by
Damien F. Mackey
Scholars have long pointed out the historical problems associated with
the life of the Prophet Mohammed and the history of Islam, with some going even
so far as to cast doubt upon Mohammed’s actual existence. Biblico-historical
events, normally separated the one from the other by many centuries, are re-cast
as contemporaneous in the Islamic texts. Muslim author, Ahmed Osman, has waxed
so bold as to squeeze, into the one Egyptian dynasty, the Eighteenth, persons
supposed to span more than one and a half millennia.
Now, as I intend to demonstrate in this article, biblico-historical
events that occurred during the neo-Assyrian era of the C8th BC, and then later
on, in the Persian era, have found their way into the biography of Mohammed
supposedly of the C7th AD.
Introduction
Whilst I have long held the belief that the
Prophet Mohammed was actually of Old Testament biblical origins, a BC time
Israelite mysteriously projected into AD time, I have had the greatest
difficulty in pinning him down to a specific character or to a specific
biblical period. I better realise now that there is a good reason for this.
Mohammed is a composite of a number of major biblical characters, spanning a
succession of eras, but masterfully woven by Islam into the one credible figure
– were it not for those shocking historical anomalies. Credible, yes, yet also incredible.
The Prophet Mohammed is a larger than life figure, inspiring, magnificent, whilst
being enormously complex.
But my pressing interest in this article is not
whether or not Mohammed was a paedophile, or had bad breath, told lies, was an epileptic,
or delusional. No, what fascinates me is the historical problem. And there are others out there who have
confronted this issue, from popular writers such as author Robert Spencer, founder of the major
website Jihad Watch, who recently
published a book with the provocative title Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam’s Obscure
Origins (ISI Books, March 2012),
… was written by the eminent scholar Johannes J. G. (Hans) Jansen, an
Arabist and a Professor of Modern Islamic thought at the University of Utrecht
in the Netherlands until his retirement in 2008. Among his other
accomplishments, he has translated the Koran into Dutch. Jansen points out that
what sparse information and physical evidence we do have does not seem to
confirm the traditional Islamic accounts of the sixth and seventh centuries.
In fact, archaeological
findings contradict the traditional picture. Only further archaeological work
in present-day Arabia and Greater Syria can shed more light on these issues. In
Saudi Arabia, such excavations are forbidden, and Wahhabi hardliners have
actively destroyed some sites. Furthermore, the religious authorities may not
be interested in bringing to light findings that might contradict their
religious views or undermine Saudi Arabia’s central status in Islam.
As Jansen states, “An Iraqi
scholar, Ibn Ishaq (c. 760), wrote a book that is the basis of all biographies
of Muhammad. No biographical sketches of Muhammad exist that do not depend on
Ibn Ishaq. If an analysis of Ibn Ishaq’s book establishes that for whatever
reason it cannot be seen as an historical source, all knowledge we possess
about Muhammad evaporates. When Ibn Ishaq’s much-quoted and popular book turns
out to be nothing but pious fiction, we will have to accept that it is not
likely we will ever discover the truth about Muhammad.”
Moreover, a fully developed
Arabic script did not yet exist at the time when the Koran was supposedly
collected for the first time, which further introduces substantial sources of
error. The Koran itself was probably far less stable and collected much later
than Muslims believe.
Finally, the hadith
collections which elaborate upon the personal example of Muhammad were
developed many generations after the alleged events of his life had taken
place, and are considered partially unreliable even by Muslims. It is likely
that a great deal of this material was fabricated outright in a process of
political and cultural struggle long after the first conquests.
[End
of quote]
Spencer does not claim to be an
original scholar in these matters, but credits such individuals as Ignaz
Goldziher, Theodor Nöldeke, Arthur Jeffery, Henri Lammens, Alphonse Mingana,
Joseph Schacht, Aloys Sprenger and Julius Wellhausen, as well as more recent
researchers such as Suliman Bashear, Patricia Crone, Volker Popp, Yehuda Nevo,
Michael Cook, Ibn Warraq, Judith Koren, Ibn Rawandi, Günter Lüling, David S.
Powers and John Wansbrough. And we continue reading here:
Several contemporary critical
scholars — Christoph Luxenberg, for example — have been forced to write under
pseudonyms due to persistent threats against their lives. This virtually never
happened to scholars in Christian Europe who critically examined the Bible or
the historical Jesus during the nineteenth century, but it happens frequently
to those who question Islam and its traditions.
One might suspect that the
main reason why many Muslims often tend to react with extreme aggression
against anyone questioning their religion is because it was originally built on
shaky foundations and could collapse if it is subjected to closer scrutiny.
Non-Muslim chroniclers writing
at the time of the early Arabian conquests made no mention of the Koran, Islam
or Muslims, and scant mention of Muhammad. The Arab conquerors themselves
didn’t refer to the Koran during the first decades, quite possibly because it
did not then exist in a recognizable form.
Modern
scholars like Patricia Crone have questioned whether Mecca as an important
trading city and center of pilgrimage truly existed by the year 600 [AD], as
Islamic sources claim. Its location makes no sense if it was supposed to be
located on the trade routes between the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Europe.
No non-Muslim historian mentions it in any accounts of trade from the sixth or
seventh centuries. Given the centrality of Mecca in traditional history, this
casts the entire canonical story of the origins of Islam into doubt.
[End
of quote]
… Why did
the Kaaba play a central role in Muhammad’s fantasies? While no historical
facts support his claims, Muslims are seldom deterred. Islam is built upon the
notion that Abraham was not only a Muslim [Q. 2:31] but that he was
selected by Allah to build the Kaaba in Mecca [Q. 2:125-127], and that
while doing so he established the rituals and beliefs which are the
cornerstones of Islamic worship. The pagan origins and practices of the Kaaba
will not be discussed here, only the patriarchal journeys and the Islamic corruption
of the Bible’s texts. Muslims claim that Mecca and the Kaaba are the centers of
worship for the entire world. Christians and Jews know that it is Jerusalem,
where lays the chief cornerstone of Yahweh's kingdom [Psalm 102:16; I Peter
2:6]. The City of David [Zion] is mentioned nearly 50 times in the Bible as
the home of God's people [Isaiah 10:24] and where the hosts will reign [Isaiah
24:23]. Are Muslims going to tell us that these references are corruptions
in the texts and that Mecca was the intended city the whole time? Hardly even remotely
plausible.
The Kaaba in Mecca is without
equal in veneration in Islamic tradition, and had been revered by Arab pagans
long before Muhammad’s birth. The Muslim religion holds that the Kaaba was
built by Abraham and Ishmael after hearing a direct revelation from Allah. This
seems improbable. After all, once Allah guides a people on the right course and
provides a mode of conduct for worship through a chosen Prophet, Allah does not
then lead them astray into confusion or an inability to see the right course [Q.
9:115]. How is it then that such a man as Abraham would be sent to Mecca to
deliver the people from polytheism and build the Kaaba only to later have them
fall into apostasy and disbelief, needing yet another prophet in the 7th
century A.D.? Abraham being in Mecca is just not consistent with important
Islamic doctrines, and a myth. For example, in Q. 2:125 the Kaaba is being
purified [Ar. 'tahara'], yet in Q. 2:127 the foundation are still being
raised [Ar. Rafa'a]. Depending on the traditions being reviewed, the
Kaaba was built by Allah or maybe Adam or possibly Abraham. But, is it true? ….
[End
of quote]
Returning again to the Spencer
article, we read about the problems associated with the original language:
The Koran claims to be written
in clear Arabic, but even educated Arabs find parts of it hard to understand.
The German philologist Gerd R. Puin, whose pioneering work is quoted by Ibn
Warraq in What the Koran Really Says, states that up to a fifth of it
is just incomprehensible.
Perhaps
one of the reasons why the Koran stresses its Arabic nature may be, ironically,
that portions of it were not originally written in Arabic at all, but in
related Semitic languages.
