The Quest for the Historical Prophet

Abstract

Modernist histories historicized and reimagined the Prophet Mohammad the prescriptive model of a rationalized, internalized ‘modern’ Islam. The historicization of the Prophet, and the emphasis on his ability to negotiate essence in context, suggests an entirely new Islamic methodology. The essence of Islam is located uniquely in the Quran, and the Prophet becomes an example of accurate understanding of this essence – God’s intent – and its manifestation in “laws” and institutions appropriate for his specific historical time period. Prophetic Hadith, therefore, must be historicized, in order to extract their essence, or intentionality, from their specific manifestation in context. This methodology destabilized the entire premise of the Sunna, and effectively unbound ‘Islam’ from Tradition. Tradition as precedent gave way to the continual contextualization of essence – a ‘permanent becoming.’ This enabled reformers to go ‘back to the Quran’ and retrieve God’s intent. This innovative hermeneutics of the Quran and Hadith formed the basis for a new methodology for discovering and implementing ‘God’s Intent’ in the modern age.