The confidence reposed in the stories of former times varies with the medium through which they have been handed down. The true exploits of Hercules carry less conviction than the feats of Troy while, again, the wanderings of Ulysses, and the adventures of the early founders of Rome, are regarded with
Incomparably less trust than the history of the Peloponessian war, or the fortunes of Julius Caesar. Thus there are three great divisions of ancient narrative. Legendary tales are based upon evanescent materials, and it is often doubtful whether they shadow forth abstract principles or real facts. Tradition, and
the rhapsodies of bards, have for their object actual or supported events; but the Impression of these events is liable to become distorted, from the imperfection of the vehicle which conveys them to posterity. It is to the contemporary historian alone, or to history deriving its facts from contemporary records, that
the mind accords a reliance which, proportioned to the means and the fidelity of the writer, may rise to absolute certainty.
The narrative which we now possess of the origin of Islam does not belong exclusively to any one of these classes. It is legendary, for it contains multitudes of wild myths, such as the the "Light of Mahomet", and the Cleansing of his Heart. It is traditional since the main material of the story is oral recitation, not
recorded until Islam had attained to a full growth. But it possesses also some of the elements of History, because there are contemporary records of undoubted authenticity, to which we can still
refer. Moreover, Moslem Tradition is of a peculiar and systematic character, and in some respects carries an authority not claimable by common tradition.
From these heterogeneous and incoherent materials it might be supposed difficult, and often impossible, to extract a uniform and consistent account of the Arabian Prophet, the various points of which shall be supported by sufficient evidence or probability. It will be my attempt, in the present chapter, to elucidate this topic; to enquire into the available sources for such a narrative; and the degree of credit to which they are severally entitled.
We have two main treasuries from which may be drawn materials for tracing the life of Mahomet and the first rise of Islam. These are the CORAN, and the TRADITIONS of the two first centuries. Two minor classes may be added, namely, contemporary documents, and Arab poetry; but these have been,
for the most part, transmitted by Tradition, and may with propriety be treated as coming under the same head.
What dependence, then, can be placed on these sources? What is their individual merit as furnishing
historical evidence? and what their comparative value, in relation to each other? To the solution of these questions, we shall now address ourselves.
The CORAN consists exclusively of the revelations or commands which Mahomet professed, from time to time, to receive through Gabriel, as a message direct from God; and which, under an alleged divine direction, he delivered to those about him1. At the
time of pretended Inspiration, or shortly after, each passage was recited by Mahomet before the Companions or followers who happened to be present, and was generally Committed to writing
by some one amongst them2, upon palm leaves, leather, stones, or such other rude material as conveniently came to hand. These divine messages Continued throughout the three-and-twenty years
of his prophetical life, so that the last portion did not appear till the year of his death. The canon was then closed; but the contents were never, during the Prophet's life-time, systematically arranged, or even collected together. We have no certain knowledge how the originals were preserved. That there did not exist any special depository for them, is evident from the mode in which, after Mahomet's death, the various fragments had to be sought for. Much of the Coran possessed only a temporary interest,
arising out of circumstances which soon ceased to be important; and it Seems to be doubtful whether the Prophet intended passages of this nature for public worship, or even for eventual currency3.
Such portions it is little likely he would take any pains to
preserve. Whether he retained under his own eye and custody the more important parts, we have no indication; perhaps he regarded them an sufficiently safe in the current copies, guarded by the almost miraculous tenacity or the Arab memory. 'I'he later, and the more important, revelations were probably left with the scribes who recorded them, or laid up in the habitation of some one of the Prophet's wives. However this may have been,
it is very certain that, when Mahomet died, there was nowhere any deposit of the complete series of original transcripts, and it seeing doubtful whether the original transcripts themselves were
then generally in existence.
But the preservation of the Coran during the lifetime of Mahomet was not dependent on any such uncertain archives. The divine revelation was the corner-stone of Islam. The recital of a passage formed an essential part of every celebration of public worship; and its private perusal and repetition was enforced as a duty and a privilege, fraught with the richest religious merit. This is the universal voice of early tradition, and may be gathered from the revelation itself. The Coran was accordingly committed
to memory more or less by every adherent of Islam, and the extent to which it could be recited was reckoned one of the chief distinctions of nobility in the early Moslem empire5. The custom of
Arabia favored the task. Passionately fond of poetry, yet possessed of but limited means and skill in committing to writing the effusions of their bards, the Arabs had long been habituated to imprint them
on the living tablets of their hearts. The recollective faculty was thus cultivated to the highest pitch; and it was applied, with all the ardour of an awakened Arab spirit, to the Coran. Such was the tenacity of their memory, and so great their power of application, that several of Mahornet's followers, according to early
tradition, could, during his life-time, repeat with scrupulous accuracy
the entire revelation6.
We are not, however, to assume that the entire Coran was at of this period repeated in a fixed order. The present compilation, indeed, is held by the Moslems to follow the arrangement prescribed by Mahomet; and early tradition might appear to imply some known sequence7. But this cannot be admitted; for had any fixed order been observed or sanctioned by the Prophet, it would unquestionably have been preserved in the subsequent collection. Now the Coran, as handed down to our time, follows in the disposition of its several parts no intelligible arrangement whatever, either of subject or time; and it is inconceivable that
Mahomet should have enjoined its recital invariably in this concatenation. We must even doubt whether the number of the Suras, or chapters, was determined by Mahomet as we now have them8. The internal sequence at any rate of the contents of the several Suras cannot, in most eases, have been that which was enforced
by the Prophet. The chaotic mingling of subjects, ever and anon disjoined as well by chronology as by the sense ; - a portion preceding at Medina sometimes immediately preceding a passage revealed long before at Mecca; a command placed directly after a later on which cancels or modifies it; or an argument
suddenly disturbed by the interjection of a sentence utterly foreign to its purport; all this forbids us to believe that the present, or indeed any complete, arrangement was in use during Mahomet's life-time.
On the other hand, there does not appear reason to doubt that several at least of the Suras are precisely the same, both in matter and order, as Mahomet left them9 ; and that the remainder, though
often resembling a mosaic of various material, rudely dove-tailed together, is yet composed of genuine fragments, generally of considerable size, and each for the most part, following the connection in which it was recited at the public prayers, and committed to memory or to paper from the mouth of the Prophet by the
earliest Moslems10.
The irregular interposition and orderless disposal of the smaller fragments have indeed frequently
destroyed the sequence, and produced a perplexing confusion. Still, the fact remains, that the fragments
themselves were Mahomet's own composition, and were learned or recorded under his instructions;
and this fact stamps the Coran, not merely as formed out of the Prophet's words and sentences,
but to a large extent as his in relation to the context likewise.
However retentive the Arab memory, we should still have regarded with distrust a transcript made entirely from that source. But there is good reason for believing that many fragmentary copies, embracing amongst them the whole Coran, or nearly the whole, were made by Mahomet's followers during his life. Even if we admit that writing had been but lately introduced into Mecca11 it was without doubt generally known there long before
Mahomet assumed his prophetical office. Many of his followers are expressly mentioned as employed by the Prophet at Medina in writing his letters or dispatches. And, though himself delighting in the title of the " Illiterate Prophet," and abstaining by necessity or design from the use or penmanship, he by no means looked with a jealous eye upon the art. Some of the poorest Meccan captives taken at Badr were offered their release on condition that they would teach a certain number of the ignorant citizens of
Medina to write12. And although the people of Medina were not so generally educated as the Meccans, yet many of them also are distinctly noticed as having been able to write before Islam13. The ability being thus possessed, it may be safely inferred that what was so indefatigably committed to memory, would be likewise committed carefully to writing.
We also know that when a tribe first joined Islam, Mahomet was in the habit of deputing one or more of his followers to teach
them the Coran and the requirements of his religion. We are frequently informed that
they carried written instructions with them on the latter point, and it is natural
to conclude that they would provide themselves also with transcripts of the more
important parts of the Revelation, especially those upon which the ceremonies of Islam
were founded, and such as were usually recited at the public prayers14.
Besides the references in the Coran itself to its own existence in a written form, we have
express mention made, in the authentic traditions of Omar's conversion, of a copy of
the twentieth Sura being used by his sister's family for social and private devotional
reading15.
This refers to a period preceding, by three or four years, the emigration to Medina. If
transcripts of the revelation were made, and in common use, at that early time, when the
followers of Islam were few and oppressed, it seems a sure deduction that they multiplied
exceedingly when the Prophet came to power, and his Book formed the law of the greater
part of Arabia.
It is perhaps hardly necessary to add that the limitations already applied to the Coran as committed to memory, must be equally understood here. The transcripts were mere fragmentary copies compiled, if compiled at all, with little or no reference to concatenation of subject and date. The Suras chiefly used in
public worship, or the most favourite and meritorious for private perusal and recitation, would be those of which the greatest number of copies existed. Transcripts of the earlier Sura, and of those of evanescent interest, even if extant, would be few in number16.
Such was the condition of the text of the Coran during State of the Coran up to Mahomet's life, and such it remained for about a year after his death, imprinted upon the hearts of his people, and fragmentary copies of it increasing daily. These sources would correspond closely with each other; for the Coran, even in the Prophet's life-time, was regarded with a superstitious awe as containing the very words of God himself; so that any variations would be reconciled by a direct reference to Mahomet17, and after his death to the originals where they existed, or to the transcripts and the memory of the Prophet's confidential friends and amanuenses.
It was not till the overthrow of Moseilama, when a great carnage took place amongst the Moslems at Yemama18, and large numbers of the best reciters of the Coran were slain, that a
misgiving first arose in Omar's mind as to the uncertainty and embarrassment which would be experienced regarding the text, when all those who had received it from the original source, and
thence stored it in their memories, should have passed away. "I fear," said he, addressing the Caliph Abu Bacr, "that the slaughter may again wax hot amongst the repeaters of the Coran, in other fields of battle; and that much may be lost therefrom19.
Now, therefore, my advice is, that thou shouldest give speedy orders for the collection of the Coran." Abu Bacr agreed, and thus made known his wishes to Zeid ibn Thabit, an Adjustor or convert of Medina, and one of the Prophet's amanuenses, - Thou art a young man, and wise; against whom no one amongst its can cast an imputation; and thou wert wont to write down the inspired revelations of the Prophet of the Lord. Wherefore now search out the Coran, and bring it all together." So new and unexpected was the enterprise, that Zeid at first shrank from it, and doubted the propriety, or even lawfulness, of attempting that which Mahomet had neither himself done nor commanded to be done. At last he yielded to the joint entreaties of Abu Bacr and Omar, and seeking out tile fragments of the Coran from every quarter, "gathered it together, from date-leaves, and tablets of white stone, and from the breasts of men20." By the labours of Zeid,
these scattered and confused materials were reduced to the order and sequence in which we now find them, and in which it is pretended that Zeid used to repeat the Coran in the presence of Mahomet. The original copy prepared by Zeid appears to have been kept by Abu Bacr during the short remainder of his reign. It then came unto the possession of Omar, who committed it to the custody of his daughter Haphsa, one of the Prophet's widows.
The compilation of Zeid, as copied out in this exemplar continued during the ten years caliphate of Omar to be the standard and authoritative text21.
But variety of expression either originally prevailed in the previous transcripts and modes of recitation, or soon crept into the copies which were made from Zeid's edition. Mussulmans were scandalized. The Coran sent down by the Lord was ONE, but if there were several varying texts, where was its unity? Hodzeifa, who had warred both in Armenia and Adzerbaijan, and had observed the different readings of the Syrians and of the men of
Irac, was alarmed at the number and extent of the variations, and warned Othman to interpose, and "stop the people, before they should differ regarding their scriptures, as did the Jews and Christians22". The Caliph was persuaded, and to remedy the evil had recourse again to Zeid, with whom he associated a jury of three Coreishites23.: The original copy of the first edition was
obtained from Haphsa's depository, and a careful recension of the whole set on foot. in case of difference between Zeid and his coadjutors, the voice of the latter, its demonstrative of the Coreishite idiom, was to preponderate; and the new collation was
thus assimilated to the Meccan dialect, in which the Prophet had given utterance to his inspiration24. Transcripts were multiplied and forwarded to the chief cities in the empire, and all the previously existing copies were, by the Caliph's command, committed to the flames25. The old original was returned to Haphsa's
custody.
The recension of Othman has been handed down to us unaltered. So carefully, indeed, has it been preserved, that there are no variations of importance,- we might almost say no variations at all, - amongst the innumerable copies of the Coran scattered throughout
the vast bounds of the empire of Islam. Contending and embittered factions, taking their rise in the murder of Othman himself within a quarter of a century from the death of Mahomet, have ever since rent the Mahometan world. Yet but ONE CORAN has always been current amongst them; and the consentaneous use by all to the present day of the same scripture, is an irrefragable proof that we have now before us the very text prepared by the commands of the unfortunate Caliph26. There is probably in the
world no other work which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text. The various readings are wonderfully few in number, and are chiefly confined to differences in the vowel points and diacritical signs. But these marks were invented at a later date. They did not exist at all in the early copies, and can hardly be said to affect the text of Othman 27 .
Since, then', we possess the undoubted text of Othman's recension, it remains to be inquired whether that text was an honest reproduction of Abu Bacr's edition, with the simple reconcilement or unimportant variations. There is the fullest ground for believing that it was so. No early or trustworthy traditions throw suspicion of unfair dealing upon Othman28. The Shiahs indeed, of later times, pretend
that Othman left out certain Suras or passages which favored Ali. But this is incredible. He could not possibly have done so without being observed at the time; and it cannot be imagined that Ali and his followers - not to mention the whole body of the Mussulmans who fondly regarded the Coran as the word of God - - would have permitted such a proceeding.
In support of title position, the following arguments may be adduced. First. When Othman's edition was prepared, no open breach had yet taken place between the Omeyads and the Alyites. The unity of Islam was still complete and unthreatened. Ali's pretensions were undeveloped. No sufficient object can, therefore, be assigned for the perpetration by Othman of an offence which Moslems even then regarded as one of the blackest dye.
