Mohammed was a Prophet from Allah
For a billion Muslims the world over, Mohammed is the epitomé of prophethood. He
is viewed as the final prophet, bringing the final revelation of Allah to man.
Most view Mohammed as a sinless saint, the perfection of how humanity ought to
conduct itself. This man's life and way of living are held up as models for
humanity, and their emulation is encouraged in every generation. But who was
this Mohammed, what is the true testimony about him, and did he really fulfill
the role of a prophet from God?
Who Was This Mohammed?
Before exploring in detail what the Muslim traditions teach about Mohammed, the
question of whether Mohammed actually existed as a historical personage, at
least as he is depicted in the traditions, must be raised. Practically the only
knowledge available about the life and history of Mohammed comes from the
traditional Muslim sources, the ahadith, the sunnat, and the sirat,
or biographies of Mohammed. The primary deficiency of traditional Western study
of Islam has been its uncritical over reliance upon these traditions and
historiography as the means of examining Islam in what Renan, the early
Orientalist, called "the clear light of history". Scholars have long recognised
that the various ahadith and other traditional material, such as the historical
records of battles in the Arab conquest and the biographical materials
concerning Mohammed, are often quite contradictory, and rarely can be put
together into a logical, coherent order of events. Further, the materials making
up the ahadith and the biographies are very late, often as much as two centuries
after the fact and were often blatantly polemical in their outlook. This
suggests that the reason for the conflicting details in so many of these sources
is due to their being "spun" (or even invented) by factionalists among the
Muslims, each trying to bolster their own particular view or party by laying
claim to some saying or action of the prophet. Schacht has expressed an opinion
which has become increasingly commonplace in the studies of Islam when he
stated,
"I should like to present some ideas on what, I think, is a
necessary revaluation of Islamic traditions in the light of our present
knowledge; but am at a loss whether to call my conclusions something new and
unprecedented, or something old and well known. No one could have been more
surprised than I was by the results which the evidence of the texts has forced
upon me during the last ten years or so; but looking back I cannot see what
other result could possibly be consistent with the very foundations of our
historical and critical study of the first two or three centuries of Islam.
One of these foundations, I may take it for granted, is Goldhizer's discovery
that the traditions from the Prophet and from his Companions do not contain
more or less authentic information on the earliest period of Islam to which
they claim to belong, but reflect opinions held during the first two and a
half centuries after the Hijra."1
Schacht thus affirms the unreliability of the Muslim traditions for use as
primary source materials when studying the events surrounding the rise of Islam.
Instead of reflecting historical fact, these traditional materials reflect later
opinions and redacted accounts of Muslims who were applying their later
standards and beliefs onto an earlier generation. Daniel Pipes has compared the
use of these materials by Western scholars who attempt to determine the
"authentic" history of Islam to a similar, though hypothetical, situation where
we, in the 21st century, would try to determine the makeup of the Constitution,
solely on the basis of the ideas and interpretations of various modern factions
in America, which would obviously give conflicting accounts and emphases, etc.2
As noted earlier, nearly the only source for direct information concerning
Mohammed (as well as a host of other topics concerning early Islam) are the
ahadith. The material in works such as Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, and other early
biographers of Mohammed (sirat) largely draw from the ahadith as their
sources. The ahadith are purported to have been transmitted orally from the time
of Mohammed and the Companions via chains of authority, conveyed to later
generations through series of trustworthy Muslims who passed down what they had
heard about Mohammed and the early Muslims. This process is known as isnad,
and the determination of an "authentic" hadith by Muslim scholars has
traditionally been made by judging the isnad, the personages making up
the chain of authority for the hadith, on a number of factors such as
reliability and reputation (hence, making it a somewhat subjective exercise).
This method in which the ahadith were transmitted and recorded is less than
inspiring in its capacity to accurately transmit information. Also, the
independence of the witnesses in the isnad has likely been overestimated
by past scholars of Islam. Noting that the process of isnad as a means of
transmitting information about Mohammed and early Islam evolved many decades
after the facts they purport to transmit, Juynboll expresses a studied
trepidation about the authority and authenticity of these traditions.
"In my view, before the institution of the isnad came into
existence roughly three quarters of a century after the prophet's death, the
ahadith and the qisas (mostly legendary stories) were transmitted in a
haphazard fashion if at all, and mostly anonymously. Since the isnad came into
being, names of older authorities were supplied where the new isnad precepts
required such. Often the names of well-known historical personalities were
chosen but more often the names of fictitious people were offered to fill the
gaps in isnads which were as yet far from perfect...The overall majority of
allegedly the most ancient traditions is likely to have originated at the
earliest in the course of the last few decades of the first century [ed. note
- Islamic century] (700s-720s), when for the first time the need for
traditions became generally felt. The isnad as institution had just come into
being and slowly but gradually the concept of sunnat an-nabi began to eclipse
the Sunna of a region or of a (group of) person(s)."3
Thus, Juynboll argues from the evidence for a process of standardisation (isnad)
that began in the dusk of the first Islamic century. This process arose out of a
recognised need on the part of the community within the Arab religion to
establish a solid basis upon which to ground their traditional beliefs and to
bring order to the very haphazard system of commandments, stories, personal
examples, and doctrines each claiming authority. Wansbrough goes even further,
recognising the supplying of isnads for statements or examples attributed
to Mohammed and his Companions as a formal innovation datable only to the very
beginning of the third Islamic century (200 AH/815 AD).4
Indeed, Cragg notes that the more formally organised and "scientifically"
established a tradition in the ahadith is, the more likely it is to have been
severely redacted and/or deliberately invented. He says,
"This science being so meticulous that it is fair (even if
somewhat paradoxical) to suspect that the more complete and formally
satisfactory the attestation claimed to be, the more likely it was that the
tradition was of late and deliberate origin. The developed requirements of
acceptability that the tradition boasted simply did not exist in the early,
more haphazard and spontaneous days."5
Goldhizer was the first modern western scholar of Islam to recognise the
spurious nature of the hadithic records, when his thorough examination of them
(practically the first undertaken by a Western scholar) uncovered the astounding
regularity with which the traditions contradicted each other, and whose numbers
seemed to balloon with each succeeding generation. Goldhizer succinctly
summarised his findings,
"In the absence of authentic evidence it would indeed be
rash to attempt the most tentative opinion as to which parts of the Hadith are
the oldest original material, or even as to which of them date back to the
generations immediately following the Prophet's death. Closer acquaintance
with the vast stock of Hadiths induces sceptical caution rather than
optimistic trust regarding the material brought together in the carefully
compiled collections. We are unlikely to have even as much confidence as Dozy
