Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins (21 page)

Another hadith relates how Muhammad was traveling with Umar, who later became caliph, when Umar asked a question of his prophet. Muhammad, however, did not answer. Umar repeated his question twice but still received no answer. This greatly disquieted Umar: “I feared that a piece of Qur'an was being sent down about me. It was not long before I heard a crier calling for me, and I said that I feared that a piece of Qur'an had been sent down about me.”
⁷
A portion of the Qur'an—sura 48—did indeed come to Muhammad, so the hadith goes, but Umar was not rebuked or even mentioned in it. Still, Umar clearly had the idea that Qur'anic revelation—the revelation of the perfect and eternal book—could be altered by his questioning or by his behavior. This would indicate either that Umar had a place in Allah's eternal plan for the Qur'anic revelation or that it was not perfect and eternal at all but could be altered as circumstances warranted. And that may have been the purpose this hadith served: to explain the variants that such alterations created.

Another trace of the alterations to the Qur'an comes from the thirteenth-century Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir. He stated that one of Muhammad's secretaries, Abdullah ibn Sa‘d ibn Abi Sarh, “used to record the revelation for the Prophet” in Medina but then left Islam and returned to Mecca, where he noted that Muhammad was remarkably cavalier about the revelations he received: “I used to orient Muhammad wherever I willed; he dictated to me ‘All-Powerful All-Wise’ and I suggested ‘All Knowing All-Wise’ so he would say: ‘Yes, it is all the same.’”
⁸

The ninth-century Muslim historian al-Waqidi records that Abdullah ibn Sa‘d said to the Meccans: “It was only a Christian slave who was teaching him (Muhammad); I used to write to him and change whatever I wanted.”
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In line with this, another thirteenth-century Islamic scholar, Abdullah al-Baydawi, recorded in a hadith that Abdullah ibn Sa‘d used to mock Muhammad's claim to have received revelations: “‘To me it has been revealed,’ when naught has been revealed to him.” This secretary to the prophet repudiated Islam when he became convinced that divine intervention was not responsible for the Qur'an. Muhammad was once dictating Qur'an 23:14 to Abdullah: “We created man of an extraction of clay, then We set him, a drop, in a receptacle secure, then We created of the drop a clot, then We created of the clot a tissue, then We created of the tissue bones, then We garmented the bones in flesh; thereafter We produced him as another creature.” Hearing this, Abdullah exclaimed, “So blessed be God, the fairest of creators!” Muhammad responded: “Write it down; for thus it has been revealed”—which is to say that Abdullah's exclamation became part of the Qur'anic revelation.

Abdullah was disillusioned: “If Muhammad is truthful then I receive the revelation as much as he does, and if he is a liar, what I said is a good as what he said.”
¹⁰
Muslim scholars, of course, describe Abdullah as a disgruntled former employee, fabricating stories about the former boss he had come to dislike. But if the entire scenario of Muhammad's receiving and dictating revelations was an ahistorical invention of the later Muslim community, such stories may have helped explain why variants existed in the Qur'an and Hadith. Hadiths may have been composed at a time when some people in the community remembered earlier formulations that had been discarded. If, however, the revered prophet of Islam could be shown as having freely altered the revelations he had received from Allah, then clearly alterations to the texts and teachings of the religion could not be condemned outright.

Muhammad's Forgetfulness

In line with the apparent necessity to justify variability and change within Islamic tradition, many hadiths record that even Muhammad himself forgot parts of what Allah had revealed to him. One recounts that “Allah's Messenger heard a man reciting the Qur'an at night, and said, ‘May Allah bestow His Mercy on him, as he has reminded me of such-and-such verses of such-and-such
sura
, which I was caused to forget.’”
¹¹

As might be expected in confessional literature, this is represented as being all part of Allah's plan. A hadith has Muhammad himself say so: “It is a bad thing that some of you say, ‘I have forgotten such and such Verse of the Qur'an,’ for indeed, he has been caused (by Allah) to forget it. So you must keep on reciting the Qur'an because it escapes from the hearts of men faster than camels do when they are released from their tying ropes.”
¹²
Even in the Qur'an itself, Allah tells his prophet: “We shall make thee recite, to forget not save what God wills; surely He knows what is spoken aloud and what is hidden” (87:6–7).

