Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins (30 page)

Many of the Quran's more obscure passages begin to make sense when read in light of its having a foundation in Christian theology. For example, there is an enigmatic sura on the Night of Power,
al-Qadr
(“Power”): “Behold, We sent it down on the Night of Power; and what shall teach thee what is the Night of Power? The Night of Power is better than a thousand months; in it the angels and the Spirit descend, by the leave of their Lord, upon every command. Peace it is, till the rising of dawn” (97:1–5). Muslims associate the Night of Power with the first appearance of Gabriel to Muhammad and the first revelation of the Qur'an; they commemorate this night during the fasting month of Ramadan. But the Qur'an makes no explicit connection between the Night of Power and the revelation of the Qur'an. The book doesn't explain what the Night of Power is, except to say it is the night on which the angels (not just one angel) and the Spirit descend and proclaim Peace.

In light of the Qur'an's Syriac Christian roots, there is another plausible interpretation—that sura 97 refers to Christmas.

The Qur'anic scholar Richard Bell saw in the night, angels, Spirit, and peace of the sura a hint of the Nativity even without a detailed
philological examination: “The origin of the idea of the Night of Power is unexplained. The only other passage in the Quran which has any bearing on it is XLIV, 2a,3. In some ways what is here said of it suggests that some account of the Eve of the Nativity may have given rise to it.”
⁵¹
Luxenberg points out that because the Night of Power is associated with the revelation of the Qur'an, Muslims undertake vigils during Ramadan. “However,” he notes, “with regard to the history of religions this fact is all the more remarkable since Islam does not have a nocturnal liturgy (apart from the
tarawih
, prayers offered during the nights of Ramadan). There is thus every reason to think that these vigils corresponded originally to a Christian liturgical practice connected to the birth of Jesus Christ, and which was later adopted by Islam, but re-interpreted by Islamic theology to mean the descent of the Koran.”
⁵²

A close textual analysis supports this argument.
Al-qadr
, the Arabic word for “power,” also means “fate” or “destiny.” Luxenberg observes that the Syriac
qaaf-daal-raa
—the
q-d-r
root of the Arabic word
al-qadr
—has three meanings, designating “i) the birth (meaning the moment of birth); ii) the star under which one is born and which determines the fate of the newly born; iii) The Nativity, or Christmas.” He continues: “Thus defined, the term
al-qadr
, ‘destiny,’ is related to the star of birth, which the Koranic
al qadr
applies, in the context of this sura, to the Star of Christmas. As a result, a connection is found to be established with Matthew II.2, ‘Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and are come to worship him.’”
⁵³
Then the verse “the Night of Power is better than a thousand months” (97:4) would be rendered “Christmas night is better than a thousand vigils.”
⁵⁴

The Qur'an concludes the Night of Power passage with “Peace it is, till the rising of dawn” (97:5). Luxenberg notes that this verse “sends us back to the hymn of the Angels cited by Luke II.14: ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men.’ This chant of the Angels has always constituted the principal theme of the Syriac vigils of the Nativity which lasts into Christmas night, with all
sorts of hymns, more than all the other vigils.” Indeed, in the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Divine Liturgy of the Nativity was traditionally celebrated at dawn, after a nightlong vigil—“Peace it is, till the rising of dawn.”
⁵⁵

In addition, the thirteenth-century Arabic lexicon
Lisan al-Arab (The Language of the Arabs)
quotes the ninth-century Arab philologist al-Asmai referring to a winter night that “lasts so long that all the stars appear during it. It is also the night of the birth of Jesus—on our Prophet and on him blessing and well-being—and the Christians honour it and hold vigils during it.”
⁵⁶

In time, however, this connection was forgotten, such that, says Luxenberg, “the Muslims of today are no longer aware that the night that they celebrate and honour with so much fervour is in reality the night of Christmas.”
⁵⁷

Who Is Responsible?