Second. - On the other hand, Ali, from the very commencement of Othman's reign, had an influential party of adherents, strong enough in the end to depose the Caliph, to storm his palace in the heart of Medina, and to put an end to his life. Can we conceive that these men would have remained quiet, when the very evidence of their leader's superior claims was being openly expunged from the book of God? Third. - At the time of the recension, there were still multitudes alive who had the Coran, as originally
delivered, by heart; and of the supposed passages favouring Ali – had any ever existed -there would have been numerous transcripts in the hands of his family and followers. Both of these sources must have proved an effectual check upon any attempt at
suppression29. Fourth. - The party of Ali shortly after assumed
an independent attitude, and he himself succeeded to the Caliphate. Is it possible that either Ali, or his party, when thus arrived at power, would have tolerated a mutilated Coran - mutilated expressly to destroy his claims? Yet we find that they followed one and the same Coran with their opponents, and raised not even the shadow of an objection against it suppression30. The insurgents are indeed
said to have made it one of their complaints against Othman that he had caused
a new edition to be made of the Coran, and had committed all the old copies to the flames;
but these proceedings were objected to simply as unauthorized and sacreligious. No hint
was dropped of any alteration or omission. Such a supposition, palpably absurd at the
time, is altogether an after-thought of the modern Shias.
We may then safely conclude that Othman's recension was, what it professed to be, a reproduction of Abu Bacr's edition, with a more perfect conformity to the Meccan dialect, and possibly a more uniform arrangement of its parts, - but still a faithful reproduction. The most important question yet remains, viz.,
Whether Abu Bacr.'s edition was an authentic and complete collection of Mahomet's revelations. The following considerations warrant the belief that it was authentic and, in the main, as complete as
at the time was possible.
First. - We have no reason to doubt that Abu Baer was a sincere follower of Mahomet, and an earnest believer in the divine origin of the Coran. his faithful attachment to the Prophet's person, conspicuous for the last twenty years of his life, and his simple, consistent, and unambitious deportment as Caliph, seem to admit no other supposition. Firmly believing the revelations of his clear friend to be the revelations of God himself; his natural object would be to secure a pure and complete transcript of them. A similar argument applies with almost equal force to Omar and the other agents in the revision. The great mass of Mussulmans were undoubtedly sincere, nay fanatical, in their belief. From the scribes themselves, employed in the compilation, down to the humblest believer who brought his little store of writing on stones or palm-leaves, all would be influenced by the same earnest desire to reproduce the very words which their Prophet had declared as
his message from the Lord. And a similar guarantee existed in the feelings of the people at large, in whose soul no principle was more deeply rooted than an awful reverence for the supposed word of God. The Coran itself contains frequent denunciations against those who should presume "to fabricate anything in the name of the Lord," as well as conceal any part of that which he had revealed. Such an action, represented as the worst description of crime, we cannot believe that the first Moslems, in the
early ardour of their faith and love, ever dared to contemplate31.
Second. - The compilation was made within two years of Mahomet's death 32. We have seen that several of his had the entire revelation (excepting perhaps some obsolete fragment) by heart; that every Moslem treasured it up more or less in his memory; and that there were official reciters of it, for public worship and tuition, in all countries to which Islam extended. These formed an unbroken link, a living stereotype, between the revelation, fresh from Mahomet's lips, and the edition of it by
Zeid. Thus the people were not only sincere and fervent in their desire for a faithful copy of the Coran; they were also in possession of ample means for realizing their wish, and for testing the accuracy and completeness of the volume placed by Abu Bacr in their hands.
Third. - A still greater security would be obtained from the fragmentary transcripts,
which existed in Mahomet's life-time, and must have greatly multiplied before the Coran was
thrown together. These were in the possession, probably, of all who could read. And as
we know that the compilation of Abu Bacr came into immediate and unquestioned use, it
is reasonable to conclude that it embraced and corresponded with every extant fragment;
and therefore, by common consent, superseded them all. We hear of no fragments intentionally
omitted by the compilers, nor of any that differed from the received edition. Had any such
been discoverable, they would undoubtedly have been preserved and noticed in those
traditional repositories, which treasured up the minutest and most trivial acts and sayings
attributed to the Prophet.
Fourth. - The contents and the arrangement of the Coran speak forcibly for its authenticity. All the fragments that could
possibly be obtained have evidently, with the most artless simplicity, been joined together. The patchwork bears no marks of a designing genius or a moulding hand. It clearly testifies to the
faith and reverence of the compilers, and proves that they dared not do more than simply collect the sacred fragments and place them in juxta-position. Hence the interminable repetitions; the palling reiteration of the same ideas, the same truths, the same doctrines; hence the scripture stories and Arab legends, told over and over again with little verbal variation; hence the pervading want of connection, and the startling chasms between adjacent passages. Again, the confessions of Mahomet, and his frailties
which it was sometimes expedient to represent as having been noticed by the Deity, are all with evident faithfulness entered in the Coran. Not less undisguised are the frequent verses which are contradicted or abrogated by later revelations33. The editor plainly contented himself with simply bringing together, and copying out in a continuous form with scrupulous accuracy, the fragmentary materials within his reach. He neither ventured to select from repeated versions of the same incident, nor to reconcile
differences, nor by the alteration of a single letter to dove-tail abrupt transitions of context, nor by tampering with the text to soften discreditable appearances. Thus we possess every internal guarantee of confidence.
But it may be objected, -- If the text of Abu Bacr's Coran was pure and universally received, how came it to be so soon corrupted; - and to require, in consequence of its variations, an extensive recension? The traditions do not afford us sufficient light to determine decisively the cause of these discrepancies. They
may have been owing to various readings in the older fragmentary transcripts, which remained in the possession of the people; they may have originated in the diverse dialects of Arabia, and the different modes of pronunciation and orthography; or they may
have sprung up naturally, before a strict uniformity in all private manuscripts was officially enforced. It is sufficient for us to know that in Othman's revision recourse was had to the original exemplar of the first compilation, and that we have otherwise every guarantee, internal and external, of possessing a test the same as that which Mahomet himself gave forth and used34.
While, however, it is maintained that we now have the Coran as it was left by Mahomet, there is no ground for asserting that passages, once given forth as inspired, may not at some subsequent period have been changed or withdrawn by the Prophet himself. On the contrary, repeated examples of such withdrawal are noticed in the traditions; and alterations (although no express instances are given) seem to be clearly implied in the following early tradition. : -
Omar praised Obey ibn Kab, and said that he was the most perfect repeater of the Coran. "We, indeed," he added, "are in the habit of omitting some portions included by Obey in his recitation. For Obey is wont to affirm, - "I heard the Prophet saying so, and I omit not a single word entered in the Coran by
the Prophet: ' whereas the fact is that parts of the book were revealed in the absence of Obey," (which cancel or alter some of the verses which he repeats.)35
Again,--Ibn Abbas stated that he preferred the reading of Abdallan ibn Masud ; -- "for Mahomet used to have the Coran
repeated to him (by Gabriel) once every Ramazan; and in the year of his death it was twice repeated, and Abdallah was present (on both occasions) AND WITNESSED WHAT WAS REPEALED THEREOF,
AND WHAT WAS CHANGED."36
The Coran itself recognizes the withdrawal of certain passages, after they had been given forth as a part of the Revelation ;--- "Whatever verses we cancel, or cause thee to forget, we give thee
better in their stead, or the like thereof."37
Any passages which Mahomet, thus finding to be inconvenient, or otherwise inexpedient for
publication, altered or withdrew from the original transcripts before they went into circulation, will,
of course, not be found in our present Coran. But this does not in any measure affect the value
of the Coran as an exponent of Mahomet's opinions, or rather of the opinions he finally professed
to hold; since what we now have, though possibly corrected and modified by himself, is still his
own38.
It is, moreover, not impossible that verses which had been allowed to fall into abeyance and become obsolete, or the suppression. of which Mahomet may himself have desired were sought out by the blind zeal of his followers and, with pious
veneration for everything believed to be the word or God, entered in Zeid's collection. On the other hand, many early passages of ephemeral interest may, without any design on the part of Mahomet, have entirely disappeared in the lapse of time; and no trace being left, they must necessarily have been omitted from
the compilation. But both of these are hypothetical positions, unsupported by actual evidence or tradition39.
The conclusion, which we may now with confidence draw, is that the editions both of Abu Bacr and of
Othman were, not only faithful, but complete as far as the materials went; and that whatever omissions there may have been, they were not on the part of the compilers intentional. The real drawback to the inestimable
value of the Coran, as a contemporary and authentic record of Mahomet's character and actions, is the want of arrangement and connection which pervades it; so that, in inquiring into the meaning and force of a passage, no infallible dependence can be placed upon the adjacent sentences as being the true context. But bating this serious defect, we may upon the strongest presumption affirm that every verse in the Coran is the genuine and unaltered composition of Mahomet himself, and conclude with at least a close approximation to the verdict of Von Hammer - That we hold the Coran to be as surely Mahomet's word, as the Mahometans hold it to be the word of God40.
The importance of this deduction can hardly be over-estimated. The Coran becomes
the ground-work and the test of all inquires into the origin of Islam and the character
of its founder. Here we have a store-house of Mahomet's own words recorded during
his life, extending over the whole course of his public career, and illustrating his religious
views, his public acts, and his domestic character. By this standard of his own making we
may safely judge his life and actions, for it must represent either what he actually thought,
or that which he desired to appear as thinking. And so true a mirror is the Coran of
Mahomet's character, that the saying became proverbial among the early Moslems,
Having gained this firm position, we proceed to inquire into the credibility and authority bf the other source of early Mahamoten history, viz., TRADITION. This must always form the chief material for the biography of the Prophet. It may be possible to establish from the Coran the salient events or his life, but
tradition alone enables us to determine their relative position, and to weave them together with the tissue of intermediate affairs.
Mahometan tradition consists of the sayings of the friends and followers of the Prophet, handed down by a real or supposed chain of narrators to the period when they were collected, recorded, and classified. The process of transmission was for the most part oral. It may be sketched as follows.
After the death of Mahomet, the main employment of his followers was arms. The pursuit of pleasure, and the formal round of religious observances, filled up the interstices of active life, but afforded scanty exercise for the higher faculties of the mind. The tedium of long and irksome marches, and the
lazy intervals from one campaign to another, fell listlessly upon a simple and semi-barbarous race. These intervals were occupied, and that tedium beguiled, chiefly by calling up the past in familiar conversation or more formal discourse. On what topic, then, would the early Moslems more enthusiastically descant than on the acts and sayings of that wonderful man who had called them into existence as a conquering nation, and had placed in their hands "the keys both of this World and of Paradise ?'
Thus the converse of Mahomet's followers would be much about him. The majesty of his character gained
greatness by contemplation; and, as time removed him farther and farther from them, the lineaments of the mysterious mortal who was wont to hold familiar intercourse with the messengers of heaven, rose in
dimmer, but in more gigantic proportions. The mind was unconsciously led on to think of him as endowed with supernatural power, and ever surrounded by supernatural agency. Here was the material out of which Tradition grew luxuriantly. Whenever there was at hand no standard of fact whereby these recitals might be tested, the Memory was aided by the unchecked efforts of the imagination; and as days rolled on the latter element gained complete ascendancy.
Such is the result which the lapse of time would naturally have upon the minds and the narratives of the As-hib or COMPANIONS of Mahomet - more especially of those who were young when me died. And then another race sprang up who had never seen the Prophet, who looked up to his contemporaries with a superstitious reverence, and who listened to their stories of him as to the tidings of a messenger from the other world. "Is it possible, father of Abdallah, that, thou hast been with Mahomet?" was
the question addressed by a pious Moslem to Hodzeifa, in the mosque of Kufa "didst thou really see the Prophet, and wert thou on familiar terms with him ?" -- " Son of my uncle it is indeed as thou sayest."- "And how wert thou wont to behave towards the Prophet?" -" Verily, we used to labour hard to please
him."-" Well, by the Lord!" exclaimed the ardent listener," had I been but alive in his time, I would not have followed him to put his blessed foot upon the earth, but would have borne him on my shoulders wherever he listed42." -- Upon another occasion, the youthful Obeida listened to a Companion who was reciting before an assembly how the Prophet's head was shaved at the Pilgrimage, and the hair distributed amongst his followers; the eyes of the young man glistened as the speaker proceeded, and lie interrupted him with the impatient exclamation, -" Would that I had even a single one
of those blessed hairs, 'I would cherish it for ever, and prize it beyond all the gold and silver in the world 43." Such were the natural feelings of fond devotion with which the Prophet came to be regarded by the followers of the "Companions.'
As the tale of the Companions was thus taken up by their latter followers, distance began to invest it with an increasing charm, while the products of a living faith and warm imagination were being fast delated by superstitious credulity. This second generation are termed in the language of the patriotic lore of
Arabia, Tabiun, or Successors. Here and there a Companion survived till near the end of the first century; but, for all practical purposes, they had passed off the stage before the commencement of
its last quarter. Their first Successors, who were in some measure also their contemporaries, flourished in the latter half of the same century, though some of the oldest may have survived for a time in the second 44.
Meanwhile a new cause was at work, which gave to the tales of Mahomet's companions a fresh and an adventitious importance.
The Arabs, a simple and unsophisticated race, found in the Coran ample provisions for the regulation of all their affairs, religious, social, and political. But the aspect of Islam soon underwent a mighty change. Scarcely was the Prophet dead when his followers issued forth from their barren peninsula, armed with the warrant of the Coran to impose the faith of Mahomet upon all the nations of the earth. Within a century they had, as a first step to this universal subjugation, conquered every land that intervened between the banks of the Oxus and the farthest shores of Northern Africa and of Spain; and had enrolled the great majority or their
peoples under the standard of the Coran. This vast empire differed widely indeed from the Arabia of Mahomet's time; and that which well sufficed for the patriarchal simplicity and limited social system
of the early Arabs, became utterly inadequate for the hourly multiplying wants of their descendants. Crowded cities, like Fostat, Kufa, and Damascus, required an elaborate compilation of laws
for the guidance of their courts of justice: new political relations demanded a system of international equity: the speculations of a people before whom literature was preparing to throw open her
arena, and the controversies of eager factions upon nice points of Mahometan faith, were impatient of the narrow limits which confined them -all called loudly for the enlargement of the scanty and naked dogmas of the Coran; and for the development of its defective code of ethics.
