Umaiya ibn Abī s-Salt

Umaiya ibn Abī s-Salt ( Arabic أمية بن أبي الصلت, DMG Umaiya ibn Abī ṣ-Ṣalt ; died around 630 in at-Tā'if ) was a poet from the Arab tribe Thaqīf, who represented ideas similar to Islam and is attributed to the Hanīfs . Umaiya rejected the prophetic claim to leadership of his younger contemporary, Mohammed , because he saw himself in the role of a prophet, although he was willing to join Mohammed for a short time. Mohammed, conversely, admired the poems of Umaiya, but saw him as a "stray".

Due to its great importance for the prehistory and early history of Islam , Umaiya ibn Abī s-Salt has been an important topic in Islamic and Arabic research since the beginning of the 20th century . Above all, the authenticity of the various religious poems handed down in Umaiya's name was discussed very controversially. They contain allusions to biblical stories and have numerous content and linguistic similarities with the Koran .

Life

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One of the most important sources on Umaiya's life is the "History of the City of Damascus" by Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 1176), which contains a biographical entry about him, which takes up 32 pages in the modern print edition. Ibn ʿAsākir deals with Umaiya in his book because he is said to have visited Damascus on a trip. Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373), who also deals extensively with Umaiya in his world chronicle al-Bidāya wa-nihāya , got his information mainly from Ibn ʿAsākir's work. In addition, various other compilations by Ibn Sallām al-Jumahī (d. 845/6), Ibn Qutaiba (d. 882), Abū l-Faraj al-Isfahānī (d. 967) and ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī are sources (died 1682) of importance that contain biographical entries on Umaiya. As can be seen from the Fihrist of Ibn an-Nadīm , the scholar az-Zubair ibn Bakkār (d. 870) who worked in the Hejaz had already created an independent work on the news about Umaiya. Although this work itself has not survived, Abū l-Faradsch most likely took his information from this work. At various points in his biographical entry he mentions az-Zubair as his source.

Another important source is Umaiya's own poems. They are quoted here from the collection that Friedrich Schulthess published in 1911. Although the authenticity of some of the poems transmitted in Umaiya's name has been questioned, the poems cited in this section are not affected.

Umaiya's origin and family background

Umaiya lived in the city of at-Tā'if, which is about 100 kilometers southeast of Mecca , and belonged to the Thaqīf tribe who ruled this city. Schulthess' collection also contains several poems by Umaiya that serve to glorify at-Tā'if and the Thaqīf (Nos. I-IV, XIV).

Umaiya's father Abū s-Salt ʿAbdallāh ibn Abī Rabīʿa was a poet and is said to have written a poem of praise to Saif ibn Dhī Yazan, the last Himyarite ruler (d. 597 AD). Through his mother Ruqaiya, a daughter of ʿAbd Shams ibn ʿAbd Manāf , Umaiya was also related to the Meccan aristocracy. This is also reflected in his poetry. In one of his poems (No. XXI) he praises Harb ibn Umaiya, the grandson of ʿAbd Shams.

Umaiya had four sons: ʿAmr, Rabīʿa, Wahb and al-Qāsim. The latter later also became active as a poet. In addition, various reports mention that Umaiya had two daughters.

The contact with the Meccan Ibn Judʿān

In Mecca Umaiya used to associate with the respected and wealthy trader ʿAbdallāh ibn Judʿān from the Quraishite clan of the Banū Taim. He is said to have been present when Ibn Judʿān introduced the new sweet Fālūdh at a public table in Mecca, which he had got to know in Persia. Umaiya made a poem on this occasion. The story of "the two cicadas of ʿĀd " ( ǧarādatā ʿĀd ) is also known. Ibn Judʿān had two slaves who sang beautifully and who therefore he called them so. Umaiya admired them, and in order to get Ibn Judʿān to hand over the two slaves to him, he recited a poem of praise in which he indicated his wish. Ibn Judʿān actually gave him one of the two girls. When he brought it back to him because people reprimanded him for taking it away from the old man, even though he knew that he needed it for care, Ibn Judʿān pushed the other one on him.

The poem that Umaiya Ibn Judʿān recited in order to get him to hand over the two slaves to him has found its way into all major Arabic anthologies. In Friedrich Rückert's German translation, the first verses read as follows:

Should I say my distress, or is
the feeling of shame in front of the poor that adorns you satisfied ?
Together with your knowledge of duty, in that you are
a glory from the purest tribe,
a friend whom neither tomorrow nor evening will
escape the innate beautiful kind.
The Beni Teim works of fame are your soil,
above which you are seen as heaven.