regarding a large part of the Hadith, but will probably consider by far the
greater part of it as the result of the religious, historical, and social
development of Islam during the first two centuries. The Hadith will not serve
as a document for the history of the infancy of Islam, but rather as a
reflection of the tendencies which appeared in the community during the
maturer stages of its development. It contains invaluable evidence for the
evolution of Islam during the years when it was forming itself into an
organized whole from powerful mutually opposed forces."6
This point is recognised and repeated by more modern scholars on the subject of
Islamic tradition. Among them, Crone states about the Sira of Ibn Ishaq
(which was ultimately based upon the hadithic materials),
"The work is late: written not by a grandchild, but by a
great grandchild of the Prophet's generation, it gives us the view for which
classical Islam had settled. And written by a member of the ulama, the
scholars who had by then emerged as the classical bearers of the Islamic
tradition, the picture which it offers is also one-sided: how the Umayyad
caliphs remembered the Prophet we shall never know. That it is unhistorical is
only what one would expect, but it has an extraordinary capacity to resist
internal criticism...characteristic of the entire Islamic tradition, and most
pronounced in the Koran: one can take the picture presented or one can leave
it, but one cannot work with it."7
She further concludes about the hadithic traditions,
"There is nothing, within the Islamic traditions, that one
can do with Baladhuri's statement that the kiblah (direction of prayer) in the
first Kufan mosque was to the west (opposite direction to Mecca): either it is
false or else it is odd, but why it should be there and what it means God only
knows. It is similarly odd that Umar (second caliph) is known as the Faruq
(Redeemer), that there are so many Fatimas, that Ali (Muhammad's cousin) is
sometimes Muhammed's brother, and that there is so much pointless
information...It is a tradition in which information means nothing and leads
nowhere; it just happens to be there and lends itself to little but
arrangement by majority and minority opinion."8
The process of isnad is also highly suspect, and was shown on several
counts by Goldhizer to yield seeming authenticity to mutually contradictory
ahadith. Cook has shown a number of ways in which the isnads could spread
in ways which would falsely appear to give greater authenticity to them.9
Indeed, that the ahadith and other traditional materials are most likely
forgeries developed over time in the Muslim community to "fill out" for itself
and it's prophet a sense of history has been shown as both plausible10
and likely.11 Noth and Conrad have noted formal
elements in many accounts in the Muslim traditions which are so stereotyped that
they can easily be transported from one account to the next, and which suggests
that they are not so much accurate history as a literary artifice of symbolic
value.12
Concerning the reliability of the sirat biographical material of Ibn
Ishaq (from whom most of the later biographers obtained their material), Conrad
writes,
"Ibn Ishaq's numerous students and their successors took
what they received from the master and redacted and transmitted it in
different ways. Witness, for example, the differences between Ibn Hisham, the
quotations of al-Tabari, the recension of Yunus ibn Bukayr, and that of
Muhammed ibn Salama al-Harrani. As different lines of transmission represent
potentially different redactions, efforts to reconstruct the original form of
a text cannot simply combine quotations from different lines of transmission,
as if Ibn Ishaq's students and successors were making no changes of their
own....Transmitters did not limit themselves to passing on what they had
received from their teachers, but rather laid claim to the role of adapting
and revising their materials as they saw fit, not just by the well-known means
of the collective isnad, but also by rearranging, abbreviating, expanding, and
recasting."13
Finally, it must be understood that the sheer magnitude of hadithic traditions
existed just for the reasons given above - the need to provide a common basis
for belief and practice among the community in the Arab religion and the need
for the scholarly and clerical class in this society to provide legitimisation
for itself and the "orthodox" system which they were evolving and enforcing.
Crone discusses the large numbers of hadith at length,
"Bukhari is said to have examined a total of 600,000
traditions attributed to the Prophet; he preserved some 7,000 (including
repetitions), or in other words dismissed some 593,000 as inauthentic. If Ibn
Hanbal examined a similar number of traditions, he must have rejected about
570,000, his collection containing some 30,000 (again including repetitions).
Of Ibn Hanbal's traditions, 1,710 (including repetitions) are transmitted by
the Companion Ibn Abbas. Yet, less than fifty years earlier one scholar
estimated that Ibn Abbas had only heard nine traditions from the Prophet,
while another thought that the correct figure might be ten. If Ibn Abbas has
heard ten traditions from the Prophet in the years around 800, but over a
thousand by 850, how many had he heard in 700, or 632? Even if we accept that
ten of Ibn Abbas' traditions are authentic, how do we identify them in the
pool of 1,710? we do not even know whether they are to be found in this pool,
as opposed to that of the 530,000 traditions dismissed on the ground that
their chain of authorities were faulty. Under such circumstances it is
scarcely justified to presume Hadith to be authentic until the contrary has
been proven."14
Essentially, she is making the point that the huge number of ahadith which were
available to al-Bukhari and Ibn Hanbal to sift through, all presenting
themselves as authentic (though most recognisably not), was the result of a
process of hadithic inflation. Huge numbers of ahadith were being created and
added to the compilations of these traditions, such that while Islamic scholars
in 800 AD recognised a mere ten (or nine) ahadith as transmitted from the
Companion Ibn Abbas, a mere fifty years later, this number has increased to
1,710. This expansion in the number of ahadith was due to the redactions and
inventions discussed above.
Due to the extreme unreliability of the biographical materials concerning
Mohammed, and the ahadith upon which the large portion of this biography is
based, the quest for Mohammed must be directed away from polemical and often
self-serving traditional accounts and towards the evidences provided by
archaeology and from the accounts of observers who were closer to the fact than
the later Muslim biographers and tradition-makers. What must be understood is
that there is actually very little real evidence for Mohammed, at least as a
"prophet" and religious leader. Concurrently, practically everything in the
traditional account of the rise of Islam which has been pieced together from the
Muslim traditions is not substantiated by evidential facts.
Analytical scholarship recognises the contradictory and often pointless nature
of the hadithic material. Further, it is observed that this material was
collected within the milieu of intersectarian rivalries and scholastic quarrels.
The evidences provided by contemporary sources in the first part of the 7th
century, as well as the tangible, physical artifacts of both Arab and non-Arab
from the period under scrutiny, paint a picture in which there was no prophet
named Mohammed (or indeed, a religion called Islam) for many decades into the
"Islamic" period.
From evidence unearthed in the sands of Palestine and other areas of Al-Shams
(an Arabic term for the Syro-Palestine region), it appears that when the Arabs
began to infiltrate Syria and the surrounding regions in force beginning in the
first decade of the 7th century, they were still largely pagan, though many had
adopted some form of Christianity, Judaism, or Abrahamism. The religion of the
Arabs which eventually became Islam developed over the next two-three centuries
after the Arab takeover of Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. Further, this
development initially began in these regions, and was later given a redacted
origin in the Hijaz, where Mecca and Medina are located.