And yet it was the cardinal principle of early Islam, that the standard of Law, of Theology, and of Politics, was the Coran and the Coran alone. By it Mahomet himself ruled; to it in his teaching he always referred; from it he professed to derive his opinions, and upon it to ground his decisions. If he, the Messenger of the Lord, and the Founder of the faith, was thus bound by the Coran, much more were the Caliphs, his uninspired substitutes. New and unforeseen circumstances were continually arising, for
which the Coran contained no provision. It no longer sufficed for its original object. How then were its deficiencies to be supplied?
The difficulty was resolved by adopting the CUSTOM or "SUNNAT" of Mahomet - that is, his sayings and his practice, as a supplement to the Coran. The recitals regarding the life of the Prophet
now acquired an unlooked-for value. He had never held himself to be infallible, except when directly inspired of God; but this new doctrine assumed that a heavenly and unerring guidance pervaded
every word and action of his prophetic life. Tradition was thus invested with the force of law, and with some of the authority of inspiration. It was in great measure owing to the rise of this theory, that, during the first century of Islam, the cumbrous recitals of tradition so far outstripped the dimensions of
reality. The perogative now claimed for Tradition stimulated the growth of fabricated evidence, and led to the preservation of every kind
of story, spurious or real, touching the Prophet. Before the close of the century it had imparted an almost incredible impulse to the search for tradition, and had in fact given birth to the new profession of Collectors. Men devoted their lives to the business. They traveled from city to city, and from tribe to tribe, over the whole Mahometan world; sought out by personal inquiry every vestige of Mahomet's biography yet lingering among the Companions, the Successors, and their descendants; and committed to writing the tales and reminiscences with which they used to edify their wondering and admiring auditors.
The work, however, too closely affected the public interests, and the political aspect of the empire, to be left entirely to private and individual zeal. About a hundred years after Mamomet, the Caliph Omar II. issued circular orders for the formal collection of all extant traditions45. The task thus begun continued to be vigorously prosecuted, but we possess no authentic remains of any compilation of an earlier date than the middle or end of the second century. Then, indeed, ample materials had been amassed, and they have been handed down to us both in the shape, of Biographies and of general Collections, which bear upon every imaginable point of Mahomet's character, and detail the minutest incidents of his life.
It thus appears that the traditions we now possess remained generally in an unrecorded form for at least the greater part of a part of a century. It is not indeed denied that some of Mahomet's sayings may possibly have been noted down in writing during his lifetime, and from that source copied and propagated afterwards. We say possibly, for the evidence in favour of any such record is meagre, suspicious, and contradictory. The few and uncertain statements of this nature may have owed their origin to the
authority which a habit of the kind would impart to the name of a Companion, supposed to have practised it. All the original references which I have been able to trace bearing upon this
question have been thrown together in the subjoined note46. It is hardly possible that, if the custom had prevailed of writing down Mahomet's sayings during his life, we should not have had frequent intimation of the fact, with notices of the writers, and special references to the nature, contents, and peculiar authority of
their records. But no such references or quotations are anywhere to be found. It cannot be objected that the Arabs trusted so implicitly to their memory that they regarded oral to be as authoritative
as recorded narratives, and therefore would take no note of the latter; for we see that Omar was afraid lest even the Coran, believed by him to be divine and itself the subject of heavenly care, should become defective, if left to the memory of man. Just as little weight, on the other hand, should be allowed to the tradition that Mahomet prohibited his followers from noting down his words; though it is not easy to see how that tradition could have gained currency at all, had it been the regular and constant
practice of any persons to record his sayings. The truth appears to be that there was in reality no such practice; and that the story of the prohibition, though spurious, embodies the after-thought of
serious Mahometans as to what Mahomet would have said, had he foreseen the loose and fabricated stories that sprang up, and the real danger his people would fall into of allowing Tradition to
supersede the Coran. The evils of Tradition were, in truth, as little thought or as its value was perceived, till many years after Mahomet's death.
But even were we to admit all that has been advanced, it would prove no more than that some of the Companions used to keep memoranda of the Prophet's sayings. Now, unless it be possible to connect such memoranda with extant Tradition, the concession would be useless. But it is not, as far as I know, demonstrable of any single tradition or class of traditions now in existence, that they were copied from such memoranda, or have been derived in any way from them. To prove, therefore, that some traditions were at first recorded, will not help us to a knowledge of whether any of these still exist, or to a discrimination of them from others resting on a purely oral basis. The very most that
could be urged from the premises is, that our present collections may contain some traditions unfounded upon a recorded original, and handed down in writing; but we are unable to single out any individual tradition and make such affirmation regarding it. The entire mass of extant tradition rests in this respect on the same uncertain ground, and the uncertainty of any one portion (apart
from internal evidence of probability) attaches equally to the whole. We cannot with confidence, or even with the least show of likelihood, affirm of any tradition that it was recorded till nearly the end of the first century of the Hegira.
We see, then, how entirely Tradition, as now possessed by us, rests its authority on the memory of
those who handed it down; and how dependent therefore it must have been upon their convictions and their prejudices. For, in addition to the common frailty of human recollection which renders
traditional evidence notoriously infirm, and to tile errors or exaggerations which always distort a narrative transmitted orally through many witnesses, there exist throughout Mahometan Tradition abundant indications of actual fabrication; and there may every where be traced the indirect but not less powerful and dangerous influence of a silently working bias, which insensibly gave its colour and its shape to all the stories of their Prophet treasured up in the memories of the believers.
To form an adequate conception of the value and defects of Tradition, it is absolutely necessary that the
nature and extent of this influence should be thoroughly understood; and it is therefore essential that the reader should possess an outline of the political aspect of the empire from the death of Mahomet to
the period at which our written authorities commence. Such an outline I will now endeavour briefly to trace.
Mahomet survived for ten years the era of his Hegira or emigration from Mecca to Medina. The caliphates of Abu Bacr and of Omar occupied the thirteen succeeding years, during which the
new-born empire, animated by the one ruling passion of enforcing an universal submission to Islam, was still unbroken by division. The distorting medium of FACTION had not yet interposed betwixt us and Mahomet. The chief tendency to be dreaded in the Tradition transmitted through this period, or originating in it, is one which was then perhaps even stronger and more busy than in the approaching days of civil broil, namely, the disposition to exalt the character of Mahomet, and to endow it with superhuman attributes.
The weak and vacillating reign of Otman nourished or gave birth to the discontent and conspiracy of Ali
and his party, who, by the murder of the aged prince, caused a fatal rent in the unity of the empire, and left it a prey to the contending factions of the new competitors for the caliphate. The immediate effect of this disunion was not umfavourable to the historical value of Tradition. For although each party would be tempted to colour their recollections
by their own factious bias, they would still be conscious that a hostile criticism was opposed to them. And, while as yet there were alive on either side eye-witnesses of the Prophet's actions, both would be cautious in advancing what might be liable to dispute, and eager to denounce and expose every
false statement of their opponents47.
The caliphate of Ali, after a troubled and doubtful existence of four-and-a-half years, was terminated by assassination, and the opposing faction of the Ommeyads then gained undisputed supremacy. During the protracted sovereignty of this Dynasty, that is for nearly one hundred years, the influence of the
ruling power directly opposed the superstitious dogmas of the adherents of Mahomet's more immediate family. The authority of a line which derived its descent from Abu Sofian, long the grand opponent of the Prophet, may naturally have softened the asperity of Tradition regarding the conduct of their progenitor, while it aided with perhaps the loudest note in swelling the chorus of glory to Mahomet. But it would be tempted to none of the distorting fabrications of those whose object was to make out a divine right of succession in favour of the uncle or the descendants of the Founder of Islam; and who, for that end, invested them with virtues, and attributed to them actions, which never had existence. Such in the process of time were the motives, and such was the practice, of the partizans of the houses of Ali and Abbas, the son-in-law and the uncle of Mahomet. In the early part, however, of the Ommeyad succession, these insidious tendencies had but little room for play. The fiction of divine right, even had it been
thought of, contradicted too directly the knowledge and convictions of the early Moslems to have met with any support. The unqualified opposition of a large section of Mahomet's most intimate friends to Ali himself shows how little ground there then was for regarding him as the peculiar favourite of heaven. The
Kharijites, or sectarians of the theocratic principle and the extreme opponents of the Ommeyads, went the length of condemning and rejecting Ali for the scandalous crime of parleying with Muavia 48 and submitting his claims to arbitration. It is hence evident that the extravagant pretensions of the Alyites and Abbassides were not entertained, or even dreamt of; in the early part of the Ommeyad caliphate.
During this century the main fabric of Tradition grew up, and assumed permanent shape. Towards its close, the extant traditions began to be systematically sought out, and publicly put upon record. The type then moulded could not but be maintained, in its chief features at least, ever after. Subsequent sectaries
might strive to re-cast it;. their efforts could secure but a very partial success, because the only standard they possessed was formed under the influence of the Ommeyad princes. In the traditional impress of this period, although the features of Mahomet himself were magnified into majestic and supernatural dimensions yet the character of his friends and followers, and the general events of early Islam, were undoubtedly preserved with tolerable accuracy, and thus a broad basis of historical truth has been
maintained.
But in the latter part of the period now before us, an under-current of great volume and intensity commenced to flow. The adherents of the house of Ali, beaten in the field and in all their
rebellious attempts to dethrone the Ommeyads, were driven to other expedients; and the key-stone of their new machinations was the divine right of the family of the Prophet to both temporal and spiritual rule. They established secret associations, and sent forth emissaries in every direction, to decry the Ommeyads as godless usurpers, and to canvass for the Alyite pretender of the day. These claims were ever and anon strengthened by the
mysterious report that the divine Imam of Ali's race was about to step forth from his hidden recess, and stand confessed the Conqueror of the world. Such attempts, however, issued in no more permanent results than a succession of rebellions, massacres, and fruitless civil wars, until another party leagued themselves in the struggle. These were the Abbassides, who desired to raise to the throne some descendant of the Prophet's uncle, Abbas. They combined with the Alyites in denouncing as usurpers the present dynasty, which, though sprung from the Coreish, was but distantly related to Mahomet. By their united endeavours they at length succeeded in supplanting the Ommeyads; when the Alyites found themselves over-reached, and an Abbasside Caliph was raised to the throne.
It is not difficult to perceive how much Tradition must have been affected by these unwearied conspirators. Perverted tradition was, in fact, the chief instrument employed to accomplish their
ends. By it they blackened the memory of the forefathers of the Ommeyads, and exalted the progenitors of the Abbassides. By it they were enabled almost to deify Ali, and to assert their principle that the right of empire vested solely in the near relatives of the Prophet, and in their descendants. For these ends no device was spared. The Coran was misinterpreted, and tradition falsely colored, distorted, and fabricated. Their operations were concealed; studiously avoiding the eye of any one likely to oppose them, they canvassed in the dark. Thus they were safe from criticism; and the stories and glosses of their traditional
schools unobtrusively acquired the character of prescriptive evidence.
In the 136th year of the Hegira, the Abbassides were installed in the imperial caliphate; and the factious teaching, which had hitherto flourished only in the distant satrapies of Persia or, when it ventured near the throne, lurked in the purlieus of crowded cities, now stalked forth with the prestige of sovereignty. The Ommeyads, regarded as the mortal foes of the new dynasty, were persecuted even to extirpation, and their names and descent overwhelmed with obloquy49.
It was under the auspices of the two first of the Abbassides that the earliest biography of which we have any remains was completed, that namely of IBN ISHAC. It is cause for little wonder, then, that following in the steps of his patrons; and that, while lauding their ancestors, he seeks to stigmatize the Ommeyads, and to denounce as miscreants those of their forefathers who acted a prominent part in the first scenes of Islamite history.
The fifth Caliph from this period was the famous Al Mamun, who, during a reign of twenty years, countenanced with a princely support the pursuits of literature. He affected a combination with
the followers of Ali50, and adopted with enthusiasm the peculiar teaching of the Motazelites ; - a sect whom the learned Weil applauds as the Rationalists of Islam. But however freely this Caliph may have derided the doctrine of the eternity of the Coran, and in opposition to orthodox believers asserted the freedom of the human will, he was not a whit less bigoted or intolerant than
his predecessors. He not only declared Ali to be the noblest of mortals, and Muavia tlne basest, but he denounced the most severe punishment against any one who - should venture to speak evil of
the one, or attribute good to the other.51 He made strenuous efforts to impose his theological views upon all. He went so far as to establish even a species of inquisition, and visited with penalties those who dared to differ from him 52.
Unhappily for us, this very reign was the busiest age of the traditional writers, and the period at which (with the exception of that of Ibn Ishac) the earliest extant biographies of Mahomet were composed. It was under Al Mamun that Wackidi, Ibn Hisham, and Madaini, lived and wrote. Justly, indeed, may Dr. Weil sorrow over this as a coincidence fraught with evil to the interests of historical truth. "We look upon it," says he, "as a great misfortune, that the
very three oldest Arabic histories, which are nearly the only sources of authority for the first period of Islam, were written under the Government of Mamun. At a period when every word favour of Muavia rendered the speaker liable to death, and when all were declared outlaws who would not acknowledge Ali to be the most distinguished of mankind, it was not possible to compose, with even the smallest degree of impartiality, a history of the Companions of Mahomet and of his Successors; because, as we have before seen, the personal interests of Ali and his descendants, and their pretensions to the Caliphate, are connected in the closest manner with the most important political events of the first two centuries53.
