Muhammad’s illegitimacy proved through Islamic sources: Part 2, corroborating narrations

Introduction

Previously, we have explored why Muhammad being illegitimate destroys his claims of being a prophet and Islam’s claims of possessing a “science” that can find truth. We have also laid out the framework which shows that the Islamic sources show Muhammad to have been born some 4.5 years or more after the death of Abdullah ibn Abdul-Muttalib, his supposed father. While this is enough for Muslims to accept Muhammad’s age gap, non-Muslim scholars tend to regard numbers in such sources with a large degree of skepticism. They put more weight on the totality of the evidence. In this final segment, we will be exploring the many other ahadith that point to a continuing disbelief in Muhammad’s legitimacy by his contemporaries and also that he was not treated as a favored grandson of Abdul-Muttalib but as an inferior sort of relation.

Muhammad’s mother Aminah did not appear pregnant for years

The fact the Aminah did not appear pregnant for a long time is evident in Ibn Sa’d, who treats it as a miracle and a blessing that she did not feel the “heaviness” of pregnancy until soon before her birth. This also has Aminah ignorant that she was pregnant–though we have the assurance that her periods definitely stopped during this time–until angels told her so. This is in the fabricated “proof of prophethood” genre, but it has a purpose: to explain away the fact that she showed no signs of being pregnant for years. We find (p. 104), “I did not feel as if I was pregnant and I experienced no heaviness as other women do, except that my periods stopped; but I had a vision when I was in a state between sleep and wakefulness, that a visitor came in and said: Do you know that you are pregnant? I felt as if I answered: No, Then he said: You are bearing the chief of this nation and its Prophet; that was on Monday. She (‘Aminah) said: This fact assured me of my pregnancy. Then he allowed me a respite till the time of delivery approached…” So for years, she showed not the least sign of pregnancy, until she was coming close to the end and suddenly appeared pregnant, as if she had an entirely normal pregnancy length with a different father.

Muhammad’s mother was not supported by Abdul-Muttalib

Most of Islamic family law is simply traditional pagan Arab custom with new restrictions mainly placed on women limiting their ability to make choices for themselves. Among the traditional customs that were kept was the pagan view of marriage as being fundamentally transactional: the purchase of services or the use of a human body for money. Women are given tangible compensation for the use of their bodies for sex, gestation, and breastfeeding. While they have a biological bond with their child that was understood and even informed views of incest more heavily than the husband’s contribution in early Semitic societies, they have no lineage-level bond with their child. A mother gestates, breastfeeds, and cares for children for the father’s lineage, and thus is entitled to compensation.

Normally, this was (and even is, in some places) handled through an existing marriage: a woman’s maintenance is increased to compensate her for the labor that is beyond the standing payment level made for sexual access. But in cases where the marriage has already been ruptured, the woman is still due compensation from her husband or his family and is not required to perform any activities for the child without it. If her husband has divorced her, then it is his responsibility to provide for the child. If he is dead, then this responsibility falls to his estate (specifically, the child’s inheritance), and failing that, to the male lineage the child belongs to. There are details of Islamic law that are no applicable to the pagan ‘urfa (customary) context, but the overall view is identical.

If the mother is willing to breastfeed and the representative of the male lineage is willing to have her breastfeed, then the mother is supported for the customary two years before traditional weaning. But we find in the case of Muhammad’s mother Aminah that she never makes any effort to nurse Muhammad. From this, we can conclude one of two things: 1) Aminah had no desire to care for Muhammad and refused compensation or 2) Muhammad’s paternal “family” refused to give her compensation.

By Islamic accounts, Aminah was unmarried at this time and otherwise childless. She would have been in need of monetary support. It makes little sense for her to despise her own child so much that she wanted it gone, and along with it, her meal ticket for the next two years.

For what reasons could Abdul-Muttalib refuse to give Aminah compensation? He could simply not care for his reputation, in which case he would let the child die without any support even though he believed it to be his son’s. But he cared intensely about his reputation and he did support the child. But if Abdul-Muttalib doubted Muhammad’s paternity, he would resent giving money to a woman he regarded as practicing paternity fraud. He would avoid it if possible. If forced into recognizing the baby, he would want to spend as little money as possible to have the child nursed and hope that the child might conveniently go away and never come back.

