2.1.1 The Identity of Zayd and His Wife

To the best of my knowledge, the earliest specification of Zayd’s identity occurs in a statement by Muǧāhid b. Ǧabr in his Tafsīr.⁴¹ Note, however, that Muǧāhid makes this identification in his commentary on v. 28 of al-Aḥzāb. Curiously, he has nothing to say in his Tafsīr about v. 36-40 of that sura.

Verses 28-29 of al-Aḥzāb read as follows:

(28) O Prophet, say to your wives, “If you want the life of this world and its ornament, come. I shall make provision for you and release you fairly.

(29) But if you want God and His Messenger and the World To Come, God has prepared a great wage for those of you who do good.”

Like v. 37, v. 28-29 address the subject of domestic relations within the household of the Prophet; and like v. 36-37, v. 28-29 refer to the issues of choice and divorce. In v. 28-29 the narrator addresses the Prophet and instructs him to offer his wives the choice of ‘release’ or remaining married to him. In his commentary on these two verses, Muǧāhid explains that “the Messenger of God withdrew from” his wives for an unspecified period of time and then “offered them a choice” between “the life of this world” and that of “the World To Come.” The episode reportedly ended when the Prophet’s wives chose “God and His messenger and the World To Come,” for which reason this revelation came to be known as the ‘verse of choice.’⁴²

On the surface, the formulation of v. 28-29 suggests that this episode involved all of the women to whom the Prophet was married at the time of the revelation (“O Prophet, say to your wives”). However, Muǧāhid specifies that these two verses were revealed about only one of the Prophet’s wives, a woman named Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš (literally, ‘young ass’) who responded with repugnance (karāhiya) to an instruction from the Messenger of God that she marry a man identified as Zayd b. Ḥāriṯa.⁴³ From this statement, we learn—arguably for the first time—that Zayd was the son of a man named Ḥāriṯa, that Muḥammad had ordered (amara) a woman named Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš to marry Zayd, and that Zaynab was repelled by this instruction, for reasons that are not specified. As we shall see, the reason for her reaction was known to Muǧāhid’s contemporary, Qatāda b. Diʿāma, and, a generation or so later, Muqātil b. Sulaymān would elaborate upon her reaction in his commentary on v. 36. Whether or not Muǧāhid himself identified the ‘Zayd b. Ḥāriṯa’ and ‘Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš’ associated with v. 28-29 of al-Aḥzāb with the ‘Zayd’ and his unnamed wife mentioned in v. 37 of the same sura is an open question. After Muǧāhid, who, as noted, has nothing to say about v. 36-40, virtually all exegetes would associate Zaynab’s reaction to the Prophet’s instruction that she marry Zayd with v. 36, which refers to the obligation of believing men and women to obey commands issued by God and His Prophet.

As for v. 36, at least one early authority reported that it was revealed about Umm Kulṯūm bt ʿUqba, daughter of the Umayyad chief ʿUqba b. Rabīʿa and half-sister of ʿUṯmān b. ʿAffān. Umm Kulṯūm was a woman of standing in the community of believers, and she married at least three times. Her second husband was al-Zubayr b. al-ʿAwwām, who reportedly divorced her ca 10/631-632. Her third husband was ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf, with whom she had four sons and two daughters.⁴⁴ The following report is transmitted on the authority of ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr (d. 94/713),⁴⁵ a son of Umm Kulṯūm’s second husband who had close ties with ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān and his son al-Walīd:

Mūsā b. Yaʿqūb related to me, on the authority of Abū l-Ḥuwayriṯ and Maḫrama b. Bukayr, on the authority of his father [viz. Bukayr], on the authority of ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr. He said: The Messenger of God said to Umm Kulṯūm bt ʿUqba, “Marry Zayd b. Ḥāriṯa, for he is [a] good [man] for you” (ḫayr^un laki). But [that idea] was repugnant to her (karihat lahā). So God revealed: “It is not for any believing man or woman, when God and His Messenger have issued a command, to have any choice with respect to the matter. Whoever disobeys God and His Messenger has gone astray in manifest error.”⁴⁶

Thus, during the last quarter of the 1st century AH, Muslim authorities disagreed over the identity of the woman who reacted with disgust to an instruction from the Prophet that she marry Zayd b. Ḥāriṯa and about the verse that God sent down in response to her reaction. According to ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr, the woman was Umm Kulṯūm bt ʿUqba, a prominent Umayyad whose reaction triggered the revelation of Kor 33, 36; according to Muǧāhid b. Ǧabr, she was Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš, a prominent Hāšimī whose reaction triggered the revelation of Kor 33, 28-29. These disagreements or discrepancies may be either (1) a result of early confusion and uncertainty about this notorious episode or (2) a trace of a change in the early Muslim community’s cultural memory. Be that as it may, if the report is historical, one wonders why either Zaynab or Umm Kulṯūm—or both—would have reacted with disgust to the idea of marrying a son of Muḥammad’s (albeit by adoption) who enjoyed the favor of both God and His Prophet.

It is reported in several early sources that after Muḥammad adopted Zayd, “the people called him Zayd b. Muḥammad” or “he was known as Zayd b. Muḥammad.”⁴⁷ Note, however, that both ʿUrwa and Muǧāhid identify Zayd as “the son of Ḥāriṯa,” no doubt because v. 5 of al-Aḥzāb warns that any believer who refers to a man as the son of someone who is not his natural father commits a sin (ǧunāḥ). This qurʾānic warning placed a linguistic constraint on exegetes who were familiar with reports that Zayd was known as Zayd b. Muḥammad during the approximately twenty-year period between ca 605 and 625 CE when he was Muḥammad’s adopted son. Just as the Qurʾān carefully avoids any mention of Zayd’s pedigree, so too later exegetes and traditionists were careful not to identify him as the son of Muḥammad.

2.1.2 The Doubly Favored Man

The early exegetes explain the divine and prophetic favor enjoyed by Zayd in mundane terms relating to his religious identity and socio-legal status. The following report is attributed to Qatāda b. Diʿāma:⁴⁸

ʿAbd al-Razzāq—Maʿmar—Qatāda, who said about His word—may He be exalted: “And [remember] when you said to the one upon whom God bestowed favor and upon whom you bestowed favor […]”. He said: God favored him with Islam and the Prophet favored him with manumission.⁴⁹

Let us begin with manumission. From the assertion that Muḥammad manumitted Zayd one may infer that, for an unspecified period of time, he had been Muḥammad’s slave. By manumitting Zayd, Muḥammad bestowed prophetic favor upon him—even if later sources indicate that this manumission took place before Muḥammad received his first revelation and came to be recognized as a prophet.⁵⁰ As for Islam, Zayd, like many others in the Hijaz, joined the community of believers. Indeed, one important early authority, al-Zuhrī (d. 124/742),⁵¹ is reported to have said that Zayd was the first person to become a Muslim: “We are not aware of anyone who became a Muslim before Zayd b. Ḥāriṯa”⁵²—note that he does not identify Zayd as the son of Muḥammad. As Muḥammad’s adopted son, as the first person to join the community of believers, and as the only believer apart from Muḥammad who is mentioned by name in the Qurʾān, Zayd was a person of standing within the community and his abovementioned merits were demonstrable signs of divine and prophetic favor. It is therefore curious that Qatāda (d. 117/735) does not even mention al-Zuhrī’s assertion that Zayd was the first person to join the community of believers, no doubt because the assertion posed a threat to certain candidates for leadership of the community and had to be marginalized. This marginalization is reflected in a statement made a century later by ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī: “I do not know of anyone who mentioned this [viz., Zayd’s being the first person to join the community of believers] except for al-Zuhrī.”⁵³ According Ibn Isḥāq, Zayd was the third person—after Ḫadīǧa and ʿAlī—to join the community of believers.⁵⁴ But even if Zayd was only the third person—and the first adult male—to join the community of believers, his credentials for leadership in terms of both seniority and closeness to the Prophet arguably were as strong as those of ʿAlī and stronger than those of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUṯmān.⁵⁵

According to Qatāda, the phrase “the one upon whom God bestowed favor and upon whom you bestowed favor” refers to God’s bestowal of Islam upon Zayd and to the Prophet’s manumission of Zayd. Note that this gloss reverses the chronological sequence of these two events: First, Muḥammad manumitted Zayd and then God bestowed Islam upon him.

