A Literary History of the Arabs Part 16

CHAPTER IV

THE PROPHET AND THE KORAN

With the appearance of Mu?ammad the almost impenetrable veil thrown over the preceding age is suddenly lifted and we find ourselves on the solid ground of historical tradition. In order that the reasons for this change may be understood, it is necessary to give some account of the princ.i.p.al sources from which our knowledge of the Prophet's life and teaching is derived.

[Sidenote: Sources of information: I. The Koran.]

[Sidenote: How it was preserved.]

[Sidenote: Value of the Koran as an authority.]

There is first, of course, the Koran,[270] consisting "exclusively of the revelations or commands which Mu?ammad professed, from time to time, to receive through Gabriel as a message direct from G.o.d; and which, under an alleged Divine direction, he delivered to those about him. At the time of pretended inspiration, or shortly after, each pa.s.sage was recited by Mu?ammad before the Companions or followers who happened to be present, and was generally committed to writing by some one amongst them upon palm-leaves, leather, stones, or such other rude material as conveniently came to hand. These Divine messages continued throughout the three-and-twenty years of his prophetical life, so that the last portion did not appear till the year of his death. The canon was then closed; but the contents were never, during the Prophet's lifetime, systematically arranged, or even collected together."[271] They were preserved, however, in fragmentary copies and, especially, by oral recitation until the sanguinary wars which followed Mu?ammad's death had greatly diminished the number of those who could repeat them by heart.

Accordingly, after the battle of Yamama (633 A.D.) 'Umar b. al-Kha??ab came to Abu Bakr, who was then Caliph, and said: "I fear that slaughter may wax hot among the Reciters on other battle-fields, and that much of the Koran may be lost; so in my opinion it should be collected without delay." Abu Bakr agreed, and entrusted the task to Zayd b. Thabit, one of the Prophet's amanuenses, who collected the fragments with great difficulty "from bits of parchment, thin white stones, leafless palm-branches, and the bosoms of men." The ma.n.u.script thus compiled was deposited with Abu Bakr during the remainder of his life, then with 'Umar, on whose death it pa.s.sed to his daughter ?af?a. Afterwards, in the Caliphate of 'Uthman, ?udhayfa b. al-Yaman, observing that the Koran as read in Syria was seriously at variance with the text current in 'Iraq, warned the Caliph to interfere, lest the Sacred Book of the Moslems should become a subject of dispute, like the Jewish and Christian scriptures. In the year 651 A.D. 'Uthman ordered Zayd b.

Thabit to prepare a Revised Version with the a.s.sistance of three Qurays.h.i.tes, saying to the latter, "If ye differ from Zayd regarding any word of the Koran, write it in the dialect of Quraysh; for it was revealed in their dialect."[272] This has ever since remained the final and standard recension of the Koran. "Transcripts were multiplied and forwarded to the chief cities in the empire, and all previously existing copies were, by the Caliph's command, committed to the flames."[273] In the text as it has come down to us the various readings are few and unimportant, and its genuineness is above suspicion. We shall see, moreover, that the Koran is an exceedingly human doc.u.ment, reflecting every phase of Mu?ammad's personality and standing in close relation to the outward events of his life, so that here we have materials of unique and incontestable authority for tracing the origin and early development of Islam--such materials as do not exist in the case of Buddhism or Christianity or any other ancient religion. Unfortunately the arrangement of the Koran can only be described as chaotic. No chronological sequence is observed in the order of the Suras (chapters), which is determined simply by their length, the longest being placed first.[274] Again, the chapters themselves are sometimes made up of disconnected fragments having nothing in common except the rhyme; whence it is often impossible to discover the original context of the words actually spoken by the Prophet, the occasion on which they were revealed, or the period to which they belong. In these circ.u.mstances the Koran must be supplemented by reference to our second main source of information, namely, Tradition.

[Sidenote: 2. Tradition (?adith).]

[Sidenote: Biographies of Mu?ammad.]

[Sidenote: General collections.]

[Sidenote: Commentaries on the Koran.]

