The ''Vita Mahometi'' ('life of Muḥammad') is a short

Latin biography of Muḥammad A number of Middle Latin, Latin Life of Muhammad, biographies of Muhammad were written during the 9th to 13th centuries. Overview The earliest Latin biographies originated in Spain before the mid-9th century. They had a limited circulation and inf ...

composed in 1221–1222. It is preserved in a single manuscript, now códice 10 in the in

Uncastillo Uncastillo ( Aragonese: Uncastiello) is a municipality in the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, eastern Spain. At the 2010 census, Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Spain) it had a population of 781. Along with Sos d'o Rei Catolico, Exeya d'o ...

. It was probably composed in the same area in the north of

Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and an, Aragón ; ca, Aragó ) is an autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces (from north to sou ...

. Its author is not named in the manuscript, but it may have been written by the same author as the work that precedes it, the '' Tractatus contra Iudaeos''. He introduces himself as a Jewish convert to Christianity who took the name Peter. The ''Vita Mahometi'' is an explicitly Christian work that seeks to expose Muḥammad as a false prophet motivated by sexual lust and a desire for political power. The author's stated purpose is to correct the misunderstanding that Muḥammad was a Christian, although he did receive help from Jews and Christians. The work may be classified as "anti-hagiography", although it is less polemical in tone than many other medieval anti-hagiographies of Muḥammad. The text takes up only 119 lines in the manuscript and may be divided into six sections. The first part concerns Muḥammad's early life down to the '' Hijra'', his flight from Mecca to Medina. The second part concerns his lust. His first wife is Hadiga. He married another sixteen women, the last one stolen from another man. The third part covers the sources of his ideas and his early preaching. The fourth part, taking up about half the text, is an account of his false miracles and his '' miʿrāj'' or ascent to heaven. It is the earliest western biography with an account of the ''miʿrāj'', which is treated as his fourth miracle. The account may be drawn from the

Copto-Arabic Copto-Arabic literature is the literature of the Copts written in Arabic. It is distinct from Coptic literature, which is literature written in the Coptic language. Copto-Arabic literature begins in the 10th century, has its golden age in the 1 ...

Kitāb al-wāḍiḥ bi-l-ḥaqq The ''Kitāb al-wāḍiḥ bi-l-ḥaqq'' (), known in Latin as the ''Liber denudationis'' (), is a Copto-Arabic apologetic treatise against Islam. It was written by a Muslim convert to Christianity, Būluṣ ibn Rajāʾ, around 1010 in Fāṭ ...

'', a Latin translation of which was available in Spain at the time. The conversation between Muḥammad and God, in which the teachings of Islam are revealed, is the centrepiece. The ''Vita'' does not mention the '' isrāʾ'' (night journey) or Muḥammad's visit to hell. The final two parts are a description of his death from illness and of his teaching about Jesus, Mary and the

Apostles An apostle (), in its literal sense, is an emissary, from Ancient Greek ἀπόστολος (''apóstolos''), literally "one who is sent off", from the verb ἀποστέλλειν (''apostéllein''), "to send off". The purpose of such sending ...

. The Latin text has been published three times.In ; in ; and in (reprinting Valcárcel 2002).

Notes

Bibliography

* * * * * * {{refend Biographies of Muhammad 13th-century Latin literature Medieval Latin literature