Prophet Or Prophets? : Conceptual Problems in the Modern Study of Islam

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Prophet or Prophets? : Conceptual Problems in the Modern Study of Islam Suleiman A. MOURAD Departement of Religion, Smith College, (États-Unis) Résidence IEA : Octobre 2012 à Juin 2013 It is very common to come across definitions of belief in classical Islamic scholarship that require the Muslim to heed the teachings of all the prophets. For instance, the proto-Sunni jurist and theologian Abu Hanifa (d. 767) is thought to have defined the Shahada as involving the belief in all the prophets and the messages they brought. The Twelver Shiʿi theologian Ibn Babawayh (d. 991) also furnished in his book entitled The Doctrine (al-Iʿtiqad) that Twelver Shiʿism requires the belief in 124,000 prophets “who brought the truth from the Truth.” Moreover, Muslim scholars contextualized the career of Muhammad and the history of Islam in a long history of prophets (e.g., Ibn Ishaq, al-Tabari, Ibn al-Athir, etc.). As such, Islamic law, practice and creed drew on revelations other than the Qurʾan and on countless teachings of prophets other than Muhammad (e.g., Jesus, Moses, Job, etc.). The question that begs itself is why the fact that classical Islam was shaped around the teachings of many prophets seems to be lost to modern audiences (Muslims and non-Muslim alike)? In this presentation, I will reflect on this aspect of Islam having many prophets, and on how the modern academic study of Religion, in its effort to essentialize world religions according to specific theories and conceptual frameworks, has exacerbated a tendency to think of Islam (and other religions as well) in exclusive ways that are not historically accurate and misleading. .

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