2.1.3 Zayd Marries Zaynab

According to Muǧāhid, Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš was repelled by the idea of marrying Zayd b. Ḥāriṯa and her reaction triggered the revelation of v. 28 of al-Aḥzāb (‘the verse of choice’), which addresses a domestic crisis within the household of the Prophet. According to most later exegetes, however, Zaynab’s reaction to the marriage proposal triggered the revelation of v. 36 of the same sura, which also treats a domestic crisis within the household of the Prophet and which specifically mentions the word ‘choice’ (al-ḫīra). In the following report, Qatāda describes the very thoughts that were passing through the minds of both Muḥammad and Zaynab in connection with the marriage proposal:

ʿAbd al-Razzāq—Maʿmar—Qatāda, who said: The Prophet sent a marriage proposal to Zaynab, the daughter of his paternal aunt. It was his wish that she marry Zayd, but she thought that he wanted her for himself. When she learned that he wanted her for Zayd, she refused. As a result, God sent down, “It is not for any believing man or believing woman, when God and His Messenger have issued a command, to have any choice with respect to the matter. Whoever disobeys God and His Messenger has gone astray in manifest error.” She agreed and was blameless.⁵⁶

Like Zayd, Zaynab was a person of standing in the community of believers, the daughter of Muḥammad’s paternal aunt—a woman identified elsewhere as Umayma bt ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib.⁵⁷ Muḥammad and Zaynab were cousins who shared the same grandfather, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. Both were Hāšimīs. Qatāda specifies that it was Muḥammad’s ‘wish’ that Zaynab marry a man identified here only as Zayd. Upon receipt of the marriage proposal, Zaynab was confused: She thought that it was the Prophet—not Zayd—who wanted to marry her. When the confusion was resolved, Zaynab refused to marry Zayd, and her refusal triggered the revelation of v. 36, which refers in general and abstract terms to the obligation to obey a command issued by God and His Prophet. It was only after Zaynab learned of this revelation, the narrative suggests, that she understood that she had no choice in the matter and that as a believing woman it was her obligation to marry Zayd in conformity with a command issued, in this instance, by the Prophet, albeit presumably with divine approval.

2.1.4 The Encounter

The central narrative element of our episode is arguably a remarkable encounter between Muḥammad and Zaynab. To the best of my knowledge, the earliest extant version of this encounter in an Islamic source is that found in the Sīra of Yūnus b. Bukayr (d. 199/815), where it is attributed to ʿĀmir b. Šarāḥīl al-Šaʿbī (d. before 110/728), a Successor and legal expert. Al-Šaʿbī was closely connected to the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik, who engaged him as a tutor for his son, the future caliph al-Walīd, and sent him as his emissary to the Byzantine emperor.⁵⁸ The version of the encounter attributed to al-Šaʿbī appears to be based on eyewitness testimony—even if the eyewitnesses are nowhere identified:

Yūnus—Abū Salama l-Hamdānī the mawlā of al-Šaʿbī—al-Šaʿbī: Zayd b. Ḥāriṯa fell ill, whereupon the Messenger of God went to him in order to pay a visit. [Upon his arrival], Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš, the latter’s wife, was sitting close to Zayd [literally, next to Zayd’s head]. When Zaynab stood up to attend to a certain matter (qāmat li-baʿḍi šaʾnihā), the Messenger of God looked at her (naẓara ilayhā), lowered his head, and exclaimed, “Praised be to [the One who] has the power to transform a man’s heart [instantaneously].” [In response], Zayd said, “I will divorce her, for your sake, O Messenger of God.” He replied, “No.” God then revealed: “And [remember] when you were saying to the one upon whom God bestowed favor and upon whom you bestowed favor […]” until [the end of the verse, i.e.] “And God’s command was executed.”⁵⁹

Al-Šaʿbī knows the location and circumstance in which the encounter occurred and he reproduces the very words that were uttered on this occasion by Muḥammad and Zayd, respectively. The encounter took place during a sick visit by the Prophet to Zayd, who, as expected, is identified as “the son of Ḥāriṯa,” not as “the son of Muḥammad.”⁶⁰ The three key figures—the Messenger of God, Zayd, and Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš—were all “sitting together.” When Zaynab arises to attend to an unspecified matter, Muḥammad’s gaze falls upon the woman and he experiences an emotional transformation, as reflected in his exclamation about God’s ability to transform a man’s heart. This exclamation is interpreted by Zayd as a sign that Muḥammad wanted to marry his wife and he offers to divorce her, presumably acting of his own free will but no doubt in deference to Muḥammad’s status as the Messenger of God: “I will divorce her, for your sake, O Messenger of God.” Curiously, Muḥammad rejects Zayd’s offer to divorce his wife (“No”), for reasons that are not specified.⁶¹

This is arguably the earliest version of the encounter and, for convenience, I will refer to it as the ‘sitting together’ version.⁶²

2.1.5 Zayd Divorces Zaynab

God and His Prophet may have issued a command that Zaynab must marry Zayd (as suggested by clause 1 of v. 36), but neither God nor His Prophet appears to have exercised any control over Zaynab’s behavior and her treatment of her husband. We may infer from the Prophet’s instruction to Zayd in clause 1 of v. 37 (“Keep your wife to yourself”) that Zayd was unhappy in his marriage and wanted to divorce Zaynab. We learn about Zayd’s dissatisfaction with his wife and about the reason for the Prophet’s instruction that he not divorce her from another report attributed to Qatāda that refers to an earlier conversation between Muḥammad and Zayd:

ʿAbd al-Razzāq—Maʿmar—Qatāda, who said: Zayd came to the Prophet and said, “I cannot tolerate Zaynab’s language and I want to divorce her.” The Prophet replied, “Keep your wife to yourself and be mindful of God”—despite the fact that he wanted him [viz., Zayd] to divorce her, but feared what the people would say if he ordered him to divorce her. Therefore, God revealed: “You were hiding within your soul something that God is now clarifying, and you were afraid of the people when God has a better right to be feared by you. And when Zayd had satisfied [his] waṭar for her”—Qatāda said: [This means,] when Zayd had divorced her—“We gave her to you in marriage.”⁶³

Shortly after the encounter, Zayd asks the Prophet for permission to divorce his wife because he cannot tolerate her sharp tongue. In response to his son’s request, Muḥammad issues the following command, “Keep your wife to yourself and be mindful of God”—prophetic speech that would be memorialized in clause 1 of v. 37. In fact, the Prophet did want Zayd to divorce Zaynab, for reasons that are now clear: Muḥammad desired the woman. At the end of the report, Qatāda cites the opening words of clause 3 of v. 37: “When Zayd had satisfied [his] waṭar for her.” The noun waṭar, it will be recalled, is a dis legomenon with no cognates in any other Semitic language. Without proposing a gloss for waṭar, Qatāda explains that the opening words of clause 3 signify, “When Zayd had divorced her,” thereby filling a gap in the content of v. 37 by establishing that Zayd did in fact divorce Zaynab, albeit in apparent disregard for the prophetic instruction that he retain Zaynab as his wife.

2.1.6 Muḥammad Marries Zaynab

When Muḥammad sent a marriage proposal to Zaynab on behalf of Zayd, it will be recalled, Zaynab mistakenly thought that it was the Prophet—not Zayd—who wanted to marry her. It was only after God sent down a revelation—v. 28 according to some authorities, v. 36 according to others—that Zaynab agreed to marry Zayd, albeit reluctantly.

