1. Along this line only the highly colorful biography of Émile Dermenghem (Paris: Charlot, 1929; 2d ed., 1950) will be mentioned.

2. A good critical bibliography will be found in J. Sauvaget's Introduction à l'histoire de l'orient musulman (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1943), pp. 111-14. Since then have appeared notably a French translation of Tor Andrae's valuable little book, Mahomet, sa vie et sa doctrine, by J. Gaudefroy-Demombynes (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1945); a solid monograph (unfor tunately shortened at publication) by R. Blachère, Le Problème de Mahomet (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1952); a quasi-exhaustive manual by Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Mahomet (Paris: A. Michel, 1957). For the works of Watt, written in a different spirit, see be low. The essential Arabic source for the reader unfamiliar with the language is now available in English: Ibn Ishaq's The Life of Muhammad, a Translation … by A. Guillaume (London: Oxford University Press, 1955). There is a scholarly translation of the Koran into French by R. Blachère, Le Coran (Paris: G. P. Maisonneuve, 1947-51), in three volumes, one of which serves as an introduction.

3. The ideas expressed here have already been developed in more summary fashion by the author in a series of lectures. Cf. M. Rodinson, "Comment est né l'Islam," Le Courrier ra tionaliste (Paris), September 23, 1956, pp. 136-41; "Considérations sociologiques sur les origi nes de l'Islam," delivered at the Institut Français de Sociologie, June 9, 1956 (5 mimeographed pages); "Mahomet et les empires de l'Islam," Cahiers rationalistes, No. 164 (June-August, 1957), PP. 173-83.

4. This may be pointed up by a casual examination of the valuable Annuaire du monde musulman …, ed. L. Massignon (4th ed.; Paris, 1955).

5. I apologize to Moslems who may read these lines for treating the Koran as an uncon scious work of Muhammad (there is no question of its being a hoax). They will understand that, if one is not a Moslem, this is the only way to consider the text; to accept it as the Word of God would mean becoming an adherent of Islam. If they consent to read an article on the origins of Islam written by a non-Moslem, they must expect to find what they consider blasphemy. Certain eminent Orientalists (and not the least admirable among them) have felt that they must eliminate everything which might shock Moslems by employing equivocal terms. But what Moslem would be duped by words when the whole approach of these scholars reveals their real thought? Frankness seems to me the best policy. Either the Koran is the work of God or it is that of a man. There is no third solution.

6. It is often stated that Yathrib (a name mentioned in the second century in the form Iathrippa by Ptolemy) took, at the time of Muhammad's sojourn, the name Madinat an-nabî, "the city," from which we have derived "Medina." But the form al-Madîna is found in the Koran. The name, doubtless owed to the Jews, is really related to an Aramaic denomination. It is the Aramaic medîntâ, first ‘juridical circumscription" (from din, "judgment"), thence "province" and "large city." Cf. the article of F. Buhl, "Al-Madîna" in the Encyclopédie de l'Islam (French ed., 1936), III, 85.

7. See especially C. H. Becker, Vom Werden und Wesen der islamischen Welt, Islamstudien (Leipzig: Qudle & Meyer, 1924), I, 1-23; Der Islam als Problem (reprint of an article first published in Der Islam, I [1910], 1-21); L. Caetani, Studi di storia orientale (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1911), I, esp. 21 ff., 279 and 366-68; and passim in his Annali dell'Islam (Milan, 1905 ff.), Vols. I and II. G. H. Bousquet devoted a recent article to an exposition and a criticism (superficial in my opinion) of these ideas: "Quelques remarques critiques et sociologiques sur la conquête arabe et les théories émises à ce sujet," in Studi orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi della Vida (Rome, 1956), I, 52-60; see also below, p. 44.

