Biographies of the Prophet Muhammad

(First take a look back at the notes from last class on the Qur'an class page; the idea is to keep a few key ideas from those classes in mind to help us interpret this week's readings.)

Schedule

This week we will look at different accounts of the Prophet's life, paying special attention to the particular perspectives from which they are written, and the specific goals of the authors.

Tuesday:  Muhammad in Mecca

Assignment

Read through the timeline of Muhammad's life below. 

Read Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Muhammad: Man of God, 1-42, and answer the questions about it in D2L.  The questions are:

• The poem on page 5 of Nasr's biography refers to Muhammad's "light." This light has two functions, which are (pick TWO of the following):
  • To reveal God's nature.
  • To uphold the universe.
  • To give moral guidance.
  • To banish the power of evil.
• In the Preface to his Biography (pp. 7-8), Nasr mentions two distinctive purposes he has in writing this biography. The first is to bring out the spiritual significance or inner meaning of events in Muhammad's life. This purpose suggests that Nasr is (follow the links for definitions of terms):
  • A mufti
  • A Sufi
  • An Islamist
  • A modernist
• In the account of the Prophet's ascent that is quoted from al-Suyuti in chapter 5 of Nasr's biography, al-Suyuti quotes Q 53:1-18, which we studied in class. Here al-Suyuti interprets the "one of might powers" who appeared on the horizon (53:5-9) as:
  • God
  • The Prophet Muhammad
  • A slave
  • An angel

Then for a very different kind of biography, by Fred Donner, a Western historian, read The Oxford History of Islam (OHI), 1-8.  You can also now read this online, as long as you are on campus; if off campus you must first log on to the OU Library's web site.  Read the first two sections of chapter 1, by following these links:

• Historical setting
• The Prophet Muhammad and the Nascent Community of Believers

Please bring the Nasr biography to class, but feel free to leave the OHI at home.

Notes from class

Our principal accomplishment was to discover in Nasr a new model of Islam, in addition to the "moral path" and "relational" models we have encountered.  In Nasr's Sufi "realization" model of Islam, the "path" is a spiritual path of ascent toward reunification with God.

• Nasr, like other neoplatonist Sufis before him, regards the entire universe as a graded series of emanations from God, with the highest levels being the most abstract and the lowest the most concrete.  Ibn `Arabi was another such Sufi, who taught the "unity of all being."  In this universe, the goal of religious life is to overcome one's sense of separateness and be reunited with God.
• The path, therefore, is a vertical spiritual path toward God, not a horizontal moral path to be followed at the physical level.
• Nasr regards Muhammad as perfect, the pinacle of the pyramid of being, the sustainer of the universe.  He tells of the cleansing of his heart, but mentions nothing of the satanic verses.  This clashes with the Qur'anic idea that prophets are ordinary human beings who reveal a moral path and serve as an example to imitate, which fits better with the moral path model.
• Nasr quotes al-Suyuti intepreting Q 53 as a direct vision of God (with the heart) that took place during Muhammad's Night Journey to Jerusalem and his ascent from there to heaven.  This journey models the spiritual path of ascent toward God.  Elsewhere, in his commentary, al-Suyuti interpreted Q 53 as an account of how an angel brought a verbal revelation to Muhammad; this interpretation fits better with the idea that revelation consists of a book of law.
• al-Suyuti and Nasr do not seem to see a contradiction between these two views.  This is typical of Sufis, who regard events and texts as having both literal outer and figurative inner meanings. 
• Perhaps they consider the "moral path" model, and the story of how Gabriel conveyed a law, as teachings that are useful for beginners on the spiritual path, whereas the "realization" model and the story of Muhammad's ascent to God depict the final goal of Sufis.
• In ordinary "moral" Islam, God is kept very distinct from his creation.  But in this "realization" model, things that are disdained in ordinary Islamic teachings (like Satan and idols) can be seen as manifestations of God.  Ordinary believers, however, need the ordinary teachings of orthodox theology and law.  Sufis who declared their higher knowledge of the "unity of all being" publicly were sometimes persecuted (e.g. al-Hallaj).

We also noted that Nasr is a modern Western Muslim, writing in America.  He responds to modern naturalist and rationalist critiques of stories of the supernatural by arguing that physical reality is just a manifestation of spiritual reality, so if one believes something took place spiritually there is no reason it can't be manifested physically in a way that appears "supernatural."

Nasr is also a Shi`ite, and we noted that he incorporated `Ali and Fatima (the Prophet's daughter and `Ali's wife) and their descendents into his cosmic hierarchy of being.

Thursday:  Muhammad in Medina

Assignment

Read through the notes below on Ways of Approaching the Life of Muhammad. 

Then read Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Muhammad: Man of God, 43-69, and The Oxford History of Islam, 8-18 (also online in these sections:  Prophet, Early expansion, and Early Caliphate). 

Then answer the following question in D2L:  The Oxford History of Islam (pages 8-10 = end of the section on the Prophet) mentions several events in the life of the Prophet that Seyyed Hossein Nasr does not mention (even though Nasr's account is much more detailed. These include (check the THREE events that are mentioned only by the Oxford History of Islam):

• The emigration from Mecca to Medina.
• Exile, enslavement, and execution of Jews in Medina.
• Raids against Meccan caravans.
• The battle of Badr.
• The bloodless conquest of Mecca.
• Expansion of Muhammad's influence, late in his life, by promises of material gain.

Please bring Nasr to class; if possible please bring the OHI as well.

Notes from class

First we noted one more example of how Nasr finds spiritual significance in the events of the Prophet's life:  the fact that his night journey and ascent to God's presence took place before his move to Medina, where he became an administrator, shows that contemplation precedes action.  Nasr had a specific purpose in saying this - he was criticizing other Muslims (especially islamists) who desire to enforce Islamic law socially without having first purified their own spiritual lives.

