Part 2 (C) - The Example of The Uninformed
Jews, Greecos and
Doctrinas - The Missing Links
Having taking the foolhardy step of rejecting Muslim sources (except, of course, when it is useful) Crone and Cook are left with a void that needs to be filled. This void is thus filled with the small amount of non-Muslim contemporary documentation available. It has already been shown that these are likely to give a significantly less accurate picture even with the assumption of biased Muslim documentation. So is this step an acceptable one to take?
"Why should the Syriac sources, not new of course to Islamic historians, be considered more trustworthy than the Arab historians?" asks R. B. Sergeant in the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.
So what is this evidence? Crone and Cook tell us it "begins" with "a Greek anti-Jewish tract . . . in the form of a letter from a certain Abraham, a Palestinian Jew" which was "in all probability" written in the seventh century by Rabbis in which a new Saracen Prophet was foretold. Who was this Jew? Can he be relied upon? Or is it the case that . . .
"We should rather expect that he tried to describe the phenomenon with his own categories - which would have been messianism; in the case of a Palestinian Jew. And the fact that he mixed up or ignored important details ceases to be surprising when we compare the kind of knowledge people of our well-informed age may have of Arabia or Islam." (Joseph Van Ess, The Making of Islam)
The next piece of evidence is provided by an Armenian chronicle of the 660's; Jewish refugees from Edessa join with the Prophet to conquer the land of Israel. This story, the authors admit to be "geographically implausible" as well as chronologically impossible. Need one say more? Anyone unfamiliar with the book will be surprised to learn that this constitutes all of the evidence that they (and now Smith) have for their thesis. A whole colourful picture of the early history of Islam is based upon it, with obviously more derived from their own imaginations than anything else.
A perfect example of:
"magnifying points of evidence in proportion as they conform to an arbitrary theory" (N. Daniel, Journal of Semitic Studies)
But perhaps the best argument against using non-Muslim or hostile sources is the following statement:
"It is inexcusable to rely on material for supposedly truthful information about a person or movement which is not only distant from the source, but also the avowed enemy of that person or movement. Would we go to Serbian generals to ascertain the facts of the Bosnia conflict today?"
Words of wisdom. And the source? Mr Joseph Smith, in Who Founded Christianity?
A logical explanation for this type of behaviour is a mental condition known as schizophrenia. Smith should see a specialist at the earliest opportunity.
And is this evidence even authentic? Crone and Cook make no attempt to ascertain the authenticity of these materials, or even the Islamic evidence which was discounted in advance. ( N. Daniel, Journal of Semitic Studies and Wansbrough BSOAS.)
What the non-Muslim sources say:
Having already examined the problems of using non-Muslim sources let us take a more in-depth examination of some of the conclusions Smith draws concerning the information contained in them.
Firstly, Smith talks of a papyrus dated 643CE (21AH) which speaks of the year twenty-two, suggesting something happened among the Arabs which coincides with the year of Hijra. Well there you go! Why does he expect us to presume that it was anything other than that? We are not told what the Nestorian ecclesiastical documents from 676CE (54AH) and 680CE (58AH) actually say. If it talks about the "exodus" of Arabs to the "Promised Land" then this is simply the language familiar to them, and cannot be construed to mean that the Arabs considered themselves to be partaking in an "Exodus", and that they considered Jerusalem to be their "promised land." Smith's use of the tradition in the Sunan of Abu Dawood stating that "there will be Hijra after the Hijra, but the best Hijra is that of Abraham" proves absolutely nothing. First the word Hijra is not the same as the word exodus. Hijra simply means to leave one thing, or place for another. The "best" Hijra is explained in another Prophetic narration: "The best of those who perform Hijra are those who abandon that which Allah has prohibited and the best jihad is the one who strives against his own self for the sake of Allah the Mighty and Majestic." (at-Tabaranee in al Kabir) So this is the Hijra of Abraham, the khalil of Allah, who abandoned disobedience for obedience to Allah. All this data rather confirms exactly what the Muslim sources say. Now Smith tries to support this nothing with more nothing.
Qibla
Smith claims that archaeological evidence points to mosques that are not aligned towards Makkah. Now what does this prove? In order to give any credibility to his theory he needs to show a consistent pattern of mosques pointing towards Jerusalem, but what he shows us is a selection of mosques pointing in a number of different directions.
