Vita Mahometi (Uncastillo)

The Vita Mahometi ('life of Muḥammad') is a short Latin biography of Muḥammad composed in 1221–1222. It is preserved in a single manuscript, now códice 10 in the Church of Santa María la Mayor de Uncastillo in Uncastillo. It was probably composed in the same area in the north of Aragon. Its author is not named in the manuscript, but it may have been written by the same author as the work that precedes it, the Tractatus contra Iudaeos. He introduces himself as a Jewish convert to Christianity who took the name Peter.



The Vita Mahometi is an explicitly Christian work that seeks to expose Muḥammad as a false prophet motivated by sexual lust and a desire for political power. The author's stated purpose is to correct the misunderstanding that Muḥammad was a Christian, although he did receive help from Jews and Christians. The work may be classified as "anti-hagiography", although it is less polemical in tone than many other medieval anti-hagiographies of Muḥammad.

The text takes up only 119 lines in the manuscript and may be divided into six sections. The first part concerns Muḥammad's early life down to the Hijra, his flight from Mecca to Medina. The second part concerns his lust. His first wife is Hadiga. He married another sixteen women, the last one stolen from another man. The third part covers the sources of his ideas and his early preaching. The fourth part, taking up about half the text, is an account of his false miracles and his miʿrāj or ascent to heaven. It is the earliest western biography with an account of the miʿrāj, which is treated as his fourth miracle. The account may be drawn from the Copto-Arabic Kitāb al-wāḍiḥ bi-l-ḥaqq, a Latin translation of which was available in Spain at the time. The conversation between Muḥammad and God, in which the teachings of Islam are revealed, is the centrepiece. The Vita does not mention the isrāʾ (night journey) or Muḥammad's visit to hell. The final two parts are a description of his death from illness and of his teaching about Jesus, Mary and the Apostles.

The Latin text has been published three times.