NOTES

1I.e., the sacred precincts encompassing the cultic centerpiece of Mecca: the cubed structure known as the Kaaba. Tradition asserts that at this time the Kaaba had not yet become the object of a monotheistic cult of worship but rather was the principal cultic site of the local pagan religion focused on the worship of idols housed therein. As a cultic center, it was forbidden to wage war within its environs. The early tradents of this tradition thus regarded the siege as a sacrilegious one.

2“the Elephant Troop” (Ar. aṣḥāb al-fīl): see Q 105, Sūrat al-Fīl, which alludes to Mecca’s deliverance from a Christian army remembered for its war elephant. Islamic historical and exegetical traditions relate these events, imbuing them with legendary details that are often contradictory and irreconcilable. The historical personality that led the Elephant Troop was a Christian regent for Abrahah, the negus of Axum (located in modern Ethiopia). From his base in Yemen, he ostensibly marched against Mecca to destroy the Kaaba in order to secure unrivaled cultic status for his recently constructed cathedral of al-Qullays (or al-Qalīs). Cf. de Prémare, “L’attaque de la Kaʿba,” 261–367 (esp. 325 ff.): most notable here for Muḥammad’s biography is that al-Zuhrī, and thus Maʿmar, reject the notion that Muḥammad was born in the year of these events, called the “Year of the Elephant”—often dated, likely incorrectly, to AD 570. Cf. EI3, art. “Abraha” (U. Rubin). Recent research suggests that Abraha’s campaign against Mecca, if historical, likely dates to shortly after the year AD 558. See Robin, “Abraha et la Reconquête de l’Arabie déserte,” 75 f.

3“House” (Ar. al-bayt): i.e., “the house” wherein the divinity abides. All references to the House in this text refer to Mecca’s cultic centerpiece, the Kaaba.

4“their cross”: a reference to the Christian identity of the attackers. The cross as an object of reverence among Abrahah’s troops is a common theme of the historiography of the events; e.g., see de Prémare, “L’attaque de la Kaʿba,” 325–26 and Tottoli, “Muslim Attitudes towards Prostration,” 12. Abraha’s usage of the iconography of the cross is also confirmed by epigraphic evidence; see Robin, “Abraha et la Reconquête de l’Arabie déserte,” 14.

5Purposely ambiguous, the text makes no mention of the identity of the visitor. Implied here, however, is that the visitor is divine, semidivine, or angelic in nature. Other early Muslim historians, such as Ibn al-Kalbī (204/819), portray ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib as an adherent of the cult of the idol Hubal, to which the Kaaba was ostensibly dedicated during his time. In Maʿmar’s version, the ambiguity of the language may imply that this detail has been expurgated.

6“most honored shaykh”: often identified with Ishmael, the son of Abraham and regarded at this time as the progenitor of the inhabitants of Arabia, or “Ishmaelites”; cf. Gen. 16, 21:8–21 and Millar, “Hagar, Ishmael, Josephus, and the Origins of Islam.”

7“between the viscera and blood” (Ar. bayna’l-farth wa-l-dam): an idiomatic phrase used to describe the inedible contents of the animal’s innards, as opposed to the consumable flesh of the slaughtered animal.

8“altars” (Ar. anṣāb): the term may also be rendered as “idols”; however, these were not just any idols, but stone idols upon which sacrifices were made. Tradition attributes their establishment to Abraham, who erected them under Gabriel’s guidance. See Q Māʾidah 5:3 and Crone, “The Religion of the Qurʾānic Pagans,” 169.

9In the ancient world, the inhabitants of Arabia were renowned for their ability to speak to and divine the behavior of animals; see Schäfer, The Jewish Jesus, 221 f.

10“mosque” (Ar. masjid); lit. “where one does prostrations (in worship)”: the word “mosque” here is a catchall term for all places of congregational worship, and thus is not used in the narrower sense as a Muslim place of worship. See al-Aqṣā Mosque in the glossary.

11“swords . . . buried in the well Zamzam”: an omen of the conquests soon to come with the advent of Islam.

12Presumably, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib receives this injunction from a deity or angel, although the language here is again circumspect, leaving the meaning ambiguous.

13“I shall cast lots for them”: the casting of lots reflects an ancient Near Eastern method for determining the will of a deity. Here, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib employs arrows, a popular technique that survived the coming of Islam, though not without controversy. See Crone and Silverstein, “Lot-Casting.”

14The episode of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s vow to sacrifice his son and his subsequent ransoming of him constitutes a subtle parallel with Islamic literary traditions regarding Abraham and his nearly sacrificed son, Isaac/Ishmael (Islamic tradition is conflicted on the identity of the son Abraham attempted to sacrifice to God). Indeed, this parallelism is noted by early purveyors of the sīra tradition, as well as evidenced by reference to Muḥammad as ibn al-dhabīḥayn—i.e., “the descendant of the two sacrifices,” ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and Ishmael (cf. Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, 1:291)—as the Meccans were seen to be the descendants of Abraham (see Q Ḥajj 22:78).

15This light is prophetic and represents the unborn Muḥammad; below, this light will be transferred to Muḥammad’s mother who, after the prophet’s birth, witnesses the light “fill the castles of Syria.” The story here plays off a well-known prophetological trope in Late Antique accounts of Moses; see Lowin, The Making of a Forefather, 243–46.

16Arabian custom, and subsequently Islamic law, recognizes not only kinship through blood relations but also via milk relations. Children nursed from the same woman are regarded as siblings and are therefore forbidden to intermarry but allowed to socialize. See Giladi, Infants, Parents, and Wetnurses.

17“One of the diviners” (Ar. kāhin min al-kuhhān): the kuhhān were diviners who spoke in oracular, rhyming utterances via contact with a familiar spirit and who acted as the main representatives of Arabian, polytheistic religious authority; e.g., see van Gelder, Anthology, 110–13. In the sīra-maghāzī literature, the kuhhān usually regard Muḥammad as a threat, in stark contrast to the righteous monotheists (usually monks or rabbis) who herald Muḥammad’s future role as a Prophet.

18“her house”: other traditions state more explicitly that Muḥammad’s milch-mother was a Bedouin woman to whom his birth mother had handed over her son to acquaint him with the customs of the desert nomads. The theme of surrogacy is also salient to the Late Antique “prophetic lives” of Abraham and Moses—accounts after which the present one appears to have been modeled. See Lowin, The Making of a Forefather, 234–38.

19Cf. Q 94, Sūrat al-Sharḥ, which seems to have inspired the story. The story, only briefly told here, expands in subsequent retellings and details how angelic beings were sent down to split open the infant Muḥammad’s breast and purify his heart in preparation for his future as God’s Messenger. See Rubin, Eye of the Beholder, 59 ff. This story is rooted in a common literary topos of late antique hagiography; see Sizgorich, “The Martyrs of Najran,” 130 f.

20“palaces of Syria” (Ar. quṣūr al-Shām): Āminah’s vision is an omen of the Prophet’s future destiny to conquer Syria.

21A foreshadowing of the destiny of Muḥammad and his community to overtake the Levant, this anecdote also mirrors similar Muslim traditions concerning the threat of Saul to the young, soon-to-be-king David; see Maghen, “Davidic Motifs,” 104.

22“cornerstone” (Ar. al-rukn): the black stone at the base of the Kaaba and, according to pious legend, present at every iteration of the Kaaba’s construction since Abraham and regarded to be of heavenly origin.

23Cf. Gen. 36:7.

24The mention of Khadījah’s sister is odd here, insofar as it potentially leaves the impression that the muntashiyah who acted as a matchmaker between the couple was in fact Khadījah’s sister. However, given that the muntashiyah was slave-born (Ar. muwalladah) and not a full Qurashī, this is highly unlikely. Some traditionists identify this matchmaker with Nafīsah bint Munyah, the sister of a tribal ally (ḥalīf) of the Nawfal ibn ʿAbd Manāf clan of Quraysh named Yaʿlā ibn Munyah al-Tamīmī. However, other narrations do in fact place Khadījah’s sister, Hālah bint Khuwaylid, in the role of facilitating the marriage. In the story about Hālah, though, Khadījah’s sister constructs a gambit to ensure that her uncle, ʿAmr ibn Asad, is inebriated (and not her father, as this account, unlike Maʿmar’s, assumes Khuwaylid ibn Asad has passed away) so that he will agree to marry Khadījah off to a penniless Muḥammad. In Maʿmar’s narrative, the implication seems to be that Khadījah’s sister brokers the marriage arrangements for Khadījah and Muḥammad with her father Khuwaylid, but not the initial agreement and proposal between Khadījah and Muḥammad. Rather, this initial agreement is brokered by the unnamed slave-born woman described by Maʿmar in other traditions as a “dark-skinned woman” (imrāʾah sawdāʾ). See Balādhurī, Ansāb, 1:243–44 and al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār, Muntakhab, 27–29.

25“rajaz-poets” (Ar. rujjāz): this refers to the simplest, and thus easiest, meter of Arabic poetry, traditionally regarded as the poetic meter of the common folk and simple songs and thus viewed with lower regard than the more complex meters of Arabic poetic verse. Cf. van Gelder, Anthology, 93–108.

26Pherkad: romanized from the Arabic al-farqad (“oryx calf”), refers to one of two stars, either γ or β of Ursa Minor, known as “the two oryx calves” (al-farqadān) in Arabic astronomy.

27“acts of religious devotion” (Ar. al-taḥannuth): used as a technical term in maghāzī and ḥadīth to designate acts of religious devotion (including prayer and feeding the poor) specific to a group of Arabian monotheists who, despite their rejection of polytheism, refrained from converting to either Christianity or Judaism. It has no historical relation with the Hebrew teḥinnoth, which postdates this Arabic word by centuries. See Goitein, Studies in Islamic History, 93, and Kister, “Al-taḥannuth.”

28“true vision” (Ar. al-ruʾyā al-ṣādiqah): the term could also be plausibly rendered as “dream,” and other tradents contemporary with Maʿmar, such as Ibn Isḥāq, specify that Muḥammad had been sleeping during his first “dreaming-vision” (cf. Ibn Hishām, 1:236; trans. Guillaume, 106). On this episode see Rubin, “Iqrāʾ bi-ismi rabbika,” and Schoeler, Biography, 38–79.

