𝐖𝐚𝐬 𝐌𝐮𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐝 𝐎𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐝 “𝐐𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐦”? 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧 𝐎𝐥𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐞
Mohamad Mostafa Nassar
Twitter:@NassarMohamadMR
Note:
The following article is written by a non-Muslim academic and quotes non-Muslims and orientalists mostly, however Egyptian lawyer, novelist, and journalist Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal was quoted as well.
We in Islam Compass did not write that article, we just share it to proof to non-Muslims who lie about Islam and Prophet Muhammed by claiming that his original name was Qutham, when in fact it is a lie, and that lie is refuted by non-Muslim academics here in this article we are sharing with you.
The Source of this article appears on a link at the end of this page
Disclaimer:
Any irrelevant topics raised against Islam in this article is not acceptabel,however as we mentioend earlier, we are quoting this article for the sole purpose of proofing that Prophet Muhammed peace be upon him was never called by the name of “Qutham”.
𝐖𝐚𝐬 𝐌𝐮𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐝 𝐎𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐝 “𝐐𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐦”? 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧 𝐎𝐥𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐞
By J. J. Little
In his ʾAnsāb al-ʾAšrāf, the Baghdadian litterateur and genealogist ʾAḥmad b. Yaḥyá al-Balāḏurī (d. post-270/883-884) recorded the following concerning the birth of the Islamic prophet Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (d. 11/632):
As for Quṯam b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib: his mother was Ṣafiyyah bt. Jundub, the mother of al-Ḥāriṯ b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, and he died as a young boy. [Someone] other than al-Kalbī said: “He died three years before the birth of the Prophet, when he was a boy of nine years, whereupon ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib experienced great anguish, [for] he had been dear to him [and] brought him joy.
Then, when the Messenger of God was born, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib named him “Quṯam”, whereupon his mother ʾÂminah informed him that she had been shown in a dream [that she was] to name him “Muḥammad”—thus, he named him “Muḥammad” [instead].” (1)
This report was subsequently quoted in the Mirʾât al-Zamān of the Baghdado-Syrian historian and preacher Ṣibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 654/1256),(2) the Sīrah of the Cairene biographer ʿAlī b. Burhān al-Dīn al-Ḥalabī (d. 1044/1635),(3) and other late sources,(4) whence it came to the attention of European orientalists. From the middle of the 19th Century onwards, it has been argued by some that this report reveals—perhaps inadvertently—that the Prophet was originally named “Quṯam”.
And only received—or adopted—the name “Muḥammad” later in his life. Such orientalists usually appeal to the criteria of embarrassment or dissimilarity to argue therefor, but their argumentation is unsound: the report cited by al-Balāḏurī, Ṣibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, and al-Ḥalabī is a miracle story and thus exactly the kind of thing that we would expect to be created by early Muslim storytellers, preachers, and propagandists. Thus, even if the Prophet was not originally named “Muḥammad”, the notion that he was originally named “Quṯam” instead remains baseless.
Sprenger (1869)
In the first volume of his 1869 monograph Das Leben und die Lehre des Moḥammad, in a section dedicated to the Prophet’s name (“Hieſs der Prophet Moḥammad?”), the Austrian orientalist Aloys Sprenger (d. 1893) claimed that “concerns arise regarding [the notion] that he was originally called Muḥammad.”(5) After quoting al-Ḥalabī’s version of the aforementioned report, Sprenger continued:
Although this information is very isolated, it is so contrary to the spirit of the legend that there was no reason to invent it. I would only doubt, if [indeed] the Prophet was originally called Quṯam, whether his grandfather exchanged this name for “Muḥammad” as a result of a dream-vision. Rather, the following traditions seem to show that the Prophet himself, only after or shortly before the Hijrah, adopted the name Muḥammad.(6)
Sprenger proceeded to cite various reports from Ibn Saʿd, al-Buḵārī, Muslim, and other sources in which the Prophet enumerates his names and titles, including Muḥammad (“praiseworthy one”), ʾAḥmad (“most-praised”), al-Māḥī (“the effacer [of disbelief]”), al-Ḥāšir (“the gatherer [of people]”), and al-ʿĀqib (“the last [prophet]”).(7) From all of this, Sprenger inferred that “Muḥammad” was just another religiously-significant title that the Prophet adopted during the course of his mission, rather than his original name.
