Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins (19 page)

The Hadith contain a great deal of this sort of thing. We cannot know with certainty the derivation of such material, but it seems unlikely that it was added in the heat of some sectarian or dynastic battle. It is much more likely that everything considered wise or useful or just good to know was attributed to the prophet of Islam.

These maxims and pearls of folk wisdom did not cause the early Muslims any embarrassment. The story of Zaynab did—or so it seems.

Why the Zaynab Story Was Composed

The story of Muhammad's marriage to his former daughter-in-law appears to betray embarrassment about, and provide a justification for, a negative episode in Muhammad's life. But it may actually be something else altogether.

The Qur'an's allusive and fragmented reference to the incident concludes with the affirmation that “Muhammad is not the father of any one of your men, but the Messenger of God, and the Seal of the Prophets; God has knowledge of everything” (33:40). What does that affirmation have to do with Muhammad's marriage to his daughter-in-law? Possibly nothing—the Qur'an is remarkably decontextualized, veering from topic to topic within many of its suras, often without any discernable logical connection between the subjects treated. Thus the appearance of this affirmation of Muhammad as “the Seal of the Prophets” may have nothing to do with the Zaynab incident. Then again, when considered in light of a central tenet of Islamic theology, the assertion that Muhammad is “the Seal of the Prophets” appears to have
everything
to do with the story of his marriage to Zaynab.

In the Qur'an, the prophets are all related to one another, and it
appears that the prophetic office is handed down from father to son, like an inheritance or a genetic predisposition. Speaking of Abraham, Allah says:

And We gave to him Isaac and Jacob—each one We guided; and Noah We guided before; and of his seed David and Solomon, Job and Joseph, Moses and Aaron—even so We recompense the good-doers—Zachariah and John, Jesus and Elias; each was of the righteous; Ishmael and Elisha, Jonah and Lot—each one We preferred above all beings. (6:84–86)

Thus “David and Solomon, Job and Joseph, Moses and Aaron” and the rest were “of his seed”—that is, Abraham's. These prophets were all relatives, and presumably they received their prophetic spirit as something of an inheritance. This view is reinforced by the Qur'an's confusion of Miriam the sister of Moses and Aaron with Mary the mother of Jesus—the name of each is the same in Arabic:
Maryam.
This makes Jesus Moses' nephew. While Islamic tradition has Muhammad saying that the appellation “sister of Aaron” for Mary in the Qur'an (19:28) was merely an honorific and not an expression of an actual blood relationship, the Qur'an also has Mary being born of the wife of Imran, the father of Moses (3:36).

If, therefore, Muhammad had a son who survived into adulthood—he is said to have had as many as five sons, all of whom died before reaching puberty—the son would have been a prophet as well, and Muhammad would not have been the last prophet, “the Seal of the Prophets.”
¹⁷
Cornell University professor David S. Powers, a scholar of Islamic history and law, has written an extraordinarily well-researched and well-reasoned book-length examination of the Zaynab incident and its historical and theological status. In it Powers notes that “as the Last Prophet, Muhammad could not have a son who reached puberty; otherwise, as Muqatil states, that son would have been a prophet.”
¹⁸
Muqatil ibn Sulayman (d. 767) was an early commentator on the Qur'an.

Suddenly, then, the presence of Muhammad's adopted son takes on immense importance to Islamic theology. Powers explains:

The logic of this argument applies not only to Muhammad's natural sons, none of whom reached puberty, but also to his adopted son Zayd, who did. By virtue of his status as Muhammad's adult son, Zayd b. Muhammad was a member of the Abrahamic family to which the mantle of prophecy had been entrusted as an exclusive possession. Similarly, Muhammad's grandson, Usama b. Zayd b. Muhammad, was also a member of this family. In theory, the mantle of prophecy might have passed from Muhammad to Zayd, and from Zayd to Usama.
¹⁹

Indeed, something very like this developed among the Shiites, who differed from the Sunnis in maintaining that the leader of the Islamic community had to be a member of Muhammad's household. In the absence of a son, the authority fell to Ali ibn Abi Talib, by virtue of his being Muhammad's son-in-law, the husband of his daughter Fatima. By that point, then, Zayd's claim to be Muhammad's son must have already been repudiated. Powers observes:

