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"^" : " THE: "LIFE OF MAHOMET By EMILE DERMENGHEM - J1 LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD. BROADWAY HOUSE: 68-74 CARTER LANE 1930 Translated by ARABELLA YORKE PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, LTD., HERTFORD. xl 910872 CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ....... vn PART I MECCA CHAPTER I. SELMAN THE PERSIAN . 3 OF II. THE YEAR THE ELEPHANT (571 ?) 20 III. THE IMPIOUS WAR ..... 32 IV. KHADIJA 44 V. THE MISSION ...... 53 VI. THE PERSECUTIONS ..... 73 VII. THE RESURRECTION ..... 86 VIII. THE CONVERSIONS OF HAMZA AND 'OMAR 97 IX. CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM 101 X. THE YEAR OF MOURNING 125 PART II MEDINA XL THE HEGIRA (622) ..... 141 XII. MADINAT EN NABI ..... 154 XIII. THE BATTLE OF BADR .... 171 XIV. MECCA PREPARES HER REVENGE 195 'ALi MARRIES FATIMA .... i95 XV. THE JEWS ... ... 211 XVI. OHOD 220 XVII. THE DITCH 236 XVIII. RASUL ALLAH 246 XIX. ZAINAB .... ... 269 XX. 'AisHA AND HER NECKLACE 275 XXI. THE HAREM ... ... 284 XXII. THE TRIUMPH ..... 299 XXIII. THE FAREWELL PILGRIMAGE 321 XXIV. THE DEATH (632) .... 334 INDEX ....... PREFACE exigence is no longer doubted MAHOMET'Sby anyone. The most pedantic critic does not dream of denying it, although we accept the traditional story of the Arab Prophet to-day with many reservations. Certainly, hypercriticism sometimes oversteps itself (in several different ways, unfortunately), but at the present time we surely cannot write a life of Mahomet in the same words and from the same view-point as the last biographies published in France some fifty years ago, like Washington Irving's work, for instance. In writing this book, I wanted to present a true and vivid account drawn from original Arab sources, taking into consideration everything recently acquired through the researches of specialists. I wanted to draw as accurate a portrait of Mahomet as possible, as he appears to me after watching him live again in the hearts of his adherents and in the tales from books. If every human life is instructive, if each destiny is enlightening, is it not particularly touching and deeply satisfying to meet one of the men whose message gave life to a portion of humanity ? The earliest sources of Mahomet's life are the Koran, the Sunna (tradition or the hadiths] and the Sira (first biographies). It is chiefly founded on the Koran, the most valid source although the most restricted. The hadiths of the traditionalists (Bokhari, vii PREFACE above all) who endeavoured to collect the smallest word or recall the least action of the Prophet are sometimes or while accusatory suspicious ; for, they seriously criticized the isnads (or chain of evidence) from the outside they did not judge it thoroughly from within. The different schools came to blows over the hadithS) a great number of which are obviously forged. On the other hand the schools are none too scrupulous and credit the master with almost any agreeable idea or wise statement. They have also made borrowings from the Scriptures, putting into Mahomet's mouth many Biblical or evangelical passages, or the refutation of certain Christian doctrines. Finally, they have attributed to him miracles which were clearly apocryphal since he declared himself unable to to perform them. Though possible, it is not always easy to plough through the enormous mass of hadiths^ once we have admitted the grounds for falsifi cation. Leaving out absurd, suspicious or plagiarized facts, there remain an appreciable number of hadiths which, when compared to other sources such as records of the times, appear at least, likely or very probable, even if not mathematically certain is certain in its outlines. " ; history rarely except It is to all sane methods," said Snouck contrary" Hurgronje, to reject a given tradition when we cannot trace the origin that gave birth to it and when there is no historic reason to discredit it." As for the Sira or the first biographies of Mahomet by Ibn Hisham (following Ibn Is'haq), by Waqidi, Ibn Sa'd then by ; by Halabi, Abulfida, Tabari, Mas'udi, etc., they share the weaknesses of the hadiths which they endeavoured, often with great to into and order difficulty, put logical chronological ; but in spite of everything, we must realize that they viii PREFACE to too an are obje<tive and do not conceal great extent the faults and indiscretions of the Prophet. This is especially true of the first ones. The further the the more and we go, on contrary, capricious conventional the biographies of Mahomet become. It is true that certain thinkers, like Ibn Khaldun in the fourteenth century, had original ideas. In our time, the modernists have reconstructed to a certain extent the Mahometan-Mussulman question, and have presented Mahomet somewhat insipidly and idealistically to 1 suit the taste of the present day, also speaking of Jesus in a flippant manner, which Mahomet condemned. From the European angle prejudices have