robert spencer-did muhammad exist__ an inquiry into islams obscure origins-intercollegiate studies institute (2012) (1)

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The First Mention of the Qur'an If the canonical stories about Zayd ibn Thabit and Uthman were true, one would expect to see references to the Qur'an in other records. But no such references are to be found in the historical records of the midseventh century. As we have seen, the coinage of the early caliphate and the edifices that survive from that period bear no Qur'anic inscriptions, quotes, or references of any kind. And although the Arab invaders poured through the Middle East and North Africa, the peoples they conquered seemed to have no idea that the conquerors, whom they called “Hagarians,” “Saracens,” “Muhajirun” or “Ishmaelites,” had a holy book at all. Christian and Jewish writers of the period never made even the smallest reference to such a book. Not until the early part of the eighth century did mentions of the Qur'an begin to appear in the polemical literature of non-Muslims and Muslims alike. The first reference to the Qur'an by a non-Muslim occurred around the year 710—eighty years after the book was supposedly completed and sixty years after it was supposedly collected and distributed. During a debate with an Arab noble, a Christian monk in the Middle East cited the Qur'an by name. The monk wrote, “I think that for you, too, not all your laws and commandments are in the Qur'an which Muhammad taught you; rather there are some which he taught you from the Qur'an, and some are in surat albaqrah and in gygy and in twrh.” 25 By this point Arab armies had conquered a huge expanse of territory, stretching from North Africa, across the Levant, Syria, and Iraq, and into Persia, and yet those eight decades of conquest had produced scarcely a mention of the book that supposedly inspired them. And when the Qur'an finally was mentioned, it appears that the book was not even in the form we now know. Surat albaqrah (or al- Baqara) is “the chapter of the Cow,” which is the second, and longest, sura of the Qur'an. The eighthcentury monk thus quite clearly knew of a Qur'an that didn't contain this sura; he considered surat albaqrah to be a stand-alone book, along with gygy (the Injil, or Gospel) and twrh (the Torah). It is unlikely that the monk simply made an error: Who ever mistakes a chapter of a book for a separate book? If the Qur'an's largest sura was not present in the Muslim holy book by the early eighth century, it could not have been added by Muhammad, Zayd ibn Thabit, or Uthman. There is other evidence that the “chapter of the Cow” existed as a separate book and was added to the Qur'an only at a later date. As noted, John of Damascus, writing around 730, referred to the “text of the Cow” (as well as the “text of the Woman” and the “text of the Camel of God”), giving the impression that it existed as a standalone text. Even Islamic tradition points to the “chapter of the Cow” as a separate book. The Islamic chronicler Qatada ibn Diama (d. 735) made one of the earliest references to any part of the Qur'an by a Muslim. He recorded that during the Battle of Hunayn in 630, during the lifetime of Muhammad, Muhammad's uncle al-Abbas rallied the troops by crying out, “O companions of the chapter of the Cow [ya ashab surat al-Baqara]!” 26 Qatada ibn Diama did not have al-Abbas saying, “O companion of the Qur'an,” but instead fixed on one sura of the Muslim holy book, albeit its longest and arguably most important one. This suggests that even by Qatada's time, the Qur'an was not yet fixed in its present form.
Abd al-Malik and Hajjaj ibn Yusuf: Collectors of the Qur'an? In light of all this evidence, the Islamic traditions pointing to the caliph Abd al-Malik and his associate Hajjaj ibn Yusuf as collectors of the Qur'an take on new significance. Abd al-Malik, who reigned from 685 to 705, claimed to have been responsible for the collection of the Qur'an when he said: “I fear death in the month of Ramadan—in it I was born, in it I was weaned, in it I have collected the Qur'an (jama'tul- Qur'ana), and in it I was elected caliph.” 27 Remember, too, the hadiths that record Hajjaj ibn Yusuf as collecting and editing the Qur'an during Abd al-Malik's caliphate. From the historical records available to us, it makes sense that the Qur'an was not collected until Abd al-Malik's reign. If Uthman had indeed collected the standard book and sent copies to all the Muslim provinces in the 650s, it is inexplicable that the Muslims would have made no reference to it for decades thereafter. The first Qur'anic references, as we have seen, did not appear until the time of Abd al-Malik and his Dome of the Rock inscriptions. And even then, it is not certain whether the inscriptions were quoting the Qur'an or the Qur'an was quoting the inscriptions. Among the hadiths pointing to Hajjaj ibn Yusuf as a collector of the Qur'an, one cites a Muslim recalling: “I heard al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf say, in a speech delivered from the pulpit (minbar), ‘compose the Qur'an as Gabriel composed it: the writings that include the mention of the cow, and the writings that include mention of women, and the writings that include mention of the family of ‘Imran.’” 28 The Cow is sura 2 in the standard text of the Qur'an; Women is sura 4; and the Family of Imran is sura 3. This hadith thus suggests that the Qur'an had not yet been collected at the time of Abd al-Malik and Hajjaj. The fact that Hajjaj mentioned the suras out of their canonical order adds to that impression, for one who knew Hajjaj well recalled: “When I heard al-Hajjaj reading, I realized that he had long studied the Qur'an.” 29 Hajjaj is even said to have altered eleven words of the Qur'anic text. 30 Hadiths show Hajjaj throwing himself into the work of collecting the Qur'an. One reports him as taking to the task with an incandescent ferocity; in the hadith, he pronounced that if he heard anyone reading from the Qur'an of Abdullah ibn Masud, “I will kill him, and I will even rub his mushaf with a side of pork.” 31 On occasion he even dared to boast about his work. When Muhammad died, the prophet's slave Umm Ayman (who had been his daughter-in-law, as the wife of his former adopted son, Zayd) cried disconsolately: “I know well that God's Messenger has left for something better than this lowly world. I am crying because the inspiration has stopped.” When Hajjaj heard about what Umm Ayman had said, he responded: “Umm Ayman lied: I only work by inspiration.” 32 Such a statement is placed in the context of Hajjaj's work on the Qur'an. Of course, the Abbasids, who replaced the Umayyads, are known to have fabricated numerous hadiths portraying their rivals in a bad light. So this hadith may have been an invention of Hajjaj's enemies, along with Hajjaj's more famous, or notorious, statement to Abd al-Malik that Allah's caliph was more important to him than his prophet. 33 Even if that is the case, however, it testifies to Hajjaj's fame as the editor of the Qur'an—if not its actual author. Like Uthman, Hajjaj is said to have sent official copies of his revised Qur'an to all the Muslim provinces. The jurist Malik ibn Anas (d. 795) said that al-Hajjaj “sent the mushaf [the codex of the Qur'an] to the capitals. He sent a large one to Medina. He was the first to send the mushaf to the cities.” 34 Also like Uthman in the canonical account, Hajjaj ordered all variants burned. The original copy that
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DID MUHAMMAD EXIST? An Inquiry into
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Dedicated to all those who do not f
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Contents Foreword by Johannes J. G.
