by Reza Aslan
The rebuilding of the Ka‘ba can be found in al-Tabari, pp. 1130–39. The traditions imply that Muhammad was somehow dragged into the process, though that does not disprove Muhammad’s full cooperation in the reconstruction of the pagan sanctuary. A complete discussion of the date of the Abyssinian attack and the birth of Muhammad is offered by Lawrence I. Conrad, “Abraha and Muhammad,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (1987). Muhammad’s infancy narratives can be found in Ibn Hisham, pp. 101–19, and in al-Tabari, pp. 1123–27.
2. The Keeper of the Keys
Rubin discusses Qusayy’s religious innovations in “The Ka’ba.” Mecca’s geographical position on the north-south trade route is just one of the many issues analyzed by Richard Bulliet in The Camel and the Wheel (1975). Those scholars who tend to maintain the traditional view of Mecca’s role as the dominant trading center in the Hijaz include W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca (1953), and M. A. Shaban, Islamic History: A New Interpretation (1994). Patricia Crone’s rejection of this theory can be found in Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (1987). Peters’s compromise comes from Muhammad and the Origins of Islam (1994), pp. 27, 74–75, and 93. Those interested in Crone’s theories regarding Muhammad and the rise of Islam can see her books Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (1977) (coauthored with M. A. Cook) and God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (1986) (coauthored with Martin Hinds).
For the role and function of the Shaykh in pre-Islamic Arabia, see W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Political Thought (1968). The role of the Hakam in developing the normative legal tradition (Sunna) is most clearly described by Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (1998). The quote regarding the loyalty of the Hanifs to the Quraysh is from Rubin, “The Hanafiyya and Ka‘ba,” p. 97. It is interesting to note, by the way, that the protection of orphans and widows has always been the primary criterion for just rule. The great Babylonian king, Hammurabi, whose famous stele represents the first written code of laws for governing society, states that he conquered his enemies in order to give “justice to the orphan and the widow.”
For more on the various meanings of an-nabi al-ummi, see Kenneth Cragg’s marvelous book on the history and meaning of the Quran, The Event of the Qur’an (1971). Conrad’s quote is from “Abraha and Muhammad,” 374–75. For the narratives concerning Muhammad’s first revelatory experience and his marriage to Khadija, see Ibn Hisham, pp. 150–55, and al-Tabari, pp. 139–56.
As noted in the sixth chapter, the Quran is not chronologically organized, so it is difficult to determine exactly which revelations came first. While there is a great deal of disagreement, it is generally accepted that the two best compilations of the earliest verses were completed individually by Theodor Noeldeke and Richard Bell. Montgomery Watt has combined those verses about which both men agree to create a list of what he considers to be the earliest verses in the Quran. I will not comment on Watt’s list, which most scholars accept, except to say that, whether it is a faultless list or not, it provides a very good template of what the first message entailed. The verses in Watt’s list are taken from major sections of the following chapters: 96, 74, 106, 90, 93, 86, 80, 87, 84, 51, 52, 55; I would add to this list Noeldeke’s inclusion of 104 and 107, which, because they indicate the presence of the first opposition to Muhammad’s message, may have been delivered right on the heels of the earliest verses. See Watt’s Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (1974). Richard Bell provides a four-column analysis of the Uthmanic and Egyptian chronologies, alongside Noeldeke’s and William Muir’s, in his Introduction to the Qur’an (1953), pp. 110–14.
The names of Muhammad’s earliest followers are listed in Ibn Hisham, pp. 159–65. Al-Tabari explicitly states that this group was “few in number.” There is a disagreement between Sunnis and Shi‘ites as to whether Abu Bakr or Ali was the first male convert, but this is an ideological argument. There can be no serious question that Ali, as the closest person to Muhammad at the time, was the first male convert to Islam. For the Qurayshi defense of polytheism see al-Tabari, p. 1175, and Richard Bell (1968), p. 55. The quotation regarding religion and trade in Mecca is from Muhammad Shaban, “Conversion to Early Islam,” in Conversion to Islam, edited by Nehemia Levtzion (1979). For more on Luqman the Wise see The Fables of Luqman, edited by Reyes Carboneli (1965). Maxime Rodinson’s book Mohammad (1971) offers an interesting, if outdated, perspective on the life of the Prophet. His comments about Muhammad’s marriage to Khadija can be found on page 51. My physical description of Muhammad comes from the beautiful description of him written by Tirmidhi as quoted in Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad Is His Messenger (1985).