Thus if Muhammad has forgotten part of what Allah revealed, it is no cause for concern: “None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things?” (2:106).
¹³
Allah even complains that this process makes some doubt the veracity of his prophet: “And when We exchange a verse in the place of another verse—and God knows very well what He is sending down—they say, ‘Thou art a mere forger!’ Nay, but the most of them have no knowledge” (16:101). If religious authorities in the Umayyad or Abbasid caliphates were busy substituting one revelation for another, such a statement from Allah himself would be exceedingly useful.

Elsewhere the Qur'an seems to address concerns about variant versions of its contents: “And say, ‘Surely I am a manifest warner.’ So We sent it down to the partitioners, who have broken the Koran into fragments” (15:89–91). Some hadiths record that Muhammad himself was unconcerned with variations that early on began to appear in
how Muslims were reciting his revelations—implying that if Muhammad did not worry over such matters, why should his followers?

Ubayy bin Kab, whom a hadith had Muhammad praising as “the best reader (of the Qur'an) among my people,” is made to recall his shock at Muhammad's lack of concern about these variations. The strange incident began, according to the hadith, when Ubayy heard variant readings of the Qur'an recited in the mosque: “I was in the mosque when a man entered and prayed and recited (the Qur'an) in a style to which I objected. Then another man entered (the mosque) and recited in a style different from that of his companion.” Ubayy decided to appeal to Muhammad himself: “When we had finished the prayer, we all went to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) and said to him: This man recited in a style to which I objected, and the other entered and recited in a style different from that of his companion.”

But according to the hadith, Muhammad “expressed approval of their affairs”—that is, of their way of reciting the Qur'an. Ubayy was troubled, recalling, “And there occurred in my mind a sort of denial which did not occur even during the Days of Ignorance [before the revelation of the Qur'an].” His reaction annoyed Muhammad: “When the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) saw how I was affected (by a wrong idea), he struck my chest, whereupon I broke into sweating and felt as though I were looking at Allah with fear.” Muhammad explained that the variants, which he represented simply as differences in the Arabic dialect used for recitation, were all parts of Allah's plan: “He (the Holy Prophet) said to me: Ubayy, a message was sent to me to recite the Qur'an in one dialect, and I replied: Make (things) easy for my people. It was conveyed to me for the second time that it should be recited in two dialects. I again replied to him: Make affairs easy for my people. It was again conveyed to me for the third time to recite in seven dialects.”
¹⁴

If variants and changes existed and had to be explained, this was as good an attempt to do so as any.

In another hadith, Umar is made to recall: “I heard Hisham bin Hakim reciting
Surat Al-Furqan
[sura 25 of the Qur'an] during the
lifetime of Allah's Messenger and I listened to his recitation and noticed that he recited in several different ways which Allah's Messenger had not taught me.” Umar, according to the story, was incensed enough to treat Hisham roughly: “I was about to jump over him during his
Salat
(prayer), but I controlled my temper, and when he had completed his
Salat
(prayer), I put his upper garment around his neck and seized him by it and said, ‘Who taught you this
Surah
which I heard you reciting?’”

Hisham's response was as surprising to Umar as Muhammad's casual reaction to the variants had been to Ubayy: “He replied, ‘Allah's Messenger taught it to me.’ I said, ‘You have told a lie, for Allah's Messenger has taught it to me in a different way from yours.’ So, I dragged him to Allah's Messenger and said (to Allah's Messenger), ‘I heard this person reciting
Surat Al-Furqan
in a way which you haven't taught me!’”

Muhammad, according to the hadith, backed up Hisham, commanding, “Release him, (O ‘Umar!) Recite, O Hisham!” The prophet explained: “It was revealed in this way.” Then he turned to Umar and told him to recite as well. Again Muhammad said, “It was revealed in this way. This Qur'an has been revealed to be recited in seven different ways, so recite of it whichever (way) is easier for you (or read as much of it as may be easy for you).”
¹⁵

On another occasion, Muhammad is made to elaborate on this odd explanation for the variants: Gabriel, he explained, “recited the Qur'an to me in one way. Then I requested him (to read it in another way), and continued asking him to recite it in other ways, and he recited it in several ways till he ultimately recited it in seven different ways.”
¹⁶

“Recited in seven different ways.”
Yet if the canonical Islamic stories of his life are accurate, Muhammad recited the Qur'an in only one way. What's more, it is unlikely that Ubayy and Umar would have been depicted as becoming so enraged over these variants if the only difference was a matter of dialect—that is, a shift in the pronunciation of the words.

