The reason Raymond Dequin came up on my radar relates to my questionning on Muhammad Ibn al Haniffiya and his relationship to the Muhammad starting to appear on coins as of 685. I paste below a translation (through Google translate so bear with me) of Dequin's discussion in his above paper of Muhammad al Hanifiyya.
Whether one agree or not with his toughts, I think it is an interesting article and it provides new ways of looking at early islam and the Sunni/Shia separation.
Number in brackets in the text below refer to footnotes in the article whose link I gave in my previous message.
The puzzle Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya
9.1 Twice "Muḥammad"
When al-Muḫtār [192] persecuted the enemies of God in Kufa according to the traditional literature around 684-686 and became the founder of the Gnostic-Shiite Kaisanija, he did so in the name of "Muḥammad ibn al-afanafīya". This name brings together two significant beliefs: that of "Muḥammad," the praiseworthy or chosen Jesus Christ, and that of "Ḥanīfen," the "Gentile," who in the manner of Abraham believed in one God. The traditional literature provides a genealogical explanation of his name: Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya is said to have been a son of'Alīs and Ḫaula, who came from the tribe of Banū Ḥanīfa as prisoners of war in the possession of'Alīs. The Banū Ḥanīfa allegedly got their name from a Ḥanīfa ibn Luǧaim [193]. This name etymologically goes back to the same root as the Koranic term of "Hanifen," which not only designates the original monotheism of Abraham, but in Arabic also has the meaning of deviation, bending, turning or turning [194]. Bashear has shown that in the time of early Islam this meant, on the one hand, the turning away from Christianity and, on the other hand, the turn to Mecca. The negative term for Syrian Christians and Jews was thereby turned into positive in emerging Islam and have received the meaning "upright". It is natural to refer this to the introduction of a direction of prayer (not yet necessarily to Mecca) as a distinguishing feature of the belief-promoted belief, which, as stated above, was presumably under'Abd al-Malik.
Bashear has pointed to a series of greater or lesser similarities between the two Muḥammad, the Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya and the Arab Prophet [195]: both were called by their opponents by the mocking name "Mḏmmā" [196]. Both had worn the kunya "Abū al-Qāsim". Both had a daughter named Fāṭima with the Kunya "Umm Abī-hā" ("mother of her father") had [197]. Both wore a black turban, drank the same (nabīḏ - fermented grapes) and prayed eight rak'a daily [198].
Bashear also points to the similarity of the life journey of the two Muḥammade, which takes place between Mecca, Medina, Ṭā'if and Ayla. The relationship between the Arab prophet and his father's brother'Abbās is similar to the Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīyas's son Ibn'Abbā, especially in their relations with Ṭā'if. After the capture of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya in Mecca and the liberation by the Ḫašabīya he had dived to Ayla [199] in the north to enter the power realm'Abd al-Maliks. The lore about his entry into Ayla and his assurances to the local population resembled the traditions of the assurances of the Arab prophet for the inhabitants of Ayla after the train to Tabuk. Much like the army of the Arab prophet, the army of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīyas was melted down: out of 7,000 men, only 900 remained after he had left them with their return [200]. After all, the traditions of the last pilgrimage of the Arab prophet to Mecca and the Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīyas, who last lived as a hermit and also died three months after his last pilgrimage, at a similar age of 65 years [201 ]. This list may perhaps add the similarities in the names of the children [202].
The intertwining with the life of al-'Abbās and Ibn'Abbās, respectively, points to an emergence after the Abbasid turn of the year 750 [203]. However, the lives of the two mammoths were not clearly separated for a long time after that, as can be seen from the related but not related to the same persons traditions. It can also be seen from the fact that Mu Lebensammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya's life story, which is handed down in the traditional literature, has nothing to do with the history of events a presumptive Christian ruler of the Hephtalites ("white Huns"), who for some time had quarreled the rule of Iran starting from the Graeco-Bactrian area'Abd al-Malik [204].