Christoph Luxenberg has
suggested that some sections of it were originally written in Syriac, a dialect
of Aramaic that had long been used as a literary language in much of the Middle
East and the Fertile Crescent. He demonstrates convincingly that certain
puzzling Koranic verses make more sense if you read them in Syriac. The virgins
that brave Muslim men are supposed to enjoy in Paradise (Koran 44:51-57,
52:17-24, 56:27-40) may not be virgins at all, but rather white raisins, or
perhaps grapes. Yes, fruit.
It’s
possible that some of these Christian Syriac texts were written by a heretical
group that rejected the Trinity of mainstream Christianity. It’s certainly true
that a few Koranic chapters as we know them are somewhat more tolerant than
others, but if we believe this non-traditional reading of history, some of them
were based on pre-existing Jewish or Christian texts.
[End
of quote]
Much of them, I should argue
along similar lines, were based on the Old and New Testament!
I think that Spencer really gets
close to hitting the nail on the head when he arrives at the conclusion that
the Prophet Mohammed was, in fact, “a semi-legendary figure … whose exploits
were greatly elaborated upon by later generations” - though my qualification of
what he argues would be that this “semi-legendary figure” was based on real historical individuals,
and not on figures as historically vague as the ones that Spencer will now propose:
In the final section of the
book, Spencer sums up the findings to date. He suggests that Muhammad may have
existed as a semi-legendary figure, comparable to Robin Hood, King Arthur or
William Tell, whose exploits were greatly elaborated upon by later generations.
Yet the traditional account of him as Islam’s founder is riddled with gaps and
inconsistencies.
The Arab conquerors may have
known some vague monotheism partly inspired by Christians and Jews, but in the
generations and centuries after the conquests they abandoned this and developed
a more militant creed that came to function as a vehicle for Arab nationalism
and imperialism. Perhaps the conquests shaped Islam more than Islam shaped the
conquests.
But if someone more or less
invented Muhammad, wouldn’t they want to invent a more sympathetic character
than the very ruthless and brutal man we see emerge from the traditional
accounts? Possibly yes, but as Spencer comments, the Arabs of this age may have
thought that such a ruthless character was an inspiration for conquest and
empire-building.
[End
of quote]
Most surprising of all is the conclusion
of Muslim convert, Muhammad Sven Kalisch, Germany's first professor of Islamic
theology, that ‘Mohammed probably never existed’ (http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122669909279629451):
…. Muhammad Sven Kalisch … fasts
during the Muslim holy month, doesn't like to shake hands with Muslim women and
has spent years studying Islamic scripture. Islam, he says, guides his life.
So it came as something of a
surprise when Prof. Kalisch announced the fruit of his theological research.
His conclusion: The Prophet Muhammad probably never existed.
Theology Without Muhammad
Read a translated excerpt from "Islamic Theology Without the Historic
Muhammad -- Comments on the Challenges of the Historical-Critical Method for
Islamic Thinking" by Professor Kalisch.
Muslims, not surprisingly, are
outraged. Even Danish cartoonists who triggered global protests a couple of
years ago didn't portray the Prophet as fictional. German police, worried about
a violent backlash, told the professor to move his religious-studies center to
more-secure premises.
"We had no idea he would
have ideas like this," says Thomas Bauer, a fellow academic at Münster
University who sat on a committee that appointed Prof. Kalisch. "I'm a
more orthodox Muslim than he is, and I'm not a Muslim."
When Prof. Kalisch took up his
theology chair four years ago, he was seen as proof that modern Western
scholarship and Islamic ways can mingle -- and counter the influence of radical
preachers in Germany. He was put in charge of a new program at Münster, one of
Germany's oldest and most respected universities, to train teachers in state
schools to teach Muslim pupils about their faith.
Muslim leaders cheered and joined
an advisory board at his Center for Religious Studies. Politicians hailed the
appointment as a sign of Germany's readiness to absorb some three million
Muslims into mainstream society. But, says Andreas Pinkwart, a minister
responsible for higher education in this north German region, "the results
are disappointing."
Prof. Kalisch, who insists he's
still a Muslim, says he knew he would get in trouble but wanted to subject
Islam to the same scrutiny as Christianity and Judaism. German scholars of the
19th century, he notes, were among the first to raise questions about the
historical accuracy of the Bible.
Many scholars of Islam question
the accuracy of ancient sources on Muhammad's life. The earliest biography, of
which no copies survive, dated from roughly a century after the generally
accepted year of his death, 632, and is known only by references to it in much
later texts. But only a few scholars have doubted Muhammad's existence. Most
say his life is better documented than that of Jesus.
Muhammad Sven Kalish
"Of course Muhammad
existed," says Tilman Nagel, a scholar in Göttingen and author of a new
book, "Muhammad: Life and Legend." The Prophet differed from the
flawless figure of Islamic tradition, Prof. Nagel says, but "it is quite
astonishing to say that thousands and thousands of pages about him were all
forged" and there was no such person.
All the same, Prof. Nagel has
signed a petition in support of Prof. Kalisch, who has faced blistering
criticism from Muslim groups and some secular German academics. "We are in
Europe," Prof. Nagel says. "Education is about thinking, not just
learning by heart."
Prof. Kalisch's religious studies
center recently removed a sign and erased its address from its Web site. The
professor, a burly 42-year-old, says he has received no specific threats but
has been denounced as apostate, a capital offense in some readings of Islam.
"Maybe people are
speculating that some idiot will come and cut off my head," he said during
an interview in his study.
A few minutes later, an assistant
arrived in a panic to say a suspicious-looking digital clock had been found
lying in the hallway. Police, called to the scene, declared the clock harmless.
A convert to Islam at age 15,
Prof. Kalisch says he was drawn to the faith because it seemed more rational
than others. He embraced a branch of Shiite Islam noted for its skeptical bent.
After working briefly as a lawyer, he began work in 2001 on a postdoctoral
thesis in Islamic law in Hamburg, to go through the elaborate process required
to become a professor in Germany.
The Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S.
that year appalled Mr. Kalisch but didn't dent his devotion. Indeed, after he
arrived at Münster University in 2004, he struck some as too conservative. Sami
Alrabaa, a scholar at a nearby college, recalls attending a lecture by Prof.
Kalisch and being upset by his doctrinaire defense of Islamic law, known as
Sharia.
In private, he was moving in a
different direction. He devoured works questioning the existence of Abraham,
Moses and Jesus. Then "I said to myself: You've dealt with Christianity
and Judaism but what about your own religion? Can you take it for granted that
Muhammad existed?"
He had no doubts at first, but
slowly they emerged. He was struck, he says, by the fact that the first coins
bearing Muhammad's name did not appear until the late 7th century -- six decades
after the religion did.
He traded ideas with some
scholars in Saarbrücken who in recent years have been pushing the idea of
Muhammad's nonexistence. They claim that "Muhammad" wasn't the name
of a person but a title, and that Islam began as a Christian heresy.
Prof. Kalisch didn't buy all of
this. Contributing last year to a book on Islam, he weighed the odds and called
Muhammad's existence "more probable than not." By early this year,
though, his thinking had shifted. "The more I read, the historical person
at the root of the whole thing became more and more improbable," he says.
He has doubts, too, about the
Quran. "God doesn't write books," Prof. Kalisch says.
[End
of quote]
Some Shocking Anomalies in
Islamic History
Whilst one could point to many of these, I
just want to mention a few that have struck me as being particularly incredible
and bold. Taking these in chronological order - that is, in a proper
chronological order - they are:
Mecca’s Ka'aba, so vital to Islam, built by
Abraham;
Egypt’s Vizier Hemiunu identified by some as
Haman of the story of Queen Esther;
'Abraha ('Abrahas) attacks Mecca in year of
Mohammed’s birth (to be explained);
Nehemiah as a contemporary of Mohammed.