Already in the last years of Mu?ammad's life (writes Dr. Sprenger) it was a pious custom that when two Moslems met, one should ask for news (_?adith_) and the other should relate a saying or anecdote of the Prophet. After his death this custom continued, and the name _?adith_ was still applied to sayings and stories which were no longer new.[275]

In the course of time an elaborate system of Tradition was built up, as the Koran--originally the sole criterion by which Moslems were guided alike in the greatest and smallest matters of public and private interest--was found insufficient for the complicated needs of a rapidly extending empire. Appeal was made to the sayings and practice (_sunna_) of Mu?ammad, which now acquired "the force of law and some of the authority of inspiration." The Prophet had no Boswell, but almost as soon as he began to preach he was a marked man whose _obiter dicta_ could not fail to be treasured by his Companions, and whose actions were attentively watched. Thus, during the first century of Islam there was a mult.i.tude of living witnesses from whom traditions were collected, committed to memory, and orally handed down. Every tradition consists of two parts: the text (_matn_) and the authority (_sanad_, or _isnad_), _e.g._, the relater says, "I was told by _A_, who was informed by _B_, who had it from _C_, that the Prophet (G.o.d bless him!) and Abu Bakr and 'Umar used to open prayer with the words 'Praise to G.o.d, the Lord of all creatures.'" Written records and compilations were comparatively rare in the early period. Ibn Is?aq ( 768 A.D.) composed the oldest extant Biography of the Prophet, which we do not possess, however, in its original shape but only in the recension of Ibn Hisham ( 833 A.D.). Two important and excellent works of the same kind are the _Kitabu 'l-Maghazi_ ('Book of the Wars') by Waqidi ( 822 A.D.) and the _Kitabu 'l-?abaqat al-Kabir_ ('The Great Book of the Cla.s.ses,' _i.e._, the different cla.s.ses of Mu?ammad's Companions and those who came after them) by Ibn Sa'd ( 844 A.D.). Of miscellaneous traditions intended to serve the Faithful as a model and rule of life in every particular, and arranged in chapters according to the subject-matter, the most ancient and authoritative collections are those of Bukhari ( 870 A.D.) and Muslim ( 874 A.D.), both of which bear the same t.i.tle, viz., _al-?a?i?_, 'The Genuine.' It only remains to speak of Commentaries on the Koran. Some pa.s.sages were explained by Mu?ammad himself, but the real founder of Koranic Exegesis was 'Abdullah b. 'Abbas, the Prophet's cousin. Although the writings of the early interpreters have entirely perished, the gist of their researches is embodied in the great commentary of ?abari ( 922 A.D.), a man of encyclopaedic learning who absorbed the whole ma.s.s of tradition existing in his time. Subsequent commentaries are largely based on this colossal work, which has recently been published at Cairo in thirty volumes. That of Zamakhshari ( 1143 A.D.), which is ent.i.tled the _Kashshaf_, and that of Bay?awi ( 1286 A.D.) are the best known and most highly esteemed in the Mu?ammadan East. A work of wider scope is the _Itqan_ of Suyu?i ( 1505 A.D.), which takes a general survey of the Koranic sciences, and may be regarded as an introduction to the critical study of the Koran.

[Sidenote: Character of Moslem tradition.]

While every impartial student will admit the justice of Ibn Qutayba's claim that no religion has such historical attestations as Islam--_laysa li-ummatin mina 'l-umami asnadun ka-asnadihim_[276]--he must at the same time cordially a.s.sent to the observation made by another Mu?ammadan: "In nothing do we see pious men more given to falsehood than in Tradition"

(_lam nara 'l-?ali?ina? fi shayin akdhaba minhum fi 'l-?adith_).[277] Of this severe judgment the reader will find ample confirmation in the Second Part of Goldziher's _Muhammedanische Studien_.[278] During the first century of Islam the forging of Traditions became a recognised political and religious weapon, of which all parties availed themselves.

Even men of the strictest piety practised this species of fraud (_tadlis_), and maintained that the end justified the means. Their point of view is well expressed in the following words which are supposed to have been spoken by the Prophet: "You must compare the sayings attributed to me with the Koran; what agrees therewith is from me, whether I actually said it or no;" and again, "Whatever good saying has been said, I myself have said it."[279] As the result of such principles every new doctrine took the form of an Apostolic _?adith_; every sect and every system defended itself by an appeal to the authority of Mu?ammad. We may see how enormous was the number of false Traditions in circulation from the fact that when Bukhari ( 870 A.D.) drew up his collection ent.i.tled 'The Genuine' (_al-?a?i?_), he limited it to some 7,000, which he picked out of 600,000.

