The Qurʾān’s Legal Culture: The Didascalia Apostolorum as a Point of Departure by Holger Michael Zellentin (review)

This book is a must read for anyone interested in the relation between earliest Islam and the religious culture of the late ancient Mediterranean. In it Zellentin draws our attention to a number of significant parallels between the legal culture exemplified in the Qurʾān and the early third-century Christian church order, the Didascalia Apostolorum. The analysis is not limited to the Didascalia, however, since Zellentin finds some of the closest parallels not with the Didascalia itself, but with another early Christian group that it seems to oppose. The Pseudo-Clementine texts are then brought into play in order to offer some sort of confirmation for the legal observances that the Didascalia rejects. On the whole, the parallels from these texts are indeed striking, and with them Zellentin challenges us to think more deliberately about possible relations between the legal cultures of earliest Islam and early Christianity. The book is at its strongest when it develops these similarities and thus invites readers to consider the potential interplay of legal culture among the different religious traditions of late antiquity. Nevertheless, Zellentin often reaches to connect the Didascalia’s legal culture—not the text itself, but its “Judeo-Christian” legal tradition—more directly with the Qurʾān. These efforts, unfortunately, are highly problematic in my view and ultimately not very persuasive. Furthermore, one wonders whether some of the parallels that Zellentin identifies might not be more broadly characteristic of late ancient Christian legal culture than just the alleged “Judeo-Christian” legal tradition witnessed by these two texts. In this regard, Zellentin’s work should perhaps inspire some further investigation.

The group opposed by the Didascalia (as confirmed through comparison with the Pseudo-Clementines) mandated washing after intercourse and before prayer, as well as abstinence from intercourse during menstruation, along with an avoidance of pork, which Zellentin notes fits well with the Qurʾān’s pronouncements on these same issues. Likewise, the Didascalia itself shares with the Qurʾān a tradition (which is also found in a number of other early Christian writings) that much of the ancient Israelite legal tradition was imposed specifically as a punishment for worshipping the Golden Calf. Both the Didascalia and, seemingly, the Qurʾān assign Jesus the role of abrogating this part of the Law. These are indeed interesting parallels, but I am not so sure that they connect the Didascalia with the legal culture of the Qurʾān as tightly as Zellentin would suggest. For instance, Eastern Orthodox canon law requires abstinence from intercourse during menstruation in many instances (although perhaps not always, since Eastern canon law is very unsystematic). Likewise there is frequently concern about sexual intercourse and participation in sacred rites too soon thereafter, although admittedly no washing seems to be involved. A deeper look into some of these issues might reveal even broader contact between the legal culture of the Qurʾān and early Christianity.

Much more problematic is Zellentin’s assertion that the “Judeo-Christian” legal culture evidence in these third- and fourth-century Christian texts persisted into the early seventh century and was thus able to be an influence on the Qurʾān and the beginnings of Islam. Zellentin is well aware of the many problems involved in use of the category “Jewish-” or as he prefers “Judeo-Christian,” labels that I wish would soon disappear. Likewise, he acknowledges that there is no evidence for any Jewish Christian groups beyond the fourth century. Nonetheless, his claim that the particular sort of Judeo-Christian culture evidenced by these early Christian texts somehow “persisted at least until the seventh [century]” (175; cf. e.g., 98, 125) so that it could influence the Qurʾān is not persuasive. While admitting at the outset that “the historicity of Judeo-Christian groups past the fourth or fifth century is indeed more than uncertain” (ix), he nonetheless wishes to maintain that the practices ascribed...