It is quite noteworthy how unreliably archaeology can be. During a cursory glance through one of the internet sights that cover the Dead Sea Scrolls, one particular page was talking about the archaeological findings on the Qumran site. It mentioned that concerning the building, opinions differed as to whether it was a garrison, fort and military installation, a monastery, or a palace. The so called archaeological excavations of Father DeVaux claimed to discovered a scriptorium, which conveniently fitted his theories. However an impartial archaeological team from Scandinavia actually discovered it was not a scriptorium at all but a dinning hall.
This is what Creswell says concerning early mosques: " . . their architectural resources , before they started in their career of conquest, were barely enough to give expression to their needs. In other words Arabia constituted an almost perfect architectural vacuum . . . The first mosques in the great hiras, or half nomadic encampments of the conquest, such as Basra, Kufa and Fustat, were primitive in the extreme, and in Syria the first mosques were churches that had been converted or merely divided: in fact there is no reason for believing that any mosque was built as such in Syria unto the time of Al Walid or possibly Abdal Malik, For over a generation the Arabs remained quite untouched by any architectural ambitions." It is worth noting that the Prophet disliked extravagance and impressive architecture in buildings, especially mosques. The relative simplicity of early mosques is in fact a historical example of how the Prophet's Companions diligently followed his wishes.
Let us now turn our attention to the direction of these mosques. In the face of what Creswell says we wonder how exactly archaeologists determined that their discoveries were indeed mosques and how they decided in which direction the Qibla was. It is noteworthy that the use of the mihrab did not appear until its introduction by Coptic workers who were expanding the Prophet's mosque in Medina (88AH) and placed a mihrab there. This mihrab still exists. The Prophet's mosque is one of many examples of early mosques facing Makkah, as is the "mosque of the two Qiblas" in which the Prophet was praying while Allah revealed the command to change the Qibla from Jerusalem to Makkah, and also the Quba mosque in the outskirts of Medina which also still exists. Creswell gives further examples of early mosques that were converted from churches which contradict Smith's conclusions:
"Al Hims, for example, they took a fourth part of the church of St John. How was a church converted into a mosque? One can easily guess. In Syria the kibla is due South, where as churches are turned towards the east. Under these circumstances it was only necessary to close the western entrance, pierce a new entrance in the north wall and pray across the aisles. This is exactly what happened as can be verified in the Great Mosque of Hama where the west front of the Kanisah al Uzma (Great Church) which was converted into a mosque in 15AH/636-7, now forms the west end in the sanctuary, Its three western doors have been converted into windows and is now entered from the north."
Creswell also mentions examples of other Jamia mosques such as the one Basra, constructed 45AH(665CE), and Kufa 50AH.
Furthermore if we do look at a map of the region, we find this very example, the mosque of Amr bin al As in Fustat outside Cairo, quoted by Smith as facing slightly south of east is in-fact facing towards Makkah, and not Jerusalem!!! What now becomes almost unbelievable is that Smith quotes Jacob of Edessa to support his argument that the Muslim Qibla was not fixed whereas Jacob of Edessa actually says:
" . . . that it is not to the south that the Jews and Mahgraye here in the regions of Syria pray, but towards Jerusalem or the Kaaba, the patriarchal places of their races."
This, in actuality, proves the opposite of Smith's claim. The structure of the sentence clearly shows that there were two different places: Jerusalem and the Kaaba. Any attempt to claim that there was more than one Kaaba is merely clutching at straws. The word "Kaaba" in Arabic means "cube" and the only Kaaba is that found in Makkah.
Now to answer Smith's question "What is happening here?" There is a simple answer to this issue of the Qibla, and the way that Smith tries to dismiss it, by telling us how the lives and livelihood of these camel traders depended on finding their way, is only illustrative of his ignorance The fact is that the means of accurately determining the Qibla was in fact not available. Even the means of determining the Qibla was disputed, as David King's book Astronomy in the Service of Islam, backed by the latest research into recently discovered documents, explains:
"In the first two centuries of Islam, when mosques were being built from Andalusia to Central Asia, the Muslims had no truly scientific means of finding the Qibla. Clearly they knew roughly the direction they had taken to reach wherever they were, and the direction of the road in which pilgrims left for Mecca could be, and in some cases actually was, used as a Qibla. But they also followed two basic procedures, observing tradition and developing a simple expedient.