How could variants have arisen if Muhammad received revelations from Allah in a perfect fashion, which would apparently involve his total recall of what Gabriel delivered to him? Did the perfect book exist in variant readings? And if not, then how did the perfect earthly copy of that book, the Qur'an, come to have such variants?

Haphazard Collection

Even Islamic tradition implies that the Qur'an was altered after it first appeared among the believers. According to the Hadith, during Muhammad's lifetime, his companions would memorize various portions of the Qur'an. Some had some portions committed to memory, others had others. Some of it, but not all of it, was written down. But not long after Muhammad died, the traditions say, some of those who had memorized portions of the Qur'an died in the Battle of Yamama. Parts of the Qur'an died with them, according to a hadith: “Many (of the passages) of the Qur'an that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yamama…but they were not known (by those who) survived them, nor were they written down, nor had [the first three caliphs] Abu Bakr, Umar or Uthman (by that time) collected the Qur'an, nor were they found with even one (person) after them.”
¹⁷

No contemporary historical evidence establishes that there ever was a Battle of Yamama or that anyone who had memorized portions of the Qur'an died there. As we have seen, no mention of the Qur'an is made until nearly a century after this battle is supposed to have taken place. So the traditions regarding the Battle of Yamama, and the collection of the Qur'an that followed from it, probably emerged in a context in which the holy book was undergoing editing and alteration, such that variant formulations and differences in content had to be explained.

Early Islamic sources repeatedly attest to the loss of sections of the Qur'an. One hadith has an elderly Muslim recalling a passage
from sura 98 that said: “The religion with Allah is
al-hanifiyya
(the Upright Way) rather than that of the Jews or the Christians, and those who do good will not go unrewarded.” But it was gone.
¹⁸

Likewise vanished, according to another hadith, was the section that mandated the stoning of adulterers. Umar declared:

I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, “We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book.” And consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed. Lo! I confirm that the penalty of Rajam be inflicted on him who commits illegal sexual intercourse, if he is already married and the crime is proved by witnesses or pregnancy or confession…. Surely Allah's Apostle carried out the penalty of Rajam, and so did we after him.
¹⁹

Sura 33 of the Qur'an, according to another hadith, was originally 127 verses longer than it is in the canonical text. In this hadith, Muhammad's wife Aisha is made to say: “Surat al-Ahzab [that is, sura 33] used to be recited in the time of the Prophet with two hundred verses, but when Uthman wrote out the codices he was unable to procure more of it than what there is today.”
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Aisha asserted that the sura originally included a verse mandating stoning: “The fornicators among the married men (ash-shaikh) and married women (ash-shaikhah), stone them as an exemplary punishment from Allah, and Allah is Mighty and Wise.”
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Still another hadith records an occasion on which a venerable Muslim in the city of Basra reminisced about a lost sura of the Qur'an: “We used to recite a surah which resembled in length and severity to (Surah) Bara'at.”
²²
Surah Bara'at (Surat al-Bara'a), more commonly known as Surat at-Tauba (Repentance), is the Qur'an's ninth sura, and it contains the book's fiercest exhortations to jihad warfare (9:5, 9:123, etc.), including jihad against Jews and Christians (9:29). But the old man could recall little of the lost sura: “I have, however, forgotten it with the exception of this which I remember
out of it: ‘If there were two valleys full of riches, for the son of Adam, he would long for a third valley, and nothing would fill the stomach of the son of Adam but dust.’ We used to recite a sura similar to one of the
Musabihat
, and I no longer remember it, but this much I have indeed preserved: ‘O you who truly believe, why do you preach that which you do not practise?’ [Qur'an 61:2] (and) ‘that is inscribed on your necks as a witness and you will be examined about it on the Day of Resurrection [Qur'an 17:13).’”
²³
Significantly, the only two verses of this sura that this man is made to recall are both found elsewhere in the Qur'an; they could have been added into the Qur'anic text after these hadiths were produced to assert their divine origin.