sotto voce

What is this word 'I'? What is it doing here? :frown:

Muhammad's existence could be a myth, yes. But, if one could establish that Muhammad did not exist, one could more easily say that at least some of Moses, Gautama and Jesus did not exist. Why is that?

It's because somebody, or some bodies, wrote the Qur'an. It's commonly supposed that Muhammad was responsible (though not in this forum). Now what is the Qur'an concerned with? Does it record a completely new revelation to mankind? Or does it reflect upon the records of others, such as Moses, Gautama, Jesus etc.? Because, if the latter, it tends to validate any others, such as Moses, Gautama, Jesus etc. that it mentions as having had real, historic existence. One would not found a new religion, that was to be taken seriously, that was premised upon existing beliefs, unless those beliefs were taken seriously. Gautama was taken seriously; but not in Arabia, which was where the Qur'an seems to have originated, being written in Arabic. Was Moses taken seriously? Yes, Moses was taken very seriously, from Cadiz to Persia. Was Jesus taken seriously? Yes, from Ireland to China. So seriously that most of Europe had been made to recognise him. The Qur'an does not mention Gautama, but does mention Moses and Jesus, and many more associates, many times. So, the existence of the Qur'an tends to validate the existence of Moses and Jesus, and their associates.

Whoever wrote it.

mountainman

Posted in another thread, relevant here:

Some extremely interesting and cogent points are raised by Tom Holland in his recent book: In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Some interesting interviews are available such as:

Tom Holland: In the Shadow of the Sword

Does anyone see a parallel between this and the city of Nazareth ?




Also, Tom Holland's website has some interesting articles, such as Xty and Europe



Unless, of course, the Kingdom of Heaven actually somehow descended from the skies at the Council of Nicaea c,324/325 CE, when the servants of Jesus fought for the Christian Kingdom of Heaven.

sotto voce

'Was Jesus taken seriously? Yes, from Ireland to China. So seriously that most of Europe had been made to recognise him.'

That's relevant here.

Now even if we imagine that Jesus was an invention of Constantine, he predated Muhammad, or the Arabic source of the 7th century attributed to him. So even if a fantasy of Constantine was taken as real historic events, the author(s) of the Qur'an were sufficiently motivated to contradict it!

mountainman

Conversion to the respective centralised monotheistic state religious cults was definitely enforced with bloodshed.


I have only examined Holland's stuff superficially, but so far it appears his overall thesis is about the emergence of monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He has authored a book about Persia, so he probably has written about Ardashir as well.

The stories of Jesus and Muhammad were probably both cooked up centuries after their purported earthly existence by powerful military regimes in order to keep the peasants in line, and to monopolise an empire wide religion, disposing of any grass roots religious ideologies in the process.

I particularly like Tom Holland's remark:

... history might be a nightmare from which we have not, after all, woken up.

sotto voce

Tritheism was enforced. Islam had the provenance of a dream.

The strongest nation is imagination.

:hobbyhorse:

We don't have any intention of waking up, do we. The strongest nation is imagination.

Huon

Muhammad is a name which was very unfrequent before the prophet. Muhammad means "the praised", and it could have been a title. However, christianity knows of titles transformed into names : for instance, Benedict (16 of course...), the blessed. Another remark is that this title "the praised" is found in Syriac.

The father of Muhammad was called Abdallah, the servant (the slave) of Allah. Abdallah died before the birth of Muhammad. How could he bear the name of the unique God of his future son ? Possibly, Allah could be the name of "a god", undefined. It could also be a christian name. The greek name Theodoulos is the exact translation for Abdallah.

The mother of Muhammad was called Amina, the loyal, the faithful, the trusty. This name is not especially muslim, it could also be used by other religions. The origin of this name is the word "amen".

sotto voce

Or Bent Edicts. Christians know about those.

"Be on your guard against false prophets; they come to you looking like sheep on the outside, but on the inside they are really like wild wolves. You will know them by what they do."' Mt 7:15-16 GNB

'Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.' Mt 24:11 NIV

'Some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.' Gal 2:4 NIV

'They are false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ. Well, no wonder! Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light! So it is no great thing if his servants disguise themselves to look like servants of righteousness.' 2 Co 11:13-15 GNB

'But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them — bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up.' 2 Pe 2:1-3 NIV

'Test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.' 1 Jn 4:1 NIV

'Of course such rules appear to be based on wisdom in their forced worship of angels, and false humility, and severe treatment of the body; but they have no real value in controlling physical passions.' Col 2:23 GNB

'People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — having a form of godliness but denying its power.' 2 Ti 3:2-5 NIV

Pamela Spencer

For a scripture that is oft-heralded as the very word of God (the bastion of Truth and the beacon of Light) by a myriad of Christians, the aforementioned verses are in no way definitive--- Taken together, they lack clarity and the utmost precision! Note that the Bible is warning against "many" false prophets (not that ALL prophets succeeding the Christ would fall into such a category). Even the prophet Muhammad warned about the coming of "many" false prophets.

Also, the verse Col 2:23 GNB is most probably attributable to the Yazidis. The Yazidis worship the angels, directly (not the Muslims).

sotto voce

That's not true. Though, who needs a book? Some Christian missioners were travelling to an African township recently, and were stopped by armed Muslims, who made them turn back. That's not unusual.

Duvduv

Allah may have been the name of a god or the monotheistic God worshipped in Arabia before Mohammed.
Anyway, an earlier source mentioning the Muslims in the mid-8th century was John of Damascus. He wrote about the "Heresy of the Ishmaelites":
http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/stjohn_islam.aspx