a ruse to allow him to descend and embrace Muhammad’s body one final time. The scene draws to a close with recollections of Muhammad’s censure against those “who choose the graves of their prophets as mosques” and his final injunction to eliminate all religions other than Islam from the Arabian Peninsula.
While the broader context of these events is somewhat obscured by the episodic and disconnected nature of the individual ḥadīth, it is clear that they collectively relate Muhammad’s death in an urban setting, which is easily recognizable as the Medina of Muslim tradition. Moreover, Ibn Isḥāq’s presentation of these events within the sequence of his collection locates them before the full-scale assault on Palestine had begun, although Usāma’s expedition to Palestine just before Muhammad’s illness and death presents an intriguing anomaly to be addressed later in this chapter. Muhammad’s death seems to follow closely on his “farewell pilgrimage” to Mecca, which Ibn Isḥāq appears to locate in the year 10 AH.79 Yet nothing in the death and burial traditions themselves specifies such timing, and the reports alone offer no clear indication of when Muhammad died, either in relative or absolute terms: this information must be derived from Ibn Isḥāq’s arrangement.80 His Maghāzī is the first witness to this chronology, and while there is no basis for concluding that the sequence is entirely Ibn Isḥāq’s invention, the reports that he has gathered fail to present any evidence of its existence prior to his collection. The brief fragment purporting to relate selected traditions from Mūsā ibn ʿUqba’s Maghāzī affords no confirmation of his ordering of events, inasmuch as these extracts contain nothing relevant to the end of Muhammad’s life.81 ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s Muṣannaf presents a relative chronology similar to Ibn Isḥāq’s, but there is likewise no indication that his sequence reflects any earlier source. As is the case with so much of our information concerning the origins of Islam, it is not possible to date this chronology of Muhammad’s death before the beginning of the second Islamic century. Perhaps Ibn Isḥāq inherited this schema from al-Zuhrī, but there is no evidence to indicate this. In any case, the received chronology of Muhammad’s death in the Islamic historical tradition cannot be shown to have existed prior to the middle of the eighth century, over a century after the events in question took place.
Muhammad’s Death According to al-Zuhrī
If this chronology is first witnessed only by Ibn Isḥāq, there are a number of death and burial traditions that can, with some measure of credibility, perhaps be linked with al-Zuhrī’s teaching.82 For instance, several other early sources link al-Zuhrī with the report of the sudden onset of Muhammad’s illness while visiting his wives, in the house of Maymūna, after which his wives gave permission for him to be nursed in ʿĀʾisha’s house, where al-Faḍl b. ʿAbbās and ʿAlī assisted her as they poured water from seven wells over him. An account of these events almost identical to Ibn Isḥāq’s is ascribed to al-Zuhrī through different channels in ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s Muṣannaf, Ibn Saʿd’s Ṭabaqāt, and al-Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ.83 The convergence of these transmissions on al-Zuhrī suggests a likelihood that the tradition originated with his teaching. Likewise Muhammad’s preaching in the mosque during his illness, in which he praises Abū Bakr as his closest friend and orders all the doors of the mosque closed except for Abū Bakr’s, is also ascribed to al-Zuhrī by ʿAbd al-Razzāq and Ibn Saʿd.84 Muhammad’s statement that “God never takes a prophet without offering him a choice” is imputed to al-Zuhrī by al-Bukhārī and Ibn Saʿd, as well as by a collection of traditions from al-Zuhrī surviving on a papyrus of the early ninth century.85 The basic elements of the Ethiopian medicine story are placed under al-Zuhrī’s authority by ʿAbd al-Razzāq and Ibn Saʿd,86 and both identify al-Zuhrī as having circulated Muhammad’s command to establish Islam as the only faith in the Arabian Peninsula.87 Al-Bukhārī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, and Ibn Saʿd all attribute Muhammad’s denunciation of those who make the graves of their prophets into places of worship to al-Zuhrī,88 and all three impute to him the traditions concerning