Haiku in English
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A haiku in English is a very short poem in the English language, following to a greater or lesser extent the form and style of the Japanese haiku. A typical haiku is a three-line observation about a fleeting moment involving nature.
The first haiku written in English date from the early 20th century, influenced by English translations of traditional Japanese haiku, and the form has grown in popularity ever since. Many well-known English-language poets have written some haiku, though—perhaps because of their brevity—they are not often considered an important part of their work[by whom?]. Haiku has also proven popular in English-language schools as a way to encourage the appreciation and writing of poetry.
- 1 Typical characteristics
- 2 Haiku movement in North America
- 3 Variant forms
- 4 Publications in North America
- 5 Publications in other English-speaking countries
- 6 Notable English-language haiku poets
- 7 See also
- 8 Notes
- 9 Further reading
"Haiku" is a term sometimes loosely applied to any short, impressionistic poem, but there are certain characteristics that are commonly associated with the genre:
- a focus on some aspect of nature or the seasons
- division into two asymmetrical sections, usually with a cut at the end of the first or second section, creating a juxtaposition of two subjects (e.g. something large and something small, something natural and something human-made, two unexpectedly similar things, etc.)
- a contemplative or wistful tone and an impressionistic brevity
- elliptical "telegram style" syntax and no superfluous words
- imagery predominates over ideas and statements, so that meaning is typically suggestive, requiring reader participation
- avoidance of metaphor and similes
- non-rhyming lines
Some additional traits are especially associated with English-language haiku (as opposed to Japanese-language haiku):
- a three-line format with 17 syllables arranged in a 5–7–5 pattern;[a] or about 10 to 14 syllables, which more nearly approximates the duration of a Japanese haiku with the second line usually the longest. Some poets want their haiku to be expressed in one breath
- little or no punctuation or capitalization, except that cuts are sometimes marked with dashes or ellipses and proper nouns are usually capitalized
Haiku movement in North America
Arguably, the first successful haiku in English was "In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound, published in 1913. During the Imagist period, a number of mainstream poets, including Pound, wrote what they called hokku, usually in a five-six-four syllable pattern. American poet Amy Lowell published several hokku in her book "What's O'Clock" (1925; winner of the Pulitzer Prize). Individualistic haiku-like verses by the innovative Buddhist poet and artist Paul Reps (1895–1990) appeared in print as early as 1939 (More Power to You—Poems everyone Can Make, Preview Publications, Montrose CA.). Inspired by R. H. Blyth's translations, other Westerners, including those of the Beat period, such as Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Richard Wright and James W. Hackett, wrote original haiku in English.
Snow in my shoe
Sparrow's nest— Jack Kerouac, collected in Book of Haikus, 2003
African-American novelist Richard Wright, in his final years, composed some 4,000 haiku, 817 of which are collected in the volume Haiku: This Other World. Wright hewed to a 5-7-5 syllabic structure for most of these pieces.
Whitecaps on the bay:
A broken signboard banging
In the April wind.— Richard Wright, collected in Haiku: This Other World, 1998
In 1966 Helen Stiles Chenoweth compiled Borrowed Water, an early anthology of American haiku featuring the work by the Los Altos Roundtable. The experimental work of Beat and minority haiku poets expanded the popularity of haiku in English. Despite claims that haiku has not had much impact on the literary scene, a number of mainstream poets, such as W. H. Auden, Richard Wilbur, James Merrill, Etheridge Knight, William Stafford, W. S. Merwin, John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Ruth Stone, Sonia Sanchez, Billy Collins, (as well as Seamus Heaney, Wendy Cope, and Paul Muldoon in Ireland and Britain) and others have tried their hand at haiku.
In 1963 the journal American Haiku was founded in Platteville, Wisconsin, edited by the European-Americans James Bull and Donald Eulert. Among contributors to the first issue were poets James W. Hackett, O Mabson Southard (1911–2000), and Nick Virgilio. In the second issue of American Haiku Virgilio published his "lily" and "bass" haiku, which became models of brevity, breaking down the traditional 5-7-5 syllabic form, and pointing toward the leaner conception of haiku that would take hold in subsequent decades.
out of the water
out of itself
off the moon— Nick Virgilio, Selected Haiku, 1988
American Haiku ended publication in 1968 and was succeeded by Modern Haiku in 1969, which remains an important English-language haiku journal. Other early journals included Haiku Highlights (founded 1965 by European-American writer Jean Calkins and later taken over by the European-American writer Lorraine Ellis Harr who changed the name to Dragonfly), Eric Amann's Haiku (founded 1967), and Haiku West (founded 1967).
The first English-language haiku society in America, founded in 1956, was the Writers' Roundtable of Los Altos, California, under the direction of Helen Stiles Chenoweth. The Haiku Society of America was founded in 1968 and began publishing its journal Frogpond in 1978. Important resources for poets and scholars attempting to understand English-language haiku aesthetics and history include William J. Higginson's Haiku Handbook (McGraw-Hill, 1985) and Lee Gurga's Haiku: A Poet's Guide (Modern Haiku Press, 2003).
Significant contributors to American haiku include Hackett, Virgilio, Charles B. Dickson (1915–1991), Elizabeth Searle Lamb (1917–2005), Raymond Roseliep (1917–1983), Robert Spiess (1921–2002), John Wills (1921–1993), Anita Virgil (b. 1931), and Peggy Willis Lyles (1939–2010).
T-shirt— Raymond Roseliep, Rabbit in the Moon, Alembic Press, 1983
- an aging willow--
- its image unsteady
- in the flowing stream
- Robert Spiess (Red Moon Anthology, Red Moon Press, 1996)
Other major figures still active in the American haiku community include Lee Gurga, Christopher Herold, Gary Hotham, Jim Kacian, Michael McClintock, Marlene Mountain, Marian Olson, Alan Pizzarelli, Alexis Rotella, John Stevenson, George Swede, vincent tripi, Michael Dylan Welch, and Ruth Yarrow. Examples:
he watches my gauze dress
blowing on the line.— Alexis Rotella, After an Affair, Merging Media, 1984
will you outlive
me?— Cor van den Heuvel, Haiku Anthology, 3rd ed. 1999
a gentle wave
wets our sandals— Michael Dylan Welch, HSA Newsletter XV:4, Autumn 2000
Pioneering haiku poet Cor van den Heuvel has edited the standard Haiku Anthology (1st ed., 1974; 2nd ed., 1986; 3rd ed. 1999). Since its most recent edition, another generation of American haiku poets has come to prominence. Among the most widely published and honored of these poets are John Barlow, Cherie Hunter Day, Carolyn Hall, paul m., John Martone, Chad Lee Robinson, Billie Wilson, and Peter Yovu. Newer poets exemplify divergent tendencies, from self-effacing nature-oriented haiku (Allan Burns) to Zen themes perpetuating the concepts of Blyth and Hackett (Stanford M. Forrester), poignant haiku-senryū hybrids in the manner of Rotella and Swede (Roberta Beary), the use of subjective, surreal, and mythic elements (Fay Aoyagi), emergent social and political consciousness (John J. Dunphy), and genre-bending structural and linguistic experimentation as well as "found haiku" (Scott Metz).
The American Haiku Archives, the largest public archive of haiku-related material outside Japan, was founded in 1996. It is housed at the California State Library in Sacramento, California, and includes the official archives of the Haiku Society of America, along with significant donations from the libraries of Lorraine Ellis Harr, Jerry Kilbride, Elizabeth Searle Lamb, Francine Porad, Jane Reichhold, and many others.
Although the vast majority of haiku published in English are three lines long, variants also occur.
One line (monoku)
The most common variation from the three-line standard is one line, sometimes called a monoku. It emerged from being more than an occasional exception during the late 1970s. The one-line form, based on an analogy with the one-line vertical column in which Japanese haiku are often printed, was lent legitimacy principally by three people:
- Marlene Mountain was one of the first English-language haiku poets to write haiku regularly in a single horizontal line
- Hiroaki Sato translated Japanese haiku into one line in English
- Matsuo Allard wrote essays in its favor and published several magazines and chapbooks devoted to the form, in addition to practicing it Himyarites
The single-line haiku usually contains fewer than seventeen syllables. A caesura (pause) may be appropriate, dictated by sense or speech rhythm (following the traditional Japanese tradition of a break, marked by the Kireji), and usually little or no punctuation. This form was used by John Wills and, more recently, has been practiced by poets such as M. Kettner, Janice Bostok, Jim Kacian, Chris Gordon, Scott Metz, Stuart Quine, John Barlow, and many others.
an icicle the moon drifting through it— Matsuo Allard, Bird Day Afternoon, High/Coo Press, 1978
pig and i spring rain— Marlene Mountain, Frogpond 2.3-4, 1979
the thyme-scented morning lizard's tongue flicking out— Martin Lucas, Presence 39, 2009
i hope i'm right where the river ice ends— Jim Kacian, Frogpond 35.2, 2012
As the last two examples in particular illustrate, the one-line form can create a variety of ambiguities involving the perceived placement of cuts and the grammatical status of individual words, thereby allowing for multiple readings of the same haiku. A variation of the format breaks the line at the caesura or pause.
