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Myths About Islam
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John Henry
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Oct 16, 2006 06:03 PDT
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10 Myths About Islam
- Myth #5
4th Edition
By Timothy W. Dunkin
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(c) 2001-2006, All Rights
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Myth #5
Mohammed was a Prophet from Allah
For a billion Muslims the world over, Mohammed is the epitom 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 them9. 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
likely11. 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 value12.
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 Macoraba15. However, as has been
pointed out, "Macoraba" is of a different linguistic root than
Mecca16. 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 Moka17. 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 east 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 Mecca18. 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 Mesopotamia19. This may belie an apparent
Abrahamic influence in the Arabic religion during this 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 centuries20. 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-Shams23. 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
doors24. 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 whence 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
customs25. 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 charactre 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. Mohammedanism 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
deficiency26. 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 had 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
is possible 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 Syria27. 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, invasion28. 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
state30.
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
wars32. 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 century33. 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 charactre.
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 the root of all
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
charactre, 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 charactre, 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 charactre 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 Pal ographie, 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'H raclius par l' v que 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
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