It was now clear that Muḥammad wanted to marry Zaynab, but was she still interested in marrying him? An answer to this question is attributed to the long-lived Companion Anas b. Mālik, who would have been at most fifteen years old at the moment in time to which his testimony about this matter refers. Zaynab may have had a sharp tongue, but, according to Anas, she was a pious and independent woman. After Zayd had divorced her and after she had observed her waiting period of three menstrual cycles, Zaynab announced that she would not make a decision about marrying Muḥammad until she had received a sign from God, whereupon she rose to her feet and walked to the spot where it was her practice to pray. At that very moment, God sent down a revelation that contained the sign for which she was waiting, although, curiously, this revelation is nowhere identified in an Islamic source. Was this the revelation that would become v. 37 and is this narrative element an example of efforts by early Muslim authorities to find an appropriate Sitz im Leben for this revelation? Be that as it may, whereas Zaynab’s marriage to Zayd had enjoyed prophetic sanction (“it was his [viz., Muḥammad’s] wish that she marry Zayd”), her marriage to the Prophet enjoyed divine sanction (“We gave her to you in marriage”). It was not long before Muḥammad consummated the marriage and hosted a party to celebrate the union.⁶⁴

2.1.7 Zaynab’s Boast

Based on inferences drawn from the phrase “We gave her to you in marriage” in clause 3 of v. 37, the early exegetes fleshed out Zaynab’s character and personality. The following statement is attributed to al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728):

ʿAbd al-Razzāq—Maʿmar—from someone who heard al-Ḥasan [al-Baṣrī] say: Zaynab used to boast to the wives of the Prophet, saying: “As for you, you were given in marriage by your fathers. As for me, I was given in marriage by the Lord of the Throne.”⁶⁵

From this report we learn that Zaynab considered herself superior to the Prophet’s other wives. It was God Himself, she boasted, who served as her marriage guardian and arranged for her to marry the Prophet.

It also is reported, on the authority of al-Šaʿbī, that Zaynab used to say to the Prophet that there were three special features of their marriage: First, they shared a grandfather, i.e. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib; second, God had been her marriage guardian; and, third, the angel Gabriel had served as God’s agent.⁶⁶ Zaynab and Muḥammad were cousins and members of the same noble lineage and they had been brought together in marriage by God with the assistance of an angel. No other wife of the Prophet could make such a claim.

2.1.8 The People’s Reaction to the Marriage

According to clause 2 of v. 37, Muḥammad’s marriage to his cousin and former daughter-in-law elicited a critical reaction from certain unidentified ‘people.’ The spokesperson for these people reportedly was the abovementioned Anas b. Mālik, to whom the following statement is attributed, without an isnād: “Verily, Muḥammad has married the wife of his son, but he prohibits us from marrying the wives of our sons.”⁶⁷ Here, Anas appears to be referring to Kor 4, 23, which prohibits inter alia a marriage between a man and his daughter-in-law (“the wives of sons who are from your own loins”). The implication of his statement is that the Prophet preached one thing but practiced another, that is to say, he was a hypocrite! Note that the formulation of this statement makes it appear as if Anas was unaware of v. 37 (“We gave her to you in marriage”) and v. 38 (“there was no sin for the Prophet”), which clearly establish that Muḥammad did not commit a sin when he married Zayd’s former wife. The statement attributed to Anas is as close as we get in an Islamic source to the implied accusation in v. 37 that Muḥammad committed a sin when he married Zaynab. In this report, it will be noted, the accusation is made by a believer who was a Companion of the Prophet.⁶⁸

2.1.9 Concealment and a Divine Rebuke

In clause 2 of v. 37, the omniscient narrator reminds the Prophet that “you were hiding in your soul (tuḫfī fī nafsika)” knowledge of something that God had recently, was now, or was about to clarify (mā Llāhu mubdīhi). Apparently, the Prophet feared what ‘the people’ would say about his marriage to a woman who until recently had been his daughter-in-law. This fear was allayed by the new revelation, which, conveniently, vindicated Muḥammad and legitimized his marriage to Zaynab. Remarkably, the omniscient narrator rebukes the Prophet for initially withholding this divine clarification from his fellow believers: “You were afraid of the people when God has a better right to be feared by you.”

The reference to concealment in clause 2 attracted the attention of the Sabaʾites, a proto-Shiʿi sect whose members claimed that the Prophet himself concealed (katama) significant portions of the Qurʾān.⁶⁹ In his Kitāb al-Irǧāʾ, Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya (d. ca 100/719) refers to the Sabaʾite charge of concealment and provides a response to it:

One of the [arguments brought up in] dispute by these Sabaʾites whom we have encountered is their claim to have been guided to a revelation from which others went astray, and to secret knowledge. They allege that the Prophet of God concealed nine-tenths of the Koran. But if the Prophet of God were to have concealed (kātim^an) anything of that which God revealed to him, he would have concealed (katama) the matter of the wife of Zayd (imraʾat Zayd).⁷⁰

In response to the Sabaʾite charge, Ḥasan b. Muḥammad asserts that if there was any revelation that the Prophet would have concealed it would have been the revelation about his marriage to Zayd’s former wife. Al-Ḥasan’s assertion anticipates what modern scholars call the criterion of embarrassment, i.e. the argument that an account likely to be embarrassing to its author is presumed to be true because the author has no reason to invent it. Following al-Ḥasan, one might argue that the very inclusion of this embarrassing episode in the Qurʾān proves that v. 37 refers to an historical event, to wit: Muḥammad’s marriage to Zayd’s former wife.⁷¹ Be that as it may, statements similar to the one found in the Kitāb al-Irǧāʾ are recorded in several ḥadīṯ reports in which they are attributed to either ʿĀʾiša (d. 58/678)⁷² or al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728).⁷³

2.1.10 “Those Who Passed Away Previously … Those Who Convey God’s Messages”

Verses 38-39 refer to earlier generations of people who conveyed God’s messages and feared no one but God. Unlike those unidentified earlier messengers, Muḥammad placed his fear of ‘the people’ over his fear of God, as indicated in clause 2 of v. 37. Did Muḥammad’s fear of the people disqualify him as a member of the group of earlier messengers who feared no one but God? Curiously, the early traditionists and Qurʾān exegetes are silent about this question as well as about the connection between v. 38-39 and our episode. We will return to this element of the episode in Part 3.

2.1.11 Muḥammad’s Sonlessness and His Status as the Seal of Prophets

Over the course of the first 150 years of Islamic history, Muslim scholars interpreted the seal metaphor as signifying either (1) that Muḥammad authenticated and confirmed revelations sent to previous messengers and prophets,⁷⁴ or (2) that God authenticated and confirmed His communications with earlier messengers and prophets by sending a new prophet whose umma or community would be the last community, that is to say, the community whose appearance would signal the onset of the eschaton.

The contention that Muḥammad was the last prophet was contested within the early community of believers. According to the Qurʾān, Jesus was a prophet and many believed that his return to earth would signal the beginning of the eschaton. How then could Muḥammad be the last prophet? The tension between the idea of finality and these apocalyptic expectations is reflected in a statement attributed to ʿĀʾiša that is recorded in a chapter of the Muṣannaf of Ibn Abī Šayba (d. 235/849) entitled “those who express repugnance at the statement, ‘there is no prophet after the Prophet.’” The statement attributed to ʿĀʾiša reads as follows: “Say (m. pl.): ‘The Messenger of God is indeed the Seal of Prophets,’ but do not say (m. pl.), ‘there is no prophet after him’” (qūlū la-rasūl Allāh ḫātam al-nabiyyīn wa-lā taqūlū lā nabiyya baʿdahu).⁷⁵

There were other objections to the contention that prophecy ended with Muḥammad. It is reported on the authority of Anas b. Mālik that certain unidentified people were troubled when they heard Muḥammad say, “Messengership and prophecy have ceased and there is neither a messenger nor a prophet after me.” Their anxiety was not allayed until the Prophet added, “But pious visions (mubašširāt) [will continue].”⁷⁶ Others argued that prophecy is continuous, as reflected in a verse attributed to the ǧāhilī poet Umayya b. Abī l-Ṣalt, who defined a prophet as a person “by means of whom God sealed the prophets before him and after him (bihi ḫatama Llāhu man qablahu // wa-man baʿdahu min nabiyyⁱⁿ ḫatam).”⁷⁷ Here, the sealing of prophecy is a dynamic, continuous, and ongoing process.