Mecca.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the city of
Mecca is late, and certainly could not have been relevant to the time of Abram
(Abraham). A study from Dr. Rafat Amari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ABakkah) shows that there is no historical record
penned before the 4th century AD, that suggests that Mecca ever existed before
that time, while other ancient Arabian towns are well attested in the historical record.[11] In another study, Dr. Rafat Amari found
that no pre-4th century historical or archaeological record that suggests that
the Kaaba existed before the early 5th century.[13]
‘Mecca’, as the centre of worship, at the
centre of the world, of the nations (cf. Ezekiel 5:5), can only have been,
originally, Jerusalem; the name Mecca having been derived from the
Arabic Muqa (Mecca) in Bayt
al-Muqaddas, referring to “Jerusalem”. For as quoted above: “Muslims claim that Mecca and the
Kaaba are the centers of worship for the entire world. Christians and Jews know
that it is Jerusalem, where lays the chief cornerstone of Yahweh's kingdom [Psalm
102:16; I Peter 2:6]”. The original Ka'aba, or “Cube”, could only have been the Holy of Holies in the
Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. The Holy of Holies “was a perfect cube” (http://the-tabernacle-place.com/articles/what_is_the_tabernacle/tabernacle_holy_of):
Within the Holy
Place of the tabernacle, there was an inner room called the Holy of Holies, or
the Most Holy Place. Judging from its name, we can see that it was a most
sacred room, a place no ordinary person could enter. It was God’s special
dwelling place in the midst of His people. During the Israelites’ wanderings in
the wilderness, God appeared as a pillar of cloud or fire in and above the Holy
of Holies. The Holy of Holies was a perfect cube — its length, width and height
were all equal to 15 feet.
[End
of quote]
Now, whilst Abraham himself never visited
Mecca, he certainly did visit the site of the Temple Mount, or Mount Moriah,
with his son, Isaac (Genesis 22:2).
Not surprisingly, the story of this famous
incident occurs also in the Qur'an, but differently told. There even appears to
be disagreement amongst Islamic scholars as to which son of Abraham was
intended for the sacrifice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac):
Among early Muslim scholars, however, there was a
dispute over the identity of the son.[12] The argument of those early scholars who
believed it was Isaac rather than Ishmael (notably Ibn Ḳutayba, and al-Ṭabarī)
was that "God's perfecting his mercy on Abraham and Isaac" referred
to his making Abraham his friend, and to his rescuing Isaac. On the contrary,
the other parties held that the promise to Sarah was of a son, Isaac, and a
grandson, Jacob,[13] excluded the possibility of a premature
death of Isaac.[12]
[End
of quote]
(b) Haman.
Also quite outlandish are certain attempts to
merge the Vizier of Old Kingdom Egypt, Hemiunu, with Haman of the Persian era. Though
this preposterous situation seems to be quite consistent with Islam’s worrying
lack of any historical perspective (as more recently typified by the efforts of
Ahmed Osman), ranking with this absurdity associated with Mary the mother of
Jesus (http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Menj/sister_of_aaron.htm):
The Quran confuses Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus, with Miriam the
sister of Moses. The Quran identifies Mary as the sister of Aaron, the daughter
of Imran, whose mother was the wife of Imran:
When the wife of Imran said, 'Lord, I have vowed to Thee,
in dedication, what is within my womb. Receive Thou this from me; Thou hearest,
and knowest.' And when she gave birth to her she said, 'Lord, I have given
birth to her, a female.' (And God knew very well what she had given birth to;
the male is not as the female.) 'And I have named her Mary, and
commend her to Thee with her seed, to protect them from the accursed Satan.' S.
3:35-36 Arberry
Then she brought the child to her folk carrying him; and they said, 'Mary,
thou hast surely committed a monstrous thing! Sister of Aaron,
thy father was not a wicked man, nor was thy mother a woman unchaste.' S.
19:27-28
And Mary, Imran's daughter, who guarded her virginity, so
We breathed into her of Our Spirit, and she confirmed the Words of her Lord and
His Books, and became one of the obedient. S. 66:12
Compare this to what the Holy Bible says:
"Then Mary (Hebrew- Mariam), the prophetess, the
sister of Aaron, took the timbrel in her hand…" Exodus 15:20
"The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter
of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt; and to Amram she bore Aaron and Moses
and their sister Miriam." Numbers 26:49
"The children of Amram: Aaron, Moses, and Miriam. The
sons of Aaron: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar." 1 Chronicles 6:3
"For
I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of
slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam."
Micah 6:4
[End
of quote]
History well knows that Hemiunu was the
famous Vizier of Egypt’s Fourth Dynasty, and possibly even the architect of the
Great Pyramid at Giza.
Conventional history would date Hemiunu to c.
2500 BC - but, according to my revision of Egyptian history, this would be about
a millennium too early. See e.g. my:
Moses - May be Staring
Revisionists Right in the Face
And, whether or not I am
right in my identifying of Haman with king Jehoiachin (Coniah) “the Captive”,
of Judah (based on Jewish legends that Haman was in fact a Jew):
The Wicked Haman Un-Masked?
The psychology of Islamic Awareness: It may be
probable that it is somebody else?
Just how much the IA-authors are groping in the
dark can be seen in one little formulation in one of their footnotes. Before
they turn to their “substantiation” and promotion of Bucaille’s claims, they
present this introductory paragraph:
Haman is mentioned six times in the Qur'an: Surah 28,
verses 6, 8 and 38; Surah 29, verse 39; and Surah 40, verses 24 and 36. The
above ayahs portray Haman as someone close to Pharaoh, who was also in charge
of building projects, otherwise the Pharaoh would have directed someone else.
So, who is Haman? It appears that no commentator of the Qur'an has dealt with
this question on a thorough hieroglyphic basis. As previously mentioned, many
authors have suggested that "Haman" in the Qur'an is reference to
Haman, a counsellor of Ahasuerus who was an enemy of the Jews. Meanwhile others
have been searching for consonances with the name of the Egyptian god
"Amun."[58]
There would not be much to comment on in this paragraph,
were it not for the fact that they added the following footnote to their last
sentence:
[58] Syed suggests that "Haman" is a title of a
person not his name, just as Pharaoh was a title and not a proper personal
name. Syed proposes that the title "Haman" referred to the "high
priest of Amun". Amun is also known as "Hammon" and both are
normal pronunciations of the same name. Syed's identification of Haman as
"the high priest of Amun" may be probable. See S. M. Syed,
"Historicity Of Haman As Mentioned In The Qur'an", The Islamic
Quarterly, 1980, Volume 24, No. 1 and 2, pp. 52-53; Also see a slightly
modified article by him published four years later: S. M. Syed, "Haman In
The Light Of The Qur'an", Hamdard Islamicus, 1984, Volume 7, No. 4,
pp. 86-87. (Source; bold emphasis mine)1
On one hand, they seem to discount the suggestion of
connecting the name Haman with the god Amun since that is something that was
only done by “others”, and they do not come back to this idea in their article.
On the other hand, they write in their footnote that this “identification of
Haman as ‘the high priest of Amun’ may be probable”. What is that supposed to
mean? Is it probable or is it not probable? And if this identification is
probable, does that mean that Bucaille’s claims are then improbable? Why then
do they dedicate most of the space in their article to propagating Bucaille’s
claims? After all, two contradictory answers cannot both be probable at the
same time. In normal language, “probable” means that it has a probability that
is higher than 50%. And that means that all other potential solutions have a
probability that is less than 50%. Despite the fact that they expanded this
footnote when they revised their paper, this nonsensical formulation stayed the
same.
After Islamic Awareness argued their case for the
Bucaille-ian Haman, they then write:
It is also interesting to note that there also existed a
similar sounding name called Hemon[71] (or Hemiunu / Hemionu[72]
as he is also known as), a vizier to King Khnum-Khufu who is widely considered
to be the architect of Khnum-Khufu's the Great Pyramid at Giza. He lived in the
4th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom Period (c. 2700 - 2190 BCE).
