The Quest for the Historical Muhammad

(See the end of this documents for links to other pages on recent developments in the historical study of Muhammad)

QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT:

1) What are our sources of information about Muhammad?

2) How reliable are the sources? What do we REALLY know?

3) How are we to evaluate Muhammad’s message and actions? By the standards of our own time, or of his?

4) Can a Christian give a positive evaluation of Muhammad? Was he a prophet, a false prophet, or just a religious founder like any other?

STORY & HISTORY

Prior to Muhammad, the Muslims appear to have had standard animistic and polytheistic beliefs, just as the rest of Abraham’s children had until about a millennium earlier. Their high god was called al-ilah or Allah, i.e. THE God, just as other Semitic peoples (such as the Israelites and the Canaanites) called their high god ‘El’, simply the word for ‘god’. If Muhammad had appeared in history about a millennium earlier, no one would have doubted that he was a true prophet, along the lines of the author of the second part of the book of Isaiah.

The sources we have available date from more than a century after the death of Muhammad, so we have a greater gap than in the case of Jesus, for example. Nevertheless, the issues and methods of critically looking at the sources from a historian’s point of view is the same. But remember: historical-critical study of the Qur’an and other sources is as blasphemous to Muslims as this method is to most conservative Christians. The second line of the Qur’an says “This is the Book; in it is guidance sure, without doubt”. But to accept the Bible’s or the Qur’an’s account of events in the past simply because the book says ‘trust me’ is not what historical investigation is all about. I’m telling you this so that you know that historians do not only pick on Jesus!!!

Just like the birth narratives in the Bible, the narrative of Muhammad’s birth is looked at with skepticism by historians. The date could be right, the likelihood that anyone genuinely found their goats to give more milk in this baby’s presence is unlikely – but no stranger than the suggestion that a star appeared overhead…

Muhammad is presented as a seeker in the sources we have. Yet when revelations begin to come to him, he is presented as uncertain what to do about them, and a bit embarrassed. He experienced ecstatic trances, of the sort religious figures tend to, but this meant that he could easily be classed by Arabs as a kahin, a soothsayer or sort of shamanic figure, one possessed by spirits (see 52:29-31; 69:38-43; 81:19-25). He was also concerned that he would simply be regarded as a poet. Muslims are adamant that Muhammad only truly belongs in one category: that of rasul or prophet. The fact that the sources acknowledge the troubling nature of the revelations both for Muhammad as an individual and in terms of the experience of inspiration itself suggests that there is an authentic historical core of information behind this. Muhammad’s revelation was, according to the sources, confirmed by his wife, and also by her cousin, Waraqa ibn Nawfal, who was a Christian. These and other features suggest an authentic historical core. By comparing the Suras in the Qur’an we can trace the spiritual journey of the Prophet Muhammad, with his expectations and disappointments. He seems to have genuinely believed that it was the same God speaking to him who was known to Jews and Christians. He also seems to have been genuinely and deeply disappointed when the Jewish people with whom he had contact did not accept the authenticity of his new revelations. It was in reaction to this that he changed the direction of Muslim prayer, away from Jerusalem towards Mecca. It is unlikely that Muslims would have invented such stories of their Prophet’s disappointments, and that he changed his mind on more than one occasion is confirmed by the Qur’an and the doctrine of abrogation. Within the Qur’an, there are differing viewpoints expressed on the same topic. This is explained in terms of ongoing revelation (see 16:101), and it is the idea of abrogation that inspired Salman Rushdie’s controversial book, The Satanic Verses. Again, had the Arabs simply invented Muhammad, they presumably would not have invented him with multiple contradictory viewpoints, but would have made him say only those things that suited their needs and interests in that later period.

Nevertheless, even if we can be confident that our sources are not without historical value, they are not simply to be taken at their word. For some time differing versions of the Qur’an circulated. It was Uthman who standardized them and eliminated other versions. Supposedly he only standardized the dialect used; but the truth is that our earliest written source is the inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock, and these do not agree word for word with the Qur’an as we now have it. So there is room for historical-critical study of Muhammad and the Qur’an using the same methods that historians use to study the Bible. But many Christian believers manage to either ignore or reject this approach to the Bible, and so it will be an even longer time before much progress is made in Islam, which is much more uniformly conservative when it comes to religious beliefs than either Christianity or Judaism.

