Convenient Revelations: Difference between revisions

According to Islamic tradition, the Quran was revealed gradually to the prophet Muhammad over the 23 years of his prophethood, generally in the form of divine guidance for the circumstances Muhammad found himself in at any given time. Thus, in addition to containing commandments and laws aimed at the entire Muslim population, the Quran also contains content intended only for Muhammad's employment. Often revelation of the latter sort was related to the extremely personal circumstances of the prophet, including exclusive exemptions for Muhammad from Islamic law, admonitions of his wives and guests, and intimate family affairs. In addition to revelations passed to Muhammad in the form of the Quran, according to the hadith literature, Muhammad would sometimes assert he had received a message from God which was not intended as part of the Quran but which was nonetheless binding in all the same ways. These non-Quranic revelations form a genre of the hadith known as the hadith qudsi. Traditional Islamic scholars do not consider these hadith qudsi to be any more important than regular hadiths, although the reasoning behind this absence of distinction has not been clarified by them or agreed upon in common.

Historical interpretations of convenient revelations

There are three different historical interpretations of this highly-intimate variety of revelational circumstance (Asbab al-Nuzul), particular where it occurs in the Quran.

Traditionalists

According to traditional Islamic scholars and perhaps the Quran itself, while these "convenient revelations" may appear superficially to be of no use to individuals other than Muhammad, they are in fact spiritually, legally, or theologically instructive in some manner and are thus God is entirely justified to include them in the Quran.

Critics

According to critics, this variety of revelation scarcely merits inclusion in a eternal document of divine importance that conceives of itself as "guidance for all of mankind". In this vein, critics often cite the hadith in Sahih Bukhari according to which Aisha, Muhammad's favorite wife, once said to him after such revelation, "I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires."^[1] To critics, these highly-personal and suspiciously convenient revelations are evidence that Muhammad simply employed God's voice to get what he wanted, such as, for instance, an exemption from the four-wife limit imposed by Islamic law as well as a last-minute clarification that marrying the ex-wife of one's adopted son was permissible.

Historians

According to most historians, the highly convenient revelational circumstance attributed to certain Quranic verses are no more, or even far less reliable as historical documentation than the typical variety of revelational circumstance used to explain the meaning of any other verse in the Quran. To these historians, the vast majority of the hadith corpus was generated many decades after Muhammad's death in order to justify competing legal preferences and in order to explain otherwise context-bereft and incomprehensible passages in the Quran, of which there are many (this end being not entirely distinct from the former). Some other historians, however, prefer to view the the convenient revelational circumstances reported in the hadith as being exceptionally reliable due to their apparently condemnatory nature. The reasoning with these historians is that anecdotes which appear to cast Muhammad in an often negative light could not have been made up by devout Muslims, and thus may actually have historical basis. These two interpretations advanced by historians are not mutually exclusive and are often considered in tandem, with the explanations of some passaged being later inventions and some being historically plausible.

Convenient revelations

Exemption from limit on wives

Allah revealed to Muhammad that Muslim men are permitted to marry up to four women.

Muhammad was granted an exception in this respect to be allowed to marry an unlimited number of wives:

One-wife limit for son-in-law

Although Allah allowed men to marry up to four wives, Muhammad allowed only one wife for his son-in-law Ali who was married to Muhammad's daughter Fatima. When Ali desired to take a second wife, Muhammad insisted he first divorce Fatima before taking a new wife.

Exemption from equal treatment of wives

In Quran 4:3 is an injunction to treat all wives equally, with the requirement that: "if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one...".

Muhammad initially gave each of his multiple wives equal attention and time with him, visiting a different wife each night. With time, however, he developed favorite wives who garnered more attention and affection than others. This created a great deal of tension among the ladies, and jealousy, and often rage, ensued. Muhammad then received a revelation absolving him from the earlier admonition to treat all wives as equals and deal with them justly, and allowed him to select his favorite wives according to his desires:

Aisha, the favorite wife of Muhammad, was expressly suspicious about this sort of revelation. After Muhammad received the verse above, Aisha commented, "I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires."^[2]

Permission to wed adopted son's ex-wife

Zaynab was initially married to Zaid ibn Haritha, Muhammad's adopted son. One day Muhammad paid a visit to Zaid's house to consult with him about a matter, but he was not home. Not expecting Muhammad to be at the door, Zaynab answered the door instead, dressed in a revealing garment, and Muhammad immediately developed a carnal desire for her. When Zaid learned of the prophet's infatuation, he divorced Zaynab so Muhammad could marry her. This turned into quite a scandal among the Arabs, who equated Muhammad's actions with incest, since he married his daughter-in-law. Soon thereafter, Muhammad received this revelation:

Permission to have relations with concubine

As stated above, Muhammad used to take turns among his wives, visiting a different one each night. One night during the time allotted for Hafsa, she had to take care of an urgent need with another family member and so was not at home. Muhammad instead had intimate relations with Mary, a Coptic slave that had been given to him. Muhammad was not married to Mary the Copt.

