Muhammad's body: Prophetic assemblages and the baraka network
[Thesis]
Michael Muhammad Knight
Hammer, Juliane
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2016
260
Committee members: Boon, Jessica; Ernst, Carl W.; Lucas, Scott C.; Safi, Omid
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-369-01460-0
Ph.D.
Religious Studies
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2016
This dissertation examines representations of Muhammad in early Sunnī biographical (sira) literature and hadith collections, focusing on the ways in which these sources describe Muhammad's body. A significant gap persists between Islamic studies and contemporary theories of the body. Additionally, within Islamic studies engagements of gender and explorations of Muslim masculinities remain critically underdeveloped. This dissertation begins to address those gaps, employing contemporary theories of the body as a framework for exploring representations of Muhammad, thus contributing to studies of the hadith and biographical literature beyond the question of their historical authenticity. With attention to the Deleuzo-Guattarian question, "What can a body do?" it tracks change in the sources' representation of Muhammad's bodily boundaries, powers, and limits, exploring the ways in which his body enables connections to other bodies toward the achievement of a greater body with expanded powers, a prophetic assemblage.
Religion; Islamic Studies; Gender studies
Philosophy, religion and theology;Social sciences;Abjection;Baraka;Body;Deleuze;Hadith;Muhammad