for long opposed a truly scientific study ofthe origins of Islam (see in the Part I, Chapter IX), although nineteenth century a serious effort was made by the following : Caussin de Perceval, Muir, Weil, Margoliouth, Noldeke, Sprenger, SnouckHurgronje, Dozy. Somewhat more recently the works ofCaetani, Lammens, Massignon Montet, Casanova, Bell, Huart, Houdas, Marais, Arnold, Grimme, Goldziher, Gaudefroy-Demombynes, etc., have again brought up the question. Sometimes, unfortunately, certain of these specialists fell into the error of excessive radicalism. I course have tried, for my part, to steer a proper between the traditionalist out of date version (represented to-day by MM. Dinet and Sliman ben Ibrahim) and the hypercritical version of certain modern Orientalists. Mostly I have drawn from the two extremes, the primitive sources and the modern critics. The results of these last are unfortunately till incomplete, contradictory and negative as well 1 in and his Ameer Mohammed 'Abdu Egypt disciples ; Syed 'AH and the Islamic Review in India. IX PREFACE (a negative account is worthless and my intention was not to pen a succession of dissertations). While one Orientalist declares that Mahomet was superior to all his contemporaries and at least different from them, another decides that he resembled them in every way. The one makes him die of apoplexy caused an excessive the other of a delirious by appetite ; fever due to too abstinence. In the lengthy " hunting key to this amazing character, less than a god, more than a man, a Prophet," as Lamartine said, the theory of was and in Charcot's epilepsy brought up ; time, Sprenger's diagnosis was bad hysteria, now out of date since Babinski. But M. Massignon declares Mahomet to have been well-balanced. They had tried to reconstruct chronologically the Suras of the Koran, but none of the proposed lists coincides with any other. The hanifs were considered authentic thirty years ago, then for some time they were discredited but were countenanced again after the publication of verses now these are once more the Omayya's ; of learned It is that object suspicion. " probable " they did really exist and that their Abrahamism was added later, etc. Father Lammens, one of the most erudite of recent specialists, is unfortunately one of the most partial also. His brilliant and ingenious books are spoiled by his antipathy for Islam and its Prophet. Employing in this history . hypercritical measures which others have used against Christianity, the learned Jesuit says, for example, that when tradition agreed with the Koran, tradition copied the Koran. How make history if two concording witnesses feel they must disagree instead of standing by each other ? It is very true that the hadiths were occasionally forged to explain certain Koranic passages or to make use of PREFACE detail less the some true more or arbitrarily ; hadiths also tended to substantiate these facts and accept them to the letter. But frequently what they recount may be true. They say, for instance, that if the hadiths tell us Mahomet had a liking for honey, it is because the Koran mentions the curative value of this food. We might just as well say that because Mahomet liked honey and found it healthy he recommended it, or moreover that honey in itself is healthy and recommendable. Let us suppose this was exact (and no logical, ontological or historical impossibility prevents us from supposing that Mahomet liked honey), for, otherwise, how was the retailer of the hadiths able to glean it and relate it without incurring the suspicion of the modern scholar ? Be this as it may, Father Lammens's works are a precious mine from which I have often drawn his " " ; especially Berceau de I'lslam and his monograph on Mecca, for Chapters II and III, and I am desirous to state my debt. I have deliberately, however, cast out everything obviously false, such as miracles invented two centuries after the death of the person to whom they were attributed, and many other improbable things. Certain doubtful although possible facts have been accepted because of their importance, but then I have indicated their more or less certain or legendary character by careful distinctions. Strange and picturesque as this Life may appear, it is in no wise a romantic history. All the sayings of the characters are scrupulously rendered from the sources. The texts from the Koran are in italics. I have written Mahomet and not Mohammad. In twenty years, perhaps, I shall have given up this xi PREFACE transcription which dates from the eighteenth century " and also savours of it. But it seemed that a Life of Abulqasim Mohammad ben 'Abdallah ben 4 " Abdelmottalib el Hashimi would cause still more confusion to-day. We must note here that the original name of the Prophet was really Qotham, or Zobath, a name either soon after his birth or at the time of changed " his mission into that of Mohammad, the glorified ", a prophetic title more than a first name, properly speaking.