Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies Winter 2015 • Vol. VIII ■ No. 1

Fatima, Daughter of Muhammad by Christopher Paul Clohessy, 2009. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, xvii + 259pp. $99-oo. isbn : 978-1-59333-979-1 (hbk).

A f z a l S u m a r Mombasa, Kenya

Fatima, Daughter o f Muhammad is a work by a Catholic priest which aims to study the life of Fatimah as recorded in the earliest available Sunni and Shi'a 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 Shi‘a 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 Shica 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 Shi'a 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 a h .

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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 isra’ and the mi raj 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 Shi'a historians on these issues, these being al-Ya‘qubi (d. 284/292 ah ) and al-Mas'udi (d.345 a h ).

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 a h . The first issue to merit a discussion is Fatimah’s date of birth and the disagreement regarding it between the Sunni and Shi'a traditions. This includes a discussion of the ingenious resolution by the Shi'a 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 isra' and the mi'raj proves useful. The Shi'a works consulted for this issue are historical works and works of Hadith spanning in time from the third to the twelfth century a h .

The chapter then proceeds to highlight incidents in her life that occurred in Mecca, in service of her father. Responding to and refuting the claim of Vaglieri (d.1989) and the Jesuit priest Lammens (d.1937) that Fatimah played an insignificant role in the events of early Islam, thereby receiving little attention in the historical records, the author discusses the various Medinan events in which her name appears in the earliest Sunni sources identified above, intending to prove thereby her significance in these events. These are: her tending to her father in the battle of Uhud, her habit of visiting the graves of the martyrs of Uhud in order to pray for them, her refusal consequent to the breach

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of the Hudaybiyyah pact to intercede with her father on behalf of Abu Sufyan as well as refusing to allow her son’s intercession for him, her participation in the lapsed umrah in the seventh year of the hijrah, her participation in the mubahalah, an extended discussion on her marriage and married life (where the agreements and disagreements between the Sunni and Shi'a sources are noted), and the number of her children. The extended discussion of her married life includes the account of the Prophet teaching her a set of glorifications in response to, and in lieu of, her request for domestic help during the poverty-stricken early years of her marriage. It is very interesting to learn that the account of this ritual - which is widely popular among Muslims of both traditions but particularly venerated by the Shi'a - appears in the earliest biographical and Hadith works of the Sunni tradition. There then follows a very interesting, extended analytical discussion within the context of Fatimah’s married life of several marital disputes recorded between her and 'Ali followed by a rebuttal of the conclusion drawn by Vaglieri and Lammens that Fatimah’s married life was consequently miserable. This is followed by a discussion of several Prophetic statements in her praise and a discussion of the tender manner with which the Prophet interacted with her recorded in the earliest Sunni sources. The author feels that these refute Lammen’s assertions that she was a source of exasperation for her father. He admits to the existence of several such incidents reported in the early books of Sunni Hadith and even shares them in this work but brushes them aside as quite trivial and contradictory especially when juxtaposed with the many favourable prophetic reports in her favour. The chapter then concludes with a brief description of Fatimah’s intense grief on the illness and death of her father, the violent attempts to force 'Ali to declare allegiance to Abu Baler and the threat to burn her house, the denial of her claim to Fadak and the resultant acrimonious arguments with Abu Baler, and finally a brief discussion of her death and the events of her funeral. A curious omission by the author in this discussion of the Medinan part of her life is an incident which happened during the conquest of Mecca in which Fatimah participated and where she sternly rebuked Umm Hani, her sister-in-law, for giving protection to two idolaters related to the latter by marriage. This incident is recorded in al-Waqidi’s (d.207 ah) Kitab al-Maghazi, which does not feature in Clohessy’s bibliography, but is mentioned in Martin Ling’s biography of the Prophet, which does feature in the list of secondary sources in

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Clohessy’s bibliography. Lings records this incident from al-Waqidi’s work. Another curious omission, although mentioned in passing in the concluding chapter, is her inclusion among the referents of Qur’an 33:33 attested to in several third century hijri Hadith texts that form the basis of this chapter.

