In Search of the Original Koran: The True History of the Revealed Text (18 page)

he life of Muhammad is known to us through the Koranic text and various stories reported by Muslim Tradition. But nothing has come down to us to attest with certitude to the veracity of these events, to their exactitude and precise dating. The Koran for its part scarcely gives us any specifics on lived events, leaving open to Muslim chroniclers the most unbridled speculation on the totality (or almost) of facts relating to the life of the Prophet.

By chance, progress in astronomic calculations permits us today, as we shall see, to have for the first time scientific proof about an event that has been reported profusely in Muslim Tradition, but which is not mentioned in the Koran: "the eclipse of the Sun in the time of the Prophet of Allah," as it is devotedly expressed in the sunna. Some important events in the life of Muhammad have been associated with this cosmic phenomenon. We now possess even more data about it and therefore the dating of certain surahs of the Koran may be better determined.

Let us try first to show how it is possible for us to determine with certainty which eclipse we are dealing with. For our study, I have drawn on the calculations and advice that Patrick Rocher, astronomer at the Institute of Celestial Mechanics of the Paris Bureau of Longitudes, furnished in the context of my inquiry, for which I thank him here very much.

First, these calculations allow us to say that out of the nineteen eclipses recorded in Mecca and in Medina in Muhammad's lifetime, none offered the total phase that would have produced complete or significant darkness. On the August 2, 612, at a time when Muhammad was beginning his preaching in Mecca, there was an eclipse of the sun that started at 18:48 in the evening (first contact between sun and moon), but thirteen minutes later the sun set, so that the people of Mecca would not have been able to witness the phenomenon, even if the start of the eclipse could have been seen with the naked eye.

Similarly, the following year, on the July 23, 613, Meccans could have observed the most important solar eclipse in the lifetime of the Prophet. It took place at 7:17 in the morning and was over at 9:51, attaining a maximum obscuration of 93.4 percent. Unfortunately, as this maximum was reached about three hours after sunrise, it would have been difficult to observe this eclipse with the naked eye. But the darkness was barely perceptible, for 1 percent of solar illumination is equivalent to that of a hundred thousand moons. We can say the same thing about the three other eclipses of lesser importance visible in Mecca, which occurred on May 21, 616; November 4, 617; and September 2, 620.

After this Meccan period, Muhammad immigrated to Medina in 622, point of departure of the Muslim calendar, that of the Hijra (signifying, we recall, Emigration), more exactly, Friday, July 16 of that year. And the first eclipse of the Muslim era observable in Medina did not take place until two years later, on June 21, 624. But curiously its fate was identical to the first eclipse in Mecca of 612, starting barely a quarter of an hour before the setting of the sun.

The second Medinan eclipse occurred on April 21, 627. It was contemporaneous with the War of the Ditch, in which the Meccans hostile to Muhammad failed in their siege of Medina. But this partial eclipse that happened five hours after sunrise hid only 5.4 percent of the solar disk and hence had very little chance of being observed with the naked eye.

Five years later, or four months and eight days before the death of the Prophet, the third and final Medinan eclipse is undoubtedly the only one it would have been possible to observe unaided, and this one is spoken of in many stories of Tradition. It occurred on Monday, January 27, 632, corresponding to the twenty-eighth of the month of Chawwal of year 10 of the Hijra. The sun began to be eclipsed very early in the morning, at 7:30 min and 19.4 sec, and attained a maximum of 76.6 percent obscuration at 8:45 min and 56.6 sec, and it was entirely gone by 10:13 min and 51.8 sec, or after 2 hours and 43 minutes duration.

We are faced with two eclipses that are very similar: the one on July 23, 613, which started three hours before sunrise, and the one on January 27, 632, starting twenty-one minutes after it. But the stories that have come down to us about Muhammad speak of a single eclipse "in the time of the Messenger of Allah (fl' 'ahd al-rasul)." Which eclipse are they talking about, 613 or 632? For as Patrick Rocher has noticed, despite the precocity of the eclipse of 632 (its proximity to the sunrise), it would not have been much more easily observable than the first. The rule has it that observation of the eclipse with the naked eye is only possible during the rising or setting of the sun, not between the two. Taking account of these observations, it remains true that the sun is more easily observable in the presence of clouds or winds of sand when its height is nearer the horizon, which was indeed the case of the eclipse of January 27, 632.

Whatever the case, the literature of the Muslim Tradition, the hadiths, gives us a certain number of clues that confirm that the eclipse referred to by the companions of Muhammad is indeed the one we have just identified as the eclipse of January 632. To be exhaustive, let us signal a few contrary indications, notably the one reported by al- Nasa'i, in his sunan (Salat al-kusuf), who has Aisha say that the eclipse took place during the Meccan period of Muhammad's life, or that it took place in Medina on a very hot day. Could these be confused with events foreign to this context, as is quite often the habit with the literature of the Tradition?