Rösch (1892)
In his 1892 article ‘Die Namen des arabischen Propheten Muḥammed und Aḥmed’, the German pastor Gustav Rösch began as follows:
According to the traditions that have accumulated around the cradle of the Prophet of Islam, the grandfather gave the newborn grandson the name “Muḥammad” at the ʿAqīqah or birth celebration, on account of a divine command that he received in one of his dreams; or, alternatively, [he initially gave him] the name “Quṯam” [in order] to preserve the memory of a son [of his] who died as a young boy and for whom he mourned greatly, but following the report of the mother ʾÂminah that an angel of the Lord had ordered her in a dream to name the child “Muḥammad”, it was replaced by the latter name.(8)
However, Rösch was entirely reliant on Sprenger for this information and contented himself with merely entertaining the “possibility” (Möglichkeit) that the Prophet was originally named “Quṯam”, alongside other possibilities.(9)
Lammens (1910)
In his 1910 article ‘Qoran et tradition’, the Belgian orientalist Henri Lammens (d. 1937) argued—with even more certainty than Sprenger—that the Prophet was originally named “Quṯam”:
At has birth Muhammad had received the name Qutham, but since the Book of Allah had given him the name Ahmad and Muhammad, the Tradition, with a slightly apologetic ulterior motive, wishes to hear of no other. One needs only to be wakeful in one’s pursuit and to research patiently into the remote corners of the Hadith to discover the real significance of what orthodoxy did not or would not understand. (10)
In addition to several different versions of the report about ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s naming of the Prophet (such as the version recorded in the Mirʾât al-Zamān of Ṣibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī), Lammens referred to the following expanded list of the Prophet’s names and titles, cited in the Talqīḥ Fuhūm ʾAhl al-ʾAṯar of the Baghdadian polymath ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201):
ʾAbū al-Ḥusayn b. Fāris al-Luḡawī [d. 395/1004] recounted that the prophet had twenty-three names:
[1] Praiseworthy One (muḥammad);
[2] Most-Praised (ʾaḥmad);
[3] The Effacer [of Disbelief] (al-māḥī);
[4] The Gatherer [of People] (al-ḥāšir);
[5] The Last [of the Prophets] (al-ʿāqib);
[6] The One Who Follows [the Prophets] (al-muqaffá);
[7] The Prophet of Mercy (nabiyy al-raḥmah);
[8] The Prophet of Repentance (nabiyy al-tawbah);
[9] The Prophet of Battles (nabiyy al-malāḥim);
[10] The Witness (al-šāhid);
[11] The Bringer of Glad Tidings (al-mubaššir);
[12] The Warner (al-naḏīr);
[13] The Laugher (al-ḍaḥūk);
[14] The Killer (al-qattāl);
[15] The One Who Trusts [God] (al-mutawakkil);
[16] The Conqueror (al-fātiḥ);
[17] The Trustworthy One (al-ʾamīn);
[18] The Seal [of the Prophets] (al-ḵātim);
[19] The Chosen One (al-muṣṭafá);
[20] The Messenger (al-rasūl);
[21] The Prophet (al-nabiyy);
[22] The Illiterate One (al-ʾummiyy);
[23] The Generous One (al-quṯam). (11)
A similar list can be found in Ibn al-Jawzī’s al-Wafāʾ bi-ʾAḥwāl al-Muṣṭafá (12) and in the ʾImtāʿ al-ʾAsmāʿ of ʾAḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1442),(13) both of which are likewise cited by Lammens. On the basis of such lists, in combination with the story of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s naming of the Prophet, Lammens—following Sprenger—concluded that the Prophet was originally named “Quṯam”.
