0021-1818_islam_98-1-2-i-259

24 Andreas Görke, Harald Motzki, Gregor Schoeler
Rubin’s thesis of a process of ‘Qur#anisation’ which seized the traditions concerning
the beginning of revelation (and also others). 98
Schoeler, in contrast, had taken the position that Ibn Is1aq had shortened
al-Zuhr\’s account (LV I) for his own purposes (Ibn Is1aq quotes only the first four
sentences or so of al-Zuhr\’s long version). 99 Schoeler based his rationale for this
on the observation that Ibn Is1aq shortly thereafter gives a very similar long version
of the story (LV III, traced to Wahb b. Kaysan < ^Ubayd b. ^Umayr), and his
argument was: The abridgement was done for redactional reasons in order to
avoid repetitions (or redundancy). – Now it is to be admitted that both possibilities
exist: the dissemination of two different versions by al-Zuhr\ on the one
hand, and abridgement of the long version (LV I) by Ibn Is1aq on the other. Shoemaker’s
argumentation for the validity of the first possibility has feet of clay and
can even be turned against him. He argues that if Schoeler’s abridgement theory
is correct, it would be difficult to explain why both authors, Ibn Is1aq and Ibn
Sa^d, abridged the account in identical fashion. 100
Now, the two abridgements are by no means identical, as Shoemaker claims;
in fact, Ibn Sa^d quotes a substantial bit more from the long version (LV I) 101 than
does Ibn Is1aq. 102 While the latter addduces the first four sentences or so of the
text, and closes with the solitariness of which the Prophet has grown fond, Ibn
Sa^d cites a number of sentences more; he additionally reports that Mu1ammad
visited Mount 0ira# and performed devotions (al-tahannuth) for several nights,
that he subsequently returned to Khad\ja to pick up supplies, and that in the end
‘the truth’ (al-haqq) came to him on Mount 0ira#. This shows that Schoeler’s allegedly
‘off-hand remark’ (Shoemaker) that Ibn Sa^d and Ibn Is1aq had independently
shortened al-Zuhr\’s (archetype) long report (LV I) 103 is by no means improbable,
but rather very probable.
On the basis of his hypothesis Shoemaker had to assume that al-Zuhr\ had
circulated not only two, but at least three different short versions of the narrative.
That of course is not impossible – there are in fact quite many more short versions
of the account, and, in addition, a medium-length version, 104 all of which theoretically
could likewise have been abridged by al-Zuhr\ himself – although this is
98 Ibid., 307–313.
99 Schoeler, Charakter und Authentie, 75f. (= The Biography of Muhammad, 48f.).
100 Shoemaker, “In Search of ^Urwa’s Sira,” 305, 306.
101 Ibn Sa^d, Tabaqat, I, 1, 129; al-Baladhur\, Ansab, I/1, 259f. (no. 71).
102 Ibn Hisham, Sirat sayyidina Muhammad rasul Allah, I, 151.
103 Shoemaker, “In Search of ^Urwa’s Sira,” 313.
104 Schoeler, Charakter und Authentie, 171–173; 185 (= The Biography of Muhammad,
124–125; 138).