Another poem of praise to Ibn Dschudʿān (in Schulthess' Collection No. XIII) is generally regarded as an elegy for the death of his patron. Umaiya is said to have drank together with Ibn Judʿān before he renounced wine. The end of poem No. XXV in Schulthess' collection may also refer to the funny life that the poet led in earlier times. Here it says: “Therefore forgive a servant! See, the beginning of his sin is drinking and playing maisir, combined with jokes. "

Religious Development

According to Ibn al-Sallam Dschumahī Umayya took some time with the Hanif Zaid ibn 'Amr in combination, the so Ibn Sallam, along with Waraqa ibn Naufal in the time of JAHILIYYAH by religion sought. Ibn Qutaiba reported that Umaiya "the previous books of God" ( al-mutaqaddima min kutub Allah ,) read to the worship of Allah called and idolatry began to fight. Abū l-Faraj al-Isfahānī, citing the maternal uncle of az-Zubair ibn Bakkār, reports that Umaiya dressed in sackcloth ( musūḥ ) after reading books to worship God . He mentioned Abraham , Ishmael and hanism, banned alcohol, doubted the sense of idolatry and kept the fast in search of truth .

According to a group of different traditions cited by Ibn ʿAsākir, Umaiya traveled to Syria for trade purposes with his relative Abū Sufyān ibn Harb before Muhammad's prophetic appearance in Mecca . Abū Sufyān, who has his own say in these traditions, reports that Umaiya was already talking about a resurrection of the dead, an otherworldly punishment of sins and the division of people into a "host of paradise" ( farīq al-ǧanna ). and believed a "band of hellfire" ( farīq an-nār ). Ibn Kathīr, citing the Andalusian scholar ʿAbd ar-Rahmān as-Suhailī (d. 1185), reports that Umaiya was also the first to use the invocation formula Bi-smi-ka Allāhumma ("In Your Name, O Allah"), which is also used in Islam alongside the Basmala .

In various traditions it is reported that Umaiya had read in the ancient scriptures that God would send a messenger to the Arabs in his day and was now waiting for this prophet. A verse from a longer poem by Umaiya, quoted in various works and classified as genuine, shows that he was indeed in anticipation of a prophet. It reads:

a-lā nabīya la-nā min-nā fa-yuḫbira-nā
mā buʿdu ġāyati-nā min raʾsi maǧrā-nā

Do we not have a prophet among us who could tell us
how far our ultimate goal is from our starting point?

According to a tradition which Abū l-Faraj cites with reference to az-Zuhrī (d. 741/2), Umaiya is said to have spoken to Abū Bakr , who like Ibn Judʿān belonged to the Banū Taim clan, about the expected ambassador. He is said to have said: “The message is puzzling ( ʿamiya l-ḫabar ). Did you notice anything? ”To Abū Bakr's negative answer, he then replied:“ I have found that he should come forward this year. ”After the reports that Ibn ʿAsākir cited about Umaiya's trip with his relative Abū Sufyān ibn Harb, inquired about Umaiya met a Christian scholar in Syria about “the prophet who is expected” ( an-nabī allaḏī yuntaẓar ).

Prophetic Ambitions and Rejection of Muhammad

In various traditions it is reported that Umaiya was reminded of his own religious expectations when Muhammad appeared in Mecca as the messenger of God. According to a report quoted by Abū l-Faraj, people said to him: "It is the one you have been waiting for for so long and whom you are talking about." However, Umaiya envied Mohammed and remained incredulous because he had hoped that to be the expected ambassador himself. In the account in which Abū Sufyān speaks, Umaiya is quoted as saying that he never believed in a messenger outside the tribe of Thaqīf. Umaiya may even openly appear as a prophet himself. At the beginning of his biographical entry on Umaiya, Ibn ʿAsākir gives the view that “he was a prophet” ( anna-hū kāna nabīyan ).

Citing al-Zuhrī, Ibn ʿAsākir reports that Umaiya refused to succeed Mohammed because he was ashamed in front of his female tribesmen, whom he had told that he was the prophet. Women from his family apparently played an important role in his religious propaganda. According to a report cited by Ibn ʿAsākir citing al-Kalbī , one of Umaiya's daughters had a dream in which she saw two eagles covering the roof of their house, descending on Umaiya and opening his chest. Fāriʿa, Umaiya's sister, is said to have told Mohammed about this incident later, but described the opening of Umaiya's breast by the birds not as a dream, but as a real event. The story of this incident, of which there are different versions, has similarities with the legend about Muhammad's opening in the chest, which was the most important story in the early Islamic period to prove the calling of Muhammad.

Al Makin suspects that Umaiya was recognized as a prophet by his tribe Thaqīf in at-Tā'if in the same way as was the case with Musailima and his tribe of Banū Hanīfa, but his hypothesis is not based on clear evidence. According to a report cited by Ibn ʿAsākir with reference to az-Zuhrī, Umaiya stayed in Eastern Arabia ( Bahrain ) for eight years while Mohammed was a prophet in Mecca . This coincides with other reports, according to which Umaiya attended "one of the tribal kings " ( baʿḍ al-mulūk ) during this period .

Approaching Mohammed and turning away from him again

According to the report that Ibn ʿAsākir quotes with reference to az-Zuhrī, Umaiya had a discussion with the Prophet near the Kaaba after his return to the Hejaz . After this conversation he told members of the Quraish that he recognized Muhammad's claim to religious truth, but did not want to join him yet. While Mohammed was going to Medina , Umaiya was going to Syria. Upon hearing of Muhammad's victory in the Battle of Badr, he rushed there to join him. But when he learned the names of the fallen in Badr, among whom were ʿUtba and Schaiba, the grandchildren of his maternal uncle ʿAbd Schams, he cut off the nose and tail of his camel, mourned the dead and refrained from his plan. According to ath-Thaʿlabī, Umaiya commented on the killing of the Quraishites by Muhammad at Badr with the words: "If he were a prophet, he would not kill his relatives."

