Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins (37 page)

15
For a related phenomenon, see Daniel Pipes,
Slave Soldiers and Islam
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 205–14. Note how the origins of military slavery, a secular event that took place two hundred years after Muhammad's supposed life, is variously handled in forty-four different Arabic and Persian sources. In this case, new information kept turning up many centuries after the events took place—about a political event in the early ninth century. How much more easily, then, could such a process unfold regarding religious events in the seventh century that were far more central to the lives of the believers?

16
Gregor Schoeler,
The Biography of Muhammad: Nature and Authenticity
(New York: Routledge, 2010), 16.

17
Ibn Ishaq,
The Life of Muhammad
, 452. I am indebted to Jansen's “Gospel According to Ibn Ishaq” for this discussion.

18
Ibid. 381.

19
Ibid., 501, 605.

20
Ibid., 81.

21
Johannes J. G. Jansen, “The Historicity of Muhammad, Aisha and Who Knows Who Else,” Tidsskriftet Sappho, May 16, 2011,
http://www.sappho.dk/blog/335/The-historicity-of-Muhammad-Aisha-and-who-knows-who-else.htm
.

22
Ibn Ishaq,
The Life of Muhammad
, 106.

23
Jansen, “The Gospel According to Ibn Ishaq (d. 773).”

24
Crone,
Meccan Trade
, 220.

25
W. Montgomery Watt,
Muhammad at Medina
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), 35–36.

26
Jansen, “The Gospel According to Ibn Ishaq.”

27
The Sunni-Shiite conflict has in many instances evolved into a conflict between Arabs and non-Arabs: Sunni Arabs versus Shiite Persians (although there are, to be sure, many Shiite Arabs). This came to a head in modern times in the violence between Shiite Iranian pilgrims and Sunni Saudi security forces in Mecca during the hajj in 1987.

28
Quoted in Crone,
Meccan Trade
, 7.

29
Ibn Kathir,
Tafsir Ibn Kathir
(abridged), vol. 9 (Riyadh: Darussalam, 2000), 153–54.

30
Crone,
Meccan Trade
, 134.

31
Crone disputes the identification by pointing out that the two words actually have quite different roots and that the location Ptolemy gives for Macoraba does not correspond to the site of Mecca. (See Crone,
Meccan Trade
, 135–36.)

32
Crone,
Meccan Trade
, 137.

33
Ibid., 134.

34
Ibid., 137.

35
Richard W. Bulliet,
The Camel and the Wheel
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 105 (quoted in Crone,
Meccan Trade
, 6).

36
Crone notes that according to the medieval Islamic historian al-Azraqi (d. 1072), trade was conducted in pre-Islamic Arabic at “pilgrim stations” including Mina, Arafa, Ukaz, Majanna, and Dhul-Majaz. “That Mecca itself is supposed to have been a pilgrim station,” Crone observes, “is here totally forgotten” (Crone,
Meccan Trade
, 175).

37
Crone,
Meccan Trade
, 174.

38
See Ibid., 172–76. She notes that Mecca was “added by way of afterthought only” in al-Azraqi's account of pilgrimages in pre-Islamic Arabia. She declares, “It is thus reasonable to conclude with [biblical scholar Julius] Wellhausen that Mecca was not an object of pilgrimage in pre-Islamic times” (Crone,
Meccan Trade
, 176).

Chapter 5: The Embarrassment of Muhammad

1
Bukhari,
Sahih al-Bukhari
, vol. 6, book 65, no. 4480.

2
Jalalu'd-din al-Mahalli and Jalalu'd-din as-Suyuti,
Tafsir al-Jalalayn
, trans. Aisha Bewley (London: Dar al-Taqwa, 2007), 904.

3
Bukhari,
Sahih al-Bukhari
, vol. 9, book 97, no. 7420.

4
Ibid., vol. 6, book 60, no. 311.

5
Ibid., vol. 7, book 67, no. 5134.

6
Ibid., vol. 5, book 63, no. 3894.

7
Ibid., vol. 4, book 56, no. 2977.

8
Ibid., vol. 7, book 76, no. 5727; cf. online edition, vol. 8, book 82, nos. 794–97.

9
Ibn Sa‘d,
Kitab Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir
, trans. S. Moinul Haq and H. K. Ghazanfar (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, n.d.), vol. I, 439.

10
Bukhari,
Sahih al-Bukhari
, vol. 1, book 4, no. 229. Parenthetical material was added by the translator, not by the present author.

11
Ibid., vol. 4, book 59, no. 3295.

12
Ibid., no. 3292.

13
Ibid., no. 3289.

14
Ibid., no. 3303.

15
Ibid., no. 3320.

16
Muslim,
Sahih Muslim
, book 23, no. 5113.

17
David S. Powers,
Muhammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 9, 25.

18
Ibid., 72.

19
Ibid.

20
Ibid., 73.

21
Ibid., 91.

22
Bukhari,
Sahih al-Bukhari
, vol. 5, book 64, no. 4468.

23
Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari,
The History of al-Tabari
, vol. 10, “The Conquest of Arabia,” trans. Fred M. Donner (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 16–17.

24
The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History,
A.D
. 284–813
, trans. Cyril Mango and Roger Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 466–67 (quoted in Powers,
Muhammad Is Not the Father
, 82–83).