In the first case, some authorities observed the Prophet Mohammed had prayed due south when he was in Medina (north of Mecca) and they advocated the general adoption if this direction for the Qibla. this explains why many early mosques from Andalusia to Central Asia face south.
Other authorities held that the Qur'an required one to stand precisely so that one faced the Kaaba. Now the Muslims of Meccan origin knew the when they were standing in front of the walls or corners of the Kaaba they were facing directions specifically associated with the rising's and settings of the sun and certain fixed stars. The major axis of the rectangular base of the edifice is said to point towards the rising point of Canopus, and the minor axis is said to point to summer sunrise and winter sunset. These assertions about the Kaaba's astronomical alignments, found in newly-discovered medieval sources, and have been confirmed by modern measurements . . .
. . . The corners of the Kaaba were associated even in pre-Islamic times with the four main regions of the surrounding world, Syria, Iraq, for example, one should stand in the same direction as if one were standing right in front of the north-eastern wall of the Kaaba. Thus the first Muslims in Iraq built their mosques with the prayer walls towards winter sunset because they wanted the mosques to face the north-eastern wall of the Kaaba, Like wise the first mosques in Egypt were built with their prayer walls facing winter sunrise so that the prayer hall was parallel to the not-eastern wall of the Kaaba. Inevitably there were differences of opinion, and different directions were favoured by particular groups. Indeed, in each major region of the Islamic World, there was a whole spectrum of directions used for the Qibla. Only rarely do the orientations of medieval mosques correspond to the Qiblas derived by computation. Recently some medieval texts have been identified which deal with the problem of the Qibla in Andalusia, the Maghrib, Egypt, Iraq and Iran, and Central Asia, Their study has done much to clarify the orientation of mosques in these areas. In order that prayer in any reasonable direction be considered valid, some legal texts assert that while facing the actual direction of the Kaaba is optimal, facing the general direction of the Kaaba is also legally acceptable." This is clearly based on the hadith of the Prophet: 'Qibla is between the East and the West.'"
In the light of these facts the Wasit and Baghdad mosques being off by 33 and 30 degrees towards north respectively is not so bad. They certainly do not point directly to Jerusalem. As for Baladhuri's comment, if correct, does not imply that the Qibla was pointing due west, but rather lay to the west, implying its being deviated towards the West.
Dome of the Rock
Having dealt with the issue of Qibla, we are left with the contentions concerning the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem being a important shrine and the real object of Muslim aspirations. Firstly, that which the Jews call Temple Mount, is known in the Qur'an as Masjid al Aqsa - the Furthest Mosque. It is the place from which God's final Messenger Muhammed made his miraculous ascension through the heavens, where he saw the angel Gabrial and spoke with Allah beyond the furthest lote tree. All this is alluded to in the Qur'an:
"Praise be to Allah, who took his slave from the inviolable mosque to the furthest mosque the neighbourhood whereof we have blessed, in order that we might show him our signs. Verily He is the All-Hearer the All-Seer." Surah al Isra (17:1)
Smith claims that the inscriptions contain no mention of the Prophet's night journey, whereas in fact this very verse is present along with seven verses of the same chapter according to Alister Duncan's The Noble Sanctuary.
Mohammed Rafiq tells us that "just the existence of the four verses on the building alone negates, nay obliterated, all of your arguments concurring the Prophet, Mecca, the miraaj (ascension), the position of the People of the Book, the Qibla, the dating of the Qur'an and the accuracy of the Qur'an's transmission."
As if this were not in itself sufficient, we find in a pilgrims guide to Jerusalem and surrounding areas called De Locis Santis which is dated 80AH (702-9CE), comments of the Frankish Bishop Arculf who performed pilgrimage in 48AH (670CE) reports that he witnessed an argument between a believing and non-believing Jew over an alleged funeral shroud of Jesus, which was settled by the Saracen King Mavias, meaning of course the Caliph Mu'awiya, and he goes on to say:
"But in the renowned place where once the Temple had been magnificently constructed, placed in the neighbourhood of the wall from the east, the Saracens now frequent a quadrangular place of prayer, which the have built rudely, constructing if by setting great beams on some remains of ruins; this house can, it is said, hold three thousand men at once."
Creswell tell us that "this may be called the first Aqsa Mosque". In fact, he also mentions that Christian historians such as Theophanes, Elias of Nisibis, and Michael the Syrian tell us that a mosque was built by Umar ibn al Khattab at the capitulation of Jerusalem.
