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A Critical Evaluation of a Modern Biography William Muir’s The Life of Mohammad – From Original Sources and its Utilisation of Qur’anic Sources By ABOO BAKAR KAROLIA MA DISSERTATION Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS in SEMITIC LANGUAGES AND CULTURES in the FACULTY OF HUMANITIES at the UNIVERSITY of JOHANNESBURG SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR FARID ESACK CO-SUPERVISOR: DR SHAHID MATHEE Acknowledgements This study would not have been successful without the support and advice of a number of people. First, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my family. Foremost amongst them is my dear wife, Raihana, who appreciated and supported my efforts during the course of my study. I would also like to thank my supervisor, Professor Farid Esack, for his unstinting support and encouragement. I am deeply indebted to Dr Shahid Mathee, who largely directed my work, provided critical guidance and was supportive throughout my studies. I am also very grateful to Professor Hans Van Rensburg, who assisted in the direction of my work at its early stages, as well as Munir Hassan and Mohamed Ismail for their constructive suggestions and intellectual exchanges. Many thanks to the members and fellow students at the Department of Religion, without whom this study would not have been as interesting as it was. I trust that the academy will achieve greater heights of intellectual endeavour, which will benefit the greater good of humanity. Johannesburg, South Africa. 31st January, 2017. ii A Note of Conventions Transliteration Arabic words are transliterated according to a simplified version of the ‘International Journal of Middle East Studies’ system (no special characters, diacritics signs, or long vowels). Arabic words in unabridged English dictionaries are not italicised. Other Arabic words are italicised only in the first instance. Names Arabic names transcribed according to the preceding system unless a different transcription is dominant in English-language texts (e.g., Husayn not Hussein; `Abd Allah not Abdullah). iii Abstract This study is a critical evaluation of William Muir’s biography Life of Mohammad – From Original Sources (1923). Muir (d. 1905) was an Oriental scholar and an evangelical Christian from Scotland whose vocation in India as a civil servant of the British and experience with the people of India, Muslims in particular, induced him to write a biography of Muhammad. He was one of the first modern scholars to categorise the source materials from the traditional pioneering biographies to write a modern biography on the life of Muhammad. In so doing, he combined post-Enlightenment methodology with Christian Romantic sensibilities and evangelical missionary purposes to construct his biography. Muir’s biographical work contributed significantly to a genre of European literature that makes exclusive use of the original Muslim sources. This study will critically evaluate how Muir used the Qur’an as the primary source for his biography. It will also provide a brief overview of Western biographies of Muhammad that appeared after Muir’s work, highlighting the changes in the methodologies, approaches and tools Western biographies of Muhammad used after Muir. iv Table of Contents Affidavit i Acknowledgements ii A Note of Conventions iii Abstract iv Table of Contents v INTRODUCTION 1 The Quest of the Historical Muhammad 1 2 Western Writings on Muhammad 2 3 General (Non-Biographical) Writings 3 3.1 Earliest Writings 3 3.2 The End of the Renaissance Era 3 3.3 The Post-Renaissance Era 4 4 Modern Western Biography of Muhammad 5 4.1 The Western Biographical Tradition 5 5 The Sīra Literature 6 5.1 Source Materials of the Pioneering Sīra 8 6 Western Acquaintance with the Original Muslim Sīra Literature 10 7 The Earliest Western Biographers Using Original Muslim Sources 11 8 William Muir 14 9 Review of Literature on Muir’s Biography of Muhammad 15 10 This Dissertation’s Contribution 17 11 The Research Methodology and Approach to the Study 17 12 Chapter Outline 18 Chapter One WESTERN NOTIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF MUHAMMAD 1.0 Introduction 20 1.1 Christian Europe – The West 21 1.2 The Shift from a Hostile Reception of Muhammad 23 v 1.3 The Emergence of Western Biography of Muhammad 25 