The credibility of these reports is supported by the fact that a mourning poem by Umaiya has come down to the Quraishites who fell at Badr. It is cited , among others, by Ibn Hisham in his biography of Muhammad. The first verses read:

Hallā bakaita ʿalā l-kirāmi banī l-kirāmi ūlī l-mamādiḥ
ka-bukāʾi l-ḥamāmi ʿalā furūʿi l-aiki fī l-ġuṣni l-ǧawāniḥ
…
Māḏā bi-Badrin fa-l-ǧaqanqi min

Have you not wept over the noble sons of praiseworthy nobles,
as the doves weep over the branches of the thicket on the sloping branches?
...
What kind of venerable princes were there in Badr and the dunes?

Schulthess did not include this poem on the fallen by Badr in his collection, which Nöldeke, who considers it undoubtedly genuine, criticized in his review of the collection. The poem also contained a message to other Arab tribes. You should stand by the Quraish and support them in the fight against Muhammad.

According to Ibn Kathīr, Umaiya returned to Mecca and at-Tā'if after his stay in Badr and turned away from Islam. Abū l-Faraj, citing az-Zubair ibn Bakkār, reports that, according to Badr, Umaiya not only incited the Quraishites to revenge, but also urged them to use his formula Bi-smi at the beginning of their letters instead of the Basmala used by the Muslims -ka Allāhumma ("In Your Name, O God") to use.

Umaiya's death

How long Umaiya lived after the Battle of Badr is not certain. ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baġdādī narrates that Umaiya died in the year 9 after the Hijra (= 630/1 AD), even before the followers of the Thaqīf tribe converted to Islam. Abū l-Faraj reports, citing az-Zubair ibn Bakkār, of Umaiya's flight to the outermost Yemen. After he had brought his two daughters to safety there, he is said to have returned to at-Tā'if and died there at a carousing party in the Ghailān palace. Ibn ʿAsākir reports, citing Saʿīd ibn al-Musaiyab (d. 714), that Umaiya's sister came to Mecca after the conquest of Mecca in January 630 and Mohammed reported the circumstances of his death. Accordingly, he must have died before this point in time.

It is generally believed that Umaiya died as an infidel . Abū l-Faraj cites a report according to which, shortly before his death, he said: "I know that hanism is true, but I have doubts about Muhammad". When the Muslims besieged Mecca at-Tā'if after the conquest, they captured Umaiya's brother Hudhail and executed him.

Muhammad's attitude towards Umaiya

His admiration for Umaiya's poetry

The attitude of Muhammad towards Umaiya ibn Abī s-Salt seems to have been overall more positive than that of Umaiya towards Mohammed. Several traditions speak of his admiration for Umaiya's poetry. The Prophet 's companion al-Sharid ibn Suwaid is quoted in the Saheeh work by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj as saying that he was on the road with the Prophet and was asked by him to recite verses from Umaiya. Since the Prophet could not get enough of it, he finally recited a hundred verses from Umaiya to him. In other versions of this report, cited by Ibn ʿAsākir, it is added that after the end of the recitation, Mohammed said: "It would not have been much, and Umaiya ibn Abī s-Salt would have become a Muslim." This prophetic word about Umaiya is also used in found the canonical hadith works. In another version of this report there is the additional information that the incident occurred on the farewell pilgrimage in 632. After the end of the recitation, Mohammed said: "The knowledge of Umaiya ibn Abī s-Salt lies solely with God."

According to the report that Ibn ʿAsākir quotes with reference to Saʿīd ibn al-Musaiyab, Mohammed was also interested in his poetry when he met Umaiya's sister Fāriʿa. He took this opportunity to ask her to read him Umaiya's best poem. After she complied with this request, he said that Umaiya was like the one of whom it is said in the Qur'an: “And left them the story of him to whom we gave our signs and who then got rid of them! Then Satan took him into his company. And so he was one of those who went astray ”- Sura 7: 175. It was also believed that this incident was the actual cause of the sending down of the verse. Abdallāh, the son of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs , is mentioned as the authority for this view .

The ambivalent attitude of Muhammad towards Umaiya is also evident in the following statement about him, which is ascribed to him in various works: "His poetry is believing, but his heart is unbelieving." ( Āmana šiʿru-hū wa-kafara qalbu-hū ). Ibn Qutaiba says somewhat differently: “His tongue believes , but his heart disbelieves” ( āmana lisānu-hū wa-kafara qalbu-hū ).

The mourning poem for the Quraishites who fell at Badr alone seems to have aroused Muhammad's displeasure. Abū l-Faraj reported that he had forbidden the transmission of this poem. The Baghdad writer Abū ʿUbaidallāh al-Marzubānī (d. 995) said that this poem, along with another by al-Aʿschā, was the only poem from the time of the Jāhilīya whose recitation the Prophet had forbidden.

