Syriac Polemics Against Islam: Muhammad Had No Miracles Aside from Quran
Quran Talk Blog · Article · October 30, 2025
Around the year 781 CE, Patriarch Timothy (727–823 CE) recorded what is now known as the Apology, a transcript of his theological debate with the Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi (r. 775–785 CE). This text captures a moment in the history of the Christian–Muslim encounter that should unsettle every modern defender of the miracle legends later invented about the Prophet of Islam, which are readily found in the Hadith corpus. Timothy did not confront Islam from the margins; he sat face-to-face in Baghdad with the ruler of the Muslim world, speaking not as a pamphleteer or polemicist, but as one of the most learned bishops of the East addressing one of the most powerful sovereigns of his time.
And what was one of Timothy’s central arguments? That Muḥammad could not be a prophet, for he performed no miracles. This was not a cheap provocation, nor did the Caliph respond with the avalanche of miracle claims. Instead, al-Mahdi offered no such rebuttal, because in Timothy’s day, those legends had not yet crystallized. The silence of the Caliph speaks more loudly than the volumes of miracle-stories that would only arise generations later.
This was not the naive claim of an outsider ignorant of Islamic beliefs. Timothy knew the Quran, knew the early Muslim arguments, and knew the intellectual climate of his day. He explicitly cited the Muslim admission, rooted in Quran 6:109, that Muḥammad performed no miracles—that his only “miracle” was the Qur’an’s supposed inimitability. And here lies the devastating historical truth: the Caliph did not dispute this point.
6:109 They swore by GOD, solemnly, that if a miracle came to them, they would surely believe. Say, “Miracles come only from GOD.” For all you know, if a miracle did come to them, they would continue to disbelieve.
وَأَقْسَمُوا۟ بِٱللَّهِ جَهْدَ أَيْمَـٰنِهِمْ لَئِن جَآءَتْهُمْ ءَايَةٌ لَّيُؤْمِنُنَّ بِهَا قُلْ إِنَّمَا ٱلْـَٔايَـٰتُ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ وَمَا يُشْعِرُكُمْ أَنَّهَآ إِذَا جَآءَتْ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