Haykal (1935)
In the preface to the second edition of his 1935 monograph Ḥayāt Muḥammad, the Egyptian lawyer, novelist, and journalist Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal (d. 1956) discussed a letter that he had received from a “Muslim Egyptian who believes in everything that the Orientalists write” about the Quran and the Prophet, including their claims “about the name of the Prophet”. In response to this, Haykal wrote:
It was not Quṯam or Quṯāmah. This is a statement that was not dictated by the truth (kalām lam yumli-hi al-ḥaqq). On the contrary, it was dictated by the [same] motive (al-hawá) that drove the assertion (daʿwá) of the Quran’s corruption. (14)
Unfortunately, Haykal did not address any of the specific arguments that were put forward by Sprenger et al. in this regard. Instead, he merely accepted alternative accounts of the Prophet’s naming—reports that depict the Prophet as having been named “Muḥammad” at the outset, without any mention of an initial, alternative name—at face value. (15)
Reynolds (2011)
In his 2011 article ‘Remembering Muḥammad’, the American Quran scholar Gabriel Reynolds surveyed much of the available scholarship and primary sources on the Prophet’s original name, including material pertaining to “Quṯam”. Reynolds concludes—following Sprenger and others—that “Muḥammad” was not the Prophet’s original name, but does not seem to accept the “Quṯam” hypothesis specifically. (16)
Spencer (2021)
In his (revised and expanded) 2021 book Did Muhammad Exist?, the American blogger and popular Islamophobic author Robert Spencer cited Lammens’ citation of Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, and al-Maqrīzī, before putting forward his own explanation for the relevant data:
These are all quite late sources, much later than a superabundance of material that gives only Muhammad as the name of the prophet of Islam. But even so, it would be unwise to discount them entirely, for they raise the question of why a factoid such as Muhammad originally having been named something else was invented in the first place, if everyone had known for centuries, without any question at all, that the prophet was named Muhammad and Muhammad alone.
If the figure of Muhammad the prophet had been put together from a variety of sources, and the stories about him were in whole or part originally about other people, then it would make perfect sense that the idea that Muhammad originally had another name would have taken root and persisted: stories about this Qutham were incorporated into the Muhammad legend.
And then the explanation that Muhammad was originally named Qutham was invented in order to explain away any uncomfortable questions from those who may have remembered that these stories had originally been told about someone else.
This is much easier to accept than the idea that Muhammad had always been known by that name and no other, until centuries later, someone decided to invent, for no discernable reason, the notion that he had at some time been called something else. (17)
Whereas Sprenger and Lammens argued that the Prophet was originally named “Quṯam” and only later renamed “Muḥammad”, Spencer—in line with his overarching thesis that the Prophet never existed in any meaningful historical sense—argues that “Quṯam” was actually the name of another Arabian figure altogether.
According to Spencer, stories about this “Quṯam” were incorporated into the emerging Islamic conception of the Prophet Muḥammad (either during the late 7th Century CE or at some point during the 8th Century CE), resulting in some lingering confusion over the Prophet’s actual name. In other words, according to Spencer, the reports and lists cited by Lammens embody a kind of half-memory a separate Arabian figure known as “Quṯam”.
Analysis
Before any other consideration, the lists cited by Lammens—the lists of the Prophet’s names and titles that include “the Generous One” or al-quṯam—need to be discarded: it is certain that such lists were collated from the various reports attributing names and titles to the Prophet, which means that the inclusion of “al-Quṯam” in the lists cited by Ibn al-Jawzī (on the authority of Ibn Fāris) and al-Maqrīzī were plausibly inspired by the ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib story.
There are two reasons for this. Firstly, these lists have no isnads tracing themselves back to early authorities, which automatically makes them look like the compositions of later scholars (such as Ibn Fāris), as opposed to putative transmissions from the earliest period of Islamic history.
Secondly, no single hadith contains all of the names on these lists—rather, the names can only be founded scattered amongst various different hadiths, which again immediately suggests that the comprehensive lists were synthesised therefrom.