The idea of finality also played a role in political and sectarian divisions within the early community of believers. Certain Shiʿis regarded ʿAlī as having succeeded Muḥammad as a prophet, as suggested in a statement attributed to Muḥammad that came to be known as ḥadīṯ al-manzila. There are two versions of this statement. In the short version, Muḥammad says to ʿAlī, “You occupy with respect to me the same rank as Aaron occupies with respect to Moses.”⁷⁸ Now, in the Qurʾān, Aaron is identified as a prophet and his name is included in lists of prophets (Kor 4, 163; 6, 84). The implication of Muḥammad’s statement is that ʿAlī, too, was a prophet. This ḥadīṯ posed a clear threat to the legitimacy of the Umayyads and it may come as no surprise that this threat was neutralized in a longer version of this ḥadīṯ that establishes ʿAlī’s credentials for leadership while at the same time respecting the growing contention that Muḥammad was the Last Prophet. This compromise position was secured by adding the phrase “except that there is no prophet after me” at the end of the short version.⁷⁹

2.2.1 John of Damascus (d. before 128-129/745)

Yuḥannā b. Manṣūr b. Sarǧūn, better known as John of Damascus, was born ca 34-35/655 and died before 128-129/745. John’s grandfather, Sarǧūn, and his father, Manṣūr, both occupied the post of financial administrator (logothete) in the Umayyad court in Damascus, and John spent his childhood and adolescence in close proximity to court circles. His native tongue was Syriac, he was fluent in Greek, and he probably spoke Arabic. As a member of the Greek-speaking Chalcedonian Christian community, he received a fine classical education that included the study of philosophy, rhetoric, physics, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy and theology. Between 81/700 and 86/705, John served as financial administrator for ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 65/685-86/705). His friends included the poet al-Aḫtal (d. before 92/710) and the caliph’s son Yazīd (r. 101/720-105/724); and he was a contemporary of Muslim exegetes and traditionists such as Muǧāhid, al-Šaʿbī, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, and Qatāda. In 86/705, the year in which ʿAbd al-Malik died, John left Damascus and took up residence in Jerusalem, where he served as priest in the Church of the Anastasis for the next thirty years. Ca 735, John’s views on icons triggered the wrath of both Christian and Muslim authorities and he left Jerusalem and took up residence in a monastery or hermitage in the Judean desert where he devoted the last years of his life to revising his earlier writings.⁸¹

The most important and best known of John’s works is the Fountain of Wisdom, which has three parts: “Philosophical Chapters,” “On Heresies,” and “An Exact Disposition of the Orthodox Faith.” A reference to iconoclasm in “On Heresies” suggests that the text was composed after 726 CE and it was likely written ca 735, during the reign of Hišām b. ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 105/724-125/743). In this section, John discusses 100 heresies against which Christians should be on guard, the last of which is Islam.⁸² John wrote for a Christian audience for whom he reviewed the details of Christian theology. In the chapter on Islam, he presents his views on the new religion in a logical and systematic manner—albeit not always sympathetically—demonstrating knowledge of key doctrines and ideas.⁸³ While discussing marriage and divorce in the Qurʾān, John refers to Muḥammad’s marriage to Zaynab, as follows:

He [viz., Muḥammad] made this law because of the following case: Muḥammad had a comrade named Zaid. This man had a beautiful wife with whom Muḥammad fell in love. While they were once sitting together, Muḥammad said to him, “O you, God commanded me to take your wife.” To which he replied, “You are an apostle; do as God has told you; take my wife.” Or rather, so that we may tell the story from the beginning, he said to him: “God commanded me [to tell you] that you should divorce your wife.” So he divorced her. After several days he said, “God has commanded me that I should take her.” Then after having taken her and committing adultery with her he made this law: “Whosoever wishes may divorce his wife. But if, after the divorce, he wants to take her back, let someone else marry her [first]. For it is not permitted for him to take her [back] unless she [first] marries someone else. And even if a brother divorces, let his brother marry her if he so wishes…”⁸⁴

John presents two versions of the episode, both of which involve Muḥammad, a man identified only as Zayd, and the latter’s unnamed wife. It will be noted that in neither version does John identify Zayd as Muḥammad’s adopted son or Zayd’s wife as the Prophet’s paternal cousin. Both versions tell the same story, albeit with differing levels of detail. In version 1, John reports that Muḥammad had a “comrade” named Zayd whose wife was beautiful. Without providing any details, John states that Muḥammad fell in love with the woman. Subsequently, when Muḥammad and Zayd were “sitting together” at an undisclosed location, Muḥammad informed his comrade that God had commanded him to “take” his wife, i.e. to marry her. Zayd responded by acknowledging Muḥammad’s status as an apostle and declaring his willingness to relinquish his beautiful wife. “Take my wife,” he offered, thereby demonstrating his loyalty to Muḥammad and his obedience to God.

In version 1, John does not specify that Zayd divorced his wife—or that Muḥammad married her. To correct these omissions, he presents a second, longer version of the story—version 2—in which he reports that Zayd did in fact divorce his wife after Muḥammad informed him that God had commanded him to tell his comrade that he should do so. Similarly, he reports that Muḥammad married Zayd’s former wife several days later after receiving a second divine command, this one instructing him to marry the divorcée. By marrying a divorcée, John declares, Muḥammad committed adultery, albeit without explaining why. Presumably, he had in mind Matt 5, 32: “But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (cf. Matt 19, 9). Be that as it may, John explains, Muḥammad responded to the charge of adultery by introducing a new law regulating remarriage after divorce. This new law—except for the last sentence about a brother—is recognizable as a paraphrase of Kor 2, 230, which introduces the practice known as taḥlīl:

If he divorces her, she is not lawful to him after that until she marries another husband. If he divorces her, it is no sin (ǧunāḥ) for the couple to come together again, if they think they can maintain God’s limits. He makes them [viz., His limits] clear for a people who understand.

Taḥlīl is a legal procedure that facilitates the remarriage of a couple after a husband has divorced his wife by uttering a triple repudiation (ṭalāq) on three separate occasions. According to Kor 2, 230, a man who divorces his wife cannot remarry her until she has first married another man, who, after consummating the marriage, pronounces the obligatory triple repudiation. Following the second divorce, the original husband is free to remarry the woman.⁸⁵ In Arabic, the intermediary husband is called the muḥallil, i.e. ‘a person who makes a woman licit to her first husband.’ Note, however, that there is a gap between the facts of the case, as related by John, and the new law introduced by Muḥammad: in neither version 1 nor version 2 of John’s account do we find any reference to a muḥallil. This gap is filled in another version of the episode preserved in Arethas’ “Letter to the Bishop of Damascus” in which Muḥammad informs his “friend” that his wife has committed adultery. Although his friend wants to kill the woman, Muḥammad instructs him to divorce her so that another man might marry her and restore her purity. After his friend divorces his wife, Muḥammad “defiled her and satisfied his desires” and then instructed his friend to remarry the woman. Here, Muḥammad himself serves as the muḥallil.⁸⁶

John’s account of the episode in On Heresies bears a striking resemblance to the above-mentioned report attributed to al-Šaʿbī (the ‘sitting together’ version), albeit with differences. Let us attend, first, to similarities: (1) In both narratives, the three key figures are the Prophet, Zayd, and Zayd’s wife. (2) In both texts, the protagonists were “sitting together.” (3) John states that Muḥammad “fell in love” with Zayd’s wife, albeit without providing any details about how this occurred; al-Šaʿbī explains that Muḥammad “looked at” Zaynab as she “stood up” to attend to an unidentified matter and then praised God for his ability to transform a man’s heart in an instant. (4) According to John, Muḥammad informed Zayd that God commanded him to take his wife (version 1); alternatively, God commanded Zayd to divorce his wife and commanded Muḥammad to marry the divorcée (version 2). According to al-Šaʿbī, Zayd offered to divorce his wife for the sake of the Messenger of God, but Muḥammad instructed him not to do so. (5) According to John, Muḥammad “took” Zayd’s wife, thereby committing the sin of adultery, presumably by marrying a divorcée; according to al-Šaʿbī, Muḥammad would have committed a sin had God not intervened by sending down a revelation that legitimized the marriage.

