Muhammad, the Qur'an and Islam
Muhammad's polemic in this section is decidedly anti-polytheist.
Rhetorically Muhammad asked his opponents if it was befitting to attribute
daughters to Allah and sons to themselves (cf. 52:39; 37:149-153 and later
in 53:21f; 43:15f; 16:59f). This idea must have run aground when
Muhammad was confronted by Christians (for it could easily have been
used against him), and the last mention of it is made early in the third
Meccan period.
According to Sira traditions, the Meccans were persecuting lower class
Muslims, who were not afforded protection by their clans. Moreover,
Muhammad was also in no position to be able to shelter them from
persecution. Although many traditions depict Muhammad as s^123 aying that
Abyssinia was a friendly country, the decision to send his followers to that
country may well have been motivated by the fact that the Abyssinians
were no doubt viewed as the political enemies of Mecca. The^124
predominantly Christian Abyssinians must have been very interested in the
Muslim refugees from Mecca, at least with respect to their general desire to
politically influence the Arabs of the Hijaz in the greater Byzantine-Persian
power struggles. Naturally, the Abyssinians would have wan^125 ted to know
what Muhammad believed about Jesus, and the abrupt introduction of
Zacharias, John the Baptist, Mary and Jesus to the text of the Qur'an (sura
19) is somewhat suspicious. A Sira tradition reports that one of the early
Muslims read (or recited) Qur'an 19 to the Abyssinian king. T^126 his seems
to indicate that this sura was composed before the emigration, and possibly
even tailored to suit an audience there.
Based on its style and content, Western scholars view Qur'an 19 as having
been composed in at least two stages. The first: 19:1-34, 4219:1-34, 42-7519:1-34, 42-7519:1-34, 42-75, is definitely-75
more pro-Christian than the second (vv. 35-41, 76-98), which appears to
have been a later addition. Sura 19 begins with mysterious^127 letters, after^128
which a narrative of Zacharias and John the Baptist are given (vv. 1f).
Although this account appears to have had Luke 1 as its source, in Qur'an
19:5 Zacharias asks for an heir for himself and the house of Jacob (?), and
v. 11 presents Zacharias' having been unable to speak for just three nights
(as purely a sign, rather than also a punishment for his unbelief; cf. Lk.
1:20). Moreover, no mention of Gabriel is made in this sura, even though
one would definitely expect to find it here, if indeed Muhammad was
claiming to have received his revelations from Gabriel at this time. Instead,
a few verses later (cf. 19:17) Allah's spirit appears in the place of Gabriel,
and other Qur'an passages also indicate that Muhammad had been claiming