At its most minimal, a single word may occasionally be claimed to be a haiku:
tundra— Cor van den Heuvel, the window-washer's pail, 1963
core— John Stevenson, Live Again, 2009
The first was printed alone on an otherwise blank page and arguably only "works" in that context. The second example is an allusion to the first and also depends on its placement at the center of a haiku collection.
Four or more lines
Haiku of four lines (sometimes known as haiqua) or longer have been written, some of them "vertical haiku" with only a word or two per line. These poems mimic the vertical printed form of Japanese haiku.
satisfied after love
looking up at nothing— pw, Blithe Spirit, 10:4, 2000
stone— Marlene Wills, the old tin roof, 1976
The translator Nobuyuki Yuasa considered four lines more appropriate in his translations, being closest to the natural conversational rhythm of the colloquial language of haiku, also that three lines did not carry the weight of hokku and found it impossible to use 'three lines' consistently for his translations.
The contemporary poet John Martone has written a vast number of vertical haiku.
Haiku have also appeared in circular form (sometimes known as cirku) whereby the poem has no fixed start or end point.
|buoyed up||on the rising tide|
|a fleet of head boards||bang the wall|
— John Carley, Magma No 19, 2001
Publications in North America
The leading English-language haiku journals published in the U.S. include Modern Haiku, Frogpond (published by the Haiku Society of America), Mayfly (founded by Randy and Shirley Brooks in 1986), Acorn (founded by A. C. Missias in 1998), Bottle Rockets (founded by Stanford M. Forrester), The Heron's Nest (founded by Christopher Herold in 1999, published online with a print annual), and Tinywords (founded by Dylan F. Tweney in 2001). Some significant defunct publications include Brussels Sprout (edited from 1988 to 1995 by Francine Porad), Woodnotes (edited from 1989 to 1997 by Michael Dylan Welch), Hal Roth's Wind Chimes, Wisteria, and Moonset (edited from 2005 to 2009 by an'ya (Andja Petrović)). The largest publisher of haiku books in North America is Jim Kacian's Red Moon Press. Other notable American publishers of haiku books include Press Here, Bottle Rockets Press, Brooks Books, and Turtle Light Press.
Publications in other English-speaking countries
In the UK, the British Haiku Society publishes Blithe Spirit, and the World Haiku Club publishes The World Haiku Review. Another leading haiku magazine in the UK is Presence (formerly Haiku Presence), which was edited for many years by Martin Lucas (1962-2014). In Ireland, twenty issues of Haiku Spirit edited by Jim Norton were published between 1995 and 2000. Shamrock, the online journal of the Irish Haiku Society edited by Anatoly Kudryavitsky, has been publishing international haiku in English since 2007. In Australia, twenty issues of Yellow Moon, a literary magazine for writers of haiku and other verse, were published between 1997 and 2006 (issues 1-8 were edited by Patricia Kelsall; issues 9-20 by Beverley George). Nowadays Paper Wasp is published in Australia, Kokako in New Zealand and Chrysanthemum (bilingual German/English) in Germany and Austria. Two other online English-language haiku journals founded outside North America, A Hundred Gourds and Notes from the Gean, are now defunct. John Barlow's Snapshot Press is a notable UK-based publisher of haiku books.
Notable English-language haiku poets
- Lewis Grandison Alexander
- John Brandi
- Ross Clark
- Billy Collins
- Cid Corman
- Tyler Knott Gregson
- Lee Gurga
- James William Hackett
- William J. Higginson
- Jim Kacian
- Jack Kerouac
- James Kirkup
- Etheridge Knight
- Anatoly Kudryavitsky
- Lenard D. Moore
- Alan Pizzarelli
- Paul Reps
- Kenneth Rexroth
- Raymond Roseliep
- Gabriel Rosenstock
- Sonia Sanchez
- Gary Snyder
- George Swede
- Wally Swist
- Cor van den Heuvel
- Nick Virgilio
- Gerald Vizenor
- Paul O. Williams
- Richard Wright
- Haiku—history and development of haiku in Japan
- Haikai—genre of haiku-related forms
- Hokku—opening verse of the renku, from which haiku derived
- Renku—form of linked poetry from which haiku is derived
- Senryū—satirical verse similar in form to haiku
- Show, don't tell
- Verbless poetry
- Scifaiku—science fiction pseudo-haiku
- Zappai—humorous verse similar in form to haiku
- Matsuyama Declaration
- Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Awards
- Comprising 5 syllables on the first line, 7 on the second and 5 on the third
- The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. 2009.
A Japanese lyric verse form having three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, traditionally invoking an aspect of nature or the seasons.
- Definition of haiku by the Haiku Society of America
- Garrison, Denis M. Hidden River: Haiku. Modern English Tanka Press. p. iii. ISBN 978-0-615-13825-1.
- Reichhold, 2002 p.21
- Gurga, 2003 p.105
- "How to Write a Haiku Poem: Haiku Examples and Tips". Creative Writing Now. William Victor, S.L. Retrieved 2013-05-14.
Traditionally, haiku is written in three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second line, and five syllables in the third line.
- "Send your name & message to Mars!". Going to Mars with MAVEN. University of Colorado: Boulder. Retrieved 2013-05-14.
For the MAVEN contest, we are defining a haiku as a poem made of three lines; the first and last lines must have exactly five syllables each and the middle line must have exactly seven syllables.
- Shirane, Haruo. Love in the Four Seasons, in Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Orientalia Pragensia XV, 2005, p135
- Ross, Bruce; How to Haiku; Tuttle Publishing 2002 p.19 ISBN 0-8048-3232-3
- Gurga, Lee; Haiku - A Poet's Guide; Modern Haiku Press 2003 p.16 ISBN 0-9741894-0-5
- Higginson, William J., The Haiku Handbook, McGraw-Hill, 1985, pp. 101-102 ISBN 0-07-028786-4.
- Spiess, Robert; Modern Haiku vol. XXXII No. 1 p. 57 "A haiku does not exceed a breath's length." ISSN 0026-7821
- Reichhold, Jane; Writing and Enjoying Haiku - A Hands-On Guide; Kodansha 2002 p.30 and p.75 ISBN 4-7700-2886-5
- Gurga, 2003, p.2 and p.15
- Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years, eds. Jim Kacian, Philip Rowland, and Allan Burns, W.W. Norton & Co, New York, 2013
- Richard Wright's haiku on Terebess Asia Online
- Biography of Lorraine Ellis Harr on the Aha Poetry website
- Van den Heuvel, Cor. The Haiku Anthology 2nd edition. Simon & Schuster 1986. ISBN 0671628372 p10
- Higginson, William, 'From One-line Poems to Haiku' Haiku Clinic #3 , Simply Haiku.com
- William J. Higginson. From One-line Poems to One-line Haiku
- "BROKEN MONOKU- haiku in one broken line". MONOKU. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
- Gill, Stephen Henry et al., editors. Seasons of the Gods Hailstone Haiku Circle, Kansai, 2007. ISBN 978-4-9900822-3-9 p.2
- Yuasa, Nobuyuki, Introduction 'The Narrow Road and other Travel sketches' by Matsuo Basho, Penguin Classics, London 1966 ISBN 9780140441857
- Zip School on Carley's website
- Zips in Magma No 19 - Winter 2001
- The Lune: The English Language Haiku by Holly Bliss at GoArticles.com
- Lipson, Greta B. Poetry Writing Handbook: Definitions, Examples, Lessons. Lorenz Educational Press, 1998. ISBN 9781573101080 p53
- The Haiku Society of America. A Haiku Path. Haiku Society of America, Inc., 1994.
- Henderson, Harold G. An Introduction to Haiku. Hokuseido Press, 1948.