From the evidence at hand, it is highly doubtful that, initially at least, Mecca
existed as a centre of any importance; certainly it was nothing like what is
depicted in the Qur'an. The Roman geographer Ptolemy is often cited as an early
witness to Mecca, through his description of a city called Macoraba.15
However, as has been pointed out, "Macoraba" is of a different linguistic root
than Mecca.16 Crone, further, demonstrates that
Ptolemy's Macoraba cannot be identified with Mecca, and that if Ptolemy did
refer to anything like Mecca, it would have been to a town in Arabia Petraea
named Moka.17 This identification with the Mecca
of Islamic tradition is, obviously, extremely tenuous at best.
Mecca as the centre of caravan trade presented in the Islamic tradition, was
practically unknown by contemporaries. Whereas Arabia (a term which can include
the deserts west of Al-Shams) was of political and ecclesiastical importance in
the 6th century, there is no mention of the Quraysh or the trading centre of
Mecca in any way, in any literature from the time, even though Greek and Latin
authors had written extensively about the trade which supplied them with the
spices and other goods of southern Arabia, and which is assumed in Muslim
tradition to have come through Mecca.18 Crone
points out that in sources contemporary with the maturation of the Arab religion
(late 7th - 8th centuries), there seems to be some confusion as to where Mecca
even was. She notes that the Continuatio Byzantia Arabica gives a
location for Mecca between Ur and Harran, which is not in Arabia, but on the
edge of Mesopotamia.19 This may belie an apparent Abrahamic influence in the Arabic religion during his time. She also notes that
Jacob of Edessa knew of the Kaabah to which the Arabs prayed, but placed it not
in today's Mecca, but at a point close to what might have been the Moka
mentioned by Ptolemy, which is far north of Mecca. As such, in the early years
of the Arab conquest and the development of the Arab religion, Mecca as a great
religious centre and home of the prophet of the final revelation seems to have
been unknown.
Another evidence for the Syrian origin of the Arab religion lies in the
disposition of the religious milieu in which the Arabs of Al-Shams existed
versus the Hijaz. There is no archaeological evidence to support the contention
in the Qur'an that Mecca and the Hijaz were huge centres of pre-Islamic
Jahiliyya paganism. Indeed, there has not been found any evidence of Arab
settlement in the region of the Hijaz in the 6th and early 7th centuries.20
There is, however, evidence for exactly the type of pagan centres, practices,
and sanctuaries which are described in the Qur'an and the Muslim traditions - in
Syro-Palestine. Various pagan sites have been unearthed in this region which
conform to what is recorded in the Qur'an. One of the most prominent is a site
at Sede Boqer in the Negev desert (between Palestine and the Sinai peninsula).
There were Jahiliyya type pagan sites at Sede Boqer all the way up to
160-170 AH (roughly 780-790s AD),21 even though
the Traditional account claims this region would have been thoroughly under the
control of Islam for over a century and a half. Evidence from over thirty sites
in the Negev and surrounding areas give evidence to active and thriving pagan
cult centres even into the reign of the Abbasid Caliph Hisham (724-750 AD).22
This suggests to us that the reaction to paganism which is so evident in Muslim
polemic works, not the least of which would be the Qur'an, exists not because of
interaction which the early Muslims had in the Hijaz and Mecca, but because of
what they confronted in Al-Shams.
Further, there is evidence that what is called "Classical Arabic" (the language
of the Qur'an) did not originate in the Arabian peninsula, but arose instead
among the Arabs of Al-Shams.23 Classical Arabic
adapted an Aramaic (22 letter) script which is actually not very suitable for
transcribing Arabic. This is despite the presence among peninsular Arabian
tribes of South Arabian scripts with 28 or 29 letters which would be more
suitable for Classical Arabic (which any hypothetical Meccans in a busy caravan
town would have been very familiar with). The fact that a more unwieldy script
was chosen suggests that the reason was due to the availability of the
Aramaic-based scripts, in turn suggesting a more northerly origin for Classical
Arabic than in the Hijaz. In fact, there is no epigraphic or other evidence for
Classical Arabic in the Hijaz region until the reign of Mu'awiyah in the 640s
AD. This late appearance, coupled with the fact that when Classical Arabic
appeared in the Hijaz it did so fully developed (with no long history of
evolution), indicates that it was introduced from outside, perhaps by a
colonisation effort into the region instituted by Mu'awiyah. The traces of
development of Classical Arabic from precursors are instead found in Syria,
where an early form of this language written in a proto-Kufic script has been
found at a number of sites dating to the 6th century, including on the lentils
of church doors.24 It would seem that far from
originating in the Hijaz, Islam (or at least a proto-Islamic Arabic monotheism)
was introduced into the area by colonists or other occupants, as evidenced by
the scripts and language they used. The later adoption of the Hijaz as the
framework within which the Muslim traditional accounts took place may be the
result of a desire among the later ulamas to redact a more "Arabian" feel
and origin for their religion, moving its place of birth into the peninsula from
when the Arabs had originally came.
The picture which the epigraphic and numismatic evidences in Syro-Palestine and
Iraq paint is one of gradual development of an Arab monotheism from an
indeterminate stage, to a stage in which the prophet Mohammed was introduced
(referred to as the "Mohammedan" stage), to the final crystallisation of the
Arab monotheism into the Islam which is still with us today. The development of
Arab religion from indeterminate monotheism to Mohammedanism to Islam, on the
basis of the religious declarations and statements made on coins and in the
epigraphy, can be generally traced. As noted above, paganism remained a factor
(and seems not to have been suppressed until well into the 8th century) among
the Arabs and their subject peoples for quite some time after the Arab
conquests. However, for several centuries previous to the Arab Empire,
monotheistic forces had been at work among the Arabs. The 5th century
ecclesiastical historian Sozomenus (himself Arab), described the "Saracens" as
Abrahamists, who circumcised their sons, abstained from pork, and otherwise
engaged in many Jewish rites and customs.25
Various sects of Christianity, as well as Judaism and the Judeo-Christian
groups, had also converted a number of Arabs to their beliefs. Hence, when the
Arabs obtained mastery over the region, monotheism was a known quantity for
them. Among the Arabs higher on the social and political scale, an indeterminate
monotheism seems to have developed which blended elements from these various
belief systems, while asserting a distinct Arab character for itself.
This indeterminate monotheism, however, gradually developed into a belief system
centred about a Chosen One/prophet who could serve as a figurehead and prophetic
pedigree for the Arab monotheism. With Abd al-Malik (r. 685-705 AD) we have the
rise of what is referred to by Nevo and Koren as "Mohammedanism", the stage in
Arab religious development where this Chosen One/prophet was felt to be needed,
and this need acted upon, and from which Mohammed as a religious figure arose.