When Hafsah found this out and questioned him, he promised (on oath) not to touch Mary again if she would keep this a secret, and promised that Umar and Abu Bakr should be his successors. Hafsah, however, did not keep quiet and told Aysha about this event. As a result Muhammad had no dealings with any of his wives for a full month, living with Mary alone.^[3] Aisha and Hafsa conspired with the rest of the prophet's wives against Muhammad and isolated him from physical relations.

Justify his actions with Mary, Muhammad received the following revelation:

Allah then proceeded to chastise Aisha and Hafsa for getting upset with Muhammad for having sex with Mary the slave girl:

Excusing the Satanic Verses

Pre-Islamic Mecca was a hotbed of paganism and polytheism. It is said 360 idols surrounded the Ka'aba and were worshiped as gods. Thus, it is storied that when Muhammad first began preaching monotheism and denouncing the other 359 gods, he was met with much resistance and hostility.

In an attempt to appease the Meccans, buy some time and bring relief to his followers from hostility, Muhammad one night had a revelation found in Surah 53:19-22 which originally read, "Have you thought of al-Lat and al-Uzza and Manat the third, the other; these are the exalted Gharaniq whose intercession is approved." ^[4] Al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat were three female deities, known as daughters of Allah. By this revelation Muhammad acknowledged these deities as worthy of worship and whose intercession in heaven was to be sought. Acknowledging these deities had the desired effect. Later, the angel Gabriel chastised Muhammad for uttering these verses and informed him that Satan, not Allah, had put these words in Muhammad's mouth. Thus, these verses are known as the Satanic Verses.

Muhammad then received another revelation to relieve him of any wrongdoing:

There exists, however, no such instance of prophets succumbing to Satan's trickery and pronouncing false revelations in either the Bible or in Jewish literature.

In fact, Christian and Jewish scripture, scriptures recognized by the Qur'an as containing the words of other prophets, we see the following attestation made:

Permission to violate sacred months with military activity

Four months of the year were considered sacred to early Arabs. During these months no warfare was allowed and bloodshed was completely forbidden. The months which the Arabs held sacred were al Mu'harram, Rajab, Dhu'l Qaada, and Dhu'l Hajja; the first, the seventh, the eleventh, and the twelfth in the year. Muhammad adopted this custom of the Arabs and codified it in the Quran: Quran 2:194 and Quran 5:97.

In one of the earliest raids on a trade caravan by warriors dispatched by Muhammad, a convenient revelation is received regarding the sacred months. Muhammad's men spotted the caravan passing by on the last day of a sacred month. According to ibn Ishaq:

In the end they decided to attack the caravan and capture its goods, thereby violating the prohibitions against warfare in the sacred month. When Muhammad learned of it, he at first admonished them for violating the sacred month, but then received a new revelation:

Battle of the Trench

When preparing for the Battle of the Trench, Muhammad ordered his followers to dig a large trench around the perimeter of Medina, to hold off the expected army of Meccans intent on killing Muhammad. Many of Muhammad's men put less than full effort into the task, and some even left without Muhammad's permission. At the same time, another Muslim needed temporary leave to attend to an urgent matter. He asked Muhammad's permission, was granted permission, and returned to trench digging as soon as he could.

Muhammad became upset and angry at those who left the task without asking his permission. Here, Muhammad received another revelation:

Further emphasizing the point, ibn Ishaq records the following words from Allah:

Muhammad and Genetics

Observe the hadith above. Abdullah bin Salam wanted to determine if Muhammad was a legitimate prophet and so posed three questions that he assumed only a prophet would be able to answer correctly:

1. What is the first portent of the Hour?
2. What is the first meal of the people of Paradise?
3. Why does a child look like its father or mother?

Muhammad responds, Just now Gabriel has informed me of that. Muhammad proceeds to share the following revealed answers:

• The first portent of the hour is an all-consuming fire from east to west.
• The first meal in paradise is extra fish liver.
• A child looks like whichever parent achieves orgasm first during sexual intercourse. (This response is evidently at odds with science)

Assuming this exchange in fact occurred, one wonders how Abdullah b. Salman could have hoped to confirm whether Muhammad had in fact given the correct responses to his questions regarding the hereafter and the science of reproduction.

Muhammad Corrects Allah

Note the sequence of events in the above hadith:

1. Muhammad receives a revelation, which is part of Sura 4:95 as it exists today.
2. Muhammad calls Zaid to write down the revelation and begins to recite it to Zaid: All who fail to participate in jihad are viewed as inferior to those who do participate.
3. A blind man asks how the verse applies to him, since he is blind and cannot participate in jihad.
4. Muhammad then conveniently receives a new revelation that adds an exception to jihad for the blind and disabled.

Allah Corrects Muhammad

At one time some big chiefs of Makkah were sitting in the assembly of Mohammad, and he was earnestly engaged in trying to persuade them to accept Islam. At that very point, a blind man, named Abd-Allah ibn Umm-Maktum, approached him to seek explanation of some point concerning Islam. Muhammad disliked his interruption and ignored him. Later, remorseful, Muhammad received a revelation acknowledging the blind man's plight.

The verse no doubt left the blind man feeling better about his unfortunate encounter with Muhammad.

Condemnation of house guests

Muhammad's followers were at some point staying too long in and around his house and talking to his wives. Muhammad was thus revealed a verse to help Muhammad with this nuisance.

See also

• Revelation

References