In short, it is likely that Ibn Fāris or whoever else first added “al-Quṯam” to their list of Prophet’s names and titles did so precisely because of the story of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s initially naming the Prophet “Quṯam”, which means that the ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib story is likely the only real evidence that the Prophet was ever named “Quṯam”. As such, these lists can be set aside as secondary constructions.
Additionally, all of the later renditions of the ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib story clearly derive from al-Balāḏurī’s version or his immediate source (“someone other than al-Kalbī”), given their shared structure and wordings: all of the relevant reports clearly derive from an urtext via written transmission, which rules out any notion that the different versions could reflect parallel, independent strands of tradition reaching back ur-story circulating in the 7th or even the 8th Century CE. (18)
In other words, the versions of this report cited by al-Ḥalabī, Ṣibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, and al-Balāḏurī clearly derive from an urtext located in the era of written transmission (i.e., the 9th Century CE), which would match al-Balāḏurī himself or his cited (anonymous) source. Consequently, we can treat these reports as a single report that dates from the 9th Century CE at least. Of course, it is certainly possible that this report derives in turn—via continuous transmission—from a genuine historical memory, as Sprenger et al. have argued.
Proponents of the thesis that the Prophet was originally named “Quṯam” seem to share the same basic argument: Muslims would never have created a report depicting the Prophet’s first name as “Quṯam”, so the report must reflect some kind of genuine historical memory of the Prophet’s having initially been named “Quṯam” (or, possibly, the existence of another figure named “Quṯam”).
The reason why Muslims would never have created such a report is twofold: firstly, as Sprenger put it, “there was no reason to invent it” (19) (i.e., Muslims throughout history had nothing to gain therefrom); and, secondly, such a report is embarrassing or, as Sprenger again put it, “so contrary to the spirit of the legend” (20) (i.e., Muslims throughout history were positively disincentivised to create it).
There are several problems with this argumentation.
Firstly, Sprenger never explained why this report was “so contrary to the spirit of the legend”—he simply asserted it. Lammens at least attempted an explanation therefor, claiming that the report in some way conflicts with the Quran’s bestowal of the names “Muḥammad” and “ʾAḥmad”: “since the Book of Allah had given him the name Ahmad and Muhammad, the Tradition, with a slightly apologetic ulterior motive, wishes to hear of no other.” (21)
Why this should be is not explained, however: why would it be an issue for Muslims if God had bestowed these names upon the Prophet at the commencement of his mission or following the Hijrah, for example, rather than at his birth? Neither Sprenger nor Lammens provide an explanation.
Secondly, it is often difficult to know what was embarrassing to early Muslims, given the chaos, diversity, and lack of extensive documentation that characterised the first century and a half of Islamic history. For example, European orientalists long held that the so-called “Satanic Verses” story must reflect a genuine historical memory, since it clashes with the classical Islamic doctrine of the Prophet’s infallibility (ʿiṣmah), not to mention the integrity of the Quran. (22)
However, as more recent scholars have pointed out, the story (1) contradicts internal Quranic evidence, (2) probably predates the predomination of the infallibility doctrine, and (3) actually serves a doctrinal function in its own right: the story ends with Satan’s efforts being foiled, thereby illustrating the Quran’s miraculous preservation (in contrast to past scriptures). (23) As this example illustrates, appeals to embarrassment are often highly questionable and easily overturned by the discovery of new contextual data.
Thirdly, contra Sprenger and Lammens, it is easy to imagine an incentive for the creation of a report such is this. The primary custodians—or sources—of early Islamic historical memory were oral storytellers and preachers operating in the first two Islamic centuries, who spent much of their time inferring, guessing, imagining, or otherwise creating stories about the context of the Quran and the life and times of the Prophet, including episodes in his childhood. (24)
Such storytellers were driven not just by a desire to validate Islam and edify and entertain their audiences, but also, by a desire to answer questions and fill in historical blanks—in fact, Patricia Crone went so far as to speak of an “Arab horror anonymitatis” regarding early Islamic history. (25)
It is thus easy to envisage a Muslim storyteller (during the 7th or 8th Century CE) creating the ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib story, simply to clarify the process by which the Prophet received his name: the “Quṯam” episode therein could simply be a creative flourish, or a device to add suspense, or even just a means for the storyteller to show off their genealogical knowledge. Since none of these motives can be ruled out, it cannot be said that there was no reason for an early Muslim—especially a storyteller—to create this story.