Mohammed was an intermediary stage in the development of the Arab religion. As
the Arabs came in contact with established religions in the Empire which they
had obtained, the theological ideas of these religions gradually were adopted
into the Arab religion. One of these was the messianic idea, the need for a
chosen one (akin to the "anointed one"), an Arabic parallel to the Jewish and
Christian prophets, who would provide both religious uniformity and a "pedigree"
of respectability to the Arabs, who almost certainly felt the lack of this in
the presence of so many groups who could point back to their progenitors with
pride. The Abrahamism which tinged the early monotheism of the Arabs before,
during, and into the first few years after the acquisition of their Empire, was
a starting point, but one which still placed the Arabs into an inferior position
to the Jews, owing to the fact that the Arabs were traced back to Abraham
through the rejected son Ishmael, rather than the son of promise, Isaac. The
national prophet built by Abd al-Malik and enhanced in later generations by the
traditions of the ahadith and the sira, rectified this deficiency.26
It was Abd al-Malik who moved the Arab religion from indeterminate monotheism to
Mohammedanism, when he introduced the prophet role for Mohammed. The Arab
religion needed a messianic style prophet of the model has for Jesus/Messiah to
the Christians and Jews, hence the introduction of a tradition which filled this
need.
How and where did Malik come up with the prophetic role for Mohammed? It seems
likely that Mohammed, as the person, existed. The evidence of contemporary
chronicles and other literary sources suggest the existence of an Arab king
named "Muhammed" at the time of the Arab conquests of Al-Shams. Nevo and Koren
demonstrate a number of contemporary and near-contemporary Syriac literary
sources (roughly the length of the 7th century) which discuss the Arab conquest
of Palestine and Syria.27 These sources mention
Mohammed as a king of the Arabs, and provide generally correlating dates for his rulership, but do not mention him as any sort of Arab "prophet". Nor do they
indicate any idea that an Arab religion "Islam" existed. Indeed, this evidence
is silent concerning any particularly religious aspect to his person. Brock,
likewise, has pointed out that in the 7th century, Syriac sources, if they even
refer to Mohammed, do not do so as a prophet or apostle, but rather simply as a
king of the Arabs, and that the Syriac writers viewed the takeover as an Arab,
not a Muslim, invasion.28 Brock further suggests
that, initially at least, the Christians among whom the Arabs were settling were
not even aware of a religion called "Islam". Indeed, the literary evidence from
a number of 7th century sources such as the Syriac authors and the Armenian
Sebeos suggest that these writers were not aware of any planned invasion by the
Arabs, and that only after some time was the realisation had that there had been
a takeover by the infiltrating Arabs, rather than just the typical raiding
behaviour which had gone on for centuries. The accounts of the great battles in
which the Muslim mujaheddin crushed their Byzantine opponents appear, as
far as the evidence is concerned, to be fictitious. Further, these accounts
provide no evidence for any of the early caliphs in the Muslim traditions until
Mu'awiyah (640s AD).29 Indeed, in the contemporary
sources, there seems to be no correlation with the accounts given in the
traditional Muslim historiography. Far from Muhammed being a uniter of the Arabs
under the banner of Islam, the accounts given by those who were eye-witnesses to
the Arab conquests in the region suggest that the Arab invasions were haphazard
and fitful until the 650s, when Mu'awiyah succeeded in uniting the Arabs into
one state.30
As such, it appears likely that, rather than being a great leader and prophet,
the Mohammed who was later expanded was merely one of many Arab chieftains
moving his flocks and his tribe into the Syro-Palestine area, out of the Eastern
deserts. The later details of the exploits of Mohammed and the very early
caliphs such as Umar and Uthman, appear to be more of the same invention of
traditions which has been noted above.
Abd al-Malik's contribution to the development of the Arab religion was to take
an obscure, barely known chieftain and turn him into a prophet and harbinger of
a new religion and a new social order - Mohammedanism. No longer were the Arabs
merely worshipping their al-ilah, but He now had a messenger and apostle to
bring His words to man. That this development in Arab theology was a late one is
shown by the evidence at hand. The first evidence for this Arab prophet Mohammed
dates to 71 AH (690 AD), with the first known inscriptions bearing his name and
his title of "rasullah" (messenger of god) on coins and then later in the
important Dome of the Rock inscriptions. Before this, there is no evidence in
any epigraphy, papyri, or other written (and thus tangible) sources to suggest
that the Arabs accepted or understood there to have been an Arab messenger from
Allah. It seems strange that the Arabs, if stirred up by a mighty
prophet-warrior as the Traditional account suggests, would wait over seven
decades to start declaring the position of this man. Yet, this is exactly the
picture which the evidence paints, as has been noted by a growing body of
scholars of Islam,
"It is a striking fact that such documentary evidence as
survives from the Sufyanid period (661-684) makes no mention of the messenger
of God at all. The papyri do not refer to him. The Arabic inscriptions of the
Arab-Sassanian coins only invoke Allah, not his rasul."31
Also, many of the Traditional details of Mohammed's life were taken from the
life of Mohammed bin al-Hanafiyyah, a prophet-like figure put forward by a
losing faction in one of the early Arab civil wars.32 Bashear hints that this Mohammed might have been THE Mohammed, but this is not
likely. Rather, he provided, as the idealised "prophet of Allah", a template
upon which later Muslims built the biography of the prophet Mohammed. Further,
Mohammed appears very little in the Qur'an, and in a way not particularly
suggestive of being a specific person, but rather a generalised "chosen one"
style of prophet, which really could refer to anyone. Indeed, the many
appearances of terms referring to "God's Prophet" or "the messenger" are assumed
to be referring to Mohammed. Indeed, many English translations even insert his
name in parentheses to strengthen the mental association, yet there is little to
specifically suggest that these are about Mohammed, other than to rely upon the
a priori assumption that these statements are speaking of him. Nevo and
Koren have also noted that in Arabic literature, the root hmd (from which
comes the name "Mohammed") was first used as a title, only later did it become a
name around the second half of the 8th century.33
The root itself means not so much "one who is praised" (the traditional
understanding, thus to be attached to Mohammed), but "chosen one", thus
clarifying the early messianic role for the Arab prophet.
It was not until al-Walid (705-715 AD), the son of Abd al-Malik, that "Islam" as
a vigourously distinct entity stood out as the religion of the Arabs. Walid
pursued a much more hostile stance towards the various Christian sects in the
Arab Empire than previous Caliphs had done, starting with his confiscation of
St. John's church in Damascus and its conversion into a masjid (a house
of prayer) at the start of his reign, an act designed to indicate his official
policy of intolerance towards these sects. The earliest appearance of the term
"Islam" is on the Dome of the Rock inscription, dated at 72 AH (691 AD), used by
Abd al-Malik. However, it has been well-argued that the manner in which this
term is used by Abd al-Malik and his immediate successors differs in spirit and
intent from the way it was used in later Arab religion. The term "Muslim",
denoting one submitted to Islam, does not appear in any Arabic texts, official
or otherwise, prior to the rise of the Abbasids (~750 AD).
