A Critique of Uri Rubin’s View on the Names and Titles of the Prophet (s)

It is the duty of every Muslim to defend the religion, and religious scholars are at the forefront of this endeavor. One of the things that Islam is constantly under threat by is the output of research on religion by of Orientalists. The article on Muḥammad (s) published in the Leiden Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān has a small section devoted to the names and titles of Prophet Muḥammad (s). This study intends to address the shortcomings and ambiguities of the article, authored by Uri Rubin, by examining the section on Muḥammad’s names and titles. In this paper, Rubin’s article is examined in two parts, with the author’s explanations evaluated after examining the statements of Muslim exegetes and historians. The conclusion shows that Uri Rubin has not followed the correct research methodology and therefore, his writing has some shortcomings. Some of the shortcomings of Rubin’s article are: the lack of attention to Shīʿī sources, the use of the word ‘probably’ where most commentators have no doubt, and claims that are based on divergent and anomalous beliefs.