did not bury him soon after his death: accordingly it would appear that these narratives show an awareness of the early Islamic tradition regarding ʿUmar and al-ʿAbbās, as well as the reported delay in burying Muhammad’s festering body.100 Consequently, a tradition indicating the initial denial of Muhammad’s death by at least some within the earliest Islamic community not only can be traced back to al-Zuhrī’s teaching, but there is evidence of an even older version of the story that ultimately seems to have required the invention of a Qurʾānic rebuttal to silence the protests of ʿUmar—and presumably others as well. These reports of a controversy surrounding the reality of Muhammad’s death reflect perhaps the earliest extant Islamic traditions about the end of Muhammad’s life, and as we will see in the following chapter, they appear to be intimately linked with the imminent eschatological expectations of Muhammad and his earliest followers.
ʿAbd al-Razzāq and Ibn Saʿd also ascribe to al-Zuhrī a tradition that Muhammad sought to write something down just before his death, a report that Ibn Isḥāq has possibly suppressed.101 As Muhammad’s illness grew worse, he asked for something to write on, in order to leave behind a document that would prevent his followers from going astray. ʿUmar opposed the request, suggesting that Muhammad’s illness was clouding his judgment and that the existence of the Qurʾān obviated the need for any additional document to guide the community. Others, however, began to argue that Muhammad should be given something to write with. When the ensuing noise and confusion eventually began to disturb Muhammad, he dismissed the throng and ultimately failed to produce a document. While it is certainly possible that al-Zuhrī taught something of this nature, the absence of any ascription to al-Zuhrī independent of Maʿmar suggests that possibly the latter is its author. Nevertheless, in light of the controversies surrounding the issue of writing in earliest Islam, as noted above, as well as the politically volatile nature of the tradition with regard to issues of succession to Muhammad, it is certainly conceivable that Ibn Isḥāq may have chosen to omit the story from his collection.
As for the washing of Muhammad’s corpse and his burial, Ibn Isḥāq’s account of these events largely departs from al-Zuhrī’s authority, ascribing its dozen or so reports mainly to other traditionists. Other early collections, such as al-Wāqidī’s Maghāzī, Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ, al-Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ, Muslim’s Ṣaḥīḥ, and Abū Dāʾūd’s Sunan, show little interest in the details of Muhammad’s burial, and al-Ṭabarī’s History merely reproduces Ibn Isḥāq’s rather meager assemblage of funeral traditions, which appears to be the earliest such compilation. The reticence of these early sources on this topic suggests that perhaps Muhammad’s burial did not arouse the interests of his earliest biographers until a relatively later date, and Ibn Isḥāq’s shift away from al-Zuhrī at this point seems to signal that the latter did not concern himself particularly with this subject. One wonders if perhaps this early silence is somehow related to the tradition from the East Syrian Baḥīrā legend that Muhammad’s followers knew nothing about his grave.102 Nevertheless, the eventual proliferation of traditions about Muhammad’s funeral can be witnessed especially in Ibn Saʿd’s Ṭabaqāt, as well as to a lesser extent by ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Ibn Abī Shayba, and al-Balādhurī.103 Although Ibn Saʿd ascribes a significant number of funeral traditions to al-Zuhrī, the absence of any parallel transmissions from either earlier or contemporary collections makes it extremely difficult to judge the accuracy of these attributions. It may well be that as traditions about Muhammad’s burial began to develop, they were attracted to al-Zuhrī’s name and assigned to him largely on the basis of his reputation as an authority on Muhammad’s biography.