What did Mohammed as a Prophet Represent?
It would be the expectation of most people that a person who was a prophet of
God would be a person of high moral integrity, one who served and lived for his
God. Throughout the Bible, for instance, we see example after example of men who
were God-called prophets who, despite their human failings, were men of great
faithfulness to the Lord and who had placed their full faith and trust in Him.
We see men like John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, and many others who
fit the bill as far as living a holy life before God is concerned. Islam teaches
and makes the same claims for the man whom it considers to be the final prophet
of Allah, Mohammed.
"Such was our Holy Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him). He
was a prodigy of extraordinary merits, a paragon of virtue and goodness, a
symbol of truth and veracity, a great apostle of God, His messenger to the
entire world. His life and thought, his truth and straightforwardness, his
piety and goodness, his character and morals, his ideology and achievements -
all stand as unimpeachable proofs of his prophethood. Any human being who
studies his life and teachings without bias will testify that verily he was
the True Prophet of God and the Qur'an - the Book he gave to mankind - the
true book of God. No unbiased and serious seeker of truth can escape this
conclusion."34
We would therefore expect that an examination of the life and teachings which
are traditionally ascribed to Mohammed would back up this very laudatory view of
this man. So, what DO these traditional teachings which are attributed to
Mohammed indicate about this man's character. Does he really fit the
qualifications for a man whom a holy God would use to serve as His prophet? God
wants for servants people who will keep themselves clean and pure in His sight.
"Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out
of the midst of her; be ye clean that bear the vessels of the LORD." (Isaiah
52:11).
We must understand, from what has been seen above, that what we are looking at
when we speak of the traits, characteristics, and actions of Mohammed are the
idealised beliefs of the early Muslims who produced the biographical details in
the ahadith which were incorporated in the biographies of Mohammed. Thus these
details do little to enlighten us as to the actual nature of the real person
Mohammed (the early Arab chieftain). Rather, they help to show what the ideals
and values of these early Muslims were, mores based upon the 7th-8th century
culture of the Arabs, what they viewed as traits of manliness or goodness or
right order.
Mohammed's Sexual Excesses
In studying the life of Mohammed in an unbiased, factual way free of blind
adoration for the man, we see that Mohammed did not fit the description of a man
keeping himself pure before God. In fact, his whole life was that of a man
living to fulfill his lusts and desires, living a self-centred life at the
expense of those who got in his way. This is perhaps not more clearly shown than
in his manifested weakness for women. The Qur'an in Surah 4:3 limits a man to
four wives, but Mohammed went well beyond this limit. Mohammed took to himself
16 wives through formal marriage. In addition, he kept two women as
slave-concubines, and had four devout Muslim women who "gave" themselves to
Mohammed as acts of devotion. The complete list of Mohammed's women is below.
Mohammed's Women
-
1 - Khadija Bibi
-
2 - Sawda
-
3 - Ayesha
-
4 - Omm Salama
-
5 - Hafsa
-
6 - Zaynab of Jahsh
-
7 - Jowayriya
-
8 - Omm Habiba
-
9 - Safiya
-
10 - Maymuna of Hareth
-
11 - Fatima
-
12 - Hend
-
13 - Asma of Saba
-
14 - Zaynab of Khozaymah
-
15 - Habla
-
16 - Asma of Noman
-
17 - Mary the Coptic Christian (concubine)
-
18 - Rayhana (concubine)
-
19 - Omm Sharik (devotee)
-
20 - Maymuna (devotee)
-
21 - Zaynab (origin unknown, devotee)
-
22 - Khawla (devotee)
Some notes ought to be made concerning some of these women. His first wife,
Khadija Bibi, was his employer while he was still a caravan driver. She was his
senior by 15 years, and many indications seem to show that she proposed to him,
unusual for Arabian society at the time, but less so when the man was in an
inferior social and economic situation to the woman.35
His sixth wife, Zaynab of Jahsh was originally the wife of his adopted son, Zayd.
However, Mohammed became smitten with Zaynab, and Zayd offered to divorce her so
that she could marry Mohammed. This was carried out, and caused great scandal
among the early Muslim followers until Mohammed had a timely revelation.
"Behold! Thou didst say to one who had received the grace
of Allah and thy favor: "Retain thou thy wife, and fear Allah." But thou didst
hide in thy heart that which Allah was about to make manifest: thou didst fear
the people, but it is more fitting that thou shouldst fear Allah. Then when
Zaid had dissolved with her, We joined her in marriage to thee: in order that
there may be no difficulty to the Believers in marriage with the wives of
their adopted sons, when the latter have dissolved with them. And Allah's
command must be fulfilled." (Surah 33:37)
Poof! Problem solved, and it suddenly became acceptable for men to marry the
wives of their sons. Interestingly, it is in this same surah that Mohammed was
given a special exemption from the four-wives limit imposed earlier (Surah
33:50).
Mohammed’s seventeenth woman, Mary, was a Coptic Christian who was given to
Mohammed as a gift from the ruler of Egypt. Bravely refusing to renounce her
Coptic Christianity and accept Islam, she refused to marry him, and instead
remained his slave. Perhaps most disturbing of all of Mohammed's relations with
women is his taking of his third wife, Ayesha. She was six years of age when he
"married" her, nine when he consummated the relationship, and she remained his
favourite wife throughout the rest of his life. When he died at the age of 62,
she was a mere 17 years old. This episode in Mohammed's life points to very
distressing paedophilic tendencies in the man.
Mohammed's actions give every indication that he was a man driven by his lust
for women. Witness his attitude towards a woman named Duba Bint Amr, who "was
among the most beautiful of Arab women....her hair was long enough to cover all
her body". Mohammed asked her son if he could marry her, but then retracted the
offer after finding out that though she was beautiful, she was also aging
36. In contradiction to the Muslim claim that Mohammed married many of
his women out of a charitable desire to protect widows, we see that he was
merely interested in their physical beauty and ability to retain that beauty for
his enjoyment.
Also, Mohammed advocated marrying women for their wealth, beauty, and for
conversion efforts. "A woman can be married for religion, her fortune, or her
beauty. So marry one for the religion."37
Apparently "love" or "God's will" don not factor into the equation. This also
tellingly reveals the reason why so many Muslim men marry non-Muslim women in
the West. It's easier to influence a woman towards Islam when a man is married
to her, as she seeks to please her husband, and in part explains the greatly
unequal rates of conversion to Islam by Western women over Western men.
Of course, no exposition of Mohammed's perverse attitude towards sexuality would
be complete without a look at his version of "Paradise" that would make Hugh
Hefner blush with shame. Muslim men are promised 72 young virgins for perpetual
enjoyment. For the sake of propriety, I won't include the quotes, but this all
is right there in the Qur'an, in Surat 37:40-48, 44:51-55, 52:17-20, 55:56-58,
70-77, 56:7-40, and 78:31. Additionally, sodomy with young boys plays a role in
the Muslim paradise (Surat 52:24, 56:17, and 76:19) with these boys being
described using much the same language as was employed to describe the virgins.