This proves that the al Aqsa mosque predates the Dome of the Rock (which is an octagon, not quadrangle) and that it was the only Saracen building of note and that it was a place of prayer, not of circumbulation.
Furthermore the Qur'anic inscriptions contain the following verses:
"thus We have appointed you a middle nation, that ye may be witnesses against mankind, and that the messenger may be a witness against you. And We appointed the Qibla which ye formally observed only that we make known him that follows the messenger from him who turns on his heels. In truth it was a hard test save for those whom Allah guided, But it was not Allah's purpose that your faith should be in vain, for Allah is full of pity, merciful towards mankind. We have seen the turning of your face to heaven. And now verily We shall make you turn to a Qibla which is very dear to you. So turn your face to the inviolable Place of Worship, and ye, wheresoever you may be turn your faces toward if, Lo! Those who have received the scripture know that this is the truth from their Lord. And Allah is not unaware of what they do. And even if thou broughtest unto those who have received the Scripture all kinds of portents, they would not follow your Qibla, nor can you be a follower of their Qibla, nor are some of them the followers of the Qibla of others. And if you should follow their desires after the knowledge which has come to you, then surely you are one of the wrong doers."
I think these verses speak for themselves.
As for the other inscriptions inside the Mosque of al Aqsa and the claim of Smith that they differ from the Qur'an today, (although he doesn't show where and how they differ, which is obvious because they don't), then this is also nonsense.
According to Brockett they are identical to the verses from the Qur'an today:
"The reading tamtaruna (Q.19:34) as opposed to yamtaruna of the Hafs and Warsh transmissions provides no evidence of a text substantially different from what it is now. Differences such as these have no real effect on the meaning; indeed, the extent of the agreement of the inscriptions with the text must, in fact, have already been fixed. Nor can such inscriptions be considered to be actual copies of the Qur'an requiring strict adherence to the rules of transmission." (Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur'an)
Makkah
Here Smith introduces one of his favoured techniques, a technique which we find replete throughout his papers, and that is attributing a belief to the Muslims which they do not hold and then proceeding to refute it.
Smith tells us that "Muslims maintain that Mecca was not only a great and ancient city, but it was, as well the centre of the trading routes for Arabia in the seventh century and before." Having checked the famous Tafseer's of Ibn Kathir, Tabari and Qurtubi, there is no mention of this at all. Nor indeed is there any such claim in Guilleme's translation of the Seerah of Ibn Ishaak. Indeed the Qur'an calls Makkah "Umm ul-Quraa", literally translated as the "Mother of the Settlements", not the "Mother of all Settlements.". But the meaning is not that which Smith assigns to it. Tabari explains that "Umm ul-Quraa" means the centre of settlements in and around Makkah. Ibn Ishaak's Seerah further explains this as the place were the sons of Ishmael spread out from into the surrounding areas. Ibn Katheer mentions the building of the Kaaba by Adam, but this is not an authentic story, however we find that he attributes the following hadith to the Prophet, "Makkah is the most beloved place to me and the most beloved place to Allah." The importance of Makkah lies in the fact of its containing the first House raised for the worship of Allah alone, al Kaaba, and thus the settlement (not city) that grew up around it was primarily for the worship of Allah alone, and this indeed reflects the very purpose for which mankind has been created.
Indeed we must agree that Mecca is situated in a barren valley, as the Qur'an itself mentions the supplication of Abraham as saying this, leaving his firstborn Ishmael there. Nothing has greatly changed. Mecca until this day could hardly be described a great city, or the centre of trade, but the fact is that every year millions of people go there for essentially one purpose, and that is to worship the one true God, Allah, the One free of all imperfections. It is this that was then the primary attraction of Makkah, that caused this far away barren place to even come to mentioned by Ptolomy. In fact it seems he is not the only ancient historian to have mentioned Makkah, for according to Thomas Carlyle, Sisus who lived 70BC, stated that Makkah was the greatest centre of pilgrimage in the whole world and the oldest (Thomas Carlyle, . Heroes and Hero Worship). So it is on the religious dimension that Makkah is made important. Crone and Cook's question as to why such a barren place should be considered so important, whilst Taieef, with plentiful water and greenery and even a sanctuary, was close by is in fact a proof of the high standing of Makkah amongst the Arabs.