It remains unclear, however, why Islamic Awareness
considers this interesting. Do they seriously consider him a candidate for the
quranic Haman, or do they not? If not, why would they introduce him in their
article? Somehow, it seems to be an implicit suggestion of Hemiunu as a
candidate for Haman – particularly since there are indeed a number of Muslims
who are seriously propagating Hemiunu as the Haman of the Qur’an!2
In any case, we will take a closer look at Hemiunu shortly.
So, all in all, Islamic Awareness offers the world
three Hamans: (a) the high-priest of Amun (a speculative construct and
mere hypothesis, no evidence is provided in their article, not connected to a
specific date or person), (b) “hmn-h, the overseer of the stone-quarry workers
of Amun” (19th or 20th dynasty, roughly 1300-1100 BC),
and (c) Hemiunu the vizier of Khufu (4th dynasty, ca. 2570 BC).
First the Muslims had the problem that there was no Haman in Egypt, contrary to
the claims of the Qur’an, and now we have the opposite problem that there are
too many.
Why
is that a problem? Because adding more and more “potential Hamans” to the
discussion also means that the probability for each one of these to be the
right one is decreasing. ….
[End
of quote]
(c) 'Abraha
('Abrahas)
This is the one that really grabbed my
attention. It is chronologically important because it is (unlike (a) and (b)) dated contemporaneously with Mohammed. In fact, it is dated to
the very year of his birth, supposedly c. 570 AD. It is the account of a potentate’s
march on Mecca, with the intention of destroying the Ka'aba. The whole thing,
however, is entirely fictional, though it is based upon a real event: namely,
the famous march upon Jerusalem by the forces of king Sennacherib of Assyria
(c. 700 BC). The reference to “elephants” is irrelevant (or irrelephant) in the
neo-Assyrian era.
As noted in (a), Mecca and Ka'aba ought to be re-read, in the context of
Mohammed, as, respectively, Jerusalem and the Holy of Holies.
'Abraha
(Ge'ez: 'Abreha) also known as 'Abraha al-Asram or Abraha b. as-Saba'h, was an
Aksumite Christian ruler of Yemen.
….
A
number of legends of popular origin have been woven around 'Abraha's name in
Arab tradition which have not yet been substantiated. Of these traditions, the
best-known concern the expedition against Mecca. At this period Mecca was the
thriving center of the pagan cult of the Ka'aba and the pilgrim traffic was in
the hands of the powerful Qurays family. Fired with Christian zeal, 'Abraha set
out to build a magnificent church at Sana'a to serve as a counter-attraction to
the surrounding pagan peoples. This aroused the hostility of the Qurays who
feared that the pilgrim traffic with its lucrative offerings would be diverted
to Sana'a. It is sometimes said that one of their adherents succeeded in
defiling the church and this led 'Abraha to embark upon a campaign against
Mecca. This event is associated in Islamic tradition with the year of the
Prophet's birth, c. 570 A.D. 'Abraha is said to have used elephants in the
campaign and the date is celebrated as the Year of the Elephant, 'am al
fil.' An indirect reference to the event is found in Surah 105 of
the Quran. 'Abraha's expedition probably failed due to the successful
delaying tactics of the Qurays and pestilence broke out in the camp, which
decimated his army and forced him to withdraw. Another tradition relates the
expedition to an unsuccessful economic mission to the Qurays by 'Abraha's son.
….
No reliable information exists
about the date of 'Abraha's death although tradition places it immediately
after his expedition to Mecca. He was succeeded on the throne by two of his
sons, Yaksum and Masruq, born to him by Raihäna, a Yemenite noblewoman whom
'Abraha had abducted from her husband.
[End
of quote]
This is just one of many later versions, more or less accurate, of the
invasion of Israel by the almost 200,000-strong army of Sennacherib. E.g., Sirach
refers to it accurately in 14:18-25, as did Judas Maccabeus in 2 Maccabees
8:19. Herodotus managed to mangle it and re-locate it to Pelusium in Egypt (http://www.varchive.org/tac/lastcamp.htm):
Herodotus (II. 141) relates
this event and gives a version he heard from the Egyptians when he visited
their land two and a half centuries after it happened. When Sennacherib invaded
Pelusium, the priest-king Sethos went with a weak army to defend the frontier.
In a single night hordes of field mice overran the Assyrian camp, devoured
quivers, bowstrings and shield handles, and put the Assyrian army to flight.
Another version was given by Berosus, the Chaldean priest of the third century
before the present era.
[End
of quote]
“Pestilence”, or was it “field mice”? Actually,
it was neither. The real story can be read in the Hebrew Book of Judith, a
simplified account of which I have provided in my article:
“Nadin went into
everlasting darkness”.
As with the story of Mohammed, this wonderful victory for ancient Israel
has been projected into AD time, now with the (possibly Jewish) heroine, “Gudit”
(read Judith), defeating the Aksumites [Axumites] (read Assyrians), the
Axumites being the same nation as 'Abraha’s (http://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=1103.0;wap2):
Historian J.A. Rogers in the early 1900s
identified Gudit as one in the
same with a black Hebrew Queen named Esther and associated her with the
"Falasha" Jewish dynasty that reigned from 950 to 1260AD. Many
Falashas
today proudly claim her as one of their own.
Yet it is of dispute that Gudit was of the
Jewish faith. And many in
fact believe she probably adhered to indigenous African-Ethiopian based
religion, hence her seemingly strong resentment towards a then
encroaching Judeo-Christian Axum.
Whatever her origins or real name, Gudit's conquering of
Axum put an end
to that nation-state's reign of power. Her attack came so swift and
efficiently, that the Axumite forces were scattered in her army's wake.
[End
of quote]
That sounds like the culmination of the Book of Judith!
There may be some true glimpses of Sennacherib in the account
of the invasion by the forces of 'Abraha. It was actually Sennacherib’s
son (the “Nadin” above) who was killed by Judith, and we read above: “Another
tradition relates the expedition to an unsuccessful economic mission … by
'Abraha's son”. And, as Sennacherib died shortly after his army’s demise, so: “No
reliable information exists about the date of 'Abraha's death although
tradition places it immediately after his expedition to Mecca”. And
Sennacherib’s death occurred at the hands of two of his sons, whilst: “['Abraha]
was succeeded on the throne by two of his sons …”. (http://www.the-faith.com/featured/abrahas-elephant-destruction-kabah/)
Moreover,
Sennacherib had formerly sent up to Jerusalem his official, Rabshakeh (Isaiah 36:2): “Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army
from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem”. Similarly: “From Al-Maghmas
[Michmash?], Abraha sent a man named Al-Aswad ibn Maqsud to the forefront of
his army”. Now, the sarcastic Rabshakeh
had taunted the officials of king Hezekiah with these words (v. 8): ‘Come now, make a
bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand
horses—if you can put riders on them!’ In a dim reflection of this powerful
incident, whilst reversing it, we find 'Abraha’s man saying: “I have come to the House that is
your religion and the religion of your fathers and that is your sanctuary and
protection – for the purpose of destroying it. You do not speak to me about
that, yet you speak to me about (a meager) 200 camels that belong to you!” 2000
horses reduced to a tenth and becoming 200 camels.
In a further connection with Assyria, with Nineveh,
Mohammed is said to have encountered a young Christian from that famous city.
One wonders, therefore, if Mohammed ought to be re-dated closer to c. 612 BC
(when Nineveh was irrevocably destroyed), or, say (for symmetry), to c. 612 AD.
The
Christian servant 'Addas was greatly impressed by these words and said:
"These are words which people in this land do not generally use." The
prophet (s) asked: "What land are you from, and what is your
religion?" 'Addas replied: "I am Christian by faith and come from
Nineveh." The prophet Muhammad (s) then said: "You belong to the city
of the righteous Yunus (Jonah), son of Matta."
Even more
worryingly, perhaps, Mohammed claimed to be the very “brother” of the prophet
Jonah: “ 'Addas asked him anxiously if he knew anything about Jonah. The
prophet (s) significantly remarked: "He is my brother. He was a prophet
and so am I." Thereupon 'Addas paid homage to Muhammad (s) and kissed his
head, his hands and his feet”.
