Seminario GEAR-DEFIHIS: "What are the materials which Muhammad's biography is made of?"

12:00 hrs. Sala Julián Ribera 1C

 

Por Michael Lecker (Hebrew University, Jerusalén)

 

The biography of the Prophet Muhammad is a central text for all Muslims and it seems to be gaining in significance. Some scholars have translated the biography or parts of lt, or have made a summary of it in a non-Arabic language. Other, more aspiring, scholars complained that its chronology is unreliable and that it is full of conflicts. Both claims are correct but irrelevant, because the biography is not a history book and its compilers were not historians. They were transmitters and editors who only worked with the materials available to them. The nature of these materials will be of interest for us today. The conflict between Muhammad and the Jews takes up a large part of his biography. I may be wrong, but it appears that Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) was the last scholar to be genuinely interested in the geography of Medina and the genealogy of its tribes. What are we to gain from detailed knowledge of these two vital areas of information in the context of the conflict with the Jews? Seminarios "Nuevas perspectivas y enfoques en los estudios árabes e islámicos". Año 2012.

 

Organiza: Carlos Cañete y Regina Chatruch (ILC-CCHS)