3. The City of the Prophet
Ibn Batuta provides what is probably the earliest description of the Prophet’s mosque in his famous Travels (1958). There is evidence to suggest that Yathrib’s inhabitants already referred to the oasis as Medina (the City) before Muhammad’s arrival, though Muhammad’s presence obviously changed the connotation of that name.
Ali Abd ar-Raziq’s Islam and the Bases of Government is available in French as “L’Islam et les Bases du Pouvoir,” translated by L. Bercher in Revue des Etudes Islamiques, VIII (1934). An English translation of important sections of the work can be found in Islam in Transition, edited by John J. Donohue and John L. Esposito (1982). Ahmed Rashid’s The Taliban (2000) is the best introductory text on the history of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Banu Nadir and the Banu Qurayza, each of which consisted of several branches, may have had an alliance with each other. Together they were known as the Banu Darih. But like all tribal relationships, this was a political and economic affiliation and had nothing to do with their shared religious tradition. There is still debate over whether Yathrib’s Jews were converts or immigrants. The majority of scholars believe them to be Arab converts and, as we shall see, the evidence seems to agree. For an outline of this argument see Watt, Muhammad at Medina (1956) and S. D. Goiten, Jews and Arabs (1970). Barakat Ahmad calculates the Jewish population of Yathrib to have been between 24,000 and 36,000 inhabitants in Muhammad and the Jews: A Re-Examination (1979); that may be a bit high.
For more on the brief period of Persian control over the region, as well as the division of Yathrib between the Jews and Arabs, see Peters, Muhammad; al-Waqidi’s quote is from page 193 of Peters’s text. See Michael Lecker, Muslims, Jews, and Pagans: Studies on Early Islamic Medina (1995) for a discussion of the late conversion of the Aws.
A full discussion of the controversy over the date and meaning of the Constitution of Medina can be found in Moshe Gil, “The Constitution of Medina: A Reconsideration,” in Israel Oriental Studies (1974). For more on Muhammad’s role as Shaykh of the Emigrants, see Watt, Islamic Political Thought. Watt also provides an English translation of the Constitution of Medina in his appendix, pp. 130–34.
For a further discussion of the origins of the word Ummah, I suggest the entry in Encyclopedia of Islam. Bertram Thomas’s portrayal of the Ummah as a “super-tribe” is from The Arabs (1937); Marshall G. S. Hodgson’s term “neo-tribe” is from The Venture of Islam, vol. 1 (1974). Anthony Black provides a valuable insight into the similarities between the purpose and function of rituals of the Ummah and the pagan tribes in The History of Islamic Political Thought (2001).
I am convinced that the shahadah was originally addressed not to God, but to Muhammad, because a great many of those who had proclaimed the shahadah (and thereby joined the Ummah) while Muhammad was alive considered their oaths to be annulled with the Prophet’s death (according to tribal custom, the bay’ah never survived the death of the tribe’s Shaykh). As we shall see in Chapter 5, the annulment of the bay’ah eventually led to the Riddah Wars. Incidentally, the word “Islam” to designate Muhammad’s movement may not have been applied by the Prophet until his farewell pilgrimage: “Today I have perfected your religion, I have completed my blessings upon you, and I have approved Islam as your religion” (5:5).
There are many ve
rsions of the al-Ayham story. Mine is taken from Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 268. For more on Muhammad’s market, see M. J. Kister, “The Market of the Prophet,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient (1965).
There are, of course, two creation stories in Genesis. The first, which is derived from what is referred to as the Priestly tradition, can be found in the first chapter, in which God creates man and woman simultaneously. The second and better-known tradition of Adam and Eve is from the second chapter.
For Muhammad’s reforms aimed at women and the reactions to them, see Fatima Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite (1991); al-Tabari’s quote is taken from page 125 of Mernissi’s book. How exactly the inheritance was to be divided between the male and female heirs can be found in the Quran 4:9–14, and is explained adequately by Watt in Muhammad at Medina, pp. 289–93. Watt also provides a valuable discussion of the transition from matriliny to patriliny in Meccan society on pp. 272–89. For more on the rules regarding the wife’s dowry, see Hodgson (1974), p. 182. The traditions of pre-Islamic marriage and divorce, as well as the imposition of the veil, are dealt with in detail in Leila Ahmed’s excellent book Women and Gender in Islam (1992).