29Q ʿAlaq 96:1–5; cf. Is. 40:6: the angel’s command “Read!” (iqraʾ) can also be translated as “Recite!” However, I have chosen to render the verb as “read” because of the implied celestial text, which appears as a golden scroll in Ibn Isḥāq’s account, following the interpretation of Neuwirth, Der Koran I, 267–71, 274 ff. As phrased by Maʿmar, Muḥammad’s response, “I cannot read” (mā anā bi-qāriʾ; lit. “I am not a reader”), appears to highlight Muḥammad’s inability to read. The illiteracy of Muḥammad later becomes a key doctrine in Islamic theology, which regarded his illiteracy as an ideal precondition for the miracle of his reception of the Qurʾan. See Goldfeld, “The Illiterate Prophet.”

30“returned with these words” (rajaʿa bihā): the phrase “these words” is a conjectural reading of preposition –hā, which has no clear antecedent.

31Cf. Q 73, Sūrat al-Muzzammil.

32In other words, Muḥammad’s conduct conformed to the pinnacle of Arabian ideals of moral behavior; see Kister, “‘God Will Never Disgrace Thee.’”

33“written as much of the Gospels in Arabic”: a passage often, but tendentiously, used to argue for the existence of an Arabic translation of the Gospels in circulation prior to the advent of Islam. However, other versions of this story state that, rather than writing the Gospels in Arabic (al-ʿarabiyyah), Waraqah wrote them in Hebrew (al-ʿibrāniyyah); see Wensinck, Concordance, 4:118. There is similar anecdotal and literary evidence, but neither documentary nor linguistic evidence from the surviving Arabic translations of the Gospels suggest that there existed formal, complete translations of the Gospels into Arabic until the Abbasid period. See Griffith, The Bible in Arabic.

34“the Nomos” (Ar. al-nāmūs); from the Greek nómos: the word likely entered Arabic via a Palestinian Aramaic or Syriac intermediary nāmūsā; cf. Müller-Kessler and Sokoloff, A Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic, 2a:279b and 2b, 251b, s.v. n.y.m.w.s. Although the Greek nómos most often refers to customary conduct or behavioral norms of community (thus often translated as “law,” “practice,” “order”), the association of nómos with the angel of revelation in the Islamic tradition perhaps arises from a conflation of the angel with the Law (i.e., nómos) of Moses he reputedly revealed to the prophet, even though the Torah does not mention an angelic intermediary and Talmudic authorities later polemicized against this idea. In general, see EQ, s.v. “Nāmūs” (H. Motzki) and TDNT, s.v. νόμος (Kleinknecht, Gutbrod): there is a precedent for the angelic-personification of nómos, however, in Syriac homiletic literature; see Griffith, “The Gospel in Arabic,” 148–89.

35This narrative contains curious parallels to the autobiographical opening sections of the Nag Hammadi tractate Zostrianos, a heavenly ascension apocalypse of Platonic and Sethian provenance likely dating at least as early as the third century AD. In this apocalypse, the holy man Zostrianos adopts the life of a recluse pondering the mysteries of the universe and offering worship and sacrifices to the gods. Despairing over “the pettiness” of his world, Zostrianos relates that he dared to deliver himself over to death by the wild beasts of the deserts. Zostrianos’s would-be suicide is thwarted, however, by the appearance of an angel, who consoles him with the news that he has been chosen to receive the revelations of the heavenly realms, whereupon the angel takes him on a celestial journey. See Burns, “The Apocalypse of Zostrianos,” 31.

36Cf. Q 73, Sūrat al-Muzzammil and 74, Sūrat al-Muddaththir. See Rubin, “The Shrouded Messenger.”

37“reeds . . . reeds of pearl” (Ar. qaṣab . . . qaṣab min al-luʾluʾ): the hadith scholars are divided on how to interpret the widespread hadith that Khadījah’s heavenly home would be fashioned from qaṣab—a word that usually means “reeds.” Here, as translated above, Maʿmar seems to explain the reeds as fashioned of pearl—other interpretations include “an expansive, hollowed pearl (mujawwafah wāsiʿah),” “reeds adorned with jewels, pearls and rubies (al-qaṣab al-manẓūm bi-l-durr wa-l-luʾluʾ wa-l-yāqūt),” or suggest the reeds represent that “she passed through life with great success because she was quick to have faith (aḥrazat qaṣab al-sabq li-mubādaratihā ilā īmān).” These examples, among others, are from Ibn Hajar, Fatḥ, 8:138.

38“publicly to abandon idols”: the word “abandon” is absent in the manuscript, but I have filled in the apparent lacuna here with an alternative transmission from Maʿmar’s Expeditions as indicated in the textual apparatus. Possibly, the original text asserted that Islam was preached only in secret, whereas in public Muḥammad still sanctioned idol worship. Such an assertion would run directly contrary to the traditional and orthodox narratives of Muḥammad’s life.

39See Q Furqān 25:7, 41, and Crone, “Angels versus Humans as Messengers of God,” 317 f.

40There is a qurʾanic prohibition against the consumption of carrion; see Q Baqarah 2:173.

41ʿUmar here mockingly refers to Muḥammad as a descendant of the somewhat legendary Abū Kabshah. See “Ibn Abī Kabshah” in the glossary.

42Q ʿAnkabūt 29:48–49.

43Q Raʿd 13:43.

44“the saying of ‘Peace!’ . . .”: the five ritual prayers—none of which were instituted at this point in Muḥammad’s prophetic career—all culminate with the phrase al-salām ʿalaykum wa-raḥmatu’llāh (lit., “God’s mercy and peace be upon you (pl.)”) uttered once to the right and once to the left. See Melchert, “The Concluding Salutation.”

45“has abandoned his religion” (Ar. ṣabaʾa); lit. “ʿUmar has become a Sabaen”: Sabaens (Ar. ṣābiʾūn), although mentioned in the Qurʾan, remain somewhat mysterious beyond their belief in “God and the Last Day” (Q Baqarah 2:62, Anʿām 6:69). Later tradition often identifies them merely with those who abandon their ancestral religion. See de Blois, “The ‘Sabians’ (Ṣābiʾūn) in Pre-Islamic Arabia.”

46“assemblies” (Ar. majālis): lit., the “sitting sessions” in which the Quraysh’s elders deliberate.

47There seems to be a lacuna in the text here.

48“al-Ṣiddīq”: Abū Bakr is traditionally known by this sobriquet; the explanation given for it here is one of many, albeit the most famous, and implies that it derives from his faithful affirmation of the truth (Ar. taṣdīq) of Muḥammad’s story when many would not. The word is qurʾanic and often applied to prophets (Q Yūsuf 12:46; Maryam 19:41, 56; and Māʾidah 5:75) and believers (Ḥadīd 57:19 and Nisāʾ 4:65).

49Q Qāf 50:29.

50“public bath” (Ar. dīmās): the Arabic word usually means “grave” or “graveyard” but here seems to be from the Greek dēmósion, suggesting the possibility of a Christian source for the tradition.

51“I was given the choice”: in Arabic the construction is passive (qīla lī, “it was said to me”); hence, the identity of the speaker—whether the speaker was divine or angelic—remains ambiguous here.

52“humankind’s original faith” (Ar. al-fiṭrah): a technical term that refers to humankind’s inborn nature, predisposing every human being to worship the one true God and follow the truth of his revealed religion.

53The events of this chapter considerably postdate those mentioned in the previous section. Tradition places the Ḥudaybiyah expedition in the month of Dhū l-Qaʿdah, six years after Muḥammad and his fledgling community of Meccan believers undertook the Hijrah to Medina—i.e., during March–April AD 628; however, al-Zuhrī provides the slightly different date of Shawwal 6/February–March AD 628 (see 6.3 below). Whereas the last narrative presents Muḥammad to us in his most vulnerable state, this narrative relates events that transpire after the tables had turned considerably in his favor. Politically, the Quraysh were severely weakened by their conflicts with Muḥammad’s Medinese polity. As he marches to undertake a pilgrimage here, the negotiations transpire at a time in which the political rise and eventual dominance of Muḥammad’s Medinese polity over the Hejaz seems inexorable and close.

54“He donned the seamless garments . . . a pilgrimage to Mecca”: that is, Muḥammad outwardly donned the iḥrām garments designating that he and his followers had ritually consecrated themselves for a pilgrimage to Mecca. This pilgrimage was nonseasonal—i.e., an ʿumrah as opposed to the hajj, which must be undertaken during the month of Dhū l-Hijjah. The point here is that the nonaggressive intentions of Muḥammad as he approached Mecca would have been plain to the Meccan Quraysh, who were intimately familiar with this custom, even if the Meccans may have suspected the ʿumrah to be a ruse.

55“hired troops” (Ar. aḥābīsh): confederate mercenaries of the Meccan Quraysh, these were often recruited from the Bedouin and Abyssinians who had settled in the Arabian Peninsula. See Wansbrough, “Notes on Aḥābīš Qurayš.”

56Ḥal: the voice command to urge a camel to rise.

57“the war elephant” (Ar. al-fīl): the elephant of the so-called “Elephant Troop” (Ar. aṣḥāb al-fīl) that marched against Mecca to destroy the Kaaba. See n. 2.

58Cf. Num. 20:11.

59ʿUrwah speaks as a leader from the Thaqīf tribe of the city of Taif allied with the Meccan Quraysh; this is also the reason he is able to act as a mediator between them and Muḥammad’s people in what follows.

60“murdered and took their wealth”: it is strange that ʿUrwah does not immediately recognize al-Mughīrah, for most historians claim that the former was the uncle of the latter. ʿUrwah does know all too well, however, the story of al-Mughīrah’s crime. ʿUrwah and al-Mughīrah were both from the city of Taif, whose inhabitants exiled al-Mughīrah for his treacherous crime.

61“Caesar and Khosroes and the Negus”: the Byzantine, Sassanid, and Abyssinian rulers were frequently called by the name Caesar (Ar. qayṣar), Khosroes (Ar. kisrā), or the Negus (Ar. al-najāshī) regardless of their actual names and regnal titles.

62“crying out the pilgrims’ invocation”: viz., they cried out the talbiyah, an invocation made by pilgrims when entering into the state of iḥrām prior to entering the sacred precincts—the invocation here being, “Here we are, O Lord! Here we are! (labbayka allāhumma labbayka).”

63“Your cause has just become easier for you”: this statement is a play on Suhayl’s name, which derives from the word sahula, “to be easy.”

64“In the name of God, the Merciful and the Compassionate” (Ar. bismillāh al-raḥmān al-raḥīm): this statement serves as an important consecrating act and has pre-Islamic precedents—a fact on display here in Suhayl’s subsequent insistence on Muḥammad employing its pre-Islamic equivalent: bismika llāhumma, “In your Name, O God.”

