to integrate the conquest of Syria into the chronology of Muhammad’s life.
In support of this argument, Shoemaker points to the apparent absence of specific information in Islamic sources about the Prophet’s death—suggesting that traditions locating his grave in Medina may have emerged later, especially under ʿAbbāsid consolidation. He goes so far as to suggest that the Medinan death date of 632 may have been retroactively canonized in the Abbasid period, particularly through the influence of Ibn Isḥāq’s sīrah, composed in Baghdad and shaped by pro-Medinan (and anti-Umayyad) agendas.
He adds further weight by citing a curious report from Ibn Saʿd, where Kaʿb al-Aḥbār is said to have described Mecca as the Prophet’s birthplace, Medina as his place of emigration, and Syria as the land of his rule (بالشأم ملكه)—a phrase that Shoemaker interprets as possible evidence of a lost memory of Muhammad’s rule over Syro-Palestine.

The Stakes of This Debate

At first glance, the 634 theory might appear to be an arcane adjustment to early chronology. But it is far more than a dispute over dates. If true, it would mean that:

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ participated in the most theologically charged campaign of the early Islamic world—the conquest of the Holy Land.

Muslim sacred geography would shift—from the Hejaz to al-Shām, recasting Syria and Palestine as part of the Prophet’s own realm.

A millennium of Islamic tradition—across creed, law, architecture, and poetry—has collectively misremembered or suppressed a foundational moment.

The theory challenges the entire narrative arc of Prophetic history: the migration (Hijrah), the Farewell Pilgrimage, the Prophet’s death in Medina, and the succession of Abū Bakr as the start of the post-prophetic era.
And yet, if this tradition were true, why is it not present in Muslim memory—not in early sīrah, not in hadith, not in dynastic propaganda, not in sacred sites, not in Friday sermons, and not even in polemics against the Crusaders?
That is the question this blog post will explore.

Part II – The Sources Shoemaker Cites

Introduction: Eleven Voices, One Theory

To support his claim that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ lived into the period of the Near Eastern conquests, Stephen Shoemaker assembles a group of eleven texts, written between the early 7th and late 8th centuries, which he argues preserve an alternative memory—one that places Muhammad ﷺ alive, active, and possibly leading the earliest Muslim invasions of Roman territory.
These sources are diverse in origin:

Christian, Jewish, Samaritan, and Muslim;

Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin;

Composed in Carthage, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Spain, and Syria.

Shoemaker claims that while these sources may differ in tone, language, or polemical purpose, they cohere around one central point: Muhammad ﷺ was alive during the conquest of Palestine. He asserts that this tradition appears "unobtrusively" and "matter-of-factly," and that it is too consistent—and too ideologically neutral—to be dismissed as fabrication or coincidence.
This section will examine each of these eleven sources. For each, we will ask:

What does the source actually say?

Does it clearly indicate that Muhammad ﷺ was alive and leading conquests?

Is the source reliable in context?

Can its testimony override or challenge the Islamic tradition, which is both contemporaneous and internally coherent?

What we will see is that while these sources reflect early confusion, second-hand knowledge, and often apocalyptic or polemical worldviews, none decisively prove that the Prophet ﷺ led or witnessed the conquest of Palestine.
Instead, they reflect a mixture of rumor, symbolism, and retrospective interpretation, and their silence on core Islamic memory, geography, and theology speaks volumes.
We now turn to the first of these sources: a Christian polemical dialogue from North Africa written in the very year of the supposed conquest.

Perfect—we’ll now expand the second section of your blog under Part II – The Sources Shoemaker Cites, focusing on:

**2. Doctrina Iacobi nuper Baptizati (July 634 CE)**

Location: Carthage, North Africa
Language: Greek

Genre: Christian polemical dialogue

Claim: A prophet “has appeared, coming with the Saracens” and is preaching the arrival of the Messiah.

Shoemaker’s Use: This is Shoemaker’s star witness—an allegedly near-contemporary source written within months of the Battle of al-Dāthin (634 CE), providing the earliest known non-Muslim reference to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. He claims that this text, based on a letter from a Jewish eyewitness, testifies to the Prophet’s ongoing leadership in the Arab invasions of Palestine.

What the Text Actually Says

Shoemaker cites this passage from the Doctrina Jacobi:

“Justus answered and said, “Indeed you speak the truth, and this is the great salvation: to believe in Christ. For I confess to you, master Jacob, the complete truth. My brother Abraham wrote to me that a false prophet has appeared. Abraham writes, ‘When [Sergius]9 the candidatus was killed by the Saracens, I was in Caesarea, and I went by ship to Sykamina. And they were saying, “The candidatus has been killed,” and we Jews were overjoyed. And they were saying, “A prophet has appeared, coming with the Saracens [ὁ προφήτης ἀνεφάνη ἐρχόμενος μετὰ τῶν Σαρακηνῶν], and he is preaching the arrival of the anointed one who is to come, the Messiah.” And when I arrived in Sykamina, I visited an old man who was learned in the scriptures, and I said to him, “What can you tell me about the prophet who has appeared with the Saracens?” And he said to me, groaning loudly, “He is false, for prophets do not come with a sword and a war-chariot. Truly the things set in motion today are deeds of anarchy, and I fear that somehow the first Christ that came, whom the Christians worship, was the one sent by God, and instead of him we will receive the Antichrist. Truly, Isaiah said that we Jews will have a deceived and hardened heart until the entire earth is destroyed. But go, master Abraham, and find out about this prophet who has appeared.” And when I, Abraham, investigated thoroughly, I heard from those who had met him [Καὶ περιεργασάμενος ἐγω Ἀβραάμης ἤκουσα ἀπὸ τῶν συντυχόντων αὐτῷ] that one will find no truth in the so-called prophet, only the shedding of human blood. In fact, he says that he has the keys of paradise, which is impossible.’ These things my brother Abraham has written from the East.”

This information is reported third-hand in the dialogue:

Jacob hears it from Justus,

who cites a letter from his brother Abraham,

who had visited Palestine,

and who had spoken to people who claimed to have seen the Prophet.

In Shoemaker’s reading, this proves that Muhammad ﷺ was physically present, leading armies into Palestine in 634 CE. He also argues that the report is “free of apologetic or polemic” and reflects a genuine, early memory.

Critical Analysis and Rebuttal

1. It is hearsay stacked on hearsay

The report follows multiple layers of transmission:

Jacob ← Justus ← Abraham ← people who claimed to have met him.
This is a four-step chain, not a direct observation—and far weaker than the isnāds of Islamic hadith that Shoemaker otherwise criticizes.

As Gregor Schoeler notes sharply:

“Here Shoemaker lacks the scepticism he applies to isnāds of Muslim tradition—especially to ʿUrwa’s eyewitness accounts of ʿĀʾisha!”

In short: the same standards applied to Islamic tradition would lead a modern historian to discard this chain as unreliable.

2. It Was Written in Carthage—Not Palestine

The Doctrina Iacobi nuper Baptizati was not written in the Levant, nor by anyone with direct access to events unfolding in Syria or Palestine. It was composed in Carthage, in North Africa, sometime around July 634 CE—within months of the Muslim victory over Roman forces at the Battle of al-Dāthin, near Gaza.
That proximity in time, however, is undermined by a profound distance in space and source reliability.
The claim about Muhammad ﷺ in the Doctrina Iacobi doesn’t come from the author himself. It doesn’t even come from someone in the army or on the battlefield. Instead, it is embedded in a chain of hearsay involving:

Justus, a fictional character in the dialogue,

quoting a letter from his brother Abraham,

who heard rumors while in Caesarea and Sykamina,

and received his information from unnamed Jews who allegedly had met Muhammad.

This is not contemporary eyewitness testimony. It is fifth-hand reporting—and what’s more, the text is embedded in a Christian theological dialogue meant to prove that only belief in Christ can save, and that any other religious claim—including Islam—is false or demonic.
The Jews in the story are portrayed as being misled, praising a false prophet and rejoicing in the death of Roman commanders. The Christian speakers in the dialogue dismiss the new Arab prophet as satanic, warlike, and bloodthirsty. In short, the Doctrina is less a chronicle of events than a tract of religious anxiety and polemical identity.
Moreover, the author's understanding of the region is indirect at best. There is no sign he ever visited Palestine, nor that he had access to official dispatches from the front lines. The Arab movement is described in theological and eschatological terms: the prophet arrives with a sword; the Messiah is falsely announced; the Christians fear they have received the Antichrist. The Prophet is never named; the location of his army is vague; and his reported words are filtered through layers of fear, confusion, and religious projection.

So when Shoemaker or others treat this as a “near-contemporary” source, they obscure a crucial reality:
It is contemporary in date, yes—but deeply removed in geography, language, identity, and access to actual events.

There is no battle narrative, no topographical detail, no chronology of movement, and no reference to known figures of Muhammad’s lifetime (such as Abū Bakr, Khālid ibn al-Walīd, or ʿUmar). It is utterly silent about the Prophet’s death—or life—other than attributing to him vague rumors and allegedly violent teaching.

3. The language is ambiguous

One of the most cited lines in the Doctrina Iacobi is this:

ὁ προφήτης ἀνεφάνη ἐρχόμενος μετὰ τῶν Σαρακηνῶν

Shoemaker, Hoyland, Crone, and Cook all translate this phrase in the same direction:

“A prophet has appeared, coming with the Saracens.”

This rendering implicitly suggests that the Prophet ﷺ is physically traveling with the Arab forces—that he is marching with them, perhaps leading them into battle.
But the Greek phrase itself—especially the construction μετὰ + genitive—is not so clear-cut.
As many other scholars have shown—Glen Bowersock, Sean Anthony, Gregor Schoeler, and even Cook himself (in later writings)—this phrase can just as naturally be rendered:

“A prophet has appeared among the Saracens.”

That is, he comes from within them. He has arisen out of their ranks. He is one of them.
This nuance matters—immensely.

“Coming with” implies physical presence, possibly military leadership.

“Appearing among” simply denotes origin and affiliation—a prophet has arisen from the Saracens, not necessarily with them in the field.

As Gregor Schoeler explains:

“The Greek preposition μετὰ + gen. can mean both ‘(coming) with …’ and ‘(appearing) in the midst of ...’ (sc. the Saracens). […]
If one prefers the meaning ‘appearing in the midst of,’ the first sentence simply means that the Prophet was a Saracen by origin.”

That reading, far from undermining the Islamic tradition, is perfectly in line with it.
In fact, that’s exactly what Islam says:

That the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ arose from among the Arabs,

That he preached to his own people first,

And that his followers, the Saracens to outsiders, were originally his kin, his community, and his companions.

Moreover, the same sentence contains no name—not even “Muhammad.” There is no location. No mention of command or leadership. No quote or direct action.
It’s a blurry statement, filtered through Jewish rumor, written by a Christian polemicist, recorded in Carthage, and preserved in highly charged religious dialogue.

To take this vague sentence—already ambiguous in grammar—and to then leap to the conclusion that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was physically alive and leading the army in Palestine in 634 is simply untenable.

Instead, the most natural reading—“a prophet has appeared among the Saracens”—fits perfectly with what the Arabs themselves believed and reported:

That their Prophet had recently emerged from among them,

That his message continued to animate their cause,

But that he had died before the conquest of Palestine ever began.

The Doctrina’s Greek doesn’t disprove this.
If anything, it accidentally confirms it.

4. The Description Is Theologically Polemical—Not Historical

The Doctrina Iacobi is not a dispassionate report—it is a theological polemic, crafted in the form of a Christian conversion dialogue, drenched in eschatological fear, apocalyptic urgency, and anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic rhetoric.

Let us be clear: its purpose is not to narrate world events, but to combat the rising influence of Jewish and Muslim interpretations of current affairs.

The “prophet” mentioned in the dialogue is quickly branded by a Jewish elder—not a Christian, notably—as:

“False… for prophets do not come with the sword and a war-chariot.”

This isn’t an empirical assessment. This is a rhetorical trope.

The figure of the false prophet is a long-established motif in both Jewish and Christian polemics:

In Jewish tradition, it’s used against heretics or rival messianic claimants.

In Christian tradition, it's deployed against anyone who threatens Christ’s singular legitimacy.

So when the Doctrina’s elder says that a prophet with a sword cannot be real, he’s not offering a chronology—he’s offering a category judgment. He’s declaring that any militant prophet is, by definition, false—because he doesn’t match the Christianized image of a peaceful Messiah.

That is theology—not testimony.

He "sheds blood" and "claims the keys to Paradise"

Further down, the character Abraham says of the Prophet:

“There was no truth in the so-called prophet, only the shedding of human blood. He says he has the keys of paradise, which is impossible.”

This isn’t a neutral comment. It’s a moral denunciation, evoking the same language used in Christian heresiology to attack Montanus, Arius, or even Simon Magus:

Bloodshed = violence = illegitimacy

Claiming keys of heaven = blasphemy = antichristic

What’s striking is how little information the elder gives. He doesn’t say:

Where the Prophet is

What his army is doing

What battles are unfolding

He offers no strategic detail, no reference to cities taken, no timeframes—just theological horror at a violent, preaching figure who dares to make claims about Paradise.

That is not how a historical report works.
That is how a polemical warning sounds.

“Even if the Jews and Saracens take hold of me…”

One of the most quoted lines in this text—often by modern scholars seeking to find Jewish-Arab alliances in early Islam—is this dramatic declaration:

“Even if the Jews and the Saracens take hold of me and cut my body into pieces, I will not deny Christ.”

Let’s break this down.