But besides the biographers of Mahomet and the historians of early Islam, the Collectors of general tradition, who likewise flourished at this period, came within the circle of Abbasside influence,
and some of them under the direct persuasion of Al Mamun. This class of men, as shown above, travelled over the whole empire, and searched after every kind of tradition which bore the slightest
relation to their Prophet. The mass of narrations gathered by this laborious process was sifted by a pseudo-critical canon, founded on the general repute of the narrators who formed the chain from Mahomet downwards; and the approved residuum was published under the authority of the Collector's name. Such collections were more popular than the biographical or historical treatises. They formed, in fact, and still form the groundwork of the different theological schools of Islam; and, having been
used universally and studied continuously from the period of their appearance, exist to the present day in an authentic and genuine shape. Copies of them abound in all Moslem countries; whereas the early biographies are either not extant at all, or can only be procured with great difficulty.
The six standard Sunni collections were compiled exclusively under the Abbasside Caliphs, and the earliest of them partly during the reign of Al Mamun 54. The four canonical collections
of the Shias were prepared somewhat later 55, and are incomparably
less trustworthy than the former, because their paramount object is to build up the divine Imamate or headship of Ali and his descendants.
That the Collectors of Tradition rendered an important service to Islam, and even to history, cannot be
doubted. The vast flood of tradition, poured forth from every quarter of the Moslem empire, and daily gathering volume from innumerable tributaries, was composed of the most heterogeneous elements; without the labours of the traditionists it must soon have formed a chaotic sea, in which truth and error, fact and fable, would have mingled together in undistinguishable confusion. It is a legitimate
inference from the foregoing sketch, that Tradition, in the second century, embraced a large element of truth. That even respectably derived traditions often contained much that was exaggerated and fabulous, is an equally fair conclusion. It is proved by the testimony of the Collectors themselves, that thousands and tens of thousands were current in their times, which possessed not even a shadow of authority. The mass may be likened to the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, formed by the unnatural union of
gold, of silver, of the baser metals, and of clay; and here the more valuable parts were fast commingling hopelessly with the bad.
The prodigious amount of base and fictitious material may be gathered from the estimate even of Mahometan criticism. Upon this topic the opinion of Dr. Weil may be received with confidence and approbation: - "Reliance," he writes, "upon oral traditions, at a time when they were transmitted by memory
alone, and every day produced new divisions among the professors of Islam,
opened up a wide field for fabrication and distortion. There was nothing easier,
when required to defend any religious or political system, than to appeal to an
oral tradition of the Prophet. The nature of these so-called traditions, and the
manner in which the name of Mahomet was abused to support all possible
lies and absurdities, may be gathered most clearly from the fact that Bokhari, who travelled from land to land to gather from the learned the traditions they had received, came to the conclusion, after many years' sifting, that out of 600,000 traditions ascertained by him to be then current, only 4,000 were authentic!
And of this selected number, the European critic is compelled, without hesitation, to reject at least one-half 56. Similar appears to have been the experience of the other intelligent compilers of the day. Thus Abu Daud, out of 500,000 traditions which he is said to have amassed, threw aside 496,000, and retained as trustworthy only 4,000 57.
The heavenly vision which induced Bokhari to commence his pious and herculean task, is sufficiently significant of the urgent necessity that then existed for searching out and preserving the grains of truth scattered here and there amid the chaff. These are his words: "In a dream I beheld the Messenger
of the Lord (Mahomet), from whom I seemed to be driving off the flies. When I awoke I inquired of an interpreter of dreams the meaning of my vision. It is, he replied, that thou shalt drive away LIES far from him. This it was which induced me to compile the Sahih." And well, indeed, in the eyes of Mahometans, did he fulfil the heavenly behest; for, to this day,
the SAHIH BOKHARI is regarded by them as one of the most authentic treasuries of Tradition58.
It is evident, then, that some species of criticism was practised by the Compilers; and that, too,
so unsparingly that out of a hundred traditions not more than one was accepted, and the
remaining ninety-nine entirely rejected. But the European reader will be grievously deceived if
he at all regards such criticism, rigorous as it was, in the light of a sound and discriminating
investigation into the credibility of the traditional elements. It was not the subject-matter of
a tradition, but simply the names attached thereto, which decided the question of credit.
Its authority must rest on some Companion of the Prophet, and on the character of each
individual in the long chain of witnesses through whom it was handed
down59.
If these were unimpeachable, the tradition must be received. No inherent improbability, however
glaring, could exclude a narration thus attested from its place in the authentic collections.
The compilers would not venture upon the open sea of criticism, but steered slavishly by this
single miserable canon along the shallows of a mere formal system. They dared not inquire into
internal evidence. To have arraigned the motives of the first author or subsequent rehearsers
of a story, discussed its probability, and brought it to
the test or historical evidence, would have been a strange and uncongenial task. The spirit of Islam
would not brook the spirit of free inquiry and real criticism. The blind faith of Mahomet and his
followers spurned the aids of investigation and of evidence. Thus saith the Prophet of the Lord,
and every doubt must vanish, every rising question be smothered. If doubts did arise,
and questions were entertained, by any rash philosopher, the temporal authority was at hand
to dispel and to silence them.
The dogmas of Islam were so closely welded with the principles upon which the Moslem government was reared, that it had no option but to enforce with a stern front and iron hand an implicit acquiescence
in those dogmas on which its existence hung. Upon the apostate Moslem the sentence of death; - an award resting on the Prophet's authority, - was rigorously executed by the civil power; and between the heterodoxy of the free-thinker, and the lapse of the renegade, there never existed any well-defined boundary. To the combination, or rather the unity, of the spiritual and political elements in the unvarying type of Mahometan Government, must be attributed that utter absence of candid and free investigation
into the origin and truth of Islam, which so painfully characterizes the Moslem mind even in the present day. The faculty of criticism was annihilated by the sword.
Upon the other hand, there is no reason to doubt that the Collectors were sincere and honest in doing that which they professed to do. It may well be admitted that they sought out in good faith all traditions actually current, inquired carefully the authorities on which they rested, and recorded them with the
most scrupulous accuracy. The sanctions of religion were at hand to enforce diligence and caution. Thus Bokhari, who, as we have just seen, commenced his work at a supposed divine monition, was heard to say "that he never inserted a tradition in his Sahih, until he had made an ablution, and offered up a prayer of
two rakas."60 The prepossessions of the several Collectors would
undoubtedly influence them in accepting or rejecting the chain of witnesses to any traditions; but there is no reason to suppose that
they at all tampered with the traditions themselves. Thus a Shia collector would cast aside a tradition received from Ayesha through an Ommeyad channel; whilst one of Ommeyad predilections would discard every traditional chain in the links of which he discovered an emissary of the house of Ali. But neither the one nor the other was likely to fabricate a tradition, or interpolate a narration, whatever its purport or bearing might be, which they had once received on an unexceptionable array of names as
credible.
The honesty of the compilers is warranted by the style and contents of their works. The complete series of witnesses, by which every tradition is traced up through each stage of transmission to one of the Prophet's Companions, is invariably prefixed; and we cannot but admit the authority which even the names of at
least the later witnesses in such a chain would impart61. These were not feigned names, but the names of real characters, many of whom were personages of note. The traditional collections were openly published, and the credit of the compilers would have been endangered by the fabrication of such evidence62. The Collector was likewise, in general, the centre of a school of traditional learning which, as it were, challenged the public to test its authorities. So far, then, as this kind of attestation can give weight to hearsay, that weight may be readily conceded. Again, the simple
manner in which the most contradictory traditions are accepted, and placed side by side, is a guarantee of sincerity. All that could be collected seem to have been thrown together with scrupulous simplicity. Each tradition, though it be a bare repetition, or
possibly the direct opposite, of a dozen preceding it, is noted down unquestioned, with its special chain of witnesses; whilst no account whatever is made of the most violent improbabilities, of incidents
plainly fabulous, or even of patent contradictions63. Now this appears evidence at least of an honest design. Pains would otherwise have been taken to exclude or to soften down opposing statements; and we should not have found so much allowed to be credible Tradition, which either on the one hand or on the other must have crossed the views and prejudices of the compiler. If
we suppose design, we must suppose at the same time a less even-handed admission of contrary traditions.
Conceding, then, the general honesty of the collectors in making their selection, upon an absurd principle indeed, yet bona fide from existing materials, let us now turn to their selected compilations, and inquire whether they contain any authentic elements of the biography of Mahomet; and if so, how and to what extent these have become commingled with adventitious or erroneous matter.
In the first place, how far does the present text afford us ground for confidence that its contents are identical with the supposed evidence originally given forth by contemporary witnesses? To place the case in the strongest point of view, we shall suppose a class of traditions purporting to have been written by the
Companions, and to have been recorded at each successive stage of transmission. There is a peculiarity in traditional composition which, even upon this supposition, would render it always of doubtful authority; namely, that each tradition is short and abrupt, and completely isolated from every other. The isolation
extends not simply to the traditions themselves as finally compiled by the collector, but to their whole history and descent throughout the two centuries preceding their collection. At
every point they are each completely detached and independent; and this, coupled with the generally, brief and fragmentary character of the statements made in them, deprives us of the checks and critical appliances which may be brought to bear on an extended and continuous narration. From the disconnected
character of the composition, the common tests of authenticity are generally impossible. There is no context whereby to judge the soundness of the text. Each witness in the chain, though professing simply to repeat the original tradition, is in effect an independent authority; and we cannot tell how far, and at what stages, variations may or may not have been allowed, or fresh matter interpolated by any of them. Even were we satisfied of the integrity of all, we are unacquainted with their views as to the liberty with which Tradition might be treated. The style of the narrations marks them for the most part as communicated at the first with all the Informality of social conversation, and with much of the looseness of hearsay; and a similar informality and looseness may have attached to any of the steps of their subsequent transmission.
Again, each tradition was not only isolated, but was held by the collectors to be an indivisible unit, and as such received or rejected. If the traditional links were unexceptionable, the tradition must be accepted as it stood, whole and entire. There could be no sifting of component parts. Whatever in each tradition might be true, and whatever might be fictitious, - the probable and the fabulous, -- composed an indissoluble whole; so that the acceptance or rejection of one portion involved the acceptance or rejection of every portion, as equally credible or undeserving of credit. The power of eradicating interpolated statements, or of excluding such parts of a tradition as were evidently unfounded or
erroneous, was thus renounced. The good seed and the tares were reaped together, and the latter vastly predominated.
It may be possible, indeed, to derive some confirmation from the verbal correspondence of separate traditions regarding the same event; for, if such traditions sprang at the first from a common source (i.e. some Companion of Mahomet), and if they were really handed down through independent channel.
unconnected
with one another, the coincidence of expression would argue faithfulness of transmission. But the conditions here required, it would be difficult, even in a single instance, to prove to the satisfaction of a critical mind. The earlier links of tradition are removed far back in the obscurity of an imperfect dawn. It is impossible to say whether the lines of transmission supposed to have been entirely separate, may not have come into contact, and how often; and whether the matter common to them may not have
been thus obtained, or previously existing variations thus reconciled Many traditions, though supported by unexceptionable names, and corresponding with others even to minute verbal coincidence, abound in stories so fabulous, and statements so erroneous, as to render it impossible that they could ever have formed part of any contemporary record, and to shake our confidence in the whole system of "respectable names". There is also reason for believing (as will be seen farther below) that much of the coincidence of narrative is derived from those traditionists who, at the close of the first and beginning of the second centuries, reduced to writing, and harmonized the traditions extant in their day.
Such is the uncertainty which would attach to Tradition, even if we should concede that it had been recorded from the first. But we have shown that there is no ground whatever for believing that the practice of committing traditions to writing was observed in the first days of Islam, or became general until the greater part of a century had elapsed. The existence of an early record would have afforded some check; but, as the facts stand, there is absolutely no check at all. The record would have at the
least induced a fixed cast of expression and an element of invariableness; whereas Tradition purely oral is as wavering and changeful as the character and habits, the associations and the prejudices, of each witness in the chain of repetition. No possible precaution could hinder the commingling in oral tradition of mistake or fabrication with what at the first may have been real fact and trustworthy representation. The flood-gates of error, extravagance, fiction, are thrown wide open; and we need only look to human nature similarly situated in any part of the globe, and in every age, to be satisfied that little dependence can be placed on
otherwise unsupported details of ordinary historical incident; and none whatever upon the recital of supernatural wonders, conveyed for any length of time through such a channel64. That Mahometan experience proves no exception to the general principle, the puerile extravagancies and splendid fabrications of oriental imagination which adorn or darken the pages of early Islam, amply
demonstrate. The critical test applied by the collectors had, as we have just seen, no reference whatever to these pregnant sources of error; and, though it may have exposed and excluded multitudes of modern fabrications, it failed to place the earlier traditions upon a certain basis, or to supply any means of judging,
between the actual and the fictitious, between the offspring of the imagination and the sober evidence of fact.
It remains to examine the traditional books, with reference to their contents and internal probability.
And here we are fortunate in having at hand, as a standard of comparison, the Coran, which has been already proved a genuine and contemporary document.
In bringing Tradition to this test, we find that in its main historical points the Coran is at one with the standard traditional collections. It notices, sometimes directly, sometimes incidentally, the topics which, from time to time, most interested Mahomet; and with these salient points the mass of tradition is found
upon the whole to tally. The statements and allusions of this description in the, Coran, though themselves comparatively few, are linked more or less with a vast variety of important incidents which refer, as well to the Prophet individually and his domestic relations, as to public events and the progress of Islam. A just confidence is thus imparted that a large element of historical truth has been conveyed by tradition.
Upon the other hand, there are subjects in which the Coran is directly at variance with Tradition. For example, there is no position more satisfactorily established by the Coran than that Mahomet did not in any part of his career perform miracles, or
pretend to perform them. Yet tradition abounds with miraculous acts, which belie the plain declarations of the Coran; and which, moreover, if ever attempted, would undoubtedly have been mentioned in those pretended revelations which omitted nothing, however trivial, that could strengthen the prophetical claim. Here, then, in matters of simple narration and historical fact, we find Tradition discredited by the Coran.