- Henderson, Harold G. Haiku in English. Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1967.
- Higginson, William J. and Harter, Penny. The Haiku Handbook, How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku. Kodansha, 1989. ISBN 4-7700-1430-9.
- Higginson, William J. Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac. Kodansha, 1996. ISBN 4-7700-2090-2.
- Hirshfield, Jane. The Heart of Haiku (Kindle Single, 2011)
- Sato, Hiroaki. One Hundred Frogs, from renga to haiku to English. Weatherhill, 1983. ISBN 0-8348-0176-0.
- Suiter, John. Poets on the Peaks: Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen & Jack Kerouac in the Cascades. Counterpoint, 2002. ISBN 1-58243-148-5; ISBN 1-58243-294-5 (pbk).
- Yasuda, Kenneth. Japanese Haiku: Its Essential Nature, History, and Possibilities in English. Tuttle, 1957. ISBN 0-8048-1096-6.
- Global Haiku. Eds. George Swede and Randy Brooks. IRON Press, 2000.
- Haiku 21. Eds. Lee Gurga and Scott Metz. Modern Haiku Press, 2011.
- The Haiku Anthology. Ed. Cor van den Heuvel. Anchor Books, 1974
- The Haiku Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Cor van den Heuvel. Simon & Schuster, 1986.
- The Haiku Anthology. 3rd ed. Ed. Cor van den Heuvel. W.W. Norton, 1999.
- Haiku in English. Eds. Jim Kacian, Philip Rowland, and Allan Burns. W.W. Norton, 2013.
- Haiku Moment. Ed. Bruce Ross. Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1993.
- The San Francisco Haiku Anthology. Eds. Jerry Ball, Garry Gay, and Tom Tico. Smythe-Waithe Press, 1992.
- The Unswept Path. Eds. John Brandi and Dennis Maloney. White Pine Press, 2005.
- Where the River Goes: The Nature Tradition in English-Language Haiku. Ed. Allan Burns. Snapshot Press, 2013.
- A Guide to Haiku Publications, 2008 from HSA
Techniques and papers
- Jane Reichhold on haiku techniques
- English Haiku : A Composite View on the British Haiku Society website
- Haiku Chronicles – a free educational podcast designed to provide a better understanding and appreciation of the art of haiku and its related forms.
- "In The Moonlight a Worm..." - an educational site on haiku writing techniques.


Study Guide Literary Terms
Study Guide Literary Terms
AP Literary and Rhetorical Terms 1. 2. alliteration- Used for poetic effect, a repetition of the initial sounds of several words in a group. The following line from Robert Frost’s poem “Acquainted with the Night provides us with an example of alliteration,”: I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet. ” The repetition of the s sound creates a sense of quiet, reinforcing the meaning of the line 3. allegory – Where every aspect of a story is representative, usually symbolic, of something else, usually a larger abstract concept or important historical/geopolitical event.
Lord of the Flies provides a compelling allegory of human nature, illustrating the three sides of the psyche through its sharply-defined main characters. A form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy. Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning 4.
Allusion- A reference in one literary work to a character or theme found in another literary work. T. S. Eliot, in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” alludes (refers) to the biblical figure John the Baptist in the line Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, . . . In the New Testament, John the Baptist’s head was presented to King Herod on a platter 5. ambiguity-A statement which can contain two or more meanings. For example, when the oracle at Delphi told Croesus that if he waged war on Cyrus he would destroy a great empire, Croesus thought the oracle meant his enemy’s empire.
In fact, the empire Croesus destroyed by going to war was his own 6. analogy- A comparison of two different things that are alike in some way (see metaphor and simile). Analogy is the comparison of two pairs which have the same relationship. The key is to ascertain the relationship between the first so you can choose the correct second pair. Part to whole, opposites, results of are types of relationships you should find. Example: hot is to cold as fire is to ice OR hot:cold::fire:ice 7. antecedent- Grammar.
A word, phrase, or clause, usually a substantive, that is replaced by a pronoun or other substitute later, or occasionally earlier, in the same or in another, usually subsequent, sentence. In Jane lost a glove and she can’t find it, Jane is the antecedent of she and glove is the antecedent of it. Logic. the conditional element in a proposition, as “Caesar conquered Gaul,” in “If Caesar conquered Gaul, he was a great general. ” 8. Anthropomorphism: Where animals or inanimate objects are portrayed in a story as people, such as by walking, talking, or being given arms, legs, facial features, human locomotion or other anthropoid form.
(This technique is often incorrectly called personification. )The King and Queen of Hearts and their playing-card courtiers comprise only one example of Carroll’s extensive use of anthropomorphism in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 9. Aphorism-A brief statement which expresses an observation on life, usually intended as a wise observation. Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanac” contains numerous examples, one of which is Drive thy business; let it not drive thee. A brief saying embodying a moral, a concise statement of a principle or precept given in pointed words.
Example: Hippocrates: Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult. Pope: Some praise at morning what they blame at night. Emerson: Imitation is suicide Franklin: Lost Time is never Found again. 10. Apostrophe- A figure of speech wherein the speaker speaks directly to something nonhuman. In these lines from John Donne’s poem “The Sun Rising” the poet scolds the sun for interrupting his nighttime activities: Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? An absent person, an abstract concept, or an important object is directly addressed.
Example: With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbest the skies. Busy old fool, unruly sun. 11. archetype-something that serves as a model or a basis for making copies; “this painting is a copy of the original” [syn: original] 12. atmosphere- the dominant mood or emotional tone of a work of art, as of a play or novel: the chilly atmosphere of a ghost story. 13. antithesis- opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction. *Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater *Brutus: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 14. Anecdote A very short tale told by a character in a literary work. In Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Carpenter’s Tale” are examples a short account of a particular incident or event of an interesting or amusing nature, often biographical 15. antagonist- A person or force which opposes the protagonist in a literary work. In Stephen Vincent Benet’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” Mr. Scratch is Daniel Webster’s antagonist at the trial of Jabez Stone. The cold, in Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” is the antagonist that defeats the man on the trail 16.
Anticlimax- an event, conclusion, statement that is far less important, powerful, or striking than expected. A disappointing, weak, or inglorious conclusion. A noticeable or ludicrous descent from lofty ideas or expressions. 17. argumentation writing-the process of developing or presenting an argument; reasoning. The setting forth of reasons together with the conclusion drawn from them. 18. assonance- The repetition of vowel sounds in a literary work, especially in a poem 19. attitude- manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc. , with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, esp.
of the mind: a negative attitude; group attitudes 20. audience- listeners or viewers collectively 21. caricature- a picture, description, etc. , ludicrously exaggerating the peculiarities or defects of persons or things: His caricature of the mayor in this morning’s paper is the best he’s ever drawn. any imitation or copy so distorted or inferior as to be ludicrous . a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others. 22. causal analysis writing- seeks to identify and understand the reasons why things are as they are and hence enabling focus of change activity.
Causal analysis links actions or events along a time line, but it differs from process analysis in that it tells us why something happens, is happening, or will probably happen. Therefore, a causal analysis can serve one or more of four main purposes: to entertain, to inform, to speculate, and to argue. Cause/Effect Writing 23. clause-a syntactic construction containing a subject and predicate and forming part of a sentence or constituting a whole simple sentence 24. cliche-a trite, stereotyped expression.
A sentence or phrase, usually expressing a popular or common thought or idea, that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse 25. colloquial- kuh-loh-kwee-uh[pic]l-characteristic of or appropriate to ordinary or familiar conversation rather than formal speech or writing; informal. 26. conceit- an elaborate, fanciful metaphor. A far-fetched metaphor when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things. 27. connotation- the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning: A possible connotation of “home” is “a place of warmth, comfort, and affection.
”Implied meaning of a word. The denotation of a word is its dictionary definition. In literary criticism, a word’s denotation is its primary or literal significance, whereas connotation is the range of secondary significance which a word commonly suggests. For instance, the word “sea” denotes a large body of water, but its connotative meaning includes the sense of overwhelming space, danger, instability; whereas “earth” connotes safety, fertility and stability. 28. claim-to assert or maintain as a fact: Ex.
She claimed that he was telling the truth.29. classification and division- In a classification essay, a writer organizes, or sorts, things into categories. Division separates items into categories. 30. coherence- logical interconnection; overall sense or understandability. The property of unity in a written text or a segment of spoken discourse that stems from the links among its underlying ideas and from the logical organization and development of its thematic content 31. climax- The decisive moment in a drama, the climax is the turning point of the play to which the rising action leads.