This is not a historical claim. It is:

A hypothetical, introduced by “Even if…”

A martyrdom flourish, meant to display the unyielding faith of the Christian convert

A fusion of rhetorical enemies (Jews and Arabs) to represent the total threat to Christian identity

This line isn’t evidence of actual Jewish-Saracen cooperation, just as “Even if my father and mother betray me, I will trust in the Lord” doesn’t mean your parents are traitors. It’s a conditional intensifier.

Even Gregor Schoeler underscores this point:

“This utterance, expressed in a conditional sentence, is not a historical statement concerning a military cooperation of Jews and Saracens. […] It may simply mean: ‘Even if my brother (my closest friend) or my worst enemies, the Jews and Saracens jointly, put me under strong pressure, I would not apostatize.’”

So to read this as evidence of joint Jewish-Arab military operations—or of the Prophet’s military presence—is not only mistaken, but grammatically and rhetorically absurd.

5. July 634—Barely Two Years Since the Prophet’s Death

It’s important to situate the Doctrina Jacobi within the precise historical moment it claims to reflect. The text is dated July 634 CE—just two years and one month after the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ’s death in June 632, according to unanimous Muslim sources.

At this early stage in the conquests:

The Islamic armies were still fresh from the Ridda Wars, and the authority of Muhammad ﷺ remained deeply felt.

His name was invoked in prayer, mentioned in battle chants, and called upon as the Messenger of God.

Many of the soldiers were his Companions, who had heard his sermons, prayed behind him, and received his commands directly.

In the camps and mosques of the Muslim army, the Prophet's presence was spiritual, doctrinal, and political. It is no surprise, then, that external observers—especially non-Muslims unfamiliar with the details of Islamic succession—might have assumed that Muhammad ﷺ was still alive and leading the movement he founded.

Moreover, the rapid expansion and early victories of the Muslims could easily be attributed by frightened observers to the personal leadership of the Prophet.

In other words: the idea that “a prophet has appeared with the Saracens” in July 634 says more about the perceptions of outsiders than the reality of the Prophet’s timeline. This was not yet an empire with a century of tradition behind it. It was still—visibly and rhetorically—the Prophet's movement.

Conclusion: A Polemic, Not a Chronicle

The Doctrina Jacobi is fascinating—but not reliable. It is a Christian apologetic dialogue, constructed to defend Jewish conversion to Christianity by discrediting Islam as a false faith. It was written far from the battlefield, citing a letter from a man who heard rumors, about a prophet whose presence is never confirmed.

It contains ambiguous language, second- and third-hand testimony, and reflects early confusion, not historical certainty.

Shoemaker presents it as neutral, but it is anything but. It is an ideological reaction to the rapid rise of Islam, composed in fear and uncertainty. It does not prove the Prophet ﷺ was alive in 634. It proves only that his name and message had spread—and that this spread was shaking the Christian world to its core.

**3. The Apocalypse of Rabbi Shimʿōn b. Yoḥai (ca. 635–645 CE)**

Location: Palestine or Babylonian diaspora (unknown provenance)
Language: Hebrew

Genre: Jewish apocalyptic midrash
Claim: God will raise a prophet for the Ishmaelites who will conquer the land; a second Ishmaelite king will befriend Israel and restore the Temple.

Shoemaker’s Use: Shoemaker presents this text as evidence of early Jewish belief that Muhammad ﷺ was a prophet who led the Muslim conquest of Palestine, claiming that this tradition was so anomalously positive it must reflect a memory close to the events themselves. He argues that the phrase “he will subdue the land” (והוא יוריש את הארץ) refers directly to Muhammad’s leadership.

What the Text Actually Says

This apocalyptic vision, attributed to Rabbi Shimʿōn b. Yoḥai, is set during his mystical retreat in a cave (a literary device common in Jewish visionary literature). There, he is said to have received esoteric knowledge about the future:

Metatron, the angelic prince of the Presence, tells him:
“Do not be afraid, mortal, for the Holy One, blessed be He, is bringing about the kingdom of Ishmael only for the purpose of delivering you from that wicked one [Rome]. He shall raise up over them a prophet in accordance with His will, and he will subdue the land for them; and they shall come and restore it with grandeur. Great enmity will exist between them and the children of Esau.”

A later section adds that:

“The second king who will arise from Ishmael will be a friend to Israel. He will repair their breaches and the breaches of the Temple... He will build for himself there a place for worship over the Foundation Stone.”

Shoemaker takes these passages as a record of early Jewish support for Muhammad and the Arab conquests—placing the Prophet directly in the conquest of the Holy Land.

Critical Analysis and Rebuttal

1. This is an apocalyptic text, not a historical record

The Apocalypse of Rabbi Shimʿōn b. Yoḥai is a mystical midrash written in the style of Daniel and Ezekiel, full of angelic visions, symbolic readings of Scripture, and coded eschatology.

The “prophet” raised up by God is announced by Metatron, not by any historical person. This is a divinely orchestrated figure, woven into a messianic narrative—not an actual historical commander appearing on the battlefield.

As Schoeler writes:

“This passage testifies to the remarkable fact that Jews at an early period understood the Islamic conquests as messianic events and referred to Muḥammad as a prophet.” This reflects interpretation—not eyewitness reporting.

2. The Phrase “He Will Subdue the Land” Is Grammatically Ambiguous—and Theologically Symbolic

The core sentence from the Apocalypse reads:

כִּרְצוֹנוֹ נָבִיא עֲלֵיהֶם יָעֲמִיד וְהוּא יִכְבֹּשׁ לָהֶם אֶת הָאָרֶץ
“In accordance with His will, He will raise up over them a prophet, and he will conquer the land for them.”

Shoemaker reads this as a prophecy about Muhammad ﷺ, taking the second “he” (וְהוּא / wə-hūʾ) to refer directly to the prophet mentioned in the first clause.

But this reading is not grammatically required, and certainly not theologically neutral. The pronoun וְהוּא can refer back either to:

The most recently mentioned subject: the prophet (Shoemaker’s interpretation), or

The original subject of the clause: God (“the Holy One, blessed be He”)—which is how Hoyland, Cook, and others have read it.

Let’s examine the structure more closely:

Grammatical Breakdown of the Hebrew

כִּרְצוֹנוֹ נָבִיא עֲלֵיהֶם יָעֲמִיד
“According to His will, a prophet will be raised over them [by Him].”

The subject here is God—He will raise up a prophet. The prophet is the object of divine action.

וְהוּא יִכְבֹּשׁ לָהֶם אֶת הָאָרֶץ
“And he will conquer the land for them.”

Now here's the ambiguity: who is “he”?

Shoemaker takes it to mean the prophet.

But grammatically, it can just as well return to the first subject: God.

There is no proper noun here to anchor the subject. Hebrew, like Arabic, often uses implied subjects and shifting pronouns. In Midrashic and apocalyptic Hebrew, this is especially common: God and His agents (angels, messiahs, prophets) are often intertwined in language, because their roles are seen as instruments of divine will.

In other words, this phrase was never meant to clearly distinguish who does what—it was meant to show that God’s plan was unfolding, using prophetic and royal figures as vessels.

Midrashic Style: Blurred Agency Is the Norm

In apocalyptic and midrashic literature, God’s actions and His agents’ actions are deliberately blurred. Consider:

God “raises up” a king—but it is the king who enacts conquest.

A prophet is sent—but the results (wars, victories, punishments) are attributed to divine orchestration.

This is theological rhetoric, not military reporting.

So when the text says:

“A prophet will be raised over them... and he will conquer the land,”

we’re dealing with a visionary explanation of why the children of Ishmael (Arabs) suddenly became powerful—not a timeline of actual conquests, nor a biography of Muhammad ﷺ.

No Mention of Muhammad. No Mention of Palestine. No Dates.

This passage:

Does not name Muhammad

Does not refer to Palestine

Gives no dates or geopolitical details

Offers no connection to historical campaigns like al-Dāthin, Ajnādayn, or Yarmūk

It is an attempt to fit the Arab rise into a Jewish eschatological worldview, portraying Ishmael as a tool to punish or deliver Israel from Edom (Rome).

Even Shoemaker admits elsewhere that this apocalypse contains messianic expectations tied to Jewish hopes—its intent is not to record facts, but to frame history theologically.

Symbolic Text, Not Strategic Map

Shoemaker’s reading is possible—but not necessary, and certainly not compelling.

The grammatical ambiguity of וְהוּא (“he”) is a classic feature of Hebrew religious literature, especially midrashic prophecy, where agency is shared between God and His chosen instruments.

The simplest reading is this:

God raised up a prophet (a general, symbolic figure) from the Arabs.

God—or His prophet—would “subdue the land” as part of divine will.

Either way, the subject is theologically loaded, the timeline unclear, and the focus eschatological.

This is not a snapshot of Muhammad ﷺ leading an army in 634.
It’s a Jewish attempt to explain how Ishmael’s descendants became powerful.

Nothing more.

3. The “Second King of Ishmael” Is Clearly ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb—Not the Prophet ﷺ

Shoemaker claims that the Apocalypse of Rabbi Shimʿōn portrays the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ as alive and personally leading the conquest of Palestine. But the text itself contradicts that claim by presenting two distinct figures:

A prophet—raised up by God to initiate the rise of the Ishmaelite kingdom.
A second king—who performs very specific, historically traceable acts after the initial rise.

Here’s the relevant passage:

“The second king who will arise from Ishmael will be a friend to Israel.
He will repair their breaches and the breaches of the Temple.
He will level Mount Moriah and build for himself a place of worship over the Foundation Stone.”

This is not vague prophecy—it’s a clear historical memory.

The Details Match One Man: Caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb

Let’s walk through the identifiers:

“Second king of Ishmael”
→ Second leader of the Arabs after the prophet. This matches ʿUmar, who succeeded Abū Bakr as the second caliph (634–644 CE).
“Repairs the breaches of Israel and the Temple”
→ This reflects ʿUmar’s tolerant policies toward the Jews of Jerusalem, including lifting the bans and allowing Jewish return to the city. These were remembered positively in early Jewish apocalyptic traditions.
“Levels Mount Moriah and builds a place of worship over the Foundation Stone”
→ ʿUmar’s visit in 637 after the surrender of Jerusalem is traditionally remembered as the moment the site was cleared and reclaimed for monotheistic worship.

The Apocalypse reflects this legendary memory—not architectural records. The “second king” prepares the Temple Mount for worship. This lines up with ʿUmar’s foundational role in sanctifying Jerusalem as a Muslim holy city.

The Prophet and the King Are Not the Same Figure

This structure is important:

The prophet initiates Ishmael’s rise.
The second king completes the conquest and rebuilds—spiritually and symbolically.

They are described sequentially, not simultaneously.

In fact, this mirrors the Islamic narrative exactly:

The Prophet ﷺ preached and set the stage.
ʿAbū Bakr led the initial campaigns.
And ʿUmar captured Jerusalem in 637—years after the Prophet’s death in 632.

So rather than supporting Shoemaker’s view, the Apocalypse confirms the traditional chronology. It places Muhammad ﷺ before the conquest, not inside it.

Schoeler's Verdict Is Unambiguous

Even Gregor Schoeler, in his critique of Shoemaker, affirms:

“The ‘second king’ refers to the Caliph ʿUmar (634–44), under whose rule the conquest of Jerusalem took place.”

This is not speculative—it’s historically grounded.

And it completely undercuts Shoemaker’s claim that this text depicts Muhammad ﷺ alive and active during the conquest of Palestine.

Two Figures, Two Eras, One Clear Sequence

The Apocalypse of Rabbi Shimʿōn b. Yoḥai envisions:

A prophet raised by God = Muhammad ﷺ, initiating the movement.
A second king = ʿUmar, who conquers Jerusalem and prepares the Temple Mount.

This confirms the classical Islamic narrative:

The Prophet ﷺ died in 632, having never entered Palestine.
Jerusalem was conquered in 637, under ʿUmar’s caliphate.

The text’s internal structure, symbolic roles, and historical allusions all work against Shoemaker’s theory, not in favor of it.

Conclusion: A Prophet of the Apocalypse, Not the Battlefield

The Apocalypse of Rabbi Shimʿōn b. Yoḥai is a visionary text, not a military chronicle. It does not mention Muhammad ﷺ by name, nor does it place him in Palestine in 634. It reflects Jewish reinterpretation of conquest through the lens of messianic expectation—a theological response to sudden Arab dominance.

Shoemaker’s reading requires us to accept that:

A metaphorical vision from an angel,

In a document written years after the conquest,

Refers literally to Muhammad ﷺ,

And proves that he lived beyond 632.

That’s not historical method. That’s wishful interpretation.

As Gregor Schoeler reminds us:

“It is by no means clear from the text that Muḥammad was still alive in 634 and had already entered Palestine in that year.”

It is much more plausible that this text reflects the post-Prophetic Arab conquests—which even Muslims, Jews, and Christians of the time interpreted in divine and messianic terms.

**4. The Khuzistan Chronicle (ca. 660 CE)**

Location: Khuzistan (southwestern Persia)

Language: Syriac
Author: Anonymous Syriac Christian

Claim: Refers to Muhammad ﷺ as the “leader” (mḏabbrānā) of the Arabs during their conquests of Persia and Syria.
Shoemaker’s Use: Shoemaker presents this text as perhaps the clearest early non-Muslim witness to Muhammad’s active leadership during the conquests. He interprets the title “leader” as implying that Muhammad was alive and directing campaigns in Khuzistan and Syria during the 630s.