For my
reconstruction of Jonah and Nineveh, see:
Prophet Jonah and the Beginnings of a New History
Nehemiah
Having fairly often read about the biblical
Nehemiah, I nearly fell off my chair when I read in a French publication that
there was supposedly a Jewish Nehemiah contemporaneous with the Prophet
Mohammed, that Nehemiah doing the same sorts of things that the biblical
version of the name had done. I have recently written about this in:
Two Supposed Nehemiahs: BC time and AD time
Now this is a very strange
Afterglow of BC in AD time!
There is a strange interfacing (mirroring) of c. 600 BC [I
picked this round figure for purposes of symmetry only] events with c. 600 AD
events, particularly the appearance of [a] Nehemiah in both cases, serving the
Persians in both cases, in relation to Jerusalem in both cases.
600 BC, approximately, has been sucked all the way forward to
600 AD!
…. One extraordinary case [reference to the Velikovskian
aftershocks as quoted above] that has just come to light for me concerns
Nehemiah (thought to be a Jew) of c. 600 BC.
Now I find that there was a Nehemiah, a Jew, supposedly in
614 AD (the era of Mohammed), to whom a Persian general had entrusted the city
of Jerusalem (just as “Artaxerxes”, thought to have been an ancient Persian
king, had allowed Nehemiah his cupbearer, the governor, to return to Jerusalem
and to restore the damaged city). This
supposedly later Nehemiah “offers a sacrifice on the site of the Temple”,
according to Étienne Couvert (La Vérité
sur les Manuscripts de la Mer Morte, 2nd ed, Éditions de Chiré, p. 98. My translation).
“He even seems to have attempted to restore the Jewish cult of sacrifice”, says
Maxine Lenôtre (Mahomet Fondateur de
L’Islam, Publications MC, p. 111, quoting from S.W. Baron’s, Histoire d’Israël, T. III, p. 187. My translation),
who then adds (quoting from the same source): “Without any doubt, a number of
Jews saw in these events a repetition of the re-establishment of the Jewish
State by Cyrus and Darius [C6th BC kings of ancient Persia] and behaved as the
rulers of the city and of the country”.
Whilst this is quite a penetrating observation as far as it
goes, I think that the conclusion ought actually to go far deeper even than
this. This “Nehemiah, a Jew”, I now suggest, was none other than the original
Nehemiah himself, “the governor”, of the OT Book of Nehemiah. He was not
‘repeating the re-establishment of the Jewish state by Cyrus and Darius’, but
was the very one who had prophetically envisioned it!
He has been sucked all the way forward to 600 AD!
And Mohammed, originally an Old Testament prophet, has been curiously
metamorphosised into a C7th AD Arabian prophet.
[End
of quote]
Part Two:
From Birth to Marriage
The ‘life’ of Mohammed will be shown to consist of, to a large extent,
a string of biblical episodes (relating to, for instance, Moses; David;
Job/Tobias; Jeremiah; Jesus Christ), but altered and/or greatly embellished,
and re-cast into an Arabian context.
This has been achieved with the greatest of skill, conflating all of
these disparate sources, and re-arranging them into a thrilling epic of
literary magnificence.
The Neo-Assyrian Factor
Whilst
it is not to be commonly expected for ancient Assyria to be discussed in the
context of the Prophet Mohammed, given that the Assyrian empire had dissolved
in the C7th BC, and here is Mohammed supposedly in the C7th AD, I found reason
to raise this issue in Part One:
Why?
Because an event that is said to have taken
place in the very year that Mohammed was born, c. 570 AD, the invasion of Mecca
by 'Abraha[s] of the kingdom of Axum [Aksum], has all the earmarks, I thought,
of the disastrous campaign of Sennacherib of Assyria against Israel.
Not 570 AD, but closer to 700 BC!
Lacking to this Qur'anic account is the [Book
of] Judith element that (I have argued in various places) was the catalyst for
the defeat of the Assyrian army. But that feminine detail is picked up, I
believe, in the story of the supposedly AD heroine, Gudit (possibly Jewish),
who routed the Axumites. Hence read: Gudit = Judith; and Axum can substitute
for Assyria. If that famous biblical incident involving neo-Assyria is some
sort of chronological marker for the very beginning of those “biblical
episodes” pertaining to Mohammed (as mentioned above), then the era of king
Sennacherib of Assyria must be our (revised) starting point. And, indeed, it is
there that we find one who displays some striking resemblances to Mohammed: he
is Tobias, the son of Tobit, who was born at this time, and whom I have
identified with the prophet Job. His father Tobit tells us about this arduous
time for his family, continuing on into the reign of Sennacherib’s successor, Esarhaddon
(Tobit 1:18-22):
I [Tobit] also
buried any whom King Sennacherib put to death when he came fleeing from Judea
in those days of judgment that the king of heaven executed upon him because of
his blasphemies. For in his anger he put to death many Israelites; but I would
secretly remove the bodies and bury them. So when Sennacherib looked for them
he could not find them. Then one of the Ninevites went and informed the king
about me, that I was burying them; so I hid myself. But when I realized that
the king knew about me and that I was being searched for to be put to death, I
was afraid and ran away. Then all my property was confiscated; nothing was left
to me that was not taken into the royal treasury except my wife Anna and my son
Tobias.
But not forty
days passed before two of Sennacherib’s sons killed him, and they fled to the
mountains of Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon reigned after him. He appointed
Ahikar, the son of my brother Hanael over all the accounts of his kingdom, and
he had authority over the entire administration. Ahikar interceded for me, and
I returned to Nineveh. Now Ahikar was chief cupbearer, keeper of the signet,
and in charge of administration of the accounts under King Sennacherib of
Assyria; so Esarhaddon reappointed him. He was my nephew and so a close
relative.
Ahikar and Luqman
….
ON THE USE OF THE LEGEND OF AHIKAR
IN THE KORAN AND ELSEWHERE.
We pass on, in the next place, to point out that the legend of Ahikar
was known to Mohammed, and that he has used it in a certain Sura of the Koran.
There is nothing a priori improbable in this, for the Koran is full of
Jewish Haggada and Christian legends, and where such sources are not expressly
mentioned, they may often be detected by consulting the commentaries upon the
Koran in obscure passages. For example, the story of Abimelech and the basket of
figs, which appears in the Last Words of Baruch, is carried over into the
Koran, as we have shown in our preface to the Apocryphon in question. It will
be interesting if we can add another volume to Mohammed’s library, or to the
library of the teacher from whom he derived so many of his legends.
The 31st Sura of the Koran is entitled Lokman (Luqman) and
it contains the following account of a sage of that name.
* We heretofore bestowed wisdom on Lokman and commanded him, saying, Be
thou thankful unto God: for whoever is thankful, shall be thankful to the
advantage of his own soul: and if any shall be unthankful, verily God is
self-sufficient and worthy to be praised. And remember when Lokman said unto
his son, as he admonished him.
….
O my son, Give not a partner unto God, for polytheism is a great
impiety.
♦ ♦♦♦♦♦
O my son, verily every matter, whether good or bad, though it be of the
weight of a grain of mustard-seed, and be hidden in a rock, or in the heavens,
God will bring the same to light: for God is clear-sighted and knowing.
O my son, be constant at prayer, and command that which is just, and
forbid that which is evil, and be patient under the afflictions that shall
befall thee: for this is a duty absolutely incumbent upon all men.
♦ ♦♦#♦♦
And be moderate in thy pace, and lower thy voice, for the most ungrateful
of all voices surely is the voice of asses.’
♦ ♦♦#♦♦
Now concerning this Lokman, the commentators and the critics have
diligently thrown their brains about. The former have disputed whether Lokman
was an inspired prophet or merely a philosopher and have decided against his
inspiration: and they have given him a noble lineage, some saying that he was
sister’s son to Job, and others that he was nephew to Abraham, and lived until
the time of Jonah.
