Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins (14 page)

Note that in these hadiths, neither Muhammad nor Ibn Abbas is made to say that Muslims should make a careful effort to winnow out
the Islamic prophet's authentic sayings from those that are inauthentic. Rather, they are simply to measure his purported sayings against the Qur'an, and follow those that aren't contradicted by the Muslim holy book. To this day, one of the criteria by which Muslims evaluate hadiths is by how well they accord with the Qur'an. Those that contradict the words of Allah are rejected. That is a reasonable criterion, but it doesn't get us any closer to what Muhammad actually said and did.

Nonetheless, Bukhari and the other hadith collectors made a valiant attempt. They claimed to be able to distinguish genuine material about Muhammad from forged hadiths largely by examining the chain of transmitters
(isnad)
, the list of those who had passed on the story from the time of Muhammad to the present. Islamic scholars grade individual traditions according to their chains of transmitters, as “sound,” “good,” “weak,” “forged,” and so on.

A hadith is considered sound if its chain of transmitters includes reliable people and goes back to a recognized authority. A typical strong chain is recorded by the Shiite scholar Sheikh al-Mufid (Ibn Muallim, 948–1022) as going all the way back to Ali himself. Al-Mufid said: “Abul Hasan Ali b. Muhammad b. Khalid al-Maythami reported to me from Abu Bakr Muhammad b. al-Husain b. al-Mustanir, who reported from al-Husain b. Muhammad b. al-Husain b. Masab, who reported from Abbad b. Yaqoob, who reported from Abu Abdil Rahman al-Masoodi, from Katheer al-Nawa, from Abu Maryam al-Khawlani, from Malik b. Dhamrah, that
Amir ul-Mu'mineen
[leader of the believers] Ali b. Abi Talib (A.S.) said…”
⁵⁵

If the chain of transmission includes unreliable people or a broken link, Muslim scholars consider the authenticity of the hadith doubtful. Ibn Maja notes that one hadith is considered weak “because of Khalid b. Ubaid,” one of its transmitters. He quotes Bukhari saying of Khalid: “His hadith is debatable” and points out that two other Islamic authorities, Ibn Hibban and Hakim, “have stated that he narrates
maudu
(spurious)
ahadith
(traditions) on Anas's authority.”
⁵⁶

The apparent reliability of the
isnad
chain was what determined authenticity. It didn't matter if a hadith was self-contradictory or
absurd on its face; so long as its
isnad
chain was clear of anomalies, and it did not contradict the Qur'an, the tradition had no obstacles to being accepted as reliable.
⁵⁷
Bukhari and Muslim, as well as their counterparts, also tended to favor traditions that they received from multiple sources, but this indicates only that a hadith had circulated widely, not that it was authentic.

If a hadith could be forged, however, so could its chain of transmission. There are numerous indications that
isnads
were forged with the same alacrity with which
matns
—that is, the content of the hadiths—were invented. The scholar of Islamic law Joseph Schacht notes one anomalous hadith that indicates the liberties taken with the
isnads.
He points out that ash-Shafii, a renowned Islamic jurist of the early ninth century, described a particular hadith as
mursal
, meaning “hurried,” and “generally not acted upon.” Shafii's description implies that the hadith “is not confirmed by any version with a complete
isnad,”
Schacht explains. But, he continues, the same hadith “appears with a different, full
isnad
in Ibn Hanbal…and Ibn Maja.”
⁵⁸

Schacht notes many instances of hadiths with obviously forged or altered
isnads.
He recounts one passed on by Malik in his
Muwatta.
Malik heard from Muhammad ibn Abdalrahman ibn Sad ibn Zurara, who heard from one of Muhammad's wives, Hafsa, that once Hafsa killed one of her slaves who practiced witchcraft and had cast a spell on her. In another place we learn that Malik heard from Abul-Rijal Muhammad ibn Abdalrahman ibn Jariya, who heard from his mother, Amra, that another one of Muhammad's wives, Aisha, sold one of her slaves who practiced witchcraft and had cast a spell on her. “One of these versions is modeled on the other,” Schacht observes, “and neither can be regarded as historical.”
⁵⁹

But Are They
All
Unreliable?