1.4 Nineteenth Century Western Writings on the Life of Muhammad 28 1.5 Orientalism Study of Islam and Muhammad 29 1.6 Twentieth Century Western Writings on Muhammad 31 1.7 Conclusion 32 Chapter Two THE GENEALOGY OF BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS ON MUHAMMAD – LOCATING WILLIAM MUIR HISTORICALLY 2.0 Introduction 35 2.1 Muhammad in the Qur’an 36 2.2 The Problem of Sources 36 2.3 Hadith – The Beginning of Historical Writing 38 2.3.1 The Emergence of Maghāzī and Sīra Genre 39 2.3.2 Transition from Hadith to History: the Sīra & Maghāzī Literature 40 2.4 Sīra 41 2.4.1 Precursors 41 2.5 The Earliest Modern Western Biographies of Muhammad Using Primary Muslim Sources 47 2.6 Conclusion 51 Chapter Three WILLIAM MUIR’S WORLDVIEW, SCHOLARLY ACHIEVEMENTS AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY OF MUHAMMAD 3.0 Introduction 53 3.1 Muir’s Early Life 53 3.1.1 Education 54 3.1.2 India 55 3.1.3 Muir’s Apprenticeship as Civil Servant 55 3.1.4 Muir’s Educational Activities 56 3.1.5 The Sepoy Mutiny 56 vi 3.1.6 Muir’s Tenure in the British Raj 59 3.2 Muir’s Mission in India 61 3.3 Muir’s Study of Islam 63 3.4 Preparing for His Biography of Muhammad 65 3.4.1 Influencing Factors 67 3.5 Muir’s Approach and Methodology 68 3.5.1 Muir’s View of Qur’an as a Source for Muhammad’s Biography 69 3.5.2 Hadith 70 3.5.3 Arab Poetry 71 3.6 Conclusion 72 Chapter Four MUIR’S APPROACH TO AND UTILISATION OF QUR’ANIC VERSES 4.0 Introduction 73 4.1 Explanatory Model 75 4.2 The Qur’anic Verses 77 4.2.1 Jewish and Christian Scholarly Influence on the Young Muhammad 77 4.2.2 Muhammad’s Confusion and Mental state 85 4.2.2.1 Qur’an: Sūrahs 103, 100 85 4.2.3 Muhammad Cries for Release from Mental Agitation ` 86 4.2.3.1 Qur’an:1, Sūrah al-Fātihah 86 4.2.4 Muhammad’s Claim to Prophethood – Announced to a Selected Few 87 4.2.4.1 Qur’an: 80:1-10, Sūrah al-`Alaq 87 4.2.5 Muhammad Making the Mission Public 92 4.2.6 Muhammad’s Supposed Political Expediency 96 4.2.7 Muhammad’s Memory Lapses and Contradictions in the Revelation 99 4.2.8 Damage Control in the Wake of “Satanic Verses” 104 4.3 Conclusion 107 Chapter Five POST-MUIR WESTERN BIOGRAPHIES OF MUHAMMAD vii 5.1 Post-Muir Western Biographies of Muhammad 110 5.2 Maxime Rodinson 120 5.3 Fred Donner 123 5.4 Conclusion 127 CONCLUSION 128 Bibliography 134 viii INTRODUCTION 1 The Quest of the Historical Muhammad The twentieth century witnessed the emergence of a genre of literature concerned with historical and foundational religious figures such as Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. For example, in 1906 Albert Schweitzer published Von Reimarus Zu Wrede: Eine Geschichte Der Leben-Jesu-Forschung in German, which “was translated into English by William Montgomery under the title The Quest of the Historical Jesus” (1914) (Jeffrey, 1926:327). Schweitzer’s work was a “survey of the various types of ‘Lives of Christ’, which has been produced by various schools of theological thought in Europe, ranging from the pious to the orthodox, uncritical type, to the wildest excesses of eschatological and even mythical interpretation” (ibid.). “His aim was to survey the various attempts that had been made to interpret the life of” Jesus, critically investigate the position of scholarship and assess the value of research over the years (ibid.). In 1926, Arthur Jeffrey (d. 1959) “suggested that the time was ripe for a similar survey on the life” of Muhammad, taking into account the newer intellectual as well as historical insights of his time (ibid.). Jeffrey believed that modern Western scholarship should “take stock of the work that had been done and gather up the assured results and note the trends of critical scholarship […] indicating the lines of investigation that the future will have to follow” (1926:327). For historian Fred Donner, a sketch of the life of Muhammad is plausible but presents a problem for the historian because the traditional Muslim sources of Muhammad’s life and career were compiled many years after Muhammad’s demise (2010:50). According to sociologist, Irving M. Zeitlin, modern Western scholars were nevertheless intent on catching a glimpse of the birth of Islam and the role played by “its founder” from the various Muslim sources in order to probe the historicity of Muhammad as represented in various genres of Islamic literature (2007:1-3).