A Flood of Bubbling Blood and a Talking Head: John the Baptist in the Islamic Sources1

Geert Jan van Gelder

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O Ιωάννης, ο Βαπτιστής, στην Ισλαμική παράδοση
The title of my talk, intended to be lurid and alluring, could have been made yet more lurid, because my talk will also be on incest; in fact, I wrote a page on St John the Baptist in my book on incest and inbreeding in Arabic literature, Close relationships.2 However, the earliest references to John the Baptist in Islam are not so exciting. He is mentioned several times in the Qur‖an. Interestingly, John has two different names in Arabic: Christians call him Yūḥannā l-Maʿmadān,3 John the Baptist, whereas Muslims, who do not believe in baptism,4 call him Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyā, John son of Zacharias;5 but they recognise him as one of the prophets, precursors of Muḥammad. He was the first to be called Yaḥyā (Sura 19:3: “a son whose name will be John, a name We have never given to anyone before”). He was certainly not the last, for Yaḥyā is a common name among Muslims.
The name Yaḥyā is a homonym, for it is also a verbal form meaning “he lives”,6 but it is his death that dominates the stories about him, even though it is not mentioned in the Qur‖an. His miraculous birth is mentioned in Suras 3, 6, 21 and especially Sura 19, along the lines of St Luke chapter 1; he is called “a chief and chaste man and a prophet from among the righteous”.7 The word “chaste” has given rise to some speculation as to his lack of sexual prowess; after all, the Arabic word used here, ḥaṣūr, suggests stricture and retention: some commentators say he was incapable of sexual intercourse, and the Prophet Muḥammad has been made to declare John did not have sex with women, illustrating it by picking up a tiny twig (or a date stone, in another version) and saying that John “had a penis no bigger than this”; one wonders how he could have known. Others reject this, because a true prophet cannot but be perfect, and they believe that the Qur‖anic expression merely means that John was free from impure thoughts and deeds; for all they know he may have been happily married and blessed with children.8 Yet another says, basing himself on an ancient Arabic verse, that ḥaṣūr means that he did not play the gambling game of maysir, forbidden in Islam.9
He also, like Jesus, was given wisdom, or judgment (ḥukm), while still a little child;10 he spoke, like Christ according to the Qur‖an, as a baby in the cradle.11 Strikingly, he was, according to another saying attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad, the only sinless human being: “There is no one of Adam‖s children who has not sinned or intended to sin, except
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