The double Muḥammad asks for an explanation. There is a common core in the traditions of the Arab Prophet and Muḥammad ibn al-afanafīya, which resonates with myths and traditions that are much older. This is the tradition of the so-called second homage in'Aqaba and the subsequent flight of the Arab prophet from Mecca to Medina. Their equivalent in the life of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya is the greeting of the Ḫašabīya sent by al-Muḫtār to Mecca and the subsequent liberation of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya and his followers. If the traditions are condensed, emphasizing the corresponding features, the following processes can be juxtaposed:
In the biography of the Arab Prophet 72 Anṣār meet at night in the gorge at al-'Aqaba outside of Mecca. They are greeted by al-'Abbās, who because of the darkness can see neither his nephew Muḥammad nor the Anṣār. After the homage, Satan personally makes a cry from above. [205] As a result, an overzealous Anṣār feels urged to proceed on the spot with the sword against the enemy, which the Arab prophet averts on the grounds that he had not been ordered. A little later, the Arab prophet is besieged in Mecca in his own house. There, the enemy Quraiš want to stab him with sharp swords [207] on the advice of the devil. In this situation he sat down with the help of Anṣār to Medina. Passing the lurking Quraiš, who do not perceive him, he manages to escape, with'Alī taking his place wrapped in his cloak. On the way to Medina he hides with Abū Bakr for three days in a cave in the mountains Ṯaur [208]. This cave has twelve openings that Abū Bakr clogs with his dress and back [209].
Similar to Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya. He is imprisoned in Mecca by 'Abd Allāh ibn al-Zubair and threatened with fire death [210] in order to force his homage. In the Ṭabarī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya is held captive in the enclosure of the Zamzam spring, while Ibn Sa'd holds the firewood stacked in his own house. In the Ṭabarī, he succeeds in sending a call for help to sleeping guards to al-Muḫtār in Kufa, who sends one thousand of his followers to Mecca in small groups, the first of which counts seventy men. These followers, the Ḫašabīya, are armed only with wooden clubs [211] [212]. In Ibn Sa'd, Ibn'Abbās salutes the members of the Ḫašabīya sent by al-Muḫtār, whom he can not see because of his blindness. After successful liberation an overzealous supporter wants to attack the enemies on the spot. The liberators, however, remain steadfast in their respect for the holy place, even as a caller challenges them from the mountains. Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya entrenches himself with his followers in Minā or in'Alīs Gorge, according to some reports until the death of al-Muḫtār.
This story may have an old core, as it resembles the nocturnal capture of Jesus in Gethsemane, in which an overzealous follower "cuts an ear to a servant of the high priest." According to Mark, at last Jesus was accompanied only by a young man who was clothed on bare skin with only a canvas. When the villagers wanted to grab him, he let the canvas go and fled naked [213]. Similarly, the Muḥammad flees while the'Alī remains wrapped in his cloak. Elsewhere, too, suffering and killing are the business of'Alī and his descendants. Smith and Raschke saw in the nameless youth, who appears only in the Gospel of Mark (which Raschke considered a revision of the lost Gnostic Markion gospel), the spiritual being hidden in the mundane cover, the "angelic self" of Jesus, namely Christ. [214] , The youth in white returns three days later at the empty grave. For three days after the beginning of Muhammad's journey,'Alī also stayed behind in Mecca to return items (karma) deposited by the Arab prophet. But the day of the separation, if one counts from the departure from the cave in the mountains Ṯaur, which puts the traditional literature on a Monday, back - a Friday. It is noticeable that the traditional literature avoids marking this day exactly [215]. Emphasizing the arrival in Medina, whose dating testifies to a Monday or Friday of calendar considerations [216]. One must suspect that the day of departure from Mecca was obliterated because of its too close proximity to the Christian Good Friday. For the same reason, it is no longer clear that Good Friday was the origin of Islamic public Friday prayer [217].