65A common trope is that the Pagans opposed to Muḥammad worshipped God as Allah prior to Islam but refused to refer to God under the epithet the Merciful (al-raḥmān) used by the Christians and Jews of pre-Islamic Arabia. See Robin, “Arabia and Ethiopia,” pp. 304 ff. The trope is rooted in Q Furqān 25:60, but recent scholarship strongly suggests that the dichotomy between Allah and al-raḥmān is more rhetorical than historical. See Crone, “The Religion of the Qurʾānic Pagans,” pp. 166–69.

66After the Muslims’ initial Hijrah to Medina in AD 622, the subsequent undertaking of a Hijrah to the Prophet’s city functioned as an act affirming and actualizing one’s conversion to Islam, and even became obligatory. Abū Jandal’s dismay reflects (1) the belief that forcing one to return to Mecca was tantamount to denying him the chance to convert to Islam and join the community of Muslims, and (2) the belief that the Muslims could no longer provide a safe haven for their coreligionists who suffered imprisonment and deprivation in Mecca at the hands of the unbelieving Quraysh.

67“Abū Jandal ibn Suhayl ibn ʿAmr”: Abū Jandal is Suhayl’s son—the man with whom the Prophet negotiates. Suhayl, like others opposed to Muḥammad’s religion, shackled and imprisoned his son in his home in order to prevent him from joining the Muslims in Medina and to convince him to return to his people’s religion. See Anthony, “The Domestic Origins of Imprisonment,” 580–82.

68Q Mumtaḥana 60:10.

69This brief reference refers to the blockade of the Quraysh’s trade routes to the north undertaken by Abū Jandal and Abū Baṣīr who, alongside many other Meccan Muslims unable to undertake their Hijrah to Medina because of the Ḥudaybiyah agreement, set up their own rogue encampment from which they employed banditry to intercept Qurashī caravans. See Rubin, “Muḥammad’s Curse of Muḍar,” 252–54 and Anthony, “The Domestic Origins of Imprisonment,” 582–84.

70Q Fatḥ 48:24–26.

71“they would say it was ʿUthmān”: as noted in the introduction, Maʿmar studied with al-Zuhrī in Syria when he resided in Ruṣāfah, the favorite residence of the Umayyad caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik. The Umayyads were keenly interested in emphasizing the importance of the first caliph to come from their clan of Quraysh: the third caliph ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān. Muslim rebels murdered ʿUthmān in 35/656, and the Umayyads used this event as a basis for seizing the caliphate and establishing the legitimacy of their rule.

72Hereafter follow two narrations concerning Heraclius, emperor of Byzantium from AD 610 to 641. The story is a set piece for early Muslim kerygmatic storytelling and reflects the extent to which Muslims assimilated and interacted with Byzantine and Christian narratives and perceptions in the Umayyad period. The frame story is a Muslim adaptation of a popular tale regarding Heraclius’s premonition of the coming of the Islamic conquests. A version of it appears in many non-Muslim chronicles as well, the earliest of which dates to the late-seventh century AD; see Chr. Fredegar, 53–55 (§§ 65–66). See also Conrad, “Heraclius in Early Islamic Kerygma,” and Esders, “Herakleios, Dagobert und die ‘beschnitten Völker.’”

73“a seer” (Ar. ḥazzāʾ): the word for “seer” here is likely derived from the Syriac ḥazāyā (also cf. Heb. ḥōzeh). On the emperor’s interest in astrology, see Esders, “Herakleios, Dagobert und die ‘beschnitten Völker,’” 260–63.

74“king of the circumcised” (Ar. malik al-khitān): I have followed one current of the tradition that reads malik al-khitān, although one may also read mulk al-khitān, i.e., “the kingdom/dominion of the circumcised” (see Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ, 1:42 and Kister, “‘. . . And He Was Born Circumcised . . .’” 19). Cf. Matt. 2:2, Luke 1:33.

75Although not explicitly stated in this account, other accounts place these events in Bostra in Syria, and thus connect Heraclius’s statement to the impending conquest of Syria rather than Constantinople.

76“the sin of the tenants” (Ar. ithm al-arīsīn): the reference here is to Jesus’s “parable of the tenants” found in Mark 12:1–12, Matt. 21:33–46, and Luke 20:9–19. The letter warns that, like the wicked tenants in the gospel parable, the Romans will be dispossessed of the lands over which God has made them stewards because they acted wickedly and scorned the landowner’s son/Messenger. Though traditionally interpreted christologically, here the gospel parable is clearly applied to Muḥammad. The Arabic word here for tenant, arīs, is exceedingly rare and reveals the story’s Levantine provenance since it derives from the Palestinian Aramaic translation of the New Testament, whose term for the tenant, arīs (pl. arīsīn), appears only in the extant lectionaries from this region and not in any of the Syriac translations of the New Testament. See Müller-Kessler and Sokoloff, A Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic, 2a:222a, s.v. ā.r.y.s and Conrad, “Heraclius in Early Islamic Kerygma,” 129–30.

77Q Āl ʿImrān 3:64.

78The first of the grand “thematic battles” of the Prophet’s biography during the Medinese period, this first battle transpired between Muḥammad’s early followers from Mecca (the “Emigrants”) and his Medinese followers (the “Allies”), on the one side, and Muḥammad’s Meccan opponents from the Quraysh on the other. Because they won though greatly outnumbered, the Muslims’ victory is seen as proof of God’s support of the believers and his punishment of the Quraysh for their misdeeds; themes salient to the narratives of this section.

79Q Anfāl 8:19.

80E.g., see Q Anfāl 8:5–9, Ḥajj 22:39–40.

8116 (17) Ramadan 2/12 (13) March AD 624; other dates given include 17, 19, or 21 Ramadan 2/13, or 15, 17 March AD 624.

82“the day of manifest redemption” (Ar. yawm al-furqān): cf. Q Anfāl 8:41 where the Muslims’ victory at Badr is also called yawm al-furqān. My translation of the phrase follows the one most conventionally favoured for this verse (Rubin, “On the Arabian Origins of the Qurʾān,” 427–28.); however, as Walid Saleh argues (“A Piecemeal Qurʾān”), yawm al-furqān may simply convey the meaning of “the day of distinction”—i.e., the day that the Believers willing to fight distinguished themselves from those unwilling to fight (at Badr).

83“Whenever the slaves . . . you leave them alone?”: Maʿmar’s version of the narrative is a bit opaque, but in the version given by Ibn Isḥāq, the rationale for the behavior is more clearly laid out. According to Ibn Isḥāq’s narrative, the slaves belonged to Quraysh’s warriors who had left Mecca to aid Abū Sufyān’s caravan, and the Muslims beat them because they wanted the slaves to admit that they actually belonged with Abū Sufyān’s caravan. See Ibn Hishām, 1:616 f; trans. Guillaume, 295. The point of the narrative to follow is to demonstrate that Muḥammad is the equal of the cunning Abū Sufyān as a strategist. This is displayed by Muḥamamd’s clever use of seemingly innocuous questions to surmise key information about the fighting numbers of the Quraysh.

84“Birk al-Ghimād” (also “al-Ghumād”) “of Dhū Yaman”: medieval geographers differ over which location this story refers to; however, given the context and intention behind the statement, a territory in the far reaches of the Yemen is likely intended. The phrase means something like “we will follow you to the ends of the Earth.” See 12.3.1.

85“Arab diebs” (Ar. dhuʾbān al-ʿarab): the Bedouin nomads of the desert (lit., “the wolves of the Arabs”) who, as opposed to the oasis dwellers, were disdained for their viciousness and barbarity; cf. Q Tawbah 9:97.

86“You tender-assed catamite” (yā muṣaffira istihi): The Arabic literally means “O you who dyes his sphincter yellow.” ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah retorts to Abū Jahl’s insult by calling him a catamite—i.e., a young, passive partner in a sexual relationship with an older man—who dyes his sphincter yellow in order to entice his sexual partner. See Majd al-Dīn Ibn Athīr, al-Nihāyah, 3:37. My thanks to Maher Jarrar leading me to this reference.

87“his brother Shaybah . . . stood up”: ʿUtbah comes forward to fight with his son and brother in defiance of Abū Jahl’s slander against his courage. Because ʿUtbah is a Qurashī from the ʿAbd Shams clan, Muḥammad asks his Medinese supporters to sit down in order to give ʿUtbah a suitable contest with members from his own tribe of Quraysh. The men chosen by Muḥammad are his believing relatives from the Qurashī clan of Hāshim: ʿAlī is his paternal cousin, Ḥamzah his paternal uncle, and ʿUbaydah shares Muḥammad’s great-grandfather ʿAbd Manāf. The MS has ʿUbaydah’s name as ʿUbaydah ibn al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, thus making him the Prophet’s cousin, but this is a corruption—and a seemingly common one at that: see Balādhurī, Ansāb, 1(2):720 and ibid., 3:285.

88Cf. Q Zalzalah 99:6.

89This narrative constitutes the earliest martyrology, or “martyr story,” of the Islamic tradition, and thus focuses on the fate of two martyrs from the Medinese Allies (ʿĀṣim ibn Thābit and Khubayb ibn ʿAdī) and the miracles accompanying their deaths. There exists a wide variance in the dating of these events in the sīra-maghāzī literature, and our text only specifies that it transpired after Badr. Ibn Isḥāq merely places the events after the battle of Uḥud in 3/625 without further specifying an exact date, whereas Wāqidī places the events in Safar 4/July–August 625. See Jones, “The Chronology of the Maghāzī,” 249. On the incident more generally, see Motzki, Boekhoff-van der Voort, and Anthony, Analysing Muslim Traditions, ch. 6 and Anthony, Crucifixion, 35 ff.

90“to trim his pubic hair with it” (Ar. yastaḥiddu bihā): Islamic law regulates the hygienic maintenance and grooming of the human body, including hair dressing. The trimming of hair under the arms and in the pubic region falls into this category. See EI2, art. “Shaʿr, 2. Legal aspects regarding human hair” (A. K. Reinhart). The point here is that Khubayb, an ideal martyr, remained as scrupulously attentive to the ritual aspects of Islamic faith as possible, even in the face of certain death.

91“the Sacred Precincts (Ar. al-ḥaram) to kill him”: executions always took place outside the perimeter of Mecca’s Sacred Precincts due to the ancient prohibition on shedding blood therein.

92“he prayed two prostrations’ worth of prayers” (Ar. ṣallā rakʿatayni): viz., he prayed two rakʿahs. A rakʿah is the basic unit of prayer gestures for the Muslim ritual prayer. It consists of a bending of the torso from an upright position followed by two prostrations; different prayers at different appointed times of the day, and occasionally under different conditions (such as travel or fear for one’s life), require a different number of rakʿahs.