This is the crucial part of the drama, the part which determines the outcome of the conflict. In Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” the climax occurs at the end of Marc Antony’s speech to the Roman public. In the climax to the film “Star Wars,” the empire’s death star is ready to destroy the rebel base. Luke Skywalker and rebel pilots attack the base, and after the deaths of some rebel pilots, Skywalker successfully fires his missile into the death star’s vulnerable spot and destroys the death star, saving the rebel forces.
32.abstract- thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances: an abstract idea. Expressing a quality or characteristic apart from any specific object or instance, as justice, poverty, and speed. 33. concrete- representing or applied to an actual substance or thing, as opposed to an abstract quality: The words “cat,” “water,” and “teacher” are concrete, whereas the words “truth,” “excellence,” and “adulthood” are abstract. 34. definition writing:
A definition essay is writing that explains what a term means 35.denotation- In literary criticism, a word’s denotation is its primary or literal significance. The explicit or direct meaning or set of meanings of a word or expression, as distinguished from the ideas or meanings associated with it or suggested by it; the association or set of associations that a word usually elicits for most speakers of a language, as distinguished from those elicited for any individual speaker because of personal experience. For instance, the word “sea” denotes a large body of water 36. diction- An author’s choice of words.
Since words have specific meanings, and since one’s choice of words can affect feelings, a writer’s choice of words can have great impact in a literary work. The writer, therefore, must choose his words carefully. Discussing his novel “A Farewell to Arms” during an interview, Ernest Hemingway stated that he had to rewrite the ending thirty-nine times. When asked what the most difficult thing about finishing the novel was, Hemingway answered, “Getting the words right. ” 37. didactic- Literature designed explicitly to instruct. Teaching or intending to teach a moral lesson.
Ex. Fables (tortoise and hare) 38. details (choice of): the specific details used to support or illustrate a point 39. dialect: The way we speak. A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a variety of speech differing from the standard literary language or speech pattern of the culture in which it exists: Cockney is a dialect of English. She had a Southern dialect. 40. dialogue: a conversation between characters 41. dramatic monologue: the occurrence of a single speaker saying something to a silent audience.
Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” is an example wherein the duke, speaking to a non-responding representative of the family of a prospective new duchess, reveals not only the reasons for his disapproval of the behavior of his former duchess, but aspects of his own personality as well. 42. digression from topic: a temporary departure from one subject to another more or less distantly related topic before the discussion of the first subject is resumed.
A valuable technique in the art of storytelling, digression is also employed in many kinds of non?fictional writing and oratory. 43. discourse: communication of thought by words; talk; conversation: earnest and intelligent discourse. a formal discussion of a subject in speech or writing, as a dissertation, treatise, sermon. to communicate thoughts orally; talk; converse. to treat of a subject formally in speech or writing. 44. dominant impression: Dominant impression in descriptive writing is the principal effect the author wishes to create for the audience. a descriptive essay has one, clear dominant impression.
If, for example you are describing a snowfall, it is important for you to decide and to let your reader know if it is threatening or lovely; in order to have one dominant impression it cannot be both. The dominant impression guides the author’s selection of detail and is thereby made clear to the reader in the thesis sentence. 45. editorializing: to set forth one’s position or opinion on some subject in, or as if in, an editorial. To inject personal interpretations or opinions into an otherwise factual account 46. emotive imagery: Imagery that is relating to emotion: the emotive aspect of symbols.
Characterized by, expressing, or exciting emotion: 47. euphemism: is the use of roundabout language to replace colloquial terms that are considered too blunt or unpleasant. “Passed away” replaces “died, croaked, kicked the bucket”; Upset stomach replaces “puked, yakked, barfed” 48. extended metaphor: also called a conceit, is a metaphor that continues into the sentences that follows.
An extended metaphor is also a metaphor developed at great length, occurring frequently in or throughout a work 49. evidence: that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.something that makes plain or clear; an indication or sign: His flushed look was visible evidence of his fever. 50. epiphany: a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.
A literary work or section of a work presenting, usually symbolically, such a moment of revelation and insight. Ex. Rainsford has an epiphany in “The Most Dangerous Game” once he realizes that General Zaroff hunts humans, not animals. 51.epithet: a word which makes the reader see the object described in a clearer or sharper light.
It is both exact and imaginative. Distinctive epithets are found in the ancient Greek classic, The Odyssey: wine-dark sea…… wave-girdled island,” blindfolding night. ” Our national flag is a star- spangled banner. ” In “Thanatopsis” Bryant (more poems) speaks of the ocean’s “gray and melancholy waste. In literature, a word of phrase preceding or following a name which serves to describe the character. Consider the following from Book 1 of Homer’s “The Iliad:” Zeus-loved Achilles, you bid me explain the wrath of far-smiting Apollo.
52. escape literature: Escape literature is written for entertainment. This type of work may still have some literary value, but its primary purpose is to help us pass the time or to escape into an alternate reality. Literature written purely for entertainment, with little or no attempt to provide insights into the true nature of human life or behavior Ex. Romance novels, science fiction, 53. exposition: In drama, the presentation of essential information regarding what has occurred prior to the beginning of the play.
In the exposition to William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” two servants of the house of Capulet discuss the feud between their master and the house of Montague, thereby letting the audience know that such a feud exists and that it will play an important role in influencing the plot. 54. equivocation: the use of equivocal or ambiguous expressions, esp. in order to mislead or hedge; prevarication. a fallacy caused by the double meaning of a word. intentionally vague or ambiguous. Equivocation is the use in a syllogism (a logical chain of reasoning) of a term several times, but giving the term a different meaning each time.
For example: A feather is light. What is light cannot be dark. Therefore, a feather cannot be dark. 55. Ethos: Ethos (Credibility), or ethical appeal, means convincing by the character of the author. We tend to believe people whom we respect. One of the central problems of argumentation is to project an impression to the reader that you are someone worth listening to, in other words making yourself as author into an authority on the subject of the paper, as well as someone who is likable and worthy of respect.
A rhetoric technique used to directly appeal to an authority in order to strengthen your argument. It is important to notice that ethos does not belong to the speaker, but to the audience. If you are the speaker, your audience determines whether you are a high or low ethos speaker. Violations of ethos can entail some of the following: The speaker has a direct interest in the outcome of the debate (e. g. a person pleading innocence of a crime); The speaker has a vested interest or ulterior motive in the outcome of the debate;The speaker has no expertise (e. g.a lawyer giving a speech on space flight carries less gravity than an astronaut giving the same speech).
The moral element in dramatic literature that determines a character’s action rather than his or her thought or emotion. Persuasion through convincing listeners of one’s moral competence 56. farce: A type of comedy based on a humorous situation such as a bank robber who mistakenly wanders into a police station to hide. It is the situation here which provides the humor, not the cleverness of plot or lines, nor the absurdities of the character, as in situational comedy.
A light, humorous play in which the plot depends upon a skillfully exploited situation rather than upon the development of character. foolish show; mockery; a ridiculous sham. humor of the type displayed in such works. Mrs. Doubtfire 57. figurative language: A way of saying one thing and meaning something else. Take, for example, this line by Robert Burns, My luv is a red, red rose. Clearly Mr. Burns does not really mean that he has fallen in love with a red, aromatic, many-petalled, long, thorny-stemmed plant.
He means that his love is as sweet and as delicate as a rose. Language enriched by word meanings and figures of speech (ie, similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole). Words in figurative expressions connote additional layers of meaning 58. figure of speech: An example of figurative language that states something that is not literally true in order to create an effect. Similes, metaphors and personification are figures of speech which are based on comparisons. Metonymy, synecdoche, apostrophe, oxymoron, and hyperbole are other figures of speech. Literary
device used to create a special effect or feeling, often by making some type of comparison. See Hyperbole, Metaphor, Simile, Understatemen 59. foil: A foil is a character that contrasts with another character, usually the protagonist and, in so doing, highlights various facets of the main character’s personality. A character in a play who sets off the main character or other characters by comparison. In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” Hamlet and Laertes are young men who behave very differently. 60. foreshadowing: a method used to build suspense by providing hints of what is to come 61.
ellipsis: the omission from a sentence or other construction of one or more words that would complete or clarify the construction, as the omission of who are, while I am, or while we are from I like to interview people sitting down. The omission of one or more items from a construction in order to avoid repeating the identical or equivalent items that are in a preceding or following construction, as the omission of been to Paris from the second clause of I’ve been to Paris, but they haven’t. 62. epigraph: A brief quotation which appears at the beginning of a literary work 63. genre: A literary type or form.
