Fatima, Daughter of Muhammad by Christopher Paul Clohessy (review)

Fatima, Daughter of Muhammad is a work by a Catholic priest which aims to study the life of Fatimah as recorded in the earliest available Sunni and Shi͑a Arabic works. It is driven by several factors ranging from the startlingly different depiction of Fatimah in the earliest Arabic Sunni sources to her image in the earliest Arabic Shi͑a sources, leading to a curiosity as to the reason(s) for such divergence, and the desire to study the similarities and differences regarding her life between the texts of these two traditions. In addition, the author also notes the progressively increasing references to her, in increasingly honorific terms, in later works of both traditions but especially those of the Shi͑a tradition, till she becomes a flawless saint far removed from the ordinary by the twelfth century ah – a phenomenon which leads to a tension between Fatimah the ordinary yet loyal and devoted Muslim, and Fatimah the saint possessing honorific titles. This tension is highlighted by means of four cases presented as examples in the introduction. Two additional impulses for this study were the author’s observation of the many similarities between the Fatimah of Shi͑a Islam and the Mary of Catholicism, and the almost complete absence of writings on her life in the English language. Thus these considerations led the author to attempt to critically examine the life of Fatimah at the level of the early extant Arabic texts, which means he does not subject these texts themselves to the rigours of historical criticism.

The life of Fatimah in this book is studied in light of several specific aspects. The first chapter, by far the longest, focuses on the historical biography of Fatimah and her historical context. Therefore it begins with a brief discussion of the Prophet’s life intending thereby to set the outline of the historical context within which Fatimah’s life evolved. The sources drawn on in this section of the chapter are Sunni historical and biographical works, spanning from the third to the eighth century ah. Several points in the Prophet’s life that have a direct bearing on Fatimah’s life receive relatively extensive historical discussions both in the text and in the footnotes such as the different dates of birth recorded for Muhammad and Khadijah and consequently their ages at marriage, the total number of the Prophet’s children and Fatimah’s place among them as well as a discussion on Khadijah’s marital status prior to her marriage to the Prophet. There is also a thoroughly interesting discussion on the contentious date of the isra͗ and the mi͑raj including whether these were separate events or one single event. In copious footnotes (which continue throughout the work), the author registers the agreements and disagreements of the Sunni authors whose works are drawn upon, always citing them in chronological order (this precedent is consistently followed throughout the work), and in a few instances drawing attention to the opinions of two early Shi͑a historians on these issues, these being al-Ya͑qubi (d. 284/292 ah) and al-Mas͑udi (d. 345 ah).

The chapter then proceeds to a discussion of Fatimah’s life proper as recorded in the Sunni sources identified above; however, as her biography unfolds, the study moves to a greater reliance on early Sunni Hadith and biographical sources spanning from the third century to the tenth century ah. The first issue to merit a discussion is Fatimah’s date of birth and the disagreement regarding it between the Sunni and Shi͑a traditions. This includes a discussion of the ingenious resolution by the Shi͑a tradition of a historical inconsistency precipitated by their version of her birth-date which has the effect of placing Fatimah’s conception after Khadijah’s death! Here, the prior discussion on the isra͗ and the mi͑raj proves useful. The Shi͑a works consulted for this issue are historical works and works of...