What the Text Actually Says

In its description of the collapse of the Sasanian Empire under Yazdgird III, the Khuzistan Chronicle reads:

“And Yazdgerd, who was from the royal lineage, was crowned king in the city of Istakhr, and under him the Persian Empire came to an end. And he went forth and came to Māḥōzē and appointed one named Rustam as the leader of the army. Then God raised up against them the sons of Ishmael like sand on the seashore. [ܘܡܕܒܪܢܗܘܢ ܐܝܬܘܗܝ ܗܘ ̣ܐ ܡܚܡܕ] & their Leader was Muhammad neither city walls nor gates, neither armor nor shields stood before them. And they took control of the entire land of the Persians. Yazdgerd sent countless troops against them, but the Arabs destroyed them all and even killed Rustam. Yazdgerd shut himself within the walls of Māḥōzē and in the end made his escape through flight. He went to the lands of the Huzaye and the Marwanaye, and there he ended his life. And the Arabs took control of Māḥōzē and all the land. They also went to the land of the Romans, plundering and laying waste to the entire region of Syria. Heraclius, the Roman king, sent armies against them, but the Arabs killed more than one-hundred thousand of them.”

This passage, written in retrospect, combines the Islamic victories in Persia and Syria into a unified account. It mentions Muhammad ﷺ by name and refers to him as the Arabs’ “leader” during the conquests.

Critical Analysis and Rebuttal

1. The Word “Leader” Does Not Prove Contemporaneity—It Reflects Ideological Authority

At the heart of Shoemaker’s argument from the Khuzistan Chronicle lies one word:

mḏabbrānā (ܡܕܒܪܢܐ) – translated as “leader.”

The chronicle states that during the Arab invasion of Persian lands, “their leader was Muhammad”. Shoemaker treats this as an indication that the Prophet ﷺ was still alive and guiding the campaigns of the Arab armies.

But this interpretation leans too heavily on a single word, while ignoring both its semantic range and its literary context.

What Does “mḏabbrānā” Mean?

In Syriac, mḏabbrānā has a broad semantic field. It can mean:

Leader

Organizer

Guide

Ruler

Even a spiritual head

It does not inherently denote physical presence in battle, nor does it imply that the person is alive at the time of the events being described.

Mehdy Shaddel underscores this when he writes:

“The term mḏabbrānā… can also mean ‘guide’ or ‘leader’ in a spiritual sense, and in any case the passage is too equivocal to allow for definitive conclusions to be drawn based on it.”

That is: the chronicler may well have meant that Muhammad was the ideological or religious guide of the Arab armies—the founder of the movement, whose teachings and legacy inspired the ongoing conquests.

This Is Exactly How the Islamic Tradition Frames the Conquests

Islamic sources are clear:

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ died in 632 CE, after sending Usāma ibn Zayd’s army but before any significant campaigns into Persia or Palestine.

The early conquests—including those of Iraq, Khuzistan, and Syria—were carried out by his Companions, under Abū Bakr and later ʿUmar.

Yet the armies still invoked the Prophet’s name in sermons, prayer, banners, and morale.

To a Syriac Christian chronicler, Muhammad remained the origin point—the ideological “mḏabbrānā”—even if he had passed away before the first sword crossed the border.

So the title fits perfectly with Islamic memory. There is no conflict—unless one overloads the word with implications it does not carry.

Used Also for Kings—But Not Always Contemporary Ones

Nasir al-Kaʿbi goes further, pointing out that the same chronicle uses the title “mḏabbrānā” for Sasanian kings, even when they are part of retrospective commentary:

“[The chronicler] uses mḏabbrānā for Sasanian emperors, as he seems to count Muhammad’s ‘reign’ as an extension of Sasanian rule.”

This is crucial.

In the Khuzistan Chronicle, royal authority is a category that extends across imperial memory.

Muhammad is slotted into the flow of historical rulers as another figure of legitimacy—not necessarily a field general, but a name that anchors the age.

Thus, using “leader” does not mean he was issuing battlefield orders in Iraq. It simply reflects the worldview of a chronicler trying to situate Islam within the broader collapse of Sasanian and Roman authority.

Ideological Leadership, Not Physical Presence

To recap:

mḏabbrānā can mean a guide, teacher, or authority figure—not just a military commander.

The Khuzistan Chronicle was written decades after the events and reflects hearsay, not eyewitness testimony.

Calling Muhammad the “leader” of the Arabs at the time of conquest does not imply that he was alive, present, or commanding armies in person.

Instead, it reflects a common Christian perception: that Muhammad’s rise set the stage for the Arab conquest, even if others carried it out.

The Islamic tradition itself says exactly that:

The Prophet ﷺ prepared the mission, but the conquests came under Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.

There is no contradiction here—except when Shoemaker tries to force an ambiguous word into proving a living presence that neither the language nor the context demands.

2. Written Decades After the Fact—A Retrospective Account Based on Hearsay

Though the Khuzistan Chronicle is commonly dated to around 660 CE, it was not composed during the events it describes. By the time of its writing, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ had been dead for at least 25–30 years, and the major conquests into Persian and Roman lands had already transformed the region.

This matters.

The chronicle does not offer a live account of events as they unfolded.

It is a retrospective narrative, written from a distance in both time and knowledge.

As Gregor Schoeler sharply observes:

“The Chronicle’s accounts are based on hearsay, not on written sources. […] Shoemaker’s cautious language shows that he is by no means certain of their reliability.”

This undermines Shoemaker’s repeated characterization of the Chronicle as offering “near-contemporary” evidence of the Prophet’s leadership during the conquests.

In truth, what he calls “hearsay eyewitness accounts” is a contradiction in terms.

He treats the text’s testimony with generous deference—yet applies ferocious skepticism to Islamic isnād traditions, even those compiled within living memory of the Prophet by Companions and early successors.

That double standard weakens his case.

The Limits of Geographic and Cultural Distance

The Khuzistan Chronicle was written by a member of the Church of the East in southwestern Iran—hundreds of miles from the Arab heartlands where the Prophet ﷺ lived, taught, and died.

This geographic distance meant that early Christian observers were often hearing about Islam secondhand, filtered through rumors, assumptions, and eschatological framing.

As Robert Hoyland insightfully notes:

“The actual events of Muhammad’s life, before the Muslim conquests carried his teaching outside Arabia, were unlikely to have circulated far with any degree of accuracy.”

In other words, what a chronicler in Khuzistan heard in the 650s or 660s was not the Prophet’s biography—it was the memory of the Arab rise, overlaid with religious significance and imperial disruption.

It is therefore no surprise that such a writer might refer to Muhammad as the “leader” (mḏabbrānā) of the Arabs at the time of the conquests—not because he was alive and in command, but because his spiritual legacy remained central to the Muslim cause.

To early Christian observers, it was all a single upheaval:

Arabs, prophet, conquest, new religion, fall of the empire.

Distinguishing the Prophet’s life from his legacy was a nuance often lost—or irrelevant—to outside chroniclers.

3. The Historical Timeline Undermines Shoemaker’s Reading Entirely

Shoemaker relies heavily on the Khuzistan Chronicle’s line that “Muhammad was their leader” during the Arab conquest of Persia and Syria. But when we place this statement alongside the actual historical timeline, his interpretation quickly collapses.

Here’s why:

A Timeline the Prophet ﷺ Was Not Alive to See

Let’s lay out the key events with precise dates:

Prophet Muhammad ﷺ passes away:
→ June 8, 632 CE, in Medina
→ At the time, he was ill, managing internal tribal affairs, and preparing Usāma ibn Zayd’s small expedition northward—not commanding campaigns into Persia.

Khalid ibn al-Walīd’s invasion of Iraq begins:
→ April 633 CE, under Caliph Abū Bakr
→ The Prophet had been dead nearly a year

Battle of al-Dāthin (near Gaza):
→ early 634—still after the Prophet’s death

Battle of Ajnādayn and the Syrian offensive intensifies:
→ 634 CE onward, again, under Abū Bakr and ʿUmar

Battle of Yarmūk (decisive victory in Syria):
→ August 636 CE

Invasion of Khuzistan begins:
→ 638 CE, under ʿUmar’s rule

Final conquest of Khuzistan:
→ 641 CE, culminating in the fall of Jundaysābūr and Susa

The Gap Is Too Wide to Bridge

This means:

The Prophet ﷺ had already been dead for six full years by the time Khuzistan even saw its first Arab raids.

He had been dead for a decade by the time the region was fully conquered.

So for Shoemaker to suggest that Muhammad was still alive and leading the campaign in Persia is not just unlikely—it is chronologically impossible.

Even if we hypothetically entertained the idea that Muhammad lived longer than 632 CE, he would have needed to:

Survive through at least 638 to enter Khuzistan,

Command from deep in Persian territory,

All while contradicting every internal Islamic and external Roman/Christian chronology of the period.

This defies all evidence and forces an extremely strained reinterpretation of virtually the entire early Islamic conquest record.

Meanwhile, Islamic Sources Are Clear and Unanimous

The Prophet ﷺ passed away in Medina in 632 CE.

His final efforts were focused on internal spiritual consolidation, farewell sermons, and the preparation of Usāma’s expedition—a symbolic gesture of expansion, not an actual campaign.

His Companions—Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, Khalid ibn al-Walīd, and others—led the actual conquests.

No Muslim source—regardless of sect, century, or region—suggests the Prophet ever personally marched into Iraq or Persia.

And no credible non-Muslim chronicle places him in the thick of military campaigns years after his confirmed death in 632.

Conclusion: Spiritual Leadership Misread as Physical Presence

The Khuzistan Chronicle gives us one of the earliest non-Muslim mentions of Muhammad ﷺ as “leader” of the Arabs—but it does not say he was alive during the conquests, nor does it describe him fighting in Syria or Persia.

It reflects the memory of Muhammad as the source of Arab strength, not as a field general. In the 7th-century Christian imagination, Islam and its Prophet were inseparable—so when the Arabs conquered, it was assumed that their prophet had guided them.

But assumption is not evidence.
This is a confused memory, not a challenge to the unanimous Islamic tradition that the Prophet ﷺ died in 632 CE.

**5. Jacob of Edessa, Chronological Charts (691/692 CE)**

Location: Edessa (modern Şanlıurfa, Turkey)
Language: Syriac

Genre: Chronological tables of regnal years, theological notes, and world events

Claim: Muhammad ﷺ ruled as the first king of the Arabs for seven years (starting in 620/21), and Arab raids into Palestine began in his fifth year.
Shoemaker’s Use: Shoemaker claims that Jacob’s Chronological Charts offer a rare and independent witness to Muhammad’s presence during the opening phases of the conquest of Palestine. Though Jacob’s reign-length for the Prophet is mistaken, Shoemaker argues that the placement of the Palestinian raids during Muhammad’s lifetime confirms his continued leadership during the Near Eastern campaigns.

What the Text Actually Says — And What It Doesn’t

Jacob of Edessa’s Chronological Charts are an ambitious attempt to synchronize the regnal years of three empires—the Romans, Sasanians, and early Arabs—while also noting ecclesiastical and historical events in adjacent columns.

He organizes his schema into Olympiads, Seleucid (AG) years, and regnal years of Heraclius and Xusro II. This results in a complex but internally coherent calendar system—one that gives us valuable data points.

Here’s what Jacob explicitly records:

Key Entries from the Preserved Tables

Beginning of Muhammad’s Rule

“Muhammad, the first king of the Arabs, began to reign, 7 years.”

Placed in:

The 296th Olympiad

The 11th year of Heraclius

The 31st year of Xusro II

Seleucid year (AG) 932

Which corresponds to 620/621 CE

Raids into Palestine

“The Arabs began to make raids in the land of Palestine.”

Placed in:

The 16th year of Heraclius

The 36th year of Xusro II

5th year of Muhammad’s reign

Which corresponds to 625/626 CE

Duration of Muhammad’s Rule

7 years total, placing his death in 627/628 CE, when Abū Bakr succeeds him (Jacob's words: “Abū Bakr ruled for two years and seven months”).

Reconstructing Jacob’s Chronology

Here’s how Jacob lines it up:

Event Year (Seleucid) Gregorian Heraclius Xusro II Hijra Year*

Start of Muhammad’s reign 932 AG 620/621 CE Year 11 Year 31 1 AH (misplaced)

Beginning of raids into Palestine 936 AG 625/626 CE Year 16 Year 36 5 AH

End of Muhammad’s reign 939 AG 627/628 CE Year 19 Year 39 7 AH

Note: Jacob’s “Hijra year” is not the same as the Islamic calendar. He uses “years of rule,” not the Hijri lunar calendar, and misplaces the Hijra by 1–2 years.

Event	Year (Seleucid)	Gregorian	Heraclius	Xusro II	Hijra Year*
Start of Muhammad’s reign	932 AG	620/621 CE	Year 11	Year 31	1 AH (misplaced)
Beginning of raids into Palestine	936 AG	625/626 CE	Year 16	Year 36	5 AH
End of Muhammad’s reign	939 AG	627/628 CE	Year 19	Year 39	7 AH

Why Shoemaker’s Use of This Text Fails

Shoemaker argues that since Jacob records raids into Palestine during Muhammad’s lifetime, this supports his theory that the Prophet was alive during the earliest Islamic conquests.

But this argument breaks down under scrutiny:

1. Jacob’s Timeline Is Internally Inconsistent with Reality

The Prophet ﷺ is recorded as beginning to reign in 620/621—but in Islamic tradition, this is two years before the Hijra (622) and ten years before his death (632).

Jacob says Muhammad ruled only 7 years, ending in 627/628—five years before the Prophet’s actual death.

So even on Jacob’s own terms, his “Muhammad” dies before any historical conquest of Palestine ever began.

The real campaigns in Palestine—Ajnādayn (634), Yarmūk (636), Jerusalem (637)—occur after Jacob’s Muhammad is already gone.

2. “Raids” Are Not Military Campaigns into Roman Syria

The text says:

“The Arabs began to make raids in the land of Palestine.”