Drama is a genre of literature 64. homily: a sermon, usually on a Biblical topic and usually of a nondoctrinal nature. an admonitory or moralizing discourse. an inspirational saying or cliche. n colloquial usage, homily often means a sermon concerning a practical matter, a moralizing lecture or admonition, or an inspirational saying or platitude 65. hyperbole: figure of speech in which an overstatement or exaggeration occurs. Ex. I’m so hungry I could eat a horse 66. imagery:
A word or group of words in a literary work which appeal to one or more of the senses: sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell. 67.infer(ence): A judgment based on reasoning rather than on direct or explicit statement. A conclusion based on facts or circumstances. For example, advised not to travel alone in temperatures exceeding fifty degrees below zero, the man in Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” sets out anyway.
One may infer arrogance from such an action. the act or process of deriving a conclusion based solely on what one already knows 68. invective: vehement or violent denunciation, censure, or reproach. an insulting or abusive word or expression. Denunciatory or abusive language. 69. irony (verbal, situational, dramatic): Irony takes many forms.
In irony of situation, the result of an action is the reverse of what the actor expected. Macbeth murders his king hoping that in becoming king he will achieve great happiness. Actually, Macbeth never knows another moment of peace, and finally is beheaded for his murderous act. In dramatic irony, the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not. For example, the identity of the murderer in a crime thriller may be known to the audience long before the mystery is solved. In verbal irony, the contrast is between the literal meaning of what is said and what is meant.
A character may refer to a plan as brilliant, while actually meaning that (s)he thinks the plan is foolish. Sarcasm is a form of verbal irony. 70. jargon: the terminology that relates to a specific activity, profession or group. Much like slang it develops as a kind of shorthand, to quickly express ideas that are frequently discussed between members of a group. In many cases a standard term may be given a more precise or specialized usage among practitioners of a field. Ex. Sailors-bow, stern, deck : Teachers-EOC, IGP, PEP: 71. juxtaposition: an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, esp.
for comparison or contrast. A side-by-side position. 72. language devices: the variety of tools that writers use to express their thoughts. Ex. Figurative language such as simile, metaphor, personification; sound devices such as alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance; rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos, logos, etc. 73. loose sentence: A loose sentence opens with its subject, predicate, and object; the main part of the sentence comes first. As a result, the relationship of modifiers to this main part will become more tenuous as the sentence lengthens.
The reader, having focused upon agent and action, will have increasing difficulty connecting the modifiers to them. Example: Root ideas: I ate the pizza. I ate the pizza that my sister baked. I ate the pizza that my sister baked after I got home from work. (Did your sister bake the pizza after you got home from work or did you only eat the pizza after you got home from work? ) Use loose sentences for dramatic and powerful brief statements, “I have a Dream! ” 74. logos: Logos (Logical) means persuading by the use of reasoning. Giving reasons is the heart of argumentation, and cannot be emphasized enough.
An argument based on logos needs to be logical, and in fact the term logic derives from it. Logos normally implies numbers, polls, and other mathematical or scientific data. 75. metaphor: A figure of speech wherein a comparison is made between two unlike quantities without the use of the words “like” or “as. ” Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” has this to say about the moral condition of his parishioners: There are the black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm and big with thunder;
76. metonymy: A figure of speech in which a word represents something else which it suggests. For example in a herd of fifty cows, the herd might be referred to as fifty head of cattle. The word “head” is the word representing the herd. Substituting a word for another word closely associate with it. “Crown” for royalty. Metonymy is also the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it: for instance, describing someone’s clothing in order to characterize the individual. The pen is mightier than the sword. ” (Edward Bulwer-Lytton}
“Her voice is full of money. ” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby) 77. mood: the emotional attitude the author takes towards his subject. The atmosphere or feeling created by a literary work, partly by a description of the objects or by the style of the descriptions. A work may contain a mood of horror, mystery, holiness, or childlike simplicity 78. maxim: a saying that is widely accepted on its own merits. Ex. “A friend in need is a friend indeed. ” “Birds of a feather flock together. ” 79. monologue: A monologue is an extended, uninterrupted speech by one person only.
The person may be speaking his or her thoughts aloud or directly addressing other persons, e. g. an audience, a character, or a reader 80. motif: In a narrative, such as a novel or a film, motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes. The motif can be an idea, an object, a place, or a statement. The flute in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a recurrent motif that conveys rural and idyllic notions. The green light in The Great Gatsby 81. narrative/narration writing: Tells a story
82. naturalistic detail: a manner or technique of treating subject matter that presents, through volume of detail, a deterministic view of human life and actions. deterministic theory of writing in which it is held that a writer should adopt an objective view toward the material written about, be free of preconceived ideas as to form and content, and represent with clinical accuracy and frankness the details of life. Factual or realistic representation, especially: The practice of describing precisely the actual circumstances of human life in literature.
83. inverted sentence-An inverted sentence is one in which the subject appears after the verb. This construction causes the subject to receive more emphasis. Ex. Never will I do that again! Rarely have I eaten better food. Hardly ever does he come to class on time 84. flashback-action that interrupts to show an event that happened at an earlier time which is necessary to better understanding 85. modes of discourse-Rhetorical modes (also known as modes of discourse) describe the variety, conventions, and purposes of the major kinds of writing.
Four of the most common rhetorical modes and their purpose are exposition, argumentation, description, and narration. 86. onomatopoeia–A literary device wherein the sound of a word echoes the sound it represents. The words “splash. ” “knock,” and “roar” are examples. 87. oxymoron- A combination of contradictory terms, such as used by Romeo in Act 1, scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O heavy lightness, serious vanity; Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! 88.
objective description- a descriptive essay can be objective or subjective, giving the author a wide choice of tone, diction and attitude. For instance, an objective description of one’s dog would mention such facts as height, weight, coloring and so forth. A subjective description would include the above details, but would also stress the author’s feeling toward the dog, as well as its personality and habits. 89. paradox-A situation or a statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not. This line from John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 14” provides an example: That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me,
The poet paradoxically asks God to knock him down so that he may stand. What he means by this is for God to destroy his present self and remake him as a holier person. reveals a kind of truth which at first seems contradictory. Two opposing ideas. Example: Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage. 90. parallelism-A repetition of sentences using the same structure. This line from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address provides an example: a. The world will little not nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. 91.
parody-A literary work that imitates the style of another literary work. A parody can be simply amusing or it can be mocking in tone, such as a poem which exaggerates the use of alliteration in order to show the ridiculous effect of overuse of alliteration 92. pathetic fallacy-The attribution of human traits to nature or inanimate objects. A fallacy of reason in suggesting that nonhuman phenomena act from human feelings, as suggested by the word “pathetic” from the Greek pathos; a literary device wherein something nonhuman found in nature-a beast, plant, stream, natural force, etc.
-performs as though from human feeling or motivation. In Jack London’s To Build a Fire, “The cold of space,” London writes, “smote the unprotected tip of the planet, . . . ” The word “smote” suggests nature deliberately striking the northern tip of the earth with severe cold. The poetry of William Wordsworth is replete with instances of pathetic fallacy-weeping streams, etc 93. pedantic-overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, esp. in teaching. Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules: a pedantic attention to details.
pedantic writing style; an academic insistence on precision; a bookish vocabulary 94. periodic sentence- A periodic sentence (also called a period) is a sentence that is not grammatically complete until its end. Periodicity is accomplished by the use of parallel phrases or clauses at the opening or by the use of dependent clauses preceding the independent clause; that is, the kernel of thought contained in the subject/verb group appears at the end of a succession of modifiers. It is the opposite of a nuclear sentence.
The periodic sentence is effective when it is used to arouse interest and curiosity, to hold an idea in suspense before its final revelation. Ex. a. “Out of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garment shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent and soft, and slow, Descends the snow. ” 95. personification-A figure of speech in which something nonhuman is given human characteristics. Ex. a. Stormy, husky, brawling, b. City of the big Shoulders: 96.
persuasion writing: Persuasive writing is used to convince the reader of the writer’s argument. This may involve persuading the reader to perform an action, or simply consist of an argument convincing the reader of the writer’s point of view. 97. point of view (1st, 2nd, Third Limited, Third Omniscient)- A piece of literature contains a speaker who is speaking either in the first person, telling things from his or her own perspective, or in the third person, telling things from the perspective of an onlooker.
