The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) — Questions people ask about Islam

Why did the Prophet marry Aisha when she was a child?

Yes, it happened. There is no softening it, and nothing goes in front of it. The wording is from Aisha herself: "The Prophet married me when I was six years old, and he consummated the marriage with me when I was nine years old." It is reported in Sahih Muslim and graded authentic 1. Ibn al-Qayyim records both dates in his notice on her life without any unease, and then describes her as "the most learned in jurisprudence of the women of this community and the most knowledgeable of them without exception", a woman the senior Companions came to for rulings 2. And the verse on the waiting period that you cited says what you say it says, no less: it sets the same three months for "those who have it not" 3, whom Tafsir al-Muyassar explains as "the young girls who have not yet menstruated" 4. The text assumes the case and builds a ruling on it. There is no exit here and no reinterpretation. The flaw is in your step from "it happened" to "so that is the ruling". The ruling that Ibn al-Qayyim drew out of the Prophet's own judgments, and attributed to the majority of the early generations and to Abu Hanifa, is "that a virgin who has reached puberty is not to be compelled into marriage, and is not to be married off except with her consent … it is the position by which we hold ourselves accountable before God, and we believe in no other" 5. His basis is a case he cites: a virgin whose father married her off against her will, "and the Prophet gave her the choice" 6. His argument is that a father "may not dispose of the least part of her property except with her consent … how then can it be permissible for him to enslave her, and to take her sexual self out of her hands without her consent" 7. So your first question — what is the ruling on marrying a child — is answered by these men this way: consent is a condition that is not waived. And the particulars of the Prophet's own marriage are not a chapter to be copied. The jurists established features particular to him in it; among them, from Ibn Aqil, that "in his marriage a guardian is not a required condition, and that this is among the things particular to him" 8.

1 The Prophet (peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and he consummated the marriage with me when I was nine years old.

Aisha, Mother of the Believers · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 1422 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

2 Shawwal, when she was six years old, and he consummated the marriage with her in Shawwal in the first year of the Hijra, when she was nine years old, and he married no virgin other than her, … And she is the most learned in jurisprudence of his wives and the most knowledgeable of them; indeed, the most learned in jurisprudence of the women of this community and the most knowledgeable of them without exception, and the senior Companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him) would refer back to her opinion and seek her rulings.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 102 our rendering · Open the passage

3 And for such of your women as despair of menstruation, if ye doubt, their period (of waiting) shall be three months, along with those who have it not. And for those with child, their period shall be till they bring forth their burden. And whosoever keepeth his duty to Allah, He maketh his course easy for him.

Surat al-Talaq (Divorce) 65:4 · Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

4 And the divorced women whose menstrual blood has ceased because of their advanced age — if you are in doubt and do not know what the ruling concerning them is: their waiting period is three months. And the young girls who have not yet menstruated: their waiting period is three months as well. …

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Talaq (Divorce) 65:4 our rendering · Open the passage

5 What this ruling entails is that a virgin who has reached puberty is not to be compelled into marriage, and is not to be married off except with her consent. This is the position of the majority of the early generations, and the school of Abu Hanifa, and of Ahmad in one of the two reports from him. It is the position by which we hold ourselves accountable before God, and we believe in no other; and it is the one that agrees with the judgment of the Messenger of God (peace be upon him), with his command and his prohibition, with the principles of his law, and with the interests of his community.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 87 our rendering · Open the passage

6 A virgin girl asked him (peace be upon him), saying that her father had married her off against her will, and the Prophet (peace be upon him) gave her the choice. So he commanded that a virgin's permission be sought, and forbade marrying her off without her permission, and he (peace be upon him) gave the choice to a woman who had been married without her permission being sought.

Ibn al-Qayyim · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in, p. 259 our rendering · Open the passage

7 As for its agreement with the principles of his law: a virgin who has reached puberty, of sound mind and mature judgment — her father may not dispose of the least part of her property except with her consent, and may not compel her to give up a trifle of it without her consent. How then can it be permissible for him to enslave her, and to take her sexual self out of her hands without her consent and hand it to the man he wants, while she is of all people the most unwilling in the matter, and he is the most hateful thing to her? … And it is known that parting with all her property without her consent is easier for her than being married to a man she does not choose without her consent.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 88 our rendering · Open the passage

8 Ibn Aqil said: the apparent sense of Ahmad's words is that in the Prophet's own marriage (peace be upon him) a guardian is not a required condition, and that this is among the things particular to him.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 104 our rendering · Open the passage

9 Verily in the messenger of Allah ye have a good example for him who looketh unto Allah and the Last Day, and remembereth Allah much.

Surat al-Ahzab (The Clans) 33:21 · Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

10 You have — O believers — in the sayings of the Messenger of God (peace be upon him), in his deeds and in his states, a good model to follow; so hold fast to his way. For only he walks that path and takes it as his model who hopes for God and the Last Day, and who remembers God much, and asks His forgiveness, and thanks Him in every state.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Ahzab (The Clans) 33:21 our rendering · Open the passage

11 1. The rulings concerning women. And most of what is complained of in this field — and the statement here is my own and I attribute it to nobody — belongs in the third box of my table: a custom that has become confused with the religion; keeping a woman from learning, keeping her from going out, marrying her off by force, cutting her out of an inheritance. Some of it has no basis whatsoever … and some of it has, in the books of the schools, an opinion that can be defended even if others differ from it, and I do not sort between the two here. … And what I do say is this: these questions are not answered in a page, and whoever answered them for you in a page has chosen an opinion for you and called it the religion.

20. Difficult Texts our rendering · Open the passage

The Prophet (peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and he consummated the marriage with me when I was nine years old.

Aisha, Mother of the Believers · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 1422 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

The Messenger of God (peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, at Mecca, at the time of Khadija's death, and he consummated the marriage with me when I was nine years old, at Medina.

Aisha, Mother of the Believers · Shu'ayb al-Arna'ut · Takhrij al-Musnad 24867 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

"A virgin who has reached puberty" — that phrase alone demolishes your answer. The condition you argued from is tied to puberty in its own wording, and a girl of nine does not fall under it. So you answered a question I did not ask and then called it an answer. As for "things particular to him": this is goods brought out of the back room whenever things get tight. His act is proof when it suits you, and a special case when it embarrasses you. And the step you objected to is not my invention. Your book says that in the Messenger of God there is "a good example", and the commentary you were quoting two lines earlier says it lies in his sayings, his deeds and his states — not in his sayings alone. So say it plainly: is this act good, a thing to be imitated, or is it not good? Whichever you say, you lose something.

The first half is correct and I take it as it stands: Ibn al-Qayyim's text is about "a virgin who has reached puberty" 5, so the question of the child is not settled by it, and the Qur'an itself assumes the case occurs when it assigns a waiting period for it 3 4. I hold no text that forbids it, and whoever led you to think he holds one was misleading you. On this very subject the book says that "marrying her off by force" is among the things that have, "in the books of the schools, an opinion that can be defended even if others differ from it", and that "these questions are not answered in a page, and whoever answered them for you in a page has chosen an opinion for you and called it the religion" 11. Take the same from me: there is no verdict here, and a declared refusal is more honest than a manufactured answer. As for the second half, it will not be trimmed and it will not be read by halves. The verse says "a good example" 9, and al-Muyassar explains it as lying in "the sayings of the Messenger of God … his deeds and his states", then closes with "hold fast to his way" 10. What turns his act into a ruling binding on me is jurisprudence — the same jurisprudence that separated what was particular to him from what is general before anyone put it in an awkward spot 8, and the same jurisprudence that drew out of his judgments that consent is a condition 6, and that disposing of her sexual self is graver than disposing of her property 7. So a man who takes him as a model in this matter does not come away with "marry a girl of nine". He comes away with "do not marry a woman off against her will". That is what I have, not what would put you at ease.

How do you know he was truthful in claiming revelation — not a liar, and not deceived?

The matter is the opposite of what is usually said: the first two branches — the liar and the deceived man — were not skipped over. Both were put to him in his own lifetime, by the men who held them. 'Utba ibn Rabi'a offered him wealth, honour and kingship, which is everything a liar is after, and then offered him medical treatment in plain words: "and if this that afflicts you is a spirit you cannot drive off from yourself, we will seek out medicine for you and spend our wealth on it until we cure you of it". So the sincere man who is deceived was a hypothesis the chief of his own people offered to fund, not a later discovery 1. Quraysh did not stop at the offer. They arranged a test by an expert: "If you were to seek out a man learned in sorcery, soothsaying and poetry". 'Utba was sent, and he said: "By God, I have heard sorcery and soothsaying and poetry, and I have knowledge of that, and it would not be hidden from me if it were of that kind" 2. He came back with this: "I have heard a speech the like of which, by God, I have never heard: it is not poetry, nor sorcery, nor soothsaying" 3. The Qur'an itself puts both branches in blunt words, with no softening: "And your comrade is not mad." 4 — and a few verses on it denies that what he brings is the speech of an outcast devil; the commentary reads: "Muhammad, whom you know, is not mad … and this Qur'an is not the speech of an accursed devil" 5. That answers the second branch. For the first: "And if he had invented false sayings concerning Us," 6 — and the passage goes on that God would have seized him by the right hand and cut his life-artery, and that none of them could have shielded him; the commentary reads: "had Muhammad ascribed to Us something We did not say, We would have taken vengeance" 7. And you are right that good character does not settle the question. That is declared here before you raise it: the criterion of "its effect on the one who bears it" is one whose weakness the book states, and the book also states that passing the criteria "does not yield certainty" 8. So what is offered for weighing is not his state but what he said, and the text sets a condition for its own falsification in its content: "Will they not then ponder on the Qur'an? If it had been from other than Allah they would have found therein much incongruity." 9 — the commentary: it "came in a firm, consistent order" 10.

1 He said: If by this speech you have brought you want only wealth, we will gather for you from our wealth until you are the richest of us; and if you want honour, we will make you our chief so that we settle no matter without you; and if you want kingship by it, we will make you king over us; and if this that afflicts you is a spirit you cannot drive off from yourself, we will seek out medicine for you and spend our wealth on it until we cure you of it — for a familiar spirit may overcome a man until he is treated for it; or perhaps this speech is poetry that has welled up in your breast

Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani · Dala'il al-I'jaz fi 'Ilm al-Ma'ani, p. 582 our rendering · Open the passage

2 Abu Jahl said one day, with the chiefs of Quraysh present: The affair of Muhammad has become confused for us. If you were to seek out a man learned in sorcery, soothsaying and poetry, and he went to him and spoke with him and then brought us a clear account of his affair. So 'Utba ibn Rabi'a said: By God, I have heard sorcery and soothsaying and poetry, and I have knowledge of that, and it would not be hidden from me if it were of that kind

Abu Ja'far al-Nahhas · I'rab al-Qur'an, p. 36 our rendering · Open the passage

3 He said: My view is this. I have heard a speech the like of which, by God, I have never heard: it is not poetry, nor sorcery, nor soothsaying. O company of Quraysh, obey me: leave this man alone with what he is engaged in, and keep away from him … Abu Dharr said: Unays was one of the poets. He said: By God, I have set his speech against the metres of poetry, and it did not run together on anyone's tongue; and I have heard the speech of the soothsayers, and it is not their speech. By God, he is truthful and they are liars.

Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani · Dala'il al-I'jaz fi 'Ilm al-Ma'ani, p. 583 our rendering · Open the passage

4 And your comrade is not mad.

Surat al-Takwir (The Overthrowing) 81:22-25 · Open the passage

5 Muhammad, whom you know, is not mad. Muhammad saw Gabriel, who brings him the message, on the great horizon, and he is not grudging in conveying the revelation. And this Qur'an is not the speech of an accursed devil, driven from the mercy of God; rather it is the speech of God and His revelation.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Takwir 81:22 our rendering · Open the passage

6 And if he had invented false sayings concerning Us,

Surat al-Haqqah (The Reality) 69:44-47 · Open the passage

7 Had Muhammad ascribed to Us something We did not say, We would have taken vengeance and seized him by the right hand, then We would have cut the artery of his heart, and none of you could have held Our punishment back from him. …

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Haqqah 69:44 our rendering · Open the passage

8 And one criterion is left whose weakness we declare — its effect on the one who bears it — because its weakness is stated with reasons that can be examined and not by a taste that is merely asserted. … Most of them rule out and do not establish, and that is their limit and not their fault. … Passing the criteria does not yield certainty. It yields that the claim is still standing after the examination. And that is less than enthusiasm supposes, and more than rejection supposes.

Chapter 22 · The criteria for testing a claim of revelation our rendering · Open the passage

9 Will they not then ponder on the Qur'an? If it had been from other than Allah they would have found therein much incongruity.

Surat an-Nisa (The Women) 4:82 · Open the passage

10 Will these people not look into the Qur'an and the truth it brought, with a look of reflection and pondering, seeing that it came in a firm, consistent order that establishes decisively that it is from God alone? Had it been from other than Him, they would have found in it much contradiction.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · an-Nisa 4:82 our rendering · Open the passage

11 The two Shaykhs (al-Bukhari and Muslim) and others reported from 'A'isha, who said: The first thing with which revelation began for the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, was true dreams in sleep … until the truth came upon him suddenly while he was in the cave of Hira. The angel came to him there and said: Recite. The Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, said: I said, I am not a reciter. So he took me and pressed me until I could bear no more, then he released me … So the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, returned with it, the muscles of his shoulders trembling

Al-Suyuti · Al-Itqan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 73 our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

And 'Utba's test weighs nothing in this matter: a seventh-century man can tell poetry from rhymed prose, but he has nothing of the tools of neurology and psychiatry, so his denial of "soothsaying" is not a denial of temporal lobe epilepsy or of hallucination, since neither was in his mind in the first place. The offer of treatment is worse: medicine in Mecca at that time was incantation, and its failure strikes down no diagnosis that had not yet been born — so your argument is that his opponents failed to reach an explanation that it was not in their power to reach. And then, everything you have cited is transmitted in books narrated by people who had already believed the claim; and you yourselves have in your own books the pressing and the trembling, and you call it revelation.

As for the transmission: we report it and do not hide it. The account of the beginning of revelation contains the pressing three times, and the words "he returned with it, the muscles of his shoulders trembling" are set down in our own works of Qur'anic science 11 — and if we were hiding what tells against us, you would have nothing left in hand to argue with. As for 'Utba having no modern diagnosis, that is true and it is granted, and that is why his test is not offered as evidence about the content, but about one thing that was within his reach: the only category available to them for explaining a man who receives what does not come from himself — soothsaying — was tested by its own experts and failed. And Unays, who was one of the poets, "set his speech against the metres of poetry, and it did not run together on anyone's tongue" 3. As for the neurological explanation, its subject is the state and not what was said, and a seizure does not produce a text that offers itself for refutation by its own consistency and says that had it been from other than God "they would have found therein much incongruity" 9 — so whoever prefers the medical explanation is obliged to show how it produces a discourse in which such a thing can be measured, not to stop at describing the state. And none of this brings you out to certainty, and no such claim is made: the book's own text is that most of these criteria "rule out and do not establish", and that the most that follows examination is that "the claim is still standing after the examination" 8 — which is less than our claim is charged with, and more than you concede.

I believe in God alone. Why must I also believe in Muhammad in order to be saved?

No. The testimony of faith is not loyalty to a man. The Qur'an binds Muhammad himself to say, "Say: I am only a mortal like you. My Lord inspireth in me that your Allah is only One Allah" 1, and it forbids any prophet to tell people, "Be slaves of me instead of Allah" 2. In fact the verse you are arguing from completes itself: "and whoso turneth away: We have not sent thee as a warder over them" — he delivers a message; he is not an overseer and not a second lord 3. Nor are you asked to accept one particular "Arab man": the form of belief in the text is "We make no distinction between any of His messengers," so whoever rejects one rejects them all, and whoever accepts accepts Moses and Jesus along with him 4. As for why bare acknowledgement is not enough, it gives you that God exists and does not give you what He wants in detail: "there is no way to know the good from the corrupt in detail except through them" 5. As for the billion people the message never reached, the text settles that against what is attributed to it: "We never punish until we have sent a messenger" 6, and its commentary reads, "God punishes no one until the proof has been established against him" 7; among the jurists it is a settled rule with no exception 8. So your real question after this is not "why a messenger" but "by what scale am I to test the claim of anyone who says He has spoken" — and that one has an answer made of criteria you can run, not an invitation to submit 9.

1 Say: I am only a mortal like you. My Lord inspireth in me that your Allah is only One Allah. And whoever hopeth for the meeting with his Lord, let him do righteous work, and make none sharer of the worship due unto his Lord.

Surat al-Kahf 18:110 · Open the passage

2 It is not (possible) for any human being unto whom Allah had given the Scripture and wisdom and the prophethood that he should afterwards have said unto mankind: Be slaves of me instead of Allah; but (what he said was): Be ye faithful servants of the Lord by virtue of your constant teaching of the Scripture and of your constant study thereof.

Surat Al Imran 3:79 · Open the passage

3 Whoso obeyeth the messenger hath obeyed Allah, and whoso turneth away: We have not sent thee as a warder over them.

Surat an-Nisa 4:80 · Open the passage

4 The messenger believeth in that which hath been revealed unto him from his Lord and (so do) believers. Each one believeth in Allah and His angels and His scriptures and His messengers - We make no distinction between any of His messengers - and they say: We hear, and we obey. (Grant us) Thy forgiveness, our Lord. Unto Thee is the journeying.