Clearly the text of the Qur'an has been worked over. Even Islamic scholars acknowledge that diacritical marks were added to the Arabic, and that other additions were made after the revelation of the Qur'an. And as we have seen, a host of other evidence indicates that much of the text was reworked from Christian source material.

But who would have taken this Christian text and adulterated it, and why? If a new religious text or even a new religion had to be constructed, why not start from scratch rather than rework existing material? The answers to these questions are elusive, although a number of clues enable us to piece together a coherent narrative. In order to do that, we must first examine the history of the Qur'an after it was supposedly collected and distributed by the caliph Uthman.

After Zayd, Still No Qur'an

A
ccording to the canonical account of the Qur'an's origins, Muhammad's first successor as leader of the Islamic community, Abu Bakr, commanded the prophet's secretary Zayd ibn Thabit to collect the Qur'an. But once Zayd had finished his task, his Qur'an was not, as one might have expected, distributed among the Muslims. One hadith holds that there weren't even any copies made of it. The original was kept in the home of Abu Bakr and then in the home of his successor, Umar, and then in that of Umar's daughter Hafsa, one of Muhammad's wives.
¹

Years later, in the early 650s, the story goes, a Muslim named Hudhaifa bin al-Yaman approached the caliph Uthman (644–656) about the Qur'an. This was, of course, long after the Battle of Yamama in 632, which Islamic tradition identifies as the first impetus for collecting and standardizing the Qur'anic text. Hudhaifa was concerned about variations in the Qur'an among the Muslims in Syria and Iraq, so he appealed to the caliph to save the situation: “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Quran) as Jews and the Christians did before.”

Uthman responded, according to Islamic tradition, by asking Hafsa to “send us the manuscripts of the Qur'an so that we may compile the Qur'anic materials in perfect copies and return the
manuscripts to you.” Hafsa sent what she had—presumably Zayd ibn Thabit's Qur'an, but apparently more than just that. Uthman then turned to Zayd, along with three other Muslims, Abdullah ibn Az-Zubair, Said ibn al-As, and Abdur Rahman bin Harith bin Hisham, to make copies. He told Abdullah, Said, and Abdur Rahman: “In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue.” This order demonstrates that there were disagreements among the various manuscripts that Uthman now wanted standardized.

It also reveals another curiosity: The Quraysh were the Arabs of Mecca; Muhammad was of the Quraysh. It is very strange, then, that Uthman would have needed to issue an explicit order to harmonize the diverging Qur'anic traditions in accord with the Qurashi dialect. If Muhammad were really the source of it all, presumably it would have been in the Qurashi dialect. Of course, some of the material may have been altered in transmission—or it may have not been written in the Quraysh's dialect of Arabic in the first place. Maybe, given the Qur'an's numerous non-Arabic features, it even originated elsewhere, outside of Arabia altogether.

In any case, while standardizing the Qur'an, Zayd ibn Thabit was saved once more by Khuzaima. When Zayd was collecting the Qur'an for Abu Bakr, Khuzaima pointed out two verses that the scribe had overlooked. Now Khuzaima recalled still another portion that otherwise would have been omitted. A hadith has Zayd recall: “When we collected the fragmentary manuscripts of the Qur'an into copies, I missed one of the Verses of
Surat Al-Ahzab
[sura 33] which I used to hear Allah's Messenger reciting. Finally, I did not find it with anybody except Khuzaima Al-Ansari, whose witness was considered by Allah's Messenger equal to the witness of two men. (And that verse was): ‘Among the Believers are men who have been true in their covenant with Allah…’ (33.23).”
²
That separate reports exist depicting Khuzaima saving a portion of the Qur'an that would otherwise have been lost—a different portion in each case—is yet another indication
that these reports are themselves the product of legendary elaboration, not scrupulous historical reportage.