That hadiths were forged is admitted by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars alike. For the Muslim scholar Muhammad Mustafa Azami,
the existence of obviously faulty
isnads
is in itself enough to establish the reliability of the hadiths that have been deemed authentic.
⁶⁰
After all, he argues, if the
isnads
were forged, why would the forger buttress his work with an unsatisfactory chain of transmission? If the whole thing is fictional in the first place and fabricated for political reasons, why not attribute the tradition to none but respected members of the Islamic community, passing on Muhammad's words in an unbroken and clearly reliable chain? But Amazi's argument falters on the fact that hadiths were manufactured by competing factions, and the old adage that the victors write the history books applies: If a well-known hadith did not promote a perspective favorable to the ruling faction, altering the
isnad
was an easy way to cast doubts on its authenticity. Moreover, a transmitter whom one faction saw as a reliable and pious could be considered a villainous fabricator by another faction.

The contemporary scholar Harald Motzki has also challenged on several fronts the idea that the Hadith as a whole is unreliable. He points to the hadiths collected by scholar Abd ar-Razzaq (744–826) as evidence that hadiths were circulating by at least the early eighth century. But in truth, Abd ar-Razzaq did the bulk of his work toward the end of the eighth century.
⁶¹
Like Azami, Motzki cites the very existence of suspect
isnads
to argue that the other hadiths must be authentic. He notes that Abd ar-Razzaq sometimes attributes hadiths to sources that he considers of doubtful reliability, and even presents hadiths with no known source. If hadiths were being manufactured wholesale and fitted out with impressive
isnads
, why would hadiths with weak attribution, or no attribution at all, even exist?
⁶²

Despite such claims, there is strong reason to question the reliance on
isnads
as a guide to the authenticity of hadiths. The
isnads
themselves didn't start appearing until after hadiths had begun circulating. Islamic tradition attributes a telling statement about the
isnads
to Muhammad ibn Sirin, an eighth-century Qur'anic scholar who was also renowned as an interpreter of dreams in Iraq. The collectors of hadiths, he said, “were not used to inquiring after the
isnad
, but when the
fitna
(= civil war) occurred they said: Name us your
informants.”
⁶³
The
fitna
is usually understood as a reference to the unrest that followed the assassination of the caliph Uthman in 656—more than thirty years after the death of Muhammad, the subject of the hadiths. Thus even according to Islamic tradition, hadiths circulated for a considerable period without
isnads.
It strains credulity to imagine that thirty years after Muhammad's death, Muslims could remember exactly who among the Islamic prophet's companions was responsible for transmitting each of thousands of stories about him.

Significantly, the use of
isnads
apparently became mandatory in the early 700s—around the time of Abd al-Malik and Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, or shortly thereafter.
⁶⁴

Even the idea that the
isnad
is an indication of authenticity rests on shaky foundations. Anyone who has played the child's game of telephone, involving a story passed on by whispers through multiple transmitters and then compared with the original at the end of the chain, knows how unreliable oral tradition can be.
⁶⁵
If Muhammad could be made to warn the Muslims that they “must keep on reciting the Qur'an because it escapes from the hearts of men faster than camels do when they are released from their tying ropes,” would not the same tendency to evanesce apply even more to the Hadith?
⁶⁶
To be sure, Arabia had an established practice of memorizing poetry, and the memorization of Islamic texts would accord with that practice. It is equally true that in ancient Greece, trained bards recited the
Iliad
and
Odyssey
from memory. But the original transmitters of the Hadith were not poets or trained bards; they were simply companions of Muhammad who saw him do or say something at a given moment. What's more, the Hadith are far more voluminous than the ancient epics that the ancient bards committed to memory. And yet the canonical account of Islam's origins assumes that Muhammad's companions had essentially total recall of the prophet's words and deeds, and that they passed on with scrupulous care what they saw and heard in literally thousands of incidents. It further assumes that subsequent transmitters applied equal care over the course of many decades, passing on these traditions without embellishment, clarification,
or alteration of any kind until the hadiths were finally collected and written down in the ninth century.