93“Reckon my killers’ number”: i.e., “Hold them accountable for killing me on the Day of Judgment!” Khubayb’s prayer is a discrete reference to Q Maryam 19:94–95.

94Q Furqān 25:27–29.

95This incident is the first of the stories relating Muḥammad and the Muslim community’s fraught relationship with the largest Jewish clans in Medina. Traditionally, three Jewish clans are mentioned in the sīra-maghāzī literature: the Qaynuqāʿ, the Naḍīr, and the Qurayẓah; however, Maʿmar’s text only relates the stories of the Naḍīr and the Qurayẓah and lacks any mention of the Qaynuqāʿ.

96“six months”: i.e., the month of Rabiʿ I in 3 (September–October AD 624).

97Q Ḥashr 59:1–2.

98“the first time in this earthly life that the Jews were banished”: the word for banishment here, al-ḥashr, also means “to gather,” but particularly in the sense of herding together as a congregation to one location, viz., a deracination. Thus is the word used in the Qurʾan to refer to the gathering of humankind on the Day of Judgment and the consignment of the damned to Hell (e.g., Q Baqarah 2:203 and Āl ʿImrān 3:19). “This earthly life” (Ar. al-dunyā) specifies this life as opposed to the afterlife. Notably, other references to exile in this text use not al-ḥashr, but the less ambiguous term al-jalāʾ.

99“the attendants of your womenfolk . . . golden anklets”: golden anklets (al-khalākhil) were often worn by women and were idiomatically referred to as their “servants” or “attendants.” By threatening the attendants of the womenfolk of al-Naḍīr, the Meccan Quraysh made a not-so-veiled threat against the Jews’ womenfolk. On this theme in pre-Islamic poetry, see Hamori, Mutanabbī’s Panegyrics, 79.

100 The clan of al-Naḍīr lived half a day’s march from Medina. The Qurayẓah clan was another prominent Jewish tribe of Yathrib, so Muḥammad secures a pact with them prior to his siege of al-Naḍīr to ensure that they will not interfere.

101 Muslim legends of the “lost tribes of Israel” winding their way to Arabia abound from quite an early date (see Rubin, Between Bible and Quran, 46–48), but it is ambiguous whether this text places the Naḍīr clan among these lost tribes or not. The exile mentioned by the text likely comes from anti-Jewish polemics found in Christian writings, which regarded the Romans’ destruction of the Jerusalem Temple under the emperor Titus in AD 70 and the Jews’ supposed “exile” from Palestine as divine punishment for the crucifixion of Jesus. The Jewish presence in Palestine throughout the Roman period, even well into late antiquity, contradicts these sentiments, but they were widespread nonetheless and subsequently adapted by the Islamic tradition, particularly in the interpretation of Q Isrāʾ 17:2–8. See Yuval, “The Myth of the Jewish Exile,” and Busse, “The Destruction of the Temple.”

102 “the fate of the Qurayẓah clan”: in the events to follow, the Jewish clan of Qurayẓah would likewise be accused of treachery, leading to the slaughter of their men and sale of the women and children into captivity. These events are related in ch. 8.

103 Q Ḥashr 59:1–6.

104 “favored him thereby”: the orchards thus became the Prophet’s personal property to the exclusion of all others.

105 Q Ḥashr 59:6.

106 “fifteen years”: which is to say that, according to al-Zuhrī’s calculations, Muḥammad was called to be a Prophet fifteen years prior to undertaking the Hijrah from Mecca to Medina in 622. Given that these calculations are in lunar rather than solar years, this means that al-Zuhrī dates Muḥammad’s encounter with Gabriel at Mount Ḥirāʾ to ca. AD 608. On the typological models behind the dating of the major events in Muḥammad’s life, see Rubin, Eye of the Beholder, 190 ff.

107 Q Ḥijr 15:95, 91.

108 Q Ḥijr 15:94.

109 I.e., 21 September 622, a Tuesday. This differs from the date given by Ibn Isḥāq for Muḥammad’s arrival on 12 Rabiʿ I. The problem is that Ibn Isḥāq also states that Muḥammad arrived on a Monday, but 12 Rabiʿ I (24 September 622) falls on a Friday. Hence, the date given here is likely more correct. See EI2, art. “Hidjra” (W. Montgomery Watt).

110 Q Anfāl 8:7.

111 Q Qamar 54:45.

112 Q Muʾminūn 23:64.

113 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:127, 128.

114 After emigrating to Medina, the Prophet’s followers began to raid Meccan caravans traveling on the route between Mecca and Syria. The Battle of Badr began with one such raid, this time against a caravan of Abū Sufyān ibn Ḥarb returning to Mecca from Syria. The Meccans reinforced Abū Sufyān’s caravan with relief forces under the leadership of Abū Jahl. Thus, it is Abū Jahl and his relief forces who fight, and lose, against the Muslims at the Battle of Badr, not Abū Sufyān’s caravan. Cf. EI3, “Badr” (Khalil Athamina).

115 Q Ibrāhīm 14:28.

116 Q Baqarah 2:243.

117 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:13.

118 Q Anfāl 8:42.

119 “the day on which al-Ḥaḍramī was slain”: i.e., the Raid of Nakhlah in Rajab 2/January AD 624, in which the Muslims raided a Qurashī caravan in which ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥaḍramī was killed and thus violated the sanctity of the month of Rajab, an act ostensibly condoned by prophetic revelation (cf. Q Baqarah 2:217). The killing of Ibn al-Ḥaḍramī served as the Meccans’ pretext for their offensive against the Muslims at Badr even after they had secured and protected Abū Sufyān’s caravan from Muslim raiders. Maʿmar’s version of the story of the Nakhlah raid survives, but in ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s Qurʾan commentary rather than the Kitāb al-Maghāzī. See ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Tafsīr, 1:87–88; cf. Balādhurī, Ansab, 1:929–31 and Jones, “The Chronology of the Maghāzī,” 247.

120 Q Baqarah 2:194.

121 Q Muʾminūn 23:77.

122 Q Muʾminūn 23:78.

123 I.e., 27 May AD 632, a Wednesday. Other traditions from al-Zuhrī place his death on a Monday (e.g., Bayhaqī, Dalāʾil, 6:234). On the varying dates given by Muslim tradition for the date of Muḥammad’s death, cf. Rubin, Eye of the Beholder, 190–94.

124 Abū Bakr led the hajj in Dhū l-Hijjah 9/March–April 631, so according to al-Zuhrī the expedition against Tabūk must have occurred either in Muharram 10/April–May 631 or shortly thereafter. This date conflicts with Ibn Isḥāq’s reckoning, since he places Tabūk earlier, in Rajab 9/October–November 630. See Jones, “The Chronology of the Maghāzī,” 257 f.

125 The battle that transpired at Uḥud is the second of the grand thematic battles of the Prophet’s life, taking place after the Battle of Badr and before the Battle of the Trench. It also marks an important turning point in the Medinese career of Muḥammad, for it is his first and only real defeat in battle. Being a defeat, Uḥud raised many questions about the nature God’s providence and why he allowed his prophet to suffer defeat. This narrative offers many answers to these questions, but some of its most central themes are that of the community’s disobedience to the prophet and the wisdom of God behind the trial suffered by the community in the course of Uḥud.

126 Which is to say, the Naḍīr clan’s exile transpired in Rabiʿ I 3/September–October 624 and the Battle of Uḥud transpired six months later, in Shawwāl 3/March–April 625. The dating of these events relative to one another is problematic. Later scholars of the Islamic tradition place the expulsion of the Naḍīr clan after Uḥud; see the comments in Jones, “The Chronology of the Maghāzī,” 249, 268.

127 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:152.

128 I.e., the omen is a boon, for many will sacrifice themselves for God’s cause; cf. Q Ṣāffāt 37:102.

129 “ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy . . . third of the army”: the Muslims’ defeat by Meccans at Uḥud is often laid at the feet of Ibn Ubayy due to a decision to prematurely withdraw from the field of battle. Here, by contrast, he seems to have simply remained behind to ensure Medina would be protected in the event of a Muslim defeat on the battlefield. However, the ductus of the text is also ambiguous. I have chosen to read it as “he remained behind” (inkhazala), a reading most strongly supported by the transmission of the text and flow of the narrative; however, one could feasibly read it as “he withdrew” (inkhadhala) instead.

130 “One of the Messenger of God’s teeth” (rubāʿiyah): lit., one of the incisors next to the canines.

131 “had his chest rent open”: the vicitim is unidentified here, but subsequent tradition identifies this person with the Prophet’s believing uncle, Ḥamzah ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib.

132 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:173.

133 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:172.

134 The speaker here is ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s pupil, Isḥāq al-Dabarī. See the Note on the Text.

135 The narrative of the final major battle of the Prophet before the conquest of Mecca, the incident of the United Clans, or the Battle of the Trench, relates the story of the Meccans’ largest all-out assault on Medina. The Muslims triumph by surviving the siege but then face a threat from within Medina itself. They must confront the last remaining large Jewish clan of Medina: Qurayẓah. An alliance between Qurayẓah and the Prophet’s enemies is uncovered, and he resolves to punish them harshly for their perfidy.

136 I.e., the Battle of the Trench (al-Khandaq) transpired no earlier than Shawwal 5 AH/February–March AD 627; cf. Jones, “The Chronology of the Maghāzī,” 251.

137 Q Aḥzāb 33:25.

138 “perfumed himself” (istajmara): the Arabic might also be translated “he cleaned himself with stones”—i.e., he performed an act of ritual purification called for after attending to the call of nature (Ar. al-istinjāʾ).

139 “the sun had set . . .”: the late-afternoon prayer, or ṣalāt al-ʿaṣr, must be prayed before sunset, the concern often being expressed that undertaking the prayer during sunset could potentially be misconstrued as sun worship. See Rubin, “Morning and Evening Prayers.”

140 “brethren of apes and pigs”: in the Qurʾan, God punished Jews who violated the Sabbath by transforming them into apes and pigs (Q Baqarah 2:65, Māʾidah 5:60, Aʿrāf 7:166); cf. Rubin, Between Bible and Qurʾān, 213 ff.

