Did the Prophet Learn From Christian Slaves Jabr and Yasar

Missionaries and atheists claim the Prophet Muhammad took Qur’anic content from two Christian slaves — Jabr and Yasar — who allegedly read the Torah and Gospel to him in Syriac.

Al-Muthanna told me, he said: Amr bin Awn told us, he said: Hisham told us, on the authority of Hisin, on the authority of Abdullah bin Muslim al-Hadrami: That they had two slaves from the people of the Yemeni camp, and they were children, and one of them was called Yasar, and the other Jabr, and they used to recite the Torah, and the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, sometimes sat with them, so the infidels of Quraysh said: He only sits with them to learn from them, so God Almighty revealed: “The tongue of the one they refer to is foreign, and this is an Arabic tongue. (Mubeen)” [Al-Nahl 16:103]

Al-Muthanna told me, he said: Ma’n ibn Asad told us, he said: Khalid ibn Abdullah told us, on the authority of Hisayn, on the authority of Abdullah ibn Muslim Al-Hadrami, something similar.

Ibn Wakee’ told us, he said: Ibn Fadil told us, on the authority of Hisayn, on the authority of Abdullah ibn Muslim, he said: We had two boys who used to recite a book of theirs in their own language, so the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, would pass by them and stand to listen to them. The polytheists said: He is learning from them. So God Almighty revealed what he denied them with, saying: “The language of the one they refer to is foreign, while this is a clear Arabic language.” [Al-Nahl 16:103]

Grade: Sahih — authenticated by al-Wada’i in Sahih Asbab al-Nuzul

[!scholar] Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani — Tahdhib al-Tahdhib (7)
90- “Q bin — Ubaidullah” bin Muslim, and it is said bin Abi Muslim al-Hadrami, and it is said Ubaidullah bin Muslim bin Shu’bah, and it is said Abdullah, narrated from Muadh bin Jabal the hadith that the miscarried child drags his mother by his umbilical cord, and from him Qais bin Muslim, Yahya bin Ubaidullah al-Taymi, and Abu Ramlah, and Husayn bin Abd al-Rahman narrated from Ubaidullah bin Muslim al-Hadrami from the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, so it is possible that he is this one. I said: Ibn Abd al-Barr said in the book of the Companions Ubaidullah bin Muslim al-Qurashi, and it is said al-Hadrami, I do not know his lineage, Husayn narrated from him, and it was said that he is Ubaid bin Muslim from whom Husayn narrated, so if he is his father, then he is Asadi, the lion of Quraysh, as Ibn Abd al-Barr said, and it appears that he is someone else, for Abu Hatim said Ubaidullah bin Muslim al-Hadrami, he was a companion, and al-Baghawi said in the Companions Ubaidullah bin Muslim, it is said that he met the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, then he narrated two hadiths from him from the narration of Husayn from him.

Grade: Da’if — weak for two reasons

Salih ibn Muhammad said: We used to accuse Ibn Hamid.

Abu Ali al-Naysaburi said: I said to Ibn Khuzaymah: If the professor narrated from Muhammad ibn Hamid, then Ahmad ibn Hanbal praised him well. He said: He did not know him, and if he knew him as we knew him, he would not have praised him at all.

Abu Ahmad al-Assal said: I heard Fadl say: I entered upon Ibn Hamid, and he was combining the chains of transmission with the texts.

I said: This action is his defect; otherwise I do not believe that he fabricates a text. This is the meaning of their saying: So-and-so stole the hadith.

Ya’qub ibn Ishaq the jurist said: I heard Salih ibn Muhammad al-Asadi say: I have not seen anyone more skilled in lying than Sulayman al-Shadhkuni and Muhammad ibn Hamid al-Razi, and the hadith of Muhammad ibn Hamid was increasing every day.

Abu Ishaq al-Jawzjani said: He is not trustworthy.

Abu Hatim said: I heard Yahya bin Ma’in say: Muhammad bin Hamid came to us in Baghdad, so we took from him the book of Ya’qub al-Qummi, so we divided the papers among ourselves, and Ahmad bin Hanbal was with us, so we heard him, and we saw nothing but good. So what do you blame him for? I said: There is something in his book, and he says: It is not like this, and he takes a pen and changes it, so he said: This is a bad trait.

Al-Nasa’i said: He is not trustworthy.

Al-‘Uqaili said: Ibrahim bin Yusuf told me: Abu Zur’ah and Muhammad bin Muslim wrote many hadiths from Muhammad bin Hamid, then they stopped narrating from him.

I said: Ibn Jarir narrated a lot from him in his books. His hadith has reached us, but do not rely on what he brings, and Allah knows best. He did not come to Syria, and he is mentioned in “Tarikh al-Khatib.”

