The Quest for the Historical Muhammad

554 Pages·2000·24.79 MB·English

by  Ibn Warraq

The
Q
u e s t
for the
H
i s t o r i c a l
M
u h a m m a d
E d i t e d a n d T r a n s l a t e d by
I BN W A R R A Q
Prometheus Books
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Amherst, New York 14228-2197
Published 2000 by Prometheus Books
The Quest for Jhe Historical Muhammad. Copyright © 2000 by Ibn Warraq. All
rights reserved. No pai l of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The quest for the historical Muhammad / edited and translated by Ibn Warraq.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-57392-787-2 (alk. paper)
1. Islam—Controversial literature. 2, Muoammad, Prophet, d. 632,
I. Ibn Warraq.
BP169.Q47 2000
297.6'3—dc21 99-054420
CIP
Every attempt has been made to trace accurate ownership of copyrighted material in
this book. Errors and omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions, provided
that notifcation is sent to the publishers.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
To
Diana and Roy
“The vivid transparence that you bring is peace. ”

Contents
Preface 9
Part O n e : Introduction
1. Studies on Muhammad and the Rise of Islam: A Critical Survey
Ibn 'Warraq 15
2. Origins of Islam: A Critical Look at the Sources
Ibn Rawandi 89
Part T w o: R enan
3. Muhammad and the Origins of Islam
Ernest Renan 127
Part T h r e e : Lam mens and Becker
4. Koran and Tradition—How the Life of Muhammad Was Composed
Henri Lammens 169
5. The Age of Muhammad and the Chronology of the Sira
Henri Lammens 188
6. Fatima and the Daughters of Muhammad
Henri Lammens 218
7
8 Contents
7. Matters of Principle Concerning Lammens’ Sira Studies
C. H. Becker 330
Part F our: M odern P eriod
8. The Quest of the Historical Muhammad
Arthur Jeffery 339
9. A Revaluation of Islamic Traditions
Joseph Schacht 358
10. Abraha and Muhammad: Some Observations Apropos of
Chronology and Literary Topoi in the Early Arabic Historical Tradition
Lawrence I. Conrad 368
11. The Function of asbab al-nuzul in Quranic Exegesis
Andrew Rippin 392
12. Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies
J, Karen and V D. Nevo 420
13. The Quest of the Historical Muhammad
F. E. Peters 444
14. Recovering Lost Texts: Some Methodological Issues
Lawrence 1. Conrad 476
Part F ive: T he Significance of
J ohn W ansbrough
The Implications of, and Opposition to, the Methods of John Wansbrough
Herbert Berg 489
John Wansbrough, Islam, and Monotheism
G. R. Hawting 510
Glossary 527
Abbreviations 535
Dramatis Personae: Explanatory List of Individuals and Tribes 537
Genealogical Table 546
Map of Western Asia and Arabia 547
Chronological Table and the Islamic Dynasties 548
Contributors 551
Preface
There was a time when scholars and other writers in communist eastern Europe re­
lied on writers and publishers in the free West to speak the truth about their history,
their culture, and their predicament. Today it is those who told the truth, not those
who concealed or denited it, who are respected and welcomed in these countries....
Historians in free countries have a moral and professional obligation not to
shirk the difficult issues and subjects that some people would place under some
sort of taboo; not to submit to voluntary censorship, but to deal with these mat­
ters fairly, honestly, without apologetics, without polemic, and, of course, com­
petently. Those who enjoy freedom have a moral obligation to use that freedom
for those who do not possess it.
Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (Oxford), 1993
I have written the introduction to the present anthology, first, with a view to
helping nonspecialists familiarize themselves with not only the names of histo­
rians, Muslim and non-Muslim, but also as many of the technical and semitech-
nical terms that they were likely to encounter on reading this volume, and indeed
any articles or monographs on Islamic history in general (further supplemented by
a glossary at the end of the book). Second, I had hoped to give sufficient back­
ground to put the current debates, between the revisionists and traditionalists about
the origins of Islam, in their intellectual context. However, it should be read in con­
junction with Ibn Rawandi’s excellent survey (chapter 2), where he discusses cer­
tain scholars and issues purposely left out by me to avoid unnecessary repetition.
There is nonetheless bound to be a certain amount of overlap.
9
10 T 1-1K Q U EST PO R 'I' 11E Hi STO RIC A L M U H A M M A D
In the preface to T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, A. W. Lawrence
reprinted a series of questions by the publisher and Lawrence of Arabia’s
answers concerning the printing of Revolt in the Desert, an abridgement of the
Seven Pillars. An exhausted proofreader first poses the question about the incon­
sistencies in the spelling of proper names, to which Lawrence replies in an off­
hand manner, “Arabic names won’t go into English, exactly, for their consonants
are not the same as ours, and their vowels, like ours, vary from district to district.
There are some ‘scientific systems’ of transliteration, helpful to people who
know enough Arabic not to need helping, but a washout for the world. I spell my
names anyhow, to show what rot the systems are.”1
The proofreader then gives the following example of inconsistent spellings,
“Sherif Abd el Mayin of slip 68 becomes el Main, el Mayein, el Muein, el Mayin,
and el Muyein,” to which Lawrence replies, “Good egg, I call this really ingenious.”2
Only genuises can flout rules in such a cavalier manner; lesser mortals have to
follow them and show some sort of respect for the readers. I have tried hard to be
consistent, but without the proper software and trilingual secretaries the task occa­
sionally proved too much for me, so I ask the reader’s, and above all the Islamolo-
gists’, indulgence if an occasional “Zaid” slips through instead of “Zaydor “Ibn
Sad” instead of “Ibn Sa‘d,” “Wakidi” instead of “W aqidi“al Walid” instead of “al-
Walid,” and particularly of the inconsistencies in the transliteration of whole Arabic
sentences in the thousand or more footnotes. As Lawrence says, the only people
who will notice the inconsistencies, especially in the footnotes, are the very people
who will understand what the translator and transliterator was getting at anyway.
I am very fortunate that many scholars from Belgium. Canada, Egypt,
France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Israel, and the United States gave me
countless suggestions of immense value, and criticized my introduction in great
detail. Many provided photocopies of articles and even manuscripts of books
they themselves were working on that would otherwise have been difficult to
obtain. I was truly touched that so many distinguished scholars with so much of
their own teaching and research to attend to, nonetheless, took the time to reply
to my questions with tolerance and patience for my ignorance.
I should have liked to have given the names of these scholars, but not
wishing to compromise them or the august institutions at which they teach in any
way, and not to involve them in any controversy or polemics, I, with much, much
regret, decided it best not to.
Of course, it remains for me to stress that the opinions expressed and any
errors in the introduction are entirely my responsibility.
Ibn Warraq, June 1999