141 “bound like a captive atop a jenny ass” (asīran ʿalā atān): Saʿd ibn Muʿādh appears here to have been brought bound, and thus against his will, in order to utter a sentence approved by the Prophet himself. Saʿd ibn Muʿādh may have been bound to keep him propped up because he suffered from a fatal arrow wound, from which he purportedly died soon after the massacre of the Qurayẓah clan. The account of al-Zuhrī, however, does not mention these wounds. Contrast his reticence here in al-Zuhrī’s account with Saʿd’s sanguine participation in the Qurayẓah’s sentencing as depicted in Ibn Hishām, 2:239–40; trans. Guillaume, 463 f. Cf. Kister, “The Massacre of the Banū Qurayẓah,” 62–63, 90–91.

142 Cf. Q Āl ʿImrān 3:154.

143 The conquest of the Jewish settlement north of Medina known as Khaybar represents in our text a fulfillment of promised glory after the disappointment of Ḥudaybiyah. The narrative of Khaybar’s conquest is, notably, followed by the fulfillment of the Prophet’s promise that they indeed would undertake another lesser pilgrimage (ʿumrah) a year after Ḥudaybiyah (see ch. 2).

144 Q Fatḥ 48:20.

145 “under the tree” (taḥta l-shajarah): on the day of al-Ḥudaybiyah, some 1,500 men renewed their oath of fealty to Muḥammad under an acacia tree (samura). See Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, 496a, 578b. The phrase is also used in connection with the pledge at al-ʿAqabah that set the stage for Muḥammad and the Emigrants’ Hijrah to Medina; see Rubin, Eye of the Beholder, 182–83.

146 “took the fifth portion as was his right” (khammasa): this passage refers to Muḥammad having enacted the khums (or “fifth share”) law stipulated in Q Anfāl 8:41. In essence, the khums is the Prophet’s share of the battle gains to be used for charity and the common good of the community.

147 “month of Dhū l-Qaʿdah”: i.e., in March AD 629 and over a full year after al-Ḥudaybiyah.

148 “order him to leave”: what al-Zuhrī describes here harkens back to the stipulations agreed to in the treaty of al-Ḥudaybiyah (see chapter 2 above).

149 “thirteenth of Ramadan”: viz., 13 Ramadan 8 = 3 January AD 630.

150 This narrative relates the nearly bloodless conquest of Muḥammad’s native city of Mecca and, finally, the integration of his most implacable enemies from the Meccan Quraysh into the community of believers. Particularly conspicuous in our text is the great deal of attention dedicated to the experiences of Abū Sufyān as he converts to Islam (an event telescoped in the narrative of his encounter with Heraclius in 2.7), since he is the forefather of the Umayyad caliphal dynasty that patronized the scholarship of Maʿmar’s principal teacher, al-Zuhrī. Even more intriguing is that Abū Sufyān’s companion throughout is the Prophet’s uncle, al-ʿAbbās, the progenitor of the Abbasid caliphal dynasty that would supplant the Umayyads in 132/750.

151 “his approach from Syria”: viz., the Meccan Quraysh sent this message to him on his return journey from Syria and after his having spoken with Heraclius about the prophetic claims of his kinsman Muḥammad.

152 “Red Death” (al-mawt al-aḥmar): a particularly striking metaphor for slaughter.

153 “so ready for war and so arrayed in their tribes” (ṣabāḥ qawmin fī diyārihim): absent in the English rendering is that the conquest transpired in the early morning as “a morning incursion” (sabāḥ).

154 “had returned to him”: meaning that al-ʿAbbās was negotiating with the Meccans, and the Prophet and his followers were waiting for al-ʿAbbās to send his envoy back to Muḥammad with word of the status of the negotiations.

155 “what the Thaqīf did . . .”: i.e., the Thaqīf tribe murdered ʿUrwah, who was a Muslim at the time; see his entry in the glossary.

156 The Khuzāʿah and Bakr clans were allied with the Medinese Muslims and Meccan Quraysh, respectively, and in the course of the conquest a battle broke out between the two clans. See EI2, art. “Khuzāʿa” (M. J. Kister).

157 “and a woman”: tradition records at least two women killed, so the identity of the woman referred to here is uncertain. One likely possibility is the second of Ibn Khaṭal’s two singing-girls, Fartanā and Arnab (or Qarībah). Fartanā allegedly repented at Mecca’s conquest, but Arnab remained defiant and was murdered. The second possibility is a slave girl named Sārah, who joined Muḥammad in Medina as a Muslim but later apostatized from Islam and returned to Mecca. After her return, she sang songs impugning Muḥammad. Sārah was reputedly killed by ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (Balādhurī, Ansāb, 1:900 f.); however, other accounts give Sārah another, similarly woeful, death, claiming that though Muḥammad spared her life, she was later trampled to death by horses at al-Abṭaḥ in Mecca during the reign of the second caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 1:1641). On the other figures mentioned, see the Glossary.

158 Q 110, Sūrat al-Naṣr.

159 “the rear of the Hawāzin tribe” (Ar. ʿUjz Hawāzin): in speaking of the “rear” (ʿujz) of Hawāzin the account refers specifically to three of its clans: Jusham ibn Muʿāwiyah ibn Bakr, Naṣr ibn Muʿāwiyah ibn Bakr, and Saʿd ibn Bakr. See EI2, “Hawāzin” (W. M. Watt).

160 Q Tawbah 9:25.

161 “caused their hearts to turn” (Ar. yataʾallafuhum): a reference to “those whose hearts were caused to turn (al-muʾallafah qulūbuhum)” in Q Tawbah 9:60, a verse interpreted as referring to those Meccan leaders, such as Abū Sufyān and his sons, who received payment from the Prophet’s share of the spoils from Ḥunayn as a reward for their reconciliation with him at the conquest of Mecca.

162 “a coat of mail”: contrast this to the Prophet’s approach toward Mecca in the garments of a pilgrim in chapter 2, on al-Ḥudabiyah.

163 “leather stirrup” (Ar. gharz): this is perhaps an anachronism, since the usage of stirrups seems to have been a late-Umayyad innovation. See Kennedy, Armies of the Caliphs, 171–72.

164 “companions of the acacia tree” (Ar. aṣḥāb al-samura): viz., those 1,500 or so who gave their oath of fealty, known as bayʿat al-riḍwān, to the Prophet under the acacia tree after the events of Ḥudaybiyah (see above).

165 “furnace”: in Arabic waṭīs, a play on the name of the valley of Awṭās, where the encampment of Ḥawāzin was situated prior to the battle at Ḥunayn.

166 “the invocations preceding the early morning prayer” (Ar. qunūt ṣalāt al-ghadāh): the word for invocations here, qunūt, is a technical term for either invocations or curses integrated into the five ritual prayers between the recitation of the Qurʾan and the full prostration (sajdah).

167 “imprisoning them”: probably in their homes or other makeshift structures rather than a formal prison. See Anthony, “The Domestic Origins of Imprisonment.”

168 “twice a day, morning and evening” (ṭarafay al-nahār bukratan wa ʿashiyyatan): the times of day associated with prayer, cf. Q Hūd 11:114, Maryam 19:11, 61.

169 “the two fields of lava rock” (Ar. al-ḥarratayn): the topography of Yathrib (later: Medina) was famous for its marshy lands where its inhabitants cultivated date palms, and for two stretches of lava rock that lay adjacent to the city, creating its most conspicuous natural boundary.

170 I.e., Asmāʾ used one niṭāq to tie the leather pouch filled with provisions for the Hijrah and another to tie her dress around her waist. The title “Dhāt al-Niṭāqayn,” however, may have first appeared as a pejorative designation with vague sexual insinuations that the Umayyads concocted to besmirch the dignity of the mother of the “counter-caliph” ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr, who sought to overthrow the dynasty from 63/683 to 73/692. See Bitan, “Asmāʾ Dhāt al-Niṭāqayn.”

171 Q Anfāl 8:30.

172 Cf. 1 Sam. 24:2–7 and Maghen, “Davidic Motifs,” 106 ff.

173 “A bounty . . .” (Ar. diyah): usually the wergild, being the standard compensation for an individual’s wrongful death, often set at one hundred camels of specific types (see Juynboll, Canonical Ḥadīth, 78a), but in this case, it is a reward offered by the Quraysh for killing an undesirable, renegade kinsman.

174 “divining arrows” (Ar. al-azlām): special arrows lacking both feathers and arrowheads, and used for lot-casting.

175 That the Jews of the Hejaz lived in towering structures is a common theme of both the Hadith and the Qurʾan; e.g., see Q Aḥzāb 33:26 and Dhāriyāt 51:2.

176 I.e., in September AD 622; on the symbolism of Monday, see Rubin, Eye of the Beholder, 191.

177 Cf. Q Tawbah 9:108.

178 “load of Khaybar”: Khaybar’s load was that of dates and the riches of their sale, as opposed to the load of bricks, whose value to God and the believers far outstripped their otherwise paltry material worth.

179 The issue of the Prophet’s recitation of poetry is a particularly sensitive one, as his enemies often denounced him as a mere poet (Ar. shāʿir; see Q Anbiyāʾ 21:5, Ṭūr 52:30); thus, al-Zuhrī emphasizes that this instance during the construction of Medina’s mosque was a unique case; an exception to the rule. The Qurʾan vehemently denies that the revelation is poetry and that its prophet is in any way a poet (Q Yā Sīn 36:69–70). It also speaks of poets as mendacious sinners inspired by demons (Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:221–4). The relationship between the poets and Islam was not hopelessly fraught, though, as the Qurʾan speaks well of poets who believe (227), and Muḥammad famously employed poets such as his bard Ḥassān ibn Thābit. See Gilliot, “Poète ou prophète?”

180 Q Ḥajj 22:39.

181 “as God decreed”: an allusion to Q Anfāl 8:7, «Remember how God promised you that one of the two enemy groups would fall to you: you wanted the unarmed group to be yours, but it was God’s will to establish truth according to His Word and to finish off the disbelievers.»

182 “he did not enroll them in a military register” (Ar. lā yajmaʿuhum dīwān): the narrator, Kaʿb ibn Mālik, here refers to the dīwān al-jund, the “military roll,” established by the second caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb during the Islamic conquests and wherein all the participants in the Islamic conquests were registered according to their precedence in Islam (al-sābiqah) and tribal genealogy (al-nasab). The military registry was also the means whereby the warriors’ pay and rations were distributed and calculated.

183 Q Tawbah 9:118.

184 “final third of the night” (Ar. thulth al-layl): the night in Islamic law began with the sunset prayer (ṣalāt al-maghrib) and ended with the daybreak prayer (ṣalāt al-fajr), with the intervening time being divided into thirds.