Even the cry is already in the Gospels. If Raschke has seen correctly, then the cock, whose screams accompany the denial of Peter, is the animal of the sun god. Raschke also puts Peter himself in this context, as he warms himself during the interrogation in the court of the High Priest by the glow of a fire. The maid, who recognizes him there as one of the Galileans, connects Raschke with the moon goddess; after all, it is not just the night on Friday, but also a full moon night. On the other hand, at the crucifixion the following day it became dark [218].
The sleep of the disciples in Gethsemane has its counterpart in the futile waking of the Quraiš in Mecca. It does not matter that in Gethsemane the devotees and in Mecca the enemies miss the crucial hour. The motive in both cases is the escape of the divine from the earthly shell, which they can not prevent. What is the death of the human Jesus and the escape of the divine Christ in Markion or Mark is found several centuries later in the traditional literature in numerous versions as the death of'Alī or al-Ḥusain and the escape of Muḥammad. Given the centrality of these faith reports to their respective communities, it becomes clear that they were concerned with the pertinent Gnostic understanding of this dualism, not with the transmission of individual pious or historical facts. The historicization had not only the function in the evening and in the East, to cut off the continuum of the contents of faith and to deny by the assertion of a historical origin, the relationship with other beliefs. The myth of the Arab prophet is yet to be explored in another direction. For the events surrounding the Muhammad in Mecca are not only similar to the capture of Jesus in Gethsemane, but also to the Mandaean myth of the Redeemer. This summarizes Kurt Rudolph, from all sources exhausting, as follows:
Hibil, Šitil, Anōš, Jāwar and above all Mandā ḏHaijê act as saviors, messengers, helpers and messengers, but other shapes and concepts can also be used (mostly symbolic of the messengers mentioned above), the common name for all "the ( stranger) man "who came here (into the world - darkness). His task has the real purpose of collecting the souls, that is to bring the "spark of light" that has fallen into the darkness - world since prehistoric times back into the kingdom of light and thus to bring about the end of the world. The work begins in prehistoric times and runs through times and generations; therefore the "man" (gabrā) wanders through times under different forms and names, but always he is the "solver" or "messenger" who has the same task and is in mythical indeterminacy. This notion has factual and terminological contacts with the wandering "true prophet" (Syr nabiā dašrārā, aram. Nbiā ḏkusṭā / ḏsrārā, mand. Slīhā kusṭānā / nbiāa ḏkušṭā) of the pseudoclementines or Ebionites or the "Christology" of the Elkhasaites, though the teaching is presented here in fixed forms and terms. But now the messenger suffers the same fate as he comes and ascends, as does the individual soul which must be redeemed: to surrender to the world powers and their activities. He is invisible to the evil world (he dresses in her robe: stealth motif) and makes a breach in the wall that separates the Pleroma (world of light) from the earthly world, or in the castle of the planets, so the " To free prisoners "(souls). But this act is at the same time a self-redemption of the Redeemer, since he and the souls who fell into the darkness in primeval times (in Adam and his descendants), like the Redeemer now, are ultimately identical and form part of the heavenly world. This idea of the "redeemed Redeemer" is one of the basic concepts of Gnosticism and describes in a nutshell its dramatic doctrine of salvation, which manifests itself in fully developed form, especially in Manichaeism. "[219]
Muḥammad is accompanied on his flight by Abū Bakr, who bears the surname 'Atiq (' the freed / saved ') in addition to his actual name'Abdallāh [220].