Surat al-Baqarah 2:285 · Open the passage

5 From here you come to know that people need, above every other need, to know the Messenger and what he brought, to believe him in what he reported and to obey him in what he commanded. For there is no way to happiness and success, neither in this world nor in the next, except at the hands of the messengers; and there is no way to know the good from the corrupt in detail except through them; and God's pleasure is never attained except at their hands.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya - Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 67 our rendering · Open the passage

6 Whosoever goeth right, it is only for (the good of) his own soul that he goeth right, and whosoever erreth, erreth only to its hurt. No laden soul can bear another's load, We never punish until we have sent a messenger.

Surat al-Isra 17:15 · Open the passage

7 Whoever is guided and follows the path of truth, the reward of that returns to him alone; and whoever turns aside and follows the path of falsehood, the punishment of that returns to him alone. No guilty soul bears the sin of another guilty soul. And God punishes no one until the proof has been established against him by sending the messengers and sending down the books.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - Surat al-Isra 17:15 our rendering · Open the passage

8 ...for God, exalted be He, punishes no one until the proof has been established against him.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya - I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 'an Rabb al-'Alamin, p. 206 our rendering · Open the passage

9 You said: suppose I grant a creator. That does not hand me a religion. The road from 'there is a first cause' to 'this book is His speech' is a road nobody has walked ahead of me in steps I can follow. So by what scale am I to test the claim of anyone who says He has spoken?

To whoever says: show me a text that can be tested our rendering · Open the passage

10 Messengers of good cheer and of warning, in order that mankind might have no argument against Allah after the messengers. Allah was ever Mighty, Wise.

Surat an-Nisa 4:165 · Open the passage

11 I sent messengers to My creation, bearing good tidings of My reward and warning of My punishment, so that mankind would have no argument to excuse themselves with after the sending of the messengers. And God is ever Mighty in His dominion, Wise in His ordering of affairs.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - Surat an-Nisa 4:165 our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

Everything you have brought comes from inside the claim: you argue from the Qur'an against someone who does not grant in the first place that it is from God, so the answer is circular. And your own rule — no punishment before the proof is established — turns against you. If the person the message never reached is safe, then delivering the message is the very thing that creates the danger, and the more merciful course would be to tell no one. So your religion is either unjust to whoever never heard, or ruinous to whoever did.

The first half is granted to you without maneuvering: what came above shows what Islam says about itself, it does not establish it, and establishing it is a separate matter that begins from your question word for word: "suppose I grant a creator. That does not hand me a religion" 9. The second half rests on the assumption that the alternative to sending messengers is general salvation, while the text makes the alternative general ignorance: "Messengers of good cheer and of warning, in order that mankind might have no argument against Allah after the messengers" 10 — "so that mankind would have no argument to excuse themselves with after the sending of the messengers" 11. That is, sending them removes an excuse that was standing; it does not invent a charge that was not there. And what remains after this stays in plain sight: the rule denies punishment to whoever the proof never reached, and it does not spell out his fate; nothing in the sources cited here spells it out either. Anyone who wants that detail will not find it here.

What happened to Banu Qurayza — the fighting men killed, the women and children taken — how does that square with 'a mercy to the worlds'?

Not one child was killed. The execution was carried out on "every one of them over whom the razor had passed", while "whoever had not grown hair was counted with the children", and "not one of the women was killed except a single woman" — she had thrown a millstone onto a man's head and killed him 1. Ibn al-Qayyim records this sorting as a rule of judgment, not a passing incident: "on the day of Qurayza he would put to death those captives in whom that sign was found, and spare those in whom it was not" 2. The ground of the ruling was backing the besiegers in a war then underway — not religion and not descent: between them and the Prophet there was a written "covenant of security", made with the three Jewish groups of Medina 3. The Quran names their act in its own words: "And He brought those of the People of the Scripture who supported them down from their strongholds" 4, and al-Tafsir al-Muyassar explains it as "because they had aided the Confederates in fighting the Muslims" 5. Nor was this a standing ruling applied to the Jews of Medina: Banu Qaynuqa' submitted to his judgment "over their persons, their property, their women, and their children", and then he "granted them to him and ordered them to leave Medina" 6; and Banu al-Nadir left "with their persons and their children, and ... whatever the camels could carry, except weapons" 7. And nothing here is hidden: the number was "between six hundred and seven hundred", and "Trenches were dug for them in the market of Medina and their necks were struck" 1; the women and children were taken captive in the very wording of the ruling — "that their fighting men be killed and their offspring taken captive" 8 — and in the wording of the Quran, "ye made captive some" 4.

1 The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, ordered the killing of every one of them over whom the razor had passed; and whoever had not grown hair was counted with the children. Trenches were dug for them in the market of Medina and their necks were struck. They were between six hundred and seven hundred. Not one of the women was killed except a single woman who had thrown a millstone onto the head of Suwayd ibn al-Samit and killed him.

Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 121 our rendering · Open the passage

2 He treated the growth of pubic hair as a factor in puberty and made it a sign and a mark of it. So on the day of Qurayza he would put to death those captives in whom that sign was found, and spare those in whom it was not. For this reason a group of jurists — such as al-Shafi'i — made it a sign in the case of unbelievers specifically.

Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · al-Turuq al-Hukmiyya fi al-Siyasa al-Shar'iyya, p. 138 our rendering · Open the passage

3 He made peace with the Jews of Medina and wrote between them and himself a covenant of security. They were three groups around Medina: Banu Qaynuqa', Banu al-Nadir, and Banu Qurayza.

Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 113 our rendering · Open the passage

4 And He brought those of the People of the Scripture who supported them down from their strongholds, and cast panic into their hearts. Some ye slew, and ye made captive some.

Quran, Surat al-Ahzab (The Clans) 33:26 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

5 God brought the Jews of Banu Qurayza down from their fortresses because they had aided the Confederates in fighting the Muslims, and He cast fear into their hearts so they were defeated. You kill a party of them, and you take another party captive.

Tafsir al-Muyassar — Quran, Surat al-Ahzab (The Clans) 33:26 our rendering · Open the passage

6 They submitted to the judgment of the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, over their persons, their property, their women, and their children. He ordered them bound. Then 'Abd Allah ibn Ubayy spoke to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, on their behalf and pressed him, so he granted them to him and ordered them to leave Medina and not to dwell beside him there.

Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 114 our rendering · Open the passage

7 They sent word to him: We will leave Medina. So he let them come down on the terms that they leave it with their persons and their children, and that they might keep whatever the camels could carry, except weapons.

Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 115 our rendering · Open the passage

8 Some people submitted to the judgment of Sa'd ibn Mu'adh. He sent for him, and he came on a donkey. When he drew near the mosque, the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: Rise for your best man, or your chief. Then he said: Sa'd, these people have submitted to your judgment. He said: Then I judge concerning them that their fighting men be killed and their offspring taken captive. He said: You have judged by the judgment of God — or: by the judgment of the King.

Abu Sa'id al-Khudri · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 3804 · Authentic (sahih) our rendering

9 He came down upon the strongholds of Banu Qurayza and besieged them for twenty-five nights. When the siege bore hard on them, their chief Ka'b ibn Asad put three options to them: either that they accept Islam and enter with Muhammad into his religion; or that they kill their own children and go out to him with drawn swords to fight him until they overcome him; or that they be killed to the last man.

Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 119 our rendering · Open the passage

10 They refused to answer him with any one of them … Then the Aws rose to him and said: Messenger of God, you did with Banu Qaynuqa' what you know, and they were the allies of our brothers the Khazraj; and these are our own allies, so deal well with them. He said: Would you not be content that one of you judge concerning them? They said: Yes. He said: Then that rests with Sa'd ibn Mu'adh. They said: We are content … Sa'd, be gentle with your allies, and deal well with them.

Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 120 our rendering · Open the passage

11 His way, may God bless him and grant him peace, was that when he made peace with a people and some of them broke their covenant and its peace, while the rest let them be and were content with it, he fought them all and treated them all as covenant-breakers — as he did with Qurayza, al-Nadir, and Banu Qaynuqa', and as he did with the people of Mecca. This is his practice with people under covenant, and on this basis the ruling ought to run for protected non-Muslims, as the jurists among the followers of Ahmad and others stated plainly. The followers of al-Shafi'i disagreed with them and restricted the breaking of the covenant to the one who broke it specifically, and not to whoever was content with it and let it stand.

Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 122 our rendering · Open the passage

The people of Qurayza submitted to the judgment of Sa'd ibn Mu'adh. The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, sent for Sa'd, and he came to him on a donkey. When he drew near the mosque, the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said to the Ansar: Rise for your chief, or your best man. Then he said: These people have submitted to your judgment. He said: You kill their fighting men and take their children captive. The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: You have judged by the judgment of God — and perhaps he said: You have judged by the judgment of the King. Ibn al-Muthanna did not mention: and perhaps he said: You have judged by the judgment of the King. In another narration: You have indeed judged among them by the judgment of God; and once he said: You have indeed judged by the judgment of the King.

Abu Sa'id al-Khudri · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 1768 · Authentic (sahih) our rendering

Some people submitted to the judgment of Sa'd ibn Mu'adh. He sent for him, and he came on a donkey. When he drew near the mosque, the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: Rise for your best man, or your chief. Then he said: Sa'd, these people have submitted to your judgment. He said: Then I judge concerning them that their fighting men be killed and their offspring taken captive. He said: You have judged by the judgment of God — or: by the judgment of the King.

Abu Sa'id al-Khudri · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 3804 · Authentic (sahih) our rendering

The strongest objection

Six to seven hundred men had their necks struck in trenches dug for them in the market of Medina — and that figure is your own, not your opponents'. The line between the man who lived and the man who died was a hair that had grown, not a crime proved against any particular man: not one of them was asked what he had done. And saying "no child was killed" does not leave him free; he was taken captive along with his mother, and his father's property was divided, and that is a reckoning laid on him for a guilt that is not his. As for the arbitration, it is a procedure that shifts no responsibility: whoever proposed the arbitrator, sent for him, and said of his ruling "You have judged by the judgment of God" has adopted that ruling completely — and had he wished he could have set it aside, as he set it aside before with Qaynuqa'.

The line was not age to begin with; it was a description, and the wording of the ruling says so: "that their fighting men be killed and their offspring taken captive" 8. Puberty was a sign taken as evidence of a fighting man, not a standard standing on its own 2. And they were not a party that laid down its arms with nothing behind it: they were besieged "twenty-five nights", and their chief Ka'b ibn Asad put three options to them, one of them "that they kill their own children and go out to him with drawn swords to fight him until they overcome him" 9; "They refused to answer him with any one of them" 10. The arbitrator was not drawn from the people furthest from them but from the closest: it was the Aws, their own allies, who rose and said "these are our own allies, so deal well with them. He said: Would you not be content that one of you judge concerning them?", and who kept pressing Sa'd on the road, "Sa'd, be gentle with your allies, and deal well with them" 10; and in al-Bukhari and Muslim they "submitted to the judgment of Sa'd ibn Mu'adh" 8. The hard point still stands — is the man who kept silent held to account for what his people did? — and the jurists who transmitted the report did not agree on it. Ibn al-Qayyim reports that the followers of Ahmad treat the one who was content with the breach as a breaker of it, "as he did with Qurayza", and then: "The followers of al-Shafi'i disagreed with them and restricted the breaking of the covenant to the one who broke it specifically, and not to whoever was content with it and let it stand" 11. So the question is disputed inside the very tradition that preserved the report, not settled in it.

His marriage to Zaynab after Zayd divorced her — was Qur'an revealed about it?

Yes. Qur'an was revealed about it, and no Muslim has ever denied that. Anas ibn Malik says this verse came down concerning Zaynab bint Jahsh and Zayd ibn Haritha 1. The two things you are asking about are stated outright in the commentary, not inferred from it: what he concealed was what God had revealed to him — that Zayd would divorce his wife and that he himself would then marry her; and what he feared was the hypocrites saying, "Muhammad has married the divorced wife of his adopted son" 2. So the point of reproach in the verse is fear of people, not desire for the woman — "and thou didst fear mankind whereas Allah hath a better right that thou shouldst fear Him" 3. Ibn al-Qayyim held that what he concealed was his intention to marry her if Zayd divorced her, and that God "informed him that he ought not to fear people in what God has made lawful for him" 4. As for "he saw her and was taken with her," the story refutes that from its opening: he was the one who proposed to her for Zayd; she supposed he was proposing for himself, and when she learned he wanted her for his freedman she refused 5 — and she was the daughter of his paternal aunt Umayma, not a woman who happened to catch his eye 6. The divorce was begun by Zayd, who came complaining, and he was told to keep his wife 7. As for the claim that adoption was abolished in order to license this one case, the verse announces its own purpose: "so that (henceforth) there may be no sin for believers in respect of wives of their adopted sons" 3. And adoption was abolished by a different verse altogether: the Companions used to call him Zayd ibn Muhammad until the command came down to call adopted sons after their own fathers 8.

1 From Anas ibn Malik (may God be pleased with him): this verse — "And thou didst hide in thy mind that which Allah was to bring to light" — came down concerning Zaynab bint Jahsh and Zayd ibn Haritha.

Anas ibn Malik · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 4787 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

2 And you conceal within yourself, Muhammad, what God has revealed to you: that Zayd will divorce his wife and that you will marry her. God will bring to light what you concealed. And you fear that the hypocrites will say, "Muhammad has married the divorced wife of his adopted son," while God has more right that you should fear Him.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Ahzab (The Clans) 33:37 our rendering · Open the passage

3 And when thou saidst unto him on whom Allah hath conferred favour and thou hast conferred favour: Keep thy wife to thyself, and fear Allah. And thou didst hide in thy mind that which Allah was to bring to light, and thou didst fear mankind whereas Allah hath a better right that thou shouldst fear Him. So when Zeyd had performed that necessary formality (of divorce) from her, We gave her unto thee in marriage, so that (henceforth) there may be no sin for believers in respect of wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have performed the necessary formality (of release) from them. The commandment of Allah must be fulfilled.

Surat al-Ahzab (The Clans) 33:37 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

4 This claimant supposed that the matter was one of infatuation … That comes from the speaker's ignorance of the Qur'an and of the messengers, from loading the speech of God with what it cannot bear, and from attributing to the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) what God has cleared him of … What he concealed within himself was his intention to marry her if Zayd divorced her, and he feared people would say that he had married the wife of his son, since Zayd used to be called his son. That is what he concealed within himself, and that is the fear of people that came over him. This is why God mentions this verse enumerating His favours upon him, not reproaching him in it, and informed him that he ought not to fear people in what God has made lawful for him, and that God has more right to be feared, so that he need not shrink from what He made lawful for him on account of what people say.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 244 our rendering · Open the passage

5 On the words of God Most High in the verses that begin with the statement that no believing man or believing woman has a choice: al-Tabarani reported, with a sound chain, from Qatada, who said: the Prophet (peace be upon him) proposed to Zaynab while wanting her for Zayd. She supposed that he wanted her for himself, and when she learned that he wanted her for Zayd she refused. So God sent down that verse, and she consented and submitted.

al-Suyuti · Lubab al-Nuqul fi Asbab al-Nuzul, p. 173 our rendering · Open the passage

6 Then he married Zaynab bint Jahsh, of Banu Asad ibn Khuzayma. She was the daughter of his paternal aunt Umayma, and concerning her God sent down His words: "So when Zeyd had performed that necessary formality (of divorce) from her, We gave her unto thee in marriage" [al-Ahzab: 37]. She used to take pride in that before the wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him), saying: your families gave you in marriage, and God gave me in marriage from above the seven heavens.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 104 our rendering · Open the passage

7 And al-Hakim reported from Anas, who said: Zayd ibn Haritha came to the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) complaining about Zaynab bint Jahsh, and the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: keep your wife to yourself. Then there came down: "And thou didst hide in thy mind that which Allah was to bring to light."

al-Suyuti · Lubab al-Nuqul fi Asbab al-Nuzul, p. 174 our rendering · Open the passage

8 It was revealed concerning Zayd ibn Haritha. He had been a slave of the Messenger of God (peace be upon him), who freed him and adopted him before the revelation came. When the Prophet (peace be upon him) married Zaynab bint Jahsh, who had been the wife of Zayd ibn Haritha, the Jews and the hypocrites said: Muhammad has married the wife of his son while he forbids people from doing so. So God Most High sent down this verse. … From Abd Allah ibn Umar, who used to say: we never called Zayd ibn Haritha anything but Zayd ibn Muhammad, until there came down in the Qur'an the command to call them after their own fathers, that being more equitable in the sight of God. Reported by al-Bukhari.

al-Wahidi · Asbab Nuzul al-Qur'an, p. 351 our rendering · Open the passage

9 Had Muhammad (peace be upon him) concealed anything of what was sent down to him, he would have concealed this verse: "And when thou saidst unto him on whom Allah hath conferred favour and thou hast conferred favour: Keep thy wife to thyself, and fear Allah. And thou didst hide in thy mind that which Allah was to bring to light, and thou didst fear mankind whereas Allah hath a better right that thou shouldst fear Him" [al-Ahzab: 37].

Aisha, Mother of the Believers · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 177 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

10 O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war, and the daughters of thine uncle on the father's side and the daughters of thine aunts on the father's side, and the daughters of thine uncle on the mother's side and the daughters of thine aunts on the mother's side who emigrated with thee, and a believing woman if she give herself unto the Prophet and the Prophet desire to ask her in marriage - a privilege for thee only, not for the (rest of) believers - We are Aware of that which We enjoined upon them concerning their wives and those whom their right hands possess - that thou mayst be free from blame, for Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.

Surat al-Ahzab (The Clans) 33:50 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

11 It is not allowed thee to take (other) women henceforth, nor that thou shouldst change them for other wives even though their beauty pleased thee, save those whom thy right hand possesseth. And Allah is ever Watcher over all things.

