MUHAMMAD IS NOT THE FATHER OF ANY OF YOUR MEN
The Making of the Last Prophet
By David S. Powers
2009
376 pages
7 illus.
Cloth 2009
ISBN 978-0-8122-4178-5
$55.00s | £36.00
Reviewed by OMAR AFZAL
The latest addition to the western scholarship on Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be with him) by a professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at a reputed US university is a marvellous assortment of bigotry, deception and twisted logic. The author has forced his insipid premises into an outrageous narrative. The book is written to discredit the Muslim claim that the “Qur’ānic text” has remained “untouched” and is immune from human manipulations. Along come tales of “moral turpitude” about an established historic figure who one-fourth of the world population believes brought the final version of God’s message for the humanity to live a fulfilling, serene life on earth and who was the epitome of ethical behaviour ever since.
Powers contends that the Muslim editors made a series of radical moves in the first two centuries of Islamic history to ensure Muhammad’s position as the Last Prophet.
Powers focuses on narrative accounts of Muhammad’s repudiation of Zayd, of his marriage to Zayd’s former wife, and of Zayd’s martyrdom in the Battle of Mautah against the much superior Byzantine army.
Powers argues that theological imperatives drove the Muslims to make changes in the historical record and led to the abolition or reform of key legal institutions. In what is likely to be the most controversial aspect of Powers book, he offers what he calls “compelling physical evidence” to prove the text of the Qur’ān itself was altered.
Powers explanation of events is deeply rooted in Judaic “theological imperatives” and faulty linguistic assumptions.
Powers thesis rests on some assumptions that he erroneously makes, and borrowed figments of imagination that lack support in written (the Qur’ān) or oral (Hadith) history:
a) Office of Prophecy is an exclusive possession of a single family (Abraham);
b) It is Hereditary: Only a member of the Patriarch’s family qualifies to be chosen by God to be a Prophet;
c) To be the Final Prophet, Muhammad must remain sonless; and
d) Muhammad had an “adopted son” Zaid.
Therefore:
Muhammad disowned Zaid and ultimately got him killed by sending him to his certain death in Mautah war against the mighty Byzantine army.
Muslims re-wrote Zaid’s martyrdom to simulate Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac.
Muslim Codex was edited / modified to bring earlier revealed laws of inheritance in line with the newly created “reality.”
It is no wonder the responsibility of teaching Islamic and Arabic studies in the Western colleges and universities is assigned to such highly biased members of faculty. The level of their bias is evident from almost every monograph that has come out of the university presses in recent years.
ISLAMIC CONCEPT OF RISAALAH
Anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of the classical Arabic and access to the Qur’ānic text clearly understands the Islamic concept of “receiving guidance from Allah” is markedly distinct from that of Judaism or Christianity.
In Christianity, God himself appeared incarnate – a human Jesus sacrificed his life for the sins of humanity; in Judaism, God belonged exclusively to the Jewish tribe and Moses became the law-giver.
The Qur’ān totally negates these faulty assumptions. In Islam, Allah is the Law-giver and not Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be with him).The Qur’ān clearly tells that:
a) Allah is for all (Rabb al-Naas/ Rabb al-Alameen);
b) Allah has been sending His messengers, at different times, all over the world.
c) Allah alone chose /appointed those who conveyed His words to humans and they put them into practice in real life situations.
d) The Messenger-ship is neither hereditary nor an exclusive domain of a family or race.
The Qur’ān also tells that Allah’s covenant of “Imamat” (leading the humanity) for the progeny of Abraham excludes the transgressors among them, no matter how close their ancestry took them to a prophet. The Qur’ān mentions some two dozen messengers by name. Yet not all of them were from Abraham’s family or received the honour for being the first born of a prophet.
In Islamic understanding, a “Messenger” is neither “the oldest son”, nor the only son (as assumed in Judaic traditions). For example, Noah’s son (11:45) perished with other non-believers, and when Noah complained about him the response from God was: Innahu laisa min ahlik; innahu ‘amalun ghai-ru saalih. Jacob’s elder sons were also good example. Familial relations mean nothing. It is the good deeds that count in God’s sight.
e) Finality of Muhammad’s Prophet-hood was NOT dependent on his being “Sonless” but on the completeness/perfection of God’s guidance. (Al-Yauma akmaltu lakum deenu-kum (5:3).
The Muslims clearly understood these basic facts when Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be with him) died. Therefore, there was no need for them to make “correction / falsification of the Uthman’s codex”, or concoct elaborate justifications about Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be with him) disowning Zaid and him conniving to get rid of his “adopted son.”
