Thread by @ccsahner

1/ What does the #Quran have to say about #Christmas, and what does this ruined church located between #Jerusalem and #Bethlehem have to do with it?

2/ The Quran contains its own version of the Nativity story (Q. 19:22-27), in which Mary is said to withdraw to a remote place and to be overcome by the pains of labor. She then finds shelter under a date palm tree

quran.com/19/22-28

3/ In agony, Mary cries out for help, and a voice tells her that God has placed a brook beneath her for her relief. The voice then instructs her to eat the dates of the tree and drink the water of the brook. She does so, and shortly after, gives birth to Jesus

4/ Needless to say, this isn't the Gospels' version of events. Rather, it seems to reflect two pre-Islamic Christian sources. The first is the Protoevangelium of James (which places Jesus's birth at a remote location, not in Bethlehem)

5/ The second is a cluster of apocryphal traditions about the Flight to Egypt (in which Jesus causes a date palm to bend over to feed his mother and a spring to appear to give her drink). In the Christian version, this occurs after the Nativity

6/ The question is, how did these traditions come together and find their way into the Quran? In Late Antiquity, a church was built near Jerusalem which commemorated the place where Mary reportedly sat and rested as she headed to Bethlehem

7/ The church was called the "Kathisma of the Theotokos," or the "Seat of the God-Bearer." It also came to be associated with the spot where the Holy Family stopped during the Flight to Egypt. Specifically, it marked the place of the palm tree and the spring

8/ The Kathisma Church was discovered by Israeli archaeologists in 1997. It is octagonal in shape and constructed around the rock where Mary reportedly rested. It is also decorated with mosaics

9/ Amazingly, archaeologists also discovered that the church had been converted into a mosque after the Islamic conquest of Palestine (by the early 8th c.). This was indicated by the installation of a prayer niche on the southern side of the church (i.e., the qibla wall)

10/ It was also indicated by the installation of mosaics, including an image of a palm tree near the niche

11/ Some scholars argue that the Quran's account of the Nativity was not originally part of the Revelation, but was added only after the Muslims reached Palestine, encountered the Kathisma, and learned about its peculiar legends. A provocative thesis!

12/ Finally, scholars have identified similarities between the Kathisma Church and that other eight-sided Islamic sanctuary in Jerusalem, which was also built around a rock and which was also filled with mosaics: the Dome of the Rock

13/ There's lots written about this subject, but a good place to start is Stephen Shoemaker, "Christmas in the Qur'an," Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 28 (2003)

academia.edu/1057321/Christ…

14/ There's also this fine article by @GuillaumeDye, "Lieux saints communs, partagés ou confisqués : aux sources de quelques péricopes coraniques (Q 19 : 16-33)"

academia.edu/2092856/Lieux_…