Those interested in the issue of stoning as punishment for adultery should see my article “The Problem of Stoning in Islamic Law: An Argument for Reform,” UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law (2005); also Ahmad Von Denffer, Ulum Al-Qur’an (1983), pp. 110–11. The punishment of stoning to death was actually derived from Hebrew law, where it was prescribed for a number of crimes including adultery (Deut. 22:13–21), blasphemy (Deut. 24:14), calling up spirits (Deut. 20:27), and disobeying one’s parents (Deut. 21:18–21). The Quran establishes the punishment of lashes for the adulterer in one verse (24:2) and lifelong imprisonment in another (4:15–16). However, both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih al-Hajjaj claim that Muhammad had himself ordered stoning for adultery. But there is a great deal of confusion within these traditions. For instance, Abdullah ibn Aufa reports that Muhammad did indeed carry out stoning, but when asked whether Muhammad prescribed stoning before or after the Surah an-Nur, which clearly endorses lashes for the adulterer, Ibn Aufa replies that he did not know (al-Bukhari 8.824). For more on Umar’s misogynist innovations, see Leila Ahmed (1992), pp. 60–61.
For the commentary on sufaha and Abu Bakra’s hadith, see Mernissi, 126; 49 (also 45–46). The hadith on the rights of women is from Kitab al-Nikah, no. 1850; the Prophet’s quote about women’s deficiencies is from al-Bukhari, vol. 1, no. 304; and ar-Razi’s commentary is from his massive work at-Tafsir al-Kabir. (For Muhammad’s consultation with Umm Salamah at Hudaybiyyah, see al-Tabari, p. 1550.) The origin of and problems with the hadith are dealt with well in Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law (1981). Goldziher also outlines the remarkable contribution of female textual scholars in his brief article “Women in the Hadith Literature,” in Muslim Studies (1977).
Lord Cromer’s quote is from Leila Ahmed (1992), pp. 152–53. Ali Shariati’s quote is from Fatima Is Fatima (1971), p. 136. Shirin Ebadi’s quote is from the presentation speech by Professor Ole Danbolt Mjos, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and is available at http://www.payvand.com/news/03/dec/1065.html.
There are a number of excellent studies on the role of women in contemporary Muslim society. I recommend Faith and Freedom, edited by Mahnaz Afkhami (1995); Islam, Gender, and Social Change, edited by Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and John L. Esposito (1998); In the Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran, edited by Mahnaz Afkhami and Erika Friedl (1994); and Haideh Moghissi’s Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism (1999). See also my critique of Moghissi’s text in Iranian Studies (2002).
4. Fight in the Way of God
The description of the Battle of Uhud that begins this chapter is drawn from the account in al-Tabari, pp. 1384–1427. Samuel Huntington’s quote is from his article “The Clash of Civilizations?” in Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993), pp. 35. Bernard Lewis’s quote can be found in Hilmi M. Zawati, Is Jihad a Just War? (2001), on p. 2; Zawati outlines the use of jihad as defensive war in pages 15–17, 41–45, and 107. Weber’s quote is from Bryan S. Turner, Weber and Islam: A Critical Study (1974), p. 34. The quote about the scimitar-brandishing Arab warrior is from Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (1979), p. 4.
For more on the use, function, and development of the doctrine of jihad, see Rudolph Peters’s other work, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam (1996); also Jihad and Shahadat, edited by Mehdi Abedi and Gary Legenhausen (1986), especially the definitions on pages 2 and 3; and Mustansir Mir’s insightful article “Jihad in Islam,” in The Jihad and Its Times, edited by Hadia Dajani-Shakeel and Ronald A. Messier (1991). Hadith forbidding the killing of women and children can be found in Sahih al-Hajjaj, nos. 4319 and 4320. For more on Vaisnava and Saiva traditions and the kingdoms they inspired, see Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (1996).
The role of the Crusades in shaping Muslim ideas of jihad is discussed in Hadia Dajani-Shakeel’s article “Perceptions of the Counter Crusade,” in The Jihad and Its Times, pp. 41–70. Mustansir Mir’s quote is on page 114. Those interested in the comparative ethics of war, as well as the doctrine of jihad as a just war theory, should see Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (1977) and John Kelsay, Islam and War (1993), especially pp. 57–76. Dr. Azzam’s quote is from Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (2001), p. 53. For Moulavi Chiragh Ali’s views on jihad, see A Critical Exposition of the Popular Jihad (1976); Mahmud Shaltut’s views are discussed in Kate Zabiri, Mahmud Shaltut and Islamic Modernism (1993). For the full report on the Muslim victims of al-Qaeda see Scott Helfstein, et al., “Deadly Vanguards: A Study of al-Qa‘ida’s Violence Against Muslims,” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, December 2009.
