Spoerl / The Levantine Review Volume 2 Number 1 (Spring 2013)
Muhammad.[1] Near the end of the sira, Ibn Ishaq quotes Abu Bakr as summing up Muhammad’s career as follows: “God sent Muhammad with this religion and he strove for it until men accepted it voluntarily or by force” (pp. 668-9). Ibn Ishaq thus lends support to the classical Islamic scholars who argue that verse 2:256 was abrogated by verses revealed later, especially the verses of Sura 9.[2]
Ibn Ishaq portrays Muhammad himself as repeatedly telling the Jews that his coming as a prophet is plainly foretold in the Jewish scriptures. After the Muslim victory over the pagan Quraysh at the battle of Badr, Muhammad assembled the Jews of the Banu Qaynuqa in the marketplace in Medina and addressed them as follows: “O Jews, beware lest God bring upon you the vengeance that he brought upon Quraysh and become Muslims. You know that I am a prophet who has been sent – you will find that in your scriptures and in God’s covenant with you” (p. 363; cf. also pp. 248, 249, 250, 252, 257, where acceptance of Muhammad is said to be a part of the Jews’ covenant with God). Muhammad directed the same message to the Jews of Khaybar: “The apostle wrote to the Jews of Khaybar […] God says to you, O scripture folk, and you will find it in your scripture, ‘Muhammad is the apostle of God…’” (p. 256). One catches occasional glimpses of the bafflement that Muhammad’s assertions elicited from Jewish interlocutors: “’He has not brought us anything we recognize and he is not the one we spoke of to you.’” “’No covenant was ever made with us about Muhammad.’” “’O Muhammad, you have not brought us anything we recognize…’” (all on p. 257). “’Is it true, Muhammad, that what you have brought is the truth from God? For our part, we cannot see that it is arranged as the Torah is.’ He [Muhammad] answered, ‘You know quite well that it is from God; you will find it written in the Torah which you have.’” (p. 269; cf. p. 270).
Ibn Ishaq also portrays Muhammad’s closest followers conveying the same message: Abu Bakr, upon entering a Jewish school, called upon the rabbi “to fear God and become a Muslim because he [the rabbi] knew that Muhammad was the apostle of God who had brought the truth from Him and that they would find it written in the Torah and the Gospel” (p. 263).
Some verses in the Koran that seemingly strike a conciliatory and tolerant tone regarding the Jews take on a very different meaning in Ibn Ishaq’s gloss. Consider, for example, 3:113-117: “They are not (all) alike: of the scripture folk there is an upright community who read God’s verses in the night season prostrating themselves [note omitted]. They believe in God
- ↑ See Joseph S. Spoerl, “Islam and War: Tradition vs. Modernity” Comparative Islamic Studies 4 (2008), pp. 181-212, esp. pp. 191-195.
- ↑ David S. Powers, “The Exegetical Genre nasikh al-Qur’an wa mansukhuhu,” in Andrew Rippin, ed., Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur’an (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), pp. 117-138, and David Bukay, “Peace or Jihad? Abrogation in Islam,” Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2007, pp. 3-11.