The Muslim community had no choice but to construct its foundation narrative in such a way as to marginalize both Zayd and Usama. However, Muhammad's repudiation of Zayd did not fully eliminate the threat to the theological doctrine of the finality of prophecy. This is because at the time of Zayd's repudiation in 5
A.H
. [
A.D
. 626], he was already a grown man. The fact that the Prophet had an adult son named Zayd b. Muhammad conflicted with the assertion in v. 40 that “Muhammad is not the father of any of your men.” For the sake of theological consistency, it was important to demonstrate that the
man
who had been Muhammad's
son
failed to outlive the Prophet. Like Muhammad's repudiation of Zayd, the death of the Beloved of the Messenger of God some time prior to the year 11/632 was a theological imperative.
²⁰
Sure enough, Islamic tradition holds that Zayd died in the Battle of Muta in the year 629—three years before Muhammad himself.

Thus in order to ensure the centrality of Muhammad in Islamic tradition, and to establish a religious orthodoxy that held the empire together, stories had to be invented emphasizing that Muhammad had neither natural nor adopted sons. This was because a son of Muhammad could potentially become a rallying figure for a rival political faction, as Ali became for the Shiites. Even Aisha said: “Had Zayd outlived Muhammad, he would have appointed him as his successor.”
²¹
So Zayd had to die before Muhammad, and Usama had to be seen as having no reasonable claim to leadership. A delegitimization of adoption had the added benefit of striking at Islam's chief spiritual rival, Christianity, with its doctrine of Gentiles as adopted sons of God.

To our twenty-first-century Western sensibilities, then, the traditional account of Muhammad's marriage to the wife of his adopted son at first appears to construct a cover for that action by delegitimizing adoption, saying (as in Qur'an 33:4) that adopted sons are not to be considered actual sons. But a closer examination of the story, based on what we know of early Islamic history and theology, suggests that the pronouncements on adoption were not a convenient justification for Muhammad's marriage to Zaynab but rather were the very point the story was meant to illustrate. In short, this incident no longer appears to be an embarrassment that Muslims felt compelled to explain away; it seems fundamental to Islam's theological claims.

Zayd and Usama: Historical Figures?

This explanation has the advantage over the canonical Islamic account in that it does what the mainstream version does not and cannot do: It explains how Qur'an 33:40, which affirms that Muhammad is not the father of any of the Muslims but rather is the Seal of the Prophets, relates to the story of Zaynab, even in the fragmentary form in which it is told in the Qur'an.

This exposition raises other questions, however. Although it explains why the Zaynab story may have been invented to serve various theological and political imperatives, it seems to take for granted that Zayd himself was a historical figure, known in the early Muslim community—and that he was known to have been Muhammad's adopted son. It apparently assumes that Zayd and his son, Usama, had been known and were remembered, and that their existence, or at least their nonprophetic status, had to be explained.

In other words, the story of Zaynab may not have been constructed to explain away Muhammad's lechery, but if it was constructed to dismiss Zayd or Usama's claims to succeed the prophet, this suggests that the story deals with real historical figures, not myths. And if Usama and Zayd were real, wouldn't Muhammad be also? Is it possible that the mysterious Arab prophet who appears in the earliest documents of the Arab conquest, apparently preaching some form of monotheism and kinship with the Jews and Christians, was indeed Muhammad?

At the very least, the figure of Usama must be considered in this context. Zayd may have conveniently died before Muhammad did, but Usama did not. Usama shows up in several hadiths. For example, Islamic tradition indicates that in the last year of his life, Muhammad appointed Usama as commander of an expedition to Syria. This was an unpopular choice among the Muslims, goes the story, but Muhammad defended Usama: “I have been informed that you spoke about Usama. (Let it be known that) he is the most beloved of all people to me.”
²²
Abu Bakr, Muhammad's successor, later sent Usama on a raid, from which he returned with captives and booty.
²³

All this, however, depends on the Hadith, which, as we have seen, were subject to rampant forgery for political reasons. There is no contemporary indication that Zayd or Usama existed at all. Given the theological imperative to establish Muhammad as the final prophet, there would have been ample reason to invent them. If Zayd and Usama did exist, most of what we know about them appears to be legend that was attached to shadowy historical personages whose actual deeds had been largely forgotten.

