Below is Copy/Pasted from the Wikipedia Page for Sallam ibn Mishkam as it read on March 12 2025 in the Debate with Muhammad Section.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallam_ibn_Mishkam
When Muhammad arrived in Medina in 622, he was eager to convince the local Jewish tribes that he was a prophet like the ones in their own Scriptures. Two Muslim converts, Muadh ibn Jabal and Bishr ibn al-Baraa, urged Sallam to become a Muslim: “When we were pagans, you used to pray for the Prophet’s help to defeat us and warn us that he was coming, and you described him to us.” Sallam was unimpressed by Muhammad’s claims. He replied that Muhammad “has brought us nothing we recognize and he is not the one about whom we used to tell you.”[1]: 257
Sallam was among the rabbis who debated with Muhammad. On one occasion, he asked: “Is it true that [the Qur’an] is the truth from God? For our part, we cannot see that it is arranged as the Torah is.” Muhammad protested that the Qur’an could be found in the Torah and that neither man nor jinn could have forged it; and the Jews challenged him: “Bring down to us from Heaven a book that will clearly demonstrate its identity [by its similarity to the Torah], otherwise we will produce one like [the Qur’an].”[1]: 269–270 When no answers to their serious questions were forthcoming, the Jews began to tease Muhammad with facetious questions such as “How did God begin?” and easy ones to which he gave a non-traditional answer, such as “How many plagues did God send on Egypt?” Sallam apparently had a great talent for asking annoying questions and creating confusion “so as to confound the truth with falsehood.”[1]: 239–270
In late 623 or early 624 the Jews made a formal statement of their joint unbelief in Muhammad’s mission. Sallam and three friends asked: “Do you follow the religion of Abraham and believe in the Torah and testify that it is the truth from God?” Muhammad replied: “Certainly,” but added that the Jews had “added to the Scriptures, and broken its Covenant, and hidden what you were ordered to publish. I dissociate myself from your additions.” Sallam and his friends replied: “We hold by this Torah and we live according to its guidance and the truth. We do not believe in you and we will not follow you.”[1]: 268
Next I shall Quote two Jeiwhs Apocalypses Scholars believe were written in the 620s. Both are organized as a set of Ten Signs and in both the section I shall Copy/Paste comes from the Seventh Sign. But I want to clarify that these Apocalypses are very poetically playing fast and loose with the contemporary events they’re trying to connect to Bible Prophecy. In all likelihood nothing else about Armilus is based on Muhamad and nothing else about Nehemiah Ben Hushiel is based on Sallam ibn Mishkam, just the specific exchange in question.
First is ’Otot ha-Mašiah (Signs of the Messiah)
He will come to the wicked Edomites and say to them: ‘I am the Messiah! I am your god!’ They will immediately believe him and elevate him over themselves as ruler, and all the descendants of Esau will join forces with him and come to him. He will march forth and subdue all the regions. He will say to the descendants of Esau: ‘Bring before me my revelation which I gave to you!’ They will bring him their ‘frivolity,’ and he will respond to them: ‘This is indeed what I gave to you!’ He will address the nations of the world (saying) ‘Believe in me, for I am your Messiah!’ They will immediately put their trust in him.
At that time he will send for Nehemiah b. Hushiel and for all Israel, saying to them: ‘Bring to me your Torah and bear witness to me that I am God!’ Suddenly they will grow fearful and be perplexed. But at that time Nehemiah b. Hushiel will arise with thirty thousand warriors from among the forces of the tribe of Ephraim, and they will bring a Torah scroll and read aloud before him: ‘I am the Lord your God! You shall have no other gods before Me!’ (Exod 20:2-3). He (Armilos) will say to them: ‘There is nothing like this at all in your Torah! Come and bear witness to me that I am God just as all the gentile nations have done!’ Immediately Nehemiah will rise up to oppose him.
Second is Ten Signs.
He will gather all the nations, and then say to the descendants of Esau: ‘Bring to me the Torah which I gave you ….’ All Israel will suddenly be confused, but Nehemiah b. Hushiel will arise, he and thirty warriors with weapons (concealed) beneath their garments, and they will take a Torah scroll and bring it to him (i.e., to Armilos). They will read out before him: ‘You shall have no other gods before Me!’ (Exod 20:3). He will say to them: ‘This is not (my Torah) at all!’ Nehemiah will say to him: ‘You are no deity, only Satan!’
This isn’t a similarity that can be caused by one source plagiarizing the other, both are biased memories recalling the same even from different perspectives. In Both are the Jews who are skeptical of this new Prophet and in both the Prophet rejects in the Torah when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for in it.
The Islamic Sources are, I believe, a more accurate account of what really happened in terms of using the real names of the players involved and probably more accurately representing what doctrine Muhammad was claiming to be.
The Jewish sources are more accurate in their depiction of Jewish Doctrinal Belief but also less concerned with actually verbatim recording what happened and have a desire to conflate Muhammad with Christianity and Rome and exaggerating the nature of the Prophet’s claims to make the scale more epic.
I have argued that Muhammad was an ally of Rome at this time.
The Sefer Zerubabel written slightly later will not identify Armilus with Rome or Edom but instead make him a Quedarite and depict him as making a Stone a place of Pilgrimage.
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