Note also the differences between the two narratives: (1) Whereas John does not refer to the circumstances of the gathering, al-Šaʿbī specifies that Muḥammad was paying a sick visit to Zayd. (2) Whereas John identifies Zayd as the Prophet’s “comrade,” al-Šaʿbī identifies him as “the son of Ḥāriṯa,” without any further specification. (3) John does not refer to Zayd’s wife by name but mentions that she was beautiful; al-Šaʿbī identifies Zayd’s wife as Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš without mentioning that she was beautiful. (4) According to John, the episode triggered the revelation of what would become v. 230 of sūrat al-Baqara; according to al-Šaʿbī, the episode triggered the revelation of what would become v. 37 of sūrat al-Aḥzāb.

Clearly, we are dealing with two versions of the same story, one Christian, the other Islamic. The Christian version served the interest of polemics against Islam and its Prophet. The argument may be formulated as a syllogism: A true prophet does not commit a sin; Muḥammad committed a sin; therefore, Muḥammad was not a true prophet. The Islamic version defends the Prophet against the accusation that he committed a sin by marrying Zaynab.

2.2.2 Correspondence between Leo III and ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz

The Christian accusation that Muḥammad committed a sin when he married Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš can be traced back to the turn of the 2nd/8th century. According to Christian sources, the Byzantine emperor Leo III (r. 717-741 CE) engaged in a correspondence with the Umayyad caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 99/717-101/720). During the course of this correspondence, both men refer to Muḥammad’s marriage to Zayd’s former wife and both make a connection between Muḥammad’s behavior, as portrayed in v. 37 of sūrat al-Aḥzāb, and the behavior of King David, as portrayed in II Sam 11-12.

The earliest surviving reference to a letter from ʿUmar to Leo is a short comment in the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor (d. 818 CE), composed ca 813 CE: “[ʿUmar] composed a letter concerning religion addressed to the emperor Leo in the belief that he would persuade him to convert.”⁸⁷ The material in Theophanes’ chronicle was itself copied from the chronicle—no longer extant—of Theophilus of Edessa (d. ca 785 CE).⁸⁸ Thus, the tradition about ʿUmar’s letter to Leo must have been circulating in Christian circles before 785 CE.⁸⁹ Even if the extant sources do not preserve an actual correspondence between the emperor and the caliph, the current scholarly consensus holds that these sources do preserve the work of two people writing about Islam in the early 2nd/8th century.⁹⁰

In one letter in this exchange, Leo accuses Muḥammad of sinning by marrying a divorcée—no doubt Zayd’s former wife. In response to this accusation, ʿUmar defends the Prophet by invoking the figure of the biblical King David: “You rebuke us because our Prophet married a woman whom her husband had repudiated… It is indeed what David did in the case of Uriah and his wife.” To this, the emperor responds: “As for the example of David, who took Uriah’s wife, as you remind me, it is well known that therein he committed a sin before the Eternal, for which he was grievously punished.”⁹¹ If David sinned, it follows that Muḥammad sinned as well. Leo now provides the following account of our episode:

Nor can I forget the unchasteness of your Prophet and the manner full of artifice whereby he succeeded in seducing the woman Zeda [sic]. Of all these abominations, the worst is that of accusing God as being the originator of all these filthy acts, which fact has doubtless been the cause of the introduction among your compatriots of this disgusting law. Is there indeed a worse blasphemy than that of alleging that God is the cause of all this evil?⁹²

Leo’s identification of the Prophet’s wife as “the woman Zeda”—not a common Arabic name—is no doubt a scribal error. Arabic sources commonly refer to Zaynab as imraʾat Zayd.⁹³ In Arabic, imraʾa signifies ‘wife’ or ‘woman.’ A Christian translator may have rendered imraʾat Zayd (‘the wife of Zayd’) into Greek as gynaika Zeda, i.e. ‘the woman Zeda.’ If so, then the original narrative would have referred to three persons: (1) the Prophet, (2) Zayd, and (3) the latter’s unnamed wife. Be that as it may, Leo condemns the “artifice” used by the Prophet to “seduce” this woman; regards the episode as a sign of Muḥammad’s “unchasteness”; expresses revulsion at the assertion that God Himself was responsible for these events; and characterizes the new rule introduced “among” ʿUmar’s co-religionists as a “disgusting law.” Clearly, Leo suggests, God does not intervene in history in order to satisfy the sexual desires of one of His prophets.

To the best of my knowledge, the correspondence between Leo III and ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz contains the first reference in any source—Islamic or non-Islamic—to a connection between the biblical account of David’s marriage to the former wife of Uriah the Hittite and the qurʾānic account of Muḥammad’s marriage to the former wife of a man named Zayd. In this exchange, it will be noted, the caliph appears to accept the Christian version of the accusation: “You rebuke us because our Prophet married a woman whom her husband had repudiated.” Here, the sin against which the caliph defends the Prophet is adultery—not incest.

3.2.1 Verse 36

Verse 36 refers to the obligation of believing men and women to obey God and His Prophet and teaches that human free will is subordinate to divine and prophetic authority. The Qurʾān presents this lesson in abstract terms that have no obvious connection to a specific person, place or event.

According to ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr, the woman whom the Prophet instructed to marry Zayd b. Ḥāriṯa was Umm Kulṯūm bt ʿUqba, whose response— repugnance—triggered the revelation of v. 36 of al-Aḥzāb. According to Muǧāhid, the woman whom the Prophet instructed to marry Zayd b. Ḥāriṯa was Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš, whose response—repugnance—triggered the revelation of v. 28-29 of that sura. The double discrepancy—the identity of the woman who was repelled by the idea of marrying Zayd and the verse that was sent down on that occasion—was settled by Muqātil: Ad v. 28-29, he explains that following the revelation of these two verses, ʿĀʾiša persuaded the Prophet’s other wives to choose God and His Messenger, that is to say, the Hereafter.¹⁰² Ad v. 36, he identifies the ‘believing woman’ in clause 1 as Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš and the ‘believing man’ in that clause as her brother, ʿAbd Allāh b. Ǧaḥš, specifying no less than six generations of the man’s ancestors and adding that he was a member of the tribe of Asad. Muqātil also provides a lexical gloss on the Form IV active participle mubīn in clause 2, explaining that this word is a synonym of bayyin (‘clear’).

3.2.2 Verse 37

With regard to clause 1, Muqātil specifies that the second-person masculine singular prefix ta- (‘you’) in the imperfect verb taqūlu refers to Muḥammad; and, like Qatāda a generation earlier, he explains that the divine and prophetic favors bestowed upon Zayd relate to his religious identity and socio-legal status: Islam and manumission, respectively (in fact, manumission followed by Islam; see above).

In his commentary on clause 2, the exegete glosses nafs (‘soul’) as qalb (‘heart’), explains that the secret Muḥammad was hiding in his heart was his desire that the doubly favored man would in fact divorce his wife and he glosses mubdīhi as muẓhiruhu ʿalayka (‘making it clear for you’). He also specifies that it was not the people themselves whom the Prophet feared but rather the malicious gossip that they were spreading in connection with the current episode.

In his commentary on clause 3, Muqātil glosses waṭar as ‘need,’ specifying that in this instance the ‘need’ in question was ǧimāʿ or sexual intercourse, thereby confirming our abovementioned assumption about the meaning of waṭar in this verse (see above, p. 342-343). He explains that the second-person singular object pronoun -ka (“you”) in zawwaǧnāka (“We gave her to you in marriage”) refers to the Prophet. He also explains that in the phrase “no sin for the believers concerning the wives,” the word ‘wives’ does not refer to the women themselves but rather to the act of marrying them. In addition, he paraphrases the new rule introduced in clause 3, drawing attention to the distinction between the wife of a biological son and the wife of an adopted son.

Finally, Muqātil explains that the word mafʿūl in the coda should not be taken in its literal sense of ‘executed’ but rather in a theological sense: if God decrees at point 1 in time that an event will take place at point 2 in time, the future event is as real as any event that has already occurred. In the present case, a divine command regarding Muḥammad’s marriage to Zaynab had been eternally existent (kāʾin^an) and this event unfolded in history exactly as God had (pre)determined that it would.