This is vague. It does not describe battles, cities taken, or even the Prophet’s involvement. There’s:

No mention of Jerusalem

No mention of Roman defeats

No mention of Muhammad in this sentence at all

Given the time period Jacob assigns this to (625/626), the only thing that might fit is the battle of Muʾta (629)—a minor skirmish between Muslims and local Ghassānid Christian Arab tribes on the edge of Roman control, not a conquest of Palestine proper.

But even that is a stretch—Jacob may be collapsing the anticipation of conquest with its reality, a common feature in early Christian reactions to Arab power.

3. No Strategic or Eyewitness Detail

Jacob gives us:

A name (Muhammad)

A duration of rule (7 years)

A brief note of “raids”

That’s it.

He says nothing about Muhammad commanding armies in person, entering Jerusalem, or leading campaigns. There is no battlefield narrative, no diplomacy, and no logistics. This is not historical testimony—it is chronological indexing, structured to show political succession and divine history, not military campaigns.

Jacob’s Charts Collapse as Evidence

Shoemaker wants Jacob of Edessa to confirm that Muhammad ﷺ was alive during the conquest of Palestine. But:

Jacob says Muhammad ruled from 620 to 627—a seven-year span that ends before any real campaigns began.

The reference to “raids” is unspecific, anachronistic, and does not mention Muhammad.

The text is retrospective, written in 691/692 CE, and heavily compressed, showing signs of chronological fusion common in medieval chronicles.

Rather than confirming Shoemaker’s thesis, Jacob’s Chronological Charts are a prime example of how non-Muslim sources struggled to fit Islamic expansion into their historical frameworks, often compressing or misdating events out of theological or historiographic habit.

Part III – The Real Boundaries and Campaigns: Where the Prophet ﷺ Actually Went

1. Defining Late Antique Palestine: The Borders of Palaestina Tertia

To accurately assess whether the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ ever led campaigns into "Palestine," we must first define what "Palestine" meant in the 6th–7th century Roman world.
Thanks to the work of Yoram Tsafrir and others, we know the borders quite well:

Palaestina Tertia (also called Palaestina Salutaris) included:

The Negev Desert, but only its northern parts (Elusa and Mampsis, not Eboda)

Southern Transjordan (the biblical Moab and Edom)

Southern parts of Sinai, up to a line drawn from Rhinocolura (el-ʿArīsh) to the Dead Sea

Cities like Zoara, Areopolis (Rabbat-Moab), and Charachmoba

Its eastern border followed the Wadi Mujib (Arnon) gorge in Jordan

Its southern border followed the Wadi Ḥasā (Zared) and ended near Toloha and Zoara

What This Means:

"Palestine" in this period included southern Jordan, the Araba Valley, parts of modern-day Israel, and northwestern Sinai

Towns like Jerusalem, Hebron, and Gaza fell into Palaestina Prima and Secunda

Any campaign entering Palestine would need to cross into the Transjordan and engage garrison towns near the Arnon and Dead Sea

2. Where the Prophet ﷺ Actually Campaigned in 5 AH (626–627 CE)

According to Islamic sources like al-Ṭabarī, the Prophet's military activity during Year 5 of the Hijra was largely defensive, focused around Medina and northern-central Arabia.
Here are the main expeditions recorded for that year:

🔸 The Battle of the Trench (al-Khandaq)

Defensive siege against Quraysh and allied tribes

Fought at Medina, not in Palestine

🔸 Expedition Against Banū Qurayẓah

Internal conflict in Medina following the Battle of the Trench

Not external conquest, and far from Roman territory

🔸 Expedition to Dūmat al-Jandal (in northern Arabia)

This is the only expedition that moved northwards, led personally by the Prophet ﷺ

Location: Dūmat al-Jandal lies far east of Palaestina Tertia, in northeastern Arabia, near the Syrian desert

Purpose: Intelligence-gathering and deterrence, not conquest

Key point: Though closer to Syria than Medina, Dūmat al-Jandal was still well outside of Palestine.
No fort was taken, no garrison defeated, and the Prophet returned after a month. It was not a conquest.

Conclusion: No Footfall in Palaestina

Despite Shoemaker’s implication that Muhammad ﷺ personally led armies into Palestine by 634, the actual historical campaigns of 5 AH (626/627) tell a very different story:

The Prophet ﷺ was defending Medina, not raiding the Holy Land.

His only outward movement—Dūmat al-Jandal—was well outside Palestine.

Palaestina Tertia, with cities like Areopolis and Zoara, remained untouched during his lifetime.

The Prophet’s conquests remained moral, theological, and preparatory. The actual military conquest of Palestine began after his death, under Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, as Islamic tradition unanimously affirms.

Conclusion: Jacob Misdates the Prophet’s Rule—And Misplaces the Raids

Jacob of Edessa’s Chronological Charts do not provide credible evidence that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ lived to see or lead the conquest of Palestine.

What Jacob does give us is:

A symbolic, compressed reign of seven years for Muhammad ﷺ, beginning in 620/621 CE—before the Hijrah;

A misdated reference to Arab raids into Palestine in 625/626 CE, when no such incursions occurred;

And no narrative detail—no battles, no leadership, no prophecy—linking the Prophet directly to any campaign in Palestine.

Shoemaker attempts to extract historical weight from a known chronological error, but his argument collapses under closer inspection. The dates are skewed, the categories are conflated, and nothing in the charts is anchored in contemporary, Muslim, or eyewitness memory.

In truth, the only expeditions that even approached the frontier of Palestine during the Prophet’s lifetime were:

Muʾta (629 CE) — a small, tragic clash against Arab confederates near the Roman border;

Tabūk (630 CE) — a deterrent expedition that never reached combat;

Dhat al-Salasil and Usāma ibn Zayd’s campaign into the Balqāʾ region of southern Syria—both far short of a full-scale invasion of Roman Palestine.

The actual conquest of Palestine—with cities falling, armies engaging, and provinces shifting hands—only began in 633–634 CE, during the caliphates of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb.

By that time, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ had been laid to rest in Madinah for nearly two years.

Jacob’s charts reflect a Christian effort to place Islam within a divine historical sequence—not a reliable report of who led what army, where, or when.

6. The Spanish Chronicles of 741 & 754

Location: Iberia (modern-day Spain)
Language: Latin

Genre: Historical chronicle with Christian polemical framing
Claim: Muhammad ﷺ is presented as the leader of the Saracens during the invasion of Syria, Arabia, and Mesopotamia in the 7th year of Heraclius (ca. 618 CE).

Shoemaker’s Use: Shoemaker treats this reference as support for the idea that the Prophet ﷺ was alive and led the first campaigns into Roman territory, including Palestine.

What the Text Actually Says

From the Spanish Chronicle of 741:

“In the seventh year of the aforesaid ruler (Heraclius) the Saracens, in rebellion and hostile to [the inhabitants] of the provinces of the Romans, by stealth rather than by open attacks, incite {the neighbouring tribes}. Theodore, brother of the emperor Heraclius, fought many battles against them. On hearing the report, Heraclius warned his brother that he should in no way fight with such people, for indeed he was experienced in the knowledge of the discipline of astrology and should anything happen by chance, he would know somehow. When a most numerous multitude of Saracens had gathered together, they invaded the provinces of Syria, Arabia and Mesopotamia. Above them, holding the leadership, was one Muhammad by name. Born of a most noble tribe of that people, he was a very prudent man and a foreseer of a good many future events.”

From the Chronicle of 754:

“The Saracens rebelled in the era 656 (618), the seventh year of the emperor Heraclius, and appropriated for themselves Syria, Arabia and Mesopotamia, more through the trickery than through the power of their leader Muhammad. They devastated the neighbouring provinces, proceeding not so much by means of open attacks as by secret incursions, Thus by means of cunning and fraud rather than power, they incited all of the frontier cities of the empire which finally rebelled openly, shaking the yoke from their necks. In the era 656 (618), the seventh year of the emperor Heraclius, the warriors invaded the kingdom, which they forcefully appropriated with many and various consequences.”

Both sources refer to the Spanish era, which begins in 38 BCE. Thus, era 656 = 618 CE, four years before the Hijrah and 14 years before the Prophet’s death.

Critical Analysis and Rebuttal

1. Geographically Distant, Historically Detached

The 2 chronicles ere composed in post-Visigothic Spain, more than 3,000 kilometers away from the heartlands of early Islamic expansion in Arabia, Syria, and Iraq. These were not local chronicles with access to regional eyewitnesses or Arabic sources—they were distant reflections, shaped by hearsay, theological assumptions, and retroactive schematization.
Their geographical remove meant that they lacked any direct engagement with Muslim memory, chronology, or historiography. Instead, their understanding of Islam’s rise was filtered through Christian paradigms—especially eschatological ones that saw the rise of Islam as divine punishment or part of apocalyptic history. These writers were not interested in the Prophet Muhammad’s biography as Muslims understood it, nor were they focused on accurate political chronology. Rather, they inserted Muhammad into the conquest narratives because they perceived him as the founder of the Islamic polity—and therefore, assumed he must have been alive to initiate the conquests.
But this is not history. It’s post hoc logic: the idea that if Muhammad founded Islam, then he must have led its expansion too. This assumption ignores the actual timeline preserved in early Arabic and non-Muslim sources, all of which affirm that the Prophet ﷺ died in June 632 CE, and that the major conquests—of Palestine, Syria, and Iraq—unfolded in the reigns of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, beginning in late 632 or early 633 CE.
In short: these Spanish accounts reflect a distant, distorted mirror—they project the Muslim empire’s eventual dominance backward onto its founder, compressing decades of complex history into a simplified myth of sudden rebellion and rapid conquest, all under the name “Mahmet.” This is not evidence of his presence in Palestine—it’s an echo of medieval Christian misunderstanding.

2. The “Start of the Empire” Fallacy

One of the core misunderstandings behind Shoemaker’s use of these late Christian sources is what Mehdy Shaddel aptly calls a “telescoping of events”—a historical compression that flattens decades of Islamic history into a single moment: the Hijrah.

Christian chroniclers such as those behind the Chronicle of 754, the Zuqnīn Chronicle, and the Chronicle of 775 made a series of interrelated assumptions:

Muhammad founded a new community →

That community marks the start of an “Islamic kingdom” →

Therefore, he was its “first king” →

And thus, he must have launched the conquests that established the empire.

This sequence may look coherent on paper—but it is built on retrospective logic, not historical record. It is the result of a schematic reading of Muslim chronology filtered through the lens of Christian imperial historiography.

As Shaddel shows, these writers were working within calendrical frameworks—such as the Alexandrian, Seleucid, or Spanish eras—that typically marked time from the beginning of a reign. They applied this same logic to Islam: the Hijrah (622 CE), the founding of the Prophet’s polity in Medina, was mistaken as the first year of the Islamic empire, and therefore also presumed to be the starting point of the conquests.

But this is a category error.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ did not found an empire in 622. He founded a community (ummah) rooted in prophetic mission and spiritual reform. The military conquests that transformed the Near East—Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia—took place only after his death, under the caliphs Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, beginning in 633–634 CE.

The assumption that Muhammad ﷺ must have led the campaigns simply because he founded the faith is a classic historical fallacy: confusing theological origin with imperial expansion.

Moreover, these Christian sources do not separate clearly between prophecy, rule, and warfare. Instead, they conflate them into a single moment of “Islamic eruption”, with Muhammad cast retroactively as both messianic threat and imperial monarch. That is not surprising—it fits a Christian apocalyptic narrative, but not the actual unfolding of events.

Thus, when the Chronicle of 754, for instance, claims that Muhammad stirred up rebellion in Spanish era 656 (618 CE)—it’s not recounting a real conquest. It’s back-projecting a schematic version of Islamic history based on the Hijrah and retrofitting it with imperial implications.

Shoemaker’s mistake is to treat this retrospective mythology as if it were reliable chronology. But the evidence is clear: these texts do not record Muhammad’s participation in the conquest of Palestine—they record later Christian interpretations of how the Muslim empire came to be.

3. No Evidence of Military Leadership or Presence in Palestine

Despite Shoemaker’s suggestion, neither the 2 Chronicles provide any direct claim that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ physically led armies into Palestine, Syria, or Mesopotamia.

Let’s look at what the texts actually say:

The 741 source describes "Mahmet" as:

“Holding the principate over them… born of the noblest tribe… a rather knowledgeable man and a foreseer of some things to come.”
The 754 chronicle says:

“Mahmet their leader stirred up rebellion… not so much by open breakthroughs as secret incursions… they harassed all the adjacent cities… and finally shook the Roman yoke from the neck.”

Neither refers to Muhammad as present on the battlefield. Neither places him in Palestine. Neither describes him issuing orders, taking part in sieges, or leading any army.

Instead, the language is clearly ideological:

“Foreseer” = a religious or prophetic figure, not a military general.
“Stirred up rebellion” = implies ideological agitation or spiritual awakening, not battlefield tactics.
“Held the principate” = a retrospective title, likely equating spiritual authority with temporal sovereignty, as later Christians misunderstood it.

This is precisely what Islamic tradition affirms:

The Prophet ﷺ laid the foundation — spiritually, morally, politically — for the Islamic community.
But the actual military conquests of Roman lands began after his death, under Abū Bakr and intensified under ʿUmar.

Shoemaker tries to draw a historical sword from rhetorical smoke — but the source material never says Muhammad fought in these campaigns, let alone led them.

What we see here is Christian chroniclers retrojecting imperial expansion back onto the Prophet as the natural origin point of Islam’s rise — a literary and symbolic impulse, not a historical record.

In sum: The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is remembered in these sources not as a battlefield commander, but as the originator of a new religious and social order — which, in Christian hindsight, was conflated with the empire it eventually spawned.

