A negative view of Paul is recorded in the classical Islamic sources, which plainly judge him a misleader of the message of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam (ʿalayhi al-salām, peace be upon him).
[paulus_figure name=”umayyad-interior”]The prayer hall of the Great Umayyad Mosque, Damascus, the city of Ibn ʿAsākir, whose history of Damascus preserves the report of Wahb ibn Munabbih.[/paulus_figure]
Sayf ibn ʿUmar
Among the earliest is an important report attributed to Sayf ibn ʿUmar (c. 750–809), an Iraqi historian known for his Kitāb al-Ridda wa-l-Futūḥ. In that manuscript (fols. 62a–64b), Paul, called Abū Shāwil, is portrayed as a falsifier of the teaching of the prophets.
After the deaths of the original followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, Paul rose to claim revelation and seized the leadership by deceit and violence. He spread a new teaching that departed from tawḥīd (توحيد, “the oneness of God”) into regions such as Marāthā and Bordū, while accusing his enemies of being blind and deaf to legitimize himself as an inspired “apostle.”
More alarming, Sayf ibn ʿUmar also records that Paul formed a new sect by writing “sacred books” that reflected his own invented teaching. The sect was known as al-raʿāʿ, the rabble who became the basis of his ideology. The report also states that a small group of believers went on defending the message of tawḥīd, known as the firqah muʾminah ẓāhirah bi-l-ḥujjah, those who came forward with proof and opposed Paul despite persecution.1
[paulus_figure name=”kufa-1915″]The Great Mosque of Kufa from the air, 1915. Sayf ibn ʿUmar, whose account of Paul opens this record, was a historian of Kufa.[/paulus_figure]
Al-Qummī
A firm view of Paul is also shown by ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qummī (d. 919), who lists Paul among the opponents of the message of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, and never among its supporters. He relates:
ما بعث الله نبيًّا إلا وفي أمته شيطانٌ يؤذيه ويُضلّ الناس، فبعث الله عزّ وجلّ مع كلّ نبيٍّ صاحبًا يقابله… فكان مع عيسى بولس وتمرتيان وبرزتيق.
Mā baʿatha Allāhu nabiyyan illā wa fī ummatih shayṭānun yuʾdhīhi wa yuḍillu al-nās, fa-baʿatha Allāhu ʿazza wa jalla maʿa kulli nabiyyin ṣāḥiban yuqābiluh … fa-kāna maʿa ʿĪsā ibn Maryam Būlus wa Tamartiyān wa Barzatiq.2
God never sent a prophet without there being in his community a devil who harmed him and led people astray. So God, mighty and majestic, appointed for every prophet a counterpart to confront him … and with ʿĪsā ibn Maryam were Paul, Tamartiyān (Marcion) and Barzatiq.
Although the term used is ṣāḥib (صاحب, “companion”), the context makes plain that it means a rival figure hostile to revelation. Listing Paul with other misguided figures such as Marcion shows that the early Islamic tradition rejected ab initio any notion that Paul held prophetic or apostolic authority in the true religion.
Wahb ibn Munabbih
An interesting tale connected with Paul is related by Wahb ibn Munabbih, through Idrīs the son of Wahb’s daughter, as recorded in the Tārīkh Madīnat Dimashq of Ibn ʿAsākir. In it Paul is portrayed as a leader among the Jews and the harshest opponent of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. He is said to have gathered an army to kill ʿĪsā ibn Maryam and bar him from entering Damascus.
At a place called Kawkabā an angel struck Paul with its wing and blinded him. Having seen undeniable signs, he finally acknowledged the truth, came to ʿĪsā ibn Maryam and asked for his sight to be restored. ʿĪsā ibn Maryam answered: “How long will you go on harming me and those who are with me?”3
The report is plainly an adaptation of the narrative in Acts (chapters 9, 22 and 26), reworked in the manner of a hikayat with elements of Isrāʾīliyyāt. The basic structure, the vision of light, the blindness and the change in Paul’s attitude, is preserved, but dramatic elements are added, such as a winged angel and direct dialogue with ʿĪsā ibn Maryam.
From the standpoint of Islamic history and theology the report raises serious problems. ʿĪsā ibn Maryam had been raised to heaven before the Religion of Paul appeared, so a picture of him still on earth to meet Paul contradicts the historical reality of his mission according to Islam. Placing ʿĪsā ibn Maryam back into this narrative conflicts with his standing as a Messenger raised by God, and it weakens the credibility of the report as a valid source for judging Paul’s history.