Muhammad’s appointment of Abū Bakr (rather than ʿUmar) as the community’s new prayer leader.89 The tradition of Muhammad peering into the mosque while Abū Bakr led the prayers on the day of his death was also known to ʿAbd al-Razzāq, al-Bukhārī, Ibn Saʿd, and al-Balādhurī from al-Zuhrī.90 The conversation between ʿAlī and al-ʿAbbās concerning their status after Muhammad’s death is also widely attested on al-Zuhrī’s authority, appearing in ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Ibn Saʿd, and al-Bukhārī, as well as in al-Ṭabarī’s History, where he cites the ḥadīth both from Ibn Isḥāq and according to a second, independent line of transmission from al-Zuhrī.91 Finally, al-Zuhrī is credited with teaching the story of Muhammad and the toothpick by Ibn Saʿd, although ʿAbd al-Razzāq records only Muhammad’s final words from this scene, “with the most Exalted Companion!,” an exclamation that Ibn Saʿd and the ninth-century al-Zuhrī papyrus instead link with the tradition of Muhammad’s choice.92
The same sources also agree in assigning to al-Zuhrī the story of ʿUmar’s refusal to accept Muhammad’s death and his correction by Abū Bakr, who persuaded ʿUmar and the others that Muhammad had indeed died through the recitation of a Qurʾānic verse that no one had ever heard before. Versions almost identical to Ibn Isḥāq’s account appear in ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Ibn Saʿd, and al-Bukhārī.93 A shorter version, which relates only ʿUmar’s protests, absent any rebuttal from either Abū Bakr or the Qurʾān, is transmitted from al-Zuhrī through different channels by Ibn Abī Shayba and Ibn Saʿd, as well as by ʿAbd al-Razzāq.94 Likewise, ʿUmar’s initial apology for his actions in the wake of the saqīfa meetings is also ascribed to al-Zuhrī by ʿAbd al-Razzāq and Ibn Saʿd, while al-Balādhurī credits al-Zuhrī with ʿUmar’s second explanation, allegedly given while he was caliph.95 Presumably, some version of this story, at the very least in its shortened form, and ʿUmar’s subsequent apologies belonged to al-Zuhrī’s teaching. The nature of the story itself suggests a particularly early origin: it seems improbable that Muslims of the early second century or later would have invented such a strange tale, involving ʿUmar’s violent denials of Muhammad’s death. ʿUmar’s mistaken rant casts this “rightly guided” caliph in a rather unfavorable light, and it does not fit with the tendencies of the early Islamic historical tradition. Accordingly, this tradition’s preservation is a likely token of its early formation: its transmission by al-Zuhrī despite its awkwardness is most likely a consequence of the story’s well-established status in the community’s historical memory already by his time. As much is equally if not more true of Abū Bakr’s Qurʾānic correction, particularly in light of the crowd’s alleged ignorance concerning the recited passage. It is hard to imagine the invention of a tradition that so pointedly raises the question of the Qurʾān’s integrity during the mid-eighth century.
There is, however, another account of ʿUmar’s denial ascribed to Ibn ʿAbbās that appears to be even older than the al-Zuhrī version, a report that, although absent from Ibn Isḥāq’s Maghāzī, is witnessed by ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Ibn Saʿd, and al-Balādhurī.96 According to this tradition, it was al-ʿAbbās, rather than Abū Bakr, who opposed ʿUmar’s ravings, countering them not with a Qurʾānic proof-text but instead with the observation that Muhammad’s body had begun to stink. As Wilferd Madelung has argued, the chronology of Muhammad’s burial in relation to the saqīfa meeting in this account favors the antiquity of the al-ʿAbbās version.97 Moreover, failure to make recourse to the Qurʾān also strongly suggests its priority: it is difficult to account for the subsequent invention of a tradition that so inelegantly argues for Muhammad’s mortality on the basis of his pungent corpse if Abū Bakr’s Qurʾānic riposte was already in circulation. Al-ʿAbbās’s complaints of Muhammad’s stench are in fact seemingly belied by a widely circulated tradition from Ibn Isḥāq’s collection that underscores the exceptional nature of Muhammad’s body in death as well as life: such a body presumably would not stink so offensively immediately after dying.98 Indeed, the sweet fragrance of Muhammad’s incorruptible body after death is a frequent theme of the ḥadīth