For more on Muhammad’s enemies among the Hanif of Medina, see Uri Rubin, “Hanafiyya and Ka‘ba,” in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam (1990). Incidentally, Moshe Gil is almost alone in his conviction that the Constitution of Medina did not originally include the Jews; see “The Constitution of Medina: A Reconsideration,” in Israel Oriental Studies (1974), pp. 64–65. Otherwise, there is almost unanimous agreement among scholars that the document is authentic and that it included the Jews. For the traditions regarding the Banu Qurayza, see M. J. Kister, “The Massacre of the Banu Qurayza: A Reexamination of a Tradition,” in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam (1986), and Hodgson (1974), p. 191. Kister puts the number at about four hundred. Ahmad estimates the number of Jews remaining in Medina to have been between 24,000 and 28,000. For the Jewish perspective see H. Graetz, History of the Jews, vol. 3 (1894); Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol. 3 (1964); and Francesco Gabrieli, Muhammad and the Conquests of Islam (1968): Gabrieli’s quote regarding Badr is on page 68.
For Arab responses to the massacre of Banu Qurayza, see Ahmad (1976), pp. 76–94, and W. N. Arafat, “New Light on the Story of Banu Qurayza and the Jews of Medina,” in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1976). Tor Andrae’s quote is from Mohammad: The Man and His Faith (1935), pp. 155–56.
For more objective studies on the massacre, see Karen Armstrong, Muhammad (1993), and Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands (1979). As the allies of the Qurayza, some members of the Aws asked Muhammad for leniency. It was for this reason that he chose one of their number as Hakam. However, after Sa‘d’s decision was made, there were no objections from the Aws, or from anyone else for that matter.
The story of the mosque demolished by Umar in Damascus is recounted in J. L. Porter, Five Years in Damascus: With Travels and Researches in Palmyra, Lebanon, the Giant Cities of Bashan, and the Hauran (1855). Muhammad’s instructions to his armies are discussed in Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, pp. 33–36. Maria Menocal’s excellent book The Ornament of the World (2002) describes the culture of religious tolerance founded by the Umayyads in medieval Spain. S. D. Goit
en provides a more academic perspective on Jews under Muslim rule in Jews and Arabs (1970); his quotation is from page 63. Muhammad’s quotation regarding the protection of Jews and Christians is taken from The Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 17. Peters’s quote is from Muhammad, p. 203 (original italics); Watt’s from Muhammad at Medina (1956), 195.
H. G. Reissener’s views on the Jews of Medina are best described in “The Ummi Prophet and the Banu Israil,” in The Muslim World (1949), while D. S. Margoliouth’s views are discussed in his The Relations Between Arabs and Israelites Prior to the Rise of Islam (1924). For the Arabian Jews’ knowledge of the Bible, see footnote 87 in S. W. Baron (1964), p. 261. Gordon Newby outlines the economic dominance of the Jewish clans in Yathrib in A History of the Jews of Arabia (1988), pp. 75–79 and 84–85. For a treatment of the relationship between Muhammad and the Jewish clans of Medina, see Hannah Rahman’s excellent essay “The Conflicts Between the Prophet and the Opposition in Medina,” in Der Islam (1985); also Moshe Gil, “The Medinan Opposition to the Prophet,” in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam (1987), as well as his “Origin of the Jews of Yathrib,” in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam (1984). The issue of archeology and Jewish identity is examined by Jonathan L. Reed in his Archeology and the Galilean Jesus (2000).
For a history of Ibn Sayyad, see David J. Halperin, “The Ibn Sayyad Traditions and the Legend of al-Dajjal,” in Journal of the American Oriental Society (1976). Even though Ibn Sayyad may have accepted Muhammad’s prophetic mission, Muhammad seems to have denied Ibn Sayyad’s. In fact, Halperin shows how later Islamic tradition transformed Ibn Sayyad into an Antichrist figure. For the connection between Jesus and Muhammad, see Neal Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity (1991).