8. There is a whole literature on this subject. The thesis of an essentially Jewish origin, based on the fine work of Abraham Geiger, Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenom men (Bonn: Gedruckt bei F. Baaden, 1833) (this is a Wiesbaden rabbi's answer to a question asked by the philosophy faculty at Bonn) has been vigorously upheld by H. Lammens, S.J., whose ulterior motive was to place on Judaism the responsibility of the frightful deviation he considered Islam to be. One of the latest important essays to take up this theme is that of C. C. Torrey, The Jewish Foundations of Islam (New York: Jewish Institute of Religion, 1933). The Christian sources have been considered particularly by K. Ahrens in his Muhammad als Religionstifter (Leipzig: Deutsche Morgenländische gesellschaft, 1935); "Christliches im Qo ran," Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, LXXXIV (1930), 15 ff. and 148 ff.; and by Tor Andrae, Der Ursprung des Islams und das Christentum (Uppsala, 1926), recently translated into French by J. Roche (Paris, 1955).

9. G. H. Bousquet, "Observations sociologiques sur les origines de l'Islam," Studia Isla mica, II (1954), 61-87, esp. 72.

10. Voltaire, Mohamet (1742), Act II, scene 5, in The Works of Voltaire, trans. W. H. Fleming (Paris, London, New York, Chicago: E. R. Dumont, 1901), Vol. XVI. He is more moderate in the Essai sur les mœurs, chap. vi: "It is to be believed that Mahomet, violently moved by his own ideas like all fanatics, first presented these ideas in good faith, fortified them with visions, deceived himself while deceiving others, and finally used necessary deceit to support a doctrine which he believed to be basically good."

11. H. Grimme, Mohammed, Vol. I: Das Leben (Münster i. W.: Aschendorff, 1892), p. 14.

12. Ibid., pp. 15-17.

13. These tendencies are well defined in their broader aspects, in my opinion, by Michèle Duchet, "Islam et progrès," La Nouvelle critique, No. 85 (May, 1957), pp. 44-69, esp. 58 ff.

14. Cf. The Gazette of Pakistan (Karachi), Extraordinary Issue, July 23, 1954, pp. 1481 ff. Here are some significant extracts from the report on the zakât commission: "The revolution ary doctrine of Islam wiped out the distinction between ‘lay' and ‘religious' and blended the two into an organic whole. In making zakât farz, i.e. an obligatory duty, it made it so funda mental to Islam that a refusal is equivalent to a manifestation of kufr (infidelity). In fact, the principal aim of the whole Mussulman doctrine is to inculcate purity of thought and to create the condi tions of a healthy social life. Thus to fulfill his ‘lay' duties including economic responsibilities, in conformity with divine commandments, is 100% religion, and has been classified in the category of ibadât (ritual and other prescriptions)" (p. 1484). (Italics mine.) Among innumer able examples in the same line are some pages of Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Hayât Muham mad ("Life of Mohammad") (5th ed.: Cairo, 1952), pp. 542 ff. (On "Mussulman socialism").

15. Bendell Djawzî, Min ta' rikh al-harakât al-fikrîya fî l-Islam ("On the History of Ide ological Movements in Islam"), Vol. I: Min ta' rîkh al-harakât al-idjtimâ'iya ("On the History of Social Movements") (Jerusalem, n.d. [Preface dated 1928]). I have found mention of this book only in the Abstracta Islamica, III, A. 124; in Revue des études islamiques, 1929, No. 3, which found it "most interesting"; and in a rather startled review by the distinguished president of the Arabic Academy of Damascus, Muhammad Kurd'Alf (Revue de l'Académie arabe de Damas, IX [1929], 125 [in Arabic]): "he suggests things which have never to this day occurred to any Mussulman." Indeed.

16. "Une nouvelle biographie de Mohammed," Revue de l'histoire des religions, XXX (1894), 48-70, 149-78. Reprinted in his Verspreide Geschriften (Bonn and Leipzig: K. Schroeder, 1923) 1, 319-62.

