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1 God, ‘The Messenger of Muhammad’?

      H: In Violence and Islam, we tried to explain the failure of the Arab Spring.¹ We will pursue our thoughts here about an uprising that occurred at the same time as the rise of Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS and Daesh), whose flag proclaims for all the world to see this testimonial of faith: Allāh rasūlu Muhammad (God is the Messenger of Muhammad). That symptomatic inscription reveals a historic truth we’ll try to unpack. How did God become the Messenger of Muhammad? Which is another way of saying: what exactly is Islamic State the name of?

A: It would be prudent to say first off that we’re not criticizing for the sake of criticizing, and that we refuse to adopt Arab and/or Western political and ideological stances. Our work is an attempt to establish an objective understanding of Islam, from a practical and theoretical point of view, in order to make a distinction between those who read the religious corpus, in particular the Qur’an, with their own interests in mind, and those who read it to get closer to God. We’ll begin by summarizing the principles of Qur’anic exegesis and the way the Qur’an and the ḥadīth² were constituted, so that our readers can understand the status of the prophet in Islam and the connection Muslims have maintained with the person of Muhammad for fifteen centuries. So we’ll be tackling the task of considering Muhammad the man as absolute (ultimate, supreme) authority. This is how we understand the phrase used by IS, ‘God is the Messenger of Muhammad’, which means ‘God wants what Muhammad wants’.

      H: The issue of reference is closely connected to the writing of history whereby no distinction was made between historic facts and legends. So we’ll be contributing to the deconstruction of a corpus that has governed us from the moment it was first founded by transforming ‘legend history’, to use Michel de Certeau’s expression, into ‘work history’.

      A: As for the title, Violence and Islam, let’s just say that the issue of violence is intrinsically bound up with Islam as an institution: first, Muhammad proclaims that there is no hierarchy between the prophets,³ but at the same time he claims he’s the Seal of the Prophets. Second, proclaiming himself the Seal of the Prophets, he, unlike his predecessors, is the bearer of ultimate truths. Third, and this is the consequence of what I’ve just recalled to mind, Islam, instead of being universal, finds itself split or riven into believers (the faithful) and non-believers (infidels), and, more precisely, into Muslims and non-Muslims.

      H: The Seal of the Prophets doesn’t adhere to any kind of continuity, but is all about revisions and excisions. While acknowledging the prophets who preceded him, Muhammad strips other religions of their singularity, if not of their essence, thereby destroying the basis on which those religions rest.

A: Absolutely. And we should examine what the end of prophecy means. Does it stem from a divine decision? And how can we be sure God said those last words to his last prophet? What sense are we to make of a Revelation that was meant to be the closure of prophecy?

      H: What sense, indeed, are we to make of a prophecy that announces its own end? We grew up with phrases no one ever questioned. The moment they touched on the prophet of Islam, we

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