Surat al-Ahzab (The Clans) 33:52 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

From Anas ibn Malik (may God be pleased with him): this verse — "And thou didst hide in thy mind that which Allah was to bring to light" — came down concerning Zaynab bint Jahsh and Zayd ibn Haritha.

Anas ibn Malik · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 4787 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

Had Muhammad (peace be upon him) concealed anything of what was sent down to him, he would have concealed this verse: "And when thou saidst unto him on whom Allah hath conferred favour and thou hast conferred favour: Keep thy wife to thyself, and fear Allah. And thou didst hide in thy mind that which Allah was to bring to light, and thou didst fear mankind whereas Allah hath a better right that thou shouldst fear Him" [al-Ahzab: 37].

Aisha, Mother of the Believers · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 177 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

Every witness you call is from inside the circle: the commentator is a Muslim; Ibn al-Qayyim is a jurist defending his prophet six centuries after the fact; and the report that says she was the one who refused was transmitted by people who venerate him. The text stands where it is, and none of that moves it: a man announces that God has revealed to him that he will marry the wife of the man everyone called his son; then exactly what was revealed comes to pass; then the institution of adoption is abolished, so the obstacle falls away; then the marriage itself is contracted inside the sacred text, in the divine first person: "We gave her unto thee in marriage." Your line that the purpose is a general one, for the believers, settles nothing; every claimant of revelation casts his ruling as law for everyone rather than as a privilege for himself. And in that very sura there is something reserved for him alone, in explicit words: "a privilege for thee only, not for the (rest of) believers."

The circumstantial evidence reverses once you ask which way it points: is this a text that serves the man, or one that exposes him? The verse puts on record that he concealed something and that he feared people. Aisha said something plainer than any interpretation: "Had Muhammad … concealed anything of what was sent down to him, he would have concealed this verse" 9. The accusation itself was not buried either; it was preserved in the books on the occasions of revelation in the words of his opponents: "Muhammad has married the wife of his son while he forbids people from doing so" 8 — and a man cutting a text to his own measure does not keep in his own books the wording of the charge laid against him. As for "a privilege for thee only, not for the (rest of) believers," that is true and is not denied; it is the strongest point in the objection 10. But in that same sura the special treatment falls on him as a restriction just as it falls as a licence: he was forbidden to exchange his wives for other wives, "even though their beauty pleased thee" 11. A text drafted to serve appetite does not close that door on its own author using the very language of being pleased by beauty, and it does not record against him a reproach that his followers have recited in their prayers for fourteen centuries 3.

Why were Muslims limited to four wives while he himself was exempted?

Yes — the exemption is stated in the text, and it is not denied. But it is the text that states it, not its critics. The limit set for the believers is "two or three or four" 1, and the commentary concedes the point in that very passage: "But We have granted you a dispensation in this, and made room for you where no room was made for others" 2. What the objection cannot carry, though, is the wording it rests on: "a privilege for thee only, not for the (rest of) believers" is read by al-Shafi'i as referring to marriage by gift without a dower, not to number 3. And the test itself — that a man who exempts himself has a text that serves him — is broken by the same surah two verses later: "It is not allowed thee to take (other) women henceforth" 4; "He confined him to his wives, and forbade him any others besides them" 5. Plainer still is the verse produced as evidence against him: "Why bannest thou that which Allah hath made lawful for thee" 6 — a rebuke for denying himself something lawful, not for taking more. Ibn al-Qayyim uses it to argue that he held no power to make things lawful or unlawful: "If God, glorified be He, did not grant His Messenger the right to forbid what God had made lawful for him, how could He grant that right to anyone else?" 7. And the limit of four was enforced, not merely written: Ghaylan al-Thaqafi became a Muslim with ten wives and was told, "Keep four and part with the rest" 8.

1 And if ye fear that ye will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess. Thus it is more likely that ye will not do injustice.

Surat al-Nisa (Women) 4:3 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 We know well what We have imposed upon the believers concerning their wives and their bondwomen: that they marry no more than four women, along with such bondwomen as they wish, and that a guardian, a dower and witnesses are required of them. But We have granted you a dispensation in this, and made room for you where no room was made for others, so that you would feel no unease in marrying any of these categories you have married.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat al-Ahzab (The Clans) 33:50 our rendering · Open the passage

3 ["A privilege" — by way of gift and with no dower; so know that it belongs to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and not to the believers.]

al-Shafi'i · Ahkam al-Qur'an li-l-Shafi'i, compiled by al-Bayhaqi, p. 198 our rendering · Open the passage

4 It is not allowed thee to take (other) women henceforth, nor that thou shouldst change them for other wives even though their beauty pleased thee, save those whom thy right hand possesseth. And Allah is ever Watcher over all things.

Surat al-Ahzab (The Clans) 33:52 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

5 "It is not allowed thee to take (other) women henceforth, nor that thou shouldst change them for other wives": He confined him to his wives, and forbade him any others besides them, except the bondwomen his right hand possessed.

Ibn Qutayba · Gharib al-Qur'an, p. 351 our rendering · Open the passage

6 O Prophet! Why bannest thou that which Allah hath made lawful for thee, seeking to please thy wives? And Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Surat al-Tahrim (The Prohibition) 66:1 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

7 If God, glorified be He, did not grant His Messenger the right to forbid what God had made lawful for him, how could He grant that right to anyone else?

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 279 our rendering · Open the passage

8 Ghaylan al-Thaqafi became a Muslim while he had ten wives, and the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: (Keep four and part with the rest.)

Abdullah ibn Umar · Ibn Hibban · Sahih Ibn Hibban 4157 · sahih (sound) our rendering

9 The exegetes differed over it along two positions. The first: that it is abrogated by His words, "Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives."

Ibn al-Jawzi · Nawasikh al-Qur'an, p. 544 our rendering · Open the passage

10 The second position: that it stands unabrogated, and within it there are two views: … "It is not allowed thee to take (other) women henceforth" — he said: God confined him to them just as He confined them to him.

Ibn al-Jawzi · Nawasikh al-Qur'an, p. 545 our rendering · Open the passage

Keep four and part with the rest.

Abdullah ibn Umar · Ibn al-Qayyim · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 2/252 · sahih (sound) our rendering

Ghaylan al-Thaqafi became a Muslim while he had ten wives, and the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: (Keep four and part with the rest.)

Abdullah ibn Umar · Ibn Hibban · Sahih Ibn Hibban 4157 · sahih (sound) our rendering

The strongest objection

Say what you like about "a privilege for thee only." The commentary you yourself cited is the one that says, "and made room for you where no room was made for others" — so the number is exempted by your own admission, and the rest of your case hangs on a single word rather than on the ruling. As for "It is not allowed thee to take (other) women henceforth," that restriction does not hold. Most of the early authorities reported on it — Ali, Ibn Abbas, Aisha, Umm Salama — held that it was abrogated by the verse that permits him. So the text narrowed and then widened, and that is exactly what one expects from a text that moves with the man rather than standing above him.

The first half is granted, and the second report is accurate and not in dispute: Ibn al-Jawzi gives abrogation as the first position and attributes it to the names listed 9. But he gives the second position as unabrogated: "The second position: that it stands unabrogated… he said: God confined him to them just as He confined them to him" 10. So the question is disputed, not settled, and building a refutation on one of two positions while passing over the other is the very thing being faulted in others. More to the point, the reply does not rest on that restriction at all. A standard like "the text serves the man who speaks it" is tested by what it costs him, not by what it grants him — and "Why bannest thou that which Allah hath made lawful for thee" 6 is a rebuke recorded against him inside his own household, and no one claims it was abrogated. A text shaped for the man who speaks it does not put his reprimand on permanent record, nor overturn an oath he had sworn.

Were his campaigns genuinely defensive, or were they expansion?

No — and they were not all "defence" either. The sources carry both halves, and that is the first thing that has to be said. Take Tabuk, which you started with. That expedition set out on a report that had come in: word reached the Prophet "that the Romans had massed great numbers in Syria, that Heraclius had provisioned his men for a year … and that they had pushed their vanguards forward to al-Balqa'" 1. The army then halted there "some ten-odd nights and did not go beyond it, then turned back, heading home to Medina" 2. What came out of it was a peace agreement and tribute with the ruler of Ayla and the people of Jarba and Adhruh 3 — not the conquest of a province. The door to Syria was not opened by Tabuk but by Mu'ta a year earlier, and the stated cause of Mu'ta was the killing of his envoy al-Harith ibn Umayr al-Azdi: "no other envoy of the Messenger of Allah was ever killed" 4. His letter to Heraclius — the one you describe as a choice between conversion and war — mentions no war at all; it closes by calling him to come to a word held in common between the two sides 5. The first permission to fight in the Qur'an is tied to wrong suffered, not to unbelief: "Sanction is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged" 6. The Muyassar commentary reads it the same way: "At the beginning of their affair the Muslims were forbidden to fight the disbelievers … God permitted the Muslims to fight, because of the wrong and aggression that had befallen them" 7. As for the half that gives your question its weight, here it is in Ibn al-Qayyim's words rather than in a paraphrase: "Then He commanded him to fight whoever fought him and to hold back from whoever did not fight him. Then, when Bara'a was revealed … He commanded him to fight all of the Arabs who had not accepted Islam: the one who fought him and the one who held back from fighting him, except one with whom he had a covenant" 8. The escalation you describe is not your invention; a scholar from inside the tradition sets it out with no softening.

1 Ibn Sa'd mentioned, saying: (Word reached the Messenger of Allah, may God bless him and grant him peace, that the Romans had massed great numbers in Syria, that Heraclius had provisioned his men for a year, that Lakhm, Judham, Amila and Ghassan had joined him, and that they had pushed their vanguards forward to al-Balqa'

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 461 our rendering · Open the passage

2 We return to the account of Tabuk. Ibn Ishaq said: The Messenger of Allah, may God bless him and grant him peace, stayed at Tabuk some ten-odd nights and did not go beyond it, then turned back, heading home to Medina

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 471 our rendering · Open the passage

3 When the Messenger of Allah, may God bless him and grant him peace, reached Tabuk, the ruler of Ayla came to him, made peace with him and paid him the tribute; and the people of Jarba and Adhruh came to him and paid him the tribute, and the Messenger of Allah, may God bless him and grant him peace, wrote them a document, which is with them still

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 469 our rendering · Open the passage

4 It was in Jumada al-Ula of the year eight. Its cause was that the Messenger of Allah — may God bless him and grant him peace — sent al-Harith ibn Umayr al-Azdi, one of the Banu Lahb, with his letter to Syria, to the ruler of the Romans, or of Busra. Shurahbil ibn Amr al-Ghassani intercepted him, bound him fast, then brought him forward and struck off his neck; and no other envoy of the Messenger of Allah — may God bless him and grant him peace — was ever killed. That weighed heavily on him when the news reached him, so he dispatched the expeditions

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 335 our rendering · Open the passage

5 …From Muhammad, the Messenger of God, to Heraclius, the great one of the Romans. Peace be upon whoever follows the guidance. To proceed: I call you with the call of Islam. Accept Islam and you will be safe; God will give you your reward twice over. And if you turn away, then upon you is the sin of the Arisiyyin, and {O People of the Scripture, come to a word held in common between us and you: that we worship none but God, and associate nothing with Him, and that none of us take others as lords beside God. And if they turn away, then say: Bear witness that we are Muslims} [Al Imran: 64]

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 600 our rendering · Open the passage

6 Sanction is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged; and Allah is indeed Able to give them victory;

Surat al-Hajj (The Pilgrimage) 22:39 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

7 (At the beginning of their affair the Muslims were forbidden to fight the disbelievers, and were commanded to bear their harm patiently. Then, when the harm of the idolaters reached its limit and the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, went out from "Mecca" as an emigrant to "Medina", and Islam came to have strength) God permitted the Muslims to fight, because of the wrong and aggression that had befallen them; and God Almighty is able to grant them victory and to humble their enemy.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat al-Hajj (The Pilgrimage) 22:39 our rendering · Open the passage

8 …Then He commanded him to fight whoever fought him and to hold back from whoever did not fight him. Then, when Bara'a was revealed in the year eight, He commanded him to fight all of the Arabs who had not accepted Islam: the one who fought him, and the one who held back from fighting him, except one with whom he had a covenant and who had fallen short of that covenant in nothing — him He commanded him to keep faith with. And He did not command him to take the tribute from the idolaters. He fought the Jews several times, and was not commanded to take the tribute from them.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 82 our rendering · Open the passage

9 The third: what was commanded for a cause, and then the cause goes away — such as the command, at a time of weakness and fewness, to be patient and to forgive, which was then abrogated by the imposition of fighting. In truth this is not abrogation; rather it belongs to the category of the deferred … By this is weakened what many have been loud in saying, that the verse in this matter is abrogated by the sword verse. It is not so; rather it belongs to the deferred, in the sense that every command that comes must be obeyed at whatever time calls for that ruling, and then it moves, with the moving of that cause, to another ruling — and this is not abrogation.

al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 56 our rendering · Open the passage

10 Al-Tirmidhi and al-Hakim reported from Aisha, who said: the last sura revealed was al-Ma'ida; so whatever you find in it to be lawful, hold it lawful . . . the hadith.

al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 83 our rendering · Open the passage

11 O ye who believe! Be steadfast witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty. Observe your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is Informed of what ye do.

Surat al-Ma'ida (The Table Spread) 5:8 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

12 And if anyone of the idolaters seeketh thy protection (O Muhammad), then protect him so that he may hear the Word of Allah, and afterward convey him to his place of safety. That is because they are a folk who know not.

Surat al-Tawba (Repentance) 9:6 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

13 3. Fighting. It is the one that the third section touched with the mark of 'a narrative and a ruling', and I do not claim that that mark takes it all in. For the statement that some of the texts are a report of particular events is right in some of them, and a claim needing to be made good in others — and there is in them what is a general ruling in the matter of war and peace, over the working out of whose operative ground the scholars have differed with an old and well-known difference. And I offer you no weighting in it.

20. The Difficult Texts our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

So you concede it, then. What you have produced is the circumstance of particular incidents, and the general ruling sits above them: the verse orders the fighting of those who do not believe in Allah, until they pay the tribute out of hand and are subdued [[9]]. That ties fighting to belief in so many words — not to aggression, not to a broken covenant, not to an army on the frontier. And Ibn al-Arabi says what you flinch from saying: the sword verse "abrogated a hundred and twenty-four verses" [[10]]. So the verses of restraint you lean on are dead in the judgement of your own people, and "defence" is a reading produced by modern embarrassment, not by the text.

Ibn al-Arabi's statement is one side of an old internal dispute, not a consensus to lean on. Al-Suyuti turns it down in his own work on the subject: "By this is weakened what many have been loud in saying, that the verse in this matter is abrogated by the sword verse. It is not so; rather it belongs to the deferred" 9 — that is, a ruling suspended on a state of affairs, which returns when that state returns, not a ruling struck out. As for the claim that the order of revelation shows the direction of travel, that is the weakest part of the question, because the reports about "the last thing revealed" disagree at the outset: "Aisha said: the last sura revealed was al-Ma'ida" 10 — and al-Ma'ida is where it says "let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly. Deal justly" 11. The arrow points where you want it only if you take one report and leave its sister. Then the passage you call "the sword" is followed one verse later by "And if anyone of the idolaters seeketh thy protection (O Muhammad), then protect him so that he may hear the Word of Allah, and afterward convey him to his place of safety" 12 — safe conduct for an idolater who asks for it, and an escort to where he is safe: the same sura, a line away. What you will not get here is a verdict on the operative ground of fighting. The book refuses it in plain words, not by evasion: "there is in them what is a general ruling in the matter of war and peace, over the working out of whose operative ground the scholars have differed with an old and well-known difference. And I offer you no weighting in it" 13.

If both were sent by the same God, why does his life look nothing like Jesus'?

The Qur'an does not stage a contest between the two men at all. It is the Qur'an that says some messengers were preferred above others, that Jesus was given the clear proofs and was supported with the holy Spirit 1, and that a believer makes no distinction between any of God's messengers 2. As for the idea that marriage and the marketplace break a claim to prophethood, that yardstick was raised against him in his own lifetime. He was taunted for his occupation with marriage and for taking many wives, and the verse came down: "And verily We sent messengers (to mankind) before thee, and We appointed for them wives and offspring" 3 4. And it was said of him that this messenger eats food and walks in the markets, and the verse came down: "We never sent before thee any messengers but lo! they verily ate food and walked in the markets" 5 6. Celibacy and withdrawal from the world are not, in the Qur'an, a condition of prophethood, nor an obligation laid on the followers of Jesus: "But monasticism they invented - We ordained it not for them" 7. Al-Suyuti reads that monasticism as withdrawing from people, renouncing women and leaving the world, a thing they took up of their own accord 8. The sword and kingship are likewise not the opposite of prophethood in it: "David slew Goliath; and Allah gave him the kingdom and wisdom" 9, and al-Tafsir al-Muyassar has it that God then gave David kingship and prophethood among the Children of Israel 10. As for Jesus, it is the Qur'an itself that returns him to the very manner of living for which the other man is faulted: "The Messiah, son of Mary, was no other than a messenger, messengers (the like of whom) had passed away before him. And his mother was a saintly woman. And they both used to eat (earthly) food." 11

1 Of those messengers, some of whom We have caused to excel others, and of whom there are some unto whom Allah spake, while some of them He exalted (above others) in degree; and We gave Jesus, son of Mary, clear proofs (of Allah's Sovereignty) and We supported him with the holy Spirit. And if Allah had so wiled it, those who followed after them would not have fought one with another after the clear proofs had come unto them. But they differed, some of them believing and some disbelieving. And if Allah had so willed it, they would not have fought one with another; but Allah doeth what He will.