3.2.3 Verse 38

In his exegesis on clause 1, Muqātil glosses the verb faraḍa in the phrase fī-mā faraḍa Llāh lahu (“that which God ordained for him”) as aḥalla (“that which God made lawful for him”). With regard to clause 2, he explains that the behavior that God made lawful for Muḥammad—viz., his marriage to the former wife of his adopted son—is an example of sunnat Allāh or God’s practice. As for the phrase “those who passed away previously,” Muqātil specifies that Muḥammad was the person before whom these people passed away, without identifying the members of this group. Without saying so, the commentator suggests that Muḥammad was in fact a member of this group.

3.2.4 Verse 39

Muqātil explains that the plural relative pronoun “those” in clause 1 (“those who convey God’s messages”) and the plural noun “they” in clause 2 (“and they fear Him”) both refer specifically to Muḥammad. To this he adds that the phrase “and who fear no one else apart from God” refers to fear relating to a communication from God, that is to say, neither the earlier messengers nor Muḥammad had any fear with regard to a communication sent to them by God. As for the coda (“And God is sufficient as a witness”), the commentator observes that there is no better witness than God.

By specifying that the relative pronoun “those” and the subject pronoun “they” both refer to Muḥammad, Muqātil succeeded, through paraphrastic exegesis, in establishing that the Prophet did in fact belong to the group of earlier messengers who feared only God. Of equal importance, the commentator established that the Prophet did not put his fear of the people over his fear of God—as v. 37 suggests. In fact, what he feared was that God would conceal or withhold from other believers the clarification that He had communicated to the Prophet regarding the legal justification of his marriage to Zaynab.

3.2.5 Verse 40

Muqātil glosses ḫātam al-nabiyyīn as ‘the last prophet’ and links the finality of prophecy to Muḥammad’s sonlessness. This connection centers upon Zayd, who was the sabab or cause of this revelation.

Clause 1 opens with the pronouncement that “Muḥammad was not (mā kāna) the father of any of your men,” that is to say, Muḥammad had no adult sons and, conversely, no adult male in the community of believers could claim that Muḥammad was his father. According to Islamic tradition, this revelation was sent down in 5/626-627, six years before Muḥammad died. The timing is curious. In 5/626-627 only an all-knowing God could announce with certainty that the Prophet—who reportedly had as many as thirteen wives and concubines—would die sonless six years later. As for “your men,” on the surface, this phrase refers to all believers in the community. In fact, Muqātil explains, “your men” here refers specifically to Zayd b. Ḥāriṯa. He then reformulates clause 1 as follows: “Muḥammad is not (laysa) Zayd’s father.” In this gloss, past tense (mā kāna) becomes present tense (laysa) and a statement made about Muḥammad in retrospect becomes a statement about him in the revelatory present. The circumstance in which Zayd ceased to be Muḥammad’s son is specified by Muqātil in his haggadic exegesis (see below).

As for clause 2 (“but the Messenger of God and the Seal of Prophets”), Muqātil explains that the phrase “the Seal of Prophets” signifies “the Last Prophet” (āḫir al-nabiyyīn), to which he adds, “there is no prophet after him” (lā nabiyya baʿdahu). Here, the commentator articulates the idea of the finality of Muḥammad’s prophecy in clear and unequivocal language. To the best of my knowledge, Muqātil is the first Muslim authority who interpreted the seal metaphor as signifying the finality of prophecy. In order to achieve this result, he drew creatively on two linguistic elements that we have encountered previously. Recall that in the codex attributed to Ubayy, Kor 61, 6 contains the iḍāfa-construct āḫir al-umam or the last community. Muqātil appears to have taken the noun āḫir in this construct and used it as a substitute for ḫātam in ḫātam al-nabiyyīn. The result was āḫir al-nabiyyīn, which can only signify ‘the last prophet.’ Recall also the phrase lā nabiyya baʿdahu (“no prophet after him”), which occurs in ḥadīṯ al-manzila, and also in a statement attributed to ʿĀʾiša (“Do not say ‘there is no prophet after him’”). By placing the phrase “no prophet after him” in apposition to āḫir al-nabiyyīn, Muqātil indicates that Muḥammad was the last prophet, i.e. the prophet who brought the office of prophecy to a close. By means of these two linguistic moves, Muqātil transferred the quality of finality from the community (āḫir al-umam) to its Prophet (āḫir al-nabiyyīn).

4.3.1 Heraclius and Martina

When the Empress Fabia Eudokia died in 612 CE, Heraclius announced his plan to marry a young woman named Martina who was his niece, the daughter of his sister.¹⁴¹ Because the proposed marriage fell within the prohibited degrees of kinship,¹⁴² Sergius I, the Patriarch of Constantinople, “put earnest pressure on him [viz., Heraclius] by letter and admonished him to repudiate his connection with the woman.”¹⁴³ But the Patriarch, who was close to the emperor, relented and he himself performed the marriage ceremony and placed the royal crown on the bride’s head. The marriage was criticized by the “populace” and denounced as “an unlawful deed […] that is forbidden by Roman custom.”¹⁴⁴ When the royal couple appeared in the Hippodrome, they were insulted by the emperor’s favorite faction, the Greens.

The sin committed by Heraclius attracted comparisons to the sin committed by David. In Psalm 51, 4, the psalmist attributes the following statement to the king with reference to his marriage to Bathsheba: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.” In a clear allusion to this verse, Heraclius’ brother, Theodore, made the following statement about the emperor following the fall of Antioch to the Arabs in 16/637: “His sin is continually before him.”¹⁴⁵ Subsequently, criticism of Heraclius spread to Egypt, where, posthumously, the emperor was mocked by the populace. Elsewhere, both churchmen and laymen alike pointed to his incestuous marriage to Martina as a sign of divine wrath and as a cause of Byzantine defeat by Arab armies.¹⁴⁶

The death of Heraclius in 641 triggered a succession crisis. In his last will and testament, Heraclius specified that two of his sons, the half-brothers Constantine III (whose mother was Fabia Eudokia) and Heraklonas (whose mother was Martina) were to succeed him as co-emperors and he ordered them to honor Martina as “mother and empress.” Martina, however, did not want to share power with her stepson and she demanded to serve as sole ruler. She summoned the archpriest and dignitaries of the court to an assembly where she claimed that she should have first place in the empire. In response to her demand, some objected: “You have the honor due to the mother of the emperors but they [viz., Heraclius’s two sons] that of our emperors and lords.”¹⁴⁷ Heraclius was succeeded by Constantine III, who reigned for only four months, from February to May 641. Constantine III was succeeded by Heraklonus, who reigned for only five months, from April/May to September/October 641. Heraklonas was succeeded by the eleven-year-old son of Constantine III, Constans II, who reigned from 641 to 668, a twenty-seven-year period during which he pursued—albeit without success—his grandfather’s goal of universal dominion: one God, one Empire, one Church.

Heraclius’s marriage to Martina in 612 CE took place thirteen years before Muḥammad’s marriage to Zaynab in 5/625. The parallels are striking: Both marriages were incestuous; both men were accused of committing a sin; both leaders were sharply criticized by members of their communities, either ‘the populace’ or ‘the people’; and both marriages eventually received religious sanction. It stands to reason that if church leaders and laymen were prepared to criticize Heraclius for his marriage to Martina, they also would have been prepared to accuse Muḥammad of sexual impropriety. What better way to sully Muḥammad’s reputation and to refute the claim that he was a true prophet than to accuse him of coveting the wife of one of his comrades and engaging in illicit sexual relations with her?