Fourthly, the report is a miracle story belonging to the ‘proofs of prophethood’ (dalāʾil al-nubuwwah) genre: the point of the story is that the Prophet’s name was bestowed upon him by none other than God, by means of his mother’s dream-vision.
Far from going against the grain or eliciting embarrassment, such a story serves to validate Islam and is thus exactly the kind of thing that an early Muslim storyteller, preacher, or propagandist would be incentivised to create. The criterion of embarrassment thus cannot be applied to this story.
As we have already seen, however, this line of criticism was already pre-empted by Sprenger, who readily conceded that the miraculous element of the story was dubious, whilst still maintaining the authenticity of the “Quṯam” element therein.
This is a neat solution, but not a very convincing one: ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s initial attempt to name the Prophet after his dead son functions as a narrative device to introduce the miracle, such that the two cannot be easily disentangled.
In other words, it is plausible that even the “Quṯam” element was created to serve as a prompt within the narrative for ʾÂminah to disclose her dream-vision—thus, on literary- or narrative-critical grounds, Sprenger’s interpretation of the evidence cannot be sustained.
In this respect, Sprenger’s approach shares the same weakness as that of the Scottish orientalist William Montgomery Watt, which was famously exposed by Crone in the following:
As he sees it, one handles miracle stories by simply discounting the miraculous elements and accepting the information that remains as historically sound. Thus he accepts as historically correct the claim that Muḥammad traded in Syria as Khadīja’s agent, even though the only story in which we are told as much is fictitious.
It is similarly, to him, a historical fact that ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib dug the well of Zamzam in Mecca, though this information is likewise derived from a miracle story. And all the information that the tradition offers on Muḥammad’s mother he likewise accepts at face value, except for incidents of a supernatural nature.
Source criticism to Watt thus consists largely in adopting a secular stance. Mutatis mutandis, the wall of Jericho did not collapse at the sound of Joshua’s trumpets, but otherwise the Biblical account is reliable; Jesus did not feed thousands with a couple of fishes and loaves, but the Sermon on the Mount was enacted precisely as the Gospels describe.
Storytellers do not however distinguish between true and false in the realistic sense of the secular historian, and what they did to supernatural incidents surrounding Muḥammad’s life they did to natural incidents as well. They did not put their imagination only into supernatural events, reverting to the role of faithful transmitters as soon as straightforward history was involved.
If they could produce fifteen equally fictitious versions of a miraculous episode, they could also produce fifteen equally fictitious accounts of an apparently historical event. The fact that so many stories in the tradition are variations on a common theme testifies to this very fact. (26)
As with Watt, so too with Sprenger: one cannot simply remove the miracle and retain the non-miraculous elements of a miracle story. If storytellers and others were happy to create miracles, they were equally happy to create mundane details to set up these miracles, not to mention mundane details in general.
Summary:
In sum, there are no grounds for accepting the proposition that the Prophet was originally named “Quṯam”: the only evidence therefor is a dubious miracle story that is first attested by al-Balāḏurī and a series of later lists that plausibly borrowed therefrom. Sprenger, Lammens, and others have appealed to the criterion of embarrassment to authenticate the “Quṯam” element in this story, but such an argument fails on several counts:
(1) Sprenger et al. never satisfactorily explained why the story would have been embarrassing, and it is difficult to know what was actually embarrassing for early Muslims in any case;
(2) a desire to fill in historical blanks could have inspired early Muslims to create a story about the Prophet’s naming;
(3) the story is miraculous and thus certainly an edifying or propagandistic creation;
(4) even the “Quṯam” element in story is plausibly just a narrative device to introduce the miracle, such that the “Quṯam” and miracle elements cannot be disentangled.