185 Q Tawbah 9:117–8.

186 Q Tawbah 9:119.

187 Cf. Q Tawbah 9:96.

188 “appointed . . . as his vicegerent” (Ar. istakhlafa ʿalaynā): i.e., he made ʿAlī the authority in his absence. The verb istakhlafa means that ʿAli was Muḥammad’s “caliph” (Ar. khalīfa) during his absence, an action often cited by the Shiʿah to prove that Muḥammad intended his son-in-law ʿAlī to be his direct successor after his death.

189 Cf. Q Mujādilah 58:26–33.

190 An episode containing a story that extols the loyalty and fighting prowess of the Khazraj, one of the two main tribal faction of the Medinese Allies. The story exhorts as much as it entertains. In a thorough study of these events and the multitude of traditions thereon, Harald Motzki has demonstrated that the original story belongs to the earliest stratum of maghāzī materials to survive; see his “The Murder of Ibn Abī Ḥuqayq.”

191 The story of Kaʿb’s assassination by the Aws is not recorded by ʿAbd al-Razzāq in his recension of Maʿmar’s Kitāb al-Maghāzī, but it does appear in his Qurʾan commentary; see ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Tafsīr, 1: 164–65. See also Rubin, “The Assassination of Kaʿb b. al-Ashraf,” and Kaʿb’s entry in the glossary.

192 “He’s gone” (Ar. fāẓa): the text here reproduces the accent of the Jews of Khaybar by having the man’s wife say fāẓa rather than the more “correct” fāḍa [rūḥuh].

193 Cf. Q Aḥzāb 33:28–34, 28–53.

194 Cf. Q Baqarah 2:10.

195 “divorce his wife” (Ar. firāq ahlihi): here, as in what immediately follows, the word rendered variously as “wife” or “household” translates the Arabic ahl, literally meaning family or household. Note in the passages to follow how Usāmah’s reference to the Prophet’s “household” rather than directly naming ʿĀʾishah follows the cultural protocol requiring one to speak only in an indirect manner about a man’s wife, out of deference to his or her honor. Note also that the following passage discreetly reveals ʿAlī’s thinly veiled contempt for ʿĀʾishah when ʿAlī directly references ʿĀʾishah as “her.”

196 Q Yūsuf 12:18.

197 Q Nūr 24:11, 12–21.

198 Q Nūr 24:22.

199 “punished . . . according to God’s law” (Ar. ḥaddahum): the reference here is to Q Nūr 24:4–5, «As for those who accuse chaste women of fornication, and then fail to provide four witnesses, strike them eighty times, and reject their testimony ever afterwards: they are lawbreakers, except for those who repent later and make amends—God is most merciful and forgiving.»

200 Here begins a section encompassing chapters 17–19 in which Maʿmar adds additional narrative materials not transmitted from al-Zuhrī and relating to the so-called “stories of the prophets” (Ar. qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ), which are expansions of narratives found in, or alluded to by, the Qurʾan.

201 “were Muslims” (kānū muslimīn): Maʿmar here does not intend to speak anachronistically per se; rather, he asserts—as does the Qurʾan—that they followed the true faith of Islam, which is timeless and therefore also practiced by many prophets before Muḥammad, such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus and his followers (see, e.g., Q Āl ʿImrān 3:52, 67).

202 Q Burūj 85:4–8.

203 By placing these events in Najrān, ʿAbd al-Razzāq explicitly connects this legend not only to Q 85, Sūrat al-Burūj, but also to the Christian martyrdom stories that circulated regarding the South Arabian martyrs of the fifth to sixth centuries AD, such as Azqīr, St. Arethas (Ar. al-Ḥārith), and the so-called “sixty martyrs” of Najrān executed by the Jewish king Dhū Nuwās in AD 523. See Beeston, “The Martyrdom of Azqir”; Sizgorich, “The Martyrs of Najran”; and Beaucamp, Briquel-Chatonnet, and Robin, Juifs et chrétiens en Arabie. For a survey of Muslim versions of the story, see D. Cook, “The Aṣḥāb al-Ukhdūd.”

204 An Islamic adaptation of a Christian legend known as “The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus” placed in the reign of the Roman emperors Decius (r. 249–51) and Theodosius II (r. 408–50), the story circulated in many versions in both the Christian and Islamic worlds. This early Arabic retelling, however, seems to be most directly dependant on that of the Syriac-speaking historian Zacharias Rhetor of Mytilene (ca. AD 465–536). See Griffith, “Christian Lore and the Arabic Qurʾān”; Reynolds, The Qurʾān and Its Biblical Subtext, 167–85.

205 Whereas previous tales related by Maʿmar seem to have arrived into the Islamic tradition via Christian sources, the story of Solomon related here has its closest parallels in rabbinic tales of the demon Asmodeus (e.g., see b.Giṭṭīn 7.68 and y.Sanhedrīn, 2.20c). On other Muslim versions of the story, see Klar, “And We cast upon his throne a mere body.”

206 Q Ṣād 38:34.

207 “But [the demon] did not exercise any authority over his wives” (lam yusalliṭ ʿalā nisāʾih): that it is the demon who did not excerise authority over Solomon’s wives and not Solomon himself is made clear in a longer account preserved by Ibn ʿAsākir, Dimashq, 2:250, wa-malaka kulla shayʾin kāna yamlikuhu Sulaymān illā annahu lam yusalliṭ ʿalā nisāʾih.

208 Here, the account provides an Islamic perspective on the depiction of Solomon as an esoteric king with dominion and mastery over demons and occult knowledge, an image that had become increasingly prominent in the Late Antique world prior to the rise of Islam, and one addressed directly by the Qurʾan (e.g., Q Baqarah 2:106, Anbiyāʾ 21:81–82, Sabaʾ 34:12–14). See Torijano, Solomon, the Esoteric King.

209 Cf. Q Nisāʾ 4:34.

210 In Islamic law, both coitus and sleep require one to undertake ritual washing (ghusl) and ablutions (wuḍūʾ), respectively, before undertaking prayer; here, the demon, having assumed the guise of Solomon, shows no concern for any of these matters.

211 Q Ṣād 38:35.

212 “Pouring medicine into the corner of his mouth” (Ar. fī laddihi): the term ladd here refers to administering an Abyssinian medicine known as ladūd; it was apparently a type of balm applied orally. See Ullmann, Wörterbuch, 2:436–37, 439.

213 “found it displeasing to say so” (lā taṭību lahā nafsan bi-khayr): i.e., ʿĀʾishah wished not to mention ʿAlī due to her well-known antipathy toward him.

214 I.e., Kaʿb ibn Mālik; this is a reference to the story related in ch. 13.

215 “cloak” (Ar. khamīṣah): a garment usually described as a black cloak with adorned edges, worn by both women and men and often used as a sleeping garment. See Stillman and Stillman, Arab Dress, 13.

216 Visiting and mourning at gravesites was a fraught practice in early Islam and remained highly contested among later scholars. On this topic, see Diem and Schöller, The Living and the Dead in Islam, 2:11–167 and Halevi, Muḥammad’s Grave.

217 “mistresses of Joseph” (Ar. ṣawāḥib Yūsuf): the Prophet’s comment alludes to an episode in the story of the prophet Joseph found in Q Yūsuf 12:30–34. In this episode, the mistress of the house invites several women over for a feast, but her true intent is to show the ladies the irresistible beauty of her slave, Joseph, whom she had attempted to seduce. In the Qurʾan, the episode demonstrates the formidable wiles (Ar. kayd) of women (cf. 28). Muḥammad thus likens ʿĀʾishah to these women because she, by objecting to Abū Bakr leading the prayer, is only pretending to be concerned about Abū Bakr’s frailty. In fact, she frets over any bad luck that may result from him becoming the Prophet’s successor. In this way, the Prophet’s statement reveals that he sees through her gambit and perceives the true source of her objections.

218 The Prophet’s house was a part of the structure of the central mosque in Medina, so he could easily watch the goings-on from inside the chamber where he lay ill. See Halm, “Der Masğid des Propheten.”

219 An outer garment known as a ridāʾ, here translated as “robe,” could double as a mat for sitting upon the dusty ground. Seeing Muḥammad sitting on the ground atop his ridāʾ, al-ʿAbbās suggests that he sit on a chair instead and thus be spared the dust kicked up from petitioners and litigants coming to see him to settle their disputes. That Muḥammad, so weak and weary from his sickness, cares not whether they struggle to sit even upon his own ridāʾ and rudely trample upon his heels reveals to al-ʿAbbās that the hour of his death draws near.

220 The corruptibility of the Prophet’s corpse became a matter of controversy in subsequent centuries, but here the humanity of the Prophet is staunchly affirmed. On this issue and the initial expectations that Muḥammad might rise from the dead, see Szilágyi, “A Prophet like Jesus?”

221 “servant of the staff” (Ar. ʿabd al-ʿaṣā): meaning that the Prophet will die in three days, after which the leadership of the community will fall to someone other than ʿAlī. The image here is that of a slave subject to being beaten harshly with a staff by an unsympathetic master, and therefore unquestioning in his obedience.

222 “those . . . your right hand possesses”: i.e., those whom you own. The phrasing is taken from the Qurʾan (e.g., Q Nisāʾ 4:24, Muʾminūn 23:6, Aḥzāb 33:52).

223 “ḥibarah cloak”: a woolen cloth, probably covered with striped designs; see Stillman and Stillman, Arab Dress, 14–15.

224 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:144.

225 “second of the two” (Ar. thānī al-ithnayn): a reference to Q Tawbah 9:40b «When the two of them were in the cave, he said to his companion, “Do not worry, God is with us,” and God sent His calm down to him, aided him with forces invisible to you, and brought down the disbelievers’ plan». As traditionally interpreted, this verse refers to Muḥammad and Abū Bakr hiding from the Meccans in the cave called Thawr during the Hijrah from Mecca to Medina. See Rubin, “The Life of Muḥammad and the Qurʾān.”

226 “testament . . . The Scripture of God”: the word for testament and scripture in this passage is the same: kitāb, meaning simply a book or piece of writing. The anxiety expressed here is that, if Muḥammad writes down a kitāb as his testament, it could be confused with God’s Kitāb, the Qurʾan, which alone is Scripture.

227 “we were in Minā”: the Hāshim clan of the Quraysh, the clan of the Prophet of which Ibn ʿAbbās was a member, had their residences near a piedmont (Ar. shiʿb) in Minā.

228 “a man of your ranks . . . to so-and-so”: in an alternative transmission from Maʿmar, these persons are named. The speaker is the Prophet’s companion al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām, and it is ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib to whom he pledges to swear his oath of fealty. Maʿmar’s text, therefore, might have been censored here by ʿAbd al-Razzāq. See Balādhurī, Ansāb, 2:8.

