'Asma' bint Marwan

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ʻAṣmāʼ bint Marwān (Arabic: عصماء بنت مروان‎ "'Asmā' the daughter of Marwān") was a female member of the Ummayad clan who lived in Medina in 7th century Arabia.

The story of her death by command of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, after she opposed him with poetry and provoked other pagans to commit violence against him, can be found in the sīra material collected by Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Sa'd.^[1] Bint Marwan also ridiculed the people of Medina for obeying a chief not of their kin. Ibn Ishaq mentions that she displayed disaffection after the Medinian Abu Afak was killed for inciting rebellion against Muhammad.

Some classical and post-classical hadith scholars such as Al-Albani, Majdi, and Al-Jawzi have rejected the story, with some declaring it as fabrication, pointing out in their arguments that the chains of transmission by which the story was transmitted are all weak.^[2][3][4][5]

Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Ellison Banks Findly point out the importance of poets at the time and suggest that Muhammad ordered the execution of poets such as bint Marwan and Abu Afak because he was concerned about their influence.^[1]

Islamic sources

Family and death

The story of bint Marwan and her death appears in the works of Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Sa'd. According to the reports, her family viewed Muhammad and his followers as unwelcome interlopers in Medina. After the Muslim victory over the Quraysh in Mecca in 624 in the Battle of Badr a number of Muhammad's opponents were killed after surrendering. She composed poems that publicly defamed the local tribesmen who converted to Islam and allied with Muhammad, and called for his death.^[6] In her poems, she also ridiculed Medinians for obeying a chief not of their kin.^[7] Ibn Ishaq mentions that bint Marwan also displayed disaffection after the Medinian Abu Afak was killed for inciting rebellion against Muhammad. The poem said: "do you expect good from (Muhammad) after the killing of your chiefs" and asked: "Is there no man of pride who would attack him by surprise/ And cut off the hopes of those who expect aught from him?" Upon hearing the poem, Muhammad then called for her death in turn, saying "Who will rid me of Marwan's daughter?" Umayr bin Adiy al-Khatmi, a blind man belonging to the same tribe as Asma’s husband (i.e., Banu Khatma) responded that he would. He crept into her room in the dark of night where she was sleeping with her five children, her infant child close to her bosom. Umayr removed the child from Asma's breast and killed her.^[6]

Ibn Ishaq's account

Ibn Ishaq collected oral traditions about the life of Muhammad, some of which mainly survive through the writings of Ibn Hisham and Ibn Jarir al-Tabari.

Ibn Sa'd's account

This account is found in Ibn Sa'd's Kitāb al-ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā.

Hadith Scholar views on authenticity of the story

Some classical and post-classical hadith scholars have rejected the story, with some declaring it as fabrication (mawdu’), pointing out in their arguments against the factuality of the incident that the chains of transmission (isnads) by which the story was transmitted are all weak (daʻif).^[2][3][4][5]

Ibn Ishaq's narrative

Ibn Ishaq's Sīratu Rasūlu l-Lāh, an important early work of sīra, was composed over 100 years after the Prophet's death using oral traditions passed down from his early followers. However, its accuracy for use as hadith, a body of traditions of the prophet that Muslim scholars use to flesh out Islamic doctrine, is not completely accepted. This particular story has been challenged by Muslim scholars for having a weak chain of transmission (that is, they deem it difficult to determine if the oral traditions can be traced precisely back to a witness of the events described during Muhammad's life).^[9]

Ibn Ishaq's version of the story has a number of chains of transmission (isnads) that go back to Ibn ‘Abbas, a companion of Muhammad. However, all those various isnads include Muhammad ibn al-Hajjaj al-Lakhmi:^[2][3]

Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Shami → Muhammad ibn al-Hajjaj al-Lakhmi → Mujalid ibn Sa’ed → Al-Shu'abi → Ibn ‘Abbas