"What commodity was available in Arabia that could be transported such an inhospitable environment, and still be sold at a profit large enough to support the growth of a city in a periphera; site bereft of natural resources" So we will ask exactly the same question about Mecca today: what commodity brings five million people every year from every corner of the world to the inhospitable, barren, inaccessible valley? Truly: "la illah il Allah."
So what follows from Smith on this issue is entirely irrelevant, except that we feel obliged to point out that he completely misquotes Buillet in order to try and support his already baseless argument. According to Smith, Buillet says that:
"Mecca was simply not on the major trading routes. The reason for this, he contends, is that, Mecca is tucked away at the edge of the peninsula. Only by the most tortured map reading can it be described as a natural cross-roads between a north-south route and an east-west one"
However, Buillet does not contend anything of the sort. This is what he actually does say:
"Mecca is situated on the main trade route paralleling the Red Sea coast of Arabia halfway between the incense producing lands of the south and the incense consuming lands of the north. Its location is often described as being a natural one for the growth of a commercial centre but nothing could be further from the truth. It is situated in a barren valley incapable of sustaining a large population without substantial importation of goods, only by the most tortured map reading can it be described as a natural cross-roads between a north-south route and an east-west one." (Buillet, p. 105)
So Buillet agrees that it is situated "on the main trade route", not "on the edge of the peninsula", and goes on to explain how and why it became that way in spite of its unfavourable position:
"Mecca gained control of the trade by organising under her suzerainty the surrounding camel-breeding tribes which, on the one hand, supplied transportation and, on the other, were capable of raiding caravans. The Meccan's were able to organise the trade so that each tribe gained more from co-operating with caravans traversing its territory that if stood to gain from raiding the caravans and thereby depressing the total volume of trade, To do this, however, Mecca had to fight the Fijar war with an important neighbouring tribe. That all of this should have been accomplished in such a short space of time clearly shows that control of trade was a specific goal of the Quraish. Their selection of Mecca as the site for their settlement, while influenced, certainly, by the religious shrine there . . . was primarily dictated by the need to dominate and as far as possible from potential sources of imperial interference in Syria and Yemen."
Thus we can conclude from Buillet's "extensive research" that: Mecca was the centre of settlements in that area, as the correct tafseer of the verse explains, and that it was on the trade routes. Another reason is offered for its choice as a centre (apart from the "undoubted" advantage of the sanctuary) is its strategic advantage.
We have further explanations concerning reasons for Mecca's importance as a trading centre. Mohammed Rafiq points out in his refutation of Smith's ideas;
"Patrica Crone's understanding of economics and trade is pitifully weak. She asks what commodity was available in Arabia that could be sold at a profit large enough to support the growth of a city? I therefore simply counter with what commodity do the British trade, that makes an island as geographically insignificant, rank among the G5 . . . and allows it to pick the fruit of the so called third world."
The answer is, the cancer of humanity: usury. The big earner for the Quraish was their money lending and their highly profitable caravan financing. We find that under "Makkah" the Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam by Leiden and Brik quotes Strabo, an early Roman historian as saying that: " . . . every Arab was either a trader or a broker" and the encyclopaedia tells us that Mecca was "primarily a trading house, a banking town. Mecca has customs and institutions peculiar to this kind of transaction and to finance" and that " the Meccan tadjir was not distinct from the financier, his first article of trade was money."
Finally, Smiths insistence on the remoteness of Makkah, and the absence of even a significant sanctuary in this most barren and tucked away of places, leaves us completely baffled as to how it ever came to be established as the centre of pilgrimage for the whole Muslim world? Who instituted it? Was it Hajjaj? If so why choose this insignificant inaccessible place, and how did he go about persuading everyone to make pilgrimage there?
Why not choose Taieef, or any place more accessible, or just leave it at Jerusalem.
The Jews
Again, Smith has got his facts wrong. Firstly by claiming that the Qur'an states that Muhammed severed his relationship with the Jews in 2AH (624CE) is simply untrue. First because the Qur'an does not contain any dates, and secondly Muhammed never severed his ties with the Jews (see Constitution of Medina) except those who had betrayed the fledgling state at Medina during the Battle of the Ditch, and others who acted treacherously, and even then he (peace be upon him) treated them with the utmost leniency. It was only on the Prophet's death bead that he ordered that no two religions should remain in the Hijaz, but this order was applicable to both Jews and Christians.