At any rate, had it not been for Muhammad, the Arabs probably would have been Christianized within the span of a few centuries. History in fact went in directions that no one could have foreseen. Islam spread, and whereas at first the Muslims were persecuted and fled to survive, later Muhammad received a revelation granting his followers the right to fight back in self defense (22:39-41; 2:193). Eventually, the Muslims would carry on raiding caravans and spreading their influence further and further. The Qur’an contains many statements that relate to the spread of religion in areas where Muslim rulers spread their political dominion. The Qur’an explicitly says that there is no compulsion in religion, and so forced conversion is excluded. However, in Sura 9 it declares that pagans (idol worshippers) are no longer to be tolerated. Muslim subjects are to be treated as equals; people of the Book (Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians) must submit to Muslim rule and pay a tax or tribute, but there is no suggestion that they must choose between death and conversion! There are, however, harsh words against Christians, for suggesting that God could have a wife and a son. Christians are being viewed through the lens of arguments that were probably originally used against Arab polytheists.

How much of these things actually come from Muhammad himself is a legitimate question for a historian to ask (although Muslims would disagree). Suras 33:38-45,50-59 and others show that whoever wrote the Qur’an (and we know it was not Muhammad himself) did not simply record the Prophet’s words, but also wrote ABOUT THE PROPHET. And so we face some of the same issues we face concerning Jesus and the Gospels. The Qur’an and other sources are concerned to present a theological portrait of Muhammad as the ideal Muslim and Prophet, rather than being concerned for historical factuality per se.

PROPHECY

Can Christians accept that God really was revealed to Muhammad, or that the angel Gabriel really spoke to Muhammad, without denying their own faith? What is the evidence, and how can it be assessed? Can Christians have a positive view of Muhammad without agreeing entirely with everything Muslims believe, in the same way that Muslims have a positive view of Jesus without accepting everything Christians usually believe?

Would someone other than the same God known to Jews and Christians tell Muhammad to abandon idols and become a monotheist? It is only if one does not accept that inspiration both within and outside the Bible is at least partly a psychological experience, influenced by the person’s personality and context, that one may feel the need to deny that Muhammad was an ‘inspired’ religious figure.

On Islamic ‘intolerance’ of ‘People of the Book’ who do not accept Islam, see Suras 3:85; 61:8-9; 98:6. Muslims do not accept everything Christians believe, and vice versa. How should we view such differences in our democratic context? Having a pluralistic society doesn’t mean we all have to agree, but it does mean we have to respect one another even when we disagree.

GOD

QUESTION FOR REFLECTION: Muslims are monotheists, and so are Jews. Are Christians? Should they be?

LINKS:

What is the Qur'an?
http://www.netivyah.org/content/article/koran%20b.pdf

John Wansbrough Remembered (he was a pioneer in applying historical-critical methods to the study of the Qur'an)
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s591483.htm

Article about Wansbrough by Herbert Berg
http://people.uncw.edu/bergh/par246/L22RWansbrough.htm

Research Report by R. Stephen Humphreys

http://www.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/IAS/English/Unit/Soukatu/Soukatu-l/humphreys.html

The Origins of the Qur'an

http://debate.org.uk/topics/books/origins-koran.html

The Bible and the Qur'an: A Comparison

http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/bib-qur/contents.htm

Classical Arabic Biography
http://assets.cambridge.org/0521661994/sample/0521661994WSC00.PDF

"The Truth About Cats & Dogs: Historicity of Early Islamic Law"
http://www.hf.uib.no/i/smi/pal/vikor.pdf

"Who Was the Prophet Mohammad?"
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/333

NY Times: Radical New Views and the Origin of the Qur'an
http://www.rim.org/muslim/qurancrit.htm

The Myth of Mecca