The credibility of Tradition, so far as it concerns the life of the Prophet, cannot be discussed in this place.[280] The oldest and best biography, that of Ibn Is?aq, undoubtedly contains a great deal of fabulous matter, but his narrative appears to be honest and fairly authentic on the whole.

[Sidenote: Birth of Mu?ammad.]

If we accept the traditional chronology, Mu?ammad, son of 'Abdullah and amina, of the tribe of Quraysh, was born at Mecca on the 12th of Rabi'

al-Awwal, in the Year of the Elephant (570-571 A.D.). His descent from Qu?ayy is shown by the following table:--

Qu?ayy.

'Abd Manaf.

'Abd Shams. Hashim.

Umayya. 'Abdu 'l-Mu??alib.

'Abbas. 'Abdullah. Abu ?alib.

MU?AMMAD.

[Sidenote: His childhood.]

Shortly after his birth he was handed over to a Bedouin nurse--?alima, a woman of the Banu Sa'd--so that until he was five years old he breathed the pure air and learned to speak the unadulterated language of the desert. One marvellous event which is said to have happened to him at this time may perhaps be founded on fact:--

[Sidenote: Mu?ammad and the two angels.]

"He and his foster-brother" (so ?alima relates) "were among the cattle behind our encampment when my son came running to us and cried, 'My brother, the Qurays.h.i.te! two men clad in white took him and laid him on his side and cleft his belly; and they were stirring their hands in it.' When my husband and I went out to him we found him standing with his face turned pale, and on our asking, 'What ails thee, child?' he answered, 'Two men wearing white garments came to me and laid me on my side and cleft my belly and groped for something, I know not what.' We brought him back to our tent, and my husband said to me, 'O ?alima, I fear this lad has been smitten (_u?iba_); so take him home to his family before it becomes evident.' When we restored him to his mother she said, 'What has brought thee, nurse? Thou wert so fond of him and anxious that he should stay with thee.' I said, 'G.o.d has made him grow up, and I have done my part. I feared that some mischance would befall him, so I brought him back to thee as thou wishest.' 'Thy case is not thus,'

said she; 'tell me the truth,' and she gave me no peace until I told her. Then she said, 'Art thou afraid that he is possessed by the Devil?' I said, 'Yes.' 'Nay, by G.o.d,' she replied, 'the Devil cannot reach him; my son hath a high destiny.'"[281]

Other versions of the story are more explicit. The angels, it is said, drew forth Mu?ammad's heart, cleansed it, and removed the black clot--_i.e_., the taint of original sin.[282] If these inventions have any basis at all beyond the desire to glorify the future Prophet, we must suppose that they refer to some kind of epileptic fit. At a later period he was subject to such attacks, which, according to the unanimous voice of Tradition, often coincided with the revelations sent down from heaven.

[Sidenote: His meeting with the monk Ba?ira.]

'Abdullah had died before the birth of his son, and when, in his sixth year, Mu?ammad lost his mother also, the charge of the orphan was undertaken first by his grandfather, the aged 'Abdu 'l-Mu??alib, and then by his uncle, Abu ?alib, a poor but honourable man, who n.o.bly fulfilled the duties of a guardian to the last hour of his life.

Mu?ammad's small patrimony was soon spent, and he was reduced to herding sheep--a despised employment which usually fell to the lot of women or slaves. In his twelfth year he accompanied Abu ?alib on a trading expedition to Syria, in the course of which he is said to have encountered a Christian monk called Ba?ira, who discovered the Seal of Prophecy between the boy's shoulders, and hailed him as the promised apostle. Such antic.i.p.ations deserve no credit whatever. The truth is that until Mu?ammad a.s.sumed the prophetic role he was merely an obscure Qurays.h.i.te; and scarcely anything related of him anterior to that event can be deemed historical except his marriage to Khadija, an elderly widow of considerable fortune, which took place when he was about twenty-five years of age.

[Sidenote: The ?anifs.]

During the next fifteen years of his life Mu?ammad was externally a prosperous citizen, only distinguished from those around him by an habitual expression of thoughtful melancholy. What was pa.s.sing in his mind may be conjectured with some probability from his first utterances when he came forward as a preacher. It is certain, and he himself has acknowledged, that he formerly shared the idolatry of his countrymen.

"_Did not He find thee astray and lead thee aright?_" (Kor. xciii, 7).

