ABSTRACT
The Qurʾān is conceived by Muslims to be the word of God spoken to Muḥammad and then passed on to humanity in exactly the same form as it was received. On one level, the entire text is seen as having Muḥammad thoroughly imbued in it. When the text says ‘Say!’, this is interpreted as God addressing Muḥammad and ordering him to repeat what is being dictated. In that sense, the first person speaking voice of some of the text is Muḥammad, but that is deflected in the narrative through the command ‘Say!’ to become the word of God. Clear examples of this are present in some of the passages of the Qurʾān provided above (e.g. Section 1.7, sūrat āl Imrān (3), verse 15; Section 1.9, sūrat al-barāʾa (9), verse 24). The life story of Muḥammad is also held to be the basis of what builds the narrative of some sections of the text. One of the most famous of such sections is sūrat al-ḍuḥā, ‘The morning’ (93), in Section 2.1.5 below, which is generally understood as a reference to Muḥammad’s own childhood. Given that there is no source material on the early life of Muḥammad that is independent of Muslim tradition, this reading of the text of the Qurʾān remains highly speculative, but it is compelling in light of the weight of the tradition behind it. Still, the life story of a prophet and a messenger bringing the religion of Islam certainly does seem to be present in the Qurʾān. While some of the references are just in passing, others seem to refer to disputes within the community. The actual name ‘Muḥammad’ is used four times in the Qurʾān, as found in Sections 2.1.1 to 2.1.4 below.