There is not an iota of evidence in the Muslim “literary construction” (attempted in the first few “decades/centuries”, as Powers claims) to “create” Muhammad’s genealogy. He was a member of the “Patriarch” Abraham’s family, despite denial by Jacob’s progenies.
The Qur’ān unequivocally rejected the notion of Judeo-Christian “PROPHECY” – one who foretells the incoming events. Islamic perception of “Risaalah” (God’s Messenger-ship) is clearly stated in: 2: 38 (and hundreds of other verses). On moving Adam’s abode from Jannah to the Earth, Allah instructed them:
(Clear out from it (Jannah) together! If you should be handed guidance from Me then anyone who follows My Guidance will have no fear….)
There is no evidence in the exegetical (Tafseer) literature that the Muslims in the first few decades engaged in polemical discussion about the Prophet’s being the final prophet required that he be sonless, or from Abraham’s progeny.
The Muslim understanding of Risaalat spared them of all the twists and turns that Powers concocts to prove Muhammad’s moral turpitude (apart from his being a progeny of the “outcast” son of Abraham). Powers finds are not at all supported in the Muslim theological discussions or polemics.
REVISION (OVER- WRITING) OF A KEY TEXT
To prove his point that the Qur’ān was edited (subjected to human manipulation in later centuries) Powers has included a photograph of a single page from a hand-written manuscript of the Qur’ān. In it the word Kalaalah (4:176) was “re-touched” (Powers calls it “tampered with” or “rectified”) later.
According to Powers, the origin of the Qur’ānic word “Kalaalah” (4:12) is Akkadian. The argument goes that the Arabic Kalla being a derivative/borrowing of Akkadian Kalla-fu / kallutu (ana kallat/u mara/h) means a daughter-in-law.
However, there are several major flaws in Powers’ hypothesis.
a) Jeffery, Arthur (1938) did not include Kalalah among Akkadian borrowings in Arabic. Carter, Michael in “foreign Vocabulary” (Rippin’s ed. The Blackwell Companion of the Qur’ān (2006)) also doesn’t mention it.
b) The same word Kalaalah appears in 4:12 in the same manuscript. There it doesn’t appear to be “corrected”, “overwritten”, or “redacted.”
c) It is also to be noted that the Qur’ān uses the same root: K-l-l not only at two in places in 4:12, and 4:176, but a third place (Kallun ala maulaahu) in 16:76. In the last context, “Kallun” has a totally distinct meaning.
d) The word Akkadian means: Daughter-in law. However, the Qur’ānic Arabic term Kalaalah means: La Far’a lah (one who neither has parents nor children). The Akkadian meaning does not fit into any of the two contexts in which it appears in the Qur’ān.
How credible is Powers’ claim that his was the single copy of the Qur’ān that existed (in which the word “Kalaalah” was “redacted”) and it was used to make all subsequent copies?
QUR’ĀN CODEX
For more than a century, frantic efforts by the Western scholars (including the “Yemeni codex” and others) did not unearth a partially or wholly “different” version of the Qur’ānic texts. Powers’ so-called evidence of “over-writing” Kalaalah” in 4:176 also does not hold. Why?
– The Qur’ān’s texts (complete or segments) were safe not in “Uthman’s Codex” but in the memory of hundreds of thousands of Muslims when Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be with him) died.
– Reciting some part of the Qur’ān from one’s memory five times a day in 17 Rak’aat was an obligation on every Muslim, male or female. Every new convert (to Islam) had to memorize parts of the Qur’ān in Arabic to complete his religious duty of five (daily) prayers, and that too in Arabic and Arabic alone.
– During the (obligatory) fasting month (of Ramadan), the complete text of the Qur’ān was recited from memory by the prayer leader (Imam) for all in the congregation to listen and refresh their memory, or correct the Imam, if (and where) needed.
– In the next 50 years, these earliest recipients of the Qur’ānic texts moved to remote corners of Asia, Africa and Europe (e.g., Timbuktu (in western Africa), Andalus (present Spain) and Java Island (in present Indonesia) where Uthman codex never reached.
– Later generations of the Muslims in far off places transcribed the Qur’ān from their collective memory for hand-written Mushafs (manuscripts, ms, in brief).
– Shia Sects that make tall claims of “omissions/ additions” in the Qur’ānic text (by Sunnis to deprive Ali of his rightful place), to the utter surprise of many (maybe Powers included) believe in the same Qur’ānic text (as of today) that the Sunnis have used forever.
– Qur’ān’s text for publication even today is compared and corrected by the Qur’ān in the memory (Taj, Saudi, etc.), and not the other way round.
There is no need to REFUTE Zainab’s marriage and related issues that Powers has alluded to create his flimsy cobweb in The Making of the Last Prophet. Those are repeatedly explained in the context of The Satanic Verses.