The significance of this lengthy chapter on her biography drawn essentially from early Sunni historical, biographical, and Hadith works with regular indications of agreements and disagreements with Shi'a historical, biographical and Hadith works (both of which range in time from the third century hijri onwards) is that it not only demonstrates a significant role for her in the events of early Islam but also establishes that she has received much attention in these records, albeit not as abundantly as in Shi'a texts. This critique is largely aimed at Lammens who apparently only referred to the third century ah biography of the Prophet by Ibn Hisham (d. 218 a h ) which appears to contain only a couple of references to Fatimah, and who concluded that she attracted scant references in the earliest sources and had no special place in early Islam. In fact, as the author points out, there were at least eleven other prominent Sunni scholars working within the third century a h , producing works of history, biography and Hadith (which form the basis of this biography), in which there are significant references to Fatimah as noted in this chapter and where she is depicted as participating prominently in the events of early Islam, in addition to which the positive statements of the Prophet in her favour and his tender interactions with her denote a status for her unlike that of her contemporaries. He further observes that the third-century Sunni texts and the Shi'a Hadith texts, (the latter, in which her mention is far greater, and which appear a century later) were actually putting into writing the great bulk of older oral traditions, which would render these materials even earlier. In these third-century Sunni texts, she comes across as a woman deeply loved by her father, a woman who appears physically strong and hard working - especially in light of the number of children she bore, her single-handed running of her house, and her struggles and participation along with the early Muslims in the various incidents of early Islam. This is quite contrary to the image of a sickly woman that Lammens describes and inclines to, notes the author. The picture of Fatimah that arises in this chapter is thoroughly and refreshingly human yet deeply inspiring, and one to which men and women can relate to. Even the accounts of her marital

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disputes, irrespective of whether one accepts them or not, contain potential lessons for husbands, wives, and fathers of daughters. For a diligent and careful reader, this chapter, which constitutes the standard Sunni version of her life, affords an opportunity to get acquainted with some of the earliest Sunni historical literature as well as an opportunity to learn about the similarities and differences in her depiction in the Sunni and Shi'a texts. The incidents that suggest marital disharmony between her and ‘Ali as well as the incidents that describe the Prophet as behaving in a less than kindly manner with her could seriously affect the theological sensibilities of a Shi'a reader, and yet their sympathetic analysis by the author in this chapter could help such a reader make sense of these accounts. It must be noted that accounts of her marital disputes with 'Ali also appear in early Shi'a texts even though this study seems to suggest that they can only be found in Sunni works.

The themes of the next four chapters are studied primarily from works of Shi'a Hadith that range in time from the fourth century to the fourteenth century a h . The next chapter, which is the second chapter of this book, focuses on three major issues: Fatimah’s creation from light and her pre-existence, her conception from heavenly fruit (an idea not unknown in other cultures and civilizations, notes the author), and the supernatural events surrounding Khadijah’s pregnancy and Fatimah’s birth. The chapter terminates with a discussion of some of the well-known names and titles of Fatimah with a special focus on the name ‘Fatimah’ and the title ‘al-Zahra. The reports studied in this chapter, with some Sunni exceptions, are wholly transmitted in Shi'a works, while the Shi'a sources that are heavily drawn on for this chapter are the Hadith works of al-Saduq (d.381 a h ), and al-Majlisi’s (d.1110 a h ) Bihar al-Anwar.

The next and third chapter of this book progresses to a discussion of the reports of Fatimah’s virginity denoted by her titles of al-batul and al-adhra, and how the relevant reports on this issue innovatively re-define the concept of virginity in Fatimah’s case to mean a lack of menstruation and lack of bleeding during child-birth. This innovative redefinition is clearly because the normal meaning of virginity could not apply to Fatimah as it did to Mary since Fatimah was known to have married and to have had children in the normal manner and so therefore, writes the author, Fatimah’s virginity, however it may be interpreted, cannot be considered virginity proper since a failure to menstruate or the failure to experience bleeding during child-birth is not the same

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as virginity in the common sense. And then, in an extensive footnote in the concluding chapter, the author suggests a most alluring medical explanation for Fatimah’s lack of menstruation and bleeding during child-birth. He suggests that what is interpreted as an act of divine grace could have been a misinterpretation of the medical condition of primary and secondary amenorrhea: a rare condition which occurs due to several factors including late puberty, malnutrition, long term illness, drastic loss of weight, genetic disorder, birth defect, genital abnormalities, and rigorous physical activity such as engaged in by athletes. He finds support for such a possibility in the difficult, harsh, and poverty-ridden life of Fatimah both in Mecca and in Medina in addition to which she appears to have given birth almost every year of her married life, which along with undernourishment and rigorous physical work could have brought about secondary amenorrhea too, thwarting a return to a normal menstrual cycle. This attempt at rationalizing Fatimah’s supposed virginity admittedly proved both enlightening and startling to this reader! The author thinks that in light of the great suffusion in antiquity of the concept of virgin births of leaders and saviours as well as the concept of renewed virginity obtained by bathing in special waters, it is possible that these ideas influenced the issue of Fatimah’s virginity too. The chapter then turns to study the reports on the conception and birth of al-Husayn; Fatimah’s experiences during Husayn’s gestation including reports that express the close affinity between al-Husayn, Jesus and Zakariyya; the foretelling of al-Husayn’s martyrdom and the consequent reluctance with which Fatimah bore him; and the heavenly joy at his birth. Although this chapter draws primarily from Shi'a Hadith works, reference to Sunni works is made to demonstrate correlations.