Once his commission's work was done, around the year 653, Uthman is supposed to have sent back Hafsa's manuscripts and distributed the final version to all the Islamic provinces. He ordered any other Qur'anic material already in the provinces to be burned. The canonical Islamic accounts say that Hafsa's manuscripts were spared, but the governor of Medina, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, who was later to become caliph, is supposed to have burned them, too, after Hafsa died in 665.
³

The Qur'an and the Battle of Siffin

If Uthman really distributed copies of a standardized Qur'an throughout the Islamic provinces, the contents of the book would have become generally known among Muslims. Sure enough, Islamic tradition has it that the Qur'an was widely copied and universally known only four years after Uthman completed his task, when the Battle of Siffin is supposed to have occurred. The battle, in a village on the banks of the Euphrates River in Syria, pitted two rival claimants for the caliphate against each other: Ali ibn Abi Talib and Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan.

According to Islamic accounts of the battle, the hostilities began when Muawiya brought a Syrian force to contest Ali's having been chosen to succeed Uthman, who had just been murdered. Addressing the Syrians, Ali invoked the Qur'an: “I have given you time so that you might revert to the truth and turn to it in repentance. I have argued against you with the Book of God and have called you to it, but you have not turned away from oppression or responded to truth.”
⁴
On the eve of battle, he told his own men: “Tomorrow you will meet the enemy, so lengthen the night standing in prayer, make abundant recitation of the Qur'an, and ask God for help and stead-fastness.”
⁵
One of his commanders exhorted his men in a similar
way: “Fight the crude tyrants and do not fear them. How can you fear them when you have in your hands the Book of God in purity and reverence?”
⁶

The battle was hotly contested and protracted. Finally, when it looked as if victory was in sight for Ali, one of Muawiya's commanders, Amr ibn al-As, offered his chief a plan: “What if I put something to you,” he said to Muawiya, “that can only increase our unity and their division?” When Muawiya agreed, Amr suggested: “We will raise the
masahif
and say, ‘their contents are to be authoritative in our dispute.’”
⁷
Al-mushaf
, with its plural
al-masahif
, has been taken in Islamic tradition to refer to a codex of the Qur'an. Muawiya agreed, so his men raised up copies of the Qur'an on their lances and called out to Ali's men: “This is the Book of God between us and you.” Ali's pious Muslims responded: “We respond to the Book of God, and we turn in repentance to it.”

Amr's plan was a canny one, for Ali had charged that Muawiya's forces were “men without religion and without
qur'an
.”
⁸
He told his men that Muawiya was trying to trick them, but they were impressed by the enemy's maneuver: “If we are called to the Book of God, we are bound to respond.” Ali did his best to parry this, but finally two of his men approached him with a warning: “Ali, respond to the Book of God when you are called to it. Otherwise we shall indeed deliver you up entirely to the enemy or do what we did with Ibn ‘Affan”—that is, Uthman, who had recently been murdered. “It is our duty,” they continued, “to act in accordance with what is in the Book of God. We have accepted it and, by God, if you do not do what we tell you, we will do what we say.”
⁹

Ultimately, Ali had to relent. He called to his men and told them, “We have agreed to make the Qur'an an authority
(hukm)
between us and them.”
¹⁰
One of his commanders, Al-Ash'ath, reported to him that “the men all seem satisfied and pleased to respond to the enemy's summons regarding the authority of the Qur'an.”
¹¹

In subsequent truce talks, the two sides reportedly drew up a document in which they mutually agreed to “refer to the Book of
God, from its opening to its close,” and “effect what it lays down and eliminate what it does away with.”
¹²

Thus the entire episode centered on the Qur'an, according to Islamic accounts. But such accounts date from at least two centuries after the event. One of the most detailed and compelling narratives of the battle comes from the Muslim historian Tabari. But Tabari died in 923, 266 years after the Battle of Siffin. His proximity to the events he was writing about would be comparable to that of a writer today publishing one of the first accounts of the War of the Austrian Succession—except Tabari was working in a primarily oral culture, without benefit of any significant written records.