229 “the market . . . vulgar mobs”: the hajj season and the busiest season of the markets naturally coincided, bringing with them masses of people whose behavior and conduct could lead to unpredictable results. Ibn ʿAbbās wisely advises ʿUmar to avoid inflaming any disputes in this tinderbox.

230 “Friday Congregation” (Ar. al-jumuʿah): the day for the collective prayer in which a sermon is delivered in the main mosque.

231 “the verse on stoning” (Ar. āyat al-rajm): ʿUmar here discusses a verse famously alleged to have been omitted from the Qurʾan. Here his comments foreshadow the verse’s exclusion from the collection of the Qurʾan commissioned by his successor, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān.

232 ʿUmar gives two versions of the verse on stoning, both of which he abbreviates. The full verse reads: «Do not yearn for ancestors other than your own, for it is an effrontery to faith. If a man and woman advanced in years commit adultery, then stone the two and such is the decisive punishment from God; God is almighty and all wise (lā targhibū ʿan ābaʾikum fa-innahu kufran bikum al-shaykh wa’l-shaykhah idhā zaniyā fa’rjamūhumā al-battata nakālan min Allāh wa’Llāhu ʿazīzun ḥakīmun).» Where the verse once stood in the Qurʾan is a matter of disagreement in the tradition, the two main options offered being Q 33, Sūrat al-Aḥzāb or 24, Sūrat al-Nūr. See Nöldeke, et al., History of the Qurʾān, 199–201.

233 “Mary’s son”: Jesus the son of Mary, so called in order to emphasize the humanity of Jesus despite being born of a Virgin (e.g., Q Āl ʿImrān 3:45–59 and Maryam 19:17–21), and thus to eschew the Christian practice of calling him “the Son of God.”

234 The speaker here again, according to an alternative transmission of the report from Maʿmar, is al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām. See Balādhurī, Ansāb, 2:8.

235 “hasty decision” (Ar. faltah): the term here, faltah, suggests an ad hoc solution and thus indicates that the action, though undertaken by one of exemplary station, does not establish a precedent worthy of emulation.

236 A “stout rubbing post” (al-judhayl al-muḥakkak) provides relief for a camel with an itch; a “short palm heavy laden with fruit” (al-ʿudhayq al-murajjab) is the pride of its owner. The speaker here, al-Ḥubāb ibn Mundhir, compares himself to both, presuming that he has found the solution to the conflict before them.

237 “commanders . . . aides” (Ar. umarāʾ . . . wuzarāʾ): the Allies, as their Arabic name “Anṣār” literally suggests, are to be the aides to the Quraysh. In calling the Anṣār aides to the Quraysh, ʿUmar uses the word wazīr, a word that has been Anglicized as vizier. However, he does not use it in the sense that it assumes in the Abbasid period—i.e., a powerful administrative magnate of the caliph—but rather in its qurʾanic sense, in which Aaron is called the aide (wazīr) to Moses (Q Ṭā Hā 20:29, Furqān 25:35).

238 “consultation” (Ar. mashwarah): ʿUmar here means to emphasize the importance of deciding a leader by means of a Shura. For a description of the procedures and purpose of the Shura, see the glossary and Crone, “Shūrā as an Elective Institution.”

239 Cf. Q Shūrā 42:38 and n. 242 below.

240 “two slaves” (Ar. ʿabdān): in a separate transmission of this report, the reading “two riding-camels (baʿīrān)” appears in place of “two slaves”; see Abū ʿUbayd, Amwāl, 220 (no. 361). However, the reading above is supported from another report attributed to ʿUmar in which he states, jaʿaltu fī l-ʿabd ʿabdayn wa-fī ’bn al-amah ʿabdayn; see Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, 3:353.

241 “Abū l-Ḥasan”: ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, known as Abū l-Ḥasan after his eldest son al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī.

242 “the Six”: the six members of the Shura ʿUmar appointed on his deathbed to determine the next leader of the community; see the following chapter.

243 On his deathbed ʿUmar appointed six of the most prominent Companions of Muḥammad to choose one of their own number as the next leader of the community by means of a Shura. Tradition is at odds as to who exactly numbered among the six—indeed, only five names are mentioned in Maʿmar’s account from al-Zuhrī here (but cf. 28.6 below; see also Crone, “Shūrā as an Elective Institution,” p. 5 for the other alleged candidates)—but tradition is more or less unanimous in asserting that the two main candidates were Muḥammad’s son-in-law from the Umayyad clan, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, and Muḥammad’s son-in-law and first cousin from the Hāshim clan, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. The practice of deciding leadership via a Shura is attested to in the Qurʾan (see Q Āl ʿImrān 3:159 and Shūrā 42:38), but the application of this process of adjudication to determining the leadership of the Muslim community is an innovation by ʿUmar, aimed at preventing the outbreak of civil strife between the competing candidates, whom he seems to have regarded as equally capable (or incapable) of acting as the Commander of the Faithful. In any case, although the Shura was often called for in subsequent decades, ʿUmar’s institution never again decided the leadership of the Islamic polity as seen here and virtually disappeared into obsolescence within a century’s time. This event is revisited at 28.6 and ch. 29.

244 “his bond . . . and his cupidity” (Ar. ʿaqdahu wa-atharatahu): ʿUthmān’s loyalty to the Umayyah clan of the Quraysh, who rise to become the first caliphal dynasty that his subsequent reign facilitates, was notorious, as was his fondness for wealth.

245 “Too stubborn” (Ar. ḍaris): more precisely, to be stubborn to the point of irascibility; the image conveyed by the word is that of a man with his teeth set on edge.

246 ʿAlī’s collected Qurʾan mentioned here never became the standard codex (muṣḥaf) as did ʿUthmān’s; however, among ʿAlī’s partisans, the Shiʿah, his codex, and the superiority thereof to ʿUthmān’s have been frequently debated. Cf. Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, 2–4 and Kohlberg and Amir-Moezzi, Revelation and Falsification.

247 The caliphate of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān ended in Dhū l-Hijjah 35/June 656 with his assassination by a faction of Muslims who cited as justification for their actions his misrule of the community and his refusal to abdicate.

248 In terms of chronological scope, this chapter is by far the most sweeping. It covers the last expeditionary raids ordered by the Prophet, offers a brief chronological overview of the reigns of his four successors (Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī), and culminates in a narrative of the Great Civil Strife (Ar. al-fitnah al-kubrā) that ensued after the assassination of ʿUthmān in Dhū l-Hijjah 35/June 656. The narrative then recounts the conflicts ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib engaged in throughout his bid to become recognized as the sole legitimate Commander of the Faithful: the Battle of the Camel and the Battle of Ṣiffīn. The end of the hostilities—marked by Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān’s appeasement of ʿAlī’s party after the latter’s assassination in Ramadan 40/January 661 and his consolidation of power over the Muslim community from his base in Damascus, Syria—is regaled in Muslim historiography as the “Year of Communal Solidarity” (Ar. ʿām al-jamāʿah). A key theme throughout the narrative is the polar opposition of civil strife (fitnah) and communal solidarity (jamāʿah).

249 According to other accounts, ʿAmr’s expeditionary force is sent first, on account of his kinship ties with the tribes of the region, but fearing the hazards he encounters there, he sends a request for reinforcements from the Prophet. It is the auxiliary forces subsequently dispatched to ʿAmr’s aid that Abū ʿUbaydah commands and that, presumably, he hands over to ʿAmr’s command. See Kister, “On the Papyrus of Wahb b. Munabbih,” 557 ff.

250 “O sons of ʿAbd Manāf . . .”: ʿAlī and Khālid belonged to the Hāshim and Umayyad clans of the Quraysh, respectively, and both clans belonged to ʿAbd Manāf, putatively the strongest and most important branch of Quraysh. Neither of the first two rulers to succeed Muḥammad, Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, belonged to this powerful branch of Quraysh, and thus their leadership is interpreted by Khālid as an affront to both the Hāshim and Umayyah clans. Incidentally, the two dynasties of caliphs, the Umayyads and Abbasids, both came from these descendants of ʿAbd Manāf.

251 “So shall you be forced to relinquish command” (Ar. innaka la-tatraku imratahu ʿalā al-taghālub): a more literal rendering would say “his appointment over you as commander,” wherein “his” refers to the Prophet’s appointment of Khālid ibn Saʿīd as a commander (amīr) over an expeditionary force to Yemen.

252 According to other accounts, Khālid approached ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān with the same concerns as he did ʿAlī and delayed pledging his allegiance to Abū Bakr as Commander of the Faithful for two months. See Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests, 113–14 and Balādhurī, Ansāb, 2:17.

253 ʿUmar’s antipathy toward Khālid ibn al-Walīd is legendary, but many accounts attribute the caliph’s decision to dismiss Khālid to his use of the booty of the conquest to enrich himself and other tribal notables, while neglecting the poor; see ʿAthamina, “The Appointment and Dismissal of Khālid ibn al-Walīd,” 260 ff.

254 “God has taken Yazīd” (Ar. iḥtasib Yazīda): the phrase iḥtasib is said to one bereaved of a child and literally means “take care to seek God’s reward.” As an admonition, it serves as a warning not to mourn the death of one’s child excessively and, instead, to show forbearance. Abū Sufyān’s measured reply shows his piety. See Halevi, Muḥammad’s Grave, 114 ff.

255 “May the bonds of kinship keep you” (Ar. waṣalatka raḥim): an expression of gratitude.

256 Al-Walīd ibn ʿUqbah’s offense was drunkenness; see Anthony, The Caliph and the Heretic, 36–37.

257 “the settlers in Egypt” (Ar. ahl Miṣr): the word translated as settlers here literally means “people” or “inhabitants,” but here the references are not to the local inhabitants of Egypt per se, but rather to the Arabian tribesmen who settled in the conquered territories in the newly established garrison cities, such as al-Fusṭāṭ in Egypt (near the site of modern-day Cairo) and Basra and Kūfah in Iraq.

258 The manuscript reads “ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Hishām,” which seems to be an error given that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Hishām was the famed participant in the Battle of the Camel. See Balādhurī, Ansāb, 5:240.

259 Ṭalḥah did indeed die during the battle, but only after it had been lost and, even then, at the hands of his supposed ally Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam. See Balādhurī, Ansāb, 2:225–26; cf. Madelung, Succession, 171 f.