When and how did the process of conversion begin? These questions cannot be answered, but it is natural to suppose that the all-important result, on which Mu?ammad's biographers concentrate their attention, was preceded by a long period of ferment and immaturity. The idea of monotheism was represented in Arabia by the Jews, who were particularly numerous in the ?ijaz, and by several gnostic sects of an ascetic character--_e.g._, the ?abians[283] and the Rakusians. Furthermore, "Islamic tradition knows of a number of religious thinkers before Mu?ammad who are described as ?anifs,"[284] and of whom the best known are Waraqa b. Nawfal of Quraysh; Zayd b. 'Amr b. Nufayl, also of Quraysh; and Umayya b. Abi 'l-?alt of Thaqif. They formed no sect, as Sprenger imagined; and more recent research has demonstrated the baselessness of the same scholar's theory that there was in Pre-islamic times a widely-spread religious movement which Mu?ammad organised, directed, and employed for his own ends. His Arabian precursors, if they may be so called, were merely a few isolated individuals. We are told by Ibn Is?aq that Waraqa and Zayd, together with two other Qurays.h.i.tes, rejected idolatry and left their homes in order to seek the true religion of Abraham, but whereas Waraqa is said to have become a Christian, Zayd remained a pious dissenter unattached either to Christianity or to Judaism; he abstained from idol-worship, from eating that which had died of itself, from blood, and from the flesh of animals offered in sacrifice to idols; he condemned the barbarous custom of burying female infants alive, and said, "I worship the Lord of Abraham."[285] As regards Umayya b. Abi 'l-?alt, according to the notice of him in the _Aghani_, he had inspected and read the Holy Scriptures; he wore sackcloth as a mark of devotion, held wine to be unlawful, was inclined to disbelieve in idols, and earnestly sought the true religion.

It is said that he hoped to be sent as a prophet to the Arabs, and therefore when Mu?ammad appeared he envied and bitterly opposed him.[286] Umayya's verses, some of which have been translated in a former chapter,[287] are chiefly on religious topics, and show many points of resemblance with the doctrines set forth in the early Suras of the Koran. With one exception, all the ?anifs whose names are recorded belonged to the ?ijaz and the west of the Arabian peninsula. No doubt Mu?ammad, with whom most of them were contemporary, came under their influence, and he may have received his first stimulus from this quarter.[288] While they, however, were concerned only about their own salvation, Mu?ammad, starting from the same position, advanced far beyond it. His greatness lies not so much in the sublime ideas by which he was animated as in the tremendous force and enthusiasm of his appeal to the universal conscience of mankind.

[Sidenote: Mu?ammad's vision.]

In his fortieth year, it is said, Mu?ammad began to dream dreams and see visions, and desire solitude above all things else. He withdrew to a cave on Mount ?ira, near Mecca, and engaged in religious austerities (_ta?annuth_). One night in the month of Rama?an[289] the Angel[290]

appeared to him and said, "Read!" (_iqra'_). He answered, "I am no reader" (_ma ana bi-qari'in_).[291] Then the Angel seized him with a strong grasp, saying, "Read!" and, as Mu?ammad still refused to obey, gripped him once more and spoke as follows:--

THE SuRA OF COAGULATED BLOOD (XCVI).

(1) Read in the name of thy Lord[292] who created, (2) Who created Man of blood coagulated.

(3) Read! Thy Lord is the most beneficent, (4) Who taught by the Pen,[293]

(5) Taught that which they knew not unto men.

On hearing these words Mu?ammad returned, trembling, to Khadija and cried, "Wrap me up! wrap me up!" and remained covered until the terror pa.s.sed away from him.[294] Another tradition relating to the same event makes it clear that the revelation occurred in a dream.[295] "I awoke,"

said the Prophet, "and methought it was written in my heart." If we take into account the notions prevalent among the Arabs of that time on the subject of inspiration,[296] it will not appear surprising that Mu?ammad at first believed himself to be possessed, like a poet or soothsayer, by one of the spirits called collectively _Jinn_. Such was his anguish of mind that he even meditated suicide, but Khadija comforted and rea.s.sured him, and finally he gained the unalterable conviction that he was not a prey to demoniacal influences, but a prophet divinely inspired. For some time he received no further revelation.[297] Then suddenly, as he afterwards related, he saw the Angel seated on a throne between earth and heaven. Awe-stricken, he ran into his house and bade them wrap his limbs in a warm garment (_dithar_). While he lay thus the following verses were revealed:--

THE SuRA OF THE ENWRAPPED (LXXIV).