Of course, Islam's paradise has plenty of wine, wealth, and food for the
enjoyment of those who have passed on. Mohammed was a man for whom the
fulfillment of bodily pleasures was of paramount, and some would say, consuming
importance.
Mohammed's Greed for Wealth
In addition to a lust for women, Mohammed also had a lust for wealth. This first
seems to have manifested itself early in life. After growing up in the fashion
of many young Meccan boys, as a poor shepherd, when he was 25 years of age,
Mohammed followed the advice of his uncle Abu Talib and hired on as a
caravanserai in the employ of a rich widow named Khadija. He accompanied her
caravan as far as Syria, and apparently did such a good job of making money for
her that upon his return to Mecca, she extended a proposal of marriage to him.
He accepted, despite the fact that she was at least fifteen years his senior,
and had been married twice before. Her great personal wealth and position as
owner of a prosperous caravan likely did much to overcome his natural aversion
to what would have been severe drawbacks for marriage in Arabian culture at the
time.
This claim, that Mohammed had a greed for wealth, is confirmed by his actions
later in life, many of which were carried out with the assistance and acceptance
of his Muslim followers. In 623 AD, Mohammed's career in caravan piracy began.
Late in that year, several of his Muslim followers, acting upon his orders,
ambushed and looted a small Meccan caravan. In this raid, one Meccan was killed,
two others taken as slaves, and a sizeable amount of booty captured.38 Emboldened by this success, Mohammed next personally led a raid on
the main caravan of the Meccan Quraysh tribe, returning from Syria. In this
raid, he led 305 men and was engaged in battle at Badr by a Meccan force of
800-900, with the outcome being a Muslim win. While this Muslim victory was a
comparatively small fracas, it is heralded as one of the greatest victories in
history by many Muslim historians. The Muslims considered it a miracle from
Allah, and viewed it as giving sanction to their piracy. Practically speaking,
the victory did provide them with much booty in the form of slaves, horses,
camels, and military equipment, which was to prove useful in the years to come.
Because of this battle, and their piracy, Mohammed and the Muslims became a
stench in the nostrils of the Meccans and others with commercial interests in
the region. Thus, in 625, the Meccans sent an army numbering about 3,000 against
Medina, the city where Mohammed and the Muslims had fled to when they escaped
from Mecca several years before. Mohammed elected to meet this army on the field
of battle, and the Muslims were seriously defeated, with Mohammed himself being
wounded and sent fleeing from the battlefield. Because of internal dissentions,
the Meccans failed to follow up on their advantage and pursue the Muslims. Two
years later, though, they returned and attempted to lay siege to Medina. Being
forewarned of the Meccan return, Mohammed acted upon the advice of a Persian
friend and ordered a ditch dug around the weaker defence quarters of Medina as
protection. This artifice, previously unknown in Arabia, hindered the Meccans
and their allies, who lifted the siege and departed.39
After this "victory" Mohammed and the Muslims became encouraged, and stepped up
their raiding behaviour. Many Bedouin tribes were drawn to the Muslim circle by
the military victories and prospects of treasure, adding their strength to
Mohammed's. It was at this time that Mohammed finished the expulsion of the
several Jewish tribes from Medina, and expropriated their lands and properties
for himself and his followers.
Victory over Mecca was finally obtained in 630 AD. Using an insignificant
incident to provoke a clash of arms, Mohammed led his followers against Mecca,
this just a year after Mohammed had signed a ten year peace treaty with that
city. The Meccans, who were recognising the solidification of Mohammed's power
and the ascendancy of his arms, folded with barely a fight, and the Muslims
entered victoriously into the city. As a result of these years of piracy,
Muhammed had amassed great personal wealth and power, and Arab tribes from all
over the peninsula flocked to him.
During the course of all this fighting and raiding, Mohammed and his Muslim
followers developed a love for fighting and loot which came from the life of
piracy.
"When he was at the head of a robber community (in Medina)
it is probable that the demoralizing influence began to be felt; it was then
that men who had never broken an oath learned that they might evade their
obligations, and that men to whom the blood of the clansmen had been as their
own began to shed it with impunity in the cause of God; and that lying and
treachery, in the cause of Islam, received divine approval, hesitation to
perjure oneself in that cause being represented as a weakness. It was then,
too, that Moslems became distinguished by the obscenity of their language. It
was then, too, that the coveting of goods and wives (possessed by unbelievers)
was avowed without discouragement from the prophet."40
What honour these men had from their previous upbringing in the culture of
Arabic tradition, what morality they may have engendered from their traditional
raising, slowly eroded as the sin in their lives increased and increased. As
they became increasingly hardened in their hearts, and their consciences seared,
crimes which would before have been unthinkable to them gradually became
commonplace.
Islam as a vehicle to wealth and power is clearly demonstrated. Muhammed himself
received, by "divine" decree, a fifth of all booty captured in war,
"To whichever village you go and settle therein, there is
your share therein, and whichever village disobeys Allah and His Messenger,
its one-fifth is for Allah and His Messenger and the remainder is for you."41
The rest, of course, went to the Muslim followers who took part in battle.
Hence, it was good money to be in the business of warfare as a Muslim. After
conquest, Islam was further strengthened by the "three choices" option imposed
upon conquered peoples. Subject nations were offered one of three choices:
Accept Islam and become members of Dar es-Salaam; pay the jizyah, the
unbelievers tax; or death 42. Either way, Islam
benefited materially. Unbelievers either became Muslims and contributed to the
enhancement of Islamic warmaking, booty-gathering, and social strength; or they
became direct sources of revenue for Islamic states; or else they ceased to be
"in the way" of Islam's expansion. Mohammed and his religion's attraction to
wealth truly bears witness to the Biblical record found in I Timothy 6:10, "For
the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil...."
Mohammed's Penchant for Violence
As was alluded to above, the lifestyle of looting and pillaging took men who
were already accustomed to violence and hardship, and made them even more wicked
and depraved in their violent deeds. The violence which we see in Islam and
which has been previously expounded on, did not arise without a source, this
being Mohammed and the early Muslim leadership. It was from their example that
Muslims learned the ways of violence, murder, and subjugation.
Mohammed was a violent man. As with other pagan war leaders of his day, it was
not merely enough to defeat and control an enemy. After defeating one Jewish
town, Mohammed ordered the beheading of all the adult males in the place,
numbering anywhere from 700-1000 individuals. The women and children were sold
into slavery, and the town looted.43 Muslim
tradition also recounts that upon taking Mecca, Mohammed ordered the death of a
poetess of the city, Asma daughter of Marwan, who had ridiculed him and who had
pointed out that some of the material in the Qur'an had actually been stolen
from her father, also a poet, and used by Mohammed. The traditions relate this
story as follows,
“The Apostle of Allah said, 'Who will rid me of the
daughter of Marwan?'"