The Ṭabarī describes how the wooden bars of Zamzam are broken during the liberation of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya and his companions (imprisoned souls?). A source or a cult pond with "living water" (mostly derived from a nearby river) but was an integral part of a Mandaean sanctuary. This was surrounded by an enclosure. In this stood also a cult hut, the maskna. This word is evidently derived from the Old Testament "miskan", the tabernacle [221]. The term maskna is not dissimilar to the name Mecca, and in fact outside the traditional literature [222] this name first appears in the Mandaean settlement area: Seven years after the imprisonment of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya, the Ṭabarī describes the end of'Abdallāh ibn al-Zubair in 'Macca' [223]. In the Latin chronicle on 754 this is described as follows:
"At that time, in the era of 720 [224], in the tenth year of his reign, in the sixty-sixth of the Arabs, Abdilmelic reached the pinnacle of power and ruled twenty years. He pursued his father's antagonist and killed him in Macca, Abraham, as they say, house, between Ur (the city) of the Chaldeans and Carras (the city) of Mesopotamia, by a commander whom he had sent for this purpose. By doing so, he deftly put an end to the civil war by fighting. "[225]
This "Macca" was thus settled by the chronicler in Mesopotamia, near the southern marshland, [226] the later retreat area of the Mandaeans. There the traditional literature also locates the place of the Ḫāriǧiten ("the departed ones") with the name "ūarūrā'" (caves / earth columns) [227]. The numerous stories in the life of the Arab prophet, in which it is said that "departed" from their community lived in ravines and rock crevices in Mecca, could have been transferred from here to today's mecca. One must therefore consider that Mecca with its source "Zamzam" [228] was originally a Mandaean sanctuary. Also at the bottom of the mosque of Medina it should originally have been a source [229]. Thus, also of the "Imams of the time" according to the manner of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya, a lineage could lead back to the "Redeemers" or "Messengers" of the Mandaeans, who worked under different forms and names through all the ages and generations [230]. , These are significant similarities. However, it is the same with them as with the previously mentioned Mendean ideas: if one tries to follow these traces further, the search for intermediates is difficult. This may be because the imamitic tradition of Islam came from a gnosis that was only distantly related to the Mandaean. But this may also be due to the fact that the tradition of the last one thousand years - from both sides - did not want to know anything about such kinship and clearer indications were eradicated and alienated over the centuries. This possibility must persist to pursue the very existing tracks with special care.
9.2 Muḥammad the "Allocator"
The Redeemer, who is himself in need of salvation, is not just a Mandaean motive. This idea is also found in the early Muḥammad rock inscriptions that Nevo collected in the Negev. Remarkably often, the author of the inscription asks not only for himself, but also for "Muḥammad" [231].
Another common feature of the two Muḥammade, this time more Christian, is that both the Arab prophet and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya wore the kunya "Abū al-Qāsim", "father of sharing / alloters" [232]. This name has an eschatological meaning: Jesus, at the end of time, assigns the resurrected man to her otherworldly destiny, as it was intended by God. Twelfth-Shiite traditional literature also referred to the last "Imām", Muḥammad al-Mahdi, as Kunya [233]. In the course of the historicization, this name was referred to an early deceased son of the Arab prophet named "Qāsim", of which nothing is handed down [234]. Even the alleged son "Qāsim" of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya seems to be only a conclusion from the Kunya to act. However, it is natural to associate this kunya with the upright figure with the directional sword, which can be seen on the coins of'Abd al-Malik. This was not a Christian representation of Jesus in the Byzantine sense, but was evidently developed from Iranian Engeldarstellungen [235]. The twelfth Imam will also appear with the sword at the end of time.
