Now these views appear erroneous and
misleading in several respects. They altogether ignore the merit and value of
the Biographers, which in other places are fully admitted by Sprenger himself.
It is not the case that their works are entirely composed of legend and
romance, to the exclusion, or nearly so, of fact. The marriage of Mahomet, the
birth of his daughters, the persecution and consequent flight to Abyssinia,
the Prophet's "lapse," the long-continued ban and its cancelment,
the death of Khadîja and Abu Tâleb, the marriage with Sauda and betrothal to
Ayesha, the visit to Tâyif, the meeting with the citizens of Medina and the
contract made with them;—surely these and many other incidents, all prior to
the Flight, are based on fact and not on fiction. The truth appears to be that
the Biographers made use of whatever material they found to their hand, and,
free from the shackles of the Sunna, they adopted the current legends
and marvellous episodes with the rest; but, far from confining themselves to
these, they constrained into their service every kind of tradition pertinent
to their subject: and it is thus that Wâckidi and his Secretary are specially
commended elsewhere by Sprenger, for their diligence in the collection of
traditions, and care in verifying them by the requisite authorities. Like the
whole race of early Mahometan writers, the Biographers endeavoured (and that
not seldom by questionable means) to glorify Mahomet and magnify Islam; but
there is no reason to doubt that otherwise they sought honestly to give a true
picture of the Prophet; that while they admit some legendary tales excluded
from the Sunna, their work's are to a very great extent composed of precisely
the same material; and that they are, moreover, less under the influence of
theological bias than were the collectors of the Sunna.