The result of the comparison, then, is precisely that which we have already arrived at, a priori, from the foregoing historical review. But though it strengthens this conclusion, the comparison does not afford us much help in the practical treatment of Tradition itself. Excepting in a limited number of events, it furnishes us with no rule for eliminating truth from falsehood. Facts which we know from the Coran to be well founded, and tales which we know to be fabricated, are indiscriminately woven together; the whole tissue of Tradition, it may reasonably be concluded, is formed or this double class of heterogeneous materials; and of both the fabric and colour are so unvaryingly uniform, that we are at a loss for any means of distinguishing the one from the other. The biographer of Mahomet continually
runs the risk of substituting for the realities of history some puerile fancy or extravagant invention. In striving to avoid this danger he is exposed to the opposite peril of rejecting, as pious fabrications, what may in reality be important historical fact, or at the least contain its substance65.
It is, indeed, the opinion of Dr. Sprenger that "although the nearest view of the Prophet which we can obtain is at a distance of one hundred years", and although this long vista is formed of a medium exclusively Mahometan, yet our knowledge of the bias of the narrators "enables us to correct the media, and to make them almost achromatic66." The remark is true to some extent; but its full and absolute application would carry us, I think, much beyond the truth. The difficulties of the task cannot
without danger be underrated. To bring to a right focus the various lights of Tradition, to reject those that are fictitious, to restore to a proper direction the rays reflected by a false and deceptive surface, to calculate the extent of aberration, and make due allowance for a thousand disturbing influences ; - this is indeed
a work of entanglement and complication, which would require for its perfect accomplishment a finer discernment, and a machinery of nicer construction, than human nature can boast of. Nevertheless, it is right that an attempt should be made, however imperfect the success that may attend it.
It is possible that, by a comprehensive consideration of the subject, and a careful discrimination of the several sources of error, we may reach, at the least, an approximation to the truth. With this view I will
now endeavour to lay down some principles which may prove useful to the historical inquirer in separating the true from the false in Mahometan Tradition.
The grand defect in the traditional evidence regarding Mahomet consists in its being wholly ex parte. It is the statement of a witness regarding himself, in which the license of partiality and
self-interest is unchecked by any opposing party, and the sanction even of a neutral audience is wanting. What was thus defective or erroneous in the process by which the testimony was obtained, may in some measure be corrected or repaired by a close scrutiny of the record itself. By analysing the deposition, we may find internal evidence affording grounda for credit or for doubt; while in reference to some classes of statements, it may even appear that a Mahometan public would itself supply the place of an impartial censor. In this view, the points on which the
probability of a tradition will mainly depend, appear to be first, whether there existed a bias among the Mahometans generally respecting the subject narrated; second, whether there are traces
of any special interest, prejudice, or design, on the part of the narrator; and third, whether the narrator had opportunity for personally knowing the facts.
These topics will perhaps best be discussed by considering the Period to which a narration relates,
and then the Subject of which it treats.
I. A.-The PERIOD to which a tradition purports to refer, is a point of vital importance.
The original authors of all reliable entrance of Tradition were, as has been shown, the
Companions of Mahomet himself; and the era of its first propagation was subsequent
to the Prophet's decease. But Mahomet was above threescore years old when he died;
and few of his Companions, who were instrumental in giving rise to Tradition, were of
equal age, - hardly any of them older. In inverse proportion to their years, the number
of aged men was small, and the period short during which they survived Mahomet; and
these are precisely the considerations by which their influence, in the formation of Tradition,
must be limited also. The great majority were young; and in proportion to their youth
was the number that survived longest, and gave the deepest impress to
Tradition67.
We may, then, fix the term of Mahomet's own life as the extreme backward limit within
which our witnesses range themselves. In other words, we have virtually no original
witnesses who lived at a period anterior to Mahomet; few, if any, were born before him;
the great majority, very many years after him.
They are not, therefore, trustworthy witnesses for events preceding Mahomet's birth, or for the
details of his childhood; few of them, even, for the incidents of his youth. They could not by any possibility possess a personal knowledge
of these things; and to admit that they gained their information at second-hand, is to introduce an element of uncertainty which entirely impairs the value of their testimony as that of contemporary witnesses.
B. - But, again, the value of evidence depends upon the degree in which the facts are noticed by the witness at the time of their occurrence. If the attention was not specially attracted by the event, it would be in vain to expect a full and careful report; and, after the lapse of many years, the utmost that could be
looked for from such a witness, would be the bare general outline of important facts. This principle applies forcibly to the biography of Mahomet up to the time when he became the prominent leader
of a party. Before, there was nothing remarkable about him. A poor orphan, a quiet inoffensive citizen, he was perhaps of all the inhabitants of Mecca the least likely to have the eyes of his neighbours turned upon him, and their memory and imagination busy in noting the events of his life, and conjuring up
anticipations of coming greatness. The remark may be extended, not merely to the era when he first made pretensions to inspiration (for that excited the regard of a few only among his earliest adherents); but to the entire interval preceding the period when he stood forth publicly to assume the prophetic rank, opposed polytheism, and came into open collision with the chiefs of Mecca. Then, indeed, he began to be narrowly watched; and thence-forward the Companions of the Prophet are not to be distrusted on the score at least of insufficient attention.
C. - It follows necessarily that, in all cases affected by either of the foregoing rules, circumstantiality will be a strong token of fabrication. And we shall do well to adopt the analogous canon of Christian criticism, that any tradition, the origin of which is not strictly contemporary with the facts related, is
worthless exactly in proportion to the particularity of detail68. This will relieve us of
a vast number of extravagant stories, in which the minutia of close narrative and sustained colloquy are preserved with the pseudo-freshness of yesterday.
D. - It will, however, be just to admit an exception for the main outlines of Mahomet's life, which under ordinary circurnstances his friends and acquaintances would naturally remember or might learn from himself, and would thus be able in after days to call up with tolerable accuracy. Such, for instance, are the
death of his father, his nurture as an infant by the Bani Sad, his mother's journey with him to Medina, and the expedition with his uncle to Syria while yet a boy. A still wider exception must be allowed in favor of public personages and national events, even preceding Mahomet's birth; because the attention of the people at large would be actively directed to these topics, while the patriarchal habits of the Arabs and their spirit of clanship, would be propitious for their tenacious recollection.
Thus the conversation of Abd al Muttalib, Mahomet's grandfather, with Abraha, the Abyssinian invader, is far more likely to be founded in fact than any of the much later conversations which Mahomet himself is said to have had with the monks on either of his journeys to Syria; and yet the leading facts regarding these journeys there is no reason to doubt.
Ranged under the same exception will fall those genealogical and historical facts, the preservation of which for five or six centuries by the memory alone, is so wonderfnl a phenomenon in the story of Arabia. Here poetry, no doubt, aided the retentive faculty. The glowing rhapsodies of the bard were at once
caught up by his admiring clan, and soon passed into the mouths even of the children. In such poetry were preserved the names of the chieftains, their feats of bravery, their glorious liberality, the
unparalleled nobility of their breeds of the camel and the horse. Many of these odes became national, and carried with them the testimony, not of the tribe only, but of the whole Arab family.
Thus poetry, superadded to the passion for genealogical and tribal reminiscences, and the singular capacity of imprinting them indelibly on the memory of generations, have secured to us the
interwoven details of many centuries with a minuteness and particularity that would excite suspicion were not their reality in many instances established by other evidence and by internal
coincidence69.
E.- A second marked section of time is that which intervenes between Mahomet's entrance on public life, and the taking of Mecca. Here indeed we have two opposing parties, marshalled against each other in mortal strife, whose statements might have been a check one upon the other. But during this interval,
or very shortly after its close, one of the parties was wholly extirpated. Its chief leaders were nearly all killed in battle, and the remainder amalgamated with the victors.
Wherefore, we have no surviving evidence whatever on the side of Mahomet's enemies. Not a single advocate was left to explain their actions, often misrepresented by hatred; or to rebut the unfounded and exaggerated charges imputed by Mahomet and his followers. - On the other hand, we have no witnesses of any kind against Mahomet and his party, whose one-sided assertions of their innocence and justice might perhaps otherwise have been often successfully impugned. The intemperate
and unguarded language of Mahomet and the Companions is sufficient proof that, in speaking of their adversaries their opinion was seldom impartial, and their judgment not always unerring.
F. - It may be urged in reply, that the great body of the hostile Meccans who eventually went over to Islam, would still form a check upon any material misrepresentation of their party. It may be readily admitted that they did form some check on the perversion of public opinion in mutters not vitally connected with the credit of Islam and of its Founder. Their influence would also tend to preserve the reports or their own individual actions, and those of their friends and relatives, in as favourable a
light as possible. But this influence at best was partial. It must ever be borne in mind that the enemies of the Prophet who now joined his ranks acquired, at the same time or very shortly after, all the esprit de corps of Islam70. And, long before the stream of Tradition commenced its course, these very men had begun to look back upon the heathenism of their own Meccan career with the same horror or contempt as the early converts did. The stains of the Moslem's unbelieving life were, on his conversion, washed away, and imparted no tarnish to his subsequent character. He had sinned "ignorantly in unbelief;" but now, both in his own view and in the eyes of his comrades, he was another man. He
might therefore well speak of his mad opposition to "the Prophet of the Lord" and the divine message, with as hearty a reprobation as other men; nay, the violence of reaction might make his language even stronger. Such are the witnesses who constitute our only check upon the ex parte story told by Mahometans of their long struggle with the idolators of Mecca.
G. - Wherefore, it is incumbent upon us, in estimating the folly,
injustice, and cruelty, attributed to the opponents of the Prophet, to make much allowance for the exclusively hostile character of the evidence.
We may, also, suspect exaggeration in the statements of hardship and persecution suffered by the Moslems at their hands. Above all, the history of those who died in unbelief before the conquest of Mecca, and under the ban of Mahomet, must be subjected to a rigid criticism. For such men as Abu
Jahl and Abu Lahab, hated and cursed by their Prophet, what Mahometan dared to be the advocate? To the present day, the hearty ejaculation, May the Lord curse him! is linked by every Moslem with the mention of such "enemies of the Lord, and of his Prophet." What voice would be raised to correct the pious exaggerations of the faithful in the stories of their execrable deeds, or to point out the just causes of provocation which they might have received? Impious attempt, and mad perversity! Again and again was the bare sword of Omar brandished over the neck of the luckless offender, for conduct far more excusable,
and far less dangerous to Islam.
H. - Precisely similar limitations must be brought to bear on the evidence against the Jewish settlements
in the vicinity of Medina, as the Bani Nadhir and Bani Coreitza, whom Mahomet either expatriated, brought over to his faith, or utterly extirpated. The various Arab tribes also, whether Christian or
Pagan, whom Mahomet at different times of his life attacked, come more or less under the same category.
I. - The same considerations apply also, though in a greatly modified form, to the "hypocrites," or
disaffected population of Medina, who covertly opposed the claim of Mahomet to temporal authority over that city. The Prophet did not wage the same war of defiance with these as he did with his Meccan opponents, but sought to counteract their influence by his own skillful tactics. Neither was this class so suddenly rooted out as the idolaters of Mecca; they rather vanished gradually before the increasing
authority of Islam. Still its chiefs, such as Abdallah ibn Obey, are held in abhorrence by the traditionists, and the historian must keep a jealous eye on the character of the testimony against them.
H - The SUBJECT-MATTER of the traditions themselves, considered both as regards the motives of their author and the views of early Mahometan society generally, will help us to an estimate of their credibility. The chief aspects in which this argument may be treated refer to personal, party, and national bias.
A.- Individual prepossession and self-interested motives would cause exaggeration, false colouring, and even invention. Besides the more obvious cases falling under this head, there is a
fertile class which originates in the ambition of the narrator to be associated with Mahomet. The name of the Prophet threw nobility and veneration around every object immediately connected with it. The friendship of Mahomet imparted a rank and a dignity acknowledged by the universal voice of Islam. It is difficult to conceive the excessive reverence and court enjoyed by his widows, his friends, and his servants. Interminable inquiries were put to them; and their responses were received with the most
implicit deference. All who possessed any personal knowledge of the Prophet, and especially those who had been much with him and been honoured by his familiar acquaintance, were admitted by common consent into the envied circle of Moslem aristocracy; and many a picturesque scene is incidentally sketched by the traditionists of the listening crowds which hung upon the lips of these men while they delivered their testimony in the mosques of Kufa or of Damascus. The sterling value of such qualifications would induce a counterfeit imitation. Some who may have had but a distant and superficial knowledge of Mahomet could be tempted, by the consideration it imparted, to venture on the
assumption of a more perfect intimacy; and the endeavour to support their equivocal position by particularity of detail, would lead the way to loose and unfounded narratives of the life and
character of the Prophet.71. Analogous with such misleading influences is the ambition, traceable throughout the traditions of the
Companions, of being closely connected with any of the supposed mysterious visitations or supernatural actions of Mahomet. To be noticed in the Revelation was deemed the highest honour that could be aspired to; and in any, way to be linked with the heavenly phases of the Prophet's life, reflected back a portion of
the divine lustre on the fortunate aspirant72. Thus a premium was put upon the invention or exaggeration of superhuman incidents.
B. - Under the same head are to be classed the attempts of narrators to exaggerate their labours and exploits, and to multiply their losses and perils, in the service of the Prophet and of Islam. The tendency thus to appropriate a superior, and often a clearly unwarrantable, degree of merit is obvious on the part of many of the Companions of Mahomet 73. A reference to it may be even occasionally employed by the critic towards the exculpation of
the Prophet from questionable actions. For example, Amr ibn Omeya, in narrating his mission by Mahomet to assassinate Abu Sofian, so magnifies the dangers and exploits of his adventure as
might have involved that dark mission itself in suspicion, were there not collateral proof to support it74.
