This thesis is a comparative study of three spiritual female models recognized in the Islamic tradition: Maryam, the mother of `Isa, Khadija, the Prophet Muh&dotbelow;ammad's first wife, and Fat&dotbelow;ima, the Prophet's daughter. Although comparisons between these three women occur frequently in the Islamic literature of different periods, this research focuses on two works of the famous exegete and historian Abu Ja`far al-T&dotbelow;abari (d. 310/923), i.e., Jami` al-Bayan `an Ta'wil al-Qur'an and Ta'rikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk . In the light of textual analysis of al-T&dotbelow;abari's depiction of these three women, it appears that their images contribute towards the formation of an ideal type of the believing Muslim woman. Maryam, Khadija and Fat&dotbelow;ima are consistently characterized by their obedience, motherhood and purity. This thesis analyzes al-T&dotbelow;abari's comments on, and understanding of, each of these virtues. It also argues that the comparison between these three women, as found in al-T&dotbelow;abari's works, serves a wider religious purpose. Paradoxically, Khadija's and Fat&dotbelow;ima's comparison with Maryam allowed the early exegetes to establish Islam's continuity with respect to the existing monotheistic religions and, at the same time, to affirm its superiority over them.

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This study deals with the characteristics of Arabic historiography in Iraq down to the time of Abu Ja'fer Tabari (d. 310/923). The historical annals of Taberi provide both the specific focus of the study and a methodological approach. Since Tabari's work may be regarded as an anthology of the writings of the early historians, our first question concerns the characteristics of Iraqi historiography as they are reflected in the annals. Then we are concerned with the ways in which Tabari's work differed from his predecessors. Part One of the study comprises a historical survey of the main historians of the period including Tabari. Part two deals with certain specific characteristics of history writing, suoh as the khabar element, based upon illustrative material provided by a translated portion of the annals, which itself appears as an Appendix to the study. Again drawing upon the translated material, we deal with certain problems, such as the nature of the sources, with which Tabari was confronted in compiling his own work.

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Reports relating supernatural events - or miracles - in the life of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 11/632) have been traditionally either ignored by those modern scholars attempting to determine the historicity of the source material or have been studied piecemeal in an attempt to determine their origins by those scholars who see them as secondary additions. The current study will examine both the sira/ta'rikh, the story of Muḥammad's life as told within larger works of universal history, and tafsir, exegetical, works of two medieval Muslim scholars, al-T&dotbelow;abari (d. 310/923) and Ibn Kathir (d. 773/1373), to attempt to determine how the reports of the supernatural fit into the story of Muḥammad's life as a whole. The result is that there is both a supernatural and mundane archetype for the life of Muḥammad, and that they appear to mirror each other almost perfectly. Whereas the story begins with God performing all the miracles for Muḥammad's benefit, by the time of his death in Medina, Muḥammad has completed his mastery over the forces of the supernatural, even to the point where it appears that God performs miracles directly in response to Muḥammad's prayers. Thus, as Muḥammad gained more control over the movement he founded, he gained an equal amount of control over the forces of the supernatural. Both al-T&dotbelow;abari and Ibn Kathir include reports that contain the supernatural archetype, but also include reports that diverge from it in important ways. While there is not one, overall theory to explain why each author made the changes he did to the supernatural archetype of Muḥammad's life, the examples in the following chapters indicate that the role of the supernatural versus the mundane, the politicization of the archetype, and authorial opinion were important to each scholar and help to support the argument that the miracle stories are integral to the life of Muḥammad as a whole, and deserve to be studied as such.

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