Surah al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2:253 · Open the passage

2 The messenger believeth in that which hath been revealed unto him from his Lord and (so do) believers. Each one believeth in Allah and His angels and His scriptures and His messengers - We make no distinction between any of His messengers - and they say: We hear, and we obey. (Grant us) Thy forgiveness, our Lord. Unto Thee is the journeying.

Surah al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2:285 · Open the passage

3 And verily We sent messengers (to mankind) before thee, and We appointed for them wives and offspring, and it was not (given) to any messenger that he should bring a portent save by Allah's leave. For everything there is a time prescribed.

Surah al-Ra'd (The Thunder) 13:38 · Open the passage

4 … Ibn Abbas said: they taunted the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, for his occupation with marriage and for taking many wives, so God Most High sent down: "And verily We sent messengers (to mankind) before thee, and We appointed for them wives and offspring" …

Al-Kirmani · Asrar al-Takrar fi al-Qur'an (The Secrets of Repetition in the Qur'an), p. 152 our rendering · Open the passage

5 We never sent before thee any messengers but lo! they verily ate food and walked in the markets. And We have appointed some of you a test for others: Will ye be steadfast? And thy Lord is ever Seer.

Surah al-Furqan (The Criterion) 25:20 · Open the passage

6 … And they said, what ails this messenger that he eats food and walks in the markets? So He said: "We never sent before thee any messengers but lo! they verily ate food and walked in the markets" … And their saying, how can he be a messenger when he has no concern but women? So He said: "And verily We sent messengers (to mankind) before thee, and We appointed for them wives and offspring" …

Al-Suyuti · Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an (The Perfect Guide to the Sciences of the Qur'an), p. 121 our rendering · Open the passage

7 Then We caused Our messengers to follow in their footsteps; and We caused Jesus, son of Mary, to follow, and gave him the Gospel, and placed compassion and mercy in the hearts of those who followed him. But monasticism they invented - We ordained it not for them - only seeking Allah's pleasure, and they observed it not with right observance. So We give those of them who believe their reward, but many of them are evil-livers.

Surah al-Hadid (Iron) 57:27 · Open the passage

8 The meaning is: We did not prescribe upon those who followed Jesus the monasticism of withdrawing from people, renouncing women and leaving the world; rather they did it of their own accord, seeking the pleasure of God.

Al-Suyuti · Mu'tarak al-Aqran fi I'jaz al-Qur'an, p. 446 our rendering · Open the passage

9 So they routed them by Allah's leave and David slew Goliath; and Allah gave him the kingdom and wisdom, and taught him of that which He willeth. And if Allah had not repelled some men by others the earth would have been corrupted. But Allah is a Lord of Kindness to (His) creatures.

Surah al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2:251 · Open the passage

10 … And David, peace be upon him, killed Goliath, the commander of the tyrants, and God then gave David kingship and prophethood among the Children of Israel, and taught him such of the sciences as He willed. …

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2:251 our rendering · Open the passage

11 The Messiah, son of Mary, was no other than a messenger, messengers (the like of whom) had passed away before him. And his mother was a saintly woman. And they both used to eat (earthly) food. See how We make the revelations clear for them, and see how they are turned away!

Surah al-Ma'idah (The Table Spread) 5:75 · Open the passage

12 Do not tailor a criterion to the measure of a claim in particular. If the criterion does not occur to you until after you know the answer required, then it is a conclusion dressed in the clothes of a premise. …

22. The criteria for testing a claim of revelation our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

All of this argues from the Qur'an against someone who is disputing the Qur'an. My question was: which of the two lives looks more like the life of a man sent by God — a man who owned nothing, raised no sword and never married, or a man who left his city as a refugee and entered it as a conqueror, married nine wives, divided the spoils of war and took a fifth of them? And you answer me with verses from the second man's own book saying that none of this counts against him. That begs the question: the text under examination cannot serve as a witness in its own examination. Besides, your verses rebut an objection; they do not establish a proof — and any claimant can say: those before me did as I did.

The first half of that is right, and it is why none of the above was offered as proof of prophethood, but as the breaking of one particular yardstick. Whoever makes the shape of Jesus' life the measure of prophethood has drawn the measure from the answer he wants: "If the criterion does not occur to you until after you know the answer required, then it is a conclusion dressed in the clothes of a premise" 12. The heavy half is not denied: yes, he married, he fought, he divided spoils. His book states it and does not hide it, and it makes the difference between messengers a matter of degrees, not of manner of living 1. As for it being a rebuttal and not a proof, that is true, and it is its limit rather than its defect: the rebuttal removes the yardstick, and the question stays open, to be weighed on some other measure. Passing a set of criteria does not yield certainty; it yields a claim that is still standing after the examination 12. And the same yardstick would, in the Qur'an, disqualify David: he killed the commander of the tyrants, and was then given kingship and prophethood 9 10.

The captives and concubines in his household — Safiyya, Juwayriya, Maria. How can that be consent?

Yes. Under the general ruling her consent was not a condition, and the classical books state it in plain words, so nothing here will be hidden from you. Ibn al-Qayyim holds that they 'had intercourse with them after the waiting period', with no condition of Islam or anything else 1, and of the captives of Awtas he says that the Prophet 'made nothing a bar to it except the waiting period alone' 2. The verse you cited stands as it is 3, and al-Tafsir al-Muyassar glosses it: 'We have made lawful to you the slave-women your right hand possesses' 4. But the three women you named are not instances of that ruling, and the difference is in the sources themselves, not in what they are called. Safiyya did not remain owned at all: 'he freed her and made her manumission her dowry', and that became 'a practice for the community' followed after him 5. Juwayriya fell to the share of Thabit ibn Qays and 'contracted with him for her own manumission' — that is, the move for her freedom was her own act, before the Prophet entered the matter — then he paid her writ on her behalf and married her, and because of that marriage 'a hundred households of Banu al-Mustaliq' were freed 1 6. Maria remained a concubine, and there is no dressing that up: 'he took Maria as a concubine' 7. The text opens exits where it does not abolish the institution: it orders the writ of manumission, "write it for them", and it forbids coercion — in prostitution alone, not beyond it — so that 'the sin falls upon the one who forced them' 8 9. On prisoners the verse names two options, "either grace or ransom" 10, while the same work reports from Ibn Abbas that 'the Messenger of God was given a choice regarding captives between ransom, release as a favour, killing, and enslavement' — four, not two, and that adds weight rather than lightening it 11. The book does not claim the matter is settled: the man who says 'I would have expected a divine text to say: no more slavery from this day' is, in its own words, 'asking a sound question' 12. What it says without dispute is that the door was closed in practice and that those who tried to revive it were met with wide repudiation 13.

1 When he divided the captives of Banu al-Mustaliq, Juwayriya bint al-Harith fell among the captives to Thabit ibn Qays ibn Shammas, and she contracted with him for her own manumission, and the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) discharged her writ of manumission and married her … They did not make intercourse with Arab captive women conditional upon Islam; rather they had intercourse with them after the waiting period, and God permitted them that and did not stipulate Islam … The correct position, which was his practice and the practice of his Companions, is the enslavement of Arabs and intercourse with their captive slave-women by right of ownership, without stipulating Islam.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-Ibad, p. 102 our rendering · Open the passage

2 This prophetic ruling indicates the permissibility of intercourse with pagan slave-women by right of ownership, for the captives of Awtas were not women of the People of the Book, and the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) did not stipulate their acceptance of Islam for intercourse with them, and he made nothing a bar to it except the waiting period alone.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-Ibad, p. 119 our rendering · Open the passage

3 O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war, and the daughters of thine uncle on the father's side and the daughters of thine aunts on the father's side, and the daughters of thine uncle on the mother's side and the daughters of thine aunts on the mother's side who emigrated with thee, and a believing woman if she give herself unto the Prophet and the Prophet desire to ask her in marriage - a privilege for thee only, not for the (rest of) believers - We are Aware of that which We enjoined upon them concerning their wives and those whom their right hands possess - that thou mayst be free from blame, for Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.

Surat al-Ahzab (The Clans) 33:50 — trans. Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

4 O Prophet, We have made lawful to you your wives to whom you have given their dowries, and We have made lawful to you the slave-women your right hand possesses, from what God has bestowed upon you.

Tafsir al-Muyassar, on al-Ahzab 33:50 our rendering · Open the passage

5 She had become his as a slave-woman from the portion set aside for him, so he freed her and made her manumission her dowry. That became a practice for the community until the Day of Resurrection: that a man frees his slave-woman and makes her manumission her dowry, and by that she becomes his wife.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-Ibad, p. 108 our rendering · Open the passage

6 Among the captives was Juwayriya bint al-Harith, daughter of the chief of the people. She fell to the share of Thabit ibn Qays, and he contracted a writ of manumission with her, and the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) paid it on her behalf and married her. Because of this marriage the Muslims freed a hundred households of Banu al-Mustaliq who had accepted Islam, and they said: they are the in-laws of the Messenger of God (peace be upon him).

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-Ibad, p. 230 our rendering · Open the passage

7 And Maria and her two sisters, Sirin and Qaysara, were sent as a gift to the Prophet (peace be upon him). He took Maria as a concubine, and he gave Sirin to Hassan ibn Thabit.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-Ibad, p. 117 our rendering · Open the passage

8 And let those who cannot find a match keep chaste till Allah give them independence by His grace. And such of your slaves as seek a writing (of emancipation), write it for them if ye are aware of aught of good in them, and bestow upon them of the wealth of Allah which He hath bestowed upon you. Force not your slave-girls to whoredom that ye may seek enjoyment of the life of the world, if they would preserve their chastity. And if one force them, then (unto them), after their compulsion, lo! Allah will be Forgiving, Merciful.

Surat al-Nur (The Light) 24:33 — trans. Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

9 It is not lawful for you to force your slave-girls into fornication in pursuit of money. How can that come from you while they want chastity and you refuse it to them? … And whoever forces them into fornication, then God, after they have been forced, is Forgiving toward them and Merciful to them, and the sin falls upon the one who forced them.

Tafsir al-Muyassar, on al-Nur 24:33 our rendering · Open the passage

10 Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bonds; and afterward either grace or ransom till the war lay down its burdens. That (is the ordinance). And if Allah willed He could have punished them (without you) but (thus it is ordained) that He may try some of you by means of others. And those who are slain in the way of Allah, He rendereth not their actions vain.

Surat Muhammad 47:4 — trans. Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

11 Ibn Abbas (may God be pleased with them both) said: 'The Messenger of God (peace be upon him) was given a choice regarding captives between ransom, release as a favour, killing, and enslavement; he does as he wills.' And this is the truth, and there is no other position beside it.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-Ibad, p. 60 our rendering · Open the passage

12 And here is where the difficulty lies, and I say it without softening it: the man who says 'I would have expected a divine text to say: no more slavery from this day' is asking a sound question. … and I do not claim to you that the matter is settled with me or with them.

20. Difficult Texts our rendering · Open the passage

13 And what can be said without dispute is this: that the door was closed in practice throughout the world, and that those of the armed groups of our own time who tried to revive it were met with wide repudiation from the scholars across their differing schools.

20. Difficult Texts our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

You conceded the rule, then turned away from it to three biographies. Three cases do not make a ruling, and the ruling is the one you conceded yourself: neither her consent is a condition nor her religion, and the only bar is a menstrual cycle by which the womb is cleared — that is, what is being counted is the paternity of the child, not her will. And 'he freed her and made her manumission her dowry' is a master deciding, not a woman contracting: a woman who watched the men of her people killed in the morning, and was told in the evening 'I have freed you and married you', is not a party to a contract. As for the writ of manumission, release as a favour and ransom, those are exits from slavery, not conditions for the bed, and they do not touch my question by a single word.

The objection is right in most of what it says, and none of it was pushed back above. The rule stands as it was quoted, word for word, and the waiting period in it is a bar concerning the womb, not a condition of consent — that is the source's own wording: 'he made nothing a bar to it except the waiting period alone' 2. Three things remain standing after that. Juwayriya contracted for her freedom with her owner herself, before the Prophet entered her affair, and that is her own act in the text of the source, not an inference read into it 1. Safiyya passed out of ownership into marriage, and that became 'a practice for the community', not a single incident 5. And the marriage of Juwayriya was followed by the freeing of a hundred households of her own people 6. What is not being claimed is that these three resolve your question. A general ruling is not lifted by three incidents, and that is exactly what the book says when it refuses to call the matter settled, either for itself or for the scholars 12.

Didn't it begin with raiding trade caravans?

Yes, and the verse usually produced as evidence for it is our own text — but in its place it is a rebuke, not an endorsement: "and ye longed that other than the armed one might be yours. And Allah willed that He should cause the Truth to triumph by His words" 1. Al-Muyassar reads it as: "you loved to gain the caravan without a fight," set against what God intended 2. So the text separates what the men wanted from what was intended for them, and whoever cites it as proof that plunder was the aim has turned it upside down. As for "a third party merely passing by," that description does not hold. The caravan was a caravan of Quraysh and it carried the wealth of Quraysh 3, and it was Quraysh who had driven these men out "from their homes and their belongings" 4 — "the disbelievers of Mecca forced them out," in the wording of al-Muyassar 5. Nor is this only a claim of grievance. Ibn al-Qayyim treats it as standing title — "He attributed the houses to them, and this is an attribution of ownership" — and cites the Prophet's own house in Mecca, which Aqil had taken over: the Prophet confirmed that the house was still ascribed to him and did not pull it out of Aqil's hand 6. Badr itself undercuts the reading built on it. Abu Sufyan escaped with the caravan and wrote to Quraysh, "Go back, for you came out only to protect your caravan," and Abu Jahl refused and marched on 7. The property was safe; the fighting happened because the other side insisted on it after its cause had gone. The hard part is not hidden here. The expedition at Nakhlah struck during a sacred month, and he told them, "I did not order you to fight in the sacred month." He impounded the caravan and "refused to take anything of it." Then the verse came down, and he took the caravan and divided it, and it was the first war booty in Islam 8.

1 And when Allah promised you one of the two bands (of the enemy) that it should be yours, and ye longed that other than the armed one might be yours. And Allah willed that He should cause the Truth to triumph by His words, and cut the root of the disbelievers;

Surah al-Anfal 8:7 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 Remember, O you who dispute, God's promise to you of victory over one of the two parties: the caravan and the provisions it carried, or the armed force, which meant fighting the enemy and defeating them. You loved to gain the caravan without a fight, while God wills to establish Islam and to raise it high by commanding you to fight the disbelievers, and to root out the disbelievers with destruction.

Tafsir al-Muyassar — Surah al-Anfal 8:7 our rendering · Open the passage

3 They set out with thirty camels, riding them in turns, to intercept a caravan of Quraysh on its way to Syria. News had reached him that it had left Mecca, and that it carried wealth belonging to Quraysh.

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 148 our rendering · Open the passage

4 And (it is) for the poor fugitives who have been driven out from their homes and their belongings, who seek bounty from Allah and help Allah and His messenger. They are the loyal.

Surah al-Hashr 59:8 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

5 Likewise, a share of the property that God granted to His Messenger is given to the poor emigrants, whom the disbelievers of 'Mecca' forced out of their homes and their wealth, asking God to favour them with provision in this world and with His good pleasure in the next …

Tafsir al-Muyassar — Surah al-Hashr 59:8 our rendering · Open the passage

6 God Most High said: "for the poor fugitives who have been driven out from their homes and their belongings" … So He attributed the houses to them, and this is an attribution of ownership. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was asked, "Where will you stay tomorrow — in your house in Mecca?" and he said, "And has Aqil left us any dwellings?" He did not say that he had no house; rather he confirmed them in the attribution, and reported that Aqil had taken it over, and he did not pull it out of his hand.

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 382 our rendering · Open the passage

7 Abu Sufyan turned aside and made for the sea coast. When he saw that he had escaped and had secured the caravan, he wrote to Quraysh: Go back, for you came out only to protect your caravan. The message reached them while they were at al-Juhfa, and they were minded to return, but Abu Jahl said: By God, we will not go back until we reach Badr.

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 155 our rendering · Open the passage

8 He said to Ibn Jahsh and his companions, "I did not order you to fight in the sacred month." He impounded the caravan and the two captives, and refused to take anything of it … Then God Most High sent down the verse in which they question him about the sacred month. So the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, took the caravan and set aside a fifth of it — and it was the first fifth in Islam — and divided the rest among the men of the expedition, and it was the first war booty in Islam.

al-Wahidi · Asbab Nuzul al-Qur'an (Occasions of Revelation), p. 70 our rendering · Open the passage

9 Abu Jandal and Abu Basir seized them and took what was with them, and killed none of them … He returned to them everything taken from them, down to the hobbling cord. And the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, wrote to Abu Jandal and Abu Basir ordering them to come to him, and ordering the Muslims who were with them to return to their lands and their families, and not to interfere with anyone of Quraysh or their caravans … and the caravans of Quraysh became safe.

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 252 our rendering · Open the passage

10 (At the beginning of their affair the Muslims were forbidden to fight the disbelievers and were commanded to endure their harm patiently. When the harm of the idolaters reached its limit, and the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, left 'Mecca' as an emigrant to 'Medina', and Islam came to have strength) God permitted the Muslims to fight, because of the wrong and aggression that had befallen them; and God Most High is able to grant them victory and to humble their enemy.