The perspective used is called the Point of View, and is referred to either as first person or third person. If the speaker knows everything including the actions, motives, and thoughts of all the characters, the speaker is referred to as omniscient (all-knowing). If the speaker is unable to know what is in any character’s mind but his or her own, this is called limited omniscience.
An even rarer, but stylish version of second person narration takes the form of a series of imperative statements with the implied subject “you” (Example: Edward’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”) Choose Your Own Adventure books are also 2nd person point of you because the reader chooses how the text will read. 98. prose-the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse. Example: Essays, newspapers, articles, etc. 99. pedestrian-lacking in vitality, imagination, distinction, etc. ; com


Historicity of Muhammad
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The earliest Muslim sources of information for the life of Muhammad is the Qur'an, which gives very little information and whose historicity has been questioned. Next in importance is the sīra literature and Hadith, which survive in the historical works of writers from the second, third, and fourth centuries of the Muslim era (c. 700−1000 AD). There are also a relatively small number of contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous non-Muslim sources, which confirm the existence of Muhammad and are valuable both in themselves and for comparison with Muslim sources.
Islamic sources for the historical Muhammad
The main Islamic source on Muhammad's life are Muslim sources written in Arabic, which include the Qur'an and accounts of Muhammad's life written down by later Muslims, based on oral traditions. These sources are known as sīra and hadith.
According to traditional Islamic scholarship, all of the Qur'an was written down by Muhammad's companions while he was alive (during AD 610-632), but it was primarily an orally related document. The written compilation of the whole Qur'an in its definite form as we have it now was not completed until many years after the death of Muhammad.
Modern scholars differ in their assessment of Quran as a historical source about Muhammad's life.
According to the Encyclopedia of Islam, the "Qur'an responds constantly and often candidly to Muhammad's changing historical circumstances and contains a wealth of hidden data that are relevant to the task of the quest for the historical Muhammad." In contrast, Solomon A. Nigosian writes that the Qur'an tells us very little about the life of Muhammad.
F.E. Peters states, "Few have failed to be convinced that what is in our copy of the Quran is, in fact, what Muhammad taught, and is expressed in his own words... To sum this up: the Quran is convincingly the words of Muhammad, perhaps even dictated by him after their recitation". Peters argues that "The search for variants in the partial versions extant before the Caliph Uthman’s alleged recension in the 640s (what can be called the 'sources' behind our text) has not yielded any differences of great significance." .
Patricia Crone and Michael Cook challenge the traditional account of how the Qur'an was compiled writing that "there is no hard evidence for the existence of the Koran in any form before the last decade of the seventh century." They also question the accuracy of some the Qur'an's historical accounts. It was generally acknowledged that the work of Crone and Cook was a fresh approach in its reconstruction of early Islamic history, but their alternative account of early Islam had been almost universally rejected. Van Ess dismissed it stating that "a refutation is perhaps unnecessary since the authors make no effort to prove it in detail...Where they are only giving a new interpretation of well-known facts, this is not decisive. But where the accepted facts are consciously put upside down, their approach is disastrous." R. B. Serjeant stated: "Hagarism [the thesis of Crone and Cook]...is not only bitterly anti-Islamic in tone, but anti-Arabian. Its superficial fancies are so ridiculous that at first one wonders if it is just a ‘leg pull’, pure ’spoof’." In 2006 Fred Donner, a supporter of the revisionistschool of Islamic studies wrote that "Yet now more than 30 years later we can see that the publication of Hagarism was a milestone in the study of Islamic studies."
Gerd R. Puin's initial study of ancient Qur'an manuscripts found in Yemen led him to conclude that the Qur'an is a "cocktail of texts", some of which may have been existent a hundred years before Muhammad. He later stated that "these Yemeni Qur'anic fragments do not differ from those found in museums and libraries elsewhere, with the exception of details that do not touch the Qur'an itself, but are rather differences in the way words are spelled." Puin has stated that he believes the Qur'an was an evolving text rather than simply the Word of God as revealed in its entirety to Muhammad in the seventh century A.D Karl-Heinz Ohlig comes to the conclusion that the person of Muhammed was not central to early Islam at all, and that at this very early stage Islam was in fact an Arabic Christian sect which had objections to the concept of the trinity, and that the later hadith and biographies are in large part legends, instrumental in severing Islam from its Christian roots and building a full-blown new religion.[page needed] John Wansbrough believes that the Qu’ran is a redaction in part of other sacred scriptures, in particular the Judaeo-Christian scriptures. Prof. Herbert Berg writes that "Despite John Wansbrough's very cautious and careful inclusion of qualifications such as "conjectural," and "tentative and emphatically provisional", his work is condemned by some. Some of the negative reaction is undoubtedly due to its radicalness...Wansbrough's work has been embraced wholeheartedly by few and has been employed in a piecemeal fashion by many. Many praise his insights and methods, if not all of his conclusions."
There is considerable academic debate over the real chronology of the chapters of the Qur'an. Carole Hillenbrand holds that there are several remaining tasks for the Orientalist Qur'anic scholars: Few Qur'anic scholars have worked on the epigraphy of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem whose foundation inscription dates to 72/692 and the antique Qur'an recently discovered in the Yemen, the Sana'a manuscripts. The Carbon-14 tests applied to this Qur'an date its parchment to 645-690 AD with 95 percent accuracy. Their real age may be a good deal younger, since C-14 estimates the year of the death of an organism, and the process from that to the final writing on the parchment involves an unknown amount of time, and parchments were also re-used often. Paleography has dated the San'a manuscripts to 690-750 AD.
Early Muslim scholars were concerned that some hadiths (and sīra reports) may have been fabricated, and thus they developed a science of hadith criticism (see Hadith studies) to distinguish between genuine sayings and those that were forged, recorded using different words, or were wrongly ascribed to Muhammad.
In general, the majority of western academics view the hadith collections with caution. Bernard Lewis states that "The collection and recording of Hadith did not take place until several generations after the death of the Prophet. During that period the opportunities and motives for falsification were almost unlimited."
The main feature of hadith is that of Isnad (chains of transmission), which are the basis of determining authenticity of the reports in traditional Islamic scholarship. According to Stephen Humphreys, while a number of "very capable" modern scholars defended the general authenticity of isnads, most modern scholars regard isnads with "deep suspicion".
Professor Jonathan A. C. Brown points out, the Hadith Tradition is a "common sense science" or a "common sense tradition" and is "one of the biggest accomplishments in human intellectual history… in its breadth, in its depth, in its complexity and in its internal consistency."
Prophetic biography (sīra)
In the sīra literature, the most important extant biography are the two recensions of Ibn Ishaq's (d. 768), now known as Sīrat Rasūl Allah ("Biography/Life of the Messenger/Apostle of Allah"), which survive in the works of his editors, most notably Ibn Hisham (d. 834) and Yunus b. Bukayr (d.814-815), although not in its original form. According to Ibn Hisham, Ibn Ishaq wrote his biography some 120 to 130 years after Muhammad's death. Many, but not all, scholars accept the accuracy of these biographies, though their accuracy is unascertainable. After Ibn Ishaq, there are a number of shorter accounts (some of which are earlier than Ibn Ishaq) recorded in different forms (see List of earliest writers of sīra). Another biography of Muhammad is that of al-Waqidi's (d. 822) and then Ibn Sa'd's (d.844-5). Al-Waqidi is often criticized by early Muslim historians who state that the author is unreliable. These biographies are hardly biographies in the modern sense. The writers did not wish to record the life of Muhammad, but rather to describe Muhammad's military expeditions and to preserve stories about Muhammad, his sayings and the reasons of revelations and interpretations of verses in the Qur'an. In addition to sīra, the biographical dictionaries of Ali ibn al-Athir and Ibn Hajar provide much detail about the contemporaries of Muhammad but add little to our information about Muhammad himself.
According to Wim Raven, it is often noted that a coherent image of Muhammad cannot be formed from the literature of sīra, whose authenticity and factual value have been questioned on a number of different grounds. He lists the following arguments against the authenticity of sīra, followed here by counter arguments:
- Hardly any sīra work was compiled during the first century of Islam. Fred Donner points out that the earliest historical writings about the origins of Islam first emerged in 60-70 AH, well within the first century of Hijra (see also List of biographies of Muhammad). Furthermore, the sources now extant, dating from the second, third, and fourth centuries AH, are according to Donner mostly compilations of material derived from earlier sources.