Between 50/670 and 75/694, Christians in the Fertile Crescent no doubt became familiar with parts of the new Islamic scripture, including sūrat al-Aḥzāb,¹⁴⁸ and it should come as no surprise that they were attracted to—and repelled by—its pronouncements on marriage and divorce. The practice of taḥlīl, which requires an intermediary to consummate a marriage with a divorcée and to divorce her before she may remarry her original husband, served as grist for the mill. Christian polemicists seized upon v. 230 of al-Baqara and devised a story—what later Muslim scholars would call a sabab—to explain its revelation: Muḥammad had a comrade or friend named Zayd—a stock name—who had a beautiful wife. When Muḥammad fell in love with this woman, he formulated a new procedure—taḥlīl—that made it possible for him to satisfy his sexual desire for her without committing a sin. The function of the story was to persuade Christians that Muḥammad was not a true prophet. As noted, this story likely was put into circulation one or more generations before the reported exchange of letters between Leo III and ʿUmar II. Initially, the story circulated among Christians, but it was not long before it came to the attention of Muslims.¹⁴⁹

The Christian accusation that Muḥammad committed a sin by marrying and then divorcing the former wife of one of his comrades, I propose, demanded a response from Muslim authorities at the highest level, presumably an Umayyad caliph. Acting on behalf of this caliph, one or more of his agents formulated such a response in the form of ‘revelations’ in which an omniscient narrator justifies the Prophet’s actions by explaining that they were subject to divine control: It was God who instructed Muḥammad to marry his daughter-in-law after her husband had satisfied his ‘need’ for her; it was God who introduced the new rule that legitimized the marriage; it was God who acted as sole witness to the marriage; and it was God who declared that Muḥammad was sinless in this matter, just as previous messengers had been sinless in other matters. The sinlessness of both Muḥammad and of earlier messengers was guaranteed by the force that the Qurʾān calls sunnat Allāh.

These new ‘revelations’ were placed at the center of al-Aḥzāb (“The Confederates”), which describes a battle that took place in 5/626-627 and contains a dozen or so verses referring to the wives of the Prophet and to domestic relations within his household.

4.3.2 Imperial Ideology: the Last Empire Becomes the Last Umma

The response to the Christian accusation that Muḥammad committed a sin, as formulated in v. 36-39 of al-Aḥzāb, provided an opportunity for those same high-ranking Muslim authorities to articulate the community of believers’ current understanding of the umma’s role in sacred history and of Muḥammad’s status as a prophet. This understanding was shaped by the community’s interaction with late antique ideas relating to Byzantine imperial ideology.¹⁵⁰

The idea that the Roman Empire was a divinely elected polity that was destined to be the last world empire prior to the eschaton emerged over the course of the 4th century CE. In the first quarter of the 4th century CE, the North African rhetor Lactantius (d. ca 325 CE) predicted in his Divine Institutes that Constantine would “vanquish his imperial colleagues, usher in a new imperium under divine law, and rule as the embodiment of Christ,” thereby inaugurating a golden age that would last for a thousand years.¹⁵¹ The advent of a Last Emperor who would defeat the enemies of Christianity prior to the Second Coming of Christ is mentioned in the third and last section of the Tiburtine Sibyl, which likely was written at the end of the 4th century CE.¹⁵² Similarly, in a version of the Syriac-Christian Alexander Legend composed by a supporter of Heraclius in northern Mesopotamia before 629-630 CE, Alexander’s chief adversary, Tubarlaq, predicts that the Roman Empire would triumph over all the kingdoms on earth and would continue to flourish until the eschaton, when Alexander’s house would surrender its power to Christ at the moment of the Second Coming.¹⁵³ Approximately sixty years later, ca 690, the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, also composed in northern Mesopotamia, presents what is arguably the best-known version of the Last Emperor Legend.¹⁵⁴ Seeking to rally the spirits of his fellow Christians in the aftermath of the Arab conquests, the author predicts that a king of the Greeks would reverse Ishmaelite—i.e. Arab—domination over Christians by liberating Christian lands, pushing the Ishmaelites back to Arabia, and destroying them. This king would then travel to Jerusalem where he would:

go up and stand on Golgotha and the Holy Cross shall be placed on that spot where it had been fixed when it bore Christ. The king of the Greeks shall place his crown on the top of the Holy Cross, stretch out his two hands towards heaven, and hand over the kingdom to God the Father. And the Holy Cross upon which Christ was crucified will be raised up to heaven, together with the royal crown. For the Holy Cross […] is a sign which will be seen prior to the Advent of our Lord.¹⁵⁵

Taking a well-known event that occurred half a century earlier—the restoration of the True Cross to Jerusalem by Heraclius in 630 CE—Pseudo-Methodius predicts the imminent defeat of the Arabs by a Byzantine emperor who would unite all Christians in one final imperium that would be the last earthly kingdom prior to the Second Coming of Christ and the eschaton. According to some scholars, the emperor who Pseudo-Methodius had in mind was Constans II (r. 641-668 CE), son of Heraclius and Martina.¹⁵⁶

For nearly three centuries prior to the rise of Islam, Christian theologians in Rome and Byzantium had been circulating a narrative about imperial ideology that predicted the imminent appearance of a Last Emperor who would establish a new imperium subject to divine rule; paradoxically, this new imperium would be the last earthly kingdom prior to the Second Coming of Christ and the End Time. As it happened, it was not a Roman or Byzantine emperor who fulfilled this prediction but rather a new Arab prophet whose followers conquered the Fertile Crescent and created a new imperium subject to divine rule in anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ and the eschaton.¹⁵⁷

This Byzantine imperial narrative made its way into Islamic circles, where it was modified to reflect the dramatic new circumstances associated with the emergence of Islam. We find an early Islamic restatement of the Last Emperor Legend in the variant of Kor 61, 6 attributed to Ubayy b. Kaʿb, in which Jesus proclaims, “I am God’s messenger to you, bringing you an announcement of a prophet whose community will be the last community (āḫir al-umam) and by means of whom God seals (yaḫtumu) the messengers and the prophets.”¹⁵⁸ Here, the concept of finality is explicitly articulated but is associated with the community of an unidentified prophet; and the seal metaphor refers to an action performed by God with respect to or upon earlier unnamed messengers and prophets. Ubayy’s version of Kor 61, 6 is eschatological and it modifies the Last Emperor Legend in two key respects: The figure who will inaugurate the eschaton is not a king of the Greeks but an unnamed prophet; and the last empire becomes the last umma. In Ubayy’s version of Kor 61, 6, it will be noted, there is no mention of either Muḥammad or his sonlessness. For convenience, I refer to the Islamic version of the Last Emperor Legend as the Last Umma Legend.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Ubayy’s version of Kor 61, 6 preceded the version that appears in the vulgate. Following the death of Muḥammad in 11/632, the community of believers’ understanding of its role in history and of the status of its Prophet changed dramatically. The world may not have come to an end, but the community of believers did come to regard itself as the fulfilment of both Judaism and Christianity and the Umayyad caliphate did come to regard itself as the successor to the Byzantine Empire. In response to these new historical conditions, I suggest, an Umayyad caliph authorized at least two changes to the consonantal skeleton of the Qurʾān. The first change related to Kor 61, 6 as preserved in Ubayy’s codex. The wording of this verse was modified (a) to remove the association with Byzantine imperial ideology; (b) to introduce the idea of taṣdīq or confirmation; and (c) to announce the appearance of a new messenger who, curiously, is identified as Aḥmad—either a proper name or an elative that signifies “most praised.” In the vulgate, Jesus says: “O Children of Israel, I am God’s messenger to you, confirming (muṣaddiq^an) the Torah that was before me, and giving you good tidings of a messenger who will come after me, whose name will be Aḥmad.” Here Jesus confirms the contents of the Torah and predicts the appearance of a messenger named Aḥmad.¹⁵⁹ Note that the anticipated but unnamed prophet in Ubayy’s version becomes a messenger named Aḥmad in the vulgate.

The second change was to formulate a ‘revelation’ that embodied the community’s current understanding of the status of its prophet. This ‘revelation’, which became v. 40 of sūrat al-Aḥzāb, incorporated elements found in both Ubayy’s version of Kor 61, 6 and in the standard version of the same verse, with modifications. First, whereas Ubayy’s version does not mention the name of the prophet announced by Jesus, and the standard version identifies him as Aḥmad, v. 40 identifies him as Muḥammad. Second, whereas there is no reference to sonlessness in either Ubayy’s version of Kor 61, 6 or in the vulgate version of that verse, v. 40 opens with the announcement, formulated in the past tense (mā kāna), that “Muḥammad was not the father of any of your men.” Apart from God, only someone living after the Prophet had already died could make such a statement with absolute certainty. The use of the past tense in v. 40 is arguably a trace left by the Umayyad authority who formulated the new revelation—as is the use of the past tense in v. 38: “There was no sin for the Prophet” (mā kāna ʿalā l-nabī min ḥaraǧ). Third, whereas in Ubayy’s version of Kor 61, 6 the seal metaphor refers to an action performed by God (yaḫtumu Llāh bihi l-rusul wa-l-anbiyāʾ), in v. 40 the seal metaphor is a quality or attribute of the new Arabian prophet, who is ḫātam al-nabiyyīn or the Seal of Prophets. Finally, whereas Ubayy’s version of Kor 61, 6 refers to a prophet, and the vulgate refers to a messenger, v. 40 identifies this person as both a messenger of God and a prophet, indeed, as the Seal of Prophets.