Tafsir al-Muyassar — Surah al-Hajj 22:39 our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

The whole justification comes after the act. Al-Hashr 8 and al-Hajj 39 were revealed after the taking had already begun, so they are the taker licensing himself, not a standard standing above him. And the "rebuke" in al-Anfal 7 is a rebuke for preferring safety to battle, not for coveting goods — the verse blames the man who wanted the easier of the two, not the man who wanted the spoils. Nakhlah settles the matter against you, not for you: he disapproved, then something came down to him permitting the very thing he had disapproved of, so he divided it. That is exactly the pattern a claimant to revelation is accused of: a text arrives when it is needed and lifts the obstacle. And the people of the caravan were merchants who raised no weapon. Seizing a trader's goods for the crime of his tribe is collective punishment, not redress, and ownership of a house confiscated in Mecca creates no right over camels passing along a road.

A claim is tested where the circumstances reverse, not by producing another verse. When the truce was concluded, Abu Jandal and Abu Basir intercepted a caravan of Quraysh "and took what was with them." The Prophet ordered that they return "everything taken from them, down to the hobbling cord," and that they "not interfere with anyone of Quraysh or their caravans" — "and the caravans of Quraysh became safe" 9. The caravan is the same caravan, the people are the same people, and the property was already in hand and was handed back to the last cord. What changed was the situation, not an appetite — and an appetite for plunder does not give back what it has already taken. As for the sequence, al-Muyassar states that they had been "forbidden to fight the disbelievers and commanded to endure their harm patiently," and that the permission came "because of the wrong and aggression done to them" after the expulsion 10. In the text the permission is tied to the expulsion, not to the spoils, and on this point the claim is open to refutation and has not been refuted. As for Nakhlah, the heaviest part of it is set out above in its own wording, unsoftened 8, and what remains in it cannot be cancelled: a limit was in force until it was violated, and then the violation was disowned and the property was held back. A man with no limit disowns nothing and does not hold back from property already in his hand.

Why was there Qur'an revealed about his own share of the spoils?

The text that is cited says close to the opposite of what the question assumes. It gives four fifths of the spoils to the fighters who were present at the battle, and splits the remaining fifth into five parts 2. The first part is "for Allah, and for the messenger" 1, and it is spent on the general welfare of the Muslims 2. The share his kin receive from that fifth was not an extra grant to them; it was a replacement for something they were barred from. Alms are forbidden to the family of Muhammad — "they are only the people's dirt" — so the fifth was assigned to them in place of alms 2. Two young men of that family were married with dowries paid out of the fifth, after they had been turned away when they asked to be employed on the alms 3. The second text people bring up, "That which Allah giveth as spoil unto His messenger", states its own purpose in its own words: "that it become not a commodity between the rich among you" — it is worded against the piling up of wealth, not for it 4. As for what he did with the money, Umar ibn al-Khattab describes it: a year's maintenance for his household, and the rest put "into horses and weapons, kept ready in the way of Allah" 5. The decisive test came at his death: none of it was inherited — "What we leave behind is charity" 6 — and when Fatima asked for her share of it as an heir, she was refused 7. The objection is not new either. While he was still dividing spoils in his lifetime, men said to his face, "Be just, for you have not been just," and "This is a division in which the face of Allah was not sought" 8.

1 And know that whatever ye take as spoils of war, lo! a fifth thereof is for Allah, and for the messenger and for the kinsman (who hath need) and orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, if ye believe in Allah and that which We revealed unto Our slave on the Day of Discrimination, the day when the two armies met. And Allah is Able to do all things.

Surat al-Anfal 8:41 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 Know, believers, that whatever you gain from your enemy by striving in the way of Allah — four fifths of it is for the fighters who were present at the battle, and the remaining fifth is divided into five parts. The first is for Allah and for the Messenger, and is put toward the general welfare of the Muslims. The second is for the kin of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, who are Banu Hashim and Banu al-Muttalib; the fifth was assigned to them in place of alms, since alms are not lawful for them. The third is for the orphans, the fourth for the needy, and the fifth for the traveller whose provision has run out …

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat al-Anfal 8:41 our rendering · Open the passage

3 He said: "Alms are not fitting for the family of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him; they are only the people's dirt. Call Mahmiya for me" — he was in charge of the fifth — "and Nawfal ibn al-Harith ibn Abd al-Muttalib." So the two came to him, and he said to Mahmiya: "Marry this young man to your daughter" — meaning al-Fadl ibn al-Abbas — and he married him to her. And he said to Nawfal: "Marry this young man," and he married me. Then he said to Mahmiya: "Pay the dowry for the two of them out of the fifth, such and such."

al-Tahawi · Ahkam al-Qur'an al-Karim, p. 834 our rendering · Open the passage

4 That which Allah giveth as spoil unto His messenger from the people of the townships, it is for Allah and His messenger and for the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, that it become not a commodity between the rich among you. And whatsoever the messenger giveth you, take it. And whatsoever he forbiddeth, abstain (from it). And keep your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is stern in reprisal.

Surat al-Hashr 59:7 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

5 In the two Sahihs: from Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: "The wealth of Banu al-Nadir was among what Allah granted as spoil to His Messenger, of that for which the Muslims spurred neither horse nor camel. It belonged to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, in particular; he spent from it on his household a year's maintenance." In another wording: "He would hold back for his household their food for the year, and put what remained into horses and weapons, kept ready in the way of Allah."

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 74 our rendering · Open the passage

6 What we leave behind is charity. [That is, the hadith: We are not inherited from; what we leave behind is charity.]

Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman · al-Busiri · Ithaf al-Khiyara al-Mahara 3/429 · sahih our rendering

7 It is established from the Companions, among them Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, used to take from it what sufficed him and his household, and put the rest into the weapons with which the enemy is fought and into horses. When the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, died, Fatima, may Allah be pleased with her, claimed it as inheritance. Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, said to her: "You are the dearest of people to me, except that I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, say: 'We, the company of prophets, are not inherited from; what we leave behind is charity.' But I will keep it as he used to do with it."

Abu Ja'far al-Nahhas · I'rab al-Qur'an, p. 259 our rendering · Open the passage

8 One of them said to him: "Be just, for you have not been just." And another like him said: "This is a division in which the face of Allah was not sought."

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 424 our rendering · Open the passage

9 It belonged to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, exclusively, apart from the Muslims. The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, would spend from it on his household a year's maintenance, and whatever was left over he put into horses and weapons, kept ready in the way of Allah. … Al-Shafi'i, may Allah have mercy on him, said: "This is Arabic speech. By his words 'the Messenger of Allah's exclusively', Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, means only what would otherwise have been for the Muslims who rode out for it, and that is four fifths."

al-Shafi'i · Ahkam al-Qur'an, collected by al-Bayhaqi, p. 154 our rendering · Open the passage

10 This kind of property is the share over which such dispute arose after him as has lasted to this day. … They did not treat what he left of the fay' as an inheritance to be divided among his heirs; rather they handed it to Ali and al-Abbas, to manage it as the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, had managed it.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 76 our rendering · Open the passage

What we leave behind is charity. [That is, the hadith: We are not inherited from; what we leave behind is charity.]

Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman · al-Busiri · Ithaf al-Khiyara al-Mahara 3/429 · sahih our rendering

The strongest objection

Your own sources concede what you are denying. Umar says the wealth of Banu al-Nadir belonged "to the Messenger of Allah exclusively, apart from the Muslims" [[9]] — so the text did create a private title for him. And Ibn al-Qayyim concedes that this very share is the one "over which such dispute arose after him as has lasted to this day" [[10]]. Spending the surplus on "horses and weapons" is not austerity: it is funding the army that expanded his power. The money came back to him as strength rather than as gold, which is more useful, not more ascetic. And his personal austerity does not touch the objection at all. The dispute is about a text that creates the entitlement, not about the conduct of the man it came to.

Al-Shafi'i reads Umar's own wording: "exclusively" means what would otherwise have gone "to the Muslims who rode out for it, and that is four fifths" — that is, the property stayed outside the fighters' division; it did not become property in the way other owners own things 9. The decisive point is ownership that cannot be inherited: wealth that passes neither to his daughter nor to his uncle is not the kind of ownership the objection needs 6 7. And the dispute Ibn al-Qayyim concedes was over how to classify the property, not over splitting it as an estate — "they did not treat what he left of the fay' as an inheritance to be divided among his heirs" 10. As for "he funded his army": that is not denied, and the text does not deny it. The channels of the fifth are named in it — orphans, the needy, the wayfarer 1 — and its stated purpose is against wealth circulating only among the rich 4. What remains is that the measure is what the money did, not that it existed: a man who is after wealth does not set a year's maintenance as a ceiling and put out everything above it 5.

Did he order the killing of poets who satirized him?

No — the poetry is not the reason, and this is not a diversion to some other topic: the source you appeal to is the one that says so. Zad al-Ma'ad reports of Ka'b that 'when the battle of Badr took place he went to Mecca and set about inciting people against the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, and against the believers; then he returned to Medina in that same state' — and it was after his return in that state that the order was given 1. Al-Zajjaj reports that his people 'made a pact with him that they would be neither against him nor with him', then broke it, and that Ka'b 'went out with sixty men to Mecca and made a pact with the polytheists to back one another against the Prophet, peace be upon him' — and it was then that Muhammad ibn Maslama was sent to him 2. The reason stated at the close of the episode itself — a hard sentence, and not one to be hidden here — is: 'So the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, gave leave to kill any of the Jews who was found, because they had broken his covenant and made war on God and His Messenger': breach of covenant and warfare, not refusal of a religion 3. The satire itself was met with satire, not the sword. He ordered Hassan: 'Satirize them — or lampoon them — and Gabriel is with you' 4. And the poets of Quraysh who had satirized him and then came to him were not killed — 'for he does not kill anyone who comes to him repentant and a Muslim' 5 — and when a man of the Ansar asked leave to strike off the neck of Ka'b ibn Zuhayr, who was among those who had satirized him, he said: 'Leave him be, for he has come repentant, forsaking what he was upon' 6. As for your two verses, they stand exactly where they belong. "Thou (O Muhammad) art in no wise a compeller over them" 7 is placed by al-Muyassar on compelling people into Islam — 'You — O Messenger — have no power over them to force them into Islam; you were sent only as a deliverer of the message' 8 — and likewise "There is no compulsion in religion" 9. None of that is at issue in a report whose stated reason is breach of covenant and warfare 3.

1 He was a man of the Jews, and his mother was of Banu al-Nadir. He was severe in harming the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, and in his poems he made amatory verse about the women of the Companions. When the battle of Badr took place he went to Mecca and set about inciting people against the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, and against the believers; then he returned to Medina in that same state. So the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: 'Who will deal with Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf? For he has harmed God and His Messenger.' Muhammad ibn Maslama, Abbad ibn Bishr and Abu Naila volunteered for the task … and the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, permitted them to say whatever words they wished by which to deceive him. So they went to him on a moonlit night

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 170 our rendering · Open the passage

2 When the Prophet, peace be upon him, entered Medina, Banu al-Nadir made a pact with him that they would be neither against him nor with him. Then when the day of Uhud came and the polytheists prevailed over the Muslims, they broke the pact and doubt entered them. Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf was their chief, and he went out with sixty men to Mecca and made a pact with the polytheists to back one another against the Prophet, peace be upon him. God informed His Prophet, peace be upon him, of that, and when he came back to Medina the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, sent Muhammad ibn Maslama to kill him

Abu Ishaq al-Zajjaj · Ma'ani al-Qur'an wa-I'rabuh, p. 142 our rendering · Open the passage

3 So the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, gave leave to kill any of the Jews who was found, because they had broken his covenant and made war on God and His Messenger

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 171 our rendering · Open the passage

4 The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said to Hassan: 'Satirize them — or lampoon them — and Gabriel is with you.'

al-Bara' ibn 'Azib · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 3213 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

5 Bujayr ibn Zuhayr wrote to his brother Ka'b, telling him that the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, had killed men at Mecca from among those who used to satirize and harm him, and that those left of the poets of Quraysh — Ibn al-Ziba'ra and Hubayra ibn Abi Wahb — had fled in every direction; 'so if you have any need for yourself, hasten to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, for he does not kill anyone who comes to him repentant and a Muslim'

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 454 our rendering · Open the passage

6 A man of the Ansar leapt at him and said: 'Messenger of God, leave him to me — the enemy of God — that I may strike off his neck.' The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: 'Leave him be, for he has come repentant, forsaking what he was upon.'

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 456 our rendering · Open the passage

7 We are Best Aware of what they say, and thou (O Muhammad) art in no wise a compeller over them. But warn by the Qur'an him who feareth My threat.

Surat Qaf 50:45 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

8 We know best what these polytheists say by way of fabrication against God and denial of His signs. And you — O Messenger — have no power over them to force them into Islam; you were sent only to deliver the message. So remind by the Qur'an whoever fears My threat, for one who does not fear the threat takes no heed.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat Qaf 50:45 our rendering · Open the passage

9 There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower.

Surat al-Baqara 2:256 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

10 And if thou fearest treachery from any folk, then throw back to them (their treaty) fairly. Lo! Allah loveth not the treacherous.

Surat al-Anfal 8:58 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

11 And if you fear — O Messenger — treachery from a people, of which the first signs have appeared, then cast their covenant back to them, so that the two parties may be equal in knowing that there is no covenant after today. God does not love those who are treacherous in their covenants, who break pact and compact.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat al-Anfal 8:58 our rendering · Open the passage

12 And if they break their pledges after their treaty (hath been made with you) and assail your religion, then fight the heads of disbelief - Lo! they have no binding oaths - in order that they may desist.

Surat al-Tawba 9:12 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

13 Of this kind is what the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, permitted the party who intended to kill Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf to say, and what he permitted al-Hajjaj ibn Ilat to say in the year of Khaybar; all of this is permitted stratagem, because the holder of the right has permitted it and consented to it, and the matter for which the stratagem is used is an act of obedience to God and a permitted thing.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 'an Rabb al-'Alamin, p. 167 our rendering · Open the passage

14 In it: the specification of killing one who reviles the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, and that killing him is a fixed penalty that must be carried out … and the killing of Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf the Jew, when he said: 'Who will deal with Ka'b? For he has harmed God and His Messenger' — and he used to revile him

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 385 our rendering · Open the passage

15 There is no doubt that the benefit of this winning over of hearts, and of gathering hearts upon him, was greater in his sight and more beloved to him than the benefit obtained by killing one who reviled and harmed him. For this reason, when the benefit of killing became clear and strongly outweighed, he killed the reviler, as he did with Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, for he had openly proclaimed enmity and reviling, so killing him outweighed sparing him … so he killed for the outweighing benefit and refrained for the outweighing benefit

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 387 our rendering · Open the passage

The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said to Hassan: 'Satirize them — or lampoon them — and Gabriel is with you.'

al-Bara' ibn 'Azib · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 3213 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

Satirize Quraysh, for that is harder on them than a volley of arrows.

Aisha, Mother of the Believers · al-Albani · Sahih al-Jami' 2523 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

None of this touches the point of the complaint. The Qur'an itself requires that a treaty be thrown back in the open before its holder is fought: "then throw back to them (their treaty) fairly" — and nothing was thrown back to Ka'b. Instead five men were given leave to lie to him so as to draw him out of his fortress at night and kill him. And Ibn al-Qayyim — your source, not mine — does not read the episode as a wartime action at all. He makes the killing of Ka'b evidence that 'killing him is a fixed penalty that must be carried out' in the case of one who reviles, and he gives as the reason that 'he used to revile him'. So the jurist you quote reads it exactly as I read it: a punishment for speech.

As for the throwing back: the verse "And if thou fearest treachery from any folk, then throw back to them (their treaty) fairly" 10 is, in al-Muyassar, about 'treachery, of which the first signs have appeared' — that is, what is anticipated before it happens, so that both parties know 'that there is no covenant after today' 11. Once the breach has actually occurred, the ruling is the other one: "And if they break their pledges after their treaty (hath been made with you) … then fight the heads of disbelief" 12, and there is no fresh throwing back in it. As for the permitted deception, Ibn al-Qayyim classes it under its own heading alongside its like: 'and what he permitted al-Hajjaj ibn Ilat to say in the year of Khaybar; all of this is permitted stratagem' 13 — a ruling on a stratagem of war, not on treachery against a peaceful man. As for the heaviest point, it is conceded plainly and without evasion: Ibn al-Qayyim does say that, in those very words 14. But he himself qualifies it two pages later. The Prophet refrained from killing those who reviled and harmed him when the benefit of winning hearts outweighed: 'so he killed for the outweighing benefit and refrained for the outweighing benefit' 15. So reviling on its own does not require killing in his view; otherwise there would be no refraining in the matter at all. And what outweighed in Ka'b's case, on his own account, is that he 'had openly proclaimed enmity and reviling' 15 — and that open enmity is what the report describes: going out to Mecca and making a pact with those at war 2.

If he was sinless, why does his own book rebuke him and speak of forgiving his sin?

