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First Century Sources for the Life of Mu1ammad? A Debate 47
panion of the Prophet who may have heard the story from an eyewitness. Secondly,
the information from Islamic sources says the Ka^b b. Malik family was part
of the same clan as Ibn Ab\ l-0uqayq’s murderers, namely, the Banu Salima.
Shoemaker vehemently rejects Motzki’s identification of al-Zuhr\’s sources.
He has two objections: Firstly, the differences in names “perhaps reflect [ital.
HM] the efforts of later transmitters seeking to ‘grow’ the isnad back to al-Zuhr\’s
source” and secondly, “the early authors of Islamic history […] may themselves
have invented [ital. HM] this connection between the Ka^b family and Ibn Ab\
l-0uqayq’s murder.” 198
Shoemaker’s objections are unconvincing. Who are the “later transmitters”
and the “early authors” of Islamic history? Are they al-Zuhr\’s students, later
transmitters or the compilers of anthologies in which the variant traditions are
found? Are Shoemaker’s vague speculations reasonable in light of the names
evidenced by multiple variants of the tradition?
Motzki rules out any backwards growth of the isnads because one would then
expect the isnads to extend back to an eyewitness to the event, which is not the
case. Using the isnads, he dates the difference in names to no later than the generation
of al-Zuhr\’s students. Motzki assumes that al-Zuhr\ himself rather than
his students was responsible for the difference in names, arguing as follows: Al-
Zuhr\’s informant was presumably ^Abd al-Ra1man b. ^Abdallah, Ka^b b. Malik’s
grandson, who transmitted from both his father, ^Abdallah b. Ka^b, and his uncle,
^Abd al-Ra1man b. Ka^b. Al-Zuhr\ was probably unsure from which of the two
^Abd al-Ra1man b. ^Abdallah heard the story, or he assumed that both of Ka^b b.
Malik’s sons told it in a similar way. This is why he sometimes indicated his direct
informant for the story, ^Abd al-Ra1man, as his source but at other times ^Abd al-
Ra1man’s presumed sources. 199
Shoemaker’s conclusions concerning al-Zuhr\’s sources are inconsistent. On
the one hand he writes: “There is no reason to assume that al-Zuhr\ simply received
the surviving narrative as ‘a condensation of the reports’ already made by
members of the Ka^b family; the resulting account is more than likely al-Zuhr\’s
own composite, based on rumors and legends about the event that were then
circulating in Medina.” 200 On the other hand, he adds that “al-Zuhr\ […] presumably
pieced together the various traditions about this episode, many of which
may have originated among the members of the Ka^b family as tall tales about the
198 Shoemaker, “In Search of ^Urwa’s Sira,” 332.
199 Motzki, “The Murder,” 179. Similar differences in the names of al-Zuhr\’s informant can
also be found in other transmission complexes, see Boekhoff-van der Voort, “The Raid of the
Hudhayl,” 312–313, 366.
200 Shoemaker, “In Search of ^Urwa’s Sira,” 332–333.