The verses declared true by Muhammad

Pictorial implementation of Umaiya's description in a Persian manuscript of the cosmography of al-Qazwīnī

From ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās it is narrated that Mohammed declared three verses from Umaiya's poetry to be true. They are:

Raǧulun wa-ṯaurun tahta riǧli yamini-hi
wa-n-nasru li-l-Uhra wa-laiṯun murṣidu
wa-š-Samsu taṭlu'u kulla Ahiri lailatin
ḥamrā'a yuṣbiḥu launu-HA yatawarradu
laisat bi-ṭāli'atin la-hum fī risli-HA
Illā muʿaḏḏabatan wa-illā tuǧladu

A man and a bull under his right foot,
and at the other (foot) an eagle and a lurking lion.
And the sun, it rises at the end of every night,
colored red like a rose.
But it does not open to them voluntarily,
but has to be chastised and whipped.

In the picture that is sketched in the first verse, the four evangelist symbols from ( Rev 4 : 6–8  EU ) can easily be recognized. Mohammed is said to have regarded this verse as an accurate description of the bearers of the divine throne. Because of Mohammed's confirmation of this verse, Umaiya's description of the four bearers of the divine throne has become an integral part of Islamic cosmology. His verse is also quoted in the cosmographic work of al-Qazwīnī . Muhammad ibn Habib, who commented on Umaiya's poems, related this verse to the eight bearers of the divine throne named in Sura 69:17 and stated that the throne was carried by these four beings in the presence but by them during the day the resurrection four more angels are to come to the aid

Regarding the sun, which has to be forced to rise in the morning, ʿIkrima, the client of ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās, is quoted as saying that the sun only rises when 70,000 angels urge it to rise and say to it: “Go up, go up! ”because she refuses to rise above people who worship her instead of God.

Legends

Some reports and narratives about Umaiya ibn Abī s-Salt are clearly legendary. This includes, for example, a story that Abū l-Faraj relies on az-Zuhrī. She describes how Umaiya met a sheikh while on a trip in a church . He recognizes in him features of a seer and asks him about the circumstances of his visions. Based on Umaiya's answers, he comes to the conclusion that he is not the expected prophet of the Arabs, but is visited by the jinn . The story is similar to the legend about Muhammad's visit to the monk Bahīrā . Like Mohammed through Bahīrā, Umaiya is considered inspired by the ascetic, but the inspiration comes from the wrong side. A variant of the story with fantastic features tells how he received the invocation formula Bi-smi-ka Allāhumma from the Sheikh on a caravan of his tribe , which he later introduced to the Meccans.

Other stories attribute Umaiya to the ability to understand the language of animals. A story told by Ibn ʿAsākir tells how he translated the sounds of birds, sheep and camels into human language with his companions on a journey. The correctness of his statements is subsequently confirmed by people. In a story cited in various works, Umaiya foretells his own death after learning it from a raven.

Umaiya's poetry

Umaiya ibn Abī s-Salt was considered by the Arab philologists to be one of the most important poets of the Thaqīf tribe. The poet al-Kumait ibn Ziyād (d. 743) even considered him the greatest poet par excellence. Surāqa ibn Mirdās wrote a poem of praise for him.

About 900 verses are assigned to Umaiya ibn Abī s-Salt. The Baghdad philologist Muhammad ibn Habīb (d. 860) put Umaiya's poetry together in a Dīwān , but this has been lost with al-Baghdādī except for a few quotations. In 1911, Friedrich Schulthess reassembled what Umaiya's verses had been scattered in various writings in his collection, reassembling some of the poems from fragments. E. Power added supplements to his collection in an article in 1912. In the 1970s, two Arab scholars (as-Saṭlī and al-Hadīthī) published further collections. In terms of content, Umaiya's poems can be divided into two main groups according to HH Bräu. One smaller group consists of panegyric poems and verses that serve to glorify tribes and individuals, the other larger group, which begins in Schulthess' collection from poem XXIII, has a religious character.

Peculiarities of his religious poetry

Above all, Umaiya was considered a religious poet for posterity. The Arab philologist al-Asmaʿī (d. 828) said that the most important subject of Umayya's poems was the afterlife , that ʿAntara mainly sang songs of war and ʿUmar ibn Abī Rabīʿa was a poet of the youth. Ibn Sallām al-Jumahī describes Umaiya's poetry as "rich in curiosities" ( kaṯīr al-ʿaǧāʾib ) and explains that Umaiya mentioned the creation of heaven and earth and angels in his poetry, which no other poet had done before him. He attributes this to the fact that Umaiya previously stayed with the Ahl al-kitāb.

Ibn Qutaiba writes about Umaiya: “In his poetry he told stories of the prophets and used many terms ( alfāẓ ) that the Arabs did not know. He drew this from previous writings. And he produced reports that he drew from the reports of the Ahl al-kitāb . ”As examples of strange foreign words from the Ahl al-kitāb that Umaiya used in his poetry, Ibn Qutaiba mentions the terms as-Sāhūr for the covering, in which the moon should disappear during the lunar eclipse , as well as as-Salṭalīṭ and at-Taġrūr as names for God. Because of this strange usage of the word, the scholars did not accept Umaiya's poems as lexicographical evidence.