The dilemma breaks at its premise. You offer two options — either he sinned or he did not — and the position actually held by those who affirm infallibility is neither one. It is this: "the prophets, in our view, are protected from major sins, not protected from minor ones" 1. And what is being reproached is named, not left vague. Of "Allah forgive thee (O Muhammad)! Wherefor didst thou grant them leave" 2, Tafsir al-Muyassar says the pardon was "for what came from you by way of leaving the better and more complete course, namely your permitting the hypocrites to stay back from the fighting" 3 — that is, choosing the good over the better. The same with "He frowned and turned away": "a change and a frown appeared on the face of the Messenger (peace be upon him), and he turned away because the blind man, Abd Allah ibn Umm Maktum, had come to him seeking guidance, while the Messenger (peace be upon him) was occupied with calling the leaders of Quraysh to Islam" 4 — what is corrected there is an ordering of priorities between two claims on his attention. Your second horn — that if he did not sin the reproach is pointless — fails because the reproach legislates. From "O Prophet! Why bannest thou that which Allah hath made lawful for thee" 5, Ibn al-Qayyim draws a rule binding on the whole community: "If God, exalted be He, did not grant His Messenger the right to forbid what God had made lawful for him, how could He grant anyone else the right to forbid?" 6. As for asking forgiveness, it is a standing posture, not a criminal record: "By God, I ask God's forgiveness and turn to Him in repentance more than seventy times a day" 7. And when Aisha asked him why he stood in prayer until his feet were swollen — "when you have been forgiven what went before of your sin and what came after?" — he answered: "Aisha, shall I not be a thankful servant?" As for his being a standard to measure by: a standard is not a man who may not be reviewed, but a book that recorded the review of him. Both descriptions sit together in a line al-Suyuti wrote centuries ago: "And among its most gentle instances is God's reproach of the best of His creation in His words, Allah forgive thee! Wherefor didst thou grant them leave" 8.

1 Concerning Jesus, peace be upon him: He denied wretchedness of him and affirmed felicity for him. And the prophets, in our view, are protected from major sins, not protected from minor ones.

al-Kirmani · Asrar al-Tikrar fi al-Quran (The Secrets of Repetition in the Quran), p. 171 our rendering · Open the passage

2 Allah forgive thee (O Muhammad)! Wherefor didst thou grant them leave ere those who told the truth were manifest to thee and thou didst know the liars?

Surat al-Tawba (Repentance) 9:43 · Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

3 God has pardoned you — O Prophet — for what came from you by way of leaving the better and more complete course, namely your permitting the hypocrites to stay back from the fighting. For what reason did you give these men leave to stay behind from the expedition, before it became clear to you who was truthful in his excuse and you came to know the liars among them?

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Tawba (Repentance) 9:43 our rendering · Open the passage

4 A change and a frown appeared on the face of the Messenger (peace be upon him), and he turned away because the blind man, Abd Allah ibn Umm Maktum, had come to him seeking guidance, while the Messenger (peace be upon him) was occupied with calling the leaders of Quraysh to Islam.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Abasa (He Frowned) 80:1 our rendering · Open the passage

5 O Prophet! Why bannest thou that which Allah hath made lawful for thee, seeking to please thy wives? And Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Surat al-Tahrim (Prohibition) 66:1 · Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 If God, exalted be He, did not grant His Messenger the right to forbid what God had made lawful for him, how could He grant anyone else the right to forbid?

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Maad (Provisions for the Hereafter), p. 279 our rendering · Open the passage

7 By God, I ask God's forgiveness and turn to Him in repentance more than seventy times a day.

Abu Hurayra · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 6307 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

8 The fifth is reproach, as in His words, Has the time not yet come for those who believe that their hearts should be humbled to the remembrance of God … And among its most gentle instances is God's reproach of the best of His creation in His words, Allah forgive thee! Wherefor didst thou grant them leave.

al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Quran (The Perfect Guide to the Sciences of the Quran), p. 213 our rendering · Open the passage

9 And His words, that she desired him and he desired her — meaning, on this interpretation, that he intended to push her away from himself, which keeps Joseph (peace be upon him) clear of what does not befit him, because the prophets — God's blessings and peace upon them — are protected from minor and major sins.

al-Zarkashi · al-Burhan fi Ulum al-Quran (The Proof in the Sciences of the Quran), p. 149 our rendering · Open the passage

10 Allah forgive thee: there are two views of its meaning. One is that it is an opening formula, as you say, May God set you right — such and such happened. The other view, and it is the better one, is that the meaning is: God has pardoned you for what was of your sin in granting them leave. The proof of this is Wherefor didst thou grant them leave, since one does not say, Why did you do what I commanded you to do?

Abu Jafar al-Nahhas · Irab al-Quran (The Grammatical Analysis of the Quran), p. 119 our rendering · Open the passage

11 That Allah may forgive thee of thy sin that which is past and that which is to come, and may perfect His favour unto thee, and may guide thee on a right path,

Surat al-Fath (Victory) 48:2 · Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

12 We granted you that victory and made it easy for you, so that God may forgive you what is past of your sin and what is to come, on account of the many acts of obedience that came about through this victory and the hardships you bore, and so that He may complete His favour upon you by making your religion prevail and granting you victory over your enemies.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Fath (Victory) 48:2 our rendering · Open the passage

When the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) prayed, he would stand until his feet were swollen. Aisha said: Messenger of God, do you do this when you have been forgiven what went before of your sin and what came after? He said: Aisha, shall I not be a thankful servant?

Aisha, Mother of the Believers · Shuayb al-Arnaut · Takhrij al-Musnad 24844 · hasan (good) our rendering

By God, I ask God's forgiveness and turn to Him in repentance more than seventy times a day.

Abu Hurayra · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 6307 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

"Leaving the better course" is a term manufactured after the text in order to pull it away from its plain sense. The Quran does not say "leaving the better course". It says "thy sin" outright, and it orders him to seek forgiveness for it, and everywhere else in the book "sin" means disobedience. Beyond that, your own library contradicts your answer: al-Zarkashi states that the prophets are protected from minor and major sins alike — so which of the two positions is your religion? And a doctrine elastic enough to swallow every piece of evidence against it is not telling you anything at all.

The disagreement is real and is not being papered over. Al-Zarkashi says "the prophets — God's blessings and peace upon them — are protected from minor and major sins" 9, and al-Kirmani says the opposite 1. The dispute is over minor sins only, not over the delivery of the message. But the charge that the term was manufactured after the fact fails against the texts themselves. On "Allah forgive thee", al-Nahhas prefers the reading that "the meaning is: God has pardoned you for what was of your sin in granting them leave. The proof of this is 'Wherefor didst thou grant them leave,' since one does not say, 'Why did you do what I commanded you to do?'" 10. The commentators affirmed the act being reproached rather than running from it — and running from it is exactly what you attribute to them. As for "That Allah may forgive thee of thy sin that which is past and that which is to come" 11, al-Muyassar ties it to the victory, not to a crime: "so that God may forgive you what is past of your sin and what is to come, on account of the many acts of obedience that came about through this victory and the hardships you bore" 12. And after all the disagreement, one fact stands: these passages sit in the book that is cited in his favour, not in a book written by his opponents 2.

Who taught him what he brought? Isn't much of it drawn from what Jews and Christians already had?

No. The verse about tongue is not the Qur'an's answer about the material. It answers a charge that had been pinned on one particular man. About the material, what is denied is the route itself: "And thou (O Muhammad) wast not a reader of any scripture before it, nor didst thou write it with thy right hand, for then might those have doubted, who follow falsehood." 1 Al-Muyassar explains it this way: "Had you been a reader or a writer before revelation came to you, the falsifiers would have doubted it, and would have said: he learned it from the earlier books, or copied it from them." 2 So your objection is stated inside the text and answered at the level of source, not accent. Plainer still: "And thou (Muhammad) wast not on the western side (of the Mount) when We expounded unto Moses the commandment, and thou wast not among those present" 3, explained as: "you were not among those who witnessed it, so that it might be said: it reached you by that route." 4 Then: "And thou wast not a dweller in Midian, reciting unto them Our revelations" 5 — a denial of presence, of living alongside, of being taught. Not a denial about language. Your verse, "Only a man teacheth him." 6, was answered by pointing to tongue because the charge had been pinned on a man whose tongue was the case against him. The answer is sized to the claim actually made, not to the larger claim you would prefer it to have been. And the Quraysh who threw the charge knew the man they were throwing it at. They said it "though they knew that their companion was unlettered, and that there was no one in his presence dictating or writing anything" 7, and "he was never absent from them, and not one of them was ignorant of his condition" 8 — among a people he himself described: "We are an unlettered nation: we do not write and we do not calculate." 9 The heaviest point here is that the route you are supposing was actually taken by a named man in the same period, and the output is on record. Al-Nadr ibn al-Harith is the man behind the taunt that this is legends of the ancients. He "entered the land of Persia and learned its lore, then came back and would say: I tell you better than what Muhammad tells you" 10 — and what he brought back was "the story of Rustam and Isfandiyar and the reports of the Chosroes" 11. The natural explanation was tried in its own time, under a known name and with a known result. The result was not this.

1 And thou (O Muhammad) wast not a reader of any scripture before it, nor didst thou write it with thy right hand, for then might those have doubted, who follow falsehood.

Al-'Ankabut (The Spider) 29:48 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 Among your clear signs, O Messenger, is that you never read a book and never wrote letters with your right hand before the Qur'an came down to you, and they know this. Had you been a reader or a writer before revelation came to you, the falsifiers would have doubted it, and would have said: he learned it from the earlier books, or copied it from them.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Al-'Ankabut (The Spider) 29:48 our rendering · Open the passage

3 And thou (Muhammad) wast not on the western side (of the Mount) when We expounded unto Moses the commandment, and thou wast not among those present;

Al-Qasas (The Story) 28:44 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

4 You were not, O Messenger, on the western side of the mountain where Moses was, when We charged him with Our command and Our prohibition; and you were not among those who witnessed it, so that it might be said: it reached you by that route.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Al-Qasas (The Story) 28:44 our rendering · Open the passage

5 But We brought forth generations, and their lives dragged on for them. And thou wast not a dweller in Midian, reciting unto them Our revelations, but We kept sending (messengers to men).

Al-Qasas (The Story) 28:45 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 And We know well that they say: Only a man teacheth him. The speech of him at whom they falsely hint is outlandish, and this is clear Arabic speech.

An-Nahl (The Bee) 16:103 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

7 At times, out of ignorance and bewilderment, they would say what the Qur'an reports of them: that these are legends of the ancients which he has had written down, so that they are dictated to him morning and evening — this though they knew that their companion was unlettered, and that there was no one in his presence dictating or writing anything.

al-Zarkashi · Al-Burhan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an (The Proof in the Sciences of the Qur'an), p. 103 our rendering · Open the passage

8 They knew that he — may God bless him and grant him peace — was unlettered: he did not read and did not write, and he had occupied himself neither with study nor with disputation. He was never absent from them, and not one of them was ignorant of his condition … in matters where the scholars of those subjects confirmed him, and they were unable to deny what he reported of them; rather, they submitted to it.

al-Suyuti · Mu'tarak al-Aqran fi I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Arena of Peers on the Inimitability of the Qur'an), p. 180 our rendering · Open the passage

9 We are an unlettered nation: we do not write and we do not calculate. The month is this many and this many — meaning sometimes twenty-nine and sometimes thirty.

'Abd Allah ibn 'Umar · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 1913 · sahih (sound) our rendering

10 They said: wherever legends of the ancients occurs in the Qur'an, the one who said it is al-Nadr ibn al-Harith ibn Kalada. He said it only because he had entered the land of Persia and learned its lore, then came back and would say: I tell you better than what Muhammad tells you; he only tells you legends of the ancients.

al-Zarkashi · Al-Burhan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an (The Proof in the Sciences of the Qur'an), p. 156 our rendering · Open the passage

11 Al-Kalbi and Muqatil said: it came down concerning al-Nadr ibn al-Harith. He used to travel as a merchant to Persia, where he would buy the tales of the non-Arabs, then relate them and recount them to Quraysh, saying to them: Muhammad — peace and blessings be upon him — tells you the story of 'Ad and Thamud, and I tell you the story of Rustam and Isfandiyar and the reports of the Chosroes. They found his talk agreeable and stopped listening to the Qur'an, so this verse came down about him.

al-Wahidi · Asbab Nuzul al-Qur'an (The Occasions of the Qur'an's Revelation), p. 344 our rendering · Open the passage

12 Khadija — may God be pleased with her — asked him, may God bless him and grant him peace, about Waraqa ibn Nawfal. She said: he believed you, and he died before you appeared. He said: I saw him in a dream wearing white garments; had he been of the people of the Fire, he would have been dressed otherwise.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 'an Rabb al-'Alamin (Instructing Those Who Sign on Behalf of the Lord of the Worlds), p. 310 our rendering · Open the passage

13 On His words, "And We know well…" — the verse. (k) Ibn Jarir reported, through a weak chain, from Ibn 'Abbas, who said: the Messenger of God — may God bless him and grant him peace — used to teach a blacksmith in Mecca named Bal'am, who was of foreign tongue. The idolaters would see the Messenger of God going in to him and coming out from him, so they said: Bal'am is only teaching him. Then God sent down: "And We know well that they say: Only a man teacheth him" — the verse.

al-Suyuti · Lubab al-Nuqul fi Asbab al-Nuzul (The Kernel of Transmitted Reports on the Occasions of Revelation), p. 133 our rendering · Open the passage

14 The People of the Book used to read the Torah in Hebrew and explain it in Arabic to the people of Islam. So the Messenger of God — may God bless him and grant him peace — said: Do not believe the People of the Book and do not call them liars; say instead that we believe in God and in what has been sent down to us [The Cow 2:136], to the end of the verse.

Abu Hurayra · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 7542 · sahih (sound) our rendering

We are an unlettered nation: we do not write and we do not calculate. The month is this many and this many — meaning sometimes twenty-nine and sometimes thirty.

'Abd Allah ibn 'Umar · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 1913 · sahih (sound) our rendering

The People of the Book used to read the Torah in Hebrew and explain it in Arabic to the people of Islam. So the Messenger of God — may God bless him and grant him peace — said: Do not believe the People of the Book and do not call them liars; say instead that we believe in God and in what has been sent down to us [The Cow 2:136], to the end of the verse.

Abu Hurayra · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 7542 · sahih (sound) our rendering

The strongest objection

Waraqa ibn Nawfal brings the whole thing down: a man inside his wife's household who used to write the Gospel in Hebrew — and the report is narrated by your side, not mine. Besides, the account of al-Nadr is something the commentators relate, not a connected chain of transmission. And as for naming the man the teaching was pinned on, al-Suyuti himself says it comes "through a weak chain" — so you are arguing from a class of report you would reject the moment it went against you. As for "unletteredness", that is the text testifying on its own behalf, which does not count. Mecca and Medina were a thoroughfare for narrators, rabbis and storytellers, and hearing needs neither pen nor reading. Denying that he wrote denies the weakest channel and says nothing at all about the strongest.

Waraqa first: that report comes from our own books, not from yours, and its content cuts the line rather than joins it. Khadija was asked about him and said: "he believed you, and he died before you appeared." 12 Anyone who makes him the source has made the source stop before the material starts. The weak grading is a fair point, and it is passed on with that grading attached rather than quietly dropped: "Ibn Jarir reported, through a weak chain, from Ibn 'Abbas, who said: the Messenger of God — may God bless him and grant him peace — used to teach a blacksmith in Mecca named Bal'am, who was of foreign tongue." 13 The weakness removes the naming of the man. It does not touch the verse, nor the denial of the route in The Spider and The Story 1 3. Hearing without a pen is the strongest thing you said, and that is exactly why the pen was not denied on its own. Living among them and reciting to them were denied as well 5 — and that is the channel of hearing, not the channel of the book. Here is something that weighs on this side rather than yours: the channel really was open, and it is documented in the soundest of our books — "The People of the Book used to read the Torah in Hebrew and explain it in Arabic to the people of Islam" — and his instruction about it was: "Do not believe the People of the Book and do not call them liars." 14 A man who is borrowing does not put his followers on guard against the very library he is borrowing from. That is a circumstantial indication, not a proof, and it is stated at exactly that strength.

Why did he bring no physical miracle, as Moses and Jesus did?

The matter is the reverse of what is commonly said. The splitting of the moon is not something later books added; it is in the Qur'an itself: "The hour drew nigh and the moon was rent in twain." 1 The verse immediately after it reads: "And if they behold a portent they turn away and say: Prolonged illusion." 2 Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar explains it this way: "The moon split into two halves, when the disbelievers of Mecca asked the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, to show them a sign; so he prayed to God, and God showed them that sign." 3 So the layer you count as denying a physical sign is the very layer that affirms one and describes their turning away from it after it occurred. Al-Bukhari agrees with it and adds nothing to it: "The moon split in the time of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace." 4 What is refused in "Say: Portents are with Allah only, and I am but a plain warner." 5 is not a sign as such, but the sign demanded to order. Al-Zajjaj (d. 311 AH) said of the parallel verse in Surat al-Ra'd: "They were asking for signs other than those the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, had already brought — such as the splitting of the moon… so they sought the like of the signs of Jesus and Moses." 6 And the reason for withholding is stated outright, not passed over in silence: "Naught hindereth Us from sending portents save that the folk of old denied them. And We gave Thamud the she-camel - a clear portent" 7 — "God granted them what they asked for, and they denied it and were destroyed." 8 It is a refusal to send the sign that annihilates, not an apology for inability. As for the hadith that is put forward as evidence of denial, it says the opposite: "There was no prophet but was given signs such that people believed on their account; what I was given is a revelation that God revealed to me." 9 It affirms a sign for every prophet and makes revelation the thing particular to him. Al-Suyuti explains it: "The miracles of the prophets ended with the passing of their ages, so no one witnessed them except those present at the time, whereas the miracle of the Qur'an continues to the Day of Resurrection." 10

1 The hour drew nigh and the moon was rent in twain.

Surat al-Qamar (The Moon) 54:1 · Open the passage

2 And if they behold a portent they turn away and say: Prolonged illusion.

Surat al-Qamar (The Moon) 54:2 · Open the passage

3 The Resurrection has drawn near, and the moon split into two halves, when the disbelievers of Mecca asked the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, to show them a sign; so he prayed to God, and God showed them that sign.

