Abstract:In a recent issue of Der Islam, Stephen R. Shoemaker has contributed an extensive article in which he challenged the processes and findings of a number of studies conducted by Gregor Schoeler, Harald Motzki, and AndreasGörke. 1 The following article offers a response to his findings. Whereas the three authors argued the case for the possibility that authentic traditions of the first century of the Hijra can be reconstructed, Shoemaker holds the contrary point of view, as already stated in the abstract of his study: "While az-Zuhr\ and occasionally other authorities of his generation can often be persuasively linked with the tradition in question, the reach back to^Urwa is generally not convincing …" Yet he is not entirely consistent in his views. In his study several statements are to be found that in fact support the views of the authors whose studies he critically examines. Overall, Shoemaker makes more concessions towards the possible authenticity of some of the material traced back to the first century than any "sceptic" prior to him. Unfortunately, Shoemaker's criticism and rendering of the three authors' studies is fraught with misunderstandings and inconsistencies. They are the focus of attention in this critical review. In addition, hitherto unknown traditions as well as sources that Shoemaker mentions without quoting or paraphrasing them will be presented. This material also challenges a number of Shoemaker's key conclusions.
This article examines the origins of the story of the Prophet Muḥammad’s controversial marriage with Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš as well as its transformation and reinterpretation through the centuries. The fact that the story features in different genres of Islamic literature as well as in non-Muslim sources allows for a reconstruction of how and where the story emerged, how it spread and to what extent it was transformed over time. In the course of this reconstruction, the article critically assesses different approaches to the historicity of reports on the life of Muḥammad. With its analysis of later Muslim sources, it also illustrates different strategies of reinterpreting and recasting traditions and shows how societal change and different ideologies influenced the interpretation of the story.
The relationship between the traditional biographical material on Muh ̣ammad (maghāzī-or sīra-material) and the narrations of his words and deeds (h ̣adīth-material) has long been debated in Islamic studies. While some scholars have argued that the biographical material is fundamentally h ̣adīth material arranged chronologically, others have argued the opposite: that h ̣adīth material originally consists of narrative reports about the life of Muh ̣ammad which were later deprived of their historical context to produce normative texts. This article argues that both views are untenable and that maghāzī and h ̣adīth emerged as separate fields; each influenced the other but they preserved their distinctive features. While traditions that originated and were shaped in one field were sometimes transferred to the other, the transfer of traditions from one field to the other apparently did not as a rule involve any deliberate changes to the text.
Abstractis article explores the scope of interpretation in the contemporary exegesis of the Qurʾān and the underlying trends in modern Islam that influence this exegesis. It focuses on one Qurʾānic verse-Q 54:1-and investigates the differences and similarities between the contemporary exegesis of this verse and the classical exegetical tradition as well as the possible influence of an author's regional, professional and confessional background on his interpretation. In classical exegesis, Q 54:1 (iqtarabati l-sāʿatu wa-nshaqqa l-qamaru) is mostly interpreted as referring to the splitting of the moon, a miracle allegedly granted to Muḥammad, but usually the classical exegetes also discuss the-equally possible-eschatological and metaphorical readings of the verse. In contrast, modern exegetes mostly confine themselves to discussing only one interpretation, but they differ radically in their conclusions and thus add a number of new-and sometimes rather bizarre-interpretations to those known from the classical tradition. While some exegetes try to minimize the miraculous aspect of the verse and offer alternative readings-historical, eschatological, metaphorical, or symbolical-others explicitly defend a miraculous reading of the text and try to adduce new arguments for this interpretation. e article draws attention to regional and confessional differences in the interpretation and shows the importance of non-scholarly exegetes and the Internet in assessing how verses from the Qurʾān are understood by Muslims today.
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