Adrien de Jarmy seeks to make a wave in sira studies. Namely to separate "Constitution of the Madina" therefrom.
He points out that the Constitution hails Muhammad by titles taken from sura 7 and derived from sura 25. The document also delivers taṣliya, as the Dome of the Rock upon Muhammad - and upon [sura 3-4's] Jesus. One title, "sayyid of the mursalîn", is not on the Dome at all. That title, to boost the Arab Prophet over that other Semitic prophet, would be a development from 70s/690s Umayyad thought.
That tracks closer with the sura 33+48 complex, that Muhammad is the "seal". De Jarmy posits that it is overall 'Abbâsid. Huh.
According to Crone-Hinds' God's Caliph, the Umayyads were shifting to the ideology that the Caliphate was the postProphetic dispensation. For this, they could use sura 48. Just about any 'Abbâsite propagandum about how Muslims need to come together and avoid fitna can also be found in Umayyad sermons and poems; which Crone and Hinds did so find. The only real distinction is that 'Abbâsids (later!) came to interpret their caliphate as the stand-ins for the Prophet rather than, as earlier, shadows of God.
Overall I'd like to see comparisons of the Constitution with the treaty-literature. De Jarmy can make of that, his next project.
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