Others have said that he was an African: slave. It will not escape the
reader’s notice that the term sister’s son to Job, to which should be added
nephew of Abraham, is the proper equivalent of the ἐξάδελφος by which
Nadan and Ahikar are described in the Tobit legends.
Job, moreover, is singularly like Tobit.
A few comments are due here. Concerning the last statement “Job … is
singularly like Tobit”, that is because, I believe, that Job was Tobias, the very
son of Tobit.
Now, returning ‘Ahikar in the Koran’:
That [Lokman] lived till the time of Jonah reminds one of the
destruction of Nineveh as
described in the book of Tobit, in accordance with Jonah’s prophecy.
Finally the African slave is singularly like Aesop … who is a black man and a
slave in the Aesop legends. From all of which it appears as if the Arabic
Commentators were identifying Lokman with Ahikar on the one hand and with Aesop
on the other; i.e. with two characters whom we have already shown to be
identical.
The identification with Aesop is confirmed by the fact that many of the
fables ascribed to Aesop in the west are referred to Lokman in the east: thus
Sale says: —
‘The Commentators mention several quick repartees of Luqman which agree
so well with what Maximus Planudes has written of Aesop, that from thence and
from the fables attributed to Luqman by the Orientals, the latter has been
generally thought to be no other than the Aesop of the Greeks. However that may
be (for I think the matter may bear a dispute) I am of opinion that Planudes
borrowed a great part of his life of Aesop from the traditions he met with in
the east concerning Luqman, concluding them to have been the same person, etc.
…’. *
These remarks of Sale are confirmed by our observation that the Aesop
story is largely a modification of the Ahikar legend, taken with the suggestion
which we derive from the Mohammedan commentators, who seem to connect Lokman
with Tobit on the one hand and with Aesop on the other.
Comment: In all of this we find ourselves firmly grounded in the
neo-Assyria era of the C8th BC.
The article now focusses upon the relevant Qur'anic text:
Now let us turn to the Sura of the Koran which bears the name Lokman,
and examine it internally: we remark (i) that he bears the name of sage,
precisely as Ahikar does: (ii) that he is a teacher of ethics to his son, using
Ahikar’s formula ‘ ya bani ‘ in teaching him: (iii) although at first sight the
matter quoted by Mohammed does not appear to be taken from Ahikar, there are
curious traces of dependence. We may especially compare the following from
Ahikar: ‘ O my son, bend thy head low and soften thy voice and be courteous and
walk in the straight path and be not foolish And raise not thy voice when thou
laughest, for were it by a loud voice that a house was built, the ass would build
many houses every day.’
Clearly Mohammed has been using Ahikar, and apparently from memory,
unless we like to assume that the passage in the Koran is the primitive form
for Ahikar, rather than the very forcible figure in our published texts.
Mohammed has also mixed up Ahikar’s teaching with his own, for some of the
sentences which he attributes to Lokman appear elsewhere in the Koran. But this
does not disturb the argument. From all sides tradition advises us to equate
Lokman with Aesop and Ahikar, and the Koran confirms the equation. The real
difficulty is to determine the derivation of the names of Lokman and Aesop from
Ahikar ….
Some of the Moslem traditions referred to above may be found in Al
Masudi c. 4 : ‘ There was in the country of Ailah and Midian a sage named
Lokman, who was the son of Auka, the son of Mezid, the son of Sar. ….
Comment: The mention of “Midian” in association with Lokman is also most
significant in my context, because as I have argued in:
A Common Sense Geography
of the Book of Tobit
it was from Midian (wrongly given as “Media”)
that the Naphtalian clan of Tobit and some of his relatives hailed.
Continuing with the article:
Another curious point in connexion with the Moslem traditions is the
discussion whether Loqman was or was not a prophet.
This discussion cannot have been borrowed from a Greek source, for the
idea which is involved in the debate is a Semitic idea.
But it is a discussion which was almost certain to arise, whether Lokman
of whom Mohammed writes so approvingly had any special … as a prophet, because
Mohammed is the seal of the prophets.
And it seems from what Sale says on the subject, that the Moslem doctors
decided the question in the negative; Lokman * received from God wisdom and
eloquence in a high degree, which some pretend were given him in a vision, on
his making choice of wisdom preferably to the gift of prophecy, either of which
was offered him.’ Thus the Moslem verdict was that Lokman was a sage and not a
prophet.
On the other hand it should be noticed that there are reasons for
believing that he was regarded in some circles and probably from the earliest
times as a prophet. The fact of his teaching in aphorisms is of no weight
against this classification: for the Hebrew Bible has two striking instances of
exactly similar character, in both of which the sage appears as prophet. Thus Prov.
XXX. begins :
* The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy*
and Prov. xxxi begins :
*The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.’
Both of these collections appear to be taken from popular tales*, and
they are strikingly like to the sentences of Ahikar.
….
At the conclusion of the Syntipas legends, when the young man is solving
all the hard ethical problems that his father proposes to him, we again find a
trace of Ahikar, for he speaks of the ‘ insatiate eye which as long as it sees
wealth is so ardent after it that he regards not God, until in death the earth
covers his eyes.’ And amongst the sayings of Ahikar we find one to the effect
that * the eye of man is as a fountain, and it will never be satisfied with
wealth until it is filled with dust.’ Dr Dillon points out that this is one of
the famous sayings of Mohammed, and if that be so, we have one more loan from
Ahikar in the Koran.
Cf Sura 102, ‘The emulous desire of multiplying [riches and children]
employeth you, until ye visit the graves.’ ….
[End of quotes]
Mecca, Nineveh
In
Part One, “Mecca”, which archaeologically could not have any bearing upon
Abraham, was re-cast as “Jerusalem; the name Mecca having been
derived, it was suggested, from the Arabic Muqa (Mecca) in Bayt al-Muqaddas
…”.
And the Ka'aba (meaning “Cube”) was identified as
the “Holy of Holies”, the most sacred place in the Temple of Yahweh in
Jerusaalem.
Even
the name, Hashim, looks like the
Hebrew, Ha Shem (“The Name”, it being
a term for God).
We also learned in Part One that Mohammed had
encountered a young man from Nineveh – quite an anomaly. And the pair discussed
the prophet Jonah whom Mohammed called his “brother”.
Tobit, for his part, well knew of the prophet
Jonah, having warned his son, Tobias (14:4): “Go into Media [sic], my son, for
I surely believe those things which Jonah the prophet spoke about Nineveh, that
it shall be overthrown”.
I would re-set the childhood of Mohammed,
therefore, to the reign of king Sennacherib of Assyria, and have Tobias/Job as
a major biblical matrix for it.
Tobias’s/Job’s long life in fact, which extends - according to my revision -
from Sennacherib to beyond the Fall of Nineveh, will suffice to encompass
“biblical episodes” attached to Mohammed from his birth to his marriage to
Khadijah bint Khuwaylid.
My primary source here, serving as a biography of
Mohammed, will be Yahiya Emerick’s Muhammad (Critical Lives), Alpha,
2002:
Birth of Mohammed
Given as c. 570 BC, the “Year of the
Elephant”. But revised here to the reign of Sennacherib. Mohammed’s parents are
traditionally given as ‘Abdullah and Aminah, or Amna. Now, this information is
what really confirms me in my view that Tobias is a major influence in the
biography of Mohammed, because the names of Tobias’s parents boil down to very
much the same as those of Mohammed. Tobit is a Greek version of the name
‘Obad-iah, the Hebrew yod having been
replaced by a ‘T’.
And ‘Obadiah, or ‘Abdiel, is, in Arabic
‘Abdullah, the name of Mohammed’s father.
And Amna is as close a name as one could get
to Anna, the wife of Tobit (as we read above).
Tobias (my Job) is
the biblico-historical foundation for the young Mohammed!
