Arabic Sibylline prophecy

The Arabic Sibylline prophecy is a set of Christian apocalyptic texts based on the tradition of the Tiburtine Sibyl.

[1] It is an example of vaticinia ex eventu (prophecies after the fact) and was composed "to give encouragement and hope to Christians living under Islamic rule, especially during periods of political instability.

[5] The oldest manuscript of the Arabic Sibylline prophecy is fragmentary: a single folio from Sinai, Monastery of Saint Catherine, MS Ar.

[1][10] The Arabic prophecy belongs to the same Sibylline tradition as the Greek Oracle of Baalbek and the Latin Sibylla Tiburtina, but it is not directly related to those texts.

[3] In common with the Graeco-Latin tradition, the Arabic Sibylline prophecy recounts how the Sibyl, a pagan prophetess, interprets a vision of nine suns dreamt at the same time by one hundred sages of Rome.

[3] In the primitive recension, Muḥammad is not named, but the Arabs are referred to as "a people that comes out from the mountains" who will reign over "the kings of the Byzantines [and] the Copts" for a generation.

The recensions Arab II, III and IV refer to Muḥammad as "a man from the south" and give his name in the form of a numerical code (40-8-40-4).