As for the Doctrina Iacobi, all that this says is that this Jewish convert will not renounce his beliefs even if the Jews and Saracens catch him and cut him to pieces. Now you could understand a number of different things from this, but is by no means evidence that the Jews and Saracens worked hand in hand, or were part of a unified force. What has to be remembered when we examine these documents is the prevailing atmosphere at the time. Jews, it must be remembered, where hated and despised by all Christians at that time, and then, as now, the anti-Semite was ready to ally the Jews with any possible enemy. The anonymous Armenian chronicler only tells a similar story. It does not prove that this was the fact, rather it only shows us what some of the Christians perceived, or indeed the pure propaganda that they were using. This is one possibility, the other is that they simply perceived Islam as some form of Judaism. There were indeed amongst the Muslims large numbers of Arab Jews who had reverted to Islam, and the idea of a right to the Holy Land is also understood in the context of the fact that the Prophet Muhammed had prophesied that the Muslims would conquer Sham. If one was to examine these sources in this light we would see confirmation of Islamic histography, not a contradiction of it.
What is more telling is how Smith has completely ignored that piece of evidence (from non-Muslim writers) that without doubt supports what the Islamic sources tell us, namely John of Damascus!
Manuscript Evidence
Smith says: "Other Muslim scholars maintain that a further reason for the absence of early documentation can be blamed on old age. They believe that the material upon which the primary sources were written disintegrated over time, leaving us with few examples."
In order to refute his own argument (he doesn't mention any Muslim scholars who made this claim), Smith refers the reader to early Christian documents which have survived and were compiled well before early Islamic material. However, it is amazing to see that Smith points only to 'secondary' Christian artefacts (Codex Syniaticus and Alexandrinus) which are dated over four centuries after the advent of Christianity. Why does he not mention any 'primary' documents which are earlier than this, because if he had they would only have strengthened his argument? The fact is that he has no primary sources to refer to. We assume he would have wanted Muslims to write their books on materials similar to those used for early Christian documents about which we read: "The original copies of the New Testament books have, of course, long since disappeared. This fact should not cause surprise. In the first place, they were written on papyrus, a very fragile and perishable material." [The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, under the heading 'Text, NT']
Can we really excuse Smith for making foolish claims about the supposed absence of early documentation. After all he has positioned himself as somewhat of an authority - or father figure - amongst his Christian peers. Alas, if only they knew how absurd his claims sound to an informed ear. One doesn't even need to accept the view's of biased Muslims, apparently so ready to ascribe anything to their Prophet without a question of authenticity. Are one's eyes and ears closed and sealed to the work's of many Orientalists who have documented and published very early Muslim documentation. How about Hasan al Basri's Qadar letter to 'Abd al-Malik, which according to some must have been written before 110AH. And what about al Alim wa' l-muta'allim and Risala ila Uthman al Batti both ascribed to Abu Hanifa (d.150). Or even the manuscripts published by Van Ess, a Radd ala 'l-Qadariyya attributed to al Hasan b. Muhammed b. Al Hanafiya, Ali's grandson, died between 86 and 100 AH, and a Risala of Umar ibn Abdul Aziz (d.101AH) in which he refutes the Qadarites. All the above mentioned manuscripts abound in Qur'anic quotations, which present no textual variants, putting to rest equally absurd claims about the collation of the Qur'anic text.
The final deadly blow in this one sided war against a weak and ill-equipped enemy comes from an extremely strange quarter. It is the legacy of one who was the fountain of all Christian polemic, namely the Christian hero, John of Damascus (to be disregarded, thrown to the dogs by his latter day minions?). Born in Damascus in the year 675 (i.e. 22AH), he was later regarded as the first Christian authority on Islam. His tract De Haeresbius became the 'armory for all future controversial writings against Islam'. [J. W. Voorhis, John of Damascus]. John held in his book that the Qur'an was not revealed, but created. He attempted to discredit the Prophet Muhammad by spreading false rumours that a Christian monk, Bahira, had helped in the creation of the Qur'an. John also labelled Arabs as "Saracens" from a Jewish name, (ibid). The "Saracens" became the common name by which they were referred to in the early literature on Islam in the West. So what was he writing about? A Qur'an which wasn't compiled? A Prophet which didn't exist? A religion that had not yet been formulated? In this, finally, John of Damascus has given some real guidance to his Christian progeny.
Letters of the Prophet.
