Charakter und Authentie des muslimischen Uberlieferung uber das Leben Muhammeds.

• Author: Berg, Herbert
• Position: Review

By GREGOR SCHOELER. Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte, und Kultur des islamischen Orients, vol. 14. Berlin: WALTER DE GRUYTER, 1996. Pp. xi + 214. DM 188.

Since the beginning of this century many Western scholars have doubted the authenticity of the biographical traditions about Muhammad's life. Skeptical scholars such as Caetani and Lammens argued that at least some of the sira was a product of speculation about biographical indicators in the Qur an. Although Noldeke and Becker argued strongly that Caetani and Lammens went too far in their skepticism, the debate over the authenticity of the sira and early Islamic literature in general continues between skeptics such as Wansbrough, Cook, and Crone and non-skeptics such as Watt, van Ess, and Serjeant. Gregor Schoeler has contributed to the discussion before,(1) but with this study he hopes to resolve the debate. To do so, he focuses on the "character" of transmission, that is, the relative use of oral and written transmission, in the first and second chapters and on the authenticity of the reports in the second and third chapters. Schoeler correctly points out that the two issues are not identical, for written material could have been fabricated as easily as oral material.

Schoeler's first chapter deals with the learning and teaching methods of the primary transmitters of reports about Muhammad's life. He argues that the second generation of Muslims (the tabi un) were the first to concern themselves with gathering reports about the Prophet. Urwa b. Zubayr best exemplifies this activity and, though he recited his material from memory, he possessed at least some written materials. In the second half of the first century A.H., there was still a timidity about recording in writing any religious material other than the Qur an. The most important student in Urwa's Medinan historical school was Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri. The biographical reports are contradictory, but Schoeler suggests that al-Zuhri used notes as mnemonic aids and textbooks for his students to copy. Any written material more official than those was produced for the exclusive use of the Umayyad court, and his notes were destroyed before his death. The next generation of scholars, such as his student Muhammad b. Ishaq, did not shy away from committing traditions to writing. In fact, Ibn Ishaq collected accounts of the Prophet's life and from them produced a structured account. His teachings remained oral, but at the Abbasid court's request, he published a book. According to Schoeler, this book is lost, but preserved through his students who received it through oral transmission. Hence, it was still subject to further redaction and transmission. It is preserved in several forms, most notably that of Ibn Hisham via Ziyad...