Modern research confirms the special character of Umaiya's religious poetry. Tilman Seidensticker stated that in this poem the sequence of several themes typical of the old Arabic Qasīda is completely missing. Gert Borg, who dealt with Umaiya's poetic personality in an essay, says that his religious poems, which have a strange character, come from a later phase of life and show that he also began to experiment with new poetic forms at this time. Friedrich Schulthess showed that Umaiya took up Jewish sources in his poetry. The ideas that he drew from these sources include, in addition to the topics already mentioned by the Arab authors, the flood , the sacrifice of Isaac and the seven heavens .

The correspondences with the Koran

In terms of religious ideas and the use of material motifs, Umaiya's poems show a strong correspondence with the Koran. Koranic terms such as Rabb , Kāfir (No. XXXV) and Janna (No. XL) appear in his poems . The Qur'anic concept of the hemp also appears in his poetry. Interestingly enough, Umaiya does not use the later common name form Ḥanīfīya for Hanīfism , but rather its own form Ḥanīfa . This is what it says in one of his verses, which is quoted by various authors:

Kullu dīnin yauma l-qiyāmati ʿinda Llāhi
illā dīna Ḥanīfati zūr.

On the day of resurrection every religion is
deceit before God , except the religion Hanīfa

The phraseological correspondence of Umaiya's language with the language of the Koran is so high that, for example, in the 13 lines of poem No. XXVII only one line does not contain such a match. Due to such similarities, Clement Huart put forward the thesis in 1904 that Umaiya's poems were a source of the Koran. In doing so, he sparked great scientific interest in Umaiya's poetry, which was reflected in a number of publications. While E. Power joined Huart's theory in an article in 1906 and took the view that Mohammed might have used Umaiya's poems, Schulthess and his pupil I. Frank-Kamenetzky referred a catalog of correspondences to the dissertation he submitted in Königsberg in 1911 between Umaiya's poems and the Koran, Huart's thesis back. Frank-Kamenetzky concluded from the hostility between Mohammed and Umaiya that mutual borrowing was unlikely. He suspected that the numerous parallels between the Koran and Umaiya were either due to common sources or later Muslim forgeries. Schulthess said that Umaiya and Mohammed drew from common written sources. Theodor Nöldeke considered this improbable because he saw in Sura 25 : 5 evidence that Mohammed himself did not read any books.

However, there are also some substantive differences between Umaiya's poetry and the Koran. For example, as early as 1906 E. Power compared the representation of the fall of the Thamūd in Umaiya (poem no. 34, lines 23-32) and in the Koran (Sura 91) and pointed out that unlike in the Koran in Umaiya's text a Divine Messenger is not mentioned and, conversely, Umaiyas contains some elements that are missing in the Koranic representation. N. Sinai has emphasized that, in contrast to the early parts of the Qur'an, eschatological themes are absent in Umaiya's poetry and that when describing Hell, Umaiya emphasizes the idea of ​​forgiveness much more.

The question of authenticity

It was already clear to the Muslim scholars of the premodern that some of the poems ascribed to Umaiya did not come from him. At the end of his collection, Schulthess listed seven such poems that were qualified as “spurious”. However, he himself judged the authenticity of Umaiya's poems even more critically. In his opinion, all poems that were "dependent on the Koran" were suspected of being falsified. In his essay from 1906 he cited a list of 16 religious poems by Umaiya, which he considered to be spurious on this basis. Frank-Kamenetzky also used correspondences with the Koran as an exclusion criterion in his dissertation from 1911, although he made a distinction between “adaptations of the Koran” and those poems or parts of poems in which isolated notes from the Koran “are in the vicinity of thoughts which according to tradition are too agree with those Umayiah ”. He saw only post-poems "which are linked to a certain Qoranic theme and are based on one or more suras" as not coming from Umaiya. With the application of this standard he came to a total of 225 religious verses of Umaiya that can be regarded as genuine. Frank-Kamenetzky had no doubts about the majority of poems without religious ones.

Tor Andræ took a particularly skeptical attitude towards Umaiya's religious poems . He took the view that most of these poems were pseudepigraphic versifications of material that Muslim exegetes such as ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās and as-Suddī later brought to the interpretation of the Koran. In Umaiya's Thamūd poem, for example, he said that the agreement with the explanations in at-Tabarī's Koran commentary showed that this poem was dependent on the Muslim exegesis of the Koran . Tilman Seidensticker took a similar position, who again dealt with the question of the authenticity of Umaiya's poems in an article in 1996. For example, he said that poem no.38, which describes an angel blowing the spirit of Jesus into Mary, should be classified as spurious because this description reflects the view of the later Koran exegesis, but not that of the Koran, in God himself breathes in the spirit ( Sura 66 : 12).