Seldom, if ever, has such a feat of memory been documented.

What Did Muhammad Really Say and Do?

Ultimately, it is impossible to tell whether or not Muhammad himself actually said or did any of what the traditional Islamic sources depict him as saying or doing, or even if there was a Muhammad at all. We have already seen that the Abbasids to a great degree sponsored the proliferation, and ultimately the collection, of the prophetic hadiths. This was in keeping with their opposition to the Umayyads on religious grounds. Ignaz Goldziher observes that the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads because of the latter's “godlessness and opposition to religion.” The Abbasids, led by the general Abu Muslim—who, Goldziher writes, was “the man with the ‘cudgel for the unbelievers’”—rose up against the Umayyads primarily to establish “the pillar of
din
[religion].”
⁶⁷

On the other hand, it may be that the charges of impiety leveled at the Umayyads were simply Abbasid polemic, intended to discredit their great rivals. After all, it is exceedingly strange that the Umayyads, who took over the caliphate in 661, following the murder of Ali, would have been so notorious for their irreligion. They ostensibly took power less than three decades after the death of the prophet of Islam, and among them were supposedly many who knew Muhammad personally and loved him above all creatures. Muawiya, the first Umayyad caliph, was a cousin of the caliph Uthman, who is credited with standardizing the text of the Qur'an. Is it really plausible that the Umayyads would have essentially discarded Muhammad's religion so soon after he gave it to them? Why did the Islamic community so quickly fall into the hands of rulers who cared little for its central organizing principle and reason for being?

This could have been simply due to the vicissitudes of a violent age, and of a religion that sanctioned that violence. Muawiya, after
all, was the son of Abu Sufyan, the Quraysh chieftain who (according to Islamic tradition) fought several battles against Muhammad and converted to Islam only reluctantly once defeated. In a meeting with the vanquished general, Muhammad asked, “Woe to you, Abu Sufyan, isn't it time that you recognize that I am God's apostle?” Abu Sufyan answered, “As to that I still have some doubt.” Muhammad's companion Ibn Abbas, forefather of the Abbasids, would have none of that. He said to Abu Sufyan: “Submit and testify that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the apostle of God before you lose your head.” Abu Sufyan duly obeyed.
⁶⁸

In light of all this, it is not outrageous to wonder about Muawiya's commitment to Islam. Then again, there are hadiths saying that he actually became very devout and even served as a scribe to Muhammad. The hadith about Abu Sufyan could be the product of Abbasid polemic.

Even if Muawiya was not devout, it is difficult to imagine that he would have passed on his irreligion to his successors, ruling as they did for a hundred years over Muslims who, according to the standard account, were inspired by the words of the Qur'an and the example of Muhammad. Perhaps what Islamic tradition characterizes as Umayyad irreligion could simply reflect a time (the early Umayyad period) when the words and deeds of Muhammad, and the text of the Qur'an, had not yet been fixed.

The unreliability of the Hadith makes it impossible to know for certain anything about Muhammad. Further doubts arise because, as we shall soon see, there is scant evidence establishing Mecca as the center for trade and pilgrimage that it was reputed to be in Muhammad's time. But in the eighth century, the first biography of the prophet of Islam appeared. And that book, combined with the beginning of the collection of the scattered and chaotic hadiths, heralded a momentous event: The mysterious and shadowy figure of the prophet of Islam began to move ever more confidently into “the full light of history.”

Muhammad's First Muslim Biographer

T
he “full light of history” supposedly shining on Muhammad's life results largely from the work of a pious Muslim named Muhammad Ibn Ishaq Ibn Yasar, generally known as Ibn Ishaq, who wrote the first biography of Muhammad. But Ibn Ishaq was not remotely a contemporary of his prophet, who died in 632. Ibn Ishaq died in 773, and so his work dates from well over a hundred years after the death of his subject.