in these early biographies reflects not so much a historical figure from the early seventh century as an idealized portrait of Islam’s founding prophet designed to suit the needs and concerns of eighth- and ninth-century Islam.58 Taking the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam as a reflection of the opinio communis, the sīra traditions are here judged as being essentially worthless for reconstructing a historically credible biography of Muhammad or for the history of early Islam more generally.59
With this assessment, Muhammad runs the risk of vanishing from history, and taking with him any reliable knowledge concerning the origins of Islam. Against this general consensus, Gregor Schoeler and Andreas Görke, and to a lesser extent Motzki, have applied the methods of isnād criticism to several individual sīra traditions, in the hopes of preventing such an epistemological collapse.60 If their analysis is correct, then the “basic framework” of Muhammad’s biography, presumably including at least some of its chronology, may be ascribed to ʿUrwa and perhaps some other early figures. Since ʿUrwa was a nephew of Muhammad’s favorite wife, ʿĀʾisha, as Görke and Schoeler frequently remind their readers, one can safely assume, they would argue, that his account is largely accurate. Although Görke and Schoeler do not include traditions concerning the end of Muhammad’s life among their alleged corpus of ʿUrwan material, their proposal, if correct, would be of some significance for estimating the reliability of these biographical sources. In such a case it would certainly be more difficult, although by no means impossible, to raise significant doubts concerning the accuracy of the traditional Islamic memory of Muhammad’s death. Nevertheless, the approach fails to deliver what its proponents have promised, largely because the biographical traditions generally lack the dense networks required to identify meaningful nodes of transmission, leaving them rather unsuited for this method of analysis. Consequently, Görke and Schoeler’s claims that ʿUrwa may be identified as the author of a significant corpus of sīra traditions are not especially persuasive. Ultimately their investigations do little to advance our knowledge of the sīra traditions beyond what may already be determined from Ibn Isḥāq’s Maghāzī and other early sources.
For example, Motzki applies this isnād-critical approach to a tradition in which Muhammad orders the assassination of a Jewish opponent, Ibn Abī l-Ḥuqayq, and while he convincingly assigns the tale to al-Zuhrī, his efforts to identify an earlier source are not persuasive.61 To do so, he must conflate two traditions that in fact appear to be quite distinct and ignore the deeply problematic nature of one of his tradents, Abū Isḥāq.62 Schoeler makes a similar analysis of the traditions of the beginnings of Muhammad’s revelations (the iqraʾ episode) and the rumors that ʿĀʾisha had committed adultery (ḥadīth al-ifk),63 while Görke has investigated the reports of Muhammad’s treaty at al-Ḥudaybiya.64 Görke and Schoeler have also published together a very brief article on an extensive tradition complex purportedly associated with the events of Muhammad’s hijra.65 In each instance they attempt to identify these traditions with ʿUrwa, whose biography of Muhammad they aim to reconstruct using the methods of common-link analysis.66 While al-Zuhrī and occasionally other authorities of his generation can be persuasively linked with these traditions, the reach back to ʿUrwa is generally not convincing. Their arguments often require a great deal of optimism regarding the accuracy of certain isnāds and an occasional willingness to accept hypothetically reconstructed lines of transmission. In the case of the complex of traditions linked with the hijra, for instance, a large body of material transmitted by only a single source is identified as genuine, while isnāds belonging to only specific parts of the alleged tradition complex are occasionally represented as authenticating the entire block of material.67
Görke and Schoeler are most successful in arguing that the traditions of Muhammad’s experience of visions and voices at the onset of his revelations and a basic narrative of his flight to Medina in the face of opposition had begun to circulate at the end of the seventh century. Likewise, the story of ʿĀʾisha’s suspected adultery and her subsequent acquittal is persuasively dated to this period through the study of its isnāds. Yet one should recognize just how meager these results are, particularly given the amount of effort involved. Even if all the methodological questions regarding such an isnād-critical approach to the sīra traditions are placed to the side, the resultant biography of Muhammad is disappointingly minimal. Motzki himself ultimately expresses some doubt whether “the outcome will justify the time and energy needed for such an enterprise,” and he forecasts that “the historical biography which will be the outcome of all these source-critical efforts will be only a very small one.”68
Perhaps even more important is the failure so far of this arduous method to reveal anything particularly new about the historical Muhammad that could not already be determined using simpler approaches. For instance, there can be little doubt that the early Muslims believed that Muhammad had been the recipient of divine revelation, and its representation as a vision of light and auditions merely reflects a well-established biblical pattern.69 Moreover, dating according to the hijra is attested by early documentary sources, signaling the importance of a tradition of Muhammad’s “flight” for the early Muslims.70 The accusations against ʿĀʾisha are also credibly early, inasmuch as they reflect negatively on a figure who later came to be revered as the “mother of the faithful,” and one would thus imagine that the story had begun to circulate before ʿĀʾisha had attained this status in Sunni piety.71 Even if one were to accept the more problematic arguments presented on behalf of the traditions of al-Ḥudaybiya and Ibn Abī l-Ḥuqayq’s murder, ultimately very little is added to our portrait of Muhammad. It is certainly believable that Muhammad may have concluded an unfavorable treaty regarding fugitives or ordered the assassination of an opponent, as reported in these accounts. But these traditions reveal almost nothing about the nature of Muhammad’s religious movement and its early history. In these areas the sīra traditions remain not only unproven but suspect, leaving modern scholars with the difficult choice of either taking these biographies more or less at face value or looking elsewhere for more reliable evidence of primitive Islam. Such are the circumstances one must face in evaluating the early Islamic traditions of the end of Muhammad’s life.72
Ibn Isḥāq’s Account of Muhammad’s Death and Burial
Taking Ibn Isḥāq’s early biography as a basis, we gain a clear sense of how the Muslims of the mid-eighth century imagined the death and burial of their founding prophet and what they thought was important to “remember” about these events.73 The story begins just as a band of soldiers under Usāma b. Zayd’s leadership is dispatched to attack Syria, more specifically the region of Transjordan and the coastal plain of Palestine, in a report given without attribution according to Ibn Hishām’s transmission.74 Then, suddenly Muhammad became ill after returning home from Medina’s graveyard, where he had offered prayers for the dead, an act that foreshadows the prayers offered over his own grave after his burial.75 According to one account, Muhammad was posed with a choice at the cemetery, presumably by God, who offered him either “the keys of the treasuries of this world and long life here followed by Paradise,”76 or the chance to meet the Lord in Paradise at once. As Ibn Isḥāq later explains, Muhammad often said that “God never takes a prophet to Himself without giving him the choice.” Deciding for the latter option, Muhammad returned home to ʿĀʾisha, and then while making rounds among his wives, he suddenly fell ill in the house of Maymūna. Muhammad asked his wives for their permission to return to ʿĀʾisha’s house and be cared for there by her, and when they agreed he was taken to ʿĀʾisha and spent his final days with her. At Muhammad’s request, she placed him in a tub, and together with al-Faḍl b. al-ʿAbbās and ʿAlī, she poured “seven skins of water from different wells” over him until he cried “Enough, enough!” As ʿAlī left Muhammad’s house, al-ʿAbbās warned him that Muhammad would soon die, and ʿAlī would find himself “a slave.” Al-ʿAbbās suggested that they should go to Muhammad and ask him either to declare them as his successors or, if he had chosen someone else, “to enjoin the people to treat us well.” Thereafter Muhammad went and “sat in the pulpit,” revealing the choice that he was offered as well as his decision.