The following chapter (that is, the fourth) discusses Fatimah’s grief and suffering - how Fatimah mourned her son before his birth and posthumously, as well as how she mourned her father’s death, followed by a discussion of reports on her pain and grief at the injustices meted out to her and her family post-Prophet, including her harshly upbraiding the women of the Emigrants and the Helpers for what their men-folk had done. This section also includes a startling report found in the works of three Shi'a scholars - al-Tabrisi (d.588/620 ah), Ibn Shahrashub (d.588 ah), and al-Majlisi - where a frustrated Fatimah scolds and chides 'Ali on seeing him sitting at home after her return from unsuccessfully arguing with Abu Bakr regarding Fadak! The author cautions that this report

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must not be considered negatively but rather needs to be understood sympathetically, in light of her mental anguish. However that may be, this report is a good example of the less than saintly interactions between ‘Ali and Fatimah that can be found in Shi'a works despite the fact that Shi'a scholarship would certainly reject it or interpret it away due to its inconsistency with its theology.

The fifth chapter turns to two prominent strands relating to Fatimah and eschatology within the body of Shi'a traditions: her grand and magnificent entry into paradise, and her wide-ranging intercessory prerogatives. A number of traditions can be found in Sunni sources for these two themes, but the majority can only be found in Shi'a sources; however the author points out that these traditions are rare and, in their details, contradictory. Nevertheless, he understands these traditions as indicating vindication for her. After a life of poverty, hardship, and ill-treatment, she is finally honoured on the Day of Judgment and granted the power of intercession that entails both positive and negative intercession as well as active and passive intercession.

Thus the author observes that Shi'a sources mention her much more profusely than Sunni sources, describing her in glorified terms, and then suggests four reasons for such a prolific, glorified image, these being: the Shi'a turn to esotericism and the supernatural in order to assuage the psychological effects of their continuous marginalization, her being the only daughter of the Prophet to survive him, her relationship with ‘Ali and al-Husayn (both prominent figures in Shi‘ism such that any development in thought for them would lead to a similar development for her), and the need to maintain her superiority vis-a-vis Mary’s status in the Qur’an. And then attempting to mitigate the suggestion latent in these reasons of mundane human involvement in the reports of her glorification, found in Shi'a texts, he suggests that the seeds for such a glorified image already exist in the earliest sources, and the later development of her image may be understood as refined articulation of her image due to greater understanding, intensification in insight, and advancement in comprehension! Nevertheless, a careful and diligent reading of these four chapters should allow the reader to become closely acquainted with some of the earliest Shi'a works and their contents, especially in how they depict Fatimah.

Finally the sixth chapter engages in a study of parallels between the ideas surrounding Fatimah in Shi'a works, many of which were studied in

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previous chapters, and the key Catholic doctrines about Mary including occasional references to the apocryphal gospels.

Several unfortunate errors in the text need to be corrected so that the value of this book is not diminished. For instance, the author writes in the second footnote on the first page that the Shi'a tradition holds that the Prophet died leaning on Abu Bakr. This is erroneous since the Shi'a hold that he died on Adi’s chest. With regards to the Prophet’s emigration mentioned on page 20, the author erroneously identifies Ibn Abbas for his father al-Abbas as the one who was dispatched (according to one report) to bring the Prophet’s daughters to Medina. Ibn Abbas would have been a toddler at that time and incapable of such a mission. Throughout the text, the author inexplicably writes Abd al-Barr’ when citing the biographical work of the fifth century ah Andalusian scholar Ibn Abd al-Barr, while he erroneously identifies the year of the lapsed minor pilgrimage as the tenth year of the hijrah on page 26-27. This is in the context of Hamzah’s orphaned daughter being placed in Fatimah’s care by Ali, which apparently led to a dispute between Ali, Ja'far, and Zayd. However both of the latter were martyred in the eighth year ah and so could not have engaged in a dispute two years after their death; additionally, the lapsed minor pilgrimage actually took place in the seventh year a h . On page 28, in the context of Fatimah’s betrothal, the author erroneously mentions ‘Uthman with Abu Bakr rather than ‘Umar with Abu Bakr as having unsuccessfully asked for her hand. On page 45, in footnote number 149, the author erroneously identifies Usamah ibn Zayd as the husband of Zaynab (the daughter of the Prophet) when her husband was actually Abu al-As ibn al-Rabi'. On page 142, in the context of the traditions encouraging mourning al-Husayn, drawn from Ibn Qawlawayh al-Qummi’s (d. 369 a h ) Kamilal-Ziyarat, the author writes that al-Qummi remarks in a footnote that the traditions in his compilation can also be found in the works of al-Saduq, Ibn Shahrashub and al-Majlisi. It appears that Clohessy has confused the editor’s footnote for al-Qummi’s words since the last two works are subsequent to Kamil al-Ziyarat.

