Orientalism on the Revelation of the Prophet the Cases of W. Montgomery Watt, Maxime Rodinson, and Duncan Black MacDonald

Abstract

W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1953), 192
pp., and Muhammad at Medina (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1956), 417 pp.
Maxime Rodinson, Mahomet (France: Club francais du livre, 1961), 378 pp., English translation
by Anne Carter Muhammad, (London, The Penguin Press, 1971), with New Introduction
and Foreward (New York, Pantheon Books, 1980), 363 pp.
Duncan Black MacDonald, Aspects of lslam (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1911), 375 pp.
The biography (Sira) of the Prophet Muhammad (SAAW) has attracted
the interest of scholars in both the Islamic world and the West for centuries.
Vast literature exists on the subject in Arabic and in numerous European and
Asian languages. The reasons for this interest are numerous and complex,
ranging from religious to ideological and political motivations. The earliest
Arabic biographies of the Prophet date back to the second century of the Hijra/
eighth century A.C. The Sira of Ibn-Ishaq and that of Ibn-Hisham (based
on the former) have had the greatest influence on the vast literature concerning
the Sira. Yet there are Siras dating back to the sixth and seventh centuries
A.H. which are still in the form of manuscripts waiting to be edited. The
Qur‘an and the sayings and actions of the Prophet (Hadith) are the two most
important sources for studying the Prophet’s Sira.
The Prophet’s biography has attracted great interest also in the West. During
the Middle Ages, the Prophet was the object of attack by Christian priests
and propagandists, whom we might call the original Orientalists. He was
denigrated, his figure was deformed, and he was given insolent names like ...