Unfortunately, the stories (with rare exceptions-for example, the one we have just seen regarding the temperature it was on the day of the eclipse) scarcely give any details about it, neither its precise date nor the part of the day when it took place. The only interesting exception is nevertheless important, since it gives us a precise description of the hour it took place. In his sunan, the traditionalist Abu Dawud' reports a story put into the mouth of a companion of Muhammad named Samurata ibn Jundab, in which he says during a Friday sermon: "While I and a young man of the Allies were shooting arrows [?], the Sun darkened like a tannuma [a fruit] at the moment when it was, to the eyes of the observer, at the height of two or three lances from the horizon. We said to ourselves: let us go to the Mosque, for, by Allah, there is going to be something between the Messenger of God and his community as a result of what is happening to the Sun. We rushed there. And then [Muhammad] appeared. He came forward and he proceeded to pray ..." The Muslim imam, in his Sahih, (Kitab al-kusuf ), reports similar stories attributed to the same companion but under the name of Abd al-Rahman ibn Samurata, and without any of the astronomical details that interest us here.

This testimony from Ibn Samurata on the position of the sun during the eclipse seems to agree with the calculations of the Paris Bureau of Longitudes, which gives a position of the sun at 19 degrees above the horizon at the moment when it reached maximum darkness. Hence this is the sole important clue about this eclipse that we have in all of traditional Muslim literature. Other stories are content to specify that the event took place in the morning, as does Aisha, the Prophet's wife, who affirms that he observed the eclipse "in the early morning [ghadat], while he was astride a mount."'

In short, all the scientific data, when correlated with what is transmitted by Tradition, confirm that the only eclipse observable during Muhammad's lifetime and handed down to us took place on the morning of Monday, January 27, 632, at 6:30 AM, Medina local time.

Thus for the first time, an event in the life of Muhammad is proved scientifically with reasonable certainty and dated with never-beforeequaled precision. We may even describe the form taken by each phase of the evolving eclipse just as Muhammad and his companions would theoretically have observed it with their own eyes in Medinaat least at the start of the phenomenon. In effect, the movement of the eclipse affected the surface of the sun according to an axis (using a watch face as a guide) of 2 to 8 o'clock, but slightly shifted toward the bottom of the sun, in such a way that the solar crescent pointed obliquely downward and to the right, which was considered by ancient astrology as a rather bad sign.

It was certainly a moment of grand emotion but also of surprise: this eclipse took place four months and one week before the death of the Prophet of Islam. And yet, nowhere in Muslim Tradition is a connection made between this eclipse that so strongly marked the spirit of the young Medina community and the death of Muhammad shortly afterward.

Still, Muslim Tradition has clearly associated an eclipse with the death of Muhammad's son, Ibrahim, then a year and a half old, according to some accounts. Sometimes the eclipse has even been dated on the same day as the death of Ibrahim. Two traditions, one attributed to the companion Jabir and the other to Sufyan and Waki', have them say: "The Sun eclipsed itself in the time of the Prophet, the day when Ibrahim, son of the Messenger of Allah, died. So people said: `The Sun underwent an eclipse for the death of Ibrahim."" Ibrahim died at an early age, shortly before Muhammad. This fact confirms the late date of the eclipse. Another event, concerning a conjugal drama, with which we are about to deal, also confirms this late dating of the eclipse to January 632.

However, while Tradition has associated the eclipse with the death of Ibrahim, we cannot give the least credence to stories that claim these two events took place on the same day.'

In fact, Tradition attributes to Muhammad these words pronounced at the end of the eclipse: "The Sun and the Moon are not eclipsing each other because of the death of someone, nor on the occasion of his birth." This maxim recurs as a leitmotif in most of the stories recording the words of the Prophet during the eclipse. One of the companions of the Prophet, Abu Bikra, comments on this statement in these terms: "And this because a son of the Prophet, called Ibrahim, had died and because the faithful made a gloss on it."5 I share the opinion of Abu Bikra: the death of a young boy must have certainly been on everyone's mind during the eclipse of January 27, 632, but it would be totally mistaken to take this date as that of his death.

Why did Muhammad reject so vociferously any connection between these two events, going so far in a hadith as promising hell for those who said that "The Sun and Moon only go into eclipse for the death of a great man"?' It was certainly not because the Prophet did not believe in astrology. Quite the contrary! The Sun and the Moon represent in the Koran important divine "signs" (ayat). The hadiths even have Muhammad say on the subject of the eclipse: "The Sun and the Moon are indeed two signs of Allah. With their eclipse, God wants to make people afraid. They do not eclipse each other for the death of someone. So if you observe the eclipse, pray and implore Allah until He grants you grace."7

This astrotheological incident is important in explaining the fact that no allusion was made in all of Islamic literature to the extraordinary proximity in time between the eclipse and Muhammad's own death. The companions of the Prophet who observed this eclipse and who even prayed with him during this singular and unique event must have been unable, in mentioning it in their reminiscences, to avoid making a connection with his death that occurred only seventeen weeks later. It is quite evidently difficult for them to mention any relation between these two events without committing the sin of affirming, like those who are doomed to hell, that "the Sun was eclipsed for the death of someone human." What is certain is that this eclipse necessarily raised speculation right away within the young Muhammadan community, especially if the death of Ibrahim was still fresh in everyone's memory.