17. Modern Moslem biographies of Muhammad, at least those I have examined, have virtually nothing to offer. They have become exercises in hagiography. They analyze the great qualities with which God endowed the Prophet to prepare him for his divine mission. It is true that the brilliant "essayist" ‘Abbas Mahmûd al-Aqqad (‘Abqariyat Muhammad ["The Genius of Mohammad"] [Cairo, n.d.] [in Arabic]) adds that the world, his nation, his tribe, his family, awaited his coming. He is said to have come as a remedy for the prevailing material and moral disorder, most sketchily described. All this is scarcely above the level of traditional discussions of the mawlid (feast of the Prophet's birth). Nor, it should be added in all justice, does it surpass the ironies of Mr. Daniel-Rops on the "rather oversimplified reveries" ofLoisy and other scholars seeking to explain "Jesus and the Gospel … through the Judaism of their time" (Introduction to the Apocrypha, ed. J. Bonsirven [Paris, 1953], pp. 22-23). In both cases, the temporal nature of the divine message is significant only as a reaction to then current evils.

18. Muhammad at Mecca (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953); Muhammad at Medina (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956).

19. I have given a résumé of the social state and the ideology of nomadic Arabs in my contribution on "L'Arabie avant l'Islam" to "L'Histoire universelle" of the Encyclopédie de la Pléiade (Paris, 1957), II, 21-26.

20. The classic work on this subject is the monumental Geschichte des Qor'ans of Th. Nöldeke and F. Schwally, second edition completed by G. Bergsträsser and O. Pretzl (3 vols.; Leipzig: J. Weicher, 1909-38). Blachère's translation of the Koran, cited above, has the ad vantage of incorporating the results of all these critical studies and presenting the texts not according to the purely artificial traditional order but chronologically. The ordinary reader desiring an elementary but sure and remarkably clear analysis of these questions of koranic criticism may refer to H. Masse's L'Islam (Paris, 1939), pp. 71-86. The book of A. Abel, Le Coran ("Collections Lebègue and nationale," No. 103 [Brussels: Office de publicité, 1951]) is also a good popularization.

21. "Marry then such women as you may find pleasing, two, three, four of them, (but) if you fear that you may not be fair to all, (take) but one, or (take) concubines!" (Koran 4:3 [Blachère trans.]). Modernist Moslems, having adopted modern ideas on the superiority of monogamy, are troubled by this text. Generally, they interpret it as a restriction to a maximum of four of the number of wives permitted to one man, a number previously unlimited. They often add that it is basically a preaching of monogamy, for the fair treatment demanded for the various wives is an unrealizable condition! Cf. the argument recently employed for the aboli tion of polygamy in Tunisia. But the facts contradict these well-meant efforts toward inter pretation. Nothing shows the existence of multiple-wife families in pre-Islamic Arabia. And the text of the Koran is an encouragement, not a limitation.

22. G. H. Bousquet, "Une explication marxiste de l'Islam par un ecclésiastique épisco palien," Hesperis, XLI (1954), 231-47.

23. See especially his "La République marchande de La Mecque vers l'an 600 de notre ère," Bulletin de l'Institut égyptien, 5th ser., IV (1910), 23-54, and "La Mecque à la veille de l'Hégire," Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale de l'Université St.-Joseph (Beirut), Vol. IX, Fasc. 4 (1923-24).

24. See, e.g., the laborious and partially faulty article, rich in data, of N. V. Pigulevskaya, "Efiopiya i Khimyar v ikh vzaimootnojeniyakh s vostotchnorimskoy imperiei" ("Ethiopia and Himyar in Their Reciprocal Relations with the Roman Empire of the East"), in Vestnik drevnei istorii (1948), 1, 87-97.

25. For some development and more precise remarks on this theme may I refer the reader to my essay on "L'Arabie avant l'Islam" mentioned above (esp. pp. 31-35).

26. Caetani, op. cit. H. Lammens, Le Berceau de l'Islam, Vol. I: Le Climat, les Bédouins ("Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici" [Rome, 1914]); J. Schumpeter, "Zur Soziologie der Imperialismen," Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (Tübingen), XLVI (1918-19), 1-39, 275-310; "Les Conquêtes de l'impérialisme arabe," Postface introduction and notes of G. H. Bousquet, in Revue africaine, XCIV (1950), 283-97.

