276 Notes
The rebuilding of the Ka‘ba can be found in al-Tabari, pp. 1130–39. The tradi-
tions imply that Muhammad was somehow dragged into the process, though that
does not disprove Muhammad’s full cooperation in the reconstruction of the pagan
sanctuary. A complete discussion of the date of the Abyssinian attack and the birth of
Muhammad is offered by Lawrence I. Conrad, “Abraha and Muhammad,” Bulletin
of the School of Oriental and African Studies (1987). Muhammad’s infancy narratives
can be found in Ibn Hisham, pp. 101–19, and in al-Tabari, pp. 1123–27.
- The Keeper of the Keys
Rubin discusses Qusayy’s religious innovations in “The Ka’ba.” Mecca’s geographi-
cal position on the north-south trade route is just one of the many issues analyzed by
Richard Bulliet in The Camel and the Wheel (1975). Those scholars who tend to
maintain the traditional view of Mecca’s role as the dominant trading center in the
Hijaz include W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca (1953), and M. A. Sha-
ban, Islamic History: A New Interpretation (1994). Patricia Crone’s rejection of this
theory can be found in Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (1987). Peters’s compromise
comes from Muhammad and the Origins of Islam (1994), pp. 27, 74–75, and 93. Those
interested in Crone’s theories regarding Muhammad and the rise of Islam can
see her books Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (1977) (coauthored with
M. A. Cook) and God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (1986)
(coauthored with Martin Hinds).
For the role and function of the Shaykh in pre-Islamic Arabia, see W. Mont-
gomery Watt, Islamic Political Thought (1968). The role of the Hakam in developing
the normative legal tradition (Sunna) is most clearly described by Joseph Schacht,
An Introduction to Islamic Law (1998). The quote regarding the loyalty of the Hanifs
to the Quraysh is from Rubin, “The Hanafiyya and Ka‘ba,” p. 97. It is interesting to
note, by the way, that the protection of orphans and widows has always been the pri-
mary criterion for just rule. The great Babylonian king, Hammurabi, whose famous
stele represents the first written code of laws for governing society, states that he
conquered his enemies in order to give “justice to the orphan and the widow.”
For more on the various meanings of an-nabi al-ummi, see Kenneth Cragg’s
marvelous book on the history and meaning of the Quran, The Event of the Qur’an
(1971). Conrad’s quote is from “Abraha and Muhammad,” 374–75. For the nar-
ratives concerning Muhammad’s first revelatory experience and his marriage to
Khadija, see Ibn Hisham, pp. 150–55, and al-Tabari, pp. 139–56.
As noted in the sixth chapter, the Quran is not chronologically organized, so it
is difficult to determine exactly which revelations came first. While there is a great
deal of disagreement, it is generally accepted that the two best compilations of the
earliest verses were completed individually by Theodor Noeldeke and Richard Bell.
Montgomery Watt has combined those verses about which both men agree to create
a list of what he considers to be the earliest verses in the Quran. I will not comment
on Watt’s list, which most scholars accept, except to say that, whether it is a faultless
list or not, it provides a very good template of what the first message entailed. The
verses in Watt’s list are taken from major sections of the following chapters: 96, 74,
106, 90, 93, 86, 80, 87, 84, 51, 52, 55; I would add to this list Noeldeke’s inclusion of
104 and 107, which, because they indicate the presence of the first opposition to
Muhammad’s message, may have been delivered right on the heels of the earliest
verses. See Watt’s Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (1974). Richard Bell provides a
four-column analysis of the Uthmanic and Egyptian chronologies, alongside
Noeldeke’s and William Muir’s, in his Introduction to the Qur’an (1953), pp. 110–14.