lpetrich

A certain Ibn Warraq, in some recent books, discusses some interesting revisionism about Islam's origins. I'm not sure what sites would be a good place to look for more details; one good one is the this Koran-origins page.

Here is an approximate summary:

Much of the Koran is older than Islam, having been used by various Jewish and Christian sects. The older parts, at least, are a collection of legal, liturgical, and anecdotal material that had been in Syriac a.k.a. Aramaic before being translated into Arabic. This is deduced from how the Arabic versions of names and such are closest to the Syriac versions and not (say) the Hebrew or the Greek versions. Thus, the houris, those lovely ladies a Muslim male will get in Paradise, had originally been white raisins (hur) to stuff oneself with.

It was gradually adopted as a religious text by the Arab conquerors of the 600's and 700's, as a result of their trying to create a distinct identity for themselves. And as part of that creating, they ended up creating a founder figure for their new religion -- Mohammed. One whose biography paralleled the biographies of other prophets like Abraham and Moses. And one who was associated with some traditional Arab shrines all the way over in Mecca and Medina. Which explains why various bits of paganism, like veneration of the Black Stone of the Kaaba, got Islamic interpretations. And why Muslims had originally prayed in the direction of Jerusalem instead of Mecca (there is some evidence of that from very old mosques). And why Mecca had not been the big trading center that Islamic histories portray it as having been.

The historical Mohammed may have been a prophet or a leader early in the Arab conquests; however, he was turned into the receiver of the Koran and an inhabitant of Mecca and Medina. And many of his biographical details were invented to explain bits of the Koran that had become obscure over the years and decades.

Such storytelling continued, resulting in the accumulation of an enormous body of lore, the Hadiths. Much of this was various accounts of the activities of Mohammed and his companions, which were often used as legal precedents and justifications of various customs. And much of this lore is rather plainly bogus. To take just one example, there are numerous pro-Sunni and pro-Shiite Hadiths. Which side of the Sunni-Shiite split had Mohammed been on?

Thus, Mohammed is almost as mythical as Moses and Jesus Christ.

Celsus

Thanks for that, I've been meaning to read more of Ibn Warriq for some time now. Too many books on my shelf as it is though.
Perhaps they can make some enquiries with their Christian friends about bumper-car-plate tectonic theory?

Joel

Volker.Doormann

Please visit some pages in coherence to this: doormann.org/the0.htm to doormann.org/the4.htm.

Volker

lpetrich

I searched for "Jerusalem Qibla" and found some articles on the question of Islam's original prayer direction (Qibla = prayer direction).

And no Muslim apologists have invoked weird continental drift -- at least not yet.

Here is a page on the Arabian Plate. It extends from the Fertile Crescent southward into the Arabian Peninsula. The Eurasian Plate is to the north and east; the African Plate is to the south and west, and its southeast end touches the Indian Plate.

However, the Levant is part of the African Plate; the plate boundary goes through the Gulf of Aqaba, the Red Sea, the Jordan River, and the Sea of Galilee / Lake Tiberias northward to Anatolia. Jerusalem and Mecca are on opposite sides of this boundary, with Jerusalem moving southward relative to Arabia -- the wrong direction!

crownboy

Interesting information.

If anything, I think there needs to be far more scholarly works critical of Islamic doctrine out for the public comsumption. A trip to the religion section at Barnes & Noble or any bookstore will leave you gravely disappointed after a search for such books. You can find a wide variety of books on Christianity and Judaism, ranging from rabidly apologetic to critical, and even more of the latter types in the philosophy section. However, with Islam, aside from the Ibn Warriq books (if they are in stock), the only critical books about Islam are the books that talk about terrorism coming from Islamic countries, and not necessarily anything that has to do with Islamic doctrine itself. All the doctrinal books are nauseatinely apologetic. Hopefully, authors like Crone and Wadsworth can one day get a popular audience for their works (they'll probably have to write in a more simplistic manner, though).

lpetrich

It would be nice to summarize some of this new scholarship the way that Earl Doherty has summarized Jesus-mythicism in his site on the subject.

Here's a somewhat lengthy page on these new views on Islam's origins.

And here's an article on houris as mistranslated white raisins. Also, the cute boy servants that one would get were originally chilled raisins or chilled drinks, a big contrast with the boiling water that one has to drink in Hell. It draws from Christoph Luxenberg's Die Syro-Aramaische Lesart des Koran (The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran), reviewed in more detail at the Secular Islam site. That book's method:

1. Check if any Muslim scholar had found some plausible explanation that had gone unnoticed.

2. Check for Syriac homonyms (sound-alikes).

3. Use a different set of diacritical marks; is it OK Arabic?

4. Use a different set of diacritical marks; is it OK Syriac?

5. Translate into Syriac and find some similar word with a reasonable meaning.

From the review:

Revere

crownboy

Why the " "?

lpetrich

Check Revere's profile -- that is his one and only posting here. So we may never get a response from him.

But it is fun to think about how something can actually be gained in translation -- how white raisins can become lovely Stepford-Wife ladies.

Yellum Notnef

Did you happen to catch the Robin Williams comedy special last year on HBO?