Professor Stresses Quran’s Primacy in Understanding Prophet’s Era
“The earliest source we have for the life of the Prophet is the Quran itself and I believe the Quran is early,” Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan, said while addressing an online lecture hosted by the Inekas Institute.
The professor, who has also authored a book about the Prophet titled Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires, challenged long-held assumptions about how scholars reconstruct the Prophet’s biography.
He argued that privileging later sources — many written 150 to 200 years after the Prophet’s time — could distort the historical picture. “Memory changes over time,” he noted. “And I believe that later accounts were influenced by events of the Abbasid period.”
The professor stressed that many of the most widely circulated stories in medieval biographies of the Prophet have no grounding in the Quran. Instead, he said, the scripture offers a more reliable account of the Prophet’s leadership, particularly during the years 628 to 630, when peace with the Meccan pagans became possible.
“For instance, I believe the Quran disallows offensive warfare, that only defensive warfare is committed in the Quran,” he said. “This is not what the Abbasids thought.”
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Citing verse 94 of Surah An-Nisa, the professor explained that Muslims were instructed not to deny peace to those who greeted them with peace. “If they greet you with peace, you have to greet them with peace,” he said.
This emphasis, he argued, undermines later narratives that paint early Islam as inherently expansionist.
The Quran, he suggested, even reflects a pragmatic tolerance toward pagans. “At one point, it says don’t curse the gods of the pagans because they’ll curse Allah in turn,” he noted. “Every people thinks their own gods are beautiful.”
The Geopolitical Context
Placing these revelations in a wider historical frame, the professor pointed to the great war between Byzantium and the Sasanian Empire. In 627, Roman Emperor Heraclius defeated the forces of Khosrow II.
“I read the Quran to say that the victory of the Romans will be considered the victory of God and that the believers will rejoice at it,” he said, citing verses 2-5 of Surah Ar-Rum.
He argued that the Quran shows sympathy for the Romans and considered the Sasanians the aggressors. This geopolitical tilt, he said, helps explain why the Quraysh of Mecca — allegedly allied with the Sassanians — grew more willing to negotiate once their imperial backer collapsed.
The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah
By 628, the professor explained, this new context created an opening for negotiation. Later Islamic biographies recount that the Prophet led his followers to the outskirts of Mecca for pilgrimage, where they were stopped by Quraysh forces. Rather than fight, the Prophet initiated talks that led to the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah.
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The professor highlighted how the Prophet’s pragmatism shone through in these negotiations. According to the accounts, when Meccan leaders refused to include the phrase “the Merciful, the Compassionate” in the treaty preamble, the Prophet agreed to a more neutral formula.
“It seems clear that the Prophet is depicted as valuing the possibility of peace more than standing on these principles,” the professor said.
Peaceful Entry into Mecca
Two years later, in 630, the Prophet and his followers entered Mecca. Many later sources describe this as a military conquest. But the professor argued otherwise.
“I think the Quran makes it clear that this entry into Mecca is peaceful,” he said, quoting verses that describe how “God withheld their hands from you and your hands from them in the heart of Mecca.”
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He contrasted this with traditions preserved by later families, such as the Zubayrids, who claimed their ancestor carried a battle standard into Mecca. “The Quran is the primary source and it says there was no fighting,” the professor insisted.
“This tendency of the later tradition to read militancy into early Islam is consistent, and we have to revise our idea of the religion in light of what the Quran says.”
Beyond Arabia
The lecture also touched on Islam’s early spread beyond the Hijaz. Drawing on reports from the historian Tabari, the professor described how Yemen’s Sasanian governors may have embraced Islam through persuasion rather than conquest.
He suggested the Quran itself hints at dialogue with Zoroastrians, whom it lists alongside Jews and Christians.
“It may be a sign that in the time of the Prophet, there was proselytization of Zoroastrians and an attempt to bring them into the new religion,” he said. Elements of Iranian culture, he added, seem to have shaped the Quran’s descriptions of paradise.
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In closing, the professor reflected on how the Quran frames the believers’ peaceful return to Mecca. “The believers, after they have entered Mecca peacefully and re-established their worship of the one God at the Kaaba, have come to exemplify the religious and moral virtues of the previous dispensations,” he said.
For the professor, this underscores his central point: the Quran must remain the primary lens through which the Prophet’s mission is understood. “We have to read later sources with suspicion,” he concluded. “Where there’s a contradiction, we have to prefer the Quran.”
Please note that the content reflects the views of the scholar and does not necessarily represent the views of the International Quran News Agency.
Reporting by Mohammad Ali Haqshenas