4. Impossible Dating: 618 CE Is Before the Hijrah

Both the Spanish Chronicles date the Arab conquests to Era 656, which corresponds to 618 CE.

That’s a problem — a serious one.

Let’s break it down:

The Hijrah, the Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ migration from Mecca to Medina — the foundational moment of the Islamic calendar — occurred in 622 CE.

The fall of Damascus, one of the first major victories in the Near Eastern campaigns, took place in 634 CE.

Yet these Christian sources claim that Syria, Arabia, and Mesopotamia were invaded in 618 CE — a full four years before the Hijrah, and sixteen years before Jerusalem was captured (636 CE).

This is chronologically impossible.

There were no Arab invasions in 618 CE. In fact, the Prophet ﷺ was still in Mecca, facing persecution and hardship from the Quraysh, not leading armies, founding cities, or launching wars.

So what happened?

As Mehdy Shaddel explains, this is a classic case of chronological compression:

“The epoch of the Muslim calendar has been equated with the rise of Muḥammad and his followers, and, by extension, the conquests.”

In other words:

The chronicler starts with the year 754 CE, the date of his writing.

He subtracts 136 lunar years (roughly corresponding to 136 AH) to reach Era 656 / 618 CE.

He assumes that the birth of Islam = start of the Muslim calendar = start of the Islamic Empire = start of the conquests.

But these are four different things, happening over decades, not all at once:

610 CE — the first revelation

622 CE — the Hijrah, beginning of the Muslim calendar

632 CE — the Prophet’s ﷺ death

633–640 CE — the early conquests of Iraq, Syria, Palestine

This historical confusion stems from a Christian attempt to impose schematic order on events they did not fully understand — fusing spiritual beginnings with military expansion into one symbolic “starting point.”

So while Shoemaker sees this as evidence for Muhammad’s role in conquest, the dates themselves refute his premise.

The 618 CE timestamp is not a record of memory — it’s a mathematical misunderstanding, the result of working backwards from the Hijrah without access to reliable historical data.

Conclusion: A Mistaken Timeline, Not a Military Testimony

The Spanish Chroniclers do not demonstrate that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ lived into the conquests of Palestine or led military campaigns against the Romans.

They reflect:

A telescoped memory of early Islamic history,

Confusion over the start of the Muslim calendar,

And a Christian habit of collapsing theology, chronology, and politics into a single symbolic “beginning.”

These sources affirm Muhammad’s importance, but not his physical leadership of campaigns outside Arabia. That role belonged to his Companions—just as Islamic tradition has always said.

**7. The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria – Life of Benjamin (Before 717 CE)**

Location: Egypt
Language: Originally Coptic; translated and continued in Arabic

Genre: Ecclesiastical biography / church chronicle

Claim: Describes the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ as conquering Damascus, Syria, and crossing into Palestine.

Shoemaker’s Use: Shoemaker argues that this text directly affirms Muhammad’s presence and leadership in the conquests of the Levant, particularly Syria and Palestine.

What the Text Actually Says

The account of the rise of Islam appears in the Life of Benjamin, within George the Archdeacon’s section (written before 717 CE). It reads:

“And after a few days, there arose a man among the Arabs, from the southern regions, from Mecca and its vicinity, named Muhammad. And he restored the worshippers of idols to knowledge of the one God, so that they said that Muhammad is his messenger. And his nation was circumcised in the flesh, not in the law, and they prayed toward the south, orienting themselves toward a place they call the Ka‘ba. And he took possession of Damascus and Syria, and he crossed the Jordan and damned it up, And the Lord abandoned the army of the Romans before him, because of their corrupt faith and the excommunication that was brought against them and because of the Council of Chalcedon by the ancient fathers.”

This is presented in a non-polemical, matter-of-fact tone.

Critical Analysis and Rebuttal

1. Late and Layered Redactions

Shoemaker admits the History is a composite text, spanning over a millennium, translated from Coptic to Arabic, and re-edited several times. Its section on Patriarch Benjamin was likely written between 715–717 CE, long after the events described.

He further admits that:

“We do not know the source of the information…”

Which means its historical anchoring is untraceable—we don’t know who authored the claims, what sources they had, or how much hindsight shaped the narrative. It is likely that the writer drew on oral legend, Christian interpretation, or simplified retellings of the Muslim conquests from within Egypt—not eyewitness testimony from the Levant.

2. It Confuses Founding with Conquest

The statement that “Muhammad took possession of Damascus and Syria” does not reflect historical sequence but rather a simplified theological narrative.

In fact:

Muhammad ﷺ never entered Syria as a conqueror.

The conquest of Damascus occurred in 634 CE, under Abū Bakr’s command, by generals like Khalid ibn al-Walīd.

The Prophet ﷺ passed away in June 632 CE, before these conquests began.

This text, like many others, compresses Muhammad’s religious leadership and the caliphal military expansion into one unified movement—understandable from a distant Christian observer’s lens, but historically inaccurate.

3. “He Took Possession” Is Not Literal

The phrase “he took possession of Damascus and Syria” is not proof of physical leadership or military presence. It reflects the perception of Islamic expansion as a result of Muhammad’s message and legacy.

The passive tone—“he took possession”—lacks specificity:

No names of battles

No timelines

No references to military campaigns, generals, or strategy

The phrase functions theologically, not militarily. It attributes the success of Islam to its prophet—but doesn’t mean he led armies across Jordan.

4. Shoemaker’s Double Standard

Shoemaker rejects Muslim isnāds and eyewitness-based sīrah sources as unreliable, yet accepts this anonymous Coptic hagiography, written generations later, as authoritative.

This is inconsistent.

If he demands rigorous sourcing for early Islamic tradition, he should hold Christian chronicles to the same standard—especially when their accounts are:

Theologically framed

Schematic and compressed

Drawn from outside the lands of Palestine and Syria

Conclusion: A Religious Retelling, Not a Campaign Record

The Life of Benjamin reflects a Coptic Christian interpretation of Islam’s rise—one that spiritually associates the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ with the movement’s eventual victories. But this is not a historical statement of battlefield leadership or presence.

It is a faith-infused, retrospective summary:

Muhammad ﷺ restored monotheism,

His followers conquered Syria,

Therefore, he “took possession” — spiritually or symbolically.

But this compresses decades of events into one sentence. In reality:

Damascus fell in 634 CE, two full years after the Prophet ﷺ had passed away (in June 632 CE).
It was conquered by Khalid ibn al-Walīd, under the caliph Abū Bakr—not by the Prophet himself.

There is no evidence, either in Islamic or Roman sources, that Muhammad ﷺ led any campaign into the Levant. The phrase “he took possession” reflects theological memory, not logistical fact.

Shoemaker accepts this highly simplified and late account as evidence for Muhammad’s military leadership, yet disregards earlier Muslim isnād traditions that offer specific names, dates, and campaign details. This is an inconsistent methodological stance.

In short: the Life of Benjamin offers a devotional narrative, not a documentary record. It speaks to the perceived divine favor behind Islam’s rise—not to the Prophet’s physical involvement in posthumous conquests.

8. The Chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa (ca. 750 CE)

Location: Edessa (modern Şanlıurfa, Turkey)

Language: Syriac (preserved through Greek, Arabic, and later Syriac sources)
Genre: Historical-apocalyptic chronicle

Claim: Suggests Muhammad ﷺ initiated raids into Palestine personally and remained at the center of the military rise of Islam.

Shoemaker’s Use: Shoemaker treats this account as reliable evidence that Muhammad ﷺ led raids into Palestine, citing it as confirmation of his military involvement and suggesting that this account reflects early Christian awareness of the Prophet’s continued leadership throughout the conquests.

What the Text Says

According to the Chronicle of 1234 (which scholars like Shoemaker, Hoyland, and Conrad agree best reflects Theophilus’ lost chronicle), the narrative goes:

"Therefore this Muhammad, while in the measure and stature of youth, began to go up and come down from his city Yathrib to Palestine for the business of buying and selling. And while he was engaged in this region, he encountered the belief in one God, and it was pleasing to his eyes. And when he went back down to the people of his tribe, he set this belief before them, and when he persuaded a few, they followed him. And at the same time he would also extol for them the excellence of the land of Palestine, saying that “Because of belief in the one God, such a good and fertile land has been given to them.” And he would add, “If you will listen to me, God will also give you a fine land flowing with milk and honey.”
And when he wanted to prove his word, he led a band of those who were obedient to him, and he began to go up and plunder the land of Palestine, taking captives and pillaging. And he returned, laden [with booty] and unharmed, and he did not fall short of his promise to them. Since the love of possessions drives such behavior to become a habit, they began continually going out and coming back for plunder. And when those who were not yet following him saw those who had submitted to him becoming wealthy with an abundance of riches, they were drawn to his service without compulsion. And when, after these [raids], the men following him became numerous and were a great force, he no longer [went forth but] allowed them to raid while he sat in honor in Yathrib, his city. And once they had been sent out, it was not enough for them to remain only in Palestine, but they were going much further afield, killing openly, taking captives, laying waste, and pillaging. And even this was not enough for them, but they forced them to pay tribute and enslaved them. Thus they gradually grew strong and spread abroad, and they grew so powerful that they subjugated almost all the land of the Romans and the kingdom of the Persians under their authority."

Critical Analysis and Rebuttal

1. Anachronisms and Geographic Errors

The Chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa opens its account with a glaring historical error:

“Therefore this Muhammad, while in the measure and stature of youth, began to go up and come down from his city Yathrib to Palestine for the business of buying and selling…”

This immediately undermines the reliability of the text for one simple reason:

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ did not grow up in Yathrib.
He was born and raised in Mecca, some 450 kilometers south of Yathrib (Medina).

The Hijrah—his migration to Yathrib—occurred only in 622 CE, when he was already 52 years old. Before that, he had never resided in Yathrib. All known trade expeditions in his youth and early adulthood were from Mecca, where he was under the care of his uncle Abū Ṭālib and worked in the caravans of Khadijah.

Thus, to describe him as “going up and down from Yathrib” as a young merchant is historically impossible.

This isn't a small slip—it betrays a fundamental confusion of chronology and geography, which strongly suggests that the author was working from distant hearsay or late Christian traditions, rather than accurate historical memory.

Furthermore, the phrasing—“he encountered the belief in one God, and it was pleasing to his eyes”—is another clue that we are not dealing with authentic recollection, but with an outsider’s interpretive frame, one that views Islam as derivative of Judeo-Christian monotheism rather than a revelation in its own right.

This anachronistic framing reflects Christian attempts to rationalize Islam’s rise within their theological worldview. But it does not reflect what happened—and it certainly cannot be used as solid evidence for Muhammad ﷺ’s military involvement in Palestine.

2. No Evidence from Islamic or Contemporary Non-Islamic Sources

The passage continues with the following claim:

“He extolled for them the excellence of the land of Palestine, saying that ‘Because of belief in the one God, such a good and fertile land has been given to them.’ And he would add, ‘If you will listen to me, God will also give you a fine land flowing with milk and honey.’”

This part of the text is striking not for what it tells us about the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, but for what it tells us about the Christian imagination of him.

Let’s be clear:

There is no reference in early Islamic sources—Sīrah, Hadith, or historical chronicles—that the Prophet ﷺ ever promised Palestine as a “land flowing with milk and honey.”
There is no record of him personally leading a raid into Palestine, taking captives, or returning laden with booty.

Instead, this passage reads like a deliberate Christian recasting of Muhammad ﷺ in the mold of Moses:

The phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey” is a direct Biblical allusion, echoing Exodus and Deuteronomy (e.g., Exodus 3:8, Deuteronomy 6:3).

This typology turns Muhammad into a Mosaic figure, leading a chosen people to a promised land.

It is a theological metaphor, not a historical claim.

Moreover, when we examine Islamic tradition closely, we see that the Prophet’s direct military involvement in the north was extremely limited:

The only northern expeditions the Prophet ﷺ personally led were:

Tabūk (630 CE) — a non-combat campaign where the Romans never appeared.

Dumat al-Jandal (627 CE) — aimed at securing trade routes, not territorial conquest.

Other campaigns into Roman territory during his lifetime were led by others:

Muʾta (629 CE) was led by Zayd ibn Ḥārithah, the Prophet’s adopted son.

Usāma ibn Zayd, Zayd’s son, was appointed by the Prophet to lead a campaign to Balqāʾ, but it was launched after the Prophet’s death in 632 CE.

None of these were invasions of Palestine proper. None of them included language about promised land or divinely bestowed conquest. None of them involved the Prophet personally engaging in pillaging or raiding of Christian cities.

In fact, Islamic tradition stresses that the Prophet ﷺ passed away before the actual conquests of the Levant began under Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.

So what we are left with in this passage from Theophilus is not factual reporting, but a reimagination of Muhammad ﷺ through a Christian eschatological and typological lens—one that seeks to make sense of his rise by comparing him to figures like Moses, not by documenting real military actions.

3. The Prophet as Organizer, Not Commander

Even within Theophilus of Edessa’s own account, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is not depicted as a military leader conducting battlefield campaigns into Roman lands. On the contrary, the chronicle admits that after a certain point:

“He no longer went forth but allowed them to raid while he sat in honor in Yathrib, his city.”

This line is profoundly important for two reasons:

1. It Refutes Shoemaker’s Central Claim

Shoemaker wants to argue that Muhammad ﷺ personally led the Muslim armies into Palestine and Syria. But this source—cited by Shoemaker himself—states clearly that:

The Prophet remained in Yathrib (Medina), not on the front lines.

His role became one of delegation, not direct command.

This matches perfectly with the Islamic historical record, in which:

The Prophet ﷺ guided and instructed his Companions,

But major battles in Roman lands—like Yarmūk and the conquest of Damascus—were carried out after his death, by leaders like Khalid ibn al-Walīd, and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb.

