Storia de Mahometh

[2] The Storia is most probably of Mozarabic origin, that is, written by Christians living under Islamic rule in Spain.

[1] Since the internal evidence for a Spanish provenance is confined to the prologue, it is possible that only that part was composed there and that the main body of the text was written elsewhere.

The surviving textual tradition can be traced to the monasteries of Albelda and San Millán in the Rioja.

[4][14] The short recension, only about a paragraph in length, is entitled Adnotatio Mammetis Arabum principis,[12] or "A note on Muḥammad, chief of the Arabs".

[15] The long recensin of the Storia is the longer of two Latin biographies of Muḥammad in the Codex Rotensis, the other being the Tultusceptru de libro domni Metobii.

[4] The Storia is a polemic, caustic in tone, that takes facts from the traditional biography of Muḥammad and reframes them as criticism of Islam.

Soon after he married his guardian, he was visited by a vulture that claimed to be the angel Gabriel and told him to present himself to the Arabs as a prophet.

[4] When this did not happen, his followers assumed that their presence was scaring off the angels and so they left his decomposing body unguarded, whereupon dogs began to eat it and they were forced to bury it.

[5] The Storia borrows from legends then current regarding the Antichrist and portrays Muḥammad as one of the false prophets predicted by the New Testament.

[19] In referring to this last incident, the author directly translated a passage from the Qurʾān, specifically Sūra 33:37.

[19] The death of Muḥammad as depicted in the Storia has no correspondence with any Islamic tradition and is pure invention intended to disparage.

[21] The Syriac versions of the Baḥira legend and the Apology of al-Kindi do, however, refer to a false prophecy (not by Muḥammad himself) that he would rise again after three days.

[5] The Storia is the only source to have his body eaten by dogs, which is pure invention intended to disparage.

[26] While the Storia blames Muḥammad for leading his followers to Hell, the Tultusceptru treats him as a victim and a dupe.