In recent years, G. Borg and N. Sinai have objected to such an argument that the ideas to which the Muslim exegesis of the Koran could have already been widespread in pre-Islamic Arabia and thus correspondences with it in Umaiya's poems are no proof of their inauthenticity be. Sinai therefore also treats Umaiya's Thamūd poem as authentic and regards it as representative of the “Koranic milieu”. He uses it in his article to work out how the Koran reorganized existing narrative material in order to develop its own prophetology and a coherent religious system.

In his second article on the question of authenticity, published in 2011, Seidensticker has compiled a synopsis of the various judgments on the authenticity of the religious poems ascribed to Umaiya.

literature

Arabic sources

• Abū l-Faraj al-Isfahānī : Kitāb al-Aġānī . Ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās. 20 Vol. Dār Ṣādir, Beirut, 2002. Vol. IV, pp. 96–104 Digitized , Vol. VIII, pp. 235–239.
• ʿAbd al-Qāhir ibn ʿUmar al-Baġdādī: Ḫizānat al-adab wa-lubb lubāb lisān al-ʿArab . Ed. ʿAbd as-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn. 13 Vol. Maktabat al-Ḫānǧī, Cairo, 1997. Vol. I, pp. 247-253. Digitized
• Ibn ʿAsākir : Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . Ed. ʿUmar ibn Ġarāma al-ʿUmarī. Vol. 9. Dār al-Fikr, Beirut, 1995. pp. 255-287 digitized
• Ibn Qutaiba : aš-Šiʿr wa-š-šuʿarāʾ . Ed. Aḥmad Muḥammad Šākir. Dār al-Maʿārif, Cairo 1987. pp. 459-462. Digitized
• Ibn Sallām al-Ǧumaḥī: Ṭabaqāt fuḥūl aš-šuʿarāʾ . Ed. Maḥmūd Muḥammad Šākir. Maṭbaʿat al-Madanī, Cairo, 1974. pp. 262-267. Digitized
• Ibn Kathīr : al-Bidāya wa-n-nihāya . Ed. ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin at-Turkī. Haǧar, Ǧīza, 1997. Vol. III, pp. 274-297. Digitized
• Abū Isḥāq aṯ-Ṯaʿlabī : Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ au ʿArāʾis al-maǧālis. Translated and commented by Heribert Busse under the title Islamic Tales of Prophets and Men of God. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2006, p. 306f.

Secondary literature

• Gert Borg: “Umayya b. Abi al-Salt as a poet “in U. Vermeulen and D. de Smet (ed.): Philosophy and arts in the Islamic world: proceedings of the 18th Congress of the Union Europeenne des Arabisants et Islamisants. Peeters Press, Leuven, 1998. pp. 3-13.
• Gert Borg: “The Divine in the works of Umayya b. Abî Salt “in Gert Borg, Ed de Moor (ed.): Representations of the Divine in Arabic Poetry . Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2001. pp. 9-24.
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• Bahǧat ʿAbd-al-Ġafūr al-Ḥadīṯī: Umaiya Ibn-Abi-ṣ-Ṣalt: ḥayātuhū wa-šiʿruhū, dirāsa wa-taḥqīq. Al-Ḥadīṯī, Baghdad, 1991.
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• ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ as-Saṭlī: Umaiya ibn Abī ṣ-Ṣalt, ḥayātu-hū wa-šiʿru-hū . 2nd edition Damascus 1977.
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• Friedrich Schulthess: Umajja b. Abi ṣ Ṣalṭ. The fragments of poetry handed down under his name have been collected and translated. Leipzig and Baltimore 1911. - Review by H. Reckendorf in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 15 (1912) 211-216. Digitized
• Tilman Seidensticker: "The authenticity of the poems ascribed to Umayya Ibn Abī al-Ṣalt" in R. Smart: Tradition and modernity in Arabic language and literature . Curzon Press, Richmond, 1996. pp. 87-101.
• Tilman Seidensticker: "The authenticity of the poems attributed to Umaiya Ibn Abī ṣ-Ṣalt II" in the magazine of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft 161 (2011) 39–68.
• Fuat Sezgin : History of Arabic Literature. Vol. II Poetry to approx. 430 H. EJBrill, Leiden, 1975. pp. 298-300.
• Nicolai Sinai: “Religious poetry from the Quranic milieu: Umayya b. Abī l-Ṣalt on the fate of the Thamūd “in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 74 (2011) 397-416.
• Aloys Sprenger : The life and teachings of Moḥammad, according to largely unused sources . 3 vol. 2nd edition Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin, 1869. Vol. I, pp. 76–81, 110–119. Digitized