There exist several letters attributed to the Prophet Muhammed which have been authenticated by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars. Our Dr M. Hamidullah has attested to the authenticity of all of them. Most of the criticisms put forth by the Orientalists are not strong evidences against their authenticity and are based on the following points:
1) Mere claims: Regarding the letter to Muqauqis, Schwally declared that a letter wrote at the time of the Prophet would probably not contain so many "kufic" looking characters in it. However his predecessor Noldeke declared the letter to be authentic, as did Lamens.
2) Lack of knowledge: Especially concering ancient Arabic, spellings, character shapes and writing techniques.
Fisher, for example, claims the existence of mistakes in the letter to al Mundhir. In fact his proof against turns out to be a proof for, because ancient Arabic spelling differed from the modern Arabic. These objections specifically refer to the use of double letters (for e.g. the letter TA) whilst in fact this is exactly the correct ancient usage.
In favour of the letters authenticity is the lack of any diacritical marks. Adolph Grohmann confirms that these letters predate Umar's caliphate. Furthermore, a technical study of the letter sent to Heraculus using microscopes and ultraviolet light showed the skin on which the letter was written to be tanned using a method not as evolved as the one practised in the second century of Hijra. Likewise the quality of the ink is older than that used in the second century. Dr Reed of Leeds University declared the above scientific study accurate.
A further point worth mentioning is the presence of the seal from the ring of the Prophet which is in coloured ink. This seems to be a further guarantee of authenticity since clay seals were first introduced under the Caliphate of Umar ibn al-Khattab.
The Constitution of Medina
Humphrey's writes: "The first will focus on that rare beast, a document of almost unchallenged authenticity . . . the Constitution of Medina . . . As we shall see, this text is a very remarkable one both in content and language. Even more remarkable, no doubt, is that both Western and Muslim scholars agree unanimously that the piece is authentic . . . " [Islamic History, pp. 91-95]
The Constitution, drawn up in the years immediately after the Hijra, (approx 625CE) clearly mentions the Prophethood and Messengership of Muhammad, as well as calling the believers 'Muslims'.
Inscriptions
This is a red herring. We have already explained and quoted Creswell as to the complete lack or architectural pretensions of the early Muslims. We would hardly expect to find a dearth of inscriptions praising and eulogising the Prophet Muhammed. We do, however have two early examples of inscriptions containing the name, and mentioning the Prophethood of Muhammed, one in Taieef, and the other in Khandaq, the latter is dated 5AH. There also exist a few other inscriptions, which have been photographed and published by Mohammed Hamidullah.
As far as the so called extensive research of Yehuda Nevo, which Smith claims shows that there are no inscriptions which contain the title of Prophethood, then it is known by anyone who is familiar with the work of Yehuda (Smith obviously isn't one of them) that his research was restricted to a very small section of the Negeb desert some 500-600km away from Makkah. Nevo's research also conveniently excluded any inscriptions found in the Arabian peninsula This already means that his research is inconclusive.
Even if we look at Nevo's research analytically we find nothing. Some rock inscriptions in some far-off desert, written by some anonymous people that do not mention the Prophethood of Muhammed. Why would we expect someone who doesn't accept the Prophethood of Muhammed to refer to him as a Prophet? Do we refer to Smith as an expert on Islamic History, just because his cronies do?
Nevo's research proves absolutely nothing.
Double Standards
What also may be mentioned here, if it hasn't been picked up already, is another totally absurd characteristic of Smith's approach. Smith is so emphatically insistent that any documentation that is provided must be checked, tested, burnt, radio-accelerated, and only by a list of people he is comfortable with. If this list includes his grandmother, then that is what must be done before he is willing to offer his acceptance. The documentation we have provided has been attested by both Muslim and non-Muslim experts as has been mentioned. What Smith is obviously unaware of, and if he had bothered to read anything himself, he would have known, that the documentation he is providing for his own theories have not themselves been attested. He is formulating a preposterous theory on the basis of unattested evidence! Such evidence does not remotely imply what Smith is claiming, whilst we are proving unequivocal facts from documentation that has been attested. Smith's schizophrenia appears to be returning.
In conclusion, we can say that the various non-Muslim sources, even if authentic prove nothing. The dearth of material that contradicts Smith's ideas and the admission by Crone and Cook that they are ready to ignore material that contradicts their views allows us to safely conclude that we can likewise ignore their hypotheses.