It may be here objected, - Would not untrue or exaggerated tales like these receive a check from other parties, free from the interested motives of the narrator? They would to some extent. But to prove a negative position is generally a matter of difficulty and would not often be attempted without some strong impelling cause, especially in the early spread of Islam when the public mind was in the highest degree impressible and credulous. Such traditions, then, were likely to be opposed only when they interfered with the private claims of others, or ran counter to public opinion in which case they would fall into discredit and oblivion. Otherwise, they would have every chance of being carried down upon the traditional stream of mingled legend and truth, and with it of finding a place in the unquestioning record of the second century.
C. - We have unquestionable evidence that the bias of PARTY effected a deep and abiding impress upon Tradition. Where this spirit tended to produce or adorn a tale adverse to the interests another party, and the denial of the facts involved nothing prejudicial to the honour of Islam, endeavours might be made to rebut the fabrication or embellishment, and the discussion so produced would subserve the purity of Tradition. But this could only occasionally occur. The tradition would often affect that section
alone in whose favour it originated, and therefore not to be controverted at all. Where it might be otherwise, the story would probably at the first be confined within the limits of its own party, and no opportunity would be afforded for its contradiction, until it had taken root and acquired a prescriptive claim. Under any circumstances, the considerations advanced in the preceding paragraph are equally applicable in the present instance; so that without doubt a vast collection of exaggerated tales have
come down to us, which owe their existence to party spirit.
By the bias of party is not to be understood simply the influence of faction, but likewise the partiality and prejudice of the lesser circles which formed the ramifications of Mussulman society. The former we are less in danger of overlooking. where the full development of faction, as in the case of the Abbassides and
Ommeyads, has laid bare the passions and excesses to which it may give rise, the reader is on his guard against misrepresentation ;- he receives with caution the unnaturally dark or resplendent phases of such characters as those of Ali and Abbas, of Muavia and Abu Sofian. But, though on a less gigantic scale,
the influences of tribe, of family, and of the smaller association of party clustering around the several heroes of Islam, were equally real and effective The spirit of clanship, which ran so high among the Arabs that Mahomet endeavoured in vain to supplant it by the brotherhood of the faith, perpetuated the confederacies and antipathies of ante-mahometan Arabia far down into the annals of Islam, and often exerted a potent influence upon the destinies even of the Caliphate. It cannot be doubted that these
combinations and prejudices imparted a strong and often deceptive hue to the sources of tradition. As an example, may be specified the rivalry which led the several families or parties to compete with each other for the earliest converts to Islam, until they arrived at the conclusion, and consequently propagated the tradition, that some of their patrons or ancestors were Mahometans before Mahomet himself75.
D. - We now come to the class of motives incomparably the most dangerous to the purity of Tradition, namely, those which were common to the whole Moslem body. In the previous cases the bias was confined to a fragment, arid the remainder of the nation might form a check upon the fractional aberration. But here the bias was universal, pervading the entire medium through which we have received Tradition; and leaving us for the correction of its divergencies, no check whatever.
To this class must be assigned all Tradition the object of which is to glorify Mahomet, and to invest him with supernatural attributes. Although in the Coran the Prophet disclaims the power of working miracles, yet he implies that there existed a continuous intercourse between himself and the agents of the other world. The whole Coran, indeed, assumes to be a message from the Almighty, communicated through Gabriel. Besides being the medium of revelation, that favoured angel is often referred to as bringing
directions from the Lord for the guidance of his Prophet in the common concerns of life. The supposed communication with heavenly messengers, thus countenanced by Mahomet himself, was implicitly believed by his followers, and led them even during his lifetime to regard him with a superstitious awe. On a subject so impalpable to sense, so readily apprehended by imagination, it may be fairly assumed that reason had little share in controlling the fertile productions of fancy; that the conclusions of
his susceptible and credulous followers far exceeded the premises granted by Mahomet; that even simple facts were construed by their excited faith as pregnant with marks of supernatural power and unearthly companionship; and that, after the object of their veneration had passed from their sight, fond devotion perpetuated and enhanced the fascinating legends. If the Prophet gazed into the heavens, or looked wistfully to the right hand or to the left,
it was Gabriel with whom lie was holding mysterious converse76.
Passing gusts raise a cloud from the sandy track; the pious believer exults in the conviction that it is the dust of Gabriel and his mounted squadrons scouring the plain, and going before them to shake the foundations of the doomed fortress 77. On the field of Badr, three stormy blasts sweep over the marshalled army; again, it is Gabriel with a thousand horse flying to the succour of Mahomet, while Michael and Serafil each with a like angelic troop wheel to the right and to the left of the Moslem front 78.
Nay, the very dress and martial uniform of these helmed angels are detailed by the earliest and most trustworthy biographers with as much naivete as if they had been veritable warriors of flesh
and blood! Such is a specimen of the vein of legend and extravagance which pervades even the purest sources of tradition.
It will frequently be a question, extremely difficult and sometimes impossible to decide, what portions of these supernatural originated stories either originated in Mahomet himself, or received his
countenance; and what portion owed its birth, after he was gone, to the excited imagination of his followers. No doubt real facts have not seldom been thus adorned or distorted by the colouring
of a superstitious fancy. The subjective conceptions of the fond believer have been reflected back upon the biography of the Prophet, and have encircled even the objective realities of his life, as in the pictures of our saints, with a lustrous halo. The false colouring and fictitious light so intermingle with the picture,
as to place its details beyond the reach of analytical criticism 79.
E.-To the same universal desire of Mahomet's glorification must be ascribed the unquestioned miracles with which even the earliest biographies abound. They are such as the following: - A tree from a distance moves towards die Prophet ploughing up the
earth as it advances, and then similarly retires; oft-repeated attempts to murder him are miraculously averted; distant occurrences are instantaneously revealed, and future events foretold; a large company is fed from victuals hardly adequate for the supply of a single person; prayer draws down immediate showers from heaven, or causes an equally sudden cessation. A frequent and favourite class of miracles is for the Prophet, by his simple touch, to make the udders of dry goats distend with milk; so by his command he caused floods of water to well up from parched fountains, and to gush forth from empty vessels, or issue from betwixt his fingers 80. With respect to all such stories, it is sufficient to refer to what has been already said, that they are opposed to the clear declarations and pervading sense of the Coran.
It by no means however follows that, because a tradition relates a miracle, the collateral incidents are thereby discredited. It may be that the facts were fabricated to illustrate or embellish a current miracle; but it is also possible that the miracle was invented to adorn or account for well-founded facts.
In the former case, the supposed facts are worthless; in the latter, they may be true and valuable. In the absence of other evidence, the main drift and apparent design of the narrative is all that can guide the critic between these alternatives.
F.- The same propensity to fabricate the marvellous must be borne in mind when we peruse the childish tales and extravagant legends put by tradition into the mouth of Mahomet. The Coran, it is true, imparts a far wider basis of likelihood to the narration by Mahomet of such tales, than to his assumption of miraculous powers. When the Prophet ventured to place such fanciful and unworthy fictions as those of "Solomon and the Genii," of "the seven Sleepers," or "the Adventures of Dzul Carnein," in the pages of a Divine Revelation, to what puerilities might he not stoop in the familiarity of social conversation? It must, on the other hand, be remembered that Mahomet was taciturn, laconic,
and reserved; and is therefore not likely to have given forth more than an infinitesimal part of the masses of legend and fable which Tradition represents as gathered from his lips. These are probably the growth of successive ages, each of which deposited its accretion around the nucleus of the Prophet's pregnant
words, if indeed there ever was any such nucleus at all. For example, the germ of the elaborate pictures and gorgeous scenery of the Prophet's heavenly journey lies in a very short and simple recital in the Coran. That he subsequently expanded this germ, and amused or edified his companions with the mintutiae which have been brought down to us by tradition, is perhaps possible. But it is also possible, and (by the analogy of Mahomet's miracles) incomparably more probable, that the vast majority of these fancies have no other origin than the heated imagination of the early Mussalmans 81.
G. - Indirectly connected with Mahomet's life, but connected immediately with the credit and the evidences of Islam, is another class of narrations which would conjure up on all sides prophecies
regarding the Founder of the faith and anticipations of his approach. These were probably, for the most part, suspended upon some general declaration or incidental remark of the Prophet
himself, which his enthusiastic followers deemed themselves bound to prove and illustrate. For example, the Jews are often accused in the Coran of wilfully rejecting Mahomet, "although they recognized him as they did one of their own sons." Tradition provides us, accordingly, with a host of Jewish rabbins and Christian monks, who found it written in their books that the last of the Prophets was at this time about to arise at Mecca: they asserted that not only his name, but his personal appearance, manners, and character, were therein depicted to the life, so that recognition could not but be instantaneous; and, among other absurd particulars, the very city of Medina is pointed out by name as the place where he would take refuge from the persecution of his people! Again, the Jews are accused by Mahomet of grudging that a Prophet had arisen among the Arabs, and that their nation had thus been robbed of its prophetic dignity. Wherefore, in fit illustration we have innumerable stories of Mahomet having been recognized by
the rabbins, and of attempts made by them to kill him; and this, too, long before he had any suspicion himself that he was to be a Prophet, nay during his very infancy ! It is enough to have alluded
to this class of fabrications82.
H. - Such unblushing inventions will lead us to receive with suspicion the whole series of tales in which it is pretended that Mahomet and his religion were foreshadowed, so that pious men anticipated, long before the Prophet, many of the peculiar rites and doctrines of Islam. It was a fond conceit of Mahomet that Islam is as old as Adam, and has from the beginning been the faith of all good men who looked forward to himself as the great Prophet charged with winding up the previous dispensations. It was therefore natural for his credulous followers to carry out this idea, and to invest any serious-minded man or earnest inquirer who
preceded Mahomet, with some of tile dawning rays of the divine effulgence about to burst upon the world83.
1.- To the same spirit we may attribute the continual and palpable endeavour to make Mahometan tradition and the legends of Arabia tally with the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and with Jewish tradition. This canon has little application to the biography of Mahomet himself, but it has a wide aud most effective range in reference to the legendary history of his ancestors and of early Arabia. The desire to regard, and possibly the endeavour
to prove, the Prophet of Islam a descendant of Ishmael, began even in his life-time. Many Jews, versed in the Scriptures, and won over by the inducements of Islam, were false to their own
creed, and pandered their knowledge to the service of Mahomet and his followers. Jewish tradition had been long well-known in Medina and in the countries over which Islam early spread, and the Mahometan system was now made to fit upon it; for Islam did not ignore, but merely superseded, Judaism and Christianity, as the whole does a part, or rather as that which is complete
swallows up an imperfect commencement. hence arose such absurd anachronisms as the attempts to identify Cahtan with Joktan (between whom, at the most moderate estimate, fifteen centuries intervene); thus were forged the earlier links of the Abrahamic genealogy of Mahomet, and numberless tales of Ishmael and the Israelites, cast in a semi-Jewish semi-Arab mould.
These, though pretending to be original traditions, can generally be recognized as plagiarisms from Scripture and rabbinical lore, or as Arabian legends forced into accommodation with them. Abundant illustration of this important position will be met with in the two following chapters.
J. - Of analogous nature may be classed the traditions which affirm that the Jews and Christians
mutilated or interpolated their Scriptures. After a careful and repeated examination of the whole
Coran, I have been able to discover no grounds for believing that Mahomet himself ever expressed
the smallest doubt at any period of his life in regard either to the authority or the genuineness of the
Old and New Testaments, as extant in his time84.
He was profuse in assurances that his system entirely corresponded with both, and that he had
been foretold by former prophets; and, as perverted Jews and Christians were at hand to confirm
his words, and as the Bible was little known among the generality of his followers, those assurances
were implicitly believed. But as Islam spread abroad, and began to include countries where the holy
Scriptures were familiarly read, the discrepancies between them and the Coran became patent to all.
The sturdy believer,
with an easy conscience, laid the entire blame at the door of the dishonest Jews and Christians (the former of whom their Prophet had accused in the Coran of hiding and "dislocating" the prophecies of himself); and according to the Moslem wont, a host of stories with all the necessary details of Jewish fabrication and excision soon grew up, exactly sulted to the necessities of Islam85.
If it appears strange that extravagant and unreasonable stories of the kind alluded to in the few last paragraphs should not have been contradicted by the more upright and sensible Mahometans of the first age, and thus nipped in the bud, it must be kept in view that criticism and freedom of opinion were completely stifled under the crushing dogmas of Islam. Any simpleton might fancy, every designing man could with ease invent, such tales; when once in currency, the attempt to disprove them would be difficult and dangerous. Supposing that no well-known fact or received dogma were contradicted by them, upon what general considerations were they to be rebutted? If any one, for instance, had contended that all human experience was contradicted by the marvellous foreknowledge of the Jews regarding Mahomet, he would have been scouted as an infidel. Honest inquiry into the genuineness of holy Scripture would have sapped
the foundations of Islam, and was therefore out of the question. Who would dare to argue against a miraculous tale that did honour to Mahomet, on the ground that it was in itself improbable, that the narrator might have imbibed a false impression, or that even in the Coran miraculous powers were never arrogated by the Prophet? The argument would have jeoparded the neck of the logician; for it has been already shown that the faith and the polity of Islam were one ;----that free opinions and heresy were synonymous with conspiracy, treason, and rebellion86. Wherefore it came to pass that, under the shelter of tite civil arm and of the fanatical credulity of the nation at large, these marvellous legends grew up in perfect security from the attacks of doubt and of honest inquiry.
