Zayd

Preface

Preface Many of the believers who formulated the islamic foundation narrative were converts to islam or their descendants. inevitably these men and women were engaging in a conversation with earlier Jewish and christian traditions, both written and oral. on the following pages, i shall attempt to demonstrate that the Muslims who related and transmitted stories about the subject of the present study—a man named Zayd—drew freely upon biblical and postbiblical texts, characters, themes, and motifs. at each stage of his life, the figure of Zayd—as well as that of his wife Zaynab and his son Usāma—is modeled on that of a different biblical or postbiblical figure. initially , the audiences in whose presence these stories were related or performed would have been familiar with these biblical models. over time, however, the interest of Muslims in biblical texts waned, and the textual links between the islamic narratives and their biblical antecedents weakened and eventually were lost. similarly, many readers of this book will have only a passing knowledge of these biblical figures. For this reason, i have divided each of the four chapters of this book into three sections: islamic narratives, Biblical Models, and textual encounters. in the islamic narratives section, i rely exclusively on islamic sources. in the Biblical Models section, i summarize the relevant biblical and postbiblical stories that, in my view, served as literary models for the islamic figures. Finally, in the textual encounters section, i identify the parallels between the islamic figures and their biblical counterparts. note well: i do not claim to have identified every relevant biblical model nor do i claim that every episode in the life of Zayd and his family is based on a biblical model. x Preface the islamic sources upon which the following biography is based have been accessible in the form of manuscripts for a thousand years and in printed editions for more than a century. What distinguishes the present study from earlier scholarship is that i treat the reports about Zayd and his family as literary narratives rather than as “history as it really was.” although Zayd, his son Usāma, and other members of his family may have been real historical personages, the reports that were transmitted about them do not, in my view, bear any relation to real historical events. the challenge for the historian is to identify the literary functions performed by Zayd and his entourage within the larger islamic foundation narrative. in the conclusion, i will argue that Zayd and Usāma initially were key players in the bitter contest within the early Muslim community over the issue of legitimate leadership and succession to Muḥammad. in addition, Zayd played a central role in securing the theological doctrine of the finality of prophecy. Zayd This page intentionally left blank ...