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - Surat al-Qamar (The Moon) 54:1 our rendering · Open the passage

4 The moon split in the time of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace.

Abd Allah ibn Abbas - al-Bukhari - Sahih al-Bukhari 4866 - sahih (sound) our rendering

5 And they say: Why are not portents sent down upon him from his Lord? Say: Portents are with Allah only, and I am but a plain warner.

Surat al-Ankabut (The Spider) 29:50 · Open the passage

6 Its meaning is: why has no sign been sent down upon him? They were asking for signs other than those the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, had already brought - such as the splitting of the moon, and the Qur'an, which they were challenged to match with a single sura like it, and whatever resembles that. So they sought the like of the signs of Jesus and Moses, and God, Mighty and Majestic, made known that for every people there is a guide.

Abu Ishaq al-Zajjaj - Ma'ani al-Qur'an wa-I'rabuh, p. 139 (on Surat al-Ra'd 13:7) our rendering · Open the passage

7 Naught hindereth Us from sending portents save that the folk of old denied them. And We gave Thamud the she-camel - a clear portent save to warn.

Surat al-Isra' (The Night Journey) 17:59 · Open the passage

8 Nothing prevented Us from sending down the miracles the idolaters asked for except that the nations before them denied them: God granted them what they asked for, and they denied it and were destroyed. And We gave Thamud - the people of Salih - a clear miracle, the she-camel, and they disbelieved in it, so We destroyed them.

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - Surat al-Isra' (The Night Journey) 17:59 our rendering · Open the passage

9 There was no prophet but was given signs such that people believed on their account; what I was given is a revelation that God revealed to me. So I hope to have the most followers of them on the Day of Resurrection.

Abu Hurayra - al-Bukhari - Sahih al-Bukhari 4981 - sahih (sound) our rendering

10 Al-Bukhari reported it. It has been said that its meaning is that the miracles of the prophets ended with the passing of their ages, so no one witnessed them except those present at the time, whereas the miracle of the Qur'an continues to the Day of Resurrection. Its breaking of custom lies in its style, its eloquence, and its reports of the unseen; no age passes without something appearing in it of what the Qur'an said would come to be, which points to the truth of its claim.

Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti - Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 308 our rendering · Open the passage

11 So I said: Why should you deny the splitting of the moon on the ground that, when it occurred over one region, it was seen by the people of that region and by those who were watching for it? As for one who turned away from it, or was in places from which the moon is not visible, he does not see it. He said: It is as you say; nothing can push you off it. The question is only about the transmitters who reported it; as for objecting on any other ground, that is not sound. The king said: And how are the transmitters to be impugned? The priest said: A sign of this sort - if it were sound, it would have to be transmitted by a vast multitude, so that necessary knowledge of it would reach us; and since we do not know it by necessity, this shows that the report is fabricated and false.

Abu Bakr al-Baqillani - I'jaz al-Qur'an, p. 7 our rendering · Open the passage

There was no prophet but was given signs such that people believed on their account; what I was given is a revelation that God revealed to me. So I hope to have the most followers of them on the Day of Resurrection.

Abu Hurayra - al-Bukhari - Sahih al-Bukhari 4981 - sahih (sound) our rendering

The moon split in the time of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace.

Abd Allah ibn Abbas - al-Bukhari - Sahih al-Bukhari 4866 - sahih (sound) our rendering

The strongest objection

All of this rescues one incident. Water flowing from between his fingers, food multiplied, the moaning of the palm trunk — none of that is in the Qur'an, and it is exactly the material that multiplied in books written down two centuries later. So the pattern stands as I described it: the Qur'an mentions one, the traditions mention dozens. And the splitting of the moon itself: had it happened, half the earth would have seen it, and nations with no stake in it would have recorded it. It was reported only by people who already believed in him — and a cosmic event attested only by the party that benefits from it is the weakest thing to argue from, not the strongest.

I grant the first half and do not contest it: what is not in the Qur'an is weighed on the scales of hadith criticism, not on the scales of the Qur'an, and if some of it falls, that does not touch what is here. But the claim on the table was not this one. It was that the Qur'an denies while the traditions affirm — and that claim fails, because the older of the two layers is the affirming one 1 3, and because what is refused is the sign demanded on the objector's own terms, not a sign as such 5 6. The second half is an old objection, not a new one. It was put to al-Baqillani (d. 403 AH) in the court of the Byzantine king in words that match yours: "A sign of this sort — if it were sound, it would have to be transmitted by a vast multitude, so that necessary knowledge of it would reach us; and since we do not know it by necessity, this shows that the report is fabricated and false." His answer was that seeing an event in the sky depends on facing it and on being alert to it, as with an eclipse: "As for one who turned away from it, or was in places from which the moon is not visible, he does not see it." 11 This removes the impossibility; it does not produce belief. The priest himself moved the dispute to its proper place: "The question is only about the transmitters who reported it." 11 Anyone who rejects the report for weakness in its chain is free to do so, but he is then arguing about a chain of transmission, and that exposes no "legendary growth". As for your criterion — that the later and more extravagant report is weaker than the earlier and more modest one — it turns against you here: the most extravagant wonder of them all is the one recorded in the earlier and better attested of the two texts 1 2, not in the later one.

What makes his claim to be the last prophet truer than the claims of those who came after him?

You are right about the first half of it. The verse that names him "the Seal of the Prophets" 1, and the commentary that reads it as meaning there is no prophethood after him until the Day of Resurrection 2, are not a scale. They are the claim under dispute, not the thing that separates it from the claims that came after it. The scale that is actually put before you was written before this question came up, and it contains your own condition in so many words: "If the criterion does not occur to you until after you know the answer required, then it is a conclusion dressed in the clothes of a premise" 3. The item it offers is not an advertisement. It is a published falsification test with a price attached: "then produce a surah of the like thereof" 4. Tied to that test was the lawfulness of blood, property and offspring. The cheapest way out of the war was to produce the like of it; the most expensive way was taken instead. The argument runs from behaviour under incentive, not from a judgement about literary quality 5. The text sorts a claimant by description, not by name: "or saith: I am inspired, when he is not inspired in aught; and who saith: I will reveal the like of that which Allah hath revealed" 6 — and the commentary reads that as three separate claims, the last of them the claim to be able to send down the like of it 7. The test was tried in his own lifetime, not centuries later. Musaylima's rhymed prose, composed in imitation of the Qur'an, is transmitted word for word in our own books 8. And the closing clause itself was said in a report whose subject is the placing of Ali in the position of Aaron to Moses, not a quarrel with any claimant, so it predates the men it shuts out 9. What you are not handed is a ready-made verdict. The book says of this very criterion that it "favours a text like ours", that the testimony of a claimant about himself is not accepted here, and it leaves the weighing to you 10.

1 Muhammad is not the father of any man among you, but he is the messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets; and Allah is ever Aware of all things.

Surah Al-Ahzab 33:40 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 Muhammad was not the father of any of your men, but he is the Messenger of Allah and the seal of the prophets, so there is no prophethood after him until the Day of Resurrection. And Allah is Knowing of everything you do; nothing is hidden from Him.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - Al-Ahzab 33:40 our rendering · Open the passage

3 1. Do not tailor a criterion to the measure of a claim in particular. If the criterion does not occur to you until after you know the answer required, then it is a conclusion dressed in the clothes of a premise.

Chapter 22, Criteria for testing a claim to revelation our rendering · Open the passage

4 And if ye are in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto Our slave (Muhammad), then produce a surah of the like thereof, and call your witness beside Allah if ye are truthful.

Surah Al-Baqarah 2:23 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

5 What indicates that they were unable to produce the like of the Qur'an is that he challenged them to it until the challenge ran long, and made it the proof of his truthfulness and his prophethood, and included among its rulings that their blood and their property were lawful and their offspring liable to captivity. Had they been able to prove him false they would have done it, and would have secured themselves, their families and their property from his rule by something close at hand, customary in their tongue and familiar in their speech; and that would have spared them the trouble of fighting, and endless quarrel and dispute, and departure from their homelands, and the surrender of family and children to captivity. ... So when no rival composition came from them, it was known that they were unable to produce one.

Al-Baqillani, I'jaz al-Qur'an, p. 29 our rendering · Open the passage

6 Who is guilty of more wrong than he who forgeth a lie against Allah, or saith: I am inspired, when he is not inspired in aught; and who saith: I will reveal the like of that which Allah hath revealed? If thou couldst see, when the wrong-doers reach the pangs of death and the angels stretch their hands out (saying): Deliver up your souls. This day ye are awarded doom of degradation for that ye spake concerning Allah other than the truth, and used to scorn His portents.

Surah Al-An'am 6:93 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

7 And who does greater wrong than one who invents against Allah a lying word, claiming that He sent no human messenger; or falsely claims that Allah revealed to him when nothing was revealed to him; or claims that he is able to send down the like of what Allah has sent down of the Qur'an? ...

Tafsir al-Muyassar - Al-An'am 6:93 our rendering · Open the passage

8 Then they left and brought him what he had given him. When they reached al-Yamama, the enemy of God apostatized and claimed prophethood, and said: I have been made a partner with him in the affair ... Then he began to compose rhymed sayings, saying to them, among other things, in imitation of the Qur'an: 'God has been gracious to the pregnant woman; He has brought out of her a living soul that runs, from between the peritoneum and the entrails.' He lifted the prayer from them, and made wine and fornication lawful for them, while all the while testifying that the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, was a prophet. And Banu Hanifa closed ranks with him upon that.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 533 our rendering · Open the passage

9 You are to me as Aaron was to Moses, except that there is no prophet after me.

Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas - Muslim - Sahih Muslim 2404 - Sahih (authentic) our rendering

10 And we give notice against ourselves: this very criterion favours a text like ours. So whoever rejects our putting it forward has a case, and let him weigh with the five unranked. And whoever accepts in this matter the testimony of the claimant about himself has left the scale and taken the advertisement — and we are claimants, so do not accept our testimony in it.

Chapter 22, Criteria for testing a claim to revelation our rendering · Open the passage

11 Is there disagreement in its text, and who is it who reports it? This is the finest of the three. Every ancient text has disagreement in it, so the presence of disagreement is no charge. The charge is that the disagreement should be known among its own people and kept from everyone else. So ask: where are the variants between copies published? In the margins of their own books, or only in the books of those who attack them?

To whoever says: show me a text that can be tested our rendering · Open the passage

12 We do not deny that many liars have arisen in the world and gained a measure of power. But his affair was never completed and his term was never long; rather He set His messengers and their followers upon him, and they wiped out his trace, cut off his line, and uprooted him utterly. This has been His way with His servants since the world began, and until He inherits the earth and all who are upon it.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 559 our rendering · Open the passage

13 And its scale has two pans: whoever argues from a good effect is bound to hear the man who argues from a bad one, by the same measure. And whoever refuses one of the two pans has broken the scale, not used it.

Chapter 22, Criteria for testing a claim to revelation our rendering · Open the passage

You are to me as Aaron was to Moses, except that there is no prophet after me.

Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas - Muslim - Sahih Muslim 2404 - Sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

The challenge is a scale on which one party rules in its own favour. Who decided that nobody ever produced the like of it? You did. And the rival composition you produce is one you selected and you transmitted: the rhymed prose of a man who was beheaded, whose life was then written up by the men who killed him. If a match for it existed anywhere on earth, it would have reached you only in mangled form. Then your line that "they fought rather than compose a rival" assumes that a rival would have been accepted had one appeared, when the ruling on acceptance lies with the claimant and his followers. So you are exactly where you started: a text that testifies for itself, a people who believe its testimony — and your opponent says the same thing about his text, word for word.

The first half of what you say follows, and it is conceded before you say it. The book states plainly that this very criterion "favours a text like ours", and that whoever accepts here the testimony of the claimant about himself "has left the scale and taken the advertisement" 10. But al-Baqillani's argument does not rest on an assessment of quality settled by taste. It rests on cost. The price was blood, property and offspring; the way out was close at hand, in their own tongue and their own habit; and it was not taken 5. The question about transmission that comes back to you is this: where does damaging material get published — in the margins of a tradition's own books, or only among its enemies 11? Musaylima's rhymed prose and the text of his letter to Medina are preserved in our own books, not in the books of those who attack us 8. That does not prove that what was transmitted is accurate. It says only that you are arguing with the text and not with its ghost. And what does not sort is stated not to sort. Ibn al-Qayyim's argument that of such liars "his affair was never completed and his term was never long" 12 will not serve as a scale against a claim that has millions of adherents today. It belongs to the class of arguments from the effect of a claim, and the book says outright that this scale has two pans, and that "whoever refuses one of the two pans has broken the scale, not used it" 13. So it is not urged against you — and it is not accepted from you in the other direction either.

Isn't the whole trajectory that of a man who wanted power and got it?

The first half of that claim runs against the record. The objection he actually met in his lifetime was the opposite one: that he had neither kingship nor wealth. "And they say: If only this Qur'an had been revealed to some great man of the two towns?" 1 The commentary glosses it: "why was it not sent down upon a great man from one of these two towns, Mecca or al-Ta'if" 2. Alongside that they demanded that treasure be thrown down to him, or that he have a garden to eat from 3. Then the road to their acceptance was put to him openly — alter something of what had been revealed to him and he would become their intimate friend: "And they indeed strove hard to beguile thee (Muhammad) away from that wherewith We have inspired thee, that thou shouldst invent other than it against Us; and then would they have accepted thee as a friend." 4 The text records his refusal, and threatens him with a double punishment of life and a double punishment of death had he leaned towards them even slightly 5. The very text said to be expanding his authority strips him of what a man after power normally claims — the treasuries of God, knowledge of the unseen, and any claim to be an angel 6 — and makes his life conditional on his truthfulness: "Had Muhammad claimed of Us anything We did not say, We would have taken vengeance on him and seized him by the right hand, then We would have cut his life-artery" 7. It also records, in the text recited in worship, a rebuke of him for turning away from a poor blind man while he was "occupied with calling the leaders of Quraysh to Islam" 8. Ibn al-Qayyim reads his relation to wealth structurally, not as a description of asceticism: "He did not dispose of it as an owner disposes of his property, by his own desire and will… For God gave him the choice between being a servant and a messenger, or being a king and a messenger, and he chose to be a servant and a messenger" 9. And in the division of the spoils at Hunayn he gave to Quraysh to win them over and left the Ansar with none of the money, telling them: "Are you not content that the people go back with the goods of this world, while you go back with the Messenger of God to your homes?" 10 So the endpoint was authority beyond dispute. What the hypothesis of "a man who wanted power" does not explain is that his own text contains what forbids him the bargain that would have delivered it 4, what threatens him with death if he puts words in God's mouth 7, and what rebukes him in front of his followers for flattering the notables 8.

1 And they say: If only this Qur'an had been revealed to some great man of the two towns?

Surat al-Zukhruf 43:31 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 These idolaters of Quraysh said: If this Qur'an is truly from God, why was it not sent down upon a great man from one of these two towns, Mecca or al-Ta'if.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - al-Zukhruf 43:31 our rendering · Open the passage

3 Or (why is not) treasure thrown down unto him, or why hath he not a paradise from whence to eat? And the evil-doers say: Ye are but following a man bewitched.

Surat al-Furqan 25:8 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

4 And they indeed strove hard to beguile thee (Muhammad) away from that wherewith We have inspired thee, that thou shouldst invent other than it against Us; and then would they have accepted thee as a friend.

Surat al-Isra 17:73 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

5 Had you, O Messenger, inclined to these idolaters even a little in what they asked of you, We would then have made you taste a double punishment of life in this world and a double punishment of death in the hereafter — and that is because of the perfection of God's favour upon you and the perfection of your knowledge — and then you would have found no one to help you or to ward off Our punishment from you.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - al-Isra 17:75 our rendering · Open the passage

6 Say (O Muhammad, to the disbelievers): I say not unto you (that) I possess the treasures of Allah, nor that I have knowledge of the Unseen; and I say not unto you: Lo! I am an angel. I follow only that which is inspired in me. Say: Are the blind man and the seer equal? Will ye not then take thought?

Surat al-An'am 6:50 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

7 Had Muhammad claimed of Us anything We did not say, We would have taken vengeance on him and seized him by the right hand, then We would have cut his life-artery, and none of you could have shielded him from Our punishment. This Qur'an is indeed an admonition for the God-fearing, who carry out God's commands and keep away from what He forbids.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - al-Haqqa 69:44 our rendering · Open the passage

8 A change and a frown appeared on the face of the Messenger, and he turned away, because the blind man Abdullah ibn Umm Maktum came to him seeking guidance while the Messenger was occupied with calling the leaders of Quraysh to Islam.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - Abasa 80:1 our rendering · Open the passage

9 What his practice and his guidance indicate is that he disposed of it by command: he placed it where God commanded him, and divided it among those he was commanded to divide it among. He did not dispose of it as an owner disposes of his property, by his own desire and will, giving to whom he loved and withholding from whom he loved; rather he disposed of it as a commanded servant who carries out what his master and lord orders him … For God gave him the choice between being a servant and a messenger, or being a king and a messenger, and he chose to be a servant and a messenger.

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 75 our rendering · Open the passage

10 The Prophet gathered some of the Ansar and said: Quraysh have only recently left ignorance and affliction behind, and I wanted to mend their hearts and win them over. Are you not content that the people go back with the goods of this world, while you go back with the Messenger of God to your homes? They said: Yes. He said: If the people took a valley and the Ansar took a mountain pass, I would take the valley of the Ansar, or the pass of the Ansar.