25
Ibn Ishaq,
The Life of Muhammad
, 532.

26
Ibid., 532–35.

27
Powers,
Muhammad Is Not the Father
, 84.

28
Ibid., 78.

29
Ibid., 78–79.

30
Bukhari,
Sahih al-Bukhari
, vol. 8, book 78, no. 6063.

31
Ibid., vol. 7, book 76, no. 5765.

32
Ibid.

Chapter 6: The Unchanging Qur'an Changes

1
Abdullah Yusuf Ali,
The Meaning of the Holy Qur'an
, 11th ed. (Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications, 2009).

2
M. Fethullah Gülen,
Questions This Modern Age Puts to Islam
(Izmir: Kaynak, 1993), 58.

3
Alphonse Mingana, “Three Ancient Korans,” in Ibn Warraq,
The Origins of the Koran
, 86.

4
Quoted in Ibn Warraq,
Virgins?
, 218.

5
Ibn Warraq,
Virgins?
, 234–39.

6
Bukhari,
Sahih al-Bukhari
, vol. 6, book 65, no. 4592.

7
“Malik's
Muwatta
,” trans. ‘A’isha ‘Abdarahman at-Tarjumana and Ya’qub Johnson, book 15, no. 15.4.9, Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement,
http://www.cmje.org/religious-texts/hadith/muwatta/
.

8
Ibn al-Athîr,
Usûd Ulghâbah fî Ma'rifat Is-Sahâbah
(Beirut: Dâr al-Fikr, 1995), vol. 3, 154,
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/Sarh/
.

9
Mingana, “Three Ancient Korans,” 102.

10
Muhammad Ghoniem and M. S. M. Saifullah, “Abdullah Ibn Sad Ibn Abi Sarh: Where Is the Truth?” Islamic Awareness,
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/Sarh/
.

11
Bukhari,
Sahih al-Bukhari
, vol. 6, book 66, no. 5038.

12
Ibid., no. 5032.

13
Ali,
The Meaning of the Holy Qur'an.

14
Muslim,
Sahih Muslim
, book 4, no. 1787.

15
Bukhari,
Sahih al-Bukhari
, vol. 6, book 66, no. 4992.

16
Ibid., no. 4991.

17
Ibn Abi Dawud,
Kitab al-Masahif
, 23, in John Gilchrist,
Jam' Al-Qur'an, The Codification of the Qur'an Text: A Comprehensive Study of the Original Collection of the Qur'an Text and the Early Surviving Qur'an Manuscripts
(Mondeor, South Africa: MERCSA, 1989),
http://www.answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Jam/index.html
.

18
As-Suyuti,
Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an
, 525, in Gilchrist,
Jam' Al-Qur'an.

19
Muhammad Ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, “Translation of Sahih Bukhari,” trans. M. Muhsin Khan, vol. 8, book 82, no. 816,
http://www.cmje.org/religious-texts/hadith/bukhari/082-sbt.php
.

20
Arthur Jeffery, “Abu ‘Ubaid on the Verses Missing from the Koran,” in Ibn Warraq,
The Origins of the Koran
, 153.

21
As-Suyuti,
Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an
, 524, in Gilchrist,
Jam' Al-Qur'an.

22
Muslim,
Sahih Muslim
, 2:501, in Gilchrist,
Jam' Al-Qur'an.

23
Ibid.; As-Suyuti,
Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an
, 526, in Gilchrist,
Jam' Al-Qur'an.
The
Musabihat
are suras of the Qur'an that start with the words
Sabbaha
(or
_yusabbihu) lil-lahi ma fi-samawati wal-ard
, which means “All that is in the heavens and on earth magnifies God; He is the All-mighty, the All-wise.” They include suras 57, 59, 61, 62, and 64.

24
Claude Gilliot, “Reconsidering the Authorship of the Qur'an,” in Reynolds,
The Qur'an in Its Historical Context
, 92.

25
Bukhari,
Sahih al-Bukhari
, vol. 6, book 65, no. 4679.

26
Ibn Abi Dawud,
Kitab al-Masahif
, 11, in Gilchrist,
Jam' Al-Qur'an.

27
As-Suyuti,
Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an
, 524, in Gilchrist,
Jam' Al-Qur'an.

28
“Malik's
Muwatta
,” book 30, no. 30.3.17.

29
Muslim, book 8, no. 3422.

30
“Malik's
Muwatta,”
book 8, no. 8.8.26.

31
Richard Bell, “From
Introduction to the Qur'an
,” in Ibn Warraq, ed.,
What the Koran Really Says
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2002), 547.

32
Muhammad M. Pickthall,
The Meaning of the Glorious Koran
(Elmhurst, NY: Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, 1999). Language modernized.

33
Bell, “From
Introduction to the Qur'an
,” 547.

34
For another perspective on this passage, see Joseph Witztum, “Q 4:24 Revisited,”
Islamic Law and Society
16, no. 1 (2009): 1–34.

35
An intriguing consideration of various aspects of the context of Qur'an passages can be found in Angelika Neuwirth, “Structural, Linguistic, and Literary Features,” in Jane Dammen McAuliffe, ed.,
The Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 97–115.

Chapter 7: The Non-Arabic Arabic Qur'an