Having laid out this principle, we will see it in action across a series of events in Muhammad’s early life.

Abdul-Muttalib refused to pay for a midwife

Aminah gave birth without any reported midwife, a startling and irregular situation. It is always Aminah’s supposed testimony that we get of light shining from her vagina after she births Muhammad. This story is never placed in the mouth of a midwife because no midwife was there, and the Quraysh had this as community knowledge. The customary was to give birth was to did a hole in the dirt floor of the house or its yard and string up a rope for the laboring mother to hang onto as she squatted above the hole. The amniotic fluid would go into the hole, along with birthing blood and other associated things, and the placenta was buried in the hole after the birth. Stillborn children and unwanted daughters were buried directly into this hole. (Note that the Hums pagan religious sect of the Quraysh officially codemned female infanticide. The Quraysh had invented the Hums to be a more direct competitor to the monotheism variants in the region.) Usually, a midwife would catch the baby as it was born before it could fall in the hole. But there are narrations that make it clear that the Quraysh believed that Muhammad dropped to the ground, with no midwife.

The most detailed hadith is found in Ibn Sa’d (here, p. 109): “Aminah Bint Wahb said: I became pregnant with him… but I felt no discomfort till I delivered him. But when he mas separated from me there emitted with him a light which made everything between the East and the West bright. Then he fell on the earth resting on his hands and took a handful of earth and raised his head to the heaven; and some say that he was reclining on his knees, raising his head to the heaven, and there emitted with him a light which illuminated the palaces of Syria and its markets, till I saw the necks of camels at Busra.”

Notice: 1) Aminah is the only person to ever supposedly claim this, because there was no midwife to witness it. 2) Muhammad fell and hit the ground when he was born because there was no midwife to catch him.

Muhammad often retold stories around Biblical figures by changing them to match the circumstances of his own life. So since Aminah gave alone and in pain, the Qur’an’s Mary likewise gave birth along and in pain. The Qur’an’s account of agonizing birth under a palm is directly borrowed from the pagan Greek myth of Leto giving birth to Apollo, which was still a popular story. Yet the main source for the Quranic Marian account is a late apocryphal gospel called the Proto-Evangelium of James, which includes detailed accounts of a midwife. In fact, Aminah’s luminous vagina even seems to be pillaged from it via a terrible and obscene misunderstanding. The Psuedo-Evangelium of James describes Joseph and the midwife arriving at the cave where Mary is resting. Then comes the following: “And they stood in the place of the cave, and behold a luminous cloud overshadowed the cave. And the midwife said: My soul has been magnified this day, because my eyes have seen strange things — because salvation has been brought forth to Israel. And immediately the cloud disappeared out of the cave, and a great light shone in the cave, so that the eyes could not bear it. And in a little that light gradually decreased, until the infant appeared, and went and took the breast from His mother Mary. And the midwife cried out, and said: This is a great day to me, because I have seen this strange sight.” Islam has no concept of the Glory of the Lord appearing as a light or fire, so Muslims deduced that vaginas shine with light when prophets are born. Still, notice the contrast. Here, a midwife testifies. In the Islamic narrative, it was already established that Aminah was alone, so she herself must be assigned this testimony. This striking lack of midwives has been noted by Western scholars (See Muslim Midwives The Craft of Birthing in the Premodern Middle East , pp. 89 – 112 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107286238.005 chapter 4, “The Absent Midwife” by Avner Giladi.). And it comes from a historical reality.

Who was responsible for paying for a midwife? The father of the child, of course, or his family. Aminah had no midwife because Abdul-Muttalib rejected her claim about the paternity of the child. She got no support during the long “pregnancy” and now, at birth, no midwife. Why would Aminah or her family not pay for it? This would be tantamount to admitting that she didn’t have a valid claim on the Hashimite clan. By refusing to back down from the claim that she was owed support from Abdul-Muttalib, Aminah forced the Quraysh to take her seriously.

