The Lecker / Mirza synopsis

Last week I got around to (re?)reading Michael Lecker. Looking around this mine own blog I found a link to Sarah Mirza. I posted what I had, yesterday morning; then spent yesterday afternoon - which was cold - looking for interconnexions.

Lecker is a star in the field of early Islamic documentation. Mirza is well-aware of Lecker's excellence in output. Somehow, Mirza writing no earlier than 2011 lacked access to this particular 2005 Lecker opus. Their papers are therefore independent. They do however overlap in sources... making this a synoptic problem.

The Lecker and Mirza base-text is what Ibn Sa'd claims as quoted literature in the latter's Tabaqat. Their main focus is a single chapter (or two) in the first volume, second part. Oddly these authors did not share editions of that work. I use Moinul Haq's 1967 translation, based upon a century-old Arabic edition. This Arabic is what Mirza used; perhaps better-used, inasmuch as Moinul Haq sometimes transcribed gibberish, like "Jurmuz" where is obviously "Hurmuz". Lecker had used something else - I think a more recent edition, which edition Lecker finds wanting and occasionally seeks to correct.

Lecker went through what would be pp. 15-86 in Moinul Haq's basis, pp. 304-421 in translation. Lecker goes this far because the "deputations" which follow p. 38 tr. 345 also hold some (putative) correspondence. In what correspondence he found of interest herein, he related them with other collections of ahadith especially Waqidi's Maghazi. Lecker argues that Waqidi also had a Tabaqat, which he let Ibn Sa'd copy (and transmit); and that Ibn Sa'd used this as a basis for his own work, much of what we see in pp. 15-86. Usually Waqidi can be sniffed out by the "they say (qâlû)" formula, Waqidi being famously loose with his chains of asanid. Lecker (p. 5) notes that Ibn Sa'd is meticulous. Lecker admires Ibn Sa'd too much to add, "by contrast".

Mirza - by contrast with Lecker - touches only pp. 15-38 tr. 304-45. Mirza by bypassing the "deputations" also bypasses their correspondence. She moves off to other Islamic sources.

Lecker misstepped in p. 3 when he says of Majmuat al-wathaiq, 301, #198, 199: the texts of two letters given by the Prophet to two members of the Tayy were not preserved. Letter #199 is to the Jabalayni. This one is certainly "I, 280" that is p. 30 tr. 331-2.

Mirza p. 110 looking at Ibn Sa'd p. 28 tr. 327-8 relays that report upon the treaty with Maqnâ, which - correctly - she sees as not from Waqidi as was so much else. But she says that this little chondrule came from al-Sha'bi. I do not find this attribution in Ibn Sa'd (which, remember, is the edition I use, albeit in translation); she maybe has it from Baladhuri. Also - in hindsight - Mirza should have trusted Milka Levy-Rubin (2011) a little less; this needs Luke Yarbrough's corrective.

Through their independent lines of inquiry, Lecker and Mirza agree that the correspondence (Lecker) and treaty (Mirza) inclusions in Ibn Sa'd, mostly from Waqidi, are much earlier than Waqidi. Lecker finds that separate chains often link to some source in the earliest Marwânî era. Mirza, for Sha'bi(?) on Maqnâ (despite her error), does about the same. Mirza's main argument concerns the language of treaty, which uses dhimmat Allâhi where an "orthodox" Muslim would not.

Mirza's most shocking finding (to some) is that the early treaties allow haram sanctuaries to other tribes as have signed a pact with the Believers. This suggests that Mecca might have existed! ... but also suggests that Mecca wasn't universal, until the Zubayrids made it universal.