Vorkosigan

Ryan, what are the major works of Wellinghausen and Crone I should read to get a good understanding of the methodological and evidentiary issues they raise? Also, what's the URL for your own writings on the historicity of Mohammed?

Vorkosigan

RyanS2

Crone raises the objections of an ahistorical model, and her work there is brilliant. The reconstruction she makes based upon available positive eidence is very loosely reconstructed, simply because we have almost none. As you know, work in the Middle East is somewhat difficult, given that unfriendly people in unfriendly times are over there now.

The Qur'an and Hadith are pretty much the only literature available from that time period, and the mentionings from Roman, Greek, and Indian sources are slight.

A good place to start is the work of Lawrence Conrad, on his study of the Hadith, (see "The Conquest of Arwad" and "The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source Critical Study"). He writes that "In historical terms, this corpus of material tells us little that does not disentegrate upon closer historiographic inspection."

In his study, the Arwad Traditions were shaped by what the author thought, and by what the audience wanted to hear, with each successive stage having further redactions.

Next, Crone and Hinds, "God's Caliph", which shows on page 24 that: "documentary evidence from the Safyanid period, (661-684) makes no mention of the messenger of God at all. The papyri do not refer to him. Arabic inscriptions invoke Allah, not his rasul."

Then we go to Muir, "Life of Mahomet", which states that "even respectably derived traditions often contain much that was exaggerated and fabulous."

Visiting Schact, "Origins of Muhammadan Jurprudence", and the work of S.P. Tolstov, we find that Muhammad was basically invented as a literary figure which resembled a shaman, such as Muhammad having water poured over him. Muhammad was recast as a modern Age Moses, having an Exodus, (hijra), revelation (koran), and a sacred Arabian mountain, (Mt. Hira).

In order to get this material, it had to be borrowed rapidly from older traditions, according to G. Laling, "Uber Der Urkoran", so 1/3 of it pre-exists the Qur'an.

We do know Muhammad existed though, because of the Doctrina Iacobi, (circa 636 CE), which is a Greek tract against the Jews, which talks about Muhammad being alive at the time in Palestine. This is two years post-death of Muhammad, as the Hadith have Muhammad dying, meaning it again demonstrates unreliability. The Khuzistan Syriac Chronicle, (circa 670's), mentions Muhammad as the ruler of the Arabs, but neither source talks about the Arabs as having a religion or a holy book. Neither does Ben Pehkatei, or Jacob of Edessa, both late seventh century.

The most famous book by Patricia Crone is her and Michael Cook's book, which gives a good review of John Wansbrough and other sources. Another of her books "Slaves on White Horses", gives a historical revision of Islam.

Hope that helps.

Vorkosigan

Thanks, Ryan

Peter Kirby

I read Michael Cook's Muhammad and enjoyed it very much.

best,
Peter Kirby

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Peter Kirby ]</p>

godfry n. glad

I, too, appreciate the leads.

Since I've recently begun one of his works, are Ibn Warraq's books, _The Quest for the Historical Muhammad_ and _Origins of the Koran_, decent resources?

Best,

godfry n. glad

RyanS2

Origins of the Qur'an can be obtained for free, (pretty much), through the internet. Just type in "Reverend Tisdall" and you should get Rev. Tisdall's book about the origins of the Qur'an, which Warraq is heavily dependant upon. The book used to be very rare, but thanks to the internet, it's fairly well-known now.

The Quest for the Historical Muhammad, however, simply shouldn't be missed. It combines criticisms from Russia, medieval Muslims, Christians, secular sources, and so forth, and combines them into a single coherant ahistorical argument. A word of warning though, it's almost completely ahistorical. You'll read 500 pages or so of information to find out that what we really know is about 15 first-source inscriptions, and we speculate after that.