The reformulation of Kor 61, 6 and the formulation of the new ‘revelation’ that would become v. 40 of al-Aḥzāb—had the effect of marginalizing the Last Umma Legend and replacing it with a theological statement that represented the community of believers’ current understanding of its role in history and the status of its prophet. In v. 40, there is no reference to the End Time or to finality, the seal metaphor refers to Muḥammad and not to the umma, Muḥammad’s status as the Seal of Prophets is juxtaposed to his sonlessness, and he is both a messenger of God and the Seal of Prophets.¹⁶⁰

At the beginning of this essay I suggested that historians interested in the Seal of Prophets doctrine should pay less attention to the specific event that allegedly triggered its emergence—to wit, a domestic scandal within the Prophet’s household—and greater attention to the geo-political context in which that doctrine emerged. On the preceding pages, I have argued that the Seal of Prophets doctrine emerged over the course of the first century AH, that is to say, it has a history.¹⁶¹ To this end, I have attempted to shift the scholarly gaze from Medina in 5/626-627 to the Near East in Late Antiquity and from a domestic crisis within the Prophet’s household to Christian polemics against the new community of believers and Byzantine imperial ideology. It is my contention that the emergence of the Seal of Prophecy doctrine is best understood when viewed in the context of a cluster of social, political, polemical, and theological phenomena that are closely related in time and space, to wit, Heraclius’ marriage to Martina, Christian accusations that Muḥammad committed a sin, and the Last Emperor Legend. The contention that Muḥammad was the Seal of Prophets developed in the Mountain Arena in the context of polemical, political, and theological contacts and exchanges between inter alia Umayyads and Byzantines and between Muslims and Christians. In response to a Christian accusation that Muḥammad committed a sin, an Umayyad caliph authorized the formulation of ‘revelations’ that definitively refuted this charge and, at the same time, used this opportunity to reformulate the Last Umma Legend in a manner that highlighted the community’s current understanding of its prophet, a man named Muḥammad who was sonless, sinless and the Seal of Prophets.

During the half century between the death of Uṯmān in 35/656 and that of ʿAbd al-Malik in 86/705, the community of believers experienced a series of traumatic events that included the assassinations of ʿUṯmān (d. 35/656) and ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), the massacre of al-Ḥusayn and his supporters at Karbala (61/680), and the suppression of Ibn al-Zubayr’s caliphate (73/682). During this same period the consonantal skeleton of the Qurʾān remained fluid and open.¹⁶² This fluidity is reflected inter alia in the witness testimony of three Companions who are reported to have said that large numbers of verses were removed from sūrat al-Aḥzāb (which has seventy-three verses in the vulgate). According to Ubayy b. Kaʿb (d. before 35/656), during the lifetime of the Prophet, al-Aḥzāb had as many verses as al-Baqara (286 verses); according to Abū Mūsā l-Ašʿarī (d. 52/672), it originally was as long as al-Barāʾa (129 verses);¹⁶³ and according to ʿĀʾiša (d. 58/678), it originally had 200 verses. All three of these witnesses are associated with either the collection of the Qurʾān or the episode currently under investigation: Ubayy’s codex preserved a variant reading of Kor 61, 6; a discrepancy between Abū Mūsā’s codex and that of Ibn Masʿūd prompted Ḥuḏayfa b. al-Yamān to encourage ʿUṯmān to establish a single, uniform reading of the Qurʾān;¹⁶⁴ and ʿĀʾiša insisted that Muḥammad’s status as the Seal of Prophets did not entail that there would be no prophet after him (see above, p. 369). If these attributions are accurate, then the removal of between 50 and 200 verses from al-Aḥzāb may have taken place between 35/656 and 58/678, that is to say, during the caliphates of ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya.

If it was possible to remove between 50 and 200 verses from al-Aḥzāb, it would have been possible to add five or more ‘revelations’ to this sura. My best guess for the timing of these insertions is the quarter century between the death of ʿĀʾiša in 58/678 and that of ʿAbd al-Malik in 86/705. ʿAbd al-Malik was closely associated with at least five figures mentioned on the preceding pages: John of Damascus (d. 128-129/745) served as the caliph’s logothete or financial administrator between 81/700 and 86/705; ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr (d. 94/712-713) exchanged a series of letters with the caliph about key events in the life of the Prophet, including the so-called Affair of the Lie—(the encounter between Muḥammad and Zaynab was not discussed in this exchange);¹⁶⁵ al-Šaʿbī (d. after 100/718) served as ʿAbd al-Malik’s ambassador to Byzantium and as tutor to his son, the future caliph al-Walīd;¹⁶⁶ al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728) served as qāḍī of Basra under ʿAbd al-Malik,¹⁶⁷ and, as we shall see, played a leading role in a Qurʾān project initiated by this caliph; and al-Zuhrī (d. 124/742) played an instrumental role in the development of scholarly support for the Umayyads over a period of nearly fifty years.¹⁶⁸ In addition to their connections with ʿAbd al-Malik and the Umayyads, all five of these men contributed to the exegetical expansion of Kor 33, 36-40: ʿUrwa linked the revelation of v. 36 to Umm Kulṯūm bt ʿUqba, a prominent Umayyad; both John of Damascus and al-Šaʿbī transmitted versions of the encounter in which Muḥammad, Zayd, and Zaynab are “sitting together”; al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī articulated the criterion of embarrassment with regard to v. 37 (as did ʿĀʾiša); and al-Zuhrī identified Zayd as the first person to join the community of believers.

That the Qurʾān was collected on two separate occasions—first by Abū Bakr and then by ʿUṯmān—is widely known. Less well-known is the redaction sponsored by ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 65/685-86/705). Whereas the first two projects were carried out in Medina by caliphs who were building an Arab-Islamic state, the third project was sponsored by a caliph who ruled from Damascus over a rapidly expanding multi-confessional empire and who regarded himself as God’s deputy (ḫalīfat Allāh). This third redactional project took place in Wāsiṭ between 84/703 and 86/705 and it was headed by the governor of al-ʿIrāq, al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ b. Yūsuf (d. 95/714). The work itself was performed by a commission of between five and seven Basran mawālī, led by al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. When the project had been completed, al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ instructed his agents to destroy every codex that did not conform to the new edition, including the imām or mother codex allegedly produced during ʿUṯmān’s caliphate and all copies thereof. Al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ also instructed his agents to send copies of the new edition of the Qurʾān to the garrison towns and major cities of the empire and he ordered local authorities to ensure that only the new edition would be recited in Friday mosques. Thus, it was the consonantal skeleton of the Ḥaǧǧāǧian codex that became the model for all copies that would be written in the future. To ensure that there would be no further additions to or removals from the text, al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ instructed his agents to count the number of letters, words and verses in the Qurʾān.¹⁶⁹

Only after the ‘revelations’ that would become v. 36-40 of sūrat al-Aḥzāb had been added to the Umayyad Qurʾān did it become possible to begin the process of exegetical speculation about the episode, a project that was carried out inter alia by ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr, Muǧāhid b. Ǧabr, al-Šaʿbī, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, and Qatāda. The exegetical work performed by these men between 75/694 and 125/742 prepared the ground for Muqātil b. Sulaymān to produce what was arguably the first comprehensive account in an Islamic source of the episode involving Muḥammad, Zayd, and the latter’s wife.

The reader is free to choose the most plausible of these three scenarios—or to propose a new one.