Upon hearing this, the Companion Umair ibn Udaj went to her house and killed
her, reporting back to Mohammed of the deed the next day. It is then recorded,
“Then in the morning he was with the Apostle of Allah and
said to him, 'O Apostle of Allah, verily I have killed her.' Then (Mohammed)
said, 'Thou hast helped Allah and His Apostle, O Umair!'"44
Thus, this "prophet" ordered the death of a woman because of personal vendetta
and to protect himself from charges of plagiarism!
Mohammed one time ordered the death of an old man who mocked the Muslim pride in
their dirty foreheads. Muslims in Mohammed's day were proud of their method of
prayer, placing their foreheads directly in the dirt. The elderly man, mockingly
suggesting that there was more to prayer than mere outward form (having a dirty
forehead), took some dirt, spread it on his own forehead, and stated that this
was good enough for him. Mohammed ordered his Muslim followers to murder the old
man, which they did.45 Certain of the ahadith are
full of instances where Mohammed ordered opponents and those with whom he had
personal grudges to be killed.46 One example in
particular shows Mohammed’s penchant for wickedness as he pressed his revenge.
The traditions record the fate of a certain Arabian Jew of the tribe of the Bene
Nadir named Ka'b ibnu'l Ashraf who was believed to have been conspiring against
Mohammed’s life, as well as singing insulting songs about Muslim women. For
these offences,
"The Messenger of Allah said: 'Who will kill Ka'b ibnu'l
Ashraf? He has maligned Allah, the Exalted, and His Messenger!'" (This was
after the Muslims apparently were in control of the war situation.) "Muhammad
ibn Maslama said: 'Messenger of Allah, do you wish that I should kill him?' He
said: 'Yes" ... so Muhammad ibn Maslama came to Ka'b and pretended to be a
dissident of Islam to gain his confidence. He asked for the loan of
foodstuffs. It was agreed upon to pledge the weapons in exchange. Muhammad ibn
Maslama promised that he would return with three (four) friends. That night
they went. When his wife heard them, she exclaimed: "I hear a voice which
sounds like the voice of murder", but Ka'b quietened her and went down to
them. Muhammad (ibn Maslama) said to his companions: "As he comes down, I will
extend my hands towards his head and when I hold him fast, you should do your
job.'" They conversed about the "very fine smell" of the scent of his hair.
Being allowed to smell his hair, he held his head fast" and said to his
companions: 'Do your job.' And they killed him."47
Ibn Hisham, the early Muslim biographer, relates another aspect of this story in
which young Ibn Maslama to carry out his great service to Allah with Mohammed‘s
prodding,
“All that is incumbent upon you is that you should try. ‘He
said: 'O Apostle of God, we shall have to tell lies.’ He answered: ‘Say what
you like, for you are free in the matter.’ So lies and deception were used.
Mohammed accompanied them for a while and blessed them in parting: ‘Go in
God's name; O God help them.’ After having seized the locks of Ka'b he said:
"'Smite the enemy of Allah'. Accordingly they smote him. Their swords came in
collision with one another and effected nothing. Muhammad ibn Maslama said:
'Then I recalled to mind my dagger ... I seized it. The enemy of Allah cried
out with such a cry, that around us there remained not a stronghold on which a
fire was not kindled. Then I stuck it into his abdomen, then I pressed upon it
till it reached his genitals, and the enemy of Allah fell.’ In the grappling
with the swords one of the companions was wounded. They carried him back to
Mohammed who was - "standing praying. We saluted him, and he came out to us.
We informed him of the killing of the enemy of Allah. He spat upon our
comrade's wound, and went back." The laconic end of the story goes like this:
‘Our attack upon God's enemy cast terror among the Jews, and there was no Jew
in Medina who did not fear for his life.’"48
Ibn Ishaq further elaborates this point, noting that Mohammed used this as an
excuse to stir up his Muslim followers against the Jews,
“the Apostle of Allah said, 'Kill any Jew that falls into
your power.'"49
Thus, it may be seen from whence the foundation of anti-Semitism was lain in
Islam. Mohammed’s personal dislike for the Jews resulted in the condemnation of
this group to death, a point which to this day still bears its evil fruit in the
attitudes and behaviour of orthodox Islam. This particular point of
anti-Semitism, further, was just one symptom of the chronically violent and
revengeful nature of Mohammed.
In Contrast - The Goodness and Purity of Christ
Having examined the life of Mohammed, it can be pretty clearly seen that he
could not be a man of God, at least not of a holy God who demands that His
servants keep themselves unspotted from the world (James 1:27). In contrast,
though, we can see the testimony of the goodness, upright character, and
perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was more than a prophet, but was indeed
the sinless Son of God. No record anywhere, either biblical or secular, has ever
recorded a single misdeed committed by the Lord.
The scribes and Pharisees and other socio-political leaders of the Jews in
Jesus' day could find no fault in Him. Despite the very public nature of His
ministry, which lasted for three years, during which time He was under the
watchful eye of all those leaders who hated Him and wanted to destroy Him, these
enemies of Christ were still completely unable to lay anything to His charge. He
asked them, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" (John 8:46). All they could do
was mock and insult him, which has always been the last resort of those who know
they have not a leg to stand on against an enemy. When the religious leaders of
the Jews captured the Lord in the garden of Gethsemane and took Him before the
chief priest, Jesus said, "..If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil:
but if well, why smitest thou me?" (John 18:23) Jesus spoke no evil, nor could
these enemies of the Lord find any truthful accusation to make against Him.
Instead, they had to try to falsely accuse Him on trumped up charges.
"Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council,
sought false witness against Jesus to put him to death; But found none: yea,
though many false witnesses came, yet found they none...." (Matthew 26:59-60)
They could find no false witnesses who could produce (quite literally) any
evidence against the Lord's character, righteousness, or truthfulness. As the
Bible records in Mark 14:56, "For many bare false witness against him, but their
witness agreed not together." Their "witnesses" against the Lord could not even
get their own stories straight, and their lack of truth was exposed immediately!