Finally, at the very beginning of the book, the author provides a very helpful list of abbreviations of the Arabic works referred in this study along with the names of their authors and their death-dates. This has the potential to allow a reader to identify the various Arabic texts that the author copiously references throughout the text; however the author has erred in the death dates of some of the scholars as well as conflating

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several works under one author simply because the name of the actual author and the erroneous author is the same. So for example Ibn Abi Jumhur al-Ahsa’i’s death date is given as 878 a h ; however the date of completion of his work cited in this work, the 'Awali/Ghawali al-La'ali is 897 ah while his probable death date is 906 ah or thereafter since his last available documented ijazah is dated 906 a h .1 The second author whose death date is erroneous is the exegete al-Ayyashi. His death date is not known with certainty; however his death most probably occurred at the end of the third century/beginning of the fourth century a h 2 rather than in 401 ah since he is identified as a contemporary of al-Kulayni (d.329 ah ) and a teacher of al-Kashshi.3 Similarly the death date of al-Haythami, the compiler of Majma al-Zawa’id, is by all accounts 807 ah rather than 973 ah as recorded in the book. Then the author lists four books by authors whose names end with the title ‘al-Tabrisi’. He erroneously attributes all four to the famous 6th century ah scholar Abu Adi al-Fadl ibn al-Hasan al-Tabrisi when in fact only two from the four belong to him, these being the Qur’anic exegesis Majma al- Bay an and the biographical work Flam al-Wara’d The work Makarim al-Akhlaq belongs to the latter’s son Radi al-Din Abu Nasr al-Hasan ibn al-Fadl5 while al-Ihtijaj belongs to Abu Mansur Ahmad ibn Adi ibn Abi Talib who died in 588 a h .6 Thereafter the author appears to have confused the authors of Dala’il al-Imamah and Bisharat al-Mustafa because their names are very similar, as well as mistaking the death date of the author of Dala’il al-Imamah. The author of the latter text was Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir ibn Rustam al-Tabari who was a contemporary of al-Tusi and al-Najashi and therefore a scholar who lived in the fifth century a h . Thus his death date which is identified in the list as 224 ah is erroneous. Dala’il al-Imamah is sometimes attributed to another Shi'a scholar with the same name who lived about a century earlier, this being the author of Kitab al-Mustarshid\ however these appear to be two distinct scholars who coincidentally had the same name such that the latter is usually called ‘the elder’ while the former is called ‘the younger’. Nevertheless even if these were the same person and if the earliest death date is chosen, then the death date of 224 ah would still be erroneous by at least a century. As for the compiler of Bisharat al-Mustafa, he was a Shi‘a scholar who died in the sixth century ah (around 554 a h ).7 Finally on page 96 the author attributes the work Misbah al-Anwar to al-Tusi (d.458 ah ) when no such book is known to have been penned by this author.

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Notes1 See Sabine Schmidtke, ‘New Sources for the Life and Works of Ibn Abi Jamhur

al-Ahsa’i’, in Studia Iranica, no. 38 (2009), 49-68.2 Meir M. Bar Asher, Scripture and Exegesis in Early Imami Shi’ism (Jerusalem: Magnes

Press, 1999), 56-59.3 Aqa Buzurg al-Tihrani, al-Dhari’ah ila Tasanif al-Shi'ah IV (Qum: Ismailiyyan,

n.d.), 295; Ja‘far Subhani, Mawsu’at Tabaqat al-Fuqaha IV (Qum: Muassasat Imam al-Sadiq, n.d), 462-463; Syed Muhammad Husayn Husayni Jalali, Fahris al-Turath I (Qum: Intisharat Dalil Ma, n.d), 369-370.

4 Aqa Buzurg al-Tihrani, al-Dhari’ah ila Tasanif al-Shi'a II, 240; Bruce Fudge, Quranic Hermeneutics: Al-Tabrisi and the Craft o f Commentary (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2011), 29.

5 Aqa Buzurg al-Tihrani, al-Dhari’ah ila Tasanif al-Shi'a XXII (Qum: Ismailiyyan), 146-147; Bruce Fudge, Qur’anic Hermeneutics: Al-Tabrisi and the Craft o f Commentary, 32.

6 Syed Mushin Amin, A'yan al-SbTab VII (Beirut: Dar al-Tacaruf al-Matbu'at), 357; Bruce Fudge, Qur’anic Hermeneutics: Al-Tabrisi and the Craft of Commentary, (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2011), 32. (However, this author gives a different date by several decades.)

7 For a useful discussion clarifying the issue by drawing from relevant biographical works, see <http://www.islamquest.net/ar/archive/question/fa22187>. This site is administered by the office of Ayatollah Hadavi Tehrani.

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