In articles of mine such as:
Similarities to The
Odyssey of the Books of Job and Tobit
I have drawn many parallels between the
Hebrew and Greek tales, showing how Odysseus and his son, Telemachus, can
sometimes resemble, respectively, Tobit and his son, Tobias; the goddess Athena
can sometimes assume the part played by the angel, Raphael {In the ‘life’ of
Mohammed, we are going to find one “Maysara” performing a service akin to that
of the angel Raphael in the Book of Tobit}; the cruel Poseidon is the demon,
Asmodeus; there are the many suitors, as with Penelope, with Sarah; and then
there is the common factor of the dog, given the name of “Argos” in The Odyssey.
These extremely popular and much copied books
of Tobit and Job have also influenced Mesopotamian literature, in one case of
which Ahikar himself may even have been involved:
Friends of the Prophet Job. Part Two: Bildad the Suhite.
(ii) Babylonian Job.
Egypt - according to the Testament of Job, the prophet Job had been a “king of Egypt” - and who
knows where else? Well, in Arabia, for another example, as is being proposed in
this article. And we are finding the Prophet Mohammed to have been no more real
a person (though less obviously mythical) than was Odysseus, or Telemachus.
Now, as explained in my “Odyssey” article, it
can happen that events associated with the biblical original, for example, the
father, can be, in the mythological version, attributed to someone else, say,
the son. And we now find that to be the very case in the biography of Mohammed.
For, whereas Mohammed is thought to have been orphaned and to have been raised
by his grandfather and uncle, in the Book of Tobit the father was orphaned
(Tobit 1:8): “I [Tobit] would bring it and give it to them in the
third year, and we would eat it according to the ordinance decreed concerning
it in the law of Moses and according to the instructions of Deborah, the mother
of my father Tobiel, for my father had died and left me an orphan”. {“Deborah”
here may be a distant ancestor, possibly even the famous Deborah of the Book of
Judges, given her close association with the tribe of Naphtali (e.g., Judges 4:10;
5:18), Tobit’s tribe (Tobit 1:1)}.
Now poor ‘Abdullah, the father of Mohammed, in
an episode that harkens back to the era of the Judges, to Jephthah’s terrible
vow (Judges 11:30): ‘… whatever comes out of the door of my
house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will
sacrifice it as a burnt offering’, was elected by his father, ‘Abdel Muttalib,
as the one of his ten sons to be sacrificed to God in thanksgiving.
Ultimately ‘Abdullah was spared that grim fate, due
to an encounter between ‘Abdel Muttalib and the shamaness, Shiya - Emerick
tells about this Shiya on p. 19.
Here we may have a reminiscence of king
Saul of Israel’s clandestine visit to the witch of Endor (I Samuel 28:7).
Indeed, a further facet of the Jephthah
story will recur again, later, in the quite different context of who will have
the honour of placing the fabled Black Stone of the Ka'aba back on the eastern wall after
repairs. (This whole wall building episode is like that of Nehemiah). Emerick
recounts it on p. 48. Abu Umayyah will advise the assembled crowd to wait for
the next person who will come through a nearby gate in the courtyard of the Ka'aba. That person was, as fate would have it, Mohammed
himself.
The situation of Mohammed, born into a
Qureish environment of universal idol worship, and with the Jews as a separate
entity, is very much the situation of Tobit and his little family, whose the tribe
of Naphtali (separate from the Jews) had completely apostatised (Tobit 1:4): ‘When
I was in my own country, in the land of Israel, while I was still a young man,
the whole tribe of my ancestor Naphtali deserted the house of David and Jerusalem’.
Again, ‘Abdullah’s involvement in caravan
trading into Syria is entirely compatible with what Tobit tells us about
himself in 1:12-14: ‘Because I was mindful of God with all my
heart, the Most High gave me favor and good standing with Shalmaneser, and I
used to buy everything he needed. Until his death I used to go into Media, and
buy for him there’ – compatible especially given my identification (in my
“Geography of Tobit”) of “Media” as Midian, including Bashan, “a part of the
province of Damascus”:
As with Tobit’s genealogy, with the
repetition of names of the same root (Tobit 1:1): ‘I am Tobit and this is the story of my life. My father was Tobiel …’, so was the case with
Mohammed’s grandfather, ‘Abdel Muttalib,
and his son, Abu Talib.
The account of the pregnancy of
Mohammed’s mother is predictably extraordinary, and one might be inclined to
think of, for example, the pregnancy of Elizabeth with John the Baptist, and of
the Virgin Mary with Jesus. If so, it would be only one of many borrowings from
the Gospels, in this case Luke’s. Emerick tells of it (pp. 21-22):
About
two months after her husband left [having joined a caravan trade to Syria],
Aminah called her servant … “I’ve had a strange dream! I saw lights coming from
my womb, lighting up the mountains, the hills, and the valleys all around
Mecca”. Her servant then predicted: “You will give birth to a blessed child who
will bring goodness”.
In Luke 1:11-17, we read about the
miraculous encounter of the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, the Aaronite priest,
with an angel who will be identified in v. 19 as “Gabriel”:
Then
an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar
of incense.
When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with
fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid,
Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son,
and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and
delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take
wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even
before he is born. He will bring back many of the
people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go
on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of
the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the
righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Common to the ‘life’ of Mohammed here
are the visitation by the angel Gabriel (who also figures in the Book of
Daniel); the avoidance of alcohol; and the exultation of the child.
Further on in Luke’s Gospel it will be
the Virgin Mary whom the angel Gabriel will address (Luke 1:30-32): ‘You [Mary]
have found favor with God. You will become pregnant, give birth to a son … He
will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High’.
Luke 1:28 is sometimes translated as [Mary’s
being] “Highly Favoured”.
Now, according to Emerick (p. 29):
“Highly Praised is the translation of the Arabic name Muhammad, which was an unusual name in Arabia at that time”. This
name was given to the child by his grandfather, who had, in the ancient
Israelite fashion of going around Jericho “seven times” (Joshua 6:15), walked
with the new born baby “seven times around the Ka‘bah”. It was then that ‘Abdel
Muttalib named the child, connecting him with an ancient House - as with the
angel Gabriel’s (Luke 1:32-33): ‘The Lord God will give him the throne of his
father David,
and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his
kingdom will never end’. The joyful ‘Abdel Muttalib exclaimed: “Blessed child,
I shall call you Highly Praised. The birth of this child coincided with the glory
and triumph of the Ancient House, blessed be he?”
As in the story of Moses (Exodus 2:7-9),
a wet nurse is provided for the child. “Aminah, frail from her depression and
weakened by the arduous childbirth, engaged a wet nurse in the city …”. And also
as with Moses (v. 10), “Muhammad would be raised by a foster mother …”. Whereas
both Moses and Jesus had to be saved from the wrath of a monarch, the situation
baby Mohammed was faced with was (p. 30): “An epidemic … going around the city
…”. When it was safe to return, after some years had elapsed, exactly as with
the young Jesus (Matthew 2:19-21), Mohammed came home.
Youth of Mohammed
When the aged ‘Abdel Muttalib
died, Mohammed was taken in by his uncle, Abu Talib, who, more than Mohammed’s
short-lived father, ‘Abdullah (despite
the common name), represents Tobit and his wise and kindly mentoring of the
young Tobias. Emerick (p. 33): “Abu Talib took Muhammad in and
treated him with great affection. Although Abu Talib was poor, he and his wife
…”. Cf. Tobit 4:21: ‘We’re poor now, but don’t worry. If you obey God and avoid
sin, he will be pleased with you and make you prosperous’.
In a famous story, an old priest, in the
fashion of Samuel choosing to anoint the young David from amongst the sons of
Jesse, will pick out the 12-year old Mohammed amongst many. Emerick tells of it
(pp. 34-35):
Around
the year 582, Abu Talib decided to join the great caravan going to Syria in
order to boost his finances. …. After a couple of weeks of long, hard travel,
the caravan and its attendants decided to make camp in a region called Bostra,
just short of Syria. Just ahead on the road was a small Christian monastery
where a solitary monk by the name of Bahira lived. …. He sent an invitation to
the men of the caravan to come to the monastery for a banquet, asking that
everyone attend. When the merchants arrived, the priest looked them over and
found nothing special about any of them. He asked if everyone from the caravan
was present and was told that everyone was there except a small boy who was
left behind to watch the animals. Bahira requested that he also be invited, so
someone went to fetch young Muhammad.