Of the burial traditions gathered by Ibn Isḥāq, only a single report is given on al-Zuhrī’s authority, a notice that after Muhammad’s corpse had been washed, it was wrapped in three garments, “two of Ṣuḥār make, and a striped mantle wrapped one over the other.”104 Ibn Saʿd, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, and al-Balādhurī report a similar tradition on al-Zuhrī’s authority, indicating that Muhammad was buried in three pieces of cloth, two white and one striped.105 The early ninth-century papyrus also ascribes to al-Zuhrī a tradition that Muhammad was buried in a striped woolen garment, adding further credence to the possibility that Ibn Isḥāq inherited such information from him.106 Nevertheless, the early Islamic traditions about Muhammad’s burial clothes vary widely, and as Halevi observes, these reports reveal a great deal more about the culture of burial in early Islam than they do about actual events from the early seventh century.107 Ibn Saʿd, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, and al-Balādhurī also ascribe ʿAlī’s exclamation while washing Muhammad’s corpse (“you were excellent in life and in death”) to al-Zuhrī,108 while Ibn Abī Shayba joins these three collectors in ascribing to al-Zuhrī the traditions that ʿAlī, al-ʿAbbās, al-Faḍl, and Ṣāliḥ (that is, Shuqrān) participated in Muhammad’s burial.109 ʿAbd al-Razzāq and Ibn Abī Shayba further relate here the installation of a brick monument to mark the location of Muhammad’s grave. Nevertheless, in both instances the report is given on Maʿmar’s authority, and thus the attribution to al-Zuhrī is somewhat questionable.110 Muhammad’s statement that “no prophet dies but he is buried where he died,” reported by Abū Bakr, and the ensuing decision to bury him beneath his bed are ascribed by ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Ibn Abī Shayba, and al-Balādhurī not to al-Zuhrī but to one of Ibn Isḥāq’s contemporaries, Ibn Jurayj (d. 767).111 ʿAbd al-Razzāq likewise joins Ibn Isḥāq in assigning the tradition of Muhammad’s burial in the middle of the night between Tuesday and Wednesday to another contemporary traditionist, ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Bakr (d. 753).112
One has the sense then that with perhaps the exception of Muhammad’s burial in three garments, Ibn Isḥāq (and possibly Maʿmar as well) is collecting these funeral traditions for the first time, and on the whole, his account of Muhammad’s burial consists of what appear to be “idealized memories of Muḥammad” aimed at normalizing Islamic funeral practices and distinguishing them from the practices of their non-Islamic neighbors.113 Moreover, both these burial traditions and the traditions of Muhammad’s illness and death are heavily overlaid by the political and sectarian struggles of early Islam that ensued immediately after Muhammad’s death. As both Madelung and Halevi observe, the cast of characters and their various roles in Muhammad’s death and burial are designed to bolster the claims of one party or the other in the contest for authority within the earliest community.114 Muhammad’s sickbed provided, as Juynboll remarks, a frequent topos for the expression of these and other interests.115 Thus, many of the details from these accounts should be viewed as governed by such ideological concerns, rather than reflecting actual historical events.
Yet these observations aside, Ibn Isḥāq transmits a mosaic of traditions from al-Zuhrī that seem to envision Muhammad’s death within an urban context, where his wives live in separate dwellings and the faithful gather regularly in a central mosque for prayers. In contrast to the implied witness of the non-Islamic sources, Muhammad does not appear to have been out on campaign when he suddenly became ill and died; rather his death is situated within a thoroughly domestic setting, where Muhammad is surrounded by the constant care and attention of his friends and family. While this backdrop certainly bears a credible resemblance to the Medina of Islamic tradition, the city itself is never named in the death and burial traditions ascribed to al-Zuhrī. Is it then possible that the later tradition has supplied this location and its urban ambiance as the setting for Muhammad’s departure from this world, transferring these events from an original context somewhere outside the Ḥijāz? Could it be that the early Muslims had re-remembered the circumstances of Muhammad’s passing so dramatically just under a century after the event itself? There are in fact reasons to suspect a possible relocation of Muhammad’s death to Medina, but their consideration must be deferred until a later chapter. The remainder of this chapter will instead examine the historical reliability of the sīra tradition more broadly, focusing especially in the issue of its chronology. As it turns out, the chronology of Muhammad’s life is one of the most artificial and unreliable features of these early biographies, a point that is widely conceded by modern scholarship and even, to