Aminah never nursed her child

There is no account, ever, that Aminah nursed Muhammad even once. This would have been the perfect context for a “proof of prophethood” elaboration, as was applied to his main wetnurse. But there is no account because Aminah never nursed him at all. When he was born, she set him aside and would have let him die unless her claim on the Hashimite clan was recognized and she was given compensation for caring for him.

Muhammad was saved by Abu Lahab (birth name: Abdul-Uzza), his father’s half-brother according to traditional accounts. Yet despite this greater distance from Abdullah than his putative full brothers, it is he who sends a slave to nurse the newborn child. This breaks the stalemate. Notice the clarity of the sources: “The first (woman) who suckled the Apostle of Allah…was Thuwaybah (who nursed him) with the milk of her son who was called Masruh, several days before the arrival of Halimah. She had suckled Hamzah Ibn Abdul-Muttalib before and Abu Salamah ibn Abd al-As’ad al-Makhzumi after him.” (Ibn Sa’d p. 118). We also find the clear report in various places that she was the slave of Abu Lahab. Though there is a late and obscure “proof of prophethood” account that had Abu Lahab free her in delight when she announces the much longed-for birth, she is a slave in Mecca and Muhammad is sending her gifts from Medina much later. The historical narrative supports her being after the Hijra but sometime before Abu Lahab’s death. There is a famous narration in which Abu Lahab’s torment in hellfire is mildly lessened for having sent her to suckle him and thus save Muhammad’s life.

Abdul-Muttalib then takes Muhammad for arrow divination in front of the idol Hubal to determine paternity. This falls in favor of Muhammad being Abdullah’s son despite the many years since Abdullah had died. Abdul-Muttalib now has an obligation toward the child, but he never really believes that Muhammad is from Aminah. So instead of providing her support to nurse and care for Muhammad, he paid a Bedouin woman to foster him in the desert. Attempts are made to make this seem like a typical practice, but it was not. All other independent reports of desert fosterage occur after a wife has died or a similar interruption makes it impossible for the mother to care for a child. The excuse that Muhammad was being sent out to learn the perfect Arabic of the Bedouin is so absurd it is hardly to be countenanced–quite aside from the fact that the Qur’an is the Qurayshi dialect and not in any other.

Pagan paternity divination forces Abdul-Muttalib to recognize Muhammad

Before Abdul-Muttalib pays for Halimah to nurse Muhammad, he is forced to recognize him as the son of Abdullah. This happens using divining arrows before the idol of Hubal. The narrative in Ibn Ishaq goes like this: “After his birth, his mother sent to tell his grandfather Abdul-Muttalib that she had given birth to a baby boy and asked him to come and look at him.” After reasserting her claims about his paternity, Ibn Ishaq says, “It is alleged that Abdul-Muttalib took him before Hubal in the middle of the Kaaba, where he stood and prayed to Allah thanking him for the gift. Then her brought him out and delivered him to his mother, and he tried to find foster-mothers for him (p. 70).”

Ibn Ishaq is very uncomfortable with this narrative, and Ibn Hisham even takes out “before Hubal” and “in the middle of” to make it seem like Abdul-Muttalib was addressing the aniconic betyl idol, the Black Stone, rather than the carved image. Abdul-Muttalib addresses Hubal as Allah because they are the same god. Allah may have been a distinct obscure Arab deity at some point (which I find unlikely), but he is completely syncretized with Hubal for the Quraysh. Allah is also synonymous with Hubal in the son-sacrifice story, in which Abdul-Muttalib promised to sacrifice one “for Allah at the Kaaba,” and then he “went inside that Kaaba to the site of their god Hubal.”