supporting documents

1. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 255.
2. ↑ Cf. Ibn an-Nadīm: al-Fihrist . Ed. Gustav wing . Leipzig 1871-72. P. 111, line 10. Digitized .
3. ↑ Cf. Sezgin: History of Arabic literature. 1975, p. 299f.
4. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 96 and Ibn Qutaiba: aš-Šiʿr . 1987, p. 461.
5. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī. Vol. IV, p. 96 and Ibn Qutaiba: aš-Šiʿr . 1987, p. 462.
6. ↑ Cf. Ibn Kathīr: al-Bidāya wa-n-nihāya . Vol. III, p. 283.
7. ↑ See Sprenger: The life and teaching of Moḥammad. 1869, Vol. I, pp. 76f.
8. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. VIII, p. 237.
9. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. VIII, pp. 235f.
10. ↑ See Friedrich Rückert's works: historical-critical edition; "Schweinfurt Edition". Works 1846/1847, vol. 3: Hamâsa, part 2. Wallstein, Göttingen, 2004. p. 922.
11. ↑ Cf. Nöldeke: Umaija b. Abiṣ Ṣalt , 1912, p. 162.
12. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. VIII, pp. 238f.
13. ↑ Cf. Nöldeke: Umaija b. Abiṣ Ṣalt , 1912, p. 162.
14. ↑ Cf. Ibn Sallām al-Ǧumaḥī: Ṭabaqāt fuḥūl aš-šuʿarāʾ . P. 262f.
15. ↑ Cf. Ibn Qutaiba: aš-Šiʿr . 1987, p. 459.
16. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 97.
17. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . Pp. 256-262.
18. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 261.
19. ↑ Quoted from Ibn Kathīr: al-Bidāya wa-n-nihāya. Vol. III, p. 290.
20. ↑ See Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 97.
21. ↑ See Seidensticker: Authenticity . 2011, p. 56.
22. ↑ Schulthess: “Umayya b. Abi ṣ-Ṣalṭ “. 1911, No. XXXV, V. 3.
23. ↑ See Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 98 and the translation by Sprenger: The life and teaching of Moḥammad. 1869, Vol. I, p. 114.
24. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 259.
25. ↑ Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 97.
26. ↑ Cf. Ibn Qutaiba: aš-Šiʿr . 1987, p. 459.
27. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 260.
28. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 255.
29. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 265 and Schulthess: “Umajja b. Abi-ṣ Ṣalt ". 1906, p. 75, of Ibn Kaṯīr: al-Bidāya wa-n-nihāya . Vol. III, pp. 282f. is based on.
30. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 266 and Ibn Kaṯīr: al-Bidāya wa-n-nihāya. Vol. III, pp. 283f.
31. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 100f, aṯ-Ṯaʿlabī: Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ . Translated by H. Busse. 2006, p. 306f, Ibn Sallām al-Ǧumaḥī: Ṭabaqāt fuḥūl aš-šuʿarāʾ . P. 266.
32. ↑ See Sprenger: The life and teaching of Moḥammad. 1869, Vol. I, p. 119.
33. ↑ See Harris Birkeland : The Legend of the Opening of Muhammed's Breast . Oslo 1955, pp. 12-24.
34. ↑ Makin: "Re-thinking other claimants to prophethood". 2010, pp. 173-175.
35. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 285 and Schulthess: “Umajja b. Abi-ṣ Ṣalt ". 1906, p. 75, of Ibn Kaṯīr: al-Bidāya wa-n-nihāya . Vol. III, p. 288.
36. ↑ Cf. aṯ-Ṯaʿlabī: Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ . Translated by H. Busse. 2006, p. 306, and al-Baġawī : Maʿālim at-tanzīl sub Sura 7 : 175, see digitized version
37. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 286 and Schulthess: “Umajja b. Abi-ṣ Ṣalt ". 1906, p. 75, of Ibn Kaṯīr: al-Bidāya wa-n-nihāya . Vol. III, pp. 288f. is based.
38. ↑ Cf. aṯ-Ṯaʿlabī: Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ. Translated by H. Busse. 2006, p. 306.
39. ↑ Cf. Ibn Hišām: Kitāb Sīrat Rasūl Allāh from d. Hs. On Berlin, Leipzig, Gotha a. Leyden ed. by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld. 2 vols. Göttingen 1858-59. Pp. 531-533. Digitized .
40. ↑ Cf. Ibn Sallām al-Ǧumaḥī: Ṭabaqāt fuḥūl aš-šuʿarāʾ. P. 263.
41. ↑ Cf. Nöldeke: Umaija b. Abiṣ Ṣalt , 1912, p. 162.
42. ↑ See the explanations in Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 278.
43. ↑ Cf. Ibn Kaṯīr: al-Bidāya wa-n-nihāya . Vol. III, pp. 288f.
44. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, pp. 97f.
45. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 104.
46. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 282.
47. ↑ Cf. al-Baġdādī: Ḫizānat al-adab . Vol. I, pp. 251f.
48. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 103.
49. ↑ See Julius Wellhausen (ed.): Mohammed in Medina. This is Vakidi's Kitab al-Maghazi in a shortened German version. Reimer, Berlin 1882. p. 369.