2. Theophilus Portrays Him as a Spiritual Founder

Even if one were to take Theophilus' narrative at face value (which is already problematic), Muhammad ﷺ is portrayed not as a battlefield general, but as a revered figurehead—a prophet who:

Inspired his followers,

Remained behind in Yathrib, and

Watched his movement expand through the zeal of his community.

This is entirely consistent with a posthumous ideological influence, not with a literal, physical presence in the conquests of Palestine and Syria.

In short, Shoemaker’s citation backfires: instead of affirming the Prophet’s presence in military conquests, the very source he uses draws a clear line between inspiration and execution, between founding a movement and commanding an army.

4. Apocalyptic Overtones and Hindsight Compression

The narrative attributed to Theophilus of Edessa is not a military chronicle or historical eyewitness account—it is a morally infused, theologically charged reinterpretation of early Islamic history. The entire structure of the story follows a symbolic arc, rich with apocalyptic motifs and shaped by Christian anxieties over imperial decline:

Palestine as the "Promised Land"

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is presented not as a general, but as a type of Moses, promising his followers:

“If you will listen to me, God will also give you a fine land flowing with milk and honey.”

This is not historical reporting—it is midrashic typology, borrowed from the Hebrew Bible and reshaped for Christian theological reflection. This motif of a chosen people receiving a promised land was commonly used by Christian writers to cast rival faiths within moral-apocalyptic frameworks.

Plunder as Motivation and Metaphor

The narrative suggests that:

Raids into Palestine were started by the Prophet himself,

They became habitual economic expeditions driven by love of possessions,

And new followers joined not from faith, but from desire for wealth.

This conveniently mirrors common Christian polemics of the time—casting Islam as a religion of materialism and conquest rather than true spiritual renewal.

But this moralizing narrative is a literary device, not a historical document. It projects onto early Islam a retrospective theology of greed, collapse, and divine punishment.

Compression of Time and Role

As Mehdy Shaddel and others have pointed out, mid-8th century Christian chroniclers frequently collapsed decades of Islamic history—from the Prophet’s mission to the Umayyad conquests—into a single, seamless story:

Muhammad ﷺ inspires a movement →

That movement spreads quickly →

Therefore, Muhammad must have led the conquests himself.

This is a telescoping fallacy. Theophilus’ account:

Blurs the line between prophetic guidance and military campaigns,

Ignores the fact that the vast majority of conquests took place after 632 CE, and

Retroactively folds the early caliphal expansions into the Prophet’s lifetime.

In doing so, it sacrifices historical accuracy for narrative cohesion—painting a mythic rise of Islam that satisfies theological expectations, but contradicts all reliable timelines, including those from Islamic, Roman, and other Syriac sources.

Conclusion: A Legend, Not a Logbook

The Chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa provides a retroactive Christian narrative that blends:

Biblical motifs,

Apocalyptic themes,

And a dramatic rise-from-nothing storyline.

But what it does not provide is historical evidence that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ led raids into Palestine or saw the fall of Damascus.

It belongs to a genre of mid-8th century Christian historiography that tried to make sense of Islam’s stunning rise by linking the Prophet to every part of it—even events that occurred long after his death.

9. The Short Syriac Chronicle (ca. 775 CE)

Location: Northern Syria

Language: Syriac
Genre: Concise annalistic chronicle listing rulers and events
Claim: “Muhammad and the Arabs went forth from the south and subjugated the land” in the year 930 of the Seleucid Era (618/619 CE).

Shoemaker’s Use: Shoemaker treats this as a straightforward report that Muhammad ﷺ personally led the invasion of Roman lands. He notes the odd dating but insists the text reflects an early Christian memory of prophetic military leadership.

“Et Muhammat et Arabes e meridie exierunt…”

“And Muhammad and the Arabs went forth from the south…”

Translation:

Maurice, 27 years and 6 months.
Phocas, 8 years.
Heraclius, 24 years.

And in the year 930 of Alexander [618/19 CE], Heraclius and the Romans entered Constantinople, and Muhammad and the Arabs went forth from the south and entered the land and subdued it.
Then come the years of the Hagarenes, and the time when they entered Syria and took power begins in the year 933 of Alexander [621/622 CE].

Each of their rulers is listed as follows:
Muhammad, 10 years.

Abū Bakr, 1 year.
ʿUmar, 12 years.

ʿUthmān, 12 years.
Without a king, 5 years.

Muʿāwiya, 20 years.
Yazīd, his son, 3 years.

Without a king, 9 months.

Marwān, 9 months.
ʿAbd al-Malik, 21 years.

Al-Walīd, his son, 9 years.
Sulaymān, 2 years and 7 months.

ʿUmar [II], 2 years and 7 months.
Yazīd [II], 4 years, 10 months, and 10 days.

Critical Analysis and Rebuttal

1. The Date is Factually Impossible

The chronicle places the subjugation of Palestine at AG 930—which corresponds to 618/619 CE.

But:

The Hijrah (migration to Medina) occurred in 622 CE (AG 933).

The first Muslim incursions into Roman territory (e.g. Muʿta and Tabūk) didn’t occur until the late 620s, and

The major conquests of Syria and Palestine began only after the Prophet died in 632, under Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.

This means: The Chronicle places a full-scale Arab invasion before Muhammad ﷺ had even left Mecca, let alone founded the Islamic polity in Medina.

As Shoemaker admits: “The date precedes even the Hijrah by three years.”

This is not a historical claim. It’s a miscalculated retrospective assumption.

2. A Telescoped View of Islamic History

The Short Syriac Chronicle (ca. 775 CE) offers what appears to be a simple historical summary of the early Muslim rulers, beginning with the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and followed by the early caliphs. However, this list is deceptive in its simplicity—it’s a classic case of telescoping, a form of literary compression where decades of complex history are collapsed into a single, symbolic sequence.

As Mehdy Shaddel insightfully explains, late Christian chroniclers like this one frequently:

Equated the Hijrah (622 CE) with the founding of the Islamic kingdom;

Treated Muhammad ﷺ as the first king, not merely a prophet;

And then attributed to him all subsequent early Islamic conquests.

This created a highly schematic narrative:

Hijrah
⬇

Islamic kingdom begins
⬇

Muhammad leads or initiates the conquest of the Near East

But this is not historical reporting—it’s chronological fusion, built not on evidence, but on calendar math and narrative simplification.

Shaddel on the Short Chronicle’s Method

Shaddel illustrates this distortion using the chronicle’s own logic:

"The Chronicle of 775, for instance, closes off with a list of Muslim rulers beginning with Muḥammad and down to the accession of the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdī (r. 775 CE) in the year AG 1087."

This calculation is key. The chronicler:

Accepts that al-Mahdī came to power in AG 1087 (775 CE);

Subtracts 157 years, aligning with the 157 lunar years since the Hijrah (1 AH = 622 CE);

Concludes that Islam must have started in AG 930 (i.e., 620/621 CE), and therefore that Muhammad began ruling and conquering at that time.

This is how the date AG 930—which appears in the Short Syriac Chronicle, Zuqnīn, and even in some inscriptions—emerges.

But it’s all based on backwards reckoning:
→ The chronicler knows the current ruler (al-Mahdī),
→ Knows how many years are said to have passed since the Prophet,
→ And simply subtracts that number from the present date.

The result? A symbolic epoch, not a reliable chronology.

Not Conquests, But Calculations

This is not a record of what happened when—it’s a way of telling time.

Instead of placing the conquests under Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, as Islamic tradition consistently reports, the chronicler treats the entire arc of empire as originating with the Prophet—regardless of actual timelines or events.

“Muhammad and the Arabs went forth from the south and entered the land and subdued it.”
— Short Syriac Chronicle

This is mythic compression, not military history.

Shaddel’s Final Observation

Shaddel concludes:

“Here we have the epoch of the Hijrī calendar equated with the beginning of Muhammad’s ‘reign’ (and the founding of the Muslim ‘kingdom’) again, and this latter with the conquests, rather than an erroneous date for the Muslim conquest of Palestine, as Shoemaker would have it.”

In other words, the chronicler isn’t saying Palestine was conquered in 620/621.

He’s saying: “That’s when Islam started, so that’s when the conquests must have too.”

That’s not history—it’s theology dressed as timeline.

3. No Military Detail, No Eyewitness Basis

The Chronicle offers no specifics:

No battles,

No cities taken,

No military figures (other than Muhammad),

And no contextual information about the events.

It simply states:

“Muhammad and the Arabs went forth from the south and subjugated the land.”

This is not a campaign report. It’s a schematic entry, meant to mark a turning point—not document how or when it happened.

The statement lacks any grounding in eyewitness accounts or sources traceable to those events. It is history at a distance, filtered through a theological worldview.

4. Problems with Caliphal Chronology

As Andrew Palmer notes:

“This text is full of oddities.”

Among them:

Abū Bakr’s reign is cut short to 1 year (instead of 2+),

ʿUmar’s is stretched to 12 (instead of ~10),

Several gaps “without a king” are inserted arbitrarily.

If the chronicle mishandles the reign lengths of caliphs—well-documented in both Islamic and non-Islamic records—how can it be trusted for events 150 years earlier?

5. A Chronicle, Not a Source-Critical Narrative

The genre of the Short Syriac Chronicle is critical:

It’s an abbreviated list, not an analytical history.

It reflects the Christian understanding of historical succession, not investigative reporting.

Its function is chronological orientation, not evidence collection.

The entry on Muhammad is formulaic, not evidentiary.

Conclusion: A Chronological Shell, Not a Witness

The Short Syriac Chronicle does not offer proof that Muhammad ﷺ led the Islamic conquest of Roman Syria.

Instead, it gives us:

An impossibly early date (618),

No military detail,

A compressed timeline based on theological interpretation,

And a generic formula assigning all Muslim actions to the Prophet.

This is not an account from the 620s—it’s a Christian view from the 770s, shaped by hindsight, genre, and schematic reasoning.

10. The Zuqnin Chronicle (ca. 775 CE)

Location: Monastery of Zuqnin (near Amida / modern Diyarbakır, Turkey)

Language: Syriac
Genre: Ecclesiastical chronicle with apocalyptic overtones

Claim: Muhammad ﷺ led the conquest of Palestine, introduced monotheism, and was regarded by the Arabs as a prophet and lawgiver.
Shoemaker’s Use: Shoemaker argues that this text maintains the “tradition” of the Prophet’s direct leadership during the initial Arab conquests, especially in Palestine.

What the Text Actually Says

“620-621 - The year nine hundred and thirty-two: The Arabs conquered the land of Palestine and the land as far as the great river Euphrates. The Romans fled and crossed over to the east of the Euphrates, and the Arabs held sway over them.

The first king was a man among them named Muhammad, whom they also called Prophet because he turned them away from cults of all kinds and taught them that there was only one God, creator of the universe. He also instituted laws for them because they were much entangled in the worship of demons and cult of idols, mainly the cult of trees. Because Muhammad showed them that God was one, because they vanquished the Romans in war through his direction, and because he instituted laws for them according to their desire, they called him Prophet and Messenger of God.

This nation is very lascivious and sensual. Every law instituted for them, be it by Muhammad or by any other God-fearing person, is despised and dismissed if it is not instituted according to their sensual pleasure. But a law which fulfils their wishes and desires, even if it is instituted by a nobody among them, they accept, saying: "This has been instituted by the Prophet and Messenger of God. Moreover, it was commanded to him in this manner by God!" Muhammad ruled them for seven years.”

The chronicle continues with a theological commentary on the Arabs’ moral character, their veneration of Muhammad as lawgiver, and a claim that he “ruled them for seven years.”

Critical Analysis and Rebuttal

1. Impossible Date: AG 932 = 620/621 CE

The Zuqnin Chronicle claims that the Arabs under Muhammad conquered Palestine and the Euphrates region in the year 932 of the Alexandrian calendar—which corresponds to 620/621 CE.

This is chronologically indefensible for several reasons:

1. It’s Before the Hijrah

The Hijrah (emigration) of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to Medina—marking the formal founding of the Islamic polity—took place in 622 CE.
Yet Zuqnin places full-scale imperial conquests in 620/621, before the Islamic community even existed in Medina.

2. It’s More Than a Decade Before the First Battles

The actual Muslim campaigns into Palestine and Syria did not begin until 633/634 CE, over twelve years after the date claimed by Zuqnin.

Damascus fell in late 634 CE,

Jerusalem in 637 CE,

And the decisive battle of Yarmūk was fought in 636 CE.

All of these happened after the Prophet died in 632 CE, under the leadership of Caliphs Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, not the Prophet himself.

3. Palestine Was Still Under Persian Rule

Adding to the historical impossibility, at this time:

The Sasanian Empire controlled Palestine, having captured it from the Romans in 614 CE,

The Romans would not reclaim it until 630 CE,

And Muslims had not yet entered the political-military arena of the Roman-Persian war.

To say that Arabs “defeated the Romans” and “conquered Palestine” under Muhammad in 620/621 simply makes no sense—neither Rome nor the Muslims were in control of Palestine at that time.
4. Telescoping History into Theology

This is precisely the pattern Mehdy Shaddel identifies:

“They place the beginning of the Islamic empire, and thus the conquests, at Muḥammad’s foundation of an embryonic polity at Medina… retroactively fusing the Prophet’s career with later caliphal conquests.”

In other words, the chronicler treats the Hijrah era (or what he thinks it was) as the beginning of the Islamic empire, and projects back the later conquests as if they began under the Prophet’s own leadership.

This is not contemporary record-keeping—it’s a simplified theological timeline built from distant memory, symbolic reasoning, and imperial hindsight.