- The many discrepancies exhibited in different narrations found in sīra works. Yet, despite the lack of a single orthodoxy in Islam, there is still a marked agreement on the most general features of the traditional origins story.
- Later sources claiming to know more about the time of Muhammad than earlier ones (to add embellishments and exaggeration common to an oral storytelling tradition).
- Discrepancies compared to non-Muslim sources. But there are also similarities and agreements both in information specific to Muhammad, and concerning Muslim tradition at large.
- Some parts or genres of sīra, namely those dealing with miracles, are not fit as sources for scientific historiographical information about Muhammad, except for showing the beliefs and doctrines of his community.
Early Islamic history is also reflected in sources written in Greek, Syriac, Armenian, and Hebrew by Jewish and Christian communities, all of which are dated after 633 CE. These sources contain some essential differences with regard to Muslim sources, in particular regarding the chronology and Muhammad's attitude towards the Jews and Palestine.
There is a reference recording the Arab conquest of Syria (known as Fragment on the Arab Conquests), that mentions Muhammed. This much faded note is preserved on folio 1 of BL Add. 14,461, a codex containing the Gospel according to Matthew and the Gospel according to Mark. This note appears to have been penned soon after the battle of Gabitha (636 CE) at which the Arabs inflicted crushing defeat of the Byzantines. Wright was first to draw the attention to the fragment and suggested that "it seems to be a nearly contemporary notice", a view which was also endorsed by Nöldeke. The purpose of jotting this note in the book of Gospels appears to be commemorative as the author appears to have realized how momentous the events of his time were. The words "we saw" are positive evidence that the author was a contemporary. The author also talks about olive oil, cattle, ruined villages, suggesting that he belonged to peasant stock, i.e., parish priest or a monk who could read and write. It is worthwhile cautioning that the condition of the text is fragmentary and many of the readings unclear or disputable. The lacunae are supplied in square brackets:
The 8th century BL Add. 14,643 was published by Wright who first brought to attention the mention of an early date of 947 AG (635-6 CE). The contents of this manuscript has puzzled many scholars for their apparent lack of coherence as it contains an assembly of texts with diverse nature. In relation to Arabs of Mohamed, there are two important dates mentioned in this manuscript.
AG 945, indiction VII: On Friday, 4 February, [i.e., 634 CE / Dhul Qa‘dah 12 AH] at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and the Arabs of Mụhammad [Syr. tayyāyē d-Ṃhmt] in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patrician YRDN (Syr. BRYRDN), whom the Arabs killed. Some 4000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews and Samaritans. The Arabs ravaged the whole region.
AG 947, indiction IX: The Arabs invaded the whole of Syria and went down to Persia and conquered it; the Arabs climbed mountain of Mardin and killed many monks there in [the monasteries of] Kedar and Benōthō. There died the blessed man Simon, doorkeeper of Qedar, brother of Thomas the priest.
It is the first date above which is of great importance as it provides the first explicit reference to Muhammad in a non-Muslim source. The account is usually identified with the battle of Dathin. According to Hoyland, "its precise dating inspires confidence that it ultimately derives from first-hand knowledge".
Another account of the early seventh century comes from Sebeos who was an Armenian bishop of the House of Bagratuni. From this chronicle, there are indications that he lived through many of the events he relates. He maintains that the account of Arab conquests derives from the fugitives who had been eyewitnesses thereof. He concludes with Mu‘awiya's ascendancy in the Arab civil war (656-61 CE), which suggests that he was writing soon after this date. Sebeos is the first non-Muslim author to present us with a theory for the rise of Islam that pays attention to what the Muslims themselves thought they were doing. Concerning Muhammad, he says:
At that time a certain man from along those same sons of Ismael, whose name was Mahmet [i.e., Mụhammad], a merchant, as if by God's command appeared to them as a preacher [and] the path of truth. He taught them to recognize the God of Abraham, especially because he was learnt and informed in the history of Moses. Now because the command was from on high, at a single order they all came together in unity of religion. Abandoning their vain cults, they turned to the living God who had appeared to their father Abraham. So, Mahmet legislated for them: not to eat carrion, not to drink wine, not to speak falsely, and not to engage in fornication. He said: 'With an oath God promised this land to Abraham and his seed after him for ever. And he brought about as he promised during that time while he loved Ismael. But now you are the sons of Abraham and God is accomplishing his promise to Abraham and his seed for you. Love sincerely only the God of Abraham, and go and seize the land which God gave to your father Abraham. No one will be able to resist you in battle, because God is with you.
Sebeos was writing the chronicle at a time when memories of sudden eruption of the Arabs was fresh. He knows Muhammad's name and that he was a merchant by profession. He hints that his life was suddenly changed by a divinely inspired revelation.
Views of modern historians
As early as 1930, the question for the existence of Muhammad was raised by Soviet orientalist Klimovich, yet his thesis found no resonance in Islamic Studies. The question for the historicity of Muhammad was put on the agenda, when in the 1970s the so-called Revisionist School of Islamic Studies raised fundamental doubts about the reliability of traditional Islamic sources and applied the historical-critical methods to the early Islamic period. After the first provocative theses, the revisionist approach differentiated and moderated and spread in Islamic Studies with various intensity. Today, only a minority of historians of early Islam doubt the historicity of Muhammad.
Attempts to distinguish between the historical elements and the unhistorical elements of many of the reports of Muhammad have not been very successful. A major source of difficulty in the quest for the historical Muhammad is the modern lack of knowledge about pre-Islamic Arabia. According to Harald Motzki, "On the one hand, it is not possible to write a historical biography of the Prophet without being accused of using the sources uncritically, while on the other hand, when using the sources critically, it is simply not possible to write such a biography."
Historian Michael Cook takes the view that evidence independent of Islamic tradition "precludes any doubts as to whether Muhammad was a real person" and clearly shows that he became the central figure of a new religion in the decades following his death. He reports, though, that this evidence conflicts with the Islamic view in some aspects, associating Muhammad with Israel rather than Inner Arabia, complicating the question of his sole authorship or transmission of the Qur'an, and suggesting that there were Jews as well as Arabs among his followers. For Patricia Crone, a single Greek text written at around the time of Muhammad's death provides "irrefutable proof" that he was a historical figure. There is also, she says, "exceptionally good" evidence that Muhammad was an Arab political leader and prophet. She says we can be "reasonably sure" in attributing all or most of the Qur'an to him. She takes a view that Muhammad's traditional association with the Arabian Peninsula may be "doctrinally inspired", and is put in doubt by the Qur'an itself, which describes agricultural activity that could not have taken place there, as well as making a reference to the site of Sodom which appears to place Muhammad's community close to the Dead Sea.
In their 2003 book Crossroads to Islam, Yehuda D. Nevo and Judith Koren advanced a thesis, based on an extensive examination of archaeological evidence from the early Islamic period, that Muhammad may never have existed, with monotheistic Islam only coming into existence some time after he is supposed to have lived. This has been described as "plausible or at least arguable" and employing a "very rigorous historical methodology" by David Cook of Rice University, but has also been compared to Holocaust denial by historian Colin Wells, who suggests that the authors deal with some of the evidence illogically.
Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a Muslim convert and Germany's first professor of Islamic theology, has expressed the view that the Prophet Muhammad probably never existed. Similar views were also held by other scholars too as Professor Muhammad Sven Kalisch quotes in his conclusions. There are many such views doubting the historicity of Muhammed. Another example is the case of Hans Jansen, a Dutch scholar, who too has the opinion that the evidences supporting the historicity of Muhammad are lacking.
Popp (2004/5) proposed that both Muḥammad and ‘Alī originated as titles given to Jesus Christ by Syriac Christians in the Sassanid Empire (i.e. muḥammad "blessed" being the equivalent of the benedictus (ευλογηµένος) of the New Testament). In a numismatic study, Popp identified coins dated to AH 16 inscribed with mḥmd but lacking the rasūl allāh that later became common. Popp adduced Arabo-Sassanid and Syrian coins inscribed with MHMT in Pahlavi script, and also partly with mḥmd in Arabic script, in some cases combined with Christian symbolism. Heger (2008) argues that Muḥammad "the blessed one" being a title of Christ does not necessarily preclude the historicity of the prophet of Islam. It rather opens up a scale of possibilities summarised in three alternatives to the default assumption of the historicity of a Muhammad recognizably similar to the hadith accounts,
- the Islamic tradition on the life of Muhammad is entirely legendary,
- Muhammad is historical, but was active roughly a century later than suggested by Islamic tradition,
- there were two distinct people, both given the epithet Muhammad or "blessed", one active in the early 7th century, and author of the Meccan suras, and the other the Mamed of Johannes Damascenus, author of the Medinian suras.