Compare
(the strikingly similar) I Samuel 16:10-11:
Jesse had
seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, “The Lord has not chosen these.” So he asked
Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?”
“There is still the youngest,”
Jesse answered. “He is tending the sheep.”
Samuel said, “Send for him; we
will not sit down until he arrives.”
Like David, too, Mohammed (later) tended
sheep (Emerick, p. 40): “Muhammad’s humble occupation as a shepherd impressed
upon him the value of hard, honest work”.
But there is also a recorded incident in the
otherwise unknown boyhood of Jesus (the Good Shepherd) at the age of twelve –
and it, too, involves travellers (Luke 2:41-42): “Every year
Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival,
according to the custom.”
Emerick continues with the story of Bahira, with
the boy Mohammed now present (p. 35): “After Muhammad
joined the gathering, Bahira watched the boy carefully and noted his physical
features and behaviour. He seemed to have an otherworldy look in his eyes, a
strength in his bearing”.
David
also had fine eyes and a good appearance (I Samuel 16:12): “Now
[David] was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome”.
On
pp. 56-57 Emerick, still in connection with the Bahira story which is here
accepted as being quite “historically tenable”, will make this notable
admission:
A
fair amount of literature exists on the portents and signs prior to the rise of
Muhammad as a religious leader. These writings may be based more on retrospective
idealism than proven facts. One can logically assume that Muhammad had no
knowledge of his future significance and that premonitions and recognition of
his greatness by his contemporaries were greatly exaggerated. Beyond the
episode with the monk Bahira when he was twelve, which was related not only by
Abu Talib but also by several of his associates and thus gains more
credibility, little except the predictions of a man named Waraqah seem
historically tenable. The abruptness and unexpectedness of Muhammad’s rise may
be simply inexplicable.
[End of quote]
Why
I think that it might be very important for Islam to defend the veracity of the
Bahira incident is because he is the one who would proclaim Mohammed as “the
last prophet” in God’s great scheme of things. Thus Emerick (p. 35):
….
Muhammad boldly told the monk that he hated the idols. This statement impressed
the aged Christian further. Then he asked for the boy to lift his shirt, and
the monk found a birthmark on his back, just between the shoulder blades.
Bahira looked at the spot, which was about the size of a small egg, and
declared, “Now I am most certain that this is the last prophet for whom the
Jews and Christians [sic] await …”.
It is interesting that both Bahira and the
Waraqah referred to above, seemingly lone individuals, non-Jews, but
monotheists, are either Christian (Bahira) or, like Waraqah (Emerick, p. 31):
“… [an] unaffiliated monotheist who also had some knowledge of
Christianity”.
Marriage of Mohammed
The golden thread in the ‘life’ of Mohammed
of the Book of Tobit (combined with Job) continues on, I believe, into the account
of his marriage to the widowed beauty, Khadijah, also given as ‘Siti Khadijah’
(http://kelantan.attractionsinmalaysia.com/SitiKhadijahMarket): “Siti Khadijah Market (Pasar besar Siti Khadijah), as
its name implies, is a local wet market. Its name after Prophet Muhammad’s
wife, [who] is known for her entrepreneurial skill, as this market is mostly
run by women”. In the Testament of Job
the prophet’s wife is similarly called “Sitis” (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/jul/26/judaism-job-philosoph): “Job's first
wife is Sitidos (Sitis). Her name may have the same root as the word Satan in
Hebrew or Sotah (unfaithful wife). She is a princess and Job a tribal leader”.
She is, I have argued, the same as the wife
of Tobias, Sarah, meaning “princess”, “lady”:
Job’s Wife as Sarah of Book of Tobit
Sarah was apparently, then, just like Khadijah,
a woman of high status. She was likewise beautiful and full of quality, as
described by the angel Raphael (Tobit 5:12): “She is sensible,
brave, and very beautiful; and her father is a good man”. That father, Raguel,
I have tentatively identified in my series, “Friends of the Prophet Job”, as
Eliphaz (https://www.academia.edu/12159726/Friends_of_the_Prophet_Job._Part_One_Eliphaz_the_Temanite).
Just as with Khadijah, whose former husbands had died (Emerick, p. 41): “…
Khadijah … married not once but twice …. Each husband died in turn, leaving her
with a huge personal fortune”, likewise (though rather more spectacularly)
Sarah (Tobit 3:8): “Sarah had been married seven times, but the evil demon,
Asmodeus, killed each husband before the marriage could be consummated”.
The poor and rather insignificant
Muhammad got his big break in life when that lowly life of his would - like
with the young Tobias - converge with that of his future wife. And it similarly
involved a journey to Syria for business purposes. When (as Emerick tells, p.
42): “In about the year 595, Khadijah announced that she would hire a local man
to lead a particularly important caravan to go to Syria”, Abu Talib suggested
to Muhammad that he should apply. “Abu Talib, always on the lookout for
opportunities for his own or any family member’s advancement, suggested to his
nephew Muhammad that he try to get a job with Khadijah’s caravan”.
The part played by Abu Talib in this
situation reminds one of Tobit, who instructed his son (Tobit 4:20-21): ‘Tobias,
I want you to know that I once left a large sum of money with Gabrias' son,
Gabael, at Rages in Media. We're poor now, but
don't worry. If you obey God and avoid sin, he will be pleased with you and
make you prosperous’. In my “Geography of Tobit” I have proposed that “Rages”
here equates geographically with the city of Damascus. Tobias was now a young
man of marriageable age, and Muhammad was “twenty-five years old and still
living with his uncle …” (Emerick, p. 42). Muhammad, similarly as with Tobit,
“saw this caravan as an excellent opportunity to earn money …”.
“Abu Talib confidently told his nephew
that he could get him double the salary of the man already hired … two camels”.
And he duly informed Khadijah of it, “… we won’t accept less than four”.
Tobias, on the other hand, wants to give
the disguised angel, who had guided him on the way, not “double the salary”,
but “half of everything we brought back with us” (Tobit 12:2). And whilst that
“two camels” can be found also in Tobit 9:1-2: “Then Tobias
called Raphael and said to him:
“Brother Azariah, take along with you four servants and two camels and travel to Rages”,” we see from this text that those
“four servants” have been ‘reincarnated’ in the Islamic version as “four
[camels]”.
Khadijah
here refers to Muhammad as “a close relative”. We find the identical description in Tobit 6:10-11, where the angel tells
Tobias: ‘Tonight we will stay at the home of your relative
Raguel. He has only one child, a daughter named Sarah, and since you are her closest relative, you have the right to
marry her’.
Just
as Tobit had looked out for a suitable travelling companion for his son, and
had found in the angel-disguised-as-Azariah a good character (Tobit 5:13): ‘… you are from a good family and a relative at that! …. Your relatives
are fine people, and you come from good stock. Have a safe journey’, so, in
Maysara - whose name is phonetically compatible with Azariah - does Abu Talib
perceive a good character and worthy travelling companion (Emerick, p. 43):
“Abu Talib knew of Maysara’s good character and encouraged his presence on the
journey”. Khadijah, who “was known for rejecting all suitors” (p. 44), though
for reasons less dramatic than in the case of Sarah’s loss of all suitors, now
married the younger Muhammad, whose fortunes had just increased exponentially
(p. 45): “not only was he suddenly getting married, his fortunes were also
taking a dramatic turn for the better”.
So had the angel informed Tobias about
Sarah (6:11): “… you have the right to marry her. You also have the right to
inherit all her father's property”.
“Muhammad and Khadijah would have six
children together, two boys and four girls”. Tragically, the life of the sons
would be cut off early, just as with Tobias/Job.
Image copyright AFP/Reuters
Image copyright AFP
Image copyright AP