Thus, a "Muḥammad Abū al-Qāsim" appears twice in the traditional literature [236]. This is only possible if this figure had a long history, in the course of which their recognizability had been lost, or if different parts of the population had different ideas. Both seem to have been the case here. While we are well-informed about the Arab prophets through traditional literature (superficially), we know almost nothing about the imam of al-Muḫtār, and even the few that we can work out by removing later layers seems, at first, to be quite another, meanwhile, but no longer unknown direction to lead: The heresiographer al-Qummī (TL: author before 905) reports on the Kaisāniten and the worship of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya as Mahdī:
“One of their subgroups claims that there are four grandchildren (sibṭ, plural asbāṭ) - they mean the imams - that rain soaks creation, fights the enemy, reveals the proof (ḥuǧǧa), kills the error. Those who follow them will reach their goal, whoever is behind them will be destroyed ... The followers of Ibn Harb also taught that the grandchildren are four in number, namely the imams; they are safe from the discord of (evil) intent, misstep and oversight. One is the grandson of faith and safety,'Alī; another of the grandsons of light and paradise (tasnīm), namely al-Ḥasan; one of the grandsons of evidence (ḥuǧǧa) and catastrophe, namely al-Ḥusain, and (finally) a grandson, who will explain the causes, ride on the clouds [237], blow the winds, blow the flood, the Lock the gate of the dam, make the necessary judgment and advance to the seventh earth; he would approach the law and stay away from injustice; he was the expected Mahdī, Muḥammad, the son of'Alīs and the Ḥanafitin, the imām of the truth ... That the grandchildren were four in number, they explained with the following statement: "Power, glory, honor and prophethood were possessed by the descendants of Jacob, Isaac's son, only four, the rest were (only) through them to "grandchildren". They themselves were prophets and kings, while the rest possessed power only through them. These were Levi, Judah, Joseph, and Benjamin; the rest became "grandchildren" (only) by the glory of their brothers ... "[238]
And Pseudo-Nāši' [239] reports on the teachings of 'Abdallāh ibn Ḥarb:
"He claimed that 'Ali and those of his descendants to whom he accorded the Imamat were gods (alha); the Holy Ghost (rūḥ al-qudus) was in the Prophet, then passed to'Alī, then to al-anasan, al-Ḥusain, Muḥammad ibn'Alī (= Muḥammad ibn al-Hanafija), Abū Hāsim and then to'Abdallāh ibn Mu'āwiya ; According to the teaching of Christians, the Holy Spirit is primeval (qadīma) and will never cease to exist. He argued with a tradition handed down to us by the narrators based on the authority of'Abdallāh ibn Mūsā al-Kūfī after Ḫalaf al-Azdī to Harmala al-Ḍabbī after Ǧumai' ibn 'Umair: "I asked' Ā'iša (the Prophet's wife ): "What man was the dearest to the Prophet?" She said, "'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib! What could deny him this rank? I have seen for myself how the spirit - or the soul - of the prophet (from this) came out and how 'Ali took it and put it in his mouth! "Thus they claim that the spirit that' Ali has done in his mouth is divinity (lāhūtīya), who was in the Prophet and with whom he did the miraculous signs and revealed the hidden things to the people, and they claim that it is the Holy Ghost ... This group claims that the resurrection is (no more than) the emergence of the Spirit from one body to another; if the spirits had been obedient, they would be put into pure bodies, beautiful figures, and eternal wonders; then, according to the degree of their purity, they would go through the stages of beauty, holiness, and bliss until they became angels and received pure light bodies. On the other hand, if the spirits were rebellious, they would be transformed into unclean bodies, disfigured figures, and despised creatures such as dogs, monkeys, pigs, snakes, and scorpions. They said, "The Paradise Gardens and the Hellfire, these are the bodies." [240]
As with the Umm al-Kitāb, the best parallel passages can be found in scriptures that are half a millennium older. In the apocryphon of John it says under the heading "The four illuminators and their liturgical service": "Out of the light that is the anointed / good / Christ, and the immortality, through the gift of the invisible spirit, his four great lights appeared through the divine self-generated (autogenous) to serve him. The three are the will and eternal life and thought (Ennoia). But the four are grace, insight, perception, and wisdom. Grace is at the first great light, Armozel, who is the angel of the first aeon. Three eons are with him: the grace, the truth, the form. The second light is Oroiael, which he established in the second eon, in which there are three eons: Providence (Pronoia), perception and memory. The third light, <Daveithe>, was inserted in the third eon, in which <the three eons are>, namely: the insight, the love and the idea. The fourth light, Eleleth, was used in the fourth eon, in which there are three eons, namely perfection, peace, and wisdom (Sophia). These are the four lights at the service of the divine autogenous, the twelve aeons at the service of the child, through the gift and approval of the great self-generator (Autogenetor), of the anointed / good / Christ, through the Gift and the pleasure of the invisible spirit ... "[241] In the hypostasis of the archons you will find:
"The angel came down from the heavens and said to her," Why are you yelling up to God? Why are you brave against the Holy Ghost? "Norea said," Who are you? "- The archons of the wicked had now moved away from her. He said, "I am Eleleth, the intelligence, the great angel standing before the Holy Spirit. I was sent to speak with you and save you from the hands of those outlaws. And I will teach you about your root ... Eleleth, the great angel, said to me, "I," he said, "are the wisdom." I am one of the four illuminators standing before the great invisible spirit ... "[242]
And in the writing "From the Origin of the World" it says:
For all Gnosticism is in an angel who has appeared before them (long ago). He stands before the Father and is not able to give them the gnosis ... Then the Redeemer created [one unit] out of them all. And the spirits of the one [prove] as chosen and blessed, but of different election, and many others are more royal and exalted than anyone who was before them. Consequently, there are four genders. There are three, they belong to the kings of the Eighth. But the fourth generation is one without a king, perfect above them. "[243]
Here it must be checked whether the following Koran passage from sura 53 "The Star" should not be included:
"What do you mean (as it is) with al-Lāt and al-'Uzzā, and then with Manāt, the third (of these female beings)? (Are they to be addressed as daughters of God?) Should the male beings come to you, and God the female (whom you do not want to have humans for you)? That would be an unfair distribution. These are just names that you and your fathers have set up, and to which God has not revealed authority ... And like some angels in Heaven, whose intercession is of no use, unless God beforehand for one whom He pleases and approves of Him , Permission (to) gives. Those who do not believe in the hereafter call the angels feminine beings ... "[244]
The speaker in the Qur'an complains of lack of faith "to the beyond". This may equally apply to pagans who worshiped a more or less popular nature deity al-Lāt, [245] as well as to gnostics with divergent ideas of the fate of the world. Already in the beginning, this surah is about the "Curtain of Eternity" (sidrat al-muntaha), misinterpreted by Paret as "Zizyphus tree at the very end" [246]. In fact, this also refers to the idea of a "curtain", which is also known from Gnostic ideas of a hierarchized world. in the "Hypostasis of the Archons" [247]. It then condemns the aspiration to seek guidance from supernatural beings such as al-Lāt [248]. Finally, the latest court is threatened. In other passages in the Qur'an, too, it makes sense to refer them to gnostic ideas, e.g. the transformation into monkeys and pigs [249].
Similar to the idea of'Alī, therefore, the idea of Muḥammad seems to derive from Gnosticism. Out of the four "illuminators before the great invisible spirit," who bore the names of Armozel, Oroiael, Daveithe, and Eleleth in Nag Hammadi, al-Qummī became Imams'Alī, al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusain, and Muḥammad. Initially, these imams were not thought of as members of a chain of transmigration or secret transmission, but together with the unnamed center formed the divine pentad. The geometric arrangement of the pentad, as e.g. This was fundamental on the curtains of Divan in the Umm al-Kitāb. It was only in a second step that properties and names were assigned to this geometry. That these were not fixed from the beginning and were immutable, but had to be interpreted and represented only a certain view of the world's knowledge, was almost the essence of Gnosticism. For the believer, it was important that the lights, angels or imams could help him. It was this notion of leadership, mediation, or intercession that was to be fought with Sura 53 and (it looks like this) should be replaced by the special role of muḥammad. It makes sense to refer to both the eschatological role of Muḥammad as "Abū al-Qāsim" and the appreciation of the Ḥanīfen to this "new" Muḥammad, in which one must probably see a precursor to the Arab prophet. It is puzzling why this surname was ultimately not connected with the Arab prophet, but with his gnostic double. The indication of when this may have happened is of a linguistic nature. The Aramaic term "ḥanāyā" ("heathen") casually diverts to "afanafīya", but is then perceived in Arabic as a female form - hence "son of Hanafitin ". This type of Aramaic-Arab misunderstanding, however, is characteristic of the language of the Koran. Perhaps the Gnostic idea of Muḥammad at the time of the completion of the Arabic Qur'an may have been combined with the notion of "īanīfen" and the role of Judge-in-Chief. For this, the reign of'Abd al-Malik would come into question. Considering that there is some evidence that the direction of prayer south was introduced at this time, so may the meaning of the hanif as "facing" come from this time.