Then we compared four different biographies of the Prophet:

• Fred Donner (in OHI) - a modern historian.
  • His interest was political - how did certain groups come to power?
  • Consequently he presented Muhammad's political accomplishments as primary, and his religious message as a secondary phenomenon that sometimes was useful for his political purposes.  He therefore included some details that Nasr omitted, such as military raids and Zoroastrians being forced to convert.
  • He wrote as a naturalist, making no mention of supernatural events, and downplaying spiritual motivations.
  • We don't think Donner was trying to be polemical or negative, but his writing might appear negative in post-9/11 America, where any indication of Muhammad's political ambition might be interpreted as an indication that Muslims "really are out to conquer the world" - which is how some Americans see "Islam."
• William Muir - a 19th-century Christian colonial administrator in India.
  • His agenda was to discredit the character of Muhammad so as to help Christian missionaries gain the upper hand in debates with Muslims in India in the 19th century.
  • He therefore interpreted the Prophet's actions as motivated by a desire for military conquest, and by a sensuality that from a certain Christian perspective seems unseemly.
• Sayyid Hossein Nasr - a modern traditionalist Sufi Shi`ite.
  • He was well aware of the criticisms advanced by Christians like Muir, and so he omitted some violent details of the Prophet's career, and went out of his way to explain that Islam was not spread by the sword, and insisted that the Qur'an affirms and protects other "dhimmi" religions including even Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
  • He rejected Donner's naturalism, and told of supernatural events and their spiritual significance.
• The PBS documentary "Muhammad:  Legacy of a Prophet"
  • This film bent over backwards to deny that the Prophet was ever motivated by a desire for military conflict, sensuality, or anti-semitism.  It emphasized mostly spiritual motivations instead.
  • The film appeared to share modern Western (Christian-inspired) disdain for violence, political ambition, and sensuality.  This might be because its Muslim producers were so deeply affected by modern Western and Christian culture, or it might be just because they aimed to make their own tradition palatable to a Western and largely Christian audience.
  • Sometimes the film appeared to shift its values to suit the argument it was trying to make at a given moment:
    • It emphasized Muhammad's humanity in planning the battle of Badr (in order to present him as humble), but then switched to presenting the battle as divinely ordained [perhaps to take resposibility for it off of Muhammad?].
    • It emphasized the spiritual motivation for Muhammad's many marriages, then switched to citing a political motivation, because both were useful for denying a sensual motivation.

The upshot of all this was that biographies of the Prophet tell us more about the purposes of their authors, and the pressures they were under, than about the Prophet himself. 

Notice that what we were doing was discovering hidden agendas and meanings in each text or video.  Comparing one biography with the others helped us see why it was crafted the way it was, so that we could see more significance and purpose in each sentence.  Soon we will start to do this kind of analysis by writing commentaries - taking a text and explaining its hidden significance by showing how it relates to other texts we have read.

Traditional Timeline

Ways of Approaching the Life of Muhammad

As a model for Life

All Muslims look to the Prophet's life for inspiration and guidance of one kind or another.  Legal scholars mine the Prophet's life for answers to concrete legal questions.  Sufis regard him as the perfect human being (al-insan al-kamil) and a model for the soul's journey toward God.

As an object of pious devotion

Popular Islamic practices include the celebration of the Prophet's birth (mawlid al-nabi), and the singing of songs in praise of Muhammad.  These practices are sometimes frowned upon by Islamists.

as an object of theological Reflection

Muslim theologians developed a number of doctrines concerning prophets:

• They are granted `isma (protection from sin.)
• God grants them miracles to confirm their prophethood.

Concerning Muhammad it was argued that:

• The Qur'an was his principal miracle; it is miraculous in the information it contains (which could not have been known if it had not been revealed) and in its linguistic style, which is inimitable. Muhammad challenged his Meccan adversaries to produce speech like the Qur'an, but they were unable to do so.
• Muhammad was the final prophet (the seal of the prophets), and his message was intended not only for the Arabs, but for all of humanity. Some Muslim groups have in effect denied this doctrine by claiming that their own leaders were prophets:
• Some of the Ahmadiyya claim that Mira Ghulam was a prophet.
• The Nation of Islam claims prophetic status for its founder Elijah Muhammad.

Some Sufis elaborated a neo-platonic cosmology, in which the entire created order emanates from a first created principle called the Light of Muhammad.

As the subject of apologetic attacks and defenses

Medieval Europeans, thinking of Muslims as the "Saracen threat" bent on invading Western Europe, frequently portrayed Muhammad as a licentious fake. 

Some of the earliest Western scholarly accounts of Muhammad's life were written by Christians with a missionary or apologetic purpose.  For example, William Muir based his account on Muslim sources, but employed them selectively, and emphasized the themes of sensuality and violence in an attempt to discredit Islam.

As the object of critical historical investigation

The Qur'an is generally regarded by non-Muslim scholars as the only contemporaneous and trustworthy evidence about the life of Muhammad, though it never narrates his life and offers very few details. Recently some scholars have argued that even the Qur'an does not date to Muhammad's time.

The Hadith have long been subjected to critical study by Muslims, who have evaluated their authenticity based on their isnads.  They have rejected many as uncertain or fictitious, while retaining thousands that they recognize as authentic.  Non-Muslim scholars such as Joseph Schacht, accustomed to methods of biblical criticism that focus on texts rather than on records of their transmission, have argued that a great many hadith were created well after the Prophet's death to justify later theological or legal positions.  Still, the life of the Prophet is usually based mainly on the Hadith, because this is the only detailed evidence available.