Muḥammad and the golden bough
Subtitle: reconstructing Arabian myth
By: Jaroslav Stetkevych.
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Bloomington
Language: eng
Number of pages: 169
Subjects: Muḥammad, Prophet, d. 632 -- Legends; Mythology, Arab; Thamud (Arabian people); Mythology -- Comparative studies
Description: The richness of myth in Arab-Islamic culture has long been ignored or even denied. In Muhammad and the Golden Bough Jaroslav Stetkevych demonstrates the existence of a coherent pre-Islamic Arabian myth that was subsequently incorporated into Islamic poetic tradition and the Dur'an.

The book dissects the intriguing Arab-Islamic myth built around Muhammad's unearthing of a "golden bough" from the grave of the last survivor of an ancient Arab people, the Thamud, who, according to the myth, were destroyed by a divine scourge for their iniquity. In the myth the episode of the slaying of the she-camel of the prophet Salih, which precipitates the downfall of the Thamud, is symbolically linked with Muhammad, the discoverer of the golden bough.

. Through its development of a methodology for analyzing the mythic and folkloric material of pre-Islamic Arabia and the process of its incorporation into Islamic myth and Qur'anic exegesis, Muhammad and the Golden Bough offers compelling insights for students of Islam, comparative religion, and anthropology.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [155]-163) and index.