Spanish martyrs who insulted Mohammed
Amonk called Perfectus, of a monastery in Córdoba in Spain, went out one day on some errands. The date was 850, and the country was ruled by the Emirs of Cordoba.
Perfectus met a group of Muslims who questioned him about Christianity. The monk professed “the power of Christ’s divinity”, but on the subject of Islam and Mohammed he was circumspect: “I dare not explain how he is regarded among Catholics, for I have no doubt you will be greatly insulted.” But he made a bargain to tell them his opinion if they agreed not to harm him.
Perfectus then confessed that he viewed Mohammed as a false prophet. Moreover, he saw him as a carnal man, as evidenced by his lust for Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son. The group of Muslims let Perfectus go, but the next time they met him, they took him to the judge, who threw him in prison. At Eid al-fitr, Perfectus was given a chance to repent and go free, but he spoke more strongly, saying: “I have reviled and do revile your prophet as a man of demons, a sorcerer, an adulterer and a liar.” In front of the praetorium – probably the qasr in the centre of the city – he was executed.
This account of what was seen by the Muslims as blasphemy was given in a Christian martyrology by the contemporary Eulogius of Córdoba. Perfectus, as a martyr, was accounted a saint. His is one of many examples given in a remarkable new book, Christian Martyrs Under Islam by Christian C Sahner, associate professor of Islamic history at Oxford University.
It is the first historical survey of Christian martyrdom in the formative centuries after the rise of Islam. He is aware that people will seek parallels with present-day events (such as those embroiling Asia Bibi), but he lets his research speak for itself.
These martyrs of the 7th to 9th centuries were known to Christians of the time as “neomartyrs”. Hagiographies number them at about 270 – 60 from Gaza, 60 from Jerusalem, 20 from the monastery of Mar Saba in the Holy Land, 42 from Amorion in Anatolia and 48 from Córdoba (between 850 and 858).
Cases where individuals courted death by shouting out in a crowded mosque were morally suspect. In 853, a council of Hispanic ecclesiastics and nobles forbade seeking martyrdom.
So why had martyrdom suddenly broken out in the capital of al-andalus? Sahner’s thesis is that blasphemy was more likely to be provoked where Muslims and Christians rubbed shoulders. Umayyad Spain had a fine mix of cultures and religions for frictions to emerge: Arab, Berber, Latin-visigothic, Jewish, Muslim, Christian. Some Christians opposed cultural assimilation, the acquisition of Arabic and the neglect of Latin authors.
Christians did not live in easy convivencia. Like Jews they paid extra taxes. New churches were forbidden, priests harassed. Coins minted in Damascus in 711 bore an Arabic legend: “God is one God, the eternal. He did not beget and He was not begotten” – a rebuff to Christian doctrine.
In mid-9th-century Spain a new ulama or body of religious jurists (belonging to the Maliki school of law) increased the chances of Muslim-christian clashes. The praxis of Islam reached more deeply into everyday affairs. As dhimmi – People of the Book protected from slaughter – Christians were allowed their beliefs. But when they spoke out, contradicting Islam or denying the status of Mohammed, their words could be taken as blasphemy and their lives could be forfeit.