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First Century Sources for the Life of Mu1ammad? A Debate 9
tell whether the elements found in only one of the recensions go back to ^Urwa
or to a later transmitter, e.g. if the story of Ibn al-Dugunna was already part of
^Urwa’s report or if this story was introduced by al-Zuhr\.” 38 Thus while Görke
and Schoeler do not exclude the possibility that ^Urwa also told a version of the
story, including the encounter of Abu Bakr and Ibn al-Dughunna, they do not
claim that this story should be considered to be part of the authentic ^Urwa material.
As a result, some of Shoemaker’s findings are in fact not at variance with
Görke’s and Schoeler’s, although he claims that they are. However, one major
difference that remains is the question whether the story of Abu Bakr and Ibn al-
Dughunna is linked to the emigration of some Muslims to Abyssinia prior to the
hijra to Medina. In their study Görke and Schoeler indeed made this connection.
They came to the conclusion that both al-Zuhr\ and Hisham b. ^Urwa in their
narrations combined the story of the harassments of Muslims in Mecca that lead
to the emigration of some of them to Abyssinia and the story of the hijra proper.
As both al-Zuhr\ and Hisham b. ^Urwa claim to base their narrations on ^Urwa,
Görke and Schoeler conclude that this connection of the events already goes
back to him, although many details in the narrations recorded in the written
sources may in fact be later elaborations and additions.
Shoemaker argues, on the contrary, that “the story of Ibn al-Dughunna’s patronage
does not appear to be linked with the ‘first hijra’ to Ethiopia, as Görke
and Schoeler propose.” 39 He observes that in Ibn Hisham’s version of the account
no such connection is made (which is correct) and although the connection
is made explicit in the versions of al-Bukhar\, al-Bayhaq\ and ^Abd al-Razzaq, he
dismisses their versions because the chronology to him seems not to be convincing.
In addition, he draws attention to the limited attestation of these versions –
according to Shoemaker there are only three versions (Ma^mar < al-Zuhr\, as adduced
by ^Abd al-Razzaq, Ibn Is1aq < al-Zuhr\, as adduced by Ibn Hisham, and
^Uqayl < al-Zuhr\, as adduced by al-Bayhaq\ and al-Bukhar\) which are all only
preserved in single strands. Following Juynboll in his requirements for the historicity
of traditions, Shoemaker concludes that the ascription of these versions to
al-Zuhr\ has to be called into question. Instead he argues that “these three hadith
collections [i.e., al-Bukhar\, al-Bayhaq\ and ^Abd al-Razzaq] likely preserve an account
of this event that over the course of transmission has fused together several
earlier and independent elements into a single condensed narrative. In essence,
we have here a sort of ‘mini-history’ of Islam from the initial reaction against
38 Görke and Schoeler, “Reconstructing the Earliest Sira Texts,” 219.
39 Shoemaker, “In Search of ^Urwa’s Sira,” 287.