Seal of Muhammad

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier in 1675 reported that the seal was kept in a small ebony box in a niche cut in the wall by the foot of a divan in the relic room at Topkapı.

[3] According to George Frederick Kunz, when Muhammad was about to send a letter to the Emperor Heraclius, he was told he needed a seal to be recognized as coming from him.

[7] A different design of the seal is circular, based on an Ottoman-era manuscript copy of a letter purportedly sent by Muhammad to al-Muqawqis.

Based on comparative palaeographic analysis with early Arabic papyri, Austrian orientalist Joseph Karabacek assessed the letter to be a forgery.

[9] Nöldeke (1909) agreed with his conclusions,[9] and Öhrnberg (2007) considers the narrative about a letter being sent to al-Muqawqis to be "devoid of any historical value", and the seal to be fake on paleographic grounds – its writing style being anachronistic and hinting at an Ottoman Turkish origin.

Based on this, Ahmed El Shamsy concludes that the order of the words used in the Muqwaki seal is a medieval invention.

Their judges should not be changed or prevented from accomplishing their offices, nor the monks disturbed in exercising their religious order, or the people of seclusion be stopped from dwelling in their cells.

The alleged seal of Prophet Muhammad, muqwaki (circular) design
Circular seal impression in Muhammad's letter to the Muqawqis of Egypt (1904 drawing) [ 8 ]
An 8th-century Umayyad coin with "Muhammad" on the top line instead of "God"
The hand seal of Muhammad on the Ashtiname of Muhammad , a grant of protection to the Holy Monastery of Sinai .