A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Appendix B/15

[Sidenote: Sir W. Muir's authorities not valid.]

15. But in this instance, Sir W. Muir, being anxious to quote his fictitious story to calumniate Mohammad, has ceased to be a judicious historian, and deviates from his self-imposed rule. He does not reject the story as he ought judiciously and conscientiously to have done, as it is not to be found in any of the earliest and original authorities mentioned by him; on the contrary, he compromises himself by condescending to quote from secondary and later authors. He writes in a footnote without quoting his original authority:&mdash;


 * "The version given in the text is accredited by Jelálood-deen, Yahia, Beizawi, and Zamakshari, &c." (Vol. III, page 163.)

These authors were neither biographers nor historians, and are therefore no authorities at all. Zamakshari and Beizawi were commentators in the sixth and seventh centuries respectively. They give two stories, one regarding Maria and another to the effect that the oath or promise of Mohammad had been to the effect that he would not again partake of a species of strong-scented honey disliked by his wives. Jelal-ud-deen Mahalli was a commentator of the ninth century of the Hejira. Yahia is not known among the commentators. He may be one of the latest authors.

The commentators are generally no authority in the matter of traditional literature. "To illustrate allusions in the Coran, they are always ready with a story in point, but unfortunately there are almost always different tales, all equally opposite to the same allusion. The allusion, in fact, was often the father of the story. What was originally, perhaps, a mere conjecture of supposed events that might have given rise to an expression in the Coran, or was a single surmise in explanation of some passage, by degrees assume the garb of fact. The tradition and the facts which it professes to attest thus, no doubt, often rest on no better authority than that of the verse or passage itself."