27. In an article which I read after writing these lines ("Ideal Factors in the Origin of Islam," Islamic Quarterly, II [1955], 160-74), Watt attempts to counterbalance what he has elsewhere called "the economic and social factors" of the origins of Islam, and shows most forcefully the importance of the conceptions of umma and rasûl ("Messenger of God") intro duced by Muhammad and unknown to earlier Arabs in this form, in leading to the unification of the Arabs. I shall by no means attempt to deny this. Watt, however, seems to consider these concepts as having sprung up without external ties, in their Islamic form, in the mind of Muhammad. But it is certainly not by chance that these conceptions, "ideal" though they be, corresponded so well to the needs of the total situation in Arabia. Watt explains both their roots in earlier conceptions and their partially original character by reference to the Jungian theory of archetypes. I shall refrain from a discussion of the value of this "framework," but others are surely possible, as I believe the above lines have shown.

28. The ideas of Bousquet outlined in the article cited above (n. 22) are developed in his "Observations sur la nature et les causes de la conquête arabe," Studia Islamica, VI (1956), 37-52.

29. As a matter of fact, there was no dogmatic reason pushing toward conquest, and there was serious reluctance to pursue a policy of expansion in the early years after the death of Muhammad. Facts (secondhand but real) are cited in support of this belief by A. Sharf, "Heraclius and Mahomet," Past and Present, IX (April, 1957), 1-16, esp. 10-11.

30. The Byzantine Empire's resistance after the first Arab conquests is also a problem (cf. ibid.).

31. The breadth and depth of this social differentiation seem to me to have been exagger ated by E. A. Beliaev in his "Formation of the Arab State and the Origin of Islam in the VIIth Century" ("Obrazovanie arabskogo gosudarstva i vozniknovenie Islama v VII veke"), Editions of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Moscow, 1954). ("Papers Presented by the Soviet Delegation at the XXIII International Congress of Orientalists: Islamic Studies" [in Russian and English].) For a recent résumé of the facts and a bibliography on slavery see the article "abd" by R. Brunschvig in the Encyclopédie de l'Islam (2d ed.; Leiden and Paris, 1954), I, Book I, 25-41, esp. 25-26.

32. J. Wellhausen, Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1902), English trans. by Gr. Weir, The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1927). A good definition of what he calls the Arab "caste" by A. N. Poliak is "L'Arabisation de l'Orient sémitique," Revue des études islamiques, 1938, pp. 35-63.

33. E. Renan, "Mahomet et les origines de l'Islamisme," Revue des deux mondes, 4th quarter, 1851, pp. 1063-1101, esp. 1065.

34. Cf J. Fuck, "Die Originalität des arabischen Propheten," Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, XC (1936), 509-25, and, more subtly, G. von Grunebaum, "Von Muhammads Wirkung und Originalität," Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, XLIV (1937), 29-50.

35. In the article mentioned above, Beliaev follows V. V. Barthold in stressing the impor tance of this man. In western Europe similar ideas have been expressed by D. S. Margoliouth in Mohammed and the Rise of Islam (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1905), pp. 81 and 454, and by F. Buhl in the article "Musailima" in the Encyclopédie de l'Islam (1st ed.; Leiden, 1936) (pp. 796-97 of the French edition).

36. G. Balandier, Sociologie actuelle de l'Afrique noire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955), pp. 427-34.

37. Ed. Meyer, Ursprung und Geschichte der Mormonen (Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1912); G. H. Bousquet, Les Mormons (Paris, 1949).

38. L. I. Klimovitch, Islam, ego proiskhojdenie i sotsial'naya sychtchnost' ("Islam, Its Origin and Its Social Nature") ("Pan-Soviet Society for the Diffusion of Political and Scientific Knowledge," 2d ser., No. 6 [Moscow: Editions Znakie, 1956]), p. 10. Likewise E. A. Beliaev in the article previously mentioned suggests that the Koran is not the work of a single author and was partially compiled outside Arabia (cf. Klimovitch, op. cit., p. 26). Klimovitch and Beliaev, unlike Bendelî Djawzî mentioned above and many Marxists from Moslem countries, attribute to Muhammad a "reactionary" rather than a "progressive" role.

39. E.g., in his Muhammad at Mecca, p. 19, and in his article "Economic and Social Aspects of the Origin of Islam," Islamic Quarterly, 1 (1954), 90-103.