The itinerant Judaeo-Muslim battlefield preacher Abū Rayḥāna, who is still a source of inspiration in our time, fathered Rayḥāna, who became one of Prophet Muḥammad’s concubines. The preacher was active both on the battlefield and in al-Aqṣā mosque. It is unknown whether he was a preacher before Islam, but the materials he used in his preaching probably belonged to his Jewish background. This prosopographical study of father and daughter is of value in its own right as well as for the (...) study of the Prophet Muḥammad’s life and time. (shrink)

El estudio de la producción literaria medieval sobre la vida de Muḥammad debe ir de la mano del estudio de su historia, empresa para la que disponemos de rica información en una variedad de fuentes. La biografía de Muḥammad por Ibn Isḥāq y su epítome por Ibn Hišām fueron productos de su época. Un caso de auto-censura aplicado por uno de los informantes de Ibn Isḥāq y dos casos de censura aplicados por Ibn Hišām, quien omitió muchos de los materiales (...) de su predecesor, contribuyen a una mejor comprensión del contexto social y político de la biografía del Profeta. (shrink)

The Expeditions: An Early Biography of Muḥammad by Maʿmar Ibn Rāshid according to the Recension of ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī. Edited and translated by Sean W. Anthony. Library of Arabic Literature. New York: New York University Press, 2014. Pp. xlv + 372. $35.

The Life of Muḥammad: Al-Wāqidī’s Kitāb al-Maghāzī. Edited by Rizwi Faizer. Routledge Studies in Classical Islam. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2010. Pp. xx + 580. £110.

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 94 Heft: 2 Seiten: 363-384.

La leva de impuestos de aduana era práctica común en la Arabia preislámica. Se recaudaban en las ferias anuales y en La Meca, donde el antepasado de Muḥammad, Qusayy, los recaudaba entre los no-mequenses que entraban en la ciudad. Muḥammad continuó esta práctica ancestral, como atestigua la frase lā yu 'sharūna wa-lā yuḥsharūna en algunas cartas, frase por la cual los receptores quedaban exentos de los derechos de aduana, mientras que todo el resto tenía que pagarlos.

Three members of the Jewish tribe Qurayẓa, two brothers and their relative, left the tribe’s besieged fortress hours before Qurayẓa’s unconditional surrender to the Prophet Muḥammad, thereby saving their lives, their families, and their orchards. According to a rather widespread account, the three had become convinced of the veracity of Muḥammad’s mission. But there is a more cogent explanation for their survival: according to Ibn al-Kalbī’s Kitāb al-Mathālib, the two brothers were married to two sisters who were Muḥammad’s third cousins.

The Religious Elite of the Early Islamic Hijaz: Five Prosopographical Case Studies. By Asad Q. Ahmed. Prosopographica et Genealogica, vol. 14. Oxford: Linacre College, University of Oxford, 2011. Pp. xi + 339. £50.