Unmasking Islam: The Reliability of Traditional Sources of Islam
Sira means ‘biography’, and likewise Sirat Rasul Allah is the biography of Muhammad, the messenger of Allah written by Ibn Ishaq (CA 85/704 - 150/767(?)), which is the earliest life of Muhammad of which we have any trace. He was one of the main authorities on the life and times of the Prophet. Amongst the early Muslim critic, Ishaq had a very high reputation (e.g., Al-Zuhri spoke of him as ‘the most knowledgeable man in Maghazi’). Ishaq’s Sira or biography provides the sole account of Muhammad’s life and the formation of Islam written within 200 years of his death.
The work of Ibn Ishaq is very important for the researchers not only because it is the earliest biography, but also for the reason that Ibn Ishaq was a free thinker and he was free from any influences of later idealizing tendencies. While the character, message, and deeds portrayed within its pages are the direct opposite of Christ’s and his disciples, the Sira’s chronological presentation is similar in style to the Christian Gospels. His work contains too much information of a character that is devastatingly unfavorable to the Prophet.
Al-Maghazi is the early Muslim military expeditions or raiding parties in which Muhammad took part in the Medinan period. But this term seems to have been more or less often used synonymously with term Sira.
The history of al-Tabari is a mine of information for historical and critical research by Western scholars.
This Persian historian was a devout Muslim, a commentator of Qur’an and widely traveled. He had not only devoted much time to history but even mathematics and medicine.
Tabari derived much of his material from oral traditions and literary sources like the works of Abu Miknaf, al-Wiqidi, Ibn Sa’d and of course Ibn Ishaq.
Qur’an’s claim to Divine origin rests on the Ahadith (plural of Hadith). The Hadith, or the book of tradition, are the records of what Muhammad did, what he enjoined, what was done in his presence and what he did not forbid. Hadith collections also include the authoritative sayings and doings of the companions of Muhammad. Muhammad was aware that people were taking note of all his casually uttered words and that stories of what he did were being passed around.
He was aware of the dangers and warned against the practice because some of his casually uttered word may get included in Qur’an by mistake (Brahmachari, 1999, p. 131). But the trend once started could not be stopped and was accelerated after his death (Walker, 2002, p. 172)
The Hadith contains material from pre-Islamic times also. Much was added to it after Muhammad’s death with fresh material with the growth of Islamic empire.
It is true that much of the Ahadith was fabricated before Imam Bukhari made his compilation.
As example, Ibn Abi-I-Awja (executed 772 CE for apostasy) confessed before his death that he had fabricated more than four thousand Ahadith, in which he forbade Muslims what was in fact permitted and vice versa and he made Muslims to break the fast when they should have been fasting (Warraq, 2003, p. 45). Awja’s case is just one example.
There are instances where many Ahadith were invented to serve the political purposes of the Umayyad, the Abbasids and later dynasties of Caliphs and handing down of the traditions went downwards to the level of a business enterprise (Goldziher, 1971, p. 169) as a means of livelihood.
A large amount of non- Islamic material was drawn into by the compilers which even included sayings of Buddhist wisdom, Roman stories and verses from the Zoroastrians, Jewish and Christian scriptures and even Greek philosophy (Gibb, 1969, p. 51). Soon the number of Ahadith already in circulation and still being invented became unimaginable.
As one Muslim authority wrote, ‘in nothing do we see pious man more given to falsehood than in the traditions’ (Nicholson, 1969, p.145). So it was urgently necessary to compile an authentic collection. The best-known and most authoritative compilation is by Bukhari. It is said that Bukhari had examined a total of 6,00,000 traditions.
He preserved some 7,000 (including traditions), which means he rejected some 593,000 as inauthentic (Crone, 1987, p. 33). But since many of them were repeated, there remained only about 2760 in total. Second only to Bukhari’s collection is the work of Muslim Ibn al-Hajaj, which contains three thousand traditions. These compilations are believed to be Sahih Hadith (authentic traditions).
With much disappointment to the Muslims, the above five oldest and most trusted Islamic sources don’t portray Muhammad a ‘superior being’ or any kind of ‘the mercy of God among mankind’. The sources reveal that he was a thief, a liar, an assassin, a pedophile, a shameless womanizer, a promiscuous husband, a rapist, a mass murderer, a desert pirate, a warmonger but a spineless coward, and a calculating and ruthless tyrant. It’s certainly not the character profile of the founder of a true religion.
Moreover, there is no reason to believe that these authentic collections of Bukhari were later additions by religious rivalries. Bukhari was a devout Muslim and his sincerity was beyond doubt. Other traditional books were written by pious Muslims, the copies are preserved and certainly it would not be the characteristic of believers to portray their Prophet as a villain.
After all Muhammad had promised them Paradise in exchange of their acceptance of Muhammad as a Prophet. How they can malign him?
Similarly the trustworthiness of Christian sources cannot be doubted either. By the time Muhammad received his first revelation early in the seventh century; Christianity was already an established religion and had been in law of the exclusive faith of the Roman Empire, the superpower of the Mediterranean for some two centuries. Christianity also had been planted from Ethiopia to Ireland and Morocco to Georgia and in Mesopotamia, i.e., modern Iraq
As the grip of the Orthodox Church was relaxed, there was a wave of theological deviants and the contemporaneous Christians evaluated Muhammad and his sect as yet another such group which had gone astray. It was unthinkable to them that Islam might be ‘a new religion’ in the strict sense of the term.
The Islamic leadership remained on friendly terms with the Christian populations of the land they conquered. Qur’an (29:45) requires Muslims should respect the Ahl al-Kitab, the people of the book, that is to say the Christians and Jews. Hence we hardly have any doubt on the authenticity of early Christian sources. It was too late for the Christian to realize the fact about Islam.
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