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scholars will not be interested in
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650s-660s: Arabian conquest of Nort
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Muhammad and His Family, According
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Introduction
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historicity of Muhammad. Although t
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No one knows, for it has never rece
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Some of the bold scholars who have
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Influenced by this, the historians
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1
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ut this could apply to any of the Q
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Was That Muhammad? In light of all
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leader as the “devil.” It is un
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them, reprimand them, warn them, an
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was not even able to save himself f
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of polemical hyperbole or using a t
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2
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encountering some mention of Islam,
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The first biographer of Muhammad, I
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Allah [is] great in greatness and g
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This Qur'anic material is the earli
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that orthodox theologians produced
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Arabic language, he was eloquent an
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3
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The same can be said of an explanat
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“anyone who establishes in Islam
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But with Muhammad held up as an exe
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When Ibn Umar says that yes, he did
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these are known as as-Sahih as-Sitt
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was self-contradictory or absurd on
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latter's “godlessness and opposit
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Switching On the Full Light of Hist
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Ibn Ishaq's Reliability So are thes
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Muhammad's virtues, or a combinatio
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Jansen administers the coup de grâ
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Central to Islam, therefore, is the
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(Nor, for that matter, do Muslim hi
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5
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The problem with the third option i
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years of age. 6 The earliest Islami
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elationship, the Qur'an also has Ma
Page 88 and 89: einforced the point that Muhammad h
Page 90 and 91: “worked on Allah's Apostle so tha
Page 92 and 93: The Unchanging Qur'an Changes The Q
Page 94 and 95: during the eighth and ninth centuri
Page 96 and 97: did not worry over such matters, wh
Page 98 and 99: Rajam be inflicted on him who commi
Page 100 and 101: telling indications that it has bee
Page 102 and 103: ut suddenly verses 238 and 239 inte
Page 104 and 105: The Non-Arabic Arabic Qur'an A Book
Page 106 and 107: “We know indeed that they say,
Page 108 and 109: Puin explains: “The Koran claims
Page 110 and 111: a person dies, his Book (of deeds)
Page 112 and 113: The Syriac influence is not restric
Page 114 and 115: To provide the new religion with it
Page 116 and 117: What the Qur'an May Have Been A Clu
Page 118 and 119: An Islamic scholar writing late in
Page 120 and 121: Luxenberg states that if Qur'an “
Page 122 and 123: symbolism of the wine of Paradise.
Page 124 and 125: Syriac connection, has revealed—c
Page 126 and 127: unbelievers, may say, “What did G
Page 128 and 129: gods except the Creator of all, nor
Page 130 and 131: in Paradise reserved exclusively fo
Page 132 and 133: 9
Page 134 and 135: who have been true in their covenan
Page 136 and 137: for them to brandish. Nor is it eve
Page 140 and 141: Uthman approved did not survive, ev
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Page 144 and 145: years after its birth, Islam has re
Page 146 and 147: The realm of political theology, th
Page 148 and 149: The real proliferation of material
Page 150 and 151: from long after the time he is supp
Page 152 and 153: Notes Introduction: The Full Light
Page 154 and 155: 34 Ibid., 63-64 (= Patrologia Greca
Page 156 and 157: 6 Al-Qastellani, X, 342 (quoted in
Page 158 and 159: 7 Arthur Jeffery, “The Quest of t
Page 160 and 161: Chapter 6: The Unchanging Qur'an Ch
Page 162 and 163: 29 Ibn Kathir, Tafsir Ibn Kathir, v
Page 164 and 165: 49 Nevo and Koren, Crossroads to Is
Page 167 and 168: Further Reading There is a great de
Page 169 and 170: Acknowledgments I could not have wr
Page 171 and 172: Muhammad and, 2, 7, 24-28, 41, 48,
Page 173 and 174: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Ephraem
Page 175 and 176: Islamic calendar, 48-49, 204 Islami
Page 177 and 178: Mufid, Sheikh al-, 81 Mughira, al-,
Page 179 and 180: Rosenthal, Franz, 154 Ruqayya (daug
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robert spencer-did muhammad exist__ an inquiry into islams obscure origins-intercollegiate studies institute (2012) (1)

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