River

the word Mohammadanism or " Hagarism" are not proper terms for describing Islam.


How whould Christians feel if their religion was now called " Saraism" after Sarai/ Sara

or How would Jews feel if their religion was called erroneously Mosaicity/ Mosainism ?


And lastly , Ibn Warraq is overrated. The guy wasnt even Muslim to begin with....he is just pretending to be an ex-muslim to get cash from western outlets as well as being an instigater.

Peter Kirby

And some people like to call skeptics "misotheists." I agree that groups generally should get to name themselves.

Ad hominem. Besides, nobody in this discussion has appealed to him as an authority. I pointed out, as criticism, that Zindler seems to be overly dependent on two books compiled by Ibn Warraq. This makes me wonder how many non-Muslims are working in the field of Islamic origins. Do you know the names of some of the significant researchers?

Also, to bring us back to the subject of the original post, do you know of any evidence that points to the existence of a historical Muhammad?

best,
Peter Kirby

Sauron

Well, let me take a stab at this. After I'm through, let me know if I have answered your question or not.

Let's say you're trying to validate a particular hadith. It involves events in a city, say Samarqand. In the process of evaluating the isnad, the Islamic researcher would have gone to Samarqand to try and interview anyone who had first or second hand knowledge of the events.

In fact, there were hagiographers that spent their lives detailing the minutiae of each human "link" in the isnad, describing the level of the person's piety, their occupation, their friends, etc. in an effort to fully document the link in the chain of isnad.

And of course, if the event has testable claims, those could also be verified - if it mentioned a swamp at the edge of the city of Samarqand, then it could be verified that such a swamp existed.

Is this what you are asking for? Or are you talking about independent 3rd party external sources?

net2002

The Origins Of The Koran: Classic Essays On Islam's Holy Book, François de Blois says:

The "classic essays" are of unequal value. The worst is St. Clair Tisdall's decidedly shoddy piece of missionary propaganda. The two by Mingana are not much better. It is surprising that the editor, who in his Why I Am Not A Muslim took a very high posture as a critical rationalist and opponent of all forms of obscurantism, now relies so heavily on writings by Christian polemicists from the nineteenth century.[3]

François de Blois, "Review of Ibn Warraq's The Origins Of The Koran: Classic Essays On Islam's Holy Book", Journal Of The Royal Asiatic Society, 2000, Volume 10, Part 11, p. 88.


Herbert Berg

http://people.uncw.edu/bergh/par246/syllabusstar.htm


1) As to the question of the historicity of Muhammad, there is at
least one non-Muslim reference made to him ( and his new faith) during
his life time. The details are to be found in:

R.G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others saw It, (Princeton, 1977)

2) As for the question of Quranic authenticity, I refer you to:

Estelle Whelan, "Forgotten Witness: Evidence For The Early
Codification Of The Qur'an", Journal Of The American Oriental Society,
1998, Volume 118, No. 1, pp. 1-14.

Even if you were to reject all hadith, you can still argue that the
Quran we have is that which Muhammd put together; the argument is made
by,

John Burton, The Collection Of The Qur an, 1977, Cambridge University
Press

Though for a more sober treatment authenticity of Quran, Hadith and
Muhammad I would suggest the works of Harald Motzki:

a)"The Musannaf of `Abd al-Razzâq al-San`ânî as a source of authentic
ahâdîth of the first Islamic century", in: Journal of Near Eastern
Studies 50 (1991), 1-21.

b)"The Collection of the Qur'ân: A Reconsideration of Western Views in
Light of Recent Methodological Developments", in: Der Islam 78 (2001)

c) The Biography of the Prophet Mohammed: the Issue of the Sources,
(Islamic History and Civilization), Leiden: Brill, 2000.

I hope this helps.

Doctor X

Sauron:

Yes. The problem is that I am limited by my ignorance--I find the attestations rather suspicious--like a "church father" attesting to the authenticity of a gospel two hundred years after the fact--however, I do not know if that is the case with the material you cite.

Guess I will have to take my own advice and hit the books.

The problem, I think, is for many of us it is hard to separate the polemical from the scholarly unless you know the field. For example, if someone wants to learn about the NT, walks into Barnes 'n Borders, and picks up a book by Sobel . . . well . . . there you go. Unless he knows better--or has someone tell him--he may wander off into ridiculousness.

Thus, I would hate to try to read a history of Islam and find out, in the middle, that it is really the writing of an apologist or an anti-Islamic writer. Neither cases are helpful.

Anyways, I will check out net2002's link and references.

--J.D.

DMB

If this is typical of River's knowledge, I think we can safely discount it. I know Ibn Warraq and can testify to his muslim upbringing. Furthermore, he has made financial sacrifices to pursue his studies. Spending years on research does not bring in the dollars. Since the books Peter Kirby has cited in another thread, he has produced What the Koran Really Says, a study of the language of the koran, which I am currently reading with interest.

The point about the inclusion of 19th-century scholars in the earlier books was that a lot of this work had become virtually unavailable, having been out of print for a long time. In some cases he had to translate writings from other languages into English. I would point out that in both The Origins of the Koran and in The Quest there is no "party line". The different authors brought together do not all agree with one another. What they do share is an approach to koranic scholarship akin to that of biblical scholars, which is missing in most muslim studies, which view the koran as virtually untouchable.

It is of course, very difficult for contemporary muslims to practise objective study of the koran or the hadith, given the threats under which "blasphemers" or apostates labour. Most of the latter are obliged to use pseudonyms as a measure of protection.

net2002

According to [Bernard Lewis, Islam In History, 1993, Open Court Publishing,
pp. 104-105.]


"From an early date Muslim scholars recognized the danger of false
testimony and hence false doctrine, and developed an elaborate science for
criticizing tradition. "Traditional science", as it was called, differed
in many respects from modern historical source criticism, and modern
scholarship has always disagreed with evaluations of traditional
scientists about the authenticity and accuracy of ancient narratives. But
their careful scrutiny of the chains of transmission and their meticulous
collection and preservation of variants in the transmitted narratives give
to medieval Arabic historiography a professionalism and sophistication
without precedent in antiquity and without parallel in the contemporary
medieval West. By comparison, the historiography of Latin Christendom
seems poor and meagre, and even the more advanced and complex
historiography of Greek Christendom still falls short of the historical
literature of Islam in volume, variety and analytical depth."



2. [W Montgomery Watt, What Is Islam?, 1968, Longman, Green and Co. Ltd., pp.
124-125.]



3. [2] W Muir, The Life Of Mohammad, 1912, Edinburgh, John Grant, pp. xxii-xxiii.


4. [4] Cyril Glasse, The Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1989, Stacey International, London, p. 232.

5.[5] Andrew Rippin (Ed.), Approaches Of The History of Interpretation Of The Qur'an, 1988, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 34.


6. some guy called Adrian Brocklet deals with the Qur'anic qiraat.

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Qur...aat/green.html

River

What's this supposed to mean? I know more about Islam's origins than Ibn Warraq. If you like Ibn Warraq , thats great ....he appears to be an "idol" for many.

River

Ibn Warraq, in my opinion, is a sentimental fool similar to the notorious Tashlema Nazzrin of Bangladesh ( who does not possess the ability or mental acuity to separate culture from religion) . Ibn Warraq's muslim upbringing is irrelevant. An upbringing does not make a person.

DMB

The point is, River, that you posted untruths about Ibn Warraq, without attempting to give any evidence.