Muhammad ibn al-Hajjaj al-Lakhmi has been accused by hadith scholars of fabricating this and other hadiths. Ibn ʻAdī (d. 976 CE) stated: "...this isnad (chain of reporters) is not narrated on authority of Mujalid but by Muhammad ibn al-Hajjaj al-Lakhmi and they all (other reporters in the chain) accuse Muhammad Ibn Al-Hajjaj of forging it".^[5][9] Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1201 CE) said something similar in his Al-'ilal.^[4]

Regarding Al-Lakhmi, Al-Bukhari said: "his hadith is abandoned"^[3], Yahya ibn Ma'een said: "compulsive liar" and once said: "not trustworthy".^[3] Al-Daraqutni denounced him as a liar.^[3]

Ibn Sa'd's narrative

Al-Albani declared Ibn Sa'd's chain of transmission to be weak as well, as it includes Al-Waqidi:^[2]

Ibn Sa'd → Al-Waqidi → 'Abd Allah ibn al-Harith ibn al-Fudayl → Al-Harith ibn al-Fudayl

Al-Waqidi has been condemned as an untrustworthy narrator and has been frequently and severely criticized by scholars, thus his narrations have been abandoned by the majority of hadith scholars.^[3] Yahya ibn Ma'een said: "Al-Waqidi narrated 20,000 false hadith about the prophet". Al-Shafi'i, Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Al-Albani^[2] said: "Al-Waqidi is a liar" while Al-Bukhari said he didn't include a single letter by Al-Waqidi in his hadith works.

In addition, this isnad is discontinued (muʻḍal) as Al-Harith ibn al-Fudayl never met any of Muhammad's companions.^[3]

Contemporary Assessments

Richard Gottheil, and Hartwig Hirschfeld in Jewish Encyclopedia state: "Some Moslem traditionists, in order to excuse the murder, make Asma a Jewess. It is, however, very doubtful that she was one, although Grätz ("Gesch. der Juden," v. 144) accepts this assertion as a fact."^[10]

Richard Gabriel states that "Here we see assassination for political ends" and for "ideological reasons or personal revenge". Muhammad, according to Gabriel, believed he was doing God's work, therefore he had to eliminate any opponent of him or Islam.^[11]

V. J. Ridgeon sees the certain parallels between Khomeini's declaration of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the incident of Asma bint Marwan's execution.^[12]

Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Ellison Banks Findly point at the high influence of poets at the time Muhammad in Arabia. They state that executions of poets such as Asma, Abu Afak, and those poets who were killed after Muhammad's final victory were the result of Muhammad's fears of "their continuing influence". "This constitutes interesting testimony of the power of their position, as well as of the recited words".^[1]

Antonio Elorza, historian and professor at Complutense University of Madrid, reviews Asma's execution and similar cases and suggests that eliminating political opponents by any and all means possible, was common practice during Muhammad's time. Elorza asserts that the psychological effect of such actions by Mohammad cannot be ignored when studying the background of terrorism in Islam.^[13]

Contemporary Muslim writers respond back to these charges by stating that on top of the stories of both Asma bint Marwan and Abu Afak being graded as weak and fabricated by the majority of Islamic scholars in history [1] that also even in the hypothetical stories the two individuals both Asma bint Marwan and Abu Afak were not simply speaking against but also instigating violence against the Muslims and the Prophet Muhammad. "So as you can see the sources make it very clear that these 2 not only mocked the prophet and insulted him, they also INSTGATED their people to attack and harm the Muslims! Hence these people were not mere poets writing mocking poems, they were inciting violence and hatred against the Muslims! They were inciting their people to rise up to fight and kill the Muslim population, and this made them direct enemy combatants because they were inciting violence against the Muslims." [2] And this falls in the general understanding of the conflict between the non-Muslim Meccans of Quraysh (that Muslim tradition records as the "Pagan Quraysh") and the Muslims who would migrate to the city of Medina for safety and to escape from the oppression of the non-Muslim Meccans. [3]

See also

• Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf
• Prophetic biography

References