View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UNF Digital Commons University of North Florida UNF Digital Commons All Volumes (2001-2008) The sprO ey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry 2006 Looking Behind the Veil of an Idealized Past: The Useful Legacy of a False Prophet James Holeman University of North Florida Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unf.edu/ojii_volumes Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Suggested Citation Holeman, James, "Looking Behind the Veil of an Idealized Past: The sU eful Legacy of a False Prophet" (2006). All Volumes (2001-2008). 62. http://digitalcommons.unf.edu/ojii_volumes/62 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The sprO ey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry at UNF Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Volumes (2001-2008) by an authorized administrator of UNF Digital Commons. For more information, please contact Digital Projects. © 2006 All Rights Reserved Looking Behind the Veil of nature of the primary source material renders such an undertaking as an an Idealized Past: The exercise in futility.3 While early Muslim Useful Legacy of a False scholars claimed that they only repeated Prophet the traditions concerning Musaylima’s “apostasy,” in practice they relied on a James Holeman redacted oral tradition, and included or excluded certain stories and details about Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Paul Halsall, Musaylima – depending on the purpose, Assistant Professor of History sponsor and intended audience of the author’s work. Although Ibn Ishaq and Traditional Muslim narratives al-Waqidi’s accounts of the legend of maintain that in 632 C.E., while the Musaylima provide certain limited Prophet Muhammad (c. 570-632) was on insights into Musaylima’s movement, his deathbed, several Arabian tribes the growth and evolution of the apostatized from Islam only to be Musaylima legend in early Islamic “recaptured” by Muslim armies during a historiography is a better indication of series of wars fought under the first the changing construct of heresy and the Caliph Abu Bakr.1 Muslim traditions evolving construct of communal attributed leadership of those “apostate” authority in the first three centuries of movements to a number of “false Islam. prophets.”2 The most notorious of these Muhammad’s preeminent title of “enemies of God” was Musaylima B. the “Seal of the Prophets” necessitated Habib, otherwise known as the “arch- that Caliphs take on at least the veneer of liar” and the “false prophet” of rule based on prophetic precedent. For Yamamah. Several scholars have this reason, a number of Abbasid attempted a historical reconstruction of Caliphs sponsored scholars in an effort Musaylima’s career, but the problematic to legitimize their policies, laws, and right to rule. Although these early 1 I will use the Common Era (C.E.) Muslims scholars claimed that they only dating system for most of this work, although I collected and transmitted traditions will occasionally reference the Muslim dating about the life of Muhammad, the system (A.H. or After Hijra, 622 C.E.), which editorial process played a significant bases year one on the date of Muhammad’s factor in the transmission of early pilgrimage from Mecca to Medina, and signifies the advent of the Muslim polity. biographical material for Islam’s 2 For an excellent analysis of the Prophet, as well as his arch-nemesis suppression of the so-called “wars of apostasy” Musaylima. In this case study, the in the Arabian Peninsula, see Elias Shoufani, Al- primary sources reveal that these Riddah and the Muslim Conquest of Arabia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973). Shoufani rightfully asserts that the “wars of 3 For a summary of Western scholarly apostasy”, or ridda, was a literary construct used analysis of Musaylima, see Dale F. Eickelman, by Muslim scholars to describe the expansion of “Musaylima: An Approach to the Social the early Muslim community. He asserts (as do Anthropology of Seventh Century Arabia,” the primary sources) that the Bedouin tribes that Journal of the Economic and Social History of accepted Medinan suzerainty during the Orient 10 (1967): 17-52. For a listing of the Muhammad’s lifetime, and shook off the Muslim Arabic source material for Musaylima, consult yoke after his death, only nominally accepted W. Montgomery Watt’s article “Musaylima,” in Islam during the lifetime of the Prophet. the Encyclopedia of Islam. editorial craftsmen tailored the legacy of important factor in determining one’s Musaylima to serve a number of social and economic status. However, as purposes. These purposes ranged from inequalities within the umma grew, a issues of theology and law to issues of number of questions persisted – how land ownership and taxation. Early should the wealth and tax burden be Muslim scholars operated under the distributed?5 Were Muslims not equal in illusion that they mechanically the sight of God? Periodic