K.----The converse principle is likewise true; that is to say, traditions, founded upon good evidence, and undisputed because notorious in the first days of Islam, gradually fell into disrepute, or were entirely rejected, because they appeared to dishonour Mahomet, or countenance some heretical opinion. The nature of the case renders it impossible to prove this position so fully as the preceding ones, since we can now have no trace of such traditions as were early dropped. But we discover vestiges of a spirit that would necessarily produce such results, working even in the
second and third centuries. There is an apparently well-supported story which attributes to Mahomet a momentary lapse and compromise with the idolatry of Mecca; and traditions on the
subject from various sources are related by the earliest and the best historians. But theologians began to deem the opinion dangerous or heretical that Mahomet should have thus degraded himself "after he had received the truth," and the occurrence is therefore denied, or entirely omitted, by some of the earliest and by most of the later biographers of the Prophet, though the facts are so patent that the more candid fully admit them87. The principle thus found in existence in the second and third centuries, may be presumed to have been at work also in the first.
L.- The system pious fraud not abhorrent from the axioms of Islam. Deception, by the current theology of Mahometans, is allowable in certain circumstances. The Prophet himself, by precept as well as by example, encouraged the notion that to tell an untruth is on some occasions allowable; and what occasion would approve itself as more justifiable, nay meritorious, than
that of furthering the interests of Islam?88 The early Moslems
would suppose it to be fitting and right that a divine religion should be supported by the evidence of miracles, and they no doubt believed that they were doing God service by building up testimony in accordance with so laudable a supposition. The case of our own religion, whose purer morality renders the attempt incomparably less excusable, shows that pious fabrications of this description easily commend themselves to the conscience, where there is the inclination and the opportunity for their perpetration.
There were indeed conscientious persons among the early Moslems, who would probably have scrupled at such open fraud; but these are the very individuals from whom we have the fewest
traditions. We read of some cautious men among the Companions who, perceiving the difficulty of reciting accounts of their Prophet with perfect accuracy, and perhaps disgusted with the barefaced effrontery of the ordinary propagators of garbled and unfounded traditions, abstained entirely from repeating the sayings of Mahomet89.
But regarding those Companions from whom the great mass of tradition is drawn, and their immediate successors, it does not appear that we are now in possession of any satisfactory means for dividing them into into separate classes, of which the trustworthiness would vary to any great extent. With respect, indeed, to some it is known that they were more constantly than others with Mahomet, and had therefore better opportunities for acquiring information; some, like the garrulous Ayesha, were specially given to gossiping tales and trifling frivolities; but none of them, as far as we can judge, was free from the tendency to glorify Mahomet at the expense of truth, or could be withheld from the marvellous, by the most glaring violations of probability or of reason. Such at least is the impression derived from their evidence in the shape in which it has reached us90.
M. ---- The aberrations from the truth hitherto noticed are presumed to have proceeded from some
species of bias, the nature of which I have been endeavouring to trace. But the testimony of the
Companions, as delivered to us is so unaccountably fickle and capricious that, even where no motive
whatever can be guessed at, and where there were the fullest opportunities of observation, the traditions
often flatly contradict one another. For instance, a score of witnesses affirm that Mahomet dyed his
hair; they mention the substances used; some not only maintain that they were eye-witnesses of the
fact during the Prophet's life, but produce after his death relics of hair on which the dye was visible.
A score of others, possessing equally good means of information, assert that he never dyed
his hair, and that moreover he had no need to do so, as his grey-hairs were so few that they might be
counted91.
Again, with respect to his Signet ring—a matter involving no faction, family interest, or dogma—the
traditions are most discordant. One party relate that, feeling the want of a
seal for his despatches, the Prophet had a signet ring prepared for that purpose, of pure silver. Another party assert that Khalid ibn Said made for himself an iron ring plated with silver; and that Mahomet, taking a fancy to the ring, appropriated it to his own use. A third tradition states, that the ring was brought by Amr bin Said from Abyssinia; and a fourth, that Muadz ibn Jabal had
it engraved for himself in Yemen. One set of traditions hold that Mahomet wore this ring on his right hand, another on his left; one that he wore the seal inside, others that he wore it outside; one that the inscription upon it was
In these instances, which might be indefinitely multiplied, what tendency or habit of mind, but the sheer love of story-telling, are we to attribute such gratuitous and wholesale fabrications? And from this we may fairly deduce the principle that tradition cannot in general be received with too much caution, or exposed to too rigorous a criticism; and that no important statement should be received as securely proved by tradition only, unless there be some further ground of probability, analogy, or collateral evidence in its favour.
III. I will now proceed to mention the considerations which should be regarded as confirming the credit of a tradition, as well as the caution to be observed in their application.
A. ---- Unanimous consent, or general agreement, between traditions independent of one another, or which, though traceable to a common origin, have descended by different chains or witnesses, may generally be regarded as a presumption of credibility. We know that the first sources of tradition were numerous; and, as already stated, the stream often flows through separate channels. Evidence of this description may therefore afford a cumulative presumption that the circumstances common to so many separate traditions were currently reported or believed at the point of divergence, that is, in the era immediately succeeding Mahomet's death. But there is a danger to be here guarded against; for, in traditions apparently of the nature contemplated, close agreement may be even a ground of distrust. It may argue that, though attributed to different sources, the traditions really belong to one and the same family, perhaps of spurious origin, long subsequent to the time of Mahomet. If the uniformity be so great as to exclude circumstantial variety, it will be strong ground for believing that either the common source is not of old date, or that the channels of conveyance have not been kept distinct. Some degree of incidental discrepancy must be looked for, and it will improve rather than injure the character of the evidence. Thus the frequent variations in the day of the week on which remarkable events are stated to have occurred, are just what we should expect in independent traditions having their origin in hearsay; and the simplicity with which these are placed in juxtaposition, speaks strongly for the honesty of the Collectors in having gathered them bona fide from various and independent sources, as well as in having refrained from any attempt to blend or harmonize the differing accounts.
The same argument may be applied to the several parts of a tradition. Certain portions of distinct versions regarding the same subject-matter may agree almost verbally together, while other portions may contain circumstantial variations; and it is possible that the latter may have a bona fide independent origin, which the former could not pretend to. The intimate union, in
separate but corresponding traditions, of fabulous narrations characterized by a suspicious uniformity, and of well-grounded facts circumstantially varying, receives an excellent illustration from the story of Mahomet's infantile days, which professes to have been derived from his nurse Halima, and handed down to us in three distinct traditions. "These three accounts," says Dr. Sprenger, - agree almost literally in the marvellous, but they differ in the facts94." The marvellous was derived from one common source of fabrication, but the facts from original authorities. Hence the uniformity of the one, and the variation in the other.
Entire verbal coincidence may sometimes involve a species of evidence peculiar to itself; it may point to a common recorded original, of date antecedent to that probably at which most of the other traditions were reduced to writing. There is no reason for believing that any such records were made till long after the era of Mahomet, and they can therefore assume none of the merit of contemporaneous remains. But they may claim the advantage of a greater antiquity of record than the mass of ordinary tradition, as in the case of the history by Zohri of the Prophet's military conquests, which was probably recorded about the close of the first century95.
B. - Correspondence at any point with facts mentioned or alluded to in the Coran will generally impart credit in whole or in part to the traditional narrative. Some of the most important incidents connected with Mahomet's battles and campaigns, as well as with a variety of domestic and political matters, are thus attested. Such apparent confirmation may however be deceptive, for the allusion in the Coran may have given rise to the tradition. The story, if not from the first an actual fraud, may have originated in some illustrative supposition or paraphrastic comment on the text; and, gradually changing its character, been transmitted to posterity as a confident recital of fact. Take for example the following verse in the Coran : - Remember the favorer of thy Lord unto thee, when certain men designed to stretch forth their hands upon thee, and the Lord held back from thee their hands96. By some this
passage is supposed to refer to Mahomet's escape from Mecca; but, the craving after the circumstantial and the marvellous not being satisfied with this tame and reasonable interpretation, several different occasions have been invented on which the hand of the enemy, in the every act of brandishing a sword over Mahomet's head, was miraculously stayed by Gabriel97. Again, the discomfiture of the army of Abraha shortly before the birth of Mahomet, is thus poetically celebrated in Sura cv ; - And did not the Lord send against them flocks of little birds, which cast upon then small clay stones, and made than like unto the stubble of which the cattle have eaten? This appears to be only a highly coloured metaphor for the general destruction of the army by the ravages of small-pox or some similar pestilential calamity98. But it has afforded a starting point for the extravagances of tradition, which gives a detailed statement of the species of bird, the size and material of the stones, the precise mode in which they struck the enemy, the exact kind of wound inflicted, &c., as if the portent
had but just occurred within sight of the narrators; - and yet the whole has evidently no other foundation than the verse above quoted, which the credulous Moslems interpreting literally, deemed it necessary to clothe with ample illustration. These are types of the numberless puerile or romantic legends which have been fabricated out of nothing; and which, though purely imaginary, have been reared upon the authority of a Coranic basis99.
C. - When a tradition contains statements in disparagement of Mahomet, such as an indignity shown to him by his followers; or an insult from his enemies after his emigration (for then the period of his humiliation had passed, and that of his exaltation arrived) ; his failure in any enterprise or laudable endeavour; or, in fine, anything at variance either in fact or doctrine with the principles and tendencies of Islam, there will be strong reason for admitting it as authentic: because, otherwise, it seems hardly credible that such a tradition could be fabricated, or having been fabricated, that it could obtain currency among the followers of Mahomet. At the
same time we must be careful not to apply the rule to all that is considered by ourselves discreditable or opposed to morality. Cruelty however inhuman, and revenge the most implacable, when practised against infidels, were regarded by the first followers of Islam as highly meritorious; and the rude civilization of Arabia admitted with complacency a coarseness of language and behaviour, which we should look upon as reprehensible indecency. These and similar exceptions must be made from this otherwise universal and effective canon.
D. - There is embodied in tradition a source of information far more authentic than any yet alluded to, though unfortunately of very limited extent, - I mean the transcripts of treaties purporting to have been dictated by Mahomet, and recorded in his presence.
It has been before shown that ordinary traditions were not recorded in the time of Mahomet; and that, even were we to admit an occasional resort to such early notes or memoranda, there is no evidence regarding their subsequent fate, nor any
criteria for distinguishing out of our present stores the traditions possibly founded upon them, from those that originated and were for a long time sustained by purely oral means. To a very different category belong the treaties of Mahomet. They consist of compacts entered into with the surrounding tribes of Arabia, Jewish and Christian, as well as Pagan and Moslem; these were
at the time reduced to writing, and attested by one or more of his followers. They are of course confined to the period succeeding the Prophet's flight to Medina and acquisition of political influence, and from their nature are limited to the recital of a few simple facts. But these facts again form valuable supports to the traditional outline; and, especially where they detail the relations of Islam with the neighbouring Jewish and Christian tribes, are possessed of the highest interest.
In the Katib al Wackidi's biography there is a section expressly devoted to the transcription of such treaties, and it contains two or three scores of them. Over and again, the author (in the end of the second or beginning of the third century) states that he had copied these from the original documents, or recorded their purport from the testimony of those who had seen them. "They
were still in force," writes Dr. Sprenger, "in the time of Harun Al Rashid (A.ll. 170-193), and were then collected.100" This is quite conceivable, for they were often recorded upon leather101, and would invariably be preserved with care as their charters of privilege by those in whose favour they were concluded. Some of the most interesting, as the terms allowed to the Jews of Kheibar and to the Christians of Najran, formed the basis of political events in the calipliates of Abu Bacr and Omar; the concessions made in others to Jewish and Christian tribes, are satisfactory proof that they were not fabricated by Mahometans; while it is equally clear that they would never have been acknowledged or made current by them if counterfeited by a Jewish or a Christian hand.
Whenever, then, there is fair evidence in favour of such treaties, they may be placed, as to historical authority, almost on a par with the Coran102.
The narrative of official deputations to Mahomet is sometimes stated to have been derived from the family, or tribe which sent the embassy, and which had preserved a written memorial of the circumstances. Accounits so obtained may undoubtedly be viewed as founded on fact, for the family or clan would naturally treasure up in the most careful way any memorials of the manner in which the Prophet had received and honoured them, although there would be a tendency in a" such statements to self-aggrandizement103.
E. - All other traditionary source, supported by authority peculiar to itself, takes rise in the verses and poetical fragments attributed to the time of Mahomet. Some of these profess to be the composition of persons who died before the Prophet, as Abu
Talib his uncle; others, of those who survived him, as Hassan ibn Thabit, a poet of Medina. There can be no question as to the great antiquity of these remains, though we may not always be able to fix with exactness the period of their composition. With respect to those which purport to be of date preceding the rise to power of Mahomet, when we consider the poetical habits of the
nation, their faculty of preserving poetry by memory104, the ancient style and language of the pieces themselves, the fair likelihood that carefully composed verses were at the first committed for greater security to writing, it cannot certainly be deemed improbable that such poems or fragments should in reality have been composed by the parties to whom they are ascribed. It is, on the other hand, possible that poetry of date long after the death of Mahomet, but descriptive of passages in his life or connected with it, may gradually have come to be regarded as composed upon the occasion by some contemporary poet, or as the actual effusion of personages in the scene to whom the real author attributed them by poetical fiction alonie. As a general rule, it may be laid down that wherever there is betrayed an anticipation of Mahomet's prophetical dignity or victories, - the premonitory dawn of approaching glory, - the poetry may at once be concluded a. an after-thought, triumphant Islam having reflected some rays of its refulgence upon the bare points of its earlier career. Tried by this rule, there are fragments which may be ascribed, as more or less genuine, to the men whose name they bear; but there is also much which from patent anachronism either in fact or spirit, is evidently the composition of a later age105. The question however
ever is one of literary curiosity rather than of historical evidence; for this species of poetry is seldom of use in confirming any important point in the biography of Mahomet.
I do not here refer to the national poets of Arabia, whose verses, preserved in the Kitab al Aghani and other works, possess without doubt the elements or authenticity, and form trustworthy archives
of Arabia, before Islam. It is only necessary to peruse the elaborate "Essai" of M. Caussin de Perceval to be satisfied of the general authority of these poetical fragments.