Bottom Line:

Muhammad ﷺ did not lead the conquest of Palestine.
He was still in Mecca and then Medina, establishing a small and fragile community of believers. The grand conquests would begin only after his death, when his message—now carried by his Companions—swept across the Near East.

The Zuqnin Chronicle, like several other 8th-century Christian texts, compresses decades of development into a single legendary moment, It’s not a historical report—it’s mythic memory mistaken for fact.

2. Writing from the Margins, Over 140 Years Later

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn was composed in the mid-8th century (ca. 775 CE)—nearly 145 years after the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ passed away in 632 CE.

This chronological distance is significant on its own, but what makes the issue even more striking is the chronicler’s own confession of weakness in his source base:

“From that point [574 CE] up to the present year [775],
I have not found [a history] concerning events which is composed on such solid foundations
as the former ones [that is, Eusebius, Socrates, John of Ephesus].”

This is a direct acknowledgment that for the entire period covering the rise of Islam and the early caliphate, the author had:

No firm sources

No contemporary documentation

No solid chronology to build from

Instead, he was likely working from:

Second- or third-hand oral accounts

Apocalyptic interpretations

Local hearsay

Christian polemic and mythologized memory

Why This Matters

Shoemaker tries to treat the Zuqnīn Chronicle as if it were a serious, factual witness to the Prophet’s alleged role in leading military conquests into Roman territory. But the chronicler himself tells us that his understanding of this period was tentative, poorly sourced, and far removed from the events in question.

This isn’t historical testimony—it’s distant retrospection, cobbled together from faith-driven frameworks rather than archival evidence.

Compare this to Islamic sources, which—despite legitimate academic scrutiny—were composed by communities much closer to the events, often preserving chain-of-transmission frameworks (isnāds), and drawing from eyewitness memory.

Peripheral Geography, Peripheral Knowledge

Add to that the fact that the Zuqnīn Chronicle was written in Amida (modern Diyarbakır), on the far eastern edge of the Roman frontier, where:

Islamic conquests arrived late,

Christian-Muslim relations were shaped more by local skirmishes and fears than by first-hand observation of Hijaz or Syrian events,

And theological storytelling about Islam often blurred into folk eschatology.

The result is a chronicle from the cultural margins, describing the rise of Islam through a distant, distorted lens—a lens fogged by fear, fascination, and the theological urge to “make sense” of Rome’s collapse.

Conclusion:

If the Zuqnīn author did not have reliable histories for his own period, how could he provide accurate, first-hand detail about events over a century earlier in a completely different region?

This is not evidence of Muhammad’s battlefield presence—it’s a snapshot of how confused and mythologized Christian memory of early Islam had become.

4. The Motif of the “Seven-Year Rule”

Many Christian chronicles written in the 7th–8th centuries claim that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ ruled for seven years.

This appears in:

Jacob of Edessa’s Chronological Charts (ca. 691/92 CE),
The Chronicle of 1234,
And the Zuqnīn Chronicle (ca. 775 CE).

“Muhammad ruled them for seven years...” (Chronicle of Zuqnīn)

But this is not what Islamic sources report.

Islamic tradition is consistent and clear:

Prophetic mission: 610–632 CE (22–23 years)
Political rule in Medina: 622–632 CE (≈ 10 years)

There is no Islamic source, Sunni or Shia, that limits the Prophet’s political leadership to just seven years.

So Why Seven?

Sebastian Brock, in his The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles, identifies this as a persistent error in Christian chronographic tradition:

“Unfortunately [Jacob of Edessa] gave Muhammad only seven years in power;
his authority perpetuated this error.”

This phrase — “perpetuated this error” — is telling. Because Jacob of Edessa was so influential as a Christian chronographer (even regarded as having outdone Eusebius in some respects), his mistake spread to others.

Symbolism Over Precision

The number seven is not a neutral guess. It carries heavy symbolic weight in Judeo-Christian thought:

Seven days of Creation
Seven seals in Revelation
Seven churches, seven angels, seven trumpets
Seven years of famine or plenty in Biblical cycles

To a Syriac Christian mind, casting Muhammad’s rule as “seven years” served to fit him into a cosmic framework — not to reflect accurate biography.

It turned a confusing, fast-moving geopolitical upheaval (the Arab conquests) into a structured theological narrative.

An Attempt to Order the Unknown

As Brock notes, texts like these often reflect the moment when Syriac Christians began to realize that the Arab presence was not a passing phase:

“Was it only then that it began to dawn on the Syrians that the Arab Conquest was not a temporary setback for Byzantium, but the beginning of a new empire to which they would continue to be subjected?”

The “seven-year reign” offers an illusion of closure — a way to compress the life of the Prophet and the start of Islam into a fixed, understandable unit. It helped anxious Christians frame the rise of Islam as part of God’s plan, perhaps even a chastisement with a time limit.

Conclusion: Not a Chronology, but a Theology

The “seven-year rule” found in Jacob, Zuqnīn, and others is not based on any reliable record. It is:

A symbolic artifact,
Carried forward by Christian writers unfamiliar with internal Islamic chronology,
And mismatched against the clear testimony of Muslim historical memory.

Rather than challenging Islamic tradition, this detail reinforces the idea that many Christian chronicles were guessing — projecting order onto events they did not witness, and filtering everything through sacred numerology and eschatological anxiety.

5. Moral Polemic, Not Historical Analysis

The Zuqnīn Chronicle doesn’t merely relay facts about the rise of Islam — it delivers a sweeping moral indictment of the Muslim people:

“This nation is very lascivious and sensual. Every law instituted for them, be it by Muhammad or by any other God-fearing person, is despised and dismissed if it is not instituted according to their sensual pleasure. But a law which fulfils their wishes they accept, saying: ‘This has been instituted by the Prophet and Messenger of God. Moreover, it was commanded to him in this manner by God!’”

This is not the language of a neutral historian. It is a theological judgment — a moral caricature rooted in fear, disgust, and disdain.

A Familiar Anti-Heretical Trope

The idea that a rival religious group follows a leader who indulges human desire is an old one:

Christians accused Jews of legalism without spirit.

Pagans accused Christians of atheism and cannibalism.

Later polemicists accused Protestants or Catholics (depending on the side) of corrupting the true faith for worldly gain.

Here, Muslims are portrayed as slaves to lust and convenience, bending divine law to their appetites.

This reflects a classic Christian heresiological structure:

A false prophet arises,

He caters to base human desire,

And deceives a people willing to trade virtue for victory.

Projection, Not Description

This passage says more about the chronicler's worldview than about the Muslims themselves. It reveals:

Anxiety over Islam’s success,

Confusion over how such a “sensual” people could defeat Christian empires,

And a need to justify Christian loss through the supposed moral inferiority of the victor.

Rather than acknowledging strategic brilliance, military strength, or ideological conviction, the Zuqnīn chronicler explains Islam’s rise by vilifying the conquered — turning history into a sermon.

Conclusion: Theology Masquerading as Testimony

This moral tirade tells us nothing factual about the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, the early caliphs, or the conquests of the 630s.

What it does reveal is how 8th-century Christian chroniclers processed trauma, defeat, and confusion — not through documentation, but through moral certainty and rhetorical condemnation.

This is not evidence of what early Muslims believed or did.

It is evidence of what certain Christian authors needed to believe about them in order to make sense of their own declining world.

Conclusion: A Prophet Remembered, Not a General Recorded

The Zuqnin Chronicle does not provide reliable evidence that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ led any conquests into Palestine or Syria. It’s:

Late,

Chronologically flawed,

Symbolic in structure,

And focused more on religious transformation than military facts.

Even its author admits his sources were unreliable.

What this chronicle reflects is how Christian writers struggled to place Islam within a sacred-historical framework, collapsing years of change into the towering figure of the Prophet ﷺ—not because he was there in battle, but because his influence endured.

From Doctrina Iacobi to Zuqnīn: What Do These Sources Really Say?

Shoemaker’s argument hinges on a handful of Christian sources that seem—at first glance—to associate Prophet Muhammad ﷺ with the military invasion of Palestine and Syria. But when we examine them in their actual historical and literary context, a completely different picture emerges.
Let’s summarize what we’ve seen, step by step:

1. Doctrina Iacobi (ca. 634 CE)

Claim: “A prophet has appeared with the Saracens”
Shoemaker’s use: Implies the Prophet personally accompanied Arab armies.

What we found:

The text is a fictional Christian dialogue, written in Carthage, not Palestine.

The phrase ὁ προφήτης ἀνεφάνη μετὰ τῶν Σαρακηνῶν is grammatically ambiguous:

Could mean “appeared among the Saracens” (neutral).

The report is secondhand hearsay from a Jewish informant who heard it in Caesarea.

The description is theologically polemical—not historical reporting.

Conclusion: It does not claim Muhammad led an army into Palestine—only that his name or reputation had reached there.

2. Khuzistan Chronicle (ca. 660 CE)

Claim: "Their leader was Muhammad."

What we found:

Written 25+ years after the Prophet's death, in Khuzistan (Persia).

Uses the Syriac word mḏabbrānā, meaning “leader” or “organizer”—not general.

The events described (conquest of Khuzistan) took place after 638 CE, 6 years after the Prophet's death.

The text does not say Muhammad led the conquests—only that he was regarded as a spiritual leader.

Conclusion: The term “leader” is ideological, not battlefield command.

3. Jacob of Edessa (691/692 CE)

Claim: Muhammad ruled 7 years; Arab raids into Palestine during his life.

What we found:

A chronological chart, not a narrative history.

Places the Prophet’s reign starting in 620/621, with raids into Palestine by 625/626.

But the actual Islamic sources say no raids into Palestine occurred until 629–634, and major campaigns came after 634, under Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.

Jacob compresses prophecy, reign, and conquest into a single schematic arc.

Conclusion: A retrospective Christian timeline, not historical fact.

4. The Spanish Chronicles of 741 & 754

Claim: Muhammad led invasions in 618 CE.

What we found:

Dated to Era 656 = 618 CE—before the Hijrah and 14 years before Damascus fell.

Says Muhammad “stirred up rebellion,” but never places him on the battlefield.

Reflects a symbolic linking of Muhammad’s rise with the start of conquest—not actual events.

Shaddel shows this is a calendar error, tracing backwards from later rulers.

Conclusion: Telescoped theology, not conquest chronology.

5. History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria: Life of Benjamin (before 717 CE)

Claim: Muhammad conquered Syria and crossed the Jordan.

What we found:

The text is a late Coptic hagiography, not a historical chronicle.

Written after the conquests had long concluded—projecting them back onto the Prophet.

Contains legendary motifs (e.g., Heraclius dreaming of circumcised conquerors).

Says the Prophet “crossed the Jordan,” but Damascus fell in 634 CE—2 years after his death.

Conclusion: Hindsight glorification—not evidence of leadership in Syria.

6. Theophilus of Edessa (via later sources)

Claim: Muhammad led raids into Palestine and promised land “flowing with milk and honey.”

What we found:

The Prophet is wrongly said to be from Yathrib, not Mecca—basic factual error.

The language echoes biblical typology (like Moses and the Promised Land).

Even the text says: “He no longer went forth but remained in Yathrib.”

Theophilus wrote in the Abbasid period—far removed from Muhammad’s lifetime.

Conclusion: A Christian moral allegory, not a military record.

7. Short Syriac Chronicle (ca. 775 CE)

Claim: Muhammad ruled 10 years and began conquests in 620/621 CE.

What we found:

Written over 140 years after the Prophet’s death.

Uses AG 930 (620/621 CE) as the year the Arabs “entered the land.”

Repeats Jacob’s 7–10 year reign model, even though Islamic tradition reports 10 years in Medina.

Reflects a lunar-to-solar miscalculation, not real history.

Conclusion: A back-calculated symbolic epoch—not a documentary record.

8. Chronicle of Zuqnin (ca. 775 CE)

Claim: Muhammad led Arabs in conquering Palestine as early as 620/621.

What we found:

Says the Arabs conquered Palestine in AG 932 = 620/621 CE, before the Hijrah.

But Palestine was still under Persian control until 630.

The chronicler admits he had no reliable sources for the 7th century.

He merges Muhammad’s life with the later caliphal conquests.

Conclusion: A theological-political fusion of memory—not contemporary reporting.

Final Verdict

From Doctrina Iacobi to Zuqnīn, we have no contemporary Christian source that:

Offers eyewitness testimony of Muhammad ﷺ leading conquests;

Provides accurate dates based on Muslim or Roman records;

Distinguishes spiritual leadership from military command in a consistent way.

Instead, we find:
Theological imagination
Telescoping of timelines
Post-facto Christian attempts to explain Islam’s rise
Confused chronologies that project conquest backward onto the Prophet
What Shoemaker presents as history is mostly reflection. These sources are mirrors, not windows—they reflect how Christian communities made sense of Islam decades or centuries after the fact.

Echoes Without Anchor: Refuting the Myth of Muhammad’s Conquest of Palestine

Shoemaker’s concluding argument—that the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ leading the invasion of Palestine is early, widespread, and trustworthy—rests on a selective and overstated interpretation of deeply problematic sources. When we scrutinize these accounts, cross-examine the genres, redaction layers, and broader historical silence, we find this “countertradition” collapses under its own weight. Here's a comprehensive refutation, addressing all major claims in full:

1. The “Eleven Witnesses” Are Not Independent, Nor Consistent

Shoemaker claims to have marshaled eleven independent sources across time and language. But this collapses under critical scrutiny.