Umayyad transmitted the sacred history of early reform attempts reflected both pushes Islam. Through the purposeful selection for conversion of the non-Arab subject of information, these scholars painted population to Islam, and also attempts to detailed portraits of Muhammad and his mollify the economic grievances of the foes. non-Arab mawali converts to Islam.6 Scholars sponsored by the This trend from “Arab” governance to caliphal office, over a number of years, “Islamic” governance also reflected a produced a series of texts, which reflect concerted scholarly effort to articulate a a concerted propaganda campaign aimed universal interpretation of Islam. The at shaping the historical record in favor Umayyad failure to reform resulted in of ruling dynasties. As the needs of the periodic rebellions that culminated in the dynasty in power changed, the historical Abbasid revolution.7 Abbasid sponsored record reflected these changes. These changes were inspired by a variety of 5 The term umma is generally translated factors, including agitation from below as “nation” or “community,” and refers to the urging social reform, the direct financial Muslim polity created by Muhammad in the interests of the caliphate, defamation of constitution of Medina. Check R.B. Serjeant, “The Sunnah Jami’ah, Pacts with the Yathrib a host of potential political rivals, and Jews, and the Tahrim of Yathrib: Analysis and evolving definitions of orthodox belief. Translation of the Documents Comprised in the In addition to exploring the various ways so-called ‘Constitution of Medina’,” Bulletin of early Muslim authors used the legacy of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Musaylima, I hope this work will offer a University of London 41 (1978): 1-42. Also see the same author in “The Constitution of modest contribution to the ongoing Medina.” The Islamic Quarterly 8 (1964): 3-16. debate concerning methodological Also see Gil Moshe, “The Constitution of approaches to early Islamic history. Medina: A Reconsideration,” Israel Oriental Regardless of whether Studies 4 (1974): 44-66. For a monograph on the Muhammad claimed to be a Prophet sent topic, check Muhammad Hamidullah, The First Written Constitution in the World: An Important to the Arabs or to all of humanity, the Document in the Time of the Holy Prophet, 3d Umayyad leadership was slow to ed. (Lahore (Pakistan): Kashmiri Bazar, 1975). encourage conversion to Islam in their 6 For an in-depth discussion of the realms. After all, the Caliph Umar process by which non-Arabs entered into established the precedent of dividing the clientage (mawali) relationships with Arab patrons upon conversion to Islam, and the social spoils of war based on the order in which 4 structure that resulted there from, see Patricia families converted to Islam. Tracing Crone, Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The one’s genealogy became a very Origins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 7 Michael Morony, “Bayn al-Fitnatayn: 4 Gordon Darnell Newby, The Making Problems of Periodization in Early Islamic of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the History,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 40, Earliest Biography of Muhammad (Columbia: no. 3 (1981): 247-51. My discussion of early University of South Carolina Press, 1989), 5. Islamic history utilizes Moroney’s suggested scholars incorporated traditions about Muhammad’s exclusive claim to be the Prophet into historical accounts that God’s final and most authoritative explained the past and present for ruling Prophet ensured that the future discourse dynasties. As we shall see, these texts of the Muslim community would revolve say more about the consensus of the around the historical paradigm of his scholarly circles that produced them than revelations. After all, God’s truth was they do about the actual events they timeless. Muhammad taught that human attempted to portray. innovation had corrupted the revelations The basic outline of the history of God’s previous messengers to the of the early Muslim community is as Jews and Christians. follows: During the lifetime of His successors, the “rightly Muhammad, when social problems guided” caliphs, violently suppressed the arose, Muhammad simply called on God “apostasy” of the many Arabian tribes for divine prescription. Thus, over the that rejected the authority of the caliph period of about twenty-three years, upon the death of Muhammad, and Muhammad delivered a divinely embarked on one of the most rapid and ordained social program for the nascent successful military conquests in history.9 Muslim community. His revelations, These early caliphs enjoyed an codified in the Qur’an, must have enormous amount of authority based on provided brilliant answers to the social their personnel connection to the problems of early seventh century Prophet. At first, leadership passed Arabia. However, Muhammad had no smoothly from Abu Bakr (r. 632-34) to surviving sons, and made no provision Umar (r.