Did the Prophet Muḥammad follow an Arabian religion or religiosity before Islam, that is, before what Muslim accounts label the "Call to Prophecy"? A short thread based on notes for an article preparation 1/
Biographical information about the life of Muḥammad before the Call to Prophecy is seriously lacking - even in the literary imaginations of later Muslim sources. But there are useful and relevant starting points which, if read critically, can add to our existing knowledge 2/
The best clue is found in the famous accounts recorded in the Sīrat Rasūl Allāh (Biography of the Messenger of God ) by the famous biographer Ibn Isḥāq (d. 767) - translated with additional notes (from Ibn Hishām; died 883) by Alfred Guillaume 3/
Ibn Isḥāq (in Ibn Hishām's recension) informs the reader that before the Call to Prophecy, Muḥammad used to sojourn (يُجَاوِرُ) on Mount Ḥirāʾ for a period of 30 days every year. During his meditative seclusion, Muḥammad would feed the poor & needy when they called on him 4/
The operative word in Ibn Hishām's biography is taḥannuth (تحنث). The term remains contentious both among medieval Muslim authorities and Western Islamicists. I decided to prepare an article on the term and its links to Late Antique religiosities largely because...5/