Reception
During the early centuries of Islam, the sīra literature was taken less seriously compared to Hadith. In Umayyad times, storytellers (qaṣṣ, or pl. quṣṣāṣ) used to tell stories of Muhammad and earlier prophets in private gatherings and mosques, given they obtain permission from the authorities. Many of these storytellers are now unknown. After the Umayyad period, their reputation deteriorated because of their inclination to exaggerate and fantasize, and for relying on the Isra'iliyat. Thus they were banned from preaching at mosques. In later periods, however, works of sīra became more prominent. More recently, western historical criticism and debate concerning sīra have elicited a defensive attitude from some Muslims who wrote apologetic literature defending its content.
Read more about this topic: Prophetic Biography
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)