Muhammad, the Qur\'an & Islam

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Introduction

Over the centuries, much research has been done on the life of Muhammad,
the text of the Qur'an and the development of Islam. Almost no works,
however, have sought to systematically integrate the various results of the
research in these areas. The discrepancies, for instance, between the
biographical (Sira) traditions about Muhammad and the inherent witness of
the Qur'an have certainly been known to those familiar with both of these
sciences. What is not well known, though, is why no one has tried to
generally reconcile these discrepancies.

One prominent Western biographer of Muhammad, for instance, has openly
defended his own neglect of research into the direct "source^1 s" of the
Qur'an by appealing to the example of Shakespeare's work Hamlet and
reasoning that:^2

1) "the study of sources does not explain away the ideas

whose sources are found, nor does it detract from their

truth and validity."

2) "Shakespeare's play of Hamlet remains a very great play

even after we have found the 'source' from which

Shakespeare derived the outline of the story."

3. "No more does our knowledge of the source tell us
   anything of importance about the creative processes
   Shakespeare's mind."

These arguments appear to be unjustified, however, since:

1) The proper study of sources is not to "explain away the

ideas whose sources are found," but rather to aid in better

understanding the text at hand. The choice of Hamlet as a

comparison for the Qur'an was inadequate, since

Shakespeare claims neither truthfulness (historicity) nor