Furthermore, we can be confident that Abdul-Muttalib is coming to do an arrow divination because this is what he did every other time he stood in front of Hubal. He did arrow divination when he threw arrows for deciding who owned stuff he found in the old donation pit where he dug the Zamzam well. He did arrow divination in the supposed son-sacrifice account. So he is standing in front of Hubal again, and thus doing divination. In fact, the special role of Hubal’s arrow divination specifically in the case of disputed paternity is the one use that is gone into in detail in Ibn Ishaq: “If they wanted to circumcise a boy, or make a marriage, or bury a body, or doubted someone’s genealogy, they took him to Hubal with a hundred dirhams and a slaughter camel and gave them to the man who cast the lots; then they brought near the man with whom they were concerned saying, ‘O our god this is A the son of B with whom we intend to do so and so; so show the right course concerning him.’ Then they would say to the man who cast the arrows ‘Cast!’ and if there came out ‘of you’ then he was a true member of their tribe; and if there came out ‘not of you’ he was an ally; and if there came out mulsaq he had no blood relation to them and was not an ally” (p. 67).

So it is after the arrow divination that Abdul-Muttalib was forced to accept the paternity that he doubted, and then he sought a wetnurse for the boy.

Muhammad is denied a family name

There is an unusual amount of focus on the name “Muhammad” in the early sources. This caused confusion later on for some Muslims but mostly for Western academics, who misunderstood why the name choice needed to be addressed.

Here is the narration that causes all the confusion, as related in the Seerat-e-Mustafa:

“On the seventh day after Rasulullah’s ﷺ birth, ‘Abdul Muttalib performed the ‘Aqeeqah and invited all the Quraysh to this function. He then proposed to keep the child’s name Muhammad. The Quraysh, startled by such an innovative name enquired: ‘“’O Abul Haaris! (This was the title of ‘Abdul Muttalib) Why do you propose to keep a name that was certainly not kept by your forefathers or any of your family members?‘ ‘Abdul Muttalib replied: ‘I propose to name him Muhammad (the praised one) because I want Allah ﷻ in the sky and His creation on the earth to praise him.'”

So the question is why Muhammad isn’t getting a family name. They didn’t ask why he is getting a special name. Abdul-Muttalib then supposedly explains that the name he is getting is proper for his illustrious future, but that was not the question. The question was why he was being denied a family name.

Other narrations claim that he was originally going to have the name Qutham, which was a Hashimite name and the name of one of Abdul-Muttalib’s sons who had died at about eight or nine. (Ignore any claims that this was a disreputable name: al-Abbas did, in fact, later give one of his own sons this name.) There is a well established tradition that someone wanted to give the baby a family name, but in the end, Abdul-Muttalib refused this and gave him the name Muhammad instead.

The name choice is ascribed to Aminah most often, with a claim that Abdul-Muttalib was going to completely embrace Muhammad as a Hashimite and give him a proper family name, but Aminah had a dream where angels told her to pick Muhammad instead. Here is this version: “As for Quṯam b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib: his mother was Ṣafiyyah bt. Jundub, the mother of al-Ḥāriṯ b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, and he died as a young boy. [Someone] other than al-Kalbī said: “He died three years before the birth of the Prophet, when he was a boy of nine years, whereupon ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib experienced great anguish, [for] he had been dear to him [and] brought him joy. Then, when the Messenger of God was born, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib named him “Quṯam”, whereupon his mother ʾÂminah informed him that she had been shown in a dream [that she was] to name him ‘Muḥammad’—thus, he named him ‘Muḥammad’ [instead].” (ʾAḥmad b. Yaḥyá al-Balāḏurī) See how this removes the stain of being denied a family name and turns it into an honor.

The alternative ascribes the dream to Abdul-Muttalib himself, and he insisted on picking the non-Hashimite name, at which he was challenged. This is what the Seerat-e-Mustafa relates. This second “proof of prophethood” story is most likely closer to the truth: Abdul-Muttalib never accepted Muhammad fully (as seen by his refusal to compensate Aminah), and so he also refused to give Muhammad the family name that he was expected to give him. His excuse would have been that the meaning of the name was illustrious, even though it wasn’t a Qurayshi name, and so it was still respectable. It also fits much better with Abdul-Muttalib giving a defense of the name that never references a dream by Aminah or anyone else.

Note that the sources are clear that Muhammad was an established name that was in circulation for pre-Islamic pagan men in the 6th century. In fact, the sources count seven different Muhammads who were born before Muhammad declared himself a prophet.

