Notes About Censorship and Self-Censorship in the Biography of the Prophet Mu Hammad * Notas Sobre Censura Y Auto-Censura En La Biografía Del Profeta Mu Hammad
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Alcantara Vol XXXV-1 Maq 18-6-2014_Maquetación 1 25/06/14 10:29 Página 233 AL-Q AN TARA XXXV 1, enero-junio 2014 pp. 233-254 ISSN 0211-3589 doi: 10.3989/alqantara.2014.010 Notes about Censorship and Self-Censorship in the Biography of the Prophet Mu hammad * Notas sobre censura y auto-censura en la biografía del Profeta Mu hammad Michael Lecker Jerusalem The study of the medieval literary output El estudio de la producción literaria medieval about Mu hammad’s life should go hand in sobre la vida de Mu hammad debe ir de la hand with the study of his history, for which mano del estudio de su historia, empresa para we have rich evidence in a variety of sources. la que disponemos de rica información en una Ibn Is haq’s biography of Mu hammad and its variedad de fuentes. La biografía de Mu ham - epitome by Ibn Hish am were products of their mad por Ibn Is haq y su epítome por Ibn Hi sa m time. A case of self-censorship applied by one fueron productos de su época. Un caso de of Ibn Is haq’s informants and two cases of auto-censura aplicado por uno de los infor - censorship applied by Ibn Hish am, who omit - mantes de Ibn Is haq y dos casos de censura ted many of his predecessor’s materials, con - aplicados por Ibn Hi sa m, quien omitió mu - tribute to a better understanding of the social chos de los materiales de su predecesor, con - and political context of the biography. tribuyen a una mejor comprensión del contexto social y político de la biografía del Key words: Mu hammad; Sira ; Biography; Ab - Profeta. basids; Umayyads; Medina; Hira; Censorship; Palabras clave: Mu hammad; Sira ; biografía; Had ith. ʽabb asíes; omeyas; Medina; Hira; censura; hadiz. The most popular medieval biography of the prophet Mu hammad was compiled by Ibn Is haq (d. ca. 151/768) and is known to us through its epitome by Ibn Hish am (d. ca. 218/833). As a history book it is not free of weaknesses, among them editorial practices. The following ar - ticle deals with rather elusive editorial practices, namely censorship and self-censorship. Both deprive us of certain details or accounts – unless they can be found elsewhere in the vast Islamic literature. But at the same time censorship and self-censorship reveal the attitudes of * I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their thorough commentaries. Alcantara Vol XXXV-1 Maq 18-6-2014_Maquetación 1 25/06/14 10:29 Página 234 234 MICHAEL LECKER those who applied them and shed some light on the social and political context in which Mu hammad’s biography emerged. The biography was a product of its time, and as such it reflected the concerns and sensitiv - ities of Mu hammad’s companions, their descendants and all those who contributed to its compilation. The first case to be discussed is one of self-censorship. It relates to an act of disobedience to Mu hammad. The account about it survived, but the identity of the two perpetrators was not disclosed to Ibn Is haq and remained secret, no doubt in order to spare their families the em - barrassment. The other two cases represent two different categories of the materials that Ibn Hish am expunged from the biography due to the censorship he applied to Ibn Is haq’s biography of Mu hammad. One of the two censored accounts implies that before his Mission, Mu hammad was an idol worshipper, while the other relates to a harlot in pre-Islamic Yathrib (Medina) whose jinn i announced the advent of Mu hammad’s Mission. The two who disobeyed Mu hammad The following act of disobedience to Mu hammad occurred during the Tab uk expedition (9/630): 1 When the Messenger of All ah passed al- Hijr, he alighted in it and the men got water from its well. When they returned in the evening, the Messenger of All ah said, ‘Do not drink any of its water nor use it for ablution. If you have used any of it to prepare dough, then feed it to the camels and eat none of it. Let none of you go out at night alone without a companion’. The men did as they had been told, except two men of the Ban u Sa,ida: one went out to relieve himself, and the other to look for a camel of his. The one who went to relieve himself was choked where he was relieving himself and the one who went to look for a camel of his was car - ried away by the wind, which cast him on the two mountains of Tayyi ,. The Mes - senger of All ah was told of this and said, ‘Have I not forbidden you to go out without a companion?’ Then he prayed for the man who was choked where he was relieving himself and he recovered; the other who landed in the two mountains of Tayyi , was delivered to the Messenger of All ah by the Tayyi , as a gift when he came to Medina. The story about the two men comes from ,Abdall ah ibn Ab i Bakr, from ,Abb as ibn Sahl ibn Sa ,d al-S a,id i. ,Abdall ah ibn Ab i Bakr told me that ,Abb as 1 The account discussed here did not escape Josef Horovitz: see Horovitz, The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet and their Authors , p. 44. Al-Qan tara XXXV 1, 2014, pp. 233-254 ISSN 0211-3589 doi: 10.3989/alqantara.2013.010 Alcantara Vol XXXV-1 Maq 18-6-2014_Maquetación 1 25/06/14 10:29 Página 235 NOTES ABOUT CENSORSHIP AND SELF -C ENSORSHIP IN THE BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET 235 had revealed to him the names of the two men but he [ ,Abb as] asked that they be kept secret, so ,Abdall ah refused to tell me their names. 2 Ibn Is haq’s immediate informant, ,Abdall ah ibn Ab i Bakr (d. 130/747-748 or 135/752-753), 3 belonged to the Khazraj, more precisely to the Najj ar branch of Khazraj. 4 ,Abdall ah received the account from ,Abb as ibn Sahl ibn Sa ,d (d. ca. 120/738), who belonged to the S a,ida branch of Khazraj. The two unspecified protagonists of the account were also from the S a,ida, which explains why ,Abb as asked ,Abdall ah not to disclose their identity: he spared the perpetrators’ offspring the embarrassment. Further details about the account are relevant for us here. ,Abb as ibn Sahl ibn Sa ,d al-S a,id i probably received it from a close relative of his. A variant found in W aqid i’s Kit ab al-magh azi links it to another event that is similarly related to the Tab uk expedition. 5 It concerns a woman’s orchard in W adi l-Qur a which Mu hammad and his compan - ions visited on their way to Tab uk. Mu hammad’s companion Ab u Hu- mayd al-S a,id i6 transmitted to ,Abb as the account about the orchard, 7 and one assumes that he also transmitted to him the account about the disobedience discussed here. ,Abb as must have had a special interest in the Tab uk expedition because his father, Sahl ibn Sa ,d, had partici - pated in it. According to Sahl’s own testimony, he was then the youngest participant ( kuntu a sghar a sh abi). Mu hammad prohibited the drinking of the water, but allowed the warriors to feed the camels with dough paste that had been prepared with this water before he gave his 2 Ibn Hish am, Das Leben Muhammeds nach Muhammed ibn Ish âk, bearbeitet von Abd el -Malik ibn Hisch âm, pp . 898-899; below, Appendix I; Guillaume , The Life of Muhammad : A Translation of Ibn Is haq’s Sirat Ras ul All ah, p. 605. 3 Ibn Sa ,d, al -Tabaq at al -kubr a: al -qism al -mutammim li -tabi ,i ahl al -Mad ina wa - man ba ,dahum , ed . Ziy ad Mu hammad Man sur, p. 283; Sezgin , Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums , I, p. 284; Horovitz, The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet , Index . 4 Ibn Hazm, Jamharat ans ab al- ,arab , p. 348. 5 Al-W aqid i, Kit ab al-magh azi, III, pp. 1005-1006; below, Appendix II. 6 There are several versions concerning his name, probably because he was better known through his agnomen Ab u Humayd than through his own name and that of his father. 7 See e.g. Ibn Zanjawayh, Kit ab al-amw al, III, pp. 1076-1077, no. 2001; below, A ppendix III. In Muslim’s Ṣa hih the account is combined with several other accounts revolving around the Tab uk expedition. Again the isn ad includes ,Abb as ibn Sahl ← Ab u Humayd, which is the part that concerns us here; Muslim ibn al- Hajj aj, Ṣa hih, IV, pp. 1785- 1786 ( Kit ab al-fa da, il , no. 11); below, Appendix IV. Al-Qan tara XXXV 1, 2014, pp. 233-254 ISSN 0211-3589 doi: 10.3989/alqantara.2013.010 Alcantara Vol XXXV-1 Maq 18-6-2014_Maquetación 1 25/06/14 10:29 Página 236 236 MICHAEL LECKER order. The emaciated camels that Sahl fed that dough became the weak - est in the herd. 8 The companion Ab u Humayd al-S a,id i, who died at the end of Mu ,awiya’s reign (41/661-60/680) or the beginning of Yaz id I’s reign (60/680-64/683) ,9 is said to have been Sahl’s paternal uncle.