50. ↑ Cf. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim No. 2255.
51. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 268.
52. ↑ Cf. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim No. 2256.
53. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . Pp. 268f and Ibn Kaṯīr: al-Bidāya wa-n-nihāya . Vol. III, pp. 293f.
54. ↑ Cf. Ibn Kaṯīr: al-Bidāya wa-n-nihāya . Vol. III, pp. 284-287.
55. ↑ Cf. aṯ-Ṯaʿlabī: Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ. Translated by H. Busse. 2006, p. 306f.
56. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 266 and al-Baġawī: Maʿālim at-tanzīl sub Sura 7: 175.
57. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 272 ​​and Ibn Kaṯīr: al-Bidāya wa-n-nihāya . Vol. III, p. 294.
58. ↑ Ibn Qutaiba: aš-Šiʿr. 1987, p. 459.
59. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 98.
60. ↑ See the scholarly biographies of Abū ʿUbaidallāh al-Marzubānī: in the review of Ḥāfiẓ al-Yaġmūrī . Edited by Rudolf Sellheim. F. Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1964, p. 40, lines 8-10.
61. ↑ See Sunan al-Dārimī No. 2703 and Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal No. 2312.
62. ↑ Schulthess: “Umayya b. Abi ṣ-Ṣalṭ “. 1911, No. XXV, V. 45b-47.
63. ↑ So al-Baġdādī: Ḫizānat al-adab. 1997, Vol. I, p. 248.
64. ↑ See Syrinx von Hees: Encyclopedia as a mirror of the world view: Qazwīnīs miracle of creation - a natural history of the 13th century . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 2002. p. 288.
65. ↑ Sura 69:17
66. ↑ So al-Baġdādī: Ḫizānat al-adab . 1997, Vol. I, p. 248.
67. ↑ Cf. al-Baġdādī: Ḫizānat al-adab . 1997, Vol. I, p. 250 with reference to Muhammad ibn Habīb.
68. ↑ See the scholarly biographies of Abū ʿUbaidallāh al-Marzubānī: in the review of Ḥāfiẓ al-Yaġmūrī. Edited by Rudolf Sellheim. F. Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1964, p. 277f and Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī. Vol. IV, pp. 102f.
69. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 98 and Sprenger: The life and teaching of Moḥammad. 1869, Vol. I, pp. 113f.
70. ↑ See Schulthess: "Umajja b. Abi-ṣ Ṣalt ". 1906, p. 76.
71. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, pp. 99f.
72. ↑ See Sprenger: The life and teaching of Moḥammad. 1869, Vol. I, pp. 114f.
73. ↑ Cf. Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 272f.
74. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 104 and Ibn ʿAsākir: Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . P. 285.
75. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 97 and Sprenger: The life and teaching of Moḥammad. 1869, Vol. I, pp. 110f.
76. ↑ Cf. Montgomery: Art. "Umayya ibn Abi ʾl-Ṣalt" p. 839a.
77. ↑ See Seidensticker: "The authenticity of the poems". 1996, p. 88.
78. ↑ See Seidensticker: "The authenticity". 1996, p. 88.
79. ↑ Cf. Bräu: Art. “Umaiya b. Abi l-Ṣalt “p. 1080b.
80. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 99.
81. ↑ Cf. Ibn Sallām al-Ǧumaḥī: Ṭabaqāt fuḥūl aš-šuʿarāʾ . P. 262f.
82. ↑ Cf. Ibn Qutaiba: aš-Šiʿr . 1987, p. 459.
83. ↑ Cf. Ibn Qutaiba: aš-Šiʿr . 1987, pp. 460f.
84. ↑ See Seidensticker: "The authenticity of the poems". 1996, p. 87.
85. ↑ Cf. Borg: “Umayya b. Abi al-Salt as a poet ”. 1998, p. 12.
86. ↑ See Schulthess: "Umajja b. Abi-ṣ Ṣalt ". 1906, pp. 82-85.
87. ↑ See Schulthess: "Umajja b. Abi-ṣ Ṣalt ". 1906, pp. 87f.
88. ↑ Abū l-Faraǧ: Kitāb al-Aġānī . Vol. IV, p. 97.
89. ↑ See Sinai: "Religious poetry". 2011, p. 400f.
90. ↑ See Power: "Umayya ibn Abi-s Salt". 1906, pp. 208-211.
91. ↑ See Schulthess: "Umajja b. Abi ṣ Ṣalṭ “. 1911, p. 7.
92. ↑ Cf. Nöldeke: Umaija b. Abiṣ Ṣalt , 1912, p. 166.
93. ↑ See Power: "Umayya ibn Abi-ṣ Salt". 1906, p. 212.
94. ↑ See Sinai: "Religious poetry". 2011, p. 405.
95. ↑ See Schulthess: "Umajja b. Abi-ṣ Ṣalt ". 1906, pp. 76-78.
96. ↑ Cf. Frank-Kamenetzky: Investigations. 1911, p. 47.
97. ^ Cf. Frank-Kamenetzky: "Investigations". 1911, p. 47.
98. ↑ Seidensticker: "The authenticity". 2011, p. 42.
99. ↑ Cf. Carl Brockelmann : History of Arabic Literature. Leiden 1937–1949, Supplement I, p. 55 and Bräu: “Umaiya b. Abi l-Ṣalt “p. 1081a.
100. ↑ See Tor Andræ: The Origin of Islam and Christianity . Uppsala / Stockholm 1926. pp. 52f.
101. ↑ See Seidensticker: "The authenticity". 1996, p. 91.
102. ↑ See Borg: "The Divine". 2001, p. 9f and Sinai: "Religious poetry". 2011, p. 409f.
103. ↑ See Sinai: "Religious poetry". 2011, p. 411.