Grade: Da’if — weak for two reasons

Abu Bakr ibn Abi Khaithama said, on the authority of Yahya ibn Ma’in: He is truthful, but not strong. He conceals narrations from Muhammad ibn Ubaydullah al-Arzami, from Amr ibn Shu’ayb.

Ali ibn al-Madini said, on the authority of Yahya ibn Sa’id: Al-Hajjaj ibn Artah and Muhammad ibn Ishaq are equal to me, and I intentionally left out Al-Hajjaj, and I never wrote down a hadith from him.

Abu Zur’ah said: He is truthful but conceals narrations.

Abu Hatim said: He is truthful but conceals narrations from weak narrators. His hadith is written down, so if he says: He narrated to us, then he is good and there is no doubt about his truthfulness and preservation if he explains. Hearing is not an argument for his hadith, he did not hear from Al-Zuhri, nor from Hisham bin Urwah, nor from Ikrimah.

[!scholar] Ibn Kathir — Tafsir al-Qur’an al-Azim
Allah the Almighty says, informing about the polytheists of what they used to say of lies, slander, and calumny: that Muhammad is only taught — this which he recites to us from the Qur’an — by a human being, and they point to a foreign man — who was among them — a slave of some of the clans of Quraysh, and he was a merchant who sold at Al-Safa, so perhaps the Messenger of Allah — may Allah bless him and grant him peace — would sit with him and talk to him a little, and that was a foreigner who did not know Arabic, or he knew a little thing to the extent that he could respond to the address in what was necessary; therefore Allah the Almighty said, responding to their slander: “The tongue of the one they refer to is foreign, while this is a clear Arabic tongue” meaning: the Qur’an. That is, how can the one who brought this Qur’an learn in its eloquence, rhetoric, and complete, comprehensive meanings — which are more complete than the meanings of every book sent down to a prophet sent — how can he learn from a foreign man?! No one with the slightest bit of reason would say this.

It is known that the Talmud (whether the Babylonian one that was written in Babylon or the Palestinian one that was written in Palestine) was not available to anyone other than Jewish rabbis to study and teach until the age of printing began in Europe in the sixteenth century, and translations of the Babylonian Talmud in particular began to appear in English and French translations, with the deletion of many paragraphs that offended Christ, peace be upon him, and the Virgin Mary, which could shock the Christian audience from the translated text, as well as texts with racist dimensions that distinguish between the Jews (the Jewish people) and the Jews (the Jewish people). God the Chosen One) Humans and the rest of the peoples of the world (the goyim) Animals and successively many editions of the Talmud were issued in other European languages.

And they knew that he — may God bless him and grant him peace — was illiterate, did not read or write, and did not engage in schooling or exchange, and he was not absent from them, nor was any of them ignorant of his condition. The People of the Book would often ask him — may God bless him and grant him peace — about this, and he would send down to him from the Qur’an what he would recite to them as a reminder, such as the stories of the prophets with their people, and the news of Moses, Al-Khidr, Joseph, and his brothers, and the People of the Cave, and Dhul-Qarnayn, and Luqman and his son, and similar news, and the beginning of creation, and what is in the Torah, and the Gospel, and the Psalms, and the scrolls of Abraham and Moses, which the scholars believed in them, and they were not able to deny what he mentioned of them, but rather they submitted to that, so whoever is successful believes in what preceded him of good, and whoever is wretched is stubborn and envious, and despite this, it was not reported from any of the Christians and Jews, despite their intense enmity towards him, and their eagerness to deny him, and his lengthy arguments against them with what is in their books, and his rebuking them for what their scrolls contained, and their frequent questions to him — may God bless him and grant him peace — and their trouble with him about the news of their prophets, and the secrets of their knowledge, and the repositories of their lives, and his informing them of what was hidden in their laws, And the contents of their books, such as their question about the soul, Dhul-Qarnayn, the People of the Cave, Jesus, the ruling on stoning, what Israel forbade himself, what he forbade them of livestock, and good things that were made lawful for them but were forbidden to them because of their transgression.

Grade: Sahih — authenticated by al-Albani in Sahih wa Da’if Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith No. 3140

[!admission] Dr. Israel Wolfenson — History of the Jews in the Lands of Arabia (p. 98)
This story supports what we have said, that there were no Jews in Mecca, because if there had been any of them in Mecca, the Banu Quraysh would not have sent their delegation to Medina to ask the Jewish rabbis about the Prophet, and if there had been any of them, he would have been uneducated.