In short, even if it is true that the Prophet was not originally named “Muḥammad” (as scholars such as Reynolds maintain), it cannot be seriously argued that his original name was “Quṯam”.
* * *
I owe special thanks to Prof. Christopher Melchert (University of Oxford) for providing feedback on a draft of this article, and DerMenschensohn for correcting my German translations.
(1) ʾAḥmad b. Yaḥyá al-Balāḏurī (ed. Suhayl Zakkār & Riyāḍ Ziriklī), Kitāb Jumal min ʾAnsāb al-ʾAšrāf, Vol. 4 (Beirut, Lebanon: Dār al-Fikr, 1997), p. 411.
(2) Ṣibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī (ed. Muḥammad Barakāt & ʿAmmār Rayḥāwī), Mirʾât al-Zamān fī Tawārīḵ al-ʾAʿyan, Vol. 3 (Damascus, Syria: Dār al-Risālah al-ʿĀlamiyyah, 2013), p. 68.
(3) ʿAlī b. Burhān al-Dīn al-Ḥalabī, al-Sīrah al-Ḥalabiyyah: ʾInsān al-ʿUyūn fī Sīrat al-ʾAmīn al-Maʾmūn, Vol. 3 (Beirut, Lebanon: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1427 AH), p. 118.
(4) Possibly including the Tawṯīq ʿurá al-ʾĪmān fī Tafḍīl Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān of Hibat Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Bārizī (d. 738/1337-1338), which has been characterised as “a work on the merits and miracles of the Prophet”; see Morimoto Kazuo, ‘How to behave toward sayyids and sharīfs: a trans-sectarian tradition of dream accounts’, Morimoto Kazuo (ed.), Sayyids and Sharifs in Muslim Societies: The living links to the Prophet (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2012), 34, n. 41. The Tawṯīq of al-Bārizī is cited by Lammens (see below), but unfortunately, I was not able to gain access thereto.
(5) Aloys Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre des Moḥammad nach bisher grösstentheils unbenutzten Quellen, Vol. 1 (Berlin, Germany: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1869), 155: “Dennoch erheben sich Bedenken dagegen, daſs er ursprünglich Moḥammad hieſs.”
(6) Ibid., 156: “Diese Nachricht ist zwar ganz vereinzelt, aber sie ist dem Geist der Legende so sehr zuwider, daſs kein Grund vorhanden war, sie zu erdichten. Nur möchte ich zweifeln, wenn der Prophet ursprünglich Ḳotham hieſe, ob sein Groſsvater diesen Namen in Folge eines Traumgesichtes mit „Moḥammad“ umtauschte. Folgende Traditionen scheinen vielmehr darzuthun, daſs der Prophet selbst, und zwar erst nach oder ganz kurz vor der Flucht den Namen Moḥammad adoptirte.”
(7) Ibid., 156 ff.
(8) Gustav Rösch, ‘Die Namen des arabischen Propheten Muḥammed und Aḥmed’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Vol. 46 (1892), 432: “Nach den Traditionen, welche sich um die Wiege des Propheten des Islâm gesammelt haben, hat der Grossvater dem neugeborenen Enkel bei der ʿAqîqah oder Enthaarungsfeier auf einen ihm Traum zugekommenen göttlichen Befehl hin den Namen Muḥammed, oder aber zur Erhaltung des Andenkens eines im Knabenalter verstorbenen und von ihm schmerzlich betrauerten Sohnes dessen Namen Qotham gegeben, denselben jedoch nachträglich auf die Erzählung der Mutter Amînah hin, der Engel des Herrn habe ihr im Traum befohlen, das Kind Muḥammed zu heissen, durch den letzteren Namen ersetzt.”
(9) Ibid., 434.
