Did the Prophet Muḥammad follow an Arabian religion or reli…

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/

...nothing of profound detail has been written on the topic since Meir Jacob Kister 1968 article (which is the basis of my proposed piece). Before I summarise the views of Muslim and Western accounts, it's worth recalling the series of events in Ibn Hishām 6/

First, Muḥammad used to climb the Mt. Ḥirāʾ to sit in contemplative solitude in the famous cave. Two, the seclusion would last 30 days. In some medieval Arabic accounts the seclusion would include sexual abstinence; in others, Muḥammad was accompanied by his wife Khādijā 7/

That Muḥammad practiced nightly mediations alone in Ḥirāʾ before the Call to Prophecy, is recorded in Bukhārī (with the isnād including al-Zuhrī -- ʿUrwa b. Z -- ʿĀʾisha), as evidenced by the textual mention of Muḥammad returning to his wife after the end of his seclusion 8/

Third, Muḥammad would give food the needy and poor - presumably in the area of Ḥirāʾ. Fourth, at the end of the meditative seclusion, Muḥammad would go to the Kaʿbah (approx. 4 km away) and circumambulate (i.e., go around) seven times, or more. 9/

Fifth, in some accounts (e.g., Bukhārī) Muḥammad prepared for the monthly seclusion by taking with him provisions (food and water) to the Cave of Ḥirāʾ. Sixth, sometimes Muḥammad would break his seclusion to go back to Mecca to stock up on provisions 10/

I am keen to investigate the origin of the word taḥannuth and the ethical-spiritual rituals associated with them, and to place these practices in context of Late Antique religion and philosophy 11/

But since I am still at the nascent stages of my research, let's summarise the main views and perspectives neatly listed in Kister's introductory study (around fourteen pages) 12/

Muslim philologists, lexicographers, and ḥadīth folk were divided on the original meaning of taḥannuth. The common explanation given to taḥannuth is "to remove sin (حنث) from oneself" - the definition given by al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. 1109) in his al-Mufradāt 13/

For al-Qasṭallānī (d. 1517), commenting on Bukhārī, the term taḥannuth is equated with taʿabbud: devotional rituals that include seclusion (خلوة) and watching of the Kaʿbah (النظر الى الكعبة). Similarly, Al-Suyūṭī finds parallels between taḥannuth & seclusion (اعتكاف)n 14/

The earliest biography of Muḥammad, Ibn Isḥāq, however, uses neither taʿabbud nor taḥannuth, but tanassuk, that is, verb of نسك from which mansik (ritual place) comes. Early Sufis were known as nussāk (renunciationists) 15/

So for Muslims the term taḥannuth came to be associated with related terms of devotionalisms like taʿabbud, tanassuk, and sometimes tabarrur (from بر). But by far the most interesting gloss is that of Ibn Hishām who read taḥannuth as (تحنف) taḥannuf 16/

For Ibn Hishām taḥannuth is a corruption of taḥannuf, the latter being a form derived from ḥanīf, the Quran-mentioned Abrahamic monotheism practiced by some Arabs before Islam, suggesting that Muḥammad did not slide into paganism before Islam 17/

Modern orientalists are divided too, with the jury still out on the origin of the term taḥannuth. The Austrian orientalist Aloys Sprenger took an odd view, arguing that taḥannuth was not an ancient Arabian practice and was incompatible with the spirit of Jāhiliyyah 18/

Tor Andrae connects taḥannuth to devotional rituals in Syrian Christianity, though without providing detailed examples 19/

Hartwig Hirschfeld links taḥannuth to Jewish devotionalism, claiming that the Arabic taḥannuth is based on the Hebrew teḥinnoth תחנות - common term for voluntary devotional but non-liturgical prayers in Judaism. For Hirschfeld, Muḥammad learnt the practice from Jews 20/

The key takeaway and follow up questions is, when the medieval accounts inform us that Muḥammad's practice of meditative seclusion before the Call to Prophecy was part of the devotional religiosities of Quraysh before Islam, should we, then... 21/

...revise our views on the starting point of Islam? Surely Muḥammad's meditative devotional rituals predisposed him to receive the revelation (as the Muslim sources affirm). If that is the case, did Muḥammad find (partial) efficacy in the Arabian ethical-devotional rituals? 22/

And should we consider rituals of taḥannuth (assuming Hirschfeld is wrong, as Goitein did) to belong to a pre-Islamic semitic form of ethical and spiritual devotionalism? We will have to wait to find out. END.