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01663a.htm

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310105.htm

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310106.htm

And His statement in Surat Al-An’am in response to those who said, “God has not sent down anything to any human being.” Say, “Who sent down the Book which Moses brought, a light and guidance for mankind?” (Al-An’am 91) Then the Most High said, “And this is a blessed Book which We have sent down, confirming that which was before it.” (Al-An’am 92) And He said at the end of The Surah {Then We gave Moses the Book, a completion for him who did good, and a detailed explanation of all things, and a guidance and a mercy that they might believe in the meeting with their Lord. And this is a Book which We have revealed, blessed, so follow it and fear Allah that you may receive mercy.} Al-An`am 154-155

And the Most High said at the beginning of Surah Al Imran {Has Allah — there is no god but He, the Ever-Living, the Self-Sustaining — sent down to you the Book in truth, confirming what was between them?} His hands, and He sent down the Torah and the Gospel before, as guidance for the people. Al Imran 1-4

And the Most High said: {And We had certainly given Moses and Aaron the Criterion and a light and a reminder for the righteous — those who fear their Lord unseen and are fearful of the Hour. And this is a blessed message which We have sent down. Then will you deny it?} [Al-Anbiya: 48-50]

For this reason, the Most High mentions the story of Moses and repeats it and shows it and consoles His Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, and the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, says when he is harmed by the people: Moses has been harmed. With more than this, so be patient. For this reason, the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: “There will be in my nation what was in the Children of Israel, to the extent that if there was someone among them who came to his mother openly, there would be someone in this nation who would do it.” Consider this correlation between the two messengers, the two books, and the two laws. I mean the correct law that has not been changed, and the two nations and the two languages. If you look at the letters of Muhammad and the letters of Mamd Bad, you will find that the two words are one word. The two meems in them, the hamza, and the ha’ are from one place of articulation, and the dal is often found in the place of dhal in In their language they say Ihaadh for the singular and they say Qudsh in Jerusalem and the Dal and the Dhall are close, so whoever contemplates the two languages and contemplates these two names will not doubt that they are one and for this there are parallels in the two languages such as Moses, for in the Hebrew language it is Musa with shin and its origin is water and tree, for they say for water Mu and Sha is the tree and Moses was picked up by the people of Pharaoh from between the water and the tree, so the difference between Moses and Musa is like the difference between Muhammad and Mamdad.

[!scholar] Al-Suyuti — Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur’an (1)
Abu Jafar al-Nahhas said in his book, Al-Nasikh wa al-Mansukh: Yamut ibn al-Muzari told me, Abu Hatim Sahl ibn Muhammad al-Sijistani told us, Abu Ubaydah Mamar ibn al-Muthanna told us, Yunus ibn Habib told me, I heard Abu Amr ibn al-Ala say: I asked Mujahid about summarizing the verses of the Medinan Qur’an from the Meccan ones, so he said: I asked Ibn Abbas about that and he said: “Surat Al-An’am was revealed in Mecca all at once, so it is Meccan except for three verses that were revealed in Medina: {Say: Come, I will recite} until the end of the three verses. The previous surahs are Medinan. Surat Al-A’raf, Yunus, Hud, Yusuf, Ar-Ra’d, Ibrahim, Al-Hijr and An-Nahl were revealed in Mecca — apart from…” Three verses from the end of it, for they were revealed between Mecca and Medina on his return from Uhud — and Surat Bani Israel, Al-Kahf, Maryam, Taha, Al-Anbiya, and Al-Hajj — except for three verses: {These two are opponents} until the end of the three verses, for they were revealed in Medina — and Surat Al-Mu’minun, Al-Furqan, and Surat Al-Shu’ara — except for five verses from the end of it that were revealed in Medina: {And the poets are followed by those astray} to the end. And Surah An-Naml, Al-Qasas, Al-Ankaboot, Ar-Rum, and Luqman — except for three verses from them that were revealed in Madinah: {And if all the trees on the earth were pens} to the end of the verses — and Surah As-Sajdah except for three verses: {Is he who is a believer like he who is a wicked} to the end of the three verses, and Surah Saba’, Fatir, Yaseen, As-Saffat, Sad, and Az-Zumar except for three Verses were revealed in Medina about Wahshi, the killer of Hamza: {Say, “O My servants who have transgressed,”} to the end of the three verses, and the seven Ha’s, Mims, Qaf, Ad-Dariyyat, At-Tur, An-Najm, Al-Qamar, Ar-Rahman, Al-Waqi’ah, As-Saff, and At-Taghabun, except for verses at the end of them that were revealed in Medina. By Al-Mulk, Al-Haqqah, Sa’ala, Nuh, Al-Jinn, and Al-Muzzammil, except for two verses: {Indeed, your Lord knows that you stand} and Al-Muddaththir to the end of the Qur’an, except when the earth is shaken and when the victory of Allah comes and Say, “He is Allah, the One” and Say, “I seek refuge in the Lord of daybreak” and Say, “I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind,” for they are Madani. And the Surahs of Al-Anfal, Bara’ah, An-Nur, Al-Ahzab, Muhammad, Al-Fath, Al-Hujurat, Al-Hadid, and what follows them up to At-Tahrim were revealed in Madinah. This is how he narrated it in its entirety, and its chain of transmission is good. All of its men are trustworthy, among the famous scholars of Arabic.