Its original transmitter, Wahb ibn Munabbih, is known to have carried many Isrāʾīliyyāt reports that cannot serve as proof in the discipline of creed. Elements such as “an angel striking with its wing” and the request to restore sight are narrative exaggeration better read as allegory or literary symbolism than as sound historical report.
The report therefore cannot ground the Islamic assessment of Paul. It remains important for showing that in the early Muslim perspective Paul was seen as an enemy of the message who finally submitted, symbolically, to the truth he had long rejected.
The prison called Būlus
Beyond the critical assessment of Paul in Islamic discourse, there is an eschatological hadith that mentions a prison in Hell named Būlus, a name linguistically identical with the Arabic name for Paul (بولس). In the hadith recorded by Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, the Messenger of God ﷺ said:
يُحشر الجبارون يوم القيامة أمثال الذر في صور الرجال، يغشاهم الذل من كل مكان، يساقون إلى سجن في جهنم يسمى بولس، تعلوهم نار الأنيار، يسقون من عصارة أهل النار، طينة الخبال.
Yuḥsharu al-jabbārūna yawma al-qiyāmah amthāla al-dharr fī ṣuwari al-rijāl, yaghshāhum al-dhull min kulli makān, yusāqūna ilā sijn fī Jahannam yusammā Būlus, taʿlūhum nāru al-anyār, yusqawna min ʿuṣārat ahli al-nār, ṭīnatu al-khabāl.4
The arrogant will be gathered on the Day of Resurrection like specks of dust in the form of men. Humiliation will cover them from every side, and they will be driven to a prison in Hell called Būlus. The fire of fires will rise over them, and they will be given to drink of the discharge of the people of Hell, the ṭīnat al-khabāl.
Literally the hadith speaks of the punishment of the arrogant, but the appearance of the name Būlus raises a significant question. There is no clear confirmation that Paul is meant.
Yet the combination of the wording, the theme of arrogance and the punishment in Hell allows the interpretation that the use of the name is a deliberate allusion to the figure raised as the founder of a deviant teaching after the message of ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ to the Children of Israel had passed. Connected with the other reports that portray Paul as the enemy of tawḥīd and a misleader of the community, the mention is meaningful linguistically, and it also functions as an eschatological symbol that fixes Paul’s character as the manifestation of deviation in the history of revelation.
The mention of Paul’s name in this context is best understood as an inclusive historiographical adaptation. That becomes plainer as we trace the views of the great scholars of the Islamic tradition, who judged Paul critically and thoroughly, above all when his teaching is examined as a deviation from the message of tawḥīd brought by ʿĪsā ibn Maryam.
- Sayf ibn ʿUmar, Kitāb al-Ridda wa-l-Futūḥ, manuscript (fols. 62a–64b), cited in Pieter S. van Koningsveld, “The Islamic Image of Paul and the Origins of the Gospel of Barnabas,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, vol. 20 (1996), pp. 222–225. See also Sean W. Anthony, “The Composition of Sayf b. ʿUmar’s Account of King Paul and His Corruption of Ancient Christianity,” Der Islam, vol. 85 (2010), pp. 164–202, which discusses the arrangement of Sayf’s narrative and its portrayal of Paul as a figure who feigned repentance before diverting the teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. ↩
- ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, ed. Ṭayyib al-Mūsawī al-Jazāʾirī (Beirut: Dār al-Walāʾ li-Ṣināʿat al-Nashr, 2018), vol. 1, p. 49. Also online: https://bit.ly/2RMHR9S (accessed 24 May 2025). ↩
- Ibn ʿAsākir, Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Ḥasan al-Shāfiʿī, Tārīkh Madīnat Dimashq, vol. 5 (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1995), p. 333: «كان بولس من رؤساء اليهود وأشدهم بأسًا وأعظمهم شأنًا في إنكار ما جاء به المسيح عليه السلام ودفعه ودفع الناس عنه، فجمع العساكر وسار إلى المسيح عليه السلام ليقتله ويمنعه عن دخول دمشق، فلقيه بكوكبا، فضربه ملك بجناحه فأعماه، ورأى من دلائل أمره والأحوال التي لم يصل معها إلى ما أراد من مكروهه ما اضطره إلى الإيمان به والتصديق بما جاء به. فأتى المسيح على ذلك وسأله أن يفتح عينيه، فقال له المسيح: كم تسعى في أذاي وأذى من هو معي؟» ↩
- See Musnad Aḥmad, vol. 6, p. 232; Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī, no. 2492; al-Adab al-Mufrad, no. 557; al-Sunan al-Kubrā, no. 11827. The hadith is graded ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ by the scholars of hadith. ↩