Pieces said to have been recited by poets who survived Mahomet, there is every reason for believing to be the composition ordinarily of the persons to whom they are ascribed. But whether they were composed before the Prophet's death, even when they are said to be so, is a more difficult question; and their value as historical documents will in some measure be regulated by that consideration. Under any circumstances, however, they cannot but be regarded as of great value, from their being the work of Mahomet's contemporaries. Wherever they bear upon historical events, they are of much use as adding confirmation to the corresponding traditions; for, whether handed down by writing, or by memory alone, their poetical form is a material safeguard against change or interpolation. As examples, may be specified the odes of Hasan ibn Thabit on the "Battle of the Ditch," and on "the taking of Mecca;" and the poem of Kab ibn Malik, descriptive of the oath of fealty by the Medina converts at the "second pledge of Acaba," in which he mentions by name the twelve leaders chosen by the Prophet106 . Besides such apecific facts, this early poetry is often instructive, from its exhibition of the spirit of the first Moslems
towards their unconverted brethren, and the biting satire and virulent abuse employed against the enemies of Islam.
There is probably, however, no biographical fact, the proof of which depended solely upon these poetical remains. They are able because confirmatory of tradition; but their practical bearing upon the biography of Mahomet is not of so much interest as might have been expected. They deserve indeed deep attention, as the earliest literary remains of a period which contained the germ of such mighty events; but they give us little new insight into the history or character of the Prophet. While they attest many facts we are already acquainted with, they reveal none which, without them, we should not have known.
Such, then, are the criteria which should be applied to Mahometan Tradition. It is obvious that the technical rule of "respectable names" used by the Collectors can carry no authority with us; that every tradition, separately subjected to close examination, must stand or fall upon its own merits; and that, even after its reception as generally credible, the component parts are still
severally liable, upon a close scrutiny of internal evidence, to suspicion and rejection. The sure and steady light of the Coran will always be preferred by the judicious historian of the rise of Islam, to the more pretending glare of Tradition. Where the latter is alone available, his eye will maintain a constant guard against its dazzling but deceptive lustre, and will seek cautiously to
discriminate and carefully to concentrate the fitful and scattered gleams of truth, which mingle with its fictitious illumination. By the prudent and uniform observance of the precautions which have been pointed out, while he shuns the misdirection of the traditionists, he will to the utmost of his ability preserve the elements of truth which have been handed down in their writings.
I now proceed to notice briefly the EARLY HISTORIANS OF MAHOMET, the character of their works, and the nature aud value of the materials which they contain for a faithful biography.
We have seen that towards the end of the first century of the Hegira, there is ground for believing that the general practice first commenced of recording Mahometan tradition. One of the
persons known to have been employed in this task was Zohri, who died A.H. 124, aged 72107. It has been even stated that both be and his master Orwa (who died as early as A.H. 94,) composed
regular biographies of Mahomet, but the grounds are uncertain108. Be this as it may, there is no doubt that Zohri at least threw together traditions bearing on certain periods of the Prophet's life, certainly on that relating to his military career. It is conjectured by Dr. Sprenger, that this compilation was the source whence arose the uniformity of narrative and coincidence of expression observable in many parts of the various biographies or Mahomet, and especially in the narratives of his expeditions and battles. The hypothesis is probable; at all events Zohri was one of such sources. He lived at the court of several princes of the Ommeyad dynasty, and there is hence every reason to believe that his accounts are as unbiassed as could be expected from any Mussulman author. There is no work by Zohri extant, but he is largely quoted by subsequent biographers; and, if Dr. Sprenger's hypothesis be correct, their statements of Mahomet's military operations must be in great part the reproduction of materials composed by him.
Two other authors are mentioned as having written biographies of Mahomet early in the second century, namely MUSA IBN OCKBA and ABU MASHAR. Neither of their works is extant; but the
latter is extensivety referred to by Taban109. To these may be added, as no longer available, the histories or ABU ISHAC, who (died A.H. 188, and MADAINI, who lived to the beginning of the third century. Though the latter published many works on Mahomet, not one of them is now known to exist110.
The earliest biographical writers, whose works are extant more or less in their original state, are:- I. Ibn Ishac; II. Ibn Hisham; III. Wackidi, and his Secretary; IV. Tabari.
These works, though professing, like the traditional collections, to be composed only of traditions, differ from them in the following particulars111. First :-The traditional matter is confined to biographical subjects, and is arranged in chronological order.
Commencing with anticipatory and genealogical notices, the work generally advances to the birth of Mahomet, and traces him, with some degree of method, through every stage of his eventful life. To each step a separate chapter is devoted; and all traditions, which have any bearing on the special subject, are thrown together in that chapter, and arranged with more or less of intelligible sequence. But the example of the traditionist Collectors as to the quotation of their authorities is, with some exceptions, observed; namely, that each separate tradition must be supported by its original witness, and the chain of evidence specified which connects the biographer with that authority. This induces the same motley and fragmentary appearance, which distinguishes the traditional collections. The biographies may be compared to mosaics, the several traditions being adjusted and dovetailed so as to form one uniform history. The work resembles more a collection of "table talk," than a life. It is a compilation rather than an original composition.
Secondly - Traditions are sometimes fused together; or they are broken up and re-formed into a uniform narrative, by an adjustment of the various pieces. This is more particularly the case in descriptions of Mahomet's military; life, where the expeditions are often detailed in unbroken narratives, the authorities for which are generally thrown together at the beginning112.
Thirdly :-This process at times induces some degree of critical collation between the purport or the expressions of the several traditions brought together. Where the authorities differ, we find the biographer occasionally stating his opinion as to which is the correct exposition of the facts. Verbal differences are sometimes mentioned, and various readings noted. Such minuteness of examination affords satisfactory evidence of the labour bestowed by the biographers in bringing together all authentic tradition which could possibly illustrate their subject, and, of the scrupulous accuracy with which they recorded it.
The following detailed account of the four authors whose works are more or less extant, will enable the reader to form an estimate of their value as biographical authorities.
I. MUHHAMAD IBN ISHAC is the earliest biographer of whom any extensive remains, the authorship of which can certainly be distinguished, have reached us. He died in the year of Hegira
151113, fifteen years after the overthrow of the Ommeyad dynasty. His work was published under the auspices and influence of the Abbasside Princes, and was in fact composed "for the use" of the Caliph Al Mansur, the second of that line114. Its accuracy has been
impugned. But from the portions of his biography which have come down to us, there seems no ground for believing that he was less careful than other traditionists; while the high character generally ascribed to him, and the fact of his being uniformly quoted with confidence by later authors, leave little doubt that the aspersions cast upon him have no good foundation115.
In Ibn Khallican we find the following testimonies in his favour: - "Muhammad ibn Ishac is held by the majority of the learned as a sure authority in the traditions, and none can be
ignorant of the high character borne by his work - the Maghazi116. Whoever wishes to know the early Moslem conquests,' says Zohri, let him refer to Ibn Ishac,' and Al Bokhari himself cites him in his history. Al Shafi said, 'Whoever wishes to obtain a complete acquaintance with the early Moslem conquests, must borrow his information from Ibn Ishac.' Safyan ibn Oyaina declared that he never met any one who cast suspicions on Ibn Ishac's recitals, and Shoba ibn al Hajjaj was heard to say, 'Muhammad ibn Ishac is the Commander of the Faithful,' meaning that he held that rank as a traditionist. Al Saji mentions that Zohri's pupils had recourse to Muhammad Ibn Ishac, whenever they had doubts
respecting the exactness or any of the traditions delivered by their master; such was the confidence they placed in his excellent memory. It is stated that Yahya ibn Main, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and Yahya Said al Kattan, considered Muhammad ibn Ishac as a trustworthy authority, and quoted his traditions in proof of
their legal doctrines. It was from ibn Ishac's works that ibn Hisham extracted the materials of his biography of the Prophet, and every person who has treated on this subject has been obliged
to take Ibn Ishac for his authority and guide.117"
These testimonies are conclusive as to die popularity of Ibn Ishac in the Moslem world, and of his general respectability as a writer. But the surest proof of his character and authority lies in the fact that his statements have been embodied in all subsequent biographies of Mahomet, excepting that of Wackidi, who in comparison with others quotes sparingly from him; and that the two works of ibn Ishac and Wackidi form the chief material out of which the only authentic narrative of the Prophet's actions has been framed.
No copy of Ibm Ishac's biography, in the form of its original composition, is now available. But the materials have been so extensively adopted by Ibn Hisham, and wrought into his history in so complete and unaltered a form, that we have probably not lost much by the absence of the work itself.
II. IBN HISHAM, who died A.H. 213 118, made the labours of ibn Ishac the basis of his biography of Mahomet. Copies of this work are extant in its original form, and are known to the European
historians of the Prophet 119.
The following extract from Ibn Khallican will place before the reader all that it is necessary to know regarding the life of this author :- "Abu Muhammad, Abd al Malik, Ibn Hisham, the author of the Sirat al Rasul, or Biography of the Prophet, is spoken of in these terms by Abu'l-Casim-al-Suhaili, in his work entitled Al
Raued at Unuf, which is a commentary on the Sirat. He was celebrated for his learning, and possessed superior information in genealogy anti grammar. His native place was Old Cairo, but his
family were of Basra. He composed a genealogical work on the tribe of Himyar and its princes; and I have been told that he wrote another work, in which he explained the obscure passages of poetry cited in (Ibn Ishac's) biography of the Prophet. His death occurred at Old Cairo A.H. 213 (A.D. 828-9). This Ibn
Hisham is the person who extracted and drew up the 'History of the Prophet' from Iba Ishac's work, Al Maghazi was al Siar ('The Wars and Life of Mahomet.') Al Suhaili explained its difficulties in a commentary, and it is now found in the hands of the public under the title of Sirat ibn Hisham, i.e. 'The Biography of Mahomet, by Ibn Hisham 120.'
There is reason to suspect that Ibn Hisham was not so honest as his great authority Ibn Ishac. Certainly one instance throws suspicion upon him as a witness, disinclined at the least to tell the whole truth. We find in a subsequent biographer, Tabari, a quotation from Ibn Ishac, in which is described the temporary
lapse of Mahomet towards idolatry; and the same incidents are also given by Wackidi from other original sources. But no notice whatever of the remarkable fact appears in the biography of Ibn Hisham, though it is professedly based upon the work of Ibn Ishac 121. His having thus studiously omitted all reference to so important a narrative, for no other reason apparently than because he fancied it to be discreditable to the Prophet, cannot but lessen our confidence generally in his book. Still, it is evident from a comparison of his text with the quotations in Tabari from the same passages of Ibn Ishac, (the two ordinarily tallying word for word with each other,) that whatever he did except from his author was faithfully and accurately copied 122.
The arrangement and composition of Ibn Hisham are careful, if not elaborate. The traditions are well classified; and the narrative proceeds with much of the regularity of an ordinary European biography. The frequent fusing of traditions, however, renders it sometimes difficult to single out the separate authorities, and to judge of them on their individual merits.
An abridgment of Ibn Hisham's work was made at Damascus A.H. 707 (A.D. 1307), by one Abmad ibn Ibrahim. A beautiful manuscript, in the handwriting of the abbreviator himself is in possession of Muhammad Sadr-ood-Deen, the Principal Sudder Ameen of Delhi. It is the copy which had been used by Dr. Sprenger 123, and the same to which, (the author also having had access to it,) reference is made throughout this work 124. A valuable manuscript of the entire work is in the library of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta.
III. WACKIDI, - or as his full name runs Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Omar al Wackidi - was born at Medina about the year of the Hegira 120 or 130, and died A.H. 207 125. He studied and wrote exclusively under the Abbassides. He enjoyed their patronage, and passed a part of his life at their court, having in his later days be en appointed a Cazi of Baghdad. In judging therefore of his learning and prejudices, we must always bear in mind that the influence of the Abbasside dynasty bore strongly
and incessantly upon him. His traditional researches were vast, and his works voluminous 126.
Al Wackidi was a man eminent for learning, and the author of some well-known works on the conquests of the Moslems, and other subjects. His Kitab al Radda, a work of no inferior merit, contains an account of the apostacy
of the Arabs on the death of the Prophet, and of the wars between his followers and Tuleiha ai Aswad and Museilama, the false prophet 127. He received traditional information from Ibn abi Dib, Mamar ibn Rishid, Malik ibn Aqas, Al Thauri, and others. His Secretary, Muhammad ibn Saad, and a number of other distinguished men, delivered traditional information on his authority. He held the post of Kadi in the eastern quarter of Baghdad, and was appointed by the Caliph Al Mamun to fill the same office at Askar al Mahdi. The traditions received from him are considered of feeble authority, and doubts have been expressed on the subject of his veracity. Al Mamun testified a high respect for him and
treated him with marked honour 128.
Notwithstanding the extraordinary fertility of his pen, none of works of Wackidi have reached us in their original form with the exception of Maghazi or the "History of the Wars of the Prophet," a copy of which was very recently discovered in Syria 
His character is the Coran41.
"Tell me," -- was the curious inquiry often put to Ayesha, as well as to Mahomet's
other widows, "tell me something about the Prophet's disposition."-
"Thou hast the Coran," replied Ayesha, "art thou not an Arab, and readest the Arabic tongue?"-" Yea, verily." - then," answered she, "why takest thou the trouble to inquire of me? For the Prophet's disposition is no other than the Coran." Of Mahomet's biography the Coran indeed is the key-stone.
while the rest declare that it was 
92. Now all these traditions refer to one and the same ring; because it is repeatedly added that, after Mahomet's death, it was worn by Abu Bacr, by Omar, and by Othman, and was lost by the latter in the well Aris. There is yet another tradition that neither the Prophet nor any of his immediate successors ever wore a ring at all93. Now all these varying narratives are not given doubtfully, as conjectures which might either be right or wrong, but they are told with the full assurance of apparent certainty, and with such minute particulars and circumstantiality of detail as leave the impression on the simple reader's mind that each of the narrators had the most intimate acquaintance with the subject.