The secular authorities found no fault in the Lord Jesus either, there was
nothing which Herod or Pilate could lay to His account. After being questioned
by Herod, who could make no judgment on Him, Jesus was sent to the Roman
governour Pilate. After being questioned, Pilate pronounced his own judgment on
the matter of Jesus. "Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I
find no fault in this man." (Luke 23:4)
Even the man who betrayed the Lord Jesus, this being Judas, acknowledged the
purity of the Lord. "Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was
condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to
the chief priests and elders. Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the
innocent blood..." (Matthew 27:3-4) After realising that Jesus was condemned to
die, Judas realised the magnitude of his crime, that he had just handed over the
most innocent man who had even walked the earth, one who had done nothing to
deserve death or punishment.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was recognised as speaking with authority by those
who heard Him and saw His miracles and His purity. "And he charged them that
they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great
deal they published it; And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done
all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak." (Mark
7:36-37) Also, "And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as
one that had authority, and not as the scribes." (Mark 1:22) The Lord Jesus
Christ was so gracious in word, so powerful in deed, and so righteous in life,
that He was the standard which put the religious leaders and self-righteous
Pharisees to shame. Jesus spoke as one with authority, which He indeed was, as
He is God Incarnate. His sinless perfection demonstrates His character as Very
God. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be
tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." (James 1:13). Christ was, is,
and always will be sinless, as He was, is, and always will be God, which cannot
sin. Christ endured 40 days of temptation in the desert, under the duress of
hunger and solitude, from Satan, the master tempter, himself, and passed this
test with flying colours. Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13 record in-depth the
temptation of and successful resisting of that temptation by the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Even the Qur'an bears witness to the sinless perfection of Christ. In Surah
19:19, the angel speaks to Mary concerning her son to be born, Jesus. "He said:
'Nay, I am only a messenger from thy Lord, (to announce) to thee the gift of a
pure son.'" Muslims, both from the record of their own book, and from the record
of the holy Scriptures of the Bible, which they are bound by the Qur'an to
accept, must acknowledge and admit the sinless, perfect purity of the Lord Jesus
Christ!
Thus, we see between Islam's Mohammed and the Lord Jesus Christ a sharp
contrast. On the one hand, Mohammed, a man who killed, fornicated, coveted, and
betrayed the trust of those with whom he had made a pact of peace. On the other
hand, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom nobody, not even His bitterest enemies, could
lay a charge to His account. While Mohammed went out to make war, Jesus Christ
came from God to make peace, peace between sinful man and the holy God. "And all
things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ..." (II
Corinthians 5:18). The record is clear, and the observer can clearly see which
it was that was of God, this being Jesus Christ.
End Notes
(1) - J. Schacht, "A Revaluation of Islamic Traditions", Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society, (1949), p. 143
(2) - D. Pipes, "Who Was the Prophet Mohammed?", Jerusalem Post, May 12,
2000
(3) - G.H.A. Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, p.5
(4) - J. Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, p. 179
(5) - K. Cragg, Encyclopedia Brittanica, Vol. XXII, p. 11
(6) - I. Goldhizer, Muslim Studies, Vol. II, pp. 18-19
(7) - P. Crone, Slaves on Horses, p. 4
(8) - P. Crone, Slaves on Horses, p. 12
(9) - see, for instance, M. Cook, Early Muslim Dogma: A Source Critical Study,
pp. 115-116, whereby the attribution of primary witness to what is really a
secondary one can give the false impression of two independent witnesses to a
saying, when in fact only one would be a witness, and the other dependent upon
the first as a source. This would give unwarranted credibility to the tradition.
(10) - see E. Stetter, Topot und Schemata im Hadit; also A. Noth and L.I.
Conrad, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source Critical Study,
p. 24
(11) - see J. Schacht, The Origins of Muhammedan Jurisprudence, esp. his
statements of pp. 4-5
(12) - A. Noth and L.I. Conrad, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A
Source Critical Study, p. 19
(13) - L.I. Conrad, "Recovering Lost Texts: Some Methodological Issues",
Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 113, no. 2 (2nd Q. 1993): p.
258-263
(14) - P. Crone, Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law, p.33
(15) - Claudius Ptolemaeus, Geography, Lib. VI, cap. vii.32
(16) - see Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. J. Hastings, Vol. 8,
p.511
(17) - P. Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, p. 136
(18) - P. Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, p. 134
(19) - P. Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, p. 137
(20) - Y. Nevo and J. Koren, "Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies",
Der Islam, Vol. 68 (1991), pp. 101-102; citing the general results of
archaeological reports in the Annual of the Department of Antiquities of
Jordan, Al-Abhath: Journal of the Centre for Arab and Middle East Studies
(American University of Beirut), and Al-Atlal: Journal of Saudian Arabian
Studies
(21) - Y. Nevo and J. Koren, "Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies",
Der Islam, Vol. 68 (1991), p. 102
(22) - see Y. Nevo and A. Rothenburg, Sde Boqer 1983-84, full report
(23) - see Y. Nevo and J. Koren, "Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies",
Der Islam, Vol. 68 (1991), p. 103-106
(24) - see A. Grohman, Arabische Paläographie, Folio 2, Part 2, pp. 16-17
(25) - Sozomenus, Ecclesiastical History, Lib. VI, cap. xxxviii.3
(26) - see Y. Nevo and J. Koren, Crossroads to Islam, pp. 255-256
(27) - see Y. Nevo and J. Koren, Crossroads to Islam, pp. 129-135
(28) - S.P. Brock, "Syriac Views of Early Islam", in Studies in the First
Century of Islamic Society, ed. G.H.A. Joynboll, p. 14
(29) - Y. Nevo and J. Koren, "Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies",
Der Islam, Vol. 68 (1991), pp. 99-100
(30) - see John Bar Penkaye, lib. XV, p. 8, trans. R. Abramowski in Dionysius
von Tellmahre: zur Geschichte der Kirche unter dem Islam; also Sebeos,
Histoire d'Héraclius par l'Évêque Sebeos, cap. xxxviii, trans. F. Macler
(31) - P. Crone, M. Cook, and M. Hinds, God's Caliph: Religious Authority in
the First Centuries of Islam, p. 24
(32) - Y. Nevo and J. Koren, Crossroads to Islam, p. 281
(33) - Y. Nevo and J. Koren, Crossroads to Islam, p. 265
(34) - S. Abul Ala Maudadi, Towards Understanding Islam, p. 78
(35) - S.N. Fisher, The Middle East, a History. p. 30
(36) - Ibn Saad, Al-Tabaqat, p. 153
(37) - Abu Issa al-Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, lib. IV, no. 1092, p.275
(38) - S.N. Fisher, The Middle East, a History, p.38
(39) - S.N. Fisher, The Middle East, a History, p.39
(40) - D.S. Margoliouth, Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, p.109
(41) - Mishkat Vol. 2, p. 412
(42) - T.P. Hughes, A Dictionary of Islam, p. 243
(43) - Ali Dashti, 23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammed,
pp. 88-91.
(44) - Mishkat, Vol. IV, p. 995
(45) - Sahih al-Bukhari,vol. 2, no. 173
(46) - see Sahih al-Bukhari,vol. 3, no. 72; vol. 3, no. 687; vol. 3, no.
829
(47) - Sahih Muslim, Vol. III, pp. 990-991
(48) - Ibn Hisham, Siratul Rasul, vss. 550-553
(49) - Ibn Ishaq, Siratul Rasul, v. 553