Anas ibn Malik - al-Bukhari - Sahih al-Bukhari 4334 - sahih (authentic) our rendering

11 The Prophet is closer to the believers than their selves, and his wives are (as) their mothers. And the owners of kinship are closer one to another in the ordinance of Allah than (other) believers and the fugitives (who fled from Mecca), except that ye should do kindness to your friends. This is written in the Book (of nature).

Surat al-Ahzab 33:6 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

12 The Prophet Muhammad has a prior claim upon the believers and is nearer to them than their own selves in the affairs of religion and of this world … The verse establishes the obligation that the Prophet be more beloved to the servant than his own self, and the obligation of complete submission to him …

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - al-Ahzab 33:6 our rendering · Open the passage

13 Fatima sent to Abu Bakr asking him for her inheritance from the Messenger of God. Abu Bakr said: The Messenger of God said, "We are not inherited from; what we leave is charity — the family of Muhammad only eat from this wealth" … And Abu Bakr refused to hand over to Fatima anything of it.

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Turuq al-Hukmiyya fi al-Siyasa al-Shar'iyya, p. 321 our rendering · Open the passage

14 The difference between the two is that the servant-messenger acts only by the command of his master who sent him, whereas the king-messenger may give to whom he wishes and withhold from whom he wishes … This is the rank that was offered to our Prophet, and he declined it in favour of what is higher than it, namely the rank of pure servitude, in which its holder's action is confined to the command of the Master in every matter, small and great.

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 75 our rendering · Open the passage

The Prophet gathered some of the Ansar and said: Quraysh have only recently left ignorance and affliction behind, and I wanted to mend their hearts and win them over. Are you not content that the people go back with the goods of this world, while you go back with the Messenger of God to your homes? They said: Yes. He said: If the people took a valley and the Ansar took a mountain pass, I would take the valley of the Ansar, or the pass of the Ansar.

Anas ibn Malik - al-Bukhari - Sahih al-Bukhari 4334 - sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

His asceticism does not touch the objection at all. A man who wants power wants power, not bread, and austerity is itself the most effective instrument of legitimation — and you have just cited to me a hadith in which he tells the Ansar: take the loyalty and leave the money. That is a leader's bargain, not an argument against him. And you have left the heaviest item in the file standing: the verse of Surat al-Ahzab, 33:6, gives him over the believers a claim prior to their own selves, that is, religious obedience beyond review. This is exactly what the founder of a successful movement legislates for himself, and explaining it requires no heaven.

The first half of the objection is true and is not denied. The verse stands as it reads: "The Prophet is closer to the believers than their selves, and his wives are (as) their mothers. And the owners of kinship are closer one to another in the ordinance of Allah than (other) believers and the fugitives (who fled from Mecca), except that ye should do kindness to your friends. This is written in the Book (of nature)." 11 And al-Tafsir al-Muyassar states plainly what it contains: "the obligation of complete submission to him" 12. So the trajectory did end in religious obedience, and anyone who denies that is caught out. But a hypothesis is measured by everything it explains, not by its ending. The text of a successful movement's founder does not come out carrying a passage that threatens him with having his life-artery cut if he invents words 7, nor a rebuke recited in worship in which a poor blind man is set above the chiefs of Quraysh, the men of power whose favour is bought 8, nor does he turn down a bargain that would buy him the friendship of his opponents for a small alteration 4. As for loyalty being worth more than money, that is true — which is why the question becomes what he did with the loyalty. He barred his own daughter from inheriting from him: "Abu Bakr said: The Messenger of God said, 'We are not inherited from; what we leave is charity — the family of Muhammad only eat from this wealth'… And Abu Bakr refused to hand over to Fatima anything of it" 13. The distinction Ibn al-Qayyim draws is not about possessions but about the position of authority itself: "The servant-messenger acts only by the command of his master who sent him, whereas the king-messenger may give to whom he wishes and withhold from whom he wishes… This is the rank that was offered to our Prophet, and he declined it" 14. The rank he declined is the rank of free disposal — and that is precisely what a man who wanted power would be after.

If he erred in worldly matters, how do I tell revelation from his personal opinion?

No — and you do not need a criterion invented after the fact. He drew the line himself, in the very incident you are citing, at the moment it happened. When the date crop failed he said — in Muslim's collection, from Rafi' ibn Khadij — "If I command you something from your religion, take it; and if I command you something from my own opinion, then I am only a human being." And in Talha's report in Muslim — quoted by Ibn al-Qayyim — the standard is put more plainly still: "It was only a conjecture… But whatever I told you from Allah, Mighty and Majestic — I will never lie about Allah." 1 So what decides the matter is the attribution of the words, not whether the result turned out right: what he ascribed to God binds, and what he offered as conjecture is conjecture, which "errs and hits the mark" — his own words 1. What binds from the Sunnah is legislation, not agricultural expertise: "And whatsoever the messenger giveth you, take it. And whatsoever he forbiddeth, abstain (from it)." 2 — that is, "whatever the Messenger has given you of wealth, or legislated for you as law" 3. And that this line is no later patch is shown by where the correction of him sits: preserved in the text recited in prayer, not folded away. "Allah forgive thee (O Muhammad)! Wherefor didst thou grant them leave…" 4 is a rebuke for a judgement of his own, in granting the hypocrites leave to stay behind 5. The same rule was then applied to the scholars after him, not to him alone: one who finds no text on a question "may not say… Allah has forbidden such-and-such, and made such-and-such obligatory, and permitted such-and-such, and this is the ruling of Allah." 6

1 Muslim related in his Sahih: from Talha ibn Ubaydullah (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: "I passed with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) through a palm grove, and he saw people pollinating. He said: What are these doing? They said: They take from the male and place it in the female. He said: I do not think that avails anything. Word of it reached them, so they left it, and the crop did not come out well. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: It was only a conjecture. If it avails anything, then do it, for I am only a human being like you, and conjecture errs and hits the mark. But whatever I told you from Allah, Mighty and Majestic — I will never lie about Allah."

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 309 our rendering · Open the passage

2 That which Allah giveth as spoil unto His messenger from the people of the townships, it is for Allah and His messenger and for the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, that it become not a commodity between the rich among you. And whatsoever the messenger giveth you, take it. And whatsoever he forbiddeth, abstain (from it). And keep your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is stern in reprisal.

Surah Al-Hashr (The Exile) 59:7 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

3 … And whatever the Messenger has given you of wealth, or legislated for you as law, take it; and whatever he has forbidden you to take or to do, refrain from it … The verse is a foundation for the obligation of acting upon the Sunnah: in word, in deed, or in tacit approval.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah Al-Hashr (The Exile) 59:7 our rendering · Open the passage

4 Allah forgive thee (O Muhammad)! Wherefor didst thou grant them leave ere those who told the truth were manifest to thee and thou didst know the liars?

Surah At-Tawbah (Repentance) 9:43 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

5 Allah has pardoned you — O Prophet — for what came from you in leaving what was better and more complete, namely your granting the hypocrites leave to stay back from the fighting …

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah At-Tawbah (Repentance) 9:43 our rendering · Open the passage

6 But if he exerts himself to the utmost in seeking the truth and errs, the threat of punishment does not attach to him; he is pardoned for what he got wrong, and rewarded for his effort. Yet he may not say of what his reasoning led him to, when he has found no text on it from Allah and His Messenger: Allah has forbidden such-and-such, and made such-and-such obligatory, and permitted such-and-such, and this is the ruling of Allah.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 'an Rabb al-'Alamin, p. 34 our rendering · Open the passage

7 Nor doth he speak of (his own) desire.

Surah An-Najm (The Star) 53:3 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

8 … And his speech does not issue from the desire of his own soul. The Qur'an and the Sunnah are nothing but revelation from Allah to His Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah An-Najm (The Star) 53:3 our rendering · Open the passage

The Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him) came to Medina while they were pollinating the palms — they say: fertilizing the palms — and he said: What are you doing? They said: We have always done this. He said: Perhaps it would be better if you did not do it. So they left it, and the fruit dropped — or the yield fell short. He said: They mentioned that to him, and he said: I am only a human being. If I command you something from your religion, take it; and if I command you something from my own opinion, then I am only a human being. Ikrima said: Or words to that effect. Al-Ma'qiri said: "the fruit dropped", without expressing doubt.

Rafi' ibn Khadij · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 2362 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

The Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him) came to Medina while they were pollinating the palms — they say: fertilizing the palms — and he said: What are you doing? They said: We have always done this. He said: Perhaps it would be better if you did not do it. So they left it, and the fruit dropped — or the yield fell short. He said: They mentioned that to him, and he said: I am only a human being. If I command you something from your religion, take it; and if I command you something from my own opinion, then I am only a human being. Ikrima said: Or words to that effect. Al-Ma'qiri said: "the fruit dropped", without expressing doubt.

Rafi' ibn Khadij · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 2362 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

A line announced after the failure is no line at all. He did not say "this is my own opinion" while he was advising them about the palms; he said it after the crop came to nothing. And then you read "Nor doth he speak of (his own) desire" and explain it to mean that the Qur'an and the Sunnah are both revelation from God — so what is left outside revelation after that? On your account the line widens and narrows to fit the embarrassment: whatever holds up is revelation, and whatever fails is worldly affairs.

Yes — the report does place the statement after the crop failed, and that half of the objection stands. But what he announced was not an excuse for one particular remark. It was a standing rule covering everything he said, a criterion meant to be applied before the test rather than after it: "If I command you something from your religion, take it; and if I command you something from my own opinion, then I am only a human being." And he sent them back to their own expertise in explicit words: "If it avails anything, then do it." 1 Someone patching over a failure does the opposite: he keeps his statement and reinterprets the event. As for the second half, it will not be passed over here. Al-Muyassar on "Nor doth he speak of (his own) desire" 7 says in so many words: "The Qur'an and the Sunnah are nothing but revelation from Allah to His Prophet" 8, and the tension between that and the hadith is plain and cannot be denied. The point of separation is that the line is the one he stated himself: "whatever I told you from Allah, Mighty and Majestic" 1 — and that narrows rather than widens, since by it he barred the scholars who came after him from ascribing to God anything they had found no text for, even when their reasoning was sound 6.

How can a man's character be judged from reports written down a century and a half after him?

The first half of the question rests on something that is not the case: writing did not wait for Ibn Ishaq. Umar ibn al-Khattab said, "Bind knowledge with writing" 2. Then the sunan were collected by official order, written out "notebook by notebook", and a notebook was sent to every land under that authority 1. The other side is not hidden here: in the earliest period there were those who forbade writing — Ibn Abbas said, "Those before you went astray only because of books" 3 — and Ahmad ibn Hanbal acknowledged both together: "Some people disapproved of it and others permitted it," and he also said, "And but for the writing down of knowledge, what would we be?" 4. As for the second half — that we pick whatever pleases us — the filter is placed on the transmitter before the transmitted text is even read: Malik barred taking knowledge from "a man known for lying in people's ordinary talk, even if he does not lie about the Messenger of God (peace be upon him)" 5. And Ibn Ishaq, whose lateness you press, was contested in our books before yours: Malik called him "an impostor among impostors", while Shu'ba, al-Thawri and Ibn Uyayna declared him trustworthy 6; and Ibn Abd al-Barr weighed the disparagement and rejected it: "this is imitation with no proof behind it" 7. Verifying a report is a command inside the text itself, not a condition imposed on it from outside: "If an evil-liver bring you tidings, verify it" 8 — "verify his report before believing it and passing it on, until you know that it is sound" 9. And the claim about his character does not rest on a late report but on a text: "And lo! thou art of a tremendous nature." 10 — "which is the noble manners the Qur'an comprises" 11.

1 I heard Ibn Shihab relate to Sa'd ibn Ibrahim, who said: "Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz ordered us to collect the sunan, so we wrote them out notebook by notebook, and he sent to every land under his authority a notebook."

Ibn Abd al-Barr · Jami' Bayan al-'Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 528 our rendering · Open the passage

2 … from Abd al-Malik ibn Abd Allah ibn Abi Sufyan, from his uncle, that he heard Umar ibn al-Khattab say: "Bind knowledge with writing."

Ibn Abd al-Barr · Jami' Bayan al-'Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 483 our rendering · Open the passage

3 From Sa'id ibn Jubayr, from Ibn Abbas (may God be pleased with them both), that he used to forbid the writing down of knowledge, and said: "Those before you went astray only because of books."

Ibn Abd al-Barr · Jami' Bayan al-'Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 432 our rendering · Open the passage

4 … I said to Ahmad ibn Hanbal: who disapproved of writing knowledge down? He said: "Some people disapproved of it and others permitted it." I said to him: if knowledge were not written down, would it be lost? He said: "Yes. And but for the writing down of knowledge, what would we be?" Ishaq ibn Mansur said: and I asked Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, and he said exactly what Ahmad said.

Ibn Abd al-Barr · Jami' Bayan al-'Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 520 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Malik ibn Anas (may God have mercy on him) said: "Knowledge is not to be taken from four: a fool who is open in his folly; a man of caprice who calls people to it; a man known for lying in people's ordinary talk, even if he does not lie about the Messenger of God (peace be upon him); and a man of merit and piety who does not know what he is relating."

Ibn Abd al-Barr · Jami' Bayan al-'Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 1789 our rendering · Open the passage

6 Muhammad ibn Ishaq came to us, and we mentioned to him something from Malik, so he said: bring out Malik's learning, for I am its farrier. Ibn Idris said: when I came to Medina I mentioned that to Malik, and he said: that man is an impostor among impostors; we drove him out of Medina … As for truthfulness and retention, he was truthful and retentive: Ibn Shihab praised him, and Shu'ba, al-Thawri, Ibn Uyayna and a company of eminent men declared him trustworthy.

Ibn Abd al-Barr · Jami' Bayan al-'Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 2530 our rendering · Open the passage

7 It is related of Malik that he was asked: on what basis did you say of Muhammad ibn Ishaq that he is a liar? He said: I heard Hisham ibn Urwa say it — and this is imitation with no proof behind it. And Hisham ibn Urwa was asked: on what basis did you say that? He said: he relates from my wife, and by God he never saw her. Ahmad ibn Hanbal said, when mentioning this account: it is possible that Ibn Ishaq saw her, or heard from her from behind a curtain, without Hisham knowing.

Ibn Abd al-Barr · Jami' Bayan al-'Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 2531 our rendering · Open the passage

8 O ye who believe! If an evil-liver bring you tidings, verify it, lest ye smite some folk in ignorance and afterward repent of what ye did.

Surat al-Hujurat (The Private Apartments) 49:6 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

9 O you who have believed in God and His Messenger and acted upon His law: if a transgressor comes to you with a report, verify his report before believing it and passing it on, until you know that it is sound — lest you strike innocent people through an offense of your own, and then regret it.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Hujurat 49:6 our rendering · Open the passage

10 And lo! thou art of a tremendous nature.

Surat al-Qalam (The Pen) 68:4 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

11 … And you — O Messenger — are of a tremendous character, which is the noble manners the Qur'an comprises; for living by the Qur'an was second nature to him: he obeyed its command and kept away from what it forbade.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Qalam 68:4 our rendering · Open the passage

12 There is confusion in its chain, for some make it from Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab, from Ibn Abbas; some make it from Sa'id, from Abu Hurayra and Abu Dharr; and some relate it from Sa'id without naming the Companion. Merits are related from anyone; proof by way of the chain is pressed to the limit only in rulings and in the lawful and the unlawful.

Ibn Abd al-Barr · Jami' Bayan al-'Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 186 our rendering · Open the passage

13 The limit of this division: that it shows that testimony is a door to knowledge in general, and does not show that any particular report is true. And the difference between the two is the difference between 'testimony will serve as a ground' and 'this report is a sound ground' — and the second is examined report by report, and the division is no substitute for it.

4. How do we know that something is true? our rendering · Open the passage

14 And demanding conclusive proof in everything is not strictness of method but the demolition of it. If you accepted nothing but the conclusive, the whole of history would fall, and every judgment of the courts, and every diagnosis of the physicians. And nobody lives that way for a single day.

4. How do we know that something is true? our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

Everything you cited is reporting of the very class I am challenging. The account of the collection of the sunan is itself transmitted by the same chain-based method you are trying to establish, so you are calibrating the scale with the scale. And in the case of Ibn Ishaq you did exactly the picking I described: you took Shu'ba's endorsement and rejected Malik's charge of lying, and both are imams — so the balance tips wherever you want it to, which is precisely what I accused you of.

Demanding a conclusive scale from outside all testimony is a wrecking bar, not a method: "If you accepted nothing but the conclusive, the whole of history would fall, and every judgment of the courts, and every diagnosis of the physicians." 14 As for the choice in Ibn Ishaq's case, the reason is written on the page, not hidden from you: Malik was asked what he based it on and referred to Hisham ibn Urwa, and Hisham's ground was that "he relates from my wife, and by God he never saw her" — so the disparagement was rejected because it is "imitation with no proof behind it" 7. What decides here is which side has evidence behind it, not which side suits. And your double-edged sword was taken up by the scholars themselves before you, and they stated it plainly: "Merits are related from anyone; proof by way of the chain is pressed to the limit only in rulings and in the lawful and the unlawful" 12 — the lenient class of reports establishes neither praise nor blame, and that it falls on both sides at once is our own position, not your objection. What remains is not judged wholesale: "testimony will serve as a ground" is one claim, "this report is a sound ground" is another, and the second "is examined report by report" 13. So if you have a particular report in mind — about her age, or about a man who was tortured — bring it with its chain and it will be examined. But to put a claim about the whole class in place of examining the report itself is to excuse yourself from the very scale you are demanding of us.