9.3 Result of the term "Muḥammad"
As a result, the concept of "Muḥammad" at the time of'Abd al-Malik must have been particularly broad. For one section of the population, he meant an "imam," a higher Gnostic being, another Jesus, the son of Mary, and, in addition, probably inspired by Moses and his foundation of a new faith, came the new role promoted by domination as herald of the Koranic materials. At the time of'Abd al-Malik, all of this may still have been unhistorical, and as it appears, "untheological" may have stood side by side, so that the designation "ibn al-Ḥanafīya" could also be shared by the Gnostic Muḥammad. This was the first historicization of the Muḥammad concept: coins were marked with the Muḥammad slogan by the movement'Abd al-Maliks. A Muḥammad was placed at the beginning of the ruler list at the time of Walīd. The inscription inside the Dome of the Rock indicates that the ruling ideology used the term "Muhammad" to refer to Jesus at that time, as Luxenberg has shown. [250] The earlier rock inscriptions of the Negev show this Muḥammad in simpler (after Nevo "Mohammedan") contexts as later, which one must already address as "Islamic" [251].
he second historization of the Muḥammad concept occurred when later, in the Abbasid period, beliefs were increasingly incorporated into the historical world view. This raised the question of the chronological classification as well as the relation to the 'Ali', which until then had remained entirely in the Gnostic sphere. Probably the Arab prophet only got a CV at that time. The traditional literature managed to divide the material into two persons, because the Arab prophet now had to be portrayed as a different person from the still-imam of al-Muḫtār. The tradition literature finally succeeded in separating Muḥammad the Imam (Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīya) to the son of'Alīs and gave his name a new genealogical statement that left him despite the proximity to the Arab prophet in the Gnostic-Shiite space.
Interestingly, there are remnants of intermediate stages in the tradition literature that suggest that Muḥammad and'Alī were once thought to be brothers. In the anonymous Heidelberg papyrus dated to the year 229 (843/844) it says:
"Ali got up and finally drove the (men forward) as he stopped at their battlefield, the people lined up in rows and filled their departments. There (came al-Ḥāriṯ) between the two ranks and said, "Oh people! Is Muḥammad with you? "They replied:" Muha (mmad's) brother is with us "(He said):" He shall stand against me and no one else shall be killed because of our quarrel! "[252]
In the sīra of Ibn Hišām, Muḥammad and'Alī are also brothers, but not brothers in nature, but foster brothers in the household of Abū Ṭālib [253] and "brothers in God": as in medina fraternization between the refugees from Mecca and their helpers from Medina held will be, it is said:
"The Prophet instituted brotherhood between his fellow emigrants and the helpers, and said after what I have heard ..." "Each one of you should accept a brother in God." He himself took'Alī by the hand and said, "This is mine brother. "[254]
In the Sīra Ibn Hišāms the homeless Meccans were supposed to have relatives in Medina. This purpose is of course not achieved in the case of the brotherhood of the "cousins" Muḥammad and'Alī. It is obvious that this story once served to reconcile an older tradition, according to which the two were brothers, with the newer version of traditional literature known as cousins or father-in-law and son-in-law. The biography of the prophets of the Heidelberg Papyrus presents all the crucial changes in the life of the Arab prophet in a limited space, but often quite differently from Ibn Hišām, and above all even more fabulous and poetic recitation. This version is based on the same system of kinship as that of Ibn Hišām; 'Alī is'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, the prophet-uncle'Abbā occurs, Ǧa'far is called - but at this point, when it comes to duels of'Alī, an older version seems to be preserved. In contrast to Ibn Hišām, the Heidelberg Papyrus does not try to explain this; there is no talk of brotherhood "in God". If the above coinage of 777 "Ali Muḥammad ṭayyib" gives a clue, then the historicization of these two beliefs in the form of a pair of brothers may have been attempted at this time before the canonical kinship relationship still found today was found, and the older version from the Tradition had to give way.
Topic: Qur'anic studies today