Muhammad later claimed that his name was in the Book of the Jews and Christians as being the name of the foretold prophet. This is obviously less impressive if that was a name in circulation, so we find that an excuse had to be made for why there were other Muhammads running around. We find the standard explanation in Ibn al-Jawzi: “The Arabs used to hear from the People of the Book and from the soothsayers that a prophet would be sent from among the Arabs whose name would be Muhammad,  [so whoever among the Arabs heard this named his son Muhammad] out of hope for prophethood.” The name wasn’t supposed to have existed in more ancient times before they heard of this prophecy (but it did).

Note that the seven-day naming is also lifted from Jewish tradition, to give Muhammad a sheen of Abrahamic legitimacy. Most sources say Halimah had already taken Muhammad out into the desert by the time he was this old.

Muhammad was given a last-pick wetnurse

The narrative of the choice of Halimah as a midwife is also telling. Even in the Islamic narrations, she is the last pick of available foster-midwives among the Bedouins. And according to her own account, she offered herself out of desperation while she had a poor milk supply–meaning that the child was unlike to thrive. Breast inspection (by another woman) for milk supply is a normal part of picking a wetnurse in the past, for obvious reasons, and thus she was passed over by everyone one else. Ibn Sa’d writes that she had so little milk that her own child previously wasn’t able to sleep well because he was so hungry (p. 122), which is clearly an exaggeration but points to the idea that hiring her to nurse a second child was a transparently poor and dangerous choice, unless your hope is that the child will die.

Yet she was chosen for Muhammad despite this deficiency. In this same narration, it even appears that Aminah is going to have to pay for the wetnurse because the Hashimites would not support her: The other wetnurses say of him, “He is an orphan and has no money, and I am afraid as to how his mother will manage.” The narration continues, “Then the women departed, leaving Halimah behind them. Thereupon Halimah said to her husband: ‘What is your opinion, all my fellow women have left and now in Makkah there is no boy except, this orphan to be nursed? I think we should take him because I do not like to return to our place without taking one.'”

In Ibn Ishaq’s version, the lack of milk of Halimah is emphasized from the beginning: “This was a year of famine when they were destitute. … They could not sleep the whole night because of the weeping of her hungry child. She had no milk to give him, nor could their she-camel provide a morning draught.” That is, even their camel’s milk had dried up, yet because she needs money for food, she offers herself as a wetnurse anyway. All the wetnurses in this account still doubt payment, but they doubt his grandfather, too: “An orphan! and what will his mother and grandfather do?” In this one, Halimah, who has been unsuccessful at get another child and has herself spurned Muhammad, changes her mind and decides to take him because she couldn’t get any better arrangement (p. 70-71 for all). This is followed by a dramatic story of the copious milk that flows from both Halimah and the camel after the first nursing, but the context is still that Halimah was the worst choice for a wetnurse and Muhammad the worst choice for being assured of payment.

Given that Abdul-Muttalib had officially accepted the pagan arrow divination at this time, he was likely the responsible party paying the wetnurse. By sending Muhammad away with a nurse who seemed like she wouldn’t give him enough to thrive, he likely believed he was saving face while permanently solving his baby problem.

Muhammad’s foster mother was paid to keep Muhammad after weaning

Muhammad survived past the two years of nursing and was weaned. At this point, there was no reason for Aminah to not keep her son, if Abdul-Muttalib would provide the monetary support to do so. Yet Muhammad was kept with Halimah’s family for as long as they were willing to take him. Ibn Ishaq comes up with the excuse that there was sickness in Mecca at the time, which does not seem likely, as there are no other reputable stories of Meccan children being routinely fostered by Bedouins for this reason. Halimah supposedly nagged Aminah by this reasoning into letting her keep him.

Ibn Ishaq then flows straight into the narrative of the heart-washing angels incident, which is shoved into the narrative of Muhammad’s life in no less than three different places: here, when he is 21, and again before the Night Journey. This narrative is pillaged from the biography of Mani, the founder of the Manichaean gnostic religion. There is no reason to take it seriously here as a historical account of anything, but some inciting event happened that caused Halimah’s family to refuse to take care of Muhammad any longer because they believed that he was possessed (p. 72). (It is also important to note that angels wouldn’t have caused them to think he was possessed and then make them want to get far away from him.)