Many of these texts are not eyewitnesses but later retrospectives, written decades or centuries after the fact (e.g., Zuqnin Chronicle: 775 CE, Chronicle of 1234, Michael the Syrian, etc.).
They share a common literary motif: telescoping Muhammad’s mission into a compressed imperial narrative, as Mehdy Shaddel has shown. These texts did not “remember” Muhammad leading the conquests—they projected the Islamic empire back into his lifetime through schematic historical memory.
Their reliability is dubious. The Zuqnin Chronicle, for instance, gives the date of the conquest of Palestine as AG 932 (620/621 CE)—before the Hijrah, before Badr, before Islam was a political force, and before Rome and Persia’s war ended.

2. Genre Misreading: Polemics, Prophecy, and Apocalyptic Narrative ≠ History

Many of Shoemaker’s sources are not “histories” in a modern sense.

The Doctrina Iacobi is a Christian apocalyptic polemic designed to warn fellow Jews and Christians against apostasy. It speaks of a prophet preaching with the Saracens but doesn’t claim he led conquests. This prophet could easily be conflated with a posthumous ideology or figurehead.
The Samaritan Chronicle, Rabbi Shimʿon bar Yoḥai’s Apocalypse, and Istoria de Mahomet are steeped in theological commentary, legend, and anti-Islamic tropes. These are not political chronicles but religious counter-narratives.

None of these sources name generals, battles, or real timelines consistent with the actual conquest of Syria-Palestine (c. 634–640 CE). Even the Letter of ʿUmar, if genuine, emerges from an 8th-century polemical tradition, not early Islamic records. It cannot override multiple Islamic eyewitness chains regarding the Prophet’s death in 632 CE.

3. No Material, Poetic, or Institutional Memory of Muhammad ﷺ in Palestine

If the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ had led a military campaign in Syro-Palestine—let alone died there—the Islamic world would not have forgotten. It would have remembered with monuments, poetry, sermons, and ritual. It did not.

Instead, we find an unbroken silence.

No Mosques, Shrines, or Maqāms

The Umayyads, the very first Islamic dynasty and the most invested in sacralizing Jerusalem, built monumental structures like the Dome of the Rock (691 CE) and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. These were explicitly tied to the Prophet’s miʿrāj (Night Journey and Ascension)—but not to conquest.

If they had believed he had marched through Palestine or died there, they would have enshrined it.
They did not.

There is no Umayyad-era inscription, no maqām (sanctified site), no narrative attaching Muhammad ﷺ to Palestine as a military leader or martyr. Their silence is louder than any claim.

No Sacralization by Warrior Dynasties

Centuries later, the Ayyubids—liberators of Jerusalem under Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, the Mamluks—defenders of Islam who crushed the Mongols and reclaimed Palestine, & the Ottomans—the final caliphs of the Islamic world,

All had both the religious and political incentive to elevate the Prophet’s ﷺ memory as a conqueror of Jerusalem, if such a tradition had ever existed.

Yet none did.
Not a single fatwā, royal decree, or Friday sermon commemorates such a conquest.

No Praise in Poetry or Polemics

Even in the high eras of Islamic literature:

No qaṣīda mourns the Crusaders’ desecration of “the Prophet’s path” in Palestine.

No panegyric recalls the Prophet ﷺ riding through al-Shām.

Even under siege, poets did not invent what never existed.

Instead, their focus remains on his heavenly ascent from Jerusalem, not a military presence there.

No Mention in Foundational Muslim Histories

The earliest and most respected chroniclers of the Prophet’s life are unanimous:

al-Wāqidī

Ibn Saʿd

Ibn Hishām

al-Ṭabarī

They record campaigns only up to Tabūk (631 CE)—a march that never ended in battle.
No raids, no battles, no campaigns led by Muhammad ﷺ beyond the Hijaz.

The final military action in his lifetime was Usāma ibn Zayd’s expedition after his death—not by him.

A Wall of Silence Across Civilizations

This pan-Islamic, pan-dynastic, pan-sectarian silence speaks louder than a dozen confused, symbolic, or telescoped Christian or Jewish sources.

The Umayyads, the Ayyubids, the Mamluks, and the Ottomans—spanning over a thousand years of Islamic rule—never claimed the Prophet ﷺ conquered Palestine.

They would have had every motive to do so.
Their silence is the strongest testimony of all.

4. The Report from Kaʿb al-Aḥbār is Misunderstood

Shoemaker appeals to a late Islamic tradition attributed to Kaʿb al-Aḥbār saying: “Syria is the land of his [Muhammad’s] rule (بالشأم ملكه).”

But this is not a historical statement about a campaign—it’s a geographic prophecy or eschatological interpretation, likely derived from Biblical themes of kingship from the North.
Kaʿb, a convert steeped in Jewish lore, often cast Muhammad in the mold of biblical figures. This tradition reflects a symbolic translatio imperii, not actual leadership of a Syrian campaign.

5. The Claim of Collective, Unmotivated Memory Is False

Shoemaker’s central claim is that these sources report Muhammad’s conquest role too incidentally to be ideological. But:

The tradition of Muhammad dying in 632 appears earlier and more consistently in Islamic records than any suggestion of later death.
The “Muhammad-led conquest” narrative likely developed post-conquest, as the empire expanded and narratives evolved to give it prophetic validation.
The non-Muslim chroniclers lived in societies traumatized by rapid Arab expansion and interpreted Islam through apocalyptic, polemical, or schematic filters—not as neutral observers.

Even when these sources speak of a living prophet, they are not converging on independent facts, but often echoing a regional storytelling logic: i.e., the Hijrah = conquest, therefore Muhammad = king.

6. Shoemaker Ignores Muslim and Non-Muslim Disagreement

Shoemaker neglects that several Christian and non-Muslim sources explicitly disagree:

Theophanes (c. 810 CE) clearly separates the Prophet’s death from the conquest of Palestine.
Lewond’s Armenian Chronicle also dates the conquest after Heraclius’s death (641 CE)—long after Muhammad’s death.
Even earlier Islamic reports—long before Ibn Hishām—unanimously place his death in 632 CE. These include:
- Al-Wāqidī’s Kitāb al-Maghāzī (late 8th c.)
- Ibn Saʿd’s Ṭabaqāt (early 9th c.)
- Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīrah, compiled under Abbasid patronage but relying on Medinan transmission chains

There is no competing early Islamic strand placing the Prophet in Palestine. That silence is deafening.

7. “Multiple Eyewitness Accounts”? More Like Echoes of a Genre

Shoemaker’s use of “eyewitness” is misleading:

The Doctrina Iacobi claims to cite a Jew who spoke to “eyewitnesses.” But the source is anonymous, unverifiable, and framed in an apocalyptic lens.
The Samaritan Chronicle does not even survive independently—it's preserved in a late redaction centuries removed from the 630s.
The Chronicle of Zuqnin was written 145 years after Muhammad’s death, with the author himself stating he lacked good records between 574–775 CE.

None of these authors can be shown to independently verify what they wrote about Muhammad’s “leadership”—they were borrowing tropes, compressing history, and writing theology through narrative.

Conclusion: The Tradition of Muhammad’s Leadership in Palestine Is a Narrative Artifact, Not History

What we are seeing in Shoemaker’s “tradition” is not an alternate factual record, but a literary memory schema rooted in:

The Christianization of history through apocalyptic timelines
The Islamization of empire through imperial retrojection
And the compression of generations of conquest into one symbolic prophetic age

These sources do not tell us that Muhammad ﷺ led the conquest of Palestine.

They tell us how people, long after the fact, imagined Islam’s rise in theological terms.

As Shaddel wisely concludes: “The evidence does not warrant a redating of Muḥammad’s death… The seeming conflict between Muslim and non-Muslim sources will prove illusory.”

Part IV – Memory vs. Myth: Why 632 Endures

16. Muslim Tradition Speaks with One Voice

Across the vast and variegated landscape of early Islamic historiography—ḥadīth, sīrah, taʾrīkh, and tabaqāt—one fact stands immovably clear:

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ passed away in the city of Medina, in the year 632 CE (11 AH).

From the first written biographies compiled by Ibn Isḥāq (d. 767), to the critical compilations of al-Wāqidī, Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabarī, and the canonical six books of Sunni ḥadīth, no counter-narrative exists.
Not a single early Muslim source suggests that the Prophet ﷺ led campaigns into Palestine, Syria, or Mesopotamia. No ṣaḥābī (Companion), no tābiʿī (Successor), no imam or historian claimed otherwise.

Key shared elements across Muslim tradition include:

Date of death: Monday, 12th Rabīʿ al-Awwal, 11 AH (June 8, 632 CE).

Place of death and burial: His own house, adjacent to the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina.

Circumstances: After a short illness, during which he appointed Abū Bakr to lead prayer.

Aftermath: The Companions debated succession, but none debated whether the Prophet had died.

This is a convergent memory—one that is shared across sectarian, regional, and doctrinal lines. Sunni, Shiʿi, Ibāḍī, and early Muʿtazilī authors all acknowledge 632 as the end of the Prophet’s earthly mission.

Importantly, this consensus forms the very backbone of Islamic chronology:

The Hijri calendar counts from the migration to Medina (622), not the conquest of any land.

The Prophet’s ﷺ final act before death was to prepare an expedition under Usāma ibn Zayd, which only departed after his burial.

The conquests of Palestine, Damascus, and Egypt took place under Caliph Abū Bakr and Caliph ʿUmar, often with specific dates, commanders, and detailed campaign maps.

There is no gap, no ambiguity, and no whisper of an alternative tradition in the Islamic record.

Why?
Because the death of the Prophet ﷺ was a trauma seared into the memory of the Muslim ummah. It triggered the first political succession, the first civil crisis, and the theological debates about prophecy’s finality.

As Abū Bakr told the devastated Muslims:

“Whoever worships Muhammad—know that Muhammad is dead. But whoever worships God—know that God is Ever-Living and never dies.”

This moment became iconic—and no credible Islamic tradition has ever placed him in Palestine.

17. Christian and Jewish Sources Do Not Agree Among Themselves

By contrast, the non-Muslim sources that Shoemaker assembles—while fascinating in texture—do not form a consistent or coherent counter-narrative.
They are plagued by chronological contradictions, theological agendas, and symbolic conflations.

Let’s review just a few:

The Doctrina Iacobi (ca. 634–640 CE) says a “prophet has appeared with the Saracens,” but the information comes from a Jewish informant, based on secondhand hearsay from Caesarea—not eyewitnesses.

Jacob of Edessa (d. 708 CE) gives Muhammad a symbolic 7-year reign, dating it to 620–627 CE, when the Prophet was still in Medina, not leading campaigns. The timeline is out of joint by years.

The Chronicle of Zuqnīn (ca. 775 CE) says Palestine fell in AG 932 = 620/621 CE—one to two years before the Hijrah even occurred. This is a mathematical impossibility.

The Chronicle of 1234, Theophilus of Edessa, and Syriac fragments repeatedly conflate spiritual guidance, political expansion, and imperial conquest—assigning them all to the Prophet with no attention to order, geography, or sources.

Rabbi Shimʿon bar Yoḥai’s Apocalypse (preserved much later) interprets the Arab rise in mystical, not military terms—imagining it as part of a divine plan to punish Rome, not as a battlefield account.

The Istoria de Mahomet is a polemical fantasy: it has Muhammad leading the conquests, marrying Zayd’s wife, fabricating the Qur’an, and being eaten by dogs after his resurrection fails to materialize. It is no more historical than a medieval sermon.

Even their dates for the conquest of Palestine range from:

618 CE (Spanish Chronicles)

620/621 CE (Zuqnīn, Short Syriac Chronicle)

625/626 CE (Jacob of Edessa)

634 CE (Doctrina Iacobi and other apocalyptic fragments)

In contrast, the actual conquest of Palestine—according to Muslim, Greek, Syriac, and Roman records—began in 633/634 CE, under Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.

Conclusion: Memory Rooted in Fact vs. Myth Formed from Fear

Muslim memory is coherent, contemporaneous, and coordinated.

Christian and Jewish memory is fragmented, fear-based, and filtered through eschatology.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ did not conquer Palestine. His Companions did—years after he passed away.

But for some early Christian authors, his name became a cipher: a stand-in for Muslim power, a symbol of the new empire, a spectral antagonist in the apocalyptic imagination.

They were not writing history.
They were writing shock, loss, and symbol.

And the difference matters.

The Missing Conquest

If the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ had died in Palestine after conquering it, the Islamic world would have remembered it.

Instead, we are faced with a silence that is profound, consistent, and continent-wide.

No masjid marks his supposed campaigns in Palestine.

No shrine commemorates his alleged passing in Syria.

No poem, no sermon, no hadith speaks of a Prophet buried in the land of the prophets.

Yet in Medina, the entire weight of Islamic memory, ritual, and devotion rests upon his tomb—a site known, visited, and venerated without interruption from 632 CE to the present day.

The 634 theory—that Muhammad ﷺ led the conquest of Palestine—is not grounded in Muslim memory, but in:

Christian anxiety, struggling to comprehend the collapse of Roman rule.

Jewish apocalypse, interpreting Arab power as divine intervention.

Medieval chronicle confusion, conflating prophecy, politics, and conquest.

Modern revisionism, eager to deconstruct Islamic tradition on the thinnest of evidence.

Yet history is not built on error piled upon error.

No Umayyad caliph, Abbasid scholar, or Mamluk historian ever imagined an alternate fate for the Prophet.
No medieval polemic, no rival sect, no rebellious faction ever challenged the unanimous truth:

Muhammad ﷺ died in Medina, in 632 CE.

It was not enforced.
It did not require correction.
It simply was.

And so it remains.

THE END.

Works Cited

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Primary Sources

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al-Balādhurī, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā. Futūḥ al-Buldān [The Conquest of the Lands: A New Translation of al-Balādhurī’s Futūḥ al-Buldān]. Translated and annotated by Hugh Kennedy, I.B. Tauris, 2022.
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