Giving Muhammad a son whom he adopted and then repudiated decades later in obedience to divine revelation reinforced the Qur'an's point that one should obey not human beings but Allah alone (33:37). Having Usama appear in the early Muslim community, but not as a contender for the leadership, reinforced the point that Muhammad had no sons of any kind, and thus the prophetic line ended with his death.

Zayd's Death and the Battle of Muta

Similarly, what we know of Zayd bin Haritha, formerly known as Zayd bin Muhammad, depends entirely on much later accounts. There are no contemporary records of the Battle of Muta that Islamic tradition tells us took the life of Zayd in 629. The first known reference to the battle in a non-Muslim source is found nearly two centuries later in the writings of a Byzantine chronicler, Theophanes the Confessor (760–818). Theophanes places the battle
after
Muhammad's death: “Mouamed, who had died earlier, had appointed four emirs to fight those members of the Arab nation who were Christian.” According to Theophanes, the local Byzantine ruler, “on learning this from a certain Koraishite called Koutabas, who was in his pay, gathered all the soldiers of the desert guard and, after ascertaining from the Saracens the day and hour when they were intending to attack, himself attacked them at a village called Mothous, and killed three emirs and the bulk of their army.”
²⁴

Muslim historians such as Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi (748–822) also write of this battle but tell a much different story. According to Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad was still alive and sent out the expedition personally with specific instructions about who was to be in command: “The apostle sent his expedition to Muta in Jumada'l-Ula in the year 8 [629] and put Zayd b. Haritha in command; if Zayd were slain then Jafar b. Abi Talib was to take command, and if he were killed then Abdullah b. Rawaha.”
²⁵
Sure enough, the men were slain in exactly that order: “When fighting began Zayd b. Haritha fought holding the apostle's standard, until he died from loss of blood among the spears
of the enemy. Then Jafar took it and fought with it until when the battle hemmed him in he jumped off his roan and hamstrung her and fought till he was killed.” And finally Abdullah “seized his sword and died fighting.”
²⁶

Waqidi offers additional detail about the battle. Powers explains just how different his account is from that of Theophanes: “Waqidi and Theophanes disagree about…the casus belli, the
identity
of the Byzantine military commander, the
size
of the opposing armies, the
reason
for the Muslim defeat, and the
number
of Muslims who were killed. The discrepancies are so striking that one is justified in asking if these two historians are talking about the same battle.”
²⁷

Waqidi's account is also encrusted with legend. He recounts that during the battle, Muhammad, who was back in Medina in the mosque, received visions of what was happening and relayed the news to other Muslims. The accuracy of these visions of course provided yet more indication that he was indeed a prophet of Allah. Muhammad reported to the assembled Muslims that before the battle, Satan tried to tempt Zayd with worldly pleasures, but that Zayd responded contemptuously: “Now that belief has been firmly established in the hearts of the Believers, you are enticing me with the pleasures of this world!”
²⁸
When Zayd was killed, Muhammad told the people in the mosque to ask Allah to forgive him, “for he has entered the garden, running.” According to al-Waqidi, Muhammad then reported that Satan tried to tempt Jafar as well, and that Jafar gave him the same pious answer as Zayd had. When Jafar was killed, he sprouted wings and entered the garden flying. Abdullah then took up the standard and was killed. Muhammad said that he entered the garden stumbling—which puzzled Muhammad's audience, until the prophet of Islam explained that Abdullah could not enter the garden as gracefully or enthusiastically because he had had a great desire for life.
²⁹
After all, the Qur'an takes for granted that those who are the “friends” of Allah will “long for death”: “You of Jewry, if you assert that you are the friends of God, apart from other men, then do you long for death, if you speak truly” (62:6).