Ibn Sa’d has Aminah be the one to want to send Muhammad back out with the foster family (p. 123), because of sickness in Mecca and also some vague statement about how she expected him to become a great man. Why this would be aided by staying with a particularly impoverished Bedouin family is not explored. But again, this points to Abdul-Muttalib refusing to give Amina direct support for raising Muhammad if he has any other choice. In this version, there are no angels or heart-washing that make Halimah think he is possessed but rather a sinister cloud that follows him around.

At any rate, at four years old, Muhammad is dumped back onto his mother by his foster family, who thinks he is possessed. He spends two years with her before she dies when he is about six. So he is only with his mother when there is no one else who will take money to care for him.

Much is made of the idea that Muhammad was doted upon by his grandfather. In Ibn Ishaq, we find, “He would make him sit beside him on his bed [that no one else was allowed to sit on] and would stroke his back with his hand.” But this gains a much more sinister context when it is discovered that Muhammad was given into Abu Talib’s care rather than Abu Lahab’s upon his grandfather’s death. Abu Lahab was Muhammad’s savior and earliest defender. Abu Talib, on the other hand, had a sexual preference for boys. There is also a hadith that indicates that he used Muhammad in this manner.

If there is any doubt about Muhammad’s status in his grandfather’s house, his uncle Hamza destroys it with a scornful statement he made while drunk when Muhammad attempted to correct him for his bad behavior: “You are nothing but my father’s slave!” (Sahih al-Bukhari 4003). Muhammad had been very low in his grandfather’s house.

Muhammad’s nickname “Ibn Abu Kabsha”

One of Muhammad’s slaves inherited from his mother was Abu Kabsha. He is very little mentioned because the mocking nickname that his opponent in Mecca gave him was Ibn Abu Kabsha, Son of Abu Kabsha, claiming that this slave was his real father. Some rather desperate attempts to provide an alternative explanation are provided in the sources, but this mocking nickname and the existence of this slave is clear. Some sources even claim he was was of Persian descent. Regardless of the accuracy, the fact that his paternity was a matter of public mockery by his enemies show how it was plausibly questioned during his lifetime. This could be dismissed if such a thing were a common insult, but there is no evidence of this. Muhammad’s paternity was a subject of public ridicule in a way that other men’s was not.

Abu Talib’s refusal of his daughter’s hand

Usually, paternal cousins had first claim for marriage to a man’s daughter. But when Muhammad wanted to marry Fakhita bint Abu Talib, Abu Talib married her to someone else anyway. Muhammad asked, “Uncle, why have you married her off to Hubayra and ignored me?” Abu Talib replied, “Nephew, they are our in-laws, and the noble is an equal for the noble.” This implied not only that Hubayra and Abu Talib’s lines were nobles but that Muhammad was not.

Muhammad’s lack of paternal inheritance

If Aminah had been pregnant at the time that Abdullah had died and Muhammad was the result of a regular marriage, inheritance would have been held back for him. It was not. There are sporadic claims that Muhammad inherited something from his father, but we find him with no animals when he is wanting to marry Khadijah. He is forced to borrow the small bride-gift he offers her, which she cancels out with her own present of the slave Zayd. He gains control of the house he was born in after the conquest of Mecca, but he lives in Abu Talib’s household before his marriage and in Khadijah’s house after, so he did not inherit that, either. A legitimate child would not have ended up the penniless orphan that he was.

Conclusion

While each individual piece of evidence is not conclusive, the sheer number of anecdotes that deal with doubts about Muhammad’s paternity and the many attempts at reframing these doubts show the underlying history that the Islamic sources attempt to polish into something illustrious. These all serve as independent details confirming the years-long gap between the death of Muhammad’s father and his birth that is testified in the sources. This proves that Muhammad is illegitimate and that his father is unknown, which disproves his claims to prophethood and Islam itself.