to have seen the Seal of Prophecy. It’s as if the Seal of Prophecy were material, tangible, palpable, visible. Which is a de-metaphorization of, and a limiting of, the faculty of representation and imagination. Only, since sacralization rules out all questioning, Muslims still give these legends full credence, thereby investing them with the status of celestial truth.
A. Exactly. There was a certain exploitation of the cultural context and intellectual conditions of the time. When Muhammad speaks of jinns,34 or spirits, he reinforces a belief and gives it religious legitimacy, as you say. He talks about Gabriel in a way that’s similar to the way he talks about spirits. This begs the question: why did Muhammad adopt Gabriel?
H: Gabriel appears in the Old Testament. In the Book of Daniel,35 Gabar means ‘force’ and El means ‘God’. The Arab name Jibril (Gabriel) is very close to Gabar since the two languages have the same Semitic roots. In the New Testament, Gabriel announces the birth of John the Baptist, and he is the angel of the Annunciation.36 The angel is a familiar figure in monotheism. He is designated as the luminous face, while Satan is the dark face.
A: Why does Muhammad choose Gabriel?
H: Maybe because in the imaginary realm, traditionally and classically, divine dictates require an intermediary, and that intermediary is an angel. Islam did in fact draw on the traditions and teachings of the time. The story of Satan (the Devil) – such as it’s related in the Gospel of St Matthew – who comes along and vainly tempts Jesus, was to be taken up by Muhammad on his own behalf.
A: But the Gospels don’t constitute a revealed divine text.
H: Gabriel already existed as a Messenger of God. Muhammad takes Gabriel up again as a Messenger of Revelation, but Islamizes him by giving him other roles, such as being a warrior fighting alongside Muslims in battle. Gabriel took on the guise of a friend of Muhammad’s or a defender, or counsellor … Which can’t fail to remind us of Zeus’s metamorphoses in the Greeks or Jupiter’s in the Romans.
A: It’s all very complex, since Muhammad, who is God’s emissary, steps aside to make way for Gabriel. In the various hagiographical texts, as in the sunna and in the Qur’an, all he did was repeat the word of Gabriel. Even though it was Gabriel who revealed to him that he’d been chosen. We need go over everything again, starting from scratch.
H: Just as we need to go back over the story of Gabriel, who appeared to Muhammad, thereby plunging him into the throes of doubt (was he an angel or a devil?). The books of hagiography recount that the angel disappeared when Khadīja, Muhammad’s wife, uncovered her hair. Head hair is the pubic hair of the mother, Freud tells us. From a psychoanalytical point of view, the story stacks up. On the other hand, from a historical point of view, this story proves to be a late construction, as the veil was only imposed on Muhammad’s wives in Medina, and this was only after Khadīja’s death.
A: Of course, it’s a made-up story, which was only written very late in the day. To get back to Gabriel, Muhammad was able to create a pyramidal hierarchy: he obeys Gabriel who, himself, obeys God. What I’d like to do is deconstruct the structure of power in Islam. Why is power so important in the Arab world? Why does it take up the whole stage?
H: To work on the overlap of politics and religion, we need to go back over the texts that constitute the corpus of Islam. Let’s start by way of example with the phrase: bu‘ithtu li-l-nāsi kāfatan (I have been sent for the whole of humanity): if they do not believe in me, it is for the Arabs, if they do not believe in me, it is for Quraysh, if they do not believe in me, it is for Banū Hāshim,37 if they do not believe in me, it is for myself.38 What sense could a prophecy that can do without other people possibly have?
A: The ‘if’ is very important. To my mind, prophecy is the operation of power, and so, it’s political. Muhammad is the one who drew up this political agenda. The Qur’an says: ‘I have not created jinn and mankind except to serve Me.’39 The aim of the creation of mankind is to serve God, to worship Him. Worship is absolute submission to God’s will. How will God’s will be translated? Muhammad was the first model of such submission. Hence the: ‘I say nothing by myself. Everything comes to me from God. And I obey God.’ He asks other people to submit to his word, just as he has submitted to Gabriel, who submitted to God. The shar‘ was invented so that this submission could be firmly rooted in people’s minds and the social fabric. As a result, we can say that Muslims are born intellectually obedient and submissive. Islam, fundamentally, is not just a faith but a shar‘ that you have to apply and to which you have to submit.
H: I might seize this opportunity to say that people who translate ‘Islam’ by ‘peace’ are a bit too quick off the mark, reducing as they do all the complexity of the term.40 If ‘Islam’ comes from s.l.m, which gives us salām (a general salutation, like ‘hello’) and silm (peace), that sense of the word is qualified by a reservation, the author of Lisān al-‘Arab tells us, since the greeting (a kind of blessing) is only meant for those who have taken the path of al-hudā (the ‘right path’), preached by the Text. A salīm heart is a heart free of unbelief. Submitting to God is then understood as ‘submitting only to the laws of the sharī‘a (sharia)’ set out by the prophet. Sharia becomes ‘submitting before the conqueror’. And since the Arab language is full of ’aḍḍād (words with opposite meanings), salām also refers to the individual who enjoys peace every bit as much as the person who surrenders before the conqueror, or before his own impulses, for al-istislām means al-inqiyād (submitting when faced with excessive conduct).
A: From a linguistic point of view, the word ‘Islam’ doesn’t refer to peace, unless we think of acquiescence, submission, obedience as peace (salām). Moreover, Islam was not founded as peace. Quite the opposite: it saw the light of day as wars and conquests. It imposed a very particular ‘peace’ by forcing non-Muslims to convert. Finally, Islam is not only a faith, but the application of the shar‘ that governs the Muslim’s political space as well as his social space, as I just said. And the vast majority of Muslims dutifully submit in their thinking and in their daily practice to this sharia. Alive or dead, Muhammad remains the guide for that majority.
H: Asking questions is a first step on the road to rescuing yourself from this voluntary submission. The texts tell this story: when Gabriel asked Muhammad to read, he replied, ‘mā aqra’?’ (what can I read?). A different version says ‘lastu bi-qāri’’(I can’t read). It’s this second version that’s the most widespread. To reinforce the prophecy, they created the image of an illiterate prophet Gabriel dictated everything to.
A: I can’t not express my amazement. How can you say, ‘I was visited by an angel and he spoke to me’?
H: When the Qurayshites asked Muhammad why he was the only one ever to see the angel and why he didn’t work miracles, Gabriel swiftly whispered this prompt in reply: ‘Yet if they see a sign they turn away, and they say “A continuous sorcery!”’41 And: ‘Even so not a Messenger came to those before them but they said, “A sorcerer, or a man possessed!”’42 And so, Muhammad’s strength resides in this counter to the lack of proof. I agree with you when you raise the political aspect and the economic aspect. Yet, the psychological aspect is undeniably powerful.
A: That’s for sure. We could say that the practice and experience of trade were extremely advantageous for Muhammad. He knew how to cultivate the art of conversation and the faculty of persuasion. And so he managed to convince people that he was a representative of God on Earth, thus going from the status of trader or caravanner to that of Messenger of God. That remains an undeniable proof of his genius. I said a moment ago that Muhammad submitted to the angel who submitted to God and so on. In fact, the prophecy was a taqwīl of Allah’s.43 God spoke according