- Achtiname of Muhammad
- Reliability of the Quran
- Historiography of early Islam
- Islam: The Untold Story
- Muhammad's letters to the Heads-of-State
- Relics of Muhammad
- Soviet Orientalist studies in Islam
- Seeing Islam as Others Saw It
- Encyclopaedia of Islam, Muhammad
- Nigosian 2004, p. 6.
- Donner 1998, p. 125.
- William Montgomery Watt, Muhammad in Mecca, 1953, Oxford University Press, p.xi
- William Montgomery Watt in The Cambridge History of Islam, p.32
- F. E. Peters (1991)
- Patricia Crone, Michael Cook, and Gerd R. Puin as quoted in Toby Lester (January 1999). "What Is the Koran?". The Atlantic Monthly.
- David Waines(1995), p. 273-274
- van Ess, "The Making Of Islam", Times Literary Supplement, September 8, 1978, p. 998
- R. B. Serjeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society (1978) p. 78
- Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Vol. 40, No. 2 (December 2006), pp. 197-199
- THE HISTORY OF THE QUR’ANIC TEXT FROM REVELATION TO COMPILATION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY WITH THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS by Muhammad Mustafa Al-A’zami, Leicester: UK, page 12; Al-A’zami quotes a letter that was published in the Yemeni newspaper ath-Thawra, 11 March 1999
- Querying the Koran, by Abul Taher, The Guardian, 8 August 2000
- Karl-Heinz Ohlig, Der frühe Islam, 2007, ISBN 3-89930-090-4
- Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (1977) and The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History (1978) by Wansbrough.
- http://www.derafsh-kaviyani.com/english/quran3.html (Discusses Wansbrough)
- Herbert Berg(2000), p.83
- Carole Hillenbrand in The New Cambridge Medieval History, p.329
- Lewis 1967, p. 37.
- Humphreys, R. Stephen (1991). Islamic History: A framework for Inquiry (Revised ed.). Princeton University Press. p. 82. ISBN 0-691-00856-6.
- ilmisfree (2012-03-04), Dr. Jonathan A.C. Brown - An Introduction to Hadith, retrieved 2016-12-11 (see from 0:01:13)
- William Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca, Oxford University Press, p.xii
- Raven, W. (1997). "SĪRA". Encyclopaedia of Islam. 9 (2nd ed.). Brill Academic Publishers. pp. 660–3. ISBN 90-04-10422-4.
- Donner 1998, pp. 26-27.
- Crone and Cook, Patricia and Michael (1980). Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 277. ISBN 0-521-29754-0.
- Cook, Michael (1983-01-26). Muhammad. Oxford University Press, USA. pp. 73–74. ISBN 0192876058.
- Hoyland, Robert G (1998). Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam. Darwin. p. 591. ISBN 0878501258.
- W. Wright, Catalogue Of Syriac Manuscripts In The British Museum Acquired Since The Year 1838, 1870, Part I, Printed by order of the Trustees: London, No. XCIV, pp. 65-66. This book was republished in 2002 by Gorgias Press.
- Th. Nöldeke, "Zur Geschichte Der Araber Im 1, Jahrh. d.H. Aus Syrischen Quellen", Zeitschrift Der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 1876, Volume 29, p. 76.
- W. Wright, Catalogue Of Syriac Manuscripts In The British Museum Acquired Since The Year 1838, 1872, Part III, Printed by order of the Trustees: London, No. DCCCCXIII, pp. 1040-1041
- A. Palmer (with contributions from S. P. Brock and R. G. Hoyland), The Seventh Century In The West-Syrian Chronicles Including Two Seventh-Century Syriac Apocalyptic Texts, 1993, op. cit., pp. 5-6; R. G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey And Evaluation Of Christian, Jewish And Zoroastrian Writings On Early Islam, 1997, op. cit., pp. 118-119
- A. Palmer (with contributions from S. Brock and R. G. Hoyland), The Seventh Century In The West-Syrian Chronicles Including Two Seventh-Century Syriac Apocalyptic Texts, 1993, op. cit., pp. 18-19; Also see R. G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey And Evaluation Of Christian, Jewish And Zoroastrian Writings On Early Islam, 1997, op. cit., p. 119 and p. 120
- A. Palmer (with contributions from S. P. Brock and R. G. Hoyland), The Seventh Century In The West-Syrian Chronicles Including Two Seventh-Century Syriac Apocalyptic Texts, 1993, op. cit., p. 19, note 119; Also see R. G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey And Evaluation Of Christian, Jewish And Zoroastrian Writings On Early Islam, 1997, op. cit., p. 120, note 14
- R. G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey And Evaluation Of Christian, Jewish And Zoroastrian Writings On Early Islam, 1997, op. cit., p. 120
- R. G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey And Evaluation Of Christian, Jewish And Zoroastrian Writings On Early Islam, 1997, op. cit., p. 128
- R. W. Thomson (with contributions from J. Howard-Johnson & T. Greenwood), The Armenian History Attributed To Sebeos Part - I: Translation and Notes, 1999, Translated Texts For Historians - Volume 31, Liverpool University Press, pp. 95-96. Other translations can also be seen in P. Crone & M. Cook, Hagarism: The Making Of The Islamic World, 1977, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, pp. 6-7; R. G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey And Evaluation Of Christian, Jewish And Zoroastrian Writings On Early Islam, 1997, op. cit., p. 129; idem., "Sebeos, The Jews And The Rise Of Islam" in R. L. Nettler (Ed.), Medieval And Modern Perspectives On Muslim-Jewish Relations, 1995, Harwood Academic Publishers GmbH in cooperation with the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, p. 89
- R. W. Thomson (with contributions from J. Howard-Johnson & T. Greenwood), The Armenian History Attributed To Sebeos Part - II: Historical Commentary, 1999, Translated Texts For Historians - Volume 31, Liverpool University Press, p. 238
- Toby Lester: What Is the Koran? in: The Atlantic issue January 1999. Alexander Stille: Scholars Are Quietly Offering New Theories of the Koran, New York Times 02 March 2002. François de Blois, Islam in its Arabian Context, S. 615, in: The Qur'an in Context, ed. by Angelika Neuwirth etc., 2010. Judith Herrin, Patricia Crone: memoir of a superb Islamic Scholar, openDemocracy 12 July 2015. Patricia Crone: What do we actually know about Mohammed?, openDemocracy 10 June 2008
- Wim Raven, Introduction on a translation of Islamic texts into Dutch by Ibn Ishaq, Het leven van Muhammad (The life of Muhammad), ISBN 90-5460-056-X.
- Cook, Michael (1996). Muhammad. Oxford University Press. pp. 73–76. ISBN 0192876058.
- Crone, Patricia (10 June 2008). "What do we actually know about Mohammed?". Open Democracy.
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- Andrew Higgins (16 November 2008). "Islamic Theologian Says Prophet Muhammad Likely Never Existed - WSJ". WSJ.
- "The historicity of Muhammad, Aisha and who knows who else". trykkefrihed.dk.
- Volker Popp, "Bildliche Darstellungen aus der Frühzeit des Islam (IV)" imprimatur 5+6/2004. Voker Popp, "Die frühe Islamgeschichte nach inschriftlichen und numismatischen Zeugnissen" in Ohlig (ed.), Die dunklen Anfänge. Neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und frühen Geschichte des Islam, Berlin 2005, 16–123 (here pp. 63ff).
- Christoph Heger, 'yā muhammad ̣ – kein „o MOHAMMED“, und wer ist ‛alī?', in Groß and Ohlig (eds.), Schlaglichter: Die beiden ersten islamischen Jahrhunderte, Berlin (Verlag Hans Schiler) 2008, pp. 278-292.
- Donner, Fred McGraw (May 1998). Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing. Darwin Press, Incorporated. ISBN 0878501274.
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- Crone, Patricia; Cook, Michael (1977). Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29754-0.