260 “murdered . . . Wādī l-Sibāʿ”: that is, Ibn al-Zubayr did not die on the field of battle. Tradition is unanimous that al-Zubayr fled the field of battle and, for his cowardice after having led Muslims into war against one another, was tracked down in Wādī l-Sibāʿ and killed by Ibn Jurmūz. See Madelung, Succession, 170 f.

261 “elite vanguard”: the shurṭat al-khamīs of ʿAlī, consisting of several thousand warriors willing to give their lives for ʿAlī. See Ebstein, “Shurṭa Chiefs,” 106–7.

262 The two arbiters mentioned here are ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ and Abū Mūsā l-Ashʿarī, who were appointed by Muʿāwiyah and ʿAlī, respectively, to settle the differences between their two warring parties peacefully. The arbitration took place during the period after the stalemate at the Battle of Ṣiffīn in Safar 36/July 657. See Hinds, “The Ṣiffīn Arbitration Agreement.”

263 I.e., ʿAmr has even more contempt for al-Mughīrah and his ilk than he does for ʿAlī and his partisans.

264 Q Aʿrāf 7:175–6.

265 Q Jumuʿah 62:5.

266 Recognizing Ibn ʿUmar as a potential rival, Muʿāwiyah sought to provoke him into open confrontation by claiming an even greater right to lead the Muslims than his father, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb.

267 Lots were cast using divining arrows, here called “the arrows of God” (sihām Allāh), to determine God’s portion—the fifth, or khums—apart from that of the conquering army. See Crone and Silverstein, “Lot-Casting,” 428–29.

268 In this chapter, the narratives detail the disaffection that spread among the members of the Prophet’s clan, the Hāshimites, after and because of the appointment of Abū Bakr as Commander of the Faithful. In particular, those who voice grievances are the Prophet’s uncle al-ʿAbbās, his daughter Fāṭimah, and his son-in-law and cousin ʿAlī. Such disaffection, the narratives relate, was not limited to the Hāshim clan’s disagreements with Abū Bakr; it also produced rancor among the clan members themselves. Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, the narratives emphasize, did their best to placate the parties while remaining unyieldingly faithful to the Prophet’s instructions, but even their sagacious and discerning measures did not resolve all the matters.

269 “We prophets leave no heir; whatever we leave behind is for charity” (Ar. lā nūrithu mā taraknā ṣadaqatun): this saying and its interpretation is much contested between the Sunnīs and the Shiʿah as well as their respective forebears. In versions of the prophetic hadith favorable to the claims of ʿAlī and Fāṭimah, the rendering of the sentence changes slightly, so as to read “What we prophets have left behind for charity cannot be inherited (lā yūrath mā taraknā ṣadaqatan)”—with the consequence of rendering all property otherwise possessed by Muḥammad heritable by his descendants. See Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 2:102 f.

270 Q Ḥashr 59:6.

271 I.e., merely to provide for the necessities of life for the Prophet’s family and for charity.

272 This passage firmly dates Maʿmar’s reception of the story from al-Zuhrī to the reign of the Umayyad caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik. Maʿmar’s subsequent comments also suggest that the transmission of his materials to ʿAbd al-Razzāq postdates the revolt of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan’s sons Muḥammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyyah (killed in 145/762) and Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh (killed in 146/763), after which the Abbasid caliph al-Manṣūr seized the properties from ʿAlī’s descendants. The caliph al-Mahdī returned the estates to Alids during his reign from 158/775 to 169/785, but Maʿmar died long before, in 153/770. See Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, 3:416–17.

273 ʿUmar’s leadership as Commander of the Faithful ended abruptly with his assassination at the hands of a slave. The slave was a Persian taken captive during the Islamic conquests in the East and had been transported to Medina for his skill as a craftsman. The story is a prescient and tragic example of an emerging tension in the early Islamic polity: the presence of massive numbers—tens of thousands, if not more—of non-Arabs enslaved as captives of war and now required to assimilate and work in the elite conquest culture of their new masters. These non-Arabs are called mawālī (sg. mawlā) in Arabic, a word usually rendered as “slave-client,” but that entails a much more formal relationship of servitude and patronage. A tribal patron essentially guarantees a client access to Muslim society via captivity, slavery, or conversion. As this process was often forced upon the clients as the result of captivity and/or enslavement, it is hardly surprising that this created a situation with the potential for conflagration. Revisited here as well is the process behind ʿUmar’s Shura that led, much to the dismay of the Hāshim clan, to the appointment of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān as the next Commander of the Faithful. See also the previous narrative in ch. 21.

274 “a single prostration made to God” (Ar. sajdah sajadahā li-Llāh): ʿUmar expresses his gratitude to God that he was killed by a non-Muslim rather than by a Muslim whose prostrations in prayer could have potentially outnumbered his.

275 “He gave ʿUmar date wine to drink” (Ar. saqāhu nabīdhan): the consumption of alchohol and intoxicants is, generally speaking, expressly forbidden in Islamic law, but there is ambiguity over whether the scriptural prohibition of wine (Ar. khamr) in Q Māʾidah 5:90 applies only to beverages fermented from grapes or to all intoxicating drinks. Some early jurists, therefore, allowed the consumption of date wine (nabīdh), but not grape wine (khamr). ʿUmar’s consumption of date wine is explained as either reflecting the view that only grape wine (khamr) was forbidden or by asserting that the so-called nabīdh here refers not to wine but, rather, to a drink made by steeping dates in water without permitting the fermentation process to begin. See Anthony, “The Assassination of ʿUmar,” 222 and Haider, “Contesting Intoxication,” 158 ff.

276 “The man from the Muʿāwiyah clan” (Ar. akhū banī muʿāwiyah): i.e., the second doctor who poured milk for him. The first doctor is said to have been from the Allies. The Muʿāwiyah clan referred to here is not to be confused with Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān; it is, rather, a subtribe of the Kindah of Yemen. Cf. Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, 3:346 and Balādhurī, Ansāb, 5:381–82.

277 “the third night . . .”: i.e., its final night; cf. 29.1.

278 Although ʿUmar had previously designated ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf as the prayer leader, here the leader of the prayer is Ṣuhayb ibn Sinān, known as “the Byzantine” (Ar. al-Rūmī; lit., “Roman”), an early Companion of Muḥammad numbered among the so-called ahl al-subbāq, or “forerunners,” who are the first of their peoples to convert to Islam. The ahl al-subbāq are Muḥammad, Salmān, Ṣuhayb, and Bilāl, representing the Arabs, Persians, Byzantines, and Abyssinians, respectively. See Bashear, Arabs and Others, 17, 25. Ṣuhayb leads the prayer because, as a non-Qurashī, he is ineligible to be the community’s leader, and thus his leadership of the prayers during the proceedings of the Shura does not bias the candidacy of any of its participants as, for instance, Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq’s leading of prayers during Muḥammad’s illness purportedly biased the community in favor of his leadership. Cf. Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:2724.

279 ʿUbayd Allāh implicates certain prominent Qurashīs, and probably ʿAlī in particular, in a conspiracy to murder his father, ʿUmar. Cf. Madelung, Succession, 69 f. and Anthony, “The Assassination of ʿUmar,” 220 f.

280 “the two scuffled with one another” (Ar. tanāṣayā): lit., “they grabbed each other by the forelock.”

281 “God have mercy on Ḥafṣah”: this is an allusion to a report not recorded here that asserts that it was in fact ʿUmar’s daughter Ḥafṣah who instigated her brother ʿUbayd Allāh to go on his killing spree. See Anthony, “The Assasination of ʿUmar,” 220.

282 See n. 242 above.

283 The meaning is essentially the same: the Abū Rukānah clan is a branch of the Hāshim clan descended from Hāshim’s son ʿAbd Yazīd. ʿAbd Yazīd had a son known as Rukānah al-Muṭṭalibī who, though famed for his manly prowess and matchless skill as a wrestler, was bested by the Prophet in a wrestling match. See Guillaume, Life, 178.

284 I.e., the Umayyah clan. ʿUmar here foreshadows the rise of Umayyad dynasty of caliphs. ʿUthmān’s favoritism of his clan, the Umayyads, during his caliphate notoriously laid the groundwork for their rise to power under Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān. However, the account also implies that neither ʿAlī nor ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf would have been any better in this regard had they assumed leadership of the community as Commander of the Faithful.

285 I.e., Ibn ʿUmar, the narrator of the account, states that he is glad to have been absent from the Shura because it enabled him to be at his father’s bedside as he lay dying from a stab wound. At his father’s side, Ibn ʿUmar was able to hear these precious last words of ʿUmar.

286 “the Arabs will soon apostatize” (Ar. an tartadda l-ʿarab): Abū Bakr’s caliphate was predominately occupied with the so-called Riddah, or Apostasy, Wars—irredentist conflicts in which he fought to keep the Arabian tribes united under the banner of Islam.

287 Abū Bakr has died, and ʿUmar, famed for his hatred of Khālid, now rules.

288 See 25.2 above.

289 “the doubt is Abū Bakr’s”: ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī, whose kunyah is Abū Bakr, doesn’t recall if Maʿmar related the tradition on Ayyūb’s authority from both ʿIkrimah and Abū Yazīd or just one of the two.

290 The allusion here is the pact of brotherhood (Ar. al-muʾākhāh) formed between key individuals from the Medinese Allies and the Meccan Emigrants to cement the new alliance minted after the Hijrah. Muḥammad, rather than adopting a Medinese as his brother, instead chose ʿAlī as his brother, an event highlighted by the Shiʿah as indicative of ʿAlī’s unparalleled bond with the Prophet. See Ibn Hishām, 1:504 ff. (trans. Guillaume, 234) and Balādhurī, Ansāb, 1:641 ff.

291 Saliva was regarded as a key medium for transmitting blessings from one person to another. The Hadith are filled with anecdotes in which people bring their children to be blessed or healed with the saliva of the Prophet. See Chelhod “Le baraka chez les Arabes”; Giladi, “Some Notes on Taḥnīk”; and the miracles of Jesus in Mark 8:22 and John 9:6.

292 I.e., the Prophet’s wives, to whom the Qurʾan explicitly refers as the Believers’ Mothers; see Q Aḥzāb 33:6.

293 “Satan the Accursed” (al-shayṭān al-rajīm): “Al-Rajīm” appears in the Qurʾan as an epithet of Satan, but its precise meaning is somewhat obscure. Other meanings include “pelted with stones” and “accuser.” Cf. Silverstein, “On the Original Meaning of al-shayṭān al-rajīm.”

294 The water here not only removes filth but also serves as a means of conveying the purity, and hence the blessing, of the Prophet to Fāṭimah and ʿAlī.