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Sadr al-Din Qunavi (605/1207-673AH/1274 CE)--stepson and pupil of Ibn $ rm sp{c}$Arabi (d. 638 AH/1240 CE)--played a pivotal role in the development of Islamic intellectual history. His contributions in the medieval period helped alter the course of mystico-philosophical tradition, which was then flourishing from Asia Minor and Persia to the major learning centers of the Arabic-speaking world. His importance was largely due to the complex mystical doctrine he expounded in the light of Ibn Sina's critique of knowledge. The age-old dilemma of knowledge was encapsulated in a famous declaration by Ibn Sina--the rationalist philosopher--who asserted that man is incapable of knowing intellectually "the realities of things," let alone the First Being. This did not imply that the realities were either unknowable in every sense, or that they did not exist. The question is in what sense and how are they knowable? It was Ibn Sina's special calling, Qunavi argued, to show the proper role and scope of reason in this quest. Philosophical knowledge may be represented chiefly through demonstrative logic, the only paradigm available to Ibn Sina. Qunavi on the other hand, set out to develop an exegetical grammar more suited to the movements of spiritual dialogue and paradox. For him, an intellectual knowledge of the "realities," in essence, rested on the relation between two distinct realities (subject and object). Yet all agreed that God's knowledge of Himself was the root of all knowledge. It had to transform utterly the distinction between the two realities. God's self-revelation is furthermore an unfolding book divulged through the infinite possibilities of linguistic construction. Mysticism's technical vocabulary had, therefore, to distinguish itself from, though without displacing, the bare skeleton of demonstrative logic.

La ṣaḥīfa de Médine, a suscité l’attention des érudits occidentaux depuis la deuxième moitié du dix-neuvième siècle,à un tel point que P.L. Rose la considère comme « une struc- ture squelettique » qui contrôle les rapports de la Sīra. Elle a été préservée grâce à deux historiographes du 3ème/9ème siècle : Ibn Hishām et Abū ‘Ubayd ; la recherche contemporaine la place, dans l’ensemble, dans les cinq premières années de l’hégire. Elle illustre clairement, à travers ses variantes présentes et dans le texte lui- même et dans sa chaîne de transmission, les aléas, forcément dommageable,du passage d’une culture de l’oralité à l’écrit. L’accès à l’écrit n’était pas si simple que nous avons toujours cru. Le tournant capital était,lorsque le Barmakide, Ja‘far Ibn Yaḥya (m. 187/803), introduit, vers la fin du 8e/ début du 9e siècle, l’usage du papier dans les bureaux officiels. Cette réforme est due au coût moins élevé de cette matière,et notamment à l’impossibilité de gratter ou laver le papier, à l’inverse du papyrus et du parchemin. Cette Ṣaḥīfa a été fondamentalement produite durant la période prophétique,mais elle a été sans doute modifiée postérieurement,en rajoutant des paragraphes, omettant d’autres, en rajoutant des paragraphes, omettant d’autres, et en particulier en réorgani-sant ces derniers d’une façon qui ne se conforme pas toujours à son classement initial. Ce Texte nous fournit également les connotations originales des grands termes islamiques, comme mu’min et kāfir. / The Ṣaḥīfa of Medina, has drawn the attention of the Western scholars since the second half of the nineteenth century, to such an extent that P. L. Rose considers it as a “skeletal structure’’, which controls the veracity of Sīra-reports. It has been preserved thanks to two historiographers of the 3rd/9thcentury : Ibn Hishām and Abū ‘Ubayd ; the contemporary research situates it, on the whole, in the first five years of Hijra.It clearly illustrates, through its variants present in the text itself as well as in the chain of transmission, the vagaries, necessarily harmful, moving from an oral transmission, culture to a written one. The access to the writing was not so simple that we have always believed. The crucial turning point was when the Barmakid Ja‛far Ibn Yaḥya, (d. 187/803), introduced, by the end of the 8th/ beginning of the9th century, the usage of the paper in the government offices. This reform was due to the ower cost of this material and in parti- cular to the impossibility of scratching or washing paper, unlike papyrus and parchment.This Ṣaḥīfa wasfundamentally produced during the Prophet’s life time, however it was doubtless modified later, adding paragraphs,deleting others, and particularly organizing them in a way thatdoes not always comply with its initial ranking. This Text provides too original connota- tions of great Islamic words,like mu’min and kāfir.

Si ra-maghazi, which tells of the life of the Prophet and the early Islamic community, is not a historical genre. A literary mode which has its origins in an oral transmission, it is essentially hagiographic in spirit. The literature carries some unique characteristics. Constituted of numerous individual traditions juxtaposed one next to the other, it is--other than for those key events that have become mythologized--essentially dependent on the compiler and his purpose for its layout. / This dissertation explores the genre through a comparative case study of Muhammad and the Jews as narrated in the Kitab si rat rasul Allah of lbn Ishaq and the Kitab al-maghazi of al-Waqidi. Appreciating the interpretation of the individual compiler concerned, it compares, in terms of method, structure, sources, chronology, and style, their different approaches to the subject of the early establishment of Islam. The differences reinforce the argument for appreciating si ra-maghazi as literary rather than a historical genre. More importantly, they bring into focus the tendentious nature of si ra-maghazi to understand why neither one of these texts may be used to substantiate the information in the other.

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