And their saying, “Indeed, we killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah.” But they killed him not, nor crucified him, but it was made to appear to them as if they had. And indeed, those who differ therein are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain.

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The Hijaz. In speaking of Christians in the Hijaz one must limit the term to mean Mecca, Tayma’, Khaibar, al-Ta’if, and Medina. The existing evidence refers to the time just before or during the lifetime of Muh: ammad. The Hijaz had not been touched by Christian preaching. Hence the organization of a Christian church was neither to be expected nor found. What Christians resided there were mainly individuals from other countries who re- tained some Christianity. Such were African (mainly Coptic) slaves; tradespeople who came to the fairs from Syria, from Yemen, and from among the Christian Arabs under the Ghassanids or Lakhmids; and miscellaneous others whose Christian-ty was evidenced only by their names. The few native Christians whose names have come down to us with more questions than answers lacked instruction and fervor. It is therefore not surprising that it offered no opposition to Islam. Finally it is to be carried in mind that it was the Christianity in Arabia, here briefly sketched, that projected the image of Christianity seen in the Qur’an.

[!admission] Richard Bell — The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment (p. 42)
From the northwest it spread into the northern center of the peninsula and southward to the shores of the Red Sea but — and this is important — in spite of traditions to the effect that the picture of Jesus was found on one of the pillars of the Ka’ba, there is no good evidence of any seats of Christianity in the Hijaz or in the near neighborhood of Mecca or even of Medina.

[!admission] Ibn Qutaybah — Al-Ma’arif (1)
The religions of the Arabs in the pre-Islamic era:
Christianity was in: “Rabi’ah”, “Ghassan”, and some of “Quda’ah”.
Judaism was in: “Himyar”, “Banu Kinanah”, “Banu al-Harith ibn Ka’b”, and “Kinda”. Zoroastrianism was in: “Tamim”.
Among them: Zararah ibn ‘Adas al-Tamimi, and his son: Hajib ibn Zararah — who married his daughter then regretted it.
Among them: Al-Aqra’ ibn Habis — who was a Zoroastrian, and Abu Sud — the grandfather of: Wakee’ ibn Hassan — who was a Zoroastrian.
Heresy was in “Quraish”, they took it from “Al-Hirah”.
And “Banu Hanifa” took a god from Hais in the pre-Islamic era, and they worshipped it for a long time, then a famine struck them and they ate it, so a man from “Banu Tamim” said: [Khafif]
Hanifa ate her lord from an old hunger in her and from poverty.
Another said: [Majzu’ al-Kamil]
Hanifa ate her Lord… In a time of oppression and famine,
they did not fear their Lord… The bad consequences and consequences.

Grade: Sahih

And you did not recite before it any scripture, nor did you inscribe it with your right hand. Then the falsifiers would have had doubts.(48) Rather, it is clear signs within the breasts of those who have been given knowledge. And none reject Our signs except the wrongdoers. (49)

Grade: Sahih

Grade: Sahih

Grade: Sahih

Grade: Sahih

[!admission] Pope Tawadros II — The Key to the New Testament (1/27)
Translation of the Holy Bible into Arabic:
The first Arabic translation appeared in the late eighth century AD (more than a hundred years after Islam) and was done by John, Bishop of Seville in Spain. It was a limited translation and did not include the entire book and did not have sufficient spread.

[!admission] Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (p. 170)
Several Arabic versions are known to exist, some being translations from the Greek, some from Syriac and some from coptic, while others are revisions based upon some or all of these. None is earlier than the seventh century perhaps none so early.

Grade: Sahih

The accusation that the Prophet learned the Qur’an from Jabr and Yasar collapses on eight grounds: only two of four chains are authentic; the alleged teachers were Syriac-speaking children with minimal Arabic; the Talmud was inaccessible to non-Jews; the Hijaz lacked organized Christianity; the Prophet was illiterate; no Arabic Bible existed in the seventh century; the Qur’an’s content — denying the crucifixion, focusing on Moses over Jesus, and containing knowledge of past nations — contradicts what any Christian slave in Mecca could have taught; and Quraysh’s own silence proves they knew the accusation was false.