(10) Henri Lammens (trans. Ibn Warraq), ‘The Koran and Tradition: How the Life of Muhammad Was Composed’, in Ibn Warraq (ed.), The Quest for the Historical Muhammad (Amherst, USA: Prometheus Books, 2000), 172. For the French original, see id., ‘Qoran et tradition: Comment fut composée la vie de Mahomet’, Recherches de Science Religieuse, Vol. 1 (1910), 31.Cf. Gabriel S. Reynolds, The Qurʾān and Its Biblical Subtext (London, UK: Routledge, 2010), 193, n. 686: “Lammens wonders if this could have been the Prophet’s given name.” (Emphasis mine.) Pace Reynolds, Lammens’ wording comes across as a statement of fact.
(11) ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Jawzī, Talqīḥ Fuhūm ʾAhl al-ʾAṯar fī ʿUyūn al-Taʾrīḵ wa-al-Siyar (Beirut, Lebanon: Dār al-ʾArqam ibn ʾabī al-ʾArqam, 1997), p. 15.
(12) Id. (ed. Muḥammad Zuhrī al-Najjār), al-Wafāʾ bi-ʾAḥwāl al-Muṣṭafá, Vol. 1 (Riyadh, KSA: al-Muʾassasah al-Saʿīdiyyah, n. d.), p. 174.
(13) Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī (ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Namīsī), ʾImtāʿ al-ʾAsmāʿ bi-mā li-Rasūl Allāh min al-ʾAbnāʾ wa-al-ʾAmwāl wa-al-Ḥafadah wa-al-Matāʿ, Vol. 2 (Beirut, Lebanon: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1999), p. 146.
(14) Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal, Ḥayāt Muḥammad, 14th printing (Cairo, Egypt: Dār al-Maʿārif, n. d.), p. 57.
(15) Ibid., pp. 125-126.
(16) Gabriel S. Reynolds, ‘Remembering Muḥammad’, Numen, Vol. 58 (2011), esp. 190-191, 203-204. Also see Reynolds, The Qurʾān and Its Biblical Subtext, 189 ff.
(17) Robert B. Spencer, Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry into Islam’s Obscure Origins, revised & expanded edition (New York, USA: Bombardier Books, 2021), 19-20.
(18) For a similar point, see Ulrike Mitter, ‘Origin and Development of the Islamic Patronate’, in Monique Bernards & John Nawas (eds.), Patronate and Patronage in Early and Classical Islam (Leiden, the Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2005), 77, n. 32.
(19) Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre des Moḥammad, 156.
(20) Ibid.
(21) Lammens (trans. Ibn Warraq), ‘The Koran and Tradition’, in Ibn Warraq (ed.), The Quest for the Historical Muhammad, 172.
(22) E.g., William Muir, The Life of Mahomet, Vol. 2 (London, UK: Smith, elder & Co., 1861), 149-159; William M. Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1961), 60 ff.; Maxime Rodinson (trans. Anne Carter), Mohammed (London UK: Penguin Books Ltd., 1985), 106 ff.; Francis E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam (Albany, USA: State University of New York University Press, 1994), 161.
(23) E.g., Gerald R. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), ch. 6; Shahab Ahmed, ‘Satanic verses’, in Jane D. McAuliffe (ed.), Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, Vol. 4 (Leiden, the Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2004), 535; Nicolai Sinai, ‘An interpretation of Sūrat al-Najm (Q. 53)’, Journal of Qurʾanic Studies, Vol. 13, Number 2 (2011), 9-11; Patricia Crone, ‘Problems in Sūra 53’, in Crone (ed. Hanna Siurua), The Qurʾānic Pagans and Related Matters: Collected Studies in Three Volumes, Volume 1 (Leiden, the Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2016), 343-344.
(24) See especially ead., Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Princeton, USA: Princeton University Press, 1987), ch. 9. Also see Michael A. Cook, Muhammad (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1983), 66-67; Gautier H. A. Juynboll, Muslim tradition: Studies in chronology, provenance and authorship of early ḥadīth (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 11-15, 74; Patricia Crone, ‘Two legal problems bearing on the early history of the Qurʾān’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, Volume 18, Number 1 (1994), 13-21.
(25) Ead., Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 16.
(26) Ead., Meccan Trade, 220-221.
Original article appeared Here
Was Muhammad Originally Named “Qutham”? Resolving an Old Debate